The Swordbearer - By Glen Cook Page 0,34
setting. The comet looked like a silver blade stabbed through the fabric of the sky.
Rogala laughed. "Looks like they don't want us hanging around."
Gathrid wondered why the dwarf was amused, then realized that, of his own volition, he was carrying Daubendiek unsheathed. Sharp disgust fluttered across his mind. No wonder Rogala was cheerful. There would be blood for Suchara.
The blade had seduced him into wielding it without thought.
He rebelled. For just a second. Then he thought, this once Suchara's interests are my own.
There was little he could do anyway. Daubendiek would not be sheathed unblooded.
The feeling of growth came over him. He gazed with scorn on these puny mortals who would dare try delaying him. When he dismounted and stalked toward them, a susurrus of awe swept the Ventimiglian encampment.
They were afraid.
He whirled Daubendiek overhead and laughed as he strode toward the witch.
Silence gripped the land. Fifty thousand chests ceased heaving in mid-breath. The sliver of setting moon waxed brighter, till it rivaled the sun. Sudden ropes of silver danced around the witch. Her arms rose. Her fingers moved in intricate patterns. Her liquid voice seemed to come from everywhere as she sang forth her Power. The ropes wove themselves into brilliant nets. Soon she was a singing spider at the heart of a scintillating web.
Around her, in a faint mist, a huge feminine face could sometimes be seen.
From one of Gathrid's stolen memories came the thought that the spider image was apt. No man without great Power could hope to escape soul-devouring destruction once in the web's grasp. In that way it was like Daubendiek.
A strand snaked his way, questing like a blind serpent. It lashed out. Daubendiek severed it. The loose end darkened, scorched the earth, faded into mist.
Then there were a dozen attacking strands. Daubendiek became a blur. Gathrid continued toward the platform, trailing red-blackened earth.
The web thickened till he could no longer discern the woman. Daubendiek moved so swiftly that it destroyed strands faster than the witch could spin them.
Occasionally one strand would penetrate his guard and for a moment touch him with a draining coldness. The Sword's power shielded and fed him, but each touch left him a little weaker. In snippets he felt what it was like to receive Daubendiek's cool kiss. His leg began to ache, his eyelid to droop.
He saw with clarity greater than ever before, as if the cold caresses were freeing his mind while Daubendiek took complete bodily control. He discovered ways he could regain control if he desired, but dared not attempt lest he divert the Sword's attention. Their purposes were one just then. Anyeck had to be rescued from her folly.
He was sure his sister stood at the heart of the web. There was a flavor to it redolent of her personality.
The web drew inward as the witch realized she faced no easy foe. She formed a dense silver chrysalis around herself, adjusted the web till the only strands remaining were those attacking Gathrid. Their number increased.
He wondered if she knew whom she faced.
He also wondered if this were the sorcery intended for Katich. He could picture the web crawling over the city, sending strands into barracks and homes. The Blue Brothers and Honsa Eldracher might protect themselves, but ordinary, powerless citizens would be slaughtered. She would grow stronger. The Ventimiglians would move in, unresisted, to finish with steel those engrossed in surviving the sorcery.
Almost imperceptibly, Daubendiek weakened. Deep as it had drunk since awakening, it did not have the strength to withstand this forever. Gathrid felt its first faint stir of uneasiness.
But the witch's power was waning too. The strands grew fewer and slower. Her remaining strength she used to maintain her chrysalis. Gathrid was now just twenty feet away.
Beyond the silvery glare, the moon began sliding behind blackened hills.
She knew, went entirely defensive.
Singing victoriously, Daubendiek drank the lives of fear-frozen Ventimiglians, renewing itself. Then it flew into desperate play against a last surprise assault by the witch.
A beam of silver speared from the chrysalis. The woman's protection evaporated as its power fed the beam.
Daubendiek absorbed it, its voice changing from song to moan. Ventimiglians by the thousands fell to earth, clawing their ears.
The moon sank lower and lower.
Weariness devoured Gathrid's sword arm. The feeling of gigantism faded. His leg burned. Daubendiek had begun drawing on him.
He saw Rogala rushing toward him. Probably to salvage the Sword if its Bearer fell. To pass it on, he thought.
The upper limb of the moon perished behind the hills.
The witch's