by Warhammer
The dwarfs waded through the spill of wheat and edged behind the barrels.
‘Hiding from goblins again,’ muttered Leatherbeard, disgusted, but he held his breath with the others when three goblins ran into the room, stabbing at the rats with their little spears. The rats squealed and ran for the corners. The goblins didn’t bother to chase very far. There were so many vermin that they had each spitted three or four without much effort. They stuffed them in their sacks and ran out again.
The dwarfs remained where they were, listening as the rumble of cart wheels grew louder, and then diminished into the distance. When the rat harvesters were safely past, Hamnir stepped out. ‘We must hurry. They may come back. Lamps closed.’
The dwarfs crossed to the door and looked out to the left. The orcs and goblins were fifty yards down the corridor. The dwarfs eased out and continued to the right, Hamnir cursing anew as they passed each new ruined silo.
The corridor turned right at its end, opening into a stairwell that went both up and down.
Hamnir turned to the others. ‘We will be very close to the main corridor when we descend. Be careful.’
He led them cautiously down the stairs and they exited two levels down into a shadowy side passage. The glow of lamps from the main corridor, thirty feet to their right, glinted on the blades of their axes, and they heard harsh, gibbering voices. The tramp of heavy feet on the trot echoed to them as well. A large company of orcs armed with dwarf long-guns ran past from right to left.
When they had passed, Hamnir tapped Thorgig on the shoulder and motioned him forwards. The young dwarf padded to the main corridor and leaned out to look both ways. He ducked back suddenly and flattened himself against the wall as more boots echoed from the hall and a second orc company followed the first. They were armed with bows and axes. Thorgig looked after them as they continued down the hall, and then returned to Hamnir and the others.
‘The first group went into the guardroom. The second into the passage to the sally port.’
Hamnir nodded. ‘Gunners for the turrets and scouts to harass Gorril’s line of march: he must be in position. Good.’
‘Doesn’t sound so good to me,’ said Galin scowling. ‘If the orcs are positioning gunners in the turrets, your army will be shot to pieces as they come in.’
Hamnir nodded. ‘This is why Gorril must be able to run straight in when he arrives, so our brothers won’t have to weather more than one salvo while waiting for us to open the gate. The difficulty is, if we are to open the doors, we will have to keep the orcs in the turrets from… Wait.’ He frowned and looked around. There was an empty room just behind them. ‘Come,’ he said. ‘I will lay it out for you. There is a lot to tell and not much time.’
He led the others into the bare, dust-thick room, and squatted down. The others hunkered around him.
‘Here it is,’ he said, sketching in the dust with a thick finger. ‘The Horn Gate is approached through a narrow, steep-walled canyon. Our ancestors built eight turrets into those walls, four to a side, so that any force that tries to knock down the stone door can be riddled with crossfire as they come. Twenty feet behind the first door, there is a second, with murder rooms above and on both sides, so that our defenders can pour boiling oil upon, and shoot crossbows at, any attackers that get through the first door, while they are trying to break down the second.’ The canyon, turrets and doors took shape with a few deft strokes of Hamnir’s finger. Then he began drawing the rooms behind the gates. ‘There are two guardrooms to the right and left of the main corridor, just behind the gate. A door in each guardroom leads to the turrets and murder rooms above. Once both of those doors are locked, the orcs in the turrets and murder rooms cannot get back into the guardroom.’
‘Unless they bash down the doors,’ said Narin.
‘Er, yes,’ said Hamnir, and continued. ‘The two rooms that house the gate levers are also inside the guardrooms. The levers in the rooms must be pulled simultaneously in order for the gates to open. There are two such levers in each room: one for the outer gate, one for the inner. There is a speaking tube between the two rooms so those who pull the levers may act as one, as well as a cunning spyglass that shows the canyon outside the door. Am I clear?’
The dwarfs nodded. Felix would have liked to hear it all again, but didn’t care to ask.
‘Not as well thought-out as the gates of Karak Varn,’ said Galin, sniffing, ‘but stout nonetheless. A good system.’
‘I’m glad it meets with your approval,’ said Hamnir dryly. He turned back to the map. ‘Here is what we must do. We must attack both guardrooms at once, subdue what guards we find there and lock the doors to the murder rooms and turrets without alerting the rest of the hold. When this is done, Thorgig…’ He paused and looked at the young dwarf with a mixture of sadness and anger. ‘Thorgig has volunteered to go up into the first turret and blow the battle horn to let Gorril know we are in position.’
‘But… but the turrets are filled with orcs,’ said Narin. ‘He’ll be killed.’
‘Aye,’ said Hamnir, eyes downcast, ‘precisely.’ He pounded his leg. ‘Curse you, lad. Do you truly wish to throw your life away? Leatherbeard is a Slayer, as is Gotrek. They are looking for a noble death. He–’
‘Must we argue this again?’ asked Thorgig, interrupting. ‘I have been a guard of the Horn Gate for ten years. It was my duty to blow the horn then. It is my duty now.’
‘But–’
‘Prince, please,’ said Thorgig. ‘They don’t know how to blow the horn.’
‘Er,’ said Leatherbeard. ‘I… I could try.’
Thorgig glared at Hamnir defiantly. ‘You see. It must be me. No other can be sure to be heard.’
Hamnir sighed. ‘So it seems.’
‘So,’ said Gotrek. ‘Thorgig blows the horn, we open the gates, Gorril runs in with the army, and the day is saved. Is that it?’
‘Well, it will be a bit more difficult than that,’ said Hamnir.
Felix sighed. Why weren’t things ever easier than one expected?
‘Go on,’ said Gotrek.
‘It is fifteen minutes’ march from Gorril’s advance position,’ said Hamnir. ‘We cannot open the gates until we see him enter the canyon, otherwise the orcs will form up in front of the gate and block their entrance. We will have to hold the guardrooms for those fifteen minutes to prevent the orcs from retaking them and stopping us from pulling the levers. This will be easy if the rest of the hold is not alerted, but the grobi will most likely hear Thorgig’s horn and come running, in which case…’
Gotrek and Leatherbeard grinned.
‘In which case we’ll have a nice scrap on our hands,’ said Gotrek.
‘Aye,’ said Hamnir. He looked much less eager at the prospect. He dug in his pouch and took out a key ring, which he opened with a twist, and then threaded off four keys. ‘We will divide into two groups. One will take the guardroom on the left, the other, the one on the right. Three in each group will kill the occupants while the other two hold closed the doors to the murder room stairs until we can lock them.’ He looked around at them. ‘Gotrek, Jaeger, Narin, Karl and Ragar, you will take the left room. Who will be in charge of the keys?’
‘I will,’ said Narin.
‘And which two will hold the door while the others fight?’
‘I’ll fight,’ said Gotrek, ‘and so will the manling.’
‘We want to fight!’ said Karl.
‘Aye,’ said Ragar. ‘Let the Slayer be a doorstop! He’s still tired from digging!’
‘You want to try me?’ growled Gotrek.
‘Keep your voices down!’ hissed Hamnir.
Gotrek gave Ragar and Karl a flat look. ‘There’ll be enough fighting for all of us when the day is done. You’ll get more than you care for, I’ll wager.’
The brothers glared back at him, and then shrugged.
Hamnir handed Narin two keys. ‘The one with the square loop is for the door to the murder rooms and turrets. The one with the round
loop is for the lever room.’
‘Square, murder. Round, lever,’ said Narin. ‘Understood.’ He tucked them in his pouch.
Hamnir turned to the remaining dwarfs. ‘I will hold the keys for our side. Galin and Thorgig will hold the murder room door. Are we clear?’
The others nodded.
‘Good.’ Hamnir stood. ‘Now, it is past time. Only remember that we must hold the two guardrooms against all comers until Gorril’s force arrives, no matter what the cost.’ He stepped to the door. ‘Let’s go.’
Felix followed the dwarfs as they crept down the side passage towards the main corridor. He swallowed, trying to keep his stomach where it belonged. It all sounded very noble and epic, but not particularly survivable.
Even if they managed to hold out until Gorril’s force arrived, that was only the beginning of the fighting. They still had the whole fort to subdue after that. Felix had a vision of Gotrek alone in a sea of orcs, with all his companions dead around him, including Felix. It was hard to push it from his mind.
Ten feet from the main corridor, they stopped as they heard footsteps and jabbering voices approaching from the direction of the gate. They shrank back into the shadows, on guard. A massive orc, the biggest Felix had ever seen, strode past, chittering orders to a trailing wake of lieutenants and goblin hangers-on in a sharp, sibilant voice completely at odds with its size, but its voice was the least strange thing about it.
Its eyes were glittering black orbs, and its hide pale and waxy, as if it had been smeared in tallow. Irregular white lumps rose from its skull and forearms, as if tumours were growing under its skin and pushing their way out, and he stank, not like an orc, but sour and cloying, like week-old milk. It wore the strange, spider-shell armour that the dwarfs had seen the orcs forging in the mines, black and glossy and baroque with ridges and spines.
A curiously shaped golden torque twisted snugly around his massive, pale green neck, a faceted black gem glittering from it like a third eye. A hand the size of a prize pumpkin gripped an oddly shaped war axe, bigger than any orc cleaver, but made with almost dwarf skill. Most unsettling of all, though, was the fact that, despite his warlike appearance, his savage tusked face was as slack and dull as a sleepwalker’s.
The dwarfs stared as this bizarre apparition continued down the hall, their noses wrinkling at his awful odour.
‘What’s that when it’s at home?’ whispered Ragar.
‘He’s the boss or I’m a halfling,’ said Arn.
‘But what’s happened to it?’ asked Karl. ‘It looked… it smelled… unhealthy.’
‘More proof that there’s something amiss,’ said Hamnir, hushed. ‘The new traps in Birri’s hangar, the mining, the weaving, the unorcish jabbering, this strange, ridged armour: it’s not right, any of it.’
Gotrek nodded, staring at his axe. The runes upon its head were glowing again. ‘Something’s amiss all right.’ He frowned after the huge orc as it disappeared into the depths of the hold, and then shrugged. ‘Come on.’
Hamnir nodded. The corridor was clear to the gate. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Bolts on the strings and in at a run. Give them no time to react. Go.’
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The dwarfs ran out, splitting into their two groups, and raced for the guardrooms. The huge stone slab that was the Horn Gate’s inner door loomed at the end of the wide hallway like a monolith, solid rock without crack or hinge. Two open doors were set into the corridor walls just inside it. Torchlight shone from them.
The dwarfs had traversed slightly more than half the distance when an orc stepped out of the right-hand guardroom on his way to the left. It turned as it saw motion in the corner of its eye. Thorgig and Narin fired their crossbows. The orc dropped with a thud, one quarrel in its throat, the other in its chest.
Questioning grunts came from the guardrooms. The dwarfs sprinted for them, Gotrek in the lead on the left, Leatherbeard on the right.
Orc heads popped out of the guardroom doors just as the dwarfs reached them. Gotrek buried his axe in the left orc’s forehead and drove it backwards into the room with his shoulder. Leatherbeard did the same on the right, and the dwarfs piled in after them.
A single orc jumped up from a table in the centre of the left guardroom as Felix ran in, trying to draw its weapon as Gotrek leapt at it. The Slayer cut its head off before its cleaver cleared its scabbard. Karl and Ragar ran past and closed the door to the murder rooms and turrets. They put their shoulders to it.
Gotrek looked around in disgust. There was a rack of long-guns on one wall, an enormous brass alarm gong on another, and a second door on the same wall as the door the Rassmussons held, but no other orcs in the room. ‘Where’s my fight?’ he asked.
A clash of arms rang from the other room.
‘Ha!’ Gotrek brightened and hurried for the door. ‘Stay here and get the door locked.’
‘Aye, Slayer,’ said Karl, sneering. ‘Go on.’
‘We’ll just stay here and let you have all the fun,’ added Ragar as Narin stepped to them, fishing Hamnir’s keys from his pouch.
Felix followed Gotrek across the hall. The right-hand guardroom was a mirror image of the other, complete with gun rack and gong. Four orcs lay dead on the floor, and Hamnir, Leatherbeard and Arn were busy with another six while Thorgig and Galin held the door to the murder rooms and turrets closed. They looked as if they’d rather be fighting.
‘Much better,’ said Gotrek. He waded in, killing two orcs instantly, as Leatherbeard and Hamnir dropped one each.
The orc facing Arn, seeing its brothers fall, leapt for the alarm gong.
Arn swung after it and missed. ‘Watch him! He’s–’
Felix dived at the orc and caught it by the ankle, tripping it onto its face, inches from the gong. Gotrek spun and buried his axe in its back.
‘Ha!’ Gotrek barked.
The last orc stumbled back from Leatherbeard, its guts spilling from its belly. Before any recognised the danger, it tripped over its fallen comrade and pitched, helmet-first, into the gong, dead.
A deafening musical crash rang out, shivering the room with its vibrations. Felix clapped his hands over his ears. Gotrek jumped to the gong and pinched it quiet.
‘That’s torn it,’ said Arn.
Gibbering orcish voices rose in the murder room above, and boots thundered down the stairs. Thorgig and Galin braced their shoulders against the door.
‘Quick!’ said Hamnir, pointing.
The two dwarfs skidded back as orcs slammed into the door from the other side.
Hamnir pulled out his keys, hurrying towards them. ‘Hold fast!’
Gotrek and Leatherbeard added their weight to the door and pushed it closed again. Hamnir stabbed the key with the square loop into the lock and twisted it. It didn’t turn.
He paled. ‘Have I got it backwards?’
‘Hurry, blast you!’ said Galin as the door bumped and jumped under his shoulder.
Hamnir stuck the other key in the lock, but just then Narin ran in holding a black iron key ring in one hand and two iron keys in the other.
‘They’ve changed the locks,’ he said, and threw the ring to Hamnir. ‘Try these. I found mine.’
Hamnir caught the ring, groaning. There were at least a dozen keys on it. He stuck one in the lock. It didn’t turn. He tried the next. That didn’t turn either. The door bumped and slammed as the dwarfs fought to hold it closed.
‘Orcs don’t make keys,’ muttered Galin.
Ragar stuck his head in from the hall. ‘They’ve heard in the hold!’ He shouted. ‘They’re coming!’
‘How many?’ called Hamnir.
‘The whole damned horde, it looks like!’ said Karl over his brother’s shoulder.
‘Hundred yards away!’ called Ragar.
Hamnir turned to Thorgig as he tried another key. His eyes were grim and sad. ‘It’s now or never, lad. Up the other stairs before they think to try to come down behind us.’
‘But they’re alerted now,’ sai
d Narin. ‘He’ll be cut down before he has a chance to blow the horn.’
‘No he won’t,’ said Leatherbeard, stepping back from the door. ‘Rassmusson, take my place. I’ll give him time.’
His eyes glowed through the holes in his mask, with the eager anticipation of battle against impossible odds Felix had seen so often before in the eyes of Gotrek, Snorri Nosebiter, Malakai Makaisson and the other Slayers he had known.
Hamnir clenched his jaw. His beard bristled. ‘Right. Go.’
‘Yes, my prince,’ said Thorgig.
Arn put his shoulder to the door as Thorgig and Leatherbeard saluted Hamnir, fists over their hearts, and then ran across the hall with Narin to the other guardroom. Thorgig unhooked the war horn of Karak Hirn from his belt.
‘Damn the world,’ said Hamnir. He jabbed the next key into the lock. It too failed to turn.
‘Seventy yards!’ Ragar chimed from the door.
Felix could hear the orcs now – a rumble like a distant avalanche. He watched across the hall into the other guardroom as Narin unlocked the door to the left-hand murder rooms and turrets, and threw it open. Leatherbeard charged up instantly. Thorgig hesitated the merest fraction of a second, then ran after him, the war horn clenched in one hand. Narin slammed the door and locked it behind them.
There was a muted shout from the orcs in the room above, and then the crisp tantara of the horn, blowing a dwarf rally call. Felix heard a roar from Leatherbeard and the clash of axe on cleaver. The horn blew its rally again and again, accompanied by muffled grunts and clangs.
Hamnir found the right key at last and turned it, just as Thorgig’s horn squawked abruptly and then cut off.
‘Damn the world,’ Hamnir said again. He lowered his head until his brow touched the door.
‘I only hope they heard,’ said Galin, stepping back with Gotrek and Arn.
‘Forty yards!’ Ragar shouted from the hall. The sound of boots was so loud that it almost drowned him out.
The orcs on the other side of the murder room door started battering it with their weapons. Hamnir continued to kneel before it, unmoving.
