At sundown they reached the village of Asher. The hamlet, a small cluster of fieldstone houses with thatched roofs, was set in a vale between two tree-covered hills. The folk here seemed a bit friendlier than those at the last village, and they directed the companions to the village's lone inn, a rambling one-storied building set against a hillside.
After a filling supper, Tyveris asked the grizzled old innkeep if there was anyone in the village who knew any tales of elder days. Much to the companions' delight, the innkeep himself professed to be an expert on the Fields of the Dead. When Caledan asked him if he had ever heard the name Talek Talembar, the innkeep scratched his narrow chin thoughtfully.
"Aye, that I have," the innkeep said in his country drawl. "He was a great hero long ago, or so the stories go. Some say he turned back entire armies with a song, though in the end I can't say that helped him much. He died with a goblin's barbed arrow in his back, he did."
With the prompting of a gold piece, the innkeep was happy to describe how they could find Talembar's death site, in a valley not a half-day's march away.
That night the companions' sleep went thankfully uninterrupted, and after breaking bread the next morning they rode north from the village across the plains.
It was early afternoon when they came upon a massive, gnarled oak tree standing alone in the middle of a vast field. "This must be the 'Lonely Oak' the old innkeep described," Caledan said, the cool air ruffling his dark hair. "If he's right, the valley where Talembar fell should be just over the next rise."
Ferret rode up the hill to scout out the terrain, but in a few minutes he came riding back. "Well, I've got good news and bad news," the little thief said.
"Why don't I like the sound of this?" Tyveris groaned.
"What is it, Ferret?" Caledan asked, not much in the mood for guessing games.
"Well, first the good news. It looks like the valley the innkeep spoke of is just beyond that last ridge."
"And the bad news?" Caledan prompted.
"I think you may want to see that part for yourself," Ferret said in his raspy voice.
Caledan glowered at Ferret but knew it would take longer to wring more information out of the thief than it would to simply ride ahead and see for himself. He spurred Mista forward, and the others followed. When he reached the top of the ridge he stopped.
"By all the gods," he swore, and the others followed his gaze.
Before them stretched a long, narrow valley fading into the hazy distance. The sun filled the valley with a green-gold light, and Caledan caught the faint, sweet scent of wildflowers on the breeze rising up from below.
"What are all those queer round lumps on the valley floor?" Estah asked.
Tyveris shook his head. "Those aren't lumps, Estah. Those are barrows."
"But there must be hundreds of them!" Estah said in dismay.
"No-thousands," Caledan corrected her without relish. "Thousands of barrows." He turned to the others, his expression grim. "It looks as if Talek Talembar has some company."
Fifteen
"This one looks like it's got more Calimshite soldiers," Tyveris said in disgust. He threw down the spade next to the hole he had dug in a low barrow and pulled out a helmet that bore the crest of the southern land of Calimshan. A human skull, its blankly staring orbits filled with dirt, still rattled around inside the helmet. Muttering a prayer to appease the dead, Tyveris set the skull back in the pit.
"We could try that barrow that Estah noticed last night," Mari said, though without much enthusiasm. "She said it looked more weathered than the others."
"We've been digging up barrows for three days now, Man,' the big Tabaxi said in annoyance, picking the spade back up and filling in the hole, "and not a one of them seems to date from the time before Indoria fell. By Oghma himself, if I turn up another Calimshite skull, I'm going to march south to Calimport, barge into the Emperor's throne room, and brain him with the blasted thing as punishment for all the soldiers his predecessors sent up here to die and torment me."
"Now what good would that do us?" Mari asked.
"None, I suppose," Tyveris grumbled, "but it would make me feel a bit better."
It was growing late as the two made their way across the grassy floor of the valley back toward camp. The valley itself was beautiful, the verdant ground scattered with pale, tiny flowers. Yet there was an eerie silence that Mari had found increasingly disturbing these last days. She hadn't seen a single bird since they arrived at this place, and the only sound was the ceaseless hiss of the wind through the long grass.
The barrows themselves were of many different kinds Some were little more than small piles of dirt overgrown with grass, while others had been built up with walls of rock and were surrounded by circles of massive standing stones. Some of the standing stones bore runic inscriptions carved into their surfaces, but almost all of these were too weathered and overgrown with lichen to decipher.
Mari and Tyveris reached their camp only to discover that the others had fared little better. A feeling of despair was steadily descending over the companions. Even Mari was starting to give up hope that they would ever find Talembar's tomb. They had made camp some distance from the valley, beneath the sheltering branches of the ancient, solitary oak tree.
They made a cheerless supper of dried fruit, supplemented by the last of the cheese and some stale unleavened bread Estah had bought in the village of Asher. As the twilight deepened, the companions gathered around the glow of the fire-all except Ferret, who was perched on a nearby knoll keeping watch. Mari pulled her baliset out of her pack. Perhaps some music would lift their spirits.
She strummed a few soft chords, then broke into a gentle song about a maiden seeking her lost lover by the shores of a misty lake.
"That was just lovely," Estah said when Mari had finished.
Mari smiled and started to ask the halfling what she would like to hear next when her eyes were caught by Caledan's intent gaze. He sat across the fire, his face lost in shadow, his pale green eyes locked on hers.
Caledan stood up. "I'm going to go stretch my legs," he told the others. He walked away from the ring of firelight. Mari watched him until he vanished into the deepening purple twilight.
The healer requested a lively tune next, one called "The Dragon and the Dormouse." After that, Mari played several more songs, but finally her hands fell from the polished wood of her baliset.
"I'll… I'll be back soon," she told the others, setting down the instrument. She gazed into the dusky night and walked in the direction Caledan had taken earlier.
What are you doing, Mari Al'maren? she asked herself. But she had no answer. She knew she ought to stay away from Caledan. She had known so from the moment she first looked at him and felt the tingling in her skin when he touched her. She had fought those feelings with all her strength, as if they had been demons trying to gain control of her.
She knew it was wrong, even dangerous, to fall in love with Caledan. She had sworn to be true to the Harpers, and she couldn't love Caledan and perform her duty at the same time. She could not compromise herself as a Harper. And yet…
"Who's there?" a voice spoke softly in the dimness. It was Caledan.
"It's only me, scoundrel," she said, stepping from a shadow into the silvery light of the rising moon. They stood atop a low hill. The land stretched out beneath them in all directions. In the distance Mari could spot the brightness of the companions' campfire, but they were out of earshot.
"What do you want?" Caledan asked, his voice neutral.