Depths of Madness - Erik Scott De Bie [66]
She deemed traps unlikely, since the lizards had gotten through unscathed, but there was no such thing as being too careful. She sensed multiple auras of magic, so she crept onward slowly, searching. At the other end, having walked the hall untouched, she waved the others forward.
"We stepped through a portal near Longsaddle," Taslin was saying. "And it did not lead where we thought it would."
"Ah," said Slip. "Same with my band. Though not Longsaddle, but Dambrath."
"Band?" Taslin asked.
"Aye! Four, originally. Me, a blue-haired girl, a thick dwarf, and Liet, of course."
The youth squinted. "I'm sorry? What-?" Even as he chuckled, Davoren narrowed his fiendish eyes in confusion.
Slip blinked. "Oh," she said finally. "I must be taking you for someone else."
Twilight did not flinch. "We should be silent," she said. "An ambush may await."
"Oh, Belial's pisspot," growled Davoren. "An ambush like that of the lizards, perhaps? Some leader you are, always overestimating the danger."
The shadowdancer narrowed her eyes but made no reply. She crossed into the next chamber, casting about for some foe, but she found nothing there to distract her.
The room in which they stood might once have been a monster's fighting arena, with stone floors that sloped gradually down to a pit at the center. The remains of sigils drawn in crimson paint around the pit indicated a ward of some kind, perhaps a summoning circle.
Four statues of rusted, broken armor stood at the corners of the room, two shattered beyond the faintest possibility of repair, and the others propped against the wall like inebriated knights set there by obedient squires and left to rust by those less loyal. Six doors led from this chamber.
"What do you suppose-?" Liet started.
In retrospect, Twilight should have seen it coming.
"Wheel" Slip exclaimed, sliding down the slope to the bottom of the shallow pit. She bounced and landed face down with a great "oof!" and moved no more.
"Are you well?" shouted Liet.
"Oh aye!" Slip called back. "My face broke my fall!"
"Pity," Davoren murmured.
He might have said more, but there was a sudden creak of metal too long left to mold and dust. The two statues that still resembled upright people shuddered into motion.
Too late, Twilight understood the significance of the statues. Too late, she realized what would trigger their purpose: a creature at the center of the circle when the runes of protection were not operating. Wizards sometimes kept guardians for just such an occasion, particularly when they summoned creatures strongly resistant to magic.
"Slip!" she shouted. "Run! The-!"
That was as far as she got before the first of the helmed horrors drew its tusty blade and lunged at her. The weapon burst into flames as the creature charged.
Everything seemed to happen at once, in that moment. Twilight rolled away from the one that swung at her, only to see Liet stumble into its path and be dashed to the ground. Gargan leaped upon one of the horrors as it loomed over Davoren and Taslin, his acid-coated swotd smashing it. Slip blinked, transfixed by the statues' sudden movements, and screamed.
That doesn't help, thought Twilight as she dived between a pair of armored legs. With an upturned wrist and a dip, she thrust her rapier up through the monstrosity's breastplate, an angled strike that would have unmanned, disemboweled, and slain a living man, but had no such effect on the creature. Her sword did stab into the horror's essence, and a blue-white mist began to leak between the fringes of its armor.
The construct shuddered but did not slow. It swung down one rusty fist with not-so-rusty speed, which Twilight narrowly dodged. She danced back, keeping impeccable balance, until Liet sent her stumbling as he charged at the horror.
"Fool!"