The Great Betrayal (10 page)

Heglan stepped back so the attention of the dwarf nobles was on the ship. He whispered behind his hand to the captain.

‘
Turn the propellers…
’

Having missed his cue, the dwarf in the tower pulled at some levers and the three windmills attached to the masts began to rotate.

‘
Skryzan-harbark
,’ Heglan declared. ‘The first ever dawi airship!’

Six burly dwarf journeymen in short sleeves and leather aprons were on standby next to ropes that fed to the braces impeding the vessel’s wheels. Another two stood ready with axes to cut the lashed sails.

At a sign from Heglan, the sails were freed and the wooden stops removed.

Creaking wood made him wince as the ramp took the weight of the ship and it rolled onto the curve. Propellers were beating furiously now as the captain tested the rudder experimentally as he pitched towards the edge of the cliff.

It got a decent run up, needing to gather speed before the Durazon ended and all that sat beneath the ship was air.

‘Grungni, I beseech you…’ muttered Heglan, hiding his fervent oath from the other dwarfs as the airship plunged off the end of the ramp at pace. It rolled on for almost fifty feet, wheels spinning, propellers turning like mad. And with sails unfurled, Heglan’s creation launched off the edge of the rock and soared like an arrow.

He fought the urge to shout for joy, content to clench a fist in triumph at the skryzan-harbark’s inaugural flight instead.

Surprised but approving mutterings issued from the throng of guilders and nobles in a rumbling susurrus of speech as they beheld the flying ship.

‘Valaya’s golden cups, lad,’ breathed Strombak, unable to hide the fact he was impressed. ‘I did not think you would do it. The ship is small, but if you can get this to work we can enlarge it.’

Bowing his head, Heglan’s voice was low and deferential at such high praise. ‘Tromm, my master. This is just a trial vessel. I have plans for bigger versions.’

Clapping the young engineer on the shoulder, Strombak stepped back to discuss the incredible ship with his fellow guilders.

Disengaging himself from the other merchants, Nadri joined his brother and slapped him heartily on the back. ‘It is a marvel, Heg, a true wonder to help usher in a prosperous new age.’

Heglan barely heard – he was watching the realisation of a dream.

‘See how the sails billow and catch the wind?’ he said. ‘And the way it achieves loft and forward motion.’

‘It is…’ Nadri’s smile turned into a frown, ‘…listing, brother.’

At the same time a look of horror was slowly creeping its way onto Heglan’s face.

A heavy gust of wind, driven hard and fast through the peaks, pitched the airship to one side. The sails bulged like an overfull bladder, straining against the rigging, and the dragon prow listed awkwardly as if the ship was drunk on too much grog.

‘
Compensate,
compensate
…’ Heglan urged the captain, who was lost from view but evidently struggling at the controls.

Ugly and portentous, the sound of snapping rigging resolved on the breeze and a deep crack fed down one of the masts. The ship began to turn on its axis, pulled and buffeted by the wind.

‘Grimnir’s hairy arse, no…’ Heglan could see the danger before it unfolded fully but was powerless to avert it. He would have run to the edge of the Durazon in the vain hope that his proximity to the ship would somehow guarantee its continued flight if Nadri hadn’t held him back.

Buoyed on the harsh thermals whipping up from below, slewed by the biting wind, the ship lurched. The dragon bit upwards, briefly righting itself before yawing dangerously the other way. Pulled back and forth at the whim of the elements, there was nothing the captain or Heglan could do. With a loud crack, made louder and more resonant as it echoed around the peaks, one of the masts snapped. It split in half and speared the deck, releasing a fountain of dark beer from the grog in the hold. Like a lance in the belly of a beast, the skryzan-harbark was wounded. At the same time, one of its sails sheared in half, plucked from its bearings and scattered like sackcloth on the wind.

‘Girth of Grungni, no.’

But all the sworn oaths of the dwarf ancestors couldn’t stop the encroaching storm from ripping Heglan’s dreams apart. Utterly helpless in his brother’s arms, all he could do was watch. Like a pugilist that had taken too many licks, the vessel was thrown about and battered by the storm. Slowly the airship began to lose height and sank deeper and deeper into the valleys below. Cloud partly obscured it but soon parted to reveal crags, encroaching from the lower peaks and jutting spurs of rock. Bitterly, Heglan wished he had the foresight to launch the skryzan-harbark over the sea-facing aspect of the hold. Pitching into the waters of the Black Gulf, the vessel could be rescued. Hitting one of the lower peaks or the hard earth of the plains, it would be smashed to splinters.

Below the jagged fingers of rock, the thick spires of stone that could impale the airship and rip it right in half as it fell, were boulder-strewn heaths. Scattered farms dotted the landscape but it was largely barren aside from old burial mounds and trickle-thin streams. Plummeting now, loft decreasing more swiftly with each passing moment, but no longer spinning, the airship slipped through the forest of crags and spires.

Only earth awaited it, packed tight and resilient by the winter. It would be like hitting the solid rock of the mountainside.

Heglan cursed again. Foolish sentiment had got in the way of prudence. Heart ruling the head, it was a mistake he had made before. Nostalgia to release the airship from the Durazon and honour his grandfather Dammin’s memory had left him undone.

He wept openly at the thought, but could not take his eyes off the vessel he had so doomed. Striking the edge of the last crag, just the smallest of nicks, the hull was torn open in an explosion of splintering wood.

Every blow brought a wince to Heglan’s tear-streaked face.

‘Valaya, please be merciful…’

But the ancestor goddess of healing was not listening. Her gaze, deep within the earth, did not extend to sky and cloud. Thunder and storm were Grimnir’s domain, and he was ever wrathful.

Entangled with the rigging, the other sails ripped open and dragged much of the hull with them. Deciding upon discretion rather than valour, the dwarf captain at the wheel leapt from the tower and hit the ground a few seconds before the stricken vessel. He landed with a heavy bump, but otherwise survived unscathed.

The same could not be said for the skryzan-harbark.

Prow first, the airship ploughed an ugly furrow into a rugged patch of farmland. Its proud dragon head smashed upon impact, split down its skull as if killed by some mythical dragon slayer. The hull broke apart like a barrel divested of its bands, and the ship’s three masts jutted at obscure angles like broken fingers.

Bruised, in both pride and rump, the dwarf captain looked down at the wreckage that had finally settled in the valley and then up at the Durazon. Too far to see anything, he limped off furtively.

Heglan’s wrath almost overflowed. He hoped the dwarf below would feel its heat as he looked on disconsolately.

Impelled by what was left of their perpetual motion, two of the propellers still spun. The rudder flapped like a dead fish, hanging on by one of its hinges, the stern jutting up in the air in an undignified fashion.

Free of Nadri’s grip, Heglan sank to his knees and held his face in his hands.

‘I am finished,’ he breathed, letting his fingers trawl down his cheeks, pulling at his beard in anguish.

‘
Dreng tromm,
’ muttered Nadri, shaking his head. ‘I am sorry, brother. I really thought it would work.’

‘It should have worked, but I didn’t take into account the wind shear, the vagaries of weather or that wazzock, Dungni.’

Adding insult to already stinging injury, the grog from the sundered hold began to leak through the jagged gashes in the wood. It reminded Heglan of blood. His magnificent machine was dead, his dream was dead, so too his tenure as an engineer of Barak Varr.

Strombak was not kind with his reproach as he stomped over to him.

‘Gather it up, all of it,’ he growled under his breath. ‘You have disgraced this guild with your invention and your enterprise. Such things are not for dawi! Tradition, solidity, dependability, that’s what we strive for.’

Heglan begged. ‘Master, I… Perhaps if–’

‘
If?
If! There is no “if”. Dawi do not fly. We live under earth and stone. Do not tread in the same shameful footsteps as your grandfather. Dammin was thrown out of the guild, or is your memory so short that you’ve forgotten? Keen to endure the Trouser Legs Ritual too are you, Heglan son of Lodri?’

The rest of the assembly was leaving, chuntering about the wilfulness of youth and foolhardy beardlings. First to go was the high thane, already descending the Merman Pass on his palanquin-shield. He left without word or ceremony, pleased to leave the draughty plateau no doubt and enjoy the fire in the hearth of his hold hall.

Unable to rise from his knees, Heglan answered Strombak with his head bowed, ‘No, master. I only wish to be an engineer of the guild. I am a maker, a craftsman. Please don’t take that from me.’

The scowl on Strombak’s face could have been chiselled on, engraved much like the runes on his tools, but it softened briefly before Heglan’s contrition.

‘You’re not without skill, Heglan. A decent engineer, aye. But you’re wayward, lad.’ He gestured to the sky, ‘Head up in the clouds when it should be here–’ he stamped his boot upon the rock, ‘–in the earth. We’re not birds or elgi, we’re dawi. Sons of Grungni, stone and steel. You’d do well to remember that. Not like your grandfather. He
was
gifted–’ Strombak’s voice became rueful, ‘–but he squandered it on foolishness and invention.’

Heglan remained silent throughout his chastisement. Strombak left a long pause to glare at him, measuring him as he would a windlass, crank or a mechanism, to see if what he was saying was sinking in. He grumbled something inaudible, an expression not a word, then sighed deeply.

‘Another misstep and you’ll be cast out, sworn to secrecy about all you know of our craft.’ Jabbing a leathery finger at Heglan, he said, ‘Change your ways or change your profession! Barrel makers and hruk shearers are always looking for guilders. Now,’ he added, drawing in a long breath that flared his nostrils, ‘gather up that mess and use it to fashion something that works, something tried and tested. Tradition, not progression, lad –
that
is the dawi way.’

Heglan nodded – there was little else he could do – and was left alone with Nadri.

On the Durazon, the winter sun was dying as the storm from the southern peaks eclipsed it. Black clouds were gathering, billowing like wool across the sky and full with the promise of thunder.

Wearily, the engineer picked himself up. It felt as if he’d been beaten by a mob of urk.

‘Bloody Dungni, son of Thok!’ he spat, his shame giving way to anger. If his glare could kill then the dwarf captain sloping back towards the outer gate of the hold would have died at once. ‘Drunken bloody
bozdok
. The clod handles a ship like a grobi grabbing at a hruk. Grungni’s arse, I’ll see this lodged with the reckoners.’

Nadri looked on grimly, at Dungni and the wreck scattered like kindling across the lowland.

‘Stoke that furnace, brother. A dawi without fire in his gut is no dawi at all,’ he said, and whistled at the devastation. ‘Not much to salvage?’

‘Ruined, brother,’ said Heglan his voice barely louder than a whisper. ‘There is nothing left. Nothing.’ He seemed to sag, sinking lower than when he was on his knees. ‘Bugger.’

A muted cough broke the brief silence that had fallen between them. Nadri turned at the thinly veiled signal.

‘Krondi?’ he said, addressing one of the merchants who had also remained behind but who was anonymously waiting at the gate to Merman Pass.

‘My thane.’ Krondi bowed deeply. He was a grizzled dwarf, who had seen much battle in the wars of the High King against the urk. Fair-bearded, he never really fit into the mould of a merchant but had been part of the guild for almost a decade. ‘We are expected in Zhufbar in just over two weeks.’

‘Aye,’ said Nadri, ‘and a stop to make at Karaz-a-Karak beforehand. I am well aware of our commitments, Krondi.’

Krondi bowed. ‘Of course, my thane.’

Nadri narrowed his eyes at the other merchant. ‘Is our passenger ready to travel?’

‘He is. Our wagons stand ready to depart at your word.’

Nadri looked down at the wreck in the valley again. ‘Then it would not do to keep him waiting,’ he said to himself beneath his breath before regarding Krondi again. ‘Ride on ahead and pass on my assurances to the king’s reckoners that he’ll get what he’s owed. Gildtongue has never reneged on a bond of trade, tell them.’

Though Nadri’s family name was Copperfist, he was known as ‘Gildtongue’ by his fellows in the merchant guild on account that his every word turned to gold. So successful was he as a trader that he had holdings and wealth that some kings would envy. Of course, in Karaz-a-Karak the hoard of any merchant would always be bettered by the High King.

‘I need you to leave me two carts with mules and drivers, Krondi.’

Krondi bowed again and left down the Merman Pass without further word.

‘You risk much by not making full delivery, brother,’ said Heglan. ‘Don’t let my failure drag you down.’

‘Don’t be a wazzock, Heg. By Valaya’s golden cups, I’m helping you pick up the pieces of your ship. There is no argument to be had.’

Heglan looked about to protest, but there would be no changing Nadri’s mind and so he capitulated. He cast a final glance at the wreckage, the vessel into which he had poured his craft, his sweat and his heart.

‘I could have made it fly,’ he uttered, the strength of his voice stolen by the wind.

Nadri tried to be consoling. ‘You did, brother.’

‘That wasn’t flight, it was a slow fall.’