March Upcountry

"And how far is that?" Kosutic asked.

"Days to the south," Cord replied. "Even weeks."

"And north?" Pahner asked, looking at the swamp and no longer chuckling.

"It stretches as far north as I have knowledge of," the Mardukan said. "The region to the north, even in the days of Voitan, was held by the Kranolta, and they didn't permit caravans through their lands."

"So," Roger said dubiously, "we have to make a choice between going several weeks out of our way to the south, getting hit by the Kranolta the whole way. Or we can go north, directly into their backyard. Or we can try to navigate the swamp."

"Well, your Marines and my people may have some problems," Cord admitted. "But not the flar-ta. They can easily make it through a swamp no deeper than this."

"Really?" It was Kosutic's turn to sound doubtful. "That thing that was chasing you was in a desert. These things—" she jerked a thumb over her shoulder at Patricia "—don't look that different."

"The flar-ta and the flar-ke are found everywhere," Cord pointed out. "They prefer the high, dry regions because of the absence of atul-grack, but they can be found in swamps as well."

Pahner turned and looked at D'Len Pah. The chief mahout had taken over Pat when her original mahout was killed in the first ambush, and now waited patiently for the humans to make up their minds.

"Do you think the pack beasts can cross this, Pah?" the captain asked skeptically.

"Certainly," the mahout said with a grunt of laughter. "Is that what you've been jawing about?"

He tapped the beast in a crease in the armor just behind her massive head shield to get her in gear, and the flar-ta whuffled forward. She moaned dolefully when she saw the black muck, but she stepped into it anyway.

The pack beast's feet each consisted of four toes with leathery bases. They were equipped with heavy digging claws, and their pads were broad and fleshy. They were also webbed, and now Patricia spread her toes wide, more than tripling the square area of her foot. That foot sank into the sloppy mud but found "solid" footing well before the belly of the creature touched the water.

"Hmmm." Roger watched thoughtfully. "Can she move out into the swamp?"

Pah prodded again, and the beast grumbled but moved out into the black water. Obviously, she was as at home in the swamp as in the jungle, but a moment later she burbled and started to back up hastily as a "V" ripple started towards her from deeper in the swamp.

Roger picked up his rifle from where he'd leaned it against a tree and flipped it off safe. Beads from Marine rifles started bouncing off the surface as the panicking beast lumbered back up out of the water, but the prince only drew a breath and led the approaching ripple.

Pahner flicked the selector switch on his bead rifle to armor-piercing as he realized that the lighter ceramic beads were simply skipping off the water, but just as he was about to fire, Roger's big rifle boomed, and the ripple turned into a whitewater of convulsions. The creature jerking and flopping at the center of the maelstrom was longer and narrower than a damnbeast but otherwise similar, with the same mucus-covered skin as a scummy. The green and black-striped beast thrashed a few more times as the huge hole blown through its shoulder and neck bled out, then rolled over to float belly-up on the surface.

"Di

"Well," Pahner observed with a sniff, "that's half the problem solved. We'll pile the rucksacks on the beasts and follow them through the swamp."

"It will make Kranolta attacks less likely, as well," Cord said ruminatively as the mahouts waded into the water to retrieve the kill. "Such swamps are useless to the forest people. They won't be as at home there as in the forest, and they'll never expect us to cross it here. But," he continued, gesturing into the swamp with his spear, "somewhere in there is the Hurtan River. And that the flar-ta will be unable to cross."

"We'll build that bridge when we come to it," Kosutic said with a laugh. "First, we have to deal with—"

"The Mohiiinga," Roger and Pahner chorused.

Poertena slipped and went under for a moment before Denat could pull him, puffing and spluttering, to his feet. The armorer spat out foul-tasting water, but he'd still managed to keep his bead rifle from going under.

"T'anks, Denat," he began, then broke off as his helmet started to pop and hiss.

"Shit!" He tore off the helmet as the earphones began to howl. "Modderpockers are suppose a be waterproof," he grumped. He'd deal with it later.

The company had been slogging through the waist- to chest-high swamp all the long Mardukan afternoon. The going was slow and hard, with the black mud sucking at their boots and chameleon suits, and hidden roots and fallen branches grabbing at their ankles. Most of them were coated in muck from top to bottom after repeated falls.

The only exceptions were the marksmen sitting on the flar-ta.

"Look at t'at stuck up prig sittin' up there," Poertena grumbled, glaring at the prince who was on the lead pack beast.

"You'd be up there, too," Despreaux said, moving forward to check on her Bravo Team, "if, of course, you could shoot as well as he can."

"Rub it in," the armorer muttered. "An' watch where you step. One o' these modderpocker swamp-beast eat you!"

Roger's head twitched to the right, tracking a ripple in the water, but it was small and heading away. The ride wasn't much different from normal, although it was perhaps a tad smoother. The flar-ta crushed most of the fallen limbs or trees they encountered without even breaking stride.

The swamp's flora ran to smaller species than in the jungle, and many of those he'd seen seemed relatively young. Cord had indicated that these areas had been fields in his father's day, so perhaps that explained their lack of age. Which, in turn, might explain their smaller size, now that he thought about it.

He turned to look behind him at the Marines sliding through the swamp and patted the snoring Dogzard on her head. The poor bastards were covered in the thick black mud and looked as worn and dragged as he'd ever seen them. The necessity of holding their rifles up out of the muck and pushing their way through it was obviously telling on them. It was particularly hard on the grenadiers, who had their boxes and bandoliers of grenades piled on their heads and shoulders with the heavy grenade launchers held up out of the slop. All in all, it made him feel like a shit to be sitting on Patricia's back.

The only consolation was that he'd been contributing. The caravan had attracted a host of carnivores as it passed through the swamp, and the Marines' bead rifles, even when switched to the heavier tungsten-cored armor piercing rounds, weren't as effective in the water as his big 11-millimeter magnum "smoke-pole." The lower velocity, heavier slugs punched into the water, rather than tending to come apart on the surface.

But he wasn't happy about it, especially with night coming on.

Pahner moved forward, pushing against the drag of the swamp as he responded to a call from the lead mahouts. He sloshed up alongside, and D'Len Pah looked down from the slow-moving reptiloid and pointed his goad stick in the direction of the descending sun.

"We must rest the beasts soon," he said. "And it will be very difficult to move in the dark."

Pahner had recognized the inevitability an hour before. There was no end to the swamp in sight, and apparently no island-forming uplands. And even if there'd been islands, they would have been inhabited by something.