“In coolness of that evening we stood guard

Atop the knoll our mastery had turned

To barrow. As the hidden sun went down

We watched the pit as does a mongoose, for

The snout of the great serpent to appear.

While there we watched we argued: How to strike,

What next our battle, Where to aim our blows

Again against the foe. Guz raised his lance

And pointed with the tip. 'Behold yon pit.

Behold its depth unnatural. Has a one

Among us ever seen its like before?

Behold this dust, that not an hour ago,

If not alive, moved like enough to life

To slay. Behold the throat of this grim gulf,

How yet it crawls with shapes of sodden soot

Too cowardly, perhaps, to climb again

And face us who have cut their numbers down.

It has more revenants to vomit forth,

I deem, though they may no less feebly fight.

The wind did bring us here, to stem this tide,

War-brothers, even as we did this day,

Though yet we knew it not. Here let us stand!

If it bring others of our fellowship,

Warm welcome we their swords. If not, why then

The glory poured on us grows greater, that

Alone we three did stand, and stand, and stand,

And batter down this rising Soot, until

Its chimney here, exhausted, chokes and fails.

Safe, whole, and clean the world will be, and we,

Its saviors!' So said Guz All-Leveler.

'Too slow!' moaned Luke, with shaking of his head,

With pacing up and down, and with his hands

Swift squeezing of the air, as if to seize

His meaning back out of the words he spoke.

'Too stony solid, and too much asleep!

You call this gulf a chimney, and all these

Weak mannequins the soot? Well then seek we

The fire that births the soot, and stamp it out!

Let it be never said we were content

To stay in sullen watch, and leave a foe,

Of epic worthy, unfought and alive

To mock our manhood! What might not it do,

If whatever-it-is can carve this pit?

Pour flaming oil from mountain tops? Eat out

The ground from underneath the sea? Crack up

The living soil? Dig fifty holes, each full

Of furnace-slag born revenants to swarm

Over the fields and forests we have loved

Reducing all to cinders? Could we stand

An everlasting watch on fifty holes?

How do we know this is the only one

And there are not already fifty more?

More palatable far than this delay

Or waiting one more moment, let us dive,

Make missiles of ourselves, aimed at the heart

That beats brimstone and malice, till our blades

Meet at its center. Let us be as swift

As thunderbolts descending through the smoke

To ferret out its source! Let us fall out

Until the wind is as a hurricane

Around our ears! How can a warrior meet

A challenge such as this without the ache

To do, unless his blood be water or

His breechcloth empty?' Luke the Barefoot cried.

Then looked them both to me. I, who feared not

The fiercest beasts of battle in my life

Nor empty sooty soldiers after death,

Felt something in me quail. What words had I

To match against what either one had said?

How could I make my caution sound as high

As firm endurance unrelenting, or

Ecstatic self-abandon? Yet I must

Be last to flee from any challenge, so

I spoke what little eloquence I had:

'I know not how this hole did come to be.

I know not what would happen if we stayed,

In vigilance, and guarded close the rim.

I know not what would happen if we cast

Ourselves into the smoke-smelling abyss

In search of some colossuses to slay.

I know not what would happen if we left,

Retraced our steps, reported of our find

To the Old Man, and from him counsel got.

It may be he would know no more than I.

My heart tells me that something must be done

Or we are lost, but it speaks not of what.

Yet I will say this much: that we should send

One of our number back to bear the news

And hear the battle plan. I only pray

That here I have spoke rightly.' There I stopped.

My wells of words were emptied, my tongue dry.

Guz frowned and pulled his granite-bearded chin.

'I mislike that we should divide our strength

By separation or by disaccord,

But brother Varr speaks plain truth plainly; we

Cannot aspire to strategy until

We know our enemy. In all this fen,

This hummock is defensible far more

Than any flat of mud and sickly reeds.

Here two could make a stand, and wait

For reinforcement swift,' he slowly said.

Luke shook his head, and shrugged his shoulders bare.

'Well, there is nothing for it,' he grinned grim,

'What good is battle-bliss against good sense?

Though mark, oh Last-to-Flee and Leveler:

However cautiously you fish for death,

You catch her in the end, so let us not

Wait overlong before we use our blades.

If one is to retrace our steps, then who?

Though such consulting is a weariness,

Still wearier is waiting. Let us choose!'

And so were they persuaded. And what now

Would I not give up to undo that speech?

To unpersuade them, and instead to plan

Any alternative. But we were blind.

We nominated Luke to bear the news.

We kindled our watchfire. We settled in.

We let the sun go down surrounded by

How many hundred Soot? And there we stayed

Like stupid mountaineers that make a camp

Beneath the drift's impending avalanche.

The watch was not begun, and none yet slept.

I think we talked on trivialities:

I asked, perhaps, about their lives before,

Or Guz had always meant to learn the axe,

Or Luke told lewd tales. Suddenly the fire

Went double dim, as if it had been crushed,

And crackled indigo, while all around

The hissing of a thousand serpents sighed.

I barely had a chance to draw a breath.

I barely had the time to draw my sword,

Ere they were on me. Nothing could I see,

The fire was smothered, clouds curtained the moon,

And so I fought in darkness for my life.

I blindly struck, but felt a point myself

That pierced between the muscle and the skin

Below my shoulder. I thrust toward its source,

Only to be by three more weapons pierced.

I fought by feel, finding the enemy

By following the screams along my nerves

That pointed to the ones who wounded me.

Somewhere between the moments I was not

Too fully bent on fighting back to think

I dimly realized this could not last.

Without a sun to dazzle them, the Soot

Were quicker, surer, stronger than before,

And they seemed not to need the light to see.

Already did I bleed, but I could hear

No slight abatement in the sizzling snarl

That signified the numbers of the Soot.

If every hand that wounded me I killed

Still would there be enough to cut me down

One red drop at a time, into the dark,

As lifeless as the ones who ground my heart

Beneath their ashy boots, and more to spare.

Somewhere behind I heard the rapid clash

Of Luke striking at everything in reach.

Elsewhere further bellowed Guz his rage.

A host, invisible inside the night

That was their ally, surged between us three:

I never saw either of them again.

How long I fought in darkness I know not,

How many times I blundered through the pools,

To find firm ground by feel, lose it again,

And find another hummock in the mud

I may have fought on twenty times before

Or may have not yet touched. How many times

I sensed a sword descending, blindly dodged,

My shield fluttering upward past my head,

Counter attacked, and knew not what I struck.

How many times their iron tore my flesh,

So muscles pulled in vain, so bones bruised blue:

Thrice I was sure I had my mortal wound

And in berserker fury, only thought

To take as many with me as I could.

How many hours the darkness stretched, until

The pain repeatedly renewed was all

That held exhaustion off, to prop me up

And keep me moving forward anywhere.

You saw the scars that that night left on me,

They spiderweb across my chest and arms.

Each Soot that struck there never struck again,

I promise, and I was outnumbered still.

At last I could no longer feel my limbs.

Whether I slashed the foe or only air

I could not say, but only could push on.

I knew the next blow that I felt would carve

The mail from off my back, and drive down deep

Between my ribs to break and burst my heart

And rip me right in two, but I would sell

That blow as dear as possible. And so

I gathered all the hate I had, and charged,

And as I howled forward, my feet flew

Through nothing, and I tumbled from a bank

To roll and land upon a drift of sand,

Clean, dry, sweet-smelling. In my shock, I heard

Night breeze, and music of a running stream,

And no infernal fizz of smoldering flesh.

My last remaining strength lifted my head

Enough to glimpse a single firefly.

Then I collapsed, to lay as do the dead

And dream of how I likely was to die."