“They will be waiting for us. If we go to the city through the jungle, we will improve our chances of surprise.”
“But we would be fully exposed to the Madwood,” said Ardal. “We’d be fortunate to get a hundred yards.”
Fallarond shook his head. “Not if Ezrekuul helps us.”
The creature shrank back into the river. “What you want of me?”
“When we cut through, summon others like you, those who were dryads. If they give us their aid, we will do all we can to release you from bondage. We are not without power. It will be difficult and some may die in the attempt, but you and those who aid us will at least have a chance for freedom.”
Ezrekuul seemed reluctant, but he heaved himself out of the water and onto the bank—a bedraggled, diminutive figure of despair, waiting.
Fallarond used his sword to begin the arduous task of cutting into the wall of the tunnel, and helped by his fellow Deathguard, sliced through root and branch until a long gash had been made. It took a while to lengthen, but eventually they cut through to the jungle beyond. Fallarond sent the complaining creature through, then waited.
When Ezrekuul came back, he was pointing excitedly into the cloying darkness beyond. “A handful come,” he whispered, “but worse things beyond ring of light. Madwood hungers.”
“Nevertheless, go ahead,” said Fallarond, easing out into the jungle.
Moments later the entire company emerged, swords held before them like torches. Their glow spread but encountered a wall of darkness more intense than any natural nightfall. They could hear vague whisperings within it, sibilant sounds, redolent with evil and suggestive of torment. Overhead the trees were like frozen giants, breathing but unmoving, needing only a word to set them in motion against the company, but their resolve held.
Vaddi and Nyam stood close to each other, and only by a determined effort did Vaddi not clutch at Erethindel. He sensed that here it might turn against him, its power overwhelmed by the monstrous will of this dire place. As he studied the shadows, he made out a number of blurred figures crouched down on all fours, their bodies scaled, their heads batrachian. They had bulbous eyes that barely reflected the light and long, spatulate fingers, incongruously clawed. Nature had been warped in them, contorted by the powers of the Madwood and its lunatic sorcery, but they had not come to attack the company.
Ezrekuul spoke for them. “These”—he hissed—“clay of Madwood. But will guide you.”
“They must shield us from the jungle and whatever it sends against us until we get to the ruins.”
“Other creatures like you in Madwood,” Ezrekuul went on. “These have seen them, smelled their blood. Already corrupt. Elves drawn to dark powers. Secreted in ruins of city of serpent god, Sethis. If you had come to them from river, trap would have sprung around you.”
“Why does the Madwood not attack them?” said Nyam.
“Who knows what black pacts have been sealed in this place?” said Ardal. “The Murughel may well serve the Madwood.”
Fallarond turned his gaze upon the huddled creatures in the shadows. “You have a chance to win freedom and a return to true light, or will you taste the scorching of our swords?”
The gruesome company shrank back further, croaking and muttering, but the thought of some kind of salvation from their symbiosis with the Madwood stirred a last vestige of hope within them. Ezrekuul pushed through them and led the trudge through yet more dismal realms.
Nyam leaned close to Vaddi and Ardal and said, “I know nothing of this city and this serpent god. What is he?”
Ardal’s voice was barely above a whisper. “Old tales say that Sethis is another aberration, partly of dragon blood. Whatever dragon spawned him was somehow trapped and then died here in the Madwood, a victim of its evils. It trawled into Mabar to escape being absorbed by the Madwood, but from out of that realm, Sethis, the great worm, writhed forth in the agonies of his birth. The city of Khamaz Durrafal, once ruled by elves, fell victim to the Madwood, its people horribly changed, just as the naiads and dryads of the jungle were changed. But the Madwood had them build a temple to Sethis, the blind worm, and when it was done, they were sacrificed to it. None survived.”
“And Sethis?” said Nyam.
“He is said to have returned to Mabar, but there are tales among the Aerenal that at certain times, the worm god is still summoned and sacrifices are made to it.”
Nyam and Vaddi exchanged glances, but mercifully the darkness masked their horror at this revelation. They concentrated on the way ahead, trying not to let the oppressiveness of the jungle crush their will to go on, but they felt it being leeched from them.
Ezrekuul’s strange company fanned out ahead of them, and there were sounds of conflict and muted argument, interspersed with distant howls and groans. They came to a rise in the jungle floor, and Fallarond sensed a falling away of the land, a shallow valley. Ezrekuul pointed to it.
“Southern wall of city lies there. Battlements empty. Murughel farther north.”
Tallamorn spoke. “We are followed! There is a great disturbance in the aura of the jungle. It may be one huge mass or many creatures. They creep like tendrils towards us. Not allies, but the worst of the Madwood’s denizens.”
The company tried to see back into the pulsing darkness, but it was as though a thick curtain had been thrown across the jungle. Behind it, they sensed what was drawing upon them, a force of awesome dimensions, as though the entire jungle itself heaved and bellied forward, impatient to smother them.
“Must go!” said Ezrekuul. “Must go!”
“If we can get on the battlements without being discovered,” said Fallarond. “We will have an edge.”
Without another word, he led them into the valley, everyone keeping close, aware that on both flanks the shapes of Ezrekuul’s creatures shadowed them. It was not long before the ruined walls of Khamaz Durrafal loomed out of the darkness, their stones broken, choked with creepers and the clawing talons of dense undergrowth. As they clambered up the walls and onto their flattened top, they heard again the surge of pursuit, like an invisible black wave rushing toward them.
“City keeps it back—for a while,” said Ezrekuul. “Avert eyes from what comes. Elves go mad at sight before. Black sorceries crackle like lightning fires.”
The company said nothing, winding its way over the wreckage of stone and column, through collapsed archways and tumbled buildings that had not seen habitation for untold centuries. There were glyphs and scrawls, bizarre sculptures and statues, but none that anyone recognised. All belonged to an age beyond time, falling now into dust and dissolution. Even the Madwood appeared to have left this rotting domain to itself—at least in this crumbling section of the city.
“Heart of the city,” said Ezrekuul. “Huge, flat-topped pyramid. Hollow. In its bowels … way to Sethis.”
“Where are the Murughel?” said Fallarond.
“Send brothers. They look.”
“Aye. Bring word.”
Ezrekuul hopped off, lost to sight almost at once. While he was gone, the company ate the last of its food and drank the last of the water, knowing that it could be the final meal that any of them enjoyed.
“What is our strategy to be?” whispered Nyam.
“We need to know where Zemella is,” said Vaddi. “If we can get to her and free her, we’ll need to go back before the Murughel can overpower us. A lot depends on the help we get from these creatures. Do you trust them. Ardal?”
“I think so. If they had wanted to betray us, they would simply have let the Madwood take us. Ezrekuul must have persuaded enough of them to rebel.”
“What about that?” said Nyam, jerking a thumb back at the oncoming horror from the jungle, though it had fallen silent, as if the city walls had withstood its flow.
“The ancient powers of the city contain it, but I suspect that will not last. We must free Zemella and be gone from here before the dam bursts. If not, it will simply swallow everything here like a tidal wave. The Madwood is not to be reasoned with, any more than you would reason with an ocean storm. Even the dragons could never control it.”