Calidus had sent him to find them necklace and cup, the Treasures he had promised to Asroth and Rhin was to be his protector. Fifty Benothi giants wandering the west would not be much appreciated by the locals. Once he had them he was ordered to take them to Calidus, either at Mikil or somewhere closer to Forn and Dra.s.sil.

Dra.s.sil. This will bring me one large stride closer to claiming the fortress back for my kin. For all of the clans. The thought of it sent a thrill through him sitting on Skald's throne, the chieftains of the five clans bending their necks before him. He realized he was grinning.

They spilt into a huge chamber, iron sconces holding unlit torches hammered into the damp walls. Uthas lit a few, sending shadow and light flickering about the room.

A shape was slumped in the middle of the room, crumpled and curled. The skeleton of a wyrm, not that large compared to the ones that had dwelt in Murias, but big enough, tattered sc.r.a.ps of skin hanging off strips of pale bone.

Its head was gone.

'This is a clean cut,' Salach said, kneeling beside the skeleton and examining the point on the spine where the head had been shorn. 'Not a bite wound, but a blade.'

So people had been down here, found a way in. And encountered a wyrm.

'This way,' Salach said, leading them to the left of the room, towards a mound of piled rubble, draped with thick web. Towards the tomb where Uthas had watched Nemain place the casket containing the necklace and book.

'This is where the casket was kept,' Uthas said as he held his torch higher.

Here and there the splintered frame of a doorway was visible, rock and boulder collapsed from the wall above to fill the entrance. Uthas exchanged a look with Salach, feeling a knot of worry growing in his belly.

How did this happen? A dead wyrm, the entrance to the tomb collapsed.

There was a gap in the rubble, high but too small for a giant to wriggle through, and Uthas could not imagine Rhin attempting to squeeze through, so he put his torch down and began to lift rocks. Salach soon joined him.

Uthas lost himself in the rhythm of lifting. He kept glancing at Rhin, the torchlight making her face shift, rippling between shadow and light.

She is changed since Uthandun. Humbled by Calidus. Shamed by him, in front of us all. That does not sit well upon a woman as proud as Rhin. During their journey south from Uthandun, through the Darkwood and into Ardan, Uthas had seen flashes of that change: not as calm, more p.r.o.ne to bursts of rage and melancholy.

She feels more dangerous now, not less so. What has Calidus done?

'That should do,' Rhin said, breaking into his thoughts. He looked and saw a hole amidst the rubble, large enough for him to stoop through. Salach lifted his torch, shrugged his axe from his back and pa.s.sed through the doorway, Uthas and Rhin close behind.

They were standing in a circular chamber, smaller by far than the one they'd come from. At the far end of the chamber was a stone tomb, the lid lying cracked and broken upon the floor. Rows of giant axes and war-hammers edged the room, all thick with dust and web.

'These are still sharp,' Salach commented, running his thumb along the edge of one of the axe-blades.

They approached the tomb, treading over the flat stone lid, which was broken into slabs. Uthas held the torch higher and peered into the open tomb.

Inside was the skeleton of a giant, its hands clasped upon its chest, at its feet the broken shards of wyrm sh.e.l.ls. Uthas glanced around the room, remembering the skeleton in the chamber without. Then he looked back into the tomb, eyes searching ever more frantically. Salach leaned in, ripped out the skeleton's chest cavity, ran his hand around the base of the tomb.

'It is not here,' Uthas growled, feeling his dreams of Dra.s.sil crumbing like sand within his cupped hands.

He stared at Rhin and she stared back at him, suspicion growing in her eyes.

'Evnis,' they both said together.

CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR.

CORBAN.

Corban blinked as the trapdoor opened above him. Enkara went first, holding her hands up high, and iron glittered in the torchlight above her. He rode Shield up the slope, Storm loping beside him, and squinted as he entered a room that felt as bright as the sun after spending a ten-night in that huge, endless tunnel.

Blurred figures were standing in a semi-circle before him and he reined in. As his vision started to clear he saw they were Jehar. They drew their swords, dropped to one knee before him, bowing their heads and crying out, 'The Seren Disglair.'

'Please, rise,' Corban said as he slid from Shield's back.

There were ten of them, all older, between forty and fifty summers like Enkara.

I thought this kind of behaviour was all over. I've accepted who I am, but Seren Disglair or Bright Star or whatever they call me, it doesn't mean people need to get down on their knees in front of me.

'On your feet,' Corban said, more firmly, walking to the closest one and gently lifting him. They stood and sheathed their swords, looking at him with awe-struck eyes.

'Well met; I am honoured to meet you,' Corban said. 'I have been told much about you, and value your faithfulness in guarding Dra.s.sil for this day.' He had spoken a long time to Enkara about this, quizzing her during their journey through the tunnel of what to expect upon his arrival.

He greeted them all by name, again learned from Enkara; he thought it the least he could do, not able to imagine the dedication it had taken to spend sixteen years preparing Dra.s.sil for these times, then watch most of their comrades leave, knowing that they had to stay and guard an empty fortress.

'And you must be Hamil,' he said to the last one, a serious-looking man with iron grey at his temples and a hooked nose. The man dipped his head.

'Hamil, we have ridden far and there are many of us. Would you and your kin please help get them settled?'

'Of course, Bright Star,' Hamil said.

'Corban please, my name is Corban.'

'Of course. One question.'

'Aye.'

'Where is Tukul?'

For a moment Corban did not know what to say. He missed Tukul, every day. For a man whom he had not known all that long, Tukul had had an immense impact upon him.

Then Hamil looked over Corban's shoulder and saw Gar. He stared a moment, then smiled, the expression transforming his face.

'Gar, is that you?' Hamil said.

Gar looked at him, blankly at first, then he smiled in return, though to Corban it looked wan. Nevertheless he slipped from his horse and embraced Hamil, who hugged him tightly and patted his back.

'Oh, how you have grown,' Hamil exclaimed.

'Aye. Seventeen years,' Gar shrugged.

'Where is your father?' Hamil asked him.

Gar's smile vanished, that stricken, hollow look returning to his eyes.

'He fell,' Gar said.

'What? No.' Hamil gasped. He took a long look at Gar and hugged him again. 'This world will not be the same without him.'

'No, it won't,' Gar whispered.

Meical was waiting patiently on the slope behind. 'There are many weary people down here,' he said.

'Of course, of course,' Hamil said, and then they were all moving, Hamil taking Shield's reins from him and allowing Corban to move deeper into the hall. People began to file out of the tunnel, an exodus squinting and blinking in the light. Buddai bounded over to Storm and they ran off together. Now that Corban's eyes had adjusted he took a moment to look around, and saw a huge chamber, bigger even than the hall in Murias where the cauldron had been kept.

It was roughly circular in design, the flagstoned floor that Corban was standing upon sunk deep into the ground, broad pillars of light slanting down into the chamber through vellum-covered windows. Wide stone steps led up to great doors of oak and iron. The steps would have stretched the length of the keep at Dun Carreg, so wide that they looked more like the tiered seats of a theatre or a gallery. But all of that was not what took Corban's breath away. High above, branches as thick as tree trunks in the Darkwood wound their way through the chamber, many of them breaking through the roof, or, as Corban looked closer, perhaps the roof was built around them, as there seemed to be some kind of design at work. A gentle breeze set branches and leaves rustling, as if a hidden host were whispering in the shadows up above them. He turned a half-circle, trying to take it all in, then froze, his jaw opening. At first Corban did not understand what he was seeing so he walked closer. Then he understood. At the centre of the chamber was a huge trunk, wider than Dun Kellen's keep, rising up and up, disappearing into the shadows of the high roof. The chamber he was standing in was built around the trunk, an outer ring of stone around one of timber, sap and bark.

Something was built into it, at its base, where the stone floor met the trunk.

Corban ran a hand along the bark. It was hard as iron, though not as cold. In fact, there was a sense of warmth, a tingle in Corban's fingertips. He walked slowly along the trunk, marvelling at it, then reached the construct he had seen.

It was a throne, partly wood, hewn into the trunk, and part stone, the arms carved in the shape of the great wyrms Corban had seen below Dun Carreg and in the cauldron's chamber in Murias. Sitting upon it, slumped within it, was the cadaver of a giant. Stretched grey skin, here and there patches of ashen bone, a tattered strip of leather or cloth. And in its chest, through its chest, piercing the chair behind it and on, deep into the trunk, was a spear. Sap had leaked and congealed about the wounded trunk. Corban ran a hand along the spear shaft, which was thick and smooth, darker veins twisting through it, a spike of black iron at its b.u.t.t. When his fingers reached the metal he s.n.a.t.c.hed them away as if burned. For a moment he'd thought he heard voices, a hissing chorus inside his head.

'It is Skald's spear,' a voice rumbled behind him.

Balur One-Eye.

'With this blow our high king was slain, the Giant Wars were begun, and the Sundering sealed.' Melancholy dripped from his voice.

'Who did it? Who killed Skald?'

'I did,' Balur said.

Corban looked up at him and saw tears running down Balur's craggy face.

A thousand questions rushed to the tip of his tongue but his voice faltered. The grief on Balur's face was too much to disturb.

The questions will wait.

They stood in silence a while, the warband emptying from the tunnel beneath Dra.s.sil like ants marching from a nest.

Ethlinn appeared at his other shoulder.

'Come, Bright Star, let Balur show us Dra.s.sil, first and greatest of the giant strongholds.'

'You have not seen it before, then?'

'No. I was born in Benoth, and like you I have only heard of it in tales.'

'Come then,' Balur grunted.

Corban walked the streets and courtyards of Dra.s.sil in a state of ever-growing wonder. The stronghold was built around a tree, although a tree the size of which Corban would have claimed was an impossibility. The main trunk was thicker and taller than any construct Corban had ever seen, more like a mountain rising into the sky than a thing of bark and timber. Its upper branches seemed so high that they touched the clouds. Branches sprouted from it, stone towers and walls spiralling and twisting about them as if set by some child-G.o.d's unbounded imagination. Here and there the ground was scarred and ruptured by roots rising out of the ground like the ancient knotted knuckles of some colossal sleeping giant.

Hamil appeared from a side street and hurried over to Corban.

'We have worked hard to prepare Dra.s.sil for your arrival,' Hamil said. He wore the dark chainmail of the Jehar, and black linen beneath it, but he seemed less severe than most of the Jehar Corban had met.

'I am grateful for your commitment,' Corban said. That seemed to make Hamil incredibly happy and he gently took over as their guide, pointing out where vine had been sheared from walls, where stonework had been repaired, explained how they had made maps of the labyrinthine catacombs that burrowed for leagues beneath the stronghold and out beneath Forn. They pa.s.sed a handful of cairns.

'Those are new,' Balur observed.

'Aye. They are raised over our Jehar kin who died here. Sixteen years we were here as the Hundred. Some died of sickness, others met Forn's predators. Daria is there, Gar's mother.'

Corban looked at the cairns, stone slabs dotted with moss and pale flowers. He had never thought of Gar having kin elsewhere; the man had been such an integral part of his life, it felt strange to think of him having a life elsewhere.

'Over there is the courtyard of forges,' Hamil said. 'You giants were very organized nothing scattered, everything in its place.'

Balur just grunted.

'We have only used one forge while we have been here, but they are all prepared for use.'

'Thank you,' Corban said. 'We will need them all.'

'This way,' Balur said, changing their course.

'Ah.' Hamil smiled, but said no more.

Balur led them to a wide set of arched doors. He stood there a moment, hand on the iron handle, head bowed, and then tugged the door open. It was dusty inside, light streaming in on cobwebs thick as rope. Balur entered first, the others following.

It was a weapons chamber, as large as Dun Carreg's feast-hall, lined with racked weapons axes, war-hammers, spears, longswords, daggers, along the back wall coats of chainmail and leather armour, shoulder plates, cuira.s.ses, arm-bracers.

Balur smiled.

They tarried in there a while, Balur walking down each wall, trailing fingers against axe-hafts and hammer-heads as if he were greeting old friends. He stopped and pulled a spear from a rack and threw it to Ethlinn, who caught it with one hand and spun it, cobweb flying from its iron-spiked b.u.t.t. Corban paused before a dagger, its blade wider and probably a little longer than his own sword. He ran his thumb across its edge and drew blood.

'May I have this?' Corban asked Balur.

'Of course,' Balur said.

Corban drew it from the iron rack, found a leather scabbard for it.

For Farrell, when he needs to chop heads from the Kadoshim.

They left the chamber with some regret and entered a courtyard that was lined with stone buildings, hundreds of them, looking more like a row of stables than anything else, though taller and wider.