“Come with me, Sir James, Sir Brian,” he said. “I’ll take you to King Pellinore.”

“I think it best we come also,” said Dafydd. David looked at Jim.

“Yes,” Jim said. “The people of the Drowned Land have a stake in this, too.”

Blanchard was being his usual difficult self, but that behavior changed when Brian whistled a command to him. Gorp, as was usual for him, merely plodded complacently behind the man leading him-until he, too, spotted his master; at which his head came up and his ears pitched forward. Jim felt ridiculously pleased. The other two horses, the Drowned Land steeds ridden by Dafydd and King David, paced quietly behind their handler like racing horses conserving their energy until the sound of the starting gun should come.

They moved off as a group, accordingly, with the QB leading; although they were unable to proceed at more than a slow walk, due to having to thread their way around and through the small knots of men and horses that were filling up the area. They seemed, Jim thought, to be a large number of men. But with his eye only recently come from seeing the force of their enemy, he was very aware that they did not fill up anything like the area that Cumberland’s men did.

Pellinore could not be far off, Jim thought; so there would be little enough time to talk to the QB about what Brian had told him. He, Brian, and the QB were a little in advance of Daffyd and King David. There was nothing secret in what he had to say, but he lowered his voice anyway.

“Lord QB,” he said, drawing level with the other, “let me tell you what Brian and I discovered, when as dragons, we flew over the enemy lines...”

The QB listened attentively, without, however, slackening his pace, as Jim told him of the two battles, the footmen with the long, thick spears, and the reinforced wings of the battle.

“... Brian’s thought,” Jim wound up, “is that the spearmen are planned to slow down and hold our Knights while they’re still fighting with the enemy horsemen, until the two wings of the enemy can fold around the melee; and then our men of Lyonesse will find themselves fighting not only those foes before them, but others from the wings, attacking from behind.”

“I do not see that as a certainty. As long as they can go forward, none can stop or overthrow our Knights!” said the QB strongly. “Nonetheless, you should tell him of it, Sir James. You and Sir Brian, both, once he has a moment to speak to you-for he is busy arranging the order of battle of the Originals.”

“Messires!” said the QB, in a suddenly astonishingly authoritative voice. “May I pray you of your courtesy to stand aside and let me, with these gentlemen, through?”

“The QB!” said a sudden scattering of voices, most of them in a tone, Jim thought, of surprise-as if instead of simply coming on them unexpectedly, the QB and they with him had abruptly materialized out of thin air.

The armed men backed off to right and left.

“Great thanks for your kindness, Messires,” said the QB; and Jim, with the others, followed him through the open lane toward Pellinore and the last small circle of a few men that surrounded him.

When they reached that last inner handful of knights, however, the QB stopped abruptly. Jim, just behind him, almost bumped into him before he could stop Gorp-and was in turn bumped by young King David.

“I crave the grace of your pardon, Sir James,” said David’s voice.

They waited, Jim fuming a little inside; for now they could hear what those speaking to Pellinore were saying. It was all about small matters of who would ride next to whom; and whether some should not be allowed to gallop ahead of all the rest to attack the enemy line single-handed and so strike fear into the hearts of their foes. Valuable time was evaporating in the direction of the declining sun.

Already, it was visibly lower in the sky-though this did not, he knew, allow a reasonable estimate of the time that would elapse before a Dark, due to the eccentricity of this world’s sun. But the period of lightlessness could not be too long delayed in coming.

“... I think not, Sir Perseant,” Pellinore was answering. “While such actions may be noble in a cause of honor, or in the case of one against many; when all fight together for a greater cause it is best all fight as one. Others have come to me with the same request and I have felt the need to refuse them-my Lord QB, were you and those with you waiting to speak with me?”

“We have been indeed, King Pellinore,” said the QB. “In particular, Sir James and Sir Brian have somewhat of information about the enemy for you.”

“Say you so?” answered Pellinore. “Messires, those of you I have not spoken with yet, may have to go unspoken to. I regret this; but much time has already gone in discussion. I will speak with Sir James and Sir Brian, and meanwhile we will prepare to attack as already decided.”

‘Attack’ thought Jim. Of course, the Knights of Lyonesse would be the ones to attack-Cumberland must have understood this more clearly than had Jim himself. The idea of their footmen attacking at any kind of a run with those huge, cumbersome spears, designed to stop a horse when held with the butt-ends of the spearshafts lodged against firm ground, was ridiculous.

The other Knights melted away, not without some sour looks at Jim and those with him-all except the QB.

“Well, Messires-Sir James?” said Pellinore. There was no note of impatience in his voice, but its tone had deepened; and this new note, as well as his general body language, warned that he had accepted his fill of unimportant advice and requests.

“As you know, King,” Jim said, “Sir Brian and I have the capability of being dragons and flying. It’s something apart from ordinary magic in my case-so I kept my promise of using no magic. But we flew over the enemy lines and discovered some things you might want to know.”

“Yes?”

Jim told him as briefly as possible what they had seen and Brian had deduced.

“... And you might want to change your plan of battle to take those possibilities into account” he wound up.

“I think not,” said Pellinore, with no hesitation. He paused for a moment, as if searching for words. “Sir James, we will fight as we have always fought, in God’s name and with clean hearts; and if we are not men enough to hold what we have, then we deserve to lose it. But I thank you for your attempt to help. And we will need no arrows”-he glanced at Dafydd and David-“and no help from without Lyonesse itself. Now, forgive me, but I must begin to marshal those who ride foremost, for we of Arthur’s time ride before all others.”

With that, he turned and left them.

“Do not feel too badly, Sir James,” said the QB. “It is not an easy task leading Knights who have all known no other leader but Arthur and their consciences.”

“I was going to try to bring in the business of the animals intending to fight for Lyonesse, as well,” said Jim, “but he didn’t give me the chance.”

“I think it would have changed nothing,” said the QB. “He would tell you that the beasts, being of Lyonesse, may do as they please-but that battles were never won by such as they.”

“I wasn’t thinking of their winning the battle so much as throwing the enemy off-balance, so that-“

He broke off. Still standing where Pellinore had left them, now he and his companions found themselves to be just behind the line-the single, thin line-of Originals that was still forming, but now almost complete; and just before the ranks of the Descendants and other fighters of Lyonesse, who were generally still unformed. From those last came a steady hubbub of voices; but from the Knights before them only an occasional murmur. Most of them sat their horses without a sound.

Jim had broken off in mild startlement at a blast of hot air. He made no sound, because his first thought was that what he felt was some sort of natural weather phenomenon. Nor did Brian, Dafydd, or David-but in their case, like that of the Knights, it was probably their training that kept them silent. What had struck them all felt as if the door of an oven had been opened in their faces.

The reaction of the Originals was not surprising, he found himself thinking. The first crusaders into the Holy Land had fought under a blazing tropical sun in a desert landscape, wearing the same heavy clothes and armor they had worn in the winters and summers of the temperate zones from which they came. A knight did not notice temperatures-or anything else unimportant-when fighting was to be done.

But the temperature here and now had suddenly shot up to well over ninety degrees Fahrenheit, carried into their faces by a stiff wind.

“What’s going on?” Jim asked Brian, who fortunately was still close beside him. Brian turned a surprised face to him.

And right in the middle of them was one wearing a woman’s robe, of some fabric that shone like metal, glistening in the sunlight. Her face was too distant for identification; but the way she stood, and her outstretched, commanding arm, would have been recognizable anywhere. Morgan le Fay.

“You! Sir Dragon!”

But that was the voice of another woman-and behind him. A recognizable voice. Returning his eyes to their human form, Jim twisted about in his saddle. Seated on a magnificent roan stallion, only half a dozen feet away, was the Queen of Northgales, with the gigantic knight who had been before her castle, close behind her, like a personal bodyguard.

“Never rains but it pours!” growled Jim-unfortunately, aloud.

“What are you talking about? No rain here-not yet, at any rate. Have you still got the little one with you? Is he all right?”

“Oh, yes, my Queen!” said Hob’s voice; and Jim felt him next to his left ear, emerging from between his mail shirt. Hob’s face suddenly appeared in the left corner of Jim’s eye, smiling at Northgales. “Are you all well, too?”

“Of course! Why shouldn’t I be? Have you some means of getting away if those scum over there”-she nodded toward the far end of the Plain-“overrun everyone here?”

“Oh, I couldn’t desert my Lord, my Queen; no matter what happens!”

“I was afraid of that. Out of my path, Magickian!” She rode forward alone. Jim got out of her way and she snapped at the two Originals before her, who-turning to see her-also reined their horses aside.

She rode out in front of the line of Originals.

“Morgannn!” she called, in a strange drawn-out voice, pitched a good octave and a half below her normal tones. “Still your zephyrs!”

It was almost as if Jim could follow her words, as they soared rather slowly across the Empty Plain at the height of a few feet above its surface. There was a moment before any answer came back. Hastily resuming his dragon-sight, Jim made out Morgan’s pointing arm falling to her side; and he thought he saw a stiffness now in the way she stood.

She was too far away for him to see her lips move; but her voice, similarly low-pitched, came hollowly back, from much too far away to be merely human.

“Northgales!” it cried. “Traitor!”

“It is you who are the Traitor!” retorted Northgales. “Standing against the Lyonesse that is your own land! I tell you, take your zephyrs and begone-or I will drive you and them both off!”

A laugh came back. An unnatural, extended, grating laugh in that low register in which they two were conversing across the empty distance.

“You order me to take my fairy zephyrs and go? I-the Queen of Witch Queens?

Leave yourself and leave fast, or stay and cook with those who stand by you! Feel what it’s like to get some heat in you, for once!”

“I no longer need heat, from anyone!” There was a snarl in Northgales’s answer. “And by Dark and Light and the Nothing in-between, I-and I alone-am Queen of the North Gales!” She threw her head back, staring at the white sky, and her voice rose. “MY CHILDREN-HEAR ME!”

She flung out both arms straight before her; and her voice lifted to a trumpet force.

“-TAKE THEM, MY CHILDREN!”

... And from somewhere high over the heads of those with Jim and behind them, but invisible in the cloudless white sky-echoing over all the Empty Plain, came a distant sound, like that of some ancient steam locomotive approaching fast. The sound of its coming rose in pitch and volume as it came closer and lower, until it roared at no more than treetop height above their heads. It shot forward, diving still farther downward, to no more than a dozen feet over the heads of the Lyonesse force.

It was a sound only no longer; but a tearing wind-a gale still gaining speed and power-that flattened the black grass ahead of the Knights to the black earth hidden below it, picking up speed and power and filling the air before it with raindrops the size of buckshot; moving horizontally, becoming white sleet that herded the heat before it, back and back into the faces of those at the far end of the Plain.

For some uncounted time that may have been either short or long, even Jim’s dragon-sight could see nothing but a bar of whiteness at the far end of the Empty Plain. Then, slowly, it cleared.

The shimmering figure of Morgan was gone. But as they had been lined up behind her before the whiteness came, nearly all of the front line of Cumberland’s strength still sat their horses. Some of the horses had fallen, and some of their riders were even now pulling themselves free of the fallen weight upon them. But the rest had not changed, except that now the white sun, very low in the sky, backlit the surfaces of their shining armor, showing up where some of the whiteness still clung to it.

Essentially, their line was unbroken. Those unmoved still sat their horses, shields on arms and lances still upright in boots by the riders’ knees. As Jim watched, one white-frosted steel-clad figure toppled, slowly, sideways from its saddle as a statue might fall, in one piece; and lay on the ground at his horse’s feet, still in a sitting position. The horsemen on either side pulled slightly ahead of him and moved their steeds together to close the gap.

Brian beat a gloved fist on the pommel of his saddle, his bony face shining.

“ ‘Fore God!” he said. “Whatever their sins, those yonder are men worth fighting!