The cockeyed man had fallen to the grass beside the kitchen stoop and lay curled in a ball, sobbing.

Thanks," said Zaranda with a nod to Farlorn. The bard grinned and saluted her with a flourish of his blade.

Zaranda looked at the man with the morningstar, who sat a wary ten yards off, massaging his thigh. "Surrender, and we'll let you live," she told him, "as long as you're willing to answer a few questions." The man grimaced in pain and licked greasy lips. "Does that means just as long as I'm answering questions?" he asked.

"Zaranda," a familiar voice called timidly from the farmhouse's far side. "Could you, ah-could you show yourself, please?"

Zaranda turned and frowned at Farlorn. "Father Pelletyr?" she said.

He shrugged. The morningstar man took advantage of their distraction to spur his horse away behind some apple trees covered with tiny green buds of fruit.

Farlorn dismounted to see to the man Zaranda had struck down. She rode Goldie back around the side of the cot, swinging well wide to avoid flames billowing from window and roof.

On the last grassy rise Zaranda and her comrades had crossed before hitting the farmhouse, a lone rider sat. He was a vast man, a good eight feet tall, astride a horse at least eighteen hands high and as broad as a beer-cart, which might have served a northern knight as a destrier but more likely was born to pull a plow. The man wore a hauberk of tarnished scale armor and, across one mountainous shoulder, bore a great double-bitted battle-axe with a six-foot helve. The restless wind made the hair of his topknot stream like a greasy black pennon.

Beside him, four ragged men on foot had Father Pelletyr by the arms. One of them held a knife blade, crusted with rust and ominous dark stains, against the cleric's throat.

4

"Zaranda," the priest said apologetically, "these gentlemen claim to be tax-collectors. If they're about their lawful business, it's wrong of us to interfere."

Farlorn had emerged from behind the house on his dapple-fannied gray. He answered Zaranda's query-look with a shrug to indicate the man she'd struck was no longer an issue. Then he glanced up the rise, and a smile quirked his handsome lips.

"Our good father was always one for following instructions,'' he murmured.

"Who dares," the monstrous rider bellowed, "interfere with the servitors of Baron Pundar on their lawful business?"

"Zaranda Star dares that and more," Zaranda declared. "Especially since I happen to be Countess Morninggold. Father, this beast's misled you; this is still County Morninggold, and these men no more than looters-and murderers."

She tossed her head haughtily, making her name-sake blaze flash in the sun. "Who dares to name that hedge-robber Pundar of Little Consequence 'baron'- and to prey upon my people?"

The morningstar man with the injured leg had circled round and now rode up to join his apparent leader. He stopped and turned back to the house.

"Pundar is too a baron," he called through cupped hands. "He has a piece of paper from the capital that proves it!"

"The capital?" Zaranda said, half to herself. "Since when is there a capital in Tethyr?"

"Why, Zazesspur-оw!"

The giant man had ridden a few steps forward and with a great backhanded clout knocked the morningstar man from the saddle.

"I do the talking here," he roared. "I am Togrev the Magnificent, lord high commander of the armed forces of Pundaria! We claim these lands by ancient right, as approved and attested by Zazesspur."

Zaranda and Farlorn had begun to ride forward. They could see the house's front now. Two of the footmen lay in unmoving lumps in the pigsty; the other four stood with hands up, looking nervously at Still-hawk, who stood covering them with an arrow nocked.

"By rights," Zaranda told Togrev, "we should hang the lot of you as the murderous bandit scum you are."

"You forget," the lord high commander said, and gestured with a black-nailed hand. A few feet from the captive cleric the little ass had its head down, cropping obliviously at the sweet spring grass. "I have your priest"

"For all the good that does you," Zaranda said. "It's poor practice to negotiate for hostages, and as a rule I won't do it."

Father Pelletyr squirmed his right arm free enough to touch himself four times on the breast in the sign of the rack on which Ilmater suffered. Then he crossed his hands before his breast as if they were bound and rolled his eyes heavenward, accepting. The cleric had a notable reluctance to face physical danger, but this was martyrdom, which made all the difference in the world.

"However," Zaranda said, stopping her horse twenty yards downslope from the huge man, "somebody needs to be left alive to tell that mound of ankheg droppings Pundar that if he troubles my people again hell wake some fine spring night with a fireball in his lap."

"And who would cast such a fireball?" demanded Togrev in an avalanche rumble.

"I would."

The morningstar man had rolled over and was sitting in the grass and rubbing the back of his neck. "She's a witch, Togrev," he said. "She knows all kind of wild magics. Beware her spells."

"Listen to the man," Zaranda said.

The huge man frowned at her. His brows beetled impressively. "Half-ogre, by the smell of him," Goldie muttered as the wind backed. "Ick."

"What will you do, then?" Togrev demanded.

"Kill you in single combat."

"You want me to fight that?" Goldie demanded in a whisper, nodding at the gigantic plowhorse. "He's as clumsy as a barrel of boulders, but if he ever connects, sweet Sune preserve me!"

Togrev frowned more impressively still, as if there were something here he didn't quite get. "Why should I go along with that?" he asked after a few heartbeats.

"Because if you don't, we'll slaughter you and all your men, and I'll whistle up a wind elemental to drop your head in Pundar's pigsty with a note attached."

"When did you learn to summon elementals?" Farlorn hissed out the side of his mouth in elf-speech, which half-ogres as a rule didn't understand.

"Never," replied Zaranda in the same tongue, which she grasped well enough but could only speak in pidgin. "Now shut up." She swung down from Goldie and stepped to the side to stand facing the half-ogre, legs braced and hands on hips. The wind stroked her face and ruffled her hair. The springtime smell would have been quite refreshing except that Goldie was quite right about Togrev: he was a half-ogre, manifestly, and lived up to their usual standards of hygiene. Togrev rumbled deep in his cavernous chest and swung down from his massive mount. Goldie flared her nostrils and blew out a long breath. Zaranda fought to keep her own shoulders from sagging in relief.

"And when I beat you, pathetic woman-thing?" the bandit chief demanded.

"If you win, you and your men go free. If you lose, your men still go free. This is really a pretty good deal I'm offering."

"Are you sure this is wise?" asked Farlorn out loud.

"No," Zaranda said, "but it'll be very soothing to my anger, one way or another."

Togrev scratched his unshaven chin and pondered. "

"Ware magic, Lord Commander!" the morningstar man exclaimed. "She's a witch, I tell you!"

"How is that fair?" the half-ogre asked in aggrieved tones. "You'll just cheat and use some witching tricks. You could never best me otherwise. I am Togrev the Magnificent!"

"Compared to what?" murmured Farlorn. "If you agree to meet me alone, with no outside interference from either side, I shall forbear to use any magic against you. I'll forgo even the blessings of my priest. Does that satisfy you?"

For answer the half-ogre swung his great axe in a wild flourish that ended with it poised above his head. The passage of air through inlets cut through the head made it moan like a lost soul.