The Shield of Weeping Ghosts - James P. Davis [33]
"Of course," he said. He glanced once again at the durthan who had wandered back to stand with her men. Shaking his head slightly at what to him seemed the greater mystery-the durthan-he studied the doors for signs of disturbance. The wood was new, fashioned in Rashemen and set with large iron bracers, simple and unadorned.
A spell came to mind and he stepped into the drift before the doors in order to reach them. Before he could cast, his boot struck something solid in the snow. Cautiously, he prodded the drift with his staff, causing it to tumble away in clumps from the hidden object. His eyes widened as he pushed away more and more snow.
Glistening white hands and arms reached from the snow, preserved in the pose of their horrible final moments. Faces appeared as he brushed away the snow, each frozen in a screaming rictus, as if pleading with whatever had felled them to either spare them or let them die. Thaena stared at the bodies piled against the doors, then knelt to reach for a dropped necklace of bear claws and teeth. Each of the corpses bore a similar talisman, the trappings and clothing of Rashemi berserkers on each one.
"Bear Lodge," Duras whispered, though his voice thundered in the silence of the grisly scene.
"The hathran's fang," Thaena added, turning the necklace over her wrist.
"No surprise that," said Ohriman, the tiefling approaching nearby and observing the bodies with a disgusted sneer. "Setting up camp in a place like this, bound to find it a bit colder sooner or later."
"Hold your tongue, outlander," Duras growled, "or I'll hand it to you."
"These were Rashemi," Thaena said sternly, though her eyes never left the bodies. "They certainly did not freeze to death."
"I didn't mean to imply that they did, Lady Witch," Ohriman replied with a mocking bow, then added as he straightened, "Just that there's a reason most folk avoid Shandaular."
A dark patch on the eastern wall drew Bastun closer, sparking a memory. Kneeling, he avoided looking at the icy body of a young berserker, a man barely old enough to join the fang.
Brushing some snow away from the stone, Bastun found a darker substance mixed beneath it. Pulling his hand back, the familiar scent of brimstone filled him with alarm as he uncovered another sigil of ash, just like the ones that marred the wychlaren's path. A bone-numbing cold stole his voice and he doubled over in pain, rolling away from the wall and struggling to breathe. Once-sightless eyes blinked at him and rolled in their sockets, bits of ice falling away from a furrowing white brow as the dead man's jaw opened to issue a weak murmur of hunger.
The others backed away quickly, frost forming on their weapons as more of the bodies began to break the ice that surrounded them. Pale flesh cracked, gaping jaws closed, and waves of freezing cold reached out for the warmth of the living.
Thaena stumbled into Duras, breath steaming from behind her mask. Bastun scrambled backward on his hands as the dead pushed away from the wall and tried to rise.
"Bleakborn," he croaked, his throat raw and aching with cold. There were stories of outlanders lost to Rashemen's harsh winters, cursed to rise again by circumstance or vengeful spirit-or, he realized, by dying at the hands of another bleakborn.
He tried to call out, to warn the others, but his voice came as barely more than a whisper.
"No… flame," he managed though none could hear him. Some among the fang dropped weapons and cursed the growing frost on gloves and sword hilts. Thaena's voice rose above the others, chanting the beginnings of a spell that filled him with dread. "No… flame!"
He rushed to stop her but slipped and fell to his hands and knees. The ethran's forearms glowed with heat, fire leaping from her palms. Several of the bleakborn were engulfed, writhing in the flames. The nearness of warmth was a blessing before it was sucked away.
The flames died, swallowed by flesh that blushed and plumped as the