‘None of the rest of you could really sneak through a graveyard without waking up half the occupants, right?’

‘I wouldn’t go quite that far.’

‘I would. I’ll go on ahead – not too far, but just far enough. I’ll be able to come back and tell you about anybody coming – or hiding in ambush.’

Sparhawk didn’t wait this time. He made a grab for the boy, but Talen slipped out of his reach quite easily. ‘Don’t do that, Sparhawk. You just make yourself look foolish.’ He ran off a few feet, then stopped and slid his hand down into one boot. From its place of concealment he drew a long needle-pointed dirk. Then he vanished up the dark, narrow street.

Sparhawk swore.

‘What’s the matter?’ Kurik asked from not far behind him.

‘Talen just ran off.’

‘He did what?’

‘He says he’s going to scout on ahead. I tried to stop him, but I couldn’t catch him.’

From somewhere off in the maze of twisting streets there came a deep, mindless kind of howling.

‘What’s that?’ Bevier asked, taking a tighter grip on his long-handled lochaber axe.

‘The wind maybe?’ Tynian replied without much conviction.

‘The wind isn’t blowing.’

‘I know, but I think I prefer to believe that’s what’s causing the noise anyway. I don’t like the alternatives.’

They moved on, staying close to the sides of the houses and freezing involuntarily in their tracks with each flash of lightning and crack of thunder.

Talen came back, running on silent feet. ‘There’s a patrol coming,’ he said, staying just back out of reach. ‘Would you believe they’re carrying torches? They’re not trying to find anybody; they’re trying to make sure they don’t.’

‘How many?’ Ulath asked.

‘A dozen or so.’

‘Hardly enough to worry about then.’

‘Why not just cut over to the next street through this alley? Then you won’t even have to look at them, much less worry.’ The boy darted into an alleyway and disappeared again.

‘The next time we choose a leader, I think I’ll vote for him,’ Ulath murmured.

They moved on through the narrow, twisting streets. With Talen probing ahead of them, they were easily able to avoid the sporadic Zemoch patrols. As they worked their way nearer to the centre of the city, however, they reached a quarter where the houses were more imposing and the streets were wider. The next time Talen came back, a momentary flash of ghostly lightning revealed a disgusted expression on his face. ‘There’s another patrol just ahead,’ he reported. ‘The only trouble is that they’re not patrolling. It looks as if they broke into a wine shop. They’re sitting in the middle of the street drinking.’

Ulath shrugged. ‘We’ll just slip around them through the alleys again.’