Alouzon suppressed a sudden wave of nausea. "I. . . I haven't the faintest idea," she lied.

Manda knew she lied. The glance she gave the Dragonmaster was level, accepting, but surprised.

The M-60 tracked back across the ground, raking the edge of the depression. In a lull, Alouzon risked a peek at the Grayface position, but she saw muzzle flashes the moment her head cleared the lip. She dropped flat again. The waning moon glared down, and she cursed its light, for it made them a perfect target.

But the moonlight cut off suddenly, and Alouzon looked up to find that a whirling cloud of darkness had blanketed the sky above the area. Even the stars had vanished. Kyria's voice, faint but clear, called out: "Everyone move!"

As one, Alouzon, Manda, and Wykla rolled out of the depression and, swinging well out to either side, headed for the Grayfaces.

Mere yards now. Alouzon saw a muffled flash that was directed upward and guessed that a flare was about to burst. Off to her left, grenades exploded in the ditch, and she hoped that Marrge't and Karthin had gotten out in time. To her right, another M-60 opened fire, doubtless in response to an approach on the part of Santhe and his men.

The flare burst in a shower of magnesium light just as Alouzon reached the gun emplacement. Bushes, trees, grass: all shone as though graven in silver.

Gas-masked figures turned toward her, but she squeezed the trigger of the M-16, and it bucked lightly in her hands as she emptied the ammunition clip into the men before her. The high-velocity bullets were designed to tumble upon impact: clothing and flesh shredded as one, blood flowed black in the blue white light, bits of bone scattered palely across the gleaming grass.

Manda and Wykla, their swords silver and lethal, fell on those who scrambled away from the volley of death, and the fight was over in seconds.

For a moment they rested, panting, listening to the slavering hounds on the far side of the bank. Alouzon crawled up to the hedge, peered through carefully, and was nearly sick at the sight of the scattered and gnawed lirnbs and bodies. The woman's cry still rang in her ears: O Goddess, save me!

The flare spent itself, and darkness returned. Scattered fire erupted from the north, and grenades pocked the night with scarlet concussions. Kyria's veil was holding, but unless she was willing to risk slipping into her alternate personality, she was as fully occupied with the moonlight as Helwych was with the mortar rounds that continued to arc southward with irritating regularity.

"We're going to have to free up one of the sorcerers," said Alouzon. "If Kyria drops that cloud, we lose our cover. It looks like Helwych's the best bet."

Manda examined as much of the scene as was revealed by the intermittent bursts of light. "I had no idea that Helwych commanded such potencies."

"Neither did I."

The maid swung back to Alouzon. "To my knowledge-to anyone's knowledge-he did not when we left Benardis. Where did he learn these things?"

Alouzon shook her head as she changed ammunition clips, recalling again the playful hound. "You got me.

He's taking care of the mortars, and he can take care of the hounds. For now, that's all I care about."

"As you will, Dragonmaster."

"Let's go. South. When we hit the emplacement, keep moving and stay close to them: don't give them a chance to use their guns."

They crept along the edge of the embankment. The grass cushioned their footfalls, but as they crept to within yards of the Grayface position, Alouzon heard the scrape of an M-60 bipod as the weapon was shifted toward them.

She leaped, kicking the barrel of the machine gun to the side, sending the first spray of bullets into the ground. Swung with the strength of a Dragonmaster, the butt of her M-16 found the gunner's temple, and he rolled to the side, his skull shattered.

Alouzon looked up. In the faint spill of light, ten or twelve Grayfaces confronted her, their features indistinguishable behind the gray plastic and goggle lenses of their gas masks. One was barking orders, his voice flat, muffled, almost detached, and weapons were being trained on her.

She leveled her rifle, but the mechanism had jammed. She threw it at one of the men and dived into another. The bullets intended for her went by harmlessly, but she saw the gleam of bayonets.

Rising, she drew her sword, knocked the first blade aside, and shoved the man back. Wykla was just entering the fight, and her blade dropped him a moment before she drove in on two others. Alouzon was already dealing with several more.

Alouzon let her sword have its way with her, hewing through the flesh and blood about her with broad strokes, pivoting and ducking at the weapon's bidding so as to avoid the thrust of a bayonet or the swing of a rifle butt. But only two of her opponents lay dead on the ground when she looked up and saw that Wykla had fallen.

The girl's head was bleeding, and her sword lay several feet from her limp hand. Manda had been backed away from her lover, and was helpless to do anything about the Grayface that stood over the girl, his bayonet lifted for the thrust.

Alouzon lunged, but she was knocked back. She tripped over the inert M-60 and fell full length on the ground, her head cracking against the canteen of a corpse. The scene blurred for a moment, and when her vision cleared, she saw a Grayface standing above her, pistol in hand. It was a clear shot, at close range, at an unmoving target.

"Eat death, cunt," he said, but his vacant tone was curiously at odds with his words.

But a woman as slender as Wykla had appeared behind the Grayface with the bayonet, and a sword hissed. The Grayface dropped, lifeless, and Marrget threw herself on the soldier who was about to shoot Alouzon as Karthin leaped into the battle to settle the last of those who besieged Manda.

On the far side of the bank, the cries of the hound pack redoubled. Their appetites whetted, the dogs were looking for more flesh, and they were beginning to snuffle and whine.

Manda and Marrget were already tending to Wykla. Alouzon stumbled to the edge of the emplacement and shouted across the field. "Helwych!"

No answer. Cowardice? Mortar round?

The hounds surged about the bases of the manor houses, sniffing and howling. But then, as though their attention had been drawn by the lack of gunfire from the south emplacement, they wheeled as one. In a moment, a wave of glowing beasts was heading straight for Alouzon and her companions.

Alouzon had a sudden memory of Manda's face dissolving beneath a rain of corrosive phosphor: Kyria had never enchanted the weapons of the expedition. "Helwych!"

Still no answer. And Kyria was still busy with the darkness, providing cover for Santhe and his men.

As the hounds approached, Alouzon bent, seized the M-60, hitched the heavy weapon under her arm and, staggering, climbed the bank, the ammunition belt trailing behind. Grenades detonated to the north, but the first wave of the beasts was almost upon her, eyes flickering lambently, teeth gleaming.

She pressed the trigger. The kick nearly threw her back down the slope, but Karthin braced her with his large frame. As she gained control of the weapon, the line of tracers dropped into the ravening hounds and tracked back and forth across the pack.

As she had hoped, the impossible beasts were cut to pieces by the equally impossible machine gun. Several simply disintegrated, puddling the grass with phosphor and flesh. Others fragmented messily, severed legs spasming beside headless torsos, disembodied jaws snapping even in death, spines twisting and writhing like worms.

The last of the ammunition belt fed through the breech. The gun fell silent. The darkness had lifted, the dogs were gone, and the sounds of battle to the north had died away; but in the silence that was broken only by Wykla's pain-racked gasps and the faint cries of the Vayllens that were still alive within the houses, Alouzon heard the roar of jet engines.

Airstrike.

Her legs felt as though they must, at any moment, collapse beneath her, and her arms were numb with the vibrations of the M-60. She forced herself to turn around and found her voice. "We've got to get out of here. How is Wykla?"

Manda looked up. "Alive, Dragonmaster," she said. "Thanks to Marrget." She nodded to the captain, and a look went between them that came nowhere near reconciliation, but it was a beginning. "More than that we cannot say."

Alouzon tossed the gun away. "We'll get Dindrane or Kyria to fix her up. For now, you'll have to carry her. This place is going to be an inferno in another minute."

The jets were coming closer. Together, carrying Wykla between them, Manda and Marrget headed for the city. Alouzon and Karthin ran for the manor houses, picking their way through a mucous swamp of phosphor, leaping over the heaped and mutilated bodies of the dogs until they stood at the door of the nearest house.

Vayllen construction was solid. The door had held, and the walls of the structure had fallen only after a prolonged bombardment. Still, although Alouzon and Karthin hammered on the door and shouted, no one responded.

"There's got to be someone alive in there. I heard them."

"Indeed, Dragonmaster," said Karthin. "I saw them at the windows."

Frustrated and angry, Alouzon kicked at the door, yelling up at the blank windows. "Dammit, get your asses out of there! You're going to get blown to bits!"

No answer. The jets roared. Karthin put a hand on Alouzon's shoulder, and she turned to find his face sad and thoughtful. "I think I understand."

"Understand?"

"They cannot distinguish between us and the Gray-faces," he said somberly. "How should they?"

"But we're-" She stopped short. For the Vayllens, violence was violence. She looked up at the windows and the gaping rooms, her throat constricting. "Please," she choked. "Please come out."

The warplanes were already streaking overhead. Karthin pulled Alouzon away from the houses. "Come, Dragonmaster. We can do no more."

"But there are people in there . . ." Alouzon clawed her way free and hammered on the door once again. "I'm not going to hurt you," she called, but with two jets sweeping around and lining up on the houses, Karthin picked her up bodily and ran for cover. He had barely crossed the embankment when the first bombs fell, ripping the manors open like ripe fruit, tearing through the silent Grayface positions, pitching him and his burden headlong across the bloody grass.

The planes swept out and around. "I would Kyria were here," said the big man.

"She was here a while ago," said Alouzon. "Who knows where she is now. Or who ..."

"Shall we run?"

She shook her head wearily. "We'd just give them an obvious target. Stay down."

The manors were in ruins, their occupants dead. The bodies and weapons of the Grayfaces were mangled beyond recognition or use, and the stench of high explosive and phosphor hung over the ground in a choking cloud. But as the planes banked and began another run, a bolt of violet spat up at them from the edge of the city. The jets were immediately surrounded by a glowing nimbus. A moment later they fireballed and disintegrated, the wreckage spinning through the dark sky.

"Kyria. She came through." But the thought of what the effort might have cost the sorceress drove Alouzon to her feet and sent her stumbling off toward the city.

She found Kyria huddled on the ground at the mouth of an alley, her hands to her face, her staff cast aside. She was whining softly. "I. . . didn't want to do that. I ... just had to. Those poor kids ..."

Alouzon waved Karthin on. "Go find Marrget and Manda." She crouched beside Kyria. "Come on, lady," she said, laying a hand on her shoulder. "You'll be all right."

"She's inside my head," said Kyria. "I'm not me. I just want to be me."

Alouzon was bleak. Behind her, smoke from the ruined manors climbed into the sky. "You might just have to let go."

Kyria's head snapped up, and her eyes were venomous. "You'd like that, wouldn't you, bitch?" Her face contorted with the ferocity of her inner struggle. "It's not just Sol, is it? You're in this up to your damned eyeballs, aren't you?"

Alouzon stared. Whether because of Pellam's words in the great hall or some other revelation, Kyria knew. And what would she do now?

"Sol made his part," the sorceress continued, trem- bling. "And you made yours. You want to tell me why you had to drag me into your personal fairy tale?''

"It wasn't my idea."

"Go on. Next thing you know, you'll be telling me the Dragon planned it all."

The screams of the dying pierced her memory. "I don't know, Kyria."

The sorceress shivered at the name. ' 'Don't call me that!'' Lunging, she grabbed for her staff. "You want to see what happens to fairy tales? I'll damn well show you-"

Her words were cut short by an explosion that, although it was some distance away, shook the earth and crumbled the buildings around them. Alouzon dragged Kyria out of the way just as rubble showered down and buried the alley several feet deep.

Another detonation, and another. The bombs cut a swath through the city, demolishing buildings, tearing up streets, heaving paving blocks through the air. The air was filled with a continuous concussion that Alouzon thought must surely pummel her body into the ground. "What the . . . ?"

"B-52s," murmured Kyria. Despair was in her voice. "The Grayfaces must have gotten off a radio call for more than the jets."

"Kyria, can you-"

The sorceress was sobbing. "Can I what? Can I bail you out again? What the hell are you doing to this place, Alouzon?"

The roar of thousand-pound bombs was tremendous, sledgehammering at them invisibly, buffeting them as though with fists of steel. "I can't help it!"

"Dammit, what do you mean by that?"

"Stop them!"

"Tell me!"

Alouzon was watching her people die, not by the swords of invading armies, nor even from such comparatively intimate weapons as machine guns and grenades. This death fell from miles above, like the wrathful thunderbolts of a demented immortal. "Kyria, do something. There are kids out there ..."

How much had Solomon Braithwaite manipulated Helen? How much did Silbakor manipulate Alouzon? She had no idea. But she knew well how passionately Alouzon was willing to pull Kyria's heartstrings to save those she loved.

Kyria knew also. "If I let go now, it'll be a long tune before I'm back. Don't do this to me!"

Alouzon grabbed her robe, sat her upright, and put her staff in her hands. "You're so hot on power. Well, use some of it. Save those kids. Give them a chance to know that they've got some of it themselves."

"They're all a bunch of pacifists."

"That's going to change. It has to."

Kyria slapped her, and Alouzon felt a trickle of blood start down her cheek. Funny, she thought: she had braved the Grayfaces without a scratch; it took the slender hand of the sorceress to wound her.

"Don't tell me it'll change," Kyria was snarling. "Nothing ever changes. Sol didn't change."

With a roar, a block of buildings near the center of the city collapsed. Fire leaped up from the rubble, spreading quickly. The bombs continued to fall.

Kyria got to her feet, staff in hand. Her initial blazed out of the wood with stellar brilliance. She pointed at Alouzon. "Just remember this, honey: Kyria can't be around forever. When I get back, I'm going to take you apart. You and Sol both."

With a murmured incantation, she lifted the staff. For a moment, an oppression as of a thousand thunderstorms hung in the air, stretching the fabric of the world as taut as a cry of pain. Then the sky was suddenly filled with the starbursts of flaming bombers.

Kyria had time for one last hate-filled look at Alouzon before she went down, her carefully nurtured anger giving way at last under the onslaught of something mat was at once tender and indomitable, gentle and inexorable, meek and well-nigh omnipotent.

* CHAPTER 17 *

"Murderers."

Dindrane's voice was flat, without a shred of emotion. Even outright anger, Alouzon thought, would have been preferable to the dull resignation that filled the word like a slab of lead.

The morning light in the great hall was pale and colorless, for the stained-glass windows had been shattered by the saturation bombing that had demolished half of Lachrae. Pellam slumped in his throne as though his infirmity had been increased by the wounding of his city, and, beside him, Dindrane and Baares were bowed under the weight of fatigue that had accumulated from three days without sleep or rest. The harper's fingers were raw and bleeding, and his wife's face was drawn.

Alouzon's companions looked no better. They had labored alongside Dindrane and Baares and the citizens of Lachrae, fighting fires, clearing rubble so as to reach those who were trapped, carrying the injured to the nearest healer. In the light of their efforts, the priestess's judgment seemed heartless and unjust, almost cruel, but Dindrane shook her head and repeated the accusation.

"Murderers."

"We did the best we could," said Alouzon quietly, knowing that even their best had not been good enough. She gestured at Santhe, who wore the face of a commander who had seen a good man die, and at Birk, who looked as broken as if he had lost a lover. "We lost one of our own, too."

"Small comfort that is, Dragonmaster. Have you looked at our city recently?"