" 'I have destroyed your destroyers,' he told her silent form.

"Without warning, a terrible pain went through him as Stone Man's great spear pierced his chest. Crooked staggered to his feet. Tricker stepped from the shadows where he had hidden. The mischief-maker laughed and capered.

" 'And now I have destroyed you,' Tricker Zosim cried. 'All the great ones except for me are all dead, and I alone am left to rule all the world and the seven times seven mountains and seven times seven seas!'

"Crooked grasped with his hand of bronze and his hand of ivory at the spear Earthstar that had stabbed him. The great weapon burst into flames and burned away to a cinder. 'I am not destroyed,' he said, although he was sorely wounded. 'Not yet… not yet…' "

It was only when the pause had gone on so long that Barrick found himself nodding toward sleep that he finally looked up. "Bird? Skurn? What happened next?" His eyes widened. "Where are you?"

A few moments later a mostly black shape flapped down out of the perpetual gray sky with a horrid something wriggling in its black beak.

"Urm," it said, while most of the legs were still hanging out, kicking in hopeless protest. "Lovely. Us'll finish the tale later. Spotted a whole nest of 'these, us has. Taste just like dead mouse 'fore it bloats too far and bursts. Shall us fetch you one or two?"

"Oh, gods," groaned Barrick as he turned away in disgust. "Wherever you are, alive or dead or sleeping, please give me strength."

The raven sniffed at his foolishness. "Praying for strength be not enough. For us to stay strong, us has to eat."