Untold Tales (3 page)

“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.

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.

Oenghus led his group outside, onto the curtain wall. Men scurried on the walls, repairing and reinforcing defenses. Along the way, Oenghus found the scout captain. “Only us three.” Glancing at Morigan, he wondered if she could manage that many weaves in her state. But the healer was looking at the courtyard in consideration.

The group filed down a stairway, and stopped on the steps, just above the black earth. It was a good fifteen feet to the temple steps. Oenghus could manage the leap, but not the others.

“I wonder if I could bind stone to the earth,” Morigan mused. Oenghus twisted, looking up at the woman on the higher step. He wasn’t keen on experimenting with a new weave—not yet anyway. Morigan, however, looked willing. She had that look she got whenever she was going to try a new remedy.

Before Morigan could summon the Lore, Oenghus walked back up the steps and planted his feet in front of a heavy stone crenellation that had been knocked from the battlements during the attack. He bent his knees, slapped his palms to the sides, and heaved. Lifting the stone, he waddled to the edge, and pushed the rock away from him. It fell, landing with a splat in the black earth, in the space between temple and stairway. The top poked conveniently out of the ground. Every soldier on the wall stopped to gawk at the feat of strength.

“Stone bound to earth,” he grunted.

“Thank you, Oen,” Morigan said. She lifted her blood-stained skirts and jumped from stair to stone to temple step. The others followed her lead.

Oenghus put his fist to the Nuthaanian stonewood as Gaborn shouted, “In the name of Emperor Soataen Jaal III, open this temple!”

There was no answer.

Oenghus pounded his fist against the door a second time. The entire temple seemed to shudder. He sensed watchful eyes staring from one of the stone Auroch heads glaring down at the group from high above.

“We’re here to help,” Morigan spoke directly to the statue’s snout. Oenghus glanced back at the soldiers on the wall. Their eyes were desperate. How many clerics had they slaughtered in an attempt to kill the witch? Would the soldiers continue to try, now that an easy path was available?

The Void they would.

With a growl, Oenghus turned back to the impregnable door and threatened it with the weight of his hammer. “Open this door or I will lay it to ruin!” This time, his bellow shook the stonewood.

A heavy bar was lifted on the other side of the door. The warding runes pulsed once and went dormant, fading back into the wood.

The door to the temple opened.

A thin, trembling man who was well into the Keening and dressed in dingy white robes squinted from the crack. His rheumy eyes were confronted with a banded leather breastplate and the folds of a kilt. The acolyte’s neck creaked upwards, as he searched for the head on the towering figure.

Oenghus glowered down at the man.