The Great Betrayal

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

The Runes Fail

In the deeps below Everpeak the clang of hammer hitting anvil resounded. For the last eight years and more it had done so with barely more than a moment’s respite.

Morek spoke the rites with sonorous solemnity, broke the karadurak, tempered the star-metal and from it fashioned such artifice as only happened once in a generation.

Hissing vapour rushed from the barrel. A gromril blade, its runes refulgent in the forge flame, came forth from its raging depths.

‘Drengudrakk,’ he intoned, naming the weapon clutched in his gauntleted hand.

Ranuld Silverthumb, looking on from the shadows, merely nodded.

‘Tromm, Morek,’ he uttered, ‘and so the rhun is struck and the rite spoken. Metal has come from fire and water, bound by the rituals of earth and air. All the four elements are bound within, trapped by meteoric iron sent from the vaults of heaven.’

Morek looked exhausted, lathered in sweat and soot, his chest, face and fingers burned. But he was exultant.

Bowing his head, Ranuld told him, ‘You are now a true master of the rhun.’

A grimace stole upon the runelord’s face and he clutched his shoulder suddenly, teeth clenched tight in his mouth.

‘Master!’ Morek went to him at once, the blade left upon the anvil, but Ranuld stopped him with his upraised palm.

‘No,’ he rasped, his anguish almost palpable. ‘Set it properly. Do it!’

Morek was caught by indecision. He looked once to the blade and then to his master, who was doubled up in pain.

He was by Ranuld’s side a moment later, helping the venerable dwarf to his seat in the forge.

‘Pipeweed…’ he gasped, pointing fervouredly at a small stone box resting on a shelf.

Morek left him to retrieve the box.

Hands shaking, Ranuld opened it, took the pipe and the weed from within, stoked the cradle and lit it.

After a few draughts, his hands steadied, the pain eased and he breathed again.

His eyes were watering, from the seizure or something else, Morek could not tell. He regarded his apprentice with a crestfallen expression, shaking his head.

‘What is it, master? Are you-’

‘Wazzock!’ snapped the runelord. ‘Look at that,’ he said. ‘Look!’

The rune axe upon the anvil had a tiny fissure running through the metal. It was cracked, ruined.

‘The magic was not properly bound,’ Ranuld told him. Struggling but refusing any help, the runelord got to his feet and shuffled off. ‘You should have left me. The rhun is all that matters. Legacy is all I have left to give.’ He turned, snarling, ‘Let me die next time, and save your worthless concern.’

He tromped from the forge, headed for the deeper vault where Morek was forbidden.

‘Not ready,’ he chuntered to himself beneath his breath. ‘Not nearly ready.’ Slowly shaking his head, he disappeared into the soot and smoke. Before he was lost to the darkness completely, his voice rang out, ‘Again, do it again.’

Morek slumped to his haunches, regarding the broken metal on the anvil.

Taking up his tongs, he gripped the sundered blade and returned it to the fire.

Speaking through the magic of rune stones was not so easy. Ranuld leaned heavily on his staff, standing before the dokbar, and saw little of Thorik Oakeneye. It was as if some great arachnarok, like the beasts that once roamed the deeps, had spun its silken threads across the shield’s surface and obscured it from sight. As if he were trapped at the bottom of a long well, Thorik’s voice was muffled and echoed. As Ranuld listened, his expression clouded.

Thorik spoke of a ‘great shaming’, of ‘misdeeds’ and ‘foulness beyond countenance’.

Throughout his report, which must have taken a great deal of strength to send, Ranuld tugged his beard, muttering, ‘Dreng tromm, dreng tromm…’

Perfidy beyond reckoning had been done.

When Thorik was finished, Ranuld looked his fellow runelord in the eye.

‘The conclave must gather at Karaz-a-Karak.’

Thorik nodded.

‘As soon as I reach the Sea Hold, I will make all haste.’

‘War has come, unleashed by the arrogance of youth,’ Ranuld said. ‘The gronti-duraz must walk. Together we will wake them from slumber.’

‘Tromm, my lord.’

‘Tromm,’ uttered Ranuld, bowing his head as Thorik faded and the dokbar returned to silver once again.

Regarding the silent ranks of stone golems, Ranuld prayed to Grungni that they would listen.