Morgrim took the north wall, volunteering to lead a cohort in one of the siege towers and onto the very battlements of Tor Alessi. It was to be a hard push – the High King wanted the elves to think this was the main point of assault. Morgrim was happy to oblige.
Half-sundered by their war machines, chunks of battlement broke away as the dwarfs tramped over it. One poor soul lost his footing and fell to his death many feet below. No one in the front ranks watched him but a grudgekeeper in the rearguard called out the dwarf’s name to ensure he would be remembered.
‘Uzkul!’ Morgrim yelled again, bludgeoning a spearman’s skull as he fended off another with his shield. He drew one elf in, butting him hard across the nose and splitting his face apart. Another dwarf finished the spearman when he dropped his guard, recoiling in pain.
An axe blade dug into his weapon’s haft and Morgrim shook it free, snarling. He kicked out, snapping the elf’s shin with a hobnailed boot, before burying his hammer head into the warrior’s neck. Blood fountained up in a ragged arc, painting a clutch of spearmen who pressed on despite their disgust.
Morgrim smashed one in the shoulder with his shield and took a spear in the thigh for his trouble. Smacking it away before the wielder could thrust, he incapacitated the second elf with a low blow to the groin. The backhand took a third spearman in the torso. A dwarf warrior next to him fell in the same moment before one of his fellow clansmen stepped in to take his place.
Somewhere in the frenzy, Morgrim and his warriors gained the battlements. Elves came at them from either side, wielding spears and silver swords. The small knot of dwarfs, desperately trying to expand outwards and establish a foothold, was quickly corralled.
Barely before Morgrim had Tor Alessi stone under his feet, a fair-haired captain carrying a jewelled axe and a small shield hit him hard. Daggers of pain flared in his shoulder but the runes on the dwarf’s armour held against the elf magic and Morgrim kept his arm. He replied with an overhand swing, denting the elf’s shield before uppercutting with his own. Spitting blood, the elf’s chin came up and Morgrim barged into him, barrelling the captain over the battlements and to his death. It only seemed to galvanise the other elves further.
The dwarfs gained maybe three feet. It was tough going. Arrows whistled in at them from below, piercing eyes and necks, studding torsos like spines. Out the corner of his eye, Morgrim saw Brungni spin like a nail, three white shafts embedded in his back. The inner side of the wall was open, and a yawning gap stretched into a courtyard below. It left the dwarfs dangerously exposed, a fact Brungni learned to his cost. In his death throes he handed off the banner to Tarni Engulfson before falling into a riot of elven spears below.
‘Don’t drop that,’ Morgrim warned.
The young dwarf nodded, clutching grimly to the banner pole.
A hastily-erected line of shields protected the battling dwarfs from the worst of the elven volleys but it made fighting to the front and rear more difficult.
Farther down the wall, Morgrim saw another siege tower reach the battlements. A plume of flame fashioned into an effigy of a great eagle engulfed it before the ramp was even released, burning the dwarfs within. Cracking wood, the sound of splitting timbers raked the air as the tower collapsed in on itself, killing those warriors waiting on the platforms below. It tumbled slowly like a felled oak and was lost from Morgrim’s sight.
There would be no reinforcement on the wall, not yet.
He lifted his rune hammer to rally the spirits of his warriors. By now it was a familiar cry.
‘Uzkul!’
Death.
Gotrek watched the battle from atop his Throne of Power.
Below, his bearers were unyielding, their strength unfailing. It needed to be; throne and king were a heavy burden in more ways than one.
Several of the siege towers had reached the ramparts of the north wall and two of the gates were under assault with battering rams and grappling hooks. A sortie of elven horse riders had stalled the third assault, Thagdor’s longbeards currently waging a contest of attrition with the high-helmed knights.
Gotrek would have bet his entire treasure hoard on the victors of that fight, but it was hard to smile when the elves were making them pay so dearly for every foot.
From the east flank, quarrellers maintained a regular barrage from behind their mantlets. Behind them on a grassy ridge, the war machines continued to loose with devastating effect. Several sections of the wall were broken and split, but not enough to force a breach. They needed the tunnels to undermine them, bring the foundations crashing down into a pool of fire as the dwarfs burned the elven stone to ash.
Zonzharr was potent dwarf alchemy that could reduce even the stoutest rock to blackened dust. The miners had pots of the stuff, hauled into the tunnels by pack mules, ready to be rolled down to the rock face when the digging was done.
Overhead the sky darkened as the elven mages practised their foul art. Summoned fire blazed into one of the siege towers, burning it to a scorched stump. A second conflagration followed but dispersed against the solemn chanting of the runesmiths.
Most of the elder lords of the rune had not joined their kings in battle. Mysteriously, they were nowhere to be found, some having left their holds for places unknown. Gotrek knew better than to question it. Ranuld Silverthumb had
