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By Root 929 0

The entire ceiling of the corridor cracked with a grating snap and began to settle slowly downward. Panamon yelled frantically and pulled Shea down in front of him, trying to protect the Valeman with his own body. Instantly Keltset was there, the giant frame bracing as the great shoulders hunched upward against the tons of breaking rock. Dust rose in blinding clouds and for a moment everything was obscured from view. Then Panamon Creel was pulling the Valeman to his feet, hastening him past the straining form of the Rock Troll. Shea glanced up once as he crawled and scrambled through the broken stone, and the gentle eyes met his own. The ceiling dropped several inches farther, and the massive human support threw all the awesome strength of a Rock Troll against it, the barklike body rigid with the tremendous strain. Shea hesitated, but Panamon’s powerful grip closed over his shoulder, pulling him ahead, thrusting him beyond the tunnel angle into a wider corridor. They collapsed in a pile of loose rock and dust, gasping for air. They had just a glimpse of Keltset, his great frame still braced against the crumbling stone. Panamon made a sudden move to start back into the passage, but a deep rumble tore through the core of the mountain; with a groan of sliding, shifting rock, the tunnel behind them came apart and collapsed entirely. Tons of stone crashed downward and the way back disappeared altogether. Shea screamed and threw himself against the wall of rock, but Panamon pulled him back roughly, pushing the piked hand into his face.

“He’s dead! We can’t help him now.”

The haggard face of the Valeman stared back in shock.

“Get moving — get out of here!” The thief was livid with rage. “Do you want him to have died for nothing? Move!”

He yanked Shea violently to his feet and thrust him toward the open section of the tunnel. The deep rumbling continued to vibrate through the mountain, and a series of sharp, wrenching quakes nearly threw the two men to the cavern floor as they stumbled ahead. Shea was running blindly now, his eyes clouded with dust and tears. It was becoming difficult to see clearly, and he blinked and squinted in an effort to clear his fading vision. Panamon’s labored breathing was close in his ear, and he felt the iron stub of the piked hand shoving against his back, urging him to run faster. Shards of rock splintered from the passage walls and ceiling and rained down on his unprotected body, cutting and bruising it, tearing the forest clothing into tattered strips that hung from the thin, sweating form. In his hands he clutched the gleaming Sword, useless to him now except as proof that what had happened to him was more than an imagined madness.

Abruptly the tunnel dissolved in the gray light of the Northland sky, and they were free of the mountain. Before them, the scattered bodies of Troll and Muten lay broken in death. Without slowing, the two men raced for the mouth of the winding pass that split the monstrous Knife Edge. The hardened earth was quaking violently, long jagged cracks appearing from the base of Skull Mountain and snaking crookedly toward the ring of natural hazards that bound the forbidden land. A sudden, grating crash, louder than any that had preceded it, brought the two runners about. In speechless awe, they watched the gaunt face of the skull begin to sag and break apart. Everything seemed to shatter at once, and the mark of the Warlock Lord disappeared as tons of rock cascaded downward and Skull Mountain ceased to exist. A thick cloud of yellow dust surged skyward and a heavy booming sound burst from the bowels of the earth and echoed through the vast emptiness of the Northland. Violent winds swept over the remains of the dying mountain and the rumbling in the earth began to build once more. In horror Shea saw the monstrous Knife Edge begin to shake with the force of this new convulsion. The entire kingdom was disintegrating!

Already Panamon was running brokenly for the pass, pulling a dazed Shea with him. But the Valeman needed no urging this time and quickly picked up the pace on