At the corridor's far end loomed two massive doors, heavily barred. While Trakor stood passively by, head hanging listlessly, the Ammadian put down his spear and reached with both hands to lift free the broad bar. In so doing he momentarily turned his back to the cave youth—and that momentary lapse spelled his doom.
Steel fingers closed about his throat, a naked leg tripped him up and he was flat on his back before his lips opened to a cry that was never uttered. Blindly the guard sought to reach the knife at his belt; but Trakor, anticipating this, ground a knee into that wrist.
The man's heels hammered spasmodically against the stone in mute agony and fear and his by no means weak body thrashed and bucked. But those fingers only tightened their hold.
Trakor, his face only inches from that of the enemy, saw those fear-filled eyes start from their sockets, saw lips and cheeks turn dark with constricted blood, felt the broad chest beneath his rise and fall wildly as the lungs fought for air.
For several minutes after the Ammadian warrior lay limp and still beneath him Trakor kept his fingers buried in that lifeless throat. Finally he rose shakily to his feet and looked down upon the body of his first kill. Exultation filled him, and pride—and a strange sense of sadness....
He shook his head briefly as if to clear away such thoughts. Guided by the dim light from candles in wall brackets set at wide intervals along the corridor, he bent and stripped the corpse of its tunic and drew it over his own shoulders. His late foe had been a tall man and the tunic came a bit higher on Trakor's legs than Ammadian fashion dictated, a grievous matter which he ignored. A keen-edged knife of stone went under the tunic's belt; the heavy spear he left where the warrior originally had placed it.
Trakor went back along that corridor with long swinging strides, his naked feet soundless against the stone, his head erect, his ears and eyes alert for the slightest sound or movement.
Ascending the same flight of stairs he had descended a few minutes earlier, he paused at the top and looked carefully at the twin lines of closed doors. The seventh on his left; he had counted them off carefully while on his way to the floor below.
For a full minute he stood motionless outside that barred portal, listening for some indication that others were up and about the palace. Then he turned back, lifted the bar and pushed open the door with slow care.