The Hornteeth Mountains were in Ghur, but they might well have been in the Realm of Fire: a long chain of sharp-peaked volcanoes stretching sunward and nightward across the continent, dividing the prairies from the Darkdeep Ocean. The mountains were all black ash and young rock, cut through by chasms that often filled with torrents of lava. Precious little grew around the Ulmount. The skies were choked with clouds of dust that glowed orange when the mountains spoke to one another. Blue skies were a rarity; more so recently, for strange storms raged daily.
The Slaaneshi tribesmen had occupied the lands below the Hardgate for so long they had constructed their own town there. Ulgathern looked over the screaming masses to the fortress occupying the settlement’s middle. It was a hideous thing, the blocks hewn from the side of Ulmount itself and carved with repulsive images.
Around the fortress was a sea of tents. Darkness ruled down there, away from the ember-glows of the volcano, and the bright silk banners of the Chaos worshippers appeared muddy in the shadows.
Most of the horde must have marched out from their twisted township, for they were arrayed before the Hardgate in numberless multitude. A pair of gargants with striped blue skin battered at the gates. Endless ranks of warriors and tribesmen surged around them, roaring out praises to their unclean deity.
‘If they think they’re getting in here, they’re going to be disappointed,’ said Ulgavost. ‘Nobody’s coming to open the gates for them today.’
‘You sealed your breach?’
Ulgavost sniffed. His perpetually dour expression lifted a moment in a display of modesty. ‘Nothing to it, there were only a hundred or so of them.’
‘I don’t like the look of this. There are more of them all the time,’ said Ulgathern.
‘Think they’d just give up and leave us be? Chaos won’t be done here until we’re all dead. It’s just a matter of time,’ said Ulgavost.
‘Aye,’ said Ulgathern. ‘I fear that time is coming soon.’
‘Have you been talking to Drokki again?’ said Ulgavost. ‘That rhyme he’s always trotting out has the runefather dead before the hold falls, if I recall, and I don’t see our father laying down his life just yet.’
‘There are the storms, Ulgavost. How do you explain them?’
‘It’s just a rhyme, Ulgathern.’
They stopped talking as hissing streams of molten rock poured out of the statues lining the wall below the crenellations. The heat of it hit them like a blow, but they were unperturbed; fire ran in their blood.
The gargants were not impervious. The lava hit them both, crushing them with its weight and setting them ablaze. They bellowed in pain and died quickly. The smell of roasting meat wafted up over the battlement and the horde bowed back.
‘See? We’re not going anywhere,’ said Ulgavost. He looked to the sky, where storms had played for over a month. For the moment, they flickered with occasional lightning, but banks of black clouds were building to the sunset horizon. ‘Looks like it’s going to rain again. That usually has them leaving off for a while.’
Ulgathern watched the clouds gather. ‘I still don’t like this.’
Just then the sound of running feet echoed up the stair to the parapet. A puffing runner burst from the darkness. Ulgathern grinned in relief, certain the messenger was about to deliver news of their imminent victory, but the runner’s expression quickly wiped the smile from his face.
‘My lords, you must come swiftly,’ he said. ‘Runefather Karadrakk-Grimnir is dead.’
Upon the Isle of Arrak, deep under the Ulmount, two brother lodges stood. The duardin of Ulgaen-ar stood to the left of the island, while those of Ulgaen-zumar stood on the right, and each lodge was arranged around the end of the bridge leading to its respective delving.
The wrights and the warriors, matrons and maidens faced the Cages of Loss in respectful silence. Youngflames had their heads bowed, their youthful boisterousness doused by sorrow. The twin magma streams that made the rock an island ran dim and ruby. The very mountain mourned the passing of its mightiest son.
Over the Fyreslayers’ heads the Ulmount opened its throat. Five hundred feet high and more, the uneven sides of the central chimney had been crafted into a straight, octagonal shaft by the duardin. Four-foot high ur-gold runes spiralled up the walls, their magic stabilising the volcano and holding back its eruptions. At the top the stern faces of Grimnir looked down. In the centre of their leaning heads the shaft opened at the base of the caldera, and the sky could be seen. The storm had broken and thrashed the heavens, flashing lightning the like of which none had seen before. The thunder was so loud it was as if Grimnir waged war upon Vulcatrix once again. The rain that fell on the Ulmount’s cupped peak was gathered by cunning channels and sent deep into the hold. Smiths and artisans teased out its load of dissolved elements, before sending it on to water crops and the duardin themselves. The rain that fell into the vent could not be caught, and dropped down into the centre of the mountain. The water heated rapidly as it fell, and the duardin under the opening steamed.
Karadrakk-Grimnir lay in one of twenty funerary cages. These were wrought of fyresteel fixed to the brink of the cliff, and mounted upon axles. Two burly hearthguard stood at the wheels, ready to send their lord to his final rest. The runefather was swaddled tightly from head to foot in broad strips of troggoth leather, leaving only his face exposed and hiding the places where his body had been stripped of its ur-gold runes. His magnificent orange beard and crest had been washed free of blood, combed and laid carefully upon his wrappings. The deep gash in the side of his skull was covered over with a plate of gold that could not quite hide the lividity of his flesh. Gold coins stamped with the image of Grimnir-in-sorrow covered his eyes, while between Karadrakk-Grimnir’s broad teeth was clamped an ingot of fyresteel, carefully crafted to fit his mouth perfectly – the gold because he was the master of gold and ur-gold, the steel because he was a warrior.
Karadrakk-Grimnir did not sleep alone. Twelve other cages on the Ulgaen-ar side cradled their own sad burdens, each attended by pairs of auric hearthguard. Ulgaen-zumar’s funeral apparatus was set on the cliff opposite, the cages equal in number, though not so many were occupied. The fallen of Ulgaen-zumar lodge may have been fewer in number, but the blow to the hearts of all the Fyreslayers by the loss of Karadrakk-Grimnir was grievous.
A clank of gold pendants and the soft tread of many duardin feet came from the far side of the bridge arching over the lava to Ulgaen-ar’s deepings. A low, rumbling song struck up, audible between the bangs and booms of the storms above. Runemaster Tulkingafar came over the bridge. His staff was visible first, burning hot with the borrowed fires of Ulgaen-ar’s sacred forge. Then his crest, then his face, grim with the duty he must carry out, and painted white with the bone ashes of mourning. His hair was dark red, his upper lip shaved. Ten runesmiters walked in his train, eyes downcast as they sang, their skin coloured charcoal black.
The Ulgaen-ar lodge parted silently to let the zharrgrim priesthood through, and the procession came slowly to the centre of the Isle of Arrak, where it halted in the rain. From the other side, where the bridge to Ulgaen-zumar was situated, came a similar song, and another procession of the priests of the zharrgrim wended its sorrowful way forward, headed by Runemaster Marag-Or the Golden Eye.
Marag-Or, older, scarred, one eye replaced by a featureless orb of gold, came to a halt before Tulkingafar.
‘Runemaster,’ he said.
‘Runemaster,’ responded Tulkingafar. The hot water streaming down their faces made their mourning colours run.
They turned sharply, leading their processions out from under the volcano’s vent to their respective lodge’s cages. Tulkingafar had the graver duty today and so would begin. Marag-Or took his followers to the side of Runefather Briknir-Grimnir, Karadrakk’s brother.
Marag-Or looked sidelong at Briknir. The runefather’s expression was set har
d as a mountain’s, no indication of what he thought or felt, but that he mourned his brother was clear to one as wise as Marag-Or. Briknir-Grimnir’s beard showed fresh strands of grey within its fiery bunches, and his eyes were hollow as cave mouths.
Tulkingafar left his runesmiters and went to the side of his master’s last resting place. He rested his broad hands on the fyresteel a moment, and looked at the dead lord and his funeral goods.
‘Our runefather is slain!’ he said. His voice was loud, and carried well over the constant rumbling of the twin lava rivers and the crackling boom of the storm. ‘For three hundred years he led us. No longer!’ He stared over the heads of his congregation, speaking directly to the heart of the mountain. ‘He and twenty other good duardin were slain as they drove the enemy out of our hold.’ He dropped his gaze to meet the eyes of his fellows. ‘The runefather was not fond of long speeches.’ There was scattered laughter at this. ‘Who needs talk? He was brave! He refused defeat each time it was so generously offered to him by our besiegers. He was noble! He was the most generous of ring-givers.’ He paused. ‘And he was my friend.’
More than a few voices rumbled aye to that. Karadrakk-Grimnir had been well loved.
‘We will not be broken. Burukaz Ulgaen-ar!’ called Tulkingafar.
‘Ulgaen-ar burukaz!’ the others responded.
Tulkingafar nodded at the hearthguard manning the cage machinery. They turned the wheels reverently, the ratchets on the axle clacking one tooth at a time.
‘From fire we were born, to fire we return,’ Tulkingafar intoned. ‘Burn brightly in the furnaces of Grimnir, Karadrakk-Grimnir Ulgaen, and be forged anew. May the heat of your soul never cool, and its flames never dim.’
The cage reached a near-vertical position and the hearthguard ceased their turning. One pulled a lever. A gate opened at the foot of the cage, and Karadrakk-Grimnir slid from its confines and fell into the Ulgaen-ar magma river. A bright flash of fire marked his passage from one world to the next, lighting up the faces of the mourning lodge members, showing many tugging at their beards with sorrow.
The mountain rumbled. The cracking of stone sounded deep in the ground. Short-lived geysers in the rivers sent shadows leaping across the craggy stone, and teased starbursts from the veins of minerals in the rock. The cavern returned to its sombre ruby.
‘The Ulmount mourns the loss of a good master,’ said Tulkingafar. ‘Grimnir has taken him to his forge.’
A battlesmith went to the empty cradle. In a droning chant he began to recount the many deeds of Karadrakk’s long life as Marag-Or and Tulkingafar went down the row of occupied cages and immolated their dead.
However, one priest-smith present had his mind on other things. Drokki of the Withered Arm looked up the tall chimney of the Ulmount’s throat. The faces of Grimnir looked down at him reproachfully at this stinting of duty, but he was not interested in their disapproval. He stared at the lightning flashing across the sky, and he worried.
‘In a week’s time, the Ulgahold will have been under siege for one hundred and one years. We come here to discuss the wishes of Karadrakk-Grimnir Ulgaen, and who among you, the seven surviving sons of Karadrakk-Grimnir, will assume the heavy burden of responsibility for leadership of Lodge Ulgaen-ar.’
Tulkingafar gave the seven sons a steely look. They stared back with varying amounts of defiance, hope, sorrow and fear.
Get on with it, you pompous ass, thought Ulgathern. He bridled at Tulkingafar’s superior manner, his ponderous delivery. Ulgathern was eager to be done; he itched to avenge his father, and he needed to talk to Drokki. At first he had dismissed Drokki’s talk of the Great Omen, but since the storms he had come to half-believe him. And now this…
The auric regalia he had to wear was heavy, a wide poncho of gold plates sewn to thick leather, and a huge, ceremonial helm. Fyreslayers as a rule rarely wore much. Their holds were warmed by the blood of the earth, while their own Grimnir-given fires kept them heated in the most inhospitable of environments. To wear too many clothes or, Grimnir forfend, too much armour, was an affront to their shattered god. Ulgathern found the gear uncomfortable. The zharrgrim temple was nigh to the forge, where streams of lava were harvested for their metals and channelled into the fyresteel foundry. The grumbling of hot stone bottled up behind its sluices was as oppressive as the heat. But borne the heat must be, and he stood there sweltering and stiff with all the stoicism expected of a duardin.
Ulgathern did not like or trust Tulkingafar. He was too invested in politicking, always seeking to exert his temple’s pre-eminence in the hold over that of Magar-Or’s, and he was the worst of Drokki’s persecutors. Too often the intention of Tulkingafar’s actions appeared not to be to increase reverence of Grimnir, but to consolidate his own power. To have risen to so lofty a rank within the zharrgrim at such a young age spoke of a certain ruthlessness.
Behind Ulgathern were his six brothers, gathered before the great statue of Grimnir in their coats of gold. Behind them were the guildmasters of both lodges. The stout matrons and males of the Mining and Gleaning Fellowships, the Kin-gather Matrons, the battlesmiths and loremasters and brewmistresses and a dozen others. The leadership of each lodge occupied the chequered floor on either side of the temple’s central aisle in strict orders of hierarchy, in most respects mirror images of each other, save one.
Ulgathern’s uncle, Briknir-Grimnir Ulgaen, stood at the head of his lodge. The space Ulgathern’s father should have occupied was empty. By the time Tulkingafar stopped blowing hot air, it would be occupied again.
‘A number of you have been chosen for honour,’ said Tulkingafar. ‘Only one was deemed worthy by Karadrakk-Grimnir to assume leadership of Lodge Ulgaen-ar.’ The runemaster gestured. A chest was brought from an alcove to the side by his acolytes, and placed at his feet. The venerable battlesmith Loremaster Garrik came forth with an elaborate key, and fitted it to the lock.
‘The legacy chest of Karadrakk-Grimnir. Within is his truth,’ intoned Garrik.
The chest was opened. Tulkingafar’s acolytes took out plaques stamped with the names of those Karadrakk-Grimnir deemed worthy, and handed them to the runemaster. The number caused the brothers to shift. Four were to be chosen, a high number. They waited tensely for their fates.
Tulkingafar played it out as long as he could. The bastard, thought Ulgathern.
‘Ulgamaen, ninth son of Karadrakk-Grimnir. You are to be runefather of the lodge of Ulgaen-ar.’ He tossed the plaque at Ulgamaen’s feet. Ulgamaen looked serious as he retrieved it, but that was him through and through. Probably why Father chose him, thought Ulgathern. Anyone who could crack a smile of delight at landing that role isn’t up to the job.
‘Come forward, Ulgamaen-Grimnir Ulgaen!’ sang Tulkingafar. He took Karadrakk’s latchkey grandaxe from an attendant and presented it to the new runefather. ‘By your father’s command, you are to unlock the great vault of Ulgaen-ar, and take out three-sixteenths of the lodge ur-gold.’
‘Yes, runemaster,’ said Ulgamaen-Grimnir. ‘I shall instruct the hoardtalliers that it be done immediately.’
Mangulnar shot his brother Ulgamaen a poisonous look. He was furious – his beard bristled and face glowed red. The heat of his anger was palpable to Ulgathern.
‘Ranganak! Fourteenth son of Karadrakk.’ The runemaster tossed the second plaque at Ranganak’s feet. ‘You are to receive one of these sixteenths. The quiet halls of the Sunward Deeps are yours, Ranganak-Grimnir. You have leave to forge your latchkey, construct a vault of your own, and establish a new lodge there, for the protection and betterment of all within the Ulmount.’
‘Thank you, runemaster, thank you,’ said Ranganak-Grimnir with a hasty bow, and retrieved his own plaque. He looked at it lovingly.
‘To Tulgamar, twentieth son of Karadrakk, the same,’ said Tulkingafar, tossing the third plaque toward Karadrakk-Grimnir’s youngest son. Tulgamar caught it. ‘The lost
halls of the Far Delvings are yours, if you can take them from the beasts that dwell there, Tulgamar-Grimnir.’
Tulgamar nodded once, fingering his token of office thoughtfully. His gift was a hard one.
One portion remained. The four other sons of Karadrakk waited with bated breath. Mangulnar’s hands were clenched so tightly his knuckles were white.
Tulkingafar drew it out, surveying the eager runesons with a crafty look. Ulgathern thought he might explode. Or punch Tulkingafar in the face.
Tulkingafar’s round eyes swung to look upon him. ‘And lastly, Ulgathern, twelfth son of Karadrakk-Grimnir. One sixteenth of the lodge ur-gold.’
The plaque clunked onto the floor at Ulgathern’s feet. He could not keep the grin off his face as he retrieved it. The three disinherited runesons glowered, their dreams of wealth and honour gone.
‘For you, Ulgathern-Grimnir, a choice is given. You are to aid whichever of your brothers you choose, and request of them a right to settle.’
The old sod, thought Ulgathern. His father had often berated him for forging his own path and not thinking of the future. It looked like he had one final lesson for his son; co-operation, or exile.
‘You are charged with these responsibilities on one condition,’ Tulkingfar went on. ‘That you forsake the leaving of the hold, and work with your kin to strengthen it against incursion. Keep the Ulgahold free of the servants of Slaanesh, and you shall forever be honoured in the records of all the Ulgaen lodges.’
Ulgathern accepted claps upon the back from his newly elevated brothers and returned them. Of the three who had received nothing, Grankak and Ulgavost gave grudging respect, though their faces were sunk deep into their beards. Mangulnar held himself apart. He watched from the side for a moment before losing his temper completely.
‘Outrage! Perfidy! I am eldest! I am runefather by right!’ He moved toward Ulgamaen. The new runefather’s auric hearthguard stepped forwards, crossed magmapikes barring his path.
Fyreslayers Page 12
