by Warhammer
Vali spat. ‘The Three-Eyed King lost any claim on mortality a long time ago. Before the realms even existed.’ He shook his head and clenched his hands. ‘Would that I had his head here, bent over an anvil, and a hammer in my hands.’
‘And would you kill him, Vali?’
‘In a heartbeat.’
Grungni stared at him in silence, pondering his servant’s words. Vali’s kin, he recalled, had been slain by Archaon, in those last, fateful days before the end of the beginning. ‘And what if he, too, could be forged anew? Would you kill him then, or make of him something better?’
Vali shook his head. ‘He is rusted through. Him and all his kind.’
‘It is said that there is worth, even amid the rust.’
Vali snorted. ‘Who says?’
‘Well, me. I said it.’ Grungni sighed. ‘Leave me, Vali. There must be something you need to take care of. Some poor soul in this vast smithy surely requires chastising.’ He turned away, to select a hammer from among the plethora on a nearby rack. He heard Vali shuffle off in a cloud of discontented muttering.
‘You’re cruel to him, old one.’
‘Who are you calling old, white-beard?’ Grungni said, striking an anvil. Sparks danced through the air, twisting into new and interesting shapes. They fluttered about the hooded head of the cloaked duardin who sat nearby, perched on an old, splintery stool, smoking a long pipe. A massive overflow of white beard spilled out of the hood and down across a barrel chest. Broad arms, thick with ancient muscle, were crossed over the chest. A heavy foot was propped up on an overturned bucket.
‘True. I always forget which of us is older. Are you my grandfather, or am I yours?’
Grungni winced. ‘I wish you wouldn’t pose riddles like that.’
‘A riddle is a whetstone for the mind, Maker. You know that.’ Smoke spilled upwards out of the bowl of the pipe. For a moment, Grungni saw tiny figures there, working, fighting, dancing, and felt something that might have been sadness. The old duardin waved a hand, dismissing the images. ‘And nostalgia only serves to dull the wit.’
‘Like strong drink. Yet we indulge regardless.’
The pipe-smoker chuckled. ‘So we do.’ The chuckles faded, and the ancient figure leaned forwards. ‘This world moves faster than I am used to, Maker. Faster than we expect, at times. Years fall like rain, and the manlings rise like grain.’
‘Poetry, my friend?’
‘Nothing wrong with that.’ The white-beard sniffed. ‘I’ve a fair singing voice, as well. Beat me a tune with that hammer of yours, if you doubt me.’
‘I beg thy pardon, old friend,’ Grungni said, with elaborate courtesy. ‘Now, did you come here to brag about your voice, or to tell me something?’
‘Both.’ The heavy boots thudded to the floor. The sound they made was heavier than it ought to have been. The ancient had a gravity to him. He was somehow more real than the world around him. Where he walked, it bent itself into pleasing shapes, and time flowed in rivulets, rather than as a mighty torrent. He was an impossibility. Or perhaps – an impurity. Something old, which had staggered onto a new shore, wet with the blood of a dead world.
When Grungni looked at the old one – really looked, as opposed to a glance – he did not see a mayfly spark, soon extinguished by the passing of years, but a snarling light, which would resist even the ultimate darkness. A fire as old as time and as hot as a realm’s core. The light was so bright that even a god could not long stare into it without blinking. He did so now, slowly and with great thought.
The old one spoke, bluntly and with no hesitation. ‘Drums beat in the Varanspire. The call to war might last a day, or a century. None can say. The hand of Death stretches out from the amethyst realm, gathering souls the way a miser gathers coins. Rats gnaw at the roots of all the realms, scuttling between the walls of all that is, seeking crumbs from the table of the gods. All these things are happening, and have always happened. But now, the eyes of some are turning to you, Maker, and your scheme.’
‘Is that an accusation, white-beard?’
The ancient duardin shrugged. ‘A warning. The threads of fate grow more tangled, the harder you pull on them. And this is a mighty tug indeed.’
‘The Eight Lamentations cannot be allowed to fall into the hands of the enemy.’
‘They were in their hands before.’
Grungni paused. He ran his palm over the surface of the anvil, feeling the residual heat from his earlier blow. ‘Now is not then. As you well know.’
‘No. It isn’t. And your enemy isn’t who he was, then.’
Grungni turned, a frown creasing his features. ‘Careful, old one. I will allow a certain amount of familiarity, but I am still he who forged the sun, and hammered the spine of the world into shape.’
‘Are you? Or are you merely the shadow of him, cast on the far wall of a smithy?’ The ancient duardin tapped his chest. ‘We all might be shadows, in the end. Not for me to say, of course.’ He rocked to his feet and stood, with a slight groan. ‘Though I wager a shadow wouldn’t ache so.’ He pointed the stem of his pipe at Grungni. ‘I will keep my eyes and ears open, Maker. If I see or hear anything related to your quest, I shall send word.’
Grungni nodded. ‘My thanks, grandfather.’
The ancient duardin laughed. ‘Not that old, I think.’
He was gone a moment later. Grungni made no attempt to watch him leave. There were limits, even to a god’s power, and if the old one did not wish to be seen, he would not be seen. Instead, he turned his attention to the anvil, and the hammer in his hand.
One rang down on the other, and Grungni listened to what the sparks had to say.
Nineteen
Web of The Arachnarok
The web stank.
Volker had wrapped a rag about his face, but it did little to help with the smell. It was also difficult to traverse, being exceedingly sticky. He was glad he was wearing gloves and boots. The web would have torn his flesh if he hadn’t been. The chain was slick in his grip, and several times he almost fell.
Lugash seemed to have no difficulty. His runes steamed, and the web seemed to shrink away from his blades. He was using his axe as an improvised piton, when necessary, descending on the strength of his arms and shoulders alone. Volker got the feeling this wasn’t the first time the doomseeker had done this sort of thing.
When he said as much, Lugash glared up at him. ‘You talk too much, manling.’
‘My apologies – just trying to pass the time.’ And to keep from thinking about what was going on above, though he wasn’t having much luck.
‘Keep it up and we’ll be knee-deep in spiders.’
‘Spiders don’t have ears,’ Volker said, tearing his hand free of the web. He shook it, trying to dislodge the sticky strands. Above, a flash of witchfire briefly illuminated the mouth of the cistern, and he murmured a silent prayer.
‘What?’
Volker gestured absently. ‘No ears.’
‘Then how do they hear?’ Lugash demanded.
‘They sense vibrations. Through their hair.’
Lugash stared up at him. ‘That’s ridiculous.’
‘They also have a keen sense of smell. Through their pedipalps.’
Lugash blinked.
‘On their legs,’ Volker continued. He tried to concentrate on the chain, one hand after the next. His arms and legs were beginning to cramp.
‘They smell… through their legs,’ Lugash said heavily.
Volker nodded, stopping to rest. ‘Quite fascinating, your average spider. Like a very intricate mechanism, of sorts.’ He looked around. ‘That’s why I’m not worried about alerting them, by the way. They already know we’re here.’ He flicked a strand, causing it to quiver. ‘They felt us the moment we started our descent.’
Lugash growled something low in his throat. Volker didn�
�t ask him to repeat it. Instead, he said, simply, ‘Thank you.’
Lugash didn’t look at him. ‘For what?’
‘Helping me. Helping Oken.’
Lugash laughed harshly. ‘Is that why you think I’m doing this?’ He looked up, an incredulous sneer on his rough-hewn features. ‘Or any of us?’
Volker frowned. ‘No – I know you’re doing this on Grungni’s orders, but–’
Lugash threw back his head and guffawed. ‘I do not serve the Maker, manling.’ He grinned savagely. ‘The woman, yes, and the beast-rider, aye, but I am Lugash. I serve only the memory of my people.’
‘Then why–’
‘Are you deaf?’ Lugash growled. ‘You came to help your friend, I came to help my people,’ he continued. He unhooked his axe and dropped down to the next strand.
‘What do you mean by that?’ Volker asked. While he didn’t care for the fyreslayer’s tone, he was intrigued. Lugash had barely spoken more than three words in a row to him since they’d met. And most of those had been insults.
‘I made an oath. My people are scattered. They have no purpose, nothing to lead them into the coming age. They build walls out of tradition, and suffocate behind them. The fire in our belly has grown dim, and our actions are but rote memory.’ Lugash stopped, head bowed. ‘We fight, but we do not know why. Only that we have always fought.’ As he spoke, the runes hammered into his flesh began to glow softly. ‘I would see my folk made whole. So I work with the Maker, and together, we might repair the soul of my people.’
Volker stared down at the doomseeker. Lugash shook himself and looked up. ‘I do not expect you to understand, manling. Your god still lives, after all.’ He looked down. ‘There – look!’ From down below, the glint of gold reached up to caress their eyes.
It lay scattered singly and in clumps across a thick web, woven amid the remains of an enormous, shattered platform. Piles of coin and ingot shifted gently among the sticky strands of spider-leaving, sliding into the dips and valleys of successive layers of web. From below, the muffled susurrus of water was just audible. Great holes had been bored through the cistern above and below the web, their edges blackened. Cracks ran upwards and outwards from these holes in striated fashion, the much abused wood smeared with a tarry, glistening substance that Volker recognised all too well.
‘The skaven did this,’ he said, as he tossed a glow-bag onto the gold below. ‘There’s lubricant from their engines splattered all over the walls. They bored in with warpgrinders, chewing tunnels through the wood, until they reached the cistern.’ He refrained from stating the obvious. They were too late.
The Spear of Shadows, if it had ever been here, was gone.
Lugash snarled a curse and dropped down, landing amid a cascade of coinage. The sound echoed loudly in the circular space, and the web shifted. Cocoons were revealed amid the gold. Withered snouts and tails poked through these in places, but others were more sturdy. As Volker joined him on the gently bobbing web, Lugash sliced one open. A shrunken, mummified face stared up blankly. There was not a drop of fluid left in the unfortunate duardin within. Even his beard had turned brittle.
‘Filthy spiders,’ Lugash spat.
Volker began tearing at another cocoon, his heart a lump of ice in his chest. ‘Help me get these others open. One of them might still be alive.’
‘Doubtful,’ Lugash grunted, but he stooped to help anyway. One by one, they tore open the cocoons, exposing the withered remnants of duardin and skaven. Several of the skaven proved to be still alive, or were, until Lugash silenced their squeals with brutal speed. Volker grew more frantic. There was every likelihood that Oken hadn’t even made it this far – that he was dead in a spider’s web, in the forest somewhere. But Volker couldn’t, wouldn’t, accept that. Not yet.
‘Not yet,’ he hissed, ripping open a cocoon. Something glinted in the light of the glow-bag. A pair of iron-rimmed spectacles. Volker’s heart leapt. ‘Oken…’ he whispered. Then, more loudly, ‘Oken!’
The duardin was old, his beard and hair the colour of ice and almost indistinguishable from the webs that ensnared him. Vivid scars ran across his broken features, souvenirs from an exploding cannon. Behind the spectacles, eyes blinked. Oken groaned. ‘Lad…’ he murmured.
‘It’s me, old man,’ Volker said. ‘Rest easy – we’ll get you out of here. Lugash, come help me.’ The doomseeker started towards him, shaking his head.
‘Luck of the Maker, this one.’
‘Maybe the gods are watching out for us,’ Volker said. But even as he said it, in the dark, something uncoiled itself from the depths of the web. A deep, unsettling clacking echoed through the pit, and the strands began to shudder and jerk. Volker turned from the half-opened cocoon and drew one of his repeater pistols. He thumbed back the hammer and scanned the dark. A smell rose out of the depths, like corpses bloating in the sun. Clack-clack-clack. A warning sound.
The webs bulged, and then tore with a soft sound. Something rose, eyes blinking against the light of the glow-bag. ‘Arachnarok,’ Lugash breathed. ‘Get him up, manling. I’ll hold it off.’
‘You’re stronger than I am. You’re the only one who can get him up the chain.’ Volker took aim at the massive shape, wondering if he could get to the remaining pot of wyldfire in his satchel before the gigantic spider was on them. ‘Besides – it’s just a spider.’
‘A big spider,’ Lugash said.
‘Just get him up the chain, Lugash.’
The doomseeker looked at him, for just a moment. Then he nodded. ‘There’s gold in your veins, manling. And iron in your spine.’ He began to hack away at the strands holding Oken’s cocoon in place.
‘I’d settle for powder and shot in my guns,’ Volker muttered, keeping his eyes on the arachnarok as it crept closer. He doubted the repeater would penetrate its hide. But if he could hit it in one of its many eyes…
The monster struck, moving more quickly than he’d thought. Like the gargant they’d faced outside, the creature was wounded. Something had burned it, and badly. But it was still fast, and lethal. He held his ground and fired. The repeater pistol bucked, splitting the dark. The arachnarok twitched back with a sound like a shriek. Volker clawed a second shot cylinder from his satchel, counting the moments under his breath. One… two… three… He slammed the cylinder home and locked it into place. Cogwheels clicked into position, and he snapped the barrel up, even as the spider lunged forwards again.
‘Bastard – back,’ he snarled. Another burst of fire, another not-quite shriek. The light of the shot hurt it more than the shot itself, he thought. He reloaded, eyeing the beast as it crept around them, moving slowly. When he’d finished, he reached into his satchel for another glow-bag. Crushing the paste against his cuirass, he smeared it across the metal. The glow brightened and the great spider retreated, eyes glittering evilly.
‘Manling – get over here,’ Lugash called, one hand on the chain. He had Oken’s cocoon over one shoulder and his axe in his free hand.
‘I thought I told you to get up the chain,’ Volker called out.
‘And when did I start listening to you?’ Lugash snarled. ‘I’ve got an idea.’
‘Oh, well, if you’ve got an idea,’ Volker said.
The arachnarok had stopped its circling. It was readying itself for another lunge. He reached into his satchel, feeling for a clay pot. When he found it, he muttered his thanks to whatever gods were listening. Grungni, perhaps. Sigmar, hopefully. He took aim at the arachnarok, watching it quiver in anticipation. He would only have one chance.
He tossed the wyldfire, levelled his pistol, and fired. The explosion deafened him momentarily, but he’d been on enough battlefields not to let it cost him time. He was up and moving, head ringing, blinking sparks from his eyes, before the first splatter of fire caught. The arachnarok was thrashing in agitation, startled and possibly blinded by the sudden flash. It wouldn�
�t be distracted for long.
As he stumbled through shifting piles of gold towards the chains, he felt the web tremble beneath him, disturbed by the giant arachnid’s distress. Heat kissed his back as the fire roared up, licking greedily at the cocoons and wood. He lunged for the chain at Lugash’s urging. He caught hold of it as Lugash chopped through the chain, and the fires spread rapidly across the webs. The ancient mechanisms began to clatter as the chain shot upwards, jerking Volker and the doomseeker off their feet and up with it, at great speed. Volker concentrated on holding on, as below him the arachnarok retreated from the flames, shrieking.
‘Get ready to jump,’ Lugash hollered as they approached the rim of the cistern. Volker’s heartbeat thudded like thunder in his ears. The chain clattered thunderously as it zipped upwards, and then Lugash was leaping, and Volker followed. His gloved hands slapped down, seeking purchase on the wood. He found it at the last moment, digging his fingers into the rough bark. He glanced aside and saw that Lugash had hooked himself to the rim with his axe. The doomseeker laughed wildly. ‘Some fun, eh?’
‘No,’ Volker said, through gritted teeth. He looked down. The fire was raging through the webs below, speedily devouring every strand. He couldn’t spot the arachnarok, and hoped that meant it had perished or retreated deeper into the cistern. Muscles straining, he hauled himself out of the cistern. Lugash scrambled up, still carrying the cocoon.
The battle for the vault was raging on. Volker spotted Zana and Adhema trying to cut their way towards the sorcerer as he flung an eldritch bolt into a rearing spider twice his size. Nyoka fought nearby, on the edge of the pit, her voice cutting through the noise of combat like a knife. Her prayers rose and fell like a song and her hammer pulped green skulls with abandon. A black-clad shape darted towards her.
Volker swung his long rifle up and fired. The raven-warrior twitched aside, distracted. Nyoka spun and smashed him from his feet, knocking him over the edge of the cistern. She nodded her thanks. ‘A timely return,’ she said, extending her hand. Volker caught it and she hauled him to his feet.
