‘The breach!’ he bellowed again, swinging his warhammer around his head. The walls ahead had been hammered into semi-ruins, exposing the soft innards of the city within. If a salient could be pushed into the city’s perimeter, sheltered by the walls and out of the sweep of the dragons, that might be enough. Grondil could already see the jagged edges of the stonework picked out in the firelight, swarming with defenders trying frantically to shore up the defences. Axe-blades flickered in the half-light, rising and falling like picks at a coal-face.
He tried to run, to break into the charge that would carry him to the fighting. His armour clattered around him, weighing him down. He stumbled, falling to one knee, tripped by jutting debris left in the mire. Hot air rushed across his back, scorching him under his armour. A tart stench of ashes clogged his nostrils, followed by a sharp scent of blood.
Cursing, he twisted round to beckon his contingent onward, and his jaw dropped.
They had gone. They had all gone, swept away as if scooped out of the ground by the hands of some daemon of the earth. All that remained was a vast crater of scorched soil, thick with blackened corpses. In the centre of it writhed a gigantic creature, a golden dragon with wings unfurled, its serpentine tail coiling around it, its long neck arched above him.
Up close, it was colossal. Grondil had never seen a living thing so enormous. He almost lost his grip on his hammer.
The rider on the dragon’s back lowered a sword in his direction. It danced with a strange, elusive light that made Grondil’s eyes smart.
He didn’t wait for it to explode into life. He pushed himself up from the mud and broke into a charge.
‘Grimnir!’ he bellowed, holding his weapon two-handed and scouring the creature’s hide for a weak spot. All he saw was a screen of glistening golden armour, flawless in its protective coverage, splattered with great streaks of dwarfen blood like honour markings.
Before he could get within strike-range the dragon belched a searing blast of flame. It overwhelmed him, raging across his plate armour, worming its way into every joint and crevice. He staggered on for a few more paces, blinded by the heat, hoping to land at least one blow before his strength gave out.
The heat suddenly ebbed. Grondil reeled, trying to squint through the pain, to somehow get into position for a swipe.
But the dragon had taken flight again, hovering just a few yards above the wreckage of Grondil’s company. The downdraft of its huge wings was acrid and gore-flecked. For a moment longer Grondil stayed on his feet. He dimly heard shouts of alarm, of retreat. Somewhere close by, something exploded with a dull boom — a siege engine, perhaps.
The beast loomed over him, magnificent and terrible, out of reach of his warhammer, impervious to anything he could throw at it. Blood sluiced down Grondil’s armour. Delayed by shock, he felt the onset of the burns he’d taken, waves of pain that swelled across his whole body. Then, as if as an afterthought, the dragon turned in the air, switching back sinuously, its tail sweeping round in a casual arc. The heavy end-spine caught Grondil square in the chest, hurling him back through the air, driving his breastplate in and crushing the ribs beneath.
Grondil thudded back to earth twenty paces distant, sliding on his back, his spine arched in pain. Through blood-wet eyes he saw the dragon climb higher into the air, its body a dazzling mottle-pattern of crimson and gold. It snaked higher, graceful and unconcerned, its rider already searching for fresh prey.
Grondil felt oblivion creep up on him. His limbs went cold. He couldn’t lift his hammer. The whirl of battle around him became muffled, as if underwater. He kept his eyes fixed on the heavens, trying not to slip away too soon.
He would have raged then, if he had been able. Not against his own death, which meant little to him, but for what the dragon had done to the army about him.
Grungni’s beard, he thought, aghast at the cold realisation even as his mind slipped into darkness. We cannot beat them.
Morgrim watched the dragons with a slow and growing sense of awe. He had witnessed such creatures before, of course. He had even come close to riding one — the very sapphire monster that was currently ripping his armies into shreds — but he had never seen one unshackled in battle. Only his ancestors in the days of glory, back when Malekith had fought alongside Snorri Whitebeard, would have witnessed such terrible carnage.
He stood grimly amid his faltering legions, resting on his axe, staring fixedly at the bloodshed.
‘We cannot hold them!’ cried one of his thanes — he did not even notice which one. Warriors were hurrying into position all around him, reserves suddenly pressed into action and charging out across the battlefield. He heard the bellows of captains exhorting their troops to move faster, to fight harder, to bring the damned drakk down.
None of them, not one, considered falling back. Faced with a terror greater than any living dwarf had faced, they just kept advancing, hurling themselves into the fiery maw of it with death-oaths spilling from their lips.
We never learn.
Morek limped up to him out of the darkness. The runelord’s grey beard was flecked with ash and blood, his staff leaking a thick dirty smoke.
‘The drakk…’ he began, his gnarled face wide with shock.
Morgrim nodded. ‘I can see, rhunki. I can see it all.’
Out across the far side of the raging battle, the elgi had pushed out of their citadel, emerging in strength from the breaches his own war engines had carved into the outer walls. Their infantry were formidable enough — well-organised squares of mail-clad spearmen supported by cavalry squadrons that moved steadily across the ceded ground. On their own such soldiers would have been a worthy test.
But the dragons… they were something else. Morgrim stayed where he was, saying nothing, in silent awe of their supremacy, their matchless arrogance, their contempt.
Some madness had taken hold of them. They crashed to earth in flailing whirls of claws and tails, crushing everything beneath them, before launching back into the skies with broken bodies trailing in their wake. They smashed siege engines apart. They belched gobbets of coruscation that melted all but the gromril masks of his best equipped elite. Bolts fell harmlessly from their armour. No axe or blade seemed to bite. Those that stood up to them died and, since no dwarf ever ran from danger, that meant whole regiments were wiped out with horrifying speed.
As the sun finally met the western horizon, casting crimson rays across the fields of death and sending long barred shadows streaking out from the base of the towers, the dragons still glittered like jewelled spears, their scales flashing vividly like the coloured glass in the shrine of Grungni.
He remembered Imladrik telling him of the Star Dragons. Morgrim had scoffed at the description.
‘We know how to kill drakk,’ he had said.
Imladrik had laughed. Back then, they had often laughed together. ‘Even daemons struggle to live against a Star Dragon,’ he had replied. ‘On this occasion, my friend, you do not know of what you speak.’
I did not. Truly, I did not.
The runesmiths were struggling as they attempted to drag up rune-wards that would do something to halt the dragons’ rampage, the elgi mages in the city were freed up to send their own magics whirling and bursting into the shattered dawi formations. Everything had been overhauled, turning with agonising swiftness from the long grind of a city siege into the sudden slaughter of a rout.