A Ritual of Bone Read online

  Before long, they passed small fishing villages nestled along the coast. And soon, as the sun hung heavy on the western sky, the Glyassin was gliding into the mouth of the great river of Arn, passing the two great rocks that stood sentry to the mouth of the harbours’ bay. Safe passage between the two colossal pillars was assured by the great beacon fires that blazed at the top of each.

  The bay was quiet. In the evening hearth fires of the town could be seen smoking on the higher ground above the bay and across on the far side of the river. Bridges built of stone and wood could be seen further along the river. There were many ships and small boats moored at the maze of wooden jetties jutting out from the banks. Several boats were pulled up onto the pebbly beach and more anchored in the shallow water by the shore line. Most of the boats were longships of the Arnar style but there were others, strangely rigged foreign ships and Telik Barriemes.

  Olaf smiled, relieved as he steered the Glyassin gently onto the stony beach. Some of the men gave a cheer as they felt the rough gravel scrape against the ships keel from beneath their feet. They had made it.

  The sailors scrambled to the open deck awaiting captain Sheb’s command to unload and disembark. Olaf and his shipmates took their promised coin and left the captain and the bosun to command the oar-slaves in unloading the ship and went in search of a tavern and some good Arnarian food.

  Olaf made his way along the narrow twisting streets. The town of Arn’s Anchorage was the main port of the central region of Arnar and was a maze of storehouses and merchant shops. The buildings were mostly round, made of wood and thatched. Some however, had a few stone frames and features. A few houses were roofed with turf and others were just large barns, storehouses owned by the various local lords and merchants of the town.

  The narrow winding streets, surfaced with layers of dirty straw and hay. There were pens of livestock attached to many of the houses, some of which had obviously escaped to join the chickens and stray dogs wandering the crowded streets at will.

  The place had the rank fishy smell of a port, the stench of rotten food and fish mixed with the accumulated waste of people and animals.

  He coughed. He noticed he had, indeed, developed a tickly cough, but he was not so bothered by that now. He was home and wandering through the old bustling port he had visited so many times. He had never been sick on-board nor had any of the dysentery or fevers as the other sick men did. He concluded that was probably the effect of the strange food of the last few months. Olaf was sure the cough was just a product of the recent long cold nights steering the longship through the dark and dangerous waters; just a bit of a cough.

  The crew went their separate ways but Olaf and a number of other men quickly found a large smoky tavern with a low beamed roof and set to the important business of spending some of their hard-earned coin.

  It was a small round hall with a hearth blazing at its centre. The tavern was filled with benches and stools alongside wooden trestle tables. At one side the tavern keeper had a bar made from a thick plank of timber set onto the tapped ale barrels. There was a ladder going up to the tavern’s sleeping platforms. The platforms running around the inside wall were held up by thick beams and created a low wooden roof over some of the tables.

  The tavern was full of people sitting and drinking. Many were sailors and merchants; others were local folk of the town. The various drunks stooped over their drinks. There were women. His eyes lingered on several of the womenfolk sat nearby. Olaf hadn’t seen a good woman in months.

  The fat tavern keeper busied about, tending the bar and occasionally sending a small kitchen boy off to bring his customers food.

  Olaf approached the bar.

  ‘What can I get you, friend?’ greeted the tavern keeper.

  ‘We need food but we don’t want fish. Seen far too much fish…and some ale too.’

  Some of the men laughed as the sailors occupied a nearby bench.

  ‘Well then, we got bread and some good wheels of cheese, or there’s salted pork, but that’s about it, other than some salt fish,’ said the fat tavern keeper with a smile.

  Olaf gave the man several coins and when satisfied he sent the boy off to bring them food. He poured tankards of the pale looking local ale from one of tapped barrels under his bar.

  Olaf raised his ale, ‘We made port, lads. Now we drink.’ They cheered and drank deep.

  ***

  The sun had long set, and the crew of the Glyassin had eaten heartily and sunk many tankards of the local ale. But why not, they had travelled far and captain had said they would not go back out for some days. Captain Sheb needed new oarsmen and time to find buyers for his exotic skins and silks. They had brought many other trinkets and small goods from Myhar to sell, which would take time. So, the crew knew they were not needed.

  One of the other men, a young Cydorian named Talad, stood up, swaying drunk, and collapsed on the floor to a great roar of laughter from the taverns revellers. The tavern keeper shouted some prompt threats from behind the rough wooden bar. Olaf and his remaining crew mates lifted the poor fellow and carried him out, all laughing.

  Suddenly, Talad started coughing then emptied his ale-filled belly all over himself and the surrounding floor of the narrow street.

  ‘Little minnow can’t take his drink,’ shouted one of the men.

  ‘It’s not that piss they brew in Cydor here, lad.’

  They all laughed at him and left him to finish. He was sick again. But this time, dark crimson of blood splattered down his face.

  The men all stood back stunned. Surprise turned to horror, the lingering fear of the voyage slammed back to them and many turned to run.

  Olaf turned, the sudden shock had slightly sobered him, and he found himself running. He made his way down another street as the panic gripped his chest. He didn’t know where to go. He had intended to stay at the tavern, but he wouldn’t go back there now, and he didn’t want to go back to Glyassin either.

  He followed the street as it twisted and turned around the darkening buildings. He came across other taverns but kept walking onwards until he finally stopped outside a long low building that stretched round to make its own courtyard. A sign swung in the breeze outside its door marking it as another tavern. It was relatively quiet so Olaf made his way in.

  Inside the entrance was another ale house, similar to the last but long and thin, with less folk. Those that were there sat in small groups, they glanced at Olaf as he entered, and then continued their quiet discussions. Olaf noticed the antlers of a great forest stag over the ale barrels in the far corner. The tavern keeper here had no bar but was serving from a stack barrels at the back. Olaf approached him, knocking into a table as he went. He was drunk, and his voice was slurred, but he managed to get a room and asked the tavern keeper to bring him ale and a hot meal. They had not eaten much other than cold stale bread and salt meat for weeks, and Olaf wasn’t even sure what kind of meat it had been.

  After a disapproving glance from the tavern keeper, Olaf made his way through the alehouse and out to the back part of the tavern.

  This part was a long building set at a right angle from the alehouse where the guest rooms and kitchens were. The tired tillerman made himself comfortable. The renewed panic of the blood and sickness seemed to be passing.

  Although as he lay there, he did wonder if young Talad was still breathing. Did he die or was it all that food and too much ale? Perhaps someone should go back to check him? He coughed and his head was spinning drunk. Perhaps he needed to be sick also. ‘Just the ale,’ he assured himself

  He was glad the lads couldn’t see him. He got up and made his way to a pail in the corner to vomit up the nights excess.

  Just ale, no blood. He was relieved, and he felt better at once. Yet, he couldn’t stop thinking about that dark Myhar oar-slave, his gurgling bloody screams, and of poor Talad, his bulging eyes, full of fear and shock, his chin stained crimson.

  He shook himself. Olaf decided he needed a woman to take his m
ind off this. They had been many weeks at sea, and he had seen nothing but Telik and dark Myhar women for months. Which of course had an exotic appeal, but he craved a good local girl from Arnar. He sat up on the bed.

  Yes, a woman, he thought.

  There were many whores and free women in the harbour towns of the world. He would find one. He rose, and still his head spun. He steadied himself. Olaf had drunk stronger brews than this ale in his time.

  Gaining his composure, he muttered to himself, ‘Now, where would I find myself a good woman? Or a bad one… Ha!’ He paused. ‘Perhaps that old tavern keeper could point me in the right direction. Yes, let’s ask him.’

  He felt a trickle on his ale numbed face. He lifted his hand. He stared, his mouth agape. There was blood on his fingers.

  His heart froze, and he cried out, ‘No… No. Not this way.’

  He coughed again, then reached for the last of his ale. Clutching his tankard, he staggered for the door in search of his woman. If Olaf would not see another moon, he would not die without having a woman first, and more ale besides.

  So, he wiped the blood from his nose. He could taste it in his mouth. He coughed. A stream of blood ran down his chin, and he fell back against the clay-covered wood that made the wall of his room.

  He was stunned with terror and the realization of his encroaching fate. He lay back against the wall. His head felt heavy. He gagged swallowing the blood back down. It made him gag again, he couldn’t hold it long. Olaf screamed, and then coughed hard, spraying the floor with crimson gore.

  ***

  The tavern keeper had heard a scream from the room that drunk sailor had taken. He’d best go see.

  There was no sound from the other side of the door now. He slowly opened the door with caution and popped his head round. The man lay dead.

  ‘Gods damn it,’ muttered the tavern keeper as he slowly swung the door open.

  The bleeding eyes bulged from the dead man’s face, locked with the terror of his last moments. A terrible dark red seeped from his face and mouth. It seemed to be coming from under his clothes also, leaking from his trousers, staining a crimson pool on the dirty straw of the tavern floor.

  The tavern keeper shuddered with revulsion and closed the door hastily. But, for him, it was already too late.

  CHAPTER Six

  A Ritual of Bones

  The apprentice sat in the back of the wagon. He felt every bump and stone as they rolled along the track through the ruin. The sun was almost set and it was nearly dark. He had begun to regret his choice to come along. His leg was twinging with pain at every jolt on the wheels.

  There was a lantern lamp hanging up at the front where Master Logan sat holding the reins, guiding the old horse with commands alone. He chuckled at an outburst of pain from the apprentice as they hit a big bump.

  ‘You OK, lad?’ asked Logan.

  ‘Fine, Master, just a bit sore.’

  The master turned his head, ‘I’m not trying to hit the holes but this track has possibly never seen a wagon before we came.’ He laughed. ‘Not far anyway. Look, you can see old Eld’s torches at the stones up there, look.’ He pointed off to one side.

  Through the ruins and low trees, the apprentice could, indeed, make out the flickering glow of many torches atop of a low hill amongst the crumbling ruin. Next to the apprentice, in the back of the wagon, the great hound sat on his haunches. He was looking about with his head over the side behind Master Logan. This was the same wagon apprentice Truda had returned in. Indeed the apprentice could make out the smears of blood here and there. A putrid smell still lingered. He wondered how long Truda’s corpses had lain there. The apprentice shifted to avoid sitting in the putrid smears. He didn’t want another man’s drying blood in his robes, and definitely not a dead man’s.

  They came `round a copse of old gnarled trees, growing twisted and bare in the thin soil. The apprentice could see the track was headed up the side of the low hill, weaving between a rough shod ring of barrows and mounds surrounding the larger hill.

  The hill was crowned by a ring of great stones looming into the darkening sky over the ruins. The wagon rolled up towards the top of the hill. Amongst the barrows, the sloped sides were dotted by several structures of low crumbling masonry, some of which had been consumed by the grass and earth and appeared as smaller grassy earthworks and ditches.

  The apprentice had seen such stones before. Relics left by the ancient peoples who once dwelt in these lands before the rise of Arnar. They could be found littered about known the realms of man in one fashion or another. Logan gestured towards them and said, ‘The great and ancient monuments to unknown gods or perhaps great pillars of ancient halls, I know not. But I’ve seen stones like these left in sacred groves and high places in many realms on my travels. Many peoples have now adopted them into their ways or converted them to be used as tombs or places of worship. Some stories say they were left by the First Sons.’ He paused in thought, ‘you know, some folk shun them as evil places, too? While they say, others erect new circles or monoliths for their own purposes. It’s curious, we’ve always used them.’

  The apprentice did not reply. He was staring up the giant stones in awe. Since their arrival, his amazement of them had not diminished.

  Logan rambled on despite the lack of comment. ‘My family has buried our dead up in the hills about Forn for centuries now, many generations. There are several ancient stones up there.’ Logan paused again and looked up as the wagon rolled into the shadow of the first ancient monolith and fell silent. The shadow felt oppressive, bearing down upon them with the ancient weight of the stones themselves.

  This ring was huge, larger than any the young apprentice had seen. The stones towered over the low twisted trees that surrounded the low hill. The apprentice turned too quickly and caused a nasty twinge from his foot. He had been enthralled by the huge dark veined and smooth stones since he first saw them.

  The wagon came around the stone and between another towering stone and entered the great ring of shadowy sentinels. The wagon headed for the centre towards a large amount of ancient stone debris. Some of the walls still stood here and there, but many stones lay scattered about. This was once a great place he suspected, laid to ruin by the passing of years. The apprentice tried to imagine what it would have looked like. Rebuilding the scattered stone in his head, he marvelled at the work of ages past.

  Torches flashed and flickered through the ruin, Master Eldrick was already here. Master Logan brought the wagon to a stop with a gentle command.

  ‘Will you be OK through here?’

  The short passage through these ancient paths, strewn with fallen stone, had not crossed the apprentice’s mind.

  It was not far, following the remains of ancient passageways to the centre area at the very pinnacle of the hill.

  ‘I will take my time, Master,’ said the apprentice, managing a wry smile. The apprentice was getting more apt in his skills at walking with the staff, being careful not to knock the awkward splints and thus send a nasty pain shooting through his ankle.

  ‘If you don’t appear shortly, I’ll come find you.’ Logan laughed and made his was down from the wagon and off into the gloom trailed as ever by the great hound.

  There were torches set about, some were burning low, but the apprentice knew the way regardless. A matter of a stone’s throw through the fallen hallways of this ancient hall but nevertheless it took many careful and tiring minutes, only knocking his leg once, to emerge on the other side.

  He came out into a circular area relatively clear of debris. There were no old walls here, just three standing stones in the centre. These were much smaller than the great monoliths that now enclosed them, still tall against the sky over the ruins about. These were more like those he had seen to the south, shorter, perhaps around the size of man.

  The apprentice slowly made his way towards them. There was a ring of torches around the stones. The apprentice could make out the great flat stone which lay at the
centre.

  He could see his hooded colleagues and the movement of their torches. The fires lit the stones in a ruddy red light and smoke was sent swirling between the stones by the breeze. As he approached, he saw the flat stone had its macabre decorations and glyphs in place once more. The bones of ancient warriors once interred in the mounds of the ruin, until Logan’s probing’s had unearthed them. The apprentice could see great circular arcane symbols marked on the ground around the stone altar. There were many strange markings and writings on the floor and on the stones about, some written in charcoal and some in white chalk. Blackening skulls adorned the torches about the altar. Upon the altar stone itself laid the slightly mummified skeleton, the bones arranged, complete as it had lain undisturbed for centuries until they had disentombed it from its subterranean sanctuary within one of the nearby barrows.

  The smallest hooded figure, he recognised as his master, hurried over and greeted him. ‘Good, good. We’re all here, the night is upon us and the moon is not yet rising. We still have time; we will try it before it does as we have much more work ahead.’ His robes seemed stained with the blood of his afternoon’s work, but he didn’t seem to mind. He beckoned to a small trestle table he had set up off to one side just behind the stones. ‘Sit, boy, observe, and take note if you will.’ The apprentice was seated as the others began the ritual.

  It took time. Eldrick reciting from a text in a droning voice, his words strange, a language from distant lands or perhaps long since forgotten. His master’s voice became almost a chant at times, often repeating the same phrase over and over again. Logan and Truda moved about him, carving the arcane symbols of the rite into the living air with the prepared ritual knives.

  At the climax of the ritual the master’s voice rose in crescendo, repeating the final line of text again and again until he fell silent. All held their breath, waiting, waiting for some stirring from the altar. Moments past, and then doubt began to set in. Nothing. Still they waited but nothing. The master stood with his arms raised and his eyes seemed blank and glazed. He stood there long after everyone else before he finally turned and started to write in a journal at the table with the apprentice sat looking on.