Only the bearer of the staff could do him harm, and he would make swift work of that one, once he surfaced. A newly endowed bearer of magic was no match for someone like him, a practiced wielder, a skilled user, and a creature comfortable with death.

He watched the darkness slowly fade, watched dawn’s light surface from behind the mountains east, watched the shadows draw back and begin, one by one, to vanish. The new day had arrived, and it held the promise of something wonderful.

Then suddenly he saw the solitary figure moving across the foothills west, slowly taking shape as it emerged from the gloom. A man carrying a black staff. He could hardly believe his good fortune.

Anticipation coursing through him, he watched the man draw closer.

PANTERRA SMELLED THE DEAD long before he saw them; the breeze wafting down out of the mountains carried the stench to where he trudged through the early-morning light. The slopes ahead were crumpled and riven by gullies and ravines, and the shadows hid the bodies until he was no more than a hundred yards off. He was struck at once by their numbers. Hundreds littered the landscape—perhaps thousands—twisted and layered in death, intertwined in a complicated weaving of limbs and bodies. He couldn’t tell who they were and couldn’t begin to guess what had brought them there, so close to the mouth of the pass at Declan Reach that they almost certainly must have come from within the valley. Refugees, perhaps, fleeing some horror that had taken place in his absence.

Or was this something else?

As he got closer, he realized that the dead were both human and Troll, and that in all likelihood, they had killed one another. Some were still locked in death grips, weapons in hand, arms clasped about each other. The Trolls were armored and the humans were not, but there were so many more of the latter that he knew what they had lacked in arms and armor they had made up for in numbers. The struggle had been bitter and quarter had not been given. The dead included women and children, as well as men; it included young and old. Apparently, the Trolls had been waiting for this exodus and had fallen on the travelers as they started downslope from the pass entrance.

He ventured closer and peered down at the faces. Two he recognized right away. They were from Glensk Wood. The man had been a carpenter, the woman his wife. They had lived not far from him when he was growing up. He glanced about in disbelief and found more familiar faces. They were all from his village.