The Great Betrayal (7 page)

‘Choose your own fate. Make your own. Destiny is just about picking a path then walking it.’

Shaking his head, Morgrim asked, ‘What are you doing down here in these ruins, lord? It’s perilous to venture here alone.’

Ranuld gaped in sudden surprise, glancing around in mock panic.

‘Danger is there?’ he asked. ‘From what, I dread to know? Might I be stabbed in the back by my own kith and kin?’ He scowled again, his face wrinkling like old leather, and sneered scornfully. ‘I came here in search of magic, if you must know.’

The look of incredulity on Morgrim’s face only deepened.

Snorri was also perplexed, his silence inviting further explanation.

Ranuld raised a feathery eyebrow, like a snowfall upon the crag of his brow. ‘And you two are supposedly from the blood of kings. Bah!’ He stooped to retrieve his rune stones, chuntering about the thinning of dwarf stock and the dubious practice of
krutting
, when one consorts with a goat.

Snorri got over his awe quickly. ‘What do you mean? How can you simply
look
for magic? It isn’t like a lost axe or helmet. It can’t be touched.’

Ranuld looked up wryly as he put the last of his rune stones into a leather pouch and drew its string taut. ‘Can’t it? Can’t you?’ Straightening up, grimacing as his back cracked, he jabbed a gnarled finger at the prince like it was a knife.

‘I am… um–’

‘No lad, you are Snorri, son of Gotrek, so named for the Whitebeard whose boots your beardling feet are unworthy of, let alone his name. I do not know who
um
is.’

Snorri bit back his anger. He had stowed his axe, but clenched his fists.

‘Venerable one,’ Morgrim stepped in calmly, ‘we are not as wise as you–’

‘But have a gift for stating what is obvious,’ Ranuld interrupted, turning his back on them and taking a knee before the shrine. ‘Never any peace,’ he grumbled beneath his breath, ‘even in lost years. Overhearing words not meant for ears so young and foolish…’ Again, he frowned.

Morgrim persisted, showing all proper deference. ‘
Why
are you looking for magic?’

Finishing his whispered oath to Grungni, Ranuld rose and grinned ferally at the young dwarf.

‘
That
is a much better question,’ he said, glancing daggers at Snorri. ‘
This,
’ he said, rubbing the dirt and air between his fingers, ‘and
this
…’ he smacked the stone of the temple wall, ‘and
this
…’ then hacked a gob of spittle onto the ground, just missing Morgrim’s boot, ‘
is
magic. Some of us can feel it, beardling. It lives in stone, in air, in earth and fire, even water. You breathe it, you taste it–’ Ranuld’s face darkened, suddenly far away as if he was no longer talking to the dwarfs at all, ‘–but it’s changing, we’re changing with it. Secrets lost, never to return,’ he rasped. ‘Who will keep it safe once we’re gone? The gate bled something out we couldn’t put back. Not even Grimnir could do that.’ He stared at the dwarfs, his rheumy eyes heavy-lidded with the burden of knowledge and all the many years of his long life. ‘Can you feel it, seeping into your hearts and souls?’

Morgrim had no answer, though his mouth moved as if it wanted to give one. ‘I… I do not…’

As if snapping out of a trance, Ranuld’s expression changed. As fiery and curmudgeonly as he ever was, he barged past the two dwarfs and into the long gallery. The runelord was halfway down when Morgrim shouted after him, ‘Where are you going now?’

‘Didn’t find what I was looking for,’ Ranuld called back without turning. ‘Need to try somewhere else.’

Morgrim began to go after him. ‘It’s fortunate we found you, old one. Let us escort you back to the underway.’

‘Ha!’ Ranuld laughed. ‘You’re lost, aren’t you? Best help yourselves before you help me,
werits
. And find me, did you? Perhaps I found you? Ever consider that, beardling? And this
is
the underway, wazzock.’

‘No part of it I know.’

‘You know very little, like when it’s a good time to run, for instance,’ Ranuld replied, so distant his voice echoed.

‘Wha–’

A low rumble, heard deep under their feet, felt through their bones, stalled Morgrim and he looked up. Small chunks of grit were already falling from the ceiling in vast clouds of spewing dust. Cracks threaded the left side of the gallery wall, columns split in half.

Morgrim had spent enough time in his father’s mines to know what was about to happen.

‘Get back!’ He slammed into Snorri’s side, hurling the dwarf off his feet and barrelling them both back inside the temple.

The roof of the long gallery caved in a moment later, releasing a deluge of earth and rock. Thick slabs of stone, weighed down with centuries of smaller rock falls, speared through the roof from above and brought a rain of boulders with them. A huge pall of dirt billowed up from the sudden excavation.

Though he tried to see him, Ranuld was lost to Morgrim. It wasn’t that he was obscured by falling debris, rather that the runelord simply wasn’t there any more. He had vanished. It was as if the earth had swallowed him. As the storm of dust and grit rolled over them, Morgrim buried his head under his hands and prayed to Grungni they would survive.

Blackness became abject, sound smothered by an endless tide of debris. Stone chips, bladed flakes sheared from a much greater whole, cut Morgrim’s face despite his war helm. He snarled but kept his teeth clenched.

Tremors faded, dust clung to the air in a muggy veil. Light prevailed, from above where the ceiling had caved in. It limned the summit of a pile of rocks no dwarf could ever hope to squeeze through.

Snorri coughed, brought up a fat wad of dirty phlegm and shook age-old filth from his hair and beard. Clods of earth were jammed in his ears, and he dug them out with a finger.

‘Think most of Karak Krum just fell on top of us.’

‘At least we are both alive, cousin.’

Snorri grunted something before spitting up more dirt.

Morgrim wafted away some of the dust veiling the air. ‘What about Lord Silverthumb?’

‘That old coot won’t die to a cave-in, you can bet Grungni’s arse he won’t.’

Morgrim agreed. For some reason he didn’t fear for the runesmith. The old dwarf had known what was going to happen and left them to be buried. If anything, he was more annoyed than concerned.

Barring the mucky overspill from the cave-in, the temple was untouched. Its archway still stood, so too its ceiling and walls. Grungni sat still and silently at the back of the room, watching, appraising perhaps.

Morgrim touched the rune on his war helm and gave thanks to the ancestor.

Snorri was already up, pulling at the wall of rock that had gathered at the only entrance to the temple. It was almost sealed.

‘Did you also bring a pick and shovel when you picked up the lantern, cousin?’ he asked, heaving away a large chunk of rock only for an even larger one to slam down violently in its place. A low rumble returned, the faint suggestion of another tremor. Motes of dust spilling from the ceiling thickened into gritty swathes.

‘Leave it!’ Morgrim snapped, reaching out in a gesture for Snorri to stop what he was doing. ‘You’ll bring whole upper deep down on us. It’ll flood the chamber with earth.’

Snorri held up his palms.

‘Buried alive or left to rot in some forgotten tomb,’ he said, ‘neither choice is appealing, cousin. How do you suggest we get out?’

‘Use a secret door.’

‘Would that we had one, cou–’

Snorri stopped talking when he saw Morgrim hauling aside the statue of Grungni. Behind it was a shallow recess in the wall that delineated a door. It was open a crack and a rune stone had been left next to it that caught Morgrim’s attention. He pocketed it and gave the door another tug.

‘Get your back into it,’ Snorri chided.

‘How about yours?’ he replied, red-faced and flustered.

‘I’m wounded,’ said Snorri, showing off his half-hand.

Morgrim spoke through gritted teeth and flung spittle. ‘Get your chuffing arse over here and help me move this thing.’

Together, they dragged the door wide enough to slip through. Musky air rushed up to greet them, the scent of age and mildew strong enough to almost make them gag. A long, narrow darkness stretched before them. The gloom felt endless.

‘We can stand here,’ said Snorri, pulling out his axe, ‘or we can go forwards. I vote for the dark.’

‘Aye,’ nodded Morgrim, and drew his hammer.

They had gone only a few feet when Snorri asked, ‘What did he mean?’

‘About magic? Chuffed if I know.’

‘No, about my destiny. It being great and “lifting the doom of our race” and “he who will slay the drakk”? Those words were meant for me, I am sure.’

‘Agreed,’ said Morgrim, ‘but you’re the son of the High King of Karaz-a-Karak, of course your destiny will be great.’ Morgrim led the way, following veins of gemstones and ore in the tunnel walls.

Snorri snorted, his disdain obvious.

Morgrim barely noticed. ‘Feels like we’re going up… Does it feel like we’re going up?’ He stopped, trying to get his bearings even though there was supposedly only one way for them to go.

‘A great doom…’ said Snorri. ‘Are we headed for war, do you think?’

‘Why do you sound as if you want a war? And against whom will you fight, eh, cousin? The urk and grobi tribes are diminished, dying out, thanks to your father. Ruin left the land long ago. Will you fight the rats, the vermin beneath our halls? Our enemies are dead. Don’t be so quick to find others to take their place. Peace is what I want, and a mine hold of my own.’

‘Fighting is what I am good at, cousin.’ Snorri peered down the haft of his axe, all the way to the spike at the top. ‘I can kill a grobi at a thousand yards with a crossbow, or at a hundred with a thrown axe. None are better than I with a hammer when used to crush skulls. In that, in the art of killing our enemies, my father and I are very alike.’ He lowered the weapon and his eyes were heavy with grief when he met Morgrim’s gaze. ‘But he has already defeated them all and left no glory for me. I stand at his shoulder, nothing more than a caretaker who will sit upon a throne and rule a kingdom of dust.

‘So when you ask why I want war, it is because of that. As a warrior I am great but as a prince of Karaz-a-Karak, I am nothing. At least before my father.’

Morgrim was stern, and a deep frown had settled upon his face. A small measure of respect for his cousin was lost.

‘You are wrong about that. Very wrong, and I hope you learn the error of it, cousin.’

Grunting, unwilling to see Morgrim’s pity or think about his father’s shame, Snorri walked on.

‘Ranuld Silverthumb is the most vaunted runelord of the Worlds Edge. If he says a doom is coming then we must prepare for it.’ He thumped his chest, stuck out his pugnacious chin. ‘Dragon slayer, I was so named. King because of it.
That
is a legacy I wish to inherit, not one of cowing to the elgi and the whims of other vassal lords.’

Morgrim fell silent, but followed. The old
zaki
had said many things during his casting.

One word stood out above the others.

Elgidum
.

It meant
elfdoom
.

CHAPTER THREE

Shadows on the Dwarf Roads

Murder was always
better conducted under moonlight. This night the moon was shaped like a sickle, curved and sharp like Sevekai’s blade as he pulled it silently from the baldric around his waist. Unlike the moon, its silver gleam was dulled by magwort and edged with a verdant sheen of mandrake.

Fatal poisons, at least those that killed instantly, were a misuse of the assassin’s art in Sevekai’s opinion. Debilitate, agonise, petrify; these were his preferred tortures. Slaying a victim with such disregard was profligate, not when death inflicted upon others was something to be savoured.

Crouched with his shadowy companions behind a cluster of fallen rocks that had sheared from the looming mountainside, Sevekai considered something else which the moon was good for.

Stalking prey…

It was a bulky cart, high-sided and with a stout wooden roof to protect whatever was being ferried. Two stocky ponies pulled the wagon, its wheels broad and metal-banded to withstand the worst the dwarf roads had to offer.

In truth, the roads were well made. An army could march across them and have no blisters, no sprains or injuries to speak of at the end of many miles. Dwarfs were builders, they made things to last.

Some things though, Sevekai knew, would not endure.

As the trundling wagon closed, four guards came into view. Like the driver, they were dwarfs with copper-banded beards and silver rings on their fingers. Fastened to a hook next to the driver hung a shuttered lantern that spilled just enough light to illuminate the road ahead. The dwarf had kept it low so as not to attract predators. Unfortunately, no manner of precaution could have prevented this particular predator crossing his path.

Sevekai took the driver for a merchant – his rings were gold and his armour ornamental. It consisted of little more than a breastplate and vambraces. Each of the guards wore helmets, one with a faceplate slid shut. This was the leader.

He would die first.

Heavy plate clad their bodies, with rounded pauldrons and a mail skirt to protect the thighs and knees. No gorget or coif. Sevekai assumed they’d removed them earlier in the journey. Perhaps it was the heat of the day, a desire for cool air on their necks instead of stinging sweat. So close to home, they had thought it a minor act of laxity.

Sevekai smiled, a cold and hollow thing, and silently told his warriors,
Aim for the neck
.

The hand gesture was swift, and heeded by all.

Most of the dwarfs carried axes. One, the leader, had a hammer that gave off a faint aura of enchantment. Sevekai was not a sorcerer, but he had some small affinity with magic. Some had remarked, his enemies in fact, that he was lucky. Not just average good fortune, but phenomenal, odds-defying luck. It had kept him alive, steered him from danger and heightened his senses. For a murderer, a hired blade whose trade was killing other people, it was an extremely useful trait to possess.

Other than the hand weapons, a crossbow with a satchel full of stubby quarrels sat within the merchant’s easy reach. It was leant against the wooden back of the driver’s seat with the lethal end pointing up. That was another error, and would increase the merchant’s reaction time by precious seconds once the ambush was sprung.

Six dwarfs, three of them.

The odds were stacked high against the stunted little pigs.

Cloud crawling overhead like ink in dirty water obscured the moon and for a few seconds the road turned black as tar.

Sevekai rose, as silent as a whisper in a gale, his shrouded body dark against darkness. The sickle blade spun, fast and grey like a bat arrowing through fog, and lodged in the guard leader’s eye-slit as the wagon hit a rock and jumped.

With a low grunt, the dead dwarf lost his grip on the side rail and pitched off the wagon. To the other guards, in what few breaths remained to them, it would have looked as if their fellow had fallen off.

‘Ho!’ Sevekai heard the merchant call, oblivious to the fact there was a black-clad killer arisen in his midst and but a few feet away. Hauling on the reins, the dwarf drew the wagon to a halt with a snort of protest from the mules.

That was another mistake.

In the time it took for the merchant to turn and ask one of the other guards what had happened, one of Sevekai’s warriors had crossed the road. Like a funeral veil rippling beneath the wind, the warrior crept along the opposite side of the wagon and rammed his dagger up to the hilt in a guard’s neck. Sevekai couldn’t see the kill, his view was obstructed by the bulky wagon, but he knew how it would have played out.

Kaitar was a late addition to his band, but a deadly one.

Two guards remained. One had dismounted to see to his leader; the other looked straight through Sevekai as he searched for signs of ambush.

You have missed… all of them, swine.

Sevekai drew back his hood for this dwarf, let him see the red and bloody murder flaring brightly in his dagger-slit eyes.

The dwarf gasped, swore in his native tongue and drew his axe. One-handed because of the rail, he should have gone for his shield. It would have extended his life expectancy by three more seconds. That was the time it would have taken Sevekai to close the gap, draw his falchion and dispatch the dwarf with a low thrust to his heart.

Instead he threw his second blade, already clutched in a claw-like grip.

Bubbling froth erupted from the dwarf’s gullet, staining his lips and beard a satisfying incarnadine red. He gurgled, dropped his axe and fell face first into the dirt.

The colour spewing from the dwarf’s neck reminded Sevekai of a particularly fine wine he had once drunk in a lordling’s manse in Clar Karond. Generous of the noble to share such a vintage, but then he was in no position to object given that his innards had become his
out-ards
. Hard to take umbrage when you’re fighting to keep your entrails from spilling all over the floor.

The last guard fell to a quarrel in the neck. It sank into the dwarf’s leathery flesh and fed a cocktail of nerve-shredding poison into his heart. Death was instantaneous but then Verigoth was an efficient if predictable killer.

That left the merchant who, in the brief seconds that had been afforded to him, had indeed reached and gripped the crossbow in his meaty fist.

Sevekai was upon him before the dwarf had drawn back the string.

‘Should’ve kept it loaded,’ he told the snarling pig in a barbed language the dwarf wouldn’t understand. The message Sevekai conveyed through his eyes and posture was easy to translate, however.

You shall suffer.

He cut the dwarf beneath the armpit, a slender and insignificant wound to the naked eye.

After a few brief seconds during which the merchant’s grubby little hands had constricted into useless claws and a veritable train of earthy expletives had spat from his mouth, the dwarf began to convulse.

Sudden paralysis in his legs ruined the dwarf’s balance and he collapsed. Eyes bulging, veins thick like ropes in his cheeks and forehead, the dwarf gaped to shout.

Sevekai leapt on the dwarf like a cat pounces upon a stricken mouse it has nearly tired of playing with. Before a single syllable could escape the lips, he cut off the beard and shoved it down the dwarf’s throat. Then he stepped back to watch.

The dwarf bleated, of course he did, but they were small and pitiful sounds that would scarcely rouse a nearby elk, let alone bring aid of any value or concern. From somewhere in the low forest a raven shrieked, emulating a death scream the dwarf could not make.

‘Even for a race like ours, you are cruel, Sevekai.’

‘It’s not cruelty, Kaitar,’ Sevekai replied without averting his gaze from the convulsing dwarf merchant. ‘It’s simply death and the art of crafting it.’

Teeth clenched, upper body locked in rigor, choking on his own beard, the dwarf’s organs would be liquefying about now. With a final shudder, a lurch of defiant limbs still protesting the inevitable, the dwarf slumped still.

Sevekai knew he had no soul, save for something cold and rimed with frost that inhabited his chest, and he regarded the dwarf pitilessly. Despite the artistic flourishes, this was simply a task he had been charged to perform. The theatrics were for the benefit of the others to remind them of his prowess as an artful killer.

Satisfied with the deed, he addressed the night: ‘Leave no sign,’ and the two assassins on the road stepped back as a slew of arrows thudded into the dwarf corpses.

Pine-shafted, flights woven from swan feather, the arrows were not typical of Naggaroth. Not at all.

When it was done, four more warriors dressed in similar black attire stepped into view.

Sevekai was stooping to retrieve his sickle blades, replacing them with elven arrow shafts, when Kaitar asked, ‘And this will fool the dwarfs?’

‘Of course, they won’t bother to look for subterfuge. They
want
a fight, Kaitar,’ Sevekai explained.

‘What of the poisons?’

‘Gone before the bodies are found.’ Sevekai looked up as he punched the last arrow through the dwarf leader’s eye. ‘If you hear hooves, what do you think of?’

‘Horses,’ said the deep-voiced Verigoth, a smirk on his grey lips. Like the others, he’d descended from the ridge to appreciate the carnage.

Sevekai smiled, colder than a winter storm. ‘And when you think of arrows?’

Now it was Kaitar’s turn to smile. ‘Asur.’