tion. "It is the-vision-I have seen, of how the sword is

a shadowed thing."

So he is a seer, as well as a warlock, Alan thought. He accepted the fact almost casually; the recent events and Hal's revelations had shaken him beyond astonishment.

"If I could," Hal said softly, "I would take that bright blade and hurl it into the sea. But once it was in my hand, I think I would not have the strength to give it up. It is a seducer, Alan. But it is yours by right of lineage, more

than it is mine."

"It was not offered to me," Alan shrugged. "Come, let us find your own sword, that Trigg gave you."

"He was like a father to me, for a little while. . . ."

Hal looked away, remembering the love in the eyes of the good-hearted fellow as he presented the gift. "Ay, let us

be going."

They rose, and Hal took a few weary, painful steps.

Suddenly he dropped to the earth again, striking the stones with his fist. "Confound it, Alan! Why was this offered to me? Was it a trap which I rightly spurned? Or was it a key which I have thrown away? If a test, then why? If not, then I have made the wrong choice!"

Alan smiled wryly. "Trust yourself, Hal, even as I must. Do not things always seem to come to rights for

you?"

"You think I should have taken it," Hal muttered.

"I would have taken it, ay, and probably got myself

killed because of it. But you are not I, praise be. Perhaps you do not need such a sword."

"Do not mock me, Alan," said Hal tiredly.

"After all I have seen?" Alan faced him squarely. "Do

I mock you, brother?"

Hal met bis eyes with growing wonder. "I wish I thought as well of myself," he said at last.

They went afoot for several days because of Arundel's wound. Hal was moody, and fatigued from something more than walking. When he regained his energy, he grew irritable because of their slow pace. They were making their way north and east, toward the sea. The Forest curved eastward with them, but indeed it was hardly to be called Forest any longer, mostly bramble thickets and stunted conifers. For days the two had only birds and rabbits and pine kernels to eat; Alan grew as touchy as Hal. They saw almost no one in this desolate land. There was no news of Corin.

It was fifteen days of walking and gentle riding before they came to the coast. The sea cliffs dropped straight from a weedy, windswept plain, and the surf crashed far below. When Hal heard the sea and felt the salt breeze, he straightened in the saddle, and his gray eyes gleamed with a silvery sheen. But to Alan, the roaring of the sea was a sound of doom, and the sad cries of the gulls were like weeping. It took the warmth of evening's campfire to drive the cold weight from his heart.

Autumn was fast approaching. The nights were chill, the mornings damp. The leaves of the twisted trees hung limp in the heat of the days. Thundershowers came and

59.

60 THE SILVER SUN.

went. Hal and Alan zigzagged northward along the coast, looking for Corin; and one evening, when the ground was still wet from the afternoon's rain, they found a trail. Two pairs of feet had made it, one large and one smaller*

"Finallyl" Hal exclaimed.

They followed the smudgy traces until it was too dark to see; then they pressed on, afoot and feeling their way through the brush, watching for a campfire. Before long they spied a flicker in the distance.

"What luck!" Hal whispered. "But softly now; we can't be certain it is only the smith and me boy."

To Alan it seemed like an eternity that they stalked through the troublesome thickets. His heart pounded with the suspense of slow movement, and he winced at every clumsy noise be made, Hal went like a silent shadow before him. But as they neared the fire at last, Hal drifted back beside him and touched his arm.

"Kingsmen!" he breathed. Alan could feel the tremor of his fingers and hear the catch in his voice. He had named the name of terror; yet he moved forward again,

toward the firelight.

In a moment, Alan could see why. Corin sat there, tied to a scrubby tree. Even in the ruddy glow of the flames, the boy's face looked as pale as death. Col lay stretched on the ground, near the fire. The kingsmen stooped around him. King Iscovar bragged that his retainers wore helmets of gold, but the metal was cheapened with copper until it glowed orange, the crudest color; their cloaks were dyed black in imitation of the King's sable, and they were obliged to wear them even in the summer heat. They circled around the fire and Col like black priests of the homed god around a ritual victim- Alan could see that Col was staked to the stony ground. The man had stained the earth with his blood. Alan shuddered and struggled

for breath.

"If we fight them," Hal warned in the lowest of whis- pers, "we must slay them all, for our lives' sake."

There were six kingsmen. The leader raised a sword,

Hal's sword, above Col's straining face.

"There is still time to tell me where you found this,"

he crooned, "before you die by it."

The smith turned away his head. "No matter," another kingsman remarked. "We will have it out of the pup,

then."

The Forest 61 "I tell you, I stole it!" Corin cried, but the man whipped around and clouted him with a heavy fist. The boy's head thudded into the tree, and Col screamed though his son did not, a roaring cry of despair. While the sound still echoed Hal and Alan drew their swords, and in voiceless unison they sprang.

They were not inclined to be sporting, at the odds.

Hal lopped the head off Corin's assailant before the man could rise; the body lurched onto the boy, splattering him with blood. Alan sent a kingsman stumbling into the fire. The fellow shrieked as his heavy cloak burst into flame, and ran madly through the melee. Alan and Hal each stood battling desperately against two swords. Alan was backed up against Col's inert form, sick at the thought of stepping on the man. Shieldless, he had al- ready taken half a dozen cuts. Hal found himself pitting a thick, hacking sword against the grace of his own lighter blade. He whistled a long, shrilling blast, then blinked;

one of his foes had fallen, crippled. Someone had struck the man in the leg. The boy Corin, still reeling from the blow to his head, staggered toward the fire to help Alan, lilting a captured weapon.

But Arundel got there first, and Alfie. They bowled over the enemies with the force of their charge. After that it was soon over. Six kingsmen lay dead; Hal made sure of each of them. Alan sank down beside the body of the smith. Corin knelt there, quivering and pressing his father's hand, but Col was dead. It did not take much looking to tell that.

Hal came up with the flask, and a kingsman's shirt for bandaging. He glanced at Col and the boy, then silently handed the flask to Alan. Like Alan, he was bleeding from cuts on his arms and shoulders, though not as many.

Alan gulped some liquor and got up, shakily.

"We had better be off quickly," he muttered, "in case there are more such vermin about."

"Arunde! will tell us if anyone comes near," Hal re- plied. "We can take time to lay the smith to rest." He hastily wrapped Alan's worst cuts, and his own, then knelt by Corin. He bandaged the boy's raw wrists as he spoke. "Lad, my sword brought you the worst of luck. I am sorry.**

"May it bring you better, for your goodliness," the 62 THE SILVER SUN.

boy whispered. "My father said it was a princely weapon;

and you have won it worthily."