Page 166 of Of Empires and Dust

Lodhar Mountains – Winter, Year 3081 After Doom

Kira grunted,pain shooting up her legs and through her lower back with every step she forced herself to take, moving towards the end of the short corridor. The healer had urged her to stay in bed, but Kira had already spent too long doing nothing. It had been days since Erani and the others had broken her free, and she’d slept far more of that time than she’d been awake. And even then, her memory was thick and opaque. She remembered eating, devouring anything that was handed to her, savage and insatiable. She also remembered Erani's face, her sister’s calm voice.

No. She could rest when she was dead. The world was shifting beneath her, and she knew if she lay down too long, she would arise to find it unrecognisable.

She hobbled towards the door and pushed through. A deep yellow-gold light filled her eyes where she had expected the blue-green of Heraya’s Ward. The lanterns beside her bed had been the Ward she knew. She’d only heard of Ward this colour in the stories her mother used to tell her, of Vindakur and the Portal Hearts. Surely that’s not where she stood now, in the lost city?

One look around as her eyes adjusted to the light told her no, she most definitely was not in the lost city of Vindakur.

The buildings around her were all smooth stone and little else, old and battered from centuries of use and abuse. A tall cavern stood about them, small patches of the golden Heraya’s Ward sprouting from cracks in the rock. She remembered now Erani had said they were taking her to an abandoned mining outpost in the far north. Many of those outposts had been abandoned even before Vindakur was lost, stripped of all valuable minerals and ores.

Her mind still slow and foggy, Kira turned her attention to the movement around her, dwarves and humans carrying crates of grain and root, virtuk wagons hauling thick lengths of wood and strips of iron and steel.

“My queen.”

It was only then Kira realised that two dwarves in the crimson cloaks of Durakdur knelt on either side of the door from which she had just emerged. She recognised them both: Ahktar and Kalik. They had been by her side since her ascension to the throne.

“May your fires never be extinguished and your blades never dull.” She bowed her head to them both, clenching her jaw in pain as she did. “I cannot explain how much happiness it gives me to see your faces.”

Ahktar rose first. “We did everything we could, my queen. I swear it by Hafaesir’s hammer, I swear it by my place in the rock. I will die before I let them lay a finger on you again.”

Kalik opened his mouth to add to Kalik’s words but said nothing at the sight of Kira raising her hand.

“Swear to me only one thing.” Kira stumbled, and Ahktar lowered his shoulder so she could steady herself.

“Name it, my queen.” Ahktar pressed a hand to his breastplate.

“Swear that you will stand by my side when I take Hoffnar’s head from his shoulders.”

“I will stand at your side until Heraya takes me, and when she does, my axe will be wet with the traitor’s blood.”

“As will mine,” Kalik added.

Even in her state, Kira could tell the two dwarves did not speak from hurt pride alone. Erani and Lumeera had said her Queensguard had stormed the Heart to protect her. She did not know what number had survived, but judging by the wrath in Kalik and Ahktar’s eyes, the price had been high. “Please, take me to my sister.”

Kira clenched her jaw and forced herself not to wince with every step as the two Queensguard led her through the outpost. Both Kalik and Ahktar offered her their shoulders to lean on, but she refused them. Not because she was too proud to take their help, but because she wanted the other dwarves and humans to see that she still walked with her head high. That she was neither bent nor broken, but defiant and hungry.

And with each hobbled step she took, more dwarves stopped in the streets of the outpost and emerged from within the old buildings to stare at her.

Were it not for the two Queensguard in crimson cloaks flanking her, she didn’t think any of them would have recognised who she was. But they did.

Whispers of ‘my queen’ and ‘by Hafaesir’s grace’ sounded all about her, and one by one, dwarves either bowed deeply ordropped to one knee. More than a few wide eyes couldn’t look away from her shaved head, she had no doubt.

Many of the Belduarans stopped to see what the fuss was but only watched with curiosity as she passed. Every few feet, a warrior stepped from the gathering crowd with a crimson cloak knotted at their shoulders, knelt before her, then moved to stand at her side. She recognised every face, and each one warmed her heart.

There were more survivors than she’d dared hope. By the time Ahktar and Kalik stopped before the doors of a squat stone structure, forty-eight Queensguard marched slowly in formation around her, keeping her pace, and a crowd of dwarves and humans both had gathered around them.

The bulk of the Queensguard remained at the entrance while Kalik and Ahktar escorted her inside.

Kira found her sister in a large rectangular room, leaning over a stone table covered in maps and letters, with several familiar faces gathered around her.

Erani looked up from the table and frowned, the rings in her dark hair catching in the golden flower light that shone through the window behind her. “You should not be out of bed.”

“I should be dead.” Kira grunted as she hobbled towards the table.

She nodded to Lumeera Arian, who stood at Erani’s side. The Belduaran captain returned the gesture, raising an eyebrow as a figure beside her shuffled out of place and around the table.

Oleg Marylin wiped sweat from his brow with his hand, placed that same hand over his heart, and bowed. “Your Majesty, may your fire never be extinguished and your blade never dull. I cannot express my happiness to see you up and about.”

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