Treachery : book 2 of Codex Elysium

Chapter 54

Chapter 54

The great stairway was wide enough for perhaps six dwarves to walk abreast, yet with Thor and a three foot war hammer blocking the way, no enemy was getting past. The defenders were beginning to climb the stairs while the thunder god piled up enemy corpses at its base. Thor crushed the skull of a demon warrior and then glanced behind him, he swore at what he saw.

"I thought I had told you to retreat! What are you still doing here?"

Above him stood King Rekkr, one arm still hanging uselessly at his side but the other hand had a firm grip on his sword. Pure instinct made the thunder god look back, Mjollnir caved in the chest of a raider who tried to take advantage of the thunder god's distraction.

"I told you I was staying!" shouted the king defiantly. He had four tough and battered warriors with him. "we are staying, you cannot hold this stairway alone. I don't care how a great a god you think you are. What happens when they slip past you?"

Thor cursed endlessly and vented his anger, making the body pile at his feet even larger.

"I don't need any help, scum! Get back up to the hall and be a leader to your people!"

Upon the battlements,

Odin was continuing to keep track of everything. He scowled as he watched Thor and Rekkr arguing and squabbling on the stairs. It was quite surprising that no enemy had yet gotten past them. In the thick of the battle below, he could see that Jason and Eva were lost to humanity. Their burning blades made them easy to spot. They fought with reckless glee, they killed and destroyed without hesitation. Odin closed his eyes. It was a bitter blow losing both of them. There was no way of turning them human again now. There was no way they could be used in the final battle now either. They would both be long dead before it even began. He wondered how that would affect the outcome, if the two key players who were marked to make the final choice between good and evil were no longer around, what would happen? Odin shook the thought off, no wasn't the time to worry about it. He had done what was necessary.

Odin looked up to the sky to check on his two ravens, they were no longer above the stairs but circling over the mountain side. He knew there was a secret pathway that led to a hidden chamber, clearly the high king had found it. The ravens marked the kings location, Odin was surprised by Dvalin's progress. Despite his wound, the high king was still moving with purpose or perhaps being driven by madness? Either way time was growing desperately short.

Odin watched as Thor took down three foes with one huge swing, he sent a thought to the thunder god's mind

"Get out of there now! And take that damned fool Rekkr with you!"

Thor wasn't happy about retreating. Lightning flared all over Mjollnir and roasted several enemies in one go. After that he actually obeyed Odin and turned and began to run up the stairs, wrapping a massive arm around Rekkr as he past. King Rekkr struggled and protested but the thunder god held on tightly, carrying the dwarf king under one arm like he was nothing more than a sack of grain.

High king Dvalin finally reached his destination, he stood in the hidden doorway gasping and struggling to breath, he swayed dangerously and had to steady himself on the wall. The hidden pathway was a joke, even a sure footed dwarf half of the king's age would have struggled with it. Still, it didn't matter now, he was here. The king surveyed the hidden chamber before him, he was surprised to find it was exactly as the mad king had described it in his diary. Perhaps he wasn't mad after all? The chamber was an open void that the first dwarves had accidently tunnelled into. The floor was a large wooden platform, in the centre of which should be two large cargo doors that opened onto a pool of lava deep down below. The mad king's diary made it clear how paranoid he was. It described a stack of explosives and incendiaries that was placed on top of the cargo doors. Just pulling one leaver would deposit the pay load into the lake below and hopefully heat the pool enough to cause the volcano to erupt.

Dvalin gaped at the stack before him, the diary hadn't got close to the true amount that stood in this chamber. The king looked over the pile, some of the stuff he knew. Like gunpowder and sticks of dynamite but there was plenty of strange things he didn't recognise. There were bags of powders in greys and white, strange grey, clay-like substances. More shocking was the writing on these things. It was the language of men from Midgard. How had it gotten here? Had the mad king been trading with Midgard for these things? It was believed that trade between Nidavellir and Midgard had died out thousands of years ago. High king Dvalin frowned. Did it really matter how it got here? The important thing was that it was actually here.

The whole chamber was lit by a dull orange glow that seeped up through the cracks in the floorboards, the smell of brimstone was overpowering. Next to the doorway was a simple lever built into the solid rock wall, just like the diary described. Just one pull on that and all of the king's enemies would be sent to hell.

The high king actually smiled and spoke out loud to the empty room

"Well I've come this far, let's see how this ends"

With the last of his strength, High king Dvalin gripped the lever, he ignored the pain and pulled down. The king cried in pain and collapsed to the floor. Behind him, the cargo doors began to groan, the huge stockpile began to shift and stir as the doors below opened. Dvalin managed to get himself into a sitting position and slumped against the wall. The weight of the pile forced the doors open with a loud crack and then the whole payload was falling into the lake below.

High king Dvalin braced himself, he wasn't fully sure what would happen but he braced for an instant detonation. Nothing happened, there was a hiss and sizzle as the payload impacted but that was it. Thin streams of smoke curled lazily up through the open hole in the floor. The high king closed his eyes and cursed, clearly he was just as crazy as the mad king, perhaps even more so for believing it would work. He hadn't known what he was expecting to happen but this wasn't it. Would anyone ever find his body? Would they find his skeleton sitting here staring at the open pool below? Would they say here lies the mad king Dvalin who thought he make a volcano erupt? Dvalin felt himself slipping away, everything was getting dimmer, his life was truly spent and he had wasted his last hour on a pointless climb. The king heard a distant boom that seemed to come from deep in the earth below but it didn't matter. A burst of bubbles surged up in the pool of lava but still it meant nothing to the dying king.