There was no doubt. This time Ahlert would perish. Even Chuchain, who drove his servant to mad extremes in a vain effort to nurse victory from the teat of fate, realized that. The Mindak could not overcome Daubendiek using one hand.
But Gathrid could control the manner of the man's demise. He could allow Ahlert to perish with dignity intact.
He let the Sword think it had control. He encouraged its attack to Ahlert's left. He pushed till he and the Mindak had danced through a half-circle.
He finished it with the long quiescent blade in his left hand. The surprise was complete. It took in not only Ahlert but Daubendiek and Suchara.
The Mindak staggered to the tunnel wall, good hand pressed to his wound. Blood darkened his fingers. Scarlet trickled along the Staff.
The younger sword groaned in triumph.
Daubendiek lashed like the tail of an angry tiger.
Ahlert sank till he rested on his knees, back against the wall. He beckoned Gathrid. The youth stepped closer, placed a foot on the Staff.
"Tell Mead," Ahlert gasped. "Tell her I'm sorry. I couldn't. Be what she wanted." "I will,"
Gathrid lied.
"And trust no one. The Dark Woman-. Is among you. I feel her. Very near." He grimaced, 'ground his fist against his stomach. Only the Power of the Staff kept him going. "It hurts. More than I thought it would. The Sword would have been. More merciful. More to your benefit. Finish it now."
Gathrid refused. He still nurtured some pale, pathetic hope that the Great Old Ones would relent.
Daubendiek lanced out. Gathrid tasted its spite. The mind that had been the Mindak Ahlert was as strong as Tureck Aarant's had been. It was as disorienting as it had been in that brief glimpse through the Or-drope Diadem. Gathrid staggered under its impact.
He returned to reality to find someone bending over Ahlert, trying to pry the Staff from his bloody fingers. Daubendiek lashed out again.
Gathrid reeled as the stiff, stubborn personality of Ye-don Hildreth hit him. He screamed. As he seemed to have done so many times before.
For two furious minutes he smashed Daubendiek against the stone of the Maurath. His rage was so overpowering the blade could not stay him.
Then a cold rationality returned. He bent over Ahlert himself. The Ordrope Diadem he shifted to his own head. He tucked the Staff under his arm. Someday, he thought, Staff, Diadem and both swords would accompany him on a long sea voyage. He could consign them to the deeps... .
A shadow fell across the mouth of the tunnel. A feeling of threat tainted the air. Gathrid left off his silent apologies. His gaze met that of a Toal.
It was like none he had encountered before. This was a man in the flesh and armor of an Imperial Legate. The body still lived. But Gathrid recognized its spiritual stench. He knew those cold, dead eyes. He knew the Hell-stallion it rode, that only a Toal could master. No mortal animal would permit such a devil to bestride it.
So. Nieroda had found her way around Ahlert's refusal to reveal how to introduce a Toal into new flesh. She had begun installing her fallen Dead Captains in live bodies. The bodies of Imperials.
She's close, Ahlert had said... .
This monster was a fit object for his wrath.
The youth hurtled out of the tunnel, oblivious to the possibility that the flyers might have returned. The Toal's mount reared, screamed.
Daubendiek protested Gathrid's action. The youth had seized total control. His will was behind his decisions. The soul, the stubbornness of Yedon Hildreth had tilted the balance away from Suchara.
At that moment Gathrid was completely confident of his ability to master the Great Sword and defy Suchara.
Daubendiek whined in fright. Gathrid bid it slay the Dead Captain.
Suchara fought him. Fought him for no better reason than because this was what he wanted to do.
Had he not wanted to slay the Toal, She would have driven him.
"Kill it!" he thought at the Sword. Reluctantly, the blade went for the Toal.
The false Legate tried to flee.
Gathrid slew its mount with the younger sword. He allowed the Toal itself no chance to gain its footing. He drove Daubendiek through its breastplate.
Deep inside Gathrid, the half-forgotten soul of Mohr-hard Horgrebe cackled evilly, spitefully, feeling its former possessor suffering.
Gathrid did not let the Toal flee with the smoke rising from the corpse of Legate Cervenka. On a subjective level, with his newfound will and a year of anger, he seized the fell spirit. They struggled for a moment, crashing around that nowhere place where he had destroyed his own haunt.
He took that demon by the throat and shook it the way a terrier shakes a rat.
It ended quickly.
Gathrid bent, recovered a glowing Toal-sword. He tossed it to Theis Rogala, who had pursued him onto the Causeway. "Hang onto that."
The dwarf gulped, bobbed his head. He was pale and frightened. He could not believe what he was seeing, what he had heard when Ahlert had spoken to Tureck Aarant.
Gathrid smiled at him, his eyes narrow. "Greetings from Tureck, Theis." Rogala flinched. He would do some heavy thinking before using his dagger to complete this cycle of the Sword's history. . No need to worry yet, Gathrid thought. Suchara would not order him murdered while Nieroda yet remained in the game.
Or would she? Would she be that frightened?
He shrugged. Rogala was too disturbed to try anything soon.
He stared at Sartain. The Dark Champion was there somewhere. The Toal had proved Ahlert's statement. He reached inside and read Legate Cervenka. Sometime after Hildreth and the army had moved into the Maurath, Nieroda had descended on the Raftery. Now she was subverting the Imperial Palace.
The youth smiled, though he was not amused. Gerdes Mulenex had made a pact with a devil at Katich.
The devil had come to collect.
That was what the Mindak had meant by saying she was looking over their shoulders.
The youth examined his surroundings. The flyers had vanished. Ahlert's wizards had packed up their witcheries. Easterners lined the ramparts of the Maurath. In their faces he saw awe, fear and dismay. Their officers were trying to get them to withdraw.
They knew what had happened to their Emperor. The hopes that had brought them west had died with him. Despair had fallen on them like a deadly cloud.
Gathrid thought of Mead again. Belfiglio, too, would know. The task of informing the Mindak's wife would fall to the old slave. Gathrid did not envy him his mission.
Hildreth's senior officers began gathering in the tunnel. "Let them depart in peace," Gathrid said, pointing upward with the younger sword. "Muster your battalions. We have work on the island.
Nieroda is there."
He was sure they would revolt. Someone must have seen him fell Hildreth.
His previous usurpations had accustomed them to accepting his authority. There were no witnesses to Hildreth's murder, apparently. They began forming their units.
Gathrid gazed down at Count Cuneo. He indulged in a moment of self-loathing. Suchara and Daubendiek had surprised him again. He swore it would be their undoing.
Being free of self-doubt was a new experience. It pleased him.
He went roaming through the soul of Legate Cervenka, his quarry knowledge of Nieroda and the Toal.
The Legate knew very little. He had been seized during the night, by Red Brothers, while directing a militia regiment in counterattack against Ahlert's Imperial Brigade. He had been spirited into the Raftery. He had been unconscious, so did not know how he had been taken through the Ventimiglian lines. He had wakened possessed by the demon. Nieroda had handed him a Toal sword.
The lights had gone out again. He had wakened back at his command post, under instructions to break the siege of the Raftery.
That siege seemed to bother Nieroda. She had revealed herself in order to press the counterattack.
The imminence of conflict between Ahlert and the Swordbearer had caused her to rush Toal Cervenka to the Mindak's aid, judging him to be the weaker man. The Toal had arrived too late.