The paladin barely glanced at him, but advanced on Khelben. "What manner of fell sorcery is this?" he demanded in an aggrieved voice.
"None of my doing," Khelben replied sternly.
"Oh, go ahead and take credit for it," Danilo gasped out through his laughter. "It would better serve his dignity to be bested by the archmage of Waterdeep than a half-elf child not yet ten."
The paladin reached for his sword, and that sobered Danilo somewhat. He wiped his streaming eyes and subsided to a chuckle, all the while forming the one-handed gestures needed for a cantrip designed to heat metal. The grip of the paladin's sword began to blush with heat. With a startled gasp, the young man released his sword, staring down at his hip with an expression that suggested he thought the sword guilty of deliberate treachery.
That set Danilo off again.
"From whence have you come?" Khelben demanded, raising his voice to be heard over his nephew's laughter. "I will send you back."
Danilo broke off in mid howl. "Uncle, that would not be-"
"I will send him back a reasonable distance from the place he left," the archmage specified, and turned back to his "visitor."
"Gladestone," the paladin admitted.
"That's near Summit Hall. I will send you to the monastery, which is about a half day's ride. If that is acceptable to you," Khelben added, sending a dark look in Danilo's direction.
Danilo lifted both hands in a gesture of surrender. "Leave the stone behind, though," he told Algorind.
The young man looked down at his hand, remembering what he held. He dropped the stone on the floor as if it were a loathsome insect. "I want nothing to do with such things. But you, sir, your assistance I will accept," he told Khelben stiffly. "For the sake of my duty."
The archmage began the casting, a complex weaving dance of the hands accompanied by a brief but powerful chant. With this, he wove a silver path through the magic that encircled and sustained the world-which was no small thing, even if magical trinkets such as the gemstones made it appear so to the untrained. Danilo knew the effort of magical travel, and he certainly knew the cost of the trio of stones needed for the gemjump spells.
At the time, he'd had the feeling that little Cara Doon was worth it and more.
As he watched the paladin slowly dissolve, only to be whisked away as a smattering of silvery motes of light, he considered what Cara had done and knew that his decision to give her this magic had proven to be the right one.
SIXTEEN
By the time the sun rose above the trees, the villagers had buried their dead. A few of the survivors sorted through what was left of their stores, hoping to find enough to feed their exhausted and dispirited kin. They gathered together what food remained and tossed it into a large kettle, so that all might share.
Ebenezer wandered into the village about the time the soup was ready. Bronwyn caught sight of him and hurried over, her footsteps sped by mingled relief and anger. He'd been missing since last night, leaving her nearly sick with worry. As soon as she was within arm's reach, she smacked him upside the head, as she had seen his sister do. Hard.
"Good one," he admitted, rubbing at the side of his head. "Been off orc hunting. Hand me that bowl there."
She passed it over and ladled some soup into it, then took a bit for herself. Bronwyn took a few spoonfuls before setting the bowl aside. Cara was sleeping, exhausted by the terrible night. She would be hungry when she awoke, and there would be no more soup. "How did it go?"
"Got me a few," the dwarf said with relish. "Didn't have as much fight in them as I'd-a liked, though. Scrawny things."
"There's a reason for that," said a soft, angry voice beside them. They looked up into the thin, careworn face of a half-elf woman.
Since the villager clearly wanted to talk, Bronwyn patted the ground beside her in invitation. The woman sank down and after a moment's hesitation took the package of trail rations Bronwyn quietly handed her. She slipped it into her apron. "For my children," she said grimly. "They will have little enough until the new crops come."
"This is not the first time the orcs attacked," Bronwyn surmised.
"No, nor will it be the last. They are desperate creatures, and they are fighting for their survival. As I understand it, the paladin order destroyed an orc settlement in the hills to the south. The orcs cannot hunt the hills without running afoul of paladin patrols. The paladins hunt the orcs with great fervor, for this provides practice-practice! — for young knights who wish to learn to fight and kill."
Bitterness seared through her every word. "Strange talk, coming from an elf who just lost kin and home to orcs," Ebenezer observed.
"I have no love for orcs," the woman stated, "but I know what is happening, and I do not place all the blame on the monsters who attacked. What choice do the displaced orcs have when their hunting grounds are taken from them? They must raid towns and farms in order to survive, and so they do."
"Gotta keep the orcs down," Ebenezer put in, his face showing puzzlement over this dilemma. "If you just leave 'em be, they breed like rats."
The half-elf sighed. "I suppose. But now we are the ones who must move. Those of us who are left." She rose, briefly touching Bronwyn's shoulder. 'Thank you for your kindness, and for hearing me. Talk doesn't change anything, but all the same, I needed to have my say."
Ebenezer watched her go, looking clearly uncomfortable with any conversation that put ore-hunting in a bad light.
He shrugged and turned to Bronwyn. "You ever find that toy thingabob you need?"
"No." Bronwyn raked a hand through the stray wisps of her hair, wishing as she did that she could smooth over this problem as easily as she tamed her fly-away locks. She untied her braid and loosened it, meaning to gather up the loose bits in a fresh plait.
"Here, lemme," the dwarf said, pushing her hands away. "You got a moon-eyed look, like right about now you couldn't walk and spit at the same time. Braided me many a horse's tail, so don't you be worrying."
Bronwyn obediently turned her back to the dwarf True to his word, he started to deftly braid her hair for her. "The 'toy' is gone," she said wearily. "The ores cleaned out the village of almost every useful thing, and a few extras. It looks to me as if they stole all the war toys and left the rest."
'When times are hard, young ones hurt plenty. Hard to see it," Ebenezer mused, "but I'm guessing even an ore gets a bit of a grin out of handing their whelp something that'll help the little one forget an empty belly or a hurting heart." He cleared his throat. "Not that I'm in favor of ores, mind you."
"So noted," Bronwyn said. "What next?"
"Well, we go get the toy back. A heat-blind dwarf could follow the trail. The ores are holed up in some caves not too far off the mountains."
"There are only two of us," she pointed out. "We certainly can't ask the paladins of Summit Hall for help."
"I'm with you there," Ebenezer agreed. "Lemme study on it a mite."
They fell silent until the dwarf finished his soup. "Seems to me this is a pretty nice place. People hate to leave their home. Might be, they don't have to. Gotta get rid of that ore tribe for once and final, though."
A passing elf woman pulled up short when she heard this. She dropped to a crouch beside them and shoved a lock of thick blond hair from her face. "Tell us how."
The dwarf studied her. "You've just done fighting. You ready for more?"
"Tell us how," she repeated.
The villagers set to work at Ebenezer's instructions. Skills used as peaceful farmers came into play as they grimly sought to reclaim their homes. Some of them hung snares along the trails, while others dug a deep pit in the center of the village. An early morning hunt had yielded a boar, and this roasted on a spit out in the open air so that the inviting fragrance wafted out into the hills-a statement to any ore scouts that the villagers still might have a few things worth stealing. A handful of villagers stayed behind to prepare for a renewed raid. Cara did not. She had reluctantly agreed to return to Blackstaff Tower and await Bronwyn there. As much as Bronwyn hated to see her go, she could not risk leaving the child behind with so few defenders.