The Curse of the Phoenix Crown

by C. L. Werner

  Morgrim looked away from his study of the battlefield, folding the spyglass he’d been given by King Onkmarr of Barak Varr. He thrust the contraption into his belt next to Ifulvin and turned to greet his visitor. He was surprised to find that High Runelord Morek wasn’t alone. Beside him was the savage-­looking Rundin Torbansonn. He gave the half-naked champion only a brief glance, then returned his gaze to the runelord. ‘You needn’t say it like that, Morek,’ he admonished. ‘We’ve been friends too long for that.’

  ‘I suspect that it is duty, not friendship, that summoned me,’ Morek answered.

  Morgrim shook his head. ‘Every time I see you, you get that little bit more dour and cheerless. If you start speaking in riddles, I promise that as a thane of Karaz-a-Karak, I will brain you.’ He waved his hand towards the distant city. ‘They are bringing down the walls. I think tomorrow night we will be ready. Do you think your magic has kept the elgi from spying out the plan?’

  ‘Eight runelords from as many strongholds, each bringing with him an Anvil of Doom,’ Morek observed. ‘Such a concentration of magic hasn’t gone unnoticed. The elgi know we are here. However, I am certain they don’t know our purpose. If they did, they would have taken action by now. We have expended a great amount of energy to keep them blind to our intentions.’

  ‘Then you foresee success?’ Morgrim asked. He raised his hand in a concession of defeat when he saw the frown that appeared on Morek’s face. ‘I should know better than to ask a runelord about the future. That is how problems start. Prophecy is the worst riddle of them all.’

  Instead of improving his disposition, the thane’s levity only broadened Morek’s scowl. ‘One doesn’t need the ambiguity of a prophecy to take bad counsel.’ He stared hard into Morgrim’s eyes. The question had vexed him for a long time now, but he was determined that he would ask it. ‘What kind of advice do you take from Drogor Zarrdum?’

  Now it was Morgrim’s turn to scowl. ‘He is a friend. I am not so feckless that position and power make me forget my friends. Whether they be a runelord or a wandering adventurer from Karak Zorn.’

  ‘He was Prince Snorri’s friend too,’ Morek reminded him. ‘You were there. Maybe you remember the guidance he offered the prince? Did his advice lead to wisdom or to tragedy?’

  ‘That was a long time ago,’ Morgrim said. ‘Much has changed. For all of us. We’ve all become harder, less prone to mercy.’

  ‘There is a difference between mercy and morality,’ Morek said. ‘To spare a warrior on the field of battle is mercy.’

  Morgrim could see where Morek’s words were leading. Somehow he found even the suggestion to be threatening. Dimly, deep down inside him, he felt an irrational anger flare up. ‘Drogor has suffered more than most. If his counsel is sometimes unduly vicious, then the bitterness that makes it so is not so strange.’

  ‘Strange,’ Morek repeated the word, letting it hang in the air between them. He tapped his runestaff against the floor. ‘Tell me, how well do you know your old friend from Karak Zorn? Would you say he is the same dwarf you knew from the days of peace?’

  Before Morgrim could give the question any thought, an answer rang out from away to his left. The three dwarfs turned to see the subject of that question climbing down a set of crumbling stairs, his feathered cape rustling about his shoulders.

  ‘War changes us all,’ Drogor said, his tone neutral. ‘What dawi of conscience could say it hasn’t? Are you, Morek Furrowbrow, the same zaki who doted upon Ranuld in his senility, or has the war made you expand your horizons and think for yourself?’

  ‘Mind your tongue, ufdi,’ Rundin warned. ‘That is a runelord you mock.’

  Morgrim raised his hands, motioning all of his companions to calm themselves. If Drogor had been listening from the floor above, he could understand how the thane might be upset, but that was hardly an excuse for rudeness.

  ‘Oathbreaker, be thankful I do not attend your words,’ Drogor spat, savouring the flush of colour that swept through Rundin’s face.

  ‘Spying on your friend, Drogor of Karak Zorn?’ Morek wondered, gesturing with his staff at the crumbled ceiling.

  Drogor smiled. ‘I am never far from my friends. They are not so numerous that I neglect them.’ His eyes narrowed as he focused upon something in Morek’s hand.

  ‘Relent!’ Morgrim barked out. ‘This bickering is disgraceful. The elgi are the enemy, save your anger for them.’

  Morek’s voice was barely a whisper and within it was a quality Morgrim had never heard before, a sound of terror. ‘There are older enemies than the elgi.’ Morek held forth the artefact that had so caught Drogor’s attention. It was something he’d retrieved from the darkest vaults of Karaz-a-Karak, something locked away among the trophies of Snorri Whitebeard. It was a simple thing, just a feather, but as he held it towards Drogor, the object began to pulse and vibrate with scintillating colours.

  Drogor’s face twisted into a monstrous leer. In a single bound he reached the bottom of the steps, not even seeming to feel the impact as his armoured weight cracked one of the flagstones beneath him. Another spring brought him before Morek. Deftly he snatched the feather out of the runelord’s hand. ‘What a clever maggot,’ Drogor hissed in a voice that no longer even possessed an echo of the dwarf’s tones.

  Morek raised his runestaff, the metal rod already glowing with power, but a single blow of Drogor’s hand sent the dwarf hurtling across the chamber. He slammed into the far wall to crash in a heap among the rubble. Rundin rushed at him next, only to receive similar treatment.

  ‘I thought I lost this somewhere,’ Drogor said. He pressed the glowing feather against his cape. The feathers shifted, pulling themselves aside to allow the new one to join them. As it attached itself, the entire garment began to pulse and throb with a dazzling prism of colours.

  Numb with horror, Morgrim couldn’t find the voice to howl a war-cry as he charged the thing he had called Drogor. His foe slashed out at him with a hand suddenly tipped with vulturine talons and fitted to an arm three times its original length. The monstrous limb caught Morgrim by the neck and thrust him against the ceiling.

  ‘Does this mean we aren’t friends any more?’ Drogor mocked. The dwarf’s face was slowly melting, flesh dripping in obscene streams into his beard. ‘To be honest, your compassion was becoming tedious. I was thinking you’d make a better martyr than a leader. A much better force to push the war forward.’ He cocked his corroding head to one side. Clusters of eyes had begun to sprout from the gleaming bone of his exposed skull. These fixed Morgrim with a quizzical stare.

  ‘What was that you asked?’ Drogor wondered. He relaxed his grip enough that Morgrim was able to drag a breath into his gasping lungs.

  ‘You did this,’ Morgrim moaned. ‘You goaded us into war with the elgi.’

  A ghastly, bubbling laugh wheezed from the mush of Drogor’s face. ‘You did this to yourselves,’ he cackled. ‘I am simply… a spectator. It was your pride and stubbornness that brought war to your peoples. Now it will go on and on until you are both wasted, ruined shells of what you were. What delight more delicious than watching enemies destroy themselves? If only everything could be so obliging!’

  As he laughed, Drogor’s head spun completely around to glare at Rundin as the hill dwarf flung himself at the monster once more. The shimmering cape now became a set of immense wings, fanning out and smashing the skarrenawi to the floor. ‘You should have stayed in your hole and died with your little king,’ he sneered, as the feathers of his wings slashed and cut the tattooed champion.

  Still gripped by Drogor’s hideous arm, Morgrim looked longingly at his axe lying on the floor far below. Then his hand fell to the sword hanging from his belt. Without hesitation, he drew Ifulvin and raked the blade across the monstrous arm.

  Drogor cried out in surprise as syrupy ichor drooled from the ugly gash. His hand released Morgrim, leaving the thane to cras
h ungently to the floor. His head little more than an exposed skull riddled with clusters of eyes, the monster stalked towards Morgrim.

  ‘Thank you for reminding me,’ Drogor hissed. ‘It would be disgraceful to make a dawi of such noble rank die behind a lunatic from the hills.’ The creature’s claws flashed out, seizing Morgrim’s arms. A brutal twist sent Ifulvin clattering to the floor. ‘I will rend you into enough pieces that they can put a bit of you in each stronghold. Would you like that, Morgrim Would-be-King?’

  A crackling bolt of amber lightning scorched across the daemon’s twisted frame. Again, Drogor turned his head impossibly around to stare back across his shoulders. His myriad eyes focused upon Morek. Uttering a bestial shriek, the daemon unleashed a withering blast of unholy energy at the runelord. The glowing staff in his hands corroded, flaking away into little slivers of sludge.

  ‘Wait your turn,’ the daemon hissed.

  Despite his injury, Morek managed to smile back at the monster. ‘You first.’

  Too late the daemon appreciated the limitations of its fleshy frame. Despite its myriad eyes, it had been too focused upon the runelord. It didn’t see Rundin as the mangled dwarf limped across the floor to take up both Azdrakghar and Ifulvin. With elven blade and dwarfish axe, the champion of the skarrenawi turned and charged at the monster.

  Morgrim’s axe crunched through Drogor’s armour, biting down to sever the spine. Imladrik’s sword licked across the arms holding the dwarf lord, severing them at the elbow. Foul daemonic ichor spurted from the stumps, steaming as it struck the stone floor. The daemon howled, its cry reverberating through the souls of those who heard it. Only Rundin had the stamina to withstand that aethyric wail. Taking both axe and sword, he leapt upon the beast, driving the blades into its shoulders. The feathered wings went flopping away, shrivelling like burning parchment as they were detached from the daemon.

  A fanged beak sprouted from Drogor’s face, stabbing forwards and piercing the dwarf’s breast. Defying the mortal wound, Rundin brought Azdrakghar shearing into the right side of the daemon’s neck. A moment later, Ifulvin cut into the left. Throwing the last of his vitality into his powerful arms, he forced the weapons across Drogor’s flesh.

  As the daemon’s head rolled free from its body, Rundin collapsed. There was a fierce smile, an expression of terrible fulfilment on the dead dwarf’s face. In his last moments, he had known his death would be a worthy one. He had achieved what Morek promised him he would achieve: a name greater than Dragonslayer, a name that would blot out forever the stigma of the oathbreaker.

  In life he had been Rundin Torbansonn. In death he was Rundin Daemonslayer.

  Weary, wounded, shocked by his ordeal, Morgrim somehow found the strength to see to Morek. Fighting to maintain his own consciousness, he helped the runelord to his feet and led him away from the carnage within the ruins. As soon as they were in the courtyard, Morgrim’s hearthguard came rushing over to attend them. He was stunned that they had failed to hear the sounds of so fierce a fight, but supposed it had just been another example of the daemon’s powers at work.

  As he let the guards take Morek from him, the runelord gripped Morgrim’s arm. ‘The attack,’ he said. ‘You will still attack?’

  Morgrim shook his head. ‘Nothing can stop it any more,’ he said. ‘When they tried to tell us about their druchii, we would not listen. Why should they listen if we tell them of our daemon? No, the only way this can end is with victory. There is no other way to find peace now.’

  Away to the north, the lights of Sith Rionnasc were a dull glow. Some of those lights belonged to the elgi within their city, waiting for the dawi to come rushing through their ­shattered walls. Many more would be the fires set by the dwarfs as they held their ground outside those walls. For two nights, the dawi had been stealing back to their camps, tending their fires and awaiting the dawn before making half-hearted thrusts against the city. Tonight, however, there would be no dwarfs in those camps, only the fires they’d left behind.

  King Onkmarr of Barak Varr turned away from his view of the hated city. How many times had he voyaged there as a simple trader? How many times had he walked those streets listening to elgi lies and bartering for cheap elgi trinkets? Nothing the tall-ears did was substantial; nothing they built could withstand the test of time. He would prove that soon with Sith Rionnasc.

  ‘It is time,’ the king growled, patting the handle of his axe. Around him, his thanes and champions, all of them veterans of the Siege of Barak Varr, muttered their agreement. They would stand by Onkmarr in everything so long as it repaid the elgi for what had been inflicted against the sea hold.

  ‘Bring down Brynnoth’s Wrath!’ Guildmaster Strombak cried out. At the engineer’s command, throngs of dwarfs came rushing down the slopes of the hill. They were divided into gangs of twenty and thirty, each team labouring beneath the burden of a massive beam of wutroth or an enormous spool of rope and wire. Some struggled under the heft of immense mattocks and hammers, great adzes and spanners. A huge mob over a hundred strong drew a gigantic sledge down from the forest, a great platform of oak, from the centre of which an enormous stone head glowered at its surroundings.

  ‘Tromm,’ Onkmarr intoned, bowing as the head was dragged past him and towards the valley below. The head had belonged to a colossal statue of King Brynnoth that had been partially demolished by the elgi during the siege. Great care had been taken to bear the decapitated head from Barak Varr, especially when the tunnels of the Ungdrin Ankor grew too narrow to allow its passage and its journey had to continue overland. Difficult as that journey had been, the avengers of the sea hold had seen the ordeal through.

  ‘Now the old king will have his revenge,’ Strombak declared. ‘We will make the elves answer for the grudges of our people.’

  Onkmarr stared past the sledge, looking down into the valley below. Eyes attuned to the darkness of the underground could easily spot Strombak’s engineers directing the dwarfs as they brought their strange burdens down to them. ‘The elgi will know what it is to lose their homes,’ he declared. ‘They will know the same horror our people felt when the great gates came crashing in.’ A grim chuckle rose from the king. ‘But they won’t know it for long.’ He looked over at his thanes. ‘You have set your warriors to guard against the elgi?’

  ‘Yes, my liege,’ one of the thanes replied, rapping his fist against his breast as he bowed. ‘But if the elves come at us in force, we may need help from Thane Morgrim’s army.’

  ‘We’ll suffer no help beyond what we’ve already been given,’ Onkmarr declared. Morgrim’s army had done the hard part, breaking down the walls. Elgidum had also tasked nearly every runelord and runesmith in his host with employing their magic against elgi divinations. That was all Onkmarr could ask of his fellow dawi. If there was going to be any honour for Barak Varr this night, then the rest of it must be left to them alone.

  ‘We are protected from their spells, but if one of their scouts should see us, then the plan could be thwarted before it begins,’ Strombak cautioned.

  Onkmarr scowled at the master engineer. It was an argument they’d had many times. The need for haste balanced against the care and caution that was ingrained into the engineers’ guild. There was a place for prudence, but there was no time for it now. ‘Your guildbrothers must do their part,’ Onkmarr declared. ‘They must get the machine ready before the sun betrays us or the elgi find us. Everything hinges on that. If we miss our shot, then all of us deserve no better than to wander Gazul’s halls for eternity. We will have betrayed the trust and hope of our people. We will have failed our oaths to our ancestors and our gods!’

  ‘It will be as you say,’ a chastened Strombak said. He looked up anxiously at his liege. ‘You are determined to…’

  Onkmarr slapped his hand against his axe. ‘It is the doom that has come for me. I would not cheat it for a lesser end.’

  Strombak nodded. ‘Then I
would stand beside you, my liege.’

  Onkmarr smiled and clapped his hand on the engineer’s shoulder. Together they watched as the enormous machine began to take shape on the valley floor. Piece by piece, beam by beam, a colossal catapult was taking shape. It resembled a grudge thrower as much as a sword resembled a knife. The scale of the thing was nearly beyond compare, a cyclopean construction that strained the limits of dwarfish inventiveness and mechanics. Even Strombak was hard-pressed to understand all of the balances and counter-balances that allowed the weapon to function, the weights that would keep it from shaking itself apart when its titanic arm was loosed and it hurled its awful burden at the enemy.

  By the standards of the dawi, the assembly of Brynnoth’s Wrath was reckless and frantic. The engineers would have preferred to have days to set each part into its place. Instead, they only had a few hours. When they were finished, however, they had erected a monster of oak and wutroth and steel that stood two hundred feet in height. The wood was stained a grey-black, blending into the darkness around it. As the workers dispersed back into the wooded hills, the crew of artillerists who would work the catapult marched up to it, their armour blackened with soot to avoid any betraying reflection.

  The last gang of labourers loaded the great stone head from the sledge, rolling and sliding it into the gigantic basket at the end of the catapult’s arm. Once the scowling visage of King Brynnoth was set in place, the labourers turned and retreated to the heights.

  ‘It is time,’ Onkmarr said again, feeling the weight of his words press upon him. It was no easy thing to embrace one’s doom, but if it were easy then there wouldn’t be any honour to be had from it.

  Onkmarr and Strombak strode down to the colossal catapult. The artillerists bowed as their king walked past them. ‘All is in readiness,’ their captain reported. He gestured to the notched wooden partitions that fronted the legs of the catapult and from which the artillerists had taken sightings and evaluated the direction and distance between themselves and their target. Everything had been calculated long before the catapult was erected; the artillerists had simply verified the range and that Brynnoth’s Wrath stood in the exact spot it had been designed to stand.