He stopped in his tracks at the sight of the blue glow, and of the man that it illuminated, sprawled on the floor. Then he darted forward and picked up in his left hand the sword that had eluded the man's grasp. The boy stood with a heavy sword in each hand now, looking from one to the other. An expression of wonder grew on his face.
Meanwhile, the man had roused himself. And now he saw what had happened to his sword. With a strangled cry, that sounded like some words about a snake, he lunged with his drawn dagger at the boy.
In a startled reaction the boy jerked back. With the movement the sword in his left hand snapped up awkwardly, almost involuntarily. The point of it found the hairsbreadth gap in the armor of the lunging man, sliding between gorget and the lower flange of helm.
Life jetted forth, blood black in the blue light. "Luck…" said Duke Fraktin once again. Then he fell backward and said no more.
Mark looked down at the body. He could tell only that it was the carcass of some invader, clothed like five hundred others in the Fraktin white and blue.
Now, on the stairs, not far above, there was the sound of fighting. Quickly the clash was over, and a man's voice asked: "Do we go down and search?"
Another voice said: "No, look around up here first. I think the old fox's escape hatch, if he has one, will be up here."
There was the sound of departing feet. Then silence in the dungeon again, except for the distant drip of water. And now the faint tink that a sword's-tip made, touching iron jail bars as its holder turned. Mark had sheathed Dragonslicer now, and was holding Coinspinner in both hands. From the moment he had picked it up he had been able to feel some kind of power flowing from its hilt into his hand. The thrumming he could feel in the sword grew stronger, he discovered, when he aimed the point in a certain direction.
By what was left of the blue glow from the end cell, he looked inside the other unlocked cell at which the Sword of Chance was pointing. Then he looked carefully at the cell's rear wall. In a moment he had discovered the escape tunnel's secret door.
With that door open, he delayed. He turned back, and with his eyes half-closed swung Coinspinner's tip like a compass needle through wide slow arcs. Up, down, right, left, up again.
There. In that direction, he could feel the power somehow beginning to work, drawing an invisible line for him up into the castle above. Now slowly it swung again, by itself this time, toward the head of the stair.
In another moment it had brought him Ben, in bloodied armor, carrying an unconscious Barbara.
The secret passageway was narrow, and twisting, and very dark. Neither Ben nor Mark had anything with them to give light. Once they had closed the door on the dungeon and its fading demon-glow, the way ahead was inky black. Ben continued to carry Barbara, as before, without apparent effort, while Mark moved ahead, groping with hands and feet for obstacles or branchings of the tunnel. In the blackness he used Coinspinner like a blind man's cane, though, the sensation of power emanating from it was gone now. As they moved, Mark related in terse phrases how he had picked up the new sword from the dungeon floor. If Ben was impressed, he hadn't breath enough to show it.
Once Mark stumbled over the body of a man in partial armor, who must also have entered the tunnel in flight and got this far before dying of wounds. After making sure that the man was dead, Mark led the way on past him, his feet in slipperiness that presently turned to stickiness on his bootsoles. Horror had already become a commonplace; he thought only that he must not slip and fall.
The sound of dripping water was plainer now, and more than once drops struck Mark on the face. The general trend of the passageway was down, though nowhere was the descent steep. Twice more Mark stumbled, on discarded objects that clanged away on rock with startling metallic noise. And once the sides of the tunnel pinched in so narrowly that Ben had to shift his grip on Barbara, and push her limp form on ahead of him, into the grasp of Mark waiting on the other side of the bottleneck. Mark when he held her was relieved to hear her groaning, muttering something; he had been worried that they might be rescuing a corpse.
This blind groping went on for a long time, that began to seem endless. Mark developed a new worry, that they were somehow lost in a cave, trapped in some endless labyrinth or circle. He knew that others must have taken the secret passage ahead of them; but, except for one dead man and a few discarded objects, those others might as well be somewhere on the other side of the world by now. At least no pursuers could be heard coming after them.
Mark continued tapping his way forward with the sword he had picked up in the dungeon; he had had to put it down when he helped to get Barbara through the narrow place in the tunnel, and then in pitch darkness grope past its razor edges to pick it up again.
At last the fear of being in a circular trap bothered Mark to the point where he had to stop. "Where are we, Ben, where're we going to come out?"
Ben had necessarily stopped suddenly also, and Mark could hear the scraping of his armor as he leaned against the wall — as if he were more tired or more badly hurt than Mark had realized.
"We got to go on," Ben grunted, Mark for some reason was surprised to hear that his voice still had in it the almost fearful reluctance as when he and Barbara had used to argue about hunting dragons.
"I don't know, Ben, if we're getting any…"
"What else can we do, go back? Come on. What does your lucky sword tell you?"
"Nothing." But Ben was plainly right. Mark turned and led the way again.
They progressed in silence for a time. Then Ben surprised with a remark. "I think we're going west."
Mark saw immediately what that would mean. "We can't be. This far west from the castle? That'd be… " He didn't finish it aloud. Under the lake. Around him the water dripped. The passage floor underfoot now felt level, but there was never a puddle.
They had come to another tight place, and were manhandling Barbara through it when she groaned more loudly than before. This time she managed to produce some plain words: "Put me down."
She still couldn't walk too steadily, but her escort were vastly relieved to have her standing, asking questions about Nestor and Townsaver, trying to find out the situation as if getting ready to give orders. They couldn't answer most of her questions, and she was still too weak to take command.
But from that moment on the journey changed.
Their passageway, as if to signal that some important transformation was close ahead, twisted sharply, first left then right, then dipped to a lower level than ever. And then it rose steeply. And now the first true light they had seen since leaving the dungeon was ahead. At first it was so faint it would have been invisible to any eyes less starved for light, but as they advanced it strengthened steadily.
The light was the dim glow of a cloudy, moonless night sky, and it came down a twisted, narrow shaft. Mark, thinnest and most agile, climbed ahead, and was first to poke his head out of the earth among jagged rocks, to the sound of waves lapping, almost within reach. In the gloom he could make out that the rocks surrounding him made a sort of islet in the lake, an islet not more than five meters across, one of a scattered number rising from the water. By the lights of both common torch and arson Mark could see Sir Andrew's castle and its reflection in the water, a good kilometer away. Flames gusted from the high tower windows even as he watched.
He didn't gaze long at that sight, but scrambled down into the earth again, between the cloven rocks that must sometimes fail to keep waves from washing into the passage. "Ben? It's all right, bring her up." And Mark extended a hand for Barbara to grasp, while Ben pushed her from below.
They crowded together on the surface, peering between sharp rocks at the surrounding lake.
"We'll have to make for shore before morning — but which direction?"
Mark held up the Sword of Chance. When he pointed it almost straight away from the castle, he could feel something in the hilt. It was impossible to see how far away the shore was in that direction.
"I can't swim," Barbara admitted.
"And I cant swim carrying two swords," Mark added.
Ben said: "Maybe I can, if I have to. Let's see, maybe it isn't deep."
The lake was only waist deep on Ben where he first entered it. He shed bits of armor, letting them sink. From that point, following the indication of the blade Mark held ahead of him, the three fugitives waded into indeterminate gloom.
The sword worked just as well under the surface of the water as above it. At one point Mark had to go in to his armpits, but no deeper. From there on the bottom rose, and already a vague shoreline of trees was visible ahead. The strip of beach, when they reached it, was only two meters wide, and waves lapped it, ready to efface whatever footprints they might leave.
The sheltering trees were close to shore, and just inland from their first ranks a small clearing offered grass to rest on.
For a moment. Then, just beyond the nearest thicket, something stirred, making vague crackling sounds of movement. Mark let Ben grab up Coinspinner from the grass, while he himself drew Dragonslicer from its sheath.
They moved forward cautiously, around a clump of bushes. An obscure shape, big as a landwalker but not as tall, moved in the night. There was a faint squeal from it, a muffled rumble… the squeal of ungreased axles, the rumble of an empty wagonbody draped with a torn scrap of cover.
The two loadbeasts harnessed to the empty wagon were skittish, and behaved in general as if they had been untended for some time. This wagon was smaller than the one the dragonhunters had once owned. This one too had some symbols or a design painted on its sides, but the night was too dark for reading symbols. Barbara murmured that this must be the vehicle of some other fairgrounds performer, whose team must have bolted during the recent speedy evacuation.
There were reins, quite functional once they were untangled. With Barbara resting in the back, Ben drove forth from thickets looking for a road. Dragonslicer was at his feet, and Mark on the seat at his side with Coinspinner in hand. The Sword of Chance was coming alive again, telling him which way to go.
THE END
The Song of Swords
Who holds Coinspinner knows good odds
Whichever move he make
But the Sword of Chance, to please the gods,