[Warhammer] - Oathbreaker

by Nick Kyme - (ebook by Undead)

  “And there,” added the longbeard, “King Snaggi Ironhandson, son of Thorgil, who was sired by Hraddi, atop his oathstone at the Bryndal Vale after the sixth siege of Tor Alessi.” The noble figure of the dwarf king stood upon a stout, flat rock with the rune of his clan carved onto it, his warriors with shields locked around him as they faced off against a host of elves with levelled spears. “Great was Snaggi’s sacrifice that day,” said Halgar, his expression faraway as he became lost in remembrance and the expedition moved onward.

  At last the dwarfs negotiated the stairway, taking care to avoid numerous pitfalls that bled away into the dark nothing of the underdeep far below.

  From there they passed through a great, wooden door that only yielded when Lokki, Uthor, Gromrund and Hakem heaved on the mighty iron ring bolted to it, and into a feast hall — its hearth cold and long extinguished. A guild hall followed, of the Ironfinger miners, if the runic rubrics lining the walls were any proof, and then a long, vaulted gallery, until the dwarfs were before another great gate.

  Standing almost fifty feet tall, it was decorated with a final mosaic— rendered in copper, bronze and gold — surrounded by a gilded, jewel-encrusted arch. There were voids in the arch where some of the gemstones had been prized loose and stolen. Such defilement brought about ambivalent feelings of sorrow and rage in the on-looking dwarfs.

  “Ulfgan…” Halgar struck a sombre note, barely a choked murmur, as if his voice held the burden of ages, “…the last king of Karak Varn.”

  The mosaic was cracked, some of the gemstones set in it missing, each empty socket like a wound in stone.

  “It is the King’s Chamber,” he breathed.

  “It is no use,” stated Gromrund. “The gate is barred, and no locksmith can grant us entry. We have no choice but to turn back.”

  The dwarfs had been outside the gate to the King’s Chamber for almost an hour. A thick, steel bar lay across it on both sides that would only be opened by means of a great iron key — that which was carried only by the hold’s gatekeeper and chief of the hammerer guards, or by the king himself. Since the dwarfs had neither, their quest to retrieve the Karak Varn Book of Grudges had stalled.

  Rorek worked slowly and painstakingly at the lock hole, ignoring Gromrund’s nay saying and derogation.

  Uthor, stood patiently by the engineer’s side, would not be baited into another argument.

  “I am in agreement with Gromrund,” said Hakem, deliberately keeping his distance from Drimbold, who was lurking at the edge of the gallery in the shadows, doubtless looking for more trinkets to further burden his weighty pack. “There is no more we can do here.”

  The hammerer looked around the throng for further supporters but found none.

  Halgar’s eyes were far away as he regarded the King’s Gate. Lokki seemed intent on thoughts of his own as he watched intermittently between the engineer cycling through his many tools and the darkness that lay behind them. Uthor was predictably tight lipped, and maintained a certain grip on his axe haft.

  Again, it seems the ufdi is the only one willing to side with me, thought Gromrund, with some annoyance.

  “Hakem may be right,” Lokki said at last.

  Hakem! Hakem the ufdi! You mean Gromrund Tallhelm, son of Kromrund, who fought at the steppes of Karak Dron is right, thought the hammerer with growing ire.

  “Though it galls me, there is no way past the King’s Gate without the key and I will not take up arms against it.”

  Uthor bristled, looking like he was about to protest, when he was interrupted by the voice of Drimbold.

  “I’ve found something,” said the Grey dwarf, stepping out of the shadows, “What’s this?” He pointed out a concealed rune marking set in the stone and glowing dully in the gloom.

  Halgar snapped out of his thoughts and stalked over to investigate, grumbling beneath his breath.

  “Stand aside, wanaz!” he bawled at Drimbold, scowling. The Grey dwarf ducked quickly out of the furious longbeard’s path, allowing Halgar to get up close to the rune, which was set just above head height into the rock itself.

  “Dringorak,” Halgar said, tracing the rune with his finger, rather than reading it. “Cunning Road. It is a rhun of disguise.”

  “I thought only rhunki could detect such things,” said Gromrund, eyeing the Grey dwarf suspiciously.

  “Aye,” Halgar replied, “but this one has lost much of its potency. Doubtless from the grobi filth and rat-vermin infesting these once great halls,” he snarled, hawking a gobbet of thick phlegm onto the ground. “Still, ’tis remarkable that you saw it.” Halgar glared at Drimbold.

  “Just luck,” said the Grey dwarf, diffidently.

  The longbeard turned his attention back to the rune and carefully felt the rock beneath, then drew a rune of passage in the dust and grit. He waited a moment and then used his gnarled fingers to find the edges of a door. Halgar opened it carefully.

  “A tunnel lies beyond,” he said.

  Lokki looked at Ralkan, but the lorekeeper was elsewhere.

  “Bring him with us,” he said to Hakem. “We enter the tunnel.”

  The tunnel was short and narrow, the dwarfs emerging quickly through a great, cold hearth and into the King’s Chamber.

  “A secret door,” remarked Uthor as he stepped out into a large room.

  It might once have been splendid, but decay had visited itself upon it without restraint. It was also painfully clear that the dwarfs were not the first to have walked this chamber since the fall of the karak. Dried grobi dung smeared the walls and the desolation of shattered statues, torn tapestries and even the defilement of a small shrine to Valaya lay all about.

  “Where are our enemies?” said Gromrund in low tones, gripping his great hammer.

  “The hold is vast, hammerer,” said Lokki. “If we are fortunate, they will not show themselves at all.”

  There were three other ways leading off from the room, besides the barred King’s Gate. All were open, their doors shattered or archways collapsed in on themselves. It was here that the current denizens of Karak Varn had gained entry and egress. It was a sorry sight. The king’s bed was painstakingly carved from stout wutroth and in a state of disrepair. His brooding-seat had been upended— one of the arms ripped off. But there was no sign of the book of grudges or indeed, a lectern or mantle that might once have held it.

  The dwarfs had gathered in the centre of the room, wary of the darkness that persisted beyond the three open doorways, enraged at the despoliation.

  Drimbold was the last of them and, as he joined the throng, began surreptitiously poking about the room, aghast at the finery on display. Rummaging around a rack of kingly robes, weighed down by dust, Drimbold heard a low “thunk”, followed by the scraping retort of a hidden mechanism, beneath the floor. The Grey dwarf lifted his hand from where he’d been supporting himself on the wall and noticed a small stone depressed into the stonework, behind the robes. It would have been easy to miss, and avoided altogether, had the dwarf’s palm not pressed upon it in such a way and with sufficient force.

  Six pairs of accusing dwarf eyes fixed upon Drimbold, but quickly turned towards the back of the room, where the king’s bed resided. The once-magnificent artefact swivelled to the side on a concealed stone dais. In its wake another door was revealed. It too slid to one side with the grinding protests of stone against stone. Beyond it lay a vault, the flickering luminescence of glowstones set into the walls striking great mounds of coins and gemstones casting shadowy penumbra.

  “Thindrongol,” said Lokki, stepping forward into the threshold of the room. It was one of the many secret vaults of the dwarfs used to hide treasure, ale or important artefacts from invading enemies. Given the fate that had befallen Karak Varn it seemed a prudent measure to take. The rest of the throng quickly gathered by Lokki’s side and gaped in wonder.

  Uthor had lit a torch and, stepping inside, used it to better light the room. Flickering half-light revealed something else, hidden at first
in the wan illumination.

  There at the back of the long vault was a gilded throne, and sat upon it a dwarf skeleton. Strands of thick, dust-clogged spider web wreathed it, cloaking the entire room. The gruesome thing wore kingly robes, now moth-eaten and age-worn. On its head rested a crown, its lustre only slightly dulled by time, a few ragged hairs poking beneath from the bleached yellow skull. A few errant tufts of beard remained too, and in the skeleton’s bony grasp, fingers still clad in tarnished rings, there was a rune axe — unblunted and its glory undimmed.

  “King Ulfgan,” uttered Halgar, standing beside Uthor, and bowed his head.

  They all did, even Drimbold, and observed a sombre moment of respectful silence. Ralkan bowed deeply, going down on one knee and weeping.

  Lokki gripped the lorekeeper’s shoulder and looked back up. “May he walk with the ancestors, his tankard ever full, his seat at Grungni’s table,” he said solemnly.

  “For his wisdom is great and his craft everlasting,” Uthor, Gromrund, Hakem and Rorek replied in unison.

  Halgar nodded his approval.

  Off to the king’s right hand, several feet away, there stood an unadorned iron lectern. In its cradle sat a thick book, its parchment pages old and worn, the leather of its binding cracked.

  “We have found the dammaz kron,” Lokki intoned softly.

  The dwarfs had brought several more torches into the hidden vault, lit from Uthor’s, and set them in wall sconces to augment the light of the glowstones. The illumination had revealed a counting table in one corner, a large pair of iron scales upon it. Oddly, though there wasn’t much gold or many precious jewels in the treasure vault; it felt bare as if some of it was missing. Hakem had reasoned that it could not have been stolen by grobi or skaven — why would they have resealed the room?

  It was easy to imagine a lorekeeper scribing dutifully at the lectern as his lord dictated a raft of wrongs perpetrated against their hold and clans, but it was now Uthor who stood before it. As Redmane’s descendant, it was deemed he should be the one to read from the kron. With tentative fingers, the other dwarfs standing patiently before him as if he were about to deliver some sermon or lecture, Uthor turned to the first page. The Khazalid script was scribed in dark, brownish blood — the blood of Ulfgan — as were all books of grudges. By the blood of kings were the oaths within them sworn, and the misdeeds of others recorded for all time. Reading quickly to himself, Uthor skipped ahead — with due reverence — until he reached the final few pages.

  “Let it be known that on this day, Ogrik Craghand and Ergon Granitefist of the miner’s guild were slain as a pall of poison gas did infest the southern mines. The foul cloud did then boil up the southern shaft and kill many more dawi. Their names will be remembered,” he read, skipping ahead further.

  “Our lord Kadrin Redmane has not returned. Incensed at a spate of urk attacks on the road, he was to lead a shipment of gromril to High King Skorri Morgrimson personally. No word has reached the karak of his fate, or that of his expedition. As if to compound this dark turn of events, a horde of grobi did attack the first deep and slay many dawi. Skaven gather in the lower deeps and we cannot contain them,” Uthor continued, looking up briefly to regard the grim faces of his kinsdwarfs.

  “It goes on,” he said, reaching the final entries. “The third deep falls, grobi and skaven attack in vast numbers and we cannot hold them. There are few of us left. Thane Skardrin makes his last stand at the Hall of Redmane… He will be remembered. A beast is awoke in the underdeep. Rhunki Ranakson, apprentice to Lord Kadrin, does venture into the fifth deep in search of it but does not return. We cannot prevail against it. It is our doom.”

  “That is the end of it,” Uthor breathed, slowly closing the book of grudges.

  Silence descended, charged with anger and sorrow, each dwarf lost in his own thoughts at the account of the last days.

  A raucous clattering broke the moment abruptly. The throng turned as one to see Drimbold, the rune axe of Ulfgan in his grubby hands, a pile of spilled coins and gemstones sprayed at his feet.

  “Must you touch everything?” Gromrund raged, incensed at the Grey dwarf’s curiosity.

  “This is a weapon of kings,” said Drimbold in response, without hint of trickery or subterfuge this time. “This axe is your birthright,” he added, turning to Uthor. “It should not fester in this tomb, for the grobi to defile and plunder.” He pulled the axe carefully from the dead king’s skeletal grasp and held it out for Uthor to take.

  The scowls of the dwarfs lessened, though Halgar muttered something about “desecration” and the “slayer oath”.

  Uthor approached Drimbold, the others parting to let him through. His gaze never left the mighty weapon, the runes on the blade still glowed dully; magical marks of cutting and cleaving inscribed long ago. The long haft was wrought in knots of gold and studded with emeralds. A talisman, engraved with the rune of Ulfgan’s clan and bearing the face of one of his ancestors, was bound beneath the blade by a thick strap of leather. The axe was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

  “It is wondrous,” he breathed, reaching out, almost fearful to touch it. As his hands grasped the tightly bound leather grip and he felt the weight of it for the first time, the head of Ulfgan slumped to one side. The dwarfs turned to witness the old king’s shoulders slump and cave. The spine split, ribs cracked and the entire skeleton fell in on itself, crumbling into a mass of bone.

  “And so passes Ulfgan,” said Halgar, “last king of Karak Varn.”

  A sudden scratching sound filled the air.

  “What is tha—” Hakem began.

  Halgar hissed for silence, closing his eyes to better hear the noise.

  The scratching was getting steadily louder and the sound of squeaking accompanied it; a shrill and discordant chorus of hundreds of voices converging on the dwarfs.

  “We are discovered,” said Halgar, unslinging his axe and shield. “The skaven come!”

  The other dwarfs quickly followed suit, steel scraping leather.

  “Into the King’s Chamber,” bellowed Lokki. “We must not be trapped in here!”

  The throng piled back into the King’s Chamber, Ralkan taking up the dammaz kron after strapping the book of remembering to his back by means of his many belts. Rorek was the last out of the vault, shutting the door once the others were clear, the king’s bed swivelling back into place to leave the room looking just as it had when they’d first entered.

  The dwarfs closed together, shields locked and faced in three directions, towards each of the open doorways.

  “Make ready,” Lokki shouted above the now deafening screech of the skaven.

  Countless pairs of tiny red eyes glinted menacingly in the dark void beyond all three of the doorways and the skaven surged into the room like a pestilential tide of fur and fangs.

  “Grimnir!” Lokki cried, invoking the name of the warrior god as skaven steel clashed with dwarf iron.

  The first wave of skaven crashed against the sturdy shield wall and was thrown back, broken. Lokki, Halgar, Uthor and Hakem all dug in their heels, bracing themselves against the swell. Skaven bodies were everywhere, their foul sewer stench assailing the dwarfs’ nostrils.

  The shield-bearing dwarfs were formed in a locked triangle formation, with Lokki at its apex. Uthor guarded his left; Halgar his right. Hakem stood next to Halgar, while Gromrund, whose great hammer precluded the use of a shield, protected their backs.

  Behind the shield wall was Rorek, his crossbow unhitched. Drimbold was next to him, his duty to protect the lorekeeper at his side.

  Shrieking war cries and curses, the skaven — foul parodies of giant rats walking on two legs — regrouped and charged again, stabbing with spears and cruel daggers.

  Lokki bore the brunt and felt a great dent punched into his shield. His brother dwarfs steadied him, their interlocked shields a nigh on impenetrable wall of metal.

  “Heave!” cried Halgar.

  Boots scraped against stone, a
nd the dwarfs pushed back together. The skaven were repulsed and the dwarfs broke formation for but a moment to swing axes and hammers. A skaven fell dead for every blow. A flurry of crossbow bolts flew above their heads, even Rorek could not miss at this range and with the foe packed so tightly, and more of the rat-kin squealed.

  The King’s Chamber was filling rapidly with the rat-men, scurrying in a seemingly endless deluge from the open doorways.

  At the back of the dwarfs’ shield arc, Gromrund roared, splitting skulls with every stroke of his great hammer. Blood flecked onto his armour and the face plate of his warhelm but he gave it no heed. He swung left and right, corded muscles in his arms and neck bulging as he exerted himself.

  “We are surrounded!” he cried to the others, smashing a black-furred skaven in the snout with an eruption of blood and yellowed fangs.

  Lokki heard the hammerer’s warning and knew they could not hold out. His axe was slick with skaven blood, his armour and shield badly dented. “They are endless,” he breathed to Halgar, thumping a ratman to the ground with the flat of his blade before severing its neck with the edge of his shield.

  “They are doomed!” laughed the longbeard, grinning wildly as he hacked a skaven from groin to chest. His axe blade jarred in the ratman’s sternum and he had to step from the protection cordon of the shield wall as he used his boot to free it. A spear thrust flew in and took Halgar in the arm; the dwarf bellowed in rage.

  Hakem turned, smashing the spear haft in two with his rune hammer before he stove the rat’s head in. He closed tighter, until the longbeard regained his position.

  Halgar roared, redoubling his efforts.

  Uthor rent armour, flesh and bone as if it were nothing. Wherever the axe of Ulfgan fell a skaven died. A hulking brute of a ratman waded in towards him, brandishing a heavy looking halberd. Before the creature could swing, it was cut in twain down the middle, viscera spilling onto the ground in a sanguine soup.