Chapter 8. The Hunt

A spiderweb of cracks was spreading across the door. New ones branched off like streams from rivers, cutting through mountain stone with each strike. The golem's rhythm never faltered.

“No secret exits that I can find," reported Bruno. “Just one way in and out.”

Allison's face was grave as she studied the door. "You're sure we can't fight it?" she asked Jeremiah.

"I'm sure,” said Jeremiah. His mind was circling a dark certainty. “These things are juggernauts. It must be punching through three feet of stone right now.”

The friends were silent for a time, watching tiny chips fall from the door with each deafening slam.

"I…I think we're dead," said Bruno. He shrugged as he said it, and the flippancy of the gesture sent a spike of cold through Jeremiah's chest.

"Can you reinforce the door?" Jeremiah asked Delilah.

"A little, sure,” she said. Not enough to make a difference.” Allison nodded to her and Delilah spread a black paste over the deepest and largest cracks. The glossy texture began to fade, and the paste suddenly turned from black to bright green. If it changed anything, Jeremiah couldn't see it.

"Dead?" Bruno asked the room.

Allison sighed. "Yeah, maybe. I've got one idea, and it's a bad one."

"No such thing right now," said Delilah. Jeremiah heard a tiniest hitch in her voice. The cold spike in his chest bloomed into his hands and he began to shiver.

Allison pointed to the frame around the great stone entry. "The door isn’t flush with the wall when it's open. Bruno unlocks the door and we hide in the gap. Maybe it can't find us and quits, maybe we sneak out while it's searching."

"Maybe the door crushes us when he batters it open," said Bruno.

"Maybe," was all Allison said in return.

They were quiet again. Jeremiah had brushed up against death more than once, but this felt different. This felt inevitable. The stone slab reverberated and rattled, sending more dust to the ground. He thought he heard something give inside it.

"I just want to say—" Jeremiah started, but Allison rounded on him.

"No! No goodbyes yet! We say our goodbyes after we're dead. Stop fucking shaking, Jay. Delilah, you too. Stop it!"

"I'm not—" Delilah said.

"We act!” shouted Allison. “Get in position, now. Bruno start unlocking the door. If it finds us, you all run and I'll keep it busy as long as I can," Allison shook them, forcing them into position. Jeremiah was slammed against the stone wall between Delilah and Allison. He squeezed himself as flat as he could.

Bruno began prying and yanking at the mechanisms holding the door shut, pausing his work with every blow against the door. Jeremiah saw the fear in every motion Bruno made, stuttering fingers and a sheen of sweat beading on his brow.

"Get ready," said Bruno. It was a meaningless statement, the only thing Jeremiah could do was hold still and not die. He looked to his left and saw Delilah's pale face, resolute and stern despite the quivering lip. To his right Allison had her eyes closed and was muttering. An oath or prayer, he did not know.

Bruno ran a metal cord from the labyrinthian lock mechanism to his place on the wall. He paused in front of Jeremiah, locking eyes with him. Bruno's gaze flicked once to Delilah and back again to Jeremiah. Jeremiah understood. “ If only one, her” .

Jeremiah agreed, although he wasn't entirely sure why.

"Ready?" asked Bruno.

"Go!" Allison barked, without hesitation.

Bruno yanked the cord. There was a sound of whirring metal, a sudden catch, and a metallic shattering from the door. Not deviating from its rhythm the golem struck the door once more. The blaring horns meant to signal a triumphant return from death bleated once in a brass shriek, and the great door burst open.

Jeremiah forced the air from his lungs and as the door careened toward him, he had time for a single thought. "This won't hurt ."

The deafening boom shook his bones, but the door stopped half an inch from his nose. Bruno and Delilah were untouched, and Allison would have had the visor of her helmet crushed in had she not turned her head.

There was silence, save for the sound of dust falling from the walls and ceiling. The golem did not charge blindly into the room. It was watching, observing. Searching.

A single thud as it took a step forward, then another. Silence. Jeremiah felt his breath catch as, far above his head, three stone fingers curled around the edge of the door. They were each as thick as his arm and etched in glowing blue runes. The golem was going to be thorough.

Jeremiah caught the slightest shift to his left. Allison was there. He realized she was preparing to dash into the open, to turn herself into a distraction and enable their escape. She would be crushed as soon as it reached her, sacrificing herself to buy them a few precious moments to make their escape. 

He wanted to shout, to grab ahold of her arm and not let go, but of course he could do neither. She tensed, about to run. About to die.

Jeremiah had no time to think, only act.

Rise.

Stretching out his will, Jeremiah touched the long forgotten bones still heaped in the tomb. A single bubble formed in his mind. It felt like a severed limb regrowing all at once. The cold of the stone, the orientation of the bones, the sense of light, all mingled simultaneously with his own senses. It felt good.

The skeleton sprang upward, grinding the crumbling bones of its finger tips against the stone like chalk. What faint noise it made was more than enough to attract the golem's attention, and whatever loyalty it had held to the owner of those bones was long gone. The hall rang with a teeth-rattling cacophony as the massive glowing golem careened down the hall.

The instant the golem began its charge, they fled. Evade , Jeremiah commanded the skeleton as he ran. It had to buy them as much time as possible.

If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

Jeremiah ran heedless of his need for breath, or of the burning in his legs. He didn’t notice as they sprinted through the tiled halls or the countless switchbacks. He was dimly aware of the skeleton’s efforts to evade the golem, but his present mind was fixed on the back of Allison as he willed himself to keep up with her.

The skeleton’s bubble burst just as they splashed into the cavern where they had fought the mummies. The shock of cold and the sudden limitation of their speed drove the fog of panic from their minds. They staggered over to the stone stairs, collapsing as they heaved in air and let the icy water cool the burning muscles in their legs.

"G-good? We good?" Allison gasped out finally.

"Skele-skeleton gone…but good," said Jeremiah. He felt a clap on the shoulder from Bruno, directing him to a half-hearted thumbs up.

"Let's…leave," said Delilah.

Together they climbed up the slippery stones to where they had made their stand, Finally back into the starry tunnel, they formed a proper marching order again.

"So…that was you wasn't it?” Allison asked. “You made the skeleton? It didn't just pop up on its own?"

Jeremiah felt immediately defensive. "The one that saved us? Yeah, that was me."

“Easy, Jay. It pains me to say it, but you made the right call. I just wish you didn't have to," Allison said. 

Jeremiah wanted to feel relieved, but her last comment restoked his irritation. ”Sometimes you need to save everyone from certain death," he said, with a touch of attitude.

“Oh, you've got to be fucking kidding me!" said Delilah. Jeremiah glared at her over his shoulder, ready to defend his decision, but she was looking back down the way they had just come. He saw her ears twitch, just a little.

"Run! Run run run!" Delilah screamed.

The panic returned like a tsunami, carrying everyone along with it. They ran, willing their exhausted bodies onward. Jeremiah was vaguely aware of Delilah frantically shedding supplies as she ran. Vials smoked and splattered across the floor, anything that might slow their inaudible pursuer.

Jeremiah wheezed for breath as he ran. It felt like he was drowning. His friends began pulling away, even as he urged his leaden legs onward. Up ahead, Allison collided with a jutting bit of cave wall and fell in a shower of sparks. She was struggling to her knees as Jeremiah reached her, and he tried to help her up.

Allison yanked up her helmet's visor and doubled over, retching on the floor as she stumbled into a gait no faster than Jeremiah’s. "Damned…armor," she gasped. 

Delilah reappeared. "Please keep running!” she said, her eyes frantic. “Please! Just a bit farther!"

Suddenly he felt it, a nearly imperceptible quiver in the bones of the very mountain around them. Rhythmic, building, and unrelenting. Jeremiah’s body pulled on some last primal reserve of strength and they surged onward.

Blue. There was a blue glow creeping in on them from behind. Crawling around the corridors and searching for them. The golem's steps merged with the pounding blood in Jeremiah's ears. He stumbled forward. Moving slowly was all he could manage, but he was moving.

Bruno doubled back to find them, seemingly unfazed by the test of endurance. His blades were drawn, and he ushered them along as they reached the bone strewn cave of the troll. The troll stood at the ready, bearing shield and makeshift weapon and growling something in giant's tongue.

"BA…be ba garoo!" Delilah shouted at the troll. She waved her arms, pointing toward the blue glow. "Sha-te frista!"

The troll considered them in what Jeremiah interpreted as confusion, but it didn’t advance. Jeremiah’s legs gave out as he crossed the threshold of the troll’s territory. Allison leaned against a wall, weapons drawn but limp with exhaustion. Delilah readied her spear, her alchemical ammunition spent. One way or another, their flight was over.

The deafening approach rattled Jeremiah’s bones as the behemoth of stone at last came into view. Arcane blue light sparked and flashed across its body, concentrating in a cyclopean eye in the center of its head. The golem took up the entire width of the tunnel, pulverized rocky outcroppings to powder, its gait neither slowing nor faltering. Titanic stone arms clawed the walls, pulling itself forward even as its elephantine legs pushed carried it through the cave.

Jeremiah understood his death was finally at hand. The fact did not stir as much terror in him as it should have.

Bruno drew his magic bow and began firing arrows at the golem, splintering them across its stony facade. “Right here! Come test me, big guy! Come chase the shadow!” he shouted.

But as the golem took its first thundering step into the open space of the cave, the troll sprang into action. It moved with surprising grace, crossing the room and smashing the metal blade of its scythe into the golem with a tremendous backhand. The force of the blow exploded the makeshift weapon and stopped the unstoppable. 

The golem was knocked clear off its feet, cratering the stone beneath its back. A heavy gouge marked its chest where the blade impacted. The troll was undeterred by the loss of its weapon and unconvinced of the fatality of the strike. It lifted its tower shield of logs above the golem and began driving it downward over and over again.

Jeremiah watched troll fight. It was at least an interesting diversion before certain death.

Wood was of no concern to stone. Inexorably, the golem stood, looming taller than the hunched the troll. It battered the shield aside, shattering it to pieces, and gripped the troll by the shoulder. With no discernible sign of effort, it crushed the troll’s arm in its grip and tore it away from its body.

The troll roared in pain and fury, green blood gushing from the wound for only an instant before it sealed off, and the troll’s regenerative powers began growing a new arm at a rapid speed. The troll attacked again, raking across golem’s body with its claws. The golem raised its fist and crushed the troll into the floor with a blow so strong Jeremiah felt the stone beneath his feet shift.

Over and over the golem rained blows down on the troll’s body, destroying it too slowly to take it out of the fight. Jeremiah and his friends watched as the troll’s regeneration rapidly repaired crushed bones, lost limbs, even decapitation. He thought of Narooka, the minotaur filled with a sea of regenerative magic, but the troll’s regeneration would never run dry. And the golem seemed to possess no fire or acid.

Meanwhile, the golem was nearly invulnerable to the troll’s frenzied assault. But nearly invulnerable was very different from completely invulnerable, at least when facing an enemy as tenacious as a troll defending its territory. Jeremiah realized shallow scratches were beginning to appear in the surface of the golem’s body, small chips marring the edges of the reinforced stonework. It was like the weathering of a mountain that would eventually, over eons, wear it down to the ground.

Then Jeremiah was being hoisted to his feet. Delilah and Bruno each had an arm under one of his. “Come on, buddy!” said Bruno, with forced joviality. “We’re going to leave this one to our new best friend.”

Jeremiah’s brain was not working properly. “Shouldn’t we help?” he asked, as his feet tried to remember how to walk. 

“You said it yourself,” said Delilah. “There’s no way we can take that thing on.”

“Yup,” said Allison. “I’m more than happy to leave this one to the experts.

They limped their way to the entrance, echoes of the troll’s cries of fury and pain following them through the cave. Waves of exhaustion emanated from them, and their return trip back towards the entrance took nearly as long as the first time through, even without Bruno sweeping for traps. Jeremiah’s legs trembled with fatigue, but the knowledge of the battle behind them forced him onward.

At long last, they reached the tomb entrance and the campsite they’d made the night before. Jeremiah stumbled towards his bedroll and collapsed, certain he’d never stand again. The idea didn’t bother him in the slightest. 

“Nope,” said Allison. “We need to get some distance from this place before we rest for the night.” Despite the collective groan from her companions, she began gathering items, although she moved painfully slowly.

What’d you tell that troll, anyway?” Bruno asked Delilah.

Delilah turned to answer, and promptly threw up.

“Ah,” said Jeremiah. “And what’s that mean in Giant?” As the reality of their survival set in, it seemed a very funny joke indeed.