Theirs must have been a semi-metaphysical problem in logistics. How much could be diverted through this Gateway? I was not sure. Soon . . .
We topped a rise, and far ahead and below us lay a dark citadel.
I raised my blade.
As we descended, they attacked.
They hissed and they croaked and they flapped. That meant, to me, that he was running low on people. Grayswandir became a flame in my hand, a thunderbolt, a portable electric chair. I slew them as fast as they approached, and they burned as they died. To my right, I saw Lance draw a similar line of chaos, and he was muttering beneath his breath. Prayers for the dead, no doubt. To my left, Ganelon laid about him, and a wake of fires followed behind his horse‘s tail. Through the flashing lightning, the citadel loomed larger.
The hundred or so of us stormed ahead, and the abominations fell by the wayside.
When we reached the gate, we were faced by an infantry of men and beasts. We charged.
They outnumbered us, but we had little choice. Perhaps we had proceeded our own infantry by too much. But I thought not. Time, as I saw it, was all important now.
“I‘ve got to get through!” I cried. “He‘s inside!”
“He‘s mine!” said Lance.
“You‘re both welcome to him!” said Ganelon, laying about him. “Cross when you can! I‘m with you!”
We slew and we slew and we slew, and then the tide turned in their favor. They pressed us, all the ugly things that were more or less than human, mixed in with human troops. We were drawn up into a tight knot, defending ourselves on all sides, when our bedraggled infantry arrived and began hacking. We pressed for the gate once more and made it this time, all forty or fifty of us.
We won through, and then there were troops in the courtyard to be slain.
The dozen or so of us who made it to the foot of the dark tower were faced by a final guard contingent.
“Go it!” cried Ganelon, as we leaped from our horses and waded into them.
“Go it!” cried Lance, and I guess they both meant me, or each other.
I took it to mean me, and I broke away from the fray and raced up the stairs.
He would be there, in the highest tower, I knew; and I would have to face him, and face him down. I did not know whether I could, but I had to try, because I was the only one who knew where he really came from—and I was the one who put him there.
I came to a heavy wooden door at the top of the stairs. I tried it, but it was secured from the other side. So I kicked it as hard as I could. It fell inward with a crash.
I saw him there by the window, a man-formed body dressed in light armor, goat head upon those massive shoulders.
I crossed the threshold and stopped.
He had turned to stare as the door had fallen, and now he sought my eyes through steel.
“Mortal man, you have come too far,” he said. “Or are you mortal man?” and there was a blade in his hand.
“Ask Strygalldwir,” I said.
“You are the one who slew him,” he stated. “Did he name you?”
“Maybe.”
There were footsteps on the stairs behind me. I stepped to the left of the doorway.
Ganelon burst into the chamber and I called “Halt!” and he did.
He turned to me.
“This is the thing,” he said. “What is it?”
“My sin against a thing I loved,” I said. “Stay away from it. It‘s mine.”
“You‘re welcome to it.” He stood stock still.
“Did you really mean that?” asked the creature.
“Find out,” I said, and leaped forward.
But it did not fence with me. Instead, it did what any mortal fencer would consider foolish.
It hurled its blade at me, point forward, like a thunderbolt. And the sound of its passage came like a clap of thunder. The elements outside the tower echoed it, a deafening response.
With Grayswandir, I parried that blade as though it were an ordinary thrust. It embedded itself in the floor and burst into flames. Without, the lightning responded.