Warlock

made the murders worse. Now a man not only needed to fear death himself, but he must live in terror of spending a night locked in the cold arms of gashed and lifeless comrades, their blank white and sightless faces staring at him when he woke in the morning…
        
        And though it seemed like the ploy of a madman, Mace could see that it was not. The psychological weapon the assassins had devised here was more effective than the imminent scythe could ever be. For the first time, the men talked openly and unabashedly about returning to the Darklands and abandoning this quest. For the first time, mutual distrust of comrade for comrade was out in the open, manifested in a hundred little signs of fear and hostility. If they did not return but continued on under these circumstances, there would be a mutiny or a bloody siege of in-fighting in the manner of witch hunting.
        
        But the killers-one of them, anyway-had made a mistake, had left a clue. If they were clever enough and quick enough, they might cut the opposition's numbers in half, at least.
        
        “Zito,” Commander Richter said, “you will hold a drawn arrow in the notch of my bow, and you will stand eight paces from this spot.” He marked an X in the snow. “Mace will be standing behind each man we bring in, five steps behind the X. The moment one of our suspects turns vicious and tries anything, you will attempt to skewer him with an arrow in some spot that is not deadly. If you should miss-hardly a possibility at such a range-Mace will subdue the killer by whatever means he decides best.”
        
        “Bu' wa' is it tha' we look fo', commanda?” Zito asked. He looked quite capable, standing there, holding the weapon as if it had been in his hands from the moment he was born.
        
        Richter held up a curled ornament of metal no larger than the nail of his little finger. “This is from the hilt flange of an enlisted man's dagger. There is one to either side of the blade. Mace here discovered this embedded in the wound of one of Blodivar's mates. Apparently, it snapped off when the assassin drove the blade into the man's throat, and hopefully its absence has not been noted by the guilty' party.”
        
        “Ah. An' tha' is why ya' wanted ta' look at ma' knife!”
        
        “And you're safe, Zito. I am sorry if my suspicious mind insulted your heritage.”
        
        “Na", na'! Ya' must be sure! Ya' ha' na' choice about it!”
        
        Richter slapped the dark gypsy's back, then nodded to Gregor who walked to the slit in the canvas, pulled it open, and called the first of the men in from the other side: Sergeant Crowler.
        
        “May I see your dagger?” Richter asked, holding out his hand for the surrender of the weapon.
        
        “What for?” Crowler asked. He looked carefully around from man to man, licking his lips and steeling himself for something.
        
        Mace stepped closer in behind him.
        
        Zito Tanisha raised the bow and held it level with the burly sergeant's chest
        
        “I am ordering you to surrender it,” Richter said.
        
        “What does he have that bow on me for?” Crowler asked, nodding to Zito. “What is all this? You know I been a loyal man of yours for ten years now, and-”
        
        “Zito,” Richeter said, “if he does not surrender his dagger to me in the next ten seconds, put an arrow in him.”
        
        Crowler blanched, drew his knife and placed it in Richter's open palm.
        
        The commander examined it briskly and returned it to the squat non-com. “I'm sorry, Crowler. But we have a clue to the killer, and we aren't trusting anyone. And you were acting mighty suspicious there.”
        
        Crowler sheathed the dagger. “Only because I thought maybe you-maybe all of you were the killers!”
        
        “Call the next man,” Richter said.
        
        Gregor did the commander's bidding again and again, ushering one potential killer after another through the slit in the canvas where the ritual of the knife examination was repeated.
        
        His name was Cartier, and he had been the last man on that seven-man team which had met with disaster on the first day of their climb. The commander had said that only a madman would have tried to kill the six men above him on a climbing situation like that. Cartier was not a