Taker Of Skulls (Book 5)

  “Are you sure this is wise?” Sasha asked. The dwarf’s ears twitched when she spoke but he never broke stride otherwise. “He could be leading us into a trap.”

  “We were surrounded by goblins and monsters, anyway,” Karnea said. Was there a note of disapproval in her voice of the way Sasha’s guidance had led them to this? “At least this way we have a chance of finding what we came for.”

  “He only said the others might be able to help us,” Kormak said. “And dwarves are very precise in their use of language.”

  “They also pay their debts,” said Karnea. “And Verlek feels we saved his life.”

  “That’s because the Guardian did save his life,” said Boreas. A grim smile stretched his skull-like features.

  “What was that about you carrying a forbidden weapon?” said Sasha.

  “I don’t know,” said Kormak. “The dwarves of Aethelas never said anything about that.”

  “Marked with runes of Chaos and Death, he said,” said Karnea. “Yet if you look, he has a similar rune on his left forearm. The one that looks like a single-eyed octopus, the spell-breaking rune,”

  Kormak remembered what Master Malan had once told him. “It disrupts magic the way an Elder Sign does.”

  “A servant of the Old Ones would not have such an Elder Sign tattooed on his body,” said Karnea. “It would be blasphemy to them.”

  “The dwarves beneath Aethelas don’t mind having them emblazoned on the doors of their halls,” said Kormak.

  “I don’t think these dwarves have much in common with your allies. Not any more. If ever they did.”

  “You think they might be hostile?” Kormak asked.

  “The dwarves beneath the Holy Mountain make weapons that can kill Old Ones. Verlek describes himself as one of the Faithful. Maybe they represent different factions. We don’t really know much of dwarvish history other than what our allies have told us.”

  “Which is what?” Sasha said. Karnea and Boreas both glared at her. She looked back unabashed. “I am in this as much as you, and let’s face it, even if you tell me some secret, it is likely to die with me.”

  “We know they fled the City in the Deeps because of what they call the Long Dying,” said Karnea eventually. “They were betrayed and cursed by the Old Ones. They agreed to make weapons for the Order of the Dawn in return for the Order’s protection when the Guardians discovered their hidden citadel beneath Mount Aethelas.”

  “When did this happen?”

  “More than a thousand years ago in the time of Althuriel, the Sun King,” Kormak said. “It was the beginning of a long alliance. They gave us a weapon that let us deal with the Old Ones. One that forced them to respect the Law.”

  “The swords are so important then?”

  “It is supposed to be impossible to kill an Old One without such a blade,” said Boreas.

  “Not impossible,” said Kormak. “Just close to it. They heal almost instantly from normal wounds. Always. They can even come back from death, given sufficient time.”

  “Some very powerful magics can destroy them,” Karnea said. “Elder Signs can bind and burn them. Exposure to sunlight, too.”

  “There are few magicians who are trusted and the Old Ones avoid fighting through the day,” said Kormak. “The Solari had weapons that used the Holy Sun’s Light but the secrets of making those were lost when the First Empire fell. All we really have now are the blades. They allowed the Sunlanders to turn back the Selenean Resurgence when the Old Ones sought to reclaim the ancient lands the Solari had taken.”

  “I can understand why the Old Ones would curse the dwarves and even want them destroyed. If they knew the secret of ending their immortality...” Sasha was quick on the uptake.

  “But why would they do that?” Boreas asked. “I had always heard the dwarves were loyal to their masters.”

  “I don’t know,” said Karnea. “But it is possible that we might find answers even to that if we can find this Hold of which Verlek speaks.” She sounded more excited by that possibility than she had by the possibility of finding the Lost Runes. Her cheerfulness was fast re-exerting itself. Kormak was not sure that was a good sign.

  Chapter Seventeen

  THEY WALKED FOR a long time. The dwarf loped ahead tirelessly. Karnea went forward to talk to him. “We must rest,” she said. “I can barely walk.”

  “You are weary?” The dwarf sounded surprised. “We have come barely five leagues. It is a long way yet to the Hold.”

  “Nonetheless we must rest and eat if we are to make the journey. Not all of us are as hardy as dwarves.”

  “So I can see,” said Verlek. His nose twitched. His beard flowed. “There is a well not too far from here and a place we can make secure. Now that we have left the Forge Quarter, the accursed Graghur-spawn may pick up our trail once more.

  “Graghur-spawn?” Karnea asked. Verlek described the goblins. He placed more emphasis on their sound and smell than their physical appearance.

  “He is their progenitor. Or so Guttri has always said and Guttri knows about these things. Guttri is the Keeper.” Verlek spoke the title with some respect and he clearly expected them to understand why.

  “You mean Graghur created them?” Karnea asked.

  “He is mother and father to them. At least so it is written on his monument.”

  “There is a statue to him?” Kormak asked.

  “We passed it but a half league back between the statues of Saa-Aquor, Mistress of the Seas and Tritureon, High Lord of the Black Swamp Ziggurat,” said Verlek. “Surely you perceived it. Carved from star-stone, smelled of it too. The texture was very fine.”

  “I do not recall seeing such a thing,” said Kormak. There had been a statue of a tall stately Old One who looked not unlike a dwarf being borne along on a platform carried by a score of goblins. It came to him then he was making a very elementary mistake.

  “Graghur is a shapeshifter,” he said.

  “All the Eldrim are,” said Verlek, as if stating something obvious to a child. “Sometimes they choose to remain in a given form. Sometimes they get stuck in it.”

  “He could have picked a better shape,” said Kormak.

  “You have encountered him?” The dwarf’s blind-seeming eyes were turned on him.

  “Yes.”

  “And you are alive?”

  “Apparently.”

  “You bear a forbidden blade.” Verlek said this as if it held the secret of Kormak’s survival, which in a way, it did. The dwarf looked thoughtful then his head twitched to one side and he made a sign over his chest and a cursing sound.

  “What?” Kormak asked.

  “I was thinking blasphemous thoughts,” said Verlek. “I am young and untested and I don’t know any better.”

  It sounded like he was repeating something he had been told often by others. Some of what the dwarf had said earlier came back to Kormak. “The goblins are your enemies,” he said.

  Verlek made a curious movement of his head that Kormak was fast coming to equate with a nod of assent.

  “Then Graghur is too,” said Karnea.

  Another head movement. Verlek’s beard twitched in an agitated manner. His eyes narrowed. His mouth shut tight as if he was trying to hold in words by force of will.

  “We can help you against him,” said Karnea. “At least the Guardian can.”

  “That decision is not mine to make,” said Verlek, but there was a note of excitement, almost of hope in his voice that had not been there before. There was something else too, a note of horror, as if he was contemplating something unspeakable.

  “I have never seen tattoos like yours before,” Karnea said. “They are rune script.”

  “Yes. They are Branhilde’s work and they have helped keep me alive when others have fallen.”

  “Life in the Underhalls is dangerous,” Karnea said. Kormak remained silent. He noticed that Verlek was more likely to reply when she spoke. He was not sure whether it was because she was a female or because
she was simply a more sympathetic listener than he was.

  “Indeed but I have survived fifty full years,” said Verlek. “No one thought I would when I was born.”

  “Your name, Lastborn, that is quite literally true, is it not? You are the last child to have been born among your people.”

  “That is truth.” Kormak heard talk coming from behind him. Sasha and Boreas, excluded from the conversation here were talking among themselves. They seemed to be getting on. He focused attention back on Verlek.

  “That is hard to imagine,” said Karnea. “I know few children are born among dwarves but I would have expected more than one birth in fifty years.”

  The dwarf looked away. In a human, Kormak would have taken his expression for embarrassment. He fell silent. Perhaps he felt he was giving too much away. Kormak decided it was his turn to change the subject.

  “You came a long way from your Hold on your own,” he said. “What brought you to the Forge Quarter?”

  Verlek continued to be silent for a long time as he loped along. Kormak wondered if he was going to get any answer at all.

  “I wanted to prove myself against one of the beasts that Graghur unleashes there. Utti questioned my courage and I decided to show him. I told him I would bring back Yellow Eye’s head as an ornament for the Wall of Skulls.”

  “You could have,” said Kormak. “Yellow Eye is dead.”

  “I did not kill him,” said Verlek. “I was taken by surprise by the Slitherer while stalking him and would have died had you not come along. There is no honour to be gained taking such a skull. Instead I gained a debt, and perhaps something more.” He showed a small smile. “Aye, and perhaps something more.”

  They walked through the dark corridors in silence. In the distance a drumming sound started. A familiar howling echoed through the corridors.

  “The Graghur-spawn have found our trail again,” said Verlek. “There can be no rest now.”

  The howls echoed through the corridors behind them. Verlek loped along easily on all fours. He was not very fast compared to a man sprinting but he had proved he could easily keep up this pace for hours. He was showing not the slightest sign of strain. The same could not be said for Kormak or his companions.

  “They are driving us before them,” said Verlek. “Some have circled ahead. We are in the jaws of a pincer.”

  He spoke easily. His breath did not come gasping from his mouth.

  Kormak said, “We can turn and fight.”

  “If worst comes to worst, we shall,” said Verlek. “But there are too many of them. At least a hundred goblins, a score of the great goblins and a pack of hunting wolves.”

  “How can you tell?” Kormak asked.

  “Can you not hear them? Smell them? Feel them in your beard.” He made a grimace that again suggested embarrassment. “Of course, you have no beard.”

  Was it possible that Verlek’s beard was some sort of sensory organ, like a tongue or a nose? Could he smell things with it, feel them or was it some other sense, unknown to humanity such as those that some of the Old Ones possessed? He remembered the dwarf touching the floor with it previously. Did it pick up vibrations? Now did not seem to be the time to be asking about it.

  “Run!” Kormak said.

  They raced through what might have been a long tunnel. Blank windows and doorways gaped on every side. Huge pillars, spaced every fifty strides obscured the view. On each, massive runes had been worked and Kormak felt the pulse of magical energy rushing through them.

  The howling of the wolves was louder now. Mingled with it he could hear the high-pitched squeaking yelps of goblins.

  “Run faster,” said Verlek. “We are almost at the Hold. If we can reach it, there is chance we might escape.”

  Kormak did not ask any questions. The dwarf had lengthened his stride and was moving faster now. Under normal circumstances Kormak would not have had much difficulty keeping up but he was tired. A glance behind him told him that the others were no better off. In fact, Karnea looked as if she was on the verge of collapse. Her face was completely red. Her hair was lank and sweat ran down her brow. Even Boreas looked weary.

  Ahead of them now, he could see another bridge; a long structure of fused stone, lined by enormous statues of what might have been dwarf heroes or might have been Old Ones. It was too dark too tell.

  Kormak dropped back. Karnea stood there, blowing air from her lips, clutching her side. “A stitch,” she said. “I can’t go on. Run! Save yourselves.”

  “We’re not leaving without you,” Kormak said. He grinned encouragingly.

  She gulped and swallowed and leaned forward, bracing her hands on her knees. Behind them, Kormak thought he saw dark shapes moving through the tunnel. The howls were amplified by the tunnel mouth.

  Boreas handed Kormak his hammer and swept Karnea up. “I will carry her,” he said. He was as good as his word. He held the scholar like she was nothing more than a child. Verlek turned and reached out for the hammer himself. Kormak let him have it. The dwarf carried the weapon as easily one handed as Boreas had with two but he was slowed down because he could no longer run on all fours.

  “I owe you my life,” he said. “Debts must be paid. Get to the bridge.”

  “Don’t be foolish,” said Kormak. “Your own people might kill us, if you are not there to speak for us.”

  A spark of what might have been anger appeared in the dwarf’s eye. He raised the hammer as if testing its weight for a swing. “You are right,” he said. “We have other hammers. I will gift your companion with one in return for losing this.”

  He dropped the hammer and loped off in the direction of the bridge. Kormak risked a look around. He could see that the others had almost reached it. White wolves were starting to be visible in the greenish glow. He turned and sprinted after the dwarf. Every breath burned in his chest.

  They raced across the bridge. Each of the shadowy figures had an everglow lantern mounted on it. The light was dim compared even to moonlight but, after the long darkness they had wandered through, now seemed like daylight to Kormak’s eyes. All of the huge figures appeared to be dwarves, he noticed, but how could he be certain. Perhaps they were shape-shifted Old Ones like Graghur.

  Once they were on the far side Verlek took the horn from around his neck and sounded it. Its blast, uncannily loud, echoed away into the gloom, for a moment even drowning out the howling of the wolves.

  A glance over his shoulder showed Kormak that, just for a moment, the pursuing beasts had halted. Perhaps they feared the onset of some enemy. They waited for heartbeats only though before taking up the chase once more.

  Kormak could see the great goblins. They looked like their smaller kin, but tall as a man and skinnier, as if someone had taken an extraordinarily large goblin and stretched it on a rack. One of them carried a banner showing a goblin head with four stylised arms radiating out from it. The others brandished huge curved blades and oval shields with grinning skull faces inscribed on them.

  Ahead lay a huge lit courtyard, surrounded on three sides by massive fortified walls. In the centre of the wall directly ahead was a massive stone doorway, inscribed with powerful warding runes.

  Verlek sounded his horn desperately. Shadowy shapes moved on the balconies of the fortification above them.

  A howl came from very close behind Kormak. He turned. A dire wolf snapped at him. Its goblin rider thrust with its spear. Kormak parried it, beheaded the wolf, and then stabbed the rider through the chest even as he tumbled to the ground.

  The other dire wolves were almost upon him, and behind them came a company of tall, thin great goblins with wicked looking blades.

  The first of the mangy dire wolves sprang. Kormak stepped to one side, letting the wolf pass through the empty air where he had been. It landed, twisted immediately, snapped at him with jaws that could tear off an arm. He leapt back as another wolf attacked him.

  The pack surrounded him. Red eyes glittered with insane ferocity. Froth bubbled over ye
llow fangs and lolling pink tongues.

  He slashed the throat of the nearest dire wolf. Blood spurted, spraying Kormak and the ground at his feet. The red fluid tasted metallic on his tongue.

  Two wolves attacked, one from each side. He avoided the first but the second snagged the sleeve of his jerkin and pulled him off balance.

  He snapped the pommel of his blade down on the wolf’s sensitive nose, and it released its grip on him, whimpering in pain. The second wolf sprang at him. He did not have time to get his blade into position. It overbore him, its massive weight pressing his body to the ground, huge jaws snapping down towards his throat.

  An eerie whistling sound filled the air and a moment later an explosion of infernal brightness burst overhead, distracting the wolf.

  Kormak rolled, knocking it off balance. Clumsily he swung his sword round and down, connecting with the wolf’s skull, splitting it. The wolf reared, blood pouring down into its eyes, brains spilling from the gash in its head. Kormak rolled against its back legs, his weight knocking it over. As he rose to his feet he saw that it was dead. It had just taken a few moments to realise it.

  A quick glance showed him that all was confusion. The goblin horde had raced into the plaza behind the wolves. The great goblins were in the lead but scores and scores of the smaller creatures scurried in their wake. Comet trails of fire descended from the balconies on either side of the plaza and where they touched the ground, huge explosions ripped the darkness. A wave of heat washed over them and then vanished. The rune on Karnea’s arm blazed brightly as it fed on the energy.

  It only took Kormak a moment to realise that the defenders were using larger versions of Sasha’s weapon. The goblins yipped and screamed but kept coming, too filled with the thrill of pursuit to consider flight. Their prey was in sight and they were not going to let it escape.

  The great goblins closed with Kormak. In the light of the explosions, he made out their lean horrible faces leering at him. Mouths full of razor sharp teeth grinned evilly. They emitted strange chirping sounds and their huge bat-like ears twisted as if in response heartbeats later. In the flickering light of the exploding runestones, their eyes changed colour in response to the intensity of the flames, going from very dark to almost glitteringly light as the explosions burst and faded.