On they toiled, and on. Twice, in the ebon murk, they heard the muffled rattle of coleopteran mandibles. Once, the beetles' acrid stench rose rank and close into their nostrils.
"Pray to your gods, warrior, that they do not guess our goal in time to head us off," Kyla whispered hoarsely.
"Pray to your own, and my light-lance!" Haral answered harshly. He shifted, striving to ease the pain that still throbbed out from his wounded shoulder. Numbly, he wondered how much longer he could go on.
They came out of the tunnel, then, into a vast, echoing subterranean chamber.
"Now we must have light to find our way," the priestess said. "Already we are beneath the Triad."
Haral flicked on his lance's illumination cell.
The room stretched as far as its beam would throw. Other tunnels debouched from the walls on every side.
"This way," said Kyla. "Xaymar's shrine lies beneath the central staircase."
Together, they picked a path through more jumbled bones to the middle of the vast concourse, then descended down the stair they found there in spiral after spiral.