Malmberget and Bilgoraj are the major states in the Torun Alliance. They pledged war and wizardry if Ventimiglia invaded from Grevening, which Ahlert and the Toal conquered last year."

The dwarf dropped into his chair. He combed his beard with his fingers and muttered, "It must have been longer than I expected. An age. I never heard of any of those places." His mien became so sour Gathrid backed a step away. "But there is a war on? We need a war." His eyes burned wickedly.

"You'll have to explain as we go." He rose, gathered his gear, strode off as if he knew his destination.

"There's a Toal out there!" Gathrid croaked.

'' Eh? So? " Rogala kept walking.

Gathrid tried to explain. Memories of defeat released anger and hatred. The Sword stirred. His emotions paled immediately.

"Then Daubendiek will drink," Rogala snarled.

"But. ..."

"But me no buts, boy. Suchara has chosen. The Swordbearer can but fulfill his destiny."

Gathrid resisted for a moment-then remembered he was lost. Sighing, he followed the dwarf.

Rebellion would have to wait.

Daubendiek measured five feet from pommel to point, yet felt weightless, Gathrid gave it a trial swish as he stood back from the cave mouth, letting his eyes adjust.

He recalled sham duels with his brothers. Clumsy as they had been, they had beaten him regularly.

Squatting in the entrance, studying the Toal, Rogala resembled a huge toad. Gathrid shuddered. The dwarf had not shown the cruel coldness of the legendary Rogala, yet something suggested that the myth was but a shadow of the truth. Gathrid sensed an alienness in his companion, as if the dwarf were in reality an engine of destruction camouflaged in human form.

The Sword was restless and eager. It moved in his hand.

"A strange creature," said Rogala, returning. "Old beyond reckoning. Bound about with a hundred sorceries and armed with a hundred more." He seemed unsure. "Still, Daubendiek needs a taste of death. Go kill it."

Gathrid remembered the Toal raging like blood-drenched black killing machines amongst the defenders of Kacalief. He shook his head.

"The Swordbearer refuses a challenge? Nonsense. Go on. Slay it. Let Daubendiek drink. The blade is thirsty. It's weak with the sleep of ages."

There may have been sorcery in the dwarf's speech. Or a compelling hunger in the Sword. Or an uncontrollable will to revenge in Gathrid himself. He stumbled toward daylight. "No blood," he croaked. "Theis, the Toal... . Dead men."

He burst through the brush concealing the cave mouth. The Toal's head turned.

The Sword eased the physical processes of fear without softening intellectual trepidation. He could not help remembering that these monsters had slaughtered champions far greater than he.

His martial training was limited almost entirely to what he had seen his brothers learn, and to imagination. How could he fight this thing?

Daubendiek sprang to guard. Surprised, clumsy, Gathrid stalked the Toal.

It seemed puzzled by his challenge. To have the quarry turn... . That was beyond its experience.

Its gaze shifted to the Sword. It nodded as if all were explained. It turned to face Kacalief. Iceeyes stared thither for a long moment, then returned their fell weight to Gathrid.

A spellbound blade as long and dark as Daubendiek whispered from its scabbard. The Toal's mount came to life.

Gathrid's mind remained paralyzed by fear, but his body acted. He leapt to his right, to take the Toal on its shieldless left arm. Daubendiek clove air with a joyous howl.

The Dead Captain leaned away, kicked with a spike-toed boot. Gathrid's ribs received a painful caress.

The youth's next stroke reached for the turning horse's hamstrings. The beast staggered. The Toal plunged off.

Gathrid charged. His opponent's movements were as jerky as ever, but so swift and sure that it was on guard, waiting, when he arrived.

Daubendiek rose like a headsman's blade, descended too swiftly for the eye. The Toal's blade blocked it with ease.

The swords met with a thunder far surpassing steel kissing steel. Sorceries clashed. Cold agony climbed Gathrid's arm. For an instant that became a subjective eternity, the weapons clung like magnets. A dark wind howled about Gathrid. Leaves and branches fell from trees behind the Toal as though invisible giants wrestled there. Daubendiek whined like a whipped dog.

The Toal's sword screamed like a roasting infant.

When the blades separated, Gathrid knew he could win. His weapon bore the more dreadful sorceries.

Nothing could defeat him! He released a shout of exultation.

In one corner of his mind something whispered that he was being seduced by the Sword. He didn't care. Not then, not with a savage revenge for his parents attainable.

With his whole being he wanted to slash and tear and deliver pain.

Amazement filled the Dead Captain's eyes. It took a step backward, glanced toward Kacalief, for an instant seemed to listen. Then, as if bowing to a distant command, it resumed combat.

Its blade danced like a wind-whipped flame, darted like a viper's tongue, searching for that fractional gap in Gathrid's defense that would allow it to prick him with its evil. Daubendiek anticipated every maneuver. The swords wailed and screamed. The Toal's avoided meeting Daubendiek squarely.

Gathrid began to feel uncertain. The invincibility of the Sword might not guarantee victory, only that the Toal's blade would not reach him. Rogala had hinted that it had slept too long.

In lulls when the weapons were not singing their grim chorus, the silence was fraught with unpleasant promise.

Then Gathrid heard distant hooves.

Nieroda was coming to claim Daubendiek.

He glanced at Rogala, silently pleading for guidance. The dwarf was in a trance, enchanted by the struggle. He did not respond.

The Sword sensed his desperation, hurled itself against the Toal's blade, wove lightning nets of death, drove the enemy back in sparks and pain. The force of the blows jarred Gathrid into a moment of rationality. How could Daubendiek control him so easily? In his way, he had become as possessed as the Toal.

For the moment he had no choice. He could not run. He had to fight, and win, or die. Or worse, let Daubendiek fall into Nevenka Nieroda's bloody hands.

They might have been giants, flailing one another with lightnings, smoky towers lashing one another with invisible whips both deadly and long. Their wild slashing and chopping ruined brush and trees. Streamers of smoke coiled up from the leafy forest floor and misted thinly as swordstrokes ripped them apart. A sapling murdered by Daubendiek glowed as redly as a living ruby.

Long furrows striped the earth in mad, zigzag patterns.

The Toal retreated, circling slowly. Gathrid realized it was trying to turn his back to Nieroda's approach. He could overcome the maneuver only by forcing Daubendiek through the thing's guard and destroying it.

Always there was the doubt. The Twelve had remained undefeated since the Mindak had raised them from the Hells where they had lain since time immemorial, when ancient sorceries had struck them down.

And Nieroda. What of Nieroda? What was Nieroda? Controlling spirit of the Toal now, but something Ahlert had drawn from the dreaming sorceries of yet another age, similar to the Toal in aspect and invincibility, but a thing possessed only by its own inner evil. The shade and bones of someone who had been a Power equaling that which the Mindak hoped to become. A world-shaking evil so antique time had devoured all memory of its native age-except within the archives of the mysterious Library rumor said that Ahlert had discovered and turned to his own wicked purposes.

By what dread power did the Mindak bind Nieroda's fell spirit? Only the Library could reveal that dark secret.