When evening fell, the ghosts were very quiet. "Likely gorging on the creature's blood," Gerin said. He looked up to the sky. Math should have been at first quarter, with Tiwaz and Elleb rising in the early hours after sunset, but he saw only clouds. The wind was picking up. "We'll have trouble gauging watches tonight, and it feels like rain, to boot."
"I'm not looking forward to tramping along through the mud," Van said. "We won't be able to do much in the way of looking for monsters, either, not with rain making it hard for us to see our hands when we stretch our arms out at full length."
"Aye, you're right," Gerin said morosely. "I hadn't thought so far ahead yet." The gobbet of venison on which he was gnawing suddenly lost a good deal of its flavor. How was he supposed to set a perimeter to keep the monsters out of his holding if they could shamble past fifty paces away without getting noticed?
For that matter, if other nobles in the northlands didn't fight them as hard as he would himself, how was he supposed to keep the monsters out of his holding at all? The most obvious answer to that was depressing: maybe he couldn't. He hadn't had much hope of besting Balamung, either, but he'd persisted and come through. He had to believe he could do the same again.
He stood an early watch, then rolled himself in his blanket and fell asleep at once in spite of his worries. When he woke, he looked around in confusion—why was everything still dark? Then a raindrop landed on the end of his nose, and another in his hair.
The rain started pattering down in earnest a few minutes later. Men swore sleepily and rigged makeshift tents from their blankets and saplings pressed into service as tent poles. In spite of those, the rest of the night was chilly, wet, and miserable.
Day came with rain falling steadily from a leaden sky. The fire had gone out. Some of the venison from the night before had been cooked; along with hard bread, it made a decent enough breakfast, but not as good as it would have been, hot and juicy from the flames.
The warriors donned their armor and squelched off westward. Gerin felt as if he were moving inside a circle perhaps a bowshot across; the rain curtained away everything beyond that distance. Every so often, he or one of his comrades would slip in the mud and get up covered with it. Little by little, the rain would wash him clean once more—until he slipped again.
Echoing what Van had said the night before, Raffo grumbled, "How are we supposed to search in this? We'll be lucky if we can keep track of ourselves, let alone the cursed monsters."
Gerin did not answer, for he feared his driver was right. With rain and clouds concealing sun and landmarks, he wasn't even altogether sure he was still heading west. "Have to wait to see which half of the sky gets dark first," Van said. "Then we'll have a notion of how to head back toward the Elabon Way, anyhow, if not just where we'll strike it."
Raffo said, "Poor old Rihwin. He could be sitting under one of those red tile roofs south of the High Kirs that he never gets tired of talking about, with wenches to fetch him meat and grapes and wine. And he was silly enough to trade all that for this life of luxury." He shook himself like a wet dog to show what he meant.
Just thinking of being dry made Gerin wish he were somewhere other than tramping through the mud. He said, "May the next puddle you step in be over your head." As if to turn his words into a magic-powered curse, he waggled his hands in mock passes.
He'd almost stopped paying attention to the circle of relatively clear vision in which he moved: one piece of damp, dreary ground seemed much like the next. Looking where he put his feet so he wouldn't go into a puddle over his head himself struck him as more important than anything else.
Then Raffo gasped, half in horror and half in amazement. The sound was plenty to jerk Gerin's head up. Splashing through the wet grass and mud came a band of eight or ten monsters.
They spied Gerin's men at about the same moment as Raffo saw them. A bulky male, evidently the leader of the band, swept out his arm to point at the warriors. He shouted something; through the rain, Gerin could not tell whether it was real words or just an animal cry. Whatever it was, the rest of the creatures got the idea. With hoarse roars, they charged the Fox's men.
In such dreadful weather, bows were useless. Gerin stooped to pick up a stone the size of a goose egg. He flung it at the oncoming monsters, then yelled, "Out sword and at them!" A moment later, his own blade slid from its scabbard.
A stone flew past his head. One of the creatures, at any rate, had wit enough to think of it as a weapon. Then the fight was at close quarters, the savagery and strength of the monsters well matched against the armor and bronze weapons Gerin's warriors carried.
With his long, heavy spear, better made for use afoot than from a chariot, Van had an advantage over his monstrous foes: he could thrust at them long before they closed with him. But when he sank the leaf-shaped point deep into the belly of one screaming creature, another seized the spearshaft and wrenched it out of his hands. He shouted in shock and dismay; long used to being stronger than any man he faced, having an opponent who could match him in might came as a jolt.
The monster dropped the spear; it preferred its natural weapons to those made by art. But when it sprang at Van, he stove in its head with an overhand blow from his mace. He needed no second stroke; the fight with the creature the day before had warned him to put all his power into the first one.
Gerin got only tiny glimpses of his friend's fight—he had troubles of his own. The monster that faced him was female, but no less unlovely and fierce on account of that. He felt as if he were fighting a wolf bitch or female longtooth, and knew none of the hesitation he might have felt against a woman warrior.
He slashed at the monster. It skipped back. It knew the sword was dangerous to it, then. The Fox went after it, slashed once more. This time the monster ducked under the blade and rushed him. He got his shield up just in time to keep it from tearing out his throat. It was very strong; when it tried to pull the shield off his arm, he wondered if his right shoulder would come out of its socket. The shield strap held, but barely.
Even in the pouring rain, the monster stank with a reek halfway between the musky smell of a wild beast and a human body that had never been bathed. Something else was there, too, a musty smell, perhaps the residue of long years—of countless generations—of life underground.
The Fox slashed again, and scored a bleeding line across the creature's rib cage. It squalled in fury and stopped trying to tear away his shield. But it did not turn and flee, as a wounded animal likely would have done. Instead, it went back to the attack, this time rushing at Gerin and knocking him off his feet, then springing on him as he lay in the mud.
Again his shield saved him, fending the monster away from his face and neck. He hissed in pain as its claws raked down his arm. But, though he was untaloned himself, his sandals had bronze hobnails to help him grip the ground. He kicked at the monster, and hurt it again.
He dropped his sword; it was too unwieldy for this work. Had he not been able to get at his dagger, or had he dropped it while yanking it from its sheath on his belt, he would have died. As it was, he stabbed the monster again and again.
It shrieked, first shrilly, then with a bubbling undertone as bloody froth burst from its mouth and nose. For once, Gerin wished he were not lefthanded; his blows to the right side of the creature's body had pierced a lung, but not its heart. Now, though, it wanted escape. He stuck out a leg in a wrestler's trick and tripped it when it tried to flee. It went down with a splash.
He half leaped, half rolled onto its back, stabbing again and again in an ecstasy of loathing, fury, and fear. The monster was as tenacious of life as any wild beast, that was certain. He'd put enough holes in it to make a sieve before it finally stopped trying to break free.