'All the better. While they are pursuing her, we can slip away.'
Atreus whirled on the Mar, pulling a six-foot length of chain from the heap. 'How can you say such a thing? She saved our lives.'
Rishi eyed the chain nervously, backing toward the door. 'I am only thinking of the good sir,' he lied.
'I thought you were done with me,' Atreus replied. He stepped over to the pile of smithy tools. 'I recall something about what happens when a pretty slave girl smiles at me.'
Rishi's face darkened. 'Many harsh words are spoken when people are tired and cold, but there is no reason for us to be angry with each other. After we recover the gold, everything will be as before. We can resume our journey and find Langdarma, certainly in a very short time.'
'Certainly?' Atreus scoffed. He picked up a heavy forge hammer and stepped toward the door. 'You know where to find the gold if you want it I'm going after Seema.'
Outside, the swamp was filled with calling voices, but the two slavers were not answering. The pair needed all their breath to keep pace with Seema. She was racing up the mountainside toward the waterfall beneath the glacier, holding her long skirt with both hands, bounding from rocks to grass tufts as lightly as a gazelle.
Atreus leaped off the barge and rushed across a grassy flat to the base of the mountain. After so much time in the swamp, the ground felt solid and good beneath his feet, but he found himself gasping for breath as soon as he started to climb. His legs grew weighty and slow, and they burned with fatigue. The chain and hammer became as heavy as boulders, and his wounds began to throb miserably. No matter how quickly he pumped his knees, he fell farther behind, and it took an effort of will to launch himself from each grass tuft up to the next one.
Seema continued to dance effortlessly up the slope, the two slavers clambering at her heels. Excited cries began to rise from below, and Atreus knew she had climbed high enough to be seen from the swamp. Tarch and his men would be swarming toward the barge now, but Atreus did not look back to see them. With his lungs burning and a ferocious headache pounding at his temples, it was all he could do to keep running. Seema did not stray from her course until the mist of the waterfall began to spray her, and even then she turned only toward a drier section of cliff.
As shallow as the angle was, the two slavers made good use of it, closing to within half a dozen steps of her. Atreus's knees began to tremble with exhaustion, and his aching chest filled with phlegm, but he forced himself to go on. What was a monster good for, if not to save beautiful damsels cornered by bestial slavers?
But Seema had other ideas. She hit the cliff at a run, leaping up to thrust her hands into a crevice so narrow it seemed a mere line. Pulling herself up with her arms, she swung her feet onto a pair of nubby toeholds and began to clamber up the rocks like a spider.
So astonished was Atreus that he almost stopped running, but the slavers were not surprised at all. Reaching the cliff only a few seconds behind Seema, they dropped their swords and began to jump, grabbing for her feet When this did not work, the heavier one cupped his hands and boosted the lighter one up. The man caught Seema by the ankle and began to tug.
'Come along… girl,' he puffed. 'Don't bruise yourself. You don't want to do that, or Tarch'll start getting ideas about… keeping you.'
Seema began to kick, trying to free her ankle. 'Just pull her down!' urged the bottom man.
'N-no!' Atreus gasped, now only five paces below.
Both slavers glanced down and their eyes grew wide. Leaving his partner to hang from Seema's ankle, the bottom man snatched his sword and stepped down to attack. With the blow arcing down from above, Atreus had no choice but to twist out of the way and fling his chain up in a wild, backhand block. The steel links struck with a metallic clatter and wrapped themselves around the blade. Atreus jerked the sword from his attacker's grasp.
In the next instant, a booted heel crashed into Atreus's jaw. He saw stars, then his knees went limp, and he found himself rolling down the mountainside with no memory of having fallen. He rotated onto his back, swinging his feet around to kick his heels into a tuft of soft grass. He lurched to a stop and heard his foe clattering down the slope above. Atreus rolled over to find the slaver almost upon him, now holding the smithy's hammer he did not remember dropping.
Atreus staggered to his feet, head spinning and spent muscles trembling. Somewhere along the way the sword came untangled from the chain and scattered itself down the slope in three broken pieces. Atreus whirled the chain above his head. The slaver slowed, circling around to approach from the side.
Head still spinning, Atreus lurched across the hill. The astonished slaver stumbled back, eyes darting toward the chain still whistling above his foe's head. Finally, he seemed to collect himself and stopped. He cocked his arm and planted his forward foot, then hurled the heavy hammer.
There was no time to duck or dodge. Atreus sprang into a charge, snapping his arm up to protect his head. The hammer glanced off his wrist and tumbled away. Then Atreus was on the slaver, swinging the heavy chain into the man's head.
The fellow's eyes went dull and gray, but somehow he kept his feet and came up with a belt dagger. He attacked low, shooting the knife in toward Atreus's groin.
Atreus skipped backward and slapped the weapon down, bringing his blocking hand up in a vicious back- fisted strike. The slaver's jaw clacked shut He spit out the tip of his tongue and stumbled back, blind with pain and slashing his dagger about madly. Atreus whirled the chain down across his attacker's wrist, entangling the fellow's arm and knocking his knife loose. The slaver howled and tried to jerk free but succeeded only in drawing Atreus closer.
Atreus grabbed him behind the neck and pulled, at the same time slamming a knee to his foe's chest. There were two muffled cracks, and the man groaned and dropped to the ground, wheezing and clutching at his side.
Atreus kicked the slaver down the slope and saw Rishi scrambling up the mountainside, moving quickly despite his limp and the large bundle slung over his shoulder. Farther below, Tarch and a dozen men were just starting across the narrow flat that separated the mountains from the swamp. Staggering along in front of them, covering six feet a step despite a numb-footed limp, was Yago.
The ogre's face and cloak were caked with ice and mud, and a veritable copse of broken willow stalks jutted up from inside his belt and collar. He looked as if he had passed the night wallowing in the swamp, but Atreus knew better. Yago understood the value of concealment as well as any good hunter, and his camouflage suggested he had spent the night trailing Tarch and his slavers. They had probably not even realized he was there until he broke from the willows and started across the flat.
Too breathless to call out to his friend, Atreus merely waved, then scrambled up the mountainside, his lungs burning so badly he feared he had bruised them tumbling down the hill. On the cliff above, the slaver finally released Seema's ankle and dropped to the ground. She started to climb higher, looked down at Atreus, and stopped where she was.
The slaver retrieved his sword and met Atreus five paces below the cliff, using his uphill advantage to attack with a vicious overhand strike. Too exhausted to dodge or feint, Atreus simply dropped to the ground and swung his chain around in an overhand strike.
The surprised slaver stumbled forward off-balance, and the chain caught him across the wrist, twining itself around his forearm. Atreus spun downhill, whipping his foe overhead like a stone in a sling. The chain reached the end of its length and untwined, hurtling the fellow down the slope like a catapult The slaver hit a dozen paces below, crashing headlong into a boulder and tumbling down the mountainside in a limp heap: Atreus retrieved his dropped sword and rushed up the slope to Seema.
'are you…' he started to say, but was too out of breath to finish.
1 am fine,' Seema replied, sounding rather aloof. 'Have you injured yourself again?'
'I don't think so. Unless you count… being out of breath.'
Atreus turned to see Rishi taking the dagger from the second slaver's weapon belt Instead of slitting the man's throat, he surprised Atreus by simply adding the knife to his bundle of goods. Fifty paces below, Yago was climbing up the slope, steadily opening the distance between himself and the rest of the slavers.
'I'm sorry for the trouble waiting with us caused you,' Atreus said, motioning to the barge.
'Yes, so am I,' Seema said, glancing toward the two slavers lying motionless below. 'Be quiet now and rest. When your friend gets here we will have to move quickly, or there will be more bloodshed.'
Atreus braced his hands on his knees and struggled to catch his breath between fits of coughing. His wounds were throbbing, but the pain was nothing compared to the agony in his pounding head and burning chest.
