*****
It was midafternoon when she saw the ravens circling
lazily against the azure sky not far in the distance. Matya
knew well what the dark birds portended: Death ahead.
“Keep those ears up, Rabbit,” she told the donkey as the
wagon jounced down the heavily rutted road. “There’s
danger on the road these days.”
Matya watched warily as the serene, rolling hills
slipped by. Autumn had touched the land with its frosty
hand, coloring the plains of southern Solamnia in a hundred
shades of russet and gold. The honey-colored sunlight was
warm and drowsy, but Matya resisted the temptation to
doze, as she might have done otherwise. The land was
beautiful, but beauty could conceal danger. She remained
wide awake and alert.
The wagon crested a low rise. Below her, the road split,
and it was here the ravens circled. The highway continued
on to the north, and a second road led east, toward the dim
purple range of mountains marching on the horizon.
Scattered about the dusty crossroads were several queer,
twisted objects. A raven dived down and pecked at one of
the objects before flapping again into the air, and only then
did Matya realize what the strange things were: corpses,
lying still in the dirt of the road.
She counted five of them as Rabbit – eyeing the dead
nervously – pulled the wagon to the crossroads. Matya
climbed down and knelt to examine one of the bodies, an
older man’s, dressed in neat but threadbare attire. A crudely
made arrow with black fletching protruded from its throat.
“Goblins,” Matya said in disgust. She had heard rumors
that the verminous creatures were creeping down from the
high places of the mountains of late to waylay travelers. By
her guess, these had been pilgrims, making for Caergoth, to
the south, to visit the temples of the new gods there.
“They found their gods sooner than they thought,” Matya
muttered. She spoke a brief prayer to speed the dead on
their journey, then began rummaging about the bodies,
seeing if any of them carried something that might be worth
trading. After all, the dead had no use for objects of value.
Matya, on the other hand, did.
After several minutes, however, she gave up in disgust.
Like most pilgrims, these owned little more than the clothes
on their backs. She would not have scorned even these, but
they were threadbare and stained with blood. All she had
got for her trouble was a single copper coin, and a bent one
at that.
“There’s nothing for us here,” Matya told Rabbit as she
climbed back into the wagon. “Let’s be on our way. Men
riding out from Garnet will find these folk soon enough and
lay them to rest – hopefully dead with the goblins.”
Rabbit let out a low bray and started into a trot, anxious
to be away from the crossroads and the smell of blood.
Matya guided the donkey down the east road, but after a
hundred paces or so she pulled hard on the reins, bringing
the wagon again to a halt.
“Now what on the face of Krynn is that?” Matya asked
herself. Something glinted brightly among the nettles and
witchgrass to the side of the road. She started to ignore it,
flick the reins, and continue on – the hour was growing late –
but curiosity got the better of her. She slid from the wagon’s
bench, pushed through the weeds, and headed toward the
glimmer she had seen. The nettles scratched at her ankles,
but in a moment Matya forgot the sting.
“Why, ’tis a knight 1” she gasped aloud, staring at the
man who lay, unmoving, in the weeds at her feet.
The man was clad in armor of beaten steel, but his
visage was more that of a shiftless vagabond than a noble
knight. His eyes were deeply set, his features thin and
careworn, and the mouse-brown moustache that drooped
over his mouth was coarse and scraggly.
Whether he was, in truth, a knight or a looter in stolen
armor, it didn’t much matter now, Matya thought. His hair
was matted with blood, and his skin was ashen with the
pallor of death. She said the familiar words to appease the