by Warhammer
At last, as the dark forms moved off, melting once again into the mist, Hamnir stood. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘On we go, but keep your eyes and ears open. We can’t be seen.’
The fog was their friend in this. The party walked down the last ridge and onto the rough plain without hearing or seeing another patrol. Hamnir turned them east and slightly south, and they marched in damp, chilly silence.
After another hour, the fog began to lift, revealing the sparse pines and rocky ground of the barren, hilly land, and then later, the jagged line of the Black Mountains under low, iron-grey clouds. The air remained cold and wet around them, like a clammy embrace. Felix shivered in his old red cloak, and expected at any moment to be drenched with rain, but it never came.
Hamnir walked at the front of the party, Thorgig at his side, eyes moving alertly around the landscape. Gotrek stayed at the back, his brow as clouded as the sky. The Slayer and the prince seemed disinclined to speak, either to each other, or to anyone else.
After a time, the mining engineer, a wide-shouldered, sway-gutted veteran with a red face, a redder nose, and a bushy ginger beard shot with grey, dropped back to Gotrek, sticking his chin out so his beard bristled. ‘You know why I volunteered for this company, Slayer?’ he asked, loudly.
Gotrek didn’t acknowledge him, only stared ahead.
‘My name is Galin Olifsson,’ said the engineer, slapping his chest with a meaty palm, ‘a Stonemonger of the Stonemonger clan, same as Druric Brodigsson. You remember him, Slayer?’
Gotrek spat. A wiser dwarf than Galin might have noticed the balling of his fists.
‘Word is, you left him behind to die, Slayer,’ snarled Galin, ‘while you ran like a coward from mere orcs.’
Felix barely saw Gotrek move, but suddenly Galin was flat on his back with blood streaming from his nose into his moustache and mouth. He blinked up at the sky. Gotrek kept walking, but the rest of the party was turning.
‘Curse you, Gurnisson!’ cried Hamnir. ‘Will every dwarf who marches with me have a broken nose before you’re through? We must all be whole and ready if we are to succeed.’
‘He asked for it,’ said Gotrek, shrugging.
‘I wasn’t ready, you damned cheat,’ said Galin, sitting up woozily and pinching his misshapen nose.
‘You call a Slayer a coward and aren’t ready to be hit?’ asked Leatherbeard, laughing. ‘Then you’re a fool.’
‘Druric asked to stay behind,’ said Narin, offering Galin his hand. ‘And if you’ve a fight to pick with the Slayer you’ll wait until this business is finished like the rest of us.’
Galin batted aside Narin’s hand, sneering, and stood by himself. ‘The word of an Ironskin is to be trusted? They who stole the Shield of Drutti from us? You likely told the Slayer to leave my cousin behind.’
‘No one tells the Slayer anything,’ snorted Narin, then held out the sliver of wood twisted in his beard, his eyes bright with mischief. ‘And I have the Shield of Drutti here, what’s left out of it, if you care to carry it.’
‘You mock me, Ironskin?’ said Galin, puffing up his chest. ‘You’re next after the Slayer if you think–’
‘Olifsson!’ barked Hamnir. ‘If you joined us only to fight us, you can return to the castle. Now stand down!’
Galin glared daggers at Narin and Gotrek, but at last turned away, straightening his armour and dabbing at his still bleeding nose with a voluminous kerchief. ‘I can wait,’ he grumbled. ‘A dwarf is nothing if not patient.’
The other three dwarfs who had joined the party grinned behind Galin’s back. They were the Rassmusson brothers, Karl, Ragar and Arn, who looked so alike that Felix had trouble telling them apart – a trio of bald, black-bearded miners whose skin had been permanently begrimed with the dirt and ore they dug. The seams of their faces and their cracked knuckles were grey with it.
‘Nice one,’ said one – Arn, perhaps, Felix thought.
‘Don’t see a punch like that every day,’ said a second, nodding – Karl, possibly.
‘I’ll show you one,’ snarled Galin, turning and raising his fist.
The third brother, who by process of elimination, Felix decided must be Ragar, raised his hands. ‘No disrespect, cousin,’ he said. ‘We don’t say you deserved it.’
‘You took it well, too,’ said the one that Felix had decided was Arn. ‘No weeping or moaning.’
‘No calling quits,’ agreed the one who therefore had to be Karl. ‘On your feet and ready for another right quick.’
Galin eyed them suspiciously for a moment, trying to see if they were laughing at him. ‘All right then,’ he said finally, and turned back around.
The brothers exchanged sly glances.
‘Really was quite a punch, though,’ said Ragar.
‘Aye,’ said Arn. ‘Once in a lifetime, that punch.’
‘Ha!’ said Karl. ‘Punch like that could end a lifetime.’
Galin’s shoulders tensed, but he didn’t turn around. The brothers grinned as if they’d won a victory.
Felix found himself falling behind the others because of his ankle. The dwarf physician had done a remarkable job, and there was no longer much pain, but it was still stiff, and his stride was stilted. Gotrek, apparently as much to keep at a distance from Hamnir as to keep Felix company, hung back with him.
‘What is your grudge against Hamnir, anyway?’ Felix asked at last. ‘You two were obviously friends at one time. What came between you? A girl? An insult? Gold?’
Gotrek snorted. ‘Men can’t understand dwarf honour, since they have none of their own. He broke an oath. That’s all you have to know.’
‘What oath?’ pressed Felix. ‘What could he have done that was so bad? He seems a decent enough fellow, very even tempered, very reasonable.’
‘Ha!’ said Gotrek. ‘You like him because he acts like a man, with a man’s manners and smooth talk, but he’s got a man’s tricky nature too. He doesn’t stick to his word. To a dwarf, an oath’s an oath, big or small, but not to that one.’ He scowled towards the front of the line. ‘A pair of pretty eyes or a better offer and he’ll turn his back on a brother. He’ll squirm and twist and quote law to get out of his bond.’
‘Ah, so it was a girl,’ said Felix.
‘I’ll say no more.’
‘Very well,’ said Felix.
They walked on in silence for a while, but Felix’s curiosity was aroused. ‘When did all this happen? Were you already a Slayer?’
Gotrek shot him a sharp glance. ‘You trying to pry it out of me, manling?’
‘No, no,’ said Felix. ‘Only, if you die here, I’ll need to include Hamnir and the others in the epic of your death: “The brave party the Slayer led”, and all that. I’ll need to know something about how you met and what you did, to give it some body, some breadth, aye?’
Gotrek thought for a moment, and then nodded. ‘I suppose you’ve a right to some history. Every epic I ever heard told in the feasthall started in the cradle, and it’s best you hear it from me and not that silk-tongued oathbreaker.’ He shot a sharp look up at Felix again. ‘Not that I’ll tell you everything, mind. Just enough.’
‘Enough will suffice, I’m sure,’ said Felix, trying not to sound too eager. It was rare for Gotrek to share anything of his past. ‘Go on.’
Gotrek walked on, frowning, as if gathering his thoughts. ‘I met Hamnir when he came to the clan of my fathers,’ he said at last. ‘This was long before I took the crest, when I was still a shortbeard. There was peace in the hold then. Too calm for me. I wanted a fight.’ He ran his hand absently through his beard. ‘Hamnir was restless too. Wandered all the way from Karak Hirn to the Worlds Edge because of it.’ He snorted. ‘Read too many books. Wanted to see the world. Wanted to see the wonders he’d read about.’ Gotrek shrugged. ‘There was fighting in most of the places he talked about – the Sea of Claws, the Empire, Bretonnia – so I said I’d go with him.’
‘It was just a travel arrangement?’ asked Felix. ‘You weren’t frie
nds?’
‘Me? Friends with that treacherous…’ Gotrek paused, and then sighed. ‘Eh. Suppose I was. He seemed a good dwarf then. Kept me out of trouble when I was looking to get in it, and got me out of it if I was already in. Talked an elector count out of hanging me once. Whatever army we signed on with, he got us a good deal, and if our commander tried to cheat us, Hamnir always got the money anyway.’
Gotrek smirked and shot another glance towards Hamnir, then grunted and looked away. ‘Wasn’t much of a mercenary though. Handy enough in a fight, and a good tactician on paper, but he’d get muddled when things went wrong.’ Gotrek snorted. ‘Didn’t have the mercenary spirit either. We’d loot castles and all he took was books. He once punched a captain of ours who smashed a statue. Didn’t mind killing man, dwarf or elf, but you couldn’t burn a painting around him.’
‘How long did you travel with him?’ asked Felix.
Gotrek shrugged. ‘Ten years? Twenty? Can’t remember. Might have been fifty. We fought through the Empire, Bretonnia, down the coast hunting pirates, the border princes, Estalia, Tilea…’ He trailed off.
‘Tilea?’ prodded Felix.
Gotrek came back to himself and scowled at Felix. ‘No, manling, I said I’d tell you enough. You’ll get no more.’
‘But how can you tell a tale and not the finish?’
‘He broke his oath,’ Gotrek snarled, ‘that’s the finish. Now leave me be.’
The Slayer strode forwards, catching up with the last of the dwarfs, leaving Felix to limp along behind by himself.
Felix cursed himself for a fool. He’d almost had it. If he hadn’t pushed so hard at the end, Gotrek might have told him on his own. Still, he knew now about a stretch of Gotrek’s life that even he hadn’t known existed before. That was something at least.
On the morning of the third day, the dwarfs turned north again, winding their way up through narrowing valleys and canyons into the foothills of the Black Mountains until the Badlands disappeared behind a screen of pine-furred hills.
As they pushed on, Hamnir let the Rassmusson brothers lead the way, for in their youth they had worked the Duk Grung and had made the trip many times. The three dwarfs tramped confidently up slopes choked with mountain laurel and clinging nettles, along swift streams and deer tracks, and dirt roads long overgrown with weeds and wildflowers, commenting all the while.
‘Isn’t this the place where old Enrik dropped an ingot and made us search the bushes for six hours?’ asked Arn, as they passed a fallen tree.
‘Aye,’ said Ragar, ‘and he had it in his pack the whole time.’
‘I remember,’ said Karl, laughing. ‘Found it when he bit into his pasty. Chipped his tooth.’
‘Always thought Dorn had something to do with that,’ said Arn, ‘but he never owned up.’
A little further on Karl pointed to a granite ledge overlooking a small, fern-skirted pool. ‘The rock of the full moon!’ he cried.
His brothers laughed uproariously, but wouldn’t explain what he meant.
As the sun reached its zenith, they saw ahead of them the mouth of a canyon that was walled off with thick stone battlements, in the centre of which stood an open gateway guarded by two squat towers.
‘There we are,’ said Arn, pointing. ‘Duk Grung.’
Looking at the old walls peeking through the trees, Felix was struck again by just how long dwarfs lived. For though the walls were sturdy dwarf work and had stood the test of time with barely any weathering, they were thickly overgrown with vines, moss and bushes and the gates had long ago rusted away. The place looked like some ruin of antiquity, and yet Arn, Karl and Ragar had worked here when it was a going concern.
‘Grown up a bit, hasn’t it?’ said Ragar. ‘Had a human gardener in our time who did for the pruning.’
‘I remember him,’ said Arn. ‘Wolfenkarg, or something. Ludenholt? Some mannish gibberish. Couldn’t hold his liquor.’
‘Wonder what’s become of him,’ said Karl.
‘Well, he was a man,’ snorted Arn, ‘so he’s long dead, isn’t he?’
‘Like may-flies they are,’ said Ragar. He shot a guilty glance at Felix. ‘No offence, human.’
Felix shrugged. ‘None taken.’ It was only the truth.
Approaching the rusted remains of the gate, the dwarfs saw a wide, deeply worn track running along the wall and through the gate. They stopped, growing quiet, their hands dropping to their weapons. The two Slayers studied the track intently while the others shot wary glances into the trees around them.
‘A troll,’ said Leatherbeard, ‘and the tracks are fresh.’
‘Two trolls,’ Gotrek said. ‘At least two.’
‘One for each of us,’ said Leatherbeard jauntily, but his voice was tight.
‘Have they made their home in the mine?’ asked Hamnir.
‘Let’s find out,’ said Gotrek.
The dwarfs unslung axes and crossbows and followed him through the open gate, on guard. Felix drew his sword. Inside the wall, the canyon rose and narrowed, pinched between two steep, rocky hills. The crumbled remains of old outbuildings peeked out from thickets of young trees on either side of the troll track, which wound up through the centre.
‘Cart mule stables,’ whispered Karl, waving to the left.
‘And Lungmolder’s shack,’ said Arn, motioning to the right. ‘Trouble with wood. Doesn’t last.’
‘Was it Lungmolder?’ asked Ragar. ‘Thought it was Bergenhoffer, or Baldenhelder, or–’
‘Hush, curse you,’ said Galin. His eyes were bulging, and his red face was sweating.
They crept up the troll track to the end of the canyon, a tight funnel between the converging hillsides. In the western slope, there was a black opening, nearly hidden by a thick screen of raspberry bushes. The dwarfs approached it cautiously. As they got closer, Felix saw that the opening was a rough hole, broken through what appeared to be a large, walled-up door, its outlines only barely discernible under the dense cloak of vegetation.
‘It’s been breached,’ said Karl.
‘That’s bad, that is,’ said Ragar.
Arn shrugged. ‘Kruked out anyway.’
‘Might not have been iron they were after,’ said Narin.
‘Might have been trying to reach Karak Hirn,’ said Thorgig, grimly.
Galin snorted. ‘If they tried, lad, it was a hundred years ago, and Karak Hirn survived.’ He pointed at the edges of the breach. ‘Any dwarf with the eyes Grungni gave him can see that that hole was bashed in long ago. All the breaks are weathered.’
‘Call me “lad” again, and I’ll feed you the tongue Grungni gave you,’ said Thorgig, glaring at the engineer.
‘Until you can tuck your beard in your belt, I’ll call you what I like,’ said Galin.
‘I’ll tuck your beard up your–’
‘Enough!’ hissed Hamnir. ‘Both of you.’
Leatherbeard pointed to the deep-worn troll track. It wound through the raspberry bushes and right to the hole. ‘The hole may be old, but the place is occupied still.’
‘Saves us looking for the hidden latch at least,’ said Ragar.
‘Right,’ said Hamnir, taking a deep breath. ‘Light your lamps and in we go, Slayers first.’
The dwarfs unhooked sturdy horn lanterns from their packs, lit them from tinder jars, and hung them from their belts so they would have both hands free. Gotrek lit a torch, which he held like a weapon in his off hand. When all were ready, they pushed through the undergrowth to the hole. Though it was small compared with the walled-up door, the break was still twice as tall as Felix, and twice as wide as Gotrek. They peered in. It was utterly black inside.
Gotrek stepped forwards, holding his torch back and to the side, so as not to blind himself. Leatherbeard followed, with the others edging in behind him. A cold wind blew an astounding stench out at them – a rich mix of offal, rotting meat, mildew, and an acrid animal musk even more pungent than that of orcs.
Narin wrinkled his nose. ‘Nothing
smells worse than a troll.’
‘Two trolls?’ suggested Arn, or possibly Ragar.
‘Quiet!’ whispered Hamnir.
On the far side of the door, the hole opened out into a wide chamber. As Felix’s eyes became accustomed to the dark, he could make out monumental doorways in each of the walls, and looming pillars holding up a high ceiling. Below this grand dwarf architecture, rubbish lay in swathes: heaped piles of bones, smashed furniture and machinery, rotting carcasses, burnt timber, as well as drifts of brown leaves and tree branches, blown or dragged in from outside.
In one corner, a fire pit had been dug into the stone floor, over which hung a dented iron pot, bigger than a nobleman’s bath. Crude log stools and settles surrounded the fire, and two beds of bracken were laid nearby. Limp forms hung from spikes bashed into the walls – two men, an orc, a cow, and a wolf, all skinned and hung to drain. The bones and clothing of earlier feasts were piled within easy flinging distance from the fire pit. Skins were laid out on the floor and held flat with rocks.
‘Seems lord and lady troll are not at home,’ said Narin.
‘Trolls in old Duk,’ said Ragar, shaking his head. ‘A damned shame.’
‘Aye,’ said Karl. ‘To see the old place mucked up like this, it breaks your heart.’
‘Not the tidiest housekeepers, are they?’ said Arn, sniffing.
Hamnir looked around uneasily. ‘I’d almost rather have found them in their lair,’ he said. ‘Worse not knowing where they are.’
‘Another doom missed,’ said Gotrek, morose.
‘Which way to the deeps?’ asked Hamnir, turning to the Rassmusson brothers.
They looked around, stroking their beards. Then Arn spoke up. ‘Barracks that way.’ He pointed right. ‘Smelters that way.’ He pointed straight ahead. ‘Workface that way.’ He pointed to the left.
