Rennard nodded, satisfied. He turned away from the mortals to face the shadows who waited for him, across a stream. Fog began to envelop him, and he knew that his brief journey to Krynn soon would be only a memory.
Had it all been coincidence? Or did the gods, who had left Krynn, still have ways of watching over those who interested them?
The hunters waited, even when the sounds of mortal beings faded away in the fog. Rennard tensed. Around him, the fog gathered thicker.
"Why do you wait?" he shouted. "Why now?" They made no answer. Even their whispers were preferable to the silence, he realized.
The sound of sword striking shield came from behind him. Rennard turned and stepped into the stream. Water splashed. His boot struck the surface and sank in. Rennard stared at the water. He dropped his sword and fell to his knees. Fearfully, the ghostly knight reached down.
Small ripples spread out from his fingers. The tips of his fingers touched the stream. Rennard thrust his hands into the water. He cupped his hands together.
His own words came back to him.What must I do to earn even a sip of water?
Rennard brought the liquid to his parched lips and drank. For the first time since his death, the eternal fever that burned within him cooled.
Rennard lowered his hands into the stream again. Another sip. He needed another sip.
This time, however, all was as it had been. The stream flowed through his fingers as if they were not there… which they were not.
The shadows moved. He had been granted his drink of water. Now, it was time to return to the Abyss.
Krynn faded completely then. The stream disappeared before his eyes. In its place lay the familiar plain of death.
Rennard grabbed his sword and began to back away from the oncoming knights. Oddly, he did not feel as afraid as before, even knowing that this flight, like so many others, would end with his downfall.
Another question came to his mind, one that he often had asked before without hope.
"I earned the sip of water. Will I earn my rest as well?"
The shadows closed in. Rennard thought he heard the distant strains of a song.
SONG OF HUMA
Sularus Humah durvey The Honor of Huma survives
Karamnes Humah durvey The Glory of Huma survives
Draco! Dragons, hear!
Solamnis na fai tarus Solamnic breath is taken
Mithas! Life; hear!
Est paxum kudak draco My sword is broken of Dragons
Draco-Human Dragon-Huma oparu sac temper me now
Draco-Humah Dragon-Huma coni parl ai fam Grant me grace and love
Saat mas Solamnis When the heart of the Knighthood vegri nough wavers in doubt
Coni est Lor Tarikan Grant me this, Warrior Lord
Sularus Humah Honor is Huma
Karram Humah Glory is Huma
Solamnis Humah durvey Solamnic Knight Huma survives
Karamnes Humah durvey Glorified Huma survives
Mithas! Life; hear!
Humah dix karai! Huma's death calls me!
Ex dix! His death!
Oparu est dix! Temper me with such death!
Solamnis Lor Alan Paladine! Paladine, lord god of knights!
Humah mithas est mithasah! Huma's life is all our lives!
Draco-Humah durvey! Dragon-Huma survives!
OGRE UNAWARE
Through most of a day — from when the sun was high overhead until now, when the sun was gone behind the dagger-spire peaks of the Khalkist Mountains and night birds heralded the first stars glimpsed above — through those hours and those miles he had trailed the puny ones, thinking they might lead him to others of their kind. Now they had stopped. Now they were settling in on the slope below him, stopping for the night, and his patience was at an end.
Crouching low, blending his huge silhouette with the brush of the darkening hillside, he heard their voices drifting up to him — thin, human voices as frail as the bodies from which they issued, as fragile as the bones within those bodies, which he could crush with a squeeze of his hand. He heard the strike of flint, smelled the wispy smoke of their tinder, and saw the first flickers of the fire they were building — a fire to guard them against the night.
His chuckle was a rumble of contempt, deep within his huge chest. It was a campfire to heat their meager foods and to protect them from whatever might be out there, watching. Humans! His chuckle became a deep, rumbling growl. Like all of the lesser races, the small, frail races, they put their trust in a handful of fire and thought they were safe.
Safe from me? His wide mouth spread in a sneering grin, exposing teeth like sharpened chisels. Contempt burned deep within his eyes. Safe? No human was safe from Krog. Krog knew how to deal with humans — and with anyone else who ventured into his territory. He found them, tracked them down, and killed them. Sometimes they carried something he could use, sometimes not, but it was always a pleasure to see their torment as he crushed and mangled them, a joy to hear their screams.
There were a dozen or more in the party below him. Four were armed males, the rest a motley, ragged group bound together by lengths of rope tied around their necks. Slaves, Krog knew. The remnants of some human village ransacked by slavers. There were many such groups roaming the countryside in these days — slavers and their prey. Small groups like this, usually, though sometimes the groups came together in large camps, to trade and to export their prizes to distant markets. Those, the big groups, he enjoyed most, but now he was tired of waiting.
He studied them; his cunning eyes counted their shadows in the dusk below. The slaves were grouped just beyond the little fire, but it was their captors he watched most closely, marking exactly where each of the armed ones settled around their fire. Experience had taught him to deal first with the armed ones. He carried the scars of sword and axe cuts, from times when armed humans had managed a slash or two before he finished them. The cuts had been annoying. Better, he had learned, to deal with the weaponbearers quickly. Then he could finish off the others in any way that amused him.
For a long time now, ever since the beginning of the strangenesses that some called omens, humans and other small races had been wandering into the territory that Krog considered his — the eastern slopes of the Khalkist Mountains. Chaotic times had fallen upon the plains beyond, and the people of those plains were in turmoil. Krog knew little of that, cared less. Every day, humans and others were drifting westward toward the Khalkists, some fleeing, some in pursuit… and they all were sport for Krog.
Below him on the slope, the humans' campfire blazed brightly, and the humans gathered around it. He watched, and repressed the urge to rush down at them, to hear their first screams of terror. Let them have a minute or two to stare into their precious fire. Let them night-blind themselves so they would not see him until he was among them. It would make his attack easier, with less likelihood of any of them fleeing into the darkness.
Stare into the light, he thought, licking wide, scarred lips with keen anticipation of the pleasures to come. Stare into the fire, and…
He raised his head; his grin faded. He stared into another fire, a fire that sprang from a glowing coal in the overhead sky and grew until it seemed to fill half the sky. Searing light far brighter than firelight, brighter than the light of day, billowed out and out until the entire eastern sky was ablaze with it. Sudden winds howled high above, shrieks and bellows of anguish as though the very world were screaming. The radiance aloft grew and intensified, instant by instant, a blinding blaze of sky in which something huge, something enormous and hideous, coalesced, spinning and shrieking, and plunged downward to meet the eastern horizon in a blinding blast of fury.