A spire of black stone flashed by on their left, its pitted face almost near enough to touch. Fost's head snapped back to see where they were heading.
/'// bet things like this did, too, he thought at Ziore. Look where the damned thing's setting us down!
Moriana looked where he pointed. A patrol of Vridzish stood gesticulating at a torrent that flowed through a cut in the same glossy gray stone Fost had seen before. A few hammers and prybars lay scattered about, and a knot of unarmed Zr'gsz huddled near the soldiers, staring at what resembled a cascade of extremely muddy water – or watery mud. Fost knew from the mad dance of superheated air above the stream it had to be lava. Water would hiss instantly to vapor. The Vridzish stood on the side of the lava stream. The raft was making for a point just beyond them – in the midst of a river of melted rock!
The ground raced by beneath. Fost sheathed his sword and clutched the edge of the stone slab, leaning out to judge the distance to the ground. The agonizingly slow progress of the raft had become amad careening – or so it seemed. Fost hoped this was only illusion. If they were moving too fast when they jumped from the raft, they'd tumble end over end across the cooled lava on the slope. It would be like rolling across a field of razorblades.
'We'll have to jump!' he screamed at Moriana. She nodded assent. Ziore's satchel was already slung over her shoulder. The pink genie hovered by her side, looking concerned. Erimenes had disappeared back into his own jar. Fost heard his whimpering even above the god's bellow of the exploding volcano.
A hundred feet short of the patrol and the lava flow, they jumped. Fost landed with a jolt that seemed to drive his ankles up to his knees and went on over to slash his arms and face on the jagged lava rock. Some good fortune spared his much-abused nose. Wiping at the blood pouring into his eyes from a nasty forehead cut, he looked up in time to see Moriana hit, tuck and roll with perfect form. She continued rolling on down the slope and came to her feet with barely a scratch. He cursed her Sky City training. He'd jumped from a few second-story windows in his time, to spare himself unpleasant scenes with unreasonable husbands bearing swords, but he'd never had occasion to jump from a second-story window that moved.
His plaints inaudible in the uproar, he accepted a hand up from Moriana.
'You heedless barbarian, how could you endanger me with such utter recklessness!' Erimenes screeched. 'My jug could have been smashed to flinders!'
The abandoned raft brushed the feathered headdress of a Zr'gsz officer. The Hisser looked up and gaped in astonishment as the raft drove on to plunge into the rushing lava stream. One of the lizard men clutched his face and fell kicking as molten stone splashed him.
The others turned their heads to see pale distorted shapes scrambling across the lava field. No vocal commands were needed. The officer waved his two-handed mace and the patrol raced in pursuit.
'Here they come!' Neither Fost nor Moriana needed Erimenes's warning to know the patrol slowly closed the distance between them. Choking and coughing on the dust clogging the air, the pair ran as fast as they could over the treacherous, broken ground. After what seemed an eternity of struggling in the sulfurous atmosphere, Fost turned to see how near the Zr'gsz were. The Hissers had lost interest – or perhaps their lives, since they were nowhere to be seen.
The mountain shuddered under Fost's feet. And the black stone was fever hot, burning him despite his thick bootsoles. With every third step it seemed a loose rock turned under him, twisting his ankle and adding a gash on unsuspecting calf or thigh.
'You incomparable dolt! Watch where you're going!' screamed Erimenes from the relative safety of his satchel.
Tricky as the ground was underfoot, Fost refused to look down. The spectacle of the volcano in full throat riveted his attention. A column of maroon smoke shot through with sheets of fire blasted upward from the crater. A ceiling of black cloud hung over the mountain. A hellwind raged within. Fost glimpsed the glow of incandescent gases swirling in the guts of the cloud.
It was as if battle raged between sky and earth. The Throat of the Dark Ones vomited lava and smoke and boulders and searingly poisonous vapors. The sky retaliated with incessant whip strokes of blue-white lightning. Rain lashed down all around, but no longer fell on the mountain itself. The monstrous upswelling of heat from the Throat cast it back upward again as steam.
A barbed spear struck a humped rock in Fost's path. Erimenes howled incoherently as a hammerblow landed on Fost's left shoulder.
The man bent and spun with the force of the blow. Instinct made him draw steel as he turned, and the training he'd bought from renegade fighting masters in High Medurim made him turn the draw into a savage backhanded cut at the black shape looming on the fringes of his vision. A black-clawed hand released its grip on a mace to make a frantic, futile effort to stuff back in the greasy, green ropes of guts spilling from the lizard man's opened stomach. The intestines tangled the Hisser's feet as it fell.
Fost kept spinning until he faced the way he had before the attack. He lit out running after Moriana. With his left arm numbed by the slung stone, he was at a worse disadvantage than usual against the inhuman reflexes of the Vridzish. 'Stand and fight!' Erimenes yelled at him. 'You're crazy,' he howled back. 'That's what you always say!' 'No, you idiot! They're almost on top of you!'
Fost flung himself to one side without even looking. A vicious spear thrust missed him by scant inches. He tumbled onto his rump among the jagged rocks. A screaming Hisser lunged at him. He brought up both feet and kicked the creature in the belly. It fell away. He scrambled to his feet, hacked as he rose. The blade bit flesh. He didn't wait to see where. He just ran.
Perhaps the furor of the eruption was subsiding or perhaps it was his imagination that he heard the lizard men on his heels hissing triumph and baying like a pack of hunting hounds closing for the kill. There was no doubting they were almost on him. Over a long run his superior endurance would have told, but in this short, desperate sprint over jagged ground they were fleeter than he.
Fost dashed up a long slope of relatively smooth lava and found himself flying across a crack that yawned abruptly under his feet. On the far side of the crevice, he turned and lashed with his sword taking a Hisser in the torso as it leaped after him. The lizard man fell back into the six-foot gap.
The crack ran up and down the slope as far as he could see in both directions. It was a natural place to make his stand.
'Run!' he shouted at Moriana as he set his feet and took his sword in both hands to prepare for battle.
Moriana's voice rang in his brain: No! Don't be a fool. You haven't a chance!
He took this mental communication as an indication that Ziore still relayed their messages.
'It's the only chance,' he shouted, not sure how to form the thoughts for Ziore to translate. He immediately regretted even opening his mouth. His throat was raw from breathing dust. 'You're the one who matters. Now run.' He saw Moriana start to protest. He shouted her down. 'Do you think I like being a hero?'
He had no chance then to see if she obeyed. A second Zr'gsz scrambled up the lava ramp and launched itself at him, only to meet the same fate as its comrade. The tall, feathered helmet of the officer appeared, bobbing purposefully toward Fost.
Movement made him glance upslope. A stream of thin, fast moving lava slopped over a lip of rock and splashed down onto a ledge a hundred yards above. Fost swallowed, though it felt as if a metallic rasp worked on his throat.
The lava rushed straight for him.
'Moriana, don't go! Save me from this lunkhead's folly!' For the first time in Fost's recollection, Erimenes pleaded to be taken from a promising fight. He obviously didn't like the notion of spending the rest of eternity entombed in a lava flow. The courier had little time to savor the spirit's abject fear because the big, dark-scaled officer was closing fast.