The reason for Kurik’s alarmed shout became immediately apparent. Two of the grotesquely armoured guards to the left of the massive doors were suddenly engulfed in a brilliant ball of bluish fire and were quite literally blasted to pieces. Their fellows did not move or even turn to look as scorched bits and pieces of armour showered upon them.

‘It’s the armour!’ Kurik shouted over the crashing thunder. ‘Steel attracts lightning! Stay down!’

The lightning continued to blast down into the metalclad ranks of the skull-faced guardsmen, and the smell of burning flesh and hair gusted back across the broad plaza as the sudden wind swirled and rebounded from the high basalt walls of the palace.

‘They’re not even moving!’ Kalten exclaimed. ‘Nobody’s that disciplined.’

Then as the storm continued its ponderous march, the sudden flurry of lightning moved on to shatter deserted houses instead of steel-clad men.

‘Is it all right now?’ Sparhawk demanded of his squire.

‘I don’t know for certain,’ Kurik told him. ‘If you start to feel any kind of tingling, get down immediately.’

They rose warily to their feet. ‘Was that Azash?’ Tynian asked Sephrenia.

‘I don’t think so. If Azash had thrown the lightning, I don’t think he’d have missed us. It might have been Otha, though. Until we get to the temple, we’re more likely to encounter Otha’s work than anything conjured up by Azash.’

‘Otha? Is he really that skilled?’

‘Skilled probably isn’t the right word,’ she replied. ‘Otha has great power, but he’s clumsy. He’s too lazy to practise.’

They continued their menacing advance, but the men awaiting them in that grotesque armour still made no move either to attack or even to reinforce those of their number barring the door.

When Sparhawk reached the first of the guards, he raised his sword, and the previously motionless man howled at him and clumsily raised a broad-bladed axe embellished with useless spikes and barbs. Sparhawk slapped the axe aside and struck with his sword. The dreadful-looking armour was even less useful than Tynian had suggested. It was scarcely thicker than paper, and Sparhawk’s sword-stroke slashed down into the guard’s body as if it had met no resistance whatsoever. Even had he struck at a totally unprotected man, his sword should not have cut so deeply into the body.

Then the man he had just slaughtered collapsed, and his gashed armour gaped open. Sparhawk recoiled in sudden revulsion. The body inside the armour had not been the body of a living man. It appeared to be no more than blackened, slimy bones with a few shreds of rotting flesh clinging to them. A dreadful stink suddenly boiled out of the armour.

‘They aren’t alive!’ Ulath roared. ‘There’s nothing in the armour but bones and rotting guts!’

Sickened, gagging with nausea, the knights fought on, hacking their way through their already dead enemies.

‘Stop!’ Sephrenia cried sharply.