True, Linsha thought, there were other entrances to the labyrinth and other tunnels that led toward the chamber, but she worried nonetheless and kept a close eye on the dusty floors of each tunnel they passed or entered.
She was so busy looking for tracks that she did not realize they were nearing the chamber until she heard someone behind her whisper, “What is that light?”
Linsha’s head jerked up. A pale gold light glowed through the pitch darkness from a turn in the tunnel ahead. It was still there!
But it looked different, and something else was gone. When she came the first time to the cave with Iyesta, she’d found the air in the egg chamber was rich and moist like the air in the woods around Solace. Now it was like the rest of the labyrinth-cool and dry and smelling just slightly of decay. The hair on her neck rose, and a warning went off in her head.
“They’re not there.” She said it so sharply that the centaurs jerked to a stop.
Linsha ran forward, nearly unseating the owl on her shoulder. She ignored the pain of Varia’s talons on her skin. She ignored Lanther’s shout of warning and the exclamations of the others. She charged toward the light with her heart in her throat. At the turn of the tunnel she raced into a chamber as grand and enormous as befitting a nest of dragon eggs, and she came to a skidding halt.
Her eyes took it all in-the withered corpse of the mother brass dragon against the far wall, the mound where they had buried Azurale, the decayed, beetle-chewed carcass of the blue dragonlord, Thunder, and finally, the ruined, trampled nest of sand where the egg had once lain. Varia flew from her shoulder and flapped in a circle over the nest, her voice sadly keening.
Linsha’s body stilled. Her nostrils flared. The warning in her head turned into a klaxon, and she knew without a doubt. Linsha wheeled.
“Go back!” she shouted to the others coming up behind her. “We’ve got to get out! It’s a trap!”
5
Lanther grabbed her arm and pulled her to a stop. “What do you mean? How do you know?”
“Look!” she said. Her hand pointed to the empty nest. “There are no eggs! They were just used to lure us down here. We’ve got to go!”
Tanefer trotted to her side, his bearded face locked in a frown. “Are you sure? Couldn’t the Tarmaks have placed the eggs somewhere else? This labyrinth is huge.”
Linsha didn’t want to argue. Every part of her mind screamed at her to leave as quickly as possible. But the centaurs and the Legionnaires milled around in confusion, staring at the dead dragons and talking among themselves.
“There is no other place in this labyrinth suitable for incubation,” Linsha said. “Iyesta and Purestian altered this cavern with magic to give it light and warmth and the proper conditions for the eggs’ development. There is nothing left here but the light, and even that is failing. No, there are no eggs down here. Now get rid of those baskets and run!”
She was relieved to see her urgency finally sink in. Young Leonidas was the first to accept her word. With a swift cut of his dagger, he loosed the ropes holding the baskets on his hack, dumped them on the floor, and gave her his hand. He hauled her onto his back. Lanther and Tanefer exchanged alarmed glances before they too urged the others to move. Baskets fell to the floor, swords were drawn, and the Legionnaires were quickly mounted on the backs of the centaurs.
Suddenly Varia’s feathered “ears” popped up. Her eyes grew enormous. She screeched an alarm everyone understood and flew out the tunnel entrance.
Linsha and Leonidas did not need another warning. The buckskin centaur cantered for the tunnel, the others close on his heels. With their torches held high, they hurried back the way they had come, hoping to reach the faraway pool entrance before anyone else in the labyrinth knew they were there.
But they had not gone far when Varia returned, winging up the passage they had just entered. The centaurs stopped, and in the sudden silence that fell among them, they all heard what the owl had heard in the cavern- voices and the sounds of a large troop moving at a quick march through the tunnels. In the twists and turns of the labyrinth, it was difficult to tell exactly where and how far away a sound originated, but no one doubted the creators of the noises that echoed up the tunnel were not far away. Surely they were even now on their trail of hoofprints in the layer of dirt on the tunnel floors.
Linsha thought fast. Although she had spent more time down there than anyone else in the group, she had always had a guide to help her find her way in the lightless maze. She did not know it well, nor was she familiar with more than four or five doors. Two of those doors were out of their reach in the old foundations of the city, one was the way they had come through the pool house, and one was guarded by the mercenaries on the palace grounds.
She raised an arm for Varia. When the owl landed on her wrist, she whispered, “Who is there?”
The owl clacked her beak in anger. “Tarmaks. Many of them. They are in the tunnel that you must take to reach the pool door.”
“How convenient,” Linsha snapped.
Several well-chosen curses ran through her mind, all aimed at herself. She had been so sure. She wanted to be so sure! She wanted those eggs back so much that instead of doing something sensible like coming down alone to scout out the situation, she had brought along seventeen others to share in her heedless stupidity. Now they were trapped in this maze without a safe door out.
“Where do we go?” Leonidas asked. His hooves shifted nervously beneath him.
There was only one place she could think of, only one door that they might be able to break through. “The palace. We’ll have to go to the door in the palace gardens.”
“Isn’t that one guarded by the mercenaries?” Lanther reminded her. She wished he hadn’t, but the others may as well be prepared.
“Yes. Who would you rather fight, the Tarmaks or the mercenaries?”
No one bothered to answer. In one motion, they wheeled around and hurried back toward the egg chamber. They passed the chamber and plunged into a different tunnel, one leading away from the abandoned nest. From that point Varia helped direct Linsha on the route to the western side of the labyrinth and the chambers that lay under the vast palace of Iyesta’s old lair. The centaurs jogged as fast as they dared, and for a little while Linsha hoped the Tarmaks would turn into the egg chamber, that they didn’t know the militia group was down there. But that faint hope soon died. Their small troop could not seem to escape. Every time they paused and allowed the sound of their hooves to die into silence, they heard the noises of pursuit echoing behind them. Their pursuers moved surprisingly fast and had no trouble tracking them through the settled dust and dirt on the floor.
“Is there another way to reach this door?” Tanefer asked Linsha. “Or could we work our way around and lose them in the maze? Then we could go back to the pool door.”
Linsha had wondered the same thing. Although she did not know the tunnels well enough to find an exact route, it just might be possible to hide their tracks, wander around long enough to lose their hunters, and find another way out of the maze. But Lanther didn’t give her time to speculate.
“No,” he shot back. “We can’t afford to run aimlessly around down here. We have no water or food, and the Tarmaks will put guards on every entrance they’ve found-if they haven’t already. It would be better to make a fast break out and try to get past the mercenaries before they know we’re there.”
Not a word of dissent was spoken. Everyone wanted to escape the heavy, brooding darkness and the threat that closed in on their heels. They hurried on.
Before long they reached a section of the labyrinth Linsha remembered well. She had been here several times with Mariana and Crucible. The chamber where Iyesta had died was only a turn or two away. As much as she would have liked to stop to pay her respects to the dead dragonlord and be sure the body had not be disturbed, she knew there was no time.
