A warrior's joyrney

wagons, and the oxen too, all lay inertly on the road. They’d been felled where they stood, all affected by the strange man’s wizardry.

Gripping his spear, Tol charged the man. The fellow whipped his cloak back, revealing a mail shirt beneath, and drew a quite ordinary iron saber from his waist.

Tol caught the blade on the wide spearhead, whirled it in a small circle to disengage, then thrust at the rider’s chest. The man’s horse reared, flailing the air with its legs. Tol crouched low, wary of the heavy hooves.

Iron whistled past his ear, and Tol swung the butt of the spear in a wide arc. He caught his attacker in the ribs.

The fellow grunted under the blow, but his mail shirt protected him.

Tol fell back and assumed a spearman’s ready position. For two years, he and his foot soldiers had trained, learning by trial and error the best methods of battling mounted foes. The two things a lone man on foot had to remember were keep moving-his two feet were nimbler than a horse’s four-and get into reach. Tol had had his men’s spearshafts lengthened by four spans. With spears that long they could reach the face of an enemy mounted on the tallest horse in the world.

When the rider showed reluctance to press his attack, Tol lifted his spear to shoulder height and ran at him, shouting. The man tried to fend off the spear with his sword, but the saber was too light to turn the big spear away. Tol rammed the spear tip into the man’s chest. It snagged in his cloak and tore through, skidding off his armor. Although the point did not penetrate, the momentum of Tol’s charge knocked the man off his horse. He fell heavily to the pavement.

In the blink of an eye, Tol had a knee on the fallen man’s chest and a dagger at his throat.

“Yield!” he said, pressing the dagger’s point slightly into the man’s neck. It was the finely jeweled weapon given to him by Crown Prince Amaltar.

“Kill me, and your master will die an agonizing death!” rasped the man.

“Speak plainly, or die!” Tol declared. He dug the dagger in just below the man’s chin. Blood welled around the keen point.

“The marshal of the Eastern Hundred is our captive!”

“You lie! He rode with two hundred Riders of the Horde!”

The man’s eyes shifted toward the caravan. “How many lie insensible there?” Point well taken. “If I fail to return, your marshal and all his warriors will be slaughtered!” the man added.

Tol stood, dragging him to his feet. “You’d better pray no such thing happens,” he said coldly. “If it does, your death will be an agonizing one!”

Dagger firmly against his captive’s throat, Tol marched him along until they recovered the stranger’s horse. Tol tied his hands, shoved him onto the horse, and mounted behind him.

“Take me to Lord Enkian,” he said, pressing the dagger behind the man’s right ear. Sullenly, his prisoner complied, guiding his horse off Ackal’s Path. Tol looked over his shoulder at the Dom-shu sisters and his footmen, still slumbering, and prayed for their safety in his absence.

They rode north, into the hills. Progress was slow as Tol watched ahead, reading signs and tracks, always alert for ambush. Up a dry creek, the man pointed with his chin to a gap between two knolls.

“There. You’ll find your people there.”

Without another word, Tol used the heavy pommel of his dagger to knock the stranger senseless. Once the limp man fell to the ground, Tol traded the dagger for a saber. He wrapped the reins tightly around his left hand, took a deep breath, then thumped his heels on the horse’s flanks. The animal sprang forward.

He rounded the curve of the dry streambed, sand flying from the horse’s pounding hooves. A single sentinel perched atop a boulder tried to challenge him, but Tol cut the man’s legs out from under him without slowing. He left the fellow bleeding to death on the rock and plunged on, taking another curve at full gallop.

He came upon four conical tents, a picket line with half a dozen horses, and a small campfire around which sat four men in leather brigantines. His arrival brought them to their feet in a hurry. Two, armed only with axes and small round bucklers, tried to stave him off while the other pair sprinted to their horses. Tol drove straight through them, making for the unguarded end of the picket line. He slashed it, shouting wildly to spook the horses. The animals broke and ran.

A strange sensation of heat played over Tol’s head, like warmth from an unseen bonfire. Tol whirled and spied a new threat. Striding out of the largest tent was a man in full armor, his face covered by a weirdly grinning visored helmet.

Although years had passed since he’d last seen that horrible visage at his family’s farm, it was all too familiar.

Spannuth Grane!

The armored man drew a very long, two-handed straight sword. Tol steered his horse toward him. Grane-if indeed it was he inside the familiar armor-held up his right fist. A massive ring gleamed on one mailed finger. Again Tol felt a fleeting kiss of heat on his face, but nothing more. However, all four of the fighting men he’d faced when he first entered the camp now lay insensible on the ground. Grane’s first attempt to hex Tol had felled two; his second attempt downed the others.

Tol crouched low and leaned forward in the saddle, boring in on the armored man. With a flash of polished metal, the fellow brought his blade up, striking Tol’s saber hard. Hand stinging, Tol kept his grip as his horse thundered by.

He made a second pass, and this time his sword skidded off iron shoulder plates. His foe did not cut at him, but with brutal efficiency stabbed the horse. The animal went down, shrieking, and pitched Tol to the ground. His head rang with the hard impact, and he lay stunned. Bronze sabatons crunched in the gravel, coming for him.

Get up, get up! Egrin’s voice seemed to echo in Tol’s head, shouting as he had when berating clumsy shilder. Why are you lying there like a poleaxe A pig? Your head’s still attached, isn’t it?

Tol rolled away in time to dodge a killing stroke. He got to one knee, and discovered to his joy that he still held his saber. It was too light to take direct blows from his opponent’s great blade, but it was better than fighting bare-handed.

“Spannuth Grane! I know you!” he yelled.

The sword halted in mid-swing. Calling his enemy by name had earned Tol a brief respite. “Who are you?” the man asked, voice muffled by the visor.

Tol stood up. “Tol of the Juramona City Guards.”

“Guards? You mean the footmen?” Lord Morthur Dermount laughed in his helmet. “You fight well for a hireling!”

“Where is Lord Enkian?” Tol demanded.

“He will join you in death soon!” The sword came up again.

He attacked, raining heavy blows like a hammer breaking stone. Tol’s knees quavered under the onslaught. He ducked a vicious sideswipe, saying desperately, “You’re lost, my lord! Your powers have failed you!”

Morthur laughed loudly, but checked his swing. “What do you mean, meddling stableboy?”

“You tried to hex me in the Great Green, remember? I didn’t collapse. Your hireling left every man and beast from Juramona sleeping in the road, everyone but me. Now you have felled your own men. Why not me?”

Morthur gave his words thought, but the respite was shortlived. Up came the terrible sword.

“I’D divine the answer from your bones!” he roared.

He forced Tol back with savage thrusts, scything his sword upward in terrific two-handed uppercuts. Their blades collided, and when the force of Morthur’s attack shivered down his arms, Tol spun away under the impact. Thinking Tol was going down, Morthur stepped in, dropping his left hand as he prepared to bring his blade down for the final overhand slash.

Tol continued his spin, rotating in a complete circle on the toe of his right foot. He brought the curved edge of his saber down on Morthur’s right wrist. Iron cut through bronze scale and leather, into the flesh of Morthur’s arm, and then through bone. His hand, and the sword it still gripped, fell at Tol’s feet.

Morthur staggered back, screaming. He clapped his left hand over the stump of his right, trying to staunch the coursing blood. Tol took careful aim. He thrust the slim saber into the gap between Morthur’s visor and the gorget at his throat. The high-born sorcerer uttered a horrible gurgling groan. When Tol recovered his blade,