Tomb of the Golden Idol Part Two Read online

  TOMB OF THE GOLDEN IDOL

  PART TWO

  Andy Hoare

  His head still reeling from the apocalyptic vision of war he had experienced before the golden idol in the Tomb of Destiny, Khargrim raised his hammer with one hand and his shield with the other as the first of the towering lizard-beasts bore down on him. The stone floor trembled with its every step and torchlight gleamed from the water still running from its toughened hide. Even as Khargrim braced himself, the beast bent forward and opened its huge jaws to reveal dozens of razor-sharp teeth. The creature roared a wordless war cry, so furiously that it felt to Khargrim like he was facing into a storm force wind. Though he guessed the beast had only dragged itself from its spawning waters in the caves below scant minutes before, it had all the language it needed. And from its rippling muscles and bunched fists, it had clearly come into the world fully versed in the ways of killing.

  ‘Ancestors’ oath,’ Khargrim cursed, knowing that the beast was blocking any hope of escape and that he had no choice but to face it. ‘Come on then!’

  As if the dwarf presented more danger than the towering, charging lizard-thing, Khargrim’s companions backed away from him towards the now collapsed portal of the idol chamber. The sea-maiden Verdandi and the hunter Ovar had their bows drawn and aimed at the beast, but it was clear that both were afraid to fire lest they strike Khargrim by accident. The old Baersonling shaman Yngv was mumbling under his breath, and while the words were clearly some magical cantrip, Khargrim was struck by the notion that they would do no good. As the rest of the group backed away, only one other explorer remained at Khargrim’s side – the Slayer, Ghurni. Ghurni’s face was split by a bloodthirsty grin and his eyes were aglow with an intensity that Khargrim only ever saw under one of two circumstances.

  ‘Are you drunk?’ Khargrim shouted over the sound of the approaching behemoth.

  ‘Sadly no, old friend,’ Ghurni shouted back.

  ‘Then…’

  ‘Time to fulfil the Slayer’s oath…’ Ghurni shouted, spitting froth as he spoke.

  ‘Not again,’ Khargrim mouthed.

  ‘…or die trying!’ Ghurni bellowed, hefting his two-handed axe in both hands and starting forward towards the closing lizard beast.

  Khargrim braced himself for the inevitable. As a Slayer, Ghurni had taken a powerful oath, one that pledged him to die seeking the most glorious death at the hands of the most powerful foe. Yet every time Ghurni had faced such an opponent he had somehow prevailed against all the odds.

  Before Khargrim could say another word, Ghurni was charging at the huge beast, his axe raised above his head and his wild, turquoise-dyed beard whipping about his twisted face. Khargrim imagined he saw faint surprise glimmer in the beady eyes of the towering creature, but the moment passed and the beast redoubled its savage war cry. Then, the two met in the centre of the wide, stone-flagged subterranean avenue.

  The beast’s reach was greater than the Slayer’s and Khargrim bellowed a warning to his friend even though he knew that Ghurni was gripped by the berserker’s frenzy and unlikely to heed it. The huge creature drew itself to its full height and balled its fists into boulder-like pile drivers that hammered downwards through the air towards the Slayer. Whether by intent or the intervention of the dwarf gods, Ghurni swerved as the mighty fists pistoned down and smashed the flagstones apart in an explosive detonation of stone and dust.

  Stone shards ricocheted about the tunnel and forced Khargrim and the others to duck or risk being cut to ribbons. Ghurni and his opponent however ignored the potentially deadly shrapnel, though both sustained wicked-looking flesh wounds. In an instant, the Slayer was inside the beast’s guard and girding himself to strike his enemy about the midriff with his mighty axe.

  But Khargrim saw that the huge creature had another trick up its scaly reptilian sleeve. Though Ghurni was inside the reach of its tree-sized arms, he was now vulnerable to the lethally barbed tail that lashed upwards from its rear to strike him a glancing blow across the side of the head.

  ‘Grungni’s oath,’ Khargrim cursed, seeing that he would have to intervene to save his friend’s skin. Hefting his hammer and his shield, Khargrim barrelled forward just as the beast stepped backwards to give itself room to pound the prone Slayer flat with its boulder-like fists.

  Stepping past Ghurni, Khargrim placed himself over his dazed companion and braced himself for the inevitable. He heard Ghurni moan in pain or anger just as the beast roared directly into his own face and tensed its muscles to crush him to paste.

  But that blow never struck, for Khargrim met it with the head of his runebound hammer. The potent magic of the ancestors channelled through the arcane symbols etched upon its surface exploded in a blinding flash as dwarf-forged iron met lizard flesh. The resulting explosion propelled Khargrim as well as Ghurni back along the tunnel, and when the air cleared, nothing was left of the towering lizard-beast except a dripping purple smear across the ground, walls and ceiling.

  Khargrim struggled to his feet, dragging the coughing, gore-smeared Slayer upright by his arm, ignoring Ghurni’s protests that he had the creature beaten. Expecting further trouble, he raised his still-smoking hammer and braced his shield, only to see that the other creatures had vanished.

  His dwarfish eyes well able to penetrate the gloom, Khargrim could see that the beasts had not merely shrunk back into the shadows; they appeared to have retreated entirely, presumably back down the side tunnel towards the spawning chamber. Even as the ground trembled once more, Khargrim’s all-but blasted mind grasped the ramifications of this.

  ‘We cannot retrace our steps,’ he growled. ‘Not if there are more of those things down there, and if there aren’t then I’m a snotling… Karra? Karra, get here, girl, now!’

  Khargrim glowered darkly into the gloomy tunnel. The Amazon came to stand beside him just as another tremor sent a shower of dust drifting down from above. It was clear that the girl wanted to be anywhere other than where she was, and by her sullen glare Khargrim could tell she blamed him entirely for her predicament.

  ‘Whatever is happening back there,’ Khargrim indicated the chamber the group had just fled from with a jerk of a thumb, ‘We have to get out of here, before the roof comes down or the lizards come for us.’

  ‘Or both,’ Ghurni added.

  ‘Or both. Karra, do you know the way out?’

  The Amazon fixed Khargrim with a stare that confirmed his worst suspicions. Clearly, Karra was regretting agreeing to act as Khargrim’s guide, but as far as he was concerned, that was her own problem. In the meantime, she had a job to do.

  ‘Well?’ he pressed.

  Karra’s only response was to curl her lip in obvious disgust, before scampering off into the darkness, her serrated blade in one hand and a torch in the other.

  ‘I think that is a yes,’ said Ghurni, patting Khargrim on the shoulder as he started after the stealthy Amazon. In a few moments, the remainder of the expedition was dashing past, the half a dozen surviving thralls arguing amongst themselves. At the last, the most powerful tremor yet ground through the stone and Khargrim set off into the dark after his companions.

  It wasn’t long before the band encountered more foes. A mere hundred paces along the tunnel Khargrim heard the sound of fighting up ahead and soon discovered that they had run straight into a group of savage lizard warriors. Fortunately, these were far smaller than the lumbering brute Khargrim and Ghurni had faced before, but they were also a lot faster. Pushing his way to the head of the party, past the shaman Yngv who was still muttering his mystic cant, Khargrim came upon a chaotic and confusing scene.

  The Bjornling marauder Thorkell was wading through a darting shoal of bipedal re
ptilian forms, each around half his own size. His sword was flashing in all directions, each thrust and sweep cleaving lizard flesh and drawing hisses and shrieks from his assailants.

  ‘Skinks,’ Khargrim growled, his eyes narrowing as he took in the darting forms. He knew this particular strand of lizardmen of old, for they were the most numerous and the most often encountered as they patrolled the winding paths of their kind’s jungle realm. They were armed with short, hooked blades and small, buckler-like shields made of reptile hide, and they were as fast and vicious as goblins.

  But they were easily spooked if attacked in sufficient numbers, a tactic that Khargrim had used on many occasions. His hammer raised, he uttered a war cry in the tongue of his ancestors and barrelled headlong into the mass of lizard-kind, his companions copying his example as they followed on close behind.

  The first skink Khargrim came upon never saw its fate, his hammer smashing into the back of its crested head and crushing it utterly. Against these foes, Khargrim had no need to invoke the power of the runes etched into his hammer, and to do so would be to draw too heavily upon what was a finite reserve of ancestral power. As the body of the first skink collapsed twitching to the ground at his feet, a second turned and hissed right into his face. Khargrim almost didn’t see the sickle-shaped blade that cut upwards towards his gut and it was only the flash of torchlight on bronze that saved him from spilling his innards across the stone floor. He raised his shield just in time, deflecting the blow and returning one of his own, caving in the skink’s pointed snout in a welter of blood.

  As the squealing lizardman stumbled away, its claws grasped over its ruined snout, battle was fully joined. Ghurni fought at Khargrim’s side, hacking left and right with his massive axe while Karra darted to and fro, every lick of her serrated blade felling an enemy. A flash of motion told Khargrim that Verdandi was hanging back to fire sea bow arrows into the mass of skinks where it was safe to do so, while Ovar added to the weight of fire with his own short bow. Arrow after arrow thudded into the periphery of the mass of lizardmen, each one skewering a hissing skink so that soon the verges of the battle were littered with their pale blue reptilian bodies.

  For a brief moment, Khargrim found no assailant nearby and he paused to take in the situation. The lighting was erratic at best, for the torches the party had used to illuminate the path had been flung to the ground the better to fight the skinks, but Khargrim’s superior eyesight compensated for this as he scanned his surroundings. Then he saw what he was looking for, a side tunnel through which still more of the vicious lizardmen were streaming. Knowing that the party would soon be overwhelmed, he cast about for a means of blocking the passage and stemming the inexorable flood of enemies, even as yet another tremor rumbled through the ground.

  In that moment, a solution came to him. ‘Yngv?’ he shouted over the clamour of the ongoing battle and the noise of the quake.

  ‘Over here, engineer!’ Verdandi shouted. Spinning about, Khargrim located the sea-maiden and saw that that Yngv was near her. But before he could make for the pair, a hissing skink appeared at Khargrim’s side and suddenly he was plunged back into the raging battle. The creature darted first one way then the other, its short, hooked blade lashing out time and time again. Another of the creatures appeared at its side and the dwarf saw that the skinks meant to surround the party and cut them off from escape. Gritting his teeth, Khargrim raised his shield and barged his way forward, crushing one squirming assailant against the stone wall while he brought his hammer crashing down upon the head of the other. Releasing the first, he finished it off by stomping its head against the ground, and soon he was standing before the rambling shaman.

  ‘Yngv,’ he said, panting with the exertion of the fight. ‘Yngv, listen to me!’

  The man’s bearded face twisted and his eyes were wide with madness. Verdandi stood nearby, firing arrow after arrow into the ever-swelling mass of skinks. Casting Khargrim a wry glance between shots, her expression said she clearly believed the old Baersonling shaman had snapped.

  ‘Yngv!’ Khargrim demanded as he rounded on the ranting shaman. So strident was his tone that it drew the man’s attention, if only for a brief moment, which Khargrim grasped for all it was worth. ‘I need you to do something, and if you succeed you shall be known as the greatest shaman on this entire continent!’

  A small portion of the madness shining from Yngv’s eyes diminished, and he focused, if only in part, on the dwarf standing before him. Khargrim grabbed the shaman’s arms, shaking him as he continued, ‘They shall all know it, Yngv! All shall know you as the greatest mage this side of the Great Ocean!’

  Yngv’s eyes widened as something resembling sanity returned.

  ‘But only if you do this for me, Yngv,’ Khargrim pressed, glancing over his shoulder at the battle. Thorkell was on the verge of being overwhelmed even though he and Ghurni were fighting back to back, a pile of broken and bloody reptilian bodies strewn all about the savage pair.

  ‘Do what?’ the shaman demanded urgently, his eyes suddenly filled with determination and resolve.

  ‘There,’ Khargrim pointed towards the stone lintel above the passageway through which the skinks were swarming. ‘Bring it down and we live!’

  Yngv followed Khargrim’s gesture, understanding dawning upon his wizened features as he nodded resolutely. ‘You’d better get back!’ he shouted, filled with purpose.

  ‘Thorkell, Ghurni!’ Khargrim bellowed over the noise of battle. ‘Ware the tunnel!’

  Both fighters turned, and in a moment were working their way back towards Khargrim and the others, axe blades cutting down any enemies who dared approach too near. But Thorkell was visibly slower, his body marked by a dozen and more gashes where lizardmen blades had scored glancing hits in the chaos of the melee. Soon, Ghurni was dragging Thorkell behind him, the old warrior all but collapsing to the ground.

  ‘Verdandi, Ovar!’ Khargrim shouted. ‘Cover them!’

  Almost before Khargrim had completed his order the sea-maiden and the steppes hunter were unleashing a storm of arrows into the pursuing skinks, even as Yngv started up a loud incantation. A dozen reptilian bodies went down in what seemed like the blink of an eye, feathered shafts skewering them one after another. It was clear that Verdandi and Ovar were competing for kills, both making a good account of themselves and matching the other opponent one for one.

  As Thorkell and Ghurni staggered into the midst of the rest of the group, a trail of dead skinks behind them, Yngv’s chanting reached a fever pitch, his long hair and beard seemingly charged and standing on end as magical power surged all about. Khargrim was almost overcome by a wave of nausea far worse then he normally experienced in the proximity of the magic of men, and by her expression he saw that Verdandi was feeling the same thing.

  Yngv shrieked a victory yell as he concluded his incantation. Palm forward, the shaman gestured towards the passageway entrance as if pushing hard against an unseen barrier. His expression strained and his tattered robes billowing, he pushed harder still, and with an explosive detonation his spell was finally unleashed.

  The air itself turned to a solid thing that powered thunderously down the tunnel. The skinks were pulped in an instant, their remains smeared across the ground or flung before the invisible force like flotsam before a fast rising tide. Seconds later, the mystical projectile struck the monolithic lintel over the passageway, staving it in as if the clenched fist of a god had struck it a mighty blow. So powerful was the impact that the huge lintel cracked in two as it was pushed backwards into the fabric of the wall, stone blocks set in place millennia before violently shaken loose.

  With a bone-jarring crash of ancient masonry, the side tunnel collapsed, instantly crushing the dozens of skinks that had been dashing along its length in an effort to overwhelm Khargrim and his companions. A tidal wave of dust and powdered stone billowed out, obscuring what little remained of the skink corpses scattered across the ground. As the last few stones settled, silence fell. />
  For what seemed an age, no one said a thing, so dazed were they all by the stunning forces that had been unleashed. Then, another tremor started up, the stone beneath Khargrim’s boots visibly vibrating.

  ‘Yngv?’ said Khargrim. ‘What did you just–’

  ‘He just siphoned off a portion of the geomantic web,’ Verdandi mumbled in disbelief.

  ‘He did what?’ said Khargrim.

  ‘I didn’t mean to…’ Yngv stammered in shock at what he had done. ‘I really didn’t think I could...’

  ‘Engineer,’ Verdandi snapped urgently as she rounded on Khargrim. ‘The Baersonling has just inadvertently unleashed the power of the earth itself. If this place was unstable before, I think it is about to get a whole lot worse. I suggest we–’

  If the sea-maiden ever completed her warning, Khargrim didn’t hear it, for the very ground lurched upwards and the air was filled with the apocalyptic keening of splitting rock. The flagstones at the party’s feet shattered into thousands of jagged fragments and great fissures appeared in the ceiling above. As Khargrim and his companions fought to remain upright, great chunks of the ceiling split away, torrents of debris cascading from above.

  Khargrim raised his shield above his head, and not a moment too soon, for a large section of the ceiling directly overhead cracked, a shower of rocks falling straight down upon him and a thrall at his side. Khargrim’s shield took a pounding from the hail of boulders, but he braced himself against the torrent as stones rebounded all around. When at last the fall ceased, he was surrounded on all sides by scattered debris, and the thrall’s body was a bloody mess half buried nearby.

  His eyes filled with stinging rock dust, Khargrim could barely see, but he felt a tug on his arm and heard over the roar of grinding rock the voice of his friend Ghurni, though he couldn’t understand a word the Slayer was saying. Khargrim allowed himself to be shoved across the heaving floor towards what he guessed must be the portal Yngv had so spectacularly destroyed with his disastrously powerful spell.