Adeya stared.
The sound of rocks grinding and cracking filled the dimness and drew her eyes deeper into the canyon.
Rays of light appeared, streaming and dancing, as boulders shifted and rose. Of their own accord, they gathered, combined, linked together until a man-shape stood haloed in the light. He stood three times higher than Inen—his head reaching the top of the canyon—his shoulder spanning its width. A sparkle from a single eye winked down at them.
Inen stopped hacking the small piece of fiend at his feet to look up. His eyes widened, and he backed away.
With a massive stride, the golem swung its leg forward. It stamped on the piece of fiend and ground it into the floor. Then, rocks cracking together, it bent its head all the way to the ground to eye Inen.
Adeya whimpered a little as she stepped back.
The golem swung its head towards the sound, neck-rocks grinding together. Its eye, as clear as diamond and full of light, neared her.
She backed away, tripped over Kyen’s legs and fell on her backside. She covered her head.
“Stand down!” Gennen’s voice echoed through the canyon.
The golem paused, turned as Gennen strode over. He held up the white blade to display it.
“Stand down!”
The golem straightened, raining dust and pebbles on them. It took one massive thud of a step backward and stood still but for the steady crumble of dirt.
Wynne and Oda hurried into the canyon; their mouthes fell open a little when they saw the massive pile of rock standing on two feet like a giant.
“Come with me! And hurry! We’ll be safe once we’re through the entrance,” said Gennen. He strode right by them with Wynne and Oda at his heels. Inen came and slung Kyen over his shoulder. Adeya hurried to her feet after them.
Without the body of the golem, the other end of the canyon had opened. Arclight streamed as a bright wedge through the exit. All of them shielded their eyes and squinted as they stepped into it.
Beyond, they arrived at the bottom of a bowl-shaped valley scooped from the mountainside. Three crescent-shaped terraces ringed the sides of the bowl as if a giant had carved a set of enormous steps. Jagged ruins of a Firstwold city lay scattered over the three terraces like broken teeth gleaming under the arclight. A broad set of stone stairs cut down through the center of the ruins, from the topmost terrace all the way down to the paved circle under their feet.
As Adeya gaped up the staircase, the golem’s thudding footsteps shook the ground. It stopped behind them, towering over them all, despite being hunched and twisted from the mismatched boulders of its body.
“Not you!” Gennen snapped at it. “I wasn’t telling you to come, too. Go back to your ward!”
The golem turned. With slow steps, it returned to the entrance of the canyon. It dropped to its knees and sank back into a pile of boulders blocking the entrance.
Without another word, Gennen set off up the stairs. Wynne, Oda, and Inen—who still carried Kyen—followed, and Adeya trailed behind.
“What was this place?” she asked, gazing around at the ruins.
“Who knows!” said Gennen. “It’s the hold of Avanna, now.”
As they climbed up the central stair, the descent of the bowl fell away behind them. The crevasse of the entrance stood out like a black thorn in the rock wall shrinking below. Gennen and his three warriors climbed the staircase at a casual walk, rather than the dogtrot, but Adeya still lagged, huffing and puffing. She was crawling on all fours when they reached the last few steps of the topmost terrace. Climbing to her feet, she stared around and regained her breath.
White ruins rimmed an open circle tiled in dirty, cracked stone. The flank of the mountain met the back of the circle, and there, carved into the rock, jutted a ruin of sprawling girth. Topped by a broad oval dome, decorated with a pillared portico, the ruin looked to have served as a common hall of the bygone city. Now goats in cobbled-together pens bleated beneath its empty windows. The doorway—long since rotted or broken open—allowed a traffic of rough-shaven men in patched breeches carrying dead game or burlap sacks. Along the right rim of the circle, women in stained aprons and fly-away hair worked slushing laundry cauldrons or tended flapping clotheslines strung between poles and ruins. Along the opposite rim, broken bits of block ringed two swordsmen in-training while others swung in unison, in formation, next to racks of wooden swords and old river reeds. Grimy, dark-haired children threaded through them all, running, play-fighting, or chasing a stray goat.
Gennen led them towards the common hall. They were crossing the pavement as a hush fell. Swordsmen left off their training, women looked up from their laundry, and children’s play slowed to a stop. Every one of them had Kyen’s black hair and gray eyes. Those who didn’t—a pale beauty of Varkest, a flaming-redhead of Veleda, a willowy brunette from Nalayni—stood out next to the black-haired babies on their hips or the youngsters at their knees. Everyone of Avanna, from the washerwomen to the children, the young to the old, wore a longsword strapped to their waist. All eyes followed them. Adeya, edging closer to Kyen who was still-unconscious over Inen’s shoulder, looked them over. Most met her glance with hard stares.
As they drew near the common hall, a short, stout, elderly woman in an apron appeared in the doorway. The flecks of red in her grayed hair and her hearty, pear-shaped figure all marked her of Veleda birth. She hurried out to meet them.
“Oh no! Is someone hurt?” She peered up at Kyen. When she saw his face, she gave a little gasp and covered her mouth. She turned her wide eyes on Gennen. “You found him?”