Yuan ripped the front off his silken battle tunic and used it to dab his father's blood off the blade. When he finished, he sheathed his sword, then carefully folded the cloth and slipped it beneath his leather corselet.
The adjutant bowed to Tang, his eyes now as hard as his father's. "I obey your command. My Prince."
Tang honored the youth by returning his bow. "The
Minister of War shall-" The prince had to interrupt him- self to take a deep breath and regain control of his churn- ing stomach. "He shall hear of your dedication to duty."
Yuan's eyes showed no sign of softening, but they did shift away from the prince's face toward the water, where
a dozen shapes were rapidly drifting toward General
Fui's body. At first. Tang took the forms for floating logs
Then he noticed the eyes and nostrils protruding above the bog scum, and also the powerful tails snaking back and forth behind their bodies.
The first beast slid between the prince's dugout and
Yuan's raft. Silently, it took Fui's head into its jaws and slid beneath the dark water, vanishing from sight almost before Tang realized he was looking at an alligator.
Yuan reached down to pull the rest of his father's body back onto the raft, then almost lost a hand as another of the monsters latched on to the corpse's shoulder. The cadaver slid off the logs and disappeared beneath the surface in a quick swirl. A second creature, easily as long as Tang's dugout, dove after the body-stealer, and the water erupted into a bloody, churning froth as the two animals tore the cadaver to pieces.
Tang finally lost control of his rebellious stomach and turned away while it purged itself-then nearly lost his head as a pair of tooth-filled jaws rose from the water tr snap at his face. He slashed at it ineffectually with the sword in his hand, and his boatpushers stepped over to hold the thing at bay while he finished retching. Behind the prince sounded a startled scream, followed by a loud splash and the brief gurgle of a man's voice.
An astonished murmur rustled through the swamp;
then half the soldiers in the company cried out in fear
The rippling siffle of halberds slashing water filled the air. Several men fell into the pond and shrieked as they were dragged beneath the surface.
When Tang's stomach finally finished with him, he wiped his mouth on a boatpusher's sleeve, then turned to see his entire company of soldiers besieged by alligators.
The men were standing back-to-back in the center of all five rafts, thrusting the tips of their long halberds at the throng of circling alligators-several of which looked longer than the vessels themselves. Many of the logs were smeared with blood, while the water was littered
with broken halberd shafts, ribbons of shredded silk, and alligators writhing in pain.
As Tang watched, a swimming alligator whipped its body around, driving its head and forequarters onto a raft. The attack was met by a flurry of driving halberds, most of which pierced the beast's armored hide and sank to a depth of several inches. The monster clutched at the logs with the claws of its stubby forelegs and dragged itself forward. The men braced themselves, trying to shove their blades deeper into their attacker's flesh.
The creature ignored the assault and continued to claw its way onto the raft. One warrior lost his footing and slid across the raft, where another alligator seized his ankle and dragged him, screaming, into the scum- covered waters. Several others, finding their halberds'
damp shafts slipping backward through their grasp, dropped their polearms to reach for their swords. Only one man could drive his weapon deep enough to cause the behemoth any injury. The alligator simply snapped its head to one side and jerked the weapon out of the sol- dier's hands, then retreated into the water.
Tang peered over the side of his dugout and saw sev- eral alligators floating alongside, their ravenous gazes searching for something to snatch. Fortunately, the punt's sides were high enough to conceal his vulnerable legs, or one of the beasts would certainly have pulled him into the swamp by now. As it was, he took the precaution of raising his arms above his chest and ordering his boat- pushers to do the same, lest one of the creatures attempt to snatch a dangling hand and capsize the punt.
"Perhaps Wise Prince cares to give order?"
Yuan stood in the center of his own blood-streaked raft, apparently oblivious to the screams of the legless man at his feet. The young officer was watching Tang with what could only be called a look of impertinent impatience, as though he understood exactly what needed to be done and knew his commander for too much of a fool to see it.
Tang scowled in thought, determined not to lose an^
more face by asking Yuan's advice. The prince could not order an advance without forcing the men to step within reach of the alligators' snapping jaws, but neither did he see any sense in remaining where they were and allow- ing the monsters to pluck them off the rafts one-by-one.
What they needed was magic. A wu-jen could drive the beasts away, so his soldiers could get on with the impor- tant business of finding and slaying the dragon.
An angry light flared in Yuan's eyes. "When enemy attacks, it is customary for commander to issue order."
"Alligators are not enemy!" Tang snapped, waving his sword at the beasts between their vessels. "They are stu- pid animals."
A loud thump sounded in the bottom of Tang's dugout.
He looked down to see a scaly brown cord gathering itself into a coil. Whether because of the lasal haze in his mind or the shock of having the thing drop into his boat, the prince did not recognize the writhing tendril until it showed the pink lining of its mouth. Tang calmly brought his sword down, catching the snake behind the head.
The prince did not enjoy snakes as much as he did lizards, but he knew enough about the species to recog- nize the white-mouthed viper as more of a swimmer than a tree climber. He scowled and looked up, then cried out in surprise as three more dark, writhing ropes dropped out of the canopy overhead. One of the snakes splashed into the water beside the dugout, where it was promptly snapped up by an alligator, but the other two plopped into the bottom of the punt.
Almost before he realized it, Tang's sword had lashed out to sever the head from one serpent. The other recov- ered from its fall quickly enough to bury its fangs into a boatpusher's leg. Unlike the other two snakes, this one was gray, with a black diamond pattern and rattles on its tail. The victim screeched and reached for his dagger.
Before the man could draw his weapon, Tang grasped the viper behind its head and yanked it free. He tossed the
serpent into the water, where a ravenous alligator quickly avenged its attack on the prince's servant.
The snake bite bled profusely, instantly coating the boatpusher's foot in sticky red syrup. The man opened his mouth to thank Tang, then cried out and dropped into the bottom of the punt. He clutched his leg and began to squirm, causing the dugout to rock dangerously.