The Great Betrayal

by Nick Kyme

  ‘Yes, but perhaps you should wait for your cousin. No one would think less of you if you did, my prince.’

  Snorri narrowed his eyes. ‘I’ve asked you before not to call me that,’ he said.

  Drogor smiled but there was no warmth to it, no feeling at all. ‘But that is what you are, a prince.’

  ‘I…’ Something disturbing had just happened, a tiny seed of doubt had been planted that was already taking root.

  Drogor was still smiling that deadened smile. It chilled Snorri like a winter’s breeze, but there was no time left to question it. Horns were blowing on both sides, the call to arms. The duel was about to begin.

  Snorri stood, his armour clanking as it came to rest. It felt heavy all of a sudden, his axe haft greasy in his armoured fist.

  ‘My prince?’ asked Khazagrim.

  Snorri was still looking at Drogor.

  ‘Go and meet your destiny, Snorri Halfhand,’ he said.

  ‘Come,’ the prince said to Khazagrim, trying to banish the malaise that had settled over him like a shroud. The elf king was already striding to the middle of the battlefield. Silence reigned, interrupted only by the wind and a distant summer storm.

  ‘Strange weather,’ Snorri remarked. Even his own voice sounded distant to him.

  ‘Aye,’ he heard Drogor answer, in a way that suggested he did not find it strange at all.

  Eyeing the horizon behind the elf army, Snorri looked for his cousin as if just the sight of Morgrim would steady his inexplicable nerves. But Morgrim wasn’t there. Snorri was on his own.

  The few hundred feet to the middle of the battlefield felt like leagues. Sweat lathered Snorri’s face. It dripped off the end of his nose, and made him want to remove his winged helmet. His heart was racing, faster than it should be, and he had to suppress a tremor in his injured hand as phantom pain he hadn’t experienced in years returned.

  ‘I call you forth to face grudgement, elfling,’ said Snorri, trying to bolster his fractured resolve. ‘Let it be known on this day that Prince Snorri Lunngrin did meet Caledor of the elgi in honourable combat to settle the misdeeds of his race and exact recompense in blood.’

  Caledor was sheathing his sword after making a few practice swings. He had decided on his spear to open with and made a quick thrust before turning to the prince.

  ‘Were you speaking, little mud-dweller? I didn’t hear you all the way down there, I’m afraid.’ He settled into a ready stance, spear held in one hand. ‘Shall we begin?’

  Snorri was incensed, his momentary fear eclipsed by rage, and he roared, ‘Elgi bast–’

  The spear lashed out like quicksilver, ripping open a gash down Snorri’s face and splitting his war helm apart. Dazed, the prince half spun then staggered, almost losing his footing. A second blow, a downstroke with the haft, put the dwarf on his back.

  The elves cheered, whilst the dwarfs were stunned into silence at the abrupt turn.

  Snorri raised his shield, fending off a flurry of jabbing thrusts. The last went straight through, pinning his shoulder before the spear was withdrawn in a welter of his blood.

  Crying out, Snorri punched back with the remains of his shield, swinging his axe wildly so he could regain his feet. Laboured breaths that felt like knives sheared from his mouth. His armoured chest heaved and ached. The elf king hadn’t even broken a sweat and stared coldly at his prey.

  ‘I knew you dwarfs were weak,’ he said. ‘You are diggers and labourers, not warriors. You have erred here, and you will die for it.’

  Snorri charged, with a cry of ‘Grungni!’, but found a spear in his thigh arresting his forward momentum. He jerked to a halt, and felt the ground rush up to meet him, smacking into his back like a battering ram and pushing the air from his lungs. Snorri reached for his axe, but it was no longer in his hand, nor was his shield. As the elf king glowered over him, he was defenceless.

  ‘My father will–’ The words died as Caledor left his spear pinning Snorri to the ground and opened the prince up with his sword.

  ‘Sapherian steel,’ he told the dwarf, showing Snorri the bloodied blade. ‘Deadly.’

  Numbing cold spread through the prince’s body, a deepening chill that would freeze him unto death. He thought of his father, of the destiny that would not be his, of Morgrim and Elmendrin. Until the very end, he fought, spitting blood and mouthing curses at the slowly fading figure of the elf king. It would do no good because Gazul had Snorri now and would take him to his gate.

  Snorri Halfhand was dead.

  Morgrim barrelled over the rise and saw Snorri fall.

  ‘No!’ Half rasp, half shout, the thane’s agony echoed across Angaz Baragdum. It incited a riot in the dwarfs, who came forwards to protect the body of their prince. Too late, though, for the elf king had cut Snorri’s arm from the elbow and brandished it like a trophy to his warriors.

  Elven riders were already spurring their horses and beginning to charge. They had not yet seen Morgrim’s army.

  ‘Uzkul!’ he bellowed, consumed by wrathful grief. ‘Crush them!’

  Led by Khazagrim, the hearthguard surged forwards to protect the prince. Several were cut down by Caledor before the elf king withdrew on a horse brought by his banner bearer.

  Engaged by foes from behind, the knights’ charge failed to materialise and they faltered.

  Laughing, and only pausing to cast Snorri’s severed arm into a deep, flooded quarry, the elf king signalled the retreat. In disarray from seeing their prince so savagely struck down, the dwarfs were unable to contain them. Morgrim had abandoned the plan and was forging towards his cousin with all haste, driving through the enemy and hacking down any elf that got in his way. His hammer was crimson by the time he reached Snorri’s side.

  A ring of armoured hearthguard parted to let him pass.

  Battle din faded in the distance as the last few skirmishes between the fleeing elves and pursuing dwarfs subsided. Morgrim looked down on his cousin’s broken, mutilated body and wept.

  Snorri was already ashen. A grimace of defiance etched upon his face, he looked far from at peace. In pursuit of destiny, he had died an ugly, painful death.

  ‘Dreng tromm…’ uttered Morgrim, sinking to his knees.

  ‘He would not listen,’ said a voice beyond the hearthguard.

  Morgrim looked up and through his tears fixed Drogor with a steely glare.

  ‘Speak plainly,’ he rasped.

  ‘I told him to wait.’

  ‘And is that what you did, Drogor? Did you wait? I saw the throng rooted to the spot whilst my cousin was cut apart. Why did you not aid him?’

  ‘I was forbidden, and by Grungni’s oath I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It happened so quickly, the elgi king striking our prince down like he was a beardling.’

  ‘And heaping further ignominy on him by cleaving his arm! Gods, Drogor, he will wander Gazul’s underworld a cripple because of this!’

  ‘Perhaps with your army to reinforce us…’

  Morgrim’s face darkened further. ‘We were delayed. By Valaya, the very elements turned on us.’

  ‘They can be capricious.’

  Morgrim glared but Drogor had already lowered his gaze.

  ‘It is I that failed the prince, Morgrim, not you. I am sorry.’

  Bustling through the throng, Khazagrim returned, preventing further recrimination.

  ‘The elgi have fled, back to their ships,’ he said. ‘We won’t catch them now.’

  Morgrim shook his head in disbelief. ‘And so we suffer further indignity. Gather the throng. We’re going back to Karaz-a-Karak to bring the High King the body of his son.’

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  Awaken my Wrath

  Gotrek’s face was as cold as the marble slab upon which his son was lying.

  The tomb was hewn by Everpeak’s finest craftsmen, and the
hoard of a lesser king would have been needed to fashion it. Opulent yet austere, it was a monument to dwarf grief and a reminder of a father’s abject failure.

  ‘It should be me,’ he said to the dark.

  Thurbad answered. ‘You could not have known the elgi’s intentions, my king.’

  His granite features stained by tears, Gotrek looked up to a shaft of hazy yellow light breaching the ceiling. It peeled back some of the shadows that had settled like a veil upon this sombre place. Statues, great monolithic effigies of the ancestors, were revealed in it. They looked down sternly but benevolently on the High King, who still found it hard to meet their stony gaze. The rest of the vast chamber was lost to echoing darkness, a hollow tomb of broken vows and empty promises.

  ‘He was to be my heir, Thurbad. I never wanted this for him. I strove to carve out a kingdom that he could rule in peace and prosperity.’

  ‘Yours has always been a just rule, my king.’

  Gotrek sagged. He was only wearing a furred cloak, simple tunic and breeches, but he felt the weight of Snorri’s death like twenty suits of chainmail. Old hands gripped the edge of the marble tomb for support.

  ‘Fathers should not bury sons, Thurbad. This is not the way of things. It should be me lying upon this slab in grim quietude. It should have been me that met the elgi king at Angaz Baragdum.’ The High King let out a long breath that shuddered with the power of his grief. ‘He baited us. Snorri went to meet him on the field and could not have known he was stepping into a trap. It reveals something to us, though,’ Gotrek added, his back straightening as he found inner reserves of strength.

  ‘What is that, my king?’

  ‘This Caledor, son of kings, is arrogant. To believe he could set foot in our lands, slay my son and return without retribution… It will be his death when I meet him on the field. Throughout this sorry affair, I have held on to the belief that war could be averted. Even when the first battles were fought, when cities were burning, I clung to the hope that we could still find a way out of conflict and return to some measure of civility. That has ended with the death of my son.’ His fist clenched like a ball of iron. ‘I will level the full might of the Karaz Ankor against these interloping murderers. No elgi will be safe from my wrath, for it has been awakened by this perfidious deed! Every axe, every quarrel and bolt and hammer shall be bent towards the destruction of this enemy in our midst. Vengeance will be done. So swears Gotrek Starbreaker!’

  The grongaz echoed like a tomb. Ranuld Silverthumb embraced the silence gratefully, hunched in deep contemplation before the statues of the gronti-duraz. Morek was gone, bound for Tor Alessi and the fourth siege. For his endeavours fashioning the axe and armour of Snorri Halfhand, Ranuld had granted his charge the use of an Anvil of Doom and bestowed upon him the title of ‘master runesmith’.

  Great had been the undertaking to forge the prince’s rune weapons. After fashioning the axe, Morek had left the hold in search of what was needed to begin his labours on the armour. Scarred was the young runesmith now, and more furrowed than ever. For the blood and scale of monsters, jewels that could only be found in the dark, forgotten places of the world, were required to craft such an artefact. Rites were not enough; like all magic, rune forging needed ingredients. Since his return, he had not spoken of his journey nor would Ranuld ask him to. The runelord had his own dark travels to remind him of such endeavours.

  Over two decades of toil had changed him, and Morek was apprentice no longer.

  And though the death of Prince Snorri had grieved them both, Ranuld allowed himself a sigh of relief. Perhaps the old magic was not dead after all. Perhaps there were those that could still wield it when his like was gone forever from the world. The tremor in the old runelord’s heart told him his thread was thinning, that soon it would become so frayed that the tendrils of his life would unravel and snap, and then Grungni would welcome him to his halls.

  Soon… he prayed.

  Elves were gathering. The death of the High King’s only son had galvanised and emboldened them. Gotrek would retaliate. Death would be the only victor, and once again Ranuld was reminded of the darkness that infected the Old World. It came from the gate in the north and could not be gotten rid of now that it was closed. He had to endure, at least until the conclave was concluded and the stone giants roused from their millennia of slumber.

  Ranuld opened his eyes, saw the axe and the armour, knew at once who would bear them into battle now.

  ‘Dawi barazen ek dreng drakk, un riknu…’ He spoke the ancient words of the prophecy aloud. ‘He who will slay the dragon, and become king.’

  Four other runelords, ancients all, nodded in agreement.

  Feldhar Crageye, Negdrik Irontooth, Durgnun Goldbrow.

  Last of all was Thorik Oakeneye, he who had taken the place of Agrin Fireheart in the Burudin. The runelord of Barak Varr carried his own darkness from all he had seen on the island of the elves.

  More were needed – the conclave was not yet complete. Around a circular table of stone, three empty places remained.

  ‘We know his name,’ uttered Feldhar Crageye of Karak Drazh, stroking the forks of his black beard and squinting through his good eye, the other shrouded by a stone patch.

  ‘Aye,’ said Negdrik Irontooth, grinning to reveal metal-plated bone. ‘Elgidum.’

  The blond-maned Durgnun Goldbrow nodded. ‘The elf doom.’

  ‘The dawi known as Ironbeard,’ concluded Thorik Oakeneye.

  A vein of fire ran through the dragon-slaying axe lying on the table before them. Its master runes shone, eager to be ignited; so too the armour alongside it, which was impervious to flame. Fate not design had guided Morek’s hand in their creation.

  ‘Let it be known,’ said Ranuld Silverthumb, folding his arms, determined not to make another mistake. ‘Morgrim Bargrum will be the one to lift the doom of our race.’

  EPILOGUE

  Sevekai awoke in a feverish sweat. The nightmare was already fading, evaporating in the chill night like the heat from his cooling skin.

  A darkling forest. A frantic flight into a barren glade filled with such a terrible gloaming. The trees alive, and the chittering, snapping refrain of their pursuit…

  ‘Hush, my love…’ soothed Drutheira. Her hands upon Sevekai’s half-naked body were like pricks of fire against his icy skin.

  ‘Did you see it again?’

  Sevekai nodded weakly.

  ‘It is always the same.’

  ‘Visions always are.’

  Sevekai turned to face her, lying naked next to him under their furs.

  ‘You believe it is real? That the dreams are prophecy?’

  Drutheira was playing with her hair, more coquettish and much less the viper than she had once been. Strange, Sevekai thought, that their alliance had brought them to this place in their relationship. ‘Perhaps,’ she conceded, but was unconcerned. ‘It was a vision that brought us here, was it not?’

  They had left Athel Maraya several months ago, bound for the mountains, when the dwarfs had begun to amass near its borders and their subterfuge as refugees of Kor Vanaeth had started to slip. For one, Sevekai was glad of it. By the nature of their work, spies and assassins needed to blend in to their surroundings, to escape notice, to become nothing more than backdrop. For twenty years, since the dragon rider had left them alone, he and the others had done just that. Asleep until their dark master chose to wake them again. If ever.

  Escape was unconscionable. Malekith was silent and travel almost impossible without armed escort. Even for a warrior as gifted as Sevekai, the passage south would have been difficult. They would lie low until summoned again, and if not they would try to endure until the war ended or Malekith attacked and conquered Ulthuan.

  The dark dreams had been recent. Drutheira believed they presaged the will of their lord and that he would make himself known to them again soon. She
was right, at least about the latter. One night, as they were sleeping fitfully in their bed, Malekith had returned. Seemingly possessed, Drutheira had risen from slumber. She had gone off into the night and killed the innkeeper of their lodgings, slit his throat wide until it painted the wall in the dark lord’s image.

  Malchior and Ashniel had risen too to form the blood communion with their mistress.

  Orders were given, and they had all left that night, meeting at the outskirts of Athel Maraya.

  ‘There are times,’ said Sevekai, as his breathing slowly returned to normal, ‘that I wish we could have stayed.’

  ‘Stayed where?’ asked Drutheira, carving out a graven rune upon the floor of the cavern. She had left the warmth of their bed to do it and was crouched naked in the half-light.

  ‘In Athel Maraya, or perhaps some other city.’

  ‘After the ritual slaying of that slave, that would have been unwise,’ hissed a voice from the shadows.

  ‘Kaitar.’ Sevekai didn’t even try to hide his vitriol.

  The other dark elf nodded. He looked to Drutheira.

  ‘Are you close?’

  The sorceress had finished her malediction and spoke words of power unto it.

  ‘It is here, the creature we seek. Deeper in the bowels of the earth, it slumbers.’

  Sevekai glanced around at the cavern, the endless rock surrounding them. He had forgotten how deep they had already penetrated in the mountain.

  ‘We must go further into the dark?’

  ‘Yes, but Bloodfang is near.’

  Sevekai was on his feet, getting dressed. ‘I’ll rouse the others.’ He looked over to Kaitar but the shade was already gone. In all the years they had been travelling together, he couldn’t remember ever seeing him sleep.

  ‘I have not forgotten our pact,’ he said to Drutheira.

  ‘Nor I, my love,’ she purred, uncoiling to reveal the curves of her sinuous body.

  ‘We will still kill him, and the dragon rider?’