The two assassins had been assigned to watch the main passageway just outside the Gallery of Stone Faces. Bored and more than a little bothered by the oppressive dark, Galban hadn't taken his eyes off the main passage. Not too long ago, he'd thought he'd heard something skittering down the corridor, like a large insect or small lizard. That had raised his hackles, since the only things that moved in these tunnels were in the Gallery of Stone Faces- and you didn't want to see them moving. He'd never seen the source of the noise, but he'd been watching the main passage since. Bennig had been either lightly dozing or deeply snoring since they first settled in.
'Keep your voice down!' Galban rasped. 'I just saw a green light down the main passageway. Damn me if I didn't.'
'Then damn you,' said Bennig. 'But I see nothing. You must've dozed off and dreamed it.'
'I wasn't the one sleeping. A faint glow. Greenish. It crossed our path. We need to have a look.'
'You have a look,' said Bennig. 'Don't wake me when you get back.'
'If Sauk finds out you were sleeping, he'll have your ears for a necklace.'
'He won't find out unless someone tells him. Will he?' 'There!'
This time, Bennig saw it too. A faint green glow crossing their tunnel, only this time it was headed back toward the Gallery of Stone Faces. He thought he might have caught a glimpse of a large form near the light, then it was gone.
Galban heard Bennig push himself to his feet and the whisper of his dagger coming out of his scabbard. Galban drew his own blade.
'Let's have that look,' said Bennig. 'Nice and quiet.'
'Light?' said Galban. He had a sunrod tucked under his belt.
'It'll give us away,' said Bennig. 'Just stay close.'
The two assassins made their way back to the main passageway, the soft soles of their shoes silent on the smooth stone of what had probably once been a lava rube. Just as they were coming to where the tunnels crossed, Galban saw light glowing on the stone walls. But it was coming from their left. They had seen the green glow going down and right, toward the Gallery. Both men stopped and waited, their steel held ready.
But it was only three of their own men coming up the tunnel. Jerumillis, a cutthroat from the Sword Coast, led them. He held a saber in one hand and a glowing sunrod in the other.
'Douse that light, you fool!' said Galban.
Jerumillis scowled. 'You care to choose your words again?'
Galban looked at the saber in Jerumillis's hand, then glanced at the two men behind him. Neither seemed particularly interested in the conflict. One was eyeing Jerumillis and looked as if he were preparing to leap aside. The other was looking past them where the light from the sunrod failed and the passage continued into the dark.
Galban sighed and said, 'You care to put your light away so you don't let anyone and everyone know where we are?'
Jerumillis's scowl eased, and he slid all but the last bit of the sunrod into his sleeve. He closed his fist over the rest, plunging them into the dark. 'You saw it too?'
'The green glow?' said Galban. 'Yes. Bennig saw it first, then we both saw it again, headed back toward the Gallery.'
'What was it?' asked one of the men behind Jerumillis.
'You tell me and we'll both know. A green light. That's all I saw.'
'It scarcely seemed brighter than a firefly.' 'You ever see a greenlit firefly?'
'Enough talk,' said Galban. 'Jerumillis, you have the saber. I suggest you go first. Everyone else fan out and follow.'
'Narrow tunnels like this,' said Jerumillis, 'a dagger should go first. I say you go first, Galban.'
There was a tense moment of silence, then Galban said, 'Fine. But if I go first, you go last.'
The five assassins spread out and began a careful, quiet walk toward the Gallery of Stone Faces. It was not a long walk, but it seemed a great distance in the dark.
Bennig felt the thunder before he heard it-a slight rhythmic hum to the air. But as they proceeded he could hear it quite clearly, and as they rounded a bend in the tunnel, he saw the flicker of lightning. Not light, really, not yet, but more of a lighter shimmer on the walls against the impenetrable dark.
They rounded the last bend in the tunnel-the gallery was no more than a few dozen paces ahead-and when they did, they saw the green glow ahead of them. Bennig was right behind Galban, and he could see the man profiled in the light. Galban stopped a moment, then continued on, his blade held behind him to keep the light from glinting off it-and to be ready to strike. Bennig followed, so close that he could have reached out and touched the tip of Gal's blade. Ahead of them, he could hear rain dripping through crevices in the gallery's ceiling.
As they entered the Gallery of Stone Faces, Bennig was able to make out more derails around the green light. A statue, a crouched demonlike figure with a horned head and wide, leering lips. Its stone tail curved around, its forked tip dangling over the lip of the pedestal. Hanging from the lower fork was a necklace. Nothing lovely, it looked like no more than braided leather or perhaps a rough thong, but the small stone on the end of it gave off a faint green glow.
Lightning flashed outside, sending down a few shafts of bright white light that disappeared as quickly as they'd come. Thunder shook the gallery, a great explosion that faded into a rumble down the mountain.
'Oh, damn,' said Galban, and knelt a few feet before the statue.
Bennig stepped around him and saw the reason for Galban's curse. By the green glow, Bennig could clearly see smears of something dark along the stone and floor. It was impossible to tell for certain in the green light, but Bennig thought it looked like blood.
'What is it?' said Jerumillis as he entered the gallery last. He opened his fist slightly, and a bit of the sunrod's light leaked from his fingers. The light was meager at best, but in the green-tinged gloom of the gallery, it seemed a small sliver of the sun. As the light spread about the nearest of the statues and the back wall, Bennig saw them- two pale eyes watching from above the doorway to the main passage, and around the eyes the dark mass of a figure.
Bennig drew in a breath, but then the eyes dropped. 'Jeru-!' Bennig shouted, then he saw the flare of a cloak, and Jerumillis went down beneath it, and the sunrod's light with him. The light in the cavern was again only the faint green glow.
The other assassins cried out. One scrambled away, but Galban and another man ran for Jerumillis. Bennig followed them, opening his eyes wide to adjust to the dim light.
'What-?' said Galban.
Bennig looked down at the body. It wasn't Jerumillis. It was Lurom, his skull over his right eye smashed in, blood caked round his face and down his chest. His mouth hung open and his eyes stared sightlessly at the comrades who had come too late for him.
'Where is Jerumillis?' said Bennig.
The man who had fled into the dark cried out, 'Sound the ala-!' followed by a sharp crack of something heavy smashing bone. Then another sound-one Bennig had heard many times in his service for the Old Man-the sound of a body striking the floor.
The green light winked out and there was only darkness. Quick as it took him to draw a breath, hold it, and crouch, two thoughts occurred to Bennig.
One, their keys that protected them from the guardians in the Gallery of Stone Faces had failed-or someone had found a way to dampen their power. But he discounted that. If one of the guardians had been after them, all of the guardians would have been after them, and in their moments of light he hadn't seen a single one moving.
Two, someone was in the tunnels with them. Sauk and the Lady Talieth had known something was wrong and had set guards in the tunnels for a reason. A reason they hadn't explained. But Bennig realized that the reason had come, and he had to think quickly.
Two down. But Berun knew that there were three others in the room, all armed-and any number could still be lurking in the far tunnels. He'd been expecting only the three he'd seen farther up before he'd retreated back to the Gallery. Where the other two had come from, he couldn't be sure. One of the side tunnels, surely. And if there were two, there could be twenty, still waiting.
He'd been crouched on the ledge above the doorway when the guards entered. It had not been an easy
