densely overgrown. Forces smaller than Hildreth's had held those narrows against armies more vast than the Mindak's.
Ahlert's pursuit was indecisive. He had to keep one eye on Honsa Eldracher. Failure to fulfill his boasts had shaken his confidence. Consequently, he failed again.
A bold, swift follow-through would have carried him through to Torun and might have shattered the Alliance. Instead, he camped below the Beklavacs, tried to draw Hildreth out and sent home for fresh levies.
The Alliance Kings called for more soldiers too.
Gathrid was, by then, far away. He remained angry and desolate. He loathed himself for not having controlled the Sword. He wandered aimlessly, avoiding both sides.
He stole a horse and drifted eastward by back roads and out of the ways. For a time he bore Anyeck with him, intending to return her to the family mausoleum. The irreversible progress of nature forced him to abandon the idea. He consigned her to the earth near Herbig. He drifted onward.
He did not know where he was bound, or why. He did not much care. Movement was what mattered. It separated him from the scene of his despair, of his sin against his own blood.
He could not outrun the pain. He could only numb it with physical exhaustion.
He crossed the Grevening border without noticing. One region of Ventimiglian occupation looked like another, though the farther east he traveled the more the land had recovered.
His thoughts became fixed on Tureck Aarant. He began to understand the man. Aarant, too, had slain his kin. He had murdered his own mother near the beginning of his tale.
Gathrid wished the Sword's history were better known. What he did know had been set down by Imperial scholars with other matters on their minds. The blade's past lay behind a veil of artful shadow.
Was the kin-death a rite of passage engineered to separate the Swordbearer from his earthly ties? Had Rogala known the moment would come? The youth drank deeply of the sour wine of suspicion, judging Suchara, the dwarf, and himself in the harshest terms.
His brooding gradually came to a head. His unfocused anger coalesced. He set himself a goal. He would try to rid the world of abominations like Daubendiek. And Nieroda. And the Toal.
The notion was vague and grandiose. Only belatedly did he realize that it could cause him great pain. Had he not taken a step along that road by slaying Anyeck?
The voices within him mumbled and muttered and propounded a curious question: Had Tureck Aarant come to the same decision? He seemed to have ranged himself on the side of the weaker Power whenever he had done battle.
Every question and every decision lured Gathrid back to the same puzzle. Was he following the path of Aarant? Was it all foreordained, choreographed by the mysterious Suchara?
Where should he begin this self-appointed mission? Great Powers had gathered in the west. Left to their contention, they might destroy one another. He needed but wait, then go after the victor.
There seemed little doubt that Ahlert would triumph eventually. His mining of the past had put too much might into his hands.
Therefore, Gathrid reasoned, the Mindak should be weakened before their inevitable confrontation.
That dark shadow which once had been the controlling spirit of a Toal remained with him. He could feel it there, over his left shoulder, watchful and patient. It no longer strove to supplant his soul. It hovered on the border of awareness, full of fright and hopelessness. It could not find another host without guidance from the Mindak.
These days Gathrid was more disturbed by its patience than by its presence. It was immortal. It could wait forever. In its unbleak moments it seemed to be telling him that its chance would come. It would give him time. Someday he would relax a little too much.
And yet it feared . . . .
It had taken this new, less aggressive stance after his confrontation with Anyeck. It had been impressed by the Power he had wielded then.
Days became weeks. He wandered into lands where Ventimiglian peasants had begun colonizing. They were a hardy, determined breed. They were more ambitious than the peasants of Gathrid's own Gudermuth.
He began to suspect that his separation from Rogala was not as complete as he had hoped. A horseman seemed to be shadowing him from afar. He set an ambush. No one rode into it.
That in itself was suggestive. Rogala always knew what was going on. Gathrid gave up with a shrug. He had to assume the dwarf would follow the Sword.