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A TIME FOR HEROES

A light appeared, a bright beacon cutting through the s warmth, so different from the bite of the fire’s heat It called to her, almost as if it were enchanted When she at last burst out the door, past the thick s out onto the wharves, Hanaleisa was not surprised to see a grinning Uncle Pikel standing there, holding aloft his brilliantly glowing shillelagh She tried to thank hied on the sed to reach Pikel and wrap hi her back to help her dislodge the persistent sed to stop coughing and stand straight Pikel quickly ushered them all away fros of Carradden whiskey still left to explode

"Why did you go in there?" Rorick scolded her once the ier was past "That was foolish!"

"Tut tut," Pikel said to hier in the air to silence hi down part of the ith it Through the hole, the four saw the continuing onslaught of the undead, the unthinkingin the door after Hanaleisa had opened it They were fast falling, consumed by the flames

"She invited theht us the ti?" Hanaleisa asked, looking past her brothers toward the wharves, her question punctuated by coughs The question was more of surprise than to elicit a response, for the ansas obvious People swar vessels docked nearby

"They mean to ferry us across the lake to the north, to Byernadine," Te to the lakeside hamlet nearest to Carradoon

"We haven’t the time," Hanaleisa replied

"We haven’t a choice," Teeterupted on the docks It escalated into pushing and fighting as desperate townsfolk scraet aboard the first two boats

"Sailors only!" a man shouted above the rest, for the plan had been to fill those two boats with experienced fishermen, who could then retrieve the rest of the fleet

But the operation wasn’t going as planned

"Cast her off!" many people aboard one of the boats shouted, while others still tried to jump on board

"Too many," Hanaleisa whispered to her co vessel, barely twenty feet long, had not near the capacity to carry the throng that had packed aboard her Still, they threw out the lines and pushed her away from the wharf Several people went into the water as she drifted off, swi desperately to her rail, which was barely above the cold waters of Impresk Lake

The second boat went out as well, not quite as laden, and the square sails soon opened as they drifted out from shore So packed was the first boat that the crew, let alone raise sail Listing badly, weaving erratically, her asp and whisper nervously, while the shouting and arguing on the boat only increased in desperation

Already,catastrophe when the situation fast deteriorated The people in the water suddenly began to scream and thrash about Skeletal fish knifed up to stab hard into the boat rocked as the o, and people shrieked as the waters churned and turned red with blood

Then ca up to soripped the rails of both low-riding ships, and people aboard and on shore cried out in horror as the skeletons of long-dead fisheran to pull themselves up from the dark waters

The panic on the first boat sent several people splashing overboard The boat rocked and veered with the shifting weight, turning uncontrollably - and disastrously Similarly panicked, the sailors on the second boat couldn’t react quickly enough as the first boat turned toward her They crashed together with the crackle of splintering wood and the screa their doom Many went into the water, and as the skeletons scrambled aboard, many others had no choice but to leap into I had men plied the waters of Impresk Lake Its depths had known a thousand thousand turns of the circle of life Her deep bed churned with the rising dead, and her waters roiled asCarradden

And those on the wharves, Hanaleisa, her bothers, and Uncle Pikel as well, could only watch in horror, for not one of the eighty-some people who had boarded those two boats made it back to shore alive

"Nohat?" Rorick cried, his face streaked with tears, his words escaping through such profound gasps that he could hardly get them out

Indeed, everyone on the wharves shared that horrible question Then the storehouse collapsed with a great fiery roar Many of the undead horde were destroyed in that conflagration, thanks to the daring of Hanaleisa, but many, many more remained And the townsfolk were trapped with their backs to the water, a lake they dared not enter

Rag-tag groups ran to the north and south as all seed to band together along the shore, and many townsfolk followed in their protective wake

Many more looked to the children of Cadderly and Danica, those two so long the heroes of the barony In turn, the three siblings looked to the only hope they could find: Uncle Pikel

Pikel Bouldershoulder accepted the responsibility with typical gusto, punching his stuel under that shortened arer and ain

"Well, what then?" a fishing boat captain cried Many people closed in on the fourso for answers

"We find a spot to defend, and we order our line," Te to Pikel for answers that did not see "Find a narrow alleyway We cannot rereed, even as the group began to organize its retreat

"We can’t stay here, Uncle Pikel!" Rorick said to the dwarf, but the indoreen-bearded dwarf closed his eyes and tapped his shillelagh against the boardwalk, as if calling to the ground beneath He turned left, to the north, then hesitated and turned back before spinning to the north again and dashing off at a swift pace

"What’s he doing?" the captain and several others asked

"I don’t know," Teain and started after

"We ain’t following the fool dwarf blindly!" the captain protested

"Then you’re sure to die," Hanaleisa answered without hesitation

Her words had an effect, for all of theether in Pikel’s wake He led the fast toward the dark rocks that sheltered Carradoon’s harbor froet over those cliffs!" one man complained

"We’re too near the water!" another wo at the Teht flank all the way

All the way to an apparent dead end, where the rocky path rose up a long slope, then ended at a drop to the stone-filled lake

"Brilliant," the captain co near Pikel "Ye’ve killed us all, ye fool dwarf!"

It surely seemed as if he spoke the truth, for the undead were in pursuit and the group had nowhere left to run

But Pikel was unbothered He stood on the edge of the drop, beside a swaying pine, and closed his eyes, chanting his druidica branch down before hi his eyes and handing the branch to Rorick, who stood beside hi man asked

Pikel nodded to the drop, and directed Rorick’s gaze to a cave at the back of the inlet

"You want me to jump down there?" Rorick asked, incredulous "You wantdown?"

Pikel nodded, and pushed hiuided by the obedient tree, was set down - as gently as a mother lays her infant in its crib - on a narrow strip of stone beside the watery inlet He waited there for the captain and two others, who ca toward the cave

Pikel was the last one off the ledge, with a host of zo in as he leaped Several of the monsters jumped after him, only to fall and shatter on the stones below

His cudgel glowing brightly, Pikel roup and led the way into the cave, which at first glance seeh, and shallow chamber, ankle deep ater But Pikel’s instincts and his uided hi corridor leading deeper into the cliffs, and deeper still into the Snowflake Mountains

Into that darkness went two score of Carradoon’s survivors, half of thehtened citizens, so to wield a weapon Just a short while into the retreat, they came to a defensible spot where the corridor ended at a narrow chih that chimney was another chamber

There they decided toat the cave entrance, which they covered with a heavy stone, andthe two corridors that led out of the chamber, deeper into the mountains

No more complaints were shouted Uncle Pikel’s way

Jarlaxle slid his wand away, shouting to Athrogate, "Just his face!"