Galid had dismounted from his chariot. He seemed to be shouting, but a murmur of sound was all they could hear. Then he gestured, and the men in the second chariot heaved a body out onto the grass—a burly man with black hair. His hands and feet were bound.
It was Velantos. But how changed! He had always had a certain polish even when stripped for work, clothing mended and beard trimmed, as one might expect of a man raised in a king’s hold. Now he looked as if he had been sleeping in ditches. And even at the height of his frustration over the Star Sword every movement had radiated tension. Now she saw him emptied by despair. Instinctively she thinned the barrier so that she could hear as well as see.
“Tirilan!” Galid cried. “This man’s blood will be on your head if you do not come out to me!”
But it was Anderle who stepped out from between the stones.
“Lady Anderle!
” Lust and loathing were contained in those syllables, fear and a desperate need.
“Myself—” she replied. “Did you think you could take my child captive and I not know?” She cast a quick glance at Velantos, who had raised himself on one elbow. She flinched from the anguish in his gaze. “This is between you and me, Galid. Let the man go.”
“No, Anderle!” Velantos cried. “Get back behind the stones!”
“Do you know him?” Galid favored them both with a nasty smile. “He seems to know you. Do you care if he keeps his head?” He giggled suddenly and reached back into to the chariot for a long bundle. “That stiff neck might take some cutting, but look! He himself has provided me with a sword!” Radiance flickered across the stones as he drew what looked like a bar of light from the wrappings and swung it high.
“Pretty, is it not?”
Velantos’ eyes closed as Anderle stifled a cry.
“What do you
want,
Galid?” Anderle said evenly.
“Does that matter?” He spoke with a frenetic gaiety. “Your gods have given this island into my hand. No one will resist the man who wields this sword.”
And that, Anderle thought numbly, was no more than the truth. That was the power that she and Velantos had forged into the blade. But not for
him—
She wondered that the Star Sword did not leap in disgust from his hand.
“I suppose I should test it,” Galid went on. He stood over Velantos, twirling the blade with a wrist that had clearly lost none of its skill, though his belly hung over the belt of his kilt. “A slash, or a stab? Which would be the best way?”
“Oh that will be a brave deed,” Anderle said scornfully. “To slay a bound man!” She turned her gaze on the men in the chariots. “Surely the bards will sing scorn of the men who follow him!”
Galid looked sidelong at his men, who were beginning to grin as they scented a fight.
“Not that it will prove much of a contest, if the sword is as good as you believe . . .”
“Let the wretch up, my lord—” called Soumer. “There’s no sport in sticking him like a hog!”
The others were leaning forward, avid as she had often seen them when the yard rang to the snarls of fighting dogs. They had no honor to appeal to, but if she could challenge Galid’s manhood, he would have to respond.
“Prove it, Galid!” she cried. “Your tame giant is dead. Prove that you have the stones to face a man with a weapon in his hand.” To stand against the Star Sword might be hopeless, but she could at least give Velantos a chance.
The earth was still shaking, and another dark line had appeared on the northern horizon. Mikantor was coming, and from the length of that line, half the Island must have joined him. She took a deep breath. Great powers were converging, and if she did not yet dare to hope, she sensed that perhaps the gods had not quite abandoned them after all.
“Very well,” Galid said at last. “Cut his bonds and give him a spear.”
As Velantos stood, rubbing his wrists where the ropes had scraped them raw, resolve began to harden the lines of his body once more. There was no hope in the dark eyes that met her own, but that leashed tension was something she recognized from the forge. Still holding her gaze, he bent in formal salutation, as if she had been a queen.
Her throat ached as she bit back all of the things she had never had a chance to tell him, but she responded with a smile.
She felt Tirilan’s fingers close hard on her shoulder. “Mikantor is coming,” she told her. “Velantos can buy us time.”
“Mikantor would fight as hard for Velantos as he would for me,” her daughter replied. “If I thought it would change anything, I would give myself up to Galid now. But we can only watch and pray.”
And send energy to our champion,
thought Anderle. She reached out to Velantos with her mind.
“Fight hard, my beloved . . . fight well. . . .”
VELANTOS BENT TO STRETCH the muscles of his legs, trying to remember everything he had heard about fighting with a spear. The left ached a little from the old wound, but he was used to that. He straightened, working his shoulders back and forth to ease them, and flexed his arms. No doubt tomorrow they would complain about the wrenching they had received bouncing around on the floor of the chariot—if tomorrow he was still alive to feel anything at all. But his muscles were moving smoothly enough for now.
He was surprised to find himself so calm. This was not the first time he had faced a foe who meant to destroy all he loved. He could even die content, if it were not for the Sword.
Lady, why did you give me the craft to forge that blade if you did not mean to set it in Mikantor’s hand?
One of Galid’s men tossed his spear rattling across the grass. The bronze head glinted in the morning sunlight. Velantos grimaced as he picked it up, recognizing it as one of his own.
The shaft was of sturdy ash wood, a little over his own height, quite long enough to keep an enemy out of range—until the first time it was hit by the Sword. Velantos got a good grip on the spear, planted his feet in the grass, and took a deep breath, surprised to feel energy flowing up from the earth on which he stood. Did the land itself fight for him, or was it Anderle? Perhaps just now they were the same.
He gripped the shaft and jabbed, getting a feel for the heft of the spear. Galid swung; Velantos gauged the angle and batted at the blade. The sword rang, turning in Galid’s hand, and a splinter flew from the shaft of the spear. Velantos feinted and thrust once more, grinning as Galid lurched backward. If he could lame his foe . . . He jabbed toward Galid’s head. As the sword swung to deflect it, he flicked the spearpoint around the blade and plunged it downward.
But Galid was learning. The Star Sword came around in a whirl of light. Velantos tried to drop the spear, but the blade caught it halfway down the shaft. As the shock reverberated up Velantos’ arms, the blade slashed through. Unbalanced, he went over and kept rolling. He came upright with the stock of the spear in his hand, batting wildly at the Sword. The other half had fallen near the stones. He ducked Galid’s next blow and dove toward it.
Galid was laughing, peal upon peal of bitter glee. Velantos’ fingers closed upon the other half of the spear; he rolled again, came up with a piece in each hand and danced to one side, whirling both sticks to distract his foe. The Sword flared toward him and took another handbreadth off the end of the one in his left hand.
My greatest work will kill me . . . I wrought too well
.
He had no defense. The Star Sword could shear through bronze; it would reduce wood to splinters. That knowledge brought an unexpected peace. If Velantos no longer had to worry about survival, he could focus on saving the Sword.
He dodged another slash, that strange clarity allowing him to foresee his opponent’s movements even while his own seemed to slow. He had all the time he needed to bend, feigning a jab at Galid’s feet with the spearpoint. As Galid reversed his hands on the hilt and stabbed downward Velantos rose, head tipped back, arms opening as if to embrace his foe.
The point of the Star Sword entered his breast just above the collarbone, stabbing down through the lung and scraping along the underside of his ribs, his body a living sheath for two-thirds of the blade. His momentum brought him the rest of the way up, wrenching the hilt from Galid’s hand. Velantos felt the impact, but his body did not yet understand what had happened, and there was no pain. As he reeled toward the stones, he saw Galid fall back, eyes white rimmed, and the other warriors standing beyoned him, too startled to move.
“Anderle!” he cried in a great voice, as once he had cried out on their bed in the smithy. “Anderle, let me in!”
She came suddenly into focus, standing by the stone, and he knew the barrier was down. The world dimmed and brightened as shock began to take hold, but Velantos was still on his feet. He took one step and then another, put out a hand to support himself and felt the gritty surface of the stone. Then Anderle’s arms were around him and she and Tirilan were pulling him into the circle. Everything beyond was lost in a distorted shimmer as Anderle snapped the warding into place once more.
The first wave of pain hammered Velantos to his knees, but it did not matter now. He had brought the Sword to Anderle. She would give it to Mikantor. The world was a whirl of light around him as he fell.
TWENTY-EIGHT
T
he bronze disks sewn to Mikantor’s leather shirt chimed faintly as he trotted forward, his spear resting on his shoulder and his Companions running to either side. To begin the last stage of their race they had risen before the sun. The skin of the lynx he killed in the great mountains was draped across his shoulders, for in this battle he would need all his allies. Galid’s forces were taking up position on the plain before the great henge even now. Mikantor ran with grim exultation. Soon he would kill Galid and find Tirilan.
Several chariots were drawn up before the Henge. As the Companions approached, the drivers whipped up the horses and sped away. What were they doing there? Whatever it was, men on foot could not catch them—Mikantor took a deep breath and slowed. Now that they had sighted the enemy, they had better save their strength to fight them.
As they drew near, the Henge seemed to shimmer as he had seen stones shimmer in heat haze in the southern lands. But this was a typical cool summer day in the Isle. No one else seemed to notice anything unusual, but Mikantor’s senses prickled, and after a moment Micail’s memories identified that wavering in the air as the aura of power.
“That way—” He pointed with his spear. “Galid will wait for us. First we must go to the Henge . . .” He met the uncertainty in the Companions’ eyes with a frown, and by now, they had followed him long enough not to question. Presently the others began to see the shimmer too, but as they neared, it faded away.
The buzz along Mikantor’s nerves eased as well. As the stones came into clear focus, he saw waiting beside the heel stone a woman, wand slim, with shining, sun-bright hair. His heartbeat faltered, then began to race as he recognized Tirilan. His Companions set up a cheer.
“Take command—” he told Pelicar. “Form them up in a crescent as we planned, facing Galid’s line.”
“I understand, my lord,” said the tall man, “but do not take too long.”
Mikantor dropped his spear by the stone. Then Tirilan was in his arms and he was kissing away the tears that mingled with his own. It was only when he felt her shaking that he realized she was weeping with grief, not joy.
“What is it, love? Did he hurt you?”
“Not me—not me—” whispered Tirilan. “It is Velantos. My mother is with him. You must come.”
Mikantor could not imagine what chance had brought all three of them to the battlefield, but that did not matter now. His heart skipped once more as he saw Velantos lying on one of the fallen stones, Anderle at his side. The blood on his lips was a shocking red against skin the color of whey. Even when his leg had gone bad on the way to Korinthos, he had not looked so ill. It was only when Mikantor knelt beside him that he saw the handbreadth of blade and hilt of the Sword.
“Velantos—” Anderle spoke in the tone Mikantor remembered from his training in meditation, and he understood that the priestess had been keeping the wounded man in trance. “Come up from your sleep. Wake now, my beloved. Mikantor has come. . . .”
“Velantos . . .” The older man did not stir, and no wonder, for even in his own ears Mikantor’s voice did not sound like his own. He took Velantos’ hand, feeling the calluses rough against his skin, hoping that flesh might speak to flesh where words failed, as it had before. The smith’s hand was cold, though Mikantor could see beads of perspiration on his brow. The squeeze that responded to his own had no strength to it. But at least that faint pressure had been there.
“Velantos—” he tried again. “It’s Woodpecker. I’m here at last. My lord, what has happened to you?”
Velantos grimaced as he drew the first perceptible breath Mikantor had seen. “You mean, how did I become a sheath for my own sword?” The dark eyes opened. He tried to smile, but it was clear that every movement caused pain.
Mikantor made a little helpless gesture as Velantos took another careful breath and went on. “It was the only way . . . to get it out of Galid’s hand . . .” As his eyes closed once more, Tirilan’s quick murmur filled Mikantor in on the unequal fight.
“This is
your
Sword,” said Anderle, “the Sword from the Stars.”
“I was not so clever . . . as I thought,” muttered the smith. “Galid caught me, found the Sword. Broke the spear . . .” He stopped, becoming a shade more pale.
Mikantor looked at the angle at which the hilt protruded and felt sick. He had been in enough battles by now to have a pretty good idea of the internal arrangements of the human body. The blade had clearly gone through the smith’s lung.
“Why have you left him like this?” He touched the hilt, saw Velantos twitch, and jerked his hand away.