longer hummed, and was no longer filled with shimmering grey. Instead, Sarazin could look through the arch to grass and sky.
Glambrax scrambled on to the plinth, hopped towards the arch, then jumped right through. But he did not disappear into another world or another time. Instead, he landed on the marble of the plinth, scarcely half a pace from where he had started. The Door was not working. It was nothing more than a hoop of cold metal stuck in some cold stone. 'Piss on it!' said Sarazin in frustration.
As Glambrax suited actions to his words, Sarazin searched for the niche said to be set in the plinth. He found such a niche, but it was innocent of any star-globe. Sarazin sat on a rock, idly tossing a stone from one hand to the other, pretending he was thinking. 'What now?' said Glambrax. 'What do you suggest?' said Sarazin.
'A night at the theatre, a couple of good ales, then we can catch a dog and rape it.'
As Glambrax grabbed hold of a virginal stone and began to demonstrate his dog-raping technique, Sarazin sighed, and started to think in earnest. There was no sign of any recent intrusion into the valley. Green growth had repaired the blast damage where wizards had used flame against the Swarms. There were no fresh tracks. The Door, he suspected, had been shut for quite some time.
'Do you want to use my rock?' said Glambrax. 'I've broken it in for you.' 'I want,' said Sarazin, 'to start building a house.' 'Whatever for? We're not going to stay here, are we?' 'Got any better ideas?' 'Hok,' said Glambrax. 'Castle X-n'dix.'
'Dunderhead!' said Sarazin. 'It's half a thousand leagues from here to Hok. The full width of the Harvest Plains lies between us and it.'
'Not so,' said Glambrax. 'Hok is but two hundred leagues distant.'
'What a happy little optimist!' said Sarazin. 'I'll split the difference. We'll say it's 350 leagues away. That's 35 marches. Besides, we've no more food, and my boots are finished as it is. This Door may open tomorrow, then we can go through to – to-' 'To meet our ancestors,' said Glambrax, smirking.
'You'll never meet yours,' retorted Sarazin. 'They'd flee from the disgrace on the instant.'
In the end, Sarazin's will prevailed: they would stay. And wait. Hoping that the Door would finally open.
Sarazin's plan was to build a house and live off the land. Erecting a shack proved easy enough, but land-living was a tougher proposition. Then Glambrax confessed to knowing the location of a couple of supply dumps back near the hunting lodge. A raid on those dumps uncovered great quantities of mouldering rice. Bit by bit, they carried the rice back to the Door. And ate, and slept, and ate again – and waited.
After many days of eking out a miserable existence by the Door, Sarazin and Glambrax were flushed out of the valley by a keflo, one of the monsters of the Swarms. They eluded it – just! – then narrowly escaped death in the form of another gigantic green centipede.
Clearly, the Swarms had pushed into Chenameg from the Harvest Plains, and were now in the Kingdom in quantity. Sarazin and Glambrax escaped south into rough-torn mountain heights where the Swarms could not venture. They now had a choice.
First, to stay put and starve in the barrens above the treeline, where a hunter could not be guaranteed success even if the quarry was earthworms.
Alternatively, to march east of south, descending into the desolation of the Marabin Erg then daring a march to the shores of the Sponge Sea. But the Marabin Erg was a man-destroying desert with a fearsome reputation, and the Sponge Sea itself was but a name from legend. Or…
Sarazin recalled the interrogation of Atsimo Andra- novory, Erhed, and others. On deserting the quest hero Morgan Hastsword Hearst in the dragonlands near the Araconch Waters, Andranovory and his companions had eventually found their way down the Velvet River which, after flowing through the Manaray Gorge, entered the Kingdom at the Gates of Chenameg – thereafter running westward down to the Harvest Plains and the waters of the Central Ocean.
This is what we do,' said Sarazin to Glambrax. 'We march widdershins through the mountains till we come to the Manaray Gorge. We follow the Velvet River east into the interior, then dare a passage across the dragonlands till we come to Brine.' Then?' said Glambrax.
'We hope for a ship to Ashmolea,' said Sarazin. There's no hope left for Argan.' 'Gahl' said Glambrax.
The dwarf was in a bad temper, which did not improve when the violence of the mountain upthrusts forced them to descend once more to the lowlands of Chenameg to dare the danger of the Swarms and seek passage through the wilderness to the Gates of Chenameg. Such were the dif- ficulties of their journey that it was early summer before they finally drew near those Gates.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
Gates of Chenameg: western end of Manaray Gorge where Velvet River issues into Chenameg.
Sarazin expected no hindrance to his projected journey up the Velvet River to the Araconch Waters. But, on drawing near the Manaray Gorge, he found hordes of refugees camped at the Gates of Chenameg. Many were newcomers like himself, driven east by encroaching monsters.
The Velvet River, pouring from the Manaray Gorge in a turbulent torrent, could not be ascended – except by salmon. Precipitous cliffs forbade escape to the east but by one narrow path clinging to the southern side of the gorge. The Gates were heavily fortified, and the Lord of the Gates taxed all who used that path. Sarazin's first impressions were: Mud, stench and noise.
Mud from unpaved ground trampled by thousands. Stench from sewage unburied. Noise from pranking children, wailing babies, howling dogs, ranting roosters. Everywhere Sarazin looked there was something to offend his sensibilities.
Why waste our efforts feeding dogs when the world slips to disaster?' said he.
'Because we in turn on dogs may feed,' said Glambrax. 'Look!'
Indeed, at a nearby stall dead dogs were hung up for sale, while others, their hind legs broken so they could not escape, waited for purchase and slaughter.
Other uncouth meats were on sale. Rats, mice, carrion crows, toads, frogs, snails, worms. And stranger things, such as lumps of flesh of phosphorescent blue. Hard jelly tinged with green. Thin sheets of pliable, transluscent red flecked with gold. To his relief, Sarazin saw one could also buy fish.
On enquiry, he found the alien meats he had failed to identify were the flesh of monsters of the Swarms. Men hunted such in highly organised bands of two or three hundred, armed not just with spears and crossbows but also with powerful arbalests originally designed for siege warfare. 'So the Swarms can be fought,' said Sarazin with relief.
'That is scarcely news,' said a stranger. 'For the last three thousand years and more the Landguard have defended the Far South against any monsters from the Deep which fluked a passage past Drangsturm.'
'But now we know the secret of this combat too,' said Sarazin.
'There is no secret, unless you call weight of numbers a secret. A crossbow well-handled can bring down an elephant, so it is no surprise that stray monsters fall to our companies. But when the odds are reversed, when the Swarms come east in their thousands, then we must leave or die.' 'Why linger then?' said Sarazin.
'Why not?' said the stranger. The days are no longer in Brine, the sky no more blue in Ashmolea. I work as a hunter in Karendor's company. It won't last forever, but it's a good life while it lasts.'
'Then – you're one of these who hunt against the Swarms?'
'Indeed. Would you care to join us? We're always looking for good men.' 'I'll think about it,' said Sarazin.
'You do that. You'll find us in the stockade downriver from this – this mud. You can't miss it. The stockade's the size of a castle, a huge wall of earth, logs and stones, with the head of a green as a trophy over the gate.' 'A green?' said Sarazin.
'A green centipede,' said the stranger. 'Come, man – you have the look of a soldier. Why hesitate? Join us today. We'd find work for your dwarf as well. Smoking meat and such.'
'I am but newly arrived,' said Sarazin, 'and there are some people I would like to look for first. But if I find them not, you may see me at your door tomorrow.'
Then he parted company with the stranger and explored the refugee camp further. But saw not a single face he knew. He asked after friends, acquaintances – even enemies. Fox? Farfalla? Lod? Lord Regan? Jaluba? Thodric
