“Keep moving!” Boëndal urged them. “You can worry about the ramparts as soon as we’ve got to safety. Walls can be rebuilt.”
He and the others had barely set foot on the bridge when they heard a low rumbling like distant thunder. Then the earth moved again.
The falling boulders from the comet’s tail had shaken the fortifications and caused the walkways to quake, but this time the tremor was deeper and more powerful, causing walls, towers, dwarves, peaks, and ridges to shudder and sway.
The Red Range had stood firm for thousands of cycles, but nothing could withstand the violent quake.
Most of the dwarves were knocked off their feet, hitting the flagstones in a jangling of chain mail. Axes flew through the air and clattered to the ground, while helmets collided with stone. Two of the surviving towers collapsed with a deafening bang, raising clouds of dust that shrouded the rubble.
Boëndal thought of the vast orb that had passed overhead. He had only one explanation for the tremor: The comet had landed in the mountains to the west, sending shockwaves through the ground. He tried not to imagine what was happening in the underground halls and passageways; how many firstlings were dying, how many dead.
The rumbling grew fainter, the quaking subsided, and at last it was still. The dwarves held their breath, waiting for what was next.
An acrid smell burned their throats. The air was thick with dust from the ruined masonry, and smoke rose from scattered fires.
The fearsome heat had passed with the comet, and it was snowing again. From a distance, the stillness could have been mistaken for tranquility, but it was born of destruction. Death had visited the Red Range and ravaged the firstlings’ home.
“Vraccas have mercy,” whispered Boëndal’s companion, his voice as sorrowful and defenseless as a child’s.
Boëndal knew what he was thinking. Dwarves were fearless: They threw themselves into battle regardless of the odds and defended Girdlegard against the invading hordes. Their axes and hammers brought death to the most monstrous of Tion’s beasts, but no dwarven weapon could match a foe like this. “We couldn’t have stopped it,” he told him. “Even Vraccas can’t catch a falling star.”
Leaning over the bridge, he realized that the base of the tower was seriously unstable. Cracks, each as wide as an outstretched arm, had opened in the stone and were spreading through the masonry. He could almost hear it breaking. “Quick, before the tower collapses and takes us with it!” He set off quickly across the bridge, followed by a handful of survivors.
They were almost halfway when a large clump of snow struck Boëndal on the neck. What a time to play stupid games… He brushed away the snow and kept walking.
The second snowball hit his left shoulder, showering him with snow. He whirled round to confront the hapless prankster. “By the hammer of Beroïn, I’ll—”
Before he could finish, the dark sky opened up and pelted him with clumps of snow. Powdery snowballs hit the bridge, his helmet, and the other dwarves. Boëndal heard a faint rumbling and the bombardment intensified; he knew what it was.
The mountains, not his companions, had started the assault.
Boëndal’s stomach lurched as he scanned the peaks around him. Although the comet had hit the ground many miles to the west, it had called forth a monster that lurked above the dwarven halls. Boëndal had seen it hundreds of times while standing watch in the secondling kingdom. The White Death, roused by the rain and the tremors, had mounted its steed near the summit and was galloping down the slopes. In the space of two breaths it filled the mountainside, crushing and consuming everything in its path.
Like a vast wave, the snow rolled down the mountain, throwing up powdery spray. Everything before it was toppled, stifled, and dragged on its downward plunge.
“Run!” shouted Boëndal. His legs seemed to move of their own accord. After a few paces, he slipped over, but someone grabbed him by the plait and he stumbled to his feet. Two dwarves slotted their hands under his armpits and pulled him on. Driven by fear, they stumbled over the bridge, more skating than running.
Even as the gates swung back to admit them, the White Death reeled them in.
Hurling itself triumphantly over the precipice, it fell on the dwarves like a starving animal. Its icy body smacked into the bridge, knocking them into the chasm.
Boëndal’s shouts were drowned out by the roaring, thundering beast. His mouth filled with snow. He clutched at the air until his right hand grabbed a falling shield, which he clung to as if he were drowning.
His descent was fast—so fast that his stomach was spinning in all directions. He had no way of orienting himself in the snow, but the shield cut through the powder like a spade.
Tiring of the dwarf, the White Death dumped him and covered him over. The weight of the cold beast’s body pushed the air from his lungs.
A little while later Boëndal blacked out. Night descended on his consciousness and his soul was ready to be summoned to Vraccas’s smithy. At least it would be warm.
I
300 Miles North of Mt Blacksaddle,
Kingdom of Gauragar,
Girdlegard,
Winter, 6234th/6235th Solar Cycle
A rivulet of sweat left his greasy hair, slid down his forehead, and slithered over his soot and lard-slathered skin, zigzagging past clumps of solid dirt. It ran down the bridge of his green nose, dribbled onto his upper lip, and was licked up greedily by his thick black tongue. His vile mouth stayed open as he panted for breath, exposing the full length of his tattooed tusks, a sign of high rank. His vast jaws twitched.
“Runshak!” he thundered, gesturing for his henchman to join him.
The troop leader, putting on a burst of speed to overtake the column of marching orcs, left the path to reach the mound where his chieftain was waiting.
The long march north had started at the Blacksaddle, where the orcs had been defeated by an alliance of dwarves, elves, and men. They were heading for their new homeland in the Gray Range: Eight hundred and fifty torturous miles still separated them from the Stone Gateway at the border with the Outer Lands.
For now they were intent on destroying their cousins, who were somewhere on the road ahead.
Runshak marched up the slope and came to a halt in front of his chieftain, the great Prince Ushnotz, one-time commander of a third of Toboribor, the southern orcish kingdom. “Are we catching them?”
“Look,” boomed Ushnotz, pointing to a flat expanse of grassland amid the rolling hills. The field, a mile and a half across, was scarred with thin black lines—narrow channels cut by melt water that ran toward the eastern corner, seeping gradually into the soil. Although the field was grassing over, the trees and bushes were still bare, offering little protection from the wind—or shelter from enemies.
Hordes of tiny black figures had taken up residence on the usually peaceful land.
Runshak estimated their numbers at more than two thousand. They had set up camp and were going about their business as if they had nothing to fear. Dead wood and branches had been stacked in large pyres from which smoke was rising in thick black columns, clearly visible in the cloudless sky.
Ushnotz raised a hand to his massive forehead, shielding his eyes as he focused on the activity below. Most of the milling figures were orcs; the others, shorter and less powerful, bögnilim. What they lacked in stature, they made up for in speed, but bögnilim were cowardly creatures that had to be whipped into shape. “Northern orcs and bögnilim,” he grunted scornfully. “An alliance of fools.” The northern orcs, summoned by Nôd’onn to secure the human kingdoms, had demonstrated a fatal lack of discipline at the Blacksaddle, scrapping like wolves, while Ushnotz’s troopers, no less ferocious or powerful, obeyed his orders like well-trained dogs. The orcish chieftain despised the northerners, but bögnilim were worse. “Prepare to attack. We’ll strike when they’ve filled their fat bellies and they’re snoring by the fire.”