Honourkeeper

by Nick Kyme

  Shocked silence descended like an anvil.

  ‘Ridiculous,’ Kandor piped up. ‘He is raving,’ he said, getting to his feet as other dwarfs also started to voice their dissent. ‘Most likely drunk, as well.’

  ‘He’s sober, right enough,’ said Morek, his words carrying over the growing hubbub. He shook his head, saying, ‘And I’ve never seen him like this before.’

  ‘The elgi are our allies,’ Kandor protested, clearly unable to believe what he was hearing. ‘They fought with us against the northmen hordes.’

  Morek sniffed derisively at the remark.

  ‘You feast with vipers,’ Rugnir roared, taking a step towards the King’s Table before a pair of hearth guard interceded. ‘Dawi slayers and murderers sit at your table… Thagi!’ he cried, glowering at the elves with fists clenched. ‘Thagi!’

  ‘No,’ said Kandor with half an eye on Malbeth, who seemed stunned into silence. ‘Impossible. Nagrim was stuck with northmen arrows,’ he petitioned the king, ‘We all saw it.’

  ‘Arrows, nothing more,’ said Rugnir. ‘Shot by the elgi,’ he scowled. ‘I saw it with my very eyes,’ he added, pointing at them with two fingers.

  ‘The dwarf lies,’ snapped Lethralmir, getting up from the table.

  ‘Sit down, Lethralmir,’ Ithalred ordered in an undertone.

  ‘Whilst we are accused of murder and treachery?’ replied the raven-haired elf. ‘I will not, my lord.’

  ‘Do as your prince commands,’ Malbeth told him, the ambassador rising too so that he was level with Lethralmir.

  A clamour of disgruntled voices – both dwarf and elf – was gathering momentum throughout the hall. The mood, so genial at first, had soured swiftly and was becoming more riotous by the minute.

  ‘Watch your temper, Malbeth,’ Lethralmir warned, sneering, before he turned his attention back to Ithalred. ‘We are insulted,’ he said, continuing the earlier theme, ‘and I demand to know what is to be done.’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Morek simply. ‘Nothing will be done, until we get to the truth of this.’

  The hearth guard captain was already standing. He had moved to within a few feet of Rugnir – the dwarf looked ready to snap at any moment.

  ‘For isn’t the truth that the northmen came here for vengeance and not conquest at all,’ said Morek, remembering the visions bestowed upon him by the Norscan shaman. ‘That we dawi were never a part of whatever fell purpose drove them. You,’ – Morek pointed at Ithalred – ‘you were the one the daemon sought. There was a debt against your blood, ages old.’

  ‘I can’t believe this,’ said Kandor. ‘How is it possible you know this, Morek?’

  The hearth guard captain turned on the dwarf merchant. His eyes were like blazing coals of vehemence.

  ‘I know it, because I saw it when the daemon tried to addle my mind!’ he hissed through his teeth.

  Kandor could only gape.

  Bagrik turned his gaze on Ithalred. The king was stony faced, bereft of all emotion. Morek had never seen him look more dangerous.

  ‘Did you murder my son?’ he said with a level voice, looking the elf prince in the eye. ‘Do not lie to me, elgi,’ he warned, shaking his head then nodding as he narrowed his eyes, ‘for I will know.’

  Ithalred mustered as much presence as he could, matching the dwarf king’s steely glare as one lord to another.

  ‘It was not supposed to be this way,’ he admitted with profound sorrow.

  The Great Hall exploded in uproar. Like a rampant summer flame over dry fields of wheat and corn, the furore swept across the entire chamber. It infected everyone like a virulent contagion, with anger, belligerence and hate. Everything that had been built over the many months, all the painstaking endeavour to bring the two races together, the warrior bond forged on the fields of blood against the Norscans came tumbling down like a fortress with its foundations cruelly ripped away.

  Quickly, the elves found their fellow kinsmen and banded together in protective circles, surrounded by mobs of wrathful dwarfs. The longbeards demanded action and swift vengeance.

  Korhvale, seeing the imminent danger, cried out in elvish and he together with a handful of the prince’s bodyguard gathered to Ithalred. But because the two lords were still sat next to each other, the elves fought for position with the hearth guard. Both sets of warriors were only inches away from one another, bristling with anger, one wrong step, one slight away, from going over the edge to bloodshed.

  ‘In Lileath’s name, Ithalred I beg you, say this is not true,’ pleaded Malbeth from within the circle, anguish etched upon his face.

  The prince’s eyes were hollow.

  ‘I cannot.’

  Frantically, desperate to salvage something, anything from this abject disaster, Malbeth turned to Kandor.

  ‘This was not known to us,’ said the elf, looking down at the dwarf beside him. ‘We came here out of a desire for lasting peace.’

  ‘You knew of it,’ spat Lethralmir, the vitriol was palpable. ‘You were as complicit in this as any of us.’

  Malbeth’s face went as white as chalk, as the life seemed to drain away to be replaced by something colder and harder. To look at him, you would think he had died suddenly. In many ways, he had. The elf’s eyes grew wide. All the pent up rage, the dark desires of his past he’d kept at bay for so many years were finally unleashed in a flood of red-hazed catharsis.

  ‘Lying scum!’ Malbeth flew at Lethralmir, flinging one of Ithalred’s guards aside who had been unfortunate enough to get in his way, and smashed a heavy blow against the blade-master’s exposed cheek.

  Lethralmir was thrown to the floor under the savage impact. Sprawled on his back the raven-haired elf, supported by his elbows, craned his neck to regard his attacker. A thin drool of blood hung from the corner of his mouth. Lethralmir touched it with his naked fingers, before licking off the hot metallic fluid with his tongue.

  ‘See the killer,’ he said, eyes on Malbeth the whole time. ‘He even slew his own wife, murdered her in cold blood. He is the worst of us all.’

  ‘Elethya…’ Malbeth scarcely uttered the word. He was breathing raggedly, as he searched in his robes for something. When he couldn’t find it, he locked his gaze with Lethralmir. The raven-haired elf smiled, oh so slightly.

  The entire hall was enrapt for the moment as Malbeth and Lethralmir played out the tragedy. The elf ambassador was about to reach for a blade to finish his raven-haired aggressor, when he felt a presence on the arm of his robe. Without thinking, Malbeth lashed out. Blinking back the crimson rage that blanketed his vision, he was horrified when he realised he had struck Kandor. The dwarf shrank away from him, rubbing his jaw. Malbeth watched as something died, there and then, in Kandor’s eyes.

  With the performance over, Morek decided to take matters into his own hands.

  ‘Dreng elgi,’ he snarled, unslinging his axe, ‘Dreng thagi!’ Scraping metal resounded in the hall as the hearth guard drew blades; Rugnir, too, and any other dwarf that carried a weapon. Those who were unarmed balled their fists and chewed their beards in fury. Some of the elves unsheathed daggers, Korhvale amongst them. Lethralmir slipped a hidden blade from his vambrace. Ithalred didn’t move as his kin made to defend themselves.

  ‘Cease!’ The gravel voice of King Bagrik stopped the fight before it could begin. ‘Stow your blades,’ he growled at length, glowering around the room at every dwarf in his eye-line. ‘Do it now or be entered into the dammaz kron for defying your king,’ he promised. A side glance at Grumkaz Grimbrow, the leathery chief grudgemaster, confirmed to Bagrik that the old granite-faced dwarf had his quill readied.

  No other dwarf in the Great Hall of Karak Ungor had greater claim to blood for the elves’ heinous deeds than Bagrik. His bellow for cessation of hostility was not about to be challenged and, for now, the dwarfs lowered their axes.

  ‘You saved my life, Ithalred,’ the king told the elf prince, speaking to him as if they were the only ones in the mighty room, ‘and for that I g
rant you one concession,’ he added, raising a gnarled finger for emphasis. The king abided for silence, waiting until even the recalcitrant longbeards had stopped their pugnacious grumbling.

  ‘Get out,’ he said simply. ‘Take your kin and go. But mark this: do it quickly. I am a hair’s breadth from killing you all in this very chamber,’ Bagrik promised. The king’s eye was twitching as he said it, drawing on all of his will not to just cut the elves down where they stood and let that be an end to it. ‘But I will not stain its legacy with blood, especially that of thagging traitors. There has been enough shed in my hold to last me five lifetimes,’ he added with the faintest trace of lamented remembrance.

  ‘Go, now. Seven days hence, I will meet you on the field of battle on the lowland outside your city. Then…’ he muttered, nodding darkly to the prince, ‘then you can atone in full for this treachery.’

  Wood scraping on stone announced Ithalred as he rose from his seat in silence. His gaze lingered on Bagrik for a moment longer, before he turned, waiting for the surrounding dwarfs to back away – who did so eventually, but only at Bagrik’s snarled urging – and walked down the aisle, up to the gate and through it to the halls beyond.

  A hearth guard escort accompanied the elves. Morek was ordered to go with them should any get the idea to take matters into their own hands. Once at the outer gateway hall, the elves were stripped of any armour or weapons, aside from Ithalred’s ancestral blade, which Bagrik had allowed him to keep out of respect for him saving his life, and cast out. The elven trappings were then piled up on a mule cart and taken to the lower deeps where they would be melted down in the forges and remade into bolt tips and arrow heads.

  The accord between the dwarfs and elves was at an end, their victory over the Norscan hordes a pyrrhic one. In seven days’ time, Karak Ungor and Tor Eorfith would meet again, and there would be blood.

  ‘Curse the wiles of Loec and his perfidy,’ muttered Ithalred as the elves tramped listlessly from the dwarf hold. ‘How did this happen? There was to be no survivors, no chance of the truth of what we did coming out.’

  All told, almost three thousand elves were banished from Karak Ungor and its slopes. Many of the warriors, mainly rangers, spearmen militia and archers, were encamped in the crags around the hold. The reaction to the treatment of their lords when they’d emerged from the postern gate bereft of their belongings was one of dismay and anger. The elves’ belligerence had cooled somewhat though when the ranks of quarrellers had appeared in the watch station overlooking the great gate and the towers and skybridges either side of it. Once the ballista and stone throwers had been wheeled into position, the elves packed up their fluted pavilions and elegant tents and marched away.

  It was a few miles down the road before Ithalred gave voice to his frustration. By now he, and the other exiles from the Great Hall, had been given travelling cloaks, weapons and armour.

  ‘It was inevitable,’ said Lethralmir.

  ‘How so?’ Ithalred stopped walking and rounded on the raven-haired elf. ‘Did you let one escape?’

  ‘I meant, my prince,’ he said, subtly clearing his throat, ‘that war with the mountain-dwellers was inevitable.’

  Ithalred backed down, seemingly satisfied. About to continue on his way, he noticed Malbeth trudging down the road towards them. He appeared catatonic, staring straight ahead at some unseen horizon, one foot in front of the other like an automaton. After the elves had been expelled from the dwarf hold, the ambassador had immediately started scrabbling around in his baggage. Ithalred had paid him little mind, he had his own crisis to contend with. Whatever Malbeth had been looking for, the prince assumed he had not found it.

  When he approached the two nobles, Ithalred saw a flicker of recognition in the ambassador’s eyes and the blank slate expression fell away, consumed by rage. A roar of anguish ripped from Malbeth’s lips as he tore a sword from the sheath of one of Ithalred’s guards and lunged at Lethralmir. The raven-haired elf saw the attack late, but was swift enough to weave his body from the killing stroke. Instead, the blade grazed his ribs and he cried out in pain.

  Like lightning, Korhvale, the prince’s shadow, seized Malbeth’s wrist before he could strike again.

  ‘Drop it,’ he growled. The White Lion had seen the attack a fraction before it took place. Only he knew that he had delayed for a second to see if Lethralmir got what he deserved, before he’d intervened. When Malbeth didn’t relinquish the blade immediately, Korhvale twisted the ambassador’s wrist and the weapon fell from his agonised grasp with a yell. The White Lion was about to let him go when he saw Malbeth’s expression twisted with fury, his eyes full of hate and loathing. He tried to break free and Korhvale, fearing that he would, called for help. Two more guards came to his aid, holding onto one arm whilst Korhvale grabbed the other.

  ‘Khaine has him,’ snarled Lethralmir, staunching the blood from his wounded side as he watched Malbeth struggle. ‘What’s the matter,’ he said quietly, drawing close to the pinioned elf, ‘have you lost your medicine?’ he asked, smiling.

  Malbeth thrashed against his captors, screaming curses at Lethralmir as his rage swallowed him utterly.

  ‘Hold him down,’ Ithalred said calmly. ‘You,’ he added, nodding towards a gaping onlooker, ‘bring rope to bind his legs and arms.’ The prince looked back at Malbeth with pitying eyes. ‘By Isha’s grace…’ he whispered, realising that he regarded that which dwelt in all the asur, their raw warrior spirit and violent potential. Here was the Bloody Handed God made manifest. It had destroyed Malbeth, engulfed him with rage and a desire to kill.

  Ithalred averted his gaze and found Lethralmir looking back at him, still clutching his bloodied side.

  ‘And get a surgeon for this one,’ added the prince, lip curling in distaste. ‘You’ll get your war with the dwarfs, Lethralmir,’ he promised fatalistically. ‘I’m going to need every sword.’

  Ithalred stalked away. The skies overhead were darkening. Ravens circled.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Fallen Lion

  Ithalred stared out across the plain from the tallest tower of Tor Eorfith. He was naked barring the thick velvet cloak that trailed all the way to the marbled floor. It chilled his bare feet, but the elf hardly noticed. Ithalred felt numb, and not from the cold stone. Below he heard the sounds of battle preparation, of spears and longbows being racked, the dry-loosing of bolt throwers and the clank of hammers as forgesmiths fashioned suits of armour. Saddles were made ready, horse barding polished, lances and arrows stacked. The entire population of Tor Eorfith, man and woman, bustled in quiet urgency. For come the morrow, they would be at war with the dwarfs.

  Eyrie Rock was the other, perhaps more prosaic, name for Tor Eorfith. It was a fitting appellation. The beauteous bastion was set upon a vast rugged spur of basalt and granite. Seven silver spires pierced cloud and soared into the stratosphere as if reaching for the very stars. The wondrous towers punctuated a stout outer wall of smoothed alabaster and grey-veined marble. Minarets branched out from the main towers that also supported many balconies. Those edifices that stood behind the outer wall were joined by narrow arching bridges, dripping with ornamentation and bejewelled downward-thrusting spikes. Gem-encrusted obelisks lay sunken in the verdant earth beyond the elven city. They were waymarkers and potent magical foci through which Tor Eorfith’s mages could practise their arcane arts.

  When he left Ulthuan, Ithalred had brought some of the finest mason-artisans of Lothern and Eataine with him. The glorious citadel where he now stood, this city of silver and jewels, was the glittering fruit of their labours, a masterpiece of the aesthetic, protected by enchanted wards and bound with spells of resistance. As the elf prince stared into the wind at the distant fires of the dwarfs, as they made their encampment a few miles from his gilded gates, he wondered if those magicks would be enough to stop them.

  ‘Ravens flock to the towers, my prince,’ said the grim voice of Korhvale from behind him. The two warriors were alone on the b
alcony. Ithalred chose to no longer keep company with Lethralmir, preferring solitude.

  ‘They foretell our destruction,’ intoned the elf prince, his golden hair disturbed by the growing breeze. ‘Do you think we are doomed, Korhvale?’ he asked, facing the White Lion.

  ‘We reap what we have sown,’ he answered tacitly.

  ‘We faced annihilation at the hands of the northmen, what else was I supposed to do?’ asked the prince.

  ‘We acted with dishonour.’

  ‘It is not so black and white, Korhvale,’ Ithalred pressed, becoming more animated. ‘You saw the aftermath of their attack on the watch towers. And what of Hasseled’s hawk ships? Fifteen vessels led by our finest naval captain, gone, destroyed. Our army was not strong enough to defeat them.’

  ‘Had I known of your plan to kill the dwarf prince, and trick his kin into a war that was not theirs to fight, I would have stopped it,’ Korhvale told him.

  ‘It is much too late for that,’ Ithalred scoffed, laughing despite himself.

  After a brief silence, Korhvale said, ‘We should leave. Take what ships we have left and return to Ulthuan. Your sister ails more by the day, she is constantly fatigued. She has not been seen out of her chamber for weeks. Isha knows it is her home that she craves.’

  ‘This is her home, Korhvale,’ Ithalred snapped, pointing to the marble at his feet. ‘As it is yours and mine, and all of the other damned souls within these cold walls.’

  He showed his back to the White Lion.

  ‘Begone,’ the prince said brusquely. ‘I tire of you, Korhvale.’

  The White Lion’s lightened step made little sound as he walked away.

  For over an hour after Korhvale had left, Ithalred looked down on the dwarfs below. They milled around like ants, tramping back and forth in their armour, raising their tents and unshackling cavalcades of ballista and mangonels from a string of draught mules. Ithalred’s keen eyes discerned it all. The armoured dwarfs were like a blanket of bronze and iron blighting the verdant green of the land for miles. Hawk-eyed as he was, though, the elf failed to notice a figure moving through the rocks, several miles away from where the dwarfs were camped, but getting steadily closer.