startle the gathering of fisher-folk and give him the thirty seconds or so that
he needed to block his escape route. This security troop was as well-trained as
any force the Cirdonian had encountered, and they were already primed to rip
open hiding places. Presumably Tudhaliya thought he was after fugitives from the
ceremony, but that mattered as little to him as it did to Samlor.
The Cirdonian smashed open the cask and kicked it over. The naphtha gushed
across the stone, darkening it, and began to flow sluggishly back in the
direction Samlor was fleeing. Samlor dared not ignite the fluid until he was
clear of it. He took a stride and another stride, ignoring Star’s wailing as her
shoulder brushed the tunnel wall. The Cirdonian turned and flung his lantern
towards the naphtha. Lord Tudhaliya batted the light back past the fugitives
with the flat of his sword.
Then the second Beysib trooper stumbled over the cask and banged his own lamp
down into the naphtha. The tunnel boomed into red life. It singed Samlor’s
eyebrows, even though Lord Tud-haliya shielded the Cirdonian from the worst of
it.
The Beysib noble pitched forward. Samlor ran for the boat, clutching the child
now in both arms. The capering fire threw their shadows down the tunnel ahead of
them.
Samlor set Star in the stern of the punt and began shoving the vessel back
towards the water. The sea had retreated since he dragged the punt out of it.
While Samlor thrust at the boat, he glanced back over his shoulder. The blazing
petroleum was creeping down the slope of the tunnel. Just ahead of it, his