She was considering blasting the vines with her laser pistol when an odd vibration of the vine made her look up. She expected to see Nomad pulling at her rope, but what she saw was much worse. Not far above her head, a reptile that looked like some blend of razor-back hog and alligator, as dark and gray as the swamp itself, was clinging to the side of the 'Mech. For a reason known only to it and whatever deity watched over reptiles, the creature was happily chewing on the rope, apparently making great headway.

Drawing her pistol, Joanna fired it upward at the reptile. Her shot was right on target and some of the reptile's razorback went flying. It slipped off the 'Mech, but its mouth continued to cling to the rope. Aiming carefully, so as to miss the rope, she fired again. As the creature fell away, she felt a tug on the rope. The beast was falling directly down at her. Kicking at the 'Mech leg, she swung out. The reptile fell right past her, making a small splash as it hit the muck and then disappeared. She was ready to breathe a sigh of relief as the rope finished its outward arc and came back toward the 'Mech, but the relief turned to fear as she felt the rope separate. Beginning to fall, she grabbed at a vine but missed, then she too went, feet first, into the muck.

Oddly, the muck seemed to break her fall. After she had gone down only a few centimeters, her movement slowed. Yet, at her feet, she felt a definite sensation of suction. She was being pulled in, but whatever the muck was, it was patient in claiming its victims. She wondered what had happened to her laser pistol. She did not remember dropping it. Shining the lantern around her, she spotted it just beyond the rim of the pool of muck, just beyond her reach.

She had been pulled in up to her knees. Looking down, Joanna watched as the line of detestable sediment slowly rose higher.

* * *

Nomad had located a small pair of binoculars in Joanna's storage bin. Ignoring the pulsations in his wrist as he tried to hold onto them, he focused the view on her and saw how she was being sucked downward. His sense of her position suggested that the 'Mech's foot must be just slightly to her right.

He could not use her neurohelmet to work the controls, but if only he could use his hands, he could bypass the helmet to work the foot. Well, one hand, at least. Its damaged wrist would give him ferocious pain, but it would function.

Pulling away a panel beneath the joystick, he wrenched out the wires to the neurohelmet. Joanna would scream when she saw what he had done. But the very fact she saw it would mean he had rescued her and returned her to the cockpit to resume her continuous harangues.

Taking the joystick, lightning flashes of pain erupting from his wrist, he worked with the 'Mech's foot. He could tell it was prevented from rising, but he felt a slight give left and right. Checking the viewport, he saw that Joanna had now sunk to her waist in the muck. His quick calculations told him that her feet would contact the upper surface of the 'Mech foot either just before her head sank below the surface level of the muck, or just after.

With severe effort, his eyes filling with tears from the furious pain, Nomad worked with the joystick. At first, the foot seemed unwilling to move. He pressed harder, and the pain got worse. Then, with a sudden jerk sideways, the foot moved just enough to place it under the sinking warrior. The muck was up to her shoulders now.

His arm throbbing with pain beyond any he might have dreamed he could endure, Nomad staggered to the viewport and looked down. Joanna had dropped the lantern. It bobbed on the surface of the muck, casting a thin, wobbly light over her. She held her arms high. The level of the muck was just below her neck.

* * *

Joanna had calmly accepted her imminent death, especially after being forced to fling away the lantern. Looking up, she saw Nomad staring down at her from within the light of the cockpit. This must be stimulating for him, she thought. Watching her die was probably something he had dreamed of for years.

They said that people often reevaluated their lives when they knew they were about to die, that sometimes their lives flashed before their eyes. There were many instances of conversion to ancient religious beliefs on the part of dying individuals. Many people regretted the actions of their lives. They made their peace with the human race, it was said.

Not Joanna. She would make peace with nobody, she thought. She had spent most of her life hating everyone. Why regret that now? She had found little reason to change her mind about the hatefulness of others. She would die contented that she had viewed life correctly. But that was about all she would be contented about. Mostly, she was angry. What an absurd way to die! She was a warrior, and a warrior was not supposed to die in a pool of filth, not unless he or she had been put there by an act of combat. What she regretted more than anything was that she would die without having earned a Bloodname, without contributing her genetic legacy to a gene pool.

She felt the disgusting sludge against the skin of her neck. Soon she would slide under. With her upraised hands, she worked off the gloves that were the symbol of her achievements with the Jade Falcon Clan. Studded with metal stars, they represented to Joanna her success in several combats. She did not want them to slide into the muck with her. Throwing them as well as she could, she watched them disappear into the darkness. But she heard them land. No splash accompanied their coming to rest, and so she knew that they would be retrieved by another warrior, perhaps used again by their new owner.

Resigned, she waited for her death. Which made the moment her feet landed on the upper surface of the 'Mech foot all the more startling. She felt the impact all through her body, even to the top of her head.

Suddenly she was not dead yet. But she was still neck-deep in muck, her arms flailing upward, rotten, odorous air seeming thicker just above the swamp surface, the suggestion of dangerous animals in every dark patch, her 'Mech disabled, a malfunctioning chief tech up in the cockpit, all communications gone. Death, she thought, might just have been better.

16

In a bizarre concatenation of circumstances, Kael Pershaw, Lanja, and Joanna were all in life-threatening danger simultaneously. Were an attentive god watching over his human minions, he or she might have been busy coordinating the fortunes of all three at once. Fortunately, Clan warriors did not have much use for gods and were, in fact, aware of only a few of those that were a part of human mythology. Those who speculated about gods generally concluded that a Clan warrior must rely on him or herself and not bother any god about anything.

Kael Pershaw's 'Mech was being rocked by a series of direct missile hits, most of them centered on the torso. With his thumb, he frantically pressed the enabling switch for the anti-missile system, but it was not working. The Wolf warrior on the other side apparently realized that and was shooting off a whole rack of SRMs at him.

With enemy Elementals swarming about his limbs as they tried to disable the 'Mech, and the awesome firepower being directed against him, only one response was possible. He must wade forward, all his weapons blasting away at once, hoping for a lucky series of hits.

What made matters worse was that the battle was being lost all around him. Every single Jade Falcon 'Mech was in serious jeopardy. The Jade Falcon Elementals had been pushed backward, behind the line of their 'Mechs.

Pershaw could not help wondering if the Elementals would have been pushed back so easily if Lanja were here.

* * *

Lanja was in the battle of her life. Had she been a normally constructed human being, she would be dead by now. Holding her head just barely above the stagnant water, she had managed to toss the tree puma off her body once, then turned around onto her back so that she faced it. It attacked again, its face coming so close that its foul breath seemed like some more pronounced extension of the swamp's putrescent odors.