The Swordbearer

Chapter Nine

Round Dedera The girl's name was Loida Huthsing. "Any relation to Franaker Huthsing?" Gathrid asked.

"My father." She seemed startled because he knew the name.

The demon was Gacioch. The girl was seventeen, the demon ageless. Loida had been part of the plunder the Mindak had sent home from Grevening. Gacioch was the lackey of a demon-lord in the service of high Venti-miglian nobles.

The youths Gathrid had slain belonged to the Mindak's own household. They had been sons of cousins and nephews. Loida told him to expect a cruel death. Gacioch gleefully confirmed her contention.

The demon let up on the cussing and fussing. His game, now, was to describe at length, and in loving detail, the sophistication of the tortures to be found in the Mindak's dungeons. Ahlert's family was sacred, at least by their own decree.

"Don't you ever shut up?" Gathrid demanded. "Right now Theis Rogala is looking good."

The demon grinned and babbled on.

Gathrid shrugged off the threats. "Ahlert can't want me any worse than before. Loida? Your father is really Franaker Huthsing? The infamous Sheriff of Rigdon?"

"Infamous? Look, friend ..."

"He was infamous on our side of the border." He had been afraid his identity would frighten the girl. She grew relaxed instead.

"Heck, we're neighbors. Almost kin. What went on between our fathers doesn't seem very important now, does it?"

"Not when you look at it from a forest in the heart of Ventimiglia, no."

The exchange of identities occurred during their second day together, while they paused at the forest's edge and Gathrid quietly debated going afoot once more. Before, Loida had tagged along in silence while Gacioch had done the chattering. For his part, Gathrid had been too preoccupied to worry about the girl or demon.

By now an alarm would have spread throughout Ventimiglia's ruling class. The hunt would be up.

Could he reach the Library before the pursuit overtook him?

The city Dedera was the obstacle. Daubendiek should see him through the countryside. Out here, sheer distance would keep the enemy from gathering in number. But the city, with its quarter million people, could throw an army across his path.

He saw no way, now, to conceal his presence and destination. He decided to retain the horses and try for speed.

A dozen riders passed through a field a quarter mile away, boredly watching the wood. To Gathrid's surprise, Gacioch kept his mouth shut while they were within hearing.

"Why didn't you yell?" Gathrid demanded.

"I like you, boy. I've gotten attached to you."

"Liar."

"Goodie! You noticed. That'll be a plus mark on my record when I come up for promotion." He snickered evilly. "Actually, I'm just lazy. When they do catch you, they'll catch me, too. Means I'll have to go back to work. You should only know how rare vacations are in- my corner of Hell."

Gathrid gave the head an uncertain look. It was hard to tell when the demon meant what he Said, or was just joking. Then he laughed.

It was the first time he had done so since the Mindak's invasion of Gudermuth. "Then your wickednesses include sloth?"

"My strong point." Gacioch spoke sourly. He had lost interest in conversation.

Gathrid turned to Loida. "It's going to get rough. I'm going to try to outrun them.''

Her fear and awe were evaporating. "I can keep up with any Gudermuther."

"Is that the kind of crack I'm going to have to live with from now on? Maybe I should've left you where I found you. Let's go."

They had ridden less than a mile when they encountered another patrol. Though armed and aware that they had found their quarry, the Ventimiglians refused combat. They drifted off into a field while Gathrid passed.

"Why did they do that?" Loida asked.

"I don't know. I don't like it." He watched the patrol return to the road a respectful distance behind them. "They're showing too much good sense." They were, his more experienced memories assured him, acting according to some prearrangement. There would be big trouble nearer Dedera. "I may have made a mistake."

Gacioch broke into laughter. "That you did, boy. When you were dumb enough to interfere with the girl hunt."

Gathrid glanced at the sun. It was a long way from setting. He had miscalculated. He should have stayed hidden till nightfall. If they guessed his destination ... They would waste no time chasing him. They would wait at the Library.

He recalled the flight from Gudermuth to Bilgoraj. Theis had done all the thinking. ... He was on his own now. The Ventimiglians were in no hurry this time. They were confident. Because he no longer had the dwarf to help outwit them?

He hated admitting it. He missed Rogala.

He would do without! He wasn't stupid. And he had scores of advisers perched on the shoulders of his mind. He had the dead to guide him. He was a necromancer who divined within himself.

His Toal chuckled.

The party trailing him grew stronger. Dust clouds rose on roads paralleling his own. Several times he saw men in dark armor waiting off the highway, forewarned and ready to join his escort. How long before they felt strong enough to close in?

Their plans did not seem to include immediate engagement. The party behind closed up as darkness gathered, but made no threatening move. Gathrid estimated their number at two hundred.

A tidbit of stolen memory bobbed up in his mind. The Hudyma River lay only a few miles ahead. It was one of Ventimiglia's greatest rivers. This road would span it on a narrow, fortified bridge.

The fortification would make a good anvil against which to hammer him.

But there was a tributary to be crossed first, a mile this side of the Hudyma.

It was thoroughly dark when they reached the first stream. Gathrid had galloped ahead of the Ventimiglians. Now he swung off his mount, helped Loida descend, grabbed Daubendiek and Gacioch.

He slapped the horses back into action. He knew they would not run far. They were exhausted. But even a quarter mile would be a help.

They concealed themselves beneath the bridge. The horsemen who poured overhead seemed to form an endless stream. Gacioch again held his tongue.

Gathrid knew he had very little time. Clutching Loida's hand, he ran downstream. "Come on. Hurry."

"I'm tired," she complained, then saved her breath for flight.

They were lucky. Gathrid stumbled onto a boat not far downstream. It was well-hidden and guarded by a quiet but savage dog. "The owner of this thing can't be no solid citizen," Gacioch observed.

"A fisherman would keep his boat pulled up by his hut.'", The dog growled till it got wind of Gathrid. Then it slunk silently away. Gathrid pushed Loida into the boat and shoved off as the Ventimiglians returned to the bridge.

The current kept Gathrid ahead of the pursuit. He reached the sluggish Hudyma within an hour.

Clumsily, he started rowing for the far bank.

"I knew it was too good to last," Loida grumbled as he beached the craft. "I was hoping we'd drift for a while. This river is headed home."

"I'm not going home."

"I was afraid you'd say that."

"If I might make a suggestion," Gacioch interjected as Gathrid started up the bank. "They won't get onto your trail as fast if you shove the boat back out into the current.''

Gathrid looked to the east. A procession of torches was snaking across the fortified bridge. He did not have the adventurer's mentality, he concluded. It seemed cruel to waste a man's boat.

Stealing it had been bad enough.

"Do it!" Loida snapped.

"All right, already!"

"This isn't my first escape," the girl said.

"Don't put too much faith in her experience," Gacioch rumbled. "She's never gotten away."

Gathrid spent a moment watching the boat slide off into the darkness. What was the demon's game?

Gacioch was doing his best to avoid his masters. Why?

He had to move. The torches were approaching. Perhaps his underminds could resolve his questions while he concentrated on escape.

He did not expect the Ventimiglians to remain out of touch long. Locating Gacioch and the Sword should present no problem for a sorcerer. Both would strain the fabric of this plane.

Gathrid tramped along head down, silent. He missed Rogala. He told himself that was because he would find the dwarf's perception of distant events useful.

The voices down inside him chuckled. They always did when he lied to himself.

Gacioch kept up an abrasive commentary. It made Rogala's reticence appear ever more attractive.

Gathrid suffered through all the latest gossip from the courts of Ventimiglia and Hell. Then the demon offered to do his scouting. All he had to do, Gacioch claimed, was decor-porealize him. Any fool could manage the necessary spell.

Alarm bells clamored in the depths of the youth's mind. "No. I don't need any help. Thank you."

A ghostly, merry tinkle of Toal merriment assured him that the offer had been a trap.

Rogala remained in his thoughts. What had become of Theis? He no longer had that feeling of being followed from a distance.

If he wanted to reach the Library, he had to start thinking like the dwarf. Eschew mercy. Make the goal everything. Don't let anything else matter. Be willing to sacrifice anyone and anything...

. His stomach knotted. His thoughts disgusted him.

Near midnight they came upon a manor. Gathrid found himself feeling an inexplicable homesickness.

Ah. Some of his souls belonged to men who had begun their lives here. Their emotions were bubbling. He drew their memories to his forebrain.

Using their knowledge, he traveled westward till he reached a manor famous for the horses it bred.

He stole two. He rode away wondering how soon their loss would be noted, and if it would be connected with him.

After a time he turned northward again. He planned to make a grand swing, west and north, around Dedera. That should be less predictable than his former, more direct route.

Fate, luck or the masking hand of Suchara herself, served him well. Even by day no one challenged his party, though they passed manor after manor and hundreds of people glanced at them incuriously.

He pushed hard all day. Loida became too tired to complain. Late in the afternoon he started following roads tending eastward again. By dusk he and Loida were directly north of Dedera. The peaks of the Chromogas looked like bloody teeth in a horizon-spanning jaw as the setting sun illuminated their snowy peaks. Gathrid kept pushing.

Then a Toal appeared on their backtrail.

Whence it came Gathrid had no idea. He glanced back and there it was, gleaming black astride its black stallion, keeping a respectful distance. It had not been there minutes earlier. He thought it was the one he had dueled near the Bilgoraji border. It had the same feel, and the lance it bore blazed against the gathering darkness.

Attack seemed far from its mind.

"Oh, it won't," Gacioch grumbled. "It's just here to keep an eye on the Sword."

"I'll still end up fighting it." Gathrid shuddered. He did not want another of those dread entities drifting along behind the corners of his vision. Would they squabble over him like jackals over a carcass? "Loida can't go much farther."

He expected a Rogala-like suggestion that the girl be ditched. Gacioch disappointed him. "Then stop and let her rest. He isn't going to bother you. In fact, he'll make sure nobody else does."

"What?"

Gacioch's great failing, as he himself confessed, was that he talked too much. "He has orders to make sure the Sword doesn't get snatched by the wrong people. He can't do anything but follow orders."

"How do you know?"

Gacioch sniggered. "You'll just have to take my word."

Gathrid took the chance. It was not as much a matter of trusting Gacioch as of doing what had to be done. He abandoned the road for a woodlot. In minutes Loida was snuggling against him for warmth. The tireless Toal took a sentry post a hundred yards away. Gathrid tried hard to remain awake, but sleep quickly took him. He had a dreamless night. His haunt may have been communing with its fellow.

He was surprised to waken unharmed and still his own creature, with the Sword still in his possession. Or vice versa.

The Toal stood statue-still, stone-patient. Its eyes remained fixed on the road. Gacioch's hints about someone other than the Mindak wanting to lay hands on the Sword began to make sense. Gathrid got a feel of the shape of it from his haunt.

All was not right in Ventimiglia. Nevenka Nieroda and the Dead Captains were out of control. They were acting behind the Mindak's back, and not in his interest. It looked like they wanted to keep Daubendiek away from Ahlert.

Why?

His Toal-haunt projected that infuriating mirth.

"Gacioch." He was unsure whether or not demons slept. Gacioch put on a good show of waking grouchiness.

"What?"

"What's going on out west?"

"Folks are sleeping. It's night out there. They'd be sleeping here, if certain people didn't ..."

"In the war, I mean."

Gacioch had no shoulders to shrug, but gave a definite impression of having done so. "Not much.

Ahlert is bogged down. Involved in a war of attrition."

Gathrid recalled Rogala's assessment of the Mindak's generalship. "A master warlock but an indifferent captain?" he suggested.

"In a nutshell."

It became more clear. "And the troops are getting restless?"

Gacioch would say no more. Gathrid suspected he had hit the mark. So. The politics of disunity had reached the enemy camp. Ventimiglia was not a monolith anymore.

Nieroda had to be the focus. Dissension is a contagious disease, he thought. He would have to redouble his vigilance. Two factions would be after the Sword. Neither would care what became of Gathrid of Kacalief.

Maybe he could use them... .

The important goal remained the Library. In fact, reaching it now seemed absolutely essential. Was that an intuition? Might it be a subliminal instruction from Su-chara?

He wakened Loida. "Time to go, girl."

She glanced round, spied the Toal. "It's still here."

"It's still here. I'm afraid it'll be with us for a while."

Breakfast was quick and cold. The horses were lacking in a properly enthusiastic attitude. Gacioch talked at length when Gathrid questioned him, but had nothing concrete to say. It was not an auspicious beginning for the day.

"Let's go, Loida. We've got a long way to go." The map in his mind was daunting, though his shared souls assured him the journey was easier than it looked.

Gathrid set a hard pace once more. Not only did he want to reach the Library before the Ventimiglians thought to seal it off, he wanted to get there before Nieroda appeared. He suspected restraint on the part of the Toal reflected its expectation of the controlling spirit's imminent arrival.

They entered the foothills of the Chromogas shortly before noon. They started collecting new followers there. These soon formed a veritable parade. Gathrid drove the horses harder.

A flying thing appeared. It circled high overhead. It did not resemble the dragon thing Nieroda had ridden in Gudermuth. Who bestrode it Gathrid could not tell. It did carry a rider, he believed.

The Toal remained a fixed two hundred yards behind him, changing its pace when he did. The Ventimiglians stayed that far behind it. Gathrid wondered where their loyalties lay.

By now, he thought, there could be no doubt of his destination. This was the wildest country he had seen since leaving the Nirgenaus, though even here there were manors. They perched atop the terraced hills. He searched his encyclopedia of memories. The Library was the only thing on the map of his mind. They could not think he was bound anywhere else... .

They were letting him go where he wanted, then. To their purpose. They wanted him at the Library.

Was he doing Nieroda's work? Was he killing these animals and punishing himself and Loida for nothing?

Logic battled emotions long keyed to danger. Once again he wished Rogala could advise him. "Take a chance," he said aloud. He had played hunches before. He slowed to a walk.

The procession did the same. No one made a threatening move, though the Toal did station itself closer.

People were watching from the hillside farms. The peasants were not working today. They were lined up as if to observe the passage of a parade. When he appeared, some retreated. Some fled toward places of hiding.

He experienced that feeling of power which heretofore had come only with the drawing of the Sword.

Then he came to the Library, sooner than he expected. And found the answers to several riddles.

Why his progress had not been interrupted. Why the serfs were on holiday.

The Mindak Ahlert was there waiting for him.