Hammerhal & Other Stories

by Various

  Then Darkbane swung through air, striking nothing. Vrindum ran forward a few more steps, but there was nothing to kill. He slowed, blinking. The rage faded, and he took in his new surroundings.

  He had broken through the corrupted forest. The daemons were gone. Ahead, the ground became more rugged. Vrindum saw foothills, and the promise of mountains.

  He looked up at Beregthor. The runefather seemed exhausted for the first time since the departure from Sibilatus, and more drained than triumphant. His face was set, committed to the path, apparently uninterested in anything except the march towards the goal.

  And still the wind of the Evercry was constant. Short and long and short, the three notes guiding the Drunbhor to their destiny.

  VI

  The abominable forest was the first day. The first trial. Eight more days followed. For nine days, the Drunbhor fought through a land full of terrible life, corrupted and enslaved to Chaos. After the forest came the swamp. There the ground was a sucking mire, and ropes of flesh tangled the Fyreslayers while screamers of Tzeentch slashed through the air and through the warriors, their shrieks a choir following the song of the wind.

  On the third day, they came to a land riven with narrow gulleys. When they tried to cross, the gulleys became grinding jaws.

  On the fourth day, as the land sloped more and more sharply upwards, the ground turned into living glass. It blazed and snarled in the heat of the sun. It broke beneath marching feet without warning, plunging warriors into jagged crevasses, while flamers skittered over the surface. There were many more than on the Voidfire Plain, and they attacked.

  And so it went, each day a new trial, a gauntlet that chipped away at the army of the Drunbhor, and the goal was not in sight. Vrindum watched Frethnir’s doubts grow and grow. But the battles were ceaseless, and to challenge the runefather would be a shattering blow to the morale of the fyrds. Frethnir could do nothing to arrest what he clearly thought was a path to disaster without being the cause of a worse one. His agony was terrible to see.

  As he fought, Vrindum muttered prayers to Grimnir. ‘Prove the runefather right,’ he said. ‘Prove him right.’

  Then there was the wind. The song was still the same, but the air grew more foul. The incense of the forest was gone, but what the Drunbhor now breathed was worse. It was thick and humid, the air of open graves and of a fresh battlefield. It was rotten, and it made Vrindum wonder about the song.

  He spoke about the stench with Beregthor.

  ‘The forces of Chaos seek to turn us aside,’ the runefather answered. ‘They will not succeed.’

  Beregthor did not speak with the same fire as he had upon setting out from Sibilatus. His voice was hard, grey, almost a monotone. He did not look at Vrindum. He stared into the distance, as if the invisible goal had thrown a noose around his neck and was slowly pulling him in.

  On the eighth day, the Drunbhor encountered fungi so huge they formed caves. Bone-white, streaked with red, they sought to dissolve the Fyreslayers with spores. And when at last fyrds hacked and burned their way through the growths, they beheld mountains ahead of them.

  And so, on the ninth day, the Drunbhor reached the Typhornas Mountains.

  The wind was immeasurably worse. It was difficult to breathe. Vrindum regarded the landscape with wonder and suspicion. The lodge had arrived at a place of legend, and it was as the myths described. The mountains breathed; they were the lungs of the Evercry. They expanded and contracted, immense heaving movements visible to the eye, and the ground rose and fell beneath Vrindum’s feet. Yet the sensation was not that of an earthquake. The rocky surface did not crack as it stretched. Individual boulders tumbled down the mountain faces, but there were no avalanches. At the same time, Vrindum did not feel as if he were walking on the body of an immeasurably vast beast. His boot heels rang on stone, and the crags on all sides were jagged, solid, monolithic. They were mountains, not flesh.

  In and out they breathed, in and out, bellows of such size they sent their endless wind across the breadth of a continent. And the wind was foul. It grew stronger by the hour, until the Drunbhor had to lean forwards, walking into a gale. The three-note song became the shrieking whistle of a mad thing. In the distance, over a bowl in the mountains, lightning flashed. Thunder rumbled from dark, spiralling clouds. This was not the storm the Drunbhor had witnessed from the peaks of Sibilatus. No stars were falling here. There was no explosion as of a war to change the times.

  The Fyreslayers entered a narrow pass at the coming of night. They struggled through it against the furious wind. The pass ended at the lip of a huge bowl, a circular valley formed by the meeting of eight mountainsides.

  Silence fell.

  The wind stopped.

  The song ceased.

  For a moment, Vrindum thought he had gone deaf. Not once in all his centuries had he not heard the keening over the Evercry. Then he heard the muttered exclamations of the runemaster. He was not deaf, then; yet still the mountains rose and fell, rose and fell.

  They rose and fell in silence. There was no breath. Even the stench was gone. It was as if the Fyreslayers stood on a corpse that was unaware of death and continued in its ignorance to move.

  In the centre of the valley, on a circular dais, was the gate. Vrindum felt a cautious surge of confidence as the Drun­bhor host approached their goal. The gate was clearly the kin of the one the daemons had destroyed in Sibilatus; the pillars bore similar engravings, and though many of the runes were mysterious to him, some of them were also in the language of the Fyreslayers.

  A shout of triumph rose from the exhausted fyrds.

  The host of the Drunbhor lodge surrounded the wide dais on which the gate stood. Beregthor dismounted from his magmadroth and climbed up. He walked slowly towards the gate, the Keeper of Roads held before him with both hands. Runemaster Trumnir and Runesmiter Harthum walked with him. Vrindum and the runesons followed a few steps behind.

  ‘Runefather,’ Frethnir said, ‘you were right.’ Relief flooded his face. The shadow that had followed him from Sibilatus lifted.

  Beregthor did not answer. Vrindum watched him carefully. The runefather did not appear to notice he was accompanied. His eyes were fixed on the gate, unblinking. He had said nothing since their arrival, falling silent along with the wind.

  Trumnir and Runesmiter Harthum examined the pillars. Trumnir frowned. ‘We will have to proceed with caution,’ he said. ‘This gate is warded. I do not recognise all the runes of protection.’

  ‘Nor do I,’ said Harthum. ‘They were not all part of the original construction. If any are triggered, they might destroy the gate. Or worse.’

  ‘A fine end to this quest that would be,’ Bramnor said. ‘To have come this far for nothing.’ He spoke in jest, his impatience jovial now.

  Frethnir was not pleased. ‘This is our father’s moment of truth,’ he said.

  Bramnor nodded. ‘You’re right.’ To Beregthor he said, ‘Rune­father, I honour you, and mean no disrespect.’

  Beregthor still did not respond. He stood before the centre of the gate, motionless except for his head as he looked back and forth along the span of the arch.

  Vrindum moved up beside him. Beregthor’s profile seemed eroded. His skin was grey, worn. It was as if his skull were retreating beneath his hair and beard.

  Something was wrong.

  ‘Runefather?’ Vrindum asked.

  No response. The eyes dark like coal.

  Trumnir said, ‘I shall begin.’

  ‘No.’ Beregthor did not raise his voice. He did not need to. His command was so cold.

  Trumnir stopped in his tracks as if Beregthor had slapped him. His face darkened with anger. Then he looked concerned.

  ‘Runefather,’ Vrindum tried again.

  Beregthor took a step forward. ‘Leave the gate to me,’ he said. ‘All of you.’ He turned his head to take in the a
ssembly on the dais. ‘I know what needs to be done.’

  Trumnir and the runesmiter backed away. They, Vrindum and the runesons retreated to the foot of the dais.

  ‘He is not himself,’ Frethnir said.

  ‘Is he unwell?’ Vrindum wondered. ‘He is old, but I would not have thought this journey would exhaust him so.’

  No, Vrindum thought. This is something more.

  Beregthor raised the latchkey grandaxe. He began to chant. The words were strange to Vrindum.

  He turned to Trumnir. ‘Do you know this ritual?’ he asked.

  ‘I do not.’ Trumnir did not look away from the gate. ‘But the runefather knows what he is doing. Look.’ He pointed to the pillars. Runes glowed, flared white, and then subsided to a dull, magmatic red. ‘He is disarming the wards.’

  ‘Perhaps his father passed down the knowledge of rituals older and more secret than have been granted to us,’ said Harthum. He sounded unconvinced.

  Ancient power crackled between the pillars. Light and space bent, twisted upon one another, and began to spiral. Reality fractured into a thousand shards, then reassembled itself. The view through the gate took on a definite character, becoming more stable. What was revealed was the interior of a stone chamber.

  Vrindum saw how this gate and the one in Sibilatus had been mirrors of each other. The Drunbhor’s gate, Beregthor had said, led from the magmahold to a location within reach of the other lodge. This one, a long journey from Sibilatus, led directly to the magmahold of the other lodge.

  There was movement in the ranks as the Fyreslayers prepared to march through the gate. Trumnir raised his staff in warning.

  ‘Hold!’ he called. ‘Many of the wards are still active. We cannot cross yet.’

  Beregthor finished chanting. He made a complex pass with the Keeper of Roads before the gate. The gestures hurt Vrindum’s head to watch. He stared at the runefather, and he did not recognise the Fyreslayer before him.

  Beregthor completed the gestures. In the centre of the gate, floating in the air, a large stone keyhole appeared. Beregthor lowered the Keeper and approached it. He made to insert the head of the weapon into the keyhole.

  The latchkey grandaxe was a symbol. The design of its blade represented the keys to glory. But it was also a true key. It opened the most secret vaults in the magmahold. And now it would open the final lock on the gate.

  The wards that were still active glowed red. It was a cold colour. Reptilian. Anticipatory. Trumnir was looking at them with alarm. ‘I don’t think…’ he began.

  Vrindum jumped onto the dais. He ran forward and grasped Beregthor’s shoulder, holding him back before he could place the key in the lock.

  ‘Runefather,’ he said, ‘the gate is still dangerous. Should we not wait?’

  Beregthor ignored him. He strained forward.

  Vrindum used both arms to restrain him. ‘Beregthor-Grimnir,’ he said, ‘will you not speak to us? Do you know where you are?’

  Beregthor turned his head to face Vrindum. His eyes had sunken further yet. His skin was turning greyer with every passing moment.

  On the back of his neck, something wriggled.

  Vrindum looked closely. There was a small wound just beneath the edge of his helmet. The tip of a daemonic spine protruded from it. At the same moment, Beregthor opened his mouth.

  The pink horrors had wounded the runefather deeper than anyone realised during the first battle. A thorn had pierced Beregthor’s flesh. It had been embedded in him, controlling him.

  ‘The Runefather bears a daemonic wound!’ Vrindum shouted.

  Frethnir leapt forward to help. He had been freed of the pain of doubt, but now an agony a thousandfold worse had fallen on him. He had not acted when there was a chance, and now it was perhaps too late. He tried to reach for the thorn.

  Beregthor twisted violently. He broke Vrindum’s grip and smashed the side of the grandaxe against the grimwrath berzerker’s skull, knocking him aside. He caught his son with the return sweep. His mouth was still open. His lips and tongue worked, trying to shape the sounds he was commanded to utter. His eyes widened. They were consumed with mortal horror. His soul struggled to silence the coming word. It failed. His voice ragged as if ripped apart by claws, he shouted a name. He sang a name.

  ‘Kaz’arrath!’

  Three notes. Short, long, short. Three beats. Soft, strong, soft.

  Now the wind returned. It exploded from Beregthor’s words with such force it smashed Vrindum flat. The runefather was suddenly the origin of the wind. He was the source of the song that had called the Drunbhor lodge to this place. The three-note refrain resounded across the bowl, echoing against the mountainsides.

  Kaz’arrath, Kaz’arrath, Kaz’arrath.

  A song of triumph. And of summoning.

  The wind howled the name. It shrieked over the Fyreslayers as if the combined force of the Typhornas Mountains had come to rage through this site. At the edges of the bowl, the growing night thickened. It swirled with dark tendrils, ready to burst. Beregthor kept his feet in the hurricane. He turned back towards the gate, his face slack.

  Vrindum propelled himself up and forward. He did not know what would happen if Beregthor used the latchkey, but he did know it must not happen. What he had said to the runefather so many days ago was true: the events at Sibilatus had meaning. Every step of the journey had meaning, and the steps had led to a moment that could only mean ruin. So he threw himself at the hero of the Drunbhor, at the Fyreslayer he had followed his entire life. He would die for Beregthor. Now he attacked.

  He swung Darkbane, and he howled with grief that he must do so. Filled with sorrow and dread, he was far from losing himself in the vortex of rage. He aimed Darkbane so the sides of the blades struck the shaft of the Keeper of Roads. He knocked it away from the keyhole, then rammed his shoulder into Beregthor. The runefather stumbled from the impact, then turned on Vrindum, his face contorted. Vrindum did not see the righteous anger of the Fyreslayers in his expression. He did not see the sacred fire of Grimnir. He saw only savagery, and a mindless malevolence.

  Around the dais, the Fyreslayers were in uproar. Their most ferocious warrior was fighting the runefather. The world had lost all sense. Vrindum trusted that Trumnir, Harthum, the runesons and those who were closest could see the distorted, possessed face of Beregthor. But those further away would only be able to see an impossible conflict, the seed of a terrible schism.

  Kaz’arrath, Kaz’arrath, Kaz’arrath, cried the wind.

  Beregthor raised the Keeper of Roads over his head and brought it down, aiming for Vrindum’s skull. The grimwrath berzerker dodged to one side. Beregthor was attacking with enormous power but little skill. The Keeper slammed against the dais, lodging itself in stone. Vrindum launched himself at Beregthor again, battering him hard enough to break his hold on the latchkey grandaxe. Beregthor stared at his empty hands, and he howled.

  Kaz’arrath, Kaz’arrath, Kaz’arrath. Short, long, short. A call. A summons.

  The summons was answered.

  The eight passes that formed the passages to the bowl erupted. The night gave birth to a horde of daemons. A legion of pink horrors and flamers cascaded down the slopes. Gales of demented laughter drowned out the cry of the wind. And to the north, striding behind the thousands of its army, a towering daemon appeared. It was winged. It stalked forward on long legs with multiple articulations. Its arms were almost as long, and it carried a staff in the shape of a giant iron key, whose head changed configuration second by second. Its own head was long and beaked, and its eyes blazed with the terrible cold red of the wards on the gate.

  The arrival of the daemons restored some confidence to the fyrds of the Drunbhor. Here was a clear enemy. Here was a war that must be fought, however daunting the odds. And so the great mass of the vulkite berzerkers advanced in an expanding circle around the dais. They shook the eart
h too with the stamp of their feet and the thunder of their battlecries. The runesons leapt away from the dais, racing through the ranks in three separate directions to lead from the front. Trumnir took a fourth, while Harthum climbed atop his magmadroth and once again began to hammer out the beat of war.

  Beregthor and Vrindum were alone on the dais, though Vrindum could feel the eyes of Kaz’arrath fixed upon them.

  With the great daemon present, and the mirroring of its eyes and the warding runes, he understood what would happen if Beregthor turned the key and opened the way. The Drunbhor would not pass through. The warding would destroy any who tried. But the Keeper of Roads would permit the daemons to pour directly into the other lodge’s magmahold. This was the quest the daemons had goaded the Drunbhor into completing. The daemons had destroyed the gate in Sibilatus so the Drunbhor would seek and open this one, unleashing horror on the kin they had thought to help.

  Vrindum stood between the runefather and the Keeper of Roads. Beregthor ran at him, hands extended like claws. Vrindum met his charge. He grappled with him. He pulled a dagger from his belt and stabbed sideways at the back of Beregthor’s neck. He felt the blade slice into flesh. It struck something hard, and he prayed to Grimnir it was the daemonic thorn.

  ‘Runefather,’ he pleaded. ‘Remember who you are. You are the greatest of the Drunbhor, and we have need of you now!’ He shoved deeper with the knife. Something severed. There was a sudden weakness in Beregthor’s limbs, and Vrindum wrestled him to the ground.