Arc and Julie looked at the road, their eyes following the tyre tracks from the sand-strewn asphalt to the cracked ground. The tracks led up to a stone tunnel that made its way into the side of the cliff, leaving the road firmly behind it.

“I don’t like this,” said Julie.

“Me neither,” agreed Arc. “But if we’re to find Jacky Boy, this is the way we go.”

“You’re right.”

Drawing both his revolver and his spellcaster, Arc marched on ahead and Julie followed closely behind. The bounty hunter was keenly aware that going through the tunnel could as easily have been a trap as it could have been the way towards Colt’s base, but he knew there was no choice but to keep on walking.

The duo entered the dark tunnel that grew dimmer with each passing step that put the sunlight further behind them. It had been hot outside, but it was sweltering in here with no ventilation to speak of. This only exacerbated the foul smell wafting down the tunnel; the smell of a garlicky rotten fish.

“I think I’m going to be sick,” said Julie weakly. “What is that?”

“I’m not sure,” said Arc, but he had an inkling. “It could be a lizard.”

“A lizard?”

“Yeah, scaly fellas with sharp teeth and claws.”

“I know what a lizard is.”

“Then why’d you ask?”

“I just…oh, stop it.”

Arc chuckled and Julie gave him a small punch in the back. In a serious situation like this, his jokes were not appreciated, but it had achieved the desired effect of taking her mind off her brother’s kidnapping for a brief moment. Sadly, the hollow feeling inside her returned shortly afterwards.

The further they walked, the stronger the foul smell became. Arc was more convinced than ever it was some sort of lizard, but he could only guess as to the type. He didn’t think it would be kobolds as they tended to smell more like damp rags. It wasn’t a drake because there were no dragons for them to guard in these parts and that was presuming that dragons hadn’t gone extinct, as had long been theorised.

There was now utter darkness and Arc had to run the side of his hand along the wall to stop himself from tripping over. Had the car still be usable, driving through with the headlights on would have been a breeze. Without a doubt, he and Julie would have been at the other side by now.

Julie grabbed onto the back of Arc’s jacket. “Would you believe I thought a peaceful life was possible just this morning?”

“No such thing, Julie,” said Arc. “Especially not if you want to do some good in this world.”

“I was happy just making enough money to live and never setting foot outside of Pembroke again.”

“Trouble would have come one day,” said Arc. “I had just hoped that it would have been years down the line for you, when you and your brother were prepared for it.”

“I don’t blame you. You do know that, right?”

Arc smiled a smile that couldn’t be seen. “I know.”

“And we’ll pay you back when we can?”

“Pay me back?”

“For looking out for us all the time.”

“Nah, I’m not looking for payback.”

Julie tugged on his jacket. “We’re going to pay you back and you’re going to accept it, one way or another.”

“Live and prepare yourselves for the next bad day,” said Arc. “That is payment. Money, goods, favours…I don’t need that from either of you.”

Julie was about to speak again, but Arc suddenly stopped moving. He ran his hand over the wall that was now metal rather than stone. It couldn’t have been a door, could it? He felt around and located a metal bar running along the middle and over to another door right beside the first.

“Give me a hand, would you?” Arc asked Julie, taking her wrist and placing it on the left handle while he took the right.

The two gave the handles a shove and they compressed before opening up and flooding their eyes with light. The pair were blinded by the sun that shone down into the small clearing they had discovered. After their eyes adjusted, they both recoiled in horror and Arc raised both of his guns. A split second from firing, the spellslinger breathed a sigh of relief.

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“It’s dead,” he said.

“I almost fainted,” said Julie, leaning against the wall.

What sat before them was a large reptilian corpse that had been staring at the door, no doubt having died waiting to be released. Its scaly skin lay on the ground, surrounding the creature, having slid from its body as the flesh beneath rotted away. All that was left was a brownish skeleton beast with no eyes.

Behind the skeleton stood two dozen stone statues. A few remained perfectly intact, but most of them had been bashed to pieces or were partially crumbled away. Most of the remaining statues were of men, but one was of a woman and the other was of a young child, not much older than Julie.

“Statues?” she asked, standing up straight and walking into the clearing that was surrounded by cliffs.

“Statues,” said Arc grimly. He didn’t have the heart to tell her how these statues had gotten here.

Julie walked over to one of the broken statues and picked up its head in her hands. It was of a woman whose face was fixed into a scream. It was both chilling and mesmerising to Julie, who ran her fingers over the statue’s features.

“It’s so lifelike,” she said.

“Indeed,” said Arc, looking over his shoulder. “We should probably get moving while we’ve still got daylight. At least with this door open, we can see further ahead.”

“You aren’t curious about these statues?”

“Their origin is a riveting tale, no doubt. Unfortunately, not one we have time to worry about.”

“I’m missing something, aren’t I?” asked Julie.

“I’m not that subtle, am I?” mused Arc, walking over to one of the statues of the men. He put his hand on its shoulder and then looked to Julie. “These statues were not always statues, in the same way that the big lizard over there was not always a skeleton. They were alive not so long ago.”

Julie gasped and dropped the statue’s head. It broke an ear on the ground and Julie’s hands trembled as she reached to pick it up, but she drew her hands back up and took a few steps towards Arc.

“That big guy over there?” said the spellslinger. “Is a basilisk. What he’s doing locked up in here and what this clearing is doing here are questions I can’t answer. What I can say for sure is that these unfortunate souls looked into his eyes and were turned to stone instantly.”

“It killed them?” asked Julie, looking around. Even with the sun beating down, chills spread throughout her body.

“Once upon a time, there was a way to restore people who had been petrified back to life. The clerics of old could cast divine spells to restore them to their original forms, but there are as many clerics left as there are mages. Even divine magic was largely stamped out after the Arcanaclysm.”

“And what about the broken statues?”

“The broken statues would be restored with their broken parts still broken. I reckon that headless lady you dropped would have been dead even before you broke her ear, don’t you?”

Julie walked over to the basilisk’s skeleton. “These things just…exist? They walk around, turning people to stone for no reason? All with a glance…”

“For millennia, yes. From what I remember, they were hunted to near extinction and they retreated to the underground to hide.”

“You were right,” said Julie. “Let’s leave immediately.

“Fine by me,” said Arc, taking a few steps towards the door. Before stepping through it, he heard the pitter patter of many feet scurrying along the stone. “Close your eyes!”

Julie did as she was told and then placed her hands over them for good measure. She didn’t dare reach for her gun to shoot at the unseen foe, fearing that she would hit Arc rather than her target.

Arc himself squatted by the edge of the door, waiting for the creatures to come into the room with both his revolver and spellcaster at the ready. The sound of the rushing footsteps grew heavier, but they were dull thuds rather than stomps. What was coming was not an adult basilisk.

Small lizards bounded into the clearing, their petrifying eyes fixed on the shaking Julie. With several bangs, the three young basilisks stopped moving. Arc closed his eyes and walked over to where he knew each of them to be. He raised his foot high and then crushed each of them in turn beneath his boot.

Their reptilian bodies made sickening cracks and squelches as he broke them. The last of the three even let out a croaking screech, having been unfortunate enough to remain alive before Arc squashed it. For good measure, he stomped on that one a couple more times to ensure its death.

“You’re alright,” said Arc, but Julie didn’t uncover her eyes.

“You’re sure?” she asked.

Arc walked over to the tunnel and looked up and down. He stood silently for a minute, listening for anything scrambling towards him, but there was only silence. He walked back over to Julie and took her wrists, lowering them.

“You’re alright,” he said resolutely.

Julie opened her eyes and blinked a couple of times. “Okay,” she said squeakily.

Arc dragged his feet along the ground, trying to clean the blue blood, but it did little. He would need to give them a good scrub back in Pembroke whenever he, Jack and Julie made their way back from Colt’s hideout.

“Come on,” said Arc, leading the way out of the stone garden, but keeping both of his guns handy.

The two walked along the tunnel in silence, neither feeling much like talking just in case there was something else lurking in the shadows. Every so often, Julie would close her eyes and take the back of Arc’s jacket before getting the courage to look again a minute later.

It wasn’t long before light appeared in the distance, signalling that the end of the tunnel was close. Julie was relieved, but Arc was perhaps even more relieved, even if he refused to show it. He had feared showing up to rescue Jack with Julie already dead, but to have her turned into a statue by a basilisk seemed somehow worse.

“More!” cried Julie, seeing a few reptilian figures on the ground.

“They’re already dead,” said Arc, not deterred.

The two walked up to the five dead basilisks. They were all similar in size to the three that Arc had killed, and all five had been crushed by something heavy that left a bloody blue trail in its wake.

“Tyre tracks,” said Arc brightly. “Look at that, we’re still going the right way.”

“We were in a tunnel with only one way to go,” said Julie.

“That we were, Julie,” said Arc, walking out into the open.

Julie couldn’t help but laugh. As wild of an emotional rollercoaster as she had been on the last few hours, there was something comforting about Arc’s apparent joviality. She often had thoughts about what made him so optimistic in a world as cruel as this, but she never liked to pry too much into his past.

She hurried to catch up with Arc as he headed over to a new road where the last remnants of the basilisk blood told the duo the way forward. Julie was filled with renewed determination to find her brother and rescue him from Colt’s clutches.