"Let's beach this thing and take a look."
It was a long, grueling slog through knee-deep mud and stagnant water. Bill led the way. They began to get excited as they came around the big dung tree that had obscured their vision. Cirocco caught a whiff of smoke over the stronger stench of the tree, and hurried over the slippery ground.
It began to rain just as they arrived at the fire. It was not a hard rain, but it wasn't much of a fire, either. It looked as if all they would get out of it would he black soot on their legs.
The fire was an irregular smudge covering a square hektometer, smoldering fitfully at the edges. As they watched, the gray smoke began to turn white as the rain fell. Then a tongue of flame licked the bottom of a bush a few meters away.
"Get something that's dry," Cirocco ordered. "Anything at all. Some of that marsh grass, and some sticks. Hurry, we're losing it." Bill and Gaby ran off in different directions as Cirocco knelt by the bush and blew on it. She ignored the smoke in her eyes and kept blowing until she felt dizzy.
Soon she was piling on reasonably dry wood. Finally she could sit back and feel sure it would keep burning. Gaby shouted and threw a stick so high it was nearly invisible before it started to come down. Cirocco grinned when Bill slapped her on the back.
it was a small victory, but it could be an important one. She felt great.
When the rain stopped, the fire was still going.
The problem was how to keep it going.
They discussed it for hours, tried and discarded several solutions.
It took the rest of the day and most of the next to make their plan work. They made two bowls from the swamp clay, fired them carefully, then dried a large quantity of the wood which burned most slowly. When that was done, they made small fires in both of the howls. It seemed wise to have a spare. The scheme would require someone to tend the fire at all times, but they were willing to do that until they found a better solution.
When they were through, it was nearing time for a sleep period. Cirocco wanted to see if they could make it to dry ground, not really trusting their arrangements for the fire, but Bill suggested they make a kill first.
"I'm getting pretty tired of those melons," he said. "The last one I had tasted rancid."
"Yeah, but there's no smilers. I haven't seen one in days." "Then well knock over something else. We need some meat." it was true they had not been eating well. The marsh had
nothing like the profusion of fruit-bearing plants they had found in the forest. The me native plant they had tried tasted like a mango and gave them diarrhea. on the boat that was comparable to an inner circle of hell. Since then they had relied on stored provisions.
They decided the big mudfish were the most obvious prey. Like all the other animals they had encountered, the fish took little notice of them. Everything else was too small and quick, or, like the giant eels, too big.
The mudfish liked to sit in the ooze with their snouts buried, moving by flipping their tails.
She and Gaby and Bill soon had one surrounded. It was their first close look at one. Cirocco had never seen a creature so ugly. it was three meters long, flat on the bottom, and bulged in the
middle from its blunt snout to a wicked-looking horizontal tail fluke. There was a long gray ridge along its back, soft and loose like a rooster's comb, but slimy. It swelled and deflated rhythmically.
"Are you sure you want to cat that?" "If it'l hold still long enough."
Cirocco was stationed four meters in front of the mudfish while Gaby and Bill approached from the sides. All three carried swords made from broken xmas-tree branches.
The mudfish had one eye the size of a pie plate. One edge of the eye elevated until it was looking at Bill. He froze. The fish made a snuffling sound.
'Sill, I don't Ue this."
'Don't worry. It's blinking, see?" A stream of liquid spurted from a hole above the eye, producing the snuffling she had heard. "It's keeping its eye wet. No eyelids."
"If you say so." She flapped her arms, and the fish obligingly looked away from Bill and toward her. She wasn't sure that was an improvement, but took a step forward m the balls of her feet. The fish looked away, bored by it all.
Bill moved in, braced himself, and put his sword through the flesh just behind the eye, leaning m it. The fish jerked as Bill re- leased the sword and danced back.
Nothing happened. The eye did not move, and the organs on its back no longer swelled in and out. Cirocco relaxed, and saw Bill grinning.
"Too easy," he said. "Men is this place going to give us a challenge " He took the hilt of his sword and pulled it out. Dark blood spurted over his hand. The fish bent, touching its snout with its tail, then swung the tall sideways and down on Bill's head. It scooped deftly under his motionless body and hurled him into the air.
Cirocco did not even see where he came down. The fish arched again, this time balancing on its belly with both snout and tall in the air. She saw its mouth for the first time. it was round, lamprey-like, with a double row of teeth that counter- rotated and clattered. The tail hit the mud and the fish jumped at her.
She dived flat to the ground, ploughing up a wake of mud with
her chin. The fish plopped behind her, arched, and flipped fifty kilos of mud into the air as it lashed madly with its tail. The sharp fin sliced the ground in front of her face, then rose for another try. She scurried on her hands and knees, slipping every time she tried to stand.
"Rocky! jump!" She did, and narrowly missed having her arm taken off as the fish's tail hit the ground again.
"GO, go! It's coming after you! A glance behind showed only rotating teeth. All she could hear was their terrible buzz. It meant to eat her.
She was in mire up to her knees and heading toward deeper water, which did not seem like a good idea, but every time she tried to turn the tail flashed out of the mud. Soon she was blind from the constant barrage of filthy water. She slipped, and before she could get up the tail hit the side of her head. She was conscious but her cars were ringing as she turned over and groped for her sword. The mud had swallowed it. The fish was a meter away, curling for a leap that would crush her, when Gaby came running past it. Her feet scarcely touched the ground. She hit Cirocco with a flying tackle hard enough to loosen teeth, the fish leaped, and all three of them skidded three meters through the mud.
Cirocco was dimly aware of a slimy wet wall under one foot. She kicked. The fish lashed at them again as Gaby pulled Cirocco along, swimming through the mud. Then she let go, and Cirocco lifted her head out of the water, gasping.
She saw Gaby's back as she stood facing the creature. The tail came slashing around at the level of Gaby's neck, deadly as a scythe, but she ducked and held up her sword. it broke close to the hilt, but the sharp edge cut a big flap in the fin. The fish didn't seem to like it. Gaby leaped again, straight for the hideous jaws, and landed on the creature's back. She stabbed her sword hilt into the eye, slashing down instead of thrusting as Bill had done. The fish threw her off, but now the tail had no direction. It beat the ground furiously as Gaby looked for a chance to cut again.
"Gaby!" Cirocco shouted. "Let it go. Don't get yourself killed."
Gaby glanced back, then hurried to sirocco. "Let's get out of here. Can you walk?"
"Sure, I... " The ground whirled. She clutched Gaby's sleeve to steady herself.
"Hang on. That thing's getting closer."
Cirocco didn't have a chance to see what she meant, because Gaby lifted her before she knew what was happening. She was too weak and confused to fight it as Gaby brought her out of the bog, slung over her shoulder in a fireman's carry.