Twilight of the Dragons (5 page)

They trudged through what seemed like endless mine tunnels, always heading down, always alert for the sounds of dwarves, be they miners or soldiers. But for a long while they saw nobody. The mines felt abandoned, which was ironic, as it was this status of barrenness which had attracted the heroes, and certainly Beetrax, in the first place. What had he said during Dake and Jonti's anniversary party, when he had first sprung his plan on them?

“It's a map that leads to the Five Havens, the five dwarf cities under the Karamakkos Peaks. They were once ruled by the Great Dwarf Lords who mined untold wealth – I'm talking oceans of jewels, warehouses full of gold coin, lakes of molten silver! Enough to buy you a lifetime of whores, Falanor brandy and Hakeesh weed! … The point is, the Harborym are long gone, extinct for ten thousand years, the Five Havens lost to the knowledge and thoughts of us mere mortal men. But all that treasure is still there, waiting for some hardy adventurer types to trot along and fill their pockets, and maybe even a few wheelbarrows, with an orgy of sparkling loot.”

“I hate to piss on your fire, Beetrax,” said Dake, frowning, “but unless you hadn't noticed, we're all affluent to the point of decadence. That's what being Vagandrak's Best Kept War Heroes did for our pockets. Why then, in the name of the Holy Mother, would we want to risk life and limb climbing mountains, fighting rock demons, and delving into long forgotten underground pits probably better left to the psychopathically demented Rock Fairies and all their little golems? Hmm?”

“Because of the three Dragon Heads,” said Beetrax, eyes glinting. “Tell them, Lillith.”

“The Dragon Heads were colourless jewels found deep, deep beneath the mountains. It was discovered they had incredible healing powers – they could bring a man back from the brink of death; they could heal massive, open wounds, making flesh run together like molten wax; they could cure plagues and cancers and other diseases we couldn't even dream of. They are referred to in the Scriptures of the Church of Hate with reverence, as if they were bestowed on the Great Dwarf Lords by the Mountain Gods themselves. Indeed, it is the Dragon Heads that gave the Great Dwarf Lords their dominion and kingship.”

Beetrax gave a sardonic smile, his boots scuffing against rock. So much for his fucking plan! They'd not even
infiltrated
the bloody Harborym mines, instead being attacked by one of Orlana the Changer's
splice
, a deformed and mutated creature, a horrific blend of man and horse. After an avalanche, the group had been captured by dwarves, or more precisely, Krakka the Slave Warden, an evil bastard who hated humans and set about torturing their group. With their wills broken, or so Krakka believed, they had been set to work in the mines. They soon planned and executed an escape, with Beetrax killing Krakka in the process, and had then faced death due to Jael's betrayal – a death which would have been certain, if Skalg, First Cardinal of the Church of Hate, hadn't caught wind of their existence and decided he had a better use for these overlander slaves, these
heroes
of Vagandrak: namely, the assassination of King Irlax, royal thorn in Skalg's side.

Beetrax went over the events in his mind, again and again, wondering how things could have turned out different, how they could have avoided capture, how they could have evaded torture. He touched his testicles gingerly as he walked, remembering the man who had tortured him, remembering the
Ball Cracker,
a machine he had become intimate with during his days of “fun”. Trax's face turned crimson with fury. His fists clenched involuntarily. And then he thought about Val. Val, the twisted bastard dwarf who had raped his love, his life, Lillith. Raped her repeatedly. Beetrax knew it in his soul, although had never had the nerve or lack of compassion to
come right out and ask it.
But to Trax, it was as plain as day, written on gentle Lillith's face, an agony of emotional scars etched into her skin as a metallurgist etches patterns onto copper. Beetrax felt his fury rise another notch. And another. If the day came when he ever got to confront Val – well, that would be a reckoning worth watching.

Beetrax took deep breaths, and Lillith came up beside him, looked up at him, smiled, her serene face filling him with a splinter of peace. He smiled back, but she could read his eyes and could sense his fury. Her fingers clenched his bicep, and that hold said,
be at peace, my love; be calm, my love; be as one with me, my love.

Beetrax tried. Oh, by the Seven Sisters, he tried.

But sometimes, being filled with fury was the right place to be.

Seeing Lillith's concern, he tried to think of better times, older times, wiser times. And he regressed. He plodded down that stone corridor in the shit-hole that was under the mountain, and he looked at Lillith's face, and he
remembered…

H
is room
in Vagan was spartan, for Beetrax was not the kind of man to hoard crap. He had a large, broad bed, rough-cut pine table and chairs, and various cushions which had been a gift from Lillith when she first saw how uncomfortable his room had been. There was a rug, also a gift from Lillith, and a vase of dried flowers, again, from Lillith. Beetrax was an axeman, military, serious for the majority of the time. As he would put it, he had little time for flowers and girl shit.

However, on this particular evening, Beetrax had excelled himself for one so unmeasured in the art of seduction. Not that seduction was his aim, far from it. This was a mission of forgiveness. Him, begging forgiveness, from her. For being a horse dick. Again.

He didn't remember how the argument started, but he'd been drunk, again, and belligerent, again, and finally, aggressive, again. They'd been in The Fighting Cocks, but the argument spilled out onto the cobbles with Dek wagging his finger and proclaiming things like,

She's right, you know. The woman is always right.

You'll regret it in the morning, old horse.

Better crawl back to your room now; it'll look worse in the morning, I promise you, mate.

To which Beetrax had proffered many scowls and various hand gestures only understood by mud-orcs and those who killed them.

Lillith had raged at him in the street, as he swayed, after several flagons of wine too many, scowling, and reacting to aggression with the only way he knew how – more aggression. Beetrax had never backed down from a fight in his life. All his scars were on his face, arms, chest and thighs. He always faced his enemies, and was happy to cleave them from crown to bollocks with a hefty axe strike. And yet, and
yet
now he was facing the biggest threat of any man's life: an angry lover.

“You think you can treat me like this, say those things to me in front of your friends, and walk away? You think I'll forget it all, just roll over like a sweet little lady and let you hurl abuse and make jokes at my expense? Well fuck you, Beetrax. Fuck you.”

“No, fuck you!” he bellowed, and pointed in her face.

She smacked his hand out of the way.

“But you know the worst thing, you useless piece of horse dung? It's the comments about
him.
”

“Him?”

“
Him.
”

“Oh. Him. That cunt. Well, why not go running back to him? He'll lap you up like cream. He'll suckle your nipples like a squealing piglet. He still wants you, Lillith… I can sense it. In my bones. He wants you back, and he thinks I'm just some big stupid oaf, oh yeah, just a soldier, just a killer, uneducated, whilst he's a fucking
officer ooooh a fucking officer,
well go back to him, I don't fucking care anymore, you made it plain you think I'm stupid and uncouth, just a brute with an axe, that's why I said those things I said, did what I did, because you're laughing at me, Lillith, I can see it in your fucking
eyes.
Go back to him. He'll open his arms and welcome you, drink you down like fine wine, stick his little tongue between your legs and ooh how you'll moan in pleasure, just like the old days… ”

The slap rang out like a broken bottle against an unprotected skull. Beetrax rolled with it, and in truth, it had little power, nothing he couldn't suck up in the blink of an eye and with a cheeky grin. But it was more the
act
, because Lillith had never struck him.
Never.
But she had now. And he didn't know whether to cry or to fight.

“How dare you,” she said, trembling with rage. “How dare you speak to me like that!”

“Well, I'm dumb, ain't I?” he mumbled, but his rage was gone, and the alcohol had made his mind foggy, and he wondered in the midst of his sudden abject misery how the
fuck
he could climb out of the pit he'd just fallen into.

“Beetrax. I never, ever want to see you again.”

She turned, and walked away, disappearing into the darkness of the, ironically, foggy Vagan street. Beetrax stared after her, face cherry red, wondering what he should do. Should he chase after her? Pursue her? Endure more slaps? Should he give her time to calm down, then approach her with his mumbled apologies? Or should he… go back into The Fighting Cocks and continue to get fucking wasted?

Beetrax would be the first to admit, he was not the brightest firebrand in Vagandrak.

So he turned, frowned at the grinning faces peering at him from the doorway, and entered the yellow warmth of The Fighting Cocks Public Tavern.

F
ive days
, it had been. Five long, lonely, cold days waiting for Lillith. She did not knock on his door with her usual bustling, cheery greeting, bringing him a basket of cheese and bread and cured meats from the market.

No.

She did not appear. Beetrax paced the floorboards, fists clenching and unclenching, wondering what the hell he should do. Should he take her flowers? Declare his undying love? Apologise? Write her a letter? What?
What?

The morning after the argument, he'd awoken with a pounding head, and distant memories of slaps and screams. It had taken the whole day, with sweet hot coffee, lots of buttered bread, and several gallons of water to clear not just his churning belly, but his churning mind. Images flickered back to him, one by one by one, and with each image he groaned, and slapped himself in the face, and chewed on his lip, and considered what a colossal insulting vulgar horse dick he'd really been.

And the sad thing?

It hadn't been the first time.

He was an idiot. He freely admitted it.

“I'm an idiot,” he groaned to Dake, clutching a tankard of ale and staring forlornly across the quiet innards of The Fighting Cocks. Afternoon sunlight painted lines across the boards. The landlord wiped dirty tankards with a dirty rag, and eyed Beetrax uneasily.

“Listen,” said Dake, looking over his shoulder to make sure
his own wife
could not hear. “What you have to do, mate, is grovel. You have to beg. You have to say it's all your fault. Then she'll say some of it was her fault. Then you'll find some common ground, and you'll hug and kiss and cry, then have the most amazing sex you've ever had. Hey!” He beamed and slapped Beetrax on the back, making him choke on his ale. “Been there, done it loads of times.”

“No, Dake, you fucking dog, this is it! She's left me. I fucked it up. I might as well go tie a rope and hang myself from the rafters.”

“Don't be silly.” Dake put on his serious face. “Me and Jonti, right, we've been together for years. You think in all that time I haven't got drunk and said stupid things? You think I haven't danced with the wrong woman in the wrong way to the wrong tune? That was an icy cold walk back to the house, followed by an even icier sleep in the summer house at the bottom of the garden.” He shook his head. “Anyways. What I'm trying to say, Trax, is that we all fuck up. Men is men is men. We get drunk and say stupid shit. Our women, they fall out with us, and half the time we're that fucking emotionally backward we don't even know what it was we said that done the damage! But the art, my boy, the
art
is how we repair the damage after we do the stupid shit in the first place. You get me?”

“Eh?”

“It's all about your apology, Beetrax. It is inevitable, in any relationship, that you will fuck it up. That's a given. It's written in the Scrolls of the Seven Sisters.
Thou shalt fuck it up, wept the virgin Salander.
Just trust me on this one, old horse. But,
but,
what matters is what happens next!”

Dake beamed. He was a little drunk.

“And what happens next?”

“What do you think happens next?”

“Er. I knock on her door? I take her flowers?”

“No, you fucking dolt, you lump of rancid horse excrement, you have to make her
believe
you love her again. I mean, I'm sure you do. But you have to show your feminine side.”

Beetrax's voice hardened. “My feminine side?” he said.

“Yeah, baby, your fucking feminine side.”

Beetrax deflated. “I don't think I have one,” he said. “Maybe I could ask Talon?”

“No no, listen. I'll teach you.”

“You'll teach me to have a feminine side?”

“No, horse dick… I'll teach you how to get her back.”

A
nd so
, armed with Dake's sage counsel, Beetrax had gone shopping. Now, Beetrax the Axeman was not an axeman to go shopping lightly, and so he took his axe. This wasn't well received at the market, and he was certainly
remembered,
especially after threatening to cut a market trader in half for inappropriate comments about the
size of his axe,
but all in all, it went smoothly, if embarrassingly for Beetrax, and he returned to his room and penned a short note, which read: