Dawn breaks over the trees, pushing aside the clouds of night to make way
for a clear blue sky.  Birds twitter and tweet, singing their hellos to
the morning.  A cow moos lazily in a pasture below, and a solitary dragon
glides through the dawning sky.

Gradually, another voice lifts above the birdsong, a ringing baritone
singing. . . a drinking song?

	"But did he ever return? No, he never returned,
	And his fate is still unlearned.
	He may ride forever 'cross the trackless Wastes,
	He's the man who never returned. . . "

Indignantly, the birds resume their song louder than before.

	"I shall tell you all the story of a man named (Tweet!)
	On one tragic (Chirp!) fateful (Cheep!)
	He saddled his (Chirp!) kissed his wife and (Tweet!)
	And went off to (Tweet!) the track(Chirp Tweet!)"

The voice dies away, grumbling, and the birds continue to sing in
satisfaction.
Slowly, the shadows recede with the rising of the sun, revealing a lone
man and lone horse cropping grass in a cow pasture.  The horse crops
grass, that is, not the man.

The man himself sits slumped in the horse's saddle, hands tied behind his
back.  The cows wander around lazily, chewing their cud and occasionally
mooing softly.  As for the horse, well, it seems perfectly content to sit
and graze for the rest of its days. . . 

*******************
NRPG: Ok, there's got to be *someone* flying a patrol.  Who'd like to
rescue a hapless bard from the vile cows?

--mia