Khenemhotep raised a commanding hand, and the earth answered.

  The ground groaned as stone erupted behind the Lyndorian spies, roaring upward in a tide of dust and gravel, sealing their retreat. Yvonne flinched, coughing. Jory spat a curse, his blade already half drawn. The hunched mage, Erik, crumpled to his knees, pale and twitching.

  There was no going back now. They could only move forward, through him, the ancient priest of a death god, draped in gold and tattered bandages.

  “You have trespassed, and this path is now shut to you,” he intoned. “The Sovereign has called you forth. Yield yourself, so that we may avoid needless violence and spill no blood without cause.”

  “It talked?” Jory blurted, face twisted in something between awe and horror. “An undead that can talk?”

  Yvonne looked at the mummy, then at the sealed passage, her breath coming fast and shallow. “What... what do we do now?”

  Erik swallowed hard. “It... it demanded surrender, didn’t it?”

  “Fool!” Jory barked. His hand clenched around the hilt of his sword, veins bulging in his forearm as he unsheathed the blade. “You think we can trust that thing? You think it’ll let us get out of here alive if we just give ourselves up?”

  Well, the man was not wrong. Their choice didn’t matter. Either they were going to be executed here or they would be executed later. Viktor didn’t really care which it was, but he did prefer to have at least one of them live long enough to scream answers to his interrogators.

  Yvonne bit her lip, eyes darting to the unconscious man Jory carried on his back. “At least this one is different from the other undead,” she said slowly. “The others don’t negotiate. They just attack.” The woman took a step toward Khenemhotep. “Who is the Sovereign? What does he want from us? And if we surrender, what then? Will he let us go eventually?”

  The ancient priest watched them, unmoving. “The Sovereign awaits,” he said with a raspy voice, like a dry wind flowing through a crypt. “Yield yourself, and face his judgment. Should you resist, you will be unmade.”

  “That doesn’t answer the damn questions!” Jory yelled.

  But Khenemhotep said no more. He just stood there, like a statue, like a monument. He was not here to discuss terms with them; he was here to deliver the ultimatum. The words had been spoken, and now they had to make their choice.

  Jory sucked a breath. He shifted his unconscious friend off his back and slowly lowered him to the floor, so that he could fight unburdened. Then, he stepped forward, adjusted his footing and dropped into a combat stance.

  He growled. “Yvonne, move back.”

  The woman obeyed. She retreated slowly, one foot at a time, eyes never leaving the golden-clad priest, expecting an attack to come at any moment. But Khenemhotep remained motionless, as if he was waiting for them to deliver the first strike.

  Just as she reached the unconscious man—

  A deafening crack split the air, mingling with the hiss of evaporated moisture and the clatter of falling debris.

  Everything had happened in the blink of an eye. Erik’s crooked finger had shot forward, and with it, a searing beam of white-hot heat had lanced toward Khenemhotep. However, while he had been lifting his finger, a thick slab of earth had vaulted up from the ground and stood right before the undead priest, so by the time the ray arrived, the barrier was already there. The slab exploded, showering the corridor in molten rock and clouds of steaming dust. Heat burst outward, warping the air like the blast from a fiery furnace.

  They had had their shot. Now it was his turn.

  Khenemhotep slowly raised one arm, palm outward, fingers spread wide like the open hand of judgment. The ground shuddered, groaned, then split. Thin cracks spiderwebbed across the stone floor, and sand poured up from the gaps like blood from a wound. It didn’t drift like dust, but flowed like a thick tide, coiling in the air for a heartbeat, then hardened mid-motion, coalescing into jagged earthen spikes.

  They shot toward the spies in a fan pattern. Yvonne screamed, eyes squeezed shut, as if not looking at those deadly spikes would somehow make them spare her. Jory roared, sword hacking at the first spear. Sparks flew from the clash of steel and rock, the sheer force staggering him back. Then, the second one came and raked his side, shredding cloth, leather and flesh. He hissed through clenched teeth as he looked down at the blood pouring in thick streams down his hip.

  This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

  Erik was much less lucky.

  One spike slammed into the mage’s chest, driving clean through him and bursting out his back in a spray of gore. Blood gurgled from his lips as the spear of hardened sand lifted him off his feet, dangling him like a gutted fish. His hands flailed, clawing at the shaft that impaled him, while his legs spasmed, boots kicking wildly in the air. His head sank forward, eyes staring blankly at the floor as the light vanished from them.

  Silence settled on the corridor after the barrage.

  Yvonne slowly opened her eyes. She blinked once, twice, then glanced around. The earthen jagged teeth stood embedded around her, but somehow, she was unscathed, and so was the unconscious man beside her. The spikes had missed them completely. But, of course, it was no miracle. It just meant Khenemhotep had never aimed at them in the first place.

  Her relief vanished almost instantly, though. As she saw the impaled corpse swaying on one shaft, she fell to her knees, vomiting bile onto the ground.

  The words echoed again.

  “The Sovereign awaits. Yield yourself, and face his judgment. Should you resist, you will be unmade.”

  “Damn you,” Jory snarled. Blood kept running down his side, soaking his tunic, but he grunted through the pain, hand pressing hard to his wound. “If this Sovereign of yours wants to judge me, he can damn well come here himself. You tell him that.”

  Yvonne spun toward her companion. “Jory, no—”

  But it was already too late.

  The man ripped a potion from his belt, bit the cork off, and spat it to the floor. His throat bobbed as he gulped it, and when the last drop slid down his tongue, he crushed the empty vial in his fist. Shards sank into his flesh, but he didn’t even flinch.

  Then, his body began to change.

  The man’s spine arched backward, and a guttural growl came from deep within his chest as if something inside was clawing its way out. Veins bulged, crawling like dark vines under his skin. Muscles swelled grotesquely, and the seams of his tunic split open at the shoulders and biceps, cloth tearing away like paper. His arms elongated, his joints grew thicker, and his entire bone structure visibly adjusted to bear the weight of his rapidly mutating form. His face contorted, eyes rolling back for a moment before snapping forward with an unnatural red gleam.

  What the hell is that potion? Viktor narrowed his eyes at the monstrous brute. He had never heard of a substance that could warp a body like this. And that vial Yvonne drank, too. It couldn’t just be some simple antidote. Not with the way her veins lit up like that.

  Well, one more reason to keep at least one of them alive to be questioned.

  Letting out a savage roar, more animal than man, Jory charged, his mutated limbs propelling him forward.

  Khenemhotep’s cadaverous fingers curled, and jagged teeth erupted from the floor, tearing into the man’s legs. One punched clean through his calf, while two others skewered his thigh. But Jory didn’t fall. He yanked himself away, tendons snapping like overstrung cords. Blood gushed from the wound, but the muscle beneath twitched, already knitting itself back together.

  The ceiling spewed a hail of earthen spears. One sheared off his left ear, another grazing his face with a crack that sprayed skin and bone chips. A third spike pierced his shoulder, but he tore free, leaving a chunk of meat clinging to the shaft. His arm hung limp, fingers spasming. Still, he thundered onward, boots crushing smears of gore.

  The walls wept stone. Multiple spikes impaled Jory’s torso, his intestines spooling around the ones that speared his belly. He vomited a torrent of bile and blood, then thrashed wildly, snapping the thorns with his arms. He lurched forward, the jagged remnants still embedded in his body.

  More spikes of hardened sand burst forth. From the floor, from the ceiling, from the walls. They hit his head, they hit his chest, and they hit his limbs. The corridor reverberated with the sound of rock ripping through flesh, the feral howl of the half-man, half-beast creature, and anguished cries from Yvonne begging for everything to stop.

  Blood poured down Jory’s face, blinding him. He swiped at it with a clawed hand, dragging out his own eyeball in the process. The potion’s regeneration power stitched the socket closed, leaving him with one eye, his growl escaping through a mouthful of broken teeth.

  Spikes shattered both of his kneecaps, and he crumpled to the ground. Yet, he dragged himself forward, leaving a grisly trail of blood and viscera in his wake. Khenemhotep stood motionless, looking down at the crawling figure. He had retracted his earthen spears and called forth no others. He let his opponent get closer, until the mangled wreck of exposed bone, half-healed wounds, and grotesque mutation finally expired by itself, the twitching ruins of a hand just short of his feet.

  “The Sovereign awaits. Yield yourself, and face his judgment. Should you resist, you will be unmade.”

  The undead priest spoke for the third time, his glowing green orbs locked on Yvonne. And the woman sank to her knees, her breath coming in ragged gasps.

  “I... I surrender.”

  Khenemhotep clapped his hand once, a dry and brittle crack, like a dead branch snapping in the wind. The walls seemed to ripple, and from within them, skeletal warriors emerged, stepping forward as if the stone itself had simply let them pass. Unlike the tomb guards who had fought Sebekton, these skeletons retained their original size, so that they could move more freely in the cramped space of the first floor. They had been kept hidden as reserves, but clearly, the ancient priest didn’t even need their aid to deal with the Lyndorian spies.

  Yvonne barely had time to react before skeletal hands clamped down on her shoulders. She flinched at the touch, but the unyielding grip kept her in place. Two undead warriors approached the unconscious man. One took hold of his legs, while the other leaned down and hooked its hands under the armpits. The remaining skeletons gathered around the two corpses, hauling them away.

  “Where... where are you taking us?” the woman asked, her voice trembling.

  But the ancient priest gave her no answer. Instead, he began to walk. The skeletons followed, dragging both the dead and the living alike into the depths of the dungeon.