‘Summon you? I would not dare.’
The Master Runesmith was far older than Morgrim. His beard was flecked with grey like the down of a hunting peregrine, and his eyes were sunk deep into leather-tough skin the colour of burnished copper. He carried an ancient runestaff topped with gromril and wore master-crafted armour of interlocking plates.
‘Look out on them,’ said Morgrim, his voice as gruff and spare as a drakk’s exhalation. ‘Look at what we have done, then tell me: what does your heart say?’
Morek did as he was bid. He cast his deep-set eyes over the slowly moving host. It looked like a river of molten iron creeping down the flank of the mountains. As the light began to fail and the shadows lengthened, the iron darkened.
‘It says that this thing cannot be stopped,’ Morek said. ‘It tells me Halfhand did not die in vain. He saw through the elgi – even his father did not see so clearly. They set this fate in motion, they shall bear the pain of it.’
Morgrim grunted. He could feel the dull thuds of a thousand footfalls, echoing up through the stone beneath his feet.
We have made the mountains tremble.
‘I did not want this,’ Morgrim said, his voice low and dark, as it had been ever since Snorri had died. ‘Let the records state that.’
‘They will.’
‘But now it is settled, I feel the blood of the ancients grow hot within me.’
‘As do we all.’
Morgrim bared his teeth – a tight, warlike grimace, one that made the lined skin of his face crack and flex. ‘My axe thirsts.’
Morek glanced at the blade. Its runes were inert. ‘It has not been proved yet.’
‘You made it. It will answer.’
Morek hawked a gobbet of spittle up and spat on the ground. ‘And Drogor?’
Morgrim’s expression briefly faltered. ‘What of him?’
‘Where is he? None have seen him for months.’
‘I care not.’ Morgrim found the mention of Drogor an irritant. He did not want to be reminded of that baleful presence, one that had hung around his cousin like the stench of carrion. There had always been something strange about Drogor, though it had been hard to say quite what it was. His eyes had been… dull.
‘He came from nowhere,’ said Morek. ‘Now he returns to nowhere, and no one, it seems, wishes to speak of it.’
‘I never liked him,’ said Morgrim dismissively. ‘Snorri listened too closely to him. Those who remain are pure.’
Morek pursed a pair of cracked lips. ‘That they are – for now. But beware: your armies will hold in one piece only as long as their anger remains. You must bind your thanes strongly until they can face the enemy. Even Gotrek struggled to control them, and while he remains grieving he cannot help you.’
‘Fear not,’ growled Morgrim, his slab-heavy face glowering under the sky. ‘They sought a leader, one who would deliver their axes to the elgi. With Snorri’s passing, that is all I live to do.’ His lips twisted into a half-snarl then, disfiguring features that had once been mild-tempered. ‘I will permit the elgi to leave these shores, if they choose the path of sense. But if they stay to fight, then I swear by Grimnir I will choke them all in their own thin blood.’
Morek nodded sagely.
‘That would be worth seeing,’ he said, his voice thick with relish.
Imladrik stood before the Council of Five. They regarded him with a mix of wariness and awe. At least, four of them did; the fifth didn’t lift her eyes from the floor.
‘So here we are together,’ said Aelis, clasping her hands. ‘At last.’
Imladrik regarded her coolly.
She thinks I should have made this Council my priority. Let her think away; the world has changed, and they will have to get used to it.
‘My apologies for the delay,’ he said. ‘You’ll understand I had many things to detain me.’
The chamber around them was deep in the Old City, down in the heart of the first colonists’ settlement. The stonework was more refined than in the Tower of Winds, the wood more cleanly carved, for it had been raised in a more carefree time when the thought of war between close allies would have been impossible to conceive.
‘You have kept us waiting, my lord,’ said Salendor. ‘We have armies garrisoned here, in Athel Maraya, in forward stations. All they need is orders.’
Imladrik knew he had to be careful around Salendor. The warrior was clearly itching for a fight and no doubt saw him as the one to deliver it. Imladrik could sense the brutality coiled within him, the eagerness to spill blood, and he could also sense the fine-honed mind, the moral clarity. Salendor was a serious proposition, but a dangerous one.
‘I know where our armies are,’ Imladrik said. ‘And they will wait a little longer for orders.’ He turned to Aelis. ‘The defences here are impressive. Everything you have done is impressive. I have not come to sweep it away and start again – I am here to work with you, not against you.’
‘That is good to hear,’ said Aelis. ‘We have not always had… wise governance out here.’
Imladrik just resisted the temptation, nagging away at him since he’d entered the chamber, to glance over at Liandra. She hovered, dressed in crimson as ever, on the edge of his vision. They had not spoken since his arrival. Though he would never have admitted it to anyone, that was the true reason he had put off meeting the Council – Yethanial’s words still burned in his memory.
‘There has been division between you,’ Imladrik said. ‘This cannot continue – we must speak with one voice.’
‘We have all we need,’ said Caerwal. ‘One choice remains: to meet them here, or march east and face them in the wilds.’
‘The judgement is a fine one,’ said Aelis.
Imladrik could sense Liandra’s mind-voice on the margins. He didn’t need to ask what side of the debate she was on. ‘Yes, it would be,’ he said, ‘were we committed to
