The Doom of Fallowhearth

by Robbie MacNiven

  The pathfinder stood, cursing softly. He’d dozed off – he really was starting to get old. He cracked his back and stretched his arms, trying to work out the cold that had crept into them on the stone steps while he’d been asleep. Rain was trickling in through the arrow slit and running down the stairs below him.

  He stood for a while, eyes closed, listening. The storm had broken, a deluge battering at the stone walls of the castle. Thunder growled and snarled again, a little further off this time.

  Something was wrong. He had no reason to think so, other than his instincts. His whole body felt charged, as though set alight by the storm.

  Then he remembered the voice. That had been what woke him, not the thunder. He couldn’t remember exactly what it had said, but he could remember who it had sounded like.

  Dezra.

  He took a few steps down, then up, to the door that led to the top of the tower. It was locked from the inside – no one could have done so from out on the parapets. No one could have gotten past him to reach it, either.

  He returned to the landing, the memory of Volbert’s words in the graveyard coming back to him. He had described something unnatural about the night of Kathryn’s disappearance, something unsettling. Durik had traveled far enough through Terrinoth and beyond not to dismiss his words, but nor had he fully understood what he was trying to describe. Until now.

  He leant closer to the door to Kathryn’s room, thinking he had heard something beneath the constant hammering of the rain outside. A sob? A groan? He turned the door’s latch and opened it, slowly.

  It was dark inside. He let his vision adjust, scenting the air. A detached part of his mind noted how on edge his body was, how his heartbeat was rising, and his muscles tensed. He stepped over the threshold, silently.

  The platter was empty, bar a few crumbs. Rain was pattering down into the barren fireplace and rattling at the small window. The bed had its drapes dawn. Another soft sobbing sound came from beyond.

  Durik approached the bed. Without realizing it, he’d moved a hand to the hilt of his knife. He reached up, gripped the drapes, and snatched them aside.

  A flash of lightning illuminated Carys’s pale, tear-streaked face and lit up her wide eyes as she stared up at Durik. She was hunched over in the bed, the sheets wrapped around her.

  “You are afraid of the storm?” Durik asked, trying not to sound awkward as he dropped his hand from his knife. She shook her head wordlessly, bowing forward again.

  “You feel it too?” he asked, as thunder followed in the lightning’s wake. She looked back up at him, an indistinct shape in the darkness. Between the sobs, she managed a single phrase.

  “Beò marbh.”

  • • •

  Logan had grown to enjoy storms since his retirement. There was something wonderfully relaxing about being inside, ensconced before the blazing hearth at Sixspan, wrapped up in a rich leonx pelt and with a goblet of mulled wine to hand. It was certainly a happy contrast with the misery of being outside in downpours, winter frosts and all the other elemental tribulations he’d endured during his younger days.

  There were times, though, when a storm’s fury rose to such a fever pitch that, even indoors, he found himself worrying. There was something fierce about this particular storm, something about how it battered at the thatch and rattled on the shutters, like it was trying to gain entry.

  Logan lay in bed and listened to it as it hammered against the tavern. When the thunder spoke, it shook the walls. Water was leaking through from above, pattering to the floor in three separate places across the room. A dagger of lightning sliced past the shutters and lit the space, silhouetting the shape of the spider in its web above his bed. It was back. He shivered.

  Sleep was elusive. At some point he rose and sat on the edge of his bed. Ulma was sound asleep across from him, snoring with an intensity fit to rival the storm. He’d known her to sleep through far worse. The memories brought a small smile to his face.

  The candle they had left lit on the table was guttering amidst a pool of wax, its light small and weak. They were deep into the deadwatches, the darkest hours of the night. He stretched his legs before standing up carefully. He wandered over to the window, avoiding one of the leaks puddling on the timber floor, and edged the shutters open.

  The outside was indistinct, almost pitch-black. The street seethed, a river of water and mud churned up by the incessant rainfall, the humped shapes of the thatched buildings opposite looking as though they were soaked through. He stood watching for a few seconds, marveling at the intensity of the storm. He wondered if the ground floor of the tavern was flooded.

  Movement caught his eye, not the uniform movement of the water pouring down, but something more singular and deliberate. The merest suggestion of a shape was moving along the street, past the tavern. Logan peered closer. Surely no one was walking outside on a night like this? Even someone as indomitable as Durik would have sought shelter in this weather.

  But his eyesight wasn’t playing tricks on him – there was someone down there, working their way slowly along the street, pounded every step of the way by the wind and the rain. For a second Logan’s natural reservations were overcome by instinctive pity, and he considered calling out of the window to them, offering them shelter.

  Then he realized there were more of them. He counted two, then three, following in the wake of the first. Then more, a mass of people, indistinct in the dark, struggling against the ruthless weather.

  “What in the name of the gods,” Logan breathed, unease prickling across his skin. A sound in the room behind him made him turn.

  It’s late,” Dezra said, standing by the bed, her cowl drawn up, eyes gleaming in the dark. “You should be sleeping, Logan.”

  “There are people outside,” Logan said, glancing back at her and pointing past the shutters. “Out there in the storm! Can you believe it?”

  He turned back to the window. The street was full, a mass of figures pouring past the tavern. And as Logan watched, the lightning flared above, illuminating them. The unease the storm had bred in him surged into outright horror.

  In that split second, Logan saw rain glistening on pale, rotting flesh and exposed bone, on white eyes and mud-caked, tattered bodies. A hundred corpses, more, standing, walking, dragging themselves with the slow, decrepit gait of old bodies newly awoken.

  Logan screamed.

  Chapter Ten

  Logan woke to a powerful grip on his shoulders.

  “No,” he screamed again, thrashing. The grip relented, accompanied by a worried voice.

  “Calm down, you idiot manling! It’s me!”

  Logan realized the figure standing over him wasn’t a rotting corpse. It was Ulma.

  He sat up, panting, his heart pounding painfully in his chest. He was in bed, the sheets slicked with sweat.

  “Finally,” Ulma snapped. “I thought you’d never stop squealing!”

  Logan didn’t know what to say. He began shaking uncontrollably. Was he still asleep? Had he been asleep at all, or had it all been real? He ran his fingers through his hair, trying to slow his breathing. What in the name of the gods had happened last night?

  “You woke me up with all that screaming,” Ulma went on. “What’s gotten into you?”

  “They were all dead,” he stammered, trying and failing to order his thoughts into words. “Dead men walking.”

  “You had a nightmare,” Ulma said, her tone turning irritable. “Come on, get up and get changed. It’s late.”

  Logan realized that weak, pallid sunlight was streaming in through the window. The storm had passed. Still shaking, he got out of bed and stumbled to the half-open shutters. He could remember standing there, transfixed by the ghastly parade. He didn’t remember going back to bed.

  The street outside was deserted. The mud had been churned up, while the houses sat, drenched and drip
ping. The sky was pale with morning sunlight, only a few scraps of dark cloud remaining, like a bad memory. There was no one – living or dead – in sight. Logan turned back to Ulma.

  “I saw them,” he said hoarsely. “In the night. The dead were walking. Hundreds of them!”

  “You had a nightmare,” Ulma repeated. “It’s hardly surprising, given how much stress we’ve all been under.”

  “I saw Dezra too,” Logan said. “It all felt so real.”

  “Well if you saw her then it was definitely a dream,” Ulma replied dismissively, heading over to the table where she was packing away her vials and potions. “Gods only know what far corner of Terrinoth she’s in right now.”

  Logan had just pulled on a fresh tunic when a knock at the door made him jump. He glanced nervously at Ulma, who rolled her eyes and stomped over to the room’s entrance.

  “Yes?” she demanded of the barmaid who had knocked.

  “There’s a man downstairs says he wants to see you both,” the disinterested-sounding woman said. “He told me to tell you that it was important.”

  “What sort of man?” Logan asked from behind Ulma.

  The woman shrugged. “Looks like he’s from the castle.”

  Logan and Ulma looked at each other.

  “Tell him we’ll be right down.”

  Minutes later they met a servant in Abelard’s demi-roc livery. He bowed hastily as they descended the stairs into the tavern’s taproom. Logan noted the fear in his eyes and felt his heart rate begin to pick up once more.

  “Lady Damhán and Seneschal Abelard request your presence at the castle,” the man said. “Urgently.”

  “Why?” Logan demanded.

  “I cannot say for sure, sir,” the man said, his tone fretful. “But the town’s tombkeeper is with the seneschal right now.”

  “Oh gods,” Logan groaned, shuddering. This couldn’t be happening.

  • • •

  Durik, Damhán, Abelard and Kloin were in the castle hall when Logan and Ulma arrived. Volbert was with them. The tomb-keeper was sitting in the chair beside Damhán, his hair and black robes unkempt, face as white as a death shroud. He barely glanced at Logan and Ulma as they entered.

  “What’s happening?” Logan asked, looking from one face to the next. Damhán’s expression was as stony as ever, and Kloin just glared at him, but both Durik and Abelard looked uneasy. And an uneasy Durik was never, in Logan’s experience, a good sign.

  “Something occurred last night,” Abelard said delicately, glancing at Volbert, who was now staring blankly across the table. He looked like he was in shock.

  “There has been an attack on the town,” Damhán said rather less cryptically. “By a practitioner of dark magics.”

  “Gods,” Logan murmured. “It really wasn’t a dream. I told you!” He looked at Ulma, who in turn spoke to Damhán.

  “What do you mean by ‘an attack’?” the dwarf demanded.

  “The Shrine of Nordros has been violated,” Damhán went on. “As the tomb-keeper here can attest.”

  “You’re Volbert?” Ulma asked. The man managed to nod, snapping out of his daze.

  “Repeat what you told us earlier this morning,” Damhán instructed him.

  He swallowed hard and, in a thin voice, addressed Logan and Ulma. “It is my duty to attend to the Shrine of Nordros, and the graveyard that adjoins it. I have been the tombkeeper there almost all my life. Recently my job has become… increasingly difficult.” He faltered, then rallied, looking from Ulma to Logan with an earnest expression.

  “There have been attacks on the shrine, and the graves. Vandalism. Headstones broken and the shrine doors daubed with paint. Bodies have gone missing. I have done what I can to repair and maintain everything under my care but, this morning…”

  He trailed off again and this time didn’t seem able to continue, shaking so badly one of the legs of his chair began to thud repeatedly against the stone floor.

  “This morning he awoke to find the graveyard empty,” Durik said.

  “Isn’t it empty most of the time?” Ulma asked.

  “Not of people. Of bodies. Every single grave and tomb currently lies empty. The earth has been ploughed up, and caskets and sarcophagi have been broken open. Hundreds of them.” Logan let out a little involuntary groan of fear.

  “You’ve seen this?” Ulma asked Durik. He nodded.

  “I went there at first light, as soon as Volbert came to the castle.”

  “I saw them,” Logan said. “Last night! The storm woke me. They were out in the street, all of the bodies. The dead, walking. I thought it was a nightmare.”

  “Necromancy,” Abelard spat, making the sign of Kellos’s flames over his breast. “I knew this day would come. I sent letters to Highmont, to Baroness Adelynn, demanding all the shrines of Nordros in Upper Forthyn be closed. This is what happens when people are allowed to openly worship the dark powers!”

  “Your letters were all received, seneschal,” Damhán said dryly. “And rejected. Forthyn is not Vynelvale or Dawnsmoor, and the cult of Kellos does not hold preeminence over all others. Adherents to Nordros are still the baroness’s subjects and outlawing his worship would simply drive it underground. Besides, in case you hadn’t noticed, your local tomb-keeper was not the one responsible for the foul magics cast last night.”

  “Thank you, my lady,” Volbert managed. Abelard glared at him.

  “We have to assume that this act of desecration is linked to Lady Kathryn’s disappearance,” Damhán said. “We can also assume that the sorcerer responsible was in or near to Fallowhearth last night. They cannot have gone far since then.”

  “With respect, my lady, are we really sure whatever monster is responsible for this is likewise behind the Lady Kathryn’s loss?” Abelard asked. “We have not begun to fully question the clan prisoner. She may know the one behind this outrage.”

  “I will speak to the girl today,” Damhán said. “But we must act on this now. The fact that Lady Kathryn was spotted in the very same yard that came under attack is unlikely to be a coincidence.”

  “Carys felt their presence last night,” Durik said. “And so did I. This isn’t the work of some clan shaman or primalist. The air was rife with dark energy.”

  “You seem very certain the clans aren’t involved in any of this,” Abelard said, his tone accusatory.

  “And you seem very certain they are, contrary to evidence,” Logan retorted, glaring at the seneschal.

  “With just that orc guarding her, how do we know the girl wasn’t the one responsible for what happened last night?” Kloin added. “She could be a witch! I thought that the moment I happened upon her.”

  Durik bared his tusks in anger, but Damhán’s warning hand stopped him from rounding the table at Kloin.

  “Enough,” she said sharply. “This discussion is unproductive. Our priority right now is to track whoever was responsible for last night’s desecration. Find them and it is likely we will also find a connection to Lady Kathryn.”

  “Well that should be easy enough,” Ulma said, drawing eyes back to her and Logan. “Presumably the necromancer is with the small army of bodies they just raised,” she continued. “So, all we need to do is find where are all those bodies are now.”

  “They left behind hundreds of fresh tracks, and their direction is clear,” Durik said. “They walked out of the town and went south-west. Into Blind Muir Forest.”

  Silence followed the statement. Logan didn’t like the worried looks that crossed the faces of Volbert and Abelard. The seneschal spoke first.

  “Blind Muir is another nest of Nordros worshipers, and worse,” he said, glancing distastefully down at Volbert. “No wonder the necromancer responsible for this has made it their home.”

  “You’re familiar with the northern tracts of the forest, seneschal?” Damhán asked.

/>   “Barely. I forbid people from the town to go there. The farmers who till the fields closest to its borders request armed guards to accompany them for most of the year.”

  “That sounds like little more than superstition,” Durik said. “I have traveled through Blind Muir on three separate occasions. It is little different to any other deep forest in Terrinoth.”

  “And have you ever ventured into its northern reaches?” Abelard demanded. “You will find those tracts quite different from the southern edges above Highmont and Frostgate. They are the domain of vagabonds, cultists and worse.”

  “Do you think you can track the undead through it?” Damhán asked Durik, ignoring the seneschal.

  “Yes,” the orc said firmly.

  “Then do so, and take your companions. Be alert to any trace of Lady Kathryn’s presence.”

  Logan tried to formulate a protest, but couldn’t think of anything to say beyond the fact he had no intention of traipsing into some cursed woodland. He closed his eyes briefly as he mastered himself. Everything would be fine. He’d just stop on the edge of the forest and complain about a bad knee or something similar. Let Durik and Ulma go in without him.

  “I will not leave the keep without Carys Mogg,” Durik said. Damhán let out an acerbic sigh, and Logan shot him a glance. Why did he always insist on making things even more complicated?

  “When I recommended you to Baroness Adelynn, I had no idea you would prove to be so sentimental,” she said. “It is quite unbecoming for a creature such as you. I will not allow you to leave with the girl.”

  “If I leave and she stays, these men will harm her,” Durik said, an accusatory sweep of his arm encompassing Abelard and Kloin.

  “They will do no such thing,” Damhán said.

  “Seneschal Abelard’s hatred for the clans has been evident since we arrived,” Durik pressed. “He has been using every means he has to tie them to Lady Kathryn’s disappearance.”

  “Preposterous,” Abelard growled. Logan forced himself not to say something snide. Now, more than ever, he wanted to keep a low profile, before he was saddled with some even more ridiculous quest.