The Stone Warriors

by Michael Northrop

  Alex woke slowly. There was a dull pain on the back of his head and the feel of stone beneath him and something gritty on his face and neck. He reached around to touch the sore spot. As soon as his finger pressed into the tender, swollen bump, he remembered how he’d gotten it.

  His eyes opened wide, only to be flooded by harsh light. He forced himself to sit up, and scanned the space above him for Aff Neb or his gunmen. But all he saw were the gently curved walls of a deep round pit and, far above that, a clear blue desert sky.

  Where was he? Why —

  “Good morning, Alex,” he heard. “Or should I say, good afternoon.”

  Todtman. As Alex turned toward his voice, he was surprised to feel the scarab shift against his chest. Aff Neb hadn’t taken it?

  Todtman was sitting up against the sheer wall of the pit, looking a little worse for wear, his familiar suit jacket and cane nowhere in sight. Ren was seated next to him. Alex felt his tensed muscles relax ever so slightly. He let out a long breath and pulled another back in. “I’m glad you’re both okay,” he said.

  “Are we?” said Ren. “I doubt it. I’m glad you’re awake or conscious, or whatever — but it’s not like we can go anywhere.” She gestured up at the pit.

  Alex took a quick look around. The pit had to be forty feet deep and at least as far across, the walls ranging from light tan to bone white. Limestone, he thought. Just like in the Valley of the Kings. The air was warm, and he reached up and brushed a sprinkling of sweat-stuck sand from his face and neck.

  “We’re in the desert,” he said.

  “Yes,” said Todtman, wincing as he rose to his feet. “Somewhere in the central desert, if I had to guess. It wasn’t an especially long flight.”

  Flight? thought Alex. He must have been really out of it.

  “Did they … hurt you?” he asked. It was a dumb question. He could already see a cut above Todtman’s left eye and a swollen bump under his right. He’d been roughed up. He quickly glanced over at Ren, relieved to see no visible injuries.

  “I may have resisted a little,” admitted Todtman, taking a few short steps. Without his walking stick, he limped noticeably on the leg that had been crippled by a scorpion sting during their pursuit of the first Death Walker. He began to slowly move across the pit. Ren popped up beside him. Her ibis and Todtman’s falcon were in plain view at their necks. Alex groaned as he climbed to his feet to join them.

  “Why didn’t they just finish us off back in Alexandria?” he said. They were approaching a new stretch of the pit’s gently curved wall, following Todtman’s slow progress. Alex had no idea where they were headed. There was no visible means of entrance or exit, no doorway or ladder or rope.

  “Yes, that does seem odd,” admitted Todtman, coming to a stop. “They may be curious about what we know.”

  An ice-cold wave washed through Alex. Minyahur. “We can’t say anything!” he said urgently.

  “We may not have a choice,” said Todtman, and the ice-cold wave doubled back. Torture. Magic. What lengths would The Order go to? He resolved then and there that they could do what they wanted to him. As much suffering as he had caused, the least he could do was endure some. Besides, he had a lifetime of practice with pain. But it wasn’t himself he was worried about. He looked over at Ren.

  “But it may not come to that,” continued Todtman. He lifted his sloping froglike chin toward a scattering of symbols cut into the wall. The shallow marks were nearly invisible in the light stone.

  “Why aren’t those cut deeper?” said Alex.

  “They were,” said Todtman. “But they’ve worn down through the ages. These symbols are very old — even by Egyptian standards.”

  “Old Kingdom?” said Alex.

  “Indeed,” said Todtman. “Close to five thousand years old, if I had to guess.”

  Instinctively, Alex and Ren closed their hands around their amulets. Only a moment later, they released them.

  “That’s weird,” said Ren. “Normally, the ibis lets me read hieroglyphs.”

  Todtman nodded. “As I said, they are very old. Precursors to the hieroglyphs we know today. But I think I can puzzle out a few. Here” — he pointed to the stacked symbols before them and then to another cluster a few yards away — “and there.”

  “What do they say?” said Ren.

  Todtman ran a finger along the shallow groove of the nearest symbol, pursing his lips and taking one last look before delivering his verdict.

  “It seems fairly clear to me,” he said, “that they brought us here to be …” He pointed at the last symbol in the bottom row. “Do you see that one? Very similar to a common hieroglyph found in nearly every Middle Kingdom tomb.”

  “Death?” guessed Alex. “Burial?”

  “Close,” said Todtman. “A sacrifice, an offering.”

  Alex stared grimly at the symbol, his head reeling with the realization. He felt, for a moment, like he might black out again. It might have spared him some suffering if he had, because he now understood why they’d been left with their amulets. In ancient Egypt, all sort of things were sacrificed to appease the spirits and please the gods: Everything from animals as large as oxen to treasures of incalculable value.

  He looked down at his scarab. The amulets were the priceless treasure.

  Then he looked up at his friends, the small, huddled group of three.

  And they were the animals.

  “We must get out of here,” said Todtman, peering up at the sky above. “And if we can, they have already taken us almost halfway to our destination.”

  Alex looked around, trying to calm his racing pulse. They were in deep trouble — literally — but Todtman’s presence gave him some extra confidence. They needed to concentrate on escape. But they needed to be smart about it. He remembered the spying fly at the university, and knew that this pit could be bugged in other ways, as well. “So that place is close?” he said.

  Todtman nodded. “It is in the southern desert.”

  “Yeah, if we can get out,” said Ren. “And if we can’t, we’re toast. Sacrificial toast.”

  Alex scanned the walls. “There must be a way out somewhere.”

  “There is an opening,” said Todtman. “Three meters up, behind us.”

  “Yeah,” confirmed Ren. “They dropped us out of, like, a door. We had to catch you. But I can’t find it now.”

  Alex eyed the stone nine feet up. “I don’t see one, either,” he said.

  “You are not meant to,” said Todtman. Where he stood, the shadow from the pit’s edge fell across him so that his chest and head were sunlit and everything below that bathed in gray. As Alex watched, the line of shade shifted and grew. There was something moving along the pit’s edge!

  Alex spun around.

  “Mmuh-rack?” The strangely familiar sound echoed clearly through the pit below.

  Alex exhaled. It was Ren’s undead BFF, the mysterious mummy cat she’d freed from a shattered museum case in London. They’d last seen her in the Valley of the Kings, which, Alex suddenly realized, probably wasn’t too far from here.

  “Pai!” called Ren, and immediately regretted it. Even forty feet below, they could see the mummy cat gather her haunches underneath herself and prepare to jump. “Don’t! Pai! No!” called Ren, but it was too late. The formerly frisky feline had already taken the leap. She whistled down the open air of the pit, legs slightly spread, ancient wrappings rustling.

  Ren started forward, like an outfielder approaching a fly ball, but she didn’t get there in time. She winced as Pai hit the ground in front of her.

  FFLONNK!

  Pai flattened out, spread-eagle, on impact. But by the time Ren reached her, the ex-cat was standing in the middle of the small cloud of sand and dust she’d kicked up, licking one bony front paw. “Mmm-rack!” she said as Ren scooped her up.

  Alex leaned over to Todtman. “I guess cats really do land on their feet — even undead ones.”

  Five feet away, Ren took one of Pai’s raggedl
y wrapped front legs in her hand and waved it back at them. “Pai says hi,” she said, her fear making her goofy.

  The mummy cat immediately leapt from her arms. Pai-en-Inmar, sacred servant of the cat-headed goddess Bastet, had her pride.

  Todtman watched the little exchange grimly. “Tell me,” he said. “Have you seen this cat out in the daylight before?”

  Alex thought about it. “Not usually,” he said. “We saw her at, like, sunset once, though. With King Tut.”

  Todtman’s eyebrows lifted at the mention of the boy king. Alex saw it and added: “He was a pretty cool guy. Tough, too — wish he was here to help us now.”

  “I don’t like it,” said Todtman.

  “Don’t like what?” said Ren, who had followed Pai back into their general vicinity.

  “Any of it,” said Todtman. “A simple mummy was one thing, and the ghostly voices in Cairo had no form. But Pai is a powerful and sacred creature. She used to visit this world only in the dead of night; now she walks in broad daylight. The two of you traveled into the afterlife, and something followed you out. Each Death Walker we encounter is more powerful than the last. And Tutankhamun, a pharaoh, a living god, was among us …”

  “Okay, but what does that —” Ren began.

  “The Final Kingdom,” said Todtman in a hushed tone.

  Alex, who had been scanning the pit wall for the hidden door or any other sign of weakness, choked on his own breath. He’d heard the same words on the sun-parched lips of the last Death Walker.

  “Wait, what?” said Ren. “Seriously, what?”

  Alex explained. He knew his friend hated not being in the know. “It’s, like, when the world of the living and the world of the dead join, when the barriers between them open, and …” He turned to Todtman. It had been years since his mom had told him the story. “What’s the rest?”

  Todtman looked down at the mummy cat, sunlight lighting her back. “And life and death wash together like the waters of the Nile.”

  “So, wait, that’s what this is all about?” said Ren, a quick study. “The Spells and The Order and the Death Walkers — and Pai?”

  “Mmm-rackk?”

  “I think so,” said Todtman. The old German’s tone remained distant and flat as he spoke, a retreat from his own fear into rationality. “The Spells opened a doorway between the world of the living and the world of the dead. It was a breach, a jailbreak. The Death Walkers were waiting, and they escaped. But now the walls are crumbling, too. The borders are opening. If they do, the worlds will merge and the living and the dead will exist side by side. One kingdom, and one in which The Order and their Walker allies would be unstoppable.”

  Alex stared down at the hard, sand-dusted floor. His growing guilt dug in with sharp fingers. He kept his eyes down in case the others were looking at him. That breach had been caused for him, to let him back through … He felt the sudden overwhelming urge to do something — anything! — to try to repair the damage. If we could just get to Minyahur, he thought. “Okay, I am not going to die in this pit,” he said, desperate for forward motion. “Maybe we can open the hidden door with our amulets … Maybe if I stood on your shoulders …”

  Todtman nodded. “Possibly. It is what is behind the door that worries me, but …”

  But above them, the doorway was already opening.

  The friends turned toward the grating sound of stone sliding along stone. The doorway swung inward, finally revealing its carefully hidden edges. Disliking the sound, Pai crept away into the shadow cast by the near wall. Alex, on the other hand, eyed the dark opening hungrily. A moment later it was filled by a looming figure.

  The man stepped forward, so tall and broad-shouldered that his thick black robes seemed to fill the entire frame. He regarded them through the eyes of a golden mask.

  “Another operative,” whispered Alex, his eyes transfixed by the pockmarked realism of the mask’s golden skin and the iron beak that curved down into a brutal point.

  “No,” whispered Todtman. “That is their leader.”

  Alex finally placed the image on the mask. It was an Egyptian vulture, a species that was both fearsome predator and opportunistic scavenger. This man was the leader of the ancient death cult that had hounded them across three continents. And now, he spoke.

  “You have come a long way,” he said. “You have troubled me more than you know. Weighed on my thoughts.”

  The vulture mask had two small eyeholes, and Alex caught a subtle glimmer in the darkness behind them, a flash of white and reflected light. The man’s words could apply to any of them, but his eyes were fixed on Alex.

  “I should have killed you already, but even now, I am tempted to offer you a deal. Tell me what you know in exchange for your little lives …” Alex still felt as if this man was talking directly to him, but a beat later his gaze shifted to take in the others. Looking for takers, he found none — and then he withdrew the offer. “But you would lie to me. I would torture you and stare into your souls — but still you would lie. You Keepers, you act like such heroes, and yet you lie so well … It makes me wonder how different we really are.”

  But he didn’t wonder for long. He turned back toward Alex and continued: “I am sorry. But it is over. Soon, we will piece together what you found in that library.” Alex glared angrily up at the man. “Your part is done, your struggle is over, but die knowing two things. First, you serve a noble purpose. Your sacrifice will win us the favor, and more control, of a powerful ally. And second, death, as I am sure you understand by now, is only the start of your journey.”

  Alex caught a glimpse of heavy leather boots, just visible beneath the hem of the leader’s robes. His feet were mere inches from the edge of the doorway. Alex’s amulet had thrown a man across a room before. How hard would one good tug be? But as he began slowly sliding his hand up toward the scarab, his fingers began to twitch and spasm. He had lost control of his own hand, and a moment later it jerked back down to his side in one convulsive movement.

  “Ah, Alex — Alex Sennefer — I do appreciate the fight. I do. But I assure you, I am in control here.” The leader’s gaze shifted between Alex and Todtman. Alex’s eyes followed, and he saw that Todtman’s hands were also twitching slightly at his sides.

  The German tried reason instead. “It is a dangerous game you play,” he said. “In your rush for power, you are unleashing forces that you can’t possibly —”

  “Oh, but it is not a game at all,” said the leader. “It is deadly serious. And you should know better than to underestimate me.” He paused, though Alex couldn’t say if it was to savor the moment or mourn it. Either way, the leader ended with a flourish: “Enjoy the other side.”

  He took one last look at Alex and spun around. The hems of his robes whirled. Alex and Todtman reached for their amulets, but it was too late. Two quick steps had carried the leader back into darkness, and he was gone. Stone ground against stone as the door began to slide closed.

  “Stop it!” called Todtman. “Keep it open!”

  Alex grasped his scarab hard with his left hand and pushed his right palm straight out at the closing door, directing all the amulet’s force against it. Todtman did the same. The door slowed briefly and then …

  KHHRUUNNK!

  It slammed shut.

  “No,” gasped Ren as the noise echoed through the pit.

  “He is not staying to watch, to take credit,” said Todtman, his tone shaken and uneasy. “Whatever is coming scares even him.” He turned toward Ren. “You must use the ibis. We must know what we are facing.”

  Alex was ready to jump in if she needed more convincing, but Ren just nodded. Alex watched her carefully as she took hold of the pale white bird. She’d drawn a blank last time — literally. Would this time be any different? Her eyes closed briefly, and when they opened again, Alex could see the fear in them.

  “What is it?” said Todtman.

  Alex had a pretty good idea what she was going to say, but he held his breath, hoping he
was wrong.

  “Death Walker,” she breathed.

  “Oh no,” said Alex. They all understood the danger. The Walkers were powerful ancient entities. Knowing they would fail the weighing of the heart ceremony to gain entrance into the afterlife, they had clung to its edges by sheer force of will, waiting for their opportunity to escape. The only way to defeat one was by using the scarab’s power and the right spell from the Book of the Dead — the spell that connected with what the Walker had been in life. But none of that mattered now. They didn’t have a copy of the Book of the Dead, not even a single spell, much less all two hundred.

  “Did you see anything we can use against it?” whispered Todtman. “Any way to escape?”

  Ren shook her head. “It’s too late,” she whispered. “It’s coming.” She pointed at the limestone wall to her left, taking a trembling step back as she did.

  Alex peered at the pale stone. There was nothing there, and for once, he hoped his best friend was wrong.

  She wasn’t.

  The wall itself — the ancient, weathered stone — began to shift, to push outward.

  A shape began to emerge.

  Ren watched in horror as the flat stone of the wall began to bulge outward into a bubble of pale stone about six feet up. She didn’t realize it was a face until the sunken eyeholes took shape and the neck began to push outward underneath it. Then came the shoulders, then the chest.

  The head pulled free of the wall with a wet tearing noise that sounded more like meat than stone. The rest of the body dragged itself free of the wall, leaving no indentation, no indication whatsoever that a section of stone the size and shape of a ragged human body had been removed.

  Its steps were stiff and uneven. Chunks of stone flaked off and fell to the ground with each bend and flex. The creature stopped, crossed its stony arms in front of it, and pointed its featureless visage toward the sky above.

  There was a soft cracking sound.

  “Turn away!” called Todtman, covering his face with his hands and turning his back on the macabre spectacle. As he turned, his bad leg gave out and he crumpled to the ground.