Colo thrust herself forward as quickly as she could, considering how narrow the burrow was. But there was a tremor, and behind her, just before she was able to push out the other side, the rock and junk pile collapsed, crushing her left ankle.

"Damnation," Colo screeched, trying to twist her head to get a look at her foot. The pain was excruciating.

She managed to corkscrew around and, lying on her side, poke her sword around near her foot. With some twisting, she was able to work her foot out of the mess. She had just yanked it free and lurched forward when the entire blockade started to tremble and groan.

Colo rolled forward as it came crashing down.

The dust and noise settled. Propped up a safe distance away, rubbing her bloody, mangled ankle, Colo looked back and observed that the entire slagheap had flattened out, so that now there was easy passage over it.

Ahead of her was another section of tunnel, relatively clean and lit with torches, angling sharply to the right. Her ankle was hurting badly, but it was twisted, not broken, and Colo could put some awkward weight on it.

She tore off a piece of sleeve and wrapped it around her foot, then hobbled forward, using the wall for support, dragging her crippled foot.

As Colo followed the angle of the tunnel, she realized that she was in a sort of underground jail, with rows of cells on opposite sides of the sconce-lit corridor. The cells were mostly empty, with old bones in some, twitching rats in others. As she continued on, she counted at least one hundred of the stone pens, each the size of a horse stall. She pulled herself along by the bars to steady her balance.

Up ahead the tunnel veered to the right again and beyond the bend she could hear some vague noise. She thought it might be another creature like the one in the pit, and her first impulse was to scan the floor and make sure she was not about to plunge into another camouflaged trap. But this noise was different, more subtle, a padding and shuffling, followed by throat-clearing noises.

Human breathing!

She limped forward, clutching her sword, and peered around the corner. What she saw, a short way up ahead, was a narrow flight of stairs leading upward to the right and a cell larger than the others that was set into the far end of the tunnel. In the cell paced Ursa Il Kinth, wearing only a pair of pathetic leggings.

"Colo!" he cried out, grabbing the bars, when he spotted her.

"Ursa!" She rushed forward as best she could, alternately hopping and dragging her injured foot.

Coming closer, she could tell that Ursa was badly battered, thin, and weakened. His face was heavily bruised, cuts streaked his bare chest, and his shoeless feet were swollen and blotched with purple. Inspecting him sorrowfully.

Colo became aware that he was gazing likewise at her, focusing on her injured foot, whose make-do bandage had turned dark red with blood.

Their eyes raised at the same moment, and Ursa could not help but give a barking laugh, so kindred were the pitying expressions each wore on the other's behalf.

It is good, thought Colo, he has not lost his humor.

"What happened to you?" Ursa asked.

"A sort of cave-in, back in the tunnel," she indicated. "But it's nothing. I won't win any races today, but I can walk on it. What about you?"

"Hungry. Sore. Weak." His dark eyes gleamed. "Alive!"

Unlike the other cells, his space was lined with two rows of thick, iron bars; a firm shaking of the set that was closest to Colo proved they would be hard to break. A water trough with a muddy trickle ran between the two rows of bars, separating Ursa and Colo by roughly a dwarf's height.

Glancing around Ursa's cell, Colo could see only two wooden buckets, no cot.

"One pail for water they give," said Ursa grimly, noting her searching eyes, "and one for what I give them in return. Believe me, there's no way out."

"Are there keys?" she asked, cursing herself for having left the rusty ring behind. Only the inside row of bars seemed to have a door, a heavy slab of metal that did not show any lock.

"Pah!" he snorted. "The door is opened by some magic, and the only person who can open it is 'the Lady.' "

"Lady Mantilla?"

"Yes," Ursa said. "She is crazed and dangerous. Kitiara, is she… is she with you?"

"Yes," Colo answered nervously. "Searching another of the tunnels."

"You must find her and warn her," said Ursa urgently. "She is in line to be killed. The only reason I've been kept alive is that I haven't told the Lady who Kit is or where she can be found."

Colo glanced over her shoulder, and down at her bloody, mashed-up foot. She was wondering how she would find Kitiara and how fast she could retrace her steps. "What's up there?" Colo asked, indicating the narrow steps leading upward.

"I'm not sure," Ursa answered, also glancing down at Colo's foot caked in blood, reading her mind. "It's where she always comes from."

When Colo met his eyes again, her look was decided. "This place seems practically abandoned. Is anyone else here-any mages? We encountered an old man who spoke of this Iron Guard…"

"She has a retinue of guards," said Ursa tersely. "They are formidable. As far as mages, she has a new one every week. They don't last very long."

Colo handed over one of her swords, hilt first, through the bars, and shifted toward the stairs. Ursa pushed his face against the inner bars.

"I tell you, Colo, she is dangerous and insane."

"I can be dangerous too," the small woman said with a brave wink, slowly starting to ascend the stairs.

Kitiara was exploring her tunnel. It was adequately lit, but there was nothing to mark the way except for loose rock and human debris. The corridor became almost tedious in its sameness, and Kit was able to go quickly, displaying the only weapon she had left, Beck's sword.

After a time, the tunnel made a turn to the left, where a small flight of steps led down to another level. Seeing nothing threatening, Kit cautiously took the steps. The ceiling was so low here that Kit had to stoop or scrape her head. Indeed, as the corridor continued on, the ceiling tamped downward.

At last Kit was forced to get down on her knees and crawl forward. There seemed no danger other than the obvious one of getting stuck.

The ceiling's height was beginning to concern Kit when, ahead of her, she saw the tunnel veer to the left again. Creeping around the corner she saw with some relief that the ceiling shot up once more, and the stone corridor opened up to another small flight of downward steps. The steps led into a more clean and spacious section of tunnel. And at the end of the corridor stood a huge, shrouded, boxlike structure that gave off distinct pawing and snuffling sounds.

Kit hesitated. What could it be? Should she go back and find Colo?

First she would investigate.

Kit glided slowly forward. The light here was poor, but she could see that the huge box structure was draped in heavy black velvet.

As Kit drew closer, the noises grew louder with intermittent roars that made her tremble. But nothing leaped out to interfere with her. Standing in front of the structure, which was roughly square and twice as high as she was tall, Kit noticed narrow, winding stone steps, leading steeply upward, etched into the left wall behind the shrouded box.

Edging forward, Kit extended her sword toward a pulley rope on one side and made a swipe at it.

She leaped backward as the black velvet drapery swooped upward and then swirled to the ground around the cage-for that is what it was, a gigantic, wooden cage. And in the cage prowled an animal as large and ferocious as it was beautiful, a black panther.

El-Navar!