CHAPTER 1.45 - INTO THE BARROW: VI
Hugo knows that he’s prevaricating. From all he can tell, the lever mechanism simply retracts the pair of solid bars dipping below the door’s surface, presumably then into slots in the wall. He can’t detect any mechanisms even with the benefit of the shield’s illumination, nor any additional holes from which blades, arrows or darts could be launched at the lever’s operator. His greatest concern is that the metal is shockingly cold for no apparent reason. The point at which the information he can glean ends scares him. His mouth’s dry, drier than the parching of this place, as he stretches up to move the mechanism.
The action’s surprisingly smooth, this metal untarnished, seemingly more resilient than any he has seen here. His hand is wrapped in an edge of Rian’s cloak, the big man looming over him from the side of the wall, ready to snatch him away should he trigger a booby trap. He flinches, senses that each of them does, as the door sticks for a moment before opening. Then a cloud billows towards them from around the frame. As he tries to take and hold a breath the shock of the cold air hitting his lungs calms him a little. Simply cold, damp air condensing in the suffocating warmth of the barrow. At arm’s length ahead of him, a nearly blank wall covered with ice, the smallest room they have seen in this place.
It's the most designed room, too. The ceiling is a similar crystalline structure to the farm rooms, this one unblemished but deep blue in colour. He realises this ceiling is sucking heat from the room rather than pumping it in. As if to confirm this, there are racks made of coppery metal around every inch of wall, a series of copper tubes above his head, moored near the ceiling with dangling hooks. Even had he not witnessed the Highbarrow villagers hanging carcasses in smoking sheds, this would have struck him as an obvious meat locker, probably a dazzlingly effective one at that.
The image, of something that might help the village survive, is disrupted by a pair of the long-headed figures huddled in the northeast corner, one curled uncomfortably against the pipework racks with the other on its knees, bonded in a final kiss by their frozen death. And they must be dead. This place is colder than the depth of winter and while the figures’ clothing is the least torn they have seen, they still amount to mere grey shifts. The treacherous storyteller within him is trying to seduce him, compose a romantic diorama of star-crossed lovers choosing their last moments in one another’s arms.
And then, inevitably, the pair of things twitch, shudder as frozen muscles begin to operate in defiance of any laws of Gods or of sense. Thae sighs, turns to Anuk, whose hand is already preparing to cast chaos into the frozen horror show, and gently says “Leave this to me, darling.” Hugo’s blood freezes colder than the meat locker picturing the woman’s response should he refer to her in that manner. Instead, he watches her nod, hand dropping slowly but warily. Rian, also, stands down, although he moves so he could easily block the door, pike ready to fend off some assault by the frozen meat.
Thae’s radiant column strikes down periodically, the near statues having no chance to avoid its wrath. The cold room fills with a choking, sickening smell, but Hugo struggles more with the lethargic struggle he sees from the lovers. As with the thing in the sewers, these were once presumably living members of the strange, slightly distorted beings. But even dead and dulled by their frozen incarceration, he can see their terror of Thae’s radiance. His stomach drops further as the closer creature, with dull inhuman effort, almost makes it to standing position under the scathing beam of the divine power.
The thing’s knee and foot remain frozen to the floor, grey thigh pulling free from the knee joint with a brutal tearing, the snap of solid material separating. As it tips onto its side, his romantic notion of their pose evaporates. A bone, with attached flesh, formed the centre of their “kiss”. This, too, tears as the creature falls, almost removing the sitting thing’s jawbone from its head. They are both making noises by now, groans made more indistinct by one’s mouth full of meat, the other’s dangling and torn apart.
It goes on for far too long, the rearward zombie seeming to reanimate a couple of times before finally lying still. Thae, expression grim, gives a stern order. “We need to put these...things into the well.” They stand frozen for a moment, in the frozen doorway, before moving to comply. Hugo feels his own surprise, sees the same reflected in the other two, at Thae’s decisiveness. But it makes sense. Rian lifts up the body huddled in the corner, tearing away a portion of skin and sinew still frozen to the floor. The other thing’s stumps remain affixed, and finally Hugo tries to breathe through his nose as he roasts the meat away from the floor with fire from the goblin’s ring. Anuk, distaste set on her face, grabs the other body, gasping at the cold but compliantly following the big man.
Thae has selected the worst job, goes to it without complaint, scraping up every remaining gobbet of the monsters. His friend even treats him to a smile as their efforts conflict then combine, the foot finally detaching from the floor. “Are you worrying about here, or about the thing under Caladria?” Hugo asks. Thae looks pained, briefly “Oh, Hugo, I’m worried about everything, really…” Thae trails off, expression rueful.
He doesn’t let his friend hang, places a hand on the priest’s shoulder. “It’s been a big week, Thae, and change is tough.” He sees doubt, fear, even guilt clouding the half-elf’s face in quick succession. “But listen, we’ve got each other, and I’ll back you through anything. You’ve trusted me, and I can’t help but trust you. Hells, even Anuk has signed on. Same deal - we help each other, protect each other, come what may.” He sees the cloud attached to the woman’s name passing across Thae, watches his friend dismiss it and brighten up. “Rian has agreed too…” Thae begins, smile broadening as he sees Hugo’s “…he wants to visit Oakbridge but is nervous about it. We should help him.”
The support, the sense of duty is so simple that he feels his heart break a little. Being a holy person thrown into this group must be a nightmare, he thinks, yet Thae has a core of belief in others’ goodness that Hugo prays remains solid. He would hate for that to be taken from his friend.
-x-
Following brisk minutes chasing down the bodies and bones they had scattered in their wake, they finally stand at the door leading deeper into the hillside. They have their roles down now. Thae opens the door, ready to throw the shield into the room should anything move. Rian, pike ready to fend off anything, then Hugo and Anuk at the rear to provide fire support. Literally, in his case.
The drama of their entrance seems silly in this silent, simple space. A narrow, long room presents itself, a single exit door across from their entrance. The room has benches rising from the floor, all carved from the ubiquitous white stone. Between them and the door, closer to that side than this, three short benches are arranged in a semicircle. The middle bench could seat a single person, its companions two at most, and very slightly lower than the central seat. Each of these was once covered, cushioned, these now destroyed, vestigial at best. The remainder of the room, the side closest to them, closest to the village, is populated with longer benches at regular intervals. Each is sufficient for perhaps three denizens.
Hugo broaches it. “A meeting room, right? Somewhere for people to discuss laws or decisions or…something…” Thae nods, frowning. “Yes. The dead do not need those, not even the ghastly one back there.” Anuk looks between them, adds: “And food storage, the dead don’t need that. This feels like some cult shit, paranoiacs who don’t want others around.” Hugo sees her eyes flick to Rian, the self-described ‘stockade dweller’. Rather than any anger or embarrassment, the big man looks appalled “…with no water?” Hugo wonders about the certainty Anuk attributes to such a weird theory, finds amusement at the slighted professionalism in the man’s voice.
The humour dies as they hear the familiar scrape of bone on stone beyond the portal, a hiss as if in order or answer. They pull back, Thae placing the shield gently on the ground as he and Rian exchange nods. The woodsman places his pike on the floor as Thae brandishes the rapier, Hugo and the pale girl opting to arc apart slightly, presenting two targets rather than one should another leaper make it past their guardians.
Hugo feels stifled, although less from the oppressive atmosphere since fresh air started clearing the stale, baked fug. His tension is suddenly defused by adrenaline as the door explodes into dusty shrapnel and a pair of skeletons burst through. These seem anomalous, unarmoured and with clubs or –he realises – pick handles in place of weapons. Directly behind them, hissing with apparent delight, prehensile tongue curling threateningly, another of the fast, ghoulish creatures flexes its claws. This one has an incomplete robe as apparel. It bears evidence of dyeing beset by the bleaching of age reducing its hue to a reddish grey.
Immediately, three of them let loose, Thae holding back to closely track the sprinter. Between Rian’s deadly swing into the open portal and Anuk’s explosive mote, one of the naked skeletons explodes into the other, this one thrown into and over the hissing monster as it scuttles left behind the wall. Thae gives Rian a look before slipping through and after the agile thing, Hugo’s heart freezing as another skeleton looms out of the darkened room into the light. They’re separated but Thae’s holy light flares up from behind the bones and he hears what he hopes is a hiss of pain from the monster.
The skeletons, meanwhile, are doing poorly. They’re hemmed in, prime targets for the group’s attacks. The new skeleton scatters into pieces as its fallen comrade tries to get up, empty handed since its improvised weapon had spun away into the dark. Rian follows Thae into the darkness, Hugo catching Anuk’s eye and cocking his head towards the door before he scuttles to retrieve their light source. He is pleased with their sense of teamwork as the girl retrieves Rian’s pike on her way through the door.
Hugo’s fears are allayed as he beams light into the next room to find Anuk and Thae harrying the agile monster. They’re herding it into the far corner of the room as Rian charges the lone skeleton, hammer swinging implacably. Thae, it seems, has learned from the earlier combat, fending off the creature with the rapier’s swift blade rather than attacking. Of course, ‘aggressive attack’ is exactly Rian’s strategy. Hugo could swear the skeleton began to come apart even before the inevitable impact of his double-handed swing.
After that it almost feels like cruelty, he muses, as Rian accepts the pike from Anuk’s hand while she takes a potshot. The frantic creature is having more and more trouble trying to dodge inside their constricting noose. His sympathy dies somewhat as he reasons that the thing had, presumably, already perished. He sees this reflected in the steely look of hatred from Thae, the kindest soul he has ever encountered. Shakes his head and returns to pouring flames into the withering assault.
Their setting helps. If Anuk is correct about the settlement, the cult, then this must be a sacrificial room. There’s a table with an indentation shaped for a body. Grooves to propel liquids to the northern end, a hole through the stone to a hollow built for…his eyes scan, come to rest on a dented, peeling ‘golden’ bowl. The damage to this belies that it is, in fact, brassy metal with a thin gold covering. The final salve to his guilt is the dark brownish dust still clinging to the slab, the discarded tools, their wooden handles flaking apart. Dulled, darkened blades in all sorts of imaginative shapes.
He wonders if this was the function of some of the robed ones, heart hardening further as the thing, the potential torturer, expires slowly.
