Taker Of Skulls(29)

Very reluctantly, he did so. It went against all his training to remove an Elder Sign when there was any possibility of danger, or when anyone was working magic, but she was a healer. He tugged the chain on the amulet, pulling it from below his armour, and then raised it from his neck and placed it carefully on the ground at his feet.

He noticed now that warmth was spreading from Karnea’s hands as she muttered her spell. Tendrils of it slithered through his chest and spread out through his limbs. He felt a brief sensation of dizziness and nausea. It passed and he found himself looking at his own reflection in her glasses.

“Well?” he said.

“You’ll live. Just minor scrapes and bruises. Put the Elder Sign back on.” Karnea looked at the others. “Anybody else hurt? Were any of you bitten?”

They replied in the negative. “Good,” she said but checked them anyway. She went over and looked at the goblins, turning over a corpse with her foot.

“They are ugly things, for sure,” said Kormak. She checked over the corpse, lifted a badge from its tunic. It carried the same rune that had been on Graghur’s horn and his armour. She turned it over in her hand, muttering something. Kormak’s Elder sign told him there was a faint pulse of magic.

Kormak glanced around and saw that Sasha was studying the air above them as if she expected the bats to return. Boreas glanced behind them at the entrance to the bridge.

Looking at the corpse of the dead bat Kormak offered up a prayer of thanks to the Holy Sun. A memory of the long drop he had seen when he had first been lifted flooded into his mind. An image of himself plunging to his doom followed it. What would it be like, he wondered, what thoughts would have filled his brain in the last few seconds before the corrupted water closed over him? Swiftly he pushed the idea to one side. It did not do to dwell on such things.

“These riders serve Graghur,” said Karnea, holding the badge out for him to look at. “He really is the king of the goblins.”

“I never doubted it,” said Kormak. “It is the nature of the Old Ones to rule those they consider their inferiors.”

“If they do serve him, we’d better move on quickly,” she said. “Those flyers will take word of our presence back to him, and from what we saw before, he can assemble an army.”

“First things first,” Kormak said. “Let’s get off this bloody bridge.”





“Why would an Old One choose to rule creatures as hideous as goblins?” Sasha asked. “Why even live among them?”

Ahead of them loomed the great arch that marked the terminus of the bridge. Rows of runes had been chiselled into every stone of the archway. Kormak could see crystal windows glittering in the rock walls ahead of them. He half expected to see goblins peering out of every one of them but they were dark and empty, save where they reflected the strange greenish light rising from below.

“The Old Ones like to be worshipped,” said Kormak. “They once ruled men as false gods. There is something in their nature that makes them crave it.”

“Do you really think so?” Sasha asked.

“Men crave glory and renown,” said Boreas. “I have seen enough of that. Is it so far-fetched that the Old Ones might do the same?”

“I am not certain it is wise to judge the Old Ones by any human standard,” Kormak said. “But, yes, I am sure this is the case. There is something in them, a lust to rule, to dominate.”

“The same could be said of some men,” said Sasha.

“That is truth,” said Kormak. “The difference is that all men die and very quickly by the standards of the Old Ones. Unless slain, they can live forever. They can rule for a hundred generations and shape a people in their own image.”

“Some scholars think it goes even further than Kormak has said,” said Karnea. She looked almost apologetic to be correcting him but she kept talking anyway. “They believe the Old Ones created new races, by cross-breeding and by magic. Some scholars believe the Old Ones feed on worship, gain power from it somehow.”

“If goblins are created in Graghur’s image, I do not think I want to get any closer to him,” said Sasha.

“That would seem wise,” Kormak said.

They were almost through the archway now. The ancient runes gleamed above them.

Kormak tried to imagine what sort of magic could create an entire race of beings. He did not doubt it was possible. Once, in the ruins of another ancient city, he had seen how an entire nation had transformed itself into demons. If the Ghul could so change themselves, it was surely possible that their masters could work similar magic. There was something about Khazduroth that reminded him of lost Tanyth, a sense of ancient power working unseen to perform some strange and unknowable function.