The Great Betrayal (39 page)

‘What about your father? He sues for peace, and any warmaking that we do here could–’

‘Let him!’ Snorri roared. ‘He’s knows it’s over, as well as I. Peace is dead, has been for eight years.’

‘And while peace fails, what will we do?’

Snorri’s face was pitiless as knapped flint, and just as unyielding.

‘What we should have done years ago. Kill elgi.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

The Sea Gate

Towering cliffs, thronged
with shrieking gulls and carved with the likenesses of the ancestors, loomed over Forek Grimbok and the hearthguard.

‘Is that it?’ he asked the armoured warrior standing next to him at the ship’s prow.

‘Aye,’ murmured Gilias, tightening his grip on his axe haft instinctively. ‘The Merman Gate, entryway into Barak Varr, the Sea Hold and realm of King Brynnoth.’

The pair of cyclopean statues were fashioned seamlessly into the rock face, depicted wearing fishscale armour and fin-crested war helms. One was female and carried a trident in her left hand; the other, male, bore an axe that he held across his chest.

‘Magnificent,’ breathed Forek.

Insisting they make all haste to Barak Varr, the High King had petitioned the King of the Sea Gate to both receive them and send a vessel to bear his emissary to the hold. Though dwarfs were not fond of water-borne travel, preferring solid rock as opposed to a leaky deck beneath their boots, Forek and his retinue had adjusted quickly.

Over the last eight years relations had soured between the two holds. Brynnoth did not believe in peace, but he also did not believe in denying his king and so had acceded to Gotrek’s request.

The most direct route from Everpeak to Barak Varr was Skull River, one of several large tributaries that joined the Black Gulf. The river widened as it met two shoulders of jagged rock that formed the monolithic cliffs that had glowered down on them several miles out. The sweeping crags arched over an immense gate of bronze, green with verdigris and clinging seaweed. A dwarf face, with a sea serpent coiling from its open mouth and an ocean wyrm perched atop its helmet, was emblazoned across it that split in two as the gate opened.

Either side of the gate was a tower, a garrison of dwarf quarrellers within each and a journeyman engineer to pump the crank that worked the mechanism which opened it. The reek of salt and the open sea hit them in a wave as soon as the bronze gate was breached.

Like his retinue of hearthguard, Forek looked up as they passed under the archway but saw the faces that regarded them were far from friendly.

‘Why do I feel a chill in this wind all of a sudden?’ he asked, determined not to flinch against intimidation.

‘They are Gatekeepers,’ explained Gilias, ‘and not prone to warm welcomes. Barak Varr and Karaz-a-Karak are not on the best of terms at the moment.’

‘King Brynnoth knows who his allies are,’ Forek assured the hearthguard. ‘He would not have aided us if he felt otherwise. Grudgement for Agrin Fireheart will be done, but not until the truth is known. A war would eclipse all hope of that. It would be petty and unworthy of the runelord. Brynnoth knows this.’

‘You seem very sure,’ said Gilias.

Mist wreathed the passage of the grubark in a white, impenetrable fog but the hearthguard rowed unerringly, one of the warriors working the tiller to keep the rudder straight and their small ship from falling foul of the banks.

‘I will make certain of it upon making the shore,’ said Forek. He tried not to breathe too deep of the briny air, already feeling a little nauseous with the gentle rocking of the boat.

‘Here.’ Gilias uncorked a flask of tarry liquid and offered it to the reckoner. ‘This’ll calm your stomach.’

Forek took a grateful swig, gulping back the fiery liquid and trying not to cough. He was used to ‘gentler’ brews, not the harsh muck enjoyed by the king’s protectors.

‘Tromm,’ he said, nodding thanks, ‘that feels better al–’

Forek stopped mid-sentence, his mouth suddenly agape. The mist had thinned and parted, revealing the majesty of the Sea Gate.

Massive columns surged upwards from dark water, decorated with immense statuary and brazier pans of burning coals as broad as a hundred shields laid edge to edge. The columns supported a vast ceiling of rock, a natural cave that served as Barak Varr’s dock. The rune of
bar
– that which means ‘gate’, and is a potent symbol of protection – was emblazoned upon slabs of rock, towers and minarets, portcullises and keeps built into the cave wall. Tips of spear-sized quarrels could be seen poking out through arrow slits and stone throwers mounted on rotating platforms were angled towards them in a blatant threat.

Barak Varr was a hold that took its defence very seriously, and even a vessel that had encroached this far into its borders was not guaranteed continued safe passage.

Somewhere a bell was tolling, its sound solemn and echoing. A hold was still in mourning for its venerable dead, and it only made the cavernous chamber more desolate. Ordinarily it would be bristling with vessels from across the Old World: strange barques of dark-skinned merchants, the skiffs of Southland traders and even elven catamarans had all been seen at the Sea Gate before. Not so any more. Impending war had seen much of the trade dry up and now only a few dwarf vessels occupied the yawning expanse of black water.

‘It’s like a graveyard,’ remarked one of the hearthguard, until Gilias silenced him with a look.

Forek agreed, the doleful bell ringing in the distance to announce them. His reckoning days had never brought him to Barak Varr before. Perhaps it was on account of the strong bond between it and Everpeak that this was the case. But whatever he had expected, this was not it.

As they were ushered towards a jetty, several warriors wearing scaled mail and carrying axes and crossbows met them. Their helmets were almost conical, fashioned into the simulacra of a sea dragon’s snout, and had a pair of jagged fins protruding from either temple. Shields strapped to their backs were scalloped at the edges and their axe blades were flanged like a trident’s teeth.

‘Quite a show of force,’ murmured Gilias, careful to keep his voice low.

Forek muttered, ‘Once King Brynnoth has received us, all will be well. They are just wary of dawi not of their hold.’

As soon as they set foot on dry land, Forek whispered an oath of gratitude to Valaya for her deliverance and then one to Grungni for creating the earth.

Two figures not part of the throng of warriors awaited them on the flagstoned shore. As soon as Forek saw one of them he realised why there were so many warriors.

‘That is High Thane Onkmarr.’

‘You sound surprised,’ said Gilias as they walked along the jetty to the creak of wood bending beneath the weight of so many armoured warriors.

‘I am.’

The other dwarf Forek didn’t know. He was dressed in black leather armour over a scruffy-looking tunic. The eyepatch he wore, together with the mattock head he had instead of a foot, marked him out as a ship’s captain but the reckoner thought he looked more like a pirate.

‘If Onkmarr is here then that can mean but one thing.’

‘Which is?’ hissed Gilias as they neared the edge of the jetty.

Forek replied in the same guarded tone, ‘That King Brynnoth is not.’

Heglan awoke to
a hammering against his chamber door.

He was face down in a scrap of parchment, ink smears on his cheeks from where he had fallen asleep pressed against his still-wet scribblings, exhaustion forcing him to eschew his bed in favour of the first available place to collapse.

At first he was disorientated. This last session in the workshop had been the longest, several weeks in isolation with only stonebread and strong beer to sustain him. Dawi had survived on less, he had told himself at the outset of his labours. His avian menagerie startled him and he gasped aloud at the talons of a crag eagle bearing down from on high. Belatedly, he came to his senses, still slightly fuddled by strong drink but at least now able to make out someone calling his name.

‘Heg? Open the door, brother. Heg?’

Tripping on a stuffed griffon vulture that had fallen from its perch, he stumbled to his feet and hurried over to a crank that would seal off the hidden vault where he kept his secret labours. Setting the mechanism going, he quickly gathered up the scraps of parchment he had been sleeping on, rolled them up and stuffed them in a drawer.

By the time he reached the door and opened it, the vault was shut and Nadri Gildtongue looked less than impressed.

‘What are you doing, Heg?’ he asked bluntly.

‘I was sleeping, brother. What’s your excuse for being here?’

Nadri barged his way in and began to look around.

‘I haven’t seen you in months. I’ve spoken to your guildmaster,’ he said, rifling through tools and sketches, drawers of cogs and nails and bolts. ‘Your absence has been noted.’

‘If you tell me what you’re looking for perhaps I can help you find it.’

‘You are doing it again, aren’t you?’

‘Doing what?’

‘Building the airship. I am no wazzock, Heg, do not treat me as one.’ Nadri rapped his knuckles against the room’s back wall. ‘What is behind here?’

Heglan feigned confusion, but inwardly stifled a pang of anxiety. Nadri was certainly no fool. ‘It is a wall, brother. Solid rock is behind it.’

‘Every other surface in this workshop is covered in designs and formulae and notes. You have papered it in parchment scribblings, Heg. Yet this wall is barren.’ Nadri shook his head, his face clouded by anger. ‘Don’t lie to me. Show me what you’re hiding.’

Heglan closed his mouth – protesting his innocence would be pointless now – and opened up the vault.

The skylight beamed weak winter sun onto the hull of a magnificent ship. It was lacquered black, fully restored and even larger and more impressive than before. Gone were the rotary sails and the sweeps, but there was more rigging and a sack that looked like a stitched animal bladder draped the deck.

‘It’s unfinished but an inaugural flight is close, I think.’ Heglan’s eyes widened, his hangover all but forgotten in his excitement. Like an artist with his latest masterwork, he relished the opportunity to show it off.

Nadri was less enthused but couldn’t hide his awe.

‘It is incredible, Heg. But you will be expelled from the guild for this. Strombak will see to it that you are given the Trouser Legs Ritual and kicked out.’

‘When he sees what I have crafted, when he witnesses its first flight he will–’

‘He doesn’t care, Heg! He will expel you and further shame will be heaped on the Copperfists. First Grandfather Dammin and now you… Our father, Lodri, will never be allowed at Grungni’s table. He will wander forever at Gazul’s Gate.’ Nadri tugged on his beard, fighting back the tears in his eyes. He rasped, his voice choking, ‘Dreng tromm, brother.’

‘The skryzan-harbark will fly, Nadri. I know it. And when it does our family’s shame will be expunged, our seat in the Hall of Ancestors assured. Please don’t tell Strombak what I am doing, not yet. I must–’ He stopped, as if seeing his brother for the first time since he’d entered his workshop. ‘Wait… why are you wearing your armour?’

Nadri was clad in ringmail. A helmet was tethered to his belt by its strap and there was a small round shield on his back, an axe looped by his waist.

‘It’s why I came to find you, brother,’ he said with a hint of melancholy. ‘King Brynnoth is going to war. Our kalan marches with him.’