In the Company of the Dead (The Sundered Oath Book 1)

by Ballintyne, Ciara

  Still turning the thoughts over in her head, she hurried back down the stairs as fast as her back allowed. Back at courtyard level, she hesitated. The stairwell continued on, winding down into the depths. Perhaps Kastyn was poking around the catacombs rather than upstairs, and if so, what left him looking so guilty? What lay below? More stores. Non-perishable items, and equipment not stored in the armoury: extra stores of oil and arrows and the like.

  She kept following the steps down, taking a torch from the wall sconce to light her way.

  At the bottom, natural tunnels of varying sizes branched off in several directions, barely lit by her small circle of firelight. She had never accessed the catacombs from this tower before—only from the eastern access via the well room—and she tried to recall the maps Everard had showed her of the catacombs. The largest tunnel to the left led to the cloister, and the one to right to the stores, with the smaller accesses leading into unmapped terrain. None of the tunnels here were illuminated. Primary access to the catacombs was through the well room, so torches weren’t wasted here.

  The tunnel opened up into a larger cavern, the walls stacked with equipment: ropes, and shelves of clothes, boots, belts, and hats, and stacks of boxes of candles. An open-topped barrel held rags for cleaning and polishing.

  She poked through it all, holding the smoking torch high, and found nothing of interest.

  At the far end of the cavern, a few smaller caves were closed off into separate rooms with doors. She wandered in that direction, reading small metal plates screwed to the doors. The first read ‘Oil’, the word etched into the metal. That was a big room, stacked high with the large barrels of oil used to withstand a siege. The extent of the supply reassured. Another smaller room held lanterns, wicks, and smaller casks of lantern oil. She took a lantern and lit it, then abandoned the torch and the smoke that stung her eyes in a convenient sconce.

  The last of the doors at the end of a short tunnel branching off the cavern carried no labelling plate. When she tried to open it, the door stuck fast. Grimacing at the pain of her back, she stooped to set the lantern down. Thick dust coated the floor here. The light revealed fresh scrape marks in the dust and blurred footprints. This door had been opened recently, but not for a very long time before that.

  Gripping the door handle, she braced herself and tugged hard. The door gave a few inches, scraping along the rough ground. Through the small crack between door and jamb, nothing but darkness met her gaze. She hauled on the door again, the hinges protesting with a squeal. It moved an inch and stuck fast.

  She paused, breathing hard through the pain in her back, and leaning on her own knees.

  Something struck the door. She sucked in a breath and stumbled back a few steps. Another impact shuddered the door in its frame, this time knocking it free of the jam. She reached for her sword.

  A hand slammed into the edge of the door, the fingers curling around the wood, and a face appeared in the gap.

  “Ahura’s blade.” She let the sword drop back into the scabbard. “You scared the life out of me. How did you get yourself stuck?”

  The man turned his head, revealing a bloodless rent down the other side of his face. One eye socket gaped emptily, and teeth grinned at her though the wound.

  Yelling, she stumbled back from the grinning corpse, ripping her sword free. Pain flared in her back. The shambler put its shoulder to the door and pushed. The bottom edge scraped across the stone floor with a noise like a banshee wail.

  She thrust her sword at the ruined face, and the movement pulled all the muscles down her back. The blow faltered at the searing pain. Her scream choked off into a gasping wheeze. The shambler ducked back into the darkness, avoiding the fumbling blow.

  Her breath hissed in her ears. She couldn’t fight through the pain in her back, but the thought of shutting it out left her cold. Ahura alone knew what damage she might do to the wound if she blocked the pain, if she pushed her body past its limits. Tearing the wound open might be the least of her problems.

  Closing her mind to the possibilities, she mumbled a prayer to her goddess.

  As the pain began to fade from her body, the dead man’s grinning visage reappeared in the doorway. As her back grew blessedly numb, it shoved against the door and burst through. The corpse was mostly whole and fresh, undamaged except for the fatal wound to its head.

  She lifted the sword and attacked. The shambler made no move to defend itself, and she opened a dozen wounds on its chest and arms. They didn’t bleed, only oozed a greenish fluid. She renewed her assault, trying to force it back into the room, but the dead man shrugged off her attack and pushed her back into the main storage cavern with slow, inexorable steps.

  Sweat dampened the back of her robes. The dead man moved without flagging, its skin marked with dozens of ineffective wounds. One hand reached for her, and she stumbled back, swinging the silver sword around in a tight arc. The blade took the hand off at the wrist. It fell to the ground, flopping around of its own accord. The shambler didn’t even slow, prodding her with its oozing stump as though unable to grasp why it couldn’t seize her.

  Skin crawling with revulsion, she dropped back a few steps as the dead man brought the other hand up. Few options were available to her. Cutting the corpse into pieces would be slow and laborious work, even with a blade sharpened by the goddess, but she took off its other hand anyway and retreated another step, moving farther from the light of the lantern.

  Ahura, don’t leave me alone in the dark with this thing.

  The dead man gnashed its teeth and lurched forward. She smashed her blade into its grinning maw, destroying the nightmarish smile. Its head snapped back then recovered without even a hitch. Sweat slicked the hilt of her sword. With two quick blows, she stove in what remained of its teeth.

  At least it can’t bite me now.

  The shambler was persistent but slow, and with no hands or teeth, it posed little threat to her unless it got too close. She couldn’t leave a walking dead man here though. Others were more vulnerable. Would taking the thing’s head off stop it?

  She cut at its neck, quick and hard, but it lurched forward another step. The blade sheared partway into the collarbone and stuck. She yanked on the hilt, and again. It came free with a jerk just as the shambler struck at the weapon with its arms. The sword wrenched free of her slippery grip and clattered away into the shadows. The revenant pushed forward, forcing her to retreat farther from the lost blade.

  “Ahura’s tits.” She searched the darkness, trying to spot her weapon, but was only forced to take two more steps backwards. Something touched her leg just above the leather of her boots. She ignored the sensation, intent on keeping the corpse away from her, then, horrifyingly, she felt fingers close around her flesh. Cold fingers, as cold as the grave. Clamping her teeth closed against the shriek climbing up her throat, she kicked at her other leg, trying to knock the dead man’s severed hand free. The other hand inched its way across the floor. One swing of her foot sent it flying yards away, where it vanished into the darkness behind the walking corpse, which waved its stumps at her and stumbled forward again.

  The hand climbed to her knee. She ripped up her robes, prising the clinging, rotting hand from her with difficulty. As she pulled off one finger and moved to the next, it clamped down hard again. The persistently walking dead man forced her to hop and skip backwards.

  Finally she tore the hand free and tossed it into the dark of the tunnel. The revenant kept advancing. Already off-balance, she hopped awkwardly on one foot, and the dead man closed its arms around her in a bear-hug, ruined jaw snapping ineffectually. The arms began to squeeze, forcing the air from her lungs.

  Blackness closed around the edges of her vision. She tried to gasp a breath, but the iron-hard arms of the dead man closed tighter. Her chest burned from lack of air.

  Resigned, she allowed her eyes to close, allowed herself to slide into that cavernous echoing moment of peace where she heard the very blood rushing in her own veins,
and the beat of her own heart. The dead man had none to hear, but the sound of a bell, tolling off-key, reverberated from the animated corpse—the only life it possessed, artificially created by the Rahmyr. In that long moment, in the spaces between life and death, she owned time.

  Ahura, have mercy on your chosen one.

  She placed one hand on the corpse’s head, above the flat, empty eyes, and it convulsed, collapsing. Its grip around her torso dragged her down with it.

  Though the thing smelt of rot and the grave, and her skin crawled away from its greying flesh, she lay limply alongside its motionless body, too overcome to move.

  Every time she called upon Ahura she feared it would be her last time—or that the goddess would not answer.

  When the moment of giddy gratitude passed, she levered the dead man off her. The power of death flashing through her body had drained what little energy she possessed, and she lay still a moment longer, steeling herself for what came next. But no preparation ever sufficed for the release of all the backed-up pain, and when she murmured the prayer to allow her body to feel sensation again, the agony in her back returned tenfold with the force of a thunderclap. She cried out in anguish, her fingers curling convulsively into the damp dirt of the tunnel floor.

  When the dammed-up pain lapsed into a persistent throbbing, she sagged as though all her muscles turned to water.

  Tears streamed down her face, and she wiped them on her sleeve. Her back felt wet against the dirt of the cavern floor. Sweat, and probably blood. Despite her extreme care, her back flared again as she rolled. When she explored the wound, her fingers found sodden cloth and came away sticky and stained red. She grimaced. Torn stitches at the least.

  “Do you require assistance, sister?”

  The voice, cool and inflectionless, made her turn—or she tried to. Gritting her teeth, she forced herself into stillness then carefully craned her neck to avoid moving her body. The shape of a priestess stood almost hidden in the shadows. With her hood up, the other woman was faceless in the darkness.

  Though her request burned like bile in the back of her throat, she forced the words out. “A hand up, perhaps?”

  The hooded shape advanced from the darkness, extending a hand and hauling Ellaeva to her feet with surprising strength. She cried out at a fresh round of stabbing pain, and the other woman tsked, holding on to Ellaeva’s hand as she examined her back.

  “This needs re-stitching.”

  “Thank you, but I can tend to myself.” She wanted to spend no more time than necessary in the company of her sisters. In fact, what was the woman doing here at all?

  “The abbess summons you. I suggest you allow us to tend your wound.”

  Ellaeva thinned her lips, tempted to remind the woman that the abbess held no power to summon her, but only something serious would make the old crone send for her. “One moment.”

  She crossed back to the open door, cautiously extending her lantern into the darkness. It was a small room. An empty room. A few battered crates gaped emptily, and a few pieces of frayed rope littered the floor, but otherwise the room appeared disused. There were, thankfully, no other shamblers. She lowered the lantern and turned back to the waiting priestess. Her sword had come to rest near one wall, so she crouched carefully to pick it up.

  “Lead the way.”

  She made shuffling progress through the tunnels behind the priestess, lagging increasingly far behind. When the priestess reached the iron door barring the cloister, she knocked once, glanced behind and then waited for Ellaeva while someone on the other side unlocked and opened the door.

  “Let me help you.” She put her shoulder under Ellaeva’s arm, helping to support her.

  Ellaeva protested, trying to push the other woman away, but only aggravated the wound in her back. The priestess guided her through the door, and the portal clanged shut behind them.

  By the time they reached the second door, she was struggling to place one foot in front of the other and leaned heavily on the priestess.

  The altar room blazed with the same wasteful expanse of light as her last visit. The abbess once again knelt before the altar, not even turning at Ellaeva’s pained shuffling arrival.

  The priestess lowered her to the floor, and she sank to her stomach, grateful for the cool touch of the marble against her cheek. Sweat covered her brow from the ordeal of walking this far.

  “I’ll get some clean bandages,” the priestess whispered. “And needle and thread.”

  As she rose and turned for the door, Ellaeva tried to catch her wrist but missed. The movement pulled at her back, leaving her whimpering on the floor.

  “You hardly seem in any fit condition to help us.”

  Ellaeva looked up into the expressionless face of the abbess. Letting the old crone tower over her was bitter as poison, but dizziness spun the room around her, and she put her head back against the cool stone. How much blood did I lose?

  “I bleed so you need not.” The floor muffled the sourness of her voice. “Such is the lot of a Battle Priestess, to bleed for the masses.”

  “You might be bleeding too much for my needs.”

  Not even a hint of caring tinged her words, and Ellaeva rolled her eyes, trying to scrutinise the old woman’s face.

  “What needs?” She struggled to sit, and the other priestess bustled into the room.

  “Excuse me, holy abbess.” She bobbed her head as she closed the door. Tsking at the sight of Ellaeva, she hurried across and pushed her flat.

  “You’ll do yourself a greater injury. Lie still.” The priestess bustled around, her arms loaded down with clean bandages and wet cloths. A needle and waxed silk thread rested on top.

  Ellaeva grimaced. Being stripped half-naked to have a wound washed, stitched and bound while trying to have a conversation with a hostile abbess was hardly ideal.

  The abbess stood ramrod straight, her voice stiff and her face expressionless. “Spectres.”

  Ellaeva started, sending knives of pain slicing up her back. Revenants were child’s play compared to spectres; only the truly powerful Rahmyrrim could make them. Is it him after all? Desperate eagerness filled her, coupled with a burning need for vengeance.

  “Hold still,” the priestess murmured, threading the needle.

  At the first prick of the needle, Ellaeva held her features smooth, then bit her lip hard at the pain. Spectres were serious business. Their presence meant using the sword to amplify her connection with the goddess, and such magic was never meant for the human mind. Judicious use was risky; abuse might put her in a coma. She could not confront and destroy one, let alone many, in her current condition.

  “How many?”

  The priestess began binding the wound, murmuring apologies as she rolled Ellaeva back and forth to pass bandages beneath her. She grimaced with each rocking motion.

  “Two we’ve observed so far. They passed through the cloister at the end near the unmapped catacombs, and disappeared back in the same direction. We kept a wide berth.”

  Which was the only option, really. A spectre’s touch would paralyse and, ultimately, kill. Sometimes the paralysed resumed movement but died within hours or days, wasting away from fever that could not be quenched, and each touched person became a spectre in turn.

  The priestess finished binding the wound, and Ellaeva pulled her robes back down and pushed herself slowly into a seated position.

  The priestess gathered her things and left with a murmur to the abbess.

  “I can prevent them from entering the cloister,” Ellaeva said, allowing caution to colour her voice.

  The abbess grunted. “You don’t look fit for much more. They’ll need to be cleared eventually.”

  “Of this I am well aware, and I’ll see to it as soon as I am fit. I should like to perform the binding immediately and warn lord Aharris of this occurrence. I won’t be able to seal the castle as I can the cloister, so the castle will need to make preparations.” She manoeuvred herself to her feet, pausing to gasp thr
ough intermittent bursts of pain.

  The abbess looked up at her. Age had shrunk the old crone, but eyes still sharp and alert regarded her from a network of wrinkles. “You be careful with the Aharris boy. I’m not so old I forget the flutter a smile like that can put in a heart.”

  Ellaeva fixed her with a hard stare. “According to you, I’m already beyond remembering my vows.”

  The abbess shrugged and dropped her eyes. “An ill-thought-out insult. I don’t like you, and I don’t have to like you, but that was unfair. I offer this advice... by way of apology. A man like that is dangerous in ways you might not yet understand. You’re young, and you’ve not yet been out in the world long enough to understand the true temptations of a man.”

  Ellaeva waved a hand, dismissing the matter. “He is too old. And I swore a vow.”

  The eyes of the abbess bore into her. “You got those two things the wrong way around, girl.”

  A slow flush burned up her neck into her cheeks, and she crossed to the altar. She drew the silver sword of Ahura, placed it across the altar at a perpendicular angle with the hilt pointing away from her, and adjusted her stance to block the crone’s view. Lyram didn’t mean anything to her—did he? Though an excellent swordsman and a stimulating conversationalist, that was all he could be. The back of her throat ached at the thought, and she swallowed hard.

  “Bring me candles, one from each wall. I will bind all four boundaries of the cloister so the spectres cannot enter.” Ellaeva indicated the tapers burning on the walls with a sweep of her arm. Such a binding was a huge undertaking and one likely to drain what little energy remained to her, but she had no choice; spectres could pass through walls. The scale of the undertaking made her lick her lips.

  The abbess brought her the candles, and Ellaeva arranged them so each candle stood on the side of the altar matching the wall from which it came. Symbolism only, but a sufficiently powerful symbol reduced the drain on her mortal resources.

  She placed her hands over the blade, one atop the other. The ruby began to glow, a soft pulsating light that intensified as she concentrated. She focussed her will, narrowing the pressure of her mind to a tight beam. No one taught her this; the only other women with the knowledge were centuries dead. Rather, she’d learned from the journal, which contained much of Malharni’s knowledge and experiences. Some of it worked, and some of it did not. Was this the right way or the best way? Well, it was a way, and one that worked.