The snow crunched under their feet as they moved warily through the thick shadows of the dark Northwood pines. Up here, much farther north than Jillin and the Xornian borderlands, the winter came on sooner.

Down by the Dragon River that marked the border between Xorn and the Riverlands, the fall colors were still creeping over the leaves and ripening the last of the corn in the fields. Up in the far north, winter had already taken its grip on the land, and Saul was glad to know he had a speedy transit available back to Jillin now that he had the portal unlocked.

Behind them, the Raptor Rider squadron that had brought them this far disappeared into the trees. There was no point trying to take the raptors into the tombs—it would likely have been to doom the raptors to a swift death and, anyway, Saul and his friends wanted to stand on their own two feet when they got underground, and not to risk the lives of the soldiers.

The Raptor Rider squadron had orders to meet them back at the road when they were done. Saul and his team would cover the last few miles to the tombs on foot.

Under the shadow of the Sawtooth mountains, the ruins of the nameless people of the old-world came into view. Tall standing stones—single ones, not the twin stones that marked potential portals—stood up like grave markers from low mounds around the remains of a cobbled road.

“Look,” Zorea said. “There’s the entrance.”

She pointed ahead and they all looked to see a dark opening yawning wide in the base of the cliff at the foot of the mountains. Despite the bright afternoon sunlight, the area in front of the tombs seemed dim and misty, as if it was covered by a cloud that was all its own, not affected by the clear weather in the rest of the world around it.

“Tell me what you feel, Zorea,” Saul asked.

She shook her head. “It’s hard to tell. Part of what I’m feeling is just my own fear at the gloomy place, but there’s definitely something else going on, too. I can see something over the entrance, a kind of runic lettering, very unlike Sigils.”

Saul couldn’t see anything, but he trusted Zorea’s second sight.

“It’s some kind of spell, I think,” she said. “Some kind of curse…”

“Can you describe the letters?” Saul asked, a sudden idea striking him.

She moved her hands in the air, describing them. “They’re very straight; single straight lines downward with other lines branching off them. Simple variations on a pattern, I think, but nothing like Sigils of this era. It’s a very old kind of writing.”

Saul snapped his fingers. “I knew it,” he said. “I’ve seen that kind of thing before. When the warlocks escaped, abandoning what was left of Wytchlord Grimdir during the second battle of Harkin’s Holdfast, they used runes like that to open the portal. One of the warlocks drew the runes in the air with his hand, and then the portal opened, and they stepped through.”

“You think there’s a connection between the runes Zorea can see and the runes the warlock used?” Elman said.

“I’m certain of it,” Saul replied. “These runes are some other kind of magic, some branch of old-world magic we don’t yet know about.”

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

“They must be connected with Keljek,” Brand said with certainty. “The ministers of Keljek have sent agents here to Xorn to try to destabilize things, and the runes placed on the entrance to this tomb are a part of that.”

“I think you’re right, Brand,” Saul said. “These particular runes are probably some spell that causes the monsters and spirits inside the tombs to become restless. The fact the warlock used similar runes to activate the portal suggests to me that these runes are some kind of magical alphabet used by Keljek as a foundation of spellwork.”

“We must enter,” Zorea said with determination. “We must enter and break the spell.”

They didn’t have to wait long to get into the thick of things. Before they had even reached the entrance to the tombs, the hills to either side of them shuddered and from the standing stones there came a sudden loud groaning and creaking noise.

Green light, sickly and unnatural like the light from some evil spell, flooded out from the stones.

“Look out!” Elman cried.

At the very moment that he spoke, the ground in front of him exploded upward in a shower of dirt and stones, and the whole Squad leaped back.

“Zombies!” Brand shouted, wielding his blade and getting his spells ready.

The monsters were shambling horrors, terrible mockeries of the life that must have once lived within them. Bones gleamed yellowish-white through patches of gray skin, and lank hair dangled from the crowns of their heads.

In their eyes, a distinctive green light burned, the same as what glowed from the pillars.

That’s the light of the magic that’s animating them, Saul thought. We’ll put that light out soon enough.

There was no sign of any Sigil on these creatures, so Saul guessed they weren’t being controlled by any other entity. They were weak monsters, and they didn’t seem even particularly able to control themselves. They staggered around groaning and gnashing their ghastly teeth at him and his friends, but they didn’t appear to be a particularly dangerous prospect.

Saul took the lead, stepping forward with the black thrall blade shimmering into place as he took it from the Squad inventory. These zombies were low level enemies. There were a fair number of them—at least thirty, by a quick count—but he had no doubt he could deal with them without the need for magic.

“They’re slow and unarmed,” he said quickly to his friends. “I think these are probably just here to scare off the curious. We don’t need to fear much harm from them, but don’t let them get too close. They’ll try to scratch or bite, and there’s no doubt that any wound we take from them will be poisoned. Let’s try to deal with them as cleanly and swiftly as we can.”

Even as he spoke, one of the shambling horrors toppled toward him with its mouth open, hands flailing, a horrible gurgling sound coming from the flapping jaw. Saul stepped forward without hesitation, swinging the long, black, deadly sharp blade toward the zombie. He cut downward through the monster’s elbow, and the arm shattered at the joint, the forearm and hand falling to the ground and lying there twitching.

The monster did not stop its approach for even a moment.

It heaved itself toward Saul, its mouth gaping, its rotten teeth ready to sink into Saul’s flesh. With disgust, Saul drew back his blade and rammed it through the creature’s eye socket.

That did the trick. The tip of the black blade exploded out of the back of the zombie’s head, splattering brains and skull fragments as it did so. The zombie toppled over and collapsed to the ground in a heap as Saul jerked his blade free.

“That’s the trick,” Saul said. “We need to destroy the brain or sever the head from the body.”

The others moved into action immediately. Elman had his Xornian officer’s blade in his hand, a long, thin sword very unlike the short, stabbing swords that the Xornian infantry usually used. He leaped forward and took out two of the approaching zombies, cutting the head from the shoulders of one of them and bringing his blade down on the skull of a second.

The blow nearly cut the creature in two, and Elman waded in, his face grim and his sword dealing destruction to the undead creatures.

Saul, Zorea, and Brand followed him, fanning out through the monsters as they cut left and right.

Before long, they stood in the midst of the ruin of the wave of zombies.

There was a heavy, waiting silence in the cold clearing.

Saul cleared the gore from his blade and looked around. “That was just an appetizer, my friends,” he said grimly. “The main course is still to come.”