Rhalina had been ahead of the rest. She hardly listened to the conversation but instead pointed just in front of her. 'Look! Look!' she cried.
They ran towards her and saw that she pointed at a place on the edge of the abyss - a square-cut notch carved from the rock and larger than a man's body. They clustered around it and saw that a stairway led down and down into the distant mist. But the stairway was scarcely more than a foot across and it went straight beside the massive wall of the cliff until it disappeared into the mist a mile below. If one missed one's footing for an instant, then one would be plunged into the abyss.
Corum stood staring at the stairway. Had it just appeared? Was it a trick of Queen Xiombarg's? Would the steps suddenly vanish when they were half-way down - if they ever managed to get half-way down?
But the alternative was to continue to trudge along the edge and perhaps, ultimately, find themselves back at the White River (for Corum was beginning to suspect that the Blood Plain was circular, containing the Lake of Voices and the mountains, and that the abyss extended all around it).
With a sigh Corum gradually lowered himself to the first step and, on weakened legs, his back against the smooth rock, began to descend.
The four little figures inched their way down the slippery steps until the top of the abyss itself was lost in gloom, while the bottom was still shrouded by the yellow mist. There was a frightening silence as they moved. They dare not speak - dare not do anything which would break their concentration as they lowered themselves from step to step with the abyss seeming sometimes to draw them into its depths as their vertigo increased. All were shivering, for the rock chilled them, all were sure that after a few more steps they would lose their footing and plunge down into the yellow mist.
And then they began to hear it. It echoed from the mist. A grunting and wheezing and a snorting and a cackling which increased as they descended.
Corum stopped and looked back at the others who lay against the rock and listened with him. Rhalina was closest to him, then Jhary and finally the King Without a Country.
It was Noreg-Dan who spoke first. 'I know the sound,' he said. 'I have heard it before.'
'What is it?' Rhalina whispered.
'It is the noise which Xiombarg's beasts make. I spoke of the Ghanh which led the Chaos Pack. Well, those noises are the noises made by the Chaos Pack. We should have guessed what lay beyond the yellow mist…'
Corum felt a great coldness grip him. He peered downwards to where the unseen Beasts of the Abyss awaited their coming.
CHAPTER FOUR
The Chariots of Chaos
'What shall we do?' Rhalina whispered. 'What can we do against them?'
Corum said nothing. Carefully keeping his balance he drew his sword, steadying himself with his six-fingered, jewelled hand.
While the Ghanh lived and fought the black birds, there could be no help from the netherworld.
'Do you hear that now?' Jhary said. 'That odd creaking…?'
Corum nodded. With the creaking was a rumbling sound and is was vaguely familiar. It mingled with the snorts and the grunts and the bellows issuing from the yellow mist.
'There is nought for it,' he said at length. 'We must go on and hope that we reach the floor of the abyss soon. At least there we shall be less exposed and able to stand and fight whatever - whatever it is that makes the noise.'
They continued their cautious descent, eyes wary for the first signs of the Beasts.
Corum's foot had touched the floor of the abyss before he quite realized it. He had been climbing downwards for so long that he had become used to lying flat against the rock and feeling with his foot for each new step. Now there were no more steps and he could see the ground, uneven, covered in boulders, stretching away into the yellow mist, but he could see nothing that lived.
The others joined him as he peered forward. The grunts and the cackles continued and an appalling stink greeted their nostrils, but the source of the sounds and the stink was not yet visible. The creaking and the rumbling also continued.
Corum saw them at last.
'By Elric's Sword!' Jhary groaned. 'Those are the Chariots of Chaos. I should have guessed!'
Monstrous lumbering chariots drawn by reptilian beasts were beginning to emerge from the mist. They were filled by a variety of creatures, some even mounted on others' backs. Each beast was a travesty of a human being - each was clad in armour and bore a weapon of some kind. Here were piglike, doglike, cowlike, froglike, horselike things, some more deformed than others - animals warped into parodies of humanity.
'Did Chaos turn these beasts into what they now are?' Corum gasped.
Jhary said: 'You are mistaken, Corum.'
'What mean you?'
The King Without a Country spoke up. 'These beasts,' he said, 'were once men. Many of them were my subjects who sided with Chaos because they saw that it was more powerful than Law…'
'And that transformation was their reward?' Rhalina said in disgust.
'They are probably not aware of the transformation,' Jhary told her quietly. 'They have degenerated too much to retain much memory of their former existences.'
The black chariots creaked closer, bearing their grunting, shrieking, bellowing crews.
There was nothing for it but to turn and run from the chariots, dashing over the uneven ground, swords in hand, coughing on the stink of the Chaos Pack and the clinging, yellow mist.
The Chaos Pack howled in delight and whipped up their reptilian beasts and the chariots began to move faster. The ghastly, deformed army was enjoying the hunt.
Weakened by their earlier adventures and their lack of food or drink, the four companions could not run swiftly and at last, behind a large boulder, they were forced to rest. The chariots rumbled on towards them, bringing the cacophony, the hellish once-human things, the nauseating smells.
Corum hoped that the chariots would pass them by but the Chaos Pack could see more easily through the mist and the first chariot turned towards them. Corum began to climb the boulder to get above the chariot. He struck out with his fist as a pig-thing clambered after him. The fist sank into the creature's face and was held there while the thing drew its own brass-studded club and raised its arm to finish Corum. Corum stabbed with his sword and the pig-thing shuddered, fell back. Now the others were under attack. Rhalina defended herself well with her own sword. They stood around the base of the boulder on the opposite side to Corum while he defended their rear. A dog-thing leapt at him. It wore a helmet and a breastplate but its muzzle was full of long teeth which snapped at his arm. He swung the sword and broke that muzzle in a single, smashing blow. Hands which had turned into claws and paws grabbed at him, tore at his cloak, his boots. Swords stabbed and clubs struck the stone at his feet as a whole mass of the creatures began to climb towards him. He stamped on fingers, hacked off limbs, drove his sword through mouths and eyes and hearts and all the time was filled with a sickening panic which only made him fight harder.
The babble of the Chaos Pack seemed to grow louder and louder in his ears. Their chariots kept appearing out of the mist until several hundred of the things surrounded the boulder.
Then it came clear to Corum that the Pack did not intend, at this stage, to kill them. If they had wished to they could have slain him and his companions by now. Doubtless they planned to torture them in some way - or perhaps turn them into the same kind of creatures that they had become.