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

his surviving
soldiers had watched their Master’s seeming-seizure. They also kept close eye
on the animated bones before them, praying fervently to whatever they held dear
that their Master would not lose control. Even the men that Troseth knew had no faith in anything other than their own sword mumbled reverently under
their own breath.
    Though standing quite still,
their hollow eyes focused on the Necromancer, the dead seemed to exude a
terrible sense of hunger. They were a vacuum of life, pulling at the spirits of
the living around them. The soldiers, handpicked for their discipline, fought
the same battle of will versus instinct that the inhabitants of Æostemark
fought behind their barred and shuttered doors. The soldiers, however, consciously
knew they were facing the dead. These soldiers would also live through the
night.
     
    Two hundred of the recently risen
dead struggled against the flow of incoming bodies to spread out into the city
of Æostemark. The Necromancer’s orders seemed to shake them from the slumber of
the grave. They no longer shuffled as they had when they assembled in the
square, but walked with purpose. Hollow eyes sought things that only they could
see, and unspoken communications spread between them as they marched out into
the shadows.
    By now, all the living in
Æostemark were awake. Merchants and soldiers watched through window and door
with lanterns and candles close at hand. Weapons fit every fist that could hold
them as hearts hammered in uncertainty and fear. There was no time to seek
shelter. Instinct told them that death was in the streets, that it would not be
possible to run to the garrison for protection. The soldiers in the barracks
within the city numbered only six after their comrades had gone to investigate the
disturbance in the square. The six, too, had considered a break for the border
post, but their intuition also told them death was outside the door.
    One of the soldiers, watching the
streets outside, let out an explosive breath. He began to fumble with the bolt
on the door.
    “Hey, boys, it’s the sergeant!
He’s back from the square with the others.” He looked more closely out at the
returning soldiers. Dark stains, bled of color by the pale moonlight, covered
their bodies. “Hey! I think they’ve got blood on ‘em! Must have been some sorta
scuffle out there. I bet they’ll have some stories to tell.” He looked about
the room, his eyes searching. “Hey, somebody stir up something hot for ‘em to
drink, eh? They’re looking pretty cold.”
    As the guards approached the
outside door, the watching soldier noticed a deep, wedge-shaped gash in the
side of the sergeant’s neck. His gorge rose up within him, and he jumped back
with a primal screech of fear. His shaking hands clawed at the weapon sheathed
at his side and his friends looked at him as if he’d gone mad. He looked back
over his shoulder at them, imploringly, his eyes begging for help, begging for
understanding, as fear closed his throat. The door crashed open and the
sergeant stepped inside. With a power born of desperation, the soldier who had
been on watch managed to draw his sword and strike at their sergeant. The men
in the back of the room gaped at what they thought was some maddened attempt at
mutiny. The sword bit into the side of their sergeant, deeply, painfully. He
didn’t even wince as he swung the blow that decapitated his attacker. The
remaining soldiers in the room drew their own weapons as their sergeant
advanced, sword still embedded in his side.
     
    A merchant living near the
soldiers heard the crashing of their barracks’ door. He raced from his own door
to the window that looked out onto the barracks. He strained his eyes to focus
on the inside of their building, struggling to make out a figure in the
distance. Focused as he was on the distance, he never saw the skeletal hands
that broke through his window, filling his eyes with splinters. His head was
pulled through the