‘Now that’s putting it mildly,’ said Belegar. He drummed his fingers on the stone. ‘I’ve had requests, from the other holds, asking for their warriors back. Even, would you credit it, from High King Thorgrim.’
‘Yes, my liege.’
‘What kind of world is it, where even a dwarf can’t keep his word any more? A few weeks ago I was up here with Notrigar, winding him up.’
‘Oh, he is a little on the sparse-chinned side when it comes to recognising a good joshing, sire,’ said Drakki, his aged face crinkling with mirth.
‘That he is,’ said Belegar, no humour in his voice at all. ‘But I don’t feel it now. I look out at this place, Drakki, and all I can see is my dream slipping through my fingers.’
‘We will prevail, sire.’
‘That’s what I told Notrigar.’ Belegar huffed. The breath strained through his frosty beard to break free in clouds. ‘We do what we can. We’re as fortified as we can be. All we can do is wait for them, because as sure as gold is in the ground and khazukan crave it, they are coming. The only question is when.’
They looked out over the vale for a while, until a rumbling from the earth had them both casting their eyes downwards. Fragments of stone jumped like frogs from shelf to shelf on the outside of the citadel, click-clacking all the way down. A louder grumble took up with the first, then another and another, all eight mountains ringing the city protesting the failures of the world, sorrowful as longbeards deep in their ale. The ground convulsed, once, then again. The grating of stone on stone from the city told of ruins collapsing.
Belegar and Drakki swayed, their flat dwarfish feet keeping them upright. Alarms went off up and down the citadel, horns and clanging triangles.
‘Earthquake! Earthquake!’ dwarfs shouted.
The citadel’s masonry ground block on block, sending showers of ancient mortar down on the dwarf king, but the dwarfs were wise to the ways of the earth and built accordingly. The citadel did not fall. Hammerers ran to his side, pitched across the wavering battlements like sailors on a stone ship. ‘Protect the king! Protect the king!’ their leader, Brok Gandsson, bellowed. Shield rims clacked into one another as the dwarfs formed a barrier of gromril and steel to shelter their lord, half of them angling their shields upwards over his head. Fragments of masonry bounced off them.
‘Get back! I’m no beardling frightened by a little shiver,’ Belegar shouted, shoving at his protectors. They stood solid as the stones themselves.
‘Not until this is over, my king,’ said Brok.
The earthquake went on for long minutes, dying only gradually. Belegar waited under the shield roof while the earth gave one more heave. No more aftershocks came, and he shoved his men aside. Drakki followed him from the knot of hammerers.
A wind, unnaturally hot, stirred their beards, the runes on their weapons pulsing with blue light as it ran over them. Out in the ruins came the clamour of panicking orcs and goblins.
‘My lord, look!’ Drakki was pointing south. The winter skies were stained orange by distant fire. ‘Karag Haraz is erupting most fiercely.’
A distant boom rolled over the mountains, reflected from every rock face, until it seemed they clamoured in despair. Far to the north, more flamelight tainted the sky, colouring the high vaults of night.
‘And Karag Dronn,’ said Belegar.
‘They have been spouting fire for long months now, but these latest eruptions must be immense, if we can see them from here,’ said Drakki, unconsciously reaching for a notepad to mark the phenomenon down. ‘Karag Dronn is over one hundred leagues away.’
‘If they both speak, then doubtless Karag Orrud and the Karag Dum do.’
‘And east,’ said Drakki quietly. A gentle aftershock shook the ground, causing the hammerers to tense again. Drakki nodded to the eastern night sky. A haze of red coloured it as far as they could see from north to south.
‘Grungni’s beard,’ Belegar said. ‘All of them?’ The others remained silent. Such troubles from deep in the earth had brought the Karaz Ankor to its knees in the distant past and heralded the beginning of the dwarfs’ long decline. Nobody needed reminding of that.
‘Is it over, loremaster?’ asked Brok.
‘There will be further small earthquakes, but I expect the strongest have passed, for now.’ He looked to the Chaos moon, crowding its once larger brother from the sky. ‘There must be some connection. And if it continues to grow, there may be worse to come.’
Belegar nodded curtly. ‘Messengers!’ he called. Several lightly armoured dwarfs appeared from inside. ‘Get yourselves down into the first deep. I want to know of every stone out of place, do you understand?’
‘Yes, my liege,’ they all said.
‘It would be our bloody luck if that lot brought down some of our defences. If there are any casualties, Valaya forfend, you let me know.’
The messengers ran off, heavy boots clumping down the winding stairs leading down from the parapet into the citadel.
‘Something’s coming, very soon. If this doesn’t–’
A sky-shattering explosion tore through the night. The face of Karag Nar leapt outwards with surreal slowness, long cloudy trails of rock dust puffing up like flour from a burst sack. The ruined fortress upon its shoulder tumbled down like a town made of model bricks pushed over by a child, the finely cut dwarf masonry becoming one with the tumble of broken rock racing down the mountain’s flanks. Belegar watched open-mouthed as debris arced towards him.
Belegar was unceremoniously shoved to the flagstones of the wall-walk by his guards. This time he did not order them back. Pebbles rattled off gromril armour, the heavier stones that came tumbling soon after eliciting grunts from the hammerers covering the king. More explosions boomed, these muffled by depth.
A rain of boulders slammed down into the city, levelling whole districts. Avalanches of rock poured off the flanks of the mountains, burying further sections.
Silence was a long time coming.
Belegar’s hammerers jumped up, hauling the dazed king to his feet. They attempted to hustle him back inside, calling for more of his bodyguard. Belegar was filled with rage and shoved their hands away. He went to the edge of the parapet to see what had been done to his kingdom, ignoring their cries for him to be careful, to get inside.
A choking mist of pulverised rock hung over the Great Vale, biting the throats of everyone who breathed of it. Caught by the wind, it drifted away like rain, to reveal a scene of utter devastation presided over by the grinning moon.
Three of the eight mountains bore wounds in their sides. Karag Nar’s eastern face had slumped inwards, while Karag Rhyn had collapsed into a broad fan of rubble, its height reduced by a half.
Belegar stared out in disbelief. Behind him, his hammerers formed up, but none dared approach the king.
When he turned to face them, a tear tracked down one dusty cheek.
‘The mountains. They have killed the mountains.’
‘That was no earthquake,’ said Drakki, blood from a cut on his forehead making red tracks in his dust-whitened face.
Horns sounded again, this time from inside the citadel, answering others blown in the first deep. Belegar clenched his fist.
‘Thaggoraki,’ he said. ‘It is starting.’
‘Another war,’ said Drakki.
‘No,’ said Belegar, pitching his voice low enough that only Drakki and Brok could hear. ‘The beginning of the end.’
SEVEN
The Hall of Reckoning
Horns sang all over the dwarf-held part of Karak Eight Peaks, echoing down corridors and up forgotten shafts, so that it was impossible to tell where they were coming from.