The stony expressions of Brynnoth and Varnuf suggested they agreed.
Liandra went for her sword again. Several of the elf retainers did likewise and this time Imladrik did not forbid them. Unsheathed elven steel shone brightly in the lamplight.
Only Prince Imladrik stayed his hand.
A ripple went through the hearthguard as they tightened their fists around axe hafts. Above in the higher vaults of the chamber, bow strings were tautened. Thurbad held the warriors in place.
Gotrek met the prince’s gaze, and there were storm clouds boiling in the High King’s eyes.
‘Tell your kin to put up their swords,’ he said levelly. ‘Tell them to do it now, my prince.’
Imladrik did so, immediately. None argued, for they could see the hopelessness of their situation.
‘Please, High King,’ Imladrik implored, ‘let me–’
‘You will do nothing! Nothing!’ Gotrek raged. ‘This is a dawi matter, now. It shall be dealt with by my hand. Leave.’
Imladrik’s face clouded over. ‘High King?’
‘I said leave. Take your elgi and leave this place. I will guarantee safe passage back to your settlements, but you cannot stay here. Not now.’
Realising there was nothing more to be said, the elf prince bowed and did as the High King had ordered.
Liandra and the other elves followed. The great gate was still open and no one barred their exit. All of the dwarfs watched them go, not taking their eyes off them until the gate was sealed again and sanctity had returned to the entrance hall.
‘Why does it feel as if you just gave quarter to an enemy?’ said Brynnoth.
Varnuf remained pensive.
‘We should have killed them,’ muttered Snorri. ‘Send a message to–’
Gotrek struck him across the jaw, hard enough to put the prince on his knee.
‘Shut your mouth,’ snarled the High King, ‘and do not dishonour me further with your idiotic talk.’
Snorri was hurt, but mainly his pride. ‘Father, I’m… I’m sorry. I didn’t–’
‘Save your contrition.’ Gotrek was shaking his head. ‘To think I have raised such a son.’ That barb stung worse than any blow ever could. Gotrek turned to Thurbad. ‘Gather the rest of the kings, round them all up and bring them here. I will have counsel immediately.’
None opposed him. None dared. With a final glance at his son, who rubbed his jaw painfully, Gotrek stormed from the entrance hall and down into the Ekrund.
A grim and sombre mood pervaded in the Great Hall.
Agrin Fireheart was dead. Worse than that, he had been slain by elves.
Elves.
It went beyond merely killing. Agrin was a runelord, an ancient, one of the few. His like would not grace the earth again. In one fell and heinous act of callous murder, Barak Varr had lost its closest link to its ancestors.
Gone were the retainers, the guards and lesser thanes; only kings remained. The Grand Hall echoed with their lonely presence, and shadows crowded the small group of dwarfs encircling the High King.
‘His body shall be recovered. Furgil and his rangers shall see to it,’ he told the only member of the assembly who was not of regal birth.
Nadri Gildtongue bowed. Tears were yet to dry on his dusty cheeks and ran in streaks down his face. In lieu of speech, he chewed his beard. Clothes torn, lathered in mud, stinking of sweat, the merchant cut a sorry and dejected figure.
King Brynnoth nodded to his fellow king.
‘Tell them as you told me,’ he said to Nadri, indicating the other kings who had only just arrived back at the hold, ‘of how you found him and the rest of your kin.’
Nadri nodded, but the words did not come. Grief had thickened his tongue, and the long moments spent waiting for the other lords of the Karaz Ankor to arrive had forced him back to bleak thoughts.
Brynnoth gripped the merchant’s shoulder paternally.
‘Come on, lad,’ he urged. ‘All here present need to hear this.’
Swallowing hard, Nadri met his king’s steady gaze and found his courage.
‘I was three days, maybe less, behind Krondi,’ he said. ‘We were driving wagons to Zhufbar, but Krondi carried a passenger that was bound for Karaz-a-Karak, so we agreed to meet there and continue on together.’
‘Agrin Fireheart was whom your friend was ferrying, yes?’ asked Varnuf. For once the King of Eight Peaks seemed without agenda and shared a worried glance with Gotrek.
‘Aye, lord,’ said Nadri, ‘but he did not know. I thought it better if the ancient travelled in secret. It seems my plans were for naught, though.’ Face clouding over, he was about to lapse into another deep melancholy when Brynnoth brought him back.
‘Keep going, lad.’
Licking his lips, Nadri went on.
‘Following Krondi’s trail, I became concerned when I reached the ruins of Zakbar Varf. The trading post had been burned, many dawi were dead but, by Valaya’s mercy, Krondi was not amongst them.’ He wiped an errant tear at the memory. Some of the dwarf kings began to tug their beards in anger. Luftvarr had almost stuffed his entirely into his mouth in order to fetter his Norscan wrath. ‘But I moved with haste, eager to make sure of my friend’s safety and that of his charge and his warriors.’ Nadri’s face darkened further and from looking down at his boots forlornly, he met the gaze of the High King who listened quietly. ‘Upon reaching the gorge, not twenty miles from the hold gates, I was disabused of that hope.’
All eyes were on the merchant now as a strange air of stillness settled over the kings like a funerary veil.
‘At first I saw a guard,’ said Nadri. ‘He’d lost a boot. It was a few feet from his body. Arrows studded his back, splitting his mail and greaves like paper. They were white-shafted, long and with fanged tips.’
Gotrek weighed in at that point. ‘My chief scout found similar arrow shafts at the site of another ambush several days ago.’
‘D’ya think these were tha same wee dreks that killed this one’s kin?’ asked Grundin. The King of Karak Kadrin went unhelmeted and his bald pate shone like a coin in the lambent light.
Despite
