Chapter Seventeen—Tread Lightly…

They both whirled on their heels, lights held high.

“What was that?” Ali asked.

Shiro listened for any sign of what might have made that noise.

“Shiro…?”

“It was… it could have been something we disturbed.”

Ali glanced at him, scoffed and pulled out his scimitar. He took three steps forward, glanced to his left, then to his right as Shiro watched and came up behind him, his own scimitar freed from its scabbard.

“Anything?” Shiro asked.

“Nothing.”

They both relaxed.

“Perhaps you are right. Something we disturbed earlier. Oh, we forgot to look for the jewels upon the other statues!

“Hmm.”

“What?”

“We can get them on our way back. For now, let’s go through the arch to find what is on the other side, yes?”

Ali chuckled deeply. “You are a greedy, greedy adventurer, my friend.”

“I am not greedy,” Shiro protested. “I have debts.”

“All the more reason to be greedy, my friend. Greedy for life!”

They turned and at the end of the thoroughfare a figure stood. It sent a jolt through Shiro’s heart.

“Who goes there?!”

“You saw someone?” Ali said, eyes widening.

The man moved so quickly, Shiro hardly got a look at him. “I saw… someone. He moved that way.”

“Come out!” Ali called, walking forward. “If you do not… you will speak with the sharp side of my scimitar, fool!”

“Ali,” Shiro said, “wait!”

“WHAT IS IT, SHIRO?!”

“I don’t think it was a man!”

Ali’s eyebrows raised so high they almost disappeared underneath his turban, then he whirled again, sword raised.

“Monsters,” Shiro said. He went up beside, Ali, ready to strike a deadly blow at anything that came within two paces. He moved forward, looking for the creature.

The shape. It had been manlike.

Peering to his left between the sarcophagi and the huge urns, he saw nothing, but continued searching for the creature.

Ali screamed. Shiro turned and found him swinging his scimitar at a group of… men?

Shiro rushed to his side, slicing and lopping limbs and the men—or the creatures—whatever they were, groaned and snarled.

Together they felled all three of them quickly.

“Gods! They gave me a fright,” Ali said, clutching his jacket. He laughed. “You die and stay where I put you!”

“What are they? Dead men?”

“Undead men,” Ali said. “Mummies.”

Shiro nodded in recognition of the word. He had heard of them before, but never saw one, never encountered any within the dungeons he had raided in these lands. Though he had seen them depicted on wall art.

“Why are they not on the wall art here in this tomb?”

Ali looked at him. “Because what is depicted here, my friend,” he said, an air of hotlines about him, “are men who were alive.”

“Something we did has disturbed them.”

“Perhaps.”

Shiro turned back toward the arch. There were at least ten more of the mummies. “Ali, look.”

“Hmm,” he noised. “I suppose we’ll have a lot of firewood when we’re done here.”

“You want—you want to desecrate their bodies?”

“Shiro,” Ali said sternly. “Something tells me they would not mind!”

Shiro grunted with irritation and raised his scimitar in readiness for this mob of dungeon mummies.