Every new tunnel looked just like the last. Of course they do, Agrippa thought. They were meant to. This worthless bastard could be leading us in circles, for all we know.

Another intersection loomed up ahead; it looked to be the largest one yet. When they reached it, they saw that fifteen separate tunnels led away from it. Where the other intersections had been confusing, this one was totally overwhelming.

Uther turned to face them. He had the same haughty look on his face that he had given Adrian and Abbey. Ever alert, Agrippa widened his stance and raised the tip of his sword.

"This is the last of the intersections," Uther announced softly. "The exit is only a short walk from here down the correct tunnel." He smiled at Agrippa. "Choose one."

The warrior scowled. "What are you talking about?"

"I no longer care to live. As a farewell gesture I grant you the right to choose, because both of you are about to die with me."

The two warriors looked around warily. Nothing had changed. The place remained deathly silent. The wall torches still burned softly.

Agrippa gave Uther a hard look. "I cannot choose," he said. "You alone can lead us to safety. The wizard Faegan has ordered it."

"Ah, but Faegan is not here. The wizard of the Vigors cannot help you now." One corner of Uther's mouth came up in a sneer. "Don't you see? No one can save you except me, and I choose not to." Then he took a long breath, and he seemed to make up his mind.

"Very well," he finally said. "If you want me to select a tunnel, I will. It's all the same, anyway. But you won't be happy with my choice." He gave them another strange look.

"Farewell," he said. Uther turned and ran down one of the tunnels as fast as he could.

The warriors immediately gave chase. When they caught up to him, Flavius dropped the torch, grabbed the Valrenkian by the neck, and threw him to the floor. Without the use of his hands to break his fall, Uther went down hard. It looked like his right forearm was broken. But instead of crying out in pain, he only laughed. Flavius pulled him roughly to his feet.

"Are you crazy?" the warrior growled. "Keep going! Trying to escape us will do you no good!"

When Uther looked back at them, there was victory in his eyes.

"You fools!" he said. "Don't you see? There is no escape. The process has already begun. And as I told your herbmistress and your acolyte, even I do not know what form it shall take."

Almost as soon as Uther had finished speaking, the shrieking began. At first it was soft and distant, coming from somewhere down the tunnel. Then it increased in volume. A strange cross between the sound of a woman screaming and the wind rising from the worst possible storm, the noise quickly flooded the passageway. A ferocious wind erupted and tore down the tunnel. Its force nearly knocked them down.

The wind extinguished the wall torches, and darkness descended. Flavius reached for his flint and steel to light the torch he had brought. But even if he could have struck a flame, it would have been unnecessary, for the passageway was soon bathed in a different kind of glow. From the far end of the tunnel, three balls of azure light careered toward them.

As they raced toward Flavius, Agrippa, and Uther, their light grew in intensity. They were each about half as tall as a fully grown man, and jagged bolts of white light careened to and fro within their depths. The closer they got, the louder they shrieked, and the wind intensified to the point that Uther and the warriors could barely stand. Then the rushing lights began to change.

The fireballs had morphed into demonic faces, with dark blue slanted eyes and mouths full of long, pointed teeth. As they sped down the tunnel, the awful mouths opened wider. Screeching and howling, the first of them took Uther up in its jaws.

It bit into him at his waist and picked him up as if he weighed nothing. As the thing's teeth crunched powerfully down into flesh and bone, Uther screamed. With savage, grunting sounds, the thing shook him back and forth as if he were a rag doll, then began to crash him against solid rock. Uther's head split open, and the demon dropped his corpse to the floor. Uther's blood dripped lazily from its mouth.

The beast looked at the two warriors, and let go a deranged laugh. Then it turned to look at the two other faces that waited there. As if giving its permission, it smiled. In a flash, the other demons set upon the Minions.

Flavius and Agrippa frantically swung their swords, but to no avail. The razor-sharp blades of their dreggans passed harmlessly through the monsters. The demons opened their glowing jaws and ravaged Flavius and Agrippa in the same manner they had Uther. Soon the tunnel floor was awash in blood, and three mangled bodies lay still in the puddles.

Their task complete, the demonic faces melted back into azure balls, which streaked back the way they had come. With their passing, the shrieking and the wind stopped, and the wall torches came alive again. When Faegan heard the terrible sound and saw the azure light flashing within the tunnel, he knew that something had gone terribly wrong.

"Everyone to either side of the entrance!" he shouted to the Minions crowded around him. "Hurry-your lives depend on it!"

But for many of them it was already too late. There was a terrible shrieking sound, and then three azure energy balls rushed out of the tunnel. Those troops that couldn't get out of the way were vaporized instantly.

After careening around the area for a few moments, the balls slowed and then vanished altogether. Faegan looked around. The occasional smoking boot or blackened dreggan was all that remained of many who had followed him here. The stench of burning flesh hung in the air. Closing his eyes for a moment, the ancient wizard hung his head.

Then his wizard's mind started working again, and he came to a stark realization. How could I have been so blind? he thought.

As he expected, the ground began to shake. It started gently at first, but it quickly grew to such intensity that the village's buildings started to collapse. The surviving warriors could barely stand. The wind began to howl, sending dirt and debris whirling into the air, blinding them all.

Thunder rumbled over the earth and lightning cascaded across the sky. To the Minions who had never experienced this phenomenon, it seemed that the world was about to end.

As the bluffs shook, the connecting stone latticework that had trapped Faegan and his warriors began to crack. The cracks grew quickly, snaking through the stone web and breaking it apart. Tons of certain death rained down upon the warriors.

Hoping to save as many of the Minions as possible, Faegan raised his hands.

CHAPTER LVII

Her arms clamped firmly around K'jarr's nec Tyranny looked back at the Black Ships pursuing them. Their dark sails full, they flew above the sea like huge birds of prey, ungainly but unbelievably swift. The sun would be up soon, and the privateer desperately wondered how long the Minions could keep up the blistering pace-especially with herself, Scars, and Shailiha in their arms. She knew that if they were ordered to do so, the fiercely loyal warriors would fly until their hearts burst.

But the craft is stronger than any Minion, she reminded herself as the wind tore at her. If they didn't reach the litter with at least a little time to spare, they wouldn't have a chance.

She looked over at Scars. He was being carried by Lan, who was having a harder time of it due to the first mate's great size. The warrior was clearly spent, every motion of his wings seeming to be another desperate effort to simply stay aloft. Scars and Lan would be the first to perish, Tyranny knew.

As for Scars, his expression told her that he was resigned to whatever fate awaited him. Since the day they had first met, he had always said that his life would end in a cold, watery grave. Closing her eyes, Tyranny hoped that this would not be that day.