The Night of the Swarm

chute was very slick. But between the shields and the walls of the chute the hrathmog archers could find nowhere to sink a shaft. Beside Pazel, Bolutu’s eyes were streaming. He and Big Skip had become fast friends.

Finally they reached the great crack. There were hisses and oaths, for it was even wider than they had imagined, and the gushing torrent made it difficult to tell just where the edges lay. Still lofting the shields they tried to squeeze past it, two by two, feeling out the stones with their feet. Pazel’s head was reeling: a few inches to his left there was nothing: air, spray, sucking wind. He felt a stone shift under his foot.

Think of walking, nothing else. Others had done it, somehow. He stilled his heart, and inched forward, and he was through.

But things only grew worse. Above the crack they were right in the flood, wading uphill against a ripping current that splashed to their thighs. Pazel wanted to scream: the cold was agonizing, like long-nailed fingers stripping the flesh from his bones.

Now, he thought. Wait any longer and you’ll fall down dead.

With clumsy fingers he tugged the beetle from his vest pocket and put the frozen, scaly thing into his mouth. But he could not bite; his teeth were chattering like some strange machine. At last he used his hands to force his jaws together, until the beetle’s shell cracked like a nut.

Oh Gods.

The heat passed through him in a scalding wave. His mouth was a furnace; his head was on fire, and even his vision changed, as though he were seeing the world through pale red wine. He half expected to see steam rising from his body.

Remembering Arim’s warning, he spat the beetle out, along with a fair amount of blood: the insect had literally burned his tongue. Other beetles floated past him: he was not the only one who had decided the time had come. But what of Valgrif and Shilu? The wolf was almost swimming, and Lunja was even now struggling to tie a harness around the neck and shoulders of the dog. They should have waited on the cliff, thought Pazel. They’ll die if this takes too long.

Hercol stood up suddenly from beneath his shield. He fired the selk bow twice in rapid succession, and two archers fell. How many did that leave? Hrathmogs were still firing from atop the tower, several more from the foot of the bridge. A selk cried out: he had raised his bow as Hercol had done, but this time one of the hrathmogs sank a shaft deep in his side. Thaulinin lifted the wounded man, trying to guard them both with his shield. Hercol fired again, and another hrathmog fell.

The dlomic commander turned and ran for the tower. Pazel was close enough now to see that a massive archway opened in its wall on the northern side. The commander stopped at the threshold and shouted into the tower, pointing imperiously at the bridge as he did so.

There was a rumbling sound, and the archers on the towers swayed, as though the building had just rocked beneath their feet. Those still firing from the bridge turned and fled. Only the ravenous dogs held their ground.

Through the tower arch something huge and pale was crawling. At first Pazel could only see its face: an old woman’s face, bloated, pockmarked, with protruding eyes and a mouth full of black and rotting teeth. An iron crown, spiked and bloody, sat upon her head, and from beneath it yards of grey, matted hair hung like sheets of bog-moss. Then the creature rose to its feet.

‘Miyanthur, save us!’ shouted the selk. ‘That is a Thrandaal brood-mother, an ogress of the race that conquered the Mountain Kings!’

She towered over them, dressed in rotting leather from which a few shells, bones, glass beads and other trinkets still dangled. A sack tied to her waist leaked a soot-like powder that stained the snow. A mighty chain dragged from a manacle at her wrist.

The creature’s first act was to pounce on one of the fleeing hrathmogs. It tore the beast’s armour away, then stuffed the hrathmog head first into its mouth. The hrathmog’s legs still protruded, still kicked; then the ogress bit down and the kicking ceased.

‘Fear no devils!’ bellowed Cayer Vispek. ‘Forward, while yet we may!’

They tried to climb faster, but the current was too fierce, the ascent too steep. The ogress was chewing thoughtfully, an old grandmother with a mouthful. It was slow to notice the Plazic commander, who was howling with fury: ‘Not them! The bridge! Kill the creatures on the bridge!’

The ogress trained a lazy eye in the party’s direction. It spat a bone at the commander, and began to turn away. The dlomu leaped into its path.

‘By the curse I carry, animal, you will obey!’

The commander gripped the handle of his Plazic knife. The ogress hesitated, suddenly wary. Then with a gesture of agony (like one ripping stitches from a wound) the commander jerked his arm upwards. In his hand shone a ghost-knife, the pale image of a blade that had once been long and cruel, but was now corroded down to a few blunt inches of bone. The commander himself gazed at it with hatred. But with that stump of a blade he struck fear into the monster: it recoiled, shielding its eyes from the weapon. Then it groaned and rushed the bridge.

The party had sixty feet to go when the ogress climbed atop the aqueduct. It stared at them with dull hate, then it raised its manacled arm and swung the chain over its head. The chain came down with thunder, and the last iron link struck the wounded selk leaning on Thaulinin’s arm. Thaulinin himself was not touched, but the man was torn from him, and Pazel watched with horror as the flood bore the lifeless body away. The ogress hauled in the chain for a second swing.

‘Back, back!’ cried Hercol. ‘That chain will be the end of us!’

But backing up was not something they had tried; it was hard enough to keep one’s feet when climbing forward. Warning shouts; then the chain struck again. There was a great splash: this time everyone had managed to dive to one side or the other. But in so doing many had lost their feet. They clawed at the stone, the ice, each other: anything to stop themselves from sliding headlong into the crack. Pazel, luckier than most, managed to lock an arm over the bridge’s rim. Prince Olik, nearly submerged, reached out wildly and caught his other hand. With a single furious tug Pazel hauled him from the water, and then saw with amazement that he had somehow found the strength to lift Thasha too: the prince had hold of her belt.

As he struggled to gain his feet again Pazel looked back along the bridge.

Neda!

His sister was whirling down the chute. She was limp, barely conscious; he thought she must have fallen and struck her head. So fast. Pazel had barely time to scream, to feel a part of him dying, to wish for death for the first time in his life. One moment his sister was there in the sunlit water; the next her body folded down through the crack and was gone.

He howled, the world blurring with tears. He let go of the bridge and tried to follow her, and Olik and Thasha had to fight him with all their strength. Then came the next ghastly shock, as a second body reached the crack and was sucked away to oblivion: Cayer Vispek. But the elder sfvantskor had not gone helplessly. He had been wide awake. He had aimed his body for the hole.

Crash. The chain fell again, splitting stone, but for the moment the party had slid beyond its reach. The ogress screamed at them from the edge of the watercourse; clearly she had no wish to climb out over the abyss itself. Plunging a hand into the sack at her waist, she drew out a fistful of black powder. Thaulinin bellowed a warning, but it was too late: the ogress blew the powder from her hand, and as she did so it burst into flames.

A plume of orange fire billowed towards them. Above the rim of the chute it was soon dispersed by the wind, but just over the water’s surface it slithered on until it broke against the warriors’ shields. Pazel saw their faces: some of them were burned. Already the ogress was raising another fistful to her lips.

Hercol’s bow sang again. The ogress gave a murderous scream, dropping the powder and clawing at her face. The shaft was buried in her eye.

The monster’s scream went on and on. She tore the shaft away, along with much of her eyeball. She whirled and swung the chain blindly, and the remaining archers were swept from the tower. When she managed to strike the bridge again the chain passed inches from Thaulinin’s face.

Then the selk leader did an amazing thing: he dived upon the chain. The ogress had fallen to her knees, one hand over her bloody eye socket. With each jerk of her arm Thaulinin was pulled further up the chute.

The dlomic commander saw what was happening and cried out. Two athymars burst onto the bridge and were crushed when the ogress rolled on them in her agony. As she struggled to hands