Then she slugged him in the chest. His ribs shattered, ripping into his lungs and heart. Raj Ahten flew backward head over feet a dozen yards, lay gasping for a moment, staring up at the evening sky.

He had not noticed until now that the clouds had begun to scatter, that brilliant white stars pierced the heavens. With his thousands of endowments of sight, he could see more stars than a common man could, infinitely more stars--swirling ma.s.ses of light, dazzling orbs--all very pretty.

He lay choking on his own blood, heart beating erratically. Every fiber of his chest seemed to burn, as if each individual muscle were demolished. Sweat broke upon his brow.

They've killed me, he thought. They've killed me.

Blood pounded in his ears, and the green woman rushed to him, grabbed his throat, and prepared to yank nut his windpipe.

"Hold!" the wizard Binnesman shouted.

The green woman merely held him. Her dark-green tongue darted out, slowly played over her upper lip. In her eyes, he could see an endless longing. "Blood?" she pleaded.

Binnesman rode his mount up close to Raj Ahten, and several knights surrounded him, bows drawn. Fortunately; the wizard had dropped his leaf of monkshood. The wizard asked Gaborn in mock sincerity, "What say you, milord? Shall we do him now?"

Raj Ahten was healing. The shattered bones in his chest were knitting askew; his right arm throbbed from fingertip to shoulder. He began healing, and in a few minutes he felt sure that he'd be able to fight. He needed to stall them.

Yet he healed slowly. More slowly than he'd have thought possible. Even with thousands of endowments of stamina, he could not heal.

He lay at their mercy while they ringed him like hounds.

Myrrima looked over at Gaborn, studied the Earth King. She could see the righteous anger flaring in his eye, could see how livid he was. His muscles were taut, hard. She'd been astonished that he'd asked the Wolf Lord's forgiveness, sought an alliance even now.

But that was past. Gaborn fumed, and she thought that Gaborn would kill him himself, though she yearned for the honor.

Myrrima had not lied a few hours' past, when she'd told Iome that the presence of the Earth King made her want to fight something. Gaborn was someone whom she would willingly die for.

No man on the face of the earth deserved an execution more than did Raj Ahten. She felt fortunate to have met Gaborn here, this fine evening, so that she would be present to see the demise of the Wolf Lord.

Yet with pain and regret and a tone of finality, Gaborn answered Binnesman. "No. Leave him."

"Milord!" Prince Celinor shouted in outrage, as did Erin Connal and a dozen other lords, though Celinor's voice rose above the rest. "If you will not kill him, give me the honor!"

"Or me!" other men shouted.

Iome tried to remain calm. "My love, you make a mistake here," she told Gaborn through clenched teeth. "Let them have him."

Rage burned in Myrrima's veins. She'd seen Gaborn's father alive at Longmot five hours before the castle fell, and he'd refused her entry to the fortress, knowing that in doing so he probably saved her life. She'd seen him cold dead, along with thousands of other warriors, later that night.

She recalled Hobie Hollowell and Wyeth Able and a dozen other boys from Bannisferre who had died in that battle, while closer to home the farmers all around her house had been decapitated by Raj Ahten's scouts as his army sought to slip unnoticed through the Dunnwood. Even her neighbor, ninety-three-year-old Annie Coyle who couldn't have hobbled to town to save her life, had been butchered.

Gaborn's own wife had been robbed of her glamour, had watched her mother die at Raj Ahten's hand. She'd been present when her own father was a.s.sa.s.sinated because of Raj Ahten's deeds, and her armies had been decimated.

Yet Gaborn had the audacity to forbear.

And as Myrrima gazed around at the hard faces of the knights in that company, she knew that not a man among them had lived a life untouched by Raj Ahten's evil. All of them had lost their kings and queens to his a.s.sa.s.sins, seen friends or brothers or parents die at his hand.

To think that Raj Ahten should live another minute seemed unbearable. The blood sang in her veins, demanding vengeance.

"As you love me," Gaborn said to his lords, "as you love your very lives, I beg each of you to spare him. The Earth bids me to let him live."

In outrage Myrrima studied Gaborn's eyes. Every muscle in her was tense. She reached into her quiver and drew another arrow, nocked it. The first shaft she'd fired was still lodged in Rah Ahten's knee, though she'd hoped to hit the b.a.s.t.a.r.d in the chest.

"This is unconscionable!" Sir Hoswell shouted. "To let him live is--"

Other men roared agreement.

But Gaborn merely raised his hand, asking for silence.

Gaborn said solemnly, "I Chose Raj Ahten in desperation, and sought afterward to use my powers to slay him. For my sin, the Earth has withdrawn. My powers have diminished, and it may be that I cannot make amends.

"I only know that for the sake of the world, I must lay my wrath aside. No man here wants to see him dead more than do I..."

Gaborn trembled with impotent rage. He groaned in despair. He put the spurs to his charger and fled south toward Carris as if he no longer trusted himself to remain and let Raj Ahten live.

He raced half a mile ahead, and stopped at the brow of the hill, on the blasted earth, looking back. "Come!" Gaborn cried: "Get away from there!"

Aspen leaves whispered behind Myrrima in the evening wind; the gra.s.s rustled. She gritted her teeth and waited.

Binnesman climbed down from his own mount, touched the green woman's shoulder. "Come," he whispered into her ear. "Leave him for now."

The wylde backed away, though no one else did. The knights held steady on their horses in the gloom, weapons bristling. Myrrima could hear the hard breath of their anger, smell their sweat.

Raj Ahten sat up, pulled the arrow from his knee. The wylde had torn his surcoat and so decimated his kingly scale mail that the coat now looked a ragged mess, ripped and shredded in the front.

The Wolf Lord of Indhopal stared at the lords, regal and imperious even now. He wheezed as he breathed, as if something inside him were torn. "Were I the Earth King," he said softly, "I would not be such a pathetic little man."

"Of course not my cousin," Iome said, "for you so need to show yourself to be every man's superior, you would of necessity be both much larger, and far more pathetic than he.

Iome turned from the odious Raj Ahten and spoke to the lords. "Come. Let us go." She turned and followed Gaborn. Other lords began to file off after her, slowly at first, but then faster, for they feared to be alone with Raj Ahten.

Myrrima stayed, determined to be the last to leave, to show no fear. Sir Hoswell stayed at her back, while Binnesman kept his wylde at his side.

When the others had all fled, Myrrima held Raj Ahten with her glare. Still seated on the ground, he stared up at her as if amused.

"I'll thank you for the return of my arrow," Myrrima said, nodding toward the shaft in Raj Ahten's hand. She wanted him to know that it was her shaft that had scored on him, for all the good it had done.

Raj Ahten climbed to his feet, presented the arrow and answered in a seductive tone. "Anything for a beautiful woman."

She took the arrow and surrept.i.tiously sniffed at him, to catch his scent, so that if she ever needed to track him, she'd be able to do so.

Raj Ahten said, "I have but three words for you, young woman: Wolf...Lord...b.i.t.c.h."

Raj Ahten turned southwest, headed off through the blasted lands.

Myrrima left the blood on her shaft and dropped it back into her quiver. She turned her horse and followed her King, though leaving Raj Ahten alive was the hardest thing she'd ever done.

She did not suspect how much she'd come to regret it.

CHAPTER 67.

IN THE BLASTED LANDS.

Averan stayed with Borenson after the battle. Some healers from Carris came and looked at him, learned the nature of his wounds, and then left him in search of others who were closer to death.

She could only vaguely guess what was wrong with the big knight. Though the healers said he would not die of his wound, one woman offered nightshade anyway.

Borenson only growled angrily and lay on the ground, still curled up like a babe.

Averan found herself a cloak from a dead man to keep her warm. She looked for the green woman, but Spring had apparently run off during the battle--or gotten herself killed. Averan didn't know which, and she found herself worrying, constantly listening for the sound of feet squishing through the mud.

By an hour after nightfall she realized she was hungry, so she took Borenson's knife for protection and began wandering through the maze of dead reavers toward Carris, searching for the right piece of meat.

Up in Carris, buildings were still afire, and she managed to pick her way among the dead reavers by this faint light.

The causeway was well guarded by thousands of men: warriors of Carris, Invincibles, and footmen from Indhopal. They'd cleared most of the reavers' corpses from the causeway, shoving them into the lake. The men seemed terrified that the reavers might return under the cover of darkness. They sat beside campfires and swapped tales, sometimes laughing apprehensively. Theirs was still an uneasy peace, but Averan could never have imagined that they would have formed a truce at all.

But she heard little laughter in the camp. Instead, the men spread nasty rumors that the Earth King had died, or had forsaken them all. Others related nervously how they had discovered in the midst of battle that their leader had fallen silent.

Averan tried to conjure up a vision of the Earth King, but when she closed her eyes, she could not see him.

He was dead, she decided.

At the head of the causeway, the warriors had just dragged up part of a huge reaver mage all wet and blackened. Flaming runes still burned all around its head, and As mouth had been propped open with a fence post so that one could see how wide its jaws were.

"What's this?" Averan asked the men camped nearby.

"The fell mage, or what's left of her," one man replied. "We fished it from the lake. Be careful now, she's still twitching, and she might bite you!" The men all laughed at their stupid joke. Even a little girl of nine could see that the corpse of the fell mage wasn't twitching.

She was by far the largest reaver killed today, ancient and venerable in her way.

Averan stared at the mage in amazement. She climbed into the mage's mouth, and outside the men hooted and cheered. "There's a brave one," one of them said.

Averan walked to the far back of the reaver's mouth, until she found the soft spot in the mage's upper palate. She plunged her knife up into it and sliced quickly, afraid that someone would stop her.

She was hungry, and this was the only food that would satisfy.

When the blood gushed out, she reached her arm up as high as she could and grasped some of the reaver's brains. The fell mage was so huge that her brain was still hot and steamy.

For a long time Averan gorged, then she lay down in a groggy stupor on the reaver's palate as strange dreams a.s.sailed her, carrying her through unimagined realms.

From the fell mage, Averan began to learn much about the One True Master's magic. What Averan learned terrified her to the core of her soul.

She desperately wanted to tell someone, especially the Earth King. But when she closed her eyes and tried to visualize him, she still could not see him.

"Hey, little girl, what are you doing in there?" some fellow asked. Averan looked up. She still had some b.l.o.o.d.y meat in her hand, and she wiped it on the reaver's tongue.

A man stood outside the reaver's mouth, bearing a torch. He was not a knight, just some common fellow. "Here now, you can't eat that. In me get you some real food!"

The look of wide-eyed horror in the man's eyes let her know that she should not touch him. He thought she was mad, and if she got close enough, he'd try to put her in a cage.

Averan grabbed her knife in both hands and held it up for him to see. "Back!" she shouted.

"Here now," the fellow answered, backing away cautiously. "I won't hurt you. I only want to help."

Averan got up and darted past, dodged away from him and raced down the causeway between the campfires.

When she reached the end of the causeway, she turned for a moment and shouted to the frightened warriors camping there. "The reavers won't return--not here, not tonight! Don't you see, they won this battle! They've destroyed all of the blood metal in the ground, they have no reason to come back here."

Everyone looked at her as if she were crazed. "I mean it!" she said. "The One True Master is preparing the Seals of Desolation. If you don't stop him, no place will be safe!"

But of course everyone just stared at her as if she were mad. No one would listen to a crazy girl. She turned and fled.

"Milady," Myrrima begged Iome. "I would like to go on into Carris. There will be other wounded to attend." She realized belatedly that she used the words "other wounded" because she saw the wounds so deeply in Gaborn.

"Of course," Iome said, releasing her from service: The sixty warriors had gathered in a circle not far from where they'd fought Raj Ahten.

Gaborn looked up in the starlight "Your husband is about a third of a mile northwest of the castle," he said. "He is alive, but has not moved in a long time. I regret that I cannot come with you. I need...I need to speak to the Earth, and the soil here is dead and powerless." He glanced toward the north, as if he would ride that way.

Gaborn did not say more. His tone warned her that Borenson would be wounded, that she needed to steel herself for what she might find. She could not imagine her husband, one of the most powerful warriors in Mystarria, lying wounded, near death. She imagined that all his bones were shattered, or that his neck was broken.

"Please go with her," Iome begged the lords. "There will be many wounded. We must do what we can."

"I will accompany you north," Erin Connal said to Iome.. "I've business in my own lands to attend."

Myrrima and the rest of them turned and rode south, leaving Gaborn, Iome, Binnesman, the wylde, Jureem, Erin, and Celinor alone. The lords rode in silence for several minutes, until they were far out of earshot, and at last one lord of Orwynne asked, "What do we do now?"

In order to fill the uncomfortable silence that followed, Myrrima said, "We'll do what we have to. We fight on."

"But what of the 'dark times to come' that Gaborn spoke of? He said he Chose us to save us through the dark times to come."

"The times grow darker still," Sir Hoswell answered "If we stay close to the Earth King, he can still warn us of danger," one man said. His voice was full of fear.

Myrrima tried to imagine her future, to see herself at Gaborn's side, a wolf lord with a few hundred other men and women, hiding in the woods, struggling to survive the incursions of the reavers.

But as she rode through the blasted lands, the smell of decay rising from the dust all around her, she realized that there would be no woods to hide in.

Rocks, then. We will hide under rocks, she consoled herself.

We will do as we must, Myrrima told herself silently.

She gritted her teeth, drew reins on her mount, and since she was in the lead, the lords behind all did the same, looking at her expectantly.