Dragonlance 03 - Dragons of Spring Dawning Read Online Free PDF

in the loot they captured. Maquesta sat a moment, getting the feel of her ship. Glancing outside, she watched the golden sun glint off the white caps, then the sun vanished, swallowed by the lowering gray clouds. It would be dangerous, taking the ship out, but if the wind was right …
    “I’d rather be out on the open sea,” she murmured, more to herself than to Tanis, “than trapped like a rat on shore.”
    Making up her mind, Maq rose quickly and started for the door. Then she heard Tanis groan. Turning around, she regarded him pityingly.
    “Come on, Half-Elf,” Maquesta said, not unkindly. She put her arms around him and helped him stand. “You’ll feel better above deck in the fresh air. Besides, you’ll need to tell your friends that this isn’t going to be what you might call a ‘relaxing ocean voyage.’ Do you know the risk you’re taking?”
    Tanis nodded. Leaning heavily on Maquesta, he walked across the heaving deck.
    “You’re not telling me everything, that’s for certain,” Maquesta said under her breath as she kicked open the cabin door and helped Tanis struggle up the stairs to the main deck. “I’ll wager Berem’s not the only one the Highlord’s looking for. But I have a feeling this isn’t the first bad weather you and your crew have ridden out. I just hope your luck holds!”
    The
Perechon
wallowed in the high seas. Riding under short sail, the ship seemed to make little headway, fighting for every inch it gained. Fortunately, the wind backed. Blowing steadily from the southwest, it was taking them straight into the Blood Sea of Istar. Since they were heading for Kalaman, northwest of Flotsam, around the cape of Nordmaar, this was a little out of their way. But Maquesta didn’t mind. She wanted to avoid land as much as possible.
    There was even the possibility, she told Tanis, that they could sail northeast and arrive in Mithras, homeland of the minotaurs. Although a few minotaurs fought in the armies of the Highlords, the minotaurs in general had not yet sworn allegiance to the Dark Queen. According to Koraf, the minotaurs wanted control of eastern Ansalon in return for their services. And control of the east had just been handed over to a new Dragon Highlord, a hobgoblin called Toede. The minotaurs had no love for humans or elves, but, at this point in time, neither had they any use for the Highlords. Maq and her crew had sheltered in Mithras before. They would be safe there again, at least for a little while.
    Tanis was not happy at this delay, but his fate was no longer in his hands. Thinking of this, the half-elf glanced over at the man who stood alone at the center of a whirlwind of blood and flame. Berem was at the helm, guiding the wheel with firm, sure hands, his vacant face unconcerned, unworried.
    Tanis, staring hard at the helmsman’s shirt front, thought perhaps he could detect a faint glimmer of green. What dark secret beat in the chest where, months ago at Pax Tharkas, he had seen the green glowing jewel embedded in the man’s flesh? Why were hundreds of draconians wasting their time, searching for this one man when the war still hung in balance? Why was Kitiara so desperate to find Berem that she had given up command of her forces in Solamnia to supervise the search of Flotsam on just a rumor that he had been seen there?
    “He is the key!” Tanis remembered Kitiara’s words. “If we capture him, Krynn will fall to the might of the Dark Queen. There will be no force in the land able to defeat us then!”
    Shivering, his stomach heaving, Tanis stared at the man in awe. Berem seemed so, so apart from everything, beyond everything, as if the problems of the world affected him not at all. Was he half-witted, as Maquesta said? Tanis wondered. Heremembered Berem as he had seen him for those few brief seconds in the midst of the horror of Pax Tharkas. He remembered the look on the man’s face as he allowed the traitor Eben to lead him away in a desperate attempt to