Chapter One

Lute music drifted across the hall in a pleasant wave as always, and the drinks were passed around in abundance. Despite being unable to eat anything and having a tendency to slop his drink a bit more than everyone else, Dan was having a great time.

In accordance with tourist description details, there was a great deal of arm wrestling going on around the dining table. He being the only resident of a flesh-less disposition, Dan was avoided regularly on these occasions... apart from this occasion, apparently.

"Fortesque!" Ironhewer bellowed. "Let's see you have a go, shall we?"

"Huh?"

"Come now! You can beat old Woden here, can't you?"

Dan gave Woden an uneasy glance and gulped - well, insofar as he could with nothing to swallow with. "Oh no."

"Leave him to his drink, Ironhewer," intoned Woden in his booming voice. "There's no point wasting my time with this bag of chicken bones, even if there's a distinct abundance in time these days."

Dan growled and rolled up his sleeves. Chicken bones?

Stanyer gave a triumphant laugh. "I knew you'd give it a try!"

"I don't think so!"

They turned to face Megwynne giving them a stern glance.

"Oh, you up for a challenge, eh?"

"No!" she said, appalled. "His poor arm's in a state as it is, look at it! It looks as though it's been pulled off and stuck back on a dozen times!"

"Well, it has," Dan mumbled sheepishly. It had served as a handy weapon on occasion.

"You don't want to be known as a chicken, do you?" Ironhewer teased jovially.

Megwynne hesitated. "Well..."

"Well, well, Megwynne Stormbinder, a chicken," Stanyer mocked.

"Oh, all right," she relented, sitting next to Dan. "I'll go easy on you," she murmured to him.

His arm cracked off in less than ten seconds regardless.

"Sorry," Megwynne said in a small voice, handing the severed arm back to the sound of laughter. Dan eyeballed her with his single eye and rammed his arm back to its rightful home.

A new opponent was soon elected, and Dan returned to his musings as Canny Tim gawped in terror at the huge arm placed in front of him.

It had been... Well. Time was a bit of a mystery in the Hall, and Dan didn't really have a clue how long he had been here. Ten minutes after he had settled in, it was as though he had always been there. It was pleasant enough for him to call his perfect home. Except for the memories...

It was the memories of Castle Peregrin that got to him. Those had been the happiest days of his life, bar the one when he charged at Zarok's army and into the path of a very pointy arrow, which Dan quickly decided to forget. Yes, he had lied his way into King Peregrin's court with fanciful stories of dragons and so on, and yes, maybe he had overdone it with the croquet sessions, which he was no bloody good at anyway, but in the whole spectrum of the thing, he had enjoyed it. He had friends there, and yes, he had met Zarok there too, but it had been worth it.

The end hadn't been.

He'd returned from the dead and burned the place to the ground. It was that or leave the Shadow Demons destroy Gallowmere, but he had still literally flown off and left his home to burn beneath the lava under the palace. All those memories forgotten, all to rid the world of the monsters Dan himself had released accidentally.

He shook this off with a heavy heart and returned his attention to the gentle ambience of the Hall. Tim had wandered off holding his arm in agony, Megwynne hovering behind in concern. She seemed to be the mother hen of the Hall, clucking along after her honorary children - which seemed to just be Dan and Tim, the newcomers. As if they were going to get bullied to death - which Dan would have if he hasn't already been killed by a stray arrow.

Just as Dan was grimacing over that detail, his surroundings began to waver. He shook his head, since blinking was beyond him at this stage, and focussed on the Hall and its Heroes...

Who had all disappeared.

Dan rose quickly to his feet. The Hall of Heroes was deserted. Stanyer Ironhewer and Woden the Mighty were no longer at the table, Tim and Megwynne had vanished, Ravenhooves, Dirk Steadfast, Karl Sturngard, everyone - all gone.

Dan raised an arm to scratch his skull in bemusement, and he recoiled in horror. His hand was shimmering. He realised exactly what was happening: he was being forced from the Hall of Heroes.

He was being brought back to life.

Dan threw his hands onto the edge of the table. "No!" he shrieked. "I want to stay! Let me STAY!"

Life's fingers gripped his torso and tugged, gently but firmly. A smell wafted over his head, a familiar smell... the smell of sorcery.

The smell of Zarok.

He screamed more fervently now. "LET ME GO! NOOOOOO!"

The smell sucked him in and his fingertips slid from the table, scoring deep marks into its surface. Dan screamed as he was sent tumbling into an abyss, and the Hall of Heroes faded away into a twilit oblivion.