The next morning, we headed out early after a quick, hot breakfast. The mercenaries were mumbling about the work they had ahead of them, but seemed to be getting on with it, albeit a bit slowly. Jorn gave me a wink that I hoped was meant to be no more than reassuring. I hoped I wouldn’t have to resort to socking him, but as he was keeping his distance, I focussed instead at the job we had ahead of us.

  He helped lower us down into the mine again and this time, we went down deeper. I knew we must be getting to the right place because Pency was muttering non-stop and was looking every which way. I don’t usually hear voices in my head, but I sure felt like there was something buzzing, trying to get my attention as we moved into the dark of the mine.

  We went on down, past where we had visited before and all of us felt uneasy. We entered a cavern where the workers seemed to have been most recently. Rock was carved out leaving pillars at regular intervals to keep the place intact. The metal they were mining glowed in a sort of evil way. I know what that sounds like, but it was just a bad feeling you got off of it.

  We were spread out in the cavern a bit and suddenly, Boyln dodged just in time to prevent being skewered by three thick arrows that shot out of the wall. We all let out a strained breath. No sooner than we’d all relaxed, we started to hear some clacking coming from up ahead of us. We formed up and shone our lanterns toward the back of the cavern to see dozens of pairs of eerie red lights moving toward us.

  When one got close enough to our beams of light, we realized skeletons were walking steadily towards us holding various old and rusted weapons. It was hard to count how many there were and I had a sudden fear of a mountain of bones sweeping down over us to drown us, but I shook my head and formed up next to my companions.

  They just walked forward and began attacking whoever was out in front and we did the same. I aimed my crossbow bolts for their eyes and heads. I wished I had something a bit heavier for when they came into range, like Emmon’s longsword, but then again, I wasn’t sure I was strong enough to wield something like that.

  One bolt clattered uselessly off a skull, but one went into the bone and the thing went down, the red light in its eyes flickering out. I shot and reloaded as often as I could, ducking down behind Emmon and Boyln who were beside me to reload.

  Emmon seemed to have little trouble hitting them. The trouble was, sometimes they’d just stand right back up and attack again. I think he started aiming at their heads with greater effect. I was too busy with reloading to see how the others were getting on, but I did hear a few grunts which sounded like they were made in pain.

  When one skeleton broke past Emmon and the column I was sheltering behind, I had no choice but to bash it with my bow and hope I didn’t damage it in the process. I didn’t. It was a pretty sturdy bow, thankfully.

  It felt like ages, but soon there were only a few left and we were able to take the last ones out. I pulled out my healing supplies and was soon binding up people who were bleeding which was just Boyln and Meig. We didn’t take too much time for it, just to get the wounds in order in case there were more surprises in the cavern.

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  Once we scouted the area, we assured ourselves that there were no more skeletons lurking about in the darkness. Pency confirmed that the muttering had calmed down and we could all feel a lot more comfortable in the mine than we had previously.

  “This is the most recent excavation point,” Boyln said. Indeed there were a number of pick axes and new mining implements laying about that had likely been abandoned when the trouble had started. “They must have stirred up these…remains and fled.”

  We found a miner that appeared to have been killed some time ago by the skeletons. We wrapped him in a tarp and carried him back up with us to be buried properly. Carrying the body out made us take much longer that we would have liked, but seemed the only decent thing to do.

  Jarnian wrinkled his nose at us as we emerged from the mine. I guess the rest of us were used to the smell. The skeletons had not had a pleasant odor about them. Emmon told him to get a group of men together with more sacks and tarps to gather up skeletal remains in the mine. We hoped that laying them to rest properly would satisfy whatever had cursed them to reanimate in the first place.

  I didn’t know much about that sort of thing, but it seemed reasonable. Despite the additional grumbling from the mercenaries, they got on with it after we agreed to have two of our number accompany them each time they entered the mines. It seemed a bit silly to me. They were armed better than some of us, but we agreed and soon, we had dug a pit to bury the miner and the bones.

  That evening, we all stood around the pit and looked down at the poor souls who lay there, mostly in pieces. Someone had some holy water with them, so they sprinkled it on them. Boyln said a few words and after a few minutes of revered silence, some men filled dirt on top of the remains and we went about the business of getting dinner together.

  It was decided that in the morning some of the mercenaries would head back to St. Layan’s and tell the priests the mine had been dealt with and to sent the miners in so we could help them and assure them of their safety so they could get back to work.

  It was a few easy days that we passed waiting for the miners to return. I joined Jarnian and a few mercenaries when they went out to hunt for some meat to cook. They were impressed with my crossbow abilities. A couple of them had long bows and we brought back two deer carcasses to roast over the fire.

  Luckily, there was still plenty of ale to go around, so it was a merry night after what we all thought was a very successful day. That night, the rains started and continued without mercy making everyone grumpy and somewhat miserable.

  The miners arrived as did a couple carts of supplies with them. The priests had been quite generous with their supplies for us and the miners. No doubt the miners had already heard rumors of the ‘cursed’ mines and had to be bribed a bit to be returning to work here. We arranged two of us to go down with each shift of miners and it was a bit of boring month hanging out and staring at the miners, listening to everyone grumble about their backs, the weather, or whatever had been cooked for the meal.

  There was only one small excitement when a rather large rat jumped out at a miner. Once Emmon skewered it on his sword, everyone had a good laugh about it and got back to work. As we all had rather a lot of time on our hands, we joined the mercenaries in some card games. I refused to bet on the games, so was left out quite often, but Emmon enjoyed betting. Luckily he won about as much as he lost and so didn’t do too badly at it.

  Gavendor had never allowed gambling and had a strict rule against it, so I never tried it. He said it was too easy to be cheated or lose your shirt. As a woman working among men, I can tell you, I had no desire to be losing my shirt any time soon. I could feel the eagerness in the mens’ eyes for me to join them to see Gavendor had been right.