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our people and try and get them to turn. If they betray you, we'll remember them later and pay back in
full. If they don't turn, we can safely reestablish contact."
Sarnak smiled. "Most ingenious. Let it be done. If they check out correctly I want an observation team
reporting on Patrice. If something is happening, we might turn it to our advantage."
Ralnath stood a little straighter, trying to disguise his fatigue. "At once, my lord." He turned to leave.
"Oh, one other thing. The prisoners--do they have families?"
"Yes, my lord."
"Arrest all of them," Sarnak replied evenly, "but do it discreetly. We'll arrange it later to look like all of
them died in an accident."
Ralnath bowed low and withdrew.
Sarnak calmly watched him leave, then returned his attention to the map beneath him. To all in the
command center he was in total control, the master tactician. Inside, his thoughts weighed odds and
calculated chances, barely holding his fear in check.
His enemies were legion, and to be found by any of them before he could consolidate his power would
mean his death. To be found by Allic or any of Jartan's brood would be bad enough. It was Boreas,
though, who he was most afraid of. For with Boreas it would be far worse than death--it would be an
eternity in an icy hell, tortured by a creature--an implacable force--who across these eons still blamed
Sarnak for the death of his father.
Those in the map room were startled by their master's abrupt departure.
Where can I run if he finds me? To whom can I turn to with the strength to resist him?Once again Sarnak
considered the unthinkable.
Mark felt as if he was staring into the very heart of hell. Kultha hovered above him, laughing darkly. The
thin shield, now glowing white-hot, was all that protected him from the creature's malevolence.
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Somewhere in the back of his mind he remembered the poison capsule, yet such was his terror that he
felt as if his arms were made of lead and he could not move for the blessed release contained within.
Never had he known such intensity of attack. The shield strained, snapped up to what he thought was
maximum, and then kept right on going.
A tremor ran through him, and then with a blinding flash he was on his back, shield gone, the nightmare
of Kultha, with talons outstretched, swooping down from above.
A mad rage filled him, and a sense of self-loathing. Now, at the end would he die as a frightened rat?
Screaming, Mark came to his feet, and aimed a bolt at Kultha's face. A bone-numbing thunderclap
snapped through the ground, which sent Mark staggering. Glancing up, he saw Kultha's gloating look
change in an instant to stunned surprise.
Swinging around, Mark stood transfixed.
The entire glacier behind him had simply disappeared, blown apart. Hunks of ice larger than a house
soared heavenward, tumbling end over end. Debris arced across the sky, a wild torrent of ice, smoke,
and steam.
From out of the heart of the explosion Jartan emerged.
The god who Mark had stood before in awe back in Asmara was nothing now but a pale comparison to
what a god could be in the rage of battle. As he ascended, his visage was as blinding as the sun,
wreathed in light, so that Mark had to avert his eyes from Jartan's face.
Debris rained down, and snapping up his shield for protection, Mark crouched low. As if from a great
distance he heard commingled the roaring defiance of the demons, the cries of hope of his own
comrades, and now the screams of a host of sorcerers who swarmed out by Jartan's side.
"Mark!"
The warning snapped him into action and he rolled sideways and then swung up into the air. He felt the
brush of Kultha's talons as they closed over the spot where he had just been.
Ikawa swung up alongside and within seconds the old group started to form: Walker behind him, Saito
beside Ikawa, the rest of the offworlders trailing into the growing cluster.
Never had Mark seen such madness of aerial combat as Jartan's thousand-odd sorcerers swarmed into
the demon host.
"Go for altitude!" Mark shouted. "We'll climb out and then pick our targets. Now move it!"
He looked over at Ikawa and saw the concern in his friend's eyes disappear as the instinct for air
combat took over. Mark jinked the group left, looking over his shoulder for Kultha, but the demon
chieftain had disappeared in the confusion. Bodies tumbled past, demons trailing fire and smoke, and,
tragically, sorcerers as well. So tight was the crush of battle that antagonists actually slammed into each
other and fell tumbling, trading blows at such close range that shields overlapped, so that strikes would
literally rip an opponent in half in one blinding flash of death.
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"Gorgon!"
The anger in Jartan's voice was like a physical blow, but it filled Mark with a wild joy and desire for
vengeance.
A demon loomed before him, intent on striking a sorceress from behind. A bolt shot out from Mark's
hand, joined in an instant by twenty other strikes from the group. The demon's shield exploded, and the
group, pushing through the oily smoke, climbed out to the top of the fight, which was now a thousand feet
in the air.
"Gorgon, meet me!"
Mark looked to his right and was stunned to see Jartan towering above him, wreathed in lightning, his
image a hundred or more feet in height.
"All you, clear this area!" Jartan roared, and Mark realized that the god was looking at him. Suddenly
Mark felt small, insignificant. A sheet of flames snapped past him, and looking to his left he saw the
darkness of Gorgon, flame foaming from his mouth, charging across the sky.
"Get us the hell out of here!" Walker screamed.
Mark needed no persuading. Jackknifing over, he headed back into the maelstrom below, though his
attention was riveted by the battle between a god and demon lord.
The icy air rippled with flashing shields, crackling bolts of light. Jartan moved as if made of light itself,
shifting, dodging, while Gorgon came on relentlessly. A bolt of Jartan's went wide, slashing through a
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