‘Does Snorri know you’re here?’ Morgrim asked, as they started walking. A dozen bowstrings creaked at the dwarfs’ departure.
Elmendrin looked down at the ground. ‘No. And it must stay that way.’
‘I doubt your presence will be a secret for long.’
‘Perhaps, but for now I want to do my work, fulfil my oaths to Valaya. Besides,’ she said, ‘Snorri has more important things to worry about than me.’
‘I think he would argue that.’
‘Which is precisely why I must go unnoticed by the prince.’ She allowed a brief pause, then looked up at Morgrim. ‘The war has changed him, hasn’t it?’
‘All of us are changed by it, and will continue to be.’
‘Not like that, I mean,’ said Elmendrin.
Morgrim regarded her curiously.
She answered, ‘It’s made him better, somehow. As if he was forged for it.’
There was a sadness in Morgrim’s eyes when he replied. ‘I think that perhaps he was, that all his petulance and discontent stemmed from a desire to fulfil that for which he was made.’
‘I thought so,’ said Elmendrin, moving off to help one of her sisters. ‘Do one thing for me, Morgrim Bargrum.’
‘Name it,’ he called out to her.
‘Try to stop Snorri from getting himself killed.’
He didn’t answer straight away, watching Elmendrin disappear back in to the mass of dead and dying. There were tears in his eyes when he did.
‘I will.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
The Fleet From Across the Sea
The elf was painted head to toe in filth. His silver armour was muddied, his cloak torn and smeared in dung, his alabaster skin grimy and dark with a peasant’s tan. Dirty white hair framed a narrow face, pinched with anger.
‘Doesn’t look happy, does he?’ Snorri jerked his thumb at the dishevelled noble behind the cage.
‘Would you be, if you were boarding with the mules?’ King Thagdor laughed, loudly and raucously, until the High King approached, dousing the northerner’s mirth.
‘His name is Prince Arlyr, of Etaine.’ Gotrek struggled with both foreign words, but spoke them anyway before turning his glare from Thagdor to the elf. ‘And apparently he has nothing to say beyond that.’
‘Why are we gathered here?’ asked Brynnoth. ‘Surely your tent would have provided better accommodation.’
They were standing next to the mule pen at the rear of the encampment, near its edge. Skinners were hustling the beasts in and out of the cages to haul machineries or cart raw metal for the new rams, but none cast an eye towards the kings.
Several bedraggled-looking elves, stripped of their weapons and armour, walked alongside one train. They were Arlyr’s warriors, put to use gathering firewood for the furnaces and watched keenly by Furgil’s rangers.
The same question as asked by the king of the Sea Hold lingered in Valarik’s eyes too, though the lord of the Horn Hold had not the courage to speak it. All of the kings, barring Brynnoth whose desire for vengeance still blazed hotter than his shame at defying the High King, felt chastened just to be in Gotrek’s presence. The High King’s ire was volcanic but kept dormant for now. None of the liege-lords wanted to be there when it erupted, and so conducted themselves as if that possibility was imminent at any time and by treading gingerly they could abate it.
Last of the kings was Hrekki Ironhandson. The lord of the Varn was slow to arrive, having trekked across from the opposite end of the field where his war machines and much of his army was mustered. He nodded to the other lords, and only once he was within the circle of kings did Gotrek continue.
‘Quicker to say it here, and I want to look into this one’s eyes when I do.’ His attention returned to their elf prisoner, who glowered back at him.
‘To say what, father?’ asked Snorri.
Not since the assault on the sixth day had the dwarfs enjoyed the same level of success in breaching the elven city. Tor Alessi had abandoned its outer wall and retreated, closing its ranks further, repositioning its bolt throwers, mustering even more archers.
Even buoyed by their apparent success, the dwarfs had been unable to penetrate any further. The rubble made it impossible to bring in siege towers and excavation teams were quickly pinioned by arrows as soon as they tried to clear the ground. The elves had left pockets of murderous scouts in shadowed alcoves and secret chambers that ambushed the dwarf attackers, foiling assaults before they could begin.
Tor Alessi had shrunk, and like a trap closing around the elves inside, it had armoured them.
Snorri didn’t understand the tactic. Yes, it retarded the dwarfs’ efforts, but they had already established that winning a war of attrition was playing into their hands. What did the elves have to gain from waiting and pulling in their necks, besides a slow death?
When the young prince got his answer, it was not to his liking.
‘We must retreat,’ said Gotrek flatly.
‘Do what?’ asked Thagdor, incredulous.
Snorri was speechless.
Brynnoth fought down a belligerent snarl. Of all the kings, he had seen the most battle and bore the wounds to prove it. None present had greater right to question the High King’s reasoning than Brynnoth, but the lord of the Sea Hold stayed silent.
‘Elgi have been sighted coming across the sea in a great fleet.’ Gotrek eyed the elven noble and saw everything he needed in the lordling’s supercilious expression to know what his scouts had told him was true, that it wasn’t some trick or glamour, that the elves were trying to keep them embattled until reinforcements could arrive. ‘Could be two hundred ships, maybe more. Drakk too, eagles and magelings. A war host that puts even this city’s sizeable garrison to shame. That’s
