Grudgebearer

by Gav Thorpe

  ‘You’re right, you’re right,’ said Barundin, sitting back in his chair. He waited a moment, then raised his tankard and said, almost conversationally, ‘How’s work on the brewery?’

  There was much angry muttering and shaking of beards.

  ‘We’re far behind schedule,’ admitted Darbran with a grimace. ‘Behind schedule! Can you imagine? I tell you, some proper ale would soon give the clans some backbone again.’

  ‘Curse that Wanazaki,’ grumbled Borin. ‘Him and his new-fangled ideas.’

  ‘Look, Borin, we agreed,’ said Redbeard. ‘He was stupid not to have tested his automatic kegger, but the principles were sound. He just got his pressures mixed up.’

  ‘Yes, but he burned all of his notes, didn’t he?’ said Barundin, and the engineers turned as one and glared at him.

  ‘The coward,’ said Borin. ‘Running away like that. Showed a lot of promise that lad, but then to go and flit off like some manling…’

  ‘I can get him back,’ said Barundin. His statement was met with blank stares. ‘I’ll organise an expedition, to go and find him and bring him back.’

  ‘What makes you think we want that oath-breaker back?’ snarled Darbran.

  ‘Well, to bring him to book, at the very least,’ said Barundin. ‘Surely he has to make account for himself. Besides which, if you can get him back, there’s a chance he’ll repent and try to make good.’

  ‘If we wanted him, what makes you think we couldn’t go and get him ourselves?’ asked Redbeard.

  ‘We all know he would make another run as soon as he saw a flag or sigil of the guild,’ said Barundin. ‘He’s in terror of what punishment might be meted out on him.’

  ‘And why do you think he’ll stay around for you?’ asked Darbran.

  ‘I’ve already met him once,’ said Barundin. ‘When my father marched out to meet Vessal, remember? He didn’t seem at all coy then.’

  The engineers looked at each other and then at Barundin.

  ‘We’ll table the topic for a meeting,’ said Darbran. ‘We need to talk it over.’

  ‘Of course you do,’ said Barundin.

  ‘We’ll let you know our decision as soon as it’s made,’ the high engineer assured him.

  ‘I’m sure you will,’ said the king, standing. He downed the dregs of his ale. ‘In fact, why don’t I leave you learned folk to continue your meeting without me? I am weary, and I am sure you still have many other things to talk about, my proposition notwithstanding.’

  ‘Aye, many things,’ said Borin, his eyebrows waggling furiously.

  ‘Then I bid you good night,’ said Barundin.

  He could feel their anxious stares on his back as he turned and walked away, and had to suppress a smile. Yes, he thought contentedly, he had given them plenty to talk about. A knock on the doors opened them and as the warden closed them behind him, he could already hear the guildmasters’ voices rising.

  The last chills of winter still lingered over the mountain, and the sky above was clear and blue. Barundin had spent those winter months preparing for the expedition, knowing that the snows would make any travelling almost impossible before the first spring thaws. While the mountain passes had remained navigable, he had sent rangers south and west, seeking for some news of Wanazaki. As the snows had closed in, a few brave bands had used the underway towards Karak Varn, though in places it was flooded and collapsed. Though none had found the mentally unstable engineer, there were several sightings of his gyrocopter in the lands to the south.

  So it was that Barundin found himself leading a party of twenty dwarfs around the shore of Karak Varn. Both Tharonin and Arbrek had argued against the king accompanying the expedition, saying that it was too dangerous. Barundin had ignored their council, much to the older dwarfs’ annoyance, and enlisted the services of Dran the Reckoner, one of the less respectable thanes of Zhufbar. Dran had a good reputation with the rangers, and knew the lands between Karak Varn and the Black Mountains, where Wanazaki was now reputedly living.

  Barundin was in a fair mood. Though the heart of every dwarf is for solid stone and deep tunnels, there was also something about a crisp morning on a mountainside that stirred his soul. They had skirted west of Blackwater the night before and camped in a small hollow not far from the lake. Now, as they looked across the dark, still waters, the peaks of the mountains beyond could clearly be seen. Highest amongst them was Karaz Brindal, atop whose summit was one of the greatest watch towers of the dwarf realm, though now abandoned and infested with stone trolls. It was said that a dwarf upon Karaz Brindal could see all the way to Mount Gunbad, and that when the city had fallen, the sentries of the keep had bricked up the eastern windows so that they did not have to look upon the sight of their ancient hold despoiled by goblins.

  On a ridged shoulder of Karaz Brindal was the sprawling open mine of the Naggrundzorn, now also flooded by the same waters that had burst open Karak Varn. It was there that Barundin’s great-great-great-great-great grandfather had met his doom, fighting wolf riders from Mount Gunbad whilst protecting an ore caravan taking tribute to the high king at Karaz-a-Karak. A king’s ransom it was called at the time, although perhaps in these years it would have been half the wealth of all Zhufbar. The days when the Silver Road to Mount Silverspear had been decorated with real silver had long passed, and the pillaging of the dwarfs’ wealth for four millennia was just one more reason to berate the world for its shortcomings.

  Snow still lay far down the mountain slopes, and Barundin wore a heavy woollen cloak over his chainmail and gromril armour. He wore a new pair of stout walking boots, which still needed breaking in, and his left heel was badly blistered from the march of the day before. Ignoring the pain, he pulled on his boots, as Dran filled his canteen from a thin rill of water running off the lake and down the mountainside.

  ‘How far to Karak Varn?’ asked Barundin.

  The ranger looked over his shoulder at the king and grinned. The expression twisted the scar that ran from his chin to his right eye, leaving a bald slash through Dran’s beard. Nobody knew how he had got the scar, and the dispossessed thane certainly wasn’t telling.

  ‘We’ll be there by midday tomorrow,’ said Dran, stoppering his water bottle as he walked back. ‘From there it’s three, maybe four, days to Black Fire Pass.’

  ‘How can you be sure that Wanazaki has headed towards the Black Mountains?’ asked the king, standing up and grabbing his pack. ‘He might have headed south-east.’

  ‘Towards Karaz-a-Karak?’ said Dran with a snort. ‘Not a chance. The guild will have sent word to their members there. Wanazaki knows that. No, he’ll not go within a dozen leagues of Karaz-a-Karak.’

  ‘I don’t intend to walk all the way to Karak Hirn, only to find there’s no sign of him,’ said Barundin, shouldering his pack.

  Dran tapped his nose. ‘I make my money doing this, your highness,’ said the Reckoner. ‘I know how to find folk, and Wanazaki’s no different. Mark my words, he doesn’t know much, but he’s clever enough to stick to the old North Road.’

  ‘It’s been nearly twenty years since I last saw him,’ said Barundin as Dran waved to the other rangers to assemble. ‘He could be in Nuln by now.’

  ‘Well, you’ve got a choice then, haven’t you?’ said Dran. ‘Turn back now before we’ve walked too far, and forget about Dukankor Grobkaz-a-Gazan and Vessal, or we can get going.’

  ‘Lead on,’ said the king.

  The gates of Karak Varn were a pitiable sight. Gaping into the darkness beyond, the great portal was thrown open, half sunk in the water. The ancient faces of the kings of Karak Varn carved into the stone had been worn away, leaving only the faintest of marks, which could barely be seen from the shore.

  The entire lakeside around the area was littered with the spoor of grobi and other creatures, though none of it recent by the estimate of Dran. Just like most living things, even greenskins preferred not to venture too far abroad in the winter, and they would be in the dark places of the fal
len hold away from the harsh light.

  The dwarfs turned away from the depressing view, skirting the hold to the west, looking down upon the foothills of the World’s Edge Mountains. To the west these rugged, rock-strewn hills gave way to the meadows and pastures of the Empire, and on the edge of vision at the horizon the dark swathe of the forests that swept across most of the manling realm.

  South and west they travelled, leaving behind the bleak shores of Blackwater, passing the desolate, ruined towers that had once been the outlying settlements of Karak Varn. Now they were overgrown and barely visible; they were the dens of wolves and bears, and other, more wicked, creatures.

  The mountains shallowed as they neared the Black Fire Pass, though their route took them across steep ridges and amongst the broad shoulders of the World’s Edge Mountains, as if cutting across the grain of the mountain range. Dran led them on without pause or doubt, finding caves and hollows when the weather turned foul, which it did often. Usually they pressed on even into the last flurries of snow and the gales that howled up the valleys from the Border Princes and Badlands to the south.

  On the seventeenth day after leaving Zhufbar, having covered some two hundred and twenty miles as the crow flies, they came upon the mountainside of Karag Kazak. Below them, the slope fell steeply to the floor of the pass, dotted with pines and large boulders. Though it was just before noon and there were many hours left in the day, Dran made camp. By the light of the noon sun, he led them a short way from the dell where their packs were left. Storm clouds glowered in the eastern sky, dark and menacing, coming towards them on a strong wind.

  The Reckoner took them to a shoulder of rock which jutted from Karag Kazak for a half a mile. Barundin was astounded, for the area was littered with cairns, each adorned by an ancient oathstone, so time-worn many were little more than hillocks identified only by the rings of bronze occasionally spied amongst the tufts of hardy grass and heaps of soil. There were dozens of them, perhaps hundreds; the last resting places of a great many fallen dwarf warriors who chose to stand and die in the pass rather than retreat.

  Further down the slope there was a large gathering of manlings: men, women and children were clustered around a tall statue of a large, bearded man holding a hammer aloft. Some were dressed in little more than rags, while others wore the pale robes Barundin had seen worn by manling priests.

  ‘This is where they fought, isn’t it?’ said the king.

  ‘Aye,’ said Dran with a solemn nod. ‘Here was arrayed the host of High King Kurgan, and down there Sigmar and his warlords made their stand.’

  ‘Who are these manlings?’ asked one of the rangers.

  ‘Pilgrims,’ said Dran. ‘They consider it a sacred site, and travel for months even to tread upon the same ground where Sigmar fought alongside us. Some come here to pray to him, others to give thanks.’

  ‘Are they not afraid of the greenskins?’ asked Barundin. ‘I see no garrison, no soldiers.’

  ‘Even the orcs remember this place,’ said Dran. ‘Don’t ask me how, but they do. They know that thousands of their kind were slaughtered here, upon these rocks, and most give it a wide berth. Of course, warbands still pass along here, and the odd army, but the manlings have a small keep away to the east beyond that ridge, and a much larger castle at the western end. Warning can be sent and the pilgrims can find refuge in plenty of time if there are greenskins on the move.’

  ‘We could ask them if they have heard news of a dwarf engineer around these parts,’ said Barundin.

  ‘Aye, that was my purpose,’ said Dran. ‘As well as letting you see this, of course. I’ll go down to their camp this evening. It’s probably best that they not know one of our kings is abroad.’

  ‘Why so?’ asked Barundin.

  ‘Some of them are a little, let’s say, unhinged,’ said Dran with a look of distaste. ‘Dwarf worshippers.’

  ‘Dwarf worshippers?’ said Barundin, looking with sudden suspicion at the gathering below them.

  ‘Sigmar’s alliance and all that,’ said Dran. ‘It was very important to them, the battle here, and they see our part in it as almost divine. Crazy, the lot of them.’

  They did not speak as they made their way back up the slope, out of sight of the manling pilgrims. Barundin mused upon Dran’s words, and the strange beliefs of the manlings. The Battle of Black Fire Pass had been important to the dwarfs too, and the alliance with the fledgling Empire of Sigmar no less significant at the time. It had signalled the end of the Time of the Goblin Wars, when a great host of orcs and grobi had been crushed along this pass, having been driven from the west and down out of the mountains by men and dwarfs. Not for many centuries had the greenskins returned in any numbers, and never again in the numberless hordes that had ravaged the lands since the fall of Karak Ungor some fifteen hundred years before.

  Barundin passed the afternoon reading his father’s journal which he had brought with him. He had read it many times since the old king’s death, trying to find inspiration and meaning in his father’s words. At times the runic script was heavy and clumsy and his language more colourful. Barundin guessed these to be the nights on which he had gotten drunk with the loremaster, Ongrik. Time and again he felt himself drawn to the pages on which Throndin had scrawled his dying grudge, and the two signatures beneath it. The page was almost falling out, the edges well thumbed.

  Never once had it crossed Barundin’s mind that it was too much to ask. He had never contemplated abandoning the grudge against Baron Vessal, no matter what obstacles were in his path. It was not in his nature to accept defeat, just as it was not in the nature of the whole dwarf race to accept that their time as a power in the world had long since passed.

  Barundin would take his people through war and fire to avenge his father, for the death of a king was beyond any counting of value, worth more than any amount of effort. Not only did his father expect nothing less from Barundin, but also all his ancestors, back to Grimnir, Grungni and Valaya themselves. Not once did the burden feel too heavy, though, for from those same ancestors he knew he had the strength and the will he needed to persevere and to triumph. To countenance anything other than success was unthinkable to the king.

  Dran returned from the manling gathering after dark, having spent several hours amongst them. He had a certain self-satisfaction about him that told Barundin the Reckoner had been right. Indeed, Dran confirmed, the half-mad engineer had taken employment in a manling town not far from the western approach to the pass. It would be two days’ travel, three if the weather turned foul, as it seemed it would. The news bolstered Barundin’s confidence further, knowing that Wanazaki’s return would bring the Engineers Guild into his camp, and with that the hold would be willing to embark on another war, this time against the grobi of Dukankor Grobkaz-a-Gazan.

  ‘Dwarf-built for sure,’ said Barundin, looking down at the keep at the foot of the pass. ‘Oh, the manlings have put all sorts of nonsense on top, like those roofs, but that’s dwarf masonry down at the bottom.’

  ‘Yes, our forefathers helped build this place,’ said Dran, leading them down a track that wound between thin trees and scattered boulders. ‘If you’d travelled as much as I have, you’d have seen the cut of dwarf chisel all across the Empire. The manlings might have driven out the orcs, but their castles and cities were built with dwarf hands.’

  ‘And Wanazaki is in there?’ said Fundbin, a ranger swathed in a deep red cloak, little more than his beard and the tip of his nose protruding from the hood. The bitter wind blowing from the east along Black Fire Pass had chilled even the hardy dwarfs.

  ‘Oh, he’s here all right,’ said Dran.

  Dran pointed to a tower on the north wall, a thick chimney protruding from its stones. Its iron-crowned tip belched grey smoke that gathered in clouds, shrouding the mountainside. Looking down over the walls from the slope of the pass, they could see two massive pistons moving up and down near the base of the tower, though their purpose was unclear. Part of the wall next to the t
ower had been extended over the courtyard with a wooden gantry and steel platform, and atop the platform sat a gyrocopter, its blades taken off and stacked neatly next to the flying machine.

  There were few people on the road as they reached the floor of the pass. Scattered groups of travellers, most walking, a few with horse and wagon, gave them long looks as they passed. Some stared openly in disbelief at the large group of dwarfs, and some had a look of awe that sent a nervous shiver through Barundin. Dran’s talk of dwarf worshippers had unsettled him considerably.

  It was late afternoon and the shadow of the tall castle lay long across the road. A ravine, nearly two hundred feet deep and thirty feet wide, was dug around the base of the castle on three sides, which was itself built out of the rock of the pass itself, its foundations were the feet of the World’s Edge Mountains. The walls were some fifty feet high, studded with two gate towers and protected by blocky fortifications at each corner.

  The dwarfs passed over a wooden bridge laid across the ravine, and noted the heavy chains and gear mechanisms that would allow the bridge to be toppled into the chasm with the pull of a couple of levers. The only way to storm the castle was from the mountainside itself, and looking up the slope Barundin could see entrenchments and revetments dug into the rock. They were empty now, and the dwarf king could see few soldiers on the walls. He wondered if perhaps the watch of the manlings had grown lax in the recent years of peace and prosperity they had enjoyed since the Great War.

  There was a cluster of guards at the gate, over a dozen, and their captain approached the party as they came off the bridge. He was dressed in the same black and yellow livery as his men, his slashed doublet obscured by a steel breastplate wrought with a rear griffon holding a sword. His sallet helm sported two plumed feathers, both red, and he held a demi-halberd across his chest as he walked toward the dwarfs. His expression was friendly, a slight smile upon his lips.

  ‘Welcome to Siggurdfort,’ the manling said, stopping just in front of Dran, who stood ahead of Barundin. ‘At first I thought I had misheard when news came of twenty-one dwarfs travelling the pass, but now I see the truth of it. Please, enter and enjoy what comforts we have to offer.’