se, but would use if he were forced to it. He kept his
hand mercilessly flat against the rock as a reminder and a spur.

Fire twisted and crackled among the driftwood where the first torch had
lodged, providing a flickering light yards from where he stood. He was
grateful for it in the gloom of the gathering storm. If they would only
come to open war before the rain struck....

Ross sheltered his torch with his body as spray, driven inward from the
sea, spattered his shoulders and his back. If it rained, he would lose
what small advantage the fire gave him, but then he would find some
other way to meet them. They would neither break him nor take him, even
if he had to wade into the sea and swim out into the lash of the cold
northern waves until he could not move his tired limbs any longer.

Once again that steel-edge will struck at Ross, probing his
stubbornness, assaulting his mind. He whirled the torch, brought the
scorching breath of the flame across the hand resting on the rock.
Unable to control his own cry of protest, he was not sure he had the
fortitude to repeat such an act.

He had won again! The pressure had fallen away in a flick, almost as if
some current had been snapped off. Through the red curtain of his
torment Ross sensed a surprise and disbelief. He was unaware that in
this queer duel he was using both a power of will and a depth of
perception he had never known he possessed. Because of his daring, he
had shaken his opponents as no physical attack could have affected them.

"Come and get me!" He shouted again at the barren shoreline where the
fire ate at the drift and nothing stirred, yet something very much alive
and conscious lay hidden. This time there was more than simple challenge
in Ross's demand--there was a note of triumph.

The spray whipped by him, striking at his fire, at the brand he held.
Let the sea water put both out! He would find another way of fighting.
He was certain of that, and he sensed that those out there knew it too
and were troubled.

The fire was being driven by the wind along the crisscross lines of
bone-white wood left high on the beach, forming a wall of flame between
him and the interior, not, however, an insurmountable barrier to
whatever lurked there.

Again Ross leaned against the rock, studying the length of beach. Had he
been wrong in thinking that they were within the range of his voice? The
power they had used might carry over a greater distance.

"Yahhhh