The Forge in the Forest (17 page)

For a moment he could only lie there gasping, the thing that had hit him a curtain of stinking slime across his eyes. He sought to brush it free, and found his fingers entangled; he panicked, and tore at it, and grew more entangled. Then his fingers touched another's amid its tangles, that pulled it away from his face. His heart leaped as he saw whose hand it was; Ils at least was safe. He caught her hand and raised himself on one numbed elbow; there were the others, as dazed as he felt. Dervhas and Tenvar still clung to the steering oar, spitting out water and weed; Arvhes was covered in fragments of the ruined canopy. The raft was clear now, drifting out across the calm silver of the lake waters. A faint current seemed to be carrying them into a little bay ahead. Elof looked about urgently for the first raft, and found instead a loosening tangle of timbers astern, wheeling slowly in the current, a sorry sight. The collision had sheared off two logs and by the look of it the steering gear, and broken the for'ard cross-members. But he could see figures picking themselves up and sliding swiftly along the logs, striving to make them secure. He scanned the water quickly for floating heads, found none, and glanced back to see what had so nearly destroyed them.

The whole rivermouth had changed. The water level had fallen, and was now even with the lake; a new strip of bank glistened with exposed clumps of weed. The barrier stood revealed now as a thick tangle of stick and bough. The double impact of the rafts had smashed a wide gap in it, through which a muddy torrent poured. "A beaver dam!" gurgled Arvhes. "Biggest that ever I saw! I've heard they have giant beavers in the wilds of Nordeney!"

Ils looked at him acidly, and thrust out what she had taken from Elof's face. "Do they use nets?" The men gaped in horror, for net it surely was, crudely woven of some coarse fiber. They stared again at the channel; on either side of the breach the ragged edges of such a net straggled useless in the current. Then amidst the heaving water Elof saw a sudden arrowing swirl, and another. "What's that?" he demanded of Dervhas.

"Amicac, how'd I know? Eddies, most like. Glad they're nowhere near, though. Sooner we're off this pond the better I'm suited."

Elof nodded, shivering in his soaked clothes. "At least we're not far away from the bay; the water should grow shallower there. If only the others can hold on…" He looked back, and worse than the night breeze chilled him. He cried out, pointed. The swirls had appeared again, dark folds in the calmer water, streaking out against the current. It was the first raft they pursued.

None there had heard. Elof struggled up on shaky legs, but even as he opened his mouth to shout he saw the wrecked raft judder and halt abruptly in its wheeling, and clambering silhouettes stagger and fall. Then, quite slowly as it seemed, its huge logs parted at the bow and spread out wide like the fingers of a giant hand. Helpless, Elof listened in horror to yells and screams, saw two tall figures bestride the logs, haul others out of the water and then begin fastening cords and chains to the logs, meaning to secure them lest the raft break up altogether. But even as they leaped across to the outer logs the water swirled again, and Elof glimpsed a curved bulk that arched up and vanished, the back as it seemed of some fair-sized creature, mottled or dappled like fish or seal, glistening under the moon. Then, with that same easy, deceptive slowness that was horrible to watch, the logs jarred and swung together again. The leapers landed, but skidded; one caught himself by the chain he bore and fell along the log, but the other missed his footing and slid down its flank into the water. He caught himself by a branch stump, the other flung himself forward, but even as their hands met the huge logs bounced together. Beneath the dull boom there was a single crunch, a cry cut short. When they bobbed apart again, one figure knelt there, staring down at nothing. "Eysdan!" cried Kermorvan's voice, and then Gise's, but there was no answer.

Elof and the others stared in horror, forgetting for one instant too long that they also might be in peril. A cry from behind was their warning. Whirling about, Elof caught the black sword from its scabbard and threw himself slithering down the logs. Dervhas clung still to the steering oar, but frantically now, for both legs trailed in the water as if some great weight hung from them. Elof threw himself down, clawing at the man's collar, but the oar bent, cracked and splintered. With a despairing cry Dervhas let go and grabbed hold of the outflung hand. The weight on him was appalling; Elof braced his feet against the oar mounting to avoid being dragged in himself. Dervhas gasped in agony; the veins on his brow stood out as if he was on the rack. The mounting snapped then and Elof slid forward. Dervhas sank chest-deep and dragged him out over the black water. But Elof's free hand still held Gorthawer, and he speared it downward, once, twice. It struck, the water convulsed and darkened, and Dervhas was suddenly lighter, sagging in the water. Tenvar and Arvhes reached them and helped Elof haul him in. But as his left leg came over the edge of the log they cried out in horror, for the flesh had been stripped from it and the leg bones laid bare. Ils, shuddering, whipped off Dervhas' heavy belt to loop it round the thigh and stem the spurting blood, but hesitated, let it fall, and shook her head. Dervhas was a limp weight in their hands, and the spurting had stopped. Then she cried out and flung herself forward to the raft's edge. The patterned blade of her axe hewed downward. Elof felt its impact in the sodden wood, and saw a ghastly thing leap like a landed fish and go slithering severed across the logs in a spray of dark liquid. A broad frond of waterweed it might have been, save that thick ridged fingers writhed within the brownish web, tipped each with a short claw, and the dappled coat of it was sleek fur.

He had but a moment to see it. Then the whole raft heaved, as if on some invisible wave it could not crest. It listed, tilted, sloping ever more steeply. "They'll slide us off!" yelled Bure.

"And overturn the raft on us!" cried Ils. "Spring clear while you still may!" None lingered to argue. Elof sheathed his sword, braced his feet against the slanting logs, and kicked out with all his strength. Sky and shore whirled about him, and then icy blackness lashed his face. Just behind him a great bulk like a breaching whale slapped at the water, and a wave engulfed him; struggling, he sank, fighting for breath and imagining every instant the clutch of webbed claws about his limbs. The weight of his pack pulled him down, but never for a moment did he think of casting it free. He bumped something solid, slimy, cold, and threshed in panic a moment before he realized it must be the lake bottom. He pulled his feet under him and kicked upward. Almost at once his head bobbed free, he could tread water and cough up all he had been swallowing, suck in a painful, blessed breath. Then he had time to be surprised; he must be in the shallows already. There indeed were the dark walls of the shore, not far off, and other heads bobbing across the silvery water, too far to aid or be aided. He kicked out to follow them, but had swum hardly a stroke when the water boiled before him, and a rounded shape broke surface.

It was an eye, an eye the width of his whole face, and it fixed him as it rose. It was set high like a frog's, in a socket above a huge rounded head, and the look of it was glassy, impersonal, utterly unhuman yet acutely aware. That same dappled fur clad the head, sleek and seallike; water spilled from the smooth dome as it arose, running in streams over strands of weed that hung like mocking garlands about the head and straggled down past the corners of the wide lipless mouth, fixed in a false sated smile. There was no chin, no neck; the lower jaw curved downward to massive shoulders and a great tun of a body.

Desperately Elof groped for his sword, fearing it had fallen from its scabbard, but the cold hilt came to hand. He drew, but hesitated; if this thing had a mind… He held the blade up for it to see, a shadow upon the water, and motioned it aside. The creature answered clearly enough; its mouth gaped, a ghastly grin that bared rows of long teeth, and it glided slowly, tauntingly, forward. Elof thought of Dervhas, and shivered; the intensity of purpose in those eyes was more frightening than any rage or hatred. Then anger colder than the lake welled up in him, and he struck out between the glinting eyes. The blade bit and bounced free, the water convulsed and boiled up darkness. Elof gulped air and jackknifed down; he felt a huge body surge overhead where he had been. He slashed at it, but the water slowed his stroke. The shadowy bulk stooped upon him; he twisted about and thrust upward with all his strength. The blade bit deep, and a violent threshing hurled him this way and that in the water, till his chest labored and his head grew tight and dizzy with pain. At last he managed to twist the blade free and find the air once again. But even as he drew breath his knees scraped painfully into gravel, the sword chinked against a rock. He stood, found himself scarcely chest-deep, and floundered on, fumbling with vague anxiety at his pack. Still there, still closed, he could feel no more. The water fell away from him, leaving his body a dead weight, his wet clothes leaden. When the last wavelet lapped his ankle a sudden agony lanced through him, deadly fear for Ils, Kermorvan, the others. But he could bear the weight no longer. He dropped where he stood. He strove to raise himself, found himself staring into dense undergrowth above the bank. In among it eyes stared back at him, eyes unlike the lake creatures, or any other he had seen: eyes just as Roc had described them so many leagues past, narrow, slanting gleams of yellow, unwinking, impassive. He struggled to lift the sword he still grasped, but the instant it scraped upon the gravel the eyes blinked out, vanished utterly. He stared a moment, then slumped down upon the pebbles. Darkness took him.

Hard fingers clutched him, and in panic he snapped awake, flailing wildly around. "Hold hard, there!" said a protesting voice in his ear, and to his equally wild relief it was Ils. He grabbed and hugged her hard, and felt her sturdy shoulders quiver in his embrace. But she snorted impatiently, and pushed him off. "Napping quietly on the shore! Just like you, when we were combing the place!"

"And close to giving you up!" grumbled Roc's voice. "Fond of making life awkward, aren't you? Why'd you head so far out?"

Elof sighed and sat up, blinking through gummy eyes. The night was past, the gray dawn lighting up the trees, and he was looking out across the bay water, so still and black and heavy it might have been an oil pool. Only a faint swell upheaved its smooth surface, like the flank of some slow-breathing beast, giving no hint of what had lately happened there and what yet lurked beneath. He saw that he was on the outermost tip of the headland; he must almost have been dragged out into deep water. "Then you were not… beset, any of you?"

Ils caught his arm. "No! Were you? You took no hurt?"

"None, I think, save bruises and near-drowning. Was I the only one? Are Kermorvan and all the rest safe?"

Roc nodded somberly. "Aye, he's ashore and gathering the others; we saw a fair number, and maybe the rest are just late sleepers like yourself. Come, if you can walk we'll go and see."

Elof nodded silently, willing his stiffened limbs to move. His first attempt to stand brought on a tearing attack of cramp, but when that subsided he was able to limp along the stony shore to the wider middle of the beach. It was a bedraggled, dejected group of figures that sprawled there, but they sprang up swiftly and gladly enough when they saw him. "Are we all escaped, then?" he asked anxiously, when the excitement had subsided. "Save Dervhas, that is, and the other who fell…"

"That was Eysdan," said Kermorvan harshly. Elof was shocked: he had never seen the warrior so haggard, his lips drawn and bloodless. "I had his hand even as the logs took him; one instant more and…"

Gise shook his head grimly. "No blame to you. You did what you could. Well that you did not follow."

"Aye," said Roc. "Rest of us clinging onto that hank of firewood by our fingertips, and he somehow gets it ashore on a sandbank so close to shore we can all but walk. Seems shallows don't suit those brutes. Did what he could, and still blames himself. Never mind saving all our skins…"

"Did he so?" demanded Kasse sardonically as ever, though his face was gray, as if he labored under some great terror. "Did he indeed? All?"

"Stehan?" demanded Borhi. "Where's he got to? We forgot Stehan!" As one they turned to look out across the little bay, scanning water and shoreline for the least trace of another human form. Borhi cupped his hands to shout, but Kermorvan cocked his head at the looming palisade of trees above them.

"Wait! I have not told you this before, but it is meet you know now. We have had watchers, whom I guess we have evaded in crossing the lake. Best we do not draw them to us again." And swiftly he told them the little he knew of the Children of Tapiau. "We must search indeed," he concluded, "but swiftly. And above all, silently."

Like morning shadows they slipped along the shore line, questing even beyond the bay for some trace of their companion. Once Elof espied something far off across the waters, but it was only the second raft, overturned but whole, lodged on some remote sandbank. Its wet logs glistened as empty as all the waters between. Softly they lapped at the pebbles by the searchers' feet, but no trace of the lost corsair did they yield. At last Kermorvan had to call a halt to the futile search.

"Aye, why not?" muttered Kasse to Arvhes. "It's just another poor Sothran! Five gone, just you, me and Borhi left! It's clear who's borne the brunt of this little jaunt—"

Then he sprawled flat on the stones, clutching his mouth, Gise standing over him with his great fists clenched and his dark face purple with rage. "And Eysdan?" demanded the forester in stolid outrage. "And the lad Hol-var? But I'll add one Sothran more to the tally any time you say, Kasse."