They tramped on beside the unchanging edge of the abyss.
Lost in a daze of weariness and monotony Corum only gradually began to realize that the sky was darkening. He looked up. Was the sun moving?
But the sun seemed to be in the same position. Instead, an eddy of black cloud had risen from somewhere and was streaming across the sky, heading towards the far side of the abyss. He had no means of knowing whether this were some sorcerous manifestation or if it were natural. He stopped. It had grown colder. Now the others noticed the clouds.
Noreg-Dan's eyes held trepidation. He drew his cracked leather coat about him and licked his bearded lips.
Suddenly, from Jhary's shoulder the little black and white cat leapt into the air and sped away on its black, white-tipped wings. It began to circle over the gorge, almost out of their range of vision. Jhary, too, looked perturbed, for the cat was behaving uncharacteristically.
Rhalina drew closer to Corum and put one hand on his arm. He hugged her shoulders and stared skyward at the black streamers of cloud as they dashed from nowhere to nowhere.
'Have you seen such a sight before, King Noreg-Dan?' Corum called through the gloom. 'Has it significance for you?'
Noreg-Dan shook his head. 'No, I have not seen this before, but it has significance - it is an omen, I fear, of some danger from Chaos. I have seen similar sights.'
'We had best be ready for what comes.' Corum drew his long, Vadhagh sword and threw back his scarlet robe to expose his silver byrnie. The others drew their own blades and stood there on the edge of that vast pit, waiting for whatever might come to threaten them.
Whiskers the cat was flying back. It was miaowing shrilly, urgently. It had seen something in the abyss. They stepped to the brink and peered over.
A reddish shadow moved in the yellow mist. Gradually it began to emerge; gradually its shape was defined.
It flew upon billowing crimson wings and its grinning face was that of a shark. It looked like something which should have inhabited the sea rather than the air and this was confirmed by the way in which it flew - with slow, undulating wings as if through liquid. Row upon row of sharp fangs filled its red mouth and its body was the size of a large bull, its wing-span nearly thirty feet.
Out of the frightful pit it came, its jaws opening and closing as if it already anticipated its feast. Its golden eyes burned with hunger and with rage.
'It is the Ghanh,' said Noreg-Dan hopelessly. 'The Ghanh which led the Chaos Pack upon my country. It is
one of Queen Xiombarg's favourite creations. It will take us before ever our swords strike a single blow.'
'So you call it a Ghanh on this plane?' Jhary said with interest. 'I have seen it before and, as I remember, I have seen it destroyed.'
'How was it destroyed?' Corum asked him as the Ghanh flew higher and closer.
'That part I forget.'
'If we spread out, we shall have a better chance,' Corum said, backing away from the gorge's edge. 'Quickly.'
'If you'll forgive the suggestion, friend Corum,' Jhary said as he, too, stepped backwards. 'I think your netherworld allies would be of use to us here.'
'Those allies are now the black birds we fought on the mountain. Could they defeat the Ghanh…?'
'I suggest you discover that now.'
Corum flung up the eye-patch and peered again into the netherworld. There they were - a score of black, brooding birds, each with the mark of the barbed Vadhagh lance in its breast. But they saw Corum and they recognized him. One of them opened its beak and screeched in a tone so hopeless that Corum felt almost sympathetic to it.
'Can you understand me?' he said.
He heard Rhalina's voice. 'It is almost upon us, Corum!'
'We - understand - master. Have you - a prize - for us?' said one of the birds.
Corum shuddered. 'Aye, if you can take it.'
The Hand of Kwll reached into that murky cavern and it beckoned to the birds. With a dreadful rustling sound they took to the air.
And they flew into the world in which Corum and his companions stood awaiting the Ghanh.
'There,' said Corum. 'There is your prize.'
The black birds flung their wounded, dead-alive bodies higher into the sky and began to wheel as the Ghanh swam over the edge of the gorge and opened its jaws, giving a piercing scream as it saw the four mortals.
'Run!' Corum shouted.
They took to their heels, scattering, running through the deep drifts of blood-dust as the Ghanh screamed again and hesitated, deciding which human to deal with first.
Corum choked on the stink of the creature as the wind of its breath touched him. He darted a look backward. He remembered how cowardly the birds had been, how they had taken long to make up their minds to attack him before. Would they have the courage - even though it meant their release from limbo - to attack the Ghanh?
But now the birds were spearing downwards again at an incredible speed. The Ghanh had not known they were there and it screamed in surprise as their beaks drove into its soft head. It snapped at them and seized two bodies in its jaws. Yet, though half-eaten by the creature, the beaks continued to peck, for the living-dead could not be slain again.
The Ghanh's wings beat close to the ground and a huge cloud of blood-dust rose all around it. Through this dust Corum and the others could see the fray. The Ghanh leapt and twisted and snapped and screamed, but the black birds' beaks pecked relentlessly at its skull. The Ghanh reared and fell on its back. It twisted its wings so that it was rolled in them, trying to protect its head, and in this peculiar manner tumbled hither and thither across the dust. The black birds flapped into the air then descended again, trying to perch on the cocoon as it writhed about, still pecking. Streams of green blood poured from the Ghanh now and the blood-dust stuck to it so that it was all begrimed and tattered.
Then, quite suddenly, it had rolled over the edge of the abyss. The companions ran forward to see what had
happened, the disturbed dust stinging their eyes and clogging their lungs. They saw the Ghanh falling. They saw its wings open and slow its descent, but it did not have the power to do more than drift back towards the floor of the pit as the black birds pecked and pecked at its exposed skull. The yellow mist swallowed them all.
Corum waited, but nothing emerged from the mist again.
'Does that mean that you have no more allies in the netherworld, Corum?' Jhary asked. 'For the birds did not take their prey with them…'
Corum nodded. 'I wonder the same.' He lifted the eyepatch again and saw that the strange, cold cave was bare. 'Aye - no allies there.'
'So an impasse has been created. The birds have not killed the Ghanh and they have not themselves been destroyed,' Jhary-a-Conel said. 'Still, at least that danger has been averted. Let's press on.'
The black clouds had ceased to stream across the sky but had instead stopped in their tracks and cut out the sunlight. Beneath this dark shroud they stumbled onward.
Corum noticed that Jhary had been brooding deeply since the birds had driven off the Ghanh and at last he said: 'What is it that bothers you, Jhary-a-Conel?'
The man adjusted his wide hat on his head and pursed his lips. 'It occurred to me that if the Ghanh was not slain but instead returned to its lair - and if the Ghanh is, as King Noreg-Dan says, a favourite pet of Queen Xiombarg's - then fairly soon now (if not already) Queen Xiombarg will become aware of our presence here. Doubtless if she becomes aware of us then she will decide to act to punish us for what we did to her pet…'
Corum removed his helmet and ran his gauntleted hand over his hair. He looked at the others who had stopped to listen to Jhary.
'It is true,' said the King Without a Country with a sigh. 'We must expect to have Queen Xiombarg upon us very soon - or, at the very least, some more of her minions if she is still not aware that her brother's destroyer is in her Realm and thinks only that we are upstart mortals…'