Richard Baker - Swordmage

Kara stood up in her stirrups, taking a moment to gain her bearings as she studied the barrow field. This one was well ordered; the barrows stood in low rows, serried ranks of weary soldiers standing watch against the cold north wind. She looked left, then right, and nodded to herself. “We’re here,” she said. “This way.”

They followed behind Kara as she rode up to one of the larger barrows. Long ago someone had excavated its door, revealing a low, black opening in the hillside. The whole thing was better than a hundred feet across and almost twenty feet high, which suggested to Geran that someone important had been buried in the mound; most barrows were quite a bit smaller. Kara slid out of her saddle, patted Dancer’s muzzle, and made her way slowly into the open space before the barrow’s black doorway, her head down and her eyes on the ground. Geran and Hamil dismounted as well and waited for a moment as the ranger studied the moss-covered rocks and wiry grass of the hollow.

“Here,” she said over her shoulder. “This is where Jarad was found.”

Geran felt a cold shiver in his heart, but he forced his feet into motion. He came up beside Kara, looking at the ground where she pointed. He couldn’t see much, but that didn’t surprise him; Kara had always been much better at reading tracks than he. Hamil joined them a moment later, squatting to run his fingers lightly over the ground.

“The Shieldsworn sent for me as soon as they learned Jarad had been found,” Kara said quietly. “I had a good look at the scene later that day. You can’t see much, since it’s been almost a month now, and we’ve had a lot of rain since. But you can still make out the impression in the heather, there, and just a bit of rust from his mail. He’d been here for about two days before he was found.”

Geran took a deep breath and straightened up to look around the hollow. “What do you make of it, Kara?”

“Jarad rode up from the south side of the barrow and hitched his horse back behind those boulders there.” She pointed at a jumble of gray stone and gorse a couple of bowshots from the door, more or less back in the same direction from which they had just approached. “He approached the barrow on foot, circled the area briefly, and chose a spot where he could lie low and watch the door-over there, in the gorse. There’s a depression that would make for good cover. I’ll show you.”

She led them away from the barrow door about forty yards, angling away to the side, until they stood by a tuft of wiry brush. “He waited here for a short time, perhaps an hour or so. Then a party of five riders approached the barrow from the south and dismounted right in front of the door there-four men and a woman. A fight followed; I think Jarad wounded two men before he was cut down, right where his body was found. No one moved him.”

“You’re certain of all that?” Hamil asked.

“I told you, I had a good look at the scene.”

Geran smiled humorlessly. “What Kara isn’t saying, Hamil, is that she’s the best tracker between Melvaunt and Vaasa. I’ll say it for her. You can consider everything she just said ironclad fact. Though I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s read a few more pieces of the puzzle she hasn’t shared yet, because she can’t quite put them together.”

“All I have left are guesses,” Kara said. “For example, I can’t tell you why he rode to this particular barrow and waited here. Nor can I tell you if the riders were the people he was waiting for.”

“He might have guessed which barrow the crypt-breakers were likely to try next,” Hamil suggested. “Or, more likely, someone told him. He came to this barrow because he expected someone to be here.”

“I think you’re right, Hamil.” Kara gave the halfling a long look. “But that begs the question of whether Jarad’s source was sincere or lied to him in order to lure him to a place where he could be ambushed. Either way, it doesn’t explain why Jarad broke cover. From this spot he could easily have seen he was outnumbered. With five riders to deal with, Jarad should’ve stayed in his hiding place. You can see for yourself; if I get down under this brush, you can’t see me from in front of the barrow. You would have to be right on top of me to know I was here.”

Geran closed his eyes. He found himself imagining the encounter… the black doorway in the low, rounded hillside, nervous horses tethered on a line, a sky of sullen, gray-black rain, cold wind making the long grasses ripple and hiss. Jarad lying flat beneath the gorse, cold and wet, a big, strong man with a long braid of straw-colored hair, scowling fiercely at himself as he debated whether to go for help or deal with matters himself. Was it a sudden furious skirmish in the dell when he gave his location away? Or had he challenged the intruders, demanding their surrender? And who were the killers? A band of adventurers passing through, a reckless gang from town, or men sworn to some guild or merchant company?” Jarad was always confident of his sword arm,” Geran finally said. “Maybe he was afraid the tomb robbers would elude him again if he rode away to gather more men. Or maybe he thought he could spy them out, mark their faces, and apprehend them later in town.”

Or maybe he didn’t think the riders were enemies, Hamil said silently to Geran. To Kara, the halfling spoke aloud. “Kara, earlier this morning you said that crypt-breaking was especially dangerous in Hulburg. Why is that?”

“Aesperus, the King in Copper,” Kara answered. “He was a fearsome necromancer who ruled over this part of the Moonsea hundreds of years ago. He survives as an undead lich who commands the dead of the barrowfields. Too many things that should lie dead and buried under stone rise and walk the Highfells once their tombs are breached.”

“It’s one of the few laws the harmachs enforce without mercy,” Geran added. “No one is to open a tomb anywhere within land claimed by Hulburg. And it’s considered high treason to collect anything of value buried in a barrow.”

“Sensible enough, I suppose.” Hamil glanced at the barrow and the moorland surrounding the old mound. He shook his head. “A damned lonely place to die.”

They stood in silence for a moment, quietly surveyeing the scene. It was the middle of the afternoon; Geran guessed that they’d need to turn for home in an hour or so if they hoped to reach Hulburg before dark. If there was anything to find here, he couldn’t imagine what it might be. Kara had been over the ground more than twenty days ago, and if she hadn’t found anything more then, he certainly wouldn’t now. The wind shifted again and streamed the long grass atop the barrow to the other side, revealing a silver-green underside to the stalks. He shivered, and then his eye fell on the cramped, dark doorway leading into the barrow.

“Kara,” he said, “did anyone enter or leave the barrow?”

The ranger nodded. “Yes, the riders did, after they’d killed Jarad. But there isn’t much inside, just a short passageway ending at a fieldstone wall. If they were tomb-breakers, they didn’t do much to the place before giving up.”

“Let’s have a look anyway,” Geran suggested.

He led the way to the low, overgrown opening. It was half-sunken into the side of the barrow, more like a storm cellar than an actual door. A cold, stale smell clung to the passage. He felt in his belt pouch for a copper coin and whispered the words of a simple light spell-one of the more elementary spells he happened to know. The coin began to shine with a bright yellow radiance, driving the darkness back into the hill. Holding the coin before him, Geran ducked under the heavy stone lintel, his right hand on his sword hilt. Hamil followed close behind him, and Kara hovered in the doorway, a tight frown on her face.