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.