The benches round Badoc's table were filled to overflowing by the farmer, his plump, friendly wife Leunadra, the Fox, and a swarm of children. These ranged in age from a boy barely able to toddle on up to Badoc's twin daughters Callis and Elminda, who were about seventeen. They were striking girls, and Gerin eyed thern appreciatively. They had dark, curly hair, sparkling brown eyes, and cheeks rosy under sun-bestowed bronze; their thin linen tunics clung to young b.r.e.a.s.t.s. As subtly as he could, the baron turned the conversation in their direction. They hung on his every word ... so long as he was talking about Van. To his own charms they remained sublimely indifferent.

"I wish your friend could stay here," mourned one of the twins; Gerin had forgotten which was which. They both babbled on about Van's thews, his armor, his rugged features, his smile . . . and on and on, until Gerin began to hate the sound of his comrade's name. Badoc's craggy face almost smiled as he watched his guest's discomfiture.

At last the ordeal was over and the baron, quite alone and by then glad of it, went to his bed. His feet hung over the end, for Badoc had ousted one of his younger sons to accomodate the Fox. Gerin was tired enough that it fazed him not a bit.

It must have been around midnight when a woman's cry woke him. It was followed by another and then another, long and drawn out: "Evoi! Evoiii!" The baron relaxed; it was only the followers of Mavrix, the Sithonian G.o.d of wine, out on one of their moonlight revels. Gerin was a bit surprised the cult of Mavrix had spread to this out-of-the-way place, but what of it? He went back to sleep.

The next morning he discovered the considerate villagers had not only curried his horses until their coats gleamed, but also had left gifts of fresh bread, wine, cheese, onions, and bars of dried fruit and meat in the back of the wagon. A troop of small boys followed him south until their parents finally called them home.

"I almost hate to leave," Van said. Gerin studied him: was the outlander still wearing the traces of a satisfied grin? What if he is, witling? the baron asked himself. Do you begrudge him his good fortune? Well, yes, a little, his inner voice answered.

The road was a bit better south of the village; at least it never disappeared. Under the trees the air was cool and moist, the sunlight subdued; Gerin felt more at home than he had since leaving Ricolf's keep. He was not alone; he heard Elise softly humming a song of the north-country. She smiled as she saw him watching her.

They came to a clearing almost wide enough to be called a meadow, hidden away deep within the forest. The Fox squinted at the sudden brightness. A doe which had been nibbling at the soft gra.s.s growing by the forest's edge lifted its head in horror at the wagon's noisy arrival and sprang into the woods.

"Pull over, would you?" Van asked Gerin. The outlander reached for Gerins bow and quiver. Though he disdained archery in battle, he loved to hunt and was a fine shot. He trotted across the clearing and vanished among the trees with grace and silence a hunting cat might have envied.

With a sigh, Gerin threw down the reins and stretched out full-length on the sweet-smelling gra.s.s, feeling sore muscles beginning to unkink. Elise stepped down and joined him. The horses were as glad at the break as the humans; they cropped the turf with as much alacrity as the deer had shown.

Minute followed minute, but there was no sign of Van returning. "He's probably forgotten which end of the arrow goes first," Gerin said. He rose, went to the wagon, and emerged with Van's spear. Hefting it, he said, "Carrying this, I shouldn't wonder." Every time he touched it he marveled at his friend's consummate skill with such a heavy weapon.

He practiced slow thrusts and parries to while away the time, more than a little conscious of Elise's eyes on him. Showing off in front of a pretty girl was a pleasure which did not come his way often enough. More and more he resented the wound that had prevented him from courting this particular pretty girl. It was not that he lacked for women; if nothing else, a baron's prerogatives were enough to prevent that, though he was moderate in his enjoyment of them and never bedded a wench unwilling. But none of his partners had roused more than his l.u.s.ts, and he quickly tired of each new liaison. In Elise he was beginning to suspect something he had thought rare to the point of non-existence: a kindred soul.

He had just dispatched another imaginary foe when a crackle in the bushes on the far side of the clearing made him raise his head. Van back at last, he thought and filled his lungs to shout a greeting. It froze, unuttered. Only a thin whisper emerged, and that directed at Ricolf's daughter: "Do just what I tell you. Walk very slowly to the far side of the wagon and then run for the woods. Move!" he snapped as she hesitated. He made sure she was on her way before loping into the middle of the clearing to confront the aurochs.

It was a bull, a great roan, its s.h.a.ggy shoulder higher than the top of a tall man's head. Scars old and new crisscrossed its hide. Its right horn was a shattered ruin, broken off in some combat or accident long ago. The other curved out and forward, a glittering spear of death. The aurochs' ears twitched as it stared at the puny man who dared challenge it. The certainty of a charge lay like a lump of ice in Gerin's belly: any aurochs would attack man or beast, but a lone bull was doubly terrible. Drago's grandfather had died under the horns and stamping hooves of such a one.

Quicker ever than the Fox expected the charge came. The beast's hooves sent chunks of sod flying skyward. There was no time to throw Van's spear. All Gerin could do was hurl himself to his left, diving to the turf. He had a glimpse of a green eye filled with insane hatred and then the aurochs was past, the jagged stump of its horn shooting just over him. The rank smell of its skin fought the clean odors of gra.s.s and dirt.

Gerin was on his feet in an instant." But the aurochs was already wheeling for another charge, faster than any four-footed beast had a right to be. The Fox hurled his spear, but the cast was hurried and high. It flew over the aurochs' shoulder. Only a desperate leap saved Gerin. Had the bull two horns he surely would have been spitted. As it was, he knew he could not elude it much longer in the open.

He sprang up and sprinted for the forest, s.n.a.t.c.hing up the spear as he ran. Behind him he heard the drumroll of the aurochs' hooves. The small of his back tingled, antic.i.p.ating the thrust of the horn. Then, breath sobbing in his throat, he was among the trees. Timber cracked as the aurochs smashed through brush and saplings. Still, it had to slow as it followed his dodges from tree to tree.

He had hoped to lose it in the woods, but it pursued him with a deadly patience he had never known any aurochs to show. Its bellows and snorts of rage rang loud in his ears. Deeper and deeper into the forest he ran, following a vague game trail.

That came to an abrupt end: sometime not long before, a forest giant had toppled, falling directly across the path. Its collapse had brought down other trees and walled off the trail as thoroughly as any work of man's might have done. Gerin clambered over the dead timber. The aurochs was not far behind.

The Fox's wits had been in a state of frozen dismay from the moment the aurochs had appeared in the clearing. They began to work again as he leaped down from the deadfall. Panting, "I can't run any farther anyway," he jabbed the bronze-clad b.u.t.t of Van's spear deep into the soft earth, then blundered into the forest, having thrown his dice for the last time.

Even louder came the thunder of the aurochs' hooves, until the Fox could feel the ground shake. For a terrible moment he though it would try to batter through the dead trees, but it must have known that was beyond its power. Amazingly graceful, it hurled its bulk into the air, easily clearing the man-high barrier-and spitted itself on the upthrust lance.

At that impact the tough wood of the spearshaft shivered into a thousand splinters, but the leaf-shaped bronze point was driven deep into the vitals of the aurochs. It staggered a couple of steps on rubbery legs blood spruting from its belly. Then a great gout poured from its mouth and nose. It shuddered and fell. Its sides heaved, then were still; it gave the Fox a reproachful brown bovine stare and died.

Gerin rubbed his eyes. In his dance with death out on the meadow he had been sure the beast's eyes were green. His hand came away b.l.o.o.d.y. He must have been swiped by a branch while dashing through the forest, but he had no memory of it. Shows how much I know, he thought, and wearily climbed back over the deadfall.

He had not gone far when Van came crashing down the game track, drawn bow in his hand. Elise was at his heels. The outlander skidded to a halt, his jaw dropping. "How are you, Captain?" he asked foolishly.

"Alive, very much to my own surprise." "But-the aurochs . . . Elise said ..." Van stopped, the picture of confusion. Gerin was glad Elise had had the sense to go after his friend instead of showing herself to the aurochs and probably getting herself killed.

"I'm afraid I'll have to buy you a new spear when we get to the City," Gerin said.

Van hauled himself over the barrier. He came back carrying the spearpoint; bronze was too valuable to leave. "What in the name of the trident of Shamadraka did you do?" he asked.

The baron wondered where Shamadraka's worshippers might live; he had never heard of the G.o.d. He explained in a few words. "Climbing those trunks took everything I had left," he said. "The beast was hunting me like a hound-I've never heard of anything like it. He would have had me in a few minutes. But by some miracle I remembered a fable I read a long time ago about a slave who was too lazy to hunt. He'd block a trail, set a javelin behind his barrier, and wait for the deer to skewer themselves for him."

Elise said, "I know the fable you mean: the tale of the Deer and Mahee. In the end he's killed by his own spear, and a good thing, too. He was a cruel, wicked man."

"You got the idea for killing the brute out of a book?" Van asked, shaking his head. "Out of a book? Captain, I swear I'll never sneer at reading again, if it can show you something that'll save your neck. The real pity of it is, you'll never have a chance to brag about this."

"And why not?" Gerin had been looking forward to doing just that.

"Slaying a bull aurochs singlehanded with a spear? Don't be a fool, Gerin: who would believe you?"

Van had killed his doe while the baron battled the aurochs. He dumped the bled and gutted carca.s.s into the wagon and urged the horses southward. None of the travelers had any desire to spend the night near the body of the slain monster. Not only would the corpse draw unwelcome scavengers, but its spilled blood was sure to lure hungry, lonely ghosts from far and wide, all eager to share the unexpected bounty of the kill.

When at length the failing light told them it was time to camp, the deer proved toothsome indeed. Van carved steaks from its flanks and they roasted the meat over the fire. But despite a full belly the outlander was unhappy. He grumbled, "I feel naked without my spear. What will I do without it in a fight?"

Gerin was less than sympathetic. "Seeing that you've brought a mace, an axe, three knives-"

"Only two. The third is just for eating."

"My apologies. Two knives, then, and a sword so heavy I can hardly lift it, let alone swing it, I think you'll find some way to make a nuisance of yourself."

A nuisance Van was; he plucked a long straw from Elise's hand, leaving the short one-and the first watch-for Gerin. The Fox tried not to hear his friend's comfort-filled snores. His sense of the basic injustice of the universe was only slightly ameliorated when Elise decided not to fall asleep at once Gerin was glad of her company. Without it, he probably would have dozed, for the night was almost silent. The sad murmurs of the ghosts, heard with the mind's ears rather than the body's, were, also faint: the lure of the dead aurochs reached for miles, leaving the surrounding countryside all but bare of spirits.

For some reason the Fox could not fathom, Elise seemed to think him a hero because he had slain the aurochs. He felt more lucky than heroic; there was precious little glory involved in running like a rabbit, which was almost all he'd done. If he had not plucked what he needed from his rubbish-heap of a memory, the beast would have killed him. "Fool luck," he concluded.

"Nonsense," Elise said, "Don't make yourself less than you are. In the heat of the fight you were able to remember what you had to know and, more, to put it into action. It takes more than muscle to make a hero."

Not at all convinced, Gerin shrugged and changed the subject, asking Elise what she knew of her kin in the City. Her closest relative there, it transpired, was her mother's brother Vaidabrun the Stout, who held some fairly high position at the Emperor's court. Though he did not say so, Gerin found that a dubious recommendation. His Imperial Majesty Hildor III was an indolent dandy, and there was scant reason to expect his courtiers to be different.

To hide his worry, he talked of the City and his own two years in it. Elise was a good audience, as city life of any sort was new to her. He told a couple of his better stories, and her laugh warmed the cool evening. She moved closer to him, eager to hear more.

He leaned over and kissed her. Looking back on it later, he often wondered just what had made him do it, but at the time it seemed the most natural thing in the world. For a moment her lips were startled and still under his, but then she returned the kiss, at first hesitantly, then with a warmth to match his own.

You do have a gift for complicating your life, he told himself as she snuggled her head into his shoulder. If things go on the way they've started, not only will Wolfar want to cut out your heart and eat it (a project he's been nursing quite a while in any event), but your old friend Ricolf will be convinced, note or no note, you ran off with his daughter for purposes having very little to do with taking her to her uncle. And what is she thinking? She's no peasant wench, to be honored by a tumble and then forgotten. And further . . .

A plague on it all, he thought. He kissed her again.

But when his lips touched her soft white throat, she asked him softly, "Dear Gerin, was it for this, then, you decided to bring me to the City? Have I but traded one Wolfar for another?" She tried to keep her tone light, but hurt and disappointment were in her voice. They stopped him effectively as a dagger drawn, perhaps more so. She slipped free of his encircling arm.

He knew he had overstepped the bond of liking and sympathy growing up between them as they traveled. "I would never have you think that," he said.

"Nor do I, in truth," she replied, but the hurt was still there. The time to remember he was man and she maid might come later, he thought, or maybe not at all. It was not here yet, despite the cool quiet of the night and the moonlight filtering through the trees. They talked of inconsequential hings for a while, then she rose and walked to the wagon for her bedroll. As she pa.s.sed him she stopped and her lips brushed his cheek.

Elleb's thick waxing crescent was well set and the nearly full Math, bright as a golden coin, beginning to wester when he woke Van and sank into exhausted slumber.

But then it was as if a strong gale arose within his sleeping mind and blew away the mists separating him from the country of his dreams.

Clear as if he had been standing on the spot, he saw the great watch-fires flame, heard the wild music of pipe, horn, and harp skirling up to the sky, saw the tall northern warriors gathered by the fires, some with spears, others with drinking-horns in their hands. This is no common dream, he thought, and felt fear, but he could not leave it, not even when black wings drowned his sight in darkness.

These proved to be the flapping wings of the wizard's cloak Balamung wore. The gaunt sorcerer stepped back a pace, to be silhouetted against the firelight like a starving bird of prey. Only his eyes were live things, embers of scarlet and amber set in his skeletal face. The light played redly off his hollow cheeks. "Lord Gerin the Fox," he said, "it's nothing less than a nuisance you've been to me, nothing less, so I hope you'll be forgiving me if I cost you a dollop of sleep to show you what's awaiting in the northlands whilst you scuttle about the filthy south. Would I could be drawing the black-hearted soul of you right out of your carca.s.s, but there's no spell I ken to do it, with you so far away and all."

Balamung called down curses on the Fox's head; he hoped they would not bite deep. On and on the wizard ranted, until he paused to draw breath and continued in a slightly calmer vein, saying, "Not least do I mislike you for costing me the soul of a fine fighting man this day. Like a wee bird I sent it flitting out, to light in the body of the great aurochs. Sure as sure I was he'd stomp you all to flinders and leave you a dead corp by the side of the road. d.a.m.n your tricky soul, how did you escape him? The soul of him died trapped in the beast, for I couldna draw it free in time, and when it flickered away, his body was forfeit too, puir wight."

No wonder the bull had trailed him with such grim intensity! He likely had not been wrong when he thought its eyes were green, there in the meadow; that could well have been some byproduct of Balamung's magic. He had been lucky indeed.

"But sure and I'll have my revenge for him!" Balamung was screaming. Behind him the music had fallen silent. The spell the mage used must have been prepared beforehand, for when he cried out in the harsh Kizzuwatnan tongue a stout wicker cage rose from the ground and drifted slowly toward the fire. Gerin's spirit quailed when he saw it: he knew it was the custom of the Trokmoi to burn their criminals alive, and in this cage, too, a man struggled vainly to free himself.

"Die, traitor, die!" Balamung shouted, and all the gathered warriors took up the cry. Horror rose in Gerin, who suddenly recognized the condemned prisoner. It was Divico, the Trokme chieftain whose life he had spared after the fight at Ikos. He wished sickly that he had let Van give the northerner a clean death. "Have a look at what befalls them that fight me," Balamung whispered, "for your turn is next!" His voice was cold as ice, harsh as stone.

While he was speaking, the cage entered the blaze. Some minor magic had proofed the wicker against the flame; no fire would hold on it. But wherever a tongue of it licked Divico it clung, flaring as brightly as if his body were a pitch-soaked torch. Held there by Balamung's wizardry, Gerin watched in dread as the flames boiled Divico's eyeb.a.l.l.s in his head, 'melted his ears into shapeless lumps of meat that, sagged and ran against his cheeks, then charred the flesh from those cheeks to leave the white bone staring through. Dver the Trokme's body the flames cavorted, but Balamung's evil magic would not let him die; he fought against the unyielding door until his very tendons burned away. His shrieks had stopped long before, when the fire swallowed his larynx.

"A job I had to rush, he was," Balamung said. "When it's you, now Fox, falling into my hands, I'll take the time to think of something truly worthy of you, oh indeed and I will!" He made a gesture of dismissal. Gerin found himself starting up from his bedroll, body wet with cold sweat.

"Bad dream, Captain?" Van asked.

Gerin's only answer was a grunt; he was too shaken for coherent speech. Divico's face being eaten by flames still stood before his eyes, almost more vivid than the dimly-lit campsite he really saw. He thought he would never want to sleep again, but his weary body needed rest more than his mind feared it.

The sounds of a scuffle woke him. Before he could do more than open his eyes, strong hands pinned him to the ground. It was still far from sunrise; did bandits in the southlands dare the darkness, or was this some new a.s.sault of Balamung's? He twisted, trying to lever himself up on an elbow and see who or what had overcome him.

"Be still, or I'll rend thee where thou liest." The voice was soft, tender, female, and altogether mad. More hands, all full of deranged strength, were pressing down his legs. They tugged war-ningly, and he felt his joints creak. All hope left him; having escaped Balamung's sorcerous forays, it seemed unfair to die under the tearing hands of a band of the votaries of Mavrix. Why had the fertility G.o.d's orgiastic, frenzied cult ever spread outside his native Sithonia?

Moving very slowly, he turned his head about, trying to see the extent of the disaster. Perhaps one of his comrades had managed to get away. But no: in the moonlight he saw Van pinioned by more of the madwomen, his vast muscles twisting and knotting to no avail. Still more had fastened themselves to Elise.

The maenads' eyes reflected the light like those of so many wolves. That was the only light in them; there was nothing of human intelligence or mercy, for they were filled by the madness of the G.o.d. The finery in which they had begun their trek through the woods was ripped and tattered and splashed with mud and grime, their hair awry and full of twigs. One woman, plainly a lady of high station from the remnants of fine linen draped about her body, clutched the mangled corpse of some small animal to her bosom, crooning over and over, "My baby, my baby."

A blue light drifted out of the forest, a shining nimbus round a figure . . . G.o.dlike was the only word for it, Gerin thought. "What have we here?" the figure asked, voice deep and sweet like the drink the desert nomads brewed to keep off sleep.

"Mavrix!" the women breathed, their faces slack with ecstasy. Gerin felt their hands quiver and slip. He braced himself for a surge, but even as he tensed the G.o.d waved and the grip on him tightened again.

"What have we here?" Mavrix repeated. Van gave a grunt of surprise. "How is it you speak my language?"

To the Fox it had been Elabonian. "He didn't -" the protest died half-spoken as his captors snarled.

The G.o.d made an airy, effeminate gesture. "We have our ways," he said . . . and suddenly there were two of him, standing side by side. They- he-gestured again, and there was only one.

As well as he could, Gerin studied Mavrix. The G.o.d wore fawnskin, soft and supple, and a wreath of grape leaves was round his brow. In his left hand he bore an ivy-tipped wand; at need, Gerin knew, it was a weapon more deadly than any mortal's spear. Mavrix's blond curls reached his shoulder, but his cheeks and chin were shaven. His soft-featured, smiling face was a pederast's dream, except for his eyes: two black pits reflecting nothing, giving back only the night. A faint odor of fermenting grapes and something else, a rank something Gerin could not name, floated up from him.

"That must be a useful art." The baron spoke in halting Sithonian, trying to pique the G.o.d's interest and gain at least a few extra minutes of life.

Mavrix turned his fathomless eyes on the Fox, but his face was still a smiling mask. He answered in the same tongue, "How pleasant to hear the true speech once more albeit in the mouth of a victim," and Gerin knew his doom.

"Are you in league with Balamung, then?" he growled, knowing nothing he said now could hurt him further.

"I, a friend to some fribbling barbarian charlatan? What care I for such things? But surely, friend mortal, you can see this is your fate. The madness of the Mavriad cannot, must not be thwarted. Were it so, the festival would have no meaning, for what else is it but the ultimate negation of all the petty nonfulfillments of humdrum, everyday life?''

"It is not right!" Elise burst out. "Dying I can understand; everyone dies, soon or late. But after the baron Gerin" -the Fox thought it a poor time for rhyming, but held his peace- "singlehanded slew an aurochs, to die at the hands of lunatics, G.o.d-driven or no-"

Mavrix broke in, deep voice cracking. "Who slew what?" he demanded tensely.

Confused, Elise faltered, "Gerin slew a great wild ox-"

Mavrix's smile gave way to an expression of purest horror. He screamed, filling the forest with the sound. "The oxgoad come again!" he wailed, "but now in the shape of a man! .Metokhites, I thought you slain!" With a final despairing shriek, the G.o.d vanished into the depths of the wood. His followers fled after, afflicted by his terror-all but the lady of rank, who still sat contentedly, rocking her gruesome "baby".

Still surprised at being alive, Gerin slowly sat up. So did Elise and Van, both wearing bewildered expressions. "What did I say?" Elise asked.

Gerin thumped his forehead, trying to jar loose a memory. He had paid scant attention to Mavrix in the past, as the G.o.d's princ.i.p.al manifestations, wine and the grape, were rare north of the Kirs. "I have it!" he said at last, snapping his fingers. "This Metokhites was a Sithonian prince long ago. Once he chased the G.o.d into the Lesser Inner Sea, beating him about the head with a metal-tipped oxgoad: Mavrix always was an arrant coward. I suppose he thought I was a new-what would the word be?-incarnation of his tormentor."

"What happened to this Metokhites fellow?" Van asked. "It's not the smartest thing, tangling with G.o.ds."

"As I remember, he chopped his son into b.l.o.o.d.y bits, being under the impression the lad was a grapevine."

"A grapevine, you say? Well, Captain, if I ever seem to go all green and leafy-like, be so good as to warn me before you try to prune me."

At that, the last of the maenads lifted her eyes from the ruined little body she dandled. There was a beginning of knowledge in her face, though she was not yet fully aware of herself or her surroundings. When she spoke, her voice had some of the authority of the Sibyl at Ikos: "Mock not Mavrix, lord of the sweet grape. Rest a.s.sured, you are not forgotten!" Gathering her rags about her, she swept imperiously into the. woods, and silence fell on the camp.

The tribulations of Gerin the Fox, Van of the Strong Arm, and the Lady Elise have only just begun, as they draw nearer to the fabulous City of Elabon and the target of their quest, the Sorcerer's Collegium. Pursued by the curse of Mavrix as well as by the vengeful Balamung, the trio engage in even more fantastic and dangerous adventures in WERENIGHT, a Belmont Tower Book coming in April!