Dragonlance - Heroes 5 - The Gates of Thorbardin by Dan Parkinson

Author:Dan Parkinson [Parkinson, Dan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fantasy, Action & Adventure, Dragons, Monsters, Magic, Heroes
ISBN: 9780786932542
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
Published: 2004-08-01T04:00:00+00:00

"Misery," the spell mourned.

The dwarf glanced around. He was growing accus-tomed to the ditherings of the kender's companion, but it still bothered him.

"Zap thinks if I take him far enough away from you and Spellbinder, that he can happen," Chess said with a shrug.

The dwarf had already started back down the zigzag trail, so the kender followed him. Chess looked back to-ward the distant heights now and then and wished the old spell hadn't attached itself to him.

Full morning lay on the valley by the time Chane and the kender rounded a bluff on the mountain's long slope and saw people ahead. Where a stream came down from the heights, two rough camps had been established, a few hundred yards apart. The larger camp, and farthest from the rising mountain, was of dwarves. The nearer, smaller camp - no more than a few cookfires and bits of bedding where injured people rested - held a few dozen humans.

As the dwarf and the kender neared, those humans ca-pable of holding weapons came out part way and formed a defensive line, watching the newcomers carefully. In the dwarf camp beyond, people scurried here and there; twenty or thirty dwarves soon came at a run to join the human fighters.

When they were near enough, Chane cupped his hands at his cheeks and called, "Hello there! Can we join you? We're peaceful!"

There was hesitation, then a burly human with a full beard stepped out of the line and called, "Who are you?"

"I'm Chane Feldstone," the dwarf returned. "That's Chestal Thicketsway. We were on our way up the moun-tain when you passed us. I want to talk to you."

"There were ogres and goblins behind us," the man said, shading his eyes against the morning sun. "If you came from there, how did you get past them?"

"We only saw one ogre," Chane called, "and no gob-lins, though there may have been some higher up."

"How did you get past the ogre you saw?" Chestal Thicketsway danced forward, past Chane.

"Chane Feldstone is a famous warrior," he shouted. "He dumped rocks on your ogre and buried him."

"I'm not famous," Chane hissed at the beaming kender. He turned his attention to the people ahead. Closer now, he could see them clearly. Many of them had fresh, bound wounds, and those huddling in the two camps be-yond were in a sorry shape. "Who are you people?" he called. "Where have you come from?"

The humans and dwarves - and women among them, Chane noted, of both races - relaxed visibly as the two strangers came near and they saw that they weren't gob-lins. The burly man lowered his pike and tapped himself on the chest with a grimy thumb. "I'm Camber Meld. That's Fleece Ironhill over there." He pointed toward a gray-bearded hill dwarf standing just ahead of a phalanx of armed soldiers. "We're chiefs of our people. We have - er, had - villages a mile apart in the Vale of Res-pite. That's the next valley over. His people are herders. Mine are growers.

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