A Handful Of Men - The Stricken Field Part 37

And that time the warlock held his ground. The Covin blasted it with a torrent of thunderbolts.

Silence and curling smoke. Dead.

The meld screamed. Fury and power built like a pillar of fire, preparing to do battle . . .

In sudden panic Rap screamed a warning: "The dragons! Remember the dragons!"

Dragons?

The fire faded away.

Rap opened his eyes. Dreadnaught moved serenely over the waters of the Summer Seas in the morning suns.h.i.+ne. At the wheel stood the gaunt figure of Doctor Sagorn, unperturbed and dignified despite the wind-stirred rags he wore. The sails bent in curves and the wake was straight. Steering a s.h.i.+p, his stance implied, was a childishly simple operation.

Trolls sobbed and moaned. Anthropophagi glared and muttered curses. Wiping his face, Rap made a quick count. n.o.body missing! He sat up.

"It is all over, I presume?" Sagorn remarked calmly. "Yes. It was East. Olybino."

"So I gathered. You were all shouting at once, but I made out that much." The old scholar pulled a contemptuous smile. "He made a proclamation? You explained that procedure on White Impress, you may recall."

Rap nodded. He ached all over, as if he had been thras.h.i.+ng around on the hard planks. He felt soiled. He despised himself.

He glanced around, seeing the fury on the faces of the anthropophagi and the trolls' shame. Grunth bared her baboon teeth at him as if enjoying his failure. He was the voice of sanity and therefore not popular at the moment. "He died," Rap said. "They got him."

"Of course." Sagorn shrugged. "That was why neither you nor Warlock Raspnex was willing to take that particular shortcut, wasn't it?"

"Partly."

"Only partly, your Majesty?" The scholar sneered. He was a highly improbable jotunn, but he had all his ancestors' contempt for cowardice.

Rap opened his mouth and then closed it again. Both he and Raspnex had a.s.sumed that to do what Olybino had just done must lead to instant capture. The imp had found a way to evade capture and force the Covin to kill him. Even if Rap had thought of that technique, would he have had the courage to throw his life away for the cause? He did not have enough power anyway, but he was not sure enough of himself to say so to Sagorn.

"So now your work is done?" the jotunn remarked, glancing at the sails and adjusting course as if he had been a sailor all his days. "The sorcerers of the world have been informed. I thought you were about to summon them all and start the battle. What stopped you?"

"Dragons." Rap sighed, clambering painfully to his feet. "Dragons?" The scholar lifted snowy eyebrows.

"The dragons are still returning to Dragon Reach. If we had started a battle, the Covin would have released its hold over them and they would have scattered over all Pithmot."

"Ah. Then I apologize for doubting you."

"Don't bother."

Rap felt foul and hypocritical. He had always regarded the warlock of the east with contempt, despising his absurd posturing and his idealization of war. But in the end Olybino had given his life for a cause. He had probably not fully believed in that cause, but he had been true to his own ideals of duty and courage.

And Rap? How was he at duty and courage? He might well have missed the best chance he would ever get of overthrowing Zinixo. Yet only a fool let himself be goaded into battle on unfavorable terrain, and Dreadnaught was certainly that. Had the meld revealed itself, Zinixo could have just blasted the old tub out of the ocean. When did caution become cowardice?

When did setback become disaster?

There could be no doubt that the Covin had carried the day. The legions and goblins had been exterminated, the warlock destroyed, and perhaps even now sorcerers were streaming into Hub to enlist.

The emotions were all wrong, yet the logic felt right. Rap glanced down at that inexplicable word tattooed on his arm. Some sorcerous instinct was still telling him that his decision had been correct, even without the dragon problem. There was a piece of the puzzle still missing.

The time was not yet ripe. It would come soon.

Possess the field: If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars;

It may be, in yon smoke concealed,

Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers,

And, but for you, possess the field.

a" Clough, Say Not the Struggle Naught Availeth

About the Author:

Dave Duncan: (From his web site)

I was born in Scotland in 1933, which must have been a vintage year because there are few of us around. I studied geology at the University of St. Andrews (playing not one hole of golf all the time I was there) and came to Canada in 1955. I lived in Calgary for the next thirty years as a respectable and reasonably successful scientist and businessman. I took up the secret vice of writing in my fifties, and made my first sale two weeks after a cyclical slump in the oil business put me out of work for the first time in my life. I changed horses and never looked back.

I enjoy writing, but it IS hard work, and can be very lonely. Even after thirty or so books, it gets no easier. I try never to repeat myself and yet not wander too far from the sort of entertainment my fans have enjoyed in the past and expect in the future.

My wife and I have been married (to each other) since 1959. We have one son, two daughters, and four grandchildren. She is my in-house editor and critic. Without her input, I would still be moldering in slush piles, and she really ought to be listed as co-author. Although she is an omnivorous reader, she doesn't much care for Fantasy or Science Fiction, which may be why she does such a good job of identifying my mistakes.