slowly, as if they didn’t believe what they had seen, as if
they couldn’t believe that the tower had destroyed itself
trying to free itself from the dragonlance.
Huma found that he could no longer move. His hands
and feet were cold, as if he had spent the day on a winter
outing. Breathing hurt him; his lungs ached as he held his
breath, inhaling only when the pain became too much for
him.
The woman cradled his head in her arms, her eyes
heavy with tears.
“We have won,” he told her, the joy in his voice
unmistakable.
“Yes,” she agreed, her voice hushed. “In the end, it was
you who saved the day.” She tried to smile and failed. “You
saved the day just as your men knew you would.”
He tried to nod but found the motion made him sick,
made his head swim. His eyesight was failing, and he was
no longer sure what was going on around him. He tried to
smile and asked, “What happened?”
“It was the dragonlance,” she said, blinking rapidly. She
looked upward, away from his pale face and added, “It cut
to the heart of her power and destroyed it. Destroyed it and
her army at once.”
“I didn’t know,” said Huma.
“No way you could,” she told him.
“My men? How are my men?”
She looked at the field around her. The womenfolk had
lighted fires on the surrounding hills. Many of them,
looking for husbands, brothers, and sons, slipped among the
dead, searching.
“Your men are fine,” she lied to him. “Most have
survived.” Most had died, killed before the obelisk had been
destroyed, but she couldn’t tell him that.
Almost as if the words soothed him, he relaxed. “That’s
good,” he told her. “Very good. Now that it’s over, I can go
to sleep. I’m so tired.”
She wanted to scream at him. Wanted to order him not
to give in to death so easily now, but knew it would do no
good. In the fading light, she could see that he looked
peaceful. At ease for the first time since she’d known him,
now that the war was over and the Dark Queen finally
beaten.
She felt him shudder once and realized that he was
gone. Gently, she laid him down and then walked to the
edge of the crater to retrieve the dragonlance. She wanted it
to mark his grave. For a long time she stood looking at him,
silently remembering their sacrifice.
They could have had a few fleeting years together as
husband and wife, but the cost to the world would have
been too great. They had agreed to forego their pleasure so
that others could find happiness.
As the tears filled her eyes again, she realized that they
had been cheated. She had expected them to have more time
together, but that had been cruelly snatched from them.
Without thinking about it, she began to shimmer and
glow.
When the remainder of Huma’s army finally found him,
he lay at the feet of a silver dragon. The beast had stood
over him, guarding his body until he could be properly
buried.
From the Yearning For War and the War’s Ending
Michael Williams
ONE
In Hospital, Palanthas
April, 353
Athelard to his brother Bayard, greetings,
I hear in a letter from our mother that you, too, have
chosen the path of a father you do not remember, of the
older brother who sends you this. That you have chosen, if
indeed it was ever a choice, to take up the calling, to enter,
as Mother has written, THE ANCIENT AND HOLY
SOLAMNIC ORDERS, NOW THAT THE SIEGE HAS
BEEN LIFTED, THE ARMIES OF THE ENEMY DRIVEN
BACK ONCE AGAIN FROM OUR LAND AND FROM
THOSE THINGS WE ARE HONOR BOUND TO DEFEND
BY THE MEASURE AND THE CODE.
As always, Mother’s words are graceful, high-sounding. I
hear them as I sit by a window that must face west, for I can
feel the warmth on my face most deeply when the loudest
bird song is passing, when the first crickets of what must be
early spring begin that scrape and rattle that brings night to