In fact, too perfect. Gregory eyed her askance, then decided that the wisest course was to fall in with the situation she had devised and watch how she made it develop.
His mind may have known it, but his heart did not. As he rode up to her, the alarm, concern, and sympathy wrung from his masculine nature by her pose and her weeping welled up. For once, he let them show—a little. He dismounted and knelt by her, asking, "Damsel, what grieves you so?"
She recoiled, gasping and staring at him; then, seeing it was only a clean-favored youth, relaxed, burying her face in her hands as her sobs redoubled.
"What horror could affright you so?" The anxiety in his tone was quite real; he almost forgot that this was the predator who stalked his family; only a remote part of his mind remembered it, staying vigilant. "Maiden, what is it? Tell me, I beg of you!"
"Call me not maiden, for I am that no longer, and therein lies my plight!" she sobbed.
Gregory frowned, feeling an edge of sternness arise, anger at a man unseen. "Is it a false love who has used you and left you? The fault is his, not yours!"
"Nay, sir—well, it is that surely, but I suffer only shame for that. Now, because of it, I am likely to suffer much more." She raised a tear-streaked face to him.
It was a lovely face, even reddened by tears—a heart-shaped face with rosebud lips and large dark eyes. Gregory stared, freezing as he felt the wave of her erotic projection roll over him, rocking him. He held still, only gazing on that lovely face as he waited for the wave to crest and begin to
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level off, and it was all he could do to keep himself from reaching out to take her into his arms. Then he asked, ' 'What affliction is this that can hurt you worse than a true love turned false?"
"Bandits, sir! Here I sit, a sacrifice to them, a victim to their rapaciousness! They have despoiled my people's village these five years, and only by giving them what they seek can my people save themselves from pillage and slaughter."
Gregory scowled, a black mood coming on him. "And you are what they seek?"
"Every fall they come to take half of the harvest," the damsel told him, "and every spring they come to take a young woman for their pleasure." She shuddered at the thought. "To have been seduced, then left, has been like being plunged from Heaven into Purgatory—but to be the toy of a score must be a descent into Hell!"
"It shall not happen," Gregory said, his tone iron. "But you must be a squire's daughter, not a peasant! How durst your villagers turn you out?"
"My people decide who will next be offered to the wild men by discovering who allowed herself to be seduced in the year past, for, say they, 'twould be a shame to send a virgin— so our girls tend to be very circumspect."
"Do not tell me that your swain boasted of his conquest ere he spurned you!"
Her shoulders slumped and her gaze fell. "How else would any but we two have known?"
"But your father, the squire of the village! Could he let his daughter be thrown to the wolves thus?"
"My father, and my mother, too, have cast me out in shame," the young woman said. "These past five years, everyone in the village has become most self-righteous, for those who always inveighed against the sins of the flesh cry that these bandits are Heaven's retribution."
"What a horrid malediction is this!" Gregory said. He stood, looking down at the young woman, and laid a hand gently on her shoulder, but she flinched, and he drew his hand away. "Be calm, damsel," he told her. "They shall not touch
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you. But if I am to ward you from these bandits, may I not know your name?"
"Why .. . surely, sir." Hope sprang in her eyes. "I am called Peregrine. But how can you, one man alone, stop twenty?"
"By magic," Gregory answered. "I am a wizard."
The spark of hope flared alive in Peregrine's eyes and she clung to his hand, staring up at him, lips parting in wonder
Gregory wondered, too. What kind of magic could give him, a slender and peaceful man, victory over twenty hardened robbers?
Any, the remote part of his mind answered, for it remembered that Peregrine was, after all, really Finister.
The disease hadn't been much, as epidemics went—only an old virus that had mutated into a new one—but the peasants of that village had had no immunity to it. Left to itself, it could have spread into a plague that swept the whole island. Gwen reflected on the episode as she flew home, amazed to realize that fifteen years ago she would have had no idea how to cope with the outbreak. Her sojourn in the interstellar civilization of the twenty-second century had given her the opportunity to learn advanced physics, chemistry, and a host of other sciences, including microbiology—all direct from the minds of scientists and engineers themselves. Not that she had eavesdropped—she had simply asked questions and really listened to the answers.
Fortunately it had been a relatively simple virus, and she had retailored a few specimens into antigens. They had propagated at the usual speed, neutralizing all the rest. She had left the epidemic well on its way to curing.
She idly noticed the hawk circling above her, as she noticed everything in the air when she was flying, but paid it no particular attention until it folded its wings and pounced on her.
With a cry of anger, she batted it away. The bird went spinning head over heels, and her broomstick, ignored for the moment, slipped to the left and started to dive. That saved her life, for the blaster bolt sizzled by a foot over her head.
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Fear seared through her, but anger came hot in its wake. She spared a thought for the broomstick, bringing it up and around in an erratic zigzag as her mind probed for the gunner below. Instead she found another telepath, and the disorder and chaos in his mind sent a wave of dizziness through her. For a few seconds earth and sky reeled about her; for a few seconds, she was cut off from the outside world.
The broomstick, left to itself, promptly fell, and her with it.
Two blaster bolts sizzled overhead.
Then the enemy telepath's mind cleared with elation and Gwen's mind cleared with it. She saw treetops rushing up before her—but she saw her hands, too, clutching the broomstick white-knuckled as though they could pull it up and out of its tailspin by sheer strength. She poured the power of her mind into them, and the broomstick sheered off at the last second, though her shoes clipped leaves from the branches as she passed.
Then the hawk pounced again. She saw it coming a second before it struck and swerved to avoid it. A blaster bolt sizzled past and the hawk squawked in protest, sheering off. Smoke curled from the tips of its tail feathers.
Gwen threw her broomstick into a dance, erratic, chaotic. The enemy telepath's mind swept hers with a wave of hatred that made her recoil in shock—but she used the energy of the recoil to strike back, filling the foe's mind with an anger so hot that she felt the other lose consciousness. She withdrew from that mind immediately, rolled aside as a blaster bolt snarled past her, and sought for the minds of the gunners.
There were three of them. She struck with a sudden wave of self-hatred, and the first turned her own rifle on herself. Gwen withdrew the self-contempt quickly, and the gunner realized what she was doing. With a cry of terror, she threw the rifle from her.
But Gwen's mind was already moving to the second, making the rifle buck in his hands, twisting and turning. The man wrestled with it, and Gwen pulled hard, trying to yank the gun out of his hands. He clung desperately, and she reversed; the rifle jumped backward, striking the sniper in the forehead.
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He slumped to the ground unconscious, and Gwen dove on general principles.
Not a moment too soon; her distraction had been long enough for the third sniper to aim. The straws of her broomstick burst into flame. Even so, the hawk struck again; claws bit into her shoulder, and she cried out with pain, her broomstick dropping like a stone.
The bird loosed its hold, tearing away; another blaster
bolt missed it narrowly. Gwen pulled her broomstick out of its dive but felt another mind pulsing with dread, then relief, and recognized a second enemy telepath, one much weaker than the first.
Strong enough to control the hawk, though. His mind reached out to the bird's, making it circle and swoop again.
Gwen concentrated and took control of the hawk. Its trajectory swerved; it struck at the last sniper, who screamed with rage and swung his rifle around toward the raptor. But Gwen made the bird swoop aside at the last second and the blaster bolt sizzled harmlessly through the air. Gwen saw the sniper's position now, high in an oak. She sent the hawk striking. It was too close for the sniper to shoot; he fell back—and fell indeed, with a howl of fright. He dropped the rifle and caught at another branch—caught, and held.
Gwen reached out with her mind and made the branch whip back and forth through the air. The sniper bellowed in fear as his hold broke and he fell again. He landed crosswise on a lower bough; pain shot through him as his abdomen folded over the limb.
Gwen made a nearby limb swing and strike. A single bright pain filled the sniper's mind before darkness claimed it.
The hawk, though, was circling high to swoop again. Gwen took control of it once more and made it follow the thought that reached out for it frantically. The hawk plunged through the leaves, screaming as its claws tore at the face of its master. Somehow the falconer caught it, but the claws still scrabbled at his face. He stumbled backward, holding the writhing bird at arm's length, shouting commands at it. Gwen adjusted his path, and the man slammed backward into a tree. He slumped
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to the ground, unconscious, and the bird flew away, dazed and disoriented.
Now Gwen could take a deep breath, regain control of her broomstick, and send out a call for the royal witches to come arrest the assassins. Then, by sheer habit born of many sleepless nights listening for a sick child's breathing, she reached out to touch the minds of each of her family.
They were all under attack.
Geoffrey and Alain had dressed themselves up as common teamsters and had harnessed their chargers to a cart they had rented at an exorbitant sum. No one could see the swords slung across their backs under their cloaks.
They drove into the hamlet beneath Baron Gripadin's castle, a collection of a dozen very run-down cottages—in fact, so run-down that if the peasant girl hadn't told them otherwise, they would have thought the place abandoned. Nonetheless, they drove the cart in, having a fine old time with some very amateurish playacting.
"Well, Daw, what think 'ee?" Alain mimicked the accent of the peasants who served in the castle. "Ought we draw in the horses and buy summat to eat?"
"I see no inn," Geoffrey answered in a similar accent. "What could these people cook that would be worth a brass farthing?" Then, under his breath in his own accent, "Is this your village, maiden?"
"It is, sir." The young woman trembled beside him. "Pray the soldiers do not come!"
"We will pray that they do," Alain whispered grimly, his eyes bright with battle-lust.
"I must warn my family to stay indoors!" The young woman slipped down from the cart before they could stop her and ran for the door of a hut that opened just before she reached it.
For some reason, that rang Geoffrey's mental alarm. He opened his mind to listen and caught a host of angry, bloodthirsty thoughts. "To horse, Alain! On guard!"
He caught up his buckler from the cartbed and sprang onto his charger, drawing his sword and cutting the harness with
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two strokes. Alain blinked at him, taken by surprise; then he heard the roar of many throats as a dozen men burst from the doorways of the ruined cottages. He reached down, caught up his buckler, and vaulted onto the back of his warhorse, drawing his sword and cutting the straps as Geoffrey had done. "For the people and the right!" he shouted and turned at bay.
The assassins struck, the front rank slashing at him with swords, the back rank stabbing up with spears. Alain ducked to catch the blades on his buckler; one sliced his calf. He bellowed with anger and swung his blade, cutting off two spearheads.
Geoffrey faced a similar double rank and had to admit that this rabble had a commander who had some sense. He raised his buckler to deflect the spearheads while his mind wrenched at the swords. But another mind wrenched them back, cancelling his telekinesis and leaving the swordsmen free to chop at Geoffrey's ankles. He realized he was up against more than he had thought and called, "Up, stout fellow!" His horse reared, screaming, and struck at the footmen with its forelegs. They shouted in surprise and backed away.
The battle-rage was on Alain now, for these foes had come in secrecy, even decoyed him to their ambush with a false damsel in distress. They deserved no mercy, especially since they would probably give none. He bent low to stab at the swordsman who had wounded him, feinting, slashing high, then suddenly circling his blade to stab through the other's defenses as he caught a second man's sword on his buckler. Even then, the first attacker was almost too fast; he managed to parry, but Alain's blade sank into his shoulder, and the man dropped his sword with a shout of pain. He fell back to let two mates take his place.
His charger set his feet back on the earth, and Geoffrey backed him away. The assassins came after with a shout. Geoffrey reversed course and charged then, swinging his sword in an arc right in front of them, bending low to slash. The swordsmen leaped back with shouts of alarm—and collided with the spearmen. All stumbled, and Geoffrey turned his horse back to ride over them. They saw the beast coming
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and scattered, shouting warnings to one another. Geoffrey turned to cut down the one nearest him.
An invisible hand imprisoned his sword; it slowed, straining against a telekinetic bond. Geoffrey shouted with exasperation and kicked the swordsman in the jaw. Then he sent his mind arrowing after his telepathic foe. He felt the mind thrust coming from a tumbledown cottage off to his left, so he sent a thought bolt that excited the atoms of its thatch, and its roof burst into flames. The bind on his sword ceased abruptly as alarm filled his head, along with an assortment of curses. Geoffrey ignored them and spurred his charger toward the nearest spearman.
Alain had disabled four of his attackers, but the other two ranged themselves on either side of him. If he turned to strike one, the other would run at his back.
Then the spearman pulled a strange sort of short-handled hammer from beneath his tunic and pointed it at Alain.
Alain knew a weapon when he saw one. He kicked out of the stirrup and threw himself off on the far side of his mount. As he landed, he heard the creature scream, smelled the sickening stench of charred horsehair, and his battle-lust turned to white rage. He knew without looking that his horse was dead, a good and faithful beast who had always protected his master and fought far more bravely than this mob of cravens. But Alain wasted no time in turning on the man with the exotic weapon—he charged the fellow's mate, thinking the man would not dare shoot at his own.
He met the swordsman sword to buckler, each one's blade clanging on the other's shield. Alain circled around him quickly, putting him between himself and the wielder of the strange weapon. A trail of blue-white light sizzled where Alain had just been His skin crawled, but he mastered the dread and blocked his foe's sword, feinting low with his own blade. The other man dropped his buckler to meet the blow— and Alain reversed his stroke, swinging high and stepping in to slam his hilt into the other man's chin.
The swordsman hadn't been expecting a fist. He slumped, his eyes rolling up, and Alain caught him in a one-armed hug, holding him tight as he sidestepped and zigzagged in a gro-
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tesque parody of a dance, calling, "He still lives! Would you slay your comrade?"
The weapon wielder hesitated. Alain took a huge chance and threw his sword with more hope than skill. Startled, the man swung his weapon up to fire at it, and Alain dropped his living shield t
o charge the man.
The exotic weapon swung down, but Alain threw his buckler at the man. It struck the arm that held the hammer; the man shouted with pain and spun away, dropping the fell thing. He spun back in time to see Alain's fist just before it smashed into his face.
Alain stood panting, gazing around the wreck of the village, still quivering with battle-lust. All their attackers were down, but Geoffrey was riding toward a hut whose roof burned. The peasant girl who had brought them came running out, and Geoffrey turned his horse to chase. She whirled about to face him, and stones shot from the very ground toward his head.
That told Alain all he needed. He ran quickly and threw his arms about the girl. She struggled, screaming curses that almost made him let go. He held on grimly, though, until she suddenly slumped in his arms, eyes closing.
Alain stared at the limp bundle he was holding, horrified. "Geoffrey . . . you have not..."
"No. She only sleeps." Geoffrey dismounted, pulled rope from his saddlebag, and strode over, his face hard. "Many thanks for distracting her, for she is so powerful a witch that I doubt I could have sent her into unconsciousness without your aid." He whipped the rope about the young woman, tying her hand and foot. "This was an ambush skillfully planned, Alain."
"It was indeed," the prince agreed, "though I must needs ask me what has become of Baron Gripardin."
"Perhaps he is alive and well, and only a deserted village on his estate has any guilt." Geoffrey stood, hefting the unconscious woman over his shoulder. "Let us bind their wounds and pile them in the cart. It was a good thought of yours to bring it."
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He turned away, but Alain caught his arm. "Geoffrey— that weapon ... it shoots lightning. ..."
"So I see." Geoffrey scowled at the ugly thing lying there on the ground. "Ask me not, Alain. I am forbidden to speak of such things."
"Forbidden?" Alain's hand tightened on his arm. "I shall be King of this land someday, and you are forbidden to tell me what endangers it?"
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