Ulgathern-Grimnir dragged his grandaxe through the hole. The tunnel was fifteen feet wide, broad enough to wield his weapon effectively. Days before, Drokki had hammered fresh runes into his muscles. Once again the grandaxe was light and easy for him to brandish.
A foul wind blew from the bottom of the spiral. The stench was indescribable. Drokki gagged on it.
‘We’ll hold the way here,’ said Ulgathern-Grimnir. ‘You do what you must, Drokki.’
‘The stench is stronger that way, it must be the right direction,’ he said breathing through his mouth.
‘That will be where the skaven mothers are,’ said Marag-Or, seemingly unaffected by the stink. He frowned at the young runemaster. ‘Come now, Drokki, it’s only a bit of rat smell. Show some backbone, my boy.’
Drokki nodded so hard his beard flapped, holding his breath just the same. The runemasters’ escort of auric hearthguard and vulkite berzerkers fell in around them, led by Grokkenkir. They left Ulgathern to form up his warriors. The sound of tramping duardin feet echoed down the tunnel as the runefather led his war party further up the spiral.
A minute later the clash of arms rang out behind and above them.
‘For good or for ill, we come to our greatest test,’ said Marag-Or.
The corridor continued down and down, the battle noise growing fainter. The horrendous cacophony of squealings from the bottom became louder.
Drokki counted the revolutions of the spiral – five, ten, twenty. When he got to thirty-nine, it began to level out and ran straight. The stench had become so great it filled Drokki’s body from the toes of his boots to the tips of his crest. Marag-Or stumped on, unperturbed, but the vulkite berzerkers and hearthguard swore and coughed. The smell was as thick as smoke.
Copper pipes emerged from holes to run along the wall. Water dribbled from the joins. Steam hissed out through imperfect patching. There was a sharp, dry odour beneath the overwhelming rat stench. It was similar to the sensation ur-gold brought, but far less clean. Drokki’s spine tingled; he smelled warpstone, and it came from the water pattering onto the floor.
‘It’ll take forever to purify this mountain,’ said Drokki.
‘One thing at a time, lad,’ said Marag-Or. ‘We’ve got to take it first.’
The tunnel opened up. A vast lava chamber, empty of earthblood, loomed large. A ramp led up the side to catwalks criss-crossing the void. Strange machines and thick pipes were dotted around the place. Brass troughs full of blood gruel, overhung with filthy spouts closed by spinwheel valves, were placed at regular intervals around the chamber.
These were the feeding stations of the skaven mothers. There were dozens of them, crowded around the troughs, packed together for warmth. Long, hairless abominations, they lay on their sides, useless limbs clutching at the air in pain and madness. Their bellies heaved with unborn young and their multiple dugs were thick with unclean milk. The naked, blind bodies of infant skaven squirmed over each other all around them, fighting for nutriment. Death hung heavily over the mothers. The crushed corpses of luckless ratlings lay about the floor, many half devoured. The skaven mothers’ anaemic skin was streaked with dried blood and their own filth. From their gaping, razor-toothed maws came that endless, deafening squealing.
‘Grimnir’s holy fires,’ breathed Drokki. The stink was so thick he thought he would choke on it.
‘About there should do it,’ said Marag-Or, pointing to the centre of the room. ‘Auric hearthguard, remain by the entrance. Grokkenkir, clear us a way.’
‘Yes, runemaster,’ said the karl. He and a half dozen of his warriors moved forwards and set to work, slaying the skaven mothers and stamping their pink young underfoot. They were merciless in what they did. The skaven were the ancestral enemies of all duardin, Fyreslayer or otherwise.
The mothers screamed louder, and thrashed about, trying to bring their snapping mouths into reach of their assailants. They did little but crush their own children. Grokkenkir hacked the head from one sickly monstrosity, then another, until a path of bloated, pale corpses carpeted the way to the middle of the room.
‘Come on, we’ll follow. Perhaps you should lend a hand?’ said Marag-Or. Drokki hefted his axe in his good hand and nodded. He wanted very much for the squealing to stop.
Shouts came from behind them, and the runemasters turned back to see the hearthguard guarding the tunnel point to the rickety catwalks leading down from other tunnel mouths high overhead. There was movement up there, burly skaven beastmasters squeaking with rage at the duardin’s trespass.
Marag-Or ordered the rest of the warriors that accompanied the runemasters to block the bottom of the catwalk. Then he readied his own axe.
‘They’ll hold them off, young one. This won’t take long.’
Drokki buried his axe in the head of a skaven mother. He wiped blood from his face with the back of his arm and blinked.
Marag-Or nodded. ‘That’s the spirit.’
A skaven warlord screeched shrilly as Ulgathern-Grimnir drove his grandaxe’s haft into its chest, crushing its ribs. It went down thrashing, bloody froth at its lips.
‘Shoddy craftsmanship, that armour,’ he said.
The clanrats of the warlord wavered, but held. Then another half dozen fell to Ulgathern-Grimnir’s hearthguard berzerkers, and their nerve went. The Ulgaen surged forward as the skaven fled. The braziers attached to the hearthguard’s axes whirled around on their chains, touching off fires on the ratkin’s clothes and fur. The creatures fled, spreading flames among their fleeing fellows.
‘Hold!’ roared the runefather. Brass horns blared, conveying his orders. The duardin halted. The tunnel floor was carpeted with warm ratkin bodies.
‘We’ve a moment, move these back down the line. Stop them using their dead as cover. Halvir’s fyrd, come up front, let Brangar’s lot take a rest.’
The duardin moved smoothly past one another. Footing became better as the corpses were passed down the line from hand to hand. The few Fyreslayers who had been wounded were helped back to the break-in tunnel, where the Mining Fellowship waited to tend their hurts.
Drums and gongs rang down the corridor. Typical skaven tactics, thought Ulgathern. They were seeking to exhaust his folk with repeated waves, uncaring of the lives of their own warriors.
But then, there were always so very many of them.
This time they came with firethrowers, four weapons teams skulking behind the front ranks of a skaven regiment.
‘Ware!’ shouted Ulgathern-Grimnir. ‘Warpfire!’
He plucked a throwing axe from his belt and hurled it. His rune-empowered might sent it smashing right through the body of a skaven, but the first death took its impetus, and it bounced harmlessly from the shield of the warrior behind. Auric hearthguard with magmapikes hurried to his side from the back ranks and set up a bombardment. The skaven squealed as they were set ablaze and crushed by molten stone. One firethrower gunner was battered down by a hail of lava bombs, while his ammunition bearer became tangled by the tubes and harness connecting them, and he was crushed underfoot by the mass of skaven pushing from behind. Another exploded with a dull crump, immolating a score of ratmen. Ulgathern-Grimnir grinned, but when the fire blew out, the skaven were still coming.
By now the tunnel was thick with acrid smoke. Skaven burned everywhere. Still his hearthguard did not relent, pummelling the lead elements of the second wave with their magical weapons.
Then the firethrowers came into range.
Gouts of green-tinged fire burst outward. Skaven engineers played the jets back and forth, forcing the Fyreslayers to fall back, shields up. Several were caught, their screams turning to bubbling moans as their flesh sloughed away from their bodies in shrivelling sheets.
Ulgathern-Grimnir was at the heart of it. Warpfire, hotter than any natural heat, burst over his skin as the twin streams were directed at him. The pain was immen
se, but he refused to move. Grimnir’s fire answered the flames of the skaven. His eyes blazed. His ur-gold runes burned with protective magic. Setting his shoulders directly into the jets, he marched forward. The pressure of the burning liquid was great and he struggled against it. His runes fizzed with energy. One gave out with a bang, overcome by the ferocity of the skaven weapons. The molten metal streamed down his arm, but Ulgathern-Grimnir refused to die.
He made it to the skaven line with a wild grin on his face. Skaven blinked and cowered, unsure what to do. The engineers shut the fire off before it was reflected back onto themselves.
Ulgathern-Grimnir’s crest of hair had lost a good foot in height, and smoked vigorously. His skin was blistered and red, his wargear blackened. He lifted his arms to show that he was not seriously hurt, and laughed in their faces.
‘I am Ulgathern-Grimnir, a runefather of the Ulgaen lodges. I was born of fire, forged in fire, and empowered by fire. Your little candle can’t hurt me.’
He swung his grandaxe the full width of the corridor, its razor-sharp head felling a swathe of the ratmen.
With a roar the Fyreslayers charged up to their lord’s side. This time, they did not stop, but advanced a step for every skaven they killed.
The ground rumbled. A hot wind blew from the depths. The Fyreslayers cheered.
‘About time too,’ said Ulgathern-Grimnir as the skaven were driven back. ‘Get on lads, drive them up and out, we don’t want to be in here when the mountain blows!’
‘Aid me, Drokki!’ called Marag-Or. His eyes glowed with yellow firelight. Ash sifted down from his mouth with every word. He slammed his staff into the ground. ‘I call on the mountain! Bring forth your earthblood! Fill the hollow chamber of your heart! Purify yourself!’
The beastmasters of the birthing chamber fought ferociously against the Fyreslayers. They were bigger than normal skaven, incensed by the slaughter of the mothers, and took a heavy toll on the duardin. Drokki watched as a vulkite berzerker threw his bladed shield at a fresh party of skaven entering the hall by a secret tunnel, decapitating one and piercing another through the heart. The warrior gripped his axe and charged into the gap opened up by his shield, but was quickly swamped.
‘Drokki!’ called Marag-Or again. ‘To me!’
Drokki hurried over to the ancient runemaster. The fires of his own runic iron flared bright in sympathy with Marag-Or’s magic as he snatched it from its belt loop. He waited for Marag-Or’s next beat, then joined in, pounding on the rock in time with his old master.
‘I call on the mountain! Bring forth your earthblood! Fill the hollow chamber of your heart! Purify yourself!’ they shouted together.
The ground shifted. A crack opened in the rock. Superheated steam roared out, cooking mewling skaven young by the score.
‘Yes! Yes!’ shouted Marag-Or. ‘You can feel it, can you not, Drokki? The power of the earthblood. Feel it rise!’
‘I call on the mountain! Bring forth your earthblood! Fill the hollow chamber of your heart! Purify yourself!’ they shouted again. Their staffs slammed into the rock. Cracks ran out from their feet. The chamber quaked. The cracks widened into crevasses, the ruddy light of sluggish magma shining upward from deep underground.
The skaven’s sensitive noses twitched at the smell of burning rock. When another earthquake sent some of their feeding gear tumbling into the fires of the earth, they gave up their struggle, turned tail and ran.
‘Everyone out!’ shouted Marag-Or. He grabbed Drokki’s arm. ‘No more now, lad, we don’t want this place to go the way of the Ulgahold. Enough to burn the vermin out, no more.’
Grokkenkir’s warriors ran for the tunnel they had arrived by, dragging their wounded with them. The mountain no longer needed the runemasters’ encouragement and set up a terrific shaking all on its own. Molten rock oozed from the crevices in the floor, pooling in depressions. The cavern became as hot as a furnace. Skaven mothers, living and dead alike, burst into flame.
Drokki led Marag-Or over the broken cavern floor as best he could, helping him over the wider cracks, kicking skaven dead and boulders out of the way. Grokkenkir beckoned to them from the tunnel mouth, his eyes straying over Drokki’s shoulder at the rising tide of lava.
‘Come on, runemasters! Just a little way further!’ he cried.
Drokki stepped up the lip of the tunnel, and reached out a hand for the older runemaster. Lava filled most of the cavern floor and was creeping up the walls.
Marag-Or took his hand.
A shot rang out. Marag-Or’s eyes widened in surprise.
‘Skaven sharpshooters!’ bellowed Grokkenkir and pointed to where a number of jezzail teams were lining up on the catwalks.
Marag-Or looked down at his chest. A wisp of smoke rose from beneath his war harness. Blood welled after. ‘I’m done. You best get on, eh, lad?’ said Marag-Or. He let go of Drokki’s hand and fell back into the molten rock. His eyes closed as he sank into it, his skin blackened, and the fire took him.
‘Runemaster!’ said Drokki.
‘We have to head to the surface!’ said Grokkenkir, physically hauling Drokki back before he could jump into the lava after his mentor. A shot ricocheted off the wall and another shattered on the stone near their feet. ‘Now!’
Brokkengird sang as he cut down skaven by the score. Try as they might, they could not harm him. What few scratches he took only enraged him. He drove into them, a one-duardin army.
Tulgamar-Grimnir rode his magmadroth deep into the horde, the great ur-salamander spitting fire into the ratkin masses and igniting them by the dozen. Fyreslayers fought in disciplined ranks around the magmadroth’s feet, their axes cutting skaven down wherever they fell.
And yet still they were outnumbered, and the battle would have been lost, if two things had not occurred. Firstly, the ground’s booming and rumbling turned into a fully fledged earthquake so violent that skaven went sprawling. Smoke belched from the mountain’s summit.
Secondly, confusion took hold of the skaven still pouring from their lair. They began to falter, then to look behind themselves.
Ulgathern-Grimnir’s fyrd burst from the gates, smoke belching after them, slaying skaven as they came. The Runefather had lost many warriors, but those remaining fought ferociously and their arrival sent panic rippling through the skaven ranks.
‘Forward! To my brother!’ yelled Tulgamar-Grimnir. Grakki-grakkov reared high, pounding clanrats flat with its feet when it came down. Roaring, it broke into a lumbering canter, smashing ratmen aside as it ran for the gate. The Fyreslayers began to sing triumphantly. With trumpets blowing, they followed.
The skaven at the edge of the battle began to melt away. A few cowardly souls at first, then in great numbers.
The mountain boomed. Its smokes thickened. The Steelspike slept no more.
Brokkengird laughed. Today was a good day to kill.
The mass pyres of the skaven dead were still burning a week later when the rest of Ulgathern’s people came to join the hold from their camp at the Voltdrang.
The Fyreslayers refashioning the gates downed tools and ran out to meet the column as it appeared from the valley approach to the Steelspike. Families were reunited before the new hold. Ulgathern-Grimnir and his brothers were glad to see a sizeable force had been sent to escort them by the Volturung, and that they were well fed, clean and happy.
They were less pleased to see Runeson Golgunnir.
The runeson came on foot this time, and was garbed for war. Still far too ostentatiously for Ulgathern-Grimnir’s tastes, but at least he was dressed with fighting in mind.
‘Looks like I underestimated you,’ said Golgunnir. He looked around at the heaps of skaven bodies and gear. ‘You did a good job. You reawoke the mountain. Crafty.’
‘You thought we wouldn’t win.’
Golgunnir shrugged. ‘True. But my father thought you were in w
ith a chance, or he would never have sent you. He’s an honourable sort, my father.’
‘You disapprove?’
Golgunnir nodded as he surveyed the mountain, the piles of scrapped machinery, the scaffolding around the gates where statues of Grimnir were already being roughed out in the rock. ‘I do. I’ll never be a runefather because of that. I’ve no faith in other folk. Still, at least I know my limits. Are there any tunnels left open?’
‘A few,’ said Ulgathern-Grimnir. ‘We’ve flooded the deepest with earthblood, set warding runes all about those higher in the mountain. I don’t want to plug them all, else how would we take the war to them?’
‘That’s what I hoped you’d say,’ said Golgunnir. ‘If I might have your permission, runefather, I will take my men hunting. The ratkin have regarded this land as theirs for too long.’
‘I grant it gladly.’
Golgunnir gave a brief nod, hitched up his belt, and held out his hand. ‘Welcome to the domain of the Volturung. Welcome home.’
Ulgathern-Grimnir clasped Golgunnir’s wrist. ‘If it’s all the same, we’ll be keeping the Ulgaen name. We are the last of our lodge-kin. Henceforth, we shall be Ulgaen-dumar lodge and Ulgaen-kumar lodge of Steelspike Hold.’
‘Whatever you like. You keep your side of the bargain, we’ll keep ours.’ Golgunnir sniffed. ‘There’s something else too.’
‘Oh?’
‘An ambassador. He should be here, about… now.’
Golgunnir looked skywards and took three steps back.
With a rush of wings, a huge warrior in gleaming gold armour slammed into the ground before Ulgathern, as shocking as a lightning strike. Wings of brilliant white light dazzled the Runefather, then were extinguished, the mechanisms that had projected them folding upon the warrior’s back.
A stern-faced war-mask looked down on him. Ulgathern-Grimnir was sure this was a human male. He had never seen one so big who was not in the service of the four powers, but the energy that crackled around him was not of Chaos, he was sure of that.
Fyreslayers Page 18
