village. Even after the Cataclysm, when everyone else
turned from the gods in scorn and hatred, Gylar’s mother
continued her evening prayers with increasing earnestness.
What did she, of all people, do to deserve such punishment?
What did any of them do to deserve it? Was everyone on
Krynn going to die, then? Was that it?
Gylar was young, but he wasn’t stupid. He’d heard his
parents talking about all the other awful things now
happening to people who’d survived the tremors and floods.
Didn’t the gods care about mortals anymore?
Caught up in a slam of emotions, Gylar turned and ran
from the house. He ran to the edge of the new bog and
yelled up at the sky in his rage.
“Why? If you hate us so much, why’d you even make us
in the first place?”
Gylar collapsed to his knees with a sob. Why? It was
the only thing he could really think of to ask. It all hinged
on that. Why the Cataclysm? How could humans have been
evil enough to deserve this? How could anyone?
For a long moment he just slumped there, as though
some unseen chain were dragging at his neck, joining the
one already pulling at his heart. Gylar sniffled a little and
ran his forearm quickly across his nose.
Stumbling to his feet, he looked at the sky again.
Clouds were rolling in to obscure the sun, threatening a
storm. Gylar sighed. Although he had nowhere else to go,
he didn’t want to stay in this place of death. His eyes swept
over Mount Phineous. The towering mountain still looked
over-poweringly out of place, like a sentinel sent by the
gods to watch over the low, hilly country. The top fourth of
it was swept by clouds. Another result of the Cataclysm, the
mountain seemed a counterpart of the new swamp. Brutal
and imposing, powerful, the towering rock was the opposite
of the silent, sneaky swamp of death.
His fatigue overcame his sadness and revulsion, at least
for the moment. Slowly, he made his way back to the house,
back to the dead house. Stopping in the doorway, Gylar
turned around to look at the land that was growing cold with
winter. It was likely going to snow today.
He turned and slammed the door shut behind him. It
didn’t matter. Nothing much mattered anymore. His limbs
dragged at him heavily. Sleep, he thought, that’s all. Sleep,
then, when I wake up – if I wake up – I’ll figure out what to
do.
So, for the first time in three days, Gylar slept.
*****
Eyes focused on his prey, Marakion stilled his
breathing, though a haze of white drifted slowly from his
mouth. The scruffy man before him leaned heavily against
the tree, huffing frosty air as he tried to recover from the
run. Although exhausted, the man never once turned his
fearful eyes from Marakion.
“A merry chase, my friend,” Marakion said in a voice
that was anything but merry. “Tell me what I wish to know.
This will end.”
The man stared in disbelief. Marakion was barely winded.
The man gulped another breath and answered frantically, “I
told you! I never heard of no ‘Knight-killer Marauders!'”
Marakion hovered over the thief, his eyes black and
impenetrable, his lip twitching, barely holding his rage in
check. The bare blade of his sword glimmered dully.
“Knightsbane Marauders,” he rumbled in a low voice. The
scruffy man quivered under the smoldering anger. “You are
a brigand, just like them. You must know of them. Tell me
where they are.”
“I told you!” The thief cringed against the tree. “I don’t
know!”
In brutal silence, Marakion let loose his pent up rage.
One instant his sword, Glint, was at his side, and the next,
the flat of it smashed into the man’s neck. The thief was so
surprised by the attack that he barely had time to blink. The
strike sent him reeling. Two more clubbing strokes dropped
him to the frosty earth, unconscious.
“Then you live,” Marakion said, breathing a bit harder.
Leaning down, he searched the body thoroughly for the
insignia that gave his life burning purpose.
There was none to be found.