Soul Stealers

CHAPTER 7
The Cailleach Fortress

Nienna watched Styx advance, wintry moonlight glinting on his dagger. His cock was a narrow worm in the moonlight, and she realised with a start she had aroused him. Or her vulnerability had. She bared her teeth in a snarl. I'll bite it off, she thought, and images of blood descended into her mind and she knew, knew she was not strong enough to take on this man, this escaped prisoner, this killer but she would make him suffer, she damn well knew, and she would make him wish he'd never met her.

Styx dropped to his knees on the ground, and Nienna cringed, but she played on her fear and exaggerated her suffering and weakness, for it allowed him to grow confident and close – and then she would strike, like a viper. Styx shuffled closer, knife before him, but she could see him falling into lust and she had seen that look before, on the faces of college boys during their first encounter with a woman. They lost control. They lost intelligence. By the Bone Halls, they lost everything that made them attractive in the first place!

Nienna stayed still, like a frightened mouse.

Styx's scent overpowered her before his physicality; he stunk, of sweat, of sword oil, of excrement, of bad teeth and bad breath and the blood-oil which stained his lips from the inside out, like a parasitical disease.

He was panting. His knife lowered. His eyes half closed as he lusted towards her, lips puckered, and she hit him with a right hook, just like her grandfather had shown her, her weight dropped into it, power from the shoulder, all her strength and weight and might and hatred and fury and fear powered into that single devastating blow which rocked Styx back on his heels – and made him open his eyes, and laugh at her.

Nienna's mouth dropped open.

Styx lifted the blade. "For that, bitch, I'm going to cut you up."

Nienna felt piss trickle down her legs, and she knew she was doomed and dead and worse; a slave to this terrible man.

Something appeared from nowhere, a blur, a wristthick length of wood which connected with the side of Styx's head. Blood and saliva showered from his mouth, along with a tooth, and in slow motion Nienna watched him writhe sideways, body a jellied doll, and hit the earth unconscious. He twitched, and lay still.

Myriam loomed from the darkness. She stood over Styx, face contorted in rage. The tree branch descended again, smacking Styx's head so hard the wood disintegrated in her hands, separating into three discrete sections which tumbled to the earth.

Nienna sat, hands clasping frozen roots, unable to speak.

"Come here, child," said Myriam. Nienna obeyed, scrambling to her feet to stand, staring down at Styx. Blood ran from his ear. His lips were fluttering, and blue. Nienna looked up at Myriam, who placed a protective hand on Nienna's shoulder.

"Have you killed him?"

"I hope so."

"You could stab him?"

Myriam spun Nienna around, and crouched, staring into her eyes. "Child, this is no place to murder an unconscious man. I have done… terrible things. In my past. In my life. Things so awful you could never comprehend. However. You might not believe this, but I still have some pride. Styx did something bad here tonight; but I have given him a warning – a final warning. If he wishes to take it further, then I will kill him. It's that simple. He obeys my rules, or he's food for the maggots."

She stood. Nienna stared up at her, but said nothing. Then Nienna tilted her head. "Are you in pain?"

"What?" snapped Myriam, eyes scanning the dark woodland.

"You look like you're in pain. It's in your face. In your eyes. All the time. I don't understand."

"Yes," hissed Myriam, eyes narrowed. "I am in constant pain. The gods have decided I am their plaything; they have a task for me, and if I do not succeed then I die, I die soon, I die in great agony, I die horribly. Why, little chicken, what's it to you?" She forced a smile, through her rage, to take the sting from her words. But Nienna could still see the low-level bright agony, like a fishing-line through her face, through her brain, and it reached out to Nienna. To her empathy. She could not bear to see somebody suffer.

"Where do you hurt?"

"Walk with me. Back to the camp," said Myriam. As she walked, she sighed. "It hurts everywhere, little one. In my muscles, in my bones; in my head, in my belly, in my groin."

"Should I rub your muscles?"

Vehemence flared in Myriam for a few moments, like exploding lava erupting into the ocean, but mentally she calmed herself. She hated pity. But this was not pity; this was empathy. A different breed entirely.

Myriam sighed. Nobody had touched her in years. "That would be… odd," she said, and tilted her head. "But welcome, I think."

They reached the camp. Jex was sharpening his sword. He glanced up. "Did you find him?"

"Found him and warned him," said Myriam. "Go and see to him, if you like."

"I will. We may need his skill if we meet any of those albino bastards. With just two of us, it would be foolhardy indeed." Myriam nodded, and watched Jex lope off through the woods.

"Dawn is coming," she said, and moved to the fire, throwing on a few more logs. Sparks danced. "Come and sit."

Nienna moved to Myriam, and as the tall woman sat, stretching her legs out, lifting her head with a groan, Nienna moved behind her, and placed hands on shoulders. "My grandfather taught me this," she said. She began to squeeze Myriam's muscles, and felt knots of tension there. Myriam might look cool and relaxed, but she was a tense mess of taut muscle and rigid fear. Nienna closed her eyes, and allowed her hands to follow the flow, to kneed Myriam's neck and shoulders easing away tension. For a while she rubbed, and probed, and stroked, and when she opened her eyes Myriam groaned, a low ululation of almost ecstasy.

"Is it helping?" asked Nienna.

"It is wonderful," said Myriam, and turned, looking back at the girl. "It's been too long since I was touched." Then she laughed, and shook her head, her short black hair laced with sweat. "Forgive me. Ignore me. I am foolish."

Nienna saw the tears in Myriam's eyes, but wisely decided not to comment. Instead, she analysed the harsh, gaunt features, the sunken eyes, the thin white scars, the brutality of ravaged flesh. Here was a woman close to death, realised Nienna. And yet, she was a killer. She had poisoned Nienna, and Kell; did she not deserve to die? And Nienna realised. Myriam simply wanted what everybody in the world wanted. Life. A simple basic necessity, the one thing so many seemed to take for granted, the one primal commodity so many pissed against the wall with their pointlessness, their pettiness, their crime and greed and self-pity. Life. So huge, and yet so undervalued at the same time. "What are you thinking?" whispered Myriam, her eyes locked on Nienna and there were tears in her eyes. She grinned, a young, girlish grin, and tilted her head and for a moment Nienna saw sunshine, saw youth and vitality and beauty and it all faded, crumbled into a pan of disintegration leaving Myriam's savaged face as an encore.

"I am thinking you were once pretty," said Nienna.

"And I'm thinking she'll soon be dead," snarled Styx, who'd staggered forward, blood soaking his hair, covering his face, to lean against a tree. In one hand he held a Widowmaker. Behind him, Jex stood, sword drawn, eyes unforgiving.

"So you both turn against me?" said Myriam.

"You've taken it too far with the girl," said Jex. "She's just another plaything; just like all the others. And they never bothered you before, woman. They never got to you before. You should have let Styx fuck her, have his fun. We would have dealt with Kell when he arrived. You are wrong about this situation, Myriam. You have changed."

"What?" she laughed, easily, fluid, eyes never leaving the Widowmaker. "I have not changed! This is about ownership, or leadership; I've got both of you bastards out of many a tight situation. Without me, you'd still be in jail. Rotting."

"Aye," nodded Styx, "that is correct. But now we're going to kill you. And take the girl. Rape her, and peel her skin from her screaming, twitching limbs. We'll have such fun, such sweet fun; she'll dance a jig a'right. Then kill her, as well, and bury her for the worms to feast. And you know something else, Myriam?"

"Surprise me," said Myriam, voice low.

"I might just fuck you. Aye. Give you one last farewell going over, before the cancer – or my knife – steals that which you think is so precious. You want to live, Myriam my sweet?" He grinned, showing stubs of teeth through black stained lips which glistened with spit. "Do you want to live, bitch?"

"Life is precious," whispered Myriam.

"So is death," snarled Styx, and lurched forward, fresh blood pumping down his bruised face, free hand flexing, the Widowmaker held high and pointed at Myriam's face. His eye was narrowed and filled with death. Behind Myriam, Nienna cowered in abject fear.

There came a slam, and the top of Styx's head exploded, his entire upper cranium removed in the blink of an eye by a steel-tipped black bolt. A shower of skull and brains rained down. Blood washed down Styx's face, the expression stunned for a moment, then he slammed down on the frozen soil of the woodland carpet.

Myriam lifted her own Widowmaker from between her legs, where it was concealed by her loose cotton shirt. She pointed it at Jex, and the tattooed man had gone pale despite his ink; he dropped his sword, and lifted both hands, palms outwards, showing submission.

"He was right," said Myriam, her voice a bitter epitaph. "Death is also precious. All death. Why did you do it, Jex? Why did you turn on me? We had something… special, here."

"He offered me more," came the short man's reply. He shrugged, eyes glittering, and smiled. "But now the odds have turned against him. Put down the 'Maker, Mirry. You know you don't want to do this, we've been through way too much." He looked at Styx's exploded head, which glistened crimson in a pool of blood. "Just like I know you didn't want to do that."

"Take your shit, and leave," said Myriam.

Jex eyed her for a while, then stooped, lifting his sword and sheathing the weapon. He shrugged again, turned, and drifted through the trees. Myriam released a long, shuddering breath, and sat back down, the Widowmaker loose between trembling fingers.

"He would have killed you," said Nienna, touching Myriam's shoulder.

"I know that! It's just – we go back. Way back. We went through some hellish times together, child. A world you would never understand." She turned and stared at Nienna. "It's not the killing that bothers me. I've killed priests with their baubled knickers round their ankles. No. It's the loss. The betrayal. I don't understand it." She laughed then, and climbed wearily to her feet, rubbing at her eyes. She stared off through the woods, which grew light with the approach of dawn. "It shouldn't have ended like this," she whispered. "We should have been stronger."

"Myriam?" Nienna reached out, touching her arm.

Myriam whirled, her face a mask of snarling animal hatred. The Widowmaker was high, pointing at Nienna's face. "Don't touch me!" she snarled. "If you touch me again, I'll remove your damn face!" With that, she stalked off through the woods leaving a shocked and chalk-white Nienna staring at the slowly cooling corpse of Styx.

Nienna sat for a long time. She watched Styx stiffen. She had never seen death like this before, close up, casual; she had never before been the spiritual prisoner of a corpse.

I should like this, she thought.

I should be filled with joy.

She pictured Katrina's face. Styx had murdered her; cut short the young woman's blossoming life. This was her revenge! This was her moment! A time for Nienna to internalise emotions and find some kind of closure.

It should have been wonderful! thought Nienna.

However, if this is revenge, why does it feel so wrong?

Eventually, she stood and stretched and moved to the packs the group had carried. Nearby, a horse whinnied. Nienna rummaged around until she found some small, hard oatcakes. She sat back on a log and ate, slowly, with small rabbit bites. As she ate, her gaze dropped, lower and lower, past Styx's shocked and destroyed face, past his narcotic-stained lips, to the Widowmaker lying on the frozen ground with his fingers still curled around the stock. Nienna continued to eat. Would it be hard to use? she thought. How hard could it be?

She stood, finishing the food. Myriam's voice cut through Nienna's thoughts of escape.

"Don't be fooled," came her softly spoken words. "It takes weeks of practice. And against somebody like me, with a deadly eye, the steady hand and eye of the hunter, and a killing edge you could never possess?" Myriam stepped forward from the shadow of the trees. "Well girl, you'd die real quick."

"I wasn't thinking…"

"Shh." Myriam held up a single finger. "Sort through Styx's pack. Save anything you think you can use, dump the rest here. We're riding out."

"I thought we were waiting for Kell?" said Nienna, her voice small.

"We will. At the Cailleach Fortress."

"I thought you said it was haunted?"

Myriam grinned, her face skeletal, and gaunt with the cancer. "We'd better make a pact with the ghosts, child; for if Jex comes back, we'll need a fortress to fend him off. He's a warrior of great skill."

"Kell will kill him," said Nienna, hope bright in her eyes.

"Maybe," said Myriam, gathering her bow. "Maybe."

They rode through a winter landscape, down narrow unmarked tracks and threading between wooded hills. Myriam knew the trails and paths like the back of her hand; never once did she falter when they reached a fork or series of scattered trails. Nienna, riding on Styx's horse, contemplated making a break for it often, but the Widowmaker hanging close by Myriam's right hand, and indeed her skill with her yew longbow, made her think twice. Myriam told Nienna the short clockworkpowered crossbow could kill at a hundred paces; Nienna didn't want to find out the hard way. As night approached, so did the Black Pike Mountains. They were huge, rearing from beyond the summit of a hill as they breached the rise on steaming mounts. Nienna coughed a gasp. She had seen the Black Pikes, but never this close; and when she saw the reality of their massive, stunning, brooding mass, the sheer weight of their squat and terrifying majesty, all thoughts of exploring them with student classmates went the way of campfire smoke.

"They are truly… stunning," said Nienna, almost lost for words.

"They are deadly," said Myriam, drawing rein. Her mount snorted, stamping cold, and she calmed the beast with soothing words in his ear. She gestured, with a broad sweep of her arm. "The Black Pike Mountains, thousands of leagues of impassable treachery. There is no forgiveness there, Nienna. Only hardness, and a willingness to see you die."

"One day, my friend and I were going to explore the passes. We were going to climb to Hawk's Peak. It is said to be beautiful beyond belief. We were going to camp, and paint the beauty of the scene in oils to show our friends back at university."

Myriam snorted a laugh. "Paint? Girl, Hawk's Peak is a place of wolves and bears, of bandits and blood-oil smugglers. There is beauty, I'll grant you, but there is only one guarantee; death for the unwary."

"You have been there?"

"I have travelled much in the Black Pikes."

"So has my grandfather."

"This, I know," said Myriam, eyes glittering. "It is why I need him so. Come on. We need to make camp. I can feel more snow in the air, and if it rolls down from the Pikes we'll wish we had a roof over our heads."

They made camp that night by a tumble of boulders, and Myriam cooked venison over the fire on a spit. Fat sizzled, dripping into the flames, and Nienna watched, entranced.

"Never seen meat cook before?" asked Myriam, sitting with her legs spread wide, her quiver of arrows before her, checking the length and integrity of each shaft, the quality of each tip, the helical fletching of each arrow so they would rotate in flight.

"When I lived with my mother, we never ate meat."

"Why not?"

Nienna shrugged. "She thought it was inhumane."

"How odd," said Myriam, frowning. "Animals are there to be eaten. They have no other use. What the hell did you eat, then, child?"

"Can you stop calling me child? I have seen seventeen winters pass."

Myriam grinned, and her gaunt face looked almost friendly. Almost. "Habit. And compared to me, or rather, compared to the horrors I have witnessed for the past decade, you are indeed a child; shall we say, a child of innocence? However. What did you eat?"

"Bread. Vegetables. Roots. Mushrooms."

"What a veritable platter of delights you must have enjoyed. What about succulent meat compressing between your teeth, juices running down your throat and chin, what about the perfect flavour of roasted venison?" She pulled out her knife, and cut a slice from the roasting spit. She held out the knife to Nienna. "Go on. Enjoy."

Nienna ate the venison, and it was indeed a dream. She had eaten meat, of course; sometimes with Katrina, or occasionally at Kell's when the grizzled old warrior had enough coin. But it was usually dried beef, softened in soup. Nothing as fresh and mouth-watering as this.

"It's good, yes?" grinned Myriam.

"Very good."

"See! You are my prisoner, and yet you have never feasted so well."

Nienna looked down, then up, into Myriam's eyes. "Why did you poison me?" she said, slowly, after a long connection. "Why did you poison my grandfather? I never did get a straight answer. You were too busy tying me to a tree."

The humour left Myriam's face. She cut herself a strip of venison, and chewed the tip as she stared into the flames. "You have heard of the vachine," she said. It was not a question.

"A tale to frighten children," said Nienna, carefully. Once, in Jalder, only a few weeks previous but feeling like a thousand years, she and her friends had laughed about the Old Tales, the Days of Blood, and the Legend of Three – the Vampire Warlords! And, of course, the vachine. Ghosts from the mountains. But that had been before the invasion of the Army of Iron; that had been before the albino warriors, and Nienna witnessing the cankers. She shivered, even as she thought of the huge, terrifying beasts. Surely, in a world that contained cankers, an ancient race that drank the blood of humans was not so hard to believe?

"They exist. In a place called Silva Valley. I believe they can make me well again, I believe their vachine clockwork technology can cure the cancers inside me."

"Clockwork technology? So that is how the vachine work?"

"They drink blood-oil. Refined blood. It is blessed with a dark magick. It is what makes the clockwork work. Without blood-oil, the vachine break down; they perish."

"And you would become one of these creatures? Just to stay alive?"

"Would you rather die?" hissed Myriam, suddenly. "Would you rather crawl under the earth, have the worms eat your eyes? You watched Styx die earlier today. Was there joy in that? Pleasure? Or are the wolves and maggots even now feasting on his corpse?"

"But surely we go somewhere… better, after we die."

Myriam gave a savage laugh. "You want to live with the gods? You want to travel the Elysium Halls? It is a dark comedy, Nienna, told to soldiers to make them fight in battle. There are no Halls for the Heroes. There are no rivers of nectar, no fountains of wine, no Eternal Feasts of the Martyrs. It's all a dark, savage sham."

Nienna remained silent. She did not agree with Myriam. Because, if there was nothing after life, then what reason was there for life? There had to be something better. Something more noble. Or it would mean people… like her father, and her best friend Katrina… it meant their deaths had been a bitter, final end.

"Why poison us, then?" persisted Nienna, eventually, after she had watched the passion slowly ebb from Myriam's cheek.

Myriam cut another slice of venison, and ate it thoughtfully. "Kell has travelled to Silva Valley. He knows the vachine."

"What? My grandfather?"

"Aye. Your grandfather."

"He would have told me," said Nienna, after a thoughtful pause.

Myriam grinned. "Told you everything, has he?"

"I know he was in the army. And I know he went through the Black Pike Mountains. But – knows the vachine? I don't understand?"

"He knows them, because he worked for the king; an elite group, under King Searlan, the mighty Battle King. They hunted down and destroyed vachine. They were assassins, Nienna." Her voice was soft. Her eyes glowed like jewels by the light of the fire, fuelled by passion, and a need to save her own life. "Kell knows the vachine better than any man alive; for to kill something as deadly as vachine, you have to understand it. And Kell understood them all right."

"My grandfather was no assassin," said Nienna, voice firm.

"Well, you can ask him when he arrives. For he has only days. The poison will be biting him now; he will be suffering, a great pain in his veins, in his muscles, in his bones. The worse the pain gets, the more he will strive to save himself."

"Then, why do I feel no such pain?" said Nienna, suddenly, sharply.

Myriam gave a small shrug, staring into the fire.

"It was a lie," whispered Nienna, eyes wide, as sudden understanding flooded her. "You told him I had been poisoned to make him come here! That was… evil!"

Myriam shrugged again. "I thought the trophy of his own life might not be enough. However you, my sweet little apple," she reached forward and cupped Nienna's chin, "you are precious enough to be worth saving."

Nienna shook her head, disengaging Myriam's grasp. "You are evil," she repeated, her eyes narrowed.

Myriam stood and stretched, a languorous movement of long limbs. She was every inch the hunter; the killer. "Maybe so. But my priority lies with myself, so don't get too high and mighty, child. At the end of the day, you're simply a bartering tool and to me, worth more than my soul."

"It must be savage to live in your world," said Nienna, her face dark thunder.

"Indeed it is." Myriam's face was twisted and sour. "I welcome you to try it, sometime."

They rode for long, silent hours, hooves clopping through hard-packed snow, wrapped in blankets and furs against the cold of a now mercilessly chilling winter. It was late afternoon as they appeared from the edge of scattered deciduous woodland to see the full majesty of the Black Pike Mountains rearing before them. Whereas under the woodland canopy they had been afforded glimpses, nothing had prepared Nienna for the sheer exhilaration of the Pikes.

The books and stories told of at least three thousand peaks, each a jagged tooth in a maw which split the land in two; not a single peak was under two thousand feet in height, whereas many topped seven and eight thousand, where the air was thin and crevasses seemingly endless. There were few paths which led into the Black Pikes, and of those who discovered a route, few returned. It was said all manner of creatures lived in those echoing valleys, in caves and tunnels and on high treacherous ledges; it was also said such creatures were best left to the imagination.

"Big," was all Nienna managed, awe caught in her throat like a plum stone.

"They'll take you in and spit you out," said Myriam, kicking her horse into a canter. "Come on. There's our destination."

The rugged landscape, scattered with a million jagged rocks, sloped down towards an ancient black fortress which spanned the neck of a valley. The walls were black, and seemed to gleam in the weak afternoon light. Weaving around thick grass and irregularly shaped rocks, many larger than a cottage, they progressed across the land until Nienna's eyes took the tiny toy fortress and reassessed its size and scale. The Cailleach Fortress was mammoth. And it was subtly ruined, Nienna realised, the closer she came. Her eyes began to pick out fault lines in the very structure of the fortress. In some sections of the towering, defensive walls, great cracks ran from battlements to foundation, and in other areas towers leaned, and the whole structure took on a disjointed air. Closer they moved, until Myriam called a halt and they squatted like tiny insects against a giant world canvas. And Nienna realised quite clearly that the Cailleach Fortress arraigned before them was twisted. Nothing was straight. No wall, no tower, no archway, no section of battlement.

"It is said," came Myriam's voice, a soothing whisper, cutting through the eerie silence which Nienna realised with a start had descended, "that the Black Pike Mountains, offended by this intrusion of man, sent roots under the fortress and twisted this great monument of war into a mockery of Man's achievement."

"Really?"

"Yes. Others claim a dark sorcery resided here, committing evil necrotic deeds, and the magick twisted and broke every stone used in its vast construction. Whatever the truth, there is no doubt the place is haunted. Nobody will live here. Nobody will even camp here."

"And we are going in?" Apprehension.

"Yes. I have learnt that if you keep your head down, the ghosts leave you be. They are nothing but sighs in the wind, the whispers of the dead in your ear, and in your nightmares. You must be strong, Nienna, but do not fear; nothing can hurt you in this place."

"You are sure?"

Myriam gave a narrow, nasty smile. "Nothing but me, that is."

Nienna returned the thin smile. "I had not forgotten. I don't think I ever will."

Night was falling fast, huge storm clouds filling the skies in a tumultuous celebration. Thunder rumbled, a deep-throated exhalation. In the distance, hailstones drummed the earth.

"Come on. At least there is shelter."

Nienna followed Myriam at a fast trot, and thoughts flitted through her mind. Escape! Turn her horse and run. But then, a sensible part of her soul realised: where to? How would she find Kell in this wilderness crawling with cankers and albino soldiers from the Army of Iron? He could be anywhere. Better to let him come to her. Better to let him take the initiative, and be prepared for chaos when he found Myriam. For Nienna knew, with a sour feeling in her belly, with images of death in her brain, it would be better to aid Kell, for she did not have the power nor the skill to finish Myriam alone. With a bitter nod to reality, she realised she had little enough will to kill in the first place. Killing was for soldiers. Killing was for assassins. And Nienna was neither; she celebrated life, and love, and honour. Death was for fools.

They moved on, and within minutes the Black Pike Mountains were swept with a sheet of pounding ice. It flooded the world, obscuring the sky, obscuring the mountains. Nienna bowed her head as hail slammed her like needles. She lifted the edge of her cloak, but still ice stung her face, and no matter how she tried to shield herself the storm always found a way in. It crept around collar and cuffs, around ankles and tiny vents at the edges of her boots that she didn't realise existed. Cold air crept into her clothing and chilled her, and she cursed it. The Black Pike storm seemed to have all the advantages.

"Not long, now," said Myriam, unnecessarily, and Nienna looked up. The fortress loomed closer, slightly askew and slick with ice and snow. The black walls seemed darker. The battlements glossy. The world was dark, except for the Cailleach Fortress – which gleamed with a sort of eldritch witch-light of dark energy.

"What kind of stone is that?" said Nienna, slowly, as they grew closer and closer, and the toy fortress reared above them, towered above them at an angle which made the world feel wrong. When everything was out of the vertical, it made a person's brain hurt.

"It's not stone."

"What is it, then?"

Myriam threw Nienna a dark look. Shut up, that look said, and Nienna's teeth clamped tight. "I don't know," she whispered, mind distant. "Something alien".

From a distance the Cailleach Fortress had appeared of normal proportions, but now Nienna realised her perceptions, as well as every vertical wall, were askew. It was big. No, bigger than big. It was massive, but also out of proportion. The doorways could accommodate a man twice the normal height, and every single archway or window or archer's firing slit was double the size, as if the fortress had been built to accommodate an army of giants.

They slowed as they approached the main gates, which were open, like the sleeping mouth of a waiting predator. Myriam halted, and her horse pawed the frozen earth nervously. A warm wind sighed from the gates in an easy rhythm, like breath.

Myriam glanced back, and gave a tight smile. "Do not be afraid," she said, and led the way into the corridor of darkness.

From the edges of the world shadows rushed in with a tumbling swirling hissing, like a million snakes trapped in the vortex of a storm, and Nienna's hands came up clasping her ears, clasping her skull as her eyes widened and her horse whinnied in fear, head lowering, hooves booming ancient cobbles, and as her pupils dilated to accommodate the gloom she saw the blurred shapes of the dead converge on Myriam… and then turn, blank black faces focussing and fixing and tilting, and then rushing towards her with a gestalt scream, a merged noise of agony from a thousand years past…