The Great Betrayal

CHAPTER SIX

Master of Dragons

A great roar echoed across the peaks. It split the storm in two like a jag of lightning cuts the sky in half and leaves a ragged tear behind it.

Sheltered beneath an overhanging spur of rock, the dwarfs kept their eyes on the heavens. Morgrim’s ached from not blinking.

‘I still don’t see anything.’ He had to shout against the wind, which had grown into a tumultuous gale. Drifts peeling off the mountains skirled through the pass and swathed the rocky clearing where they hid in grubby grey-white.

Flecks of snow clung to Snorri’s beard like ugly, malformed pearls. He spat through clenched teeth. ‘If it is a drakk, I will spill its heartblood and paint the ground red with it.’

Angular runes on his axe blade began to glow as he summoned their power with a muttered oath.

‘Two dwarfs with fate on our side against a beast that can raze entire towns with its breath and lay siege to a hold single-handed,’ said Morgrim. ‘I’d say the odds are with us, cousin.’

Snorri did not reply. His gaze was fixed, the grip around the haft of his axe like stone.

The whip of battered air drew nearer, a low and steady thwomp of vast, membranous wings driving against the gale. To maintain such a rhythm, the dragon must be incredibly strong.

Morgrim cried out as a shadow seen through cloud darkened the sky.

‘It comes!’

A crack of lighting flared behind it and framed the beast in silhouette.

‘Gods of earth and stone…’

The dragon was massive.

Snorri edged from beneath the craggy overhang, squinting against the snow hitting his face. He spat out a lump of frozen mulch and snarled, ‘I’ll turn its skin into a scale cloak…’

The dragon breached the clouds, tendrils of mist rolling off its muscled silver torso. A long, serpentine neck ended in a snout like a blade, fanged and drooling iridescent smoke. Unfurling its wings, the beast’s shadow eclipsed the dwarfs and the entire clearing where they were standing. Like two metal sails, its mighty pinions shimmered as star-fire. Talons like sword blades extended from its feet, and eyes akin to flawless onyx glittered hungrily as it saw the morsel before it.

‘Make a tankard of its hollowed out skull…’

No dwarf, however skilled, could hope to defeat such a monster.

Morgrim grabbed for Snorri to haul him back but missed. ‘Cousin, wait!’

‘Destiny calls!’ shouted Snorri and roared as he lifted his axe.

It was the single bravest and most foolish thing Morgrim had ever seen.

Thinking of all the things he had wanted to achieve and that would now be denied him, he sighed, ‘Bugrit…’ and then charged after Snorri.

Pressing against the rock, Sevekai prayed to all the dark gods that would listen.

The beast had speared through the storm like a streak of ithilmar, bellowing with such intensity it put the elf’s teeth on edge. Heart thundering in his chest, he dared a glance around the edge of the rocks where he and his warriors had gone to ground as soon as they had seen the dragon.

Killing the dwarfs now would be impossible, but then also hardly necessary given what they faced.

Kaitar was crouched beside him but seemed unmoved by the terrifying monster in their midst.

‘Was the fear siphoned out of you as an infant, Kaitar?’ asked Sevekai. ‘Or are you simply too dull-witted to realise how imminent all of our deaths are?’ He was about to withdraw, the dwarfs were good as dead anyway, when Kaitar put a hand on his chest.

Sevekai glared daggers at the elf but didn’t raise a hand against him.

‘A little hasty, I think,’ he hissed, nodding towards the dragon.

As the beast landed, its claws pulverising rock, it lowered its head, revealing an elven warrior mounted on its back.

Silver-helmed with lance in hand, he looked like a prince of the ancient days when Malekith and Snorri Whitebeard both still walked the earth. Behind the dragon visor concealing his face, the elf lord’s eyes glittered like emeralds.

Fastened to an ornate saddle of white wood and bone was a shield depicting an unsheathed sword. He bore the same device attached to the crown of his war helm.

He raised his hand, voice resonating through the mouth grille of his silver dragon mask. ‘Hail, dwarfs of Everpeak,’ he said, using rudimentary Khazalid and referring to Karaz-a-Karak by its common name.

Morgrim lowered his hammer, but not completely. Snorri was less keen to relent and maintained his belligerence before the monster.

The elf noble leaned forwards in the saddle and whispered to his beast, although his words carried on the storm.

‘Easy, Draukhain.’

‘State your business, elfling,’ Snorri demanded.

The elf lord stowed his lance, its crimson pennant flapping in the fierce wind. Bowing, he raised his visor. Despite his ostensible geniality, he still sounded imperious.

‘I am Imladrik of Caledor, Master of Dragons and Prince of Ulthuan, Lord of Oeragor. I bear you no ill-intent, lord dwarfs.’

Despite the offer of peace, Snorri was pugnacious. ‘Dragon master, eh? I slay dragons, elfling.’

Imladrik raised a gauntleted hand. The knuckles were fashioned as scales, the fingertips like talons.

‘I am an ally to you. I mean no harm,’ he assured them.

‘Be calm,’ Morgrim hissed to his cousin through clenched teeth, looking sidelong at the creature drooling sulphur and smoke.

Snorri hissed back, ‘I won’t be cowed by this elgi and his beast!’

‘No, but you may be eaten, cousin!’

‘A lot of titles for an elgi,’ Snorri scoffed. ‘I’m surprised you can remember them all. And you should be more concerned about who wants to harm who, elfling.’

Morgrim tried not to groan, but put a hand on his cousin’s arm until he lowered his axe.

‘You are far from Oeragor, Prince Imladrik,’ he said, eager to defuse the situation once he’d calmed Snorri down. ‘I am Morgrim, son of Bardum, thane of Karaz-a-Karak, and this-’

Snorri stepped forwards and thrust out his chest.

‘I am Prince Snorri Lunngrin of Karaz-a-Karak, heir to the dwarf kingdom. You are upon my sovereign soil, elgi.’

Imladrik bowed, betraying no hint of reaction to the goading Snorri was attempting.

‘I meant no offence, my lords. Through the storm, I saw travellers on the road. Once I realised you were dwarfs, I decided to descend and see if I could offer you a ride. It is a long way back to Everpeak, and since it is where I am bound…’

‘Indeed it is a long way,’ Morgrim agreed, thinking how his feet would ache after such a trek, and looked at his cousin who had yet to take his eyes off the dragon.

‘A ride, eh? On the back of that beast? Is that what you’re suggesting, prince?’

‘It is faster than going on foot,’ Imladrik replied without condescension.

The storm was dying out, the winds abating and the snows thinning until they were little more than errant drifts carried on the breeze. In the north-east, the sun was rising again, easing some warmth back into a cold winter’s morning.

‘It seems Kurnous favours us, my lords,’ the elf prince added, gesturing to the improving weather. ‘But I still think you’ll reach Everpeak faster on Draukhain’s back.’

Morgrim turned to his cousin and whispered, ‘I have never ridden on the back of a dragon.’

‘With good reason.’ Snorri looked askance at the beast. ‘They are fell and dangerous creatures. Not to be trusted, much like their masters.’

Elves were possessed of incredible hearing and Imladrik had heard every word exchanged between the dwarf nobles, but if he thought anything of it he did not show it. He merely smiled impassively and waited for them to make their decision.

Morgrim was insistent. ‘I have no desire to walk back to the hold when I can as easily fly.’

‘And I have no desire to be devoured by some beast of the lower deeps whilst my back is turned!’

Morgrim smiled.

‘You are afraid.’

‘I am not. I am scared of nothing. I am the son of the High King, a destined dragon slayer I might add.’

‘Then ride the dragon and we’ll be back in the hold hall before supper,’ said Morgrim. ‘I for one would like to get out of this thrice-damned cold and feel a fire on my skin, have meat in my belly.’

Snorri licked his lips at the prospect of meat. It had been a while since he tasted beef, smelled roast pork or elk. Stonebread was fortifying but it lacked flavour, in fact any taste at all.

‘And what of beer?’ Morgrim pressed. ‘I would drain the brewhouses dry with my thirst.’

At the mention of ale, Snorri began to salivate and had to wipe his mouth.

All the while, the elf prince looked on.

‘I’ve heard Jodri has uncasked a golden reserve and plans to serve it to the kings at the rinkkaz.’

‘Which is another matter, cousin,’ said Morgrim. ‘Your father is expecting you at the council of kings.’

Snorri’s expression darkened at mention of the High King. ‘Aye, isn’t he always.’ He turned to Prince Imladrik. ‘Very well, elfling, we shall accept your offer of transportation but mark me well,’ he said, pointing rudely with an accusatory finger, ‘any falsehood will mean the death of both you and your ugly beast.’

Imladrik bowed again, as he would in court. ‘As gracious as you are direct, my dwarf prince.’ At some unseen, unheard command, Draukhain went down on its forelegs and laid its neck upon the ground so the dwarfs could climb aboard its back. ‘There is room enough on my saddle for two.’

‘Does he trawl the skies often, looking for wayward travellers below?’ Snorri muttered behind his hand. He kept his rune axe loose in the sheath in case he needed it in a hurry.

‘I doubt it, cousin, but I do know if you try his patience further we will be going back to Karaz-a-Karak charred to our very boots. Now shut it and get aboard!’

Snorri grumbled some expletive but reluctantly followed Morgrim as he approached the dragon.

Despite his fear, Sevekai edged forwards to try and better hear what transpired between the dragon rider and the dwarfs. An elf of Ulthuan, especially a prince, this close to the dwarf kingdoms was unusual. That he flew alone without his army or any retainers was stranger still.

Whatever the reason, it did not appear that the dwarfs were imperilled after all and that meant Sevekai still had a duty to perform. He silently drew a sickle blade from his baldric.

Verigoth interceded. ‘What are you doing?’ he hissed.

Sevekai bit back savagely, ‘Don’t question me, druchii! I’ve gutted people for less.’

‘Perhaps Verigoth is right, brother.’ Kaitar slipped between them, a finger on Sevekai’s blade hand.

He sheathed it, incredulous that this was the second time Kaitar had touched him and the wretch still wasn’t dead.

‘We can get closer, listen in. Even if we cannot kill the nobles or their asur ally, we can discern their plans.’

Verigoth and the others looked no more enthusiastic about this plan than the previous one, but probable death was at least preferable to certain death.

‘If we are discovered,’ hissed Sevekai, glancing at the dragon then back at Kaitar, ‘our dark lord’s plans could be jeopardised, and I have no desire to engage the interest of the beast.’

Kaitar grinned, a faint resonance to his voice Sevekai hadn’t noticed before. ‘Then we creep softly and silently, like shadows.’

‘Like shadows,’ repeated Sevekai, eyes locked with Kaitar’s.

Slowly, the dark elves detached themselves from their hiding place and began to creep closer.

Morgrim had already mounted the beast by the time Snorri was ready to do the same. Though he had agreed to ride upon the dragon’s back, the dwarf prince kept his distance.

‘Be careful, cousin,’ he said, as Morgrim climbed a length of white hemp lowered by the prince. It was thin and Snorri had expected the rope to snap, but it proved equal to Morgrim’s considerable mass.

‘Must be bound with steel,’ he muttered, but detected an aura shimmering off the rope.

Imladrik gestured to him, offering the saddle as one would welcome a stranger in their house. ‘Your turn, my prince.’

It was then Snorri realised he had no desire to ride this beast, to fly amongst the clouds. The very thought of it brought an unpleasant acerbic tang to his mouth, but he swallowed it down, knowing he could not be outdone by his cousin.

‘We are hall dwellers, not dragon riders,’ he grumbled, cinching his belt up and reaching for the proffered rope.

The faint tang of spoiled meat, the scent of dust and ancient fire-baked plains, quite incongruous in winter, suddenly tainted the breeze.

Inches from grabbing the rope, Snorri’s fingers seized. A second later and Draukhain reared up, its bulk smacking the dwarf onto his rump. It roared, spitting a plume of flame into the air and swinging its head around as if searching.

‘Grimnir’s teeth!’ Snorri scrambled to his feet, reaching for his rune axe. ‘Never trust an elgi! Never trust a drakk!’ he spat, ripping the shimmering blade from its sheath.

Flung back in the saddle, Imladrik was trying to steady the beast. He muttered words of command and reprimand, but in a language neither dwarfs, nor most elves, could understand.

Morgrim was pitched off the dragon’s back. He rolled, grabbing at the beast’s spines to try and arrest his fall, and ended up dumped on the ground next to its thrashing tail. An errant flick caught his helm and he staggered, trying to back away. Like Snorri, he had drawn his weapon.

Not understanding what was happening, together the dwarfs circled the beast.

Snorri’s expression was murderous as he briefly met his cousin’s gaze. There was more than a hint of self-satisfaction in his eyes.

‘You offer us safe passage on your drakk,’ he said to the elf, ‘and then it tries to kill us!’

‘Lords, please.’ Imladrik was still struggling to calm Draukhain, though his verbal goads had lessened. Instead, intense concentration was etched on his face as an entirely different war of wills played out.

‘What is he doing?’ whispered Morgrim, swinging his hammer around in a ready grip.

Snorri wasn’t listening. His teeth were clenched. ‘If dawi were meant to fly, Grimnir would not have taught us how to kill wyverns and drakk. Any creature with wings is no friend to a dawi,’ he spat.

Ignorant of the dwarfs circling him and his mount, Imladrik closed his eyes and began to sing. A soft, lilting refrain echoed across the clearing. Though the elf’s words rarely rose above a whisper, they were resonant with power and potency. Each syllable was perfectly enunciated, every string of incantation precisely exacted.

At first Draukhain resisted, reacting to whatever it was that had ignited its predatory wrath. But slowly, as the pattern repeated and Imladrik wove the dragonsong tighter and tighter around it, the beast was soothed and its head bowed. Anger still burned in the black pits of its eyes, but it was fading to embers.

When he was done, Imladrik sank a little in his seat as if his armour was suddenly heavier. When he removed his war helm, his face was gaunt and dappled with beads of sweat.

‘My sincerest apologies,’ he began, a little out of breath, ‘He has never done that before, except in battle. Something enflamed his anger, I don’t know what.’

‘Perhaps it was a hankering to taste dwarf flesh,’ Snorri chided. ‘I warn you, my meat is bloody tough!’ He brandished his axe meaningfully. ‘And my rhuns are sharp.’

Mortified, Imladrik put his palms together in a gesture for peace and calm. ‘Please, it was a misunderstanding.’

Snorri wasn’t about to back down. The beast had accepted Morgrim without complaint, but railed against his presence. It was a matter of wounded pride now, a sin that the prince of Karaz-a-Karak had in abundance.

‘And if we’d have been aloft when another “misunderstanding” took place? What then, eh? Cast to the earth like crag hawks pinioned by a quarreller’s bolt, left to be dashed on the rocks as a red smear.’ He thumped his chest. ‘I am dawi born, stone and steel. If you wish us dead then fight us face-to-face, you dirty, thagging elgi.’

It was a step too far. Morgrim knew it and went to say something but no words could take back his cousin’s insult.

Imladrik paled, and not from the exertions of his dragonsong. He had to bite back his anger, covering it with a low bow. His eyes glittered dangerously when he rose again, as hard as the gemstones they so closely resembled.

‘I deeply regret this, and offer apology to you both. I shall convey the same remarks to your father, the High King,’ he said to Snorri alone, ‘but you have much to learn of elves, young prince. Much indeed.’

Obeying a snarled command, Draukhain speared into the air and emitted a roar of sympathetic anger. With a few beats of its mighty wings, both dragon and elven prince were gone, lost to the cloud and the endless sky.

‘That was foolish,’ said Morgrim. He had followed the dragon’s searching gaze to a cluster of rocks outlining the clearing but could see nothing amiss amongst them.

‘Foolish was it?’ Snorri turned, but when he saw the look on his cousin’s face his vainglorious pride deserted him. He muttered, ‘Perhaps I did speak out of turn.’

‘Your words were callous, cousin, and ill-considered.’

Snorri looked to his boots, then to his half-hand. His anger, self-directed, rose again. ‘My father has said something similar to me often. Are you going to rebuke me constantly as he does, cousin?’

‘I…’ Morgrim met Snorri’s hurt gaze and knew the prince was just lashing out. The High King was a hard taskmaster, tougher on his son than even his most veteran generals. It would be difficult to bear for any dwarf. In the end, Morgrim relented. ‘No cousin, I will not. But without wings to take us back to hearth and hold, we have a long journey ahead of us. I don’t think we’ll make the rinkkaz. Your father will be wrathful, I fear.’

‘Let him,’ the prince snorted. ‘I would rather walk the road in my boots, facing urk and troll, even my father’s anger, than risk life and limb on the back of a drakk.’ He stomped off down the path, slinging his axe onto his back and swearing loudly with every step.

Morgrim decided not to reply and fell in behind him to let his cousin vent.

The return to Karaz-a-Karak suddenly seemed much longer and more arduous.

Crouched in a thicket of dense scrub, Sevekai fought to catch his breath. When the dragon had reared up, he had fled with the others back down the ridge.

The ambush site was close by, as yet undiscovered.

Killing dwarf merchants in the darkness was something he had a taste for, but he was no dragon slayer. In truth, the creatures terrified him. Even those slaved to the will of the druchii he treated with wary apprehension. It had taken him all his willpower to stay hidden when the beast had bayed for their blood.

Verigoth was still shaking and took a pinch of ashkallar to calm his nerves. The narcotic was fast-acting but the tremors still remained.

‘Did it see us?’ he asked.

Sevekai shook his head, reliving the moment in a waking nightmare.

‘We’d already be dead if it had,’ he breathed. His gaze fell on Kaitar, who was watching them all impassively. ‘Are you not disturbed at all, Kaitar?’

He shrugged, as bizarre and incongruous a gesture as he could make in the circumstances.

‘We are alive. What is there left to fear?’

Numenos had taken out his blades to sharpen them and calm his shattered nerves. Though his body still trembled, his hands were steady. It spread slowly up his arms, to his neck and back.

‘Is it ice or blood you have in your veins, druchii?’ he asked, glancing up from his labours to regard Kaitar.

‘Neither,’ Kaitar answered with a laugh.

Watching the exchange keenly, Sevekai couldn’t tell if he was joking or not.

Mirth changed to murder with the shifting of the breeze on Kaitar’s face. ‘We should go back and kill those two dwarfs.’

Sevekai shook his head. ‘That door is closed to us.’

‘The beast is fled,’ Kaitar pressed.

With a flash of silver, Sevekai’s sickle blade was at Kaitar’s throat. His voice was thick with threat. ‘I said no.’

Kaitar raised his hands, showing Sevekai his palms in a plaintive gesture.

‘As you wish.’

Glaring at him for a moment longer, Sevekai lowered his blade and returned it to its place on his baldric. He addressed the warband. ‘The storm is abating,’ he said, gesturing to the breaking cloud. ‘We will need fresh attire by the time the dawn breaches it.’

Before sailing to the Old World, his mind was implanted with Malekith’s sorcery. Into Sevekai’s mental pathways, he had poured memories of the secret trade routes of the dwarfs, those learned many years ago when he had befriended their High King. Snorri Whitebeard was long dead, so too Malekith’s affinity for dwarfs. Only cruelty remained, and a desire for vengeance against those who had wronged him and cast him from his rightful throne.

Sevekai felt these desires vicariously like hot knives in his mind as he sifted through the scraps of memory he needed to fulfil his mission. Failure was not something he dared countenance. Killing the dwarf lords would have garnered favour but his spine was not up to the task of returning to the clearing. An image resolved in his mind’s eye, a sheltered passageway of rock and earth, high hills and scattered forest. He had never seen the trail before yet it was as familiar to him as his own hand, or the blade he wielded with it. A second vision revealed a face: a woman, a sorceress, and a name to go with it.

Drutheira.

She was to be their overseer. Sevekai scowled inwardly, and wondered if she had requested this duty. It would not surprise him in the least.

‘We move now,’ he said.

They needed to find elves first, some asur to kill and steal from before they ambushed again or met up with the sorceress.

It would be as it was before, only this time they would be brazen and leave a survivor.

‘Follow me,’ said Sevekai, the route burning brightly like a torturer’s fire in his head. ‘We have elves and dwarfs to kill.’

Snorri and Morgrim were skirting the foothills when the dauntless peaks of Karaz-a-Karak towered above them through mist and cloud. Monolithic ancestor statues tall as the flank of the mountain loomed into view, silently appraising the nobles with stern stone countenances.

Shading his eyes from the sun, Morgrim looked up in awe. ‘I see Smednir and Thungi, sons of Grungni and Valaya.’

Several hours had passed since their encounter with Imladrik and his dragon, but the memory of it remained — as did the burning insult Snorri felt at the beast’s sudden change in temperament. But to the prince’s credit, he kept it hidden.

Snorri followed his cousin’s gaze, then looked further across the mountain to an eagle gate, one of the lofty eyries through which the honoured brotherhood of the Gatekeepers kept watch on the upper world. Beneath and beside the chiselled portal hewn into the very mountainside were more dwarf ancestors.

‘And there is Gazul and your namesake Morgrim, at Grimnir’s side.’

All of the ancestors, their siblings and progeny were rendered as immense cyclopean statues around the flank of Karaz-a-Karak. Crafted in the elder days, they reminded all of the Worlds Edge of the hold’s importance and closeness to the gods.

With the hold in sight, the mood between the cousins began to improve.

‘More than once, I thought we were bound for the underearth and Gazul’s halls,’ said Morgrim.

‘Bah, not even close, cousin. You fret too much.’ Snorri slapped him on the back, grinning widely. He thrust his chin up, breathed deeply of the imagined scent of forges and the hearth he would soon enjoy. ‘Lords of the mountain, cousin. Both of us. Ha!’

Morgrim’s own declaration was less ebullient. ‘Lords of the mountain, Snorri.’ He looked down at his cousin’s ruined hand. ‘And with the wounds to prove it.’

Snorri sniffed. ‘A scratch, Morgrim, nothing more than that.’ When his eyes alighted on a figure waiting on the road ahead, his smile faded. ‘Oh bugger…’

‘Eh?’ Morgrim was reaching for his hammer when he came to the same realisation as Snorri. ‘Oh bugger.’

Furgil Torbanson, thane of pathfinders, stood in the middle of the road with a loaded crossbow hanging low at his hip on a strap of leather. At the other hip he carried a pair of hand axes in a deerskin sheath. In place of a helmet, he wore a leather cap of elk hide, three feathers protruding from the peak. Lightly armoured, most of his attire was rustic, woven from hardy wool and dyed in deep greens and browns as befitted a ranger.

He was not a dwarf given to saying much, but his eyes gave more away in that moment that his tongue ever would. ‘You have been missed, lords of Everpeak.’

Four other rangers blended out of the foothills. Dressed in the same manner as Furgil, they also carried various pots and pans about them. One also had a brace of conies tied to his belt, another had a pheasant.

‘Are we having a feast?’ Snorri ventured hopefully.

‘No young prince, we are not,’ said a stern, unyielding voice from farther up the road. When a hulking, armoured warrior, much larger than the rangers, stepped into his eye line, Snorri groaned. ‘Thurbad,’ he muttered, nodding to the captain of the hearthguard. ‘I take it my father sent you to bring me back?’

‘He did.’

Thurbad’s brown beard was resplendent where the rangers’ were scratchy and unkempt. His gromril armour shone, though the cloak around his shoulders achieved much to conceal it. A chest plate inscribed with a dwarf face glowered at them both from within the folds of the ranger cloak. His honorific was ‘Shieldbearer’, a name he had earned time and again in service of his liege-lord.

‘And I also assume that my father is not happy with me?’

Thurbad’s chin, much like the rest of his granite face, was like a slab of rock.

‘He is not.’ He looked down, noticed the prince’s bandaged hand and frowned.

‘Lost some fingers to a rat,’ Snorri explained.

Thurbad’s frown deepened.

‘It was a big rat.’

‘You’ll go to a temple of Valaya and have your hand seen to before going to the High King,’ said Thurbad. His tone made it clear there would be no argument.

‘And after that I’ll feel my father’s wrath?’

Thurbad’s jaw twitched then clenched at what he saw as disrespect.

‘Yes, young liege, then you will feel the High King’s fury like a furnace fire has been lit under your arse. Follow. Now.’

With a curt word he dismissed the rangers, who were led by Furgil into the wilds.

Armour clanking, Thurbad stalked away. Not far from the road, a cohort of hearthguard was waiting.

Morgrim waited until Thurbad was out of earshot before he spoke. ‘Not quite the welcome home we had envisaged, cousin.’

‘I would almost rather be back with the drakk,’ Snorri moaned, dragging his feet after Thurbad and his warriors.