The doom of dragonback, p.2
The Doom of Dragonback, page 2
‘Come now, pa, let’s give Fleinn some room to make a bit more of an investigation,’ said Haldora, taking hold of Gabbik’s arm. He didn’t resist as she pulled him away, though his eyes strayed back to the gold-laced seam of black.
Gabbik fixed his attention on Fleinn as the prospector took a small pick from his belt and began tapping away at the exposed seam. The other dwarfs stood around and watched in tense silence, excited and vexed in equal measure.
‘Wait on,’ said Fleinn, standing up. ‘Quiet all.’
He held up his hand and the silence deepened as several dozen dwarfs stopped their nervous shuffling and held their breath. Nothing broke the still for several moments.
And then it came. A tinny knocking coming from the wall of the cavern itself. Fleinn bent his ear to the stone, face screwed up with concentration. The taps came more clearly, a series of single, double and triple knocks.
‘It’s the Fundunstulls!’ declared Fleinn. ‘They’ve found the other end of the seam.’
‘Give me that here,’ said Gabbik, pushing to the front. He took Fleinn’s pick and turned it about so that he could gently strike the coal seam with the tap hammer at the back of the head. ‘We’ll not be having any claim-taking today!’
This-is-Angbok-rock-get-your-own.
Gabbik waited for the reply to echo back through the rock face, mood darkening as he translated the code.
Fundunstulls-came-here-first-we-have-right-to-dig.
‘Not today, not ever,’ growled Gabbik. He put the hammer to one side and cracked his knuckles purposefully. ‘I’m not standing for this.’
Agitated whispers spread through the Angbok dwarfs. It was rare for clans to come to blows with each other, but not impossible. The Fundunstulls were working a mine quite a distance away and if the seam reached that far it would be rich indeed. Neither clan would be happy to back down on such a find.
By tradition they would each stake their claim with the king of Ekrund and he would decide who had the priority or, if it was a close call, propose a division of the wealth between the disputing clans. There was, however, a much more recent custom that had taken precedence. Gabbik took a steadying breath as he picked up the hammer, and then beat out a quick burst of taps and gaps. The trick to a good insult was to keep to the truth, if possible, whilst impugning the honour of the rival clan as much as possible.
Fundunstulls-have-goat-diseases.
There were approving nods from the dwarfs around him, who gathered closer to listen to the reply.
Angboks-drink-bee-water.
This drew a couple of gasps from the attendant clansdwarfs but Gabbik had heard much worse. Skraffi’s brow knotted with anger.
Fundunstulls-are-so-tight-fisted-they-put-out-the-fire-while-they-turn-the-bacon.
This drew some knowing laughs from the other Angboks. Skraffi and Haldora joined Gabbik, nodding encouragement.
‘You tell them, lad,’ said his father. Everything fell still as the next code tapped through from the other end of the seam.
Angboks-were-busy-washing-their-beards-during-the-war.
This caused a ripple of consternation to spread out through the mining party, filling the tunnel with gasps and curses. The noise grew louder as some at the back had to be told what the message was, adding to the commotion. To Gabbik it felt like a fist in the gut; his ancestors had fought hard against the elves and it had been nothing more than poor timing that none of them had been present at the major sieges and battles.
‘Raggedy-beard no-hopers!’ snapped Fleinn.
‘Claim-stealing goat -ondlers!’ added Skraffi.
Gabbik shushed them all while he tried to think of something to tap out. If he took too long he would concede the battle of wit by default.
‘Quickly, quickly,’ said the dwarf behind him, Nurftun. He made a grab for the hammer but Gabbik snatched it away and started rapping his answer.
Your-ancestors-were-so-dirty-they-lost-weight-in-the-bath.
This was greeted with groans from the Angbok contingent – a generic insult and an oft-used one at that.
‘I know, I know,’ snarled Gabbik. ‘It’s a kruk, but I can’t think with you all jabbering and nattering like that.’
The Fundunstull missive came through loud and quickly, showing that they had not been put off in the slightest by Gabbik’s poor attempt to shame them.
Going-to-war-without-the-Angboks-is-like-going-on-a-troll-hunt-without-your-bellows-organ.
This caused much gnashing of teeth and Skraffi started pulling at his beard. Gabbik was on the verge of incoherent rage that his ancestors and the current Angboks be called cowards in such easy fashion. The fist holding the hammer shook so much he couldn’t even strike the rocks.
‘No, no, no!’ Fleinn banged his hand against his helmet. ‘Quickly! We’re going to lose! Rap something!’
Gabbik felt the hammer pulled from his grasp and through the red haze of rage looked up at Haldora. Her lips were thin, eyes narrowed as she started to tap away at the coal face.
Your-ancestors’-beards-were-so-short-they-were-mistaken-for-elves-at-Tor-Alessi.
It was as though all the air was suddenly sucked from the tunnel as the dwarfs heaved in a simultaneous breath. It almost made Gabbik’s ears pop. The silence and tension were like a weak prop, threatening to split and bury them all at any moment.
‘You’ve gone too far, lass,’ whispered Gabbik’s uncle Norri. ‘It’ll be a real battle next, not a war of words, mark what I say.’
‘Hush now,’ said Gabbik, his voice suddenly exceptionally loud in the quiet confines. The scrape of a boot and rattle of a pebble caused everyone to quiver with shock.
No reply.
After a few more heartbeats still there came no tapping. Gabbik let out his breath slowly and long, and then broke into a fit of chuckles. Like a tinder catching light, the dwarfs burst into noise, patting and thumping each other’s backs, cheering and laughing. He pictured the reddened faces and apoplectic beard-tugging that was probably rendering the Fundunstulls incapable of response.
‘You did it, lass,’ said Norri, slapping Haldora on the arm.
Gabbik stepped between the two of them and looked Haldora right in the eye. She smiled back at him. He felt fit to burst with pride, every sinew straining not to throw a big hug around his daughter. Decorum prevailed and Gabbik stood there wobbling gently, rocking on his heels rather than be seen making an unseemly emotional display in front of his clansdwarfs.
‘Good work,’ he said, voice strained with the effort of speaking. He patted her hand.
Haldora looked back at him, her grin fading. She looked hurt and shook her head. Before Gabbik could say anything, his daughter had pushed away through the throng, leaving him surrounded by cousins, uncles and nephews each roaring with delight and insisting they shake his hand.
She would understand, he told himself, when she had a moment. He caught Skraffi looking at him, his expression sorrowful. Gabbik managed a quick shrug of confusion before he was being pounded on the back again. Swallowing hard, he brushed aside the dwarfs congratulating him, and glimpsed past them to see Haldora taking a pick from the closest wagon.
‘My seam, my first swing, right?’ she said. The dwarfs nodded, parting to allow her to approach the coal and gold.
Haldora took up a good stance, almost at right angles to the rock face, knees slightly bent. Gabbik admired her balance. She was strong, but not as a strong as the male dwarfs, and so she had perfected technique when others sometimes relied on brute force. Swinging the pick, she transferred the effort almost perfectly from hips and shoulders along the length of the pick handle and into the head.
With a resounding clang the pick bit home, sending up a shower of grit. Haldora dragged the pick free and looked back over her shoulder at her father. He gave her a thumbs up and retrieved his own tools.
Before long the tunnel thundered to the noise of industrious digging, far louder than Gabbik’s happy whistle as he worked.
Chapter Two
‘Just leaving Karak Eight Peaks was no simple matter. Then, as now, the flanks of Kvinn-Wyr and the other mountains were covered with old caves and mines, and though the king ordered regular patrols, night goblins would often creep into these places to make their lairs. Though in those days the goblins were no threat to Karak Eight Peaks, they would at times pester those on the road travelling to and from the hold.
The Angboks and their allies were to fall foul of a goblin tribe just two days after setting forth. They were set on the western road when, that night, their camp was attacked by vicious little greenskins. This was the goblins’ folly of course, because they had thought the camp held a few merchants perhaps, or maybe some rangers setting off on their hunts.
Much to the surprise of the goblins they found several hundred dwarfs all buoyed up with excitement and looking for adventure. Suffice to say that not a goblin in that raiding party saw the dawn.’
Skraffi puffed out his cheeks, a sign of intense concentration, and ladled another measure of water into the musting vat. He gave it a stir, eyeing the golden liquid within keenly, and then closed the lid tight. Five years he had spent trying to perfect the mix of honey, water and yeast for the most delicious mead and he figured it might take another five at least before he came close.
They always talked about Awdhelga’s blackbeer, which rightly had made a tidy fortune back in the day, but she hadn’t stumbled on the recipe overnight. They all chose to forget she had been making bad batches for a dozen years before that fateful day when finally she was granted approval from the Brewers’ Guild to serve a keg at the clan hall.
And a kruk to the Brewers’ Guild too, he thought. Bunch of self-important nobodies who wouldn’t know a good mead if they were dunked head-to-foot. All they cared about was maintaining control of the breweries and stillhouses of Ekrund – thirty-four at last count – and talking about how it was impossible to get the right water anymore. Skraffi appreciated old traditions and the lessons of the ancestors as much as any dwarf but he was pretty sure there had been some major developments in beer-making in the thousand years since the first families had left Karak Eight Peaks. In all that time the Brewers’ Guild had approved just five – five! – new beer recipes.
It was with some pride that he realised just what an achievement it had been for Awdhelga to get such recognition. He’d sold the recipe to pay for the new vats and the apiary outside the south towers, but Awdhelga’s blackbeer was still selling by the barrelful the last he had heard.
To listen to Gabbik anyone would think Skraffi had thrown away the family gold. He loved his son as any dwarf loves another – with a deep but usually unspoken passion – and was proud that Gabbik had risen to Vice-Treasurer of the Ekrund Miners’ Welfare and Social Society, but ambition was not the same as vision. Ambition was to fill a chamber already built; vision was to dig the tunnel out of the room.
As he moved along the shelves polishing jars, waiting for the next batch of mead, Skraffi wondered, as he often did, how the son of two such outgoing dwarfs could have ended as such a conservative busybody. It was a strange sort of rebellion, Awdhelga had once claimed. They had been too accommodating, too radical in their child rearing, all but forcing Gabbik into the clutches of the most die-hard traditionalists so that he could come out of their shadow.
The clump of boots broke his reverie. A dwarf appeared at the doorway, breathless, his beard and hair an unruly tangle. It was Graznak Troggklad, one of Skraffi’s nephews, something-something removed; he could never quite remember the further branches of the Angboks and where they blended with the Troggklads. He was a few years Haldora’s senior, with broad shoulders, a lustrous browny-red beard and startling blue eyes that the lady dwarfs admired greatly. Known as ‘Nakka’ to nearly everybody, he had been friends with Haldora since an early age, and despite Gabbik’s obvious designs for Haldora to marry up the hierarchy, she had a soft spot for Nakka and he for her.
‘Thank the ancestors, I thought you’d be here!’ he gasped, wringing his cap in his hands.
‘What’s up, Nakka?’ asked Skraffi. ‘You look shakier than a spindly prop, lad.’
‘Goblins! Second deeps, fell on a work party, killed two of them and hurt another five before they scarpered. Nobody’s seen Thorek Burlithrom since. They must have taken him. Stofrik Grimsson says he’s found the hole they came from and he’s looking for a few axe-swingers to hunt the little beggars down. Where’s Gabbik and the others?’
Skraffi glanced at the complex water clock beside the fermenting vat.
‘Just off-shift on the new seam. Come with me.’
He headed back out through the family shrine and into the passage leading to the communal family chambers. Friedra and Haldora were at the big cooking pot at the fireplace, sitting on chairs with chopping boards on their laps and an assortment of tubers and mushrooms. At the long table down the length of the room Gabbik and his cousins were sharing round a jug of small beer and picking at the remains of a cheese platter.
‘Hello, Nakka!’ Haldora called out, waving a broad knife in welcome.
‘What’s up?’ Gabbik asked, noticing his father’s grim expression. Skraffi recapped what Nakka had said.
‘We’ll be there, right enough,’ said Gabbik, receiving a nod of agreement from the others. He glanced down at his work clothes. ‘Give us a moment to shuck on something more agreeable to axeplay.’
‘I’ll get my hauberk,’ said Haldora, setting aside her chopping board.
‘No,’ replied Gabbik. He started towards the passageway.
‘What’s the point of you teaching me if you don’t think I’m good for it?’ Haldora demanded, following just behind. She grabbed his arm and Gabbik stopped, tugging himself free from her grip.
‘To keep you safe, not to go chasing trouble. You want to go to the mines, I’m good with that. You need to know one end of the axe from another, just like them poor beggars that got attacked. But you’re the first daughter born to the Angboks in five generations and I’ll not be sending you into no goblin lair. Final words.’
He turned and strode past Nakka, who had watched the exchange with the tight-lipped expression of one who has stumbled into a private family matter with no way of extricating themselves.
‘What are you looking at?’ Haldora demanded.
‘Hey now, leave poor Nakka alone there,’ said Skraffi. ‘Don’t kill the pony just because his pack is empty.’
Haldora glared at her cousin, tapping her fingers meaningfully on her thigh.
‘Sorry,’ said Nakka, stepping back. ‘It’s not my place to argue with your father. Perhaps, when we get back, I can buy you an ale to make up for it?’
Nakka grinned, showing off a row of white teeth and a single gold replacement. It gave him a slightly dangerous air that appealed to Haldora, and despite her best attempts it was hard to maintain a bad temper in the face of such charm.
‘Maybe an ale,’ she conceded. She strutted up to Nakka and prodded a finger into his chest. ‘And you have to tell me everything about the goblin hunt. And next time you better take me along with you.’
Nakka held up his hands in surrender.
‘Whatever you say,’ he said, glancing at Skraffi. ‘Angbok women, born or married, are they all this stroppy?’
‘You better believe it,’ said Haldora. She placed her hand on his arm for a moment. ‘And stay safe.’ She glanced back at Skraffi. ‘Make sure dad comes back, right?’
‘Your Gramma’s shade will come back and haunt me forever if I let anything happen to her only baby boy,’ Skraffi replied. He kissed the knuckle of his right forefinger, a gesture of dedication to Valaya, and then headed after Gabbik.
He stopped just outside, looking back when Nakka didn’t join him. The younger dwarf waited, until the silence became a little awkward.
‘Better go and put on your war-shirt,’ Haldora told him.
He looked as though he was going to say something else, but instead just nodded and caught up with Skraffi.
‘Careful there. She’ll be a handful, mark my words,’ Skraffi told Nakka.
‘Too right, and that’s the fun. But Gabbik, he’s got a beady eye on me more than half the time. Thinks the Troggklads aren’t good enough for an Angbok girl.’
‘Are you?’ Skraffi asked as they made their way along the passage to the next set of chambers.
‘Am I what?’
‘Good enough?’
Nakka considered the question. ‘I reckon I’ll show you a thing or two.’
Skraffi patted the other dwarf on the shoulder and then swept aside the curtain that served as the door to his bedchambers. After passing through a vestibule crammed with gears and odds and ends accrued over centuries, he walked into the dressing chamber. His mail shirt was on a stand, and he threw it on over his day clothes, quickly looping the broad belt under his gut twice before tying the leather. His shield was propped up against a chest and he put it to one side and opened the box. Within were three throwing axes, short but broad-bladed, and a belt that went across the shoulder to hold them. He quickly shrugged on the baldric and lifted the axes into place across his chest.
He brought out a bundle wrapped in deep red velvet, revealing a single-headed axe almost as tall as Skraffi. The head gleamed, and a golden rune shone from the blade.
‘Elfslicer. Hello, old friend.’ He lifted the rune axe and closed the chest with his foot before taking up his shield.
It had been a while – ten years perhaps – since he had last worn armour. He didn’t remember it being this heavy, or so tight around the midriff. Elfslicer felt as good as always, the rune of cutting keeping the blade as sharp as the day Ketlin Dourforge had made it. The leather thongs around the handle were supple, moulded to Skraffi’s fingers by much use.
