He sprang to the attack. With Aarant to show the way, he was able to guide the Sword. The Toal went down. It was as cold and evil a spirit as its brethren.
Another battled into his path. It, too, fenced, attempting delay. It, too, went down.
Aarant handled the spiritual input while Gathrid fought.
He was a hundred yards nearer Nieroda.
Now there were two Dead Captains. A third was trying to force its way past Ahlert.
Nieroda picked up a javelin. She bounced it in her hand like an athlete getting its feel. She cast it too quickly to follow. Gathrid brought Daubendiek round to deflect it.
He was not its target. It slammed through his mount's breastplate. The animal dropped instantly.
It never made a sound.
Nieroda relaxed against her sword. Gathrid cursed her as he disentangled himself from his mount while fending a blizzard of Toal swords. His armor hindered him. He cursed Rogala for having talked him into wearing it.
Loida was watching from Ahlert's one-time command post. She saw the javelin fly. She saw Gathrid go down. She squealed in dismay.
Rogala had left her Gacioch to babysit. The boxed devil remarked, "So it goes. They've got him now. The old witch has worked another trap.''
"No." Loida did not know what impelled her. The will of Suchara, perhaps. Or that of Chuchain. Or something within herself. Whichever, she seized an imperial standard from its startled bearer, leapt onto a horse and raced toward the ruin of Kacalief. Gacioch whooped like the master of ceremonies at a devils' convention.
Some of the repulsed cavalry heard the demon, saw the standard, followed. One of the two reserve infantry brigades did the same. People were too confused to think.
Loida swung round Nieroda's right flank, trampling friend and foe alike. Gacioch hooted merrily and thundered orders that crashed over the rumble of battle. The effect was salutory. Loida and the horsemen passed through the lines unscathed.
The girl rose in her stirrups, searched for Gathrid. There he was. Alive still. Nieroda's creatures swarmed over him like maggots on a dead dog, but he was alive!
She then realized that she bore no weapon save the light spear from which Ahlert's banner flew.
She could not halt her wild career. Those behind her pushed her forward into the melee. The shock almost tumbled her from her saddle. Someone steadied her. She clung for her life. Swords flashed around her. A mace missed her face by a quarter inch. She went numb with fright.
But fate had a use for her.
The fighting swirled away. Her mount quickly lost interest, began cropping brown stubble churned up by thousands of hooves. Loida tried to regain her wits. She was shaking all over.
Something seemed determined to keep her from collecting herself.
Gathrid began to despair of his survival. Though Aar-ant whispered soothingly, bidding him remain calm, panic threatened. The storm of Toal swords drove him to one knee.
Then the reinforcements arrived.
The reserve brigade turned the enemy flank. The other brigade, scenting victory, rushed to the marsh end of Nieroda's line.
The shock wave of Loida's charge reached Gathrid. The death dance devolved into chaos. The youth staggered to his feet, conquered a Toal Rogala had unhorsed.
The pressure faded momentarily. He surveyed the situation. The victor would be little better off than the vanquished, whichever way it went. The issue remained in doubt. He had to get Nieroda.
Daubendiek agreed. Gathrid was surprised that it would ignore the easier blood around it.
The blade was an instrument of Suchara. Suchara had interests beyond simple bloodshed.
Gathrid hacked his way uphill. The going became easier as he went.
The Dark Champion waited impassively. As he neared her, she grew as she had that day on the Bilgoraji border. This time Gathrid definitely saw a grinning, malevolent, red-eyed face behind the umbra, waiting, as if sure of the outcome of the approaching combat.
Gathrid, too, grew. He felt half-a-mile tall. The brawling, screaming combatants dwindled till they appeared to be insects scurrying round the walls of a shallow bowl. The Mindak's troops were boxing their adversaries.
A hundred yards separated Gathrid and Nieroda, yet he felt he could reach out and touch her. And still she remained motionless. "Careful," Aarant warned. Daubendiek, too, became wary. The Dark Lady was too confident.
Gathrid swung the Sword in a mighty arc. It flickered through a dozen planes. The aquamarine nimbus around him became intense. He could see it himself.
For an instant he felt Suchara's touch on "his shoulder, could sense her cold eyes staring over his head.
Nieroda blocked his stroke, responded with an attack of her own.
Gathrid understood instantly. She bore a newly forged blade. It had been invested with both new and ancient sorceries. It had been hammered on the anvils of Hell and tempered in the oils of evil. It was a potential match for Daubendiek.
Gathrid's Toal-haunt gurgled merrily, for a moment drowning the soothing voice of Tureck Aarant and the frightened susurrus of lesser souls. The devil distracted him. It had not bothered him in a long time.
"I'll handle it," Aarant whispered.
Daubendiek turned Nieroda's blade. It was startled by its enemy's power, yet it gained confidence as it recognized the other's immaturity. The new sword was Daubendiek's equal only in potential.
It was not experienced enough to complete the task Nieroda demanded of it.
Viewed from afar, the struggle looked like a collision between towering thunderheads. One was black, the other the color of the sea. The infantry battle ground to a halt. The Toal kept the cavalry fighting, gradually turning the tide against the Mindak again. Ahlert tried to extricate his riders and consolidate them with his main force.
Loida observed the striving of giants from a deep mental fog.
Gathrid suddenly realized that, once again, he faced an opponent trying to buy time. Nieroda knew she had little chance to defeat him. She had known from the start. Defeat had been calculated into her plan.
Why was she stalling? What was her game? He scanned the battle below. Was she giving her Toal time to slay more of his allies? Again, why?
He forced a bolder attack. She backed off a step, then a step farther. She fought with the cunning of ages, with the skill that had earned her the sobriquet Dark Champion. Every ploy and play sought his life. She was not dogging it. She would kill him if she could.
She did manage to delay till the westering sun neared the horizon.
Daubendiek studied the weaknesses of its adversary all that while. Now it took advantage. The flow shifted. Faster. Faster.
Tureck Aarant and the murmuring horde became ever more excited. But Gathrid's haunt kept laughing.
...
Daubendiek pinked Nieroda-flesh at last. It was the lightest of touches. The end came minutes later.
Nieroda's umbra faded. Daubendiek lightninged through her guard. And there was nothing.
Nothing but symphonies of evil laughter. Once again she abandoned the flesh an instant too quickly.
Gathrid looked down at the thing that had been animated by the spirit of Nevenka Nieroda. It had been a woman once. ... A voice within him screamed. It knew that flesh.
His voice. "Anyeck!" He had slain her again... .
She mortified before his eyes. His gorge rose.
Anyeck. How? He had buried her himself, way west of here... . What did Nieroda hope to gain by remind-ing him of past guilt? How many times could he slay his sister and still be morally stricken?
A hundred. Or a thousand. He felt her moving deep inside him, half-insane, hurting... . Never before had she been accessible.
He knelt, lifted a putrifying hand. It was cold with a cold deeper than death's chill. But the body was free. He sensed no sorceries upon it.
So, he thought. He would bury her at home after all.
"Beware," Aarant warned. "The others don't know Nieroda survived."
The spells on the Dark Lady's followers had evaporated with her departure. The battleground had fallen into total confusion. Some rebels were trying to escape. Some were trying to surrender.