Page 89 of A Hunter for Luna

After an hour the road twisted by an ancient graveyard, its crumbling monuments overgrown and half-buried in the earth. From the style of statuary, the graveyard predated the first Emperor's conquest. The people before he came had preferred idealized figures, usually seated and clothed in draped clothing, their expression a serene smile. Not the realistic poses that people used today.

These graves were so old the families didn’t tend them anymore. Or had died out in the wars and centuries marching by.

Trees had grown all the way up to the low stone wall surrounding the graveyard, and one corner had crumbled into a sad pile of broken rock and mortar.

Dawn shied and dug his hooves in before the rusted iron gate.

“Are we going in there?” I asked.

“Yes.”

I looped Dawn’s reins on a sturdy tree branch further back and walked forward. Pip stayed on my shoulder, growling softly, his head swiveling.

Biter sweated and danced from hoof to hoof but passed the gate.

Within the walls, ferns and dirt covered the half-toppled markers, the writing on them so eroded by time I couldn’t make out any words or numbers. Statues smiled at me, both upright and on the ground.

The fog thickened as I followed Benedetto further in and I shivered as a chill seeped into my bones, deeper than the damp cold. Why were we stopping here? My gaze skipped over the markers and statuary, an uneasy feeling settling in my gut. This place felt wrong, like it'd been forgotten by the living but not by the dead.

Benedetto dismounted, moving with predatory grace toward a cluster of graves mostly shrouded in dense fog. Unlike the others, the earth around the markers had nothing growing on it, looked dense, crumbly and dry, as if it could sustain no life.

He reached into one of the saddlebags on Biter, who huffed and tried to sidle back, pulling out a small pouch of dried herbs and several vials filled with shimmering liquid.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"Making a delivery," he said curtly. "I made an agreement with the ghouls here. They trade information for supplies they can't get in town."

Ghouls?

There were curses, cast by people like me who sourced from the dark moon, that forbade rest after death. Accusations of casting such curses was why my mother was executed.

Some places became infused with necromantic energy when the ancient wars were fought, and that energy seeped into bodies later buried there and drove them from their graves. And sometimes, the dead refused to stay in their graves– there were those who refused to die and leave their business untended.

Others rose to kill their enemies, or protect their families, or clawed their way out of the grave because the very earth imbued them with unnatural energy.

What all of them had in common was that they consumed life, be it in the form of blood or flesh from the living.

And that no sane person encountered them willingly.

So of course Benedetto made a deal with them. A spike of fear shot through me. Dying under teeth and claws was not how I wanted to end.

It also showed Benedetto still trusted me. Dealing with ghouls carried the death penalty throughout Dimare.

Mist stirred between the graves in front of us, and my breath caught as several figures emerged.

Flaking dry skin covered in grave dirt stretched over ropy muscle on emaciated bodies. They wore scraps of clothing, the remnants of what they’d been buried in or had stolen from the living.

The eyes…pits of darkness, like black stones set in their heads. They glowed faintly, almost with a negative light. Their lips peeled back from their teeth, that frightening gauntness turning their faces into flesh covered skulls.

Their movements were smooth and fast, and my muscles clenched in fear.

"You've brought the supplies?" one of the ghouls hissed, its voice like dried leaves rustling in the wind.

Benedetto tossed the pouch and vials onto the ground. "As promised. Now, what do you have for me?"

The ghoul sniffed at the pouch, a disturbing smile stretching its cracked lips. "A storm is coming. Moonshifter expects you. He's laid traps near his tower, of magic and men. Some invoke ritual to find or replace the absent gods. Be careful, d'Alvarez. I’d hate for you to die far away from here."

A wave of nausea rolled over me as a breeze eddied through the mist, carrying with it the scent of rot and age. The ghouls retreated back into the heavy gray fog, their eerie shadows vanishing among the graves.

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