It was almost nightfall when we finally arrived at the barrows. Great mounds of heaped earth covered by a thin layer of grass; put in place by some distant ancestors of the bandits who now accompanied me. Nearby there stood a forest with an unusually straight edge, almost if as it had been planted down by some great invisible hand. Oddly, it didn’t appear on my map, but I knew by now that this world didn’t always follow the comfortable laws of cause-and-effect I had grown up with on Earth. Now that we were here, many of the bandits seemed distinctly uncomfortable about our plan.

“What do we do now, Lady Carnelian?” Cynewic asked, spitting out a piece of grass he had been chewing.

“We camp for tonight,” I said briskly. “There’s no point rushing it. Tomorrow, we can find a way in.”

The next day came, and with the morning light, the fears of the previous night seemed to be all but banished. There was jovial atmosphere as the ten strongest men took a bundle of shovels we had liberated from a nearby village and began to dig into the largest barrow.

“Look!” a particularly dim one shouted. He and his fellows stood back to proudly display a hole roughly a foot in diameter, in which a number of smooth stones were visible in the dirt.

“Very good,” I said, careful not to hurt their egos too much, “but that’s the wrong end. We need to find the entrance.”

The digging resumed on the other side of the barrow and I retreated to my private tent. From the moment I had taken up leadership of the band, I had set strict rules about boundaries. The only bandit allowed in my tent was little Edwy, largely because he was too young to try anything, even if he wanted to. I had barely laid back on my folding bed, however, when I heard another shout from outside.

I ventured back out to find a rough door-sized hole had been hacked in the barrow. Cynewic was waiting for me, an expectant grin on his face.

“After you, my lady,” he said.

I stepped into the tomb, the bandits milling in behind me. The ceiling was low enough that I had to bow my head. Odd pictograms lined the stone walls on either side of me, but no writing of any kind. If the map was correct, the treasure should be in the main chamber ahead of me. Cynewic passed me a torch and I waved it in the dark.

“Hello?” I called, my voice echoing around me. Several bandits flinched. The walls on either side of us gave way to a wide open chamber, just as the map suggested. There were several coffin-sized slabs of rock placed around the room, but no obvious treasure.

“There’s… nothing there, my lady!” The dim bandit said what we had all been thinking. I shot him an angry look.

“Well don’t just stand there then. Look for it!”

I quickly weighed up my options for what I would do if the map was wrong. Another display of power would be required to prevent a mutiny, no doubt. An example would have to be made of someone. I only hoped it wouldn’t be Cynewic. Finding another deputy as reliable as him from these geniuses wouldn’t be easy.

“Hey, look at this!” one of the bandits cried. He was holding a broken lever in his hand.

And then the floor gave way beneath us.

~

The pain was sharp and biting. It brought my focus back to reality, and my present situation. The bandits and I must have fallen several metres at least. My left foot was oddly twisted, broken no doubt.

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“Help me up!” I snapped at Cynewic. He stared at me for a moment, before leaping to his action. Of course the wiry man would come out unscathed, I thought as he put his arms around my shoulders and lifted me to my feet.

“What is that?” one of the other bandits asked. He had a deep gash down the side of his leg, but otherwise seemed mostly unharmed. His companion looked somewhat worse for wear – he was lying on his side, quietly moaning. I drew back, almost losing my composure when I saw what the injured bandit meant.

A pair of empty eyes glared at us from a darkened corner of the chamber. A yellowing skeleton stood to attention, a sword placed in its right hand. Rags still hung off its body. Usually I had nothing to fear about the dead. After all, it's not like they would be coming back. But this one was different. This one was moving.

The skeleton warrior twisted its head from left to right and then stepped forward, taking the moaning bandit’s head off with a single swipe. His companion managed to deflect a couple of blows, before he too was cut down with a scream. Cynewic’s grip on me tightened.

“What the fuck do we do?”

“Hold that one off while I get to the others!” I snapped. He clearly didn’t understand the reasoning behind my command, but knew by now to obey without question. He let go of me and leapt towards the wraith, deflecting a blow with his short sword before pushing it away from him. I stumbled forward, falling to my knees and placing my hands on the dying bandit.

“Ahhh!” I let out a cry as pain shot through my broken ankle. I could actually feel the shattered bones knitting themselves back together. I gritted my teeth. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Cynewic was still locked in combat with the undead warrior.

“There's more of them!” he exclaimed suddenly. I felt the last of the dying bandit's life leave him, and leapt to my feet, my injury perfectly healed. Just in time to face three more skeletons. I let one of my hands extend into a blade, smashing the closest wraith’s spine in two. The other skewered himself on my other hand, or spike as it was now. I stepped back and swung my spiked arm to one side, knocking the second skeleton into the third and scattering bones everywhere.

My relief was short-lived, however. The head and torso of the first wraith, despite being separated from its lower half, started to crawl towards me. I stepped back again, and almost tripped over the severed arm of one of the other two. It dug its fingers into my newly healed ankle and I cursed, trying to shake it off. The crawler was only a foot away, and I knew I would have to act quickly. With the last ounce of my strength, I kicked the detached limb into the nearest wall and combined my hands together into something roughly resembling a club, bringing it down on the half-skeleton’s head. Its skull was crushed instantly. The creature writhed, and for a brief moment I thought it was going to attack again, but then it finally fell still.

“Help!”

The gasp came from behind me. I slowly turned to face the last remaining wraith. He had Cynewic in a head grasp, but for some reason, he hadn’t killed the bandit yet. Perhaps these wraiths were more sapient than I had first assumed. The skeleton opened its his mouth and closed it again, in an almost tragic attempt to speak. The lack of tongue and vocal cords saw to that. It pointed up to the broken ceiling, and then at Cynewic, with an unmistakable meaning.

“You’ll let him go, if we return to the surface?”

The skeleton warrior nodded. I took a step forward. Behind the struggling pair, I caught a glimpse of something shining in the dark.

“Very well. Release him, then.”

The wraith pushed Cynewic forward into my arms. I kept him there, not because I particularly wanted to, but because he made a convenient shield. I extended my palm towards the skeleton warrior in a sign of greeting.

“Or second thoughts, maybe not,” I said as my hand transformed neatly into a blade again, splintering the warrior’s skull in two. It fell to the ground, and for the first time, I saw the treasure in all its splendour. "We did it," I breathed.

~

The bandits who had avoided falling through the floor were waiting above us with ropes. First I was hauled up somewhat unceremoniously, but in the circumstances, I let it slide. Then a number of men were lowered down, who started to fill wooden boxes with our haul.

And what a haul it was. Golden cups encrusted with precious gems. Rubies the size of walnuts. Swords with silver and gold trimmings. Sapphires that could fit in the palm of your hand. Even in twenty-first century Britain, this would have been worth a fortune. I couldn't begin to imagine how much it could buy in this miserable world.

“It isn’t safe here,” Cynewic muttered in my ear. The wound on his arm had been carefully bandaged. “What if those… things come back?”

“Relax,” I murmured, turning my gaze to the nearby forest. “We can set up camp in there.”