The Great Betrayal

CHAPTER FORTY

The Spilling of Noble Blood

No ceremony, no celebration of any kind had greeted the army of Barak Varr when it had returned to the Sea Hold. Led by Brynnoth, a battered and brutalised king, the dwarfs were a returning tide, washing up on the borders of the great fastness with all the detritus that had survived the siege of the elven city.

No, as Heglan remembered that day, just as he had remembered it every day since, it was more like a funeral procession. All along the Merman Pass, trailing back down to the shipyards many miles behind, were dour-looking clanners shouldering biers of shields the colour of the ocean. Upon them were their fallen brothers. And there had been a great many. At first, Heglan had hoped some of the warriors had remained with the High King to garrison the lesser citadels but the mood was too sombre, too withdrawn and bereft of hope for that to be true. A defeated force had returned to Barak Varr, carrying its dead. But they clung to something else too, a very familiar emotion to Heglan now — vengeance.

That sight, the returning dwarfs, the warriors lain in silent repose upon their shields, had stayed with him for over twenty years. It was his waking thought, his last memory at night, at least when he managed sleep. During the dark hours, Heglan’s workshop became his refuge. He laboured until exhaustion claimed him and sent his mind into an agonised hell of remembrance. Running down to the Merman Pass, barging the gathered crowds from his path, ignoring their curses. Watching the procession pass, listening to the weeping, the declarations of revenge, the wailing of the women. An impenetrable line of hearthguard prevented the crowd from approaching closer than the edge of the road. With every bier that passed by, Heglan’s hope grew, until he saw the eighty-first shield and the dwarf dead upon it.

Unmarked by war, no wound to be seen, Nadri Lodrison was a cold corpse.

Heglan had lost his brother, and in that fateful moment of realisation became the last of his line. Few of the clan Copperfist returned, and though some spoke words of conciliation, Heglan heard not of it. Instead, a tiny fire grew into being inside his stomach. Quickly it became a fist of flame then a blaze, until the conflagration of his hate and desire for retribution was born.

Sheltered in his workshop, bent towards dreams of invention and prosperity, he had been untouched by the war. With Nadri’s death, it had gouged him and left a gaping wound behind. From the sky and the sun, Heglan retreated downwards to the earth and the desolation of his brother’s tomb.

Cold stone pressed against his forehead. Heglan opened his eyes, returning to the present. He could smell grave dust and dank, though whether this was real or a trick of his grief-stricken conscience he could no longer tell. Somewhere in the back of his mind, a doleful tolling announced the dead.

‘Copperfist…’ a gruff voice intruded on the funerary bell.

Heglan looked up to see sky and sun, not the hollow dark of a tomb.

‘Yes, master.’

Burgrik Strombak was standing behind him, arms folded.

‘I was wrong.’

Dark against the sun, driving against the wind and rising, the skryzan-harbark flew. It was an airship in every sense, with a huge leather bladder of gas attached to masts with stout rope giving the vessel the necessary buoyancy. There were rudders and paddles, barrels of ballast to alter loft and direction. Great turning whirls, like windmills, provided impetus and power. It was the single most impressive piece of machinery any dwarf had ever constructed and it had launched from the Durazon like a soaring crag eagle. But the dream for Heglan was flawed, forever so, tainted by the fact that his brother would never get to see it.

He had found a captain too, and Nugdrinn Hammerfoot steered the airship like he was born to it. In another time, Heglan would have been expelled from the engineers’ guild for such rampant diversion away from tradition but times were changing, and with them the attitudes of the dwarfs. The Sea Hold had ever been a bastion of invention and progress, looked down upon by some of the traditionalists of the Worlds Edge. No good could come of the new, of the untried, untested. Dwarfs were creatures of earth, grounded in stone and steel. They did not reach for sky and cloud, and yet…

‘Is it ready?’ asked another, and Heglan turned to address his king.

Brynnoth didn’t meet his eye, he kept his gaze on the airship as it returned to the Durazon. It grew larger by the moment, transforming from a shadow silhouetted against the sun to a behemoth with a dragon-headed prow and armoured flanks of copper in the shape of scalloped wings. It was a beast in every aspect, powerful, intimidating, brutal, and seemed to almost growl at the dwarfs as it landed on claws of steel.

‘I still need to arm it, my lord.’

‘Bolt throwers?’ suggested Strombak with an appraising eye. ‘It wouldn’t support a catapult.’

‘Yes, and something else I’ve been working on.’

Strombak raised an eyebrow, but Heglan didn’t elaborate. The weapon wasn’t ready yet and he wouldn’t reveal it until it was, even to his guildmaster.

Heglan was not a warmonger. It had never been his intention to create something with the purpose of killing. Exploration, technological achievement, the mapping of the skies had always been at the forefront of the engineer’s mind, but unfortunately death had a way of making peaceful men warlike.

‘It’s a marvel,’ Strombak conceded, in spite of all his reservations.

‘No,’ said King Brynnoth, a darkness in his eyes that had never lifted since Agrin Fireheart. ‘It’s a war machine.’

Strombak nodded, sucking on his pipe as he turned to its creator. ‘And what will you call it, lad?’

Heglan’s eyes mirrored the king’s.

‘Nadri’s Retribution.’

Snorri was not impressed. Ranks of spearmen hiding behind high shields that protected their scale-armoured bodies marched into formation before the dwarfs. On the opposite flank was a host of elven cavalry, the shining-helmed knights clasping lances and riding barded steeds. Archers occupied a slight rise, but there was little to distinguish the army save for a small retinue of warriors bearing long-hafted glaives and shimmering like fresh-forged gold in their heavy plate.

Estimating twenty thousand men, Snorri wondered what the king of the elves hoped to achieve with such a paltry show of strength. He had yet to see the great lord himself and suspected he was as craven as many dwarfs made him out to be.

Angaz Baradum was an iron mine long fallen out of use. Its old quarries and tunnels went deep into the earth, and its heath stretched into a vast plain of grassy tussocks far south of Black Fire Pass. The elf king had arrived in the Old World by sea, though not across the Sea of Claws like the bulk of his fleet. He had gone south, presumably along the Black Gulf to alight so far away from Karaz-a-Karak. Perhaps he wanted to oversee what remained of his forces still encamped at the edge of Karak Azul, or he might have been leading a spearhead to attack the dwarfs from their southern borders. It mattered not. Regardless of his rationale, the elf king had made a grievous error in coming here. Snorri was determined to ensure he realised that.

The young prince cast his gaze over the field where the elves and dwarfs had pitched. Little advantage would be gained from the sparse terrain, but it better suited the dwarfs who could make their battle line strong by keeping their clans together.

‘Shoulder to shoulder,’ Snorri muttered to Drogor, who lifted the banner.

A horn clarioned and then came drums as the dwarfs drew together, slowly locking their shields.

‘Hold here!’ yelled Khazagrim, the prince’s chief hearthguard.

‘You see him yet?’ asked Snorri, scrutinising the sea of elven silver.

‘Perhaps we should advance further, a show of aggression to goad the elfling out?’ suggested Drogor.

Khazagrim looked for his prince’s sanction. Snorri nodded, but said, ‘Keep us out of their archer range for now. Don’t want those pointy-eared bastards sticking us before I’ve seen their king. Until I’m sure the coward is even-’ The words stuck in Snorri’s throat as three elves mounted on horses broke off from the host and rode towards them. Flanked on either side by his standard bearer and knight protector was an elf who could be none other than the king, the one they called Caledor.

‘What is he doing?’ asked Snorri, reaching for his axe.

Drogor raised his hand for calm.

‘I think the elgi wants to talk.’

‘Talk?’ Snorri was nonplussed. ‘About what?’

‘Surrender?’ Drogor suggested, before looking the prince in the eye. ‘What should we do?’

Snorri scowled at the sheer arrogance of the gesture, that the elf king thought parley was still on the table. He considered having his quarrellers shoot the elves down but dismissed it at once as dishonourable.

‘We meet them,’ he replied, deciding he would not be outdone by an elf. If an elf could stride boldly into his enemy’s midst and demand parley then so could a dwarf.

‘Is that wise?’

‘No, but I’ll not have that pointy-ears show me up on dawi ground. Khazagrim, you’re with me.’ He turned to Drogor. ‘Throng holds here, but be ready.’

‘Tromm,’ said Drogor, bowing.

Snorri stomped off with Khazagrim.

The elves had been waiting for several minutes by the time the dwarfs reached them.

King Caledor muttered something in elvish to his protector who smiled and nodded back.

‘Something amuses you, elgi?’ Snorri snapped, his half-hand resting on the haft of his rune axe. ‘A joke to lighten the mood, is it?’

The banner bearer leaned forwards in his saddle to look down on the diminutive dwarf retinue.

‘The Phoenix King remarks on your stature, and how it must take interminably long to get anywhere and do anything. He wonders if you are faster at digging than you are walking?’

Snorri bit his tongue. He could feel Khazagrim trembling with anger next to him, his leather gauntlets creaking into fists.

The elf king was sneering, but despite his levity his blue eyes were like chips of ice. He had the look of a hunter about him, and carried a long spear as well as sword and bow. Tendrils of golden hair slipped from beneath his helm and here Snorri paused. For the war helm sitting upon Caledor’s brow was shaped to resemble a dragon. His entire armoured body was fashioned thusly, wrought in fire-red plate and silver scale akin to the hide of such a beast. Edged in gold, the king’s armoured skirts carried further effigies firmly establishing the aspect he wanted to promote.

Words spoken what seemed like an age ago now returned to the young prince.

Snorri’s lip curled into a snarl. ‘Drakk…’ he breathed, and felt the touch of destiny upon him. It was no beast at all that Ranuld’s prophecy spoke of, but an elf, the elf. All thoughts of negotiation evaporated.

The elf banner bearer looked confused at this declaration, turning to his liege-lord. His comment elicited another bout of sarcastic humour.

For his part, Snorri jabbed his finger in the elf king’s direction.

‘You,’ he said, before turning to prod at his own chest, ‘and me.’

Smiling, King Caledor trotted forwards on his steed.

‘Are you challenging me, mud-dweller?’ he asked in perfect Khazalid. ‘Do you mean to say I have brought all these warriors and only you and I will get to fight? Seems a pity.’

Snorri was taken aback. ‘You speak our tongue?’

‘When I must.’ He scoffed, apparently amused at the prince’s boldness. ‘I came to answer your plea for surrender, but it seems dwarf stupidity really is without limit.’

‘Aye, and elgi arrogance is boundless too. By Grungni, you will meet me on the field of battle and we’ll settle this honourably.’

Looking Snorri up and down, the elf king frowned. ‘Are you certain you want to do this? I am the Phoenix King of Ulthuan, greatest warrior of this age.’

Now it was Snorri’s turn to smile. ‘We have many names for you, elgi, but king is not amongst them. The Coward, the Friendless, He Who is Frightened of Loud Noises. My favourite is the Goat Worrier, for you have the hunter’s eye.’ Jabbing a finger back at the elf king, Snorri bared his teeth in a mocking grin and bleated at him.

Caledor’s expression hardened at once to chiselled stone.

‘Have your shovels ready,’ he told the prince, ‘for they will soon be needed.’ Turning his horse around, Caledor rode off to prepare for the duel and took his scowling retainers with them.

Snorri nodded as he watched them go.

‘Well,’ he said to Khazagrim. ‘I thought that went well.’

As they rode back to the army, King Caledor turned in the saddle towards his seneschal.

‘Hulviar,’ he said, ‘as soon as I have cut that imp down signal the attack. Every dwarf on this field shall die today.’

‘All of them, my king?’

‘Every last one. They attack my cities with impunity, a message must be sent. It’s why we are here and why I must miss the beginning of the hunting season. Soon as it’s done, we return and these dwarfs will go back to their holes in the ground. See them dead, Hulviar.’

Hulviar nodded grimly and went to ready the Silver Helms.

Rain battered at Morgrim’s forces as they slogged through the foothills in an ever-thickening mire. The summer storm had come from nowhere, splitting the sky with dry lightning in the east and hammering them with a downpour in the west.

‘Have you ever seen the like of this?’ Morgrim remarked as rain teemed off the nose guard of his war helm, trickling down his face and beard.

Tarni, his banner bearer, shook his head, spitting out a mouthful of the sudden deluge.

Ahead in the road, Morgrim saw one of the rangers had returned and was beckoning them onwards. The dwarf pointed to a high cliff of rock that hung over the trail and would grant some respite from the storm.

Morgrim nodded, though he had no idea if the ranger had seen him or not. He waved his army on. ‘Forward, to the crag,’ he yelled, and horns blared down the ranks to relay his order. Their clarion was answered a moment later by a peal of thunder that shook the earth underfoot. From the sky there came a jag of pearlescent lightning. Bright as magnesium, Morgrim had to shield his eyes from it, and when he looked back the bolt had struck the cliff face, shearing off a chunk that had collapsed across the road and buried the poor ranger with it. There was no sign of the dwarf and no sign of the trail either. The way ahead was cut off.

‘Should we go around?’ asked Tarni, shouting to be heard.

Harsh sunlight was blazing through the sheeting rain, making it shimmer and flash. Morgrim nodded, and with little choice the dwarfs trudged back. All the while they were delayed Snorri fought alone.

Snorri rotated his shoulder to loosen the muscles and hefted his rune axe one-handed, gauging the weight.

‘Shield or hand axe?’ asked Drogor, proffering both.

Snorri was sitting on a stout wooden throne as Khazagrim made sure his armour was secure. The hearthguard was tightening a vambrace when the prince answered, ‘Shield.’ His gaze was on the distant elf king who was undergoing similar preparation. Behind him, the elf army waited silently. ‘Against that spear, I’ll need a shield.’

Drogor nodded.

‘Do not be nervous, my prince,’ he whispered as he came close to strap on Snorri’s shield.

‘I am not,’ Snorri snapped. ‘I will end the war, claim my destiny. It is written.’

‘Yes, but perhaps you should wait for your cousin. No one would think less of you if you did, my prince.’

Snorri narrowed his eyes. ‘I’ve asked you before not to call me that,’ he said.

Drogor smiled but there was no warmth to it, no feeling at all. ‘But that is what you are, a prince.’

‘I…’ Something disturbing had just happened, a tiny seed of doubt had been planted that was already taking root.

Drogor was still smiling that deadened smile. It chilled Snorri like a winter’s breeze, but there was no time left to question it. Horns were blowing on both sides, the call to arms. The duel was about to begin.

Snorri stood, his armour clanking as it came to rest. It felt heavy all of a sudden, his axe haft greasy in his armoured fist.

‘My prince?’ asked Khazagrim.

Snorri was still looking at Drogor.

‘Go and meet your destiny, Snorri Halfhand,’ he said.

‘Come,’ the prince said to Khazagrim, trying to banish the malaise that had settled over him like a shroud. The elf king was already striding to the middle of the battlefield. Silence reigned, interrupted only by the wind and a distant summer storm.

‘Strange weather,’ Snorri remarked. Even his own voice sounded distant to him.

‘Aye,’ he heard Drogor answer, in a way that suggested he did not find it strange at all.

Eyeing the horizon behind the elf army, Snorri looked for his cousin as if just the sight of Morgrim would steady his inexplicable nerves. But Morgrim wasn’t there. Snorri was on his own.

The few hundred feet to the middle of the battlefield felt like leagues. Sweat lathered Snorri’s face. It dripped off the end of his nose, and made him want to remove his winged helmet. His heart was racing, faster than it should be, and he had to suppress a tremor in his injured hand as phantom pain he hadn’t experienced in years returned.

‘I call you forth to face grudgement, elfling,’ said Snorri, trying to bolster his fractured resolve. ‘Let it be known on this day that Prince Snorri Lunngrin did meet Caledor of the elgi in honourable combat to settle the misdeeds of his race and exact recompense in blood.’

Caledor was sheathing his sword after making a few practice swings. He had decided on his spear to open with and made a quick thrust before turning to the prince.

‘Were you speaking, little mud-dweller? I didn’t hear you all the way down there, I’m afraid.’ He settled into a ready stance, spear held in one hand. ‘Shall we begin?’

Snorri was incensed, his momentary fear eclipsed by rage, and he roared, ‘Elgi bast-’

The spear lashed out like quicksilver, ripping open a gash down Snorri’s face and splitting his war helm apart. Dazed, the prince half spun then staggered, almost losing his footing. A second blow, a downstroke with the haft, put the dwarf on his back.

The elves cheered, whilst the dwarfs were stunned into silence at the abrupt turn.

Snorri raised his shield, fending off a flurry of jabbing thrusts. The last went straight through, pinning his shoulder before the spear was withdrawn in a welter of his blood.

Crying out, Snorri punched back with the remains of his shield, swinging his axe wildly so he could regain his feet. Laboured breaths that felt like knives sheared from his mouth. His armoured chest heaved and ached. The elf king hadn’t even broken a sweat and stared coldly at his prey.

‘I knew you dwarfs were weak,’ he said. ‘You are diggers and labourers, not warriors. You have erred here, and you will die for it.’

Snorri charged, with a cry of ‘Grungni!’, but found a spear in his thigh arresting his forward momentum. He jerked to a halt, and felt the ground rush up to meet him, smacking into his back like a battering ram and pushing the air from his lungs. Snorri reached for his axe, but it was no longer in his hand, nor was his shield. As the elf king glowered over him, he was defenceless.

‘My father will-’ The words died as Caledor left his spear pinning Snorri to the ground and opened the prince up with his sword.

‘Sapherian steel,’ he told the dwarf, showing Snorri the bloodied blade. ‘Deadly.’

Numbing cold spread through the prince’s body, a deepening chill that would freeze him unto death. He thought of his father, of the destiny that would not be his, of Morgrim and Elmendrin. Until the very end, he fought, spitting blood and mouthing curses at the slowly fading figure of the elf king. It would do no good because Gazul had Snorri now and would take him to his gate.

Snorri Halfhand was dead.

Morgrim barrelled over the rise and saw Snorri fall.

‘No!’ Half rasp, half shout, the thane’s agony echoed across Angaz Baragdum. It incited a riot in the dwarfs, who came forwards to protect the body of their prince. Too late, though, for the elf king had cut Snorri’s arm from the elbow and brandished it like a trophy to his warriors.

Elven riders were already spurring their horses and beginning to charge. They had not yet seen Morgrim’s army.

‘Uzkul!’ he bellowed, consumed by wrathful grief. ‘Crush them!’

Led by Khazagrim, the hearthguard surged forwards to protect the prince. Several were cut down by Caledor before the elf king withdrew on a horse brought by his banner bearer.

Engaged by foes from behind, the knights’ charge failed to materialise and they faltered.

Laughing, and only pausing to cast Snorri’s severed arm into a deep, flooded quarry, the elf king signalled the retreat. In disarray from seeing their prince so savagely struck down, the dwarfs were unable to contain them. Morgrim had abandoned the plan and was forging towards his cousin with all haste, driving through the enemy and hacking down any elf that got in his way. His hammer was crimson by the time he reached Snorri’s side.

A ring of armoured hearthguard parted to let him pass.

Battle din faded in the distance as the last few skirmishes between the fleeing elves and pursuing dwarfs subsided. Morgrim looked down on his cousin’s broken, mutilated body and wept.

Snorri was already ashen. A grimace of defiance etched upon his face, he looked far from at peace. In pursuit of destiny, he had died an ugly, painful death.

‘Dreng tromm…’ uttered Morgrim, sinking to his knees.

‘He would not listen,’ said a voice beyond the hearthguard.

Morgrim looked up and through his tears fixed Drogor with a steely glare.

‘Speak plainly,’ he rasped.

‘I told him to wait.’

‘And is that what you did, Drogor? Did you wait? I saw the throng rooted to the spot whilst my cousin was cut apart. Why did you not aid him?’

‘I was forbidden, and by Grungni’s oath I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It happened so quickly, the elgi king striking our prince down like he was a beardling.’

‘And heaping further ignominy on him by cleaving his arm! Gods, Drogor, he will wander Gazul’s underworld a cripple because of this!’

‘Perhaps with your army to reinforce us…’

Morgrim’s face darkened further. ‘We were delayed. By Valaya, the very elements turned on us.’

‘They can be capricious.’

Morgrim glared but Drogor had already lowered his gaze.

‘It is I that failed the prince, Morgrim, not you. I am sorry.’

Bustling through the throng, Khazagrim returned, preventing further recrimination.

‘The elgi have fled, back to their ships,’ he said. ‘We won’t catch them now.’

Morgrim shook his head in disbelief. ‘And so we suffer further indignity. Gather the throng. We’re going back to Karaz-a-Karak to bring the High King the body of his son.’