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