“Hrad Spein” is a ogric name. Translated into the language of men it means “Palaces of Bone.” But the dark elves say that the human tongue is incapable of expressing the universal horror that the ogres invested in those two words. No one knows who created Hrad Spein, and in which age, whose thought and strength it was that bit so deep into the bones of the earth, creating those immense caves and caverns that were later transformed into the architectural wonders of the northern world and, later still, into a world of darkness and horror.
The first to discover Hrad Spein were the ogres, before they withdrew into the Desolate Lands. There were no orcs yet then, not to mention human beings. The ogres spent a long time exploring Hrad Spein, a very long time. That was where they solved the mysteries of the Kronk-a-Mor. Nothing is known about the origin of the ogres, but they appeared in Siala a lot later than the time when unknown builders first laid the foundations of the Palaces of Bone. They say that the potency of the ogres’ magic came from ageless catacombs, where they discovered the ancient writings of an unknown race that lived in Siala long before the ogres arrived.
Deep, deep under the ground the ogres came across gigantic halls and caves. They started using Hrad Spein as their graveyard, leaving their dead and placing terrible curses on the burial sites. Later, when the ogres moved away to the north, it was the bones of orcs and elves that found their final resting place in Hrad Spein. While constantly warring with each other above the ground, they also found time to create magnificent palaces below it, palaces of a beauty that stunned their contemporaries. And thousands of thousands were interred there, in the ancient burial grounds.
Exquisitely elegant ceilings, columns, frescoes, halls, statues, and corridors—that was Hrad Spein in those times. The orcs and the elves worked together. It was the only place where there was an effective truce between the feuding relatives. Neither side intruded on the lower levels of the ogres. Both races realized that nothing good could be expected from the ogres’ magic, and the upper layers of the palaces provided more than enough space for them.
But eventually the bloodlust of the orcs and the hatred of the elves had their effect, and blood was spilt in this place that was sacred to both races. Both of them started installing traps in their own territory to catch their enemies. The underground halls crackled with dark shamanic energy and were drowned in blood. In the end, neither orcs nor elves could feel safe in these places any longer. The Palaces of Bone were abandoned and subsequently the secret knowledge of the locations of traps and labyrinths in the lower levels was lost.
Hrad Spein became like a gigantic underground layer cake tens of leagues deep and wide. The levels of the ogres, the levels of the orcs and the elves. Halls, corridors, and caves. Burial sites, treasure chambers, and magical rooms. Everything in the Palaces of Bone became wound up tight into one gigantic, inextricable tangle. By the time the orcs and elves left the place, men had appeared in the world of Siala and they found their way to Hrad Spein.
They too did not dare go down to the lower levels. Amazing as it might seem, our race had the wits not to do that. Men took over the upper three levels for burying their warriors. Hrad Spein became legendary as the greatest burial ground in the Northern Lands. Only brave soldiers who had fallen in battle were considered worthy to be buried in Hrad Spein, and, of course, aristocrats.
But then, something happened. Nobody ever knew what it was exactly, or why it happened. In Hrad Spein the evil of the ogres’ bones awoke, protected by the dark shamanism that had lain dormant all these centuries on the lower levels of the underground regions. It awoke, rousing the dead—and someone else as well. And it rose to the very upper level, but did not emerge from the bounds of Hrad Spein, settling forever in the ancient palaces, and no one dared to go down to those places. Except for the magicians carrying the Horn to Grok’s grave.
Time went by, and the Forests of Zagraba swallowed up the entrances to this underground country, concealing the horror of night forever beneath the green crowns of their trees. Over the centuries the dreadful tales about Hrad Spein acquired even greater depths of horror and darkness. Only once, about forty years ago, did dark elves venture down into those places to leave there forever the head of the House of the Black Rose, but they were only able to carry the body of the warrior who had fallen in battle with the orcs as far as the fourth level. They abandoned his body there, amid the darkness and the horror, and retreated upward, fighting off the creatures of the night and losing soldiers as they went. In the end only a pitiful remnant of the elves managed to escape back into the sunlight.
And now I must set out to go to this dark place. With no help to rely on, no precise maps of the levels and the halls, no knowledge of where the traps are positioned, or even how to find Grok’s grave, which was not built by the overzealous magicians on the levels of men, but on the eighth level, one that was used by the elves. I just hope that Artsivus is right and in the old Tower of the Order I’ll be able to find at least some maps and a plan showing the location of the Horn.
When I was about halfway through studying the work of the magician Dalistus of the Snow, Bolt came back, after having taken on board a full load of wine, and joined me at my table. He started telling me about his life and how he served in the Lonely Giant fortress. About the battles with orcs and svens when he used to fire his trusty crossbow. I didn’t really listen to his drunken tale-telling, just nodded mechanically sometimes as I carried on studying the history of Hrad Spein. It was already evening before the old man, evidently weary already of his own stories and with nothing else left to say, asked if he could look at my crossbow. I tore myself away from the book and looked up at him in amazement.
“Well, what are you looking at me like that for? Are you afraid I’m drunk and I’ll hurt myself? Why, I was using a crossbow before you were even born, you snot-nose! Give me it, nothing will happen.”
I hesitated for a moment, then took the miniature weapon out from under my cloak and held it out to Bolt, after first checking that the safety catch was on, so that the metal arrow couldn’t be fired if the trigger was pressed accidentally.
The old-timer grabbed the crossbow out of my hands, clicked his tongue in satisfaction, weighed the weapon in his hands, and aimed it at something behind my back. He found the safety catch very quickly and immediately released it. I began regretting that I hadn’t disarmed the weapon. Then the custodian, apparently tired of playing with the crossbow, put it down beside him, poured a fresh glass of wine, and clinked it against the weapon. And now that he had a new and probably more appreciative listener, he went on with the story of his life at the Lonely Giant. I immersed myself in the book again and only emerged from my reverie late in the evening, when Bolt yelled piercingly right in my ear:
“An ogre!”
The old man’s howl was so unexpected and so loud, that I fell backward, together with my chair, and struck my head painfully against the wooden floor. Through the flash of pain I saw a heavy arrow bury itself in the table, after punching right through the book about Hrad Spein.
Bolt grabbed the crossbow and fired upward at something without even taking aim. I heard a cry of pain, fury, and amazement and flung my head back, expecting to see a genuine ogre for the first time in my life. But all I saw was my old friend Paleface standing there, his left hand clutching his right shoulder, which had a crossbow bolt jutting out of it.
I jumped to my feet, forgetting all about the pain in my head, grabbed the crossbow out of the drunken old-
