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Hetan faced her brother on the hill and caught his eye. She made a half-dozen hand gestures, and, drawing forth a lance, Cafal padded forward, dropping down from view.

'All right,' Gruntle sighed. 'Weapons out — let's go for a look.'Advertisement

'Want me to keep back?' Harllo asked from the driver's bench.

'No.'

Rounding the hill, they saw that the trail opened out again, the land flattening on both sides. Forty paces on was Bauchelain and Korbal Broach's massive carriage, on its side, the rear spoke torn entirely off and lying shattered nearby. The four oxen stood a few paces away, grazing on the prairie grasses. Swathes of burned ground stretched out from the carriage, the air reeking of sorcery. A low mound just beyond had been blasted open, the inverted tree it had contained torn up and shattered as if it had been struck by lightning. Smoke still drifted from the gaping pit where the burial chamber had once been. Cafal was even now cautiously approaching it, his left hand scribing warding gestures in the air, the lance poised for a cast in his right.

Netok jogged up from the river bank, a two-handed axe in his grip. He halted at his sister's side. 'Something is loose,' he growled, his small eyes darting.

'And still close,' Hetan nodded. 'Flank your brother.'

He padded off.

Gruntle strode up to her. 'That barrow … you're saying a spirit or ghost's broken free.'

'Aye.'

Drawing a hook-bladed sword, the Barghast woman walked slowly towards the carriage. The captain followed.

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Stonny trotted her horse back to take a defensive position beside Keruli's contrivance.

A savage hole had been torn into the carriage's side, revealing on its jagged edges what looked to be sword-cuts, though larger than any blade Gruntle had ever seen. He clambered up to peer inside the compartment, half dreading what he might discover.

It was empty — no bodies. The leather-padded walls had been shredded, the ornate furnishings scattered. Two huge trunks, once bolted to the floorboards, had been ripped loose. Their lids were open, contents spilled out. 'Hood take us,' the captain whispered, his mouth suddenly dry. One of the trunks contained flat slabs of slate — now shattered — on which arcane symbols had been meticulously etched, but it was the other trunk whose contents had Gruntle close to gagging. A mass of blood-slick … organs. Livers, lungs, hearts, all joined together to form a shape all the more horrifying for its familiarity. When alive — as he sensed it must have been until recently — it had been human-shaped, though no more than knee-high when perched on its boneless, pod-like appendages. Eyeless and, as far as Gruntle could see in the compartment's gloom, devoid of anything resembling a brain, the now-dead creature still leaked thin, watery blood.

Necromancy, but not the demonic kind. These are the arts of those who delve into mortality, into resurrection and undeath. Those organs. they came from living people. People murdered by a madman. Damn you, Buke, why did you have to get involved with those bastards?

'Are they within?' Hetan asked from below.

He leaned back, shook his head. 'Just wreckage.'

Harllo called out from the driver's bench. 'Look uptrail, Gruntle! Party coming.'

Four figures, two leather-cloaked and in black, one short and bandy-legged, the last one tall, thin. No losses, then. Still, something nasty hit them. Hard. 'That's them,' he muttered.

Hetan squinted up at him. 'You know these men?'

'Aye, only one well, though. The guard — that grey-haired, tall one.'

'I don't like them,' the woman growled, her sword twitching as she adjusted her grip.

'Keep your distance,' Gruntle advised. 'Tell your brothers. You don't want to back-brush their hides — those cloaked two. Bauchelain — with the pointed beard — and Korbal Broach — the … the other one.'

Cafal and Netok rejoined their sister. The older brother was scowling. 'It was taken yesterday,' he said. 'The wards were unravelled. Slow. Before the hill was broken open.'

Gruntle, still perched on top of the carriage, narrowed his gaze on the approaching men. Buke and the servant, Emancipor Reese, both looked exhausted, deeply shaken, whilst the sorcerers might well have simply been out on a stroll for all the discomfort in their composure. Yet they were armed. All-metal crossbows, stained black, were cradled on their vambraced forearms, quarrels set and locked. Squat black quivers at their hips showed but a few quarrels remaining in each.

Climbing down from the carriage, Gruntle strode to meet them.

'Well met, Captain,' Bauchelain said with a faint smile. 'Fortunate for you that we made better time since the river. Since Saltoan our peregrination has been anything but peaceful.' pqdm.com