Valkyrie's Shadow

Chapter 9

“They aren’t budging, sir.”

“They’re not supposed to budge…did someone try?”

“That bunch from Grimmantle.”

A loud tsk issued from General Haughr Darksteel. Coalition or not, it was a stupid idea to stick different clans together – especially when they were neighbours.

He looked out into the nothingness beyond the range of his Darkvision to where the battalion from Grimmantle filled their part of the encirclement. Since he hadn’t heard anything from that direction, it must have been a stealthy breakthrough attempt.

A dozen possible reasons for their deviation from the plan ran through his mind. Foremost among those was that they thought Darksteel’s forces were trying to do the same thing.

“We give them any reason to do that?” He asked.

“No, sir,” the Captain said. “It’s not as if we can afford it.”

Haughr cast a baleful gaze at the floodlights lining the fortifications of their assigned hold. They expected Clan Felhammer to be well-prepared for their retaliation, but even he had underestimated how deadly of an edge generations of resentment and malice could forge.

Storming the rebellious clan’s defences had cost the council dearly. For every metre of tunnel gained, dozens of battle thralls were lost. By the time they breached the city layers, half of the coalition army had been destroyed. It was all that they could do to drive the traitors into their holds and keep them there while reinforcements made their way over.

“Check with the logistics officers,” Haughr told the Captain. “Grimmantle isn’t stupid enough to open a hole in our encirclement for no reason. Probably.”

“Yes, sir.”

The Captain saluted before turning to hurry off with his adjutant, disappearing up the street.

Aside from his suspicions about Grimmantle’s suspicions, there were several other plausible reasons for them making their move. The first was that they knew that their reinforcements were close. Secondly was the possibility that progress was being made elsewhere and they felt compelled to score achievements for themselves.

Last, but not least, was that it was a feint. By goading Darksteel into making the mistake of assaulting the hold, Darksteel would be put into a disadvantageous position both militarily and politically.

A few of those possibilities suggested that Grimmantle was better than Darksteel in various ways, so he didn’t dwell too long on them. An hour later, the Captain returned.

“It took a bit to find the right officer, sir,” the Captain said, “but, by the sound of what he had to say, the main force has breached Felhammer Citadel.”

Haughr’s lip curled into a sneer.

“So that’s it, huh? They think it’s all over?”

“It’s not just Grimmantle,” the Captain said. “From what I saw along the way, the other clans are starting their own offensives, as well.”

“Any word on our reinforcements?”

The Captain shook his head. A low growl filled Haughr’s throat.

Darksteel was supposed to have the most favourable logistics to Felhammer, but then Felhammer dropped a whole damn bridge on their fleet. Grimmantle had their bridge dropped, as well, but their staging area wasn’t directly under it.

As a result, the clans coming in from further away took Felhammer’s northeastern harbour instead. All Darksteel could do was go the long way through Hardar. They arrived late and their reinforcements would come in late. The other clans were more than happy to use that against Grimmantle to minimise their gains.

A fundamental truth of the world was that those at the bottom were the last to get anything – if there was even anything left. All that they could do was accept reality or face the consequences of challenging it. Clan Felhammer was foolish enough to do the latter, to the detriment of all of Khazanar. For that crime, the only thing that would remain of them was rubble.

Haughr crossed his arms and glared at the distant hold. He wouldn’t be goaded into a position of even greater weakness. Grimmantle was welcome to bleed itself dry for military and political achievements. In fact, he should probably let them do just that. Once they were spent, Darksteel’s forces could swoop in and take the greatest prizes.

He turned to the line of Thrallherds behind him.

“Contact our Captains,” Haughr ordered. “When Grimmantle commits to their real assault, limit our assistance to cursory skirmishes. Wait for my signal to make our move.”

“Darksteel might bring their grievance with our actions to the council,” the Captain noted.

Haughr snorted.

“Sure,” he said. “Let them inform the world about how they were played for fools.”

Khazanar’s order was a capricious bitch and the gods did not show any favour to those who were bested by their rivals.

Hours passed without any change in the besieged hold, though the city streets around the encirclement were filled with activity. Tens of thousands of slaves were being marched by in chains, bound for the markets in other principalities. In the opposite direction came just as many coalition soldiers, which made sense considering ships inbound with reinforcements would be filled with slaves for the return trip.

“Will we be able to make up for our losses here, General?” One of Haughr’s adjutants asked.

“In terms of bodies,” Haughr answered, “obviously not. Felhammer had about seven hundred thousand residents and the slaves are being split a dozen ways. It’ll come down to how the fallen holdings are being handed out.”

Ultimately, the strength of a clan lay with its population. The size of that population, in turn, relied on the availability of land and resources. Every principality was divided into a dozen or more holds, and each hold was essentially its own city with territories to make ensure self-sufficiency. So long as Darksteel could secure one hold for itself, they would be able to keep up with the other clans in the long run.

“I see,” the adjutant said. “That’s why you issued those orders.”

“Mhm. Grimmantle’s in the best position to gain two holds, so we need to make them lose one here. No clan wants anyone to gain more power than any other clan – unless it’s themselves – so the entire council will shrug off their protests. If Grimmantle whines too much, they’ll just annoy everyone else.”

The adjutant nodded slowly at his explanation. Haughr let out a bored-sounding grunt. Scions would be aware of it, but the common Dwarf who entered the military didn’t understand that Generals were as much politicians as they were Commanders. Generals who operated on a purely martial dimension would be buried by their rivals sooner or later.

Another hour passed with no sign of Darksteel’s reinforcements or word about the progress with Felhammer Citadel. The first sign that anything was amiss came in the form of a snarl of slave traffic in the streets.

“You,” Haughr gestured at one of his adjutants. “Go and find out what’s causing that.”

“Yes, sir.”

The woman jogged off in the direction of the city. Before she returned, one of the Thrallherds approached him.

“General,” she said, “report from the left flank. Grimmantle’s battalion is withdrawing.”

“As in the battalion that’s part of our encirclement?” Haughr asked.

“Yes, sir,” the Thrallherd answered.

What in the gods’ name is going on?

He peered at the enemy hold. Helmed heads could be seen in the arrow slits and poking over the battlements, but it didn’t look like they were getting ready for anything big. Haughr turned to examine the city behind them.

Is the slave traffic stuck in the streets because something’s causing a delay at the harbours?

Lake Khazanar had more than its fair share of powerful monsters, but those were kept in check by the Deepwardens and their Kraken pets. Had tensions flared up between Darksteel and one of the other clans using the same harbour?

That’d be fine if that’s all it was…

“Sir!”

Metallic footfalls clanked up the steel steps as a runner scaled the command platform.

“The Fourth and Fifth Battalions have just arrived from Hardar,” he said. “They’re crossing the bridge right now.”

“Good,” Haughr said. “At least we have someone to plug that hole in the encirclement.”

“…hole, sir?”

“Run back and tell those battalions to haul ass. We have a hold to take.”

“Yes, sir!”

He turned his attention back to the enemy hold with a grim nod. With that, their claim was all but secure. Once they cleaned out the traitors, they could see what else there was to be gained.

“Sir!”

Haughr looked over his shoulder in annoyance. The dispatched adjutant had returned.

“What now?”

“Fighting’s broken out in the mines,” the adjutant said. “That’s why the slaves are all backed up.”

“Fighting between which clans?”

“It’s not the clans, sir. It’s the Undead.”

“Hah?”

“The Undead, sir.”

“I heard you the first time! Do you mean to tell me that the coalition army is being held up by some Zombies and Skeletons?”

Undead around Khazanar were a common enough sight, but the clans had no problems keeping them under control. There was no chance of any real threat developing out of them as they couldn’t collect to give rise to more powerful Undead.

“I can’t say, sir,” the adjutant replied. “None of the soldiers from the other clans would talk. I got that information from a battle thrall who somehow managed to flee from the mines. She couldn’t even describe what it was that was attacking them.”

“Even if that’s taken at face value,” Haughr said, “how did they get into the mines? The surveys from the council and our own people stated that Clan Felhammer never tunnelled past The Divide. We kept it that way on purpose so we didn’t have another incursion point to defend.”

As a general rule, no one tunnelled past The Divide – the kilometre-thick layer of impermeable rock that separated the Upper Realms and Middle Realms. Still, some Dwarves dug too greedily and too deep, which in turn resulted in unwanted security expenditures to make sure what was down there stayed there.

Was there an unreported tunnel somewhere in the Felhammer mines? An extremely rich vein of rare metals would likely be kept a secret by the clan that discovered it. It felt like the only possible explanation, as the lands around Khazanar had no notable negative energy zones or civilisations that delved into necromancy.

“It was just some low-rung battle thrall,” the adjutant shrugged. “Since the other Clans aren’t saying anything, the situation should be under control.”

“Then it’s none of our business, for now,” Haughr agreed. “Let’s focus on our task. The Fourth and Fifth Battalions should be here soon and I want that hold conquered as soon as possible.”

If Grimmantle was having big enough problems that they needed outside help, they would have to come grovelling, first. Their clan had been getting too full of themselves in recent decades.

His command platform shook as someone else rapidly scaled its steps.

“Sir!”

“WHAT?!”

The newly-arrived runner took a step back, his eyes going back and forth between the assembled officers.

“Spit it out!” Haughr barked.

“Orders from the council, sir. We’re to prepare containment measures at the eastern underway entrance.”

“If the council hasn’t noticed,” Haughr grated, “we’re busy containing something else, right now.”

If the runner hadn’t been one of his own men, he would have immediately suspected the missive to be a ruse. Maybe it still was.

“And what exactly are we preparing to contain?” He asked.

“An Undead army coming up the mines,” the runner answered.

“Oh, an army now, is it? Since when can a whole damn army of Undead get into Khazanar without so much as a warning from border security?”

“They didn’t say, sir.”

Haughr idly ran his fingers through his beard as he considered the situation. He was highly sceptical of the notion that any Undead army could represent a threat to Khazanar. Even the weakest principality had the power to destroy an entire cabal of Elder Liches. Thus, he could only believe that the true reason for the order was manipulation by the council.

Due to the catastrophic opening move by Clan Felhammer that sunk Darksteel’s fleet, Darksteel’s forces arrived late at more or less full strength. The other clans, however, had suffered substantial losses pushing the unexpectedly strong defenders of Clan Felhammer out of their mines and into their holds. By redeploying Clan Darksteel’s army to fight the Undead, the council meant to pare down Clan Darksteel’s strength as it could be used to exert political pressure when the time to divide the spoils of their conquest came.

Yet, there was little that he could do but acquiesce to the order. Even with the addition of two fresh battalions, the combined might of the coalition army could easily overwhelm Darksteel’s forces.

Haughr blew out an angry sigh.

“Send word to the Captains,” he told the Thrallherds. “Move our siegeworks to the eastern underway entrance and set a perimeter. By the way, did the council say who’s taking over here?”

“No, sir,” the runner replied. “They didn’t say.”

If he came back to find a Grimmantle army in their place, he would slaughter every single one of them.

It took over three hours to get through the tens of thousands of slaves backed up in the city streets. Efforts had been made to divert them to Hardar, but moving that many wasn’t simply a matter of turning around and walking the other way.

By the time they reached the Underway entrance, five other clans had taken positions nearby, forming a semicircle around the mouth of the passage. A lizard rider bearing the banner of the council stopped his mount in front of them.

“You’re late,” she said.

“Do you have anything useful to say?” Haughr walked past her without so much as a glance.

“These aren’t mere Skeletons and Zombies,” the rider pulled her mount alongside him.

Haughr glanced at the five armies pointing their amassed artillery at the entrance to the Underway.

“You don’t say. How did they get here in the first place?”

“There are ways out through the bottom of the Felhammer Mines,” the rider told him. “Passages to dozens of old mines along the southern shore of the lake.”

“…and no one thought that they should be guarded?”

“Those abandoned mines are inside our sphere of border posts. So–”

“So any army trying to get to them should have been detected by our patrols,” Haughr filled in for her. “This is the part where you tell me why that didn’t happen.”

He didn’t have to look at the woman to feel her angry glower. She was the eldest daughter of one of the western clans who had secured a prestigious position as a council agent. In times of war, however, she was nothing but a glorified runner.

“It wouldn’t have mattered,” she said after swallowing her ire. “They’re too–”

“Wouldn’t have mattered?” Haughr looked at her incredulously, “Wouldn’t have mattered? How long should it have taken for them to prance their way in unchallenged from the border, girl? How much time to prepare did we lose? Which group of blithering incompetents allowed an army of the Undead to reach a fucking principality without so much as a peep?”

Haughr left the woman to fume on her mount. He took a quick look around the dimly lit encirclement before directing his battalions to take up their positions. After that, he turned to scan the buildings nearby, picking out the tallest one as his command post.

It turned out that he wasn’t the only one thinking the same thing. A command platform was already set up on the roof of the building. Haughr glanced at the banners before stepping forward.

“Ironfist.”

“Darksteel.”

Ironshod boots scraped against the metal floor of the platform as the old Dwarf shifted to the side. His escort stood down, resting their hands atop the hafts of their greataxes. Haughr came up the steps to stand beside the Prince of Clan Ironfist.

“Sounds like you still have a way with the ladies,” Prince Ironfist said. “That girl’s going to come around to either fuck you or kill you after this.”

“Or both,” Haughr grunted. “I take it you had more patience for her games?”

“I have my own sources,” Prince Ironfist said. “A perk of being older than dirt. Of course, that doesn’t mean she didn’t try.”

Haughr shook his head. Politics, intrigue, and plays for power were part and parcel of life in Khazanar, but the young never understood where the lines were drawn. The woman acted as if it was just another day, trying to assert her superiority while selling the information that she possessed for as high a price as possible.

“So,” Haughr said. “What are we up against?”

“Death Knights,” the elderly Dwarf replied.

“I believe you referred to them in plural.”

“An unknown quantity of Death Knights,” Prince Ironfist told him. “I don’t know if they knew what they were up against at first, but the people in charge of securing the transportation corridor started out by treating them as they would any other threat…”

“…and now the mines are flooded with Zombies,” Haughr placed a gauntleted hand on the platform’s metal railing. “How much strength did we lose?”

“We don’t know for certain. Our best guess is thirty thousand battle thralls assigned to the area along with the Dwarves commanding them. Additionally, there were probably twenty thousand slaves on their way down to the harbour or awaiting transport and the council reinforcements on their way up.”

The bright side was that they wouldn’t be fighting the well-trained soldiers and battle thralls that were lost: only the weak Zombies raised out of their corpses. Even if a hundred thousand Zombies boiled out of the underway, the prepared artillery would pulverise them before they got anywhere.

“Were we able to get some War Golems over?”

A good War Golem was more than a match for a Death Knight. Their defence was about as good and they hit much harder.

“We sent a request,” Prince Ironfist said, “but with the harbours lost, anything spared for us will be taking the long way around. Just like you did.”

“Speaking of ways around,” Haughr said. “How did we end up with an Undead army up our asses?”

Prince Ironfist’s waist-length white beard shifted over his breastplate as he looked over his shoulder. There were no newcomers, so he turned his gaze forward again.

“It was Grimmantle,” he said.

Haughr turned a frown on the old prince.

“As much as I like what I hear,” Haughr said, “how do you know it’s that and not the other thing?”

“When we first received reports of the Undead in the mines, we sent people to check the border posts. Turns out that the upper southeastern hemisphere may as well have been abandoned.”

“The portion that Clan Grimmantle’s responsible for.”

“Mhm. Did you hear about that new Undead country that appeared overland recently?”

Every clan had at least a few exiles in Falagrim Felhammer’s ‘company’ that roamed the Realms Above. Those exiles would do anything to return home, so obtaining information from them was a simple matter.

“The Sorcerous Kingdom? Yeah. But I figured that Felhammer would be the one to turn on us.”

“There’s no rule saying there can be only one,” Prince Ironfist said. “Anyway, in this case, the evidence is clear enough. At some point, Grimmantle sent agents to negotiate with the Sorcerous Kingdom and opened a hole in our defences for those Undead invaders. They want all of Khazanar and they’ve sold the rest of us out for it.”

“They’ve always been a greedy lot,” Haughr said. “So the Grimmantle battalion we were stuck with at that hold…”

“Recalled and disposed of. All of their forces on Felhammer have been.”

Haughr nodded. It was the best option, given the circumstances. They couldn’t afford to have Clan Grimmantle betray them at a crucial moment, after all.

“The council should have sided with Felhammer instead of Grimmantle during their dispute back then.”

“No use in backtracking,” the Prince told him. “This just means that we’ll have two principalities to divvy up after everything’s said and done.”

“But first thing’s first: how are we dealing with these Undead invaders?”

“It shouldn’t be a problem as long as we can keep them bottled up here,” the Prince said. “We’ll chip away at them until they break apart and that’s that.”

Even intelligent Undead were fairly straightforward in their thinking, so the simple plan would probably suffice. The only thing that might foil the plan was some form of treachery that compromised the enclosure.

Haughr settled in as they made their preparations. Floodlights illuminated the underway entrance and the occasional round was sent flying at it as the engineers calibrated their siege weapons. Eventually, long after the last of the people fleeing the mines emerged, a group of figures shuffled into the light.

Here they come…

The Zombies were cut down by the hail of quarrels flying down from the glacis raised around the underway entrance. Calls for the artillery to hold their fire drifted out of the darkness.

“If that’s all that there is,” Haughr grumbled, “who am I supposed to get angry at?”

It couldn’t have been more than three dozen. Below, the helms of the surrounding arbalesters poked up into the floodlights as they peered at the yawning mouth of the underway.

A minute passed; then another. And, then, the steady tread of metallic footfalls echoed from the void.

Stomp.

Stomp.

Stomp.

Stomp.

Haughr narrowed his eyes. How many sets of boots was that?

“Defenders of Khazanar!” Prince Ironfist’s voice boomed over the coalition army, “Let’s give our guests a proper Dwarven welcome!”

A row of crimson points appeared in the darkness of the underway.

“Loose!”

“Loose!”

“Loose!”

The metallic clanks of hundreds of steel ballistae trailed after the call to attack. Their crews worked to reload the siege engines without stopping to watch their attacks fly home. From his vantage, Haughr leaned forward intently as countless steel bolts twice the height of a Dwarf were swallowed by the darkness of the passage. The echoing report of metal striking against metal was the only indication that they were hitting their targets.

“It would be nice if they came out so we can watch them get hit,” Haughr muttered.

As if to oblige his request, a wall of black metal appeared, gleaming in the glare of the floodlights. A frown crossed Haughr’s beard.

“Hey,” he looked to a Deepwarden standing sentry at the corner of the rooftop. “How many is that?”

“Twelve shields, sir,” the Deepwarden replied. “No, wait. Twelve more just appeared, forming a roof over the shield wall.”

They’re turtling up?

Since when did the Undead do anything but engage in the most straightforward and rudimentary of tactics?

A tremendous racket filled the air between the siege engines and their payloads striking the Undead formation.

“If they want to sit there and eat ballista bolts until they fall apart,” Prince Ironfist said, “that’s fine by me.”

He had a point. If one just weathered attacks without any way to retaliate, then they would eventually be worn down. Still, the manifestation of an infantry formation from the Undead set Haughr ill at ease.

“I don’t know if they have anything more up their sleeves,” he said, “but it’d be best if we didn’t have to find out the hard way. Shouldn’t we speed things up?”

“We have plenty of alchemical rounds,” Prince Ironfist said, “but those are ungodly expensive. Well, I suppose we can mix a few in. Throw in one elemental round for every ten regular rounds. Death Knights aren’t particularly strong or weak against anything, so rotate between them.”

Not long after, explosions of flame, frost, acid, and electricity blossomed against the shield wall. Haughr crossed his arms as they watched the ongoing assault, stroking his beard in thought.

“If there’s going to be more of this Sorcerous Kingdom in the future,” he said, “we should start stockpiling holy ammunition.”

“If we were defending ourselves against any old Undead menace, maybe,” Prince Ironfist told him. “But you’ve probably heard about how strong they are. They beat the Fiend that conquered the Abelion Hills in less than a single season. With something like that, your best chance is to hope they decide there’s something else more interesting to do and they forget you exist in the process.”

“And if they don’t?”

“We sell them pots and pans.”

Haughr snorted. Ridiculous.

“I’m serious,” the Prince shot him a look. “A power like this is one you’re better off appearing harmless and marginally useful to. Can’t appear too useful or else they’ll decide what you have is better off belonging to them. Not useful enough and you’re forgotten, but probably dead, too.”

“You make it sound as if this sort of thing has happened before.”

“It’s always what happens when the power gap is too wide between two sides. You’re more than aware that it can happen between people. But it can also happen on a much larger scale. Most of you are just too young to hear it from those who lived through a similar situation.”

“Why haven’t you brought this up with the council?”

“Because they’re preoccupied with ‘more immediate concerns’. There’s no getting through to you whelps when you’re like that.”

As stupid as it sounded, he was probably right. In a world filled with intrigue and treachery, one would be brought low by the little things long before one could address the big ones, so everyone focused on what was immediately important. There was little point in worrying about any major problems if one was long dead before they could happen.

A large explosion rocked the underway entrance as a trebuchet round filled with a mix of Alchemist’s Fire and Oil of Impact shattered against the shield wall.

“That was a lot of Giant Toenails going up in smoke,” Haughr said. “Shouldn’t we be seeing some sign of the Undead faltering by now?”

Powerful Monsters and the like were undoubtedly daunting opponents in small-scale combat, but even a Dragon would easily go down to the storm of steel and elemental devastation that their current targets were being subjected to.

“Well, the Undead keep going until they fall apart,” Prince Ironfirst said. “And that shield wall prevents them from losing limbs and whatnot. They’ll probably stand there until they crumble into dust all at once…”

A floodlight on the left side of the fortified enclosure went dark. Harsh Dwarven shouts preceded the sound of a collapsing structure. Haughr’s head snapped over to the source of the disturbance.

Orders to press the attack were punctuated by further losses in their illumination. He finally figured out what was going on when the platform of the closest tower was shattered by a steel ballista bolt, sending its crew of engineers tumbling to the street below.

“They’re throwing our damn bolts back at us!” Haughr said.

“That can’t be right,” Prince Ironfist frowned. “Well, they can throw them back, but Death Knights aren’t anywhere near strong enough to destroy our siegeworks like that.”

The area around the underway slowly darkened as more and more light towers were destroyed. Dwarven siege engines continued loosing their rounds, but the crews would quickly lose their ability to aim through the deepening darkness. If the Undead moved…

“Arbalesters, load flares!” Prince Ironfist’s voice thundered over the battlefield, “Keep the target area lit!”

Moments passed before smoking points of light filled the air, burying themselves in the cavern walls around the underway entrance. To Huaghr’s surprise, however, dozens of flares came flying back at them.

What?

A pained cry issued from below them. Haughr looked over the edge of the platform. An engineer lay on the ground, a flare impaling his neck. Seconds later, the loaded ballista nearby exploded as it was shattered by a steel bolt.

“Curse that Grimmantle!” Prince Ironfist grated, “They sent people to coordinate the Undead!”

It would neatly explain everything that was going on. Grimmantle sent at least one Commander to work with the Undead in addition to a contingent of Deepwardens to assist with reconnaissance tasks.

“Reposition those siege engines!” The prince barked, “Get–”

The ghostly figure of a Dwarf woman rose through the steel floorplates of the platform behind the prince. Prince Ironfist reached for his greataxe, but the woman simply reached out, pushing her hand through his helmet.

Prince Ironfist froze with a furious snarl on his face.

“Prince Felhammer sends his regards,” the woman said.

A savage grin lit the woman’s face. The old prince convulsed as his brain was crushed inside his skull. Haughr’s hand went for the mace on his hip.

Unincarnate! Dammit, what are the guards doi–

The woman spun around and kicked Haughr in the chest, launching him off of the edge of the platform to fall headfirst to the streets below. Before he lost sight of the rooftop, he saw dozens of ethereal Dwarves swarming over the guards.

So it was Felhammer all along? But what about the abandoned border defences? What if…

Haughr sighed as the end of his sixty-metre descent rapidly approached. It wasn’t as if anything mattered anymore.

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