Honourkeeper

by Nick Kyme

  The king wore a simple blue tunic with silver trim and a short woollen cloak. It had been almost two months since Haggar and Kandor had set off with the elves. Winter still clung on tenaciously, reluctant to release its icy grip. Though the first thaws of the nascent spring were now emerging, evident in the subterranean reservoirs filling from the slowly melting mountain peaks, Bagrik still felt the cold and clasped his cloak tightly.

  ‘See here,’ said the king, ignoring the ache in his bones as he pointed out a weapons rack, ‘the ancient spear wielded by Drekk that slew Kharanak, the great dragon ogre.’

  ‘That must have been some throw to kill such a beast, and with a weapon such as this,’ Nagrim remarked, taking in the sight of the simple flint-pointed wooden spear.

  ‘Aye, lad,’ Bagrik agreed. ‘They did things differently in the elder days when the Karaz Ankor was newly forged, and dwarfs took their first faltering steps into the world.’

  ‘Tromm,’ Nagrim intoned respectfully, much to his father’s pleasure. ‘This Drekk must have been a great hunter. I would have liked to meet him at the grobkul.’

  ‘Ha!’ said Bagrik, slapping his son on the back, ‘Ever eager to kill the grobi, eh my son?’

  ‘I vow to rid the mountains of the green vermin, father,’ Nagrim replied in all seriousness and stopped walking. ‘And speaking of it, Brondrik is readying for another hunt. I wish to go with him. Rugnir, too.’

  ‘Is it not enough that you’ve beaten me, must you crush your father’s tally, also?’ Bagrik joked, but then regarded his son with thoughtful eyes. He clapped his hands upon Nagrim’s shoulders and, with a broad smile, the king nodded at some private affirmation.

  ‘You will make me proud, Nagrim,’ he said. ‘You will make all of Karak Ungor proud, and your rule shall be the envy of the Karaz Ankor,’ Bagrik declared boldly.

  ‘You honour me, father–’ Nagrim began.

  ‘But…’ said the king, ‘I cannot condone of your friendship with Rugnir.’

  Nagrim’s expression soured and he stepped back from his father’s embrace.

  ‘He is a wazlik, son, and his presence by your side is a stain against the good name of this clan, even this hold,’ Bagrik told him, wounded at Nagrim’s rebuff.

  ‘Have I not always been the son you wanted me to be, father,’ said the prince. ‘At sixty-nine winters, am I not the finest warrior and hunter this hold has ever known? Matters of clan and council, I will leave to others – Kandor is a more than capable mentor. You have said yourself that I possess the strength and wisdom to rule Karak Ungor, so trust my wisdom in this. Rugnir is my friend, his loyalty is beyond question. I will not forsake him because it raises the eyebrows of the masters and the longbeards.’

  Bagrik was about to chastise Nagrim for his wilfulness and lack of proper veneration towards the clan elders, but stopped himself.

  ‘I did not bring you here for us to fight, son,’ he told him. ‘Please,’ he added, ‘indulge me. Let us forget about Rugnir for now and walk on.’

  Nagrim agreed and together they went further into the Iron Deep, where Bagrik regaled his son with further marvels like Garekk Dragonbane’s shield – that which had repelled the flame of the wyrm, Skorbadd – resting on a golden plinth, its edges still scorched black; and the fabled Hammer of Logran, known also as Daemon-killer, glowing with a dull red light, the power of its runes still potent, if diminished. As great and fabulous as these heirlooms were, to Bagrik they paled in significance when compared to the artefact he had brought Nagrim to the Iron Deep to see.

  ‘Your legacy lies ahead,’ Bagrik said when they had reached the lowest level of the vault, so close to the Zharrazak they could feel the intensity of its flame, prickling their faces. The king stopped and pointed to another short pathway that led to a shadowed alcove.

  Nagrim looked to his father with an expression of uncertainty, as if awaiting his permission.

  ‘Take the road, Nagrim. Your destiny waits at the end of it.’

  The dwarf prince obeyed and walked towards the alcove slowly, Bagrik following a few steps behind.

  As Nagrim got close, a spit of flame surged from the Zharrazak, its flare so bright that it briefly lit the lower level with a fiery luminance. The light flooded the alcove, just as Nagrim reached it, peeling back the shadows like strips of black parchment. A wave of heat came with it that warmed the skin and set nerve endings tingling with vigour. Revealed in the glow was a suit of armour.

  Gilded gromril plate, polished to a fine sheen, caught the light; the reflected flames of the Zharrazak making the surface seem as if it were ablaze. Even when the surge of fire died, the captured lustre in the armour did not. The golden pauldrons, vambraces and cuirass were burning brilliantly. In the glow of its self-made aura details of the armour’s exquisite artifice were revealed.

  Overlapping gromril plates were secured by ancestor studs, the visages of Grimnir and Grungni promising both strength and fortitude to the wearer. A crimson cloak of velvet hooked onto the breastplate and trailed down the back of the suit, trimmed in silver with runic talismans stitched into the lining. Plates covered the abdomen, and a skirt of gromril hung down like an impenetrable veil to sit just above the wearer’s boots.

  The ancestral armour was finished off by a full-face helmet, rendered into the stern countenance of a dwarf king of old and fastened to the cuirass by a ruby-studded gorget. Splayed eagle wings, hardened by wax before being gilded, spread from either temple of the war helm, the effect both regal and terrifying.

  ‘This armour was meant for you,’ Bagrik said softly, now standing alongside his humbled son. ‘It is magnificent, isn’t it?’

  ‘I have never witnessed beauty such as this…’ Nagrim had tears in his eyes. He reached a trembling hand towards the suit, hardly daring to touch it should he be found unworthy and coruscated in a sudden conflagration.

  ‘It is yours, Nagrim,’ Bagrik told him, ‘Yours upon the advent of your seventieth winter, but a few short weeks from this day. It’s the right of every heir apparent of Karak Ungor to wear it.’

  Nagrim turned to his father, his outstretched hand still wavering. The prince’s eyes held a question.

  ‘Yes, my son. I wore it too, as did my father, and my father’s father and so on to the very beginning of our line. Now it passes to you,’ he added simply, gesturing towards the armour.

  Nagrim looked back and this time he touched it with the strength of conviction that could only be born of a belief in legacy and destiny. The prince seemed at once uplifted, even empowered, as the physical connection to his ancestors coursed through his body.

  ‘I have been no prouder of you than I am in this moment, Nagrim,’ Bagrik told his son when he had turned back from the armour. Its lustre seemed to dim, the gleam only short lived, as if it ‘knew’ somehow that this was not its time, not yet.

  ‘Thank you, my lord,’ rasped Nagrim and went down on one knee to salute his father and his king.

  ‘Rise,’ said Bagrik, ‘and help your old man back to the gate,’ he added with a wry grin. ‘We have lingered here long enough, I think. It is time to return to the upper deeps.’

  Nagrim smiled, and together father and son made their way back up to the entrance of the Iron Deep, the solid gate slamming shut with thunderous resonance after they left, the dour and silent hearth guard retaining their eternal vigil over it.

  Once they were out, Nagrim took his leave, eager to meet with Brondrik and the rangers at the outer gateway hall for the grobkul. Bagrik had his own duties to attend to. He was due in council to meet with the elders over the monthly matters of the hold. Even so, he tarried deliberately in the galleries above the Iron Deep, slowly hobbling the stairways and corridors, regarding the statues of his forebears. Soon his effigy would join them.

  ‘I thought I might find you here,’ said a soft voice from the shadows.

  Bagrik turned to see his queen stepping into the brazier light.

  ‘Trawling the corridors of the past?’ asked the q
ueen, as she approached her king.

  ‘Aye, something like that,’ Bagrik replied, stopping before the statue of his father, Thargrik. ‘I am old, Brunvilda. I feel the bite of winter, the growing chill in my veins as if for the first time,’ he said. ‘Vigour abandons me. Age and atrophy creep into my bones and muscles like unseen assassins, making them feel like stone.’ Bagrik clenched his fist, watching his fingers wrap themselves slowly together. ‘Soon I will become stone,’ he added, looking back at the granite statue of his father. ‘A remembrance only, my body withering and decaying into dust in my tomb.’

  Brunvilda laid her hand upon his hand, and the warmth of her touch spread like a rejuvenating salve.

  ‘You are a great king,’ she told him, ‘who has done great deeds. I do not think your reign is over yet.’

  Bagrik looked up at her. There were tears in Brunvilda’s eyes.

  ‘Your legacy is strong,’ she said. ‘That is how you will be remembered.’

  Bagrik smiled back at her.

  ‘He is a worthy heir, is he not?’

  ‘Yes, my king. Nagrim’s deeds will also be great.’

  For a short time, king and queen enjoyed the moment, allowing a comfortable silence to descend. Both knew it was not to last.

  ‘It feels like you have been avoiding me,’ said Brunvilda, her tone soft but candid.

  ‘I have had much on my mind,’ Bagrik replied, slipping from her grasp and turning to regard the statue of Thargrik again.

  ‘You only ever seem happy when you are in the company of Nagrim,’ she said, stepping forward but just falling short of touching her husband on the shoulder.

  Bagrik maintained his silence. He knew what was coming.

  ‘You lavish such love and attention on him, your favoured son,’ she pressed.

  Bagrik whirled around to challenge her.

  ‘Favoured son?’ he said, angrily. ‘Only son, you mean.’

  Brunvilda’s expression hardened. ‘I have been to see Lothvar, as you should have done,’ she told him. ‘He dwells in a prison, surrounded by squalor. It is no way to treat a prince.’

  ‘He is no prince!’ Bagrik countered, becoming even more animated. ‘He is a nubunki, and I should have had him exiled at birth, not compromised my rule with lies and dishonour.’

  ‘He is your son,’ Brunvilda maintained, determined to stand her ground in the face of Bagrik’s growing fury. ‘And the only reason you bestow such affection on Nagrim is your guilt over the treatment of Lothvar.’ Brunvilda’s mood softened then, as her defiance waned. ‘All I ask is that you see him.’

  ‘Never!’ snarled Bagrik. ‘That thing is no son of mine. He is barely a dawi at all.’ The king hissed the words through clenched teeth, suddenly aware that others may be listening or might overhear their argument. Breathing heavily, he drew in close to Brunvilda, his face red with rage.

  ‘Do not mention him in my presence ever again. Lothvar died when he was born, that is all.’ Bagrik stared at her for a moment, making sure his words had sunk in. Then he turned and hobbled away, bellowing for his throne bearers.

  ‘Incursions by the grobi into the mines and overground farms have increased this last month,’ Morek declared before the council of elders, speaking in his capacity as the king’s general. ‘The changing season has roused them from slumber, it would seem.’

  The assembled longbeards of the council nodded sagely. They were arrayed around the stone table of the Elders Chamber, together with Heganbour and Kozdokk, the two guildmasters summoned to the monthly council meeting to discuss a land leasing dispute between the brewers and the miners. Tringrom, Bagrik’s royal aide, was also present. Standing beside the glowering form of his king, who crouched upon his throne like a belligerent gargoyle, Tringrom had already announced the agenda. Beard taxes, ale tithes and the reckoners’ ledger were all common fare at such gatherings. But it was the growing numbers of greenskins that demanded the council’s attention now, an ever-present thorn in the collective side of all the holds of the Karaz Ankor.

  Bagrik muttered beneath his breath at Morek’s remarks, his mood more irascible than usual.

  ‘What of the underway?’ he growled. ‘Do we need to purge the tunnels again?’

  ‘The ungrin ankor is not so overrun with vermin, my king,’ Grikk replied. It was a rarity for the captain of the ironbreakers to sit in on the council, but the orc and goblin infestation concerned him most of all. Should the greenskins attack the hold, it was through the underway that they would make their assault. ‘All of the gates are holding and the ironbreakers report no incursions through the fallen portals,’ added Grikk.

  ‘And the Grey Road, is that also clear of intrusion?’ asked Bagrik, his lip upcurled. The true meaning of his question was thinly veiled.

  Grikk swallowed loudly, before answering.

  ‘Quiet, my liege. Very quiet.’

  Bagrik turned to Morek, who shifted uncomfortably beneath his king’s gaze.

  ‘We must trust in Brondrik and his rangers to thin the horde,’ the king told him. ‘Nagrim, my son, and soon to be heir of Ungor, hunts with him even now. He has vowed to rid the mountains of the greenskin, and I have no reason to doubt it.’

  ‘Perhaps we need to take even more punitive measures in the extermination of the grobi,’ suggested Morek. ‘I could marshal the clan warriors and the rest of the rangers, have them scour the crags. One hunting party, however well led, cannot be expected to cleanse the mountainside single-handed.’

  ‘And I suppose the king’s treasury will pay for this campaign, will it, Morek?’ growled Bagrik. ‘You think my son will fail in his oath to me, is that it?’

  ‘Nagrim is no umbaraki, my liege,’ the hearth guard captain, said quickly. ‘I only meant that–’

  Morek’s words would remain unspoken as a thunderous din coming from the golden doors of the Elders Chamber swallowed them.

  ‘Are my private meetings to be constantly interrupted?’ barked the king, glaring at the entrance to the room. ‘Is this what the rule of Karak Ungor has come to?’

  ‘Enter then,’ he snarled after a moment of silence.

  With a sound like churning iron, the great doors opened but a crack and the same hearth guard veteran that Morek had remonstrated during the trade talks with the elves stepped into the Elders Chamber, bowing profusely.

  ‘Lords…’ he said, catching his breath, having obviously run all the way from the outer gateway hall, ‘forgive my trespass, but the elves and our kinsdwarfs… they have returned.’

  Bagrik agreed to meet with Prince Ithalred and his charges in his throne room. There, sat upon his throne, longbeards either side of him, he brooded silently. Surrounded by tapestries and mosaics of the grand deeds of Karak Ungor, Bagrik wondered what ill-news would undoubtedly follow the elves’ sudden and unannounced arrival.

  The Ithalred that marched into his kingly chamber had lost none of the imperious posturing that had so irked Bagrik in their initial meeting, but the haughty, arrogant noble in him had diminished. The elf prince and several of his kin had been brought directly from the outer gateway hall with all haste, so much so that they still had their weapons. Haggar and Kandor, together with the hearth guard, accompanied them by way of security. They had not – it had come to the king’s attention – returned with either the promised goods of the elves or those originally sent by the dwarfs.

  ‘Where is the promised trade, as given in the deed of agreement?’ Bagrik’s voice boomed like thunder in the vast throne room, the fire in the brazier fans flickering redly in concert with the king’s wrath. ‘You will answer!’

  Kandor stepped forward. His face was ashen, eyes hooded with fatigue. The merchant’s usually fastidious appearance was a shambles. Facing the accusatory glances of the longbeards, as well as the stern countenance of Morek, arms folded in disapproval, Kandor had to dig deep to find his voice and his courage.

  ‘We did not bring them, sire,’ he confessed.

  ‘I can see that!’ bawled the ki
ng, ‘The empty carts clutter my outer gateway hall, even now. I am asking why that is, Thane Silverbeard.’

  Haggar stepped forward before Kandor could answer. In the brazier light, Bagrik saw his banner bearer’s armour was dented, some of the mail split. Dried blood spattered his face and tunic, creating a grisly visceral patchwork. There was weariness in his posture that came only from hard battle.

  ‘We arrived at the elgi settlement to find it under attack,’ said Haggar, his tone sombre, his face darkening with remembrance. ‘A vast horde of heathen men, sailed from across the Sea of Claws, had gathered northwards of the city. By the time we knew what was going on, the elgi had already arrayed for battle. I led the hearth guard to join them, to see what manner of beasts these northmen were.’

  ‘And you met them on the field of war, Haggar?’ asked Morek. As general of the king’s armies, the hearth guard were his responsibility.

  ‘I did, my captain,’ Haggar confessed, looking down at his boots.

  ‘Do not lower your eyes from the king!’ snapped Morek. ‘Face the shame of your deeds with honour.’

  Haggar looked up at once.

  Morek scowled back at him.

  ‘Tell me,’ said King Bagrik, satisfied until now to let his hearth guard captain take the lead, ‘what do the elgi have to say?’

  Ithalred, silent until that point, came forth. The elf’s eyes were haunted by death. Deep shadows pooled in the sockets and he too was battered and bloodied.

  ‘My army was defeated,’ he said simply. ‘And it is only a matter of time before the northmen drive on further into the mainland and sack Tor Eorfith, too. I have risked much even coming back here, leaving the city in the hands of my captain, Valorian.’

  ‘Risked?’ Bagrik enquired. ‘What is it that you think you have come here for, elgi?’

  Ithalred unsheathed his sword. There was a clamour of weapons from the hearth guard, and Morek stepped in front of his king, axe at the ready. But the elf prince merely placed the ancient weapon on the ground, and knelt down with it in front of him. The mood relaxed. The hearth guard sheathed their weapons. Morek returned to his position beside the throne.