"Cease fire!" Gartok yelled. "Stay under cover. Check your loads. Any wounded?"

He turned, grinning as Dumarest joined him. Standing in the open he appeared to be alone then Dumarest saw the men lying beneath slabs of stone, huddled in cracks, curled beneath boulders. The air held the stench of burned explosives.

"They held, Earl!" The mercenary gestured around. "They held and they returned the fire!"

"How many hurt?"

"Three dead." Gartok shrugged at Dumarest's expression. "Well, it happens. Twelve with minor injuries, cuts and singes. Four seriously wounded-one the man who started it all."

He lay in a crumpled heap to one side, a young man with wide eyes and hair through which some girl had loved to run her fingers. The laser had caught his arm and stomach, severing the limb and leaving a charred stump, slicing into the abdomen to leave a wound which oozed blood and twisted intestines.

A man already dead but who stubbornly refused to let go.

"He ran," whispered Gartok. "God knows why. He suddenly upped and ran and that bastard in the raft let him have it. Not even a clean kill either. I'm glad you got him, Earl."

Revenge, but what did it matter to the dying man? Dumarest saw his eyes, their movement, the tip of the tongue which touched the lips.

"Get some water."

"For him? With that gut-wound?"

"He's dying, what difference does it make?" Dumarest knelt with the canteen in his hand. Gently he moistened the parched lips, feeling the febrile heat of the cheek, the burning fever which consumed the young man. "Sip a little," he urged. "Easy now. Easy."

"Did we win?"

"We won." A lie, but what did it matter? Frowning Dumarest added, "I know you. Bran Welco, isn't it?"

"Bran Welos, sir. I'm glad you remember me. I was on that march when you almost ran us into the ground. I didn't think I'd make it, but I did." The stump of the charred arm lifted a little as if he wanted to put out his hand. "Why did that man burn me?"

"You ran. Why?"

"I saw my grandfather. He smiled and beckoned to me."

Delusia? Dumarest glanced at the sky and saw the suns still well separated. Imagination? Shadows in the rocks could adopt odd shapes to a worried mind. The old man must have meant something special to the youth or his need had been great.

"He wanted to talk," whispered Welos. "I knew it. I could see him but I couldn't hear him. I thought if I could get closer I'd make out what he was saying. He-" Pain contorted the features. "He-God, it hurts! It hurts!"

"Kill him," whispered Gartok. "Pass him out easy."

Rough mercy and the only thing to do. Dumarest reached out and rested his hand on the flaccid throat, his fingers finding the carotids, pressing them, cutting off the blood supply to the brain, bringing blessed unconsciousness and death.

Rising he said, "Let's get on with the war."

Chapter Ten

The song was one Lavinia had never heard before. It rose and fell with a wailing ululation which held all misery and pain and despair. A sound which grated on the nerves so that she screamed and clutched at her ears and then, as it faded, realized that it wasn't a song at all but the throbbing harmonics of the curfew which, sounding, promised for a while at least there would be peace.

Tiredly she rose from her bath. Always, lately, she seemed to need washing and always she was tired. A symbolic guilt, she wondered? A ritual cleansing? Or was it the subconscious desire to lave away the hurt and pain and to restore life as she remembered it?

A weakness-things were not and could never be the same. But some things would survive; the castle, the land, the dead who had never deserted her.

"A mistake, my dear." Charles smiled at her from where he stood against the wall. "You should have left things as they were. Well, no matter, soon you will be with me and then we shall have time to do all the things once you dreamed about."

Charles who had died long ago and who had been her early love. But now she had no need of him so why did he insist on returning?

"I don't love you," she said. "You know that."

"Do I?"

"Earl is my man now and for always. Leave me, Charles. You disturb me."

His smile thinned as his shape began to dissolve and became a part of the decoration of the bathroom. Delusia or had she almost fallen asleep in the warm water? Stayed asleep as she left the tub? Remained in a near-coma as she dried herself?

"My lady?" Her maid was at her side, her eyes betraying her concern. "Is anything wrong, my lady?"

"Yes. No. Bring me a drink. Something strong." Then, as the girl hesitated. "Hurry, damn you!"

The brandy helped, the stinging astringents helped still more, and the phial of pungent vapors which she inhaled finally drove the fuzziness from her brain. Did all women feel this way, she wondered, when their bodies became the receptacle of a new life? Her hands lifted to touch her breasts, fell to caress her stomach. And yet how could she be sure? There were tests which would answer the question one way or the other and yet she was reluctant to use them. It was an added joy to guess, to wonder if her missed periods were the result of love or physical disturbance, a baby growing in her womb or a metabolic upset caused by the fulfillment of desire. Such things happened to others so why not to her?

And who could be normal in time of war?

Bleakly she looked into the mirror as the girl dressed her hair, remembering, thinking of the wounded carried back into the castle, the dead cremated in heaps where they had fallen. Too many wounded and too many dead. Drugs and surgery could help the injured but how to replace the fallen?

War-a time of much sadness. Who had said that? Charles? No, he was the confirmed cynic. Roland? Perhaps when they had walked the upper promenade and he had touched her hand and mused on the workings of the universe. How long ago now? A year? A decade? A lifetime?

"My lady?" The girl had stepped back, her task accomplished, the mane of hair lifted and crested to show its bar of silver to best advantage. A crown for the smooth perfection of her face; shimmering, beautiful in its ebon profusion.

Would her daughter have such hair?

"It pleases you, my lady?" The girl was anxious, of late her mistress had been the victim of strange moods and sudden violences. "A touch more perfume, perhaps?"

"No." The girl had an animal-like instinct for preservation. The offer, rejected, had broken Lavinia's introspection by giving her the opportunity to make a decision.

Now she made another. "The ruby necklace and pendant earrings. The matching tiara and a ring. A large one."

Gens to adorn living flesh then, studying herself, she felt a sudden revulsion at her choice. Rubies-was she mad? At a time like this to wear the color of blood?

"Take these away." The jewels made hard, rattling noises as she threw them down. "Bring me pearls-no!" Pearls were tears of pain. What then? What? "The crystals," she finally decided. "Bring me the crystals."

Faceted stones backed by metallic films graven with lines to form a diffraction grating which reflected the light in glowing spectrums. An inexpensive novelty bought when she was little more than a child when bright and shining things had held a peculiar attraction.

As war seemed to hold a terrible fascination for men.

Madness, of course, a destructive urge which caused them to volunteer and to go out and face injury and death. Would women be so insane?

Her reflection told her the answer. Fight, she had demanded. Protect what is ours. Kill if it comes to that but stand against those who would rob us. Words-when translated into reality what did they mean? The answer lay in the infirmary whimpering in pain. Rose on columns of black smoke to the sky. Was in the red eyes of bereft women, the wondering gaze of deprived children.