Chapter NineGarth awoke to find himself lying in the middle of a narrow alleyway; to one side was an old ruin, to the other side a burning building. Directly before him the Sword of Bheleu lay in the dirt, the gem in its pommel dark.
It was night; his only light came from the fire. Stiff and sore, he clambered to his feet and looked about.
He recognized the burning building; it was the house where he had found and killed that old man. He vaguely remembered the actual killing; he had spent a long time at it. There was blood on his hands, he noticed, but he could not be sure that it came from the old man; he had killed several people. It might even have come from a wound of his own, though he hadn’t noticed any.
He tried to remember what he had done after the man in red had finally died,
