“Don’t even joke about that,” Kari said, her memories of Annabelle slithering to the surface before she pushed them down again. “Why would werewolves be attracted to a necromantic ritual? Do you think maybe it was dead werewolves getting raised?”
Eli shrugged. “It’s possible. I don’t really know much more than the lore and legends surrounding werewolves. Sure, I fought a bunch of them, but corpses don’t tell much in the way of tales. I couldn’t even tell you where they came from or why they attacked us, much less what their interests were or why they don’t like necromancy.”
“They used to have problems with necromancers in Solaris from time to time when I was young,” Kari mused. “Any time you have a big city, the size of the graveyards is too much for them to pass up. I wonder where these idiots learn their craft, or where they come from.”
He shrugged again. “Probably just failures at the arcane arts that think having power over something, even if it’s dead, is better than being a nobody.”
Kari grunted and let the matter drop.
After about a half hour, they passed into the southwest district, where most businesses were located. The smells of a tannery dominated the cool spring night air, and when Kari noted the direction of the wind, she understood why it was located here. It was doubtful anyone in the cemetery would complain about the smell, and there were no houses anywhere in sight as they passed deeper into the southwest district.
Large mills and warehouses lined the streets, there was little in the way of vegetation of any kind, and trash seemed to be a problem in the area. It wasn’t any worse than the more commercial parts of DarkWind, but the empty streets struck Kari as odd and somewhat alarming. With no residences here, the streets were devoid of any life aside from vermin. Kari kept on her guard, as did Eli, until they finally came to the gates of the graveyard.
The cemetery was certainly what Kari would describe as creepy, especially in the light of the rising moons. Its outer walls were lined with bright torches, and there were heavy metal gates that closed it off from the city. A pair of guards stood watch across the street, and Kari wondered if they were afraid to stand too close. She drew up her dog tags and let them fall over her breastplate. When the guards saw her tags, they saluted her respectfully.
That was a nice change of pace for Barcon…
“Anything strange going on?” Kari asked.
“Haven’t heard a whisper, ma’am, and gods willing, it’ll stay that way,” one of the guards said, rubbing his goatee nervously.
“What can you tell us about the werewolves that attacked the last time there was a ruckus in the cemetery?” she asked.
“Thankfully, not much,” said the other. “They come and chased off whatever fools were messin’ around in the graves, but once they seen us, they ran off into the darkness to wherever the hell they come from. I seen them close up: Drooling, vicious beasts, and that’s enough for me in this lifetime. We hear them howlin’ and bayin’ out on the plains at night sometimes, but they usually don’t come near the city. Don’t know why they come to the graveyard that night, but they done chased off whoever was messin’ around.”
Kari could understand his sentiments. “Would you gentlemen mind letting us in?”
“Not without us,” called Piotyr from a short distance down the street. He was muscular and handsome, and stood a little taller than Kari. He was solidly built, testament to a life spent defending the faith, but there was a leanness to him as well; he lacked the bulky, overbearing presence of Kari’s half-guardian in-laws. Like most serilian-rir, his hair was black, tied back in a tail that reached his shoulder blades, and his wide eyes were a smoldering red that bordered on orange, like glowing coals in the deep night. His snout was medium in length but softly curved, giving him a gentle appearance that was somewhat odd for a serilian-rir.
Deirdre was with him. Other than keeping her hair in numerous small braids, she looked much like Piotyr, who Kari assumed was her mate. Deirdre drew up beside Piotyr and he continued, “I had a feeling you might come take a look around the cemetery yourselves. We’d prefer you don’t go in there at night without at least one of us to help you.”
Kari looked the two over again and couldn’t help but see the differences between these undead-hunting priests, her mate, and her mother-in-law. Kari wondered if an encounter with undead would awaken such a fire in Grakin, or whether he was simply a different kind of priest of Kaelariel. Whatever the case, she was glad to have the help of these two warriors.
“I appreciate it,” she said at last.
Piotyr gestured for the guards to unlock the gates. The humans seemed much more at ease with the priests of Kaelariel around, and they moved to unlock the gate to the cemetery. Even with the superior night vision of the three half-demons, and Kari’s own fairly powerful night eyes, they brought several bright torches so they wouldn’t miss any details. The heavy iron gates creaked in protest as they swung open, and Piotyr and Deirdre led Kari and Eli into the cold and creepy confines of the burial grounds.
Kari suffered a chill that seemed to be more than just the crisp spring night, but she shook it off. She reminded herself that per Piotyr, the graveyard had never seen anything more than the occasional zombie or skeleton. Kari had faced far worse in her lives than a walking corpse.
The graves nearest the gate were all undisturbed, and this part of the cemetery was well-tended. The grass was short and dark green, beginning to awaken from its winter sleep, and while some of the headstones were worn, their engravings were still legible, even by torchlight. Kari was curious why some of the headstones had rocks atop them, but rather than act like Piotyr and Deirdre were tour guides, she kept up with their pace as they led her and Eli toward the center of the cemetery.
Silence hung over the graveyard like a burial shroud, and only the soft crunch of the grass underfoot and the gentle lapping of the torches broke the quiet. They approached the center, where the land was bathed in the strong light of the first moon, bright and full as it crested the city and the walls.
“This is where most of the disturbances happen,” Piotyr said. He gestured toward the crypts that stood in silent vigil adorned with angels or gargoyles.
“We end up coming out here to perform burial rites over the disturbed graves before the keepers inter them again,” Deirdre added. “It takes a fairly strong necromancer to overcome the consecration of the land, and when we re-consecrate each of the disturbed graves, the blessing becomes that much stronger. Whoever was here the last time, though, was beyond anything we’ve ever encountered. They didn’t just raise the corpses; they despoiled the very land they were buried in. Behold.”
They led Kari and Eli around to the far side of the crypts, where the mausoleums formed a cul-de-sac. The land was shrouded in deep shadows, and the half-elites held their torches high to illuminate the area. Kari could immediately see that the grass had blackened and shriveled so it looked more like shredded black glass. The ground itself was hardened and cracked as though by drought. The risen bodies had already been reinterred, but if the two half-elite priests had blessed the land, it didn’t show. Even the dirt seemed despoiled, as though it’d been alive and suffered some convulsive, painful death, with cracks and odd, wave-like grooves showing throughout what had been carefully sculpted topsoil.