17th November 1102

“Bring the torch closer so I can see”, barked Lochan.

Obligingly Noah knelt, the flickering light of the flare casting eery shadows over the weathered tiles.

“There!” Lochan whispered breathlessly, “do you see it.”

Harndall peered at the dusty shapes, partially illuminated in the murky light. Glaring back at him was the ragged outline of a raven, its curved beak open in a triumphant caw. Harndall could almost see the roughly scraped out hollow of its eye gleaming read in the torchlight.

Without warning the candles above sputtered and spat, the fat, waxy wicks suddenly alight.

Harndall watched as molten wax began to pool in the sunken surface of the largest. A fat dollop silently drooled down the dimpled side as though regurgitated to fuel the smaller candles below.

His heart was fluttering in his chest as though battered by the wings of some unseen bird. Above him lay the body of the rotting church, its weight pressing down on him, while he suffocated in the depths. His stomach roiled with nausea, the stake sliding between his slippery fingers. His ears were filled with the heady sound of the beating of thousands of blackened wings.

Lochan was bent over, his hands running over the humped figures and outlines of long-forgotten creatures as though caressing a pet dog. Harndall could almost see them stirring beneath his fingers.

“Do you think you can break through Kelgar?” Lochan grated, running a hand almost lovingly over the body of the raven.

Was he seeing things or was the creature’s hooked beak creaking to life beneath the Duke’s hand.

“Certainly yer Lordship, stand aside.”

Kelgar’s blade swung high in the air, curving upwards in arc and flashing downwards. It met the tiles brittle bodies with a sickening crunch as though Kelgar had brought his booted foot down in the middle of a carefully made nest. Beneath its weight the knitted structure had disintegrated, pink featherless bodies squelching with the impact.

He brought it cracking down again and again, the tiles crushed to smithereens and falling somewhere down into the darkness until he had opened up an dark hole in the floor of the crypt.

A fetid stench roiled up through the gaping hole, filling their nostrils so they all gagged. The smell was rotten and meaty, the foul odor of death long mouldering in the darkness.

“Bring me the light”, Lochan called again, in a strangled voice, “I think there’s a staircase heading down”.

“Well what are we waiting for,” Kelgar demanded, “I’ll go first.”

“Alright, but be careful,” Lochan warned as Kelgar deliberately put his foot on the first step.

“Seems stable enough.”

“Father, Noah, Osras and Cordell you come down with us,” Lochan ordered in a taut voice, “the rest of you wait, up here. If anyone comes up those stairs that isn’t one of us slay them immediately.”

Harndall staggered towards the stairs behind Lochan. His fingers scrabbled at the edges of the hole as his feet struggled for purchase on the uneven surface. He clutched tightly at the wooden stake in his hand, the splintery surface catching on the rough, dry skin of his fingers. He tried not too breath to deeply, as he stumbled down the staircase, his thoughts seeking out the comfort of his Lord. But the wooden stake in his hand was rubbing and prickling and he could not help but remember that a stake similar to this one had been hammered through the palms of Christ. The sharpened tip had plunged into the soft flesh with a gout of blood and a flare of pain, ripping through tendons, driving apart bones as it made space for its solid round body.

He suddenly found himself lurching to the foot of the stairs. His eyes were unbearably drawn to the huddled form of a dead body tucked away into a niche obviously made for that purpose. The hollow eyes stared at him out of the bleached white skull, the grinning mouth gaping open. He was reminded of the rotting corpses of traitors, hanging in gibbets high above the city gate while ravens tore shreds of decomposing meat from their bodies.

The smell was overpowering as his eyes strayed around the tiny room. Deep below the crypt, this room had obviously been a tomb for nobility, more important than those interned in the graveyard above. The walls were lined with niches, each one filled with skeletal bodies, decaying in the darkness, the last remains of hair and skin still clinging to their pallid forms.

In the centre of the room were two large coffins, each one with braziers burning before them. The smoke was acrid, burning his nostrils and bringing tears to his eyes as it mingled with fecund smell of rotting corpses.

“Dear Lord, what is this place?” Cordell choked, his eyes wide with horror.

Harndall clamped his mouth shut, clenching his jaw in an attempt to still his chattering teeth.

“I don’t know Cordell,” Lochan replied with a shudder “all I know is that this evil is not supposed to be and so we must destroy it.”

“Are you ready Father?” he inquired in a hushed tone.

“I am,” Harndall swallowed, almost choking on the words.

“All of you then, around the coffin. Ready with your swords,” he commanded, “Goodman Ulcar, open the casket.”

Noah reached out his hands towards the ornately carved box. Harndall noticed that his hands was trembling and felt weak in his knees. If steady, sturdy Goodman Ulcar’s hands were shaking then they truly were in a terrible situation.

He held the stake up, gripping it firmly in his hand, tiny splinters of wood piercing the palms of his hands where they would usually be pressed together in prayer. Somehow he felt like that would offer more help, but he bravely raised the stake ready to plunge it into whatever horror was revealed with the opening of the lid.

Noah’s shoulders hunched, his arms straining with the weight of the heavy lid. He cracked it open an inch, a whiff of foul, metallic air rushing out. Harndall recognised the heady scent of blood and his stomach clenched.

With a muffled grunt of exertion, Noah pushed back the lid.

“Holy God in heaven“, he exclaimed, peering into the depths of the open casket.

Arwaduhn, Murchadh, Shildfrith, The Church, Ulcar