make certain that he wasn’t missing anything. He tapped on the old flagstones underfoot, listening for any hint of crypts hidden beneath this one, but the ground sounded solid enough. He turned his attention to the walls and determined that there simply wasn’t anything more to the barrow. An old inscription was carved into the wall above the head of the sarcophagus. He moved closer and brushed his hand over the runes.
“Is that Dwarvish?” Hamil asked.
“The runes are Dethek, but it’s not Dwarvish, it’s old Tesharan. They were the first humans to settle the lands north of the Moonsea. They used the dwarf alphabet.” Geran studied the markings carefully. “I think it says, ‘Here sleeps Evanderan, High’-councilor? Prince? I don’t know that word-‘to Thentur, Keeper of the’… something… ‘servant of Lathander.’ Then there’s some sort of prayer to Lathander. That seems to be all.”
“Well, Evanderan is a cryptic fellow, and I don’t feel that he has been very forthcoming with his secrets,” Hamil said. “What else are we looking for, Geran?”
The swordmage shook his head. “I don’t think there’s much more to see here. Let’s head for the next barrow. It should be about three or four miles to the northeast.”
They climbed back up from Evanderan’s barrow, found that nothing had troubled their mounts while they were inside the mound, and saddled up again. They rode to the next barrow and found it more or less similar to the first-a round, dome-shaped structure with a steep stairwell cut into the roof. This one stood alone by a small hillock, with no other mounds nearby. Again, they carefully picketed their mounts and descended into the mound.
After an hour of exploring the second barrow’s cramped passageways and musty chambers, they found nothing more than they had in Evanderan’s tomb. As before, Geran and Hamil carefully searched for secret passages, but the barrow was unremarkable. The Highfells were littered with examples of similarly plain burial mounds.
Geran climbed back out. The rain had finally let up, but the sky was still sullen and overcast. Two very ordinary barrows, neither with any appreciable wealth for the would-be thieves to remove… and neither haunted by fearsome specters or hateful wights. He supposed that most of the unopened barrows on the Highfells were likewise uninteresting; legends of barrow gold and barrow wights were probably greatly exaggerated. “Maybe we’ll find something more interesting at the next barrow,” he muttered to himself.
When they’d gone a little more than a mile, they passed a small herdsman’s hut in a sheltered declivity. Geran reined in, looking the place over. The afternoon was growing late, and the ominous shadow he had seen earlier still weighed on his mind. “Let’s make camp here,” he suggested to Hamil. “We don’t have much daylight left, and I’d rather have a roof over my head than sleep out in the open tonight.”
The halfling eyed the small structure distastefully. It was made of stones piled crudely in the rough outline of walls, chinked with old mud, and roofed with squares of turf. “If you say so,” he said.
They picketed the horses near the hut, built a fire from a small bundle of wood they’d brought along, and cooked up a simple supper as the sun was setting. Then Geran carefully drew warding sigils and spells around the hut. He’d learned a few such things in Myth Drannor, and while he was not very confident in his efforts, he figured that it certainly couldn’t hurt anything to try. With that attended to, the two travelers secured the hut’s door and stretched out their bedrolls on the bare wooden frames inside the shelter.
The night passed quietly, though Geran found himself starting at every gust of wind or unexplained sound in the darkness. Once or twice the horses outside caught a scent they didn’t like and whickered uncomfortably, but nothing drove them off or tried to eat them. In the morning their mounts were still there, whole and unharmed. Geran cooked some bacon over the coals, and they broke camp. The morning was misty and wet, but the wind was not blowing, and Geran had some hope that the overcast might burn off during the day.
“More barrows today?” Hamil asked, yawning.
“Three, I hope.” Geran stretched, then slowly turned in a circle to study the barrow’s surroundings and get his bearings toward the next tomb-breaking. Then he frowned.
“What? What is it?” Hamil asked.
“The first barrow was on the edge of a whole field of burial mounds,” Geran said. “There must’ve been a couple of dozen within a mile or less of the one that was opened. But there were no other barrows around the second mound. It was alone.”
“Is that unusual?”
“No, I suppose not. There are plenty of barrows in the Highfells that don’t have other barrows nearby. Only… why ride an hour to find another barrow to open, when there were many others close at hand? Why skip those mounds and go on to the second one?”
“They opened that one first and then moved on to the field we visited first?” Hamil guessed. “Perhaps they meant to open more of the barrows in the big field.”
Geran pulled out his pocket-journal and checked the notes he’d taken in his uncle’s study. “Possibly, but the first barrow was found opened before the second one. The tomb-breakers started with one barrow in the big field, then went to a different one several miles away.”
“You know, the Mulmasterites might just be looting random crypts. It could be pure happenstance that they chose either one. For all we know they might be throwing dice to see which mound they open.”
Geran looked down at his friend. “Do you really think so?”
Hamil sighed. “No, not really. Let’s go back to the first barrow and have another look around. There must be a reason why they chose it out of a field of dozens.”
“I admire your conscientious attitude.”
“I’ve decided to charge you for my services. I expect to be paid by the hour; take all the time you like.”
Geran laughed and clapped a hand on Hamil’s shoulder. “In that case, you’ll be disappointed to learn that the third barrow I intend to visit is back in that general direction. Evanderan’s tomb isn’t too far out of our way.” Then the two travelers saddled their mounts again and spent the morning making their way back toward the first barrow they’d seen.
As they approached, Geran paid more attention to the other barrows around Evanderan’s mound. Some were very old, little more than crude heaps of fieldstone and turf that had long since fallen in on themselves. Others were long, rectangular mounds that looked almost as if someone had long ago buried a barbarian chieftain’s hall in its entirety-the barrow where Jarad had been ambushed was one of those. They returned to the Lathanderian’s burial mound and dismounted, gazing around the landscape. The morning was growing late, but the skies showed signs of clearing-a bright wall of yellow sky showed to the west, marking the trailing edge of the rainclouds. “Clear and cold when the clouds pass, I think,” Geran observed.
Hamil didn’t reply immediately. He was studying the closest of the barrows, staring at it intently. “Geran,” he said, “is there any significance to the different styles of the mounds? That one over there is a big rectangular affair, but the next one past it is a tumbled-down heap of fieldstones like a giant cairn. Did different people raise them?”
“I don’t know.” Geran scratched at his chin. It was plain as day now that Hamil had pointed it out, but he’d never really given it a moment’s thought before. “It seems likely. Some are clearly much more weathered than others. I’d guess they might be centuries older. For that matter, they might not be human at all. Some of these might hold dwarves, or orcs, or even ogres.”
“This is the same type of barrow as the second one we saw yesterday. Look, they’re both round, not too large, finished with dressed stone, and they both have entrance stairways near the middle of the mound.” Hamil glanced up at him. “The Veruna men might be looking for barrows of that type.”
Geran nodded. “For that matter, this was the tomb of a Lathanderian, and there was Lathander’s symbol on the sarcophagus in the second barrow, too.” He pulled out the pocket-journal and checked his notes on the remaining barrows, then measured the weather with a quick glance at the sky. “The next barrow on the list is another five miles or so. If we hurry, we can visit it and still have a little time to move on to the next one before dark.”
They headed south, angling indirectly back toward Hulburg across the open, trackless moorland to save time. For the moment, no more mysterious black shadows dogged their trail; perhaps whatever it was had given up the chase, if in fact it had ever been pursuing them. Around noon they halted to make a quick lunch from the provisions they still had on hand. The cloud cover had drifted far to the east, and the wind was beginning to pick up. It might have been wiser to rest their mounts a little more, but curiosity gripped Geran. He wanted to see what the third barrow would tell them.
Another hour of riding brought them to the third barrow on the list. This one sat in a small hollow, not far
