grunting like a pig?'
Blackwood smiled; it was his first smile in a long time.
Someone was drinking from a leather bottle with a noisy gurgling of water. Blackwood, narrowing his eyes, looked up the slope to see who it was. It was Footling.
Hearst sang out the order for the climb to begin again.
Blackwood felt as if he had hardly rested at all, but even that short pause had been enough to make his muscles stiffen. He was dismayed. After all the years of hardship his body had endured without fail, would his strength abandon him here, in the wilderness? He dreaded the prospect of being left behind if he could not keep up with the others.
Suddenly the bottle hanging from Blackwood's belt began to shake and rattle.
'No!' shouted Blackwood. Everyone stopped climbing. 'No!' he cried.
But a stream of vapours shot out and coagulated into the form of Prince Comedo. He screamed as the sunlight seared his eyes. He slipped on the scoria and fell. Blackwood made no effort to save him: it would have endangered the whole party. But Comedo grabbed Miphon's boot as he slid past. The wrench shook the rope.
It parted, breaking just above Blackwood's hands.
He grabbed for the end of it, but found himself off balance and sliding. So was Miphon. Soon the thirty people below the breaking point were sliding. Some managed to brake themselves with their boots before they had picked up too much momentum. Others grabbed outcroppings of rock. But the rest were swept away down the slippery sliding slope.
Hearst, safe above the rope-break, screamed at his men, ordering them to roll onto their backs. Blackwood already had, to let the stones grind and rip at his leather pack instead of his belly, while he tried to brake with his feet. Comedo, still clinging to Miphon's boot and still screaming, lacked the self-possession to do anything to slow his fall. Miphon booted him in the face. Comedo let go and slid to the bottom of the slope.
Blackwood and Miphon came bumping down after him with half a dozen others. The rest were still clinging to the rope far above them, or were scattered through all the points in between. Comedo was screaming like a bayoneted baby, his face torn, his clothes ripped, his body gouged and scraped.
'See what you've done?' snarled Blackwood, picking himself up.
Comedo cringed like a dog that knows it is about to get kicked, and blubbered through a mask of blood: 'It was so hot, so hot, so stuffy. It was so sway and jolty, voices so cruel. I was sick, sick, oh I was so sick and suffering, and nobody comforts, I scream and nobody comes, nobody, oh I suffer, poor me suffering, poor me.'
Miphon, ever the healer, stepped forward to see what he could do. Comedo smelt of neglect, defeat and musty self-abuse. His hair was dirty and unkempt; he was half-shaven; his skin had erupted into boils. His wounds and welts, half-disguised by dust and blood, looked terrible, but Miphon suspected most of them were superficial.
'Kiirhim, Miphon,' said Blackwood. 'Kill – '
A spasm of coughing racked his body. He doubled over, then was forced to his knees. He clutched at his belly. Cold smoke dribbled out through his twisted lips. i don't like this place,' moaned Comedo. 'I don't like it.'
'Kill him,' said Blackwood, raising his head high enough to look at Comedo. 'He's good for nothing else now.'
But Miphon was examining the prince with skilled hands, satisfying himself that the damage was all superficial. Blackwood forced himself to his feet. His last fit of coughing had felt as if it was tearing his innards out; he held his gut with all his strength to reinforce it against the pain.
The others had picked themselves up by now and were dusting themselves off. None were seriously hurt, which was a minor miracle. One of those graced by the miracle was Gorn, who stalked toward Comedo, axe in hand. There was no doubting his intentions. Comedo reached for the ring.
'Miphon!' shouted Blackwood. 'Stop him!'
Miphon grabbed Comedo. But Comedo twisted the ring – and the two of them dissolved into a fog which was sucked into the bottle so fast that there was a rush of wind as air swept into the place where they had been standing.
'Give me the bottle,' said Gorn.
The bottle was hanging from Blackwood's belt by a thread; the slide down the slope had almost torn it away. Blackwood pulled it free and passed it to Gorn, who shook it.
'Come out, you scag!' shouted Gorn. 'Out!'
Nothing happened.
Gorn hurled the bottle against a rock. Chips scattered from the rock. The bottle was unharmed. Gorn marched toward it.
Blackwood grabbed his arm.
'Gorn, it's no use – '
Another fit of coughing interrupted what Blackwood had to say. Gorn shook himself free and attacked the bottle with his axe. Men stood round watching till Gorn had exhausted his anger.
'Weil wait,' said Gorn. 'The wizard must be able to overpower that little scag. Then we'll do him. We'll do him dead.'
Gorn sat down on a rock to wait.
Blackwood coughed again. The dust he had breathed in while sliding down the slope was combining with the parasitic smoke to cause him agony. He had to have water to wash the dust out of his throat. There was dust on his boots, in his hair, in his eyes and on his lips; up on the slope, the dust kicked up by the slide was still settling measure by measure through the hot dry air. They could hear Hearst shouting something at them, but what he was saying they could not tell over the distance.
Blackwood walked to the water and stooped down. A Melski lept from the water and threw him backwards. His pack absorbed the shock of the fall, but the creature got its hands on his throat. He clawed for its eyes. His fingernails scraped across tough skin. Then the creature thrashed and screamed: Gorn had axed it open. Blackwood threw it off. He unshipped his knife.
More Melski came plunging out of the water. There was a brief and furious fight. The Melski outnumbered the men two to one, but they fled when reinforcements came crashing down the scree slope.
The odds had given the Melski the better fight: there was one dead Melski, there was a spare Melski arm twitching on the stones, and there were three dead men. Blackwood watched the amputated arm with fascination. It shed little drops of water in its spasms. Stones clinked as the fingers flexed and contracted. Slowly the sun dried it and it ceased to move.
Hearst was in a filthy mood when he got down to the water's edge. He spat in disgust at what he saw.
'We were outnumbered,' protested Gorn.
'Outnumbered! By animals!'
'They had weapons,' said Gorn.
'Yes, and a rabbit has teeth. Where's Miphon?' in Comedo's bottle,' said Gorn. 'Comedo grabbed him and pulled him in with him.'
'Then why hasn't he come out?'
'We're waiting,' said Gorn.
'You're waiting! What kind of answer is that? A Rovac warrior and you let this happen. Don't speak to me, I don't need your excuses. Who's dead?'
'Trother, Onger and Ilchard.'
'Let's have their packs off then,' said Hearst. 'Move, man, move! And you! And you!'
The packs were rifled for food and clothing. They had plenty enough weapons already, so Hearst broke the blades the dead men had carried. He studied the three bodies. Ilchard had a nice pair of boots, and they looked about the right size… Hearst whipped them off and got his feet into them.
'Now we wait,' said Hearst. 'We wait until Miphon comes out with Comedo's head in his hands.'
But they waited in vain, and Hearst, growing tired of watching the sun shifting shadows over the rocks, gave the order for the climb to be resumed.
In the afternoon, long after resuming their climb, 262 they saw the surviving Melski come out of the water and
