Me an' Gyth an' Bawde, we come up ter Bryg Bewiccan - that dead-city, Fornost. That bloody wealas, Araenion, guides us up in ter the dead fields almost ter the gates, further than I bin on my own, to an old tumble down fortress – an' then … he leaves us. Without a by-yer-leave or nothin'... just goes out in ter the mist an' he's gone. Well, I'm buggered if I'm going a-chasin' after him again.
My watch... I goes an' has a dig around, I got ter, y' see. I dursen't like doing it. Out of my eye I keeps seeing these grey folk, all in helms and such, or hear 'em a-wailing on the wind. Thats what it sounds like, anyway. Fair chills the heart. An' its worse here, right in the middle of the dead-fields, than down on the edges where I bin before. But I got to go an' look, go an' find what I can fer Him. I'm a-diggin... but allus I can sense is them cold hands trying ter get around me neck, - but when I looks there aint nothin' there!
I know they'm dead, and whats in their graves and mounds is fer the takin'... I mean... they'm DEAD so.. what use they got for them jools and such? But... I know... I seen them clicky-clacky bones walking in the corpse-house down by Bree. An' I aint sure how dead is dead these days`... I'm a tellin' Him... really, this time. No more.
But I does find summat, buried by one of their big finger stones on a mound. Affore I gets a good look, Gyth an' Bawde come lookin fer me, so I shoves it in my leggings. Gyth would just get scared the dead would come after us and Bawde... well... Bawde. He would just start his shoutin'. Taint no doubt about that.
Now the shoutin' .. I get used ter it from Bawde. But Gyth - she starts thinking... says that the dead walk around here cos they are cursed. Which is true, them aelfs are a tricksy lot, and no mistake. Then it hits - me and Gyth at the same time - iffen you die while you are cursed... you end up a dead-walker, a bone-man. Gyth looks at me, and me at her... and I knows... I knows! ... I aint ending up a clicky clacky bone-man! I aint dying with the aelf wicce curse on me - I bloody ain't going walking about in the nudd wi' everyone havin' a look at my bones! Taint right. Even if I'm dead.
