The Temple of Heart and Bone Read Online Free PDF Page A

movement in a pile of rubble. She rushed over
and clawed at the brick and stone, hoping to find a friend, a loved one,
perhaps her own child. As the weight of war and collapse pushed aside, a cold,
hard set of fingers closed around her wrist. Clamping down with crushing
strength, the hand pulled her down into the rubble as it rose, the way a
drowning man might offer his savior as sacrifice to appease an angry sea.
    Outside the city, in several of
the massive fields surrounding, the ground boiled up, shedding the weight of
its own skin. Great communal graves, the resting places of invader and defender
alike, shuddered and released their contents. Silhouetted against the night
sky, the emerging figures looked not unlike giant black ants emerging from the
soil.
    Some of the dead, those having
suffered more damage than others, began searching the ground for something,
though not nearly as feverishly as the maddened living. Here and there a
collection of bones would reach down, sift through the dirt with one remaining
hand, and pull another set of bones from the moist, dark ground. Arm or hand,
leg or skull, the animated form would seek to reattach its missing bones and
join its comrades. Other skeletal forms, those too incomplete or too badly
damaged to walk, dragged themselves by whatever means necessary to follow.
    Mass graves continued to open in
the fields around Æostemark. The skeletal forms of animals pushed and scrambled
their way from their own burial sites. Horses, having once lain bloated on the
field, emerged gaunt and thin, sleek in their skeletal structures. Moonlight
sifted through their massive rib cages as they followed an unseen call. Great
lines of dry and clicking bones from a vast radius moved to that call, all
heading toward Æostemark.
     
    The remaining living denizens of
Æostemark began to wake slowly in the night. Some heard the shifting of rubble,
the clatter of stone falling on stone. They thought that, perhaps, the deranged
seekers had moved too close, or that another rotting building had chosen to
fall. Others thought that the looters were getting bold again, and sought what
weapons they had. They lit their lanterns and peered through barred windows
into the surrounding night. Alone in their homes they could see, and sometimes
feel, the passing of shadows in the darkness. Even the shadows, revealing no
hints of form or structure, caused the very hair to stand on their skin.
    A chill sense of dread filled
each heart, making it pound in the chest containing it. Blood coursed through
the veins of the living, surging in an effort to make itself known, to
segregate itself from what instinct sensed was moving outside. The rational,
conscious mind argued against what the subconscious and soul had discovered as
a slight scent in the air or as a living being’s intuition. The citizens stood
in their places, fighting down urges to run and hide. They had homes to defend,
fortunes and wealth to consider. Who could be frightened by a few bumps in the
night?
     
    In the square, bodies gathered
before the Necromancer and his minions. The black-robed priests, having once
retreated in fear, fell on the ground in awe and worship. Their eyes revealed a
living ecstasy, a dark joy in their master’s success. They knelt to the ground
and prayed as if wracked by fever.
    The Necromancer, for his part,
watched their slavering adoration with contemptuous amusement. Had their faith
in his power been true, their admiration might have struck them less as a
surprise. He, however, paid scant attention to the living around him. For seven
years he had held the spirits in place in a vast radius around Æostemark. He
had contained the dead and dying through his sheer will and power. It had
drained him, cost him, even come close to destroying him, but now the Harvest
had begun. The seeding, seven years earlier, had borne its dark fruit, and his
patience had been rewarded. He had encouraged the invasion that led to the
slaughter of