beautiful and frustrating land there had to be glory for a fatherless man to seize, but it was rapidly growing harder to believe in it.
“We still have our own voima,” said the being, sounding crafty now. “And even your Wanderers are not fated to rule forever. We disrupt them whenever we can.”
“Including capturing a mortal,” provided Roric, “and sending him to attack the Wanderers. Will my steel overcome them when yours will not?”
“You were not captured, Roric No-man’s son. You came willingly.”
But I did not know where you were taking me, he thought-and still do not. If he now accompanied these beings willingly, it was because he had not seen an alternative since they arrived here.
He got no more useful answers out of the man. A short time later Roric lay down himself to sleep, under a different tree from everybody else.
Sleep did not come easily. He lay on his back, an arm across his eyes to shield them from the sun. He thought of Karin, picturing her going about her daily activities directing Hadros’s household, hoping she was not worried for him. Then he tried to picture a “third force” where he had always expected there to be only one.
There had always been creatures of voima abroad in the world, trolls, dragons, hollow beings without backs, faeys-although he had never seen any of these but trolls, unless the strange green light in the dell he had seen only once, when out walking in the evening, had indeed been faeys. There might well be more creatures of voima here in the Wanderers’ realm, beings who did not share in their full power although they were immortal themselves, creatures of spite or tricks or dangerous sullenness.
He rolled over sharply and looked toward the sleeping war band, half hidden in the grass. It had always been disquieting that he could not see them properly, even with his charm in his hand. They had been too timid, too foolish for him to fear them here, but at least one of them had terrified all of Hadros’s housecarls. What were they really like? Valmar had gasped out something about someone with no back, and although he had paid no attention at the time, he now wondered what the boy might have seen that he, expecting a Wanderer, had not.
He rose to his knees, considering saddling Goldmane again and slipping away while they all slept. But if they wanted him, he had little doubt they would be able to catch him, and if he ran he did not know where he would go. “And even a man without a father should know he cannot run from fate,” he growled to himself.
But then he smiled a little as he lay back down. If he lived to see mortal realms again, he would have a tale that would take several nights’ singing to tell.
They came quietly up out of a valley, not talking, not blowing their trumpets, and saw a large manor house in the distance. Again there was no sign of the masters. But the war band spread out, forming a large half circle. They communicated by hand signals, keeping silence. Helmets were secured and spears readied.
Roric unfastened the peace-straps on his sheath and glanced back down the valley. “Look,” he said suddenly. The man next to him turned on him with the beginning of an irritable exclamation, then stopped when he saw what Roric had seen.
Coming up the valley behind them was another war band.
These riders were sharp and vivid, no shadows here. They were clad all in steel from which the sunlight flashed. They seemed small and slender in comparison with his own band, but there was nothing small about their spears. A white banner without device floated above them. Horned helmets completely covered their faces.
They had spotted him. They reined in their horses, then the rider in the lead raised a horn and blew.
The note was piercing, sending the blood pounding in Roric’s ears. At last, he thought. After days of inaction, it had finally begun. Every horse in both parties reared and charged toward the other.
And he was among them, standing in the stirrups, his hair tossed back, his sword in his fist and bellowing. But as he and the horned warriors rushed together he wondered for a second if he was on the right side.
The two bands met like waves crashing together. Screams of horses and the clang of steel on steel surrounded him. Goldmane raced in the lead, and he struck out again and again, using his sword to deflect blows aimed at him. His own strokes bounced off shield and armor.
All around him was an unfocused blur. He had no attention to spare for his companions. It felt as though the entire horned band were attacking him personally. All he could see were swords and spears aimed at him, as he ducked a javelin, parried a sword stroke, seized a spear and jerked it out of one warrior’s hand one second and thrust it against another the next.
He was still untouched, but as he whirled to face another blade the back of his mind asked, as though mildly curious, how long he thought this could continue.
In the distance came another horn call.
This one was different, poignant, almost melancholic. The people at the manor, he thought, had joined the fray at last.
And at that note the fighting fizzled out. Warriors fell back on every side, and no one met his strokes. In a few seconds the clang of steel on steel had ceased. He looked around wildly, his own sword still upraised. He saw no fallen men, only both sides turning to run.
And Goldmane ran too. He had never felt his stallion go this fast. First in the middle of the group of galloping steeds-from both war bands, he thought, though it was hard to see with the wind in his eyes-then in the forefront, then out before all the rest. Shouts blew back down his throat, and hard tugs on the rein were of no avail. The stallion had the bit between his teeth, and he ran effortlessly, leaping streams and hedgerows until it seemed he was flying, only putting down a hoof occasionally to guide them on their mad course.
Roric clung like a bur to the saddle, his eyes almost blinded and a fierce smile on his lips.
“Well, I’d like to know where you learned a trick like that,” said Roric to his horse.
He sat with his elbows on his knees while the stallion, unsaddled and unconcerned, grazed peacefully beside him. “Could you always run that fast, but you just never bothered before?”
Goldmane had finally begun to slow, and Roric had gotten the bit away from him at last. He tethered his horse firmly to a tree in a little meadow on top of a ridge, but the stallion showed no more interest in speed.
“The troll should have known better than to let you go,” Roric added appreciatively. They were completely alone. He had not seen anyone of either war band for hours.
“Tell me,” as the stallion continued to tear off mouthfuls of grass, “were those trolls we were with? I hope you knew what you were doing this time. Did you recognize whoever we were fighting against? Were they Wanderers, or whoever the ‘second force’ might be? And were we really in danger of our lives, either from the horned band or from the manor, or did it just feel that way?”
Goldmane lifted his head, looked at Roric quizzically, then returned to grazing. “And I really would have questions for you,” said Roric, “if you started to answer me.”
He rose to his feet and laughed, slapping his horse on the shoulder. “You’re almost as informative to talk to as the man who brought me here. Wait for me. I’m going to get some water.”
A narrow, muddy trickle came from a spring and cut through the meadow, and while Goldmane had lapped it up, Roric hoped that if he followed it a short distance he would come to a pool or at least a place where it ran a little deeper.
He followed the trickle with the conviction that he would not return to the people from whom Goldmane had carried him away. Soon limestone rocks sprouted up through the grass. The trickle took on force and size until it shot over the edge of a little cliff, its spray making tiny rainbows in the horizontal sunlight.
Roric went to his knees to look over the edge. The cliff was less than twenty feet high. Below the water shot into a hole like the mouth of a cave, but he could hear its splash so the hole could not be very deep. He went around and found a way to scramble to the bottom of the cliff, then lowered himself carefully into the dark, damp crevice down which the water disappeared.
In a very short distance, he found the pool he had hoped for. The stream splashed and whirled, then flowed away, broad and quiet, over dimly lit stone. Here the water appeared perfectly clear, so he drank, dipped his head to wash the grime from his face, then lifted water in his palms to drink again.
That was when he saw the light.
At first, kneeling with water dripping from his chin, he thought it his imagination, a green spark in the distance. But it remained even when he moved his head. He stood up slowly, listened without hearing anything but the waterfall, and walked forward cautiously, his hand resting on his sword.
As he walked, the green light became brighter. He ran a hand along the damp stone roof over his head, then stopped when it sloped rapidly lower. But now he thought he could hear voices ahead of him.
