Dragons of the Fallen Sun

Chapter Twenty-Four Sleep, Love; Forever Sleep

Over a week had passed since Mina had received her orders to march on Silvanesti. During that time, Silvanoshei had been crowned king of the Silvanesti kingdom that slumbered beneath its protective shield, unaware of doom marching nearer.

Galdar had spent three days racing to Khur to deliver Mina’s orders to General Dogah. He had spent another three days traveling south from Khur, eager to meet up with Mina and her troops, following the route she’d shown him on her map. Finding them was easy. He could see signs of their passing all along the way-wheel ruts, footprints, abandoned equipment. If he could find the army this easily, so could the ogres.

Galdar marched with bowed head, slogging through the mud, rain running into his eyes, dripping from his muzzle. The rain had been falling for two days straight now, ever since Galdar’s return, with no letup in sight. Not a soft drizzly summer shower, either, but a lancing, wind-driven rain that chilled the spirit and cast a gloom over the soul.

The men were wet through, cold, and miserable. The trail was slick with mud that was either so slippery no man could stand on it or was so sticky that it nearly sucked the men’s boots off their feet. The heavily laden supply wagons were mired in the mud at least thrice daily, requiring the men to put poles beneath the wheels and heave them out. Galdar’s strength was called upon during these mishaps. The minotaur’s back and shoulders ached with the strain, for he often had to lift the wagon to free the wheel.

The soldiers began to actively hate the rain, to view it as the enemy, never mind ogres. The rain beating on the soldiers’ helms sounded like someone constantly drumming on a tin pot, or so one grumbled. Captain Samuval and his archers worried that the feathers with which the arrows were fletched were so wet and bedraggled that the arrows would not fly accurately.

Mina required the men to be up and marching with the dawn, always supposing there was a dawn, which there hadn’t been for the last few days. They marched until the twilight grew so gloomy that the officers feared the wagon masters would drive off the road in the darkness. The wood was too wet for even the most experienced fire-builder to have any success. Their food tasted of mud. They slept in the mud, with mud for a pillow and rain for a blanket. The next morning they were up and marching again. Marching to glory with Mina. So all firmly believed. So all knew.

According to the mystics, the soldiers would have no chance to penetrate the magical shield. They would be caught between the anvil of the shield to their front and the hammer of the ogres to their back. They would perish ignominiously. The soldiers scoffed at the mystics. Mina could raise the shield, Mina could batter it down with a touch of her hand. They believed in her, and so they followed her. Not a man deserted during that long and arduous march.

They did complain—complained bitterly—about the mud and the rain and the poor food and the lack of sleep. Their grumblings grew louder. Mina could not help but hear them. “What I want to know is this,” one man said loudly, his voice sounding above the squelching of boots in the mud. “If the God we follow wants us to win, then why doesn’t the Nameless One send us sunshine and a dry road?”

Galdar marched in his accustomed place at Mina’s side. He glanced up at her. She had heard the grumblings before now and had ignored them. But this was the first man who had dared question her god.

Mina reined in her horse, wheeled the animal. She galloped back along the column, searching for the man who had spoken.

None of his comrades pointed him out, but Mina found him. She fixed the man with her amber eyes.

“Sub commander Paregin, is it not?” she said.

“Yes, Mina,” he replied, defiant.

“You took an arrow in the chest. You were dying. I restored you to life,” Mina said. She was angry. The men had never seen her angry. Galdar shivered, recalled suddenly the appalling storm of lightning and thunder that had given her birth.

Paregin’s face went red with shame. He mumbled a reply, lowered his gaze before her.

“Listen to me, Subcommander,” Mina said and her voice was cold and sharp. “If we marched in dry weather under the blazing sun, it would not be rain drops that pierce your armor but ogre lances. The gray gloom is a curtain that hides us from the sight of our enemy. The rain washes away all trace of our passing. Do not question the God’s wisdom, Pare gin, especially since it seems you have little of your own.”

Paregin’s face was pale. “Forgive me, Mina,” he said through pallid lips. “I meant no disrespect. I honor the God. I honor you.”

He looked at her in adoration. “Would that I had a chance to prove it!”

Mina’s expression softened. Her amber eyes glowed, the only color in the gray gloom. “You will have that chance, Paregin,” she said gently, “I promise it to you.”

Wheeling her horse, she galloped back to the head of the column, mud flying from the horse’s hooves.

The men lowered their heads against the rain and prepared to march on.

“Mina!” a voice cried from the rear. A figure was slipping and sliding, hastening toward the front of the line.

Mina halted her steed, turned to see what was amiss. “One of the rearguard,” Galdar reported.

“Mina!” The man arrived panting and out of breath. “Blue dragons!” he gasped. “From the north.” He looked back, frowned. “I swear, Mina! I saw them. . . .”

“There!” Galdar said, pointing.

Blue dragons, five of them, emerged from the clouds, their scales glistening with the rain. The ragged column of men slowed and shuffled to a stop, all staring in alarm.

The dragons were immense creatures, beautiful, awful. The rain gleamed on scales that were blue as the ice of a frozen lake beneath a clear winter sky. They rode the storm winds without fear, their immense wings barely moving to keep the dragons aloft. They had no fear of the jagged lightning, for their breath was lightning, could blast a stone tower to rubble or kill a man as he stood on the ground far below.

Mina said nothing, gave no orders. She calmed her horse, who shied at the sight of the dragons, and gazed up at them in silence.

The blue dragons flew nearer, and now Galdar could see riders clad in black armor. One by one, in formation, each of the blue dragons swooped low over the ragged column of marching men.

The dragonriders and their mounts took a good long look, then the blue dragons flapped their wings and lifted back up among the gray clouds.

The dragons were lost to sight, but their presence could still be felt, oppressing the heart, sapping courage.

“What’s going on?” Captain Samuval slogged through the mud. At the sight of the dragons, his archers had drawn their bows, fitted their arrows. “What was that all about?”

“Targonne’s spies,” Galdar growled. “By now he must know that you countermanded his order and sent General Dogah on order of your own, Mina. That’s treason. He’ll have you drawn and quartered, your head on a spike.”

“Then why didn’t he attack us?” Captain Samuval demanded, with a grim glance skyward. “His dragons could have incinerated us where we stood.”

“Yes, but what would that gain him?” Mina answered. “He does not profit by killing us. He does profit if we succeed. He is a shortsighted, avaricious, grasping, covetous man. A man like Targonne has never been loyal to anyone in his life, cannot believe anyone else can be loyal. A man who believes in nothing except the clink of steel coins mounting one on top of the other cannot understand another’s faith. Judging all people by himself, he cannot understand what is happening here, and consequently he does not know how to deal with it. I will give him what he wants. Our victory will earn him the wealth of the Silvanesti nation and Malystryx’s favor.”

“Are you so certain we will win, Mina?” Galdar asked. “It’s not that I’m doubting,” he added hastily. “But five hundred against the entire Silvanesti nation? And we have yet to march through ogre lands.”

“Of course, we will win, Galdar,” Mina replied. “The One God has decreed it.”

Child of battle, child of war, child of death, she rode forward, and the men followed after her through the steadily falling rain.

Mina’s army marched southward, following the Thon-Thalas River. The rain finally stopped. The sun returned, its heat welcome to the soldiers, though they had to pay for warmth and dry clothes by redoubling their patrols. They were deep in ogre lands now.

The ogres were now threatened from the south by the cursed elves and the Legion of Steel and from the north by their former allies. Finding they could not dislodge the Knights of Neraka from the north, the ogres had lately pulled their armies from that front and sent them south, concentrating their attacks against the Legion of Steel, believing that they were the weaker foe and would thus more readily fall.

Mina sent out scouting parties daily. Long-range scouts returned to report that a large army of ogres was gathering around the fortress of the Legion of Steel near the border of Silvanesti.

The Legion of Steel and an army of elves, believed to be under the leadership of the dark elf Alhana Starbreeze, were inside the fort preparing to stave off the ogre attack. The battle had not yet begun. The ogres were waiting for something—more manpower, perhaps, or favorable omens.

Mina heard the scouts’ reports in the morning, prior to setting out on the day’s march. The men were packing their gear, complaining as usual but in better spirits since the rain had quit. The blue dragons that dogged them kept their distance. Occasionally someone would catch sight of dark wings and the flash of sunlight off blue scales, but the dragons did not fly closer. The men ate their meager breakfast, waited for the orders to move out.

“You bring good news, gentlemen,” Mina said to the scouts,

“but we must not relax our vigilance. How close are we to the shield, Galdar?”

“The scouts report that we are within two days’ march, Mina,” he said.

Her amber eyes gazed past him, past the army, past the trees and the river, past the sky itself or so it seemed to him. “We are called, Galdar. I feel a great urgency. We must be at the border of Silvanesti by tonight.”

Galdar gaped. He was loyal to his commander. He would have laid down his life for her and considered his death a privilege. Her strategies were unorthodox, but’ they had proven effective. But there were some things not even she could do. Or her god.

“We can’t, Mina,” Galdar said flatly. “The men have been marching ten hours a day already. They’re exhausted. Besides, the supply wagons can’t move that fast. Look at them.” He waved his hand. Acting under the direction of the quartermaster, his men were digging out one of the wagons, which had sunk in the mud during the night. “They won’t be ready to set out for another hour, at least. What you ask is impossible, Mina.”

“Nothing is impossible to the One God, Galdar,” said Mina.

“We will camp beside the shield this night. You will see. I—What is that noise?”

A frantic horn call split the air, coming from behind them.

The long line of troops stretched along the road that ran over a hill, around a bend, down a valley, and over another hill. The men stood up, hearing the horn call, and looked back down the ranks. Those digging out the wagon ceased their work. \

A single scout, riding hard, crested the hill. The troops scrambled to move off the road, out of his way. It seemed he shouted a question as he rode, for many of the men pointed to the front. Putting his head down, he dug his spurs into his horse’s flanks and urged his steed forward.

Mina stepped out into the road to wait for him. The scout, reaching her, pulled up so hard on his horse that the animal reared on its hind legs.

“Mina!” The scout was breathless. “Ogres! In the hills behind us! Coming fast!”

“How many?” she asked.

“It’s hard to tell. They’re spread out allover the place, not in column or in any sort of order. But there’s a lot of them. One hundred. Maybe more. Coming down out of the hills.”

“A raiding party, most likely.” Galdar grunted. “Probably heard about the big battle in the south and they’re off to claim their fair share of the loot.”

“They’ll come together quick enough when they pick up our trail,” Captain Samuval predicted. “They’ll do that the moment they strike the river.”

“They’ve done that now, seemingly,” Galdar said.

Grinding shouts of rage and glee bounded like boulders among the hills. The raucous blasts of ram horns split the air. A few ogres had spotted them and were calling their fellows to battle.

The scout’s report spread with the swiftness of wildfire along the line of Mina’s troops. The soldiers scrambled to their feet, weariness and fatigue vanishing like dry leaves in the flames.

Ogres are terrible enemies. Hulking, fierce, and savage, an ogre army, led by ogre mages, operates with a good notion of strategy and tactics. An ogre raiding party does not.

Ogre raiding parties have no leaders. Outcasts from their own brutal society, these ogres are extremely dangerous, will prey even upon their own kind. They do not bother with formations but will attack whenever the enemy is in sight, trusting to their strength, brute force, and ferocity to overwhelm the foe.

Ogres are fearless in battle and, due to thick and hairy hides, are difficult to kill. Pain maddens them, goads them to greater ferocity. Ogre raiders have no word for “mercy,” they scorn the word “surrender,” either with regard to themselves or an opponent. Ogre raiders take only a few prisoners, and these are saved to provide the evening’s entertainment.

A disciplined, heavily armed, and well-organized army can turn back an ogre assault. Leaderless ogres are led easily into traps and completely vanquished by clever stratagems. They are not good archers, having no patience for the practice required to develop skill with bow and arrow. They wield enormous swords and battle-axes that they use to hack the enemy to pieces, or throw spears, which their strong arms can hurl long distances with deadly effect.

Hearing the ogres’ fierce yells and the sound of their horns, Mina’s officers began shouting orders. Her Knights turned their horses, ready to gallop back to face the foe. The wagon masters plied the whip, the draft horses snorted and strained.

“Pull those wagons forward!” Galdar bellowed out commands. “Footmen, form a line across the trail, anchor on the river. Captain Samuval, your men take positions behind—”

“No,” said Mina and though she did not raise her voice, her single word sounded like a clarion and brought all action to a halt. The clamor and uproar fell silent. The men turned to look at her. “We are not going to fight the ogres. We’re going to flee them.”

“The ogres will chase after us, Mina,” Samuval protested.

“We’ll never be able to outrun them. We have to stand and fight!”

“Wagon masters,” Mina called, ignoring him, “cut free the horses!”

“But Mina!” Galdar added his own protest “we can’t leave the supplies!”

“The wagons slow us down,” Mina replied. “Instead, we will allow the wagons to slow down the ogres.”

Galdar stared. At first he didn’t comprehend, and then he saw her plan.

“It just might work,” he said, mulling over her strategy in his mind.

“It will work,” said Samuval jubilantly. “We’ll toss the wagons to the ogres like you toss food to a ravening wolf pack at your heels. An ogre raiding party will not be able to resist such a prize.”

“Footmen, form a double line, march column. Prepare to move out. You will run,” Mina told the men, “but not in a panic. You will run until you have no more strength left to run and then you will run faster.”

“Perhaps the dragons will come to our aid,” said Samuval, glancing skyward. “If they’re even still up there.”

“They’re up there,” Galdar growled, “but they won’t come to our rescue. If we’re wiped out at the hands of ogres, Targonne will be spared the expense of executing us.”

“We’re not going to be wiped out” Mina said crisply. “Pass the word for Subcommander Paregin!”

“I am here, Mina!” The officer pushed his way forward through his men, who were hurriedly falling into position.

“Paregin, you are loyal to me?”

“Yes, Mina,” he said firmly.

“You asked for a chance to prove that loyalty.”

“Yes, Mina, I did,” he said again, but this time his voice faltered.

“I saved your life,” Mina said. The shouts and yells of the ogres were coming closer. The men glanced uneasily behind them. “That life is therefore mine.”

“Yes, Mina,” he replied.

“Subcommander Paregin, you and your men will remain here to defend the wagons. You will hold off the ogres as long as possible, thereby giving the rest of us the time we need to escape.”

Paregin swallowed. “Yes, Mina,” he said, but he said the words without a voice.

“I will pray for you, Paregin,” Mina said softly. She extended her hand to him. “And for all those who stay behind. The One God blesses you and accepts your sacrifice. Take your positions.”

Grasping her hand, Paregin reverently pressed her hand to his lips. He looked exalted, uplifted. When he returned to the lines, he spoke to his troops in excited tones as if she had conferred upon them a great reward. Galdar watched closely to see that Paregin’s men obeyed him and did not try to skulk off in the face of orders that were essentially a death warrant. The men obeyed, some looking dazed, others grim, but all determined and resolved. They ranged themselves around the supply wagons that were filled with barrels of beef and ale, sacks of flour the smith’s equipment, swords, shields and armor, tents and rope.

“The ogres will think it is Yule come early,” Samuval remarked.

Galdar nodded, but made no comment. He remembered back to Beckard’s Cut, remembered Mina ordering him to pack extra supplies. A shiver ran along his spine, caused his fur to rise. Had she known all along? Had she been given knowledge that this would come to pass? Had she foreseen it all? Were their ends determined? Had she marked Paregin for death the day she saved his life? Galdar felt a moment’s panic. He wanted suddenly to cut and run, just to prove to himself that he could. Prove that he was still the master of his own fate, that he was not trapped like a bug in her amber eyes.

“We will reach Silvanesti by nightfall” said Mina.

Galdar looked up at her, fear and awe constricting his heart.

“Give the order to move out Galdar. I will set the pace.”

She dismounted and handed the reins to one of her Knights.

Taking her place at the front of the line, she raised her voice, and it was sweet and cold as the silver moonlight. “On to Silvanesti! On to victory!”

She began to march double-time, her strides long, starting out at swift but easy pace until her muscles warmed to the exercise.

The men, hearing the ogres rampaging in the rear, needed no urging to keep up with her.

Galdar could escape into the hills. He could volunteer to remain with the doomed rear guard. He could follow her for as long as he lived. He fell into step beside her and was rewarded with her smile.

“For Mina,” Subcommander Paregin shouted. He stood beside the loaded wagon, listening to the ogres raise their battle cry.

Gripping his sword, he waited for death.

Now that the troops no longer had the wagons to slow them, Mina’s army made excellent time, especially with the howls and hoots of the ogres to spur them on. Each man could hear the sounds of the battle behind him, each man imagined what was happening, could tell the progress of the battle by the noise.

Ogre shouts of rage, human death cries. Wild yelps of glee—the ogres discovered the wagons. Silence. The ogres were looting the wagons and hacking apart the bodies of those they had slaughtered.

The men ran as Mina had told them they would run. They ran until they were exhausted, and then she urged them to run faster.

Those who fell were left behind. Mina permitted no one to assist them and this gave the men additional incentive for keeping their aching legs moving. Whenever a soldier thought he could no longer go on, he had only to look to the front of the line, to see the slender, fragile-looking girl, wearing plate and chain mail, leading the march, never flagging, never pausing to rest, never looking behind to see if anyone was following. Her gallant courage, her indomitable spirit, her faith was the standard that led her men on.

Mina permitted the soldiers only a brief rest, standing, to drink sparingly of water. She would not let them sit or lie down for fear their muscles would stiffen so that they would not be able to move. Those who collapsed were left where they fell, to straggle along behind when and if they recovered.

The sun’s shadows grew longer. The men continued to run, officers setting the grueling pace with songs at first. Then no one had any breath left except for breathing. Yet with every step, they drew closer to their destination—the shield that protected the border of Silvanesti.

Galdar saw in growing alarm that Mina’s own strength was flagging. She stumbled several times and then, at last, she fell.

Galdar leaped to her side.

“No,” she gasped and shoved away his hand. She regained her feet, staggered forward several more steps and fell again.

“Mina,” said Galdar, “your horse, Foxfire, is here, ready and able to carry you. There is no shame in riding.”

“My soldiers run,” she told Galdar faintly. “I will run with them. I will not ask them to do what I cannot!”

She tried to rise. Her legs would not support her. Her face grim, she began to crawl on her hands and knees along the trail.

Some of the soldiers cheered, but many others wept.

Galdar lifted her in his arms. She protested, she ordered him to set her back on her feet.

“If I do, you will only fall again. You will be the one to slow us down, Mina,” Galdar said. “The men would never leave you. We will never make the Silvanesti border by nightfall. The choice is yours.”

“Very well,” she said, after a moment’s bitter struggle against her own weakness. “I will ride.”

He helped her onto Foxfire. She slumped over the saddle, so tired that he feared for a moment she could not even remain in the saddle. Then she set her jaw, straightened her back, sat upright.

Mina looked down, her amber eyes cool.

“Do not ever defy my orders again, Galdar,” she said. “You can serve the One God just as well dead as alive.”

“Yes, Mina,” he answered quietly.

Gripping the reins in her hands, she urged the horse forward at a gallop.

Mina’s prediction proved correct. Her army reached the forested lands outside the Shield before sundown.

“Our march ends here for the night,” Mina said and climbed down from her exhausted horse.

“What ails this place?” Galdar asked, eyeing the dead and dying trees, the decaying plants, the corpses of animals found lying along the trail. “Is it cursed?”

“In a way, yes. We are near the shield,” Mina said, looking intently at everything around her. “The devastation you see is the mark of its passing.”

“The shield brings death?” Galdar asked, alarmed.

“To all it touches,” she replied.

“ And we must break through it?”

“We cannot break through it.” Mina was calm. “No weapon can penetrate it. No force—not even the magical force of the most powerful dragon—can shatter it. The elves under the leadership of their witch-queen have hurled themselves against it for months and it remains unyielding. The Legion of Steel has sent its knights to batter it to no effect.

“There.” Mina pointed. “The shield lies directly before us. You can see it, Galdar. The shield and beyond the shield, Silvanesti and victory.”

Galdar squinted against the glare. The water caught the setting sun’s lurid red glow, turning the Thon-Thalas into a river of blood. He could see nothing at first, and then the trees in front of him rippled, as if they were reflected in the blood-tinged water.

He rubbed his eyes, thinking fatigue was causing them to blur.

He blinked and stared and saw the trees ripple again, and he realized then that what he was seeing was a distortion of the air created by the magic of the shield.

He drew closer, fascinated. Now that he knew where to look, he fancied he could see the shield itself. It was transparent,but its transparency had an oily quality to it, like a soap bubble. Everything inside it—trees and boulders, brush and grasses—looked wobbly and insubstantial.

Just like the elf army, he thought, and immediately took this as a good omen. But they still had to pass through the shield.

The officers brought the troops to a halt. Many of the men pitched forward face-first on the ground as soon as the order to cease march was given. Some lay sobbing for breath or sobbing from the pain of muscle spasms in their legs. Some lay quiet and still, as if the deadly curse that had touched the trees around them had claimed them as well.

“All in all,” Galdar growled in an undertone to Captain Samuval, who stood gasping for breath beside him, “Given a choice between walking into that shield and facing ogres, I think I’d take the ogres. At least then you know what you’re up against.”

“You said a true word there, friend,” Captain Samuval agreed when he had recaptured some of his breath and had enough left over to use for speech. “This place has an uncanny feel to it.”

He nodded his head in the direction of the shimmering air.

“Whatever we’re going to do, we’d best be doing it soon. We may have slowed the ogres down a bit but they’ll catch up with us fast enough.”

“By morning, I’d say,” Galdar agreed, slumping to the ground. He lay on his back. He had never been so tired in all his life. “I know ogre raiding parties. Looting the wagons and butchering our men will occupy them for a while, but they’ll be looking for more sport and more loot. They’re on our trail right now. I’ll bet money on it.”

“And us too goddamn worn out to go anywhere, even if we had anywhere to go,” Captain Samuval said, dropping wearily down alongside him. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t have energy enough to lift my hand to brush away a gnat much less attack some blamed magical shield.”

He cast a sidelong glance at Mina, who alone of all her army remained on her feet. She stood staring intently at the shield, or at least in the direction of the shield, for night was closing upon them fast, and its distortion could no longer be easily detected.

“I think this ends it, my friend,” Captain Samuval said in a low voice to the minotaur. “We cannot get inside the magic of the shield. The ogres will catch us here in the morning. Ogres at our rear. The shield to our front; Us caught between. All that mad dash for naught.”

Galdar didn’t reply. He had not lost faith, though he was too tired to argue. Mina had a plan. She would not lead them into a blind alley to be caught and slaughtered by ogres. He didn’t know what her plan might be, but he had seen enough of her and enough of the power of her God that he now believed her capable of doing the impossible.

Mina shoved her way through the gray and lifeless trees, walked toward the shield. Dead limbs fell around her. Dead, dry leaves crackled beneath her boots. Dust like ashes sifted down upon her shoulders and covered her shaved head with a pearl gray mantle. She walked until she could go no farther. She came up against an invisible wall.

Mina reached out her hand, pushed at the shield, and it seemed to Galdar that the insubstantial oily soap bubble must give way.

She drew back her hand swiftly, as if she had touched a thistle and been stung. Galdar thought he saw a tiny ripple in the shield, but that might have been his imagination. Drawing her morning star, Mina struck it against the shield. The morning star fell from her hand, jarred out of her grasp by the blow. Shrugging, she bent down to pick up her weapon. Reports confirmed, she turned and made her way back through the forest of death to her command.

“What are your orders, Mina?” Galdar asked.

She looked around her army that lay scattered over the gray ground like so many corpses.

“The men have done well,” she said. “They are exhausted. We will make camp here. This is close enough, I think,” she added, looking back at the shield. “Yes, this should be close enough.”

Galdar didn’t ask, “Close enough for what?” He didn’t have the energy. He staggered to his feet. “I’ll go set the watch—”

“No,” Mina countered. She laid her hand on his shoulder. “We will not set a watch this night. Everyone will sleep.”

“Not set a watch!” Galdar protested. “But, Mina, the ogres are in pursuit—”

“They will be on us by morning,” she said. “The men should eat if they are hungry and then they must sleep.”

Eat what? Galdar wondered. Their food was now filling the bellies of the ogres. Those who had started out on that mad run carrying packs had long ago dropped them by the side of the road. He knew better than to question her.

Assembling the officers, he relayed Mina’s orders. To Galdar’s surprise, there was little protest or argument. The men were too tired. They didn’t care anymore. As one soldier said, setting a watch wouldn’t do much good anyhow. They’d all wake soon enough when the ogres arrived. Wake up in time to die.

Galdar’s stomach rumbled, but he was too tired to go searching for food. He would not eat anything from this accursed forest, that much was certain. He wondered if the magic that had sucked the life from the trees would do the same for them in the night.

He pictured the ogres arriving tomorrow morning to find nothing but desiccated husks. The thought brought a smile to his lips.

The night was dark as death. Tangled in the black branches of the skeleton trees, the stars looked small and meager. Galdar was too stupid with fatigue to remember if the moon would rise this night or not. He hoped it wouldn’t. The less he saw of this ghastly forest, the better. He stumbled over limp bodies as he walked. A few groaned, and a few cursed him, and that was the only way he knew they were alive.

He returned to the place he had left Mina, but she was not there. He could not find her in the darkness, and his heart spasmed with a nameless fear, the fear a child feels on finding himself lost and alone in the night. He dare not call. The silence was a temple silence, had an awful quality he did not want to disturb. But he had to find her.

“Mina!” he hissed in a penetrating whisper.

“Here, Galdar,” she replied.

He circled around a stand of dead trees, found her cradled in a severed arm that had fallen from an enormous oak. Her face glimmered pale, more luminous than the moonlight and he wondered that he could have missed her.

He made his report. “Four hundred and fifty men, Mina,” he said. He staggered as he spoke.

“Sit down,” she ordered.

“Thirty left behind with the wagons. Twenty more fallen on the road. Some of those may catch up, if the ogres don’t find them first.”

She nodded silently. Galdar eased himself to the ground. His muscles ached. He would be sore and stiff tomorrow, and he wouldn’t be the only one.

“Everyone’s bedded down.” He gave a cavernous yawn.

“You should sleep, too, Galdar.”

“What about you?”

“I am wakeful. I will sit up for awhile. Not long. Don’t worry about me.”

He settled himself at her feet, his head pillowed on a pile of dead leaves that crackled every time he moved. During that hellish run, all he had been able to think about had been the blessed night when he would be able to lie down, to rest, to sleep. He stretched his limbs, closed his eyes, and saw the trail at his feet.

The trail went on and on into forever. He ran and ran, and forever moved farther away from him. The trail undulated, twisted, wrapped around his legs like a snake. Tripped him, sent him plunging head first into a river of blood.

Galdar woke with a hoarse cry and a start.

“What is it?” Mina was still seated on the log. She hadn’t moved.

“That damned run!” Galdar swore. “I see the road in my dreams! I can’t sleep. It’s no use.”

He wasn’t the only one. All around him came the sounds of breathing—heavy, panting—restless shifting, groans and coughs and whispers of fear, loss, despair. Mina listened, shook her head, and sighed.

“Lie down, Galdar,” she said. “Lie down and I will sing you a lullaby. Then you will sleep.”

“Mina...” Embarrassed for her, Galdar cleared his throat. “There is no need for that. I’m not a child.”

“You are a child, Galdar,” she said softly. “We are all children. Children of the One God. Lie down. Close your eyes.”

Galdar did as he was told. He lay down and closed his eyes, and the road was ahead of him, and he was running, running for his life...

Mina began to sing. Her voice was low, untrained, raw and yet there was a sweetness and a clarity that struck through to the soul.

Galdar felt a lethargy steal over him, a languor similar to that experienced by those who bleed to death. His limbs grew heavy, his body was dead weight, so heavy that he was sinking into the ground. Sinking into the soft dirt and the ash of the dead plants and the leaves that drifted down upon him, settling over him like a blanket of dirt thrown into his grave.

He was at peace. He knew no fear. Consciousness drained away from him.

Gamashinoch, the dwarves called it. The Song of Death.

Targonne’s dragon riders were up with the gray dawn, flying low over the forests of the ogre land of Blade. They had watched from the heavens yesterday, watched the small army run before the ogre raiding party. The soldiers had fled before the ogres in near panic, so far as the dragon riders could see, abandoning their supply wagons, leaving them for the ogres. One of the riders noted grimly that Targonne would not be pleased to hear that several hundred steel worth of equipment was now adorning ogre bodies.

The ragtag army had run blindly, although they had managed to keep in formation. But their mad dash to safety had taken them nowhere. The army had run headlong into the magical shield surrounding Silvanesti. The army had come to a halt here at sundown. They were spent, they could go no farther, even if there had been any place for them to go, which there wasn’t.

Looting the wagons had occupied the ogre raiding party for a couple of hours, but when there was nothing more to eat and they had stolen all there was to steal, the ogres moved south, following the trail of the humans, following their hated scent that drove them to fury and battle madness.

The dragon riders could have dealt with the ogres. The blues would have made short work of the raiding party. But the riders had their orders. They were to keep watch on this rebellious Knight and her army of fanatics. The dragon riders were not to interfere. Targonne could not be blamed if ogres destroyed the Silvanesti invasion force. He had told Malys many times that the ogres should be driven out of Blade, exterminated like the kender. Maybe next time she would listen to him.

“There they are, “said one of the riders, as his dragon circled low. “In the Dead Land. The same place where we left them last night. They haven’t moved. Maybe they’re dead themselves. They look it.”

“If not, they soon will be,” said his commander.

The ogres were a black mass, moving like sludge along the road that ran alongside what the Knight had termed the Dead Land, the gray zone of death that marked the edge of the shield, the border of Silvanesti.

The dragon riders watched with interest, looking forward with anticipation to the battle that would finally bring an end to this tiresome duty and allow them to return to their barracks in Khur.

The Knights settled themselves comfortably to watch.

“Do you see that?” said one suddenly, sitting forward.

“Circle lower,” the commander ordered.

The dragons flew lower, wings making a gentle sweep, catching the pre-dawn breeze. The riders stared down at the astonishing sight below.

“I think, gentlemen,” said the commander, after a moment spent watching in gaping wonder, “that we should fly to Jelek and report this to Targonne ourselves. Otherwise, we might not be believed.”

A horn blast woke Galdar, brought him to his feet before he was fully conscious, fumbling for his sword.

“Ogres attacking! Fall in, men! Fall in!” Captain Samuval was shouting himself hoarse, kicking at the men of his company to rouse them from their slumbers.

“Mina!” Galdar searched for her, determined to protect her, or, if he could not do that, to kill her so that she should not fall alive into ogre hands. “Mina!”

He found her in the same place he had left her. Mina sat in the curl of the dead oak’s arm. Her weapon, the morning star, lay across her lap.

“Mina,” said Galdar, plunging through the gray ash and trampling the dead leaves, “hurry! There may yet be a chance for you to escape—”

Mina looked at him and began to laugh.

He stared, appalled. He had never heard her laugh. The laughter was sweet and merry, the laughter of a girl running to meet a lover. Mina climbed upon the stump of a dead tree.

“Put your weapons away, men!” she called out. “The ogres cannot touch us.”

“She has gone mad!” Samuval said.

“No,” said Galdar, staring, unbelieving. “Look.”

Ogres had formed a battle line not ten feet away from them.

The ogres danced along this line. They clamored, roared, gnashed their teeth, gibbered, and cursed. They were so close that their foul stench made his nostrils twitch. The ogres jumped up and down, kicked and hammered with their fists, wielded their weapons in murderous rage.

Murderous, frustrated rage. The enemy was in clear sight, yet he might as well have been playing among the stars in some distant part of the universe. The trees that stood between Galdar and the ogres shimmered in the half-light, rippled as Mina’s laughter rippled through the gray dawn. The ogres beat their heads against a shield, an invisible shield, a magical shield. They could not pass.

Galdar watched the ogres, watched to make certain that they could not reach him or his comrades. It seemed impossible to him that they could not enter through this strange and unseen barrier, but at last he had to admit that what his mind at first disbelieved was true. Many of the ogres fell back away from the barrier, alarmed and frightened of the magic. A few seemed to have simply grown weary of beating their heads against nothing but air. One by the one, the ogres turned their hairy backs upon the human army that they could see, but could not reach. Their clamor began to die down. With threats and rude gestures, the ogres straggled off, disappeared into the forest.

“We are inside the shield, men!” Mina called out in triumph.

“You stand safe within the borders of the Silvanesti! Witness the might and power of the One True God!”

The men stood staring, unable at first to comprehend the miracle that had befallen them. They blinked and gaped, reminding Galdar of prisoners who have been locked in dark cells for most of their lives, suddenly released to walk in the bright sunshine. A few exclaimed, but they did so softly, as if fearful to break the spell. Some rubbed their eyes, some doubted their own sanity, but there was the unmistakable sight of ogre backsides—ogres in retreat—to tell the soldiers that they were in their right minds, that they were not seeing things. One by one, the men fell to their knees before Mina and pressed their faces into the gray ash. They did not chant her name in triumph, not this time. This moment was too holy, too sacred. They paid Mina homage in silent awe and reverence.

“On your feet, men!” Mina shouted. “Take up your arms. This day we march to Silvanost. And there is no force in the world that can stop us!”