Free Quag Keep by Andre Norton Page A

first time she turned to look squarely into his eyes. “I am Yevele, and all that Yevele is and was is now in command. Unless this Hystaspes plays some tricks with us again, that is how it will remain. He has laid a geas on us and that I cannot break. But when this venture lies behind us—if it ever will—then my blood oath will bind me once more. Two offeringsI have made to the Horned Lady—there are two more to follow—if I live.”
    He was chilled. That about her which had attracted his notice had been but a veil hiding an iced inner part at which no man could ever warm himself. His wonder at their first entrapment grew. Was it some quirk of their own original characters that had determined the roles they now assumed?
    Desperately he tried now to remember the Game. Only it was so blank in his mind that he wondered, for a moment of chill, if all Hystaspes’s story had been illusion and lies. But the band on his wrist remained: that encirclement of jewel-pointed dice was proof in part of the wizard’s story.
    They spoke no more. In fact, there was very little sound from the whole party, merely the thud of hooves and, now and then, a sneeze or cough as some of the chaff from the crushed, dead grass arose to tickle nose or throat.
    The sky was filled with a sullen haze to veil the sun. When they were well out on the plains Milo called a halt. They fed their animals from handsful of grain but did not let them graze, watering each from liquid poured into their helmets, before they ate the tough bread of which a man must chew a mouthful a long time before he swallowed. Gulth brought out of a pouch of his own, some small, hard-dried fish and ground them into swallowable powder with his formidable array of fangs.
    Milo noted that those lines in the grass had halted with them, even joined before and behind the massing of their company, as if to enclose them in a wall. He pointed them out. Both the elf and Deav Dyne nodded.
    â€œIllusion,” Ingrge said indifferently.
    But the cleric had another term. “Magic. Which means we cannot tell how long it will provide us with cover.” He repeated Yevele’s warning.
    â€œThe river has some cover.” The girl brushed crumbs of bread carefully into one palm, cupping them there preparatory to finishing off her meal. “There are rocks there—”
    Ingrge turned his head sharply, his slanted eyes searching her face, as if he demanded access to her thought. Yevele licked up the crumbs, got to her feet. Her expression was as stolid and remote as Ingrge’s own.
    â€œNo, comrade elf,” she said, answering the question he had not asked, “this road has not been mine before. But I have good reason to know it. My kin died in the Rieving of Keo the Less.”
    Ingrge’s narrow, long-fingered hand moved in a swift gesture. The heads of the other three men turned quickly in her direction. It was Naile who spoke. “That was a vile business.”
    Deav Dyne muttered over his beads and Wymarc nodded emphatic agreement to the berserker’s comment. If Gulth knew of what they spoke he gave no sign, his reptilian eyes were nearly closed. However, a moment later his croaking voice jerked them all out of terrible memory.
    â€œThe spell fades.” He waved a clawed forefinger at those lines.
    Ingrge agreed. “There is always a time and distance limit on such. We had better ride on—I do not like this open land.” Nor would he, for those of his race preferred woods and heights.
    Gulth was right. That line in the grass was different. Now it flickered in and out, being sometimes clearly visible, sometimes so faint Milo thought it vanished altogether. They mounted in some speed and headed on.
    The drabness of the sky overhead, the faded grass underfoot, mingled into a single hue. None spoke, though they stepped up their pace, since to reach water by nightfall was important. There were flattened water skins on one of