With one last bellow of sound, Galerinos cried out, “Begone!” and swung his staff down to point straight at them. All of the ill-luck of the curse sprang out at them—and a good deal more. With a hiss and crackle like lightning from a clear sky, blue fire leaped from the staff in a long sizzling bolt and struck among the enemies. They screamed, began to back away, screamed again as a further shower of blue flames burst out of the staff and struck. One man fell backward, writhing and foaming at the mouth. Two others grabbed him, but he continued to twitch and foam. All at once the enemy band broke. They ran this way and that for a brief moment, hysterical and leaderless, then turned and began to race downhill, howling as they ran. A last bolt of blue fire followed them.

Galerinos stood staring, his mouth half-open, his expression stunned.

“What did you do?” Rhodorix grabbed him by the shoulders. “How did you do that?”

“I don’t know.”

“What—you have to know!”

“The curse never worked like that before! Back in the homeland, I mean.” Galerinos paused to gasp for breath. “You heard me. I asked the god to send ill-luck down upon them, and from the look of things, I’d say he did.”

Laughter sounded behind them, an odd laugh, more like the plucking of a cithara’s strings than a sound made by a throat. Rhodorix spun around. The strangest man he’d ever seen stood leaning against a tree trunk and smiling at them. A slender fellow, he had yellow hair as bright as the paint on a Rhwmani standard, and his lips were a paint pot red as well, while his eyes gleamed sky blue. His ears, however, were the strangest feature of all, long and furled like lily buds.

“I doubt if your god had anything to do with those bolts of fire,” the fellow said. “You know sorcery, don’t you?”

“What?” Gallo gaped at him like a dolt. “But that’s unclean!”

“Sorcery such as my friend Caswallinos studies is not unclean.” He pried himself off the tree trunk and walked over. “My name, by the by, is Evandar.”

Rhodorix dropped to his knees. “Forgive my brother, Mighty One,” he said. “He can’t kneel before you. He’s badly hurt.”

“So I see,” Evandar said to him, then turned back to Galerinos. “Your master, in fact, that very same Caswallinos, asked if I might find you for him. Come walk with me.”