It wasn't enough to incapacitate the tree-trunk arm. With blood streaming black from a wound too large for Crackletongue's sparks to close, Togrev swung the axe in a howling horizontal arc. Once again his reaction time surprised Zaranda. She had no time to parry, could only jump backward with arms flung high to keep them from harm's way.
Father Pelletyr cried out in shared anguish as the axe blade kissed her flat belly. The marauder section of the audience stamped and hooted approval. Goldie whinnied alarm.
'I'm fine,' gasped Zaranda. Her awareness of her own body was good, good enough that she needn't glance down to know that the axe had done no more than lay open skin. Which was good, because had she glanced at herself, she would have died.
With shocking speed the half-ogre brought the axe around and up and down. Zaranda had to throw herself into a shoulder roll to avoid being split in two as the axe plunged deep into the earth.
Togrev snatched it free again, hurled it high, and ran at his foe as she rolled up onto one knee. His face split in a jag-toothed grin. He had her now; she was in no position to shift left or right fast enough to escape him, nor could she run away. The axehead seemed to scream in triumph as it descended for the killing blow.
Zaranda dived for the monster. She ducked her head and somersaulted forward. As she and Togrev passed in opposite directions, Crackletongue licked out and caressed the back of one great knee.
Togrev vented a pain-squeal like that of a cracked organ pipe. He went crashing past her like a bouldern down a Snowflake peak. His wounded leg simply folded beneath him when he put his weight upon it. Zaranda's blow had hamstrung him.
Once more he showed himself hateful-quick, slamming the butt of his axe-helve against the earth like a crutch, saving himself from rolling headlong. He got his uninjured right leg beneath him, came back upright, took three great hops away and pivoted, leaning on the great axe.
Zaranda got deliberately to her feet. The half-ogre stood snarling at her, his left leg booted in scarlet.
'Now,' she said, 'let's finish this.' She started forward.
'Randi!' Goldie screamed.
By reflex Zaranda dived forward. As she did, something struck the back of her head with jarring impact and clawing pain. She went sprawling on the grass.
Sparks fountained behind her eyes. Her head rang like a dwarven smith's forge. She blinked to clear her vision, saw Togrev looming over her like a colossus, great axe poised above his head. He had only to fall forward to cleave her in two.
Behind her she heard malicious laughter and the sliding song of a spiked morningstar head circling on its chain. Her right hand, miraculously, still held Crackletongue. She looked back at the marauder who had struck her from behind, flung her left arm toward him, forefinger pointed.
'Twenty feet and six!' she gasped. A light like an orange-glowing crossbow bolt flashed past the morningstar man's left hip.
He hooted shrill triumph through his nose. 'Missed!' He swung the morningstar.
The light-bolt flew twenty feet away and six feet up, then exploded. Laughter turned to scream as the fire- ball's fringe engulfed the man with the morningstar.
Zaranda turned her head. Togrev was in the process of toppling toward her, his axe making the air itself scream pain. With all the power in her flat-muscled belly, Zaranda jackknifed, thrusting Crackletongue into his gut.
Her magic blade bit through the overlapped steel plates of his hauberk and the thick leather beneath, through sweaty, hairy skin and then fat to muscle bunched beneath. And there Crackletongue's magic and Zaranda's strength failed her. The saber would penetrate no farther.
Zaranda's presence of mind had not deserted her, though. She guided the butt of her basketed sword-hilt to the earth beside her, then rolled clear as Togrev's own momentum completed the task of spitting him.
For a while Zaranda just lay on her belly, tasting grass-flavored air and bits of dark, moist soil that had found their way into her mouth. They tasted good. Even the dirt.
Finally she rolled over and tried to sit up. Her head began performing interesting acrobatics, and she almost fell back. A hand grabbed her biceps and held her up.
She nodded weak thanks and looked up. To her surprise it was Farlorn who held her, not Father Pelletyr. The priest was hunched over, shoulders heaving as if he were gasping for breath. He clutched the center of his chest. His face was red.
With Farlorn's help Zaranda picked herself up. She nodded again, patted the half-elven bard's hand to signify that he could let her go. He hesitated, then did so and stepped back.
Stillhawk had an arrow nocked and drawn back to his ear, holding down on the surviving captives, who had all gone the color of new papyrus or old paper behind their sundry whiskers and coatings of grime. They were staring at the smoking corpse of the morningstar man, their eyes like holes in sheets.
'That's right,' she croaked. 'He was right. I am a witch. A wizard, in any event. But unlike him, I'm one who keeps my faith. Now go.'
The marauders cast a final look at Stillhawk, then lit out running over the gently rolling hills.
Zaranda turned back to Father Pelletyr.
'Randi,' Goldie said, 'he doesn't look too good.'
'Father, are you all right?' Zaranda asked.
'I'm fine.' He waved a hand at her. 'It's just-these pains in my chest and left arm. They soon shall pass, martyred Ilmater willing.'
'If you say so.' Zaranda walked over to her mare. What she intended as a hug turned into a grab for support as her knees momentarily buckled.
Goldie held her head up, shying from Zaranda's attempt to stroke her cheek. 'You take some crazy risks, Zaranda,' she said with exaggerated primness.
Zaranda realized the mare was humiliated by her earlier panicky lapse into horse. She laughed and scratched Goldie's neck until she found the itchy spot horses always have, and the mare arched her neck and bobbed her head in pleasure. Zaranda hugged her again and let her go.
The erstwhile lord high commander of the Barony of Pundaria lay in an unmoving mound, Crackletongue protruding from his broad back. The curved blade no longer crackled and sparked with magic. Dead meat knows no alignment.
'All right, then,' Zaranda said. 'Who'll help me turn this carrion over and reclaim my blade?'
5
'Have you heard?' the peasant asked. He had a large and colorful wart on the side of his nose and a leather bonnet pulled down over his ears. His garments had been patched until they were more quilt than clothing and still more hole than fabric. 'There's a strong man rising in Zazesspur town. And high time, too. He'll bring order back to the land.'
'Aye,' said another, equally ragged, who was chewing a tufted stalk of timothy grass. He pawed through the assortment of brass implements and cooking vessels Zaranda had spread upon a horse blanket beneath an oak tree that shaded one patch of the tiny village green. He wore a tattered and shapeless felt hat against the noonday sun. 'We need strong government, an' that's a fact.'
The rest of the throng of prospective shoppers nodded and murmured assent. Like the two who had spoken, and like the village and farmhouses themselves, the villagers had a dusty, threadbare, ground-down look.
The caravan's mules grazed on the grass of the common-for which the local mayor had exacted an advance fee-while their drovers and riders watered themselves in the village's lone tavern-for which the local mayor also exacted tariff, inasmuch as he was the tavernkeeper.
Zaranda had left the bulk of the train encamped in a laager and made a detour through the city of Ithmong with a few muleloads of nonmagical luxury items- spices, dyes, vials of scent, incense-cones. They found an increase in prosperity and decrease in paranoia since the ouster of Gallowglass, with his tyrant's dreams and schemes. Zaranda had parlayed the wares into a dozen new mules loaded with more conventional goods such as
