Knights of the Sword

Chapter 22

What Tarothin did to the servants of Zeboim was one of those things that are simple to describe but hard to accomplish. Wizardry is full of such, but this was one that the Red Robe had not before encountered.

Very simply, he walled himself off from the Evil spells. Then he surrounded the wall with another spell that turned all the power of Zeboim’s servants back against them.

He knew several such turnabout spells and would have used one long since, except that such spells risk destroying all wizards involved. It was walling himself off and repelling Evil at the same time that had needed the help of both Rubina’s power and of her knowledge of Black Robe powers.

The result was, as he learned afterward, all that could be expected.

There were, it was believed, seven priests of Zeboim aboard the Istarian fleet. There was one aboard each of three ships, and four together aboard another.

Two of the single priests died without their ships being destroyed. Of one priest they found nothing that could be recognized as having once been a human being. Of a second, they found such remains that hardened sailors turned aside and spewed-into the water rising rapidly from leaking seams.

The third lone priest vanished, no one knew where. All the crew of his ship learned was that suddenly there was a hole large enough for an oxcart in their ship, below the waterline. A well-disciplined crew, they took to their boats swiftly, and also threw overboard enough floatable deck gear so that most of them were saved in due course.

The ship with the four priests suffered a harsher fate.

* * * * *

Darin’s first warning of anything amiss was a sudden sharp shock that made the deck quiver under his feet.

Then he saw that where the contending storms had been was only a howling wind blowing toward the Istarians. A howling wind that died as swiftly as it had begun, leaving only patches of foam on rapidly shrinking waves.

Most of the Istarians were already under reefed canvas; Darin saw only one mast fall. But in the center of the fleet, a large ship seemed to rise from the water, as though some monster were lifting it.

Its keel was almost clear of the water when the ship disintegrated. It was not a slow crumbling, like a ship battered on the rocks. It was a shattering, like a ripe fruit thrown hard against a stone wall.

Masts and spars, deck and hull planking, ribs and portions of keel, deck gear, boats, cordage, sails, stores-all arched outward, pieces heavier than any man could lift flying like arrows. Flying, then splashing down among them, were flailing shapes that could only be the bodies of the crew.

Darin prayed briefly that they had not suffered. The Mate of the Deck had already given the order to the oarsmen, and Gullwing’s prow was swinging about, toward the Istarians. If any wave followed the other ship’s destruction, it would be ready to meet it.

There was a wave, but it was more of a brief swelling of the water. The deck rose under Darin, then fell. Hardly a drop of water came aboard the battered galley. As the wave passed, a sailor came up to report that Tarothin’s cabin was now unlocked.

“Did you go in?”

“Unh-no, Lord.”

“Shall we go and see if we still have a wizard?”

The man blanched, but knew that Darin was not so mild as to tolerate cowards.

Gullwing still had a wizard, and the wizard, wearing sweat-soaked robes, was fast asleep. In fact, he was snoring fit to open the ship’s strained seams.

“Put water by him, and have the galley ready to offer any food he can eat when he wakes,” Darin told the sailor. “I will be on deck. We shape our course for the cove.”

* * * * *

At sea, the wave from the death of Zeboim’s servants was only the hump in the water that briefly lifted Gullwing. Closer to shore, when it reached shallow water, it became less benign.

From the boat, Aurhinius could hear more than he could see of the devastation among his ships. That was enough to chill him more than the breeze, but he put the best face on matters that he could. All around him he saw fear that might easily turn to panic; he’d be thrice-cursed if he intended to drown simply because some oarsmen lost their nerve and their wits!

“The battle of magic is over, and I do not think those we had aboard prevailed,” he called out. “But I have for long doubted that they were Good or Lawful. There can be a dreadful price to pay for allying oneself with such.”

And if these words get back to the kingpriest, so be it!

“I think the Red Robe Tarothin escaped from Pride of the Mountains to fight those who called themselves our friends. He is Neutral, which is to say that he will not pursue us, as long as he has prevailed over Evil.”

The men looked relieved, even if they didn’t seem to understand the half of what Aurhinius said. He was not sure himself that more than half of it was true or made sense. But this was one of the many times in his years of command when he had to say something, to fill with words a silence that would otherwise fill with terror!

Then all his efforts seemed in vain, as a wall of water rose behind the boat.

It was gray-blue at the bottom and green near the top, and it rose above the boat as high as the aftercastle of a great ship. It swept forward, it swooped down-and Aurhinius felt the boat rising.

“Steer small and hold on to your oars!” he roared over the rush of the water. They might just slide over the crest and onto the seaward side, which would do them no good if there was another wave coming, but-

A foamy crest leaped about them, then they were sliding down the other side of the wave. It swept on, to break in a smother of foam where the shore was level and in columns of spray where it was rocky.

It was the backwash from the wave that overthrew the boat, as all the water flung ashore by the wave sought its way back to the sea. Small, vicious waves hurled themselves at the boat from all directions, the oarsmen sweated and swore, and at last the boat rose, then dropped on a rock normally well below the surface.

The first man overboard was Aurhinius’s secretary, and not through cowardice. The rock simply splintered the part of the boat where he’d been sitting, or rather, clinging like a barnacle, and plunged him into the water.

The second man overboard was Aurhinius himself. He might have let a sailor go if the boat hadn’t been so obviously sinking. As it was, he was going to be swimming anyway, so why not be useful?

He was more than useful. His secretary had gone under by the time Aurhinius reached him, then came floundering to the surface.

“Help! I can’t swim!”

Aurhinius threw one arm around the secretary’s chest and began swimming with the other arm and both legs.

“I can. Be easy. In fifty paces, you’ll be able to walk ashore.”

It was farther than that, because the backwash came and went several times. One sailor had to be revived when they finally lurched ashore, but no one had drowned.

“I said the Red Robe had nothing much against us after defeating his real foes,” Aurhinius reminded the men.

The boat’s stores had not been so fortunate. Much of Aurhinius’s campaign wardrobe and armor, as well as his secretary’s crate of parchments, pens, and account books, were now down among the shellfish and the seaweed.

Aurhinius hoped there would not be a great deal of commanding to do, at least until he could find some dry clothes. Beliosaran would no doubt enjoy another day of being the lord of all he surveyed, and would probably be more insistent than ever about claiming the ogre’s share of whatever victory had been won.

Two horsemen were making their way down the hillside toward the shore. Then suddenly they spurred their mounts so violently that one slipped and fell.

The other came down so fast that he barely stopped short of riding into the sea. He jerked his mount’s head about, dismounted, and knelt.

“Lord Aurhinius. Beliosaran is slain, and the Minotaur’s folk are fleeing by sea. Your orders?”

The messenger was Zephros, one of those younger sons of a family much in the favor of the kingpriest. He was the last person Aurhinius really wanted to hear what must be said, but that was fate, not fault.

“We have no fleet in a condition to pursue the Minotaur’s folk. What of the men ashore? Beliosaran is a grievous loss, I know, but are his men gone? Is the landing party safe?”

“Our men are mostly safe, though the city levies have no heart for fighting. But there is magical fire all about the Minotaur’s stronghold. It burns without destroying, yet bars all from entering.”

And we have no more magic to use against it, thought Aurhinius.

“Very well. I will take command and send the men out to search the countryside. Waydol may well have left stragglers from whom we can learn something.

“Also, it would be well to see that no other outlaws repair to this stronghold and make trouble in the north country. The people here have endured enough.”

“No more than they deserved, for favoring a minotaur!”

Aurhinius heard honesty in that exclamation-honest hatred. But then, one could hardly expect moderation from people like this young man. How different from the Minotaur’s Heir.

The Istarian general wondered if the Minotaur’s Heir was still alive. He rather hoped so. Istar would need worthy foes to provide employment for its generals-and to keep men like this sprig of nobility somewhat honest!

* * * * *

The smoke from Rubina’s destruction of the tunnel was still rising from the hillside. Pirvan paced the deck of Windsword until Jemar the Fair told him rather sharply to leave off, as that was the captain’s privilege aboard ship.

Pirvan, knowing how much weighed on the sea barbarian’s mind, went below.

The main cabin had been turned into a sickroom for Waydol and Eskaia. Delia also shared it, lying under a blanket in one corner, which was not quite proper according to Sirbones.

Jemar and Eskaia had both told him in plain words what to do with propriety. Had he not yielded, Pirvan and Haimya would have spoken next.

Birak Epron and most of his men were aboard Thunderlaugh, so Windsword was not quite as crowded as some of the fleet. But there were few places aboard a human-built ship that could accommodate a minotaur at the best of times, and when the minotaur direly needed healing, there were fewer still.

Haimya was sitting beside Waydol’s pallet, holding one hand while Sirbones listened to the movement of blood in the other wrist. Waydol was tossing his head back and forth, and every so often he gave a deep groan. Each time he did, Pirvan also saw Haimya wince, as the massive hand closed on hers.

But he would not ask her to leave. He only wished he could take her place.

“Does my heir live?” Waydol gasped. “Have you heard?”

“We know Gullwing’s afloat,” Haimya said. “That signal came from the pilot boat. But she’s dismasted and coming in under oars. The sea is calming, but it may be a while before Darin comes aboard.”

Quite a while more for Waydol to suffer, unless Sirbones can use nearly the last spell in him to heal a minotaur.

They had offered Waydol common potions, but he himself had reminded them that if he was bleeding within, they might kill him. Also, the dosage for minotaurs was uncertain. Finally, he would be in his right senses when Darin came aboard, and there was an end to the matter.

Pirvan and Haimya had the impression that Waydol could still rise from his pallet and hammer them against the deck beams overhead if they went too much against his wishes. So they waited-for signals from Darin, for the wind to turn favorable, for Sirbones to regain his strength, for they knew not what.

For Waydol’s pain to end, was what Pirvan did not dare put into words; that was a wish the gods could grant by ending his life. If they do, before he speaks again with Darin, I-I do not know what I can do as a Knight of Solamnia. As a man, I wish-

The cabin door burst open, and the only man aboard who could enter without knocking dashed in, nearly knocking Haimya down.

“Waydol! Signal from Gullwing. Darin is unhurt and rejoices in your victory. Also, the wind is fair and we are leaving as fast as the anchors can come up!”

Waydol’s bellow was a ghost of its former self, but it still raised echoes in the cabin and made Eskaia clap her hands over her ears. It ended in a coughing spell that brought up bloody foam, and Haimya took a cloth soaked in herb water to wipe the Minotaur’s lips and chin.

“Send somebody else down to nurse me,” Waydol said. “You ought to be on deck.”

Reluctantly, Haimya rose.

Pirvan and Jemar were already on deck when she joined them. Pirvan put an arm around her, but she turned her head away. He knew what that meant-tears he was not supposed to see-and said nothing.

Smoke and flame spewed from one of the huts atop the slope. As the smoke drifted away and the stones rattled down on the roofs below, Pirvan recognized which hut it had been.

“Rubina again,” he said. “Making sure that no one will ferret out Waydol’s secrets from his hut.”

“Out oars!” Jemar shouted. “Deck crew, stand by to make sail.” He scurried aft toward the deckhouse.

Haimya’s head slipped down onto Pirvan’s shoulder, and he felt her trembling.

* * * * *

Only one circle of fire now burned in the distance. Rubina sat on a log outside the stronghold entrance, with a patch of melted rock slowly cooling only a few paces away.

Wearily, she rose to her feet and began to climb the slope to where she could find a view of the sea. She could have levitated there, but not without breaking the spell that maintained the last fire circle.

That she would maintain until the last ship was out to sea.

It was a long climb for a wizard who had spent her strength freely for a whole day. If she had been in the Tower of High Sorcery after such a day’s work, it would have been sleep and hearty meals for several days.

She had her doubts about the prospect of hearty meals in this land. She was more certain about the sleep.

Several times she was tempted to throw away her staff and robes. They were mere weight now, and she could end the fire circle with only a few simple words. Simple, at least, compared to what it had taken to raise the three fire circles with which she had begun the day’s work.

Yet she had worn the robe and carried the staff for so many years, it would seem unnatural to be without them. She did not care to feel thus, in her last hours of life.

Also, if those hours took her into night, it would be cold without the robes. When she was younger, she had taken much delight in outdoor trysts-she remembered one sturdy soldier, whose name she had never known, and a rose-laden breeze blowing over them both-

The sea spread out before her, so abruptly that she had to dig in her staff and grip a branch to keep from sliding over the edge.

There lay the sea, and on it ships. Two fleets, one to the east and so far off she could barely count it. One to the west, much closer, but just too far off to recognize any particular ships. And a single ship making its way toward the eastern fleet, low-built like a galley, and apparently moving under oars.

She sat down, in sight of the water but a safe distance from the drop. She raised her staff, and cast what she knew would be her last spell, one to briefly improve her vision so that she could make out which fleet was which.

The eastern fleet first. Closer needs less strength.

Her eyes watered, her vision blurred, then cleared-and Windsword seemed to be almost near enough to touch.

She even thought she could recognize Pirvan and Haimya standing forward, close together.

She had not wept all day. She did not weep now, until she finished counting Jemar’s ships. All ten were there, besides Gullwing.

Her work was finished. Why not just take a few steps forward?

Because your friends are now safe from Takhisis’s vengeance. The only people left on this coast are enemies. Do you want them safe, too?

That thought ended Rubina’s brief tears. It was pleasant to realize that one could go on fighting even after death, if one enlisted the Dark Queen on one’s side.

Perhaps the Black Robe was not such a bad decision after all.

* * * * *

Darin would gladly have swum to Windsword the moment Gullwing was close enough, but Jemar already had a boat over the side.

There was no more news of Waydol to read in the men’s faces. He knew there would have been some if the Minotaur was either healed or dead, even if no one had put it into words.

Indeed, the silence seemed to hang over the sea and Jemar’s fleet like a mist. The water rolled gently, the air was still, and it was as if there had never been death, terror, or magic here today.

Jemar was first to welcome him aboard the bannership, but then he stepped back and let Pirvan speak.

“Waydol spent himself long after he should have given up fighting,” Pirvan said.

“Is that your judgment or the priest’s?”

“I trust the priest.”

“He is not a warrior. He is-he is not without honor, but it is not a minotaur’s honor. Or a warrior’s. You are a warrior. What do you say?”

“In Waydol’s position, I would have done the same.”

Darin gripped Pirvan by both shoulders. “Thank you is only small words. If I find something better to do or say-”

“No haste,” the knight said. “Now go below, before Sirbones has to put Waydol to sleep for the healing.”

Darin cracked his head on overhead beams several times before finding the main cabin. Sirbones opened the door, and Darin’s first thought was that the priest of Mishakal needed a healer himself.

“I must go to work soon,” Sirbones said. “I have regained enough strength-I think. I cannot wait longer, regardless.”

“Do not be afraid,” Darin said. “If my father’s time has come-”

Sirbones darted away, with more speed than Darin would have thought he had in his legs.

From the cabin, a hoarse voice said, “What did you just call me?”

Darin bit his lip and wished that he would bite out his unruly tongue. He also wanted to stop blushing, but knew that if he waited for that, Waydol might be gone before he entered the cabin.

So he stepped in and knelt beside the pallet.

Presently he felt a large hand ruffling his hair. There was not much of it to ruffle, as he had close-shorn it before going to sea. Not much for a funeral offering, either.

“Now, what did you call me?”

“Father.”

“Hmmm. I am not-not the father of your body. But in all else-I will not-not refuse the title.”

“The one who teaches a child honor is the father of his soul.”

“Did you just make that-ah-did you make that up?”

“I have never read it.”

“No, there were not many books in the stronghold, or many lovers of books. Ask Sir Pirvan properly, and I think he will give you the run of his library.”

Darin wanted to do many things besides talk of his future education. One of them was to weep. He would prefer to be flung into the Abyss.

“Well, you or whoever said it are all right. So go and fetch Sirbones, my son. If I am not to exhaust him to no purpose-”

A gasp of pain interrupted the speech, and Darin felt the Minotaur shudder. Then a small hand touched his shoulder.

“You stay with your father, Darin. I will go for Sirbones.”

It was Lady Eskaia. She wore only a nightdress that concealed so much less than her normal clothing that Darin felt himself flushing all over again. He also remembered that she had been near to death herself.

“Now, don’t argue, Darin,” she said firmly in a voice that recalled Waydol’s in the days of Darin’s childish pranks. “I can certainly walk ten paces to find where Sirbones is biting his nails in a dark corner.”

She went out, followed by a faint rumbling noise that Darin finally recognized as Waydol-as his father-laughing.

* * * * *

Sir Niebar had changed his plans several times on the way from Tiradot Manor to the Chained Ogre. Each time, it was because of something new that he learned about Pirvan’s men-at-arms.

Most of what he learned was how much they had learned from Sir Pirvan, about the skills of what they delicately called “their knight’s former occupations.” Since this included such arts as entering a house from the top instead of the bottom, making watchdogs useless without killing them, and moving in a silence normally associated with incorporeal beings. Sir Niebar was not ungrateful to the Knight of the Crown for those teachings.

He could not, however, help wondering what else Tiradot Manor’s men had been taught that they were not confessing. Also, whether Sir Pirvan’s friends and enemies would learn of these only at the last moment.

The men-at-arms had also brought a fair amount of specially made devices and potions from the manor’s armory. These included spiked boots and gloves for climbing, grappling hooks on ropes, rope ladders, ointments for darkening the skin or concealing one’s scent, and potions to sprinkle on meat or biscuit and leave out for unwanted dogs.

Each carrying a pack with their share of the equipment, the seven men slipped in toward the Chained Ogre as clouds shut out the last light from the moons. Only a few lights showed in the houses, and not many more at the inn. The nearest festival was some days off; everyone had work tomorrow and was likely abed for the night.

Sir Niebar’s portion of the load was, apart from his weapons and some extra arrows for the archers, a large carrying sack. This was to let Gesussum Trapspringer down to the ground, in case he was in no fit state to climb himself.

As this would be put into use only near the end of the raid, and only in dire emergency, Sir Niebar found himself with the job of sentry. One man-at-arms shot a hook attached to an arrow high into the eaves of the inn. A second climbed up the rope, pulling another rope with him. A third bent onto the second rope a rope ladder, climbed the second rope trailing the ladder behind him, and hooked the ladder over the frame of a dormer window.

The window was open, and the fourth man-at-arms spat on the ground when he learned this. “Sir Pirvan wouldn’t have called this a sporting job when he was doing his former work,” the man whispered irritably. “No guarding worth the name.”

That seemed to be true, but then the innkeeper had no reason to suppose that anyone knew of valuables in the attic. He had indeed probably locked all the attic stairs just in case the kender loosed himself from his shackles and didn’t want to jump from a third-story window.

The fourth man-at-arms disappeared up the ladder, along with one of the knights. Sir Niebar and the second knight remained below, as sentries and also in case there was a trap laid in the attic. If they couldn’t make their escape with the kender, somebody had to make their way back to a keep and warn the knights.

Sir Niebar kept seeing moving shapes out of the corner of his eye, but they vanished when he looked directly toward the spots. He knew that darkness and an uneasy mind could deceive the eyes; he also heard nothing.

Which did not prove that trained adepts like the Servants of Silence could not be stalking him this very moment-

Light blazed from the attic dormer. For a moment Sir Niebar was dazzled, for another moment he thought the inn was afire. Then a small figure appeared in the window, silhouetted against the light. Without hesitating, it leaped, aiming for the branch of a tree that stood close to the inn.

A human would have snapped the branch like a twig. A kender, even a full-grown one, merely bent it down so far that he could safely drop the rest of the way to the ground. He landed awry, however, and the rough landing plus his privations had him groaning and unable to rise when Sir Niebar ran to him.

“The tattooed ones-” the kender gasped.

The warning was just in time. Sir Niebar and his companion sprang up and stood back-to-back, swords drawn, as four dark-clad figures burst from the trees. At the same time, a man-at-arms appeared in the window.

“Run!” he shouted.

Apart from waking the whole inn, Sir Niebar saw no purpose in that cry. The knights on the ground were not going to abandon their companions, and there was an end on it. There also would be no chance of taking a prisoner, if they incontinently fled.

So the two knights went briskly to work, and discovered to their mingled chagrin and relief that the four they faced were not finished swordsmen. Chagrin because there was no honor in fighting men who should not have been sent into battle at all; relief because it improved their chances of victory.

They still had to kill two of the Servants of Silence, and a third they wounded badly before he escaped into the night. A fourth might have escaped unhurt if Trapspringer hadn’t suddenly rolled over and thrust a dagger taken from one of the bodies into the man’s leg.

The man howled, missed a step, and went down like a felled tree as Sir Niebar shifted his grip and hammered the flat of his sword blade across the man’s temple. The other knight knelt immediately, to be sure the man was helpless and to bind his wound as necessary.

The kender did a little dance around the prostrate man. Sir Niebar had never seen a kender in a mood to take a blood vengeance before; he did not care to see one now.

However, the kender’s condition spoke for itself. He was now missing fingernails and teeth, as well as sporting the injuries Sir Pirvan had described. It was a minor wonder that he was as fit as he was. It was no wonder at all that he would have shed the blood of one of his tormenters if the knights had not been there.

By now the four men-at-arms were back down from the attic. One of them was thrown; when he landed in the gravel Niebar saw why. A sword or dagger thrust had pierced his heart; he must have died with neither delay nor pain.

Sir Niebar made it his business to make sure that the captive had one of the tattoos, which proved to be the case. Two of the other men-at-arms ran around to the main door of the inn and pushed a large wagon in front of it to discourage opening it. The third knight did similar work in the back, setting fire to a pile of kindling near the door.

Sir Niebar prayed earnestly to Sirrion, god of creative fire, that the kindling would burn long enough to be useful and even beautiful, but not long enough to burn down the inn and reduce innocent people to ashes.

The carrying sack proved useful in the end, for Trapspringer had spent his last strength in the dance. Sir Niebar, as the tallest of the seven companions, carried the kender. Two others carried the dead man-at-arms.

Occupants of the houses on the path back to where they’d left the horses had come awake by the time the companions passed them. But the watchdogs were mostly sleeping off potion-laden biscuit. Most of the people looking out of the houses or running out of them were going out the front as the companions passed the back, and the companions were all dark of face and clothing.

It occurred to Sir Niebar that anyone who did get a good look at them might well mistake them for the very band of the Servants of Silence they had met and defeated, the ones coming for the kender. If so, there would be all the more reason for the farmers to look the other way.

The horses were where they’d been tethered, though each one now had a kender at its head, ready to “handle” the tethers free in an instant or even cut them with daggers.

“We didn’t want the tattooed ones to have your horses and proof of who you were,” Rambledin said.

Gesussum Trapspringer’s head popped out of the sack. “Miron Rambledin! What are you doing here, if you’re doing anything useful, which it would be the first time for you if you-”

“If captivity won’t improve your manners, Gesi, the knight can always take you back to the inn,” Miron Rambledin said. “Now come along. These good folk have enough to carry without you, and Shemra will be happy to see you-no, on second thought, she won’t until you’ve taken a bath. When did they last let you within ten paces of hot water, if I may ask?”

“You may not,” Trapspringer said, but he scrambled out of the bag, swayed on his feet, then collapsed into Miron Rambledin’s arms. The other kender gathered around and lifted him, and before Sir Niebar could open his mouth to say a word in gratitude, the humans were alone with their horses.

“Well, it looks as if we have our prisoner,” Sir Niebar said. “And Rambledin nieces and nephews will soon be able to tell stories about a real Uncle Trapspringer. Although I hope they do not noise this affair about outside the family.”

“Maybe they will, maybe they won’t,” the man-at-arms who’d spoken up for helping kender said. “But you know how it is with those little folk. What one knows, all do before long. That didn’t do us any hurt tonight, Sir Niebar, and mayhap it won’t do us harm in the future.”

“Let the future look to itself. What we need now is less talk, sound horses, and the night staying dark.”

“Aye, Sir Niebar.”

In five minutes, the men and horses had departed as completely as the kender, if not as silently, and were riding through the night.

* * * * *

On a stretch of coast that was more naked rock than forest, Rubina was also alone with the night.

She was not alone in this land, she knew. From where she sat, she could see the torches of four Istarian searching parties, going over the battlefield. They seemed to be looking under every brush or even pebble for dead and wounded comrades and strays from Waydol’s men.

Twice she heard the clash of steel and the screams of the dying, as they found people who were either enemies or could not prove that they were friends. So far they had not found her, or even come far in her direction.

Takhisis, on the other hand, had not come at all. Rubina had long since expected to be in the Abyss, tormented to the edge of death and then brought back to life for further torment. Perhaps the Dark Queen was healing or consoling her daughter Zeboim?

Perhaps. More likely, Takhisis would come when she chose. Forcing Rubina to walk alone for days, months, even years, for fear of involving others in her fate, would be a subtle torment. The Dark Queen was a goddess, after all, with more time as well as more cruelty than any mortal.

Now one of the clusters of torches was finally crawling up the hill toward Rubina’s perch above the sea. Soon she could hear the thump of boots above the boom of the surf. Then she could make out torchlight reflected from armor, and finally she could make out faces.

One of them, in the middle of a ring of soldiers, was none other than Gildas Aurhinius himself. Proving that his night sight was that of a younger man, he was also the first to see Rubina.

“Ho, Lady! What do you here?”

Rubina stood up on legs that seemed ready to turn to water. She left her staff lying wedged in the rocks, not wishing to alarm the soldiers. Aurhinius might be on foot, but he was on foot with some twenty armed guards.

“I wait.”

“For what?”

“For my fate.”

“Stop talking riddles, woman,” another, younger voice snapped. “Men, forward and bind her. This must be the Black Robe of Waydol’s stronghold. There is much to learn from her.”

Aurhinius turned to the younger man, who wore ornate armor and seemed to be captain of the guards. “Permit me, Zephros.”

Aurhinius stepped forward. “Lady-Rubina, is it not?”

Rubina swallowed. She had not expected any Istarian to know her name.

“We try to learn where wizards are, and whether alive or dead,” he said mildly. “Sometimes we even succeed. Now, I do not promise that the Towers of High Sorcery will accept you back after this escapade, but I do promise that if you come peacefully, you will in time be free to return to them if you and they wish.”

Rubina turned the words over and over in her mind. This was the promise of a full pardon from Istar’s masters, if she helped them solve the mysteries of Waydol and the day’s fighting.

It was, alas, not a bargain she could accept. Involved were too many secrets that were not hers to reveal.

But in making such a bargain, Aurhinius proved what kind of man he was. The kind of man who should not be close to her when Takhisis struck back. The kind of man whom Istar, Karthay, the Knights of Solamnia, and everyone else needed alive rather than dead.

So the choice was simple. She only hoped that she could find among the ranks of the guards someone to help her over the last step.

She bent, and picked up her staff, at the same time thrusting a hand inside the front of her robe.

* * * * *

Aurhinius thought that Rubina was merely picking up her staff and perhaps offering him her pouches of herbs for safekeeping.

Zephros howled in rage and fear. “She’s trying to enspell Aurhinius!”

Some of the guards were light infantry, armed with short swords and javelins instead of long sword and shield. Zephros snatched a javelin from the nearest man, raised it, and threw.

In sporting contests, at least, he had become a deft hand with the javelin. Now he proved that he could throw well in battle-if hitting a standing woman at thirty paces’ distance could be called battle.

The javelin took Rubina just below the breasts. Angling slightly upward, it pierced her heart. She barely had time to feel relief at her body’s end coming so swiftly, before she felt nothing at all.

Aurhinius tried to keep her from falling, and succeeded at the price of getting her blood on his hands and arms. He turned to Zephros, who had taken another javelin-and now promptly dropped it.

Aurhinius walked down the slope to Zephros, with a look on his face that no man who saw it ever forgot.

“You young idiot,” he said quietly.

Zephros cringed at the quiet reproach, as he would not have at a torrent of oaths.

“She was trying to kill you.”

“She was a mine of precious knowledge that you have just flooded.”

Aurhinius’s patience snapped. He gripped Zephros by both arms and thrust his face into the younger man’s.

“You can go where you please, tell what you please to whom you please. But you do not serve under me again. If I ever see you in a camp under my command again, I will kill you!”

For a moment, it seemed that Zephros’s death would not wait that long. Rage can turn a mother cat into a tigress to defend her kittens; it can also give a middle-aged human general a minotaur’s strength to tear apart foolish young captains.

Aurhinius knew that, took his hands off Zephros, and stepped back. Then he spat at the young man’s feet, a vulgar gesture he knew, but anything finer was wasted on the merchant princeling.

When Aurhinius walked off into the darkness outside the circle of torchlight, no one made to follow him.

* * * * *

Waydol died just before dawn.

It was as they had feared. The Minotaur had spent too much of his strength fighting after he was wounded, and Sirbones had spent too much of his power healing other wounded. Sirbones did what he had warned Delia against, giving what was not really in him trying to save Waydol, but it was in vain, and the priest of Mishakal nearly followed Delia and the Minotaur.

Fortunately Tarothin was sufficiently recovered, after a long sleep and a hearty meal, to come aboard Windsword and administer healing to the healer. “Now, if someone will just tie him to his bunk for a few days,” the Red Robe added, “he should be fit to heal anything from blisters to broken heads.”

They decided to bury Waydol and Delia at sea-“so that my father will in time make his homeward voyage, even if transformed,” as Darin put it. The fleet hove to, the two shrouded bodies were placed on planks, and Tarothin said appropriate blessings since Sirbones was asleep below.

Eskaia was on deck for the burial, though she looked as if she should have been in her bed. However, she had already made it clear what would happen to Jemar if he denied her permission, and everyone else had the sense to hold his tongue.

Darin spoke a few words about his father-“who will live longer than if he had ten children of his body, for all who followed him were like his children.”

Then he threw back his head and roared out a better minotaur’s mourning cry than Pirvan had expected to hear from a human throat.

But then, he had never expected to meet anyone like Darin.

The drums rolled, canvas scraped over wood, two splashes sounded alongside Windsword, and it was done.