‘We can’t,’ Talen said. ‘There aren’t any alleys leading off this street. I haven’t found any way to get around them, and we have to use this street. As nearly as I can tell, it’s the only one in the district that leads to the palace. This town doesn’t make any sense at all. None of the streets go where they’re supposed to.’

‘How many of these revellers do we have to contend with?’ Bevier asked him.

‘Five or six.’

‘And they have torches?’

Talen nodded. ‘They’re just around this next turn in the street.’

‘With the torches flaring right in their eyes, they won’t be able to see in the dark very well.’ Bevier flexed his arm, swinging his axe suggestively.

‘What do you think?’ Kalten asked Sparhawk.

‘We might as well,’ Sparhawk said. ‘It doesn’t sound as if they’ll volunteer to get out of our way.’

It was more in the nature of simple murder than a fight. The carouse of the Zemoch patrol had advanced to the point where they were aggressively inattentive. The Church Knights simply walked up to them and cut them down. One of them cried out briefly, but his surprised shout was lost in a tearing crash of thunder.

Without a word the knights dragged the inert bodies to nearby doorways and concealed them. Then they gathered protectively around Sephrenia and continued along that wide, lightning-illuminated street towards the sea of smoky torches that appeared to be encircling Otha’s palace.

Once again they heard that howling sound, a sound devoid of any semblance of humanity. Talen returned, making no effort to evade them this time. ‘The palace isn’t far ahead,’ he said, speaking quietly despite the now almost continuous thunder. ‘There are guards out front. They’re wearing armour of some kind. It’s got all kinds of steel points sticking out of it. They look like hedgehogs.’

‘How many?’ Kalten asked.

‘More than I had time to count. Do you hear that wailing noise?’

‘I’ve been trying not to.’

‘I think you’d better get used to it. The guards are the ones making it.’

Otha’s palace was larger than the Basilica in Chyrellos, but it had no architectural grace. Otha had begun his life as a goatherd, and the principle which seemed to guide his sense of taste could best be summed up in the single word, ‘large’. So far as Otha was concerned, bigger was better. His palace had been constructed of fractured, rusty-black basalt rock. Because of its flat sides, basalt is easy for masons to work, but it offers little in the way of beauty. It lends itself to massive construction and not much else.