in a circular motion as loud thuds accompanied each uniform step. Silas moved between the first line of statues, safely in the middle of all of them. He then only had to go past one more line of them, and then he would be at the door. As he moved through the middle of them, his foot caught the pointed edge of a small pebble on the ground. In any normal situation this would not have been a problem, but one of the statues reared its giant head in the direction of the foreign noise and stopped marching. Fear gripped Silas into a frozen state; he did not dare to move, knowing if he did, the statues would come down on him in seconds.
Each of the statues stopped marching at the sight of the one alarmed stone figure. The first one took a step out of formation, looking for the source of the noise. It gripped its stone sword tightly, making no sound, but watching intently. Silas looked behind him and he could see the alarmed faces of his comrades. Inga remained focused on not letting Silas reappear, but he could sense that she was trying with all of her might not to be distracted.
Now that the statues had stopped moving, Silas knew he could not make his way to the door with the sound of his heavy footsteps, but he was also running out of time with his invisibility. Unless the statues began to march soon, there would be no getting out without fighting, and Silas was only the first one to cross. This still had to be done with Lorcan, Kaden then Inga. Silas wasn’t sure Inga would have the power to do such a thing. And until this moment, he hadn’t thought about the fact that the statues would more than likely see the door opening at the other end of the corridor and would still try to attack. There were holes in the plan, but none of it mattered if the statues didn’t start marching again.
The one that had come close to him to investigate began to move once again. The others did the same, only this time they weren’t marching in a circular formation. They were searching for the source of the noise, moving through the cavern freely without pattern. Silas found himself moving around carefully as he tried to avoid contact with the stone giants, all while trying to remain silent. Every step had to be taken lightly. Once or twice he thought he might have made too much noise, but it was covered by the loud stomps of the stone kings. After maneuvering through several of the statues, Silas finally made it to the door.
A brass nob stuck out from the side, and Silas grabbed it with his free hand and tried to turn it. The knob didn’t budge. Locked!
What good was getting through the statues if the door was locked? There wasn’t a way of getting through without…
Then he saw it. Clipped to a stone belt of one of the statues was a metal key. He looked up at Kaden and Lorcan, wishing he could convey a message to them, letting them know that he was going to try and fight the statues alone. Inga had to keep him invisible just a few minutes longer. He knew that this would be the only way to get that key and that the others could not get involved.
As invisible as the air around him, he held the war hammer with a firm grip in both hands. He closed his eyes, focusing all of his strength into his swing. When the nearest statue came a foot closer, he pulled the hammer back and swung with all of his might into its leg. The leg crumbled under the smashing weight of the hammer causing the statue to fall to the ground in a dusty heap. The sight of a fallen statue alarmed the others instantly, and they all began to move to the center of the cavern. Silas stepped silently behind another statue and attacked another leg, only this time his swing was not quite as strong and only took out a small chunk of the leg. The statue turned to meet its foe, but saw nothing. With what seemed to be frustration, the statue swung mightily at the air in front of it. The stone sword would have cut Silas in half, but it missed him by several feet. He moved in closer after the