He was ready to use it if he had to, his stomach clenching now like a fist, with feelings worse than hunger. The men were jockeying their mounts back-ward now, executing a minor retreat. Their faces as they looked at the sword showed that they were impressed-and also, Mark thought, that they were not surprised.

"Put it down, kid," urged the man who did the talking. The other as if in agreement emitted a braying sound, and Mark understood that this man had some- how lost his tongue. Mark had heard the same kind of an unpleasant sound before, from the mouth of a man who was said to have spread nasty stories about the demise of the father of the present Duke.

"Just toss it down to us, young one," the speaker said, his tone encouraging. "We'll take it and go on our way, and you can go on yours:" The speaker smiled.

He sounded as if he might even believe what he was saying, at least while he was saying it.

Mark said nothing. He only held the sword, and tried to be ready for what would come. The terror he had known on the mountain, after throwing away the sword, did not return now, though the weapon in his hands still felt devoid of power.

His enemies were two, and they were men full grown. Both of them had now drawn their knives, functional-looking weapons worn with sharpening and use. Yet the two men did not immediately try to swarm up onto the rock. Instead they still watched the sword.

They remained at a little distance, still mounted, con- ferring between themselves with quick signs and whispers.

Then the one who could speak rode right up to the rock again. "Get down here right now, kid:" His voice was now hard and tough, utterly changed from what it had been. "If I, have to come up there after you, I'll kill you:"

Mark waited.

The man, moving with an appearance of great purpose, swung himself lithely out of his saddle and onto the side of the boulder at the place where Mark had climbed. But when Mark standing atop the great rock took a step toward him with lifted sword, he hastily dropped to the ground and backed away.

They know what sword I have here, thought Mark.

They know what it can do. The Duke has spread the word, and he's offering a reward. But still the weapon in Mark's hands felt totally dead. Was there some incantation he had to utter, something he had to do to call out the magic? What had Kenn been saying, doing, just before the fight? Mark thought that a less magical person than his brother had probably never lived.

If the two men were not going to leap bravely to the attack, neither were they about to give up. Both mounted again, they rode side by side all around the rocks where Mark had taken his position, scouting out his strongpoint. They took their time about making a complete circle of the boulders, pausing now and then to exchange a whisper and a nod.Mark watched them. He could think of nothing else to do. He still had his bow slung on his back, and a few arrows left. But, looking at the men's faces, mark- ing how their eyes kept coming back to the sword, he felt it would be a bad mistake to put it down. -It was their fear of the sword that held them back.

As if he had been reading Mark's thought, the speaker called to him suddenly: "Put it down, boy, and let's talk. Were, not meaning to do you any harm!'

"If that's so, then put your own blades down and ride away. This one is mine:"

Presently the two did sheathe their knives again, and rode away a little distance toward the road, and Mark's heart dared to rise. But as soon as the pair were out of easy earshot they stopped for another conference. This one lasted for several minutes. Mark could see the gestures of the speechless man, but could not read their meaning. And Mark's heart sank again when the two dismounted, tied their animals to a bush as if preparing for a long stay, and then strolled back in his direction. Now the speechless one, moving with a casualness that would not have fooled a child half Mark's age, ambled on past the high rocks. Soon, with a very casual turn at some meters' distance, he had put himself on the opposite side of the high rocks from his friend and the road.

Meanwhile the talking man was trying to keep Mark's attention engaged. "Youngster, there's a reward offered for that sword you got. We could talk about splitting it between us. You know, half for you and half for us.

And you to go on free, of course:"

The first rock thrown by the speechless one missed Mark by a wide margin. Actually the speaker on the road side of the rocks had to step out of the way of it himself. Mark could see in the speaker's face how he winced, out of embarra.s.sment at his partner's clumsi- ness. Mark had to turn halfway round, to maim sure that he was able to dodge the second thrown stone.

Then he had to face back toward the road again, because the man who talked had once more drawn his knife, and was gamely trying again to scramble up the rock.

As Mark moved forward to counter this frontal attack, a third thrown stone went past his head, a little closer than the previous two. The climber, once more seeing Townsaver right above his head, dropped off the boulder's flank as he had before. Again Mark spun around, in time to dodge another missile.

A sound that had begun some time ago now regis- tered in his attention, growing louder. It was the rumble of wagon wheels, drawing nearer with fair speed. And now the wagon came into sight, moving southbound on the road, pulled by two loadbeasts and approaching at a brisk pace. On the wagon's cloth sides large symbols were rather crudely painted. Mark had seen the wagons of tinkers, priests, and peddlers decoratedwith signs meant for advertis.e.m.e.nt and magic, but never signs like these. Dancing on his boulder, he had no time to puzzle about meanings now, but sang out for help as loudly as he could.

An open seat at the front of the wagon held three people, the one in the middle being a young woman.

All three faces were turned toward the fight, but for a moment it appeared that the wagon was going to rush straight on past. It did not. Instead the driver, another wiry man somewhat older than Mark's a.s.sailants, cried out to his team and reined in sharply on one side. The vehicle had already pa.s.sed the rocks, but now it swerved sharply and came back, leaving the road in a sharp, tilting turn.

When the man at the foot of the rock saw this, he set up his own cry for aid. "Help! We got us a runaway and a thief treed here. There's a reward, that's a stolen weapon he's got in his hands."

His voiceless a.s.sociate, running back from the far side of the rocks, grunted and waved his arms, achiev- ing nothing but a short distraction. While Mark, in outrage momentarily greater even than his fear, yelled: "Not so! It's mine!"

The wagon had braked to a halt in a swirl of dust, a pebble's toss from where Mark stood. The wiry man who gripped the reins now had his eyes raised judg- matically toward Mark, thinking things over before he acted. The girl in the middle of the seat had straight black hair, cut short, and a round, b.u.t.ton-nosed, some- how impertinent face, looking full of life if not exactly pretty. On the other side of her, the seat sagged under a heavy-set youth who wore a minstrel's plumed cap, and a look of no great intelligence upon his almost childish face. In his thick fingers this youth was nursing a lute, which instrument he now slowly and carefully put back into the covered rear portion of the wagon.

In the momentary silence, a thin whining sound arose from somewhere, to fade out again as abruptly as it had begun. Mark's hopes soared for an instant; but the sound, whatever it had been, had not proceeded from the sword.

His enemy who could speak still urged the wagon- driver: "Help us get him down, and well split the reward."

Mark pleaded loudly: "I'm no runaway, they're trying to rob me. This sword is mine."

"Reward?" asked the wiry driver. He squinted from one to another of the two men on foot.

The spokesman nodded. "Split 'er right down the middle:'

"Reward from who?"

"Duke Fraktin himself."

The driver nodded slowly, coming to his conclusion.

He looked up once more at the anguished Mark, then shook his head. "Fetch out the crossbow, Ben-go on, do it, I say."The crossbow produced by the large youth from inside the wagon was bigger than any similar weapon in Mark's limited experience. He could feel his inward parts constricting at the very sight of it. Ben c.o.c.ked it with a direct pull, not using stirrup or crank, and without apparent effort. Then he loaded a bolt into the groove, and handed the weapon to the driver.

"Now," said the driver, in his most reasonable voice yet. And with a faint smile he laid his aim directly on the man who was standing closest to his wagon. "You and your partner, mount up. And ride away."

The man who was looking at the wrong end of the crossbow turned color. He made a tentative motion with his knife, then put it back into its sheath. He stuttered over an argument, then gave it up in curses.

Meanwhile his speechless companion stood by looking hangdog.

Ben's hands now held a formidable cudgel, and the look on his childish face was woeful but determined.

The young woman, her expressive features all grimness now, had brought out a small hatchet from somewhere.

"Of course," remarked the wagon-driver distantly, "if you two dori t want your mounts, we sure could use 'em."

The two he was confronting exchanged a look between them. Then they stalked to where they'd left their animals, and mounted. With a look back, and a muttering of curses, they rode off along the road to the northeast.

The muscular youth called Ben let out a tremulous sigh, a puffing of relief, and tucked his club away. The driver carefully watched his two opponents out of sight; then he handed the crossbow back to Ben, who carefully unloaded it, easing the taut cords.

Mark looked more closely at the driver now, and was reminded vaguely of the militia drillmaster he'd once heard shouting commands at Kenn and a hun- dred others. But there was kindness in the driver's voice as he said: "You can put the sword down now, boy..

"It's mine."

"Why, surely. We don't dispute that:" The driver had blue eyes that tended to squint, a nose once broken, and a thick fall of sandy hair. The muscular youth, looking friendly and overgrown, was regarding Mark with sympathy. As was the pert girl, who had put away her hatchet. Mark carefully set the sword down on the rock at his feet and rubbed his fingers, which were cramped from the ferocity with which he'd gripped the hilt. "Thank you," he said.

The driver nodded almost formally. "You're wel- come. My name is Nestor, and I hunt dragons to earn my bread. This is Barbara sitting next to me, and that's my apprentice, Ben. You look like maybe you could use a ride somewhere:"

Again the keening, moaning sound rose faintly. Markthought that he could locate it now inside the wagon; some kind of captive animal, he thought, or a pet.

"My name is Einar," said Mark. It was a real name, that of one of his uncles, and another answer that he'd thought out ahead of time. And now, because his knees had started to tremble, worse than ever before, he sat down on the rock. And only now did he notice how dry his mouth was.

And only after he'd sat down did it sink in: I hunt dragons ... .

"We can give you a ride, if you're agreeable," Nestor was saying. "And maybe a little something to munch on as we travel, hey? One advantage of a wagon, you can do other things while you keep moving:"

Mark pulled himself together and rewrapped the sword. Then with it in hand he slid down from atop the boulder.

"Can I take that for you?" asked Nestor, reaching down from the elevated seat. Mark had made his decision, and handed up the sword; Nestor put it back inside the wagon. Then one of Ben's thick fingered hands closed on Mark's arm, and he was lifted aboard as if he were a babe.

Barbara had made room on the seat for Mark by going back into the comparatively dim interior of the wagon. She was fussing about with something there, in a place crowded with containers, bales, and boxes.

Nestor already had the loadbeasts pulling. "Going south all right with you, Einar?"

"I was headed that way." Mark closed his eyes, then opened them again, because of images of knives. He could feel his heart beating. He let things go, and let himself be carried.

CHAPTER 5.

Riding the wagon's jouncing seat, Mark was startled out of an incipient daze by the return of the squealing noise. This time it came insistently, from close behind him. He looked back quickly. Barbara, crouching in the back of the wagon, had just removed a cloth cover from a small but st.u.r.dy wooden cage.

Inside the cage-by Vulcan's hammer and Ardneh's bones!-was a weasel-sized creature that could only be a dragon. Mark had never seen one before, but what else could be as scaly as a snake and at the same time be equipped with wings?

Seeing Mark turn his head, Barbara smiled at him. She delayed whatever she was doing with the dragon long enough to hand Mark a jug of water, and then, when he'd had a drink, a piece of fruit. As he bit into that, she got busy feeding the dragon, handing it something that she fished out of a sizable earthen crock. Mark faced forward again, chewing.

Ben had a different, smaller jug in hand. "Brandy?"

"No thanks." Mark had never tasted strong drink of any kind before, and didn't know what effect it might be likely to have on him. He'd seen a village man or two destroyed by constant heavy drinking. Ben-who was getting a frown from Nestor- stowed away the jug.

"Is that blood on your shirt, Einar?" Barbara called from therear. "You all right?"

"No m'am. I mean, yes it is, but it's old. I'm all right."

Ben's curiosity was growing almost visibly. "That's sure some sword you got."

"Yes," agreed Nestor, who was driving now at a brisk pace, mostly concentrating on the road ahead, but frequently looking back. "Real pretty blade there."

"I had it from my father." If his hearers believed that, Mark expected them to draw the wrong conclusion from it. No one would be much surprised to find a n.o.bleman's b.a.s.t.a.r.d out on the road, hiking in poverty, carrying along some gift or inheritance that was hard to translate to any practical benefit.

Now Mark repeated the story about his armorer-uncle being in the employ of kind Sir Andrew. He couldn't be sure how much his audience believed, though they nodded politely enough.

Ben wagged his large head sympathetically. "I'm an orphan myself. But it don't worry me any more." From behind the seat he pulled out the lute he had been holding earlier, and strummed it. Mark thought that it sounded 'a little out of tune.

Ben went on: "I'm really a minstrel. Just 'prenticing with Nestor here till I can get a good start at what I really want to do. We got an agreement that I can quit any time I'm ready."

Nestor nodded as if to confirm this. "Good worker," he remarked. "Hate to lose you when you go."

Ben strummed again, and began to sing: The song was . . . No, this song is The ballad of gallant young Einar Who was walking as free as . . .

The singer paused. "Hard to find a rhyme for that name." He thought for a moment and tried again: Young Einar was walking the roads As free as a lark one day Along came two men Who wanted...

"That's not quite how it ought to go," Ben admitted modestly, after a moment's thought.

"Must be hard to play while were bouncing," said Barbara understandingly. There had in fact been one or two obvious wrong notes.

Mark was thinking that Ben's was not really one of the best singing voices he'd ever heard, either. But no one else had any comment about that, and he sure wasn't going to be the first to mention it.

Throughout the rest of the day Nestor kept the wagon rolling pretty, steadily. He showed his wish for concealment by expressing his satisfaction when a belt of fog engulfed the road for a kilometer or so. He was always alertly/on watch, and he had Barbara and Mark take turns riding in the rear of the wagon, next to the dragons cage, keeping an eye out to the rearfor the soldiers of the Duke, Mark a.s.sumed, though Nestor never actually said so. From inside the covered, swaying cage, the unseen small dragon squealed intermittently. It reminded Mark of the odd noise that a rabbit would sometimes let out when an arrow hit it.

Beside the cage was the earthen crock, with a weighted net for a top, that held live frogs. Mark was told that these were thedragon's food, and he fed it one or two. Its tiny breath, too young to burn, steamed at his hand. Its toy eyes, doll-eyes, glittered darkly.

"When do we leave Duke Fraktin's territory?" Mark asked at one point in the afternoon. By now the foothills had been left behind, and the road was traversing firmly inhabited land under a cloudy sky. Fields almost ready for harvest alternated with woodlands and pastures. Nestor had driven through one small village already.

"Sometime tomorrow," said Nestor shortly. "Maybe sooner."

The fog had lifted completely now, and he was busier than ever being sharp-eyed. When Mark asked some more questions about the dragon, he was told that they were taking it to the fair on Sir Andrew's green, where it ought to earn some coin as an exhibit.

It would also, Mark gathered, serve to advertise Nestor's skill in the hunt. Sir Andrew was a Fen Marcher, which meant he had territory ab.u.t.ting the Great Swamp. He and some of his tributary towns, Mark was told, had chronic dragon problems.

Mark, thinking about it, had trouble picturing one man, however strong and skilled and brave, just going out and hunting dragons as if they were rabbits. From the stories he'd heard, real dragon hunts were vast enterprises involving numbers of trained beasts and people. And Nestor might be brave and skilled, but he didn't look all that strong. Ben, of course, looked strong enough for two at least.

As the afternoon pa.s.sed, Nestor drove more slowly, and appeared to be even more anxious about seeing what was on the winding road ahead of him. Pa.s.sing a pack toting peddler who was coming from the other direction, he slowed still more to ask the man a question: "Soldiers?"

The wink and faint nod that he got in return were apparently all the answer Nestor needed. He turned off the road at the next feasible place, and jounced across an unfenced field to a side lane.

"Just as soon not meet any of the Duke's soldiers," he muttered, as if someone had asked him for an explanation.

"There s a creek down this way somewhere. Maybe the water's low enough to ford. On the other side's Blue Temple land, if I remember right."

There was no problem in finding the creek. which meandered across flat and largely neglected farmland. Locating a place where it could readily be forded was somewhat harder. Nestor sent Ben and Barbara to scout on foot, upstream and down, and eventually succeeded. Once on the other side, he sighed with relief and drove the wagon as deep as possible into a small grove, not stopping till he was out of sight of Duke Fraktin's side of the stream. Then he announced that it was time to set up camp.

Ben and Barbara immediately swung into a well-practiced routine, tending the loadbeasts and starting to gather some wood for a fire.

As Mark began to lend a hand, Nestor called him aside.

"Einar, you come with me. We need some more frogs for the dragon, and I've a special way of catching them that 1 want to show you."

"All right. I'll bring my bow, maybe we'll see a rabbit."

"It'll be getting dark for shooting. But fetch it along."From the back of the wagon Nestor dug out what looked to Mark like a rather ordinary fishnet, of moderately fine mesh. On the wooden rim were symbols that Mark supposed might have some magical significance, though often enough such decorative efforts had no real power behind them. With Nestor carrying the net beside him, Mark trudged into the trees, an arrow nocked on his bow. They followed the general slope of the land back down to the creek bed.

As they walked, Nestor asked: "Einar, what's your uncles name? The one who's armorer for Sir Andrew. I might know him."

"His name's Mark." At least he said it quickly; this was one answer he hadn't thought out in advance.

"No. I don't know him." A cloudy twilight was oozing up out of the low ground. They had reached the creek bank without spotting any rabbits or other game, and Mark put away his bow and arrow.