barred door. Four Xanthi stood guard in front of it. They never had a chance—the air was suddenly full of hurled weapons, and they were buried under a pile of edged steel.
Corun searched the bodies but found no keys. In the murk beyond, he could dimly see boxes and barrels reaching into fathomless distances, but the door was held fast. Of course—Tsathu would never trust his men-at-arms with entrance to the devil-powder.
The corsair snarled and grabbed a bar with both hands. “Pull, men of Umlotu!” he shouted. “Pull!”
They swarmed close, thirty-odd big blue men with the strength of hate in them, clutching the cell bars, grabbing each other’s waists, heaving with a force that shrieked through the iron. “Pull!”
The lock burst and they staggered back as the door swung wide. Instantly Corun was inside, ripping open a box and laughing aloud to see the black grains that filled it.
For a wild moment he thought of plunging a brand into the powder and going up in flame and thunder with the castle. Coldness returned—he checked himself and looked around for fuses. His followers would not have permitted him to commit a suicide that involved them. And after all—the longer he lived, the more enemies he’d have a chance to cut down personally.
“I’ve heard talk of this stuff,” said one of the men nervously. “Is it true that setting fire to it releases a demon?”
“Aye.” Corun found the long rope-like fuses coiled in a box. He knotted several together and put one end into the powder. The ignition of one container would quickly set off the rest—and the cavern was huge, and filled with many shiploads of sleeping hell.
“If we can fight our way to our ship, and get clear before the fire reaches the powder—” began the Umlotuan.
“We can try that, I suppose,” said Corun.
He estimated the burning time of his fuse from memories of the use he’d seen the Xanthi make of the devil-powder. Yes, there would be a fair allowance for escape, though he doubted that they would ever reach the strand alive.
He touched a stick from the fire to the end of the fuse. It began to sputter, a red spark creeping along it toward the open box. “Let’s go!” shouted Corun.
They pounded along the tunnel, heedless of direction. There should be an upward-leading ramp somewhere—ah! There it was!
Up its length they raced, past levels of the dungeons toward the main floor of the castle. At the end, there was a brighter blue light than they had seen below. Up—up!
Up—and out!
* * * *
The chamber was enormous, a pillared immensity reaching to a ceiling hidden in sheer height; rugs and tapestries of the scaled Xanthian weave were strewn about, and their heavy, intricately carved furniture filled it. At the far end stood a towering canopied throne, on which sat a huge golden form. Other shapes stood around it, and there were pikemen lining the walls at rigid attention.
Through the haze of mist and twilight, Corun saw the black robe of Shorzon and the flame-colored cloak of Chryseis. He shrieked an oath and plunged for them.
A horn screamed and the guards sprang from the walls to form a line before the throne. The humans shocked against the Xanthi with a fury that clamored through the building.
Swords and axes began to fly. Corun hewed at the nearest grinning reptile face, felt the sword sink in and roared the warcry of Conahur. He spitted the monster on his blade, lifted it, and pitchforked it into the ranks of the guards.
Tsathu bellowed and rose to meet him. Suddenly the Xanthian king was not there; it was a tentacled thing from the sea bottom that filled the room, a thing whose bloated dark body reared to the ceiling. Someone screamed—fear locked the battlers into motionlessness.
“Magic!” It was a sneering rattle in Corun’s throat. He sprang into the very body of the sea creature.
He felt the shock of striking its solid form, the rasp of its hide against him, the overwhelming poisonous stench of it. One tentacle closed around him. He felt his ribs snapping and the air popping from his burst lungs.
It wasn’t real, his mind gasped through the whirling agony. It wasn’t real! He plowed grimly ahead, blind in the illusion that swirled around him, striking, striking.
Dimly, through the roaring in his nerves, he felt his blade hit something solid. He bellowed in savage glee and smote again, again, and again. The smashing pressure lifted. He sobbed air into himself and looked with streaming eyes as the giant form dissolved into smoke, into mist, into empty air. It was Tsathu writhing in pain at his feet, Tsathu with his head nearly chopped off. It was only another dying Xanthian.
Corun leaped up onto the throne and looked over the room. The guards and the sailors were still standing in shaken silence. “Kill them!” roared the pirate. “Strike them down!”
Battle closed again with a snarl and a clang of steel. Corun glared around after other Xanthi of the sorcerer breed. There were none in sight; they must prudently have fled into another part of the castle. Well—let them!
But other Xanthi were swarming into the chamber, battle horns were hooting and the guttural reptile voices crying a summons. If the humans were not to be broken by sheer numbers, they’d have to fight their way out soon . . .
And down in the dungeons a single red spark was eating its way toward a box of black powder.
Corun jumped down again to the floor. His sword leaped sideways, cut a Xanthian spine across, bit the tail from another. “To me!” he bawled. “Over here, men of Umlotu!”
The blues heard him and rallied, gathering into compact knots that slashed their way toward where his dripping sword whined and thundered. He never stopped striking; he drove the reptiles before him until they edged away from, his advance.
The men formed into one group and Corun led it across the floor in a dash for the looming doorway. A red thought flashed across his brain: Where were Shorzon and Chryseis?
The Xanthi scattered before the desperate human rush. The men came out into a remembered hallway—it led to the outside, Corun recalled. By Breannach Brannor, they might escape yet!
“Corun! Corun, you sea-devil! I knew it was your doing!”
The Conahurian turned to see Imazu bounding toward him with a bloody ax in one hand. Imazu—thank all the gods, Imazu was free!
“I heard a noise of fighting, and the tower guards went off toward it,” gasped the Umlotuan captain. “so I came too. On the way I met Shorzon and Chryseis.”
“What of them?” breathed Corun.
The blue warrior smiled savagely and flung a red thing down at Corun’s feet. “There’s Shorzon’s scheming head. My woman is free!”
“Chryseis—”
Imazu leaned on his ax, panting.
“She launched her erinye at me. I ducked into a room and slammed the door in its face, then came here through another entrance.”
Chryseis was loose—“We’ve got to get clear,” said
