Valder sank back to a sitting position and stared at the corpse, half-afraid that it would return to life. He could see the proof of its inhumanity in the gaping chest wound, where something smooth and slick and black gleamed, something that was definitely not human flesh or bone. He shuddered. On the outside the thing had seemed human enough — tall and pale and fair-haired, like most northerners.
Finally, he looked at Wirikidor, drooping in his hand. His wrist ached; his hand had been dragged along, willy-nilly, in the sword’s movements, and, as a result of moving so much faster than it was meant to do, his wrist was now very sore indeed.
The sword had saved him. It had seemed hesitant at first, but it had saved him. He wiped the blade clean on a corner of the dead northerner’s tunic, then sheathed it with a sigh of relief. It was good, very good indeed, to have it on his belt instead of naked in his hand.
He wondered why the sword had not immediately been enthusiastic. Surely, there could be no doubt that a shatra was a true warrior! The very name was said to be an old word for a great warrior — though apparently not in the same tongue as his sword’s name.
The sword had seemed to hesitate after each of the first two wounds it had inflicted, he thought, as he stared at the body of his enemy. Those two wounds had almost seemed to strike sparks; perhaps the blade had encountered a demonic part of the shatra and had been daunted by it. Shatra were half man and half demon; perhaps Wirikidor was not up to handling demons.
Valder decided that that made a certain amount of sense.
As he sat gathering his wits and regaining his breath, he heard a faint rustling and something that sounded like distant voices. His hand went to his sword hilt, but he resisted the temptation to draw; he did not want to be stuck carrying Wirikidor unsheathed again should he manage to avoid fighting. Carefully, he got to his feet and looked back along his tracks, expecting to see more northerners.
There were none.
The rustling continued, and the voices grew louder. Valder realized they were coming from the opposite direction. He turned around and saw half a dozen men advancing toward him through the grass; others were visible behind them, and still more on the horizon. His hopes shriveled within him. Wirikidor would handle the first one without any difficulty; but if his one-warrior-per-drawing theory was correct, he would be on his own after that, and he knew he would stand no chance at all against so many. He must have come upon the entire northern army!
“You there!” one of the advancing men called, in good Ethsharitic. “Stay right where you are!”
Valder glanced at the corpse at his feet. At least, he told himself, he had killed a shatra. That was something that not very many could say. He sighed, trying to decide whether to surrender or go down fighting; he was sure that he would die in either case. He did not want to die, but he could accept it if he had to.
The sun was sinking in the west, and its light was reddening; the shadows were long, and he had been alone, surrounded by enemies, for months. Perhaps that was why it took him so long to realize the true situation. It was not until the six men of the advance party came within a hundred yards that he recognized their uniforms.
The new arrivals were not northerners; they were an advance guard of the Ethsharitic army.
He had made it. Wirikidor had brought him home.
PART TWO
The Reluctant Assassin
CHAPTER 9
They took away his weapons, of course. Despite the trouble it had caused him with its mysterious behavior, he found himself reluctant to let Wirikidor go; it was not so much an attachment because it had saved his life as it was a wordless feeling of unease at the thought of someone else handling it.
The soldier who confiscated his weapons seemed reluctant to handle the sword, but obeyed his orders and accepted it along with Valder’s dagger, sling, and broken-stringed crossbow.
After a little discussion, someone located a pair of boots for Valder, which he pulled on gratefully. They even fitted him fairly well.
The brown-clad officer in charge of the party asked him a few questions — who he was, how he came to be where he had been found, and whether he knew anything about enemy positions. Not feeling up to long explanations, he briefly gave his name, rank, and unit, explained that he had been cut off months earlier, and said that the only enemy position he had seen was the small encampment he had passed through a day’s walk to the northwest.
With that, the officer seemed to lose interest in him. Valder hesitated and then asked, “Sir, who are you people? What are you doing here? I thought I was still behind the northern lines.”
The officer looked back at him. “I can’t tell you anything,” he said. “You might be a spy.”
Valder had to admit that that would seem like a reasonable possibility. He said, “Oh.”
Seeing his disappointment, the officer took pity on him. “I suppose it won’t do any harm,” he said, “to tell you that, as far as we know, there no longer are any northern lines around here to be behind.”
Valder was not sure whether he was glad to have this tidbit of information or not, since it opened up vast areas of speculation. He lapsed into silence and stood waiting for instructions while the officer considered something.
A young soldier, one of the group that had found Valder, came up and saluted, the back of his hand tight to his shoulder in parade-ground style. “Sir,” he said, “That dead northerner — he’s shatra.”
The officer looked up. “What?” “The corpse we found this man standing over — it’s shatra. No doubt of it. And the body’s still warm.”
The officer looked at Valder with renewed interest. “Care to explain that, scout?”
Valder shrugged and tried to look nonchalant. “He followed me, I think from that camp I mentioned. I killed him, just before you found me.”
“You killed a shatra?”
“Yes.”
“Single-handedly?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“With my sword; it’s enchanted.” He gestured in Wirikidor’s direction.
The officer followed Valder’s gesture, then turned back and eyed him carefully. “What’s a scout doing with an enchanted sword?” he demanded.
“Oh, it wasn’t enchanted when it was issued. I ran into a wizard in a marsh two sixnights or so north of here; he put a few spells on it to help me get back to my unit.”
The officer did not bother to hide his disbelief, and Valder realized just how stupid his story must sound. Before he could say anything further, however, the officer said, “All right, your sword’s enchanted. In that case you’re not my problem; the general’s magicians can decide what to do with you. Sergeant Karn! You and your detail will take this man and his belongings back to camp with you!”
That dealt with, he turned away and attended to other matters. Valder no longer concerned him.
Sergeant Karn was a black-haired giant of a man, well over six feet tall and heavily muscled; his detail consisted of five young soldiers, whom Valder guessed to be new recruits. Their green kilts were unworn, their breastplates still bright, and the oldest looked no more than eighteen. Valder greeted them, hoping to strike up a conversation, but the sergeant quickly stifled that. “He might be a spy,” he reminded his men.
Within ten minutes of being given the order, Karn had Valder’s weapons and belongings gathered together and added to the bundles his men already carried and was leading his little party southward along a newly made path through the tall grass. This path was merely the simplest and narrowest of trails at first, nothing more than the place a dozen or so men had trampled their way along; most of the advancing Ethsharitic line had been spaced
