Dragonlance Tales, Vol. 3 – Love and War

ready to let it end appropriately. If this were but one more

death in an endless series, what did it matter whether he

died well or badly?

But he heard them coming and struggled wearily to his

feet. “I have,” he gasped, “an appointment. With a friend,

and with – others. I will fail no one this time.”

The sun was no more than a blood-red sliver in the

brush when he lurched across the trail and into the small

glade. He looked around dazedly, though he knew the place

well. Even where there were no trees, there seemed to be

shadows, and the grass itself seemed tainted with death.

The stag nodded. “Here.” His voice was rasping, half

choked.

As the draconians arrived in the clearing, he half-fell off

the trail and sank down on the grass a few lengths away.

A draconian saw him and called, “Captain.”

The lead draconian shouted in triumph and leaped off

the trail. The others followed.

The draconian cried, “Pride of kill belongs to Captain

Zerkaz.”

The stag reared up. “Pride, it seems, is universal,

Captain. So is kill.”

He punched forward with a hoof. Zerkaz had time to

screech with pain before his heart ruptured and his body

turned to stone. It wavered once, but remained standing.

While the soldiers gaped, the stag charged another,

head lowered.

He had forgotten that he had but a single horn, not

antlers. As he pierced the draconian, the dying soldier

brought his sword down as hard as he could at close

quarters. The horn cracked all the way into the stag’s skull.

He staggered back with closed eyes, barely noticing as

the second soldier turned to stone. A third, sword out, was

facing him, but the others had closed behind him and stood

almost touching each other, staring into the field. Their

blades wavered, almost trembled.

Around them, dead human warriors, Darken Wood’s

best guard, were rising, at last ready to fulfill an old

promise. Beside them stood King Peris in full battle gear a

thousand years old.

The king’s armor was white silver over steel, decorated

in rubies, for the blood of enemies, and emeralds and

sapphires, for an archer’s clear eyes. It was, as the stag had

often noted, largely ornamental. Perhaps that was why the

king and his body of men had once failed to guard against a

real menace.

The soldiers of the dead king writhed up from the grass,

unbraiding from it as though their bodies were

recomposing. Swords in hand and no shields, they fell into

a battle line; their empty eyes showed no mercy, no hatred,

and no hope.

The stag cried in what voice it had, “Forward!” It

leaped awkwardly and took a sword full in the chest as it

punched a third draconian. As the sword withdrew, the stag

made no sound at all.

Peris the King leaped over the falling animal. “I, not you,

lead my men, beast. Forward!” The troops of the dead

advanced, and the draconian ranks, weakened already,

wavered.

The battle was like some deadly mime. The dead’s

weapons made no noise – yet their attackers fell, bleeding

green liquid and turning stony in anguished poses. Blows

against the dead passed through – yet many dead spiraled

back into the carrion-tainted earth, and their lightless eyes

glowed with an odd relief as they sank.

Forces were in disorder, yet few commands were

needed; the dead fought as they had for so long, and the

draconians fought for their lives. Except for a few cries of

anger and pain from the draconians, the only other sound

was the slow fall of stone bodies as, one by one, the

draconians fell to earth clutching unseen wounds and half-

twisting scaley faces in agony. Starlight flickered off real

and ghostly weapons; bodies twisted or toppled into grassy

shadows and were bodies no longer.

To an onlooker it might have seemed some strange

dance without music. It was a war with little sound and no

corpses, a battle for nightmares.

Through it all walked the king, his sword flashing right

and left at arm’s length. By himself, in the brief fight, he

accounted for three draconians, and his heart seemed to beat

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