The king’s banner was aloft; he saw it above the throng, flapping defiantly. It was an order to charge, to run at the gates and bring them down while the elves were in retreat, but the arrow storm was unrelentingly heavy. A pity Werigg had no words of encouragement, but Nadri felt the old solider at his back, his hand on his shoulder if not gripping quite so tight now the battle pressure had lessened.
They got another foot before a second horn was sounded, followed by the beat of drums. The banner dipped, away from the gates. A signal to retreat.
Nadri couldn’t decide if he felt indignant or relieved. They had bled so much to reach this far and gain so little. The bellowed command from one of the thanes further down the line confirmed it.
‘Retreat!’
Nadri was confused. He had always believed there was no word for ‘back’, ‘give up’, in Khazalid. Seemed he was wrong, they all were.
‘That’s it,’ he called over his shoulder. ‘Werigg, we lived, we–’
The old soldier’s glassy eyes staring back unblinking supplanted Nadri’s relief with grief. Werigg’s hand was still upon his back, seized with enough rigor to keep it there, his body pressed into the throng unable to fall. A dark patch blotted his armour, running stickily over the mail. A spear tip was lodged in the middle of it, broken off at the end. Nadri remembered the one in his chest, the second one he’d deflected, unknowingly, into Werigg’s gut. A mortal wound. As the dwarfs peeled away and the throng parted, Werigg fell and Nadri wasn’t able to catch him or carry him. Borne away by the urgency of the crowd, he couldn’t stop and the old soldier was lost from his sight.
Snorri cursed, he cursed in as many foul ways as he knew, spitting and raging as the retreat was sounded. He turned briefly, looking over his shoulder to see the throng from Zhufbar heading back to the encampment at the edge of the battlefield. He also saw Morgrim, arms folded after issuing the command.
Cursing again, Snorri flung his hand axe in a final defiant gesture and it stuck in the thick wood of the elven gate like a promise.
We’ll be back, it said, the killing isn’t done, we are not done. Battle has only just begun.
He seethed, marking the face of each and every elf that looked down on him with haughty disdain from the city walls.
‘Khazuk,’ he screamed in promise. ‘Khazuk!’
But the elves didn’t understand, nor did they care.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Preparing to Lay Siege
Once the withdrawal from outside the city began the hail of arrows ceased, the elven reapers returned behind their mantlets and the mages to their towers. It was not a benevolent act towards a respected foe; it was a pragmatic one. The elves were not so foolish as to believe they had won. They knew enough of dwarfs to realise they would come again. Arrows were finite, so too the strength of a wizard. Both needed conserving if they were to hold the city.
From inside his tent looking out onto the field, Snorri glowered. He chewed his beard and muttered, trying to excise his feeling of impotence with the clenching and unclenching of his fists.
A young priestess was tending the wound in his shoulder, packing it with warm healing clay, but he ignored her. Since the retreat, he had spoken to no one.
Morgrim approached, invading the prince’s solitude. Over an hour had passed since Snorri had glared at him upon the army’s disappointing return, and as the injured were patched up and armour mended by the forges he decided it was time to confront his cousin.
The foulness of his mood was etched across the prince’s face. ‘Don’t you understand what “do not disturb” means?’ he grumbled.
‘Aye, and I understand what would have happened had you fought on,’ Morgrim replied curtly, surprising Snorri with his choler. ‘Eight hundred and sixty-three dead, the reckoners are still tallying the injured. What were you going to do if you had reached the walls, climb them with your axe or hack open the gate?’
‘If needs be, by Grungni. I’ll make those elgi pay.’
‘What price do you think they owe you, cousin? Was the rhunki lord a friend of yours, was he known to you or even of your hold? We all mourn for Agrin Fireheart but this goes beyond that.’
Snorri leaned forwards, fighting back the pain as he felt his injuries anew and scowling at the priestess who scowled back.
‘It was an affront to all dawi, what they did. Slaying a rhunki of such venerability…’ He shook his head, rueful. ‘My father should have declared war there and then.’
‘And now we come to the root of it,’ said Morgrim, folding his arms.
‘Meaning?’ asked Snorri, sitting back before the priestess clubbed him.
‘Your father, the High King.’
Snorri’s expression darkened and he dismissed the dwarf maiden trying to tend to him with a curt word. She glared but relented. ‘What is it with these Valayan rinns?’ he griped.
Morgrim went on. ‘Ever since you heard that prophecy in the ruins of Karak Krum, you have railed even harder against him. You made this cause your own, this war, to slight the High King, declare grudgement if I am wrong.’
Snorri seethed, fists balled, and looked like he might spring from his throne and knock his cousin onto his back. Anyone else but Morgrim and he would have raised fists, but after a minute he climbed down from his anger.
‘He who will slay the drakk, he who will be king, those were his words. Am I still to believe them, cousin?’
Like heat from the cooling forge, Morgrim’s ire dispersed in the face of Snorri’s humility. ‘You are prince of Karaz-a-Karak, heir to the Throne of Power and the Karaz Ankor. Your destiny is great as are you, cousin. Don’t let this feud with
