Grudgebearer

by Gav Thorpe

  The deep blow reverberated across the battlefield, causing the ground itself to tremble. The note seemed to echo down from the clouds and rise up from the earth, filling the air with thunderous noise. The runelord took a deep breath and blew again, and this time Barundin felt the earth shaking beneath his boots. The shuddering grew in intensity and gaping cracks began to emerge in the tortured ground. Orcs and goblins toppled into the newly formed crevasses.

  ‘Come on lad, don’t just stand and gawp!’ cried Hengrid raising his hammer above his head. Looking around, Barundin saw that the orcs were stunned, many of them on the ground clasping their ears, others pulling themselves out of holes and cracks.

  Barundin snatched up the standard of Zhufbar in his left hand and charged forward with the hammerers, like the tail of a destructive comet behind the White Dwarf. Hammers rose and fell onto orc skulls, while Barundin’s axe bit into flesh and shattered bone. Within minutes, the orcs were broken, the tattered remnants of the horde fleeing faster than the dwarfs could follow.

  The enemy vanquished, Barundin felt exhaustion sweep through his body and his legs weaken. He stumbled and then righted himself, aware that he was in front of his fellow dwarfs and needed to be strong.

  He remembered his father and with a curse turned and ran back across the corpse-laden field to where the king still lay. Arbrek was beside Throndin, cradling his head and holding a tankard to the king’s lips. Throndin spluttered, swallowed the beer, and heaved himself onto one arm.

  ‘Father!’ gasped Barundin as he came to a stop and leaned on the standard for support.

  ‘Son,’ croaked Throndin. ‘I’m afraid I’m all done in.’

  Barundin turned to Arbrek for some form of denial, but the runelord simply shook his head. The dwarf prince turned as he felt a presence behind him. It was the White Dwarf. With gauntleted hands, he removed his helm, his bushy beard gushing out like a waterfall. Barundin gave another gasp. The face that looked at him was that of the old pedlar.

  The White Dwarf gave him a nod and then stepped past and knelt beside the king. ‘We meet again, King Throndin of Zhufbar,’ he said in a gruff tone.

  ‘Grombrindal…’ the king wheezed. He coughed and shook his head. ‘I should have seen, but I refused to. It is not in our nature to forgive, so I can only offer my thanks.’

  ‘It is not for gratitude that I am here,’ replied the White Dwarf. ‘My oath is as hard as stone, and cannot be broken. I only regret that the leader of the orcs escaped my axe, but I will find him again.’

  ‘Everything would have been lost without you,’ said Barundin. ‘That oathbreaker Vessal must be held to account.’

  ‘Manlings are weak by nature,’ said the White Dwarf. ‘Their time is so short, they fear to lose everything. Not for them the comfort of the Hall of Ancestors, and so each must make what he can of his short life and hold that life dearly.’

  ‘He forsook his allies. He is nothing more than a coward,’ growled Barundin.

  The White Dwarf nodded, his gaze on Throndin. He stood and stepped up to Barundin, looking him in the eye. ‘The King of Zhufbar is dead. You are now king,’ the White Dwarf said. Barundin glanced over Grombrindal’s shoulder and saw that it was true.

  ‘King Barundin Throndinsson,’ said Arbrek, also standing. ‘What is your will?’

  ‘We shall return to Zhufbar and bury our honoured dead,’ said Barundin. ‘I shall then take up the Book of Grudges and enter into it the name of Baron Silas Vessal of Uderstir. I shall right the wrong that has been done to us today.’

  Barundin then looked at the White Dwarf. ‘I swear an oath that it shall be so,’ he said. ‘Will you swear with me?’

  ‘I cannot make that promise,’ said the White Dwarf. ‘The slayer of your brother still lives, and while he does, I must avenge Dorthin. In time, however, you may yet see me again. Look for me in the unseen places. Look for me when the world is at its darkest and when victory seems far away. I am Grombrindal, the White Dwarf, the grudgekeeper and the reckoner, and my watch is eternal.’

  GRUDGE TWO

  THE GRUDGESWORN

  The dwarfs stood in a quiet group, King Barundin at their head, looking out over the battlefield. The pyres of orc bodies were now no more than dark patches in the mud and grass, and the grey sky was tinged with smoke from the halfling hearths around the battlefield.

  Upon a bier decorated with golden knotwork and the stylised faces of hanging ancestor badges lay the body of King Throndin, held aloft by Ferginal and Durak. The king’s stonebearers in life were now the carriers of his body in death. Beyond them, a large knot of halflings stood watching the ceremony, many of them weeping. Their scabrous little dogs even felt the mood, lying on the ground whining and yapping. For their part, the honour guard of dwarfs stood in stoic silence, their glimmering mail and long beards frosted by the cold air.

  Arbrek stepped up to Barundin and gave a nod. The new King of Zhufbar cleared his throat and turned to the assembled mourners.

  ‘In life, King Throndin was everything that a dwarf should be,’ said Barundin. His gruff voice was deep and strong, the words well-rehearsed. ‘Never one to forget a vow, his life was dedicated to Zhufbar and our clans. Now, as he looks upon us from the Hall of Ancestors, we give thanks for his sacrifice. I must now take up the burden that he carried upon his shoulders for those many long years.’

  Barundin walked across to the shroud-covered body of the dead king. His face, pale and sunken in death, was framed by a shock of greying hair. Throndin’s beard had been intricately braided into funerary knots, the better for him to look in the Halls of the Ancestors.

  Barundin laid a hand upon his father’s unmoving chest and looked eastwards, where the World’s Edge Mountains reared up from beyond the horizon, disappearing into the low clouds.

  ‘From stone we came and to stone we return,’ said Barundin, his gaze focussed on the mountains in the distance. ‘On this very field, a year ago, King Throndin gave his life. He died not in vain, for his life was taken avenging the death of his son and fulfilling his last oath.’

  Barundin then looked at the dwarfs and pointed to the ground a short distance away. A hole had been dug, lined with carved stone tablets, and to one side on a small stand was Throndin’s oathstone.

  ‘Here my father took his last breath, to swear never to take a step back, never to surrender to our foes,’ continued Barundin. ‘He was true to his word and was struck down on this spot. As he swore then, so shall we obey his will. We have returned here from Zhufbar to see his wish carried out, after a due period of state and my true investiture as king. The clanhave paid their respects, we have received messages of courage from my fellow kings in the other holds, and my father has lay in state as appropriate to his station. Now it is time for us to wish him well on his journey to the Halls of the Ancestors.’

  The bier-bearers marched forward with the body of the king, Barundin and Arbrek following them, and stood beside the open grave. Hengrid Dragonfoe joined them, a foaming mug of ale in his hand. It was halfling ale, nowhere near as good as dwarf ale, but the Elder of the village had been so adamant and sincere that Barundin had wilted under her impassioned request to provide the final pint. Arbrek had assured the king that his father would have been grateful for the gesture from the people he had died fighting to protect.

  Hengrid handed him the mug and Barundin took a swig before placing the tankard on his father’s chest. With great care Throndin’s body was lowered into the grave until it rested on a stone plinth at its bottom. A covering stone, inlaid with silver runes of protection by Arbrek, was then lifted over the tomb, completing the blocky sarcophagus. Barundin took a proffered shovel and began to pile the earth from the grave onto the coffin of his father. When the funeral mound was complete, Ferginal and Durak took up the king’s oathstone and placed it at the top of the mound, marking the grave for all eternity.

  ‘Stone to stone,’ said Barundin.

  ‘Stone to stone,’ echoed the dwarfs around him.
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  ‘Rock to rock,’ intoned the king.

  ‘Rock to rock,’ murmured the throng.

  They stood in silence for a few moments, broken only by the yelps of dogs and the sniffling of the halflings themselves, each dwarf paying his last respects to the fallen king.

  Finally, Barundin turned and faced the crowd of dwarfs. ‘We return to Zhufbar,’ the king said. ‘There are fell deeds to be done, grudges to be written and oaths to be sworn. On this, the day of my father’s end, I swear again that the name of Baron Silas Vessal of Uderstir is worth less than dirt, and his life is forfeit for his betrayal. I shall right the wrong that has been done to us by his treachery.’

  Barundin led the small host eastwards into the World’s Edge Mountains and they took the southerly route towards Zhufbar, passing close to the ancient hold of Karak Varn. The dwarfs proceeded cautiously as they neared the fallen stronghold, keeping their axes and hammers loose in their belts. Small groups of rangers preceded them, wary of orcs and goblins and other foes who would look to attack them. On the afternoon of the second day, they reached the shores of Varn Drazh – Blackwater – a vast mountain lake that filled a crater smashed into the mountains millennia before.

  The name was well earned, for the lake was still and dark, its surface rippled only by the strong mountain winds. As they marched along the shoreline, the dwarfs were quiet, wary of the creatures that were known to lurk in the depths of the water. Their unease grew as their course took them around Karaz Khrumbar, the tallest mountain surrounding the lake and site of the ancient beacon tower of Karak Varn. The blackened, tumbled stones of the outpost could still be seen littering the mountainside, gutted by fire nearly four thousand years earlier as orcs had attacked Karak Varn.

  The fallen hold itself lay at the south-western edge of the lake, and the cliff face from which it had been delved could be seen rearing out of the mountain mists in the distance. Looking upon it, Barundin felt a tremor of emotion for his lost kinsmen, He could imagine the scene as vividly as if he’d been there four millennia ago, for the tale of the fall of Karak Varn had been a bedtime tale for him as a young dwarf, along with the stories of all the other dwarf holds.

  The king could almost hear the sound of warning horns and drums echoing across the lake as the green skinned hordes had assaulted the small towers atop Karaz Khrumbar. They called in vain, for Karak Varn was already doomed. The mountains had shook with a ferocity never known and the great cliff had been rent in two, smashing aside the gates and allowing the cold waters of the Varn Drazh to pour into the hold, drowning thousands of dwarfs. Sensing the dwarfs’ weakness, their enemies had gathered.

  From below, in tunnels gnawed from the bedrock of the mountains, the rat-things had come, silently in the darkness, slitting throats and stealing away newborns. The dwarfs of Karak Varn had mustered what might they could against this skulking foe, but they’d been unprepared when the orcs and goblins had come from above.

  The dwarfs of Karak Varn had fought valiantly, and their king refused to leave, but some clans realised their doom and managed to escape the trap before it fully closed. Some of those clans still wandered the hills, dispossessed until their lines died out or were absorbed by one of the hold clans. Others had sought shelter in Zhufbar or gone west to the Grey Mountains. None of the dwarfs that had remained in the hold had survived.

  Now majestic Karak Varn was no more. Called Crag Mere, it was a desolate place, full of shadows and ancient memories. Barundin looked out across the water and knew that beneath the rock and water lay the treasures of Karak Varn alongside the skeletons of his forefathers’ kin. Occasionally the engineers of Zhufbar would construct diving machines to explore the sunken depths of the hold, but few of these expeditions returned. Those who did spoke of troll infestations, goblin tribes and the vile ratmen clawing an existence out of the ruined hold. There was the odd treasure chest recovered, or an ancient rune hammer or some other valuable, enough to keep the stories fuelled and spark the imagination of others adventurous or foolhardy enough to dare the dangers of the Crag Mere.

  Blackwater’s name had taken on new meaning, and had become the site of many a battle between dwarfs and goblinkind. It had been here that the Runelord Kadrin Redmane had stood upon the shores, protecting his carts of gromril ore against an orc ambush. Seeing that his force was doomed, his final act had been to throw his rune hammer into the depths so that it would not fall into greenskins’ hands. Many an expedition had sought to recover it, but it still lay in the murky waters.

  It was on these bleak shores that the dwarfs finally slew Urgok Beard Burner, the orc warlord that had assailed the city of Karaz-a-Karak over two and half thousand years before in retaliation for the capture of their high king.

  And so the history of Blackwater went on, skirmishes and battles punctuating short periods of peace. The latest had been the Battle of Black Falls, when the high king had led the army of Karaz-a-Karak against a goblin host. At the culmination of the battle High King Alrik was dragged over the falls into Karak Varn by the mortally wounded goblin chieftain Gorkil Eye Gouger.

  Yes, mused Barundin, Blackwater has become an accursed place for the dwarfs.

  As night closed in, they set camp near the northern tip of Blackwater. Barundin was in two minds about whether to set fires or not, and consulted with Arbrek. The runelord and king stood at the water’s edge, tossing stones into its unmoving darkness.

  ‘If we light fires, it will keep wild animals and trolls at bay,’ said Barundin. ‘But they might attract the attention of a more dangerous foe.’

  Arbrek looked at him, his eyes glittering in the dying light. He did not reply immediately, but laid a hand on Barundin’s shoulder. Arbrek smiled, surprising Barundin.

  ‘If this is the most difficult decision of your kinghood, then your reign will have been blessed by the ancestors,’ said the runelord. His smile faded. ‘Light the fires, for if a foe is to come upon us, better that we have more than just starlight to watch for their coming.’

  ‘I’ll set double guard, to be on the safe side,’ replied Barundin.

  ‘Yes, better to be on the safe side,’ agreed Arbrek.

  As night settled, the winds calmed and turned northerly. Over the crackling of the flames of the half dozen fires, Barundin could hear another noise, distant and more comforting. It was a dim, barely audible sound like a bass roaring and rattling from the north. He slept fitfully and when he awoke, his eyes were drawn to the still menace of the lake, his spine tingling with the sensation of being watched. He turned his eyes northward and saw the faintest of glows in the darkness beyond the nearest mountains, a dull, ruddy aura from the forges of Zhufbar. With happier thoughts, he fell asleep again.

  The night passed without incident and as the sun crept over the eastern peaks, the dwarfs finished their breakfast and readied for the march. Gorhunk Silverbeard, one of Barundin’s hammerer bodyguards, sought out the king as he brushed and plaited his beard. The veteran warrior wore the tanned hide of a bear across his shoulders, suitably tailored for his frame. If the stories were to be believed, he had killed the bear with only a small wooden hatchet when he was a beardling. Gorhunk had never confirmed or denied this, though he seemed happy with the reputation. That he was an accomplished and experienced fighter was obvious just from the two ragged scars that ran the length of his right cheek, turning his beard white in two stripes.

  ‘The rangers have returned,’ Gorhunk told his king. ‘The path to the north is clear of foes, though they found spoor of wolf riders, a few days old.’

  ‘Pfah! Wolf riders are nothing but scavengers and cowards,’ spat Barundin. ‘They’ll give us no trouble.’

  ‘That’s true, but they can also fetch help,’ warned Gorhunk. ‘Where there are wolf riders, there’ll be others. This place is crawling with grobi scum.’

  ‘We’ll set off as soon as is convenient,’ said the king. ‘Send the rangers out again. There’s no harm in being forewarned.’

  ‘Aye,’ said
Gorhunk with a nod. The hammerer turned and strode off into the camp, leaving Barundin to his thoughts.

  With the fall of Karak Varn, Zhufbar had been left partially isolated from the rest of the old dwarf empire. Now they were surrounded by hostile orc and goblin tribes, while the ratmen were never too far away. It was a constant battle, and on a handful of occasions the hold had been seriously threatened with invasion. But they had survived these attempts, and the mettle of Zhufbar was as strong as ever. Barundin, as new king, was determined that his hold would not fail during his reign.

  Not long after the sun had reached noon, the dwarfs passed into the chasm at the north end of Blackwater. Here the dark waters rushed over the edge of the cliff in a gushing waterfall, the mountainsides echoing with the roaring, foaming torrent. Behind the noise was another, more artificial sound: the pounding and clanking of machinery.

  The walls of the waterfall were lined with scores of waterwheels, some of them massive. Gears, pulleys and chains creaked and groaned in constant motion, driving distant forge hammers and ore crushers. Stone viaducts and culverts redirected the waters into cooling tanks and smelters. Amongst the spume and spray, gantries of iron and bulwarks of stone dotted the landscape, the muzzles of cannons protruding menacingly from embrasures, watching over this vulnerable entrance into Zhufbar.

  Steam and smoke from the furnaces was lifted high above the vale, gathering in a pall overhead. The air was thick with moisture and droplets formed on Barundin’s beard and armour as they began their descent. The path wound back and forth along the chasm’s southern face, in places curving down spiral steps hewn through the rock, in others crossing cracks and fissures over arcing bridges with low parapets. Beneath them, the glow of Zhufbar’s forges tinged the watery air with a glinting red hue.

  At the foot of the chasm, the road took a long spiral turn northwards to the main gate, overlooked by more fortifications. As the group neared, word was passed from watchtowers to the gate wardens. A deep rumbling made the ground reverberate underfoot, as water was redirected from the flow through the gate locks. Heavy iron bars and granite lockstones were separated from one another, and the gates swung open, driven by large gears and chains machined into the rock on either side of the gateway.