The strain was unbearable, yet bear it he did. The way ahead was infinite, screaming of madness, yet he held on to his own sanity as a drowning man might cling to a frayed rope, and he dragged himself onward, step by step. Iron shackles made his limbs weep blood, with no hope of surcease. Figures caked in mud plod¬ded to either side, and beyond them, vague in the gloom, countless others.
Was there comfort in shared fate? The question alone invited hysterical laughter, a plunge into insanity’s precious oblivion. No, surely there was no such comfort, beyond the mutual recognition of folly, ill luck and obstinate stupidity, and these traits could not serve camaraderie. Besides, one’s companions to either side were in the habit of changing at a moment’s notice, one hapless fool replacing another in a grainy, blurred swirl.
Heaving on the chains, to keep the Burden in motion, this nightmarish flight left no energy, no time, for conversation. And so Ditch ignored the hand buffeting his shoulder the first time, the second time. The third time, however, was hard enough to send the wizard staggering to one side. Swearing, he twisted round to glare at the one now walking at his side.
Once, long ago, he might have flinched back upon seeing such an apparition. His heart would have lurched in terror.
The demon was huge, hulking. Its once royal blood availed it no privilege here in Dragnipur. Ditch saw that the creature was carrying the fallen, the failed, gathering to itself a score or more bodies and the chains attached to them. Mus-eles strained, bunched and twisted as the demon pulled itself forward. Scrawny bodies, hanging limp, crowded like cordwood under each arm. One, still conscious though her head lolled, rode its broad back like a newborn ape, glazed eyes sliding acroii the wizard’s face.
‘You fool,’ Ditch snarled. ‘Throw ’em into the bed!’
‘No room,’ piped the demon in a high, childish voice.
But the wizard had used up his sympathy. For the demon’s sake, it should have left the fallen behind, but then, of course, they would all feel the added weight, the pathetic drag on the chains. Still, what if this one fell? What if that extraordinary strength and will gave way? ‘Curse the fool!’ Ditch growled. ‘Why doesn’t he kill a few more dragons, damn him!’
‘We fail,’ said the demon.
Ditch wanted to howl at that. Was it not obvious to them all? But that quavering voice was both bemused and forlorn, and it struck through to his heart. ‘I know, friend. Not long now.’
‘And then?’