Prologue; Homage of Pain

A loud echo of iron hitting stone was heard across the tomb as the supple blade slowly slipped from Blun's fingers. "You filthy disgusting rott-" Berard interrupted him. The grin on his lips widened as he gripped Blun's shoulder firmly. "I know you did unspeakable things to Víti, I know you were the reason she nearly got hanged. I know that when Gerdrick rode back from war he was greeted by his oh so loyal brethren filling up his wife. I know you fucked every maid in the castle, but you just couldn't lay off the Lord's wife, now could you?" Berard's grip around Blun's shoulder tightened. "You are on NO ground to school me about morality when you took advantage of your brother's courage and her loneliness. You truly disgust me, sitting on your knees as you begged for forgiveness. You are no Ravendal. Hells, you're not even fit for the role of a servant." 

Blun slapped Berard's hand away from his shoulder, falling back onto one of the graves. "You… You filth…" Blun huffed as he laid a hand on his chest. He nervously pulled on the fabric around his neck as he anxiously heaved the air from his mouth. 

To him it felt as if a block of tinder was crushing his lungs closed. 

"You really have no honor, do you?" Berard chortled. 

"SHUT UP!" Blun nervously scratched his right leg. "Shut up…" He screeched as the air barely left his lungs. 

He couldn't let this man say this. A deserter was schooling him, a member of the Ravendal family. Blun felt a sharp headache banging on the sides of his head as his difficult breathing continued. 

He had to do something. Berard could not get away with this. A deserter like him shouldn't leave this tomb alive. 

Blun dashed towards the ground, drawing his stump blade as it shone an orange glow under the torch light. 

"Farewell, dese-" As Blun raised the blade high above his head, he felt the sharp stones on Berard's glove hitting the side of his cheek. The blade dropped. His head rang like a bell on a sweet winter morning. All he could remember was a boot approaching his head as he lay on the floor defenseless. Nothing…

…

…

…

A sweet stinging on his brain accompanied Blun as he opened his eyes, being greeted by darkness. He could feel a violent itch on his back as a worm wriggled across his skin. The smell made him gargle, it was the scent of a corpse, muddied in dirt and excrements. 

As Blun tried to move his hands he noticed they were firmly tied behind his back, being pushed into the dirt. He felt the bruising on his ankles as he noticed they too were firmly tied together. 

He started breathing heavily, blinking profusely as he slowly put together where he was. He hoped he was wrong but deep down he knew he wasn't. 

The rough surface of stone. The worm filled dirt. The stank of a corpse. 

Blun lay in a casket. One of the graves they had found in the tomb. They had left him. They had left him to die, to rot away and become part of the tomb. 

He began to sweat, turning the dirt on his face into mud. He had to get out of the grave, he couldn't die here. He gritted his teeth, clenched his fists as he tried moving his legs. 

They hurt. A lot. 

It should be possible. It should be possible to kick the lid off the grave. Unless… Unless they sealed it? No. No they wouldn't have, he thought. There's no reason to seal the grave if he had been knocked out and tied up already. 

Blun took a deep breath as he slowly rolled up into a ball, kicking his legs against the lid of the grave. The rough stone collided with his old boots, bruising his foot. The lid didn't move. 

Again. 

He pulled his knees as close as he could to his face and pushed. It didn't move. He felt a sharp pain in his legs as the lid pushed down onto his ankles. 

Again. 

He pushed. The grave screeched as the lid slid off slightly to Blun's right. Just one more push he thought, then it'd surely fly off. 

He braced himself as he pulled his knees close to his face a second time, pushing his legs forward. 

Blun sighed as orange torchlight hit his skin and he heard the loud thud from the lid hitting the floor. 

He wriggled himself into a seated position, rubbing his palms on the corner of the grave, slowly cutting the rope. 

It was cut. 

He threw the rope away as his hands came loose, instantly reaching for his feet. He lightly grunted and tore the rope off his feet. 

Blun was filled with a pulsing sensation of relief as he wrapped his fingers around the rough grave's edge. 

He smiled, running his eyes along the edges of the tomb as he pulled himself up. His smile dropped. He looked in awe as he saw the corpses of a man and a boy. The boy had tears and blood stained on the blade that had pierced through his abdomen. Young Thorley was dead as could be. He lay backsided against the dark pedestal, his head turned up, his lifeless pupils rolled back. His eyes had turned a dark, voidish black color, drooping black tears all over his face. 

Young Thorley wasn't the only one. Blun saw the deserter's head, shoved into one of the cracks in the floor, jammed between its sides. His eyes too had turned a dark color. The man's left eye hung out of his skull, just barely sticking to him by an ebony root that led into his brain. The rest of his body was missing, but there was a large painting of blood and guts beside the pedestal that gave Blun all there was to know about the whereabouts of the rest of his corpse. 

The Ravendal brother gasped, backing up against the wall, shoving his fingers into the cracks as he gripped them tightly. 

Young Thorley Ravendal was dead, and so was Berard. Blun's anxious huffing returned to him as he fell to the floor and wept. In his eyes Berard deserved his death, but not Young Thorley. It was his fault that Gerdrick's son was dead. If only he had swung faster. If only he had kept himself together. As he cried the smell of their burned flesh pierced through his taste buds, sending vomit up his throat. 

But it wasn't over. Gerdrick was still alive, he had to be… Blun Ravendal stood up, wiping the tears and puke off his body. He ran over to Thorley's body. "Rest well, young one." Blun ran his hand across the corpse's brow before gripping his skull firmly and pulling the blade out of the boy's guts. It was Berard's finely crafted sword, drenched in blood. 

With a deep wound of regret in his heart, Blun walked up to the tomb's exit and began climbing the ladder.