Dragons of the Autumn Twilight - Margaret Weis [13]
Tanis rose to his feet. Sturm came to him first and threw his arms around his friend. Tanis gripped him tightly, feeling the knight’s strong, sinewy arms clasp him in affection. Then the two stood back to look at each other for a brief moment.
Sturm hasn’t changed, Tanis thought, except that there are more lines around the sad eyes, more gray in the brown hair. The cloak is a little more frayed. There are a few more dents in the ancient armor. But the knight’s flowing moustaches—his pride and joy—were as long and sweeping as ever, his shield was polished just as brightly, his brown eyes were just as warm when he saw his friends.
“And you have a beard,” Sturm said with amusement.
Then the knight turned to greet Caramon and Flint. Tasslehoff dashed off after more ale, Tika having been called away to serve others in the growing crowd.
“Greetings, Knight,” whispered Raistlin from his corner.
Sturm’s face grew solemn as he turned to greet the other twin. “Raistlin,” he said.
The mage drew back his hood, letting the light fall on his face. Sturm was too well-bred to let his astonishment show beyond a slight exclamation. But his eyes widened. Tanis realized the young mage was getting a cynical pleasure out of seeing his friends’ discomfiture.
“Can I get you something, Raistlin?” Tanis asked.
“No, thank you,” the mage answered, moving into the shadows once again.
“He eats practically nothing,” Caramon said in a worried tone. “I think he lives on air.”
“Some plants live on air,” Tasslehoff stated, returning with Sturm’s ale. “I’ve seen them. They hover up off the ground. Their roots suck food and water out of the atmosphere.”
“Really?” Caramon’s eyes were wide.
“I don’t know who’s the greater idiot,” said Flint in disgust. “Well, we’re all here. What news?”
“All?” Sturm looked at Tanis questioningly.
“Kitiara?”
“Not coming,” Tanis replied steadily. “We were hoping perhaps you could tell us something.”
“Not I.” The knight frowned. “We traveled north together and parted soon after crossing the Sea Narrows into Old Solamnia. She was going to look up relatives of her father, she said. That was the last I saw of her.”
“Well, I suppose that’s that.” Tanis sighed. “What of your relatives, Sturm? Did you find your father?”
Sturm began to talk, but Tanis only half-listened to Sturm’s tale of his travels in his ancestral land of Solamnia. Tanis’s thoughts were on Kitiara. Of all his friends, she had been the one he most longed to see. After five years of trying to get her dark eyes and crooked smile out of his mind, he discovered that his longing for her grew daily. Wild, impetuous, hot-tempered—the swordswoman was everything Tanis was not. She was also human, and love between human and elf always ended in tragedy. Yet Tanis could no more get Kitiara out of his heart than he could get his human half out of his blood. Wrenching his mind free of memories, he began listening to Sturm.
“I heard rumors. Some say my father is dead. Some say he’s alive.” His face darkened. “But no one knows where he is.”
“Your inheritance?” Caramon asked.
Sturm smiled, a melancholy smile that softened the lines in his proud face. “I wear it,” he replied simply. “My armor and my weapon.”
Tanis looked down to see that the knight wore a splendid, if old-fashioned, two-handed sword.
Caramon stood up to peer over the table. “That’s a beauty,” he said. “They don’t make them like that these days. My sword broke in a fight with an ogre. Theros Ironfeld put a new blade on it today, but it cost me dearly. So you’re a knight now?”
Sturm’s smile vanished. Ignoring the question, he caressed the hilt of his sword lovingly. “According to the legend, this sword will break only if I do,” he said. “It was all that was left of my father’s—”
Suddenly Tas, who hadn’t been listening, interrupted. “Who are those people?” the kender asked in a shrill whisper.
Tanis looked up as the two