The Curse of the Phoenix Crown

by C. L. Werner

  There would be the mages to worry about, too. The dawi had taken pains to keep their advance secret from the elgi, but never had they achieved the sort of surprise they’d accomplished when he’d led his warriors here against Prince Imladrik. Morgrim suspected that the elgi must have entire covens of mages whose only purpose was to use their sorcery to keep a watch for dwarfs advancing upon Tor Alessi.

  He let his hand fall to the hilt of Ifulvin. Whatever the dangers, they had to bring an end to this war. The elgi were too proud to leave on their own. The dawi were too stubborn to accept anything less than victory. Even the High King wanted to prolong the war. Morgrim knew Gotrek didn’t care so much about conquering Tor Alessi and driving the elgi into the sea. He wanted the Phoenix King. Nothing less than the blood of Caledor II would satisfy him. All the campaigns, the capture of the other elgi cities, the decimation of elgi armies, all of it had been an effort to lure their king back to the Old World. None of it had worked. Now the High King’s hand had been forced by his own subjects – they wanted the war over.

  At least Gotrek was king enough to recognise the fact. He’d entrusted command of his armies to Morgrim, leaving it to the Elgidum to take Tor Alessi. He knew Morgrim would fight without restraint, without the hope that they might yet draw the elgi king back.

  Morgrim looked over the armoured hearthguard who surrounded him. Each dwarf held his warhammer across his shoulders. Some of these warriors had been there from the very first, fighting with Prince Snorri at Angaz Baragdum. Old Khazagrim bore Morgrim’s standard. Too old to wield hammer or axe, much less lead the hearthguard, the grizzled ancient had almost begged for the honour of carrying Morgrim’s banner. Khazagrim had been the last dawi to cross blades with the elgi king, chasing Caledor off the field of battle after Snorri was cut down. His failure to take the elgi king’s head that day was a burden that had crushed him, aged him beyond his years. It was a terrible thing for any dwarf to live with such a burden of shame.

  Thoughts of shame drew Morgrim’s eye away from his hearthguard. Most of the dwarf regiments were forming into ranks in the shelter of the trees, where they would be safe from watchers on Tor Alessi’s walls. There was a distance of some two miles between the forest and the outermost wall, open ground that was devoid of any manner of cover. A killing field the elves had prepared long ago to receive the next wave of dwarfs to come against them. There wasn’t so much as a stand of tall grass to provide an enemy with cover but that was of no concern to one group of dwarfs, who deliberately strayed out onto the field. They stood out at the edge of the woods, howling and jeering at the elves on the walls. From time to time an arrow would whistle out, usually falling well shy of the shouting dwarfs. Occasionally one would strike true, stabbing into naked flesh. In response, the stricken dwarf, unless mortally injured, would simply rip the shaft from his body and wave the broken arrow at his attackers in a fresh bout of bawdy derision.

  There were thirty of them, drawn from across the Karaz Ankor. In appearance, they sought the same savage aspect as that of Rundin Daemonslayer. They wore little beyond their tattoos and chains, their hair dyed a bright crimson and shaved into a tall cockscomb. Those with beards wore them plaited and festooned with tiny runestones and golden talismans. Among them, however, were three who had no beards. Their faces were scarred and horrendously disfigured, only the odd tuft of hair sprouting from the wrecked skin. They were the last of the steelbeards, the survivors of the disgraced delegation to Ulthuan. Most of them had perished over the course of the war, but these three had persisted, driven on by their need to atone for the shame that had been inflicted upon them.

  It was Forek who led them now. The former reckoner had spent years in defiance of Morgrim’s command, hunting the refugees of Athel Toralien in the forests. By circumstances the steelbeard never explained, the warriors he’d led were wiped out. Only he had escaped and when he learned of Rundin’s death it had unbalanced his mind. He’d gone away, wandering the mountains for a decade before one day appearing at Karak Kadrin. He’d walked to the shrine of Grimnir and in the sight of the astonished priests had stripped off his mask and armour, shaving his head while making dire oaths before the ancestor god. Then he’d left again, as suddenly as he’d appeared. Stories filtered back about a crazed, beardless dwarf fighting trolls in the high passes, challenging beasts and greenskins wherever he found them and whatever the odds. Forek Grimbok soon came to be known by a new name: Forek Trollslayer.

  Morgrim knew the reckoner was seeking the same prize that had drawn Rundin from battle to battle: a noble death that would efface his shame. When he heard that Forek had challenged and destroyed the giant Yvnir near Kraka Drak, he was certain of it. No amount of reassurance from himself or even from his sister Elmendrin could sway him from his suicidal purpose. Other dwarfs, labouring under similar feelings of guilt, made the journey to Karak Kadrin and followed Forek’s example, shaving their heads and taking up what was now called the ‘Slayer’s oath’ – to wash away their shame by seeking a heroic death.

  The Slayers were fierce fighters, but undisciplined. Morgrim had been tempted to refuse them a position in the battle line. It wasn’t possible to depend on warriors already committed to dying to hold ground or occupy a position. Other fighters might be put in jeopardy if the Slayers charged off and left a flank exposed. In the end, though, he simply didn’t have the heart to deny them. They’d suffered so much already, it would take a soul more callous than his own to reject them a place in the battle. He would simply have to make allowances for them and ensure those who fought beside them had reserves ready to support them if the Slayers proved unreliable.

  ‘Why did we have to come to this?’ Morgrim said as he watched the Slayers turn their arses to the walls of Tor Alessi, daring the archers to loose another volley.

  ‘He blames himself for the dawi he lost in the forest.’ Morek Furrowbrow leaned against his runestaff, his head cocked to one side as he spoke to Morgrim. Ever since the fight against Htarken, the runelord’s body had become increasingly twisted, as though his spine were trying to inch its way around to his belly. Every year his shoulders became less even, and one arm was notably shorter than the other. Morek had grimly stated his own prognosis, that because he was attuned to magic the daemon’s corruption had been able to taint his body. How many years it would take before he was completely crippled, Morek wasn’t able to judge, but he wanted to find a different death for himself if he could.

  ‘We’ve all lost dawi who were following our orders,’ Morgrim said. Grungni only knew how many dwarfs had died under his command throughout the war. It was something that would snap any dwarf’s mind if he allowed himself to dwell upon it.

  Morek’s head twitched, the closest he could manage to a sidewise motion. ‘Forek confided to me that he let himself be goaded into pursuing the elgi from Athel Toralien by “Drogor”. He’d become great friends with Rundin during their days under Brok Stonefist. They’d argued when they last fought together and to find his friend dead was a terrible shock to Forek. To find him dead at the hands of the daemon whose advice he’d taken was simply too much guilt for him to accept.’

  ‘Now he seeks a hero’s death,’ Morgrim sighed. ‘Haven’t we lost enough heroes already? What is to be gained by dying?’

  The runelord’s answer came in a whisper, a whisper laden with piteous longing.

  ‘Peace.’

  In blocks of armoured warriors thousands strong, the dwarfs came marching out from the trees. The archers on the walls knew the range of the plain outside the city down to the last yard. There was none of the frustration and broken discipline that had caused a few of them to loose arrows at the Slayers. Captains and sergeants prowled the battlements, coldly warning their soldiers to hold back. Upon the towers, signalmen observed the advance, displaying flags as the enemy marched closer and closer.

  The goal was simple enough – to draw the dwarfs well within range of the archers befo
re loosing the first volley. The deeper the enemy was allowed to proceed within that kill zone, the more casualties the elves could hope to inflict. Once the dwarfs broke, they would have to retreat with elven arrows pursuing them every step of the way. The trick and the danger lay in deciding how close was too close. If the dwarfs were allowed to gain too much ground, they might be able to threaten the walls.

  From the lofty vantage of the Tower of the Dragon, Thoriol could see the dawi creeping ever closer. The woods seemed to pulse with eerie life as the trees began to sway, then pitch and fall. With rapid strokes, the dwarfs were cutting paths through the forest from the hills beyond, felling trees that must have already been weakened and prepared weeks before. Through these paths, great war machines were rolled towards the city: battering rams, catapults, bolt throwers and siege towers. It was an amazing sight, watching the way the dwarfs cleared the obstacles and brought their weapons forwards. He was reminded once again of his father’s warnings about underestimating the dawi race. By elven standards they were uncouth and crude, but it was a grave mistake to ever belittle their industry or determination.

  Like lambs to the slaughter, Draukhain hissed in Thoriol’s mind. Their determination is that of a frightened rabbit who runs into the jaws of the fox.

  From his saddle, Thoriol stroked the dragon’s scaly neck. It still amazed him how the reptile’s body could feel both cold and hot at the same time. ‘They know we are here, but I don’t think they marched all the way from their mountains just to burn in your fire.’

  That is their doom just the same. Look, you can see the killer’s standard down there. He is proud of what he’s done. It would be easy to make him swallow that pride. Before I swallow him.

  The dragon’s rage flowed through Thoriol’s veins. He felt the drake’s confidence, its ancient contempt for all the little creatures and lesser breeds. It was more than flesh and bone – it was elemental force unleashed. The dwarfs could no more stop it than they could a meteor. It would descend upon them and wreak such havoc that they’d never dare stick their heads from their holes again. It could take up his father’s killer and squeeze the life out of him, feel it drip drop by drop through its claws.

  Thoriol fought to regain his control. ‘Not until the order is given,’ he cautioned Draukhain. ‘Not until Lord Eylrk gives the command.’

  The latest of Menlaeth’s generals, Draukhain snorted with contempt. He cares nothing for justice, only for the glory he can win for himself here. How long before he too is called away in disgrace? We can leap down and claim our own from the dwarfs. That is the only glory you and I desire!

  The dragon’s urgings appealed to the pain and hollowness inside him. Thoriol would have liked nothing better than to submit. Avenge his father and then he could go home.

  It was his sense of duty and obligation that made him hold back. He couldn’t let himself bring disgrace to House Tor Caled, to the memory of his father. He couldn’t let the people of Tor Alessi believe he was less valorous than Ilendril and his enslaved creatures. Thoriol was surprised by the sense of embarrassment such thoughts provoked in Draukhain. The dragon understood that there was more to honouring Imladrik than avenging his death. It was ashamed to have forgotten that.

  Without Draukhain urging him to the attack, Thoriol was able to focus on the tactical situation as it unfolded. So many centuries on the battlefield had given him more than a cursory appreciation of strategy. Looking down on the dwarfs he was confused at what he saw. He’d seen the craft and care with which Morgrim had deployed his forces at Sith Rionnasc. What he saw now seemed as subtle as one of the dwarfs’ hammers. They advanced in great blocks, staggered like checks on a gameboard. The foremost regiments were heavily armoured with great shields; those following behind were arrayed in coats of mail and bore an assortment of ladders along with their weaponry. It seemed as if the armoured vanguard were there to cover the warriors following behind while they raised ladders against the walls.

  It was an obvious deception. If the dwarfs meant to force the walls, they would use their towers, not climb ladders that left them exposed to arrows. There had been no barrage to soften the defences, no effort to use smoke to blind the bowmen, no concentration of crossbows to keep the elves from pushing back the ladders as soon as they were raised. No, this wasn’t an attack, it was a feint, but no matter how hard he looked, Thoriol couldn’t see the purpose behind the deception.

  The archers held their arrows with exemplary discipline. Thoriol had stood where they now stood and he knew first-hand the strain of waiting for the command to loose, the fortitude it took to wait for the fighting to begin. Closer and closer the dwarfs came. At three hundred yards they hesitated, crying out in their gruff voices ‘Khazuk! Khazuk!’ before resuming their fearsome march. The captains on the walls were looking anxiously at the signalmen, watching for the command to strike the enemy.

  It wasn’t until the enemy was one hundred and fifty yards from the walls that the command was issued. The voices of the captains rang out sharply from every quarter of the outer wall. In response, archers stepped out from behind the embrasures and shot down into the dwarfish ranks. From the plain behind the walls, the massed ranks of bowmen deployed there arced a volley up and over the fortification, sending a rain of steel-tipped death showering down upon the dawi.

  Thick armour prevented most of the volley from striking true, but as the dwarfs raised their shields to defend themselves from the arrows dropping down on them from above they left themselves exposed to the sharpshooters on the walls ahead. Taking direct aim at the enemy, the archers took their toll, skewering throats and transfixing eyes with expert aim. Mangonels and bolt throwers shuddered into action, hurling boulders and shooting spears into the massed enemy.

  The barrage continued for several minutes before the dwarfs broke. First one regiment, then another turned to flee back across the field. Deep within range of the archers, they’d be vulnerable to attack to a distance of three hundred yards from the wall and a further two hundred yards before the sharpshooters on the walls couldn’t reach them with any degree of accuracy. Scores of dwarf dead littered the ground around the walls and many more lay strewn in the wake of the retreating dawi, like the trail of some steel slug.

  Another signal flag was raised, one that bore the device of a dragon rampant. Fierce roars shook the streets of Tor Alessi. From the spire of the Tower of the Sea, a great green-scaled wyrm rose into the sky and went soaring towards the fray. Rising from the Tower of the Winds was Malok, Lord Ilendril seated upon the red-scaled brute’s back. These two were the last of Ilendril’s wyrms, the others having turned on their masters or fallen in battle over the years since Sith Rionnasc. It was either a testament to Ilendril’s hubris or the desperation of the colonies that his wyrms were still being pressed into service.

  Thoriol waited only a heartbeat before urging Draukhain into the air. As they rose there sounded a woeful cry from the dwarfish ranks, a groan of despair as they saw the dragons take wing. That was only right. Let the dawi feel the terror of imminent death – let them curse the vanity that had made them march here to cross blades with the asur.

  Ilendril’s wyrms were already diving upon the retreating dwarfs. As they drew near, the volleys of arrows stopped, the artillery from the walls went quiet. The elves wanted to allow the dragons a clear field in which to operate.

  The two wyrms spat fire onto the dwarfs, immolating scores of them in their first pass. They swung back around to make a second run. Thoriol noticed something in that moment, something that made him scream a warning to Draukhain. The blue dragon pulled back, climbing instead of joining the wyrms in their dive. So it was that he escaped the trap as it was sprung.

  The advance and retreat of the dwarfs had been a ruse to draw out the dragons. For centuries the dawi had been making their preparations, preparing their traps. Right under the noses of the asur, their miners and engineers had been at work, burrowing ben
eath the plain, digging their tunnels in secret, hollowing out the earth below and constructing their fiendish weapons.

  As the two wyrms swept down upon the dwarfs, the earth erupted. Great iron poles, long hidden underground, now sprang upwards, slicing through the layers of dirt that concealed them. Between each set of poles was a steel net. Dwarfs were old hands at snaring bats by laying nets across the mouths of caves. Now they applied the same tactics to catching dragons.

  The two wyrms crashed into the nets, their wings becoming snared and dragging them down. As soon as they crashed to earth, the seemingly routed dwarfs turned. Screaming their war-cries they rushed at the fallen drakes. A blast of fire from Malok forced the dwarfs away as it used its claws to shred the confining net. The green drake wasn’t so fortunate. Its anguished wails rang out as hundreds of dwarfs chopped at it with axes and picks. The elf rider was ripped from his saddle, his head pulped beneath a warhammer.