The line began moving.

His place was toward the end, behind Yoseh. Only Reyha, Mo'atabar, and thesorceress followed him.

He heard the screaming before he caught sight of the breach. He nearly voidedhimself. But the line kept moving and he thought of Arif in there and he keptmoving, too.

Yoseh wanted to yell at the carpenter to stop stepping on his heels. He wasmoving as fast as he could. He had to concentrate on what Mahdah was doing sohe would not misstep.

Sweat poured out of him, mixed with the sweat of the sky. He'd never been sothoroughly scared. Never before had he been given so much time to work himselfinto a panic ...

He heard the screaming as the entrance wavered into existence, alive withflashes of pink and lemon light. As that dreadful maw welcomed him themomentum of the line faltered, but only for a moment. He skipped over two ofthe veydeen prisoners, then three of the warriors Fa'tad had sent to lead theattack.

Halfway along the passage there was a small guardroom the sorceress had notmentioned. Two men and a woman lay dead there. Blood covered everything, looking like shiny black paint in the feeble light of a single lamp. One ofthe men had been disemboweled. Yoseh gagged at the stench.

"Keep moving!" Mo'atabar yelled. "This tunnel is a deathtrap. "

It was. Yoseh stumbled over another five bodies before he reached its end.

Three were his own people, one was a prisoner, and one was a woman with ajavelin protruding from her back.

The passage ended in a large space divided into stall-like compartments bypartitions of rough boards. The pink and yellow lights still played there. Afire burned in a corner. There was a lot of screaming. Dartars chased peoplethrough the maze and got caught as often as they caught someone.

"Stop!" Mo'atabar yelled. "Nogah! Get the bodies out of the passage. Find outif any of them are still alive. See if you can find lamps or lanterns ortorches."

"Enemy bodies, too?"

"All of them."

Nogah assigned Yoseh, Mahdah, Faruk, and two others.

It was not pleasant work, nor was it easy, but it did not take long, either.

Yoseh was pleased when he discovered that two of the Dartars were not dead.

Mo'atabar told the surviving prisoner he was free to leave.

The ferrenghi sorceress set up in the guardroom, began disarming the patterngate.

Mo'atabar tried to convince the carpenter and veydeen woman they should staywith the sorceress. They refused. They wanted to run with the hunters.

Mo'atabar shrugged. "Your lives," he told them. "Your risk."

"Our children," the woman countered. She did not say much.

The look in her eye made Yoseh's flesh crawl. It was the look he imaginedshone in the eyes of cannibals.

The battle of the storeroom ended, a Dartar victory but not cheap. Anotherfive of the shock force had been slain. The losses concerned Mo'atabar thoughhe tried to hide it. "Nogah, you and your bunch collect up the stuff these menwere carrying." Yoseh ended up with a coil of rope, a bow, and arrows. Whatwas he going to do with those?

The fire went out of its own accord. Beyond lay the only apparent exit.

Offered a bow, the carpenter refused. "I'd probably hit myself in the foot.

Give me a javelin if I have to take anything." He accepted a shield, too. Hesaid he had learned to use both in younger days.

The veydeen woman asked for a javelin, too. Handed one, she held it away likeit was a poisonous snake.

Mo'atabar herded everyone together near where the fire had died. He said, "Iasked the witch what next and she says the next area is kitchens and stuff.

Once past those we should be past the worst."

Nogah muttered, "That's what you said about the passage coming in."

Mo'atabar scowled. "Look out for booby traps and ambushes." He added othercautions.

Yoseh did not listen closely. This was not the Dartar way of war, mounted, sweeping across the desert. This was like fighting through the caverns of theunderworld. He stared at the dead defenders. Men and women both, all far tooold to fight. Old as Tamisa's grandmother. He did not like what that implied.

Those ancients had sacrificed themselves. Though their efforts had not beenfanatical or terribly courageous. It seemed a desperate attempt to buy time.

Which had to mean there was something to buy time for.

Nakar the Abomination.

Yoseh's fear deepened.

He glanced at the carpenter and felt sorry for the man.

Mo'atabar read the same story from the same signs. He admonished everyone tohurry. "Ready?" Like a good Dartar chieftain he led the charge.

The nothing of the opening hurled him back into the men behind him.

"It's blocked!" someone yelled.

"But there isn't anything there!"

Mo'atabar cursed and probed with a javelin snatched from someone's hand.

"Blocked," he admitted. "Some damned witchery. Break through a wall orsomething. I'll drag the ferrenghi witch up here."

Men dropped their packs, began unlimbering tools.

The Witch paused at the doorway to the place of worship. She told the womenwho had accompanied her, "Go help Azel. Tell him I will be watching over you.

Torgo, you stay with me. Keep control of the children."

Thunder shook the citadel. Torgo said, "It's like if they get too closetogether ..."

"Maybe. Zouki, come here."

The frightened women left. The Witch dragged the boy Zouki through thedoorway. "Close it up, Torgo. I'll seal it so it can never be opened. The samewith the other entrances."

"But ... Azel ..."

"He has served his purpose. I have grown tired of him. I am going to let himdie a hero's death defending his lord." She settled the boy Zouki by thealtar, took the other from the eunuch. "Go on, Torgo. Get busy."

Torgo followed his orders but he was uneasy. He was not a genius and not anastute judge of men but he did feel sure that when Azel died he would not doso for the sake of the High Priest. Azel was a complex man who had concealedhimself inside so many masks and lies he did not now know himself but he hadgiven himself away in his conspiratorial whispers. There was one tiny hole inhis emotional armor.

Torgo pursed his lips, feelings mixed. Because of that, and so much else, he wished Azel an evil end-but he feared that Azel might be their only hope forsalvation.

"Here they come!" Azel roared. The stall trick had been good for an hour. Hehoped the damned woman hadn't wasted the time, that she'd laid on a wholetroop of tricks and barriers. He shoved his sack of provisions out of the way, let fly with a throwing spear. It stopped the first Dartar dead. "All right!

Now! Run them in now."

The women whipped the terrified children into the battlefield of the kitchens.

They did not go far, mostly stood around screaming while the adults pelted theDartars with missiles from behind them.

The Dartars looked at that mob of brats, for a moment did not know what to do.

That cost them. Azel laughed.

Their captain pushed them out behind their shields, formed a miniature turtle, advanced toward the brats. Archers began spraying arrows around. The turtlegobbled half a dozen kids, delivered them to cover behind the bakers' ovens.

When the turtle advanced again Azel flung a pair of lanterns toward thebowmen. The lanterns smashed. Flames leaped up. While the archers wereoccupied he grabbed a woman and used her as a shield. He charged into theturtle, laid about him with a meat cleaver, put three of the damned camellovers down before he ducked back, still laughing.

The violence tore one of his wounds enough that it began to bleed again.

He could have held the bastards there and picked them off as they stampededaround trying to save the brats-if the citadel staff had not gone squeamishabout the kids. The women ran off. That left him and two men to hold four exits.