When the sound came, it was so loud that at first Thaddeus thought the roof was caving in. His momentary distraction was enough for the woman in front of him to smash him to the ground. He had to scramble back to avoid the blade that followed the blow.
As he fought his way back to his feet, Thaddeus saw one of the huge stone figures set into the walls around the cavern toppling forward, its limbs crumbling into chunks of rock the size of boulders as it went. It crashed to the ground, cracking the surface of the slope before what was left of its body began to roll down toward the platform. As he watched, another of the statues began to fall, smashing into the first. At this impact the second statue fractured, limbs cracking and splintering into stone dust and shrapnel as the two colossal forms battled for space as they rolled. They picked up speed despite their size, crashing against each other, urging one another on as they hurtled down the slope.
At first the cult worshippers seemed entirely oblivious, too intent on their human foes to notice what was happening behind them. The woman struggling with Thaddeus battled on, regardless. But then something began to happen. One by one, the soldiers turned toward the approaching statues. They raised their arms and walked forward, armored limbs outstretched before them even as they stood in the path of the immense stone tide.
The woman trying to kill Thaddeus abruptly abandoned her attempt. She turned away, walking back to the edge of the platform and quickly descending it. Joining the other cult members, she raised her arms and began to walk toward the statues.
“What’s happening?” Kai shouted, and Thaddeus realized that he, Desai, and J had also all been left alone.
The cult members began to chant again. They stood, most of them three-deep in a row that blocked off the end of the slope from the platform. The first row dropped to their knees, arms outstretched, the second leaned over the shoulders of the first, their arms also outstretched. The soldiers in the third row, made of the tallest of the masses, remained upright, reaching out over the heads of the first two rows, also with their arms outstretched. The statues continued their journey down the slope, each smash of their stone bodies sending more and more dust and sharp chips of rock into the air. The cavern was full of it, as thick as the mist had been out in the forest.
“Look!” J shouted, pointing through the smog at the wall where one of the statues had previously stood. “Who’s that? She ain’t dressed like the rest of ’em!”
A lithe figure slipped out of the now-empty alcove, making back up the stone slope. It was a woman, Thaddeus could make out that much, but no one he recognized.
“That’s Upala!” Kai exclaimed with distinct relief. “She’s still alive. Where is she going?”
“I have no idea, but I believe,” came Desai’s voice over the sound of crushing, careening stone, “that this is intended as a diversion to help us out of our predicament. In which case we should take advantage of it while we still can. We have to find the source of the power. We have to stop it, now.”
“What about Dita?” J cried. “We can’t just leave ’er!”
Thaddeus looked over to the cage, still dangling low in the pit. Rémy was working at the lock while Dita clung to the top of her prison for dear life.
“She’s all right, J,” said Thaddeus. “Look — Rémy’s with her.”
“She ain’t all right!” J cried. “She’s still stuck in that thing!”
As if she’d felt their eyes on her, Rémy glanced up and met Thaddeus’s gaze.
“Go!” she shouted, her voice only just carrying above the sound of disintegrating rock. “Get out of here while you can! I know how to get us both out of here. I’ll take care of her, J. I promise.”
“An’ who’s going to take care of you?” J yelled back. “Eh, Rémy? Who’s going to take care of you?”
Thaddeus grabbed J’s arm, dragging the boy around to face him. “I don’t want to leave them either, J, but staying isn’t going to help them. If we can work out why this is happening and stop it, then maybe we’ll all be saved. We have to go.”
“You go,” J said, trying to wriggle out of Thaddeus’s grip. “Go on. Go. But I ain’t going nowhere.”
“J, you have to. Do you want Rémy to have to rescue you, too?”
“She won’t ’ave ter —”
Thaddeus was through arguing. Every second they tarried in the cavern was a second lost for escape. He dragged J away from the pit, though the boy did his best to resist. Kai grabbed his other arm, and together he and Thaddeus practically carried J out of the cavern, heading for the dark recesses beneath the arch at the far end of the platform. Kai was still limping, but if he was in pain, the pirate did not show it. Desai followed behind them.
As they reached the archway that led out of the cavern, a new sound reached them: a rumbling scrape like the magnified screech of chalk scraping over slate. Thaddeus turned to look back, feeling Kai, J, and Desai do the same beside him.
“Bleedin’ ’eck,” muttered J.
The carcasses of the statues had reached the bottom of the slope. Rather than crushing the rows of cult members, however, they had been forced to a stop by the collective strength of those outstretched, armored arms. As Thaddeus watched, the second statue crashed into the back of the first: an impact great enough to shake the ground on which they all stood. And yet the cult members still stood firm, arms braced against the first statue. They barely even shook.
The chant began again — a rhythmic blend of incomprehensible words rising into the dusty air. Then, so slowly that at first it was impossible to see at all, the statues began to shift. The cult members were forcing the stone monuments to move, rolling their damaged bodies back up the slope.
“Each of those things must weigh as much as my ship with a fully loaded hold,” Kai muttered. “How can they possibly be strong enough to move two of them with their bare hands?”
“Their hands ain’t bare, though, are they?” said J grimly. “They’ve got that armored nonsense all over ’em.”
“I’m afraid J’s right,” agreed Desai. “It would seem that their strength is being enhanced already, and I would wager it is not by natural means.”
“How can we fight these people?” Kai asked as the sound of stone scraping inexorably against stone went on. “The British Army itself couldn’t, rifles and cannon or no. What can we do, with nothing of the kind?”
“We locate the source of this power and we stop it,” Desai said grimly. “Now, before it has a chance to grow further.”
Kai shook his head with a brief laugh. “As easy as that, eh?”
“You said it yourself, Kai,” said Desai. “This is nothing but a children’s story — and what is there to be afraid of in that?”
“I’m not afraid,” Kai told him. “I just know when I’ve met my match. So I plan on finding Upala, getting out of here, and taking my ship far, far away where none of this nonsense can find us. The rest of you can come if you want. Or not — it’s up to you.”
“Wherever you go, be it to the ends of the earth or even beyond, it will not be far enough,” Desai told him. “Once this power reaches its zenith and escapes this place, there will be no stopping it.”
“I don’t know what it is you’re looking at, old man,” said Kai, “but I’m telling you, there’s already no stopping it.”
“And I am telling you that you are wrong,” said Desai. “Sahoj is behind this, and he may be a mystic but he’s still a man, and at this moment he can still be stopped. Trust me, if not we would all be dead already. So this moment is all we have. If we do not act now, then all will be lost.”
Kai stared at Desai for another moment, as if weighing a mess of odds in his head. Thaddeus could almost see the cogs working in the man’s mind as his dark eyes flickered in the gloom.
“You came with Rémy to help,” Thaddeus said softly. “No sense in leaving a job half done, is there?”
Kai glanced at him. “Actually, I came because she promised me the airship,” said the pirate. “And a fat lot of good that thing turned out to be in a fight.”
“Well, then I suppose you have a choice to make,” said Thaddeus. “Leave your sister behind and try to make a run for it, or stand up for something. I already know what Rémy would do in your place, however hopeless the situation. She’s already doing it, trying to save Dita instead of just her own skin.”
For a moment Thaddeus thought Kai might swing the sword he was holding in his direction, but then the pirate shook his head. “You’re all fools.” He looked at Desai. “All right. Lead on, old man. You’d better know what you’re doing, that’s all I can say.”
Thaddeus paused for a moment, looking back to where Rémy still labored with the lock on Dita’s cage. Then he followed, too.