Jigsaw Piece (standard:fantasy, 1119 words)
Author: Salamander	Added: Oct 04 2000	Views/Reads: 3588/2420	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
More Canor and Silvire, giving a bit of background on the world. Not much, but some.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

immediately in his paws, and he leapt toward the murderer. A few arrows 
flew from Dutch’s instantly readied bow, but they missed the bird and 
sank into the wooden walls. 

Several other bar inhabitants had drawn weapons, but Canor was the first
there. The bird swung the halberd, but Canor nimbly leapt to the side, 
and came at the bird from underneath. An arrow from Dutch narrowly 
missed Canor, and hit the bird’s leg. 

The bird twirled its halberd like a staff, and deflected Canor’s sword
before it connected. A thrust from the butt of the weapon knocked Canor 
back, and sent him reeling for a moment. Dutch took advantage of the 
brief break in combat to get two hits on the mad Kin’s head, and the 
battle was over. 

Someone yelled something outside, and the response was almost immediate.
Two Squirrel Kin rushed in, bandaged the bird, and rushed out with it, 
leaving the halberd and its pack on the floor. The bar mostly resumed 
normal behavior, and the victim of the bird had been someone from the 
back table anyway... There was no huge concern. 

Canor picked up both bag and weapon, and continued to clutch them as he
faded back into the normal world, waving a goodbye to Dutch. Whether he 
noticed was doubtful... He seemed rather occupied trying to woo a 
rather beautiful Dog Kin, without anything approaching success. 

As Canor lay sprawled out in his camp in a clearing, he sifted through
the contents of the pack. What was mostly there were maps, maps, maps, 
and more maps. Maps of Junik. Maps of the Dragonlands. Maps of Kaira. 
Maps of the Shadowlands. But, mostly, maps of a forest area near 
Wildfire. 

On impulse, Canor spread out the maps, and placed them together like a
big jigsaw puzzle. And suddenly, Canor saw that there was red lines 
drawn over roads in many of the maps... When patched together, it 
formed many, many ways to get to that forest area, from almost 
everywhere. Canor reached into the pack for anything else, and found 
it. 

A gold locket, with a smiling female Pigeon Kin portrait inside it, and
a single feather. Canor looked at it for a long time, then the map, 
then started laughing hysterically. Five minutes passed before he 
calmed down, and even then, he was still chuckling. 

“Maybe the back table just has a bad rep... Heh...” He hefted the pure
black (though slightly blood-stained) halberd up with on hand. “Silvire 
might want this... Damn, he’d probably be proud to have a weapon from 
the back table! Note to self: Don’t tell him about the bird’s 
sweetheart.” 

It took 20 minutes of laughter before he even managed to get three
yards. 


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