Roran Vottier's Arc

Chapter 3 of 10

Roran crouched at the barrow's mouth. He held out his knife and watched the rot slide over the black doorway like water down a wall. The gray touched the tip of his blade. The iron dulled and pitted before his eyes. He jerked his hand back. If a knife rotted from one touch, so would his arm. He could not step through that doorway and live. Kaia knelt beside him. She had appeared from nowhere the day before, the red-haired woman who knew what he did not. She dug in her coat and pulled out a small stone. Blue light woke inside its carved marks. "It hums near the rot," she said. "It hums louder where something old is buried. Watch." She held the stone toward the mound. The glow stayed dim. She turned and swept it across the woods behind them. The blue flared bright and steady. "Not the barrow first," she said. "There's something else out here. Something the barrow-builders left to fight this." Roran followed her lead. The wolf padded ahead, ears flat, keeping clear of the gray. The stone burned brighter with each step. They pushed through vines and old growth until the light nearly blinded him. Then he saw it. A weathered stone slab stood among the roots, its face carved with spirals and old runes. Vines wrapped its base like grasping hands. A shrine, forgotten and cracked, but still standing. "The old ones built this to hold the rot back," Kaia said. She pressed the runestone into a hollow at the slab's center. The carved marks flared gold. Stone ground against stone. The face of the shrine split open. Cold air breathed out from a narrow stair going down into the dark. Roran went first. His boots found worn steps. The wolf would not follow into the earth. Below, the passage opened into a small chamber. On a bed of gray stone lay a sword. Its blade shone gold, warm even in the dark, and light rippled along the steel like sun on water. A green stone burned in its cross-guard. He reached for the hilt. The leather grip fit his hand as if made for it. When he lifted the sword, the gold flared bright enough to sting his eyes. He climbed back to the surface and turned toward the barrow. The rot still poured from the black mouth. He stepped close and swung the blade through a wave of gray. The rot hissed and pulled back. Where the gold touched, the dead earth curled away clean. For the first time the flood retreated instead of spreading. Kaia watched him, and her face changed. Not joy. Something closer to fear. "That sword will cut the barrow open," she said quietly. "But once you take the fight inside, there's no walking it back." Roran gripped the hilt. He had his weapon now. The doorway waited, and he could finally pass through it.