Sunlight streamed from his open jaws, poured from his nostrils, and waterfalled from his pointed kender ears. It spread like a pool of melting ice cream across the floor in an ever-widening circle. As it flowed over the gnome, he ceased his babbling and sat up, wiping his runny nose with a filthy sleeve and blinking blindly. On the other hand, Morgrify fell immediately into a deep and contented sleep, a heroic snore ripping across the chamber. The dragon paused, unsure of what this portended.
The magical sunlight reached his shadowy scales, searing their fleshless substance like white-hot iron. The scent of a warm spring morning in a rose garden assaulted his nostrils, driving him back into the comfortable gloom of his lair.
Seeing the dragon retreat, Whort’s talk bone was set free, erupting in a storm of expletives worthy of the crustiest sailor to scrape a barnacle from the belly of a ship.
Meanwhile, the sunlight from his mouth continued to swell across the floor. The dragon retreated before it, hissing and thrashing its mighty tail. Whort stepped toward it, assaulting it with such a plethora of kender taunts as few before him had ever strung together in one sunny breath. Wherever he stepped, green grass sprang up in his footsteps. The dragon writhed with anger, but it dared not move into the kender-born sunlight. Finally, it retreated into its lair, belching up what it hoped would prove a protective wall of darkness to block the passage behind it.
Whort returned to his uncle, who smiled up at him, the wrinkles around his blind eyes just a shade more pronounced than Whort remembered them. Taking the elderly kender in one hand and the strangely silent gnome in the other, he led them from the sewers of Palanthas.
Many well remember that day. On the surface, the sun had set and people were just settling down to their dinners, when swarms of gully dwarves poured up from below the streets. Driven mad by the sweet scent of spring roses that streamed from Whort’s every orifice, every Bulp and Gulp beneath Palanthas fled upward, the only direction of escape. Never in all its centuries had the city faced such an unexpected danger, and not since Lord Soth stood at the gates and the flying citadel floated over the walls had it been in greater danger.
The Knights of Neraka, ever prepared for almost any eventuality, were quickly overwhelmed, forced to retreat into their gate towers, palaces, and barracks, as the gully dwarf horde swarmed through the streets like a storm surge from the sea. Many later speculated that, had the Great Gully Dwarf Climacteric of 40 SC begun earlier in the day, the casualties would have been much higher. As it was, only one old beggar lost his life that night. They found his well-gnawed bones lying where he had fallen. Many folks mourned the loss of beloved family pets that had been left out of doors for the warm summer’s night, but most counted themselves extremely lucky.
Everyone, that is, but the owners of twelve ships, and the fishermen who made their living plying the waters of the Bay of Branchala.
For as quickly as the invasion began, it ended. In mass, the gully dwarves swept down to the sea. Many were drowned outright. A few were rescued by the brave and the foolish, and twelve ships were sunk as the creatures gnawed through their hulls. However, perhaps the worst tragedy was revealed when hundreds of thousands of dead fish washed up along Palanthas’s pebbly shore.
The next morning back at the Military and Medical Guild of the Gnomes, the first gnome to arrive-none other than the famous EET (Ears, Toes, and Throat) Doctor Whizbang-found a young, bedraggled kender sitting on the floor of the lobby beside an old, bedraggled kender and something resembling a gnome in a doctor’s coat.
“My friend and my uncle are broken,” the young kender announced loudly. “They are blind, and I would like to get them fixed, if I could.”
Bond
“Damn wolf!”
Karn dragged the leash, threatened with the rod. The wolf bared his teeth, head jerking against the leather rope. Karn wrapped another loop of leash in his palm and dragged the wolf inches closer. The animal barked, snarled, pawed the ground, and pulled back. His teeth were dirty yellow and brown.
Karn sweated, raised the stick, gathered another loop in his palm. The wolf jumped forward, jaws wide, and Karn kicked the wolf. Blood flowed from a shallow gash. The wolf yelped, turning from the attack, saliva spraying from his muzzle as he dragged himself sideways. The wolf thrashed his head, patches of fur missing, showing scars.
The braided leather of the leash dug deep against the calluses of Karn’s hand. Dirt ran free, loosened by sweat into streams of grime. Arms and bare legs shone in the firelight. The wolf stopped thrashing and turned his head toward Karn. Karn bared his canine teeth- sharp and pointed like the wolfs, filed. He cracked the lash against the wolfs scarred flank. The wolf snarled and Karn snarled. Karn propped his elbow against his waist and pulled hard, dragging the wolf a few inches closer.
“Give in, damn you!”
Karn let the leash slacken, sat crosslegged, and beckoned the wolf forward. The wolf lowered himself to the ground, head in Karn’s lap. Karn braced a rod end in the crook of a leg, the crook of an elbow, pressed the rod against the wolfs throat. The wolf growled.
“Shut up.” Karn smoothed the fur between the wolfs ears and scratched the wolfs muzzle. The wolf nuzzled Karn’s hands. Karn pressed the heels of his hands into the pinion of the wolfs jaws, prying them open. His fingers exposed the wolfs yellowed teeth. The wolf pushed with his rear legs. Karn’s rod pressed into the wolfs neck, prevented the wolf from moving. Choked off his howl.
Karn scraped his fingers along the jawline of the wolfs mouth. The wolf tried to bite his fingers, and Karn pressed his palms harder, continued to scrape. The underside of his long nails were caked black. The wolf moaned. Karn pulled a flower from the ground, flicked the yellow head off with his thumb and pressed the moist green stem into the wolfs mouth. The wolf moaned again.
“Shut up,” Karn muttered. “Your own fault.”
Karn pressed harder. Blood flowed around the flower-stem where the wolfs gums had swollen around old food. Karn dragged the animal higher into his lap when the wolf tried to pull away. Karn lifted himself to one knee, leaned against the rod, and wrapped his other leg around the wolfs flanks. Worked hard at a piece of old food. The wolf moaned loudly. Blood flowed, the food finally worked out.
Karn released his hands and the rod, pushed himself back. He sat in front of the wolf and stared into his brown eyes. From a pocket, Karn took out a piece of salted beef, held it between his lips and lowered his head. The wolfs eyes flicked between Karn’s and the food. The wolf lowered his head. Chin touching the ground, Karn pushed his face forward. The wolf shuffled forward. Carefully taking the beef from between Karn’s lips, the wolf raised his head and chewed loudly.
Karn sat up and grabbed the animal around the neck. He ruffled the wolfs fur between the ears. The wolf plodded into Karn’s lap, still chewing loudly. Karn smoothed out the animal’s fur with his hands, laid down the rod next to him.
“Not so bad, eh, Blood? Wъlfbunde?” Karn asked. The wolf finished chewing and swallowed the beef. Karn checked the gash in the wolfs side, blood still flowing from the kick. He wiped his bloodied fingers on the grass.
“Who said a wъlfbunde needs his teeth cleaned?” Brek asked. His wъlfbunde lay on its stomach, eyes on Blood. Brek ran a hand over his wolfs back.
Karn picked another flower, flicked off its head, cleaned his own teeth. “Idiot,” Karn said.