hand, the butt resting on his thigh. He saw the commanders of his army, the captains of the pikemen, the bowmen, and the knights, watching him, waiting for his orders. He saw the Dark Queen and her army and knew that the wait was over.
Huma leaned forward, his mouth near an ear of the silver dragon, and said, 'It's time.'
The massive head of the dragon nodded once, and a tear dropped from its left eye.
Huma raised his lance high over his head, then lowered it with a snap of his wrist. At his command, there was shouting in his lines and the bowmen drew the strings of their weapons back. As one, they let their arrows fly, a black cloud of death that arced at the Queen's waiting men, slamming into their ranks. As the second volley was fired, the pikemen began a slow advance on the enemy, their shields held in front of them, the tips of their pikes pointed at the Queen's soldiers.
A shout seemed to rise from one-hundred-thousand throats, a roar that came from both armies. The Dark Queen, a beautiful woman dressed in black armor and mounted on a black horse, waved her men forward. They came on, running across the no-man's land of dried, dead grass, raising a cloud of dust that obscured them and the obsidian obelisk behind them.
Like the sound of the sea smashing onto a beach, the two armies collided. There was the ringing of metal against metal and a grunting of effort as the men of both sides fought with one another. Huma's men momentarily retreated under the heavy onslaught of the Dark Queen's men, but their line finally stabilized.
From his position on the hillside, Huma, astride the silver dragon, could watch the fight. His men waded into the conflict, their swords swinging, chopping at the enemy. Men fell, wounded, screaming in pain and fright. Others dropped, dead before they hit the ground. A few broke and ran, but no one paid attention to them. Even as far from the battle as he was, Huma could see the blood beginning to flow. Puddles of it under the bodies. Streams of it began to form rivers. The dust, churning under the feet of the men, was suddenly wet with blood.
Huma's men forced those of the Queen to retreat. As their line collapsed and her men died, fresh soldiers forced their way into the front ranks. Some, armed with maces, tried to crush the skulls of the attackers. Others, using spears and pikes, thrust into Huma's forces, killing and wounding.
The sight of the battle was almost too much for Huma to bear. It had turned into the bloodiest, goriest affair he'd ever been witness to, as the men killed and were killed. Huma tore his eyes away, unable to stand the sight, but he could still hear the sound of it. He could hear the grunts and cries of the fighting men. Hear the ringing of the metal of their weapons as they slammed into each other. Hear the screams of agony of the wounded and the shrieks of pain from the dying. He realized that there was no glory in war. There was only the bloody and cruel deaths of brave fighting men.
Huma had not been cut out to be a leader. He hated sitting safely on the hillside, watching the battle while his men fought and died on the plain below him. But, from his position, he could see all of it, could see how the Queen was deploying her army and could counter it with his. He could spot his weaknesses and strengthen them, and he could spot hers to exploit them. Flanking him were the knights, the flower of his army, waiting for their orders to attack.
It should have been a quick, easy victory. The Queen had little left in the way of an army. Huma had pursued her all summer, gaining strength as she lost it. He had pushed her, he thought, across the dried plains until her back was against the ominous obsidian obelisk. She lost men in every skirmish. More men than Huma.
And with each loss, her supporters deserted her. Sometimes, using her magic, or that of the black-robed magic-users, she created illusions to frighten Huma's men. Once, believing they were being attacked by a race of tall, raven-haired female warriors who didn't know fear, Huma's men had turned and fled, leaving him alone astride his silver dragon.
Huma had ridden forward, head bowed like a man in a high wind, the dragonlance held point down. He had ridden into the hordes of women, ridden unharmed through the illusion of their arrows and the illusion of their swords. Hehad ignored all that, attacking into the ranks of the black robed men behind them, scattering some and killing others. He'd chopped them down so that they could never use their powers for evil again. As the magic-users ran, or died, the illusions they had created vanished.
His army had stopped running then, turning to look at the empty plain. A few men, killed by their own fear or trampled under the feet of their friends, lay dead. Huma and a beautiful woman with silver hair stood alone, the Queen and her army having escaped the onslaught because of the illusions.
Now Huma sat behind his army, watching them
pressing the Queen's men, killing them in large numbers. Hacking them to pieces. Pushing the enemy back toward the obsidian obelisk and the Queen.
There came a crack of thunder. Clouds began boiling overhead, coalescing from the clear blue. Crimson clouds that turned brown and black before shooting into yellows and oranges. Lightning flashed as the thunder boomed. Splinters of it struck the top of the obelisk so that it began to glow an iridescent yellow. Sparks flew from the top of it as the wind picked up, swirling down around the shaft of the obelisk, whipping at the clothing, the robes, and the pennants of the Queen's army. The booming grew until it sounded like the dirge of a giant base drum. A crashing sound that rocked the ground, sending vibrations through it.
Suddenly, a formation of soldiers appeared at the base of the obelisk. Each was dressed in glowing black armor matching that worn by the Dark Queen, and each soldier carried a silver broadsword as he fanned outward. Ignoring the coming storm, they hacked their way into Huma's army, killing his troops quickly, forcing them back to retreat.
Around them, the Queen's soldiers who had been killed earlier seemed to come to life again. Dead men trailing blood, missing limbs, stood, raised their weapons high, and attacked again. Gory horrors on their feet, shrieking with inhuman voices, waving their weapons over their heads. Attacking. Chopping. Killing.
With a cry of rage, of despair, Hu a lowered his dragonlance and the silver beast under him leaped forward. With a roar of anger, the knights joined him, urging their horses onward. The line of men, nearly a hundred yards long, swept past their own soldiers to strike the reinforcements issuing from the obelisk and the ground around it.
Now in the thick of the battle, surrounded by his own men, Huma leaped to the ground. He jammed the base of the dragonlance into the dirt, determined that he would not retreat beyond that point. He drew his sword, the blade held upright in front of him, flashing in the bright sunlight as it peeked through the seething clouds over the battlefield; he waited as the black soldiers of the Queen advanced on him.
Beside him, the silver dragon vanished in a shimmering of light. The woman stood on his right, in the place of honor in the battleline. She shook her head, the waves of her silver hair flipping across her shoulders as she drew her own weapon. She lifted it skyward, stepped forward with her right foot, and then she, too, waited for the enemy. There was a smile on her lips as if she knew something that eluded the others.
Huma felt a sudden surge of love for the woman. She had stood beside him in everything — through the bad times when it seemed that the enemy would win momentarily, and through the good, when it seemed he would win easily. She had been there on the dark nights, holding him when he blamed himself for bringing sorrow to hundreds of families. To thousands of families. And she had been there to share in the celebration when the battles went well and the Dark Queen was driven from the field of battle after suffering heavy losses.
He wanted to say all that to her because he felt that time for them was short. The Dark Queen had too much left, had too many soldiers and too much power, and he had too little. In one horrible moment he knew that he would never be able to tell this silver-haired woman anything again.
For a moment, no one moved. The battle had slowed and stopped during the aerial display. Both sides regrouped. Now, without a command from their Queen, the black soldiers advanced, slowly at first, their weapons thrust out before them, forming a deadly steel wall. Huma, forcing the thoughts of his love from his mind, grinned at them in defiance, and his army spread out all around him, waiting.
One man leaped forward, landing directly in front of Huma. The man swung his sword in a wide arc, trying to lop Huma's head from his shoulders. Huma countered by shifting his weight and his sword, blocking the blow. As he did, he twisted his weapon down, forcing the point of the enemy's blade to the ground. When it hit the dirt, Huma stomped on it, shattering the blade like glass. He then swung upward, his weapon knifing through his enemy's breastplate easily, slicing into the soft flesh beneath it with the sound of ripping silk.
The man dropped his sword and grabbed at his stomach, shrieking with pain as he tried to keep his entrails from spilling to the bloody ground. He fell to his knees, his eyes on Huma as he pawed at his intestines, futilely trying to stuff them back into the gaping wound. Then his eyes rolled up into his head and he collapsed on the
