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  Ben and the small column of the command that had been entrusted to him were moving in the same direction, toward Sarykam and home. Ben was not praying for guidance, but muttering oaths under his breath as he listened uncomfortably to the blind Princeling's babble from inside the nearby litter. Today the mad crooning and muttering was almost continuous. At least the child did not sound as if he were suffering. Crazy, maybe, but not in pain.

  Partly with the goal of avoiding that sound for a time, partly out of general impatience, Ben spoke a word to the cavalry officer, who was now his second in command, and then cantered on ahead of the column, taking a turn at scouting.

  A few minutes later, while trying to discover the best way through a large outcropping of rocks, he was distracted by a sudden jumping of the land beneath his feet. It felt to him like an earthquake, or the sudden manifestation of an elemental.

  In another moment Ben was confronted by the bizarre figure of a small wizard wearing a strange robe covered with symbols of obscure meaning.

  This apparition, crouched among the jumbled rocks, waved to Ben and shouted at him: "Go and find Prince Mark! Hurry! Prince Mark is in trouble and he needs your help."

  Ben turned his mount around. The image he was looking at was obviously just that and not an ordinary human being. He judged that the only way to deal intelligently with it was to get magical assistance.

  As soon as he had turned his mount, the ground beneath the hooves of the riding-beast shifted back again, so he was left facing the same way as before.

  The strange magician-figure, in front of him again, cried out: "Don't run away, Ben! Listen to me!"

  "I have my orders," Ben managed to get out, and tried once more to turn his steed.

  But he had to listen to more shouted pleadings before he was allowed to leave.

  When Zoltan saw that the fresh trail he was now following was bringing him back to the river-or some river-once again, his spirits rose as before. He was looking forward to possibly encountering the mermaid again.

  The trail was going upstream now, along what looked like the same river he had followed downstream only a few days earlier. He wondered if something out of the ordinary could be happening to the geography of the land through which he traveled.

  At least it did make sense that the dragon should need the river, as the maid had told him. Here was another indication, a place where the beast had obviously tried to submerge itself, to wallow in the stream, though the channel here must actually be smaller than the diameter of its own body. Both banks and the vegetation on them were spattered and coated with dried mud for many meters, and a small pool had been scraped and scoured into a pond.

  The thrown-out mud looked dry. But when Zoltan probed at a thick clot of it with his fingers, the center was still moist. Certainly not very many hours could have gone by since the creature passed here.

  The Sword at Zoltan's side remained quiet as he crumbled the dried mud between his fingers.

  He had no more idea now than when he had left the farm, of where his uncle Mark might be. The idea was beginning to grow on Zoltan that he might be the one who had to wield the Sword of Heroes when the time came. He could neither accept the idea nor reject it. It was just there, like a boulder in his mind.

  Doggedly he stayed with the trail until nightfall, doing his best to overtake the thing that had made it.

  A few hours before sunset he came to a place where at last the parallel trail of the human riders diverged from that of the dragon. And here the mounted force had split into two unequal groups, which had then ridden off in different directions.

  Now there were three diverging trails. Zoltan stayed with that of the great worm.

  After dark he once more made his fireless camp beside the stream. And once more, to his joy, the maid appeared, popping up briskly out of the water shortly after he had wrapped himself in his blankets and lain down.

  "I was afraid to show myself during the day," she began calmly. "The leather-wings might have seen me again."

  "I have seen none of them," said Zoltan.

  "That is good. You know, don't you, that the dragon is not far away now? Under water I can hear him burbling and splashing. I think he is resting right in the river somewhere."

  Zoltan swallowed, with difficulty. "Does it ever move around at night?"

  "Oh yes. Sometimes ... listen! It may be that you will be able to hear it moving now."

  He concentrated, listening intently. There was the sound of the river itself, and he could not be sure of anything else.

  The maid asked him: "Where is your uncle?"

  Zoltan shook his head. "I still don't know. I have no more idea than I did before."

  "What are you going to do, then?"

  "I don't know that, either. Except that I must keep on following the dragon. Once I get within sight of it, keep it in sight. And, when Uncle Mark shows up, give him the Sword."

  "You will not try to use the Sword yourself?"

  "Not if I can help it," said Zoltan after a pause. "He's- he's much better at it than I am. He's done it before."

  "I will weep for you," the maid breathed, "if you are killed." He didn't know what to say to that.

  In the morning Zoltan started before dawn; there was no need for a great deal of light to follow a trail like this one. He came in sight of the dragon's tail as it was heading out of a huge thicket.

  In the growing daylight he recognized the farm ahead, its distinctive boundary of trees no more than a kilometer away. And he saw that the dragon was now heading directly for it.

  CHAPTER 22

  BURSLEM, after much heavy conjuring in the firelight of their nightly camp, announced to Amintor that the time had come for them to split up their forces.

  "Is it permitted to ask why?"

  "Prince Mark and his child are both within our reach, but they have separated. The Prince himself is now coming toward us again, either alone or with a very small escort; while the child is being taken on toward Tasavalta. If you, with a small squad of cavalry, can intercept and capture Prince Mark, I, with the remainder of my army, will overtake the force escorting Adrian."

  "Where is the Sword of Mercy now?"

  "Mark does not have it."

  "Ah. And why this particular division of labor?"

  "Because, my friend, you are the one equipped with Swords and should not need an army to protect you against one man-and I feel more comfortable with most of my army where I can see it. Would you like to exchange assignments?"

  Amintor thought it over. "No," he said presently. "No, if matters are as you say, I can take him prisoner. What of the worm?"

  Burslem demonstrated anger. "Some kind of magical interference has come up. It's interfered with my control."

  "Karel, perhaps, is striking at us?"

  "I suppose so. At any rate, we can't count on the worm just now. Neither can the enemy properly control it, of course; and I expect it'll give them something to think about besides us as it goes ravaging their countryside."

  "You've lost control of it?"

  "I've said that, haven't I?"

  The Baron stared at him. "What if the demon-damned beast had got away from you while we were riding it?"

  Burslem glared back. "I had it more directly in my grip then-anyway, nothing happened. You have your orders. Carry them out."

  Zoltan, meanwhile, was doing the best he could to get himself and Dragonslicer in front of the great worm and to keep the creature from getting at the farm. There was no mistake; it was the same farm; he could recognize the gate and certain trees of the boundary, even at this distance. But even as he tried to get his load beast to gallop, he was confused by the fact that the farm did not seem to be at all in the same place, geographically, where he remembered it as being. He had ridden for days away from it, and here he was already back again. He had not, he was sure, been traveling in a great circle ever since he left. That would have been too elementary an error. Yet there they were, the boundary hedge and gate
, just as before ...

  But now, they lay directly in the dragon's path.

  The monster, fortunately for Zoltan's plans, was in no great hurry. If it was yet aware of him and his load beast, it was so far willing to ignore their presence. It let him get himself and his beast in front of it.

  Once having reached the position he wanted, he dismounted and paused to let his load beast rest and to await the tiling's advance. Zoltan could still nurse a hope that the dragon might, after all, decide to go off somewhere else, avoiding the farm altogether.

  Meanwhile, the monster was moving only intermittently, and he had a little time available. Enough to open the medical kit that was still tied to his belt and extract from it a certain glass bottle that he had noticed earlier. This one was labeled AGAINST THE HARM OF FIRE AND ACID. Dragons, according to everything that Zoltan had ever been told about them, had plenty of both those powers with which to assail their opponents.

  He smeared himself-face, hands, then as much of his skin inside his clothing as he could cover-with the vile-smelling stuff of the bottle, using the entire contents. Only then did he wonder if he ought to have saved some to give to his uncle. Well, it was too late now.

  The dragon had been moving again, and now it reared its head over the small rise just in front of Zoltan, not fifty meters from him. There was no doubt that it saw him now.

  The immediate effect was that the load beast panicked and threw Zoltan off just as he was trying to leap back into the saddle and before he really had time to panic, himself. Furious anger rose up in him and for the moment drove out fear. Dragonslicer was humming in his hands now, the full undeniable power of a Sword at last manifesting itself for him.

  The monstrous head confronting him raised itself, eyes staring intently-then lurched away, angling to one side at the speed of a runaway racer. It was as if the demonstration of power in the Sword had been enough to warn the creature off.

  The dragon changed its course slightly again. It was still headed for the farm, but it was going to detour around Zoltan to get there. Zoltan stood frozen for another moment, watching-then he looked for his mount. But the treacherous load beast had run away.

  He chased it and was able to catch it-the animal would exert itself fully, it appeared, only when the dragon was coming directly at it.

  Back in the saddle, he rode desperately. His mount shied at the last, and he couldn't get close enough to the worm to strike. Quickly he leaped from the saddle and ran forward desperately.

  The monster was almost past him now-but he managed to reach one flank of it, back near the tail, and there he hacked into it boldly with his humming Sword.

  Amintor had been provided by Burslem with good directions as to exactly where to find Prince Mark. Now the Baron, with Shieldbreaker and Farslayer as usual at his side, and what he trusted were a dozen good cavalrymen at his back, was very near the calculated point of interception. Given the force at Amintor's disposal, it seemed to him very unlikely that he could fail to take the Prince, most probably alive rather than dead; but he was wary of Mark's ability, and of the unfathomed powers of the Sword of Mercy as well, if the Prince should have that weapon with him.

  When Zoltan hewed into the dragon's flank, the blade in his hands parting the armored scales like so many tender leaves, the beast's reaction came fiercely, though somewhat delayed. The vast scaly body looped up over his head and came smashing down, making the earth sound like a drum and knocking Zoltan off his feet with the violence of the shock that shook the ground beneath them. The dragon did not turn or pause to see whether he was dead or not. The spur of Dragonslicer had been enough to send it into flight.

  Its first flight was not straight toward the farm, which gave Zoltan time to recover and catch his load beast again.

  Mounted again, he was once more able to get between the indirectly advancing dragon and the farm. The load beast was not unwilling to be ridden in the dragon's general direction, or at least no more unwilling to carry him that way than any other. Only when Zoltan tried to get it to go within what it considered actual striking distance did it rebel.

  The dragon now had reached yet another of the river's pools, and halted there. Zoltan could hear it drinking and saw it twisting the forward portion of its snakelike body in an apparent effort to splash cooling water on its sun-heated upper scales.

  Zoltan urged his mount as best he could to get in front of the dragon. It was here or nowhere that he must stop the beast; he was now almost within a stone's throw of the farm at his back.

  He jumped from the saddle, Sword in hand.

  Now he saw that, whether by accident or design, a bight of the huge scaly body had been thrown across the stream, making a crude dam. A deeper pool than before was rapidly forming upstream from this obstruction, and now the dragon's head was lowering toward the pool to drink.

  I will kill it now, thought Zoltan, or I will never kill it.

  Raising the humming Sword above his head, he ran silently toward the drinking beast.

  Dragonslicer, Dragonslicer, how d'you slay? Reaching for the heart in behind the scales. Dragonslicer, Dragonslicer, where do you stay? In the belly of the giant that my blade impales.

  CHAPTER 23

  THE Baron was belly-down in the desert, watching from concealment Prince Mark's slow mounted approach. The Prince, as Burslem had predicted, was quite alone. Behind Amintor, the dozen troopers who had been detailed to go with him were presumably making their own preparations to carry out the ambush. The riding-beasts of Amintor and his party were in concealment too, being well-trained cavalry mounts that would lie down and jump up on command.

  The Baron turned his head partway in the direction of his men, and whispered softly: "Let him ride right into us, if he will ... save us the trouble of a chase. That's a powerful mount he rides."

  Then Amintor, his attention caught by some sound or perhaps unwonted silence among his men, turned to observe them more carefully. He saw them all in the act of divesting themselves of their weapons.

  In the blink of an eye he was on his feet, with a Sword out in each hand. He had thought ahead of time about the possibility of some such move as this. Prince Mark could wait.

  Shieldbreaker, because it could be relied upon to manage itself in a fight, was in the Baron's left hand. And Farslayer, in his right fist, was ready to exert its magic too-if any such magic should become necessary beyond that of sharp steel and skill.

  The lieutenant gave terse orders, and a few of the troopers, some brandishing weapons and some not, tried to close in on Amintor. The Sword of Force, hammering loudly, picked out their weapons as they came against it, and disposed of them, along with a limb or two. And Farslayer, working superbly if in mundane fashion, took care of those who tried to attack Amintor unarmed.

  Half a minute after it had started, the fight had reached a bloody standoff. Three men were down, dead or bleeding to death rapidly. Amintor could not chase down all his enemies, nor did he dare relax his vigilance. But there appeared to be no way for the surviving troopers to overcome him.

  The officer changed his tactics and tried negotiation. He called to the Baron: "Our master Burslem says if you give up the Swords, we are to let you go."

  "Yes, of course. To be sure. And what has he promised you and your men?" No one answered.

  "Whatever it is, I can give you more. And I will do so if you, or any of you, will switch your allegiance to me."

  Refusal was plain in the officer's face. Mixed emotions, with fear and doubt predominating, ruled in the faces of the other men.

  The Baron looked them all over as well as he could. Then he picked out one of them and locked his gaze on the man's eyes. "Sergeant? What about you, ready to join me? Or are you determined to collect one of these god-forged blades of mine in your guts?" The Baron paused, then once more addressed them all. "I repeat, those who are loyal to me are well rewarded. Not like these three on the ground. If any of you know anyone who served in my army under Queen Yambu, you know I sp
eak the truth."

  He got no immediate response, but now the officer was worried. The situation, balanced.

  When the break came, Amintor was almost as much surprised as the lieutenant was. The sergeant approached the officer as if for a private conference-and then struck at him without warning. The officer managed to parry most of the force of the sword cut, sustaining only a light wound, and in the next instant striking back. In the next instant a bloody melee had broken out, the troopers in two opposing factions hacking and slashing at each other energetically.

  In a matter of only moments, the lieutenant and a few who remained with him retreated. First one group and then another reached the riding-beasts, and in a few moments more the fight, now a small cavalry skirmish, had swirled over the next dune.

  Discipline, thought Amintor, could never have been good in Burslem's little army-and now, doubtless, it was never going to be.

  "After them! Finish them!" he shouted orders after his new allies.

  Now the thudding noise in Shieldbreaker quieted and Amintor was able to sheathe the Sword again. His whole left arm felt strange from holding it, but he was confident that the sensation would soon pass.

  And now, with distractions out of the way momentarily, for the Prince. Quickly Amintor looked back in the other direction. There was Mark, a hundred meters or more away, evidently out of earshot of the noise of fighting. Mark was upwind, which would have muffled the noises somewhat. The Prince had dismounted, as if he meant to camp for the night, though nightfall was still hours away. No, now he was tugging at one of the legs of his mount. It looked like there was some trouble with his riding-beast's hooves or shoes.

  Amintor, studying the figure of the Prince as well as he could at the distance, frowned as he observed that Mark was apparently unarmed. Oh, there might be a knife at his belt. Doubtless there would be a weapon or two somewhere, but... Burslem had said that Woundhealer was now with the caravan escorting Adrian, and doubtless that was the case.

  Now, the Baron judged, was the time for him to act boldly, before his own treacherous escort, or any part of it, could reappear. He rose partially from concealment and hurried forward, alternately trotting and crawling. For the moment he preferred to leave his own mount behind, so he could get closer without being seen.