Stunned, Dennis leaned back, still holding Richard. His mind flashed back to the night at the keep, and now he realized why Corwin had looked familiar. For the briefest of moments, across from the tunnel exit, he had seen a man at the woodline, holding a crossbow, illuminated by the flickering light of the burning keep. He had been younger, and thinner, but it had been Corwin he had glimpsed as the man turned to flee.

Someone was crying and Dennis looked up to see young Osami kneeling down, reaching out and taking Richard's hand.

Richard smiled. 'My friend,' Richard whispered in Tsurani. He turned his head to look out the open door. 'Jurgen said for you to live…' and then he closed his eyes and his spirit slipped away.

'He's gone.'

Dennis looked up. It was Roxanne.

'You must act, Hartraft: the boy is gone,' she said. 'There is nothing more to be done for him, poor lad.'

Dennis nodded and released his grasp on the still body. Osami took the burden from him, gently smoothing the tangle of hair from Richard's brow and weeping.

Dennis stood up. Asayaga was before him. He looked past Asayaga to the body lying on the table. Sugama was dead. Dennis looked back at Barry who was dead as well. Several of his men had ignored the command to gather their weapons and were crouching by the side of the sergeant, eyes filled with hatred for Asayaga.

'We settle this later, Hartraft,' Asayaga said coldly.

Dennis nodded.

Tinuva was standing in the doorway.

'I can hear their horses outside the stockade,' the elf said. 'They're still on the side of the mountain, a half hour, maybe an hour away at most.'

'We leave now,' Dennis said.

'Now?' Asayaga cried. 'It's night. They've caught us by surprise. We should barricade and hold this place.'

'I was caught in a keep once before,' Dennis replied. 'I won't be again. They'll shower us with fire arrows and burn us out before dawn. We run. It's our only chance.' He looked over at Roxanne. 'Can you guide us to the west pass at night?'

She hesitated, glancing back to her father.

'She'll guide you,' Wolfgar said and Dennis realized he wasn't talking of her ability, but rather giving her an order.

There was a look of anguish in her eyes. The old man reached out and gathered her into his arms. 'Child, all mortals must face this day and we knew it was coming. Life has been good to me, for in the end I was given you and your sister.' He kissed her on the forehead. 'You can be as sharp-tongued as a viper, but you can also be as sweet as wild clover honey. I love you and your sister more than my own life. I'd trade all the years with kings for but one more hour with you.' He squeezed her slightly, then gently pushed her away. 'Now lead my friends here to safety.'

As he spoke he looked past her to Dennis and Asayaga.

'Settle your differences later, you two. It was a drunken brawl and men get killed in drunken brawls. Leave the dead here.'

Dennis said nothing.

'You are a Hartraft, boy,' Wolfgar admonished. 'Either command or step aside.'

The words were his grandfather's and Wolfgar spoke them with a voice that rang with the remembered power of long ago.

Dennis nodded. He shouted for his men to form ranks and prepare to march.

The column headed out of the gate of the stockade and turned south up into the forest where it would eventually pick up the trail that led to the western pass. In the middle of the column were the horses carrying the children and several of the older women. Half a dozen of the old men and women, however, had announced that they would stay behind with Wolfgar, and the partings from their children and grandchildren were bitter.

Torches flickered on top of the stockade gate and along the wall, revealing where several straw dummies had been set up, crowned with helmets. Wolfgar and the others remaining behind would move along the palisades, making as much noise as they could to try to convince Bovai the stockade was still fully manned. The ruse might delay the moredhel for a time as they stopped and deployed out before attempting to storm the stockade.

Tinuva, who had ridden out to scout, came in and urged the group to move, for in a matter of minutes the lead scouts of the enemy would be close enough to see what was transpiring.

The rear of the column passed and Dennis stood watching them. Wolfgar stood by the gate where his daughters were already mounted. They both leaned over, arms around their father, sobbing quietly. He reached up, patted each on the check, then slapped the rumps of their horses, sending them on their way.

Dennis waited for the last to leave, Asayaga standing silently beside him. Looking into the long hall, he saw the three bodies lying on the table amidst upended cups and overturned platters. It would be their funeral pyre soon and again he thought of Jurgen, picturing him standing within, waiting for the boy to join him on the journey. Somehow he wondered if in a way the boy was a replacement for himself and for a reason beyond his understanding his eyes filled with tears.

He felt a gentle hand on his shoulder. It was Wolfgar.

'Along with you now, young Hartraft. Take care of my girls.'

Dennis nodded, unable to speak.

'And you, Tsurani. Marry Alyssa. Grandsons of your blood would bring me honour.'

Asayaga bowed low. 'Your request honours me, Wolfgar.' Then he said, 'And if it were possible, I would ask for she is…" He let the sentence go unfinished. 'But on my world she would be a slave, and there is nothing I could do to save her. I will see her safely to Kingdom lines, with my life if needs be.'

Wolfgar said, 'I thought it might be something like that. Very well. She'll get over you. Now, hurry along before the bastards catch up with you. And don't kill each other: it would be a waste of a good friendship.'

The two said nothing.

'Now go. An actor should know when to leave the stage, a poet when the lay is finished, and a bard when it is time to put aside the lute.'

Asayaga saluted and then hesitated. He reached out and touched the old man lightly on the face and then ran for the gate to catch up with the column. Only Tinuva and Gregory were left, waiting for Dennis.

'Goodbye, Wolfgar.'

Wolfgar laughed softly. 'It'd have been nice to have had one more night. I was planning on trying for that lovely redheaded girl, the one that's taken to the Tsurani lad who's wounded. Ahh well…' Still laughing, he patted Dennis affectionately and said, 'If you had the brains of a sack of rocks you'd marry my Roxanne. She can be a hard one at times, but she has strength and she can love. She would be good for you, lad. She'd heal that wound you've been nursing all these years.'

Dennis's face flushed, and he seemed too embarrassed to speak. He let Wolfgar accompany him to the gate, softly whispering his famous ballad about the shortcomings of the King and the memories it stirred caused Dennis to smile. Wolfgar's hand slipped away from Dennis's shoulder.

Before he even quite realized what was happening, Dennis was outside the gate, Wolfgar and the other old ones slowly swinging it shut behind him, then throwing the lock bar in place.

Dennis looked behind him, but the way back in, back to all that was, had been closed off.

'Come on, my friend,' Gregory said, 'it's time we moved on.'

Dennis set his face in a mask of determination. He nodded once and said nothing more.