Halts peril

'Do you think he'll just let you go?' he challenged them. 'He'll hunt you down once you're out of here. There's only one thing to do. We've got them outnumbered! An old man and two boys! Kill them! Kill them!'

And as his voice reached a peak of urgency, the tension broke and the white robes surged forward in a bunch, weapons raised.

Quickly, Halt retreated before their first rush, drawing his saxe to deflect a dagger thrust, then slashing the razor edge across his attacker's forearm. The man yelled in pain and dropped out of the fight, nursing his bloodied arm. But there were others behind him and Halt continued to back away. He had drawn his smaller knife now as well. He blocked a man's sword cut with his saxe, stepped in and rammed the short knife home. Halt saw the man's eyes glaze as his knees slowly gave way. But there was no time to see any more. Another attacker was pressing him and there were two more on his right. He turned to face the new attack.

Then there was space around him as Horace leapt to his aid, his sword flashing in the uncertain light of candles and fire like a giant blazing wheel of light. He cut down three attackers in the space of a few seconds. A fourth staggered away, clutching at the shaft of an arrow that protruded from his chest. Will again, Halt thought.

The white robes drew back to take stock. They had lost nearly a quarter of their number in that first mad rush. Clubs and daggers were no match for Horace's sword and even those among them with swords had no real weapon skill. And the Ranger with the two knives was as fast as a striking snake.

Then one, bolder or angrier than the others, stepped forward, waving them to follow.

'Come on! There's only…'

A deafening BANG! drowned out his words and a vast cloud of brown smoke billowed up right before him. He staggered back in panic. Another loud detonation and another dense cloud of smoke followed as Malcolm hurled a second mudball at the group of men. They fell back, crying out in fear.

Then the first man stopped, shaking his head. The explosion had happened right at his feet, barely a metre away. Yet, apart from a ringing in his ears and the sour smell of the smoke, he was uninjured. The missiles, whatever they were, were harmless.

'They can't hurt you!' he yelled. 'They're just noise and smoke! Come on!'

He led the way forward, but only a few of the others went with him. The rest huddled uncertainly, disoriented by the deafening explosions and the whirling smoke.

Perched on the rocks, Will stood ready to pick off any of the white robes who might pose a threat to Halt and Horace. His instincts cried out for him to scramble down the rocks and join them, but reason told him he would be more use to them up here.

Besides, he could see that the bulk of the white robes were no longer interested in the fight. They were cowed, huddled together in a group, backing slowly away from Halt and Horace. Something rattled against the boulder beside him, then a thin trickle of sand fell from the ceiling of the cavern, lost in the darkness above him. He had noticed this happened with each of the explosions. The mudballs might be harmless, but the noise set up vibrations in the cavern and sent loose rocks and sand falling from the walls and roof.

There was a louder noise of falling rocks now and a small cascade tumbled down from the roof in the centre of the cavern, falling close to the group of dispirited white robes. Will hoped that Malcolm would be a little more circumspect with the explosive balls. The roof seemed to be decidedly unstable. Too much vibration and they could be in trouble. It wouldn't take a lot to…

Where was Te

The thought struck him out of nowhere. He looked wildly around the cavern. He wasn't with the small group left facing Halt and Horace. He'd been by the altar when Will had last seen him, when he called on his followers to attack. But he…

There! There was a robed figure climbing the far wall, behind the altar. He was nearly six metres from the floor of the cave already. Above Te

And there was no doubt in Will's mind that the tu

He nocked an arrow, drew and shot. But the uncertain, flickering firelight, coupled with the roiling brown smoke that filled the cavern, made it almost impossible to shoot accurately. The arrow struck sparks off the rock half a metre above Te

He hesitated. Then he was bounding down the rocks to the floor of the cavern, racing across the cleared ground to the boulder where Malcolm was perched, his padded box of mudballs at his feet. Will scrambled up beside him. He had time to register that now there were only three attackers facing Halt and Horace and as he did so, he saw the three men throw down their weapons and call for quarter.

But across the cavern, Te

He reached down and grabbed the box of explosive mudballs from Malcolm, glancing into it to see how many there were.

Malcolm had started with a dozen and had used three. Like Will, he had noticed the effect the noise vibrations were having on the cavern and decided it was too risky to continue with them. Besides, Horace and Halt were taking care of things quite admirably, he thought. Now he watched, aghast, as Will seized the box containing nine more mudballs and drew his arm back.

'Will! Don't!' he cried. 'You'll bring down the…'

He got no further. The young Ranger brought his arm forward and sent the box spi

But the box, spi

In the instant before the cavern filled with the massive eruption of noise and smoke, Will saw Te

Then the earth shook beneath their feet and thunder filled the cavern. Rocks and earth fell from the ceiling in ever-increasing amounts. Small landslides started in the jumbled rocks that lined the sides of the cave, rapidly growing in size and violence. A gigantic pillar of brownish yellow smoke shot up. Just before it obscured the far wall, Will saw a massive rock shaken loose from the cavern wall above the ledge where Te

Then he was hidden from sight by the billowing masses of brown smoke.

Rocks were falling faster and in increasingly greater numbers now and the sand trickle had become a dozen cascades in different parts of the cavern. There was no doubt. The walls and roof were coming down and they had only seconds to get clear. Will grabbed Malcolm's arm and dragged him down from the perch on the boulder.