‘Kurik!’ Sparhawk howled. The light seemed to fade from his eyes, and there was a deafening ringing in his ears. His sword suddenly appeared to have no weight. He cut down whatever appeared before him. At one point, he found himself chopping at the stones of the wall. It was the sparks somehow that returned him to his senses. Kurik would take him to task for damaging his sword-edge.

Somehow Talen had reached his father’s side. He knelt, struggling to turn Kurik over. And then he wailed, a cry of unspeakable loss. ‘He’s dead, Sparhawk! My father’s dead!’

The wrench of that cry nearly drove Sparhawk to his knees. He shook his head like some dumb animal. He hadn’t heard that cry. He could not have heard it. He absently killed another Zemoch. Dimly, he heard the sound of fighting behind him and knew that Tynian and Ulath were engaging the soldiers from the throne-room.

Then Talen rose, sobbing and reaching down into his boot. His long, needle-pointed dirk came out gleaming in his fist, and he advanced on Adus from the rear, his soft-shod feet making no sound. Tears streamed down the boy’s face, but his teeth were clenched with hate.

Sparhawk ran his sword through another Zemoch, even as Kalten sent another head rolling down the corridor.

Adus brained one of his own soldiers, roaring like an enraged bull.

The roar suddenly broke off. Adus gaped, his eyes bulging. His mismatched armour did not fit very well, and the back of his cuirass did not reach all the way to his hips. It was there, in that area covered only by chain-mail, that Talen had stabbed him. Chain-mail will ward off the blow of sword or axe, but it is no defence against a thrust. Talen’s dirk drove smoothly into the half-witted brute’s back just under the lower rim of the cuirass, seeking and finding Adus’s kidney. Talen jerked his dirk free and stabbed again, on the other side this time.

Adus squealed like a stuck pig in a slaughter-house. He stumbled forward, one hand clutching at the small of his back and his face suddenly dead white with pain and shock.

Talen drove his dirk into the back of the animal’s knee.

Adus stumbled a few more steps, dropping his axe and grabbing at his back with both hands. Then he fell writhing to the floor.

Sparhawk and Kalten cut down the remaining Zemoch soldiers, but Talen had already snatched up a fallen sword and, standing astride Adus’s body, he was chopping at the brute’s helmeted head. Then he reversed the sword and tried desperately to stab down through the breast-plate into Adus’s writhing body, but he did not have enough strength to make his weapon penetrate. ‘Help me!’ he cried. ‘Somebody help me!’