Chapter 14 The Labyrinth’s Keeper
“Aster!” I shouted above their terrifying snarls as I jostled in his arms once again. There were too many of them, and they were coming faster than even he could cut them down.
“Put me down.”
With one swift movement, he placed me on the ground, feet first. I threw my knife into my other hand, and I drew the dagger that held Bronte’s lightning with my left hand.
“No!” Aster shouted, pushing me away from a zombie’s grasp.
“Don’t use it. We need it.” He arched his sword through the air, slicing through the zombies that reached for us, and I screamed out again.
Long, cold fingers grabbed my hair, and I drove my knife upward.
The blade hit home, making the zombie disappear in an instant and coating me in dust. No, not dust… ash.
“Alex, on your left!” Aster yelled.
I spun around, ducking as another reached for me, and I slashed like a woman possessed. My knife bit into its neck and cut through two more zombies that closed in straight after it disintegrated into ash.
I couldn’t keep this up for much longer, my heart felt like it was going to explode from my chest. I was living a nightmare, surrounded by my worst fear. A fear I was being forced to face.
Forced to fight.
We worked our way through them, moving painfully slowly along the path, clearing it one body at a time. I avoided looking at their faces, focusing on other parts of their body because it only took one hit from a weapon before they were gone.
Aster stepped in front of me, sword flashing. He moved like they didn’t scare him at all, and they probably didn’t. But they certainly had reason to fear him, especially as he was cleaving through two at a time, sometimes three. They vanished mid-fall, ashes scattering across the path.
I hated how close they got to me. One latched on to my arm, and I lost it. I stabbed, again and again, even when it had disintegrated, so I was left stabbing air. Freaking out like I woke up finding a spider crawling on my skin.
I was back-to-back with Aster now, the path choked with bodies.
My knife moved fast, like my body was on autopilot while I hid away in my mind, far away where the zombies couldn’t reach.
The floor trembled under us. I stumbled, catching myself against the wall, and for a split second, I saw carvings flare to life beneath my hand.
Symbols glowing faintly, the same spiral horns we saw on the entrance.
The ground shifted again, and the path split.
“Your fear… keep going!” he shouted.
“What do you mean?” I shouted back, pulling away from a zombie as Aster’s blade turned it to dust.
“It’s changing the path. Blocking some of the creatures!” he bellowed back at me over the snarling creatures.
I looked ahead. He was right. The hordes that were coming to us had been blocked, and though some continued to crawl through the wall, it was slowing them down significantly. Who would have thought that the one emotion we were trying not to show was the one helping us now?
We came to another junction, but before I could take the right, Aster yelled, “Stop, it’s changing the way.”
I didn’t know how he knew this, but he was right. A wall shot out at speed, blocking the path. If Aster hadn’t told me to stop, I likely would have been pancaked between the two walls and I didn't exactly feel like dying doing a Wile E. Coyote impression.
Before I could thank him, the zombies that had been chasing us caught up, blocking us in once more.
I raised my knife, ready to face them again, and Aster raised his sword.
But before our weapons came into contact with them, they stopped.
Their heads turned as if they could hear something that I couldn’t, something that had them scrambling over each other and back through the cracks they had come from.
I stood there shaking, trying to comprehend what had happened. Why had they stopped attacking us? What had they run away from?
I turned to Aster, and he lowered his sword.
“What happened… why would they just leave like that?” I asked in disbelief, as if it was too good to be true.
“I don’t know,” he said, looking up and down the path where we had been fighting for our lives. “But we should get moving.”
Then his eyes met mine. Tears clouded my vision, and the look on his face made them fall as he reached for me and pulled me in.
“You’re alright, kid. You’re alright.” His voice soothed me, and he patted my back as I shook against him. I eventually pulled away, wiping the tears that remained on my face with my arm and the back of my hand.
“I’m sorry,” I said, looking at him as I wiped under my eyes, glad that only a couple of tears had fallen. “They’re my worst fear.”
“We’re all scared of something,” Aster said, placing his hand on my shoulder. “You did great. Now let’s get go.”
His words cut off as the ground began shuddering violently.
It was as if the Labyrinth were angry, and a deep roar rolled through the corridor, echoing off the walls like thunder.
“Move!” Aster shouted, grabbing my arm in controlled panic because it looked like our troubles weren’t over yet.
The ground split beneath us, cracking open in a jagged line and bending inward like a yawning mouth.
We pushed back against the wall, away from the edge of the fissure.
One so deep that all that could be seen was darkness.
Then a massive, clawed hand burning with molten lava burst up, gripping the edge of the ground.
A second followed, and then the body of a beast made of jagged rock that glowed from within like a furnace.
“What. The. Actual. Fuck. Is. That?” I breathed, not allowing my eyes to move away from it as I wisely backed away.
“A Guardian. The Labyrinth’s keeper.”
“For fuck sake, we just can’t catch a break, can we?” I gritted out as the creature’s head snapped toward us, its eyes brightening as if we had just added wood to the fires that burned there. Aster shoved me aside as the creature swung its arm toward us, and he jumped in the opposite direction.
Shards of splintered rock exploded from the walls from the impact of the creature's swing, and I ducked, covering my head.
Aster recovered quickly and brought his blade down in a sweeping motion.
Metal crashed against the beast and practically bounced off it, recoiling his weapon back with vibrations that echoed.
It had no effect whatsoever, and my face dropped in horror.
“Aster, look out!” I screamed, but the beast already had hold of him, lifting the Minotaur with one hand like he was a doll. My stomach lurched, and I cried out as he was slammed into the wall. His blade dropped to the ground with a clatter.
“Let him go!” I screamed, running forward with the knife and dagger in both hands.
The weapon that Atlas gifted me burned hotter in my palm, its glow spreading up my wrist. But as the beast flung out its other arm, it ended up throwing me across the ground.
I let out a cry as my elbow hit the compacted earth hard, and my back screamed in agony.
But the pain was nothing compared to watching as my precious dagger flew out of my grasp.
I watched with dismay as it teetered over the edge of the crack. I scrambled across the space between it and me in a desperate hope to stop it before it tipped into the abyss. My fingertips just grazed it, but not enough to make a purchase, as it was sent over the edge.
“No!” I cried out.
“Alex!”
I looked up at Aster, his body bending in abnormal directions, and I heard his bones crunch as the beast threw him against the wall, pinning him there. Meaning there was no time to cry over its loss, not when my friend’s life hung in the balance.
I jumped up, sheathing my knife, which I knew would be useless against this creature, and ran over to where Aster’s blade had fallen.
Struggling with the weight of it, the only thing that was allowing me to lift it was pure adrenaline at this point.
And I roared with fury as I drove it deep into a glowing crack in the creature’s arm.
For a moment, the entire Labyrinth seemed to convulse. A wave of energy burst outward, hurling me backward. I pushed my body against the ground as I landed, making sure I didn’t fall down the crack along with the dagger.
I looked up as the creature dropped Aster into a broken heap on the floor, cracks of red light spreading through its arm where the sword struck.
It roared again, stumbling forward, the light spilling out so bright now that I had no choice but to cover my eyes as I watched, still lying on the ground.
As it was distracted, I crawled to Aster. Grabbing hold of him, I pulled with a heave until he lay on his back. His eyes were twitching, and I watched in awe as his body started to heal itself just like it had when Riley had attacked him.
“Come on, we have to go, before it attacks again!” I said, pulling on his arm as he pushed up from the ground with what looked like excruciating effort. The bones in his leg were only just healing as he stood up on them, obviously ignoring the pain.
We backed away, step by step, ensuring the creature was distracted, but as we turned, ready to run down the path, the walls moved again, blocking our path.
“Don’t be scared,” Aster said.
“I’m trying not to be, but that’s kind of hard given the situation,” I confessed, trying to keep my voice from shaking. Especially in the face of certain death, as I faced facts that there was nowhere else to go.
Then, from somewhere deep in the maze, came another sound, a deep roar, loud and full of power that filled me with dread.
“I don’t even want to know what that is.”
The Guardian stopped. Its head snapped toward the noise, its entire body tensing.
A second later, the far wall exploded inward. Stone crumbled, and dust filled the air before something massive barreled forward, moving with impossible speed. But all we could do was stand there.
Trapped.
The Guardian let out a bellow of rage, cut short as an enormous axe cleaved through its chest, splitting it in two.
I threw my arm up to block the light that burst from the creature before it crumpled into ash, covering us both with a fine layer that rained down.
But it was only when the dust finally settled that we could see a towering figure standing in the wreckage.
Its chest heaving, eyes catching the glow from the red veins in the walls.
A pair of horns curved upward, just like its smirk, as a muscular arm threw its axe up to a broad shoulder.
A Minotaur!
The newcomer looked between us, and I could only imagine the sight we made.
“You always did have a talent for trouble, little bull,” said a female voice, which honestly, ended up surprising me. But not more than what Aster said next as he questioned,
“Aunty Stava?”