“Whatever happens, stay out of my reach, and someone keep a bloody eye on Morigan,” Oenghus threw over his shoulder and received an answering snort.
Bones littered the road that wound up the hill. Skulls and femurs and knucklebones, all bleached beneath the chill sun, picked clean of flesh, spilling out of the gates and down the hill. Oenghus could sense the soldiers’ unease behind him. Fear rippled against his back. Fear was good. It kept warriors sharp.
“It looks as though they were fleeing,” Morigan’s hushed voice echoed in the emptiness as they passed a horse skull.
Oenghus tucked his shield in close, clenched his hammer, and marched through the gates. Stillness greeted him with a quiet shake. The courtyard and battlements were empty. More bones, more black earth, and—
“Look.” Oenghus followed the captain’s gesture. The inside of the walls and gates were scorched. “Check the gate tower,” Gaborn ordered. Four of his men broke off from the group. The soldiers climbed the stairs to the battlements and disappeared inside.
“There,” Morigan pointed, “on the temple.” The temple was more fortress than holy place, but then that was unsurprising, considering the bull’s head adorning the front. Zemoch, Guardian of Justice, was a militant god.
“The crack?” Oenghus asked.
“Aye.”
Oenghus and Morigan scanned the stone walls. There were more cracks in the stone, in the battlements, running along buildings.
“Poor upkeep?” Oenghus ventured.
“The earth has been shaking something fierce these past weeks,” Gaborn said.
“Not uncommon this far north,” Morigan noted.
A soldier appeared from the gate tower. “The oil’s all gone, sir, but there’s no bones up top. It’s as if everyone abandoned the walls.”
Oenghus scowled at the emptiness. “How long do we have on your weave, Mori?” he murmured to the woman at his side.
“The ward will fade with time and use. I don’t honestly know,” she admitted. Lines pulled at the corners of her eyes and lips. Multiple weavings had taken its toll.
Oenghus tugged on his beard and stalked to the center of the courtyard, planting his feet. He raised his hammer and slammed it against his targe. The echo thundered off stones. The Nuthaanian waited as he eyed the temple and keep, hoping that someone—something would answer his bold challenge.
Morigan walked over to the well and peered over the rim. When nothing answered his threat, Oenghus huffed with disappointment and joined her as she finished a light weave, dropping an orb into the well’s center. It illuminated stone.
“Empty,” Oenghus said in surprise.
Gaborn joined the two. “It’s fed by a natural spring, if I remember right. They built the well around it.”
Oenghus tapped a jagged line on the well’s side. “Wonder what else cracked.” He eyed the ground, grunted, and stalked towards the main keep, deciding to start there. The doors were closed, but appeared as if a saber cat had used the reinforced oak as a scratching post.
“Movement,” the captain hissed, jerking his chin towards an arrow loop high on the keep. Oenghus leaned back. Whatever had moved wasn’t there anymore. He tried the door. It was barred. Whether any human still lived inside was an entirely different matter.
Oenghus pounded his hammer against the reinforced wood. No one answered.
Gaborn stepped back and shouted into the fading light. “In the name of Emperor Soataen Jaal III, open this door!”
The scrape of bone answered.
Oenghus looked down. The bones were sinking into the earth. Horse heads, cattle, dogs and human—all jumbled together, picked clean of flesh and tendon, disappeared.
“Bollocks.” He slammed his hammer into the door again. “Open this bloody door or I’ll crack it like an egg!”
The soldiers in the courtyard froze, fear crept with the movement of the earth. In a heartbeat, they bolted, rushing towards the battlements, seeking solid stone. Oenghus turned, putting his back to the door as the ground rolled. Gaborn notched an arrow. Voices rose from within the keep. Something heavy fell, metal rasped, and a smaller door opened in the larger.
“Hurry!” a frantic voice shot out of the portal. Oenghus shoved Morigan inside as the soldiers risked the earth, racing towards the keep.
The ground burst. Bones grabbed boots, raking flesh. A man went down and a creature of bone and maggots erupted from the black earth. Oenghus swung, shattering a scapula attached to a leg like a wing, but the amalgamation reformed. Black maggot-like creatures swarmed over the shattered bones, reshaping, repairing, and came up swinging. A horse skull, attached to a mash of bones that made up the spine of the snake-like shape, dove, piercing a soldier clean through.
Gaborn loosed an arrow. It bounced harmlessly off. His order cut through the chaos. “Inside!”
The bone snake lashed and rattled at the soldiers running for the door. Oenghus stepped towards it swinging, batting away its attacks with his shield, as he crushed and ground the bones to dust. But with every blow, it reformed. There was nothing Oenghus could do for the soldiers caught in its frenzy.
All at once, the snake dove beneath the earth. The ground rippled, moving towards the keep.
“We have to close it!” the fear in the voice was catching. Glancing over his shoulder, Oenghus moved backwards, grabbed Gaborn by the collar and shoved him towards the narrow opening. When Oenghus was the last man standing, he stepped back, hunching through the wicket. A soldier of the keep threw his weight against the door, closing it as others rushed to place the bar.
The entire gate shuddered from the impact as the bone snake threw itself at the wood. Soldiers rushed to shore up the doors, adding their weight while they dragged a heavy barricade into place.
Morigan tucked an errant strand of dark hair inside her bun, restored order to her skirts, and took stock of the men who surrounded her. They were a ragged bunch of warriors, all staring, stunned, fearing the Void-cursed creatures on the other side. The men turned their fear to something tangible, surrounding the new arrivals with weapons poised, prepared to push the newcomers out as a sacrifice if needed.
Oenghus took in the half-starved men. The castle guards’ tabards were tattered and bloodstained, some of their eyes had the sheen of fever, and all of them were unkept. The door shuddered again.
“Positions!” one of the more confident men roared. “Light the oil. Shore up the second level.” Half the weary soldiers rushed up winding stairs, relaying orders with echoing shouts, while the rest remained at the uneasy standoff.
“We’re all Kamberians here. Where is your lord?” Gaborn asked with the tones of command. The captain had a face to match his voice, and his crisp blue and silver tunic of Kambe leant him an air of authority that was sorely lacking in the great hall. But rather than be reassured by his presence, the keep soldiers shifted. Their eyes darted from one to the other, and finally settled on the man who had shouted orders.
Oenghus did not like those looks, so he stepped forward, into the ring of steel, drawing their attention. “I am Oenghus Saevaldr,” he rumbled with a voice like thunder. “Wise One of the Isle, Bone Mender, Skull Crusher, the Bloody Berserker of Nuthaan and the Grimstorm of the Fell Wastes.” With every word, the ring of steel retreated a step. “You may have heard of me.” He swept his eyes over the remaining soldiers. “We have been fighting for twelve long years in the Fell Wastes, and want nothing more than to go home. I’ll warn you, I’m already in a foul mood. So you best tell me quick what the Void is going on here?”
“A Portal to the Nine Halls.”
“The Witch.”
“The dead walk.”
“The Void will swallow us!”
The tumult of voices rose above the noise of battle.
The man who had shouted orders, a bearded warrior whose face was streaked with soot, stepped forward. “We are stranded on this island of stone. How did you walk over the ground?”
The voices died. The constant scrape
and thud of attackers beat at the soldiers’ sanity.
Oenghus drew himself up to his full height, towering over their heads like a crag. “We took the stone with us,” he grunted. Before anyone could ask how, he turned to the leader—a sergeant by his tattered insignia. “Your name?”
“Sergeant Farin Thatcher of Northolt. How did you bring the stone with you?”
Oenghus did not look at Morigan. He swept a baleful eye over Gaborn’s scouts, warning them not to speak. Twelve had taxed her. A group such as this would destroy her like a ship of stranded sailors fleeing a sinking ship onto a raft. The raft would sink.
“Do you have injured?” Morigan asked, smiling at the weary group. “I’m a healer.” Her motherly presence and kind tone was like a balm to the soldiers’ frayed nerves. They lowered their weapons.
“There are many,” Farin answered.
“Our men will reinforce yours, Sergeant,” Gaborn said. “How are your defenses?”
“The Swarm—it’s what we call them—they attack all night, every night since the blackness spread.”
A shout echoed from a higher level, cutting Farin’s report short. Oenghus followed the rush of boots. The keep was under attack—that’s all he needed to know.
Guards stood at every arrow loop, struggling against a flurry of bone supported by crawling black carrion. A pincher stabbed through a loop on the second floor, impaling a soldier. It wrenched the man off his feet and tried to drag him back through the space. He did not fit. Maggots dripped down the stark white bone, swarming over its victim. His comrades rushed forward with axes and torches, hacking and setting victim and killer alight, burning their own ally in the process.
The soldier’s screams echoed in the corridor and followed Oenghus towards a greater commotion. The door at the end of the hallway bulged. A cluster of men hurried to reinforce, but it was a losing battle. One Oenghus wagered they lost every night, being beaten back to the inner most areas of the keep.
“We loose ground every night,” Farin shouted, confirming his assessment. “There’s no point defending the gates, the Spawn burrow underground and come up in the courtyard.” In a lower voice, he added, “We’re nearly out of oil.”
As they followed Farin to the top most levels, Captain Oakstone and his men broke off to contain a breach.
“We reclaim the keep during the day, but they keep coming—there is no end.” Farin paused at a reinforced door, took a deep breath, and opened it.
Oenghus ducked under the lintel and stepped onto a high turret tower beneath the night sky. Stars shone like beacons, lighting horror beneath. The ground was alive, roiling like black waves, battering the keep with a relentless barrage of twisted bone.
The Void craved life, it thirsted for blood—for the life it lacked, twisting everything it touched.
“We need to find the heart,” Morigan said at his side. “This is all just—fodder.”
Oenghus gripped the crenellations, watching the struggle below. “Shock troops,” he grunted in agreement.
Gaborn joined them a moment later. “When did the attacks begin?” he asked.
Farin Thatcher paled under the cold moonlight.
“Someone mentioned a witch,” Morigan pressed. “Was it a Blight hag?”
Farin’s lips remained pressed together. Oenghus counted to ten; his patience gave out at five. He grabbed the soldier by the tunic collar and jerked him towards the battlements. “Speak or I’ll find someone who will.”
One look into the baleful gaze, and Farin broke. “There is a witch,” he stuttered.
“What about her?” Oenghus growled.
“You’re choking him, Oen,” Morigan pointed out. The taciturn voice brought him back. He glanced at the man dangling from his hand, mumbled an apology, and let Farin fall to the stone. He stood over the soldier and crossed his arms, waiting.
“We found a witch by the gorge. She was killing an ancient pine on the edge. Her—her hands,” he hesitated, searching for his tongue, “Her hands were inside the tree and her feet were roots.”
Oenghus frowned.
“The tree was half dead, nearly all white, and the ground between its roots were as black as it is now. She wouldn’t listen. I loosed an arrow, just in front of her and she let go of the tree, but it was too late. The tree died, and the ground, it just—this happened. I pulled the witch along with me. We barely made it back to the keep.”
“Is she still here?” Morigan asked.
“Yes.” Farin confirmed.
“Where?”
Farin pointed over the wall.
As Oenghus turned to look, a shadow swept up and down, and he raised his shield, catching a pig’s skull connected to a ladder of femurs on the wood. Black, wiggling carrion spewed from the skull’s mouth, dropping onto the tower top.
Four bone pinchers stabbed into the group. Oenghus ripped the skull from its perch and bashed his shield against a stabbing limb, batting the attack away from the soldier on the ground. Farin scrambled to his feet, diving towards the door as some of the Swarm latched onto his legs.
Morigan leapt aside, the Lore on her lips. She tapped bone with a word. It cracked and shattered, sending maggots pouring onto the tower top.
“Hurry!” Farin cried at the door. Gaborn herded Morigan through and Oenghus came barreling on their heels. The two men put their shoulders to the door and Morigan added her Nuthaanian strength, as Oenghus heaved the bar into place.
Farin screamed for reinforcements as he stumbled. He leaned against the wall for support, drew his knife, and pried at the clinging black creatures feasting on a gash in his leg.
The black maggots fell, sucking at the spattered blood on the stone. Oenghus removed his flask of Brimgrog, dipped a finger inside, and let a drop fall on each. The tainted shriveled up into black crisps.
Boots thudded in the hallway, and a squad of torch-wielding soldiers appeared. Oenghus hoisted Farin away from the battle, back down the stairs.
“The wound will fester; their touch taints,” Farin breathed as if it would be his last. In a quiet corridor, Oenghus released the man, and Morigan bent to examine the lacerations on his legs. The carrion had eaten straight through cloth and skin—the tainted always had a voracious appetite.
“It kills flesh?” Morigan asked.
“Yes.”
Morigan glanced at Oenghus who nodded at the look in her eye. The berserker put a hand on Farin’s chest, pinning him to the ground, and held his leg still with the other.
“What are you doing?” the soldier struggled helplessly against the giant’s strength.
“Healing you.”
Morigan removed Oenghus’ sacred flask from his wide belt, uncorked it, and poured Brimgrog over the man’s wounds. Farin thrashed and strained and then went limp with defeat.
“Hurts like hornets on your bollocks, but they’ll be no festering,” Oenghus stated.
“Happen to you a lot, Oen?” Morigan raised both brows at her kinsman. He grunted, snatched the flask from her, and shoved the cork back in the top.
“Don’t get your bun in a knot.”
“Always your grandest wish. Now, then, let’s meet this witch,” Morigan said, wiping her hands on her skirts.
“Erm—” the soldier paled.
“Erm?” Oenghus pressed.
Farin licked his lips. “About the witch—there’s a slight problem.”
Oenghus narrowed his eyes. “Where is she?”
“The temple,” Farin said, using the wall to hoist himself upright.
Gaborn, who had been watching the battle through an arrow loop, arched a brow. “You mean the one across the courtyard?”
“Aye.”
Oenghus moved beside the scout captain and squinted through the narrow window.
The temple of Zemoch was a small fortress in its own right. Its stone had been chipped and carried down treacherous paths from the Fell mountains. Its windows were high, and its doors were made from solid Nuthaanian stonewood. One might as well take
an axe to stone, as cut through that barricade. Save for a few, half-hearted attempts to breach its defenses, it appeared that the Swarm had left the temple alone.
Oenghus eyed the runes etched into the temple door. “And just why didn’t you lot take refuge in the temple?”
“We got separated when the earth turned.”
“But it’s quiet during the day, you said. You’re telling me you couldn’t have fashioned a bridge of some sort?”
Farin scratched his scruffy beard, looking like an errant child. “They locked us out,” he said quietly. There was shame in his eyes. “We wanted to kill the Witch, but the clerics—Inquisitor Ashe—disagreed.”
Morigan frowned at the soldier. “You attacked the clerics, didn’t you?”
“They struck first!” he defended. “The temple was split. Half wanted to burn her, and the others—well there they are. If they’d only handed her over, we wouldn’t be here.” Lines of tension, near to breaking, leaked across his face. “I should have never brought her,” he muttered.
“Bloody Void,” Oenghus spat. As if they didn’t have problems enough. They’d have to wait until sunrise.
The Witch
A CRACK OF sunlight broke the long night. With a rasp and rattle, the bone amalgamations collapsed, retreating into their waxy cocoon. The tainted took the dead, too. And the already taxed soldiers rushed to put out fires.
Oenghus pulled Gaborn from the front lines, and together they sought out Morigan. She was in an overcrowded, makeshift infirmary—as she had been for the past twelve years. Dark shadows had taken up permanent residence under her eyes.
“And we thought we were done with this,” Oenghus rumbled gently, handing her a waterskin. She drank gratefully and wiped her brow.
“Twelve years fighting the Wedamen—what’s a few more days?” she shrugged.
He eyed her critically. A few days could be the difference between survival and death. “The sun’s up.”
Morigan nodded in reply to his unvoiced question. She issued instructions to the healers, who had, before the attack, been cooks and chambermaids.
Untold Tales Page 2
