Taker Of Skulls(43)

“Which is what?” Sasha said. Karnea and Boreas both glared at her. She looked back unabashed. “I am in this as much as you, and let’s face it, even if you tell me some secret, it is likely to die with me.”

“We know they fled the City in the Deeps because of what they call the Long Dying,” said Karnea eventually. “They were betrayed and cursed by the Old Ones. They agreed to make weapons for the Order of the Dawn in return for the Order’s protection when the Guardians discovered their hidden citadel beneath Mount Aethelas.”

“When did this happen?”

“More than a thousand years ago in the time of Althuriel, the Sun King,” Kormak said. “It was the beginning of a long alliance. They gave us a weapon that let us deal with the Old Ones. One that forced them to respect the Law.”

“The swords are so important then?”

“It is supposed to be impossible to kill an Old One without such a blade,” said Boreas.

“Not impossible,” said Kormak. “Just close to it. They heal almost instantly from normal wounds. Always. They can even come back from death, given sufficient time.”

“Some very powerful magics can destroy them,” Karnea said. “Elder Signs can bind and burn them. Exposure to sunlight, too.”

“There are few magicians who are trusted and the Old Ones avoid fighting through the day,” said Kormak. “The Solari had weapons that used the Holy Sun’s Light but the secrets of making those were lost when the First Empire fell. All we really have now are the blades. They allowed the Sunlanders to turn back the Selenean Resurgence when the Old Ones sought to reclaim the ancient lands the Solari had taken.”

“I can understand why the Old Ones would curse the dwarves and even want them destroyed. If they knew the secret of ending their immortality...” Sasha was quick on the uptake.

“But why would they do that?” Boreas asked. “I had always heard the dwarves were loyal to their masters.”

“I don’t know,” said Karnea. “But it is possible that we might find answers even to that if we can find this Hold of which Verlek speaks.” She sounded more excited by that possibility than she had by the possibility of finding the Lost Runes. Her cheerfulness was fast re-exerting itself. Kormak was not sure that was a good sign.





Chapter Seventeen





THEY WALKED FOR a long time. The dwarf loped ahead tirelessly. Karnea went forward to talk to him. “We must rest,” she said. “I can barely walk.”

“You are weary?” The dwarf sounded surprised. “We have come barely five leagues. It is a long way yet to the Hold.”

“Nonetheless we must rest and eat if we are to make the journey. Not all of us are as hardy as dwarves.”

“So I can see,” said Verlek. His nose twitched. His beard flowed. “There is a well not too far from here and a place we can make secure. Now that we have left the Forge Quarter, the accursed Graghur-spawn may pick up our trail once more.

“Graghur-spawn?” Karnea asked. Verlek described the goblins. He placed more emphasis on their sound and smell than their physical appearance.

“He is their progenitor. Or so Guttri has always said and Guttri knows about these things. Guttri is the Keeper.” Verlek spoke the title with some respect and he clearly expected them to understand why.

“You mean Graghur created them?” Karnea asked.

“He is mother and father to them. At least so it is written on his monument.”

“There is a statue to him?” Kormak asked.

“We passed it but a half league back between the statues of Saa-Aquor, Mistress of the Seas and Tritureon, High Lord of the Black Swamp Ziggurat,” said Verlek. “Surely you perceived it. Carved from star-stone, smelled of it too. The texture was very fine.”

“I do not recall seeing such a thing,” said Kormak. There had been a statue of a tall stately Old One who looked not unlike a dwarf being borne along on a platform carried by a score of goblins. It came to him then he was making a very elementary mistake.

“Graghur is a shapeshifter,” he said.

“All the Eldrim are,” said Verlek, as if stating something obvious to a child. “Sometimes they choose to remain in a given form. Sometimes they get stuck in it.”

“He could have picked a better shape,” said Kormak.

“You have encountered him?” The dwarf’s blind-seeming eyes were turned on him.

“Yes.”

“And you are alive?”

“Apparently.”

“You bear a forbidden blade.” Verlek said this as if it held the secret of Kormak’s survival, which in a way, it did. The dwarf looked thoughtful then his head twitched to one side and he made a sign over his chest and a cursing sound.