a"Geoffrey Chaucer.

Reach out the arms. Wait. Pull up the legs. Pause. Push slowly, slide. Rest.

This was one of the times when Karl Cullinane envied Walter Slovotsky. Karl tried hard, but creeping through the night silently didn't come naturally to him.

Reach out the arms. Wait. Pull up the legs. Pause. Push slowly, slide. Rest.

It didn't matter. It couldn't be permitted to matter. Acquired skill and unrelenting effort would have to serve him where natural inclination couldn't.

Flat on his belly, the cold sand sticking to his damp body from face to toes, he crept along the edge of the treeline, the woods at his right, the beach, and beyond it the Cirric, at his left.

Careful. Slow and careful does it.

This called for stealth, not strength.

Reach out the arms. Wait. Pull up the legs. Pause. Push slowly, slide. Rest.

Ahead in the dark, two nervous slavers stared off into the night, their backs to a campfire. Karl crept a bit closer.

From the safety of his cache and refuges, he had watched the beach throughout the day to see if the slavers had set up watchmen to watch the watchmen. That would be their next step, but they hadn't taken it yet.

They probably have as little respect for my skulking abilities as I do, he thought.

Unarmed save for his bowie, he moved closer, moving with exquisite slowness, arms moving glacially forward before he transferred his weight to his hands and then pulled up his legs to push himself across the sand slowly, tediously, deliberately. He froze in place, and repeated the process.

Reach out the arms. Wait. Pull up the legs. Pause. Push slowly, slide. Rest.

He had to make his game plan work. The slavers would a.s.sume, at first, that they could hunt him down during the day, and would keep their watchmen out during the night.

But after a few were found dead, with no clue as to Karl Cullinane's hiding place, they'd set watchmen to guard the watchmen. That would be their next step, along with setting b.o.o.by traps. Probably some sort of tiger pit, punji sticks on the bottom. Perhaps some kind of deadfall.

He'd have to keep alert, to keep a watchful eye, in order to beat that.

And after that, when that faileda"if that faileda"the slavers would huddle together at night, pulling in all of their men into one camp, hoping to chase Karl down during the day.

That would be Karl's chance.

Reach out the arms. Wait. Pull up the legs. Pause. Push. Slowly slide. Rest.

Right now, the odds were just weighted too heavily against him. If he'd had a dozen men, he might have been able to launch a dozen simultaneous attacks, but he didn't. It was just him. Which meant that he would have to get the enemy all together one night, then attack with his stash of guncotton bombs, and blow them all to h.e.l.l. Even a successful attack wouldn't kill all of them, but it might cut the odds against him down to a manageable level.

Possibly, with the slavers weakened, the Mel might even come down from the hills and counterattack, and even aid Karl in setting up an ambush for any arriving slaver reserves.

But that was for later.

For now: Reach out the arms. Wait. Pull up the legs, pause. Push slowly, slide. Rest.

First he'd have to scare the slavers into collecting in one place, and then he'd have to take it from there.

Until they all gathered in the killing zone, he couldn't use any of his stash of guncotton bombs; it was vital not to get the slavers thinking about the dangers of huddling together; vital to get them worrying about the dangers of not huddling together.

Reach out the arms. Wait. Pull up the legs. Pause. Push slowly, slide. Rest.

He froze in place as a stray sound from the forest sent the two watchmen into sudden motion, the larger of the two men bringing his slaver rifle up while the other hefted his sword.

He didn't move for at least fifteen minutes, until the watchmen had sat down and relaxed, until their eyes had glazed over again.

And even then he slipped the index finger of his right hand to his left wrist and carefully counted a thousand pulsebeats before he resumed his slow progress.

Reach out the arms. Wait. Pull up the legs. Pause. Push slowly. Slide. Rest.

The trouble with his plan, of course, was that it probably wouldn't work. The odds were all too great that he'd be brought down on one of the nightly raids, or that the slavers would dig a trap that he wouldn't see in time.

Well, the plan was a long shot, but at least it held some chance. Besides, he did have an intelligence source that the slavers didn't know about.

He hoped.

Reach out the arms. Wait. Pull up the legs. Pause. Push slowly, slide. Rest.

After two hours of slow, diligent creeping, he was barely ten yards behind the nearest of the two slavers.

Two hours setting it up, and it took all of thirty seconds to finish.

He slid his arm back to draw his bowiea"slowly, Karl, slowlya"and like a cat setting itself up to spring, dug into the soft dirt with his bare toes, gaining purchase.

Karl Cullinane took a deep breath and launched himself at the farther of the two slavers, barely breaking stride in his headlong flight to send the nearer one sprawling with a well-aimed kick.

There was a horrid scream from behind him, while the slaver in front of him flung out an arm to block the downward descent of Karl's bowie.

Karl turned his lunge into a tackle, grappling with the man momentarily until he found an opening to set the tip of his bowie between two ribs. Karl shoved the knife, the warm fountain of sweet-smelling blood wetting his arm to the shoulder as he continued the motion to push the dying slaver away.

One downa"

Karl Cullinane rolled to his feet and turned to face the other.

a"No, two down; the other man was screaming in agony as he clawed at his smoking face; Karl's kick had sent him face-first into the fire.

The slaver dropped to his knees, pawing blindly for something as his cries alerted everyone for miles to Karl's location.

Karl's first inclination was to grab his bowie and get going, but he decided that he could spare another second to make this even more memorable for the slavers.

First things first: He kicked the slaver rifles away from the screaming man's outflung hands. Even a blind man could find a gun and shoot someone by accident.

But what was this man pawing around the ground for?

Of course. There was probably a bottle of healing draughts in the bag by the fire.

Karl swept up the bag and threw it deep into the forest.

"No." He kicked the slaver back into the fire, and the man's hysterical screams grew even louder, thoroughly piercing the night.

Ignoring the shrieks, Karl retrieved his bowie from the body of the dead slaver, and after slipping it into its scabbard and quickly thonging it into place, he dashed for the water, turning his headlong rush into a clean dive when the water rose to his knees.

The water cut the sound off as though a switch had been thrown, but still the burned man's screams followed him all the way throughout the long swim to his hiding place.

As Karl Cullinane pulled himself up, wet and exhausted, onto the flat stones of the cavern of the sword, he swore he could still smell the ghastly reek of burning flesh and hair, and the awful cries of the dying man.

He stripped off his clothes quickly, wrung them, then spread them on the cold stones before drying himself off with a Mel blanket and hanging that up.

The smell didn't leave him. There had been a time, long ago, when a younger Karl Cullinane, the same smell in his nostrils, had fallen to his hands and knees on a dusty road, vomiting until he thought he'd puke up a lung.

But that was long ago. Karl Cullinane spread dry blankets on the cold stone, stretched out, and closed his eyes, pillowing his damp head on an outflung arm.

He was unconscious in seconds.

The next night, he bagged only one; the night after, three.

Karl Cullinane slept very well each night, like a mountain lion who had gorged on a fresh kill.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN:.

The Hunters.

The dead don't die. They look on and help.

a"D. H. Lawrence.

The cavern of the sword was empty, save for a naked, shivering Karl Cullinane and the shining sword.

The sword . . .

Clutched in fingers of light, the sword of Arta Myrdhyn hung in the air above a roughly hewn stone altar.

There was no sound, save for his own breathing, the wet slap of his footsteps on the cold stone, and the fast, even thrum-thrum-thrum of his own heart.

Karl Cullinane had never felt so alone.

The sword looked the same as it had years before, probably the same as it had for century after century: a two-handed broadsword with cord-wound hilt and thick bra.s.s quillons, its surface shimmering in the ghostly light, unblemished save for the spidery shapes that crept across the blade, forming letters and then vanishing.

Take me, the letters spelled out. Give me to Jason.

"Like h.e.l.l," he said.

He crouched for a moment, huddling in the Mel blanket. Under the rough blanket, he was still wet and naked except for his amulet, shivering from the cold; the cavern, hidden inside a close-offsh.o.r.e island, was accessible only by the underwater pa.s.sage.

Across the blade, spidery letters again played.

Take me, they said. I wait for your son.

"Not as far as I'm concerned," he said. This was what this was all about, at least according to Arta Myrdhyn: a sword that protected its bearer against even the strongest of magical spells; a sword made for killing wizards.

Arta Myrdhyn's way of preparing to strike at Wizards Grandmaster Lucius, his ancient enemy.

Not with my son, you don't.

Jason would find his own destiny; Karl's son would not become a p.a.w.n in Deighton's game.

Karl Cullinane forced a chuckle, the laugh sounding thin even in his own ears. Make a play for the sword, indeed. Hah. It wasn't the sword that had brought him to Melawei; it wasn't the sword that had brought him to the hidden offsh.o.r.e caverns. But he did have to see it again; he couldn't have come all this way without seeing that it still stood here.

No, what Karl Cullinane had come here for was in the outer room: his edge against the slavers.

Ahrmin had taken Eriksen village, chasing the Eriksens back into the hills. It was understandable: That was the area of Melawei where Karl had defeated him before; Ahrmin would want to avenge himself on the land and villagers, as well as Karl Cullinane.

But there was something else near that village.

You made a huge mistake, b.a.s.t.a.r.d, he thought as he walked into the outer room. You picked the wrong spot to lie in wait for me.

Glowing crystals were scattered across the walls and ceiling of the outer chamber; captured starlight played across the mottled far wall. Karl knew that if he'd had the genes to work magic, the dim markings on the wall would have resolved themselves into sharp-edged runes, the words of spells that could be impressed on the mind of a user of magic, to be saved, h.o.a.rded in the mind, spilled out as needed.

But he didn't; it was only a dirty wall to him. It wouldn't have been to Andy, but . . .

But she wasn't here.

She wasn't here. He'd likely never see her again. What would he give to hold her in his arms again? What wouldn't he give?

Easy, Karl. We've got work to do. He forced his mind back to the task at hand, and decided that it had been too long since he had last eaten, although he didn't feel hungry. Killing took away his appet.i.te.

At least, it used to; it used to be that he felt sick to his stomach both before and after a kill. Lately, over the past few days, he had returned from his forays ravenous.

He wasn't hungry now, but, still, the body-as-machine had to be taken care of, if only for a short while longer. Karl Cullinane left the cavern of the sword and walked back through the roughly hewn tunnel to the outer chamber where he had left his gear.

His tunic, breechclout, and leggings were spread out on the cold stone, drying as well as they could. He squatted for a moment, feeling at his clothes. His? Well, close enough; the slavers he'd relieved of them wouldn't have any further use for them. They were all still wet from last night, as were half the stack of blanketlike towels that the Mel had left in the cave, for the convenience of their clan wizards.