I glanced behind me and saw that the boulder was catching up, but I was nearing the entrance and thought I’d outpace it. I kept going, making it perhaps another two hundred meters, but the boulder was gaining on me rapidly and only getting faster.
Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a recess in the wall a few feet off to my left. Behind me, the boulder kept rumbling on in its spinning death-roll, now maybe only a meter or two away.
I let out a slight yelp and lunged for the safety of the small recess. The boulder made a whooshing sound as it spun past, catching the edge of my t-shirt in the process and snagging it along the wall for a second before the thing finally passed me completely.
My breath came in short spurts, but I focused on slowing it, on letting my nerves die back down and my heart rate slow. I’d made it past the trap. Now all I had to do was make it another hundred meters or so, and I’d be safe.
I peeked my head out of the recess, looking both ways. Up ahead, the giant boulder was magically missing.
“Huh,” I said aloud. “Maybe there was a hidden trap door near the entrance, too?”
It didn’t matter. The coast was clear. I pried my tired body out of the small recess and kept walking toward the entrance. It wasn’t much farther now.
Behind me, I heard that same grating noise from before. I groaned and spun on my heels to discover - you guessed it - another boulder falling out of the sky, come to crush me. Or maybe it was the first one, spinning back around on some sort of ancient conveyor belt. It didn’t really matter.
My aching legs giving protest, I ran for it again, bolting for the entryway.
Up ahead, a strange, whitish shape unstuck itself from the wall a short distance in front of me and another groan spewed out of my lips.
“It’s an undead skeleton, come to take the sword back.”
I should have known. People didn’t bury things with their dead unless they were highly treasured family heirlooms. Even if they were cursed artifacts. Oh well, there were worse ways to go than getting skewered by a family guardian from the underworld.
I reached down to the scabbard at my side and pulled out my katana. Ideally, I’d have used Grax’thor for this battle to give the thing a good test, but it wasn’t easy to pull a sword from a back scabbard unless the thing was built for that purpose, and this one wasn’t.
The skeleton warrior was wearing a rusted breastplate and helmet, and carried a rather large, oval-shaped shield and a rusted sword.
I grimaced. If that thing touched me, the disease from the rust and decay was as likely to kill me as the wound itself. This would be a lousy way to go, after all.
Skeletor lunged at me, coming at me with a wide swipe for my midsection. I brought my sword up, parrying the blow with ease, all the while my eyes darting behind me, trying to gauge how close the new boulder was to my position.
It looked to be about a hundred meters out. I had to end this quickly.
I came in with a high swipe, swinging downward, trying to hack off the thing’s shield arm to expose it.
Skeletor was surprisingly spry and managed to bring his shield around just in time to knock my blow wide.
I followed that up with a low lunge at the thing’s bony feet, which Skeletor also managed to block with that giant shield of his.
Skeletor swiped his sword at me again, then, coming in high, blade aimed for my neck. I dodged slightly backward, panting and heaving from the exertion, and flicked my blade upward at the last moment, jabbing inward toward the thing’s chest.
My blade rattled and I heard a loud crack as several of the thing’s ribs cracked open, but of course the blow had no effect, since the creature didn’t have any actual organs underneath.
I cursed my instincts and rallied for another attack, swinging my sword hard to the side, under Skeletor’s guard, aiming to disarm that giant shield again.
This time, my blade strike rang true, and I heard another satisfying crunch as Skeletor’s shield arm broke in half, splinters of bone flying in every direction as the shield clanged to the ground.
I flashed Skeletor a wicked grin as it came at me again, lunging forward with its rusty weapon. I reared backward, managing to dodge the blade strike just in time to save my skin, but not my Duran Duran t-shirt.
I groaned a bit, but to be frank, the thing had seen better days anyway and was already nearing retirement, so it was a minor loss.
Skeletor swung wildly again, seemingly without any real aim, and I staggered backward once more, my weapon clanging against his with a loud clang.
The rumbling was growing ever louder throughout this, so I spun around to check on the boulder. It was only twenty meters or so away and catching up.
My mind raced. I had to get past Skeletor, and fast. So I ran for it again. I turned around and ran full steam ahead, hoping to outpace Skeletor and make it to the fabled entryway before he could skewer me in the back with Mr. Rusty.
The skeleton warrior shifted his weight and his blade swung at me again, clattering against Grax’thor’s scabbard. Had it not been for that thing sitting there, the sword strike would have cleaved into my back and put an end to me right then and there.
I kept moving, trying not to think about it, when I felt my legs give way as my foot came into contact with something hard and wooden, and there I was, flying through the air, my face hitting the
