“Kumi!” I yelled as I raced to get between her and the animated statue.
As the golem jabbed its spear down, the princess moved aside, and the weapon struck the pedestal. Its tip shattered against the stone in a shower of ice.
Fire flared along the Sundered Heart as I called forth my Vigor while sprinting at top-speed. The golem stabbed at me, but I parried the blow, and there was a hiss of steam as fire and water collided.
Kumi ran toward the doors. “Guards!” she yelled. “Guards!”
The guards we’d seen at the front gate appeared. They took hold of the shrine’s doors and slammed them shut. Kumi reached them and hammered on the wood just as the thud of a bar being forced into place sounded from outside.
“What are you doing?” she shouted through the door. “I am your princess; answer me!”
She wheeled on me as I dived away from a vicious stab from the golem. “Ethan, can you open the door?”
“Little busy!” I shouted back.
The roar of the ice golem filled the whole shrine, echoed off the walls, and battered my ears.
Vesma and Kegohr moved up to my flank. Flames flickered from our weapons as we stood together to face this new monster.
The golem turned its icicle around and swung it like a baseball bat. The blunt weight scythed through the air, and we were all forced to jump back. Kegohr was a fraction of a second too slow, and the blow caught him in the chest. He wasn’t light, but the strength of the golem was still enough to toss him across the room like an empty soda can. He crashed into a pedestal and slid to the ground. Kumi blurred away from the doors at the impact.
Vesma and I went on the offensive. I swung the Sundered Heart in a series of swift attacks as she darted around the golem and probed for weak points with her spear. Shards of ice flew as blows landed, but nothing seemed to do any serious harm.
The golem turned on her with movement surprisingly fast for a creature of its size and lashed out with its improvised spear. Vesma flung up a Flame Shield just in time to block the hit, and there was an angry hiss as the first six inches of the golem’s frozen spear evaporated. Vesma tumbled across the smooth floor as her shield dissipated and left her sprawled out on the ground.
I ran in and hacked at the creature’s arm to take its attention off Vesma. My blow landed where water formed an elbow joint between the plates of ice. The Sundered Heart bit through with a sizzle, but the water reformed behind it. The golem barely seemed to feel my strike despite the flames that rippled over my sword.
Kumi crouched over the unconscious Kegohr and chanted urgently. Water flowed out of ceremonial bowls positioned around the room, ran across the floor, and formed a layer over the half-ogre. He opened his eyes, grinned, and lumbered to his feet.
“Are you back with us?” I called out as I dodged beneath a swing from the golem.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he said. “Never felt better.”
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. His body started to glow, and flames flared in his eyes.
“Oh, yeah,” he said. “That’s more like it.”
Kegohr joined the fight with his mace swinging, and he hit the golem with a massive strike. His half-ogre strength, fire magic, and momentum combined to smash into the animated statue’s chest. The golem staggered back, clutching the gap where Kegohr had taken a chunk out of its side.
The colossal guardian righted itself against a wall, pulled its arm back, and flung the remains of its icicle at Kegohr. I sent a flash of wood power through the ground and up. A thin Plank Pillar materialized in front of Kegohr, and the icicle sank halfway through the wood before it halted an inch away from his eye.
I concentrated on the golem’s head and summoned a cloud of ash. Blackness appeared out of the air around it and blinded it for a moment. The golem still needed to see, even if it was a magical construct. The creature flailed its arms in an attempt to disperse the cloud.
I looked to Kegohr and Vesma and communicated an unspoken plan. They knew exactly what I wanted to do. It probably wouldn’t work, but it was the surest way of dealing with this monstrosity before it dealt with us.
“Now!” I shouted.
All three of us blasted the golem with a simultaneous Untamed Torch. Blinded by the ash, it was completely unaware when our streams of fire plowed into its body. Steam fizzed as the scorching flames bombarded its frozen exterior. Then, it barrelled forward and forced us to split up to avoid being crushed.
“We’re getting there!” I called.
“Maybe,” Vesma said and pointed. “Look.”
The golem raised a hand, and water flowed from the ceremonial bowls before streaming across the floor. The liquid surged toward the creature until it coalesced up into its legs. The water settled into gaps we had melted away from its body, froze over, sealed the wounds, and left our foe intact and very pissed off. It emerged from the fading remnants of the black cloud, its face gray with ash.
“You teach the golem your tricks?” I asked Kumi.
“It isn’t part of the temple. Someone must have brought it here.”
The golem launched toward me. I spun aside a second before it would have pulverized me and shot a barrage of Stinging Palm into its back. The thorns bounced harmlessly off its hardened outer shell, and I cursed as I realized just how much Vigor I’d need to pump into the technique to harm the golem.
“Someone must have poisoned its mind.” The princess jabbed our icy enemy in the side with her dagger. It whipped around and backhanded her across the room.
“We can’t just whittle it down,” I said as
