The Jewel of Turmish - Mel Odom [75]
"We must find them all," Vorahl stated. "Every man who was murdered here this night must be found."
"We will," Tahrass promised. He waved toward the lanterns bobbing through the graveyard. "I've got men out looking for any more bodies and whoever did this."
"You won't find him here," Vorahl commented, straightening and looking around the ivy-infested stone walls surrounding the graveyard. "He'll be long gone from this place."
"Who?" Chansin asked.
"Borran Kiosk," Vorahl answered. "These men were priests from the Temple of the Trembling Flower." "How do you know?"
"Because," Vorahl said with an air of impatience, "all those years ago the Emerald Enclave, at the behest of Silvanus, entrusted the priests of Eldath here in Alaghфn to lock the creature away."
"Borran Kiosk is a myth," Chansin said.
"Then a myth killed these men," Vorahl snapped, "and escaped into the night."
He turned from the younger man and hobbled around the bodies, taking care to keep even the hem of bis robes from touching them.
"We need to identify these men," Vorahl said.
"I've already sent a man to fetch a priest from the temple," Chansin said.
"As soon as these men are identified by the other priests," Vorahl said, "their bodies will have to be destroyed."
"Why?" Chansin asked.
"If they are not, they will rise again." Vorahl's voice lowered. "All killed by Borran Kiosk stand a good chance of rising once more as a mindless beast bent on the savaging of all living things. If they don't follow Borran Kiosk's leadership, they will kill on their own. A roaring fire is the only way to insure that they don't return-a fire to burn them first then a sledge to shatter their charred bones. Even burned skeletons have been known to walk."
A sudden light flared south of the graveyard, climbing over the top of the stone wall. The nimbus of yellow light warred against the night and the storm.
"That's a fire," Chansin said.
"It has begun," Vorahl said in a solemn voice. "May the gods preserve us."
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
iVorning light woke Druz Talimsir. She rose with slow deliberation, keeping her back to the cave wall.
The druid and the bear were gone.
Though she knew that neither Haarn nor his animal companion would have thought twice before abandoning her, the druid shouldn't have been able to move so quickly.
Her legs tingled with weakness from all the climbing the day before, and the smell of cooking meat filled her nostrils and caused hunger pangs to erupt in her stomach. She turned to the mouth of the cave and started out. Pausing at the entrance, she took up a defensive position and lifted her sword in front of her, ready to strike. Straining her ears for any noises outside the cave, she peered around the entrance.
A campfire nestled in a ring of stones on the ground in front of the cave. A brace of coneys hung from a spit over the fire. The slender rabbits' bodies dripped grease, sending flames leaping up at them. Haarn knelt at the disturbed grave, a curious look on his face.
"What made this?" he asked without lifting his eyes from the hole in the ground.
Druz didn't answer, her irritation growing at the druid's uncanny ability to know she was up and about. She'd made no noise.
"Did you hear me?" he asked, facing her.
"Yes," she replied. "I heard you."
"Do you know what made this?" "A skeleton."
Druz sheathed her sword, wondering if the druid intended to eat all the coneys or if there would be any left over. Her stomach rumbled again.
"Did you summon it?"
"How would I do that?" Druz said. "I wouldn't even have known it was down there."
Haarn turned his gaze back to the deep hole. "Where's the bear?" Druz asked. "Foraging."
Haarn examined the muddy ground around the hole, but Druz was sure he'd done that once before at least. For the first time she also noticed he was still nude save for herbal poultices that clung to his wounds.
"How are you?" she asked.
"Fm fine," replied the druid.
"Your wounds-"
"Are only inconveniences."
Haarn stood and gazed