god-metal, the metal of Llosir, my personal and all-powerful god. That all here may see and know, I command you to strike at me your shrewdest, most effective, most powerful blow."

The soldier, after a couple of false starts, did manage a stroke of sorts.

"I said strike!" Tedric roared. "Think you ordinary iron can harm the personal metal of a god? Strike where you please, at head or neck or shoulder or guts, but strike as though you meant it! Strike to kill! Shatter your sword! STRIKE!"

Convulsively, the fellow struck, swinging for the neck, and at impact his blade snapped into three pieces. A wave of visible relief swept over the Guardsmen; one of dismay and shock over the ranks of the foe.

"I implore pardon, Lord," the soldier begged, dropping to one knee.

"Up, man! 'Tis nothing, and by my direct order. Now, men, I can tell you a thing you would not have fully believed before. I have just killed half of Sarpedion and he could not touch me. I am about to kill his other half—you will see me do it. Come what may of god or devil you need not fear it, for I and all with me fight under Llosir's shield. We men will have to deal only with the flesh and blood of those runty mercenaries of Tark."

He studied the enemy formation briefly. A solid phalanx of spearmen, with shields latticed and braced; close-set spears out-thrust and anchored. Strictly defensive; they hadn't made a move to follow nor thrown a single javelin when the king's forces withdrew. This wasn't going to be easy, but it was possible.

"We will make the formation of the wedge, with me as point," he went on. "Sergeant, you will bear my sword and hammer. The rest of you will ram me into the center of that phalanx with everything of driving force that in you lies. I will make and maintain enough of opening. We'll go up that ramp like a fast ship plowing through waves. Make wedge! Drive!"

Except for his armor of god-metal Tedric would have been crushed flat by the impact of the flying wedge against the soldiery packed so solidly on the stair. Several of the foe were so crushed, but the new armor held. Tedric could scarcely move his legs enough to take each step, his body was held as though in a vise, but his giant arms were free; and by dint of short, savage, punching jabs and prods and strokes of his atrocious war-axe he made and maintained the narrow opening upon which the success of the whole operation depended. And into that constantly-renewed opening the smith was driven—irresistibly driven by the concerted and synchronized strength of the strongest men of Lomarr's Royal Guard.

The result was not exactly like that of a diesel-powered snowplow, but it was good enough. The mercenaries did not flow over the sides of the ramp in two smooth waves. However, unable with either weapons or bodies to break through the slanting walls of iron formed by the smoothly-overlapping shields of the Guardsmen, over the edges they went, the living and the dead.

The dreadful wedge drove on.

As the Guardsmen neared the top of the stairway the mercenaries disappeared—enough of that kind of thing was a great plenty—and Tedric, after a quick glance around to see what the situation was, seized his sword from the bearer. Old Devann had his knife aloft, but in only the third of the five formal passes. Two more to go.

"Kill those priests!" he snapped at the captain. "I'll take the three at the altar—you fellows take the rest of them!"

When Tedric reached the green altar the sacrificial knife was again aloft; but the same stroke that severed Devann's upraised right arm severed also his head and his whole left shoulder. Two more whistling strokes and a moment's study of the scene of action assured him that there would be no more sacrifice that day. The King's Archers had followed close behind the Guards; the situation was well in hand.

He exchanged sword for axe and hammer, and furiously, viciously, went to work on the god. He yanked out the Holiest One's brain, liver, and heart; hammered and chopped the rest of him to bits. That done, he turned to the altar—he had not even glanced at it before.

Stretched taut, spread-eagled by wrists and ankles on the reeking, blood-fouled, green horror-stone, the Lady Rhoann lay, her yard-long, thick brown hair a wide-flung riot. Six priests had not immobilized Rhoann of Lomarr without a struggle. Her eyes went from shattered image to blood-covered armored giant and back to image; her face was a study of part-horrified, part-terrified, part-worshipful amazement.

He slashed the ropes, extended his mailed right hand. "Art hurt, Lady Rhoann?"

"No. Just stiff." Taking his hand, she sat up—a bit groggily—and flexed wrists and ankles experimentally, while, behind his visor, the man stared and stared.

Tall—wide but trim—superbly made—a true scion of the old blood—Llosir's liver, what a woman! He had undressed her mentally more than once, but his visionings had fallen short, far short, of the entrancing, the magnificent truth. What a woman! A virgin? Huh! Technically so, perhaps ... more shame to those pusillanimous half-breed midgets of the court ... if he had been born noble....

She slid off the altar and stood up, her eyes still dark with fantastically mixed emotions. She threw both arms around his armored neck and snuggled close against his steel, heedless that breasts and flanks were being smeared anew with half-dried blood.

He put an iron-clad arm around her, moved her arm enough to open his visor, saw sea-green eyes, only a few inches below his own, staring straight into his.

The man's quick passion flamed again. Gods of the ancients, what a woman! There was a mate for a full-grown man!

"Thank the gods!" The king dashed up, panting, but in surprisingly good shape for a man of forty-odd who had run so far in gold armor. "Thanks be to all the gods you were in time!"

"Just barely, sire, but in time."

"Name your reward, Lord Tedric. I will be glad to make you my son."

"Not that, sire, ever. If there's anything in this world or the next I don't want to be, it's Lady Rhoann's brother."

"Make him Lord of the Marches, father," the girl said, sharply. "Knowst what the sages said."

"'Twould be better," the monarch agreed. "Tedric of old Lomarr, I appoint you Lord of the Upper, the Middle, and the Lower Marches, the Highest of the High."

Tedric went to his knees. "I thank you, sire. Have I your backing in wiping out what is left of Sarpedion's power?"

"If you will support the Throne with the strength I so clearly see is to be yours, I will back you, with the full power of the Throne, in anything you wish to do."

"Of course I will support you, sire, as long as I live and with all that in me lies. Since time first was my blood has been vassal to yours, and ever will be. My brain, my liver, and my heart are yours."

"I thank you, Lord Tedric. Proceed."

Tedric snapped to his feet. His sword flashed high in air. His heavy voice rang out.

"People of Lomarr, listen to a herald of the Throne! Sarpedion is dead; Llosir lives. Human sacrifice—yes, all sacrifice except the one I am about to perform, of Sarpedion himself to Llosir—is done. That is and will be the law. To that end there will be no more priests, but a priestess only. I speak as herald for the Throne of Lomarr!"

He turned to the girl, still clinging to his side. "I had it first in mind, Lady Rhoann, to make you priestess, but...."

"Not I!" she interrupted, vigorously. "No priestess I, Lord Tedric!"

"By Llosir's brain, girl, you're right—you've been wasted long enough!"

In another time-track another Skandos and another Furmin, almost but not quite identical with those first so named, pored over a chronoviagram.