by Warhammer
‘Stand aside,’ said Gotrek, limping forwards.
‘No, Gurnisson,’ said Hamnir, stepping ahead of the Slayer. ‘He is mine. He took my hold. I will take him. Besides, you’re in no shape for a fight.’
‘I’m always in shape for a fight,’ Gotrek bristled, but then stopped, grunting. ‘Bah! It’s your hold. I suppose you have the right to challenge him, Valaya curse you.’
Hamnir and Gorril were already charging down the steps to join the longbeards’ line. Gotrek glared after them, angry, or perhaps concerned. Felix couldn’t tell.
‘Come on, manling,’ the Slayer said, turning. ‘We’ll find some other place to get stuck in.’
‘Why not take Hamnir’s advice and sit this one out,’ said Felix. ‘You’re not exactly at your best.’
‘Why do you all say that?’ growled Gotrek. ‘All I needed was a drink.’
‘Listen,’ said Narin, trying to see through the gun-smoke that filled the hall like a fog. ‘The thunderers on the right balcony have stopped firing,’
‘They’re being attacked,’ said Galin, craning his neck. ‘Orcs have got around behind them.’
Gotrek turned to the corridor. ‘Then we’ll get around behind the orcs.’
‘Just the four of us?’ asked Felix.
Gotrek looked at the battle. The dwarfs were sorely pressed on every side. ‘There’s no one else to spare.’
He stumped back into the corridor. Felix, Narin and Galin exchanged a glance, and then shrugged and followed him.
A few strides down the hallway, they reached a rising stair held by a rank of Karak Hirn dwarfs.
‘One of you lads, lead us to the right balcony over the concourse,’ said Gotrek. ‘Your thunderers are in trouble.’
‘One of us?’ said a dwarf. ‘We’ll all come!’
‘And desert your position?’ snarled Gotrek. ‘Your prince would like that. Just one.’
The dwarf who had spoken, a gruff veteran named Dolmir, came with them, leading them quickly up the stairs and through the passages of the floor above. Gotrek grunted with each limping step in an effort to keep up with the others.
Soon they entered a high, wide corridor that ringed the grand concourse. On the outer wall of the ring were a series of magnificent doors, each with the insignia of a clan carved above it in stone – the entrances to the holds of the clans who made Karak Hirn their home. Many of their doors hung open, or had been smashed off their hinges, and piles of stone and construction materials littered the corridor, as if the orcs had been attempting repairs. On its inner wall, the ring was pierced by numerous iron-latticed windows, balconies, and galleries that looked down into the grand concourse. The sounds of battle echoed up through them, but a nearer battle was louder. The companions turned.
Halfway down the corridor was the entrance to the balcony that the thunderers had been firing from. A seething scrum of orcs surrounded it. The thunderers had turned and fought them with hand axe and dagger. Both orc and dwarf bodies sprawled at the feet of the combatants, but the dwarfs were getting the worst of it. They were outnumbered two to one. They would be overwhelmed in moments.
‘Grimnir take it,’ cursed Gotrek as he hobbled forwards. ‘I can’t run.’ He looked around angrily, and then pointed to the construction. ‘Manling, that barrow!’
Felix ran to a pile of rubble and pulled out a wooden wheelbarrow. He rolled it to Gotrek. The Slayer climbed in, wounded leg first, and faced forwards, axe at the ready.
‘Push!’
Felix tried, but the dwarf was impossibly heavy, much denser than anything made of flesh and blood had any right to be. ‘Narin, help me.’
Narin took up one of the barrow’s handles and together they ran it down the corridor, Galin and Dolmir pacing them. The orcs and the thunderers were too occupied to notice them coming.
‘Valaya’s mercy, Gurnisson,’ puffed Narin. ‘Do you eat stone for breakfast?’
‘Shut up. Push faster!’
Fifteen feet from the melee, the barrow’s wheel struck a loose brick and bounced wildly. Gotrek catapulted forwards, grunting in surprise, but turned it into a bloodthirsty battle cry and raised his axe in mid-air.
The back rank of orcs turned at the noise and fell to the floor in pieces as Gotrek’s axe passed through them, parting armour and bone as easily as it cut flesh. Felix and Narin ploughed the barrow into the orcs, then drew their weapons and charged in with Galin and Dolmir, slashing and chopping.
The thunderers cheered and, heartened by the reinforcements, attacked with renewed fury. The orcs fought with the same blank silence that Felix had come to expect.
Dolmir, however, was unnerved. ‘Why don’t they cry out? Why don’t they break?’
‘I don’t know, cousin,’ said Narin, ‘but they won’t run. We’ll have to kill every last one.’
And they did. Though Gotrek was nearly immobile because of his leg, it didn’t matter. The orcs came to him, pushing forwards to swing at him, only to fall before his omnipresent blade. The swarm was quickly obliterated.
‘Much obliged, Slayer,’ said the captain of the thunderers as his dwarfs recovered and took up their guns again. ‘Tougher than we thought they’d be.’
They re-formed on the balcony and started firing down into the mass of orcs once again.
Gotrek, Felix and the others looked over the battle below. The dwarfs and orcs were fighting to a standstill along a curved line in front of the steps. It looked as if every orc in the hold was trying to get at the dwarfs, and in the centre…
‘Grimnir curse him!’ said Gotrek as he saw. ‘Thinks he’s a Slayer now?’
In the centre, Hamnir and the orc warboss still fought on, the tattered remains of their squads surrounding them. There were less than ten of the strange pale orcs left, and no more than a handful of longbeards. Hamnir’s helmet was dented and his gromril ringmail torn in a dozen places. His face was red with blood and exertion. The warboss’s armour had similarly been smashed and ripped away, but strangely, its pale, green skin didn’t have a mark on it.
As Felix and Gotrek watched, Hamnir swung his axe at the giant orc’s exposed knee. At first it seemed he had hit it, for Felix could have sworn he saw Hamnir’s shoulders jolt with the impact, but it must have been an illusion, for his axe sped on, unbloodied, and the orc took no wound. The orc hardly registered the attack, swinging its own shield-sized axe down at Hamnir so swiftly that the dwarf prince had to fling himself aside to avoid being chopped in two.
‘Never was much good in a scrap,’ grumbled Gotrek. He pulled himself up onto the balustrade. ‘Hang on, scholar!’ he roared, and without a second thought, leapt down to the floor, twenty-five feet below.
CHAPTER TWENTY
‘Gotrek!’ shouted Felix. He thrust his head over the rail. Narin and Galin did the same, eyes wide with alarm.
‘It’s all right,’ said Narin wryly. ‘His fall was broken by a dozen orcs.’
It was true. Gotrek was on his feet in the centre of a cluster of sprawling orcs, slashing around like a red-crested whirlwind as he forced his way towards Hamnir and the warboss. The bandage on his leg was crimson with fresh blood.
Felix’s mouth opened and closed. ‘Damn him! I… I… I’ll break my legs. I…’ With a curse he turned and bolted into the hallway towards the stairs. Narin and Galin ran after him, but quickly fell behind.
Felix pounded down the stairs, pushed through the dwarfs at the bottom and sprinted along the corridor to the grand concourse. He skidded to a stop behind the thunderers on the steps and scanned the surging battle for Gotrek.
The Slayer was just reaching the warboss, a wide swath of broken and dismembered orcs behind him. He swung at the warboss’s back. The blow ripped the shattered remains of the orc’s black breastplate off and sent it spinning. As the brute turned to swing at Gotrek, Felix could see that its back was entirely unmarked. He groaned. Gotrek had missed for a second time today, though it wasn’t any wonder: he should have been flat on his back in bed.
It has some magic, thought Felix, some protective spell. No matter. Gotrek would make short work of that. He and his axe had cut down dragons and daemons. Magic siege engines had disintegrated at the merest touch of that fell blade.
Gotrek knocked the wax-fleshed monster’s enormous battle-axe aside and lurched in with a clean unobstructed swing to its belly. The orc roared in pain and staggered back three steps, and Felix raised his fist. That’s done it, he thought. But as the warboss straightened, Felix saw only a fading line on its belly, as one might see if one drew one’s fingernail across the back of one’s hand. The orc had taken a blow that should have come out through its spine, and was unmarked.
‘Damned stinking beast!’ Gotrek swore. ‘What are you made of?’
The orc charged him, raining a storm of blows down on him as the Slayer blocked and swayed on his bad leg, cursing in pain and frustration.
Felix pushed through the thunderers and charged the monstrous orc’s back. A stupid thing to do, he knew, even as he did it. If Gotrek’s axe could make no impression, what could he do? But he couldn’t just stand aside and watch. He swung his long sword at the same time that Hamnir and the longbeards swung their axes. Not one strike broke the skin. They all slid off the orc’s pale green hide as if it were oiled marble.
The orc swept a lazy backhand at Felix, Hamnir and the others, splitting open a Longbeard’s ribs and knocking him to the floor, dead. Felix leapt back, barely escaping the same fate.
Gotrek lunged in and swung with all his might at the orc’s right shin – a blow like that would have severed the leg from an iron statue. The orc grunted and its leg buckled, but it recovered and spun back. Its huge axe shaved a tuft from Gotrek’s orange crest.
Felix tossed aside his sword. Perhaps he couldn’t wound the thing, but he might blind it. He leapt on its massive back, grabbing it around the neck, struggling to climb it. Its skin was slick with some foul mucus. The smell choked him, and he almost slid off.
The orc grunted, annoyed, and tried to shrug him off. Felix got his legs over its broad shoulders and clapped his hands over its eyes.
‘Good, manling!’ called Gotrek. ‘Stay on him!’ He struck the orc’s chest with a blow that should have split its sternum.
The orc staggered back, bellowing in pain, but its skin remained whole. It lashed out blind and one-handed with its axe, and groped with its free hand for Felix.
Felix tried to squirm out of the way of the questing fingers, but they caught him by the arm.
Felix scrabbled desperately for purchase and caught at the gold torque wrapped around the orc’s neck. The orc threw him crashing into Gotrek, sending them both sprawling.
‘Curse you, manling!’ grunted the Slayer from under Felix. ‘I told you to stay on.’
A shadow of swift movement flashed in the corner of Felix’s eye and he rolled instinctively aside. Gotrek rolled the opposite way. The orc’s immense axe blade slammed down between them, burying itself deep in the marble floor.
Gotrek staggered up, lurching on his wounded leg, and swung with all his might at the orc’s arm as it lifted the axe again. He chopped the massive green limb in half at the elbow.
Gotrek blinked as the orc howled and fell back, its stump spurting black blood. ‘What in the name of Grungni?’
Hamnir and the longbeards ran in as the orc staggered, clutching itself. Their axes bit deep, just as Gotrek’s had. They chopped it to pieces.
‘What happened?’ asked Hamnir, as they looked down at its mangled body. ‘Why did it suddenly become vulnerable?’
‘Haven’t a clue,’ said Gotrek, ruffling his shortened crest and frowning.
‘Er,’ said Felix, and held up the thing he clutched in his hand – the orc’s golden torque.
Felix gave the torque to Hamnir as the battle with the orcs continued. He was glad to be rid of it. Perhaps it would have made him invincible too, but it made his skin crawl just holding it. The glittering black jewel in its centre seemed to look at him, and dark whisperings seemed to fill his mind, urging him to put it on. Dwarfs were less susceptible to that sort of thing, he thought as he fought beside Gotrek, better for Hamnir to have it.
Felix’s many battles against orcs had taught him that when one kills the warboss, the fight is over. The lieutenants start squabbling, and any cohesion the horde might have had dissipates in an explosion of infighting and panic. Although he and the dwarfs had ample evidence that the orcs they fought now were not like other orcs, it still came as a demoralising shock when they continued fighting just as resolutely after the invulnerable warboss had fallen as they had before.
So, for another weary, blood-soaked hour, the orcs threw themselves at the dwarf line with the dull mechanical ferocity of ants protecting their nest. Gotrek and Hamnir fought back to back in that swirling sea, roaring and joking, and exchanging reminiscences as if they were bellied up to a bar instead of butchering greenskins.
‘That wasn’t nine, scholar,’ Gotrek growled, grinning. ‘You only have eight. I finished off the one before last, so he’s on my tally not yours. Is this how you count your manifests?’
‘I dispatched the one you threw behind you,’ retorted Hamnir, grinning. ‘Do you think your every stroke is fatal? Someone has to clean up behind you, as it ever was.’
Felix was struck again by unexpected jealousy as he watched them. He had travelled with Gotrek for twenty years and could not recall one instance where Gotrek had been as comfortable and free in his presence as he was with Hamnir now.
Finally, the last orc fell, the echoes of steel on steel faded, and the grand concourse was silent, but for the moaning of the wounded and the dying. Felix could barely lift his sword, and Gotrek was the same, wearier than Felix had ever seen him, but happier too.
The dwarfs looked around in a daze at the piles of the dead and the lakes of blood that spread across the polished marble floor. Some of the survivors mourned over slain brothers and friends. Some clapped each other on the back and drank celebratory toasts from flasks. Some were so tired that they sat down where they were, unheeding of the corpses and the reek.
Hamnir limped unsteadily up the steps and turned to face his troops. He was a mass of cuts and bruises, his armour hanging off him like a gromril rag. ‘Sons and friends of Karak Hirn, you have won a great victory here today.’
The dwarfs bellowed a deep-throated cheer.
‘This enterprise may have started in my error, but it has ended in your victory. I thank you for your help and sacrifice. Bring our dead and wounded to the shrine of Grungni, but leave the grobi where they lay. We will begin to set the hold to rights tomorrow. Tonight in the feast hall we will dine and drink and toast the valorous dead.’
There was another cheer, and then the dwarfs roused themselves to see to their maimed and murdered. As Hamnir stepped down to the floor again, dwarfs began to jog in from every archway, bearing news.
‘Prince,’ called the first, ‘we have sealed the entrances to the mine. There are many grobi still below, but they will not get in tonight.’
‘Prince Hamnir,’ said another, ‘we have cleared the upper galleries and the grain storage level, but several score of goblins have locked themselves in the third armoury.’
Urlo and the dwarfs of Gorril’s clan returned from the guardrooms, bloody and battered, and missing half their number. Urlo knelt stiffly and held the Battle Horn of Karak Hirn out to Hamnir. The bell was split and crumpled.
Hamnir choked as he took it. ‘Thorgig.’
‘He died with it to his lips, prince,’ said Urlo. ‘He never drew his a
xe.’
‘And Leatherbeard? The Slayer?’
‘Ten dead orcs surrounded him,’ said Urlo, ‘and it took as many strikes to bring him down.’
Hamnir lowered his head. ‘Their sacrifice won the day. They will be honoured.’
Gotrek nodded gravely. ‘It was a good doom.’
More dwarfs approached as reports came from all over the hold. Pockets of grobi resistance here, a decisive victory there, ruined supplies, vandalised rooms, a storage room full of the rotting corpses of dwarfs who had barricaded themselves in and starved to death, looted treasure vaults.
Hamnir took it all, good news and bad, with a weary calm, dispatching orders and dispensing thanks and congratulations to those who merited it as he walked slowly towards the arch that led to the feast hall, but then came a piece of news that stopped him in his tracks.
‘Prince,’ called a Karak Hirn warrior, running up at the head of a dozen dwarfs, ‘the Diamondsmith clan, their hold is unbreached! It looks as if the grobi tried to break down the door, but it is still whole. They may yet live!’
‘Ferga!’ whispered Hamnir. He looked around at Gorril and Gotrek, eyes bright. ‘Come, we must see!’ He strode across the hall, his exhaustion a thing of the past. The others hurried after him.
‘Don’t get your hopes up, prince,’ said Gorril. ‘It has been twenty days. There can’t have been much food in the hall when they closed the doors.’
‘Aye, scholar,’ said Gotrek, gruff. ‘Be prepared for the worst. It may be orcs behind that door.’
‘I am prepared,’ said Hamnir, but he still sounded eager.
