smiled. 'And if you make it known, it will be to my displeasure.'
Grak's frown returned and he looked back to Feston and the others. 'Whose woman is she?' he asked. 'Perhaps there is some basis on which we can barter.'
'To the four of us collectively,' Duncan blurted. 'No single one does she call master.'
Vendora threw back her head and laughed. 'I am sure that many of our ways seem strange to you, Grak, but it is for me to decide who is to be my chieftain.'
'In the north, a man takes what he wants,' Grak said.
Vendora's face hardened. 'The men of Procolon would make the price dear. You outnumber us, it is true, but many a warrior would feel the sting of our blades before it was through.' She glared into Grak's eyes and then softened her expression with a smile. 'And the prize is not nearly as sweet as when it is freely given.'
Grak grunted and studied Vendora for a moment more. He turned and again faced the two chieftains. 'And do you adopt other lowland ways as well?' he asked. 'Is there none among you who leads the others?'
'We go to the west, another half day's journey,' Alodar said. 'I lead the rest to the spire, and then we turn southwards.'
'Demontooth.' Grak spat. 'It is folly to venture in that direction. The trees are gnarled. There is no game. And the devils give no rest to any who strive there. My father kept us well away and his father before him. How can you lead when you command your tribe so?'
'The barbarian speaks no less than the truth,' Feston cut in. 'It is time we abandon this trek to nowhere and proceed southwards while we still can.'
Alodar looked at Grak, then at the doubt forming on the two chieftains' faces. He frowned and tried to weigh the chances of getting them all to continue.
'Here, chieftain,' Basil broke the silence as he handed Grak a gem. 'This is a mere token of what can be yours if you cooperate with what we wish to do. We seek little of your game. In a few days, we will be well away from these hills. At the very least, you can show us the courtesy to let us pass in peace. And if you join forces with ours, your rewards will be even greater.'
Grak looked down at the jewel thrust into his hand. He idly rolled it around his palm. He stared back at Vendora and his eyes narrowed. 'Camp here for two nights while we talk,' he said. 'I give you my permission.'
'And the west?' Alodar persisted.
'As I have said,' Grak replied, 'there are demons there.' He waved his arm at the two chieftains. 'And after I have spoken with them, they will not go either. It is only the trip south that we will discuss.'
'Then if it is to take two days,' Alodar said, 'there is time enough for me to make the journey alone. I will be safely returned before you are done.'
Vendora looked at Alodar in surprise but quickly pushed her puzzlement aside. She studied Grak and then his campfires. 'The strength of your tribe would aid me greatly,' she said, 'and as Basil has stated, if you join forces with ours, your reward could be even greater.'
Grak stood in silence contemplating Vendora's words. 'Perhaps our talk will touch on more than a trek south,' he decided.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Demontooth Tower
ALODAR glanced over his shoulder as he started down the other side of the pass. The meadow that held Grak's tribesmen disappeared from view. He looked ahead and visualized the contours of the trail. Rather than moving further upstream, it looked as if he must traverse two valleys to reach the spire. And even though foraging took the entire morning, he should reach the base of the tower by nightfall. He touched the small pack on his back and felt the reassuring lumps of his rations and the implements of his crafts.
From what Grak had said, he need not worry about blundering into another group of nomads along the way. And by leaving Grengor and the rest behind, the chance of losing control of the group was lessened. He flexed his fingers, stretching the tendons in his arm. The sweetbalm-accelerated healing had continued, and the soreness was less than the day before. He broke into a slow jog to test his muscles further. For over an hour he bounded along in silence. The descent reversed into a gentle rise and he climbed upwards towards the next pass.
When Alodar reached the saddlepoint and looked into the valley, his face broke into a smile. There on the other side, jutting up higher than the surrounding slopes, was the spire which had been such a persistent vision. He scanned the intervening terrain and then suddenly halted. As the queen's party had climbed from the shore, the transition from woodlands to forest had been gradual, the short broadleafed trees slowly giving way to the evergreen conifers and firs. But here the change was abrupt and startling. The pines were stunted, some reaching only twenty feet above the ground. Green mixed with equal parts of brown and gray. No tree was without dead and naked branches. Bare and broken snags knifed into the sky. Under the sparse canopy of scraggly limbs, the ground was as sterile as the trail, dust and bare rock uncluttered with smaller plants or decaying mulch.
On the far slope, the trees thinned as they approached the monolith, until only a few gnarled dwarfs sparsely dotted the mountainside. Across the entire canyon, the air hung with a deathly quiet. No birds sang, no insects buzzed, no rodents chattered around the trunks. The strangeness of the scene, now that he finally saw it, tinged his elation with an unsettling apprehension. Cautiously he resumed his tread, darting his eyes into the thin forest on either side of the trail.
Another two hours passed, and Alodar reached the nadir of his traverse of the valley. He scrambled across boulders in a dry stream bed and noted that here and there an occasional low lying shrub broke the monotony of the uncovered ground. As he skirted a big rock directly in his path, he heard a sudden rustling in a nearby bush. Many small lizards had scampered away as he pounded along the trail in the preceding valley, but this noise was louder and hinted at something of much larger size.
He felt a gentle prickling in his mind that reminded him of the sprite he had exorcised the day before. He drew his sword and stepped forward. Where the undergrowth was thickest he jabbed with his blade.
'There is no need, there is no need.' A form roughly the size of a small pig leaped into the air. 'I will provide for you delights undreamed and without the use of force. All you have to do is ask.'
Alodar blinked and looked at the figure suddenly hovering before him. The smooth skin shimmered in an iridescent purple and, except for the face, was covered by a bristly stubble of black hairs. The eyes were owl-like, golden and seeming to glow from small lights within. A pointed nose twice the length of a man's sat on top of a small puckered mouth. Unlike the sprite, no wings sprouted from the spindly back; thin, rubbery limbs curled tightly around the bulbous torso. The demon floated with no visible means of support.
'Begone, whence you came,' Alodar said. 'I dispatched your impish brother and have no need for you.'
'Do not judge so rashly,' the devil said. 'I am no mere sprite whose only powers are to distract and irritate with feeble rashes and common pranks.' The small mouth pulled into a deep smile that spread the rubbery face from ear to ear. 'The sun is hot and there is no breeze. Would not a sip of water from melted snow provide a refreshment that the hot waterskin at your side could not equal?'
Before Alodar could reply, the devil waved a slender hand and produced a flask filled with ice. 'Here,' it said as it decanted a gurgling stream into a clear cup. 'This is but a small token of what can be yours.'
Alodar watched the water bubble in the cup. He ran his tongue across his suddenly dry lips. 'Why do you submit so easily?' he asked. 'I would think that you would contest my will even more strongly than the sprite.'
'Submission, surrender, putting aside resistance? It is a detail that need not concern us now.' The demon shrugged and pushed the container forward. 'Refresh your throat, and then we can progress to more intense desires.'
Alodar frowned and knocked the cup aside with a flick of his blade. 'The sagas speak of no gift from demonkind that does not ultimately bear a price,' he said.
'A shrewd bargainer, I see,' the demon replied without breaking his smile. 'Then perhaps the satisfaction of a more sophisticated urge will change your mind.'
The air crackled and Alodar suddenly felt a gentle brush across the nape of his neck. He whirled about, sword still extended, and looked into the face of a dark-skinned dancing girl, silently gyrating to an unheard rhythm. Her
