Intermezzo

Something stirred. Something ancient and foul. It didn't know anything of the concept of foulness though, only that it needed to feed, and there had been many lives spent to the north and all that death made it hungry. It would send someone to gather the nourishment always to be found when many died together. If it had known the ways of the living it would have called those leftovers, residual emotions, ghosts or even lost souls, but it didn't and it was content with the devouring.

It hadn't fed well for some time now. Almost thirty years earlier, and it did know what a year was, there had been a feast to the southeast. It had been good, and even though it wasn't truly familiar with the concept of battle it was learning. The deaths to the north were of the same kind, but this time at lot of the dying had happened in the great water it somehow grasped was the sea.

That was well. It would be easier for its minion to gather what was needed without being noticed. Being noticed was bad, especially when some of the prying eyes belonged to the awful dragons. It hated the dragons. They were powerful enough to hurt it, and it was afraid of being hurt.

There had to be change, and there was some. High above it something new had arrived, something with a power of its own, and maybe the hated enemy would be too occupied with the newcomers to pay much attention to the feeding. Maybe, but it would still be careful.

It called. Within a season a gatherer would come.