Around him were the tattered remains of his army. They had trusted his judgment, and he had led them to annihilation. They had followed him blindly, and he had brought them to destruction. He was sick with the horror that was unfolding around him. But he was powerless to change it. Powerless to stop the carnage. He leaned on the lance and stared at the battlefield. Stared at the dead men lying on it and at the soldiers who still fought on it. The sun, touching the horizon, threw a blood-red glow over the plain that seemed fitting.
Pockets of fighting surrounded the obelisk, but it was clear that the Queen had the upper hand now. Around Huma were the hacked-up bodies of his own dead soldiers. Bodies missing hands and arms and feet and legs. There were bodies without heads and bodies that were little more than chopped-up trunks. Under them, the ground was covered with a thick layer of bloody mud.
The din of battle had dropped off as Huma's men died. He could hear the shouting of his knights, calling encouragement to one another as the Queen's soldiers slowly cut them to ribbons. They were brave men dying bravely in a losing cause. Brave men who wouldn't give up until they were all dead. Brave men who believed that Huma would still, somehow, lead them to victory. Brave men who believed that their loss was their own fault. They hadn't given enough of themselves to win the battle or the war. They believed their sacrifice was somehow less than worthy, so they were not destined to win.
Huma felt the frustration and rage bum through him. It was he who was the failure. If he had been smart enough or strong enough, they would have won. If they failed, it was his fault because his men gave all that they had in them. He stood upright, the pain in his shoulder and chest almost forgotten. He stared at the obelisk. An evil black tower forty feet tall, the top glowing with a golden, malevolent light. At the base, the Queen, the second most beautiful woman he had ever seen, was astride her horse, watching the destruction of Huma's army. She had taken off her helmet and held it tucked under her arm as she studied the progress of the battle. She was grinning because Huma had fallen into her trap.
He could stand the agony of losing no longer. The rage burned in him like a blazing forest because there was nothing more he could do. The battle was lost. The war was lost. And his men had all died in vain. In desperation he jerked the dragonlance free of the ground and aimed it at the tower in a final gesture of defiance. No longer could he beat the Queen. She had drawn him into the battle so that she could destroy his army. She had won the battle, and with the battle… the war.
With the strength that remained in him, Huma hurled the lance at the tower. The motion dropped him to his knees, shooting pain through his body. When he looked up, he saw that the lance had buried itself in the obsidian of the obelisk above the Queen's head. The lance, forged over the fires of dwarves, forged with the Hammer of Kharas by dwarves, was more than an ordinary weapon. It had a strength of its own. Designed to kill dragons, it held an internal power that was now directed against the obelisk. A power that could destroy the largest of monsters. A power that was stronger than that of the Dark Queen.
Huma grinned then and saw that the glow had faded from the top of the obelisk. There was a rumbling in the ground, as if the tower were trying to shake the lance from its side like an animal chewing at an arrow in its flank. Cracks, bathed in a cold, blue light appeared, radiating outward from the point where the lance was buried in the obsidian surface. There was a roaring, like a gale through trees, as the cracks expanded up and down the side of the obelisk from the top to the bottom.
The Queen turned, saw the damage, and knew what it meant. She knew that the source of her sudden power, of her impossible victory, was being destroyed. She screamed, "Nol no! It's too late!"
But even as she shouted, the cracks widened and chunks of the obsidian broke loose, falling in slow motion. A rumbling, like all the thunder ever heard, washed over the soldiers of both armies, as bigger pieces of the tower fell; the top of the obelisk collapsed inward with a demonic roar.
Huma, unsure of what he had done, struggled to his feet. He was lightheaded, dizzy. He was sick to his stomach and thought that he would pass out. The wound he had suffered pained him greatly, and he felt his blood pumping from his body and dripping down his side. But he ignored the sensation, watching as the obelisk seemed to die before him.
The Queen kicked at the flanks of her horse. It leaped from the base of the structure, but then she turned. She waved her arms, shouting, her words lost in the rumbling, thundering destruction of the ominous black tower. Lightning flashed from it, lancing upward into the clouds that were boiling angrily above them.
A glowing ball of red appeared in front of her, trailing sparks. It flashed upward toward the dragonlance and exploded around it. For a moment, she believed that she had destroyed the dragonlance and that her power would return. But, when the glow had faded, the lance was still there, embedded in the obelisk like an arrow through the heart of a warrior. An arrow through the heart of her power.
The Queen turned her horse again and rode to the foot of the giant black tower. She tried to seize the dragonlance, but her fingers fell far short. Carefully, she slipped her feet under her so that she could stand on the horse's back, but even then she could not reach the lance. Shaking with frustration and rage, she leaped. For a moment, her fingers curled around the shaft of the lance. Suddenly, she screamed in pain and fell to the trembling ground.
As she fell, her horse bolted from her, fleeing from the field, trampling the bodies of the dead. The Queen got to her feet, holding her hands in front of her as if they had been badly burned. She turned and stared into the deepening of the night, her hatred stabbing out toward Huma like a beacon at the edge of the ocean. She stepped back so that she was leaning against the smooth surface of the obelisk, trying to draw power from it.
Wind now swirled around the obelisk as the internal rumbling of it built until the ground vibrated. For a moment, nothing happened, and it seemed that the tower had healed itself. Some of the cracks started to disappear and the icy blue light that wrapped the structure began to fade.
Strangely, abruptly, the rumbling started again, and the cracks reappeared and widened. The obelisk seemed to shrink in on itself and tremble as if fighting with itself. Then suddenly, it exploded, blowing apart in a blinding flash of blue-white light.
The force of the concussion knocked Huma, and those with him, from their feet. Tiny bits of obsidian rained down on them, kicking up dust on the distant hills like the first drops of rain after a summer drought. Stunned by all he had seen, Huma lay staring at the clearing sky as the clouds overhead melted away until he was staring into the deepening of the heavens, studded with thousands of stars.
The Dark Queen, like the obsidian obelisk, was gone. There were bits of the tower scattered all over the plain, but nothing was left of the Queen. She had been banished when the obelisk had exploded in fire and light.
With the silver-haired woman's help, Huma sat up. Before him was a smoking crater where the obelisk had been. Around it were the bodies of his men killed by the Queen's army, but her soldiers, living and dead, were all gone, washed away in the flash of light and smoke and fire that had destroyed the obelisk and the Dark Queen's evil power.
Slowly, those of Huma's men who still lived got to their feet. They were a tired, bloodstained and mud-splattered lot who stared at the crater. One or two of them started forward 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.