The Great Betrayal

by Nick Kyme

  Gotrek despaired at the thought of it. They had gone from peace… to this.

  ‘So arrogant…’

  ‘My king?’ asked Thurbad, as the rest of the throng joined them in serried ranks to begin the march. ‘You mean the elgi?’

  ‘No, Thurbad,’ Gotrek replied. ‘I mean us.’

  His raised his axe and the dwarfs marched on the east gate.

  Through a fog of dust and spilling rock, Nadri clambered out of the breach and up to the surface.

  Ironbreakers were already fighting as well as several cohorts of clan warriors led by King Valarik. Seeing the imminent destruction of the wall and gatehouse, the lord of Karak Hirn had urged his throng towards it. The elves were quick to counter, and by the time most of the miners were shoulder to shoulder with their kith and kin, the fighting around the breach was ferocious.

  Nadri was still blinking the grit out of his eyes, adjusting to the light, when a shadow roared overhead. Though he didn’t see it, the very presence of the thing above filled his gut with ice and made his limbs leaden. The reek of sulphur wafted over him, burning his nostrils, and he heard the crackle of what sounded like a furnace being stoked only much louder, much deeper.

  Someone shouted; he couldn’t make out the exact word, but it sounded like a warning. Then a heavy weight smacked into him, bore him down until day became night and Nadri tasted hot armour on his tongue a moment later. Something was burning. There were screams, smoke, the stench of scorched meat, but it wasn’t boar or elk. It was dwarf. The roar came again, resounded across the breach.

  A gruff voice told him, ‘Stay down, until the monster has passed.’

  Blood flecked Nadri’s cheek. It was warm and wet. After a few seconds hunkered in the dark, he realised it belonged to one of the ironbreakers shielding him. He went to move, trying to find the injured warrior, but the gruff voice spoke again.

  ‘Hradi’s dead. Stay down.’

  Shouting this time, heard through a press of armoured bodies that were slowly crushing him. Nadri couldn’t breathe. Terrified, he’d been holding his breath and only now realised that he couldn’t draw more into his lungs. He also couldn’t speak to let his saviours know they were killing him.

  More shouting and the screech of something old and primordial. It was above him, squatting on the rubble. Nadri could almost see it. He caught a glimpse of scale, a tooth, a baleful yellow eye.

  Shadows lingered at the edge of his sight, growing deeper as he crept closer to oblivion. Singing, he heard. It sounded distant and at odds with the battlefield. He tasted beer, rich and dark, and smelled the succulent aroma of roasting pork.

  ‘Heg…’ It was all he could think of to say, though he wasn’t sure whether the name had actually passed his lips or he had merely imagined speaking. Either way, it was the last word of a wraith, Gazul beckoning him towards the gate, darkness closing in all around…

  It was like an anvil being lifted off his back. When he came to, the pressure was gone and Nadri heaved a long, painful breath into his gut. Hours must have passed; the sky above, what little he could see through the smoke, was darkening. He saw the suggestion of walls, a ruined tower, and remembered he had fallen on the battlefield inside the elven city. It took almost a minute before he got up, and even then he only sat. He’d lost his pickaxe. A host of dead ironbreakers surrounded him, cooked in their armour. Their champion’s face was etched with a grimace. They had protected him, in life and death. Deeper into the west quarter of the city, not that far from the breach, a battle was ongoing. Nadri heard shouts to the east, too, and the clash of arms at the northern gate that still held.

  His dead saviours weren’t alone. Nadri saw a dwarf he recognised, despite the horrendous burns. Exotic-looking armour was half-melted to his face. A veneer of soot clad his body like chainmail. Tendrils of smoke spiralled from his mouth. The rest of the brotherhood had advanced deeper into the breach, the miners too. Nadri and the others had been left for dead, except he was a sole survivor.

  ‘Heg…’ This time he knew the word was spoken aloud, and felt tears fill his eyes at his miraculous escape. Even surrounded by death, for the first time Nadri believed he might see his brother again. He was rising, pushing himself up on pain-weary limbs, when something nearby moved.

  It coughed, or at least it sounded like a cough but such a thing wasn’t possible. Then he saw the soot, flaking away like a second skin, the flesh beneath pristine and untouched by flame. Nadri gaped and would’ve grabbed for his weapon but the pickaxe was gone, lost in the chaos, and he was too paralysed to reach down for an ironbreaker’s axe. Most were fused to their gauntlets anyway.

  ‘Valaya,’ he breathed, staggering backwards from the thing that also lived. ‘What are you?’

  White teeth arched into a pitiless smile and a voice that was several but really no voice at all said, ‘Nothing you would understand, little dwarf.’

  Dusk was painting the horizon, creeping towards the battlefield with soot black fingers. They had held the breach for several hours, drawing the elves away for an attack on the east gate that had yet to breach much farther than its outer defences. Nightfall was approaching rapidly and with it the end of the sixth day and the third assault.

  For all that they pushed and pressured, the dwarfs could not sack the city – though it burned badly, there were fires everywhere and even the dragon rider had been put to flight when the heavy ballistae from the Varn had pierced its wings and sent it fleeing.

  Snorri raged. For every elf he cut down another took its place, two more ready after that and then three, four. It was endless. And these foes were not like greenskins or the beasts of the forest, or the terrors of the deep places or the high mountains; they were disciplined, determined and utterly convinced of the righteousness of their cause.

  Only one thing gave the young prince heart as he heard his father’s war horn sounding the retreat – the elves were wearying. Only a dwarf could match another dwarf in a war of attrition. Dwarfs were stubborn to the point of self destruction. Entire clans had wiped themselves out in proving that point to a rival or out of grudgement. Elves were strong, there could be no denying that now – only a fool would, and Snorri was no fool – but they were not dwarfs, and in the end that would prove their undoing.

  So as the throngs departed, leaving the ragged breach in their wake and the elves to contemplate how they might secure it before the dawn’s next attack, Snorri was smiling.

  And what was more, the dragon still lived.

  For now, the battle was over and Morgrim toured the field of the dead with shovel and pickaxe. As before, the elves granted the dwarfs clemency to tend to their injured and dead, and the dwarfs reciprocated. But even with this tenuous agreement, Morgrim eyed the silent ranks lining the walls of Tor Alessi with something that approached trepidation.

  His attention returned to the battlefield as an elf apothecary passed close by to him. Morgrim gave her little heed, but noticed there was no malice in her eyes, just a desire to ease suffering. Considering the dwarfs’ own healers, he wondered just how different they really were to one another when blades and pride weren’t getting in the way.

  Shrouded in cloaks of deep purple, a silver rune emblazoned on the back, were the priestesses of Valaya. They roved in pairs, administering healing where they could and mercy where they could not. Morgrim thought it was the least he could do to help bury those beyond help. Though the ground was hard from the winter frost, despite the heat from the dwarf forges softening the earth, it was purifying work. There was rejuvenation in good, honest, toil, even though it was grave digging. To wield an axe for something other than bloodletting came surprisingly welcome to him.

  A veritable sea of carnage stretched out in front of Morgrim. Acres of land were littered with broken shields; notched blades and spear tips; the sundered links of chainmail, rust red and still sticky; split pieces of elven scale, blackened by fi
re; shattered war helms with severed horns or their horsehair plumes aggressively parted; and the bodies of course, there were a great many bodies. One stood out above the others, which in itself was remarkable.

  Despite the dead dwarf’s expression, Morgrim recognised him. It was the miner Snorri had spoken to before they had laid siege, Copperhand or Copperfinger. Copper something, anyway.

  The poor bastard, like so many others, had given his life for hearth and hold. But unlike the remains of his kinsmen, this dwarf was unscathed. There were cuts and bruises, some of which were likely from digging, for he had the trappings of a tunneller. No killing blow that was obvious, though. It was his face that drew Morgrim to the dead dwarf’s side. Etched in such utter terror and disbelief. Fear had stopped the dwarf’s heart; he clutched his chest in rigor mortis as if it might have burst had he not.

  ‘Dreng tromm…’ breathed Morgrim, gripping a talisman that hung around his neck.

  ‘I’ve seen others who died with fear on their faces,’ said a female voice.

  Morgrim turned, half-crouched by the deceased, and saw Elmendrin.

  ‘Tromm, rinnki.’ He bowed his head.

  ‘Always so respectful, Morgrim Bargrum,’ she said, returning the gesture. ‘What is it the warriors call you? Ironbeard? Grungni-heart would be more appropriate.’

  Unused to flattery, Morgrim reddened. He gestured to the corpse.

  ‘You see something different in this one?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, he is dead from fear itself. But it’s as though something just reached in and crushed the beating heart in his chest.’

  ‘My reckoning was not quite so exact, but this dwarf’s death is unique.’ He looked out over the killing field. Other grave diggers had joined him, together with the priestess. Morgrim even thought he saw Drogor. The dwarf from Karak Zorn was brushing soot from his shoulders, having doubtless had a near miss when the dragon had burned the attackers at the west wall. Not many survived that assault. Indeed, Morgrim was surrounded by some of its victims as a dozen eagle-eyed elven archers kept a bead on him from the ruined battlements not ten feet away.

  ‘He can’t be buried here,’ Morgrim decided, hoisting the dwarf onto his back.

  Elmendrin helped him.

  ‘King Brynnoth’s tent is not that far,’ she said. ‘His grudgekeeper has been busy naming the dead all evening. Looks like a long night ahead of us.’

  At the edge of the dwarf encampment, rites for the dead could be heard being intoned by the priests of Gazul. Morgrim had seen the solemn service many times before during battle, when tombs could not be built nor bodies returned to their holds. Instead, the dwarfs would bury them in the earth according to their clans. Shoulder to shoulder they would meet Grungni as warriors, the honourable dead. Barrows of earth would shroud them, dug by the surviving clans as Gazul’s priests uttered benedictions and incantations of warding. Every dwarf war caravan carried tombstones and these rune-etched slabs would be placed upon the mounds of earth where the fallen were buried. If the ground proved too hard to dig or the army fought on solid rock or tainted earth then the dead would be burned instead and their ashes brought back in stone pots for later interment. These too were carried by Gazul’s priests on sombre-looking black carts. So did the dwarfs attend to their dead, even when far from hearth and hold.

  ‘Does Snorri know you’re here?’ Morgrim asked, as they started walking. A dozen bowstrings creaked at the dwarfs’ departure.

  Elmendrin looked down at the ground. ‘No. And it must stay that way.’

  ‘I doubt your presence will be a secret for long.’

  ‘Perhaps, but for now I want to do my work, fulfil my oaths to Valaya. Besides,’ she said, ‘Snorri has more important things to worry about than me.’

  ‘I think he would argue that.’

  ‘Which is precisely why I must go unnoticed by the prince.’ She allowed a brief pause, then looked up at Morgrim. ‘The war has changed him, hasn’t it?’

  ‘All of us are changed by it, and will continue to be.’

  ‘Not like that, I mean,’ said Elmendrin.

  Morgrim regarded her curiously.

  She answered, ‘It’s made him better, somehow. As if he was forged for it.’

  There was a sadness in Morgrim’s eyes when he replied. ‘I think that perhaps he was, that all his petulance and discontent stemmed from a desire to fulfil that for which he was made.’

  ‘I thought so,’ said Elmendrin, moving off to help one of her sisters. ‘Do one thing for me, Morgrim Bargrum.’

  ‘Name it,’ he called out to her.

  ‘Try to stop Snorri from getting himself killed.’

  He didn’t answer straight away, watching Elmendrin disappear back in to the mass of dead and dying. There were tears in his eyes when he did.

  ‘I will.’

  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 ins
ide, 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.’