Two hundred miles beyond, to the northeast, lay the city Dedera. It crowded the feet of the Chromoga Mountains. Somewhere back in their ore-rich canyons, rumor claimed, lay the mouth of the tunnel Ahlert had discovered. At its nether end lay the subterranean ruins the Mindak mined for his Power.
Gathrid thought of the place as a library of past evils. A place where all sorceries had been recorded.
Gradually, without conscious consideration, the Library had become his destination. There were things he wanted to learn. About Nieroda, about the Toal, about Suchara and about the Sword. He was sure the information could be found there. Ahlert had uncovered most of it already, hadn't he?
His extended run of luck ran out east of Senturia.
He had, after all those miles and weeks, finally found himself a forest. It was a tamed and tended wood, but still the best cover he had seen since leaving the Karato. Its keepers had allowed large sections to remain semiferal. Though it was inviting, it made him nervous. It had the air of a hunting preserve. Still, it gave him a chance to travel by day. He had not been able to since leaving the Nirgenau Mountains.
It began shortly before noon one day, when he thought he heard the distant-faint bray of horns. He paused, listened intently. Finally, unsure, he resumed walking.
He heard the sound again an hour later. It was much closer. This time he had no doubts. He was in the path of a hunt.
His trepidation was shared. Trees rustled as squirrels went into hiding. Rabbits dashed here and there, their white tails bouncing. A boar, then a stag, crossed his path. Each broke into panicky flight after spying him.
"Better hide," Gathrid muttered. He glanced round, ran after the stag. He needed a remote thicket or cave.
Proper thickets were scarce. He hadn't the speed or wind to stay with the stag long enough to discover its hiding place. He did find a cave, but beat a hasty, ignominious retreat upon finding himself nose to nose with a she-bear and her cubs.
The horns sounded again. The hunters were getting close. Was he the quarry? That did not seem possible. They were coming from ahead, not from his backtrail. And even Ahlert hadn't the arrogance to announce his coming to the Swordbearer.
Pure dumb luck was about to betray him.
He had to move fast. After a moment of dismay and indecision he flung himself at a post oak. He shimmied up and transferred to a larger beech, which he climbed till he could crawl out a branch and get into another oak. This was a many times grandfather of the first, and one of the largest trees he had ever seen. Sixty feet up he settled into a fork and watched a brook gurgle along a dozen yards from the tree's base.
The horn again. He listened for hounds, heard no baying. A good sign, he thought. They would not stumble onto his trail.
The horn again. Then the quarry passed beneath him, exhausted, staggering toward the brook. "A
girl," he said softly. He leaned for a better look.
She was ragged, scratched and bruised, and hardly older than he. Though he considered himself a poor judge, she appeared reasonably attractive.
She paused to scoop water from the creek. She was in command of her wits. She turned downstream after drinking.
And slipped on a slimy stone. She fell with a little wail of despair and pain. She stayed down.
Though she tried valiantly, weary muscles and a sprained ankle refused to be tortured further.
Gathrid started down even before the hunters arrived. He froze while they passed beneath him, exchanging quips about their prey. Having absorbed Ventimiglian from Daubendiek's victims, he understood. The girl was an escaped sacrifice meant for a slow, painful death in rites that would give them command of a familiar spirit.
There were five of them. Behind each rode an esquire. They were cruel young men who inspired Gathrid's loathing. They dismounted, surrounded the girl. They taunted her, laughed at her, kicked her down again when she tried to rise.
Gathrid crossed to the beech. One of the esquires turned, cocked his head then resumed watching his master's sport.
Sometimes, Gathrid thought, you have to compromise a moral resolution to meet the demand of a greater obligation. He had been determined never to draw Dauben-diek except in self-defense.
Rogala would have called him a fool for interfering.
He dropped the last dozen feet, landed quietly on the soft grass. The sharp-eared esquire turned again. Gathrid drew the Sword.
The esquire tried to shout, could only gobble.
Gathrid felt the familiar growing sensation, the eagerness of the blade, the momentary vertigo as Daubendiek drank a soul. The Ventimiglians froze when they sensed the surge of Power.
Gathrid raged among them, slaughtering all the esquires and two of the nobles before they could defend themselves. The others, after crossing the brook, began some hasty sorcery. Two moved toward Gathrid's flanks while the third retreated. A red mist roiled in the pocket thus formed.
Within that mist an anthropoid, bow-legged, squat, long-armed, hairy and toothy thing took shape.
It looked at the girl and grinned.
Despite its origins it did not seem all that remarkable till Gathrid splashed across the creek and attacked it.
Daubendiek behaved like an ordinary blade swung into a hardwood post. It cut, but with no more effect than that ordinary blade would have affected that mortal oak.
Though Gathrid was startled, Daubendiek was not. It beat about the demon in an almost invisible storm. Chips of monster flew. The Sword clanged like a beaten gong.
The demon seemed astonished that it was vulnerable at all. Rocking with each blow, grin waning, it kept trying to reach Gathrid. The three who had summoned it kept yelling in amazement.
Gathrid remembered the field where his father and brothers had practiced with their horses and weapons. The demon began to take on the target-post's well-hacked look.
Daubendiek would strike for the creature's neck, then go for a leg when it raised an arm protectively. The Sword fell into a rhythm of high and low, staying a move ahead, till one demon leg parted at the knee.
Daubendiek howled gleefully.
While the demon sat staring at its severed calf, Gathrid slew the nearest Ventimiglian and charged after the other two.
He caught one, but the last captured a horse before Gathrid overtook him. He escaped as a scream drew the youth's attention back to the brook.
The demon was after the girl, stalking her on all fours, looking like some weird wolf spider awaiting the right instant to pounce. The girl kept scooting away. She seemed unable to take her feet.
Swinging Daubendiek with both hands, Gathrid severed the demon's head from its neck. It rolled down into the chill water. Its mouth broke the surface and began cursing in fractured Ventimiglian.
The decapitated body crawled round the slope- hands feeling for the missing head. When it encountered a stone of appropriate size, it tried settling that atop its shoulders.
Gathrid turned to the girl. She cowered away from him. She seemed more terrified of him than she was of the demon.
Though the Sword protested, Gathrid forced it into its scabbard. He offered the girl a hand. She accepted as if afraid refusal would bring reprisal. Gathrid did not know whaf to say, so said nothing. Ventimiglian words would not roll right on his tongue anyway. He helped her climb the bank, leaned her against a sapling while he rounded up horses and examined his enemies' gear. He found their memories more interesting than their, equipment. They knew the way to the Library. It was there that the Mindak had gifted them with their demon.
Said demon kept cursing in the streambed.
He was wasting time. He helped the girl onto a horse. Then, on impulse, he scrambled down and salvaged the talking head. He bound it to his saddle by its wiry hair. It chattered right along, telling him what it thought.