"Do something!" Walegrin yelled to his passenger as he tugged his sword free ofits scabbard. The first touch of En-librite steel against his skin made a showerof green sparks, but it dulled the pain in his head as well. "Stop her, Randal!"

"There's no one out there," the mage replied, poking his head and shouldersthrough the cart's open window. His archaic armor, like Walegrin's sword, had afaintly green presence to it.

"There's damn sure someone out here!"

Walegrin stood on the drover's bench. Save for Strat all of the escort had beenthrown into the mud; save for Strat's bay all the horses were either on theirsides screaming or plunging into the morass of the fallow fields surrounding theestate. One horse, he couldn't tell which, shrieked louder than the rest- abroken leg most likely. Walegrin felt a rising tide of panic only marginallyrelated to the dull roar in his skull.

Strat heeled the bay horse around as if it were a sunny day on the paradeground, then launched it at the only stand of trees in sight. Walegrin watchedthe bobbing lantern for a few moments before it disappeared.

"Move in. We haven't been hit yet," he yelled to the garrison men who, likehimself, held the strange green-cast steel of Enlibar in their fists and weresomewhat insulated from whatever assaulted them. "Well, do something, Randal!"he added for the benefit of the mage who had vanished back into the darkness."Use that bloody ball of yours!"

As abruptly as it had begun, the droning ceased. Except for the one in thefield, the horses quieted and got back to their feet. One of the men sloggedthrough the mud groping for a torch, but Walegrin called him back to the circle.

"It's not over," he warned in a soft voice. "Randal?"

He crouched down by the window, expecting to see the freckled mage bathed in theglow of his magic. Instead he walloped his chin on Randal's helmet.

"Shouldn't you be doing something with that globe? Raising some sort of defensefor us?"

"I don't have the globe," the mage admitted slowly. "We never intended to moveit or the Stormchildren. Sorry. But there's no one out there, no one watching usin any way."

Walegrin grabbed the mage by his helmet and twisted it around until Randal wasfacing him. "There bloody well better be someone watching us-a whole damnedestate full of some-ones watching us."

"Of course there is," Randal sighed as he freed himself. "But no one, well,magically inclined."

"What happened, then? The horses just decided to panic? The oxen just felt likesinking into the mud? I imagined there was a swarm of bees in my head?"

"No, no one's saying that," a familiar voice, Molin's voice, called from thenearby darkness. "We don't know what happened any more than you do." He swungdown from his horse, handing the reins to one of the five garrison men who'daccompanied him down from the abandoned estate.

For once Walegrin was not about to be mollified by his patron's soothingphrases. His men had been endangered for nothing. A horse, no easy thing for thegarrison to replace, was this very moment being put out of its misery. Hiscomplaints and opinions were still flowing freely when a lantern was seen toemerge from the trees.

"Strat?" Walegrin yelled.

There was no reply heard above the sound of the pelting rain. Each man silentlyput his hands back on his sword and waited until the bay was an arm's lengthfrom the ox-cart and Strat's grim, torchlit face could be seen clearly.

"Haught."

"What?"

"Haught," Strat repeated, throwing a piece of dark cloth onto the drover'sbench. "And someone else-maybe Moria, maybe dead."

"Haught?" Randal poked his head out. "Not Haught. He's got Ischade's mark onhim. I'd have recognized-"

"I'd recognize him before you would," Strat interrupted, and there was no one inthe group who could gainsay that claim.

"Does that mean Ischade?" Molin asked nervously. They accepted the necromant asthe lesser of the two witches, but even so neither was a force that any man.except Straton, was comfortable with.

"It means Haught. It means he wants the globe. It means he wants to be Roxane,Datan, or some other bloody magician. You can take the Nisi away from Wizardwallbut you can't boil the treachery out of their blood."

Molin stood silent for a moment after Strat had finished. "At least, then, itwasn't Roxane. Tempus will be glad to hear that."

The other groups Tempus had assigned to guard the oxcart's progress werebeginning to appear. Crit came up with a half-dozen Stepsons, most of whomappeared to have heard Strat's accusations or at least had no desire to looktheir erstwhile field commander full in the face. The 3rd Commando, or a goodsized part of it, rode up from behind. Whatever Tempus's opinion of theoperation, he'd made certain it didn't lack for manpower.

"I think we've found out what we wanted to know," Molin said, not quitetakingcommand away from Strat, Crit, and Walegrin, but eliminating the need forthem to decide who was in command. "Randal, borrow a horse. We'll head back forthe palace. They'll want to know what's happened. Straton- you should probablycome along. The rest of the Stepsons can lend a shoulder to the garrison men ingetting this cart turned around and back to the palace. I'll leave it to youtwo," he nodded toward Critias and Walegrin, "to decide if you need the Third'shelp. I've arranged for brandy and roast meat to be waiting at the palacebarracks: Be sure that everyone- regulars. Stepsons, and the Third if they wantit-gets a share."

Molin waited until Randal had directed a docile-looking horse toward Stratonbefore turning his own gelding away from the men gathered around the ox-cart.Critias had ridden down to talk to the 3rd and Walegrin was proving himselfquite capable of getting the oxen to turn the cart around. A few riders from the3rd split off toward Strat and Randal but most of them headed back toward theGeneral's Road and whatever billets they had Downwind or near the Bazaar.

He held the gelding to a slow walk a good number of paces behind them. They wereall Rankan people, allied in one way or another to the Emperor or the remnantsof the Vashankan priesthood he was no longer on good terms with. They wereprobably as uncomfortable around him as he was around them but here they had himoutnumbered.

The riders were well beyond the ox-cart and still a good distance from the wallswhen Molin felt the first twinges of divine curiosity. Blood-red auroras rosefrom the horizon; the ground heaved and stretched, moving him further apart fromthe others. Despite the rain soaking through every garment he wore, the priestfelt a cold, nauseous sweat break out on his forehead and spread, quickly, untilit reached his weak, suddenly numb knees.

Stormbringer.

Gathering every mote and shred of determination, Molin concentrated on weavinghis fingers around the saddle hom. Not there. Not on a rain-swept field withTempus's men all around him. His heart pounded wildly. He heard, but could notfeel, the loose stirrups clanking against the lace-studs of his boot.

One step. One more step. The longest journey is made of single-

The red auroras rose until they touched the zenith. Molin felt the screamtrapped in his throat as the god reached out and pulled him from his body, mindand soul.

"Lord Stormbringer," he said, though he had no proper voice in the featureless,ruddy universe where he met with the primal storm god.

You tremble before me, little mortal.

The roaring came from everywhere and nowhere. Molin knew it well enough to knowit could be louder, more painful, and that the present modulation revealed acertain, dangerous, humor.