by William King
He saw the locals nod approval. Agnetha smiled at him and took a sip of the liquor.
“Lucas will guide you to Elderdale,” Agnetha said. “He knows the road and its dangers and there is some business I need doing there anyways. You’ll all be safer on the road together too.”
He suspected that was not the only reason Lucas was coming. Agnetha wanted someone to spy on them. The question was whether it was on Aisha or Brandon or him. Most likely all three.
“An extra bow and blade would be welcome on the road,” said Kormak. No one else objected.
“It’s settled then. He’ll guide you and I’ll provide you with food and drink. I would not want you all to starve before you get to the bottom of this.”
Brandon laughed. “I think starving to death will be the least of our worries.”
He was thinking about the Old Ones and Elderdale. He was not talking about turning back either. It looked like he had decided to go a bit further along this long dark road. Kormak thought about the small boy’s corpse he had found in the barrow. He understood why Brandon felt the need to do this. He felt responsible. That was something Kormak understood.
The whole village turned out to see them off, just as at Sir Brandon’s home. They rode down the trail from Hungerdale to the place where it joined the Old North Road and the crowds stopped there.
The road was rocky. It was cold and rain had not turned it to mud. They were before the early snows. The hills loomed huge and stony and chill around them. A cold wind blew out of the north and Kormak pulled his cloak tight around his shoulders.
Sir Brandon rode along beside the Tinker wagon, chatting with Javier. Aisha and the wolf brought up the rear. Kormak found himself riding along beside Lucas.
“Here,” the thin man said, speaking sidelong out of the corner of his mouth.
“What?” Kormak asked.
“This is where we filled whatever it was full of arrows and it just kept coming.”
“You headed back to the village then?”
Lucas shook his head. “We did not want to pass them by. We rode north along the road and took the Dead Man’s trail. It loops around south. You can’t ride it but you can lead a horse up it if it’s sure footed.”
“How many shots did you put into the stranger?” Kormak asked. He wanted to hear the man’s description first-hand and judge.
“Between us it must have been a dozen,” Lucas replied. “I know what you are thinking. Maybe we missed. Maybe we turned and ran because we were panicked.”
“Did you?”
“I can hit a crow in flight at a hundred yards,” Lucas said. “My brothers are better. We did not miss.”
Kormak believed him.
“That many arrows would put any man down,” Lucas added. Kormak suspected he had first-hand knowledge of that.
“You notice anything else about the strangers?” Kormak asked.
“The smell.”
“The smell?”
“They smelled of incense and rot.”
“You could not have got that close.”
“I could smell them at a distance when I was downwind of them. It was a powerful stench.” He shook his head and his eyes narrowed. “Maybe that’s not the right word. It was not sickening or even that unpleasant, not the incense smell anyway. It was just noticeable.”
“Useful to know.” Kormak said.
“You mean they won’t be sneaking up on you?” Clearly, whatever else he was, Lucas was not slow on the uptake.
“That’s exactly what I mean. How far to Elderdale?”
“Three days if we make good time and we will. The weather won’t be too bad. Too early for snow yet and it’s not going to rain too heavy.”
“Those clouds make me think different.”
“Would you care to make a small bet on that?” Lucas asked.
“Not with anyone so confident,” Kormak said. Much to his surprise, Lucas laughed.
“Smart man. Ma always said I inherited her nose for the weather.”
“You got the Gift?”
“Only for weather-sniffing,” Lucas said.
“There have been times when I’ve wished I had that.”
“Useful thing for a hill-man, that’s for sure,” Lucas said. “Ma says you’re a hill-man yourself.”
“From Aquilea, a long time ago.” Lucas looked at these hills surrounding them. There was a stone ring atop one of them.
“You’re not from these parts, that’s for sure, or you would not speak so casual about long time. Those barrows were built a long time ago. Men— we just scurry through in an eyeblink. We’re here and then we’re gone. What you smiling at?”
“You’re not what I expected, Lucas,” Kormak said.
“Who ever is?”
“Every time I come this way, I like it less,” Lucas said. He scanned the surrounding hills with keen, watchful eyes, then rubbed his narrow jaw with his bony hand. The old road ran through a long vale in the bleak hills here.
“You come this way a lot?”
“We trade with jewellers in Elderdale and there are women there...” Kormak could guess the sort of women he meant.
“Jewellers?”
“We sometimes trade silver with them and other goods that we...find.”
“Like you find sheep?” Kormak said but he smiled as he said it.
“Perhaps.”
“Your mother sent you to keep an eye on us, didn’t she?”
“I don’t see any point in denying it. I’m to keep you out of trouble too. It’s an easy thing for strangers to find in this part of the world.”
“How are you planning on doing it?”
“Well, there are people in Elderdale to know and they don’t know you. It’s not a town where you don’t want to have friends.”
“I thought the Twins kept the peace there.”
“They make sure that there is no rioting and they interfere when it suits them. That doesn’t mean a stranger can’t get his throat slit.”
“It’s been tried before.”
“Listen, big man, if you don’t need my help, don’t take it.” He looked at Kormak sidelong.
“I was just saying,” Kormak said.
“You’re hard to kill. I get that. I’ve seen you fight. You don’t need to convince me.”
“Tell me about the Twins.”
“What is there to say? They don’t hobnob with the likes of me.”
“What have you heard?”
“They are spooky and strange. I am guessing that does not come as any surprise to you.”
“All of the Old Ones are different. In what way are these ones strange?”
“They don’t think like you or me. They don’t act like people. They can be friendly one minute and rip your heart out the next.”
“I’ve known people like that.”
“I mean literally rip your heart out—reach into your chest with their hand and pull it out.”
“They are strong? They have claws?”
“I am just telling you what I’ve heard and I believe it. The kind of people who live in Elderdale don’t scare easily but the Twins scare them.”
“Scare you too?”
“I am not ashamed to admit it.”
“Good. You’ll live longer.”
“Are you not scared? You’re a Guardian. They may not take kindly to your sort riding into town.”
“They have not broken the Law,” Kormak said. “They have nothing to fear from me.”
“Maybe you have something to fear from them.”
“They kill me and two more of my Order come. They kill them, however many it takes will come. The Old Ones know this. They don’t want trouble with me any more than I want trouble with them.”
“That’s not how the stories always tell it. It’s always war unto the death between the Guardians and the Old Ones.”
“It is with some. Most of the Old Ones just want to be left alone. Men rarely see them these days.”
“Is that why you a
re so interested in the Twins?”
“One reason. I am also wondering whether Morghael has any reason to deal with them or they with him.”
“You think that’s likely.”
“I am thinking they’ve been here a long time and if he is looking for something they may well know where to find it, or they may know how. I’m also thinking that something was in the air the night Hungerdale was attacked.”
“You planning on visiting them then?”
“It’s possible.”
“You’re going on your own then. I’d rather explain things to Ma than come face to face with one of those two.”
Kormak could see he really was scared, of his mother and of the Twins.
They rode on in companionable silence for a while. Behind them, Kormak heard the clip-clop of horse hooves and the rumble of the Tinkers wagon’s wheels on the stone.
“There,” Lucas said as they passed a small opening in the valley side. There were tracks in the mud leading to the roadside. He dismounted and inspected them. Kormak watched interestedly. The others stayed on the road. “Whoever made most of these tracks were lighter than children, but their boot size was that of a full-grown man.”
Kormak thought about skeletons. Lucas’s finger stabbed out, pointing to the print of something narrow and bony and clawed-looking. It was the imprint of a bootless skeletal foot.
Kormak sensed the presence of others. Brandon and Aisha had ridden up to see what they had found.
“Tracks,” Lucas said, nodding down the pathway. “That’s where last night’s attack came from. This path leads down to Cullen’s Barrow.”
Kormak studied the narrow pathway. “I’m going to investigate. How far is it to the barrow?”
“An hour or so but we’ll never get the wagon down there,” said Lucas.
“It can stay on the road. Javier and the boys can take it slow and we’ll catch them up. Lucas, you stay with the Tinkers and make sure no harm comes to them.” The hill-man made no objection, as Kormak suspected would be the case. He did not seem overly keen on another run-in with the undead.
“I’m coming with you,” said Aisha. “I want to see this for myself.”
“Suit yourself,” said Kormak. He was keen to see why she was so interested to be there.
Kormak studied the land around them. The trail was winding down into a new valley. There was a massive barrow beneath them. It too was marked with standing stones. Some of them had toppled. He noticed they had been originally laid out in the same pattern as an Elder Sign.
Their horses began to pick their way downslope. Kormak got off his and walked beside it. Aisha did the same. Brandon, more confident in his horse and horsemanship, remained in the saddle. Kormak felt the great warhorse’s presence more now that he was on the ground. Not for the first time he realised how intimidating it was to face a charge of cavalry.
From the angle they were at he noticed there was small tarn of dark water next to the barrow.
“We’re wasting time doing this,” said Brandon, “if you really want to overtake this Morghael.”
“I need to make sure nothing more is going to come out of this barrow. And there may be clues there as to what this is all about.”
“I suppose,” said Brandon. “Although all the clue I need is that mob of walking bones that attacked us last night.”
They moved on until they reached the barrow. The entrance was open just like the one outside Brandon’s village. The air around it was chilly. Kormak tried telling himself that was just his imagination.
“It looks like this one is broken too,” said Sir Brandon. Kormak strode up and inspected the entrance. The stone door had been inscribed with a massive stone seal. On it was worked a five pointed star inscribed with words from the Book of the Sun and various ancient binding runes. The etched lines in the stone were partially full of moss. It blotched the stone as well. When Kormak touched it, it felt chill and damp. The stone-work had been defaced and the doorway hammered open. The two panels of the door were so massive they had not been broken, but the way down into the earth was clear.
Aisha inspected it as well and nodded as if she understood what she was seeing.
“So many of these bloody things in the hills,” Brandon murmured.
“The men of Kharon were here for a very long time,” she said. “Before you Sunlanders came they lived here for millennia. They buried many kings according to the Old Rites.”
It was impossible to miss the reverence with which she said the old rites.
“I’ve heard it said that they were once part of a much greater Empire,” said Sir Brandon. “That stretched all the way to the Southlands, that there are still great stone barrows there, where the dead are interred.”
“It is true,” said Aisha. “The Empire of Kharon once extended from the Mountains of Snow to the Desert of Ash.”
“The First Empire destroyed it,” said Sir Brandon with some satisfaction.
Aisha shook her head. “It destroyed itself. It had already fallen apart into a group of warring states by the time the Solari came over the World Ocean. Forghast was just one of many realms ruled by a former Satrap, and even it splintered into every smaller petty nations. That was why the Sunlanders found it so easy to conquer. The Empire of Kharon kept them at bay for centuries before that.”
Brandon looked at her, clearly not expecting this barrage of learning from a Tinker woman. Kormak could see suspicion enter his mind. “You have more learning than my village priest, that is for sure.”
“I doubt that is very difficult,” she said. There it was again, Kormak thought, the imperial arrogance. Brandon looked away. His face had gone red as he tried to control his temper. Aisha looked at Kormak.
“Have you seen enough?” she asked.
“More than enough,” said Kormak. She gave him a sharp look, as if she understood what he meant.
“What are you going to do?” Brandon asked. Kormak sniffed the air from the barrow, then strode down inside. He did not have a sense of any inimical presence down there but he wanted to be certain. “I am going to take a look. Wait here.”
“I’m going with you,” said Aisha.
“As you wish,” said Kormak warily.
“Did you find anything?” Brandon asked, as they emerged from the barrow.
“There’s nothing left down there,” Kormak said. “The coffins are all empty as are the ossuary niches. It looks like the wight brought all its people along for last night’s attack.”
They had searched the chambers of the barrow and found no remains. He had watched the woman closely. She had scoured the place clearly looking for something, and just as clearly, as far as he could tell, not finding it.
Brandon said. “I doubt anybody would steal anything from an open tomb so there would be no need to leave guards.”
“Why this tomb though?” Kormak said. “There were other barrows, closer to the village.”
“Maybe because the Hungerdalers would run out and burn anyone they saw trying to open them,” Brandon said.
“Maybe,” said Kormak.
“I see what you are getting at,” Brandon said. “Why open some barrows and not others?”
“Maybe they know what they are looking for and where to look,” Kormak said. Aisha nodded. Kormak wondered what she knew that he did not.
“Maybe some seals just failed,” Aisha said at last. She clearly felt called upon to say something in the face of their silence. “Spells do fade; water, wind and weather wear away stone.”
“These seals were mostly definitely broken by human hands,” Sir Brandon said.
“That is so,” Kormak said.
“It might not have been humans,” Aisha said. “There are Old Ones in these hills. We’ve seen them. Or if it was men, maybe they were acting on behalf of the Old Ones.”
Kormak thought of the winged being he had seen before the attack. Again he noticed the curious stillness with which she held her hands when she mentioned Old Ones. She was clear
ly restraining herself from doing something.
“Why wait till now to do so?” Kormak asked, although he half suspected he knew her answer. There was civil war in the south, orcs along the borders. If the Old Ones wanted to work mischief, this would be the time to do it.
“You think this Morghael may have nothing to do with this then?” Sir Brandon asked. He sounded sceptical, as well he might, given what Kormak told him.
“He might be in it together with the Old Ones,” Aisha said. “Some of them would be pleased to see chaos come to the lands of men.” There was a peculiar emphasis on the way she said the word some.
“I can believe that,” said Sir Brandon. Like all Sunlanders he believed the worst of all the Old Ones. Not without reason, Kormak thought. Aisha looked as if she was considering saying something and then thought the better of it.
“We’d better be getting back to the wagon,” said Kormak. He considered pushing the woman to find out what she knew, but he was starting to think that she would speak in her own good time.
They rode on from the barrow heading north back onto the road. The great wolf padded along, sniffing the air and growling. It did not seem upset, it seemed angry or as if expecting some ambush. Aisha rode ahead, talking to it, as if it were a person.
Brandon looked at Kormak sidelong. “What do you think of her?”
“What do you mean?”
“She is not what she seems, is she?”
“Who is?”
“I mean she is not just another Tinker. Maybe she’s not a Tinker at all.”
“So you finally worked that out.”
“We can’t all be clever as you, Guardian. I suppose you are going to tell me you suspected that all along.”
“What does it matter?”
“What is she?”
“She is a witch.”
“You think she is in league with this sorcerer we are chasing, the one who is opening the barrows?”
Kormak shook his head. “I do not think she is his ally. But she has some personal interest in this matter, I am sure.”
“If she is not what she seems why are we riding with her?”