The Swordbearer

Chapter Twelve

Covingont Nevenka Nieroda launched an offensive in Bilgoraj. Sorceries howled and prowled and wasted the Beklavac Hills. Castles tumbled. Strongpoints fell. Yedon Hildreth and the Brotherhood contested every foot of ground. The fighting was merciless and bitter.

Hildreth knew he would lose. His allies were withholding reinforcements, were withdrawing his tactical reserves. Fearing they would lose them, they would not give him the tools he needed to hold.

They had a defeatist outlook. Expecting a breakthrough, they wanted to beef up their defenses at home. Some talked of getting out of the Alliance altogether.

They did not yet know that the Mindak no longer directed their enemies, that this Ventimiglian host was renegade and stood excommunicated from its homeland.

Hildreth held on. He awed his allies with his stubbornness. He held his battered army together solely with the adhesive of will.

Then Gerdes Mulenex withdrew the Red Order.

Death kissed Hildreth's last hope full on the lips.

Nieroda's sorceries began to hurt. The desertions began. They started small, with a man here and there running for home or crossing the lines to enlist with a winner. Then Malmberget and Bilgoraj evacuated their contingents.

It was over. Everyone knew it. Of those left behind, whole companies went over to Nieroda. She welcomed them as prodigals returned to the fold.

Within days Hildreth's command consisted only of his own Imperials and the contributions of the Blues and Whites. As might be expected of small men, his allies indicted him for failing.

Hildreth responded by abandoning his positions. He left behind everything but his animals and men.

He marched toward Sartain.

He ignored renewed entreaties from those who had deserted him and were now interested in enlisting his skills in defense of their individual principalities. His answering letters were hard and forthright and sometimes insulting. He made no friends.

Nieroda did not swoop down on Torun. She sent two seasoned brigades to occupy the Beklavac narrows. Her main force she turned eastward. Striking quickly, she drove Honsa Eldracher back into Katich. She stripped him of much of his strength as he withdrew.

Again she disdained the obvious move. Instead of reducing the obstinate city, she marched eastward, into Grevening. Her army now boasted as many western turncoats as Ventimiglian.

Gathrid stood in Covingont's pink granite watchtower and watched Ahlert's new army pass below. An icy wind whipped his cloak and gnawed at his flesh. Winter was clamping down on the high Nirgenaus. For days Ahlert's wizards had been fighting the weather, keeping the pass open.

The youth had been at Covingont three days. Having nothing else to do, he had spent his time thinking, questioning, wriggling on the hook of his conscience.

Loida joined him in Covingont's chill. "There's so many of them," she whispered. "And when they came to Grevening before, we thought the whole might of Ven-timiglia had fallen on us."

"There's more of them. We haven't seen a ghost of their real strength. There're so many people in Venti-miglia."

"What're you going to do when this's over? When peace comes?''

He glanced at her. Could she be that naive? "Try to rest easy in my grave."

She faced him, took his hand. "You're sure you're going to end up like Aarant, aren't you. Why? Do you really have to? Or are you going to make it come true by believing it?"

"The Sword ... Loida, it's taking me over. I can't get away from it. I can't leave a room without it anymore. Remember the fairy tale about Ash Boy and the Sticking Stone? He would throw it away every night before he went to sleep, and every morning it would be back in his hand when he woke up. That's the way this is. Only maybe I'm the stone. We're going to be stuck the rest of my life. Which won't last long if other Sword-bearers are any indicator. I can't get away from Suchara."

Loida squeezed his hand. "The priests never tell us why the gods do what they do. They just say we have to go along."

"I don't think they are gods. That's the strange part. But they can't be human. Sometimes I think they exist only in our imaginations. One old guy in Senturia said they wake up because there's a need in the race. A collective mind that calls them forth."

"My father used to say that about the gods. That they exist only in the hearts of the faithful."

"One thing for sure. Rogala is real. The Sword is real.

.

Nieroda is real. And they've all been around a long time. Sometimes they used other names. The Mindak's scholars say Grellner was really Nieroda. And she might be the Driebrant who made the Shield."

"Do you believe in reincarnation?"

"Only the way Nieroda does it. She's a continuous ego. Her identity isn't ever interrupted, Why?"

"I wondered if I played any part in Tureck Aarant's life."

"You believe in it?"

"Yes."

"The only woman in his story was his mother."

"And she would fill the same role as your sister. What you called the kin-death."

"I suppose." He scowled at the soldiers below. Their column seemed endless. He wondered how many would become sacrifices on the altar of this godlike family's game.

He forced a smile. "Guess I've been around Rogala too much. The thing goes on and on, but the scripts aren't fixed. Things are a little different each time. Maybe this time humanity will win."

"Gathrid, were you happy at Kacalief?"

"Most of the time. Why?"

"You take everything so serious. You make everything so important. You want to change everything to the way it should be. I thought maybe you had a bad time when you were little."

"You think Rogala is right? That we should just go along? Make it easy on ourselves? Loida, somebody's got to fight it."

"You can say that till the sun freezes, boy. It won't make a whit of difference." The dwarf joined them. Gathrid started to move away. He was doing his best to avoid Rogala still. Loida clung to his hand, holding him there.

"It hurts," Rogala said. "It hurts like hell sometimes. But that's the way things are. Even for us. And we're the shakers and movers. The ones who make things happen. Think how frustrating it must be for the ones we happen to."

A nasty chuckle drew Gathrid's attention. Rogala had installed Gacioch in a special carrying case, an ornate box. He carried it in the crook of his arm.

"See you've found a friend, Theis. Enjoy. You were made for each other."

"You don't have to like me, boy, but we're stuck with each other. You could try to get along."

"Try to get along? Why don't you take your own advice?"

"How do you mean? I'm willing to try."

"I've got a name. It's not Boy. I had enough of that from my father. And I'm tired of hearing about how we don't have any choice. A man always has a choice. Su-chara can't control us every second. She can't make us live if we don't want to."

"This's serious," the dwarf grumbled. He considered Gathrid intently.

"Why not do a belly-buster off this here tower?" Gacioch asked. "It's been dull for days. Big news. Sword-bearer commits suicide. That would liven things up."

"I just might try it."

"Don't be a fool," Rogala snapped.

"Appeal to his better nature," Gacioch suggested. "Remind him that he'll hurt the people he lands on." The demon hooted as if at one of time's great jokes.

"I don't need to," the dwarf replied. "He's right about the choice. Suchara can't control him all the time. But he hasn't thought it all the way through. She doesn't need to, thanks to Nieroda."

He grinned evilly. "He's got this haunt. It would take him over if he died. And it wouldn't let him die all the way. It would keep him sitting there behind it, watching everything it did with his body."

Gathrid shook in an instant of fury. Rogala was right. It was that impotence which had made the souls of Mohrhard Horgrebe and Obers Lek so difficult to digest. They had spent ages despairing over their usage.

"That's still a choice," he blustered.

"Sure is. And as pretty a one as you'll ever have to face. You up to it, Gathrid? Really up to it?

I didn't think so."

The Mindak and his wife came to 'the tower's top. Gathrid immediately forgot everything but Mead.

The woman had a warmth, compassion and understanding lacking in his other acquaintances. Though she was twelve years older, he remained halfway in love.

Common soldier to high commander, Ventimiglians were interested only in survival, plunder and power. Hows and whys and who got hurt were matters of supreme indifference.

Mead cared.

Yet she believed in her husband.

It had taken Gathrid weeks to resolve the apparent contradiction. He finally concluded that the lady agreed with her husband's ultimate goal, an empire free of strife. What she loathed were his methods.

Gathrid bowed to the Lady Mead. She offered him a ghost of a smile. Loida scowled. The youth was more obvious than he thought. He said, "We were just discussing the traps of our lives."

"We're all trapped in our lives," Mead observed. "Either by the Great Old Ones or by ourselves. No use mourning it, Gathrid. Make the best of a bad situation. Try to leave things better for those who will follow us."

"Any success would be devoured by the Great Old Ones," Ahlert told her.

The lady smiled her serene smile.

"What?" Gathrid asked. He had missed something. Had the Mindak finally told Mead that he had been Chosen by Chuchain?

"You're picking an argument, dear," Mead told her husband. "I'm not going to play today." She guided Ahlert to a point twenty feet from Gathrid's group.

The youth reddened. He took a step in the Mindak's direction.

"Just hold it," Rogala growled. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

Gathrid stopped. He was surprised at himself. "Oh. Yes. All right." He felt a moment of shame. He was becoming arrogant behind his despair. He was getting too confident of his immunity from every peril but Rogala's dagger.

He had not been born with this blade in his hand. Behind it he was nothing but Gathrid of Kacalief, a very unprepossessing youth.

He was getting antsy. He had to get out of Covingont soon. He had to start doing something.

Fate granted his wish soon enough. Messenger birds began arriving. Contact had been made with Nieroda. Her rebels were in Silhavy and Gorsuch. Patrol after patrol reported an encounter. The presence of Toal was mentioned in every message.

Nieroda had split her army into divisions commanded by the Toal, hoping to draw the Mindak into multiple engagements. Gathrid saw her strategy. He and Dauben-diek could be but one place at a time. She was diluting the power of the Sword.

Selection of a suitable response generated a lot of debate. One of the Mindak's generals suggested, "Let's poke at them till we find out which group she's with, then go after that one."

Ahlert himself said, "I think if we worked out the assignments carefully, our best people could neutralize the Toal with each group while our troops handled hers. The Swordbearer could move from battleground to battleground while we kept them pinned."

Another general said, "I don't like the idea of us splitting up. It's not good tactics. We'd end up scattering our strength too much."

General Tracka, who commanded the Imperial Brigade, added, "Not to mention that that's obviously what she wants. Which makes it a trap of some sort."

Rogala coughed querulously. "Excuse me, gentlemen. It ain't my place to horn in, but you don't give me a whole lot of choice."

The Mindak's commanders looked at him as if he were a roach discovered in a half-eaten bowl of breakfast porridge.

"You'll grant me a certain familiarity with military procedures, won't you? I mean, I have seen a few wars."

"It didn't occur to me to consult you," the Mindak admitted. "Go ahead. Fire away. I'm always open to suggestion."

"Look at the bigger picture before you start your planning."

"Explain."

"Nieroda has committed an unpardonable strategic sin. The general trend of this discussion indicates that you're going to let her get away with it. That you haven't yet noticed."

"I don't follow you."

"She's taken on a war on two fronts. The enemy on each side is stronger. She's risked it thinking she knows you well enough to predict your behavior. She's betting she can whip you before the Alliance gets its house in order. The way you're all talking, she made the right bet."

The generals muttered among themselves. Gathrid caught fragments of sentences involving sentiments ranging from embarrassment at not having seen the obvious to irritation at the dwarf for having interrupted his betters.

"So?" said the Mindak. "What would you do?"

"Make her sweat. Just plain don't fight her. Dig in right here. Hold the Karato. Time is on our side. Every day that passes will tighten the jaws of the vise. Sooner or later she'll have to come to you, and try to finish you, on your ground and your terms. In one place, where Daubendiek can do the most damage."

Ahlert reflected but a moment before nodding. "Tactically sound, Rogala. But let's note a wee problem. It's not springtime. If I sit my men down in one place, digging trenches and building stockades, how do I feed them? They wouldn't be able to forage. And we don't have the Power to keep the pass open."

Rogala smiled. "I didn't overlook that angle. I haven't forgotten the old saying that an army marches on its stomach. Nor the considerable likelihood that Nieroda's foragers have already stripped the countryside, the colonials out there being beholden to your family and therefore fair game."

The Mindak's eyebrows rose. He surveyed his staff. With a trace of sarcasm, he observed, "I don't recall anyone having made that point before."

One officer blustered, "We anticipated using stocks captured from the enemy.''

"Oh. I see. Gentlemen, I never claimed to be a military genius, but even I can see the hole in that kind of planning.''

"One giant hole," Rogala said, chuckling. "That's desperation planning. Easy! Easy! I've been round the quartermasters. I know what we have, down to the last bushel of oats. We can get through the winter."

"Would you tell us how?" Ahlert asked. "I know of rations for two months. The Karato will be closed four to five."

Rogala sucked air between his teeth. "Now we come to the part where I get unpopular." He grinned a big, toothy grin behind his wild beard. "First, there'll be casualties. Nieroda will have no choice. She'll have to attack. That will mean men dying. Dead men don't eat. That'll help some."

One of the generals muttered something sour about negative attitudes.

Rogala winked and went on. "Mainly, though, the way to manage is for the officer class to swallow a side order of pride with their meals. This army has almost as many animals as men. Not a lot of them will be useful if my strategy is adopted. So eat the animals, beginning with the non-workers.

The warhorses. Then eat their food, that you worked so hard to haul over the mountains. Oats cook up just fine, and a two month supply for one horse will support several men for the same length of time."

Ahlert's staff seemed to have gone into shock. Roga-la's suggestion was so absurd, by their standards, that it took a half minute to fully penetrate and generate an angry stir.

The Mindak raised an admonitory hand. "Wait!" he said. "Rogala, that's asking an awful lot." The war-horse, specially bred and trained to carry an armored man in battle, and extremely expensive if calculated by the man-hours invested in the animal, was the symbol of status in feudal society.

Rogala's suggestion could not have been met with greater horror, east or west, had it been that they eat their babies.

Rogala clung to his point. "Look at it pragmatically. You won't need the animals. In my scenario you'd fight on foot anyway. Grab replacements from the enemy... . Meantime, let the animals forage. They can eat grass and leaves. Soldiers can't. Save the grain for them."

"What about pursuit?" someone demanded. Rogala had lighted a fire. The Mindak's staffers were wide awake and looking for a dust-up.

"Why worry about it? Where's she going to run? Just sit tight. Make her come to you, but keep her out of Ventimiglia. Let the Alliance mobilize behind her. Let her get desperate, attack and be defeated. Judging her troops by past performance, you won't need to chase them. They'll come begging to join up with you."

Gathrid followed the exchange in silence, often finding it amusing. Rogala was serious, he knew.

Intensely serious, and probably right. The Mindak's officers sensed the logic of his suggestions, and that raised their hackles even more.

Ahlert gave them free critical rein. For a time the meeting turned into an enthusiastic verbal brawl.

Rogala, unfortunately, was blessed with a lack of tact and an ages old habit of not explaining in sufficient detail. Both worked against him now. He answered most objections simply by saying, "You can't whip Nieroda in the field. She's got too much. Believe me." He failed to provide supportive evidence, so his arguments were not accepted. "Not even the Sword will help if you meet her on her terms. Damnit, you have to let her defeat herself. You have to sit here and look like you're going for a draw. You have to let the Alliance become a threat behind her. So she don't dare commit herself completely anywhere. If the alternative was defeat, I'd think getting my feet dirty was trivial. But that's just a coarse little peasant of a survivor's opinion."

Later, after an especially bitter denunciation by one of the conservatives, Rogala observed sadly,

"You're always the same. In every age. What do they do to you when you're little? Suck your brains out your earholes and stuff your heads with wool? You always consider your illusions more important than winning. I just don't get it. Hold it there, your undeserved generalship. I'm going to pronounce an oracle on your enterprise, based on a few thousand years of experience. You damned fools are going to get smoked. Nitwits always do."

"Smoked?" the offended general demanded.

"Smashed. Stomped. Decimated. Wiped out."

Ahlert made a gentle, open-palmed gesture in the general's direction. The man subsided immediately.

He still awes them, Gathrid realized. Maybe he hasn't slipped as much as he thinks.

Musingly, Rogala continued, "The Swordbearer and me, of course, we're going to get out of it all right. The lad here, he's emotional. He's going to mourn you all. Your wives and families too.

That's the way he is. Me, I'm just going to laugh. I get a kick out of seeing jerks get what's coming to them."

Rogala turned to Ahlert. "One other thing, Chief. Assuming somebody has an attack of smarts and listens to me, that gang of camp followers has got to go. Right now. They aren't nothing but eating mouths. The mouths you want to fill belong to your soldiers, not your harlequins and harlots." He stamped away. After a few steps, he paused to beckon Gathrid. The youth rose and followed.

Once out of earshot of Ahlert, the dwarf said, "We're not going to have any more luck here than we had with the Alliance Kings. These clowns would let their army get stomped like cockroaches in a cattle stampede before they'd swallow their pride and do what I tell them."

Rogala misjudged the mettle of the Mindak. The army remained encamped in the mouth of the Karato.

Immense earthworks began to rise, more as a means of keeping the troops occupied than for their military value.

Magnolo Belfiglio relayed the news that the west's political problems were settling out. Yedon Hildreth was in Bilgoraj again, clearing the Beklavac narrows.

Nieroda continued to await a response from the Mindak.

Rogala did not win all his points. The horses did not go to the butchers right away. Their destruction was too much for even the Mindak to swallow in a single lump.

Nieroda moved steadily nearer, finally establishing a line of fortified camps five miles west of Ahlert's position. For weeks the only contact between armies came when scouting parties skirmished. Each host awaited the other's first move.

Ahlert lost patience first. He led Gathrid, a grumbling Rogala and a select company of warriorwizards into no-man's-land, hoping to provoke Nieroda into some ill-advised action.

She refused the bait.

Ahlert tried again. And again. The Dark Lady responded by sending a Toal's brigade to savage the Ventimiglian right while her opposite flank was being irritated by Ahlert's raiders.

Next morning Ahlert announced, "Word from Belfiglio. She's going to turn our tactic against us.

She's coming after our livestock today." Ahlert's party had plundered Nieroda's herds several times.

"You thinking ambush?" Rogala sounded hopeful.

"I am."

The usual raiding party assembled and raced to intercept Nieroda's raiders. The dwarf knew the perfect site for a bushwhacking, but it was far from the lines. They barely got themselves hidden in the brush and washes and gullies in time.

"Damn that Belfiglio!" Ahlert snarled when he saw the enemy approaching. "He didn't say he was going to hit us this hard."

Six Dead Captains led the enemy party. With them rode a mix of Nieroda's best soldiers. Their path would take them to Ahlert's extreme left flank, where the animals were grazing.

Gathrid found himself more nervous than the situation seemingly demanded. There was a wrongness in the air. The fight looked too big. He whispered to Rogala, "I think we'd better call it off."

Rogala was uneasy too. "I'll suggest we hit from behind, after they begin their attack on the main line."

Too late. The Toal entered the ambuscade. Ahlert signaled the attack.

Gathrid muttered, drew Daubendiek, joined the charge.

The Toal were not surprised. Six black-gauntleted hands rose, thrust out stiffly. Six Ventimiglian saddles emptied.

Spells previously prepared by both sides lightninged back and forth. The earth churned. The sky darkened. Horses screamed and threw their riders. The companies crashed together, mixed.

Nieroda and the remaining Toal appeared on a nearby rise.

"A trap within a trap," Gathrid shouted at Rogala, pointing. Daubendiek took control, howled about him, murdered sorceries and drank lives.

Nieroda had anticipated the Mindak. Perhaps she had fed Belfiglio disinformation to set her opponent up.

The Toal remained out of Gathrid's reach, but gradually enveloped him. He saw disaster taking shape. The Dark Champion's strategy had one obvious purpose: to strip her former master of his most potent ally.

Gathrid knew he was not invulnerable. Daubendiek had limits. Swordbearers had fallen in battle ere now.

The Toal and Rogala had their limits, too.

A band of the Mindak's warrior-wizards isolated one Dead Captain. Rogala got in among them and with preternatural quickness planted a dagger in the thing's side. The sorceries on his short blade were weaker than those on the thing's armor. His knife burst into flame. But it survived long enough to cripple and distract the creature.

A blurring stroke of the Toal's dark blade, moving faster than the nimble dwarf could dodge, raked Rogala's side. He yipped like a kicked puppy, spurred away.

The Ventimiglians invested six lives in unhorsing the injured Toal. They drove its own witchblade through its heart.

The battle was not going well, Gathrid decided. The casualties were too nearly even. And Nieroda had come a little closer. She might be tempted to get involved herself.

Daubendiek got the reach of a Dead Captain.

This time the disorientation seemed endless. Gathrid's mind threatened to shake loose from its foundations. This Dead Captain, when it had been a man, had worn the name Tureck Aarant.

Staggered, Gathrid thought, Are there other Sword-bearers among the Toal? Will that be my fate?

Only eleven of a hundred ninety Ventimiglians survived the skirmish. Nieroda had crafted herself a cunning little victory. Of those eleven, Gathrid was the lone man to escape without a wound.

Of the flesh. The cuts on his soul were deep and painful, and festered immediately.

Ahlert sounded the withdrawal when he saw the Swordbearer go slack in his saddle. He grabbed Gathrid's reins, shouted orders and fled. Most of the men lost died covering his retreat.

Gathrid retreated, too, deep inside himself, where he faced a sad yet grateful Tureck Aarant.

"What's happened to him?" Ahlert demanded of Rogala. "He just seemed to fold up."

The puzzled dwarf replied, "I don't know. Some Nieroda trick. He cut a Toal down and ... It was almost like the soul went out of him."

They approached friendly lines. A storm of arrows screened them from the pursuit. "Get him up to Covin-gont," the Mindak ordered. "I'll be there as soon as we turn them back."

Nieroda's whole army came up behind her raiders. They attacked all along the Ventimiglian line.

Somehow, the news had traveled ahead. Loida and several of Ahlert's best demonologists were waiting at Covingont's gate. "What happened?" the girl demanded.

Rogala ignored her. He cursed and gestured and bullied the fortress's garrison into lifting the youth off his mount and onto a stretcher. He used his own blade to cut the ropes binding Gathrid to the horse's back. "Come on. Come on," he snarled. "Let's get him out of this weather. He'll die of pneumonia."

Loida kept asking questions. Everyone kept ignoring her. The demonologists stayed close to the stretcher, trying to detect the presence of an attacking spirit. Rogala told them about the youth's Toal-haunt and expressed the opinion that that was not the cause of the present difficulty.

"It may not be the cause," one replied, "but it'll certainly take advantage if it can. We'd better prepare for it."

"Right. Right. Girl, what are you doing?"

Loida had managed to elbow her way through the crowd. She was holding Gathrid's hand as the stretcher moved along. She ignored Rogala.

Inside, Gathrid began to come out of^hock. He began to explore this bizarre new soul that had, for a time, nearly displaced his own.

He knew he was lucky. Had Tureck Aarant had the habits of the creature that had possessed him, he could have taken control during the period of shock. But this Aarant was not the aggressive Aarant of legend. Indeed, he was a rather gentle being. But he had the impact of all the souls he had taken in his own time.

He shared some truths about the Brothers' War. They shattered the myths that had been handed down the ages. The Immortal Twins ceased being such ivory exemplars of righteousness for Gathrid. The great champions of the brothers developed mean, small-minded dimensions. All those heroic names developed their human sides.

The Dark People of Ansorge had perished, but not without leaving a legacy. The last act of the last of their elders had been to make certain that Tureck Aarant became one of the Toal. They had foreseen enough of the future to know that the Toal would battle the next Sword-bearer. In their efforts to break the rhythm and cycle holding the world in thrall they had bet on Aarant coming to blows with his successor.

How had Mead put it? Do what you can for those who are yet to live?

The last of Gathrid's innocence fled when he met Tureck Aarant.

Nieroda had known he was one of her Toal. She had brought them together, knowing Gathrid would be stunned.

The youth realized she had not known the whole truth, had not understood the Dark People's motives. She would not have faced the risks had she done so. Yet her ploy came within a whisker of success. Gathrid was in no shape for wrestling his haunt.

The stretcher-bearers carried him to a warm room deep inside Covingont. Loida, Rogala and the Mindak's people crowded in. "Build up the fire," someone ordered. One of the weary stretcherbearers began chucking logs into the fireplace.

Loida kept on with the frightened questions.

Rogala snapped, "Girl, if you want to stay, get on round the other side there and keep quiet. The questions will answer themselves." He was surprisingly gentle. He turned, asked, "Has it started?"

The senior of the four wizards assigned to the youth replied, "Not yet. He seems to be in shock right now."

Rogala felt Gathrid's pulse, watched his breathing, considered the color of his skin. Shock, all right. He had seen it on a thousand battlefields. But no one had touched the youth. Why, then?

Gathrid suddenly arched his back and made a terrible sound deep in his throat. He began thrashing.

Foam appeared on his lips.

"That's it," said the senior wizard. "Hold him," he told the stretcher-bearers. "Let's get him into some sort of restraints. Rogala, see that he doesn't swallow his tongue. Put something between his teeth. He could bite it and drown in his own blood."

The dwarf seized a piece of kindling.

The wizards chanted, then listened with an inner ear, then chanted some more. The senior finally observed, "It's a strong one, this devil."

"One of the Toal spirits," Rogala replied.

"This's going to be hard work, then. If it knows how to install itself with outside help."

The wizards practiced their craft. Two days would pass before they dared relax, before they saw themselves safely through the crisis. The Toal haunt was stubborn and determined.

For a time the Gathrid inside, so weakly anchored to his flesh, did not realize who or what he was. He knew only that he was fighting for his existence. And in the beginning he did not have much motive for winning.

He seemed, to be in a different world, an imaginary world. He formed an army of one, and upon an unseen plain he met another such host, a formless shadow that seemed to be mostly hunger. It leapt at him, and bore him down, and seemed about to devour him... . Then they were back where they started, facing one another again. It leapt at him, and bore him, down, and seemed about to devour him... .

Gathrid was baffled. Over and over, the same thing happened. And each time something broke the chain before the moment of disaster.

Then he felt Tureck Aarant in there with him. Tureck Aarant, who could have taken him, fighting to save him. And then there were other forces, things unseen, from outside the dream, which put constraints upon the shadow, and weakened it while he grew stronger.

There was no feel of time in there. Nor did Gathrid care, till caring returned and he began to fight more from desire than reflex. The battle turned the instant he rediscovered his will to survive.

"That's it," Aarant whispered. "That's it. We have it on the run now. Come. Let's destroy it." And in an instant they were in pursuit, flying across the unseen plain.

The youth's eyes opened. He needed several seconds to get his bearings. He found Loida holding his hand, looking exhausted and worried. "Hi!" he croaked, grinning a rictus of a grin.

"Gathrid!"

"I'm back."

She threw herself at him, hugging him. Then she shouted, "He's awake! He came out of it."

Rogala and several Ventimiglians charged into the room. "How you doing, son?" the dwarf demanded.

Weakly, Gathrid replied, "I think the worst is over."

"What happened?"

"Careful," Aarant whispered inside him.

"I was going to ask you. The Toal thing, I think."

"That's what we figured. Ooh, that Nieroda was crafty.''

Gathrid tried to lever himself into a sitting position. Loida had to help him. "How long was I out?"

"Two days. And she used every second." Rogala told the tale.

Nieroda's forces had ripped and torn at the army blocking the Karato. A finger of one assault had high-watered in the snows below fortress Covingont. The Mindak was still trying to drive that thrust back. The old scars on the walls of the pass had been obliterated by new ones.

Gathrid smiled. "What good would winning do her? Winter will hold the pass better than any army."

Rogala shrugged. "The seasons turn."

Gathrid tried to get to his feet. "I've got to get down there and help."

The Mindak entered. He examined the youth. "You aren't going anywhere for a few days."

"But ..."

"You're too weak. To be honest, I don't want you going out there and losing the Sword."

Rogala agreed. "You just stay put. Take it easy. Girl, keep an eye on him. Yell if he gets too frisky."

They forced him back down on the cot. And once down, he found he did not mind having Loida fuss over him.

In his shy way he was fond of her. He did not yet know her well, but he did feel good when she was around. He was tempted to stretch his convalescence.

Loida was first to sense the changes in the Sword-bearer. He had returned to the world possessed of an altered perspective, a new determination, a new hardness, a new hunger for the destruction of the forces toying with mankind. She found this new Gathrid frightening. She liked the old one better.