When he looked up at Ghrum, however, all restraint left the halfling. More goblins were swarming over the ogre, stabbing at him with cruel knives and cutting him with barbed hooks, giggling like fiends all the while. Snarling like a cornered beast, Theodo flung himself at the spear-wielding goblin. The monster’s weapon stabbed into his side, but Theodo had the satisfaction of splitting its face with his dagger. Then he was crushed to the ground as a pair of wiry arms wrapped around his middle, squeezing the air from him. A fist cracked against his skull and red spots danced before his eyes. More hands closed around him, hoisting him upwards. The whispery, cackling voices of the goblins filled his ears, their laughter scraping against his nerves. Suddenly, they dumped him on the ground and pinned him in place.
The one-eyed goblin with the stone axe shuffled into view, grinning down at Theodo. He screamed as the goblin raised its axe over its head, and then brought the weapon smashing down. Instead of crushing his skull, it smashed against the ground inches away. The goblins laughed again and the axe was raised once more.
A great growl drowned out the cackles and titters of the goblins like a peal of thunder. The ground trembled as a huge shape rose, spilling goblins to the earth. Others clung to charred garments as the figure picked itself from the ground. Ghrum’s massive hands pulled the clinging goblins free, crushing the squealing horrors into a paste in his massive fists.
The amusement the goblins had found in tormenting a lone halfling and a comatose ogre vanished with that first bellowing roar. Goblins scattered like rats fleeing a sinking ship, disappearing with a speed that seemed almost sorcerous. The goblins holding Theodo hesitated for a moment, but one look at the grisly residue that Ghrum wiped from his hands was enough to hasten their flight. The one-eyed greenskin was last to turn and run, crashing into a boulder in its hurry. Ghrum brought his foot stomping down on the fallen goblin, grinding it into the earth.
Theodo clutched at the dripping wound in his side, trying to ignore the pain. He looked up at Ghrum and smiled. “Feeling better?” he quipped. Ghrum seemed to consider the question a long time, but at last he gave his friend a nebulous nod.
Theodo turned his attention to the battle with the orcs. He was surprised to find most of them at the far end of the plateau, at least until he saw the flickers of flame shooting through their ranks. The hydra hadn’t been killed by Skanir’s trap after all. He hoped it wasn’t treacherous of him to wish it well against the greenskins.
Kessler and a handful of survivors were trying to fight their way clear of a few orcs that stubbornly insisted on pursuing the battle. Now the men outnumbered the orcs, but the contest still looked very much in doubt. Theodo looked up at Ghrum, and then pointed at the orcs menacing the men. Ghrum gave him another nod. With only a few steps, the ogre was upon the orcs, his enormous hands closing around the necks of two greenskins. Before the monsters could begin to struggle, Ghrum smashed their skulls together and threw the bodies over the edge of the plateau.
The ogre’s timely intervention was just what the men need to tip the balance. The handful of orcs still fighting against them were not enough to combat both groups of adversaries. They were quickly overwhelmed, dying gamely beneath the men’s steel and Ghrum’s crushing fists.
Even so, the cost of battle had been hideous. Of the expedition, only Kessler, Ottmar and Skanir remained. Valdner still had Raban and Anselm, already starting to recover from the blow that Eugen had inflicted upon him. Each of the men looked across the plateau to where the orcs swarmed around the fire-spewing hydra.
“Whoever wins that fight,” Valdner said, “we’re in no shape to oppose them.”
Kessler looked at the doorway and the rubble still blocking it. “We’ll head down there,” he decided.
“Do you still think we can get the runefang for Count Eberfeld?” asked Ottmar. Kessler shook his head and smiled.
“No, but at least if we get to the tomb we can die rich.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
With Ghrum’s powerful assistance, the entrance to the war-crypt was cleared. The battered survivors gave one last look at the fight still raging across the plateau. The charred carcasses of orcs were littered everywhere, yet still the greenskins stubbornly attacked the hissing, shrieking hydra. As Valdner said, it was a contest none of them should stick around to see the finish of. Torches were hastily crafted from garments and weapons stripped from the dead. Skanir’s tinder box soon provided them with flame.
Holding their torches before them like talismans to ward away the sinister, cloying darkness of the crypt, the men descended into the ancient tunnel that stabbed into the depths of the mountain.
The tunnel had been hewn from the living stone of the mountain, vaulted in the ponderous, heavy manner of dwarf construction. The large scale of the hallway allowed the men to easily navigate the wide, arched passage, but the ceiling was too low for Ghrum, forcing the ogre into an awkward, uncomfortable crouch. His great bulk almost completely filled the corridor, forcing the others to range ahead of him.
“At least we can close the door behind us,” observed Valdner. It was true, whether orc or hydra, any foe descending into the tomb would have to get past the living barrier of Ghrum’s body to reach the rest.
“Keep your eyes open,” snapped Skanir, directing an intense gaze at each of the others. “The goblins will have saved the deadliest traps for the crypt. The stuff down in the canyon and on the plateau will look like child’s toys compared to what we’re apt to find down here. Look at everything, and then look at it again. Ask me before you even take a breath and we might, might live to reach the tomb.” Skanir pointed at Theodo with the peen of his warhammer. “Stay with the ogre. Keep him back a good twenty yards from the rest of us. I’ll mark any triggers we find. Do your best to get him around them. Warn us if you can’t.” Theodo nodded weakly, still clutching at his injured side. The halfling hobbled back to join Ghrum while the rest of the company followed Skanir’s lead.
The clammy darkness of the tunnel oozed around them like a living thing, tendrils of shadow reaching out to smother their torches. The walls, like those of the canyon, had been richly engraved, bas-relief figures standing guard every few feet. These, too, had suffered the malicious amusement of the goblins, defaced by knife and cudgel, filth scrawled across them in chalk, blood and even fouler pigments. To the sinister aura of death and the hoary weight of time was added the poignant melancholy of things lost and defiled.
It did not take long for Skanir to order the little column to a halt. The dwarf dropped on hands and knees, inspecting something that was all but invisible in the gloom. He followed his line of inquiry to the wall, peering intently at the defaced lines of runes. A smile twitched at the dwarf’s stern visage. He lowered his torch, allowing the light to play off the object that his sharp gaze had picked out in the dark. It was a line, a stretch of wire pulled tight across the corridor.
Skanir held up his hand, motioning for the others to keep back. He set his hammer down on the floor beside him. Removing his pipe and a lace from his boot, the dwarf hurriedly made a crude grapple. Leaning back, he tossed the pipe at the tripwire. The momentum of the tethered missile caused it to wrap the lace around the stretched wire. Skanir gritted his teeth and pulled back on the lace. The pressure tugged the wire out of line. Instantly, a bright flash of metal flickered in the darkness. With a howl, Skanir leapt forwards, smashing his foot down on something that started to rise from the floor.
Kessler came forwards. As he advanced, Skanir motioned for him to bring the warhammer he’d left behind. Returning the weapon to the dwarf, Kessler saw what Skanir had captured. It was a cruel, axe-like blade, ground down to an incredible thinness. It was fitted to an iron shaft, which drooped from a small crevice in the wall. It was in this hidden, finger-thin fissure that the deadly blade had been waiting, ready to spring when the tripwire was disturbed. Only the pressure of Skanir’s foot prevented the blade from snapping back into its hiding place. Skanir accepted the warhammer
with a grunt. Taking it in both hands, he brought the weapon smashing down into the axe head. The thin, ancient metal broke with a dull snap. Satisfied, Skanir removed his foot, allowing the iron shaft to whip back into the wall.
“Look at everything twice,” Skanir growled, glancing across the anxious faces of the men. A smile spread beneath his beard and he swung his warhammer up onto his shoulder. “Then get my opinion before you decide it’s safe.”
Kessler had lost track of how many times Skanir had called them to a halt. Each stop was an eternity of tension and horror, never knowing what new, ghastly trick the goblins had left behind to guard their warlord’s bones. Spears that shot out from floor and ceiling, poisonous darts fitted into the walls, sections of floor that collapsed into the sort of hideous pits they’d seen in the canyon, all paled beside some of the more inventive measures the fiends had taken. The corridor had blazed into diabolical life for several minutes, the result of an incendiary fungus that the goblins had cultivated along one stretch of the tunnel, a trick that had nearly claimed even the sharp-eyed Skanir. The dwarf had explained the workings of another, even more violent trap. He’d found a grotesque, charred thing splattered against one of the walls. It had taken some time to determine that it was something like the hydra they had fought, perhaps some youngling of the monstrous tribe. It had fallen prey to the goblin trap long ago, its flesh dried almost into leather against its crumbling bones.
The trap that had claimed it was hideous in its cunning. Skanir indicated a small hole in the wall, and then pointed out little pieces of stone littering the floor. The goblins would make a hole in the wall, a little niche where they would then burn certain dried fungi and moulds. While these noxious weeds were still smouldering, they would seal the niche with plaster and rock. The smoke from the fungi would be trapped within the niche, making the air tighter and closer with every instant. A tripwire would be fitted to the cap sealing the niche. When some unfortunate stumbled across it, the cap would be pulled loose and the trapped smoke would escape from its prison with thunderous, explosive force.
The explanation was more than simple instruction, it was to impress on the men the importance of avoiding such a trap. One misstep could kill them all. Kessler felt a chill when Skanir pointed down the tunnel with his torch. He could see two more of the capstones in the small section of the hall illuminated by the reach of the light. Gesturing for the men to wait, Skanir headed forward to mark the danger areas.
“Wishing you were back fighting the crow feeders?” Kessler turned at the question. Valdner stood beside him, a set expression on the mercenary’s face. The swordsman tried to look past that expression to see the thoughts brewing behind Valdner’s eyes.
“I am where I need to be,” Kessler said, putting as much firmness as he could muster into his voice.
Valdner shook his head and smiled. “If it’s the right crypt,” he objected. He looked aside at the mummified reptile. “It would be a shame to wind up like that for nothing.”
Kessler felt the hairs bristle on his neck. His doubt was crushed beneath the sudden irritation he felt. “This is the right tomb,” he said with greater conviction.
Valdner looked away, watching Skanir picking his way through the tunnel ahead. “There isn’t any gold, is there?”
The question took Kessler by storm. He’d expected it for sometime after leaving Fritzstadt, had lain awake at night dreading it. To hear it now, to hear it in the heart of the Black Mountains, swallowed within the murk of an ancient tomb, stunned him. He’d tried to prepare something, some lie that he could tell the mercenaries, some appeal to their humanity. Whatever he’d thought he would say was lost to him now, silenced by the unreality of hearing the question. They had all risked so much and travelled so far. They had all lost so much.
Valdner nodded in response to Kessler’s silence, sadness pulling at his face. “I suspected as much in Fritzstadt,” he said. “I’ll have to talk to my men about this, what’s left of them.”
Kessler caught at the mercenary’s arm. “There is still the treasure in the crypt,” he hissed. There were few enough of them already; he couldn’t lose Valdner and his men.
“I don’t think so,” Valdner said. “Think about all the traps we’ve seen: all small, all easy to avoid if you know what you’re looking for. There were no rockfalls, and nothing to block the passage or prevent a careful person from getting past, even if the traps were triggered. Whatever treasure was down here, I’d bet my bottom groat the goblins who put it there came back and stole it as soon as there weren’t any orcs watching them.” He nodded at the hydra splattered against the wall. “That thing got in here somehow, probably the same way the goblins got back out. Dwarfs build to last, but goblins are fair diggers too.”
The observation was like a stab in the chest to Kessler. The fleeting hope he’d nursed, the desperate need to believe this was the right place, the reckless conviction that somehow Carlinda had guided him here, all of it drained out of him. Even if everything he believed was right, there was still no hope. If the runefang had ever been here, if this was indeed the tomb of Gordreg Throatripper, then it had been stolen already, carried off by goblin looters, gods alone knew how long ago.
“It’s hopeless then,” Kessler groaned. “Even if it was ever here, it’s not here now.” He looked up and stared hard into Valdner’s eyes. “If you knew there was nothing down here, why did you follow us into the crypt?”
Valdner smiled and laughed. “You might have forgotten our playmates on the plateau, but I haven’t. Whoever wins that fracas is going to be looking for blood. Down here, with solid stone to watch the flanks, I think we have a good chance to take more than we give. Besides, using a tomb to make a last stand appeals to the poetry in my soul.”
The remark brought a chuckle from Kessler. He shook his head again. He found it hard to read Valdner, the man was as much a mystery to him now as when he had encountered him in Fritzstadt. He didn’t like mysteries. As Baron von Rabwald’s champion, he’d never had much reason to puzzle over a man’s motivations. Who he had to kill and why were always clearly defined for him before he unsheathed his sword. The mercenary captain, however, refused to fit neatly into any category that Kessler tried to class him in.
“I’ll go talk with my men,” Valdner repeated, jabbing a thumb over his shoulder to where Anselm and Raban were holding a conversation with Ottmar. “Don’t worry, we’ll stick with you. It’s not like we’re going to get a better offer.” The statement started as a joke, but before he finished speaking, a hardness came into his eyes. He lowered his voice. “Keep your eyes open. You might have tapped the wrong man with Eugen.”
Kessler was still contemplating the warning as Valdner stalked back to speak with his men.
Uhrghul howled his fury to the stars, hurling the heavy orc cleaver at the retreating monster. The huge mass of butchering steel struck the hydra’s flank, sinking into its armoured flesh. The creature’s heads, those still imbued with some semblance of life, reared back in a wail of pain. Uhrghul took no satisfaction from the reptile’s injury. Of concern to him was the fact that the blow had failed to stop it. Snarling, he stooped to another of his dead warriors, ripping an axe free from a charred hand.
The hydra leapt at the wall of the cliff, sinking the claws of its three good legs into the stone. Bleeding from dozens of wounds, gore bubbling from the severed stumps of heads and tail, one leg dangling broken and mangled, the hydra had lost any taste for the fight. It scrambled across the rock, displaying the strength if not the speed and agility of its earlier descent. Its intent was the same crevice from which it had lurked above the doorway.
The orc warlord saw the black mouth of the cave. Roaring, he threw the big axe at the fleeing monster. The cumbersome missile glanced off the rocks. The hydra scrambled to the opening, twisting its mangled bulk into the cave. A last glimpse of its bleeding tail, and then it was gone. A halberd crashed against the stones an instant later, bouncing away and clattering to the flo
or of the plateau.
Uhrghul spun around, frustration and bloodlust burning in his narrowed eyes. The warlord’s armour was dented and battered from the fight, the flesh of his right side burned a still darker hue by the hydra’s fiery breath. Blood dripped from his left hand, where one of the hydra’s beaks had shorn away a pair of fingers. One tusk, chipped by the hydra’s flailing necks, hung broken from the corner of his mouth. Already a gruesome sight to his warriors, Uhrghul’s hideous wounds only increased their fearful respect. They backed away as he prowled towards them. Uhrghul ignored them all, except for the fur-hatted orc who had thrown the halberd.
“What you do?” Uhrghul demanded of the warrior. He waved his hand at the cave above the crypt. “The lizard gone.”
The harsh tones had only just rumbled free from Uhrghul’s massive chest when the warlord’s massive hands were closed around the nervous warrior’s head. The orc beat savagely at Uhrghul with its fists, but the warlord maintained the murderous pressure on the warrior’s skull. There was a sickening pop and the fists flailing at him fell limp. Uhrghul ran his tongue across the blood that splashed into his face, increasing the pressure, not stopping until his palms clapped together in the gory mush.
The warlord turned away from the flopping body of his dead minion. The rest of his mob, what remained of them, watched him with cringing, fearful eyes. Uhrghul snorted derisively. Fear didn’t matter to him, so long as they respected him. A warlord without respect wasn’t a warlord for long. The casual slaughter of their fellow would remind the other orcs that he was in charge, and why.
Uhrghul took stock of the situation. He’d lost a lot of good warriors fighting against the fire-spitting lizard. That didn’t bother him; a good scrap was worth losing some lives. What angered him was that the lizard had escaped. There was no trophy to add to his totem, no hide to tan into armour and shield, no meat to add to the pot.
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