Taker Of Skulls (Book 5)

  “Do you think you are? Touched by the Light, I mean,” said Sasha once she had regained composure enough to speak.

  “I have touched its presence once or twice,” she said. “I am not sure the Light has touched me. I like to think that it might some time. It would be a blessing indeed.”

  “I thought the Light only touched saints,” Sasha said.

  “You think me egotistical?” Karnea asked. Her tone was very mild but Sasha responded in a way that she never would have to a threatening word from Kormak.

  “No. I was just saying.” She spoke nervously.

  “Perhaps I am egotistical,” said Karnea. She smiled benevolently around her. Kormak was reminded of an owl. They looked wise and splendid but they were also deadly predators. Karnea took a mouthful of her stew, made a face, and then blew on the spoon to cool it. She looked about as threatening as a rabbit, but Sasha has moved to put some distance between them. “No one really knows why the Light touches some and not others. Although some scholars claim that in every case of sainthood the one so blessed had the Gift.”

  “You mean they were sorcerers? You are saying that the saints were all magicians. That is blasphemy.” Sasha sounded genuinely appalled. She looked at Kormak and Boreas for support.

  “Some of the Old Ones have told me similar things,” said Kormak maliciously.

  “Really,” said Karnea. “Fascinating. We have much to talk about, Sir Kormak.

  “The Old Ones are notorious liars,” he said to close off any further inquiries of this sort.

  “Not all of them,” said Karnea. “And even in the lies of the most deceitful some nuggets of truth may be uncovered. It makes the lie more convincing, or so they say, although I confess this is not really my area of expertise.”

  “What is?” Kormak asked. In his experience a scholar could usually be distracted by asking them about their specialist subjects. They loved to talk about them even more than they loved to ask questions.

  “Initially I thought it was the Healing Arts,” Karnea said, “but after a few decades I found myself drawn to the rune lore of the Khazduri. I spent some time underground in Aethelas talking with them, learning their tongue and about their ways. I am composing a monograph on the subject which I hope to have finished within the decade.”

  “This is why you were in Aethelas when I was a youth,” Kormak said. It was odd to think that the dwarves had chosen to allow this woman to stay with them. Most members of the order spent only a few nights underground as part of their initiation and the dwarves mostly just ignored them.

  “And what about you?” Sasha asked Boreas.

  “I was a soldier,” Boreas said. “And now I am a bodyguard.”

  He showed his skeletal smile. “The work is safer and the pay is better. The food, too.”

  “Where did you find the rune?” Karnea asked Sasha. The suddenness to the question reminded Kormak of an owl dropping on a mouse.

  Sasha said, “In the Forge Quarter about a year ago. It was before the goblins and the monsters were quite so thick on the ground down there.”

  “Monsters?” Boreas said.

  “Huge, twisted mutated things. In the first couple of years after the city was discovered there was nothing like them, then the new goblin king showed up and the tribes began to in-gather and the wolves came and the bats.”

  “Oh dear,” said Karnea.

  “You see why you were brought along, Sir Kormak,” Boreas said.

  “The goblins have been getting meaner and meaner ever since old Graghur showed up. Been raiding prospector camps. Just a few on outlying tents but they never used to do that.”

  “Graghur?” Kormak said. His tone was sharp.

  “That’s what he’s called. Why are you so interested?”

  Kormak thought of the long lists he had memorised when he was a novice back on Mount Aethelas. “It is the name of an Old One,” he said. “He hasn’t been heard off since the Selenean Resurgence though.”

  Karnea nodded agreement. “Luzak Ath Graghur, Taker of Skulls. His worship is quite common among the goblin tribes of the mountains. Many scholars believe he was their patron in the Age of Shadow.”

  Sasha’s glance darted from face to face, becoming more horrified by the moment.

  “You are saying the goblin king is an Old One,” she said.

  “He may be,” said Karnea. “It is not uncommon for their tribal leaders to take on the names of their former patrons. They believe it is a sign of strength.”

  “How do you know so much about these things?” Sasha asked.

  “It’s a fascinating area of study,” she said. “There is a connection between the dwarves and the goblins. They are ancient enemies and have been ever since the goblins invaded Khazduroth millennia ago.”

  A dire wolf howled. “Sounds like it’s getting closer,” said Kormak.

  “Best build up the fire and take watches,” said Sasha.

  Karnea rose from the fire and walked around the camp, placing her small rune-inscribed stones at each point of the compass. She inscribed a circle connecting them with chalk and marked some symbols on the ground, then she paused for a moment, looked at the sky and moved her lips as if she was trying to remember something. Eventually she spoke an incantation that sounded like a prayer. Nothing visible happened but Kormak felt the amulet on his chest heat up as it responded to the eddy currents of magic.

  “That should give us a bit of warning,” she said.

  “I would feel more secure if we set a watch,” Kormak said. “No offence.”

  “None taken,” Karnea said. She walked over to the fire, took the rune torque from her arm and placed it among the flames.

  “What are you doing?” Sasha asked. She looked as if she wanted to reach into the fire and snatch the rune out.

  “Mankh will absorb the heat,” she said. “And can unleash it quickly if the need arises. I’ve been charging it for a few days now just in case.” She glanced around at them and said, “Make sure you keep the fire well fed. Mankh will make it burn down more quickly as it eats the flames.

  Karnea lay down by the fire, covering herself with her cloak as a blanket. She closed her eyes and immediately started to snore.

  “They say sorcery takes it out of you,” Kormak said.

  “Toss you for the first watch,” said Boreas.

  “I’ll take it,” Kormak said. “Between the snores and the howling I won’t get much sleep anyway.”

  No one seemed disposed to argue with him. He sat with his back to the rocks, looking away from the fire back along the track over which any intruder would have to come. Behind him the fire sputtered and did not provide as much heat as he would have expected. He supposed the rune was doing its work.

  He considered his companions. They were as strange a bunch as he had ever travelled with; a girl grave-robber, a seemingly unworldly scholar, and a mercenary killer.

  He wondered if any of them would make it back to civilisation or what passed for it in this part of the world.

  Chapter Six

  BOREAS SHOOK KORMAK awake. He rose and stretched. His limbs felt cold and stiff, his back hurt from lying on the hard rock. He got up and looked at the sky. Grey clouds filled it, softening the outlines of the distant mountains, making the bulk of the peaks difficult to see. The wind was cold and bit through his cloak. He thought he tasted snow on it and said so.

  “You got the weather sense,” Sasha asked as she packed her bedroll into her rucksack and lashed it onto the mule.

  “No. But I grew up in Aquilea. I remember the feel of bad weather.”

  Karnea was mixing porridge for the breakfast. She looked around puzzled for a minute as if she had forgotten something. She straightened suddenly, tapped her nose with one finger, smiled and began to collect her ward stones, then she picked the rune torque from the fire with a stick. She slid it over her arm easily. It did not burn her. She studied the sky. “You could probably tell the same thing just by looking at the clouds,” she said.
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  “There is that,” he agreed.

  They ate their porridge. Sasha seemed a bit unnerved by consuming anything made by Karnea. Boreas noticed her look.

  “She won’t poison you,” he said then added, “Of course, if she was going to, I would say that, wouldn’t I?”

  Sasha glared at him and began to spoon the gruel into her mouth. “Tasty,” she said, although the oat mix was as bland as could be.

  “Needs salt,” said Kormak.

  “A hillman would say that,” said Boreas.

  “Best with some chopped apple, a little cream and some honey,” said Karnea.

  “They would burn you at the stake for suggesting such a thing in Aquilea,” said Kormak.

  “It’s not the only thing I could be burned at the stake for.” Apparently some of Sasha’s attitude from the previous evening had registered in her mind. She laughed, looked around with her beatific smile and said, “How much further to Khazduroth?”

  “Another day or so, if we make good time along the road,” said Sasha. “We’ll be in Prospect Valley by the evening.”

  “What’s that?” Boreas asked.

  “It’s the prospector’s camp outside the Gates of Khazduroth.”

  “Sounds like a charming place.”

  “You can get your throat cut in there quick as dropping pennies. Keep your hands on your swords and your wits about you. The City in the Deeps is worse.”

  “Why do they call it that anyway, the City in the Deeps?” Boreas asked.

  Karnea cleared her throat. “It was the site of the Shrine of Morakana, Princess of the Deeps, the Mother Goddess of the Khazduri. It was the largest of their cities and the one blessed with most children because of her patronage. Of course, that was before the Plague and the Long Dying.”

  “They say the Shrine is down there still,” said Sasha. “The dwarves still go there.”

  Karnea looked at her. Her eyes blazed with interest. “You have seen this?”

  “I have seen dwarves,” she said. “In the distance, in the Deep Dark. They avoid humans but they are still there or so people claim. You can see their sign inscribed on the walls sometimes, where it was not before, as if they were leaving cryptic messages for each other.”

  “No word of this has reached Aethelas,” Kormak said.

  “Who would tell you? The only people likely to see it are a few prospectors, the boldest ones, who go into the Deep Dark.”

  Sasha sounded thoughtful. “Most people don’t want to think about the dwarves. We take their stuff after all. It’s a kind of robbery, I suppose.”

  “That means it is possible we may see some,” Karnea said. She sounded thrilled. “We might be able to trade with them.”

  “Maybe,” Sasha said. She did not sound very positive. “They are very shy.”

  “Still dwarves are rare now in the world, and these ones may have much to tell us,” Karnea said.

  Boreas lifted his pack and hefted his great two-handed hammer using it like it was a staff. “We’d best be going if we want to see any of these wonders,” he said.

  They set off down the path to where it connected with the road. The marks of Otto’s band’s passing were still there from last night.

  As they marched, the weather got dirtier. The clouds lowered until the peaks above them were obscured by mist. The wind grew stronger and chillier, whipping Kormak’s cloak around his body.

  The pony clopped along beside him, hooves ringing on the cut stone of the Dwarf Road. They passed one of the ancient milestones, a stone figure, somewhat man-like but broader and squatter and a good deal shorter. Its edges had been softened by centuries of weather, and the runes along its side were filled with lichen.

  Karnea squinted at them. “It says we are three leagues from the gates,” she said. “It is a marker representing one of the warriors of King Malki Ring-giver. The third of that name.” She looked at them all and smiled. “I am glad I came. On our way back I would like to make a sketch of that stone.

  “You know a lot,” Sasha said. Karnea beamed.

  “I spent a lot of time in the library at Mount Aethelas. It has the greatest collection of Khazduri literature and literature about the Khazduri anywhere on the surface.”

  Sasha smiled as if she understood that point. “Who knows what was lost in the Underlands during the Long Dying though?”

  “Precisely. I am hoping we may find some new stuff. I regret not having more time to spend in the bazaar in Varigston. Someday I’ll come back and really have a rummage about.”

  Sasha looked suddenly wary, as if she had been tricked into talking to the sorceress as she would any normal person.

  Boreas was striding ahead, gaze fixed on the road. Kormak glanced behind to make sure nothing was coming on them from behind. He felt as if in the clear mountain air he ought to be able to hear anyone doing so, but it never hurt to be careful.

  He found that in an odd way he was enjoying himself. He was walking through the sort of terrain that reminded him of his childhood, and when the clouds occasionally parted they gazed down into huge valleys cleaved out of the titanic mountains. Clouds floated below them as if they were the Holy Sun himself looking down from the sky.

  “What are you thinking, Sir Kormak?” Karnea asked.

  “I was thinking that Aquilea must be over there somewhere,” he pointed towards the Northwest.

  “Twenty leagues or so, if the maps I studied before I came are correct.”

  Kormak laughed.

  “What did I say was so funny?” Karnea asked. She was smiling, not a woman to take offence unless certain it was being given.

  “The borders of Aquilea and Taurea are, shall we say, disputed,” Kormak said. “The hill tribes raid across those borders at will, claim the lands are theirs and the Taureans have no right to be there.”

  Boreas nodded when he heard this. “My earliest posting was at Andium. Every moon or so the Wolf clans would get wild on firewater and try and burn us out. Hell, they succeeded in more than a few places. I’ve seen many a settler village burned.”

  Kormak thought about the implications of the term settler village. Even after two centuries, the Taureans called their townships on the border that. They clearly grasped just as much as the Aquileans did exactly how precarious their grip on the border was.

  “I heard the Aquileans have started raiding again,” said Sasha. “Have been doing that ever since this bloody civil war started.”

  Boreas nodded. “The mercenaries will all be heading south. It’s the prospect of higher pay and more plunder. Hell, any plunder. You don’t see much when you hit an Aquilean village. They are bloody barbarians.” He glanced at Kormak. “No offence, Sir Kormak.”

  “None taken,” said Kormak. “I am surprised you raided a Wolf clan village and lived to tell the tale.”

  “You a Wolf?” Boreas asked. “I mean originally, before you swore to follow the Holy Sun.”

  Kormak shook his head. “My people were Hawk clan,” he said. “They and the Wolves are traditional enemies.”

  Boreas’s eyes narrowed. “Never met a Hawk. Never heard much good about them either. Supposed to be even meaner than the Wolves.”

  “You won’t meet any more now. I am the last.” Boreas looked away, clearly wondering whether this was a subject to be broached at all.

  “I’ve heard it said that if the Aquileans stopped fighting each other, they could probably conquer Taurea,” said Sasha.

  “Might be true,” said Boreas. “They are fierce enough.”

  “It will never happen,” said Kormak.

  “What makes you so sure?” Karnea asked.

  “Too many old hates among the clans. Too many blood feuds. Too many ritual killings. And even if some warlord arose to unite them, they would still fail. It takes more than a sword and courage to win battles.”

  “They help,” said Boreas.

  “Aye,” said Kormak. “But fighting cavalry on open plains is not so easy when you don’t have any yourself
. And fighting a campaign is hard when your idea of strategy is to get drunk and head for the biggest town with the most loot, and your idea of tactics is line up and charge the enemy as fast as you can because you want to take more heads than your neighbour.”

  “It sounds like you don’t have much respect for the fighting skills of your kinsmen,” said Sasha.

  “I have no kinsmen,” said Kormak. “And I have every respect for the Aquileans. I just don’t think they know how to fight a war. Raid, yes. Kill a man with a blade, yes. Fight a war against civilised armies? No.”

  “What happened to your kin?” Sasha asked. “Blood feud?”

  Kormak shook his head. “An Old One killed them. Wiped out the entire village.”

  “Did your folk anger him in some way?” she asked.

  “No. He is one of those who just attack human villages when the mood strikes him. They kill like maddened wolverines because they like the taste of blood.”

  “He left you alive though,” Sasha said. “Or did you run away?”

  “I was eight years old,” Kormak said. “I tried to hit him with my father’s hammer. My father’s head lay severed where the Old One had dropped it.”

  Sasha looked appalled. “I am sorry,” she said. “I never meant...”

  “Why are you sorry?” Kormak asked. “You never did anything. It was Adath Decaureon, the Prince of Dragons.”

  “Why did it let you live?” Boreas asked.

  “He always leaves one survivor to tell the tale. Always a child. He always tells them that one day he will come back and kill them. Sometimes he does.”

  “Did he tell you?” Sasha asked.

  “Yes.” An appalled silence hung over the small group. Were they wondering what would happen if the Prince of Dragons caught up with him while they were there?

  “There was a Guardian pursuing him,” Kormak said. “Malan. He took me back to Mount Aethelas. That’s how I came to join the Order of the Dawn.”

  “And you’ve spend your life hunting Old Ones ever since?” Sasha asked.

  “Or wizards or servants of the Shadow,” said Kormak. Karnea looked away. They walked in silence a long while after that.