men will have to deal only with the flesh and blood of those runty mercenaries of Tark.”
He studied the enemy formation briefly. A solid phalanx of spearmen, with shields latticed and braced; close-set
spears out-thrust and anchored. Strictly defensive; they hadn’t made a move to follow nor thrown a single javelin
when the king’s forces withdrew. This wasn’t going to be easy, but it was possible.
“We will make the formation of the wedge, with me as point,” he went on. “Sergeant, you will bear my sword and
hammer. The rest of you will ram me into the center of that phalanx with everything of driving force that in you
lies. I will make and maintain enough of opening. We’ll go up that ramp like a fast ship ploughing through waves;
Make wedge! Drive!”
Except for his armor of god-metal Tedric would have been crushed flat by the impact of the flying wedge against
the soldiery packed so solidly on the stair. Several of the foe were so crushed, but the new armor held. Tedric
could scarcely move his legs enough to take each step, his body was held as though in a vice, but his giant arms
were free; and by dint of short, savage, punching jabs and prods and strokes of his atrocious war-axe he made and
maintained the narrow opening upon which the success of the whole operation depended. And into that
constantly-renewed opening the smith was driven-irresistibly driven by the concerted and synchronized strength of
the strongest men of Lomarr’s Royal Guard.
The result was not exactly like that of a diesel-powered snowplough, but it was good enough. The mercenaries did
not flow over the sides of the ramp in two smooth waves. However, unable with either weapons or bodies to break
through the slanting walls of iron formed by the smoothly-overlapping shields of the Guardsmen, over the edges
they went, the living and the dead.
The dreadful wedge drove on.
As the Guardsmen neared the top of the stairway the mercenaries disappeared-enough of that kind of thing was a
great plenty-and Tedric, after a quick glance around to see what the situation was, seized his sword from the bearer.
Old Devann had his knife aloft, but in only the third of the five formal passes. Two more to go.
“Kill those priests!” he snapped at the captain. “I’ll take the three at the altar-you fellows take the rest of them!”
When Tedric reached the green altar the sacrificial knife was again aloft; but the same stroke that severed Devann’s
upraised right arm severed also his head and his whole left shoulder. Two more whistling strokes and a moment’s
study of the scene of action assured him that there would be no more sacrifice that day. The King’s Archers had
followed close behind the Guards; the situation was well in hand.
He exchanged sword for axe and hammer, and furiously, viciously, went to work on the god. He yanked out the
Holiest One’s brain, liver, and heart; hammered and chopped the rest of him to bits. That done, he turned to the
altar-he had not even glanced at it before.
Stretched taut, spread-eagle by wrists and ankles on the reeking, blood-fouled, green horror-stone, the Lady
Rhoann lay; her yard-long, thick brown hair a wide-flung riot. Six priests had not immobilized Rhoann of Lomarr
without a struggle. Her eyes went from shattered image to blood. covered armored giant and back to image; her
face was a study of part-horrified, part-terrified, part-worshipful amazement.
He slashed the ropes, extended his mailed right hand. “Art hurt” Lady Rhoann?”
“No. Just stiff.” Taking his hand, she sat up-a bit groggily-and flexed wrists and ankles experimentally; while, behind
his visor, the man stared and stared.
Tall-wide but trim-superbly made-a true scion of the old blood-Llosir’s liver, what a woman! He had undressed her
mentally more than once, but his visionings had fallen short, far short, of the entrancing, the magnificent truth.
What a woman! A virgin? Huh! Technically so, perhaps … more shame to those pusillanimous half-breed midgets
of the court … if he had been born noble . . .
She slid off the altar and stood up, her eyes still dark with fantastically mixed emotions. She threw both arms
around his armored neck and snuggled close against his steel, heedless that breasts and flanks were being smeared
anew with half-dried blood.
He put an iron-clad arm around her, moved her arm enough to open his visor” saw sea-green eyes, only a few inches
below his own, staring straight into his.
The man’s quick passion flamed again. Gods of the ancients” what a woman! There was a mate for a full-grown man!
“Thank the gods!” The king dashed up, panting, but in surprisingly good shape for a man of forty-odd who had run so
far in gold armor. “Thanks be to all the gods you were in time!”
“Just barely” sire, but in time.””
“Name your reward” Lord Tedric. I will be glad to make you my son.”
“Not that, sire, ever. If there’s anything in this world or the next I don’t want to be, it’s Lady Rohann’s brother.”
“Make him Lord of the Marches, father,” the girl said, sharply. “Knowst what the sages said.”
“‘Twould be better”” the monarch agreed. “Tedric of old Lomarr, I appoint you Lord of the Upper, the Middle” and
the Lower Marches, the Highest of the High.”
Tedric went to his knees. “I thank you” sire. Have I your backing in wiping out what is left of Sarpedion’s power?”
“If you will support the Throne with the strength I so clearly see is to be yours, I will back you, with the full power
of the Throne, in anything you wish to do.”
“Of course I will support you, sire, as long as I live and with al! that in me lies. Since time was my blood has been
vassal to yours, and ever will be. My brain, my liver, and my heart are yours.”
“I thank you, Lord Tedric. Proceed.”
Tedric snapped to his feet. His sword flashed high in air. His heavy voice rang out.
“People of Lomarr, listen to a herald of the Throne! Sarpedion is dead; Llosir lives. Human sacrifice-yes, all
sacrifice except the one I am about to perform, of Sarpedion himself to Llosir-is done. That is and will be the law.
To that end there will be no more priests, but a priestess only. I speak as herald for the Throne of Lomarr!”
He turned to the girl, still clinging to his side. “I had it fast in mind, Lady Rhoann, to make you priestess, but…”
“Not I!” she interrupted, vigorously. “No priestess I, Lord Tedric!”
“By Llosir’s brain” girl, you’re right-you’ve been wasted long enough!”
In another time-track another Skandos and another Furmin, almost but not quite identical with those first so
named” pored over a ehronoviagram.
“The key point in time is there,” the Prime Physicist said, thoughtfully, placing the point of his pencil near one
jagged peak of the trace. “The key figure is Lord Tedric of Lomarr, the discoverer of the carburization of steel.
He could be manipulated very easily … but, after all, the real catastrophe is about three hundred eighteen
years away; there is nothing alarming about the shape of the curve; and any interference with the actual
physical events of the past would almost certainly prove calamitous. Over the years I have found your
judgment good. What is your thought on this matter, Furmin?”
“I would say to wait, at least for a few weeks or months. Even though eight hundred twelve fails, number eight
hundred fifty or number nine hundred may succeed. At very worst, we will be in the same position then as now
to take the action which has for a hundred years been specifically forbidden by both Council and School.”
“So be it.”
LORD TEDRIC
Time is the strangest of all mysteries. Relatively unimportant events, almost unnoticed as they occur, may, in
hundreds of years, result in Ultimate Catastrophe. On Time Track Number One, that was the immutable result.
But on Time Track Number Two there was one little event that could be used to avert it-the presence of a
naked woman in public. So, Skandos One removed the clothing from the Lady Rhoann and after one look, Lord
Tedric did the rest!
Skandos One (The Skandos of Time Track Number One, numbered for reasons which will become clear)
showed, by means of the chronoviagraph, that civilization would destroy itself in one hundred eighty-seven
years. To prevent this catastrophe he went back to the key point in time and sought out the key figure-one
Tedric, a Lomarrian ironmaster who had lived and died a commoner; unable ever, to do anything about his
fanatical detestation of human sacrifice.
Skandos One taught Tedric how to make one batch of super-steel; watched him forge armor and arms from
that highly anachronistic alloy. He watched him do things that Tedric of Time Track One had never done.