Page 108 of The Hyena’s Guardian

Matt moved carefully beside one of the statues, studying the carved wolf king towering above him. Cracks spread across portions of the figure’s chest and throat, exposing traces of the strange black mineral threaded beneath the stone.

Then he noticed the claw marks. Fresh ones. Something had climbed across the statue recently.

“Theron,”

Theron crossed toward him. The instant he stepped within reach of the statue, the bond snapped tight, hard enough that Matt nearly staggered from the force of it.

Theron felt it too. Matt saw his shoulders tighten instantly. A vibration rolled through the chamber, deep enough to resonate inside Matt’s bones. Then the statues began whispering. Not metaphorically.

Matt heard it clearly now. Dozens of overlapping voices rose softly from the stone surrounding them, too distorted to fully understand but unmistakably real.

Several agents turned toward the statues with weapons raised. “What the hell is that?” one of them snapped.

Theron stepped backward from the figure beside Matt. His expression had gone dangerously still again. “The corruption has reached them.”

The glow from the mounted weapon lamps shuddered across the chamber walls as cracks spread through the stone.

Then one of the statues moved. Only a few inches. But enough.

Stone cracked sharply near the rear row. Another figure shifted on its pedestal. Matt felt the hyena surge hard beneath his ribs again.

Every instinct inside him screamed the same warning. Run.

The enormous sealed doorway at the far end of the chamber boomed beneath a violent impact from the other side. The entire room shook. Then came another, hard enough to shake the columns. Vale raised her rifle. “Move. Now.”

Nobody argued. The group broke into motion down the center path between the statues just as another loud crack split through the chamber behind them. Matt risked one glance backward.

One of the stone wolves had turned its head.

***

The group ran.

Boots slammed against ancient stone as the chamber behind them continued cracking apart in violent echoes. Matt stayed close beside Theron while the statues lining the corridor whispered louder with every step, overlapping voices rising from the stone in distorted waves that scraped against the inside of his skull.

The path narrowed ahead.

Vale reached the sealed doorway first and swept her rifle across the carvings covering its surface. “Tell me this one opens.”

Theron stopped beside her, breathing harder now. Dust clung to the blood smeared across his clothing from the bridge fight. Behind them came another sharp crack of splitting stone.

One of the statues stepped down from its pedestal.

The sound rolled through the chamber like distant thunder.

The figure moved with a slow deliberation that felt more unnatural than speed would have. Somehow, that made it worse.

Theron pressed one hand against the center of the doorway. Silver-blue symbols pulsed faintly beneath his palm before spreading outward across the stone in widening rings of light.

Nothing happened.

Vale glanced back down the chamber. “Theron.”

“I know.”

Another impact shook the floor. Matt risked a quick glance backward.

Several statues advanced now, stone splitting around their joints. The nearest carried a massive carved axe across its shoulders, black mineral glowing through cracks in its face. It did not look enraged or mindless. It looked obedient, as though it had spent centuries waiting for a command that had finally come.