Honourkeeper

by Nick Kyme

  Suddenly the cavalry charge had faltered. Some, like the elven noble at the head, kept their balance and drove on with lances levelled, but the attack had paled in its power and ferocity. Even the chariots were undone, few getting through, most crashing to a halt or upended and destroyed against the stalwart dwarf warriors. Within the morass of iron and bronze, the elven knights found themselves mired.

  No glorious charges to win the day. No lightning attacks to rend the foe asunder. This was the grind. Now it got ugly.

  High above the battlefield, Ithalred gazed down at the struggle below. He soared through the grey heavens on Awari’s back, the wind whipping against his face and whistling loudly through the curves of his ornate hawk-helm.

  Bursts of magic erupted in the dust-filled chaos beneath him, just ephemeral sparks of lightning or spits of flame such was Ithalred’s altitude. The enemy seemed equal to the elves’ sorcerous barrage as bolts rebounded against iridescent shields and fiery conflagrations withered into smoke with the dwarfs’ counter-magic.

  Pinnacle of the glittering host, the elven cavalry led by the dragon knights had become trapped amongst the dwarf infantry. Ithalred watched with displeasure as a silver helm was dragged from his saddle and slain. He considered intervening to try and break the deadlock when elven battle horns announced the arrival of a massive block of spearmen and sword masters following up after the horse. Arcing back on himself, the elf prince turned his attention elsewhere.

  A dense patch of cloud loomed in front of him. Ithalred leaned down in the saddle and whispered into Awari’s ear. The great eagle pushed with his wings as they surged through it. Wisps of grey-black cumulonimbus tugged at the elf prince’s armour, and peeled in misty tendrils from Awari’s wings, as they broke free. The great eagle’s rookery brothers gave chase and emerged seconds later. The dark vapour still clinging tenaciously to their magnificent bodies dissipated into ether as Ithalred plunged Awari into a sharp dive.

  Skarhir and Urouke followed him, maintaining close aerial formation. The great eagles’ beaks were dipped like down-thrusting arrows, their wings pinned back, before Ithalred let out a sharp screech and they arrested their descent, wings fanned and claws outstretched in front of them. Buoyed by warm currents of air, the eagles were content to glide as their master surveyed the carnage.

  Directly below him, Ithalred saw a stricken band of reavers battling against a group of rangers and the sweating crewmen of the infernal dwarf catapults. Reaching over his left shoulder the elf prince pulled out his longbow, an exquisite weapon forged in the temples of Vaul at Caledor. He swiftly nocked an arrow and loosed. Ithalred smiled darkly as one of the dwarfs, an engineer clad in gilded armour and wielding an immense warhammer, fell dead with a shaft protruding from his neck. The elf prince’s enjoyment at the deed was fleeting as he took another arrow and let fly. This time he aimed at the rangers. As the missile flew it broke into many pointed shafts and hammered against the dwarfs in a barrage, who fell in their droves.

  Ithalred didn’t wait to see what would happen next, his gaze was locked on the still struggling reavers, now being pin-cushioned by dwarf quarrellers. Against the relentless volley fire, the elf cavalry fled. Already the surviving dwarf crews were back toiling at their war machines, preparing to resume their assault. Ithalred narrowed his eyes and trilled aggressively through clenched teeth.

  Here is where my sword will fall hardest, he thought as the great eagles dove earthward. The dwarf stone throwers were doomed.

  Morek winced as a surging column of fire flared and then died before his eyes. No sooner had Hurbad dispelled the magicks, the silver-haired elf mage had conjured a luminous golden spear. Concentration etched on his face, the elf lunged with it at the runesmith. Hurbad cried out in agony as the enchanted weapon pierced his gromril armour and dug deep into his thigh.

  He fell as the weapon was removed. Morek stepped in its path before silver-mane could finish Hurbad for good. Eldritch sparks danced and spat from the two blades as the hearth guard captain parried another thrust with his rune axe.

  ‘Get him back!’ he yelled, and saw two dwarfs come forward and pull the injured runesmith from the fighting rank and out of his eye-line.

  ‘Hold ‘em!’ cried Morek, as he aimed to cleave the elf mage’s neck but was thwarted by the gilded shaft of his magically summoned spear.

  Morek’s order was easier said than done. The hearth guard were hard-pressed, the warrior-scholars of the elven sword masters weaving about them, cutting and hewing in whirlwinds of deadly steel. Several dwarfs were already dead, no match for the elegant killers.

  Kandor was holding his own, though the dwarf merchant was fortunate to be facing off against spearmen rather than the elven sword masters. Morek had deployed him farther down the line when he’d seen the enemy’s approach. Kandor was an ufdi, yes, but he deserved a fighting chance at survival and redemption all the same.

  ‘You’ll live longer this way,’ Morek had joked, calling out to him just before the elves had hit.

  Kandor hadn’t answered. His eyes had been fixed on the charging elves, knuckles white as he’d gripped his axe. The time for talking had ended.

  Landing a punch in silver-mane’s midriff, Morek was rewarded with a grunt of pain from his duelling partner. As he drove home the blow, he saw a dwarf cast a throwing axe at one of the sword masters, only to see it rebounded by a spinning arc of silver. The hearth guard fell dead, his own weapon lodged in his neck. Morek found he was still able to force a grave smile. Silver-mane had lost his golden spear. It evaporated into iridescent yellow dust in his spidery fingers.

  ‘You’ll lose a lot more than that,’ Morek promised then felt his bravura ebb as the mage retreated, allowing two sword masters to take his place.

  The dwarf’s reaction was terse.

  ‘Bugger…’

  Death… Death was everywhere. It was the reek on the breeze. It was the screaming in his ears. It was the hot red haze in his eyes. Death was redolent. It permeated everything, soaked every pore. Death revelled with the savage ecstasy that filled Haggar’s thumping heart as he killed.

  The elf knights were pinned and had lost the advantage of the charge, but they were still fearsome foes. Well-armoured, high up on their steeds, they would be no pushovers. Even still, Haggar dragged one from his saddle by the boot and applied the death blow with his axe. One of the beasts rammed its muscled flank into him, but it obviously hadn’t reckoned on dwarf tenacity and Haggar pushed back with his armoured shoulder, making the steed rear up and unhorsing its rider. Skengi, fighting just ahead of the thane, was quick to dispatch the fallen elf with a blow from his hammer.

  It was hard fighting. Probably the hardest that Haggar had ever fought. The elves were skilled, disciplined and phenomenally fast. Dragon knights jabbed down with swords and lances in a crimson blur, piercing dwarf armour with their accurate blade thrusts. Steeds kicked and trampled. It could go either way.

  Though the dwarfs fought for all they were worth, the arrival of the spearmen and limb-reaping sword masters had dented their resolve, pushing them to the edge. Haggar could feel the warriors hanging on the brink of retreat. Only the banner of Karak Ungor, the shame of fleeing from it and allowing it to be taken by the enemy, held them… at least for now.

  ‘I’ll be damned if I see you put us to flight,’ Haggar snarled under his breath at the nearest elf in his eye-line.

  With some satisfaction, he watched as the dragon knight was brought down. Another figure loomed out of the battle haze behind him, cutting at either flank with his shimmering, gore-slicked blade. Carving a path through a band of clan warriors, he found the dwarf he was looking for. The noble, he who had led the charge of the dragon knights with such ferocity and skill, levelled his long sword at Haggar. A ruby of blood peeled along the edge and fell ominously onto the ground in front of him.

  The dwarf thane roared a challenge, thumping his chestplate and then brandishing the banner of Karak Ungor meaningfully.

 
‘Try and take it you pointy-eared swine,’ he cursed, ‘I dare you.’

  Haggar recognised the warrior. A black mane issued from beneath his stylised dragon helm. He even maintained the cocky swagger in the way he approached the dwarf on his steed. This was the raven-haired blade-master, the elf called Lethralmir.

  A shrieking war cry tore from the noble’s lips, sounding tinny through his helmet. Lethralmir stirred his barded horse and charged. Though it was only a short distance through the melee, Lethralmir’s first blow struck with all the force of an avalanche. At least that’s how it felt to Haggar, as he was battered, barely able to turn the blade aside from his neck.

  The smallest of gaps had developed in the bloody struggle for the centre. It was through this that the elf noble brought his steed around for a second pass. Though he couldn’t see the elf’s face hidden by the snarling visage of his dragon helm, Haggar was sure he would be smiling.

  Bastard, step down off that bloody horse and we’ll see what’s what, he thought, working the tension out of his axe-arm where Lethralmir had managed to strike him on the pauldron.

  Three short strides and Lethralmir was upon him again, angling his blade in a vicious downward thrust intended to find the gap between the dwarf’s gorget and battle helm. But Haggar was equal to it. He fended off the elf’s attack, turning the sword with the flat blade of his rune axe. The impact jarred Lethralmir’s arm, forcing the elf to take a tighter rein on his steed. As he pulled up, Haggar was able to stay on his feet and whirled his axe around, raking it down the beast’s barded flank as it sped past. Armour chinks cascaded like red rain and the dwarf was rewarded with a whinny of pain from the elven horse. Haggar looked down at the freshly reddened edge to his axe blade and smiled.

  Lethralmir’s steed staggered and nearly fell. The ragged wound in its side was making its barding and armoured rider an intolerable burden. Even so, the elf hauled on its reins to bring it around. Despite loud protests, the steed obeyed. Blood was running freely down its flank now, the enforced exertions tearing its wound ever wider. Suddenly its forelegs bunched beneath it, fetlocks collapsing under the weight it could no longer bear, and Lethralmir was dumped onto the ground in front of it.

  The elf blade-master rose swiftly, in spite of his heavy armour, dispatching a pair of clan warriors that came at him out of the melee, axes swinging. Two expert blows, the first whilst he was still on one knee striking the groin and the second rising to his full height, preceded by a deft pirouette that made the dwarf’s axe strike seem slow and clumsy, followed by a brutal arcing slash that took the warrior’s helmeted head from his shoulders.

  Haggar blanched when he saw it – the elf’s long sword had sheared straight through the decapitated dwarf’s chainmail coif.

  ‘You’ll find me a sterner test,’ he promised, growling beneath his breath as the elf stalked towards him.

  Riding on Awari’s back, Prince Ithalred bolted from the sky like a spear of lightning. With a wicked swipe, he cut the head from the shoulders of a dwarf loader, the stone he was lumbering over to the catapult thudding at his feet before his body toppled back. An engineer brought a mechanised crossbow up, only for Ithalred to swat the weapon aside, sending the quarrel off harmlessly to impact into the war machine’s wooden carriage, before impaling the dwarf through the throat with a second blade. Awari raked a third crewman with his talons, ripping apart the dwarf’s leather apron like damp parchment. Skarhir and Urouke dove down a moment later, rending with beak and claw. In the few short seconds since the descent of the great eagles, the entrenched stone thrower battery had become something more akin to an open air abattoir.

  As he butchered the hapless dwarfs, Ithalred gazed further up the hill and saw King Bagrik glaring at him. The dwarf was stood with a small retinue of warriors and the ancient runesmith of his hold. It would be a simple matter for Ithalred to take flight with his eagles and kill the dwarf lord where he sat upon his war shield. For Bagrik to leave himself so exposed smacked of arrogance, or perhaps it was merely grief that had blotted out his caution and sense. It mattered not. Here was Ithalred’s chance to slay the enemy general and win this fight in one clean stroke.

  Acutely aware of the dwarf quarrellers beneath him, about to draw a bead at any moment, the elf prince was poised to order the attack when Bagrik raised the faceplate of his battle helm and smiled. Ithalred followed his gaze, to a cluster of large wicker baskets above the stone throwers, further up the hill.

  The elf prince had seen them briefly as he’d dove to attack the war machines, but assumed they were filled with ammunition, rock carved from the mountainside in readiness to fling from the launching arms of the catapults, and gave them no further thought. When the lids of the baskets were thrown off and the front and sides fell away to reveal a second battery of war machines, heavy dwarf ballista with bolts primed, Ithalred’s words caught in his throat.

  The elf shrieked the order to ascend but the dwarf machineries had already loosed. Skarhir got two feet off the ground before his left wing was shredded and he crashed down again. Vindictive quarrellers pinioned him with crossbow bolts until the great eagle ceased floundering. Urouke fared no better and was struck through the neck, the triumphant whoop of the dwarf engineers drowning out the noble beast’s death scream.

  Awari took to the air with panicked urgency. A missile from one of the ballista grazed his side eliciting a squawk of pain but the great eagle kept on rising. Ithalred felt a crossbow bolt thunk into his armour, and knew that some of the volley must have struck his mount too. Already Awari was flagging, doing his best to duck and weave as he sought altitude and the relative safety of the clouds. Weakened though, and losing blood, the great eagle was unable to dodge a bolt that raked across his wing and sent him dipping towards the ground.

  Ithalred roared, impelling his beloved mount onwards. They only need reach the safety of the walls of Tor Eorfith…

  Awari drew deep on his reserves of strength, managing to put some distance between them and their attackers. But even gliding was painful, every feather ruffled by the wind sending daggers of agony through the proud beast. Ithalred could feel Awari’s heart beating faster and faster as he pressed close to the great eagle’s body and whispered encouragement. They pitched lower as a strong gust of wind almost sent them crashing earthward, but Awari held on. The white walls were close and the battle seemed dull and distant behind them. Ithalred urged his great eagle for one last effort as he struggled for loft, the high battlements their only remaining obstacle. Spiralling madly, elf prince and great eagle clawed their way over and plunged headlong into the courtyard below. As he fell, Ithalred thought he heard the distant clarion of horns…

  To the east, dwarf battle horns echoed through the mountains as another force erupted from the hidden caves and crags on the elven left flank. Grikk, captain of the ironbreakers was at their head with a vast and heavily-armoured host. Travelling through the subterranean ungdrin, the dwarfs had been able to move unnoticed and arrive at the standing point where the elves were currently embroiled in fierce fighting against the main dwarf army. They struck up pipe and drum, and raised banners in salute of the king, who watched grimly from his distant vantage point.

  Grikk’s flanking force made the ground between them and their foes quickly and fell like a gromril wave upon the already embattled elves, massive cohorts of ironbreakers and stern-faced clan miners hewing and rending with axe and pick.

  Outflanked, outnumbered and with their general already fled, the elves sounded the retreat.

  Haggar heard the bellowing horns of Grikk’s battle company and breathed an inward sigh of relief. He and the elf blade-master merely stared at each other, still within striking distance, as the elves began disengaging. To their credit, the enemy retreated in good order, raising shields and adopting a defensive stance as they fell back. For their part, the dwarfs were content to let them go and consolidate their own position. It would be dishonourable to stab a foe in the back, even an elf.

&nbs
p; As they slowly withdrew, Haggar’s attention was suddenly drawn by one of the many small battles still petering out in the wake of the mass elven retreat.

  Arthelas was fighting alongside a band of sword masters. He watched her rise up on a pillar of coruscating fire, eyes ablaze with white lightning. She was… magnificent, and for a split second Haggar took his eye off the foe. It was like he and she were the only ones upon the field.

  Haggar shook away the glamour quickly.

  ‘I’ll see you aga–’ he began. The blade in his chest prevented Haggar from finishing his threat.

  Mere feet away, Lethralmir’s eyes flashed behind his dragon helm with murderous satisfaction.

  Sudden shock paralysed the dwarf as a warm sensation spread across his lower body. He felt the wound with his hand and brought up blood on his armoured fingers. It was pooling in his boot.

  Lethralmir twisted the blade then yanked it free, before drifting away like a wraith.

  Haggar spat blood onto the underside of his faceplate and gagged for air. His vision was fading. The blade had gone right through, piercing his armour as if it were nothing. He wanted to scream out, find strength in wrath but his mouth felt like it was stuffed with ash.

  Instead, with the last of his life’s blood oozing from his body, Haggar rammed the banner of Karak Ungor deep into the earth so that it would not fall. As the world broke away and darkness smothered him, he thought he could hear singing, like from the old days in the ancient hearth holds of his ancestors…

  Skengi found Haggar slumped against the battle standard. It stood proudly like a spire of rock, the dragon banner snapping defiantly in the wind. The thane had not allowed it to fall. The honour of the Skengdrang clan was intact. It had cost Haggar his life.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Tighten the Noose