2 Defiler of Tombs

  The old woman took some and then bowls were passed to Kormak and Brandon. Kormak could not help but notice the children licked their lips when they saw this. He guessed that food was scarce in these parts. It had been in the village where he grew up, too. They had eaten and drunk well by the standards of the hill-folk, moonshine whisky and honey cakes.

  “I used to lie on that rug there and watch my grandmother sitting in this chair,” Agnetha said. “I called it the seeing chair. I thought it was magic. I used to creep in and sit in it when I thought no one could see me. I was too young to know the magic was in the woman, not in the chair.”

  Kormak stretched out his hands to warm them. He had not really realised how cold he was until he got close to the fire. There were a lot of things like that in his life, he thought, as he listened to the bustle of the hall around them. Where they sat now was empty but there were people all around them and some of them no doubt were listening. It was the same in every hall he had ever visited, from that of the highest lord to the lowliest village hetman. The wolf moved over and lay down beside the fire. It eyed him warily but it did not growl.

  “I’ll speak in the Old Tongue if that is acceptable,” Agnetha said in the Old Tongue. “There are some here that speak it but not well and my apprentice is not here to overhear us.”

  She spoke the language well which somehow did not surprise Kormak. He had long ago learned that scholarship was to be found in the most surprising places.

  “It is acceptable,” said Aisha. She spoke better than the old woman, clearly, fluently with a precise accent as if the language was her native one. Very few people spoke it that way save the Old Ones themselves and sorcerers and Guardians. Kormak nodded.

  “You don’t say much, do you?” said the old woman looking at Kormak. “I could get more words out of the wolf, I think.”

  Kormak shrugged.

  “I like a man who knows how to hold his tongue,” said Agnetha. “And now you are thinking it’s probably because I can talk for two. My old man used to say the same.”

  “You wished to speak with us,” said Aisha. “What do you have to say?”

  Again there was an imperiousness to her manner, that of a woman who expects to be obeyed and not to have servants waste her time. The Old Tongue made that even more obvious. The old woman laughed.

  “I have greeted your cordially, mistress, because of the signs you have made and the sisterhood we share but remember this is my hall and you are a long way from home. It never hurts to be polite.” It was the manner of a lesser noble greeting a greater one but still aware of the prerogatives of their station. Aisha made a courtly gesture with her left hand and inclined her head submissively.

  “Now you are mocking me,” said the old woman.

  “Not at all. I know the Power when I see it and you have it.”

  Kormak studied them sidelong while pretending to look at the fire. There were strange cross-currents here. His attention did not go unnoticed. The old woman coughed and winked at him and said, “You are not the first strangers to come this way of late, and not the only one who possesses the Power.”

  “I suspected as much,” said Aisha. “It was a stranger from the south, was it not?”

  “Like yourself,” said the old woman.

  Aisha shook her head. “Nothing like me.”

  “That remains to be seen — if you will forgive me for saying.”

  “A wise woman judges people by their deeds not by their words.”

  “Truth,” said the old woman and laughed softly. She leaned forward and used a poker to stir the fire. Flames leapt up. Kormak felt his eyes become a little drier.

  “You don’t look surprised, Sir Kormak,” the old woman said.

  “I saw the body of a Watcher, killed by magic. I have seen sorcery like that before. It’s the sort of magic the Necromancers of Khand use to dispose of their enemies.”

  “You have walked the Lethian Shore?” Aisha asked.

  Kormak nodded.

  “I am surprised a man of your kind left Khand alive. Most join their legions of unliving.”

  “It is a bad place,” Kormak said. “And the people are unwelcoming.”

  Aisha laughed, a sound like the tinkling of silver bells, clear and cold and without much mirth in it. “You have a gift for understatement,” she said.

  The old woman was frowning. “I know little of the men of Khand but what I have heard is not good. The same can be said of all those who traffic with the undying. Why would one of that sort be here?”

  “Why would one of them be here and opening barrows?” Kormak asked. He looked directly at Aisha but she was looking at the old woman, perhaps deliberately.

  “He is looking for something,” the old woman said. She too was looking at Aisha as if the other woman could give her some answers. Aisha said nothing. Kormak was not surprised. No sorcerer would give away secrets to another, not without getting something in exchange. Secrets were the currency of their world.

  “He is looking for something,” the old woman repeated. This time it was not a question.

  “How long ago did he pass?” Aisha asked.

  “A few days. We saw him on the road. Some of my boys went down to take a look, what they saw made them think twice about going closer.”

  Kormak wondered if she meant something stopped them from trying to rob the strangers.

  “What was it?”

  “There were a group of strangers but they did not look natural. There was just something about them. They said there was one in particular who was massive and hunched, looked more like a troll than a man.”

  “Have your boys ever seen a troll?”

  “No, Guardian, or they most likely would not be still with us. They’ve heard the stories though. What hill-man has not?”

  “So your boys never got close enough to take a good look at the newcomers,” Kormak said.

  “They hailed them, and their accents were not local.”

  “What did they have to say?”

  “They told my boys to clear off the road or it would be worse for them.” Kormak could picture the scene in his mind’s eye easily enough with the hill-men blocking the road as they attempted to part the travellers from some sort of toll, and the travellers refusing to give way.

  “One of my boys lost his temper and put an arrow into the big one.”

  “There was a fight.”

  “Not much of one.”

  “Why?”

  “They turned the big one into a pin-cushion with their arrows. He just kept coming towards them, making a strange grunting and moaning sound.”

  “Men tend to do that when they have been filled full of arrows.”

  “They also tend to bleed, Sir Kormak. This one didn’t.”

  “None at all? You sure?” Kormak felt the thrill of the hunt grow in him. This sounded like one of Morghael’s minions all right.

  “My boys are. I don’t think I’ve ever seen them so scared, not since the frost wights came down out of the hills during the winter of ’63.”

  “They ran?”

  “Well, they didn’t stick around to see what would happen next.”

  “Were they pursued?”

  The old woman shook her head. “Once they were off the road, the strangers rode on. They moved slowly apparently. As if their horses were sick or doped. Lucas followed them a ways just to make sure they were gone. He kept his distance though for sure.”

  “We found a dead man on the road here,” said Kormak. “He had been killed by sorcery. He was a hill-man, a Watcher.”

  “Watcher Martin is overdue. He should have been here a couple of days back.”

  “Maybe he tried to have a chat with the southerners as well.”

  “He might have. Watchers check out every stranger who comes up here. It’s what they do. So are you looking for these southerners, Guardian?”

  Kormak noticed she did not ask Aisha. The question was obviously not meant to include her. It seemed the old woman had al
ready drawn her own conclusions about what the other woman was doing here.

  “It’s starting to sound like it. If they are not the ones I am looking for, they may be up to no good anyway so I may as well take a look.”

  “You see the lights in the hills the other night?”

  Kormak nodded. Aisha did too.

  “You seen the like before?” Kormak asked.

  “One happened when I was a girl. The Green Comet was in the sky. The dead walked then. It was not a good time.”

  “I can believe that.”

  “Strangers on the road, a Guardian looking for them, liche lights in the hills. The Comet returning. I can’t help but feel it’s going to be a bad winter,” said the old woman. “I feel it right in my bones.”

  Kormak saw no reason to contradict her. Aisha yawned, rose and said, “On that gloomy note, I will take my leave.” With courtly bows the Tinkers joined her, leaving Kormak, Brandon and the old lady to themselves.

  Kormak, Brandon and Agnetha sat around the fire, while the wind blew down from the hills and rattled the shutters. Brandon laid out his bedroll in front of the fire.

  “I have always thought that the hill-clans would welcome the return of the Lords of Kharon,” Brandon said. Agnetha gave him a sour smile.

  “You really do not understand our history then,” she told him.

  “I know you are descended from the Men of Kharon and that you fought against my ancestors.”

  “You are right and wrong,” she said.

  “How can I be both?”

  “The hill-clans are descended from the original folk of Kharon. We are not descended from the Lords. They were two separate peoples. One ruled. The other were slaves.”

  “You both fought against my ancestors.”

  “Your peasants fight for you.”

  “My peasants are not slaves.”

  “Nonetheless you can see how two people can fight on the same side and one can rule and the other be ruled.”

  Brandon nodded. He clearly did not want to admit it but he could see the old witch’s point.

  “That is how it was. My people were ruled by the Lords of Kharon but they lived in fear for the Lords were far more cruel to their subjects than even you Sunlanders.”

  “I am not cruel to my vassals.”

  “If your vassals were hill-men you might be. Some of your noble kin have been vindictive to their hill-men thralls.” Brandon grunted and chewed the ends of his moustache. He clearly knew that Agnetha was right but was certainly not going to admit it. She was clever enough to know when to leave things alone and when to force her point.

  “The Lords of Kharon were very cruel indeed and they were sorcerers of the darkest sort. They offered up sacrifices to the Shadow in return for lengthened youth and life. It was one of the things that destroyed them in the end.”

  Brandon nodded. Clearly this part accorded with the tales he knew. “Men cannot make pacts with the Shadow without paying the price,” he said.

  “They are still out there, aren’t they?” Kormak said. “The Lords of Kharon are still in the barrows.”

  “Some of them,” Agnetha said. “They are sealed within by Elder Signs and they are not disturbed by my people. I see to that. The Watchers see to that. Even the Twins at Elderdale see to that. They want no one to interfere with their rule and the Old Ones are not lightly defied.”

  “This I know,” Kormak said.

  Agnetha laughed again. “You are thinking I should not be lecturing a Guardian about the ways of the Old Ones.”

  “You should if you know more about them than I do. My Order has no monopoly on knowledge and I am always prepared to learn.” He shot Brandon a look to let him know he should be too.

  “I can see your life has been touched by the Old Ones,” she said.

  It was Kormak’s turn to laugh. “I am a Guardian. How could it not be?”

  “It was touched by them before you became a Guardian. I can see the shadow of one of them hanging over you.”

  Kormak stared at her. “You have the Sight,” he said.

  “I do.”

  “You look thoughtful, Guardian,” Agnetha said, after a pause.

  “I was remembering my childhood,” he said. “I grew up in a place like this, in the highlands of Aquilea; at least I did till I was eight years old.”

  “What happened then?”

  “An Old One came. It killed everyone except me.”

  “Why didn’t it kill you?”

  “I don’t know. My father threw me into the loft and went to fight it with the hammer from his forge. It was carrying his head when it came in. I tried to lift a hammer and fight it. It just looked at me and laughed and then it told me its name. Adath Decaureon. In the Old Tongue it means Prince of Dragons. It told me to remember it.”

  “Did it spare you because you were a child?”

  Kormak shook his head. “It killed children younger than me, boys and girls, babies even.”

  Sir Brandon was looking at him appalled. Kormak had never told him this story. It had not been something he had talked about when he was younger. “It left me alive in the ruins. A Guardian was tracking it. He found me and took me back to Aethelas.”

  “That’s a horrible story,” said Brandon.

  “It had done the same thing before, many times,” Kormak said. “I was taught about it when I became a novice. It hates humans. It comes out of the shadows every few decades or so, wipes out some small outlying community and leaves only one survivor, always a child. It names itself and tells the child to remember. It tells the child it will come back for it one day. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t. The child spends the rest of its life living in fear.”

  “Do you?” the old woman asked.

  “The day we meet is the day it dies,” Kormak said. Silence filled the hall for a moment then a scream rang out through the night.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  KORMAK’S HAND REACHED for his sword. Agnetha closed her eyes for a moment and her face went slack, as if she had suddenly become ill. When she opened her eyes again her face was pale. “The Dead are here,” she said.

  There were more sounds: of screaming, of people running, of men shouting in confusion. Brandon rose to his feet, glared around and, as if by force of habit, began to pull on his armour. Kormak paused only to grab a torch and raced for the doorway. People were already starting to crowd through and he had to fight his way against a tide of panicked villagers. Most of the mob parted around him but not all of them and he had to hold the torch high to avoid burning women and children and frightened-looking men.

  It was cold. His breath clouded in the air. There was mud beneath his feet. He felt the presence of something above and he looked up. For a brief moment, he caught sight of a huge winged shape silhouetted against the moon and then it vanished once more into the darkness, save for a vague outline obscuring the stars as it passed.

  He was not the only one who saw it. A woman in a coarse spun night-gown pointed at the sky and shouted, “Old One!”

  Whatever it was, it was not the source of the chaos and terror. Man-like shapes moved at the edge of the village, yellowish and bone-white; warriors long-dead, come from their graves. They wore ancient rusty armour. Sere skin clung to their mouldy flesh like an extra garment. Moving tendons slithered under parchment-thin skin. Green witch-fires burned in their eyes, and they clattered as they moved, bones clicking against bones. They clutched grave-tarnished weapons in their long-dead hands.

  Kormak smelled smoke and saw that one of huts had caught fire. Most likely a lamp had got kicked over in the panic. He saw a little girl trip and fall and a skeletal warrior loom over her. Kormak tossed the torch at it. The flaming brand turned over and over as it flew and hit the undead thing. It did not seem to do any harm but it distracted the creature long enough for the girl to climb to her feet and run screaming towards the Great Hall.

  Kormak strode towards the skeleton. The dwarf-forged blade crashed through its ancient ar
mour and sliced tendon and bone. Green witch-fire danced along its length as the skeleton collapsed. Kormak looked around to make sure the little girl was clear and to see if there was any more people in danger. Most were fleeing towards the Great Hall. That made sense. Agnetha was there and the place was warded. Of course, it would be a disaster if they flames spread to there.

  The Tinker’s van stood in the middle of the square near the pump. Shae danced around outside it, keeping more of the attackers at bay. Aisha stood in the doorway, a pouch of some sort in her hand. She threw some powder or herbs over the undead and spoke a word. The air glittered and the skeletons lost all animation and clattered to the ground.

  Sir Brandon emerged from the open doorway of the hall. He was armoured now and his great battle-blade was in his hand. He rushed a group of the undead and hewed into them. They shattered as if made of brittle porcelain under the fury of his attack. More of them came on though and attacked the battling knight.

  Some of the men of the village rallied. A few of them tried using their bows. Their archery was accurate and against mortal men would have been deadly but it did not slow the undead. A fletched arrow through its eye-socket gave no sign of inconveniencing the skeletal warriors in the least.

  “They need to be smashed to pieces,” Kormak shouted.

  “I know!” Brandon bellowed back.

  “I was not talking to you,” said Kormak racing over to the knight. Together they crashed into another group of the skeletal warriors. Kormak felt something again. Looking up he saw the winged shape once more. One or two of them men fired arrows at it, but they fell short and the figure kept moving.

  Another presence chilled Kormak’s heart and he looked up. A huge figure robed like a lord, head crowned in gold, loomed out of the night. He was reminded of the tomb wight. Its eyes glowed far more balefully than those of the skeletal warriors and an eerie blue light flickered all around it.

  “Looks like these creatures’ master is here,” Sir Brandon said. His face was red, sweat ran down his brow. He held his huge blade ready. He looked ready to charge, driven by berserk fury.

  “Mortal weapons will not harm that thing,” said Kormak. The wight gestured and from the darkness behind it more unliving soldiers emerged, clad in the armour they had been buried in and ready to slaughter the living and pull them down into their ranks.