The Barrow

by Mark Smylie

  The sound of metal scraping against stone.

  Everyone froze, poised as though prepared for war and listening, staring at the yawning black arches that were visible beyond the columns on the left flank of the chamber. Gap Tooth Tims was closest to the arch from whence the sound had seemed to come. He swallowed hard, then inched forward until he reached the line of columns. He paused there, one of the thick massive columns by his left shield side, almost using it as cover as he peered intently into the dark arches beyond. He raised his shield, an old steel heater that had kept him safe through many a fight, until the top was almost level with his eyes, and lay the tip of his broadsword to rest on top of the heater, pointing into the inky blackness beyond the arch.

  Erim found herself holding her breath along with everyone else as they watched his progress. She felt a sudden pang. Gap Tooth was her line mate. She should be backing him up. But Guilford hadn’t let go of her shoulder, in fact he had pulled her back until she was almost behind him and he had practically placed himself as a shield between her and the arches. It was an oddly chivalric gesture, and for a moment she wondered: does he know?

  And then Gap Tooth was turning and yelling “We are discovered!” and she didn’t have time to think about anything else but death. She had barely started to duck before a flurry of arrow shafts peppered the room, hissing out of the darkness. She heard screams as some of the men were hit even as they were diving for cover. The volley of arrows still seemed to be in the air when dark shapes began to swarm into the chamber, bristling with horns and barbed points, rushing amongst the now scattered men. For a split second she was afraid they were being attacked by a horde of demons up from the bowels of one of the Six Hells, but then it registered that they were men, men wearing masks made to resemble horned demons, men wearing black feathered hides and a hodge-podge of armor pieces about their bodies (when they were clothed at all), men wielding spiked clubs, archaic curved swords, and barbed spears.

  She practically breathed a sigh of relief. Devil-worshippers. Nameless Cultists. Followers of the Forbidden Gods. Joy coursed through her. I know what to do, she thought as she plunged the tip of her rapier into the throat of a horn-masked man running straight at her. She felt his spiked club whistle past her head as she ducked under it and the cultist’s momentum took him past her and she almost lost her rapier, but she managed to wrench it out of him, sending him spinning and blood arcing even as she sidestepped another horn-masked berserker and punched her dagger into his gut. I know what to do. Thank you, gods, she thought.

  Atop the idol, Stjepan snarled a curse. At the first volley of arrows that had scattered Guilford’s men, he immediately started to roll the map back up. Harvald crouched next to him, putting the heatless torch down onto a seam in the great idol’s head and holding the waiting scroll tube for him, and together they carefully slipped the map into the tube.

  The moment they were finished Stjepan turned and glanced over the chamber below them as Harvald dropped the scroll tube into one of his satchels. Black shapes swarmed throughout the room. Too many of them, he thought sadly. It looked like Llew and Porter were down already, and as he watched a gaunt, naked horn-masked man covered in blue-ink tattoos ran a barbed spear through old Jon Pastle. He could see Guilford laying about him with heavy blows of his broadsword, while Erim moved smoothly, surely, even gracefully through the battle. But we might still have a chance, he thought, and he crouched, preparing to start clambering back down the idol.

  He felt a hand on his shoulder and looked behind him. Harvald shook his head and nodded up at the ceiling.

  “There’s always another way out,” Harvald said quietly. Stjepan looked past him, and was surprised to see the outline of a trapdoor in the ceiling, now illuminated by the heatless torchlight. He didn’t remember that on the maps.

  Erim was almost in a trance. The fighting on the temple floor was chaotic, brutal, a real every-man-(and-woman)-for-himself melee. Which suited her just fine. She figured she was better at fighting this way anyway, where she didn’t have to worry about anyone else, about keeping the line, about the shield wall or the pike hedgehog or the other things that soldiers trained to formations had to think about. She could just flow. So she did. She practically danced, and everywhere she danced a man with a horn-mask died. Somewhere she could hear a woman’s voice chanting, singing, and she wondered if she was imagining it, or if some dark fae spirit was playing an accompaniment as she worked. She danced over the body of Colin of Loria, his ugly blond-haired head split open by a sharp blow, his brains leaking out under her boots, and the horn-masked swordsman who had killed him gurgled a scream and dropped to the ground, blood spurting from his missing sword hand and a perforated lung. She danced in next to the Stick, beset by two horn-masked warriors, and stabbed one horn-mask up through the throat into his brainpan, and then with the withdrawal she cut the other horn-mask’s bloated belly open, splashing his guts all over the floor. She danced back-to-back with Gap Tooth Tims, glad he was still alive, and put one rapier point through a horn-masked spearman’s eye even as she drove her point dagger into another’s groin. The horn-mask screamed at her for his ruined manhood, and she kicked him full in the face, sending him flying back through the air.

  Bodies were dropping left and right, and Guilford could hear that terrible chanting, but he could also hear a voice in the back of his head: you’re going to make it. Smitt went down trying to hold his guts in somewhere on his left, but Guilford could see the Stick still fighting to his right, and he caught flashes of Erim and Gap Tooth fighting back to back, and he marveled for a moment. We’re going to make it. He smashed the rim of his shield into one of the devil-worshipper’s faces, feeling skull and flesh crumple underneath the blow, and brought his broadsword down in a long arc onto another man’s shoulder, almost cutting him lengthwise in two.

  Then he saw her. A woman emerging in the dark from behind the last of the swarm, a giant vulture-head mask on her face; she was topless, a black feathered cloak about her, a shimmering black metal dress around her legs as she swayed in a ritual trance, in a full-throated chant, and now Guilford could just about make out the words, though he didn’t understand them: “Sseniss huthadde, Bharabazzhi. Venai. Venai. Festa hus gobblin gaspa, Bharabazzhi. Venai. Venai!”

  Guilford smashed a horn-masked cultist aside, and dropped his broadsword. He reached down for a barbed spear lying on the floor, picked it up, and hefted it once. “King of Heaven, guide my throw!” he whispered, and then he hurled the barbed spear across the room at the priestess, catching her full in the chest. Her chant ended abruptly as she went flying backwards with a wet thud.

  It was suddenly quiet again, except for the heavy breathing of tired men and the moans of the dying.

  Guilford looked around. Gap Tooth and Erim were all that were left standing, and Gap Tooth was wobbling, blood soaking the breeches of his right leg; they looked at each other, then at the carnage around them, panting, weapons streaked in blood. Well, not all that were left standing; Guilford glanced over to where he’d last seen the Stick, and for a moment he was confused by what he saw until he realized that the tall man had been decapitated, his head nowhere to be seen, the body still standing upright and swaying.

  And then the Stick’s body fell over.

  Guilford knelt down and picked up his broadsword. He picked his way through the bodies, some still and silent, others quivering and moaning, over to where the priestess of the Nameless Cults lay. Her body was shaking; she was still alive, despite the barbed spear springing upright from her chest. He looked down dispassionately and noted that her body was beautiful, with pale alabaster skin, a flat stomach, curved hips, and firm full breasts with pierced nipples; now ruined by the spear plunged through her center. He’d probably missed her heart by an inch or two, but there was no doubt she’d be dead soon. He could hear her trying to say something, whispering to herself in a strained gurgle. He used the point of his sword to tip her vulture-headed mask off and grimaced. Her body
might have been beautiful, but it was a hideous, almost deformed face that looked up at him with hate-filled eyes, hate-filled eyes that had an oddly insane look of triumph about them. She grinned and bared her filed and sharpened teeth, and then coughed blood, still trying to say something. He thought for a second she was laughing at him, though he had no idea what she would have thought funny about a spear through the chest.

  “Fucking hill people,” he muttered to no one in particular, then raised his voice to a shout. “Black-Heart! What was she chanting?”

  He looked up and was surprised to see Stjepan helping Harvald disappear into a hole in the ceiling above the great bronze idol.

  “She was performing a summoning,” Stjepan called down. “Something’s coming. We should go.”

  Guilford turned and looked out the darkened arches that had spawned this horde. They yawned black in front of him. And where before the air had been still, now he could feel an ill wind, a weird wind, from beyond the arches.

  Something was in the corridor beyond.

  Guilford went very pale.

  “Something’s coming,” he said weakly.

  “Get up here!” Stjepan shouted as Harvald’s boots disappeared into the ceiling. “Now. Climb, climb!”

  In a sudden panic, Erim, Guilford, and Gap Tooth Tims all rushed for the great bronze idol and started to clamber up, Gap Tooth stumbling and almost falling as he tried to run. Erim reached it first and she swung up the sides of the idol quickly, barely sparing a glance at its long curved phalli as she passed it. Guilford was next, and then Gap Tooth slammed into the base of the idol last. Throwing away his heater he tried to haul himself up, but his wounded leg made climbing difficult. Guilford was surprised to find himself slowed a bit by the heavy bag of loot tied onto his back.

  “Fucking help me, you bastards!” screamed Gap Tooth. Guilford looked down, and saw that Gap Tooth was having trouble, and wavered for a moment. He cursed, and looked up. Erim had stopped, almost at the top, and was looking back down at them.

  “Keep going!” shouted Guilford, and he turned and dropped back down to the crook of the idol’s arm. He reached down, grabbed Gap Tooth’s hand and hauled him up into the idol’s lap.

  Erim watched this for a moment, helplessly, and then she heard Stjepan above her speaking calmly. “Erim,” he said. “You have to keep climbing. Now.” She turned back and locked eyes with him, meeting his sharp gaze, and suddenly she felt very calm and sure. She nodded, and in a short move she was the first to reach the top, and Stjepan helped pull her up and then in one smooth motion he lifted her so she could reach the trap door. She quickly pulled herself up and out.

  The torches and braziers in the temple chamber started to flicker and go out as Guilford sensed rather than saw something big and dark with glistening spikes and horns slowly squeeze its way through the arches into the room. A smell hit them all then, the smell of a thousand rotting corpses, boiling sulfur, and buckets filled with fresh shit and stale semen. Guilford vomited into his mouth, the stench was so foul, and he abandoned any thoughts of trying to help Gap Tooth. He turned and tried to spring up the sides of the idol.

  Stjepan could see the darkness spreading, the scattered dropped torches guttering and dimming. The darkness slowly swallowed up Gap Tooth as he scratched at the bronze idol’s chest, trying to find purchase to reach the idol’s shoulder with only one leg to stand on. Gap Tooth retched and started to scream, and then Stjepan couldn’t see him anymore, couldn’t see what was happening to him, and Stjepan was thankful for the darkness then.

  Stjepan reached his hand down as Guilford reached the perch of the idol’s shoulders and started to clamber up its face. The darkness in the room was almost complete, the single heatless torch atop the idol was all that was left, and it barely illuminated the two of them. Guilford looked up at Stjepan, and their hands finally locked. Stjepan could barely see his face in the waning light, and Guilford wore a look of desperation and terror, as though he knew he was spent, the fatigue of the fight and weight on his back was draining him, and then suddenly his expression changed, his grasp went soft, and his eyes went slightly glassy. Guilford gasped softly.

  And then there was a wet, chewing, rending sound that Stjepan thought was just about the worst thing he’d ever heard.

  Guilford’s eyes rolled, watering with tears, and then finally with a last bit of will he was able to focus them on Stjepan.

  “Promise me, Black-Heart,” he hissed, suddenly fierce. “Fucking swear it!”

  Stjepan nodded grimly. “Seven days of prayer, to guide you to the Heavens,” he said softly. “You and yours will have it, I swear it.”

  Guilford nodded, and as he looked into Stjepan’s sharp eyes it occurred to him that for the first time he wasn’t looking into Black-Heart’s usual gaze of hate or stern judgment, but instead saw nothing but a look of love and compassion. He was surprised, and opened his mouth to say something, when he was pulled with a sudden yank right out of Stjepan’s grasp and down into the darkness.

  Stjepan turned and leapt, catching the edge of the trap door and pulling himself up into the ceiling just as the last torch guttered out.

  When Erim finally stumbled out of the rock onto the high hillside, she gasped and sobbed and fell to her knees and crawled and rolled. She did not think she had ever been so happy to see the light of day. Her mind was mush, driven into fear and panic by the wild run through the dark, following a single torch held up by Harvald and Stjepan with his map. She didn’t know how he’d found their way out, but somehow he’d managed to orient themselves on his map, and up and down stairs they’d scrambled and climbed, legs burning with the effort, and then up, and up, and up again, until finally she’d felt packed earth under her boots and she’d seen an upright sliver of bright light up ahead.

  Her hands dug into dirt and peat moss, and somehow that steadied her, even though she knew that somewhere deep underneath the solid earth was hidden a chamber of horrors. She crawled to get away from the opening into the rock, seeing Stjepan and Harvald downhill a bit, also slumped to the ground, panting and heaving. Harvald was on all fours, his head buried in his chest, whispering in prayer, and she briefly wished she had a god or goddess to pray to. But there were none but the Damned that would take the likes of her, so the temple priests had assured her when she was young and they had played with her in the dark.

  The sun had broken through the clouds while they were below the ground, and she leaned back on her haunches, reveling in the light and heat. She unstrapped her water bottle and brought it to her lips, the cool clean liquid tasting unbelievably sweet on her lips, in her mouth, in her throat. Harvald had slipped the copper scroll tube out of his satchel, and he was staring at it in wonder. She saw Stjepan stand and walk a few feet to face the sun, and he sank to his knees, his hands open as if in supplication.

  Stjepan was Athairi, and like most of his people he was of the Old Religion, and worshipped the Queen of Heaven and her Court. He would never have uttered the Divine King prayer for the Dead. But most of the men who they’d just left behind had been brought up in the cult of the Divine King, as was the wont in most of the eastern Middle Kingdoms. And so it was a variant he uttered, the so-called Erid Prayer for the Dead, first worded by the Athairi to pray for Danian comrades who had died by their sides.

  Dawn Maiden. Awaken!

  Bright Star. Awaken!

  Sun’s Herald. Awaken!

  And announce the death of

  loyal servants to the Divine King!

  Dread Guardians, light their way

  on the Path of the Dead!

  Seedré, Judge and Gatekeeper,

  welcome them below, and know that they are claimed!

  Islik, King in Heaven, once King on Earth!

  Your servants fall to Death, your hated enemy!

  King in Heaven, know their names:

  Jon Pastle; Colin, son of Corwin of Loria;

  Smitt, son of Heoret; Jack Porter of Vesslos;

  Tims Or
wed; Llew, son of Duram Tain;

  Cole, son of Gable Gower;

  and Guilford, son of Guy of Vesslos.

  Send your bright messengers to the

  place of Judgment, to claim their spirits

  from the grasp of their accusers!

  Bring them from Darkness

  to your Heavenly Palace!

  Save them from Death!

  She knew without having to ask that Stjepan would utter that prayer each morning day and night for the next seven days, until either their spirits had found their way to peace in Heaven or judgment in the Underworld, or had been lost forever. She frowned.

  “Cole, son of Gable?” she asked.

  Stjepan looked over at her. He thought she looked exhausted, frightened, exhilarated. He smiled softly. “That was the Stick’s real name,” he said.

  He looked at the ground for a moment, and then stood and surveyed the horizon with his sharp gaze. He listened to the wind, to the faint jangle of unseen bells, to a song that seemed to be sung backwards. He sniffed the air, smelt wet earth and old stone, moss and scrub thickets and tree heath, and from somewhere near the hint of something dead and rotting. The sadness in him grew deeper and was joined by . . . anger? Hate? His gaze grew piercing and unsettling, as though he was a man with murder on his mind.

  “Let’s get going,” he said finally, and started off down the hillside. Harvald shook himself, and followed, rubbing his hands as though he was a child about to open a present.

  Erim looked about, at the three of them on a sunny hillside, with ancient menhirs ringing the hilltop and the high range of the Manon Mole off in the distance, the blood of a dozen men splattered on her clothes to mix with dirt and mud. She suddenly thought to herself that if anyone asked her, she would say she was Stjepan’s man. She shuddered in the weird, high wind, and looked back over her shoulder at the cleft in the rock.

  “See you in Hell, boys,” she whispered. It was the closest thing to a prayer that she could offer. And then she turned and was off down the hillside.