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. His horse
stood over him. The animal snorted and stamped as Tas
drew near. When Tas saw the wound in Gisella's side, he
knew she was indeed dead. Summoning his strength, he
gently lifted the body of Gisella Hornslager into his arms
and laid it across the saddle on her horse.
His steps leaden, Tas turned and directed Gisella's
horse, bearing her body, back down the trail to where
Woodrow and Winnie waited anxiously. No one spoke
as Tas tied the horse's reins to Winnie's tail and climbed
back on the mammoth, behind Woodrow. Tas could
hear nothing in his mind but the lone, droning drum beat
of a kender funeral procession as they rode to the east
down the mountainside.
They did not look back.
If they had, they would have seen a large man stir on
the dusty road near the gnomes' tower.
They buried the flame-haired dwarf by moonlight in a
wooded clearing within earshot of a babbling stream.
Tasslehoff's voice broke over the strains of the Kender
Mourning Song.
Always before, the spring returned.
The bright world in its cycle spun
In air and flowers, grass and fern,
Assured and cradled by the sun.
Always before, you could explain
The turning darkness of the earth,
And how that dark embraced the rain,
And gave the ferns and flowers birth.
Already I forget those things,
And how a vein of gold survives
The mining of a thousand springs,
The seasons of a thousand lives.
Now winter is my memory,
Now autumn, now the summer light --
So every spring from now will be
Another season into night
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