14 – Elflord

We chased our shadows away from the Mist after we washed off the gore of battle. Despite the continuing risk of being discovered along the beach, all four of us went into the sea to get clean. The salt water stung our minor cuts from the fight with the swamp trolls, but I figured that that was all to the good. It might clean them out, lessen the chance of infection. We headed northeast then, deeper into Fairy. At first, I aimed that way just because it seemed to be the fastest route away from the carnage on the beach. Then it seemed right for a couple of better reasons. Most important, any pursuit would look to the south if anyone suspected that we had come up from Varay. And going north might actually give me a chance to sow some of that confusion I had bragged about, my wild idea to make the Elflord of Xayber think that one of his peers was raiding his territory.

Sunset caught us before we had traveled far, but we kept going as long as we had enough light to navigate by in the open. We stayed clear of the swamp and even avoided the gnarled forest as much as possible. After two hours of riding, we found a sheltered area away from the road that looked decent. There was fresh running water for everyone, and plenty of grass for the horses.

I didn't tell the others that I planned to keep going deeper into Fairy until we camped for the night. There were no objections. I hadn't expected any. Lesh and Harkane would obey orders, and Annick was delighted at any chance to hurt the Elflord of Xayber some more. Going farther into Xayber's territory was a gamble-and quite possibly stupid. I had no way to know how powerful the magic of the elflords was. I didn't know a lot about Fairy and the seven kingdoms. But I did know that we were going to have to take some real risks to have any chance to stand off both the elflord and the Etevar.

I took the first watch again and sat with the two-handed elf sword in my lap. Dragon's Death. The blade felt sharp enough to shave metal with but so strong that it couldn't be nicked or damaged in a fight. Even after seeing the blade in action, I thought that it was an impossible combination. The hilt of Dragon's Death was designed for larger hands than mine, but I could hold it. I might even be able to wield it in a fight-but not a marathon. It was a magic blade. I was still new at all this magic hocus-pocus, but I could feel the sword's magic in my mind, and that's something else that is hard to explain. On the simplest level, it was something like the static electricity discharged when two sets of the family rings touched, an aura, or maybe a physical field. I wished that I knew what the sword's magic was, precisely, how it might help or hurt me. Maybe Parthet would be able to puzzle it out when we got back to Varay. Using a magic I didn't fully understand could be dangerous. I had no trouble thinking of magic as a weapon-a weapon with all the potential of a gun or a sword. Of course, I was already using a lot of magic I didn't really comprehend-the magic of the Hero, the magic of the doors, the magic of the land itself.

It all needed a lot of thought, and I was too tired to do it all that night. I hadn't had a full night's sleep since leaving Varay, and our last night in the swamp had been almost sleepless. An exhausting day had followed. Gil Tyner-Dragon Slayer. Another ludicrous title to add to my collection. Fortunately, my danger sense didn't kick up all night. I woke Annick and went to sleep. When Harkane woke me just before dawn, I felt rested enough for another day in the saddle.


We crossed the spine of the isthmus early that morning and turned north between the main ridge and a line of lower hills to the east. The paths were narrow, often steep, but at least we didn't have the swamp or low-hanging branches to worry about. After the past couple of days, it was almost a picnic. No one had any idea how far we might have to go to find a village or town to harass. I had a rough idea of racing through some sleepy little burg and setting fire to a few buildings before we turned around and scooted south. I didn't want to skulk around slitting throats in the night. Maybe I would face the warriors of Fairy in battle someday, but I had no taste for the kind of action that Annick seemed to delight in.

Since my danger sense remained quiescent-just barely ticking over-we didn't push our horses while we headed deeper into Fairy. I wanted to save their speed for our escape. Late that afternoon, I used my bow to bring down a miniature mountain goat after Lesh said that they made good eating. There was a sheltered dent in the hillside nearby, and Lesh assured me that he could make a smokeless fire, so we made camp early and got ready for a hot meal. We hadn't seen anyone on the road all day, hadn't even heard any horn calls.

Lesh did the cooking. Harkane tended the horses. I climbed the ridge to get a better view of the countryside. Annick followed me.

"You don't think much of me, do you?" she asked when I stopped just below the crest, maybe 150 feet above our camp.

I peeked out over the top of the ridge, careful not to stick my head up too far. There was nothing special to see, just more country like that we had been riding through. Then I sat on a rock and looked at Annick. I couldn't, wouldn't, come out flat and tell her that I thought she was a bloodthirsty bitch. But I wouldn't lie to her either.

"You get too much pleasure out of killing," I said. I kept my voice as neutral as possible.

"They were our enemies-my enemies, at least."

"What you did that first time wasn't an act of war. It was something private and dirty-murder, nothing more."

"Vengeance is my right!" She flared the way I had expected her to. Maybe vengeance was her right, in Varay. Maybe, in the skewed logic of the buffer zone, it was even her duty. But…

"That's not the point. What I said is that you enjoy it too much. In my world…" I shook my head. "Let's just say that the standards of my world and yours are considerably different." I didn't want to get into an argument with her. I was afraid that it would get out of hand.

"I've never seen your world." She didn't sound as though she had much interest in it either. "All I have is my world. Why are you here?"

"Damn good question. I wish I had a good answer," I said, still hoping to avoid an argument. It was a question I had asked myself often enough. I still wasn't sure. "I guess I'm here because I'm the son of my parents." I told Annick, as briefly as I could, how I had learned about Varay and why I had come, and the rest of the story up to my arrival at Arrowroot.

"You're here because it's your duty to be here," Annick said-with some force, as if she were trying to emphasize a point won in a debate.

"That's what everyone seems to think," I conceded.

"You do your duty. I do mine. Is it so wrong to want to do what you're bound to anyway? To enjoy fulfilling your destiny?"

I didn't continue the argument-ah, discussion-because I could smell supper, and if Annick and I went on any longer I'd ruin my digestion if not my appetite. It was time to take another quick look over the ridge, then climb back down to camp.

Lesh did a bang-up job on supper. He had roasted the meat with the last of our onions stuffed into small cavities he had carved into the meat, and had collected the drippings and heated them with water to give us juice to spoon over the meat and to dip our hard bread in. It tasted like a feast after the days of dried, salted beef. All that was lacking was the beer. The four of us ate about twenty pounds of meat, and there was enough left over for breakfast and lunch the next day-that much longer before we would have to return to our jerky.

"It do fill the nooks and crannies," Lesh said, slapping his belly after Annick and I each complimented him on the meal.

The night was surprisingly chilly. While I was on guard, I walked around to keep warm. The air was clear, the sky studded with a wealth of stars for a change, giving me enough light to avoid tripping over my companions. I stayed on duty as long as I could keep alert, then woke Annick. As on the other nights, she woke instantly, immediately alert. She was still on guard when I woke again, sensing imminent danger. I woke the others with a word while I tried to pinpoint the threat. Before, the sense had always been strongly directional. This time the danger seemed to surround us.

Annick got her bow ready and stood in the center of our camp, turning slowly, peering toward the top of the rises that concealed us. With her elven night sight, she was the only one who could see clearly. Our starlight suddenly seemed inadequate. I focused on the narrow entrance to our cul-de-sac. The weapon that came to hand when I first jumped up was the elf sword. I held it in front of me at an angle, ready to spring into the fight I knew was near.

But it didn't come. After a time, I lost the edge of my danger warning, but it didn't fade completely. The danger was still there, close. We settled down and waited. For an hour or more, the feeling of danger ebbed and flowed.

"There's someone out there," I whispered. "They're either trying to catch us off-guard or they're trying to screw up their courage to attack."

"This isn't the best spot to be in, I'm thinking," Lesh said. "We're in a jug, and all they've got to do is cork it." We could have gone over the top, but that would have meant leaving our horses behind, and we were much too far from Varay for that.

"We'll have to make do," I told Lesh.

"A quick charge out in the dark?" he suggested.

"Not unless we have to. But let's pack everything up."

"I don't feel magic out there," Annick whispered. "It must be trolls."

"Then they're smarter than the trolls in the swamp," I said. I was still having trouble with the nuances of language, even with the translation magic. It wasn't nearly as unnerving talking in the dark, when I couldn't see that everything people said was out of sync with their mouths. The difficulty seemed to be that the translation magic wasn't as sophisticated as it might have been. For instance, it lumped together a lot of different creatures under the generic "troll." Like lumping together humans and the great apes as primates. Maybe personal introductions aren't essential, but it would be nice to know what kind of diner I was going to give gas to.

We made noises packing up. That must have made the difference.

I yelled, "Here they come!" as the awareness swept over me-an almost intuitive knowledge that bypassed the normal thinking processes. I had slung the claymore rig over my shoulder again while we were getting ready to leave. The claymore was the weapon I reached for, and I can't explain why. My own sword was at my waist, and I had years of practice with it. And the Smith & Wesson was within reach. But I went for that six-foot cleaver as if it were my customary weapon.

It was the proper reflex, however it came about. As I brought the elf sword over my shoulder, it bisected one of the mountain trolls jumping down from the perimeter of our hole in the wall. I hardly felt a strain. The blade went through that troll like empty air-bones and all. I don't know if it was that "strength of Vara" that initiation as Hero was supposed to confer or if it was some magic of the sword, or a combination. I just know what happened.

The blade glowed in the dark once it had tasted blood. I found myself whistling a strange melody while I wielded the sword. The third surprise was that the elf blade felt almost weightless in action.

There was something else. We were fighting in the dark, but even though I could only make out vague shapes, mostly when they moved, I knew exactly where everyone was all the time. Throughout the engagement, I was aware of positions. Lesh and Harkane were at the exit from our campsite, keeping any trolls from coming in that way. Annick was at the back of the depression with her sword and knife, working hard to stay out of my way. I ranged through the rest of it, moving toward trolls as they came over the top-sometimes anticipating their appearance. I couldn't see well, but I didn't have to. I knew where everyone was.

And I knew more. Dragon's Death wasn't leaving wounded trolls to pop up and cause trouble later. The elf sword sliced too thoroughly. We got a little more light in the cul-de-sac as the fight progressed. Blood flowing on the blade of the elf sword made it glow more brightly. That happened fairly quickly. By the time I sliced into my fifth or sixth troll, the blade was as bright as a Jedi light saber. The trolls could see me clearly enough. And I could see the trolls that came close enough for Dragon's Death to reach.

The fight went on for a few minutes more-not long, really. I heard words that I couldn't understand and can't duplicate-the first failure of the translation magic. Then a guttural voice shouted, "The elf was masked!" Those trolls who could escape did. A fair number couldn't. The glow of my elf sword faded quickly. My danger sense idled again.

"They're gone," Lesh said.

"Let's get out of here before they come back," I said.

"They won't be back," Annick said. She sounded very confident. "They think you're an elf warrior because of the sword and the song. How did you know to conjure with that?"

"I didn't, and they may discover their mistake, so let's move."

I used my flashlight to make sure we didn't forget anything. That also gave us a chance to take a better look at our attackers. They were as ugly as the swamp trolls, but not as dirty or vile-smelling. They didn't look exactly the same, but the differences could only interest another troll.

We rode north again, deeper into Xayber's lands. Just after sunrise we found a pass through the lower line of hills and turned east. Beyond the hills, the land was gently rolling, tall grass with occasional wooded stretches. These trees actually looked fairly normal-not the haunted-forest type of trees we had seen farther south along the isthmus. We rode from one copse of trees to the next, worrying more about cover than roads or speed. We stopped once when I felt that unseen presence probing again. It passed, then returned and passed again, more slowly the second time.

"He's closing in," I muttered. It had to be the Elflord of Xayber. I couldn't hope to evade him forever. The others looked at me. Nobody questioned my awareness of someone searching for us with magic. My companions took my magic sense more for granted than I did.

"If we can't find somewhere to strike at the Elflord today, we head back to Varay," I said. "The deeper we get, the harder it'll be to get out in time to meet the Etevar's army, and right now, he's a greater threat to Varay than Xayber." I stared at Annick for a long moment, but she didn't speak.


We found our target before noon. We came through a wooded draw between two low hills and saw a riot of bright colors a half mile off.

"Pull up," I said, turning my horse as I spoke. We moved back around the side of one of the hills, away from the bright colors, out of sight. "Let's climb the hill for a better look." We dismounted and led our horses partway up the gentle slope. Lesh and Harkane stayed well below the crest with the animals. Annick climbed to the top with me. I didn't argue. Her eyes were sharper than mine.

"Tents, pavilions, six in all," she reported slowly. "People. It looks like some sort of picnic outing."

"A picnic, nor a war party?" I asked.

"Not a war party with women in party gowns."

"How many people?" I could see movement around the tents, but I couldn't see well enough to take a reliable count.

"I can't see inside the tents," Annick reminded me. "Not more than a few dozen people, though, judging from the horses and wagons."

It looked like just the kind of target I had been hoping for.

"We're not going in to see how many we can kill," I said. "Rip a few tents, scatter the horses, scare anyone we can. We don't fight unless we have to fight to get out."

"We'll have to fight," Annick said, meeting my eyes. "It's not all fancy ladies, and some of the ladies of Fairy might be more than a match for you at that." If Annick was any point of comparison, I could believe it.

"Let's get going," I said.

It looked as if we might be able to get within two hundred yards of the tents before we lost our cover if we were careful and took a wide arc to the left, around the hill we were on. I didn't want to be out in the open any longer than necessary. That would give our targets too much warning, and The Charge of the Light Brigade wasn't at all what I wanted to stage. I pulled my Cubs cap down tight and drew the claymore. Using the elf sword one-handed and on horseback would be awkward as hell, I knew, but it would be a hell of a lot more impressive than my own sword. And I did want to impress the locals. That was the whole point of the exercise.

"When we get close, make a lot of noise," I said as we came out of the trees and charged the tents.

Once more, the horses that Annick's uncle had provided stretched into a willing gallop, racing toward the tents. So far, the only thing that had managed to unnerve the animals was the dragon, and that had the same effect on humans.

A few of the revelers at the Fairy picnic looked like civilized versions of the trolls we had seen, more like the one troll soldier on the beach. There were also tall, fair folk who had to have elvish blood. There were squat dwarfs, and normal humans. Most of them were sporting weapons. Even the ladies all seemed to wear long, thin daggers at their waists, and some had bows or swords as well.

As soon as I saw weapons-not drawn, just there-I knew that we wouldn't get through the encampment without violence. Annick shot two arrows as soon as she saw a raised sword-a good fifty yards off. After that, all I could hope for was to get in and out as quickly as possible, before the locals could organize any real defense.

We headed directly for the center of the camp. Lesh cut picket lines and tethers and chased off horses. Harkane did some fancy stunt riding, leaning way over to grab several hunks of" burning wood from a bonfire in the middle of the camp-hardly slowing down at all. Then he circled around to use the brands to fire all of the tents and open pavilions. The silk, or whatever it was, burned fast.

A few of the Fairy folk stood ready to meet us-apparently not at all discomfited by the change to their schedule. The four of us were well separated by then, so everything happened as a series of individual duels. Annick went into her berserker mode again, chasing down locals, forcing them to fight. Lesh and Harkane paid more attention to my instructions. They concentrated on causing confusion and damage, only fighting when they had to defend themselves. Me, I had my hands full for a few minutes.

An axe-wielding dwarf jumped out in front of me and tried to chop my horse out from between us. I jerked hard on the reins and the animal reared and came down hard toward the dwarf, forcing him to back off. By the time he stepped forward again, I had my horse turned so I could meet the dwarf with Dragon's Death. The claymore quickly shortened the dwarf by a head. I noticed that I was whistling again, the same eerie melody I had whistled while we were fighting the mountain trolls. Although the elvish sword didn't glow as it had in the night, I had no trouble handling it, even one-handed. There was no nonsense of the sword doing its own fighting regardless of me, or dragging me along with it. I was always in control, but that sword proved to be as easy to use as a reed wand.

Just after I cut down the dwarf, something hard hit me in the back. The impact pitched me forward. If I hadn't managed to get my left arm hooked around the neck of my horse, I would have been thrown over his head. The pain in my back was like being hit by a pitch-a hard fastball. My vision blurred for a moment. I fought to push myself upright in the saddle again and puffed, trying to get my breathing in order. I hadn't seen what hit me, but I assumed that someone had thrown a spear-with one hell of a lot a force behind it. The lance wasn't sticking out of me, so I knew that my chain mail had turned the shaft aside. The spot where it hit was-well, "sore" doesn't begin to approach an adequate description of how it felt, but I couldn't stop to check the extent of the damage. The thrower-one of those tall, pale types that I assumed had elven blood-ran at me, drawing his sword. He was on foot and his blade was just a normal broadsword, but he didn't see at all intimidated by my longer weapon.

We didn't play games. My back hurt so badly that I had to grit my teeth against the pain. My only thought was to end this duel as quickly as possible. I parried his swing, then my sword whirled around full-circle, whistling through the air, and took off his sword arm above the elbow. I kicked out to knock him back. The shock went all the way up my leg to the pain in my back. But the guy did go down and he didn't bother to get back up.

I left him lying there and backed my horse through a circle, looking for the next threat. The Fairy camp was a shambles. Every tent was burning, and so were two of the wagons. Quite a number of revelers were down, dead or wounded. Their horses had all run off, except for one with a broken leg. That horse rolled on the ground and neighed in panic and pain. We had done everything we could hope to do.

"Let's go!" I shouted. I waved my sword above my head until that aggravated the pain in my back too much to continue, then led the way out of camp, due south. The others closed up quickly behind me. Even Annick broke off right away. Maybe she thought I would leave her there if she didn't. Maybe I would have. None of the arrows that followed us came close, and there was no immediate pursuit, not without horses. But we rode as if the posse were right on our tails. The horses might return, or someone at the picnic might have the magic to contact others to hunt us.

I could feel my eyes tearing up from the pain in my back, but I couldn't take much notice of that yet, not until we had some space between us and the people we had just attacked. When we were not quite out of sight of the burning tents, we cut right sharply. I hoped to leave the impression that we were going northwest, that we had simply made a tiny little error, turning just a couple of minutes too soon. Then, when I was absolutely certain that none of the elvish folk could still see us, we turned south again and drifted back to our original course. It was another hour before I dared to stop and dismount so we could rest our horses and check out my back.

Getting my chain mail off brought new agony. I lay down on my stomach-almost fainted and fell-and Annick and Lesh both checked out my wound.

"There's a puncture, not too deep," Annick said. "A very dark bruise around it, bigger than both my fists together. "

"There may be a broken rib or two, lord," Lesh said.

Annick poured water and did what she could to clean the wound. Her touch was surprisingly light, but that didn't stop every new touch from adding to the pain. "There's not much else we can do here," she said when she finished.

"Look in my pack," I said. "I think there's a roll of gauze and some tape. If I've got a busted rib, it needs to be bandaged as tight as possible." I didn't remember seeing anything like aspirin. Mother wasn't likely to think of something like that.

The process of bandaging hurt so much that I almost passed out again, but when it was finished, I did feel a little better. The pain wasn't nearly so acute. The tight gauze girdle exerted pressure all around my middle. I got my shirt back on, but not the chain mail. I didn't even want to think about putting all that weight back on, even though the armor had undoubtedly saved my life.

I sat on the ground for a few minutes after the tape was secure, then got to my feet gingerly. I could feel sweat beading up on my face, but we had to press on.

"We'd better get moving again," I said, my voice low as I tried to get by without breathing very deeply.

"We head for home now?" Lesh asked. I nodded. "Back to Arrowroot?"

"That's where Parthet is due to meet us." I recalled the feeling of danger there, but I had to go to Arrowroot. "We'll stay on this side of the isthmus as long as we can, try to get south of the swamp before we turn west." The elflord might be confused further by that-assuming that we had confused him at all. Dorthin, Varay, and Xayber all met at the southeastern corner of the isthmus. If we couldn't convince the elflord that we were an enemy out of Fairy, maybe he would think that the Etevar were feeling him out. Setting Xayber against Dorthin couldn't hurt Varay.

We had been stopped long enough getting me taped up that the horses had cooled down and Harkane had watered them. Harkane helped me back into the saddle. The pain was still there, but I thought that I would be able to deal with it. I had to. We rode slowly for a time. The pain didn't go away, but it abated a little-or I simply became used to it. I could breathe a little more easily.

Trusting my danger sense a little more-and worried about what riding the rough terrain of the countryside would do to my back and ribs-I didn't try to keep us concealed. We rode the main road south, bold as could be. I shoved my Cubs cap in a hip pocket. Annick unbraided her hair and let it blow free. At first glance we might appear to be a young lord and lady of Fairy out with servants.

Shortly after we started riding again, I felt the questioning presence again, but more lightly than before. The elflord hadn't yet identified us as his irritant. I forced my mind as blank as possible, like before, and the presence passed.

A little later, Harkane moved his horse up next to mine. "You've made it past the dangerous stage," he whispered softly. "You have the magic of the Hero working to mend your wound. By the time we get home, it should be only a memory."

"I hope you're right," I said. "And I hope we don't come up against anything serious before then." We had a lot of Fairy to cross before we could reach Varay and even temporary safety.


Near sunset, we left the road and moved into the hills to find a campsite that would shelter us but not bottle us in. I settled on a flat ledge halfway up a gentle slope, with trees on three sides. There was running water below. We refilled our drinking bags and let the horses get their fill before we moved them up to the campsite. We didn't unsaddle the animals, though, and we unloaded only what we absolutely needed for the night. It was too likely that we would be on the run before morning.

Despite the way I was hurting, I might have felt less nervous riding by night and hiding by day if not for the warning that darkness couldn't hide us from elves and the corroborating evidence that even a half-elf like Annick could see almost perfectly in the dark. Giving ourselves the inconvenience without the advantage was pointless.

Annick was full of vigor when we made camp. Her eyes and face had an excited look that might have seemed feverish in other circumstances. She looked younger, fresher. I wondered if she got some tangible physiological benefit from killing, if the addiction was physical as well as psychological. I had intended to complain about the way she had acted during the fray, but I held back. It's not just that I didn't feel up to an argument. I guess I had given up. She gave no indication that she was looking for reformation, so the aggravation would have been pointless.

"What will you do when this fight is over?" she asked me. Harkane and Lesh were already settling down to sleep. I was sitting propped up against a tree trunk, as comfortable as I was likely to get. The pain did seem to be fading somewhat. Maybe Harkane had been right. In any case, I wasn't feeling quite as bad as before.

"Which fight? We haven't started the real battle yet," I said. Dusk hadn't quite fled into darkness.

"After you beat the Etevar."

"I haven't started to think past that. I know what everyone expects, that I'll stick around and play prince and occasional Hero. Become King of Varay someday." That was a gloomy thought. I wasn't stodgy enough to play Prince Charles or loose enough to be randy Andy. But I couldn't see going home to play with computers at the moment either. It was difficult to think of computers as real just then. "I don't know what I'll do. Maybe go back to my world and do some traveling."

Annick stared at me. I was uncomfortable about it, especially knowing that she could see me better than I could see her in the growing night.

"What will you do when you've killed all the people you've spent your life hating?" I asked.

She shrugged. "I'll find something if that time ever comes."

"You think it'll be that easy?"

Annick didn't answer.


The attack came while I was still awake, still on sentry, but that didn't help. For once, my danger sense didn't scream soon enough. The Elflord of Xayber had finally located us, and the gap between my danger warning and his assault weren't enough to let me do any more than whip the claymore off my shoulder and get it out in front of me. It was pure luck that I was already on my feet. I had decided that I had better get up and move around a little to keep from getting stiff. Then it came.

There was no direct physical attack.

My mind was suddenly in the grip of an incredible power-a psychic bearhug. There was intense pain at the start, worse than the pain in my back had been at its worst, and then a feeling of utter helplessness. I struggled against the force and the void behind it. I fought to open my eyes, scarcely aware that I had closed them in the first onslaught. I blinked and found myself standing on a featureless plain that was unbroken to the horizon in every direction. It was a gray nothingness. There wasn't even real ground beneath my feet, just an unidentifiable, almost undetectable surface. I was standing alone with just the elf sword. I turned slowly, sword at the ready. My back didn't hurt-I noticed that right away-but my danger sense was running up and down my spine. The general message was something like: Holy shit, are you in for it now! As if I needed a prompter to tell me that.

"Okay, Xayber, come on out and let's get this over with. Time for all good rats to come out of their holes." Bravado. Also a poor choice of words. Huge rats started rising right out of the ground-something like Claymation. The rodents were the size of the goat I had killed, and nearly transparent, their innards right there for me to see. They came at me as if I were the pie-eyed piper. All I could do was hack at them with the elf sword and hope that I ran out of rats before I ran out of strength. My back didn't hurt, but I didn't feel particularly chipper either.

"Okay, what's the next act?" I asked when the stream of rats finally dried up.

A giant face appeared in the distance, in what passed for a sky in that gray void. It was an oblong face with pale complexion, black hair, thin mustache, and short goatee, haughty-looking beyond words. I don't suppose the resemblance was really all that close, but it made me think of that three-view portrait of Cardinal Richelieu that seems to be in all of the history textbooks. The face stared at me. When the mouth moved, I heard the words as if they were spoken right in front of me.

"You're the one who dares challenge me? What a disappointment. I had hoped for something more diverting."

"Divert your head up your ass where it belongs," I said. And, for a moment, that's exactly what I saw. When that image faded, it was replaced by a more complete version of the face atop a normal-looking body-as normal as any eight-footer can look. The elflord was only ten feet away from me, and armed much as I was. His claymore fit him better than mine fit me.

"Okay, you got that trick down pat," I said. "Now try this one. Drop dead."

He didn't oblige this time, though. It was too much to hope for. I moved my sword back and forth in front of me and started whistling that strange melody again as I advanced toward the elflord. There was no place to run, so I decided that I might as well act as if I weren't unduly worried about the elflord. The music seemed to give him an instant's pause before he brought his sword up and came to meet me. The battle tune he whistled was different from mine, but it was just as eerie.

I didn't know what the connection was between the whistling and the elf sword, but I had figured out that they were linked.

The elflord made the first attack, bringing his sword overhead as he stepped forward-stomp the lead foot ahead, then drag up the other foot. I met his blade and pressed to his left. We disengaged and came at each other the same way again. I pressed to his right this time, trying to feel him out. There were a few more tentative, probing passes, then the fight shifted gears rapidly, heating up in a hurry.

This time it was real fencing, not the hurried hackwork my earlier encounters had been. The practiced routine brought its own sort of comfort. We fought at reach. We fought corps à corps. The long swords smashed into each other in combination after combination, at every possible angle, the shock of impact jarring my wrists and sending signals of pain all the way up arms that soon started to feel like lead weights. That was different from my earlier fights with Dragon's Death too. Before, the sword had seemed almost weightless. After a few minutes this time, I could feel the full weight of the claymore. Maneuvering the sword, parrying the elflord, got harder. I met each of his attacks with less leeway, less leverage. It wasn't hard to project the outcome. Soon I would miss a parry and the elflord's blade would slice through me the way I had sliced troll and dwarf with Dragon's Death.

I had to find an edge if I wanted to get out of the duel alive. I would have liked to slip a hand grenade down the front of his tights, but I didn't have a grenade handy and I couldn't be sure it would work if I did.

Something.

I followed a parry with a quick step toward Xayber, and our blades locked at the guard.

Surprise! Xayber hadn't been expecting me to close like that. He could have rested his chin on top of my head… if he had leaned over a little. He was that much taller than me. His sword pressed in and down on mine. His weight pushed forward, trying to force me to step back. He had the weight, but my being two feet shorter gave me a slight advantage in leverage the way we were locked together.

Then the elflord disappeared from sight. I could still feel the pressure of his sword and body, but I couldn't see him. I could still see myself, an image of myself, standing a little beyond, holding the elf sword at an angle, hilt on the ground, point angled toward my gut. I saw myself fall on the blade, saw the point spring out of my back-about where I had been injured before-at the center of a fountain of bright red blood. The vision multiplied until I could see hundreds of copies of myself in all the phases of committing suicide. Miniatures, drive-in-movie-screen size, everything in between, over and over and over. Then the pictures started to strobe-again, over and over. I squeezed my eyes shut and pressed against the invisible elflord. When I opened my eyes again, he was back-grinning. He gave way and we went through another short passage at reach. I didn't feel quite as drained as before. The sideshow had given me time to catch my second wind.

Then the elflord changed himself into a copy of me and I dueled with myself. The absurdity of that gave me a lift.

"Gee, I even get to costar with myself," I said-or grunted, one word at a time. "Think of all the movie stars who never got to try a dual role."

The elflord returned at that, but he wasn't grinning any longer. We continued to fight, going one way and then the other. My whistling got louder, more intense. So did his. It seemed to give us both new strength. Seeing him nonplussed did me worlds of good too, but that and the "new strength" were both relative. The fight was beginning to get to me.

"So. You're more than you appear to be." Xayber forced a disengagement and stepped back out of reach of a lunge. I brought my sword up in a salute and tried to spread a grin across my face. From the reaction I got, I guess it worked.

"You don't recognize my magic?" I don't know what brought that comment out of me, but I loaded it with obviously mock surprise. "You must be slipping. Shall we have another go? I think it's time Xayber belonged to a lord more fit to hold it." I took two quick steps toward him and lunged at his throat. He backed out of reach again, brought his sword up to his face, and vanished. The gray and the light went with him. I collapsed across Lesh.

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