The great sword blazed between those dead, frozen hands....
The ice-folk had slowed their forward rush. They stopped and waited, well back from the cairn.
Stark reached the edge of tumbled rock. He felt the first warm flare of the force-waves in his blood, and slowly the chill began to creep out from his bones. He climbed, scrambling upward over the rough stones of the cairn.
Abruptly, then, at Ban Cruach's feet, he slipped and fell. For a second it seemed that he could not move.
His back was turned toward the ice-folk. His body was bent forward, and shielded so, his hands worked with feverish speed.
From his cloak he tore a strip of cloth. From the iron boss he took the glittering lens, the talisman of Ban Cruach. Stark laid the lens against his brow, and bound it on.
The remembered
