by K L Reinhart
Terak hissed, his sharp elf-eyes scanning for solutions. But the room was in chaos. Lord Falan was attempting to smash the face of the book-reading statue, his blade now half of what it had been as lengths of the fine steel had shattered and splintered. Only about four of the statues were “alive.”
But that’s more than enough, Terak thought. He watched the massive form of the elf warrior sweep its stone blade around, causing several of the human guards to dive out of the way.
Another of the living statues, this one smaller than the elf warrior-lord, but holding a long staff with a spiked mace, had come to life. His long stone hair flared and flew behind as he chased after a lone, terrified, Brechan guard.
And finally, the elf Lady, taller than all the others, had grabbed one of the guards by the throat, and was lifting him up bodily into the air, his legs kicking against her hardened skirts.
Snap. With dreadful noise, the woman threw the deceased soldier to the ground.
“Grargh!” An orcish roar attracted Terak’s attention, as he saw that Vorg the Unwanted had managed to wedge one of his smaller “throwing axes” (still the size that any human or elf would use to cut down small trees) into the seal of the stone door, creating a finger’s breadth of space–but now he was turning, abandoning his project as he swapped weapons for his great, double-bladed battle-ax.
“Fiends!” the orc roared as he charged at the most worthwhile enemy in the room (according to his orcish custom) which was the elf warrior. Terak saw a flash of sparks as the orc’s battle-ax intercepted the statue’s stone broadsword, but Vorg’s blade was made of stronger, heavier stuff than the Brechan steels. It held and even managed to knock the statue’s blade back.
It would be a titanic battle, Terak knew–orcish champion against living statue, both packed with muscles and sinews that could tear limbs from weaker bodies–but Terak didn’t have the time to witness it.
Think! Terak saw Falan still hammering away at the chanting statue. He saw the smaller warrior temporarily outnumbered by three Brechan soldiers, and the Lady stalking, slowly, after another human. There was a flash of purple fire against the side of the Lady’s shoulder, as one of the Brechans clearly had a small degree of battle-magic.
I’m too small. I have no magic, Terak thought. I’m not strong enough to stop them—
The door. Instead, Terak threw himself around the pendant-staring statue, to catapult his weaving charge under the sweep of the tall warrior’s gauntleted fist. He made for the stone door out of the chamber.
We could retreat, but we won’t get anywhere, he considered as he slammed into the solid stone. He knew that the way they had come from was blocked by the rockfall, and out there in the dark, the statues could slowly, implacably march after them.
There are only ever two paths: the right one and the wrong, the Path of Pain had taught him. Terak took it to mean that they had to find a way to push on, deeper into Grom’s Lair and to hope that their fortunes changed.
But the stone door appeared to have no hinges or levers. Vorg had managed to pop one edge out by a finger’s breadth or so. Terak could look through it to see a dim grayish light on the far side, his elf nose detecting a hint of fresher air. It wasn’t much to go on, but right now the elf would take any good thing that he could get.
Think! Terak tried to remember the lessons he’d had with Father Jacques. What would the Chief External do!? Terak remembered the powders and concoctions that could cause fires and sudden bangs–even rend stones like this one apart–but he had no supplies on him.
Everything has a way that it can work and a way that it can break! Father Jacques had once advised him. There were more shouts and orcish growls behind him.
“A way that it can break . . .” Terak breathed hard through his nose. This was a slab of stone, probably on some sort of lever or cog mechanism that would force it to open . . . Terak’s eyes checked the floor right in front of the door. Thin, scratched lines were still visible, swinging outwards toward his own feet.
So, it needs to be pulled, he thought, grabbing hold of Vorg’s throwing axe and pushing all of his weight against it.
At first, there was nothing save the immovability of solid stone–and then there was a slight grating sound. The door popped open another width of a fingernail, and Terak could see the thick wedge of solid rock still inside.
“Come on!” he exhorted himself, grabbing onto the wood and this time throwing himself to one side, in an attempt to lever the door—
“Ach!” His arms jolted, feeling like Vorg was trying to pull them from their shoulder joints. There was another scraping sort of sound–but then, a sudden splintering snap, as a crack shot downwards from the buried axe head through the handle.
“No!” Terak let go, but the damage was already done–the split in the axe handle widened, and one side of the handle fell clattering to the floor.
And the door was still resolutely impassable.
“Garr!” A roar of pain caused Terak’s head to swivel around, in time to see Vorg staggering back. A powerful strike from the stone warrior had dented his breastplate and added a deep groove. Vorg’s feet slipped, and he crashed into one of the still motionless, un-awakened statues of the First Family, causing the courtier-type to slam to the floor, his outstretched hand snapped and shattering.
Vorg! Terak breathed, already turning to snatch up one of his smaller knives, and, in one smooth movement, threw it at the approaching stone warrior that had leapt forward toward the downed Vorg.
Terak’s throw was perfect. It was a shame that its target was made of solid stone, as the dagger hit the warrior’s neck and shattered.
But the warrior’s feet slid for a moment. It turned its sightless eyes to see who had dared attack it—
“Dumb piece of rock!” The momentary distraction gave Vorg the heartbeat he needed to bellow, springing upwards from the ground to shoulder-barge the warrior statue backwards. Terak heard the crash of black-iron armor against stone and saw the statue give under the orc flesh-mountain, stumbling backwards several feet until it was halted by another of the still-motionless, un-awaked First Family.
Vorg gave his enemy no time to collect itself or balance. The orc pounced forward, landing on one metal boot and spinning on his heel, flinging his battle-ax outwards in a wild swing.
CRASH! There was a flash of sparks and a sound as if a thunderbolt had been released in this tiny space, as Vorg’s entire bodyweight was behind the blow.
Bits of one of the blade heads went scattering, spinning through the air, but Vorg’s blow had done its work. The head of the stone statue had been severed from the rest of its stone body and was flung through the hall of statues to smash into the opposite wall.
“Yes!” Terak couldn’t believe his eyes, or the strength of the orc in front of him . . . But, obscenely, the statue of the elf warrior-lord refused to die. Terak saw it fall to one side, arms flailing about it as it sought to find purchase–to thump against the floor, using its arms to slap and punch at the flagstones as it searched for its enemies. The statue had been blinded by losing its head, but the rest of it was still very much alive.
Terak saw Vorg pounce with both feet to stamp on one of the slapping stone hands and heard the snapping sound as one wrist, still stone but thinner than the rest of the statue, snapped.
Vorg’s using the weight of the statue against it, Terak realized. The orc was applying pressure at the weakest, thinnest points, where his weight was the greater.
Use its weight against it. That fast, quick-thinking part of Terak’s mind raced. He had an idea and dove forward to snatch at some of the broken arm and hand pieces of the immobile courtier statue, as well as the wooden splinter of ax handle, then turned back to the door.
Moving quickly, Terak used the piece of the courtier’s stone arm to hammer the fingers–a wedge of three in one, solid piece–into the door jamb, but much lower, near the floor. He then added the wooden shim of the axe handle, hammering that into place as well with
the courtier’s arm.
Terak’s arm muscles ached, but he kept pounding away at the stone and wooden wedges that spread from about halfway up the door seal to the floor. He heard a creak from the door itself and saw the great block of whitish rock shudder and jump forwards a little bit.
I need more! Terak turned back, looking for any statue fragments that had been knocked from their bodies.
And there was the dropped stone broadsword of the now-blinded stone warrior. The assassin leapt for it, grabbing it by the hilt and—
“Urgh!” it weighed a ton, but Terak managed to drag it back to the door, its tip scraping along the floor as the battle continued to rage behind him.
“Vorg!” Terak heard Falan shout, and he spared a look to see how dire the situation was. Even though the most dangerous statue had been neutralized by the Unwanted, the other three were still a threat. At least a handful of the Brechan soldiers and guards had been killed, and now the smaller stone warrior and the elf lady had apparently joined forces, facing the handful of soldiers left. Even worse, the blood of the dead soldiers was pooling against the stone feet of two more of the cursed statues–another queenly woman and a short, barrel-like elf lordling, who were starting to shudder and shake as they, too, came to life.
Four against how many? the elf thought in alarm. They were going to die, Terak was sure of it–until he saw Vorg bellow and race across the Hall of Statues, his battle-ax raised, which now only had one full blade left.
But could even the mighty Vorg manage to destroy four stone statues all on his own?
“Hsss!” Terak threw himself back into his task, using every ounce of strength that he had left to seize the stone broadsword and drive it as far as he could into the door jamb, near the bottom. There was a screeching noise as the blade bit and held.
Everything has a way that it will break . . . Terak started to hammer on the pommel of the stuck blade, as quickly and as powerfully as he could. Inch by inch, the statue’s sword pierced the gap, causing the stone door to shake and jump a little outwards—
Then Terak hammered the smaller shims that he had already put in place–the bits of stone, the axe handle, and the rest of Vorg’s throwing axe.
The door gave out a loud groan or protest, and now the bottom corner of it was out by almost the entire width of Terak’s hand.
Just a little bit more!
The door was stuck near the top, Terak knew. He had managed to wedge open just the bottom left corner–but that was precisely what he had intended, as—
CRACK!
The solid weight of the stone door suddenly worked against it, not for it, as the pressures from Terak’s wedges pulled the stone outwards, while the weight at the top was pushing downwards.
The noise of the door’s demise was loud, like a cannon shot, and Terak felt his face peppered with tiny, sharp, granular shards of rock chips. The door snapped across its middle, and the two pieces collapsed to the floor, revealing the natural stone passageway behind, lit by the filtered gray light of distant daylight.
“Friends!” Terak called, leaping aside from the two halves of the door and spinning round, to see that Falan and Vorg had seen his success and were desperately attempting to fight a rear-guard action against the four statues as the four remaining soldiers scattered and ran for the door.
“Help me!” Terak shouted at the soldiers, already trying to move the rest of the heavy courtier body. Two of the soldiers were too panicked to hear and ran straight out, but the other two soldiers swerved in their route and started to heave and push at the courtier statue.
“Falan! Go!” Vorg barked, ducking to one side of the stilled statues as the fist of the Lady crashed against it. Terak watched Falan flee across the few feet to their side, hauling the courtier statue right to the edge of the doorway—
“We’ll make a blockade. As much as we can . . .” Terak heaved, as Vorg was jumping back, using the un-awakened statues as cover from the four live ones closing on him.
“Grakh!” with a savage kick, Vorg pushed one of the statues over into their path–the one with the Loranthian pendant copy–for it to smash against their legs. The Lady went down, and Vorg was charging back to them.
“Out! Out!” Falan was shouting, as he, Terak, and the soldiers leapt over their makeshift barricade and through the doorway. Vorg followed them, spinning around just in time to seize the outstretched, broken arm of the courtier and jump backwards, hauling the half-statue over the broken door slabs and into the archway.
“Ugh!” The orc collapsed backwards, wheezing and panting. The archway now was littered with stone fragments, and Terak could hear the scraping of stone feet on the far side, coming closer.
“That won’t hold them,” Vorg growled as he staggered to his feet, tapping one cracked claw against the deep groove in his breastplate.
“Then we’d better get moving, huh, Master Orc!” Terak panted, slapping Vorg on the shoulder and turning, as they ran down the passageway toward the light.
11
The Carnivorous Cavern
“Keep moving!” Falan shouted as the sounds of the scraping stone behind their diminished party echoed and chased their hurrying feet. He didn’t really need to add any urgency to their desperate scramble, Terak thought, as the party had lost almost half of their number already.
The tunnel that they charged down was rougher than the previous one and larger. Much larger. Room enough for the entire party of seven–one elf, one orc, and the five remaining humans who had survived the fury of the statue room–to run comfortable side by side, should they wish.
But the panic was evident in their headlong charge, and the first two soldiers of Brecha who hadn’t stopped as soon as Terak had broken open the door were growing smaller in the distance.
Not good, Terak thought, adding speed to his steps as he lightly leapt from humped rock to humped rock, easily outpacing Vorg and Falan. He passed the next two hurrying soldiers, too, as he closed on those ahead.
The humans were fearful, with even the young Lord Falan–a man who had proven himself in battle at least four times that Terak knew of–breathing erratically and hard. Terak could hear the steady, pounding feet of Vorg as he ran. He wondered if orcs could feel such weaker emotions as fear.
As for himself, however, Terak knew that there was a part of him that was scared, but he had many long and grueling years of training on the Path of Pain. He knew how to breathe through his emotions and to allow that clear, focused, diamond mind take over–the sort of mind that could kill or cure with ease.
Terak drew nearer to the lighted tunnel, and the clarity of his thought allowed him to ask just why there was light down here. It was still a dim gray and murky sort of a light–but it was a natural light, nonetheless. It was coming from up ahead, almost where the darker, silhouetted shapes of the dashing humans had got to.
And that is what’s spurring them on, Terak thought. They must think they are about to run out onto the mountainside. But if this tunnel shot through the mountain and out the other side, didn’t that mean that they had missed the Lair of Grom? Terak allowed frustration to grind his teeth together. That rockfall had been a trap! They should have found a way to go for the other tunnel—
“Ech?”
Just as Terak felt a breath of fresh air reach his face–air that was laden with the sharp tang of rocky minerals and the heavier earth tones of moss, he heard a surprised note of alarm coming from the two humans up ahead.
CRACK! A sudden, sharp sound erupted from the tunnel ahead, like the fracturing of the stone statue’s limbs.
“Aii!”
Terak skidded on his feet, trying to peer ahead into the light to work out what had happened–but the two human soldiers had, well–gone.
“What?” Terak finally slowed, and the sound of the pounding, charging feet of the rest of the company grew louder and louder behind him.
“Wait!” The elf shot out a warning hand, just as he felt something shift under his feet. Looking dow
n, he realized in an instant what was going on. There was a spider web of miniscule cracks spreading around one foot, racing through the stone and joining up together—
Just like Mourn Lake! Terak’s super-clear mind had a moment to think, as the rocky floor that had appeared so solid when he had charged across a moment ago gave way . . .
“Ach!” Terak jumped, stretching his leg out as far and as wide as it could go, to land on one of the rocky boulder-humps, before jumping off. His foot hit the flatter plates of the normal tunnel floor.
Ssss!
This time, Terak could hear the cracks as they spread faster and grew wider. He kicked off from the floor that was disintegrating underneath his tread, but it was already falling–his feet flailed outwards, his hands reaching for the bobbled, almost organic humps and bumps of the cavern tunnel itself—
Whump!
Something slammed into Terak’s back, a wall of force like an avalanche, as he was thrown hard against the wall. He grunted in pain as he slid down the wall, his legs and hands scrabbling as he at last found purchase.
“Sacred Stars!” Terak gasped, clinging like a spider to the wall, as he dared to look behind him.
One of the soldiers was just stepping back as a purple glow slowly dissipated from her hands. She must have cast some kind of force spell to save me, Terak realized, before his eyes were drawn downwards to what he had been saved from . . .
The floor of this part of the tunnel was pocked and checkered with holes where Terak and the other two soldiers’ feet had trod on the smoother, flatter surfaces of the rock plates. They had crumbled away, leaving jagged edges that only looked rock-like on their surfaces. From this angle, Terak could see that their sides were really porous, spongey striations of organic matter.
“The mossy smell . . .” Terak realized. These strange mimicking growths clutched around the tall “pillars” of rock, really stalagmites whose topmost spikes had been long eroded and worn into rounded humps by centuries and millennia.
