Amber and Iron - Margaret Weis [38]
“I really hate this!” Gerard muttered. “I know—I brought these two here to help stop these Beloved, but I didn’t know it would be Cam! I’ve watched that kid grow up. When I was posted here before the War of Souls, Cam was always hanging around the barracks. All he could talk about was wanting to be a knight. I taught him how to use a sword. They can say all they want about this monster not being him, but it has his smile, his laugh—”
Gerard stopped his ranting. He looked at Rhys, gave a rueful sigh, and ran his hand through his hair again.
“You are in a difficult position, Sheriff,” Rhys said quietly. “I will do what I can to help you.”
“Thanks, Brother,” Gerard said gratefully. “You know, sometimes I wish I’d been born a kender. No worries. No cares. No responsibilities. Nothing but pork chops. See you tonight, Brother. I’d ask you to say a prayer, but we’re up to our eyeballs in gods as it is.”
He ran down the stairs, hastening off on his own business. Rhys followed more slowly. He thought regretfully of that feeling of relief he’d experienced.
It hadn’t lasted long.
lint’s Lookout was located atop a hill overlooking Solace. Gerard and his team assembled near the boulder where, according to local legend, the famed Hero of the Lance, Flint Fireforge, had stopped to rest on the momentous night when a Plainswoman and a blue crystal staff had brought word of the return of the true gods, and the War of the Lance had begun.
The view was spectacular. Smoke from cook fires drifted lazily into the air. The sun’s dying rays glinted orange off Crystalmir Lake and sparkled in the diamond-paned windows of the Inn of the Last Home, one of the few buildings visible through the thick foliage of the vallenwood trees.
“It is lovely,” said Mistress Jenna, looking about. “So peaceful and quiet. The past seems very close here. One could almost expect the old dwarf to come walking over the hillside, along with his friend the kender. They would have more right to be here than we do.”
“We have problems enough with undead without you conjuring up more ghosts, Mistress,” said Gerard. He meant it as a jest, but in the tense atmosphere, it fell flat. No one laughed. “We better take our places before night falls.”
They left the road and the old dwarf’s boulder and entered the outskirts of the forest that blanketed the hillside. They walked among firs and oaks, maples and walnuts, coming to a halt when Gerard deemed they couldn’t be seen from the road, yet the road was still in sight.
“We have some time before Cam is due to come,” Gerard said.
He had made the walk in grim and somber silence, punctuated occasionally by soft, inward sighs. Rhys’s heart ached for his friend, but he knew only too well there was nothing he could say that would bring any comfort.
“I brought a blanket to keep off the damp.” Gerard unrolled a blanket and spread it on a bed of dead pine needles. “We might as well be comfortable while we wait.”
He gestured to the blanket with bluff gallantry. “Mistress Jenna, please be seated.”
“Thank you, Sheriff,” Jenna replied with a smile. “But I am not as limber as I was in my twenties. If I sat down on that blanket, it would take three gully dwarves and a gnomish infernal device to hoist me onto my feet again. If no one has any objections, I will commandeer this tree trunk.”
Seating herself on the stump of an oak tree, Jenna smoothed out the skirts of her robe and carefully placed a lantern she had brought with her on the ground at her feet. The lantern was small and delicate, made of hand-blown glass set in silver wrought in intricate filigree. Inside, a red candle burned with a blue-white flame.
“I see you admire my lantern, Brother,” said Jenna, noting Rhys regarding the lantern with frank curiosity. “You have an eye for beauty. And for value. The lantern is very old. It dates back to the time of the Kingpriests.”
“It is lovely,” Rhys agreed. “More lovely than useful, it would seem. It gives only a feeble light.”
“It is not meant to illuminate