Across the battlefield, a second voice bellowed. It spoke unto the deep earth, making oaths of the great ancestors. One of the anvils of Zhufbar rolled forwards, impelled by the will of its keeper Gorik Stonebeard, and joined the magical convocation. He had no staff, but carried a rune hammer. As he smacked the hammer head down upon the anvil, the deep earth answered and a rippling tremor shuddered from beneath him.
‘Duraz um uzkul a elgi!’
The tremor rolled outwards at the invocation, building in ferocity, splitting the ground underfoot.
The lords of Karak Varn and Zhufbar crafted in perfect magical concert, unleashing hellfire and earthquakes against the elven host.
Gotrek felt their power through his beard, in his fingertips, along his teeth, and grinned.
‘Burn them, bring them down!’
Liandra was barely in the saddle when the quake hit. Dust and grit spilled from the vaulted ceiling of the Dragon Tower, shaking its walls violently.
‘Vranesh!’ she urged and the beast tore up into the vaults, head down, smashing through the roof. There was no time to guide the dragon through the narrow aperture of the tower. The small minaret that served as Vranesh’s rookery was collapsing. Mere appendage to the grand tower itself, it would still have buried dragon and rider.
Exploding from the shattered tower, Vranesh exulted and Liandra with him as he tore into the sky. Empathic joy rippled through the elf’s body, and she embraced a thrill of violent intent as she beheld the dwarfs below.
‘Higher, higher…’ she coaxed, guiding Vranesh into the ice cold skies, daggering through cloud until they were lost from sight. There they roamed, Vranesh trailing tendrils of smoke from his maw in hungry anticipation.
In the solitude high above Tor Alessi, Liandra’s thoughts returned to Imladrik. She remembered their last conversation in the gorge, the widening gulf she felt growing between them, and wondered where he was now and if he had thought of her since then. For a moment, the iron grip she had on her lance loosened and she considered that vengeance would not be an adequate substitute for her grief. Then she thought of Kor Vanaeth and her people, dying at the hands of the cruel dwarfs, and her resolve became a thing of unyielding ice.
Liandra leaned over in her saddle, roving the enemy army with her eyes for a target.
‘There,’ she hissed. ‘Dive, Vranesh!’
Silver lightning breached the cold winter cloud as a beast of old myth fell upon the war machines.
Gotrek had barely ordered his bearers forwards before the dragon had torn up three engines and devoured their crew. Snapping wood, torn metal and shouting dwarfs merged into one discordant sound. Screwing up his courage, a thane of the Varn rushed at the beast with his rune axe trailing fire, but was dispatched by a lance strike through the heart before he’d done much more than heft the blade.
An elf maid, armoured in dragon scale. She gutted three more dwarfs before her eyes met with the High King’s. Bolt throwers further down the line of war engines were already turning as the elf’s beast started in on the quarrellers. It led with its forelegs, gouging a deep, ruddy furrow in the dwarfs’ ranks, their hand axes and crossbow bolts unable to penetrate its dragonscale.
Gotrek snarled at the nearest ballista crew, knowing he wouldn’t reach the elf dragon rider in time to save the quarrellers from being devoured by her mount. ‘Shoot that elgi bitch!’
Its strong pinions flexing, the dragon took flight with its rider as the first of the iron shafts flew, cutting air. She dodged a second volley too, the beast snapping one in mid-flight before it turned to spew fire.
Heat ten times more potent than a forge furnace washed over Gotrek and his charges, but the magic of the Throne of Power kept them safe. Singed but alive, he glowered through a wall of flickering haze at the fleeing beast and its rider.
‘Crozzled my bloody beard,’ he growled. ‘Drakk,’ he said as the fire died, now just a a blackened ring on the hillside. ‘I hate drakk.’ He rapped on the arm of his throne with a ringed fist. ‘Forward. We make for the east gate. Furgil and the others best be ready. Thurbad,’ said Gotrek, looking down to his captain of the hearthguard and the seven iron-bearded warriors that accompanied him. ‘Gather fifty warriors, including the steelbeards. You’re with me. Leave the rest.’
‘But you’ll be open to attack, my king.’
‘Aye,’ said Gotrek, eyeing the dragon as it dived down to spew more fire, ‘and if we’re lucky, she’ll take the bait.’
On the north wall the fighting had grown fiercer. Elf and dwarf lay dead and dying upon the battlements, gutted and staved in, broken and cleaved. Two great civilisations were destroying one another, yet no one cared to notice.
Morgrim’s hammer felt heavy as he bludgeoned but not from the heft of the weapon, he could wield it all day and night if needed. It was the blood upon it, the slaughter that weighed the dwarf down.
A screech that resonated across the sky, tearing it open, shook Morgrim from his reverie. An upper tower had collapsed and something leathern and terrible had shot out from it like a battering ram.
‘Drakk!’
His warriors cried out and balked when they saw the dragon smash through the tower roof. Pieces of stone, shattered chips of tile cascaded onto them but were a paltry shower compared to the deluge that slammed down into the elves amassing in the courtyard. Fixed on the beast, the dwarfs barely paid any heed. One abandoned all thoughts of defence altogether and found a spear in his gut for his trouble. Another jumped off the battlements, mind crushed by fear. Dwarfs were a hardy race, and their history with dragons was long and bloody, but such primordial beasts were terrifying even for the sons of Grungni.
Morgrim marshalled his courage, still fighting hard with an eye on the sky as the beast wheeled above. ‘Hold fast!’ he yelled at the clanners. ‘Stone
