"You said that the main Horde may not be blocking us on the west. How is that?"
"Ghost thinks that tomorrow or the next day they'll move farther north, leaving the west bank, directly across from us, free. But why are you so interested? You could not hope to cross the fen. No one in his right mind would try to cross the fen. It is mud and swamp and water and shifting sands. There are places where there is no bottom to it, and you can't know, until you come upon them, where those pits may be. One spot may be solid footing, but the next one is muck that seizes you and holds you. Once he sets foot into the fen, one has no chance of coming out alive."
"We'll see," said Conrad. "If that's the only hope, we'll try it."
"If Hubert is still around," said Duncan, "Diane could go out on patrol with Ghost and Nan. That would give us one more set of eyes."
"Hubert?"
"Diane's griffin. He was not around after the castle fell."
"We'll look for him tomorrow," Snoopy said.
"I'm afraid," said Diane, "that he'll not be found."
"Nevertheless, we'll look," Snoopy promised. "We'll try to make up as well for all you lost."
"We lost everything," said Conrad. "Blankets, cooking utensils, food."
"It will be no problem," said the goblin. "Some of our people right now are working on a set of buckskins for milady. The gown she wears is useless for this sort of life."
"It's kind of you," said Diane. "One thing else I beg of you. A weapon."
"A weapon?"
"I lost my battle axe."
"I don't know about a battle axe," said Snoopy. "But perhaps something else—a blade, perhaps."
"A sword?"
"Yes, a sword. I think I know of one I can lay my hands upon."
"It would be gracious of you."
Snoopy grumbled. "I don't know what's the use of all of this. You're caught within a trap. To my way of thinking, there is no way to get out of it. When the Horde decides to move in, they'll squeeze you like a bunch of grapes."
Duncan looked around the campfire circle. All the Little People crouched there were bobbing their heads in agreement with Snoopy.
"I never saw such a bunch of quitters in all my life," said Conrad scornfully. "Hell, you're ready to give up without even trying. Why don't you all take off? We'll get along without you."
He turned and walked out into the darkness.
"You must excuse my friend," Duncan told those huddled at the fire. "He is not one to accept defeat with any grace."
Just beyond the fire a figure moved furtively out of the trees, stood there for a moment, then scuttled back again. Duncan hurried in his direction and stopped at the edge of the grove from which the figure had emerged.
He called softly, "Andrew, where are you? What is wrong with you?"
"What do you want with me?" asked Andrew in a pettish voice.
"I want to talk with you. You've been acting like a spoiled child. We have to get to the bottom of it."
Duncan walked a few steps into the grove. Andrew moved out from behind a tree. Duncan came up to him, stood facing him.
"Out with it," he said. "What is chewing on you?"
"You know what's chewing on me."
"Yes, I think I may. Let us talk about it."
The firelight did not reach the spot where they stood, and all that Duncan could see of the hermit was the white blob of his face, but in the faintness of the light he could read no expression.
"You remember that night we talked in my cell," said Andrew. "I told you how I had tried hard to be a hermit. About how I tried to read the early fathers of the Church. About how for hours on end I sat staring at a candle flame, and how none of it seemed to be of any use at all. I think I told you I was a failure as a hermit, that my early hope to be at least a slightly holy man had come to nothing. I probably told you that I was poor timber for a hermit, that I was not cut out to be a holy man. I am sure I told you all of this and perhaps a great deal more. For I was sore of heart and had been for some time. It is no easy matter for a man to spend the greater part of his life at his profession and in the end to know that he has failed, that all his time and effort have gone for naught, that all his hopes and dreams have vanished with the wind."
"Yes, I remember some of it," said Duncan. "I think, in telling it now, you have embellished it a bit. I think that having felt yourself a failure as a hermit, you then jumped at the slightest chance to become a soldier of the Lord. And if that is what you really are, although I'm not too sure of the proper definition, you have done rather well at it. You have no occasion to be out here now sulking in the brambles."
"But you do not understand."
"Please enlighten me," said Duncan dryly.
"Don't you see that all the staring at the candles paid off in the end? The candle business, and perhaps some of the other things I did. Perhaps the fact that I willingly took the road as a soldier of the Lord. I'm not sure that I am a holy man—I would not be so brash as to claim I am. It might be sacrilegious to even hint I am. But I do have powers I did not have before, powers that I had no suspicion that I had. My staff…"
"So that is it," said Duncan. "Your staff broke the demon's chain. Broke it after a full blow of my sword did nothing but strike a shower of sparks from it."
"You know, if you'll but admit it," Andrew said, "that the staff itself could not have fazed the chain. You know that the answer must be either that the staff itself suddenly has acquired a magic, or that the man who wielded it…"
"Yes, I do agree," said Duncan. "You must have certain holy powers for the staff to accomplish what it did. But, for God's sake, man, you should be glad you have."
"But don't you see?" wailed Andrew. "Don't you truly see my predicament?"
"I'm afraid this entire thing escapes me."
"The first manifestation of my power resulted in the freeing of a demon. Can't you understand how that tears me up inside? That I, a holy man, if a holy man I am, should use this power, for the first time, mind you, to free a mortal enemy of Holy Mother Church?"
"I don't know about that," said Duncan. "Scratch does not appear to be a bad sort. A demon, sure, but a most unsuccessful demon, unable to perform even the simple tasks of an apprentice imp. Because of that he ran away from Hell. And to demonstrate how little he was missed, what a poor stick of a demon he had turned out to be, the Devil and his minions did not turn a hand to haul him back to his tasks in Hell."
"You have tried to put a good face on it, my lord," said Andrew, "and I thank you for your consideration. You're an uncommon kindly man. But the fact remains that a black mark has been inscribed against me."
"There are no black marks," said Duncan with some irritation. "This is about as silly an idea as I have ever heard. There's no one sitting somewhere, inscribing black marks against you or anyone else."
"Upon my soul," said Andrew, "there is such a mark. No one else may know, but I know. There is no way for me to wipe it out. There is no eraser that will obliterate it. I'll carry it to my death and, mayhaps, beyond my death."
"Tell me one thing," said Duncan. "It has puzzled me. Why, seeing that the sword had failed, did you wield the staff? Did you have some sort of premonition, some sort of inner light…"
"No, I did not," said Andrew. "I was carried away, is all. Somehow or other, I don't know why, I wanted to get into the act. You and Conrad were doing what you could and I felt, I suppose, although at the time I was not aware of it, that I should do what I could."
"You mean that when you dealt such a mighty blow with that staff of yours that you were trying to help the demon?"