THE SORTIE The door was open, and the next I mind was my axe whirling about my head and Jorian rushing out of the other door a step ahead of me, with his broadsword in his hand.

I cannot tell much about the fight.

I never could all my days.

And I wot well that those who can relate such long particulars of tales of fighting are the folk who stood at a distance and labored manfully at the looking on--not of them that were close in and felt the hot breaths and saw the death-gleam in fierce, desperate eyes, near to their own as the eyes of lovers when they embrace.

Ah, Brothers of the Sword, these things cannot be told! Yet, of a surety, there is a heady delight in the fray itself.