"Dice. And she who brought it to me from the Red Temple said that the soldier who left it with her had been wont to play, and win, at dice:" Annoyingly, that soldier himself was dead. Stabbed, according to the woman's story, within a few breaths of the moment when he'd let the sword out of his hands. The killers who'd lain in wait for him had evidently been some of his fellow gamblers, who were convinced he'd cheated them. Duke Fraktin had sent Sir Sharfa, one of his more trusted knights, out on a secret mission of investigation.

' Am 1 to cast dice for the world, Blue-Robes?"

The wizard let the question pa.s.s as rhetoric, with- out an answer. "No common soldier, Your Grace, could have carried a sword like this about with him for long.

It would certainly have come to the attention of his officers, and then.. . "

"It would be taken from him, yes. Though quite likely not brought here to me. Ali well, it's here now."

And the Duke, sighing, removed his finger from the hilt. "Tell me, Blue-Robes, is it perhaps something like our lamps, some bit of wizardry left over from the Old World? And is the miller's tale of how he came by it only a feverish dream that he once had, perhaps when his arm was amputated, perhaps after he'd caught it clumsily in his own saw or his own millstones?"

"I am sure Your Grace understands that none of those suggestions are really possible. Much of the miller's tale is independently confirmed. And we know that the Old World technologists made no swords; they had more marvelous ways to kill, ways still forbid- den us by Ardneh's Change. They had in truth the gun, the bomb... "

"Oh, I know that, I know that . . . but stick to what is real and practical, not what may have happened in the days of legend . . . Blue-Robes, do you think the Old World really had to endure G.o.ds as well as their nonsense of technology? Ardneh, I suppose, was really there."

"It would seem certain that they did, Your Grace.

Many G.o.ds, not only Ardneh. There are innumerable references in the old records. I have seen Vulcan and many others named:"

The Duke heaved a sigh, a great sincere one this time, and shook his head again. As if perhaps he would have liked to say, even now, that there were no G.o.ds, or ought to be none, his own experience notwith- standing.But here was the sword- before him, an artifact of metal and magic vastly beyond the capabilities of the humans of the present age. And it had not been made in the Old World either. According to the best informa- tion he had available, it had been made no more than thirteen years ago, in the almost unpeopled mountains on the eastern edge of his own domain. If not by Vulcan, then by whom?

G.o.ds were rarely seen or heard from. But even a powerful n.o.ble hardly dared say that they did not exist. Not, certainly, when his domain adjoined the Ludus Mountains.

CHAPTER 7.

Mark awoke lying on damp ground, under a sky much like that of the day before, gray and threatening rain. Still, blanketed and fed, he was in such relative comfort that for a moment he could believe that he was dreaming, back in his own bedroom at the mill, and that in a moment he might hear his father's voice.

The illusion vanished before it could become too painful.

There was Ben, a snoring mound just on the other side of the dead fire, and there was the wagon. From inside it the little dragon had begun a nagging squall, sound- ing almost like a baby. No doubt it was hungry again.

And now the wagon shook faintly with human stir- rings inside its cover; and now Ben sat up and yawned.

Shortly everyone was up and moving. For breakfast Barbara handed out stale bread and dried fruit. People munched as they moved about, getting things packed up and ready for the road. Preparations were made quickly, but fog was closing in by the time everything was ready to travel.

With the fog, visibility became so poor that Nestor entrusted the reins to Ben, while he himself walked on ahead to scout the way.

"We're near the frontier," Nestor cautioned them all before he moved out. "Everybody keep their eyes open."

Walking thirty meters or so ahead, about at the limit of dependable visibility, Nestor led the wagon along back lanes and across fields. Before they had gone far, they pa.s.sed a gang of someone's field workers, serfs to judge by their tattered clothes, heading out with tools in hand for the day's labor. When these folk were greeted, they answered only with small waves and nods, some refusing to respond at all.

Shortly after this encounter Nestor called a halt and held a conference. He now admitted freely that he was lost. He thought it possible that they might not have crossed the frontier last night after all-or that they might even have recrossed it to Duke Fraktin's side this morning. Mark gathered that the border hereabouts was a zig-zag affair, poorly marked at best, and in places disputed or uncertain. However that might be, all they could do now was keep trying to press on to the south.

The four people in and around the wagon squinted up through fog that appeared to be growing thicker, if anything.

They did their best to locate the sun, and at last came to a consensus of sorts on its position."That way's east, then. We'll be all right now."

With Nestor again walking a little ahead of the wagon, and Ben driving, they crossed a field and jolted into the wheel-ruts of another lane. Time pa.s.sed. The murky countryside flowed by, with a visibility now of no more than about twenty meters.

Nestor was a ghostly figure, pacing at about that distance ahead of the wagon.

More time pa.s.sed. Suddenly, seeming to come from close overhead, there was a soft sound, quickly pa.s.sing, as of enormous wings. Everyone looked up. If there had been a shadow, it had already come and gone, and no shape was revealed in the bright grayness. Mark exchanged looks with Barbara and Ben, both of whom looked just as puzzled as he felt. No one said anything. Mark's impression had been of something very large in flight. He had certainly never heard anything like it before.

Nestor, who had heard it too, called another halt and another conference. He didn't know, either, what the flying thing might have been, and now he was ready to curse the fog, which earlier he had welcomed. "It's not right for this part of the country, this time of the year. But we'll come out of it all right if we just keep going."

This time Nestor stayed with the wagon and took over the driving himself. The others remained steadily on lookout, keeping watch in all directions as well as possible in the fog.

The lane on which they were traveling dipped down to a small river, shallow but swiftly flowing, and crossed it in a gravel ford. Nestor drove across without pausing. Mark supposed that this was probably another bend of the same stream that they'd just camped beside, and that this crossing might mean a new change of territory. But no one said anything, and he suspected they were all still confused about whose lands they were in.

Slowly they groped their way ahead, through soupy mists.

The team, and the dragon as well, were nervous now. As if, thought Mark, something more than mere fog were bothering them.

There was the river again, off to the right. The road itself moved here in meandering curves, like a flatland stream.

Suddenly, from behind the wagon and to the left, there came the thudding, sc.r.a.ping, distinctive sound of riding-beasts hard footpads on a hard road. It sounded like at least half a dozen animals, traveling together. It had to be a cavalry patrol.

The dragon keened loudly.

"Halt, there, the wagon!"

From somewhere a whip had come into Nestor's hand, and he cracked it now above the loadbeasts' backs, making a sound like an ice-split tree. The team started forward with a great leap, and came down from the leap in a full run. So far today they had not been driven hard, and their panic had plenty of nervous energy for fuel.

"Halt!"

The order was ignored. Only a moment later, the first arrows flew, aimed quite well considering conditions. One shaft pierced the cloth cover of the wagon above Mark's head, and another split one of the wooden uprights that supported the cloth."Fight 'em!" roared Nestor. He had no more than that to say to his human companions, but turned his energy and his words, in a torrent of exhortation and abuse, toward his team. The loadbeasts were running already as Mark had never known a team to run before. Meanwhile inside the wagon a mad scramble was in progress, with. Ben going for the crossbow and Mark for his own bow and quiver. Mark saw Barbara slipping the thong of a leather sling around one finger of her right hand, and taking up an egg-shaped'leaden missile.

Looking out from the left front of the wagon with bow in hand, Mark saw a mounted man swiftly materializing out of the mist. He wore a helmet and a mail shirt, under a jerkin of white and blue, and he rode beside the- racing team, raising his sword to strike at its nearest animal. Mark quickly aimed and loosed an arrow; in the bounding confusion he couldn't be sure of the.

result of his own shot, but the crossbow thrummed beside him and the rider tumbled from his saddle.

The caged dragon, bounced unmercifully, screamed. The terrified loadbeasts bounded at top speed through the fog, as if to escape the curses that Nestor volleyed at them from the driver's seat. It seemed to Mark that missiles were sighing in from every direction, with most of them tearing through the wagon's cloth. Someone outside the wagon kept shouting for it to halt. Ben, in the midst of rec.o.c.king his crossbow, was almost pitched out of the wagon by a horrendous bounce.

Mark saw Barbara leaning out. Her right arm blurred, releasing a missile from her sling in an underhand arc. One of the cavalry mounts pursuing stumbled and went down.

The patrol had first sighted the wagon across a bight of the meandering road, and in taking a short cut to head it off had encountered some difficult terrain. This had provided the wagon with a good flying start on a fairly level stretch of road. But now the faster riders were catching up.

"Border's near!" yelled Nestor to his crew. "Hang on!"

We know it's near, thought Mark, but which direction is it?

Maybe now Nestor really did know. Mark loosed another arrow, and again he could not see where it went. But a moment later one of the pursuing riders pulled up, as if his animal had gone lame.

Another bounce, another tilt of the wagon, bigger than any bounce and tilt before. This one was too big. Mark felt the tipping and the spinning, the wagon hitting the earth broadside, with one crash upon another. He thought he saw the dragon's cage, still intact, fly past above his spinning head, all jumbled'

with a stream of bedding, and a frog-crock streaming frogs. He hit the ground, expecting to be killed or stunned, but soft earth eased the impact.

Aware of no serious injury, he rolled over in gra.s.s and sand, the ground beneath him squelching wetly. Nearby, the wagon was on one side now, with one set of wheels spinning in the air, and the team still struggling hopelessly to pull it. Meanwhile what was left of the cavalry thundered past, rounding the wagon on both sides, charging on into thickets along the roadside just ahead. Mark could catch just a glimpse of people there, who looked like Ben and Barbara, fleeing on foot.

The dragon was still keening, inside its upended but unbrokencrate beside the wagon.

On all fours, Mark scrambled back into the thick of the spilled contents at the wagon's rear. He went groping, fumbling, looking for the sword. He let out a small cry of triumph when he recognized Townsaver's blade, and thrust a hand beneath a pile of spilled potatoes for the hilt. He had just started to lift the weapon when he heard a mult.i.tude of feet come pounding closer just behind him. Mark turned his head to see men in half-armor, wearing the Duke's colors, leaping from their mounts to surround him. A spearman held his weapon at Mark's throat. Mark's hand was still on the sword, but he could feel no power in it.

"Drop it, varlet!" a soldier ordered.

-and overhead, out of the mist, great wings were sighing down. And the caged dragon's continuous keening was answered from up there by a creak that might have issued from a breaking windmill blade-- Another inhuman voice interrupted. This on I was a ba.s.so roar, projecting itself at ground level through the mists. Mark's knees were still on the ground, and through them he could feel the stamp of giant feet, pounding closer. A shape moving on two treetrunk legs, tall as an elder's house, swayed out of the fog, two forelimbs raised like pitchforks. Striding forward faster than a riding-beast could run, the dragon closed in on a mounted man.

Flame jetted from a beautiful red cavern of a mouth, the glow of fire reflecting, resonating, through cubic meters of the surrounding fog. The man atop his steed, five meters from the dragon, exploded like a firework, lance flying from his hand, his armor curling like paper in the blast. Mark felt the heat at thirty meters' distance.

Without pausing, the dragon altered the direction of its charge. It snorted, making an odd sound, almost musical, like metal bells. Once more it projected fire from nose and upper mouth. This time the target, another man on beastback, somehow dodged the full effect. The riding-beast screamed at the light brush of fire, and veered the wrong way. One pitchfork forelimb caught it by one leg, and sent it and its rider twirling through the air to break their bodies against a tree.

All around Mark, men were screaming. He saw the Duke's men and their riding-beasts in desperate retreat.

The dragon changed the direction of its charge again. Now it was coming straight at Mark. .

Nestor, at the moment when the wagon tipped, had tried to save himself by leaping as far as he could out from the seat, to one side and forward. He did get clear of the crash, landed on one leg and one arm, and managed to turn the flying fall into an acrobat's tumbling roll, thanking all the G.o.ds even as he struck that here the earth was soft.

Soft or not, something struck him on the side of the head, hard enough to daze him for a moment. He fought grimly to stay free of the descending curtain of internal darkness, and collapsed no farther than his hands and knees. He was dimly aware of someoneBen, he thought it was-bounding past him, into nearby thickets promising concealment. And there went a pair of lighter, swifter feet, Barbara s perhaps.In the thick fog, cavalry came pounding near. Beside Nestor in the muck, partially buried in it even as he was, there was a log.

He let himself sink closer to it, trying to blend shapes.

The cavalry swept past with a lot of noise, then was, for the moment, gone. Nestor scrambled his way back toward the tipped wagon. He had to have the sword. Whatever else happened, he wasnt going to leave that for the Duke.

When he reached the spill, he found the sword at once, as if, even half-dazed, he had known where Dragonslicer must be.

With the familiar shape of the hilt tightly in his grip, and the sound of the returning cavalry in his ears, Nestor moved in a crouching run back toward the thickets. He hoped the others were getting away somehow.

Once among the bushes, Nestor crouched down motionless.

Once more, in the fog, cavalry went pounding blindly past him, towards the wagon. He jumped up and ran on again. A moment later, a hideous, monstrous bellowing filled the air behind him. It sounded like the grandfather of all dragons, and the noise it made was followed by human screams.

Nestor ran on. He had his dragon-killing sword in hand, but he wasn't about to turn back and risk his neck to use it to save his enemies. Now, with the dragon providing such great distraction, he could calculate that his chances of getting away were quite good. Behind him the sounds of panic and fighting persisted. Possibly the Duke's patrol could be strong and determined enough to fight a dragon off. Nestor kept going, angling away from the direction he thought he'd seen Ben and Barbara take-time enough, later, to get his crew back together if they'd all survived.

In the fog, the bank of the creek appeared so sud denly in front of Nestor that he almost plunged into the water before he saw it. He hadn't been expecting to encounter the stream right here, but here it was, across his path, and maybe he was getting turned around again-small wonder, in this pea soup.

Now Nestor deliberately stepped into the thigh-deep water and started wading. He wanted to put some more distance between himself and the fighting. If the soldiers drove the dragon off or killed it, they might still come this way looking.

The uproar slowly faded with distance. It was peculiar, because this wasn't the country where you'd normally expect to find big dragons . . . any more than you'd expect a . fog like this . . .

-wings translucently thin, but broad as a boat's sails, were coming down at him from above, breaking through puffs of low pearly mist-what in the name of all the G.o.ds?

For a moment Nestor, still knee-deep in water and gazing upward, literally could not move. He thought that no one had ever seen the like of the thing descending on him now. Those impossible wings had to be reptilian, which meant to Nestor that the creature they supported had to be some subspecies of dragon.

The reptilian head was small, and obviously small of brain, grotesquely tiny for such large wings. The mouth and teeth were outsized for the head, and looked large enough to do fatal damage to a human with one bite. The body between the wings was wizened, covered with tough. looking scales, the two dangling legs all scales and sinew, with taloned feet unfolding from them now.It was coming at Nestor in a direct attack. He stood his ground-stood his muck and water rather-and thrust up at the lowering shape. With any other weapon in hand he would have thought his chances doubtful at best, but with Dragonslicer he could hardly lose.

Only at the last moment, when it was too late to try to do anything else, did he realize that the sound he always heard when he used this sword was not sound- ing now, that this time the sensation of power with which it always stung his arm was absent.

Even shorn of magic, the blade was very sharp, and Nestor's arm was strong and steady. The thrust slid off one scale, but then sank in between two others, right at the joint of leg and body. Only in that moment did Nestor grasp how big the flying creature really was. In the next instant one of the dragon's feet, its leathery digits sprouting talons, as flexible as human fingers, stronger than rope, came to scoop Nestor up by the left arm and shoulder. The embrace of its other leg caught his right arm and pinned it to his body, forcing the sword-hilt out of his grasp, leaving the sword still embedded in the creatures flesh between its armored scales. The violence with which it grabbed and lifted him banged his head against its scaly breast, a blow hard enough to daze him again.

He knew, before he slid into unconsciousness, that his feet had been pulled out of the water, that nothing was in contact with his body now but air and dragon scales. He felt the rhythm of the great wings working, and then he knew no more.

Even as the enormous landwalker charged at Mark, a shrill sound burst from the sword in his right hand.

The sound from the sword was almost lost- in the roar that erupted from the dragon's fiery throat, and the pulsed thunder of its feet. But the sword's power could be felt as well as heard. Mark was holding the hilt in both hands now, and energy rushed from it up into his hands and arms, energy that aligned the blade to meet the dragon's rush.

The sword held up Mark's arms, and it would not let him fall, or cower down, or even try to step aside.

He thought, fleetingly: This is the same terror that Kenn felt. And helplessly he watched the great head bending near. From those lips, that looked as hard and rough as chainmail, and from those flaring nostrils.

specks of fire drooled. The glowing poison spurted feebly, from a reservoir that must have been exhausted on the cavalry. Mark could feel the bounce and quiver of the soft earth with each approaching thud of the huge dragon's feet. And he saw the pitchfork forelimbs once more raised, to swipe and rend.

The head came lowering at Mark. It was almost as if those forge-fire eyes were compelled to challenge the light-sparks that now flecked the sword, springing as if struck from the metal by invisible flint. The swordjerked in a sideways stroke, driven by some awesome power that Mark's arms could only follow, as if they were bound to the blade by puppet-strings.

The one stroke took off the front quarter of the dragon's lower jaw. The dragon lurched backward one heavy step, even as a splash of iridescent blood shot from its wound. Mark felt small droplet-, strike, an agony of pinhead burning, on his left arm below his sleeve, and one on his left cheek. And the noise that burst from the dragon's throat behind its blood was like no other noise that Mark had ever heard, in wak- ing life or nightmare.

In the next instant, the dragon lurched forward again to the attack. Even as Mark willed to twist his body out of the way of the crushing ma.s.s the sword in his hands maintained a level thrust, holding his hands clamped upon its hilt, preventing an escape.

Mark went down backward before that falling charge.

He fell embedded in cushioning mud, beneath the scaly ma.s.s. In mud, he slid from under the worst of the weight; he could still breathe, at least. Finally the sword released his hands, and he felt a monstrous shudder go through the whole ma.s.s of the dragon's body, which then fell motionless.

The pain had faded from the pinp.r.i.c.k burns along his arm, but in his left cheek a point of agony still glowed. He tried to quench it in mud as he writhed his way toward freedom. Only gradually did he realize that he had not been totally mangled, indeed that he was scarcely injured at all. The falling torso had almost missed him. One of the dragon's upper limbs made a still arch above his body, like the twisted trunk of an old tree.

He was still alive, and still marveled at the fact. Some deep part of his mind had been convinced that a magic sword must always kill its user, even if at the same time it gave him victory.

The scaly treetrunk above Mark's body began to twitch.

Timing his efforts as best he could to its irregular pulsation, he worked himself a few centimeters at a time out from under the dead or dying ma.s.s. He was quivering in every limb himself, and now he began to feel his bruises, in addition to the slowly fading pain of the small burn. Still he was unable to detect any really serious injury, as he crawled and then hobbled away from the corpse of the dragon into some bushes. The only clear thought in his mind was that he must continue either to try to hide or to run away, and at the moment he was still too shaken to try to run.

Sitting on the muddy ground behind a bush, he realized gradually that, for the moment at least, no danger threatened.

The dragon had chased the cavalry away, and now the sword had killed the dragon. He had to go back to the dragon and get the sword.

Standing beside the slain monster he couldn't see the sword.

It must still be buried where his hands had last let go of it. It must still be hilt down in mud, under the full weight of more than a thousand kilograms of armored flesh.

Going belly down in mud again, Mark reached as far as possible in under the dead ma.s.s. He could justtouch the sword's hilt, and feel, through it a faint, persistent thrum of power. The blade was hilt-deep in the dragon; though Mark could touch the weapon, it seemed impossible without moving the dragon to pull it out.

Mark was still tugging hopelessly at the handle when - he heard Ben's voice, quiet but shaken, just behind him.

"Bigger'n any dragon I ever saw . . . where's Nestor?"