against the elves, or cause a violent argument and Tyrion had no great wish to kill the humans and still less of a desire to be killed by them.
‘We need to move on,’ said Tyrion.
‘We need to bury Fritz,’ said Leiber.
‘We could all die if we don’t get out of this place,’ said Tyrion. ‘Those skinks will be back with friends soon, and there will be a lot more of them than us.’
Leiber looked as if he wanted to argue but he could see the sense of Tyrion’s words. His companions looked torn between their anger and their fear. The way Fritz’s dead eyes stared at the sky was a compelling argument for Tyrion’s case. None of them wanted to end up that way. Heads nodded.
‘Dead men spend no gold,’ said Teclis sardonically. Tyrion could have cursed him. Now was not the time for his gallows humour, but that argument too held considerable force.
‘All right, let’s go get us some treasure,’ said Leiber. There was a note of aggression in his voice that Tyrion did not like at all. It was possible that before too long it would not just be the skinks that would be numbered among their enemies.
The rain poured down, turning the track to flowing mud. It splattered off the leaves and splashed down from the giant trees in small waterfalls and the noise of it covered the normal small sounds of the surrounding woods.
Tyrion envied his brother’s magic even more. His tunic was soaked. His hair was plastered against his skull. The insides of his boots squelched. The rain did not touch Teclis. It stopped a finger’s breadth from his form, leaving him looking dry and calm.
Leiber spluttered and coughed as he led them along the track. Red mud stuck to his bare feet and made it look as if he was wearing a glistening set of magical stockings. The other humans tramped along with slumped shoulders and miserable expressions in their eyes. They looked as if they wanted to be anywhere but here.
The ruins emerged slowly from the jungle. At first Tyrion was not sure that they were not simply large outcroppings or hills. It took some effort to discern the shapes of the tumbled down buildings in the undergrowth, but if he looked closely, he could see lichen-blotched, time-eroded statues and the chipped remains of monstrous stone blocks partially buried in moss and peaty earth. Great trees had grown around them and sometimes through them, the power of their long slow growth tumbling even the heavy stonework.
‘There must have been an earthquake here,’ Tyrion said in elvish to Teclis. His twin looked thoughtful.
‘Or monstrously powerful sorcery. They say the forces of Chaos struck these cities with mighty magics during the first incursion. For a long time, the slann and their lizardmen slaves bore the brunt of the Dark Gods’ attacks.’
The ground squelched underfoot. It was as if they were moving through the limits of a great swamp.
‘Flooded?’ Tyrion asked.
Teclis nodded. ‘Seems most likely.’
‘Let’s hope the whole city is not under water then.’
‘It would not be the first slann city to be so.’
‘You do not reassure me, brother.’
‘We still have to find what we came here for,’ said Teclis. ‘We still need to find the sword.’
Tyrion sprang upwards and grabbed a vine. It was wet and slippery, but he was agile even by the standards of elves and he had soon pulled himself up into the lower branches of the trees. From there he used his dagger as a piton and climbed as high as he could go.
He was hoping for a good view of his surroundings, and even through the downpour he managed one. Although these trees were not as tall as some of the millennia old giants of the deep forest, they were still far taller than the mast of an ocean-going ship. What he saw was as awesome as it was disheartening.
They had found Zultec.
The old slann city stretched to the horizon. Less than a league away were a number of ziggurats, partially overgrown but the size of small hills. They had been hidden by the jungle until he climbed above it. He counted at least a score and gave up. He knew that there would most likely be smaller ruins hidden among the wreckage. They had found the city but it might take years to search it for what they sought, assuming it was even there. He scrambled back down the tree and told Teclis what he had seen. His brother