The riders, four in all, had stopped in a small clearing along the trail. They seemed to be looking for something. One of their party was kneeling along the path and the others swung their eyes through the surrounding trees, as if seeking a sign.

“The enemy,” whispered Toli.

They had run into a party of Jaspin’s men who were evidently searching for someone. “They are after Theido and the others,” answered Quentin. “Come. We may reach them ahead of these hunters.” With that he turned Balder and drew away from their hiding place along the path. They dodged along the track for a while and then rejoined it far ahead of the enemy soldiers behind them. No sooner had they joined the path and proceeded a little along it when they again heard the sounds of horses and men moving just ahead of them. “This will be Theido!” said Quentin, a smile lighting his face.

He spurred Balder ahead and came around a tree-lined bend in the trail. Suddenly they were face to face with five strange knights, coming directly toward them on the trail.

Quentin froze. Toli turned his horse aside and pulled Quentin’s arm. At first the unknown knights did not seem to see them. They came on a pace or two, talking among themselves, eyes down along the track.

Then, even as Quentin turned Balder off the path, one of the riders glanced up. Quentin met the other’s eyes and in the briefest instant read the surprise there.

“Look!” the enemy knight shouted to his companions. But Quentin, with Toli ahead of him, was already dashing away.

“Spies!” he heard another shout. A third yelled, “After them! Kill them!”

Toli was already a blur bobbing ahead of him as Quentin flung himself forward. Balder put his head down and leaped off the trail. Quentin ducked the branches which struck out to unhorse him, keeping himself low in the saddle, laying along Balder’s surging shoulders.

Behind him he could hear the sound of pursuit through the tangled woods. Voices rang out sharp and steel-edged in the quiet morning air. Toli shot fleeting glances over his hunched shoulders to make sure that Quentin was keeping up.

Balder’s iron hooves flung the soft turf high into the air. Brambles snatched at Quentin’s bare legs, scratching them, though he did not feel a thing.

On they rode, dashing ahead of their pursuers, flying over fallen trunks of trees and dodging low-hanging limbs.

Quentin heard a crash behind him, the high whinny of a horse, and a curse. One of the knights had been swept off his horse by a branch. There was a shout as another knight sought to avoid piling into the sprawling rider. Quentin turned slightly to see a horse struggling to its feet and a knight rolling in the grass. He smiled darkly to himself.

But when he turned back Toli was nowhere to be seen.

He reined Balder to a shuddering halt, almost pitching himself forward. For a heartbeat he stopped to listen and heard nothing. Then came the swish of brush and the hollow clop of Toli’s mount darting through the wood just ahead and to the left. He had dodged onto another track.

Quentin leaned and threw the reins to the side and Balder reared back, gathering his legs beneath him. He snorted and jumped. From somewhere Quentin heard a whistling in the air and suddenly felt a piercing sting in his leg. Balder screamed and jolted away.

He turned in the direction of the sound and saw one of the knights lowering a crossbow from his shoulder, making ready to load and shoot again.

He glanced down at his leg to see the crossbow’s bolt sticking out from the side of his leg. The vicious dart had arrowed through the fleshy part of his calf and had stuck in Balder’s thick-muscled shoulder. He was pinned neatly to his horse.

Balder, urged by the sting, and lacking a direct command from Quentin, dashed off in the opposite direction from Toli. Quentin squeezed his eyes shut as the pain exploded in his brain in a burning flash of red brilliance.

Balder raced through the forest, his mane and tail streaming out behind him. Quentin fought to stay in the saddle. The great courser had his own head now and plummeted along a sharply descending trail.

The swiftly passing wood began to blur. The bright blue sky and yellow sun, the dark green earth and gray tree trunks all melded together. Behind him he could hear the shouts of the knights urging their steeds to the chase. But the sounds diminished and faded as Balder, running freely, outdistanced them with his great strides.

The trail turned and fell away. Quentin thought they must be near the river again, but he did not know which direction they were heading. A narrow brook lay directly before him-he heard it rather than saw it as Balder sailed over it and galloped up the bank.

The charger pounded along the path, and through eyes bleary with pain Quentin noticed the forest deepen, becoming darker and more dense. They were flying into the heart of Pelgrin. Quentin recognized the venerable old oaks spreading their branches above him. The light shone down green around them through the leaves which formed a living thatch overhead.

Then, without warning, dead ahead of them in the trail, an earthen embankment jutted out of the forest floor like a green wall topped by thick, wiry holly hedge. There was no time to stop. Quentin threw himself forward and clenched the reins in his hands as he gritted his teeth.

Lightly as a deer Balder lifted himself up into the air and sailed over the top, the hedges barely brushing his belly. The animal recovered from the jump gracefully as he skidded down the opposite side of the embankment and into a large ringed depression, a vast hollow bowl carved in the middle of the forest. There he stopped.

Quentin hung limply to his reins, spun in the saddle, and with an effort seized the bolt projecting cruelly out of his leg.

He pulled with a force and felt the dart give to his grasp. Another tug and it was wrenched free. Quentin straightened and before he could see where he was, black, formless shapes gathered before his eyes. He felt suddenly lightheaded. He could not breathe. He gasped, reeled in the saddle, and then toppled to the ground.

He saw Balder’s dark eye regarding him with a calm, liquid stare. The sky spun. Then all went black.

FORTY-SEVEN

DURWIN sat with his head in his hands upon a log. It had been hours since Quentin and Toli had raced off into the wood alone. He feared the worst.

“Ease your fears, good hermit,” Alinea said lightly. “It is you who say we are to trust in all things. We will trust their safety, as we trust our own, to the god.”

“Your words are true, my Lady,” answered Durwin, raising his eyes to her lovely face. “But my heart hears not.”

“But look!” she said, springing up. “Here is something! Riders are coming in! Theido and Ronsard! They have returned, alive and safe!”

“Yes, that is good news,” said Durwin rising slowly. He walked over to where a group was already gathering to hear what the scouts had to report. In a moment Durwin’s hopeful expression was once again exchanged for one of despair.

Theido came through the crush without speaking; Ronsard followed close behind. “Come,” he said. “Let us go to Selric’s tent. You come too, my Lady.”

They gathered in Selric’s tent where they found the monarch pouring over detailed maps of the area drawn on skins and parchment.

“You are back, the gods be thanked! What news? What did you find?”

“Nothing good,” replied Ronsard. His face was flushed and sweat trickled down his neck into his tunic. “We have ridden far and find that all approaches are cut off. We are surrounded.”

“Jaspin is strengthening his forces on all sides. He has summoned men from every corner of the kingdom.”

King Selric received the information with calm acceptance. “I see,” he said.