[Meetings 06] - The Companions Read online

  Tanis raised an arm, managing to ward off the creature, pushing aside the outstretched arm of the undead thing. It opened its unclean maw and screamed futile gibberish at the three companions as they shot past it, eluding its grasp.

  Choking on the stench and the sludge, they were borne by the torrent, hurtling down the dark, fetid tunnel as if riding a water chute. Finally, after what seemed an eternity, Tanis, Flint, and Raistlin shot out into startlingly bright moonlight that illuminated a shallow cove lined with rocks and filthy debris.

  Tanis helped Raistlin to his feet. With their arms around one another, they staggered along the shore of the cove to a sheltered area away from the sewage outlet. Flint was nowhere to be seen. After several minutes, Tanis began to wonder what had happened to Flint. He picked his way back and found the grizzled dwarf sitting on a rock, drenched, splattered with muck, furious, and in pain.

  "What is it?" asked Tanis wearily.

  "My leg," gasped Flint. "I can't put any weight on it. I think it's broken."

  Tanis hurried to examine him. Sure enough, there was a fracture in the right limb, which had already swelled and was turning purple.

  With Flint complaining all the way, Tanis flung the dwarf across his shoulders and carried him from the cove, setting him down gently next to Raistlin.

  Although the young mage was plainly worn out, his face covered with grime and small cuts, he found a broken tree limb nearby, tore strips from his robe, and did the best he could to approximate a tight splint on Flint's leg.

  "Just my luck," said Flint sulkily, wincing as Raistlin wound the bandaging.

  "We should have left you to the lacedon," said the young mage with uncharacteristic wry humor.

  "The what?" asked the dwarf.

  "The ghoul back there," said Tanis. He was lying on the sand, covered with slime and dirt, but he was too exhausted to care. "Kirsig was right about there being undead creatures in the tunnel."

  "Of course, they'd like you better if you were dead. They feed on corpses, you know," said Raistlin dryly, finishing with the splint. Unceremoniously he curled up against a rock and within minutes was asleep.

  Flint grumbled something unintelligible.

  Their little cove was sheltered by a horn of rocks. Beyond that, the dark and forbidding Blood Sea stretched to the horizon. Light from the two moons, Lunitari and Solinari, speckled the black water with silver. They could hear nothing but the crash of surf and the lapping of waves.

  For hours, Tanis and Flint waited for Kirsig, shivering. At one point, thinking Flint hadn't said anything in a long while, Tanis looked over and realized that the bone-weary dwarf had fallen asleep as well, sitting up against a rock with his broken leg stretched out in front of him. With a sigh, Tanis settled in for the night watch.

  * * * * *

  It was an hour or so before dawn when Tanis caught sight of a small craft wending its way across the cove. Kirsig was sitting on one of the forward seats, but someone else was pulling the oars. Tanis roused Flint and Raistlin.

  As the boat pulled up next to them, Kirsig jumped out, followed by the other occupant of the boat, a tall, well-proportioned black-skinned man with a gleaming bald pate. He was bare-chested, wearing only a thick breech-cloth and high-strapped sandals. A fine bone necklace curved around his muscular neck, and a small jeweled knife hung from a loop on his waist.

  "I'm sorry I took so long," explained Kirsig hurriedly. "I had to go to town and hunt up Nugetre. Then I had to pack my things. . . ." Suddenly she stopped and stared, wide-eyed. "Garsh, what happened to the pretty dwarf!"

  She rushed over to Flint, who remained sitting against the rock, and knelt down to examine his leg solicitously. The dwarf scowled.

  The one called Nugetre was standing with his hands on his hips, staring at Tanis and Raistlin, grinning as he sized them up.

  "Kirsig . . ." began Tanis.

  "What do you mean, you had to pack your things?" Raistlin asked Kirsig pointedly.

  The female half-ogre turned to Raistlin. "Well," she huffed, "I had to kill one of the ogre guards. I couldn't very well stay there, could I? So I'm coming with you!"

  "But—but—" stammered Raistlin.

  "A woman on such a voyage?" Tanis said.

  "If you ask me—" began Flint.

  Nugetre silenced them all with an outburst of loud, lusty laughter.

  After a long pause, Tanis asked Kirsig, "What does he find so funny?"

  "What I find funny, half-elf," said Nugetre, eyeing the three of them scornfully, "is that more than half of my crew are female. And they meet the standards I set just as well as the men do."

  "I've known Nugetre for years," said Kirsig hastily. "He used to buy food from my father to take on his crossings. He's one or the best seamen around and is willing to take us across the Blood Sea."

  "For a fee," reminded Nugetre, wagging a finger at the female half-ogre.

  "Besides," added Kirsig enthusiastically, "you're going to need some help with this dwarf . . . medical help, I mean. I've picked up a few tricks over the years. They won't cure the plague, but they should lessen the pain and speed the healing of that broken leg."

  Flint looked helplessly at Tanis and Raistlin. Tanis and Raistlin looked at each other.

  "Okay," Tanis said resignedly.

  Kirsig and the three companions all squeezed into the boat, and the muscular Nugetre began to row with an easy rhythm. Within minutes, they were out of the cove and hundreds of yards from shore. They could barely glimpse the shadowy shape of Ogrebond atop the steep, rocky hill.

  A pale rosy light had begun to show in the sky as they reached Nugetre's ship.

  Chapter 8

  The Broken Man

  Something grabbed At Sturm. Weakly the Solamnic looked up, his vision blurry. He felt himself being lifted.

  The next thing he knew, as if experiencing it through a haze, Sturm was lying in the bottom of a small wooden boat alongside Caramon. His friend's clothes hung on him in tatters; encrusted sores and bruises covered his body. What skin remained intact had been baked a deep bronze-red by the sun. Sturm stared at the young warrior, whose eyes remained closed. With relief, the young knight noted that his companion breathed steadily. Then Sturm, too, passed out.

  A gnarled old fisherman named Lazaril had scooped them out of the sea, cut their bonds, and dumped them into his boat.

  Now the fisherman, bent and wiry, regarded them, his hand on his chin, thinking. Lazaril had been hoping to catch a stringer of eels this morning to sell later in the day at the open market in Atossa, a city on the north coast of Mithas. But if he worked it right, these two humans would fetch more than a dozen stringers of eels.

  They looked terrible, though—possibly near death. He ought to clean them up as best he could. He took off his leather vest and put it on the smaller one, whose shirt had been torn off. And he made an effort to wash their faces and rinse their wounds. They had a good many of them, but Lazaril could fix them up. They were in no condition to resist. Perhaps their ship had sunk or been raided by pirates. That was unlucky for them, but a lucky break for Lazaril.

  The two companions woke up briefly, choking when Lazaril poured some spring water down their gullets, then force-fed them some dried fish. The larger one, the first one he had fished out of the sea, looked up at him with questioning eyes, swallowing hungrily but dazedly before once again losing consciousness. The other one seemed in worse shape. Lazaril couldn't get more than a few bites down his throat.

  Working quickly, the fisherman did some hurried, makeshift mending of their clothes and daubed their skin with a folk balm to soothe the blistering. A little touch here, a little remedy there, and the two half-drowned humans looked almost normal. Well, not quite, but almost.

  "You're missing your true calling, Lazaril," the old fisherman said to himself admiringly, chuckling. "You should have been a practitioner of the healing arts."

  The fisherman grabbed the oars and pulled strongly, making headway against the sli
ght wind, and within an hour, the boat came into view of the small harbor of Atossa.

  Neither of the two companions had regained consciousness. That would be too much to expect. As they approached the harbor Lazaril pulled a tarpaulin over the two unconscious figures so that none of his competitors would spot his unusual cargo. On the main pier, the old fisherman spotted a ragamuffin and gave the boy a copper to run and find the minotaur who served as harbormaster.

  The small harbor bustled with trade and activity. Human pirates and mercenary brigands rubbed shoulders with the hulking beast-men who ruled the island. Pitiful slaves—mostly human, but a smattering of other races as well—shouldered cargo, watched over by minotaurs who strode the docks imperiously and, when the slightest occasion warranted, wielded their whips viciously.

  A strapping minotaur with fierce eyes and jutting horns came marching up the boardwalk, the ragamuffin behind him hurrying to keep up. Lazaril gave the boy his copper and shooed him away officiously. The minotaur folded his arms and waited, a stern, impatient look on his bestial visage. Lazaril gave him a sly, toothy grin.

  Lazaril knew this one by sight, although until now he had always been anxious to give the harbormaster of Atossa wide berth. This was Vigila, appointed by the king himself. All fishermen, and any other harbor regulars, knew him for his brutality and iron command of the small harbor. It was he who dispensed justice on the docks, collected the king's tithe—keeping a portion for himself—and maintained the necessary quota of slaves. It was with him that Lazaril must bargain.

  With a modest flourish, the fisherman pulled aside the tarpaulin, revealing the two humans. He looked up at Vigila expectantly.

  "What?" asked Vigila, sneering. "You have caught a couple of human carp, old fisherman. Of what interest are they to me?"

  Lazaril swallowed and forced a toothy grin. "Your excellency," he began, not sure how to address the harbormaster, "their wounds are quite superficial. I believe these are very strong humans who, if they were brought back to health, would make excellent slaves. They are weak now, but they just need food and water to regain their strength. Then they could be worked hard—worked hard until their deaths. That would be of some interest to you, would it not?"

  Vigila snorted savagely, his eyes seeming to bore through Lazaril. "Throw them back in the water, old fisherman. Stick to your usual catch. Hook something that you can at least put on your plate for supper." The low rumble that came from his throat might have been a chuckle.

  Lazaril summoned his courage, and again came the sly smile. "I believe this one"—the fisherman patted Caramon's shoulder—"could be trained for the games. He could be a gladiator; he has the girth of one. Although I will gladly sell him to you at a special price for a gladiator. Think of how pleased the king would be if you gave him a gladiator who had been plucked from the sea. It would be another distinguishing mark in your career."

  Vigila looked thoughtful. The idea clearly appealed to the harbormaster, Lazaril saw.

  "Humans never last long in the games," the minotaur said contemptuously.

  "But," pursued the fisherman, silently congratulating himself on his tact and bargaining prowess, "they are very entertaining to watch, even when they lose."

  Caramon and Sturm stirred slightly, then lifted their heads. Each wondered, not for the first time in recent days, where he was. After days adrift in a savage sea, neither could make sense of the scene before him.

  An old fisherman with carrot-colored hair was standing bowlegged in his boat, talking in a low voice to a huge minotaur, who towered over him. The minotaur wore a leather skirt and a variety of straps and belts. He carried a huge, rough-hewn stick. A figure of some authority as he stood on the pier, the bull-man appeared to be haggling with the fisherman.

  But their brains were so clouded and the discussion between the fisherman and the huge minotaur so seemingly muted and far away that Caramon and Sturm couldn't make out the words.

  The harbormaster glanced over at the two companions, saw their heads lifted pitifully toward him, and saw them slump over again. The old fisherman nodded and beamed encouragingly.

  "Here, old fisherman," grumbled Vigila, reaching into one of his pockets and throwing Lazaril a handful of coins. "I will take this human wreckage off your hands. Maybe I can freshen them up. Maybe not." The harbormaster turned and signaled for a cart.

  Another minotaur, far down the pier, cracked a whip. Two human slaves began pulling a large wooden-wheeled cart toward the harbormaster.

  Lazaril scrambled to scoop up the coins, some of which, the old fisherman was dismayed to notice, had fallen into the scummy harbor water and sunk down out of reach, out of sight.

  While Lazaril scurried, Vigila flexed his muscles, leaned over, and picked up Caramon and Sturm, one powerful limb gripping each of them around the chest. Too weak and confused to struggle, Caramon and Sturm felt themselves fly through the air as Vigila lifted them up and tossed them into the cart. They landed, sprawled over each other.

  A whip cracked, the human slaves reversed position, and the cart moved away down the pier.

  "Hey! These are all coppers!" complained Lazaril as the old fisherman counted the coins he had picked up and realized he had been cheated. "That's the slave price, not the gladiator price!"

  The old fisherman took a step up the ladder toward the pier. That was his second mistake. His first had been raising his voice in anger.

  Vigila turned back to him, his eyes bulging with fury.

  Lazaril froze. "But this is not the gladiator price," the old fisherman whined softly. He wanted to retreat to his boat. He wanted to go back out in the middle of the ocean and catch his daily string of eel. But his foot dangled uselessly in the air as he missed the rung of the ladder.

  Vigila lowered his head and charged at the fisherman, impaling the old man on his sharp horns. Lifting his head up into the air, the harbormaster bellowed angrily and then spun around several times before he finally lowered his head once again and flicked the body off so that it sailed far out over the water.

  Lazaril twitched and thrashed as he flew through the air, then landed heavily in the water and lay still. Gulls dove to peck at the old fisherman's body.

  The ragamuffin messenger, who had taken refuge behind a barrel, crawled forward to pick up a few of the coppers the fisherman had dropped. He didn't give Lazaril's corpse a second glance. Such outbursts of violence were not at all uncommon in the harbor of Atossa, and were to be expected from Vigila. Those who noticed at all paused only briefly, then resumed their buying and selling, their arguing and fighting, as if nothing had happened. Nobody stared.

  It would not have been wise to stare.

  * * * * *

  At the same time that Tasslehoff Burrfoot was being tortured in his cell in the minotaur capital of Lacynos, Sturm Brightblade and Caramon Majere were being locked up in a dungeon not thirty miles away, in the smaller enclave of Atossa.

  Relieved to be rescued from certain doom in the Blood Sea, Sturm and Caramon didn't put up any fight. In truth, they had no energy and little will to do so.

  Tossed into a filthy cell, one of dozens in an underground prison in Atossa, the two companions crumpled to the stone floor. They slept all the rest of the day and ensuing night, and when they awakened, they ate ravenously. Minotaur guards dished out bowls of meat and water from huge buckets they carried from cell to cell. Despite the unappetizing color and aroma of the meat, Caramon and Sturm did not complain. Never had either of them been so hungry.

  By the second night, they were able to sit up and talk to each other. Although their clothes hung in shreds on their grimy bodies, which bore numerous marks of their ordeal, Sturm and Caramon were able to call on large reserves of youth and strength. They were rebounding miraculously.

  "From what I have been able to overhear, and from the obvious nature of our captors, I believe we are on the island of Mithas," Sturm told Caramon as the two conversed in low voices late that night. "Somehow we were transported on
the Venora thousands of miles from the Straits of Schallsea to the far fringe of the Blood Sea. Whoever accomplished that incredible feat took Tasslehoff prisoner for some reason and tossed us overboard, left for dead." Sturm paused, thinking back to their days floating in the torpid, turbulent Blood Sea. "Whatever our fate here, we are fortunate to be alive. The Blood Sea does not relinquish many castaways."

  "And what do you think," asked Caramon slowly, "about the fate of Tas?"

  Sturm shook his head sadly.

  On their third morning in the cell, two brutish minotaurs came to stare at them. One of them wore official-looking insignia and listened as the other talked in a low growl, pointing back and forth between Caramon and Sturm.

  "See how quickly they recover from their wounds. They are very powerful fighters. If we permit them time to mend and build their strength, they will entertain us in the games. If they don't work out as gladiators, we can always throw them into the slave pits."

  Caramon stared at them indifferently. He felt weak and beaten and couldn't make much sense of what they were saying anyway. What did it matter which he was destined to be, a minotaur slave or a doomed gladiator, here, thousands of miles from Solace?

  Sturm rose and thrust his face between the bars, glaring at the two minotaurs. "I would gladly fight either of you right now," said the young Solamnic angrily, "if you would let me out of here but for a moment! I will never be a slave, and as for your gladiator games—pah!" He spat in their direction.

  In an eyeblink, the minotaur with the insignia backhanded him, catching Sturm across the face before the Solamnic was able to pull it safely behind the bars. He was knocked backward, his lip bleeding. Sturm continued to glare at the ugly horned creature.