Overlords of the Iron Dragon

by C. L. Werner

  Gotramm felt a shiver run through him as the echoes of that sound rumbled across the refinery. He could see that the others felt the same, their visages suddenly becoming grave. Concerns about losing the aether-gold had been supplanted by a more primal feeling, a nebulous fear that refused to focus yet also refused to be denied.

  The glow that suffused the cauldron gradually ebbed as the iron bled away the heat of the furnace. Yet the aether-gold within continued to exude a brilliant light. It was a hazy, shifting kind of luminance, like a mirage flickering upon a desert horizon. Gotramm thought of Grokmund’s rippling reflection. A need to peer down into the cauldron, to stare directly at its contents, took hold of the privateer. Thurik guessed his captain’s intention and tried to keep him back, but he would not be stopped.

  The heat still rolling off the cauldron was blistering. Gotramm was almost instantly drenched in sweat. His resolution remained firm, and suppressing his own discomfort he climbed the small overlook that was poised above the granite slab. From this vantage he stared down into a pool of molten aether-gold.

  He had seen aether-gold in its liquid state before, yet never had it seemed so impressive to Gotramm as it did now. There was a deeper, richer colour to this ore. Seen from above, the glow that emanated from it was like captured sunlight, warm and vibrant. Nothing he had ever seen had such a look of wealth about it. He was staring into a perfection of avarice, a promise of fortune incalculable. A mad impulse sought to catch him, to make him leap into that molten pool and be joined forever with its riches.

  ‘Cap’n, what do you see?’ Thurik’s voice was both excited and worried.

  Gotramm was not certain which quality snapped him from the hideous delusion that had started to come upon him. It was enough that the suicidal spell had been broken.

  The fascination of the aether-gold evaporated. In its stead came a creeping horror. It looked as precious and valuable as it had before, but now Gotramm saw something else. If what was in the cauldron was aether-gold, then it was not just aether-gold. There was a shape there, the faintest semblance of a reflection caught under the golden surface. He could make out a long, curved beak and eyes that were multi-faceted like those of an insect. Gotramm thought he saw mighty pinions with eye-like markings upon the feathers. Did he see or merely sense a ­mammoth claw reaching out for him, frustrated when it could not push its way from image into substance?

  Hastily, Gotramm scrambled down from the overlook. Part of him – or was it part of him? – chided his imagination. He had let Brokrin’s nightmares poison his brain. Now he was seeing things, deluding himself that there was something unclean and evil about Grokmund’s aether-gold.

  If that voice was indeed a part of him, Gotramm cast it aside. His eyes might have been deceived but there was no reasoning away the feeling of revulsion that gripped not only himself, but the others as well. He could see it on all their faces, a desperate urgency to know what he had seen and an unspoken appeal that pleaded with him to keep the secret.

  Before Gotramm could say anything, a cry sounded from the front of the refinery. The yell was Skaggi’s. The logisticator came rushing back towards the others, repeating his warning.

  ‘Raiders!’ Skaggi shouted. ‘Raiders in the halls! Raiders come to steal our gold!’

  Finnolf’s Fortress was a vast labyrinth of galleries and corridors, ­mammoth chambers and gigantic halls. Miles of tunnels, thousands of rooms, dozens of levels and sub-levels. When it had been inhabited there were few who knew their way into every corner of the settlement.

  A stranger, entering the outpost for the first time, should have been utterly lost. Without a definite route to follow, without an understanding of duardin design and construction, the invaders should have found it nigh impossible to navigate the immense network.

  Khoram was at no such disadvantage. All the black arts of sorcery were at his command. He had the observations of his destroyed spy to lend him insight. He had his knowledge of what the duardin were after to speed his course. But most importantly, he had the beckoning presence of the Master to guide his way.

  Unerringly, the sorcerer led Tamuzz and his cult down through the upper galleries, around the great halls and along the silent thoroughfares. Khoram fed his commands directly into the scouting daemons, steering the screamers as they whipped through the empty settlement. The cult followed behind the daemons and after the cult came Tamuzz and Khoram.

  The pulse that vibrated through the very walls now acted as the cult’s guide. There was no longer any need to feed directions into the daemons. They sped onwards without mortal guidance, drawn like iron filings towards a lodestone by the Master’s presence. The discs upon which the cultists were mounted exhibited the same urgency to be with the Master. Khoram took satisfaction from seeing Tamuzz’s steed likewise compelled by a force greater than either it or its rider. Even Tamuzz had to acknowledge powers mightier than himself.

  The advance swept onwards to the source of the vibrations. The smell and heat of the refinery were detected long before the screamers came within its sprawl. A duardin, possibly posted as a sentinel, cried out, racing back towards the forge to alert his companions. The screamers would have dived down upon him except that Khoram exerted his magic to restrain them. The cult would need hostages to negotiate with the duardin still on the ship and keep them from doing anything reckless.

  In answer to the sentinel’s shouts, the duardin within the refinery moved to defend themselves. Several appeared at the entrance to the chamber, training their guns on the invaders. Shots rang out. Cultists cried out in pain as they were hit, tzaangors bleated in misery as they were knocked from their steeds. Khoram heard Tamuzz snarl a curse, urging his steed down towards the enemy.

  ‘Remember,’ Khoram warned Tamuzz, ‘we need captives. The rite demands mortal blood to secure the Master’s transition from spirit to physical incarnation.’

  ‘I know what is expected of me,’ Tamuzz growled at Khoram. ‘Pray to Tzeentch that your magic is equal to what your tongue promises.’

  His threat made, Tamuzz wheeled away on the back of his disc, rushing to lead his cult to the attack. The sudden surge of the warlord’s steed brought the duardin rifles turning in his direction, but instead of aiming at the fast-moving Tamuzz they fired at Khoram.

  Hastily Khoram brought one of the screamers diving down. The daemon took the shots that would otherwise have struck him, and crashed to the floor of the refinery, flopping across the ground while ichor spurted from its mangled frame. As it flailed about the screamer grew more indistinct, its essence being drawn away from the Mortal Realms.

  All around him, Khoram found that the cultists were striving to subdue the duardin and force their way into the refinery. Arcane fire from a cabal of masked acolytes sent the bearded warriors retreating back into the chamber. The moment the gunfire was silenced, the cult was rushing through the entrance.

  The duardin took shelter behind the great statues and immense columns that stood all about the cavernous refinery. Some scrambled behind banks of pipes and machinery, peeking out from behind gigantic pistons and enormous flywheels to fire shots at the cultists. A few of the tzaangors were picked off by the ragged shots, but hardly enough to make a difference. There were at most a dozen duardin in the refinery. Arrayed against them were nearly a hundred mortals and daemons leagued under the banner of Tzeentch.

  The cult pressed their attack. Bolts of magic and the crystalline arrows of beastmen forced the duardin to retreat. As they withdrew deeper into the refinery, the cult pursued them. Khoram saw Tamuzz impale one of the Kharadron on his glaive but the cultists were more cautious about restraining themselves. He saw one acolyte cut down by an axe, his arms locking about the weapon as he fell. Before the duardin could free his weapon, a goat-headed beastman flew close to him and kicked him in the head with a cloven hoof. Another defender emptied his rifle into a bird-faced tzaangor only to have a human cultist l
eap at him from the back of a flying disc, flattening the gunner in a sprawling tackle.

  Throughout the refinery the duardin were being brought down. Outnumbered and unable to match the agility of their flying enemies, the defenders were further hampered by the malefic influence of the Master itself. While the Master’s presence emboldened and strengthened the cultists, it had the opposite effect on the Kharadron. They were befuddled, hampered in their reactions. It was impossible for them to coordinate any kind of opposition. While the cultists came at them in pairs and trios, each duardin fought on his own.

  Khoram saw the sole survivor from the Stormbreaker, the duardin whose shape the Orb of Zobras had revealed to him. Khoram had ensured this one alone of all his comrades would survive to fulfil the role revealed to him in his divinations. His duel with the duardin on the Stormbreaker had been engineered specifically to knock him into the ship’s hold where he would be safe from the dragon’s attack and would be found by rescuers later.

  The survivor had achieved his purpose. Khoram felt no especial concern when the duardin collapsed under the snarling weight of a screamer. A younger duardin rushed to his aid, vanquishing the daemon in a blast of shot and the cleaving edge of an axe. The daemon reared up, trying to bring its snapping teeth against its attacker. The bearded warrior brought his axe smashing against its jaw, managing to prop it open. While the daemon sought to gnaw through the blade, the warrior shoved his pistol inside its mouth and fired. The blast blew out the back of the screamer’s head, leaving it to flail miserably on the floor as its corporeal substance dissipated. The duardin helped his reeling comrade away from the fading daemon, retreating back towards the cauldron.

  Khoram turned away from the tableau of hurt duardin and evaporating daemons. A thrill coursed through his body, a terror that filled him with excitement. The tretchlet mewed and nuzzled against his throat, hiding its eyes as the same sensation of enraptured horror flowed into its feathered body. Khoram set his eyes upon the cauldron and the glowing pool of metal within it. He exulted in the presence he felt rising from that molten core and the instinctual fear that quivered through his mortal flesh.

  The Master, banished from the Mortal Realms by the hammer of the accursed champion of Sigmar, had returned!

  Skaggi watched in mounting horror as the Chaos cult swept through the refinery. They looked to be the same raiders who had nearly overwhelmed the Iron Dragon, the same foes Grokmund claimed had brought down the Stormbreaker and her fleet. Now they had returned, to assault the duardin when they were far from the armoured hull and big guns of their ironclad.

  Skaggi crouched down behind a massive iron kettle as a pair of goat-headed beastmen went soaring past. The brutes were loosing arrows at the thunderers shooting at the cult from behind the bases of statues, trying to drive them from cover. The arrows were tipped with some kind of explosive, for when they struck there was a flash of flame and smoke. Under the continued assault, the thunderers were soon forced to relinquish their positions and retreat deeper into the refinery.

  An arkanaut tried to run for the entrance up into the settlement’s main concourse, thinking to avoid attention while his comrades fell back in the other direction. It was a ruse Skaggi watched with keen interest. If the arkanaut made it, then Skaggi would try his own luck with such a ploy.

  But the arkanaut did not make it. As he hurried towards the entrance, a tall human in heavy armour swept down upon him. From the back of a flying disc, the man brought the edge of a fiery glaive lashing out. The duardin was struck in the back of the neck, flesh and armour ripped apart by the blow. The head went rolling across the floor while the body took a few staggering steps before it collapsed.

  The sight was enough for Skaggi. He had witnessed a few of his shipmates being taken prisoner by the cultists. For whatever reason, the enemy wanted some of them alive. He knew it could be for no good purpose, but the example of the arkanaut’s butchery reinforced his conviction that he had nothing to lose. If he surrendered he might even be able to work some kind of deal with these raiders, appeal to their sense of greed.

  Skaggi looked around, trying to spot whoever was leading the enemy. His gaze settled upon a grotesque man with a bulbous mass of feathers sprouting from his neck. There was an air of command about the sinister figure, not least because he seemed content to leave the fighting to the other raiders. Desperation rather than courage made Skaggi leave the shelter of the kettle and run towards the mutant.

  ‘I yield! I yield!’ Skaggi half sobbed as he came close to the mutant. He repeated his cry as several masked cultists turned their daemon-steeds about and came whipping towards him.

  The mutant raised a worm-fingered hand and waved aside the approaching cultists. He stared down at Skaggi, a hard glint in his eyes. ‘Your grovelling interrupts my contemplation of the Master,’ he said, gesturing to the cauldron of aether-gold.

  Skaggi dropped to his knees. ‘I surrender!’ he cried out.

  The sorcerer peered a little closer at Skaggi. Something like a laugh hissed from his mouth. ‘I recognise you now. Your name is Skaggi. My spy observed you often. You have the gratitude of Khoram for the good turn you have done me.’ He stretched his arms, indicating the battle raging across the refinery. ‘All of this is your work.’

  Hope flared in Skaggi’s heart as he listened to the sorcerer’s words. A shrewd expression came onto his face. If the sorcerer was feeling grateful, then Skaggi might convince him to let him go. He felt a flicker of guilt, even shame, that he could have led his shipmates to destruction, but it was not enough to quell the urge to survive. Whatever the shame, Skaggi wanted to live. Alive he could embark on new ventures, amass enough profit that he could blot out this stain on his honour.

  Khoram laughed again. ‘You are the conniver, the schemer, the manipulator. Your greed has been so useful to my plans. I am not surprised that you think yourself clever. Cunning enough to buy your life from me.’

  Skaggi was nodding his head in emphatic agreement. ‘If you spare me, I promise you great profit.’ He pointed at the cauldron. ‘There is more aether-gold on our ship. I also know where the vein we took it from is!’ He suppressed the bitter shame that tried to stifle his next words. ‘I am the only one who can lead you there,’ he lied.

  ‘I need hostages,’ Khoram said, waving his tentacled hand towards the duardin the cult had subdued. ‘Captives who will coerce your companions on the ship into doing as I tell them.’ He scowled at Skaggi. ‘I don’t think any of your kin would raise a finger to save your skin.’ The scowl became a cruel smile. ‘Yet even you may be of some use to the Prismatic King.’

  Skaggi drew back, horrified by the change that had crept into Khoram’s voice. ‘I will do what is needed,’ he muttered, trying to appease the sorcerer.

  ‘Yes, you will,’ Khoram told him. ‘Your treacherous spirit and your scheming mind are already attuned to the designs of Lord Tzeentch! Your soul is black, defiled by your own deeds and your own intrigues. I could ask for no better offering to render to my god. It might have needed a dozen of your kinsmen to provide a suitable sacrifice to Tzeentch.’ His hand coiled into a fist as he shook it in the air. ‘You, I think, will be all that the ritual requires.’

  Too late Skaggi appreciated his mistake. His shrewd expression was gone now, replaced by a look of horror. Pain twisted his features still further as Khoram pointed his staff at the duardin. The breast of his tunic smouldered as sorcery burned a brand into his flesh – the mark that Khoram himself bore.

  The mark of the Prismatic King.

  Khoram leered down at the duardin, seeing the mounting terror in his face. That was good. The Dark Gods were always more appreciative when their offerings were brimming with fear. He pointed down at Skaggi. ‘Run,’ he commanded. ‘Run if you still think you can escape.’

  The duardin turned to flee, rushing back across the refinery. His retreat went unnoticed by all the cultists except one. Th
e one who was fated to render this offering to the Prismatic King. Tamuzz dived down upon Skaggi, the blazing head of the glaive ripping through the logisticator’s body, piercing the brand Khoram had placed there. Brand and blade created a symmetry, an arcane conjunction of tremendous potential. Khoram might have chosen any of the duardin to act as sacrifices, but the sneaky ways of Skaggi lent themselves to a certain sympathy with the deceptions of the Prismatic King. Lies and illusions, plots and schemes, all were the province of the Lord of Change.

  The glow around the iron cauldron intensified. Despite the heat of the furnace, frigid cold swept through the refinery, forming crystals of ice on the walls. Magic, powerful and enormous, was at work. Khoram used his mastery of the black arts to channel the gathering energies, feeding them into the vessel chosen long ago. Screamers and flying discs winked out of existence as the forces sustaining them in Chamon were drained away, fed into the now bubbling aether-gold.

  ‘Alive in triumph when they thought him slain!’ Khoram crowed. ‘The Prismatic King comes!’

  The seething mass of the daemonic screamer crushed Grokmund to the floor. Its wings smashed him down, pummelling him viciously as he tried to squirm out from beneath it. Blood gushed from his mouth as his face bounced off stone. Broken teeth dripped into his beard. Another swat of the monster’s fluke-like wings and his nose became just a mess of pulp.

  Suddenly the daemon’s weight was lifted off him. Grokmund heard its pained howl as it reared back. Ichor jetted from its ruptured flesh, a fiery liquid that stung him when it splashed into his wounds. The screamer’s savage wails grew to a deafening crescendo as continuous blows ripped into it. A shot rang out and the screamer’s howls were silenced, its bulk falling aside and flopping against the floor in a shuddering mess.

  The creature’s killer pushed it away from Grokmund. Reaching down, he grabbed hold of his arm and started dragging him away. His rescuer was Gotramm, his face almost unrecognisable behind the gore spattered across it. Grokmund felt a new sting of pain, a pain born of guilt. He had seen enough of the battle to know there was no lack of duardin in need of aid. Yet it was the stranger from another sky-hold Gotramm had come to help.