Bone lord 2, p.17
Bone Lord 2, page 17
We reached the entrance to the old temple of the Tree God, and I saw right away why Rollar hadn’t found anything: the whole place was sealed up. The entrance had collapsed in on itself, and the massive stones were piled up in an immovable jumble. Rollar had a team of soldiers digging a tunnel around it, but it didn’t seem like they had had much success.
“My diggers keep running into new walls of stone underground,” he said. “And then we have to stop and start a new tunnel from scratch. I can sense that an object of power lies in there somewhere. It prevents me from getting in.”
“You control a massive dire bear with that helm of yours,” I said. “Why don’t you just get him to move some of these stones?”
“Believe me, I’ve tried, but even my dire bear is not strong enough.”
“What if your bear had a partner of equal strength to work with? I bet he’d be able to move those stones then.”
Rollar chuckled humorlessly. “I was lucky enough to find one dire bear. It’ll take me weeks, maybe months to find another. They’re rare, elusive creatures.”
“Would a giant lizard do?”
His eyes lit up, and a broad grin spread across his bearded face. “Of course! Come, let us fetch our beasts and put them to work!”
A little while later, Fang and Rollar’s dire bear were grunting and growling as they worked together to push the huge stones out of the way. Even with the immense strength of both beasts, it was hard work to get the stones moved, but they were eventually able to shift three of the stones just enough that a gap opened. It was small, only wide enough for a single man to slip through.
Rollar could barely contain his excitement. “Incredible! After weeks, we have achieved what I thought was a futile endeavor.”
“You know that whatever we find in there is mine, right?” I didn’t want to seem ungrateful since his men had already laid the groundwork by removing many of the other stones, but I had to let him know that I was in charge.
“Of course. Still, I’m eager to see what might be found there.”
“If you serve me faithfully, I will make you Fated. You just need to prove yourself first.”
“Believe me, Vance, I’ll serve you as loyally as any good soldier serves his officer.”
“Good. Because we’re about to enter a temple that’s likely filled with traps. I know you’re an experienced crypt diver, and you’ve been in your fair share of temples, but you need to obey every command I give you.”
“Of course,” he answered with a nod.
“I’ll send in a few of my skeletons first. I have enough of them to use a few as trap fodder. It wastes far less time to just have them trigger the traps and die than us pussyfooting around the place, checking every fucking tile for triggers.”
I raised a number of skeletons from Rollar’s dead and sent a handful into the crypt. What I found after a few minutes of vicarious exploration via the skeletons was not what I expected at all. I sensed death—death everywhere. Mass death. It saturated the temple, filling every nook, cranny, and crevice of it, every cubic inch of air.
“I think I know what happened to the former inhabitants of Kroth,” I murmured.
“You do?” Rollar asked.
“Get me a few torches. I need to look inside the temple with my own eyes.”
“What about the traps?”
“There aren’t any. At least none that are live. All the traps in there were triggered long ago. My skeletons discovered as much.”
I was pretty confident of this, confident enough to go into the crypt first, before anyone else. Isu still hadn’t returned, and her timing seemed oddly suspicious. Still, I didn’t have the time to consider what she might be scheming. I needed to enter the temple and have a look around.
Rami and Elyse were in the camp, though, and I sent a skeleton to bring them to me. I highly doubted that there would be any enemies in the temple to fight, but it would be good to have those two and Rollar by my side nonetheless. As for Drok, the mere thought of his stench being concentrated in a place like that turned my stomach, and I thought it best to leave him outside.
The four of us crawled through the gap in the stones, each carrying a burning torch to light the way. Once we made it to the other side, we emerged into what was once the temple’s main hall. Like the outside, much of the interior had partially collapsed, with caved-in ceilings, toppled pillars, and piles of dirt and rubble covering much of the space. But there were also skeletons. Hundreds of them. Human skeletons of all shapes and sizes, and all ages, from infants to hunchbacked, elderly women.
“By the Lord of Light,” Elyse murmured as she gazed around in horrified awe. “What happened in here?”
“Do you think the earthquake killed them?” Rami asked. “From what I saw of the ruins, it certainly seems like an earthquake destroyed this town and temple. I might have thought it was a tsunami, but we are miles from any sea.”
“This was no earthquake or tsunami,” Rollar said grimly. “Look at the placement of the skeletons. They’ve all been thrown against the walls, and many of them have dismembered limbs. Others have their hands thrown up in front of their faces, as if trying to shield themselves from something.”
“And here,” I said, pointing at the skeletons nearest the entrance where we had just crawled in, “these were the town’s warriors. Many of them are still wearing armor and holding weapons. They were trying to protect the townspeople, who were all cowering near the back of the hall.”
“The whole town seems to have tried to hide in the temple,” Elyse said, still staring wide-eyed at the mass of skeletons all around her. “But from what?”
“Whatever it was, neither the warriors nor the temple could protect them,” Rollar said. “Something—or someone—with immense power did this.”
I walked across the temple floor and knelt down next to a skeleton of a child, crouched behind a broken pillar on its knees, with its hands over its skull.
“You thought you could hide here, little one,” I said to what remained of the child who had died all those years ago. I couldn’t fight off the sadness, and I might have shed a tear had my ability not been forever seared.
I reached down and touched the child’s skeletal arm. As I did, a strange energy surged through me. A vision flashed through my mind, and the sounds of screams rang in my ears, as clear as day. For a few seconds, I saw the temple as it had been before whatever—or whoever—had destroyed it. There was panic, fear, screaming, weeping. Pure terror.
I could feel the child’s fear in me, as if it were my own, and could see through the child’s eyes, watching in terror from behind the pillar as the townsfolk screamed and cowered while warriors roared out orders from the front of the temple.
“He’s coming!” someone was shouting hysterically. “Pray, all of you. Pray for your souls. Pray—”
There was a blinding flash of light. Then, the entire vision, along with the sounds, vanished. I staggered back, feeling as if I’d just been kicked in the stomach. My head was spinning as if I’d just chugged two wineskins of Yorish brandy.
Well, it looked like I had figured out what my new ability was. The memories of the dead were my own now.
Chapter Twenty
“Fucking hells,” I groaned, gripping my temples.
“What happened?” Elyse asked, coming to my side and rubbing my back.
“I think I might have time traveled, somehow,” I answered, still feeling disoriented.
“Time traveled?”
I nodded as I nursed my aching head. “When I touched that kid’s bones, I saw what he saw, in my head. I don’t know how long ago it was, but it was before Kroth fell. It was like being in a dream but being awake at the same time. I was me, but I was also him.”
“Can you do it again?” Rollar asked eagerly. “You may be able to discover what happened here!”
“Hold your horses,” I said. “It isn’t nearly as fun as it sounds. Afterward, it made me feel like a troll with a bad case of food poisoning took a shit inside my head.”
“That does not sound very pleasant,” Rami said.
“Not really, no,” I said.
As unsettling as the experience had been, I did want to learn what the hell had happened here in Kroth. Despite my aching stomach and throbbing head, my curiosity wouldn’t allow this mystery to go unsolved. I would have to take a few more peeks into the past.
I walked to the back of the temple hall, to another skeleton, this time one belonging to an adult male. I placed my hands on his skull, and again, the final moments of his life were blasted into my brain. This time, though, I received a better view of what was going on.
What grabbed my attention was not the beautiful interior of the temple as it had been before its destruction but the masses of townsfolk huddled inside it. From where the man was standing, I had an unobstructed view of almost the entire hall. It was packed with people. Two rows of warriors stood in a shield wall at the entrance. Their shields were locked as their spears pointed toward the huge oaken doors, which were barred shut.
Something hit the doors, something huge and powerful. The doors cracked, and the entire temple shook. Everyone started screaming. The warriors were yelling something, but I couldn’t make out what it was. Fear—the man’s fear–saturated my entire being. The terror of the surrounding people was also clearly evident from their shrieks and desperate prayers to the Tree God.
A force from the outside smashed into the doors again, and this time, they gave way, exploding inward in a shower of broken wood and flying splinters. A massive shape blotted out the light from outside, blanketing the hall in shadow. The screams of terror reached a feverish pitch. A blinding flash of light, and the vision ended.
This time, I dropped to my knees, with intense nausea crippling my body and making me want to puke my guts out. My head was swimming, my vision was blurry, and I could barely keep myself from toppling over. I staggered to my feet, swaying like a drunk on jelly-weak knees.
“Vance, are you all right?” Elyse asked, concerned. “Maybe you should rest before you try that again.”
“I just need to take a moment to get my head cleared before I do the next one.”
“Why are you so curious about what killed these people?” Rami asked.
“I am curious, that’s true,” I replied as I stood bent over, my hands on my knees. “But we’re going deeper into the temple, and maybe whatever destroyed Kroth is still around.”
I did my best to stabilize myself and get my head straight. The feeling of disorientation eventually passed, and I felt well again. I walked to the skeletons of the warriors near the entrance and squatted down next to the one that was closest to the door.
“All right, buddy,” I muttered. “Show me what you’ve got.”
I put my hands on the warrior’s skull. Once again, a nightmarish, hyperrealistic vision was blasted into my head. Again, I was drenched with fear, and my ears rang with hundreds of screams of terror. I found myself staring up at the doors, now only a few yards away. The huge thing on the other side smashed into them with such a potent force that I—or, rather, the soldier —stumbled back, along with my comrades in the shield wall. Screams and shrieks resounded through the temple hall behind me.
Then, whatever was on the other side smashed through the doors, just how I’d seen in the previous vision. This time, though, I saw a glimpse at what it was. A huge fist, almost the size of a man, red and scaled with reptilian skin, and a huge black boot. The fingers of the fist were curled around… what was that, a sword hilt? A gigantic sword? On the creature’s forearm was a gleaming steel wrist bracer with a sigil etched into it. The sigil was seared into my mind before a blinding flash of light put an end to the vision.
I stumbled from the skeleton and fell flat on my back. I lay there, groaning for a while, sick and dizzy.
“Vance!” Rami cried. She and Elyse hurried over to me, both of their beautiful faces wearing frowns of concern. “Are you all right?”
“A. . . a moment, please,” I said through gasps.
I lay there with Elyse holding my right hand and Rami my left until the nausea passed. I heaved myself up and dusted myself off, then took out Grave Oath. I went to a fallen rock and used the dagger to scratch the design of the sigil I had seen on the creature’s wrist bracer onto it.
“Anyone familiar with the sigils belonging to the gods?” Each god had a different sigil that represented them, and I knew a few of them but not this one.
“They are all on my map,” Rollar answered. “If the god exists, then his or her marker is somewhere there.”
“Do you have your map with you?” I asked.
“There’s no need to take it out,” he said with a smile and tapped his head. “I have them all committed to memory.”
“Whose sigil is this?” I asked as I gestured at the insignia I had carved into the rock.
As soon as he saw it, his face went pale.
“That’s what you saw in the vision?” he asked. “That sigil?”
“It was on the armor of the… whatever it was that destroyed this place. Some huge red monster. I only saw part of it.”
“That’s the Blood God’s sigil.”
I nodded. Somehow, I wasn’t surprised that particular asshole had been involved in this atrocity. But why? Why here? What had the people of Kroth done to anger him? Or was it something else? Was there something he’d sent his monster to find? Or was the monster the Blood God himself, taken physical form?
These visions, while they had shown me what had happened here, had ultimately raised more questions than they had given answers to. And now, the one person who was likely to have known the answers to at least some of these questions was nowhere to be found.
“Dammit, Isu,” I muttered under my breath, “where are you when I need your help?”
“Did you say something, Vance?” Elyse asked.
I shook my head and forced a smile at her. “I’ll have a good think about everything I saw later. For now, I want to see if I can find the entrance to the labyrinth that’s supposed to be under this temple. I can sense that there’s an object of power somewhere in here, and I want to find it before we leave Kroth.”
“Do you think the monster is still here?” Elyse asked.
I shrugged. “Maybe. If we find it, I’m definitely going to try to make it into a zombie.” I grinned.
“Good luck finding anything among this rubble.” Rollar sighed. “Even if you do manage to determine the location of the labyrinth, I suspect that most of it has collapsed, like the rest of this place.” He motioned around the ruined hall.
“It’s still worth having a look,” I said. “Rollar, you search that section.” I gestured to a small alcove that looked like it led to a passageway. “Elyse, you have a look behind the altar. Rami, you scour that area that looks like it might have been an indoor garden once. I’ll search around the entrance to the belltower.”
We spread out and began searching among the skeletons and rubble. I had to grudgingly admit that Rollar might be right. Perhaps the entrance to the labyrinth had been lost among the rubble. Even so, there was something that contained the power of the Tree God buried under all of this, and I had to find it.
“I can’t find anything,” Elyse yelled from behind the altar. “There’s nothing but skeletons and rubble. No signs of any doors, trapdoors, hidden levers, nothing.”
“I can’t find anything either,” Rami called out from in front of the shattered remains of plant pots.
“Nothing in the alcove,” Rollar said as he marched back toward me.
Then, a thought struck me. The labyrinth was something the temple priests would have wanted to protect when the monster attacked. Therefore, the location of their corpses might reveal something about the labyrinth’s location. Dammit, a circumstance like this begged for Cranton and his encyclopedic knowledge of history.
“Does anyone know what a priest of the Tree God’s temple would have worn?” I asked everyone.
They all, unfortunately, shook their heads.
“Shit. Well, look at the scraps of clothing around the skeletons. Tell me if you find anything that looks, well, priestly.”
We all sifted through the piles of skeletal remains. I had no idea whether we would find any clues since most of the skeletons’ clothing had rotted off long ago. Only a few tattered, faded scraps of cloth and leather remained scattered among the piles of bones.
Instead of touching them with my hands, I used a broken spear I picked up off the floor to move the bones around; I didn’t want to experience the disorienting visions of the dead again. Not unless circumstances required it. No doubt this ability would become easier to master with time, when I gained more power as a god.
“I found something!”
I looked up and saw Elyse holding a strip of faded fabric, her big blue eyes sparkling with excitement.
“What is it?” I asked.
“A strip of a robe,” she answered, “with a faded but visible pattern of oak leaves printed on it. It may be part of a priestly garment!”
That was good enough for me. I walked over and had a look at the fabric. I too could discern a faint pattern of oak leaves on the ragged strip of rotten cloth.
“Let’s look for more of this around here,” I said.
We continued to search, and among this clump of skeletons—who were all adult men, it seemed—we found a few more rotten strips of the same fabric.
I gritted my teeth as I grabbed a skull, split at the crown, belonging to one of these men. Immediately, I was transported back to the sight of the battle, with the monster thudding into the barred-door of the entrance. In front of me was a gilded altar with floral effigies of the Tree God etched into its marble surfaces. I looked to either side of me and saw a number of robed figures, all incanting some spell at the base of the altar. Green energy flowed from their fingertips as they stretched their hands to the altar. My mouth was open, and my hands outstretched as I, too, joined the enchanting chorus.
