Overlords of the Iron Dragon

by C. L. Werner

  It was, however, strong enough to melt through the leathery membranes of the dragon’s wings! Khoram stared in horror as great swathes of the wyrm’s pinions dissolved. The membranes were eaten through by the gnawing vapour, great jagged tears pitting them. The reptile bellowed in horror as its wings lost their ability to keep it aloft. The beast came plummeting down from the sky. Cheers sounded from the duardin ship as the crew realised they had overcome their monstrous foe.

  Khoram shared in the reptile’s horror when he saw that it was plunging straight for the crumbling mountain peak. He looked to the Orb of Zobras, but every facet was empty now. There was no future left for the talisman to predict.

  ‘Lord Tzeentch, show mercy to my soul,’ Khoram begged.

  The harsh giggle of Khoram’s tretchlet told the sorcerer that his final hope was a lie. ‘There will be no mercy for your soul,’ it cackled at him. For the first time since it had erupted from his flesh, the homunculus spoke actual words to him. ‘The gods reward accomplishments, not servants. You have failed the Changer.’

  The dragon came slamming down onto the slope, its body broken upon the crumbling peak. The violence of its impact was the last strain the summit could take. Already disintegrating by degrees, now it lost all cohesion. The broken dragon was sent plunging earthwards as the last of Finnolf’s Fortress spilled down into the root of the mountain, filling the great crater the duardin had excavated long centuries ago.

  Khoram screamed in abject horror as he fell alongside the dead dragon and the sundered slopes of the mountain. He cursed the fickle humour of fate.

  This was the same end Khoram had planned for the Iron Dragon – an unknown grave lost in the jungle wastes.

  Epilogue

  From the deck of the Iron Dragon the Kharadron watched the destruction of Finnolf’s Fortress. Great slabs of rock dropped away from the disintegrating peak, slamming down into the crater far below. The ­tremors persisted until at last whatever force had been keeping the peak levitating over the hollowed-out root of the mountain was extinguished. In a last great shower of stone and rock, the summit went hurtling earthwards.

  The duardin could see the broken body of the dragon falling with the final deluge of stone. Steam continued to rise from its seared wings as the aether-gold dissolved the leathery membranes. Even in death, the reptile was an awesome sight, a thing of might and terror. Many of the watchers still expected the monster to arise, lift itself on its tattered wings to come at the ironclad once more. To have come through such an ordeal unscathed was to them nothing shy of miraculous.

  When the dragon’s carcass smashed into the ground and was buried under tons of stone, a boisterous shout rose from the watching crew. As one they turned towards the wheelhouse and cheered the name of the duardin whose leadership had brought them through the ordeal alive.

  Brokrin stepped out from the wheelhouse. He let the praise of his crew fill him. It was like a purging flame sweeping through his veins, burning away all the doubt and misfortune that had plagued him for so long. After his masterful slaying of the dragon, there would be no more talk of a curse hanging over him or his ship. He had broken the hoodoo. Even a profitless voyage wouldn’t eclipse this feat. The vanquishing of the Prismatic King might be a greater victory, but it was less visceral than the sight of a rampant dragon falling from the skies. That was a deed that would be told and retold in every tavern in Barak-Zilfin.

  Gotramm came over to Brokrin, bowing his head in deference to him. He waved his hand at the cheering crew. ‘I speak for everyone when I say we regret our choice. We would be proud if you would resume your command, cap’n.’

  Brokrin looked at Gotramm, cast his gaze across the other duardin. Most of them had voted against him in the mutiny. By asking him to resume his command they were accepting the punishment their mutiny would bring. Debt and indentured servitude at the very least when the guilds learned of it, discredit and prohibition from serving in the sky-fleets was more likely. They were forsaking their futures, accepting that the gamble they had made had been lost. A mutiny with profit might be expedient, one without was nothing but treason.

  The captain kept silent a moment, letting the cheers fade. He held up his hand, pointing it at each of the duardin. ‘It is wrong to let the mistakes of the past destroy the promise of the future,’ he stated. ‘We have endured hardship enough on this voyage, and always we have endured it together. Many of you now look with dread to the journey home. You fear what awaits you there.’ He could see the sobering effect his words had, the grim look that came upon the faces of his crew.

  The mutiny could act as Brokrin’s salvation. All the responsibility for the profitless voyage would pass from him to his crew. He would be able to save his ship from creditors and angry backers. His reputation would be kept intact. All he had to do was tell them back in port that he had been deposed as captain.

  ‘Forget your worry,’ Brokrin declared. ‘I will not seek gain in a comrade’s mistake. While you’re forgetting your worry, forget also the mistake itself. There was no vote, no casting of beans and lentils. There was no mutiny on the Iron Dragon.’

  Stunned silence held the crew. They gazed at Brokrin in open-mouthed amazement. Every one of them knew he could save himself by simply letting them suffer the consequences of their own action. Instead he was courting his own ruin so that they would be safe. As that realisation sank in, the cheers began again. To the crew of the Iron Dragon, Brokrin had become something greater than a captain or a hero.

  Brokrin turned away, seeming embarrassed by the adoration of his crew. He stepped back towards Ghazul’s Bane, resting a hand on the skyhook while Arrik and his gunners praised the captain’s selflessness.

  The praise was bittersweet to Brokrin, because it was not wholly justified. What he was doing was not simply for the crew. Helping them meant helping himself. Between plotting the death of the dragon and his magnanimous refusal to report their mutiny, he had inspired a devotion in his crew that bordered on the fanatical. Brokrin needed that kind of devotion. If he had reported the mutiny he would certainly have saved his ship, but he would have no crew. Not the kind of crew he needed.

  His hand slid down the length of the skyhook, envisioning the weapon loaded with a harpoon as lethal as the one they had lost fighting the tentacled horror. Brokrin would need to finance a replacement for it before they set out. He had Arrik’s team to work the weapon, but it needed its bite back. The quarry he was after would be much hardier even than the dragon had been.

  Brokrin had a crew now who would follow wherever he led them. Even against a monster that was a dark legend among the Kharadron. They would stand by him when he brought the fight to Ghazul, when the beast was no longer hunter, but hunted. Then he would have his revenge. Then he would truly have exorcised the monster’s curse.

  Brokrin lifted his gaze and stared off towards the horizon in the direction of Barak-Zilfin. All he had to do now was find a way to keep the creditors from taking his ship. After fighting daemons and dragons, it seemed an almost ridiculous concern to have.

  About the Author

  C L Werner’s Black Library credits include the Space Marine Battles novel The Siege of Castellax, the Age of Sigmar novella ‘Scion of the Storm’ in Hammers of Sigmar, the End Times novel Deathblade, Mathias Thulmann: Witch Hunter, Runefang, the Brunner the Bounty Hunter trilogy, the Thanquol and Boneripper series and Time of Legends: The Black Plague series. Currently living in the American south-west, he continues to write stories of mayhem and madness set in the worlds of Warhammer 40,000 and the Age of Sigmar.

  An extract from Hallowed Knights: Plague Garden.

  The sigmarite runeblade gleamed in the soft glow of infinity, as it etched complex patterns upon the air. Wherever the blade passed, light followed. The light, that of ancient stars and newborn suns, glimmered briefly but brightly before fading away. There was a lesson in that, the blade’s wielder mused, as he swe
pt the sword around in a curving slash. But then, lessons were all around, for the attentive student.

  And Gardus of the Steel Soul was nothing if not attentive. The Lord-Celestant of the Hallowed Knights was clad only in a simple blue tunic, marked with the sign of the twin-tailed comet. His limbs were bare of all save sweat and scars, and his white hair was cropped short. His armour, gleaming silver and crafted of the same holy metal as his runeblade, lay nearby, alongside his tempestos hammer, stacked neatly against one of the long marble benches that lined the walls, biding its time. Soon, he would once again don the panoply of war, and the man would be subsumed beneath the warrior. But for now, he was simply a man, hard at his labours, joyful and content.

  Through the soles of his feet, Gardus could feel the omnipresent rumble of the storms that raged eternally over the aetherdomes of the Sigmarabulum. Overhead, the High Star Sigendil gleamed, an eternal beacon in the black seas of infinity that stretched outwards around the celestial ramparts of Sigmaron. This place had ever called to him, stirring something inside. It was where he felt the most at ease, on the edge of all that was.

  The weight of the blade in his hand was a comfort. The pull of his muscles, the growing ache from his exertions. The sweat in his eyes. All of it served to ground him. To anchor him to this place, this moment. There was peace here, for a time. A purity of purpose, simple and uncomplicated. He turned, letting the hilt of the runeblade slide through calloused palms. The mystic steel was an extension of his arm, of his soul.

  As he moved, his flesh began to shimmer with an eerie radiance, like sunlight across new-fallen snow. It shone from every pore, filling the air. The light welled up, only to then fade away as he instinctively mustered his will and forced it back down inside himself. He slid forwards, moving gracefully despite his size. With god-given strength came elegance as well. Such were the gifts of Sigmar. But they did not come without a price.

  There was always a price. Both physical and otherwise. At times, Gardus felt as if he were a broken vessel, badly repaired, and all that he had been was leaking away. Perhaps that was the origin of the light he had just banished – perhaps it was his soul, seeking escape. The thought unsettled him.

  Sometimes, his mind thrummed with fragments – snatches of conversations he could not recall having, faces without names and names without faces. Embers of old emotion flared to new life, before guttering away once more. The ghosts of those he’d known – those he’d failed. Those he’d killed.

  He felt phantom heat wash over him. Heard the pad of feet over marble floors, and the guttural howls of the Skin Eaters. His skin prickled as the howls grew louder. The candlesticks were heavy in his hands. The doors of the hospice burst inwards and…

  He breathed out. His grip on his runeblade tightened, and he drew strength from the steel, surety from its purpose. Not a candlestick, this. He turned, slicing the air, letting the weight of the blade do the work, as he’d been taught. Banishing the Skin Eaters back to oblivion. But they had not come alone.

  A hand, vast and reeking of rot, reached for him. He jerked back, sword slicing up. He heard the rumble of daemonic laughter as the image wavered and dispersed. Another broken memory, though he could put a name to this one – Bolathrax.

  ‘Much is demanded of those to whom much is given,’ he said, forcing the memory down. Bolathrax was gone. Cast back into the void by Alarielle. He repeated the words. The mantra had a calming effect on his troubled mind. His voice echoed across the platform, its echoes merging with the roar of the storm, even as the reflection of his blade merged with the glow of the stars above. He slowed his movements, falling into a more elegant rhythm. His runeblade moved lazily, with less precision, as he let his muscles relax and his attention wander away from old hurts.

  Here, on the precipice of the Sigmarabulum, he was as close as any save the gods could come to the celestial canvas. It was a sea of colour and light, impossibly vast and terrible in its cosmic ferocity. Stars pinwheeled through the fraying strands of pulsing nebulas, and immense coronas flashed in the deep. And, nestled within its tides, the still-beating heart of a broken world. He looked up.

  Mallus. The world-that-was. The last breath of all that had come before. A fragment of forgotten grandeur, casting strange shadows over the vast forges, armouries and soul-mills of Sigmaron. The broken world was at once a reminder and a promise for all those who dwelled in Sigmaron.

  Gardus turned away, unable to bear the weight of the sight for very long. In any event, he needed no reminding of what was at stake; he would keep his promise, whatever the cost.

  He was a Stormcast Eternal, and he could do no less. The embodiment of the tempest, forged anew to wage war in Sigmar’s name. To fight and die, and fight again, until either ultimate victory was achieved, or the foundations of all that was at last crumbled. The thought brought him little pleasure. Victory was not certain, and sometimes the price seemed more than he could bear. He pushed the thought aside, and concentrated only on the runeblade in his hand, and the light of the stars as they played across its edge. Like the weapon he had been forged for a purpose, and he would fulfil it.

  He fell into a defensive stance, rolling his wrists, letting the runeblade rise. As he brought it down a moment later, he moved, stepping to his left. Like the storm, it was best to always be in motion. Lessons learned in Ghyran, the Realm of Life, had taught him that standing still often led to being overwhelmed. A warrior must be fluid, like water, else he would inevitably be worn down, as happened to even the tallest mountains.

  He paused, sword raised, sensing a new presence just behind him.

  ‘You employ that blade of yours the way an artist employs his brush, Steel Soul.’

  Gardus turned, lowering his sword as he did so. ‘And your voice carries even over the roar of the storm eternal, Beast-Bane. We all have our talents.’

  Zephacleas Beast-Bane laughed boisterously. The Lord-Celestant of the Astral Templars did everything boisterously, much to the chagrin of some. ‘Too true,’ Zephacleas said as he came forwards, grinning. ‘When I heard you were back, I decided to come and pay my respects. It has been too long since last we spoke.’ They clasped forearms.

  He was bigger than Gardus, big even for a Stormcast Eternal, and brutal-looking despite his cheerful demeanour. In his mortal life, the man who would become Zephacleas had been a barbarian chieftain of the Ghurlands, a brawling, bellowing giant of a man. Apotheosis had refined him somewhat, but the veneer of civilization was a thin one. And, indeed, thinner now than it had been the last time they’d met.

  He had his helmet tucked under one arm, leaving his head bare. His hair was long and bound in thick braids, as was his beard. His battered features would never be handsome, but his eyes gleamed with merriment, and his smile was genuine, despite the gaps in his teeth.

  Like his face, his bruise-coloured war-plate was scarred by hard use. Its gilded edges were faded and dull, and the plates were now marked by savage adornments. Fangs and claws taken from the slain bodies of monstrous beasts rattled against the holy sigils of Azyr. The skull of an orruk had been mounted on one of his shoulder-plates, the thick bone etched with primitive runes.

  Gardus gestured to it. ‘That’s new.’

  ‘This? This is Drokka.’ Zephacleas knocked on the skull with his knuckles. ‘Was Drokka, I should say. A gift from the Fist of Gork himself.’

  ‘I heard you’d been sent to parley with the orruks. I’m glad to see you made friends.’ Gardus laid the flat of his sword over his shoulder. ‘I was worried they might take offence to you and send you back in pieces.’

  ‘You just have to know how to talk to them.’ Zephacleas motioned to Gardus’ hair. ‘Gone shock-headed, have we? Last time I saw you, it was black.’

  Gardus reached up and ran a hand through his hair. ‘The Athelwyrd,’ he said simply.

  Zephacleas’ smile faded. He knew what Gardus was referring to. They’d fo
ught side by side in the hidden vale, in defence of Alarielle, the Queen of the Radiant Woods, embodiment of Ghyran, the Realm of Life. And during that battle, Gardus had… died.

  ‘That’d do it, I suppose.’ Zephacleas peered at Gardus, as if searching his face for something. ‘Do you… remember any of it? After, I mean.’

  Gardus frowned. Bits and pieces of the last scattered moments rose to the surface of his mind – he smelled the foetid stench of the Great Unclean One as it scooped him up, rotting fingers tightening painfully about his battered form. He felt his bones crack and burst as the daemon sought to wring the life from him. And he felt again the pain as a bolt of searing lightning carried him from the killing grounds, and back to the celestine vaults of Sigmaron. There, formless and broken, he had been forged anew by the hand of the God-King himself, and made fit for duty once more.

  Hammer stroke after hammer stroke had shaped the shards of his soul. Each blow, a tempest, drawing forth memory and instinct from what remained. Who he had been was the fire used to fuel his rebirth. Was he even the same being who had undergone those tribulations that still haunted his dreams, or was he but the barest memory of that warrior, recast and given the same name? A memory of a memory, clothed in borrowed flesh.

  ‘Gardus?’ Zephacleas said softly, startling him from his reverie. He sounded concerned. There was a keen mind beneath that brutish exterior. Zephacleas played the fool, but he was more observant than many gave him credit for.

  Gardus shook his head. ‘Some. Pain. Thunder. And Sigmar’s voice, like a bell tolling on high, drawing me up from the depths.’ He hesitated. ‘It hurt worse than death. I was glad when it was done, and I would not go through it again for anything.’ He fell silent. He had died, in the Athelwyrd. And on the Anvil of Apotheosis, he had been Reforged. That was all there was to it. And no benefit to be had in dwelling on it.