“No. I came into Que-shu out of the east. It was far from Solace, beyond the Plains of my homeland.”
“What do you suppose those creatures meant, saying they had tracked you to our village?” Goldmoon asked slowly, laying her cheek on his leather tunic sleeve, slipping her hand around his arm.
“Don’t worry,” Riverwind said, taking her hand in his. “The warriors there would deal with them.”
“Riverwind, do you remember what you were going to say?” she prompted.
“Yes, you are right,” Riverwind replied, stroking her silvergold hair. He looked at Tanis and smiled. For an instant, the expressionless mask was gone and Tanis saw warmth deep within the man’s brown eyes. “I give my thanks to you, Half-Elven, and to all of you.” His glance flickered over everyone. “You have saved our lives more than once and I have been ungrateful. But”-he paused-“it’s all so strange!”
“It’s going to get stranger.” Raistlin’s voice was ominous.
The companions were drawing nearer Prayer’s Eye Peak. They had been able to see it from the road, rising above the forests. Its split peak looked like two hands pressed together in prayer-thus the name. The rain had stopped. The woods were deathly quiet. The companions began to think that the forest animals and birds had vanished from the land, leaving an eerie, empty silence behind. All of them felt uneasy -except perhaps Tasslehoff -and kept peering over their shoulders or drawing their swords at shadows.
Sturm insisted on walking rear guard, but he began lagging behind as the pain in his head increased. He was becoming dizzy and nauseated. Soon he lost all conception of where he was and what he was doing. He knew only that he must keep walking, placing one foot in front of the other, moving forward like one of Tas’s automatons.
How did Tas’s story go? Sturm tried to remember it through a haze of pain. These automatons served a wizard who had summoned a demon to carry the kender away. It was nonsense, like all the kender’s stories. Sturm put one foot in front of the other. Nonsense. Like the old man’s stories-the old man in the Inn. Stories of the White Stag and ancient gods-Paladine. Stories of Huma. Sturm clasped his hands on his throbbing temples as if he could hold his splitting head together. Huma. . . .
As a boy, Sturm had fed on stories of Huma. His mother-daughter of a Knight of Solamnia, married to a Knight-had known no other stories to tell her son. Sturm’s thoughts turned to his mother, his pain making him think of her tender ministrations when he was sick or hurt. Sturm’s father had sent his wife and their son into exile because the boy-his only heir- was a target for those who would see the Knights of Solamnia banished forever from the face of Krynn. Sturm and his mother took refuge in Solace. Sturm made friends readily, particularly with one other boy, Caramon, who shared his interest in all things military. But Sturm’s proud mother considered the people beneath her. And so, when the fever consumed her, she had died alone except for her teenage son. She had commended the boy to his father-if his father still lived, which Sturm was beginning to doubt.
After his mother’s death, the young man became a seasoned warrior under the guidance of Tanis and Flint, who adopted Sturm as they had unofficially adopted Caramon and Raistlin. Together with Tasslehoff, the travel-loving kender, and, on occasion, the twins’ wild and beautiful half-sister, Kitiara, Sturm and his friends escorted Flint on his journeys through the lands of Abanasinia, plying his trade as metalsmith.
Five years ago, however, the companions decided to separate to investigate reports of evil growing in the land. They vowed to meet again at the Inn of the Last Home.
Sturm had traveled north to Solamnia, determined to find his father and his heritage. He found nothing, and only narrowly escaped with his life-and his father’s sword and armor. The journey to his homeland was a harrowing experience. Sturm had known the Knights were reviled, but he had been shocked to realize just how deep the bitterness against them ran. Huma, Lightbringer, Knight of Solamnia, had driven back the darkness years ago, during the Age of Dreams, and thus began the Age of Might. Then came the Cataclysm, when the gods abandoned man-according to the popular belief. The people had turned to the Knights for help-as they had turned to Huma in the past. But Huma was long dead. The Knights could only watch helplessly as terror rained down from heaven and Krynn was smote asunder. The people had cried to the Knights, but they could do nothing, and the people had never forgiven them. Standing in front of his family’s ruined castle, Sturm vowed that he would restore the honor of the Knights of Solamnia-if it meant that he must sacrifice his life in the attempt.