The remaining Alpha did not seem to notice three flaming arrows sticking out of its back. Just as Hastelloy finished pulling Gallono to safety and reached for his sword, the Alpha leapt for the stairs. Hastelloy’s blade sliced clean through the beast as it sailed overhead and landed thirty feet down the stairs with a sickening sound somewhere between a crunch and a squish and moved no more.
By the time Hastelloy redirected his attention to helping Gallono, he found the man on his feet attempting unsuccessfully to grab hold of the wooden shaft protruding from the back of his right shoulder.
“Here, let me take a look,” Hastelloy said as he held Gallono steady. Fortunately the arrow hit the triangular shaped trapezius muscle spanning the gap between his neck and shoulder. It had to hurt like hell, but nothing vital was broken or punctured. “The tip won’t let me pull it back out, I need to push it through.”
Hastelloy grabbed hold of the arrow’s shaft, snapped it in half and gave Gallono the free piece to bite down on.
“I have to conclude your arithmetic sucks,” Gallono mocked and then chomped down on the piece of wood. “You couldn’t have left another millimeter on that candle to give me time enough to get under cover along with you?”
Hastelloy couldn’t contain a laugh. “The math was right, you’ve just lost a step old man.” He then pushed the arrow through and out the other side accompanied by a primal grunt from the patient. The gaping wound would need further medical attention, but now was not the time. The two proceeded quickly down the steps toward the well lit chamber housing the ceramic army protecting the tomb of Qui Shi Huang, and now the Alpha.
Chapter 55: Back to Life, Back to Reality
When Hastelloy and Gallono reached the bottom of the steps leading to the clay soldier pits, the captain notched an arrow on his bow and followed Gallono who was leading the way with his sword drawn. They reached a ninety degree turn and Gallono stole a quick glance around.
He looked back at Hastelloy and silently pointed to his own eyes then held up two fingers. An openhanded gesture to the left let Hastelloy know his assignment. The moment Gallono turned back around and brought his sword to the ready Hastelloy stepped around the corner, instantly aligned his shot and let loose the fletching while Gallono dashed forward toward his target on the right.
The Alpha standing left of the doorway took an arrow in the throat and dropped to the ground with a muffled gurgle. The remaining guard wasted no time lamenting his fallen comrade. He reflexively swung his sword at the charging Gallono who collapsed onto one leg and slid along the ground to successfully duck the mighty blow. He cleaved the creature’s left leg off at the knee causing the beast to topple over.
Before the Alpha’s body even touched the dirt, Gallono had already sprung back to his feet and had his sword in motion to deliver the deathblow through the beast’s chest. With the immediate threat eliminated, Hastelloy took a moment to survey the gigantic underground chamber they just entered. Forty feet above their heads a dome stretched two hundred feet wide and eight hundred feet deep, supported every twenty feet by stout wooden beams reaching from floor to ceiling.
Thousands of reddish brown clay soldiers, complete with sword and shield in hand, stood in seemingly endless marching columns. Resting tall and proud in the middle of the chamber was the spacecraft that he and Gallono recently observed the Alpha relocate below ground. Knowing that twelve Alpha had to cram into that modest fixed wing craft to make the journey from Mars to Earth made Hastelloy feel a brief sympathetic bout of claustrophobia.
Hastelloy stepped over the Alpha he dropped with his bow and was about to proceed between two rows of clay soldiers leading to the Alpha craft when Gallono yanked him back with an iron grip.
When Hastelloy caught his balance again, he followed Gallono’s hand pointing to a barely visible tripwire running between the legs of the third row of statues. He then gestured up to the rafters where a set of tightly wound crossbows were trained on the spot.
“It appears the first Chinese emperor didn’t plan on hosting any visitors in the afterlife,” Gallono whispered. “We’ll need to keep an eye out.”
“Indeed,” Hastelloy acknowledged as he stepped aside for Gallono to take the lead again. Three other tripwires were stepped over before they reached a small clearing in the statues made for the ship.
Hastelloy spotted a human with his back turned standing on one of the wings. He quietly notched an arrow, took aim and fired. His aim was true, but the projectile clanked harmlessly off the man’s neck. When the individual turned to face them, Hastelloy realized it was actually a realistically painted clay soldier animated by an Alpha relic.
“Intruders,” the soldier yelled in the Alpha language which drew another animated statue to the fight.
As their adversaries stalked toward them, Hastelloy cast his bow aside; his action was quickly followed by Gallono’s sword. They both stepped out into the open with their hands clasped behind their backs to do battle with the enemy bearing down on them.
The clay soldiers continued forward uninterrupted. They were supremely confident in their nearly indestructible forms, and that overconfidence would be their undoing.
“I sure hope this works,” Gallono grunted and then stepped toward the nearest soldier and swung his arms around at waist level wielding a heavy sledge hammer.
The weapon’s blunt end struck the prowling figure just above its left hip. The dense clay material seemed to momentarily reshape around the hammer’s head, but eventually gave way to the overwhelming force behind the devastating blow. A six inch wide section of the creature’s abdomen was sliced off and flung to the side leaving the torso teetering precariously on top of its separated legs, causing them to dry from malleable clay into fire hardened terracotta in the span of a heartbeat.
Gallono allowed the momentum of his swing to whirl him around to deliver a shoulder check to the clay warrior’s chest sending that half of its body backwards to the ground. Without a moment’s pause, Gallono swung the sledge hammer over his head with two hands and brought it down with everything he had onto the creature’s chest.
His downed opponent appeared to deflate upon impact leaving a vibrant blue haze outlining in its place. A moment later the glow faded away into nothing leaving a shattered remnant of the once menacing clay warrior.
Hastelloy’s attack was not quite as successful. His mighty hammer swing connected at the shoulder of the soldier’s sword wielding arm spraying clay fragments against the Alpha ship like a shotgun blast. The heavy strike threw Hastelloy hopelessly off balance, leaving him momentarily vulnerable, and the clay soldier did not miss his chance.
The soldier threw a punch with his remaining arm, hitting Hastelloy on the exposed backside of his shoulder. The blow sent Hastelloy twirling to the ground, unable to feel anything on his right side. It was like that half of his body was completely detached from the rest of him. Nothing moved no matter how hard he tried.
The soldier moved in to finish him off with a bone crushing stamp from his heavy foot, but Gallono was having none of that. He struck the clay soldier in the hip with his hammer and sent it crashing to the ground without a right leg.
Gallono wasted no time. He stepped up, drew his arms over his head and whipped the hammer down onto the soldier’s chest, yielding an identical result as before. Once he confirmed the life force was no longer in control of that form, Gallono turned to help Hastelloy to his feet.
“You alright?” Gallono asked.
“Nothing’s broken, but I’ve definitely been better. My god those things are strong,” Hastelloy marveled as he rotated his arm to get used to the sensation of moving a limb that still had no feeling in it. His attempt to walk on the nerve deadened leg resulted in him stumbling into Gallono’s arms.
At that moment Hastelloy’s eyes detected a subtle lighting change in the chamber. The reddish glow of the oil lamps was being drowned out by a flash of bright blue coming from a tunnel just beyond the Alpha craft. It was growing in int
ensity with every passing moment. He shielded his eyes in time to witness a blinding blue flash wash over the chamber and then dissipate to nothing.
An instant later Hastelloy watched a clay statue twenty feet away step forward, look around to gain its bearings and began strutting toward Hastelloy and Gallono.
Gallono quickly slung Hastelloy’s arm over his shoulder and began hauling him toward the tunnel from which the light flash originated. “Ever feel like you’re bailing water out of a sinking ship with nothing but a tea cup?”
“If the relics from Mars reach this place it will be like an ocean rushing in on us,” Hastelloy said as he staggered alongside Gallono.
In rapid succession three more flashes flew harmlessly past them and overtook the chamber. Hastelloy stole a glance behind to see three more statues come to life and join in pursuit of the two Novi.
Twenty feet from the tunnel entrance the clay warriors drew too close for comfort. Gallono gave Hastelloy a hearty shove toward the tunnel and turned to face their pursuers.
“Go shut down whatever is causing them to regenerate,” Gallono shouted over his shoulder. “Meanwhile, I’ll try to hold back the rising tide as long as I can.”
Hastelloy stumbled forward and just barely managed to catch himself before slamming headfirst into the hardened earth wall. Feeling was coming back to his right side and brought with it an excruciating tingling sensation that managed to electrify every nerve ending on that side of his body. Using the wall as a crutch, he ducked into the tunnel leaving Gallono to fend for himself.
“Don’t forget to watch out for traps along the way,” he heard Gallono say before the voice was drowned out by a thunderous explosion.
Chapter 56: Stone Silence
With Hastelloy safely away, Gallono spun around to the menacing sight of four hardened clay warriors bearing down on him in a spread semicircle formation. He knew one well placed swing of his sledge hammer would destroy one of his assailants, but the remaining three would have him surrounded and he’d be dead soon after.
Rather than facing them out in the open, Gallono opted to back his way into the tunnel and force the clay warriors to come at him single file in a confined space. By the time the tunnel cast its dark shadows over Gallono, his opponents were just a few steps behind.
Realizing how difficult it was to see anything in the tunnel gave Gallono cause for concern about Hastelloy’s safety. “Don’t forget to watch out for traps along the way,” he shouted up the tunnel while working to remove one of the two hand cannons he carried on his back. He jammed the long wooden shaft into the ground and braced it with the instep of his right foot. He sparked the fuse to life and pointed the three foot long canister on top toward the approaching clay warriors.
Gallono closed his eyes and held his breath, but there was nothing to be done about his ears. An instant later the world erupted around him with sound and fury. Hundreds of metal shards propelled by gunpowder exploded out of the hand cannon. In the tunnel’s darkness the flash was nearly blinding, even with his eyes shut, and in the narrow corridor the smoke made it impossible to breath. Those disadvantages, however, were far outweighed by the results.
Aligned in a single row, all four clay warriors simply ceased to exist; the largest fragments remaining could fit in the hand of a small child. Gallono stumbled out of the tunnel and into the open again. He exhaled and took a deep breath of the relatively fresh air available to him out there. With his eyesight still washed out from the explosive flash, Gallono did not venture any farther from the tunnel. He needed to defend the entrance and buy Hastelloy as much time as possible in order to destroy the Alpha’s reanimation device.
It took a few minutes before Gallono was able to make out shapes with his vision, but he was able to see well enough to notice a bright blue flash rush past him, then another followed by two more. He looked to his left and saw two clay soldiers marching side by side toward him.
“How does it feel facing the same adversary over and over again?” one of them barked in the Alpha language.
To even the odds Gallono gripped his hammer with both hands, raised the handle over his head and flung it at the approaching soldiers. One of them was taken completely off guard by Gallono relinquishing his weapon. The momentary hesitation allowed the sledge hammer to hit it dead center in the chest. The hammer barely paused as it sailed right through the clay warrior, producing an explosion of clay shards with the hammer landing another thirty feet away among the rows of inanimate statues.
“Same opponent, same result,” Gallono mocked as he ducked under the remaining soldier’s sword swing. He sidestepped another cut and twirled in behind the hardened clay soldier to deliver a leg sweep to the back of its heel.
To his great disappointment, the strike only produced a shooting pain running up and down his right leg while his sturdy opponent didn’t even budge. In return the soldier landed a colossal backhanded punch to Gallono’s cheek that sent him to the dirt and rolling away just in time to avoid a downward slice of the sword that would have cut him in half.
“Not the result you were expecting I suppose,” the soldier said with a soft laugh.
Gallono panicked for an instant when he realized he no longer stood between the soldier and the tunnel entrance. The way was open for the creature to make a clean run after Hastelloy, but it didn’t. His opponent was completely fixated on him and that was just fine with Gallono.
On the bright side, Gallono was now free to retrieve his hammer. He dashed three layers deep between two rows of statues and finally found the heavy object on the ground with the handle resting vertically against a statue’s leg. Just when he wrapped his hand around the handle, another blue flash overtook the chamber and a moist clay hand grabbed Gallono around his left biceps and flung him backwards through the air like a ragdoll.
He crashed into another clay, soldier toppling the statue to the ground. Gallono rose to his feet again, but noticed the load on his back was significantly lighter. He looked down to see his last remaining hand cannon smashed at his feet.
“Uh oh, you broke your toy,” the soldier who launched Gallono through the air chuckled loudly while stalking toward him.
Another flash of blue let Gallono know trouble was near. Suddenly a sword from a nearby statue to his right was in motion. He bent backwards just in time to only suffer a light cut across his chest. Gallono immediately brought his hammer forward again and managed to obliterate the statue before it had time to catch its balance following the overly aggressive attack.
Gallono looked around his position and realized he was among dozens of potential enemies who could come to life at any moment to backstab him. He dashed into the open where three clay soldiers awaited him with a fourth charging at his back.
He headed straight for the tunnel and used the wooden handle of his hammer to deflect a blow and then countered with a two-handed swing. This time the blow was blocked and all he heard was the disheartening snap of wood. The weakened handle broke in half leaving Gallono with a foot long stick to defend against four soldiers armed with swords.
“We’re as constant as the northern star,” the nearest clay soldier barked in a feminine voice. “Eventually, you will go down.”
Out of options, Gallono made a break for the dark tunnel leading to the burial chamber of the earthen pyramid. He did not have the luxury of taking his time; he was in full retreat mode with the clay soldiers now on the run after him. The path was not completely dark. It was lit by an oil lamp about every twenty feet.
High stepping his feet and feeling his way along the hardened dirt walls Gallono frantically searched for anything along the half mile tunnel that would be useful. He wasn’t being picky, anything at all would do.
As he approached a lit floor lamp he spotted a hair thin line running between the far wall and the lamp base a few inches off the ground. Gallono looked for any indication as to what the wire might trip, but he saw nothing. No loaded crossbows, no holes in the wall where spears might impal
e an intruder, there was nothing.
Before he reached the tripwire, one of the pursuing soldiers flung his sword at Gallono which caught him in the leg along his right thigh, tripping him up. Unable to arrest his fall, Gallono dove headfirst over the wire and landed in a crumpled heap ten feet beyond. He attempted to get up again, but the sword protruding from his leg prevented such movement. It was over, and he resigned himself to that fact.
The four clay soldiers slowed their pursuit to a casual stroll when they drew near. “Oh he’s down now; down for good.”
Gallono’s only hope was that the tripwire would trigger something catastrophic. He watched the first soldier step right over the string through sheer luck, but the second pointed out the danger to the others. Out of options, Gallono threw the chopped down wooden handle in his hand at the line and succeeded cutting it clean through.
The soldiers looked concerned for a moment, but let it pass when nothing happened. “They don’t make them like they used to I suppose.”
A weighty groan shortly followed the clay warrior’s words and a stone block three feet thick and twenty feet long crashed down from the tunnel ceiling leveling all four soldiers in its path.
“Down but not out,” Gallono sighed while struggling back to his feet. He pulled the sword out of his leg, and removed his shirt to tie a tourniquet around his thigh. He then continued hobbling his way toward the burial chamber that Hastelloy was hopefully demolishing at that very moment. A few minutes later a flash of radiant blue light raced past him to let Gallono know a fight may still lay ahead for him at the end of his hike.
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