They made their way down the stairs. It was a narrow spiral, obviously made for defensive purposes. It had not been made for people as tall as men. They all had to stoop. Kormak maintained a good pace. He was in the lead, Boreas was bringing up the rear, with Karnea and Sasha between them. Karnea was holding her lantern high. They corkscrewed down a long way into the earth and emerged on what seemed a vast landing that receded off into the distance, curving away to left and right. The ceiling here was much higher, more like the inside of a cathedral than a mine.
The moon-lantern’s glow formed a pool of light around them. Massive arches supported the ceiling, every twenty strides or so.
“Which way?” Kormak asked. When he spoke his voice seemed to carry a vast distance in the darkness. It sounded deeper than it normally did and louder. “Which way?” he repeated, this time speaking much more quietly, not wanting to give them away to anyone who might be listening.
“Going left will take us to the main gate,” said Sasha. “If the goblins are waiting for us, they’ll most likely be there.”
“What happens if we go right?” he asked.
“We come to the Eighth Bridge. That will take us into the Hub. It’s longer though.”
“How much longer?”
“A few hours,” said Sasha.
“It won’t make that much difference then, particularly if it’s safer,” said Kormak. “Anything else we should know?”
Sasha shook her head. “Normally it’s pretty safe on these levels but keep your eyes peeled. You never know. The goblins are a lot more active than they used to be.”
“Last night is proof of that,” said Boreas. He was standing taller now that they were out of the stairwell.
They followed the road to the right. Kormak glanced through a huge archway. He saw vast empty halls, sometimes with a scattering of debris in them, sometimes bones gleamed oddly in the lantern light.
“Duncan reckoned these were all warehouses,” Sasha said, although no one has asked her. She was whispering. Something about this place seemed to demand it.
“According to Toplen and other scholars, they were,” said Karnea. “Huge chambers and silos for storing food and trade goods were hollowed out from the walls on the upper levels of the city. The dwarves shipped goods out and stored food that came in.”
“Duncan reckoned they grew their own food, mushrooms and such.”
“They did,” said Karnea, “but they needed some variety in their diet and they needed grains to brew their beers and distil their whisky.”
She did not seem disturbed by the gloom or the silence. She seemed excited. It came to Kormak that she really wanted to be here, was fulfilling a lifelong dream.
“I could use some of their whisky now,” said Boreas.
“Might be best to keep our wits about us,” said Kormak.
They passed a junction. In the middle stood a towering statue of a muscular bull-headed man with a staff held in one hand. The other hand held a severed human head.
“Tauran,” said Karnea. “The kingdom of Taurea takes its name from him.”
Sasha looked at her sidelong. “A Sunlander kingdom named after an Old One. That smacks of blasphemy.”
Karnea showed her dazzling smile. “Many of the tribes the Sunlanders conquered when they came over the World Ocean worshipped Tauran. He was their God-King. They called their land after him. The name stuck even after he was slain. It’s often the way. You might be surprised how many of our kingdoms and provinces take their names from our ancient enemies.”
Kormak paused to consider the statue for a moment. It was astonishingly life-like. It seemed as if it was just about to step down off its plinth and confront them. It had obviously been made by a sculptor of genius and it looked as if it had been modelled from life.
“Dwarf work,” he said. Karnea nodded.
“I thought they hated the Old Ones,” Boreas said.
“They served them first. And you can see the statue has been marked as if someone took a hammer to it. There are fingers missing on the left hand, the snout has been chipped and the tip of one horn is missing.”
Kormak could see that everything she said was true. The statue was so astonishingly perfect he had simply assumed that the blemishes were intentional parts of it.
“Maybe someone tried to destroy it and others stopped him,” said Karnea. Kormak could picture that; a fierce struggle between an angry rebellious former slave keen to destroy all reminders of his servitude, and maybe a builder wanting to preserve something of beauty.
“Maybe it was a prospector,” said Sasha. “I’ve seen enough of them take a hammer to such things. Anything to turn a profit.”