The doom of dragonback, p.8
The Doom of Dragonback, page 8
He noticed Vadlir reading a well-thumbed book. It was almost a pamphlet really, a few dozen pages. The cover was plain except for a coloured etching of a painted candle. He couldn’t make out the title from the angle he was sitting.
‘That from those new printworks?’ Gabbik asked.
‘What?’ Vadlir seemed to surface from his reading like a dwarf emerging from his bath waters. ‘Aye, that it is. Very neat type it is too.’
‘What is it?’ asked Gabbik, craning his head to see the front cover.
‘Some story or other my Nakka got from your Haldora. It’s about a dwarf from Karaz-a-Karak who goes to fight in the last siege of Tor Alessi, and there he meets a maiden from Karak Eight Peaks, but they lose each other in the battle.’
‘A saga? Printed?’ Gabbik found the whole notion very strange. ‘But what will the bards and soothsayers do if we start writing down sagas and histories?’
‘It’s not a real saga,’ Vadlir said with a chuckle. ‘It’s a story, a tale.’
‘Made up? What’s the point of wasting good ink and paper on a story what’s been made up?’
‘You should read it. Very moving.’
Gabbik plucked it from the grasp of the other dwarf, ignoring his protests, and read out the title. ‘On a Far Field. What by the King of Zhufbar does that mean? What name is that for a saga? What’s the name of this dwarf that goes to Tor Alessi?’
‘Dofbar Gunbardin. Why?’
‘Should be called The Saga of Dofbar Gunbardin and his Potential Romantic Encounters at Tor Alessi. That’s a proper name for a saga.’
‘Give it here,’ said Vadlir, snatching back the book. ‘It’s more about the lass, Ardent Lokstrik.’
‘Ardent Lokstrik?’ Gabbik’s voice rose with his incredulity. He puffed out a breath and deepened his tone. ‘What kind of name is Ardent? Sounds elfy to me.’
‘Oh forget it, you grumpy sod.’ Vadlir turned his back and carried on reading, book held protectively close to his chest.
Gabbik sat in silence until he heard the scrape of a bar being lifted behind the great gates. The smaller door opened to reveal an elderly dwarf whose beard was so long it reached down to his waist and once about it, so that the two braids were tied like a belt beneath the bulge of his mail coat. He carried a hammer as tall as himself, inlaid with silver and gold and precious stones. Runes glittered on his helm and gauntlets.
‘Thundred!’ roared Skraffi, surging to his feet. The venerable captain of the door wardens turned at the cry, eyes opening in shock. Skraffi grabbed his old war-companion in a hug, slapping a hand repeatedly on his back. ‘Too long, my friend. Too long.’
The captain extricated himself from Skraffi’s grip while the other dwarfs gathered around. Gabbik noticed the door warden at the gate was taking a close interest, and a few helmeted heads bobbed at the open door as those inside darted looks at what was going on.
‘Skraffi Angbok.’ The way Thundred spoke the words it sounded like a curse. ‘I thought you were dead.’
‘Not as such,’ said Skraffi. ‘As you can see.’
‘And you’re here for the king’s council?’
‘Aye, red ribbon and all as befits an esteemed veteran.’
‘So what’s the problem?’ Thundred looked at the crowd of dwarfs behind Skraffi. ‘Who are this lot?’
Skraffi turned and waved Gabbik forward. ‘This is my son, Gabbik. He’s Vice-Treasurer of the Ekrund Miners’ Welfare and Social Society, you know.’
‘Sounds like a sensible lad.’
Gabbik hated being called ‘lad’ by his father and it sounded doubly worse coming from a stranger.
‘Yes, he is. I’ve no idea where he got that from. Wasn’t me or his mother.’
‘Ah, the lovely Awdhelga,’ said Thundred. ‘If ever there was a lass worth cutting your way through a cohort of elves for, she was one.’
‘Gone to the halls now,’ Skraffi said quietly, slipping off his helmet and bowing his head. ‘These past five years.’
‘Sad tidings,’ said Thundred, likewise showing his respects to the shade of the deceased. ‘You know, now and then one of the lads brings up a barrel of that blackbeer for the guard room. A splendid quaff, no mistaking.’
‘I brew mead now,’ Skraffi said, putting his helmet back on. Thundred also returned helm to head. ‘I can send you some of that, free of charge. Once you taste it…’
‘Mead?’ Thundred stepped back, lips curling in distaste. ‘Isn’t that bees’ toilet water?’
‘Nonono! It’s a fine drink, made with honey.’ Skraffi started to fumble at his pack. ‘Here, I’ve got some bottles.’
‘You’re all right, Skraffi.’ Thundred glared at the crowd of dwarfs. ‘Ten of you, no more. You pick. Any sign of trouble and you’ll be out on your beards. Is that clear?’
A chorus of affirmatives greeted this offer. While Skraffi continued his attempt to off-load some of his mead on the door captain, Gabbik and the others formed a huddle for a quick conference. It was decided that the head of each clan could go in, except for the Angboks who already had Skraffi and Gabbik. The younger dwarfs were sent away and told to meet their elders back in the Central Hall once the council was concluded.
When the delegation stepped up, Thundred nodded his approval and with his hammer he struck three times upon a brass plate, much dented, affixed to the left-hand door. With a ponderous groan the doors swung inwards, guided by wheels that fitted to rails in the floor and ceiling.
Feeling a thrill course through him, Gabbik led the group over the threshold and into the king’s halls.
Chapter Six
‘It was about this time that the lord of the Rinkeldraz decided that in order for the plainsfolk to be taken seriously by the mountain dwarfs, they needed to treat on equal terms with them. The thane announced that he should be recognised as king, and, having some royal blood from Karak Eight Peaks by dint of being a second cousin of a prince, thrice removed, there was no greater claim to a crown amongst the plains clans. Even the Grimssons weren’t sure about this, but since everybody had already agreed to listen to the thane anyway, it was decided he might as well call himself king if he liked.
So King Ordorin was the first of our kings, though it made little difference. The royalty in the old mountains would call him the Wild King when he wasn’t around, and the elves didn’t care one bit because they thought us strange folk for having more than one king already – another made no difference to them one way or the other.
But it made the plains dwarfs feel better about what they were doing and who they were, because they were good folk at heart and knew that a king was the right thing to have. Having a king made the clans feel as if they were all part of the same people and they soon had a name: Urbarvornfolk. They started to build towers in the plains, and a road back to Karak Eight Peaks, to help with the trading and to bring materials from the old hold out to their homes more easily.
King Ordorin was not the smartest dwarf in the wildlands, but he was smart enough to know as much and so founded the council of the king to help him make the hard decisions.
The first hard decision he made was for everyone to stop mucking about with windmills and boats and farms, and to get on with moving to the mountains where some good honest mining could start.’
The last time Gabbik had been inside the lower chambers of the king’s halls had been as part of a delegation from the Ekrund Miners’ Welfare and Social Society. He had been a lowly deputy subscriptions collector, fortunate enough to win the annual lottery to take part in the excursion. When he became treasurer he would be a permanent member of the representative group and gaining admission with Skraffi was a timely opportunity to get his bearings and make a few contacts to take back to the Society.
Directly within the outer gates the king’s halls were not so different from the rest of central Ekrund. The corridors were broad and high, decorated with hangings between broad-timbered doorways and arches. Door wardens stood at most of these exits to stop visitors straying into parts of the king’s domain in which they would not be welcome and to provide directions to dwarfs visiting for the first time.
Skraffi seemed to know where he was going, leading the group along tunnels and round turnings as though they were in their own halls.
‘You know, we could look around a bit,’ suggested Gabbik. ‘No hurry to get to the audience hall.’
‘You were the one keen to get a good seat,’ replied Skraffi. ‘Don’t want you to start moaning that we’re stuck at the back, do I?’
Gabbik could hardly argue with such reasoning and so followed in his father’s wake along with the others. He was aware of more groups in front and behind them, some of them clustered around icons or banners on poles declaring their clan or organisation. He saw runes for the Royal Engineers’ Guild, the Council Fathers of the Runeworkings, the Western Tower Observation League, the Masonry and Timber Stores Functionary, even the Matchmakers’ Apprenticed Commission, and many others from across the hold. As well as a few variations on the Rinkeldraz emblem – the king’s own clan – Gabbik also took note of ancestor masks and woven pennants belonging to the Skalfsars, the Akunburks, a golden icon of the almost mythically wealthy Forbesons and the dragon pelt banner of the Harkenthraks.
‘Perhaps we should have brought the Angbok colours,’ he suggested, feeling somewhat insecure amongst the pageantry on display.
‘Not to worry, lad,’ said Skraffi. ‘If we get into bother I’ve got a hankie with the clan arms sewn on that your mother made for me years ago.’
‘You don’t seem to be taking this council too seriously, father,’ said Gabbik. He flinched as Skraffi directed a stern look at him.
‘Oh, I’m taking this council seriously,’ the older dwarf growled. ‘I’m just not convinced everybody else is. Look at them all, waving their colours and ancestors about like this was a queen’s day parade. Preening like fools rather than worrying about why the king’s brought us here.’
‘Standards have to be maintained,’ said Gabbik.
Skraffi grumbled something and took a sharp left, almost walking into Gabbik. Coming around the junction they were confronted by an antechamber filled with milling dwarfs. Door wardens were relieving the banner bearers of their burdens – some with more difficulty than others – while beardlings in the livery of the king, purple and black, moved through the crowd with chisel-ended pens and pieces of parchment taking name-runes. These were passed to the captain of the gates, who was standing in front of another huge portal, almost twice the size of the outer gates.
On each door was embossed a triumvirate of ancestor faces. At the top was Grungni, below him Valaya and below that Grimnir. The names of the kings of Ekrund were carved in runic form in a list beneath the great ancestors, the last being the current king Erstukar Rinkeldraz. Deep knotwork was etched around the borders and thick bands of gilded metal riveted with diamond-headed studs gave the doors an even more solid feel.
The doors were slightly ajar, wide enough for one dwarf to pass through at a time, and as each did so his name was bellowed to the waiting crowd by a door warden in the cavernous hall beyond. Gabbik could hear the echoing names of those before him still reverberating as they finally came to the front of the queue.
Giving his beard a few strokes to ensure it fell nice and straight and taking a deep breath, Gabbik stepped in to the audience hall as his name was shouted out. He stopped for a moment to take in the experience of entering the main floor of the greatest hall in Ekrund – an experience somewhat disrupted by Snorri Lorkstal pushing into his back from behind and a muttered word to step away from a polite but firm door warden.
It looked different from this angle. Gabbik’s first act was to look up, seeing steeply tiered balconies overlooking the great hall. When he had been up there the near-vertiginous slope had made him feel a little dizzy. Now that he stood at the bottom looking back it was a wonder anybody up there could see at all – they seemed so small and far away. It was said the galleries could comfortably hold five thousand dwarfs, and often six or seven thousand if they were prepared for a little discomfort, which the Ekrundfolk often were if there was a chance of seeing something particularly significant or interesting.
The ceiling of the hall, and this Gabbik liked the most, was almost untouched rock, complete with all the shimmering strata, bulges, crystals and outcrops that nature had formed over countless millennia. It was both the most beautiful thing Gabbik had ever seen and a humble admission by the king and his predecessors that there is only so much that can be achieved by the works of mortals. Ever the dwarfs were people of ore and mineral, coal and gem, and they had created wonderful machines and glorious artifices, but in doing so were always thankful for the bounties the world had set in store for them in the dark places beneath the world. As Grungni had taught in the earliest days, not even he, the greatest of craftsmen, could fix the flaw in a ruby nor create gold from rock.
Thumbs tucked into his belt as he looked up higher and higher, Gabbik gazed at the huge lanterns hanging on silver and bronze chains between jutting promontories above the viewing galleries. Each was thrice the height of a dwarf, like a birdcage exquisitely wrought from iron and silver, imbued with runes that glowed a warm orange – a sunset captured from the summit of Kvinn-Wyr, the Silver Lady, companion to Karag Nar, Karag Zilfin, Karag Yar, Karag Rhyn, Karag Mhonar, Karagril and Karag Lhune – the famed Eight Peaks for which the ancient hold was named. They had been a gift from King Nordrek of Karak Eight Peaks, once Ekrund had been established, to show that the ancestral hold of the Dragonback folk would ever shine in the light of the old mountains.
As the light from that day long past fell upon his face, Gabbik had a lump in his throat. Such light had spilled across the world in the times when the dwarfs had first started their delving beneath the old mountains. It had been a time of prosperity, when the daemons and half-creatures of the Dark Gods had been pushed back to the north and the dwarfs and elves had yet been allies.
It was said that that same prosperity would come to those upon whom the light of Kvinn-Wyr fell, but Gabbik recalled Skraffi’s words and why they were here – prosperity had been hard to come by for the dwarfs for many centuries since that sun had set upon the Silver Lady. War with the elves, greenskins resurgent. Perhaps even the dark powers were stirring, seeking to lay their claim upon the lands west of the mountains again.
He shuddered, the contentment he had felt in coming here suddenly overshadowed by graver concerns.
Skraffi was already forging a path through the crowds ahead. It was not so difficult yet. The floor of the grand hall measured five hundred paces long by three hundred wide, and after a space of a few dozen paces in which the dwarfs were gathering, more stewards were showing the visitors to the long benches that created a gentle arc around the throne mounted on a raised platform at the far end of the hall. Five broad aisles split the rows of benches and Skraffi headed towards the nearest.
Gabbik looked down at the floor as they trudged up to the benches, seeing it properly for the first time. From the galleries it had appeared as an indistinct amalgam of dark grey, red and white, but now he could see that it was made out of irregularly-shaped tiles of granite, quartz and alabaster. Each retained its original features, carefully polished and shaped to fit beside its neighbours without the slightest gap. It was work of incredible precision and Gabbik almost went down onto all fours to inspect it more closely. A pointed cough from one of his companions prompted him to continue after Skraffi.
The stewards ushered them to a long bench five rows from the front, a hundred paces from the throne as near as Gabbik could reckon. The row in front was packed with dwarfs but the front three benches were still empty – a line of stern-looking wardens with hammers in hand deterred anybody from violating the royal seats.
Looking around, Gabbik had fresh appreciation for the sheer scale and spectacle of a king’s council, as unlike a clan gathering as the hall was to the tunnels of the Angbok mine. The fact that he was on the floor at all was an immense privilege as he remembered the days he had spent in the upper galleries, straining to hear the arguments and debates being put forth before the king. Now he would be in the centre of the cut and thrust, truly the position a thane deserved.
‘Stop your gaping and sit down, lad,’ said Skraffi, who was already ensconced on the bench with half the contents of his pack around him. There was a piece of cheese and an opened pot of chutney balanced on his knee. They were about a third of the way along the bench and more dwarfs were already filing in behind waiting to take up the remaining space. Their chatter washed over Gabbik as he settled on the bench, his buttocks neatly sliding into an indentation made by hundreds of previous visitors.
‘Shift up.’
‘Make room there.’
‘I’m seven hundred and four, you know.’
‘I’m sure there weren’t this many thanes last time.’
‘Grungni’s hairy… I’ve dropped me pipe. Anyone seen me spare?’
The chuntering and banter was reassuring, like the ever-present backdrop of hammered anvils and picks on stone. Gabbik knew it would take most of the rest of the day to fill up the hall. He folded his arms, let his chin drop to his chest and closed his eyes for a little while.
Gabbik was woken not by a sound but by its absence. A hush had fallen over the grand hall, and it was this quiet that had stirred him from his slumber. Although most of the voices had been stilled, the hall was far from silent – the rub of backsides on wood, taps of metal toe-capped boots on the polished floor, rustles of cheese papers and the puffing of pipes all seemed to intensify with the lack of conversation.
The great lantern over the throne dais had been dimmed, swathing the stage in darkness. Fire pits had been lit, bathing the platform in a ruddy glow, swirling the upper air with smoke – not that several thousand pipes had not contributed quite a smog already. In the gloom Gabbik glanced back to see that the main doors had been closed. In the shadows above small red lamps lit the upper galleries like angry stars.
