Beyond the blue ridge of fire upslope from them there was . . . something. Something within the flames ringing the hilltop. Something that moved and looked vaguely like a man.

As Naevros watched in fascination, he heard a voice whisper his name. His name. . . . It was his name—yet no one had ever called him by it. Only this voice knew it; only this voice could touch that part of him. He climbed, against his own will, a step or two upslope. He heard the name that was secretly his again, louder this time.

“Naevros,” Morlock whispered, and drew him back.

“Eh?” Now he had lost the name, like a dreamer loses a dream on awakening.

“Don’t look into the flames. The Dead Corain can draw you to themselves through the banefire. They hunger for your tal and your living flesh.”

“Do they?” Naevros shook his head and said, “Well, they can stand in line with everyone else. I’ll get around to them eventually.”

Morlock’s shadowy face wore a shadowy smile. He led the way around the hill’s shoulder, and Naevros followed him, taking care not to look at the dead shape whispering beyond the blue flames.

Eventually, Morlock went down on his stomach and squiggled forward like a worm across the hard windswept slope of the hillside. Naevros nearly rebelled at that. But anything Morlock was willing to do, he could do as well. He got down on his belly and squiggled. But—damn it!— he thought he did it with a certain style.

When they rounded the edge of the gravehill they could see the Khnauront camp in the valley below. But there were also many Khnauronts moving about on the slope of the gravehill opposite. What they were doing was not exactly clear in the evil light. But they were walking parallel with the ring of fire, not toward it—that much was clear.

As Morlock and Naevros watched, the banefire on the gravehill opposite guttered and went dark.

Morlock retreated instantly behind the shoulder of the hill and then drew to a halt. His face was unreadable in the shadows.

“What happened?” Naevros whispered finally.

Morlock whispered back, “I think somehow they killed the Cor who was trapped behind the banefire of that hill. The flame only goes out when its prisoner is dead.”

“How do you know—?” Naevros started to ask, and then he remembered a story about Morlock. He changed his question: “Are they that desperate for soup stuff that they’re digging up half-alive mummies and boiling them down?”

“Doubtful,” said Morlock’s shadow. “They want something else. The Dead Corain were entombed with great treasures. Maybe . . .” His voice trailed doubtfully off. “Anyway: for the time being, this is keeping them from attacking the Rangan settlements, or Gray Town, or Thrymhaiam. Maybe we can pin them down here. Somehow.”

As Naevros was about to remark, And at least we weren’t seen, he noticed two skeletally thin ragclad figures creep around the shoulder of the hill he and Morlock were lying on. Morlock was looking past him with unaccustomed alarm, which meant there were probably other Khnauronts bracketing them on that side.

The two vocates leapt to their feet.

“Has to be quick,” Naevros gasped.

Morlock said nothing but drew Tyrfing with his right hand and a long dwarf-forged stabbing spear with the other. He dashed north, while Naevros unsheathed his sword and turned south.

It had to be quick before they sounded an alarm and called the rest of the Khnauronts down on them. If they hadn’t already.

The Khnauronts: it was the first time Naevros had seen them so close. They looked like men who had been a year dead, their flesh sunk down into their bones. They wore no armor and very little clothing of any sort. They carried a pair of weapons: a long serrated blade with a forked tip and something that looked like a short staff. Except, he saw as he grew closer, they were hollow, like tubes.

As he dashed up to the nearest one, he shattered the tube first. He didn’t understand it, and therefore it was the most dangerous thing.

Whatever the Khnauront used for muscles, it was pretty effective. The one whose tube he had broken stabbed at him instantly with the forked blade. Naevros caught the fork with his own sword and twisted it out of his enemy’s hand. Without bothering to shake his blade free, he thrust straight through the Khnauront’s throat.

One down. So he briefly thought.

But the Khnauront’s body didn’t go slack. When he made to withdraw his blade, he found that the Khnauront’s throat, flesh, and bone (so he guessed from the grind he felt through his blade) had already healed around his sword. Meanwhile the other Khnauront was attacking him.

With his left hand he snatched at the forked blade of the first Khnauront, trapped between the Khnauront’s leathery flesh and the guard of Naevros’ own sword.

With his hand on the grip of the unfamiliar weapon he brought it up in a swift parry to strike aside the stabbing weapon of the second Khnauront. He glanced at the second Khnauront’s staff, fearing whatever use it might have. But he saw it was not being directed at him. The second Khnauront was pointing the tube at the throat of the first Khnauront.

Was it a healing device rather than a weapon? Naevros wasn’t sure.

The weaponless Khnauront was flailing with his arms, striking out at Naevros and the second Khnauront with equal hostility. Did he have good reason? Or was he deranged?

Naevros swung his sword so that the Khnauront still impaled on it was between Naevros and the other enemy. Then he kicked the impaled Khnauront on the chest with his right foot, and kept up the pressure with his foot until his sword was free from the closed mouth of the wound.

The weaponless Khnauront danced with frantic hate, spinning around and around with his arms and one leg extended, striking with equal fervor at Naevros and his fellow Khnauront.

The second Khnauront kept his tube or staff or whatever it was directed at the first Khnauront.

The dry white lips of the Khnauront’s wound opened in his neck again and emitted a whistling hiss. He dropped to his bulbous skeletal knees. His head fell askew, nearly severed anew by the wound Naevros had made, which had so spectacularly healed and was now spectacularly unhealing.

That was what the tube was for. It fed off life, the tal of the wounded or dying, and the Khnauronts were as prone to devour each other as anyone else.

He threw the forked blade like a spear, straight into the slack, gaping mouth of the second Khnauront. The Khnauront flailed a bit and then ran straight at him, keeping the tube directed at his dying comrade.

Naevros deflected the forked blade with his own and grabbed at the tube.

The second Khnauront began a freakish dance much like the first had, only it had a weapon to stab with. But Naevros parried the forked blade with his own and kept his grip on the tube and spun against the Khnauront at every turn. Between the two of them, they soon snapped the Khnauront’s wrist and Naevros snatched the tube free in triumph.

He turned the tube on the second Khnauront.

Naevros didn’t expect anything to happen. Obviously, whatever the tube was, it didn’t take great intelligence to operate. These beasts (he could no longer think of them as even approximately human) clearly had none to spare. But he expected that they were in rapport with the instruments, somehow, that one couldn’t just pick up one and use it.

But, as it turned out, he was wrong about that.

The shock of new life rushing into him was almost more than he could stand. All of a sudden he was many people, many voices. He saw their lives and deaths. He could do all that they could do; he knew all that they knew.

And then he was the master and they were all and forever part of him. He knew the Khnauront kneeling before him had been a farmboy until extreme poverty forced the farmer to fire all his workers. The ex-farmboy had returned in the middle of the night, using his knowledge of the house, and stolen one of the children. He ate it with great satisfaction over the next few days. Then, as there was no other place for him in the world, he had joined the Khnauronts.