“You did not create them.”
“Hah. That I can believe. What sort of god would
be bothered to do that?”
“They created you.”
Mars snorted with divine contempt. “How could
such vermin ever create anything?”
“Through their dreams. Their dreams are very
powerful.”
The two titans closed with each other again, and
fought, and again both of them were wounded. And
again they both were weakened.
The only human observer left to watch them now
was the man named Birch. He would certainly have
crept away by now, too, with his wife and children, if
he had been able to move. But he could not move.
And by now he was no longer even thinking
particularly of his own fate. He watched the fight until
he fainted, and when he recovered his senses he
watched again, for the fight was still in progress.
When his thirst became overpowering, he made a
great effort and managed to turn and twist himself
enough to get a drink from the muddied, bloodied
water of the small stream. Then he lay back and kept
his mind off his own pain and injury by watching the
fight some more.
The sun set on the struggle. It went on, with pauses-
Birch supposed that even gods in this kind of agony
must rest-through the night. The dark was filled with
titanic thrashings and groanings, and splashing in the
river where it gurgled gorily and patiently over and
around the new dam that had been made out of
human disaster.
At least, Birch told himself in his more lucid
moments, he was not going to have to worry about
predatory animals coming and trying to make a
meal of him as he lay wounded. What ordinary beast
would dare approach this scene?
When dawn came, Birch found himself still alive,
somewhat to his own surprise. In the new daylight he
beheld the ground, over the entire area around the
ford, littered with broken spearshafts and spearheads,
and with monstrous dead or lethargic serpents that
had once been spears, all relics of the fight that still
went on.
Or did it? This latest interval of silence seemed to
be lasting for a longer time than usual
There was a great, startling, earth-quivering crash,
somewhere nearby, just out of Birch’s sight, behind
some overturned and smashed-up wagons that
screened a large part of his field of vision. The ground
shook with the renewed fight, which once more
seemed to terminate in a final splash. In a moment the
watching human was able to see and feel the waves
indicating that the two combatants, still locked
together, had plunged into the partially dammed pool
of the river.
Now for a time Birch could no longer hear them
fighting, except for occasional splashes that gradually
decreased in violence. But now he could hear the two
gods breathing. Ought gods to have to breathe? Birch
wondered groggily. Maybe they only did it when they
chose, like eating and drinking. Maybe they only did it
when they needed extra strength.
Time passed in near silence. Then as the newly
risen sun crept higher in the sky, a shadow fell across
Birch where he lay. The man opened his eyes, to
behold the figure of yet another god. Thank Ardneh,
this one had not yet noticed the surviving human
either.
Birch knew at once, by the leather-like smith’s
apron worn by the newcomer, and by the twisted leg,
that this was Vulcan. The lame god was wearing at
his side two great, blackhilted Swords, looking like
mere daggers against the gray bulk of his body. He
squatted on his haunches, looking down into the pool
where the two fighters had gone out of Birch’s field of
vision. Now there was a renewed stirring in the pool,
at last. A muttering, a splash. A great grin spread
across the face of the Smith as he stood up and
leisurely approached the combat a little more closely.
Before he sat down again, on a rock, he kicked a
broken cart out of his way. This incidentally cleared
the field of view for the injured man, of whose
existence none of the three giants had yet taken the
least notice.
“Hail, oh mighty Wargod!” The salutation came
from Vulcan in tones of gigantic mockery. “The world
awaits your conquering presence. Have you not
dallied here long enough? What are you doing down
there, exactly-bathing your pet dog in the mud?”
Birch could see now how red the mud and water
were around them both. Of the two combatants,
Draffut could no longer fight, could hardly move. The
God of War was little better off than his bedraggled
foe. But now, slowly, terribly, with great gasping
efforts, Mars dragged himself free of his opponent’s
biting, crushing grip, and stood erect, ankle-deep in
mud.
When the Wargod tried to speak his voice was half-
inaudible, failing altogether on some words. It seemed
that he could barely lift the arm that he stretched out
to Vulcan. “A spear-a weapon-I have no more
spears. Lend me your Sword, Smith.
One of them, I see that you have two. This business
must be finished.”
Vulcan sighed, producing a sound like that of
wind rushing through a smoldering forge. He
remained where he was, still some twenty meters
or so distant from the other two. “Give you a
weapon, hey? Well, I suppose I must, since you
appear to be the victor in this shabby business after
all. How tiresome.”
Mars, though tottering on his feet, managed to
draw himself a little more fully erect.
“How mannered you suddenly grow, Black-
smith. How fond you suddenly are of trying to
appear clever. Why should that be? But never
mind. Put steel here in my hand, and I’ll finish this
dirty job.”
“I grant you,” said Vulcan, “there is a need that
certain things be finished.” And the Smith stood up
from where he had been sitting, and his ornaments
of dragons’ scales tinkled as he -chose and drew one
of his Swords.
” ‘For thy heart’,” he quoted softly, clasping and
hiding the black hilt delicately in his great, gray,
hardened blaksmith’s hand. He held the Sword up
straight, looking at it almost lovingly. ”For thy
heart, who hast wronged me.'”
“Wait,” said Mars, staring at him with a sud-
denly new expression. “What Sword is-?”
His answer did not come in words. Vulcan was
moving into a strange revolving dance, his whole
body turning ponderously, great sandaled feet
stamping rock and mud along the wagon trail, flat-
tening earth that was already trodden and beaten
and bloody from the fight, squashing the already
dying serpents that had once been spears. The
Sword in the Smith’s extended arm was glowing
now, and it was howling like the bull-roarer of some
primitive magician.
Mars, half-dead or not, was suddenly galvanized.
He sprang into motion, fleeing, running away. Run-
ning as only a god can run, Mars went ducking and
twisting his way through the remnants of the hill-
side grove. He dodged among great splintered
treetrunks, and splintering further those trees that
got in his way.
Birch saw Vulcan throw the Sword, or rather let
it go. After the Smith released it, the power that
propelled it came only from within itself. The speed
of Mars’ flight was great, but the Sword was only a
white streak through the air. Virtually instanta-
neously it followed the curving track of the War-
god’s flight.
At the last moment, Mars turned to face doom
bravely, and somehow he was able to summon yet
one more spear into his hand. But even his magic
spear of war availed him nothing against the Sword
of Vengeance. The white streak ended abruptly,
with the sound of a sharp impact.
Even with Farslayer embedded in his heart, Mars
raised his spear, and took one stumbling step
toward the god who had destroyed him. But then he
could only cry a curse, and fall. He was dead before
he struck the earth, and he demolished one more
live tree in his falling. That last tree deflected the
Wargod’s toppling body, so that he turned before
his landing shook the earth, and ended sprawling
on his back. Only the black hilt and a handsbreadth
of Farslayer’s bright blade protruded from the
armored breastplate on his chest.
CHAPTER 14
At the largest land gate in the walls of Tashigang,
which was the Hermes Gate giving onto the great
highway called the High Road, one thin stream of
worried citizens was trying to get out of the city when
Mark and Denis arrived, while another group, this one
of country refugees, worked and pleaded to get in.
There was obviously no general agreement on the
safest place to be during the war that everyone
thought was coming. The Watch on duty at the
Hermes Gate were implacably forbidding the removal
of foodstuffs, or anything that could be construed as
military or medical supplies, while at the same time