6.
The fog grew thicker, as Keldorn and Hamish made their way through the cemetery. There were no boundaries, no up or down, no left or right. The scraping of wet gravel and the elastic feel of it under foot were the only real things. Even monuments, though made of solid stone looked wispy by the virtue of being cloaked in mist. They appeared on both sides of the trail so suddenly, that it felt as if the stones where jumping out of the shadows at the paladin and the rogue, not vice versa. Yet, through this eerie scenery Keldorn walked as if he was crossing the Government district to have a midday meal with the magistrate.
'His daughter's voice leads him,' Hamish remembered the knight's hasty explanation. He had no such guidance. However, the paladin, always big enough to follow without troubles, was made even larger by the wide cloak swinging slowly with every step Keldorn took. No, Hamish was not worried about losing the paladin in the haze. The thief was more concerned with where he was being led. His concern grew as they ventured deeper and deeper into the graveyard. Already poorer gravestones gave way to family mausoleums, grave chapels and pompous statues. The city of the dead was the exact reflection of the one build for the living – the luxury and grandeur were reserved for the center of it.
'Now, that's a good one,' Hamish murmured as he saw a fully arrayed knight, kneeling in front of his sword, his head hanged to his chest, his helmet at the crook of his elbow. 'Very realistic.' At that very moment a sigh escaped the man's chest and Hamish gasped and jumped up. Keldorn slowed and turned his head over his shoulder to see what scared the halfling. 'My good Sir,' he started and then squinted trying to make sure that the shadows did not fool him. 'Sir Kamir...'
The man raised his head abruptly and said hoarsely: 'Leave out the 'Sir', Keldorn. I cannot stand this pretence any more!'. Keldorn frowned. 'I had no idea that you've been won over to De Chatillon's heresy.' Kamir shook his head: 'Reynald wants to be new Trawl... I have no interest in their stupid games. I... I just want to be left alone.' Keldorn put his hand on the younger knight's mailed shoulder. 'Sir Kamir, rise. I call thee to thy duty. I need thy help.' Kamir shied away and finally lifted his face off his chest. Hamish thought that it were two dark holes where the knight's eyes should have been; his face was bone-white and hollow.... 'A skeleton! Tymora help me... ' Hamish's heart jumped almost as high as he had himself when they first encountered the man. And then, in the unsteady moonlight, he caught a glint of the man's eyes and the dark growth of stubble on his jaw. Hamish sighed, relieved. He had had enough of undead for one night.
'I just lost my son and my wife...' Kamir said hollowly, 'leave me be, Keldorn. Just leave me be.' Keldorn said then: 'In their memory, Kamir, come with me. My daughter is in danger, she needs your help and mine.' Kamir's face twisted in anger: 'In their memory, Keldorn? Sir Keldorn, why should I go save your daughter when none of you came to my wife's and my son's help in their hour of need? Where were you when the bandits burned down my house? Where were you when my wife was raped, killed and hanged naked on the gates for no fault of hers, but for being a paladin's wife? Where were you when my three-years son... They put a sword in his small hands and a plaque on his chest... it said 'Where are you, daddy?' And where was I? On a mission! On a stupid mission, chasing goblins, a village mayor thought he might have seen... we had never found even a trace!'
'Uhm, Sir, maybe it's for the best if we won't tarry? And this lad, he is a skinny sort anyways...' Hamish started, but Keldorn paid him no more attention than to the gravestones. He hunched over the still kneeling Kamir, grabbed the knight roughly by the chin and jerked his head upward, as far as it would go without snapping his backbone.
'Stop it,' Keldorn said quietly but firmly. 'If Sir Ryan let you go mopping about what is nobody's fault but the bandits', I will not. Rise and follow me. After we are done here, you will report to the Order's Quarters and ask for a field reassignment. In the area where you house had been.' Then Kedlorn let go off the man's face, twisted around and started walking away.
When Kamir's arms jerked for his sword, Hamish ducked his head. The halfling was sure that the young knight would attack the older, but instead he raised unsteadily, leaning on his sword. And jolted after Keldorn.
'O, Tymora...what do they do to them in that Order?'
'Hamish!' Keldorn's voice came muffled by the mist, but loud enough. Halfling found the two knights standing by a large family mausoleum. The pale marble had bronze tablets built into it with the names of the men and women buried inside. The light was too scarce to read, but the halfling traced one with his palm and the carved letters spelled Jisstev... Who would have guessed...
'Well, boss, aren't it a tad to early for that? Lord Gayan aren't dead yet... or at least not completely dead-' the halfling tried to bid his time. He had no desire to enter the large tomb. Keldorn simply motioned him to the lock. 'I'm no tomb raider!' Hamish tried to protest, but the look Keldorn gave him decided him immediately. He started to understand Kamir's obedience. Paladin or not, Keldorn's gaze spelled murder to anyone who dared to cross him that night. The lock was so easy, that the halfling thought that a carrier in tomb raiding might have been a promising new start... if he was not set on earning an honest living, that is.
'Go ahead,' Keldorn ordered. 'See what's inside and report back to me.' Hamish sighed, opened the door a crack and slipped inside. Pressing his back against the wall, the halfling made it down five very wide steps. You might have thought there were five thousand, the way he was struggling for breath and his blood pounded in his ears. There was unseen danger ahead. He could smell it. However, Hamish did not doubt that he would be able to see it in full glory as soon as he came upon it. Magical ever-lasting torches lit the tomb's innards. It was dim there, and full of shadows, but still better than the outside. Hamish found doors to a few side chambers, but he kept to the main corridor, which went deeper and deeper judging by the slope of it. Then it turned abruptly. Hamish stick his head around the corner and was rewarded for his caution by the sight of nine animated skeletons, standing in the three columns of three, filling completely a small antechamber. All nine had hammers at the ready and small bucklers strapped to the bones of their right forearms. They peered right in front of them with malicious glowing eyes. Behind them was what seemed like a blind wall. Hamish carefully withdrew back and returned to the knights. Keldorn agreed that he had found what they were seeking. 'Our deaths, most likely' Hamish thought gloomily, but did not have time to share the notion with his two companions. The knights went in. He pushed his way between the plated hips and led the way.
They were no more than 10 spans away form the antechamber when halfling's sensitive ears caught a sound of a bone scraping against bone. Maybe they can sense danger too...and for them it's us. The knights, their nostrils flaring at the closeness of the foul magic, dismissed his warning sign and marched around the corner, their swords touching their foreheads. The warrens came alive with the sounds of battle. All Hamish had for weaponry was a dagger. Always a fair man, Hamish acknowledged that his favored weapon had one flaw – namely, it was as good as useless against the beings without flesh to sink it in. So he reasoned that his best deployment would be to guard the corridor's corner from anyone who'd try to sneak in and join the fight. From time to time he pushed looked round the corner and caught a glimpse of a battle. One time he saw Keldorn cutting a neck bone cleanly in half; the reddish lights went out in the eye-sockets and the empty skull rolled only to be crashed under Kamir's foot. The headless bone carcass continued swinging the hammer. Another time he saw Kamir closing his eyes and yelling out harsh words; immediately, five undead that besieged him were lifted up into the air and thrown against the wall, as if picked up by an invisible tidal wave. Yet another time he saw a hammer catching Keldorn on the side of his half-helm; Hamish shut his eyes out of fear and when he dared to take another peek, dark liquid was streaming into Keldorn's from his broken brow. 'His poor face...' Hamish sighed, 'I don't envy his wife tonight...'
Almost every time Hamish looked in, the number of the skeletons standing up diminished, and amount of the shapeless piles of broken bones and dust on the floor increased. When there were only two left, Hamish darted into the chamber yelling bravely and made a show out of swinging his dagger. He brought it home, between the skeleton's ribs, just as Kamir cut legs from under the monster. But the display was lost on the knights. After the skeleton had hit the ground, Kamir stood so listlessly, that he could have passed off for one of their adversaries. Kedlorn, on the other hand, was moving around quickly, listening. He cried out "Vesper' a few times, but the girl did not appear. Keldorn hit the blind wall in irritation. 'She is there!' Than fear twisted his face. 'By Torm, they'd better not have grouted her into the wall!' And he threw himself against the stone and started beating at it with his fists, breaking his knuckles bloody... The sight of him was so frightening, that Hamish froze in place with his mouth open. On the opposite, Kamir came out of his stupor. 'Keldorn,' he said quietly, 'The rogue here has something to say.' Hamish swallowed. Now, that Kamir had mentioned it, he indeed had a suggestion.
'Sir,' he said, 'allow me to take a look at the wall.'
Keldorn gave way grudgingly. Hamish closed his eyes and started tapping at the surface. 'There is a secret chamber behind that wall,' he said with certainty. Then, thinking that it was humans who did it, he lifted on tiptoes and swiped across with his wide-opened trembling fingers at the level where a human would look for a doorknob. Then higher... then lower... until he finally felt a secret seam. Following it he traced the door's outline, and found no traps. Knowing now how they had hid the seam, he looked attentively for similar patterning. With a sigh, he finally pushed on a stone that had the same sort of seam running around it. Soundlessly, the wall lifted.
The light from the antechamber showed a naked girl standing right opposite to the door, clutching to something to her chest. 'Father,' the girl said looking at Keldorn and ignoring Hamish. 'I knew you would come.' As impossible as it may seem, but Kamir's cheeks turned dark-red from deathly pale and he hastily turned away. Hamish noticed two other human girls in the chamber and one elven, nude and beautiful... or as beautiful as any nude woman would appear to a halfling who had spent his whole night fighting vampires and skeletons. 'Now,' he thought delightfully, 'the honest labor brings some reward...'
Keldorn rudely turned him about and shoved him towards the exit. 'Go to the Order. Tell them to send a priest and a few knights.' Keldorn ripped his own cloak right off and draped his daughter in it. The girl swayed, and the knight steadied her with far more care than he just had shown the halfling. 'We will stand guard until the reinforcements arrive.' Hamish figured that it was not a good time to tell Keldorn that he, Hamish, was not entirely comfortable with crossing the cemetery on his own. 'Do you think they would come to my help?' he asked instead, hoping to stick around with one of the paladins. 'I am but a thief...' Keldorn pulled a ring off his little finger and pressed it into his palm. 'You alone kept your presence of mind through all these, my friend. This signet ring will get you the Order's help.' After these words the only thing the halfling could do was to square his shoulders and start running for the darkness of the Graveyard.