I’m confident I can take on Zarath’s henchment - the skeleton warriors. But I’m worried about Jenna and Synt getting hurt if the warriors chuck their weapons in our direction. Flesh and blood beings are so fragile.
“Jenna, Synt, stand well back! I’m going to test out Zarath’s sword.”
“Keep it away from me,” says Synt, stepping back.
I grip the ruby encrusted hilt in both my bony hands and then will my hands to break off my wrists and hurl themselves at the followers of Zarath, along with the sword.
My floating hands trick comes very easily to me now. It takes little more than a thought for my skeletal hands to break off and hurtle down the corridor with the sword…
The Skeleton Warriors murmur in terror as Zarath’s sword decapitates them all with a single swing, slicing through their plate mail armour as easily as if it were butter. My hands bring the sword around in another wide arc, smashing their skeletal frames to smithereens.
I advance towards them as my hands smash each of the skeleton warriors’ skulls. When the sword breaks their skulls, the burning red light in their eye sockets goes out. Now only the skull of the leader warrior is still intact.
“Zarath will get you!” He calls at me in defiance, his hollow voice echoing in the rocky corridor. “He’ll freeze the blood in your veins.”
“My blood is all dried up and gone,” I reply.
“It’s a figure of speech, you fool!” He snaps. “Zarath cannot be stopped.”
I shake my skull. “A moment ago, you were bragging about how you couldn’t be stopped. Now die, servant of Zarath.”
My hands bring the sword up one more time and break his skull in two. Then they fly back and re-attach themselves to my arms.
I cautiously survey the wreckage of the warriors. They’ve been reduced to splinters of bone and scraps of armour, but the leader had a leather bag. I open it and find a bronze key. It might be useful. I take it.
“They’re definitely dead now,” I call to Jenna and Synt who approach with caution. Jenna’s eyes are wide in her green face.
“Caucris could soon be overrun with skeletons,” says Synt. “Terrible things, they are.”
I swivel my skull round 180 degrees so that I’m glaring at him. “Why do you keep on and on talking about skeletons in that way? Don’t you care at all how it makes me feel?”
Jenna comes up and touches my shoulder with a gloved hand. “Seren, honey…”
“Skeletons are products of necromantic magic,” says Synt. “Necromancy is the plaything of Zarath and his ilk.”
That does it! I wanna cry, but I don’t have tear ducts. Instead I swivel my skull back around and cover my face with my bony hands and tremble.
Jenna grabs my bony arms, trying to make my uncover my face. “Look at me!”
I lower my hands and gaze into her hazel eyes. Her green face is solemn. “Synt is clearly prejudiced because this time round, Zarath has resurrected his old henchmen from twenty years ago when he was on his first power grab, and they’ve all taken the form of zombies or skeletons. But those with knowledge know that anyone could be cursed with a necromantic spell, not just Zarath’s inner circle. And twenty years ago, Zarath and his followers were living men.”
She puts her arms around me and I try to soak up succour from her soft, fleshy body. But I really need to hug Jaime. Jenna’s sweet, but I really need to feel the strong arms and see the freckled face of my husband…
“Synt,” Jenna calls over my shoulder. “Apologise to Seren.”
I swivel my skull around to face him. “My handsome, living husband doesn’t find me terrible. I get to cuddle and kiss the most handsome guy in all of Caucris.”
Synt throws up his hands. “I don’t want to know any more. I’m sorry for offending you.”
“Well think before you talk, OK?”
I’m still in a bit of a bad mood, but Jenna’s holding my bony hand which is nice.
We carry on along the tunnel. In a niche in the wall, a silver skeleton statuette glints in the torchlight.
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“Could it be solid silver?” Says Synt. “If so, it would be worth a fortune.”
“Don’t touch it,” I warn my companions. “It could have been left there by Zarath. We all know he curses anything he can put his hands on. A shame because my family could really use the money. I’m just thinking about all the clothes and shoes I’ll need to buy as the kids grow…”
“Listen!” says Jenna.
There’s the sound of hammering echoing from down the corridor.
“Let me go ahead in case there’s anything dangerous,” I urge.
I scuttle round the bend of the tunnel and see the tunnel ends at a rock face. There are skeletons with pickazes and another is loading rocks into a wheelbarrow.
“Hello, what are you doing?” I call.
“What does it look like?” replies the skeleton with the wheelbarrow, his jaw clacking. “We’re the skeleton slaves. Zarath dug us up to be slaves to enlarge these tunnels. The six Skeleton Warriors are our slave masters. They’re Zarath’s henchmen. They give orders.”
“The Skeleton Warriors are dead,” I tell him. “You are free now. You can stop building Zarath’s tunnels.”
“I don’t think so,” says the skeleton slave. “We want something a bit more official before we stop.”
I call back down the tunnel. “There’s no danger.”
My companions come round the bend. Synt narrows his eyes at the skeletons.
“Fleshies!” says the skeleton with the wheelbarrow, giving a little start so that his bones rattle.
“Who are you building the tunnels for?” demands Synt. “For the Slythois beast?”
“No dummy, we’re building the tunnels for Zarath,” says the skeleton. “The Slythoris beast is a dumb reptile. How could it possibly give orders?”
Jenna smirks and covers her mouth with a gloved hand.
“Can you please tell me where I might find the Slythoris beast?” I ask the skeleton.
“There are two tunnels in this place, right?” says the skeleton worker. “And this one ends here. I don’t know… Could the Slythoris beast be down the other tunnel? Come on, think. Are you trying to make us skeletons look dim in front of these fleshies?”
“Um, right.”
Jenna’s shaking with laughter, her hazel eyes are sparkling.
“Anyway, fellow skeletons, please listen to me,” I say, spreading my bony arms. “I’m going to kill that monster Zarath and free you all.”
“Yeah right,” says the skeleton worker. “Zarath is an absolute monster. He’s so terrifying he would freeze your blood if you still had any. You may think you’ve had to deal with scary villains before, but you really haven’t. Zarath makes any other villain look about as intimidating as a bunny rabbit by comparison. He’ll make you wish your very bones were dust along with your flesh.”
Jenna stops laughing and Synt looks very uneasy.
“Now please stop distracting us. We’ve got to dig,” says the skeleton worker. “We’ve got to dig.”
A little bit crestfallen, I beckon with my bony fingers to Jenna and Synt for them to follow me.
Jenna hurries up to walk beside me and slips her fleshy arm in my bony one. “I have complete faith in you,” she assures me. “I’ve seen how brave you are. That guy with the wheelbarrow doesn’t know anything. He’s not even a warrior of any kind.”
“Thanks, hon,” I murmur.
We go back down the tunnel. Every trace of the Skeleton Warriors has disappeared and we’re all suitably puzzled.
Synt looks around. “Could there be a secret passage though which someone took their remains?”
At that moment, I spot something on the ceiling – it’s like a huge blob of mouldering jelly and it’s about to drop on to Synt.
“Hey! Hey!” I spring forward and grab Synt, pushing him out of the way just as the jellyfish thing falls from the ceiling and splatters onto the rocky floor where it lies still.
Synt looks shocked. I’m still clutching him with my bony hands. I bring my face close to his. I’m still a bit upset with him. “This terrible skeleton has saved your behind yet again,” I say. “But I don’t expect any gratitude this time either.”
Synt looks troubled. “I – Thanks.”
I release him. “Now let’s all please be more alert.”
We make our way down the other tunnel, and pass between two statues of skeleton warriors. There’s a blast of wind down the corridor.
“The wind is like ice!” says Jenna.
“This isn’t natural,” says Synt.
The wind rushing down the tunnel howls. There’s something glowing white in the distance and it’s hurtling towards us. Now I can see its roughly human shaped, with an agonised look on its face, its diffuse body trailing behind it. It lets out a chilling scream. “Oooooh! Flesh to freeeeeeze!”
There’s been too much talk of freezing flesh in these tunnels. I really don’t like it.
“It’s a terrible ice-spectre!” says Synt. “They try to sap the life force of the living.”
“I’ll get you flessshiess!” howls the ice-spectre.
“Synt, Jenna, keep your distance and let me handle it,” I urge. I wave my bony hands at the ice-spectre. “Hey, don’t even think about bothering those fleshies.”
Quick as a flash, the ice-spectre swoops at me and I feel a tickly sensation as it clings to my bones.
“Freeeeze, bony one!”
I wave my skeletal arms as the ice-spectre clings to me. “Hey! Hey! Cut it out!”
“I’m goooing to get thoooose fleshies next!” The spectre wails. “A simple skeleton cannot stop meeee! Doooo your worst!”
“Well you asked for it.” I detach my hands and they fly away from my skeletal body, gripping the hilt of Zarath’s sword. They bring the wickedly sharp point of the blade round so that it touches the glowing outline of the evil ghost as it clings around my rib cage. Just as I suspected, the magical properties of the sword have an immediate effect. The ghost wails and shrinks until it is just a small ball of light, and then a spark, which then goes out. My hands fly back and reattach themselves to my wrists.
“Seren, you were wonderful!” says Jenna. “How did you know Zarath’s sword could banish an ice-spectre?”
“I suspect Zarath’s sword could kill pretty much anything,” I reply.
We pass between two more statues of skeleton warriors and then the tunnel takes a sharp turn to the right. Now we can hear the growling of some huge beast.
“Oh gods, it stinks!” says Synt.
Jenna is wrinkling her shiny green nose in disgust.
The tunnel opens onto a ledge near the bottom of a deep pit that’s filled with a dark green slime almost up to the level of the ledge. Two legs, green and scaly rise up out of the sludge. My gaze follows them upwards to a huge torso that ends in a gnarled head with a gaping maw ringed by rows of long spiked teeth. A white, spiral shaped horn protrudes from the beast’s scaly head.
“The Slythoris!” says Synt.
The Slythoris beast reaches down towards us with its huge, clawed hands...