Love And War by Various

beast. Forward!”
     The troops of the dead advanced, and the draconian ranks, weakened already, wavered.
    The battle was like some deadly mime. The dead's weapons made no noise - yet their
     attackers fell, bleeding green liquid and turning stony in anguished poses. Blows against
     the dead passed through - yet many dead spiraled back into the carrion-tainted earth, and
     their lightless eyes glowed with an odd relief as they sank.
    Forces were in disorder, yet few commands were needed; the dead fought as they had for so
     long, and the draconians fought for their lives. Except for a few cries of anger and pain
     from the draconians, the only other sound was the slow fall of stone bodies as, one by
     one, the draconians fell to earth clutching unseen wounds and half- twisting scaley faces
     in agony. Starlight flickered off real and ghostly weapons; bodies twisted or toppled into grassy shadows and were bodies no
     longer.
    To an onlooker it might have seemed some strange dance without music. It was a war with
     little sound and no corpses, a battle for nightmares.
    Through it all walked the king, his sword flashing right and left at arm's length. By
     himself, in the brief fight, he accounted for three draconians, and his heart seemed to
     beat again with his own pride as they dropped to the right and left. His arms felt, not
     the endless weariness of the accursed dead, but the growing soreness and strain of a
     living warrior. His eyes flicked back and forth alertly, noting even how a sweet night
     wind ruffled the grass into which allies and enemies were falling.
    Ahead of him a draconian crouched over the prone stag, bringing a sword down with all the
     force he could above the near-motionless neck. The stag had not even looked up, dust and
     chaff barely moving in its nostrils.
    The king dove forward, sword aimed at the draconian's heart. He made no attempt to parry
     the descending sword as it passed through his ornamental armor and into him.
    His own blow took effect a moment later; the draconian doubled over, gasping, and froze
     that way, a corpse carved from a boulder. The king, carried by his own momentum, rolled
     against the stone body and winced with the pain. “I'll have a bruise tomorrow,” he thought
     vaguely, unsure after all these years what a bruise felt or looked like.
    He lay still and listened, hearing nothing but the stag's labored breathing. He struggled
     to his feet, barely able to hold his sword but aware of triumph and of great pain.
    The stag opened his eyes. “Peris. The draconians?” “Dead.” Never, in Darken Wood, had the
     word been said with such satisfaction.
    “An unusual way to end a hunt, with dead hunters.” “You have said so before.” The king
     knelt, taking the stag's head on his lap. The stag's chest wound, pulled free of the
     ground, re-opened, but the king paid no attention. “You have often said that at a hunt's
     end the hunter should be alive, the quarry dead.”
    “I have often been insulting.” His eyes blurred; with great effort he shook his head and
     cleared them angrily. “What will happen now?”
    “If I know soldiers, the commanders who ordered the search of Darken Wood will decide to
     delay another search until they feel they can risk further loss. They will also hope that
     their quarry, the questing party of the other night appears elsewhere, as someone else's responsibility.“ He shuddered. ”At any rate, we will
     have saved this part of the world for a while - if, as they say, I know soldiers.”
    “You know soldiers well. You lead them still better.”
    “Thank you.” The king sat down heavily by the bleeding stag. “A satisfying night, but not
     an easy one. I have been wounded.”
    “Recently?” The stag grunted as its forehead horn, cracked by the sword-blow, split all
     the way to the skull.
    “Tonight, in fact.” “At any other time, I enjoy a joke - ” “Seriously.” Red leaked through