Though her brothers had told her tales, she had never seen a druchii before. He was pale, his features so like and yet unlike her own; appearing sharper, as though she would cut herself on his nose or cheekbones.
She screamed again and the druchii laughed, drinking in her terror. His face was painted in cruel, angular runes that made Liandra’s eyes hurt, or that might just have been the fire. She kicked wildly, connecting with the druchii’s face, and he snarled in anger at her. She tried again, but he caught her ankle, twisted it hard until she thought she might pass out from the pain.
‘Khaine’s hells are reserved for little ones like you,’ the raider hissed, drawing a curved dagger with serrated teeth along its edge.
His breath smelled of blood.
She struggled, looking around for help, but there was no one. Only fire and smoke. The warriors from Lothern would not reach her in time. Gutted on a druchii’s blade or a prisoner on their foul ships, either way she was as good as dead. But Liandra was a princess of Caledor, she had a warrior’s heart and fire in her veins to fuel it. She would not die without a fight.
A heavy punch to her jaw put the fight out of her and she mewled like a milksop farm girl, blacking out for a second. When she opened her eyes again, the dagger was all she could see, filling her eye line. She noticed the blade was black, or rather, stained that way.
She wept. ‘Mother…’
The druchii grunted, the dagger falling from Liandra’s sight, a grimace marring the raider’s porcelain features. A woman stood over him, a broken spear haft clutched in her shaking hands.
‘Get off her, you bastard!’
Liandra wept again, even as the druchii parried a second swipe of the spear haft and disarmed its wielder with ease. ‘Mother…’
‘Run!’ she cried to Liandra, urging her daughter with all the swiftness of Kurnous. ‘Flee, Liandra!’
Even as the druchii closed her down, seized her flailing fist and plunged the dagger deep.
Time slowed, the smoke and flame so thick Liandra could hardly breathe any more, the figures a few feet in front of her reduced to hazed silhouettes.
One crumpled and fell. It brought a word half-formed to her lips that she was unable to speak.
Mother.
The druchii turned. Something dark and vital shimmered on the edge of his blade. It dripped to the ground, as the last ounces of Liandra’s innocence bled away with it.
Horns were braying.
Lothern had answered, but their call came too late for her mother.
Heedless of the danger, the druchii advanced on her. He got three steps before an arrow punctured his chest. Another pierced his throat and he gargled his last words through a fountain of blood.
Then he fell, and Liandra was alone.
The archer hadn’t seen her. No one came.
She stayed there in the ruins of Cothique, surrounded by smoke at her mother’s side, until the fire died and all that remained was ash.
Liandra awoke with a sudden start, awash with feverish sweat.
She breathed deep, trying to abate her trembling, soothing Vranesh who was similarly distressed. The high mountain air was crisp and cold. It chilled her, but she relished it, found it calming.
‘Mother…’ The word escaped her lips without her realising, and terror was subdued by a hard ball of iron that nestled in her heart.
Eight years she had been hunting. As soon as she learned of the druchii’s presence in the Old World, and she felt the resonance of the Wind of Dhar in the gorge to confirm her, she had not rested. Kor Vanaeth was left to one of her father’s seneschals. He was a good man, a dependable warrior, but not one in whom Liandra could confide.
Not like Imladrik.
Every since the day they parted ways, she had ached for his return. Not once had she gone back to Kor Vanaeth, preferring the cold solitude of hunting dark elves. She cared not for the imminent war. It didn’t matter to her who had killed the dwarfs. None of that mattered now. She just wanted revenge.
And her prey was close.
She breathed deep of the mountain air again… and smelled smoke, heard the crackle of fire.
A tremor jerked her heart and she gasped, reliving the dream all over again. Then fire turned to ice in her veins.
She wasn’t dreaming. The fire was real. Smoke carried on the swift mountain breeze.
Kor Vanaeth was burning.
CHAPTER THIRTY
A Hurled Spear
By the time the armies of Barak Varr and Zhufbar had reached the fortress at Black Fire Pass, it took thirteen days for Snorri Halfhand’s throng to meet the elves in pitched battle.
It took less than three hours to defeat them and send the survivors fleeing back to their city.
Now, Kor Vanaeth was surrounded by almost forty thousand dwarfs. Like an ingot of iron clenched in the tongs, they would hammer the elves against the anvil until they broke.
On a dark heath strewn with battered shields and snapped spear hafts, a conclave of dwarf lords had gathered to decide upon their siege tactics. Frost crisped the ground underfoot, showing up spilt blood that glistened like rubies in the light snowfall. It made the earth hard and the grass crunch like shattered bone.
‘We could just wait them out,’ suggested King Valarik of Karak Hirn. ‘Set up our pickets and let the elgi starve.’ Two great eagle wings sprouted from his war helm and a suit of fine ringmail clad his slight frame. A short cape of ermine flapped in the wind, revealing the haft of his mattock slung beneath it on his back.
A susurrus of disproval emanated from the gathered lords. Valarik was youthful, his hold barely founded. It was only natural the older, venerable kings would take exception to his idea.
‘They already look beaten.’ There was a
