Tanivere's army awaited the skeletal legions of the Dread Lord in the woods south of the King's Highway. Tanivere hoped to distract the legions, dragging them into a battle favorable to his woods-wise troops and delaying the Dread Lord's advance. Doft, the old man of the mountains, disappeared that night. He made a vague comment about "the under-folk" and limped into the woods. The Dread Lord was not distracted, fully. One of his hosts turned into the woods. Tanivere discovered even this portion was too much for his army, and he retreated deeper into the forest. The dead host pursued. And then a red glimmer to the west, and north, and east. Doft returned, begging Tanivere to flee southward quickly. On a rocky knoll Tanivere saw why. Fiery salamanders from under the mountain, molten red as they loosed their captured heat, slid through the trees, torching his beloved forest. And the skeletal armies, unafraid of death, found death come to their dry bones as they advanced into the inferno? |
