The Limbreth Gate

SEVENTEEN

The road had gone bad. Vandien leaned forward on the seat, peering past the sweating greys. But he couldn't see what had caused this sudden marshy stretch, nor how far ahead of him it lasted. Hollyika, of course, was nowhere in sight.

Vandien sent shivers of encouragement down the traces to the team. There was an irony to this, he realized, as there had been to all his journey beyond the Gate, but it didn't make him smile. Usually he was the one who got impatient with the wagon's slow pace and galloped ahead to spy out the lay of the land, while Ki sat on the high seat and sweated the team through the tough spots on the road. Now he sat with his shirt sticking to him as the greys slogged forward through sucking black mud.

The road had taken them down the length of the Limbreth valley, past their soldierly row and then around a shoulder of the hills; after that, with every plodding step the team took, the road seemed to getworse. The grass and moss on either side of this part of the road were yellow-grey, withering away. It was the first blight that Vandien had noticed in the Limbreth world. He chewed at the ends of his untrimmed moustache as he watched the greys hunch their shoulders against their collars. The road had been hard and good, right up until the moment they passed out of sight of the Limbreths. Their gems still glowered dimly in the sky behind them. One wheel lurched suddenly down into a soft spot. 'Damn!' roared Vandien, but the team dragged on steadily and the wagon walked up out of it. Vandien wiped sweat from his forehead and peered up the road. It was veering back to the hills in a steady climb; that grade and the softening roadbed might be more than the team could handle, and there was no sign of the road getting better.

The black horse reappeared, loping easily toward him, clods of turf and mud flying from his scarlet hooves, Hollyika riding high and graceful. The Brurjan's head was canted back to peer over her shoulder.

'Hollyika!' he called to her. 'I'm going to pull up for a bit and let the team breathe.'

She made no reply, but brought her horse in a graceful loop to pull up beside the plank seat of the wagon. The weary team snorted gratefully at the stop. Vandien put his face into his hands and rubbed his eyes. The eternal dimness of this place made him feel permanently sleepy. Just once he would have liked to see this place under a ray of sun. 'How long is the road this bad?'

She shrugged and flashed a Brurjan grin on him. 'Not far. Then it gets worse where the road starts to really climb.' Black shifted his feet, making wet plopping sounds. 'The sides are no better than the road itself,' Hollyika replied to his questioning glance. 'Underground stream, maybe. I can see your wheels sinking even as we talk.'

'Limbreth mischief, I think.'

'Whatever.' She tossed her broad shoulders again. 'It doesn't matter what causes it, it's what we have to go over.'

'Yes.' Vandien looked deep into eyes on a level with his own. They were keen, dark, and wise in their own hard way. Vandien asked abruptly, 'Why is she going on? To what?'

'To whatever the Limbreth told her to do.'

'But what about me?' He could not stop the hurt and outrage from slipping into his voice. 'As if she had never known me, or worried about these horses, she just goes on.' His own dark eyes bored into Hollyika's. 'When she was with you, did she speak of me at all?'

Hollyika shifted slightly in her saddle. 'If you would let me,' she began in a low and reasonable voice, 'I could take you inside that wagon, put you on your back, and make you forget all about Ki. For a time, anyway.'

He turned his eyes from her, shaking his head in consternation. 'That's not what I want,' he said, not knowing how to explain.

'I didn't say I wanted it. I was simply saying that, given the opportunity, I could do it. I could keep your mind and your senses so full of me that you wouldn't for that time think of Ki, no matter what you felt for her. Afterwards, she would come back to your mind. Perhaps.' The hard flash of teeth again. 'Right now, the Limbreth fills all her mind and senses. What she felt for you in the past is covered up, blotted out by another presence. Can you understand what I am telling you?' 'I think I do. I think you are saying, very politely, that Ki never even mentioned my name.' I'll never say Brurjans are without courtesy again, he thought sadly.

'Hell, who was listening? We were both full of the Limbreths, speaking only to them, though we thought we conversed with each other. I don't remember half the things I said, let alone what the Romni babbled. When the Limbreth filled me, everything else was just background. I felt good. All through me. When I thought of things I had been fond of in the past, like Black, I was grateful the Limbreths had enlightened me as to the nature of love, and how I must let him go his own way, if I truly loved him. And I must go mine, on to the Limbreths, to be fulfilled and find peace. Do you get the drift of it? But I believed it then, and Ki is still full of it. This is more of that think and feel crap you Humans wallow in. Look, Vandien, she's gone away from you. You know that. You know what she is doing. She is getting further away from you. You know what you want. You want her to be with you. So you know what to do. Go and get her. It's all so much simpler without the I think and I feel shit.'

'But what about what she wants? Aren't I supposed to care at all about what she desires?'

'Hell, no. Ki can do that for herself. When we find her, you can say, I want you to come with me. If she says no, you can fight with her. Whoever wins, wins. It's simple.'

'It must be nice, being a Brurjan.'

A strange look, and then the flash of teeth again. 'It's nice to be anything, when you are it, instead of thinking about it. Look, we don't have time for this. Need any help with the harness?'

Vandien sat up straight and ran his eyes over the team. 'It looks fine to me.'

'Sure it's fine, if you don't plan on going anywhere.'

Vandien looked over the side of the wagon; the wheels had sunk still deeper into the muck. He measured it with an experienced eye. 'It looks bad, but the greys can still manage. It'll be slow, but they'll do it.'

'Through that?' Hollyika was skeptical as she pointed up the road.

'I think so, and I'm willing to try it. I've slogged this wagon up worse hills than that.'

'Have you? And I've charged through formations that offered more resistance than that. But even together I doubt that we can do both at the same time. Look at them.'

Vandien followed her gaze. At first the darkness baffled him; he caught a movement of light so faint it seemed a trick of his weary eyes. He squinted and then made them out by the gleam of their hair and the flash of their eyes; a group of farmers with some kind of long tools over their shoulders. 'They must be a harvest party, going from farm to farm.'

'No.' Hollyika's voice was flat. 'I rode right up to them, calling greetings they didn't answer. But as soon as I came within range, they started swinging those rods. You want to drive a wagon up a muddy hill through that?'

Vandien's eyes went from the farmers to his wheels. A sickness touched his heart. He looked down: the mud touched hubs now. No mud could sink a wagon that fast! But it had. Given levers, brush, and a lotof time, he could have gotten it out; but he had none of these. 'I can't leave the wagon,' he said stubbornly.

'Why? Has your ass grown tight to the seat? Those farmers are moving faster than you might expect. You either leave the wagon, or your body. Hell, we'll be lucky to get the horses through.' Even as she spoke, she had dismounted and begun to free the team from the wagon. Vandien watched her, his fists clenching and unclenching at his sides. The colors of the gaily painted wagon were dim under these skies, and it looked only awkward, uncomfortable, out of place. But this awkward uncomfortable thing had somehow become his home; too many things had happened inside its tiny cuddy for him to leave the wagon here. But he had to leave it, and the knowledge wrenched and clawed at him. Then he set his teeth, took a breath, and let it go. Silently he turned and went into the cuddy, and as he looked around its crowded homeliness, the pain tried to grip him again, but he ignored it. His rapier. There was that to take, and food for them both, and the waterskin, and a set of clothes for Ki. He resolutely ignored the trinkets and gewgaws of their life together. Practicality made light luggage. To what he had he added one sack filled with grain from the back of the wagon, and loaded it all onto the suspicious Sigurd. Hollyika had fashioned a lead rope for Sigurd and shortened the long driving reins on Sigmund's bridle. As he scrambled up onto Sigmund's back, Hollyika nodded grudgingly. 'At least you learn fast.'

The figures of the approaching farmers were no longer veiled by dusk. Vandien counted eight of them, men and women, as they strode resolutely on. Their faces were tranquil, their eyes fixed before them. They didn't call to Hollyika and Vandien, or speak to each other. They came on silently as dreams.

'They don't look too formidable,' Vandien grumbled softly. Anger began to heat in him; had the Brurjan tricked him into abandoning Ki's wagon?

'Follow me,' she growled. She leaned forward in her saddle and the black leaped suddenly to a gallop. Straight toward them she rode. Much heel-thudding nagged Sigmund into a ponderous canter, the disgruntled Sigurd trailing behind. The warrior pulled steadily away from them.

And the farmers came steadily on down the road. Vandien fixed his eyes on them as he clung to his mount. They had raised their staves. But they did not scatter, nor even take up a defensive stance. No light of battle changed their eyes or faces. There were no cries of fury or challenge. Bunched in a group, they strode down the road to meet the charging horse.

'Make way!' Hollyika roared, but they only waved their staves. Then she was among them and Vandien was sickened. The horse crashed through, silent bodies flung to either side, though he heard a few whacks as blows of the staff struck the rider. Two figures sprawled in the road, but no outcry arose. Those standing milled for a moment and began to close ranks. Vandien was too far behind Hollyika; now they were ready to meet him, eyes cold. Sigmund threw up his head and tried to wheel aside from this Human barricade. A staff came down solidly on Vandien's shoulder; he clung to Sigmund's mane, realizing he was the only target, not the horse. Another blow smote his hip, numbing his leg to the knee. The farmers surged around him. Then Black and Hollyika crashed suddenly through the press. 'Ride on, stupid!' she screamed at him. He had a fleeting impression of flying scarlet hooves felling farmers. Then Sigmund took charge, leaping into the gap she had cleared and surging forward under Vandien; Sigurd crowded behind. He and the greys were clear and fleeing down the sodden black road.

He heard the splattering hoofbeats of Black as Hollyika caught up with him. Vandien glanced over at her, but kept a tight grip on the flying grey mane before him. The ponderous gallop of the beast below him was thunder in his ears. He did not know much of Brurjan facial expressions, but he thought she looked grim and ill. When they crested the first long rise, she pulled in the black. The greys dropped their pace to match with no signal from Vandien. Hollyika kept them all at a striding walk. Just as Vandienopened his mouth to speak, she turned to him. 'They won't be following,' she said bleakly. He shut his mouth.

The road ran on. At first they rode on the margins of the road, until the already soggy mosses and grasses turned to morass. The lands on either side of them as they struggled up the hillsides were wild places; the road and its banks were swamps now right up to the edge of brush that prickled and stabbed the horses when they tried to ride through it. ' Ki could never have come this way,' Vandien asserted, to which Hollyika replied, 'She must have.' So on they went, and on, until finally, incredibly, they reached the top of the final hill and looked down into a grey valley full of shadows. Vandien's body told him they were deep into night.

In silent accord they halted, looking down at the valley full of dusk before them. The road was straight from here, still flowing with mud, true, but implacably straight. It cut through woods and pasture, field and meadow, now clear, now veiled, until it finally emerged to intersect with the far black ribbon of another road. And gracing that stretch of road was a bridge. No , the bridge, the one he had so admired the first time he had seen it. No road had intersected with that road then; he was sure of it. 'But it does now,' Hollyika observed aloud. 'Limbreths.'

She urged her black and they began their descent, the horse's haunches braced under him, half walking and half sliding as he went. Vandien let a space develop between them, and then took the greys down. It was steep for only a short way, then it gave onto the gentler slope of a hillside pasture, grazed by some tiny hooved beasts that thundered off into the trees at their approach. The far road and the bridge were hidden from them again in the more immediate barrier of brush and trees, the brambly trees edging ever closer to the road. Water flowed over the top of the muddy path and the horses' hooves slid and squelched in it. A short distance more, and the trees began to arch over the stream that the horses now followed. If Hollyika noticed the change or found it alarming, she said nothing. Vandien did not deign to speak either. She was right. Sometimes it was simpler just doing, without worrying about what came next.

The trees thinned and then gave way. With a tingle of uneasiness, Vandien realized that the stream led them now through cultivated fields. The gleaming red fruit hung in shining globules on the vines. Sigurd snatched at the foliage hungrily, snorting with weary displeasure when Vandien jerked him on. The greys were dispirited, heads adroop, moving with slogging steps. Even Hollyika slouched in her ridiculous saddle. Vandien found it more and more difficult to keep his eyes open. Sigmund's trudging stride rocked him gently and he swayed with it. With a jerk he pulled his head up again. He rubbed his eyes and looked around, trying to wake himself up. A dark hummock far off across the rows of crops was a farmer's cottage. He started at it and the milling of folk around it. 'Hollyika!' he called softly.

She reined in her black and dropped back to be even with him. 'Pay no attention to them,' she commanded in a harsh whisper.

'They're staring at us.'

'They look both more and less than angry, don't they? Pay them no mind. Five dark trespassers must be an unusual sight. Don't borrow trouble ahead of time. Keep riding.'

Her black pulled ahead of him again, and Vandien, alert now, stepped up Sigmund's weary pace. He tried to look at the cottage and the shining folk gathered there without turning his head. There was quite a group of them, their hair lambent in the soft twilight, and in every hand stood a tall stick. His stomach turned over. He could not blot from his mind the silent sprawled figures they had left in the road; he wanted no more of that. Black hesitated, and then stepped awkwardly down into a gully. Vandien brought Sigmund to the brink of it and waited. Hollyika sat lightly on her horse's back, moving like a part of him, swaying with him as he placed his hooves and clambered up to the other side. They had regained the original road and it was sound under his hooves.

Vandien nudged Sigmund on, and the draft horse went down like a landslide. He had barely lurched and staggered into the ditch before Sigurd came down behind them; then with another lurch they had all regained the road. Vandien glanced back the way they had come: the passage they had made through the crops was plain behind them. He sneaked a glance at the farmer's hut. The crowd was gone. Vandien twisted around, trying to see them.

'They went back inside,' Hollyika informed him. Her eyes were red-rimmed, her face sagging with weariness. For a Brurjan she was grotesquely gaunt; it gave her face a Human cast. She needs food and rest, Vandien thought. She's running on a thin edge of endurance. The amount she had eaten when they had the wagon might carry her a day or so, but not well. He reached for the food bag without speaking. He parceled out dry fish for her, which she took silently, and a handful of dried fruit for himself. He would have liked the fish, but this would sustain him, whereas it would do nothing for Hollyika. He felt her eyes on him as he rolled and tied the bag shut again.

'We've got enough to make it,' he told her with more confidence than he felt. She nodded slowly and put a whole stick of fish into her mouth. Her jaws moved four times and she swallowed. Her dark eyes flashed suddenly to his like a battering ram. 'Stop looking at me like you want to take care of me,' she snarled. 'It makes me more nauseous than this fish. You should never eat anything after the blood clots.'

'I'll remember that,' Vandien told her meekly, and was rewarded with a savage grin.

'On to the bridge,' she told him, and kneed her black gently.

Ki firmly compressed the living earth in her thin hands. She closed her eyes and with the enchanted awareness of the Limbreths, she felt the potential life in the organic matter she held. Egg of insect, seed, tiny life forms smaller than imagining lay there. And more. The more that the Limbreths had given her. It was like a tool in her mind's hands. And she, who had never been a carver of wood or a painter of pictures, began to create. This was to be the first blossom in her garden.

She had tilled the spot she had chosen by crawling over it on her knees, turning the soil with her hands. The area had taken her some time to select, for she had wished to complement the bridge while taking nothing from it. She had decided finally that the garden would be visible from the arch of the bridge, and the swell of the bridge would be glimpsed from the garden. But between the garden and the bridge itself would be a section of the road where one would walk and see but one or the other. Thus each could be viewed in its purity, or as a complementary whole. She had made the Limbreths aware of her desire and they had given their approval. They had marked out the necessary limits of it in her mind for her, and she had begun her toil.

The softening and turning of the earth had been a long task. Dirt had become embedded beneath her nails, and then her fingernails had worn away from the constant grubbing. The lines of her hands were stained with the black soil and her fingers cracked now and bled sometimes, but the Limbreths kept the pain from distracting her. She had concentrated on the next task, the moving of earth a double handful at a time, to create a harmonious rise and fall. The softly sculpted earth was ready now and waiting for her. Ki closed her eyes and opened the new ones the Limbreths had given her, the ones that looked in. She chose memories of awesome beauty from her past; the Sisters revealed to her in the silver shining glory of the mountain pass; the light-speckled spaces of the void she had leaped with Dresh; the face of Dalvi, the oldest Romni man of the tribes, wisdom gleaming from his undimmed eyes; a scarlet Harpy stooping to its kill: these images, and dozens more of her sharpest impressions she chose, and then let melt together. She reached for that essence of them that had caught her breathless between terror and wonder, and the tool of the Limbreths found it for her, and in Ki's mind it shone.

It sprouted from the double handful of soil she held, it took shape and grew cupped in the warmth of her two hands. Ki saw it growing within her mind, held her breath as it came to fulfillment and perfection in her hands. She had a moment of disbelief. It could not be. Not from her could come so wondrous a thing; it was beyond the skills any mortal might possess. 'Do not doubt,' the Limbreths chided her. 'To doubt is to freeze the creativity. Cast it from your soul, and be absorbed in doing.' Delighted, Ki obeyed.

The flower sparkled, the brilliance of it cutting into her soul. It renewed in her the awesome beauty she had sought to recall. She treasured the miracle in her hands, experiencing wave after wave of blissful astonishment.

'Enough!' the Limbreths whispered to her. Ki sighed. She knelt and lowered it gently into the soft cup of earth that waited to receive it.

'Grow,' she bid it. It obeyed, a scintillating streamer of life, uncoiling to fill the indicated curve of bed, no stray leaf overreaching, no glistening facet of petal drooping beyond the space Ki had visualized. That one was done.

Ki had to pause. A little tongue of weariness brushed against her. She felt, for an instant, drained; some part of her had been emptied. But when her puzzled mind groped for it, she found only the warm reassurances of the Limbreths. She was fine, all was well, and the garden begun. She did not want to cease being without completing it, did she? Of course not. So she must go on at once, without resting. It was begun so well. What was her next choice?

Ki took a few steps until she felt the rightness of the place. Stooping, she raised another double handful of earth. Again she felt all the potential that lurked within it, and she relaxed, knowing already what she would imprint on it. Warmth; her mother's soft breast against her cheek, filling her mouth with sweet milk; a litter of kittens asleep in her skirts; fresh berries picked and devoured while still warm from the sun.

'Ki!'

She started at the call, the cupped soil slipping between her fingers, the vision lost. Slowly she turned, blinking her eyes as if awakened by a strong light. For long moments she saw no one; then her eyes picked up movement, and finally shape. They were so grotesquely dark. Names came to her with no feelings attached to them. It was Hollyika the Brurjan bestriding a horse, and Vandien riding another as he kept a third prisoner on a lead line. Ki felt dismay uncoil within her at the sight. They came on toward her, dragging their darkness closer. Vandien was smiling, teeth white as a dog's snarl, as if he delighted in the discord he brought to her garden. The burdened animals' hooves left deep pock marks in her dirt. Her nostrils caught the sweat smell of the weary beasts, and her heart went out to them.

Pity. That was another one. 'Show us,' begged the Limbreths, and Ki took up more dirt. She composed herself over it, sorting her memories for ones that were pure and strong. There was the Romni woman who had lost seven children and her man to fever, untouched by it herself; and - it was no good. Hertraitor eyes flickered open at the thudding hooves, darting to the intruders. 'Go on,' begged the Limbreths. 'Don't mind them. They won't dare to disturb you. In a moment they will have to go; we have provided for them. Go on about pity.'

There had been the fighting dogs in Kalnor, kept in tiny cages and teased until released to fight to the death in pits, and that tiny, frail baby with ...

'Ki? Ki ? talk to me. Gods, look at her, Hollyika. You can see the shape of the bones in her hands. Ki!'

Her eyes fluttered but she kept them closed. She refocused her mind. She could feel the invaders standing close by, looking, but not daring to touch her. It was as the Limbreths had promised. She could not see Vandien's arms folded tight against his chest and clutched to still their shaking. He stared about him at the garden, strangely repulsive in its beauty. It touched too many strings in his heart too sharply. He did not understand what he saw, and didn't want to; he did want Ki to be aware of him. He needed to hold her tightly, and feel her arms go about him to hug him with her quick strength. He was afraid to touch this haggard woman; he feared he would break her brittle hones. Some terrible illness gnawed at her, he told himself. She would be all right when he got her safely through the Gate. She twitched as if pain spasmed her, and he stepped closer to catch her if she fell. But she kept her feet.

From her cupped hands and the earth had sprung a wonder and a marvel that captured Vandien's eyes. Awe gripped his heart painfully as he watched it unfold. It reminded him of something, stirring long-buried feeling; but it cut him too close and his heart denied it. He raised his eyes from the plant to Ki's face and gave a bleat of horror. Lines of agony appeared and deepened in her face as the flower grew and blossomed; in seconds the flesh melted on her bones, leaving her face thinner yet, the bones of her wrists knobbing from her arms, her ribs stretching her skin like the ribs of a wagon under canvas. She stooped to set the thing in place. He watched numbly as she stepped to a new spot, her ravaged body staggering, and yet she picked up more earth with care and precision.

Vandien turned anguished eyes to Hollyika who still sat on her horse. 'What's the matter?' she asked grimly. 'Did you forget what you wanted, or change your mind?'

'Damn you,' he said evenly. He moved quickly to Ki, taking her wrist gently but firmly. With a shake he tumbled the soil from her hands; a questing tendril browned and died as it fell. Ki turned her face up to his and her eyes opened to him with a drowned gaze.

'I came for you. Ki, I'm Vandien. Don't you remember?'

'Vandien.' She looked up at him long, hearing no guiding whisper from the Limbreths. Without their direction, she fumbled on alone. 'Vandien. I cared for you so much. You were impetuous and quick, tempering my caution. Yes, you belong here.' She looked down at the half a handful of dirt that remained in her hands. 'Yes. I will take the way you smell when I put my face in the hollow of your shoulder, and the look of your eyes at night when the moonlight fills them, and the sudden brush of your lips and moustache across my eyes when we meet after long weeks apart on the road. I will take the soft invitation of your hands in the night.'

Vandien followed her blinded gaze to her hands. In after times he could never recall to himself exactly what he saw sprouting there. The beauty of it made his eyes ache, but there was also the sense that things held dear to him had been snatched away and sold to a stranger. The secret trove that tempered his days with sweetness was being spilled out for all to see, and it was not for other eyes. 'No!' he roared in a sudden jealousy, and shook it from her hands and put his boot upon it. 'Finally!' Hollyika observed, and spurred the black horse forward. His scarlet hooves wreaked carnage in the beds, trampling them to a lush ruin of black soil and severed leaf. Ki shook like a palsied scarecrow, her mouth working but giving forth no sound.

'Ki!' Vandien began urgently, trying to catch her flying wrists. She struck him in the face, no slap, but the impact of a fist that smashed his lips against his teeth and bloodied her knuckles. He threw up an arm to guard against her furious onslaught, surprised at the strength she had left. He ducked away from her, flinching from blows that intended to do serious damage; but it was over in a flurry like an autumn wind. Vandien felt her stamina give out; this Ki was not in the physical condition of the woman he was accustomed to ride with. He lowered his arms from his face, taking her feeble blows on his chest and arms, scarcely feeling them. Her face crumpled like a child's when punished; he knew she was close to collapse.

Hollyika rode up beside them, felling Ki with a fist blow to the side of her neck that was savagely efficient. Ki sank down limp and didn't even twitch. Vandien's incredulous stare went from the frail woman on the dark soil to the Brurjan looking down at him slit-eyed.

'No time for it. Talk her into it later. Right now, you load her up while I hold them off.' She wheeled Black as she spoke, calling the last words over her shoulder.

They had come silently, the fair-haired host from the farmer's cottage. They came, stony-faced and lambenteyed, staffs and hoes and scythes swung to shoulders. But as Hollyika bore down on them, these clumsy weapons came to the ready and were swung with amazing skill. They cried out not at all, nor did they look particularly interested in what they did. They moved efficiently, their line fanning out to flank the lone Brurjan and her horse.

Swift as a heartbeat, he saw it all. Stooping he lifted Ki, swinging her limp thinness easily over his shoulder. To get her on a horse was more difficult; Sigurd was not used to such burdens, and objected to this one. But as Hollyika had pointed out, there was no time for niceties. He flung her between the grain bag and the food sack, and swiftly and securely roped her into place. His mind and body raced with adrenaline. He scrabbled atop Sigmund, and looped the lead rope around Sigmund's neck. Once settled on that broad back, he drew his rapier from its sheath and lifted it to the ready. He had never fought from horseback before and suspected that a staff would clear him from Sigmund's back long before his rapier came within range of anything.

Drumming his heels against Sigmund's broad sides, he broke him into a shambling trot. Hollyika had already rearranged the battle to her liking; her black had broken through the line in two places, leaving squirming bodies on the dark turf. Black's eyes shone, and Hollyika's were red-rimmed with her excitement. The horse was a magnificent weapon in his own right as he wheeled, striking out in all directions with his scarlet hooves. The whacks of the staffs he ignored, though his dark coat shone wet in two places where scythes had scored him. Hollyika swayed in her saddle, moving with him as deftly as his hooves moved under him, rocking her balance to match his as she struck out with her heavy sword. Wherever it touched, flesh bared bone, but her victims gave no cry. They fell before her sword as silently as they writhed beneath Black's hooves.

Vandien made his ponderous charge, and hoped his rapier looked impressive as it danced in his hands. But before he fairly reached the battle, the great horse underneath him smelled the blood and reached his own decision. Snorting, he threw his great head and lunged in a wild shy that nearly unseated Vandien, and fought against the bridle when Vandien tried to make him obey.

'The damn horse ... is smarter ... than you are!' Hollyika's words came in gasping shouts. 'Get ... the hell... out of here! You're in my way!' In a single warrior foray she proved her words, charging past him so closely that she nearly swept him from the saddle. The flying hooves of the black struck in their battle dance against two farmers who had come up behind him. The sharp copper smell of fresh blood under his nose was all the confirmation Sigmund needed. He lunged about, nearly colliding with Sigurd, and broke into a heavy gallop. 'Get over the bridge!' Hollyika called needlessly after them as the greys found and took the road.

'As if I had any say in it,' Vandien muttered, clinging to the grey mane and trying to grip the barrel body. The grey horses devoured the road, the shocks of Sigmund's hooves jarring Vandien with every stride; the big greys could move when they wished to. The only sound of the battle had been Hollyika's gasping Brurjan curses and the whack of sword meeting staff, and these faded behind Vandien quickly. There was a brief thunder as they crossed the magnificent bridge, then more road. Vandien was flying into the night down the smooth black road. Darkness cupped him under her hand and hid their passage from all eyes.