"No, no!" he cried. "No, please. You don"t understand. ... I see it now ...
what was wrong with my thinking ... you don"t know yet ... you don"t know ... to you she was still the Princess Volna, loyal, true ... you don"t understand, please."
The wave rolled over Prokliam the seneschal, leaving him battered and b.l.o.o.d.y and dead in its wake.
The strong, whipping motion of Bram Forest"s arm made a wall of steel of his whip-sword. Try as he might, with all the skill at his command, Retoc could not dent that wall. But, he thought, there was another way. Slowly, desperately, he maneuvered Bram Forest back toward Bontarc, who was sitting in the sand and using all his remaining energy to hold the life blood in his veins, his fingers clamped, vise-like, about his own arm.
Bram Forest"s arm blurred up, down, to either side. He wove a web of death. It was brawn against skill, he knew--and the strength of his arm might win! Retoc was sweating. Retoc was not the cool swordsman he had been moments before. Desperately, Retoc sought an opening, and found none. True, his superior footwork was forcing Bram Forest back across the sand, but what did that matter? Last time they dueled he had made the mistake of meeting Retoc on his own grounds as greatest swordsman of Tarth. This time....
His legs caught against something. He fell heavily.
Retoc"s sword-point flashed down.
Bram Forest rolled over, stood up with sand blinding his eyes. For precious moments he could see nothing but could only spin with the whip-sword; slashing air in all directions, hoping Retoc couldn"t strike through the wall of steel.
Then, slowly, vision returned to his stinging eyes. Bontarc lay stretched out on the sand now, unconscious, the blood pumping from his severed artery. If he bled like that for more than a few moments, he would die. If he died, and if Nadia rose in its wrath against Abaria, then all that Bram Forest had dreamed of, not revenge against Abaria for a wrong done, but eternal peace on Tarth, would be lost....
He took the offensive, weaving his wall of steel toward Retoc. The Abarian thrust his own sword, and withdrew it, and parried, and lunged and thrust again. The wall of steel which was Bram Forest"s singing blade advanced relentlessly.
Round and round his head, Bram Forest whirled the whip-sword. Retoc could--just--block the motion, the death-laden circle, with his own blade. He became accustomed to it. He used all his effort, all his skill to block it.
Then, abruptly, Bram Forest raised his sword-arm and brought it down from high over his head.
Retoc screamed.
And died screaming, his head and torso split from crown to navel.
Bram Forest rushed to Bontarc, stretched out on the sand, and with his own hand stemmed the bleeding.
Byla.n.u.s the Golden Ape said: "All Tarth is yours to command if you wish it, Bram Forest."
"No, Byla.n.u.s. Take your people back to your world and live in peace.
We of Tarth thank you."
Byla.n.u.s smiled. "I thought you would say that."
"Portox was a great scientist," Bram Forest said. "But he thought too much of revenge. The ancient wrong is righted."
"Then you"ll spare Abaria?" gasped the delegate of the a.s.sembled Tarthian n.o.bles, who had come to the meeting called by Byla.n.u.s that night.
"My fight was with Retoc and the Abarian army. Retoc is dead, the army decimated and disbanded. My fight with Abaria is over."
"Then what will you do?"
Bram Forest took Ylia"s hand. "I"d like to see a great nation rise again on the Plains of Ofrid."
Bontarc, his arm bandaged, said: "My people will help you build. And, with your wayfarers as a nucleus maid Ylia...."
"It will be a small nation at first," Ylia said.
"It will grow, so long as Tarth knows peace," Bontarc told her.
"Tarth will know nothing but peace from now on," Bram Forest promised.
It was a promise which he knew all of them would keep.
THE END