Taker Of Skulls (Book 5) (21 page)

They took a ramp that spiralled downwards. Kormak wondered how far below the ground the City in the Deeps went. Sometimes it felt like they were burrowing towards the heart of the world. Perhaps if they kept going long enough they would emerge in the Kingdoms of Dust.

The ceilings began to lower and were more crude-looking. Kormak walked up beside Ferik. “Was this the earliest built part of the city?” he asked.

“No, our ancestors dug down from the original mines and caverns. This was merely the part most of the Eldrim never came to. It was the home of the Underlings long ago. There were more workshops down here and those industries the Eldrim did not like to look on. The smell of some of them lingers on even after all these years.

“I cannot smell anything.”

“You do not have the nose of a dwarf.”

“It would look out of place on my face,” Kormak said. Ferik gave a short barking sound that it took Kormak a moment to realise was a laugh. He repeated the words to the other dwarves, and they too made the noise.

“Only the poorest of our ancestors would have dwelled here. Those with no reason to visit the courts of the Eldrim. The rememberers and the lawsmiths and runesculptors all lived above near the palaces. Some of them dwelled in homes almost as splendid as the least of the Eldrim. At least so the old stories say.”

The dwarf seemed happy to talk. Most likely it took his mind off other things. “Are your cities so splendid?”

“We have nothing like this on the surface.”

“Likely this must all seem very strange to you then.”

“Aye,” Kormak said. “It does.”

“Why did you really agree to come with us?” The question came out of nowhere. Kormak wondered if this bluntness was simply a dwarvish trait or whether it was meant to shock him into an unguarded response.

“I want my sword back.”

“As simple as that?”

“I swore an oath a long time ago, to protect my people from the Old Ones. I cannot fulfil that oath without that blade and I would be shamed to go back to my order having lost it.”

“It seems that your people and mine may not be so different then. You know what it means to keep an oath.”

“I confess I feel the need to repay Utti for taking it.”

Ferik shot him an angry glance. “Utti is mine, Guardian of the Dawn. He owes me blood for the life of my son. I will take his skull for that although it goes against all our laws.”

Kormak shrugged. If Utti got in his way, he would kill him. Otherwise Ferik was welcome to his vengeance. They strode along in silence after that, through low ceilinged halls that sometimes gave way to vast open chambers full of pillars. Kormak felt a draft of hot air blowing then and wondered where it came from. He guessed that given time he could trace it to its source but time was a thing that was in short supply now.

“How long till we reach the mines?” he asked Ferik.

“Ten thousand strides or more,” the dwarf replied. “Do not worry we will get there soon enough.”

Kormak fell back to walk with his fellows.

“It feels like we’ve been down here for months,” said Karnea.

“It always feels that way once you get past the first few hours,” said Sasha. “You lose all sense of time. After a while it seems like you’ve always been down here and the sun is just a memory of a dream.”

“I hope not,” said Karnea. “I would like to look on it again before I die.”

Kormak heard the fear in her voice. Karnea believed she was already as good as dead. She had no hope of ever seeing the surface again. Yet that did not keep her from looking around and drinking in the sights. It was something Kormak understood. He never felt so alive and alert as when he was on the brink of death.

“At least we are out of that cell,” said Boreas. “I never liked those.”

“You’ve spent time in the cells?” Sasha asked. Her tone was teasing.

“What mercenary has not?” Boreas replied. “You hit town with a purse full of silver and you spend it on booze and song and women till it’s gone. Mishaps occur and the local law-makers are rarely amused or forgiving. What about you, Guardian, have you ever spent time in a cell?”

“More than I care to remember,” said Kormak. “I liked it no more than you.”

They walked on, talking of inconsequential things, deliberately not speaking about what was really on their minds.

The corridors had taken on a rough look and Kormak could see that iron rails had been set in the floor. He assumed they had been put there for ore-carts. Ahead of them was a large area where dozens of such tracks met. There were metal wheeled-carts there and signs that goblins had passed this way. The air smelled of goblin piss and wolf excrement. Somewhere overhead Kormak thought he heard great batwings flutter.

“The mines go a long way down from here,” said Ferik.

“Guards?” Kormak asked.

“Not yet. There are too many shafts and galleries and not even the goblins have sufficient numbers to watch them all. We killed a great many of them. Graghur must regret ordering an assault on our hold.”

“But you’ve still sent Mankri ahead to make sure.”

“There is no sense in taking undue risks,” said Ferik. “And he is a very stealthy dwarf.”

They pushed on into the mines. These did not look much like any mine Kormak had ever been in. The floors were paved and the walls and ceilings were as regular as those of the city up above. If it had not been for the metal rails in the floor and the absence of building fronts, Kormak would not have known they were in a mine at all.

They pushed on down. Galleries, long worked-out, ran away from the corridors. They were much lower than the ceilings in the Underhalls. They looked as if they were intended for the use of people the height of dwarves. Goblins would have no problem living here but Kormak felt the urge to constantly duck his head.

He could hear strange sounds in the distance now; clattering, banging, high-pitched screaming and once, an odd roaring noise that reminded him of Yellow Eye and the Slitherer.

Ferik saw him pause and said, “Yes, this is where Graghur breeds his monsters. They say he keeps the tame ones and drives the most savage and rebellious out into the corridors of the city.”

“So we can look forward to meeting more like the Slitherer,” said Kormak.

“Are you worried about meeting one without your sword?” Ferik asked.

“I would be worried about meeting one even with it.”

“Then you seem more sensible than my son made you sound, may the Ancestors welcome his soul.” There was a weight of sadness and anger in the dwarf’s voice when he talked about Verlek.

Mankri appeared in front of them, emerging from a side corridor.

“It is as it always was,” he said. “They do not watch the shafts in the eightieth gallery. We can enter the Deeps there.”

“You have been this way before?” Kormak asked.

Mankri nodded. “I once went all the way to the Chamber of Monsters just to see if I could.”

“How do you avoid being spotted?” Mankri tapped one of the runes on his arm. Kormak had not seen its like before.

“That confuses the goblins noses and I am very quiet when I want to be. Patient, too.”

“You have done well,” said Ferik. “If we can use the shafts we will reach the heart of the goblins realm.”

“Unless Graghur and his court have moved,” said Mankri.

“Perhaps it would be best to look at the bright side,” said Ferik.

“For me, that is the bright side.” Mankri gave them a cheery grin. It seemed the worse things looked, the more cheerful he became.

Ahead of them lay a long, steeply sloping shaft, even more constricted than the previous ones. Moving on all fours the dwarves had a lot less problems negotiating it than Kormak and his fellow humans. He had to crawl and twist and scuttle. The hilt of the axe he had hung over his shoulder ground along against the ceiling, slowing him down and making a grinding noise until he managed to adjust its position. Eventually he had to turn and clamber down as the shaft went near vertical.

His hands scraped against rough stone and his shoulders began to ache from the strain. His palms were slippery with sweat. The walls pressed in all around him. His breathing became forced. He wondered what would happen if he let go. He imagined slithering down a very long, steep slope, banging against the walls as he went until eventually he smashed to a halt a long way below.

He kept climbing down. He told himself that the dwarves had been this way before and must know what they were doing. A small niggling part of his mind pointed out that they had never done this with humans before and it was quite possible they had made a miscalculation.

Finally his feet touched flat ground and he realised that he was on the level again. It was dark and his sense of being enclosed did not let up. All the weight of the mountains seemed to be pressing down on him.

A powerful hand landed on his shoulder, and he felt the faint, tickling touch of a dwarf’s beard as it rippled over him in the dark. The image of a cockroach’s feelers flickered through his mind and he fought it down.

“Stand clear,” said Ferik’s voice, out of the utter blackness. “The others are coming down.”

Kormak let himself be pulled out of the way. He heard something scraping above him and then a muted curse. Sasha was down. “Kormak, are you there?” Her voice sounded almost panicked.

“Yes,” he said as calmly as he could. Displaced air warned him and then a hand quested out of the darkness and touched his face.

“It doesn’t have a beard so I am guessing it’s you,” she said. Her giggle was on the verge of hysteria.

Boreas and Karnea emerged. Shortly thereafter something bumped down the shaft. Boreas muttered thanks and he realised that the dwarves must have lowered his hammer on a rope and then given it to him. He wished they had thought about that before his axe had almost gotten him stuck in the shaft. It was too late to bring it up now. He would remember such a thing in the future, if he had one.

Once again the everglow lantern was revealed and Kormak saw that he was standing in a low rough-hewn corridor. He could see water gurgling away near his feet. It was brownish and foul-smelling and he wondered where it came from and where it was going to.

Ferik said, “We must go slowly and quietly now. We are coming to the heart of Graghur’s realm.”

THEY FOLLOWED THE evil-smelling stream along the tunnel. With every step the foul stench grew increasingly strong, a stomach-churning mix of sour milk, sulphur and strange alchemicals. Karnea raised her hand to her mouth. Sasha covered the lower part of her face with a scarf. Boreas contented himself with wrinkling his nose and narrowing his eyes.

Kormak’s heart beat faster. They were within the core of their enemy’s realm now. He had no idea where his blade was to be found. He was going to have to trust to the dwarves’ senses and his own wits. It seemed only logical that either Utti or Graghur would now have the blade. Of course, they were both likely to be surrounded by goblin guards.

And if that were not bad enough, the Old One would be invincible if Kormak could not get his hands on his blade. He told himself that was not true—Graghur could still be hurt by normal weapons, possibly even temporarily stopped if his head were chopped off or a dagger driven into his heart. He just could not be killed. He would just have to do what he could, with the weapons that he had. If the Old One had his blade and could be overcome even temporarily, Kormak could finish the fight.

“Why are you grinning, Guardian?” Karnea asked him.

“I was thinking about Graghur.”

“I hope you never think about me that way. You look like a man contemplating murder.”

“I am contemplating killing.”

“You enjoy it, don’t you?” Karnea said. Kormak considered her words. He wanted Graghur dead and he wanted his blade back. Would he take pleasure in slaying Graghur? If he was honest with himself, the answer was yes. “I do,” he said.

“You are a born killer.”

Kormak shook his head. “No more than any other man. I was trained to it and I am good at it. Over the years I have acquired a taste for it. You would too if you lived my life.”

“I doubt it,” she said. She sounded quite certain of that.

They emerged into a vast chamber and it became obvious what the source of the smell was. Huge pits had been dug from the ground, and they were filled to overflowing with the brownish fluid. Looking into the nearest, Kormak could see a massive shape writhing and twitching as though in troubled sleep. It resembled a goblin grown to four times its normal size with a lower body something like that of a horse.

“This is where Graghur breeds his hybrids,” Karnea said.

“This is where the Slitherer and Yellow Eye and those other monsters were birthed. Some of these creatures will be soldiers in Graghur’s army. Others will be unleashed into the Underhalls,” said Ferik.

Boreas looked at the monster and said, “Ugly beast. This Graghur must be a dark and terrible wizard.”

“He is a Shaper,” said Karnea. “Many of the Old Ones were. They could bend the stuff of life to their will, father new races, create monsters, change living things into new forms.”

Ferik asked her to translate and then nodded. “They say that, in ancient times, he and the Mother were rivals in the art. This was one of the reasons for the bitterness of their hatred. Some say they were lovers and that their love turned sour.”

“I do not think the Old Ones know love as we do,” said Kormak.

“They certainly understand hatred,” said Ferik.

“I am not sure they feel any emotions we would understand,” said Kormak.

“The same could be said of man and dwarf.”

“There are words for love and hate and fear in both our languages,” said Karnea.

“The Eldrim have those words too.”

“Can we be sure they mean the same things to each of us? Your eyes are different from ours. You may have no words for certain colours we can see. How can I be certain those words describe the same thing?”

“This is all very fascinating,” said Kormak, “but it takes us no closer to reclaiming my blade.”

The dwarf and the sorceress looked at each other and then at him. The dwarf shrugged. Karnea smiled.