Another figure shambled between two trees, a bit closer this time. “We’ll have to chance it,” Durnik said grimly. “Be careful, but run. Get the others. Now go!”
Garion took Ce’Nedra’s hand, and they started to run along the streambank, stumbling often. Durnik lagged farther and father behind, his two-handed club swinging warningly about him.
The figures were now all around them, and Garion felt the first surges of panic.
Then Ce’Nedra screamed. One of the figures had risen from behind a low bush directly in front of them. It was large and ill-shaped, and there was no face on the front of its head. Two eye-holes stared vacantly as it shambled forward with its half-formed hands reaching out for them. The entire figure was a dark gray mud color, and it was covered with rotting, stinking moss that adhered to its oozing body.
Without thinking, Garion thrust Ce’Nedra behind him and leaped to the attack. The first blow of his club struck the creature solidly in the side, and the club merely sank into the body with no visible effect. One of the outstretched hands touched his face, and he recoiled from that slimy touch with revulsion. Desperately he swung again and struck the thing solidly on the forearm. With horror he saw the arm break off at the elbow. The creature paused to pick up the still-moving arm.
Ce’Nedra screamed again, and Garion spun about. Another of the mud-men had come up behind her and had grasped her about the waist with both arms. It was starting to turn, lifting the struggling princess from the ground when Garion swung his club with all his might. The blow was not aimed at head or back, but rather at the ankles.
The mud-man toppled backward with both of its feet broken off. Its grip about Ce’Nedra’s waist, however, did not loosen as it fell.
Garion jumped forward, discarding his club and drawing his dagger. The substance of the thing was surprisingly tough. Vines and dead twigs were encased in the clay which gave it its shape. Feverishly, Garion cut away one of the arms and then tried to pull the screaming princess free. The other arm still clung to her. Almost sobbing with the need to hurry, Garion started hacking at the remaining arm.
“Look out!” Ce’Nedra shrieked. “Behind you!”
Garion looked quickly over his shoulder. The first mud-man was reaching for him. He felt a cold grip about his ankle. The arm he had just severed had inched its way across the ground and grasped him.
“Garion!” Barak’s voice roared from a short distance off.
“Over here!” Garion shouted. “Hurry!”
There was a crashing in the bushes, and the great, red-bearded Cherek appeared, sword in hand, with Hettar and Mandorallen close behind. With a mighty swing, Barak cut off the head of the first mudman. It sailed through the air and landed with a sickening thump several yards away. The headless creature turned and groped blindly, trying to put its hands on its attacker. Barak paled visibly and then chopped away both outstretched arms. Still the thing shambled forward.
“The legs,” Garion said quickly. He bent and hacked at the clay hand about his ankle.
Barak lopped off the mud-man’s legs, and the thing fell. The dismembered pieces crawled toward him.
Other mud-men had appeared, and Hettar and Mandorailen were laying about them with their swords, filling the air with chunks and pieces of living clay.
Barak bent and ripped away the remaining arm which held Ce’Nedra.
Then he jerked the girl to her feet and thrust her at Garion. “Get her back to the tents!” he ordered. “Where’s Durnik?”
“He stayed behind to hold them off,” Garion said.
“We’ll go help him,” Barak said. “Run!”
Ce’Nedra was hysterical, and Garion had to drag her to the tents.
“What is it?” Aunt Pol demanded.
“Monsters out there in the woods,” Garion said, pushing Ce’Nedra at her. “They’re made out of mud, and you can’t kill them. They’ve got Durnik.” He dove into one of the tents and emerged a second later with his sword in his hand and fire in his brain.
“Garion!” Aunt Pol shouted, trying to disentangle herself from the sobbing princess. “What are you doing?”
“I’ve got to help Durnik,” he said.
“You stay where you are.”
“No!” he shouted. “Durnik’s my friend.” He dashed back toward the fight, brandishing his sword.
“Garion! Come back here!”
He ignored her and ran through the dark woods.
The fray was raging about a hundred yards from the tents. Barak, Hettar and Mandorallen were systematically chopping the slime-covered mud-men into chunks, and Silk darted in and out of the melee, his short sword leaving great gaping holes in the thick, moss-covered monsters. Garion plunged into the fight, his ears ringing and a kind of desperate exultation surging through him.
And then Mister Wolf and Aunt Pol were there with Ce’Nedra hovering ashen-faced and trembling behind them. Wolf’s eyes blazed, and he seemed to tower over them all as he gathered his will. He thrust one hand forward, palm up. “Fire!” he commanded, and a sizzling bolt of lightning shot upward from his hand into the whirling clouds overhead. The earth trembled with the violence of the shattering thunderclap. Garion reeled at the force of the roaring in his mind.
Aunt Pol raised her hand. “Water!” she said in a powerful voice. The clouds burst open, and rain fell so heavily that it seemed that the air itself had turned to water.
The mud-men, still mindlessly stumbling forward, began to ooze and dissolve in the thundering downpour. With a kind of sick fascination, Garion watched them disintegrate into sodden lumps of slime and rotten vegetation, surging and heaving as the pounding rain destroyed them.
Barak reached forward with his dripping sword and tentatively poked at the shapeless lump of clay that had been the head of one of their attackers. The lump broke apart, and a coiled snake unwound from its center. It raised itself as if to strike, and Barak chopped it in two.
Other snakes began to appear as the mud which had encased them dissolved in the roaring deluge.
“That one,” Aunt Pol said, pointing at a dull green reptile struggling to free itself from the clay. “Fetch it for me, Garion.”
“Me?” Garion gasped, his flesh crawling.
“I’ll do it,” Silk said. He picked up a forked stick and pinned the snake’s head down with it. Then he carefully took hold of the wet skin at the back of the serpent’s neck and lifted the twisting reptile.
“Bring it here,” Aunt Pol ordered, wiping the water from her face. Silk carried the snake to her and held it out. The forked tongue flickered nervously, and the dead eyes fixed on her.
“What does this mean?” she demanded of the snake.
The serpent hissed at her. Then in a voice that was a sibilant whisper it replied, “That, Polgara, is the affair of my mistress.”
Silk’s face blanched as the dripping snake spoke, and he tightened his grip.
“I see,” Aunt Pol said.
“Abandon this search,” the snake hissed. “My mistress will allow you to go no further.”
Aunt Pol laughed scornfully. “Allow?” she said. “Your mistress hasn’t the power to allow me anything.”
“My mistress is the queen of Nyissa,” the snake said in its whispering hiss. “Her power there is absolute. The ways of the serpent are not the ways of men, and my mistress is queen of the serpents. You will enter Nyissa at your own peril. We are patient and not afraid. We will await you where you least expect us. Our sting is a small injury, scarce noted, but it is death.”
“What’s Salmissra’s interest in this matter?” Aunt Pol asked.
The serpent’s flickering tongue darted at her. “She has not chosen to reveal that to me, and it is not in my nature to be curious. I have delivered my message and already received my reward. Now do with me as you wish.”
“Very well,” Aunt Pol said. She looked coldly at the snake, her face streaming in the heavy rain.
“Shall I kill it?” Silk asked, his face set and his fingers white-knuckled from the strain of holding the thick-coiling reptile.
“No,” she said quietly. “There’s no point in destroying so excellent a messenger.” She fixed the snake with a flinty look. “Return with these others to Salmissra,” she said. “Tell her that if she interferes again, I’ll come after her, and the deepest slime-pit in all Nyissa won’t hide her from my fury.”
“And my reward?” the snake asked.
“You have your life as a reward,” she said.
“That’s true,” the serpent hissed. “I will deliver your message, Polgara.”
“Put it down,” Aunt Pol told Silk.
The small man bent and lowered his arm to the ground. The snake uncoiled from about his arm, and Silk released it and jumped back. The snake glanced once at him, then slithered away.