“We still shall,” she said, in a voice so firm that even her little daughter nodded.

Dhulyn straightened as Alkoryn stepped back from the fireplace wall and motioned Parno forward. The Senior Brother indicated five particular stones, waited for Parno to nod, and then touched them again in a different order. Parno nodded again, rubbed his upper lip with the first two fingers of his right hand, and touched the stones himself.

“Tap there, my Brother, but gently. Say that you wanted to knock out a sentry, rather than kill him.”

Parno nodded, and hefted the war hammer.

“Want me to do it?” Dhulyn said.

Parno just showed his teeth as he swung the weapon forward and lightly but firmly tapped the stones in the order he’d been shown.

With a grinding Dhulyn felt in her bones, a section of wall moved backward. Two of the guardsmen helped Parno push it aside to reveal a long tunnel. Alkoryn caught Dhulyn’s eye and nodded.

“Lord Tarkin,” she called over her shoulder. “We’re ready. Alkoryn Pantherclaw will go first, seeing he knows the way.” Dhulyn tapped the shoulder of a tall guard with thick black hair. “Kole, isn’t it? Go with him. Then you three,” she said, nodding at the remaining guards. “Lord Tarkin, you and your family next, and Parno Lionsmane and I will come last.”

The Tarkin was nodding, but his mouth was twisted as if he’d eaten something unpleasant. “I don’t want to seem ungrateful,” he said. “But I cannot honestly say I’m pleased that the Mercenary Brotherhood knows of secret passageways in my Dome.”

Dhulyn shrugged. “It was someone else’s Dome before you, Lord, and the Brotherhood is older even than the Dome, older than the reign of Tarkins. Older than Imrion, if it comes to that. There’s many things we know.”

Hernyn wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and resisted the desire to spit. Then he thought about where he was, and how long he was likely to be there, and spit freely on the inlaid tesserae of the Onyx Walk. He heard an unmistakable clatter in the distance, and looked to Din-eDin, who nodded his acknowledgment that he, too, had heard the approaching noise.

“Won’t be long now,” the older man said.

It was Hernyn’s turn to nod. When they’d first taken up their station an arm’s length down from where the narrow service corridor met the Onyx Walk, they’d heard the sounds of voices and what seemed like moving furniture echoing up the long hallway from the old kitchen, but now, while they could still hear voices, the louder noises had stopped.

A shadow moved into their field of vision. Hernyn glanced at the extra weapons he’d lined up behind him on the floor of the passage and picked up a handheld crossbow he’d found among the Tarkin’s things. A toy, really, and he’d blushed when he saw that Dhulyn Wolfshead had seen him pick it up. But she hadn’t said anything, she hadn’t even smiled. It was a beautiful little piece, finely constructed out of ash wood and inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and probably intended for ceremonial use. And deadly just the same, he thought. Not very good for distances, of course, but he was willing to let the man approaching get close enough.

“Hold.” Din-eDin put up his hand; he’d squatted down to take a quick look about waist height around the corner of the wall, and was now straightening. “He’s one of mine.”

The Guard Captain was stepping forward to meet his man when Hernyn put out his arm, blocking his advance.

“Don’t step into the Walk,” he said. “Not for any reason. That’s how we get flanked. Make them come to us.” A part of Hernyn felt like a School boy reciting his lesson, as if Din-eDin had been only testing him; a part was embarrassed to have to correct an older, more experienced man; a part-and this by far the largest, was rolling his eyes at the carelessness of those who were not Mercenary Brothers.

He leaned against the cold stone of the left-hand wall and angled his head until he could see the approaching man clearly. He was in the uniform of the Tarkin’s Personal Guard, right enough. But why wasn’t he running? The only reason for the men at the other points to come down here was to fall back to this position when their own was overwhelmed-and if they were quick enough, to get out through the tunnels Alkoryn had said were there. And this man didn’t move like someone who’d been overwhelmed. He moved like someone taking a walk-or no, amended Hernyn as the man stumbled and put out a hand to the plastered wall of the Onyx Walk. He walked like a man who was drunk and determined not to show it.

Drunk… or wounded?

“Are you hurt, man?” Hernyn called out.

The approaching guard shook his head, but kept advancing at that strange, overly-careful pace. As if he pushed against a stiff wind, though no air stirred in the halls.

“Ask him where the others are,” Din-eDin said. Hernyn flicked his eyes to the older man. There was sense in that, at least.

“Do your comrades still stand?”

“Let me pass,” the guard said.

Hernyn resisted the urge to rub the back of his neck, where it felt like all the tiny hairs were standing up. There was no urgency in the man’s tone, no fear, no excitement. Nothing, in fact. And surely his shadow should be angled the other way?

“That’s Ennick,” Din-eDin said.

“No,” Hernyn said. “I don’t think it is.”

The guard Ennick was now close enough that they could see his face clearly in the light from the wall sconce near the intersection in which they stood. Hernyn could see the man had the most beautiful jade-green eyes.

“Let me pass,” he said again. He had been looking beyond them, down to the far end of the Onyx Walk, but now he brought his gaze to bear upon them. “Let me pass.”

“He’s in shock.” Din-eDin pushed Hernyn’s restraining arm out of the way and stepped into the Onyx Walk.

Ennick brought up his sword and slashed at his captain, catching him on the arm as Din-eDin lifted it to block the blow to his head.

Hernyn raised the crossbow and let the bolt fly, feeling a hot burst of satisfaction when the bolt buried itself in the guard’s neck. The man put his hand up to the bolt and stood swaying for a moment before he dropped to his knees.

“Captain?” he said.

Hernyn broke his own rule and stepped into the corridor to help Din-eDin pull the other guard back into the relative safety of the narrow kitchen passage. They shifted him until he was sitting with his back to the wall. The bolt was plugging the hole in his neck, but turning his head to look at them started the blood flowing in earnest.

But he was looking at them now, and the strange, staring green of his eyes was gone. His eyes were very dark brown.

“Ennick?” Din-eDin said.

“Captain,” he said again. “Don’t-” He coughed, and a bubble of blood broke on his lips. “Don’t.”

“No fear, my boy,” the captain said. “We won’t.”

Ennick nodded, and his eyes closed.

“What was that?” Din-eDin frowned down at the body of his guard.

“Whatever it was,” Hernyn said, “it means we can’t trust anyone else who comes down this corridor.”

Din-eDin shut his eyes. “Makes things easier for us.”

“It does at that.” Hernyn glanced up at the older man. His jaw was set, and his eyes sharp, but the wound on his arm was bleeding. Hernyn quickly tore two strips of cloth from the dead man’s tunic. One he folded, and used the other to tie it securely in place over the gash on Din-eDin’s arm.

“Can you handle a sword left-handed?”

“As it happens.”

“Better to be lucky than good, isn’t that what they say?” Hernyn bent to strip Ennick’s body of weapons before rolling it back out into the wider corridor. “Let him be useful in tripping up the rest of his companions.” Hernyn glanced behind him. Amplified by the stone corridor, the voices of those in the kitchen echoed in the air around him. He was sure he’d heard Dhulyn Wolfshead’s ringing tone.