“I would not swap such sights for the quiet pedantry of the Phoenix Throne,” he declared. “Who needs to be Phoenix King when glory and conquest await? Let Bel Shanaar wither away in courts and audiences, while the wider world awaits me.”
Alandrian looked unconvinced.
“What is it?” said Malekith.
“It is Bel Shanaar who chooses to stay in Ulthuan and turn his reign into one of domesticity and politics,” said Alandrian, turning his gaze towards the mountains. “Were you to be Phoenix King, I have no doubt that you would do so at the head of our armies, not from the comfort of Anlec. In time, the princes will see that their king leads from behind them, not from the front. Then they will see the true worth of Nagarythe, and her prince.”
“Perhaps,” said Malekith. “Perhaps one day they will.”
The two stood in silence for a short while, gazing at the mountains, each content in his own thoughts concerning what they and their dwarfen rulers might herald for the Naggarothi. The sun now rose above the lowest peaks and golden light spilled down upon the hills.
A gruff cough attracted Malekith’s attention and he turned to see a dwarf standing in the tower doorway.
“We should rejoin our hosts, highness,” said Alandrian. “Kurgrik will wish to leave soon.”
“Go ahead and prepare for our departure,” said Malekith, looking back at the mountains but his thoughts far to the west upon Ulthuan. “I’ll be with you shortly.”
Over the following days, the dwarfs and elves stopped at several more of the way-forts. Each was as drab as the first and Malekith’s expectations of the dwarfs’ cities sank with every new sighting of the small, functional buildings.
The dwarfs took the time to spend a night in each of these way-fortresses, to gather news from the garrisons and show off their intriguing guests. The beer they had been presented with at the first meeting was much in evidence, and out of courtesy Malekith deigned to sample the different brews offered to him by each of the keep commanders. Though far from enamoured of the vulgar ale, Malekith soon learned the art of swallowing his allotted draught swiftly, so as to leave as little taste as possible in his mouth. He thought that perhaps this was why the dwarfs also drank so quickly; that they did not really like the taste of their own brews. However, the regularity with which the dwarfs returned to their barrels in an evening suggested otherwise.
When they came into the mountains proper, the dwarfs warned the elves to remain on their guard. Though the forests were the realm of Chaotic denizens and bloodthirsty beasts, the mountains were also home to many orcs and goblins, and other creatures such as trolls, giants and monstrous birds that frequently came south in search of food.
“Many daemons and monsters once besieged our holds,” said Kurgrik, via Alandrian’s improving skills as a translator. The foothills were now rising steeply towards the mountains. The column was winding its way along a rough track, Kurgrik riding on his wagon, Malekith and Alandrian walking beside it.
“The sun hid and endless night darkened the mountains,” the thane continued. “The valleys echoed to the howls and roars of the creatures of the north. They beat upon our gates and hurled themselves at our walls. Many dwarfs died defending their homes against the horrors.”
“We too suffered under the assault of Chaos,” Malekith said. “Then Aenarion, my father, led the war against the daemons and brought us through the dark times.”
“Grimnir was the greatest of our warriors,” said Kurgrik with a wistful smile. “Grungni, master of the runes and wise beyond mortals, forged two great axes for Grimnir. With these he slaughtered an army of the beasts. Valaya wove a cloak for her kin, and with her protective gift Grimnir fought against the largest and most deadly foes. Yet for all his fierce skill, Grimnir could not defeat every daemon, for they came forth in an unending tide.”
“As it was on Ulthuan,” said Malekith. “Without end came the legions of Chaos. We fought without hope until Aenarion made the final sacrifice. He spilt his blood upon the altar of Khaine in return for victory.”
“Grimnir travelled far into the north with one of his axes and fought to the great gate of the Chaos gods,” Kurgrik said, frowning slightly at the prince’s interruption. “He was never seen again and his axe was lost. He battled into the gates themselves and even now wages war upon the daemons in their own realm, holding back their unending companies.”
“Caledor’s vortex closed the gates,” said Malekith. “It was the magic of the elves that stemmed the daemonic tide.”
Alandrian looked hesitant and did not translate his master’s words.
“Why the silence?” demanded Malekith.
“Perhaps it is better that the dwarfs do not know that we trapped their greatest hero within the Realm of Chaos,” Alandrian said with a warning look. “They may not take kindly to such knowledge.”
“We cannot let them peddle this fallacy,” Malekith insisted. “It is the strength of the elves, not the dwarfs, that holds back the forces of the Dark Gods.”
“Who is to say that the dwarfen ancestors did not unwittingly aid Caledor’s conjuration?” said Alandrian. “That they suffered under the darkness of Chaos surely gives us more in common with them. Allow them to celebrate their own victories, for they do not tarnish your father’s.”
Malekith considered this, not entirely convinced that he could allow the dwarfs to undermine the achievements of Aenarion. A glance at Kurgrik showed the dwarf watching the elves’ exchange with friendly bemusement. The prince relented upon seeing the dwarf’s ugly, honest face.
“Say that both elves and dwarfs have earned their right to live free upon this world,” said Malekith. “Tell him that it is my hope that we no longer fight alone, but as allies.”
Alandrian’s expression was one of shock.
“What?” demanded Malekith. “What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing, highness,” said Alandrian. “Quite the opposite, in fact. That is the most diplomatic thing I have heard pass from your lips in a hundred years!”
The glint of laughter in Alandrian’s eyes quelled the angry retort welling up in Malekith’s throat, and the prince merely coughed as if clearing his throat.
“Just keep the dwarf happy,” he finally managed to say, suppressing a smug smile.
Their journey took them on for thirteen days before they reached the dwarf city, or hold as it was known to the dwarfs. Karak Kadrin they named it, one of the most northern cities in the mountains.
The location of the city was unmistakable, and as different from the road stations as could be imagined. High ramparts and towers dotted the sides of the pass, overlooking the approaches with sentries and war engines. Immense faces shaped into stylised likenesses of dwarfs were carved into the mountainsides—the Ancestor Gods, the elves were told.
From dark rock were the gatehouses carved, seen for the first time as the road turned to the north edge of the pass and began to wind back and forth up the hillside. They were as two mighty keeps, their foundations made from the mountain itself, thousands of heavy stones painstakingly cut and fitted to form fortifications that rivalled the great sea gates of Lothern. Golden standards glittered in the mountain sun, and banners stitched with angular runes and more of the curious dwarf designs hung from the ramparts.
Between the two immense flanking towers, the gates were closed. Almost as high as the gatehouse, arching far above the pass below, the gate was covered with plates of gold embossed with ancestor faces and symbols of smithying such as anvils, hammers and forges. Warriors clad in chainmail and heavy plates of armour guarded the portal, their expressions hidden behind full-faced helms wrought in the likenesses of fierce dwarf visages.
As the party came within sight of the gate towers, horns began to sound out, filling the valley with long, sonorous peals that rose and fell in harmony with the rebounding echoes. At this signal a much smaller door in the gate opened, though still thrice the height of an elf and broad enough for them to enter ten abreast.
<
br /> Malekith had been impressed by the outer workings of the hold, but when he passed through the gate he stopped dead in his tracks and looked around in awe. The entrance hall was dug from the bare rock of the mountain, and far from the dreary stone of the way-keeps, it had been fashioned and polished so that it glittered in the light of hundreds of lanterns, every fault and strata a glorious decoration in its own right.
Long and no wider than the main gate, the hallway delved into the mountain, its high ceiling held by great arches carved from the living rock and sheathed in silver. The columns along the walls were cut in the same stylised fashion as the bastions upon the mountainsides; pillars of angular dwarf faces rising into the vaults above.
The lanterns that illuminated this impressive scene hung from thick chains suspended from the high vaults, each lamp larger than a dwarf and glowing with magical light. In the glow of these, the carvings between the arches could clearly be seen, depicting dwarf warriors at war, workers labouring in mines, smiths pounding at the forges and other vignettes of dwarfish endeavour. The floor was covered with regular flags, but each had been painstakingly etched with runes and lines of knotted patterns, the carved channels filled with coloured glass so that the ground was a riot of blues, reds and greens.
More dwarf guards lined the walls, arrayed in a line down each side, garbed in armour chased with gold, their double-headed axes inlaid with precious gems. Messengers had been sent ahead, and the party was greeted with much ceremony.
As they passed through the gigantic gateway the first pair of guards raised their weapons in salute, and so on down the line as the procession made its way along the long hallway. At the far end stood a delegation of dwarfs in brightly patterned jerkins, wearing elaborate helms adorned with horns or wings of gold, and each wore many rings and bracers, necklaces and brooches, so that they sparkled in the lantern light as they moved.
Behind each stood a banner bearer carrying a standard displaying the arms of the dwarf lords, bedecked with golden and silver badges and woven from fine metallic threads of every conceivable hue and shine. As with the other decorations, these were of axes and hammers, anvils and lightning bolts, displayed with such glimmering perfection that Malekith could imagine the royal standard of Nagarythe created in such a way.
Behind the welcoming party stood a door almost as large as the one by which the elves had entered. Cut from a solid piece of wood from some gigantic mountain oak, it was studded with bronze bolts, the head of each identically crafted as a pair of crossed hammers.
The dignitaries bowed low, sweeping their beards to one side with an arm so that they did not brush upon the ground. Malekith nodded his head in return, and the other elves also bowed in welcome. One of the nobles bore a large ornamental mace, and he turned and struck the door three mighty blows, the booms resounding around the hall. A slot opened in the door at about the height of a dwarfs face, and words were exchanged. There seemed to be some kind of argument, but Malekith suspected that this was some form of purposeful exchange whose significance eluded him.
Then the door opened, swinging effortlessly on hinges buried deep within the walls, to reveal the chambers beyond.
The hold was a veritable maze of corridors, halls and galleries, and though he tried to keep track of his path, Malekith soon found he was lost amongst the unending passages and stairwells. They seemed to be progressing up into the mountain, although by a circuitous route that rose and dipped.
The interior of the hold was not quite so grand as the entrance chamber, but still well built and decorated with gems and precious metals. Here and there the route took them past glowing foundries where the heat of furnaces blasted from open archways and the ringing of hammers echoed all around the visitors. There seemed to be little relent from the labour, though occasionally an artisan or forge worker would look up from his endeavours. The impression Malekith was left with was one of constant industry, as dwarfs wearing dirtied smocks and leather aprons busied themselves about the tunnels and rooms.
Eventually they were brought into the audience chamber of King Gazarund. It was a wide, low hall, with shields and banners hung upon the walls. Two long fire pits blazed to each side, the smoke from which disappeared up a cunning series of chimneys and channels to the mountainside far above. A walkway raised slightly above the rest of the chamber ran from the doorway to the throne dais, ascending up nearly twenty feet in a series of stepped rises. Bathed in the flickering red flames, the gold-inlaid tiles of the floor glimmered with ruddy light.
Kurgrik motioned for the elves to halt, and with the other thanes and notable members of the king’s council made his way forwards.
King Gazarund sat upon a throne of black granite decorated with more gold tracery. His expression was austere rather than welcoming, and in the firelight his dark eyes shone from under beetling brows. He was bare-armed, save for two intricately wound torques upon each bicep, and he was robed in a simple tabard of blue and white. His beard was thick and black, straggled with stray wisps of grey, and was so long that despite being coiled through loops upon his belt and woven into winding plaits, it still hung almost to the ground. His face was craggy and creased, his skin pocked with the scars of years.
Most distinctively, he wore a golden patch over his right eye, and to Malekith’s inner horror it appeared that this covering was riveted into the king’s flesh.
The king’s crown was set on a table beside the throne, so large and baroque that even this sturdy dwarf would not have been able to bear its weight upon his head. Wings as large as an eagle’s splayed from the war-helm, and its cheek guards were studded with dozens of diamonds. In its place, the king wore a simple steel cap, banded with brazen knotwork, a few wisps of unkempt hair escaping from under its fur-lined brim.
The dwarf nobles made petition to the king, or so it seemed to Malekith from his experience of similar ceremonies at the court of Bel Shanaar. The king nodded once and the elves were waved forwards.
With great deliberation, the true ritual of welcoming began, carried out with solemn decorum by the king of Karak Kadrin and his thanes. Malekith and the king exchanged gifts; for the prince a dwarf-wrought brooch of gold, for the king a fine elven bracelet made of silver and decorated with sapphires.
Malekith was presented to the nobles of the hold via a list of unintelligible names that he soon forgot, and then was ushered into the chambers that had been set aside for them to stay.
The bedrooms were accommodating, but far from plush. The furniture was for dwarfs, and so the chairs and beds were distressingly low. Malekith found it easier to kneel before the clay basin upon the wall to wash his face, rather than clean himself at a constant stoop.
There was no fire in the room, but a steady breeze of warm air came from a grated vent upon the wall; Malekith surmised this was somehow redirected from the forges below by some ingenious means. The fabrics upon the bed and chairs were stiff and unyielding, as was the padding in the mattress. Though Malekith would have preferred something a little more kind to lie upon, it was by no means a necessity for him having spent many of his long years on campaign in the wilderness.
After resting for a short while, Malekith then made it known to the dwarf who stood guard outside his door that he was ready to eat, by the simple expedient of miming food to his mouth and rubbing his stomach. The dwarf nodded in understanding and garbled something in return, and then stood back in his place.
Having called for Alandrian, Malekith again asked for something to eat, only to be told that there was a banquet to be held in their honour that night.
It was a fulsome affair, with much quaffing of ale and long speeches that Malekith did not understand. The feasting hall was bedecked with more banners, and great brass seals displaying the emblems of the various clans and guilds of the hold.
Three tables were arranged down its length, each seating a hundred feasters, and Malekith and his company sat at another table that ran across the head of the hall, along with the king and his most
trusted companions.
The food was for the most part palatable, consisting mostly of roast meats and boiled vegetables. Thick gravy and heavy dumplings were also served in abundance, along with pitchers of ale of all varieties and strengths. Malekith had become accustomed to delicately flavoured and fragranced meals, using such herbs and spices as grew on Ulthuan and in the islands on the other side of the world. The menu sat heavily on the prince’s stomach, and he could see how the dwarfs were so sturdy of build and wide of girth.
Still, the cooking was done with competence if not finesse, though Malekith despaired of his hosts’ table manners at times. Each course was served upon gigantic platters, and once the king had helped himself to whatever he desired, it seemed to become a free-for-all where everybody else was concerned. Ales were slopped over the bare wooden boards of the tables, and Malekith kept a suspicious eye on a puddle of gravy that spread dangerously close to him as the evening progressed.
Kurgrik, sitting on Malekith’s left, had taken it upon himself to assist the prince with his dining; assuring himself that his guest was plentifully fed by heaping ladle upon ladle of stew into his bowl, and small mountains of potatoes, roast ducks, barley cakes and other simple fare upon his plate.
Something else that took Malekith aback occurred shortly after the fourth course. There was a pause while the tables were cleared of plates and debris, and all of the dwarfs produced small pouches filled with dried ground leaves. The contents of these small bags they stuffed into pipes of all shapes and sizes, which they then lit and puffed on contentedly for quite some time.
The haze of pipe smoke quickly filled the hall and hung in a thick fug above the table, causing many of the elves to cough violently, including Malekith. Misreading their discomfort as subtle prompts, Kurgrik proffered his tobacco to Malekith. The elven prince declined with a smile and a firm shake of the head, and Kurgrik shrugged and placed his leaf pouch back into the recesses of his robe whence it had come, seeming not to take any offence.
01 - Malekith Page 6
