There were four Kalds crouched on the rock between them, playing some obscure game with human finger bones.
Ciaran got his weight over his toes and moved fast. The hunter went beside him. Neither of them made a sound. The Kalds were intent on their game and not expecting trouble.
The two men might have got away with it, only that suddenly from behind them, someone screamed like an angry cat.
Ciaran's head jerked around, just long enough to let him see the hermit standing in the tunnel, with his stringy arms lifted and his grey hair flying, and a light of pure insanity blazing in his pale eyes.
"Evil!" he shrieked. "You are evil to defy The Light, and the servants of The Light!"
He seemed to have forgotten all about calling the Kalds demons a little while before.
The grey beasts leaped up, moving quickly in with their wands ready. Ciaran yelled with sheer fury. He went for them, the rags of his yellow tunic streaming.
He wasn't quite clear about what happened after that. There was a lot of motion, grey bodies leaping and twisting and jewel-tips flashing. Something flicked him stunningly across the temple. He fought in a sort of detached fog where everything was blurred and distant. The hermit went on screaming about Evil and The Light. The hunter bellowed a couple of times, things thudded and crashed, and once Ciaran poked his wand straight into a blood-pink eye.
Sometime right after that there was a confused rush of running feet back in the tunnel. The hunter was down. And Ciaran found himself running up the incline, because the other way was suddenly choked with Kalds.