Dragonlance Meetings Sextet Steel

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.Yet this community appeared deserted.Doors and shutters had been closed fast."Anybody home?" Kitiara called.She waited.Obsidian, accustomed to the siege as well as the charge, stood quietly, her only sign of life the switching of her black tail.The place was rife with flies.Finally a plank creaked."Why are you in Meddow?" came a woman's strident call from behind a cracked door."What is your friend doing in Jarlburg's confectionery? We have many men here, all armed with swords and maces.We can defend ourselves.Go away."Kitiara hid a smile.Defend themselves indeed! They were as frightened as rabbits.She removed her helmet."We are travelers bound for Haven.We desire food and drink, nothing more.And"-she paused significantly-"I can pay."Another pause, then a middle-aged woman dressed in the gathered skirt, scarf, and leather slippers of a peasant stepped hesitantly onto the porch of the shack next to the brown building.Her chapped hands held a large wooden crochet hook attached by a strand of green yarn to what looked to be the back portion of a child's sweater.Her hands never stopped moving, looping the handspun yarn; the hook's end bobbed like a chickadee.Kitiara traced the yarn to a bulging pocket in the front of the peasant's skirt.Every few stitches, the woman gave a yank on the yarn, which made the pocket jump and released a few more circles of yarn from a ball in the pocket."I can give you water, but I have no food to spare," the woman said edgily.She kept flicking her gaze from Kitiara to the floor of the porch."No bread?" Kitiara demanded."But I can smell the yeast.""We get… got…" The woman took a deep breath and started again."Jarlburg…" Her courage fled; she pressed the crochet hook against her quivering lips, then pointed with the implement to the open front door of the brown building."There." Her eyes filled with tears."Jarlburg's dead, too.I just know it.One by one, we're all dying.""Dead, too?" Kitiara repeated and pulled Obsidian back a pace."What is it-a plague?" Her skin crawled.Kitiara would gladly take on any living foe, but a plague? No one on Krynn knew what caused disease, although some people said that clerics and healers who had followed the old gods, years ago before the Cataclysm, could cure such illnesses.These days, seekers of the new religions said the sick invited their own fate by straying from moral purity.The woman shook her head."No, no plague.People just… disappear.I think they go into the swamp." She pointed to the east with a thin hand that, all at once, could barely hold the crochet hook."Any signs of a struggle?" Kitiara asked.The peasant, shaking her head in reply, seemed suddenly convinced that the strangers were not the force behind whatever preyed on Meddow.She ventured from her front door.The woman didn't look at her crocheting; her nervous chatter kept pace with the frenetic movements of the wooden yarn hook."We find their doors open in the morning and they're gone," she said tearfully."I just know they're all dead-Berk, Duster, Brown, Johon, Maron, and Keat so far.And now Jarlburg! We've only three men left, and half a dozen women, and more than a dozen children.What will our babies do if all the parents are taken?" She began to wail, wiping her tears with the crocheting.She gazed at Kitiara through wet eyes."You appear to be a soldier, ma'am.Can you and your friend help us?"Kitiara considered."What can you pay?"The woman took a step back."Pay?" she quavered."We have no money.""Sorry, then," Kitiara announced curtly."My companion and I have urgent business in Solace.We cannot delay." She turned Obsidian's head toward Jarlburg's confectionery.The woman burst into fresh tears behind her."Wait!" It was the woman again."I can give you this." She waved the sweater piece at Kitiara."It will be finished soon.Perhaps you have a daughter or son it would fit?""Gods forbid," Kitiara said with a short laugh."That's all I need!" She refused the peasant again."I must meet my companion and be moving on.We hope to be in Haven by dark."The woman's hands ceased their crocheting, fluttered to her apron, and entangled themselves there.As Kitiara turned away, the beseeching look in the peasant's eyes faded."There's a shortcut," the peasant called to Kitiara."Follow the path behind Jarlburg's; take it to the east.You will quickly reach a fork at the rose quartz boulder.The left fork winds a bit, but it will take you to Haven.""And the right fork?" Kitiara turned as she stepped up on Jarlburg's porch."It goes straight into the swamp.Be careful."Kitiara thanked her and entered the brown dwelling.The peasant turned back toward her shack."Or maybe it's the other way around," the woman muttered with a humorless smile."I forget."* * * * *Despite the open door, Jarlburg's confectionery was stuffy.A trickle of sweat curved down Kitiara's back.She could detect the odors of cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and something sweet, like flower petals.She heard Tanis moving about in the back room, a huge kitchen, she now saw, with a brick oven at one end and a wooden slab of a table that dominated the center of the room.A sack and a half of wheat flour lay under the table.Tanis stood near the split door into the alley.The bottom half was closed, but the top was open."You can smell the swamp from here," he said, adding, "The place is deserted, yet obviously someone was here baking recently.""Something's been preying on the village.It happens at night, a peasant woman told me." Kitiara related the peasant woman's story, leaving out her futile request for help."We should take some provisions and get moving." Bleached flour sacks protected a few trays, including one on a shelf near her elbow.Kitiara peered under the towel and saw a dozen frosted buns.She pierced one with the point of her dagger and bit into the morsel."Mmmmm," she said, talking before she swallowed."Persimmon filling.Want some?"Tanis was digging out a coin-payment for the provisions, no doubt-from a pouch at his waist.He looked around, then placed it on a knife-scarred counter."Someone will find it there.Anyway, how can you eat in this place?" he demanded."The owner is probably lying dead somewhere out in the swamp."She finished the confection in three bites, licked her fingers elaborately, and took another bun."If I went off my feed when circumstances were less than perfect, half-elf, I'd starve.And I'm no good as a swords-woman if I'm weak with hunger." She brushed her hands on her short leather skirt."Do you see any bread? Check under that towel by the door."Tanis didn't move.He didn't say anything."Squeamish?" Kitiara snapped."I doubt old Jarlburg will mind if we sample his stock.What good are a few biscuits to him now?"Tanis still didn't say anything.Kitiara slipped her dagger into its sheath.She emptied a tray of buns into a towel and tied it in a knot."These will come in handy later," she commented."Aren't you even a little curious about what has happened to everyone?" Tanis asked.Kitiara shook her head."As long as it isn't me that's in danger, I have no curiosity." Tanis watched dispassionately, his expression unreadable."What?" she demanded."I'm trying to decide something," the half-elf said mildly, turning toward the alley."What?" she asked."Whether you're inhuman or typically human."Tanis stepped into the alley, leaving Kitiara standing motionless in the middle of the kitchen, one handclenching a loaf of rye bread, the other holding the towel full of biscuits.Kitiara watched him leave, her blood pounding with anger.Damn the man.And damn his arrogant elven blood.* * * * *Tanis didn't say anything to Kitiara as they left Meddow.She pointed out a shortcut she said she'd learned about, and when they reached a fork after a few minutes of riding, she motioned wordlessly down the left path.They kicked their horses into a trot as dusk descended around them [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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