A dwarf matron rocked a babe in arms. The child, its downy chin buried in its mother’s bosom, snuffled in its sleep. Gromvarl smiled sorrowfully at the sight. There were too few unkhazali in these dark days, and there was no guarantee this one would survive. His expression clouded. Dwarf babies were as stoic as their elders, but they still cried from time to time. One misplaced call for milk and ale from the bairn could spell the end for the lot of them.
Better out there than in here. His thoughts turned to others, whose parents could not be swayed to leave. He thought too of Queen Kemma, shut up in her tower. As merciful as Belegar had been in permitting, and in some cases ordering, others out, he could not be swayed to release his queen and his prince. Oaths, said the king. Sadness gripped Gromvarl. Some oaths were made to be broken.
With that in mind, he clutched the key in his pocket.
Torchlight glinted from artful wargear. The king and his two bodyguards entered the small cellar where the dwarfs waited to flee.
The king was wan, his eyes heavily pouched and bloodshot. He tried to hide the stiffness in his side, but Gromvarl was too old to be fooled. The rumours of the king’s injury told of a sad truth. That was far from the worst of it, however. Gromvarl could tell from the look on Belegar’s face; he had finally given up on the slender hope of aid from elsewhere. He was prepared to die.
‘I’ll not make a meal of this,’ said Belegar softly. ‘I know none of you made this decision lightly, and some of you didn’t want to go at all. Let it be known that I release you all from your oaths to me. Find some other king, a better king. Under his protection and in his service, may you live out more peaceful lives.
‘Warriors,’ he said to those handful of such. ‘I have not chosen you to go because I can spare you. I cannot. I have chosen you because you are among the finest dawi left alive in Karak Eight Peaks. These are your charges. They need you more than I do. I release you also from all your oaths to me, and consider them fulfilled two and a half times over. Had I gold to give, you would have it by the cartload and in great gratitude. Instead, I place upon you one final burden – guard these last few of the clans of Karak Eight Peaks with your lives and your honour. Do not let the bloodlines of our city die forever.’
At these words dwarf resolve stiffened. Gazes were no longer downcast. Lips trembled with new emotions, and spines straightened.
‘Aye, my king,’ said Garvik, then the others repeated this one after another, some of the shame at their departure leaving through their mouths with the words. Belegar held the eye of each one and nodded to them.
‘Now go, go and never return. This was a glorious dream, but it is over. We wake to the darkest of mornings. May you all see the light of a better morrow.’
Gromvarl stood back. Garvik wordlessly indicated that they should begin. A ranger went first, the group’s guide, spitting on his hands before he reversed into the dark hole and took grip of the first of the iron rungs. The moan of the wind changed tone as he blocked the shaft.
‘Four thousand feet,’ he said, his words bearing the soft accent of the hill dwarfs who had once ranged above the ground of the Eight Peaks. ‘Your arms will hurt, dawi or not. Keep on. After me, leave ten rungs, then ten rungs between each that follows after. Anyone thinks they’re going to fall, call a halt. Pride will kill everyone beneath you should you slip. Remember that. Don’t talk otherwise. This way is as yet undiscovered by our enemies, let us keep it that way.’
His head disappeared into the shaft. They counted ten ringing steps.
‘Next!’ whispered the ranger from the ladderway.
The first went, then the next. As they disappeared into the dark, wives bid farewell to husbands, children to fathers, warriors to their master. Then they were all gone, swallowed up by the ground as if they had never been.
Gromvarl watched them all go into the hole, one after the other, his heart heavy and a lump in his throat. So went the last sorry inhabitants of Karak Eight Peaks, to a doom none within would ever know.
When the last had gone, the king nodded. Gromvarl beckoned to two others. With their help, the trapdoor was replaced. Runes of concealment flared upon it. As the marks faded back into plain stone, the trapdoor went with them. The inset iron ring disappeared, as did any sign of a join with the pit floor. Then the dwarfs levered the flagstone that concealed the pit wherein the trapdoor nestled back into place. Masons hurried forwards, swiftly mortaring it back into place. Within a couple of hours, it would look like any other slab in the floor of the cellar.
Barrels were rolled back in, filling up the room.
The escape route disguised, the dwarfs filed out in silence.
‘And here we come to the end of it all,’ said Belegar. ‘Fifty years of dashed hopes and broken honour. Was it all worth it?’
Never numerous, there remained only two hundred fighting dwarfs left in all of Karak Eight Peaks, a sum that included those untried warriors previously restricted to garrison duty, and those elders honourably retired from the front lines. A shattered people remained, drawn in to this last toehold from every part of the kingdom that had been so painfully retaken. Too few to adequately defend the doors into the Hall of Pillared Iron, Belegar had ordered them into a square at the centre of the room.
‘Do not lament cracked stone, cousin,’ said Duregar. ‘If you swing the hammer so clumsily, the chisel slips. Best learn to swing it better.’
Belegar laughed blackly. ‘There has to be a next time for the learning to take, Duregar.’
Duregar shrugged, working his mail into a slightly more comfortable position. ‘Then others will learn from our errors, if errors they were. There’s no harm to be found in trying to do something right and failing. Better to chance your arm than never risk failure at all.’
‘Your words are a comfort to me.’
‘They are intended to be, my king.’
‘To the end, then, Duregar?’
‘As I swore, to the end. For the Angrund clan, and for the chance at a more glorious future.’
Duregar gripped his cousin’s hand tightly. The king squeezed back.
‘Whatever it is I have achieved here,’ said Belegar, ‘I could not have done it without you, Duregar.’
A black masked face appeared around the main doors at the far end, and quickly withdrew.
‘A scout, lord!’ shouted one of the lookouts.
‘Leave it be. Get back into formation. At least we know they’ll be here soon. A small surprise seeing us stood here rather than behind more barred doors, eh?’ Belegar paused. ‘I’d make a speech, say words of encouragement to you all, but you need none of that. You know what is coming, and will fight boldly all the same. I could not be prouder of you all. I…’ He stopped. ‘This is something better said with ale rather than speech.’
The hogshead of ale at the centre of their formation was cracked open. To the last the dwarfs were fastidious in all they did, carefully tapping the barrel with a spigot, lest any go to waste. Foaming tankards were passed around, each dwarf given as much as he desired. The days of rationing were ending along with all else.
They drank quickly, wiping suds from their beards with satisfied gasps. This was the king’s ale, the best and last. In quiet ones and twos they clasped arms and said their farewells, toasted kinsmen fallen in battle or treacherously murdered by the thaggoraki and grobi. Fond reminiscences were aired, and particular grudges recounted.
Belegar counted his men again. Of the Iron Brotherhood, fourteen remained. Duregar’s bodyguard swelled their ranks to twenty-nine. They had only three cannons pointed at the two main gates, precious few guns or other machines, and just a smattering of crossbows.