The Great Betrayal

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Gold and Grudges

There was a glint in the eye of the hill dwarf king that only came upon him when he was in his counting house surrounded by his most precious possessions. Of late, they had diminished and it was for this that he scolded his goldmasters.

‘Every year for the last eight my hoard has lessened.’ Grum cast around, gesturing to the piles of treasure, the ingots, doubloons, crowns, pieces, gemstones, bracelets, torcs, mitres and chains that festooned his counting house. Sets of scales were abundant, all carefully balanced and their amounts meticulously logged in stacks of leather-bound volumes that lined the bookcases on the walls. They were hard to see, not just because vast mounds of accumulated treasure obscured them but because of the sheen that was emanating from all the gold. It hurt the eyes to look upon it, though Grum’s were bird-like and narrow as if the mammonistic king was well used to the sight and had evolved to compensate for it.

Uncharacteristically, his eyes were wide at that moment as he thrashed in a fit of conniption.

‘It should accrue, not diminish!’ He thumped the arm of his throne with a gnarled, bony fist. ‘Explain yourselves! Why aren’t you bringing more treasure to my coffers? Why aren’t I getting any richer? Eh?’

There was a fever in the king’s expression and the chief of his goldmasters balked before it as he made his excuses.

‘Since the High King of Karaz-a-Karak suspended all trade with the elgi-’ He didn’t even get chance to finish his sentence before Grum interrupted with another bout of apoplexy.

‘I am High King of this city, of the skarrens. I care not for the whims of Gotrek bloody Lunngrin. He is not my lord and master. Let him be concerned with the mountain. If he has taken umbrage with the elgi then that is his business. Our gates remain open to their gold and business.’

In his anger, Grum knocked over a pile of coins with his kicking leg and scattered them across the floor. His gaze followed them for several moments, drawn to the tinkling, glittering pieces inexorably. A little patch of white froth bubbled at the corner of his lip.

‘Well then?’ he raged, as if coming out of a trance and remembering where he was and the matter at hand.

‘Our gates have remained open, High King,’ said another of the goldmasters, an enthusiastic understudy wanting to curry favour, ‘and we continue to extend invitation to elgi traders to treat with us but they do not wish to trespass onto dawi lands for fear of persecution. The Hi-, er… King of Karaz-a-Karak has petitioned greater and greater numbers of rangers and reckoners to patrol dawi borders. Travel is almost impossible.’

‘Enough!’ snapped Grum, staggering to his feet to dismiss the ineffectual goldmasters. ‘Get out, all of you! Especially you,’ he added, jabbing his finger at the one who had seemingly lost his tongue. ‘Bloody mute! Out!’

Bowing profusely, the three goldmasters backed away and out of the counting house.

‘Idiots,’ hissed Grum before they were gone, stacking coins as the old familiar veneer slid across his face. Eyes beginning to glaze over, a dumb smile pulling at the corners of his mouth, he almost didn’t hear Rundin speaking.

‘…are right, my king,’ he was saying.

‘Uh? What?’ Grum asked, slightly dazed. When his gaze fell on his champion and protector, he became more lucid. ‘Who are right?’

Rundin was standing by his master’s side, arms folded, his expression neutral at all times.

‘Your goldmasters, my king. All of the major roads are closed to trade, especially to elgi. What little gold is coming in to Kazad Kro is from the Vaults and the Grey Mountains, but that is not enough to sustain previous yields.’

Grum slapped a page of his ledger, leaving a greasy palm print on the parchment. Scrawled Klinkerhun daubed every leaf in a feverish script.

‘I can see that, Rundin. The numbers never lie.’ He carried on counting, mumbling, ‘Gotrek is a selfish wazzock.’

‘My king…’ Rundin ventured after a minute of listening to his liege-lord lay one coin atop another.

‘There is more?’ asked Grum, agitated, licking his bottom lip as he slowly created a gleaming tower of stacked coins.

Rundin nodded. ‘Cessation of trade with the elgi these past eight years is because of a much larger problem.’

‘I fail to see any larger problem than that which my goldmasters have already presented.’ Once again, he returned to his counting.

‘War, my king. There is talk of war with the elves.’

Grum’s face screwed up like an oily rag. ‘Over what, some petty trade disputes? Bah! Gotrek must have been supping from the dragon.’

‘No, my king.’ Throughout the exchange Rundin’s tone had never wavered from stolid and serious, but now he showed his incredulity at just how little his liege-lord seemed to be aware of the greater world. ‘Murder and death, sabotage and destruction. The burning of Zakbar Varf was just the beginning. Kazad Mingol bore witness to a skirmish between a band of its rangers and elgi warriors. No fewer than sixteen shipments from Kagaz Thar have gone missing in the last three months alone. Grudges longer than the gilded road running through our city litter our dammaz kron and continue to accumulate. And that is not to mention the grievances of our mountain kin.’

‘No,’ Grum uttered flatly.

‘No?’

‘I will not have war. It is bad for business.’ He gestured to the massive hoard of treasure in his counting house. ‘See how it already hurts my coffers? I won’t countenance it. War is expensive. It means shields and armour, and axes, provisions. If the elgi are as belligerent as you say then we will shut our gates to all and wait out Gotrek’s little feud.’

‘I fear it has gone beyond that, my king. We may have no-’

Grum slammed his fist down on the arm of his throne and glared at his champion.

‘Are you determined to defy me, Rundin?’

‘I would never do that, my king, but if Gotrek Starbreaker declares war upon the elgi then we must, as dawi, answer.’

‘Must… must! I am High King and shall not bow to him. I do not recognise his authority. Let mountain dawi deal with mountain dawi problems, why should I be dragged into it, why should our people be dragged into it?’ Grum’s eyes narrowed as he found the leverage he needed to mollify his champion. ‘Your people, Rundin. You wouldn’t want to see them ravaged by a war that is not theirs to begin with, would you?’

Rundin bowed his head, knowing he had lost.

‘Of course not, my king.’

‘You are loyal to me, are you not?’ asked Grum, leaning forwards as if to scrutinise the champion’s veracity.

‘I am, my king.’

‘And swore oaths to defend me and protect my rule, yes?’

‘I did.’ Rundin knew it, he knew it all, but could not bring his eyes up from his boots.

Leaning back, Grum returned to his counting.

‘Find me more gold, Rundin. You’re good at that. Seek it out in the rivers and hills, bring the elgi back to our table to make trade.’

‘As you wish, my king.’

Thumping his chest, Rundin took his leave.

He met Furgil on the outskirts of Kazad Kro, below the city’s rocky promontary. It was a wasteland outside. Gone were the encampments, the bustling market town of trade that had grown up around it. A few disparate, determined traders from the Grey Mountains and Vaults had set up their stalls and wagons but would stay only briefly. Threat of imminent war had chased all others away. Either that or it was the constant patrols of heavily armed rangers that had dissuaded them.

The chief scout of Everpeak looked more grizzled than most. He was not alone and led a large band of rangers. Some had injuries and one of the dwarfs carried two crossbows.

‘A skirmish,’ Furgil explained, when he saw Rundin regarding the state of his warriors. ‘Lost Bori and took some cuts.’

‘Elgi?’

Furgil nodded.

‘Seems your king has extended invitation to trade still, but hadn’t reckoned on the fact that his liege-lord has rangers patrolling the roads and overground routes.’

‘He will not fight,’ said Rundin, ‘if it comes to war.’

‘Been eight years, brother, and the killing keeps on rising. We haven’t returned to Karaz-a-Karak for months. War will come, Rundin. Too much bad blood running in the river now. We stand on a precipice.’

‘Aye, brother. But the skarrenawi will not march.’

‘What of Kazad Thar and Mingol?’

‘Them neither. King Grum rules both with iron.’

Furgil spat onto the ground. ‘Grum rules nothing except that treasure chamber he sits in all day. You are the one the skarrens respect, not him.’

‘What are you saying, brother?’ asked Rundin, a dangerous look in his eye.

‘Ah, calm yourself. You know what I’m saying.’ Furgil turned on his heel and the other rangers went with him. ‘If Grum sits on his arse, Gotrek will be coming for his head when he’s done with the elgi,’ he called.

Rundin had no reply to that. He let Furgil go, hoping it wouldn’t be the last time he saw his friend.

A canker wormed at the heart of Kazad Kro and all the skarrens, it stank to the sky and though he didn’t want to admit it, Rundin knew he would have to be the one to cut it out.

Gotrek Starbreaker had never felt so powerless.

For eight years he had cooled the ire of his vassal kings, for eight years he had shackled them to peace. And for eight long, arduous years his efforts had come to naught.

He was drowning, in more ways than one. The sheer amount of parchments, scrolls and stone tablets was staggering. Gotrek’s private chambers were full of them. His desk groaned under their weight despite its broad wooden legs. Hunched and grim-faced, he looked almost gargoylesque as he peered over the piles of missives and declarations of grudgement laid out in front of him. The tankard he had supped from was long empty, his pipe cold with its embers long dead. From across the Karaz Ankor, kings, thanes and lodewardens expressed their continued dissatisfaction at what they described as elven ‘dissension’ and ‘belligerence’. Attending to them was not to be a brief task, even for a dwarf.

Trains of reckoners were dispatched daily from Everpeak alone, seeking recompense for misdeeds, and rangers thickened the byways and roads of the hills and lower slopes of the Worlds Edge Mountains until nothing could get through without their prior knowledge.

And still disorder persisted.

Dwarfs and elves were not meant to live together, it seemed.

Some of the disparate clans, those from Mount Gunbad and Silverspear, took the lawlessness as sanction to attack elven settlements, gold-greedy miners looking to fatten their hoards with stolen treasure. Warriors from the distant holds of Karak Izor and Karak Norn had clashed directly with elven war parties in minor skirmishes. Such incidents were few and far between, but as the last decade had ground on the frequency of such skirmishes had worryingly increased.

Gotrek condemned it, sought recompense from the elves, but thus far his messages had remained unheeded. In turn he urged the clans to close their gates and stay within their holds, and forbade any dwarf of Everpeak from violent action.

In the deeps, the forges slaved night and day to fashion weapons, armour and machineries. Thus far, it was stockpiled in the voluminous Everpeak armouries but Gotrek knew the day was approaching when it would have to be broken open and used to furnish his armies.

It had been a desperate hope that forcing distance between the dwarfs and elves would see matters improve or at least not worsen between the two races.

That hope had been dashed on bloody rocks and it was to falter further still.

‘And here,’ he said wearily, a rasp in his throat from the many hours of reading aloud to his Grudgekeeper who was on hand with the hold’s book of grudges. ‘At Krag Bryn and Kazad Thrund did elgi come from across the sea and slay the great King Drong the Hard, leaving his queen Helgar without a husband. Let it be known on this day…’ Gotrek trailed off, taking a moment’s respite to rub his brow.

Seeing his chance, the Grudgekeeper massaged his aching shoulder and flexed his fingers.

For days they hadn’t left the chamber. It was the latest stint in what had become a regular accounting of the misdeeds of elves over the last few years. The grudge from Krag Bryn was almost three years old and Gotrek was only just getting to it now. He balked at what else he would find.

‘How many more are there?’ he asked the statue at the door of the room.

‘Three more vaults, my king,’ uttered Thurbad in a sonorous voice. ‘And there are reckoners gathering in the entrance hall.’

‘How many of them?’

The captain of the hearthguard didn’t betray a tremor of emotion. ‘Almost two hundred.’

Gotrek rubbed his eyes with fingers black from ink. Try as he might, he could not smooth out the worry lines across his forehead. He picked up another missive, waving away the Grudgekeeper who was still waiting for the High King’s edict concerning Krag Bryn.

‘Bagrik is dead,’ he muttered, it not seeming so long ago that the King of Karak Ungor had enjoyed the hospitality of his hold. ‘Slain by elgi, his queen now a widow too. Two kings of dawi dead, and a host of elgi lordlings too no doubt.’ He seized a fistful of parchments, scattering and displacing others much to the Grudgekeeper’s obvious but quiet dismay. ‘Grievances the length and breadth of the Worlds Edge…’ Gotrek sighed deeply, worn out and tired of peace. ‘Is it any wonder my son has left the karak, and garrisons the keep at Black Fire Pass?’

‘There is still no word from him, my king,’ offered Thurbad, ‘but my hearthguard report he has yet not left the fastness. Should I tell them to stop him if he does?’

Two hundred of Thurbad’s warriors had left with the prince, ostensibly in support of Snorri’s war. In truth, the High King had sent them to keep a watchful eye on his son. The wayward clans of Everpeak, he would deal with later. Their thanes would be punished for their transgression. Such things had waited for eight years, they would stand to wait a little longer.

‘I am sorely tempted to join him, Thurbad.’ Gotrek paused, as if considering just that, then shook his head. ‘I’d rather he had hearthguard protecting him as not. I doubt they could stop him anyway. How many dawi does he have allied to his banner?’

‘Almost thirty thousand warriors.’

‘Dreng tromm… and he holds?’

‘For now, my king. He does.’

Gotrek muttered, ‘Perhaps he’s learned some temperance after all.’ He sighed again, trying to exhale his many worries. ‘We stand upon the brink of war,’ he croaked in a tired voice that suggested decades, not years, had passed since he ceased trade with the elves.

The two other dwarfs in the room did not answer. What could they say that wasn’t a facile reminder that their High King was right?

Gotrek rose to his feet.

‘High King?’ asked the Grudgekeeper, uncertainly.

‘I am done with grudgement for today, Haglarrson. Seal the kron and have these grudges gathered up for my later reckoning.’

Haglarrson the Grudgekeeper nodded mutely, still unsure what was happening.

Gotrek directed his attention to Thurbad. ‘Dismiss the reckoners. All of them.’ He was leaving, and the captain of the hearthguard followed him in perfect lockstep.

They were into the Great Hall, its large and empty vaults echoing with the footfalls.

Gotrek snarled, ‘This is blatant transgression by the elgi. They flout any chance at peace with their arrogance! Dawi lie dead and cold in my lands, Thurbad. Tell me how should I make answer to that without dooming us all?’

‘I cannot, my king. All I can do is serve the karak.’

Gotrek stopped. He gripped Thurbad’s shoulder.

‘And a more brave and noble servant I could not wish for, Thurbad.’

‘Tromm, my king…’ he said, bowing. ‘Is there anything further?’

Gotrek nodded. ‘Yes, bring me my Loremaster and that reckoner, Forek Grimbok. I have need of his silvern tongue.’

‘Should I tell him what it is concerning?’ Thurbad asked.

‘Tell him I need him to go to the King of the Elves on Ulthuan,’ said Gotrek. ‘Tell him I need him to prevent a war.’

Forek Grimbok’s heart pounded like a boar-skin drum. He knelt before the Throne of Power, head bowed, his left arm tucked against his chest.

‘Tromm, High King…’ he uttered to a largely barren room.

‘Look at me, reckoner.’

Forek tilted his head up to meet the gaze of the High King. His mind was reeling already with the task before him. Pride swelled his heart and he tried to master it for fear it would overwhelm him.

‘You are my most gifted ambassador. If anyone can wrench a peace from this mess, then it is you. But make no mistake, Grimbok, I want an apology from the elgi for their transgressions, nothing less.’ He waved the robed dwarf on his left forwards. ‘My Loremaster has a missive you must present to the King of the Elgi. It is unsealed. Read it, digest its meaning and know my mind before applying the wax. Put it in the elgi king’s hands and his alone. Do you understand?’

‘I do…’ Forek croaked, cleared his throat then tried again. ‘I do, my king.’

‘Good. It will be up to you to impress upon him that misdeeds have been done unto us by the elgi, but that I am not without forgiveness and such misdeeds can be undone in the eyes of the Karaz Ankor.’

‘Yes, my king.’ Forek took the letter and secreted it inside his tunic.

‘Now rise and let Thurbad tell you of your journey ahead.’

The High King gestured to the captain of the hearthguard, a mass of armoured muscle who was standing by his right.

‘Twenty of my best warriors will accompany you,’ said Thurbad.

Behind Forek, the hearthguard bristled with strength and threat. Only one amongst them wasn’t wearing his full-face war helm, a flame-haired warrior who stepped forwards into the reckoner’s eye line. ‘Gilias Thunderbrow is their leader and will be your shadow.’

The one Thurbad had introduced as Gilias bowed, before steeping back and donning his war helm.

‘A ship will carry you across the Great Ocean and you will have the runelord Thorik Oakeneye in your party. He will meet you at Barak Varr and shall ensure you breach the veils surrounding the land of the elgi.’

With the salient details of the journey revealed, the High King took over again.

‘This is our last chance, Grimbok. Of all the dawi of the Karaz Ankor you know the elgi best. Bring me back peace and a measure of contrition with which I can placate the other kings.’

‘By Grungni, I swear I will try.’

‘You must succeed, Grimbok. Many dawi lives are depending on it.’

‘Y-yes… of course, my king. When do I depart for Ulthuan?’

The High King’s eyes were like two chips of hardened diamond.

‘Immediately.’

The fastness of Black Fire Pass was bleak and cold. Known to the dwarfs as Kazad Kolzharr, which simply meant the fortress of black fire, it was a stout keep of hewn stone with a broad, thick gate bound by strips of iron and sentinelled by a quartet of stocky watchtowers. It offered a peerless view of the mountains and a wide aperture into the lands west, all the way down the Old Dwarf Road.

‘I heard Ranuld tell that in ancient days the road was paved with gold and shimmered like fire in the sun.’

‘Poetry isn’t really my strength, cousin.’

Snorri’s mood was as bleak as the weather and their surroundings as Morgrim joined him on the wall.

The dwarf prince was peering into the west through a spyglass at the arrow-sharp pinnacles of the elven cities several hundred miles away. They were distant and indistinct but he could make out the rough shape of Kor Vanaeth and knew the names and positions of several others from the map spread in front of him. Two large rocks kept the fluttering parchment from blowing away in the high wind coming off the mountains. Winter nipped at the air and a light frost rimed the battlements and glistened on the grasslands below.

‘He said that gold-gathering put paid to the gilded road, to all the golden byways of the Karaz Ankor,’ said Morgrim, stoking up his pipe. ‘That it was dawi, not urk or grobi, that picked the great shining roads clean.’

‘It’s a myth.’ Snorri put the spyglass away, braced his hands against the wall. Apart from the hearthguard manning the watchtowers, they were alone.

‘Perhaps,’ admitted Morgrim, blowing out a plume of grey-blue smoke. ‘But we have become greedy.’

‘Is it greed then that brings thirty thousand of the kalans to Kazad Kolzharr?’

‘Some, yes. For you, cousin, I do not think so.’

‘I have a score to settle with my father then, do I?’

‘Do you deny it?’

Snorri turned to face him. ‘Why are you here, Morg? You claim it is to watch my back, but is that all?’

Morgrim slapped the battlements with the flat of his gauntleted hand. ‘You are as cold as this stone, Snorri. The last few years have hardened you. I am here because I am hoping to catch a glimpse of the dawi I once knew…’ Morgrim met his gaze. ‘My cousin and friend.’

For a moment, Snorri’s tough, weather-beaten face softened. Since the garrisoning of the fortress at Black Fire Pass they had seen the musters of the elves, their horse guard and warriors scouting as far as they dared in dwarf territory. The pointy-ears did not believe in peace. Just as the dwarfs did, they knew that war was inevitable. It merely remained to see who would cast the first spear.

After eight years, after honouring his promise to Elmendrin and suffering the oathmaking of King Brynnoth and Thagdor, Snorri had decided it would be him. Regardless of what his father wanted, he would march on Kor Vanaeth and destroy it.

Word had reached the fastness that the High King would attempt one last act of diplomacy before committing to war. In his heart and his head, Snorri knew this would fail.

‘The dawi you knew, he stands before you, cousin. But if I am to accept the mantle of High King one day, I must seize destiny for myself. I must slay the drakk of which Ranuld Silverthumb spoke. I must defeat the elgi.’

‘Is there nothing I can say to keep you here behind these walls? If not for your father’s wishes, what of Elmendrin?’

‘My father chases a foolish dream, one that ended long ago. And as for her… She…’ Snorri faltered, looking down. ‘She is-’

‘My prince,’ uttered a voice from the other end of the wall.

To Morgrim’s ears it seemed to be closer, but Drogor had barely mounted the battlements and was striding towards them.

Like the cousins, he wore full armour, plate over mail with a thick furred cloak to ward off the cold. He wore his battle helm from Karak Zorn, the one with the saurian crest, and lifted the faceguard to speak further.

‘Our runners have returned,’ he said, with a small nod of acknowledgement for Morgrim who reciprocated reluctantly.

Drogor was clutching a piece of parchment and presented it to the prince. Snorri read it silently, his expression hardening with every line.

‘The elgi have mustered a large force on the outskirts of Kor Vanaeth.’

‘Apparently, their spies have discovered your intention to attack them and are making ready their defences,’ said Drogor. ‘It’s possible they will ride out against the kazad, my prince.’

Snorri snapped at him, ‘Do not call me that, Drogor. How many times must I tell you?’

Drogor bowed. ‘Apologies, Snorri. I am your thane, you are my prince, one day to be High King. It feels dishonourable to address you any other way.’

Snorri returned to the letter.

‘Rangers have been attacked on the road and a band of reckoners put to flight.’ His eyes widened in shock, quickly narrowing to anger. ‘Priestesses of Valaya were amongst their number.’

‘What?’ asked Morgrim. ‘What were priestesses doing this far from the hold? It makes no sense.’

Snorri glared at his cousin. ‘Eight years ago they came forth from their temple, did they not?’

‘Elmendrin was not amongst them?’ Morgrim betrayed more than mere concern.

Snorri gave him a wary glance before reading on.

‘No, she is back at Everpeak, but they would undoubtedly be her maidens.’

Morgrim frowned, unconvinced. ‘Valayan priestesses abroad on the road? It makes no sense. Let me see that letter.’

Snorri handed it over but it broke apart in his metal fist, fragmenting like ash.

‘Odd,’ he said. ‘I’ve never seen parchment do that before.’ He looked at it for a moment then cast it over the wall, where it was caught by the wind and borne away.

Morgrim turned to Drogor, who was waiting patiently for the prince’s orders.

‘Where is this runner now? I would speak with him.’

Drogor grew solemn, though his eyes remained cold and lifeless. ‘He is dead, shot with elgi arrows.’

Morgrim sneered. ‘I see.’

‘Is there a problem?’

‘Nothing that cannot be rectified.’

‘It matters not,’ said Snorri. ‘Slaying rinns and priestesses, it cannot go unanswered any longer.’ He was stern, and he spoke through a portcullis of clenched teeth. ‘Gather the clans. All of them. And send word to Brynnoth and Thagdor. This time I won’t be dissuaded. We march on Kor Vanaeth.’

‘What about your father? He sues for peace, and any warmaking that we do here could-’

‘Let him!’ Snorri roared. ‘He’s knows it’s over, as well as I. Peace is dead, has been for eight years.’

‘And while peace fails, what will we do?’

Snorri’s face was pitiless as knapped flint, and just as unyielding.

‘What we should have done years ago. Kill elgi.’