In his new, tired voice, Ragnarson replied, "I loathe it. But would you rather be dead?"

Preshka observed, "We're not leaving any of our old people. Lif. Haas. Chotty..." He did the roll of old accomplices."Nevertheless," Reskird protested, "there's our reputation..."

"Shut up!"

A figure plunged through the drifts in the court, shouted from the foot of the wall, "Captain, they're coming over the rear wall!"

Stunned, Ragnarson could ask only, "Who?"

"Bin Yousif's men, I think."

"How many?"

"Only a few so far, but more all the time."

"Right. Thank you. Rolf, send everybody back there. That'll distract them till we're out. Hurry."

Preshka departed.

"Elana, what about the costumes?"

"I hid them in the gatehouse."

"Good. Where the h.e.l.l are Mocker and Nepanthe?"

"This must be them." Two dark shapes staggered from the direction of the Bell Tower. From beyond them came muted sounds of combat.

"May the G.o.ds Above, or the G.o.ds Below, or any Powers here present, cast down, disperse, and render unto destruction the agents of destruction, the Storm Kings of Ravenkrak," Nepanthe said on arriving. "I prayed that at the beginning. Now it's being answered, and I wish I could take it back."

"All right, down to the gatehouse," Ragnarson ordered. Moments later, Kildragon held the guard at sword point while Elana recovered white robes sewn from bedsheets. Preshka returned and claimed his as Ragnarson ordered the gate opened.

A scream, above the growing clamor of battle (from the sound of it, the defense had the upper hand), echoed through the courtyard. Luxos burst from the door to the Lower Armories. "Move out!"

Ragnarson growled. Though he had little doubt of the outcome of a duel with Luxos, having practiced with the man, he paused to engage while the others won free.

Ragnarson had learned his fencing in a less than chivalrous school. For him survival meant a lot more than fair play and an honorable death. As Luxos lunged, Bra-gi swept a hand through the icicles hanging from the tunnel-like gate, hurling them into his a.s.sailant's face. He followed up with a groin kick that propelled Luxos back amidst his brothers. Bragi fled only two steps behind his companions.

They took no more than a dozen steps. Then the slope came alive around them. Snowdrifts rose and became white-clad figures rushing the open gate. Ragnarson was. .h.i.t, buffeted, knocked down, and trampled as bin Yousif's men swept past.He fell cursing himself for believing that Haroun would go away without one last, cunning attack. He should have foreseen this...The first wave pa.s.sed, ignoring his people. But the attackers cursing behind the falling snow, down the mountain, wouldn't be preoccupied with seizing a gate. Bragi knelt. He looked around, saw no one. His shout, drowned by the metallic racket behind him, brought no response.

Wanting no attention, he kept his mouth shut from then on.

He stood, arranged his camouflage about him, continued down the mountain. Hopefully, the others would reach the place where they had agreed to meet if separated.

With a gasp of relief, Ragnarson dropped his end of the litter before Haroun's tent. His arms and shoulders ached. Beside him, wary, shivering spearmen relaxed only slightly as he dropped to his hams.

He had found Kildragon and Haaken in the lee of a snow-covered earthwork a quarter-mile below the gate. Kildragon had been trying to drag his friend down the mountain unaided, but had not been able to go further. The others had vanished, scattered by the charge.... Then Haroun's troops had appeared and, apparently under special orders, had brought them here.

The flap of the tent whipped back. Lean, brown, clad in black, bin Yousif looked like a caricature of Death. "Send them in," he ordered.

Grunting, frowning down the length of spearshafts, Ragnarson lifted his end of the litter. A moment later the tent flap closed behind him. Warmth from a dozen braziers a.s.sailed him.

"He all right?"

Bin Yousif bent over Blackfang. Haaken mumbled, "Ready to take my turn carrying Reskird."

A smile, half feral, flashed across bin Yousif's face. "Fine." Turning, "Bragi, you're lucky you've got a good-looking, fast-talking wife. And that my men caught her first. I might not have given you a chance to talk."

Ragnarson had just noticed Elana crouched in a far corner, being intimate with a brazier. She offered a weary smile.

Bin Yousif continued, "Can't blame you for holding off. My problem is that I don't have a conscience.

Well, it came out all right. No hard feelings. The old man's going to pay us off in Itaskia. Ah. Must be some more."

Ragnarson stepped to the flap with Haroun. Another prisoner, Rolf, had indeed arrived-but Bragi's attention wasn't caught by his lieutenant. Beyond and above Preshka, through a slackening snowfall, vermillion flared and fluttered.

"Ravenkrak's burning," Haroun said. "Come in Rolf."

Ragnarson smote palm with fist. He felt worse each time he betrayed an employer. He was evil, a maggot. A man's oath had meant something once-but he had been a pup then, a fool in the fool's paradise of Trolledyngja.

"If you have to stare, go outside," bin Yousif growled. "Don't leave the flap open."Ragnarson let the flap fall, masking the outcome of his treason.

From the brazier he had surrounded, Preshka asked "How'd you know?"

Bin Yousif frowned questioningly, then smiled. "You mean that you'd break out today? I didn't, for sure.

But it seemed like a good bet. We spotted Luxos a couple days ago. I thought he might know enough to start you running. So I let him get through."

"What now?" Preshka asked.

"We're supposed to wait at the Red Hart in Itaskia. The old man will pay us off there."

"I don't like it."

"It's the best I could get. He doesn't trust us anymore. Why should he? Blackfang head-bashed him.

Bragi stalled forever. And I wouldn't attack."

Someone shouted outside. Haroun went to the flap. "Ah, all here now. Bring him in." Two soldiers, dragging an unconscious and gaudily bandaged Mocker, entered. "Put him on the bed. What happened?"

"Wouldn't surrender," one said. "Wanted to find somebody. His wife, he said."

"Wife? Mocker? Bragi, what's this blather?"

"It's true. Believe it or not. He's married. To Nepanthe. Since last night."

"Oh." A vacant sound, that. Bin Yousif plopped onto a stool, frowned. "That's not good. What's wrong with him? He was supposed to suborn her, that's all. Break up the family. Bad. Bad."

"Why?" Elana asked. "Is there a law says he can't get married?"

"There are a million women... Why'd he pick one the old man wants?"

"Don't you care what she wants?"

"No. h.e.l.l no! I want to get paid. She's merchandise." He smote his forehead theatrically. "Merchandise.

Why? Why not somebody else? And why me? Why am I soft-hearted about that fathead? Should've cut his throat when he stole my purse. Nothing but trouble since. I've got the fool's weakness. Friendship."

After a lot of like natter, he ordered Nepanthe found and brought to him. While waiting, he prepared for a hasty departure, to escape Varthlokkur's shadow.

Nepanthe couldn't be found. Haroun and his allies searched three days. During that time they accounted for almost everyone, great and small, involved in the events at Ravenkrak. That fortress was now a smoke-stained ruin. Less than a score were missing, presumably buried in the snow-shrouded rubble.

Among the missing, several Storm Kings were prominent.

Then Mocker, following the path he thought Nepanthe had taken after they had become disoriented and separated near the castle gate, happened on a curiosity. It was an area where snow had melted and refrozen. Others had seen it and thought it of no significance, and Mocker likewise-except that Haroun was with him and he had enough background in sorcery to recognize its tell-tales."A spell of concealment was worked here," he said, surprising his companion. "Good deal of heat involved in twisting light around."

"Witchery? What?..."

"I told you the old man wanted Nepanthe. Looks like he found her here, hid her with a spell, took her off down that way when the chance came." He pointed along a track of lesser melting.

"We follow, eh? Catch him quick. Old mans not walk so fast..."

"Fast enough." Knowing it vain, Haroun sent patrols in pursuit. They found neither wizard nor woman.

Meanwhile, he disbanded his army, ruining his war chest in the process, and released his prisoners. He was desolate when the last trooper was paid off. Not a farthing remained as profit-because he had had to pay Bragi's men too.

The old man had to show in Itaskia.

Despite Mocker's protests, Haroun led his allies southwards in hopes of, if nothing else, salvaging their pay.

THIRTEEN: In His Shadow She Shall Live

Gloom hung like heavy cobwebs beneath the rafters of the room where Varthlokkur and the Old Man sat. Chill dominated the air. Dust scented it dryly. All colors were shades of gray. The only light came from the far-seeing mirror. The scene it examined lay deep in another place of shadow. They were watching sixteen-year-old Nepanthe at her daily business. The mirror presented golden voyeuristic opportunities, but both men meticulously refused to accept them. Nepanthe's routine was a dull one of meals, minor ch.o.r.es, studies, and hours spent over embroideries. When she needed solitude, she withdrew to the castle library and read. Books remained beyond the scope of any brother except Luxos.

She learned a lot, and much of it was nonsense.

Varthlokkur and the Old Man watched for hours, the latter patently bored but enduring because something was bothering his friend. Varthlokkur finally articulated it. "Do you think it's time I went to see her?"

"Yes. You may have waited too long already. There's nothing to stop her from finding another lover."

"Not casually. The old dragon, her stepmother, seems determined to turn her into a career virgin." He rose, stalked across the chamber. Over his shoulder, he continued, "She's terrified of men. The woman's been that successful. Watch her when she's around male servants. Still, Nature can't be thwarted forever." He chuckled without feeling.

The Old Man swiveled, watched the wizard pursue some arcane handiwork. Tugging his beard, he asked, "What're you doing?"

"Picking out some gifts to impress Verloya. Her father."

"You're going to go right away?"

"As soon as I can. I'm nervous already, and it's only a couple seconds since I decided to do it.""Should I ready a transfer spell?"

Varthlokkur grew ghastly pale. "No!" To cover his over-response, he added, "I want to look at the world firsthand. Anyway, the whole transfer business disturbs me. As long ago as Shinsan, when I was helping one of my teachers with transfer research, I noticed some odd perturbations in the transfer stream. I think something lives in there. And it might be something we shouldn't bother. It's a tact that people have transferred and simply vanished forever."

The Old Man had never heard Varthlokkur say a word about what he had done in Shinsan. He wanted to respect the wizard's privacy, yet suffered from curiosity. "You've never said much about Shinsan..."

"The less said, the better."

"What's it like there? I've never been there, at least since Tuan Hua established the Dread Empire. And the mirror can't see in."

"There's a barrier against far-seeing. Otherwise, it's a country like most. It has the regular natural furniture: hills, rivers, forests. Leaves are green there. The sky is blue. No matter what you hear, your senses won't see any difference from the rest of the world. Only with your soul can you sense the all-pervading evil.... Really, the less you know, the happier you'll be."

Nervously, finding Varthlokkur this expansive, the Old Man hazarded the question that had been bothering him since the beginning. "What did they cost, the skills you used against the Empire?"

Crimson, visible even in that dark chamber, crept into Varthlokkur's neck. His face became grim. The Old Man feared the only result of his prying would be an angry outburst. He directed the conversation back toward safe waters. "You're going the way you are?"

"What's wrong with me?" A tiger with a broken tooth could have snarled no more fiercely.

"I kind of expected you'd make yourself young again, the way you did with Marya."

"And what would Marya think? No. And Nepanthe would be terrified. No, old's best for everyone." The red began draining from his face. "When I've gone, don't tell Marya where. No need to hurt her. She's been a good wife. I may not be able to give her love, or another son, but I can save her pain." Always after his anger fell and his conscience returned, he compensated with concern- though sometimes, as with Ilkazar and the piper (the new piper led the most pampered life of anyone in Fangdred), the concern came too late to prevent a terrible wrong.

"I'll tell her something."

Varthlokkur's journey lasted more than a month. He had to cross some of the most primeval mountains, the Dragon's Teeth and, after Shara and the plains of East Heatherland, the Kratchnodians. The weather was often miserable, with fogs, rains, snows, and winds that were never warm. The dangers of the forest seemed to have a special affinity for him, and bandits more than once dogged his trail. Farmers sometimes met him, a stranger, with weapons bare. The world had gone ragged since his youth. Anarchy had reigned after the fall of the stabilizing Empire of Ilkazar, but then local stability had set in-till the onset of the growing chaos of the present. Mighty forces were in contention, and complete chaos seemeddestined to become the ruling order. He despaired, knowing the future only promised worse.

One day, wearily, he pa.s.sed the end of a long, narrow defile in gray rock and saw Ravenkrak for the first time. As he emerged, the howling mountain gale ripped the clouds from a peak ahead. The mirror did the stronghold no justice. There were twelve tall towers, and decaying walls patched with silver stains of ice.

Cold, lonely, and dark it was, like an anciently weathered skull. He also pictured it as a battered pewter crown for the rugged Candareen. He shivered with the loneliness the place inspired. What great madness had inspired the Imperial engineers to build a fortress here?

A man pa.s.sed the open gate as Varthlokkur approached. He stopped, stared, hurriedly disappeared. He returned before the wizard arrived. "The Master awaits in the Great Hall," he said, and, "Quiet, Demon,"

to the falcon on his shoulder. "I'll lead the way."

Varthlokkur followed the gateman through starkly empty corridors. Experienced, the fortress was even more forlorn than Fangdred. There were people in Fangdred now, creating illusions of hominess.

Ravenkrak lacked the illusions.

The Great Hall proved vast, empty, awaiting events that would fill it. Just a corner of an end was in use.

There, before a huge, roaring fireplace, sat Verloya, the Master of Ravenkrak. His children were with him. All seven seemed variations on a common theme. Thin or heavy, short or tall, all were distorted reflections of their father.

"Sit down. Make yourself comfortable," said Verloya. "I imagine it's been a rough trip, there to here." His eyebrows rose questioningly. Varthlokkur ignored the hint. Verloya continued, "I could hardly believe it when Birdman told me there was a stranger on the mountain. Ah!" A servant delivered mulled wine.

Despite his determination to be a gentleman, Varthlokkur almost s.n.a.t.c.hed his.