2 Defiler of Tombs

  “I would not count on that,” said Kormak.

  Brandon looked at him, finally getting to the question he wanted to ask. “This necromancer, Morghael, why would he flee north? Why would he come here?”

  Kormak gestured to the hills around him. “A lot of barrows up here.”

  “You think he plans to raise an army from the bones of Kharon?”

  “I don’t know. I do know that tomb dust from Kharon is used as part of the rituals in raising the dead.”

  Brandon looked at him sidelong. “You know a lot of things it would be better not to. I’ve never heard that before.”

  “It’s not common knowledge.”

  “Why tomb dust from the Cursed Lands?”

  Kormak considered his response carefully. “Some say it’s because the Shadow is in the dust, a legacy of the Defiler’s curse, that it becomes a kind of seed inside a corpse and stirs it to life if the rituals are performed right. I know it works. I saw Morghael’s army.”

  “You think he came here for more dust?”

  “It has to come from Shadow-tainted tombs, which makes it dangerous to collect, which makes it very expensive. Raising that army must have taken a lot of dust, cost a fortune.”

  “Well, there was a wight in that tomb and if he was looking for dust he must have got what he came for. Why not just head on back south?”

  “That’s a question I have been asking myself. I have a feeling I am not going to like the answer.”

  Around them, the hills brooded. Rain started to fall. They rode on into gathering darkness.

  The rain came down in a heavy drizzle. It soaked through Kormak’s cloak. He knew he was going to have to check his armour for rust at some point and oil it again. Brandon sat with his back to the ancient runic stone. At least it blocked the wind. He was cursing the cold and the wet. “Why did I agree to come with you again?” he asked.

  “Because you wanted to take part in the glamourous life of the wandering Guardian.”

  “I knew it was something like that.”

  “Why did you really come?”

  Brandon looked as if he was going to make a joke then shrugged and said, “Because I want to kill the bastard that let loose that wight. Olaf was one of my people, a kid. He should not have died like that.”

  There was silence for a moment then Brandon added, “I grew up around here and I’ve heard all the stories. Do wights really eat the soul of their victims?”

  It was obviously something that was preying on his mind. Kormak considered his answer carefully. “They devour whatever is in us that gives us life. Some would call that our soul.”

  Brandon let out a long sigh. “Always so precise with words, aren’t you?” It was clearly not what he wanted to say. Suddenly he cursed and said. “Bastard! It makes me so angry when I think of that kid and that barrow and some bloody madman letting those things free.”

  “He might not be a madman,” Kormak said. “He might be doing it for a reason.”

  “That’s even scarier,” said Brandon. He glanced sidelong at Kormak. His eyes narrowed. A sour grin twisted his face. “But you’re not scared, are you?”

  “Not yet. There will be time enough for that later.”

  “Gena calls you the fearless Kormak, you know. I don’t think she means it entirely as a compliment.”

  “You mean she thinks I am too stupid to be scared,” Kormak said, making a joke of it. “She would not be the first.” He wondered if the fact that his wife thought Kormak fearless and Brandon not, was one of the reasons the knight was here.

  Kormak glanced north. Mist or low-lying cloud obscured the Barrow Hills. The land was bleak, mostly rock and heather and gorse. Here and there were ruined cottages. They were not in the distinctive Sunlander style but lower and squatter. They were overgrown with wet moss and looked as if they had been here for a very long time. They added to the sense of abandonment about this place. The cold wind chilled Kormak but it was not the only thing that did so. He felt as if there was something in those hills watching him and waiting. It was something old and malevolent and it did not like men at all although it was prepared to use them.

  “This rain is good,” said Brandon. “It’s turning the land off the road to mud. We will be able to track the ones we are looking for if they leave it.”

  “Not too many places they can go,” said Kormak. “They can just keep going into the hills along the Great Northern Way.”

  “I always used to laugh when my father called it that. It’s a track. It goes nowhere except the mines at Elderdale. It’s not gone anywhere else for a very long time.”

  “It once led all the way to the Defiler’s Tomb Palace at Forghast,” said Kormak. “The Solari road joined the trail the Kharonians built.”

  “No sane man has gone there since the Great Curse blighted the land. There’s no one goes north of Elderdale now except tomb robbers and dark magicians. Most of those don’t come back. The ones that do get put to death if we catch them.”

  “There’s always those that slip through,” said Kormak.

  “You know some?”

  “There’s always those who dabble in the forbidden. You can’t catch them all, or if you do, it’s years or decades later when they have worked some evil.”

  “You know more about such things than I.” Brandon paused for a moment and then turned to look at Kormak. Most of his face was hidden by the cowl of his cloak but Kormak could see he was chewing his moustaches. It was not something he had done back amid his people but it was a nervous tic Kormak remembered from their youth. “What would anyone be looking for up in those hills if it’s not tomb dust?”

  “The Death Lords were terrible magicians, sworn to the Shadow. They knew a great deal of dark lore. They made many powerful charms and artefacts. I’ve seen some for sale in Norbury and other places.”

  “You shop in some interesting places.”

  “I was not shopping.” The grin disappeared from the big man’s face as he worked out what Kormak had most likely been doing. “Sometimes scraps of Shadow and scraps of power cling to such things. Sometimes they still have the spells they were imbued with. There are those who can use such things and have the money to pay for them.”

  Brandon shook his head. “I have never understood that.”

  “Understood what?”

  “Why put your soul at risk? Why risk letting the Shadow come between you and the Holy Sun’s Light?”

  Kormak shrugged. “Some men don’t think of their souls. Some men don’t believe we have souls. Some men want power in the here and now. Some want to prolong their lives.”

  “Is it possible?”

  “The Defiler lived for centuries. Some say he lies in his tomb at Forghast even now, waiting to return.”

  Brandon looked thoughtful. “The Old Ones live forever.”

  “They don’t age,” said Kormak.

  Brandon understood what he meant at once. “But they can still die. You kill them with that sword of yours.”

  Kormak nodded. “Yes.”

  “Why don’t they age and we do?”

  “The priests say because we are the Children of the Holy Sun and they are the spawn of the Lady of the Moon, that it’s because they are soulless that they live so long.”

  “I know what the Books say, Kormak. I have heard the sermons. I want to know what you think.”

  Kormak laughed. Brandon had looked around when he said it to make sure they were alone. Even out here, with an old friend, there were certain things that were discussed very reluctantly. “You think I disagree with the Books?”

  “You’ve said things from time to time that made me think you were not entirely in agreement.”

  “I have talked with Old Ones and what they say disagrees with the Books.”

  “You have talked with…”

  “Yes. They were there at some of the events the Apostles describe. Sometimes their descriptions agree. Sometimes they don’t.”

  “The Old Ones might lie.” r />
  “They might.”

  “But you don’t think so.”

  “Sometimes yes, sometimes no.”

  “You have talked to beings who have talked to the Apostles and to the Saints.”

  “Yes.”

  “And what did they say?”

  “That they were men like you and me. That some of them were touched by the Light and some were driven by hate. That some of those we think served the Light served the Shadow and vice versa.”

  “And you believe this?”

  “Some of the Old Ones claim there is no Light and no Shadow. There’s just living creatures and their deeds and their self-justifications.”

  “Did you believe them?”

  “I believe in the Shadow, Brandon. I have seen too much evidence of its existence to doubt it.”

  “They say when the Defiler cursed the Solari a Black Sun rose over the land, spewing darkness as the sun sheds light, and that it tainted all the land around Forghast with the Shadow’s power. That is why the dead walk there, and the old evil seeps out despite all the wardstones and watchtowers the Solari left. Do you think that is possible?”

  “Yes,” Kormak said.

  They sat in silence after that while the rain fell and the night gathered around them. Kormak felt that something watched them from the darkness.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  THEY HAD RIDDEN for the better part of the day. Ahead of them, just off the road, a wheeled caravan stood beside a massive rune-carved stone. The vehicle looked completely out of place in the grim, grey, rain-soaked hills. The roof was a brilliant red, the walls were lime green, the spokes of the wheels were painted in multiple colours and their rims were bright yellow. Near the wagon, ponies cropped the straggly grass.

  A small group of Tinkers garbed in colours just as bright as their caravan were grouped upslope. A large grey wolf stayed close to one, a woman, in a way that suggested it was tame. The folk had gathered around something.

  Kormak dismounted. The scent of the wolf was making his horse nervous. He tied it up near the ponies and strode up the hillside. Taking his cue from the Guardian, Brandon did the same. As they approached the wolf growled and the Tinkers turned to look. There were three men and a woman. None of them carried swords. The men had daggers in their belts though and one of them had a sling in his hands now. He held it casually but it was obvious he was prepared to use it. Kormak held his hands up, fingers splayed to show his hands were empty. He walked closer. The wolf growled. Kormak kept walking.

  “Sir Brandon, it is an unexpected pleasure to see you here,” said the oldest of the men. He had once been tall but age had hunched him, giving him the gnarly look of an old tree. The two men flanking him bore a strong family resemblance. They were both broad-shouldered, brown-skinned, hawk-nosed with dark eyes and brows so black they looked as if they had been drawn on with charcoal. Their moustaches were as luxurious as the old man’s but theirs were black. All of them had scarves wound around their heads.

  The woman was younger looking, in her twenties judging by her appearance. Her hair was coal black and thick, halfway down her back in a mass of curls. Her lips were huge and red and pouting. Her eyes were dark as well. Her skin was much paler than the other Tinkers and she bore no family resemblance to them at all. She restrained the wolf with a hand on its neck.

  The animal was a massive creature, by far the largest natural wolf Kormak had encountered. He had met larger but they had been part of packs whose leader was an Old One and they had been twisted by the old dark magics.

  “Javier,” said Brandon nodding at the older man before greeting the younger two. “Stefan. Andreas. Well met upon this lonesome road. I do not recognise this lovely maiden.”

  “This is Aisha,” said Javier. “She is making her first trip north.”

  Kormak looked at the elder Tinker. He spoke very smoothly, but there was a tenseness in him, as if what he was saying contained a falsehood.

  “Well met. This is Kormak, a Guardian of the Order of the Dawn.”

  The Tinkers greeted Kormak. The woman stared at him with a look almost of hostility.

  “What have you got here?” Brandon asked.

  The Tinkers stood aside to let the knight have a clear view. “A man’s body. The wolf scented it. We saw the crows. It died no natural death.”

  “Let me take a look,” said Kormak, crouching down over the corpse. It had been pecked by the carrion eaters but it was still recognisably a man. He had been garbed in leather with a cloak of grey and green that would let it blend in well with the surrounding countryside. There were no weapons on the body but there was a pouch that contained a few small coins. A strange amulet with a rune in the shape of an eye within a circle hung round his neck. Kormak opened the tunic and saw a tattoo of a similar pattern was on the corpse’s breast. There was no mark of a killing wound on the body but there were odd blotched discolourations over his heart. The skin was very grey and the body was unnaturally cold even for one that had been lying on this chill hillside.

  “He was a Watcher,” said Javier. He said it as if it should mean something. Brandon nodded as if it did.

  “You knew him?” Kormak asked. The old Tinker shook his head.

  “We had dealings with his clan. That is their mark. The Eye.”

  Kormak looked at the standing stone. One of the runes on it was very similar to the one on the stranger’s amulet. He inspected the ground near the stone. There was a firepit in its wind-shadow. There were some ashes there, and the charred remains of burned wood. Some runes had been inscribed on stones nearby. They had been partially obscured as if someone had made a hasty effort to scuff them out.

  Javier saw the direction of his gaze. “Hill-men often meet in the shadows of these stones,” he said. “They say the Watchers leave messages for each other here.” Kormak sensed rather than saw a stiffness come over the woman. He looked up at her. Her face seemed even paler than before, and her jaw line was tight. A muscle pulsed in her throat.

  “He was a hill-man?” Kormak asked.

  “Not exactly. The Watchers stand apart from the rest of the clans. They go their own way, perform their own tasks.”

  “And what is that?”

  “No one really knows. Some say they watch the barrows and make sure no one has tampered with them. Some say they serve the Old Ones. Some say they rob tombs and sell what they find.”

  “Whatever he did, he was killed by sorcery,” Kormak said. He looked at the woman. She met his gaze boldly. “That is most likely why your wolf is so upset. He does not like the smell.”

  “Shae is always like this,” said the woman. Her voice was husky. Kormak could not help but notice the way the men looked to her, the way warriors look to a leader, even old Javier, who would normally have been in charge here.

  Kormak studied her more closely. She was garbed like a Tinker woman in a long skirt, a yellowish silk shirt and an embroidered waistcoat. There were many rings on her fingers and a great deal of jewellery on her arms and around her neck. Almost all of it contained signs of mystical significance. Judging from the look in her eyes, she saw him noticing this. She folded her arms under her breasts and cocked her head to one side. She was no longer restraining the wolf. It barked threateningly at Kormak.

  “It’s a beautiful beast,” Kormak said. “I would hate to have to kill it.”

  “But you would if you had to, would you not, Guardian?”

  “Yes, I would. If I had to.” The men’s hands went to their knives. Kormak looked at them. The woman made a gesture and the men relaxed a little. The wolf did the same. They looked at each other. Tension was in the air.

  “What are we going to do with the body?” Brandon asked.

  The woman said, “We were going to take his amulet and his personal belongings to his people and build a cairn for him so that his kin could find the body. Although I doubt they will want a body so tainted in this sour land.”

  “We should burn it or it might rise,” said Kormak. “
The Shadow is in it now. We should do it before dark.”

  “Easier said than done,” said the woman. “It is wet and we have little we can use for kindling.”

  Kormak nodded. He took out his own knife and sawed away at the neck, tearing through the spine and gristle. Such blood as flowed was black and oily. He picked up the head by the hair and dashed it against a rock until the brains splattered out.

  “Now you can build a cairn,” he said. “I will bury the head separately.”

  He did so and then he washed himself as best he could in a pool of collected rain-water. The others watched him with looks of horror on their faces.

  “You’re quiet,” said Sir Brandon. The rain had stopped and they were all hunkering down around the fire in the wind shadow of the wagon. Nearby, the cairn rose out of the gloom. Kormak could tell the body was on their minds.

  The wolf’s eyes reflected the firelight where it lay. Aisha sat beside it. She was sewing something, the actions automatic. She watched everyone around the fire. Javier stirred the pot. He had been adding dried meat and herbs and tasting it occasionally.

  Kormak nodded. “I am thinking.”

  “You always did have difficulty doing that and talking at the same time,” said the knight. Kormak shrugged. He was not in the mood for banter.

  “Why did you smash the skull like that? Will it really stop the dead man from rising?”

  “It often does. Even if the corpse rises, it will not be able to see, there will be nothing to guide the body. Some sorcerers say the head is where the spirit dwells. Without it, nothing can take possession of a body.”

  “Let’s hope they are right.”

  “Let’s hope.”

  “You are a surly bastard tonight. What makes you so afraid the body will rise? We’re not in the Cursed Lands yet.” Brandon was trying to sound cheerful but he glanced over his shoulder into the darkness. He clearly found it very difficult to forget that the Barrow Hills were out there.

  “He was killed by dark magic.”

  “I saw the marks on the body.”

  “Yes, and the skin was grey and cold. There were black finger-prints on the chest as well. I have seen that before.”