I shook my head no.
'No sign o' another dwarf, maybe? Kinda whitelookin' one, real ugly?'
Again, I shook my head, but more slowly. 'Why?'
Orun looked away at the fort and mumbled something that I didn't catch.
'Sewer?' I repeated.
'No,' he said in disgust, setting his axe down to rub his hands together. 'Damn that runt. Theiwar.'
The name was familiar. It had to do with a race of dwarves, I recalled. 'Theiwar?'
'Jackals,' he said thickly. 'All of 'em are. Call 'emselves true dwarves, but no relation I ever heard of. Some of 'em throw spells, the tougher ones do. Never let a Theiwar get behind you 'less he's already dead, and then you'd still better think about it. Born for evil, all of 'em.'
A dwarf that threw spells? I'd never heard of such a thing, but I was beyond the point of disbelieving almost anything now that I was dead. 'What kind of spells?' I asked.
'Oh,' he said, 'all sorts. Some of 'em's killer-type spells. Poison-gas spell's one of 'em. Could be what did for our hob buddies in there.' He indicated the barracks. 'Don't know what all they can do.'
'You're hunting a Theiwar?'
Orun grinned self-consciously. 'Funny you ask. Am at that.' He looked up at me. 'Bounty hunter. Come from Kaolyn. You know Kaolyn? Nice place.'
Kaolyn was a respectable dwarven mountain kingdom, about eighty miles southwest of Twisting Creek. 'Why hunt a Theiwar?'
He stroked his damp beard. 'Traitor to Kaolyn. Supposed to've been spyin' on the draconians and hobs for us, chiselin' out a few when he could. Some Theiwar'll help you for the love of steel in their hands; some'll help you for the love of killin'. We put 'em to use.' He sighed. 'Gotta be done. War is war.'
'What happened?'
Orun snorted. 'Loved the killin' part too much, that one. Wanted more for 'imself. Sold out to the Blue Dragonarmy, east of here, and got to spyin' on us instead. We caught on and went after 'im. Got away with a band of hobs, and I bet these are them. Same armor, same tribal markin's.' He reached up and rubbed his eyes with his broad fingers. 'Don't know if he was the one who did for his own band, or why. Been the Dark Queen's own spawn to catch, that's for sure. Got real good with them 'lusions, changing his looks and all.' He glanced down at his spikebacked axe, lying against his leg, then picked it up and hefted it, feeling its weight. 'Sure was lookin' forward to meetin' 'im.'
'What was his name?'
'The Theiwar? Garith. No last name.'
My curiosity was aflame. Could it have been the same Garith I'd heard the hobgoblins talking about? I was on the verge of asking more when everything inside my head changed.
The sun had just set. The darkness had diminished perceptibly within the last few moments, but I knew on an even deeper level that the sun had gone. Something inside me woke up. It was like seeing and hearing after being born without eyes or ears. It was as if I knew everything now, everything that really mattered.
'Evredd?' Orun called as I left the fort. 'Evredd!' I heard him swear loudly, then hurry after me with a hardthumping gait.
I went to the edge of the cliff overlooking the place where I had been killed. There, past the bodies of the two hobgoblins, I stopped and gazed out to the southwest. Strength gathered in my limbs. My hands began to itch, and my fingers curled and uncurled uncontrollably.
All of a sudden I knew: I needed to head southwest as quickly as I could.
'Damn, you move fast for a dead boy,' huffed Orun as he stopped behind me about twenty feet back. 'You on to somethin', ain't you? I hear if you a rev'nant, you can smell your killer in the dark. You smell your boy out there?'
I turned and looked back at the dwarf. Another hand or two might be useful for what was coming.
'Follow me,' I said, and started for the trail. I kept my stride slow so that Orun could keep up, but even then he had to jog. He followed and peppered me with questions that I ignored, then swore outrageously in frustration.
Ahead of me, miles away in the falling darkness, I sensed a presence moving. It wasn't really smell, and my night-awakened senses couldn't tell me who my killer was, but I knew where he was, exactly where.
If I hurried, maybe he and I could chat.
We walked for the entire night over lightly forested plains and across shallow streams. Orun kept up the pace beside me until he puffed like a horse, his chain-mail armor jingling rapidly as he moved. 'Tired yet?' he asked once, but I never responded. The killer was ahead of us by a long distance.
'Doing okay myself,' Orun said, sometime later. 'Did this durin' the war. Marched two days once and never stopped.' His words were almost lost as his breath gave out for a moment. 'Fought an army o' hobs with my brothers right after that. Whipped 'em in one hour. Ran 'em right off into a canyon. Good day, you bet.'
I said nothing. I was straining to see what else I could detect about my killer. I let my mind be open to everything.
'Like I said, I'm from Kaolyn,' Orun went on, between his panting. 'You know Kaolyn — up in the Garnets, nice place. I tell you that? Came out to see the world and fight in the war, been here and there ever since. You been to Kaolyn? Gotta see it sometime.' I heard Orun pull free of a briar that caught his cloak. His armor clinked like a background song. 'Real pretty in the spring.'
The dwarf was silent before he asked, in a different tone, 'Smell your killer man?'
I said nothing.
'Too damn nosy, that's me,' he said with a sigh as he trotted along. 'That's what they always said back at Kaolyn. Too damn nosy. I — '
'Yes,' I told him, watching the dark fields ahead.
'Oh,' Orun said, now haughty. 'Well, now, I'm hardly as nosy as some people.'
'Yes,' I repeated, louder and more distinctly, 'I can SEE my killer.'
'Oh,' Orun grunted, then said, 'was told you smelled 'im.' We traveled in silence for hours after that.
As the horizon in the east grew brighter, something began to slip out of my head. The clarity of mind I'd felt before ebbed away, and my sense of my killer's whereabouts grew elusive, foggy.
'Gettin' tired?' Orun asked, shortly before dawn. The sky was still overcast, and no rain had fallen.
'Tired?' Orun repeated a little later. I turned and saw rivers of sweat dripping from his face and beard.
'No,' I said, not stopping. I could continue at this pace forever, but I'd noticed that my prey was slowing down. Was he tired already? He'd soon regret every pause for breath. 'You?' I asked, wondering if Orun would make it.
'Haven't died yet,' he said, then coughed and grew quiet for several minutes in embarrassment. He had eased the distance between us down to six feet during the night; he didn't increase it again. He seemed to be getting quite used to me.
The killer I was tracking continued to slow down as the cloud-hidden dawn approached. When the sun arose behind the thick morning clouds, my inner sense of the killer's location faded within moments. Some of my supernatural energy seemed to dissipate as well, but I was able to keep moving at a steady walking pace. Maybe the energy loss at dawn was part of being a revenant. Maybe I drew some of my sustenance from darkness. Since this was my first mom-ing as a dead man, perhaps my ignorance could be forgiven.
By now I knew where the killer was headed. I knew the way to Twisting Creek blindfolded, having hunted across these plains only months before. It was nearly noon when we crossed an abandoned cart road and entered a small forest, beyond which lay the ruins of a preCataclysm farmhouse. Only the stone foundation remained of the structure, and young trees lifted their branches where ground-floor rooms had once been. A brook ran through the trees nearby.
'Whoa,' Orun huffed. 'Hold there. Stop for a bit.' He slowed down, dropping behind me. 'Lemme rest.'
I stopped, though I felt a powerful urge to continue on and catch up with my killer. I raised a thin hand and waved at the forest and ruins. 'Rest,' I croaked.
Orun grunted his thanks and wandered down to some trees for privacy, then went to the stream bank and placed his polished axe with care on a fallen log. Dust covered his face and clothing, and he was streaked and
