The Great Betrayal

by Nick Kyme

  Annoyed at the interruption, Snorri stood up and started to dress. As he hauled on his overshirt, he replied, ‘Just my hand, Grimbok.’

  Forek Grimbok was removing his leather gloves, tucking them into his belt with the rest of his trappings, when he said, ‘Then why is it you need to remove your garments and armour?’ He looked to Elmendrin, sketched a quick bow. ‘Sister.’

  ‘Forek,’ Elmendrin replied.

  The reckoner was lean, with a thin face for a dwarf and an aquiline nose. His black beard was neatly trimmed and tidy, but still retained its length. His accent was cultured, for as well as reckoning for the king, he was also a gifted ambassador and negotiator.

  Snorri met Forek’s iron gaze without flinching. ‘I asked the lady Elmendrin to rub salts and salve into my back and neck. When fighting all day in your armour, a dwarf tends to develop a tightness in the shoulders that requires the tender mercies of the priestesses. But I doubt you would be aware of that given the reckoners’ deeds are generally confined to seeking recompense from other dwarfs, or am I wrong?’

  Forek’s face reddened at the obvious slight but he didn’t bite, not yet. ‘I serve your father, the High King,’ he said, ‘as do you, Prince Snorri.’

  Snorri laughed. ‘You and I are not so alike as that, reckoner.’ He strapped on his armour, attached his vambraces. ‘I assume you’re here to take me to him.’

  Livid with barely contained anger, Forek’s next words almost came through clenched teeth. ‘Indeed I am. You have much to explain.’

  ‘Not to you, Grimbok,’ said Snorri, flashing a smile at Elmendrin that elicited a scowl from the priestess.

  Forek gave her a warning glance, escorting Snorri from the temple in silence.

  ‘I know you covet my sister,’ he hissed once they had their weapons and were headed for the Great Hall.

  Snorri kept his eyes forwards, nodding to the clan warriors and guilders they met along the way. ‘It’s the only thing I like about you, Forek.’

  ‘What, my sister?’

  ‘No. Your boldness. One day it’s going to get you in trouble.’

  ‘Threats do not become a prince of Karaz-a-Karak, my lord.’

  Snorri laughed, loud and hearty like they were two old friends sharing a joke. ‘It’s not a threat.’

  Anything further would have to wait. Thurbad Shieldbearer waited at the end of the corridor, muscled arms folded across his chest. He had removed his vambraces and torcs banded his brawny skin instead.

  As Snorri approached, he stepped aside without a word and the iron-banded doors into the Great Hall opened with an ominous creak of hinges.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Arrows and Blades

  A bead of sweat creeping down his back, a half-glimpsed shadow at the periphery of his vision, a waft of noxious odour, the scent of perfume gone before it was fully resolved. Furgil recalled the sensations he had experienced when they’d found the nobles on the Old Dwarf Road.

  He knew these mountains, knew the hills and even the forests though he loathed their shaded arbours and sinister groves. In the wilderness, the lands beyond the hold halls of the mountains or the fortresses of the hills, there was much to be wary of. Danger lurked in every crag and narrow pass, in each wooded glade and weathered hollow. Creatures made their lairs in such places, hungry primitive things that preyed on the isolated and the lost.

  Never venture into the wild on your own.

  Save for the rangers, it was a rule many followed. But death was a patient hunter and all it took was a moment of recklessness, a wrong turn on the wrong trail, and all the guards and precautions would not matter.

  Even during times of peace, these were untamed lands. The Old World would never know true peace. Its citadels and bastions of civilisation, whether they were above or below ground, ruled by elf or dwarf, were merely lanterns in a dark and turbulent sea. Some were even less than that, merely candles guttering in the storm. Furgil had known of many outposts, isolated hamlets and villages where a stake wall, a watchtower and a warning bell were poor defence against being consumed by the darkness.

  Beasts and greenskins, giants, trolls and even dragons had descended upon such tenuous places and wiped them from existence.

  Knelt with his hand upon the earth, a fistful of dirt clenched to his palm, the thought of unending peril did not bother Furgil. It was the way of nature. It was balance and order, albeit a brutal one. He understood it and that made it tolerable to the dwarf.

  But something else lurked in the shadows, something that was not part of this order. It was a foreign object, a thing that had made the ranger’s skin crawl and his beard bristle. Ever since he was a beardling, Furgil did not like to be watched.

  Out on the Old Dwarf Road, he had sensed the presence of several watchers, of eyes regarding them with harmful intent. If asked, he could not explain how or why he knew this. It was a survival instinct he had cultivated whilst ranging the wild lands beyond the dwarf kingdoms, and it had saved his life on more than one occasion.

  Almost without thinking, he touched the scar that ran from his neck all the way down to his chest. Invisible to a casual observer, Furgil felt the evidence of the wound with every breath. The beast responsible was dead. Its gutted carcass was a trophy in his private chambers, a reminder of always listening to instincts, especially when they screamed danger.

  Furgil felt that sensation anew now and got to his feet. The earth had a strange aroma, the scent of narcotic root and dank metal. There was another smell too, old and ashen. Throwing the fistful of earth away, he dusted off his hands and descended the slope beyond the ridgeline into the heavy forest below.

  A fourth smell intruded on the others. It clung to the breeze like a plague, filthy and rank. It was piss and dung, mould and the stink of wet canine fur. Once off the road, their spoor was not hard to find. It wasn’t as if they were trying to conceal their tracks.

  A talisman hung around Furgil’s neck. It carried the rune of Valaya and he beseeched for her protection as he entered the wooded glade. The deep forest triggered a sense of disquiet in the ranger. East of Karak Norn was the Whispering Wood, the Fey Forest. He had never entered that place, nor would he unless his life or that of an ally depended on it, but he had seen what was bred within its arboreal borders. Such a beast now adorned Furgil’s wall, a many-antlered creature with too many eyes and reeking of musk, fever sweat clinging to its hide like a second skin…

  It was no fell beast the ranger now tracked, though. The snuffling of canine muzzles and the shrieking, clipped speech of greenskins were proof of that. Nor were these the watchers he had felt earlier, for they were much subtler creatures.

  The rest of his rangers had disbanded across the hills, searching for the watchers too. Furgil was alone.

  He sneered, ‘Grobi…’ when he saw what was waiting for him in the wood.

  Three greenskins and their mounts, mangy malnourished wolves, had dragged something off the road and were now worrying at it with tooth and claw.

  Silently, Furgil unslung his crossbow and released the studs that looped his hand axes to his belt.

  He didn’t kill the creatures straight away, but waited to ensure there were no scouts or any lagging behind. Only when he was certain he had all of his prey in his sight, did he bring the crossbow up to his eye and shoot.

  A bolt through the head killed the goblin instantly. It collapsed off the back of its wolf, much to the amusement of its fellows who thought it was drunk. When they realised it was dead, they looked up from their feast and began to chatter nervously, drawing crude blades and cudgels. By then, Furgil had loaded another bolt and sent a second rider to meet the first. This time the bolt tore out the goblin’s throat and it died slowly but in agony.

  A third bolt – and by now Furgil had given away his hiding place – killed a wolf. Its death howl sent a shrill of fear through its brethren, who reac
ted by snarling at the dwarf.

  A flung hand axe killed a second wolf, as it sprang at the ranger without its rider.

  The last died when his second thrown axe caved in its flank and sent spears of shattered ribcage into its soft organs.

  Rider and mount parted in a fury of curses and flailing weapons. More or less unscathed, the goblin got to its feet, jabbing at the dwarf belligerently with its sword. When it realised its cousins were dead and so too their wolves, it shrieked and fled.

  Furgil didn’t run after it. Calmly, he slipped a bolt into his crossbow and drew a bead on the goblin’s back. Obscured through thick woodland, scampering erratically and at pace. He counted the yards in his head. Nigh on two hundred by the time he had the stock to his cheek and sighted down the end of the bolt.

  A difficult shot for most dwarfs.

  Not for Furgil. Even the Eagle Watch was in awe of the ranger’s skill with a crossbow.

  The goblin pitched forwards moments later, the barbed tip of a quarrel sticking out of its eye.

  With all the prey dead, Furgil recovered his weapons and went over to see what they’d been gnawing on. He left the quarrel he used to kill the last goblin, resigned to picking it up later in favour of examining whatever carrion had nourished the wolf pack.

  The meat was badly mauled, but he caught scraps of tunic, a piece of bent-out-of-shape mail and even a broken helm. Judging by the chewed-up boots, the amount of ragged limbs, he estimated three bodies. Snagged between the wolves’ jaws was some ruddy and blood-soaked hair. In the slack mouth of another, tough and leathern flesh.

  Kneeling by one of the corpses, a scowl crawled across the ranger’s face. His fist clenched of its own volition.

  They were once dwarfs.

  Furgil was picking through the bodies, searching for talismans, rings or other icons that would identify the dead, when the crack of kindling behind him made his heart quicken. Cursing himself for a fool, his hand got as far as the crossbow’s stock when he felt the press of cold steel at his neck.

  ‘Twitch and this dirk will fill your flesh up to the hilt,’ uttered a deep voice in the ranger’s ear.

  A smile creased Furgil’s lips as he recognised the speaker.

  ‘You’ve spent too long in the mountain, brother,’ said the voice again, as the blade was lifted from Furgil’s neck. ‘It’s made you rusty.’

  ‘Has it?’ Furgil turned around and looked down at the throwing axe in his other hand, poised at the ambusher’s crotch.

  Rundin smiled broadly, revealing two rows of thick teeth like a rank of locked shields.

  ‘But I have more friends than you do,’ he said, sheathing his dirk as four hill dwarfs emerged out of the forest.

  Furgil lowered his axe. ‘Never did like the deep wood,’ he said, and made Rundin laugh.

  ‘That is true enough. Up you get,’ he said, clasping the ranger’s forearm in the warrior’s grip and heaving him to his feet.

  The two embraced at once, clapping one another on the back and shoulder like the old friends they were.

  Rundin was a slab of a dwarf, broad and muscular like a bear but also lean enough that he had a light, almost lupine, gait. Tanned skin spoke of days spent beneath the sun, roaming the wilds, and a mousy beard unadorned with ingots or rings suggested a down to earth temperament.

  ‘Been too long, son of Torban,’ said Rundin, adjusting the thick belt around his waist. Scabbards for several dirks, daggers and long knives were fastened to it, and another belt that sat across his barrel chest had a sheath for the great axe on his back.

  With a look, Rundin dismissed the other hill dwarfs who melted away silently. ‘Unwise to leave our backs unwatched,’ he said.

  Furgil nodded, his mood suddenly serious. ‘The truth of that sits before us, brother.’

  He gestured to the carrion feast, bidding Rundin to kneel down beside him as he continued his investigation of the corpses.

  ‘Dawi?’ The leather hauberk he wore creaked as Rundin crept down beside Furgil. He lifted his leather helm – there was an iron raven icon on the band around the forehead – to wipe away a lather of sweat.

  ‘I’d say merchants by what remains of their garments and trappings.’

  ‘Agreed. Though this one wears heavy armour and there are calluses from haft work on the hand.’

  ‘Dreng tromm…’ Furgil breathed, and shook his head. He looked up. ‘They did not meet their end here.’

  ‘Aye, did you see it too?’

  ‘That I did, brother.’

  Easily missed amongst the carnage, the broken shaft of an arrow protruded from one of the dead dwarfs. It was buried deep into his back. The other half was snagged to his mail jerkin, partly concealed under the dwarf’s body. It had swan feathers and the shaft itself was fashioned from white pine.

  ‘Elgi,’ said Rundin, face darkening.

  ‘Aye. We need to find that ambush site.’

  A bird call echoed from beyond the forest borders.

  ‘One of your men?’ asked Furgil, rising.

  Rundin nodded.

  It seemed they had already found where the dwarfs had died.

  Three more dwarfs grew cold on the road.

  They were face down in the dirt, surrounding a sturdy wagon with two dead mules. Some still clutched weapons in their hands. Drag marks in the earth, scattered stones at the edge of the road revealed where the three the goblins had taken had come from. Unlike their clansmen in the deep wood, the others were more or less intact. Decay had yet to set in, so the deaths were recent. Judging by dwarfs’ cold skin, the stiffness of their limbs and fingers, Furgil reckoned they had been dead a few hours.

  Arrows stuck from their backs, same white pine shafts, same swan-feathered flights. No goblin could loose with such a bow. Definitely elves.

  The thought brought a concerned expression to Furgil’s face.

  ‘Elgi slaying dawi?’ He released a long breath through his nostrils, trying to imagine the rationale for what he was seeing. ‘Hard to countenance, brother.’

  Rundin and Furgil were not brothers, though their bond of friendship was as strong, if not stronger than some siblings. They had shared the same clan once, several years ago. Both were Ravenhelms, though Furgil had been stripped of that honour by King Skarnag Grum and thrown out of the lands of the hill dwarfs upon pain of death.

  Unbaraki, the king had denounced him. It meant ‘oathbreaker’ and there was no greater insult that could be levelled at a dwarf.

  Furgil had spoken out against Skarnag, for his greed and his isolation of the hill dwarfs. A seat on the high council had given the thane of the pathfinders a voice. With it he had condemned himself to banishment and shame by a bitter, petty king.

  Fortunately for Furgil, the High King of the Worlds Edge Mountains agreed with the pathfinder and so he returned to the mountain from whence his clan had departed many centuries before.

  Worst of all was that Rundin knew it and had said nothing in his friend’s defence. Furgil had warned him not to, for then there would be no one to ensure the prosperity of the hill dwarfs. Loyalty to a corrupt ruler was the price Rundin paid, but devotion would only go so far.

  In the solitude of their own thoughts, both dwarfs remembered this thorn between them. It had long since been removed but the memory of it was still bleak.

  Furgil paced around the wagon.

  ‘Five heavily armoured guards and a merchant guilder at the reins.’

  Sweeping quickly across the scene, crouching and darting as he gathered further signs and markers, Furgil described what had happened.

  ‘No fight occurred here, no battle. The dawi were killed quickly, without mercy. See how the crossbow is loaded but this satchel is full of quarrels. And here… The warrior’s axe is still looped to his belt.’ He gestured to the wagon itself. ‘Unused shields still clasped to the
sides.’

  Rundin was crouched down, both hands resting on his thighs.

  ‘An empty wagon this close to the hold means they were returning home. Why attack a caravan without wares to steal?’

  ‘I don’t think they were merely thieves,’ said Furgil, though he had also noticed the little white bands around the dead dwarfs’ fingers from stolen rings, the red-raw marks on their wrists where gilded bracelets had been forcibly removed.

  Looking up from examining one of the dead guards, Rundin asked, ‘What then?’

  Furgil touched the swan-feathered shaft of an arrow. It had punched right through the dwarf’s platemail as if it were parchment.

  ‘This was cold murder, but I know of no elgi that would ever do such a thing.’

  Rundin frowned, remembering something. ‘From the watchtowers of Kazad Mingol there have been reports of black-cloaked strangers abroad on the hills. None have yet managed to get close enough to challenge them. When I read the missives that arrived at Kazad Kro, I assumed it was just because of the increased trade with the elgi.’

  ‘Feels different,’ said Furgil, suddenly glad that a ring of four hill rangers surrounded them. ‘On the Old Dwarf Road, I felt… something.’

  ‘Like being watched.’

  Furgil met Rundin’s gaze. The recognition in the warrior’s eyes sent a chill down the ranger’s spine.

  ‘Just so.’

  The earlier storm had almost passed, but the sun beaming down through the winter sky was neither warming nor comforting. Furgil stood up, deep in thought, his face creased with concern.

  ‘Can you return the bodies to Karaz-a-Karak, Rundin?’ he asked.

  ‘Of course, brother. Are you not going back, then?’

  ‘Not yet. I have to find out who these watchers are and what, if any, role they played in this slaughter. Dead dawi on the Old Dwarf Road this close to Everpeak is brazen, but I must go back to the High King with more than just questions and suspicions.’

  Rundin got to his feet. ‘Need some company?’

  Furgil eyed the deep wood, his gaze sweeping across the ridgeline, the low hills, rivers and the crags. They could be anywhere, travelling under any guise. Killing a dwarf on the threshold of his own domain took skill; killing six who were armed and looking for danger took something much, more dangerous than that.