03 - Thanquol's Doom

by C. L. Werner - (ebook by Undead)

  Horgar heard the whoosh of the warpfire projector, could smell the corrupt stink of its flames, yet strangely, there was no pain. Daring to open his eyes, he stared in amazement to find Kurgaz standing over him. The runesmith held a heavy gromril mattock in his hands, a single rune blazing upon its surface, looking as though it were burning from within. The green flames of warpfire broke around the runesmith like waves breaking against a boulder.

  Kurgaz looked down at the crippled hammerer. “Tell. Klarak. It. Is. Done,” the runesmith said. Then, calling upon the names of Grungni and Valaya, Grimnir and Thungni, the dwarf charged Ikit Claw.

  The runehammer Kurgaz held burst into flames as he approached the skaven warlock, tongues of yellow fire crackling about the enchanted weapon. The runes inscribed upon the hammer not only guarded against fire, but could unleash the same force against a foe.

  Ikit Claw snarled at the lone dwarf, calling for his minions to stop the runesmith. The Chief Warlock’s shrieks became even more frantic when he discovered there were none close enough to stop Kurgaz. The only ratmen who might have helped him had been burned down by the Claw’s own weaponry.

  Furiously, Ikit Claw stabbed at Kurgaz with Storm Daemon, the enchanted halberd scraping across the runesmith’s gromril breastplate. The dwarf brought the haft of his hammer swinging around, the granite ancestor badge chained to its butt cracking against the warp generator fixed just beneath Storm Daemon’s black blade.

  Protective runes carved upon the ancestor badge met the raw malignance of Ikit Claw’s weapon, the deathly power trapped inside the generator. The confusion of energies sent a shudder sweeping through both combatants, passing through their bodies in a spasm of shaking limbs and shivering bones.

  The warp generator crackled as its power was vented in a great spray of corrosive steam. Hastily, Ikit Claw flung the damaged Storm Daemon from him before its unleashed power could turn against him. Snarling, the Chief Warlock drew his warplock pistol and turned to exact revenge upon his foe.

  Kurgaz’s runehammer crashed against the warlock’s iron-bound body. The skaven squealed in pain, staring in disbelief as the hammer’s magic pierced his iron frame. Slivers of torn metal stabbed into the furry body underneath, the fires of the hammer shrivelled the ratman’s flesh.

  Howling in panic, the rage of a cornered rat filling him with an amok courage, Ikit Claw flung himself upon the dwarf, moving with almost blinding speed. The warplock pistol’s muzzle belched smoke and flame as it was pressed close against Kurgaz’s belly. The warpstone bullet ripped through the runesmith, burning its way through armour and flesh, erupting from the dwarf’s back in a spray of blood.

  The dwarf’s runehammer came smashing down one last time, Kurgaz’s face filled with the fierce determination to take down his killer before passing into the halls of his ancestors. If he could end the villainous career of Ikit Claw, then Karak Angkul would be saved. It was the sort of heroic offering that would earn him a place near the table of Grungni and Valaya and the other ancestor gods.

  Before the burning runehammer could strike, Kurgaz’s hand was caught in a steely grip. The huge metal hand of Ikit Claw held the dwarf’s weapon at bay. The ratman’s beady eyes glared at the runesmith from beneath the head of the frozen hammer.

  “Die-die, fool-flesh!” the skaven snapped. As he spoke, Ikit Claw snapped the scythe-like fingers of his metal hand. Kurgaz screamed as the bladed fingers sliced through his own hand, leaving only a spurting stump behind. The runehammer smashed to the floor, its fires fading the moment it came to rest.

  The runesmith clutched his maimed arm against his chest, his other hand fumbling at his waist, trying to staunch the blood spilling from his belly. There was nothing Kurgaz could do when the triumphant Ikit Claw reached out with his metal hand and closed the bladed fingers about the dwarf’s head.

  Ikit Claw licked the mix of blood, bone and brains from his hand as he limped away from the headless Kurgaz. Angrily he shrieked for his underlings. A mass of skavenslaves and warlock-engineers came scurrying at his call, doing their best to dodge the fire raining down upon their heads from the walkways above.

  “Fetch-bring all dwarf-metal,” Ikit Claw snarled, gesturing imperiously at the furnace where Klarak and his aides had been working. The skaven stared back at their master, greedy lights gleaming in their eyes as they considered his injuries. Baring his fangs, the Chief Warlock pointed at one of his minions. A stream of caustic words slipped off the Claw’s tongue as he evoked one of the many hexes he’d learned in his travels.

  The victim squealed in agony as magical energies exploded inside his chest, causing his heart to burst. The skaven around him took note of their comrade’s destruction with whines of contrition and simpering assurances of loyalty. Suddenly, Ikit Claw’s injuries didn’t look so inviting.

  The Chief Warlock pointed at the furnace. This time his minions were falling over one another in their eagerness to carry out his command. Ikit Claw watched them scamper off, catching hold of one of the warlock-engineers as he passed. “Get-bring Storm Daemon,” he ordered, flicking his tail towards the damaged weapon. His henchrat took one look at the corrosive steam venting from the ruptured warp generator and spurted the musk of fear.

  “Mercy-pity, Mad-genius! Scrap-master, Junk-lord! Most Calamitous of Scavengers! Abominable Bringer of Abominations!”

  Ikit Claw kicked his fawning minion away. “Fetch Storm Daemon,” he hissed through clenched fangs. “Or I’ll kill you and get-find someone else to do it.”

  The Chief Warlock’s threat sent the other warlock-engineer scurrying away to recover the damaged weapon. Ikit Claw turned away, limping back towards the digging machine. It was time they were quit of this dwarf-thing smell-hall.

  The infiltration hadn’t worked quite as successfully as he had planned. The attack should have come as a complete surprise to the dwarf-things. Instead, his troops had suffered losses far in excess of what Ikit Claw had expected.

  Still, they were small sacrifices. Once the Doomsphere was complete, Ikit Claw wouldn’t need armies anymore. Once the Doomsphere was complete, he would control a power far more destructive than all the armies in the entire world.

  And with the captured dwarf-metal, the Doomsphere would be complete!

  Awareness returned to Klarak Bronzehammer, breaking through the fog of confusion that befuddled his mind. One moment, the dwarf inventor rested helplessly at the bottom of the slag pit, his concerned friends watching over him. The next moment, there was clarity in the gold-flake eyes. Klarak surged to his feet, his expression grim. Shaking off Thorlek’s restraining grip, the engineer scrambled for the ladder. Kimril cried after him, vainly trying to stop Klarak’s desperate momentum.

  Ikit Claw would escape the trap. This terror twisted through Klarak’s guts like a knife. The engineer had gambled much on stopping the skaven here, before the beast could complete his hideous invention. For the Claw to escape now, the consequences would be apocalyptic. The name of Klarak Bronzehammer would be recorded among the most villainous oathbreakers—if anyone was left to write of his failure!

  The engineer leaped up from the slag pit. He stared out across the devastated smelthall. Dead dwarfs and dead skaven littered the ground, great craters pock-marked the floor where bombs had shattered the stone. Strips of gantry and walkway drooped down from the heights, scorched by skaven warpfire or corroded by the awful touch of Poison Wind. Klarak felt his heart go cold as he saw the mutilated body of an old longbeard dangling from the wreckage.

  The old dwarf’s sacrifice would not be for nothing. Klarak clenched his fist and vowed that the skaven would pay for every drop of dwarf blood they had spilt this day. His eyes grew hard as he noticed a large group of the ratmen retreating back into one of their holes. Snatching a war-axe from the dead fingers of a metalworker, Klarak dashed across the ravaged smelthall.

  Bullets continued to rain down from the ceiling as the remaining thunderers tried to thin out the ranks of the fleeing ratmen. Sever
al teams of skaven jezzails lingered behind to return their fire, cowering in the shelter of big oak shields when the dwarfs tried to shoot back. Klarak ran straight into one of the jezzails. His axe licked out, opening the throat of the rodent sharpshooter, his fist smashed the muzzle of the ratkin shieldbearer.

  Klarak didn’t linger over his victims, but was off again, rushing towards the retreating ratmen. He could see now that many of them bore plates of barazhunk with them as they vanished down into the tunnel. The engineer roared, bellowing a war-cry that shuddered through the smelthall. As he roared, he waved his arms towards the retreating skaven.

  Warpstone bullets whizzed past Klarak’s ears, smashed into the columns and pillars he darted behind as he crossed the hall. The jezzails, noting the death of their comrade, hearing the crazed screech of the lone dwarf madman, trained their guns on Klarak. Futilely they tried to bring down their nimble target.

  Given a respite from the punishing fire of the jezzails, the dwarf marksmen above the smelthall were free to loose a salvo into their foes. Noting the figure of Klarak as he dashed through the havoc, waving his arms, the thunderers chose their mark. The fusillade poured down, not into the scattered jezzails, but full into the mob of fleeing ratkin.

  Yelps and squeals rose from the savaged throng as the thunderers spat stone bullets into their close-packed ranks. Furry bodies thrashed on the floor, black blood pouring from their wounds. The stink of raw fear spurted from the ratkin. Many cast aside their burdens, clawing and snapping at one another as they tried to force their way through the pack and into the safety of the hole.

  The despair of the embattled skaven made itself known to those who had gone before, the ratmen who had already fled into the tunnel. From the depths, a loud rumbling made itself felt, shaking the entire smelthall. Klarak was knocked from his feet as the tremor rattled the ground. Skaven screams filled the air as a thick cloud of dust rose from the yawning mouth of the hole.

  With callous treachery, to prevent pursuit the ratmen had collapsed their tunnel right on top of their own fleeing comrades!

  Klarak regained his feet, watching as the few surviving skaven began to pull themselves out from among the dust and debris. Bullets and bolts rained down upon the wretches, picking them off with bitter vindictiveness. The ratkin who had escaped being buried alive had only traded one kind of death for another.

  The engineer turned away, pacing back towards the furnace where he and his comrades had made their stand. He could see Thorlek and Kimril labouring to pull Horgar Horgarsson upright, the hammerer’s steam-harness making the task difficult for even two dwarfs to manage. Klarak shook his head sadly. If either Azram or Kurgaz had been able, they would be helping tend Horgar. The fact that he didn’t see them sent a knife of bitter sadness cutting through his heart.

  The skaven had been thorough in their attack, better armed and prepared than Klarak had anticipated. He’d underestimated Ikit Claw, a failing that had cost many dwarfs their lives.

  Klarak paused, noticing a movement among the heaped bodies of the dead ratkin. Tightening his hold upon his axe, the dwarf stormed vengefully towards the ratkin. These were the hideously augmented war-rats who had served Ikit Claw as bodyguards. It would be in keeping with the Claw’s evil genius that these creatures should have greater vitality than their verminous kin. A flash of guilt gnawed at Klarak as he considered that the skaven might have been inspired by Horgar’s steam-harness when he decided to create his loathsome shock troops.

  Seizing the topmost of the bodies, Klarak rolled the heavy bulk away, noting as he did the horrible injuries the skaven had suffered, the way its flesh and even its armour had been burned and melted. Caught by the warpfire of its master’s hand. Klarak clenched his teeth at this vivid display of skaven cowardice and treachery.

  Rolling away another of the armoured skaven, Klarak jumped back as a third body started to move. Bracing himself to attack the maimed ratman, the engineer sighed with relief as the body sagged against its comrades. A thick dwarf voice snarled curses from beneath the heavy corpse.

  “I’ll kill you again, you yellow-backed flea nest! By Grimnir, get your carcass off me!”

  Klarak set aside his axe, helping the trapped dwarf extricate himself from the pile of corpses. Mordin Grimstone’s body was coated in blood, both his own and the black filth of his enemies. Ugly patches of burnt flesh peppered his skin where melting blobs of skaven fat had dripped down through the heaped dead. A livid gash marked his brow where a ratman’s sword had glanced across the slayer’s shaven head. One of the dwarf’s shoulders had the claws of a dismembered skaven hand embedded in it.

  But the most disturbing aspect of Mordin’s countenance were his eyes. Pools of fire, blazing with murderous ferocity, they glared across the smelthall, darting from shadow to shadow looking for foes to slay. Except for the few jezzail teams and abandoned slaves, the enemy was gone. Mordin clearly felt that the few dregs being picked off by the marksmen on the walkways weren’t worth his time. He fixed his fiery gaze on Klarak.

  “Where’s that metal-masked scavenger?” the slayer growled. He stooped and ripped one of his axes from the belly of a dead ratman. “There’s a blade here eager to taste his blood!”

  “Gone,” Klarak frowned. “Fled back into his hole.”

  Mordin sneered, spitting a blob of bloody phlegm onto the floor. “Some trap,” the slayer scoffed. A wracking cough gripped him, causing more blood to drip into his beard.

  “Come along,” Klarak said. “Kimril will tend your wounds.” Mordin pulled away at Klarak’s touch. “This is no way for a slayer to die,” the engineer told him. “What of your vow to kill Thanquol?”

  The slayer’s face flushed crimson. “What of your promise that the cur would be here?” Mordin growled. “You are right when you say it is wrong for a slayer to die because of a lie.”

  Klarak’s face darkened. “There is more at stake here than your revenge,” he reminded Mordin.

  “Tell that to Kurgaz,” the slayer snarled, waving his axe ahead of him.

  Klarak followed the direction of Mordin’s gesture. A great sorrow settled about him as he saw the runesmith’s armoured body lying stretched out in a pool of its own blood, only a torn stump of neck where his friend’s head should be. He had asked so much of Kurgaz, depended so much upon the runesmith’s wisdom and magic. In the end, he had demanded too much and it had cost his friend his life.

  “I saw him die,” Mordin said. “Peeping through the pile of corpses, I watched him battle the ratkin with the metal claw. A fine fighter, his runehammer burning like the sun. Such an end! Such a death!” The slayer ran his hand through the filth caking his beard. “If he’d only managed to kill the villain, he’d be able to hold his head high when he steps into Gazul’s vaults.”

  Klarak turned away from the vision of his friend’s corpse. “Now we both have someone to avenge,” he told Mordin as he helped support the slayer. “And by Morgrim’s Hammer, Ikit Claw will pay for the evil of this day!”

  “Thinking of shaving your head?” Mordin laughed, then fell silent as a blood-flecked cough wracked his torn body.

  Klarak didn’t answer the slayer. His eyes were cold, his thoughts dark. He had risked much to trap his enemy. The responsibility was his, and even the Slayer Oath would not efface his guilt.

  King Logan Longblade surveyed the carnage of the smelthall, his eyes heavy with emotion. A hundred and twelve dwarfs were dead, a score and more were maimed or wounded. The smelthall had suffered structural damages that would place it out of commission for weeks, perhaps even months. It would be years before the furnaces were again operating at full capacity. The clans of the metalsmiths would seek compensation for their dead, reparations for their lost custom. The shadow of this black day would linger over the stronghold for generations.

  “This is what comes from flouting tradition.” Guildmaster Thori’s voice echoed the troubled thoughts boiling inside the king’s brain. “I warned against allowing Klarak to proceed
with his reckless plan.”

  “Enough,” King Logan told the engineer. “I will not have my decisions questioned by hindsight. Whatever the consequences.” He turned away from the view of the dwarfish dead, their bodies draped in the mantle of their clans, a wizened priest of Gazul folding the hands of each corpse about a gilded ancestor stone—an offering for the dour Lord of the Underearth. The craftsmen of Karak Angkul would be busy carving new mournstones to replace the ones given to the dead this day.

  The king’s mind turned back to the battle in the lower deeps, the fierce struggle against the massed skaven horde. At the time, he had thought Klarak was wrong, that the real ratkin attack was in the deeps. Right up until the moment when a messenger brought him word that the smelthall was under assault, he had felt confident that Klarak’s grim predictions weren’t real. The ratkin had been assaulting Karak Angkul for generations and each time the vermin had been driven back. As his army smashed the skaven down in the Sixth Deep, he had allowed himself to believe this time would be no different.

  Now, the king had to concede it was different. The attack in the Sixth Deep had been a deception, just as Klarak had warned. But if the king had underestimated the foe, so too had the hero of Karak Angkul. Disaster seemed too light a word for the carnage that had raged in the smelthall.

  King Logan circled the heap of skaven dead. Already five cartloads of the vermin had been loaded up and removed to be burned outside the stronghold, yet still the ratkin dead numbered in the hundreds. It was always the same. The dwarfs could slaughter their foes by the bushel and hardly make a dent in their numbers, yet each of their own dead was a wound from which the stronghold would be slow to recover.