The next day they moved even more apprehensively along the causeway. The dead Gashan might have been some kind of warning, he certainly indicated that they were approaching a place where the Gashan folk lived, possibly even the city written of in the Gash-Tal.
Althak’s arm was swollen and painful. The skin around the bite was tight and black with poison, but Azkun’s condition seemed to have stabilised.
They had not been walking more than two hours when they heard a rumbling in the distance. It sounded like thunder at first but the sky was clear. As they drew closer they realised that it was the sound of great drums being hammered.
Around them the forest was becoming less swampy. The causeway was no longer a bridge over the marsh but a road across solid ground. The trees were less dense here, though the snakes were as plentiful as ever. Without the marsh they had nothing to fear from the thing that had killed Hrangil and Grath, but there were other things in the forest. Once Menish noticed a large cat-like creature sliding stealthily among the trees.
In spite of the protection it gave them they decided to leave the causeway. It was possible that the Gashans would have guards posted on it, and discovery would surely mean death. They made their way through the forest, keeping the causeway in sight and keeping a wary eye out for other dangers.
The city itself came upon them suddenly. They emerged from a dense part of the forest and found themselves beside a high stone wall that stretched away from them on either side. It was ancient and crumbling, and beyond it came the hammering of drums.
Menish thrust them back into the cover of the forest while he scanned the walls for guards. However, there were no Gashans in sight. They crept along the edge of the wall until they came to a place where it had crumbled away sufficiently for them to pass through.
“Be careful,” said Menish. “Evil things, snakes and the like, may lurk among the stones.”
Althak’s breath was labouring as they picked their way among the blocks of stone. They saw several brightly coloured snakes like the one Grath had killed sunning themselves on the stones, but they did not have to pass close to them.
Once beyond the wall they found themselves in a wide courtyard faced with massive stone buildings ornately decorated with statues and relief work, but all were ancient and crumbling. The nearest building had a wide stairway leading up to a doorway flanked by two tall statues, no less than ten times the height of a man. They had huge, kindly faces and their hands were open in friendship.
But a wide crack ran like a chasm down the stairway. The face of one of the statues had cracked and crumbled in a way that suggested it was weeping and tears were running down its cheek. One of the arms of the other statue lay in the dust at its feet.
“Why is it all ruined? Do the Gashans not live here any more?”
“I think the Gashans live here like the snakes,” said Menish. “They never built all this.”
Although they had seen no Gashans the drums were loud and not far away. An evil smell, like the burning of unclean things, wafted into the courtyard. They moved stealthily, keeping to shadows and avoiding the open spaces. There was a gateway leading out of the courtyard and they moved carefully towards it. Once there had been heavy gates across it. Two stone hooks could still be seen on the pillars of the gateway. But the gates had long since disappeared.
They peered through the gateway gingerly. There were still no Gashans to be seen. A wide street ran past the gateway and Menish wondered if this was the continuation of their causeway. As far as he could tell it led in the same direction. To Menish it seemed dangerously exposed but there was no other route. He thought briefly of climbing onto the roof of the buildings but discarded the idea as impractical. The outside walls were too smooth to climb and he did not like the idea of venturing inside the buildings.
They moved from cover to cover along the street, keeping to the side that offered most shadow. There were plenty of fallen stones to hide behind and alleyways to slip into. The drums grew louder, but still they saw no Gashans. Menish began to wonder if they had already been seen and were walking into an ambush, but he had no reason to believe that.
For more than an hour they made their way along the street. The city must have been a beautiful place before it fell into ruin. Some of the buildings were faced with marble, most were decorated with carvings of men, birds and axes. The double-headed axe motif Grath had seen in the hot pool was stamped everywhere here and easily recognisable. One building had a dragon carved across its facade in raised relief. It was startlingly lifelike and Azkun stared at it, forgetting himself until Menish pulled him into an alleyway.
“There is something wrong with it. Yes, the ears. Dragons do not have ears.”
“Perhaps the carver hadn't actually seen one,” said Althak. Menish noticed that his face was grey with pain. “We're far from the sea.”
At last the street opened out into an immense square dominated by a huge, pillared building. They crept behind the fallen head of a massive statue and peered out at the scene before them.
There were Gashans here, a great host of them, naked as animals. Near the steps leading up to the pillared building was an enormous drum. It lay on its side and a team of Gashans rammed a log against it, making the hammering sound they had heard all day.
Near the drum, on the lower steps, stood a figure who was speaking to the host assembled in the square.
Cautiously they edged forward. A pile of rubble gave them a clear vantage point.
The figure on the steps was a Gashan woman. She held her arms above her head as she spoke and clasped in her hands were two of the coloured snakes Grath had warned them of.
They writhed and twisted in her hands, biting at her arms again and again as blood flowed down in long, red streaks. But she stood there as the drum pounded, an evil smile on her face as if she relished her own death. She spoke to the crowd. Menish could not hear her words clearly above the drum and he knew he would not have understood them anyway, but they sounded like an exhortation to evil.
With horrible fascination they watched as she swayed on her feet and collapsed onto the steps. The Gashans shouted with glee as she writhed and twitched with the poison. The snakes slid from her grasp but another Gashan woman caught them up. She raised them above her head and continued her predecessor’s speech.
Other Gashans picked up the still convulsing woman and flung her on a stone block. There they hacked off her head and caught her blood in a wide copper bowl. Her body was pulled off the block and flung onto a pile of other bodies that lay beyond it. This grisly scene had been going on for some time.
They carried the bowl to another stone block and poured the blood over it.
Menish could see something on this stone but he did not know what it was at first. It looked like a head. When the crimson liquid poured over it a shout went up from the Gashans and the thing on the stone glowed with a light as green as venom. In the midst of the glow Menish saw an eye. This was what they had come to find. This was what the Gashans had done to the Eye of Duzral, or perhaps this was what the Eye had done to them. Perhaps this was why the Sons of Gilish had always kept it hidden.
There was no way he could be mistaken. He had seen the thing once before, he had seen that eye peering out from the Emperor's clasped hands. The last time it had not been as malevolent, but it was the same eye.
A ragged sigh from Azkun at his side caught his attention. He was looking with bulging eyes at the woman with the snakes. He was rubbing his arms, twitching them and wincing with pain as the snakes struck her. His jaw worked silently and expressions of malice crossed his face. Menish remembered what he had said about the Gashan on the causeway.
“Azkun,” he shook him.
Azkun’s eyes seemed to refocus on him for a moment, then the woman with the snakes collapsed as her predecessor had done. The attendants carried her to the stone block and another took her place. Once again Azkun was submerged in their evil. Before Menish could stop him he began shouting, echoing the words of the woman on the steps, though they were meaningless to Menish. He twisted himself away from Menish’s grasp and clambered to the top of the pile of rubble.
“No!” he screamed, a long, gut-wrenching cry that tore at his throat and sounded loud and clear even over the noise of the drums.
Time stopped for an instant while Menish reacted. The Gashans turned to see where the cry had come from. They would be on them in a moment. There was no way to reach the Duzral Eye, and in its present condition Menish was loath to touch it anyway. He grabbed Azkun’s arm and ran for the nearest exit from the great square, with Althak panting behind him.
As they crossed an open space a howl like that of a hunting pack went up behind them. Althak’s pace was unsteady, but he kept up with them. Azkun was running on his own now, Menish no longer had to pull him along. Even so Menish would not have given much for their chances of escape.
They threw themselves into a narrow alleyway and raced down it. Menish ran blindly from alley to alley, hoping against hope that he could somehow lose the Gashans. Once, when he hesitated at a fork in their path, Azkun said, “Not that way, they are down there.” He took the other path, though he never knew if Azkun was right.
Althak moaned with the effort of their running. His arm looked much worse, the swelling was up to the elbow now, barely contained by the bandage Menish had made.
“M’Lord, I can't keep up with you. This alleyway's narrow, they couldn't approach me more than one or two at a time. Let me hold them here while you escape.”
“Damn your heroics!” shouted Menish with tears behind his eyes. “Do you think I could leave you to that? I'd rather kill you myself.”
He caught Althak’s arm and threw it across his shoulders. Azkun did the same with the other arm and, supporting him, they continued their flight.
Menish thought his heart would burst and his leg began to feel weak with strain. He was too old for this kind of thing, he should have listened to Adhara when she told him to stay in Meyathal. He did not want to die like this. In battle, yes, or even to drift away peacefully at home, but not captured by a horde of Gashans. He wanted to see Meyathal once more. He wanted to see Adhara.
They reached the outer wall of the city and clambered over a fallen section of it into the forest, heedless of any dangers except the one that followed them. Menish had no idea where they were. They might be on the far side of the city for all he could tell, but they kept on running.
A cry of fiendish glee rose behind them as Gashans spilled across the wall and spotted them racing through the trees. Menish had hoped they would have time to climb a tree and hide there but that was no longer a possibility. They ran on.
They were, all three, about to drop from exhaustion when they were suddenly halted by the marsh. Menish cursed himself for not paying closer attention to their surroundings. They had run out into a long tongue of dry ground and now were surrounded on three sides by the gurgling, slimy mud they were so familiar with. Behind them the Gashans crowded forward blocking any retreat.
There was no choice really. They waded into the slime.
It gurgled and stank. Fortunately it was not as thick as Menish had expected and they could make headway through it. The worst thing about it was the stink. The mud came up to Menish’s chest and that was uncomfortably close to his nostrils.
The Gashans, who had thought them trapped, yelled with rage and flung themselves into the mire after them. Menish could see some high ground not far off, but he doubted if they could reach it before the Gashans reached them. They were gaining on them.
Suddenly Azkun screamed.
“Something… something on my leg… pulling… aargh!” Before Menish could do anything he disappeared beneath the slime.
“Azkun! Damn.” The Gashans were still gaining. “It may be another of those creatures. Come on, Althak!” But the Vorthenki did not move. His face twitched but otherwise he hung limply from Menish’s shoulder. One arm draped down into the mud, following Azkun's disappearance. He moaned in pain.
“Althak!”
Suddenly the Vorthenki lurched into life. His body tensed as if a convulsion seized him, the muscles on his arm bunched and corded with strain. With a cry of agony he hauled Azkun back from under the mud.
At the same moment a marsh creature erupted in the midst of the Gashans, roaring and screeching and snaking out fingers towards them. Menish did not know where he found the strength to drag his two companions through the mud to solid ground. He had little enough left to even look back at the Gashans. The creature held a hundred writhing forms, the rest had escaped back to the other side.
They were safe for the moment, from Gashans at least. He collapsed between the bodies of his friends, not knowing if he would live to regain his senses or not and, for the moment, not greatly caring.
It was Azkun who woke him, and it was pitch dark.
“I am worried about Althak. He is unconscious and his body jerks.”
“Convulsions,” said Menish. “I saw them start when we were in the mud. I think he pulled you out with one.”
“But… what does it mean?”
Menish sighed.
“It means he's dying,” he said wearily. “Why aren't you dying? You were bitten.”
Azkun’s hand touched his cheek.
“The dragons protect me.”
Menish slammed his fist into Azkun’s jaw.
“The dragons protect you? Hrangil died defending you from the marsh creature. Althak pulled you from under the mud. Your friends die saving you while you do nothing for them and thank your dragons!”
Azkun rubbed his jaw and said nothing. They waited until dawn, listening to Althak’s moaning.
When it was light enough Menish cut two straight branches and tied their cloaks between them to form a litter for Althak, for there was no way he could walk and Menish could not abandon him here. Althak’s pack, and the little food it still contained, had been lost when they fled the city so Menish set off with an empty belly and a heavy heart. He had little idea where they were, he only knew that this place was still too near the city and the marsh. Anywhere else was better.