The Revenant and the Tomb by Herman Hunter

Author:Herman Hunter [Hunter, Herman]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Herman P. Hunter
Published: 2022-03-02T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

Their burdens unloaded at the entrance, they pushed into the encumbering black of the tunnel. The light from the lamp cut deep swaths into the curtain of dark that hung like a suffocating tapestry before them. From the entrance, the upper level of the tomb consisted of two rectangular chambers connected by a hallway. Walls were cut straight and equal being roughly twelve feet high, with a hallway wide enough that three could walk abreast. For a hundred paces the way was straight and level until it opened into the chamber at the other end. There awaited a stairway that spiraled down and around a cylindrical shaft bored out of the stone, the steps carved straight from the encircling wall. The pit itself plunged down into the earth for two stories or more.

It wasn’t just the creeping cold that clawed at them or the uncanny stillness that covered them like a blanket. Even as Tulvgir peered down into the hole in which the stair wound, he couldn’t help but comment.

“Many a dark place I have been, and many a silent cavern I have trod. I am master of obsidian, opal, and granite. Yet, of all the places I have gone, this place sets a warning to my heart. As if the ghosts of the damned live within the very rock itself.”

Echoes of a raven barking outside the tomb mocked them in the black as they made their descent, a sound ominous enough to give them all pause. Under her breath, Herodiani said something in her native tongue, a short and beautiful strain of words that almost made the curse she uttered sound pleasant.

Halsedric heard this, and one corner of his mouth curled up amused, remembering her errant shot at the raven. Of all the years he had known her, he had never seen her miss. Even an expert is off sometimes. But for her, a near miss was as much as being off by a mile. He knew the blunder—whether of her own volition or of some dark spell cast by unseen hands—grated at her from within. While she never engaged in any activity where she might lose, when involved, however, she never lost. Whether it be skill with a bow, skill with a blade, gamesmanship, or the hunt.

The call of the bird was soon followed by the soft scuffle of feet on stone and punctuated by the hard hollow thump of Tulvgir’s boots. Step upon step, their trek spiraled around the circumference of the hole, the lamplight cutting the darkness like a lighthouse beacon. The illuminating shaft turned this way and that, at first reflecting off drab mountain stone and then bouncing away.

Herodiani sniffed the air and grumbled softly. Soon, Halsedric did the same, noting something foul.

“What is that stench?” remarked Tulvgir half-heartedly, preoccupied with following the light and what it revealed.

“Death, I think,” answered Halsedric.

“Down here?” said Herodiani.

Crypts were not new to Halsedric. They could be dusty, dank, and almost always cold. Moldering smells were commonplace in such environs, the aftereffects of long decay.

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