Dragonlance Tales, Vol. 3 – Love and War

figures wrestled: Staag and Tas. Ahead, close enough to

suck at his legs, to draw him farther down, was the roil of

the falls.

Thunder roared all around him. The black-watered lake

was white as diamonds here. Tigo surged forward and up,

wielded his hook and snagged it again on the back of the

boy’s belt.

Keli rolled and jack-knifed, his lungs afire and

screaming for air. He reached down, grabbed Tigo’s ears,

and pulled as though he would tear them from the man’s

head. When Tigo opened his mouth to scream, he took in

what Keli thought must be a gallon of icy water.

Again the boy kicked, and once more he was free. He

surfaced, sucking air in huge, greedy gulps and saw Tas

break into the light at the same moment. Behind the kender,

rising like a sea drake from the water, Staag roared and then

flung himself aside and out of the path of a green-fletched

arrow.

“Tas!” Keli waved and pointed back toward shore.

“Down! Duck!”

Tas rose, whooping with glee. “It’s all right! That’s

Tanis! Our rescuers! Look!”

Two young men, one broad-chested and brawny, the

other slimmer and faster, cut through the water with strong,

distance-eating strokes.

“Caramon and Sturm!” Tas threw his head back,

laughing. “Ready or not, here they come!” He dove and

angled through the water, coming up beside Keli. Staag shot

up behind him, grabbed, and missed by a hand’s breadth.

“Tas! They’re too far away!”

Tas yanked the boy under the water, ignoring his

sputtering protest. Staag’s thick legs thrashed to the right of

them, and Tigo surfaced just behind the goblin.

Tas released Keli, jerked his head to the left, and dove

down and around the goblin and Tigo before either could

get his bearings. Keli followed gamely, hoping with all his

heart that the kender knew where he was going.

Down just didn’t seem like the answer to their

problems.

Sturm shouted once, then again. He’d lost the hook-

handed man or found Tas and the boy – Tanis couldn’t be

sure which and did not spend a moment’s concentration

wondering. His hands knew nothing but his bow, his eyes

only his arrow’s target. That target, the gray-skinned,

maddened goblin, had dragged Caramon beneath the lake’s

surface and held him there now.

His breath held tightly, legs braced wide, Tanis waited

the interminable space of five heartbeats for Caramon to

surface again, afraid to loose his arrow for fear that

Caramon would come up between it and the goblin. Dimly,

he was aware of Raistlin’s soft intake of breath, of Flint’s

curse and then his whispered plea.

Caramon did not surface.

Tanis let fly and prayed for the gods’ grace, for their

favor, for mercy.

Rainbows danced in the air, shimmering along the

tumble of the falls. Mercy, and the arrow, were delivered at

the same time. The shaft flew true and took the goblin full

in the throat. In the veil of the mist, Sturm broke the water,

graceful as a dolphin leaping.

Seeing himself alone, he dove again, resurfaced, and filled

his lungs with air. He returned to the water twice, and the

second time he came up dragging Caramon, gasping, to

light and air.

They were alone in the lake, Staag’s body gone into the

rage of the falls, Tigo vanished. There was no sign of Tas

and the boy.

Though they dove and searched for longer than those

on the shore knew anyone could survive beneath the water,

they did not find Tas or his small companion.

Caramon raised his fists to the thundering falls. The

dying sun colored his brawny arms red and gold. His howl

of rage echoed for a long time between the shores, so loud

and grieved that Tanis did not hear the small clatter of his

own bow when it fell from his hands to the rocky shore.

Numb, Tanis watched as Caramon and Sturm made

their way back to land. He joined Raistlin and Flint to help

them, awkward and earth-bound again, onto the shore. For a

long time he felt vacant, emptied. The feeling well matched

what he saw in Caramon’s eyes, in Sturm’s, in Flint’s

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