Croy stepped closer. Close enough. He brought the shortsword around in a wide arc. The forte of the blade caught the point of the halberd and knocked it away. The captain had no strength in his arms and couldn’t hold his weapon still. Its iron fittings rattled as it shook in his hands. That happened to men in the extremes of fear, Croy knew. Their muscles turned to water.

“Hold that thing properly,” Croy said to him. “There’s no honor in slaying a man who can’t fight back.”

The captain bit his lip and closed his eyes for a moment. “If you kill me, what do you gain? The barrier is still up. Even your fancy sword won’t bring it down.”

“No,” Croy said, “that’s true. But you can lower it with a gesture, can’t you?”

The captain stared.

“Lower the barrier,” Croy said, “and then walk away from here.”

“My lord and master has tasked me to stop you,” the captain said.

“I serve your true lord, the Burgrave. I do the Lady’s work here. In every man’s life a moment comes when he must choose to serve good, or to do evil. What choice will you make? What profit will evil bring you?”

The captain closed his eyes again. It would be effortless to step forward and strike him down, Croy thought. It would be the easiest thing in the world.

The captain raised his hands in the air. He made a complicated gesture with one hand bent in half, the fingers of the others splayed.

The night air on the common fluttered, as if a great flock of birds had all lifted into the air at the same time. The barrier was down. The guard who’d been trapped by it fell to the gravel with a thud and lay still.

“Thank you,” Croy said, turning to look the captain in the eye. But the man was already gone. His halberd lay abandoned on the grass.

Croy breathed deeply. He was badly hurt, and he knew it. But now the barrier was down. His path was clear.

“Hold,” Gurrh said. Croy whirled to face the ogre. It was a bad idea, as it aggravated his wounds. For a moment he could see only blood, and his breath caught in his throat.

“Into that place, goest thou must. But not yet,” Gurrh told him. The ogre had torn the tunic off one of the fallen guards. He ripped it into bandages and stanched Croy’s wounds. “Now, thou art ready.”

Croy grinned. There was less humor in his smile than he would have liked, but at least it didn’t hurt to move his mouth. “Thank you, Gurrh. You know what you must do now, don’t you?”

“I do,” the ogre said. He walked over to a point about twenty yards before the gate of the villa and sat down once more in the grass, to wait.