"I thought the same," Van said. "That's why I was going for him, too."

"We'll all go for him," Duren said. "Who does it doesn't matter, as long as someone does."

Van slapped Gerin on the back. "Well, Fox, you've trained up the sapling to grow the same way as the tree. And since the tree grows straight, that's a good way for the sapling to follow. Which is a fancy way of saying that the lad is right. Come on." He glided forward, amazingly light and quiet on his feet for so large a man.

Gerin and Duren followed. The Gradi chieftain kept on bawling orders to his men. He wasn't hard to find, any more than a roaring longtooth would have been. The Fox suspected he would have been about as glad to stumble over a longtooth as over the chief.

Van stretched out his arm, palm facing the Fox. Gerin obediently halted. Van didn't even point. That he'd stopped was enough. Gerin peered through the screen of bushes. A Gradi came running up to one of his fellows who stood there. He gasped out something. The other man listened, then turned to one side and shouted. This was the enemy's leader, sure enough.

"We'll all dash out together," Gerin whispered, wishing he had his bow-killing the big, fierce raider from a distance would have been safe and convenient. "One, two-"

As he said "three," another Gradi runner burst into the clearing. The Fox grabbed at his friend and son, trying to hold them back, but too late-they'd already launched themselves at the Gradi chieftain. He burst out of the woods, too, half a step behind them.

Half a dozen strides and they were on the three Gradi. That was, unfortunately, just enough time to let the raiders break free from their momentary shock, raise their axes, and fight back. The two lesser Gradi sprang in front of their chief. One of them engaged Van, the other Duren: the first two foes they found. That left the leader for Gerin.

He would willingly have forgone the honor. The Gradi was bigger than he was, and younger than he was, too. The Gradi also knew more about using an axe than did Gerin, who still held the weapon he'd snatched from his fallen foe. The only advantage Gerin had… Try as he would, he couldn't think of any.

"Voldar!" the Gradi shouted, and cut at his head. He ducked-and almost fell victim to a backhand cut: the Gradi was as strong as he looked, and as quick, too. Gerin made a cut of his own, a tentative one, which the enemy leader easily evaded. The Gradi chopped at him again. He took this blow on the shield, and felt it all the way up his arm to his shoulder. His best hope, he thought, was for Van and Duren to beat their men and help him. He didn't see any way he was likely to beat the Gradi chief on his own.

By the fierce sneer the Gradi wore, he didn't see any way Gerin was likely to beat him, either. He feinted once, feinted twice, then chopped again. Gerin once more managed to get his shield in front of the blow-but it hit square and true, the axehead smashing through his protection.

The very corner of the sharp edge of the axe kissed his arm with fire. He held on to his grip on the shield, though-the wound was not severe. And, when the Gradi captain tried to pull the axe free so he could strike again, he found he could not. It had twisted, and would not go back through the narrow hole it had made. He shouted in fury and alarm.

Gerin did not give him the chance to clear the axe from the shield. Instead of backing away, he moved close to the Gradi, so the fellow had no room in which to draw back his arm. The Gradi didn't like that. His lips skinned back from his teeth in a horrible grin.

He should have let go of the axe and run. Instead, he kept trying to jerk it loose, and to fend off Gerin's own left-handed blows. Since his left arm and the Fox's were on opposite sides, and since his right hand clutched the useless axe handle, he could not do it. After Gerin's second stroke got home, the Gradi groaned and his grip faltered.

The Fox hit him again, this time in the side of the neck. The Gradi let out a startled grunt. His eyes went very wide. He let go of the axe. His mouth shaped a word. Gerin thought it was "Voldar," but it had no breath behind it. The Gradi swayed, toppled, fell.

Gerin whirled to help Van and Duren. Van had his own man down, and was yanking his spear out of the Gradi's belly. A loop of gray-pink gut came with it. Duren was fighting a defensive battle against his foe. When Van and Gerin both rushed to his aid, the Gradi who opposed him turned to flee. He did not get far.

Another Gradi burst into the clearing, staring in shocked dismay at what he found there. He did escape before Gerin and his comrades could pursue.

"Come on," the Fox said. "This isn't the whole job. We can't just beat them here-we have to break them."

If he lived, he knew he'd want to sleep three days, and would wake up stiff and sore in every joint even if he did. He plunged into the woods nonetheless.

There was more hard fighting as the day wore along, but something seemed to have gone out of the Gradi when their chieftain fell. The sun was only a little more than halfway down toward the west when Gerin emerged from the woods and saw a few, a very few, Gradi running off toward the west past Bidgosh Pond. Behind him, the sounds of battle were ebbing. Such shouts and cries as he could hear were almost all in either Elabonian or the Trokm- tongue.

Half a bowshot north of him, someone else came out from among the trees: a Trokm-. He looked toward the Fox and waved. Gerin waved back. "Adiatunnus!" he called.

Slowly, Adiatunnus came toward him. The woodsrunner looked as tired as Gerin felt. "Diviciacus went down, puir wight," he said. "My own right hand he was, all these years. A rare sad thing. But-" He straightened. "Lord prince, we've beaten the buggers, and in a way I don't think they'll be over soon. From here, we can clear the northlands of 'em, right out to the edge o' the sea."

"I think that may be so," Gerin answered. More men, Elabonians and Trokmoi both, came out of the woods and gathered around their two leaders. Hardly daring to believe what he'd just said, Gerin repeated it: "I think that may be so."

"It is that, lord prince," Adiatunnus said positively. Then he paused, perhaps to weigh his own words. "Aye, it is so, lord prince, and 'twas you who made it real. I couldna ha' done it: I own as much. No man but your own self could ha' done it, lord prince." He shook his head. "Nay. That isna right."

"Who says it's not?" Van boomed angrily.

"I do," Adiatunnus answered. He sighed, then went, not to one knee, but to both. "No man but your own self could ha' done it… lord king."

XII

From a hillock not far away, Gerin stared at the Orynian Ocean. It was not like the Greater Inner Sea, save in being a large body of water. The blue Inner Sea was calm, peaceful. The gray ocean rolled and pulsed and smashed against rocks, sending spray high into the air. It was, in its way, as barbarous and as vigorous as the Gradi who rode it.

A strong stone keep sat by the ocean, not far south of the Niffet. The Fox had driven the Gradi from most of the northlands. Their remnant lingered here. He did not think he could storm this keep. He could not properly besiege it, either, not with its back to the Orynian Ocean: the Gradi from the north could keep it supplied by a road he did not control.

Duren climbed to the top of the hillock. He looked out at the ocean for a while; he found it endlessly fascinating. Then he pointed toward the keep the Gradi still held. "What will you do about them, Father?" he asked, confident the Fox would come up with something even if he couldn't see for himself what it was.

Gerin gave him the only answer he could: "This year, nothing. We've done all we could. We've done more than I ever expected. As long as the Gradi gods are at war on their own plane, the Gradi themselves we can beat, or at least meet on even terms, which is good enough."