We sought after a shadow way that was free of rain, but nothing we did seemed to matter.
We could march to Amber, but we would do it with our clothing sticking to us, to the drumbeat of the thunder, with the flashing of the lightning at our backs.
The next night the temperature plummeted, and in the morning I stared past the stiff flags and regarded a world gone white beneath a gray sky, filled with flurries. My breath went back in plumes behind me.
The troops were ill-equipped for this, save for the hairy ones, and we got them all moving quckly, to prevent frostbite. The big red guys suffered. Theirs had been a very warm world.
We were attacked by tiger. polar bear. and wolf that day. The tiger Bleys killed measured ever fourteen feet from tail tip to nose.
We marched on well into the night, and the thaw began. Bleys pushed the troops to get them out of the cold Shadows. The Trump for Amber indicated that a warm, dry autumn prevailed there, and we were nearing the real Earth.
By midnight on that second night we'd marched through slush and sleet, cold rains, warm rains, and on into a dry world.
The orders were given to make camp then, with triple security cordons. Considering the tired condition of the men we were ripe for an attack. But the troops were staggering and couldn't be pushed much further.
The attack came severat hours later, and Julian led it, I learned later from the description given by survivors.
He headed commando raids against our most vulnerable campsites on the periphery of the main body. Had I known it to be Julian, I would have used his Trump to try to hold him, but I only knew it after the fact.
We'd lost perhaps two thousand men in the abrupt winter, and I didn't yet know how many Julian had accounted for.
It seemed the troops were beginning to get demoralized, but they followed when we ordered them ahead.
The next day was one continuous ambush. A body of men the size of ours could not be allowed to deviate sufficiently to try to deal with the harassing raids Julian led against our flanks. We got some of his men, but not enough, one for every ten of ours, perhaps.
By high noon we were crossing the valley that paralleled the seacoast. The Forest of Arden was to the north and our left. Amber lay directly ahead. The breezes were cool and filled with the odors of earth and its sweet growing things. A few leaves fell. Amber lay eighty miles distant and was but a shimmer above the horizon.
That afternoon, with a gathering of clouds and but the lightest of rains, the blots began to fall from the heavens. Then the storm ceased and the sun came forth to dry things off.
After a time, we smelled the smoke.
After another time, we saw it, flapping skyward all about us.
Then the sheets of flame began to rise and fall. They moved toward us, with their crunching. constant footsteps; and as they came nearer, we began to feel the heat, and somewhere, way back along the lines, a panic arose. There were cries, and the columns swelled and welled forward.
We began to run.
Flakes of ash were falling about us now, and the smoke grew thicker. We sprinted ahead and the flames rushed even closer. The sheets of light and heat flapped a steady, welling thunder as we ran, and the waves of warmth beat upon us, washed over us. Soon they were right there alongside us, and the trees blackened and the leaves flaked down, and some of the smaller trees began to sway. For as far ahead as we could see, our way was an alley of fires.
We ran faster. for soon things would be worse.
And we were not mistaken.
Big trees began to topple across our path. We leaped over them, we circled around them. At least, we were on a trail.
The heat became stifling and the breath came heavy in our lungs. Deer and wolves and foxes and rabbits darted past us, fleeing with us, ignoring our presence and that of their natural enemies. The air above the smoke seemed filled with crying birds. Their droppings fell among us, went unnoticed.
To burn this ancient wood. as venerable as the Forest of Arden, seemed almost an act of sacrilege to me. But Eric was prince in Amber, and soon to be king. I suppose I might have, too.
My eyebrows and hair were singed. My throat felt like a chimney. How many would this assault cost us? I wondered.
Seventy miles of wooded valley lay between us and Amber, and over thirty behind us, going back to the forest's end.
“Bleys!” I gasped. “Two or three miles ahead of us the trail forks! The right branch comes more quckly to the river Oisen, which goes down to the sea! I think it's our one chance! The whole Valley of Garnath is going to be burned! Our only hope lies in reaching the waterl”
He nodded.
We raced on, but the fires outpaced us.
We made it to the fork, though, beating out flames on our smoldering clothing. wiping ashes from our eyes, spitting such from our mouths, running hands through our hair when the flamelets nested there.
“Only about a quarter mile more,” I said.
I had been struck several times by falling boughs. All the exposed areas of my skin pulsed with a more than feverish pain, and many of the covered areas as well. We ran through burning grasses, heading down a long slope, and when we reached the bottom we saw the water, and our speed increased, though we didn't think it possible. We plunged in and let the cold wetness embrace in.
Bleys and I contrived to float as near together as possible as the currents took us and we were swept along the twisting course of the Oisen. The interlocked branches of the trees overhead had become as the beams in a cathedral of fire. As they broke apart and collapsed in places, we had to turn onto our bellies and swim or dive for the deepest places, depending on how near we were. The waters about us were filled with hissing and blackened debris, and at our backs our surviving troops' heads in the river seemed as a strip of floating coconuts.
The waters were dark and cold and our wounds began to ache, and we shivered and our teeth chattered.
It was several miles before we left the burning wood and reached the low, flat, treeless place that led on to the sea. It would be a perfect place for Julian to be waiting, with archers, I decided. I mentioned this to Bleys and he agreed, but he didn't reckon there was much we could do about it. I was forced to agree.
The woods burned all around us, and we swam and we drifted.
It seemed like hours, but must have been less, before my fears began to materialize and the first volley of arrows descended.
I dove, and I swam underwater for a long distance. Since I was going with the current, I made it quite a way along the river before I had to surface once more.
As I did, more arrows fell about me.
The gods knew how long this gauntlet of death might be drawn, but I didn't want to stick around and find out.
I gulped air and dove once more.
I touched bottom, I felt my way among rocks.
I moved along for as far as I could, then headed toward the right bank, exhaling as I rose.
I burst through the surface, gasped, took a deep breath and went down again, without sticking around to get the lay of the land,
I swam on till my lungs were bursting, and surfaced then.
This time I wasn't quite so lucky. I took an arrow through my biceps. I managed to dive and break off the shaft when I struck bottom. Then I pulled out the head and continued on by means of the frog kick and underbody sculling with my right hand. The next tIme up I'd be a sitting duck, I knew.
So I forced myself on, till the red flashes crossed my eyeballs and the blackness crept into my head. I must have stayed down for three minutes.
When I surfaced this time, though, nothing happened, and I trod water and gasped.
I made my way to the left bank and grabbed hold of the trailing undergrowth.