‘This is where the casket was kept,’ Uthas said as he held his torch higher.

Here and there the splintered frame of a doorway was visible, rock and boulder collapsed from the wall above to fill the entrance. Uthas exchanged a look with Salach, feeling a knot of worry growing in his belly.

How did this happen? A dead wyrm, the entrance to the tomb collapsed.

There was a gap in the rubble, high but too small for a giant to wriggle through, and Uthas could not imagine Rhin attempting to squeeze through, so he put his torch down and began to lift rocks. Salach soon joined him.

Uthas lost himself in the rhythm of lifting. He kept glancing at Rhin, the torchlight making her face shift, rippling between shadow and light.

She is changed since Uthandun. Humbled by Calidus. Shamed by him, in front of us all. That does not sit well upon a woman as proud as Rhin. During their journey south from Uthandun, through the Darkwood and into Ardan, Uthas had seen flashes of that change: not as calm, more prone to bursts of rage and melancholy.

She feels more dangerous now, not less so. What has Calidus done?

‘That should do,’ Rhin said, breaking into his thoughts. He looked and saw a hole amidst the rubble, large enough for him to stoop through. Salach lifted his torch, shrugged his axe from his back and passed through the doorway, Uthas and Rhin close behind.

They were standing in a circular chamber, smaller by far than the one they’d come from. At the far end of the chamber was a stone tomb, the lid lying cracked and broken upon the floor. Rows of giant axes and war-hammers edged the room, all thick with dust and web.

‘These are still sharp,’ Salach commented, running his thumb along the edge of one of the axe-blades.

They approached the tomb, treading over the flat stone lid, which was broken into slabs. Uthas held the torch higher and peered into the open tomb.

Inside was the skeleton of a giant, its hands clasped upon its chest, at its feet the broken shards of wyrm shells. Uthas glanced around the room, remembering the skeleton in the chamber without. Then he looked back into the tomb, eyes searching ever more frantically. Salach leaned in, ripped out the skeleton’s chest cavity, ran his hand around the base of the tomb.

‘It is not here,’ Uthas growled, feeling his dreams of Drassil crumbing like sand within his cupped hands.

He stared at Rhin and she stared back at him, suspicion growing in her eyes.

‘Evnis,’ they both said together.

CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

CORBAN