Taker Of Skulls (Book 5)

by William King

  Guttri said, “New interlopers entered the city before Graghur returned. They were men, other fallen servants of the Eldrim, and we assumed they were of the Shadow. We avoided them but we could not avoid Graghur. He came himself wearing the shape he had of old, resembling a mighty dwarf. We held parlay with him in the great plaza beyond our gates. He spoke fair words and said he had repented and begged to see the Mother again. We refused them, though some like Utti thought it blasphemy.”

  “We would not open the gates for him and he departed into the depths and shortly thereafter goblins and other evil things started to multiply. Great monsters were unleashed in the Underhalls.”

  “Graghur created the monsters,” said Kormak.

  Guttri twisted his head in the dwarf equivalent of a nod. “He is a fleshmoulder. He is the father of the Underlings just as Morloqua is the Mother of Dwarves. He hates her and he hates those who are her children.”

  “And if we slay Graghur for you, you will help us?”

  “What is it you seek?”

  Karnea told him of the runes and the netherium. The old dwarf made a chopping gesture with his broad-fingered hand that indicated a negative.

  “You will not help us?” Karnea said. Her voice was plaintive, her eyes downcast.

  Guttri again made the chopping gesture. “I would if I could but I have not the skill to make the runes of which you speak. You must talk with Branhilde the Beautiful about such things. It would be her choice whether to share her secrets. If she has knowledge of the things you call Lost Runes. It may be your people know more of such things than we do now. As I said before we have lost much.”

  “What about the netherium?” Kormak asked.

  Guttri’s smile held grim amusement. “That is a bargain I cannot make in good faith.”

  “What do you mean?” Karnea said.

  “You will never get the netherium unless you kill Graghur.”

  “Why?” Kormak asked.

  “Because he controls the mine from which it comes. It is all in Underling territory now.”

  A soft scratching came on the door. Guttri raised his head. His beard twitched faintly. His nostrils dilated. A frown creased his features.

  “I smell death,” he said. The door opened and Verlek tumbled through it. A trail of blood stained the corridor behind his back. The red fluid pumped from his chest. Agony wracked his features. He was quite plainly dying.

  “Treachery,” he groaned and collapsed at Guttri’s feet. The old dwarf bent over him and touched his brow.

  “What happened?”

  “Utti! Utti!” Verlek said. “He came to me after the moot—told me he was wrong. He had been sent to bring Kormak’s blade to him. He took it and then he stabbed me with it... I am dying.”

  “Utti has my sword?” Kormak said. A cold hand gripped his heart.

  “Aye,” said Verlek. “I am sorry, Kormak. He took me off guard. I betrayed your trust and I have not repaid my blood-debt.”

  He reached upwards in a gesture of farewell then his muscular tattooed arm slumped to the ground. All life had spilled out of him.

  Guttri rose to his feet and bellowed. “Find Utti! Have him brought to me. I would have an explanation of this!”

  Kormak paused for a last look at the sad, lost face of Verlek before he followed Guttri down the ramp towards the vault into the Dwarfhold. They made for the Wall of Skulls.

  A score of dwarves surrounded them. All of them were armed and all of them were wary and more than a few of them threw suspicious looks at Kormak and his companions. The central flame flickered and shadows danced across the rows and rows of skulls.

  Ferik stomped in. A look of controlled anger burned in his face. The tendrils of his beard writhed with fury. “Utti is no longer within the Dwarfhold,” he said. “He left by the southern postern gate. I have sent Mankri to track him. ”

  He tossed a sack at Kormak’s feet. “He has taken your sword with him. As far as I can tell all the rest of your possessions are there.”

  Kormak opened the sack and found his Elder Signs and the other equipment Karnea had brought with her. She took the rune torque up and put it on her arm.

  “Why has he taken the blade?” Karnea asked. “What good would it do him?”

  “Perhaps he has gone to attempt to slay Graghur himself.” Ferik said. His tone was doubtful.

  Guttri shook his head. “Utti is not the sort to seek glory. Nor is he the bravest of dwarves.”

  “Then why?” Ferik demanded harshly. “And why slay my only surviving son.”

  “You know why,” Guttri said.

  Ferik turned and looked away. He squeezed his eyes shut. The muscles in his neck tightened. His fingers went white around the grips of his weapon. “No.”

  “He always desired Branhilde. He took it badly when she chose you. And he always hated the boy. You know that.”

  “No dwarf would do this though...”

  “Verlek is dead. The sword is gone and Utti with it.” Guttri let the words hang in the air.

  Ferik let out a howl of terrible rage and grief. “I will rip his head off with my bare hands,” he said. “No forbidden weapon will save him.”

  “The question remains why he took it,” Guttri said.

  “My son is dead and all you do is ask foolish questions,” Ferik said. Guttri’s response was mild.

  “The question is not foolish. The survival of our people rests on the answer. Without the blade we cannot slay Graghur. Utti knows that.”

  “Utti is a dwarf. He would not see us all dead.”

  “Not us all. You are correct.”

  Ferik tilted his head to one side. “You think he intends to bargain with Graghur. Graghur will laugh at him and order his spawn to take the blade.”

  “Perhaps. There are oaths that are binding on the Eldrim as they are on us.” He looked at Kormak who nodded to confirm this. “If he was to hide the blade somewhere...”

  “Graghur might torture the whereabouts of the blade out of him,” Karnea said.

  Ferik laughed. “Stubborn as stone are dwarves. Pain does but make us more so.”

  Guttri said, “With this blade Graghur can set himself up to lord it over other Old Ones. And Utti can show him all the secret ways into our hold. Or open the runegates for him and his people.”

  “I hope you are wrong,” said Ferik.

  “So do I, but I fear I am not.”

  “What now?”

  “We wait for Mankri to return. He may overtake Utti and at very least he’ll be able to tell us where he has gone.”

  “Utti entered Graghur’s mine,” said Mankri. He was relatively slender for a dwarf, his build of almost human proportions. His face was narrow and his expression grim. His beard did not seem to writhe quite as much as the other dwarfs’. “He went in there and he took the blade with him.”

  “So much for him stowing it somewhere,” said Ferik. “One way or another I think we can assume that Graghur has the blade now.”

  “There was no smell of blood or a struggle,” said Mankri. “I would have expected the goblins to shred him and take his gear. I would have smelled the scent of that.”

  “It’s almost as if he was welcomed,” said Mankri.

  “Utti talked with Graghur’s emissaries when they came, he talked with Graghur himself many times,” Guttri said. “It is possible he was recognised.”

  “Or maybe he has been there before. Utti wandered alone through the Underhalls many times,” said Ferik.

  “So have may others,” said Guttri. “Yourself not excepted.”

  “It does not matter how or why,” said Kormak. “The fact is that Graghur now has my blade. A dwarf-forged runeblade is in the hands of an Old One.”

  “Why would he want to wield it?” said Mankri. “One nick with the death rune might be fatal to him.”

  “He does not need to use it as a weapon,” said Guttri. “He just needs it to stab...”

  He could not finish the sentence, nor did he need to. Mank
ri’s nostrils flared and his eyes went wide. “He could kill the Mother of Dwarves with it.”

  “We need to make sure that does not happen,” said Ferik.

  “Yes,” said Guttri. “The question is how.”

  “We must call another Dwarfmoot and let the clan know what is happening,” said Ferik. “Go summon the folk!”

  Mankri went.

  The eyes of the Dwarfmoot were all focused on Kormak with a mixture of resentment and hatred after Guttri explained why they had been summoned. The dwarves all seemed to blame him for bringing the sword among them. Their stares were unnerving for he knew dwarves had a talent for holding a grudge.

  “Utti has taken the accursed weapon,” Guttri said. “And I fear that Graghur will return bearing it and the secrets of our hold.”

  “What are we to do?” someone called from the crowd. “Graghur cannot be defeated without the blade.”

  Kormak raised his hand and Ferik gestured for him to mount the step. “There is only one thing to be done. We must reclaim the sword”

  “It may already be in Graghur’s clutches,” said Branhilde. Her face was lined with grief but her voice was cold as winter frost.

  “Then we just need to wait and he will show up at our gates with his army,” said Ferik. His smile showed he was making a bleak jest but his words were in all essentials true.

  “There is another way,” said Guttri. Ferik’s bleak expression told Kormak that he already knew what the ancient dwarf was going to suggest and did not like it. “We could take the war to him.”

  “You are not suggesting we march into his lair and demand that he hand the traitor back to us along with the stolen weapon, are you?” Ferik’s could not keep the sardonic tone from his voice.

  “It might be better than waiting here for him to come and slay us and the one we protect.”

  Ferik smiled. “It would make a heroic tale, for sure, but there would be none left to tell it.”

  “If we can sneak into his camp we may be able to recover the blade,” said Guttri. “With it we can kill him.”

  “It is suicide,” said Ferik. “We would all die.”

  “Not all of us,” said Guttri. “This is the sort of task best suited to a small group. A warband might not be able to infiltrate the mine but a small party might.”

  Ferik considered his words. “How many?”

  “You are the warleader, you decide.”

  Kormak realised that he was going to have to reclaim his blade. Without it there was no chance of getting out of this place anyway. It was simply a case of waiting for doom to overtake them.

  “I will go,” said Kormak. “It is my blade and I am the one with the best chance of slaying Graghur.”

  “That I will take as true,” said Ferik. “I am going for I would have words with Utti. I will take Mankri. He knows his way around the mines. I will take half a dozen volunteers. Any more risks leaving the gates unguarded at a time when they must be held.”

  “I will go,” said Karnea. “I don’t want to but I don’t want to be left behind either.”

  Boreas and Sasha looked at them, and Karnea explained what was being said. “You three should remain here where it’s safe,” Kormak said. He was thinking of his orders from the Grand Master and his promise to Tam.

  “I’m not being left here on my own,” said Sasha. “These dwarves look as if they are just waiting to cut my throat.”

  “You might need a healer,” said Karnea. “And my wards and the rune may help. If you don’t get the blade, it will only a matter of time before Graghur comes to the Dwarfhold and slays us all. We have a better chance together.”

  “In that case, I’m going too,” said Boreas. “I am your bodyguard.”

  “Before we go I need to feed the Mankh rune flames,” Karnea said.

  Ferik nodded his agreement. “It will be so. Such power may prove useful to us.”

  “I need some more runestones for my stonethrower,” said Sasha. “If the dwarves could provide some I would be grateful...”

  Karnea translated. Ferik barked orders. Dwarves scuttled off to find what was needed.

  Kormak looked out at the crowd. The dwarves clamoured for his attention. He picked them out one by one. Despair gnawed at his heart. He had lost his blade and without it he had no chance of killing Graghur, much less of keeping the others alive.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  GUTTRI AND THE remaining dwarves waved them good-bye from the gates of the Dwarfhold. Ferik embraced Branhilde, his beard intertwining with her hair in a gesture that seemed curiously intimate. Once they parted Ferik turned and did not look back. Neither did Kormak. There was no reason for him to do so. It was just one more place that he was leaving behind him as he had left countless others.

  He could tell the others did not quite feel the same way. They had gotten used to being inside the Dwarfhold. If it had not been safe, it had at least felt predictable, which was the next best thing as far as most people were concerned. He had learned long ago that no place was truly safe.

  Karnea glanced back nervously and polished her glasses. Sasha glanced out into the darkness fearfully. The dwarves had provided her with a pouch full of runestones for her weapon. Boreas hefted his new warhammer and tried a practise swing.

  “Better than my last,” he said. “Better balanced. Better made.”

  “I’m glad it makes you happy,” said Kormak.

  Boreas gave him a mock frown. “I never said I was happy.”

  Kormak lifted the axe the dwarves had loaned him. It felt strange in his hand, after all these years of wielding a sword. Of course, he knew how to use it. He had been trained with all the weapons he was ever likely to be called on to wield back when he was a novice. It irritated him that he was not entirely comfortable with the weapon now. His life might depend on it.

  They marched back across the bridge. There were no signs of Graghur’s army. According to Mankri, it had retreated all the way back to the mines. Ferik sent him scouting ahead anyway. The dwarf chieftain kept them moving at a tremendous pace through the darkened corridors. Everglow lanterns probed the darkness just ahead of them, but Kormak knew enough about the dwarves now to know they were not relying on their eyes. Their ears, their noses and even their beards all relayed them information as they sensed vibrations through the floor. They had many more ways than a man to know what was happening around them in the long darkness. They were very far from blind. The lights were more for the benefit of the humans than the dwarves.

  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.”