yield. But I have no use for Thentia. I cannot promise that you will be able to march against Thentia this year, but if the orcs help me to master Hulburg, I will deliver you Thentia soon enough. Now, I ask for the final time: Are you satisfied with our bargain?”
The chief of the Bloody Skulls glanced to the east. The sun was coming up. Already his warriors were choosing new trophies for the great hall in Bloodskull Keep. More were almost within his grasp. He squeezed his left fist and watched the blood drops spatter on the ground.
“All right, Terov,” he finally said. “I am satisfied. I will swear your oath.”
TEN
21 Ches, the Year of the Ageless One
Geran decided to head for the farthest barrow first, then work his way back toward Hulburg. After provisioning themselves from the castle kitchens and choosing new mounts from the Shieldsworn stables-a strong black charger for Geran and a big, shaggy Teshan pony for Hamil-they rode again. This time they rode better than eight miles up the valley before climbing into the highlands west of the vale. After a short rest and a cold lunch of dried sausage and sharp cheese, they ventured up into the moorlands proper, and the Winterspear Vale fell away behind them.
During their previous ride into the Highfells with Kara, they’d traveled north and east from Hulburg, heading toward the Galena foothills. This time, they were heading west and north, more or less straight into the open, rolling upland of Thar. These lands were drier and less boggy than the eastern Highfells. Rain sweeping in from the west usually passed over the barren hills on this side of the Winterspear Vale as a wet, windy mist that didn’t really turn to rain until it met the mounting rampart of the Galena Mountains. Barren sheets of rock began to appear underfoot, gray and damp, and the ground cover grew sparse and wiry. Geran pointed out two of the old marker cairns to Hamil as they rode past. The whitewash of the old stones was weathered almost completely away.
Three miles from the place where they’d climbed out of the Winterspear Vale, they came to a serrated fault of fluted rosy stone that marched across the land like a crooked, titanic step ten feet tall and miles long-a ribbon of changeland dividing the moor. The trail led to a spot where the natural rise and fall of the ground brought them within two feet of the top of the winding pink wall; Geran and Hamil dismounted to lead their horses carefully to the top. The alien stone ran for miles like a sloping causeway or road, but it was not more than fifty feet in width. Carefully they picked their way across and back down to the natural moorland on the far side, their sodden cloaks flapping in the strong, steady wind.
“I find that my determination to follow you all over these dismal moors is rapidly waning, Geran,” Hamil called against the steady, mournful moaning of the wind as they remounted. “At this point I frankly don’t care what the Verunas want with old barrows.”
“It’s not much farther now,” Geran answered him. “Four or five miles, and then you’ll have an opportunity to get out of the rain and the wind.”
“By clambering around in some musty, dank, foul-smelling barrow, likely filled with hungry wights or soul- stealing ghosts.” The halfling shivered. “What in the world do you think to find out here?”
“If I knew, I wouldn’t have to go look.” The swordmage allowed himself a small smile at his friend’s complaining. Hamil was riding at his back and couldn’t see it anyway. Geran twisted around in his saddle to address his companion, but something else caught at his eye. Atop the rose-colored rampart of changeland receding behind them, he glimpsed a dark shape, something large and catlike that bounded quickly over the alien stone before leaping down out of sight.
“Behind us!” he hissed to Hamil, reining in his horse. He pulled his mount around to the right and turned the animal in place to get a better view of their backtrail.
“What?” Hamil quickly glanced over his shoulder and then shifted his eyes back to the front and swept the area around them for close threats before following Geran’s gaze back the way they had come. He reached down and freed his shortbow from the holster by his knee. “What did you see?”
“I don’t know,” Geran said quietly. Nothing but tatters of mist lay behind them now. He stared for a long time, allowing himself to look past the landscape without really focusing on anything, letting the scene sink slowly into his eye-to no avail. Whatever he had glimpsed, it was no longer in sight. But he thought that he could just barely feel something on the moor with them. “It looked like a big cat of some kind, perhaps a red tiger or a rock leopard. But it was black, and I thought it looked longer in the leg than a tiger or leopard.”
“Are they common out in the Highfells?”
“No, they’re not,” Geran admitted. “Red tigers favor woodland, and the leopards hunt in the high valleys and passes. I’ve seen a tiger or two closer to the foothills, but not around here. This isn’t their kind of ground.”
They waited and watched for ten minutes more, anxiously searching the moorland around them. Nothing more appeared. Finally Geran sighed and rubbed his eyes. “Maybe I was seeing things.”
“I don’t believe that for an instant.”
“Nor do I. Well, let’s continue. If something’s caught our scent, we’ll just have to keep our eyes open and hope that it loses interest soon.” Geran shook his head. When he closed his eyes to go to sleep tonight, he knew he’d be thinking about a quick catlike shadow slinking over the moors toward him. If they didn’t find a shelter or hut with a stout door, they might have to think about keeping watch.
They rode on another hour more without catching any more glimpses of dark shadows on their trail, and then they found the marker cairn Geran was looking for. It stood near the edge of another old barrowfield; a score of low, grass-covered mounds stood scattered at odd intervals for hundreds of yards around. The swordmage consulted the notes he’d taken in the harmach’s study, carefully marked the direction from the cairn, and rode slowly toward the north. They passed several old, crumbling mounds and found the one that had been broken into, exactly where Jarad’s notes had reported it.
It was a relatively large and intact mound, round and dome-shaped, with a steep stairwell in its center descending straight down between large plinths of stone. Muddy heaps of damp earth and loose rock surrounded the stairwell, attesting to its recent excavation. The two travelers dismounted and rigged a picket line for their horses, and Geran decided to take down the saddlebags from his mount.
Hamil noticed and frowned. “Are we planning on staying here long?”
“I don’t know what I saw back by the stone wall,” said Geran, “but if something scares off our horses, I’d just as soon have my bedroll and my dinner with me instead of bolting off across Thar.”
“Point taken,” the halfling replied. He followed Geran’s example. The two travelers left their saddlebags by the stairs leading down into the barrow and descended into the gloom, feeling their way down the narrow stone steps.
“Aumie,” Geran said softly, conjuring a simple globe of light to illuminate their way. The steps led them to a small antechamber, muddy and damp after lying open to the weather for months. The air was dank and stale, but the swordmage ducked down under the low arch and pressed forward, one hand on his sword hilt. Since the barrow had been plundered already, it seemed unlikely that any watchful undead waited there-but he didn’t intend to be caught off his guard just in case he was wrong.
The barrow proved to consist of three cramped chambers joined by low doorways. Little in the way of funereal wealth had been buried with its occupant, who rested beneath a heavy sarcophagus of stone under the dusty symbol of Lathander, the ancient deity of the dawn. He was still widely worshiped under the name of Amaunator, though Geran had always preferred Tymora and Tempus-deities of luck and battle who looked favorably on adventurers. He moved closer to the stone crypt and glanced inside. The moldering bones of some long-dead person of importance stared sightlessly back up at him, still wrapped in the rotting remnants of a shroud.
“The tomb-breakers didn’t take much,” Hamil observed. He stood on tiptoe to peer down at the old skeleton. “Look, there’s still a couple of rings on the fingers. Why did they leave those?”
“They’re only copper. No precious stones.”
“Yes, but if you go to all the trouble of excavating the stairs, why leave a penny behind?”
“There could be a curse on the treasure. Or perhaps there’s a ghost or something else equally unpleasant around,” said Geran.
Hamil frowned and quickly backed away a step. Geran decided to examine the floor more closely, just to
