‘Elven dust?’ She gave Valiant a scornful look.
Jacob leant down to her. ‘Is he still here?’
She lifted her nose to sniff, and shook her head.
Damn! Jacob tucked his knife back into his belt. Not many treasure hunters knew how to get past a Giantling, or what resin to use to defeat a dead man’s shadow. They usually avoided each other on the hunt, but Jacob knew them all, at least by name and reputation. Which one had done this?
‘Damned bastard!’ Valiant was standing on the debris of the lid, staring down into the open sarcophagus. ‘He even took the crown!’ he clamoured. ‘And who told him to cut out the heart? Are those greybeards in the council now trading with Dark Witches?’
The corpse in the sarcophagus had not decayed at all, but it was missing the right hand and the head, and there was a hole in the chest where the heart had once beaten. The wound, like the ones on the arm and neck, had been sealed with gold. This meant that the body had been buried like this. Valiant reached for the sceptre next to the body, but Jacob pulled him back. ‘You see those leaves he’s lying on? They’re hexed. Why else do you think he looks so fresh?’
He looked around. The tomb’s floor was laid with green marble, and strips of alabaster ran like the dial of a compass from each of the four columns to the sarcophagus. Jacob picked up the mine lamp Valiant had put down next to the sarcophagus, and walked along one of the alabaster strips. It was inlaid with letters cast in white gold. They were barely visible in the white stone.
HOUBIT WESTARHALP
Every treasure hunter knew that language. Fox watched Jacob as he paced off the second and third strip.
HANDU SUNDARHALP
HERZE OSTARHALP
The inscriptions were easy to translate.
THE HEAD IN THE WEST
THE HAND IN THE SOUTH
THE HEART IN THE EAST
Maybe the hunt wasn’t over yet.
Jacob went to fourth strip. Its inscription was much longer than the others:
NIUWAN ZISAMANE BESIZZANT HWAZ
THERO EINAR BIEGEROT.
FIBORGAN HWAR SI ALLIU BIGANNUN.
‘What’ve you got those gloves for? Take that sceptre off him!’ Valiant moaned. ‘And he’s still got his signet ring on the other hand.’
Jacob ignored the Dwarf. He was staring at the letters.
ONLY TOGETHER MAY THEY POSSESS
WHAT EACH DESIRES.
CONCEALED WHERE THEY ALL BEGAN.
No. The other one hadn’t found the crossbow. Not yet.
‘Jacob?’ Fox was still wearing her fur.
Steps . . .
Barely audible.
Jacob lifted the lantern. He thought he could make out a shape between the columns, dark like the stone it was trying to hide behind. Before Jacob could stop her, Fox was dashing towards it. The vixen’s compulsion to hunt made her careless. Jacob ran after her, cursing himself for not having given the tomb a thorough search. He heard Fox yelp, and nearly stumbled over her. She was lying between the columns, already shifting shape as she struggled to her feet. That instant, the Dwarf cried out for help behind them.
The man who shoved Valiant out of his way was wearing clothes of lizard skin over his own, which was as black as onyx. A Goyl. Just as Jacob took aim, Valiant staggered into his line of sight. The Goyl gave him a little taunting wave before pulling the tomb’s door shut behind him. Valiant screamed, stumbling towards the door. He clawed his fingers into the frieze of skulls and yanked at the door so hard that the bones cracked under his hands.
‘Why didn’t you shoot him?’ he yelled. ‘Perishing inside a tomb! Is that your idea of a good death?’
Fox’s forehead was bleeding. Jacob brushed away her hair, but luckily the gash wasn’t deep.
‘Why didn’t you smell him?’
‘He didn’t have a scent.’ She was angry. Angry with herself and with the stranger who’d got the better of her.
No scent. Jacob looked towards the shadow and the resin-covered knife stuck in its neck. The Goyl knew his trade.
‘We’re going to starve!’ Valiant looked around like a rat caught in a trap.
Jacob went back to the alabaster strips and looked at the letters. ‘Suffocation is more likely.’
Fox came to his side. ‘I’ll find his trail,’ she whispered. ‘I promise.’
But Jacob shook his head. ‘Forget about the Goyl. He doesn’t have the crossbow.’ He was still looking at the letters. The words were the trail they’d have to follow. A dead man . . . not yet.
‘What the devil are you two doing there?’ Valiant’s voice filled the tomb with Dwarf panic. ‘Do something! This can’t be the first tomb you’ve been trapped in!’
The Dwarf was right about that. Jacob returned to the sarcophagus and, with his gloved hand, reached for the sceptre. The architects of royal tombs often believed that their master was only sleeping and that he would wake up again one day. So they always left him with a key, even though it seemed even more unlikely than usual that a headless King would awaken and need it.
The door swung open as soon as Jacob wrote Guismond’s name in the air with the sceptre. Relieved, Valiant immediately stumbled through the door, but Jacob carefully stepped over the dead treasure hunter in front of it and listened. The hanging knights were swaying gently, and he thought he could hear steps in the distance.
Valiant growled, ‘How did the Goyl know about the tomb? If the Dwarf council hired him behind my back, then—’
Jacob interrupted him: ‘Nonsense. If he was hired by the council, then why would he have gone to the trouble of drugging the Giantling? No.’ He took the jacket off the corpse by the door. ‘They call him the Bastard, and he’s the only Goyl who’s any good at treasure hunting.’
‘The Bastard . . . of course!’ Valiant rubbed his face. The cold sweat of fear still clung to his forehead. ‘He likes to cut off his competitors’ fingers.’
‘Fingers, tongues, noses . . . he’s got quite a reputation.’ Jacob wrapped the sceptre in the dead hunter’s jacket.
‘Don’t you think it’s only right to let me have that?’ Valiant purred, smiling his most innocent smile. ‘For all the hospitality and my invaluable assistance?’
‘Really?’ Fox took the bundle with the sceptre from Jacob’s hand. ‘You still owe me half my fee for the feather, but we’ll give you a little discount if you get us horses and provisions.’
‘Provisions? What for?’ The innocence disappeared immediately. It had looked as out of place on Valiant’s face as a rash, anyway.
‘Go back to the tomb if you really want to know. I’m sure the Bastard was not as blind as you.’
Jacob stepped to the tomb’s door and inspected Guismond’s golden portrait. He could only hope the Goyl wouldn’t beat him at solving the Witch Slayer’s riddle.
Perfect. As if having to race against death wasn’t enough.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THE OTHER ONE
The hall where Crookback received them was so dark that Nerron could barely see his own hands. Any light from the high windows was swallowed by dark blue brocade curtains, and the candles burning next to the throne were low enough so as not to hurt a Goyl’s eyes. The King of Lotharaine was a very smart man. He’d done much to ensure the comfort of his stone-skinned visitors, for a guest who is comfortable is also less vigilant.
