robed men behind them, scattering some and killing others.
He’d chopped them down so that they could never use their
powers for evil again. As the magic-users ran, or died, the
illusions they had created vanished.
His army had stopped running then, turning to look at
the empty plain. A few men, killed by their own fear or
trampled under the feet of their friends, lay dead. Huma and
a beautiful woman with silver hair stood alone, the Queen
and her army having escaped the onslaught because of the
illusions.
– Now Huma sat behind his army, watching them
pressing the Queen’s men, killing them in large numbers.
Hacking them to pieces. Pushing the enemy back toward the
obsidian obelisk and the Queen.
There came a crack of thunder. Clouds began boiling
overhead, coalescing from the clear blue. Crimson clouds
that turned brown and black before shooting into yellows
and oranges. Lightning flashed as the thunder boomed.
Splinters of it struck the top of the obelisk so that it began to
glow an iridescent yellow. Sparks flew from the top of it as
the wind picked up, swirling down around the shaft of the
obelisk, whipping at the clothing, the robes, and the
pennants of the Queen’s army. The booming grew until it
sounded like the dirge of a giant base drum. A crashing
sound that rocked the ground, sending vibrations through it.
Suddenly, a formation of soldiers appeared at the base
of the obelisk. Each was dressed in glowing black armor
matching that worn by the Dark Queen, and each soldier
carried a silver broadsword as he fanned outward. Ignoring
the coming storm, they hacked their way into Huma’s army,
killing his troops quickly, forcing them back to retreat.
Around them, the Queen’s soldiers who had been killed
earlier seemed to come to life again. Dead men trailing
blood, missing limbs, stood, raised their weapons high, and
attacked again. Gory horrors on their feet, shrieking with
inhuman voices, waving their weapons over their heads.
Attacking. Chopping. Killing.
With a cry of rage, of despair, Hu a lowered his
dragonlance and the silver beast under him leaped forward.
With a roar of anger, the knights joined him, urging their
horses onward. The line of men, nearly a hundred yards
long, swept past their own soldiers to strike the
reinforcements issuing from the obelisk and the ground
around it.
Now in the thick of the battle, surrounded by his own
men, Huma leaped to the ground. He jammed the base of
the dragonlance into the dirt, determined that he would not
retreat beyond that point. He drew his sword, the blade held
upright in front of him, flashing in the bright sunlight as it
peeked through the seething clouds over the battlefield; he
waited as the black soldiers of the Queen advanced on him.
Beside him, the silver dragon vanished in a shimmering
of light. The woman stood on his right, in the place of honor
in the battleline. She shook her head, the waves of her silver
hair flipping across her shoulders as she drew her own
weapon. She lifted it skyward, stepped forward with her
right foot, and then she, too, waited for the enemy. There
was a smile on her lips as if she knew something that eluded
the others.
Huma felt a sudden surge of love for the woman. She had
stood beside him in everything – through the bad times
when it seemed that the enemy would win momentarily, and
through the good, when it seemed he would win easily. She
had been there on the dark nights, holding him when he
blamed himself for bringing sorrow to hundreds of families.
To thousands of families. And she had been there to share
in the celebration when the battles went well and the Dark
Queen was driven from the field of battle after suffering
heavy losses.
He wanted to say all that to her because he felt that time
for them was short. The Dark Queen had too much left, had
too many soldiers and too much power, and he had too
little. In one horrible moment he knew that he would never
be able to tell this silver-haired woman anything again.