Free Taker Of Skulls (Book 5) by William King Page B

scrambling on hands and knees as he went up the slope.
    Eventually, they emerged on top of a large flat rock and he got a good view of the valley below. The camp looked small and distant and rather pathetic compared to the mountains surrounding it and the Khazduri statues. A line of people and animals was already leaving the valley along the old road. Only a few tents and lean-tos remained.
    Lonely plumes of smoke rose above the few remaining fires. The sky overhead was grey and dark and it seemed like they were climbing all the way into the underbelly of the clouds. The landscape became even more barren. Here and there were a few small trees clutching the mountainside with gnarled roots but aside from that the only signs of life were a few birds and the lichen that clung to the stones and the sides of the grey boulders.
    “I’ve seen more pleasant places,” said Boreas.
    “It reminds me of Aquilea,” said Kormak.
    “That’s not any sort of recommendation in my book,” said Boreas. He was using the handle of his hammer as a staff to push himself up.
    “I suspect that where we are going will make Aquilea look paradisiacal by comparison.”
    Sasha was bounding ahead, agile as a goat on the tracks. Karnea mopped sweat from her brow. Her cheeks were even more rosy than usual. A few hours of sleep did not seem to have done an enormous amount to restore her energy but she looked cheerful enough. “I’ve been saying for a while that I needed more exercise. Be careful for what you wish for!”
    “How much further?” Kormak asked Sasha.
    She looked back down the slope as if trying to see if anyone was following them. “Not more than an hour if we keep up this pace. Surely you don’t need a rest already, Guardian? I thought this would be a mere tussock to an Aquilean.”
    “I am just curious,” said Kormak, refusing to rise to the bait. “Will we have time to get any distance underground once we find this entrance of yours?”
    “We’d better hope so,” Sasha said. “Those look like storm clouds coming in and I am not keen on spending the night getting soaked on a mountainside.”
    None of them said anything about the possibility that there might be goblins waiting in ambush.

    It was raining heavily as they reached the postern gate. It did not look like much, just a heavy stone doorway that blended into the rocks it stood among. Moss had grown on the runes in its surface. The rest of the door was overgrown so the pattern was only noticeable through being lighter than the moss around it.
    There was a faint darkness around one edge of the door. “The door is broken,” said Sasha. “It was when we found it.”
    Kormak studied the area around him. There were no signs of recent goblin passage, such as the marks of heavy packs being dragged over the rocks. That did not mean the goblins had not come this way of course.
    “Let’s hope they are not waiting for us on the other side,” said Boreas.
    “Never seen any goblins up here,” Sasha said.
    “Where do they usually lurk?” Kormak asked.
    “Nobody really knows but it used to be you never come across any signs of them near the gate or on the upper levels. Used to be you only found them deep in the Underlands and you had to be unlucky for that to happen.” She paused for a moment as if thinking about something sad, took a deep breath. “Of course they never used to raid either. Last night was something new.”
    Boreas used the handle of his hammer to force the gate wider and they looked down into the gloom. A flight of stairs receded in front of them.
    “We’re going to need light,” said Kormak.
    Karnea nodded and pulled something out of her rucksack. “Fortunately the goblins never got their claws on my pack,” she said.
    She held a glittering crystal on a stone ring. The ring was large enough to encompass a human fist, and Karnea gripped it as she would the handle of a stein. She rubbed the stone with her hand, and as she did so it glowed brighter.