eyes were large, protruding, and slanted up towards the thick temples. The mouth was lipless and open, showing pointed teeth behind a ridge of sharp bone, like the beak of a hunting bird . . .
‘It is a demon,’ said Brune fearfully.
‘No,’ said Forin. ‘It is a Daroth. My father described them perfectly. Six-fingered hands, and eyes that can see in a two-hundred-degree semi-circle. The neck is heavily ridged with bone and sinew. It does not articulate like the human neck, therefore the Daroth needed better all-round vision.’
‘You mentioned them back in the cave,’ said Tarantio. ‘I have heard of them. But they are just myths, surely?’
‘No, not myths. They existed before man came to this land. They were great enemies of the Eldarin, who destroyed them utterly. They came from the Northern Desert. Have you ever travelled there?’
‘No.’
‘Barely an ounce of soil over twenty thousand square miles. According to the legend, the Eldarin used great magic to annihilate the seven cities of the Daroth. Fire from the sky, and all that. The same magic that later destroyed the Eldarin themselves, searing the earth away.’
‘They look very fierce,’ said Brune.
‘They were all mighty warriors,’ Forin continued. ‘They had two hearts and two sets of lungs. The bones of their chest and backs were twice as thick as ours, and no sword, nor arrow, could pierce their vital organs. A heavy spear could injure them, but it would need a strong man to plunge it home.’ He paused and looked up at the cruel, beaked face. ‘Hell’s teeth, would you want to fight anything that ugly?’ he asked Tarantio.
‘I would,’ said Dace.
‘I dread to think what the females looked like,’ said Tarantio to Forin.
‘From what my father said, this could be one of the females. There was little difference between them; they bred like insects and reptiles, laying eggs, or pods. There was no physical union between mating pairs – and little apparent physical difference between the sexes.’
‘Why would anyone want a statue of a Daroth guarding their grave?’ asked Tarantio.
Easing past the statue, they pushed their way into the main burial chamber. The sunlight was weaker here, but they could see a massive lidless coffin set by the far wall. The answer to Tarantio’s question lay within. The coffin contained a massive skeleton, taller even than the statue guarding the tomb. Shocked, Tarantio gazed down on the colossal bones of the chest and back. The body had been laid on its side and the immense ridge of the spine could clearly be seen extending up the neck and over the cranium. Reaching inside, Tarantio lifted clear the immense skull. Dust and grit trickled from it. More than ever, the ridge of bone above the mouth looked like the beak of a hunting bird. ‘Incredible,’ whispered Tarantio. ‘He must have been awesome in life.’
‘He’s pretty awesome dead,’ muttered Forin, reaching out and taking the skull. ‘And this is a rare find. The Daroth were virtually immortal, reborn through the eggs. At the time of rebirth the body of the dying adult would shrivel away, bones and all, then the same Daroth would emerge from the pod.’
‘Well, this one didn’t shrivel away,’ said Tarantio.
‘Indeed he didn’t. I wonder why. Perhaps he chose not to mate, and there was no pod for him to return to.’
‘I can feel the evil here,’ said Dace. ‘Like a cold flame waiting for life.’
Symbols had been carved into the walls, but Tarantio could not decipher them. There were no paintings, no boxes, no possessions of any kind – with the exception of three bizarre pieces of furniture set against the wall. They resembled chairs, save that the seating area was in fact two curved, horsehair-padded slats set six inches apart and crafted at a rising angle from just above the floor. The back of the chair was low; this was also padded, but only along the top of the back-rest.
Brune tried to sit down on one and he looked ludicrous – too low to the ground, his legs splayed, his back bent. ‘No, no,’ said Forin. ‘Let me show you.’ Striding to the chair, he pulled Brune upright and then knelt on the slats, leaning forward to rest his massive forearms on the top of the back-rest. ‘The Daroth spine was not suited to conventional chairs.’ Rising, he tucked the skull under his arm.