Uthas led Rhin and Salach through the streets of Dun Carreg, a sense of wonder filling him. He gazed about at the wide flagstoned roads, the stone buildings looming over them, and remembered when his kin had gazed back at him from shuttered windows and bairns ran laughing in the streets.

Soon they passed around the keep and into a wide courtyard, a pool with fountain and steps dominating the square. Then, further on, down the steps into the tunnel that led to the great well. It was all exactly as he remembered, even the damp smell, the drip of water, the echo as they entered the circular room with the wide hole that sank deep into the bowels of the cliff that Dun Carreg was built upon.

Uthas nodded to Salach, and he squatted beside the well-shaft, reaching down along the rough stone. He nodded as he found what he was looking for, then there was a click, a hiss and the outline of a door appeared on the wall to the left of them.

Rhin nodded approvingly and the three of them walked through.

‘Lasair,’ Uthas commanded, and the torch of rushes in his hand sparked into flame. He led them on into the tunnels beneath Dun Carreg, excitement coursing through his veins.

Nemain’s necklace, one of the Seven Treasures.

Calidus had sent him to find them – necklace and cup, the Treasures he had promised to Asroth – and Rhin was to be his protector. Fifty Benothi giants wandering the west would not be much appreciated by the locals. Once he had them he was ordered to take them to Calidus, either at Mikil or somewhere closer to Forn and Drassil.

Drassil. This will bring me one large stride closer to claiming the fortress back for my kin. For all of the clans. The thought of it sent a thrill through him – sitting on Skald’s throne, the chieftains of the five clans bending their necks before him. He realized he was grinning.

They spilt into a huge chamber, iron sconces holding unlit torches hammered into the damp walls. Uthas lit a few, sending shadow and light flickering about the room.

A shape was slumped in the middle of the room, crumpled and curled. The skeleton of a wyrm, not that large compared to the ones that had dwelt in Murias, but big enough, tattered scraps of skin hanging off strips of pale bone.

Its head was gone.

‘This is a clean cut,’ Salach said, kneeling beside the skeleton and examining the point on the spine where the head had been shorn. ‘Not a bite wound, but a blade.’

So people had been down here, found a way in. And encountered a wyrm.

‘This way,’ Salach said, leading them to the left of the room, towards a mound of piled rubble, draped with thick web. Towards the tomb where Uthas had watched Nemain place the casket containing the necklace and book.