The Misenchanted Sword

CHAPTER 1

The marsh stank, with a sharp, briny stench that seemed to fill Valder’s head. He stared out across the maze of tall grass and shallow water for a long moment and then reluctantly marched onward, into it. The ground gave beneath him; his boot sank past the ankle in gray-brown muck. He muttered an obscenity, then smiled weakly at his own annoyance and slogged forward.

The enemy, he knew, was no more than an hour behind him. The marsh was nothing but a minor inconvenience by comparison.

To his left lay the open sea, and to his right was endless empty forest that was probably full of northern patrols and sentinels, human or otherwise. Behind him somewhere were the three northerners who had been pursuing him for the past four days. Ahead of him, wet and green and stinking, lay the coastal marshes.

He could, he supposed, have turned to the right and avoided the marshes, tried to lose his pursuers in the forest, but he had been running through forests for four days without being able to shake them off his trail. At least the marshes would be different.

After half a dozen long, slow steps through the mud, he struck a patch of solid ground and hauled himself up onto it; dirty seawater poured from his boots, which had not been watertight in more than a sixnight. The marsh grass rustled loudly as he pushed his way across the little hummock; he froze, peered back over his shoulder, and, seeing nothing but the unbroken line of pine trees, sank to the ground for a moment’s rest.

The marsh was probably a mistake, he told himself as the foul smell saturated his nostrils. He could not move through it without making noise, it seemed — the rustling grass was far more audible than the crunch of pine needles, and the suck of mud wasn’t much better — and the enemy sorcerer almost certainly had some sort of spell or talisman that augmented his hearing. Even the other two northerners might have hearing more than normally acute; from what he had seen of their movements, Valder was quite certain that at least one of them was shatra — half man, half demon, though human in appearance. That eerily smooth, flowing motion was unmistakable.

All three might be shatra; the demon warriors could disguise their movements if they chose. One of his pursuers was a sorcerer, but he had heard it said around the barracks that some sorcerers were shatra. It seemed grossly unfair for a single enemy soldier to have both advantages, but life, he knew, was sometimes very unfair.

Nobody knew exactly what shatra were capable of, but it was generally believed that they possessed magically acute senses — though not, probably, up to the level a good sorcerer could achieve. Valder had to assume that the northerners chasing him could see and hear and smell far better than he could.

He had managed to stay ahead of the enemy patrol for four days now, but it had been due to luck as much as to anything else. He had exhausted his last few prepared spells in diverting the pursuit, but none of the diversions had lasted very long, and his company’s wizard had not provided him with anything useful for actual combat. Valder was supposed to be a scout, after all; his job, if he encountered the enemy, had been to run back to base camp to warn his superiors, not to fight. He was not interested in a glorious death in combat. He was just another of Ethshar’s three million conscript soldiers trying to survive, and, for an ordinary human against shatra, that meant flight.

He had been able to travel at night as he fled because the greater moon had been almost full when the chase began, but the wizard-sight he had been given when he first went out on his routine solo patrol had worn off six nights ago.

Thick morning fogs had helped him, as much as the moon had; he was running blind to begin with, with no intended destination, and therefore was not concerned about losing his way in the mist, so long as he didn’t walk off a cliff. His pursuers, however, had had to grope carefully along his trail, using their sorcerous tracking a few steps at a time. They did not seem to have any unnatural means of penetrating the fog, either sorcerous or demonic.

And, of course, the enemy had stopped for meals every so often, or for water, while he had had no need of food or drink. That was the only bit of wizardry he still had going for him, the only spell remaining; if that were to wear off, he knew he would be doomed. His outfit’s wizard had known his job, though, and Valder had so far felt not the slightest twinge of hunger or thirst. He felt the charmed bloodstone in his belt pouch, making certain it was still secure.

Now, though, he had come to this stinking salt marsh and he wondered if his luck had run out. He settled himself on the grassy hummock and pulled his boots off, letting the foul water run out.

His luck had really run out two months ago, he decided, when the enemy had launched a surprise offensive out of nowhere and cut through to the sea, driving the Ethsharitic forces back down the coast, away from the forests and into the open plain. It had been phenomenally bad luck for Valder to have been out on solo patrol, checking the woods for signs of the enemy, when the assault came.

He had been looking for saboteurs and guerrillas, not the whole northern army.

Valder still did not understand how the enemy had cut through so quickly; all he knew was that, when he headed back toward camp, he had found northerners marching back and forth across the smoldering ruins of his home base, between himself and the Ethsharitic lines. He had encountered no scouts, no advance units, had had no warning. The fact that he had been sent out alone, in itself, indicated that his superiors hadn’t thought the enemy had any significant forces within a dozen leagues, at the very least.

With the enemy to the south, the sea to the west, and nothing to the east but forest wilderness clear to the borders of the Northern Empire itself, he had headed north. He had hoped to get well away from the enemy, then find or build himself a boat and work his way south along the coast until he reached the Ethsharitic lines — surely the enemy could not have driven very far to the south, certainly not as far as General Gor’s fortress. He knew nothing about boats, but he was reasonably sure that the enemy knew no more than he did. The Northern Empire was an inland nation; he doubted that there was any northern navy to worry about.

Unfortunately, the enemy had followed him northward along the shoreline, not because they knew he was there, but, as best he could guess, because they were afraid of Ethsharitic landings. He had kept moving north, staying ahead of the enemy scouts; four times he had settled in one spot long enough to start work on a raft, but each time a northern patrol had come along and driven him away long before he had a seaworthy craft.

Finally, four days ago, he had been careless, and a northerner who moved with the inhumanly smooth grace and speed of a shatra had spotted him. He had been running ever since, snatching naps when he could and using every ruse he could think of and every spell in his pouch. He pulled off his right sock and wrung it out, then draped it on the grass to dry; he knew that it would just get wet again when he moved on, as he would have to do quickly, but while he rested he wanted it dry. He was tugging at his left sock when he heard the rustle of grass. He froze.

The sound came again, from somewhere behind him, to the north — he had seated himself facing back the way he had come so as to have a better chance of spotting his pursuers.

It didn’t seem likely that even shatra could have circled around behind him already. Perhaps, he told himself, it was just a bird or an animal of some sort. Carefully, with his right foot bare and his left sock hanging halfway off, he rose, trying not to rustle, and peered through the waving stalks.

Something tall was moving about, something dark gray and pointed at the top. Not shatra, or at least not the sort he was familiar with; they customarily wore round, close-fitting helmets that covered almost the entire head. Enemy sorcerers usually wore similar black helmets festooned with talismans, and the common soldiers made do with whatever they could scrounge up — most often ancient, rusty relics passed down through generations of warfare. This gray object did not look like any of those. It didn’t look like a helmet at all; it looked like a cloth hat.

He wondered whether it might be some unfamiliar variety of beast, perhaps a magically created one or some odd kind of small dragon. He had seen pointed hats; they had once, he understood, been the standard issue for wizards until someone pointed out that they made excellent targets, but he could not imagine what one would be doing here, far to the north and west of anything resembling civilization. Who would be wearing such a thing in a marsh on the edge of nowhere?

He sank back to the ground and pulled his left sock back up, ignoring the fact that it was still soaking wet, and then pulled on his other sock and both boots.

The rustling noise continued; whatever the tall thing with the gray point was, it didn’t seem to have noticed him. He stood up again, then crouched and began inching his way toward whatever it was, parting the grass carefully with his hands.

As careful as he was, however, his movement was not silent. He stopped again and listened.

The other had also stopped. For a tense moment, Valder waited. Then the rustling began again, and the other moved away. Valder followed, trying to move only when the other moved, but the rustling of his own passage drowned out the other’s noise and made it very difficult to judge when the other had stopped.

A few feet from the spot where he had sat and dumped out his boots Valder found himself at the northern edge of the dry hummock, facing a wide, shallow channel. He eased his foot into it until the sole of his boot was resting on solid bottom, sunk an inch or two into muck. His other foot followed, until he was standing in six inches of foul-smelling water and three inches of goo. Both feet were once again thoroughly soaked.

He waded across the channel, moving slowly so as not to splash. No grass grew in the center of the channel, and the reeds were not thick, so that he was able to proceed without making very much noise. He heard new sounds ahead, not rustlings, but clatterings, as if things were being casually moved about.

He reached the far side of the channel and slogged up the bank, pushing aside reeds and grass; he paused at the top to peer ahead.

The gray point was not in sight, but something else was, something yellow-brown, warm and inviting in the setting sun. It looked very much like a thatched roof. From his previous viewpoint it had blended with the surrounding foliage.

He was so intrigued by this evidence of a human habitation where he had expected none that he forgot his pursuers for the moment and made his way toward the roof without first checking behind. He knew that the inhabitant was just as likely to be a northerner as an Ethsharite, but if the gray thing had indeed been a hat, then whoever wore it was probably not a soldier. Valder was armed and reasonably capable. He had the sword on his hip and a dagger on his belt; a sling was tucked away. He wore a breastplate of good steel. His helmet had been lost two days earlier, and he had abandoned his bow when he had run out of reusable arrows, but he still felt confident that he could handle any civilian, whether northerner, Ethsharite, or unknown.

One reason for his intense interest in the roof was that its mysterious owner might well have a boat, since he or she lived here in a coastal marsh — and that might save Valder the trouble of building a raft, as well as being safer and more comfortable.

He crept forward through the tall grass, across another dry patch, then through a reed-clogged expanse of water and mud and over another hummock, and found himself looking at a tidy little hut. The walls were plastered over with yellowish baked mud or clay; wooden shutters covered the two small windows on the near side. The roof, as he had thought, was thatch. A doorway faced the ocean, with a heavy drape hooked back to leave it mostly open. Seated in the doorway opening was the hut’s inhabitant, an old man in a gray robe, his tall, pointed hat perched on one knee. He was leaning back against the frame, staring out over the sea at the setting sun. The hut was built on the highest bit of land in the marsh, but faced down a short, steep, bare slope, giving a fine view of rolling waves and crying gulls.

Valder saw no weapons, but that didn’t mean the old man had none; he had no way of knowing what might be inside the hut. The hat and robe did seem to resemble an archaic wizard’s costume, and wizards of any sort could be dangerous.

He saw nothing to indicate the man’s nationality, unless he counted the fact that the Northern Empire had very few wizards, archaic or otherwise — but then, the garb could easily be that of some obscure variety of sorcerer or other northern magician. He debated with himself what action he should take. He was not about to turn and leave, with the patrol still somewhere behind him. He could approach by stealth, try to take the old man by surprise, but that would appear definitely hostile and might cost him an ally, and, with the rustling grass, stealth might not be possible. Far better, he decided, to make his presence known and then see how the hut-dweller reacted.

With that resolve, he stood up straight, waved a hand in the air, and called, “Hello, there!”

The old man started violently, grabbed at his rope belt, and looked about wildly.

“Hello! Over here!” Valder called.

Spotting him at last, the man got to his feet and stared at Valder in open astonishment. “Who in Hell are you!” he demanded.

He spoke in Ethsharitic; Valder relaxed somewhat and looked the old man over.

He was short and scrawny, with unkempt white hair hacked off raggedly at shoulder length and a messy beard. The gray robe he wore was clean but badly worn, with faded patches at each elbow and faint stains here and there. The pointed gray hat had fallen unnoticed to the ground when its owner arose. A rope belt encircled his waist and carried a large leather pouch on one side, a sheathed dagger on the other, where it had been hidden from Valder before; the old man’s right hand rested on the hilt of the knife. His feet were bare, his eyes wide, and his mouth open with surprise.

He did not look dangerous, despite the dagger; for one thing, the weapon was still sheathed, where an experienced fighter would have drawn it automatically. Valder guessed the man to be a hermit, someone who hadn’t seen another human being in years. His amazement at Valder’s presence was very evident.

“I’m lost and alone,” Valder replied.

The old man stared at him for a moment, then called, “Didn’t ask that.” He sounded peevish; his surprise was fading into irritation at Valder’s intrusion. “I’m a soldier; I got separated from my unit. You don’t expect me to give my name, do you? For all I know you’re an enemy magician; if I tell you my name, you might have power over me.”

The old man squinted, nodded an acknowledgment of the truth of Valder’s words, and then motioned with his left hand for Valder to approach. His right hand remained on the hilt of his knife. “Come here, soldier,” he said.

With his own right hand on the hilt of his sword, Valder made his way through a few feet of grass and several yards of mud and reeds and eventually splashed up out of the marsh onto the little island of dry ground surrounding the hut. He stood waiting while the old man looked him over carefully. As he waited, he remembered the three northerners somewhere behind him and suppressed an urge to tell the old man to hurry up; there was no need to frighten him yet.

“Ethsharitic, hah?” the old man said at last.

“Yes. Scout First Class, with the Western Command under General Gor.”

“What are you doing out here, then? Nothing to scout around here.” Before Valder could reply, he added with sudden harshness, “Isn’t any fighting around here, is there?”

“I got cut off from my unit, far south of here, and got chased north. The fighting is still a long way off. I thought maybe you could help me — loan me a boat or something.”

“Maybe I can. No boat, but come in and tell me about it and we’ll see.” He gestured and led the way into the hut.

Valder smiled. The old man’s face was as easy to read as a baby’s. He had obviously forgotten how to control or conceal his emotions after being alone for so long; Valder had plainly seen his initial surprise and confusion turn first to annoyance at this unexpected disruption of his routine and then to eager curiosity. Valder could not be sure, but he guessed the old man was also eager for a little human companionship. Even a hermit might get lonely eventually.

He followed the old man into the hut, ducking his head to clear the low doorframe.

CHAPTER 2

As they stepped inside, the old man asked, “You want something to eat?”

“No,” Valder answered tersely.

The hermit paused and turned to look at him. “The old bloodstone charm? Spell of Sustenance, that one?”

Reluctantly, Valder nodded. He hadn’t expected the old man to guess the reason for his abstinence so readily. If any food or drink were to pass his lips, or even if he salivated too much, the spell would be broken and he would need to forage or carry supplies like any ordinary wanderer; accepting anything from the hermit was therefore out of the question. Unfortunately, the old man now knew that Valder carried a bloodstone, which, although not exactly a fortune in gems, was a fairly rare and precious item, particularly in this northern wilderness so far from the mines of Akalla.

The old man obviously had some acquaintance with magic, as Valder had suspected, to realize so quickly why a weary traveler might refuse an offer of food.

Then the hermit stepped aside and opened the shutters, allowing his guest a good look at the hut’s interior, and Valder knew that his host had far more than a passing acquaintance with magic.

The basic furnishings were simple and practical. A bed consisting of a mattress, pillow, and furs lay against the base of one wall; a table against another wall held a basin, pitcher, and assorted pots, pans, and kitchen implements. A cozy wicker armchair stood beside the table and a large wooden chest that could serve as either another chair or a low table was nearby. Those were the only ordinary furniture, but the remaining space was by no means empty. Shelves and cabinets lined every wall, and free-standing sets of shelves occupied much of the floor. Every shelf and cabinet was crammed to overflowing with bottles, jars, boxes, vials, and bizarre paraphernalia. It was obvious why the hermit had been able to identify the Spell of Sustenance so easily.

“You’re a wizard, aren’t you?” Valder said. Only a wizard had any use for such things as mummified bats and bottled organs, so far as Valder was aware. Sorcery, witchcraft, demonology, and theurgy all had their own ceremonial trappings, but those were not among them.

The old man glanced at the cluttered shelves as he sank into the wicker chair. “Yes, I am,” he said. “Are you?”

“No,” Valder answered, “I’m just a soldier.”

“You’ve got that spell.”

“They issue that to any scout who’s going out on patrol for more than a day and a night.” He looked around again, impressed by the arcane bric-a-brac.

“Sit down,” the hermit said, pointing at the wooden chest. “Sit down, and tell me what’s happening in the world.”

Valder’s feet were tired and sore — in fact, his entire body was tired and sore. He settled gratefully onto the wooden trunk, allowing himself to forget momentarily that he had no time to rest while the northerners were after him. His boots made a wet squeaking as his weight was removed.

“Get those off,” the wizard said. “I’ll light a fire and you can dry them out. And I’m hungry, even if you can’t eat; I don’t use that charm if I can help it. It wears you down if you keep it going too long, you know; it can ruin your health. If you don’t think the smell will break the enchantment, I’m going to make my dinner.”

“A fire would be wonderful,” Valder said, reaching down to remove his boots. “Please don’t let me interfere; you go right ahead and eat.”

As he pulled off his second boot, however, he suddenly remembered his pursuers. They might, he realized, arrive at any moment, if he had not lost them by entering the marsh. “Ah... Wizard?” he asked, “Do you speak the northern tongue?”

The sun had set and the light was beginning to fade; the old man was lighting a fish-oil lamp with a flame that sprang from the tip of his finger. When the wick was alight, he curled his finger into his palm, snuffing the flame, and turned to look at his guest. “No,” he said. “Haven’t needed it. Why?”

“Because there’s a northern patrol after me. I should have told you sooner. They spotted me four days ago and have been following ever since. There are three of them; one’s a sorcerer, and at least one is shatra.”

“You led them here!” The old man’s voice became a screech.

“Well, I’m not sure of that. I may have lost them. I’m hoping they wouldn’t expect me to try and cross the marsh and that their trackers, if they have any, can’t follow me across water. If you could speak their language, I was hoping you could convince them that I’m not here; after all, this far north, one of their people would be just as likely as one of ours, even out here on the coast. If you hadn’t spoken Ethsharitic when I hailed you, I wouldn’t have known which side you were on and I might have gone around you. Maybe you can convince them that I did go around.”

“I wish I hadn’t spoken Ethsharitic! I don’t know any of their speech; I can’t fool them for a minute. I came out here to get away from the war, damn it, not to get tangled up with shatra!”

“I wondered why you were here. Well, if you deserted, here’s a chance to get yourself a pardon; just help me get away from these three.”

“I didn’t...”

A voice called from outside, and the wizard stopped abruptly in mid-sentence. The call was in the harsh northern tongue.

“Oh, damn it!” the hermit said. He reached for a thick leather-bound book on one of the nearby shelves.

“Look, I’ll see if I can slip out and lead them away,” Valder said, suddenly contrite. “I never meant to get anyone else into trouble.” As he spoke he got to his feet, leaving his boots behind and stumbling toward the doorway. The wizard ignored him, fully occupied as he was in pawing desperately through the fat, leather-bound volume and muttering to himself.

Valder leaned out the door, then jumped back in as a streak of red flame flashed past, tearing through the twilight inches from his face.

Seconds later, three sharp smacks sounded, followed by an instant of uncanny whistling screams as sorcerous projectiles tore across the interior of the hut at roughly the level of a man’s chest, narrowly missing Valder’s arm as he fell back. The sound ended in a second three-part snap as they exited through the north wall.

Not quite sure how he got there, Valder found himself sprawled on the hard-packed dirt of the hut floor. He looked up and realized that the wizard was still standing, book in hand, staring nonplussed at the holes in his wall.

“Get down, wizard!” Valder called.

The wizard still stood motionless.

Concerned, Valder shouted, “Are you all right?”

“What?” The magician stirred uncertainly.

“Wizard, I think you had better get down, quickly; they’re certain to try again.”

“Oh.” Slowly, the wizard sank to his hands and knees, keeping the book nearby. “What was that?” he asked, staring at the holes.

“I don’t know,” Valder answered. “Some damned northern sorcery.”

The wizard peered at the soldier in the dim light of the flickering fish-oil lamp and the last gray twilight; his scraggly beard almost reached the floor, and his robe was bunched up around him, revealing bony ankles. “Sorcery? I don’t know any sorcery.”

“Neither do I,” Valder replied. “But they do.” He jerked a thumb at the south wall.

The wizard looked at the three entry holes. A wisp of smoke trailed up from a book that had been pierced by one; the other two had gone through jars, strewing shards of glass. “Protections,” he said. “We need protections, ones that will work against sorcery.” He began desperately turning pages in his book.

Valder watched him warily. No new assault had immediately followed the projectiles, and that seemed like a good sign. The northerners might be waiting for someone to move and provide them with a target, he thought. If so, they would have a good long wait; he was not that foolish.

The wizard stopped, slammed a hand down on the open book, and looked at Valder, anger and fear on his face. “What were those things?” he asked. “I have to know what I’m defending against.”

“I don’t know what those things that came through the wall were, but I know what sent them. I told you, a northern patrol is after me. Shatra — you know what shatra are, don’t you?”

“I’m not a fool, soldier; shatra are demon warriors.”

“More or less; they look like men, but fight like demons.”

“Damn you, soldier, I came here to get away from the war!” the wizard burst out.

“You told me that. Tell them that; maybe they won’t bother you. I doubt they have anything against Ethsharitic deserters.”

“You have no call to insult me; I am not a deserter. I was never enlisted. I served my apprenticeship under a civilian advisor, not a combat wizard, and worked thirty years as an advisor myself before I retired and came out here to do my own research.”

“Research?” Valder ducked his head instinctively as another projectile whistled through the hut; this one entered through an open window and departed through a box of gray-brown powder, leaving a slowly settling cloud of dust hanging in the air above them. “You mean magical research?”

“Yes, magical research.” He waved a hand in the direction of the nearest jam-packed shelves. “Oh.” Valder stared at the old man. “And I thought you were a coward, hiding out here! I apologize, wizard, for wronging you. You’ve got far more courage than I do if you’ve been experimenting in wizardry.”

“Oh, it’s not that bad,” the wizard replied modestly, brushing at the dust that had settled on his sleeve and open book.

“I’ve heard that the life expectancy of a research wizard is just twenty-three working days,” Valder argued.

“Oh, but that’s for military research! I don’t do anything like that — no flame spells or death-runes or juggernauts. I’ve been working with animations and I’ve been very careful. Besides, I use a lot of protective spells. That’s what most of this book is. They were my old master’s specialty.”

“Protective spells?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Have you got spells there that will stop those three?”

“I don’t know. Look, soldier, you must know what wizardry is like; it’s tricky, unreliable stuff, and there’s no telling what a new spell will do — if it does anything at all. I haven’t gotten any of the results I wanted in my research so far. I’ve come up with some interesting things, but I don’t know what will work against shatra. Demons aren’t like men or beasts, and shatra are half demon, aren’t they? I’ve got a spell here that may help us; it’s not much, but it’s the best I could find in a hurry that won’t take more time than we’ve got or ingredients I don’t have. It’s an aversion charm.” He rose to his knees and snatched a jar and a small wooden box from a low shelf.

Valder paused and listened before replying, then said, “I hope you can do it fast, wizard; I hear something moving out there.”

The hermit paused, a pinch of malodorous green powder in one hand. “I don’t hear...” he began.

The rest of his words were lost in a whooshing roar as the roof of the hut vanished in a ball of flame. Blinking and shielding his eyes against the sudden glare, Valder grabbed one of the old man’s bony arms and dragged him unceremoniously across the dirt floor, keeping his head low and dodging scraps of flaming debris that spattered down on all sides.

The wizard flung the powder across both of them, gestured with his free hand, and said something incomprehensible. Something flashed pale blue where the powder fell, cool against the orange blaze of burning thatch; the old man grabbed at the knife on his belt and yelled, “The door is the other way!”

“I know,” Valder shouted back over the roar of the flames. “That’s why we’re going this way! They’re probably waiting out front!” With his left hand still locked around the old man’s wrist, Valder drew his sword with his right and jabbed at the back wall above the wizard’s bedding.

As he had thought, the smooth coating was a thin layer of baked mud, and the wall itself just bundled reeds; the mud broke away easily, allowing him to hack an opening through the dried reeds with his blade. A moment later the two men were outside, tumbling down into the brackish water of the marsh; the wizard spluttered angrily while Valder scanned the surrounding area for the enemy.

Someone was visible off to the left; Valder whispered in the old man’s ear, “Lie still.”

The hermit started to protest; Valder jabbed him with the hilt of his sword.

“No, listen,” the wizard insisted, “I have a spell that can help here.”

Valder glanced at the shadowy figure of the enemy soldier, standing well back and apparently unaware of their presence, and then at the blazing fury of the thatch roof. “Go ahead,” he said. “But hurry, and keep it quiet.”

The wizard nodded, splashing, then drew his dagger and stabbed the back of Valder’s hand.

“What the hell...” The soldier snatched his hand away; the wound was only a scratch, but it hurt.

“I need a little of your blood,” the wizard explained. He smeared a streak of blood along Valder’s forearm, dabbed a few drops on the soldier’s face and neck, then pricked his own arm and distributed a little of his own blood similarly on himself.

Behind them, the fire was eating its way down the walls of the wizard’s hut, lighting the surrounding circle of marsh a vivid orange, its reflections in the murky water a labyrinth of flame. Valder knew that somewhere in the blackness beyond the illuminated area the northerners were watching; he could not see them anymore, as the fire’s glow kept his eyes from adapting sufficiently to the dark, and nothing at all remained of his night-sight spell. He wished that he had one of the sorcerers’ masks that the enemy used for night vision; they were awkward to wear and carry, but they seemed never to wear out the way wizard-sight did.

The old man was muttering an incantation, working his wizardry, whatever it was. Valder wondered, as he had before, why Ethshar used wizardry so much more than the Empire did and sorcery so much less. This difference in magical preferences was hardly a new question; he and his comrades had mulled it over dozens of times back in camp. Everybody knew that the Empire used demonology and Ethshar used theurgy, but that just made sense, since the gods were on Ethshar’s side, and the demons on the Empire’s. Wizardry and sorcery seemed to have no such inherent bias, yet a northern wizard was rare indeed, and southern sorcerers almost as scarce. Neither side, it seemed, got much use from witchcraft, and that was another mystery.

He peered out at the surrounding gloom and again spotted the northerner he had seen before, at the very edge of the circle of light. That, Valder thought, was probably the one who had ignited the hut. He was slowly circling closer to the burning structure, obviously looking for any sign that his intended victims had escaped. Valder could make out one of the intricate metal wands used by combat sorcerers cradled in the northerner’s arms; he gave up any thought of fighting the man on even terms and perhaps killing him before his companions could arrive. One of those wands could rip a man to pieces almost instantaneously, from a dozen paces away.

Something exploded with a bang and a tinkling of glass somewhere inside the flaming hut, and Valder remembered the shelves and cabinets crowded with jars and boxes. He guessed that several more would probably explode when the flames reached them.

The northerner turned at the sound, wand held ready, and Valder looked desperately for some way to take advantage of the instant of surprise. He found none.

If the man came closer, Valder estimated, ambush was a possibility; at close enough range, sorcery would be no better than a sword, and a knife might be better than either. Thinking of the wizard’s dagger, he realized that the sound of the old man’s incantation had stopped. That reminded him of the drawn blood, and he glanced at his injured hand.

His mouth fell open in horror; instead of a simple scratch, he saw the flesh laid open to the bone, blood spilling out thickly, as if half-congealed. When his jaw fell, more blood poured out, running down his beard and into the mud — yet he felt no pain save for a slight twinge in his hand.

Confused and frightened, he looked at the wizard and shrank back involuntarily; the old man was obviously horribly dead. His skin was corpse-white, splotched with cyanotic blue-gray, and blood dribbled from his nose and mouth. His arm was a mangled ruin, and his throat cut open clear to his spine.

“Gods!” Valder gasped. The spell must have gone wrong, he thought; he had heard of spells backfiring. Backfires were what made magical research so deadly.

The old man smiled, his expression unspeakably hideous through the half-dried blood. “The Sanguinary Deception,” he whispered. “Looks awful, doesn’t it?”

“You’re alive?” Valder had difficulty accepting it, despite the old man’s movement and speech. “Of course I’m alive. So are you, and you probably look worse than I do. It’s a simple trick, but effective; doesn’t the army use it any more?”

“I don’t know,” Valder said, staring in fascination at the hermit.

“Well, it’s a good trick, and if they aren’t using it, they’re fools. Now, shut up and lie still, and they’ll think we’re dead.”

Valder stared at the old man for another second, then slumped back and did his best to look dead.

Something else shattered amid the flames, and a loud clatter followed; Valder guessed that a shelf had given way, spilling its entire contents. He stole a glance at the hermit and saw that the old man was no longer smiling at his ruse; instead his face was contorted with anger and pain at the destruction of his home and his work.

From the corner of one eye Valder noticed the northerner doing something with his wand, perhaps making a mystical gesture or perhaps only adjusting something; then he lifted it to chest height and pointed it at the fiery remains of the hut. Red streaks of light scarred the air, etching themselves into Valder’s vision, and the burning ruin fell inward all at once with a roar, collapsing into a smoldering heap less than two feet high.

A seething hiss sounded.

The northerner did something else to his wand and pointed it again; something seemed to leap from the wand to the wreckage. With a white flash and a sound like tearing metal, the smoldering heap vanished in a shower of burning fragments, leaving only a crater.

For several seconds lumps of hot mud and burning reeds splashed into the marsh around the two fugitives, sprinkling them liberally with salt water and mud, but not actually striking either of them. It seemed to Valder that some pieces actually dodged aside in mid-air in order to miss them. “That aversion spell,” the wizard whispered beside him.

After what seemed like hours, quiet and darkness descended again. Valder lay absolutely still. For a long moment the only sound was the hissing of burning debris as it was extinguished by the marsh; then a voice called out. Valder could not understand the words. He whispered, “Do you know what he’s saying?”

“No,” the old man answered. “I told you, I don’t know their language.”

Another voice called back to the first, and both laughed.

Then came the sound of feet slogging through the marsh with no attempt at stealth.

“They must think we’re dead,” Valder whispered.

“That’s the idea,” the wizard replied.

They lay still as footsteps splashed about; when the sound stopped for a moment Valder risked a glance and saw two of the northerners poking about the smoking crater, carrying torches. One stopped, knelt, then stood, holding out something for his companion to see. Valder squinted. He couldn’t be sure, but the object looked like a scorched bone.

The northerners exchanged a few words in their own language, and one gave a short, unpleasant laugh, then glanced around at the surrounding marshland. Valder froze. The northerner’s eyes came to rest looking directly at the spot where the two Ethsharites lay. The man called something to his companion, then marched toward them, moving out of Valder’s line of sight. Valder did not dare to shift his eyes.

A moment later a boot splashed into the marsh beside him and a hand gripped his hair and pulled him up. The pull hurt, but Valder kept himself limp, refusing to react, playing dead. Blood dripped from his beard.

He toyed briefly with the idea of pulling his knife and taking the northerner by surprise, but the sorcerer was waiting, watching from the rim of the crater, and Valder did not think much of the idea of suicide, even when taking an enemy with him. He had too much to live for. He hung limp in the northerner’s grasp.

Then the man dropped him, and he fell heavily to the mud; the side of his face stung with the impact, but he kept still. Done with Valder, the northerner rolled the wizard over with his foot; the old man’s arm fell splashing into the water.

Satisfied, the northerner called something, then turned and slogged off across the marsh. A moment later Valder made out two other sets of footsteps moving away. The torchlight, too, receded, leaving the Ethsharites in darkness.

When the footsteps were safely out of earshot, Valder waited for another long moment to be certain, his face in the mud and his nose full of the stench of decaying aquatic life. Finally, he cautiously raised his head and peered about. He saw no sign of anyone anywhere, save himself and the wizard. A few sparks still smoldered here and there among the grasses, insects chirped, and both moons were in the sky, but in general the night was dark and silent.

Slowly and carefully he rose to his knees and then to his feet, water streaming from the folds of his drenched tunic and kilt and pouring out from inside his breastplate. When no one shouted and no lights or sorcerous weapon-flashes appeared, he reached down and helped the bedraggled and gory little wizard up.

The old man stood, a trifle unsteady at first, and brushed at the mud that caked the front of his robe, shaking mud and water from his hands between strokes. He ignored the torrents of drying blood. When he decided that he had removed what he could, he stood, dripping, and gazed through the smoky gloom at the crater where his home had been.

When the sight had had time to sink in, he turned on Valder, fists clenched and shaking, and screamed, “You stupid fool! You led them right to me! Now look what they’ve done!”

“Don’t shout,” Valder whispered desperately. “We don’t know how far they’ve gone, or how well shatra can hear.”

The wizard ceased shouting and glanced at the distant line of trees, faintly visible in the moonlight. When no menacing figures appeared, he pointed an accusing finger at the crater. “Look at that!” he cried.

“I’m sorry,” Valder said with genuine contrition, uncomfortable speaking to what looked like a mangled corpse. “I didn’t know they would do anything like that.”

“You didn’t know,” the wizard mocked. “Well, soldier, you know now. And what do I do, now that they’ve blown my house to powder looking for you? Do you know that? I haven’t even had my dinner!”

“I’m sorry,” Valder repeated helplessly. “What can I do?”

“Haven’t you done enough? Why don’t you just go away and leave me alone? The moons are up; you’ll be able to see.”

“Oh, I can’t just leave; what would you do, here alone?”

“What would I do? I’ll tell you what I’ll do; I’ll rebuild my house, just as I built it before, restock my supplies somehow, though I don’t know how, and go on with my research just as if you had never come along, you blundering idiot!”

“Your supplies? All those bottles and jars?”

“That’s right, all those jars. I had everything from dragon’s blood to virgin’s tears, twenty years of careful scrimping and saving and pilfering, and the gods alone can know how I’ll ever replace it all!”

“I’ll stay and do what I can to help...”

“I don’t want your help! Just go away!”

“Where am I supposed to go? The patrol thinks I’m dead, but I’m still cut off, a hundred miles behind enemy lines. I might as well stay here and help you rebuild; I can’t go home.”

“I don’t want your help.” The wizard’s tone had changed from righteous fury to petulance.

“You’re stuck with it, unless you can figure out how to get me back to friendly territory.”

The wizard stared at him resentfully. “Just walk back. No one will bother a walking corpse.”

“The spell is permanent?” Valder was horrified. The idea of spending the rest of his life gushing illusory blood was unappetizing, to say the least.

“No,” the wizard admitted. “It wears off in a day or so.”

“It took me two months to come this far north!”

“Well, I can’t fly you out with my supplies all gone! Even the simplest levitation I know needs ingredients I haven’t got any more.” He paused; before Valder could speak, he continued, “I have an idea, though. Give me your sword. You’ve been waving it about; we might as well use it.”

“What?” Valder realized he was still holding his drawn sword; he had never sheathed it after cutting through the wall of the hut and had picked it up without thinking when he got to his feet. “What do you want it for?”

“I want to get rid of you, idiot.”

“How? By killing me?”

“No, of course not. You may be a fool, but that’s not enough reason to kill you. I don’t kill anybody. Besides, you are an Ethsharite, even if you are an idiot, and I’m still a loyal Ethsharite myself, even out here.”

“Then what do you want my sword for?”

“I’m going to enchant it. I’m going to put every spell I can find on it, every enchantment I can come up with that might help you fight your way back and out of my life forever.”

“Can you do that without your supplies?”

“I can do something; I know a few spells that don’t take anything fancy, and a couple of them are good ones. It may not be the greatest magic sword in the world when I’m done, but it will get you home, I promise you. I’ve got one spell I invented myself that I’m sure will do it, and it doesn’t need any ingredients I can’t find here in the marsh. If you stay around here very long, I may kill you, Ethsharite or not — and neither of us wants that to happen.”

Valder was still reluctant to give up his weapon, though the offer was tempting. He had not really wanted to build a boat and sail down the coast; he was no sailor, and storm season was approaching. He couldn’t even swim. “How do I know I can trust you?” he asked.

The wizard snorted. “You don’t need to trust me. You’re twice my size and a third my age; I’m a feeble little old man and you’re a trained, healthy young soldier. Even if I had the sword, you could handle me, couldn’t you? You’ve got the knife on your belt; I’m not leaving you defenseless.”

Valder remained wary. “You’re a wizard, though, not just an old man.”

“Well, then, if I’m a powerful enough wizard to handle you, how much difference can that stupid sword make? I’ve already got my own dagger, if I need a blade for some spell. You can’t have it both ways; either I’m too old and feeble to worry about, or I already have the advantage. Look, soldier, I’m in no hurry. I can’t do any magic to speak of until morning, because I’ll need to see what I’m doing. You can either get yourself out of here before dawn, or you can stay and let me enchant your sword — or you can stay and annoy me enough that I’ll turn you into... into something unpleasant. That would be better than killing you, at least. You suit yourself. Right now I’m going to try and get some sleep and see if I can forget that I haven’t had my dinner and that my house is a pile of ash. You do as you please.” He turned and stamped his way up out of the marsh onto the mounded rim of the crater.

Valder stood for a moment, sword in hand and his bare feet in briny muck, thinking it over.

After due consideration he shrugged and followed the old man.

CHAPTER 3

The rain began around midnight, Valder judged, though after the clouds covered the moons it was hard to be sure of the time. It trailed off into morning mist an hour or two before dawn. He was soaked through and had slept very little when the sun’s rays managed to slip through the trees to the southeast and spill across the marsh, slowly burning away the mist. Worst of all, he was dreadfully thirsty and ravenously hungry; he was unsure whether a splash of marsh water was responsible, or the blood of the Sanguinary Deception, but something had disrupted his Spell of Sustenance. The bloodstone was still secure in its pouch, but his fast had been broken.

The wizard had stayed dry throughout the rain, Valder noticed when the morning light illuminated the old man’s white hair; it was still a tangle of knots and fluff smeared with phantasmal blood but not plastered to his head as Valder’s was. The soldier assumed that the hermit had achieved this enviable state of desiccation by somehow keeping the aversion spell going.

The old man did not appear very comfortable, though; at first light he was up and pawing through the debris that lined the crater where his house had stood, spattering unreal gore in all directions.

He did not appear to be performing a spell, but Valder never felt very confident when dealing with unfamiliar magicians of any sort and knew better than to risk interrupting a wizard at work. Besides, by daylight the lingering effects of the Deception made the little hermit unspeakably repulsive.

Valder had spent the night curled up between two grassy mounds, above the waterline but still fairly sheltered. Now he climbed up atop one of the hillocks and settled down to watch the old man.

The hermit heard the rustling and looked up. “Oh, there you are, soldier,” he said. “Have you seen anything to eat?”

“No,” Valder said. “Have you?”

“No, and I’m hungry. My stomach has been growling for hours. I missed my dinner, you know.”

“I know. I’m hungry, too, and thirsty.”

“Oh. Spell broke, did it? Can’t say I’m really sorry, after all the trouble you’ve brought me. There’s a clean stream back in the woods, over that way,” he said, pointing vaguely northeast. “If you can find something that will hold water, go fetch some. You can drink your fill while you’re there; I don’t care. I’m going to see about catching some breakfast, since I can’t find anything left of my pantry. You might bring back some firewood, too, so I can cook whatever I find; everything here is either soaked or already burned.”

Valder nodded. The old man’s tone was not very friendly, but at least he was willing to talk. “I’ll do my best,” he answered.

“Do that,” the hermit replied. “Oh, and give me your sword; I want to look it over.”

“You still intend to enchant it somehow?”

“Oh, yes; how else can I get rid of you quickly? I’ve found a few things here; I’ll manage. Now, give me that thing and see if you can find something that doesn’t leak.”

Valder shrugged; he made his way across the blasted remains of the hut to where the wizard prowled and handed over his sword and sheath. After all, he told himself, he wouldn’t need it while fetching water, and he would need both hands. The northerners were gone, and he could handle most other dangers, either by running or with his dagger.

The old man accepted the weapon and looked it over casually, noting the ugly but serviceable workmanship — bow grip, straight blade, without any frills or ornamentation. He nodded. “It should do very well. Go get some water.”

Valder said nothing, but began looking for a container.

A quick circuit of the crater showed nothing suitable for the job, but a second glance at one of the outer slopes turned up the top half of a very large glass jar, the lid still screwed tightly in place; Valder hoped that would serve. Careful of the jagged edge, he cradled it in one arm and headed off in the direction the old man had indicated.

Unlike the old man, however, he had not spent years living in the marsh and learning its every twist and turn; he found himself slogging across muddy ditches, climbing over crumbling sandpiles, wading through branches of the sea, and pushing through reeds and rough grasses. His unshod feet acquired a variety of cuts, scrapes, and bites; his socks were soaked through and rapidly falling to tatters. Eventually he gave up following the direct route through the marsh and instead turned his path toward the nearest dry land. Once firmly ashore on solid ground, under the familiar pines, he turned north and made his way along the edge of the marsh until he came to a stream he assumed to be the one the old man had pointed out.

The water was clear, but salty and brackish; he turned and walked upstream, cursing the wizard.

Roughly a hundred yards from where he had first tasted the water, the stream poured down across a rocky outcropping, spilling exuberantly from one pool into another along a narrow stony path down the face of a rise in the ground. The water in the upper pool was fresh, sweet, and cold; Valder lay on his belly and drank eagerly.

When he lifted his face, he was momentarily shocked to see blood swirling downstream; then he remembered the Deception and laughed.

He rinsed out his broken jar, then filled it, and was relieved to see that it could still hold a decent quantity of water. He left the jar on the bank of the stream while he looked for firewood.

Fresh pine, he knew, smoked and spat. Any wood was less than ideal when green, but pine was especially unsatisfactory. He looked about in hopes of finding something better.

The best, he could do was a fallen limb, perhaps once the top of a tree but now a crooked, dried-out chunk of wood as long as he was tall and as thick as his forearm. Broken up, with kindling beneath, he judged it would serve well enough.

He gathered a pouchful of twigs and dry needles to start the fire with, then tucked the full jar in the bend of one arm, hefted the limb in his other hand, and headed back toward the marsh.

The journey back was even more difficult than the trip out. Although he knew better where he was going and what terrain he faced, he had the added problems of keeping the water in the inverted half of a jar and keeping the wood, already wet from the night’s rain, from becoming even wetter. This last proved virtually impossible in crossing the marsh, but he managed to reach the crater with only one end of the branch newly soaked and with several inches of water still in his makeshift container.

The old man did not immediately acknowledge his return; the wizard was bent over the sword, inscribing blue-glowing runes in the air an inch above the blade with the tip of his finger. His false wounds appeared to be healing, Valder noticed, and some color had returned to his face. Valder dropped the tree-limb on a convenient mound of earth, placed the water container nearby, and glanced around.

Some semblance of organization had been created, turning the crater from simple desolation to a camp among the ruins. A small pile of crabs lay to one side of the wizard; that, Valder guessed, would be breakfast, though he could not imagine how anyone could have found so many crabs so quickly in such northern waters as these. Arranged about the wizard were various elements of his arcane paraphernalia — a fragmentary skull, small glittering stones, shards of this and that, and five broken candle-stubs. Valder marveled that any candles could have survived the preceding night’s inferno.

After a long moment, as he was beginning to wonder whether there was anything he should be doing, the wizard looked up at Valder and said, “Cook the crabs, why don’t you? Boil them, if you think that thing will hold water well enough.”

Valder looked at the crabs, then looked at the broken jar, and then looked back at the wizard. “I thought you were thirsty,” he said.

“No, I’m hungry; you were thirsty. Cook the crabs.”

Annoyed, Valder scooped four of the crabs into the broken jar and set about building a fire. He had no trouble in breaking the wood into suitable lengths and arranging it over the tinder, but found that the twigs and needles were still damp from the rain, though he had chosen the driest he could find, and would not light readily. He knelt, smothering curses lest he accidentally say something that might let demons interfere with the wizard’s spell-making, and struck spark after spark without success.

After several minutes he sat back on his haunches and found the old man standing beside him. Without a word, the wizard extended a forefinger that flamed at the tip like a candle, his nail serving as the wick, as he had the night before when lighting the lamp. He thrust it into the little heap of tinder, which flared up immediately.

That done, he snuffed his finger by curling it into his palm, then used his other hand to flick a yellowish powder on the young flames. He said one unfamiliar word. With a sudden roar, the fire leaped up and engulfed wood and jar alike; a second later the wood was burning steadily and naturally, the water beginning to steam slightly.

“Call me when they’re ready,” the old man said as he turned back toward Valder’s sword.

Valder watched him leave, trying to tell himself that the wizard was not accustomed to dealing with people and could not know how annoying his behavior was. When the old man had settled cross-legged beside the sword and begun making a new series of mystical gestures, Valder turned back to the improvised cooking pot and poked at the crabs with his dagger far more viciously than culinary concerns required.

He tried to force himself to relax. He had escaped the northern patrol — in fact, the old fool had saved his life with his spells. The wizard had told him where to find water, had provided food, and had lighted the fire when Valder could not. There was no cause for annoyance save for the old man’s utter disregard for the little diplomacies of everyday life. Valder had always had a healthy respect for such niceties and had used them to forestall a few barracks brawls; he wondered whether two months alone in the woods and four days of desperate flight might have impaired his own behavior sufficiently to justify the hermit’s rudeness.

By the time he judged the crabs to be fit to eat, he was calm again. The heat of the fire had dried most of the rain, mist, and marsh out of his hair and clothing, and the improvement in his comfort had contributed to his improvement in mood.

He called, “Wizard! Breakfast is ready!”

For several seconds the only reply Valder received was the bubbling of the water in the broken jar, and the crackle of the flames. Finally, the wizard paused in his mysterious gesturing and called, “Keep it warm, will you? I can’t stop here.”

Valder shrugged. “Please yourself,” he answered. He fished out a crab with his knife and sat down to eat.

When he had eaten three of the four — as might be expected so far north, none were very large — he threw three more in the pot and settled back against a hillock, feeling reasonably content. Settled comfortably, he watched the old man.

The candle-stubs were burning, and the smoke was weaving about unnaturally, forming something resembling blue tatted lace hanging in mid-air; his sword stood upright, unsupported, in the center of the tangle. Valder had no doubt that the wizard was doing something to the weapon, though he had no idea what.

The old man barked a single word that Valder didn’t quite catch, in a voice surprisingly powerful for so short and thin a body; the sword and smoke froze, hanging immobile in the air. The wizard rose to his feet, arms spread wide, walked sideways around the column of petrified smoke, then turned away from it and strolled over to the cookfire.

“Let me use your knife, soldier; all mine are either lost or in use.” He gestured, and Valder noticed for the first time that the wizard’s own dagger was balanced on its tip below the sword, spinning about and gleaming more brightly silver than the light of the sun could explain. He shrugged and handed the old man his knife.

The wizard ate all four of the cooked crabs in silence, wolfing down the flesh eagerly. When he had finished and tossed the shells in the marsh, he remarked, “Magic is hungry work, and that smoke is making my throat dry. Go for some more water, soldier, if you aren’t doing anything else.”

“Give me back my knife first,” Valder replied. He saw no point in wasting argument or courtesy on the old man.

The wizard handed back the dagger, and Valder reluctantly set out for the stream.

He spent the rest of the day alternately sitting doing nothing, and fetching wood or water — or, once, three black pine cones, an item the wizard needed for his spells. Valder discovered that black pine cones were a scarce item; most were brown or gray. Eventually he located an odd bluish tree that yielded the desired objects.

The sun crawled across the cloud-strewn heavens and sank toward the sea, and still the wizard continued with his spell-casting. Glowing runes and weaving smoke were just two of the myriad odd effects Valder observed, and he wondered more and more just what the old man was doing to the sword.

Well after the sun went down, Valder finally dozed off, not far from the fire, while the wizard was etching fiery red lines in the dirt with a golden something-or-other that was oddly unpleasant to look at.

He was awakened suddenly by a loud whooshing sound and a shout. He started up, reaching automatically for a sword that wasn’t there. He glanced about wildly.

The fire had almost died, and there was no longer any magical glow anywhere — no runes in the air nor lines on the earth nor glittering blades. It took him a few moments to interpret the dim shapes he could make out.

The wizard was walking toward him, the sword sheathed and cradled in his arms.

“Here, soldier,” he said, thrusting the weapon forward. “Take your damned sword and get out of here!”

“What?” Valder was not at his best when suddenly awakened. He looked blankly at the completely ordinary-looking scabbard and hilt in the wizard’s arms.

“I’m finished with your sword, I said. It’s carrying all the enchantments I could put on it under the circumstances. If it won’t get you home safely, then nothing I know will. Take it and go. And don’t draw it until you’re over the horizon.”

Still befuddled, Valder accepted the sword and looked at it stupidly for a moment before hanging it in its accustomed place on his belt. It looked no different, as far as he could see by the fire’s faint glow, from what it had been when he arrived. When it was securely in place, he reached for the hilt to check the draw; a soldier needed to be able to get his blade out quickly.

“No, I said!” the wizard barked at him; a bony hand clamped around his wrist. Irrelevantly, as he looked at the hand, Valder noticed that the last traces of the Sanguinary Deception had vanished. “You mustn’t draw it here! It’s dangerous! Don’t draw it until you need it, and you won’t need it until you’re well away from here.”

“Whatever you say,” Valder said, taking his hand off the sword.

The wizard calmed. “That’s better. Ah... I gave it a name.”

“What?” Valder was still too sleepy to keep up with this apparent change of subject.

“I gave the sword a name; it’s to be called Wirikidor.”

“Wirikidor? What kind of a name is Wirikidor?”

“An old one, soldier. It’s from a language so old that the name of the tongue is forgotten and no trace remains of the people who spoke it. It means ’slayer of warriors,’ and it was part of the spell I put on the thing, so now that’s its name.”

Valder glanced down and resisted the temptation to grip the hilt again. “I was never much for naming swords; some of the men do, but it never seemed to do them any good.”

“I didn’t say it will do you any good, but that sword’s name is Wirikidor now, and I thought you ought to know, since it will be yours. Ah... that is, it should be. It’s got an untriggered spell on it, a variant of the Spell of True Ownership; whoever draws it next will be its owner for as long as he lives. Make sure that’s you, soldier, and the blade will protect you.”

“Protect me how?”

“Ah... I’m not quite sure, actually.”

“It will protect me once I draw it, but I mustn’t draw it until I’m leagues from here?”

“That’s right.”

“What’s to protect me until then?”

The wizard glared at him. “Your native wits, of course — except that leaves you unarmed, doesn’t it? We’ll just have to hope you won’t need protection, I guess.”

Valder was becoming more awake and alert, awake enough to decide that arguing with the wizard might not be wise. Still, he asked, “That’s all you can tell me about it, that it will protect me?”

“That’s all I’m going to tell you, you blasted fool! Now take your sword and get out of here!”

Valder looked around at the darkness surrounding them; the fire’s glow faded within a yard or two, and the clouds were thick enough to hide the moons and stars. He saw no trace of the sun’s light to either east or west.

“What time is it?” he asked.

“How should I know? I finished the spell at midnight exactly, or at least I intended to, but you’ve kept me here arguing long enough that I have no idea what time it might be. It’s after midnight, and it’s not yet dawn.”

Valder said, “I don’t know what time it is either, old man, but I do know that I’m not going anywhere until dawn. An enchanted sword isn’t going to do me much good if I trip and drown in this stinking marsh.”

The wizard glared at him for a long moment, then growled. “Please yourself,” he said as he turned and stalked off.

Valder watched his back fade into the gloom, thinking how absurd so small a man looked when angry, then sat down and looked at the familiar scabbard on his belt. He saw nothing different about it, yet the wizard had undeniably worked over it for a day and half a night, with indisputably real magic. The urge to draw it and see if the blade was visibly altered was strong, but Valder had a healthy respect for magic of all sorts; if the old man said it was dangerous, it probably was dangerous. Perhaps enough magic lingered in the air from the spell-making to react with the sword’s enchantment.

Or perhaps, the thought crept in, the wizard had decided to retaliate for the destruction of his home, and the sword would work some terrible vengeance when drawn, a vengeance the old man did not wish to see.

Valder drove that idea back down; he had little choice but to trust the hermit. He settled back against the hump of ground and was quickly asleep.

CHAPTER 4

His legs were stiff and cramped when he awoke; he unfolded them slowly, then flexed them again, working out the stiffness as best he could. When he felt up to it, he pushed himself up onto his battered feet and looked around.

The sun, he was appalled to discover, was halfway up the eastern sky; he had not intended to sleep so long as that. He saw no sign of the old hermit.

He told himself that the wizard had probably gone off to fetch water or food. He decided to wait for the old man’s return so that he might say his farewells before heading southward. With that resolved, his next concern was breakfast. He glanced about casually.

The handful of crabs that had not been eaten the day before were gone; Valder supposed they had served as the old man’s breakfast. The broken jar was also gone, which supported his theory that the hermit had gone after water. As he continued to look, however, it gradually sank in that everything that might be of use was gone. Nothing remained on the site of the destroyed hut but ash and broken glass. The piles of salvaged magical paraphernalia had vanished with their owner.

An automatic check told him that his sword was still securely in its sheath on his belt; he was relieved by that.

He could not imagine how the old man could have cleared everything away so completely, or where he might have gone with it all. Puzzled, he clambered up the rim of the crater, wincing at the scratching of shards of glass against his bare feet.

Runes were gouged into the ash in the center of the crater, showing black against white. They were nothing magical, but merely a message in common Ethsharitic runes.

“Found new place,” they said. “Not returning. Good luck.”

No signature was included, but one was hardly necessary under the circumstances. Valder stared at the words for a moment, then shrugged. It might be that the wizard was actually somewhere nearby and would return as soon as Valder was gone, he thought, but if so it was none of his concern. The hermit obviously wanted him to leave without further contact, and he saw no reason to argue about it. He took a final look about, then marched southward into the marsh.

He reached dry land without incident. By noon he could no longer see or smell the salt marsh, though a faint whiff of the sea could still be detected on the breeze from the west. Although he was eager to return to his comrades in the south and get out of the wilderness, he stopped when the sun was at its zenith and sat down abruptly on a moss-covered log.

His feet were blistered and would carry him no further without a rest; the day’s walk of a mere two or three hours was not so much responsible as was the prior day’s abuse and the lack of footwear. He had not taken the time to rig any sort of substitute for the boots that had been burned to ash in the wizard’s hut, and his weight was distributed differently without them, putting pressure on parts of his feet that were not accustomed to it.

He was not sure what sort of a substitute he could improvise; he had never before lost a pair of boots while out in the country. It was not a subject that he remembered hearing discussed, either in his training or in barracks chatter; when a pair of boots gave out, they were replaced with another pair of boots. That was one item that had never been subject to shortage, so far as he knew.

His socks, which he had left on for lack of replacements, had worn down to absolute uselessness, their soles consisting of a few stray threads; he peeled them off and hurled them away.

As if aching feet were not sufficient annoyance, he was ravenously hungry. Enough streams had crossed his path to make thirst no problem, but he could not eat pine cones, and the only wildlife he had seen had been a chipmunk he had not thought to pursue.

He stared around at the empty forest, the sun dappling the thick bed of pine needles that covered the ground. He had no food — he had been out on a two-day reconnaissance, and with the sustenance spell, at that — who would have thought he might need food? He had survived for two months without any, thanks to the bloodstone’s magic, but that enchantment was broken and gone now.

He did not have any ready means of acquiring food, either. He had his belt, his sling, his knife, and his magicked sword, but that was almost the full extent of his supplies. He had a silver bit tucked away, not so much as a lucky piece as because one never knew what might happen, and even a single coin might bribe a peasant — not that any peasants lived in the northern forests. He had managed to hang onto his flint and steel and he still wore kilt, tunic, and breastplate, though his helmet was long gone. The bloodstone was still safe in its pouch, but useless until he found another wizard to renew the spell.

He wondered if the hermit might be able to cast a Spell of Sustenance and upbraided himself for not asking when he had the chance. If he went back, he would probably be unable to find the old man.

Of course, it was unlikely that he would have been able to help in any case. Valder knew that casting the spell required a mysterious powder or two, and the little hermit’s supply of whatever it was had probably burned and would not be readily replaced.

He ran through a quick mental inventory of what he had and decided that the sling was his best bet for obtaining food. He would need to find some pebbles, or at least wood chips, for ammunition, and he would need to find some sort of game to use it on.

A sword was too big to be of much use against a chipmunk, but he looked down thoughtfully at the hilt on his belt. Something larger than a chipmunk might happen along eventually, after all.

The hilt looked just as it always had — simple, functional, and rather ugly, gray metal bare of any ornamentation or finesse, the sweat-softened leather of the grip bound in place with dulled brass wires. There was no gleam, no glamor about it, and he suddenly wondered whether the wizard had actually done anything to it. Spells existed, he knew, that did nothing at all save to look impressively magical, and the old man had had no supplies to speak of. Perhaps, in his fully understandable annoyance at the loss of his home, he had deceived his unwelcome visitor with play-pretties and phantasms. That would explain why he hadn’t wanted the blade drawn until he had had time to disappear; use would surely show that there was no real enchantment.

That, Valder said to himself, would be just his luck. Overcome with suspicion, he drew the sword.

It slid smoothly from the scabbard, the blade bright in the sun — but no brighter than might be expected. Valder saw no unnatural glow, no sparkling silver, just the shine of well-kept steel. He held it out, made a few passes, even got to his feet for a quick, if slightly clumsy, parry-riposte against an imaginary foe; there was no sign of any magic. The blade looked and felt just as it always had.

He lowered the sword and looked down at it in mild disappointment. He was not really angry; after all, the old man had probably not trusted him and had merely wanted to be rid of a serious nuisance. Quite possibly the old hermit was not as great a wizard as he might pretend to be — although he had certainly done well enough with minor spells like the Sanguinary Deception or the Finger of Flame.

A magical weapon would have been very nice to have, though, very reassuring. It would not save him from starvation, but he would have liked it all the same.

He briefly considered turning north again and trying to find the wizard, but dismissed the thought. The hermit was gone and probably not worth tracking down. And if Valder did manage to find him, what would he do with him? The old man had his own problems, just as Valder did; there was no point in combining the two sets.

The thought of turning north again did remind Valder that he was not yet very far from the salt marsh, and that meant that he was not far from the sea. Pine forests might not provide food, but the ocean would. Even if he found no crabs, no clams, no oysters, even if he could catch no fish and hit no gulls, he could always eat seaweed. Rather than north, he would head west and stick to the coast henceforth. His route south would wiggle back and forth, detouring around every bay and inlet, but he would not need to fear starvation or becoming lost.

That decided, he tried to sheathe the sword.

The blade turned away from the mouth of the scabbard.

Thinking he had slipped, due to weariness, he tried again. Again, the tip of the sword refused to enter the sheath, sliding to one side instead.

Still not actually thinking about it and with a trace of irritation, Valder formed his left hand into a ring around the top of the scabbard to guide the blade in and keep it from moving to either side. That worked, in that the blade did not move away, but he still could not sheathe the sword; instead of dodging, it now simply refused to slide home.

He pressed harder, building up until he had all the strength he could muster, shoving sword and sheath together, but whatever was holding it refused to yield.

His initial irritation gave way quickly to puzzlement; he took off his belt and held the scabbard up so that he could study it closely, inside and out. He saw nothing amiss, nothing in any way out of the ordinary, and felt a small tingle of excitement in his gut. The wizard had not lied!

He sat down again and very slowly, very carefully brought the sword and the sheath together. They behaved ordinarily, like any inanimate objects, until the tip of the blade reached the mouth of the scabbard, and then something stopped any further motion. It did not matter whether the point was in the center of the opening, at either end, or to one side or the other; it would not enter the scabbard.

Fascinated, Valder put the sword down and then discovered that he could not remove his hand from its hilt. He picked it up again and stared at it.

No difference was visible. It was the same standard military-issue sword he had had since becoming a scout. He could open his hand and wiggle his fingers, but could not, he found, pull his hand away from the grip entirely. Something held it, magically. He lifted his hand, fingers outstretched and palm down, and the sword clung to the middle of his palm as if glued there.

It was not glued there, however; he wrapped his hand around it again, then unwrapped, and this time had it hanging from his fingertips.

There was no discomfort involved; the sword simply refused to leave his hand. Experimentally, as it hung from two fingers, he reached up with his left hand and pulled at it.

It came away readily in his grip — but now adhered to his left hand just as it had to his right.

He passed it back and forth a few times, then decided to try something else. With the sword clinging to the tips of his fingers, he braced both feet against it, leaning back against a tree, and pushed.

His hand came free; both hands were now unencumbered. The sword was now attached to the bottom of his right foot.

He stared at it, unsure whether to laugh or scream. Laughter won; he smiled broadly and chuckled. The sword looked incredibly foolish stuck to the sole of his foot.

He played with it and found that, although the sword insisted on always being in contact with some part of his body, it did not seem to care very much which part. He could hang it from his nose, if he so desired — although it would swing toward his right hand, as if preferring that and trying to get back to it. Nor did it matter visibly which part of the sword touched him, hilt, blade, or guard.

Tiring of the game at last, he stuck the sword to the bottom of his foot again while he studied the scabbard. A quick experiment showed that his dagger would slip into it with no trouble; pine needles could be stuffed into it and then scraped out again. Obviously, the sword was the culprit, not the sheath.

He satisfied himself that this was indeed the case by trying to force the dagger’s sheath onto the tip of the sword’s blade; it would not go, any more than the sword’s own scabbard would.

An attempt to wrap the sword in his kilt showed him that the weapon refused to be covered; the cloth slid away from making contact with the metal of the blade; although Valder could force a few square inches into contact with the steel for a couple of seconds, something would not let them stay. The sword refused to be put away, and that was all there was to it.

This peculiar behavior was so intriguing that Valder spent well over an hour playing with the sword, experimenting in various ways and ignoring the growling of his stomach. Valder could no longer doubt that the old hermit had put an enchantment on the sword, but he was still puzzled regarding the exact nature of the magic. He tried everything he could think of short of risking breaking the blade by chopping at trees or rocks, but nothing caused the sword to manifest any useful abilities. The only signs of magic were its refusal to be covered or sheathed and its insistence upon remaining in contact with its owner at all times. The latter trait, Valder realized, could be useful — he would never need to worry about being disarmed in battle. On the other hand, he might have a hard time surrendering, should he need to do so. All in all, he doubted that the sword’s odd pair of magical characteristics would be enough to protect him if he ran afoul of another enemy patrol. He suspected that the magic must be far more extensive, but he could not determine anything more of its nature.

He risked a more daring experiment, nicking the little finger of his left hand on the blade; this demonstrated that the sword did not protect him from all harm, that the sword was exceptionally sharp but not unstoppable, since he did not lose the finger, and that the sword did not change its behavior upon tasting blood. It behaved exactly as any ordinary sword would, as far as the edge was concerned, save that most swords were not as sharp.

Of course, as he was its owner, his blood and his finger might not produce the same reactions as someone else’s would.

After that, he could think of nothing more to try. He got to his feet and began walking again, this time heading west by southwest toward the ocean, with the sword dangling in his hand.

By the time he reached the rocky shore, the sun was sinking toward the waves, drawing a broad stripe of golden light from the land to the horizon, and Valder’s belly was knotted with hunger. Forgetting himself for a moment, he tried again, unsuccessfully, to sheathe the sword, so that he might wade out among the rocks in pursuit of something to eat. When the blade’s refusal to slide home reminded him of the enchantment, he looked the weapon over thoughtfully, wondering whether it might be of help in obtaining food.

He could think of no way to use its known peculiarities and decided on a little random experimentation. He swirled the blade through a tidal pool without result, but was interested to discover, when he drew it out again, that it was dry. The metal had shed the water completely, in a way ordinary steel did not. Valder supposed that this meant he need never worry about rust.

Further experimentation demonstrated that a sword was not an ideal tool for digging clams, but it worked, and sand did not mar the blade, nor did prying up rocks bend it or dull the edge. Valder no longer doubted that the sword had special virtues; he was not as yet convinced, however, that they were anything that would be of much use in getting him safely home.

He ate his dinner of clams fried on fire-heated rocks slowly and thoughtfully, considering the sword. He knew so very little about it, he thought.

“Wirikidor,” he said aloud. Nothing happened. The hilt still clung to his hand, as it had since he first drew it.

“Ho, Wirikidor!” he cried, more loudly, holding the sword aloft.

Nothing happened.

“Wirikidor, take me home!” he shouted.

Nothing happened; the sword gleamed dully in the fading daylight. The sun had dropped below the horizon while he ate.

“Wirikidor, bring me food!” The clams had not completely filled the yawning void in his gut.

Nothing happened.

“Damn you, Wirikidor, do something!”

The sword did nothing; the sky dimmed further as he waited.

Thinking that perhaps the sword’s abilities, such as they were, might be linked to the sun, Valder tried to drop the sword; it remained adhered to his palm.

It occurred to him that he might be doomed to hold the thing for the rest of his life, which was hardly an appealing prospect. Of course, there were plenty of wizards around; he would certainly be able to find one eventually who could reverse the spell and free him of the sword’s grip. Still, he was apparently stuck with it until he could return to civilization.

Disgusted, Valder stopped playing with the sword and turned his attention to making camp amid the black rocks above the high tide mark.

CHAPTER 5

In the eleven days that followed his drawing of the sword, Valder made his way down the coast, living mostly on clams, crabs, and an occasional fish. He tried every experiment he could devise on the sword, with no discernable result. The blade remained sharp and clean, the hilt refused to leave his hand, and he was unable to force it into the scabbard. His feet toughened considerably, calluses replacing his blisters. He got very tired of carrying an unsheathed sword, and his hands, too, grew calloused.

In all that time and in all the leagues he traveled, he saw no sign of any other human beings — or semihumans, for that matter. He had expected to make frequent detours around northern coast-watchers but did not; apparently those he had encountered on his way north had been withdrawn. He saw only the endless sea to his right and the forests to his left, while the shoreline he traveled varied from sandy beach to bare rock to sheer cliff and back again.

As he made his way southward, the nights grew warmer and the stars more familiar; the pine forest began to give way slowly to other trees, and birds in ever-increasing numbers sang in their branches or swooped overhead. Beasts, too, increased in number — mostly small ones such as squirrels and rabbits, but he did glimpse a deer once and, on another occasion, thought he saw a boar. His bow and arrow were long gone, and he did not feel like tackling deer or boar with his sling, but twice, by persistence and luck more than skill, he added rabbit to his diet.

He was in pursuit of a third such delicacy a hundred yards inland, in mid-afternoon of his twelfth day of travel, when he heard a rustling in the underbrush ahead of him, a rustling far too loud to be caused by his quarry. He froze, the sling hanging from his right hand, the sword bare in his left, a handful of sea-rounded pebbles clutched against the hilt.

The rustling stopped, to be followed by other small sounds. Valder judged the source to be somewhere to his right, hidden by a tangle of flowering bushes. He peered intently at the foliage and, as the rustling began again, he made out the outline of something moving through the bushes, something roughly human in size and shape.

For the first time in days, Valder remembered that he was in enemy territory. He adjusted his grip on the sling and slipped a stone into the pocket, ready to swing and let fly at the first threatening move.

Whoever or whatever was hidden in the bushes did not seem to have spotted him, but was moving away with no attempt at stealth, back out toward the sea.

As it emerged from behind the leafy barrier, Valder got a good look. The mysterious figure was, as he had expected, a northerner, but rather than a shatra or combat sorcerer or some other deadly menace, it appeared to be a very ordinary young man, with no helmet and no adornments or personalizations on his standard-issue uniform and weapons.

He did not look threatening. His back was almost directly toward Valder, and he was totally off guard, oblivious to any lurking danger. Still, he was an enemy. Valder hesitated.

The northerner was a hundred feet away and widening the gap. Valder was not good enough with a sling to be sure of hitting him, let alone downing him; if he missed, the sound of the stone would almost certainly alert the man — who, like most northern soldiers, carried a crossbow slung on his back.

Valder did not care to become a crossbow target. He decided to wait where he was and hope the young man went away without seeing him.

Wirikidor seemed to tremble slightly in his hand, and the grip felt warmer than usual; the Ethsharite remembered for the first time since spotting the northerner that he held a magic sword, a sword whose enchantment was supposed to see him safely home. He glanced at it and, without thinking, shifted his grip for a better hold.

One of his sling-stones fell to the ground and by mischance bounced from a half-buried rock with a loud click.

The northerner paused and started to turn. His movements were casual and unhurried; he was obviously thinking more in terms of small game than possible enemies, but Valder knew the man could hardly fail to see him. He brought his sling up and set it whirling.

The northerner’s mouth fell open in astonishment at the sight of the Ethsharite. He ducked hurriedly as he recognized the sling for what it was, falling first to his knees and then flat to the ground. He struggled awkwardly to bring the crossbow around to where he could use it.

Valder let fly, knowing as he did that his stone would miss. It whizzed away, two feet above the northerner’s head and a foot to the side.

As the pellet left the sling, Valder dove for cover behind a nearby oak. Once there, he stuffed the sling into his belt and passed Wirikidor from his left hand to his right, to have it ready for use.

The enemy soldier had not given an alarm, had not yelled for help; to Valder, that meant that there were no more northerners within earshot. He depended on that. If he could close with this man and kill him, he would be safe, at least for the moment. If he could disarm the northerner somehow and convince him to surrender, better still — assuming the man knew at least a little Ethsharitic, since Valder spoke not a single word of the northern tongue.

He was not even sure that all northerners spoke the same language.

The man looked younger than himself, probably still in his teens, and not particularly formidable. Had they been matched in weaponry, Valder would have been fairly confident of victory; as it was, however, the northerner had a crossbow, and Valder had his enchanted sword. Crossbows were very effective weapons — but very slow to load. The enchanted sword was an unknown quantity.

“Well, Wirikidor,” Valder muttered. “What do we do now?”

The sword did nothing in reply, but it seemed somehow unsteady in his hand, as if it were struggling within itself.

Cautiously, he peered around the tree. The northern soldier was still flat on the ground, but now held the crossbow aimed and ready. As he saw Valder, he pulled the trigger.

The Ethsharite ducked back, and the quarrel whirred harmlessly past, vanishing into the woods beyond.

Seizing the opportunity provided by the northerner’s nervous impatience, Valder emerged from concealment running, charging straight through the bushes toward his frightened foe.

The northerner was in the undignified process of discovering that it was impossible to load a crossbow properly while lying flat on one’s belly with nothing to brace it against when he looked up and saw Valder plunging toward him. Terrified, he flung the crossbow aside — exactly the reaction Valder had hoped for — and snatched at his sword while rolling over onto his back.

The distance between them had been greater than Valder had realized; the enemy soldier was on his feet, sword drawn, before the Ethsharite could reach him. Valder slowed his headlong charge and came to a wary halt a few steps away.

The two faced each other for a long moment, while Wirikidor twitched and strained in Valder’s hand.

Valder was in no hurry. He wanted to take his time, see what his opponent was capable of, before getting down to serious combat. Youth did not always mean inexperience, and the northerner’s reflexes were surely at least as fast as his own. Valder was bigger, with a longer reach, and was fairly sure he was trickier and more determined, but preferred not just to hack away; he was not a great swordsman and he knew it. The northerner might be faster or more skillful. Or both. The northerner moved a step to the side. Valder turned slightly to keep facing him, but did not follow.

The northerner crouched lower. Valder did not move.

The northerner took a swipe at him. Although Valder was not aware of trying to respond, Wirikidor came up, meeting the enemy’s blade, turning it aside, and sliding past it, in a twisting lightning-fast stroke that thrust the sword’s point through the northerner’s throat.

Valder had definitely not intended that. Both men stared in astonishment at the gleaming steel that joined them. The northerner’s mouth opened and a sick croak emerged, followed by a gush of blood.

Valder tried to pull his blade free; he saw no need to do more to the northerner, whose wound was probably fatal. The fellow was little more than a boy, and, if there were any chance he might live, Valder wanted him to have it. The man was obviously not going to fight anymore; already his sword had lowered, and, as the blood spilled from his mouth, his fingers opened, dropping the weapon to the petal-strewn ground.

Wirikidor’s blade would not come free. Instead, the sword twisted in Valder’s hand, ripping through the northerner’s neck.

Valder stared at the blade in horror. His hand had not moved. The sword had moved, certainly, but his hand had not. Wirikidor had killed the northerner of its own volition.

The northerner fell free of Wirikidor’s blade and crumpled to the ground, obviously dead. With a shudder, Valder dropped the unnatural weapon. Wirikidor fell from his hand and lay on the ground inches from the dead man’s face.

Valder stared at it, his earlier horror giving way to astonishment. The sword had left his hand! Was the enchantment broken?

Cautiously he picked it up, then put it down again.

There was no resistance or adhesion; the sword behaved like any other inanimate piece of steel.

Puzzled, Valder picked it up again and looked it over carefully. It appeared unchanged, except that the victim’s blood, unlike water, clung to it. He wiped the blade on his dead opponent’s sleeve and then cautiously slid it into the scabbard on his belt.

The blade fell smoothly into place without resistance of any sort.

He stared at the hilt. Had the enchantment been good only for a single use? Had using the sword broken the spell? The wizard had said that “Wirikidor” meant “slayer of warriors”; well, it had indeed slain someone, although Valder was not convinced that the northerner had been much of a warrior.

He considered for a moment and then drew the sword again and looked at it closely. He saw nothing enlightening, merely the simple steel blade he had always had. With a shrug, he attempted to return it to its sheath.

The blade turned away from the opening.

He stared at it for a long moment. “Damn it,” he said, “and may demons carry off that idiot wizard!” He knew there was no point in disputing anything with Wirikidor. If it chose not to be sheathed, he would not be able to sheathe it.

He stripped the northerner’s body of provisions and other useful items, such as the discarded crossbow. Although he had little hope, given their relative sizes, he tried unsuccessfully to pull on the man’s battered boots; as he had expected, none of the clothing was big enough to be of any use to him.

As he worked he told himself that at least he had learned something about his magical defense. The sword was bloodthirsty, for one thing. For another, blood apparently canceled some of the spell but only until the sword was sheathed and then drawn again.

He paused. No, he told himself, it wasn’t that simple. He had cut himself to test the blade, and that had had no effect. It was not just blood that was responsible but something else.

He had heard legends of foul weapons, demonic or sorcerous in origin, that sucked the souls from their victims; could it be that he now carried such a weapon? He had never heard of such a weapon being created by wizardry — but then, the old hermit had been using spells of his own invention.

One part of the usual version of the story said that the victims invariably died with their faces frozen in expressions of unspeakable terror. He glanced at the dead northerner’s face; while scarcely calm, the expression of shock and pain did not live up to the descriptions of those whose souls had been stolen.

No, he didn’t think it was the northerner’s soul that had appeased Wirikidor and allowed it to be sheathed — albeit briefly. Perhaps the blood of the sword’s owner would not work, but any other would. The hermit had told him that the sword had some sort of an ownership spell on it.

He remembered the sickening sensation as the sword had twisted in his hand, determined to cut the northerner’s throat out; no, the sword was not satisfied with just a little blood. It had wanted the man’s life. Not his soul, perhaps, but his life.

That was not a pleasant thought. Wirikidor might indeed protect Valder, but he did not think he would enjoy owning it. For one thing, it was a nuisance carrying it about unsheathed. He promised himself that the next time he got it into the scabbard he would leave it there until he needed it again.

Putting aside for the moment his consideration of the sword’s nature, the next important question was what this northern soldier had been doing here. From the man’s nonchalant attitude, it was obvious that he had not been expecting any Ethsharitic activity — at any rate, not on land close at hand. Valder could guess well enough what he had been doing skulking in the bushes, from the sound if nothing else — even northerners needed to relieve themselves — but where had he come from? As nearly as Valder could estimate, he was still several leagues behind the northern lines — unless the Ethsharitic forces had successfully counterattacked.

That was an encouraging thought, but Valder was not at all sure it was justified. He glanced about, hoping to pick up the northerner’s trail.

He found it with surprising ease. The man had made no attempt to conceal it and had, in fact, obviously used the same path several times, judging by the amount of wear. Mosses and creepers had been thoroughly trampled. With Wirikidor in hand, Valder followed the trail southwestward through the forest and in only minutes emerged onto the top of a rocky bluff and found the northerner’s little encampment, overlooking the sea. The dead man’s duty was clear; he had been stationed to watch for Ethsharitic landings along this stretch of coastline. The elevated position gave him a clear view of several miles of beach.

He had not expected an attack on land, of course. Valder’s presence must have been a shock.

This realization left Valder with only guesswork to tell him how far behind the northern lines he might still be. He had no way of knowing how much of the coastline the enemy would consider worth guarding. His own army might be a league away, or a hundred. All he could be certain of was that the war was still being fought, as it had always been, or else there would have been no need to post a coastal watch at all.

Any number of questions were now vital. When was the soldier’s relief due? How far apart were the shore-watchers posted? Would it be worthwhile to travel inland to avoid them?

He glanced at Wirikidor. He was protected, he told himself; he could go where he pleased. That was not really a major concern, after all.

No, he corrected himself, there were still crossbows, not to mention the arcane weaponry of sorcerers and shatra. He did not want to encounter any more of the enemy than he had to, and where possible it would be best to meet at close quarters, where Wirikidor would, it seemed, do his fighting for him.

Besides, he had no particular desire to kill northerners — though he felt a twinge of guilt at making that unpatriotic admission to himself. Creating a disturbance back here behind the Empire’s lines might draw troops away from his countrymen and comrades; he knew that and told himself that he probably should try to cause trouble, but he was still not eager to kill anyone. Better by far, in his opinion, to avoid trouble.

The sentry’s relief might be along any minute, he thought — or perhaps not for days, but he saw no reason to take unnecessary chances. He turned and walked back into the forest, away from the sea.

CHAPTER 6

Two days later Valder was beginning to wish an enemy would find him, just so that he could sheathe his sword after killing someone. He had been carrying the weapon bare in his hand for thirteen days, against his will, and was sincerely tired of it. He had tried putting it under his belt, or along one shin, but these had proved much too uncomfortable to use for any length of time.

He was well away from the shoreline now and had no intention of veering back in hopes of picking off another coast-watcher, but the thought of coming across a lone northern scout had a certain appeal. The sweaty palms and tired wrists were overcoming his distaste for bloodshed.

With that in mind, he was taking pains to move quietly, lest thoughts of an enemy might tempt the gods to bring him one; he did not want to be caught off-guard. The forest had thickened, and a profusion of rhododendrons limited the easily available paths, so that he found himself picking his way carefully, watching his feet, his head bent low to avoid overhanging branches. That let his hair, woefully unkempt after two and a half months without a mirror, hang down across his eyes, and, with his hands as tired as they were, he did not bother to brush it aside very often. It was sheer luck that he saw the northern patrol before they saw him; he happened to glance up at exactly the right moment. None of the three enemy soldiers was as fortunate.

Valder froze for a moment and watched them. All three moved with the normal clumsiness of ordinary men; none had the smooth, gliding grace that marked shatra. That was a relief.

Valder wondered what they were doing out here; what made a patrol behind the lines necessary? Were there Ethsharitic scouts — other than himself — operating in the area? Even as he wondered, he reached up slowly for the captured crossbow slung on back.

The sword in his hand made him awkward; the blade struck an overhanging branch as he struggled to bring the bow around where he could use it. The sound was not loud, but one of the northerners, sixty yards away, apparently heard it. He paused in his stride, turned, and saw the Ethsharite.

He shouted something in the northern tongue, then began running toward Valder, his hand reaching for the sword on his belt. Valder guessed that he did not care to use a bow; not all soldiers, on either side, were marksmen.

The other two northerners followed. The first, Valder saw, was grinning with excitement. Like the sentry on the shore, these three were young, very young — and, Valder thought, not likely to grow old if they were always so careless. They obviously hoped to capture him alive, forcing a surrender by virtue of their superior numbers, but were completely oblivious to the possibility of an ambush or magical defense. They saw a man in the gray breastplate and green kilt of an Ethsharitic soldier and forgot everything but that they faced an enemy and an opportunity for glory.

He got the crossbow free, but the bowstring fouled on the same overhanging branch the sword had hit. With a curse, Valder dropped it, leaving it hanging, and stepped forward. He had the magic sword Wirikidor, the slayer of warriors, he told himself; what had he to fear?

The first northerner stopped a dozen feet away, apparently puzzled that the quarry had not run off to be chased down like a fleeing deer. His comrades came up behind him. All three stared at Valder and the naked steel in his hand. The leader called something; Valder guessed it was a demand that he surrender.

“I don’t understand a word,” he called back.

The three northerners conversed for a moment; then one of them called tentatively, “You fight?”

“I’m not surrendering, if that’s what you mean,” Valder replied. Seeing the confusion that resulted, he decided this was obviously too much for the northerner’s limited vocabulary and called his clarification. “Yes, I fight.”

“Ah!” Three swords were drawn, and the northern leader advanced. Valder guessed him to be perhaps eighteen, the others younger.

Wirikidor seemed to drag him forward to meet his opponent. He did not bother to pretend that he was controlling his actions as steel clashed.

The other two hung back, and Valder quickly realized why. The lead northerner, despite his youth, was a superb swordsman, probably his divisional champion. His blade flickered like heat lightning in a summer sky. His companions could only have been in the way.

This obvious skill did not bother Wirikidor in the slightest. It countered each blow with supernatural speed and, when the northerner faltered in surprise, it swept past his guard and plunged into his throat.

Wirikidor, Valder thought, seemed to have a liking for throats. He wondered if that were in any way significant. He wrenched the blade away as soon as it had finished ripping open the northerner’s neck.

The northerner collapsed in a lifeless heap, his sword rattling from a tree root.

His comrades stared at their fallen leader in astonished dismay. Valder stepped forward, waiting for Wirikidor to take on the next one.

Wirikidor did nothing; all Valder’s advance did was to snap the nearer northerner out of his stunned inaction.

His sword swung for Valder’s throat, and it was all the Ethsharite could do to bring Wirikidor up in time to parry.

Startled by his sword’s failure to act on its own, Valder fell back several steps before the northerner’s assault and took a small gash on his upper arm before regaining control. Fortunately, this second youth was far less skilled than the first, and the third northerner was still too disconcerted to join the battle.

“Damn you, Wirikidor!” Valder cried, “Why aren’t you fighting?”

There was no response. The sword acted like any ordinary sword, utterly inanimate. Valder had passed the minimum competence tests in swordsmanship in order to acquire his rank of Scout First Class, but he was by no means an expert swordsman, nor even very good — however, luck was with him; the northerner was no better. He was faster than Valder, but less practiced — hardly surprising in a boy of sixteen or seventeen. The two were fairly evenly matched, so the duel continued — but only, Valder knew, until the other northerner got over his surprise.

Then his opponent stumbled, whether over a root or his companion’s body Valder did not see. Valder seized the opportunity, and Wirikidor’s magically sharp blade sank deep into the northerner’s sword arm, cutting to the bone.

The northerner’s sword dropped, and Valder brought Wirikidor back and around, striking at the soldier’s neck. The man went down and stayed down.

The third northerner came out of his dumfoundment too late and chose not to take on, alone, the man who had slain his two compatriots. Instead, he turned and ran.

Valder did not pursue him. The young fellow was obviously faster, even without terror to aid him. Besides, a chase might lead directly into an enemy camp. Instead, he looked down at his fallen foes.

The second man was still breathing and had managed to clamp his left hand over his neck wound.

Valder stared down at him for a second or two, debating whether to kill him or to attend to his wounds. He quickly decided to do neither, but snatched the crossbow from the tree and, like his foe, turned and ran. He saw no need to kill a helpless man, enemy or not, particularly when there was another enemy who had gotten away and might return with reinforcements at any moment.

When he had put a little distance between himself and the scene of the battle, he paused to catch his breath. His feet, he noticed, had certainly been toughened by day after day of trudging barefoot through the woods; he had just dashed blindly across sticks, stones, and undergrowth without heeding what he stepped on.

He wondered whether he could risk going back after a pair of boots from one of his downed foes, but decided against it.

He found a rag in his belt pouch and wiped the blood from Wirikidor’s blade. That done, he sank onto a mossy fallen tree, keeping a wary eye back along his trail.

The sword had been wonderful against the first northerner and had almost certainly saved his life — but then its magical animation had deserted him completely against his second foeman. Valder glared at the freshly wiped blade. Had the spell worn off already?

He had no way of knowing. When he had the metal clean, he slid the sword back into its scabbard; it went without protest.

Of course, that didn’t prove anything. It had done that after he had killed the coastal sentry, too.

He threw a startled glance at the hilt as a thought struck him. Was that the explanation? Was the sword only good against single enemies? Did it need to be sheathed to recharge the spell before it would again act on its own?

That, he thought, could be very inconvenient. He tried to imagine fighting in a full-scale battle with such a sword. It would be marvelous until it had killed one enemy soldier and then would be no more than an ordinary blade — or rather, a blade with a spell of sharpness on it. That would certainly be better than nothing, but not by very much. One could scarcely sheathe it in the midst of a melée and then draw it again.

He realized that it still might get him home, but only if he was careful never to face more than one or perhaps two opponents at a time. One the sword would handle, and a second he would at least face on even terms, but beyond that he would be no better off than any ordinary fighter.

He wondered if the hermit had known how his spell would work — and if so, had he realized how limited its usefulness was?

This, he told himself, was all just guesswork. His one-foe-per-drawing theory did fit the observed facts, but so would any number of other explanations — a small magical charge that had been exhausted after two killings, for example. He could test that possibility by simply drawing the sword again and seeing whether it would allow itself to be sheathed, but he hesitated. Walking around with the sword drawn was an unbearable nuisance, one he did not care to burden himself with again. He left the sword in its scabbard and considered other aspects of his situation.

He was still lost behind enemy lines, but now the enemy knew he was here, thanks to the escape of the third northerner in the patrol he had just fought. Furthermore, in his hurry, he had left a discernible trail from the site of the battle. It was, he told himself, time to disappear.

He did not want to double back to the north. That would take him further from his goal, and eventually he would have to make up any lost ground. To the south, presumably, lay the enemy lines. To the west lay the ocean; he considered the possibility of returning to the coast and building or stealing a boat, but quickly abandoned it. He was no sailor. He had planned on boating before only because he had been unable to think of an alternative — but he always had alternatives, if he took the time to find them.

That left east — and that was almost certainly the direction the enemy would expect him to take, since they could eliminate the other three by the same means he had.

He reached a decision, not so much by conscious logic as because it felt right. He would head southeast. Pursuers would not expect him to head toward the enemy lines; and by angling over to the east he would, he hoped, be able to slip through at some point where he wasn’t expected.

He would need to do his best to leave no tracks. That could be very tricky if the enemy sent sorcerers or shatra trackers after him. One of his problems might become an advantage, as problems sometimes did — bare feet left less of a trail than boots.

He rose, checked to be sure that the scabbard was secure on his belt and Wirikidor secure in the scabbard, and then slipped off into the forest, moving as lightly and silently as he could.

That night he made no camp, lighted no fire; instead he climbed a tree and wedged himself into a fairly secure perch. He had seen no sign of pursuit, but, after fleeing for so long from the patrol that had chased him into the hermit’s marsh, he was taking no unnecessary chances.

CHAPTER 7

Valder awoke at dawn, feeling very cramped and stiff. He untangled his hands and feet, but, before lifting himself up out of the tree crotch where he had slept, he glanced down at the ground below.

He froze.

There was still no sign of enemy pursuit, but he would almost have preferred that to what he saw instead. Looking up at him from the base of the tree was a small dragon He stared down at it in dismay.

It was a glossy metallic green in color, and he estimated its length at fifteen feet, counting the tail. It probably could not talk yet; a small dragon was a young dragon, and young dragons were notoriously stupid. It had its wings folded down against its back, so that he couldn’t judge its wingspan, but he guessed that the mere fact that it was down on the ground while he was up in the tree meant it could not fly. Many, perhaps most, dragons couldn’t.

It glared up at him hungrily and hissed, a sound like the dousing of a bonfire; that left little doubt of its intentions.

Valder wondered whether it was a wild dragon from birth, or whether it had been bred by the northerners and had escaped or been freed. If it had been raised as a military dragon, he might be able to control it.

“Ho, dragon!” he barked. “Rest!”

The dragon just stared up at him and hissed again. If it had been raised in captivity, its training hadn’t taken — or perhaps it could tell Ethsharitic from the northern tongue. Valder had no idea what commands a northern dragon might obey; he had hoped tone alone would serve.

A fifteen-footer would be certain death for an unarmed man and more than a match for most fully equipped soldiers. Valder, however, reminded himself that he had a magic sword. He drew Wirikidor.

The sword looked and felt exactly as it always had. He hooked it on a tree branch near his side and tried to take his hand from the hilt.

The hilt adhered to his palm and would not come free. That meant that the sword did still have magic in it; this was more evidence for his one-foe-per-drawing theory.

Well, he told himself, a dragon is just one foe.

As he gripped the sword in his right hand, he suddenly realized that, surprised and still sleepy as he had been, he had done something very stupid. He should have used the crossbow first; a few well-placed quarrels might have sent the dragon in search of easier prey. He doubted that he would be able, while crouched in a treetop holding a sword, to cock, load, aim, and fire the crossbow.

He could, he thought, put the sword on his forehead or someplace while he loaded the bow — but even then, cocking it while wedged in a tree would not be easy, and he did have the sword ready here in his hand. A crossbow might seem more trustworthy than the mysterious enchantment on his blade, but he felt his nerve going as it was; better to attack while his courage held, with the weapon at hand. With that thought and no warning, he dove for the dragon’s throat, plummeting from his perch.

The dragon saw him coming and reared back, startled. Valder’s dive missed it entirely, and he landed on the forest floor. He managed to catch himself, turning his fall into a roll, so that he was not injured and was able to scramble up before the dragon could react.

The fall had knocked some of the wind out of him, however, and he was less than ideally steady on his feet. He could not organize his limbs and body sufficiently to attack, but instead held Wirikidor out before him, as if it were a magic talisman that would ward off the monster.

He had, in fact, hoped that the sword was exactly that, that it would defend him against the dragon of its own volition. His hopes were dashed. The dragon did not retreat, and Wirikidor did nothing in his defense. It wobbled in his unsteady hand as any other sword might, with no sign of the supernatural independence of movement it had displayed against two human foes.

Upon regaining its composure, the dragon stared at him for a moment, its long, arched neck bringing its golden eyes and needle-sharp fangs mere inches beyond Wirikidor’s blade. Valder stared back, the realization sinking in that Wirikidor was not going to save him by itself. He slashed at the dragon, trying desperately to put some strength behind the blow.

Moving with incredible speed, the monster pulled its head back out of the blow’s path, then struck at the blade with the full might of one of its huge foreclaws, obviously expecting to knock the sword out of Valder’s hand.

Ordinarily, the dragon’s blow would have done exactly that. This sword, however, was no ordinary one. This was Wirikidor. It was attached quite irremovably to Valder’s hand by its magic. That meant that when struck by the dragon’s irresistible blow it went flying off to one side, just as the dragon had intended — but that Valder’s hand went with it, dragging the rest of him along. That was not at all what the dragon had had in mind; it had knocked its dinner well out of its own reach.

Valder realized what had happened in time to turn his unexpected sideways lunge into a roll that carried him still further away. When he was in control of his actions again, he scrambled to his feet and wasted no time in dashing away from the dragon, aiming for the thickest woods, where, with any luck, the beast would not fit between the trees. He did not have much of a lead, but the monster had expected him to stand and fight, not to flee, so that it did not immediately pursue him.

Valder did not worry about details, but simply ran, hoping that the dragon would not follow, or would tire of the chase. He was prepared to turn at bay if necessary; since dragons were never noted for their stealth, he was sure he would be able to tell from the sound of the beast’s approach when the time had come to do so.

As it happened, it was several seconds, almost a full minute, before he heard the dragon crashing through the trees behind him. That gave him a significant head start. Furthermore, the underbrush slowed the monster far more than it slowed the man. Valder was able to maintain a diminishing lead for quite some distance, though he knew that the dragon’s speed was much greater than his own. As he ran, he prayed that the dragon would lose interest, that a hiding place would present itself, or that some other miracle would save him, since his damnable magic sword would not.

Wirikidor flapped about in his hand. He did not need to worry about dropping it, but only about keeping it from becoming entangled in something and slowing or stopping his headlong flight.

The ground was uneven, and Valder found himself running up a sun-dappled hillside. The upgrade slowed him somewhat; he imagined he could feel the dragon drawing nearer, though he told himself that the sounds of its advance were not growing louder. Yet.

Then he reached the hilltop and abruptly ran out of forest. He was charging down into a virtually treeless river valley, and directly ahead of him was a camp. He knew that it had to be a northern outpost of some sort, but the hissing of the dragon behind him convinced him not to stop or swerve. Instead he ran straight toward the half-dozen large gray tents and the handful of black-clad people gathered around the remains of the previous night’s cookfires.

He heard someone call an alarm, but not in time for anyone to block his path before he reached the first tent. He dodged around its far side, then turned and looked back.

The dragon had been charging after him, but now it slowed as it saw the tents and the people standing among them. Valder could guess what it was thinking. Why pursue one difficult meal when here were a dozen that weren’t running?

Indeed, the northerners were not running; instead soldiers were ducking into their tents after weapons, and the women — there were four or five women whom Valder took to be officers’ wives or perhaps camp followers, since they were not wearing the black-and-gray northern uniforms — were clustering behind a smoldering firepit.

The dragon approached slowly, as if it hoped to avoid frightening away its prey, while northern soldiers began to appear with cocked and loaded crossbows. An officer barked a command, and quarrels flew.

Valder decided not to wait around to see the battle’s outcome. So far the northerners had ignored him; he guessed that most had not even seen him, and others might not have realized he was an Ethsharite, despite his breastplate and green kilt. His luck could not last, however, once the dragon had been dealt with; he knew that. He began discreetly trotting past the tents, down toward the riverbank. He wished the sword were not naked in his hand, as it made him more conspicuous, but he could not spare the time to devise a means of hiding it.

Most of the first volley rattled off the dragon’s scales, but bolts struck home in its mouth and one eye. Valder heard it scream and glanced back to see it fleeing back up the hillside. A few soldiers, those who were not reloading their crossbows, were pursuing it, apparently not willing to leave a wounded dragon roaming the countryside; they were hindered by the slope and the tall grass that covered it. Valder had not even noticed that the grass was there when he had come down the hillside; he had never been very observant when fleeing in terror.

Valder knew he would not have followed a wounded dragon, under any circumstances; he would have been satisfied with driving it off. He was not about to complain, however, as every man who pursued the dragon meant one fewer available to pursue him.

He stumbled down the riverbank and into the water. The stream was twenty yards across, but muddy and slow-moving; he hoped it was shallow enough to wade. He was not eager to try and teach himself to swim while carrying a sword and a crossbow and wearing a breastplate.

The bottom was soft mud; his feet sank in, so that the water reached his hips rather than his knees. He could feel small slimy things brushing against his bare feet and legs as he slogged forward. He concentrated on making his way out into the stream and ignored the shouting, hissing, and other noises from the camp. He held Wirikidor before him, up out of the water; annoying as its behavior could be, the enchanted sword was still a valuable weapon, and he preferred not to strain its resistance to rust.

He felt his way forward for half a dozen paces, then stopped; the bottom was dropping off suddenly beneath his feet. He stepped back, then worked his way a few yards upstream before trying again.

Someone shouted, so loudly it seemed in his ear. Almost immediately he heard someone splashing into the water behind him. He steadied himself, then whirled, Wirikidor flashing out in an unaimed blow.

It was his own hand, not the spell, that guided the sword; he could feel that. His hand swung the weapon faster than he could turn his head.

When his eyes did come around, he saw the tip of his blade slice open the cheek of a handsome young woman. She was not armed, so far as he could see. She clapped her hand to her face as she felt the blade cut her and fell back, shocked.

Appalled, Valder waited for Wirikidor to move in for the kill, but the sword did nothing. After a second’s hesitation, he turned and slogged out into midstream again.

The woman staggered back to shore and fell, her body on the bank and her feet still in the water. She stared after the Ethsharite, blood trickling between her fingers.

Valder reached the opposite bank without further hindrance and without actually swimming, though the water reached his throat at one point. A glance back when he was sure he could make it showed him that people had come to the aid of the woman he had struck; they stared out after him, but no one seemed inclined to pursue. Valder guessed that all the bolder warriors were still chasing the dragon.

Once safely across, he wasted no time in pushing himself up out of the river, water streaming from his tunic and kilt. He clambered up to the top of the grassy hillside.

He saw scattered trees, but the forest did not resume; instead, he saw before him an open, rolling plain. He had reached the vast central grasslands.

He did not pause to admire the scenery, but marched onward, leaving a clear trail of trampled grass. He had no idea of how to avoid leaving such a trail; he had been trained as a forest scout.

As he walked, he considered his experiences so far that morning. Wirikidor had done nothing against the dragon and had not insisted on killing the woman, yet it still retained at least part of its magic; he could not sheathe it or put it down. It had tasted blood from the woman’s cheek, but was not satisfied; he still could not force it into the scabbard, though he tried as he trudged onward. That puzzled him.

He thought back over what he knew of the sword. In truth, he knew very little. He knew its name, but nothing else beyond his own observations since drawing it. The old hermit had said that Wirikidor meant “slayer of warriors.” Did that tell him anything?

He stopped suddenly as a thought struck him. “Slayer of warriors,” the old man had said. Not beasts and not unarmed women. That would explain its actions very nicely; it would only fight for him against warriors!

He frowned and began walking again. That, he told himself, could have drawbacks. Furthermore, how did it fit with his earlier one-foe-per-drawing theory? Had those other northern soldiers somehow not qualified as warriors by the sword’s standards, or did it only kill one warrior per drawing?

His life might well depend on the answer to that question sometime; he had best, he thought, learn that answer as quickly as he could. He trudged onward through the grass, thinking hard.

CHAPTER 8

Late in the afternoon of the day after he passed through the northern camp, Valder realized he was being followed. The grasslands were not uniformly covered; large areas had been trampled by men or beasts, other areas had been grazed by various animals, and the height of the grasses varied with the soil conditions as well, so that there were places where the grass did not reach his knees, or even his ankles. Such areas provided no possibility of cover or concealment. As he passed through one such spot, at the top of a rise, he happened to glance back the way he had come and caught sight of a distant figure following his path.

At first he tried to convince himself that he had mistaken some beast for a man, or that the figure was some casual wanderer who happened to be behind him, but a few minutes later he looked back and saw the same figure, still on his tracks and significantly closer.

Not yet seriously concerned, he paused at the top of the next hill and again looked back, this time watching for several minutes, studying his pursuer. As he watched, his nonchalance vanished.

The approaching figure was gaining ground rapidly, though Valder had not been dawdling. Furthermore, it moved with a smooth, gliding motion that Valder tried to tell himself might be an illusion caused by the rippling grass that hid the figure’s feet.

Before long, however, he had to admit to himself that the thing following him was either shatra or something very similar. He prayed to whatever grassland gods might hear him that it would not also prove to be a sorcerer; and while he prayed, he slid the crossbow from his shoulder and tried to set the cocking mechanism. The sword in his hand made him awkward, but he hooked the bowstring, then put his foot on the brace and pulled back.

The bowstring snapped.

He stared at the dangling remains in dismay, realizing that he had done nothing to care for it, even after fording the river. The string had almost certainly been soaked through. He doubted a day and a half would have been enough for it to rot badly, but the water would have softened it and helped along any previous damage. He had let the wet string dry in the hot sun of the plain, still on the bow, and that had apparently been enough to ruin it.

The captured crossbow, unfamiliar as it was, had been his best defense against shatra. At close range, even the slowest, weakest shatra was more than a match for any mere human. At long range, a sling did not have the accuracy or impact to stop one reliably. A crossbow had a good chance — though there were stories of shatra not merely dodging quarrels, but snatching them out of the air.

With his crossbow useless, the sling was the best he had. He pulled it from his belt and then realized that he had no stones, nor were any handy amid the tall grass. He had never bothered to keep any; in the forest he could always find stones or nuts or other small objects suitable for use as ammunition.

He had his bloodstone, but he could not bring himself to waste that on a long throw at a difficult target. Furthermore, loading and using the sling while he held a sword would not be easy.

He could stick the sword to his shin for the moment, but he still had no ammunition. He cursed himself for his thoughtlessness in relying on the crossbow without bothering to care for it.

He looked at Wirikidor. Shatra were certainly warriors, but the sword had proved so unreliable that he could not imagine it being any use against one.

It was, however, the only chance he had. When he looked up at the approaching person, he saw that the pursuer was no longer simply following Valder’s trail, but was instead dodging back and forth across the grassland, moving in fits and starts and generally making himself as difficult a target as possible. He was obviously aware that Valder had seen him. Even with ammunition other than the single gem, Valder would now have virtually no chance of harming him with the sling.

Valder looked around helplessly at the empty grassland, the few scattered trees — none near enough to be of any help — and the vacant blue sky overhead. Here he was, he thought, being stalked by a half-demon enemy, with no place to hide, nowhere to run, and only Wirikidor to protect him. He was as good as dead, he was certain. The sword might be enchanted, but it would need to be capable of miracles to save him.

He did not want to die. The air was sweet, the sun warm, and he had no desire whatsoever to perish and never again taste the wind or see the sky. No Ethsharitic soldier had ever killed a shatra in hand-to-hand combat, Valder knew — but he resolved to try. The sword’s magic might possibly give him the edge he needed to do it.

He tried to think of anything else that might give him an advantage, however slight; whether any spot might be better than another. He could see nothing that would help. He was going to meet the shatra on open, rolling grassland, no matter what he did, and one part of it seemed very much like any other.

He was determined not to flee. He knew that demons and their kin had no compunctions about killing a man from behind; and if he were to die, he preferred to die facing his foe. He considered the possibility of a charge, a chance at taking the shatra by surprise, but dismissed it. In all honesty he could only believe that such an attack would get him killed that much sooner.

Instead he tried to relax, to enjoy his last few moments as best he could, and to save his strength for the coming fight, rather than wasting it by tensing up.

The sky was very blue, the only clouds thin, white streaks on the eastern horizon, the sun settling downward in the west. The grass was golden and rippling. When he had been walking, the day had seemed rather hot, but, now that he was standing still and letting the breeze cool him, the weather seemed ideal.

He was not particularly fond of grass nor of grasslands; he had grown up around forests and served most of his time in the army in forests, and the open country felt bare and unprotected by contrast. The best thing about it was the vast, uncluttered sky.

The shatra paused, perhaps two hundred yards away, and watched him; Valder could see the sun glinting on the demon’s close-fitting black helmet. He suddenly realized that the shatra was well within the effective range of the sorcerous weapons that his kind sometimes used and might be debating whether to shoot now or draw closer. Against combat sorcery Valder knew he had no chance at all; he dropped flat, hiding in the grass. He had seen no wands or talismans, but his situation was quite bad enough without taking unnecessary risks.

He lay in the grass for what seemed like hours, halfway onto his left side, ready to thrust himself upward with the sword raised. He listened, but heard nothing but the grass rustling in the wind.

He looked, but from where he lay he could see nothing but the grass a few inches from his nose.

He debated crawling off into the grass, away from his trail, in hopes that the shatra would lose track of him, but gave up the idea after a trial poke at the surrounding plants. The grass in his immediate vicinity was not particularly tall and rustled quite audibly when he stirred it; the shatra would be able to locate him easily.

“Soldier!” a voice called, speaking Ethsharitic with a thick, unpleasant accent. “Soldier! Come out and we may talk!”

Valder lay still and said nothing.

“Soldier, you do not need to die. We treat prisoners well. Stand up and drop your weapons and you may live!”

Valder knew this was unusual, this attempt to coax a surrender. Ordinarily the northerners were no more eager to burden themselves with prisoners than the Ethsharites were; after all, prisoners had to be kept for life, since there were no provisions for exchange and the war had been going on since time immemorial and seemed likely to continue forever. The shatra had some reason for wanting Valder alive. Most probably, the Ethsharite guessed, the northerners wanted to find out how a lone enemy came to be wandering around behind their lines to begin with. They might also be wondering whether the dragon was a part of an Ethsharitic force.

As he thought back over what he had done, Valder realized that he had probably made quite an impression. He had appeared mysteriously out of nowhere, disposed of a coastal sentry, slain an expert swordsman in fair combat and then seriously wounded another man as well, and topped it all off by leading a hungry young dragon into a northern encampment that was presumably nowhere near the front.

He wondered how long he would live if he accepted the shatra’s offer of imprisonment and how long his dying would take. The northerners were said to be very ingenious in their use of torture. They were not likely to be gentle with someone who had caused them so much trouble. It seemed unreasonable to think that they might let him live out his natural span.

“Soldier, you are being very foolish. If you do not surrender by the time I count to five, I must kill you.”

Valder noticed that the notherner’s voice had come much closer. He had decided, without knowing it himself at first, that he was not going to buy himself a few days of life by surrendering, even though he had no important information that might be tortured out of him. He did not know where his unit was, or where the hermit had gone, or anything very useful about Wirikidor. He did not want to die — but he did not want to live in pain and disgrace, either. Besides, he could not drop Wirikidor if he tried; the sword would not allow it.

He listened carefully as the shatra began counting.

“One!”

He judged the northerner to be no more than thirty feet away now.

“Two!”

He was somewhere ahead and to the left. Presumably he knew Valder’s exact position and intended to take him from his bad side.

“Three!”

Valder adjusted his legs; he had changed his earlier decision and now intended to charge the shatra.

“Four!”

He launched himself upward, running through the knee-high grass toward the enemy, who stood roughly where Valder had expected him to be.

The shatra was not surprised. He smiled as Valder came toward him and raised his own drawn sword with leisurely grace.

Seeing the sword, Valder knew that the shatra either had no magical weaponry or preferred not to use it. He swung Wirikidor at the northerner’s throat.

As he had expected, the shatra’s sword snapped up and deflected Wirikidor.

As he had not really expected, however, Wirikidor responded on its own, twisting around the intercepting blade and striking down diagonally, stabbing into the shatra’s shoulder. Something hissed strangely, and sparkles of yellow light spat from the wound before ordinary red blood appeared.

Valder stared in delight. He had drawn first blood from a shatra! Wirikidor would save him after all! He tried to relax and let the sword do his fighting for him.

Wirikidor, however, did not cooperate. It swung back from the shoulder wound as if forced back by a blow, though the shatra, as surprised as Valder, had reacted by stepping back and assuming a defensive posture, without making any attempt to knock Wirikidor away.

Startled, Valder looked at his blade, and the two of them stood, scarcely four feet apart, both warily watching Wirikidor.

Naturally, the shatra was the first to recover. He brought his blade darting down toward Valder’s groin, apparently not troubled at all by his bleeding shoulder.

Wirikidor did nothing, but Valder managed to fall back out of the blade’s path. He lost his balance as he did so and landed in a sitting position. As he struggled to regain his feet, the northerner’s sword flashed toward his throat.

Wirikidor flashed up to meet it, then beat it back and slipped around the shatra’s hand and into the inside of his elbow.

There was no sound this time as the blade penetrated, but a single yellow flash preceded the first oozing blood. Wirikidor seemed to hesitate. It did not revert to lifeless metal but rather paused in mid-air, seeming to vibrate slightly.

The shatra was not so indecisive. The two wounds to his sword-arm, while scarcely more than pricks, nevertheless seemed to have affected his control; accordingly, he shifted his stance and tossed his sword from his right hand to his left before renewing the attack. This gave Valder time enough to rise to one knee.

For a moment Valder was unable to follow what happened, even though his own right hand was a part of it. At first the shatra was attacking, and then he was defending as Wirikidor met every attack and retaliated, pressing home its own assault, all in a blur of motion far too fast for a mere human like Valder to follow, never allowing so much as the fraction of a second the shatra would have needed to step back out of reach. Blood flowed redly down the northerner’s black tunic and spattered the grass.

Then, abruptly, it was over, and Valder found himself still on one knee, not yet having managed to arise, but with his sword thrust through the northerner’s heart. The northerner’s own sword had fallen from his hand, the blade still gleaming and unstained.

Shatra, however, were not mere mortals, and the northerner was not dead. He looked down at the sword that had impaled him and reached for it with both hands. The right was unsteady.

Valder stared in horror. He had no doubt that Wirikidor had found the shatra’s heart; the blade was buried in the northerner’s chest just left of center, yet he still lived.

Perhaps, Valder thought, he had no heart. He was shatra, not human, after all.

Valder tried to pull his sword free, but human reactions could not match shatra; the hands grabbed Wirikidor’s blade.

Wirikidor writhed, ripping open the shatra’s chest, and that was the end of it; the hands fell away and the northerner toppled backward, sliding off the enchanted blade. He lay in a heap on the trampled grass.

Valder sank back to a sitting position and stared at the corpse, half-afraid that it would return to life. He could see the proof of its inhumanity in the gaping chest wound, where something smooth and slick and black gleamed, something that was definitely not human flesh or bone. He shuddered. On the outside the thing had seemed human enough — tall and pale and fair-haired, like most northerners.

Finally, he looked at Wirikidor, drooping in his hand. His wrist ached; his hand had been dragged along, willy-nilly, in the sword’s movements, and, as a result of moving so much faster than it was meant to do, his wrist was now very sore indeed.

The sword had saved him. It had seemed hesitant at first, but it had saved him. He wiped the blade clean on a corner of the dead northerner’s tunic, then sheathed it with a sigh of relief. It was good, very good indeed, to have it on his belt instead of naked in his hand.

He wondered why the sword had not immediately been enthusiastic. Surely, there could be no doubt that a shatra was a true warrior! The very name was said to be an old word for a great warrior — though apparently not in the same tongue as his sword’s name.

The sword had seemed to hesitate after each of the first two wounds it had inflicted, he thought, as he stared at the body of his enemy. Those two wounds had almost seemed to strike sparks; perhaps the blade had encountered a demonic part of the shatra and had been daunted by it. Shatra were half man and half demon; perhaps Wirikidor was not up to handling demons.

Valder decided that that made a certain amount of sense.

As he sat gathering his wits and regaining his breath, he heard a faint rustling and something that sounded like distant voices. His hand went to his sword hilt, but he resisted the temptation to draw; he did not want to be stuck carrying Wirikidor unsheathed again should he manage to avoid fighting. Carefully, he got to his feet and looked back along his tracks, expecting to see more northerners.

There were none.

The rustling continued, and the voices grew louder. Valder realized they were coming from the opposite direction. He turned around and saw half a dozen men advancing toward him through the grass; others were visible behind them, and still more on the horizon. His hopes shriveled within him. Wirikidor would handle the first one without any difficulty; but if his one-warrior-per-drawing theory was correct, he would be on his own after that, and he knew he would stand no chance at all against so many. He must have come upon the entire northern army!

“You there!” one of the advancing men called, in good Ethsharitic. “Stay right where you are!”

Valder glanced at the corpse at his feet. At least, he told himself, he had killed a shatra. That was something that not very many could say. He sighed, trying to decide whether to surrender or go down fighting; he was sure that he would die in either case. He did not want to die, but he could accept it if he had to.

The sun was sinking in the west, and its light was reddening; the shadows were long, and he had been alone, surrounded by enemies, for months. Perhaps that was why it took him so long to realize the true situation. It was not until the six men of the advance party came within a hundred yards that he recognized their uniforms.

The new arrivals were not northerners; they were an advance guard of the Ethsharitic army.

He had made it. Wirikidor had brought him home.