“You seek unwholesome places, stranger, but far be it from me to tell you where you should or should not die. Look for the spire of unmelting ice which claws at the sky. Beyond it lurks the low-lying stone hills in which your destination lies.”

The figure stomped alone through the snow-strewn land, fur coat pulled close about him and eyes squinting against the dusk glare of the sun upon the snow. That jutting spire of ice stuck out in the flat earth surrounding it like the arm of a drowning man desperately wishing for the air.

The ground sloped into a valley of white-topped boulders, an ominous air creeping through giving the illusion of mist despite the clear evening. The figure wove between the hills, scanning each as he passed and pausing by some before moving on.

Upon rounding one of the larger stones, the man came up short. Another figure did the same. A fox of a fellow, with squinty eyes, ratted hair and beard, and a sneer halfway between a grin and a scowl, partly twisted by the big scar cutting down the middle of his face through the lip. The grin half of the sneer widened.

“I know of you. You are Vakari, the one who frequents forbidden places and undisturbed tombs.”

“And I know you, Shror the Corpse-Wolf, a plunderer of the dead.”

“A kindred spirit to yourself.”

“In action, perhaps, but ‘spirit’ less so. I take it you seek the tomb here?”

“More than seek it.”

Shror lifted something from his pack. The bronze disc glimmered with carvings of strange creatures chasing each other round the circle.

“Know you what this is?” Shror said.

Vakari frowned.

“The Eye of Halag.”

“Hoh. The Ravensworn are as hungry for knowledge as I have heard. Then you also know that the inner sanctum cannot be pierced without this key.”

“So the stories say, few and fragmented that they are.”

“You doubt them.”

“I have known many stories that lost some of their truth to the past.”

“But I would wager you do not distrust it enough to cast me aside.”

Vakari’s frown deepened.

“You see,” Shror said, “I am not much of a fighter, but you have survived too much not to be. I am humble, you see. I admit I could use your help in so dangerous a place. And if you have the thought of taking the Eye…”

He spun the disc around, revealing a symbol of dried blood on the back.

“A witch-curse,” Vakari said.

“Just so. Shall we be partners, then?”

Vakari nodded. It hardly mattered by what method he arrived, and Shror, if tales held true, was motivated by treasure. He could claim all the gold and jewels he wished for all Vakari cared. All he needed were whatever secrets that hidden interior offered.

They brushed away the snow on the hill beside them to reveal a stone door, more of the figures from the Eye of Halag decorating the surface. Here many human-shapes ran as well, torn apart and mutilated by the inhuman things.

“These aren’t Vargmenn,” Shror said. “Nor beasts of Scorn, I think.”

“Something older.”

They pushed against the door, the great portal rumbling inward and snow scattering around them. Shror lit a lantern.

“You keep your hands free to fight. I will be our light.”

Stone halls with gruesome murals depicting more of the human-destruction surrounded them as they walked. One figure showed up again and again: a giant, fearsome creature with bestial legs but the body of a man, often at the heart of the human-breaking.

They passed the faded memories of traps long since sprung. Vakari noted some by the stories they were remembered in. There an abandoned skeleton from a poison mist. There the shattered floor, the hole beneath it with no known bottom, three corpses somewhere at its deepest depths. And there tattered clothes and rusted armour around spikes protruding from the ground.

“Who traps a tomb anyway?” Shror said.

“Those who want the deepest reaches undisturbed.”

“Ah. Lethal respect for the dead.”

“Or fear.”

Shror glanced at him, his sneer curling more into a scowl.

“I see.”

At the end of several halls, they came upon a statue resembling the giant monster-man standing before a closed door. One of the statue’s eyes was missing. Shror winked at Vakari before clambering up and inserting the disc. Dust fell from the ceiling and thunder echoed in the chamber as the door opened.

Stairs sank into the bowels of the earth. Stale, corpse-like air beckoned, the fresher breath outside halting before the statue as though hesitant to enter. Shror likewise hesitated. Vakari strode down the stairs.

“Wait for me, you fool.”

Shror hurried after him. Vakari regarded him out of the corner of his eye.

“You yourself said you bring nothing in the way of combat. You are of no help to me now without the key.”

“A second pair of eyes and ears are their own boons, I should think.”

A trickle of water disturbed the dead air, more and more tiny rivulets streaming down the walls and along the stairs beside them as they walked, their steps slapping against wet stone. More of the murals hid behind the running water, their gruesomeness warped by the streams and shadows.

And then at the same time as the hall opened into a large chamber, the stairs terminated in a dark pool. Shror knelt by the water and poked it.

“How many of the stories about you are true?” he said. “Have you a Rune?”

“No, but I have other ways.”

“Other?”

Vakari jerked a dagger free from his hip and joined Shror at the edge. He stabbed the tip of his finger and let the blood drip onto the surface of the water. The blood spread into a symbol, oddly unchanging despite its parchment.

Then it flared a sickly, deep green. Vakari leapt backwards, but too slowly, and the water surged over the both of them and dragged them in. The lantern flicked out. Darkness consumed them.

A word boomed, and with it, a fell emerald light flashed through the water. More murals covered the walls, the inhuman images all worshipping the giant beast-man, often with brutal human sacrifices, the whole thing stark in the unwholesome glow. Four columns upheld the ceiling. At first, Vakari thought them made of twisted stone, and then empty eyes met his as the light faded. Corpses melded together.

And at the centre of it all, a towering, monstrous figure lying on an altar, chains binding it and form withered but not destroyed despite the years and water. Its eyes burned with green malevolence.

Darkness again. Then a stream of words in that infernal tongue which clawed at Vakari’s ears, the whole chamber alight as it spoke. The terror in Shror’s face stood out in that light as he stared in fixed horror at the being chained below.

That terror grew as a current slowly, inexorably, pulled them nearer the thing on the altar. Shror’s strangled squeals were met with dark laughter. Vakari ran his gaze over the chamber. This tomb had a strong chance of belonging to an ancient time, but the likelihood of being able to explore it for secrets was diminishing rapidly.

Vakari held out his hands. The water rippled, and Shror’s fear turned on him, his eyes sparking with realization. The ancient voice of the entombed thing bellowed, a glare of green suffusing the water. The colour pushed against him, the will at its source straining to overcome his own, and the rippling redoubled.

A current gathered around him and hurled him up, up, and out of the pool and over the stairs. When the stream splattered all over the hall, Vakari in a raven’s form shot out, drying his wings with a flap and rushing like wind down the hall. A deep roar echoed, and the water surged after him, clawing and grasping.

Dead air collided with younger as Vakari winged from the inner sanctum, morphing midair into his human shape and landing atop the statue. He dug his gloved fingers under the Eye of Halag and tugged. The thunder of the hunting torrent grew and grew as he pulled, before he finally ripped the disc free. The door rumbled closed, a dull crash thudding from the other side.

Vakari slipped down the side of the statue, panting as he stumbled a few steps to the opposing wall and slumped against it. He flipped the disc over. The bloody symbol on the back had faded.

He slipped the disc into his pack and, after several moments of rest, rose, the lonely clips of his steps echoing in the hall. Outside, moon and starlight wove together with light snowfall. Vakari watched a few flakes drift onto the entrance to the tomb, some of the door already obscured. Hopefully the snow would bury it forever, and with the trundle of many years, even the dead thing below would know true death in time.

And so Vakari passed into the hills, another story to be forgotten beneath the snow.