'What happened back there on the wall, Bastun? When you fell?' Duras asked, his voice bringing the vremyonni from his thoughts. 'I thought I heard you say something about your sister.'
There was an odd gravity in Duras's voice. It banished his fascination with the far past and brought him fully back into the present. He found he couldn't meet his old friend's gaze, and he looked instead to the floor. Sitting in his gut like a meal gone bad was the memory of Duras and Thaena's embrace. He did not yet feel any compulsion to share his thoughts, nor did he trust the voice that would carry those thoughts. The only other to whom he might have confided was dead and buried, Master Keffrass's grave not yet even cold in his memory. 'It doesn't matter now. I-'
The sound of cracking wood stopped him in mid-sentence, and he turned as the last few splinters of the door fell inward to reveal the coal black darkness of the inner wall.
The scent of stale air-and something else, familiar yet indefinable-drew him toward the doorway, even as the sellswords fell back, expressions of shock crossing their faces. Several of the fang glanced inside as well, then looked away and whispered prayers to the Three as they marked themselves with runes of warding.
Bastun studied these reactions as he walked through the group. Thaena blinked slowly and turned her back on the door. Anilya crossed her arms, tilting her head smugly. Nearing the cleared threshold, torchlight flickered into the high open space as if unwilling to disturb the grim peace within. Unflinching, Bastun summoned his own light, holding his staff forward as he entered and descended the first few steps of a short stairway to observe the macabre scene that had so affected his companions.
Bodies. Hundreds of corpses, frozen in the armor in which they died. Some still impaled on the weapons that took their lives, others sprawled on top of one another with no apparent injury save the layers of ice that coated them. He sighed angrily, looking from one body to the next. Nar soldier and Shield defender alike shared the same lack of peace, their only grave a length of stone wall sealed by a simple door.
'They left them here,' he whispered, and he looked sidelong at the others. Bereft of any kind of proper burial, he suspected each one of the dead still fought through the last hours of their life, had indeed seen them killing one another through the strange eyes of the Breath. Why had the wychlaren not buried them when they first explored the Shield?
The gaze he finally found was no longer the face of an old friend, no longer the hope of anything except an escape from his own past and the homeland where it was forged. What he saw was only the mask of a wychlaren.
Taking up his staff, lighting the way, he turned and made his way down into the makeshift graveyard. The grasping arms of the dead, illuminated by his passing, seemed to plead for release. Cautiously Duras followed, leading the others.
There was no argument that Bastun went in first, as all expected the dead to rise at any moment and put an end to their cursed journey through the Shield.
Thaena stood in stunned silence as the fang filed past her through the door and into the wall. The berserkers wore looks of trepidation as they descended the steps and eyed the frozen bodies. Anilya stood by while her remaining ten sellswords followed behind the Ice Wolves and then entered herself with nary a word to the ethran.
Though she observed quietly, noting their passing, Thaena did not move for several moments. Their torches bobbed and swayed through the darkness, revealing ever more of the horrors her sisters had, for some reason, chosen to leave sealed away inside the wall. They had no doubt debated the subject since setting the Shield as an outpost. Rivalries among her superiors had obviously delayed any proposed action.
She walked among those long dead, glancing upon frozen faces, and felt the shame of her sisterhood laid upon her shoulders. Anger quickly followed shame, that she should endure the accusing stare of Bastun for the indiscretions of a handful of hathrans. Likely the bodies required more than simple burial or burning-or perhaps the spirits of the city were considered the greater threat. The Shield's ghosts had been pacified for several years while the streets of Shandaular flooded with the souls of restless dead. She found reasoning enough for her sisters in the magnitude of the scene, but could not escape the accusing eyes of the vremyonni. Bastun had looked upon her with a secret in his stare, something far beyond the knowledge of unburied soldiers in the depths of an old castle wall.
With a whispered word she amplified her sight. She searched for traces of the Weave, hidden or dormant magic, spells of necromancy or dark sorcery. No specific dweomer of any sort presented itself, though a strange aura permeated everything she saw. It throbbed and glowed with a dull light that she found unnerving. The effect appeared to be a constant throughout the Shield, like the background residue of some ancient working that refused to fade away.
Ahead of her, past the flickering torches of the fang, one light remained steady and strong. Bastun strode confidently among the bodies, pausing occasionally to study some insignia or ancient blade. Duras followed in the vremyonni's footsteps, and she regretted the silence that had grown between them. Her guardian seemed determined to trust in Bastun for reasons she felt were more self-serving than mere loyalty to old friendship. The secret Duras had kept for so long threatened to blind him, and Thaena worried that she might lose him if he did not unburden himself soon.
She slowed, allowing the nearest torch to leave her behind several strides.
'This is no time for confessions,' she whispered and turned in a slow circle, searching the bodies, observing their faces and states of death. 'Bastun's secret is what matters now.'
'I agree.'
She spun and raised her hands, a spell rising to her lips before noting the dark mask of the durthan appearing through the shadows. Lowering her hands, though keeping the spell in mind, she was astonished by the durthans stealth. Magic could keep one hidden in darkness and hide the sound of one's footsteps, but Thaena would have seen such tricks like a beacon against the Shield's muted aura.
'And what do you intend to do?' Thaena asked.
'I presume the same as you,' Anilya replied and walked past her toward the body of an older man leaning against the wall. The ice had kept the man in relatively good condition. The durthan knelt close, studying the soldier's well-made armor and the area around his throat. 'To discover what happened here-what might happen again if the vremyonni truly has turned against his homeland.'
Thaena approached the corpse and looked it over. Anilya had chosen well. With his fine armor, the man appeared an officer of some sort and was among the many physically uninjured. Details of Shandaular's destruction were sketchy at best, and deeper secrets were known only to the hathrans and vremyonni. She needed to know at least some of what Bastun knew about the Shield, though she dreaded the method of gleaning that information.
'He will do,' Thaena said softly and knelt beside the durthan. Looking back toward the fang she added, 'Wait a moment longer. They already believe this place to be smordanya. There is no reason to feed their superstition with this.'
'As you wish,' Anilya said, 'but it does not change the fact that they may be correct.'
They sat in silence as the glow of torches drew farther away, leaving them in darkness. Thaena heard the durthan's robes rustling, and she reached out, touching Anilya's arm.
'No,' she said. 'I will do this.'
Receiving no answer, she let her fingertips rest on the hand of the frozen soldier as she whispered the incantation that would give voice to his remains. Time disappeared as she carefully intoned the ritual which was, to the wychlaren, a sacred magic that she felt obliged to cast herself. Her eyes widened in the dark as she chanted, feeling the last words slip past her lips with a quiet shudder. The hand she touched flinched.
Drawing back, she stared into the place where the body's face would be, and she shivered as two points of light appeared in its eyes. There was no spirit or soul summoned by the casting, only a reflection of who this soldier was and what he knew. A wheezing breath scratched its way out of a long-unused throat.
'Who disturbs this one?' the voice said in a hoarse whisper.
'We do,' Thaena answered, though she was taken aback by a question from a corpse that should have little sense of itself. 'There are questions that demand answers.'
'I pray this one's answers please you, and quickly.'
Thaena felt a shiver run down her spine and was thankful for the darkness that blinded her from all'but the
