Here Heglan had created an aviary of the creatures of the sky he so wished to emulate. Preserved, meticulously posed and stuffed, there were hundreds. Often he had ventured in the low lands at the edge of the hold or taken a grubark out towards the ocean in the south. Dead birds were a common sight. Heglan had gathered them, studied their musculature, their pinions and the composition of their feathers. A notebook, bound in boar hide, was almost filled to the hilt with his scratched observations and sketches.
‘It should have worked,’ he muttered bitterly to an uncaring gloom. ‘It should have flown.’ He approached the wreck. In his tool belt he had a large hammer and a heavy-headed axe for the demolition. Running his hand over the hull, he winced every time he felt a crack or encountered a splinter. Rigging had broken apart like twine, masts snapped like limbs. The stink of spilled grog reeked heavily and spoiled the lacquering of the wood in places.
Shadow eclipsed most of the airship’s remains. Heglan kept many of the lanterns doused, lighting just enough in order to work. Cloud obscured the sun and any luminescence that might penetrate the skylight. Heglan preferred it this way. Darkness salved his thoughts and his stung pride.
Nadri had accomplished so much, earning the respect of his guild, his hold and the dwarfs of other holds beyond Barak Varr’s borders. Heglan was an engineer, a vaunted profession for any dwarf, but had thus far not achieved his potential. With their father Lodri dead and grandfather Dammin cold in his tomb, it mattered more than ever to honour them. Both brothers felt this keenly, and Nadri had remarked upon it when he had left Barak Varr to try and catch Krondi and the caravans.
‘Sons are destined to bury their fathers, Heg,’ he had said. ‘It’s only war that turns that around.’
Heglan had his head in his hands. ‘I’ve shamed them this day with my hubris.’
Nadri gripped his brother’s shoulders, made him look up. ‘Be proud of what you have achieved. You honour them. You will have your moment, Heg. Determination is what made the Copperfist clan what it is this day. Do not forget that. Do not give in to despair, either. We are dawi, stout of back and strong of purpose. We are the mountains, enduring and unyielding. Remember that and you will be remembered, just as they are.’
He gestured to the talisman around Heglan’s neck. It was the exact simulacrum of the one that Nadri also wore. Upon it were wrought the names of Lodri and Dammin, a son and father.
Heglan nodded, relieved from his torpor by his brother’s words of support.
‘But do this one thing for me,’ said Nadri, releasing Heglan’s shoulders to make his point clear with an outstretched finger.
‘Name it, Nadri.’
‘Heed Strombak, do not go against your master’s will and risk expulsion from the guild. Do that for me, Heg.’
Heglan went to protest, but the look in his brother’s eyes warned him to do so would earn further reproach. Reluctantly, he nodded.
Nadri nodded too, satisfied he’d been heard. ‘Good,’ he said, and clapped him on the shoulder. ‘I’m bound for Karaz-a-Karak. Krondi will meet me there and we’ll be on our way.’ He glanced at the ruined airship, squatting in a forlorn heap inside the workshop. ‘I wish I could stay and help you with this, but I am already late.’
They clasped forearms, and Heglan embraced him.
‘What would I do without you, Nadri?’
‘Likely go mad,’ he laughed as they parted.
After that, Heglan had bidden him farewell. Dismissing the journeymen dwarfs who had helped retrieve the broken ship, he had been left alone. There he had stayed in seclusion for two days, pondering Nadri’s words and those of Master Strombak.
Almost on the last of his smoking root, he chewed the end of his pipe and regarded the broken ship through a veil of grey. Three days and he had not lifted a finger to break the ship apart. This part of the workshop was sealed, a vault where Heglan could craft in secret and not be disturbed. Other machineries could be fashioned to demonstrate his commitment to his master. This, the plan forming in Heglan’s mind inspired by the drawings on his workshop walls, he need never know about.
For the first time in three days, he gripped the worn haft of his hammer. Ever since his grandfather Dammin had shown him the proper way to use one, Heglan had regarded it as a tool to create, not destroy.
Purposefully, he strode towards the wrecked skryzan-harbark.
‘I am sorry, brother.’
A dwarf would fly and Heglan was determined to be the first.
Sweat lathered the flanks of the mules. The beasts were gasping, shrieking with fear as Krondi drove the head of the wagon train like all the daemons of hellfire were at their heels.
For all he knew, they actually were.
Of course, daemons did not clad themselves in midnight black, nor did they carry bows, nor did they wear the countenances of elves…
‘Curse the thagging elgi and all their foetid spawn!’ Krondi shrank into his driver’s seat, hunched as tight as he could be and still lash the mules.
Arrows whickered overhead. On the road behind them, three guards lay dead with shafts in their backs. More protruded from the sides of the wagons, jutting like the spines of some forest creature.
Dwarfs armed with crossbows tried to reply in kind but the bouncing wagons, now driven into a frantic charge through the ever-narrowing gorge, made aiming difficult. Even on foot, at full sprint, the elves not only kept pace but were also more accurate.
Durgi took one in the eye. He spun, a rivulet of blood streaking his face like
