In the Company of the Dead (The Sundered Oath Book 1)

by Ballintyne, Ciara

  “But, your holiness,” the woman said. “We stand ready—”

  “Your support is appreciated,” she said, “but this is my job and mine alone. I stand against that which you cannot.”

  They backed away reluctantly under her watchful gaze. Only when she was reasonably sure they would do as she ordered did she reach out and grasp the door handle. The ice cold metal scalded her palm. She pulled the door open quickly, afraid a spectre might come through the timber at any moment.

  The well room boiled thick with spectres, drawn by the heat of her body. The opening was black with their ethereal substance. Yelling, she brought her sword up and with one swipe slashed through a half-dozen spectres layered atop each other. They dissolved like fog disturbed by an eddy of wind, dissipating away into nothing with shrill shrieks. She hunched her shoulders against the pain in her ears.

  Two spectres broke away from the group, sliding through the stone of the wall and into the courtyard. Both were distinctly man-shaped and with almost visible features—the newly dead. They headed for the soldiers behind her, while the rest surged towards her. She slashed back and forth, giving up ground one step at a time as they forced her backwards through strength of numbers.

  Nearly two dozen spectres clustered together—what toll would it take on the human body to summon so many? Some were the amorphous smoky shapes of spirits long dead, but others still resembled living people. The air temperature dropped, and tendrils of frost grew down her sleeves. Only her sword, warmed by the power of the goddess, was impervious.

  The last of the spectres dissolved beneath her blade, and she spun. The two that had slipped by into the courtyard were closing on the woman soldier. She backed away, her face white and sword clutched in shaking hands. Her fellow retreated in the opposite direction towards the kitchen, visibly trembling.

  “Don’t touch it!” Ellaeva raced towards the beleaguered woman. One sweep of her blade scattered the nearest spectre as if it were smoke, but the other surged at the woman, its fingers extending to touch the tip of the soldier’s sword. The woman stiffened and toppled over. Ellaeva caught the spectre on her backstroke then executed a lunge that impaled the smoky shape already rising from the dead soldier. Both spectres evaporated with keening wails.

  If she’d been faster, if she’d made the soldiers go back to the walls...

  If. There was no point in dwelling on if.

  She climbed to her feet and turned to the man. “Clear this area, and allow no one to follow me in. Lives depend on you following this order.”

  She strode back towards the well room. Were there more spectres?

  The inside of the well room was black as pitch, so she opened her eyes to the goddess. The depth of the darkness eased slightly, delineating edges, and near the stairs a shape glowed a pale blue. Another spectre. She cast her gaze around the room, ensuring no more lingered near or behind her, then stepped forward and cut the thing down with one brutal slash. One slow step at a time, she eased her way down towards the storage tunnels and the deeper catacombs.

  She stepped out into the tunnels. The usual torches were all extinguished, doused by the creeping cold and the influence of the spirits. The tunnels were dark and still.

  She started down the nearest tunnel, her sword out before her. Nothing glowed in the shadows. Tension made her skin prickle, and she licked her lips. Swinging her head from side to side, she scoured the darkness for spectres.

  As she rounded a bend, a radiance bright enough to make her squint filtered down the tunnel from the large storage cavern. She paused. How many spectres must be there to create that much light? She inched forward, trying to get a better look.

  The bundle of emotions nestled in the back of her head flared bright, and she gasped as though punched to the gut. Lyram! Was he all right? There was no pain, only a very deep shock. What was happening?

  Ahead, the radiance swelled. Ellaeva swore. Alerted by her involuntary gasp of surprise, the spectres had drifted close enough to sense her body heat. One moved into her line of sight, followed by another, and another.

  She darted forward into the cavern, attacking the nearest three spectres. As they dissipated with keening shrieks, she snatched a quick glance around the cavern. Spectres moved towards her from various parts of the cavern. Only a handful, but if she were careless, they’d trap her between them. One of the tunnels at the back of the cavern glowed blue with more. From that tunnel also echoed the shuffling sound of revenants.

  “Dragon’s balls,” she muttered, regretting her decision to leave her armour behind so she could pursue Lyram over castle walls. How many shamblers ahead? Probably exactly as many as the number of men who died in the siege and whose bodies weren’t burnt fast enough.

  Fire provided an excellent weapon against revenants, but nothing would burn in the presence of so many spectres.

  A blue glow exuded from the rock beside her face. Ellaeva recoiled with a shout, spun, and brought her sword around in a tight arc. Her vision blurred with the sudden movement from too long channelling Ahura’s power. She stumbled, and the blade sliced the spirit and struck sparks from the stone wall. The dying spectre wailed a piercing counterpoint to the screech of steel on stone.

  Another spectre oozed from the rock, and another, while more drifted towards her from different directions. To attack any one meant turning her back on the others.

  She drove her blade into the second spectre emerging from the wall, then slashed the throat of the third, almost missing as her vision doubled. The other spectres closed on her even as the two spirits wailed their last. She backed up, trying to angle back into the tunnel to escape the tightening noose. One touch, just one touch and it would all be over…

  A hand seized her arm. With a short scream, she brought her sword around—only to pull it up with a gasp. The figure glowed red in the sight of the goddess. A living, breathing person.

  In the shock of relief, she let go her grasp on the gaze of the goddess, and for a moment her head pounded in the aftermath.

  “Ahura take me, you scared the life out of me, Lyram Aharris.” Then she pushed him down the tunnel, glancing over her shoulder. “There are spectres.”

  Without the gaze of the goddess, they were much harder to see in the shadows of the tunnel. A patch of darkness to her left seemed deeper, and she lunged. The sword flashed red, and a spectre wailed. The light illuminated another, farther away, but Lyram stepped forward and slashed his sword through it.

  Silence fell in the wake of the second spectre’s death. Ellaeva dropped back a pace, tugging Lyram with her. Her breath rasped loudly in her ears.

  “Are there more?” Lyram whispered.

  Ellaeva dropped his arm and slashed at the air to the left. Nothing. She dropped back beside Lyram, then retreated another two steps. The air grew colder. The spectres were there, they just couldn’t see them. She swung the sword in front of her, testing with a wide, sweeping arc. No red light flashed in response.

  “How many?” Tension thrummed in Lyram’s voice, and he, too, began a few wide swings.

  Still nothing.

  “I’m not sure.” There had been five, maybe six, in the main cavern, and they’d killed two. “Three, maybe four, I think. But there could be others coming.” She stretched out to touch the nearest tunnel wall. Hard, slick ice met her fingers. “Fall back.”

  Did she dare attempt the gaze of the goddess again so soon? Her skull still throbbed from its last use. If she failed, the attempt would momentarily incapacitate her.

  She swung again through the chill air. Where were the spectres? The ice on the walls said they were near, and more ice crackled underfoot as they retreated one slow step at a time. The ice meant they had to be close, too close, so why couldn’t she find them?

  Indecision gripped her, and then she slid into the gaze of the goddess. Her head rang, and her vision doubled and blurred. She dropped her sword in the sudden onslaught of disorientation, but there, out of the corner of her eye—blue. The nearest
spectre was to Lyram’s left and almost within arm’s reach.

  “There!” She pointed with one hand, her other arm clutched to her splitting head as she sank to the ground. The gaze of the goddess slipped free, and the spectres vanished to her eyes.

  Lyram whirled at her signal, swinging his sword in broad arcs. Red light flashed, again, and again, stabbing her eyes with fresh pain each time. She squeezed her eyelids shut.

  The flashes stopped.

  “Did I get them all?” Lyram’s voice was still hushed.

  Nausea roiled in her stomach as she eased her eyes open and squinted around. The chill eased fractionally, but the red light had left the darkness even more impenetrable than before.

  “I don’t know....” She got her feet under her to stand, then dropped back to the ground as a wave of dizziness crashed over her. Pain throbbed in her temples. There was no time for weakness right now. “Give me your hand.”

  He padded over, his footsteps loud in the new, echoing silence, and reached down to haul her up.

  She shook her head. “Just hold my hand...., please? For a moment.”

  His head turned to stare down at her, but his expression was lost in the darkness. Still, he let her take his hand. His calluses were rough against her palm.

  Holding him tight, she opened herself once more to the goddess.

  Her vision immediately doubled and then blurred, and the pain that slammed into her head was enough to wrench a short shriek from her. She drove her fingers harder into his, her nails digging into the back of his hand, and forced her eyes open. With a jerky swing of her head, she scoured the dark length of the tunnel with her gaze.

  Nothing shone blue. There were no more spectres.

  Sagging, she let go of the gaze of the goddess. Only Lyram’s grip on her hand kept her half-upright. A hiccoughing sob escaped her lips as she dragged in a deep breath. The agony receded to a dull throbbing, and her vision was still blurred at the periphery.

  Lyram’s grip on her had tightened. “Are you all right?”

  She shook her head, wisps of hair falling free from her horsetail. “No. But I will be. We got them all.”

  He squatted beside her, his grip easing as though to let go, but she tightened hers.

  “What happened upstairs?” she asked.

  Lyram glanced away, and his hand tightened on hers again. “Kastyn’s dead,” he said, his voice unexpectedly rough.

  “What?” From the far end of the tunnel came the shuffle of feet and the low moan of tongues no longer able to form words.

  “What’s that sound?” Lyram stood, disentangling his hand from hers and holding his sword before him, low and menacing.

  “Shamblers.” She said reached out, retrieved her sword, and used it to lever herself back to her feet. Her head still hurt but had reduced to a dull background ache, and her vision was more or less normal, though when she blinked spots still danced in her vision. “There’s a door at the end of this tunnel. If we can close it, we can seal the shamblers in the storage cavern.”

  She moved farther down the corridor. It was still dark enough here that a shambler would be hard to spot. If she just slipped in and out of the gaze of the goddess quickly, like dipping a toe in the water, it might be enough to alert her of their presence without damaging herself further.

  Furrowing her brow against a sharp stab of pain, she dropped into the gaze of the goddess again and then out. Nothing shone in the tunnel. Another ten paces, and she tried again. Still nothing. Each transition made a faint ringing in her ears and intensified the ache in her head.

  She’d almost reached the end of the tunnel before a dull yellow light betrayed the presence of the first of the dead. They were neither hot nor cold and so glowed only dimly in her vision.

  As they approached, a decrepit shambler stepped out of the doorway, lifting its nose almost as if scenting them.

  Behind it, a sickly yellow glow poured from the cavern, casting it into dark silhouette.

  Ellaeva backed up hurriedly. Even in the shadows, the corpses looked solid rather than skeletal, and hacking them apart would be hard, laborious work. That many would overwhelm them in minutes. Even as she retreated, the corpse in the door swung in her direction with all the speed and single-mindedness of browsing cattle. More shamblers pushed into the tunnel behind it.

  “Fire,” she said, catching Lyram’s arm and pulling him back away from the cavern. “We need fire.”

  All the torches in the tunnel were out, extinguished by the cold, and frost coated the brands still lodged in their sconces. Lyram pulled one from the wall.

  “This won’t ignite.” He tossed it aside in disgust. “The wood’s soaked.”

  “If we go back past the stairwell we might find torches still lit.”

  With the sea of dead flesh shuffling after them, she tried to quicken her pace, but Lyram pulled her to a stop.

  “There’s more stores back past the stairwell, and one of them contains kegs of lantern oil. One keg and a small spark will light all those things up. I’ll try to slow them down while you get the oil. It’s in the small cave, with the iron door.”

  Ellaeva opened her mouth to protest, then reassessed. After her extensive use of the power of the goddess, she was exhausted and her head still rang if she turned too quickly. The ache behind her eyes was deepening again. She wouldn’t be able to call on Ahura to any great extent for some time yet. Pressing her lips into a grim line, she nodded. “I know it. I’ll be as fast as I can.”

  She broke into a run. In the back of her head nestled the calm presence of Lyram, readying himself for battle. He’d be fine.

  He will.

  Darkness shrouded the caverns, but she’d already cleared these tunnels so she ran fast, passing without slowing. Only when she reached the first of the caves on the other side did she slow to a trot.

  Torches burned at long intervals here, casting enough light for her to see, but there might be spectres or shamblers. Without the gaze of the goddess, nothing would glow. Her ears still rang from the pressure of maintaining contact with the goddess for so long, and it grew worse with every thudding step.

  She studied each dark opening she passed. The stacked shelves within were barely visible as darker shadows. Doors of heavy, aged wood blocked other store rooms.

  There was no mistaking the iron door when she found it, with a torch burning on the opposite wall. She pushed it open, and the door moved easily beneath her hand on well-oiled hinges. The cave beyond was darker than pitch and rich with the smell of lantern oil. She took the torch off the wall of the tunnel and stepped cautiously inside. It was a modest cave compared to some of the others in the catacombs, but stacked floor to ceiling with small kegs. Near the door, fresh torch brands filled crates, their heads wrapped with cloth. When she touched them, her fingers came away smeared with oil instead of melting frost.

  Though the kegs were small, even one was too heavy for her to carry. She put the torch in a wall sconce, took hold of a keg on the floor near the door and, with a grunt, tipped it over. Splinters raked her hands as it thudded to the floor. Swearing, she yanked a large splinter from her right palm and blotted the blood on her pants.

  With one foot, she pushed against the keg. It rolled well enough. She turned it towards the door, then froze.

  Someone blocked the doorway.

  “Leinahre.” Ellaeva straightened, placing one hand on her sword. “We’ve been looking for you. I didn’t think you’d show up voluntarily though. What do you want?”

  The woman raised her hands in a non-threatening fashion. She wore some kind of cloak or robe over men’s clothing instead of her customary kirtle, with the hood down on her shoulders. “I’m here to help you. I’ve been hiding in the tunnels. What else could I do after my foolish attempt to… Listen, you don’t have that much time, right? I can make up for it. Let me help.”

  “Why do you even want to?”

  “These tunnels are full of revenants—I don’t want to die and... there are
people I care about in this castle. Everard, Galdron... I don’t want them to die either. I assume you’re down here to destroy the revenants, unless Ahura’s chosen has taken to fetching supplies for the soldiers on the castle walls. Let me help. Please.”

  Ellaeva narrowed her eyes. “Why should I trust you, after what you did to Lyram?”

  She shrugged. “You can’t blame a woman for trying to secure her place in this world, can you?”

  “I can and I do.”

  “Well, what exactly do you think I’m going to do? Slip a love potion into you?”

  Ellaeva hesitated. The woman made her uneasy, but she also made a good point. What real threat did she pose to a Battle Priestess of Ahura? A minor noblewoman dabbling in hedge witchery wasn’t truly dangerous. And Leinahre did have a vested interest: the shamblers would kill her as surely as everyone else in the castle.

  Besides, there was no time to waste. She didn’t have time to deal with Leinahre now, not without risking Lyram. His presence in the back of her head felt grim and pressured. She could let Leinahre help... and then, after the shamblers were dealt with, they could lock her up somewhere.

  Grunting, she shoved the keg towards Leinahre. The barrel rolled and wobbled across the uneven, dirt floor, coming to a stop near the other woman’s foot. “You take that one.”

  She waited until Leinahre had manoeuvred the keg out the door before tipping over another keg and rolling it after. As she passed the crates near the door, she snatched up two unlit brands and tucked them in her belt. With no way to carry the burning torch, she left it on the wall.

  Leinahre stood waiting in the dark of the unlit hall. “Lead the way.”

  Ellaeva shook her head. “You go first.”

  She tried to keep Leinahre in her sights as they hurried down the tunnels, but the unwieldy kegs complicated things, speeding up on declines and forcing them to race after them, then grinding to a halt on bumps and choking the tunnel with women and barrels. They were forced to waste long minutes as they strong-armed the casks back on course.

  The stairwell materialised out of the darkness, the stone steps spiralling up into the cavern wall, while those descending deeper into the catacombs were nothing but a pit of shadow. Ellaeva used the gaze of the goddess briefly to check for the bright telltale glow of spectres or the dull yellow of the revenants. Nothing. Her headache intensified, but the ringing in her ears had stopped.