Taker Of Skulls (Book 5) Read Free

rolled up her sleeves. A metal band glittered on her forearm. It hung there loosely, as if it had been made for a larger arm and poorly adjusted to her more slender limb.
    She stepped closer and held it up so he could see it. Inset in the metal was a rune. It shimmered like quicksilver.
    “Notice anything unusual about it?” Karnea asked.
    “It’s dwarf work, of an odd sort.”
    “Notice anything else?” Her tone was that of a teacher disappointed in a pupil being slow of uptake. It was a tone Kormak had heard quite often during his training on Mount Aethelas, when Karnea had sometimes lectured there.
    “There is something about the rune. It is similar to those on my blade.”
    She let out a long sigh. “It is. Have you ever seen its like before?”
    He thought for a moment. “No.”
    She smiled at that. The dim pupil was showing some sign of intelligence after all.
    “And you won’t have. It is one of the Lost Runes.”
    “What?”
    “Of the one hundred and forty four great runes, only sixty-three are currently recorded.”
    “Then how do you know this is one of the Lost?”
    She walked over to the fire, thrust her hand into it, picked up a red hot coal. She walked over to where he stood and opened her fingers. Kormak could feel the heat radiating from the coal. Her fingers were not burned though. She showed no sign of discomfort. She tossed the coal back into the fireplace and then touched his cheek with her hand. It felt cool. Her touch was curiously intimate.
    She stepped back. She opened her hands and spoke a word. A runic symbol the same as the one on her arm appeared between her fingers, written in lines of fire that slowly faded.
    “This is Mankh, the Rune of Firebinding. It absorbs heat and then unleashes it at the user’s command. It is a tool, a protection and a weapon. It is referred to in ancient tales but nowhere have we found a copy. Until now.”
    “How did you come by it?”
    “It showed up nine months ago, carried to my home by a trader who had heard of my interest in dwarven relics and felt he would get a good price.”
    “Did he?”
    “Not as much as he deserved. This is a treasure without price to students of the Khazduri.”
    “And that’s why we are here?”
    “I questioned the merchant to find out where the rune originated. The trail led here.”
    “You believe it came from Khazduroth?”
    “He bought it from a prospector here in Varigston who found it in the deeps below Khazduroth. He told me the rune had been found by looters amid the remains of a dwarvish forge.”
    “Where is this merchant now?”
    “On his way back to Northrock, having been told that he will get the same price if he brought me more.”
    “You told him what it was, of course?”
    She pursed her lips, perhaps resenting the fact that he was mocking her. “Of course not.”
    “You did not want him suspecting the true value of what he had.”
    “It would be impossible to tell him the true value. Such runes have powerful magical properties—as I have just demonstrated.”
    “And you feel there might be more like it.”
    “Where one Lost Rune is found, there might be more. Khazduroth was only rediscovered just over four summers ago. Who knows what’s down there?”
    “You want to find out.”
    “What Khazduri scholar would not? But that was not all. Do you recognise the metal the rune is inlaid with?”
    Kormak shook his head.
    “It is an alloy of netherium.” Kormak found he was holding his breath. Netherium was the metal the dwarves had taken in payment for the forging of blades like the one Kormak carried.
    “That cannot be.”
    “I assure you it is.”
    “The Order scoured the world for netherium over a thousand years ago. It found none. The dwarves refused to make any more blades because the Order could not pay them.”
    Karnea sighed and once more he felt like a slow student. “No. They made no more blades because they could not. Netherium and its alloys are an integral component of the