Again, I shook my head, but more slowly. “Why?”
Orun looked away at the fort and mumbled something
that I didn’t catch.
“Sewer?” I repeated.
“No,” he said in disgust, setting his axe down to rub
his hands together. “Damn that runt. Theiwar.”
The name was familiar. It had to do with a race of
dwarves, I recalled. “Theiwar?”
“Jackals,” he said thickly. “All of ’em are. Call ’emselves
true dwarves, but no relation I ever heard of. Some of ’em
throw spells, the tougher ones do. Never let a Theiwar get
behind you ‘less he’s already dead, and then you’d still
better think about it. Born for evil, all of ’em.”
A dwarf that threw spells? I’d never heard of such a
thing, but I was beyond the point of disbelieving almost
anything now that I was dead. “What kind of spells?” I
asked.
“Oh,” he said, “all sorts. Some of ’em’s killer-type
spells. Poison-gas spell’s one of ’em. Could be what did for
our hob buddies in there.” He indicated the barracks.
“Don’t know what all they can do.”
“You’re hunting a Theiwar?”
Orun grinned self-consciously. “Funny you ask. Am
at that.” He looked up at me. “Bounty hunter. Come from
Kaolyn. You know Kaolyn? Nice place.”
Kaolyn was a respectable dwarven mountain
kingdom, about eighty miles southwest of Twisting Creek.
“Why hunt a Theiwar?”
He stroked his damp beard. “Traitor to Kaolyn.
Supposed to’ve been spyin’ on the draconians and hobs for
us, chiselin’ out a few when he could. Some Theiwar’ll
help you for the love of steel in their hands; some’ll help
you for the love of killin’. We put ’em to use.” He sighed.
“Gotta be done. War is war.”
“What happened?”
Orun snorted. “Loved the killin’ part too much, that
one. Wanted more for ‘imself. Sold out to the Blue
Dragonarmy, east of here, and got to spyin’ on us instead.
We caught on and went after ‘im. Got away with a band of
hobs, and I bet these are them. Same armor, same tribal
markin’s.” He reached up and rubbed his eyes with his
broad fingers. “Don’t know if he was the one who did for
his own band, or why. Been the Dark Queen’s own spawn
to catch, that’s for sure. Got real good with them ‘lusions,
changing his looks and all.” He glanced down at his spike-
backed axe, lying against his leg, then picked it up and
hefted it, feeling its weight. “Sure was lookin’ forward to
meetin’ ‘im.”
“What was his name?”
“The Theiwar? Garith. No last name.”
My curiosity was aflame. Could it have been the same
Garith I’d heard the hobgoblins talking about? I was on the
verge of asking more when everything inside my head
changed.
The sun had just set. The darkness had diminished
perceptibly within the last few moments, but I knew on an
even deeper level that the sun had gone. Something inside
me woke up. It was like seeing and hearing after being
born without eyes or ears. It was as if I knew everything
now, everything that really mattered.
“Evredd?” Orun called as I left the fort. “Evredd!” I
heard him swear loudly, then hurry after me with a hard-
thumping gait.
I went to the edge of the cliff overlooking the place
where I had been killed. There, past the bodies of the two
hobgoblins, I stopped and gazed out to the southwest.
Strength gathered in my limbs. My hands began to itch,
and my fingers curled and uncurled uncontrollably.
All of a sudden I knew: I needed to head southwest as
quickly as I could.
“Damn, you move fast for a dead boy,” huffed Orun
as he stopped behind me about twenty feet back. “You on
to somethin’, ain’t you? I hear if you a rev’nant, you can
smell your killer in the dark. You smell your boy out
there?”
I turned and looked back at the dwarf. Another hand
or two might be useful for what was coming.
“Follow me,” I said, and started for the trail. I kept my
stride slow so that Orun could keep up, but even then he
had to jog. He followed and peppered me with questions