Chapter 15 #2
The ravens grew even more enthusiastic at the sight that had just been revealed. A few began to dive into a patch of slimy moss on the opposite side of the chest, perhaps having spotted something to eat, tearing up the turf with their beaks and claws.
“These coins are of an old elven design,” Griff said above the din, running his fingers over a few of them. “And those bottles—that’s elven wine, the good stuff. Rhun would have tried it when they treated him in Stormveil after the war.”
“This stuff is probably cursed,” Mal said darkly, picking up a handful of coins and, despite his words, looking pleased at the sound they made as they slipped through his fingers and clinked back into the pile.
“If anyone wanted us to find it, that’s why.
But joke’s on them. I’m already cursed anyway.
Doomed to suffer until I die. But this still makes us rich at the end of the day,” he concluded with cheerful spite, abandoning the coins in favor of rubbing his shirtsleeve where it covered his tattoo.
Griff was no expert, but he didn’t think tattoos were supposed to trouble a person that often.
It hadn’t looked infected when he’d gotten a glimpse, merely irritated from the frequent scratching, but it was still strange.
He also didn’t think they should be taking any of this stuff if Mal really suspected it was cursed—just like he wasn’t convinced that the man himself had been cursed—but before they argued about any of that, he wanted to get out of the rain and away from the birds. Find shelter, as Mal had suggested.
Eyes dancing in the low light as she showered herself in a handful of coins, some of her good humor clearly restored, Alys asked, “What are you going to buy first, Mal?”
“A bed fit for a king, the biggest bed this side of the Teeth,” Mal answered like he’d thought about this before.
“And for you, Alys, the most expensive paints,” he said fondly.
His gaze then shifted to Griff, and he leaned a little closer.
“And for you—what would you like? Another lute? Or how about a horse?” A grin tugged at his mouth as he added, “One that you can name.”
Up close, Griff realized that Mal had mud splattered on his face from not wearing his hood. He reached slowly toward a spot above the other man’s eyebrow to wipe some away before it could fall right into his eye, saying warmly as he did so, “Sure, Mal. I’d love a horse.”
Mal’s grin widened in answer, wild and full of teeth, as it always did when he was excited. But the look softened into something more like curiosity or wonder as he took in the length of Griff’s sodden hair trailing down over his shoulder.
Mal wasn’t the only one who hadn’t bothered with his hood this afternoon.
The thief reached out and ran his fingers through that river of darkness, following the path of a curl to its end. “Your hair’s gotten longer,” he observed on a breath that gusted over Griff’s lips. “Pretty. I like it like this.”
Griff’s heart was lodged so firmly in his throat that he found he couldn’t speak around it, and all he could do was nod dumbly as he practically tasted Mal. And if his eyes fluttered as Mal stroked those fingers experimentally through his hair, well, some things couldn’t be helped.
Gray eyes widening and narrowing as he continued his scrutiny of Griff’s face up close, Mal went on in the same sort of low exhale, “For all everyone says it, even me, you don’t actually look much like the portraits of your father. You look just like … your own. Like Griff.”
“Is that a good thing?” Griff managed to ask, sharing a little of his breath in return.
Mal gave a nod, slight but firm. He leaned closer still, a fire in his eyes Griff had never seen there before, one that had nothing to do with riches or giant beds or adventures. Well, maybe a giant bed could be involved.
“Mal,” Alys said urgently, interrupting as she reached for the bird-topped dagger that had been Rhun’s. “I—I think we should get going …”
They both turned, heeding the call before their lips met, though Griff’s heart was beating as though they had, clamoring inside his chest so hard it was making him dizzy.
Maybe this was how he might go out after all—a heart attack, here and now, from the shock of one of his fantasies coming to life.
If he was going to stay, he needed the lust and adoration that had been sparking in Mal’s eyes to be real, not just something painted from his wildest dreams.
Mal rubbed his tattoo again and swore under his breath, startling Griff from his thoughts.
While they were occupied, the entire flock had descended from the trees at the sight of that chest bursting open, like they had been waiting for this moment. Anticipating it.
Now the ravens were growing increasingly frantic in their digging near the chest. They seemed to have found some treasure of their own, beaks ravenously tearing at the earth to reveal more of whatever they were after: gray slime and bits of decayed cloth at first, and then slivers of red and white as strips of flesh were torn away from an unfortunate limb to offer glimpses of muscle and bone beneath.
And at the end of that limb, almost touching the wooden lid of the chest that had fallen apart, the distinctly elongated shapes of finger bones began to appear amid the ravens’ frenzy.
The finger bones twitched.
Or, at least, Griff thought they had, though he hoped it was his imagination.
“Did you see—those bones, did they just—?” He wasn’t doing a very good job at voicing his suspicions, not with one of those damned ravens staring at him. A slippery piece of tendon dangled from its beak, and it kept on staring as it gulped down its meal.
“Either it’s the mushrooms I ate earlier, or those bones are twitchy,” Alys confirmed breathily.
In his periphery, he saw Mal moving quickly, grabbing the fancy goblet and the blue bottles before he started shoving as many coins as he could reach into his pockets despite his clumsy, bandaged hands.
“Help me, quick,” Mal urged the others as another bird hopped closer, now eyeing Griff’s bandaged leg with open curiosity, clicking its beak. Before Griff had time to react, Mal shooed the thing away with a forceful swing of his boot, roaring, “Fuck off!” as it took to the sky, cawing a reproach.
Griff was busy shoving coins into the pockets of his pants and cloak when he saw the finger bones start pulling themselves up out of the mud, revealing more of a skeletal arm. He nudged Mal and nodded in the hand’s direction.
There were several types of undead at the Shadow Queen’s command, and only some were named and known.
The ghosts she managed to enslave were simply unlucky wandering souls; they could do little more than unsettle the living through the power of suggestion.
Wraiths were stronger spirits, and thus more dangerous, able to move objects and grasp at clothing, even tear skin or crush bone.
Revenants were more like living people, able to shamble around in their rotting or bony bodies and retain something of their personalities and ability to think for themselves.
Ghouls were much the same, but feral, like wild animals always on the prowl, lacking a revenant’s sense of judgment or self-control.
Griff suspected the twitching hand belonged to one of the latter two creatures, but he didn’t want to stick around long enough to find out.
“Guys.” Alys pointed shakily at a puddle several feet beyond the chest. “There’s more.”
Griff glanced over sharply to see what she meant: more bony hands hastily clawing their way out of the earth.
The birds had led them to a field of walking corpses that would tear them limb from limb if given half the chance; he had a gnawing suspicion, as he watched them attack the dirt with their beaks, that they were trying to dig the bones up faster.
Mal was already on his feet, coins spilling from his pockets, wincing at the pain in his hands as he grabbed hold of Griff and worked to get him upright too. “Money can buy a lot of things,” he panted, “but I’d rather not finance our funerals.”
The mule snorted and stamped its feet, clearly as eager to leave as the rest of them now that it had spotted the scrabbling hands.
Alys started to help Griff onto the restless beast’s back while a raven tugged at the loose end of his bandages.
Mal kicked it away, snarling with clear distaste at the feathers that littered the muddy ground even as his heavy pockets clinked with promise. “Come on,” he urged, “we need to get back to the path before whatever the hell is down there digs itself … out …”
But Griff was too slow to mount the mule. His hands were shaking too much to get a good grip for hauling himself over, even with Alys’s help. The mud was sucking too much at everyone’s feet, forcing them to stand their ground.
And now there were five revenants—five shambling, withered gray corpses of orcs with a greenish cast to their snakelike eyes—strung out in a line, reddish mud still crusted into every crack and crevice on their wrinkled, snarling faces, their teeth as sharp in death as they had been in life, even if a few were broken or altogether missing.
The mule whinnied and skittered backward, dragging Griff with it.
Alys drew her father’s sword.
Mal gave Griff and the beast a shove and shouted, “Run! Go, this—it’s my fault.
I’ll handle it!” He nodded to Alys, who joined him in forming a barricade of sorts in front of Griff.
Then he drew his hunting knife just as the undead orcs sprang after them with impressive speed for things long buried.