“They will be harmed only if you are foolish,” said Vadu.
Fighting his twitches, he reached out and closed his hand around the waists of the ixchel women. Quietly the party moved down the path. At length they came to the edge of the black, smooth lava flow. Hercol stopped and pointed to the right.
In a low murmur, he said, “The eastern part of the Tongue is still shadowed by the mountain. Will you at least permit us to walk there, and not in the bright sun?”
Vadu nodded impatiently. “Yes, yes, if it will strengthen your spine. Only say nothing, and plant your feet lightly, and make no sound until we are well among the trees on the far side.”
Hercol looked at the others. “Check all that you carry. You soldiers especially: do not let your scabbards knock against the ground.”
“I was about to say as much,” said Vadu.
“If we should have to run,” asked Hercol, “what will happen to Ensyl and Myett?”
“I will not run,” said Vadu.
Hercol’s look was withering. Then he stepped out onto the lava. Vadu came second, his prisoners against his chest. The rest of the party followed gingerly. Within the first few steps Pazel knew that the going would be harder than he had supposed. Though smooth, the surface was anything but even. It was like a candle melted down the side of jug, one liquid trail hardened atop another. And twisting through them all were the shafts of the fumaroles. Was it better to walk, or crouch down and creep? Many times he was tempted to jump, as he would from stone to stone at a river crossing. But he dared not risk making a noise.
The flames were sudden and unpredictable: one moment there would be a black, dark fumarole, the next a geyser of twisting flames. Gas, searingly hot and reeking of sulphur, issued from others in bursts and wheezes. There was absolutely nothing one might call a trail.
Yet the going grew easier the farther they went. It did help to be able to see, Pazel reflected, although he supposed Hercol would have waited for the moonlight. So far no one had made a sound. Even the dogs, marvels of perception that they were, understood what was required, and crept along with mincing steps.
The sky was beautiful, cloudless. Far overhead, a few vultures drifted. On the lava bed they were the only things that moved.
The shadow of the mountain was shrinking toward them, but they could always, Pazel supposed, move closer to the mountain.
Thasha and Neeps were descending on his left; Neda and her brother sfvantskors on his right. All of them watching the ground; it was the only safe way to proceed. And yet, Pazel thought, and yet He raised his eyes-and fought down the urge to cry aloud. About three yards from Neeps, a tiny face was watching them from a hole in the lava. It was hideous, part human, buck-toothed, squinting, red. The face was attached to a hairy body about the size and shape of a gopher. The creature had hair everywhere except on that face, and the hands-they were hands, not paws-that gripped the edges of the scalding rock.
It vanished down the tube. Pazel was so shocked that he nearly missed a step. The others looked at him in alarm. No one else had seen the creature. He pointed at the hole, then gestured wildly (squinting eyes, fingers for teeth). Was it the same sort of creature he and Ibjen had glimpsed? Was it dangerous, or did its silence mean that it, too, had learned to remain unnoticed by the trolls?
There were more vultures now, and they circled lower over the Tongue. The others in the party glanced at them, frowning. Pazel realized that they had quickened their pace.
Less than a mile to go. The dogs gazed ahead, clearly wishing they could run. Each man and woman moving precisely, silently. A Masalym soldier lost his balance, and a Turach caught his arm. The dlomu mouthed a silent thank you; the Turach smiled, and then everyone stopped dead.
Hercol had flung his arms wide, a violent gesture. At first Pazel did not understand. Then someone gasped and, turning, he saw that they were surrounded. From inside every hole and behind every bulge and hardened bubble, the red-faced creatures stared at them with their strange squinting faces, like old men who had lost their glasses. A hundred, perhaps many more. Yards deep they stood, eight or ten together in the larger tunnels. Not one of them moved a muscle.
Vadu’s mouth was agape. The dogs’ hair stood on end, but they did not growl.
“Warriors,” said Hercol with monumental slowness. “Be ready with your weapons, but do not attack first. We are going on.” And with Ildraquin’s tip hovering just before his knees, he stepped forward.
The creatures bristled, and bared their white rodents’ teeth. Hercol took another step. The creatures directly before him hissed, and shrank into their holes. But those on the sides only tensed and twitched, as though ready to spring.
Then Vadu laughed. He held his knife at arm’s length, and over the tiny nub of bone the ghost-blade flickered. Suddenly a great shrieking hiss went up from all the creatures, and they whirled about and disappeared into their holes. A brief sound of scurrying rose from the depths. Then nothing more. The travelers looked at one another in shock.
“I told you I had power to keep us safe,” said Vadu.
“Let us go on,” said Hercol.
“Counselor Vadu?” said Pazel suddenly. He startled everyone, beginning with himself, but he knew what he was doing. “Let the ixchel go. We’ve come too far to turn back anyway.”
Vadu glanced down at Myett and Ensyl, clutched against his chest. He laughed again. “It is not enough that I obeyed a human, for a time. Now I am to take orders from a human underling, a servant boy!”
Pazel swallowed. “I think-”
“That is open to question.”
“-you’re going to need that knife for something else.”
Vadu started. His head wobbled as he looked at the holes, the massing vultures, the distance yet to walk. Then, with a jerky motion, he thrust the two ixchel into Pazel’s hands. “I release them,” he said. The women gasped suddenly.
“Quiet!” said Pazel, in their own language. “Don’t shout! You were enchanted. You’re free now, but we’re not safe.”
Both ixchel began to shake. Her eyes closed, Myett whispered, “Who did this to us?”
Pazel was about to answer when he noticed that Vadu was still staring at his knife. The look of rapture on his face made Pazel think suddenly of the Shaggat, gazing with adoration at the Nilstone that had almost killed him. Vadu raised the knife above his head, and as he did so his hand cleared the shadow of the mountain. Sunlight touched the last, minuscule bone-shard upon the hilt-and with a slight quaking of the air, the shard was gone.
Vadu lowered his arm. “It is over,” he said. “I released them, and the Blade released me. That was its final act. The end was closer than I dared hope.” He rubbed his face, his neck: the twitching had finally ceased. Joy welled suddenly in the counselor’s eyes. Before anyone realized his intention he turned and flung the hilt across the lava flow with all his might. “I am free!” he cried, and with that all bedlam erupted.
Fire burst from holes far and near. A roaring filled the earth. A dog howled, and from the larger tunnels the flame-trolls began to emerge: first their long fingers, ash-white and clawed; then their mighty arms; then their heads, large and powerful as the heads of horses, but with the spreading jaws of wolves. They were hairless, and the flames of the depths licked over them, as though their very pores exuded some combustible oil. Their eyes wept fire; the spittle in their mouths was fire. The first to emerge was nearly nine feet tall.
It made to leap but Hercol moved first, and before Pazel knew what had happened the troll was waving the stumps of its hacked-off limbs, and its foul blood was spattering them all.
“Run!” thundered Hercol. “Turachs, sfvantskors, to the vanguard! Men of Masalym, stand with me behind!”
No one questioned his orders now. The party charged for the forest with weapons drawn. Pazel ran with Thasha at his side, and Neeps just behind. He bore his sword in one hand, Myett and Ensyl in the other, curled to his chest. They were ahead of the trolls, that was clear. The creatures were bursting forth in greater numbers, but always a step or two behind. As though their footfalls were guiding them, waking them. And he remembered suddenly running along a hollow log back in Ormaeclass="underline" a log that housed a great, drowsy hive of bees. He had felt them stirring under his feet, but had gotten away without a sting.