'Why does my dwarf run free?' said Sarazin, for Glam- brax was capering on the raft.
'He has sworn himself to my service,' said Tarkal. 'At least until we reach the Gates.'
'Glambrax!' said Sarazin. 'How could you? You vile, treacherous, gamos-sucking turd!'
In response, Glambrax simply hauled out his shlong and pissed all over the unfortunate Sean Sarazin. Who screamed in wrath which – this time – was not feigned at all.
Then, mercifully, Sarazin was gagged, which meant he need do no more acting. Tarkal's fighting men untied the raft and pushed it out into the flow of the Velvet River and away they went, bucketing down the swift-flowing river which sprinted between the sullen walls of the Manaray Gorge.
In truth, Sarazin was worried about his reception at the Gates of Chenameg. Drake Douay would doubtless have a lot to say about the theft of his precious bards. However, Sarazin hoped the truth would serve. Glambrax could take the blame – and a whipping, too, if Douay decided that was what he deserved.
Unless the anger of madness was upon the noble Douay, nothing worse should befall Sarazin and Glambrax at the gates.
But then man and dwarf would be back where they had started from, unless Sarazin could turn this situation to his advantage. Unless he judged Douay wrongly, the man, however noble, had a bloody sense of humour. Perhaps Sarazin could tempt him into arranging some gladiatorial games. -Me versus Tarkal. That's the thing!
Sean Sarazin knew he had sinned by his crimes against the Favoured Blood as represented by the noble Douay. But it would surely be no crime for him to fight and kill Tarkal, even though he was of low birth – for Tarkal was a murderer. Sarazin knew it.
Nothing else could explain King Lyra's mysterious death in a bog in Chenameg on the occasion of that long-ago hunt in winter, shortly after Sarazin had seen the famous phoenix renew itself in a temple in Shin.
– He murdered his father to win the throne. There- fore his death is due. I would be but an instrument of justice.
And, with a little help from Douay, after Sarazin had despatched Tarkal he could surely seize the Slavemaster's cave complex, and set himself up as a warlord in his own right. It was all so logical, so natural, so inevitable that it was irresistible. -Killing Tarkal. That will be the hard bit.
Sarazin's confidence in his bladework had been shaken since his clash with Douay in which Douay had defeated and disarmed him. But then, Douay was a greater warlord than the notorious Groth, and Groth himself had earlier displaced Tarkal as master of the Gates, which suggested Tarkal was no great warmaster. -Besides, I've fought him before. -And I won.
Yes. And Sarazin remembered his own post mortem on his first duel with Tarkal. He could have killed the prince of Chenameg if his heart had really been in the fight – rather than in staying alive. -This time, I will kill him! So thought Sarazin.
Then thought no more, for the raft hit rapids which made thought impossible, such was the terror of their progress. Terror at least for Sean Sarazin – for, tied and gagged as he was, he had not the slightest hope of survival if he was washed overboard.
Lod and Tarkal, for their part, whooped in exultation as the raft plunged through treacherous turbulence and hissing chutes where water exploded into spray. The raft rocked, kicked, bucked, whirled round and lurched in a sickening fashion.
Wave after wave of cold water swept over the pas- sengers. Sarazin – cold, cold! – shivered and shivered. Wondering if he would die of exposure before they ever reached the Gates. Then the raft nosed into the water and Sean Sarazin was lifted up and carried away entirely. He tried to scream. Gagged, he could not. Then an agonising pain tore at his scalp.
'Got you!' cried Tarkal, hauling Sarazin back on to the raft. Then, leaning close to Sarazin, the Slavemaster said: 'You don't get away that easily. Oh no. For you're very special to me, oh yes, as special to me as Douay.'
Then Tarkal kissed Sarazin on the forehead, gently, gently. Drawing blood was a pleasure reserved for the future. 'Gates ahead!' cried Lod. Sarazin thought: -Already?
But of course. For the horseracing river trifled with distances which meant dawn-to-dusk labour for a man slogging along with a heavily laden pack.
He closed his eyes as the raft ploughed down one last water-slope. The raft rocked and bucked as they churned through the final rapids. Then Tarkal screamed in triumph, and Sarazin knew they were out of the Gates. Or almost. He opened his eyes. Saw rock-snap spray, a water-splintered sun, and something out of nightmare swooping towards them. Something human screamed as wing-claws snatched it. Tarkal, screaming and swearing, drew his sword. The weapon went spinning as something whipped him away into the water.
Lod drew his own blade – then thought better of it, and dived into the water. 'Kill the prisoner,' said one of Tarkal's surviving men.
A subordinate drew steel, loomed above Sarazin. Who gazed upwards, eyes bulging in terror. And saw the sky shudder to shadow, saw his assailant's body ripped to the sky. -Neversh. The thought was a scream.
And screams audible split the sky as another man was torn away. A scythe-sweeping tail slashed across the raft, mowing down the survivors. Sarazin closed his eyes. Then opened them. For: -This is the last of life. He did not choose to die in self-made darkness.
So he gazed open-eyed at the scene. The Neversh in the sky, two of them. No, three. Four! Five! A full five of the monsters, nightmarish creatures of the Swarms, enormous brutes flailing through the air in front of the Gates of Chenameg, attacking the slow and the foolish with feeding spikes, grapple-hooks and clawed feet, sweeping and slashing with whiplash tails which could kill a horse or break a man in half.
From the battlements of Douay's fortress at the Gates of Chenameg, crossbowers unleashed their bolts, shooting at the low-flying monsters. One floundered, sank low, then struggled for height and flew out of Sarazin's field of vision.
He bit ferociously at the gag in his mouth. He needed his voice, his voice! To scream for help. All it needed was one person to dare the river and tow his raft to safety. But it was not to be, for the gag held. And if the defenders of the Gates looked at the raft, doubtless they saw but a scattering of corpses aboard – nothing worth swimming for when the Neversh were in the skies. -Tarkal lived.
So thought Sarazin, bitterly. He was almost certain the Slavemaster had been knocked overboard by the same blow from the tail of a Neversh which had sent his sword spinning away. -Lod too. So who's dead?
Glambrax was dead. That was for certain. Sarazin could see the dwarf lying beneath a man's corpse, blood guttering from a bloody headwound. Three dead soldiers were aboard the raft. The head of one had been smashed to pulp by a whiplash from a monster's tail. -Gods.
The Gates of Chenameg were already receding into the distance. Sarazin looked left, looked right, scanned the banks for signs of human life. He saw baskets of abandoned laundry, unattended fishing rods, and cooking fires burning without human supervision. Most people had fled – and those who had not were lying as if dead, hoping to escape the attentions of the Neversh.
A little further downriver, the raft drifted past a huge stockade of earth, logs and stones, a fortress raised by a company of men who hunted creatures of the Swarms for a living. As the raft went by, the shadow of a Neversh flickered overhead. And nobody within the stockade even thought of risking life and limb to retrieve that piece of river-refuse.
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
A corpse-laden raft drifted down the Velvet River. Strong and steady ran the river. Not at the horsepanic pace of the Manaray Gorge, to be sure – but the river never paused, never rested. A man could outrun it or, indeed, outmarch it – but only briefly. Nobody could have matched the river's pace for a daylength journey.