Only Takara rode apart. Since her mysterious arrival, she had hung back in the pack, lending aid where it was required but offering little comment. Perhaps she sensed the crew's growing distrust of her. Perhaps she knew that Gerrard no longer welcomed her advice. The others left the fiery Rathi alone. By the dawn of the second day, her reticence was beginning to wear on her comrades.
In the dusty morning, Gerrard's curiosity at last awakened. He let his Jhovall fall back among the other steeds until he came even with Takara. Keeping his eyes trained on the road ahead, Gerrard said, "You've been pretty quiet on this trip."
Takara's mount stalked easily forward. "Yes."
"Is something bothering you?" Gerrard pressed. "You seemed happy enough to join us."
"My father is dead."
Gerrard's eyes grew wide. He stammered, "H-He's dead?"
"Murdered in the infirmary. It was one of those Ramosan assassins."
"Ramosan… assassins?" Gerrard echoed amazedly.
"The city is rife with them. The guards are worthless. They haven't the first clue where to find the killer."
Gerrard's eyes followed the rumpled ground. "I'm sorry, Takara. I shouldn't have… intruded on your grief."
"Oh, I don't grieve," she said bitterly. "I never grieve. I only hate. I'm going to corner the man who killed my father. I'm going to wrap my fingers around his neck and rip his throat out." She turned her gaze toward Gerrard. Her eyes were as sharp as poniards. "Do you know where the Ramosans hide out?"
Pursing his lips, Gerrard said quietly, "No, I couldn't help you there."
Jaw flexing grimly, Takara peered toward the front of the caravan. "Aren't you needed up there?"
Gerrard nodded, nudging his Jhovall with his heels. "I'm sorry to have intruded on your… on your hatred."
Two days out, the caravan they'd been following turned off to the north. The Weatherlight brigade continued to the west. The directions to Ouramos, such as Gerrard had managed to ascertain, were tantalizingly vague. The Cho-Arrim had provided their best map scrolls, but even those were only approximates. By Sisay's reckoning, a Jhovall journey of five days west, bearing along the line of the Great Scales at darkest night, would bring them in sight of the fabled place.
The plains rose in a long, gentle slope and then fell away into a valley. At the far end, the road curved through a series of high paths. The earth was very black and moist but with surprisingly little vegetation. The road they followed grew narrower and less used. Finally, they could follow it only by tracking along a widely spaced series of huge, gray stones on its edge.
At the mouth of a wide, swampy gorge, Gerrard halted, and the others stopped behind him.
"What's the matter?" Sisay wiped her forehead.
The day had been hot, and the sun was only just beginning to sink into the south, amid a striated series of clouds. They were facing a long passage between two mesas. The high cliffs, made of blood-red rocks, dropped to foul-smelling fens at their feet. Drowned forests stood white amid marshy grasses. Clouds of insects hovered in the air. The stillness and the unpleasant odor that lingered in the air contributed to the atmosphere of rot and decay that hung over everything and bore down on the travelers.
Gerrard said, "We're not alone here." He looked at Tahngarth.
The minotaur nodded. "Yes. Someone is watching us."
"Who?" Instinctively, the party drew their mounts closer together, and Gerrard loosened his sword in its sheath.
Before the minotaur could reply, a black shape surged up from behind a dead tree that bordered the road. As it raced toward them, it gave an unearthly, ululating cry. The shout was echoed a few seconds later by other creatures emerging from the swampy forest. They rose from the muck, gray-skinned manifestations of it. Once men, these withered and shambling monsters were draped in whatever clothes had survived the ravages of rot. Here and there, bone showed through sloughing flesh. The creatures shrieked as they stormed the party. Their screams rebounded from the white ghosts of drowned trees.
"Deepwood ghouls!" Takara shouted as her sword raked free.
Tahngarth's striva slashed off the head of the foremost ghoul. Rather than collapsing, the body of the creature pushed its way blindly forward, groping in a horrid parody of human action. Its arms embraced Tahngarth's Jhovall. The six-legged tiger-creature reared, slashing its forepaws across gray flesh. Claws tore open the undead thing's belly, as if ripping a sack of old leather. Out tumbled desiccated organs. Parts quivered on the ground, but still the ghoul raked forward.
With a shout of disgust, Tahngarth kicked the headless monster away from him.
Another group of ghouls converged from the other side of the road.
Swiftly Weatherlight's crew backed their steeds into a circle. Swords menaced above the snarling and spitting heads of the Jhovalls.
The ghouls showed no fear, leaping inward.
Sisay bent from her saddle, thrusting her blade into the heart of the nearest ghoul. Steel crackled through dead flesh and snapped ribs as though they were twigs. Her sword sunk deep. A full foot of blade protruded from the monster's back. It kept coming. Its decaying fingers gripped Sisay about her waist and pulled her down into the dust. White bones with shredded flesh sank into Sisay's neck. It squeezed, strangling her.
A Jhovall bounded up beside her, and a sword flashed down. Gerrard's blade slashed the arm from the ghoul's body. From the other side, Fewsteem attacked with a heavy mace. Spikes fell, impaling the thing's skull. Powdery brain ghosted out on the air. The strike smashed the ghoul's body to the earth.
Sisay pried the dead hand from her neck and retreated among shouldering Jhovalls.
The party was fighting perhaps twenty of the flesh eaters. The ghouls were impervious to mortal wounds. They bore on, regardless of the injuries they suffered. Survival did not matter to them, only destruction of their foes. Despite their obvious mindlessness, the ghouls seemed to attack in concert. Two ghouls would slash at adjacent Jhovalls, opening a space into which a third could charge. It was as though they were the dumb pawns of a much larger mind, playing out the battle like a game of chess. And every good chess player guards his king.
"They fight with a vengeance!" Gerrard shouted above the melee. As his sword split the head of another creature, he yelled, "They fight like guardians!"
He heard a shriek to his right and saw that one of the ghouls had plunged a rusting sword into the heart of Fewsteem's Jhovall. The great tiger sank to its knees, its head jerking back and forth as lifeblood poured out. Fewsteem was flung from his saddle, and a pair of ghouls dragged the hapless crewman toward the swamp beyond the road. His eyes rolled back in panic.
With a shout, Gerrard leaped from his own mount, which was hemmed in by a circle of slashing, clawing ghouls. He vaulted over their heads. Even as he did so, he heard a squeal of agony from his Jhovall. It too fell victim to the bloodbath. The Benalian reached the fen. He swung his sword and cut in half one of the ghouls holding Fewsteem. Sisay ran up behind him and disposed of the other creature. They dragged Fewsteem out of the muck.
On the road above, the situation was improving. The crew had destroyed a dozen attackers, at the cost of three Jhovalls. The other ghouls continued to press forward without hesitation, but the tide of the battle had clearly turned.
Despite a dozen small cuts on his chest and arms, Tahngarth scooped up a ghoul and threw it some twenty feet away to smash against a twisted tree. Takara cut the legs out from beneath another at the same moment that Ilcaster chopped its head from its shoulders. The severed head bounded along the road into the ditch, where it sank beneath the muck, its eyes rolling in their sockets.