As more and more sunlight reached the canyon floor, Dron made a steadily increasing effort to keep to the shade. Sometimes, even though raising his maimed hand made his face twist with pain, he used it to shield his eyes.

But by the ever-thirsty blade of the Lord in Iron, Kagur refused to be helpless. With a rasping snarl of her own, she pushed chill and weakness—well, the greater part of them, anyway—out of her body by sheer dint of will.

Tossing aside her blanket, Kagur sat up and looked where Eovath was gazing, but though she had keen eyes, he generally fared better in the dark. "I don't see anything."

The wind blowing in Kagur's face smelled of rot. She started running, and the soft earth, boggy with the coming of summer, sucked at her feet. Her five companions ran as well.

In Called to Darkness, Kagur, a warrior of the Blacklion tribe in the Realm of the Mammoth Lords, is horribly betrayed by her adopted brother, a frost giant named Eovath. Driven insane by the whispers of the mad god Rovagug, Eovath slaughters his adopted family and heads down through the Earthnavel into a strange cavern forgotten by time, inhabited by primitive peoples and enormous saurian beasts. There, in the darkness, Kagur must slay him and take vengeance for her lost kin—or die trying...

by Richard Lee Byers