furious. He tried to lunge aside. He yanked at the
whip-sword and it came loose, making him lose his balance. The boar
reached him, screaming.

Never slackening its pace, the boar gored him, and wheeled about,
clods flying, to gore again. Hultax' voice bubbled in his throat. The
boar was on him again, its tusks sharp as razors....

Finally it stood clear, nervously eyeing Bylanus and the stallion.
Then it turned and, slowly, with great dignity, retreated into the
Kranuian Wood, which was its home.

The man, Bylanus saw at a glance, was dead. As an imposter, he had
deserved to die. Bylanus quickly dug a shallow grave with a large,
sharp-edged stone, and rolled the body in. As he did so he noticed
that the bracelet--the bracelet of Portox-saviour, or, more probably,
a copy of that bracelet intended to trick him--had been battered,
punctured, and broken by the boar. Even if it had been the real
bracelet, the amazing steel-silver disc of Portox-saviour, it would
now be useless. Sighing, Bylanus buried it with Hultax' body.

* * * * *

Bylanus mounted his steed and galloped toward the river. He could have
psychokinesthized himself there, but the day was brilliant and clear,
and he was in no great hurry. At last he reached the wreck of the
royal barge of Nadia. He did not pause to examine Jlomec's bier, he
had seen such funerary devices before.

Something in the wreck itself confused him. There was a man. There was
a woman. That fit the ritual--two servants to accompany dead royalty
on its way. This was the custom of the Nadians. But the man....

On the man's crushed arm, the arm completely covered with blood, was a
mark. It was as if something--say, a band of metal--had protected the
arm at one point. For circling the upper arm was a band of skin not
bloody like the rest, wide in the shape of a disc, then narrow all
around.

The bracelet of Portox-saviour! thought Bylanus. Had this dead man
worn it? Had the imposter, now slain by the wild boar, taken it from
him?

_Oh Portox-saviour, Portox-saviour, how long dead? Am I too late, is
it too late for this man, your heir...?_

As gently as he could, the huge Bylanus lifted the two bodies and put
them in his saddle-bags. He faced the Kranuian Wood astride. The
stallion held its head up, alert, ready. They psychokinesthized.

And disappeared in a twinkling with Bram Forest and Ylia, both of whom
were dead.

CHAPTER XVI

_The