Far above the frozen expanses of the vast Canuckian North soared Little Hawk, his feathers smooth and glimmering, his keen eyes alert for prey. The weather had cleared, and Little Hawk was hungry for a mouse, a sparrow, or some such provender. Perhaps even a juicy lepus rex was not too much to hope for!

There had been an oddness in the air of late, a peculiar tension that Little Hawk was well aware of. It spoke quietly and continuously from behind his more obvious hunger, but its origin was unclear. It would bear investigating, but where to begin?

Below him stretched the vastness of the Hamiltonian Escarpment, a snowy and fractured mass of soaring peaks and nameless valleys, marked by the faint smoke plumes of several brooding, but largely quiescent volcanoes. Their fires were burning, but deeply below the surface, biding their time, like an old dragon nursing a grievance. How long would they sleep? No one knew. But few men traversed their slopes, which were too inhospitable even for most Rangers, with the possible exceptions of Rick O'the Fielding or Mick the Magnificent.

Ahead lay the mightiest peak of them all, Carad Nuath Torpor, the sleeping giant, the tallest free-standing structure in MiddleMax, so they said. Halfway up its blasted slopes lay the entrance to Cinex Morbucks, the enchanted cave in which lay the greatest dragon of ancient MiddleMax, the mighty Shatnir. Shatnir had been a terrible dragon in his youth, carrying off uncountable virgins to a fate that could only be guessed at, and terrorizing, yet fascinating even the strongest human and Elven warriors, who envied his command over the fairest maidens of their lands, to say nothing of his yearly tribute royalties.

Shatnir had at last grown both fabulously wealthy, and exceedingly fat and lazy, as tends to happen to old dragons who survive the perils of their demanding trade. He had then retired into the hidden vastnesses of Cinex Morbucks, only occasionally emerging for dragon conventions in far-off lands. Of late he had stopped doing even that and was rumoured to be dead, but no one dared venture up the slopes of Carad Nuath to see if he was, let alone poke their noses into Cinex Morbucks.

The volcanic mountain (torpor in the old tongue) stood deserted, magnificent, stark and lifeless, even as it must have in the dim ages of antiquity, when dragons were young and conventions not yet even dreamt of.

But today there was something stirring in Cinex Morbucks. A small plume of green smoke was issuing from one of its shafts. Little Hawk noted it immediately and wheeled in, descending several thousand feet in an easy spiral. What could it mean?

And then he heard the sounds. Hideous sounds, faint as yet, but unmistakable. A dull, mindless, excruciatingly heavy bass beat was reverberating hollowly from somewhere deep in the caverns under Carad Nuath. Underneath the relentless, mindless, idiotic beat could be heard the guttural mouthings of hateful, almost unintelligible words in a foul Orcish tongue, the chantings of dark and terrible spells combined with mind-numbingly repetitious phrases of calculated stupidity crafted to drive the listener into uncontrollable violence and madness. It was the grotesque and inhuman sound of the most feared and unlawful music of all MiddleMax...Orc-Rap.

Someone was trying to wake Shatnir! And the plume of green smoke above Carad Nuath indicated that possibly they had succeeded. This was not good.

"Things will definitely liven up in the neighborhood if 'Old William' ventures forth," mused Little Hawk, "and this Orc-Rap will probably upset him just enough to do the trick. My, my! I must report this news at once to Kendalf...if I can find him, and I will do so, just as soon as I have a meal."

Suddenly Little Hawk spotted a plump mouse emerging from its hole. "Ah hah!" he thought, "Hello-o-o-o, breakfast!"

Alex the mouse was not even dimly aware that his bit part in the greatest saga of MiddleMax was about to end mere seconds after it had begun. Poor Alex! It's not easy getting stuck with being one tiny expendable mouse in a heroic cast of thousands, but it's better than never having your name in lights at all. Specially if you're a mouse.

"Gulp! Ummmm...that was tasty! Well, now I had best find Kendalf without delay. Let's see...eenie, meenie, miney, mo...I wonder which way should I go? Eenie, meenie, miney, mire...my instinct tells me, try the Shire!"

Little Hawk flew rapidly southwest, until he could hear the Orc-Rap no more, but the green smoke still stood like a harbinger of doom over the greying mass of Carad Nuath Torpor.

- LH