Mundy Head

Black hexagonal columns formed a narrow set of steps along the edge of the cavern. They clung carefully to the wall as they gingerly hopped from one slick rock to the next, slowly making their way back towards the cave entrance. Below, the incoming tide roared into the cave. Soon they were soaked with spray. Shellah looked back towards their little boat, each end tied securely, and nestled within what little shelter she could find for it amongst the boulders out of the direct crash of the waves. It would have to hold.

Nessah squealed a little as she slipped on a stone. Jonas steadied her from behind. Lloel led the way up, bracing himself with his shillelagh, leaping from stone to stone like a plaid-clad old goat.

“We don’t have to hurry, you two,” Jonas said. “Be careful!”

Shellah followed from the rear, shouldering a heavy bag of gear and some extra rope. She grimaced as her knee complained about the tall steps. It was a staircase for giants. “Stop when you get to the top! We go onto the Head together, remember, that’s what you’re paying Jonas and I for!”

Soon they were scrambling on hands and knees as the stones grew even more tall and sloped. And then, they were enveloped in the thick mist at the top of the peak. As Shellah crested the ledge, panting, she joined the others already seated on the moss and lichen to recover, peering out into the drifting low clouds revealing and concealing tumuli in the moorlands, the barrow mounds. Some were crested with rings of stones, others had singular markers. A wan ray of noon sun briefly backlit a horned silhouette in the fog.

“You would have to really love or hate someone to bury them up here,” Shellah remarked as she shrugged off her pack. “Folks, is there a plan?”

Nessah looked through her own smaller sack, and pulled out a few items, including what looked to be a crystalline stone or lump of glass mounted in the end of a short metal rod. “Yes. Lloel and I discussed it this morning, I have some ideas of what to look for.”

“It’ll be a large mound, with possibly two rows of stones,” continued Lloel. “If it is the Craddoch burial, they likely would have used an existing mound from the old peoples, and his disciples would have added a second ring of more modern stones, to further concentrate its power.”

“Power for what? The hogboon?” ask Jonas, still staring off in the distance where the horned being had stood.

“No, for the rune within,” said Nessah.

The lowering clouds now dropped a steady drizzle.

“Let’s get going,” said Shellah after a bite of stale scone and a sip of water. She pulled a smaller sack out of the larger one. “Leave whatever you don’t need. This is just some camp gear and extra food in case we get stuck up here. Also marks our spot so we can find our way back down.” She adjusted her sword belt, then took some torches and the shovel from the larger pack.

Nessah held out her metal rod, the stone end nestled in her palm. “It’s this way.”

“Let’s keep to the low ground until we’re at a likely barrow,” said Lloel. “No sense in engaging any of the other hogboons.”

“What’s that you're holding?” Shellah asked Nessah as they followed her slowly through the soggy grass.

Nessah opened her hand to display it better. “This is an amasser. Sorcery is a combination of locus, where your power sits, and focus, how you’re directing your efforts. You can store and combine locus and focus into an artifact such as an amasser to build your power and aid in spellwork. I made this at university.”

Stolen novel; please report.

“You can make those now?” exclaimed Lloel. “That isn’t a relic?”

“Shhhhh,” Jonas said. “I hear something.” They all stopped. Nearby something snorted. An enormous horned beast walked across their path. An aurochs. It looked at them for a moment, then disappeared back into the fog. Another smaller one followed it, then a couple of calves.

“How did those get up here?” asked Shellah.

“Wait a moment,” Lloel pointed to a barrow. “Let’s quickly look at this one.” They walked the perimeter of the mound until they saw a low stone-lintel entry. It had no door. Shellah peered around, hand on her sword hilt. No sign of a hogboon. Lloel motioned for them to follow him inside the mound. Around the doorway was inscribed the characteristic artwork of the Old People, spirals and beasts common to the Shielings. And inside the mound, from what they could see in the dim light of the entrance, open niches were filled with small pottery jars and neatly arranged bones.

“This looks to be a traditional Auchundy burial site,” said Lloel as they exited. “They cremate their dead, which would be the only way they could possibly get a corpse up those rocks? Some of these interments looked recent. And they still believe spirits walk on in the afterlife, so they leave an open door so they can be free, and provide them with food and grain for their journey.”

“Such as the fortune in beef we just saw wandering about,” said Jonas. “Brought up as babies, I suppose, and left here to forage. Our hogboons.”

“I bet most of them, anyway,” said Lloel. “A small relief? So I imagine we’re looking for something completely out of the ordinary up here, burial wise.”

“It would help if we were able to see,” said Jonas, waving a hand in the mist.

“Let’s keep going, I feel that it’s this way,” said Nessah. They followed barely visible trails through the brush at the base of the mounds. Shellah couldn’t tell if they were paths made by the Auchundy people or those left by the aurochs herd. Eventually the trail ended. Nessah pointed her amasser towards a tumulus alone in the distance, its head obscured in the low clouds. “Over there.”

“Let me go first,” said Shellah. “I know bogs well. I’ll try to keep us out of the muckier spots.” She slowly forged a path ahead, keeping them on the sturdier tussocks as they approached the barrow. As she neared its wall her boot slipped and she felt something crunch underfoot. As she yanked her foot out, she saw it was stuck in an ancient rotted rib cage. A human skull was nearby. Other mossy bones became distinct amongst the grasses. She shook her foot free of the skeleton, holding her hand up for the others to stop, then drew her sword. “I think we’re here.”

Jonas came up next to her, and knelt to investigate the bones. “What do you think? Hogboon or some other cause? These skeletons look really old.”

“No idea.” She poked at one with her sword’s tip to see some rotting clothes and leather. “Looks like whatever happened they died right here.” She saw Lloel start to wander ahead. “That hogboon is somewhere. Let’s stick together.”

They circumnavigated the mound, finding the human remains scattered about it in a ring, and no clearly marked entry near the bottom. The clouds parted for a moment to reveal two tall rows of stones far above.

“Shellah, how about you and I climb up and investigate those menhirs while Jonas assists Nessah with finding an entrance? I’d like to see if they have any marks upon them, maybe they’ll help,” said Lloel. As there was no sign yet of the hogboon, she nodded and scrambled up the steep side of the barrow to its top.

A cold afternoon sun shone at the top of the mound. Shellah gasped as she saw how close they were to the edge of the summit, the ocean far below, dotted to the north with the uninhabited rocky isles of the outer Shielings. To the west were the shadowed humps of Auchundy. She pivoted to look back from where they came. All the other mounds were clustered closer to where they had entered the moorland.

Lloel motioned her over to view the standing stones. There were two rows, one so ancient its pictographs were barely visible in the weathered striped rock, the other more recently and crudely hewn.

“Does any of this make sense to you?” asked Shellah. She traced a triple spiral on one of the older rocks, the ancient symbol of sea goddess and patroness of the Shielings, Finnah. A similar sigil decorated her own cloak pin.

“I believe this is indeed the site,” said Lloel. “These newer markings are in the Larin…” He was interrupted by a loud roar. Nessah shrieked.

“Uh, Shel… Lloel, you better get down here!” she heard Jonas shout. “We’ve got company!”