Voices. I closed the shield on my lantern, pressing a hand against the crushed buildings. I rounded a slight bend, and stopped, a group of a dozen trolls standing next to the closed gate. I’d suspected it would be guarded, and I swiftly retreated back until I found an open street branching off the main. Angoulême and his followers hadn’t come through the gate – they’d used a hole in the upper reaches to gain access to the labyrinth. And it was that entrance I sought.

What I found was the slime and the stench of sluag, and judging from the slick mess beneath my feet, more than one.

“Stones and sky,” I whispered, covering my mouth and nose with one hand while the other held the lantern up so I could see.

I instantly regretted it.

The street was filled with bones. It was impossible to say how many bodies there were, because the remains were all mixed together in pools of offal. Dozens. Maybe more. The sluag had carved their way into some of the crushed buildings to create dank warrens from which smell and darkness poured, and my heart escalated into a staccato beat as I crept past the openings, my legs wanting to run even as my mind knew it would only draw their attention.

The bones didn’t crunch beneath my feet so much as they bent, giving way beneath my weight as though they were made of rubber. Scraps of fabric, buttons, weapons, and bits of simple jewelry were scattered amongst them, but I couldn’t tell if they’d come from trolls, half-bloods, humans, or a mixture of all three.

Barooom. The sluag’s call was faint, but I flinched. It was time to be gone from this place.

Barooom. My nerves cracked and I broke into a run, leaping over piles of bones, sludge splashing up on my trouser legs. The ceiling of the tunnel dropped, and I bent lower and lower until I had to rest one hand on the ground for balance.

Barooom. Was it getting closer? I almost wished the space would get smaller so that the creature wouldn’t be able to follow, and, caught up in my wishing, I almost fell into a hole that yawned up in the ground in front of me.

It was the odor I recognized more than anything else, a damp and faintly musty scent that I associated with Trollus. Setting my lantern aside, I leaned down into the hole and was rewarded with a faint glimmer of silver light.

I’d found a route into the city.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Tristan