“Well, Inky?”
“It gets a bit tricky hereabouts,” said Inky, flashing his snaggle teeth. “There’s risslaca in some of these stretches of open water. Real nasty ’uns.”
The risslacas come in a fantastic variety of sizes and shapes, and only some are akin to Earthly dinosaurs. I could see the wriggle of a leepitix as it chased a fish in a pool to our left. Oily mist swirled down on the other side, and a vast and creaking giant of an un-named tree hung over the squelchy trail. I cocked an eye at Inky.
“Do you wish me to lead?”
He had no time to answer before Korero — and Targon and Naghan and Dorgo and Magin — were up and pushing to get to the point position. I let the corner of my mouth twitch.
“Go on, Inky. You will have spears to protect you.”
“Spears!” He spat — most accurately, overwhelming a dragonfly. “If’n you get a real big ’un — don’t git in my way when I runs!”
“I won’t,” I promised him. An engaging rascal, Inky the Chops, in the style of Kregen rascals I have known.
We pushed on for a space in this fashion, my men taking it in turns for the dubious honor of leading out. I made good and sure I was up near the head of the column. The beasts did not like it at all, and were growing increasingly restive. What happened, when it did, at last, happen, reflected scant credit on any of us. The labyrinth of boggy pathways and precarious footholds along the compacted dirt gathered between tree roots, mazed in its complexity. Inky seemed to know where he was going. We reached an open space that bore the marks of solid land. Trees bowered it in that green and orange dangling slime, and mist coiled, and no birds sang.
But the risslacas were waiting.
Equally at home on land or in water, they charged us with clawed and webbed feet expanded to give them perfect support on the treacherous boggy surface. Squamous hides gleamed in orange and green, camouflage colors, and bright and glittering eyes measured us for size. Talons raked. In an instant we were battling desperately with spear and sword against talon and fang. The noise spurted. Ichor smoked as sword strokes opened up reptilian innards. We were fortunate in only one thing; they had attacked head on instead of lying in wait.
With the drexer slicing away and the zorca a live coal between my knees I was forced to pirouette away, and felt the beast sliding dangerously, hock-deep, into slime. With a convulsive heave he was up and out of the muck. On a semblance of dry ground he gathered himself. Lol Polisto had stayed near me throughout this nightmare journey. His zorca collided with mine. Both animals squealed their fears. As though impelled by the same evil spirit they took to their heels. Heads down, spiral horns thrusting, they bolted.
No effort of sawing on the reins would halt my zorca. He went baldheaded up the trail, brushing past Inky, and I got in a good thwack at a reptilian head, all scales and eyes and fangs, as we racketed past. Lol led. We were both carried on and away and into the shrouding mists and we left the sounds of that desperate combat far in our rear.
As I say, little credit to any of us — and least of all to me.
By the time we had the zorcas under control once more we were well and truly lost.
“Well,” said Lol. “I am not giving up.”
“Nor me. There is a — girl — who was at Trakon’s Pillars. She may have left there by now; but I hope to find someone who saw her, who perhaps knows where she has gone.”
“And I will fetch my Thelda and the child out of that filthy den.”
“Then let us go forward. This lead looks promising.”
We led our mounts for a space, quieting them down, and walked with careful feet along the shuddery trail between quagmires. We walked with naked steel in our fists, and, because I was now afoot, considered it more fitting to unlimber the Krozair longsword. Lol stared.
“I know I am in the best of company with Jak the Drang,” he said. His own clanxer glimmered. “Men have heard of the deeds of Jak the Drang.”
“And you?”
“I was tending my estate of Sygurd when the Troubles began. I had no truck with politics. But in evil times a man must turn his hand when he can. And then I was able to help my Thelda, and we married and we carried on the fight as guerillas. At times, I think, you could almost call us drikingers.”
“I have used bandits, Lol. Properly motivated they are just people — it is those who seek only self-gratification who pose the problems.”
“Aye. We have been fighting Layco Jhansi’s men for a long time now, and never seem to gain an advantage.”
“And the Kov of Falinur? How stands your allegiance?”
“He is dead-” Lol started to say and then he swung about sharply and the clanxer flashed and a tendrilous mass of fleshy pseudopods writhed onto the trail. In the next instant we were fighting together, shoulder to shoulder, almost, to clear the path as bulbous growths, half-flesh, half-plant, descended on us from the dank recesses of the overhanging trees. I say almost shoulder to shoulder. I like to stand with a free space so as to get a good swing with the longsword. So, together, as comrades in arms, we fought, and cleared a passage through for ourselves and our zorcas.
When at last we burst free, Lol drew the back of his hand across his brow, and ichor dripped from the blade of the sword.
“That weapon, Jak the Drang, is incredible.”
“It has been called an old bar of iron.”
“Would we had a thousand such to face Jhansi and his lurfings.”
“We shall deal with Jhansi, if the Racters have not done so first, in due time. What d’you know of this fellow Zankov?”
“Only that he is a devil. He seeks an alliance with Jhansi. There is some foeman they both fear — apart, that is, majister, from you.”
“Aye, me. They mock me, I know.” I told him about Yantong and his crazy schemes. “If Zankov has fallen out with his Hyr Notor, he is in parlous case and must seek fresh allies.”
“They could form a powerful combine across the center of Vallia. If-”
“You said, Lol, you were not a political.”
“I said, if you will pardon me, majister, that a man must turn his hand to the business of the moment in evil days.”
“And so you did, Lol, so you did. And what is that, striking a hard corner through the mist?”
On the instant we halted and remained perfectly still and silent.
Strands of spiderweb drifted from tree to tree, intertwined bundles of gold-glinting threads like gilded thistledown floating on the breath of the breeze, and at the center of each small aerial maze the darkly red body of the spider, crouched and ready, feeling the currents of the air upon his senses and the trapped thrashings of insects on his hairs. Beyond the drifting spider-silk puffballs and the down-drooped trees, beyond the last curl of orange and green mist, the hard outline of a blockhouse thrust a manmade objection into the running deliquescence of the marsh.
“The first outpost,” breathed Lol. I barely heard him. “Now may Opaz be praised.”
“Amen to that. D’you know the best place to hit ’em?”
“No. But I guess we should circle around-”
“They’ll be wary of that trick, I’d guess. Mantraps, stavrers, spikes. Let’s just stroll up to the front door and knock. What say you, Lol?”
His features brightened and took on a fierce look of joy. He moved his sword, freely, liberated from worry over trivialities. “By Vox, majister! I am with you!”
So, as calm as you please, we strolled up to the front door of the blockhouse, leading our zorcas. Yes, we were an impudent pair, or a foolhardy pair; but we did it.
A Rapa stepped out, a dwa-Deldar, big and vulture-like in his leather and bronze harness. His sword pointed at us.
“Llanitch!” he shouted when we were within a dozen paces. “Llanitch!” Which is by way of being an intemperate order to halt.