will not break the laws of two lands and attack the city with the Carthagan army. He looked up at the raven, then across at the dog-person. And I will forget Drummond. He is already dead to me. Good, good, said Wo, getting up to pack his own mount. And so, you have a name now. Valechor is that what we shall call you? Soldier thought about it, then said, No, in this world I am known as Soldier. He grinned. Would you have me give up all the hard-found fame which that name gives me in this place and hide behind one that means nothing to the hearer? I have no desire to slip into anonymity yet. The name of Soldier is respected . . . Feared and hated, added the raven. . . . throughout several kingdoms, finished Soldier, ignoring the black bird. Until IxonnoxI is established as the rightful King Magus, and Zamerkand has got rid of Humbold,. I must hold on to all the power that my name in this world gives me. The raven flew off, leaving the two companions to finish their packing. When they were ready, the riders set off again, back towards where the tracks forked, one going to Zamerkand, the other to Falyum. On the journey the scabbard, who had not finished her song of the old world to her satisfaction, filled in the rest of Valechors history. It was during a battle in his old world that he had been flung into this one, to wake on the warm hills side without his memory, there to kill a snake which had been about to attack a raven, and there to meet a hunter who was to become his wife. That terrible battle, sang the scabbard, was still in progress. Men had been fighting on that high boggy moor for as many years as Soldier had been in Guthrum. On one side had been the last Valechor, on the other had been the knight Drummond, who had killed the king and made himself monarch, thus giving himself access to greater forces of men-at-arms. With these overwhelming numbers he had marched against knight Valechor, the armies meeting on a high moor covered in peat hags and deep marshy ditches. The fighting had been at its most desperate when the two leaders, both living under a curse, crossed swords. The battle being fought on a magical moor, the spells they were under were invoked and they were flung out of their own world and into another. In that other-world they made their own separate ways, not knowing of the others presence. Drummond had landed in the continent of Gwandoland and had retrieved his named sword, and thus his identity, before Valechor. Valechor himself had pitched into Guthrum and had become the Soldier, a man who had risen from condemned malefactor to general of a mercenary army without knowing his real name or where he came from. Both had suffered extraordinary experiences. Now, as in their old world, they had chosen opposite sides. Valechor was for IxonnoxI and Drummond for OmmullummO. It seemed Soldier was destined to battle with his old enemy, if they both survived long enough to cross swords again on the killing fields. And what of my poor army in the old world? he groaned. Are they then fighting still? They are bloody but unbowed, sang Sintra. Every day they rise from their beds and fling themselves into the fight anew. Many seem lost to the black bog. Many seem to succumb to disease. Some appear to die of mortal wounds. Yet somehow on that magical moor their numbers do not decrease. They strive, as do the more numerous enemy strive, to gain advantage. Both armies have long grown weary of the fighting, and rise from their sleep with a great lethargy of spirit, their limbs like lead, their bodies groaning under the weight of their efforts. Their souls have grown grey with age and violent toil and all kneel around the evening watchfires and pray for an end to the fighting, so that they can go home to their families. They age not, nor do their kin, for eternity is become an hour, all time constricted within those sixty minutes during which two clashing armies should settle their differences and the survivors return to their
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