And then, with a resounding clank, the grinding and the movement stopped—and now Jack’s blockhouse was mounted sideways on the right-side wall and they could see the next section of the maze ahead.

‘Alby, Lily, did you figure out the way to the next blockhouse?’ Jack asked.

‘Sure did,’ Lily said.

‘Okay, while we’re stuck here high up on the wall,’ Jack said, ‘see if you can map out the way to the blockhouses after that. When our wall becomes the floor again, we have to be ready to run again.’

As the group waited for the maze to rotate favourably again, however, they saw something.

They saw two of Rastor’s Serbian troops—evidently separated from their boss—poke their heads up out of the (current) floor of the trench-maze, trying to steal a peek at the route ahead.

In response, two red orbs immediately dropped from the ceiling above them, sailed down across the space, and landed in their trench right near them.

Two shocking blasts followed.

Twin fireballs filled their trench, lighting it up and obliterating the two Serbians.

Lily turned to Alby: ‘That’s why you don’t go out of the trenches.’

They waited for the next rotation, but when it came, they didn’t make a break for it.

That was because when the rotation occurred, their side wall turned up not down, and became the roof of the cavern, and everyone tumbled wildly inside the blockhouse and, with a scream, Lily fell toward the slit window and tumbled out through it . . .

. . . Alby dived full-length across the blockhouse and caught Lily’s outstretched hand at the very last second while clutching the rim of the slit window with his artificial hand.

As the rotation completed itself, and their blockhouse went completely upside down, Lily screamed, dangling out the window two hundred metres above the floor of the maze.

Jack and Zoe hurried to help Alby and the three of them hauled Lily inside.

Now they were all sitting on the inverted ceiling of the blockhouse, with nowhere to go until the maze rotated again.

They used the time to confirm the routes for the next two runs: including to the next blockhouse, which had a diagonal footbridge stretching out from it to the next wall.

When the maze turned again, they bolted, making their way along the wall of the maze.

It was tough going. Zigging and zagging, climbing and crawling, they moved as well as they could along what was now the wall, wending their way through the trench-maze, arriving at the side-turned blockhouse with the diagonal bridge extending from it.

They arrived at it, diving through its door just as the maze turned again and they all huddled against the walls.

But as the rotation paused, they found themselves on the floor again, so Jack urged them not to stop and to keep going to the next blockhouse.