The willows beside the barge shook briefly, and the nose of a dugout emerged to gently bump the hull. A pair of slavers jumped aboard and rushed aft, not bothering to glance forward or even to tie their boat to an eye hook. Atreus frowned, but made no move to attack. The two men carried swords instead of whips and padded clubs, and he heard more voices murmuring out in the swamp. Fighting seemed less wise than simply trying to slip away once the slavers entered the barge's ramshackle cabin.
But the pair did not go to the cabin. Instead, they divided and circled around it from both sides.
"Tarch!" yelled one. "Over here!"
"We've got her!"
A slender figure emerged from behind the cabin and began to flee up the mountainside, her black braids and dark tabard leaving no doubt that it was Seema. Atreus threw off his blankets and pulled on his frozen boots, then grabbed Sune's map from his belongings and ran aft. As the slavers disappeared around behind the cabin, Rishi emerged from the front door, blurry-eyed and wrapped in blankets.
"What is all this noise?" Rishi asked. "What has become of everyone?"
"They left us," Atreus told him as he crossed the rear deck in two strides and pushed his way into the cabin. "Are there any weapons in here?"
The interior was murky and rank, with no bed except a pallet of filthy straw. A cask of foul-smelling grog sat in one corner, and a tangled mound of shackles and chains lay heaped against the back wall There were no true weapons in sight, but several sets of smithy's tools sat by the door,
"The barge is ours?" Rishi gasped, still trying to comprehend what Atreus had told him. Then we can recover the gold!"
"I'm afraid not" Atreus went to the back wall and rummaged through the chain heap. Tarch is after Seema. There are a pair of slavers chasing her now."
"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.