Jeff Crook - The Rose and the Skull

Still, Nalvarre approached warily. It was best not to appear unexpectedly from the darkness, for the forest people were wary. He might find an arrow in his throat before given a chance to explain himself. As he drew nearer, he slowed his pace. A heavily robed figure huddled beside the fire, warming his hands. "Hello in camp," Nalvarre called out. The figure looked up, but made no other move.

"May I approach?" Nalvarre asked, first in the common tongue, then in Solamnic. The figure nodded and waved, and Nalvarre stepped into the light of the fire. "Greetings," he said.

The robed stranger answered him in Solamnic, "Hail, brother of the wood. Please sit and enjoy the warmth of my fire."

Nalvarre gladly accepted the invitation, for although the forest had been stuffy, the meadow of the well was cool with the breath of autumn. As he settled himself near the fire, he caught a glimpse of the stranger's face beneath his hood.

"Laif? Laif Lorbaird?" he asked.

The stranger started, as though surprised by the sound of his name, then smiled and pushed back his hood, revealing a tangle of oil-black hair. He nodded in acknowledgment.

"I thought that was you, Laif," Nalvarre said. "By the gods, it's been a long time."

"Hasn't it, though, my friend," Laif answered. "What brings you here?"

"I was troubled by a strange feeling of uneasiness you might say, which has descended on the wood where I live," Nalvarre said. "What passes in the world?"

"Many things, many changes," Laif said in thick Solamnic. "The Knights of Solamnia and the Knights of Takhisis have joined to form one order."

"No!" Nalvarre gasped.

"It is true. Knights of Takhisis are even now garrisoning Sancrist castles long abandoned," Laif said.

Nalvarre shook his head in disbelief.

"Lord Gunthar is dead," Laif continued.

Nalvarre nodded sadly. "Well, that at least is not unexpected. He was very old. How did he die?"

"He was killed during a boar hunt," Laif said.

"A boar?" said Nalvarre in some surprise.

"He was old," Laif said. "They say the excitement probably killed him, not the boar."

"I see," Nalvarre said, unsettled by the coincidence between this news and the story of the death of Uhoh's Papa.

"What brings you here, my friend?"

Laif leaned forward as though to relate a great secret. The firelight set his dark eyes smoldering. "I hunt a great evil. It has come from the south and passed through all the woods, spreading discord and fear. Probably that is what you felt. I have tracked it this far, but I lost its trail."

"You, a ranger of the wild wood, lost the trail?" Nalvarre laughed. "I find that very hard to believe."

Laif's eyes burned all the more fiercely. "This evil is very clever," he said. "It travels in the shape of a gully dwarf and in the company of other gully dwarves. I don't suppose you have seen any of these creatures?"

Nalvarre suddenly felt very cold inside. Perhaps it was the way Laif's eyes glimmered in the firelight, like glowing coals, when he asked about the gully dwarves. Some instinct warned Nalvarre to say nothing of his guests.

"Not for many a season," he lied.

"Ah!" Laif sighed as he pulled his hood back over his head. "That is unfortunate."

"I must be going now," Nalvarre said rather suddenly.

"Are you sure you won't stay?" Laif asked pleasantly.

"Quite," Nalvarre said. "I really must go. Thank you. Good luck to you."

"Fare thee well," said Laif in formal Solamnic. He leaned back and rolled himself in his robe, as though settling in for the night.

Nalvarre hurried away without seeming to hurry. He was glad to be away from the fire and into the concealing darkness of the meadow. This meeting, which he had hoped might relieve his disquiet, only alarmed him all the more. He hurriedly crossed the meadow, glancing often over his shoulder.

Just at the edge of the meadow, as he glanced yet another time to check for dark pursuers, he tripped and fell flat on his face. He lay in the tall grass for a few moments, listening, before crawling back to pick up his staff. He found it lying across the carcass of some dead animal. Obviously, this was what he had stumbled over. He picked up his staff and prepared to leave, but at that moment the moon raised its ghastly white face above the tops of the trees, flooding the meadow with a pale glow. The white columns of the ruin stood out like cardboard cutouts illumined with faerie fire against the dark of the forest. At Nalvarre's feet lay the body of man. With a growing sense of horror, he rolled the corpse onto its back. He gasped and stepped back, then glanced in alarm at the fire. It burned merrily alone, with no one in sight. Nalvarre turned and fled into the forest.

Laif Lorbaird lay in the grass and stared with milky eyes at the wheeling stars, a dagger protruding from his heart.

The fire on the hearth had nearly burned itself out. In the dark of the night, Millisant rose from her place by the fireplace and padded softly to the open doorway. The three gully dwarves lay in a tangled knot on the floor, snoring peacefully for the moment, though earlier they'd been fighting each other over the one blanket. Something woke Millisant from her dreams, some almost unheard noise that alerted all her canine instincts. She sat in the doorway and looked out into the night, breathing the chill mountain air in clouds of steam, which hung about her like thunderheads. She looked grim and sorcerous, like the guardian of a wizard's lair. Outside, the stream bubbled and purled, sparkling like quicksilver in the pale moonlight.

Occasionally, she sniffed the air, lifted her nose high to catch the slight breeze off the mountain. She smelled the usual smells of rock and stone, water and snow, leaf and tree and root. She smelled the mouse's nest in the thatch of the roof, the rabbit skins tacked to dry on the south wall, the rock snake's den under the house, and of course, she smelled her gully dwarves.

However, there was a new smell, one that filled her with unease. It smelled like the copper pans the cooks at the castle used to catch the blood of the animals they slaughtered. It smelled like metal and blood, like slaughter, like death. She sat in the door and felt a desire to howl grow ever stronger as the moon climbed the sky. The primal needs were awakening in her. She wanted to howl to call together the wolf pack to protect her and her pups from whatever lurked out there in the forest.

It came like a shadow, slinking from the trees on the opposite bank of the stream. Millisant's hackles bristled, and she backed away from the door, into the shadows of the room. On it came, crossing the stream now. Shrouded in robes of ebony, it crept toward the house. It crouched outside the door, its head cocked to one side, and it snuffled at the air. Millisant hid in the shadows, as silent as the intruder himself, her lips pulled back from her teeth. She gathered her paws under her body, her muscles tensed like iron springs. She dug her claws into the packed earthen floor.

The intruder rose and crept to the door, stopping beneath the lintel. It gazed into the room, and seeing the gully dwarves huddled asleep on the floor, it hissed in what might have been glee. It turned, and Millisant saw its face. For a moment, all courage left her.

It wasn't a human face. From beneath its voluminous hood there protruded a long reptilian snout. Twin horns like those of a ram curled to either side of its head, while the back of its robes stirred as its wings rose. A long serpentine tail thrashed free of the robes and thudded excitedly on the ground. It took one step into the room, drawing a dagger from the folds of its robes as it entered.

With but one thought-the protection of her charges-Millisant silently launched herself at the draconian. By some sixth sense, he turned just in time to see an bear trap of yellow teeth rising to his throat. Millisant was a boar hound, a huge dog, nearly as tall as the draconian when standing on her hind legs, so when she struck, her weight lifted and carried them both through the door and outside the house. With a choking scream, the draconian beat his heelspurs upon the ground, his throat locked in Millisant's powerful jaws. In his death throes, he slashed her legs with his dagger, but she didn't let go until he grew still. She released him, and only just in time. Before his head hit the ground, his flesh turned to stone. She yelped and dashed away, her tail tucked between her legs.