Chewing on a particularly tough piece of troll flesh, Drimbold noticed another fire, higher up, on a flat rock set apart from the closely pitched tents. He could see the slayer, Azgar, up there in the light of a flickering fire sitting with his Grim Brotherhood as they were known. They ate, drank and smoked in silence, their gazes seemingly lost in remembrance at whatever fell deed had meant they’d had to take up the slayer oath.
Bored of watching the slayers, Drimbold decided to observe the Everpeak nobles instead. They were close by, just north of his encampment and farthest from the gate. Typically aloof, they sat in their own company and spoke in low tones so that none could hear them. Both wore short cloaks, etched with gilded trim, and finely wrought armour. Even their cutlery looked like it was made from silver. He had yet to catch a second glimpse of the belt the beardling wore around his waist, but he was certain it was valuable. They even possessed their own tent, which had an ornate lantern hanging from the apex of its entrance. The Grey dwarf watched as the beardling retired for the night and his cousin dragged the rock he was sitting on over by the entrance flap, sat back down and lit up a pipe. Drimbold had seen it earlier, as they were setting up camp. It was made of ivory and banded with copper. The Grey dwarf was wondering what other objects of worth they might own when the conversation with the Zhufbar miners turned to gold again and his attention went back to Thalgrim.
Uthor sat alone outside one of the dwarfen tents in darkness, deliberately apart from the fires of his kinsdwarfs, and found some solace in it. He stared into the distance, absently polishing his shield. The night formed shapes before his eyes, the long shadows cast by the flickering light of faraway fires resolving themselves into a familiar vista in his mind’s eye…
The trading mission at Zhufbar had gone well and Uthor was full of boastful pride as he entered his clan’s halls at Karak Kadrin in search of his father to tell him the good news. His hauteur was abruptly quashed, however, when he saw the grave expression of Igrik, his father’s longest-serving retainer.
“My noble thane,” uttered Igrik. “I bear grim tidings.”
As the retainer spoke, Uthor realised that something fell indeed had transpired in his absence.
“This way,” Igrik bade him and the two headed down for his father’s chambers.
Uthor could not help notice the dark expressions of his kinsdwarfs as he passed them in the clan hall and by the time he reached the door to Lord Algrim’s rooms, the two warriors stood outside wearing grim faces, his heart was thumping so loudly in his chest he thought he might spit it from his mouth.
The doors opened slowly and there was Uthor’s father lying on his bed, a deathly pallor infecting his usually ruddy complexion.
Uthor went to him quickly, uncertainty gnawing at him at whatever fell deeds had transpired in his absence. Igrik stepped inside after him and closed the doors quietly.
“My lord, what has happened here?” Uthor asked, placing a hand upon his father’s brow that was damp with a feverish sweat.
Algrim did not answer. His eyes were closed and his breathing fitful.
Uthor whirled around to face Igrik. “Who did this?” he demanded, anger rising.
“He was poisoned by rat-kin,” Igrik explained dourly. “A small group of their black clad assassins entered through the Cragbound Gate and attacked your father and his warriors as they toured the lower clan holdings. We killed three of their number once the alarm was raised but not before they slew four of our warriors and got to your father. As Algrim’s oldest son, you are to act as lord-regent of the clan in his stead.”
Uthor was incensed, his gaze fixed to the floor as he tried to master his rage. His mind reeled at this trespass — there would be a reckoning! Then a thought occurred to him and he looked up.
“The Cragbound Gate,” he said, seeing the wound to Igrik’s face for the first time, partially hidden by his thick beard, “it is guarded at all times. How did the assassins get by the door warden?”
Igrik’s face darkened further. “I’m afraid there is more…”
Uthor’s reverie was broken by the hacking cough of Halgar. The longbeard also sat alone on a shallow ridge overlooking the camp, and despite hawking most of his guts up drew deeply of his pipe and rubbed his eyes with his knuckles. The venerable dwarf had insisted he take first watch, and who was there to argue with him.
Uthor’s thoughts returned to his past. He gritted his teeth as he recalled his hatred for the one that put his father on his deathbed. “Never forgive, never forget,” he muttered and went back to staring down the darkness.
From a high promontory, away from where dwarfish eyes might find them, Skartooth watched his enemies in the deep valley below, a malicious sneer crawling across his thin features. Greenskins needed no fires to see and so the warlord waited in the thickest shadows, weapon sheathed should an errant shaft of moonlight catch on his blade and give his position away. A small bodyguard of orcs and goblins was arrayed around him, including the troll, Ungul, and his chieftain, Fangrak.
“We could kill ’em in their sleep,” growled the orc chieftain, nursing the stump of his missing ear as he peered downward at the resting dwarfs.
“No, we wait,” said Skartooth.
“But they is ’elpless,” Fangrak replied.
“The timin’ ain’t right,” Skartooth countered, backing away from the ridge, not wanting to be discovered.
“You zoggin’ what?” Fangrak’s face screwed up into a scowl as he regarded his warlord.
“You urd and if you don’t want to lose that other ear you’ll shut your meat-ole,” he screeched.
“Hur, hur, meat-ole,” Ungul parodied, the troll’s hulking shoulders shrugging up and down as he laughed.
“We wait until the stunties get inside…” Skartooth added, striking Ungul hard on the nose with the flat of his small sword to stop him laughing. The troll rubbed the sore extremity but fell silent, glowering for a moment.
“We wait,” Skartooth began again, “and then we attack from secret tunnels only greenskins know about,” he added, his mouth splitting into a wicked grin.
“Oi!” squeaked the goblin warlord, remembering something.
Fangrak was already trudging away and turned to face Skartooth. “Oose clearin’ that rubble?”
“Gozrag’s doin’ it; must be almost finished,” Fangrak replied. Realisation dawned as he looked back down at the dwarfs encamped below.
“Aw zog…”
Thundin stepped before the great gates of Karak Varn, morning sun cresting the pinnacle of the mountain, and pulled a thick iron key attached to a chain around his neck from beneath his gromril armour. The iron-beard, and emissary to the High King himself, was standing at the head of the assembled dwarfs who had mustered in their clans, fully armoured and bearing weapons ready.
With the other dwarfs looking on, Thundin placed the key into a hitherto concealed depression in the stone surface of one of the gates and it glowed dully. The dwarf muttered his gratitude to Grungni and with a broad, gauntleted hand turned the rune-key three times counter-clockwise. Beyond the gate from inside the hold, there came a dull metallic “thunk” as the locking teeth barring the door were released. Thundin turned the key again, this time clockwise but only once, and the scraping, clanking retort of the chains gathering on their reels could be heard faintly. Thundin stepped back and the great gates began to open.
“We could have used one of those earlier,” griped Rorek, standing at Uthor’s side a few feet behind Thundin. The other dwarfs from the initial expedition into the hold were nearby. “My back still aches from the climb.”
“Or from when the war machine collapsed on top of you,” Uthor replied, smirking beneath his beard.
Rorek looked crestfallen as he remembered back to the collection of timber, screws and shredded rope that was Alfdreng. He was still trying to devise a way that he could break the news of its destruction to his engineer guildmasters back at the hold. They would not be pleased.
“I’m sorry my friend,” said Uthor, with a broad smile. “Tis a key from the High King, forged by his rhunki. Only his gatekeeper or a trusted emissary may bear one. Your efforts were just as effective though, engineer,” he added, “but far more entertaining.” He laughed, slapping Rorek heartily on the back.
The thane of Karak Kadrin was clearly in ebullient mood after his dark turn towards the end of the war council. Ever since the battle in the ravine, Uthor’s demeanour had been changeable. The engineer was baffled by it. With the loss of his war machine, shouldn’t he be the one in the doldrums? He had little time to ponder on it as with the way laid open, the dwarf throng started to muster inside. It was a sombre ceremony, punctuated by the din of clanking armour and scraping boots. A grim resolve welled up in the throng as they followed Thundin, a charged silence that was filled with determination and a desire for vengeance against the despoilers of Karak Varn.
“Urk!” shouted one of the Grim Brotherhood. The slayers were the first to enter the hold and, once through the great gate, barrelled past their comrades to set about a band of around thirty orcs labouring in the outer gateway hall. The greenskins looked dumbfounded as the slayers charged, midway through hauling rocks away to the sides of the chamber in crude-looking wooden carts and bearing picks and shovels.
An orc overseer, uncoiling a barbed whip, could only gurgle a warning as Dunrik’s throwing axe thudded into its neck. A second spinning blade struck the greenskin’s body as it clutched ineffectually at its violently haemorrhaging jugular vein.
A troll, whom the overseer had been goading to lift a large boulder out of their path when the dwarfs attacked, stared stupidity at its dead keeper then roared at the oncoming slayers. It tried to crush Azgar beneath a chunk of fallen masonry from the cave-in but he dodged the blow and weaved around behind the beast. Looking under the rock, the troll was dismayed to discover no sticky stain where the dwarf had been and was dimly wondering what had become of its next meal when Azgar leapt onto its back, wrapping his axe-chain around the creature’s neck. The troll flapped around, trying to dislodge the clinging slayer, crushing several orcs in its anguished throes. Azgar’s muscles bunched and thick veins bulged on his neck and forehead as he strained against the creature. Eventually though, as the rest of the Grim Brotherhood butchered what was left of the orcs, the troll sank to its knees and a fat, purpling tongue lolled from its sagging mouth.
“You’re mine,” the slayer snarled between clenched teeth.
With a final, violent twist of the chain, the beast fell prostrate into the dirt and was still. Quickly on his feet, Azgar caught a flaming torch thrown to him by Dunrik and set the troll ablaze.
Several dwarfs muttered appreciatively at the display of incredible prowess. Even Halgar nodded his approval of the way Azgar had slain the beast.
By the end, it was a massacre. Dismembered orc corpses lay everywhere, splayed in their own pooling blood.
Dunrik approached the dead overseer and wrenched his axes free in turn, spitting on the carcass as he did it. He gave a last hateful look at the barbed whip half-uncoiled at the orc’s waist and turned to find Uthor in front of him.
“Well fought,” he said. The other dwarfs barely had time to draw their axes before it was over. Only Dunrik had shed orc blood with the slayers.
“It was a runk,” he replied bitterly, as if dissatisfied with the carnage and walked away to stand by his younger cousin.
Uthor’s gaze met that of Azgar but he said nothing.
One of the Zhufbar miners, a lodefinder by the name of Thalgrim, if Uthor’s memory served, broke the charged silence.
“Shoddy work,” he muttered, observing the crude braces the orcs had rammed in place to support the roof, though much of the rubble had been shifted and a gap made that was wide enough for the dwarf throng to traverse, “shoddy work indeed.” Thalgrim smoothed the walls, feeling for the subtle gradations in the rock face. “Ah yes,” he muttered again. “I see.”
A bemused glance passed between Uthor and Rorek before the miner turned.
“We should move swiftly, the walls are bearing much of the weight and in their dilapidated condition are unlikely to hold for long.”
“I agree,” said Rorek, appraising the braces himself. “Umgak.”
“That,” added Thalgrim, “and the rocks told me so.”
Rorek flashed a worried glance at Uthor, mouthing the word “Bozdok” and tapping his temple.
Mercy of Valaya, the dwarf thought to himself, as if one zaki wasn’t already enough.
Thratch was pleased. Before him stood his pumping engine, a ramshackle edifice wrought by the science and sorcery of Clan Skryre, that even in its latter stages of construction was easily worth the meagre price he had paid for it.
The vast device was located in one of the lowest deeps of the dwarf hold, where the worst of the flooding was, held together by a raft of crudely welded scaffolding and thick bolts. Three immense wheels, driven by giant rats and skaven slaves, provided energy to the four large pistons that worked the pump itself. Even now as the Clan Skryre warlocks urged the wheel runners to greater efforts with sparking blasts from their arcane staves, green lightning crackled between two coiled conductor-prongs that spiked from the top of the infernal machine like some twisted tuning fork.
As the warlord watched, standing upon a metal viewing platform, nervously eyeing the vast body of water below him and taking an involuntary step back, a streak of errant lightning wracked one of the wheels, immolating the slaves within and setting the wheel on fire. Clan Skryre acolytes wearing hooded goggles and bizarre, protruding muzzle-bags over their faces, scurried in and pumped a billowing cloud of gas over the fire. A few slaves from the adjacent wheel were caught in the dense yellow fug and fell, choking to their knees. Syrupy blood bubbled from their mouths as their lifeless bodies smashed around the impetus-driven spinning wheel, but the fire was quickly extinguished.
Thratch scowled, wrinkling his nose against the stink of singed fur.
“Ready-ready very soon,” a representative of Clan Skryre squeaked, cowering before the warlord. “Humble Flikrit will make fix-fix,” it blathered.
Thratch turned his venomous gaze on him and was about to mete out some form of humiliating punishment, when a shudder ran up the viewing platform. The skaven warlord thrashed about as he lost his balance and fell. The skaven’s eyes were wide as he landed just a few inches from the platform’s edge near what would have been a deep plunge into the water below had he fallen any further. Thratch squealed and hauled himself quickly to his feet, scampering backwards. He almost collided with a skaven warrior, whose bounding approach had very nearly pitched Thratch off the side of the platform. The ratman was lightly armoured and slight — one of Thratch’s scurries, a message-bearer.
“Speak. Quick-quick,” the warlord snarled, recovering his composure.
As the scurrier whispered into Thratch’s ear, the warlord’s scowl grew deeper. “You have done well, yes-yes,” said Thratch when the skaven was finished. The scurrier nodded vigorously and risked a nervous smile.
Thratch turned to the warlock still cowering behind him. “Strap him to the wheel, yes…”
The scurrier’s face fell and he turned to flee, but two burly stormvermin, Thratch’s personal guard when Kill-Klaw was not around, blocked his escape.
“And no more mistakes,” snarled the warlord, “or Thratch will have you fix-fix.”
“Dibna the Inscrutable,” Rorek said to the throng as they paused at the threshold to a mighty guild hall. Like much of the hold, it was illuminated by eternally blazing braziers. They were filled with a special fuel created in collaboration by the Engineers’ and Runesmiths’ Guilds that could last for centuries. Uthor had heard of such things spoken of only in whispers by the guilders of Karak Kadrin, and knew the precise ingredients of the fuel, as well as the rituals that took place to invoke its flame, were closely guarded secrets.
An immense stone statue stood before the dwarfs, venerating
one such guildmaster, though Dibna was an engineer of Karak Varn. It was erected, column-like in the centre of the vast chamber, carved to represent Dibna holding up the walls and roof with his back and arms, dour-faced as he bore the tremendous burden stoically.
“This has been added recently,” Thalgrim added, noting the hue and coarseness of the rock from which Dibna was wrought. He approached the statue cautiously, bidding the others to wait. Once he’d reached it, the miner carefully ran his hand across the stone, sniffing it and tasting a patch of dust and grit picked up by his thumb.
“Fifty years, no more,” he said, wandering off into the shadows.
“Where are you going, lodefinder?” Uthor, waiting at the head of the throng behind Rorek, hissed loudly as Thalgrim disappeared briefly behind the statue before reappearing through the gloom several minutes later in the glow of a brazier. He was standing at the back of the room, something else obviously having caught his eye.
“There’s a lift shaft here, too,” said the lodefinder. He was looking through a small portal made in the rock, delineated by gilt runic carvings that flashed in the brazier flame. “It goes deep.” His voice carried over to the dwarfs as it echoed.
“Perhaps we could use it to get to the Great Hall,” muttered Uthor.
Halgar stood next to him.
“With no way of knowing where it leads, I wouldn’t risk it lad,” the longbeard replied.
Uthor acceded to Halgar’s wisdom with a silent nod.
Rorek was surveying the roof. He eyed it suspiciously, noting the dark streaks running down the walls. “The statue shores up the chamber,” said the engineer, “Lord Redmane must have commissioned it as a temporary measure to prevent the Black Water flooding the upper deeps.” He turned to Uthor, several ranks of dwarf warriors standing patiently behind him. “We can pass through, but must tread with the utmost caution,” he warned them.
“This was here before even Ulfgan’s reign,” Halgar muttered, tracing his gnarled fingers across the mosaic reverently.
[Warhammer] - Oathbreaker Page 11
