Taker Of Skulls(62)

“Not yet. There are too many shafts and galleries and not even the goblins have sufficient numbers to watch them all. We killed a great many of them. Graghur must regret ordering an assault on our hold.”

“But you’ve still sent Mankri ahead to make sure.”

“There is no sense in taking undue risks,” said Ferik. “And he is a very stealthy dwarf.”

They pushed on into the mines. These did not look much like any mine Kormak had ever been in. The floors were paved and the walls and ceilings were as regular as those of the city up above. If it had not been for the metal rails in the floor and the absence of building fronts, Kormak would not have known they were in a mine at all.

They pushed on down. Galleries, long worked-out, ran away from the corridors. They were much lower than the ceilings in the Underhalls. They looked as if they were intended for the use of people the height of dwarves. Goblins would have no problem living here but Kormak felt the urge to constantly duck his head.

He could hear strange sounds in the distance now; clattering, banging, high-pitched screaming and once, an odd roaring noise that reminded him of Yellow Eye and the Slitherer.

Ferik saw him pause and said, “Yes, this is where Graghur breeds his monsters. They say he keeps the tame ones and drives the most savage and rebellious out into the corridors of the city.”

“So we can look forward to meeting more like the Slitherer,” said Kormak.

“Are you worried about meeting one without your sword?” Ferik asked.

“I would be worried about meeting one even with it.”

“Then you seem more sensible than my son made you sound, may the Ancestors welcome his soul.” There was a weight of sadness and anger in the dwarf’s voice when he talked about Verlek.

Mankri appeared in front of them, emerging from a side corridor.

“It is as it always was,” he said. “They do not watch the shafts in the eightieth gallery. We can enter the Deeps there.”

“You have been this way before?” Kormak asked.

Mankri nodded. “I once went all the way to the Chamber of Monsters just to see if I could.”

“How do you avoid being spotted?” Mankri tapped one of the runes on his arm. Kormak had not seen its like before.

“That confuses the goblins noses and I am very quiet when I want to be. Patient, too.”

“You have done well,” said Ferik. “If we can use the shafts we will reach the heart of the goblins realm.”

“Unless Graghur and his court have moved,” said Mankri.

“Perhaps it would be best to look at the bright side,” said Ferik.

“For me, that is the bright side.” Mankri gave them a cheery grin. It seemed the worse things looked, the more cheerful he became.





Ahead of them lay a long, steeply sloping shaft, even more constricted than the previous ones. Moving on all fours the dwarves had a lot less problems negotiating it than Kormak and his fellow humans. He had to crawl and twist and scuttle. The hilt of the axe he had hung over his shoulder ground along against the ceiling, slowing him down and making a grinding noise until he managed to adjust its position. Eventually he had to turn and clamber down as the shaft went near vertical.

His hands scraped against rough stone and his shoulders began to ache from the strain. His palms were slippery with sweat. The walls pressed in all around him. His breathing became forced. He wondered what would happen if he let go. He imagined slithering down a very long, steep slope, banging against the walls as he went until eventually he smashed to a halt a long way below.

He kept climbing down. He told himself that the dwarves had been this way before and must know what they were doing. A small niggling part of his mind pointed out that they had never done this with humans before and it was quite possible they had made a miscalculation.

Finally his feet touched flat ground and he realised that he was on the level again. It was dark and his sense of being enclosed did not let up. All the weight of the mountains seemed to be pressing down on him.

A powerful hand landed on his shoulder, and he felt the faint, tickling touch of a dwarf’s beard as it rippled over him in the dark. The image of a cockroach’s feelers flickered through his mind and he fought it down.

“Stand clear,” said Ferik’s voice, out of the utter blackness. “The others are coming down.”

Kormak let himself be pulled out of the way. He heard something scraping above him and then a muted curse. Sasha was down. “Kormak, are you there?” Her voice sounded almost panicked.

“Yes,” he said as calmly as he could. Displaced air warned him and then a hand quested out of the darkness and touched his face.