Nick Kyme - The Great Betrayal

A veritable sea of carnage stretched out in front of Morgrim. Acres of land were littered with broken shields; notched blades and spear tips; the sundered links of chainmail, rust red and still sticky; split pieces of elven scale, blackened by fire; shattered war helms with severed horns or their horsehair plumes aggressively parted; and the bodies of course, there were a great many bodies. One stood out above the others, which in itself was remarkable.

Despite the dead dwarf’s expression, Morgrim recognised him. It was the miner Snorri had spoken to before they had laid siege, Copperhand or Copperfinger. Copper something, anyway.

The poor bastard, like so many others, had given his life for hearth and hold. But unlike the remains of his kinsmen, this dwarf was unscathed. There were cuts and bruises, some of which were likely from digging, for he had the trappings of a tunneller. No killing blow that was obvious, though. It was his face that drew Morgrim to the dead dwarf’s side. Etched in such utter terror and disbelief. Fear had stopped the dwarf’s heart; he clutched his chest in rigor mortis as if it might have burst had he not.

‘Dreng tromm…’ breathed Morgrim, gripping a talisman that hung around his neck.

‘I’ve seen others who died with fear on their faces,’ said a female voice.

Morgrim turned, half-crouched by the deceased, and saw Elmendrin.

‘Tromm, rinnki.’ He bowed his head.

‘Always so respectful, Morgrim Bargrum,’ she said, returning the gesture. ‘What is it the warriors call you? Ironbeard? Grungni-heart would be more appropriate.’

Unused to flattery, Morgrim reddened. He gestured to the corpse.

‘You see something different in this one?’ he asked.

‘Yes, he is dead from fear itself. But it’s as though something just reached in and crushed the beating heart in his chest.’

‘My reckoning was not quite so exact, but this dwarf’s death is unique.’ He looked out over the killing field. Other grave diggers had joined him, together with the priestess. Morgrim even thought he saw Drogor. The dwarf from Karak Zorn was brushing soot from his shoulders, having doubtless had a near miss when the dragon had burned the attackers at the west wall. Not many survived that assault. Indeed, Morgrim was surrounded by some of its victims as a dozen eagle-eyed elven archers kept a bead on him from the ruined battlements not ten feet away.

‘He can’t be buried here,’ Morgrim decided, hoisting the dwarf onto his back.

Elmendrin helped him.

‘King Brynnoth’s tent is not that far,’ she said. ‘His grudgekeeper has been busy naming the dead all evening. Looks like a long night ahead of us.’

At the edge of the dwarf encampment, rites for the dead could be heard being intoned by the priests of Gazul. Morgrim had seen the solemn service many times before during battle, when tombs could not be built nor bodies returned to their holds. Instead, the dwarfs would bury them in the earth according to their clans. Shoulder to shoulder they would meet Grungni as warriors, the honourable dead. Barrows of earth would shroud them, dug by the surviving clans as Gazul’s priests uttered benedictions and incantations of warding. Every dwarf war caravan carried tombstones and these rune-etched slabs would be placed upon the mounds of earth where the fallen were buried. If the ground proved too hard to dig or the army fought on solid rock or tainted earth then the dead would be burned instead and their ashes brought back in stone pots for later interment. These too were carried by Gazul’s priests on sombre-looking black carts. So did the dwarfs attend to their dead, even when far from hearth and hold.

‘Does Snorri know you’re here?’ Morgrim asked, as they started walking. A dozen bowstrings creaked at the dwarfs’ departure.

Elmendrin looked down at the ground. ‘No. And it must stay that way.’

‘I doubt your presence will be a secret for long.’

‘Perhaps, but for now I want to do my work, fulfil my oaths to Valaya. Besides,’ she said, ‘Snorri has more important things to worry about than me.’

‘I think he would argue that.’

‘Which is precisely why I must go unnoticed by the prince.’ She allowed a brief pause, then looked up at Morgrim. ‘The war has changed him, hasn’t it?’

‘All of us are changed by it, and will continue to be.’

‘Not like that, I mean,’ said Elmendrin.

Morgrim regarded her curiously.

She answered, ‘It’s made him better, somehow. As if he was forged for it.’

There was a sadness in Morgrim’s eyes when he replied. ‘I think that perhaps he was, that all his petulance and discontent stemmed from a desire to fulfil that for which he was made.’

‘I thought so,’ said Elmendrin, moving off to help one of her sisters. ‘Do one thing for me, Morgrim Bargrum.’

‘Name it,’ he called out to her.

‘Try to stop Snorri from getting himself killed.’

He didn’t answer straight away, watching Elmendrin disappear back in to the mass of dead and dying. There were tears in his eyes when he did.

‘I will.’

The Fleet From Across the Sea

The elf was painted head to toe in filth. His silver armour was muddied, his cloak torn and smeared in dung, his alabaster skin grimy and dark with a peasant’s tan. Dirty white hair framed a narrow face, pinched with anger.

‘Doesn’t look happy, does he?’ Snorri jerked his thumb at the dishevelled noble behind the cage.

‘Would you be, if you were boarding with the mules?’ King Thagdor laughed, loudly and raucously, until the High King approached, dousing the northerner’s mirth.

‘His name is Prince Arlyr, of Etaine.’ Gotrek struggled with both foreign words, but spoke them anyway before turning his glare from Thagdor to the elf. ‘And apparently he has nothing to say beyond that.’

‘Why are we gathered here?’ asked Brynnoth. ‘Surely your tent would have provided better accommodation.’

They were standing next to the mule pen at the rear of the encampment, near its edge. Skinners were hustling the beasts in and out of the cages to haul machineries or cart raw metal for the new rams, but none cast an eye towards the kings.

Several bedraggled-looking elves, stripped of their weapons and armour, walked alongside one train. They were Arlyr’s warriors, put to use gathering firewood for the furnaces and watched keenly by Furgil’s rangers.

The same question as asked by the king of the Sea Hold lingered in Valarik’s eyes too, though the lord of the Horn Hold had not the courage to speak it. All of the kings, barring Brynnoth whose desire for vengeance still blazed hotter than his shame at defying the High King, felt chastened just to be in Gotrek’s presence. The High King’s ire was volcanic but kept dormant for now. None of the liege-lords wanted to be there when it erupted, and so conducted themselves as if that possibility was imminent at any time and by treading gingerly they could abate it.

Last of the kings was Hrekki Ironhandson. The lord of the Varn was slow to arrive, having trekked across from the opposite end of the field where his war machines and much of his army was mustered. He nodded to the other lords, and only once he was within the circle of kings did Gotrek continue.

‘Quicker to say it here, and I want to look into this one’s eyes when I do.’ His attention returned to their elf prisoner, who glowered back at him.

‘To say what, father?’ asked Snorri.

Not since the assault on the sixth day had the dwarfs enjoyed the same level of success in breaching the elven city. Tor Alessi had abandoned its outer wall and retreated, closing its ranks further, repositioning its bolt throwers, mustering even more archers.