James Davis - The Shield of Weeping Ghosts

"He saw me," he said in disbelief, repeating the phrase over and over as he turned to assess the climb before him. Pulling himself higher, he found Duras waiting for him several feet up.

"Take my hand," the warrior said, leaning over the edge of the ruined pile the wall had become.

Accepting the offer, Bastun reached the top and stood beside the warrior, still breathless and wide-eyed from the experience. The others made their way to the second guard tower far ahead of the pair. Thaena stood by, staring after them as they climbed over the fallen wall. The fang set their swords and axes to work again, beating at a frozen door in the base of the tower. Syrolf looked little pleased that Bastun had survived, and he sneered before shouting at the berserkers to quicken their strokes.

As Duras and Bastun reached them, the group was entering the tower. Thaena greeted them with a nod and turned away.

Inside, Bastun noted the first few steps of an old staircase ascending from the dust and rubble of what remained of the tower's interior. Anilya's men set to work on a second door, presumably leading through the interior of the next stretch of the western wall.

"We'll take as few chances as possible atop the wall from here on," Anilya said as Duras approached her. "We can use the inner wall to reach the last guard tower and ascend from there to-"

"That's presuming we don't need wings there as well," Bastun said as he studied the ruined floors above them. He smiled beneath his mask. Staring back toward the last tower, across the. field of rubble now being overcome by settling mists, he wondered at that face in the ice. Though slivers of fear and the strange chill of the past's touch remained with him, the scholar in him could not help but be fascinated by what he'd witnessed.

Thaena did not reply, turning away to watch the progress of digging the door free of the ice and stone. Bastun shook his head, cursing the timing and promising himself to record all that he remembered in his own journal when given the time. The thought gave him pause and he reflected on the expectation that he would survive the night. Though well-grounded in what could occur if what he suspected was true, he was surprised by the stubborn presence of hope in the back of his mind.

"What happened back there on the wall, Bastun? When you fell?" Duras asked, his voice bringing the vremyonni from his thoughts. "I thought I heard you say something about your sister."

There was an odd gravity in Duras's voice. It banished his fascination with the far past and brought him fully back into the present. He found he couldn't meet his old friend's gaze, and he looked instead to the floor. Sitting in his gut like a meal gone bad was the memory of Duras and Thaena's embrace. He did not yet feel any compulsion to share his thoughts, nor did he trust the voice that would carry those thoughts. The only other to whom he might have confided was dead and buried, Master Keffrass's grave not yet even cold in his memory. "It doesn't matter now. I-"

The sound of cracking wood stopped him in mid-sentence, and he turned as the last few splinters of the door fell inward to reveal the coal black darkness of the inner wall.

The scent of stale air-and something else, familiar yet indefinable-drew him toward the doorway, even as the sellswords fell back, expressions of shock crossing their faces. Several of the fang glanced inside as well, then looked away and whispered prayers to the Three as they marked themselves with runes of warding.

Bastun studied these reactions as he walked through the group. Thaena blinked slowly and turned her back on the door. Anilya crossed her arms, tilting her head smugly. Nearing the cleared threshold, torchlight flickered into the high open space as if unwilling to disturb the grim peace within. Unflinching, Bastun summoned his own light, holding his staff forward as he entered and descended the first few steps of a short stairway to observe the macabre scene that had so affected his companions.

Bodies. Hundreds of corpses, frozen in the armor in which they died. Some still impaled on the weapons that took their lives, others sprawled on top of one another with no apparent injury save the layers of ice that coated them. He sighed angrily, looking from one body to the next. Nar soldier and Shield defender alike shared the same lack of peace, their only grave a length of stone wall sealed by a simple door.

"They left them here," he whispered, and he looked sidelong at the others. Bereft of any kind of proper burial, he suspected each one of the dead still fought through the last hours of their life, had indeed seen them killing one another through the strange eyes of the Breath. Why had the wychlaren not buried them when they first explored the Shield?

The gaze he finally found was no longer the face of an old friend, no longer the hope of anything except an escape from his own past and the homeland where it was forged. What he saw was only the mask of a wychlaren.

Taking up his staff, lighting the way, he turned and made his way down into the makeshift graveyard. The grasping arms of the dead, illuminated by his passing, seemed to plead for release. Cautiously Duras followed, leading the others.

There was no argument that Bastun went in first, as all expected the dead to rise at any moment and put an end to their cursed journey through the Shield.

Thaena stood in stunned silence as the fang filed past her through the door and into the wall. The berserkers wore looks of trepidation as they descended the steps and eyed the frozen bodies. Anilya stood by while her remaining ten sellswords followed behind the Ice Wolves and then entered herself with nary a word to the ethran.

Though she observed quietly, noting their passing, Thaena did not move for several moments. Their torches bobbed and swayed through the darkness, revealing ever more of the horrors her sisters had, for some reason, chosen to leave sealed away inside the wall. They had no doubt debated the subject since setting the Shield as an outpost. Rivalries among her superiors had obviously delayed any proposed action.

She walked among those long dead, glancing upon frozen faces, and felt the shame of her sisterhood laid upon her shoulders. Anger quickly followed shame, that she should endure the accusing stare of Bastun for the indiscretions of a handful of hathrans. Likely the bodies required more than simple burial or burning-or perhaps the spirits of the city were considered the greater threat. The Shield's ghosts had been pacified for several years while the streets of Shandaular flooded with the souls of restless dead. She found reasoning enough for her sisters in the magnitude of the scene, but could not escape the accusing eyes of the vremyonni. Bastun had looked upon her with a secret in his stare, something far beyond the knowledge of unburied soldiers in the depths of an old castle wall.

With a whispered word she amplified her sight. She searched for traces of the Weave, hidden or dormant magic, spells of necromancy or dark sorcery. No specific dweomer of any sort presented itself, though a strange aura permeated everything she saw. It throbbed and glowed with a dull light that she found unnerving. The effect appeared to be a constant throughout the Shield, like the background residue of some ancient working that refused to fade away.

Ahead of her, past the flickering torches of the fang, one light remained steady and strong. Bastun strode confidently among the bodies, pausing occasionally to study some insignia or ancient blade. Duras followed in the vremyonni's footsteps, and she regretted the silence that had grown between them. Her guardian seemed determined to trust in Bastun for reasons she felt were more self-serving than mere loyalty to old friendship. The secret Duras had kept for so long threatened to blind him, and Thaena worried that she might lose him if he did not unburden himself soon.