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island of silence within the teeming mass of activity. No fires were lit close to it. No creatures approached
from the light. Blackness pooled about it like a lake, leaving it solitary and marked as inviolate.
Risca s face hardened. The trouble begins and ends with the monster who occupies that tent, he was
thinking. The Warlock Lord is the head of the beast that threatens us all. Cut off the head, and the beast
dies.
Kill the Warlock Lord, and the danger ends.
Kill the Warlock Lord...
It was a wild, reckless, impulsive thought, and he did not allow himself to pursue it. He shoved it aside
and forced himself to consider his responsibilities. Bremen was depending on him. He must bring word of
this army to the Dwarves so that they could prepare for the invasion of their homeland. He must persuade
the Dwarves to engage an army many times its size in a battle they could not hope to win. He must
convince Raybur and the Elders of the Dwarf Council that a means would be found to destroy the
Warlock Lord and that the Dwarves must buy with their lives the time that was needed to accomplish
this. It was a tall order and would require a great sacrifice. It would be up to him to lead them, the
warrior Druid who could stand against any creature the Warlock Lord might employ.
For Risca had been born to battle. It was all he knew. He grew to manhood in the Ravenshorn, the
son of parents who had lived their entire lives in the Eastland wilderness. His father was a scout and his
mother a trapper. There had been eight brothers and sisters on his father s side and seven on his
mother s. Most of them lived within a few miles of one another still, and Risca had been raised by all at
one time or another. Over the years of his boyhood, he saw as much of his aunts and uncles and cousins
as he did his parents. There was a sharing of responsibility for raising the young in his family. The
Dwarves of this part of the world were constantly at war with the Gnome tribes, and everyone was
always at risk.
But Risca was equal to the challenge. He was taught to fight and hunt at an early age, and he
discovered that he was good at it better than good, in fact. He could sense things the others could not.
He could spy out what was hidden from them. He was quick and agile and strong beyond his years. He
understood the art of survival. He stayed alive when others did not.
At twelve, he was attacked by a Koden and killed the beast. He was thirteen when one of a company
of twenty that was ambushed by Gnomes. He alone escaped. When his mother was killed setting lines,
he was only fifteen, but he tracked down those responsible and dispatched them single-handedly. When
his father died in a hunting accident, he carried his body deep into the heart of Gnome country and buried
it there so that his spirit could continue the fight against their enemies. Half of his brothers and sisters were
dead by then, lost to battle or sickness. He lived in a violent, unforgiving world, and his life was hard and
uncertain. But Risca survived, and it was whispered when they thought he could not hear, for he was
superstitious where fate was concerned, that the blade had not been forged that could kill him.
When he was twenty he came down out of the Ravenshorn to Culhaven and entered into the service of
Raybur, newly crowned King of the Dwarves and a much admired warrior himself. But Raybur kept him
in Culhaven only a short time before sending him to Paranor and the Druids. Raybur recognized Risca s
special talents and believed the Dwarf people would be best served if the young man with the warrior s
heart and the hunter s skills was trained by the Druids. He, too, like Courtann Ballindarroch of the Elves,
knew of Bremen and admired him. So a note was addressed to the old man, asking that he consider
giving young Risca special consideration as a student. Thus bearing the note, Risca traveled to Paranor
and the Druid s Keep and stayed, becoming a staunch follower of Bremen and a believer in the ways of
the magic.
His eyes stayed fixed on the black silken tent in the enemy camp below as he thought of the ways in
which the magic now served him. His was the strongest after Bremen s stronger these days perhaps,
given his youth and stamina and the other s age. That was what he firmly believed, though he knew Tay
Trefenwyd would certainly argue the matter. Like Tay, Risca had studied assiduously the lessons taught
by Bremen, working at them even after the old man was banished, testing himself over and over again.
He studied and trained virtually alone, for no others among the Druids, even Tay Trefenwyd, considered
themselves warriors or sought to master the battle arts as he did. For Risca, the magic had but a single
useful purpose to protect himself and his friends and to destroy his enemies. The other uses of magic
were of no interest to him healing, divining, prescience, empathies, mastery of the sciences,
elementalism, history, and conjuring. He was a fighter, and strength of arms was his passion.
The memories came and faded, and his thoughts returned to the matter at hand. What should he do?
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