Overlords of the Iron Dragon

by C. L. Werner

  The daemon had no inclination to explain. Drumark was no longer a plaything but a vessel, a vehicle to accomplish the daemon’s purpose. Down through the pitch-darkness it drove him, compelling him to such exertions that even his duardin stamina was taxed to its limits. His lungs gasped for want of air, his limbs felt like lumps of lead, his muscles burned as though they had been coated in lava, yet still it forced him onwards.

  From the perfect silence of the dead halls there now came the faint sound of voices. Drumark recognised those of Grokmund and Horgarr, Gotramm and Brokrin. There was more, the sputtering creak of ancient gears and pistons, the dull rumble of neglected machinery shuddering back to life.

  The daemon caused Drumark to veer away from the voices at the last moment, urging him around the chamber where his comrades must be. Around and away, his steps diverging from a direct path. He was in a narrow corridor now, a chimney from the amount of soot caked against its walls. Down this filthy passage the daemon compelled him, forcing his weary body to still greater exertion.

  The voices were nearer now. The rumble of machinery caused the chimney to shake around him. He was close to the other duardin, but Drumark was much closer to something else.

  The moment his eyes saw it, Drumark knew this was what the daemon had sent him after. It represented part of what had drawn the entity’s inclination away from devilish amusement to a purpose of ancient enmity and opposition.

  There was a shaft staring down into a vast chamber, a chamber lit by the glow of lamps and from which duardin voices arose. Coiled about the mouth of that shaft was a serpentine body surmounted by a single lidless eye. Drumark recognised it as a fragment of the tentacled horror that had attacked the Iron Dragon.

  It is more than that. It is the essence of sorcery. A power in opposition to us both.

  The forsaken names of Nurgle and Tzeentch thundered through Drumark’s soul as the daemon inside him glared at the sorcerous spy. The remnant sprang away from the shaft, hurling itself upon Drumark. Like the daemon, it was aware of the rival Power that sought to oppose it. That awareness fed into those coils a horrific strength. Like the bands of a steel spring, they closed around Drumark’s body, dragging him to the floor.

  More than just the crushing pressure of those cold ribbons of darkness assailed Drumark’s body. There was a searing, agonising pain of the soul as well. He could feel the daemon railing against the inimical power of the opposing sorcery, striving to drive back the force that threatened to vanquish it. He felt that if he just relented, if he accepted destruction, he could let the corruption be burned away from him. It would mean his life, for he would not be able to free himself of those crushing coils on his own.

  Aid me, mortal! Fight for your existence or we shall both be consumed!

  It was not the daemon that moved him, but the sound of the voices below that made Drumark refuse the enticement to surrender. He struggled against the coils. He knew the remnant was only a symptom, part of some still greater evil.

  Yes, a Power that will destroy all your friends if you do not fight against it! Give me your strength, mortal. Submit to me, end your resistance to my presence and together we can destroy our enemy.

  The daemon admitted to him that the taint of corruption was in his bones and in his soul. Nothing would change that.

  You cannot help yourself, but you can still help your friends.

  The coils tightened. Drumark felt as though his ribs were beginning to bend. Soon they would crack and then it would be over. Shutting his eyes, he damned himself and agreed to the daemon’s demands. Instantly he felt the thing’s obscene presence magnified, growing greater and greater within him. As its dominion swelled, so too did the sorcerous fire that sought to burn it to nothingness.

  The inhuman strength that rolled through his body was not enough to break the constricting coils. Drumark felt more powerful than he ever had in his life, and at once more helpless than a baby. He gnashed his teeth in frustration, spittle flying from his mouth. He saw it spatter across the black length of the remnant, steaming and sizzling against it. Where the spittle struck, the coils began to decay, visibly rotting off his body.

  His own spit was like acid now, polluted by the daemon’s essence. Drumark felt a pained tremor pass through the remnant’s coils. Resolutely he spat at it again, burning it more severely. The hideous spy realised its peril, tightening its grip.

  Drumark cried out in torment, struggling to free himself from the horror. Knowing that if he died then he would leave his comrades un­aware of the danger they faced.

  The refinery was situated in a vast hall. Great furnaces dominated one of the outer walls, their mouths sealed by immense metal doors. Confusions of pipes and tubes ran from each furnace to giant metal tanks bolted to the opposite wall, huge vessels that held the chemicals and propellants that fed the alchemical flames. Chains hung from the ceiling like jungle vines, fastened to great cauldrons and shallow iron kettles that were themselves fixed to steel rails set into the roof. Moulds shaped from granite and basalt lay clustered about the floor, ready to receive the molten metal from the furnaces. Along one wall a system of smaller forges had been erected to refine more delicate ores, aetheric bellows and gigantic gas-hammers sitting idle beside them. All about the hall, flues and chimneys snaked down to clear away fumes and smoke, expertly placed to maximise the advantages of air currents and the suction of roaring ovens.

  The dozen duardin from the Iron Dragon seemed like ants as they scrambled about the great hall, trying to coax the long-idle mechanisms back from the oblivion of neglect. After hours of work, their labours were finally bringing results.

  The great machines shuddered once more. Brokrin had lost count of how many times they had tried to get them working. Ten? Twenty? He could not say for certain. Each effort had seen Horgarr and Grokmund making adjustments to levers and switches, inspecting pistons and gears, tugging at chains to see if they were caught or if they had become too slack. Lubricants had been applied, mechanisms removed and replaced, broken links soldered back together. Adjustment after adjustment, yet still the machines refused to obey.

  This time it was different. This time after the immense motor shivered into action it didn’t sputter out with a feeble groan. This time it kept whirring, throbbing with life. The duardin watching waited in anxious silence, not daring to utter a word. The machinery rumbled on and on, heartbeats stretching away into minutes. Finally Horgarr threw his helm into the air and laughed. Grokmund sank back on his haunches and wiped the sweat from his brow, sighing in relief. The rest of the duardin cheered. The endrinmaster and the aether-khemist had succeeded. They had got the old refinery functional again.

  While the other duardin cheered, Brokrin felt uneasiness and a sense of something terribly amiss. His misgivings about the amazing string of circumstances that had brought them to this juncture escalated with every new advantage that came their way.

  He looked at the vast refinery they stood in. For all their trials getting the automated machinery functional again, Brokrin could not shake an impression of wrongness. The decay they saw elsewhere had, for some reason, only lightly afflicted this complex. The great steel cauldrons still hung from their chains, ready to have the molten aether-gold poured into them. The moulds for the ingots were not cracked or split, the ­furnaces remained whole, their pipes unharmed by centuries of neglect. Such hurdles as they encountered were ones that could be overcome, and overcome in very definite ways. It was not a question of if repairs could be made, but simply how long they would take.

  Briefly Brokrin wondered if it was his pessimism that made him suspicious. But he could not do more than fleetingly entertain the thought. He knew in his gut that he was right. Something was wrong here. He could not place his finger on it. It was too elusive, too intangible to be defined, but it was there.

  Brokrin gazed at the cheering duardin. They were readying trolley-carts to push up the rails
back to the dock, eager to start bringing the aether-gold up from the Iron Dragon and down to the refinery. He saw Skaggi, busy with his copper tablets and etching-acid, calculating and re-calculating the expected yield from each share of the treasure. The logisticator would be the last one to lend him a sympathetic ear. Casting his gaze further afield, however, he saw Gotramm off by himself near one of the cauldrons. His demeanour was several degrees less jubilant than that of the other duardin.

  Brokrin made his way over to Gotramm. ‘Well, it is all coming together now,’ he said.

  Gotramm nodded slowly. ‘It certainly looks that way.’

  As the privateer turned towards Brokrin, the deposed captain could see that the flap of his holster was unfastened, the pistol poised for a swift draw.

  ‘Worried about the mutiny?’ Brokrin asked. ‘If this aether-gold yields even half of what Skaggi thinks it will, you will have nothing to apologise for.’

  ‘It isn’t that,’ Gotramm said. He cast his eyes across the refinery, peering at the shadows that filled the spaces between the machinery. ‘It is this place. Those… creatures… they were daemons. Manifestations of Chaos itself.’

  ‘Yes,’ Brokrin said. ‘I believe they were. Certainly they were nothing natural.’

  Gotramm nodded slowly. ‘They might have been left over from what destroyed Finnolf’s Fortress all that time ago. That might be what happened to everyone who was here.’

  ‘Something happened here,’ Brokrin agreed. He gave the privateer a studying look. ‘You are thinking if it happened here it could happen somewhere else.’

  ‘I have always understood that the greatest danger daemons pose isn’t what they destroy but what they corrupt,’ Gotramm said. ‘The people and things they put their taint upon, leaving them as unclean as they are.’

  Conflicting emotions seized Brokrin when he realised what was vexing Gotramm’s mind. He felt a sense of admiration for the arkanaut. Here, with the promise of wealth right within his reach, Gotramm was not thinking about the riches that would soon be his. No, he was thinking of one of his crew, wounded in battle, the seriousness of his injuries unknown.

  Brokrin also felt trepidation, because Gotramm was not just thinking about Drumark’s injuries, but the kind of being that had caused those wounds. ‘What would you do?’ Brokrin asked. ‘Leave him behind? Let him stay here and rot alone and abandoned in the dark?’

  Gotramm’s eyes flashed with anger. ‘I would not… abandon him.’ His hand brushed against the holstered pistol. ‘Well, what else is there to do? Take him back to Barak-Zilfin when he might be infected? Take the risk of it spreading? Leave the sky-hold looking like this place?’

  ‘What about that?’ Brokrin asked, pointing at the refinery, at the crewmen rolling the trolleys down the corridor. ‘Whatever daemon-taint you fear, it could just as easily be carried by things as well as people. Bring the aether-gold in here and you might be infusing it with the same threat you fear in Drumark.’

  Gotramm shook his head. ‘It has gone too far to do anything about that. The crew would just toss me out and pick a new captain. Maybe a worse one,’ he glanced at Skaggi so that Brokrin understood his meaning. ‘There is no other way to save something from this expedition now. We have to bring back the aether-gold.’

  ‘Let us hope that we only bring back aether-gold,’ Brokrin told him, working on Gotramm’s concerns. He looked into his eyes. ‘If you will risk trusting the aether-gold, do you not owe the same trust to Drumark?’

  Gotramm couldn’t hold Brokrin’s gaze. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I don’t know either way. I know as captain the decision is mine, but I don’t know if I can make it.’

  ‘I know as captain, there is nobody else who can make the decision for you,’ Brokrin told him. ‘And whatever you decide, you will have to live with it. Remember that.’

  Brokrin left Gotramm to sort out his thoughts. He was not sure what he was going to do if Gotramm decided against Drumark. He knew he would not let Gotramm shoot him, but how far he would go to prevent that was a question he tried not to ask.

  Brokrin left the refinery as the first trolley-cart came back from the ship. Brokrin had no interest in watching the aether-gold distilled into molten ore. As Gotramm had said, events had taken on a life of their own. They could not put a stop to it now short of holding the crew at gunpoint.

  Brokrin started back down the darkened great hall, following the rails towards the port. The lanterns hanging on the returning trolley-carts acted as his guide. He didn’t get far from the refinery before a sound arrested his attention. His volley pistol was in his hand, his eyes roving across doorways and windows, watching for the sickly glow that had presaged the first daemonic attack.

  No green light rewarded his vigilance, but he heard the sound again. This time it was more distinct. He could tell it was a voice calling his name. A weak voice, sounding as though it were gasping for breath.

  Keeping his volley pistol at the ready, Brokrin started towards the voice. His path took him deeper into the darkness, the only light coming from the tinderlamp hooked to his belt. When he found that the voice was calling from a narrow hall that opened in a gap between two buildings, he hesitated. Brokrin edged back towards the main corridor, ready to call for help. He stopped himself when the voice spoke to him yet again. He knew that voice, knew who it belonged to. He thought about his recent discussion with Gotramm.

  No, Brokrin would not call for help. Not until he found out why and how Drumark had left the ship and what kind of condition the sergeant was in.

  ‘I am here,’ Brokrin said, keeping his voice lowered so it would not carry back to the duardin pushing the trolley-carts.

  ‘So am I, cap’n,’ Drumark answered. The sound of feet stumbling in the dark followed close upon his words.

  Brokrin was not sure what he expected, but Drumark’s appearance when he shambled into the light was not it. The sergeant’s skin had a pale, bloodless look to it, his body battered and bruised from head to heel. Drumark’s state of undress made every gash and cut visible – and of these there were many. The cuts in particular had a certain sym­metry about them that set the hairs on Brokrin’s arms tingling.

  Around the duardin’s body were what looked like leather straps. It took Brokrin a moment to realise they were the coils of some creature. Whatever the thing was, it was clearly dead, parts of it burned down into a mere ribbon of flesh. That the coils had not snapped apart was due to whatever weird vitality had provided it motivation in life. The black folds had rippled around and under one another, forming a tangle that even the burning away of entire sections had failed to undo.

  Holstering his pistol, Brokrin took out his axe instead. He hurried over to Drumark. Gently he let the injured sergeant down to the floor. Then he began carefully working the edge of his axe against the remaining coils, seeking to free Drumark from the thing that had attacked him.

  ‘No questions, cap’n?’ Drumark managed to gasp as Brokrin cut one ring away.

  ‘I don’t think you are in a condition to answer them,’ Brokrin answered, trying to focus on his grim task.

  A weary laugh shook Drumark. ‘That is where you are wrong,’ he said. ‘Now is the only condition I can say anything in.’ He closed his eyes, a peculiar smile on his face. ‘Part of me is tired. Worn out. Asleep. When it wakes up, I will be less myself.’ His eyes opened and he gave Brokrin a hard look. ‘You should have let me die. It might have been better that way.’

  ‘Stop talking nonsense,’ Brokrin snapped at him. ‘I have seen you much worse than this and you pulled through.’

  Drumark laughed, a bitter and cheerless sound. As Brokrin hacked away at the coils, the sergeant was able to move his hand up to his shoulder. He tapped the spot where he had been bitten by the imp. ‘All healed up, am I right, cap’n?’

  Brokrin paused in his labour. His brow knotted with confusion when he looked at D
rumark’s shoulder. There was not so much as a mark on it. He shifted his gaze to the other shoulder, thinking he was mistaken in which one had been bitten.

  ‘You don’t need to say it,’ Drumark told him. ‘I already know there is nothing there you can see. Mortrimm could not see it either. But I can. There is a little face there, a spitting image of the daemon that bit me. I can see it and what is more I can hear it.’ Again, he managed a tired laugh. ‘Not now. Now it is quiet. Took a lot out of it killing this thing.’ He kicked his foot against one of the coils that had been cut away.

  ‘What… what was that?’ Brokrin asked, nodding towards the tendril, trying to avoid talking about the other horror Drumark spoke of.

  ‘It is part of the monster that brought down the frigates,’ Drumark claimed. ‘It has been hiding on the ship, following us around. Spying on us for someone.’ An edge crept into his voice when he saw dis­belief in Brokrin’s face. ‘It is the truth, cap’n. I know that much at least of what the daemon told me is real. There are tribes of daemons and some are enemies of others.’

  Brokrin shook his head. ‘Your wound is giving you delusions,’ he said. He refused to believe any of it. If he did then he would be forced to admit that Drumark had been infected, that Gotramm’s solution… ‘You are sick. I need to get you back to the ship. You need to rest.’

  ‘I can’t rest,’ Drumark insisted. ‘Right now it is resting. Killing this spy took a lot out of it. It might even be gone, for all I can tell. But before it left, it made me scratch things into my skin.’ He pointed with a bloodied finger at the cuts Brokrin had noted. Through the crusted blood vague symbols could be seen. They were not duardin runes, or any human script with which Brokrin was familiar. For all of that, there was enough regularity about them to make them appear more than simple slashes.

  ‘I don’t know what they mean,’ Drumark stated, ‘but while I was digging them into my skin I had a sense that they are important. I felt like marking them down this way was the most important thing I would ever do.’ He caught hold of Brokrin’s arm, pulling the captain towards him.