The slash-and-run tactics of the clans of the Algars left heaps of sabred dead in their wake as they darted in and out of the milling confusion of terrified Murgos. King Cho-Hag himself led several charges, and his skill with the sabre, which was legendary in Algaria, filled his followers with an awed pride as they watched his whiplike blows raining down on Murgo heads and shoulders. The whole thrust of Algar strategy was based on speed - a sudden dash on a fast horse and a series of lightninglike sabre slashes, and then out before the enemy could gather his wits. King Cho-Hag's sabre arm was the fastest in Algaria.

"My King!" one of his men shouted, pointing toward the center of several close-packed Murgo regiments milling about in a shallow valley a few hundred yards away. "There's the black banner!"

King Cho-Hag's eyes suddenly gleamed as a wild hope surged through him. "Bring my banner to the front!" he roared, and the clansman who carried the burgundy-and-white banner of the Chief of the Clan-Chiefs galloped forward with the standard streaming above his head. "Let's go, my children!" Cho-Hag shouted and drove his horse directly at the Murgos in the valley. With sabre raised, the crippled King of the Algars led his men down into the Murgo horde. His warriors slashed to the right and to the left, but Cho-Hag plunged directly at the center, his eyes feed on the black banner of Taur Urgas, King of the Murgos.

And then, in the midst of the household guard, Cho-Hag saw the blood-red mail of Taur Urgas himself. Cho-Hag raised his bloody sabre and shouted a ringing challenge.

"Stand and fight, you Murgo dog!" he roared.

Startled by that shout, Taur Urgas wheeled his horse to stare incredulously at the charging King of Algaria. His eyes suddenly bulged with the fervid light of insanity, and his lips, foam-flacked, drew back in a snarl of hatred. "Let him come!" he grated. "Clear the way for himl"

The startled members of his personal guard stared at him.

"Make way for the King of Algaria!" Taur Urgas shrieked. "He is mine!"

And the Murgo troops melted out of Cho-Hag's path.

The Algar King reined in his horse. "And so it's finally come, Taur Urgas," he said coldly.

"It has indeed, Cho-Hag," Taur Urgas replied. "I've waited for this moment for years."

"If I'd known you were waiting, I'd have come sooner."

"Today is your last day, Cho-Hag." The Murgo King's eyes were completely mad now, and foam drooled from the corners of his mouth.

"Do you plan to fight with threats and hollow words, Taur Urgas? Or have you forgotten how to draw your sword?"

With an insane shriek, Taur Urgas ripped his broad-bladed sword from its scabbard and drove his black horse toward the Algar King.

"Die!" he howled, slashing at the air even as he charged. "Die, ChoHag!"