The pike crowded close, their gaunt heads aimed at him.
“Faster,” he said. “If you can.”
“Aye!” Metal screamed. The frame vibrated; green flakes drifted from the bolts. Christ, let this thing hold together long enough!
The pike flicked themselves closer. Rusel was taking no chances while he held a weapon. Her pets could strip him of flesh in three minutes. Holger rallied what courage remained to him and narrowed his attention to the dagger. He didn’t know if his scheme would work. But even here under the lake, the blade must be heating up, and he could see the fine cloud of metal dust grow thicker around its edge.
“Are you done?” panted Rusel. Her hair had plastered itself to shoulders and breasts and belly. The amber eyes smoldered at him.
“Not yet. Faster!” He leaned his mass against the knife.
The flare nearly blinded him. Magnesium will burn in water.
Rusel shrieked. Holger guarded his face with one hand and swung the knife at the fish. One of them slashed his calf. He kicked himself free, broke through the green curtains and upward.
The nixie circled beyond the blue-white glare, beyond the range of his own dazzled eyes. She yelled at her pike. One darted near. Holger waved the torch and it fled. Either the fish couldn’t stand the ultra-violet themselves or—more likely—Rusel’s influence over them was bounded by distance like all magic, and she couldn’t get near enough to Holger to set the water wolves on him.
He kicked with his legs and clawed with his free hand. Would he never reach the top? As if across light-years he heard the nixie’s tone change to softness. “’Olger, ’Olger, would you leave me? You’ll ride to your doom in a barren land. ’Olger, come back. You know not what pleasures we could have—”
He screwed his will power tight and plowed on. Her rage burst forth. “Die, then!” Suddenly he inhaled water. The spell was off him. He choked. His lungs seemed to catch fire. He almost dropped his magnesium torch. He saw Rusel dart near in a cloud of her pike. He thrust her back with the cruel light, closed his mouth and swam. Up, up, darkness roiled in his brain, strength drained from his muscles, but up.
He broke the surface, coughed, spat, and gulped his chest full of air. A gibbous moon touched the lake with broken light. He held the torch below while he floundered toward the gray shore. It burned out just as he waded into the reeds. He ran to get well inland before he collapsed.
The cold struck his wet clothes and went on through. He lay with clattering teeth and waited for enough energy to seek the camp. He didn’t feel victorious. He’d won this round, but there would be others. And… and… oh, damn everything, why did he have to escape so soon?
20
AT LAST HE MADE his plashy way back. The stone lifted from the ground like a ship, black in the night, and those moon-tinged clouds that the wind whipped along behind it gave an illusion that the ship was under weigh. Through what seas? wondered Holger. The fire had burned to embers, a riding light the color of clotted blood. As he crawled up on top, he saw the horses bunched together in a shadowy mass that might have been a cabin amidships. Carahue stood at the prow, staring north. The wind that skirled as if through unseen shrouds flapped his cloak with cracking noises. Moonlight shimmered off his drawn saber.
A furious little form seized Holger at the waist and tried to shake him. “Mon, where’ve ye been the while?” cried Hugi. “We’ve been fretted sick o’er ye. Na word or track past the lake’s edge, till ye return soaked and reeking o’ wicked places. Wha’ happened?”
Carahue half turned, so that Holger caught the gleam of an eye under the spiked helmet. But the Saracen’s attention remained afar. Holger looked that way. The edge of this vale cut off view of the mountains beyond; he thought, though, he saw a dim wavering redness, as if a great fire burned somewhere there.
Fear struck him. “Where’s Alianora?” he snapped.