Honourkeeper

by Nick Kyme

  When a noble of a dwarf hold was slain, tradition demanded that a long period of mourning be observed before the dead were allowed to pass into the Halls of the Ancestors. Like with everything, dwarfs took their time over this ritual. Nagrim’s internment had been interrupted by the sudden need for war, the abrupt desire to mete out vengeance in his name. So it was then that he had remained in the Temple of Valaya, beneath the goddess’s watchful gaze.

  Between the magic embedded in the runes of that sacred place and the unguents and oils lathering his body, the dwarf prince was kept preserved and had not decayed even slightly when Brunvilda and Lothvar finally reached him.

  ‘Nagrim,’ breathed Lothvar, setting eyes on his younger brother for the very first time. He staggered forward, limping free of his mother’s grasp to stand before the cold body of his sibling laid in quiet repose.

  ‘He looks like he’s sleeping,’ said Lothvar, reaching out with trembling fingers.

  ‘Don’t touch him, my son,’ warned Brunvilda. ‘He is awaiting his ancestors’ call. Gazul will guide him when the time comes.’

  Lothvar wept, though it was a brief mourning. As he wiped away the last errant tear from his ravaged face, he turned to Brunvilda.

  ‘Why have you brought me here?’

  Brunvilda smiled warmly. Out of the corner of her eye she could see the ancestral armour of Karak Ungor, that which by right and tradition would go to the heir of Delving Hold, he who was eldest of the king’s offspring upon reaching his eightieth winter.

  Lothvar was over eighty winters old.

  ‘I’ve brought you here for your destiny,’ Brunvilda told him. ‘Now listen to me Lothvar, listen carefully to what you must do.’

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  For Vengeance

  At last the elves were ready. Regal dragon knights glared imperiously astride shuddering steeds, vermillion armour gleaming as if aflame. Silver helm knights, with lances upraised and banners dipped, shimmered in their ithilmar mail. The spear tips of the elf infantry shone in forests of silver spikes. Archers stood motionless, a long unbroken line of sapphire and white. This was an army of the elder race, the immortal sons and daughters of Aenarion from across the Great Ocean. Truly, it was a wondrous sight.

  ‘The glittering host,’ Morek growled from atop the ridge, voice thick with contempt. He was standing alongside King Bagrik in his full hearth guard regalia, battle mask drawn over his face. The dwarf stroked the runic talisman around his neck with absent-minded affection. Below him were the batteries of war machines arranged in half-rings. The quarrellers were beneath them strung out in ragged lines to compensate for the uneven terrain. Below that was the sheer wall of iron and bronze that Morek would use as a hammer to crush the elven host and send them fleeing back behind their walls.

  ‘T’would be a pity to bloody them,’ remarked the hearth guard captain after he’d received his final orders from the king.

  Bagrik grunted beneath his own battle mask.

  ‘But bloody them we will,’ he promised darkly, ‘and more besides.’

  The horn call rang out like clear thunder on a summer’s day. It split the air and signalled the first advance. Dwarf trumpets bayed in response, and the staccato beat of drums was struck up in earnest. The sons of Grungni were moving.

  The battlefield was dominated by a broad expanse of flat lowland consisting of coarse grass, isolated copses of pine and scattered rocks. Hillocks formed a shaggy undulating spine across the far left flank, developing into much heavier-contoured ground that culminated in the ridge of sparsely grassed rock where Bagrik watched and waited. To the right was the rocky debris of the mountains, eroded by weather and age to encroach a fair distance onto the killing field.

  Alongside King Bagrik there stood his runelord, Agrin Oakenheart. The venerable dwarf had said nothing during the long trudge from Karak Ungor. He and his apprentices had kept their own counsel, maintaining a watchful eye on the Anvils of Doom as they were hauled by mules to the battlesite. Skengi and Hurbad were below, amongst the main dwarf throng. The two master runesmiths would be needed to counter whatever sorcery the elves might throw at them.

  ‘There’s a change in the earth,’ growled Agrin, his voice like metal scraping rock. ‘I fear this will be the end of it.’

  ‘The end of what, old one?’ Bagrik asked.

  ‘The end of all we know,’ replied the runelord, ‘and the beginning of change.’

  Blinking, Agrin gazed up into the sky, where a pale yellow sun struggled to shine through the gathering clouds, and scowled.

  ‘S’been a long few years since I’ve seen the sky, felt the wind on my face,’ he remarked. ‘Now I know why.’ Expression souring, he returned to his silence.

  Stone fell in a relentless hail from the dwarf mangonels arrayed on the hill. It blotted the limpid sun before crashing down like rock-hard thunder against the elven reapers. The bolt throwers were smashed into elegant kindling, their crewman maimed or pulped in the sudden avalanche of granite. Isolated elven mages endeavoured to protect the war engines with shimmering magical shields but their attention was divided between attack and defence. Occasionally thwarted by the efforts of the dwarf runesmiths, the elves could only do so much.

  Punitive strikes against the elven machineries had been one of Bagrik’s priorities. It had proven a wise stratagem, for even depleted as they were they spat a deadly fusillade that tore up dwarf armour like parchment. Even the stoutest shields were rent apart. Reapers – they were well named, for theirs was a bitter harvest.

  ‘Do you remember what that is for?’ Morek shouted above the clang of chafing armour and rattled shields, as the hearth guard marched up the left flank.

  ‘Aye, I’ve not forgotten my axe-craft, Thane Stonehammer,’ Kandor growled back at him. The dwarf merchant wore an open-faced helmet with a long noseguard that showed off his reddening cheeks as they puffed and blowed.

  ‘A little thick around the waist, too, I see,’ observed the hearth guard captain. ‘More fat than muscle, I’d warrant.’

  Kandor looked down at the suit of lamellar armour bulging at his girth and frowned.

  ‘I don’t see why we must go to the elgi. Why don’t we let them come to us?’ he grumbled.

  Kandor had joined the army at his own request. His dealings with the elves had left his honour in tatters. Already, his name had been entered into the book of grudges for his singular lack of wisdom in entreating the foreigners. Kandor himself felt partly to blame for what had transpired. Short of taking the slayer oath, he would exact his toll of revenge against those who had tricked him with honeyed words and gilded promises in blood. It would not erase the stain of his ignominy, but it would at least settle some of his account when he met with Gazul at the Gate.

  ‘Ah,’ replied Morek conspiratorially, tapping the noseguard of his battle mask with a gauntleted finger, ‘that’s because our king has a surprise in mind for the pointy-eared bastards,’ he explained. ‘Don’t worry, ufdi, I’ll make sure you live long enough to reap a tally that’ll see you into the Halls.’ Morek laughed loudly, the sound oddly metallic through his helmet.

  This will be a grand battle. Nagrim would have wanted to fight in it, thought Morek sadly, as the mangonels continued their barrage.

  Haggar Anvilfist held the dwarf centre. The banner of Karak Ungor was clenched firmly in the thane’s iron grip, and swayed as he moved. The clan warriors arrayed around him followed it like a beacon. This was a day of destiny; Haggar felt it as sure as the rune axe in his hand and the armour on his back. Facing the northmen had been a time of trial, which he had passed. Already, he felt the mark that Thagri had made against his clan’s honour lifting. Here upon the fields outside Eyrie Rock that legacy would be forever expunged and a new saga of honour forged in its place.

  A violent fulguration erupted before the thane, arresting his thoughts. Haggar watched arcs of lightning dissipating into sparks on the ground as they earthed into Skengi’s outstretched runestaff. The thane nodded
his thanks to the runesmith whose beard was spiked from the sudden bolt charge. Further down the dwarf battle-line, Haggar saw a distant regiment of clan warriors succumb to the fury of an elven firestorm. The entire front rank died in the conflagration, the dwarfs’ magical defences breached at last. Dourly, the clan warriors behind stepped over the scorched remains of the dead and raised their blackened banner in defiance.

  ‘Keep with me!’ Haggar shouted to his own warriors, looking to see that they were holding firm. Musicians beat their drums, dictating the pace of the march and clan leaders reaffirmed the thane’s orders further down the file. Arrows loosed by the elven archers whickered into their ranks, the occasional gurgled cry indicating that some found their mark, but the dwarfs were unperturbed. Haggar kept them moving until they reached the standing point, the one that Bagrik had shown to all of his captains when they had convened in his tent for the war council.

  The thane called a halt, signalling with the banner. Horns blared, carrying the order, and the drummers beat a frantic staccato until they too ceased. Three hundred dwarfs, twenty ranks deep, spanned across the ironclad centre of King Bagrik Boarbrow’s army in their regiments of fifty. And this was just Haggar’s throng. Two more, equally massive, infantry cohorts bolstered the armoured lynchpin either side, with three further throngs behind them as reserves.

  ‘Here we stand, rocks of the mountain,’ Haggar cried to his warriors, ‘unshakeable, resilient. Let none through. Smash them on your shields!’

  Reverberating horn blasts greeted the declaration, and the dwarf warriors cheered.

  ‘They come now,’ Skengi said calmly, hefting his forging hammer.

  The earth was trembling. From out of the glittering host there arose a terrible thunder. Heavy-armoured dragon knights surged from the elven centre, their silver helmed kinsmen galloping in their wake. Either side of the lancehead there rumbled vast squadrons of war chariots, scythed wheels shimmering dangerously in the light as they raced. Several of the machines were crushed by boulders flung from the dwarf mangonels. The missiles rolled through them or ploughed into the earth to create immovable reefs upon which several chariots were dashed. But there were simply too many to hope the stone throwers could stop them all.

  As the elven cavalry closed, hurtling along the open ground, the elven infantry regiments closed the gap in the line behind them and followed on swiftly. Mere feet from the dwarfs, the elven knights lowered their lances for the final charge.

  ‘Raise shields,’ roared Haggar, the tumult of galloping steeds filling his ears as the wall of iron and bronze went up. ‘Give ’em nothing!’

  Bagrik sat pensively upon his war shield watching the battle slowly unfold. The aged king, grown more ancient in these last few months than all of his one hundred and eighty-six winters, felt a sharp twinge in his side from where the Norscan had stabbed him. Gritting his teeth he forced the pain caused by the poison in his dying body to the back of his mind. He only needed to stay alive long enough to exact his revenge. Nothing else mattered anymore.

  The initial advance had gone well. The dwarf centre and both its flanks had reached the standing point, making their shield walls in front of the enemy. Volleys from the stone throwers had all but destroyed the elven reapers, though their archers were still taking a heavy toll. Bagrik was all but ready to order the master engineer to concentrate on them when a war cry echoed to the king’s far right. Out of a small cluster of trees emerged a mounted group of reavers, the horsemasters of Ellyrion, loosing arrows and javelins. Two dwarf crewmen slumped dead over their machine already, the remaining journeyman and sighter taking cover behind the stone thrower’s carriage.

  Another shout rang out, though this time it was followed by dwarf curses, as a concealed band of rangers burst from their hiding places amongst a dense thicket of scrub. Bagrik had learned his lesson against the northmen. He’d deployed these reserves purposely to protect his machineries and dissuade ambitious saboteurs. The dwarf king would not be outflanked by skirmishers so easily again.

  Thrown axes thudded into the foremost reavers as the rangers attacked, the elven steeds panicked by the sudden ambush. The elves rallied quickly though, making a feigned flight to draw out their attackers before regrouping and driving at them again. Though slow, the dwarf rangers unslung crossbows and soon had the horsemasters pinned. A second harass of steeds with heavier-armoured, spear-wielding reavers undid their well-employed strategy.

  Unable to handle both groups of reavers, the rangers were forced into retreat whilst the elves ran rampant amongst the dwarf war machines. Bagrik scowled at the carnage just a hundred feet from his vantage point, as his devastating stone thrower barrage was brought to an abrupt halt. Though the dwarf crews put up stern resistance, showing no signs of being overrun, they were locked at an impasse with the elves.

  Bellowing for quarrellers, the dwarf king was determined to break it.

  Morek watched the mass of elven cavalry break away from their main battle-line, only for the gap to be filled a moment later by onrushing units of spearmen and bolstered by a smaller regiment of sword masters. The hearth guard captain’s foes were closing too, though at a much slower rate than the knights. Another large block of elven spears was coming Morek’s way, with more sword masters too. He counted one of the mages amongst their ranks, a silver-haired elf that seemed to radiate power. The dwarf looked askance down the line, to where Hurbad waited silently with a regiment of longbeards. Stroking the talisman around his neck, Morek hoped the runesmith would be able to staunch the elf’s sorcery long enough for him to remove the mage’s silver-maned head from his shoulders.

  Swinging his rune axe in readiness, Morek’s attention went back to the dwarf centre and Haggar’s clan warriors. The elf knights had passed through the gauntlet lain down by the war machines and quarrellers, who were now curiously silent. They struck the shield wall in an avalanche of steel and armoured horseflesh. Morek felt the ripple of the elves’ charge all the way down his own flank.

  ‘Hold them, lad,’ he muttered to himself. ‘Stand your ground, Haggar.’

  Haggar’s shield wall crumpled. Driven by the impetus of their onrushing steeds and the will of the elf noble leading them, the charge of the dragon knights was irresistible. Burnished red armour flew by in a furious blur and the clatter of steel and the discord of screams filled the thane’s ears. The gradually widening hole torn in the dwarf centre was further exploited by the immediate wave of silver helms that followed. The dwarf warriors were afforded no time to recover and more were trampled, or spit on sharpened lances as the elven knights ripped through them.

  Haggar was nearly pitched off his feet in the initial assault. Staggering, he managed to steady himself and level his shield before the chariots hit. The war machines ground through the dwarfs, only the hardiest or the fortunate spared death or maiming beneath their steel-shod wheels and razor-sharp scythes. The elves aboard the chariots loosed arrows or lunged with spears as they raced past, adding further to the death toll.

  Devastated in the wake of the cavalry charge, the dwarf centre rocked, like a pugilist put on his heels by a body blow, and began to falter.

  ‘Hold,’ cried Haggar, ‘hold!’ The command was voiced in desperation as the thane thrust the banner of Karak Ungor into the air.

  ‘Skengi Granitehand, are you still alive?’ called Haggar through the chaos when he thought the immediate moment of crisis had passed.

  ‘Aye,’ bawled the runesmith. ‘Just.’ A savage gash across the dwarf’s forehead was leaking blood down the side of his face, and Skengi held his hammer-wielding arm close to his chest.

  Haggar nodded, before shouting, ‘Close ranks!’

  Looking behind him, he saw the elves had punched right through with few losses. The noble at the elves’ head must have been a skilled rider. He had managed to maintain the knights’ impetus and angled their approach so that they tore out of the dwarfs’ flank, into a regiment from the second throng, and then clean through into the open g
round.

  Haggar watched through a sea of bobbing helmets, axe blades and banners as the elf cavalry cantered swiftly along the dwarf rear, bolts and quarrels whipping by harmlessly as they kept out of bowshot. Using their momentum, the noble led the knights around to the dwarf right flank, darting audaciously in-between the two separate throngs. Distant clan warriors reacted to the sudden threat, urgently sounding trumpets to signal the change in formation. The dwarfs showed their shields to the elves prowling alongside them, but were ignored. The dragon knights were coming around for a second charge at Haggar’s still regrouping throng. It seemed the noble at the fore wanted to claim the banner of Karak Ungor for himself.

  ‘You’ll have to prise it from my cold dead hand,’ Haggar muttered as the dwarf warriors drew in around him.

  The dragon knights were building up speed. They were coming, only this time the elven infantry would be right behind them.

  Haggar closed his grip even tighter on the banner and made an oath to Grungni that he would not let it fall.

  ‘Here they come again! Dwarfs of Karak Ungor, dig in and stay with me,’ he roared.

  The adrenalin rush as the dragon knights bore down on the dwarfs was almost overwhelming. The hoofbeats from their armoured steeds hammered the ground like deafening thunder.

  Skengi the runesmith stepped forward from the shield wall when the elves were just a few feet away. Haggar shouted out to him but his cry was lost in the bellowed avowal of rune rites as Skengi rammed his staff into the ground. The sigils inscribed down its shaft blazed into life and a moment later the earth shook as if with the footsteps of giants.

  The dragon knights ran straight into the tremor as it rippled from Skengi’s staff, their surefooting lost as the ground trembled beneath them. Elves were unhorsed in the quake, crushed as they struck the unyielding plain, or trampled by the steeds of oncoming knights. Others were driven into comrades alongside them, careening dangerously out of control, only to clatter against dwarf shields acting as breakers.