Chareos did not reply. He walked to the Gateway and held out his arm. Beltzer gripped his wrist as he leaned forward, half his body disappearing. Seconds later he drew back.
‘I do not know if that is the place, but it fits the description. There is jungle beyond. The sun is bright.’ He swung towards Maggrig and Finn. ‘I need only Beltzer with me. The rest of you should stay here and await our return.’
‘I get bored just sitting,’ said Finn. ‘We’ll come with you.’
Chareos nodded. ‘Then let us go, before good sense can assert itself.’
He turned – and was gone from sight. Beltzer followed him, Maggrig and Finn stepped through together. Kiall found himself alone in the clearing. His heart was beating wildly and fear surged through him. For several heartbeats he stood rooted and then, with a wild cry, he leapt through the Gateway – cannoning into Beltzer’s back and sprawling to the mud-covered trail. Beltzer swore, leaned down and hoisted Kiall to his feet. Kiall smiled apologetically and looked around. Huge trees festooned with vines surrounded them. Plants with leaves like spears, and heavy purple flowers, grew at their bases. The heat was oppressive and the questors began to sweat heavily in their winter clothes. But what impressed Kiall most was the smell – overpowering and cloying, decaying vegetation mixed with the musky scent of numberless flowers, plants and fungoid growths. A throaty roar sounded from some distance to their left, answered by a cacophony of chittering cries in the trees above them. Small, dark creatures with long tails leapt from branch to branch, or swung on vines.
‘Are they demons?’ whispered Beltzer.
No one answered him. Chareos looked back at the Gateway. On this side it shone like silver and the runic script was smaller, punctuated by symbols of the moon and stars. He gazed up at the sun.
‘It is near noon here,’ he said. ‘At noon tomorrow we will make our way back. Now, I would suggest we follow this trail and see if we can locate a village. What do you think, Finn?’
‘It is as good an idea as any. I will mark the trail, in case any should become lost.’ Finn drew his hunting-knife and carved an arrow-head pointing at the gateway. Beside it he sliced the number 10. ‘That represents paces. I will swing a wide circle around our trail, marking trunks in this manner. If we do become separated, seek out the signs.’ Aware that Finn was directing his remarks to him, Kiall nodded.
The group set off warily, following a meandering trail for almost an hour. In that time Finn disappeared often, moving to the left and reappearing from the right. The small, dark creatures in the trees travelled with them, occasionally dropping to the lower branches, where they hung from their tails and screeched at the newcomers. Birds with glorious plumages of red and green and blue sat on tree-limbs preening their feathers with curved beaks.
At the end of the hour Chareos called a halt. The heat was incredible and their clothes were soaked with perspiration. ‘We are travelling roughly south-east,’ Chareos told Kiall. ‘Remember that.’
A movement came from the undergrowth to their right. The spearlike leaves parted . . . and a monstrous head came into sight. The face was semi-human and black as pitch, the eyes small and round. It had long sharp fangs and, as it reared to its full height of around six feet, its enormous arms and shoulders came into view. Beltzer dragged clear his axe and let out a bellowing battle-cry. The creature blinked and stared.
‘Move on. Slowly,’ said Chareos. Warily the group continued on the trail, Chareos leading and Finn, an arrow notched to his curved hunting bow, bringing up the rear.
‘What an obscenity,’ whispered Kiall, glancing back at the silent creature standing on the trail behind them.
‘That’s no way to talk about Beltzer’s mother,’ said Maggrig. ‘Didn’t you notice the way they recognised each other?’ Finn and Chareos chuckled. Beltzer swore. The trail widened and dropped away towards a low bowl-shaped depression, cleared of trees. There were round huts there, and cooking-fires still burned. But no one would use them. Bodies lay everywhere – some on the ground, some impaled, others nailed to trees at the edge of the village. Huge, bloated birds covered many of the corpses or sat in squat and ugly rows along the roofs.