The Advance Guard
CORNELIUS QUAINT AND Aksak Faroud held centre stage in front of the group of Clan Scarabs (plus Godfrey Joyce) gathered around the ashes of the campfire.
'Right then, does everyone know their part?' Quaint asked. 'Faroud and I will be disguised as Consortium guards at the rear. Joyce is the vanguard, and Kulfar and Nehmet here will be masquerading as his prisoners – namely Faroud and myself respectively. Once we get close, the Consortium guards will be watching us like hawks so you'll have to keep your nerve – not to mention your wits.' He clasped his hands behind his back and looked out across the Scarabs' apprehensive faces. 'The rest of you are to be our second wave. After we enter the sanctorum, Faroud and I will be causing a commotion and drawing a lot of attention to ourselves. The Consortium will be running around like headless chickens. Wait for the signal before you join the fray. You'll know it when you see it. It will be up to you to back us up. We may be outnumbered and outgunned – but they won't be expecting us to bring the fight to them. Once we get a foot in the door, we'll bottleneck them within the confines of the tunnels, but whatever we do, we can't let them use numbers against us.' Quaint smiled effusively. 'Now, we've assembled an array of weaponry that you lot thoughtfully managed to procure from Bara Mephista before you left. I suggest everyone fills their pockets. Any questions? No? In that case…good luck to us all.'
Just outside the city of Fantoma, the band split into two groups, with the conjuror's advance guard heading towards the ruins of the ancient city, whilst their backup team moved into position in the shadows of the imposing Mount Zahi. Cornelius Quaint rode steadily at Faroud's side whilst Kulfar and Nehmet rode ahead of them. Godfrey Joyce led the pack from the front in his horse-drawn cart. Faroud looked at Quaint as they cantered towards the high walls of Fantoma. Although the conjuror's hood obscured his features, the Scarab leader could see the look of disquiet upon his comrade's rough, lined face.
'Joyce reeks of suspicion. We were wise to suspect a trap,' Faroud hissed.
'Suspecting a trap is one thing…expecting one is something else,' Quaint replied.
'I take it you have a backup plan?' asked Faroud.
Quaint grinned unabashedly. 'Aksak, if there is one thing you should know about me by now, it's that I always have a backup plan.'
The ancient site at Fantoma was just one of the glittering gems within Egypt's crown. Construction had begun as far back as the sixteenth century BC and, as a consequence, the ravages of both time and the weather had left their scars. Even so, just one look at the deserted city's many towering columns and walls – each one engraved with grand inscriptions by the phantoms of the past – was all it took to raise a lump in the back of Cornelius Quaint's throat.
In his lifetime, he had visited many ancient cities and places of worship in the Orient, South America and India, but none had more of a vibrant connection with the ghosts of the past than Fantoma. Huge multistorey buildings, crumbling and fading more by the day, nestled next to ornate obelisks and columns of white stone that pricked the azure sky. A bleached white shroud of dust covered every building and every monument, as the centuries of harsh Egyptian weather eroded former works of art and colourful decorations. Now everything looked the same, as though a master artist had created the landscape but with just one colour to his palette. Skilfully detailed carvings, scriptures scored into stone, venerated deities etched into the rocks – proof that not all of Egypt's treasures were to be found buried under the sand.
The small band traversed down a slender corridor between two huge edifices, no wider than ten yards, with high sandstone walls on either side. Godfrey Joyce looked over his shoulder, held up his hand, and pulled his cart to a stop. As Quaint and Faroud trotted towards him, he spoke:
'This is the main entrance, next to this temple, chaps. The passageway descends underground from here, and grows very slender on the way so I doubt the horses will make it.'
On foot through the high-walled passage, they entered a large building decorated with an array of mythical-looking beasts around its parapets. At its base at ground level, former artistic glories were only visible as etched scoring and flaky pockmarked artwork. Quaint wondered how magnificent the city must have been in its prime, but he could not allow Fantoma's grandeur to blind him to the dangers that lurked beneath the sand.
They found themselves heading down a steep incline, into a darkened tunnel carved from the rocks beneath the foundations of the building above. This dim place was bereft of both light and air, and something sent a chill up Quaint's spine. In such a narrow place, were they to get trapped down there, they might never get out. Quaint had, indeed, filled his pockets with tools from the Scarabs' armoury, and out of Joyce's sight, he deposited several explosive sticks upon the ground where a breach in the rocks led to the outside.
He mouthed the words 'Backup plan' to the Scarab leader, who greeted the sight with a roll of his dark-rimmed eyes.
The small band ventured through the maze-like tunnels in silence. Eventually, at the end of one dimly lit by a succession of mounted torches on the walls, they reached the pair of carved stone doors that signalled entrance to the Hades Consortium's sanctorum.
'We're here,' said Godfrey Joyce.
Quaint readjusted the hood of his commandeered uniform.
'This is it,' he whispered to his band of men. 'Play your parts…and wait until we're in deep before revealing yourselves.' Then he took a step towards Joyce. 'Just remember I'm right behind you. If you so much as think about double-crossing us, you'll feel my sword between your shoulder blades quicker than you can blink.'
'You are quite the motivator, Mr Quaint,' sneered Joyce.
'I hear that a lot,' muttered Quaint.
Joyce pushed hard against the doors with both hands, and their hinges complained noisily against each other, announcing the group's arrival better than a doorbell. Joyce stood pensively in the doorway, expecting the guards at the entrance to announce themselves. To his apparent surprise, the other side of the vast stone doors was completely deserted.
Quaint stepped forward gingerly, listening for any signs of habitation. There was nothing. No sound at all.
'Where is everyone?' he asked his comrades in arms.
Faroud shrugged. 'I do not know…but we should make the best of our luck!'
The group were just about to move into the main cavernous lair, when their ears heard a trembling sound. It was difficult to pinpoint its exact location; it seemed to be echoing from every direction at once. Quaint's mind tried to evaluate the noise.
It was footfalls, and lots of them.
'I think our luck just ran out,' he said grimly.