Title: Pilgrims of Darkness - Serge Brussolo - book
Summary :
Locked in an iron cage in the dungeons of an abbey, a demented monk recounts that the pilgrimage he was leading ended in hell. The devil, he claims, took all those who accompanied him.
What is really happening in the mountains where the endless road winds to the relics of Saint Gaudaemon, a martyr once tortured by Caligula, the mad emperor? One thing is certain: many people disappear, and the peaks seem inhabited by legendary creatures who have made pilgrims their daily prey.
What secret, what heretical plot are they trying to hide under the mask of superstition?
Will Marion, the young ex-voto carver, be luckier than those who preceded her on the paths of mystery... or will she, in turn, succumb to the spells of the cursed pilgrimage?