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racing down the slope, howling their glee, no chance to escape them.
Unless
Bending over, Carl groped in his saddlebag. The metal of the thing he sought was cold in his hand as
he lifted it free.
The Larin slowed and approached at a walk. Carl saw the flash of eyes and teeth in bearded faces,
spiked iron helmets and polished leather breastplates shim-mered faintly, lances were brought to rest.
The leader raised his voice: Do you surrender?
No! yelled Carl. The echoes went ringing and bouncing between the stony heights, no, no, no.
We come from the City, Carl shouted as loudly and wrathfully as his lungs could endure. We
come with the black magic of the Doom that wastes the world, the glowing death, nine thousand devils
chained and raging to be free. Depart, men of Lann, for we are witches!
The horsemen waited. Carl heard a breath sucked between teeth in the quiet of night, saw a shield
lifted and a charm fingered. But they did not run.
I hold the glowing death! screamed Carl. Your flesh will rot from your bones, your eyes will fall
from the sockets, you are dead men already! See, men of Lann, see!
He aimed the flashlight and whirled the crank. A
white beam stabbed forth, picking a savage face out of a night which suddenly seemed blacker,
swinging around to another and another. A horse neighed, and a man shouted.
Carl let go the handle, and it whined eerily to silence as the light died. Then he cranked again, holding
the beam like a pointed spear, and urged his horse forward. As he advanced, he threw back his head
and howled like a wild dog.
A single noise of terror broke from the warriors, splitting the patrol into a crazed scramble of hoofs
and bodies scattered in all directions. In moments, the men were lost to sight and sound.
Carl sat for a minute, not daring to believe, and then he began to laugh.
* * *
By dawn, the boys had come most of the way. Carl s flashlight trick would hardly work in the
daytime, so as the first dull gray of morning stole into the sky, they dismounted, rubbed down their weary
horses, and rolled up in blankets to sleep for a while. But the sun was not far over the horizon before they
were on the trail again.
We ll be back just about in time for the chores, grumbled Owl, but the eyes twinkled in his round
face.
Tom ran a hand through his fiery hair. It seems as if we left an age ago, he said, with a puzzled note
in his voice. We ve seen and done and learned so much I hardly know what to believe any longer.
He glanced at Carl. Tell me, is everything false that they taught us? Are there really no devils or magic or
Doom?
I don t know, said Carl soberly. I suppose the old stories are true enough as far as they go only
they don t go far enough, and it s up to us to find the whole truth. The Doctors, who claim to have kept
as much of the old wisdom as is good for men to know, don t want us to do that; but I think that
between the need of the Dalesmen for help against the Lann and this proof in my saddlebag, we can
convince the people otherwise. He yawned and stretched his stiffened muscles. It ll be good to reach
your father s place. I could use a hot breakfast!
They followed the woodland trail through the cool rustling green, and John s sons spied the
landmarks with eager eyes. It was Tom who first sniffed the air and turned back a worried face. Do you
smell smoke? he asked.
In a short while Carl and Owl sensed it too, the thin bitter reek and a light bluish haze in the air. They
clucked to their horses and broke into a weary trot, straining homeward.
Out of the woods, over a rise of ground, and then the dear, broad fields of home
The farm was burnt.
They sat for a long time, stunned, only slowly grasp-ing the ruin which was here. The outbuildings
were smoking heaps from which charred rafters stuck up like fingers pointing at an empty heaven. The
house was still burning here and there. Little flames wavered over fallen beams and blowing ash. Smoke
stained the cloudless sky, black and ugly, and there was a terrible silence everywhere.
Father. It was a whimper in Owl s throat. Mother.
Come on! Tom took the lead, whipping his horse ruthlessly to a gallop. The others followed,
sobbing without shame.
Carl, less grief-stricken than the brothers, rode about the yard scanning it for signs. The ground was
trampled by many hoofs, the pens were broken open and a trail went through the grain fields toward the
east. The Lann, he said thinly. A party of Lann warriors came and burned the place and drove off the
stock to feed their army.
Tom and Owl, white-faced, were poking through the smoldering, flickering wreck of the house. They
looked up as Carl approached. No bodies, said Tom. We haven t found any dead.
No Carl went over to the shed. It had not burned so thoroughly as the rest, and he could see
tools lying in the blackened wood. But no sign of the wagon which every farm owned....
Be glad, he said, forcing a smile. See, the wagon s gone, and there are no dead here. That meant
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