Honourkeeper

by Nick Kyme

  Korhvale heard the soft tread of his own boots echo down the lonely corridor from the spire where Prince Ithalred had made his eyrie. It was a doleful refrain to the beating of his heavy heart. The White Lion was in disarray. His conscience warred with his sense of duty. No warrior wearing the pelt could ever be accused of disloyalty. For was it not the woodsmen of Chrace who went to the aid of Caledor the First, saving him from death at the knives of druchii assassins? But slaying in cold blood… the very act stuck in Korhvale’s craw and no matter how he rationalised it, the White Lion could not dislodge the feeling that such a deed made them no better than druchii themselves.

  To face the dwarfs meant certain death. A pang of fear seized Korhvale at the sudden thought. Not for him; the prospect of mortality held no terror for a White Lion of Chrace. No, it was Arthelas whom Korhvale feared for. He could not leave her to be slain along with the rest. A desperate plan began to form in his mind. If he could get her onto a boat, there were Lothern sailors eager enough to leave the Old World to ferry her. He could smuggle her away in secret, ensure that she was safe. It was dark enough now for that.

  As he plotted, the simple act of it leaving an uncomfortable sheen over his skin, Korhvale remembered the scroll he had hidden beneath his cuirass. Stopping in the darkness he reached for it tentatively. The parchment pages seemed so innocuous rolled up in his hand. Yet they held his desires, his yearnings; the profession of his true feelings for Arthelas.

  Her quarters were not far. It might be the last chance he would ever get. Full of purpose, Korhvale returned the scroll delicately to its hiding place and went off swiftly down the shadowed hall. He had only passed a single sentry on his way to Arthelas’s chambers in the next tower. Most of the warriors were below, watching from the battlements or making their final preparations for the fight to come. Korhvale had said nothing to him, he’d not even made eye contact so obsessed was he with his mission. First he would tell her of his feelings and then he would get her away from this place.

  Korhvale was so anxious by the time he arrived at Arthelas’s door that he felt sick. He was about to knock, when he thought better of it. It was deathly silent in the corridor, though the White Lion heard some muffled noises from within the room – perhaps she was singing – any commotion, however insignificant, might rouse unwanted attention. So instead, he eased his weight against the door. To the elf’s relief, it was unlocked and opened quietly.

  Stepping inside Korhvale closed the door behind him, making only a dull thud as the wood came flush against the alabaster arch. It was gloomy inside and a pungent aroma permeated the air in a thick violet fug. Thin veils were suspended from the ceiling made from gossamer and silk that obscured Korhvale’s view into the room.

  ‘Arthelas,’ he whispered, searching for her in the pastel-hued darkness.

  Korhvale thought he saw the hazy glow of fettered lanterns or perhaps candles with their wicks shortened to dull the flame. Passing through the first wall of veils, he noticed carafes of wine, platters of half-eaten fruit. A lyre lay discarded on a wooden bench carved into the effigy of a swan. Through a second layer of overlapping veils, and the muffled sound he heard outside the door became louder and more discernible. It was not singing. Rather, it was more breathless, repetitive but without harmony.

  Beyond a narrow arch, through a circular anteroom festooned with plump cushions, was Arthelas’s bedchamber.

  A final azure veil impeded him. There was the shape of two figures moving softly beyond it. Pulling back the drape, Korhvale whispered again.

  ‘Arthelas…’

  The words died on his lips. He’d found his true love, the woman he had watched from a distance for all the years he’d been in Ithalred’s service. She was in the bed… with Lethralmir. The two of them writhed like adders beneath the orchid, silken sheets.

  ‘Korhvale,’ said Arthelas, noticing the White Lion first. The perverted serenity on the seeress’s face brought a fresh rush of nausea. Then Lethralmir, with his back to him, looked over his shoulder at the Chracian and smiled in malicious pleasure. With her fingernail Arthelas had carved a symbol in Lethralmir’s back in blood.

  Korhvale recoiled in horror.

  It was the mark of Atharti, the underworld goddess of pleasure.

  The White Lion felt the scroll of parchment fall from his nerveless fingers, those words and feelings made cheap and worthless in the face of his horrified revelation. He couldn’t breath and clutched at his chest in sudden panic. It was as if a dagger had been thrust into him. Korhvale wished he could take that dagger and use it to cut out his eyes.

  ‘No…’ The sound issued from his mouth was a gasp, but it was raw and primal. Tears fled from Korhvale’s eyes, the corners of his mouth curling in disgust.

  ‘Noooo!’ he roared with such anguish that it rent his heart and left it forever ruined. Mortified, the White Lion fled. Lethralmir’s mocking laughter echoed after him, like wraiths tugging at the Chracian’s resolve. Korhvale was a veteran warrior. He had fought countless battles, alone in the mountains of his homeland and the forests of Cothique, on the shores of Nagarythe against the druchii and now for his lord versus the northmen hordes, but Korhvale had never before been wounded like this.

  Arthelas’s smile soured into a scowl as she lay beneath the sweating body of Lethralmir and watched Korhvale claw through the veils.

  ‘Don’t let him escape,’ she hissed urgently. ‘Ithalred must never know…’

  The smirk on Lethralmir’s face vanished. The raven-haired elf grabbed his sword from where he’d left it alongside his discarded armour next to the bed, and leapt naked from the sheets after the White Lion.

  Lethralmir knew his way around the chambers. He was also well-accustomed to the soporific fumes that laded the air. Weaving through the veil like a serpent, his narrowed eyes like slits upon the White Lion as he blundered in blind grief, Lethralmir caught his prey.

  The silver flash of a sword blade reflecting off the lanterns caught Korhvale’s attention. Instinct took over, burning through his tortured misery like a beacon. A hot line of pain seared his side and the White Lion realised he had been cut. Grabbing a fistful of veils, he tore them down and threw them into Lethralmir’s face. The raven-haired elf sliced through them with ease, his diamond-sharp blade paring the fabric like he was slicing through air. It slowed him long enough though for the White Lion to unsling his axe.

  Chest heaving with the effort of his grief, Korhvale regarded his enemy a few feet across the pastel chamber. Despair boiled away, turning into something more substantial; something the White Lion could use – hate.

  ‘I’ll tear you limb from li–’

  A flash of light blossomed swiftly, lighting up the chamber, and then died. An actinic aroma, merged with the stench of burnt flesh, overwhelmed the soporific musk.

  Lethralmir, blade poised at the ready, looked down at Korhvale’s chest and saw why the White Lion had ceased his threats so abruptly. A gaping crater of cauterised flesh and blood existed where his torso should have been. Metal from his ithilmar cuirass fused with bone and boiled viscera. Smoke eking from the terrible wound, Korhvale slumped first to his knees and then fell face forward onto the ground. Arthelas was revealed behind him, draped in a violet gown, crackling tendrils of black energy fading slowly across her outstretched fingertips.

  The surprised expression on Lethralmir’s face turned amorous.

  ‘Murder is such an aphrodisiac,’ he purred.

  ‘Get him up,’ Arthelas snapped, in no mood for copulation. ‘We must dispose of his body before he’s missed.’ She swept quickly to her bedside, let the gown slip from her shoulders and put on her robes and trappings.

  Despondent and frustrated, Lethralmir set down his blade and threw the White Lion over his shoulder.

  ‘He is heavy,’ he complained through clenched teeth.

  ‘Quiet!’ Arthelas hissed, adding, ‘In here,’ as she opened the lid to a large ottoman.

  Lethralmir dumped Korhvale�
��s corpse inside unceremoniously and shut the lid.

  Arthelas had moved back over to the scene of the fight. She scowled at the blood-stained floor.

  ‘Clean it,’ she snapped, looking around her chambers for further evidence of Korhvale’s presence there.

  ‘What about this?’ Lethralmir asked as he crouched over the bloody smear left by the White Lion. He held a scroll of parchment between his fingers and showed it to Arthelas.

  ‘Burn it,’ she told him coldly.

  ‘Gone, my lord,’ said Commander Valorian.

  ‘“Gone”, what do you mean “gone”?’ asked Ithalred, strapping on his final leg greave.

  The elves were mustering. The arched gates of Tor Eorfith were open and its drawbridge lowered to enable snaking columns of dragon knights, silver helms and reavers to sally. Squadrons of chariots from the partly sundered realm of Tiranoc followed; phalanxes of spearmen and archers in their wake. Bolt throwers, aptly named ‘reapers’ were wheeled out along the bridge and bedded in quickly upon the high ground. After the war machines marched the sword masters, their massive blades held in salute as they encircled Tor Eorfith’s mages who trod solemnly within the web of steel carrying their orbs, staffs and other magical arcana. Though there were just a handful of the warrior-scholars, their deadly great swords could shear through even the thickest dwarf armour.

  Tor Eorfith’s spellweavers were led by the silver-haired archmage, Rhathilan. He was Arthelas’s teacher and mentor though unknown to Rhathilan she had since surpassed him, yoking her power from darker sources. Having seemingly overcome her fatigue, the seeress had insisted she be allowed to fight in the battle. Ithalred had wanted to keep her safe behind the gates of the city, but even they would not persevere forever. In the end he had relented, and so she too joined her fellow mages behind the sword masters’ steel circle.

  As the elves filed out of the city gates they arrayed themselves upon the plain in disciplined ranks and formed their regiments, banners snapping in the wind. Several miles to the south were the army of the dwarfs, waiting patiently for the elves to finish mustering.

  ‘Precisely that, my prince,’ Valorian replied. The warden of Tor Eorfith would be taking command of the interior troops during the first sortie. ‘Korhvale is no longer in Tor Eorfith,’ he concluded.

  ‘Fled?’ Ithalred’s voice was tinged with disbelief as he donned his golden hawk-helm. ‘He expressed his reservations about this conflict with the dwarfs… that was the last time I ever saw him. But to run?’ the elf prince shook his head. ‘It is not his way. Something is amiss,’ he muttered.

  ‘Would you like me to investigate the matter?’ Valorian asked.

  ‘No,’ Ithalred decided, looping his foot in the stirrup of his mighty great eagle. The magnificent beast was called Awari, and he was one of three rookery brothers. To forge a bond with such a creature was not easy and no one other than Ithalred ever rode these eagles. Awari was his favourite – intelligence and nobility shone behind his avian eyes. ‘There is no time. Marshal the defences,’ he said, swinging into the saddle, ‘when the dwarfs beat us outside the city you’ll need to be ready to interrupt any pursuit so that as many of us as possible can get back behind the walls.’

  It sounded fatalistic, but Ithalred was not so vainglorious as to be unrealistic. The dwarfs drew upon all the armies of their entire hold. The elves, though their colony was large, had no such force at their disposal and no time to request reinforcements. Such negative strategy was prerequisite when so badly outnumbered.

  With nothing further to say to Valorian, Ithalred arched his head back and uttered an ululating command that shrilled like a bird cry. His great eagle spread its mighty wings, its armoured head and beak glittering in the morning light. With a piercing shriek the ancient creature rose magnificently into the sky to join its unmounted rookery brothers, Skarhir and Urouke, amidst the darkening cloud.

  It was five days since the elves had been expelled from Karak Ungor in ignominy. Brunvilda thought it a rare miracle that none had lost their lives in the Great Hall, that scarcely no blood had been shed.

  In a few hours Bagrik’s armies would leave Karak Ungor for the long, slow march to the elven city. The road to the north would take around two days to travel, two short days before the grand dwarf army would assemble on the lowlands before Tor Eorfith. Using his influence and power as king, Bagrik had assembled such a force as to leave the hold almost empty, barring a skeleton company of thinly spread miners, clan warriors and ironbreakers. There were some, amongst the most venerable ancestors and longbeards, that would also remain but few in the Delving Hold had seen or heard of them in many years.

  The scarcity of troops patrolling the corridors was to Brunvilda’s advantage as she hurried towards her destination. The queen was shrouded in a thick cloak of hruk wool, voluminous enough to hide what she needed it to. Cowl drawn over her head she moved anonymously, down into the farthest deeps. Brunvilda suppressed a pang of regret and sorrow. It would probably be the last time she ever did this.

  Dimly, she recalled her last conversation with Bagrik, what had passed between them now fully occupying her thoughts. After the elven treachery had been revealed, Bagrik had slipped into a bitter melancholy. Brunvilda, once she had him alone in their royal quarters, had tried desperately to bring him out of it, but to no avail. Instead, she had only worsened the king’s buried choler.

  ‘Please, I beg of you, don’t go into battle,’ she had urged him. ‘Let Morek reckon this misdeed of the elgi. You are not fit enough–’

  ‘I am fit enough!’ Bagrik had raged. ‘You’ll never meet the dawi king that is not fit enough to reckon his own deeds. I’d have to be dead before I allowed another to settle this grudge,’ he vowed. ‘My son… Nagrim was slain by these pointy-eared, pale-arsed bastards. His kinsdwarf left for dead, too. And that,’ he had told her, his eyes widening with vehemence as he wagged his finger, ‘was their biggest mistake. They reckoned on a dwarf being as soft and effeminate as their own silk-swaddled race. What folly!’ Bagrik laughed, but it had been a bitter, mirthless expression. The coldness of it had struck to Brunvilda’s core.

  ‘I feel for Nagrim, too,’ the queen had assured him. ‘I loved him dearly, and I would see these elgi pay with their lives for what they did, but I would not see you give up yours so wastefully.’

  ‘It is not profligate to avenge one’s kin, Brunvilda,’ Bagrik had barked. ‘My only son is dead. My only son,’ he repeated, with a warning in his tone as he had turned away from her to face his armour. ‘Upon my return, the other will be exiled,’ Bagrik had said without emotion, ‘left to die in the mountains, as it should have been years ago.’

  Despite her impassioned protests, Bagrik had not listened. Reason had fled in his mind. Whether caused by the poison running in his veins that would surely kill him, or the fact that his heart and soul were hollow lifeless husks, Brunvilda did not know. All she was certain of was that she could not allow Lothvar to be so callously discarded. If he was to die then at least it would be upon the field of battle, fighting for the honour of his father and his clan.

  The door to the Grey Road had come upon Brunvilda swiftly. She took no lantern this time; she would need the darkness and the shadows to conceal her. Silently, with only her nocturnal vision to guide her, Brunvilda moved down the long subterranean passageway that led to Lothvar’s cell. Approaching the corona of light cast by the hanging lantern at the door, she noted with some dismay that the guard was still present.

  Swathed in her dark woollen cloak, the ironbreaker did not see her until she was almost upon him.

  ‘Hold–’ he began, starting to show Brunvilda his armoured palm in a gesture for her to stop.

  Brunvilda swung the hammer she carried out from beneath the cloak and smashed it, two-handed, against the ironbreaker’s helmet. When he didn’t go down from the first blow, she struck him again. This time, he went to his knees and his arms dropped to his side. Whilst he was still dazed, Brunvilda pulled of
f his helmet and then smacked him again over his bare, bald pate. That did it. The ironbreaker fell onto his back unconscious.

  Satisfied he was still breathing, and would only be nursing an unearthly headache when he eventually awoke, Brunvilda, leaving the hammer behind, stepped over the prone dwarf and into Lothvar’s cell using the key stolen from the guard.

  Using the wooden bucket and some patient cajoling, Brunvilda got Lothvar out of his pit. She brought a bundle of tightly wrapped clothes: a coarse jerkin, some woollen leggings and boots. Flicking anxious glances back in the direction of the supine guard, she dressed her son. Though it was a struggle, she managed it quickly and with a few quiet words of encouragement took Lothvar out of the dungeon for the first time in over eighty years. Brunvilda forgot to douse the lantern outside as they fled and Lothvar cowered against the light. She had been tempted to extinguish it, but her son would need to get used to it if he were to achieve the destiny she had in mind for him.

  ‘Where are you taking us, mother?’ asked Lothvar, holding Brunvilda’s hand as she led them through the Grey Road as fast as she dared.

  ‘To see your brother,’ she promised. ‘Move swiftly, Lothvar. No one must know you have gone… not yet, at least.’

  ‘Does our father need us?’ he asked. ‘Together, we will drive the grobi from our gates… No, wait…’ said Lothvar, his sudden bravura overcome by solemnity, ‘Nagrim is dead…’

  ‘Quietly now, Lothvar,’ Brunvilda told him, gripping his malformed hand just a little tighter, ‘we are leaving the Grey Road.’

  Lothvar did as his mother asked and together they used all the seldom trodden paths, the forgotten corridors and dust-clogged passageways of Karak Ungor, moving in secret until they had reached their destination.