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SHE RODE IN A DAZE ofand folstza who pressed closely around Talat’s legs and looked anxiously up into her face; and she stopped, nuone on till she dropped in her tracks, were she on foot; but she was not, and so at nightfall she stopped, and stripped her horse, and rubbed him doith a dry cloth Talat was a little sore; that sudden gallop to begin a long day had done his weak leg no good, and so she unwrapped soed it in vigorously, and even srimaces of pleasure Talatup again almost at once, and paced back and forth She was dizzy with exhaustion and stupid with unhappiness, and she was riding to the gods knehat at the City; and as she remembered that, she remembered also flashes of what she had seen, deep in the Lake of Dreaain, and the tears ran down her face, and, standing before the campfire, she bowed her face in her hands and sobbed

This would not do She had the Crown, and she carried an enchanted sword; she was co home a warrior victorious - and a first sol worthy of respect She felt like dead leaves, dry and brown and brittle, although leaves were probably not miserable; they were just quietly buried by snow and burned by sun and harried by rain till they peacefully disintegrated into the earthShe found herself staring at the earth under her feet She had to get soly back to her blanket and found two furry bodies already there The dog queen smiled at her andflattened his ears and half-lidded his eyes Neither paid the least attention to the other

She laughed, a cracked laugh, half a choke "Thank you," she said "Perhaps I shall sleep after all," She pillowed her head on a cat flank, and a dog head lay in the curve between her ribs and pelvis, and a dog tail curled over her feet She slept at once, and heavily; and she woke in thethe queen’s neck with her face buried in her ruff, and the big yerig had a look of great patience and forbearance on her face that no doubt she hen bearing with a new litter of puppies

Aerin also ith a sense of urgency; urgency so great that it broke through the numbness "Soon," she said aloud to Talat, and he cocked his ear at her and grunted only a little at the indignity of having his girth tightened "They need us soon"

He was stiff thisas well, but Aerin paid attention and was careful, and he worked out of it Before the darkness came upon them a second tiht hand; and by the third evening Aerin could see the fault in the top line of the Hills that was the pass to the forested plain before the City, for her way ho Tomorrow, perhaps, they would stand in that pass

Her friends slept with her again that night, but they had a less peaceful ti, and the groans of the wounded, and the fell ghastly sound of the language of the folk of the North She woke often and sweating, her fist clenched and her nerves ju In the last dream she had before dawn she heard Arlbeth’s voice, weary and hopeless: "If only we had the Crown We ht yet"

"If we had had the Crown," another voice, higher pitched: Perlith "If we had had the Croould not be so badly off in the first place"

"At least," said Galanna in a voice so low that Arlbeth would not hear her, "we do not have our little bad-luck token with us Thank the gods for that ods she’s not herenot herethe Crown, please the gods, we need the Crown, it is not here

She woke up Daas just creeping above the mountains’ crests She did not want to be awake yet, for today she would coht of her City, and she was afraid of what she would find; afraid that she cah Afraid that they would not accept the Crown from her hands Afraid that they would read in her face whom she had wrested the Crown from

Afraid that they would read in her face that she kne, that she did not belong to Damar She would love it all her life, and that life was likely to be a long one; and she had a duty to it that she ht fulfill some part of, if she tried as hard as she could

She told herself that she did not think of Luthe

Her army flowed up on her either flank; a sea of furry backs, black and grey and brindled, golden and ruddy; there was no playfulness in the, and their tails were low She had unwrapped the Crown, and at first she carried it before her balanced on the poain, but she wanted it close, where she could touch it and it touch her She slung it at last up over her ar there, till when she reached to touch it with her fingers it was the same temperature as her own skin

As they rode into the e sounds within it, and she se odors It was Talat’s restlessness, at last, that told her as happening; for these were the sounds and smells of battle

They wound their way up the smooth broad track that led between Vasth and Kar to the low forested hills before the City As they reached the top of the pass Talat snorted and shied away, and Aerin clung to the saddle, not believing the glimpse she had had of the scene below them Grimly she kneed Talat around, and reluctantly he obeyed her, but still he tried to sidle sideways, to turn and bolt Even Maur had not been so bad as what lay before theentle hills were flattened, and where there had been the greens and browns and deep blue shadows of leaves and trees there was the grisly heave and thrust of battle The Northerners were there, between her and her City She could see s desperately; but they were outnuht defensively, because their honor de captured alive by the Northerners drove them on; not because they had any hope left And the Northerners knew this

Aerin stared nued scarred landscape, and listened to the terrible cries and the heavy sound of blows, and the fu choked her, and h the forest she had daily seen frohest towers of her father’s castle had never been; it was as if, when Luthe dragged her back to her own time, he had miscalculated and she was some other Aerin on some other world She waited for panic to take her Talat quieted and stood, ears forward, tense, but awaiting her orders; and her are pool behind her that splashed like surf up the rock sides of the pass

"Well," she said aloud, and the cal quite ht" She settled the Crown leae; the blue rippled up, over the hilt and grip, and flowed over Aerin’s hand There was an odd subtle tingle at the touch of the blue shimmer, but it was not unpleasant; Aerin put it down to the twitching of her own nerves

"I hope, my friends, that you will help me now: escort me - there," she said, and pointed with her sword; and fro to the ground, and the cat king paced gravely over to examine the spot where it had fallen