'Scavengers.' Amber clenched her teeth lest they chatter and continued, 'Humans must've died in a pile, and jackals and snakes ate their corrupted flesh and died too.'
'So?' Hakiim persisted.
Amber grated, 'Maybe they won't attack-'
As one, pushed by an invisible wind, the skeletons advanced with claws and jaws poised to rend and bite. Amber jumped to the left wall, untied the noose of her capture staff, and swished the ebony shaft in the air.
'Hak!' she called. 'Get your shield up.'
'I lost it to the herders.'
'Then wrap your headscarf around your forearm,' she told him. 'Don't let them bite you! Reiver-'
'I'm set!'
As if by magic, the thief produced a weapon Amber had never seen, a thin chain a yard long ending in big rings. From a pouch Reiver drew a lead weight and clipped it to a ring. Before Amber could ask, he swung the chain in a circle until it buzzed.
Taking a long step, silent as falling snow, Reiver suddenly whipped the chain through a tight arc. The lead weight struck a human skull on a jackal's carcass with an ear-wrenching crunch. The skull exploded into fragments that bounced off the walls. The jaw dropped to the stone floor.
Reiver whooped, 'That's one!'
'This is not a game,' Amber shrilled.
She was terrified. These patchwork skeletons could tear them to flinders. A jackal-headed mockery clanked toward her, and she waved her capture staff feebly. What to do? Rope it? Pull it apart? Brush it back? Shatter the bones?
Shambling along the floor, the horror crowded Amber back toward the jumbled landslide. Desperately she decided Reiver had the right idea. Hoping the seasoned ebony didn't snap, she flipped it end for end to present the thicker haft, grabbed with both hands, and swung.
Rock hard wood slammed the skull's temple. Knocked off the spine, the jackal head banked off the wall. Amber couldn't see if it shattered or not. The slanted spikes of sunlight were almost a nuisance. Glowing, swirling dust motes made it hard to see into the gloomier pockets. Still, at least ten skeletal constructs shuffled toward them.
Amber had hoped the remaining skeleton would collapse upon losing its head, but she was disappointed. Curved bones clanked toward her, more hideous without the mismatched head. The human arm clawed while the snake arm gnashed the air with hollow fangs.
Amber bleated to Reiver, 'What now?'
'I don't know,' the thief admitted. Nonetheless, he wound up his weighted chain, jumped, and smacked an upside-down head riding on jackal bones. Jarred loose, the skull fell into a drift of sand. The jaw continued to clack as if hungry for blood. 'Villein's Volley! Maybe if we cleave where the heart would beat… Hak, bring your sword.'
Unprovoked, the rug merchant's son had hung back. Now, eager to help with any plan, he raised his scimitar so high it ticked the stone ceiling. Reiver flung his weighted chain, snagged a jackal's rib cage, and skipped aside.
'Hit 'im, Hak!'
With a schoolboy's shout, Hakiim cleaved bone with his thick bladed scimitar. Shoulder blades, ribs, and vertebrae sprayed in white splinters. The jackal thing's back legs, unsupported, missed a step and toppled. Hakiim cheered, and Reiver hooted. Amber watched and didn't like what she saw.
Unbroken, the rear legs struggled to rise. Other bones wriggled and jiggled to join up. Meanwhile, whole skeletons shuffled toward them. Even the smitten jackal skull skittered over stone again. Her staff had cracked the thick jaw and punctured the cranium, but the cursed creature, or its ghost, still strove to fight.
Wanting to cry with frustration, Amber released the rope pinned in her right hand and flicked the noose over the double heads of an oncoming skeleton. The thing didn't reach for the rope but stumped on obliviously. Holding tight to the rawhide handle, Amber yanked the noose shut, pulled, then pushed. Grunting, she tilted the two-headed fiend into a shorter skeleton, then shoved hard enough that the magic bond broke. Both collapsed in a heap. Immediately the bones began to merge, probably to create a three-headed horror with four arms. Amber didn't watch.
'It's no good,' Amber yelled above the men's chatter as they picked out their next target. 'The bones just reform. These things must be cursed to stop intruders forever!'
Startled, Reiver and Hakiim peered into the gloom. Their jubilance over one victory evaporated. Threatened by an almost-human skeleton, Hakiim wound up his scimitar and with a frustrated scream split the thing from shoulder to hip. The legs remained standing, and he chopped them off at the knees, but the skull magically rolled upright, snapped cracked teeth, and rolled again to nudge more bones into order. The rug merchant's son swore oaths learned from his uncles.
'We can't hack them forever,' Hakiim said.
'No, we can't,' Amber agreed.
Fending off a lurching, broken-backed skeleton with her capture noose, Amber flicked her left sleeve, caught the teak cudgel snagged on her wrist, and cracked the fiend's skull. The crown fell off, but ruptured eye sockets glared while a jaw chattered.
'Mother of Coins, help me!' she prayed.
Already Amber's arms were tired. It had only been an hour since they'd outrun the thunderherders. Now the light's slanted rays faded as the huge desert sun slipped below the valley's lip. 'It'll be dark in a minute, and these things will have the advantage.'
Reiver ripped a rag from his shirttail and spiked it on the point of his dagger. From a pouch came a small bottle whose cork he pulled with his teeth. Liquid gurgled on the rag. Crouching, he struck flint and steel, blew frantically, and set the rag alight. The three adventurers squinted as it ignited with a bright glow and very little smoke.
With a long arm, Reiver rammed the burning rag into the eye socket of a skull atop a pelvis and four arms. Smearing while burning, the oil charred the skull. Reiver stepped back, the tip of his dagger flaming.
'That's all my whale oil,' he said simply.
'We'll need more!' Amber shrieked.
Skipping behind Hakiim, she jerked his thick blanket from under his pack flap, looped it over her capture noose, and balanced it alongside the flames. It caught, smoking. Amber flipped the burning blanket over the skeleton's frame, then used her staff to ram a shorter skeleton against the pyre. Thin rib bones crisped and flared like candlewood. Encouraged, Hakiim and Reiver scooped up slithering bones and threw them into the makeshift bonfire.
For the first time, Amber saw the magical enchantment stagger. Burning skull-and-bone monstrosities stopped creeping and sagged into the flames.
'That's the trick!'
Heartened, Reiver and Hakiim dodged the quicker freaks and kicked others apart, adding fuel until the pyre snapped and crackled like a brush pile.
Hakiim yelled, 'Must we burn them all?'
'Shame of Shar, no,' yelled Reiver. 'We only need to get past!'
Amber blinked. Intent on facing down the monsters, she'd forgotten their purpose. Casting a quick look about, she yelled, 'Then go!'
Batting aside a human skeleton with a backward head, Amber and her friends pelted past the flames and the last of the skeletons. Always looking ahead, Reiver plucked a burning thigh bone to fetch along.
Three abreast, they trotted down the sloping tunnel until the crackling fire winked behind like a candle. No one pursued. Blowing from fright and exertion, the three sagged to the cold stone floor.
Hakiim puffed, 'Wh-What shall I use for a blanket?'
Half hysterical, Amber found the lament funny, and began to laugh. Reiver joined in, sniggering quietly. Hakiim looked puzzled until he realized the absurdity of his complaint and roared along.
Amber suddenly went cold. 'Gates of the Seven Heavens,' she said. 'I just realized… we tripped one trap entering this tunnel, we could have tripped a dozen more and been killed dead as Bhaal, Bane, and Myrkul!'
