The Swordbearer - By Glen Cook Page 0,21

pike.

"Forget him!" Rogala bellowed. "We've got to get out of here!" He pointed. Crossing a distant ridgeline, airborne on a beast resembling that just injured, trailing a fluttering black cloak, came help for the Toal.

"Nieroda!" Gathrid urged his mount toward the dwarf, scooped him up, kicked the animal into a gallop. The thing that Rogala had wounded bit a chunk from its own flank as they passed, became more enraged. The Toal had to slay it in self-defense.

"Hope that wasn't a family heirloom you left back there," Gathrid shouted over his shoulder.

"Knives I can replace, boy. My skin I can't. Shut up and ride."

The youth glanced back, saw the Toal's arm thrust their way. It was about to use the weapon Gathrid had seen at Kacalief. He tightened his grip on Daubendiek. A chuckle redolent of the thing that haunted his dreams seemed to echo from everywhere around him.

A blast of light took his sight away.

Daubendiek quivered, groaned, absorbed the sorcery.

Gathrid looked back again, vision quickly regained. Nieroda was closer. His flyer seemed slow and clumsy.

They crested the far wall of the valley and saw that this would not be a long race. The Bilgoraji border was nearer than they had suspected. Astride a road which wandered in from their left stood a city of tents, a forest of standards. "We've struck the Torun Road," Gathrid guessed. "That's the Alliance army." Gasping, he identified the banners of most of the allied kingdoms, and those of several Brotherhood Orders.

Rogala grunted with each piece of information absorbed.

"Why haven't they done something?" Gathrid wondered.

"Get us there and we'll find out!" Rogala snapped.

Nieroda had seen the army, too. He put on more speed by steepening the angle of his glide. He closed fast. Gathrid struggled to ready himself and the Sword.

There was a stir ahead. Knights and men in the robes of the Brotherhood rushed toward the frontier. They remained just beyond the customs shed delineating the border. That puzzled and angered Gathrid. A scrupulous respect for Gudermuth's already shattered sovereignty suggested political intrigue. "There'll be an accounting," he muttered.

"We're not going to make it," Rogala told him. "He has room for one pass. I'll tell you when."

They were little more than a hundred yards from the border when Rogala growled, "Get ready to swerve. Now!"

Gathrid yanked his reins. His horse screamed. Rogala flung himself off, lit and rolled like a professional tumbler. A bolt from a crossbow lying across Nieroda's lap blistered the air where Gathrid's mount had been, struck earth at Rogala's heels, left a fist-sized, smoking black hole. The dwarf responded with mountain-moving curses.

Daubendiek lightninged up and opened a yard of the flyer's belly.

The creature's soul was as alien as the thing that had possessed the slain Toal. Gathrid sensed only coldness, bloodthirst and a feeling of the thing having spent ages asleep. It was another of the Mindak's past delvings.

The thing screamed. Its wings beat like gongs. The very air seemed to try fleeing. Nieroda roared angrily. Mount and rider hit earth in a thrashing tumble.

The Dark Champion got off another bolt while falling. This one Gathrid could not evade. Daubendiek could not turn it. Gathrid jumped. His horse took the impact, moaned, collapsed. A charred flesh smell filled the air.

The earth came up too fast. Gathrid knew he would be knocked senseless. Yet he managed to land lightly, on his toes and free hand.

Nieroda stood twenty paces away, blocking his path to the border. He swelled into a black giant behind which loomed an even larger, nebulous entity.

For an instant Gathrid was frightened. Then Daubendiek's power flooded him as never before. He suffered a moment of disorientation.

The earth dwindled beneath him. Everything human faded into insignificance. He existed alone with his Enemy, and had a self-confidence that was godlike. Never had he felt so alive, so competent, so unconquerable. With a laugh that echoed mockingly off the hills, he brought Daubendiek up to salute his dread opponent.

This was how Tureck Aarant must have felt before his great combats. Daubendiek must have come into the fullness of its Power.

To one side a small, hairy something groveled on the earth and whined, "Suchara be praised. Suchara be praised. Your servant no longer doubts."

"Come, Hellspawn. Come, Nieroda. Receive the kiss of Suchara," Gathrid thundered. He put his lips to the quivering blade of the Great Sword. It had grown hot.

Over the border the Alliance ranks began to show gaps as fainthearts fled. Even those in the colored robes of the Orders looked