A sudden and savage rush of air ruffled the hood of Risens’ cloak as he dove aside. The solid impact of something impossibly heavy shook the tile, peppering him with a shower of jagged stone. Swift movement registered in the corner of his vision, signaling him to dive once more for his life.

  This time, he saw it: the second stone sword, held aloft by the massive knight statue dropped diagonally across the chamber. It pistoned into the stone, repeating the painful rain of shrapnel from its impact. Risens needed no further encouragement to depart the chamber as the third blade crashed into the floor. He ducked behind the solid statue of the butler as the fourth followed close behind.

  The latest brought with it an effect that caught him off guard. With the percussive patter of the stone fragments came a wave of searing heat as—no longer having the support from the stone swords—the chandelier that had been suspended from the ceiling above smashed to the wreckage of the floor below. The alchemical liquid that filled the mageLights spattered the walls, and Risens swatted at his arm as the flaming fluid stuck to his clothing. For an instant, he considered abandoning his cape, but his persistence proved worthwhile.

  Rising carefully from behind the statue, he surveyed the disaster of his own making. Thankfully, the ward placed on the chamber obscured the sound from reaching the ears of those listening above, but he had no inkling of what other alarms might have been triggered. With his hands on the hilts of his blades, his eyes darted across the room, the center of which was now a mess of shattered tile, heavy, cracked swords, and a steady blaze of alchemical flame.

  The blows from the looming statues—though expectedly lethal—had been predictably linear. He counted himself lucky that he’d remained close to the statue, dodging toward the side of the room when the trap had been sprung. Had he moved further into the room’s center, he would now be roasting amongst the rubble.

  His flash of self-reflection was cut short by a sound he understood too well. The grating of stone on stone filled the air, preceding the high-pitched whir of ancient motors.

  If the statues weren’t deadly enough, the hidden sentinels had now come to life.

  At the base of each of the four colossal statures, a secreted panel rotated inward to reveal its concealed guardian. Unlike the ones he’d battled in the depth of Adalhard’s Bank of Tomes, these were designed as mirror images of the statues they emerged from. Floating half a meter off the ground, they were cloaked in the reverse of Lady Myrenas’s colors. Instead of cream being their dominate color, their tabards were red with cream-colored trim and an inverted crest in the center. The others that had nearly killed him had showed their age and disuse, while everything about these hinted at continued care and upkeep.

  The gnomes that had constructed and powered the ancient defenses were a reclusive and vulnerable people. Though no accurate counting had been taken, it was widely accepted that few still lived. As the population of man grew and spread, so too did the diseases they carried—and often created. The race of gnomes were incredibly susceptible, dying by the thousands until they retreated to the mountains or died off altogether. There was no way of telling, yet how the sentinels remained so well-functioning was curious.

  Emerging from a slumber that had gone undisturbed for gods-knew-how-long, they alerted into action. The armored heads of the mechanisms only needed seconds to locate the presence of an intruder. Glowing red eyes, recessed into slits in their helmets, focused on him. Each drew a sword from its scabbard, and without a verbal challenge, charged toward him.

  Risens drew his own blades. The short daggers he carried on his person were lethal, but hardly the best option against a heavy sword in the hands of a motivated attacker. The upper body of the first sentinel to reach him coiled more than a quarter turn, its sword-bearing arm locked into place with an audible click. Like releasing the tension built by twisting a band, it snapped into action. While clearly telegraphed, the speed of the move caught Risens by surprise. Frantically shifting away from the blow, the blade slammed into his, throwing him down and to the side as metal screamed over his head.

  He rolled back to his feet, prepared for the next charge and thankful for the unexpected angle of his feeble defense. Had he parried the blow directly , he had no doubt the strength would have shattered his arm. He jabbed at his attacker, finding that its shield shifted easily in preparation. The clicking sound of the second preparing its strike had him in motion before it released its attack.

  He lunged forward, this time choosing to roll under the strike. Battling a sentinel was always a learning experience as each behaved uniquely, following orders long established. Perhaps a flaw in the gnomes’ design, unlike a human attacker, the mechanical whirls betrayed all attempts at stealth from the sentinels. Likewise, the tactics and skills of human opponents would shift and adapt due to need or even desperation, yet the constructs usually moved in predictable manners, bound by the familiar limitations of their steel-and-gear bodies.

  As the second released its deadly attack, not only did its body snap around, it shifted, gliding over the floor as it tracked his retreat. He had barely enough time to leap over the second rotation as it lowered the plane of its attack.

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  These were smarter than those he’d fought in the past.

  Seeing an opening, Risens hurtled forward and struck out with a stab toward its eyes. In juxtaposition to their restrictions, Risens’ attack had done nothing to even slow the false beast down. When he struck next, it met his charge with its shield. Launching forward, it slammed the flat metal into him, tossing him back onto the floor. He skidded to a rough stop through the shards of shattered stone that tore into his cloak and skin.

  Currently, he was engaged by only a pair of the metal soldiers. The destruction wrought by the massive blades of the guardian statues and the fire that followed acted as an unexpected barrier against their attack. The two mindless mechanisms that had emerged from the positions closest to the Gilded Cage held their positions, blocked by the giant swords. Again and again, they bumped into the barrier in a foolish attempt to reach him. The clothing they wore was fully engulfed in flame, likely adding to the confusion of their visual sensors.

  He was thankful for the reprieve from the second pair as the first was proving challenging enough. The growing pit of failure that opened in his stomach as he’d triggered the alarm spread with every passing beat of his heart. His mission had been one of stealth. One that he’d clearly failed. He was fighting yet another battle that he was likely not winning. It was only a matter of time before the alchemical liquid ceased to provide ample fuel. When the others joined the fray, he’d be forced to either run or perish.

  The repetitive clicking of both of the sentinels priming their attacks snapped him into action. They relied on sheer power and maneuverability as they spun, their strikes following a predetermined path. Their second strike would only adjust after the first had failed to reach its mark.

  That gave Risens a fighting chance.

  Flitting between the pair, toward the fire, Risens dove forward in a horizontal lunge as one swept at his legs and the other slashed at his chest. Rolling to his feet he leaped sharply to his side, preparing to leap over the blade as it made its full rotation. The second sentinel tracked his approach and promptly adjusted the trajectory of its strike. The result was a blind swing.

  Risens hopped over the blade of the closer sentinel as the other’s attack struck with terrifying force. With a hollow booming sound like a hammer against a gong, the heavy blade slammed into the other mechanism. The weapon slipped through the armor plating like a razor through parchment. The air crackled with a ripple of energy before the glowing eyes petered out. The bulky construct cracked the tile as it crashed to the floor.

  Risens grinned at his success, using the distraction to counter the attack. Again, his blades were met by the deft, speedy use of the shield, though the opportunity that opened was encouraging. The strength of its strike and the weight of the falling metal shell of the other sentinel had pinned the blade into the other’s core. Its jerking movements shoved the weapon deeper and resisted its attempts to free itself, yet he knew it wouldn’t last indefinitely. Darting to the side to circle around the back of the mechanism, he realized immediately just how much he had overestimated the limitations of the situation.

  His attack was countered this time, not by sword or shield but by the lifeless husk of the silent sentinel. Like a massive, twisted metal club, it gouged a deep scar in the tile as it rotated into him. The punishing blow sent him careening back across the room, head first into the statue of the butler with dizzying force.

  With erratic, lurching motions it followed him as it carried the weight of the other with it. For a moment, Risens considered abandoning the fight. His options were few. One of the four sentinels had been destroyed. The second had proven to be devastatingly lethal. The fires that had consumed the other pair had nearly extinguished as only small tatters of the clothing remained. It was only a matter of time before they surpassed the barrier that held them back.

  Risens had been well-trained, mastering the lethal skills that had granted him the title of the King’s Rightmaker. The unexpected powers, granted to him from raven’s shrine, were legendary. Failing a test here wouldn’t reveal anything less than the icy embrace of death. Out of desperation, his mind flashed to the latest skill he’d earned.

  Mimicry. The Voice of the Raven.

  There was no language to reason with the mindless sentinels to stop their attacks. Lady Myrenas brought with her no physical key to access the vault beyond; she had merely whispered into the ear of the statue that he now found himself resting against. It wasn’t a mageLock, tuned to her essence that granted access, but a voice. He suspected, her voice.

  Struggling to gain his footing as the sentinel bore down on him, he focused on recalling the unique tone of her speech—high-pitched, nasally, sweet mixed with a deadly spice.

  “Stop,” he called to the statue and the sentinels. The sound of a voice not his own exiting his lips was startling. To his ears, the perfection of the mimicry was complete, yet to his dismay, nothing happened. The sentinel still dragged the shell of its companion menacingly in its wake.

  It was more than just tone, but words. He wracked his brain for any hints of passwords used by the lady or her house. Again, the inky feeling of desperation yawned open in his gut as the castle’s records had provided him nothing of substance. Not for the first time, he wondered if he had been sent here to fail after all.

  Falling back into a fighting stance, he prepared to meet the oncoming charge. Freed from the fire that distracted its view, one of the other sentinels now glided over the blaze that covered the center of the room, snaking around the blades that bit deep into the stone.

  If he wanted to live, he would have to run. He’d never abandoned a fight before and it went against every fiber in his being. Leaving now would sentence him to death. His failure would be unforgiveable. Rapidly scanning the room for any further avenues, his vision tracked again across the heavily gilded door. The gem-encrusted raven, sparkling with the reflections of the fire looked back at him in pity. He felt as trapped as the inanimate bird chained to the golden cage.

  Arched across the top of the door, he read the elaborate script etched into the stone. The words were cryptic, the idea in his mind was shaky, yet it was all he had.

  It was worth a try.

  Focusing on the timbre of Lady Myrenas’s voice, he shouted the phrase into the stone butler’s ear.

  “To dreams go the raven.”