Darren Shan - 02 Ocean of Blood

Seba summoned a team and had them meet him in the Hal of Final Voyage, a small cave with a stream flowing through it. This was where many vampires over the centuries had chosen to be cast off when they died. The stream would carry their bodies down through the hidden tunnels of the mountain, then wash them out into the world and far away. The custom was dying out — cremation was the current popular trend — but some of the elder vampires still preferred the more traditional method.

“I trust you can all smell that,” Seba said cheerfully once his crew was in place. He took a deep breath of the putrid air and smiled as if sniffing perfume.

“I thought it was Goulder,” someone laughed.

“Shut your mouth or I’ll shut it for you,” a vampire named Patrick Goulder snapped. Larten and the others covered their smiles. Patrick did have a problem with his odor, but it was nowhere near as bad as this.

“Bodies are stuck in the tunnel,” Seba said. “This is not the first time it has happened. Usually, when the water rises in winter, it washes them away. But the Guardians have told me that will not happen on this occasion. We have to go down there and free them.”

The vampires frowned, then a few looked to Larten with their eyebrows raised. Since he was Seba’s assistant, it was his place to ask the question going through all of their minds.

“Surely this is a job for the Guardians,” Larten muttered. “They are in charge of burials.”

“No,” Seba said. “ We are in charge. We let them take control of certain details because it suits our needs. But this is our problem, not theirs.

“Come now,” he chortled, trying to raise their spirits. “It is not that bad. I have brought pegs for your noses and you will be tied to one another with ropes to ensure that none of you gets washed away. The water is no colder than in the Hal of Perta Vin-Grahl. Our chefs have prepared a fine broth for when you return. It will be an adventure!”

“Are you going down the tunnel, Seba?” one of the team asked.

“I would love to,” Seba sighed. “But my back…” He winced and held his sides like an old woman.

The vampires laughed and started roping themselves together. Some would stay with Seba, to hold the ropes and pull back the others if the current proved too strong. But Larten was one of those charged with wading down the tunnel.

Larten shivered as he lowered himself into the fast-flowing water. Partly it was the chill, but mostly it was the eerie feeling of staring directly into the mouth of the funereal tunnel. Larten had never expected to pass through this opening alive. It was a journey only the dead were meant to take. It felt wrong, as if he and the others were trespassing, going where the living weren’t welcome.

“I know this is difficult,” Seba said seriously, “but you have nothing to fear. There are no ghosts. all of the vampires who passed through here were of good standing. Their souls flew directly to Paradise when they died.”

The team in the water hesitated despite Seba’s reassurances, staring down that awful hole at the blackness. Then Larten, since he knew that Seba would expect it of him, clapped loudly. “Move on, there!” he shouted at the vampires ahead of him. “The sooner we finish this, the sooner we can be back in the Hal of Khledon Lurt, warming up with a bowl of broth and a mug of ale.”

Cheers greeted that and the vampires in the lead — there were two teams, set side by side — released their grip on the bank and let the current carry them out of the cave and into darkness.

Each team had a torch-carrier, but they came at the rear. So, when Larten entered the tunnel, he had to endure a minute of near-total gloom. He imagined lonely spirits drifting around him and was almost afraid of what the light of the torches would reveal. But, as Seba had said, there were no ghosts here. When the torch-bearers finally lit up the area, Larten saw nothing except rock and water. Offering up a quick prayer to the gods, he moved on in search of the blockage.

The stench worsened as they advanced and the pegs on their noses didn’t help much. It seemed to thicken in the air around them and soak into their pores. A couple of the vampires choked and were sick. The teams paused to let the vomit float ahead of them. Larten could feel his own insides rumbling, but he managed to keep his food down.

They inched their way along the tunnel, the team in the cave keeping a tight rein on them. Nobody knew what lay ahead. If the floor suddenly dropped into an underground waterfall, those on the ropes didn’t want the others being swept away. As impatient as the vampires in the tunnel were, Seba made sure that the team in the cave kept a firm grip on the rope and fed it out at a slow, steady rate. Larten had no idea if he’d been in the water ten minutes or an hour. all he knew was that it seemed like an age.

Eventually they came to where the bodies had stacked up, and it was far worse than anyone had imagined. Larten tried to count the corpses, but it was impossible. They were rammed tight, a wall of bones and rotting flesh. Some were skeletons — this had been building for a number of years — but most were dotted with scraps of skin and hair. Larten could probably have recognized some of the dead if he’d looked closely.

He didn’t.

Gagging and pale-faced, they closed in on the wall of the dead. One of the vampires near the front screamed and had to be released. Clinging to the rope, he scuttled back to the safety of the cave. Larten should have felt contempt, but all he could muster was envy. He wanted to follow the coward and it took all of his willpower not to. Larten watched sickly as the two vampires at the head of the team reached out and tugged at the obstruction. If luck was with the group, the pair at the front would shake the corpses free and the rest of them need never touch the remains of the dead.

But the luck of the vampires was in scarce supply that night. The wall of bones rattled but didn’t give. Sighing, Larten and the others edged forward until all were within touching distance of the stinking corpses.

Patrick Goulder raised a fist and threw a punch at the bones nearest him, trying to smash a way through.

“Stop!” Larten roared. When Patrick looked at him, Larten growled, “They might be dead, but they are still children of the clan, Generals who fought bravely and deserve our respect. We will not shatter their bones unless all else fails. We will try to pry them apart gently, to keep each corpse intact.”

Patrick snorted. “Do you think it makes a difference? They’ll be torn to pieces by animals on the outside anyway.”

“What happens outside is not our business,” Larten said. “What happens within this mountain is. ”

Patrick rolled his eyes but didn’t argue. Since Larten had spoken up and taken charge, it fell on him to make the first stab at the mound of bodies. Gulping, he reached up, ran his fingers over a few of the skeletons, located the shoulders of one and pulled softly. When nothing happened, he tugged harder. Finally the upper half came free, but so did a mess of rotting bat corpses that had lodged in the network of bones. They shot out of a hole that Larten hadn’t seen, propelled by a snapping bone, and splattered his face.

Larten shrieked, fell backwards and went under, pulling the skeleton with him. For a moment of pure panic he thrashed beneath the water, the bones of the dead pushing him down. In his fear he thought the vampire had come back to life and was trying to kill him. He lashed out at the skeleton, tasting the foul guts of the dead bats. He tried to spit them out, but water drove bits of disgusting organs down his throat. As Larten retched, hands gripped his arms and pulled him up.