Urdur stopped and studied Blade with reptilian eyes. It made a gobbling sound. From somewhere high on the walls came a chuckle. Casta knew.

It may have been the chuckle that saved Blade. That arrogant chuckle swelling into laughter. He leaped forward and hurled the blood dripping head at the creature. Urdur caught at the head with claws and began to rip it apart. For the moment he seemed to forget Blade. Small brains, Hirga had said.

As fast as a heartbeat he was in and had severed one of the Urdur's forelegs. He was out again. Claws grazed his thigh and the terrible fangs snapped behind him. Urdur roared and screamed, writhing. He lurched at Blade and then stopped. He began to eat his own foreleg.

Blade circled and dashed in again. This time he had to hack three times before a hind leg came off. Clouts of thick black blood sprayed him. The serpent body convulsed as Urdur reached back with his remaining foreleg, trying to get at his tormentor. Blade struck off the foreleg and danced away. Urdur's bellows of rage and pain filled the den. One hind leg remained. Strike that off, Blade thought, and I have won.

Smoke spurted into the den. From a dozen hidden apertures it came thick and acrid and stifling. Blade coughed and spat and coughed again. A thick brown fog obscured his view of Urdur. Blade retreated and circled around, feeling for the wall behind him. He lost sight of Urdur. He heard the slithering and the gobbling sound and knew that the creature was after him. Urdur could move on his belly, like a snake, and the smoke did not bother him.

Through the choking he heard Casta laugh again.

Blade stumbled over something. A skull. He picked it up. It was large, smooth. He, fixed his fingers into the eye sockets.

He was in a corner and Urdur had him. For the first time he smelt the breath of the thing and was sickened. Carrion stink. Urdur gobbled and slithered closer, reptile eyes gleaming. The terrible fangs made a clashing sound and the head darted at Blade. He jammed the skull into that lethal maw and heard bone crunch as the jaws snapped shut. Urdur gobbled and swallowed and roared.

Blade leaped high over the head and sprawled alongside the snake body. He felt the coldness of scales, fought off terror and revulsion, and forced his hand deeper, farther down until he felt the end of scales and the beginning of bloated flesh. There! There if at all. Hurry! Urdur was turning, arching, the fangs searching again. Blade guided his sword with his fingers into the soft flesh, put both hands to the hilt and thrust in, twisting with all his strength.

Urdur bellowed and threshed about. He rolled over Blade, near crushing him, and the touch of that foul flesh on his face set Blade to screaming. He hung on, forcing the sword deeper and deeper, twisting it savagely, hacking back and forth to enlarge the wound. Blood engulfed him. Cold blood clotted his face and gouted his chest and stank in his nostrils and mouth. Still he forced the sword in. Still he slashed and cut and backed.

Urdur died atop Blade. With a last effort Blade wrenched himself from under the great body and thought to rest a time. He bled and he hurt and he was near to dying of fatigue. He forced himself to his feet. No rest. He glanced around the den. No smoke now and no laughter. Casta was gone. Blade sought a way out of the den, found none and, for a moment, was frantic. Every moment counted. If he lost the priest now ….

He forced himself to calmness. The corner where Urdur had been feeding when Blade entered the den! He went poking back into the shadows, treading in slime and filth, and found an opening in the wall. It was a grille, hinged and held fast by a chain. Blade raised his sword and struck with fury and desperation. He broke the chain and his sword as well. He kept the hilt, with three inches of broken steel, and leaped through the sagging grille. He was in a tunnel that led straight on. Torches burned at intervals. Blade ran, his breath sobbing in his lungs. He came out into a wider passage and turned to his left and there was the leather curtain. Casta's lair.

Only now did he take thought and slow his approach. He halted and stared back at the passage, at the arching cavern beyond. Nothing moved and no sound came. Where were all the crows, then? Had they deserted Casta in his greatest need?

He remembered. Of course-Ogier! The General had kept his vow and was implementing the plan they had worked on together. Ogier was on the attack. He was drawing off the black priests.

Blade pushed the curtain aside and entered the High Priest's chamber. It was the same. The table, the fire, the skulls and animals and charts. It was deserted. No priest.

Blade went to the fireplace and stooped. The ashes were still warm and they had been scattered. The grate was bare, the embers and ashes raked to the sides. He wedged his broken sword into the grating and lifted. It came away to disclose a black hole. Large enough for a man his size, easy for the scrawny Casta. Hirga had told him the truth.

He still had his dagger. He drew it now and, with the broken sword in his other hand, let himself down into the hole. His feet found iron rungs set into the stone and he climbed down into a round, bricked-in room. There were two sconces and but one torch. Blade took it and bent to peer into a tunnel that led away from the bricked room. Far away he saw the spark of a torch. Then it was gone.

Blade thought a moment, then he flung his torch away. He would go in darkness and take his chances. He moved into the tunnel, hands and weapons outstretched, and began to feel his way along as rapidly as possible. It was easier than he had reckoned. The air was good, pure and chill, and the tunnel appeared to run straight. Blade stepped up his pace and, when the tunnel bent at last, he saw the torch spark once more ahead of him. He had gained.

The torch halted and hovered in the dark air. Blade halted also. Casta was listening for pursuit. He could not know that Blade was after him, not with certainty, but he would suspect and he might guess that Blade would show no light. Blade waited, catching his breath. After a minute the torch began to move again.

He gained steadily, running on tip-toe, stopping each time the torch did. The tunnel began to narrow and the air grew fresher, to smell of dust and grass and flowering things. They were nearing the Plain, were now in fact beneath it, and the opening could not be far off. Blade ran.

Blade came stealthy as the death he was. Casta did not hear him. The High Priest was halted at the foot of a ladder, holding the torch to peer upward. But for the torch the darkness was absolute; Blade was buried in shadow. Quickly, quietly, careful that they not meet and chime, he shifted his weapons. The dagger in his right hand now, ready for throwing. Blade brought his hand back a bit behind his right ear. He whispered out of the gloom.

«Casta.»

The priest had just begun to climb. He halted and turned slowly, the hood falling away from his skull of a face. He peered into the shadows. «Blade?»

Blade laughed and flung the dagger.

It took Casta in his skinny throat and stood out behind one ear. Casta screamed and there was a spray of blood. He loosed his hold on the ladder to pluck at the dagger, and fell. He still lived as Blade went to him and stared down. The black eyes, coals burning in that skeleton's face, defied him. Casta tried to speak through the gushing blood.

«Fool you, Blade-fool-we could have. .»

When he was dead, Blade picked up the body and tossed it over his shoulder and climbed the ladder. The trapdoor had earth on it and a flower bed. Blade shouldered it aside and stood on the Plain. The moon was up and stars shone, and everywhere there was a great running and shouting. Hundreds of torches traced patterns over the Plain. Blade dropped the body and stood there, breathing deep and enjoying the night, until a troop of infantry approached. They were carrying something on spears, and as they drew near Blade saw the shaven heads of priests. A bad night for the black crows. Blade hailed the officer in charge of the troop.