Gack fought his way through the last thickets and stepped out toward the road. He looked back. He could see nothing through the tangle of rotten branches. It was raining to a downpour. A stench arose from the ditch, where a heap of ominous black rags was moldering in a clayey slime. About twenty paces away, on the other side of the road, a burnt-out tank, one side slipping into a quagmire, jutted up, the barrel of its flamethrower aimed senselessly at the low lying clouds.
Gack jumped across the ditch and walked along the edge of the road toward the city. The road was a road in name only. It was a river of liquid clay, and dragging themselves toward him through the slop, constantly getting bogged down, were dilapidated carts on huge wooden wheels, drawn by exhausted oxen. Women, wrapped i
