OH, IT WAS so easy! There were so many bones here, and not buried, just thrust into the cave like garbage, and the stone rolled across the cave mouth to keep down the smell. No laying out, no ceremony. There had been no sprigs of pine between these fingers, no rosemary under their tongues. Hundreds of bones, hundreds of skulls. So many names responding to his call.
He had an image, suddenly, of massacre sites like this one, scattered the length and breadth of the Domains. It had taken a thousand years, but Acton’s people had killed, and killed, and killed again, until they owned the whole of the country, from cliff to cove, from sand to snow. His own village had been the last to live freely in the old way, and the last to be slaughtered. No doubt the invaders had thought themselves safe, then, thinking they had killed the last of the pure old blood. But they had overlooked him, and now he would bring about their ruin.
Saker looked greedily at the bones before him. Here was an army indeed, if even a fraction of those slaughtered by the invaders had stayed in the dark beyond the grave, yearning for revenge. He would give it to them, full measure and spilling over. They would take back their birthright and the land would flourish under its rightful owners. The people of the old blood — his blood — would live in freedom again, and he would be responsible.
To raise the ghosts of the dead, he needed to know their names. He had brought the skull of the man Owl from Spritford in case he could not See the names of the dead here, but that was not necessary. He could feel the presence of spirits already, and he was sure he would be able to sense them respond as he called a litany of Traveler names.
He placed Owl’s skull at the entrance to the cave anyway. The man deserved to be recalled from death, and he was a good leader. Saker tolled the names with glee: “I seek justice for Owl, Juniper, Maize (he thought briefly of his Aunty Maize, cut down by the warlord’s man), Oak, Sand, Cliff, Tern, Eagle, Cormorant . . .” So close to the sea there were lots of seabird names, and even fish: Dolphin, Cod, Herring . . .
At almost every name there came the flick in his mind which meant that someone of that name was buried here, and in one out of ten a picture came to his head: men, women, grammers, granfers, all ages and conditions, with nothing in common but the fact that they were here, and angry. All of them, angry, and here in spirit, ready to take revenge for their deaths. It was the dark of the moon and he had used no light; they would be invisible to the inhabitants of the town below them. The brick houses of the harbor town looked more formidable than they really were. They would be upon the sleeping usurpers before they realized what was happening.
“I seek justice for Oak and Sand and Herring and all their comrades.”
Saker paused. He could feel their anger, the desire for revenge, building beneath him, here on the hillside overlooking the harbor. It was dangerous, that anger, to him as well as to the invaders. He remembered when the ghosts of Spritford had met two Travelers at the river. For a moment, there, he had feared that they would strike down the Travelers, not recognizing their own. They had not. But because this was a night attack, when Traveler and invader would look alike, sound alike in the dark, he had made precautions. He entered the new part of the spell.
“I seek recompense for murder unjust, for theft of land, for theft of life; revenge against the invaders, against the evil which has come of Acton’s hand… let no Traveler blood be spilled, let no brother or sister fall by our hands. Listen to me, Owl and Oak and Sand and Herring and all your comrades. Taste my blood and recognize it: leave unharmed those who share it with me and with you.”
The spirits of the dead were listening. The rest of the spell wasn’t in words, but images in his mind, complex and distressing. Colors, phrases of music, the memory of a particular scent, the sound of a scream… When he had gathered them all he looked down at the skulls. He pressed the knife to his palm then drew it down hard. The blood surged out in time with his heart and splashed in gouts on the bones. He flung his arm wide so that the blood touched as many bones as possible.
“Arise, Oak and Sand and Herring and all your comrades,” he commanded. “Take your revenge.”
This time, he had a sword ready to give Owl, symbolically making him the leader. The other ghosts accepted it. They looked to Owl immediately, and he pointed with his sword toward the sleeping town, his face alight with anticipation. Then he began to run toward the houses, and the others raced after him, each of them holding whatever weapon they had died with: scythe, hoe, knife, sickle. Not soldiers’ weapons, but deadly enough.
Saker watched, smiling, as they streamed down the hill, toward Carlion, and then he went to follow.