The torch, which had been spluttering illumination in smoky waves before them, was now flaring more brightly. Its resined wood was licked by hungry flames that seemed to leap forward.
"Fresh air!" said Ramey. "A draught. Are we nearly there, Kohrisan?"
"Very near, my Lord. It is time to extinguish the torches and move forward silently."
"But we can't see in this darkness," Lake demurred.
"There will be light enough. See?" Kohrisan smothered his own torch against a wall, passed word back that all other torch-bearers should do the same. Soon all the lights were crushed into ash—but still the passageway glowed with a dull, gray illumination emanating from a tiny circle dimly seen before them. "The end of the tunnel, my Lords," whispered Kohrisan. "The moment for attack is ripe."
"And where does the tunnel emerge?" asked Ramey.
But the Burrower's answer was unsatisfactory. "Inside the palace," was the only information Kohrisan got from him. Thus, unknowing whether the next few minutes would see them stepping forward to greet friends or foes—but with every likelihood pointing toward the latter—the tiny army of invasion again moved forward. This time lightless, voiceless, and on creeping feet.
But at least a portion of their caution was a waste of energies. They need not have spoken in whispers. For as they approached nearer and ever nearer the circle which was the tunnel's exit, there smote their ears in full, reverberant cry the clash and clamor of battle waging wildly! Shouts of men, alive and angry, wounded and in pain, dying and fearful ... the strident clang of metal upon metal ... the whirr! of arrows seeking fleshy targets ... these were the sounds which greeted their arrival.
And as they gained the exit, Ramey saw whence originated this tumult. Also he saw, and with a sense of sick despair, why the Burrower ape had boasted his clan's tunnel was so well concealed from the search of men.