land about a hundred meters distant to the west. She was mounted on a gray warbeast of such a size that Nestor for an instant thought it was a dragon.
Beneath the cloudy sky, the woman's armor flashed as if it were catching desert sunshine. She brandished a silver needle of a sword, and she was shouting something in their direction.
The words came clearly in her penetrating voice: 'Remove yourself from my army's path, great beast, or I will set men to fight against you! I know your weakness; they'll kill you soon enough. And who is that you carry?'
Nestor had heard of people who rode on warbeasts, but never before had he seen it done. As he resumed his seat on Draffut's shoulders, the giant roared back: 'Rather remove your bloodmad warbeasts from my path! Or else I will send you dragons enough to make your march through the swamp much more interesting.' Without waiting to see what effect his words might have, he turned and stalked away, resuming his passage to the north. There was no observable pursuit.
'That was the Silver Queen herself. Yambu,' said Nestor to Draffut's ear a little later. The comment was undoubtedly unnecessary, but the man was unable to let the encounter pass without saying something about it.
'Indeed.' The huge voice came rumbling up through Draffut's neck and head. 'There are elements of humanity that I sometimes wish I were able to fight against.'
Once more they were traversing bog and thicket at what would have been a good speed for a riding-beast on flat, cleared ground. Some time passed in silence, except for the quick plash and thud of Draffut's feet, while Nestor pondered many things. Then he asked: 'You said that you are planning to go and start an argument with the gods?'
'I must,' said Draffut. And that was all the answer to his question that Nestor ever got.
But little further conversation was exchanged. Nestor welcomed the comfort of his ride, and watched the sun move in and out of clouds in the western sky. By the time Draffut stopped again, some hours had passed and the reddening sun was almost down. Imperceptibly the land had changed, continuous marsh giving way to intermittent bogs bridged by dry land. Once Nestor saw herdsmen watching from a distance.
The giant set Nestor down carefully on dry ground, and said to him: 'Go north from here, and you will find Sir Andrew. From here on north the land is solid enough for you to walk, and savage beasts are fewer. My own way from here lies to the east.'
'I wish you good luck,' said Nestor. And then, when he had looked to the east, he would have said something more, for never until now had he known the sunset fires of Vulcan's forge to be so bright that they could be seen from this far west.
But Draffut was already gone.
Chapter 16
When Dame Yoldi took Mark for the first time to her workroom, he discovered it not to be the dismal, forbidding chamber that he had for some reason expected. Rather it was open, cleanly decorated with things of nature, and as light as the dying, cloudy day outside could make it, entering narrow windows.
The enchantress lighted tapers, from a small oil lamp that was already burning. She distributed a few of these in the otherwise dark corners of the room, and placed two more on the central table where Dragonslicer now rested on a white linen cloth. Most of the floor space in the room was open, while shelves round all the walls contained an armament of magic, arrayed in books and bottles, boxes, jars, and bags. One set of open dishes held grain and dried fruit, another set what looked like plain water and dry earth. Yoldi made Mark sit down at the table near the sword, where she made him comfortable, and gave him a delicious drink, not quite like anything he had ever tasted before. Then she began to question him closely about his family, and about the several godswords he had seen, and about what he thought he would do with his own sword if he could ever get it back. Her questions suggested new ideas to Mark, and made him see his own situation in what seemed like a new light, so that when he looked at the sword before him on the table now he saw it as something different from the weapon he had once held in his own two hands and used to kill a dragon. The more he talked with Yoldi the more fearfully impressive the whole business grew. But somehow he was not more frightened.
Their chat was interrupted by an urgent tapping at the door. Yoldi went to open it, and listened briefly to someone just outside. A moment later, with a solemn face, she was beckoning to Mark to follow her out of the room. She led him up many stairs, and finally up a ladder, which brought them out onto what proved to be the highest rooftop of the castle. This was a flat area only a few meters square, copper-sheeted against weather and attack by fire, and bounded by a chesthigh parapet of stone. Sir Andrew's Master of the Beasts, a dour young man who gave the impression of wanting to be old, was on the roof already, doing something to one of a row of man- sized cages that stood under a shelter along the northern parapet. In these cages were kept the flyers, the inhuman messengers and scouts, temporarily before launching and when they had returned from flights.
When Dame Yoldi and Mark appeared on the roof, the BeastMaster silently pointed to the east, into the approaching night. In that direction a large arc of the horizon was sullenly aglow, with what looked like an untimely dawn, or distant flames.
'The mountains,' Mark said, understanding the origin of the glow. And then: 'My home.'
Dame Yoldi, standing behind him, held him by the shoulders. 'In which direction exactly is your village, boy?' Her voice at first sounded almost eager. 'Can you point toward it? But no, I don't suppose that's possible. It's somewhere near those mountains, though.'
'Yes.' And Mark, continuing to stare at the distant fires, lapsed into silence.
'Don't be afraid.' Yoldi's tone turned reassuring, while remaining brisk, refusing to treat volcanoes as a disaster. Her grip was comforting. 'Your folic are probably all right. I know these foothill people, ready to take care of themselves. It might actually be a good thing for them, make them get out of Duke Fraktin's territory if they haven't done so already.' The enchantress turned away to the dour man, asking: 'When is your next scout due back from the east?'
Mark did not understand whatever it was that the man answered. He was intent on wondering what might be happening to his home, on picturing his mother and his sister as stumbling refugees.
'I wonder,' Dame Yoldi was musing to herself, 'if anyone's told Andrew about this yet. He ought to be told, but he's down there talking to the fellow from Yambu — probably wouldn't do to interrupt him now.'
And now Mark saw that one of the airborne scouts was indeed coming in against the fading sky; coming from the south and not the east, but approaching with weary, urgent speed.
Baron Amintor, who was Queen Yambu's emissary to Sir Andrew, was a large man, the size of Sir Andrew himself but younger. The Baron with his muscles and his scars looked more the warrior than the diplomat. He had the diplomat's smooth tongue, though, and Sir Andrew had to admit to himself that the man's manners were courteous enough. It was only the substance of what the visitor had to say that Sir Andrew found totally objectionable.
The two men were conversing alone in a small room, not far above the ground level of the castle, and within earshot of Sir Andrew's armory, where the clang of many hammers upon metal signalled the process of full mobilization that the knight had already put into effect. It was a sound he did not want his visitor to miss.
Not that the Baron appeared to be taking the least notice of it. 'Sir Andrew, if you will only hand over to me now, for delivery to the Queen, whichever of these swords you now possess, and grant the Queen's armies the right of free passage through your territory — which passage you will not be able to deny her in any case, you will then be under her protection as regards these threats you have lately been receiving from Duke Fraktin. And, I may add, from any similar threats that may arise from any quarter. Any quarter,' Amintor repeated, with a sly, meaningful look, almost a wink. At that point he paused.
Sir Andrew wondered what particular fear or suspicion that near-wink had been calculated to arouse in him; but no matter, he was worrying to capacity already, though he trusted that it did not show.
Baron Amintor went on: 'But, of course, Her Majesty cannot be expected to guarantee the frontiers or the safety of any state that is unfriendly to her. And if for some misguided reason you should withhold from her these swords, these tools so necessary to Her Majesty's ambitions for a just peace, then Her Majesty cannot do
