Dragonlance Heroes II 01 Kaz the Minotaur # Richard A Kn

[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.In the last five years, Kaz had often gone out of his way to avoid getting too near mountains.Granted, there had been times when it had proven unavoidable, but he had always tried his best to pass through them as quickly as possible.Afraid of mountains! Kaz snorted in self-disgust and urged his horse forward.Tonight he would sleep with his head against one of these leviathans.The more Kaz thought about it, the more determined he became.At the very least, the minotaur would stand less of a chance of being discovered by some other traveler.Kaz eyed the looming peaks and tried to estimate how long it would take him to reach the nearest one.Past nightfall, the minotaur decided grimly.He would have preferred it otherwise.* * * * *Under a tall, worn peak, Kaz made camp.At some point, perhaps in the distant past or perhaps in the war, a good portion of one side of the mountain had broken away, giving it a toothy look.It reminded the minotaur of his grandsire, a once-fierce bull who had survived to great age despite a number of improperly healed injuries.He dubbed the mountain Kefo, in his ancestor’s honor.It made sleeping under its shadow much easier.After months of incessant kender chatter, it was odd to rest with only the sounds of the night to keep him company.Kaz snorted.If he was beginning to miss Delbin, then perhaps it would be better if he turned himself over to his enemies!“Paladine preserve my mind!” Kaz whispered wryly.Delbin had come across him in the south, just after Kaz had returned from a long, hazardous journey to the frozen lands in the extreme south.The proclamations from Vingaard were just appearing in the southern regions, but the unorthodox captain who had led the expedition and who had grown fond of Kaz gave him the benefit of the doubt despite the harsh accusations of murder and treachery that the proclamations spouted with no evidence to back them up.The seal given to Kaz by Grand Master Oswal of the knighthood only strengthened the minotaur’s story of the truth.Besides, having a minotaur proved fortuitous, for the icy domains proved to be treacherous in more ways than one.A hardy explorer the human might have been, but after that one trip, when the soil of Kharolis, his home, was once more beneath his feet, he told Kaz he was looking forward to spending the rest of his days-and he was still a young man-in some nice, peaceful market haggling with customers over the price of apples or something.A high, curious voice had asked, “Did you really come back from the ice lands? Is it true your breath freezes so hard there that you’ve got to melt it over a fire to hear what you said? I heard that somewhere! Are you a minotaur? I’ve never seen a minotaur before! Do you bite?”At first Kaz thought the intense questioner no more than a half-grown human child with a long, thick pony-tail.Only when the captain swore and reached for his gold pouch did the minotaur realize the horror that they were facing.Delbin Knotwillow, Kaz thought in retrospect, is probably annoying even to other kender.Certainly they never seemed to come across any others-at least not for long.Delbin, who had stuck by the minotaur’s side from that time on, plying him constantly with all sorts of inane questions about minotaurs and everything else, was a young male, handsome by his people’s standards.He was slightly larger than most of his kind, perhaps an inch or two under four feet and almost ninety pounds.He considered himself studious and had taken it upon himself to write a history of present-day Krynn-a worthy goal, except that often when he reached into his pouch for his book, instead he pulled out an item that some clumsy human had apparently dropped.In the excitement of finding it, Delbin would forget all about the incident he had wanted to record.Now the kender was likely somewhere in Xak Tsaroth or hopelessly searching for Kaz east of the city, unless something else had caught his attention.Or, for all the minotaur knew, Delbin was at this moment deep in Qualinesti looking for an elven horse, something he had always wanted to see.Staring at the two visible moons, Kaz began to wonder if he was going to spend the entire night thinking about the kender or getting some of the rest he so badly needed.He hoped to have journeyed well into the forest before tomorrow evening.Exhaustion finally began to overwhelm his senses.Nightmare visions of hundreds of curious and excited kender began to fade into the warm darkness of slumber.Kaz almost sighed in relief as at last he drifted away in peace.* * * * *He was standing before a great fortress that seemed to cling precariously to one side of the jagged peak.Creatures of all races lay dead or dying, and it was difficult to say who had been fighting whom.“It’s all over now,” Huma sighed.Kaz turned to gaze at his friend and comrade.Despite his relatively young age, Huma’s handsome visage was marked with lines, and his hair, including his mustache, was silver-gray.His face was pale, almost deathlike [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

Pokrewne