The two mighty dragons were afraid.

In the remote, cold northland of Vaasa, a second skull, a greater skull, glowed hungrily. It felt the fall of its little sister in Damara keenly, but not with the dread of one who had lost a family member. No, distant events were simply the order of things. The other skull, the human skull, was minor and weak.

What the distant remnant of the Witch-King's godliness had come to know above all else was that the powers could awaken—that the powers would awaken. Too much time had passed in the short memories of the foolish humans and those others who had defeated Zhengyi.

Already they were willing to ply their wisdom and strength against the artifacts of a being so much greater than they, a being far beyond their comprehension. Their hubris led them to believe that they could attain that power.

They did not understand that the Witch-King's power had come from within, not from without, and that his remnants, "the essence of magic scattered," "the pieces of Zhengyi flung wide," in the songs of the silly and naive bards, would, through the act of creation, overwhelm them and take from them even as they tried to gain from the scattering of Zhengyi.

That was the true promise of the Witch-King, the one that had sent dragons flocking to his side.

The tiny skull found only comfort. The tome that held it was found, the minds about it inquisitive, the memories short. The piece of essence flung wide would know creation, power, and life in death.

Some foolish mortal would see to that.

The dragon growled without sound.

Parissus, the Impilturian woman, winced as the red-bearded dwarf drew a bandage tight around her wounded forearm.

"You better be here to tell me that you've decided to deliver the rest of our bounty," she said to the soldier sitting across the other side of the small room where the cleric had set up his chapel. Her appearance, with broad shoulders and short-cropped, disheveled blond hair, added menace to her words, and anyone who had ever seen Parissus wield her broadsword would say that sense of menace was well-placed.

The man, handsome in a rugged manner, with thick black hair and a full beard, and skin browned by many hours out in the sun, seemed quite amused by it all.

"Don't you smile, Davis Eng," said the woman's female companion, a half-elf, much smaller in build than Parissus.

She narrowed her gaze then widened her eyes fiercely—and indeed, those eyes had struck fear into many an enemy. Light blue, almost gray, Calihye's eyes had been the last image so many opponents had seen. Those eyes! So intense that they made many ignore the hot scar on the woman's right cheek, where a pirate's gaff hook had caught her and nearly torn her face off, tearing a jagged line from her cheek through the edge of her thin lips and to the middle of her chin. Her eyes seemed even more startling because of the contrast between them and her long black hair, and the angular elf's features of a face that, had it not been for the scar, could not have been considered anything but beautiful.

Davis Eng chuckled. "What do you think, Pratcus?" he asked the dwarf cleric. "That little wound of hers seem ugly enough to have been made by a giant?"

"It's a giant's ear!" Parissus growled at him.

"Small for a giant," Davis Eng replied, and he fished into his belt pouch and produced the torn ear, holding it up before his eyes. "Small for an ogre, I'd say, but you might talk me out of the coin for an ogre's bounty."

"Or I might cut it out of your hide," said Calihye.

"With your fingernails, I hope," the soldier replied, and the dwarf laughed.

Parissus slapped him on the head, which of course only made him laugh all the louder.

"Every tenday it's that same game," Pratcus remarked, and even surly Calihye couldn't help but chuckle a bit at that.

For indeed, every tenday when it came time for the payout of the bounties, Davis Eng, she, and Parissus played their little game, arguing over the number of ears—goblin, orc, bugbear, hobgoblin, and giant—the successful hunting pair had delivered to the Vaasan Gate.

"Only a game because that one's meaning to pocket a bit of Ellery's coin," Calihye said.

"Commander Ellery," Davis Eng corrected, and his voice took on a serious tone.

"That, or he can't count," said Parissus, and she groaned again as Pratcus tugged the bandage into place. "Or can't tell the difference between an ogre and a giant. Yes, that would be it, I suppose, since he's not set foot outside of Damara in years."

"I did my fighting," the man argued.

"In the Witch-King War?" Parissus snapped back. "You were a child."

"Vaasa is not nearly as untamed as she was after the fall of the Witch-King," said Davis Eng. "When I first joined the Army of Bloodstone, monsters of every sort swarmed over these hills. If King Gareth had seen fit to pay a bounty in those first months, his treasury would have been cleared of coin, do not doubt."

"Kill any giants?" asked Calihye, and the man glared at her. "You're sure they weren't ogres? Or goblins, even?"

That brought another laugh from Pratcus.

"Bah, that one's always had a problem in measuring things," Parissus added. "So they're saying in Ironhead's Tavern and in Muddy Boots and Bloody Blades. But he's not one for consistency, I'm thinking, because if he's measuring now like he's measuring then, sure that he'd be certain we'd given him a titan's ear!"

Pratcus snorted and jerked, and Parissus ended with a squeal as he inadvertently twisted the bandage.

Calihye was laughing too, and after a moment, even Davis Eng joined in. He had never been able to resist those two, when all was said and done.

"I'll call it a giant, then," he surrendered. "A baby giant."

"I noted nothing on the bounty charts about age," Calihye said as Davis Eng began to count out the coins.

"A kill is a kill," Davis Eng agreed.

"You've been taking a particular interest in our earnings these last tendays," Calihye said. "Is there a reason?"

Pratcus started to chuckle, tipping the women off. Parissus pulled her hand back from him and glowered at him. "What do you know?"

Pratcus looked at Davis Eng, who similarly chuckled and nodded.

"Yer friend's passed Athrogate," the dwarf priest explained, and he glanced over at Calihye. "He'll be back in a couple o' tendays, and he's not to be pleased that all his time away has put him in back o' Calihye in bounties earned."

The look that crossed between Parissus and Calihye was one more of concern than of pride. Was that honor really a desired one, considering the disposition of Athrogate and his known connections to the Citadel of Assassins?

"And you, Parissus, are fast closing in on the dwarf," Davis Eng added.

Davis Eng tossed a small bag of silver to Calihye and said, "He'll fume and harrumph and run about in a fury when he gets back. He'll make stupid little rhymes about you both. Then he'll go out and slaughter half of the monsters in Vaasa, just to put you two in your place. He'll probably hire wagons out, just to carry back the ears."

Neither woman broke a smile.

"Ah, but these two can pace Athrogate," Pratcus said.

Davis Eng laughed and so did Calihye, and Parissus a moment later. Could anyone truly pace Athrogate?

"He's got a fire inside of him that I've never seen the likes of before," Calihye admitted. "And never does he run faster than when there's a hundred enemies standing in his way."

"But we're there, right beside him, and I mean to pass him, too," Parissus said, allowing her pride to finally spill forth. "When our fellow hunters look at the board outside of Ironhead's, they're going to see the names Parissus and Calihye penned right there on top!"