(eng) Jonathan Moeller - Ghost Exile 05 by Ghost in the Inferno

Author:Ghost in the Inferno [Inferno, Ghost in the]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

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Silence reigned in the Halls of the Dead.

Kylon walked alongside Caina, the valikon in his right hand. The sigils upon the sword’s blade remained dark. As far as he knew, the sword’s symbols only burned with white fire in the presence of spirits. He hoped the weapon would prove effective against the undead.

Because he was certain that they would encounter the undead sooner or later.

The air around him crawled and throbbed with the cold, corrupting presence of necromantic power. He sensed the power radiating from the stone beneath his boots. It tainted the air like poisoned smoke.

That reminded him of Caer Magia.

“A bloodcrystal, do you think?” said Kylon in a quiet voice.

“Probably,” said Caina, the pyrikon staff in her left hand, the white glow throwing back the darkness. The staff’s light revealed the high, wide corridor rising around them, the walls carved with row after row of hieroglyphics. Kylon idly wondered what they said, and decided he was better off not knowing.

“An Ascendant Bloodcrystal?” said Kylon.

“No,” said Caina. “If there was an Ascendant Bloodcrystal down here, it would have killed us already.” She shook her head. With the mask and the shadow-cloak, he could not see her expression or detect her emotions, but he knew her well enough to hear the strain in her cold voice. “And it doesn’t feel like an Ascendant Bloodcrystal. Something else, I think. I don’t know. Let’s not find out.”

“Agreed,” said Kylon.

“How much farther?” said Caina.

“Not far,” said Morgant. “Three more galleries like this, I think. Then the stairs to the Hall of Forges.”

“We have not seen any undead yet,” said Laertes. He had his broadsword in hand and his Legion shield upon his arm, his eyes roving over the shadows.

“Oh, we will,” said Morgant. “Sooner than we might like. You’ve seen battlefields before?”

“More than I can recall,” said Laertes. “I was a centurion of the Legion.”

“Ever seen a battlefield where the corpses rise again?” said Morgant.

“I have missed that privilege,” said Laertes.

“We’re about to rectify that,” said Morgant.

Something rattled in the gloom ahead.

“What was that?” said Nasser.

“It sounded like bones tapping together,” said Nerina.

“Exactly,” said Morgant.

The gallery ended in archway and then opened into a large hall, much like the massive halls Kylon had seen branching off the Hall of Flames above. Dust coated the floor, and cobwebs hung from the carved walls and ceiling.

Hundreds of corpses walked with slow, limping treads within the hall.

Many of them were withered and mummified, leathery flesh clinging to ancient bone. Some of had crumbled to skeletons, their bones held together by glowing wisps of necromantic force. The empty eye sockets of the corpses glowed with the same eerie green light, and as Kylon looked at them he saw ghostly images superimposed over the undead flesh, images of living men and women and children.

Images, he realized, of the living men and women and children that the undead had been in life.

As one, every single one of the hundreds of undead filling the hall turned to look at them, a chorus of moans and hisses and maddened words in a dozen different languages filling the air.

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