Ambrosius whirled in his coiling excitement, expect- ing to see Gdltius' men halfway to the forl entrance.

Oh, no. jesu, Mithras, and Mars, no . . .

The first maniple was just moving out of the ditch, while the Prydn were already disappearing around the spur defense into the fort under a shower of arrows.

Gallius would be late by that much when every second meant a man dead in that alley.

Gallius knew it for madness, and he'd been given a mad order on top of it when all of them were glad merely to be alive in the safe ditch. Through the fort entrance-a solid line of large targets in a narrow trough. His men were on their feet, none of them wanting this any more than he did, and somehow the order stuck in Galiius'

throat as the seconds bled away. Then the fear turned to anger. Ambrosius would cheerfully execute him if he didn't 261.

move. Die now, die later, small choice. Somehow his hand grasped a high rung of the ladder and pulled him up a step. Gatlius stared at the hand. It belonged to someone else who stole his own raw voice.

"Shield bearers out. Follow me. Let's go."

Plunging around the turn into the fort alley, Padrec had no time to look back at their support. He rode in the pack of his brothers still keening their death-song. There was no leader, only a single drive to close and kill.

The First arrows began to take them.

Padrec pushed his horse high along the side of the sloped ditch after Bredei, practicaliy able to reach out and touch the archers drawing on them. Still they churned on, mindless of the milling confusion behind them, men and horses slowed by the underbrush choking the entrance.

Screaming, flattened over their ponies' necks, the Prydn bounded straight up the ditch walls to cut down the ar- chers or be impaled.

Malgon's pony took two shafts full in the chest and .neck, and Padrec caught a brief flash of Mal going down under the stricken animal. Then Bredei screamed high- off his dead mount and swinging his sword two-handed as two Coritani leaped at him. In the swirl of close combat, his heart pumping like a blacksmith's hammer, Padrec caught a glimpse of the spur they'd just passed. Not there, Gallius isn't there. I told him to follow. He betrayed us.

Then his own horse stumbled and went down on its foreknees, dumping him into a pile of sharpened branches.

He felt the wood cut into his back and legs, not deep but jarring pain that bathed his brain in a sudden red light.

Pain roared into rage. The rational fear that wanted to live melted away in lunacy as the tattooed tribesman leaped down at him, spear thrust forward. At the last instant, Padrec knocked it aside with his shield and windmilled his sword at the copper-haired skull.

. . . Screaming, only dimly aware of a warm wetness about his body. The splintered shield had been lost some- where. There was another man with a sword in front of him, slow and clumsy, far too slow for the feral speed in his own arms. He felt immune to pain, immortal. What- ever touched or even broke his flesh, Padrec knew it only

262 from a distance, bellowing as he followed the swing of his arms and the beautiful scarlet sword, roaring at the pitiful doil Figures thai went down before him. Screaming at nothing, at air, at the sun, at the sudden but useless iron against his iron. Failing across the ripped belly of a dead horse, to see the shield bearers trotting up the alley, the running men between them, shields overhead, pushing farther into the fort, brawny sappers tearing the obstruc- tions out of the way.

. . . told you to follow w . . . why did you wait, Gallius?

His hands shook on the sword- The arms worked beautifully, inexhaustible, but something was wrong with the rest of him. He was down on one knee. The other throbbed dully, didn't want to bend at all. And now there were more Coritani running pell-mell toward them from the south wall to mend the breach, but too late. Behind Gallius' maniple-loo late, far too late-fresh foot soldiers were pouring in too fast to be checked.

Padrec giggled weakly. "Too goddamned late, all of you."

Then sanity, like a polite servant, cleared its throat in the rear of his brain. Excuse me, sir, but you're bleeding rather badly. It's your leg, sir. Do lie down.

"Yes, certainty." Padrec obeyed with idiotic reason- ableness. The leg wouldn't bend because the muscles above the knee were badly lacerated. Oh, a big one. A targe rent in his trousers and a lot of blood. Where did that happen?

Above and around him the shield bearers, slingers, and spear throwers were pushing forward as more and more men trotted through the now undefended alley.

And over the south wall, the first assault ladders were poking up, then helmeted heads. Lying down was an excellent idea. Should have thought of it before. Sharp in the center of his red consciousness there were red hairs stuck to his sword blade in a mess of something sticky and pale while. When he fell over on his side, his outthrust hand mucked in something wet. Padrec concentrated very hard to recognize the remains of the face. He shaped his mouth to the name, but it didn't work very well.

"Spears, spears! Follow me!"

Someone was roaring orders. It's Gailius, Bredei, he told the broken thing beside him. Listen to the hero. Late?

263.

You can damn well believe he was late. Hecan makehisexcuses to you, Bredei.

Bredei's left eye was gone in the wound that spilled his brains over the dirt, but the right eye was open and quite clear in its judgment. Must die for this, Padrec.

"Oh, yes," Padrec agreed gravely. "No question of it."

The walls were breached, Ambrosius throwing every- thing he had over them. He took the insanity of a moment and turned it to advantage, made a decision that cost him a full cohort, but once committed, he did not falter. Cen- tury after century went through the alley and over the walls, faster as the breach widened, knowing it was just a matter of time. And if the Beardless Mars sickened at the extravagance in blood, or wondered what god gave him such license, he never voiced it then or later. He was one of those private men who must be measured from the outside by those who knew him. Marchudd always spoke with cool respect of his abilities, knowing the ambition that fired them. Young Arthur Pendragon adored him, and it was with Arthur that the old emperor shared what leath- ery heart he had: Don't ever expect them to love you, Artorivs.

Running toward the walls with the rest of his reserves, his shield a pincushion for arrows, Ambrosius knew what he'd paid for what he'd won, and the prize was worth it.

He hooked the shield farther up his arm. leaped at the ladder, and hauled himself up toward the rampart.

"Come on! Don't slop, don't slow down! Come on!"

At the last minute, Rhiwallon and his leaders left the fort, escaping on swift horses by a prearranged path, dashing down the unbesieged north slope. The retreat was neither despair nor cowardice. He'd led the counter- attack himself when Gallius' men poured through the entrance, personally rallied his men when everything was lost, but he would not stake his last throw on that. He gave the order to surrender, to save what was left of his men, " then dashed away to where a Fight could still be made. His war was two thirds lost. He wouldn't depend on the last stronghold to turn the balance but would hunt these Ro- man bastards like a wolf. whittle them down until they had nothing left to make a stand with.

264 And yet it stung, such a defeat. He was not like the chess player who came against him. He left his heart in Churnei Head. From the shade of a stand of trees a mile from the fort, Rhiwallon brooded on the scene of his defeat.

"I would not think such foolhardiness of a Roman,"

one of his chiefs observed. "It should not have worked."

"But it did," Rhiwallon cut him short. "Nail it in your skulls, paint the truth on your eyes. it did. And it was them that did it, those Faerie. Have you not heard all your life of them and what thev are. Do you think . . ." He was as surprised as his men to hear the voice in his own throat strain so tight. "Do you think praying at such creatures makes them human? Leave me alone, all of you. Ride on."

Rhiwallon pretended to fuss with his helmet thongs to hide the tears.

It was over. The last troops and wagons filed slowly into Churnet Head. The engineers were already marking out the work to be done, agrimensors squinting along plumb lines, lumber details busy on the riverbank below.

In the alley, to one side of the trudging men and creaking wagons, the remnant of Prydn waited for help that didn't come. Their signal, an upended pilum stuck in the ground, went unheeded as the surgeons plied themselves elsewhere.

Padrec dragged Bredei's body with him to the side with the rest. Malgon sat with Drust's head cradled in his lap; around them huddled the remaining Prydn, no more than eleven, all wounded.

"Surgeons here!"

"Why did a not come after?" Malgon kept wondering in a dull way. "Nae, Drust, do not try to move."

"Hurts, Mal."

"Surgeons!"

"Lie still, brother, lie still. Do nae move."

"Did nae come after," Drust croaked. "Must pay dear for that."

My God, that's Urguisl. I can see the inside of his throat.

The boy from Reindeer fhain lowered his squadron leader to the ground. "Urguist be dead."

"Surgeons! For Christ s sake, help us!"

265.

The surgeons heard, they heard well enough. Padrec hated them silently. They'll gel to us last, thef always do, like everything else. Only eleven left ... no, not even thai. Limping from one body to another, Padrec knew there'd be less than that to walk away from Churnet. If they couid walk.

Bredei was dead, that sunlit, unshadowed mind, most of it spilling out of his skull. You wouldn't thmk him capable of such rage. And what of you, Sochet? You thought *vou'd be sick at killing; wu can't even remember what the buggers looked like.