‘In times of peace,’ he said, his voice echoing eerily inside the enclosed chamber, ‘the bones here would have been worth a sack of gold, and the statue outside would have fetched a fortune. Now we’ll be lucky to get the price of a meal for the skull.’
‘You keep it,’ said Tarantio. ‘I’m sure there will still be people interested in acquiring it.’
He swung on his heel and walked from the chamber, clambering up over the mud and out into the sunlight. Forin and Brune followed him. In the bright light of earthly reality the skull looked somehow even more eerie, out of place, out of time.
‘The Eldarin must have possessed great magic indeed to wipe out a people so formidable,’ said Tarantio.
Forin nodded. ‘According to legend they annihilated them in the space of a single hour. Perhaps that is what the Eldarin were trying to do to our army, and their magic betrayed them.’
‘Perhaps,’ Tarantio agreed.
‘I wonder what they ate,’ said Brune.
Forin chuckled and lifted the skull. ‘Beneath this beak there are sharp teeth, the front canines pointed like spikes. At the rear . . . here, look . . .’ he said to Brune, beckoning the young man forward, ‘are the molars . . . the grinding teeth. They were like us, meat and plant eaters.’
Once more the ground beneath their feet trembled. Forin swore, but the tremor died away swiftly. The three men stood nervously for a few seconds. Then a second quake hit, hurling them from their feet. The skull flew from Forin’s hand and struck a boulder, shattering into a hundred pieces.
Tarantio lay hugging the earth, nausea swamping him. For several minutes the rumbling continued, then silence settled on the land and he rose shakily. Forin rolled to his knees and looked down at the shattered skull. ‘Who’d have my luck?’ he said, then pushed himself to his feet.
By mid-morning the following day they sighted the spires of Corduin. Tarantio found that he knew the guard on the main gate, and there was no problem entering the city. At the first cross-roads within, he bade farewell to Forin. They clasped hands. ‘Good luck to you, big man.’
‘I hope fortune favours you, Tarantio,’ answered Forin with a wide smile. ‘Look after the simpleton. If you cut him loose, he’ll starve to death within a week.’
As he rode away Brune, who was holding onto Tarantio’s stirrup, looked up and asked: ‘Where are we going now?’
‘To a merchant who will give us money.’
‘Why would he do that?’
‘It is my money,’ said Tarantio.
‘What will we do then?’
Tarantio sighed. ‘I will teach you how to use a bow and a sword. When I have done that, you will join a mercenary unit.’
Brune thought about this for a moment. ‘I’m not a fast learner,’ he said, with a wide grin.
‘That isn’t a surprise, Brune.’
Chapter Four
Sirano, the fifth Duke of Romark, was the image of the man who had sired him – tall, athletic, handsome, his hair black and his eyes a deep ocean blue. It was for this reason that his father, a short, burly, blond-haired man, hated him. The fourth Duke of Romark was a bitter man, who had married for love only to find that his feelings were one-sided. His wife betrayed him with the captain of his Guards, and fell pregnant by him in the third year of their unhappy marriage.
The captain died in mysterious circumstances, stabbed to death in what appeared to be a drunken brawl. The wife was said to have fainted and drowned in her bath three days after giving birth to Sirano. Everyone agreed it was a tragedy, and there was great sympathy for the fourth Duke.
The child was raised by a series of nurses. Quick and alert, he was always desperate for his father’s affection, which was never forthcoming. He never knew why. At school Sirano was the best in his year, and swiftly grew to understand the intricacies of language and the arts. By the age of twelve he could lead discussions on the merits of the great sculptors, debate the philosophical attitudes of the Three Teachers, and had written a thesis on the life and work of the soldier-king, Pardark.