Kajar studied the sign above the temple’s entrance:
Stranger be wary of thy tread
Lest thou wake the sleeping dead
Dismissing it as superstitious drivel, he eased open the door and peered through at the vast hall. ‘Hmm. That’s a lot of statues,’ he thought. ‘This land must worship a great many gods. No priests though. Good, this’ll be easy.’ He slipped through, silently closing the door. Keeping to the shadows, he crept towards his target: the altar bearing the fabled Emerald God’s Head.
On reaching the altar, Kajar, using his dagger, pried loose one of the emerald teeth. No sooner had he pocketed the tooth when the head’s eyes ignited like miniature suns.
“Stranger ye wake the sleeping dead
Never to rest till blood is shed”
Startled, Kajar stumbled back. The head had spoken! And then, from behind, he heard:
Scrape. Thump. Scrape. Thump.
Kajar spun around. The statues walked! Several ranks slowly approached, dragging their feet, slamming them down, each step echoing around the hall. He frantically looked around for an escape route, but the statues advanced shoulder to shoulder, forming an almost impenetrable wall.
‘Oh what wouldn’t I give for a flagon of ale and a game of bones right now?’ mused Kajar. ‘Wait! Bones! That’s it!’
He chose a statue and charged, dodging a potentially skull-crushing fist and threw his full weight behind a mighty push. As hoped, the statue toppled, crashing into the one behind, it too toppling backwards. And so on. Just like dominoes.
With several statues now fallen, Kajar leapt over them and sprinted to the door, easily outpacing those still standing.
Once out of the temple, he fondled the single emerald tooth. “I must remember not to ignore warnings over doors in future.” And so saying, he continued on his quest…
My entry in the January 2021 300 Word Story Challenge at SFFChronicles
Genre: Science Fiction, Fantasy, or other Speculative Fiction
M. Robert Gibson 