The Barrow (6 page)

“The Barrow of Azharad,” said Guilford quietly. His grip on Erim's shoulder had suddenly gone hard, his fingertips digging into her flesh even through the doublet, but he didn't realize what he was doing. She bit her lip against the pain, and against something else. Erim was a bit confused; she could sense the others in his crew coming closer, the sudden tension in the chamber.

“The Barrow of Azharad,” Guilford said again, and laughed suddenly. He'd heard any number of men, in any number of taverns and street corners, claim they were going after that barrow. Hell, he'd had any number of peddlers offer to sell him a map to it. Or to the tomb of Palé Meffiré and her enchanted horn, to the Barrow of Githwaine the Last Worm King, to the secret hiding place of the Throne Thief, to any of dozens of legendary hoards and treasures. And he'd known better each time, had laughed and moved on. But Harvald and Stjepan were different. Stjepan was different.

Stjepan didn't bullshit.

Particularly there, in that place. Deep under the ground, standing before a great bronze idol of one of the
Bharab Dzerek
, with the blood of who knew how many victims smeared on its altar and its great phallic sacrificial spear, Guilford could feel it in his bones. There was no way Stjepan would bullshit him. Not about this. And he knew that map was real
. He could feel it in his bones
, and he laughed the laughter of a man who suddenly realized he was going to be rich beyond his wildest dreams. “You're . . . you're going after
Gladringer
. You're going after fucking
Gladringer
,” Guilford said, having to repeat it to himself in order to get his head around the idea.

“Well,” said Harvald faintly, smiling and trying to make the best of a bad situation. “If the map is real.”

“You fucking cheap bastards!” Guilford roared, suddenly very angry. Erim thought he was about to rip her arm right off. She hadn't felt him draw it but his broadsword was in his free hand, the tip pointed up toward Harvald and Stjepan up above them. She wasn't sure what to do. “You think to foist us off on these fucking coins and a pair of gems while you go after the
sword of the fucking High Kings
?”

Stjepan snapped out of his reverie and in an instant realized the mistake he had made. Cursing inwardly, he stood up on top of the idol, his head almost touching the ceiling, and looked down on Guilford and the others gathering on the other side of the great brazier below them. “Don't worry, Guilford,” he said calmly. “You and your crew can be in on that job too. My word on it.”

“Black-Heart, you better fucking believe—”

She could hear the dissension in the great temple before them, and she took a deep breath and a step forward. This was their moment. As she did, so did her Nameless, and one of them accidentally let the barbed metal tip of his spear catch on a low-hanging arch. She whirled on the Nameless responsible, fixing him with the Evil Eye, but the damage was done.

 

She cursed the bones. They were always right.

Guilford cut himself off before finishing his sentence; almost everyone on the temple floor turned to the left as one and raised their shields and weapons.

The sound they'd all heard from the dark of the outer chambers, despite their fixed attention on the sudden prospect of fame and fortune, had been unmistakable.

The sound of metal scraping against stone.

Everyone froze, poised as though prepared for war and listening, staring at the yawning black arches that were visible beyond the columns on the left flank of the chamber. Gap Tooth Tims was closest to the arch from whence the sound had seemed to come. He swallowed hard, then inched forward until he reached the line of columns. He paused there, one of the thick massive columns by his left shield side, almost using it as cover as he peered intently into the dark arches beyond. He raised his shield, an old steel heater that had kept him safe through many a fight, until the top was almost level with his eyes, and lay the tip of his broadsword to rest on top of the heater, pointing into the inky blackness beyond the arch.

Erim found herself holding her breath along with everyone else as they watched his progress. She felt a sudden pang. Gap Tooth was her line mate. She should be backing him up. But Guilford hadn't let go of her shoulder, in fact he had pulled her back until she was almost behind him and he had practically placed himself as a shield between her and the arches. It was an oddly chivalric gesture, and for a moment she wondered:
does he know?

And then Gap Tooth was turning and yelling “We are discovered!” and she didn't have time to think about anything else but death. She had barely started to duck before a flurry of arrow shafts peppered the room, hissing out of the darkness. She heard screams as some of the men were hit even as they were diving for cover. The volley of arrows still seemed to be in the air when dark shapes began to swarm into the chamber, bristling with horns and barbed points, rushing amongst the now scattered men. For a split second she was afraid they were being attacked by a horde of demons up from the bowels of one of the Six Hells, but then it registered that they were men, men wearing masks made to resemble horned demons, men wearing black feathered hides and a hodge-podge of armor pieces about their bodies (when they were clothed at all), men wielding spiked clubs, archaic curved swords, and barbed spears.

She practically breathed a sigh of relief.
Devil-worshippers. Nameless Cultists. Followers of the Forbidden Gods
. Joy coursed through her.
I know what to do
, she thought as she plunged the tip of her rapier into the throat of a horn-masked man running straight at her. She felt his spiked club whistle past her head as she ducked under it and the cultist's momentum took him past her and she almost lost her rapier, but she managed to wrench it out of him, sending him spinning and blood arcing even as she sidestepped another horn-masked berserker and punched her dagger into his gut.
I know what to do. Thank you, gods
, she thought.

Atop the idol, Stjepan snarled a curse. At the first volley of arrows that had scattered Guilford's men, he immediately started to roll the map back up. Harvald crouched next to him, putting the heatless torch down onto a seam in the great idol's head and holding the waiting scroll tube for him, and together they carefully slipped the map into the tube.

The moment they were finished Stjepan turned and glanced over the chamber below them as Harvald dropped the scroll tube into one of his satchels. Black shapes swarmed throughout the room.
Too many of them
, he thought sadly. It looked like Llew and Porter were down already, and as he watched a gaunt, naked horn-masked man covered in blue-ink tattoos ran a barbed spear through old Jon Pastle. He could see Guilford laying about him with heavy blows of his broadsword, while Erim moved smoothly, surely, even gracefully through the battle.
But we might still have a chance
, he thought, and he crouched, preparing to start clambering back down the idol.

He felt a hand on his shoulder and looked behind him. Harvald shook his head and nodded up at the ceiling.

“There's always another way out,” Harvald said quietly. Stjepan looked past him, and was surprised to see the outline of a trapdoor in the ceiling, now illuminated by the heatless torchlight. He didn't remember that on the maps.

Erim was almost in a trance. The fighting on the temple floor was chaotic, brutal, a real every-man-(and-woman)-for-himself melee. Which suited her just fine. She figured she was better at fighting this way anyway, where she didn't have to worry about anyone else, about keeping the line, about the shield wall or the pike hedgehog or the other things that soldiers trained to formations had to think about. She could just
flow
. So she did. She practically danced, and everywhere she danced a man with a horn-mask died. Somewhere she could hear a woman's voice chanting, singing, and she wondered if she was imagining it, or if some dark
fae
spirit was playing an accompaniment as she worked. She danced over the body of Colin of Loria, his ugly blond-haired head split open by a sharp blow, his brains leaking out under her boots, and the horn-masked swordsman who had killed him gurgled a scream and dropped to the ground, blood spurting from his missing sword hand and a perforated lung. She danced in next to the Stick, beset by two horn-masked warriors, and stabbed one horn-mask up through the throat into his brainpan, and then with the withdrawal she cut the other horn-mask's bloated belly open, splashing his guts all over the floor. She danced back-to-back with Gap Tooth Tims, glad he was still alive, and put one rapier point through a horn-masked spearman's eye even as she drove her point dagger into another's groin. The horn-mask screamed at her for his ruined manhood, and she kicked him full in the face, sending him flying back through the air.

Bodies were dropping left and right, and Guilford could hear that terrible chanting, but he could also hear a voice in the back of his head:
you're going to make it
. Smitt went down trying to hold his guts in somewhere on his left, but Guilford could see the Stick still fighting to his right, and he caught flashes of Erim and Gap Tooth fighting back to back, and he marveled for a moment.
We're going to make it.
He smashed the rim of his shield into one of the devil-worshipper's faces, feeling skull and flesh crumple underneath the blow, and brought his broadsword down in a long arc onto another man's shoulder, almost cutting him lengthwise in two.

Then he saw her. A woman emerging in the dark from behind the last of the swarm, a giant vulture-head mask on her face; she was topless, a black feathered cloak about her, a shimmering black metal dress around her legs as she swayed in a ritual trance, in a full-throated chant, and now Guilford could just about make out the words, though he didn't understand them: “
Sseniss huthadde, Bharabazzhi. Venai. Venai. Festa hus gobblin gaspa, Bharabazzhi. Venai. Venai!
”

Guilford smashed a horn-masked cultist aside, and dropped his broadsword. He reached down for a barbed spear lying on the floor, picked it up, and hefted it once. “King of Heaven, guide my throw!” he whispered, and then he hurled the barbed spear across the room at the priestess, catching her full in the chest. Her chant ended abruptly as she went flying backwards with a wet thud.

It was suddenly quiet again, except for the heavy breathing of tired men and the moans of the dying.

Guilford looked around. Gap Tooth and Erim were all that were left standing, and Gap Tooth was wobbling, blood soaking the breeches of his right leg; they looked at each other, then at the carnage around them, panting, weapons streaked in blood. Well, not
all
that were left standing; Guilford glanced over to where he'd last seen the Stick, and for a moment he was confused by what he saw until he realized that the tall man had been decapitated, his head nowhere to be seen, the body still standing upright and swaying.

And then the Stick's body fell over.

Guilford knelt down and picked up his broadsword. He picked his way through the bodies, some still and silent, others quivering and moaning, over to where the priestess of the Nameless Cults lay. Her body was shaking; she was still alive, despite the barbed spear springing upright from her chest. He looked down dispassionately and noted that her body was beautiful, with pale alabaster skin, a flat stomach, curved hips, and firm full breasts with pierced nipples; now ruined by the spear plunged through her center. He'd probably missed her heart by an inch or two, but there was no doubt she'd be dead soon. He could hear her trying to say something, whispering to herself in a strained gurgle. He used the point of his sword to tip her vulture-headed mask off and grimaced. Her body might have been beautiful, but it was a hideous, almost deformed face that looked up at him with hate-filled eyes, hate-filled eyes that had an oddly insane look of triumph about them. She grinned and bared her filed and sharpened teeth, and then coughed blood, still trying to say something. He thought for a second she was laughing at him, though he had no idea what she would have thought funny about a spear through the chest.