He feared he was no longer sane. Shock still absorbed him, but tendrils of hatred had begun trickling through the mist of unbelief. Every thought of Nevenka Nieroda initiated a promising,
"Someday. ..."
Such emotion frightened him. It could become compelling, could make of him a man as bleak and driven as the fabled Aarant.
He was too stiff to walk. He crawled toward sunlight. It blinded him briefly when it splashed into his eyes. Outside, morning birds sang solar praises, infuriating him with their indifference to what had happened at Kacalief. A squirrel chattered. For the first time he let his thoughts touch on his mother and sister.
The younger women had been spared. The Mindak had dragged them off to Katich.
Gathrid wanted to rend, to tear, to make the Ventimig-lians bleed for Anyeck, for his parents, for his brothers and for Gudermuth.
His vision adapted to the light.
One of the Twelve, still as a statue of an ebony general, sat his dark horse not fifty feet beyond the brush masking the cave. A sparrow settled onto its shoulder, chirruped in surprise, fluttered to a nearby tree. It alternately scolded and cocked its head questioningly.
The Dead Captain's head slowly turned Gathrid's way.
Terror hit him like a blow from a giant's fist. They could not be escaped! He scrambled back, scraped his scalp on the cave roof. He fled into darkness, crashing from one cavern feature to another till his reason returned. By then he was thoroughly lost. The more immediate threat of the cavern banished his fear of the Toal.
He wandered for hours, occasionally pausing to indulge in a fit of tears. So many angers, fears, losses, frustrations. It was not fair.
The last time, after wiping tears with the backs of grimy hands, he noticed a pale, ghostly light ahead. With hope and fear writhing together like wrestling snakes, he crept toward it.
His fingers, brushing the cave walls for guidance, caressed scars left by ancient tools. They encountered beams supporting the invisible ceiling. He frowned. There were no mines in the Savards.
He stepped into a bedroom-sized chamber, manhewn from poor limestone. It contained two pieces of antique furniture. They were illuminated by a sourceless witch-light. One was a small, heavy chair. The other was an open coffin.
In the chair slept a gnarly, dusty dwarf. He was half buried by a beard in which crawling things nested.
Gathrid wanted to believe that he had found one of the mythical creatures who, with trolls and elves and giants, supposedly haunted the forests and hills and night.
But in the coffin, on dusty cerulean velvet, lay a long black sword. Its edges were nicked and crusted.
Gathrid stood, one hand sealing his mouth, vainly trying to contain a cough. It all fit the legends.
His free hand strayed to the weapon's hilt.
Sparks. Power flooded his arm. Pain and fear evaporated. His weak leg strengthened. The dead side of his face quickened and joined the other in an expression of wonder. The blade vibrated in his grasp. Dust danced off its dark gloss.
And the dwarf opened his eyes.
The gaze of a Toal was warmer.
"Daubendiek has chosen." Theis Rogala spoke softly, chillingly, with a curiously jerky accent, like the sound of bones being crushed far down a long cold hallway. "There will be blood for Suchara."
Gathrid tried to drop the Sword. His fingers would not open.
The question of which had been master and which tool pervaded the legend of Tureck Aarantl, As the Sword, against his will, rose in salute, Gathrid suffered the despairing suspicion that it had been Aarant who had been the controlled.
Bones creaking audibly, Rogala dropped to one knee. In the same death-edged voice he croaked,
"Suchara's will be done. Her servant swears fealty to her Swordbearer till Dau-bendiek severs the bond. Sucnara's will be done."
Nothing in Gathrid's sixteen years had prepared him for this. Beyond daydreams he had never really wanted to be a warrior. Nor did he want to be a slave. Most of all, he did not want to replay the tragedy of Tureck Aarant. Though Aarant had been a warrior of a stature equal to any boy's daydreams, his existence had been lonely and choked with despair. He had known no friends, no lovers, nor even a country he could call his own. He had traveled a road of blood and tears. Death had been his only friend, Daubendiek his only lover, Theis Rogala his sole companion.
Yet Gathrid felt the seductive caress of power, heard its soft siren call. Bearing Daubendiek, he need not fear the Twelve. Nor Nieroda. Nor his own handicap. Even the Mindak would fear him. What fell vengeances he could wreak... .
He was a fish writhing on a hook. Even at that moment he knew he would not shed Daubendiek till the Sword itself willed it. He had been taken.
Rogala creaked as he rose. "Damned bones. Must've been years." He turned stiffly, began kicking dusty accoutrements from beneath his chair. "How goes the war, boy?"
"Kacalief fell," Gathrid mumbled. "The Mindak has gone on to Katich. Unless Malmberget, Bilgoraj, and the rest of the Allies move soon, Gudermuth is lost."
"Eh? Gudermuth?" The dwarf frowned, his face becoming all crags and gullies. "Never heard of it."
Gathrid was puzzled. Never heard of Gudermuth? But ... oh. Rogala had slept for centuries. There had been no Gudermuth when the dwarf had gone into hiding. "Kacalief was the castle of my father, the Safire of Kacalief, a knight protector of the Savard, which is a March on the Grevening frontier. Gudermuth is our kingdom. Katich is our capital. The Mindak of Ventimiglia is our enemy.
Malmberget and Bilgoraj are the major states in the Torun Alliance. They pledged war and wizardry if Ventimiglia invaded from Grevening, which Ahlert and the Toal conquered last year."
The dwarf dropped into his chair. He combed his beard with his fingers and muttered, "It must have been longer than I expected. An age. I never heard of any of those places." His mien became so sour Gathrid backed a step away. "But there is a war on? We need a war." His eyes burned wickedly.
"You'll have to explain as we go." He rose, gathered his gear, strode off as if he knew his destination.
"There's a Toal out there!" Gathrid croaked.
'' Eh? So? " Rogala kept walking.
Gathrid tried to explain. Memories of defeat released anger and hatred. The Sword stirred. His emotions paled immediately.
"Then Daubendiek will drink," Rogala snarled.
"But. ..."
"But me no buts, boy. Suchara has chosen. The Swordbearer can but fulfill his destiny."
Gathrid resisted for a moment-then remembered he was lost. Sighing, he followed the dwarf.
Rebellion would have to wait.
Daubendiek measured five feet from pommel to point, yet felt weightless, Gathrid gave it a trial swish as he stood back from the cave mouth, letting his eyes adjust.
He recalled sham duels with his brothers. Clumsy as they had been, they had beaten him regularly.
Squatting in the entrance, studying the Toal, Rogala resembled a huge toad. Gathrid shuddered. The dwarf had not shown the cruel coldness of the legendary Rogala, yet something suggested that the myth was but a shadow of the truth. Gathrid sensed an alienness in his companion, as if the dwarf were in reality an engine of destruction camouflaged in human form.
The Sword was restless and eager. It moved in his hand.
"A strange creature," said Rogala, returning. "Old beyond reckoning. Bound about with a hundred sorceries and armed with a hundred more." He seemed unsure. "Still, Daubendiek needs a taste of death. Go kill it."
Gathrid remembered the Toal raging like blood-drenched black killing machines amongst the defenders of Kacalief. He shook his head.
"The Swordbearer refuses a challenge? Nonsense. Go on. Slay it. Let Daubendiek drink. The blade is thirsty. It's weak with the sleep of ages."
There may have been sorcery in the dwarf's speech. Or a compelling hunger in the Sword. Or an uncontrollable will to revenge in Gathrid himself. He stumbled toward daylight. "No blood," he croaked. "Theis, the Toal... . Dead men."