Kormak shrugged. “We are leaving in the morning. We have a trail to find.”
“You know where Morghael is going?” Aisha asked.
“The Old Ones told me,” Kormak said.
“Then they will help us,” Brandon said. He sounded suspicious. Help from the Old Ones always came with strings attached in the tales he listened to. Thinking about this evening Kormak supposed they were right.
“Apparently they will help both sides,” said Kormak. Aisha did not look surprised by this information.
“What do you mean by that?” Brandon asked.
“It amuses them to tell us both where to find what we want. If we kill each other it is of no account to them.”
“Are you sure you believe them?” Brandon asked.
“Oh yes,” Kormak said. “The Old Ones may be mad but they are, for the most part, honest. At least I think these ones are.”
“You look as if you have scratches on your neck,” said Aisha. “Were you fighting?”
Kormak shook his head. “Not much.”
“So what else did you learn?” Brandon asked.
“This is not the time or place to discuss that,” Kormak said.
“Let us adjourn to our room and talk then,” said Brandon. Aisha nodded.
“I fear your song will have to wait for another time,” she told Shade.
“I can barely contain my disappointment.”
The room seemed even smaller with four of them and the wolf packed into it.
“What are you going to do,” Brandon asked once Kormak had finished telling them what Morghael sought and where he was going. Caution kept him from telling everything though.
“I am going to follow him, of course. Morghael cannot be allowed to get the Mask of the Defiler. He can’t be allowed to raise the Black Sun.”
“I am going with you,” said Aisha. She looked at him challengingly, as if for some reason he might try and stop her. Kormak wondered why that was. Did she feel guilty about something, was there something she was trying to hide that she felt he had spotted. Did she want the mask for herself? There were too many questions unanswered here.
Brandon looked at her wonderingly. He chewed at the end of his moustache. Kormak could almost see the thoughts running through his head. If the girl was going to this evil place, could he do less and still think of himself as a man and a warrior.
“You should go back, Brandon, warn your people, tell them to get ready in case the worst happens.”
Brandon looked at him sidelong. “I could gather my men-at-arms and come back,” he said. “Some extra swords might be useful.”
He sounded like he was seriously considering it. There was silence for a moment and then he shook his head. “It would take too long. By the time we got there, things would be over one way or another. I am coming with you.”
“You have a family and other responsibilities,” said Kormak.
“Anyone would think you were trying to get rid of me.”
“Any extra blade would be useful, I won’t deny it,” said Kormak. “But if we fail, someone needs to tell your people to be ready.”
“Are you going to tell me the same thing?” Lucas tilted his head to one side. His gaze flickered from Kormak to Brandon and back.
“We could certainly use your bow,” Kormak said.
“You’re not trying to send me back to Hungerdale with a warning then? Good because I am not going. I want to be there when you chop those tomb-opening bastards down.”
“I could send a message back with the Tinkers,” said Brandon. He looked at Aisha to see if she agreed. The witch-woman nodded. “I could write it under my seal. Tell Gena what is happening, make a copy for the Duke at Norbury.”
“It wouldn’t be the same without you there to argue the case.”
“So you are trying to get rid of me,” said Brandon. “You don’t think I am up to this but you think the hill-man is.”
“Lucas does not have children and a wife,” Kormak said. “You do.”
“I am quite attached to some of the whores here, if that counts for anything,” said Lucas, raising an eyebrow. “And I value my life as much as the next man.”
“I am going,” said Brandon. “And that is final. I will write those letters and I will ride with you. I am going to see this thing through to the end.””
“No matter where the trail leads?” Kormak asked.
“No matter where it leads. I owe this much to little Olaf and his folks.”
“Then I am pleased to have you along.” Brandon reached out and clasped Kormak on the shoulder. He looked almost grateful.
“We’ll need some gear, before we go,” Kormak said. “And Morghael has the walking dead with him. We’ll need to stop them and if we’re going into the Tomb Palace we will need to be prepared.”
“What do you need?” Lucas asked. “There are stores here in Elderdale.”
“We’ll need lantern oil and torches. Salt too."
“Those will be expensive here,” said Lucas.
“We have some in the wagon,” said Aisha. She paused for a moment and spoke reluctantly, as if imparting a secret. She walked over to the door and then back as if to make sure no one as listening. “If needs be I have enough money too.”
Kormak understood her reluctance. It was the sort of admission that could get your throat slit in a place like this if anyone overheard.
“And we’ll need supplies for at least week. We’re not going to be able to forage for food on the road and I would not want to eat anything we found in the Cursed Lands anyway. Let’s get to it. We pack what we need and leave in the morning.”
Kormak was not surprised to find Shade still awake. The dark man stood behind his bar, holding a goblet of wine. He was watching a last few drunks slumped at their tables. Many slept in the common rooms.
“A word,” Kormak said after the discussions were finished and the others had retired to their chambers.
“As you wish, Guardian,” he said. “I don’t need much sleep and neither apparently do you. Something to drink?”
“I want to give you some advice,” Kormak said.
“By your tone, it’s not going to be something I am going to like.”
“That is true.”
Shade poured himself another drink. “What is it?”
“The sorcerer who passed through here, who visited the Twins…”
“Yes?” The tavern keeper was wary now. The mention of anything connected with the Old Ones in the Keep seemed to make him so.
“He is looking for the Tomb Palace of the Defiler.”
“He won’t be the first.”
“He may be the first to open it.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“He is a necromancer. If he finds what he’s looking for, then the hills will soon be crawling with the walking dead.”
“What do you expect me to do about it?”
“Be ready. If the undead come out of their tombs then the Twins will not be able to protect you.”
“That’s what you are for then, isn’t it? Or so I have always heard about Guardians.”
“If the necromancer finds what he’s looking for I’ll be dead.”
“You are a cheerful bastard, aren’t you?” He looked at Kormak long and hard, considering. “You mean it don’t you? This is a genuine warning.”
“Yes, it is.”
“Then I thank you for it but I don’t think you’ll find too many people here prepared to pay too much attention. Not until it’s too late.”
“Just so you know and you’re ready to run or to fight.”
“I’m usually both.”
“And Shade, be careful of the Twins, one of them may not be too friendly for much longer.”
“I’ll bear that in mind.”
“Then I shall bid you goodnight.”
“Goodnight, Guardian.” Kormak left him looking thoughtful.
It was a chill morning. It had not taken them long to gather the supp
lies and pack them. Brandon yawned. He had spent a good part of the night awake with a pen in his hand, composing a message to his wife with all the concentration of a man who suspected it might be his last letter. It was with Javier now and the Tinkers would be heading south with it that day. They were already packing their stuff into the caravan. Clearly they took Kormak’s warning seriously, even if no one else did.
Kormak looked at his companions and tried to think of what he might have missed. He wished for a company of knights but it was just going to have to be the four of them and the wolf. He glanced up at the Keep. It looked dank and wet in the grey morning light. Green moss clung to its walls and the slopes of the rock on which it stood. It was cold and silent. No smoke rose from it. There were no chimneys. It might have been long abandoned for all the signs of life it showed. Somewhere beneath it, Tarina and her brother sheltered from the Sun. He rubbed the scab on his neck and thought about the night before. It was not the first such encounter he had known with one of the Old Ones. He wondered if it would be the last.
“Make sure you’ve all got enough food, and make sure your water bottles are full. Once we’re in the Cursed Lands, we’ll eat and drink nothing local,” Kormak said.
“You afraid of being cursed, Guardian?” Lucas asked. He was trying to make it sound as if it was a joke but there was real curiosity in his eye.
“The Shadow has seeped into the soil and the land. It will be in the wells, it will be in the grass that the beasts eat. It will be in their flesh. If we drink the water and eat the flesh it will seep into ours.”
“I thought you had amulets that protected you against such things,” Brandon said. Kormak pulled a small amulet with a white crystal set in the middle from beneath his tunic.
“I do,” Kormak said. He looked at the amulet. The wraithstone was still mostly white, showing it could still absorb the taint of Shadow. It did not need replaced yet. “You don’t. Still want to come?”
“I have prepared some protective charms,” said Aisha, producing some small wraithstones inscribed with an Elder Sign. She handed one to Brandon and Lucas, and then put one around Shae's neck, attached by a small leather thong. “They should protect our bodies and our spirits from the worst effects of the corruption, but what Sir Kormak says is still true though. We should eat and drink the stuff of the Cursed Lands only in the direst of emergencies, and not even then if we can avoid it. The stuff of the Shadow is a poison for body and soul and it blights the lands to the north of us.”
“Thank you,” said Lucas, his fist closing around the amulet. “I will keep this within my jerkin for as long as we pass through the remnants of Kharon.” He suited actions to words and did so.
Brandon looked at the amulet as if considering throwing it away, but he did not. Instead he placed it within his purse and put his purse back inside his breastplate over his heart.
“You didn’t see that,” he told Lucas.
“Worried I’ll steal your gold while you sleep?” The hill-man asked.
“No, I am worried you’ll steal my amulet,” said Brandon.
A cold wind blew out of the north. Grey clouds filled the sky. Drizzle turned the streets to mud. Lots of strangers watched them with eyes that showed only hostility or indifference. He wondered if his warnings would have any effect. In most places a Guardian would be believed but this was an odd little town. The locals were outcasts. Maybe they felt the Twins would protect them. Maybe the Twins would but in their place he would not have relied on it.
On the other hand, where were these people going to go? None of them looked as if they had a place to return to in the south. Most of them looked poor and hungry and hopeless. No one would prospect in the Barrow Hills if he had any other choice in life, Kormak suspected. No one would come here if he had any better place to be.
Javier and the other Tinkers came over and bowed to Aisha then to Kormak then to the others. Javier looked at Aisha, bowed again and said, “Lady Aisha. I trust this cancels our debt to you.”
Aisha nodded. “When you deliver your messages, you will have fulfilled all the obligations our ancient treaty placed on you. You may go with honour.”
The old man bowed to her a last time, then stomped back to his wagon. Kormak could not help but notice she had said messages. He wondered who Aisha could be communicating with then pushed the thought aside. It would not make too much difference now.
He drew his cloak tight against the rain, cinched his bags and swung himself up into the saddle. The others did the same. The Tinkers waved farewell.
Sensing other eyes on him, Kormak turned and saw Shade and his ogreish friend studying them from the verandah of the tavern. The dark man raised a hand in an ironic salute. Kormak returned it, unsmiling then heeled his horse northwards towards the waiting hills.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“DOES IT EVER stop raining up here?” Sir Brandon asked, squinting into the downpour. Visibility was low and was getting poorer as the afternoon wore on. It would soon be dark as night even though it was still hours before sunset. Brandon kept glancing over his shoulder, in the direction of Elderdale as if he regretted leaving the town and heading north.
“When it snows,” Lucas said. Rain ran down his lean face and dripped off his stringy, drooping moustache. He no longer held his bow ready. He was keeping it wrapped and out of the wet. His hand toyed with the hilt of his long-bladed knife instead. “You sure this is the way the Old One told you, Guardian?”
“It’s the only road I see running through these hills,” said Kormak. It was truly a road. Flat stones had been set in the earth like a mosaic over which the horses walked. It was not muddy at least; it was not even particularly slippery for the mounts, which seemed unnatural. Along the route, tall markers inscribed with odd runes lined the path. Lucas saw Kormak looking at one. It depicted a grinning skull inside a lunar orb.
“Symbols of the men of Kharon,” he said. “I’ve seen them before. You find them scattered all over the hills.”
He spat on the ground. His spittle disappeared in the rain then he looked away and shivered and Kormak was certain it was not because of the cold.
“You don’t like this place, do you?” Kormak said.
Lucas gave a short bitter laugh. “You have a gift for understatement. I’ve not been easy since we got north of Elderdale. This is the worst bit of the Hills, on the edge of the Cursed Lands, all the old stories agree on that. You know there’s only one thing about this makes me happy.”
“What would that be?” Kormak asked.
“The soft southern bastards we’re chasing must like the rain and the cold even less than I do.”
He returned to peering ahead as if somehow he could see through the grey downpour if only he looked hard enough. “What you think we’re going to find?” he asked, looking at Kormak sidelong. “When we get there I mean.”
“I don’t know,” said Kormak. “Nothing good.”
“They say the Defiler had ten king’s ransoms in treasure buried with him.”
“Is that why you came?”
“The thought did not discourage me.”
“If we find any gold that’s not tainted we’ll split it.”
“They say spending gets rid of the taint on gold.”
“No, it doesn’t. Not if the Shadow has seeped into it.”
“I know, Guardian. It was a joke. You can’t grow up in these hills without hearing about that. There’s a lot of stuff you can’t grow up without hearing.”
“Like what?”
“Like don’t stray too near a barrow after dark. People disappear when they do, you know, even when the barrows are closed. They just vanish, no one knows what happened to them. They say they were dragged down by the wights. You think that’s possible?”
“I’ve seen stranger things.”
“I’ll bet you have. You ever seen dead men walking, afore now, I mean?”
Kormak nodded.
“It’s kind of reassuring that you’re still here then.”
He fell silent and they rode on through the rain. All around them the hills loomed. Huge boulders looked like toppled standing stones. Maybe they were.
They found shelter for the night off the road. Large rocks surrounded them. They arranged smaller rocks to form a barrier and a windbreak and they built a fire. It was getting colder the further they progressed into the hills but at least the rain had stopped. Overhead stars twinkled in the sky and the moon’s face was visible through a gap in the scudding clouds. Kormak studied his companions by the fire’s light. Mostly they looked shadowy. The wolf’s eyes reflected the flames oddly. One corner of the sky was greenishly lit by the fires of the Great Comet.
“It’s much brighter tonight,” said Brandon. “Why do you think that is?”
“It is a sign that evil times are coming,” said Lucas.
“You can never go wrong with a prophesy like that,” said Kormak. “Evil times are always coming.”
“Then those who say that are pretty much always right,” Lucas responded.
Kormak rose and moving away from the fire, he went up to the low barrier and stared out into the darkness. He did not want to ruin his night vision by looking too long at the flames. He could hear the other’s talking. It was reassuring just to hear voices in the cold of the Barrow Hills night.
“That is a bet you would win. I think...” Lucas’s words were cut off by a long, hideous undulating cry. It echoed through the cold night air. The horses whinnied in fear and Kormak was glad they were corralled by the barrier. Brandon rose to gentle the steeds.
“What in the Sun’s Light was that?” he asked.
“A ghoul,” said Lucas. “Nasty bastards. These hills are full of them. It’s probably caught our scent or the scent of the horses. They love the flesh of man or horse, providing it has rotted long enough.
“They say armies of them roamed the hills after the Defiler’s Curse,” said Aisha.
“Plenty of rotting bodies for them then, I suppose” said Lucas.
“It sounds like a damned soul howling in torment,” said Brandon.
“I would not know, Sunlander. I have never heard any of those. I’ve heard these before though. We should be safe enough in a group like this providing there’s not a big pack of them.”