'Lord.’ It was Haster. He pushed a bundle of arrows into his hand. ‘These are the last,’ he said simply.
Arwain's order passed along the hard-pressed line. ‘Prepare to fall back!'
It was a world of whirling darkness and noise, lit only by lightning from a tormented, lowering sky. Lightning that forked from cloud to cloud. Lightning that vented its terrible spleen on the trembling ground below. Lightning that flared silent and ominous within the clouds themselves, like the gas from some long-decayed marsh. Lightning that was searing white and fevered yellow and red like the fires of a vast sword-forging furnace.
Antyr gazed around. His terror seemed to resonate with the very air about him.
In all the dreams he had walked, he had never seen such a fearful place as this. And he was alone! There was no sign, no hint of the presence of Tarrian or Grayle.
A dark, luminous mist hung over the shaking ground, obscuring it completely.
Shadows flitted around him, now clear and vivid, now vague, like wind-caught smoke.
Yet they were familiar.
As was the sound that mingled with the rolling thunder.
Then sound and images came together in Antyr's mind to form a ghastly whole. It was the battle! Wherever he had been thrown, it was no Threshold world. It was near the heart of that terrible conflict in his birth world; some tortured realm created as nightmare and reality began to merge.
'Tarrian! Grayle!’ he shouted, but though his words rang through his head, he made no sound. The shadow- filled air gibbered at him in reply.
He turned around to search for something that might help him focus his swirling, panic-stricken thoughts.
Then, scarcely a dozen paces away, he saw a figure, silhouetted dark and ominous against a frenzied, lightning-lit background.
Yet it was another person, another human, in this demented place. Antyr reached out to it in appeal.
The figure inclined its head inquiringly, then stepped forward. The sky flared red and lit the blade of the sword he was carrying. Then, Antyr felt his menace.
He stepped back. ‘Who are you? What do you want?’ he asked wordlessly.
But the figure did not reply, it moved relentlessly forward through the flickering shadows of the battle in the other world.
Trembling, Antyr drew his own sword and, holding it with two hands, offered an uncertain guard. The figure stopped and a voice full of scorn and grim humour passed through Antyr.
'And I thought you were a demon,’ Ivaroth's voice said. ‘You're just a man, as I am. It seems your guardian is as lost as mine.’ He gave a low, sinister laugh. ‘I don't know where that old fiend has plunged us with his vaunted power, but he's lost himself somewhere, for ever, I hope. While you, his lusted-after prize, the cause of all this, are here, defenceless, for me to spit like a pig.'
Antyr tried to remember Estaan's teaching but all his knowledge seemed to have evaporated. Fear dominated him.
'Tarrian! Grayle!’ He tried again, but there was no response.
Ivaroth paused for an instant at the cry, then with a roar he swung his sword at Antyr's head.
Antyr jumped back desperately, thrusting his own sword forward to parry the blow. Ivaroth's powerful cut, however, simply swept his blade aside, sending him staggering.
The shadows of the battle swirled and flitted between the two men as Ivaroth cut again and again at the elusive Dream Finder.
Antyr's every instinct was to flee. But to where? Could there be any shelter in this place? This fearful half world that seemed to have been created just for the two of them.
Ivaroth came again, his anger mounting at this scuttling, pathetic opponent from whom he had once fled. Abruptly, Antyr's terror overwhelmed him and swinging his sword furiously from side to side he charged, screaming, at Ivaroth.
Ivaroth retreated before the onslaught, though in cold caution, not fear. His moment of triumph was near now, he knew. Many a terrified creature had swung at him thus in the past. He revelled in the stink of Antyr's fear.
And there it was!
With a whirling twist of his blade, he entangled Antyr's and sent it soaring high into the dark air. The screech of metal against metal overtopped the noise of the thunder and the battle, and the blade flickered red and white and yellow as it turned and spun under the rumbling sky.
Antyr staggered back under the impact of Ivaroth's sudden counter-attack, and tumbled incongruously on to the ground. The clinging mist billowed around him.
Ivaroth levelled his sword at him, then set it to one side and bent forward, bringing his face close to Antyr's.
'Know, Dream Finder, that it is an honour to die on the sword of Ivaroth Ungwyl, Lord of all the tribes, Mareth Hai. Know.'
Antyr quailed before the night-black eyes and the night-black void that was Ivaroth's mouth. Then, scarcely aware of what he was doing, he spat into the dreadful mask of his impending death.
For an instant it seemed that all noise and movement had ceased.
Then, through the silence, Antyr saw his left hand seize Ivaroth's sword arm.
And the tumult was alive again.
Antyr's right hand drove Captain Larnss’ knife brutally up under Ivaroth's ribcage.
The blackness vanished from Ivaroth's eyes and Antyr hesitated at the bewilderment and pain he now read there.
But even as he did so he felt a response from his victim and saw their message change, to frenzied murderous rage. And, too, he heard the cry of Ryllans in the training hall.
'Don't stop! Finish him! Finish him!'
Then, Estaan's true training came forth as Antyr's whole being accepted the reality of his needs and did what was necessary for his survival.
Tightening his grip on both Ivaroth's sword arm and Larnss’ knife, he swept through his hesitation and doubts, and, levering himself up from the misty ground, he charged forward into his enemy, pushing, pushing, pushing, though his voice screamed and screamed as if that could erase forever the memory of the deed.
Then they crashed to the ground.
Antyr saw Ivaroth's life leave him as surely as he had seen his sword bounce from his hand.
And for an instant the shadows were whole and solid again. Around him the bodyguard, arrows spent, had formed a defensive ring, and images of flailing hooves, whitened eyes and hacking blades flooded into him. And with it, the terrible din.
Yet through the din came another sound. Reaching out to draw him back.
'No, Antyr, Dream Finder, my guide. That world will be no more. Your destiny lies elsewhere. You are to be my most favoured when the inner portal is found.'
Antyr hung in timeless, featureless greyness.
Before him, white, sightless eyes seeing all, was the blind man.
'Mynedarion,’ Antyr said hoarsely. ‘Abomination. I…'
The blind man reached out to him and Antyr's voice left him. ‘It was well you triumphed,’ he said. ‘Else I had been lost. Ivaroth was treacherous to the end. But the power knew of my coming, and preserved me.'
'Tarrian! Grayle!’ Antyr tried to scream, but a gesture of the long clawed hand seemed to silence even his thoughts.
'Nothing but my will prevails here, Dream Finder,’ the blind man said. ‘And my will is that you find the inner portal that will bring me to the power. It is near this place. For it has drawn you here. That I know. That I can feel. But you must guide me.’ His voice became seductive. ‘That done, then all will be yours.'
Antyr again found his mind filled with images of wealth and luxury and power. It seemed that every desire he had ever had was but a hair's breadth away from him. Some simple act away. Everything he had ever wanted.
But the mayhem of the battle and the death of Ivaroth were too close. No wealth, no luxury, no power could stand the bloody comparison with such truths.
