Pogo turned. The albino was right. The rush of small creatures bent the grass like a heavy wind; there were insects, too, flashing like dull jewels as they flew and hopped — all speeding toward the hill, where the globe of red light still hung, although it seemed to be fading.
“Look, Pogokhashman!” Elric now pointed in the opposite direction. Pogo turned again, frowning. His neck was beginning to hurt.
A dark line had appeared on the far horizon, a moving band of shadow. It was from this that the local fauna were beating such a hasty retreat. As he and
Elric stared, the line moved closer. It was hard to see clearly at such a distance, harder still because of the clouds of dust and chaff thrown up by the fleeing animals. Pogo squinted, and was glad for the concealing dust. What he could see was quite unpleasant.
“It’s weirddooking guys in armor. And —Jesus! — there’s a whole shitload of ‘em. Thousands!”
“If they are not a Chaos horde, they are a marvelous imitation,” Elric said grimly. “See, they are twisted and malformed.”
“Yeah. Ugly, too.”
Elric pushed Stormbringer into his belt and clutched Pogo’s shoulder. “They are too many to fight, especially with my runeblade in its diminished state. In any case, we are too exposed here, and we know nothing of this world.”
“What you’re saying is: ‘Let’s run away,’ right? Good idea.”
Elric seemed about to try to explain something, but instead turned and began loping toward the hill. Pogo hurried to catch up.
This is just like gym class, he thought, feeling a stitch already beginning to develop in his side. But at least in gym, you get to wear sneakers. What hind of a stupid acid trip is this, anyway?
It was difficult to run through the living sea of animals, but Pogo had already accustomed himself in the dungeon to stepping on furry things. Besides, one look back convinced him that the pursuing horde of beast-men would happily do the same to him. Gasping for breath, pumping his elbows with a determination that would have made his PE teacher Mr. Takagawa stare in disbelief, he sprinted toward the solitary hill.
Elric faltered, and Pogo suddenly realized how difficult this must be for a man who until minutes ago had been hanging in chains. He grabbed the albino’s elbow — it was astonishing how thin he was beneath his tattered shirt — and half- tugged him along, which made their progress even more agonizingly slow. Pogo was now feeling so frightened that a part of him considered just letting the pale man fall so he could run at full speed.
Once, back in junior high school, he had left Sammy lying with a twisted ankle after they had rung Old Jacobsen’s doorbell and run. Sammy got caught, and had to go to the emergency room too. Pogo had never felt good about that.
“C’mon, dude, we’re almost there,” he panted. The albino struggled on.
Something was echoing in Pogo’s ears as they reached the skirts of the hill, a mysterious, almost pleasant buzzing too low and soft to identify. There was something in the way it vibrated in the bones of his skull that he knew he should recognize, but he was too busy dragging Elric and dodging high-speed rodentia to
give it proper consideration.
They began to clamber up the slope. The greater number of fleeing animals parted and passed around the hill like a wave around a jetty, but enough accompanied Pogo and Elric to continue to make their progress difficult. One large, white, long-eared creature ran right between Pogo’s legs and bounded up the slope ahead of him. He was almost certain it had been carrying a pocket- watch.
Never... had... acid... like this. Even his thoughts were short of breath.
The red glow hovering over the hilltop had almost disappeared. Pogo was trying both to dodge around the few bedraggled trees dotting the slope and to observe the peak when something suddenly hit him hard in the back and toppled him forward.
Before he could do more than register the pain in his skinned palms and note that Elric too was lying on the ground beside him, something very sharp poked the back of his neck.
“The first of the Hell-troop,” a voice said. “And not the homeliest of the lot, I’ll be bound — although these two still have little to brag about. Do you think the prince will want to see them?”
“No. He is deep in his spells. I say we skewer them here and then finish the barricade.”
A certain breathlessness lay beneath the hard words. Despite his own fastbeating heart, Pogo recognized that these men were frightened.
Well, if they’re waiting here to fight the Munsters Fan Club, that’s not much of a surprise.
“We are not enemies,” Elric said hoarsely. “We are not part of the Chaos horde, we are fleeing it.”
“They speak!”
“Yeah,” Pogo offered, “but we’d probably do it better if we weren’t eatin’ turf, man.”
The pointy thing was withdrawn from his nape; as Pogo clambered slowly to his feet, he identified it as the business end of a very long spear. The man on the other end and his companion looked much like the guards Pogo had met at the Chon s palace, except not so stylishly dressed; they wore ragged chain-mail, dented helmets, and expressions of worried fatigue.
“You are not mortal men,” one of their captors said suspiciously.
“We are, whatever you may think of our appearance,” Elric assured him. “Now, if you are part of a force that opposes that oncoming horde, and if, as it appears, there is no bargaining with them, then we will fight at your side.”
“We will?” Pogo thought the “run away” idea had been much superior.
Elric turned to him. The prospect of a fight appeared to have revived the albino somewhat, although he still seemed dreadfully weak. “We cannot outpace them forever. If we must make a stand, it should be here, with other brave souls.”
“Whatever, man.” Pogo was again giving serious thought to coming down. The problem was, he couldn’t figure out how to do it. Everything seemed rather dreadfully and inescapably real. When he closed his eyes, he could still hear Elric and the soldiers talking.
“If you are truly allies, you are strangedooking ones. We should take you to our lord.”
“And who is he?”
“Why, Shemei Uendrijj, the Gypsy Prince himself!” The man seemed to expect a gasp of startlement from Elric. When he spoke again, he sounded disappointed. “You have not heard of him?”
“I am certain he is a man of great bravery, to command such loyalty,” Elric said. “Take us to him, please.”
Pogo opened his eyes: it was useless. Same stupid place, same stupid trip. Same ravening army of beast-men moving rapidly across the plain toward them.
The soldiers led them up the hill at a jog. The cries of the oncoming horde echoed louder and louder, and so did the strange, vibratory almost-sounds that Pogo had noticed earlier.
The horde was baying for blood, its voices as discordant as a group of frat boys opening the dozenth keg on a Friday night. Pogo stumbled ahead, growing less and less enchanted with the products of his own imagination every moment. They passed other soldiers, sullen and fearful, who turned to watch them. At last they reached the top of the hill, bare but for a copse of trees and a small group of armored men. At the center, holding in his hand a blade that looked as though it had been carved from a single piece of ivory, stood the Gypsy Prince.
Pogo teetered to a stop, goggle-eyed.
Elric strode forward from between the men who had captured them, lifting his hands in a gesture of peace as he approached the Gypsy Prince. There was little time to be wasted on mistrust. “We come as allies, sir. I am Elric of Melnibone, and this is Pogokhashman of... of....” Ele waited for his companion to add the proper details, then noticed that Pogo was no longer within his peripheral vision. He looked down.
The young man had fallen to his knees, his arms extended before him in an attitude of worship. For one so casual in other ways, he seemed quite formal about meeting royalty. Elric felt a moment’s ilbhumor that he, who had once sat the Dragon Throne itself, had received no such obeisance. Still, hanging in chains was undoubtedly a curb to good first impressions....
“Jimi!” shrieked Pogokhashman, and banged his forehead against the ground. “Oh my god, Jimi, it’s you! I knew it! Man, I knew it! Sammy will be so bummed he missed this!”
Startled, Elric took a step away, then turned to survey the Gypsy Prince, who seemed just as disconcerted as the albino.
Shemei Uendrijj was a handsome, dark-skinned man no older than Elric. His wild, curly, black hair was restrained by a scarf tied about his forehead, and he was clad in bright but mismatched finery that made him look something like a corsair of the Vilmir Straits — in fact, he dressed much as Elric did. Stranger still, as the dark Gypsy Prince was in some ways a reverse image of the albino, his bone-white sword was a distorted mirror-version of Stormbringer.
Was that why the runesword had drawn them here?
“Your friend seems to know me.” Uendrijj’s voice was soft and lazy, but with hidden strength; given speech, thought Elric, so might a leopard speak. “But I confess I do not know him. Rise, man!” he called to Pogokhashman. “If I have forgotten you, that is my shame, but there is much to occupy my thoughts today.” He turned to Elric, and as his gaze slid down to Stormbringer, his eyes widened a trifle, but in speculation rather than worry. “If you are allies, you are welcome. But I fear you have joined what will surely be the losing side.” He smiled despite his gloomy words. Elric could not help liking him.
“We will be proud to fight alongside you, whatever the case,” the Melnibonean replied. He glanced at Pogokhashman, who still looked like someone in a narcotic dream. “I have fought against such a Chaos troop before. They are not unbeatable.”
The Gypsy Prince raised an eyebrow. “Ah, but they are merely the outrunners. The Chronophage is our true, and direst, enemy.”
Startled, Elric opened his mouth, eager to question Uendrijj, but before he could utter a word a ragged shout came rolling up the hillside from below.
“They come! They come!”
The Gypsy Prince turned to Elric. His mustachioed upper lip twitched in another smile. “I sense we might have much to talk about, you and I, but I fear we are about to be interrupted.” He lifted his sword. “Ah, Cloudhurler, again we stand in a strange place as death rushes upon us. I should never have allowed my destiny to become entangled with yours.”
A strange, low humming came from the white blade, a kind of vibratory music unlike anything Elric had ever