‘It is hours before dawn yet,’ said Cygan. ‘I hope you have the stomach for a long fight.’
‘I do not.’ He was grumbling again. ‘I am thinking I just should have run and run instead of stopping at Eburg and saving your life.’
‘It was because of you that my life was threatened in the first place!’ Cygan pointed out. ‘I have a feeling you stopped my execution because you felt guilty about your earlier
actions and wanted to do the right thing.’
‘Pah!’ Whitey snorted in disdain. ‘I didn’t feel guilty about anything. What is the life of one Marsh Man to me?’
‘I think we will find out tonight.’ Cygan looked at the other man, waving his sword uncertainly in front of him. ‘You are not comfortable with that blade of steel, I see. Here,
take this spear – I have others – you can use it to fend off the Malaac when they come. It is also easier to stand at the stockade and keep them away if you hold it over the
posts.’
He threw the spear over to him, head facing down. Whitey failed to catch it and it struck him lightly on his side before bouncing on the floor. Whitey whimpered in affected pain before picking
it up and nodding a grudging thank you to Cygan.
Then the Malaac came again.
This time they did briefly breach the defences; it was at a place nowhere near Cygan, though, so he told Whitey to stay at his post while he ran towards the source of the shouting and tumult.
Two men lay dead and a whole section of wooden stakes and posts lay scattered, leaving a gap through which a dozen Malaac were trying to force full access to the camp. Holding their ground, another
dozen men pushed back at them, hacking with swords, spears, bone knives, whatever they had to hand. They were up against naked tooth and claw, though, and the Malaac were finding their quarry,
armoured or not; one of the dead men had had his head torn off with plain brute force, and all of the close defenders had been wounded somewhere or other. Cygan rushed to join them, thrusting his
spear into the unprotected side of one of the attackers; other men soon followed and gradually the Malaac were forced back beyond the defensive perimeter, where they seemed happy to call off the
assault for now and melted back into the water.
As the defenders started to hastily repair the gap in the stockade, Cygan sought out Dumnekavax.
‘They are getting closer with each attack and their numbers seem plentiful as it is,’ he said. ‘We will not be able to hold them till dawn. I have brought men and equipment
here at great risk to myself, as you asked me to. Surely the time to use it is near. Listen to the children.’ Close by for the first time there was genuine terror among the little ones; many
were crying and screaming as the older women struggled to comfort them. Their fear had even transmitted itself to the goats tethered nearby; they, too, were bleating in distress. The defenders from
both the Marshes and Sketta were glancing nervously behind them at the cacophony.
‘I will give the signal when it is time,’ the Elder replied. ‘Listen for the drums; the drums will say when it is time.’
Cygan clenched his jaw. ‘Surely the time is the next attack.’
‘And what if we light the oil and it does not deter them?’ Dumnekavax was not backing down. ‘We still have hours to hold out against them without any recourse other than our
own sinews, muscle and obdurate will. While hope in this plan remains we will be so much the stronger for it, but take that hope away and our strength will wilt. Wait for the drums, Cygan. This
attack is far stronger than the others we have faced before. Wait for the drums and hope Cygannan is there for us.’
Cygan returned to his post, shaking his head. He passed his wife who looked nervously at him. She had been using her sling to good effect that night, but her missiles were running low and the
number of the Malaac was not diminishing.
It was quiet for a while allowing things to calm down inside the camp. The night passed; the moon started to sink a little in the sky. This was the longest gap between attacks yet. People
started to hope – perhaps the Malaac had given up? Even if they had stopped for that night only, it would be some relief, and dawn was now only a couple of hours away. Even Cygan started to
feel lulled; maybe the oil would not be needed at all.
Then a shrill scream pierced the night air and hope dissipated like smoke from the fires. The Malaac, showing far more cunning and guile than anyone had given them credit for, had emerged
silently from the water and had crawled on their bellies up to a point of the fence at the opposite side of the camp from Cygan and Whitey. Then, in a coordinated attack, the front rank assailed
the fence itself, tearing posts from the ground, pulling up the stakes and hurling them at the stunned defenders. Heedless of any damage they might receive, they succeeded in opening a large gap in
the fence in less than a minute, and then the Malaac waiting behind them – and there were at least a hundred – overwhelmed the hapless humans and flooded into the camp biting, rending
and devouring any creature of flesh – man, woman, child or beast – that they found in their way.
The first Cygan knew of the situation came with the screaming of the children and the cessation of the drums. The Malaac were past the fires at the heart of the camp and were attacking the most
vulnerable among them. The elders and children were having to bear the brunt of the assault undefended.
‘Stay here! They may attack elsewhere!’ he yelled at Whitey and the other Sketta men and ran past the fire brandishing his spear. Whitey was non-plussed; before him the lake was
silent while behind him the sounds of terror and struggle assailed his ears. He wandered from his post; it was difficult to see exactly what was happening but he could see many silhouettes, dark
figures engaged in a deadly ballet, and not all of them were human.
‘Uba take me for the fool I am,’ Whitey hissed to himself and started to walk towards the fire spear held before him. He was learning a lot about himself tonight and very shortly
would find out a whole lot more.
Breaking past the fire came two tiny children. At least one was a girl – the high-pitched screaming was unmistakeable – but he could tell little more about them because of the
darkness. Then, just seconds behind them, came one of the Malaac. The ones he had seen before had been man-sized or a little smaller, but this one was huge, well over six feet tall, its scales
glistening red from the flames, its mouth open showing a row of sharp white teeth. It was fairly bounding in its pursuit of its prey and would be on them within a trice.
Whitey realised that he did not want to see what it would do to them.
Without thinking and with a speed he did not know he possessed Whitey flung himself between pursuer and pursued. He dropped his spear as it was a hindrance to him and did little more than block
the Malaac off, offering his own flesh up to the beast rather than that of the children. It was an offer the creature gladly accepted. He felt it sink its teeth into his already wounded shoulder
and felt needle-sharp claws stab through his leather tunic to prick his flesh. He could tell it was a lot stronger than he and could do little else than fall on to the floor, trying to protect
himself as the monster bit him again and again. He finally managed to get some purchase with his feet and used it to try and roll away from his attacker, but it clung to him fiercely. He cried out
as its claws started to draw blood on his torso, but, he was partly successful as he started to roll along the ground, albeit in a different direction to the one he intended.
However, his foe rolled with him, gripping him like a vice. It stunk of peat, slime and bog plants and its scales were so slick he could not grab it to try and push it away from him. They rolled
over and over until Whitey felt something strike his leg. He twisted his neck for a better look and saw what it was. It was a log from the fire.
The Gods throw me to the furnace! he thought in a flash. I am going to die anyway. And so, rather than check the momentum he had gained in their downhill roll, he carried on until his back lay
on smouldering bricks of peat and his lungs were full of heat and acrid smoke. He smelled his hair burning but the Malaac was still on him. Finally he felt his clothes start to smoulder as the fire
started to take a hold. He had been inches from death many times in his life but never had it felt so inevitable, so unavoidable and so inescapable as it did now. He relaxed his muscles and stopped
fighting. He could almost see Xhenafa come towards him, withered hand outstretched ready to lead him before the Gods and a judgement that he knew would not be kind.
There was a hand, two of them in fact, but they were large, strong and very, very human. And they were pulling him away from the fire and patting down the flames on his clothes. He looked up and
saw a powerful, dark Marsh Man staring at him with blank impassive eyes. He pointed to his chest.
‘Fasneterax,’ he said.
‘Er ... Whit ... Barris,’ he replied.
Fasneterax pointed at the two small children, who had stopped running and were standing a couple of feet away staring at him. ‘Cygan’s,’ he said.
‘Cygan’s?’ said Whitey. ‘Oh, I see.’ He realised he had never thought of the Marsh Man as having children before. He had thought that they had little more to
concern them in life other than getting drunk on their infamous plant rotgut and fighting each other.
‘Cygan’s,’ he said thoughtfully, then suddenly felt the pain in his shoulder. ‘The Malaac?’ he asked. ‘Where is the Malaac’
Fasneterax stepped away to show Whitey what his stout frame had been concealing. Behind him a large dark shape lay spread out on the ground. It was still and had a spear jutting out from between
whatever it called its shoulder blades. But that was not all, for the lifeless figure was on fire. Flame licked up and down its full length, spitting and popping as it did so, and from its corpse a
putrid smell arose.
‘Malaac, burn,’ Fasneterax said laconically.
Whitey got to his knees. His chest had been scored by claws and a searing pain shot through his wounded shoulder. He felt a little faint and swayed unevenly, having to steady himself by placing
his hand upon the ground.
Then Cygan emerged from the darkness spear in hand, with black ichor staining his clothes. He and Fasneterax spoke briefly after which he looked at Whitey with some surprise. Whitey, however,
was oblivious to his surroundings as his nausea finally overcame him and he fell in a dead faint, his fingers twitching nervelessly as a thin stream of spittle ran from his lips.
‘The poison of the Malaac,’ Fasneterax said. ‘It is what killed Tegavenek.’
‘I will see the elf sage looks at him. It appears I now owe him a debt.’
Cygan was about to speak further, but then a Malaac came hurtling out of the darkness and charged straight at Fasneterax. The man pulled his knife to defend himself as Cygan tripped the thing
with his spear. This gave Fasneterax time to dive on to the thing and bury his knife into its neck. Other men ran to join him and help finish the creature off.
‘Enough of this,’ Cygan said to himself. ‘The drums are silent; that is signal enough for me.’ He went over to his arrows stuck in the ground, pulled out one, then as he
looked at the exhausted line of men trying frantically to keep the Malaac away from the children he put the arrow into the fire. The cloth burned immediately and with an expression of satisfaction
he fitted it to the bow and sent the arrow flying straight into the midriff of a Malaac standing over one of the Sketta men’s prone form. The creature barely seemed to notice at first as it
leaned over the man ready to tear out his throat. Then the oil in which he was coated finally caught and rippling waves of yellow-blue flame enveloped his entire body in seconds. Confused, enraged
and panicked, the Malaac turned to bolt back into the lake. Running blindly, he felled one of his fellows, transferring some of the fire on to him where it, too, ignited like dry tinder.
‘Burn them!’ Cygan called at the top of his lungs. ‘Burn them all!’
The two Malaac, now little more than flaming torches, dived into the lake’s still waters, no doubt expecting to find sanctuary there. Instead, as they plunged under the surface it was as a
candle thrown on to a bale of dry straw. The lake, placid, gentle and calm for all of Cygan’s life, metamorphosed before his very eyes into a lake of fire, the sort that he heard surrounded
the lake of the eye, the home of the Malaac.
Not that the Malaac here seemed to like what was happening to them, whatever its familiarity. The defenders had caught on and flaming arrows now rained on to the lake, sending the entire
perimeter of the island into a burning conflagration, a circle of fire. On land, people wielded flaming brands taken from the fires at their foes, keeping them at bay. If they attacked they ran the
risk of being set aflame, and if they fled to jump into the lake they ran the risk of the same thing happening. One by one they seemed to chance the second option. A hundred Malaac became eighty,
then seventy, then fifty, as they ran into the flaming lake, hissing and shrieking in anger, pain and fear. Emboldened, the defenders hit at them with spear, stone and arrow, a hail of missiles
forcing them backwards, out of the fortified perimeter on to the tiny strip of land banking on to the lake. The Malaac looked at the grim-faced men coming towards them with a new resolve; they
looked at the lake and, finally, the remaining twenty or so jumped as one into the flames. Most caught fire before vanishing under water, scarred and wounded, the natural slime enabling them to
swim, breathe and keep warm partly stripped from them. In the days to come many Malaac bodies were found drifting against the shores of the lake or floating in the adjoining swamps and rivers, to
which they had fled before being overcome by wounds, exhaustion or cold.
The lake continued to burn long after the Malaac had gone, turning the island into some kind of fiery underworld suspended between the lands of the Gods and the lands of men. Despite the best
efforts of the defenders, children had been killed or taken, as had a couple of their nurses and members of the Circle of the Wise, whose drums, their skins now torn and useless, lay scattered next
to the fire where they had been played.