.

Terrifying to most mortals are the nocturnal places visited by those who rob the dead. Screw up your courage, reader, for the path ahead leads into the unknown and to a place from which there may be no return

THE MARGRAVE'S GRAVE

by Frederick Highland

 
Larger image

The spade rattled in the stony soil. A shaft of moonlight, breaking through ragged clouds and bleak as bone, fell on a stone marker and a mound of dark earth beside it. Squirming in the sudden light, pale larvae found their way back into their moist and secret home. Then the shoveling abruptly ceased. Silence settled on the lonely crossroads at the edge of the forest.

"This is the right grave? You're sure?" Karl squinted at the lantern above him, creaking in the chill wind of midnight. Swirls of mist obscured his partner, except for a silhouette behind the gleaming yellow light.

"Where else could it be?" came the impatient reply." I mean this is the only tombstone with a crest, isn't it?" Wulf's pained, pox-scarred features appeared next to the lantern. "Where else would a lord be buried?"

"A lord has no business being buried along a public road," said Karl sourly.

"He does if he took his own life, " said Wulf. "The same as these other blokes here." He held the lantern higher so the light shone on four other stone monuments lined before a low fence made of fieldstone. "On the other side of this fence is consecrated ground. Them that lies this side is damned to hell. Or weren't you listening to the widow?"

"I was thinking the margrave's widow is a plump, lonely young thing with an eye for dalliance," returned Karl.

"Well let me enlighten you, my fine scarecrow, if the Widow von Muhlau has an eye to dally it won't be with the likes of you. Or do you think she's in the habit of inviting up-and- coming young grave robbers to tea? Besides, she hasn't got a thaler to her name. Why do you think we're mucking about her dead husband's grave in the pall of night."

"Pah! This is a pretty piece of work," snorted Karl. "This is the one night in the year we shouldn't be out raising the dead."

"Because of All Hallow's Eve?" Wulf asked with a sneer. "The widow said she must have the goods tomorrow. She'll have them, all right."

A spade came arcing out of the hole in the ground, its blade glinting in the moonlight, and slid down the heap of earth. Then two hands smeared with soil emerged out of the hole and grasped the sides. A second later a grimy man in a black coat had lifted himself to a seat on the sides of his excavation.

"I'm cold and I'm tired." Karl words came out in puffs of frost.

A forlorn cry echoed from the tangle of branches above them.

NEXT

Website and All Contents Copyright (c) 1998-2008 Frederick Highland