Swordmage

by Richard Baker

“And no one lives up here?”

  “None but orcs and ogres, and their tribes generally keep to the northerly parts of the moorland,” Geran answered. “Shepherds and goatherds graze their flocks up here in the summertime, but other than that, the land’s not good for much. The soil’s thin and poor and doesn’t drain well. You’ll want to be careful of your mount—this isn’t good ground, and there are a thousand places where a horse can snap its ankle.”

  The halfling silently absorbed the view for a moment. Geran could guess what he was thinking; the idea of so much land that was so wide, so open, and yet so desolate was likely foreign to his experience. Hamil had grown up in the warm forests south of the Sea of Shining Stars; the Moonsea’s northern shores must have seemed like the very end of the world to him. For his own part, Geran found the cold, clean air and long views bracing. It was a hard land, to be sure, but it was a simple land. The complexities and confusion of life held less of a grip on his spirit here.

  He glanced over to Kara. Since her thirteenth summer, the summer when her spellscar had manifested itself, she’d found a refuge up in those barren and lonely places. Geran and Jarad used to come to the Highfells to savor the independence and freedom the wild country offered. But Kara had taken to spending as much time as she could in the wild land around Hulburg simply because there was no one there to shy away from the deformity of her spellscar. He’d long since learned that Kara’s spellscar was not dangerous, but all too many people around Hulburg—or any place, really—regarded the spellscarred with fear and suspicion. It didn’t surprise him to see that Kara had continued to seek solitude in the high country in the years that he’d been away from Hulburg.

  They continued on, riding more east than north, keeping a cautious pace. No trees grew in the Highfells, of course, but in small hollows or sheltered spots, thick low gorse grew, and sometimes they found small shelters of fieldstone and turf in these places—lodges used by herdsmen in the warmer months. From time to time they came across sudden steep-sided streambeds, narrow and deep, or passed by old cairns and low, rounded barrow mounds. And on one occasion they rode along the rim of a sharp, steep-sided bowl of changeland easily two hundred feet deep, its sides made of glistening blue stone grooved with strange whorls. Geran remembered the place well; one summer afternoon in his fifteenth year, he and Jarad had explored the sinkhole by roping themselves down to its floor, only to find that its lower reaches were honeycombed by crevices where repulsive, silver-winged eel-like creatures laired. They’d had to climb back up with smoking torches clutched in their hands to keep the nasty things from chewing them to pieces.

  Another half-hour brought them to the edge of a barrow field, a wide expanse of small burial mounds. The southern borders of Thar were strewn with the ancient tombs left behind by people long since lost to history. Hundreds of the mounds lay within a day’s ride of Hulburg. Sometimes dozens stood together within a few hundred yards of each other, and sometimes a single barrow stood all by itself, a dismal and lonely sentinel on the open downs. Geran had never learned why that was so.

  Kara stood up in her stirrups, taking a moment to gain her bearings as she studied the barrow field. This one was well ordered; the barrows stood in low rows, serried ranks of weary soldiers standing watch against the cold north wind. She looked left, then right, and nodded to herself. “We’re here,” she said. “This way.”

  They followed behind Kara as she rode up to one of the larger barrows. Long ago someone had excavated its door, revealing a low, black opening in the hillside. The whole thing was better than a hundred feet across and almost twenty feet high, which suggested to Geran that someone important had been buried in the mound; most barrows were quite a bit smaller. Kara slid out of her saddle, patted Dancer’s muzzle, and made her way slowly into the open space before the barrow’s black doorway, her head down and her eyes on the ground. Geran and Hamil dismounted as well and waited for a moment as the ranger studied the moss-covered rocks and wiry grass of the hollow.

  “Here,” she said over her shoulder. “This is where Jarad was found.”

  Geran felt a cold shiver in his heart, but he forced his feet into motion. He came up beside Kara, looking at the ground where she pointed. He couldn’t see much, but that didn’t surprise him; Kara had always been much better at reading tracks than he. Hamil joined them a moment later, squatting to run his fingers lightly over the ground.

  “The Shieldsworn sent for me as soon as they learned Jarad had been found,” Kara said quietly. “I had a good look at the scene later that day. You can’t see much, since it’s been almost a month now, and we’ve had a lot of rain since. But you can still make out the impression in the heather, there, and just a bit of rust from his mail. He’d been here for about two days before he was found.”

  Geran took a deep breath and straightened up to look around the hollow. “What do you make of it, Kara?”

  “Jarad rode up from the south side of the barrow and hitched his horse back behind those boulders there.” She pointed at a jumble of gray stone and gorse a couple of bowshots from the door, more or less back in the same direction from which they had just approached. “He approached the barrow on foot, circled the area briefly, and chose a spot where he could lie low and watch the door—over there, in the gorse. There’s a depression that would make for good cover. I’ll show you.”

  She led them away from the barrow door about forty yards, angling away to the side, until they stood by a tuft of wiry brush. “He waited here for a short time, perhaps an hour or so. Then a party of five riders approached the barrow from the south and dismounted right in front of the door there—four men and a woman. A fight followed; I think Jarad wounded two men before he was cut down, right where his body was found. No one moved him.”

  “You’re certain of all that?” Hamil asked.

  “I told you, I had a good look at the scene.”

  Geran smiled humorlessly. “What Kara isn’t saying, Hamil, is that she’s the best tracker between Melvaunt and Vaasa. I’ll say it for her. You can consider everything she just said ironclad fact. Though I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s read a few more pieces of the puzzle she hasn’t shared yet, because she can’t quite put them together.”

  “All I have left are guesses,” Kara said. “For example, I can’t tell you why he rode to this particular barrow and waited here. Nor can I tell you if the riders were the people he was waiting for.”

  “He might have guessed which barrow the crypt-breakers were likely to try next,” Hamil suggested. “Or, more likely, someone told him. He came to this barrow because he expected someone to be here.”

  “I think you’re right, Hamil.” Kara gave the halfling a long look. “But that begs the question of whether Jarad’s source was sincere or lied to him in order to lure him to a place where he could be ambushed. Either way, it doesn’t explain why Jarad broke cover. From this spot he could easily have seen he was outnumbered. With five riders to deal with, Jarad should’ve stayed in his hiding place. You can see for yourself; if I get down under this brush, you can’t see me from in front of the barrow. You would have to be right on top of me to know I was here.”

  Geran closed his eyes. He found himself imagining the encounter … the black doorway in the low, rounded hillside, nervous horses tethered on a line, a sky of sullen, gray-black rain, cold wind making the long grasses ripple and hiss. Jarad lying flat beneath the gorse, cold and wet, a big, strong man with a long braid of straw-colored hair, scowling fiercely at himself as he debated whether to go for help or deal with matters himself. Was it a sudden furious skirmish in the dell when he gave his location away? Or had he challenged the intruders, demanding their surrender? And who were the killers? A band of adventurers passing through, a reckless gang from town, or men sworn to some guild or merchant company?” Jarad was always confident of his sword arm,” Geran finally said. “Maybe he was afraid the tomb robbers would elude him again if he rode away to gather more men. Or maybe he thought he could spy them
out, mark their faces, and apprehend them later in town.”

  Or maybe he didn’t think the riders were enemies, Hamil said silently to Geran. To Kara, the halfling spoke aloud. “Kara, earlier this morning you said that crypt-breaking was especially dangerous in Hulburg. Why is that?”

  “Aesperus, the King in Copper,” Kara answered. “He was a fearsome necromancer who ruled over this part of the Moonsea hundreds of years ago. He survives as an undead lich who commands the dead of the barrowfields. Too many things that should lie dead and buried under stone rise and walk the Highfells once their tombs are breached.”

  “It’s one of the few laws the harmachs enforce without mercy,” Geran added. “No one is to open a tomb anywhere within land claimed by Hulburg. And it’s considered high treason to collect anything of value buried in a barrow.”

  “Sensible enough, I suppose.” Hamil glanced at the barrow and the moorland surrounding the old mound. He shook his head. “A damned lonely place to die.”

  They stood in silence for a moment, quietly surveyeing the scene. It was the middle of the afternoon; Geran guessed that they’d need to turn for home in an hour or so if they hoped to reach Hulburg before dark. If there was anything to find here, he couldn’t imagine what it might be. Kara had been over the ground more than twenty days ago, and if she hadn’t found anything more then, he certainly wouldn’t now. The wind shifted again and streamed the long grass atop the barrow to the other side, revealing a silver-green underside to the stalks. He shivered, and then his eye fell on the cramped, dark doorway leading into the barrow.

  “Kara,” he said, “did anyone enter or leave the barrow?”

  The ranger nodded. “Yes, the riders did, after they’d killed Jarad. But there isn’t much inside, just a short passageway ending at a fieldstone wall. If they were tomb-breakers, they didn’t do much to the place before giving up.”

  “Let’s have a look anyway,” Geran suggested.

  He led the way to the low, overgrown opening. It was half-sunken into the side of the barrow, more like a storm cellar than an actual door. A cold, stale smell clung to the passage. He felt in his belt pouch for a copper coin and whispered the words of a simple light spell—one of the more elementary spells he happened to know. The coin began to shine with a bright yellow radiance, driving the darkness back into the hill. Holding the coin before him, Geran ducked under the heavy stone lintel, his right hand on his sword hilt. Hamil followed close behind him, and Kara hovered in the doorway, a tight frown on her face.

  As she’d said, the passage ran straight for a short distance, took a sharp right turn, and ended in a rough wall of stones piled high across the narrow corridor. Geran studied it for a moment, thinking. Something was odd here, he was sure of it. Many barrows were sealed by similar walls across the entrance-way; the people who’d interred their chiefs and heroes in such places simply walled them up when the burial rites were over, and then buried the passage they’d used to carry the dead man and his belongings into the burial chamber. He knelt and felt at the floor by the base of the wall. Rock chips and discarded stones littered the ground atop a thin layer of damp dirt.

  “Hamil, have a look at this,” Geran said. “I think this wall’s been taken down and put up again.”

  The halfling leaned close, studying the loosely piled field-stone. “You’re right. All the dirt and mold from between the stones is knocked out.”

  Kara leaned over his shoulder. “Yes, I noticed that before. It didn’t make sense to me. Why would tomb-breakers put the wall back behind them?”

  “Why, indeed,” Geran murmured. Because they wanted to keep people out? Or had they wanted to seal something inside? He found a deep, dirt-filled crevice between stones in the wall beside him and wedged the illuminated coin into it to free his hands. “All right, be ready. I’m going to move a few stones and have a look at what’s on the other side.”

  “Geran, that might be dangerous,” Kara warned. “You know the harmach’s law.”

  “I know it. But someone knocked this wall down and rebuilt it not too long ago, so it’s hardly like we’re the first people to open this barrow.” Geran found a loose stone near the top and began to pry it out. “Besides, if someone wanted to keep something dangerous inside, I doubt they would have taken the time to pile up rocks here. They’d have run for their horses and ridden off across the Highfells. I think that this wall was piled up here to keep us out, possibly by the men who killed Jarad. I want to know why.”

  Kara gave him an unhappy look, but she came forward and helped him pry stones away from the wall. Hamil stayed back out of the way, moving the rocks they dislodged back down the passage to keep the way clear. In a few minutes Geran managed to open a sizable hole near the top of the wall. A cold breath of air with the distinct smell of stale meat sighed through the opening.

  “I can smell something dead in there,” Kara said, grimacing. “Maybe we shouldn’t take out any more stones.”

  Geran paused and listened carefully. It felt cold and the air was tainted … but he could not feel anything unnatural waiting in the darkness beyond. He and Hamil had plenty of experience with old crypts and tombs, including some that were haunted by the restless dead. He thought he knew the feel of such creatures close at hand. But to reassure himself, he retrieved his shining coin from the crack where he’d wedged it and held it close to the opening they’d made to peer through to the other side. He couldn’t see much yet, just the hint of more passage beyond. “Just a few more,” he decided.

  “If a wight lunges out and claws off your face, it won’t be my fault,” Kara muttered. But she returned to the work, worrying free another stone.

  Geran did the same, and then he was able to put his shoulder to the remaining mass and shove over most of what was left with a terrible crash and a great cloud of dust and dirt. Coughing, he backed up to let the dust settle.

  In the dim yellow light of the spell, they found that the passage ran a bit farther to a burial chamber. Once it might have hidden the funereal wealth of an important chieftain, but it was clear that it had been emptied long ago—likely by the same men who’d originally excavated the mound’s doorway, Geran figured. The grave itself was a simple depression in the loose flagstone floor, covered by a chipped slab of roughly cut stone. The three companions spread out through the chamber, silently taking in the scene.

  I don’t like this, Geran, Hamil whispered in his mind. You say that the dead in this land don’t rest well. We shouldn’t be here.

  Something isn’t right here, Geran answered him. He’d been in a few barrows long ago, mostly ones long since opened and home to nothing but mice and dust. The harmach’s prohibition did not apply to tombs that someone else had already opened, after all. But something in this burial mound was out of place … the air was cold, and the smell of death lingered more strongly there. Why does it still smell that way? he wondered. It was hundreds of years old.

  “Someone has been in here recently,” Kara said. She knelt, her fingers spread over the rough stones of the floor. Black earth and mold filled the crevices between the stones. “The same men who were outside when Jarad was here. I can tell by the bootprints. And there’s a lot of old blood here.”

  The tomb slab, Geran realized. He moved over and crouched beside the heavy stone that covered the grave. “So some old party of tomb-breakers dug out the barrow and removed everything from this chamber,” he mused aloud, “but either they didn’t take anything from the body under this slab, or they put the slab back when they were finished. Neither seems very likely to me.”

  Kara glanced over from where she knelt, and she frowned. “No, it’s not,” she agreed. She moved beside him and looked for herself. “This slab was dragged over and set here not long ago.”

  “I thought so,” Geran answered. He glanced up at Kara and Hamil. “Be ready in case I’m wrong.” Then he shifted to get his fingers under the edge of the slab, tested its weight briefly, and breathed, “Sanhaer astelie!” Magical strength fl
ooded into his limbs, and with one great heave he rose from his crouch, lifting with the power of his long legs, and threw the heavy slab away from the dank hole beneath. A sickening stench of foul air rose around him.

  “Damnation!” Hamil hissed. Only a handful of despoiled bones remained of whatever chieftain had been buried there. But atop the ancient skeleton lay two additional bodies—the corpses of a young woman in a tattered dress of red wool and a short, broad-shouldered man in a shirt of mail. The woman’s skin was darkened and tight, and her sightless eyes stared up at the ceiling. Her throat had been cut. The soldier’s coat was dyed red from a wound just under his ribs that had left a long scarlet trail down his coat.

  The smell was strong and unpleasant, and Geran quickly backed away, covering his mouth and nose. Kara and Hamil did likewise. “Two of Jarad’s killers, I suppose,” he managed from under his hand.

  Kara held her hand over her nose. “I think she’s the woman who was with the riders. Her shoes match the marks I found outside. I was wondering why someone up in the Highfells would wear shoes better suited for a dance hall. As for the warrior, he could very well be one of the men injured in the fight in front of the barrow door. Perhaps Jarad managed to mortally wound one of his attackers before they cut him down.”

  “Do you know the woman?” Geran asked.

  Kara shook her head. “No, she could be anybody.” She knelt and looked closely at the body. “She’s dressed like a townswoman. And her wrists are tied behind her back.”

  “What of the armsman, Kara?” Hamil asked.

  “Look at the mail,” Geran answered for her. “It’s barred horizontally, Mulman-style.” That meant little in and of itself, but it was an unusual style. None of the armorers in Melvaunt or Thentia made their armor in that fashion; it was favored in the city of Mulmaster. He realized that he’d noticed mercenaries wearing Mulman-style mail recently and simply hadn’t thought much of it at the time. Thousands of armsmen wore Mulman armor, after all.