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  "That would presume I have some honor left to be compromised," he said indifferently, taking another eager bite.

  With a precocity remarkable for a child of eight, Kitiara stepped up and deftly knocked the stranger's apple from his hand by slapping the flat of her sword against his knuckles. His smile vanished, replaced by stern, pursed lips. He stood up to face her.

  "I am sorry that you are so disrespectful of your elders," he said ruefully. "Someone has neglected to teach you your manners. I shall endeavor to fill the void."

  He moved toward her, but Kit scuttled to the left, her sword point outstretched, keeping him at bay. He circled around, a look on his face every bit as resolute as Kitiara's. Though only slightly more than half his size, she was determined to run him through, wooden sword or not.

  The stranger dropped his shoulder and made suddenly as if to reach for his sheathed weapon, at which point Kitiara lunged toward him. Unexpectedly, he dropped to the ground and rolled directly toward her, grabbing her by her ankles before she could make a move with her sword. In another instant he had vaulted to a standing position and hoisted her, kicking and screaming, over his shoulders. Her wooden blade fell to the ground.

  Carrying her easily, the stranger walked to a stand of trees and gave her a tremendous heave skyward. Much to her astonishment Kitiara found herself tossed like a leaf high up into the air. She landed in the twisted branches of an apple tree, high above the ground. It took a few moments before she got her breath back. Then she looked down to see the stranger peering up at her with an implacable expression.

  "Pick out a nice juicy one, if you please," the stranger said.

  Td sooner die!" she shouted back defiantly.

  In a movement so quick that it seemed a blur, the stranger unleashed his sword and thrust it upward, toward Kitiara. Even with his height and long reach, the sword just barely reached her, its tip scraping her bottomside. She scurried to escape its touch, but these were mere apple trees, not mighty vallenwoods, and there were no sturdy branches above her offering an escape route.

  Coiling as tightly as she could, Kitiara retreated against the tree trunk. The stranger merely reached a couple of inches higher and flicked his sword point, ripping her leggings.

  "Tch tch," he said. "Pants need mending."

  She set her chin and determined to say nothing. He stretched a little higher, and she felt the sword point flick again.

  "Ouch!"

  "First blood," said the stranger merrily. Then his tone altered. "Don't tempt me, little one. Krynn is lousy with children, orphans especially. One less would be a blessing."

  A brief, tense silence ensued. There was a rustling of branches, and Kitiara dropped to the ground, holding a ripe apple. Her eyes averted, she held it out to the stranger, who stuck his sword in the ground triumphantly and reached to grab the fruit.

  Before he knew it her teeth had sunk into his wrist.

  "Ouch!" he yelled and, with a furious oath, cuffed Kit across the face, knocking her roughly to the ground.

  She got up very slowly. Rubbing the side of her face, Kitiara looked down at the ground and fought back her tears. She wouldn't cry in front of a stranger.

  As for the stranger, he too was nursing his wound, rubbing his wrist with a betrayed air. He looked up and caught Kitiara's eye. To the girl's dismay, the situation suddenly became hilarious. The stranger's face broke into an engaging grin, and rich, throaty laughter began to pour from his mouth.

  Kit couldn't help but notice that this curious fellow had an altogether different, more congenial look about him when he smiled. He was like her father in that respect: one way when fighting, another way when at peace. However, she didn't feel the slightest compulsion to laugh with him. She was still smarting with resentment.

  With some effort the stranger brought his laughter under control. "Say, at first I thought you were a boy or I wouldn't have hit you. You fight like one. Some day, perhaps, you'll fight like a man."

  That was no compliment to her. But when the stranger proffered his hand in the Solamnic clasp, she smiled tentatively despite herself. She gripped his hand firmly in response.

  He laughed again, sat down, and took a bite out of the apple Kitiara had picked. From a fold in his cloak, he produced another apple and offered it to her with a mischievous smirk.

  She frowned in irritation.

  "Oh, don't let it bother you," said the stranger soothingly. "What's your name, half-pint?"

  With a show of reluctance she took the apple. "Kitiara Uth Matar," she said proudly.

  Was it her imagination, or did some recognition flicker across the stranger's face? Some emotion had registered, some inscrutable reaction.

  "Any relation to Gregor Uth Matar?" he asked, keeping a smile on his face.

  "Do you know him?" She leaned forward excitedly.

  "No, no," he said hastily, shifting his tone. "Heard of him, of course. Heard of him." He seemed to look at Kit differently, more intently, appraising her face. "I'd like to meet a man of such stature-if he happened to be in these parts."

  All at once, Kitiara was blinking back tears. "My father doesn't live in Solace anymore," she said stoically after a few moments. "He left home not long after we returned from a battle with some barbarians. That was over a year ago."

  Kitiara would never forget that unhappy morning. For once, her father had not been there, smiling at her, when she woke up. There had been no true warning of his departure; he hadn't been getting along with Rosamun, but that was nothing new. And the note he left hardly offered an adequate explanation:

  Good-bye for now. Take care of Cinnamon. She's yours. Know that your father loves you. Think of me. Gregor.

  He had left behind his favorite horse and ridden off on a freshly bartered one. Kitiara had crumpled the paper and cried intermittently for days, even weeks. Now she wished she still had the note, if only as a memento.

  Nobody in Solace could say for sure which way Gregor had gone, on which road in which direction.

  "Have you heard news of him?" she asked the stranger eagerly.

  "Hmmm. I seem to remember hearing something about some escapades in the North," he replied vaguely, preoccupied now with standing up and slipping his sword into its scabbard.

  "His family hails from the North," Kit said, keenly interested.

  "Or maybe it was in the wilds of Khur to the east. I'm not certain."

  "Oh." Kit's voice fell.

  "A man like that would never stay in one place for long," he continued.

  "What do you mean?" Kit asked a little defensively, " 'a man like that'?"

  Looking up, he saw the apprehension that animated Kitiara's face. "I have to be on my way, little one. If I run into your father, can I give him a message?" he inquired, not unkindly.

  Kitiara weighed what she could tell this stranger who in some ways reminded her of Gregor, though he was neither as tall nor as handsome. "Just tell him that I've been practicing," she said finally. "And that I'm ready."

  They were standing just out of sight of Kit's home, in a clearing below the elevated walkways between the vallenwoods where Kit often came to practice her swordplay. The stranger was preparing to take his leave when Kit thought to ask his name.

  "Ursa Il Kinth, but you can call me Ursa if our paths cross again."

  "Wait!" Kit cried out almost in desperation as he turned to go. 'Take me with you, Ursa. All I need is a real sword or dagger, and I could help protect you during your travels. I wouldn't be any trouble. I have relatives in the North, and they can help me find my father. Oh, please, please, take me with you!"

  "You, protect me?" Ursa snorted. "I should hope it would be a few years before I need the protection of a child!"

  Again he erupted into laughter, this time more derisively. "If it would be any child it would be you, little Miss Kitiara," Ursa said over his shoulder as he took a few steps away from her. He gave a sharp whistle between his teeth, and a muscular gray steed burst from the woods. In a minute he ha
d mounted her and was riding off, still chuckling.

  A fiercely determined Kitiara had started to run after him when she heard sharp cries from the direction of her home.

  "Kitiara! Kitiara! Come home! I need help!"

  Kit stopped and looked resentfully in the direction of the summons.

  "My labor has begun! Hurry!"

  Sighing, with one last look at Ursa's back, Kitiara clambered up the nearest vallenwood. Halfway up the tree, she climbed onto the walkway that would take her home, where her mother was ready to give birth.

  Chapter 2

  The Birth of the Twins

  Running in from the sun-dappled walkways, Kit momentarily lost her bearings as she plunged into the cottage. It was midday, but almost no light penetrated through the shutters. Rosamun had managed to close them somehow, in the interest of modesty, when she went into labor.

  As her eyes adjusted to the dim light, Kit heard more than saw her mother, who was breathing heavily. Rosamun was squatting on the floor to one side of the common room, next to the big bed. She looked up frantically when she heard Kit enter.

  "Oh, Kitiara! I… I didn't want to keep Gilon from his day's work this morning, but-" Here Rosamun stopped. She fixed her eyes on a point somewhere over Kit's head, twisted the bedclothes in her hands, and started a low moan that built to an unholy screech. Kit was already backing up toward the door when the sound ebbed and Rosamun slumped against the side of the bed.

  "Please, please, get Minna," Rosamun gasped.

  Terrified, Kit bolted out the door and raced along the elevated walkways between the giant vallenwoods toward a local midwife's house, heedless of the people she jostled. Her encounter with the roguish stranger and thirst for adventure momentarily forgotten, Kit felt suddenly not a moment older than her eight years. Oh, if only Gilon hadn't gone off to chop wood today… If only Rosamun could manage on her own… If only there were someone else to help besides Minna!

  Kit paused to catch her breath for a second before opening the gate to the midwife's front walk. Kit thought, as she always did when passing Minna's house, how the elaborate gingerbread cottage nestled between two giant vallenwood limbs resembled its owner-prim and haughty.

  Kit knocked on the door. The moment Minna opened it, Kit grabbed her arm and started tugging her outside. The short, plump midwife was wearing her trademark muslin apron that, if it were not always so clean and starched, Kit would suspect she wore even to bed. Her wispy auburn hair was elaborately coiffed and beribboned.

  "Hurry up! We have to hurry! It's my mother, she's gone into labor. You must come right away," Kit said as she pulled.

  Minna tugged right back, easily freeing her arm from the child's grasp. The midwife paused and collected her dignity around her. As Kit stood by the front door, shifting impatiently from foot to foot, Minna busied herself around her home, gathering potions, herbs, and vials, which she placed carefully in a large leather sack while nattering away at Kit.

  "My dear, you look flushed. Catch your breath. I must find my aspen leaves. Aspen leaf juice really makes the best clotting drink, you know. It's quite rare in these parts. I have Asa-you know Asa, that funny, black-haired kender who appears in town every now and then? — I have Asa collect the leaves for me specially whenever he is near Qualinesti or Silvanesti. Of course, he's not all that reliable as a gatherer. Although I'm sure if he says they are aspen-wood leaves, then they probably are…"

  Glancing in a mirror as she patted her hair in place, Minna caught a tense look from Kitiara, who was barely able to keep from shouting at the midwife to shut up and get out the door.

  "Is anything wrong dear?" Minna asked, peering at Kit concernedly with her small, olive eyes.

  "Yes, yes!" Kit declared, stamping her foot. "I told you! My mother has started having her baby. She needs you!"

  "Well, there's no need to be rude, I'm sure. There's enough of that in Krynn these days," Minna said with an injured air. "People have been having babies since the beginning of time. I'm sure your mother is doing just fine," she added, checking her leather rucksack full of whatnot one more time before pulling it closed. "Ah, here are the aspen leaves. I shouldn't worry. I suppose your father is home with Rosamun?"

  The query seemed innocent enough, but Kit, always thin-skinned when it came to questions about fathers, mistrusted Minna's reasons for asking. The midwife made it her business to know all the gossip there was to know in Solace, and everything she discovered through her snooping she passed on to dozens of acquaintances at the morning market. Kit knew that Rosamun was one of her favorite topics.

  Rosamun intermittently suffered strange trances and was chronically abed with fever and imagined ills. After Gregor had left her, things had only grown worse. Kitiara supposed Rosamun blamed herself for Gregor's going. Well, she should. She had practically driven him away with her homebody concerns.

  It was difficult to understand what Gregor had seen in her mother in the first place. Maybe she had been pretty once, Kit admitted grudgingly. She was a good enough cook. Yet whatever Rosamun once was, more and more in recent months she had become the kind of sickly, indoors drudge that Kit planned never to be.

  Rosamun didn't have very many friends or people sympathetic to her sick spells. That's where Minna came in. Kitiara had to admit that Minna tended to her mother as best she could. And she never pressured Gilon to pay her mounting bill.

  Even so, Kitiara detested the bossy busybody.

  "Gilon," Kit emphasized the name, since he was not her father, "is cutting wood in the forest. I don't know where, probably miles away. Otherwise I'd run and get him. My mother has been feeling well enough lately, and I didn't want to ask him to stay home even though we knew it was close to her time. Can't you hurry?"

  Kit looked out the window and wished she were anywhere but in this house, anywhere except perhaps her own cottage. She couldn't forget the anguished sounds that Rosamun had made, and the look of fear on her face.

  "Well, who's in a hurry now, young lady? Do your best to keep up."

  With that, Minna swept past Kitiara and out the door. Kit would have liked to kick her in the behind. But the thought of Rosamun at home, in the throes of childbirth, made her repress the impulse.

  Indeed, Kit practically had to run to keep up with Minna, who moved along the walkways with quick strides.

  When they reached the cottage, Kit saw that her mother had climbed back onto the bed, where the blanket and sheets were already soiled and bloodstained. As they rushed to her, Rosamun uttered a low groan and her breathing quickened with the beginning of another contraction. This time, she seemed nearly too exhausted to scream. Her long, pale blond hair was plastered against her skull with perspiration. Her delicately boned face was drawn. When Rosamun's lips parted, only a strangled moan escaped as her body curled forward. After the contraction crested, she collapsed back against the sheets.

  Minna hurried up to feel her forehead. The contractions were speeding up. Rosamun's bed was almost soaked.

  "Good, your water has broken," Minna declared. But the midwife frowned slightly when she noticed the greenish stain on the bedclothes.

  Minna unceremoniously pulled up Rosamun's smock and checked on the labor's progress. "Put some water on to boil and get the clean cloths ready. The baby will be coming any time now. That green water means there might be trouble," she said meaningfully.

  Never a deft hand with household chores, Kit awkwardly helped Minna slip clean sheets onto Rosamun's bed. She gathered what clean cloths she could find, then lugged in a bucket of water from outside and put it in a pot to boil on the fire.

  By now Rosamun was so consumed by her struggle to give birth that she barely acknowledged the presence of either Kitiara or Minna. Her gray eyes were glassy, her body buffeted by the painful contractions that came relentlessly.

  Minna pulled a small pouch out of her birthing bag and ordered Kit to bring a clean bowl filled with hot water to the bedside table. She poured the contents of the pouch into the
bowl and wrung out a cloth in the brownish liquid. Minna used the cloth to wipe Rosamun's brow and, occasionally, pulling up the smock Rosamun wore, to bathe her swollen stomach.

  "What is it?" Kit ventured to ask.

  "Secret ingredients," responded Minna smugly. "Don't know myself, actually." She tittered. "Buy it off that kender I was telling you about, Asa. He calls it his 'Never Fail Balm.'"

  Kit had to admit her mother breathed a bit more easily after these ablutions.

  Minna kept Kit busy. She ordered her to bring a chair to the bedside, to find more blankets, to brew a pot of tea, to get some more wood for the fire. Kit knew Minna did not like her and had counseled Rosamun that her young daughter was too headstrong and should be reined in a bit. Now Kit chafed under the midwife's orders, realizing how much Minna gloried in her authority over Kit in this emergency.

  Rosamun's groans and screams kept the two of them preoccupied, however. Her agony was terrible for the child to witness. At times Rosamun's eyes rolled up into her head and her body went rigid as she endured the repeated contractions.

  As the labor dragged on, Kit secretly longed for Gilon's calming presence and wondered when her stepfather would return. But she realized forlornly that it was only about midday, and that, typically, Gilon did not return until dusk.

  About an hour after Minna's arrival, Rosamun's breathing slowed dramatically. The midwife thrust her hand under Rosamun's smock and gave Kit a nod. "Push the baby out, Rosamun," she commanded.

  Kit looked at Minna in surprise. Rosamun, pale, delirious, and drenched in sweat, seemed barely able to turn her head on the pillow, much less push anything. Nonetheless, at Minna's urging, Kit climbed onto the bed and helped Rosamun to sit up. She then placed her small back against her mother's sweat-stained one and braced her feet against the wooden headboard, thus propping up Rosamun while Minna again exhorted her mother to push.

  "Push!" cried Minna, "if you want it over and done with, push!"