The Barrow (92 page)

Stjepan steeled himself, then charged up the side of the pit, but one of the waiting barrow warriors stepped forward with surprising speed and swung its shield up and into his face, catching him square in the jaw. He went flying into the air, blood arcing in a high arc from his mouth, and he fell back into the pit below him. He landed heavily in the muck in front of the open casket.

Annwyn and her growing entourage arrived in the chamber of the three biers, and there she found Azharad's brides awaiting her as her new handmaidens. They bowed to her, and fell in behind her amongst her courtiers. They all turned and entered into the chamber with the well, and some of the
Ghúl
and some of the barrow warriors immediately went ahead and began to descend into the dark hole.

The body of the young squire and the two bodies suspended over the hole had been made into a feast, and reduced to carcasses of bone and gristle and scraps of flesh. Ignoring the body of Too Tall, Annwyn looked up with sorrow at what had once been Malia Morwin. She reached out and gently stroked what was left of the ruined, unrecognizable face and hair of her handmaiden. Her expression was cryptic and inscrutable.

Then she looked down at the hole into the earth, a secret smile playing on her beautiful face.

“There's always another way out,” she said quietly to herself.

Some of the
Ghúl
linked their bodies together to form a writhing throne for her to sit on. She took an offered hand and gracefully stepped up to sit upon the throne of bodies, leaning back in regal comfort. And then the entire mass of
Ghúl
lifted her up, and then slowly climbed down into the hole, with her seated upon them and gazing around to look at the chamber as though in final farewell.

The barrow warriors begin clambering down after her.

Stjepan struggled to remain conscious, staring up at the empty casket, looming like a dark and empty door into nowhere. And then mercifully the darkness took him.

Erim came hobbling up the hillside to the barrow entrance beneath the starlit skies. Dirt and dried blood was smeared into her clothing, her skin. She had poultices bandaged upon her left thigh, and across her belly and back, and had pulled on a linen arming doublet that had belonged to one of the squires. She had her cut-and-thrust rapier and point daggers strapped to her waist, a loaded crossbow in her hands, a quiver of quarrels slung over her shoulder. Though she could walk, she was already breathing heavily from the strain. She stood at the top of the steps, undecided, uncertain.

“Fuck,” she said.

The entrance of the barrow yawned black before her.

Beneath the earth everything was as black as pitch. Until the blackness was finally illuminated by the sparks from a white-blue torch that bloomed into full flame, revealing the half-eaten face of Gilgwyr staring up at nothing out of the muck.

Stjepan held up the torch, looking around groggily. He was bleeding from his mouth, and he winced as he gingerly tested his jaw and his skull. He rummaged around in the bags and equipment laying strewn about the dug pit, and found a water flask. He poured some water over his head, matting his hair, and then drank a huge swig of it, and then drank again, and again, eventually draining it dry. He looked around, studying the bodies in the pit with him. He spotted the ancient book that Leigh had revealed, and he tossed the empty flask aside as he walked over to it and picked it up. He placed it carefully beside his satchel.

He screwed the torch into the earth in the side of the pit so that it was upright and burning, and he grabbed up a shovel. He first went to Leigh's body, and used the shovel to push through the Magister's robes and clothes. But whatever he was looking for wasn't there, and he grunted. He turned toward the upright and empty casket.

He stared at it a moment, running over the images in his mind, the letters and symbols moving over Annwyn's skin while she had writhed above him in coitus, translating in his head the words he had seen.

“Dig
. . . and dig
again,” he said to himself.

With great effort he pushed against the upright iron casket, knocking it over onto its back. And then he started digging into the ground on the spot where it once stood.

Stjepan walked out of the barrow into the light of the morning of the 5th of Ascensium. He had the ancient copper-bound book of Leigh clutched in his left hand, his satchels and his brace of sword and dagger slung over his shoulder, and an old, scabbarded sword covered in dirt in his right.

“Don't move,” came a voice.

He stopped in mid-stride and froze.

“Turn around,” came the voice. “Slowly.”

He turned slowly and looked up. Erim sat perched on the hill slope right above the entrance of the barrow, pointing a loaded crossbow down at him.

“Where's Gilgwyr?” she asked.

“He's dead,” Stjepan said. “He got . . . eaten.”

“How about Leigh?” she asked.

“Him, I killed,” Stjepan said.

Erim studied him for a moment. “Is there anyone else coming out?” she asked.

Stjepan thought about it for a moment, and then glanced down to look deep into the entrance of the barrow. He looked back up at her. “No. I think I'm it.”

She looked at the dirt-covered sword and scabbard that he carried in his hand. “Is that the sword?” she asked.

“
Gladringer
. The sword of the High Kings, forged by the magician-smith Gobelin, of the Bodmall clan,” he said quietly. He looked down at it, and then back at her. “Here, catch.”

He softly tossed the sword high into the air to her, and the pommel caught the glint of the sun as it arced through the air. She caught the sword by the scabbarded blade in her left hand, still pointing the crossbow at him with her right.

She looked at Stjepan with a frown on her face, and then at the sword, and then back at him. “What . . . you're just giving it to me?” she asked.

Stjepan smiled. “Always distracted by the bright bauble. Things are never what they seem. Yes, it's yours, if you want it. It should be in the hands of a true swordmaster. And I got what I came for.” He looked down at the book in his left hand.

“What, that book?” she asked, incredulous.

“The missing copy of the
Libra de Secretum Malifiri de Nymargae
, taken from the Library at the University,” he said reverently. “It's one of the rarest books in the Known World. The Magisters always suspected that Leigh had stolen it after they discovered it was missing, but a true enchanter, as Leigh was, has any number of tricks to hide something away, and it was hard to flush it into the open.”

Erim stared at him, her mouth hanging open. “All this for a fucking book? This is
Gladringer
, the lost sword of the High Kings!” she said. She deftly changed her hold on the sword to take it by the grip and she flicked her left wrist with a
snap
and the scabbard flew off the sword to land in the grass, revealing the length of the sword's blade to the morning light. It was a twin to the cursed and false blade that they'd first found: broad, double-edged watered steel that tapered to a sharp point, with curved quillons and a large round wheel pommel inlaid with swirling, intertwined designs in silver and gold. But she could feel that the leather on the grip of the hilt had decayed over time, sealed beneath the cold earth, and the blade looked like it needed to be polished, and for a moment doubt entered into her.

“Aye. One of the greatest swords in history,” said Stjepan, eyeing it with a proud smile. “That sword killed Githwaine, the Last Worm King. It pierced through his glamours, and his wards, and his armor, and into his dark, black heart, and ended him. Upon its blade are secretly etched the Riven Runes of
weapons
, and
motion
, and
death
, and
victory
, and
strength
. If you could see them, the enchantments on that blade would blind you with their glory and their power. And if you want, I'm sure that sword will lead you to whatever fate you think you seek.”

Then he shrugged. “But a single enchanted weapon, even a great one, can't change the fate of the state, of the nation, of the world. We survived for centuries without it. The Thrones of the Middle Kingdoms are stolen and missing, the lines of the Dragon King scions of Islik are ended, and yet here we are. We endure. The Kingdoms endure. For the Middle Kingdoms are not threatened or saved by weapons, but by words, ideas, temptations, desires, magics; the words that inspire people to turn from one path to another, the words that fill them with faith, or take it away from them, that threaten their sense of who and what they are.” He held up the copper-bound book. “Such as are contained in this book. A book written by the Devil Incarnate.”

“Well, aren't you the philosopher,” she snorted, and then laughed, her eyes narrowing. “A lot of maps in that book, eh?”

Stjepan laughed. “Yeah. A lot of maps,” he said with a small smile.

She stared at him for a long moment.

“How do I know it's really you?” she asked wistfully.

“No glamours here, Erim,” he said, shaking his head.