“Uh-oh,” said Moptop.
There are few phrases that arouse more alarm in a listener than when those very words are uttered by a member of the almost suicidally fearless kender race.
“What?” hissed Jaymes, holding the torch high, trying to peer into the shadowy distance. His free hand drifted to the hilt of his sword.
The narrow corridor opened abruptly into what looked like an underground hall that appeared to be lined with stone pillars placed at regular intervals on the right and left sides. The torchlight was inadequate to reveal the extent of the hall or to penetrate the galleries that yawned, dark and shadowy, behind the parallel rows of pillars. But the regular lines and careful right angles were clearly the work of some intelligent design.
Jaymes waved the torch and the resulting flare of light did little to illuminate the farther distance. It did, however, bring the nearer stone pillars into crisp focus. The warrior recognized that they were not columns at all, but statues-statues of warriors dressed in ancient garb and standing at rigid attention along both sides of this long hall.
They wore skirtlike kilts that looked to be carved models of originals that had been formed of metal strips, perhaps bronze. Their helmets were tall, with stiff plumes extending like cocks’ combs from brow to nape. Each warrior’s left hand gripped a small round shield to his breast, while the right held the shaft of a spear planted on the floor, with the stone tip rising slightly higher than the crest of the warrior’s helm. The stone spear shafts were slender and held close to the bodies but intact and unbroken despite their apparent fragility. At each statue’s belt was a short sword with a broad, crude-looking blade. This weapon, like the armor, was suggestive of an era before the blacksmithing of steel, and possibly even iron. The faces of the statues were impressively realistic, down to creases in cheeks and brows and the wrinkled skin of knuckles. Several were bearded, and the unremembered carvers had gone to the trouble to etch individual hairs in place. But, equally obvious, the faces were of stone, cold and lifeless and eternally immobile.
“I think maybe we should go back,” Moptop said quietly.
“Go back? To where?” growled Jaymes. “No, this is the way to Solanthus. You said so yourself, and I think were right. I can feel it now. We’ve got to continue on!”
“Do you think these guys really want us here?” the kender pressed.
“They’re statues. They don’t want anything!”
“All right!” the kender agreed. “If you say so. I just didn’t want the wizardress blaming me if something happens. Because you know something is going to happen.”
Again, Jaymes had to agree with the kender. There was an eerie sense of vitality about these very lifelike statues. He wondered how many of them there were, how long this hall could be. Jaymes raised the torch and waved it back and forth to fan the flames into brightness. There were easily eight or ten visible on each side; the existence of many more was suggested by his flickering, unsteady light. Their presence was distinctly uninviting.
“Here, hold this.” Jaymes handed the brand to Moptop, who took it without comment, watching as the warrior pulled the great sword from its scabbard on his back. Holding the hilt in both hands, Jaymes extended the weapon upward and held it poised behind his right shoulder. With a twist of his hands, he ignited the blade, bringing to life the blue flames that flickered silently but brightly along both edges of the weapon.
“Hey, I like that!” Moptop declared. “Can you do different colors?”
Jaymes ignored the kender. In the enhanced illumination, he saw the hall extended a very long way indeed-the terminus was still beyond his sight-and, as far as he could see, the two ranks of silent guardians stood at attention, facing each other across an open aisle perhaps a dozen feet wide extending down the middle of the hall. The shadows were inky, the cool light casting an azure hue over the stony faces. The ceiling was lost in shadow.
“Let’s go,” Jaymes replied.
Together they started down the hall, stepping cautiously but quickly, casting glances back and forth. The stone statues remained immobile, carved images yet seemed to threaten at any moment to step down from their pedestals and do battle. Steadily the two companions advanced past the silent guardians, the light from Giantsmiter’s blade showing the way. Jaymes had the sense of an immense room. How big was this hall?
He glided a little to the right, holding his sword high, letting the light spill between two of the statues. He spotted, illuminated by the surging flames, another row of stone guardians, apparently identical to the front rank and standing several dozen feet behind them. Though the light was insufficient to show anything else, he had no difficulty imagining a third row behind the second, and an unknown number more extending into the darkness beyond. The echoes of their steps suggested a very large space.
“It’s like a whole army!” Moptop said. “But frozen!”
“Let’s just hope they stay that way,” Jaymes acknowledged. “Move along, now-hurry.”
They picked up the pace. The cavern mouth from which they had emerged was swallowed by the shadows closing behind them, yet they still couldn’t see an end to the hall of stone statues. Jaymes turned and retraced a few steps, warily scrutinizing the motionless shapes. He had seen a hundred or more already and had stopped counting.
The threat, when it first came, was not seen, but heard-a simple sound, at first, like the scraping of one piece of stone against another. It rasped from the unseen darkness behind them and off to the side and almost immediately was augmented by similar sounds. Hoarse and sibilant at the same time, the noise swelled to encompass them. With a chill, Jaymes pictured a host of massive snakes, scratching and slithering along the stone floor.
He wished it were snakes, but the truth, he felt certain, was going to be something even stranger and nastier. He strained to see something, hardly reassured by the fact all the statues within his view remained utterly still. Finally he detected the source of the sounds, his worst imagining ever since they had entered this place. Almost imperceptibly, one of the guardians at the far limit of his vision behind them turned and slowly, stiffly, stepped down off the low disk of rock that had been its post for the gods only knew how long. The one right beside this guardian, closer to the two intruders, then did the same. Then the next and the next, and soon enough a whole rank of them had stepped down in echelon, joining together in a rippling march that moved closer to the two intruders.
“I don’t think they want us here,” Moptop noted.
“Then let’s get out of here-run!” barked Jaymes.
“Which way?” yelped the kender.
The man’s answer was to sprint down the hall, with Moptop racing right beside him. The two ran past more statutes, boots scuffing along the floor, shadows dancing and flaring around them as the torch and the sword burned fitfully from the speed of their gait. The stone warriors didn’t pick up the pace of their measured march, but they continued steadily. And with every step through the hall more of them sprang to life.
“There’s the far end!” Jaymes called, finally discerning a high, smooth wall rising up in front of them. He looked at the base of that wall, desperately hoping to see a continuation of the cavern there, a passage that would lead them out of this place.
Then he saw it: a looming black hole high enough for a giant to march through. But before he could even register this hopeful development, a phalanx of stone guardians swung around to block their path. The ancient warriors were standing shoulder to shoulder, the stony points of their weapons extended, shields held aggressively forward.
“Well,” Moptop admitted, skidding to a halt before he impaled himself on the spear tips lowered to block their path. “Looks like we might be trapped.”
“We’ll have to fight our way through!” Jaymes declared. Flames sparkled and surged along Giantsmiter’s blade as he lifted the great sword over his head. “This will cut them down to size! Stand back-but follow me as soon as I break through their midst.”