The Walkers from the Crypt by Unknown Read Free Book Online

Chapter One: The Diversion
    “They’re not baying.” Vallyn stepped out from behind the boulder and peered out at the grassland. “Does that bother anyone else? Shouldn’t they be howling at us?”
    Elyana had no time to waste educating the young bard. There were but a few minutes left before the hounds would reach them.
    She’d caught sight of the animals almost a half hour ago as she and her four companions fled across the grasslands of southern Galt. The seemingly inexhaustible hounds had slowly gained on their horses, and the party had finally picked out a rise from which to make a stand. It would be a near thing, as the bard was little use at range and Mirelle no use at all. Edak was an accomplished bowman and would have been a great asset, but he was still at home recovering from their last foray into Galt.
    Stelan stepped up beside the bard and raised a hand to visor his face against the sinking sun. Tall and sturdy, he wore banded chain mail that hung below his waist. Normally the knight kept it immaculate, but after the tumultuous events of the last few days, it was rent in numerous places, and stained with coppery red splashes that resembled rust. “Elyana will take out as many as she can at long range,” he told the group. “Then she and I will try to get them to cluster for Arcil.”
    Elyana looked up from the arrows she was planting in a row before her. “I’ll take the left flank.”
    “Good.” Stelan smiled grimly. “I’ll take the right.”
    Elyana rose in time to see Arcil acknowledge Stelan’s plan with a regal nod. The wizard’s traveling clothes were as rumpled and stained as the rest of theirs, but they had begun life as expensive garments tailored for his frame, and they still suited him. With his gray-flecked hair and proud nose he looked more like a wandering aristocrat than an accomplished mage.
    “But then what?” Vallyn asked. He gazed apprehensively out at the wedge-shaped formation of hounds sprinting forward through the high grass. “How can they keep running like that?” He was young and wide-eyed, and though he was shorter than the rest of them Elyana thought he still looked gangly. Everything he carried seemed a little too large for him, from clothes to sword, and only the lute slung over his back looked as if it belonged on his person.
    “They’re dead,” Arcil said in his low, smooth voice. “They need neither breath nor rest.”
    “Dead?” Vallyn repeated.
    Elyana saw that the youth’s eyes had widened even further, and she shot Arcil a warning look. She could see the hint of a sly smile playing at the corner of the wizard’s mouth.
    “Galt is a land brimming with the dead,” Arcil continued, unfazed.
    “Thanks to the Galtan justice,” Mirelle said bitterly.
    “Yes,” Arcil agreed. The wizard was frequently cold to those he felt beneath him—which was nearly everyone—but with Mirelle he was somewhat solicitous, as if he worked to foster good feelings. Elyana supposed the extra effort stemmed from the blonde’s pretty features. When they had released her from the Galtan cell, Mirelle shyly confided that she’d had to scrounge amongst cast-off garments thrown into her cell after her own had been torn and soiled during her capture. Probably she had noticed Arcil staring at her tight bodice.
    “Galtans hate wasting resources,” Arcil said. “Their Gray Gardeners have grown quite practiced at necromancy.”
    “So how do we fight them?” Vallyn asked nervously.
    “We do as I say,” Stelan said patiently. “We’ll funnel them so that they charge the easiest part of the slope, in a mass.” Stelan pointed Vallyn to the gap between a large boulder and a sprawling thicket they themselves had passed through to reach to the summit. “Arcil can then work his magics, and you can work yours. If there are any left, you let me stand the front as they charge. If I can’t hold the line alone, move up beside me. If they flank us, we form a circle. Clear