by Warhammer
But the thing that drew the dwarfs’ attention like a fly to honey was a velvet-lined silver box that sat open on a table, the contents of which shone with a red orange glow in the lantern light.
‘Blood-gold,’ whispered Narin, licking his lips.
‘Look at it shine,’ murmured Galin.
‘Never seen so much in one place,’ said Karl.
It didn’t look like a lot to Felix. There were only twenty ingots in the box, and they looked about half-weight, but they had a hypnotic effect on the dwarfs. They couldn’t take their eyes off them.
‘Beautiful,’ said Leatherbeard. ‘Worth killing for.’
‘Aye,’ said Arn. ‘Red as blood.’
‘Up the stairs!’ said Hamnir, slamming the box closed. ‘You should not be looking upon any of this. We have less than half an hour. Gorril is already in position.’
The dwarfs blinked and came reluctantly back to themselves. Felix looked up the dark shaft. A rough staircase wound up it inside a dwarf-wide channel carved diagonally into the walls like the threads of a screw. More climbing. Wonderful.
As the others crossed to the stairs, Gotrek levered himself to his feet with the help of his axe and stumped after them. The sweat still boiled from his skin.
Hamnir paused, looking back at the hole in the wall with profound unhappiness. ‘Leaving an unguarded door to my father’s vault. Perhaps we could block it…’ He cursed and forced himself up the stairs after the others. ‘There is no time.’
Felix followed the dwarfs up, pressing as close to the wall of the narrow channel as he could. The steps were well cut and true, as was to be expected from any dwarf work, but there was no railing, and as they rose eight, and then ten flights, Felix’s knees began to feel weak and his guts watery. There were no ropes and pitons here, and the dwarfs would have ribbed him unmercifully if he had decided to crawl up on his hands and knees, or asked for a rope ‘in a stairwell of all places’ so he kept his terror to himself.
Seven rotations later, the stair ended at a small landing with no apparent door, only a fat, polished marble pillar set incongruously in one rough wall. A brass lever and something that looked like the lens of a spyglass were placed at dwarf height beside it. Hamnir stepped to the lens and looked into it. He froze, and then stepped back, turning first pale, and then red with rage.
‘There are grobi in my father’s quarters. They have defiled… everything.’
‘Can we get through the door without being seen?’ asked Narin.
Hamnir nodded. ‘They are not in the sleeping chamber, but I can see them moving in the receiving chamber beyond.’ He put his hand on the lever. ‘Thorgig, when I open this door, creep to the further door and spy out how many there are. We will have to take them silently.’
Thorgig cocked and loaded his crossbow. ‘Ready,’ he said.
The others drew daggers and hand-axes.
Hamnir pulled the lever and the fat column screwed down into the floor without a sound, revealing a dark bedchamber that reeked like a garbage heap built over a middens. The dwarfs winced and choked. Piles of rotting food and smashed furniture, broken weapons, squig carcasses, shattered crockery and empty hogsheads of beer were heaped waist deep – shoulder deep for the dwarfs – around the room. King Alrik’s grand canopied bed was buried so deeply that only the four posts rose up out of the muck. All the other furnishings had been slashed and smashed.
The dwarfs trembled with rage when they saw the wreckage.
‘Green savages!’ muttered Galin.
‘They will pay for this,’ said Thorgig.
‘Quiet,’ said Hamnir, and motioned him into the room.
Thorgig picked his way through the heaps as silently as he could. Sounds of industry came from the further room, slappings and bangings and sloshings that Felix couldn’t identify. And where was the reek of excrement coming from?
Thorgig edged to the side of the receiving chamber door and leaned out. Felix saw his eyes widen as he peered through it. He eased back and returned to Hamnir.
‘They’ve made it into a tannery!’ he whispered.
‘A… a what?’ asked Hamnir.
‘A tannery!’ Thorgig choked, overcome. ‘There’s a big vat of… of liquid waste where King Alrik’s table was. Goblins are dunking skins and beating them, and stitching them together all over the room.’
‘How many goblins?’ asked Gotrek.
Thorgig frowned. ‘Er, six, and two orcs are squatting over the vat, with one behind, waiting his turn.’
‘The door to the corridor is closed?’ asked Hamnir.
‘Aye, but not locked.’
Hamnir thought. ‘We’ll wait until the orcs have left, and then kill the goblins, as quietly as possible.’ He looked around at the others. ‘Make sure we take them in one go, aye?’
They nodded.
Hamnir turned to Gotrek. ‘You’re not in this,’ he said.
‘Try and stop me,’ said Gotrek. He was still slick with sweat and breathing heavily.
‘I’m ordering you,’ said Hamnir. ‘Save yourself for the Horn Gate.’
Gotrek grumbled, but nodded.
The dwarfs stepped into the bedchamber and began to pick their way warily around the mounds of rubbish. Gotrek and Felix came last. When all were through the door, Hamnir turned to a decorative relief border by the column and pressed a bit of filigree. The fat column rose up again as silently as it had dropped. It looked as if it had never moved.
The dwarfs crossed the room and positioned themselves at the edges of the square of light that shone through the receiving chamber door. The scene was as Thorgig had described it. There was a four-foot high wooden vat in the centre of the room, filled with semi-liquid orc filth. A set of wooden steps led up to a two-holed outhouse bench that was built out over the vat. An orc was just pulling up his breeches and starting back down the steps.
A goblin stood on the rim, stirring the vile soup with a wooden paddle and pushing un-cured hides down into it. To one side of the vat, drying frames had been set up. Treated skins were being stretched in them. Some had dwarf tattoos. Goblins used wooden mauls to beat skins on square blocks of stone. Another cut them with a hooked knife. Two sat cross-legged on regal dwarf furniture, stitching the cut skins into what looked like leather cuirasses. The room was a shambles, littered with half-eaten ham hocks, and black with filth.
Hamnir trembled. ‘This is a travesty,’ he said under his breath. ‘My father would…’ He twitched and fell silent.
The orc exited through the door to the corridor. The goblins didn’t look up from their tasks. They were as focused and unblinking as clerks at their ledgers.
Hamnir raised his hand. The others gripped their weapons, ready. He dropped his hand. The dwarfs charged through the door. Felix followed them. Only Gotrek waited behind.
Four goblins died on the instant, cut down before they could make a sound. The one with the hooked knife squawked as Leatherbeard ran towards it, and darted into what might once have been a dining chamber. Leatherbeard charged in after it. Felix cut at the goblin with the paddle, but it dived behind the vat. Aside from the first surprised squawk, the last two goblins uttered not a sound. They were as blank and emotionless as all the other grobi they had encountered.
‘Get them!’ hissed Hamnir.
Narin and Galin swung at the paddle goblin, but it dodged between them and they nearly decapitated each other. Karl, Ragar and Arn scrambled after it as it ducked behind the drying frames. Ragar slipped on a wet skin and fell on his posterior. The frames clattered down. A hollow smash came from the dining chamber.
‘Grimnir’s mother!’ snapped Hamnir. ‘Quietly!’
The paddle goblin leapt from the tangle of frames and climbed to the lip of the vat then sprang to the chandelier that hung above it, flailing its absurd weapon around at the dwarfs who tried to reach him.
‘I have him,’ said Felix, and ran up the wooden steps, swinging his sword. The goblin twisted out of the way and smacked Felix on th
e shoulder with the paddle. Felix overbalanced, nearly plunging into the vat. He caught himself, heart thumping. That would have been the crown to his regalia of indignities.
A crossbow bolt appeared in the goblin’s chest. It squeaked and fell, half in, half out of the vat, drenching Felix’s legs in a shower of vile liquid, as the chandelier pendulumed wildly back and forth.
‘Little villain!’ Felix barked, and slashed down at the thing as it flailed on the lip. He cut its head off and its body toppled down to the floor from the strength of the blow. Its head bobbed for a moment in the vat like a rotten apple, and then sank.
‘Shhh!’ said Galin. He stood at the corridor door. ‘Someone’s coming. Sounds like a patrol.’
The dwarfs froze, all but Leatherbeard, who was still chasing his goblin around the dining chamber table. The tramp of marching feet came clearly through the stone walls.
‘Thorgig, help him!’ whispered Hamnir. ‘Karl, Ragar, Arn, hide the bodies, and then yourselves. Galin, Narin, cover the bloodstains. Jaeger…’
The last goblin ran out of the dining chamber as the dwarfs scrambled to obey Hamnir’s orders. Leatherbeard dived after the fleeing runt and smashed it to the floor with his axe.
‘Get it out!’ hissed Hamnir, waving his hand. ‘There are more coming.’
The marching feet stopped outside the door. Leatherbeard dragged his goblin back into the dining chamber as the Rassmusson brothers tossed the others to Gotrek, who stacked them up inside the bedroom door. Narin and Galin threw loose skins on top of the various bloodstains that spattered the floor. Felix hopped down the stairs and ran for the bedroom door, but Hamnir poked his head out of an alcove and pointed.
‘Jaeger! The chandelier!’
Felix turned. The damned thing was still swinging. He cursed and jumped back up the vat steps. The dwarfs were disappearing through doors and ducking behind furniture. Felix reached up and steadied the chandelier. The handle of the corridor door was turning. He cursed. There was no time to reach any of the doorways. He was trapped in the open.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The corridor door began to swing open. Felix jumped off the wooden steps and rolled under them, folding his lanky frame into the tight space. His back was against the vat. A crossbeam pressed painfully across his shins. His breeches clung to him wetly. They stank.
Through the open treads of the steps, Felix watched the knobby green knees of an enormous orc in a studded leather tunic and heavy boots enter the room and approach the vat. A company of orcs at parade rest stood outside the door behind it.
‘Oh no,’ he murmured.
The heavy boots creaked up the complaining steps and stopped directly over Felix’s head. Felix held his breath. If he moved a muscle the orc would hear him.
There was a moment of rustling above him, and then a deep, contented sigh as something plopped wetly into the vat. Felix prayed it would all be over soon, but the orc must have eaten mightily, for the plopping and splashing seemed never-ending. After one particularly violent discharge, a splatter of drops rattled the boards over Felix’s head. A bead of stinking brown liquid formed under one plank and hung there, directly over his face.
Felix looked up at it in horror. He daren’t move. The slightest motion would alert the orc.
The orc grunted and shifted. The drop fell. Felix shut his eyes. It splashed on his right eyelid, then slid slowly down. Felix tensed, fighting back a scream. The stuff burned like vinegar. He wanted to thrash and kick.
The orc stood, giving Felix a view of parts of its anatomy he could have done without seeing, then pulled up its breeches and started down the steps. Halfway down, it paused and jabbered a question. Its voice had a strange, chittering edge to it, not the usual orc grunt.
Felix groaned. It had finally noticed that the goblins weren’t there. This was the end. They were going to have to fight the whole company, and then the whole hold. It was Birrisson’s door all over again. Felix rolled his smarting eyes to the side and saw Gotrek and the Rassmusson brothers in the shadows of the sleeping chamber, readying their weapons.
The orc chattered its question again, and then stepped to the door and spoke to its captain. The captain stuck its head in, and the orc indicated the room with a sweep of its hand.
The captain frowned around for a long moment, then shrugged and told the orc to get back in line. Its voice too was sharp and staccato. The orc exited, shutting the door behind it.
A chorus of dwarf sighs came from all over the room. They stepped out from behind doorways and furniture, looking relieved.
Narin grinned as Felix squeezed out from under the steps. ‘It’s not often a man gets a view like that and lives.’
‘It’s not often a man gets a view like that and wants to live,’ said Felix. He wiped his eyelid and looked around for something to dry his breeches with. ‘And I got another sort of eyeful as well. Burns like fire.’
‘Now that’s a hero’s brand if ever there was one,’ laughed Galin.
‘You find it funny?’ asked Gotrek, stepping from the bedchamber. ‘I wonder if you could have stood it.’
‘Is it a hero’s part to stand things?’ asked Galin. ‘I would have jumped up and killed it before the drop fell.’
‘And doomed us all,’ said Hamnir dryly. ‘Very heroic.’ He turned to the door. ‘Now, hurry, before any more come to fill the vat.’ He put his ear to the panels as the others gathered behind him. ‘We go left,’ he said, ‘and then up. The Horn Gate is only three hundred yards due east, but this is the level of the great halls. It will be too populated. Two levels up are grain stores. We will traverse the length of the hold there, and return down a further stairwell nearer the gate. Ready?’
The dwarfs nodded, faces set and grim behind their beards.
Hamnir listened again, then slowly pulled open the door and peered out. The torch-lit corridor echoed with sounds of distant movement, but nothing nearby. Hamnir turned left and slipped quietly down the hall. The dwarfs followed behind him in a single file, Felix looming at the back of the line, feeling clumsy and clammy in his moist breeches. Despite what Gotrek and Hamnir had said, it was hard to feel heroic when you were damp with orc-crap.
The stairwell to the upper levels wasn’t more than twenty yards along the hall, but they had to pause and hide three times to let orc patrols and work details march past. Through every door they passed, they saw goblins and orcs busy at their labours, cutting and shaping wood, building torture devices and trebuchets, slaughtering and skinning animals, making food, weaving.
‘Weaving?’ whispered Galin, nonplussed. ‘Grobi don’t weave!’
‘Place is more like a beehive than an orc nest,’ muttered Gotrek.
‘And what ails their voices?’ said Narin. ‘Chittering and gibbering like… like–’
‘Monkeys?’ suggested Thorgig.
‘Mutants, I was going to say,’ said Narin.
Hamnir paused at the stairwell and looked in warily, then waved them up. They climbed two levels and stepped out into a broad, unlit corridor. The dwarfs unshielded their lanterns and started down its length. The air was filled with the dusty, musty smell of rotting wheat.
Hamnir sniffed, frowning. ‘Have they left a silo open to the damp? We haven’t much wheat to spare this year.’
Huge doors lined both sides of the hallway for as far as they could see in the lamplight. They were all open. Hamnir looked into the first one on the right. The room inside was small and stacked along its left wall with barrels and empty canvas sacks. An ironbound door, like a furnace door with a trough beneath it, was set in the back wall. The trough was barely visible, however, because the iron door was open, and pouring from it like a sand dune was a spill of golden grain. The sweet reek of mould grew stronger, and black shadows crawled over the mound – rats, dozens of them.
‘Valaya curse them,’ sneered Hamnir. ‘For all their chittering and weaving, they are still careless savages.’
He looked in the door to the left. That sil
o was open as well, and the wheat spilled across the floor almost to the door. More rats crawled over the bounty.
Hamnir shivered. ‘Two spoiled? It will be a lean winter. It…’ He looked up the hall with slowly dawning horror, then hurried ahead.
The others followed quickly. Hamnir looked in the second pair of doors. Both rooms were the same as the first – the iron doors open and mounds of rotting grain alive with rats. Hamnir choked and sped to the next doors. Those silos too had been opened, as had the next set.
Hamnir slumped against the wall, covering his face with his hands. ‘Grimnir,’ he said, choking. ‘They’ve killed us. Even if we retake the fort and drive them out, they have won. We will starve. No bread. No beer. The hold won’t last the winter. Are they mad? Why have they done this? It’s suicide for them too.’
‘Something’s coming,’ said Leatherbeard.
The dwarfs covered their lanterns and stepped into the grain room. They peered through the door. A glow of torchlight and looming ugly shadows emerged from around a corner, far ahead. Then a strange procession appeared – two big orcs pushed a mine cart, while ahead of them scurried a dozen goblins, all armed with barbed spears and sacks. The goblins ran into the silo rooms, from which came sounds of struggling and squeaking. Then they reappeared, rats impaled on their spears. They stuffed these in their sacks, and carried on to the next rooms.
When they came out again, one goblin’s sack was full. He emptied it in the mine cart, then followed his snaggle-fanged brethren further down the hall.
Hamnir stared open mouthed, but Narin stifled a snort. ‘They use the grain to farm rats!’ he whispered. ‘Brilliant!’
‘The fools!’ said Hamnir shaking his head. ‘The meat-brained idiots.’
‘They’ll be coming in here, prince,’ said Thorgig looking at the rats swarming the grain at their feet.
‘Right,’ said Hamnir. He glanced around. Barrels were stacked along one wall. ‘Behind those. Quick.’
