Counting the dead
                     in the eye of the dragon
                           tear stains
                              blood

                           Chapter One

                        Farewell to Hood

Once and forever blooded.
Never mercenary... forever tired

After the Great Conflict Wulf's friend, Hood, was buried with
high ritual ceremony.  At the conclusion of the conflict a
final body count was made.  Hood was on the list of the
missing.  After two months of no contact and the body never
having been found, he was considered missing in action and
presumed dead.  Over five thousand soldiers gathered,
representative of all of the thirteen tribes of the Cave of
the Dark Heart. They appeared at the gathering place in ones,
twos and tens.  At the time of leaving they made way, riding
two abreast.  Snaking through the city at the feet of the
Great Stone Mountains, over five miles of unleashed lightning
and thunder, they made way.  Never had the gooseflesh claimed
Wulf as it did that day. Five thousand hearts strong, he felt
them breathe as one.  As they mounted their steel dragons he
felt himself swallowed by raw sound, pure muscle and blood,
mechanical fury.  He was lost to those moments as he had
never been lost before, drowned in a living flood of roaring
engines, brotherhood and tears.  Wulf was only a man, a man
born to the See...

They rode high into the Stone Mountains behind the City of 
the Rock. When they reached the top and at the moment of the
rising of the sun they tore a hole in Mother's skin, their
hands bleeding into her. Hood's favorite dragon was brought
forth, black and silver, flames burning on her smooth skin.
His riding leathers, boots and favorite personal weapons were
tied to her sides.  She was wrapped in chains and ten men
made a solemn procession as they bore her to her final place
of rest.  She was lowered slowly into the warm embrace of the
earth. 

Then a viewing was made and five thousand men dropped pieces
of themselves into the earth that she would not walk the 
other side alone, searching for her lone rider.  The Lords of
the Dragon would be with her.  She would have maps and words,
messages from those who had loved him and fought beside him,
golden keys for her gates.  Wulf cut all the hair from his
head and face.  On top of this he dropped six ears severed
from the heads of their mutual enemies.  Finally... a golden
tear from the trap at his throat and the leather strap and
worn buckle from the shifting leather of his favorite
fighting dragon.

Hood was one of the twelve who had shared with Wulf the
mystery and challenge of the House of Discipline as eleven
year old children, facing one another and the other eleven
chosen each and every day for seven solid years. For twenty-
five years they had ridden, fought and loved as brothers of
the blood. Wulf had combed the field of battle inch by inch,
searching for his friend.  It was unbearable for him to bid
farewell to Hood's empty suit of armor... but he was gone...
The ritual and offerings devoured all of the first day and
the half the night.  In the midnight, under the cold light of
a hard full moon, the hole was sealed... to be healed.

Wulf found a smooth stone bathed in the full light of the
moon.  He rubbed and cleaned it with his bare hands and tears
falling, chanting over and over... "Ty Ke Yi Yut Te... Ke",
the death song of the Cave of the Dark Heart.  He knelt in
the center of the grave, taking two tiny glass vials from a
small leather bag on his belt.  One vial contained a dark
colored liquid.  Wulf uncapped the vial and drank deeply,
consuming half its contents.  He then recapped it.  The other
vial was full of the white staying-powder of war.  Wulf
opened it and laid a thick line of the fine white crystal
substance across the blade of his field knife, again leaving
the vial half full.  He paused in his chanting and inhaled
the powder through his nostrils, cleaning the blade with his
tongue, then driving it deep into the earth in the center of
the grave.  He continued chanting... "Ty Ke Yi Yut Te...
Ke."  With his thumbs he pressed the vials into the freshly
turned earth on each side of the blade.  He held the
moonstone in both of his hands, turning it, caressing it.
His chant became louder, more intense, his kneeling body 
rocking back and forth with the rhythm, the sound and
strength of his voice, a voice both beautiful and mad.  It
became a keening thing, wailing, disembodied and howling
forth as he raised the stone of the moon high over his head.
With a final gut-wrenching scream, he brought the stone down
with all of his weight, burying the blade and vials beneath
it. He stood slowly, reverently, backing away,whispering,
"Ty Ke Yi Yut Te... Ke."  His eyes wild and uncomprehending,
he collapsed at the edge of the circle of men surrounding the
grave.

The Captain of the Guard made a chopping motion with his arm
and explosives were detonated causing a small mountain of
stone four times Wulf's height of six feet to fall on top of
Hood's grave.  The silence of five thousand fighting men paid
quiet homage to the humble pile of stone standing as a shrine
over the tomb of Hood. Many brothers, Wulf included, wrote
messages of farewell in their own blood on smooth faces of
the stone. Wulf made a haiku:
                                  Soldiers
                           Across the dark night,
                          once and forever blooded,
                           we are bleeding still.

After the explosives and the writing of the blood many great
fires were made.  The families, women, Children and elders of
those mourning, were coming to join the warriors of their
blood.  At first sight of the fires, a prearranged signal,
they made a caravan and sometime later began to arrive.  They
made a grand feast and celebrated with wines, bitter dark
beers and the peace of the smoking pipe.

For seven days and seven nights they reinvented, remembered
and relived their lives and times with the Hood.  They
praised and cursed him, laughed for him and cried.  Most of
the men remained awake throughout with the aid of the fine
white waking-powders manufactured for the long nights of the
war.

Finally, exhausted and spent, they rode five thousand strong
into the seventh night.  Across one hundred and fifty miles,
riders split off in ones, twos and tens to make warm the
fires in the caves of their homes.  Having been the host of
the event, Wulf rode the circle.  He took the Nomads and
those who chose to linger with him to his home outside the
City of Stone.  His children made them welcome, all seven
waiting expectantly for the arrival of their Father.  One
more night the men sat up, telling the younger ones of the
ritual and the glory of the man they laid to rest, Wulf with
a Child on his lap the entire time.

After a few days of rest the men fell into a routine as most
men do.  They would spend the days attending to the needs of
the dragons, formulating future plans of rendezvous, trading
stories and secrets. They would ride across the long nights,
into the City of Stone and other small mountain towns where
they would attend the drinking rooms, cards, games of
chance.  Their favorite recreation by far was gathering in
the smoky rooms, underneath the low lights, where the night
ladies made their danse.

By the second week of Autumn the last of the Nomads bid Wulf
a fond farewell. His final guest, a Cajun by the name of
Angelo, made the decision to winter in the City of Stone.  He
endeared himself to Wulf in his own peculiar way, "'Sides mon
ami, I got nuttin' goin', we be mekkin' dis a coo' winter. I
done made up m' mind!"  Wulf insisted Angelo stay in his
home, which was only a couple of miles outside the city
proper.

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