Andy McDermott - The Tomb Of Hercules

“Not necessarily,” Sophia said as she followed him. “We know the way through the maze. They didn’t. Even if they got past each challenge, there might still have been other traps that killed them.” As she emerged on the other side of the statue, she looked calculatingly at Chase. “Maybe we should find out.”

“There isn’t time,” said Corvus, brushing dust from his clothes. Sophia seemed disappointed, but still gave Chase a look that suggested her idea wasn’t going to go away. “What is the next trial?” he asked Nina as she caught up.

She checked her notes. “The mares of Diomedes.”

“Horses, eh?” said Chase. “I bet in the legend they weren’t exactly My Little Ponies.”

“Not really. There are different versions of the story, but in all of them the horses are man-eaters.”

“Sounds like someone I know,” Chase muttered, glaring at Sophia.

“We should stop here for a while,” Nina told Corvus. “I need to keep working on the translation-I haven’t got very far past the next challenge.”

“No,” he replied. “Work on the move. We are so close now, I will not wait. Concentrate on guiding us through the maze-even if any of the trials are still working, my men have weapons and explosives. We can take care of them.”

Nina made a disbelieving face, then shrugged. “Whatever,” she said, concealing her concern-and also her hope. If any of the remaining trials actually were still functional, they could pose a genuine threat to Corvus’s men-and give herself and Chase chance to escape.

Once the entire party had gathered, they set off again, Nina directing them through the darkened twists of the labyrinth. Before long they reached the entrance to another chamber.

Bertillon, leading the way, shone his light inside. “I see no bodies,” he reported. “I don’t think this one has been sprung.” He switched the flashlight to his other hand as he unshouldered his gun, a sleek and futuristic Fabrique Nationale F2000 assault rifle with a 40mm grenade launcher fitted beneath the barrel. Two of his companions did the same.

Komosa joined them, flashlight glinting from his piercings as he looked into the long chamber. Nina peered past him to see what lay inside. At the far end were four oversized statues of horses, even more forcefully stylized than the previous creatures they had encountered. Their long, sharp teeth were bared, legs raised as if frozen midgallop… and ready to resume at any moment. The hooves were elongated, narrowed, more like blades than feet-making Nina think uncomfortably of some kind of agricultural threshing machine. The animals’ legs ran the full width of the passage.

“Christ,” said Chase, standing beside her to see for himself. “Teeth on those things look like the bloody Alien Queen.”

“We must go through,” said Corvus. He turned to Nina. “How did Hercules defeat them?”

Nina paused, thinking-and gave Chase the briefest of knowing glances. “His task was to steal the horses from Diomedes, who kept them chained to a bronze manger,” she recounted after a moment. Corvus looked at the statues, which had bronze chains hanging from their necks, and nodded. “Once he freed them, he drove them onto a peninsula and dug a trench to make it into an island so they couldn’t escape.”

Bertillon aimed his light at the floor of the chamber. “Perhaps we are supposed to dig up the floor so the horses cannot get across, hey?” He switched off the flashlight and pocketed it, then raised his gun and activated its spotlight before loading the grenade launcher. “I know a quick way to do that.”

Another man, an American, examined the chamber’s entrance. “There’s a slot in the top of the arch here,” he announced. “I guess a gate drops down when the trap goes off so you can’t get out. We’ve got some titanium jacks-we can wedge them in so that it can’t fall.”

“Do it,” ordered Corvus.

The jacks were quickly set in place, an inverted V blocking the slot above the entrance while still allowing room to pass underneath. Bertillon, Komosa and the two other men who had unshouldered their F2000s entered the chamber and cautiously advanced on the statues. The others watched from the entrance, Corvus using a radio so the team could communicate via headsets without shouting.

“Is there any sign of a spot where you might be supposed to dig up the floor?” he asked.

“Nothing so far,” Bertillon replied, carefully stepping forward. “Perhaps we should use grenades to destroy the statues before they-”

Crunch .

A dull grind of shifting stone came from beneath his foot, clearly audible even to those waiting outside the entrance.

And then the entrance slammed shut, a metal portcullis dropping down-not from the slot that had been blocked by the jacks, but beyond it, on the far side of the arch. The slot was just a decoy, the real trap suspended a foot away.

With a screech of metal and rasp of stone the statues burst into life, moving for the first time in thousands of years. Their jaws snapped and their legs churned up and down, sharp hooves slicing the air and clanging cacophonously against the stone floor as they advanced.

Corvus’s men outside the chamber ran to the gate and tried to lift it, but it refused to move, locked down.

Nina cringed and put her hands over her ears as Bertillon fired his grenade launcher. The echoing shotgun-like thud was nothing compared to the explosive crack that shook the chamber a moment later as the grenade hit one of the statues. Lumps of stone showered the room as a chunk was blown from the horse’s chest, but the relentless advance continued.

Another man fired. The grenade shot between the stamping legs of the horses and into the exit tunnel behind them, detonating with a bang followed by the crunch of falling rocks.

“Stop!” Corvus shouted. “You’ll block the tunnel!” Bertillon and Komosa looked back at him in disbelief. “Use bullets, not grenades! Destroy the legs!”

The three men with rifles exchanged glances, then did as they were ordered and switched their attack. Bullets blazed from the weapons, chipping and cratering the statues and spraying debris in all directions. The sharp metal hoof was blown from one of the pounding legs, but the jagged spear of stone that remained appeared just as lethal.

Komosa took out a large pistol as the others backed towards the entrance. “What are their weak spots?” he demanded over the radio. “How do we stop them?”

Sophia drew her own gun and pressed it against Nina’s head. “Well? Answer him! How did Hercules kill them?”

“He didn’t kill them-” Nina began, before being interrupted by a scream from the chamber.

A bullet had ricocheted off the statues and hit Bertillon in his right thigh, dropping him bloodily to the floor. One of the other men went to drag him away, but jumped back as shrapnel from the third man’s shots scythed past his face. By the time he recovered, the horses had reached the fallen man-

Bertillon screamed again, his agonized howl cut off within moments as the stamping feet trampled over him and tore him to pieces, the statues turning red with splattered blood. Nina looked away in horror, and even Chase was repulsed. Lumps of shredded flesh were flung into the air to slap down before the remaining three men.

Sophia aimed her gun at Chase. “How did he stop them?” she yelled at Nina. “In the other version of the legend? Tell me or Eddie dies!”

Nina gave Chase a despairing look, then acquiesced. “He killed Diomedes and fed him to his own horses. Once they’d been fed, they calmed down and Hercules was able to take them!”

Sophia turned to the entrance, where Komosa and the two other men had their backs to the portcullis-the horses were only fifteen feet away and still coming. “Joe! It’s the mouths-you have to feed them with something!”