A dozen paces and he was there. 'Fox! Fox!' said Sarazin urgently.
Slapped his father's face. Shook him. Glanced from shock-pale Fox to the sun-glittering centipede. Which reared upward, blood dripping from its fighting man- dibles. It screamed with a sky-rending ululation. Then, dread by dread, hauled itself over the ground towards them. You can't have him!' screamed Sarazin.
The scream made the centipede pause. As it wavered, Sarazin made his decision. He would save both their lives. Or they would die together. Sarazin scooped up Fox, slung the man over his shoulder and staggered away towards the pool. Could water save them? It must! It must! How far? Seventy paces? -Oh shit, shit, no, no no!
There was something between them and the water already. A lesser brute than the centipede, but death all the same. A creature the same as the legless hulk which had chased him through the forest before his cliff-jump. Perhaps the self-same brute. Sarazin dropped his father.
The centipede was nearest, so Sarazin turned to face that threat first. Drew his sword, but could muster no battlecry to match the steel. The weapon-weight was shaky in his hands. He was panting, sobbing, was but a straw's-blow away from collapse.
Smooth, the monster was moving smoothly now, perfectly articulated, graceful even. It closed the distance. And Sarazin struck. Delivering a blow which missed, overbalancing him. The point of his sword dug deep into the turf. He hauled it out, glanced up at the brute, which was striking- 'Gah!' Sarazin swung.
One of the monster's fighting mandibles clipped the sword. Threw it into the air. Where it spun, tumbled in the sun, and flashed into intolerable fire. And the centipede screamed, writhed, thrashed upward, blasted by that fire. Sarazin flung himself to the ground, covering his father with his body as heat washed over them.
Though the bulk of the centipede protected them from the full fury of the flame-wrath, the heat was nearly unbearable. The ground shook as the centipede, mad with pain, beat its body against the ground. Whence came such flame? -From dragons?
Sarazin lifted his head a fraction. The centipede had ceased its head-banging, and was writhing in helpless agony. Dying. Lurid flames danced over its body, purple and red, gold and amber. The other monster? The hulk of its body lay but twenty paces away. From its corpse, a heavy smoke ascended to heaven. 'Fox?' said Sarazin, softly. His father was unconscious. So who was that talking?
Someone was, for he could hear voices: not ghost-soft like the hallucinations which sometimes muttered the odd word to him during a sleepless night of sentry duty. No – these were the harsh, curt voices of the workaday world. Of men in a very big hurry. Foreign voices speak- ing an angry language which clattered brusquely through the sunlight.
Sarazin got to his knees, then to his feet. Sidestepped clear of the centipede and saw a bustle of people gathered around the archway, with more joining them every moment. People were simply stepping out from the shimmering grey screen of metal, as had Fox and his comrade. One pointed at Sarazin and shouted.
Sarazin, temporarily unable to speak, flung his hands wide apart to show he was unarmed. At that moment, there was an ominous roar from one of the cliff tops. Turning, Sarazin half-saw a monster there, a long-legged thing obscenely fashioned. Then one of the strangers gathered by the steel arch lifted his hand and spoke a Word. Fire flashed from hand to cliff.
Cliff top, cliff top trees and monster exploded into flame. The monster thrashed through the air, burning, falling, tumbling. Hit the ground. Stood up, staggered, lurched towards them, fire seething from its flesh. Another Word. Another blast of fire. And the monster dropped, most definitely dead. Carbonised. -Wizard work. -So these are wizards.
Some of them were, at any rate. But as they came striding down the valley – in Sarazin's direction! – he saw most of them were spearsmen dressed in sky-blue uniforms, which had evidently been designed for cere- monial display, but were now severely battle-stained. These soldiers were heavily burdened with packs, and some led donkeys which laboured under weights still greater.
As they drew level with Sarazin, one of the wizards halted by Sarazin. 'Galish?' said the wizard. 'I speak it,' said Sarazin. 'Death.' 'This is a threat?' said Sarazin. 'Or a promise?' 'Death comes. Leave to live.'
With that, the wizard strode away in the company of the sky-blue soldiers. When the last of them had gone by, Sarazin turned back to Fox, who had recovered con- sciousness and was sitting up looking at them. 'Got any water?' said Fox.
His voice a husk. Voice of a man uncertain of his own existence. Hurt. Frightened. Shocked. 'Sorry, no,' said Sarazin.
Feeling his own need. Sweat hot on his forehead. Stinging in his eyes. Throat parched. Limbs shaking.
There's water close, though,' said Sarazin. 'Muddy, but that's no worry. I'll get some for you.'
'Good,' said Fox, making an effort to play the manful leader. 'We'll drink then be gone. That Door opens to disaster. More of the Swarms may dare their way into Chenameg if we linger.'
Thus spoke Fox. But, by the time Sarazin had returned with water, Fox had fainted again. And it was some time before he was fit to travel.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
All of the groups which had been involved in the night navigation exercise had been attacked in the forests by monsters of the Swarms. There were few survivors. However, Sarazin, Fox, and a dozen other exhausted men eventually straggled back to headquarters with tales of death and horror. Fox, the only survivor who had dared the Door, was infuriatingly vague about it.
Drake Douay, the thief who had stolen Sarazin's bard, had told stories of Doors in Penvash and elsewhere. Sarazin now deeply regretted disbelieving those stories. If he had believed, he might have paid attention to what he was being told. What had the pirate said of the management of such Doors? The details escaped his memory.
'This Door,' said Sarazin, when all at the hunting lodge were discussing the disaster in common conference, 'I heard someone talk of such. You know who I'm talk- ing about, Jarl. The man Douay. What did he say about Doors?'
'That he went through such,' said Jarl. 'That's all I remember. Do we know where this one goes? Fox?' 'It goes from one place to another,' said Fox. 'Like a dog pissing,' said Glambrax.
'Shut up, you!' said Sarazin. Then, to his father: 'What places were these? Where might they be?' 'I've no idea,' said Fox. 'Then what did you see?' said Sarazin.
Through this Door,' said Fox, 'I saw tree and stone, rock and sky, earth and water.'
This was all… real?' said Lod, who had not seen the Door.
'If illusion, then illusion is life,' said Fox. 'Do you think our monsters mere nightmare? They killed!' Lod shook his head.
'It was the Door I doubted,' said he, 'for I've never heard of such. But your monsters, which must surely be creatures of the Swarms, are famous in Chenameg since the eldest sons of our kings are bound by tradition to quest as heroes to the lands south of Drangsturm.'
'So this Door, then,' said a dark-bearded soldier, 'must open to the terror-lands of the Deep South.'
'For all we know,' said another warrior, 'it could open to another world entirely.'
'Swarms are creatures of our world,' argued a third. 'Besides, young Sarazin here spoke to a wizard in Galish. The Door opens to a place of wizards beyond Drangsturm.'
'Not necessarily,' argued a fourth. It could be a gateway through time, to a past or a future where the Swarms rule all of Argan.' 'No-' 'But-' 'I say-'
'Silence!' said Fox, thumping his fist on a table. As his men hushed, he looked from one to another. Red- eyed. Exhausted. He marshalled words with care, then spoke. 'Whatever the nature of this Door, wherever it goes, without doubt creatures of the Swarms come through it.'
Slowly, compensating for fatigue with an exaggerated precision, he detailed their task. They must shut the Door. How? He had dared the Door himself yet knew of no way to close it. So help must be sought, either to seal the Door or to guard it with gates and walls, lest monsters invade all Chenameg and the lands beyond.
'We lack the numbers to defeat such brutes,' said Fox. 'They have killed some of our best already. We should withdraw from our headquarters, now, today, lest we wake tomorrow to find ourselves besieged by nightmare.'
