SHADOWS OF THE SWORD

“CONTROLLING THE SWORD” by Kristine Kathryn Rusch: The ancestral sword drew generations of children to their destiny— but forever cursed all who were unworthy of its touch.

“LASSORIO” by Eric Lustbader: The sullen warlord Lassorio ruled a dark, diminished Camelot—until the night a snow fox led him to a place of magic, horror…and love.

“THE GOD-SWORD” by Diana L. Paxson: Centuries before the time of Arthur, a Swordbearer and his Druid lover must join the battle for the soul of ancient Britannia.

“SILVER, STONE, AND STEEL” by Judith Tarr: Joseph of Arimathea carried a Mystery to the world’s end—and discovered his place in an eternal dream of wizards, gods, goddesses, and blood.

“SWORD PRACTICE” by Jody Lynn Nye: The young boy-king must discover: Does Arthur rule the sword—or does Excalibur rule the king?

“GOLDIE, LOX, AND THE THREE EXCALIBEARERS” by Esther M. Friesner: What’re you starin’ at? Even Merlin’s verklempt when the destined Swordbearer for the age turns out to be Brooklyn’s Lady of the Lox—teen deli waitress Goldie Berman! Who knew?

Copyright

Copyright © 1995 by Richard Gilliam, Martin H. Greenberg, and Edward E. Kramer.

All rights reserved.

“The Question of the Sword” by Jane Yolen—Copyright © 1995 by Jane Yolen.

“The God-Sword” by Diana L. Paxson—Copyright © 1995 by Diana L. Paxson.

“Lassorio” by Eric Lustbader—Copyright © 1995 by Eric Lustbader.

“Controlling the Sword” by Kristine Kathryn Rusch—Copyright © 1995 by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

“Surgeon’s Steel” by Diana Gabaldon—Copyright © 1995 by Diana Gabaldon. Copyright information continued on page 471.

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First eBook Edition: November 2009

ISBN: 978-0-446-57005-3

The Question of the Sword

JANE YOLEN

Answer: Excalibur.

What is the question?

We could argue steel, the weight

of the blade, the iron strips

tempered in water, in wine, in blood,

in fire, in the hammering

in the dark, brooding smithies.

We could argue wars, the weight

of souls, the confluence of river sides

where waves wap in waters wan,

where hands rise up above the mere

to snatch victory in the silver light.

But I’d rather argue a man’s own weight,

the thrust of my loins, the thickened blade,

the straight-edge of permission,

my quillion thighs

for bringing life,

for the ending of it:

blade, strip, steel,

and the pattern of the wave.

The God-Sword

DIANAL. PAXSON

They rode out across the moor just as dusk was falling, thirteen men, sitting their tough little ponies as easily as they had when they served with the Sarmatian Nurneri, the best auxiliary cavalry Britannia could field. Every man of them had put in his twenty years with the Legions before retiring to the vicus below the fort at Breme-tennacum. And yet, thought Hamytz-sar as he moved into the center of the formation, though he had been born and bred here, he did not belong to this land.

With him the line of the Sword-bearers who had accompanied the Iazyges warriors that the Romans had settled in Britannia came to an end. The last of Hamytz’s sons had died in Gallia as rival generals battled for the imperial diadem. He felt the baldric that held the familiar weight of the Sword across his back slip, and hitched it forward. Who would carry it when his arm failed? Who would call the spirits when his voice was still? Or would it matter? Would anything matter if Rome’s might failed and the wild tribes came flooding in?

They breasted the rise, and for a moment the priest could see the lay of the land—dim, heather-clad undulations of hillside with trees springing up wherever there was a little protection from the wind. Low clouds were rolling in from the western sea; there would likely be rain by morning. That would not matter; these men whose ancestors had roamed the steppes had a homing sense as acute as that of their ponies. They did not even need to see the stars. Hamytz looked up—in the north country one was always most conscious of the great sweep of the sky—this evening it was strewn with banners of fading flame like a dead battlefield.

Nor would the Painted People be bothered by a little rain, he thought then. They had never accepted the barrier that the emperor Hadrian had thrown across the North to stop their raiding, and now that the Legions had been ordered back across the Narrow Sea, only the veterans, settled on farmsteads near the forts where once they had served, stood between them and the rich lands of the South. Once Britannia had lain secure beneath the peace of Rome, but Rome herself was beleaguered. Without men to man it, the Wall was no more than an inconvenience. Still, things had been quiet for the past moon. There was no reason, Hamytz told himself sternly, to think it might be this night that they would come.

The Dragon pennant fluttered on its pole, gold thread glinting in the last of the light, then sagged again as the riders plunged down a winding watercourse, out of the wind. The ponies’ hooves rang on stone; the bones of earth were very near the surface here. Hamytz straightened, a familiar tension beginning to build within him, and it seemed to him that the Sword grew heavier, as if it were already beginning to draw down power.

The pace quickened. The ponies knew that soon they would be able to graze on the dry grass in the hollow. The cliff face above it was a featureless blur in the half-light. Hamytz could barely make out the humped shape of the offering stone.

Uryzmag, in the lead, gave a soft command. As one the horses came to a halt in a semicircle. Hamytz dismounted, wincing a little as his joints complained, and his horse was led away. Ruddy light glinted suddenly as torches were lit and set into the ground. He heard an unhappy bleating as the bound goat was lifted from Arvgad’s saddle and laid down.

Silence fell, and after a moment Hamytz realized they were all watching him. He unpinned his cloak and laid it aside. Beneath it, like the rest of them, he wore a warshirt made in the traditional way with overlapping scales carved from the hooves of mares. And like theirs, his spangenhelm was worn with service and lovingly burnished. But fixed to its crest was a wolf’s tail, to which were fastened amulets in the shapes of spearheads and tiny swords that chimed and clattered as he moved.

The other men grouped themselves around him. With fingers grown stiff from the damp air Hamytz fumbled with the firepot and blew on the coal within until it glowed. A pinch from the bag of sacred herbs sent sweet smoke swirling past him. He took a deep breath and felt his perceptions begin to alter, simultaneously more detached from ordinary things and more profoundly aware. His knuckle joints no longer hurt, but he could hear each separate breath from the men around him, and the cry of an owl above the crag, and more faintly, the voice of the boy as he quieted the grazing mares.

He could feel, as vividly as he sensed any of the other warriors, the presence of the Sword.

He picked up the pot of smoking herbs and moved around the circle, letting each man wash his hands in the purifying smoke and breathe it in. The dull drumming of lance-butts striking the earth in unison started behind him, and the men began chanting as they did before battle. Hamytz took a deep breath, feeling the familiar shift in his spirit.

Now he scarcely needed the torchlight, for each shrub and stone had its own glow. He could feel the power of the wolf that was the totem of his god rising within him, and the spirit of the red dragon that flew from their standard, answering, seeing it not as a wyrm but as his own people pictured it, with clawed legs, and wings.

He set down the pot and stood, bowed legs braced, facing the altar stone.

“I am Hamytz son of Hurtzast,” he cried. “Servant of Ba-tradz like my fathers before me, from generation to generation, since first we rode the Sea of Grass. I have fought many battles, my arm has struck down many—”

“It is the voice of the god we would hear, battle priest.” Uryzmag interrupted him. “Bring forth the Sword that we may pray to him!”

“The Sword!” other voices echoed. “Show us the Sword!”

Hamytz nodded—it was always hard, in the first ecstatic rush as the power rose in him, to remember why he was here. He took a deep breath, and his skin pebbled in response to the energy around him. As he moved toward the rock formation below the crag, the Sword grew heavier; he staggered as he reached the stones. There was power there, too, from the blood that had been poured over them. With feet braced firmly, the priest reached behind his left shoulder and gripped the hilt, muscles still mighty after four decades under arms flexing as he drew it free.

He could feel it quiver in his hand, hot and cold at once. His pent breath came out in a grunt as the weapon wheeled upward, lightnings dancing around the circle as torchlight flashed from the blade. For a moment Hamytz savored its perfect balance. It would cleave flesh as easily as it cut the air; it trembled, lusting to smite the foe. But Hamytz had had many years to master the spurt of battle-fury that came when he drew that blade. It could be used, but not by him. The priest was its custodian only. Someday, legend told, a king who was worthy to wield it would be born.

The cleft was a black wound in the flat surface of the offering stone. Hamytz swung the blade downward, inserting it with the secret twist that would lock the blade in place, and felt the shock throughout his body as the power in the Sword was earthed in the rock below.

For a moment he swayed, then he stepped back, staring. Surely more than torchlight blazed from that bright blade!

“Behold the Sword of War!” he cried. “God-steel, star-steel, cast flaming down from heaven to bury itself in earth’s womb. Spell-steel, forged by Kurdalagon, master of Chalybes’ magic, sorcerer-smiths of our ancient homeland. Neither breaking nor bending, neither rusting nor tarnished, this immortal blade we honor!”

He bowed and from a dozen throats came a wordless ululation of praise. Uryzmag stood closest, holding the goat. Once drawn, the blade must be blooded. Usually, the sacrifice was some small animal, though there were stories that in time of great need the Iazyges had sometimes offered it the blood of men.

The hairs lifted on Hamytz’s neck.

“Bright One, we call you—” he said hoarsely. “Behold, your weapon is waiting. Come down now and bless your sons, for the land is troubled and we have need!”

If possible, the Sword seemed to shine even more brightly, but the god was not yet present—Hamytz had not expected it. With an odd dancing step he began to move sunwise around the stone, directing a portion of his awareness to keep him steady on the rocky ground. When first he served the god, he had been easily distracted, but increasingly, as he grew older, the problem when the god-power took him was to retain contact with the ordinary world.

“Old wolf, gray wolf, I call you—” he whispered, “leader of wolves and power that binds them. Battle-craft you teach us, and the will to wield it. Come to us, hear us, come to us now!”

Heat pulsed in his solar plexus and he gasped, fighting for control. To give way to trance was unmanly. “Great Dragon, ruler of the skies, fly to us. Your word is justice; your roar brings victory! Come to us—” He could not: finish, but the others took up the refrain. “You are the center,” he whispered, “the axis of the world, the linchpin of heaven—”

Hamytz had ceased to move. Unwilled, his body was stiffening, his arms rising. Panic shuddered through him—or was it desire? The god-power had never been so strong before. But it was the Sword that must be its channel. To be possessed by this ecstasy was the way of the kam, not the warrior.

“Batradz!” Hamytz cried, his body arching in invocation. Power answered like a bolt from heaven. To his altered sight the Sword blazed as the god-power flared through it into the earth, and then, like lightning after thunder, the force surged back through his feet and up his spine, blasting all resistance, bearing his spirit away.

Hamytz was not aware that he had fallen, or that the spears were continuing the rhythm as he lay twitching on the ground. Now the crag and the stone and the men who cried out their petitions to the god were the dream. Ahead lay a radiance beyond description, and as that light touched him, he laughed for joy. In its midst stood an armored figure. The Sword-priest fell to his knees.

“Mighty One… ” His heart spoke. “Strengthen your people. The wild tribes are coming. Our young warriors have been taken and only old men remain to protect their families “

“Once you were the wild tribes…” answered a voice that seemed to come from all around him. “This was their land before you came.…”

“But if not here, then where shall we find a home? Is a painted barbarian chieftain to inherit your sword?”

“Fool!” Hamytz quailed as the brightness billowed crimson. “You seek to douse your hearth when your thatch is on fire. Get you back to the Middle World, for your enemies are upon you! Save yourself, or there will be nothing to leave!”

Power pulsed outward, and Hamytz was swept away.

He was falling, hurtling downward, whirling helplessly into the void. There was an eternity, it seemed, of fire and darkness before the world began to make sense to him again. Sound returned first, even before sensation. There were shouts, and someone was groaning. Hamytz tried to make out words.

“Ho, Caradawc, this one’s dead already—” The voice spoke British with the harsh accent of Alba. Hamytz was distantly aware that someone had kicked him, but he was not yet sufficiently back into his body to feel pain.

“Search him—he might be hiding gold—”

“Not me. He’s god-struck! The dead be worse than the living, with his kind!”

From farther off came shouting and the clash of spears. Perhaps he was dead, thought Hamytz dizzily. But if he were a spirit, he should be able to see…

“I’ll take his sword, then—the one that’s standing there!”

Awareness whirled back in a sudden torrent of fear. Hamytz smelled smoke, and the sweet stink of blood, and the damp tang of approaching rain.

“Caradawc, do not!” the first man cried. “’Tis some out-lander witchery!”

“But a fine blade—” A clap of thunder interrupted his words, followed by a burst of shouting.

“By Taranis! They rally! Come away, come away!”

Hamytz heard hoofbeats and knew that at least one of the Iazyges had made it: back to the horses. His people were no use afoot, but they rode like centaurs. Stones scattered as the pony went by, then came a meaty thunk and a cry.

“Cynwal, Cynwal!” cried the man who had wanted the Sword, followed by a torrent of profanity as the hoofbeats approached again. “Ye murdering scum—’tis my brother ye’ve spitted there. But I’ll return!” he cried, “for the sword an’ his blood-price, so I will!”

The hoofbeats grew louder, but the running feet were swifter still. Struggling to come fully into his body, Hamytz heard both fade. His dizziness increased, but his eyelids were fluttering. With a convulsive twist he found himself suddenly upright, eyes wide. There were bodies all around him—men of the Painted People stripped for battle, their naked limbs tattooed in blue, and his own comrades, lying like fallen dragons in their shirts of scales. Farther off he could sense a moving blur of horses, and in the sky beyond them a lurid light that must come from the burning roofs of Bremetennacum.

It had come, then, the great breaking of the Wall that they had feared. He had seen enough burning towns in his time to judge from the brightness of that glow how little would survive of his home. For a moment longer he stared, and felt on his brow the first stinging drops of rain. Then his body, outraged by the violence with which his spirit had been returned to it, revolted. Hamytz felt pain drive like a hammer through his skull, and knew no more.

“Ach, now, be you still. ’Tis a fair knock those wolves must have given you to lay such a strong man low. You’ll need rest—”

The words were in the British tongue, but the voice was light, with a lilt like birdsong, and the hands that went with it soft as they stroked the hair back from his brow. Hamytz sighed, trying to reconcile his last, anguished, memories with the warm darkness in which he was lying now.

“Not… a blow.…” he croaked painfully, fighting to remember the words, then coughed.

“Do you say so? But men often forget what led up to a crack on the skull,” the woman replied. “You were half-drowned and half-frozen, anyhow, and you should be glad of the warmth of Rhiannon’s fire.”

“Rhiannon…” Hamytz struggled to open his eyes. A flicker from the hearth showed him the slope of a thatched roof and a circular, whitewashed wall. A great many bags and bundles seemed to be hanging from the long poles that peaked above him: his nostrils flared at the sharp scents of drying herbs. But mostly it was the sturdy shape of the woman that claimed his attention, the firelight behind her kindling sparks of flame in the masses of her hair.

“Rhiannon merch Gutuator—” she replied, a little defiantly, and when he did not react, laughed. “You be no man of this country, I think, not to have heard of the Druid’s daughter. Nor even a Briton, by your tongue and your gear. Be you a christened man?”

Slowly he shook his head. “I am a man of the Iazyges—I served with the Legions and came home to Bremetennacum when my time was done.”

He heard the quick intake of her breath. “I thought perhaps you had been in the fighting, but you had crawled some ways when I found you.”

Crawled… Dimly he remembered a storm, and slipping in the mud of the road. He had not even run away—he had crawled like a worm. The woman’s voice seemed to come from a distance.

“The ravens were busy over the hill behind you, but I went no farther. For the dead I could do nothing—better to spend my strength for a living man.”

“And what of the vicus?” he forced himself to ask.

Slowly she shook her head. “That was a great burning. But no refugees have come from the town. Unless the Alban wolves took slaves, I do not think that any survived. I am sorry. Did you lose family?”

“There were none of my blood left.” He coughed, trying to ease the ache in his chest. “And none of my people now. I am alone.”

“As I am alone.…” It seemed to Hamytz he heard her whisper, but suddenly a fit of shivering took him, and he could not be sure. In another moment he felt warm again, too warm. He tried to push his covers away.

There was a soft exclamation as she touched his brow. “The fever—I feared it! But do you drink this and you will be better—I will not lose you too!”

A horn cup was set to his lips and Hamytz drank instinctively, grimacing as the bitter stuff went down. He found himself wondering who else she had lost. But sleep overcame him before he could ask.

In his delirium Hamytz dreamed. He was climbing the mountain of the gods, moving as easily as a boy. A part of him knew this was because the cord that held spirit to body had become very thin, but that no longer mattered. He sought the light like a warrior coming home after a long campaign, eager to enjoy his rest and the fruits of victory.

But when he came to the peak, the god was sitting with his back turned. Hamytz hesitated. Finally the silence stretched beyond his bearing.

“Lord, I have served you! I have fought long and hard, and cared for your people. Will you not welcome me?”

There was a long silence, and then a whisper so faint he could not tell if it came from the god or from the depths of his own soul.

“You ran away. Where is the Sword with which I entrusted you?”

Anguish swept Hamytz’s spirit, sudden and devastating. It was true! He had lost control of his spirit and been unable to defend himself. He was a warrior no longer. “In the hand of an enemy… we were taken by surprise! There was nothing I could do!”

“You lie—” came the implacable answer. “The Sword stands still where you set it. It has not yet been defiled. But each hour it stays unguarded increases the danger. In a righteous cause it will bring victory, but disaster if used for greed or gain. Any power may be turned to evil if misused, and mine above all. It is not your honor only that will be lost if the Sword is taken, but the peace of the world.”

Hamytz recoiled, but the men of his line had been bred to bravery—even the courage to defy the gods. “What peace does the world have now?” he cried. “My sons are dead in a senseless war, my people scattered. There is nothing for the Sword to guard—the children of Batradz are no more!”

“Think you that ye are my only children?” The Voice rang out through all the worlds. “Have you no care for this land that has nourished you, or the generations that will come after? Shall they live as wolves, or worse—for my hounds are honest beasts that live by their own laws—shall they devour each other because a weapon of destruction has been loosed upon the world?”

“Then destroy it!” Hamytz exclaimed. “Send down a bolt of lightning to melt it to a lump once more!”

“By men it was made to carry my power; by men it must be controlled. Live, son of Hurtzast! Until you have seen the Sword to safety, your task is not done!”

Hamytz sought for words to plead—he had done his best and he was weary—the god could not wish him to go back again! But already the sky was darkening. Thunder boomed; the air around the god glowed livid as a dying fire. In the gloom the figure of the god loomed suddenly monstrous. Hamytz recoiled. No human soul, however courageous, could stand before the Face he sensed the god was wearing now. As that terrible figure began to turn, he fled once more.

“The Sword!” Hamytz’s own voice brought him back to trembling awareness. He struggled to sit, but could not resist the soft hands that pressed him back against the sleeping furs.

“Be still now—” came a woman’s voice. Roxana? But no— the words were British, and his wife had died years ago. He blinked and saw a face worn with lack of sleep, though good bones shaped the skin. Memory began to return. He licked dry lips, forcing himself to think in the native tongue.

“You are… Rhiannon.”

“Indeed—” she answered, an unexpected beauty lighting her strong features as she smiled. “And who is it I have been nursing for three nights and three days?”

“I am Hamytz son of Hurtzast… I was… a priest of our god.”

“A man of the old wisdom among the Horse People?” Her smile deepened. “Then you are doubly welcome here. My father used to tell how our own tribes dwelt in the land of the Scyths, long and long ago. Perhaps we come of ancient kin.”

He stared at her. For six generations the Iazyges had lived among the British they protected, with them but never of them, too concerned with maintaining their own identity to wonder what wisdom might be found in their new home. Certainly it had never occurred to him that the British themselves might once have been newcomers here. Any kinship between them would be ancient indeed, but he found the thought oddly comforting.

He started to tell her so, and began to cough again. But this time the stuff that had stopped his lungs came up easily, and though the paroxysms were violent, when they ended, he breathed more freely than he had in days.

“I will bring you food now,” she said when he lay back at last. “The worst is over. Now you need strength to heal.”

Hamytz rested with eyes closed, listening to the woman as she moved about the hearth. I will get well, but for what? he wondered. I am a warrior no longer— He shivered a little, remembering, I ran away.…

He ate the food the woman brought to him, but though he was no longer in pain, he slept badly, haunted by memories.

The next morning Rhiannon helped him outside to sit in the thin autumn sunlight. It was only then that Hamytz realized how isolated she was. The house was built in the old British style, round, with a thatched roof. It nestled in the lee of a hillside with a view down the long valley. If he stood, he could just see the pale line of road leading north to the Wall, but there were no other habitations in sight, and no people—only the white sheep grazing the hillside and the hawks that circled against the pale sky.

“Have you no other family? No kin?” he asked her that evening when they sat beside the fire. Rhiannon shook her head.

“My parents came here from the Summer Country, in the South. The Christian priests would not have my father live in the town,” she answered, “and the people were afraid to seek him openly, though they valued his knowledge of the old ways. This place is far enough away so the Romans could ignore us, but close enough that men who needed a judgment according to the ancient laws, or women who wanted my mother to brew up a medicine for some ill, could come. I was the only one of their children that lived, and now they are both gone, so I, like you, am alone.”

“But you are young—you should have a man and babes of your own.”

“Not so young that I would trade my freedom for the sake of a lad’s bright smile.” Rhiannon pushed back her hair and bent to stir the gruel. “I would perish within walls. And what need have I of such safeguards? The northerners fear my curses and our own folk swear by my spells.”

Hamytz looked, and indeed there was a thread or two of silver in her burnished hair. But to him she seemed little more than a child. He sighed.

“Then you have no need of any protection I might offer you. As soon as I can travel, I will be gone.”

She looked up at him swiftly, and he saw her face go first red, then pale. “What are you saying? You can hardly walk to the door!” she cried, and then, “Did you think I wished to be rid of you?” She reached out to him, and the touch of her hand sent a tingling through his flesh that reminded him oddly of the Sword.

“You cannot afford to keep me forever—” He tried to smile. “I have always earned my own bread. My home is gone, but in times like these there is always work for a fighting man.”

He could see that she doubted him, but he schooled his face to give nothing away. She was right of course—he might put up a good front, but there was no virtue left in him. He had let the trance take him; he had run away. If he survived long enough to find a new place, the first time his strength was tested, he would fall. And the sooner the better, he thought then, but not here, not where Rhiannon could see that her labors had been wasted.

“Is that what you will do, truly?” she asked. The dark fires of her hair hid her face as she bent to stir the pot; he could not tell if she were mocking him. “When you raved with fever, it seemed there was some task that weighed on your mind. The Sword of God… ” she said in his own tongue. “Often you cried out those words. What do they mean?”

Hamytz stared at her. The Iazyges never spoke of their Hallows to outsiders, but there were none of his blood left to know, and Rhiannon was of the Wisefolk of her own tribe.

“The Sword of God. My glory,” he said finally, “—and my shame. It is the sacred sword through which the power of the god whom the Romans call Mars came down to us. I was its guardian.”

“And what became of it?”

He gestured toward the hills. “It still stands yonder, thrust into the stone where the Painted People came upon us as we called the god.”

Rhiannon’s eyes widened. “Did they take it?”

“I do not know—” Hamytz grimaced. “My lord sent his lightnings, but I was helpless. I do not know.”

“You must reclaim it!” she exclaimed. “If it is as you say, in the wrong hands it could do great destruction. Do your people leave the Hallows lying about to be misused by the unwise? I assure you it is not so among my own!”

Hamytz groaned, his hands coming up to cover his face as if to shut out her words. “It is true—it is true, and I have betrayed my trust. Earth will hold the Sword for a time, and the spells upon the sheath can keep it quiet, but only deep waters could hide it forever. It is a Chalybes blade, forged by forgotten magic in the land from which we came.”

“Calib… ” she echoed, and he was too weary to correct her. “When you are stronger”—she looked up at him—”we will fetch it from your shrine, and if you are still unable to care for it, we will find a deep tarn in which to sink it from the sight of men.”

“Unworthy.… ” That was the word she had been too kind to say. Or perhaps, he thought numbly, it should have been “afraid.”

As the moon of harvest drew on, Hamytz continued to mourn his lost honor. But increasingly, as time passed, his body was reasserting its will to live. He walked farther each day and ate more, began to busy himself making small repairs about the place and to help with the sheep. In other times he would have been too proud to serve a woman, or even to live so close to one who was not his wife or kin. But he was not a warrior anymore. During the day, activity kept him from brooding, but he dreaded the hours of darkness when he lay rigid, fighting sleep, or thrashed in the grip of evil dreams.

On a night when the wind whispered in the thatching and the wild geese lamented the turning of the year, Hamytz dreamed that he was alone on a desolate moor. Wolves howled behind him, and he struggled to go more quickly. If only he had some way to defend himself! But at the thought it seemed to him he heard laughter. “You had a weapon, but you threw it away! Son of Hurtzast, where is the Sword?”

Hamytz turned, seeking his tormentor. Something touched him and he lashed out, hit soft flesh and heard a cry—

—and woke, shaking, to see in the glow of the banked coals a woman sprawling on the floor.

“Rhiannon!” he swore, thrusting his covers aside, grabbing her. “I did not know it was you—I must teach you how to wake a sleeping warrior—” He was babbling, he knew, to cover terror. When she gasped and stirred, his relief was so intense that his knees weakened and he dropped back to the bed with the girl still in his arms.

She drew a shuddering breath, and some of his fear eased. “Are you hurt?”

“I’ll do well… enough… when I get back my wind!”

“Why did you wake me? Is something wrong?” he asked then.

“You were moaning.… ” Rhiannon frowned up at him, and he looked away.

“A nightmare—” he said shortly. “I am sorry I disturbed you. It will not happen again.” He started to release her, suddenly very much aware that he was naked, and she clad in only a shift, but she clutched at him.

“I will stay with you,” Rhiannon said then, “and keep the bad dreams away.”

He stiffened, startled into looking back at her. “That is not a very good idea,” he said carefully. “You need your sleep, child.”

“I am a grown woman, Hamytz-kam, and rest is not what I need.”

He took a deep breath, and began to tremble as he caught the flowery scent of the oils she combed into her hair. His flesh was telling him that indeed she was a woman, warm and solid in his arms, and that he had lain too long alone. But of course it was impossible.

“Rhiannon, I had a son your age,” he said harshly. “I am an old man, used up. I am no good to you.”

“I am not your daughter, and there was strength enough in your arm to knock me across the room. A man’s seed is good so long as he lives. Lie with me, Hamytz, and I will give you new kin.” She caught his hand in her own and carried it to her breast, and the touch was like the lightning of the god.

“I am not worthy—” he groaned, but she covered his mouth with her hand.

“Surely that is for me to decide!” Her strong fingers lingered a moment on his lips, then flickered lightly across the wiry hair on his chest and downward, where his treacherous flesh was already awakening. He knew he should stop, but he could no more resist her than he had the god.

Smiling, the woman sank back upon the bed, and as she opened herself to receive him, Hamytz discovered that some manhood remained to him after all.

Dawn found them still entwined. Hamytz opened his eyes and blinked in amazement. He had not slept so deeply in years.

At his movement, Rhiannon stirred and smiled. “How is it with you?”

Hamytz grunted ruefully. “You should know. You have bewitched me, woman. I have not performed so vigorously since I was twenty winters old!” Even now he could not say for sure which of them had conquered. She had seduced him, and yet he remembered how he had made her cry out as she lay panting in his arms. There was something in that notion of mutual conquest and surrender that teased at his memory. Then Rhiannon laughed aloud, and the thought fled. He had never noticed how her face lit when she was amused, but then he had not given her much to laugh about, until now.

“Well, it is fitting, for you are a Druid,” she said then.

At that, the laughter left him. “Not anymore. You made me live when I was dying, and you have made me a man again. But to restore my spirit… is a task for the god.”

Rhiannon frowned and sat up to face him. “Because of the Sword? Then go back and retrieve it. Do you think that all I wanted of you was your body? I have enough of my father’s wisdom to know it is no use to heal the flesh when the spirit is wounded still. Until you do your duty, you will never be whole.”

It was true. And until now, that knowledge had filled him with despair. But her embrace had healed him thus far—that now he had the courage to try to redeem his trust, even if the Sword rebelled at his impious touch and the god-power struck him down.

“Why did your people come to the North?” Rhiannon slowed, looking back at him. They had set out for the shrine as soon as the morning chores were done, and the brightness of the sky and the crisp tang of the air seemed to mark it a god-blessed day.

Hamytz, who had dropped back the better to admire the free-swinging grace of her stride, smiled wryly and quickened his pace to come up with her. It was almost worth having to go afoot to watch her walking, but there would be other times. He felt himself as foolish as a boy with his first love, but since last night, every touch, every look had been a revelation. Yesterday, perhaps, he would have given her a short answer, but now, after all she had given him, Hamytz wanted to make it a worthy tale.

“Not by our own choice, as I was told. There had been bad winters on the Sea of Grass; all the tribes were moving, and the Iazyges, though fierce fighters, were few. We moved south—like them—” he gestured upward, where a late group of wild geese were sketching a straggling line across the sky. “And came down at last to the plain of the Danuvius, seeking a new home in the Empire. But there was no room.”

For a moment then, Hamytz had a sense of himself and his people and the flying geese as a unity. For men the cycles of migration might be less regular, but everyone moved, just the same. Even the wild tribes that they fought obeyed the same law. Rhiannon moved closer, waiting for him to continue.

“We could fight no longer. Our king made treaty with the great emperor, Marcus Aurelius, to divide our warriors among the Legions,” he went on. “Fifty-five hundred were sent here to Britannia with their wives and families to serve as numeri with the Sixth Valeria Victrix at Bremetennacum. The prefect was a man called Lucius Artorius Castus, a great commander. My people honored him, and when, at the end of their terms of service, those first warriors of the numeri became citizens, many took his name. In the tribe I am the son of Hurtzast, but I was listed as Hamicus Artorius Sarmaticus on the Legionnary roll.”

“And so your family has lived here for two centuries?” Rhiannon asked. “That is longer than mine!”

“Some of the men married local girls, and after a time they sent men of the Roxolani, who were a related tribe, to join us. But I am of the true line of Urs-barag, bred from the days when we roamed the Sea of Grass to serve the Sword.”

“But not to wield it?” she asked, eyeing him curiously.

“The god wields it—” Hamytz answered, “or a man when the god is in him—a king when he rides to defend his people. And it has been long since the Iazyges had a king.… ”

“Or the Britons either—” Rhiannon echoed him. “But there is never any lack of enemies!”

Hamytz nodded. There was a saying, among his people, that sundered kinfolk made the bitterest foes, and the tribes who dwelt beyond the Wall had never forgiven those of the South for going under the yoke of Rome. For a few moments they went on in silence, then his foot turned on a loose stone and he lurched against her.

“Are you hurt?” Rhiannon reached out to support him, and Hamytz pulled her into his arms.

“Only my feet—” He grinned when he had finished kissing her. “My folk set a child on his first pony while he is still toddling. I am not used to walking so far.”

“Well, we are nearly there—” She pointed. “The place where I found you is just over that rise, and somewhere beyond that is your shrine.”

Hamytz squinted against the sun. Ahead, long slopes covered with bracken the color of dried blood ran down from a weathered outcropping of gray stone. He was used to approaching from the northward, but he recognized, even from behind, the cliffs below which he had left the sword.

Though Rhiannon still stood within the circle of his arms, he could feel the joy draining out of him. “Listen—when I take the Sword, I do not know what may happen,” he said soberly. “I want you to stand well away.”

“Can it be touched by a woman?”

“In the past, when all the men were at war, it was sometimes guarded by the wife of the chieftain, though she did not call the god,” he answered. He let go of her and began to walk again.

The trail here was pocked with old hoofprints, but no horse had come this way since the last rain. Still, there was something—his gaze fixed suddenly on a raven, flapping upward to settle in a stunted oak tree. Other black blots already weighted the branches. Hamytz frowned. If there were still pickings left from the fight, why were the birds in the tree, and if not, why were they here at all?

The trail curved abruptly around some rocks and suddenly he was looking down into the hollow. He thrust Rhiannon behind him and stepped back into the shadow of the stone, old instincts awakening as he scanned the ground. There was a short, indrawn breath behind him as the woman saw the bodies, but they were no threat anymore. Indeed, there seemed to be no danger at all. The Sword stood where he had left it, its immortal steel gleaming in the afternoon sun. Except for the stirring of the grasses in the wind; nothing moved.

“We should bury the bones—” Rhiannon started past him, but Hamytz held her.

“Stay here,” he said in a low voice. “We can worry about them when I have the Sword.”

He could feel her resistance, but her father had trained her well and she stayed put as Hamytz started down the hill.

He took a deep breath, and let it out slowly, his spirit opening to awareness of the hidden forces in the hollow with a rush that dizzied him. Pain and anger pulsed in uneasy confusion as the spirits of the unburied dead became aware of his presence. Rhiannon was right—they would have to be given the proper rites and set free. But more strongly than either, Hamytz sensed the brooding power of the blade.

He shuddered, wondering how a moon spent in such surroundings had affected it. He would have to purity it when he got it home—in that moment it hardly struck him as odd that he should so swiftly have learned to think of Rhiannon’s house in those terms.

“Bright One… Holy One… ” he muttered. “It is your priest who stands before you, returning to do your will. Let me take your Sword back into my keeping, and forgive the weakness that kept me from doing so before—” He waited a mo- ment, listening, and his ears began to ring at the increasing pressure in the air. He had feared the god might have departed; now Hamytz was afraid because He was here.

But there was nothing to be gained by waiting. He set his feet and reached to grasp the hilt, and gasped as all the pain the bloody earth had absorbed shocked upward. But pain no longer mattered. He leaned against the blade till it curved as no mortal weapon could without breaking, twisted to release the springy steel, and pulled it free.

There was no cloud in the sky, but he heard thunder, or perhaps it was the clamor of his own heart as the power of the Sword flared through every vein. With a wordless shout he swung it high, and the blade leaped in his hand like a wild thing. The spirit in it had always been strong, but now it was all he could do to hold on. If he could get it sheathed, it might calm—he staggered, calling on the god to help him get it away from the offering stone.

“Hold!”

Hamytz stared, shock for a moment overwhelming all other powers. As if the Sword had brought life back to all the scattered bodies, the hollow was suddenly full of armed men. But they were all warriors of the Painted People, brandishing spears. The man in the lead was big, red-bearded, his hair hacked off in mourning.

They were hidden here, some part of his mind that was still thinking observed. That is why the ravens flew into the trees. It is the one ealled Caradawc, returning as he promised, for the Sword. And then, He did not know the trick to draw it, but I have done it for him.…

“My thanks to you, old man. I was fearing to break the blade. But I will take it now.” Caradawc strode forward.

“That you will not—” Hamytz found his voice again. “But come a little closer, and the Sword will take you!” The weapon danced in his hand, hungering. He laughed, feeling that force linked to his own will, neither possessed nor possessing, but united, as he and Rhiannon had been not so long ago.

The Alban looked at him more closely, and stopped short, staring. “I know you—It is dead you were, lying beside my brother. Do you have a cauldron to revive the dead, then, or is it a ghost standing here?”

“If you come closer,” Hamytz grinned mirthlessly, “you will learn—”

Caradawc eyed him thoughtfully, perhaps seeing from Hamytz’s stance that, dead or living, here was a fighting man.

“Maybe so,” he said, lifting his hand, “but I know a surer way.”

A thrumming behind him was Hamytz’s only warning. He never saw the warrior who cast the spear, but only a blur in the air. Because he was turning, it slashed through his left shoulder instead of piercing his back, spinning him. The second spear missed entirely, but the third man, taking more time, aimed true. Hamytz saw death coming, but the shock of the blow to his shoulder held him and he could not move. The spear caught him in the solar plexus and slammed him backward against the stones.

Even before the pain hit him, Hamytz knew this blow was mortal. But he was still on his feet, pinned against the cliff face, still able to meet Caradawc’s widening eyes.

“Are you not dead yet? We will break you, then! You cannot keep the Sword from me now!”

“Do you think so?” whispered Hamytz. He had brought no sacrifice to feed the Sword before he sheathed it, but now there was blood aplenty, dripping from the gash in his shoulder, welling through his tunic around the shaft of the spear. He lifted the Sword crosswise and laid the blade against his belly, turned it and repeated the act, crimsoning the bright steel.

Shock and blood loss were beginning to affect his vision. He saw his enemy grow dark and bright with each pulse, and the world was spinning, but the stone against his back was solid, and the wildness in the Sword had become a steady blaze of power.

“You cannot take it—” he said harshly. “Without the will of the god and its guardian no man shall ever hold this blade.”

“What is to prevent me?” asked Caradawc, but his voice held less assurance now.

“Lord—” Hamytz whispered in his own tongue, lifting the Sword, “take back your own.…”

“Do not fear,” the answer came, “the Sword is in My hand, and so are you.”

A shudder ran through Hamytz’s body, and his vision blurred. This is death, he thought, but he was still standing, still holding the Sword. And because he was beyond all pride, and because of what he had learned from Rhiannon, his mind was able to relinquish control of his body without fear as the god entered in.

He took a step forward, the spearshaft bobbing from his belly, and Caradawc gasped. Hamytz could feel the weight and the movement, but he did not decide his body’s actions, and he did not feel its pain.

“Go—” a great voice boomed through him. “Fight your own battles on your own land. There is only death for you here!” Ever so slowly, Hamytz’s arm lowered, until the tip of the Sword hovered a hand’s breadth from Caradawc’s breast, and stayed there, perfectly steady, while the high color drained from the Alban’s ruddy cheeks.

“Get the chieftain away—” whispered one of the others, “or that thing will have not only our lives but our souls!” He darted forward and jerked his leader backward, and Caradawc, eyes dilated, did not try to pull away.

“That is well… ” said the same great voice. “Now begone, and pray you never face Me upon a battlefield.…”

To Hamytz they were all shadows, wavering figures that di- minished until they became one with the shadows of horses, and both grew smaller and smaller as they ran away. He felt no triumph, and he sensed only sadness from the mighty Presence that filled his body. It was over. Only one task remained. He lifted the Sword over his shoulder, set its tip to the mouth of the sheath strapped to his back with the precision of long practice, and thrust it home.

And as the spells worked into the leather began to mute the weapon’s power, the force that had filled Hamytz’s body gently withdrew. Pain, for a little while, remained at bay, but the strength was flowing out of him. He went down first upon one knee, and then to the other, and then, in a gradual relaxation, collapsed onto his side with the spearshaft resting on the ground.

Awareness retreated inward. He was a boy again in his first battle, shrieking a battle cry; he was dancing with the other men to celebrate the birth of his son; he was riding escort to an emperor.… It had been a good life, he thought in wonder, and a good ending. He would be able to face his forefathers without shame after all.

A long time after, it seemed, he felt soft hands stroking the hair back from his brow.

“Hamytz, can you hear?”

The voice was Rhiannon’s, and he struggled to open his eyes. “I am sorry—” Surprising, how hard it was to speak, “you wasted all your care.’”

“You gave me joy, and perhaps something more, if I have correctly judged the moon.” Something warm and wet touched his cheek—her tears.

He drew a careful breath. “Take the Sword. Guard it. If you bear a child, teach him—or her—to keep it for the king that is to be. But if there is no one… cast it into the sea.…” For a moment the only sound was his labored breathing. There was so much he wanted to say to her, but he knew he would not have the strength for much more. Footfalls echoed within his awareness as the wolf that was his totem came to bear him away.

“I will remember,” Rhiannon said steadily.

“That is well. Now, pull out the spear—”

“If I pull it out, you will die.…”

“I hope so,” his lips twisted in an attempt to smile. “Better quick than slow. If you love me, do it now—” he added as she stayed still.

Rhiannon caught her breath on a sob and, bending suddenly, kissed his brow. Perhaps he should have said that he loved her, he thought then. But she must know that. He had entrusted more than his life into her care.

He felt the first curling clutch of pain as she set her hands upon the shaft, and then the white blaze of agony as she pulled the spearhead free. He saw Rhiannon’s pale face above the bloody spear, and then, as awareness whirled away, other faces—a girl with russet hair and a face like his dead son’s, and others, and finally a boy with fair hair and the eyes of a king.

He will come, then… Hamytz thought dimly. I have not failed.

“You have done well,” said the god.

Hooves drummed in the earth, or perhaps it was only the final, convulsive beating of his heart as the last of his blood spurted onto the ground. There was a brightness beyond him. Hamytz turned toward it. His flesh quivered once, then was still, but his blood fed the earth of Britannia as it had fed the Sword.