It was then that the unfortunate flaw in his scheme occurred to Tas. “Drat!” he muttered, stopping and staring up into the sky that was filled with dragons snarling and clawing and biting and breathing their breath weapons at each other in rage. “Now, how am I ever going to find him in that mess?”
Drawing a deep, exasperated breath, the kender promptly choked and coughed. Looking around, he noticed that the air was getting extremely smoky and that the sky, formerly gray with the dawn beneath the storm clouds, was now brightening with a fiery glow. Palanthas was burning.
“Not exactly a safe place to be,” Tas muttered. “And Tanis told me to find a safe place. And the safest place I know is with him and Caramon and they’re up there in that citadel right now, probably getting into no end of trouble, and I’m stuck here in a town that’s being burned and pillaged and looted.” The kender thought hard. “I know!” he said suddenly. “I’ll pray to Fizban! It worked a couple of times—well, I think it worked. But—at any rate—it can’t hurt.”
Seeing a draconian patrol coming down the street and not wanting any interruption, Tas ducked down an alley where he crouched behind a refuse pile and looked up into the sky. “Fizban,” he said solemnly, “this is it! If we don’t get out of this one, then we might just as soon toss the silver down the well and move in with the chickens, as my mother used to say, and—though I’m not too certain what she had in mind it certainly does sound dire. I need to be with Tanis and Caramon. You know they can’t manage things without me. And to do that, I need a dragon. Now, that isn’t much. I could have asked for a lot more—like maybe you just skipping the middle man and whooshing me up there. But I didn’t. Just one dragon. That’s it.”
Tas waited.
Nothing happened.
Heaving an exasperated sigh, Tas eyed the sky sternly and waited some more.
Still nothing.
Tas heaved a sigh. “All right, I admit it. I’d give the contents of one pouch—maybe even two—for the chance to fly in the citadel. There, that’s the truth. The rest of the truth at any rate. And I did always find your hat for you...
But, despite this magnanimous gesture, no dragon appeared.
Finally, Tas gave up. Realizing that the draconian patrol had passed on by, he rose up from behind the garbage heap and made his way back out of the alley onto the street.
“Well,” he muttered,. “I suppose you’re busy, Fizban, and—”
At that instant, the ground lifted beneath Tas’s feet, the air filled with broken rock and brick and debris, a sound like thunder deafened the kender, and then... silence.
Picking himself up, brushing the dust off his leggings, Tas peered through the smoke and rubble, trying to see what had happened. For a moment, he thought that perhaps another building had been dropped on him, like at Tarsis. But then he saw that wasn’t the case.
A bronze dragon lay on its back in the middle of the street. It was covered with blood, its wings, spread over the block, had crushed several buildings, its tail lay across several more. Its eyes were closed, there were scorch marks up and down its flanks, and it didn’t appear to be breathing.
“Now this,” said Tas irritably, staring at the dragon, “was not what I had in mind!”
At that moment, however, the dragon stirred. One eye flickered open and seemed to regard the kender with dazed recollection.
“Fireflash!” Tas gasped, running up one of the huge legs to look the wounded dragon in the eye. “I was looking for you! Are—are you hurt badly?”
The young dragon seemed about to try to reply when a dark shadow covered both of them.
Khirsah’s eyes flared open, he gave a soft snarl and tried feebly to raise his head, but the effort seemed beyond him. Looking up, Tas saw a large black dragon swooping toward them, apparently intent on finishing off his victim.
“Oh, no, you don’t!” Tas muttered. “This is my bronze! Fizban sent him to me. Now, how does one fight a dragon?”
Stories of Huma came to the kender’s mind, but they weren’t much help, since he didn’t have a dragonlance, or even a sword. Pulling out his small knife, he looked at it hopefully, then shook his head and shoved it back in his belt. Well, he’d have to do the best he could.
“Fireflash,” he instructed the dragon as he clamored up on the creature’s broad, scaled stomach.
“You just lie there and keep quiet, all right? Yes, I know all about how you want to die honorably, fighting your enemy. I had a friend who was a Knight of Solamnia. But right now we can’t afford to be honorable. I have two other friends who are alive right now but who maybe won’t be if you can’t help me get to them. Besides, I saved your life once already this morning, although that’s probably not too obvious at the moment, and you owe me this.”
Whether Khirsah understood and was obeying orders or had simply lost consciousness, Tas couldn’t be certain. Anyway, he didn’t have time to worry about it. Standing on top of the dragon’s stomach, he reached deep into one of his pouches to see what he had that might help and out came Tanis’s silver bracelet.
“You wouldn’t think he’d be so careless with this,” Tas muttered to himself as he put it on his arm.
“He must have dropped it when he was tending to Caramon. Lucky I picked it up. Now—” Raising his arm, he pointed at the black dragon, who was hovering above, its jaws gaping open, ready to spew its deadly acid on its victim.
“Just hold it!” the kender shouted. “This dragon corpse is mine! I found it. Well... it found me, so to speak. Nearly squashed me into the ground. So just clear out and don’t ruin it with that nasty breath of yours!”
The black dragon paused, puzzled, staring down. She had, often enough, given over a prize or two to draconians and goblins, but never—that she could recollect—to a kender. She, too, had been injured in the battle and was feeling rather light-headed from loss of blood and a clout on the nose, but something told her this wasn’t right. She couldn’t recollect ever having met an evil kender. She had to admit, however, that there might be a first time. This one did wear a bracelet of undoubtedly black magic, whose power she could feel blocking her spells.
“Do you know what I can get for dragon’s teeth in Sanction these days?” the kender shouted. “To say nothing of the claws. I know a wizard paying thirty steel pieces for one claw alone!”
The black dragon scowled. This was a stupid conversation. She was hurting and angry. Deciding to simply destroy this irritating kender along with her enemy, she opened her mouth... when she was suddenly struck from behind by another bronze. Shrieking in fury, the black forgot her prey as she fought for her life, clawing frantically to gain air space, the bronze following.
Heaving a vast sigh, Tas sat down on Khirsah’s stomach.
“I thought we were gone for sure there,” the kender muttered, pulling off the silver bracelet and stuffing it back into his pouch. He felt the dragon stir beneath him, drawing a deep breath. Sliding down the dragon’s scaly side, Tas landed on the ground.
“Fireflash? Are—are you very much hurt?” How did one heal a dragon anyway? “I-I could go look for a cleric, though I suppose they’re all pretty busy right now, what with the battle going on and everything—”
“No, kender,” said Khirsah in a deep voice, “that will not be necessary.” Opening his eyes, the dragon shook his great head and craned his long neck to look around. “You saved my life,” he said, staring at the kender in some confusion.
“Twice,” Tas pointed out cheerfully. “First there was this morning with Lord Soth. My friend, Caramon—you don’t know him—has this book that tells what will happen in the future—or rather what won’t happen in the future, now that we’re changing it. Anyway, you and Tanis would have fought Lord Soth and you both would have died only I stole the bracelet so now you didn’t. Die, that is.”