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?’