The statue was surprisingly light; it rocked back, easily knocked off-balance, then fell to the carpeted ground, form stiff, maintaining its posture.
“I approve,” said the Nightmare Lady, and shoved the statue on her own plinth. It fell easily and lay upturned against the neighboring plinth, legs extending into the air.
“Careful,” said Lianshi. “We don’t know that one of these won’t animate as well.”
“Then let me do the work,” said the Nightmare Lady, and with a whipcrack of her tail knocked the next statue clean of its pedestal. “You watch for the next attack.”
Scorio held his Heart at saturation, every once in a while sweeping in more mana to replenish his reserves, and watched for signs of movement as the Nightmare Lady set to toppling statues.
None of them moved to defend themselves. Soon over a dozen lay haphazardly strewn over the carpeted floor, somehow pathetic for their awkward and vulnerable postures.
“Let’s move deeper,” said the Nightmare Lady, breathing deeply. Which was odd; this amount of activity shouldn’t have winded her already. “Don’t want to leave you all behind.”
They stepped toward the center of the chamber, and the Nightmare Lady knocked statues off as they went. Still nothing, and Scorio began to fear that the statues could animate at random; what rule stated that it would always be the same one that attacked them? He searched the air above them for a hint of a falling figure and saw nothing.
Another clang rang out as the Nightmare Lady’s tail impacted a statue’s chest, knocking it clean off the plinth. “This room should have been dark. That would have made these surprise attacks all the more dangerous against Cinders.”
“Still plenty dangerous,” said Lianshi, eyes scouring the dark space above them. “I never saw those attacks coming.”
The Nightmare Lady turned to her, her monstrous expression taking on a mocking cast, even as she swayed on the uneven carpeting. “And how much damage did that attack do—”
Then she stiffened as a curved blade emerged smoothly through her chest, its steel length marbled with black blood.
Scorio ignited his Heart faster than he’d ever done, not even thinking about the act. His angle of approach was wrong; the plinth and the Nightmare Lady were between him and the assassin, so he ran out wide to come around the pedestal even as he heard Leonis’s roar and Lianshi’s cry of anguish.
The golden statuette had stepped back, its movements wary, head turning rapidly in minute shifts from side to side. It flexed its knees and Scorio leaped, clawed hand snaking out as the assassin leaped for the skies.
He was just in time—his fingers closed around its slender ankle, more by luck than design, and he felt his arm nearly torn from his shoulder by the force of the leap. Still, he hung on, and the statuette crashed back down to the ground, suddenly writhing and lashing out like a tipped-over praying mantis.
Scorio lost his grip on its leg, but then Leonis was there, charging into view, to bring Nezzar down with punitive force on the statuette’s flailing limbs.
Gold warped, distended. The statuette made no sound, sought instead to slash at Leonis who clobbered it straight in the chest, caving in the hollow cuirass.
The damage didn’t affect the statuette; it slashed again, this time at Leonis’s ankles, forcing him to hop back.
Scorio lunged, timing his attack just right, and brought both sets of glowing claws down upon the assassin’s regal, disinterested features. The gold melted as his claws punched through, and with a wrench, he tore the head clean off.
Immediately the statuette collapsed and lay still.
“Watch out for other attacks!” barked Leonis, turning in a rapid circle, but no other foes moved to engage them.
“Naomi,” hissed Scorio, rising to his feet to hurry to where she lay, head on Lianshi’s lap, shrinking down into her human form.
“Damn,” said Naomi, blood trickling from the corner of her mouth. “Stabbed in the back while lecturing. Not… not the best…”
Lianshi’s eyes glimmered with tears. Leonis stood guard over them, leaving Scorio to drop to his knees beside her. He wanted to take her hand, but his own would have slashed her to ribbons. Instead, he clenched his jaw and studied her waxen features.
“We’ve made it ten rooms in,” said Naomi, voice growing fainter. “You need at least another five, Scorio. Lianshi. Leonis. Make sure… make sure he…”
“We will,” said Lianshi, reaching down to curl Naomi’s hair from her brow. “Rest. We’ll see you soon.”
Naomi’s gaze settled on Scorio, and she forced a smile, her teeth outlined in red. “You can do this. I know you can. See you… soon.”
She blinked several times, lids growing heavy, and then seemed to sag, her breath stilling. For a moment they remained thus, a frozen tableau of grief, then Naomi faded away, leaving only a sopping stain in the carpets beneath where she’d lain.
“Damn it,” said Scorio, biting back the irrational grief and fury. She wasn’t dead, but her loss still hurt him worse than he could have imagined. “Damn it!”
“Come on,” said Leonis, voice rough. “Door’s appeared. That was the only one.”
“Give me a moment.” Scorio let his scaled form disappear, and with its departure felt the pain and weakness come crashing back. “Just need to gather… gather some mana back in.”
“We have time,” said Lianshi softly. “Now more than ever we need to be careful.”
Leonis relinquished Nezzar and then sat against a plinth, thick forearms resting over his knees. Together they rested in silence, catching their breath. Scorio stared at the bloodstain. Without Naomi, their chances of proceeding deep into the Gauntlet had dropped precipitously. He felt lost without her, bereft; only now did he realize how much he’d come to depend on her authority, her assertiveness, her incredible powers as the Nightmare Lady.
“Emberling-level rooms next,” said Lianshi softly. “Things are going to get really hard now.”
Leonis was grimly replacing the bandage on his thigh; the first had grown completely saturated with blood. “I’m trying to think of something positive to say. Give me a moment.”
Scorio snorted and studied his own ruined forearms. His bad wrist and hand joined the insistent drumbeat of pain that throbbed with each beat of his heart, and became part of the larger tapestry of wounds formed by the cut across the back of his calf and the gash in his side.
Lianshi was studying him soberly. “Don’t lose heart, Scorio. We’ve still got a ways to go.”
He wanted to protest, say that he wasn’t losing courage, but the pain was sapping his will. His arms felt as if he’d plunged them briefly into boiling water. He wanted nothing so much as to close his eyes and fall asleep, to drink heavily of some numbing alcohol, anything to place a distance between him and the wounds. But only his Emberling form offered him any solace. “I never thought I’d complain about being an Emberling, but I could use a much faster rate of healing right now.”
“Come on,” said Leonis, getting to his feet with a grunt, wounded leg stiff. “I’m ready to be positive. Want to hear a short speech?”
“Sure,” said Lianshi, unable to resist a smile.
“Then here it is: we’re doing far better than we know. We’re about to enter the Emberling rooms with three of our number, one of whom is completely unharmed. We’ve tactics that work. We’ve wills that won’t break. Naomi sacrificed greatly to get us here, and now each room we pass is one we defeat in her name, for her honor. So no complaints. No weakness. The greatest challenges lie before us, and we’ve spent every waking minute—well, almost every waking minute—preparing ourselves for just this moment.” Leonis grinned at them, somehow making Scorio feel complicit in the large man’s humor, part of the joke. “After all we’ve survived and overcome, will we lose heart now? No, my friends. We won’t. For I am the Golden King, and I will do honor to my ancestors at any cost. Let’s show this Gauntlet what we’re made of and crush every obstacle it throws our way.”