‘Take the emperor to safety!’ Annias barked to the barely-clad brutes squatting near the throne. With practised haste, the men inserted stout steel poles into recesses in the jewelled seat, set their shoulders under the poles and lifted the vast weight of their master from the pedestal-like base of the throne. Then they wheeled with the litter and trotted ponderously towards the arched opening behind the throne.

‘Adus!’ Martel commanded, ‘keep them off me!’ Then he too turned and herded Annias and his family along in Otha’s wake as the brutish Adus pushed forward, flogging at Otha’s spear-armed guards with the flat of his sword and bellowing unintelligible orders.

The hammering at the locked doors became a booming sound as the soldiers outside improvised battering rams.

‘Sparhawk!’ Tynian shouted. ‘Those doors won’t hold for long!’

‘Leave them!’ Sparhawk shouted back. ‘Help us here! Otha and Martel are getting away!’

The soldiers Adus commanded had spread out to face Sparhawk, Kurik and Bevier not so much to engage them as to prevent their entering the arched doorway that led back into the labyrinth. Although he was in most respects, profoundly, even frighteningly stupid, Adus was a gifted warrior, and a fight of this nature, involving as it did a simple situation and a manageable number of men, put him in his natural element. He directed Otha’s guardsmen with grunts, kicks and blows, deploying them in pairs and trios to block individual opponents with their spears. The concept implicit in Martel’s command was well within Adus’s limited grasp. His purpose was to delay the knights long enough to enable Martel to escape, and perhaps no one was better suited for that than Adus.

As Kalten, Ulath, Tynian and Berit joined the fight, Adus gave ground. He had the advantage of numbers, but his Zemoch soldiers were no match for the steel-clad knights. He was, however, able to pull the bulk of his force back into the mouth of the maze where their spears could serve as an effective barrier.

And all the while the rhythmic booming of the battering rams continued.

‘We’ve got to get into that maze!’ Tynian shouted. ‘When those doors give way, we’re going to be surrounded!’

It was Sir Bevier who took action. The young Cyrinic Knight was bravery personified, and on many occasions he had demonstrated a total disregard for his own personal safety. He strode forward, swinging his brutal, hook-pointed lochaber axe. He swung not at the soldiers, but at their spears, and a spear without a point is nothing more than a pole. Within moments he had effectively disarmed Adus’s Zemochs – and had received a deep wound in his side, just above the hip. He fell back weakly with blood streaming from the rent in his armour.