Other Gashans picked up the still convulsing woman and flung her on a stone block. There they hacked off her head and caught her blood in a wide copper bowl. Her body was pulled off the block and flung onto a pile of other bodies that lay beyond it. This grisly scene had been going on for some time.
They carried the bowl to another stone block and poured the blood over it.
Menish could see something on this stone but he did not know what it was at first. It looked like a head. When the crimson liquid poured over it a shout went up from the Gashans and the thing on the stone glowed with a light as green as venom. In the midst of the glow Menish saw an eye. This was what they had come to find. This was what the Gashans had done to the Eye of Duzral, or perhaps this was what the Eye had done to them. Perhaps this was why the Sons of Gilish had always kept it hidden.
There was no way he could be mistaken. He had seen the thing once before, he had seen that eye peering out from the Emperor's clasped hands. The last time it had not been as malevolent, but it was the same eye.
A ragged sigh from Azkun at his side caught his attention. He was looking with bulging eyes at the woman with the snakes. He was rubbing his arms, twitching them and wincing with pain as the snakes struck her. His jaw worked silently and expressions of malice crossed his face. Menish remembered what he had said about the Gashan on the causeway.
“Azkun,” he shook him.
Azkun’s eyes seemed to refocus on him for a moment, then the woman with the snakes collapsed as her predecessor had done. The attendants carried her to the stone block and another took her place. Once again Azkun was submerged in their evil. Before Menish could stop him he began shouting, echoing the words of the woman on the steps, though they were meaningless to Menish. He twisted himself away from Menish’s grasp and clambered to the top of the pile of rubble.
“No!” he screamed, a long, gut-wrenching cry that tore at his throat and sounded loud and clear even over the noise of the drums.
Time stopped for an instant while Menish reacted. The Gashans turned to see where the cry had come from. They would be on them in a moment. There was no way to reach the Duzral Eye, and in its present condition Menish was loath to touch it anyway. He grabbed Azkun’s arm and ran for the nearest exit from the great square, with Althak panting behind him.
As they crossed an open space a howl like that of a hunting pack went up behind them. Althak’s pace was unsteady, but he kept up with them. Azkun was running on his own now, Menish no longer had to pull him along. Even so Menish would not have given much for their chances of escape.
They threw themselves into a narrow alleyway and raced down it. Menish ran blindly from alley to alley, hoping against hope that he could somehow lose the Gashans. Once, when he hesitated at a fork in their path, Azkun said, “Not that way, they are down there.” He took the other path, though he never knew if Azkun was right.
Althak moaned with the effort of their running. His arm looked much worse, the swelling was up to the elbow now, barely contained by the bandage Menish had made.
“M’Lord, I can't keep up with you. This alleyway's narrow, they couldn't approach me more than one or two at a time. Let me hold them here while you escape.”
“Damn your heroics!” shouted Menish with tears behind his eyes. “Do you think I could leave you to that? I'd rather kill you myself.”
He caught Althak’s arm and threw it across his shoulders. Azkun did the same with the other arm and, supporting him, they continued their flight.
Menish thought his heart would burst and his leg began to feel weak with strain. He was too old for this kind of thing, he should have listened to Adhara when she told him to stay in Meyathal. He did not want to die like this. In battle, yes, or even to drift away peacefully at home, but not captured by a horde of Gashans. He wanted to see Meyathal once more. He wanted to see Adhara.
They reached the outer wall of the city and clambered over a fallen section of it into the forest, heedless of any dangers except the one that followed them. Menish had no idea where they were. They might be on the far side of the city for all he could tell, but they kept on running.
A cry of fiendish glee rose behind them as Gashans spilled across the wall and spotted them racing through the trees. Menish had hoped they would have time to climb a tree and hide there but that was no longer a possibility. They ran on.
They were, all three, about to drop from exhaustion when they were suddenly halted by the marsh. Menish cursed himself for not paying closer attention to their surroundings. They had run out into a long tongue of dry ground and now were surrounded on three sides by the gurgling, slimy mud they were so familiar with. Behind them the Gashans crowded forward blocking any retreat.
There was no choice really. They waded into the slime.
It gurgled and stank. Fortunately it was not as thick as Menish had expected and they could make headway through it. The worst thing about it was the stink. The mud came up to Menish’s chest and that was uncomfortably close to his nostrils.
The Gashans, who had thought them trapped, yelled with rage and flung themselves into the mire after them. Menish could see some high ground not far off, but he doubted if they could reach it before the Gashans reached them. They were gaining on them.
Suddenly Azkun screamed.
“Something… something on my leg… pulling… aargh!” Before Menish could do anything he disappeared beneath the slime.
“Azkun! Damn.” The Gashans were still gaining. “It may be another of those creatures. Come on, Althak!” But the Vorthenki did not move. His face twitched but otherwise he hung limply from Menish’s shoulder. One arm draped down into the mud, following Azkun's disappearance. He moaned in pain.
“Althak!”
Suddenly the Vorthenki lurched into life. His body tensed as if a convulsion seized him, the muscles on his arm bunched and corded with strain. With a cry of agony he hauled Azkun back from under the mud.
At the same moment a marsh creature erupted in the midst of the Gashans, roaring and screeching and snaking out fingers towards them. Menish did not know where he found the strength to drag his two companions through the mud to solid ground. He had little enough left to even look back at the Gashans. The creature held a hundred writhing forms, the rest had escaped back to the other side.
They were safe for the moment, from Gashans at least. He collapsed between the bodies of his friends, not knowing if he would live to regain his senses or not and, for the moment, not greatly caring.
It was Azkun who woke him, and it was pitch dark.
“I am worried about Althak. He is unconscious and his body jerks.”
“Convulsions,” said Menish. “I saw them start when we were in the mud. I think he pulled you out with one.”
“But… what does it mean?”
Menish sighed.
“It means he's dying,” he said wearily. “Why aren't you dying? You were bitten.”
Azkun’s hand touched his cheek.
“The dragons protect me.”
Menish slammed his fist into Azkun’s jaw.
“The dragons protect you? Hrangil died defending you from the marsh creature. Althak pulled you from under the mud. Your friends die saving you while you do nothing for them and thank your dragons!”
Azkun rubbed his jaw and said nothing. They waited until dawn, listening to Althak’s moaning.
When it was light enough Menish cut two straight branches and tied their cloaks between them to form a litter for Althak, for there was no way he could walk and Menish could not abandon him here. Althak’s pack, and the little food it still contained, had been lost when they fled the city so Menish set off with an empty belly and a heavy heart. He had little idea where they were, he only knew that this place was still too near the city and the marsh. Anywhere else was better.