Once the brooding watchfulness of the forest embraced them they spoke as little as possible. Only Althak ignored the silence. Several times he lifted their spirits with the song of the foolish farmer he had sung the day they had found Azkun. Menish was grateful for it. It was one of the many times he wondered what he would do without Althak.
As they travelled Azkun noticed things in the trees. Colourful coils of moving rope twined in and out of some of the branches. They reminded him of dragons, but he could not say why. He was given a better opportunity to inspect one of them when Grath’s horse, which was leading, suddenly shied. Grath swore and his horse backed into Menish’s as he brought it under control.
“What is it?”
“Damn snake.”
Grath threw his reins to Menish and dismounted, drawing his sword.
“Wait!” Azkun leapt down from his horse and ran forward. There it was, a red and gold coil lying on the road, sliding over and over itself. A tiny head with two gleaming eyes and a flickering tongue rose from the coil and hissed at them. It had no wings and no legs and the colours, though bright, were wrong, but it was like a tiny dragon. Perhaps it was a young dragon. He did not know if dragons had young or not.
He stretched out his hand towards it.
“No!” Grath shouted, pulling him back and bringing down his sword in a swift movement that sliced the coils into twitching, bleeding segments. Azkun felt nothing as the creature died. It was like the fish Althak had caught at the lake, there was no darkness for him.
“I'm sorry, Azkun. That's a snake, a viper. They bite and their bite is deadly. We have this kind on the other side of the mountains, although not as many as I've seen here. That's why the horse shied. He knows.”
“I thought it was a small dragon,” said Azkun in a quiet voice.
“It wasn't,” said Menish behind him, laying a hand on his shoulder.
“No, no it was not. I felt nothing when it died. I think I would have, surely, if a dragon had died. Is it some mockery of the dragons?”
“Perhaps. It's just an animal.”
They travelled on more warily after that. Grath kept a close eye on the road in front of them and his hand on his sword hilt.
Although the days were evil the nights were a torment. They could not leave the road so they camped on it where they stopped. Firewood was not difficult to gather from the trees that overhung the road, but their fires filled the night with furtive rustlings and thousands of eyes. They set watches at night, something they had not felt the need of before, and hoped that the tales of marsh monsters were false.
For the most part the road was in excellent condition. Moss grew on the great flagstones, of course, and branches from the overhanging trees lay across it at times. But there were no serious obstacles.
On the third day into Gashan, however, a large tree had collapsed across the causeway. It was breast high and tufted with epiphytes and moss. On one side of the causeway it was a thick trunk, on the other side it split into narrower branches.
“Careful,” said Grath, pointing at a red and gold stripe sliding into a gap in the branches.
Grath carried a small axe for cutting firewood and he began to use it on the smaller branches. It was hard work and Althak took a turn when Grath started cursing at the slow progress. Hrangil lit a fire and passed around some of the dried meat they carried.
Between them Grath and Althak hacked through several limbs and pushed them off into the swamp where they sank slowly, releasing more of the foul smell.
They were working on the fifth limb, the thickest one and they had left it until last when it happened.
Grath had just handed Althak the axe and stepped back from the tree, his back to the edge of the causeway when the mire erupted behind him. A strange mass of weeds and dripping slime with a gaping mouth and two great tusks reared above them.
The horses, left unhobbled for there seemed nowhere for them to go, screamed in fright and ran. Something long and jointed, like a great finger wrapped itself around Grath even as he tried to draw his sword. Azkun felt a tug at his boot, toppling him to the ground. One finger was around his leg, another was reaching for his arm as he tried to push it off.
“Get off him!” shouted Hrangil as he drew his sword and hacked at the things. Azkun felt stabs of pain as they were sliced through and left twitching on the causeway. But he felt Grath's terror more. More and more fingers had coiled around the struggling Grath and lifted him into the air while Hrangil stood over Azkun hacking and slashing as more fingers came at both of them.
It had all happened so quickly that only now did Menish and Althak have time to draw swords and rush to Grath's aid. Althak, with the longest reach, chopped at the fingers that held Grath while Menish used his sword like a scythe to cut away the fingers reaching for Althak.
Azkun fumbled for the sword they had given him and began to help Hrangil hack at more and more fingers that slid over the causeway edge. And every time he cut one it was like cutting off his own finger.
Grath gave a final anguished cry and, in spite of Althak's efforts, vanished into the gaping hole that was the creature's mouth. Darkness engulfed Azkun for a moment as he felt Grath's body crushed.
Sometime in their struggle he felt a stab of pain in his side that made him double over. He did not dare look at himself but carried on slashing, clutching a wetness where he still felt agony.
It seemed like hours, but the thing gave up eventually and retreated back into the mire. It sank under the mud, gurgling and howling and making sounds that made them think of a man in torment. Grath.
Azkun had felt Grath's death. This was only the creature itself. But still Azkun felt torment. He looked at the place where he felt pain, expecting to see blood, but there was none. Beside him Menish and Althak stood over Hrangil who lay on the causeway amid the remains of the fingers. One of them twitched by the old man's head and Althak flung it away in disgust. Hrangil's tunic was crimson with blood. A small but ugly wound in his side ran redly onto the causeway stones.
Menish looked at Azkun, his face grey. He caught his hand with both his own. They felt cold and clammy. The King’s lips moved soundlessly as if he could not speak the words he wanted to.
“Azkun, he's dying. One of the tusks, it pierced him. Save him.”
Azkun knelt beside Hrangil, his knees sinking into the mud. Hrangil’s pain was his own. He could feel it in his own side. Blood pouring away. He placed his hand over the wound.
“I can do nothing. It is the dragons.”
Hrangil moaned.
“I don't care about your dragons! You healed a man in Atonir. Hrangil just saved your life. Do something!”
Hrangil’s torment writhed in Azkun’s guts. The blood still ran. There was only torment. He could not shut it out. He tried. He held the wound closed tightly, but blood seeped between his fingers. He called on the dragons, he willed Hrangil to live. But the pain was still there, and the blood still ran. It was like a lake around them now.
As he knelt beside him Hrangil opened his eyes and looked at him. His lips moved through teeth clenched against pain. He spoke so quietly that Azkun did not know if the others could hear.
“This is my death, I know it. I go to Aton knowing I have tried to serve him well. I'm ready but for one thing.” He winced with the effort of speech and Azkun felt his pain. “You've never told me, but I have believed. I would dearly love to hear it from your own lips. You are really Gilish, aren't you?”
Azkun had nothing else to give him. No healing, although Hrangil had saved him.
“Yes, yes. I am Gilish.”
Hrangil let out a sigh and let go of his consciousness.
He did not die quickly, but he did not reawaken. Azkun was withered with agony and darkness and his own lie when Menish and Althak laid Hrangil at last on a pile of wood they had made on the causeway and lit it. Menish spoke the words of sending and praised Hrangil’s valour and faith. Althak also spoke of him, for he had known him most of his life. Althak wept as he spoke and Azkun was surprised, for he had thought the Vorthenki did not like Hrangil much. They turned expectantly to Azkun. At first he shook his head. What could he say of the man who had died because he could not save him? But because they wanted him to he thanked the shade of Hrangil for his own life and wished him peace. Then he lay down on the road and wept.