I didn’t know how the goblin had managed it, but all I found on the path were a few bones pressed into the earth (there weren’t any stone slabs in the passage). Glo-Glo had fed everything else to the wall. The rest of the journey to safety passed off uneventfully, and when the shaman and I emerged from the passage, we were greeted by a roar from the stands.
We were in another round space, with a massive triangular gray stone lying in the middle of it. And standing between the slab of stone and us was the third Hunter. When he caught sight of us, he smiled and bowed (which was surprising enough in itself) and drew his yataghan.
The Firstborn was in no hurry to attack. He was clearly waiting for us to try to get through to the stone. I looked at his yataghan, and regretted the untimely loss of my sword.
“Now what do we do?” I hissed through my teeth without moving my lips. “This snake’s just dreaming of slicing you and me to ribbons.”
“I have a dagger,” said Glo-Glo, taking the Eastern trinket out from behind his belt.
“Are you counting on this lad laughing himself to death when he sees your toothpick?” I asked, keeping my eyes fixed on the smiling orc.
“What if you throw the dagger at the Hunter? Like the sword.”
“Two miracles in one day would be too much. It won’t work. But how’s your magic doing?”
“Out of the question. In the mittens it could go very wrong. Better not to try.”
The orc was clearly starting to get impatient, and he beckoned to us with his finger, keeping that smile fixed on his face.
“Come on, Glo-Glo, go all the way round him,” I suggested. “He won’t get two of us at once.”
“Nonsense.”
“That way at least someone will reach the stone.”
The shaman didn’t argue, and started running round the orc in a wide circle. The Firstborn hadn’t been expecting such an original move from the monkeys and he stopped smiling and dashed to intercept the goblin.
Glo-Glo stepped up the pace even more. I dashed toward the stone, and the orc immediately forgot about the goblin and started for me. I hurtled toward him, twirling the chain round above my head—a full yard of it.
The smart shaman did what I’d told him to do and didn’t get involved in the fight. He hopped up onto the stone and instantly disappeared.
The orc was blocking my way. I flung the chain forward, trying to hit him in the face. He dodged to one side as smoothly as if he was dancing and slashed with his yataghan. I dropped to the ground rather clumsily, rolled, and swung the chain. The warrior obviously wasn’t trying to kill me straightaway, he’d decided to entertain the crowd. Now I was between the orc and the stone, and I wasn’t about to let an opportunity like that slip. I dashed for the stone, leaving my opponent with his mouth hanging open.
Had that cretin really been expecting me to tempt fate and take on a yataghan with a pitiful length of broken chain? The Firstborn really did underestimate men far too much! Maybe we were monkeys, unworthy of living in Siala, but we certainly weren’t fools!
“Stop, you coward! Fight!” I heard him roar behind me, but it was too late, I’d already hopped up on the stone.
“Hold your hands out, monkeys!” Leather Apron growled. “I’ll take your chains off.”
“Congratulations, Harold!” Glo-Glo chuckled. “Now you can count yourself one of the few who’ve been through the Labyrinth and lived.”
“Don’t be in such a hurry, greeny,” Leather Apron rumbled. “We’ll see how you run tomorrow, when they close that passage off.”
I just stood there with my jaw hanging open until Olag and Fagred took me and the goblin back up the steps.
“You didn’t tell me anything about a second run in the Labyrinth!” I told Glo-Glo angrily, after we’d been sent back to our pit.
“I didn’t want to upset you before I had to,” the goblin began cautiously.
“Glo-Glo,” I began, speaking from the heart, “when
“This evening,” he replied promptly.
“So how many times altogether do I have to go down into that darkness-damned Labyrinth?”
The goblin hesitated and tried not to look at me.
“So, how many?” I asked, determined to be pitiless.
“The festival starts in mid-autumn and lasts for eight days.”
“Eight days?” I repeated after the shaman, like an echo.
So we had to entertain the Firstborn and risk our skins another seven times.
“Well, if I’d told you about it this morning, just think what a state you’d have been in when we entered the Labyrinth!”
“Eight days?” I still couldn’t believe in such an absolutely swinish twist of fate.
“There, you see?” the goblin sighed. “That’s exactly what I’m talking about.”
“So tell me, has anyone ever managed to last that long?” Naturally, I asked the question rhetorically.
“Actually, no,” the shaman replied reluctantly. “No one ever has. The longest is three days.”
“Then what are we hoping for?”
“Maybe I’ll be able to think of something.”
“How did you manage to avoid the troublesome attention of the orcs during your first visit to the Labyrinth?”
“A-a-a-ah…,” said the goblin, with a smug grin. “That time I escaped straight after the first run. There weren’t any pits back then, and the orcs did a poor job of guarding us. And bearing in mind that the orcs got truly plastered in honor of the festival, then in the distant halcyon days of my youth it was fairly easy to escape. Not like now.”
“But that means the orcs will have more than a few drinks tonight, too.…”
“Yes, but you and I can’t soar up into the air, and even if we could, that grille wouldn’t let us out.”
At that very moment the grille slid to one side and Olag and Fagred looked down on us.
“You run well, little monkeys. Bagard and Shokren are very pleased with you.”
The orcs lowered a bag full of food and two flasks down to us.
“Eat and build up your strength. You have to run again tomorrow.”
The grille slid back into place, but Fagred still felt he had to remind us that he was keeping his eye on us.
That evening we had a real feast. They’d given us heaps of food, all sorts of things. One flask was full of water, the other was full of wine.
The orcs weren’t just sitting about doing nothing, either, and every now and then we heard singing and drum rolls. The rotten snakes were making merry and, basically, they had every right to. They weren’t the ones sitting a damn lousy pit!
“Pssst! Psssst! Hey! Harold, are you there?”
Through my dream I could hear the hissing of a frantic skillet. I decided to take no notice of this extraneous noise and sleep a bit longer, but it was hopeless! The hissing carried on, and then it was joined by pokes in the ribs. That was Glo-Glo. I had no choice but to wake up.
“What?” I asked the goblin.
“There’s someone up there!”
I looked up, but the clouds had hidden the stars and moon, and the night was dark, so there was no point in trying to make anything out. I heard that squeaky sound above me again.
“Pssssst! Harold, are you there?”
