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CHAPTER FOUR

Khrwbh Khrwkh

Cazio CLOSED his eyes as the knife-wielding monk stepped up to z'Acatto, but then forced them open again. If the only thing he could do for z'Acatto was to watch him die, then he would do that. So he set his teeth and promised himself he wouldn't give them the satisfaction of any more outbursts.

Z'Acatto suddenly did something really odd. He jerked his feet into the air, levering both legs out straight and kicking them as high as his head'an impressive show of agility and strength for a man his age. Then he swung them rapidly back down, slapping them into the post. His face was strangely serene, despite the pain he must have been feeling. The nails ripped through his hands as he arched forward from the force of the reversal, tumbling him to the ground.

He bounded up immediately, driving his bloody right hand into the monk's throat.

The fellow dropped the knife, and z'Acatto immediately scooped it up, then sprinted toward Cazio.

Almost everyone else was watching the invoker, so that his mes-tro had closed more than half the distance before a shout of alarm went up. The monk next to Cazio wasn't bound, since he was a volunteer, and he quickly reached to extricate himself from the rope around his neck. But with a muffled cry Cazio tucked his chin against the noose, pulled his legs up, and kicked him with both feet. His own

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noose went instantly tight, though, and suddenly he couldn't breathe as both his block and the one the monk perched on toppled away.

Black butterflies began to flutter in his vision, as the rope turned him forward again and he saw z'Acatto getting up from the ground. The long black shaft of an arrow stood quivering from the older man's back and he was cursing steadily and inventively. He scrambled up the mound as another hail of arrows fell around him. He was hit again, this time in the calf, but he did not fall.

Another turn, and Cazio saw the monk, hanging like he was, but with both hands on the rope above him, trying to pull himself upward with one, and loosen the knot with the other. Z'Acatto denied him success, cutting the churchman's throat in one long slash, then with the next whip of his hand severed the rope that was just short of killing Cazio.

Cazio thudded to the ground, gasping for air. He couldn't see z'Acatto anymore, but he felt his bonds part, and with a hoarse shout he bounced to his feet and yanked Caspator from the ground. He turned to find z'Acatto with a third arrow in his ribs, his breath coming in rapid gasps, his eyes going glassy.

'Stay down, old man,' Cazio told him. 'I'll take care of this.'

'Yes,' z'Acatto wheezed. 'Excellent idea.'

Euric and two men-at-arms were first on Cazio's menu. They were a few perechi away, charging, meat-cleavers drawn. Cazio was a little surprised he hadn't been made a riddle by arrows, as z'Acatto had, but a quick glance around the clearing showed the archers lowering their weapons, and he smiled sardonically as he realized they wanted him alive so they could hang him.

He set his stance, slipping the noose off his neck with his off-weapon hand.

Besides their broadswords, they all wore armor, though none of them had helms.

Cazio put his blade out in a line aimed at Euric's face. The knight beat at his blade to remove it, but with a twist of his fingers Cazio dipped his point beneath the searching blade, quickly changed his line, and sidestepped. Euric's momentum took him past Cazio, as Caspator's tip caught one of the men-at-arms in the throat. Using the weapon as a lever, Cazio jumped forward and to the left, turning the man to place the corpse-to-be briefly between Euric and the other warrior. This gave him shelter to withdraw the blade and set his stance again.

The unfortunate fellow fell, blood bubbling from the hole in his trachea.

'Ca dola dazo lamo,' Cazio forcefully informed his foes.

The second man-at-arms thrust past Euric, lifting his hand for a cut, perhaps forgetting they were supposed to keep Cazio alive long enough to hang. Cazio countered into the attack, a fast, straight lunge that hit the man on the underside of his wrist.

'Z'estatito,' he explained as the man grunted and dropped his weapon. Euric's blade was streaking down from his right, a blow apparently meant for his leg, so Cazio caught it in an outside parry, then thrust into the eye of the man-at-arms, who was still standing there, staring uncomprehendingly at his bloody wrist.

'Zo pertumo sesso, com postro en truto.'

He ducked Euric's vicious backswing, because his blade was still stuck in a skull. As he yanked it out, Euric charged inside the point, grabbing his neck and bringing the broadswords pommel down in a vicious blow aimed at his nose.

Cazio managed to turn his head so the hilt grazed along the side of it instead of striking it square, but that was still enough set the world singing. He returned the favor by striking Caspator's grip into Euric's ear, and both men fell.

Cazio scrambled up, and so did Euric. From the corner of his eye, Cazio saw three of the monks running toward him with ridiculous speed, and knew he had only a heartbeat left to act.

'You won't escape,' Euric promised him.

'I'm not trying to,' Cazio said.

And so'as he had practiced with z'Acatto only a few days before'he flung himself forward like a spear, his body nearly parallel to the ground. Euric's eyes went wide, and he threw his own blade up in defense, far too late. Caspator's point hit Euric's teeth with the full weight and momentum of Cazio's body behind it.

They shattered, and the steel continued over the tongue and through the brain.

Euric blinked, clearly puzzled by his death.

'Z'ostato,' Cazio grunted.

Cazio had barely hit the ground before someone struck him from Khrwrh Khrwkh

behind and caught him in a wrestling hold. It felt like an iron yoke around his neck. Then he was yanked roughly to his feet, and he found himself surrounded.

One of the crowd was the fellow in the noble clothing.

'That was extraordinary,' he said. 'At least we can be certain that you are a true swordsman, now. But now we need a new priest and regal. My wife seems to have had an accident.'

Cazio looked up at the mound and saw that the woman had somehow fallen off her perch and been hanged. He hoped he hadn't done it in the struggle.

'We have to hang you all together, you see,' he said.

Cazio spat in his face. 'You sacrificed your wife, you rabid dog?'

The man wiped his face without any other obvious reaction. 'Oh, I would sacrifice much more than that to bring this faneway alive,' he said. Then he laughed, a bit bitterly. 'I suppose I will have to, actually'I don't have time to find my son, and I'm the only one here with royal blood, I think.'

'No,' a familiar voice called. 'There is one more here with noble blood.'

They all turned, and Cazio saw Anne standing at the edge of the woods. Her voice rose in a commanding tone Cazio had never heard her use.

'I am Anne Dare,' she said, 'daughter of the Emperor of Croth-eny, Duchess of Rovy. I command you all to lay down your arms and release these people, or I swear by Saint Cer the Avenger, you will all die.'

For a few heartbeats, the clearing was silent except for the crackle of flames and the moans of the dying. Then the nobleman next to Cazio uttered a single barking laugh.

'You!' he said. 'I've been looking all over for you, you know. All over.

Slaughtered an entire coven to find you. My men told me you were dead'and now you walk right into my arms. Outstanding. Come here, girl, and give us a kiss.'

'You will not mock me,' Anne said steadily. 'You will not.'

'I think I will,' the man replied.

Anne stepped steadily nearer to the man. 'You are Roderick's father,' she said.

A part of her was trembling with fear, but that part of her seemed to be sinking away, melting like snow in spring. 'Of course. Rodericks father and his Hansan knights. And why did you chase me over the great wide world, Duke of Dunmrogh?

What fear was in you that made you do that?'

'No fear,' the Duke said. 'I was doing what my lord commanded.'

'Which lord is that? Which lord commanded my death?'

'How foolish of you to think I would ever name him,' Dunmrogh said.

'Foolish is the man who does not ask what his lord fears of a single girl,' Anne spat. She felt, suddenly, the sickness around her, a pulsing fever in the very earth itself, and something turning slowly in the dirt, opening one eye. It was like that day with Austra, in the city of the dead, when they had escaped the knights, but stronger. She took a breath and felt herself expand with it. 'He only fears a queen in Eslen,' Dunmrogh said, suddenly sounding the slightest bit uncertain.

'No,' Anne whispered. 'Like all men, he fears the dark of the moon.' She took another breath and felt it turn as black and thick as oil in her lungs.

'Hang her,' Dunmrogh said.

She let the breath out'and out, feeling the Worm pull up through her feet and flow through her. Dunmrogh screamed like an hysterical infant, but she did not stop with him.

She sent it on'through the monks, through the men in armor, shuddering, hearing herself laugh as if she were mad.

Dunmrogh bent double and vomited blood. Some of the monks started toward her, but it was as if they were moving against a wind too hard to overcome. She spared Cazio and the fading z'Acatto, but every other man was her slave, bowing to her power.

Except one. One man was still coming for her; the knight, the one who had cut Sir Neil. Her will sleeted through him as if he wasn't there, and the Worm would not know him. He quickened his pace, Khrwbh Khrwkh

drawing his sword. She was dimly aware of Cazio trying to stand, raising his own weapon.

Then something in her twisted and diminished, and she felt as if she were falling. The last thing she saw was the knight, charging to take her head.

Cazio saw Anne fall, even as the knight came into striking range. He wasn't sure what had happened, wasn't sure he wanted to know. The only thing he knew was that he was free, and Caspator was in his hand, and there was an enemy in front of him.

Unfortunately, this one had his helm on, and his sword was the weird, flickering, glowing one he'd seen shear through plate armor in z'Espino.

Cazio thrust into the knights downward cut, parrying and attacking with the same movement, but his blade scratched only the steel of a breastplate. The knight reversed, slicing back up from the downswing, trying to split Cazio from crotch to shoulder, but Cazio was already moving aside and punching his hilt into the knight's visor, trying to knock it off.

His adversary whirled and his weapon soughed a third time, and though Cazio managed to get Caspator up to meet it, the force was square on, right on the strong part of his blade, and his knees buckled from the strength of it. The knight's mailed foot came up and kicked him under the chin, and the bright smell of blood exploded in his nostrils as he flopped onto his back.

The knight turned away, ignoring him, moving back toward the prostrate figure of Anne. Cazio struggled to his feet, knowing he would never make it in time.

Then two arrows spanged into the armored man, and he staggered. Cazio looked in the direction the shots had come from and saw a man on a horse charging toward them. The arrows hadn't come from him'he carried a sword in one hand and a wooden shield in the other. They came from another pair'a slight, hooded figure and a rangy-looking man in a leather cuirass.

Cazio tried to use Caspator to push himself up and noticed, with a shock, that the strong part of his blade had been notched halfway through by the weird knight's weapon. Caspator was made from Bel-baina steel, the strongest in the world.

The nauschalk was stooping toward Anne's motionless body when As-par's and Leshya's arrows found him. The pause gave Neil just the time he needed to reach him. He cut hard with Cuenslec, and felt the solid, satisfying shock run up his arm. He didn't understand why the rest of the men in the clearing weren't fighting, or even on their feet, but he wasn't going to question it. Some of them were starting to get up, anyway, and when they did, he and his newfound companions would be very much outnumbered.

His horse reared and shied, so Neil quickly dismounted, facing the knight as he rose back up, wielding the arcane blade.

'They say Virgenya Dare's warriors had weapons like that,' Neil said.

'Feyswords. Weapons for heroes, weapons to fight evil. I don't know where you got that, but I do know you aren't fit to carry it.'

The nauschalk pushed up his visor. His face was pale and pink-cheeked, and his eyes were as gray as sea waves.

'You,' he murmured, almost as if in a dream. 'I've killed you once, haven't I?'

'Only almost,' Neil replied. He lifted his shield. 'But by Saint Fren and Saint Fendve, this time 7 will die or you will.'

'I cannot die,' the man said. 'Do you understand? I can't.'

'Forgive me if I'll not take your word for that,' Neil replied. All along he'd been shuffling forward, finding his distance. Now he slowly began to circle, his gaze fixed on the eyes of the nauschalk, a red fire kindling in his belly as the rage began.

Then the nauschalk blinked, and in that instant Neil attacked, leaping forward and cutting over the shield. His enemy replied with a swift thrust from a stiffened arm to Neil's shield, a good fighters instinct, for it should have stopped Neil's attack by keeping him at sword's length.

But the feysword sliced through the shield just above Neil's arm. He still had to arrest his blow to keep from impaling his face on the Khrwbh Khrwkh

glowing weapon, but he twisted the shield down, taking the stuck feysword with it, and chopped a second time. Cuenslec rang against the armored joint of neck and shoulder, and Neil felt the chain links part. The visor clanged down with the force of his blow, and once again Neil's enemy had no face.

He dropped the shield before his opponent could carve the deadly blade through his arm and drew back for another blow, but the feysword whirled up too quickly.

Neil let the assault come but faded back from it, so the attack missed him by the breadth of a hair. Then he made his own counterattack.

He had reckoned on the knight having to recover the momentum of his attack before making the backswing, but he'd reckoned wrong. The weapon must have weighed almost nothing, because here it came, shearing up into his attack. Only by scrambling quickly back did he avoid being gut-sawed.

Neil's breath was coming raggedly already, for he was still weak from his last fight with the fellow.

The nauschalk, seemingly not tired at all, advanced.

'What's happening here, Stephen?' Aspar asked as he got Ogre still and took aim at a monk. The churchman had been down on the ground when they arrived, and was now rising shakily to his feet. Aspar let fly. The fellow never saw his death coming; an almost motionless target, the arrow took him in the heart and he sank back to his knees.

Around the clearing, more and more of the formerly motionless figures were rising again. Aspar aimed at the most active.

'I don't know,' Stephen replied. 'I felt something as we were approaching, something strong, but it's gone now.'

'Maybe they never got the instructions from the praifec,' Leshya guessed. 'Maybe they did something wrong.'

'Maybe,' Aspar allowed. 'But whatever happened, it seems to be to our advantage.

Stephen, you and Winna go get the princess. Hurry.'

Neil's battle with the armored knight didn't seem to be going that well. The knight's sword flickered like the knife Desmond Spend-love had planned to use to assassinate Winna, the one'he now recalled'the praifec had confiscated for 'study.'

He shot a man and selected another target, but this one saw him in time and dodged the shaft. Then he was running toward them, faster than an antelope. To his left, on the other side of the clearing, Aspar saw another.

'Leshya, take the left one,' he grunted. 'Yes,' she said.

Aspar took careful aim and fired again, but the monk spun aside without stopping, and the dart just grazed him along the arm. He was closing the distance so swiftly, Aspar figured he had only one more shot coming.

He released it at five yards, and still the man nearly dodged it. It hit him in the belly and he grunted as he took a wild, unbalanced swing at Aspar with his sword. Aspar wheeled Ogre and avoided the blow, then spurred the beast to give him distance to shoot again, but the monk kept coming, much too quickly, leaping through the air. Aspar managed to deflect the sword with his bow. But the force of his antagonists leap knocked him out of the saddle.

Aspar managed to untangle himself from the monk and kick clear to draw his dirk, but even as he regained his feet he found the sword slashing toward him, a bit slower than Aspar was used to from the warrior-priests, whether due to the belly wound or whatever had gone on just before their arrival, he could not say. He managed to duck the blow and step in, grabbing the swordsman's wrist and slashing viciously at his inner thigh with the dirk. A spray of blood hit him in the face, and he knew he'd got the knife where he wanted it.

The monk didn't know he was dead yet, though. He grabbed Aspar by the hair and kneed him in the face, and as the holter fell back in sudden agony, closed his hands around his throat and began to squeeze. Aspar stabbed the dirk into his ribs and twisted it, but he felt something cracking in his throat, and black stars blotted out the mad green eyes glowering down at him.

Then the strength went out of the man's fingers and blood poured from his mouth, and Aspar was able to push him off.

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Just in time to see another of the fratirs, only a yard away, sword raised for the kill.

The nauschalk came at Neil, and it was all he could do to evade the blows.

Fighting in plate armor was less a contest of sword-skill than it was about who had the best armor. Fully armored knights didn't really parry; they just took blows and gave them. But in this case, Neil knew from experience that even the superior armor he'd worn in z'Espino was no match for the glistering feysword.

And though Neil had spent most of his fighting life in mail or leather hauberk'and thus knew full well how to parry'he didn't really dare do that, either, not when each blow against his weapon of mere steel left it diminished.

He had to keep the battle rage at bay and think, watch for one more good chance before he was exhausted.

The knight cried out and drove forward, just as Neil realized he'd been backed up to the mound. He stumbled, and almost lazily saw the radiant weapon descending toward him'then suddenly he knew exactly what to do.

He lifted his own blade in high, direct parry, taking the entire brunt of the blow on the edge, rather than on the flat, where a parry ought to be made. The force of the cut slammed his weapon down onto his shoulder, and then the feysword sheared through Cuenslec and into his byrnie.

Ignoring the shattering pain, he released his sword and caught the nauschalk's weapon hand with both of his, spun so that he had the arm turned over his shoulder, and snapped it down. The articulated harness kept the arm from breaking, but the sword fell glimmering to earth.

The knight punched Neil in the kidney, and he felt the blow through the chain, but he gritted his teeth, kicked back into the nauschalk's knee for leverage, and threw him heavily to earth. Then, before taking another breath, he grasped the hilt of the feysword, lifted it, and plunged it into the cut he'd already made at his foe's shoulder. The nauschalk shrieked, a wholly inhuman sound.

Gasping, Neil raised the blade once more and in one fierce stroke cut off the head.

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o ' o

An arrow swifted by Stephens face as he reached the unconscious princess, but he ignored it, grimly trusting that Aspar and Leshya could keep any attackers off them until they'd gotten her to safety. Not for the first time, he wished he had more proficiency in arms than his saint-touched memory sometimes freakishly gave him.

'Cazio!' someone shouted, and Stephen saw that the girl, Austra, was right behind Winna.

The man trying to stand near the princess glanced up at them. 'Austra, Ne!

Cuvertucb!' he shouted.

It was a modern dialect, not the Church language, but Stephen understood it well enough.

But the warning came too late. What remained of the monks and other fighting men had recovered from whatever torpor had afflicted them. They were rallying behind a man who wore the blue robe of a sacritor. Stephen counted eight bowmen, all monks of Mamres, and ten armed and armored men advancing on them.

Aspar raised his arm up in pointless defense, then flinched as an arrow hit the monk in the forehead with such force that it kicked his chin up toward the sky.

Looking back, he saw that Leshya had made the shot from less then two yards away.

'Stop, or I'll shoot,' she said flatly as the monk toppled like a felled poplar.

'Sceat,' Aspar managed weakly. He scrambled to his feet, reac-quainting himself with his bow, only to find the string snapped.

He saw the men advancing on Stephen and the rest.

'We can still escape,' Leshya said. 'Someone must know of what happened here.'

'It will take only one of us to tell it,' Aspar said. 'And I maunt that's you.'

He swung himself up on Ogre. 'Come on, lad,' he muttered.

Neil used what seemed the last of his strength to sprint to join the little group clustered around Anne. He placed himself with Cazio, Khrwbh Khrwkh

squarely between her and their attackers. Cazio shot him a feeble grin and said something that sounded fatalistic.

'Right you are,' Neil replied, as the bows of the monks trained on them.

'Wait!' the sacritor called. 'We need the princess and one of the swordsmen alive. Leave them, and the rest of you may go.'

Neil heard horse's hooves behind him, and turned to see Aspar. The warriors were moving steadily closer.

Neil didn't feel the need to dignify the ridiculous suggestion with a response.

Apparently, no one else did either. He cut his eyes toward the archers, calculating whether he could get to even one of them before they killed him.

Probably not, from what he had seen of their skill.

'Yah,' Aspar said, as if hearing his thoughts. 'They're good shots. But they aren't getting any worse. We might as well go get them.'

'Wait,' Stephen said. 'I hear horses, a lot of them, coming this way.'

'That's not likely to be good news for us,' Aspar pointed out.

Stephen shook his head. 'No, I think it might be.'

Aspar thought he heard horses, too, but he'd just noticed something else'a shadow moving at the tree line. When an arrow suddenly struck one of the archers in the back of the neck, he knew it was Leshya. The remaining monks turned as one and fired into the woods.

Aspar kicked Ogre into motion, determined to make what use he could of the distraction. He was halfway to them before they started firing. He saw black blurs, and a shaft thumped hard into his cuirass, driving though his shoulder and out the back, leaving him dimly curious as to how many pounds these fellows could pull. It didn't hurt yet, though.

Another hit him along the cheek, cutting deep and taking part of his ear with it, and that hurt quite a lot. Then Ogre screamed and reared up, and Aspar floated for an instant before slamming into the ground.

Stubbornly, he pushed himself up, yanking out his throwing ax, determined to kill at least one of them before becoming porcupined.

But they weren't paying attention to him anymore. Some twenty horsemen thundered out of the woods, armed and armored except for the fellow leading them, a young man in a fine-looking red doublet and white hose. He had his sword drawn.

'Anne!' the lad screamed. 'Anne!'

He only got to shout it twice, for an arrow hit him high in the chest, and he did a backflip off the horse. The archers scattered with saint-touched speed, continuing to shoot at the horsemen. Aspar choose the nearest, threw his ax, and had the vast satisfaction of seeing it buried in the man's skull before his knees gave way.

When Aspar went for the archers, Neil and Cazio charged the swordsmen. Neil reckoned if he was in close enough combat, the archers would have a harder time making a shot. He wasn't sure what Cazio reckoned, but it didn't matter. Within a few breaths they were fighting shoulder to shoulder. The feysword was light and nimble in his hand, and he killed four men before the press bore him down.

Then someone struck his head, hard, and for a time he didn't know anything.

A man's voice woke him. Neil opened his eyes and saw a troop of mounted men. The leader had his visor pushed up and was staring down at him.

He said something Neil didn't understand and gazed around the clearing, face aghast.

'I don't understand you, sir,' Neil said, in the king's tongue.

Behind him, Anne moaned.

'What in the name of Saint Roosters balls is happening here?' the horseman demanded.

Neil pointed to the man's tabard. 'You're a vassal of Dunmrogh, sir'you should know better than I.'

The knight shook his head. 'My lord Dunmrogh the younger, Sir Roderick'he brought us here. I thought he was mad, the things he told us, but'sir, you must understand that I knew nothing of these events.' He held up both hands as if somehow to include the mutilated corpses that hung on the stakes and the general carnage scat—

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tered about the clearing in a single gesture. His roaming eye settled on the corpse of the Duke of Dunmrogh, and his eyes tightened. 'Tell me what happened here,' he demanded. 'I killed Dunmrogh,' a weak female voice said. 'I did it.'

Neil turned to see Anne standing, supported by Stephen and Winna.

Her gaze touched him, and her mouth parted. 'Sir Neil?' she gasped.

Neil dropped to his knee. 'Your Highness.'

'Highness?' the mounted man echoed.

'Yes,' Anne said, turning her attention back to him. 'I am Anne, daughter of William the Second, and before Dunmrogh or any other lord, you owe your allegiance to me.'

It sent a chill up Neil's back, how much she sounded like Queen Muriele in that moment.

'What is your name, sir?' Anne demanded.

'My name is Marcac MaypCavar,' he replied. 'But I''

'Sir Marcac,' one of his men interrupted. 'That is Princess Anne. I've seen her at court. And this man is Neil MeqVren, who saved the queen from one of her own Craftsmen.'

Sir Marcac looked about, still plainly confused. 'But what is this? These people, what happened to them?'

'I'm not certain myself,' Anne said. 'But I need your help, Sir Marcac.'

'What is your command, Highness?'

'Take these people down from those stakes, of course, and see that they are given care,' Anne said. 'And arrest anyone not nailed to a pole or in my present company. Take control of Dunmrogh Castle, and arrest any clergy you find there, and keep that place until you have heard from Eslen.'

'Of course, Your Highness. And what else?'

'I'll want horses, and provisions, and whatever armed men you can spare,' she replied. 'And carry my wounded to a leic. By tomorrow's sunrise, I ride to Eslen.'