Taker Of Skulls(39)

“The goblins have eyes,” said Sasha. “The dwarves, too, if those statues are correct.”

“I was merely offering a suggestion,” Karnea said. She glanced over at Kormak, clearly made nervous by what she was about to say. Since they had ventured underground she had lost her natural cheerfulness. “This is where we are supposed to look for what we came for, Sir Kormak. I confess it all seemed much easier when we were outside. I had no idea how vast this place is. No, let me rephrase that. In my mind, I knew how big it was, but there is a difference between knowing something intellectually and experiencing it.”

“You mean we were going to have to search this whole place?” Sasha said. “Looking for clues to these runes you seek?”

Karnea nodded.

“Don’t you have some magic that will help you? An amulet of divination, a spell, a familiar that can sniff the stuff out?”

Karnea took off her glasses and began to polish them furiously. “I know what we are looking for can mostly likely be found in the smithies of the Forge Quarter.” She took a blade and scratched a rune on the floor, a stylised hammer inside a triangle. “This is the symbol we are looking for. The places will have anvils and forges in the dwarven style. Your father was a blacksmith, I believe, Sir Kormak so I can assume you know what we are looking for.”

Kormak looked at her sidelong. She seemed entirely serious. Maybe she was nervous and gabbling. Maybe Sasha’s attitude had annoyed her. Or maybe it was some sort of hangover from the quickleaf.

“What about the monster? It seems to roam the area. If so many goblins are afraid of it, we should be too.”

“It does not appear to be too bright,” said Karnea. “We should be able to hear it as it approaches and if we keep a watch we should be able to flee from it.”

“That seems like a long shot,” said Sasha.

“What would you have us do? We must at least make an attempt to find what we came for.” She looked at Kormak to confirm this. He guessed she was not quite as certain of that as she sounded. He nodded.

“Of course, there may be more than one of the beasts,” he said. “We can’t just make the assumption that it’s solitary.”

“Always look on the bright side, eh Sir Kormak,” said Boreas.

“Better to prepare for the worst,” said Kormak. “I have a feeling this is the sort of place that is going to throw it at us.”

“I don’t think you are wrong,” said Boreas.

“What about water?” Kormak asked. “If we’re stuck down here for long we will need it more than food, or at least long before we need food.”

Sasha said, “There are fountains in the plazas and squares. Some of them still work. There will be edible fungi.”

“We’ll need to find water that is not tainted,” Kormak said.

“I can perform a suitable divination if it comes to that,” said Karnea.

“Well, let’s keep our eyes peeled for a fountain as well as shops marked with the hammer rune.”

As they shouldered their packs and prepared to leave, Kormak wondered about his dream. He had experienced such things before and they had sometimes been proven true. Was that the case now or the whole thing was just a product of his feverish imagination and the after-effects of the quickleaf? Or was Karnea right about him having some sort of sensitivity to his surroundings. He pushed the thought aside. He had other things to worry about right now.

They emerged cautiously onto the street. Kormak inspected the slime trail left behind by the serpent creature. It was already starting to dry out, leaving a sticky glaze on the hard rock of the floor.

Karnea knelt over it and smelled it. She wrinkled her nose. “Pungent,” she said. “But odd, snakes are normally dry skinned. Why would it leave such a trail?” She seemed to be asking the question more of herself than anyone else. No one tried to answer.

“At least we’ll know where the thing has been. Maybe we can figure out the extent of its territory,” said Boreas.

“Let’s just try and keep out of its way,” said Kormak. They moved off along the corridor, moving in a small pool of dim light. They could tell the edge of the Forge Quarter by the glimmer of green light at its edges but that did not help them much up close.

It was a long, slow tedious process moving along each street, checking the runes above every arch and then when they found shops bearing the sign they were looking for, entering and searching them. It was not helped by the fact that they had to change routes when they heard the bellow of the serpent creature and of something else, equally as menacing. Sometimes they went down ramps and the buildings took on multiple levels above them. Kormak was sure there was a pattern to it but it was not one he could see. In the distance something huge roared.