by Guy Haley
‘I am sorry, vala,’ said Gromvarl, who at least had the decency to look abashed. He cast his eyes downwards. Douric, on the other hand, arched his back, and clasped his hands behind his back, an exceptionally self-satisfied look on his face.
The hammerer rubbed at his bulbous nose. ‘Here they are. I better get back.’
‘Another oath-bender!’ said Douric. ‘They’re popping up like mushrooms.’
‘Guard the queen as long as she is in Karak Eight Peaks, that was my oath. Well now she’s not,’ said the hammerer. ‘Nearly.’
‘You’re a good dawi, Bronk Coppermaster,’ said Gromvarl. He held up a small purse, distastefully pinched between finger and thumb, as if it were soiled. ‘For your trouble.’
Bronk looked at it in horror. ‘You’ve been hanging around with these here reckoners too long. Just see her safe, that’s all I want. If this ends well, then I’ll take my chances with Belegar, and we’ll still have our prince. If it doesn’t end well… Well,’ he shrugged, his gromril rattling musically, ‘then it’s not going to matter very much what Belegar thinks.’
Gromvarl nodded. ‘I look forward to fighting alongside you, Bronk.’
Bronk nodded and hurried off back up the passageway.
Meanwhile, Douric was attempting his charm upon the queen. ‘Vala Kemma! It has been too long. With every passing year your beauty grows greater.’ He bowed his head and reached for her hand.
‘Don’t even think about it, reckoner,’ said Kemma, snatching her fingers back from his puckered lips. ‘We have to be away now.’
‘Mother, are we sure this is the right thing to do?’ said Thorgrim. ‘I am the prince of Karak Eight Peaks, my place should be here. Father will be furious.’
Kemma placed her hands on his shoulders, and looked up into his face. Not yet full grown, he was already turning into a fine figure of a dwarf. He was already three feet tall; chances were he was going to be bigger than his father, and certainly as strong. Bryndalmoraz Karakal they called him – the bright hope of the mountains.
‘I am taking you to be safe, my son. Is it not your first responsibility to preserve the royal bloodline?’
Prince Thorgrim’s young face twisted with inner conflict. ‘But I am the prince, mother. I will not be an oathbreaker.’
‘You have taken no oaths,’ soothed his mother, stroking the lines on his face. ‘If you did not believe us to be doing the right thing, then you would have stayed behind. We have already come so far.’
The prince looked doubtful and bit his lip, causing the fuzz of growing beard to puff up. He nodded in what was intended to be a decisive manner, but Gromvarl saw he was still unsure. He was brave for a boy of his age.
‘Very well,’ said Thorgrim.
‘King Belegar for a father and that one there for his mother, I don’t envy that youngster,’ said Douric quietly.
‘You’re not wrong there,’ Gromvarl replied as the queen and prince talked. ‘But he’s almost past all that. He’ll be his own master soon, mark my words. He’s got a strong head, that boy, but with her temperament, thank Valaya. The last thing Karak Eight Peaks needs is another Belegar.’
‘I’m not sure the queen’s temperament is necessarily an improvement,’ said Douric.
Gromvarl snorted.
Strange noises sounded from deep in the mountain.
‘We best be away, vala. These tunnels were much fractured in the time of Great Cataclysm. They are unsafe. No one knows where they go,’ said Douric.
Kemma’s face crinkled with bitterness. ‘There is nowhere safe in Karak Eight Peaks – there never has been. I should have left as soon as Thorgrim was born.’ She reached into her robes. Douric held up his hand.
‘Payment upon safe delivery, or my word is not my bond,’ he said. ‘Best say your farewells.’ Douric tactfully withdrew, drawing the prince after him to leave Kemma alone with her guardian.
Gromvarl gave his queen a bow. He huffed on his pipe like a steam engine building power, filling the dairy with smoke.
‘Well, I suppose this is goodbye.’
‘Brave Gromvarl. Are you sure you will not come with us?’
‘Not with this, vala,’ said Gromvarl, lifting his broken arm. ‘And even without, I’d have to stay. You know why.’
Kemma smiled her understanding. ‘I lack the words to thank you for all that you’ve done for me.’ She leaned through the clouds around him and laid a gentle kiss on his old cheek.
‘It’s not necessary! Get on with you now, young lady,’ said Gromvarl, his voice inexplicably warbly. He coughed. ‘Damned tobacco making my eyes water! I’d give my other arm for a pouch of Everpeak Goldleaf.’
Douric led on up the passage, a krut ungdrin, where in better days herds of goats had been driven from their pastures to be milked and overwintered. They went through ways long forgotten, winding up the secret stair to a door high up on the shoulders of Kvinn-wyr.
‘Be careful, my lady, my prince,’ said Douric. ‘It’s cold and mighty windy out.’
This proved to be something of an understatement. The three of them were buffeted by a howling gale that drove needles of snow into their faces. The path they found themselves on went down steadily towards alpine pastures arrayed on the mountain’s shoulders. Rusted spikes of ancient iron in the rock showed where a safety line had once been anchored, but it was a distant memory. The three of them clung on to the stone for dear life until they turned a corner onto the southern flank of the mountain, where the wind dropped to strong gusts that plucked at their clothes, petulant at its lost power.
‘That’s the worst bit, for now,’ said Douric.
‘You know this way well?’ said Kemma.
‘I know all ways well, my lady. A reckoner’s not a reckoner if he can’t get in or out of a place where reckoning needs doing. Those with debts are generally shy, retiring sorts. They can be a little tricky to dig out,’ he said with a grin.
They went through high fields well above the tree line. Subject to the caprices of the wind, much of the snow had been blown from them, gathering in huge drifts against broken dry-stone walls and the cairns of piled rocks cleared from the fields by the ancestors. Tumbledown shacks marked the refuges of goatherds, and in one place the walls of a ruined village made straight, soft lines in the snow. All was abandoned, as everything was in the Eight Peaks. Here, however, there had recently been dwarfs tending flocks. The signs of recent occupation were visible in places, especially near other krut ungdrin. Once again, the pastures were empty.
Kemma found it hard to believe, but not so long ago there was an optimism to Karak Eight Peaks, a sense that things were turning for the better. Another cruel joke, and one she had never fallen for herself. This had always been a fool’s errand, and in Belegar the errand had found its fool. Nevertheless, she was a dwarf, and the ruination upset her as much as any other. She had never told anyone, but this was why she hated Vala-Azrilungol so much. Every inch of it was a shameful reminder of what her people had lost.
Douric hadn’t looked back at them the whole time they’d been outside; if he did she hoped he’d think her tears were brought forth by the biting wind and not from sorrow.
At one corner, they passed a collection of dwarf beard scalps, frozen stiff in the wind and rattling against their posts. ‘Thorgrim! Look away!’ she said. Her son did not heed her, and gawped at them. Anguish pulsed in her breast that he had to see such things, but it hardened her resolve. This was why they had to leave.
As they threaded their way through a series of terraced fields, the air grew thicker and it became easier to breathe. The tall white finger of Kvinn-wyr, cloaked in winter snow from peak to skirts, raised itself behind them. They were hidden from the feeble sun, trudging through a world of shadow and ice.
‘Soon we must go back inside,’ said Douric. ‘Through another way. We can rest a while at its head before w
e press on.’ He said this for the benefit of Thorgrim, who had a long way yet to go before he developed the full width of his thighs. He was trying his hardest to hide his discomfort like a good dawi, but his pale face and trembling lips told another story.
Kemma went to her son, and fussed over him as mothers do. He was proud enough to shoo her away, and Douric smiled at that. Kemma frowned, which he thought a little extreme, but then she held up her hand. ‘Shhh!’ she said. ‘What’s that?’
Douric cocked his head. His eyes widened in concern. ‘Curse my ears, I’m getting old!’
Kemma drew her hammer and put herself in front of her son.
‘Off the path! To that hut down there, and stay on the rocks. Leave no tracks!’ Douric pointed to a sorry ruin thirty yards away. Too late. A party of Belegar’s hammerers came around the corner from below, lining up three abreast to block their way down the rocky path.
‘Brok Gandsson,’ said Kemma. ‘Belegar has you chasing mothers who love their sons, has he? Your beard thickens with honour day by day.’ She spoke haughtily. There was no point in pretence. There was only one reason he could be here.
‘Halt! Halt in the name of the king!’ said Brok Gandsson, leader of the Iron Brotherhood. He stood athwart the path, puffing clouds of cold breath. Dressed in full armour, he wore no extra garb in concession to the temperature, and his nose was red and dripping as a result. His expression made it clear that he meant business.
‘I’ll do no such thing. You’ll let me by, Brok Gandsson. The future of the Angrund clan and all of the Eight Peaks is here by my side. Take him back, and you will doom him. Let me take him away from here.’
Brok stood his ground, his face set. Tension showed in the line of his jaw, bunching muscles under beard. He was not enjoying this role. That was something, thought Kemma.
‘The mountains are full of grobi and urk, and the tunnels heave with vermin. If I let him off this mountain, it is you who will be killing him, not I. I will not let your mistake weigh on my conscience.’
‘It’ll be your mistake, not mine. I’ve made my mind up.’
‘She’s coming with us,’ said Brok to his warriors in an unnecessary display of authority. ‘If her highness complains, clap her in irons.’
‘I am your queen!’ said Kemma, outraged.
‘No dwarf is to leave Vala-Azrilungol without the say of King Belegar. Queen or not, Vala Kemma, you’ll not be among those who disobey him.’
Douric stepped forwards, hands held in front of him as if they were full of reason, and they would all go away content if only they would look into his palms to see. He wore his habitual grin openly, like they were all sharing a joke that needed a punch line. ‘Wait a minute here, Brok. Can we not see our way through to some other solution? The lady only wants what’s best for her son, and the Angrund clan.’
But Brok was in no mood for amity. He looked upon the reckoner with undisguised hatred. ‘What do you know of the honour of the Iron Brotherhood? Long have you been a thorn in our king’s side! Always you reckoners taking a peck of this here, a pick of that there, when you have no right.’
Douric’s good humour fell away from his face in an avalanche, showing the cold hard stone beneath. ‘I have every right. I am a lawmaster of the High King, my lad – a petty one, I grant you, but I bear his seal and his authority.’
‘Then go back to Thorgrim in Everpeak, and steal your ale from his cup for a change!’
Douric took another step forwards. ‘You should let them go.’
Brok raised his hammer. ‘Do not come another step closer, wanaz. I’m warning you.’
‘Let’s just talk this out…’
Brok swung his hammer to smack into the side of Douric’s head with a final crack. The reckoner spun on his feet and went down hard, falling limp to the ground, where broad red flowers bloomed in the snow. His hat blew away on the wind.
Brok stepped from foot to foot, horrified at what he had done. His dawi murmured. Brok’s face hardened. ‘A pox on all reckoners and their dishonourable dealings! Gazul judge you harshly, oath worrier, grudge doubter!’ He spat on the rock. ‘You dawi! Stop your grumbling. Help the queen and the prince here back into the mountain. It’s cold up here and there are grobi about.’
Two hammerers came forward, reaching for Kemma.
‘Unhand me! I command you to let me by!’
Their hands dropped.
Some of the fury went out of Brok, and he sagged, unmanned by what he had done. ‘Belegar gives me my orders, vala,’ said Brok. ‘I had no choice. I am oath-given.’
‘Dawi killing dawi. Oaths or not, that’s a fine sight, not that my husband would care. He’s wanted Douric gone a long time. Too stupid to see a good dwarf in front of his nose, like a wattock can’t tell fool’s gold from gold.’
‘For what it’s worth, I am sorry.’
‘Not sorry enough to take the Slayer’s oath.’
Brok stared at her with a peculiar mix of emotions, all strong.
‘The reckoner’s body?’ asked one of his followers. ‘We can’t just leave it here.’
Brok stared at the dead dwarf. The wind teased his hair and beard, his hands were still open in a display of peace. He looked asleep, but for his caved-in skull. Self-hatred got the better of Brok, and he turned it outwards. ‘Yes we can, and we will. He was a traitor. Umgdawi to the core and gold-hungrier than a dragon. Leave him for the grobi and the stormcrows.’
‘Thane…’
‘I said leave him!’ bellowed Brok.
‘Shame on you, Brok Gandsson, shame on you,’ hissed Kemma.
‘We should all be ashamed, vala. We’ve taken a few wrong tunnels on the way, and now it’s too late for all of us,’ he said, grabbing her by the elbow and pulling her forwards. Two other hammerers gently helped Prince Thorgrim away with encouraging words and swigs of ale. ‘Each and every one.’
TEN
An Oath Fulfilled
Borrik hewed down the last of the stormvermin still facing him, his runic axe pulsing with power. The pure blue of its magic, clear as brynduraz in the sun, radiated more than light. The axe’s blessings brought relief to his burning muscles, drove the tiredness from leaden limbs. This was good, for Borrik could not remember the last time he had slept.
Once the Norrgrimlings had been renowned for sleeping upright while standing guard, taking turns in the centre where they might be held up by their brothers. Borrik yearned for those days as much as he yearned for sleep. Neither would come again. There were not enough Axes of Norr left to attempt their famed feat, and he feared they would never rebuild their numbers enough to do so again. It was a point of pride to his ironbreakers that they never had nor ever would abandon a post given them to guard. Pride had ever been the undoing of dwarfs. Soon it would be the end of them.
‘They’re falling back,’ he said. His strong, proud voice reduced to a hoarse wheeze. ‘Forgefuries, forward!’
With a stoicism that would shame a mountain, the remaining four Forgefuries set off with the same skill and speed they had possessed two months ago. Only their faces betrayed their fatigue, pale skin and brown smears under eyes grown small and gritty.
‘Fire!’ said Tordrek. His dawi reloaded and fired with breathtaking skill, pumping round after round of blazing energy into the back of the skaven, incinerating them as they fled.
The squeaking panic of the ratmen receded down the tunnels. Borrik stared at the near-invisible drill holes packed with powder around each stairwell mouth. If Belegar would only let him blow them… But the king would not. His name was a byword for stubbornness, even among the dwarfs. He cursed the king under his breath.
‘Right, lads,’ said Borrik. ‘You know the drill.’
‘Aye aye,’ said Albok tiredly. ‘Rats in the hole. Come on!’
The remaining Axes of Norr lumbered forward, clenching and unclenching
fists that were moulded into claws suited only to holding axes. They betrayed no sign of weariness as they heaved up dead skaven from the floor, save perhaps a certain slowness as they tossed the corpses into the hole at the centre of the chamber. Not scrawny rat slaves these, but skaven elites, black-furred stormvermin equipped with hefty halberds and close-fitting armour. Some of this was dwarf-made. For the first days of the battle against the better skaven troops, the dwarfs had diligently stripped the work of their ancestors from the ratmen and stockpiled it in the chamber fronting the door of Bar-Undak. But there was so much of it, so very much, that they had given up. Now the defiled armour went into the hole like everything else, swallowed up along with their grief at seeing the craft of their ancestors so abused.
What cheer the Norrgrimlings had was gone. Weeks of hard fighting had worn them down, stone-hard though they were, as centuries of rain will wear down a mountain. Their eyes were red with lack of sleep, their beards stiff with blood they had neither the time nor the strength to comb out. Seven of them had gone to the halls of their ancestors, among them Hafnir and Kaggi Blackbeard. Their voices were as missed as their axes. Uli the Elder had lost an eye to a lucky spear-thrust, but refused to retire. Gromley had several missing links from his hauberk to add to the scratch on his shield, and complained bitterly about it. No one teased him for his grumbling any longer.
‘Is there any more ale?’ asked Borrik. ‘My throat’s dryer than an engine-stoker’s dongliz.’