‘I’ll just hold you back, Sparhawk,’ Bevier said weakly.
‘No you won’t,’ Sparhawk replied. ‘We’re not going to run through this maze. We don’t know what’s in here, so we’re not going to take any chances. All right, gentlemen, let’s move out.’
They started down the long, straight corridor that led into the labyrinth, passing two or three unlighted entrances on either side as they went.
‘Shouldn’t we check those?’ Kalten asked.
‘It’s probably not necessary,’ Kurik said. ‘Some of Adus’s men were wounded, and there are blood-spatters on the floor. We know that Adus at least went this way.’
‘That’s no guarantee that Martel did,’ Kalten said. ‘Maybe he told Adus to lead us off in the wrong direction.’
‘It’s possible,’ Sparhawk conceded, ‘but this corridor is lighted, and none of the others are.’
‘I’d hardly call it a maze if the way through it is marked with torches, Sparhawk,’ Kurik pointed out.
‘Maybe not, but as long as the torches and the blood-trail go the same way, we’ll chance it.’
The echoing corridor made a sharp turn to the left at its far end. The vaulted walls and ceiling curving upward and inward gave the twisting passages that oppressive sense of being too low, and Sparhawk found himself instinctively ducking his head.
‘They’ve broken through the doors in the throne-room, Sparhawk,’ Ulath called from the rear. ‘There are some torches bobbing around back in the entryway.’
‘That more or less settles it,’ Sparhawk said. ‘We don’t have time to start exploring side passages. Let’s go on.’
The lighted corridor began to twist and turn at that point, and the spots of blood on the floor suggested that they were still on the same trail Adus had followed.
The corridor turned to the right.
‘How are you bearing up?’ Sparhawk asked Bevier, who was leaning heavily on Berit’s shoulder.
‘Fine, Sparhawk. As soon as I get my breath, I’ll be able to make it without help.’
The corridor turned to the left again, then to the left again after only a few yards.
‘We’re going back the same way we came, Sparhawk,’ Kurik declared.
‘I know. Do we have any choice, though?’
‘Not that I can think of, no.’
‘Ulath,’ Sparhawk called, ‘are the men behind us gaining at all?’
‘Not that I can see.’
‘Maybe they don’t know the way through the maze either,’ Kalten suggested. ‘I don’t think anyone would visit Azash just for fun.’
The rush came out of a side corridor. Five spear-armed Zemoch soldiers dashed out of the dark entryway and bore down on Sparhawk, Kalten and Kurik. Their spears gave them some advantage – but not enough. After three of their number had been felled to lie writhing and bleeding on the flagstone floor, the other two fled back the way they had come.
Kurik seized a torch from one of the iron rings in the wall and led Sparhawk and Kalten into the dark, twisting corridor. After several minutes they saw the soldiers they were pursuing. The two men were fearfully edging their way through a stretch of the passage, each one of them hugging a wall.
‘Now we’ve got them,’ Kalten exulted, starting forward.
‘Kalten!’ Kurik’s voice cracked. ‘Stop!’
‘What’s wrong?’
‘They’re staying too close to the walls.’
‘So?’
‘What’s wrong with the middle of the passageway?’
Kalten stared at the two frightened men clinging to the walls, his eyes narrowing. ‘Let’s find out,’ he said. He prised up a small flagstone with his sword-point and hurled it at one of the soldiers, missing his mark by several feet.
‘Let me do it,’ Kurik told him. ‘You can’t throw anything with your armour binding up your shoulders the way it does.’ He prised loose another stone. His aim was much more true. The rock he had thrown bounced off the soldier’s helmet with a loud clang. The man cried out as he reeled back, trying desperately to grab some kind of hand-hold on the stone wall. He failed, however, and stepped onto the floor in the centre of the corridor.
The floor promptly fell open under him, and he dropped from sight with a despairing shriek. His companion, straining to see, also made a misstep and fell from the narrow ledge along the wall to follow his friend into the pit.
‘Clever,’ Kurik said. He advanced to the brink of the gaping pit and raised his torch. ‘The bottom’s studded with sharpened stakes,’ he observed, looking down at the two men impaled below. ‘Let’s go back and tell the others. I think we’d better start watching where we put our feet.’
They returned to that torchlit main corridor as Ulath and Tynian joined them from the rear. Kurik tersely described the trap which had claimed the two Zemochs. He looked thoughtfully at the soldiers who had fallen here in the corridor and picked up one of their spears. ‘These weren’t Adus’s men.’
‘How do you know that?’ Kalten asked him.
‘Sir Bevier broke the spears of the ones who were with Adus. That means there are other soldiers here in the labyrinth – probably in small groups the same as this one. I’d guess that they’re here to lead us into traps in the side corridors.’
‘That’s very obliging of them,’ Ulath said.
‘I don’t follow your reasoning, Sir Ulath.’
‘There are traps in the maze, but we have soldiers around to spring them for us. All we have to do is catch them.’
‘One of those silver linings people talk about?’ Tynian asked.
‘You could say that, yes. The Zemochs we catch might not look at it that way, though.’
‘Are those soldiers behind us coming up very fast?’ Kurik asked him.
‘Not very.’
Kurik went back to the side corridor, holding his torch aloft. He was smiling grimly when he came back. ‘There are torch rings in the side passages the same as there are in this one,’ he told them. ‘Why don’t we move a few torches as we go along? We’ve been following the torches, and those soldiers have been following us. If the torches start leading them off into the side passages where the traps are, wouldn’t they sort of slow down a bit?’
‘I don’t know about them,’ Ulath said, ‘but I know I would.’