“It means we cannot escape the way we came, either,” Thalgrim countered, engrossed with the engineer’s work. “This entire hold groans under the weight of the Black Water,” he added. “I can feel it through the rock; the subtle vibrations caused by its movement are unmistakable.”
“Then we had best not linger,” muttered Rorek, looking up at the age-old cracks in the vaulted ceiling above them.
Drimbold woke awash with sweat. A chill ran down his spine as the cries of Norri and Furgil, falling into the chasm as the rope bridge failed, echoed in his ears. Their faces were forever etched on his mind, contorted with sheer terror as they met their doom in the gorge, swallowed by fire. The Grey dwarf realised he was gripping his pack. The lustre of the treasure within had somehow dimmed. He released it quickly, as if stung. Some of the loot spilled out, clanking loudly against the stone plateau. The noise disturbed Halgar, who’d been rubbing his eyes. The longbeard scowled at Drimbold before returning to his dark thoughts.
The Grey dwarf cast his eyes around the forlorn throng, led now, it seemed, by Azgar.
Ralkan lay nearby him, twitching spasmodically, wracked by a fever dream about some unknown terror.
Hakem was awake, nursing the stump of his right hand, an ugly dark red stain emerging through the makeshift bandage. He was muttering. Drimbold heard the Honakinn Hammer mentioned several times. The merchant’s boastful bluster was but a fading memory now. He looked pale and drawn, and not just from the amount of blood he had lost.
“It’s time we made a move.” It was Azgar, at the top of the next descending stairway, his face an unreadable mask.
Without word, the dwarfs started to gather their belongings. When they finally left the plateau, only Drimbold’s treasure-laden pack remained.
“I grow weary of staring into the fathomless dark,” Hakem moaned, peering over the narrow ledge into a faintly rippling void below. It was the first time the dwarf had spoken since he’d lost his hammer and his hand.
The Endless Stair was above them now, its final plateau leading to a vast stone archway. From there, the dwarfs had found the narrow ledge. So narrow was it that Azgar’s throng walked slowly in single file. On one side there was a sheer rock face that seemed to go on for miles in both directions; on the other side yet another deep chasm presented itself.
“This is the Ore Way, the threshold of the once great mines of Karak Varn,” Ralkan said wistfully, walking a few places behind Azgar who led the group with what remained of his Grim Brotherhood.
“I see nothing but darkness,” Hakem muttered bitterly, “shifting below us like serpents.”
“It is not serpents,” Ralkan interjected, close to the merchant’s position in the file. “These are the flooded deeps.”
The shimmering in the darkness was water, so thick and murk-ridden it was like black ichor. Columns, leaning over and split in twain, languished in it, the stagnant dregs of the Black Water pooling where they broke the water’s surface. The reek of wet stone clung to the damp air like a shroud.
“Look there,” he added, voice echoing as he pointed far out into the gloom-drenched cavern.
Hakem followed the lorekeeper’s gesture to the wreckage of three lofty towers, wrought of wood and metal. Each tower had a massive pulley set at its apex, with the remnants of what once must have been a long chain. The links had been shattered long ago, but stout buckets clung tenaciously to one of the chain lengths. Hakem then realised the broken columns were supports for bridges that connected the towers to tracked lanes of stone that ran all the way across and down the empty gulf to the walkway they now traversed. One such lane still existed in part, its central support standing defiantly like an island in an ocean of tar.
“All dwarf holds began as mines,” Halgar remarked. “These are from the Golden Age of the Karaz Ankor.” He and Drimbold took careful steps as they bore the body of Dunrik along the shallow pathway. The longbeard felt the wall with one hand as he went, making certain he was close to it at all times. One slip and all three would likely join the rest of their kin claimed by the abyss.
“Rich were the veins of ril, gorl and gromril,” the longbeard said wistfully. “Such great days…” he added in a choked whisper.
Apparent that Halgar’s reminiscences were at an end, some of the other dwarfs began talking amongst themselves as a slightly improved mood started to settle over the throng.
The longbeard paid them no heed as he allowed the surface of the rock face to pass beneath his hand, taking solace in the roughness and solidity of it against his leather-like skin. Then he heard, or rather felt, something that he did not expect.
Halgar stopped dead in his tracks.
“Stop,” he bellowed, though some of the dwarfs in the file had already bunched up and were bumping into each other with the longbeards abrupt halt. Drimbold very nearly tripped and dropped Dunrik as he was pulled back.
“What is it?” Hakem called from behind Halgar.
“Be silent!” The longbeard said, admonishing him, before catching Drimbold’s gaze.
“Set him down,” Halgar bade him, and they did, reverently. The old dwarf then turned back towards the rock face, placing both hands against it and pressing his ear as close as he could. The stone felt damp and chill against his face. A faint “plinking” sound, dull and faraway, emanated through the rock.
“I hear nothing,” moaned Hakem.
“Save for the sound of your own voice, no doubt. Be still!” Halgar raged, “Tis a pity it was not your tongue taken by the abyss,” he snarled, plunging the merchant thane into mournful quietude before listening intently.
The sound came again, muted but distinctly metallic.
“A hammer,” he snapped at a dwarf behind him, one of the Stonebreaker clan.
The clan dwarf returned a bemused look as he brought out a small mattock.
“Quickly now!” Halgar snatched the weapon and with his attention back on the rock face started to tap back.
Gromrund knew he must be a strange sight, wearing only his helmet and little else besides. It had grown so hot in the foundry that he had removed his outer garments as well as his armour and stood in nothing but boots and breeches as he toiled away at a vambrace. Slowly beating out a gouge from a skaven dagger, Gromrund paused in his hammering to wring the sweat from his beard.
A dull “thunk” got his attention. At first he looked down to make sure he wasn’t still hammering, that the heat hadn’t addled his brain and he’d just thought he’d ceased.
The noise came again, insistent and repetitive. He was too far away from the ironclad door for it to be anything beyond it in the flooded chamber. Still, he couldn’t place it. Gromrund looked around and caught sight of Thalgrim sat by the arch, silently gripping his stomach.
“Lodefinder,” he called out to him.
Thalgrim looked over and the hammerer beckoned him.
The lodefinder was a little weary as he reached the sweating dwarf wearing nought but his boots, smalls and a massive warhelm.
“Listen,” said the hammerer urgently.
CHAPTER TEN
“It’s coming from the wall,” said the lodefinder, eyes brightening when he heard the sound. He rushed over, smoothing the wall with his hands to detect the subtle movements in the stone. “There,” he said again, pinpointing the exact position from which the noise was emanating.
By now, Rorek, the Sootbeards and a number of other dwarfs had noticed the sudden commotion and were heading onto the anvil platform.
It was a welcome diversion. The throng had been waiting several hours for Uthor’s decision on their next course of action. The thane was brooding when the flurry of movement began, drawing deep of his pipe and sitting in abject silence.
“Grundlid,” said Thalgrim, ear pressed against the wall. “There’s a message,” he added. “We are sons of Grungni. It is them! Our brothers live!”
More and more dwarfs were gathering on the anvil platform as word of Thalgrim’s discovery spread quickly.
“Where?” asked Uthor urgently, having fought his way through to the front of his throng.
Thalgrim looked back, nearly beside himself. “I will find out,” he said, tapping back with meticulous precision using Grundlid, or Hammer-Tongue, the secret language of miners and prospectors. A series of careful scrapes and taps, with varying duration and intensity could convey a message. Most amongst the dwarfs knew its rudiments but only the most vaunted lodefinders were privy to its intricacies.
“The mines,” said Thalgrim, catching snatches of Grundlid as he responded with a long scrape of stone and three heavy raps, followed by a long, lighter one.
“We must get to them,” said Uthor.
“They are below us,” Thalgrim offered, between taps.
“The lodefinder and I will follow the message and bring them to the foundry. The rest of the throng will await our return, here.”
Gromrund stepped forward, about to protest but a look from Uthor silenced him. The thane of Karak Kadrin wanted to atone for his mistake, even if only in part.
“The less of us that venture from the safety of the foundry the better, and the less likely it will be that the skaven and whatever lurks in the dark will be aware of us. If the others still live, we two will find them.”
“We three.”
Emelda emerged through the pressing masses, the dwarfs respectfully allowing her passage. “I’m coming with you.”
Now it was Uthor’s turn to bite his tongue. The royal clan daughter’s gimlet gaze told him all he needed to know of her reasons. Dunrik might be amongst them. She had to know.
“Maintain a watch on all ways in and out.” Uthor addressed his throng as he, Thalgrim and Emelda stood before the only exit to the foundry that wasn’t flooded on the other side. “When we return, Thalgrim will provide a simple signal in Grundlid.”
Uthor went to walk forward when Gromrund stopped him.
“Grungni go with you,” said the hammerer, back in his armour again when he gripped the thane’s shoulder.
“And you,” Uthor replied, unable to keep the surprise from his face.
The guards at the foundry door hauled away the locking bar and tugged on thick, iron chains attached to it. Screeching metal filled the air and a gaping black void of the unknown opened out before the three dwarfs, so dark and infinite it swallowed the light from the foundry whole.
“This way,” said Thalgrim, moving off quickly through a dilapidated corridor. “Very close, now,” he added.
Uthor wasn’t convinced that the lodefinder was talking to him or Emelda as the two of them ventured warily after Thalgrim. The path was treacherous, fraught with pit falls, sharp rocks and heavy debris. Dust motes fell eagerly from sloping ceilings with every step and Uthor dared not raise his voice above a whisper, lest the whole lot come crashing down on their heads.
“Slow down, zaki,” he hissed, struggling to keep pace. The thane cast a glance behind him and saw that Emelda was on his heels and showing no evidence of fatigue. When Uthor looked back, there was no sign of the lodefinder.
Grimnir’s tattooed-arse, he thought angrily, the wattock has probably fallen to his death and left us lost in this labyrinth. The thane increased his pace, stumbled and nearly slipped but got his footing at the last moment, in the hope of catching sight of Thalgrim. He took another step and realised there was nothing beneath his foot. Scrambling for purchase, Uthor’s hand gripped the wall but slipped on moisture slick stone. Flapping wildly, he was about to plunge headlong into a drop of sharp rocks when he felt his fall abruptly arrested.
Emelda, holding onto the thane’s belt, hauled Uthor back onto solid ground.
“I hope this is the right way,” she said as Uthor flushed with embarrassment at being saved by a woman. The thane of Karak Kadrin looked back at the wall and noticed thin rivulets of water trickling down them and seeping into the porous rock at their feet.
“So do I, milady,” he said, striving to regain his composure.
Their eyes met for but a moment, before Uthor looked away abashedly.
“Not far.” The lodefinder’s voice drifted on a shallow and foetid breeze to break the sudden silence.
Relief washed over Uthor, and not just because their guide was still alive. He emerged from the debris strewn corridor to find Thalgrim standing pensively before a triple forked archway. Each of the three roads were carved into the likeness of a dwarf face and led down still further — they had been steadily descending ever since leaving the foundry. The decline was shallow, but Uthor had felt it, even as he clambered over broken columns, stooped beneath fallen ceilings and crawled through shattered doorways.
“Which way?” Uthor asked, a little out of breath.
Thalgrim sniffed at the air, and felt the rock of each fork in turn.
“Down here,” he said, indicating the left passage. “I can taste the ore seams, feel them in the rock. The mines are this way.”
“You are certain this is the way?” Uthor asked, unconvinced by the lodefinder’s tone.
“Fairly,” he replied.
“And the other tunnels?”
Thalgrim looked Uthor in the eye. “Our enemies.”
The shallow ledge ended in a narrow archway, through which a much wider and flatter platform opened out. It was a lodecarrier’s waystation, one of several in Karak Varn, designed to service the many mines and act as barrack houses for the miners and lodewardens. Upturned ore carts and scattered tools littered the ground and smothered torches were cast aside like tinder. Whoever had been here had clearly left in a hurry.
“The Rockcutter Waystation,” said Ralkan as the dwarfs started filing into the room. “We are in the eastern halls of the karak.”
“We will wait here,” Halgar decided, at the head of the group with Azgar and his slayers — one of the Stonebreaker clan carried Dunrik’s body, along with Drimbold, now. The old longbeard eyed the darkness wearily. In one corner of the modest chamber a broad shaft had been carved into the rock. A wrought-iron lift cage nestled within, battered and bent, the iron rusted and split, with a length of piled chain languishing nearby. A second shaft lay on the opposite side, leading down.
Ralkan approached it carefully. The lorekeeper stuck his head into the shaft and looked up and down.
“The rhun-markers are clear,” he said. “It leads right down to the foundations of the hold.”
“And up?” Hakem remarked.
“Dibna’s Drop,” Ralkan answered, looking back at the mauled merchant thane. “The room we passed in the third deep is above.” Clearly, the long period of calm had improved the dwarf’s lucidity.
“And that?” growled Halgar, pointing.
A third exit lay ahead in the form of a broken down doorway. Even in the gloom, it was possible to make out an ascending tunnel leading off from it. Besides Dibna’s Drop, it was the only possible ingress to the waystation.
“I don’t know,” Ralkan confessed, memory fogging once more.
The longbeard grumbled beneath his breath. The last message in Grundlid had been close. Their kinsdwarfs were on the way to them. He only hoped they would get there before something else did.
“Someone approaches,” Halgar hissed, gesturing toward the broken doorway. Shallow footsteps could be heard from beyond the threshold to the room, growing louder and with each passing moment. The dwarfs gathered together, the dull chorus of axes and hammers scraping free of their sheaths and cinctures filled the air.
“What if it is not dawi?” Hakem asked, shield lashed to his wounded arm, an axe held unfamiliarly in his remaining hand.
Halgar glanced at Azgar, glowering menacingly at the doorway in the gloom, before he replied.
“Then we cut them down.”
When Thalgrim and Uthor emerged from the tunnel they were met by a host of axe blades and hammer heads.
“Hold, dawi!” said Uthor, showing his palms.
“Son of Algrim.” Halgar stepped forward, stowing his axe and clasping the thane of Kadrin’s
forearm in what was an old greeting ritual.
“Gnollengrom.” Uthor reciprocated the gesture, and nodded in respect at being so honoured.
“So you’re alive, after all,” the longbeard added, very nearly cracking a smile.
“As are you,” Uthor replied, throwing a dark glance towards Azgar as he noticed the slayer’s presence for the first time.
“Round rump of Valaya!” Halgar blurted out suddenly when he saw Emelda emerge from behind Thalgrim, who was currently being slapped on the back and hugged by the Stonebreakers.
“There is much to be told,” Uthor said, by way of explanation. More gasps of shock greeted the revelation from the assembled dwarfs.
“Please,” Emelda said, stepping forward, her eyes bright and hopeful as she scanned Azgar’s throng. “Where is Dunrik?”
Halgar’s face fell.
“Yes,” he said, with sorrow in his eyes, “there is much to be told.”
“So few of you,” said Uthor as he sat around one of the coal troughs in the foundry. The way back to the iron sanctuary had been slow and trod with great care, but had passed without further incident. The returning dwarfs were met with heart-felt joy. The buoyant mood was short-lived however, when it was realised just how many had rejoined them. That, together with the maiming of Hakem and Dunrik’s death, had conspired to create a grim, desolate atmosphere.
“We are fortunate to be alive at all,” said Halgar, breathing deeply as he savoured the aroma of the foundry, a chamber unsullied by skaven and redolent of ancient days. After that brief indulgence, the long-beard’s face turned grim. “The rat-kin were ready for us. They have been tracking us ever since we entered the hold…” Halgar looked deep into the coal fires, supping on his pipe. “Such cunning! I have never seen the like in skaven.”
“How did Dunrik die?” Uthor asked, after a few moments of silence.
[Warhammer] - Oathbreaker Page 18
