Astonished by the city’s design, Thorik walked toward the perimeter scrolls. Brimmelle was now resting on one knee reading the runes in the center of one of the many granite tiles as he traced the letters with his fingertips as the light diminished.
Avanda came running up to them and grabbed Thorik’s hand. “You have to see this place. It is so different from Farbank.” She pulled him past the scrolls and into the courtyard. “Look at all of these animal statues. I counted over thirty that I knew what they were.”
Thorik brushed his hands along the stone animal statues as he accompanied Avanda and Emilen into the courtyard. “This is amazing, Em. What a wonderful place to grow up.” Looking around and seeing most everything in perfect shape, he added, “Why was it ever abandoned?”
She had been looking about for signs of life and his words finalized her thoughts. Leaving him, she ran across the stone courtyard and up the stairs.
Thorik and Avanda only watched for a moment before they followed her as she ran past the campfire and into the city yelling various people’s names.
Thorik yelled up to her while in pursuit, “I’m sure your family is fine. They must have just left because of the damage or simply went someplace safer.”
It was all he and Avanda could do to keep up with Em as she darted from one winding corridor to another in the limited light still emanating from the windows. She rushed into several rooms only to find them empty of life. By the time Thorik and his student had entered behind her, she was already pushing past them on the way back out. This continued until Thorik decided to wait outside in the hall for her to return from each room. This approach worked much better until she didn’t return from one of the rooms.
With very little light left in the hall Thorik and Avanda peered into the room expecting to see her resting with exhaustion, but instead they found a storage room with an open door on the far side. He quickly ran over to it and looked both ways down the new pitch-black hallway without seeing or hearing any sign of her. “Em?” he called down one way and then the other without receiving any response. “Now what?” he asked, knowing they were lost at this point regardless of direction. The last bit of light had diminished from the storage room and left Thorik and Avanda lost in the dark.
Feeling her way about the room, Avanda opened a cabinet engraved with decorative designs. Inside she felt cloths, a chalice, ornamental objects, and other ceremonial items. She stopped at a familiar object. “Thorik, I think I found a full oil flask.”
“Excellent,” he replied. He had found a lantern.
After locating his flint in his backpack, he filled the lantern with oil before lighting it. Their eyes adjusted and started to focus on the room. It had turned a yellowish-green from the oil’s flame.
Humming could be heard, soft at first, then growing in strength. It was familiar and vibrated from every direction. Not from behind the walls, but from the walls themselves.
The walls and ceiling quickly pulsed to life as they saw bees covering every inch of the stone surfaces.
Avanda stood still, watching in amazement.
Chills ran down Thorik’s spine. He grabbed Avanda’s hand and pulled her out the nearest door, into the corridor where Emilen had exited. He slammed the door behind them and rested his back against it while catching his breath. Struggling to understand why they hadn’t seen or heard any bees until that moment, he fought off Avanda’s pleas of curiosity to investigate it.
Instead, he selected a direction and started down its path with the lantern out in front to show the way with its sickly green light with hues of yellow and brown fading in and out against the walls and floor.
Avanda ran her fingers along the carvings of plant life on the walls as they moved forward. She could almost see the plants move from her touch. It seemed so life-like.
After a sharp turn in the corridor, the plant life became covered with carved cobwebs. Thorik strived to walk quickly in an attempt to catch up to Em. Although in reality, he was slowing down from an uncomfortable feeling about the place. As they progressed, the cobwebs had turned to stone spider webs that covering all surfaces.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw the webs shake and stir, causing him to become tense and nervous. “Avanda, stop touching the wall.”
“I’m not. It’s moving on its own,” she replied with renewed interest in it.
“Just stand on the other side of me, so you’re not accidentally brushing up against it.”
“Why? Isn’t it amazing? The stone is actually moving!”
“Yes, amazing. I’m sure it’s just a trick of our eyes. We are tired and not used to the lantern’s light yet.” He spotted several large spiders carved onto the webs. “Now please walk on the other side of me.”
“I’m not tired,” she said. “It’s really moving. They’re alive, watch.” Stopping next to the wall, she plucked a few spider webs with her fingers. It vibrated for a moment before subsiding.
“It’s stone, Avanda. Stone carvings don’t sway or move. It’s our eyes or something. Just because you can’t explain it, doesn’t mean that the stone has come alive.”
Disappointed in the response, she challenged him. “If it’s just stone, than you wouldn’t be scared to touch one of the carved spiders, would you?”
“Avanda, we don’t have time for this.”
She smiled in the greenish light, giving her an eerie look. “Hold your finger up against a stone spider and prove me wrong. Then I’ll drop it, forever.”
Thorik sighed. “Avanda, please. We need to find Emilen.”
“The Runestone of Bravery says…”
“All right, that’s enough. You win. I get plenty of those reminders from Brimmelle and I don’t need to start getting them from you too.” To free up his hands, he handed her the light source. “Pick a spider so we can get this over with.”
Her lantern was lifted toward the stone wall that displayed layers of webs and periodic palm sized spiders. After finding the largest one available, she pointed at it.
He moved closer to the one she selected. It was about eye level and he slowly reached out to touch it. But before he did, he retracted his hand and lowered it to the web below. He wanted to prove to himself that this was still a carving before touching the spider itself. Thumping the web caused it to move. “It must be some kind of twine made to look like stone.” He plucked the web a few times with his fingers, each instance getting a bit closer to the center of that specific web, near the spider. “This is a waste of time,” he muttered, stepping back from the wall.
He looked over at Avanda, who was smiling at his inability to prove her wrong.
“Fine, here is your answer.” He took the lantern back from her so he could get better lighting on the wall image. He stepped in closer to the wall and placed his first two fingers squarely on the spider carving. He could make out the tiny hairs on the spider’s back. The detail was amazing.
Turning and smiling at Avanda, he stood there relieved, still pressing his fingers against the stone wall for a few more moments. He had conquered his fears and was now ready to move on. If felt good. It felt fulfilling. It felt like the spider just moved out from under his fingers and was now climbing on his hand. Peering down, his eyes agreed.
Avanda screamed as the spider ran up onto the back of his wrist.
Thorik’s left arm was occupied with a lantern, preventing him from swiping at it. Instead, he tried to quickly shake it off. But it was too late. The arachnid was already crawling up his sleeve. Startled, he tossed the lantern to Avanda and began removing his backpack and shirt. He felt a bite on his upper arm and screamed from the pain. Ripping off the rest of his shirt, he felt the spider run onto his back where it couldn’t be reached. Thorik panicked and slammed his back against the wall to squish it. He felt the creature crack behind him and looked down to see it fall to the floor.
Avanda quickly stomped on it. She then attempted to kick it off to the side only to find that its squashed body was only a carving in the floor.
Success was short lived as Thorik realized that his bare back was now stuck to the wall carvings of webs.
Looking around for support to peel himself off, he noticed several more fist-sized spiders moving toward him from all directions on the wall. He pulled his chest forward, causing the granite webs to stretch as they held onto his shoulder blades.
Avanda began to pull his arms to help him pull his body forward. Small pieces of his skin ripped off and dangled from the wall carvings. Excruciating pain from ripping of flesh increased as one of the spiders jumped onto the back of his neck while another leaped onto his head. Fear increased and adrenaline rushed through his body, giving him the willpower to rip himself free of the granite illustration. Portions of stone web clung to his back while the wall had claimed segments of his skin. It was an even swap that Thorik had no interest in checking at this time as he stumbled away from the webs.
Avanda could see two more spiders on his back and grabbed the only weapon available, Thorik’s backpack. She swung the pack as hard as she could to crush or at least knock off the spiders. She failed, however, to warn Thorik of the upcoming attack.
“Awww!” Thorik screamed as she knocked him down to his knees.
“It’s okay,” Avanda notified him. “I got one off. Just one more on your back to go.”
Thorik rolled out of the way of Avanda’s overhead crushing blow with the pack. It smashed against the floor with the sounds of breaking items within the pack.
“Avanda, stop! Trust me, I’ve got this,” he told her as she prepared for another strike.
Reaching up, he grabbed the spider that was now biting the back of his neck and threw it off into the distance. The other burrowing in his hair was more difficult. It clung to the Num’s hair as he was only able to lift it an inch from his head. The lantern’s light gave Thorik the view of several more spiders making their way toward him, so he knew that his time was limited.
Using his free hand, he pulled his hunting knife out of his belt holder as he continued to lift the spider from his head. With one quick swipe he cut just below the spider, removing its legs and a large section of his hair. The spider was extracted and then tossed down the hall.
More spiders fell from the wall next to them and prepared to attack.
Thorik grabbed Avanda’s hand and their gear before running down the open corridor as quickly as they could, but they couldn’t outrun the attacking spiders who were gaining ground on them.
Noticing a set of closed doors, he crashed through them and quickly turned to shut them once Avanda was inside the room. Closing the doors tightly he looked at the edges of the door and the floor beneath it to see if any were coming through. It looked as though they had outrun them.
He breathed deeply as he rested his hands on his knees. His back was bloody from the webs as well as the spider bites on his arm and neck. The scratches and bruises from his backpack didn’t help any either. He could feel drippings of blood running down his skin and grabbed a cloth out of his worn backpack to clean some of it off before returning his shirt.
The pack was ripped and stained from liquids and powders from broken canisters. His coffer was intact, but it had crushed many of the other items. Disappointed, he looked over at Avanda’s innocent face.
She brushed herself off and softly smiled. “I told you they were alive.”
Putting on his torn shirt, he noticed movement from within the new room. Stone murals of a tropical forest bordered the grand sized chamber and granite trees created a canopy of limbs and leaves overhead. Although the light from the lantern wasn’t particularly bright, its beam carried for quite a distance, allowing Thorik to see a door on the far side of the room.
Turning to the nearest wall and raising his light higher, he looked out past the wall’s foreground bushes for some sign of life. He placed a hand on a carving of a bush in front of him in an attempt to look past it. Remarkably it worked and he could see the leaves move when he pushed it to the side. Thorik wondered if he was hallucinating or whether the stone actually was behaving in this very unstone-like manner.
A slight movement under the next shrub caused Thorik to go on the defensive. “Back up, something is out there.”
“Out where?” she replied, confused at what was happening. “You mean inside the wall?”
He nodded, eyeing the carvings that were only an inch or two in depth.
Backing away, she noticed a sound, and then an object moving toward her. She stumbled and fell onto her backside, away from the wall, as a creature jumped from its coverage and entered into the room at her feet. A clear crystal, long-eared hare hopped past Avanda quickly before disappearing into the adjacent wall.
“I’ll take a few crystal hares over granite spiders any day,” he chuckled before hearing a large catlike growl from the wall he had just investigated. They froze. His heart missed a beat. “Not again, what is this place?” He gently helped Avanda to her feet.
Keeping an eye on the wall illustration, he could hear the breathing of a large animal following their slow movement into the room. His experience with large cats in the wild had been enough to know to keep his distance, and also not to act like prey by running. It didn’t help that he had fresh blood on his back, assuming stone predators could smell.
Curious as to what they were up against, he grabbed one of the broken jars from his pack and threw it in the direction of the sound, attempting to scare it off. The glass jar traveled deep into the flat carving of the forest and shattered against a tree near the hidden creature. It had no effect. Thorik’s depth perception struggled as he tried to focus on various distances within a carving that was no more than a finger’s length deep.
Placing his pack on his back, he grabbed a dagger. Taking Avanda’s hand, he continued working his way out into the center of the room, toward the far door. The unseen cat moved along the wall with him, hidden from their sight.
The hunt lasted until the cat had an opportunity. It leapt out of the wall at Thorik, pushing the Num to the ground and knocking the dagger from his grip. Landing past Thorik’s fallen body, the black marble panther circled quickly before jumping onto the Num.
Fleeing was unlikely, the cat easily outweighed Thorik. Stretching and grasping a sharp piece of glass, which had fallen out of his pack, he stabbed the sharp edge toward the cat’s stone leg, hoping it could feel pain. Unfortunately, the cat grabbed the Num’s arm in his mouth, preventing the strike.
Unwilling to sit by and do nothing, Avanda attacked from behind, swinging the lantern at the panther’s head with all of her might. It hit her target, breaking the side of the lantern and snuffing out all light from the room. Everything went quiet. There was only one way to know if she had succeeded in frightening the cat away. She reached her hand out into the darkness to see if anything was still on top of Thorik. The silence added to her hesitation as she stretched her arm closer to where she thought they had been.
Her hand landed upon Thorik’s arm and then chest, before she felt the stone claw of the panther still resting on him. She knew there was no escape. Avanda screamed.
Chapter 17
Speak of the Dead
Fate of Thorik Page 20