Her long smooth body, bruised and lacerated and encrusted with salt, breathed with a slow, erratic rhythm. Her other arm lay across her high firm breasts and her slim fingers rested on his forearm.
He turned his head up the beach. It might well have been the hell-lands of Khles that towered there. The smooth sloping expanse of gray sand ended sharply in a wall of granite, cracked and hoary with age. It went straight upward, higher than Moljar could see.
The girl groaned, raised on an elbow. He turned. They looked silently at each other a moment, before turning their eyes back to the colossal sea wall. Simultaneously their eyes caught the broad towering gate of dull black metal.
"Anghore," she whispered.
His hand dug into the sand. His lips were thin lines of dark wire. "It is magic," he said. "Even the gods are prejudiced against half-breeds, or I'd say they lent their strength to ours."
"Only evil gods would guide us to this place," she said.
"We have our gods who are not known exactly for benevolence. Lumphoor. Ghyx."
Moljar climbed stiffly to his feet and lifted Mahra. They stretched sore, wrenched muscles. They ate the ample meat from the many types of shells strewing the beach, and all the time they had been eyeing the giant, formidable barrier. Then, with silent accord, they walked up to it and stood dwarfed before it.
"You can leave me here," said Moljar. "I have pledged. I must return to kill Alhone. But you are free."
"In this jungle? Free for death! I'll stick a while longer, half-breed."