That made a certain amount of sense in the abstract. Grus had perhaps half a dozen heartbeats to think of it in the abstract. Then he realized that swarm of Chernagors, Prince Vasilko at their head, was rushing straight toward him. If he went down under their swords and spears, he wouldn’t much care what happened in the rest of the fight for Nishevatz. No, that wasn’t true—if he went down, he wouldn’t care at all.
“Rally to me!” he shouted to the Avornans in the square. “Rally to me and throw them back. We can do it!” He pulled his sword from its scabbard.
So did Pterocles beside him. The wizard probably had only the vaguest idea what to do with an unsorcerous weapon. Eyeing the Chernagors and how young and fresh and fierce they looked, Grus remembered every one of his own years, too.
He didn’t have to find out on the instant, for his guardsmen sprang out in front of him and took the brunt of the Chernagor onslaught. Several of them fell, but they also brought down even more of Vasilko’s men. Yet still more Chernagors pushed forward. Yelling and cursing, the surviving bodyguards met them head-on. By then, Grus was in the fight, too, slashing at a Chernagor who had more ferocity than skill.
The king’s blade bit. The Chernagor reeled back with a shriek, clutching a gashed forearm. Grus knew a certain somber pride. He could still hold his own against a younger foe. For a while he could, anyhow. But the younger men could keep on going long after he flagged.
“Vasilko!” roared the Chernagors.
“Grus!” the royal guardsmen shouted back. Pterocles took a roundhouse swipe at one of Vasilko’s men. He missed. But then he tackled the Chernagor. Grus’ sword came down on the man’s neck. Blood fountained. The Chernagors body convulsed, then went limp.
“Are you all right?” Grus asked Pterocles, hauling him to his feet.
“I—think so,” the wizard answered shakily. Then they were both fighting for their lives, too busy and too desperate to talk.
More Avornan soldiers rushed up to reinforce the bodyguards. The archers who’d hit the Chernagor wizard poured volley after volley into Vasilkos henchmen. The Chernagors had few archers with whom to reply. Those whistling shafts tore the heart out of their charge. Their shouts changed to cries of despair as they realized they weren’t going to be able to break free.
There was Vasilko himself, swinging a two-handed sword as though it were a willow wand. He spotted Grus and hacked his way toward him. “I may die,” Vsevolod’s son shouted in Avornan, “but I’ll make the Fallen Star a present of your soul!”
“By the gods in the heavens, you won’t!” Grus rushed toward Vasilko. Only later did he wonder whether that was a good idea. At the time, he didn’t seem able to do anything else.
Vasilkos first cut almost knocked Grus’ sword out of his hand. Vsevolod had been a big, strong man, and his son was no smaller, but the power Vasilko displayed hardly seemed natural. The Banished One had lent the Chernagor wizard one kind of strength. Could he give Vasilko a different sort? Grus had no idea whether that was possible, but he thought so by the way the usurping prince handled his big, heavy blade.
Grus managed to beat the slash aside, and answered with a cut of his own. Vasilko parried with contemptuous ease; by the way he handled it, that two-handed sword might have weighed nothing at all. His next attack again jolted Grus from both speed and power.
“Steal my throne, will you?” Vasilko shouted. Even his voice seemed louder and deeper than a man’s voice had any business being.
“You stole it to begin with,” Grus panted.
Vasilko showered him with what had to be curses in the Chernagor language. He swung his sword again with that same superhuman strength. Grus’ blade went flying. Vasilko roared in triumph. He brought up the two- handed sword to finish the king. Grus leaped close and seized his right wrist with both hands. It was like grappling with a bronze statue that had come to ferocious, malevolent life. He knew he wouldn’t be able to hold on long, and knew he would be sorry when he could hold on no more.
Then Pterocles pointed his index finger at Vasilko and shouted out a hasty spell. Vasilko shouted, too, in shock and fury. All of a sudden, his voice was no more than a man’s. All of a sudden, the wrist Grus fought desperately to hold might have been made from flesh and blood, not animate metal.
Pterocles grabbed Vasilko around the knees. The usurping Prince of Nishevatz fell to the cobbles. Grus hadn’t been sure Vasilko could fall. He kicked the Chernagor in the head. When Vasilko kept on wrestling with Pterocles after Grus kicked him the first time, he did it again. Pain shot through his foot. Bleeding from the temple and the nose, Vasilko groaned and went limp.
“Thanks again, Your Majesty,” Pterocles said, scrambling to his feet.
“Thank
“Blocked the extra strength the Banished One was feeding Vasilko,” the wizard said. “Let’s get him tied up —or chained, better still. I don’t know how long the spell will hold. I wasn’t sure it would hold at all, but I thought I’d better try it.” He looked down at Vasilko. “Scrambling his brains there will probably stretch it out a bit.”
“Good!” Grus exclaimed. “He was going to do worse than that to me. Now let’s see what the rest of these bastards feel like doing.”
With their leader captive, most of the Chernagors who’d sallied from the citadel threw down their weapons and raised their hands in surrender. A stubborn handful fought to the end. They shouted something in their own language, over and over again.
Before long, Grus found a Chernagor who admitted to speaking Avornan. “What are they yelling about?” he asked.
“They cry for Fallen Star,” the Chernagor answered. “You know who is Fallen Star?”
“Oh, yes. I know who the Fallen Star is,” Grus said grimly. “The Menteshe give the Banished One that name, too. But the Menteshe have always followed him. You Chernagors know the worship of the gods in the heavens.”
The prisoner shrugged. “Fallen Star is strong power. We stay with strong power.”
“Not strong enough,” Grus said. The Chernagor shrugged again. Grus pointed at him. “If the Banished One is so strong and the gods in the heavens are so weak, how did we take Nishevatz?”
“Luck,” the Chernagor said with another shrug. Grus almost hit him. There were none so stubborn as those who would not see. But then the king saw how troubled the man who had followed Vasilko looked. Maybe the Chernagor wouldn’t admit it, but Grus thought his question had struck home.
He jerked a thumb at the guards who’d brought the prisoner before him. “Take this fellow away and put him back with his friends,” The Avornans led off the Chernagor, none too gently. Grus hoped the captive would infect his countrymen with doubt.
Hirundo came up to Grus and saluted. “Well, Your Majesty, we’ve got this town,” he said, and paused to dab at a cut on his cheeks with a rag as grimy as the hand that held it. Looking around, he made a sour face. “Now that I’m actually inside, I’m not so sure why we ever wanted it in the first place.”
“We wanted it because the Banished One had it, and because he could make a nuisance of himself if he hung on to it. Now we’ve got it, and we’ve got Vasilko”—the king pointed to the deposed usurper, who wore enough chains to hold down a horse—“and I may have a broken toe.”
“A broken toe? I don’t follow,” Hirundo said. “And what’s Vasilko’s problem? He looks like he can’t tell yesterday from turnips.”
Vasilko had regained consciousness, but he did indeed look as though he didn’t know what to do with it now that he had it. “Maybe I kicked him in the head too hard,” Grus answered. “That’s how I hurt my toe, too—kicking him in the head.”
“Well, if you had to do it, you did it for a good reason,” Hirundo observed.
“Easy for you to say,” Grus snapped. “And do you know what the healers will do for me? Not a thing, that’s what. I broke a toe once, years ago, trying to walk through a door instead of a doorway. They told me, ‘If we put a splint on it, it will heal in six weeks. If we don’t, it will take a month and a half And so they didn’t—and they won’t.”
“Lucky you,” Hirundo said, still with something less than perfect sympathy.
Aside from his toe, Grus did feel pretty lucky. The Avornans had taken Nishevatz, and hadn’t suffered too badly doing it. The Banished One would be cast out here. And, looking at Vasilko, Grus thought his wits remained
