Netok jogged up from the river bank, a two-handed axe in his grip. He halted at his sister's side. 'Something is loose,' he growled, his small eyes darting.
'And still close,' Hetan nodded. 'Flank your brother.'
He padded off.
Gruntle strode up to her. 'That barrow … you're saying a spirit or ghost's broken free.'
'Aye.'
Drawing a hook-bladed sword, the Barghast woman walked slowly towards the carriage. The captain followed.
Stonny trotted her horse back to take a defensive position beside Keruli's contrivance.
A savage hole had been torn into the carriage's side, revealing on its jagged edges what looked to be sword-cuts, though larger than any blade Gruntle had ever seen. He clambered up to peer inside the compartment, half dreading what he might discover.
It was empty — no bodies. The leather-padded walls had been shredded, the ornate furnishings scattered. Two huge trunks, once bolted to the floorboards, had been ripped loose. Their lids were open, contents spilled out. 'Hood take us,' the captain whispered, his mouth suddenly dry. One of the trunks contained flat slabs of slate — now shattered — on which arcane symbols had been meticulously etched, but it was the other trunk whose contents had Gruntle close to gagging. A mass of blood-slick … organs. Livers, lungs, hearts, all joined together to form a shape all the more horrifying for its familiarity. When alive — as he sensed it must have been until recently — it had been human-shaped, though no more than knee-high when perched on its boneless, pod-like appendages. Eyeless and, as far as Gruntle could see in the compartment's gloom, devoid of anything resembling a brain, the now-dead creature still leaked thin, watery blood.
Necromancy, but not the demonic kind. These are the arts of those who delve into mortality, into resurrection and undeath. Those organs. they came from living people. People murdered by a madman. Damn you, Buke, why did you have to get involved with those bastards?
'Are they within?' Hetan asked from below.
He leaned back, shook his head. 'Just wreckage.'
Harllo called out from the driver's bench. 'Look uptrail, Gruntle! Party coming.'
Four figures, two leather-cloaked and in black, one short and bandy-legged, the last one tall, thin. No losses, then. Still, something nasty hit them. Hard. 'That's them,' he muttered.
Hetan squinted up at him. 'You know these men?'
'Aye, only one well, though. The guard — that grey-haired, tall one.'
'I don't like them,' the woman growled, her sword twitching as she adjusted her grip.
'Keep your distance,' Gruntle advised. 'Tell your brothers. You don't want to back-brush their hides — those cloaked two. Bauchelain — with the pointed beard — and Korbal Broach — the … the other one.'
Cafal and Netok rejoined their sister. The older brother was scowling. 'It was taken yesterday,' he said. 'The wards were unravelled. Slow. Before the hill was broken open.'
Gruntle, still perched on top of the carriage, narrowed his gaze on the approaching men. Buke and the servant, Emancipor Reese, both looked exhausted, deeply shaken, whilst the sorcerers might well have simply been out on a stroll for all the discomfort in their composure. Yet they were armed. All-metal crossbows, stained black, were cradled on their vambraced forearms, quarrels set and locked. Squat black quivers at their hips showed but a few quarrels remaining in each.
Climbing down from the carriage, Gruntle strode to meet them.
'Well met, Captain,' Bauchelain said with a faint smile. 'Fortunate for you that we made better time since the river. Since Saltoan our peregrination has been anything but peaceful.'
'So I've gathered, sir.' Gruntle's eyes strayed to Buke. His friend looked ten years older than when he'd last seen him. He would not meet the captain's eyes.
'I see your entourage has grown since we last met,' Bauchelain observed. 'Barghast, yes? Extraordinary, isn't it, that such people can be found on other continents as well, calling themselves by the same name and practising, it seems, virtually identical customs. What vast history lies buried and now lost in their ignorance, I wonder?'
'Generally,' Gruntle said quietly, 'that particular usage of the word "buried" is figurative. Yet you have taken it literally.'
The black-clad man shrugged. 'Plagued by curiosity, alas. We could not pass by the opportunity. We never can, in fact. As it turned out, the spirit we gathered into our embrace — though once a shaman of some power — could tell us nothing other than what we had already surmised. The Barghast are an ancient people indeed, and were once far more numerous. Accomplished seafarers as well.' His flat, grey eyes fixed on Hetan. A thin brow slowly lifted. 'Not a question of a fall from some civilized height into savagery, however. Simply an eternal … stagnation. The belief system, with all its ancestor worship, is anathema to progress, or so I have concluded given the evidence.'
Hetan offered the sorcerer a silent snarl.
Cafal spoke, his voice ragged with fury. 'What have you done with our soul-kin?'
'Very little, warrior. He had already eluded the inner bindings, yet had fallen prey to one of your shamanistic traps — a tied bundle of sticks, twine and cloth. Was it compassion that offered them the semblance of bodies with those traps? Misguided, if so-'
'Flesh,' Korbal Broach said in a reedy, thin voice, 'would far better suit them.'
Bauchelain smiled. 'My companion is skilled in such … assemblages, a discipline of lesser interest to me.'
'What happened here?' Gruntle asked.
'That is plain,' Hetan snapped. 'They broke into a dark circle. Then a demon attacked them — a demon such as the one my brothers and I hunt. And these … men … fled and somehow eluded it.'
'Not quite, my dear,' Bauchelain said. 'Firstly, the creature that attacked us was not a demon — you can take my word on such matters for demons are entities I happen to know very well indeed. We were most viciously set upon, however, as you surmise. Whilst we were preoccupied with this barrow. Had not Buke alerted us, we might well have sustained even further damage to our accoutrements, not to mention our less capable companions.'
'So,' Gruntle cut in, 'if not a demon, then what was it?'
'Ah, a question not easily answered, Captain. Undead, most certainly. Commanded by a distant master, and formidable in the extreme. Korbal and I were perforce required to unleash the full host of our servants to fend the apparition off, nor did the subsequent pursuit yield us any profit. Indeed, the loss of a good many of those servants was incurred, upon the appearance of two more of the undead hunters. And while the trio have been driven off, the relief is but temporary. They will attack again, and if they have gathered in greater numbers, we might well — all of us — be sorely tested.'
'If I may,' Gruntle said, 'I would like to speak in private with my master, and with Hetan, here.'
Bauchelain tilted his head. 'By all means. Come, Korbal and companions, let us survey the full damage to our hapless carriage.'
Taking Hetan's arm, Gruntle led her to where Harllo and Stonny waited beside Keruli's carriage. Cafal and Netok followed.
'They have enslaved our soul-kin,' Hetan hissed, her eyes like fanned coals. 'I will kill them — kill them all!'
'And die before you close a single step,' Gruntle snapped. 'These are sorcerers, Hetan. Worse, they're necromancers. Korbal practises the art of the undead. Bauchelain's is demonic summoning. The two sides of the skull-faced coin. Hood-cursed and foul … and deadly. Do you understand me? Don't even think of trying them.'