Bones and Breath
~ ~ ~
The smell of blood, sweat, and mead hit her like a warhammer.
Gunnarsgrunn was not a place for crystal, nor silence. It was a village carved from earth and muscle—mud-bricked huts, crude stone altars, and roaring fires that never seemed to go out. The people here were broad-backed and sun-scarred, their laughter as loud as their axes were sharp.
Nyssarra stood at the edge of the bridge crossing the River Lum, her cloak fluttering like a shadow of snow in a storm. Her bow was slung across her back, crystal-tipped arrows glinting subtly even in the overcast light.
She exhaled. This was going to be uncomfortable.
And necessary.
The village chieftain, a thick-necked brute named Harulf, greeted her by spitting into the dirt.
“You’re the half-elf?” he asked, as if accusing her of a crime.
Nyssarra inclined her head. “I am. I come from Falador, with news of your western scouts.”
Harulf grunted. “Didn’t know Falador sent leaf-kissers now. You any good with that thing?” He gestured to her bow with a smirk.
“I could pin your shadow to the wall without touching skin,” she replied, meeting his eyes.
The laughter from the gathered barbarians stopped for a moment.
Then Harulf bellowed, clapping a massive hand on her shoulder hard enough to nearly unseat her. “I like her! Bring her a horn!”
The mead was foul. The village square, little more than a trampled field, was packed with warriors trading boasts and bruises. Several skulls—troll, human, possibly ogre—hung from pikes near the central fire.
Nyssarra sat at the edge of the gathering, uncomfortable but observant.
She wasn’t here to judge. Gunnarsgrunn was old—older than Varrock, older than some claim even the River Lum. Its people had lived through ice and invasion, through wilderness and Zamorak’s madness. They deserved respect. Even if they didn’t always give it back.
A young warrior slammed a wooden tankard beside her. He was tall, with braids tangled in bone beads.
“You look too still,” he said. “Drink or dance.”
“I didn’t come to dance.”
“Then why?”
She tapped the edge of her horn. “Your scouts haven’t returned from the west bank. The Falador patrols found a shattered shield near the ruins of the old watchtower. Something out there is hunting in silence.”
His brow furrowed, more serious now. “No claw marks?”
“No sound. No blood trail. Just... gone.”
The barbarian nodded slowly. “We’ve had whispers. Cold air in warm fields. Animals fleeing. Something unnatural.”
A chill crept down her spine. “You believe in spirits?”
“I believe in the dead,” he said. “And I believe they’re not resting.”
That night, she went out alone.
It was not wise, but it was necessary.
She moved along the river’s edge, where the reeds whispered secrets and frogs fell silent at her passing. The stars were faint—cloud-choked and hazy—but her pendant gave off just enough light to trace the shape of the land.
Then she saw it.
A cairn.
It was not barbarian-made. Too neat. Too old. The stones were stacked in a ring, and at its center was a broken spear made of blackened iron.
Her foot brushed something in the dirt.
A skull. Small. Human.
Then a whisper.
Not from her.
From the wind.
“Leave.”
The arrow was nocked before she realized it.
A shadow passed through the trees—fast, too fast—and her instincts screamed.
Whatever haunted the west bank was not a beast.
It was a memory.
A curse.
She fell back into cover, slowing her breathing. A trick of light? No. The grass was flattened. The trees bent inward unnaturally. She could feel the warping of Seren’s energy. Something wrong had nested here.
A flicker. A face.
No.
A skull, with eyes like dying stars.
It rushed her.
Nyssarra rolled aside, loosing an arrow that hissed and sparked on impact, releasing a pulse of crystalline energy. The thing shrieked—not with pain, but like a memory being disrupted. Then it vanished into the trees.
She returned to Gunnarsgrunn at dawn, silent and pale.
Harulf met her with narrowed eyes.
“You found something.”
“Something found me,” she said. “It wears the shape of old bones. It stalks silently. And it doesn’t bleed.”
His face hardened. “We buried warriors there, long ago. From the old clans. From before the God Wars. Maybe something woke what shouldn’t have.”
“Then you need to rebury it. Properly.”
He growled. “We don’t fear ghosts.”
“No,” Nyssarra said. “But you should respect them.”
By midday, the warriors of Gunnarsgrunn gathered by the western cairn.
They came not with torches, but with drums. Deep, steady rhythms that made the earth remember who once walked it. Nyssarra stood beside the blackened spear, her hands pressed to the crystal pendant at her chest.
Harulf approached, carrying a curved horn of some forgotten beast.
“Will your goddess help us?” he asked.
“She will witness,” Nyssarra said. “The rest is yours.”
The rites were rough, but honest. Bones were lifted with bare hands. Names were spoken—some guessed, some remembered. And then they burned the cairn.
Not with fire.
With sound.
The barbarians sang.
It was not pretty, nor elven. But it was powerful. A roar of memory and sorrow that filled the forest, pushing the shadows back.
As the final note echoed into silence, Nyssarra saw the spirit again.
Just once.
Standing in the trees.
Watching.
Then gone.
At peace.
That evening, Harulf offered her a bone-carved charm.
“For protection,” he said. “And so we remember.”
Nyssarra tied it to her belt, just beneath her arrows.
“You’re welcome here,” he added, gruffly. “For a leaf-kisser.”
She smirked. “And you’re not so bad. For a skull-drummer.”
They drank.
And for one night, at least, grace and grit sat side by side.