Master of Dragons

Chapter Twenty-Two

Death just wouldn’t find Drutheira. She felt as if it had been snapping at her heels for years, but the final cut was never quite made. If she had been of a sentimental disposition she might have suspected fate was preserving her for something or other, but she wasn’t, and so she didn’t. It was all luck, blind luck, and of a particularly sadistic kind at that.

At least her jailors had given her something to drink. The asur treated her roughly but Liandra had been insistent that she wasn’t to be harmed and her orders had been followed with typical assiduousness.

So noble, the asur; so proper, in thrall to the rules that bound them into their stultifying patterns of decay. Their reasonableness drove her mad. If the situations had been reversed they would all have been writhing in agony pits by now, their skin hanging from their flesh and their eyes served up on ice for the delectation of the witch elves. They would have begged to tell her everything they knew before the end, which would at least have been amusing for her if not actually useful.

Her detention in Oeragor had been luxurious in comparison. Once she had recovered enough bodily strength to swallow her food unaided she had been strapped into a metal chair deep within the citadel’s dungeons. Warding runes had been engraved in the walls, sapping any residual sorcery that might still have lurked in her battered body. A dozen guards stood outside her cell at all times, two of which were always mages. When the asur entered to give her food they glared at her with stony, hatred-filled eyes, clearly itching to do her violence but never giving in.

She could not move, she could not use her art, she could not even speak unless the gag was taken from her scabrous mouth. The whole thing was a humiliation; a spell of honest torture might have been preferable.

Liandra didn’t deign to speak to her for two days. When she finally did descend to the dungeon, closing the door behind her with studious relish, Drutheira wondered whether death had found her at last. She certainly didn’t blame the mage for wanting to kill her — the antipathy was, after all, entirely mutual.

Once again, though, her expectations were confounded. Liandra looked sleek and rested, freshly supplied with a new staff and pristine mage’s robes. She ripped Drutheira’s gag free, checked her bonds were secure, then stood before her, arms crossed. For a long time she did nothing but examine her, as if trying to ascertain whether the pitiful creature before her could really have been responsible for so much suffering.

‘No questions?’ Drutheira croaked eventually. Her strained voice sounded odd in the dank, echoing cell.

‘What could you tell me,’ said Liandra coolly, ‘that I do not already know?’

Liandra’s voice was a surprise: it was temperate, restrained even. Everything Drutheira knew about Liandra promised impetuosity, but perhaps being deprived of her creature had bled the fire from her.

‘Plenty, I judge,’ Drutheira said.

Liandra’s expression didn’t change. It was contemptuous more than anything.

‘You were sent to Elthin Arvan by Malekith,’ she said. ‘We were guarding the sea-lanes, so the best you could do was land in secret. You were here for years, hiding out in the wilds, doing nothing. Only when orders from Naggaroth came did you act, starting the violence that turned the dawi against us. You killed the dawi runelord. You ambushed the trade routes.’

Drutheira couldn’t help but smile. When listed like that, the tally of achievement was rather impressive.

‘We didn’t do it all,’ she said. ‘Plenty of you wished for war.’

‘You are right. I was one of them.’

‘Then you should be pleased.’

‘How little you understand us.’ Liandra crossed her arms, threading the staff under an elbow. ‘You sit there, smirking, content in small malice. Nothing you have done here will hasten Malekith’s return to the Phoenix Throne. He will remain an outcast for the rest of his days, howling his misery into the ice.’

Drutheira inclined her head in putative agreement. ‘Maybe, but he has his war. Nothing can stop that now.’

‘You know less than you think. They are talking again, and the dwarfs know of the secret war. All they need now is proof, and that is why you have been suffered to live — so I can drag you to Tor Alessi where, under the hot irons, you will be made to speak. Truth-spells shall be wound around you. All shall hear it. Your last action, before I finally kill you, will be to weep for the ruin of all you have sought to achieve.’

Drutheira couldn’t prevent a faint quiver of doubt showing on her face then. Liandra might have been lying, of course, but she sounded unnervingly confident. Recovering, Drutheira glared back defiantly.

‘Wishful,’ she said. ‘You know the chance has long gone. I sense the hatred boiling away within you even from here — you loathe the dawi.’

Liandra drew close to her then, so close that Drutheira could smell the fragrance of her robes and make out the freckles on her pale cheeks.

‘I do,’ Liandra whispered, bending over her almost tenderly. ‘I wish to see every last one of them driven back into the mountains, but how much more do I loathe you.’

The intensity of hatred then was unmistakable. Drutheira tried to pull her head away but her bonds held her tightly.

‘When you burn, witch, I shall be watching,’ Liandra whispered coolly. ‘For the sake of those you killed, I will revel in your agony.’

Drutheira couldn’t look away. Two blue eyes glared at her from the gloom, unwavering in their passionate intensity.

For the first time in a long while, no words came to her: no acid riposte, no withering put-down. She was alone, shackled, held in the vice by those who hated her, and there was nothing much left to say.

Then Liandra sneered, her message delivered, and withdrew. The mage swept from the chamber, not looking back, and slammed the heavy door behind her.

Alone again in the darkness, Drutheira heard the bolts lock home. Then silence fell again, as complete as the outer void.

This, I admit, she thought to herself mordantly, is getting difficult.

The drum beat with a steady, driving rhythm. Even as the dark trees clustered close, their shaggy branches hanging low across the path, the beat continued — heavy, dull, dour.

Morgrim enjoyed the sound of it. It reminded him of the beating of hammers in the deeps, the ever-present sound of the sunken holds. Its steady pace spoke of certainty, resolve, persistence.

He marched in time with it, as did all of his retinue. Five hundred dwarfs of the bazan-khazakrum kept up the punishing pace, hour after hour, pausing only for snatched meals of cured meat washed down with strong ale. They carried their supplies on their backs, not waiting for a baggage train to keep up with them. Every warrior matched the stride, none falling behind, none pressing ahead.

The constant exertion helped Morgrim forget. While he was moving, his breathing heavy and his arms swinging, he could consign the memory of Tor Alessi to forgetfulness. Only in the few hours of sleep he allowed himself did the images come back — the flaming fields, the stink of burning flesh, the cries of alarm. He would awake in the cold dawn, his eyes already staring, his fists clenched with anguish.

‘Onward,’ he would growl, and all those around him would drag themselves to their feet once again.

Dwarfs could cover a phenomenal amount of ground when the occasion demanded. They were not quick in their movements but they were relentless. No other race of the earth had such endurance, such capacity to drive onwards into the night and start again before first light. Freed of the straggling demands of his huge army, Morgrim’s warband had made good progress, led from the front and hauled onwards by his indomitable will.

Morek kept pace just as well as the others. He swayed as he strode, his cheeks red and puffing, his brows lowered in a permanent scowl of concentration.

‘How many miles?’ he asked, several days into the march, the road still thickly overlooked by foliage. His hauberk was thick with mud, his cloak ripped and sodden.

‘No idea,’ replied Morgrim, maintaining pace to the hammer of the drum. ‘Why do you ask?’

Morek snorted. ‘Because Tor Alessi is at one end of the world and Oeragor is at the other. I do not mind the exertion, but was there not a closer prize?’

Morgrim hawked up phlegm and spat it noisily into the verge. ‘There are many closer prizes. Soon they will all be burning.’

‘That is not an answer.’

‘Then because it is his.’ Morgrim’s voice shook with vehemence. He was tempted to stop then, to call the march to a halt and remonstrate with the runelord, but resisted. Every minute was vital. ‘It is his place, the one he built. It will hurt him.’ He glared at Morek. ‘Enough of a reason?’

Morek nodded, his breathing getting a little more snatched. ‘So it is a private war with you now.’

‘It is, and if you have issue with that there are other warbands you could join.’

Morek shook his head wearily. ‘Gods, no. I made an oath.’

Morgrim looked ahead again. ‘Good. While we march, recite your rune-craft. I will need it.’

He knew he spoke harshly; the runelord deserved more. His mood was dark, though. He could feel Snorri’s casket rattling against his jerkin, bound to his chest with chains of iron. Imladrik had no doubt intended the return of Halfhand’s remains as a gesture of goodwill. Now, in the aftermath of what had been unleashed, it felt like an insult.

‘I sent word to every thane under the mountains,’ he muttered. ‘They are all marching. Frei has taken half his hold to Sith Rionnasc. Others are heading through the forest. Others are marching under Brynnoth of Barak Varr. His army is the one we will join. He will support the new way of war — he was ever a wily soul and he knows how best to skin the elgi.’

Morgrim didn’t mention the other reason he wished to join forces with Brynnoth’s armies. Rumours had been whispered through the candlelit corridors of Karaz-a-Karak for months, sometimes with scorn, though often with interest. Brynnoth had done something interesting in Barak Varr, something that held greater promise of taking on the elgi than the campaign of scorched earth he now advocated. He’d heard stories of airborne machines, held aloft only by sacks of air and carrying weapons of fiendish invention. That was interesting. The two of them needed to talk, and to accomplish that he needed to get to Brynnoth.

For now, though, retaliation needed to be decisive, extensive, and, above all, swift.

‘You think we will be in time?’ asked Morek. ‘Last I heard he was close to his muster weeks ago.’

‘We will be in time,’ said Morgrim dismissively. ‘We will make rafts for the river and drive up against the current. We will march into the Ungdrin when we find it again. I will burn myself into the ground if need be, but we will be there.’

Spittle flew from his mouth as he spoke. Anger was only ever a finger’s breadth under the surface with him, ever ready to erupt. The axe weighed heavily on his back at such times, as if daring him to draw it.

Morek scratched the back of his neck, still marching, looking as if he had his doubts but was too prudent to voice them.

‘The runes,’ he said, glancing at the axe. ‘Do they still answer?’

Morgrim nodded. Azdrakghar had felt alive since Tor Alessi, resonating through his armour in its strapping. ‘It growls like a caged wolf.’

‘The drakk woke it,’ said Morek. ‘Snorri thought-’

‘Do not mention him,’ snapped Morgrim sharply. ‘I grow tired of hearing his name. For too long we have used it, making it stoke our anger. Do we not have enough reasons of our own to hate them?’

Morek stared at him. ‘I only meant-’

‘It is my blade. Snorri was wrong, it was forged for me. It was forged for the drakk. You knew this when you made it.’

Morek shook his grizzled head, puffing hard. ‘I don’t know. Even Ranuld didn’t know. If it has a destiny, I cannot see it.’

‘I can,’ said Morgrim, his grey eyes narrow. He kept marching. ‘I see it as clear as moonlight.’

‘So here we are again.’

Imladrik sat in his throne at the summit of the Tower of Winds. Three of the other thrones were occupied.

Caerwal was no longer there. Neither was Liandra, whose whereabouts had still not been established. Word had come in regarding the fate of her fortress: Kor Vanaeth lay in ruins, its surviving people heading towards Tor Alessi. A dwarf column nearby had also been destroyed. Both sites, Imladrik had been told, bore the marks of dragonfire.

He didn’t know why she’d done it. Hatred — for him or for the dawi — didn’t seem enough. The betrayal hurt him deeply, the more so given the uncertainty over her motives. He’d been tempted to take Draukhain east and find her. Perhaps there were still things they had to say to one another.

Or maybe she had extinguished any trust they still had. As surely as if she had slipped a dagger into Morgrim’s chest, Liandra had ensured the war could never be stopped.

Whatever I may have done to hurt you, he thought bitterly, I deserved better than that.

‘We are victorious,’ said Aelis. She looked reinvigorated. The flight of the dragons had given them all hope again. ‘Thanks to you.’

Gelthar, who sat one place to her left, also looked content. His troops had been first out onto the plain once the dwarf retreat had started.

Of all of them, though, it was Salendor who had been most vindicated by events. The mage-lord was at pains not to make too much of it, but his satisfaction was hard to hide.

‘Then the question is: what now?’ asked Imladrik.

‘Go after them,’ said Salendor bluntly. Then he laughed. ‘Did you expect any other counsel? Morgrim’s army is broken.’

‘They are ripe for destruction,’ agreed Gelthar. ‘Now is the time.’

Aelis shot her companions a tolerant look. ‘Have you learned nothing, lords? We will offer our views here, discuss them for an age, and then Imladrik will overrule us.’

Imladrik smiled wryly. ‘So you understand how this works at last.’

In truth, his position was a strange one. His policy of restraint had failed spectacularly, just as they had all warned him it would. On the other hand he had demonstrated the full ambit of power at his command, which had daunted even Salendor. He couldn’t decide quite what that made him.

A fool? A saviour? Possibly both.

‘You have another idea,’ said Salendor.

Imladrik leaned back in his throne. ‘Place yourself in the mind of our enemy. What will he be thinking?’

‘Vengeance,’ said Gelthar. ‘They will come back at us.’

‘Yes, but how? They are not stupid. We have exposed our greatest strength to them, and they have felt just how powerful that is. They will not repeat their mistake.’

‘What can they do?’ asked Aelis lightly. ‘They have no answer to your drakes.’

‘They will find one. Even now they will be thinking on it. As I say, they are not stupid.’

‘They will disperse,’ said Salendor quietly.

All turned to him. Imladrik nodded fractionally. For all their differences, he had always known that Salendor was the most tactically astute of his captains.

‘Six dragons,’ Salendor went on, speaking thoughtfully. ‘Overwhelming together, but they cannot be everywhere.’ His voice grew in certainty as he considered the options. ‘I would send my warriors in every direction. Forget this place — they cannot take it now. But what of Athel Maraya, or Athel Toralien?’

‘Quite,’ said Imladrik. ‘If we had a hundred dragons then we could consider engaging them, but even Aenarion did not command such numbers. This is their land — our numbers are divided between here and Ulthuan. We do not know how many warriors they have under arms, but it is surely many times what we can muster.’

Aelis’s brow furrowed. ‘Then what is to be done?’

‘The dragon riders will be sent out,’ said Imladrik, ‘one to each great fortress. Regiments will travel to the frontier citadels. They must leave immediately, for the dawi move fast when the mood is on them. They disperse; so do we.’

Gelthar looked unconvinced. ‘That is thinning our forces. No early victory can come from this.’

‘You are right,’ said Imladrik. ‘We will be fighting for years.’ He had resolved not to labour the point, but it was worth stating again, just to underline why he had worked so hard to avoid it. ‘This will be the shape of the war now: brawling over scorched earth, each of us as exhausted as the other. History shall judge us harshly for it.’ He shook his head in frustration. ‘And Liandra most of all.’

The others looked awkwardly at one another.

‘You cannot believe that,’ said Salendor.

‘Then where is she?’ Imladrik demanded, trying not to let his frustration spill out too obviously.

‘I do not know.’

‘She went to Kor Vanaeth. We know this.’

‘And only the word of our enemy condemns her,’ said Salendor, ‘I will not doubt her loyalty, not until we know more.’

‘So sure,’ observed Imladrik, looking at him carefully. ‘No qualm at all?’

Salendor looked back confidently. ‘None.’

Part of Imladrik wanted to believe him. Any thread of hope that Liandra was not responsible would be clung to.

For all that, he remembered how she had been when they had last spoken.

We must strike now before they gather more strength.

‘The truth will out,’ was all he said. ‘For now, we have preparations to make. We cannot remain gathered here while the fighting spreads across Loren Lacoi. Salendor, you must leave for Athel Maraya and prepare for attack — they will surely be there soon. Gelthar, take Athel Toralien and order its defences. Aelis, command of Tor Alessi will be returned to you. Each of you shall have dragon riders: two remaining here, two for Athel Maraya, one for Athel Toralien. A lone drake will be a match for all but the mightiest armies, and the memory of their blooding here will not fade quickly.’

Things had changed since he’d first arrived. They nodded readily enough, accepting his orders. Even Salendor voiced no objection.

‘And you, lord?’ asked Aelis. ‘Where will you go?’

Imladrik did not know the answer to that. A dozen places had already sprung to mind: remaining in Tor Alessi; joining Salendor at Athel Maraya; heading to his own citadel of Oeragor on the edge of the wasteland; returning to Ulthuan to petition for more troops and dragon riders. The final option was the least palatable but also the most prudent: it would give them the best chance of survival in the storm to come. It would, though, mean leaving the conduct of the war to others and abasing himself before his brother.

‘Where the war takes me,’ he said. Even then, though, locked in discussion of strategy, Liandra’s fate burned on his mind. ‘Asuryan, no doubt, will determine.’