Nick Kyme: The Great Betrayal

That sight, the returning dwarfs, the warriors lain in silent repose upon their shields, had stayed with him for over twenty years. It was his waking thought, his last memory at night, at least when he managed sleep. During the dark hours, Heglan’s workshop became his refuge. He laboured until exhaustion claimed him and sent his mind into an agonised hell of remembrance. Running down to the Merman Pass, barging the gathered crowds from his path, ignoring their curses. Watching the procession pass, listening to the weeping, the declarations of revenge, the wailing of the women. An impenetrable line of hearthguard prevented the crowd from approaching closer than the edge of the road. With every bier that passed by, Heglan’s hope grew, until he saw the eighty-first shield and the dwarf dead upon it.

Unmarked by war, no wound to be seen, Nadri Lodrison was a cold corpse.

Heglan had lost his brother, and in that fateful moment of realisation became the last of his line. Few of the clan Copperfist returned, and though some spoke words of conciliation, Heglan heard not of it. Instead, a tiny fire grew into being inside his stomach. Quickly it became a fist of flame then a blaze, until the conflagration of his hate and desire for retribution was born.

Sheltered in his workshop, bent towards dreams of invention and prosperity, he had been untouched by the war. With Nadri’s death, it had gouged him and left a gaping wound behind. From the sky and the sun, Heglan retreated downwards to the earth and the desolation of his brother’s tomb.

Cold stone pressed against his forehead. Heglan opened his eyes, returning to the present. He could smell grave dust and dank, though whether this was real or a trick of his grief-stricken conscience he could no longer tell. Somewhere in the back of his mind, a doleful tolling announced the dead.

‘Copperfist…’ a gruff voice intruded on the funerary bell.

Heglan looked up to see sky and sun, not the hollow dark of a tomb.

‘Yes, master.’

Burgrik Strombak was standing behind him, arms folded.

‘I was wrong.’

Dark against the sun, driving against the wind and rising, the skryzan-harbark flew. It was an airship in every sense, with a huge leather bladder of gas attached to masts with stout rope giving the vessel the necessary buoyancy. There were rudders and paddles, barrels of ballast to alter loft and direction. Great turning whirls, like windmills, provided impetus and power. It was the single most impressive piece of machinery any dwarf had ever constructed and it had launched from the Durazon like a soaring crag eagle. But the dream for Heglan was flawed, forever so, tainted by the fact that his brother would never get to see it.

He had found a captain too, and Nugdrinn Hammerfoot steered the airship like he was born to it. In another time, Heglan would have been expelled from the engineers’ guild for such rampant diversion away from tradition but times were changing, and with them the attitudes of the dwarfs. The Sea Hold had ever been a bastion of invention and progress, looked down upon by some of the traditionalists of the Worlds Edge. No good could come of the new, of the untried, untested. Dwarfs were creatures of earth, grounded in stone and steel. They did not reach for sky and cloud, and yet…

‘Is it ready?’ asked another, and Heglan turned to address his king.

Brynnoth didn’t meet his eye, he kept his gaze on the airship as it returned to the Durazon. It grew larger by the moment, transforming from a shadow silhouetted against the sun to a behemoth with a dragon-headed prow and armoured flanks of copper in the shape of scalloped wings. It was a beast in every aspect, powerful, intimidating, brutal, and seemed to almost growl at the dwarfs as it landed on claws of steel.

‘I still need to arm it, my lord.’

‘Bolt throwers?’ suggested Strombak with an appraising eye. ‘It wouldn’t support a catapult.’

‘Yes, and something else I’ve been working on.’

Strombak raised an eyebrow, but Heglan didn’t elaborate. The weapon wasn’t ready yet and he wouldn’t reveal it until it was, even to his guildmaster.

Heglan was not a warmonger. It had never been his intention to create something with the purpose of killing. Exploration, technological achievement, the mapping of the skies had always been at the forefront of the engineer’s mind, but unfortunately death had a way of making peaceful men warlike.

‘It’s a marvel,’ Strombak conceded, in spite of all his reservations.

‘No,’ said King Brynnoth, a darkness in his eyes that had never lifted since Agrin Fireheart. ‘It’s a war machine.’

Strombak nodded, sucking on his pipe as he turned to its creator. ‘And what will you call it, lad?’

Heglan’s eyes mirrored the king’s.

‘ Nadri’s Retribution .’

Snorri was not impressed. Ranks of spearmen hiding behind high shields that protected their scale-armoured bodies marched into formation before the dwarfs. On the opposite flank was a host of elven cavalry, the shining-helmed knights clasping lances and riding barded steeds. Archers occupied a slight rise, but there was little to distinguish the army save for a small retinue of warriors bearing long-hafted glaives and shimmering like fresh-forged gold in their heavy plate.

Estimating twenty thousand men, Snorri wondered what the king of the elves hoped to achieve with such a paltry show of strength. He had yet to see the great lord himself and suspected he was as craven as many dwarfs made him out to be.

Angaz Baradum was an iron mine long fallen out of use. Its old quarries and tunnels went deep into the earth, and its heath stretched into a vast plain of grassy tussocks far south of Black Fire Pass. The elf king had arrived in the Old World by sea, though not across the Sea of Claws like the bulk of his fleet. He had gone south, presumably along the Black Gulf to alight so far away from Karaz-a-Karak. Perhaps he wanted to oversee what remained of his forces still encamped at the edge of Karak Azul, or he might have been leading a spearhead to attack the dwarfs from their southern borders. It mattered not. Regardless of his rationale, the elf king had made a grievous error in coming here. Snorri was determined to ensure he realised that.

The young prince cast his gaze over the field where the elves and dwarfs had pitched. Little advantage would be gained from the sparse terrain, but it better suited the dwarfs who could make their battle line strong by keeping their clans together.

‘Shoulder to shoulder,’ Snorri muttered to Drogor, who lifted the banner.

A horn clarioned and then came drums as the dwarfs drew together, slowly locking their shields.

‘Hold here!’ yelled Khazagrim, the prince’s chief hearthguard.

‘You see him yet?’ asked Snorri, scrutinising the sea of elven silver.

‘Perhaps we should advance further, a show of aggression to goad the elfling out?’ suggested Drogor.

Khazagrim looked for his prince’s sanction. Snorri nodded, but said, ‘Keep us out of their archer range for now. Don’t want those pointy-eared bastards sticking us before I’ve seen their king. Until I’m sure the coward is even-’ The words stuck in Snorri’s throat as three elves mounted on horses broke off from the host and rode towards them. Flanked on either side by his standard bearer and knight protector was an elf who could be none other than the king, the one they called Caledor.

‘What is he doing?’ asked Snorri, reaching for his axe.

Drogor raised his hand for calm.

‘I think the elgi wants to talk.’

‘Talk?’ Snorri was nonplussed. ‘About what?’

‘Surrender?’ Drogor suggested, before looking the prince in the eye. ‘What should we do?’

Snorri scowled at the sheer arrogance of the gesture, that the elf king thought parley was still on the table. He considered having his quarrellers shoot the elves down but dismissed it at once as dishonourable.