‘Been too long, son of Torban,’ said Rundin, adjusting the thick belt around his waist. Scabbards for several dirks, daggers and long knives were fastened to it, and another belt that sat across his barrel chest had a sheath for the great axe on his back.
With a look, Rundin dismissed the other hill dwarfs who melted away silently. ‘Unwise to leave our backs unwatched,’ he said.
Furgil nodded, his mood suddenly serious. ‘The truth of that sits before us, brother.’
He gestured to the carrion feast, bidding Rundin to kneel down beside him as he continued his investigation of the corpses.
‘Dawi?’ The leather hauberk he wore creaked as Rundin crept down beside Furgil. He lifted his leather helm – there was an iron raven icon on the band around the forehead – to wipe away a lather of sweat.
‘I’d say merchants by what remains of their garments and trappings.’
‘Agreed. Though this one wears heavy armour and there are calluses from haft work on the hand.’
‘Dreng tromm…’ Furgil breathed, and shook his head. He looked up. ‘They did not meet their end here.’
‘Aye, did you see it too?’
‘That I did, brother.’
Easily missed amongst the carnage, the broken shaft of an arrow protruded from one of the dead dwarfs. It was buried deep into his back. The other half was snagged to his mail jerkin, partly concealed under the dwarf’s body. It had swan feathers and the shaft itself was fashioned from white pine.
‘Elgi,’ said Rundin, face darkening.
‘Aye. We need to find that ambush site.’
A bird call echoed from beyond the forest borders.
‘One of your men?’ asked Furgil, rising.
Rundin nodded.
It seemed they had already found where the dwarfs had died.
Three more dwarfs grew cold on the road.
They were face down in the dirt, surrounding a sturdy wagon with two dead mules. Some still clutched weapons in their hands. Drag marks in the earth, scattered stones at the edge of the road revealed where the three the goblins had taken had come from. Unlike their clansmen in the deep wood, the others were more or less intact. Decay had yet to set in, so the deaths were recent. Judging by dwarfs’ cold skin, the stiffness of their limbs and fingers, Furgil reckoned they had been dead a few hours.
Arrows stuck from their backs, same white pine shafts, same swan-feathered flights. No goblin could loose with such a bow. Definitely elves.
The thought brought a concerned expression to Furgil’s face.
‘Elgi slaying dawi?’ He released a long breath through his nostrils, trying to imagine the rationale for what he was seeing. ‘Hard to countenance, brother.’
Rundin and Furgil were not brothers, though their bond of friendship was as strong, if not stronger than some siblings. They had shared the same clan once, several years ago. Both were Ravenhelms, though Furgil had been stripped of that honour by King Skarnag Grum and thrown out of the lands of the hill dwarfs upon pain of death.
Unbaraki, the king had denounced him. It meant ‘oathbreaker’ and there was no greater insult that could be levelled at a dwarf.
Furgil had spoken out against Skarnag, for his greed and his isolation of the hill dwarfs. A seat on the high council had given the thane of the pathfinders a voice. With it he had condemned himself to banishment and shame by a bitter, petty king.
Fortunately for Furgil, the High King of the Worlds Edge Mountains agreed with the pathfinder and so he returned to the mountain from whence his clan had departed many centuries before.
Worst of all was that Rundin knew it and had said nothing in his friend’s defence. Furgil had warned him not to, for then there would be no one to ensure the prosperity of the hill dwarfs. Loyalty to a corrupt ruler was the price Rundin paid, but devotion would only go so far.
In the solitude of their own thoughts, both dwarfs remembered this thorn between them. It had long since been removed but the memory of it was still bleak.
Furgil paced around the wagon.
‘Five heavily armoured guards and a merchant guilder at the reins.’
Sweeping quickly across the scene, crouching and darting as he gathered further signs and markers, Furgil described what had happened.
‘No fight occurred here, no battle. The dawi were killed quickly, without mercy. See how the crossbow is loaded but this satchel is full of quarrels. And here… The warrior’s axe is still looped to his belt.’ He gestured to the wagon itself. ‘Unused shields still clasped to the sides.’
Rundin was crouched down, both hands resting on his thighs.
‘An empty wagon this close to the hold means they were returning home. Why attack a caravan without wares to steal?’
‘I don’t think they were merely thieves,’ said Furgil, though he had also noticed the little white bands around the dead dwarfs’ fingers from stolen rings, the red-raw marks on their wrists where gilded bracelets had been forcibly removed.
Looking up from examining one of the dead guards, Rundin asked, ‘What then?’
Furgil touched the swan-feathered shaft of an arrow. It had punched right through the dwarf’s platemail as if it were parchment.
‘This was cold murder, but I know of no elgi that would ever do such a thing.’
Rundin frowned, remembering something. ‘From the watchtowers of Kazad Mingol there have been reports of black-cloaked strangers abroad on the hills. None have yet managed to get close enough to challenge them. When I read the missives that arrived at Kazad Kro, I assumed it was just because of the increased trade with the elgi.’
‘Feels different,’ said Furgil, suddenly glad that a ring of four hill rangers surrounded them. ‘On the Old Dwarf Road, I felt… something.’
‘Like being watched.’
Furgil met Rundin’s gaze. The recognition in the warrior’s eyes sent a chill down the ranger’s spine.
‘Just so.’
The earlier storm had almost passed, but the sun beaming down through the winter sky was neither warming nor comforting. Furgil stood up, deep in thought, his
