so deep into the bones of the earth, creating those immense caves and caverns that were later transformed into the architectural wonders of the northern world and, later still, into a world of darkness and horror.
The first to discover Hrad Spein were the ogres, before they withdrew into the Desolate Lands. There were no orcs yet then, not to mention human beings. The ogres spent a long time exploring Hrad Spein, a very long time. That was where they solved the mysteries of the Kronk-a-Mor. Nothing is known about the origin of the ogres, but they appeared in Siala a lot later than the time when unknown builders first laid the foundations of the Palaces of Bone. They say that the potency of the ogres’ magic came from ageless catacombs, where they discovered the ancient writings of an unknown race that lived in Siala long before the ogres arrived.
Deep, deep under the ground the ogres came across gigantic halls and caves. They started using Hrad Spein as their graveyard, leaving their dead and placing terrible curses on the burial sites. Later, when the ogres moved away to the north, it was the bones of orcs and elves that found their final resting place in Hrad Spein. While constantly warring with each other above the ground, they also found time to create magnificent palaces below it, palaces of a beauty that stunned their contemporaries. And thousands of thousands were interred there, in the ancient burial grounds.
Exquisitely elegant ceilings, columns, frescoes, halls, statues, and corridors—that was Hrad Spein in those times. The orcs and the elves worked together. It was the only place where there was an effective truce between the feuding relatives. Neither side intruded on the lower levels of the ogres. Both races realized that nothing good could be expected from the ogres’ magic, and the upper layers of the palaces provided more than enough space for them.
But eventually the bloodlust of the orcs and the hatred of the elves had their effect, and blood was spilt in this place that was sacred to both races. Both of them started installing traps in their own territory to catch their enemies. The underground halls crackled with dark shamanic energy and were drowned in blood. In the end, neither orcs nor elves could feel safe in these places any longer. The Palaces of Bone were abandoned and subsequently the secret knowledge of the locations of traps and labyrinths in the lower levels was lost.
Hrad Spein became like a gigantic underground layer cake tens of leagues deep and wide. The levels of the ogres, the levels of the orcs and the elves. Halls, corridors, and caves. Burial sites, treasure chambers, and magical rooms. Everything in the Palaces of Bone became wound up tight into one gigantic, inextricable tangle. By the time the orcs and elves left the place, men had appeared in the world of Siala and they found their way to Hrad Spein.
They too did not dare go down to the lower levels. Amazing as it might seem, our race had the wits not to do that. Men took over the upper three levels for burying their warriors. Hrad Spein became legendary as the greatest burial ground in the Northern Lands. Only brave soldiers who had fallen in battle were considered worthy to be buried in Hrad Spein, and, of course, aristocrats.
But then, something happened. Nobody ever knew what it was exactly, or why it happened. In Hrad Spein the evil of the ogres’ bones awoke, protected by the dark shamanism that had lain dormant all these centuries on the lower levels of the underground regions. It awoke, rousing the dead—and someone else as well. And it rose to the very upper level, but did not emerge from the bounds of Hrad Spein, settling forever in the ancient palaces, and no one dared to go down to those places. Except for the magicians carrying the Horn to Grok’s grave.
Time went by, and the Forests of Zagraba swallowed up the entrances to this underground country, concealing the horror of night forever beneath the green crowns of their trees. Over the centuries the dreadful tales about Hrad Spein acquired even greater depths of horror and darkness. Only once, about forty years ago, did dark elves venture down into those places to leave there forever the head of the House of the Black Rose, but they were only able to carry the body of the warrior who had fallen in battle with the orcs as