Dragonlance Tales II, Vol. 2 – The Cataclysm

shirt into the knight’s face and knocked him off balance.

Then Kroogi screamed at the top of his lungs so loudly that

my ears rang, and he leapt at the knight with his big hands

going for the knight’s throat.

I was so surprised that I just sat there with my papers

and pen and satchel and watched the two of them fighting

and rolling in the dirt, yelling and cursing each other and

using words that Ark would have slapped my face for

using, as he’d done once when I said a word I’d heard a

fisherman use but which I won’t say ever again, or at least

not when Ark is around.

More townspeople gathered around, shouting at Kroogi

to beat the knight up, but some people came who yelled for

the knight to beat up Kroogi because they didn’t like the

fact that Kroogi was once a barbarian, even if he was a nice

guy mostly and made toys at Yuletime for some families

when he had the chance.

Then someone pushed someone else, and then the

whole crowd was going at it and everyone was kicking and

punching and shoving and flailing away, and grown men

had blood coming from their noses and mouths, and their

hair was pulled out, and some had clubs and hoes, and

someone else screamed like he was dying, and about then I

felt someone grab me around the waist and drag me off,

and it was Jarvis.

“Damn you!” he shouted at me as he dragged me off.

“What in the Abyss did you do now?”

So I told him, and he put me up here on the roof of the

Cats & Kitties, where he said I couldn’t cause any more

trouble while he tried to restore order in town. It’s nice and

warm up here, and I have a great view of the town and sea

and farms, but I can still hear people yelling, and some lady

is wailing over and over, and I wish I had asked Jarvis for

something to eat, because now I am really hungry. I think

Jarvis is coming back up the ladder now, so I’d better close

this up. Oops! I see that it isn’t Jarvis, it’s Goodwife Fils –

*****

Report Number Four

Same day (Cotterpin says the 13th), late afternoon

Hi, Astinus. I’m a few miles outside of town now,

sitting under a tree, where no one except Cotterpin can find

me, I hope. This is probably my last official report to you,

because there doesn’t seem to be much point in continuing

to try to find someone who understands why the gods got so

tired of Istar, when everyone gets so upset about the whole

issue and thinks either that Istar was wonderful or that Istar

was bad but wasn’t as bad as some other places around here

that should have gotten hit with their own fiery mountains

first.

My stomach hurts but I’m not hungry, and I feel just

awful, like I’m going to have a good cry in a minute after I

finish writing this all down, even if Ark says boys shouldn’t

cry, but I’m a kender and not a human so maybe it’s okay if

I feel bad for just a little while.

Everyone hates me, and I hate me, and I hate being a

recorder, and I hate sitting out here on a rock in the

wilderness because I have no one to talk to except for

Cotterpin, the tinker gnome, but he’s already gone to sleep

in his steam-powered lawn chair under the oak tree here.

Ark is going to be very disappointed that I got thrown in jail

and made part of the town burn up and started a riot and

everything. I’ll write down how I got here, but I don’t care if

it’s interesting or important anymore.

After Magistrate Jarvis caught Goodwife Filster on the

tavern roof and wrestled with her and they both almost fell

off and he took her butcher’s cleaver away and made her get

down the ladder again and leave me alone, he said it would

be best if I left town for a while.

“How long is ‘for a while’?” I asked, and he said, “Until

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