Dark Heart Read online

  Kitiara signaled Raistlin, who was hanging back. He stood ready in his best spellcasting stance.

  After a few murmured phrases from the young mage, the surface of Crystalmir Lake began to bubble and seethe. The odd noise captured Bronk’s and Dune’s attention. Immediately the two bullies lost interest in their private drama. They froze, their eyes riveted to the lake.

  “What’s that?” Bronk said fearfully to Kit.

  Dark plumes of smoke and fingers of flame erupted from the sandy banks. The surface of the water roiled, and a huge shape began to emerge—a thing, a creature, manlike but much larger, with wet tendrils of slimy plants clinging to its sides. Suddenly its empty eye sockets blazed with orange fire, and its upper limbs began to sway, making it appear as if the horrible creature were moving toward shore.

  THE DRAGONLANCE® SAGA

  CHRONICLES TRILOGY

  DRAGONS OF AUTUMN TWILIGHT

  DRAGONS OF WINTER NIGHT

  DRAGONS OF SPRING DAWNING

  LEGENDS TRILOGY

  TIME OF THE TWINS

  WAR OF THE TWINS

  TEST OF THE TWINS

  THE ART OF THE DRAGONLANCE SAGA

  THE ATLAS OF THE DRAGONLANCE SAGA

  TALES TRILOGY

  THE MAGIC OF KRYNN

  KENDER, GULLY DWARVES, AND GNOMES

  LOVE AND WAR

  HEROES TRILOGY

  THE LEGEND OF HUMA

  STORMBLADE

  WEASEL’S LUCK

  PRELUDES TRILOGY

  DARKNESS AND LIGHT

  KENDERMORE

  BROTHERS MAJERE

  HEROES II TRILOGY

  KAZ, THE MINOTAUR

  THE GATES OF THORBARDIN

  GALEN BEKNIGHTED

  PRELUDES II TRILOGY

  RIVERWIND, THE PLAINSMAN

  FLINT, THE KING

  TANIS, THE SHADOW YEARS

  ELVEN NATIONS TRILOGY

  FIRSTBORN

  THE KINSLAYER WARS

  THE QUALINESTI (NOVEMBER 1991)

  MEETINGS SEXTET

  KINDRED SPIRITS

  WANDERLUST

  DARK HEART

  THE CODE AND THE MEASURE

  STEEL AND STONE

  THE COMPANIONS

  DARK HEART

  DRAGONLANCE® Meetings Sextet • Volume Three

  ©1992 TSR, Inc.

  All characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or unauthorized use of the material or artwork contained herein is prohibited without the express written permission of Wizards of the Coast LLC.

  Published by Wizards of the Coast LLC. Hasbro SA, represented by Hasbro Europe, Stockley Park, UB11 1AZ. UK.

  DRAGONLANCE, Wizards of the Coast, D&D, their respective logos, and TSR, Inc. are trademarks of Wizards of the Coast LLC in the U.S.A. and other countries.

  All Wizards of the Coast characters and their distinctive likenesses are property of Wizards of the Coast LLC.

  Cover art by: Clyde Caldwell

  eISBN: 978-0-7869-6324-9

  For customer service, contact:

  U.S., Canada, Asia Pacific, & Latin America: Wizards of the Coast LLC, P.O. Box 707, Renton, WA 98057-0707, +1-800-324-6496, www.wizards.com/customerservice

  U.K., Eire, & South Africa: Wizards of the Coast LLC, c/o Hasbro UK Ltd., P.O. Box 43, Newport, NP19 4YD, UK, Tel: +08457 12 55 99, Email: [email protected]

  Europe: Wizards of the Coast p/a Hasbro Belgium NV/SA, Industrialaan 1, 1702 Groot-Bijgaarden, Belgium, Tel: +32.70.233.277, Email: [email protected]

  Visit our websites at www.wizards.com

  www.DungeonsandDragons.com

  v3.1

  For Connie and Hank

  My thanks to Jim Lowder for the final care he gave my manuscript; to Mary Kirchoff for her initial leap of faith; and to Pat McGilligan for his patience and well-thought-out if not always well-received, criticism.

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Books in the Series

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgment

  Map

  Chapter 1: Gregor’s Legacy

  Chapter 2: The Birth of the Twins

  Chapter 3: Red Moon Festival

  Chapter 4: The Mage School

  Chapter 5: Raistlin’s Examination

  Chapter 6: The Mercenaries

  Chapter 7: The Decoy

  Chapter 8: Stumptown

  Chapter 9: Home Again

  Chapter 10: A Proposal

  Chapter 11: The Silver Gar

  Chapter 12: Washed Ashore

  Chapter 13: The Slig’s Lair

  Chapter 14: Mantilla Vale

  Chapter 15: Love Lost

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  GREGOR’S LEGACY

  ———

  Kitiara Uth Matar stood in the shade of a lone oak on a small rise that overlooked a shallow valley. It was barely dawn, and mist clung to tall grasses in the meadow that spread before her. She was a long day’s journey away from the familiar vallenwoods of Solace, and this was her first chance to get a look at the rolling countryside that stretched far to the west of that comfortable village.

  Darkness had fallen by the time they had reached camp the night before, and no welcoming fires had greeted them. The soldiers did not want to risk revealing their position.

  Riding into camp, Kit had heard the muffled clank of armor and weapons being put aside and had dimly made out the forms of men and other creatures preparing their bedrolls. She herself felt nothing like sleep. Her senses tingled with a novel, not unpleasant sensation—excitement combined with a frisson of fear. She was about to see her first battle!

  Nonetheless, when Gregor Uth Matar swung easily off Cinnamon, his prize chestnut mare, and handed the reins to a waiting squire, Kit scrambled off her smaller mount to keep up with him. She didn’t want to get too far away from the protection of this tall, imposing warrior who was her father.

  He strode quickly to the one light in the camp, a carefully banked lantern that shone in the tent of the troop’s commander. Nolan of Vinses was little more than a dull-witted farmer, according to Gregor, and Gregor had little use for farmers or anyone else whose work didn’t involve handling a sword well.

  But it was Nolan who headed the five-man militia in the rich farming community of Vinses, and he who had convinced the village’s guardians, finally, to dig into their pockets and pay for a mercenary force to defend the residents against a marauding army of barbarians that had been terrorizing them for more than a year. So he was, nominally at least, in charge.

  After making a few inquiries, Nolan had learned of Gregor, sought him out, and hired him. Gregor then recruited fifty or so other worthies. He also advised Nolan to send word to Burek, the head of a band of minotaurs based in Caergoth who hired themselves out for combat. If Nolan’s desire was to end the rampage by destroying Swiftwater and his outlaw followers, it would be useful to have minotaurs fighting on their side, Gregor had said.

  “I have heard tales of this Swiftwater,” her father told Kit as they made their way through the quiet camp. “He is a savage, the worst human scum. They say he fights without a brain—without a heart, as well. With such an opponent, the minotaurs are worth the trouble and expense. His wild degeneracy will inflame them, and they will fight to the utmost.”

  When they reached Nolan’s tent, Gregor motioned for Kitiara to wait outside. She crept as close as possible to the light leaking from the tent’s doorway flap, then peered inside. She saw her father standing with his back to the opening, facing a
table spread with a large map. Not for the first time did she think Gregor was the handsomest man she would ever see: regal and sturdy, with well-muscled limbs and raven-black hair that curled closely around his head and graced his upper lip with a luxurious mustache.

  A blond, clean-shaven man stood opposite Gregor on the other side of the table. He wore a farmer’s green tunic and had a sword in its scabbard strapped awkwardly around his waist. His face was grim. Nolan, Kitiara thought.

  Looking to the right of Nolan, Kit saw someone step out of the shadows at her father’s beckoning. She sucked in her breath. The creature towered over Gregor, who himself stood at over six feet. He wore a heavy leather girdle that flashed with richly colored gems and carried a fascinating array of daggers and other weapons, most prominent among them a huge, double-edged ax. The pair of horns that curved away from his forehead, each at least two feet long, threatened to rip through the top of the tent.

  “A minotaur!” Kit whispered to herself breathlessly. She had heard many stories of these fierce and brutish fighters from her father, but never in her seven years had she seen one in her treetop village of Solace.

  Burek, the minotaur, spoke in a deep, guttural voice, discussing strategy for the next day’s battle. Gregor and Nolan pondered the map. As time went on, Gregor made his own suggestions about the battle plan, some of them seemingly not congenial to Burek. Nolan took Burek’s side unexpectedly, and Gregor, shaking with suppressed rage, turned to confront Burek. He pushed up against the minotaur and spoke harshly. Burek did not budge from his point of view. Nor did Gregor back off. The warrior hammered at Burek with his raised voice, his face flushed with anger. Kitiara could see the dots of her father’s eyes as they danced above the rise and fall of his extravagant mustache.

  “Don’t speak to me of hypothetical situations; give me the iron dice of battle! Anything else is blather! I pledge my life—”

  “Pah! I say it is better to wait and watch. Your life means nothing to me. All you humans are in such a hurry to die anyway!”

  “If I may say something—”

  “NO!”

  The discussion grew even more heated. It seemed to go on for hours.

  Crouched on the ground outside the tent, Kit must have fallen asleep. She woke to find Gregor hefting her gently in his arms and striding to their bedrolls. He looked peaceful now, as he usually did in that deep time of the night when people—and disagreements—slept. The young girl smiled sleepily up at her father, and he smiled back. Their faces were so alike; their mouths mimicked each other, the right corners rising at a slant, giving their expressions a charmingly roguish caste.

  “Tomorrow, my little warrior, you shall see the power and truth the sword can bring,” Gregor whispered to Kit as he tucked a blanket around her. She shivered with anticipation, curled up next to her father, and fell back asleep.

  It was still dark when Gregor woke Kitiara. The summer night had never cooled off, and before dawn the warm air hung around the camp like a damp, heavy curtain. Kit rubbed her fists into her eyes then rose quickly. She strapped on her prized wooden sword, the one Gregor had brought back for her from one of his expeditions two years ago. Kitiara had shown more than a passing interest in the plaything, and Gregor began drilling her in the warrior arts.

  The sword was scaled to Kitiara’s size, with an exceedingly sharp point. Gregor had decorated the precious half-toy with emblems and sigils. At home, Kitiara wore it belted at her side from the moment she rose until she tumbled into bed at night. She felt about it as she felt about nothing else.

  Only now, surrounded by preparations for a real battle, Kit suddenly saw the sword as childish. She started to take it off when Gregor, who had been watching silently, stopped her.

  “There are men who cannot use a real sword as well as you can wield your wooden one,” Gregor told her somberly. “Don’t worry. It won’t be long before your skill guarantees you the pick of all the swords you could want. After all,” he added, his eyes glinting at her, “you are my daughter.”

  Grinning in return, the seven-year-old girl busied herself checking Gregor’s daggers, sword, shield, bow and quiver of arrows, then helped her father adjust his armor. His body armor consisted of pieces of iron held together with leather straps and bronze fittings. The helmet was open in style, permitting him to move and aim with impunity.

  Working next to Gregor, Kitiara looked like a tiny version of the striking warrior. Gregor had cut Kit’s long hair shortly after he had smuggled her out of the house for this expedition. Now her cap of dark, curly hair, and the slender yet athletic build apparent underneath her leather jerkin and leggings, made Kit look like a young boy. Like Gregor her eyes were brown, and, almost comically so, little Kit had even modeled her purposeful stride after Gregor’s.

  When other soldiers came up to him, Gregor introduced Kit as “my importunate son,” catching her eye and winking when no one was looking. Seven was a young age to bring such a lad into camp, but none of his fellows would have stood for Gregor bringing a daughter along, since girls were seen as little more than a potential burden.

  The ruse made no difference to Kit. She didn’t long to be a boy. She only felt sorry for people who weren’t able to take the full measure of a person because of their sex or what they appeared to be. She never intended to make that mistake.

  As they continued preparing for the battle, Kit noticed a commotion at the edge of the camp. In the dim pre-dawn light she thought she saw a cluster of children scatter among the bedrolls.

  “Look, Father, perhaps I can practice my sword fighting with one of those children at the end of the day,” she said, motioning toward the distant forms.

  “Those aren’t children. Those are gully dwarves.” Gregor spat out that benighted race’s name as if it were an epithet. “It’s amazing how they turn up sooner or later, no matter what the danger or where you pitch camp.”

  As Gregor was speaking, one of the gully dwarves had the misfortune to scurry near and start nosing around their equipment. An unpleasant odor wafted from the smallish creature. Moving a step closer, Gregor swung his foot back and gave the gully dwarf a boot that hurled him halfway across the camp. “Pleasure of your acquaintance!” Kit heard the unfortunate creature cry out as it soared. Apparently unharmed and unfazed, the gully dwarf picked himself up and scampered off in the opposite direction.

  Kit smiled to herself. Even gully dwarves added to her pleasure at being part of camp life. She was brought back to more pressing matters when Gregor began outlining the battle plan for her.

  Swiftwater’s outlaws occupied a heavily wooded ridge at the far end of the valley. The location offered the barbarians a commanding view of the landscape to the east. At their backs, the ridge sloped away steeply, offering little cover except for widely scattered rocks. Potential attackers had few options.

  Gregor’s forces were within striking distance, sequestered among rocks and trees on a sharp rise to the south. So far, they had managed to remain undetected.

  Burek had wanted to wait until the hovering storm broke and provided a distraction, obscuring their attack, Gregor explained. Then, being both proud and impatient, the minotaur had wanted to attempt to lead a frontal assault, hoping to draw out Swiftwater and his group from their sanctuary. Part of the hired troops would also circle around and attempt to besiege Swiftwater’s camp from the rear, despite the rough terrain.

  Gregor had disagreed, and eventually he won the argument. Scouts loyal to the mercenary leader had reported that the barbarians sent out a large foraging party every morning, often with Swiftwater himself in command. Gregor wanted the minotaurs to split up and creep forward along both sides of the valley, under cover of foliage, to just below the ridge where the outlaw band was camped.

  When the foraging contingent emerged into the meadow, the minotaurs would cut in from the rear while Gregor and his reserves attacked from the front. With any luck, Swiftwater would be in the surrounded party. Once he was killed, his immediate troop
s could be expected to panic and flee into the woods. Some of Gregor’s soldiers would be hanging back among the trees to eliminate them.

  The plan placed the minotaurs in a difficult position, Gregor acknowledged, since there would be close fighting with members of the foraging party, as well as danger from the rear when those who remained at Swiftwater’s camp joined the battle. But Gregor’s troops would press the attack from all sides and attempt to draw off fire from the minotaurs.

  Burek had conceded the boldness of Gregor’s scheme. Valiant race that they were, the minotaurs had accepted their risky assignment with dignity. Before they divided up, Kit noticed that the mammoth creatures, outfitted in all their glittering armament, knelt as a group to exchange hushed vows amongst themselves, secret words that no human would ever be permitted to overhear.

  The other mercenaries observed their ritual with respect. The long minutes of silence were almost unbearable.

  Then, with Burek in the lead, the nearly two dozen minotaurs rose as one and marched off. After them, with great solemnity, came Gregor and his men. Her father was riding a borrowed steed, a silver-gray charger. He had left behind his precious Cinnamon for Kit, so that she would have a reliable means of escape in the unlikely event of a rout.

  Her father did not pay her any attention now. His eyes were trained resolutely on the task ahead, his mouth set in a grim line. This was the first time Kit had seen Gregor riding into battle, and that scene was how she would always think of him—proud, erect, invincible.

  Trailing them all, serving as little more than a buffer in the battle, were Nolan and his small volunteer brigade of locals. Unlike the more professional soldiers, Nolan’s farmers clutched roughhewn clubs and shovels and odd tools. But these could be every bit as deadly as more sophisticated weapons in the hand-to-hand struggle that would follow the first clash.

  From the vantage Gregor had chosen for her, underneath the oak tree, Kitiara strained to see the minotaurs moving through the tall grass, past the brush and occasional trees that lined the valley. But she could see nothing.