CHAPTER 1.43 - INTO THE BARROW: IV
They wound up huddled together in the narrow space around the un-well, as he thought of it. Thae insisted on examining Rian, expending healing light to knit together the profusion of gashes the man had sustained. Hugo marvelled that the woodsman had managed to keep fighting as long as he did. Anuk fell into her role as Thae’s ‘healer’s assistant’, magically cleaning the blood from Rian’s flesh and ruined armour. It became much less ruined, to Hugo’s surprise, as Thae performed a trick he hadn’t seen before. Another invocation and a motion akin to sewing, and the slashes through the cloth and leather pulled together seamlessly.
Both of the warriors, as Hugo considers them, are exhausted. Rian from fighting through wounds and blood loss, Thae from…channelling the Goddess’s power, he supposes. As his mind attempts to tease apart that thought, he sees that Anuk, similarly to himself, is restless but trying not to show it. Sees her eyes on the door across the small room in which they’re gathered, the only other exit. This appears once to have had some locking mechanism, however a squarish hole has been ripped out of its material below the handle. No light nor movement emerges through the hole, Rian’s need to rest having overruled their urge to investigate.
As Anuk’s gaze meets his own, Hugo is clambering to his feet, announcing that they are going to “secure whatever’s in there.” He’s a little disappointed that his announcement started strong only to peter off, but he receives a tight smile from his ashen partner in crime. Thae looks at them uncertainly, but the big man’s head is resting on the cleric’s shoulder. Again, Rian’s instant-sleep trick. Hugo debates internally whether he would choose their guide’s talent for sleep over Thae’s powers of magical mending, suspects he would if given the choice. He dismisses the distraction, moves to the doorknob, waiting for a sign from Anuk.
This door is even mustier than the previous one, the action of opening it separating desiccated wood from the metal of the top hinge. It pushes open, more wood powdering on the floor on which it scrapes, jamming halfway open. Disappointing, but at least the gap is wide enough for them, the narrower pair of the group. Behind him, Anuk pulls her cloak back from veiling Thae’s borrowed shield. They stand frozen in the doorway, pondering the bizarre space beyond.
As he has come to expect with this end of the barrow, this room has three walls of sheer, polished white stone. Maybe 25 feet in length, the room maxes out a little over 10 feet wide, however he believes that half again of this width has been precluded by the grey stone the place’s occupants didn’t deign to disturb. No aggressors here, and no other exits, but the room presents another puzzle. Most of the remaining contents are large pottery cylinders with handles moulded into the sides, both complete and partial. Gigantic versions of amphorae, he thinks, but sculpted shorter and squatter than the classical forms in his mind. Many have been shattered, their wreckage belying that they had been arranged into lines and ranks. As with previous rooms, any items positioned towards the centre of the space have been smashed, ground down, dusted in some cases. The satellite quality of the room is further defined by the less traversed, mostly intact edges. At least, less routinely brutalised by traversal through the space by something mindless.
Their proximity to the fake well suggests the containers might have been intended for liquid storage. Only one of the urns, however, retains such a thing as a lid. It is near perfect, fitted flush to the anomalous sheet of grey rock. Too flush, in fact, as the tun is vanished on the rock side. He needs to process and re-process what he’s seeing. The pottery has been shaped, or cut, to the exact shape of the rock, left open on the wall side. The lid, the only one surviving, is fashioned from cork, hammered into the cap of the tun to completely seal the container. The bung, too, is shaped to the wall, more precisely to the organic flow and wave of the rock than to the container for which it was made. And, of course, sealing in absolutely nothing.
Accepting Anuk’s assistance to pull the partial container away from the grey wall, they confirm the senselessness of the thing’s craftsmanship. The edge of the pottery is smooth, as though moulded or sanded precisely to the shape of the stone. And it could only fit to the exact position along the wall in which they found it, no two spans of the grey stone perfectly alike, nor fitting to the absent parts of the pottery or cork.
He sees a similar confusion in Anuk’s face, a shrug, then starts as he watches her bright blue eyes glow from within with purple light. The illumination rises quickly, remains for a moment as Anuk’s gaze flicks across the room then settles on the partial container before it flickers out and her eyes return to normal. The woman sees the surprise, the questions in his eyes, furrows her brow. “What?” She asks, hand unconsciously touching the curtain of hair over her ear. He guesses that hiding her parentage has been habitual for her, a protective ward. He recounts what happened, watches her shake it off, but more hesitantly than her practiced obfuscation of her racial heritage.
“Oh, that? It’s just my…magic.” He can see the retreat from what she had been about to say, her lips beginning to form a ‘p’ before she detoured to ‘magic’. She smiles, and he’s certain she is manipulating him, offering a teaspoonful of feigned bashfulness. “It’s always purple, y’know?” He doesn’t push, doesn’t indicate that he registered her slip, files ‘something beginning with p’ away for later perusal. Instead, he opts for “Well, it’s very pretty.” He contemplates the danger of this sentiment, the manner in which she might have taken it before he earned some trust. Then again, he thinks, the girl has flashes of purple across her dark leather armour, the clothes beneath.
Anuk sighs. “Nothing here, really. This place is weird.” He looks up, nods ruefully. Can’t think of anything to add to her assessment. “Best go back through” he gestures to the door. Returning to the empty well, they find Rian sleeping deeply, head still on Thae’s shoulder. The half-elf, unwilling to jostle or disturb the big man, beams a smile at their pair, expression questioning. Immediately, Hugo shakes his head, catching an identical gesture from Anuk.
Hugo is about to speak, clarify, when he freezes. He feels more than hears a distant, muted noise from the direction of the guard room. Possibly beyond. Thinking of the barrow’s layout, he pictures the shabby doors, suspects it might have been one of those being moved. The sound was too low for him to be certain, however, and his friends watch him uncertainly, obviously having heard nothing. He gestures to his ear, points back towards the room, gestures for silence. Thae mimes waking Rian, Anuk mimes, well, explosive death. He shakes his head, covers Thae’s shield behind Anuk’s cloak, mimes he will return. His friends look dubious but silently agree.
-x-
He questions his sanity as he pads along the short corridor to the guard room. Remembers how poorly things went last time but can’t shake the idea that knowing what, if anything, is out there protects them. He can sense no movement, not a great deal of anything in the pressing darkness, queries why he’s putting his neck on the line. He’s usually the brains, the planner. Never in the back of the…scams, he admits…that he ran, but also never the face. Then again, his face and his stature are too remarkable to have served. Better to be mundane, for that. Besides, this exploration is just his frayed nerves playing up, he understands.
But then he hears the scrape of bone against floor, and he is back focused, feet landing as lightly as he can manage. He is half-glad, half appalled that his night vision, such as it is, has settled back. The light penetrating this far into the barrow is near to none. He can make out three figures in the large room ahead. Two are overly slim, despite being armoured and shielded. Obviously more skeletal guards, standing blankly towards the south of the space. The final figure radiates authority. It is lithe but stooped, moving fluidly, seems worryingly intelligent. It’s scanning the alcoves previously containing guardians, questions in its demeanour. Crucially, Hugo watches the silhouette investigating, tracing the scattered remains of the erstwhile sentinels. Being drawn towards the outside.
He thinks of the trouble his group had with a handful of skeletons, considers how few defenders are covering the barrow’s entrance. Ponders the village, already beset by problems without the living dead. Thinks of little Nina, a tiny, vulnerable container of unbounded potential. Before he knows it, before his brain can scream for him to sneak, to hide, an obsidian token is out of his pouch and between his fingers. He flicks it towards the northeast corner of the room, as distant from the barrow’s ‘door’ as possible. As he hears the new horror hiss like a startled cat, watches it spring towards the rattling, spinning token, Hugo is sprinting towards the well. The thing is FAR too fast, far too acrobatic for his tastes,
He isn’t masking the noise of his flight, simply trying to lead the creatures by sufficient distance to alert his friends. He begins to shout: “Bad things! LEADER! GUARD ROOM!” As he rushes, he hears the three things react at very different rates. He can hear sounds from the well room, but his senses are frozen, focused behind him. He can’t ignore the worrying speed with which this new creature has doubled back and is now closing on him. The sweat on the back of his neck feels icy, hairs rising beneath it.
He daren’t look back for fear of freezing, his senses frying in his certainty that the thing is behind him, reaching for him. He is choking on his fear, but a part of him is cooler, more detached, trying to counsel him that this terror doesn’t seem natural. As he hyperventilates, croaking a muted attempt to shout again to his companions, his panic assures him that it’s actually perfectly natural. This is a literal monster. Dead is supposed to mean dead, and the absolute hallmark of the state defined by fucking lying still.
A cough spasms his lungs, and he draws a giant breath. His mind sweeps back in to assure him that this panic has all occurred over a literal instant. The token spun to the floor maybe four seconds ago, and nothing can move that fast. Yes, it is worryingly swift, yes it is closer to him than anyone could want, but he shouldn’t be snuffed out before he can reach his comrades. A huge part of him resents the resumption of this cooler head, the pessimistic framing of his situation. But at least he isn’t tucking and going foetal, static in such a short corridor. He hears claws. Not the hollow scraping of the skeletons’ feet on the stone, nor even the pace of a two-legged creature. The thing at his back in the short passage is galloping on all fours.
As he curls to spring for the entrance into the well room, Anuk is suddenly illuminated from beneath her chin as Thae’s clear voice rings out “Hugo! Close your eyes!” A huge shadow is coming in the opposite direction as Hugo’s sight is blown, eyes screwing shut too slowly to blot out the bright illumination a foot from his face. He realises that the shield is spinning, face up, propelled along the corridor floor. He alters his trajectory at the last moment as the afterimage on his retinae resolves as Rian’s silhouette, bulk leaning into a charge led by his pike. It puts the rising roar ringing his ears into context too.
He manages to evade the big man’s charge, barrelling diagonally into the room unscathed. Blinks to clear his vision. Thae rushes past him, following the woodsman in his charge. Anuk, fingers flexing, spares the time to reach down, help him up. He feels like a betrayer in the instant of hesitation before he takes her hand. But she seems amused, supportive. Asks “Are you okay?”
Hugo tries to speak, throat tightening as he wishes he could form “No, but at least I’m with you guys.” The best he can do is nod and pull his dagger, scrambles to chase Thae as the woman aims over his head.
No, he’s in hell, but at least they’re here together.
