Dizziness seized him, tossing him against a tree trunk. Richard grabbed the fragrant bark to steady himself, his fingers sticking to the sap, and wil ed the trees to stop spinning. Come on, get a grip. This is no way to die. At least he could go out in a flash of glory instead of bleeding out under some pine.
The forest melted into a gray, rain-drenched swamp. Richard smel ed the pungent aroma of the Mire’s herbs mixing with the stench of stagnant water. He’d know this scent anywhere—he’d grown up cloaked in it. He ran across the sluice of muddy soil to the clearing buttressed by the cypresses. Wide holes gaped in the ground like dark mouths. He checked the first one and saw the body of a child, a pale, thin form, floating facedown in two feet of brown water . . .
Richard shook his head, flinging the memory away. The woods reappeared. He was hal ucinating. Splendid. He pushed from the trunk and kept moving.
In the distance, another dog howl rol ed, more to the west. They must’ve broken into two groups. They were a cowardly lot, but they had a lot of practice chasing runaway slaves and were distressingly good at it.
The brush ended abruptly. He saw the ravine, but too late. The carpet of needles shifted under his feet, the edge of the hil col apsed, and Richard rol ed down the slope and crashed into a tree. His ribs crunched, and the pain clawed at his side.
The swamp mud squelched under his feet. A man rushed him, weaving between the holes, sword in hand, mouth gaping wide in a scream, his wet hair plastered to his skull by the rain. Richard slashed.
The body fell apart before him. Another slaver charged from the left. A second sweep of Richard’s sword, and the slaver’s head rolled off his shoulders and tumbled into the nearest hole. Red blood gushed from the stump of the neck and splashed onto the sludge . . .
Reality slammed into Richard in a rush of agony. He gritted his teeth, rol ed to al fours, clumsy like a baby learning how to walk, and forced himself upright.
A familiar dul pressure pushed at his skin and insides. He took a step forward, and the wal of magic ground against his senses. The boundary. He couldn’t see it or smel it, but it pushed on him, as if an invisible hand pressed against his insides.
He’d reached the Edge. Final y.
A big furry body sailed over the edge of the ravine. Richard spun about, unsheathing his sword. The sun caught the long, slender blade. The wolfripper dog landed on the slope and sprinted forward, 170 pounds of muscle sheathed in short, dense black fur. Richard leaned forward, closing his left hand on the smal ultrasonic emitter in the sword’s pommel.
A gift from his brother. Kaldar had bought or probably stolen the gadget on one of his excursions to the Broken, and it worked in the Weird. The slavers’ dogs hated it, and Richard used it often. He’d never been much for kil ing dogs. They only did what their masters told them to do.
Three people cleared the top of the ravine. Two men, one thin to the point of being scrawny, the other wearing leathers and holding a dog leash, and a woman, tal , muscular, and with hard eyes. The slaver scouts. Hello there.
The dog was almost to him, running fast on massive paws, rugged, big-boned, bred to kil a pack of wolves and get home in one piece. Fifty feet.
Thirty.
Richard squeezed the emitter. The sound, too high for human ears, lanced at the dog’s sensitive eardrums.
The beast halted.
“Get ’im!” the slaver with the leash yel ed. “Get! Get!”
The wolfripper bared big teeth.
Richard squeezed the emitter again, holding the switch for a few painful seconds.
The dog whined and trotted over to the side, circling behind him.
The scrawny slaver on the right of the dog handler swore and pul ed a gun from his waistband. Slavers were opportunistic thugs—most of them had barely enough magic to be born in the Weird or the Edge but not enough to succeed at life. They evened the odds with cruelty and Broken contraband weapons, counting on the element of surprise.
The slaver pointed the gun at Richard.
He was young, blond, and the way he held the weapon, sideways, made Richard’s head hurt.
“We need him alive, you moron,” the dog handler said.
“Dude, fuck that.” The black barrel stared in Richard’s face. “I’l take him out right now.”
“Is he an apprentice?” Richard asked, bracing himself.
“What?” The woman stared at him.
“Is he a scumbag in training?” Richard glanced at the gunman. “At least have the decency to hold the gun properly, you fool. If you don’t know how, pass it to someone who does. I’m not going to suffer being shot at by anything less than a ful -fledged lowlife.” The shooter sputtered. “Screw you.”
The gun barked, the sound booming through the woods.