RHIDAUNA, The Shadow of the Revenaunt, Book 1

CHAPTER 4 - HASPEN (Part Three)

Without hesitation, the corporal threw his weight against the weathered wood. Olle joined him and after a few tries, the lower half of the door crashed inside.

The fool was nowhere to be seen. 'Sjammie,' Ghyll called, 'where are you?'

'Lord not angry?' a voice said, and the fool's head emerged from a pile of hay.

He looked so funny Ghyll had to laugh.

'Lord not angry,' the fool said, satisfied. 'Look, lord.' He started to pull the hay aside and Ghyll noticed how long the simpleton's arms were and how fast he cleared away the hay. There must be an enormous strength hidden in that deformed body. With the last straw removed, there were three black-clad bodies laying on the packed floor of the barn, all three with split skulls. Two were golems, the dried mud leaking out of their heads; the third lay in a large pool of gore.

'By the Gods!' Ghyll struggled to keep his breakfast down.

'All dead,' the fool said with a proud gesture. 'Sjammie was outside at the well. The bad men see Sjammie but Sjammie runs away fast. The men want to hurt Sjammie. Sjammie climbs through the hole. A bad man climbs through hole. Sjammie grabs the spade and pat and pat and pat. All bad men are dead. Sjammie is not dead; Sjammie is laughing.'

'You're a hero,' Ghyll said admiringly. 'You deserve a reward. Here,' he took a new silver half-crown from his pocket and handed it to the fool.

'Ooh, it shines pretty!' Sjammie cried as he turned the coined around in his hands. 'More pretty than this.' He produced a long chain, with a dull black crystal at the end, and gave it to Ghyll. 'Here, lord, for you.'

'Thank you, Sjammie,' Ghyll said, studying the chain. 'Where did you get that?'

Sjammie looked at Ghyll out of the corner of his eyes. Then he pointed to the dead man. 'He wore it.'

A black crystal. Ghyll thought back to magister Hemplock's explanation: white crystals to make golems move and black to give them their orders. Therefore, the dead man would have been a golemaster.

He patted the man on his shoulder. 'Sjammie, you were a great help. You can go now, thank you.'

The fool beamed. 'Sjammie is good, Sjammie is good,' he sang, while with his strange gait he disappeared from the barn.

'Unbelievable,' Ghyll said. 'Two golems, armed to the teeth and a sorcerer, killed with a spade!' With a look at the soldier: 'Let's never underrate the simpletons in the world.'

The corporal saluted with a mixture of respect and relief. 'I'll remember that, m'lord. I can't thank you enough; that fool would never have told me 'is secret. Ah didn't know what to report to the lieutenant.'

Ghyll nodded, his thoughts elsewhere as he bent over the body. He sniffed a few times; the golems' smell reminded him of something he couldn't place.

'Sulfur,' Olle said. 'Black powder smells like that.'

'There should be two white crystals,' Ghyll said. 'If the Convocation's really interested in them, perhaps they'll fetch a coin or two.'

While Olle and the corporal searched the straw, Ghyll crouched beside the sorcerer's body. He had been a plump man of some thirty years, with straight blond hair. His face was covered with clotted blood and bits of brain matter from the gaping crack in his skull. Ghyll had to swallow a few times to keep his stomach down. Death had frozen the body the way it had fallen and it proved impossible to get the clothes off. After a few unsuccessful attempts, Ghyll, fighting against the bile in his throat, had to break the rigid limbs one by one with his heel to get the body flat on its back. He saw Olle's questioning look and he shook his head. No, my brother. I must do this myself.

A horrible ten minutes later it was done. The robe, tunic, trousers and ankle boots of the dead man lay spread out on the ground. Ghyll examined the long gown, an elegant garment of black cloth with woven patterns. Their design made him think of the black crystal on Sjammie's chain and he remembered Magister Hemplock's words. 'So the fellow was a golemaster,' he said slowly. 'A mage... But there isn't any Black Order.'

On his knees, he searched in vain along the pale, discolored corpse for a sign. He sat back on his heels and stared at the garments. His eye caught a small button at the neck of the tunic. It was made from a shiny material and was engraved with the image of a bird. Ghyll yanked the thing off and deposited it in his pouch. A single button, that was all. Frustrated, he rose to his feet.

Olle looked at him and without a word handed him two shimmering white crystals.

'Thank you.' Ghyll put them with the button and looked at his fingers. He shivered. 'I must wash my hands.'

'There's the well near the 'ouses, m'lord,' the corporal reminded him. 'May I thank you again for your 'elp? And... What that fool said of our soldiers, they weren't running away. On occasion, one needs a tactical retreat, you understand.'

Ghyll nodded. 'I understand, Corporal. No problem. Keep the clothes for the lieutenant, in case we need them.' Then he hurried off to wash the stink of death from his hands.