by C. L. Werner
Skaggi started to answer but Drumark pressed his fingers against his lips, silencing the logisticator. The sergeant wasn’t looking at the other duardin, but had raised his gaze to something above Skaggi’s left shoulder. ‘Wrong season for geese,’ he muttered, squinting at the objects he had spotted.
Skaggi squirmed out from Drumark’s grip, sputtering angrily as he spat the taste of the sergeant’s fingers from his lips. ‘You grot-grabbing…’
Drumark was not listening to Skaggi’s diatribe. He was watching the objects he had sighted, growing more uneasy with each heartbeat. It was difficult to judge distance without anything to measure against. What he saw could be small fliers quite close to the ironclad or they could be much bigger ones at a further distance. Keeping his eyes on the flock, he yelled up to the lookout posted in the endrin’s cupola. ‘Starboard at the forty! Something flying around up there!’
It took the lookout a moment to focus his glass in the direction Drumark indicated, a little longer to find the objects the sergeant had spotted. From the deck, the sergeant could see the sentinel’s sudden agitation as the spyglass brought the fliers into focus. They were a good deal further away than a flock of geese and a great deal more monstrous.
‘Chimeras!’ the lookout’s cry rang out. Those with spyglasses and aether-scopes trained their instruments in the direction he was pointing, verifying for themselves the magnitude of his warning. Commands were swiftly issued. Brokrin’s voice barked orders to Arrik’s gunners as they put Ghazul’s Bane into readiness. Gotramm had his arkanauts muster amidships, each privateer double-checking the charge in his pistol and the readiness of axe and skypike. Skywardens and endrinriggers emerged from below decks with their cumbersome aether-endrins, each duardin assisting the comrade next to him in securing the devices to the harnesses that criss-crossed their bodies. Horgarr and Mortrimm took posts near the wheelhouse, both endrinmaster and navigator armed with the tools of their respective professions.
Drumark shouted for his thunderers, drawing the Grundstok company to the flanks of Gotramm’s arkanauts. The duardin marksmen readied their weapons, taking aim at the fast-approaching monsters. ‘Make each shot a good one,’ Drumark told his thunderers. ‘Aim for the eyes and throat, the vulnerable spots where a bullet does more damage. Hurt ’em where it counts, because sure as a grub-miner’s beard has lice, if you just nick ’em, all you will do is really piss ’em off.’
The flock drew steadily closer. Drumark didn’t bother lifting his decksweeper yet. The gun was powerful but only at close range. He would have to wait until the chimeras were right on the ship before cutting loose. Among his thunderers there were weapons with less punch to them but able to hit at a greater distance. Aethershot rifles and Grundstok mortars would begin blasting away at the aerial monsters while Drumark’s decksweeper and the aethercannons of his troops were still biding their time. The sergeant uttered a grim laugh. Bad things came to those who waited when they assailed a force of Grundstok thunderers.
‘Ready the mine!’ Horgarr’s voice cried out. From the prow of the ship, a team of crewmen unlimbered the heavy supremacy air-mine from its carriage, fitting a small endrin to its chassis and preparing to send it ploughing towards the foe. The Iron Dragon carried only a few of the immense aerial mines and they were too deadly to keep in proximity to one another. It would take Horgarr some time to assemble a second one from the components stored in the ship’s armoury. The weapon being unfastened from the deck was the only one in usable condition.
Hearing Horgarr’s voice, Drumark turned his head and glanced around for Mortrimm. The navigator had many devices to help him steer the Iron Dragon into the most favourable of Chamon’s currents, drawing the ship like a lodestone to the most propitious winds. The most versatile of these was the ornate zephyrscope. The flashes that had been used to signal the lost frigates could also be dialled to much more powerful settings, actuated to draw upon the thermals and harness them into a stormy tempest that would loose its fury against whatever position the navigator chose. Drumark could see Mortrimm working his zephyrscope, gazing up at the skies and watching the approaching chimeras. He was waiting for the ideal moment to set the winds against the monstrous flock.
‘They have come again.’ The words came in a voice that was somewhere between fatalism and bitterness. Drumark swung around to find Grokmund standing beside him. The Stormbreaker’s aether-khemist had his gaze fixated upon the chimeras, his lip trembling with rage. ‘Everything is lost and still they want more.’
‘What are you babbling about?’ Drumark growled at Grokmund. ‘Get below. There is fighting to be done here.’
The curt reprimand snapped Grokmund from his bitter reflections. He looked to Drumark and nodded. ‘Indeed, there is fighting to be done. I have come to help.’ Without explaining himself, he began playing with the dials of his atmospheric anatomiser. A hazy gas slowly gathered around Grokmund, spreading outwards in a translucent cloud until it engulfed all of the thunderers. Drumark saw the energy readings on his decksweeper fluctuate before settling back to their original levels. Shouts from those of his duardin armed with rifles told him the fluctuation had been different for them.
‘Sarge! My rifle is at peak charge!’ one of the thunderers yelled.
‘Don’t look a gift vein in the shaft,’ Drumark barked back. It had been on his tongue to snap at Grokmund for interfering with his battleline but now he bit back the words. With the rifles drawing extra energy from the haze Grokmund had conjured with his anatomiser they would be able to maintain a greater rate of fire, not waiting between shots for the rifles to recharge. He nodded respectfully to the aether-khemist, then turned his focus back on the chimeras.
The discordant howls of the beasts could be heard now, a grating warble that was part shriek and part laugh, rising and falling through a cacophony of pitches. It was a sound of madness and nightmare, the scream of wild things corrupted and defiled, the roar of monsters that existed only to vent their rage upon the world.
‘Loose!’ Arrik’s command boomed from the forecastle. The next instant the lance loaded into Ghazul’s Bane went shooting out through the air, coils of heavy chain unspooling behind it. The lance wasn’t as elaborate and deadly as the obsidian-headed harpoon that had been lost in the explosive destruction of the tentacled horror, but the gunners sent it flying at their target with lethal precision. The great skyhook pierced one of the oncoming beasts, punching through its breastbone and out through its spine. The monster’s wings faltered and with an anguished screech, it dropped, transfixed by the harpoon and its chain.
The death of one of their fold heightened the aggression of the others. Shrieking their disordered cries, the flock surged onwards. Now the duardin could see clearly the kind of beasts that stalked them. The chimeras were a confusion of limbs and extremities, the consistency of their hides varying from one individual to the next. One creature boasted a shaggy crimson pelt while another was clothed in sleek fur of deep purple. Some of the monsters had bare, scaly skin with a pebbly texture and dark stripes. Others were mottled with patches of mangy hair. Each of the monsters was bigger than a steer, a long body of vaguely leonine shape. The foremost of their heads was likewise cat-like in its form, often surrounded by a thick mane. On each creature this lion-head was flanked by others that branched off from shoulder and neck. Some of these heads were like those of goats and boars, others were the reptilian visages of snakes and wyrms. Feline or otherwise, the heads were revoltingly twisted and corrupt, loathsome mutations creating a fell display of malformation. Warty growths peppered jowl and throat, horny bulbs of bone protruded from nose and brow.
Enormous wings lifted the chimeras through the sky, yet even their pinions lacked symmetry of form and shape. Some of the wings were thick and leathery, like those of a bat, while others were broad and feathered in the manner of condors. A few even exhibited the gossamer translucence of insects, their membranes gleaming in the ligh
t with a jewel-like lustre. The same beast might sport wings of wildly disordered design, flinging itself through the air with awkward heaves of its mutant frame. However monstrous or corrupt, the ghastly flock kept steadily approaching the ironclad.
‘Rifles! Fire!’ Drumark commanded. At his order the thunderers equipped with aethershot rifles opened up on the chimeras. The energised field Grokmund had created fed their weapons, speeding the recharge so that the duardin were able to send a withering stream of shots into the beasts. One of the chimeras plummeted from the sky, its shaggy hide ripped apart by the rifles. A second veered away, howling with pain as it cradled its bleeding limbs against its bloodied chest.
After the rifles, the Grundstok mortar banged away, its explosive shot shredding the wing of one monster and knocking it from the sky. A second beast, torn by shrapnel, lunged onwards only to be brought down by the gas-carbines mounted in the ironclad’s hull. With a deafening wail, the dying monster hurtled earthwards.
The flock plunged closer still, then a great flash flared outwards from Mortrimm’s zephyrscope. Drumark could feel a hot breeze plucking at his beard as the navigator’s instrument brought Chamon’s winds whipping across the sky. The worst of the aetherstorm worked its wrath upon the chimeras, slowing their onset, forcing them to struggle through the gale that drove against them. The retarded advance of the monsters gave the Grundstok thunderers time for a second salvo. Again they knocked one of the beasts out of the sky and left another wounded.
With the stubbornness of rage, the chimeras pressed on. Now they were almost upon the Iron Dragon. From draconic maws and leonine jaws, the monsters spat gouts of golden fire at the ship. The caustic spittle sizzled against the iron hull-plates and the metal casing of the endrin. One endrinrigger, struck by the burning spume, went careening wildly above the decks, too pained to control his aether-endrin.
Drumark brought his decksweeper up to his shoulder, picking a beast with goat-horns curling out from its leonine head. He listened to the crack of pistols as Gotramm’s arkanauts shot at the flock, heard his own troops fire off their aethercannons. Still he waited, letting the beast close almost upon the ship before firing the full charge into its faces. The chimera reared back, almost seeming to stand upon its hind legs in mid-air. It flailed about wildly, knocking one of its pride into the hull with its anguished writhing. Drumark could see the thing’s leftward snake-like head hanging limp and torn against its shoulder. Half of the central leonine face was ripped away, exposing a mush of bone and gristle. Only the boar-like head to the right retained any sign of awareness, and that awareness was simply pain.
The burning sizzle of Horgarr’s cutting beam seared across the porcine head, piercing the brain nestled within its thick skull. The endrinmaster’s shot finished the mangled beast. The chimera slammed against the hull as its carcass tumbled downwards.
In the next instant, Horgarr wrought far greater destruction upon the chimera pride. The aerial mine the crew had sent spinning away from the ironclad received the signal he sent it. With a blinding flash and a deafening roar, the supremacy mine detonated in the very midst of the flock. A tumult of torn limbs went thudding across the deck, glancing from the gunwales and slamming into the crew. Drumark’s head was ringing as a severed claw struck his helm. He saw Gotramm knocked over when a leg crashed into him.
The sergeant started towards the arkanaut, then hesitated. Despite everything they had unleashed against the foe, the battle was not over.
Such was the fury of the chimeras that even the devastating supremacy mine failed to break their attack. Reduced to only a few mangled specimens, they plummeted through the wreckage of their flock to strike at the Iron Dragon. One beast dived for the wheelhouse, its tail slapping across Arrik and knocking the hunter flat. Its claws closed around one of the gunners, wrenching the duardin up from the deck and lifting him towards its fanged jaws. All three heads bit down at the same time, each ripping a gory morsel from its screaming prey.
Before the chimera could strike again, it was beset from all sides. The remaining gunners came at it with skypikes, stabbing and slashing at the beast. Rushing out from the wheelhouse, Brokrin emptied his volley pistol into its side, crumpling its left wing. From behind came Mortrimm, the old navigator’s hand clenched tight about a ranging pistol. He fired at the monster’s back, putting his shot between its shoulders. The burning flare glowed white-hot, searing its way down into the monster’s flesh. The chimera threw aside its victim, each of its heads contorted in agony as it thrashed about the forecastle. Ghazul’s Bane was knocked from its moorings, teetering precariously as it struck the gunwale and threatened to pitch over the side.
Brokrin rushed past the chimera’s flashing claws, seizing hold of the weapon before it could hurtle over the side. The surviving gunners continued to prod the monster with their skypikes, steering it away from where the skyhook had fallen. Arrik rallied, recognising the crisis at once. Seizing his axe, he lunged at the chain connected to the skyhook’s reel. Still attached to the first casualty of the battle, Ghazul’s Bane was being pulled over the side by the dead weight of its victim.
Three blows of the axe against the same link broke the connection. Brokrin and the skyhook tumbled back onto the deck as the dead chimera and the chain were cut free. Arrik shouted a warning to the captain. Brokrin just had time to roll aside when the claw of the rampaging monster came slamming down, missing him by a matter of inches.
The flare Mortrimm had fired into the beast continued to burn its way deep into the chimera’s body. An agony of panic ruled the monster now as it flailed across the deck. Already wracked by torment, it cringed away from the skypikes, letting the gunners herd it towards the side of the ship. The chimera stumbled against the gunwale, then crashed through, its great weight ripping a section of the railing away. With its wing ruined by Brokrin’s volley, the chimera fell to the ground far below.
Brokrin laid a hand on Ghazul’s Bane, using the skyhook to steady himself as he rose to his feet. Arrik limped over to him, relief on his face. ‘My thanks for your timely aid,’ Brokrin said.
Panting, Arrik smiled back. ‘Without you, we won’t get paid,’ he said. The hunter laid a caressing hand against Ghazul’s Bane. ‘Without this, we don’t have a job. Plenty of incentive to take a hand in things.’
The last of the chimeras dived straight towards Drumark’s command. The thunderers fired ragged shots at the brute, but nothing seemed to slow it. It came slamming down on the deck, cut and bloodied by its struggles. One of the thunderers was crushed beneath its paws. A slap of its wings sent an arkanaut hurtling through the air. The flailing tail slapped another duardin before he could turn his mortar against it, sending him tumbling across the deck.
The beast’s six eyes glared murderously at Drumark. Some facet of its brutish brains had decided he was the leader of its tormentors. Foam dripped from the chimera’s fangs as it prepared to lunge at him.
Abruptly, the beast spun around. It snuffled loudly, drawing the air into its noses. Its gaze narrowed and it turned its attention upon Grokmund. Angrily the thing’s lizard-head spat, sending a blob of caustic spittle to smoulder against the deck-plates. Grokmund backed away, hurriedly trying to manipulate the settings of his atmospheric anatomiser.
Before the monster could disgorge more of its fiery spume or lunge at Grokmund with its rending claws, Drumark was in action. His decksweeper roared as he sent the blast full into the chimera’s body. The right foreleg buckled as the bones within were shattered, the lizard-like head sagging as the hairy neck under it was broken.
The maimed chimera swung back around to confront Drumark. He could feel the hate in its eyes. A scalding hiss rasped across the fangs of its living heads. Even as it sprang for him, half a dozen guns spoke. The chimera crashed to its side, flopping against the deck, riddled with shot from rifles and pistols and aethercannons. Drumark marched over to the stricken beast and smashed the butt of
his gun into its skulls. After a moment, the anguished throes abated and the chimera was still.
‘Well, lads,’ Drumark shouted to his duardin. ‘Let us not be in any great hurry to do this again.’ He kicked his boot against the leonine head. It wobbled brokenly from side to side, drawing a few relieved laughs from the thunderers. Like their sergeant, they were feeling the excited rush of surviving the battle.
‘By Grungni’s Beard!’ It was a different sort of excitement that characterised Grokmund’s shout. He stood staring down at the deck. It wasn’t the chimera that interested him, but the spot of steaming residue left by its spittle. Grokmund pointed at it and clapped his hands. ‘They are from the strike! They are from the strike!’ He turned and looked at the Iron Dragon’s crew, startled by the confusion he saw on their faces.
‘Don’t you see?’ Grokmund exclaimed, pointing again at the steaming residue. ‘We must be close to my strike! Enough riches to make every duardin on this ship a thane! All we have to do is reach out and take it!’
Chapter IX
Grokmund saw the uncertainty in Drumark’s stare. The other duardin regarded him with wariness. Irritated, he drew a lead stylus from his belt and poked it into the steaming smear left by the chimera’s spittle. The end of the stylus glowed with heat, but as he lifted it, a nimbus of golden light shone around it. Every Kharadron knew what those wisps of energy drifting away from the stylus were: raw aether-gold.
The duardin looked with a new sense of wonder at the scorched deck-plate and the dead chimera. Grokmund uttered a snort of laughter. ‘Not much here,’ he stated. He pressed the stylus between two small plates of iron, closing them tight about the lead implement with a set of screws. He tucked the packet into a pouch, then glanced at the onlooking duardin. ‘We saw these beasts when we found the vein. These monsters have been taking aether-gold to build their nests. When they do, there is always a residue that collects in their throats.’ Grokmund tapped his own neck to illustrate what he meant. ‘When they try to roast something with their spit, some of that residue is expelled along with it.’ He laughed again and kicked the flank of the dead chimera. ‘Not much, lads. At best you might find half an ounce if you cut this thing open. Ugly work for little reward.’
