Runes and Red Sails (Queenmaker Book 1)(88)
Hackles raised, Embla trailed behind them at a distance. The hound shied away from each snap or rustle heard within the thicket.
The thorns tore cruelly at their feet and legs though the vines themselves were brittle and crumbled underfoot. It was as though something had poisoned the earth. What that something was, Aelfhild could not begin to guess.
From the center of the plateau rose a building, clearly unnatural despite its cloak of brambles, set into a wide crater in the rock. Whether it had always been open to the sky, or if there had once been a roof that had since rotted away was unclear, but two bare stone arches crossed above a high, circular wall that enclosed an unseen central courtyard. There were no visible breaks in the stone, suggesting the structure had either been carved from the very bedrock or the masonry hidden by some profound artifice.
It was from here that the feeling of dread seeped, setting their teeth on edge and stealing the very breath from their throats. There was a terror here the likes of which not one of them had ever before come across.
Aelfhild could feel her hands trembling as she followed Eyvind and Kolbrun over the edge and down into the hollow; she squeezed the haft of her makeshift spear for the modicum of comfort it offered.
Another seamless arch, cut into the outer wall, opened into darkness.
The crew clustered around the door and stared inside. There was no sound but their labored breathing, though Aelfhild doubted she could have heard much over the blood pounding inside her ears.
Eyvind spat, trying to clear the taste of the foul air from his mouth, before giving orders. “Jarngrim, Onund, stay back with Ceolwen. If we do not return, take her away from here. Rolf, Kolbrun, Aelfhild—with me.”
Both Jarngrim and Ceolwen raised their voices in protest at being left behind, but Eyvind silenced them with a raised hand. “Do as I say. No questions.” It was no longer the voice of a friend. It told the pair that their captain would brook no dissent.
“Hold,” Eyvind pointed to a spot on the ground outside the doorway and Embla planted herself there. The hound barked plaintively as her master walked away.
Axes raised, Rolf and Kolbrun led the way, Eyvind and Aelfhild behind.
As Aelfhild passed by, Ceolwen touched her servant’s hand. Their eyes locked, and wordlessly they bid one another farewell.
Then Aelfhild stepped through the arch, leaving daylight behind.
It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the darkness, but once they did she found it easy to see. Light crept in from the doorway behind and through a few cracks in the walls and ceiling, illuminating a long hallway that opened to the left and right and followed the curve of the outer wall. The floor was dusty, the air perfectly still. Rolf led them to the right, probing the floor in front of him with the long handle of his axe; beside him, Kolbrun kept the shield raised to her chin.
Pace by agonizing pace they made their way through the hall, which Aelfhild felt must have run the entire length of the structure, accompanied only by the sound of their shuffling feet and ragged breathing. The walls were featureless and smooth, rising evenly to meet the curved ceiling; there were no straight lines to be seen in the entire place.
Another bark from Embla echoed through the tunnel, but the sound was grown faint by the time it reached them.
It grew increasingly difficult for Aelfhild to swallow, so dry had her mouth grown, and her gut felt as though it had abruptly liquified. With a shaking hand, she wiped at her burning eyes, and drew in as deep a breath as she could manage.
Eyvind must have sensed her growing discomfort, for he reached over and put a hand on her shoulder. Though it was clear he fared little better than she, Aelfhild drew strength from the gesture. Even the slightest human touch helped drive back the panic that threatened to take hold of her feet.
At last they came to another door, this one cut from the inner wall. It threw a wide ring of daylight into the dark hallway. Rolf peered around the corner before stepping out and Aelfhild followed, holding her breath.
Sand covered the floor of the round courtyard. The crossed arches hovered overhead in sharp relief against the haze of sky beyond. On this side the wall was carved with countless intricate lines and patterns, all meaningless to Aelfhild’s untrained eyes, running along its entire length. A dais, carved of the same unblemished stone as the rest of the building, stood in the room’s center directly beneath the intersection of the arcing pillars.
At the foot of the dais sat a figure, vaguely human but curled in upon itself. The stench of death hung heavy in the air, and the feeling of dread was overpowering—this, Aelfhild gazed on in terror, was the source.
A grinding hiss emerged from the hunched form, as though it sensed the sudden intrusion, and the twisted horror began to unfold.
In lurching movements, accompanied by a crackling like the breaking of twigs, a helmeted head rose on a neck of blackened flesh and rotted sinew, while arms bound by ancient, tattered leathers appeared from a coat of tarnished chainmail. What had once been a man stood from age-long rest on decaying limbs; a nightmare made manifest.
Draug the Thrym named them, lich in Earnfolding.
Aelfhild knew the words. She had heard the legends of spirits torn from the grave by black and unspeakable rites, filled with bloodlust and blind fury. Bound to tombs or to places of great power, the wight lingered, dead but not dying, until destroyed or released from whatever terrible chains tethered it to the living realm. Never, not for an instant, had she believed that such monsters truly darkened the world.