"This could be trouble," Joel noted.
"Big trouble," Jedidiah agreed as both men backed away from the altar toward the exit.
Something hissed behind them, and the light of the finder's stone flared brightly. Joel whirled about as Jedidiah remained facing the idol of Bane. From the braziers around the room's perimeter, steam had risen and coalesced into corporeal forms. Standing over each brazier was a creature much like the statue, with fangs and horns and pointed ears. Yet unlike the statue, they were not young and fair but ancient and decayed. Their eyes looked blank and dead. The flesh about their faces was withered and desiccated, and beneath their necks they were nothing but skeletons. Each was armed with a bone white saw-toothed blade. Two of them already blocked the exit, while the other four were moving around the room's perimeter to join them.
Joel cast a glance over his shoulder. The idol of Bane had risen to its feet. It stood twice as high as a man, its head nearly touching the room's vaulted ceiling. While it moved slowly, this was no clockwork creature or golem. Its movements were neither clunky nor plodding but fluid and graceful. It was a stone warrior, powered by the hatred of an evil dead god and all his dead followers.
"I'll handle the big guy if you can take care of the six little ones," Jedidiah joked grimly.
"Oh, sure," Joel replied, amazed by the older man's bravado in the face of such overwhelming odds. Was it possible, Joel wondered, that Jedidiah had forgotten he was no longer immortal?
The young bard looked back at the skeletons. They made no movement to initiate combat, but instead merely blocked the entrance. With a flash of insight, the young priest realized that was their job. The privilege of killing any intruders belonged to the statue.
Joel climbed the sloping floor to meet the skeletons. Like the statue, the undead creatures were slow but graceful. Joel wondered if that was part of the magic that made them or if that was the way they'd been in life. The skeletons had the high ground, but that wasn't exactly to the bard's disadvantage. He swung at the lower half of the first skeleton's legs.
His blade smashed through the bones as if they were dried kindling. The undead creature fell to the ground and slid to the altar in the center of the room.
The second skeleton slashed its jagged blade across Joel's arm, tearing the fabric of the bard's shirtsleeve but fortunately missing his flesh. Joel tried the leg-breaking trick again, but this skeleton leapt upward with an unnatural grace, avoiding the bard's sweeping attack. As it came down, it sliced at Joel's left shoulder with its saw-toothed blade. Joel could feel heat and pain radiating down his arm. The bard swung his sword backhanded, slicing through the vertebrae of the skeleton's backbone. The undead monster fell in two halves to the ground. Its bones slid down the curved floor to the base of the altar as the first skeletal guardian's had done.
Two more skeletons stood in the doorway, flanked by the last pair. Joel turned halfway to check on Jedidiah's progress. The bard was engaged in a hide-and-seek game around the altar, dodging the statue's stone fists. The older bard managed to slice at the idol with his sword, but the blade did not penetrate, leaving only a powdery white scratch on the granite hide. Joel thought of the sledgehammer sitting uselessly up in Dits's basement.
Then Joel saw the two skeletons lying by the altar. They were reforming in the mists gathered in the bowl of the floor. The shattered spine of the second and the broken leg of the first had both healed, and the skeletons were rising once more to their feet.
Joel turned back to the other four skeletons with a sinking feeling. He could feel blood trickling down his arm from his wounded shoulder. He knew he wasn't making progress this way. The skeletons would hold Jedidiah and him until they were exhausted. Then the statue would smash them to jelly. Unless he found some way to smash all six skeletons before they could reform. This would be the perfect time to call on Finder to turn the undead to dust, but Finder was no longer a god.
The irony grated on Joel. Now that he was finally confronted with the opportunity to turn undead like the priest he was, Finder could not grant him the power.
Or could he?
Joel was still a priest. Finder was still alive, in this very room. His godhood was stored in the stone Joel held in his left hand. The power that had created the skeletons was dead. Figuring he had nothing to lose, Joel drew back from the skeletons. Ail six now gathered before the exit.
Holding the finder's stone high over his head, the Rebel Bard began the slow, rhythmic chant to send the undead back to their eternal sleep. The finder's stone glowed more brightly. Joel could sense power coursing through him, the power of his faith in Finder, not only what Finder represented as a god, but also the faith that Jedidiah the man would always be his friend. Joel's chanting grew louder.
The light from the finder's stone flared, filling the space about Joel with what seemed to be sunlight. The skeletons began to twitch in rhythm to Joel's chant. All at once, the undead raised their swords in salute. Then their bones rattled to the floor, the magic that held them together broken. Joel poked at a skull with his toe and it crumbled to dust. The rest of the bones decayed before his eyes in the same manner, the powdery dust wafting in the air. These skeletons would never rise again.
Joel spun around. Jedidiah was still evading the idol by dodging about the altar, but he must have taken at least one blow. His left arm hung limp at his side, and the light stone lay on the floor, crushed into several pieces, which now glowed dimly.
Joel dashed up the corridor, up the stairs, and into Dits's basement. The light from the finder's stone was now no brighter than a candle, but it was enough for the bard to locate the sledgehammer leaning against the wall. Joel sheathed his sword and grabbed the tool. He had just turned to head back down the stairs when something slammed into his back. The bard sprawled forward beneath the arched entryway. He lost his grip on the sledgehammer and the finder's stone. The sledgehammer went bouncing down the stairs, and the finder's stone rolled behind a pile of bricks.
The bard rolled over into a dark corner. In the dim light still cast by the finder's stone, he caught a glimpse of a large, dark shadow swooping upward, then turning. It was a human figure with wings. Joel remembered Walinda had said the creature that attacked her in the street had swept down from above. He rose to a crouch.
The shadow sailed straight toward him as if it had no trouble detecting him in the nearly dark room. Its outstretched arms ended in talons.
Just as the flying creature was nearly upon him, Joel lunged forward, wrapping his arms about the creature's midsection. The momentum of the creature's flight shoved the bard backward, but he didn't release his grip. He and his assailant went tumbling across the floor.
The creature was too small and lithe to be Bear. It tried to rake at Joel's face with its talons. The bard grabbed one arm, then another, holding them back. The arms were covered not with fur, but with small, soft feathers. As they rolled on the ground, the creature's face came into the light.
Joel gasped. "Jas!"
The flyer butted her forehead into the bard's face. In surprise and pain, Joel released his hold on the flyer's arms. With one hand clutching his bleeding nose, he stepped back, but he did not draw his sword. His eyes remained fixed in horror on the winged woman.
Jas had undergone a horrible transformation. Her wings were like a gargoyle's, the color of copper, tinged with a green patina, a change due to being in another plane. The rest of her body, though, had been malformed by some evil magic. Dark black feathers covered her skin. Her hands were twisted into razor-sharp talons. A crest of green feathers rose from her brow. Her eyes were larger and more rounded, and they glowed with a green light.