Careful not to let it clang on the rocks around him, he pulled out his sword and laid it down with its point next to the cloth strips holding down the first catapult. Gritting his teeth—the noise this might make could be as bad as he'd feared the light from the firebrat binding would be—he tapped the sword firmly with his flint.
It was louder than he'd anticipated, and for a dozen heartbeats he froze, waiting for the landscape to light up as the guards below invoked dazzlers and fanned out to find the source of the noise. But the world remained black, and after another moment he tried it again. And again. And again.
Finally, on about the twentieth try, he got a spark that actually settled into the cloth strip and began sending out tendrils of smoke. The second catapult was easier; it only took a couple of minutes and ten tries to start a smoldering fire on the restraining strip there.
And now it boiled down to a simple race: whether he could get around these mounds and into position with Danae before the things went off. Easing back down the mound, heart thudding in his ears, he resheathed his sword and headed off.
Rather to his amazement, he made it.
Danae was waiting for him exactly where he'd told her to, behind a bush a quarter of the way around the mound from the Tunnel's entrance. She was also, as he'd ordered, completely naked except for her shoes. And clearly not enjoying it much.
"Well?" she breathed into his ear as he eased silently behind the bush with her.
"As far as I could tell, it's ready to go," he whispered back.
"You'd better get undressed, then, shouldn't you?"
He pursed his lips. "I don't think so, not right away. I doubt they're going to be so stupid as to all rush out there when the attack starts. Whatever guard they leave behind, I'm going to have to deal with them." And deal with them, he added silently to himself, before one of them reinvokes a lar and blocks the Tunnel again.
"And what happens when they come charging back—" She broke off abruptly. "There—the first one's just gone."
Ravagin hadn't heard it himself, but he knew by now not to doubt her hearing. "Cover your eyes," he warned her, and leaned cautiously around the bush. From there he could just see the faint haze of the lar's edge....
And an instant later the haze exploded with flashes of light.
Someone around the corner barked a curse. "What the brizzling hell—?" someone else snapped.
"Firebrat attack," a third voice heavy with authority cut the others off. "Where'd the invocation come from?"
"Didn't hear one."
"Come on, there must have been seven firebrats there—they couldn't have come up by themselves."
"Damn it all, knock off the chatter," the authoritative voice ordered. "That won't be the last attack—
listen for wherever the hell they're doing the invocation from."
The group fell silent. Ravagin gritted his teeth, sending up a quick prayer for the second catapult. If its restraint had stopped burning...
He counted ten heartbeats; and then the second salvo of pebbles hit, the confrontation between spirits as the trapped firebrats attempted to pass through the lar sending flares of light across the landscape.
Easing his hand onto his sword hilt, Ravagin braced himself. If the leader reacted to the unheard attack with any intelligence at all...
He did. "Carash-melanasta," the other snapped. "Everyone—get out there and find him."
"The lar—!"
"Shut up—you want to sit here and let him just break it down?" the leader snarled. "Spread out!
Prilsift, Orlantin—you two stay here in case they try and slip past us. Everyone else, move."
Ravagin froze in place as the dimly seen figures fanned rapidly out from in front of the mound.
Sacrificial goats, if there had really been a spirithandler out there knowledgeable enough to have launched the attack they thought they'd just witnessed. The timing here was going to be critical...
The last searcher passed over the imaginary line he'd drawn... and Ravagin moved.
The closest of the two men flanking the Tunnel entrance never had a chance. He'd barely started to turn, responding perhaps to a flicker from his peripheral vision, when Ravagin's short sword slashed viciously across his throat. The other swore and leaped away from the mound, bringing his sword to bear. Ravagin charged him, sensing Danae moving around the corner and into the Tunnel entrance—
"Sa-trahist rassh!" the guard shouted.
And a firebrat erupted directly in Ravagin's path.
He skidded to a hard halt, throwing up his left arm as the heat washed over him. "Run, Danae," he snapped. If the guard came around the firebrat now, while he was still blinded from its light, he was dead.
But no sword sliced toward him from the glare. Ducking past the flaming spirit, Ravagin turned toward the Tunnel, senses alert for the attack which still should be coming. Behind him, he could hear the sounds of running feet as the rest of the guards ran furiously to join the fight, and he realized that he had no choice. Clamping his jaw tightly, he lowered his head and charged, hoping that when the sword of his ambusher came for him he would at least survive the blow long enough to try and seal the Tunnel behind him.
Five long steps—a short eternity—and then his flickering shadow was looming over him on the Tunnel's ceiling, and he was inside. Without injury or attack... and Melentha's servants had just made their last mistake. He and Danae were inside, they were outside—
"Sa-trahist rassh!" he shouted, turning back to face the opening. "Sa-trahist rassh, sa-trahist rassh!"
And they were damn well going to stay outside. The three invoked firebrats flared up to block the Tunnel's entrance, cutting off his view of the men furiously running toward him around the firebrat their comrade had called up.
And Ravagin's blood froze.
He hadn't been attacked because there had been no one there to attack him. The other guard hadn't stayed around to fight after invoking his firebrat: he'd followed Danae into the Tunnel!
The others swearing and reaching for bow and arrow outside were instantly forgotten. Twisting around again with a speed that wrenched his back, Ravagin sprinted desperately down the Tunnel.
Danae was alone, naked, unarmed—
He pushed the awful vision from his mind, putting everything he had into his legs. The light from outside was beginning to fade now with the distance; if Danae's extraordinary vision hadn't been blinded before she got into the Tunnel she would have the advantage over her pursuer when the path started to curve.
If she realized she was being pursued.
"Danae!" he called with all the breath he could spare from his running. "Behind you—watch out—
get to the middle, fast!"
There was no response he could hear above his own pounding feet. She'll make it, he told himself over and over. She'll make it. But the words were small comfort. Gritting his teeth, he pushed his pace to the absolute limit.
And nearly wound up plastering himself against the wall as the Tunnel began its slow right-handed turn. "Haklarast," he panted. "Stay behind me," he added as the sprite appeared. The feint light from the glow-fire was just right. He kept on running—
The light faded around the turn as the sprite stayed where it had been invoked.
Damn. His spirit invisibility had unexpectedly played him false. Snatching his sword from its sheath, he stuck it out to the side, letting its point define the wall's position for him as he ran. It bounced back and forth across the roughness there, throwing off sparks as the indestructible Tunnel material tore microscopic bits of steel from it. But it gave him a clear track to follow, allowed him to run as fast as he could manage. Ahead, somewhere, his eyes told him that there was faint light; and as he came around the last stretch of curve—