He glanced up and realized that she was correct. The red light that had tinged the edge of his vision had been neither his imagination nor the approach of dawn, but the glow of the gem.
An instant's worry vanished. What did it matter, he asked himself, if the stone were to glow? He had made his bargain with Bheleu, and the god would not dare to interfere with his thoughts. The urge to destroy the camp was entirely his own, he told himself.
All the glow did was remind him of the sword's readiness and waiting power. It occurred to him that he might be able to use it to keep his prey from fleeing. A good thunderstorm would douse the fires and drive the people under shelter, making it more difficult for them to escape his anger. He reached up for the hilt projecting above his shoulder.
"Garth!" Frima said, her voice loud and unsteady.
"Silence, woman!" Garth growled in reply. His hand closed on the sword's grip, and he felt a surge of strength.
"Old man!" Frima called. "Stop him!"
Garth bellowed and tried to draw the sword; Frima pressed up against his back, holding the scabbard down so that he could not pull the blade free.
Enraged, Garth tried to twist away while simultaneously reaching up with both hands to lift the blade out of its sheath hand over hand.
"King! Help!" Frima called.
The glow of the gem suddenly died, and the stone turned black, darker than the night sky above.
Garth stopped instantly; his hands fell, and the sword slid back into place. His irrational anger had vanished, and with it all thought of assaulting whoever blocked their way. He felt as if a haze had cleared from his thoughts, a haze that had been present in varying measure ever since he had picked the Sword of Bheleu up off the table in the back of the King's Inn. Even when the sword had been black with soot and unable to hold him directly, he realized, his thoughts had been tainted and muddied by it. Perhaps the most frightening of the sword's effects was that he was not even aware of its influence until it was broken; it made him believe Bheleu's reactions and emotions to be his own.
Now, though, he was free again, at least for the moment.
"Thank you," he said.
"Bheleu is not to be trusted," the old man's hideous voice rasped from the darkness. "He would have delayed us here for no good reason, and I do not wish to be thus delayed. Further, I prefer your company, poor as it is, to his."
"I won't give you the sword," Garth insisted. He was wary, and his thoughts had not had time to reorder themselves fully, so he stated his position directly to avoid confusion, on either the King's part or his own. The old man had made a longer speech than usual, which was, in Garth's experience, often a sign of trouble. The extra words might be part of a subtle scheme, or a result of the old man's excitement-and anything that excited the Forgotten King was likely to be unpleasant for mere mortals.
"As you please," the King replied.
Garth relaxed very slightly. It could be, he told himself, that the old man had spoken the exact truth and that his motives were just as he said-but why had he bothered to explain them?
Frima did not worry herself about that. "Are you all right?" she asked.
"Yes," Garth answered, though he was not yet completely certain himself.
The party had continued onward as these events had taken place; when Garth had reached for the sword, he had urged Koros forward, and the warbeast had obeyed, undisturbed by the actions of its riders. The Forgotten King had marched alongside. Now, Garth realized, they were drawing near to the most easterly of the campfires; furthermore, they had been shouting at one another.
"Wait," he called softly as he signaled the warbeast to stop.
Koros stopped. Garth looked off to the side and saw no sign of the King's yellow mantle. He looked back, in surprise, wondering where the old man had gone.
Something rustled; he whirled to face forward once again, and found himself looking down the shaft of a spear.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
"An overman!" exclaimed an unfamiliar voice very near at hand-the voice, Garth was sure, of an overman, deeper and more resonant than any human's.
"Who are you?" Garth demanded. He looked up from the spear poised at his throat and saw that it was clutched in double-thumbed hands below a noseless, red-eyed face. Two other figures stood nearby, one of overman size, the other smaller; both held their weapons ready.
"Who do you think we are, idiot?" the smaller figure asked in unmistakably human tones.
"More importantly, stranger, who are you?" the overman with the spear inquired.
Garth considered his situation and decided that he did not care to admit his identity yet. "I'm just a traveler heading west. Why does it concern you?"
"You travel at night?"
Garth shrugged. "Why not? It's cooler. I mean you no harm, whoever you are. If you prefer, I will go around your camp, rather than through it. It matters little to me."
"It may be that you won't be going anywhere for some time," the overman who had not previously spoken remarked.
"Why not? Who are you?"
"Who do you think we are?"
"I don't know," Garth said. "I didn't think there were any overmen in Nekutta. Either I was wrong or you have come here from somewhere else-but I have no idea where or why." This was not exactly true, of course; it did not take much intelligence to guess that the camp was a raiding party from Yprian Coast and that these three had been sent out to investigate the noise on the road.
"We didn't think there were overmen native to Nekutta, either, which is why you still live," the second overman said. "You may be a spy, perhaps a loner hired by some village to direct us away from it-but we have not previously encountered such a thing. Why would humans hire an overman, when surely they know we have both species among us? And I might suspect you to be a scout for one of our rivals, save that we had thought ourselves the most easterly party; why, then, would you be approaching from the east? Did you circle around unseen, and then become careless on the way back? It seems unlikely. Therefore, stranger, we are puzzled, and want to hear your explanation of yourself before we do you any permanent harm."
"And I want to know," the human interjected, "what that thing is you're riding, and who that is behind you."
"The animal is a warbeast," Garth replied, unsure how much of the truth it would be wise to admit. "The girl is Dыsarran and has hired me to escort her home." That story seemed as good as any and certainly more acceptable than the truth. He could not know what attitude this group had toward the cult of Aghad.
"Ah," the second overman said. "And who is this Dыsarran? Who are you, that she should trust you enough to hire you?"
"Her name is Frima, Baroness of Skelleth," Garth answered. He hoped that the title would impress his questioners. He did not care to reveal his own name yet; they might have heard it one way or another. "As for why she should trust me, that is her own concern-but I have been known to her for some time, and my word is good." He felt an uncomfortable twinge at that last statement, knowing it to be less than the truth.
"Skelleth?" the spearbearer and the human exclaimed in unison.
"I think we've got a real prize here," the overman added.
"Think what a hostage she'll be, if she's really the Baroness!" the human said.
Garth had not considered that. He had assumed that these Yprians would not want to interfere with the friendly relationship between Skelleth and their own land.
"That would not be good for trade," he said.
"That, fool, is the whole point!" the human declared.
The second overman held out a hand, gesturing the human to silence. "I think I understand," he said. "You aren't Yprian, are you?"
"You mean he really is Nekuttan?" the human asked, surprised.
"No! Silence!" The overman's hand struck the human's helmet with a dull clunk. Turning back to Garth, he asked, "You're from Eramma?"