Page 37 of Beds and Blades

A soldier near the crypt raised his voice.

“It’s a desecration,” he said. His voice was thick with anger. “Yravel’s dead are kept there. Honored dead. Commanders. Mages. Men and women who held this line before any of us were born. That beast crawls in like it has the right to sleep among them?”

Skip’s mouth tightened, and his sword hand flexed once before he stilled it.

This was not merely a tactical problem to him. This crypt was not an inconvenient basement beneath a military courtyard. It was memory. It was duty. It was the honored dead who had paid the price of holding this line.

Something undead had gone below to use their resting place as shelter. It was hiding from the sunlight and gathering strength.

Another soldier came across the courtyard at a run. Older. Winded. His face told the story before he spoke.

“High Commander.”

Skip turned.

“Report.”

“Two men are missing from second watch. Tiberius and Dacian. They were last seen before dawn, helping clear the western passage.”

The courtyard went very quiet.

I looked at the crypt entrance.

The body at the top of the stairs had been drained. If two more men were missing—

“Oh,” I said, very softly.

Skip heard me.

So did Caen.

Flavia looked between us. “What?”

I did not want to be the one to say it.

Caen did.

“If the two men are down there with it,” she said, her voice low, “then it does not need to come out to feed.”

Skip’s expression closed.

“How long?” he asked Caen.

Caen looked at the stairwell again. Her pendant gave one faint, inadequate pulse.

“If it has only fed once, perhaps we could contain it.” Her voice was tired, but precise. “If it has two more living bodies below, and if it drains them slowly…”

“It grows stronger,” Skip said.

“Yes.”

“How much stronger?”

Caen did not answer quickly. That was answer enough.

Skip turned to the soldiers around him.

“Ten soldiers on this entrance at all times,” he said. “No fewer. Swords and hook axes. Shields in front. No one goes below. No one stands close enough to be pulled down.”