The Great Betrayal

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

The Fleet From Across the Sea

The elf was painted head to toe in filth. His silver armour was muddied, his cloak torn and smeared in dung, his alabaster skin grimy and dark with a peasant’s tan. Dirty white hair framed a narrow face, pinched with anger.

‘Doesn’t look happy, does he?’ Snorri jerked his thumb at the dishevelled noble behind the cage.

‘Would you be, if you were boarding with the mules?’ King Thagdor laughed, loudly and raucously, until the High King approached, dousing the northerner’s mirth.

‘His name is Prince Arlyr, of Etaine.’ Gotrek struggled with both foreign words, but spoke them anyway before turning his glare from Thagdor to the elf. ‘And apparently he has nothing to say beyond that.’

‘Why are we gathered here?’ asked Brynnoth. ‘Surely your tent would have provided better accommodation.’

They were standing next to the mule pen at the rear of the encampment, near its edge. Skinners were hustling the beasts in and out of the cages to haul machineries or cart raw metal for the new rams, but none cast an eye towards the kings.

Several bedraggled-looking elves, stripped of their weapons and armour, walked alongside one train. They were Arlyr’s warriors, put to use gathering firewood for the furnaces and watched keenly by Furgil’s rangers.

The same question as asked by the king of the Sea Hold lingered in Valarik’s eyes too, though the lord of the Horn Hold had not the courage to speak it. All of the kings, barring Brynnoth whose desire for vengeance still blazed hotter than his shame at defying the High King, felt chastened just to be in Gotrek’s presence. The High King’s ire was volcanic but kept dormant for now. None of the liege-lords wanted to be there when it erupted, and so conducted themselves as if that possibility was imminent at any time and by treading gingerly they could abate it.

Last of the kings was Hrekki Ironhandson. The lord of the Varn was slow to arrive, having trekked across from the opposite end of the field where his war machines and much of his army was mustered. He nodded to the other lords, and only once he was within the circle of kings did Gotrek continue.

‘Quicker to say it here, and I want to look into this one’s eyes when I do.’ His attention returned to their elf prisoner, who glowered back at him.

‘To say what, father?’ asked Snorri.

Not since the assault on the sixth day had the dwarfs enjoyed the same level of success in breaching the elven city. Tor Alessi had abandoned its outer wall and retreated, closing its ranks further, repositioning its bolt throwers, mustering even more archers.

Even buoyed by their apparent success, the dwarfs had been unable to penetrate any further. The rubble made it impossible to bring in siege towers and excavation teams were quickly pinioned by arrows as soon as they tried to clear the ground. The elves had left pockets of murderous scouts in shadowed alcoves and secret chambers that ambushed the dwarf attackers, foiling assaults before they could begin.

Tor Alessi had shrunk, and like a trap closing around the elves inside, it had armoured them.

Snorri didn’t understand the tactic. Yes, it retarded the dwarfs’ efforts, but they had already established that winning a war of attrition was playing into their hands. What did the elves have to gain from waiting and pulling in their necks, besides a slow death?

When the young prince got his answer, it was not to his liking.

‘We must retreat,’ said Gotrek flatly.

‘Do what?’ asked Thagdor, incredulous.

Snorri was speechless.

Brynnoth fought down a belligerent snarl. Of all the kings, he had seen the most battle and bore the wounds to prove it. None present had greater right to question the High King’s reasoning than Brynnoth, but the lord of the Sea Hold stayed silent.

‘Elgi have been sighted coming across the sea in a great fleet.’ Gotrek eyed the elven noble and saw everything he needed in the lordling’s supercilious expression to know what his scouts had told him was true, that it wasn’t some trick or glamour, that the elves were trying to keep them embattled until reinforcements could arrive. ‘Could be two hundred ships, maybe more. Drakk too, eagles and magelings. A war host that puts even this city’s sizeable garrison to shame. That’s right, isn’t it, elgi?’

Prince Arlyr glared, and spat something in his native tongue before flashing a condescending smile.

‘I think he’s trying to mock you, Gotrek,’ observed Thagdor.

Gotrek smiled back. ‘Yet he’s the one covered in donkey shit.’

‘Caught between the city and the arriving army, we would be hard pressed,’ admitted Snorri, seeing the sense in what his father was saying but inwardly chafing at the need to retreat. ‘How close is the fleet?’

Gotrek turned his gaze from the elf to look at his son. ‘Furgil says they’re close enough that some of the machineries will need to be left behind if we’re to make good our escape.’

‘Grimnir’s balls, those engines are not cheap,’ moaned Ironhandson. ‘I’ll lose a fortune if we leave them.’

‘You’ll do it and be glad that I don’t further balance your accounts, Hrekki,’ snapped Gotrek, referring to the king’s existing debt in the great book of grudges.

Knowing what was best for him, Ironhandson backed down.

Thagdor balled his fists against his hips and sighed. ‘Bugger me. They’re right sneaky, them elgi bastards.’

‘Aye,’ Gotrek agreed. ‘Tor Alessi is their anvil, the fleet their hammer. We’d be crushed.’

Snorri was scowling. ‘This is wrong. Escape? We’re running? From them?’ He jabbed a finger at Prince Arlyr, who appeared to be enjoying the debate more than the dwarfs. ‘The wall is breached in at least two places and there are fires that will last well beyond morning.’

‘Aye,’ said Gotrek, ‘and for fourteen days we’ve knocked on their door and for fourteen days been repelled. Can anyone here think of a fastness the dawi could not crack in two weeks of hammer?’

None could.

‘But, father…’

‘But nothing,’ Gotrek began, harshly at first, but softened quickly. ‘I feel your frustration, but this isn’t over. We were naive to think the elgi could be so easily broken. They obviously want to stay here very badly. We’ll need to beat that out of them, but all meat must be tenderised before it’s cooked and eaten. Just so happens that elgi is a little tougher to chew than we thought.’

‘So that’s it then?’ said Snorri. ‘What about Varnuf and Grundin, Aflegard and the rest of them?’

Valarik looked down at this boots.

Ironhandson shook his head.

‘I’ve sent runners north and south,’ Gotrek told them, ‘but so far none have returned bearing word of the other kings. We cannot rely on them for reinforcement.’

‘So we’re going back to the mountains?’ Brynnoth didn’t sound pleased.

Gotrek nodded. ‘To gauge the elgi’s strength, and their keenness for a fight. Admit it or not, we’ve underestimated this enemy, and are already counting that cost. War won’t be over in a single siege.’ He turned to his son. ‘How many did your cousin say we’d lost thus far?’

Snorri’s face darkened. ‘Close to three thousand dawi, father.’

‘Dreng tromm…’ breathed Valarik, whilst the other kings except for Brynnoth shook their heads at the thought.

‘We return to the holds,’ Gotrek told them all, ‘and make strategy for a long war. This is far from over. It has barely begun.’

‘And what about little lord dung boots over there?’ asked Thagdor, gesturing to Prince Arlyr.

Gotrek fixed the elf with a cold stare that robbed the lordling of all his defiance.

‘Oh, I can think of something.’

Liandra was knelt by Vranesh, tending to the dragon’s wounds in one of Tor Alessi’s ruined courtyards, when the dwarfs’ message came sailing over the wall. It landed with a wet splut! rolling awkwardly until it came to a halt by a spearman’s boot. The elf looked down at the severed head of Prince Arlyr and was promptly sick. To see such a noble lord so brutally abused had turned the young warrior’s stomach.

Horns rang out, summoning the garrison commander, Lord Impirilion.

When Arlyr’s body was flung over the walls next, engraved in vengeful dwarf script, Liandra could not have been less surprised.

‘They are leaving,’ she told one of Lord Impirilion’s retainers.

‘How do you know?’

She laughed humourlessly, pointing at the headless corpse. ‘What do you think that is?’

The retainer looked nonplussed at the body.

‘It’s a parting gift,’ she told him, getting to her feet. ‘Can you fly, my beast?’ she asked the dragon.

Vranesh growled in affirmation.

‘Where are you going?’ asked the retainer. ‘What about Lord Impirilion?’

‘I have no business with the garrison commander, and you have no need of me here now the fleet has arrived. I will return to Kor Vanaeth. There are still people who are living like wretches in its ruins.’ She swung into the saddle. ‘This is not over. Far from it, and we need every bastion if we are to defeat the dwarfs on their own soil. Rest assured, this is but a taste of the war to come,’ she said, a flash of excitement in her eyes as she took to the skies.

For now, fighting the dwarfs took precedence over her other concerns. Liandra’s prey would have to wait, the druchii would have to wait, but not too long.