At first, nothing changed. The ghostly villagers went about their chores, lamplight illuminated windows and spilled out into the street, and the night air filled with the sounds of people winding down their day. Gradually, activity slowed, then stopped, and Corran felt as much as saw the ghosts’ attention shift to where the hunters stood.
“They’re coming!” he warned, and in the next breath, a blast of frigid air swept around them, raising the dust and swirling leaves into the air. The wardings might hold the restless spirits at bay but did nothing to protect them from the cold. Corran’s teeth chattered, and he felt gooseflesh rise on his arms.
Ghastly figures assembled just beyond the protective salt ring, glowing with a green hue. The spirits no longer appeared as they had in life; instead, their ghosts manifested with their death wounds to stare balefully at those within the warded circle. Rigan faced them while Corran stepped back, concentrating on maintaining and strengthening the magic that kept the ghosts outside the sigils and salt.
“Spirits of Oberfeld, hear me! I am a confessor to the dead,” Rigan said. “Tell me what happened and why your ghosts remain, and I will ease your passage to Doharmu.”
What do you care? A dead woman’s ghost stepped close to the shimmering blue-white energy of the protective circle that rose like a curtain between the brothers and the ghosts. We mean no harm to you. Go away, and leave us to our task.
“You might not mean us harm, but you kill others,” Rigan pressed. “Tell me why, and I can help you find your rest.”
Rest? A spectral man roared. There can be no rest, as long as those who stole our lives go unpunished.
“Then tell us who they are, and we’ll report them to the authorities,” Rigan replied, keeping his voice even and reasonable.
A low, bitter chuckle began from somewhere in the throng of spirits that massed around the edge of the salt circle. More of the ghosts echoed the sound until the night rang with the mocking laughter. Who do you think killed us? The woman’s spirit taunted. Come outside your circle, and we’ll show you.
“Why did they kill you?” Rigan asked, and took a half-step forward as if he meant to cross the salt line.
Corran gripped Rigan’s arm, fingers tight enough to leave a bruise. “Don’t,” he warned.
Rigan looked from his brother to the spirits beyond the protective warding.
“Rigan, don’t be a fool!” Corran hissed. “They kill people, remember?”
Are you guards? Did you come from the Lord Mayor or the Merchant Princes? the woman who spoke for the spirits asked.
“No,” Rigan replied. “We hunt monsters.”
Then you have nothing to fear from us. You want to confess us? Come across, and see what we saw, what happened here.
Corran kept a tight grip on Rigan’s arm. “You can’t trust them.”
“Swear to me,” Rigan said looking out to the ghosts. “I will hear your confession and see your truth, but I want you to swear safe passage for my brother and me. Swear it to Doharmu, on peril of your souls.”
The glowing ghosts knelt, one by one, and bowed their heads. We swear, their hushed voices replied.
“This can’t be a good idea,” Corran muttered. He glanced at Aiden, who shared the warded circle with them. “Are you all right with this?”
Aiden looked troubled. “No. But I don’t think you have a choice if you want to find out what really happened here—and the ghosts won’t go peacefully until they’ve been heard. I’ll stay here, out of their reach, so I can help if things go wrong.”
Corran turned back to Rigan. “Let’s go.” His expression left no doubt as to his thoughts about the decision.
“Remember—you gave your word, all of you,” Rigan cautioned as he moved toward the salt line. The ghostly villagers backed away, giving them space. Rigan traded a nervous glance with Corran, and then carefully stepped across the warding. He followed a few seconds later.
Surrounded by ghosts, the night felt as cold as the middle of winter. Corran saw his breath, and he shivered although he wore a jacket. Now that he was beyond the warding, he saw the ghosts more clearly.
A village of about fifty people stood in rows, watching them with dead eyes. Young and old, male and female, they had died together and died horribly. Corran flinched at their death wounds. Rigan led the way, moving slowly among the spirits, and his face was expressionless as he saw what had been inflicted.
Many of the villagers bore deep slashes across their throats. The dying would have been quick, but not the terror of what was about to happen. A woman’s ghost held out the baby in her arms, revealing bloodstained blankets and the unmistakable gouge of a sword’s blade in the child’s belly. Corran gasped and backed up a step, closing his eyes for a moment as he steadied himself.
Old women stood with necks bent at an unnatural angle. Others met Corran’s gaze unblinking though their skulls were smashed. Some of the old men clutched gut wounds. No one had tried to make their deaths easy.
By comparison, the women and children received mercy. Some of the boys and young men bore wounds that could only have come from impalement, while it was clear many of the older men had been hanged, crucified, or dismembered.
Corran emerged from the throng of ghosts and fell to his knees, retching. Rigan stood close to him protectively, pale as the revenants, with anger blazing in his eyes.
“Show us who did this to you,” Rigan ordered. “And I will see you to your rest,”
Corran blinked, and the night around them changed. He saw a sunny autumn day in a village like many they had passed through since they left the city. Small but well-kept shops lined the main street, with tidy homes and stables behind that. At the edge of town, a pub welcomed travelers. Like the rest of the village, the pub looked worn but cared for, and Corran had the sense that the people in Oberfeld led a quiet, hardworking life.
He glanced around, trying to determine how the villagers made their living. From what Corran noted, they were farmers or the merchants who supplied the farmers. Beyond the village, on the hills that stretched in all directions, were vineyards. He had always paid little attention to matters relating to the Guilds or the League since they had little to do with the concerns of undertakers, but Corran thought he recalled that Merchant Prince Kadar owned the vineyards in Ravenwood and that the Guilds associated with winemaking depended on him for his patronage.
Corran hurried to keep pace with Rigan, who walked slowly through the recreated village, studying the details. How the ghosts managed to project a seamless vision eluded Corran, but he reminded himself that while what they saw might be true, none of it was real. We are standing in the ruins of a dead village in the middle of the night, surrounded by murderous ghosts. This time, his shiver had nothing to do with the unnatural cold, and he gripped the pommel of his iron sword more tightly.
“What do you make of it?” he asked Rigan in a low voice, unsure why he felt the need to whisper.
“I think it’s probably taking all of their energy to show us this,” Rigan replied. “It’s not magic, at least not their magic. More of a collective memory they’re sharing with us. I wonder if we can see it because of our grave magic? It’ll be interesting to find out what Aiden’s seen.”
“Let’s get this over with,” Corran urged. “I didn’t like this before, and I like it less now.”
He studied Rigan’s face. His brother had an expression of rapt concentration, and beneath it, seething rage. Corran thought he detected the barest hint of a glow around Rigan and remembered that same, strange light from the night Rigan killed the guards that murdered Kell. This might be his younger brother, but Rigan was also a powerful witch who could be devastatingly dangerous when moved to anger.
“Why aren’t we seeing what happened?” Corran asked.
Rigan frowned, as if listening to something only he could hear. “They’re showing us who they were, what was taken from them.”
The illusion grew more realistic, adding sound and smell. Corran heard
the buzz of conversation, of friends calling out to friends and merchants hawking their wares, of children squealing and dogs barking.
Hoof beats made him turn. Twenty riders on horseback rode up to the pub. Before they could dismount, two of the village men stepped out of the pub to block their way.
“We don’t get many soldiers this way,” one of the villagers said, his friendliness tempered with an edge.
“We’ll be the last ones you see,” the ranking soldier replied as his men dismounted and drew their swords.
More men poured out of the pub. “What are you doing?” an older man protested. “We’ve caused no trouble, paid our taxes, delivered our crops.”
“Got my orders,” the captain replied. “Grew too many grapes, and the price of wine went down. Can’t have that. Won’t need as many farmers if there’s not as many vines to tend.”
Corran saw the horrified realization dawn on the faces of a few of the villagers, while others struggled to grasp what was about to happen.
“We can destroy what’s been harvested,” the elder said. “Or if Merchant Prince Kadar wants, we can abandon the vines.”
“That’s not in the orders.”
Nothing prepared Corran for the shock of seeing soldiers move through the village, setting their swords against unarmed villagers as if they were a tide of monsters. At first, he rushed at the soldiers, unable to remain still, only to have the illusion vanish as he ran through thin air.
They were watching echoes of a massacre a decade past, and nothing could stop what had already happened. The screams of women and children echoed along with the curses of dying men and the shrieks of those whom the soldiers toyed with before allowing them the release of death.
Corran thought he had already purged the contents of his stomach, he thought that as an undertaker, little would affect him, but the sound of screaming and the stench of blood and entrails had him heaving again. Rigan stood beside him, rigid and angry, his jaw set and his eyes narrowed.
Corran believed nothing could be worse than the screams of a village dying at the hands of those who should have protected them. But he was wrong. Silence was worse, much worse.
They blinked, and the scene changed. By the angle of the sun, morning had given way to late afternoon. Smoke rose from the ashes of the homes and shops Corran had seen just moments before, and the pub had burned down to its stone foundation. Bodies littered the streets, lying in bloody pools where they fell. The trees in the village green held the corpses of hanged men, and crosses and pikes with the bodies still impaled dotted the open, grassy area. Beyond the limits of the village, the vineyard still burned.
Corran felt his heart hammering in his chest. His mouth was dry and tasted of bile. Everything in him wanted a fight, wanted to cut down the soldiers that had done this and make them pay.
“That’s the point,” Rigan replied, guessing Corran’s thoughts. His voice sounded nothing like his own, cold and hard, emotionless. “They can only return one night a year, and they take their vengeance on soldiers they lure into the ruins.”
“Those aren’t the soldiers that did this,” Corran protested, though he could understand why that distinction might not matter, to the remnants of people who had seen their loved ones slaughtered.
“It’s as close as they can get to recompense,” Rigan said in a strangled tone.
As he turned to look around the savaged village, the illusion blinked out, leaving nothing but overgrown foundation stones and ramshackle ruins.
Do you understand? The ghosts surrounded them, filling the night with a foxfire glow.
“Yes,” Rigan replied. “You were badly wronged. Betrayed. But it’s time to end the killing. We know your secret. We swore our souls to Eshtamon, and the Elder God himself named us his champions for vengeance. Go to the After, knowing you will be avenged.”
Corran stared at Rigan, wide-eyed, wondering when their quest to find justice for Kell and their friends had somehow burgeoned into this. But he could not bring himself to protest. What happened in Oberfeld broke all oaths of lord and liegeman, violating the essence of the agreement between the Merchant Princes and the citizens who served their interests.
No one else knows the truth except us, Corran thought. If it happened here, where else did it happen? We hunt monsters. Maybe some of them are human.
“Are you ready to give up your vengeance, let us take on your burden, and go to your rest?” Rigan asked the spirits.
Corran watched the faces of the dead as they spoke quietly among themselves, fearful, angry, and struggling. Finally, the milling crowd stilled, and the ghost that spoke with them first stepped to the forefront.
We are agreed. Give us your word, and we will move on.
Rigan looked to Corran, who nodded, and then back to the ghosts. “You have our word, as the servants of Eshtamon, that your deaths will be avenged. Now, in the name of Oj and Ren, the Eternal Mother and Forever Father, in the names of Doharmu and Eshtamon, I bid you enter the After, and take the rest you deserve.”
Corran and Rigan spoke the words of the ritual, and in the distance, Corran saw the doorway open into the After. Always before, Corran had looked into that absolute darkness with trepidation. Now, having seen the worst men could do to other humans, he saw only the rest of peaceful sleep. The villagers moved into the doorway, some alone and some clutching the hands of others, individuals and families, until the last of Oberfeld’s ghosts was gone.
Corran felt a rush of power as the doorway to the After closed, the last of the magic dissipated, and the energy the ghosts had summoned for their illusion faded away. Rigan staggered, and Corran caught him, supporting him with a shoulder under his arm when it looked like Rigan’s legs might not hold him.
“Do you think it’s true, about Kadar?” Rigan asked, his voice tight.
Corran nodded. “Yeah. I do. It fits. If Machison could call monsters on his own people, why not this? You said that when you were inside the other realm, you saw Rifts opening in many places. Someone else must still be calling the monsters, setting them on the people. Damn, Rigan,” he said, looking at his brother as cold fear formed a knot in his belly. “This is much bigger than we thought.”
“And when they figure out that we know what they did—what they tried to cover up—we become more dangerous to the ones controlling the monsters.”
“Shit,” Corran swore. “Now the bounty on us is going to go even higher.”
Before he could say more, Aiden started scuffing away the circles. “Riders are coming,” he said. “Scouts. Trouble.” Whether it was his foresight or his magic that warned him, the others knew better than to doubt. “They’re not far; less than half a candlemark’s ride away. We’ve got to go.”
Corran and the rest of the hunters rode out of the deserted village, intentionally riding away from their base, hoping to circle around. They veered down smaller lanes and side roads, eager to put as many hedges and fences between them and the scouts as they could, tempering the desire to fly at full gallop with the knowledge that the sound of several horses riding at top speed would carry on the wind and attract attention.
After a candlemark of picking their way down muddy paths and farm lanes, they finally reached a road that would bring them back to the monastery. “Too bloody close,” Corran muttered.
Rigan laid a hand on his shoulder. “We’re home safe. And we’re moving the base as soon as the road is clear. We got around the scouts, sent the ghosts to the After, and no one got hurt. That’s as good a night as we get.”
Corran looked up, a pained expression in his gaze. “Our luck will only hold so long.”
Rigan gave him a wan smile. “It held tonight. That’s enough.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
“I hate these bat-nosed things,” Polly grumbled, swinging her sword to lodge the blade deep in the neck of a vestir, sending up a spray of dark blood. The sow-sized monster squealed in pain and fury as blood soaked its black, matted hair. It jerked free of the blade and
turned on Polly, forcing her to jump out of its path. She stabbed at it, and the tip of her sword slashed into its side, opening the flesh down to the ribs.
Trent came at the creature from behind as it wheeled to face Polly once more, and sank his sword into its left haunch, severing the muscles and laming it. Polly charged with a mighty swing of her blade to lop the head from its powerful shoulders.
Before they had a chance to catch their breath, another beast thundered toward them. Calfon and Ross teamed up on a vestir a few feet away, while Corran and Rigan fought off two of the creatures by alternating magic with great, hacking sword strokes.
“We’ve got an audience,” Polly called to Trent, and spared a shrug of her shoulders and a tilt of her head toward the top of the hill, where they could make out the figures of men, women, and children from the nearby farm village, watching the battle unfold in the valley below.
“They could damn well pick up a weapon and help. We’re not entertainment,” Trent muttered as he braced for the next onslaught.
A blast of fire from Rigan’s hand dropped one vestir, and Corran seized on the distraction to gut its companion, then ran his sword through the ribcage and heart. Ross scored a hit through the throat of one of the beasts, giving Calfon the chance to come from behind, leap astride the creature’s back and drive his sword down two-handed through its spine.
The last of the vestir, too enraged or stupid to run away, charged into their midst. Rigan loosed a blast of white, arcing energy from his palm, catching the creature full in the chest, and with a shriek, the monster fell to the ground, twitched and then lay still.
“I hope they liked the show,” Polly quipped, glancing up at the hillside. Her smirk vanished when she realized the villagers were gone. “Shit. Something else is wrong.”
The sound of hoof beats echoed in the night air, and the hunters scattered.
“Surrender in the name of Merchant Prince Kadar!” the captain of the soldiers shouted. Six guards, all in the livery colors of their prince, rode into the clearing at full speed, jumping the corpses of the fallen monsters in their haste to ride down the hunters.
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