"Get out!" Gaborn said, his face going pale. "Get out, you foul...thing! Get out of my castle. Get away from my lands!"

Shocked, Borenson recalled the people Gaborn had Chosen this past week paupers and fools and old women who couldn't bear a dagger in their own defense, much less a sword.

Now one of the greatest warriors of the age knelt before him, and Gaborn wanted to cast the man away!

The High Marshal smiled in secret triumph. "Why, my lord?" he asked casually. "Why would you send me away?"

"Must I speak it?" Gaborn asked. "I see your guilt written in your heart. Must I speak it, to your eternal shame?"

"Please do," the High Marshal answered. "Name my sin, and I will know that you are the Earth King."

"No, I will not speak it," Gaborn raged, as if the very notion sickened him. "There are women present, and we are feasting. I'll not speak of it now or ever. But I refuse your service. Begone."

"Only the true Earth King would know that I am unworthy to live," the High Marshal said, "and only a true gentleman would refuse to name my sin. My offer still stands. I give myself into your service."

"And I reject you still," Gaborn answered.

"If I cannot live in your service," Skalbairn said, "then still I will die in your service."

"Perhaps that is best," Gaborn said.

High Marshal Skalbairn stood and sheathed his sword. "You know of course that Raj Ahten is driving south, into the heart of your own Mystarria. You will have to engage him--and soon. Your enemies would like to see him defeat you."

"I know," Gaborn said.

"The Righteous Horde is moving south. I will fight beside them, though you hate me."

There was utter silence in the crowded room as the High Marshal turned and strode from Heredon.

Borenson marked the look upon Prince Celinor's face. The Prince only c.o.c.ked his head to the side, watching. the whole spectacle with a calculating gaze.

Borenson noted that young Celinor did not dare to offer his own sword in public.

CHAPTER 8.

THE GREEN WOMAN.

As Averan flew, she kept watching behind her, gazing in the distance toward the fortress and the beast master Brand for any sign that things might have changed. She expected to see the smoke of burning buildings or to hear the peal of doom.

But the fortress merely gleamed in the morning sun, the white stone of its towers sparkling as always, until it receded from her view, its few towers becoming a distant speck on the horizon. Then it was swallowed completely as the clouds began to rise from lowlands. Even if Averan had had the eyes of a far-seer, she'd have lost the castle in the mist.

She remained aloft for hours. The world flowed beneath the wings of her mount. Cool air beat upon her face, and the sun warmed her side and back. As the clouds continued to rise from the lowlands, some of them extended up into the air, became crystalline pillars, weird sculptures. Flying into them was always a mistake, Averan knew. They were filled with fragments of windblown ice, and the air currents around them could be dangerous.

Even to get close to them was to feel their cold bite.

Averan wished that she still had her leather riding gloves to keep her hands warm.

She hunched low to the neck of her mount, to feel the heat of Leatherneck's body and to listen to the subtle rhythms of his breathing so that she could learn when he began to tire.

Twice during the day, she let Leatherneck drop below the mists and rest for short times on the ground. He was an old graak, old and easily tired. She feared that if she rode him too hard, his heart would give out.

As they traveled, the mountains of Alcair receded from sight until they were lost in a haze. The mountains of Brace rose up from the clouds off to her left and spurred to a point ahead. Averan knew every peak by name. She was rapidly approaching Carris just beyond a saddleback ridge seventy miles ahead. She doubted that she'd reach the city by dark, and hoped only that the cloud cover was thin enough so that she could see the city's lights from above.

So it was that in the near dusk, Averan rode with stomach tight from hunger, her mouth dry from thirst: She had not stopped to eat or drink, not wanting to make her mount bear any more than he was able. She was lying against his neck, listening to the steady thump-ump, thump-ump, thump-ump; of his heart, wondering if she should let him rest again.

Thus she was distracted at the single most important moment of her life. For just at dusk, the green woman plummeted like a comet from a cloudless sky.

Averan heard a wordless shout--a piercing wail--and looked up.

The sky above was the perfect blue of a robin's egg.

And a green woman fell.

Averan spotted her two hundred yards off. The woman tumbled head over heels, naked as a newborn babe. She was tall, thin of build, her ribs showing plainly beneath her small b.r.e.a.s.t.s. The hair of her head and the dark V between her legs was the color of pine needles, while her skin was a more muted shade, almost flesh in tone.

Averan could make out few other details.

She glanced skyward, to see if the woman could have fallen from some vehicle. Flameweavers sometimes rode in hot-air balloons, and it was said that the Sky Lords traveled in ships of cloud, though Averan had never seen one.

Neither cloud nor balloon was above her, or anywhere near.

In that moment, Averan felt the cold wind numbing her hands, blowing through cracks in her robe and on her face. She could see clearly. Could hear the woman's cry.

Something in Averan broke.

She'd seen her mother fall from a chair and dash her head on the paving stones at the foot of a fireplace. She'd seen her five-year-old playmate Kylis tumble from the landing of the aerie, drop to the cliff base far below.

She could not idly watch another person fall to her death.

Without a thought of her mission to carry a message to Duke Paladane at Carris, she leaned back, clasped Leatherneck tightly with her legs, and cried, "Down! Fast!"

The graak folded his wings in close, shot after the green woman like a hawk diving for a mouse.

For a moment, the woman stared up at Averan, hands outstretched, pleading for aid. Her mouth was a round O of horror, fangs bared, her long green fingernails extended like claws.

Not human, Averan realized. This woman was not human. It did not matter. She seemed close to human, though it was hard to tell. In seconds she plummeted into the clouds, and was lost from sight.

Averan followed her into the mist. Drops of moisture beaded on her skin.

Leatherneck flapped his wings and slowed, refused to dive blindly into the fog. From below came the snapping sound of cracking wood, and the green woman's shriek was stilled.

When the great-reptile emerged beneath a low ceiling of cloud, Averan saw the green woman at once.

She'd dropped into an orchard, among a trio of crabapple trees. One tree had snapped under the impact; a slash of white where its uppermost branches had ripped away.

The graak glided over the orchard. Averan's mind seemed to go numb as she urged Leatherneck to the ground. The great reptile flapped his wings, and Averan leapt to the ground almost before the beast touched down.

In seconds she was at the green woman's side.

The woman lay slightly askew, her right hand over her head, her legs spread. She'd impacted so hard onto the moist ground that her body now rested in a mild depression.

Averan could see no overt sign of broken bones. Nothing poked through the green woman's flesh. Yet she saw blood, so dark green and oily it was almost black, smeared across the woman's left breast.

Averan had seldom seen a naked woman--had never seen one like this. The green woman was not merely handsome; she was beautiful, unearthly, like some fine Runelord's lady, gifted with so many endowments of glamour that a common woman could only look at such a creature and despair.

Yet even with the perfect features of her face, her flawless skin, the green woman was obviously not human. Her long fingers ended in claws that looked as sharp as fishhooks. Her mouth, faintly open, dribbled green blood and showed canines longer than those on a bear. Her ears were...somehow wrong. They were dainty and graceful, yet tilted forward a bit, like the ears of a doe.

The green woman was not breathing.

Averan put her head to the woman's chest, listened for a heartbeat. She heard it, beating softly, deeply, as if the green woman rested in slumber.

Averan felt the green woman's arms and legs, searching for wounds. She wiped away some green blood near the woman's neck, found what looked like a puncture wound from the woman's own nails. Wiping away the blood from the woman's lips, she checked in her mouth.

She'd bitten her tongue in the fall, and it was bleeding badly. Averan twisted the woman's head to the side, afraid that the blood flowing freely into her throat might choke her.

The green woman growled, low in her throat, like a dog disturbed by dreams of the hunt.

Averan suddenly leapt back, afraid for the first time that this woman might be some animal. Feral. Deadly.

A dog began baying.

Averan looked up.

She was at the edge of a farm. A cottage stood not far off, a hut made of fieldstones and covered with a roof of thatch. A fierce wolfhound barked by the edge of the rail fence, but dared not approach the graak. For its part, the graak merely studied the dog hungrily, as if it hoped the hound would lunge.

The green woman opened her eyes to slits, and grasped Averan's throat.

Averan fought to scream.

CHAPTER 9.

THE RESCUE.

Roland and Baron Poll had been riding hard all day, having traveled a pace that would kill a normal horse, when they heard the snarling and yelping of a hound, accompanied by a child's scream.

They had just rounded past a village near the base of the Brace Mountains and Roland's horse had slowed, winded. The sky was overcast, and with the hills so close, the night's shadows were already beginning to thicken.

When Roland heard the shriek, he was nearing a small farm with an orchard of woodpear and crabapple trees behind it.

A quick glance showed him a graak in the orchard, lunging and snapping at a huge wolfhound, while under the shade of a tree, a girl was shrieking in terror.

"By the Powers, it's a wild graak!" Baron Poll shouted, spurring his charger. Wild graaks often attacked peasants' animals out here, so close to the mountains. Yet it was rarer for them to eat humans.

Roland's heart raced.

Baron Poll reached behind him, drew his horseman's axe, and spurred his mount past the cottage, frightening some nervous ducklings that milled about by the front door. Then his horse jumped the rail fence. The hound, emboldened by Baron Poll's presence, leapt after him and charged toward the graak.

Roland's horse suddenly leapt over the fence, and Roland realized that he too had charged the graak without thought. He reached into his tunic for his half-sword, though it would do little good against such a large lizard.

The whole world seemed to narrow to that moment. Roland could hear the child shrieking farther back in the orchard, could see the great beast rise up and spread its wings. Baron Poll's charger reared back and pawed the air.

It was an old lizard, by the look of it, huge. Teeth like daggers, its golden eyes blazing.

The hound leapt in at it, and the graak snapped down, catching the hound in its long jaws. It gave the dog a vicious shake, snapping its bones.

At that moment, while the lizard was distracted, Baron Poll raised the axe in both hands and hurled with all his might, catching the reptile cleanly between the eyes.

"Hah, take that, foul creature!" the Baron shouted as if in parody of some great hero.

The graak jerked back its head, as if stricken by surprise. Blood welled from the horrible blow that Baron Poll had dealt. The graak batted its wings once, then pitched to the side and collapsed.

Roland sat in his saddle for half a second, feeling exuberantly victorious, stupidly clutching his own sword.

Still, the child screamed.

As the body of the graak settled to the ground, Roland saw the child better, for she'd been momentarily hidden behind its wings--a girl of seven or eight years kneeling beside the trees. The girl had half turned toward him. Piercing green eyes and wavy hair, the same red as Roland's.

She wore a hooded cloak of midnight-blue with the king's coat of arms on it--the image, of the green man, a face circled by oak leaves. Above it a graak was sewn in red.

A skyrider. The blood drained from Roland's face. We've killed a mount for the King's messenger, he realized. All the gold he had would never repay the new King.

The child screamed again, and Roland realized something else. The crabapple tree that the child sat beneath was broken, as if struck by a bolt of lightning. And in the tall brown gra.s.s beneath the tree was something green.

One of its claws was hooked in the skyrider's cloak.

The child had not been attacked by a graak at all. Something else had her in its grip.

"h.e.l.llp!" the child wailed.

Roland rushed forward a few paces for a better look, suddenly cautious, until he had a full view of the green woman lying there in a pool of blood of the deepest green.

He had never seen anything like this monster. The green woman was beautiful and strange beyond anything that Roland had imagined. She held the child's robe firmly in her claws, merely held it, staring at the sigil emblazoned on the girl's chest. Mesmerized, she moved the girl this way and that, gazing at the colored threads that made up the image of the green man.

Roland felt confused. "Get away from that thing, child," he whispered. "Stop screaming, and let the beast have your robe."

The girl turned to him, her face an ashen white. She quit screaming but began to whimper as she shrugged out of, the robe, tried to disentangle herself.