by Warhammer
It was all a bit much for Haldora to accept and understand, but the king made it clear that the raid was going to happen that night, before the orcs and goblins finished their looting and gathered for another attack. He made it equally clear that although there would be recompense of some fashion – if they returned – this was not an offer the Angboks could refuse.
Gabbik reached under the dark cloak concealing his armour and gripped the talismans of Valaya, Grimnir and Grungni in turn, hoping that all three of the great ancestors were watching over him that night.
It was madness, he knew, but the sort of madness that could not be contradicted or escaped. How could he explain away the misunderstanding that had led him to confront the wyvern? How could he point out that the Angboks were just victims of circumstance who had made the best of a bad situation over the last few days?
‘We shouldn’t be doing this,’ he muttered.
‘Did you have other plans?’ said Menghir, who was standing close at hand. There were fifty dwarfs in all, hand-picked by the king and Lord Garudak. The lord’s son raised his eyebrows, genuinely expecting a reply. ‘Maybe some other strategy in mind?’
‘No, no plans, no strategies,’ replied Gabbik. He reached over his shoulder to pat the pack-full of firebombs on his back. The others were likewise laden. ‘We sneak out, set fire to as many goblin engines as we can before legging it back here. Clear as diamond, and a fine plan to boot.’
Gabbik drifted away as Menghir moved the party closer to the doors. From this side the sortie portal looked like a small stone gate just a little taller than a dwarf and wide enough for two abreast; on the outside it was indistinguishable from the craggy rock face overlooking the valley, concealed by a holly bush.
‘This is exciting,’ said Haldora. Her face was smeared with oil as rough camouflage and her black cloak was a little too long for her shorter frame, almost dragging on the floor. Against her darkened skin her teeth showed like pearls when she grinned. ‘We’ll be famous!’
‘We’ll be dead,’ Gabbik grumbled quietly. ‘We don’t belong with this lot. Look, there’s folk from the hammerers and longbeards and ironbreakers and rangers. We’re miners, not fighters, I don’t know why the king picked us.’
‘He explained it well enough,’ said Skraffi. ‘And you’re wrong. Things might not have happened just as we expected but the stories of what we’ve done is true. We survived that patrol and the forest and the wyvern, and we’re going to survive this.’ He patted Elfslicer, which hung from his belt, a leather hood over the head to conceal the gleaming blade. ‘Stick close to me and each other and we’ll get through this. I thought you wanted the Angbok name to be known across Ekrund.’
‘For reliability, for responsibility… Not for, I don’t know, jaunting about killing goblins.’
A horn echoed in the depths behind them, and another followed, closer to the group. It was the signal they had been waiting for. Beside the secret portal Thaggrin Brikbok, a runesmith, incanted the words of opening. Silver runes gleamed on the stone gate. Thaggrin laid his hand upon the rock and gently pushed. The door swung silently outwards on hidden gimbals, letting the cool breeze of night wash in.
‘Stick together. Nobody lights a fuse until I say the word,’ Menghir told them. Thaggrin stepped aside and the strike force filed out, following the heir to the Lower Gate. As he waited for the others to pass the threshold, Gabbik tested his firebox one last time, getting a spark from the flint before he stowed it into a pouch on his belt.
The Angboks were amongst the last dwarfs to leave. Gabbik caught his cloak on the holly bush obscuring the secret door, and as he turned to tug it free he looked back and could see nothing but pale grey rock. Even though he knew his own people had fashioned such a thing, still he was amazed by it.
There was no light save for a sliver of the red moon. The lamps upon the bastion had been doused to make it harder for the goblins to target their engines by night; when subjected to stones and bolts from the main gate, the greenskins had also learnt not to illuminate their siege line. Darkness filled the closest part of the valley, though further south campfires stretched down to the wildlands and beyond. If anything there were even more than they had seen from the rampart of Undak Grimgazan. The sky to the west and east was obscured by smoke beneath the scattered clouds, evidence of the other two prongs of the orc attack.
Slowly they picked their way down the slope, careful to draw no attention to themselves. The rangers went ahead with their bows and crossbows, ready to silence any sentry or prowling wolf, but their progress went unheeded. In the orgy of looting and destruction of the outer defences the orcs and goblins had sated some of their eagerness, and most were still further down the valley filling their guts with dwarf meat and stolen ale.
The goblin engines were located on the road and the western side of the valley, spread over several hundred paces. Coming to the wall on the eastern flank of the road, the dwarfs stopped and surveyed the situation. Unable to accurately target the dark-shrouded defences the goblins, lazy creatures to a fault, slept by their machines, snoring, grunting and hissing.
Nobody was keeping watch.
Menghir signalled for them to cross the wall and they did so in pairs and trios, taking care not to make any noise on the flagstones – they had bound cloth over their boots for just such a reason. The closest of the engines, a catapult several times taller than the creatures manning it, was seventy paces away.
As they had agreed, the party thinned out, spreading across the road with the lead dwarfs heading straight over towards the machines on the opposite side of the valley while those at the back angled to the left, moving south towards the closest engines. Gabbik imagined the glass globes of flammable liquid in his pack jiggling together as he jogged, but they too were bound to stop a stray clink from betraying the sortie force.
They hunkered down about thirty paces from the war machines, waiting for the signal to attack. As the dwarfs across the valley had further to retreat, they would throw their flame bombs first, which would give them a little more time. Gabbik was now second-guessing the wisdom of being near the back because, although he was certainly a few hundred paces closer to the secret door, by the time he attacked the goblins would undoubtedly be aware of what was going on. His hope was that they would be drawn to the flames, abandoning their own machines in the chaos.
Crouched on the road, trying to keep his breathing steady, Gabbik resolved to himself that he would not let his pride get him into such a damnably foolish situation again. He was happy to fight for his hold – perhaps a stint on the war engines as he had done in the war – but he simply didn’t have the mental constitution for this sort of escapade.
The first fires lit up the western slope, silhouetting the angular frames of bolt throwers and trebuchets before they too were set alight. The ruddy sparks of firebombs arced through the darkness, splashing into fiery blossoms as they hit.
The goblins were slow to rouse and the flames had crept nearly a hundred paces back towards the road before the first of them woke. Soon the mountainside was alive with small figures dashing to and fro, screeching and fighting, split between trying to get away from the danger and being punched and whipped into action by their orc overseers.
The crackle and pop of burning timber and tarred rope was soon loud enough to obscure any noise made by the dwarfs. Skraffi held up his hand. ‘Get your first bombs ready,’ he told them.
Unfortunately, although there was less danger of the dwarfs being heard, the light from the burgeoning fires was spreading to the road. In the flicker of red and orange, the dwarfs would become sitting targets. Gabbik realised this as the light grew brighter and brighter. The closest goblins were intent upon the action further up the slope, where short figures could be seen sprinting back to the road, but it was only a matter of time before they turned their attention to foes closer at hand.
‘Up and at them!’ Gabbik shouted, lighting the fuse of his first firebomb. He ran at the engines a
nother dozen paces and hefted the sphere as hard as he could. He did not wait to see if it hit before slinging off his pack and snatching another bomb. Lighting the fuse he stood up and saw the other dwarfs nearby pelting fire at the closest machines. In the growing blaze, the dwarfs were as plain to see as in daylight. Some of the goblins had bows, and flimsy arrows started to snick and skitter from the slabs and cut the air near Gabbik’s head. A crossbow quarrel and an arrow from a couple of the rangers snapped back in return, each shot pitching a goblin to the ground with a shaft in its chest.
Gabbik threw another bomb, aiming for longer this time. The globe shattered next to a catapult, spraying liquid across the goblins using its frame as cover. Moments later the vapours lit from the sparking fuse and a handful of greenskins reared up ablaze, shrieking and running in circles in their torment.
Gabbik had two more globes, and their orders had been not to fall back until they had thrown every one. Matters were progressing quickly though. There were wolf riders on the far side of the road, wary of the flames that were now spread halfway across the valley, but soon enough they would pluck up the courage to give chase. Added to that, the wyverns would surely not be far away for long.
He glanced to his right and saw Haldora lighting the fuse on a bomb, her face a mask of concentration in the flare of light. Smoke was starting to thicken across the road and Gabbik lost sight of the goblins for a moment as the wind whipped the smog around, backing upon the flames. There was no way to tell if the counterattack was imminent or might have already begun. There was no more time to waste.
‘Kruk,’ Gabbik said to himself, closing his pack on the two remaining bombs. He threw his bag over one shoulder and broke into a run, raising his voice. ‘Come on, back to the sally port! Quick now!’
Haldora lobbed one more firebomb and followed, as did several others. A few remained to cast the last of their globes at the engines, but Gabbik spared them no more attention. He reached the wall, breathless, and waited for Haldora to join him. Helping her over the bricks, he vaulted to the slope beyond and started forging up through the scrub. By the light of the fires the ascent was swifter than the descent had been and they quickly negotiated the rocks and scrubby bushes that barred their way.
Another light, paler than fire, gleamed from the mountainside ahead. Someone had reached the secret portal and the door had opened. Risking looks to his left and right, Gabbik saw other dwarfs half-climbing the slope, running when they could, scrambling up on all fours when necessary. More crooked arrows splintered on the rocks around them as the goblins found their range and the howl of chasing wolves swept Gabbik to a new surge of speed.
He slowed enough to make sure Haldora crossed the doorway first, and looked back for Skraffi. The old dwarf was still about a hundred paces back. Goblins were just a couple of dozen yards behind, far nimbler over the broken terrain.
Cursing, Gabbik realised he couldn’t abandon his father. He dashed back down the slope, dragging off his pack as he did so. Pausing beside a rock, he put a sparking tinder to the canvas, lighting the pack itself before throwing it overarm at the incoming goblins. Skraffi saw him and changed his course, angling directly for the door as the firebombs exploded behind him. Gabbik did not know if he had killed any greenskins, but it had scattered them well enough.
‘You’re getting a knack for this lark, my lad,’ said Skraffi. ‘Maybe we did raise you right, after all.’
‘Shut up and keep running,’ Gabbik snapped, pushing Skraffi in front of him up the slope.
Panting, they reached a ring of rangers defending the secret door with slings and bows. These warriors loosed a last volley at the pursuing greenskins and together they all made a final dash for the opening, stumbling and crashing through the doorway one after the other, until it swung shut by a barked command from the runesmith within.
Menghir appeared from deeper in the hall.
‘How many?’ he snapped at Thaggrin.
‘I counted them in myself,’ said the runesmith. ‘Eight less than went out.’
‘Eight…’ Menghir looked as though the dead had numbered ten, even a hundred times that. ‘Another eight, for a few days more.’
‘Every day will count, with winter coming,’ said the runesmith, turning away from the portal. ‘There might come a time when we all wish for a handful of days more.’
CHAPTER TWENTY
‘The mining continued, at Ankor-Drakk and further up the mountain, for many years. Then one day a messenger arrived from Karak Eight Peaks, and the king was reminded that his offer of coal had now run its course. The contract was finished, so to say.
The messenger claimed that Grimbalki, as descendant of the old kings of Karak Eight Peaks, was still subject to the rule of their chosen king. That meant that he would be allowed to continue as the King of the Dragonbacks, but would have to send a tithe of their coal to the homeland to secure his position of royalty.
To nobody’s surprise at all, Grimbalki gave the messenger a clip round the head and told him there was more chance of him letting an elf have his mines than some gold-grubbing goat fart from the old mountains.
So it was that Dragonback asserted its independence, and the day was marked each year after with the Freedom feast, where lots of goat’s cheese was eaten in memory of the king’s message.’
Although the raid lessened the bombardment from the greenskins, in all likelihood it hastened the fall of the bastion. The remaining goblin war engines continued to loose rocks and bolts upon the walls for another day, but during the night that followed the rams and siege towers were brought up once more. With few engines to destroy the siege towers, the order from the king was for the few remaining dwarfs of Lord Garudak to give way on the walls and pull back from the bastion to the Lower Gate.
By midday the bastion was crawling with goblins and orcs. The wyverns returned, terrorising the dwarfs on the ramparts around the main gatehouse, while giants with tree trunk clubs and boulders battered at the timbers of the Lower Gate.
Haldora and the other Angboks had been evacuated from the lower parts of the hold along with most of the other dwarfs – only the warriors of Clan Garudak and a few others contested the Lower Gate. Instead of fighting, she watched the loss of the bastion from another rampart a few hundred paces further up the valley. Those dwarfs not directly defending their homes had been stationed on the line of towers and walls about a third of the way between the bastion and the South Gate, near the fortress of Kundazad-a-Zorn. Dwarfs from central Ekrund manned the citadel itself.
Word came in the middle of the afternoon that the Lower Gate was now fully abandoned. The runes upon the gate and the bars across it still held, but the orcs had broken through several of the lesser portals further down the valley, and with the bastion in their hands there was no way to defend the outer part of the hold from without and within.
As the evening fires were being lit, grim-faced survivors of the withdrawal joined the companies stationed on the next line, Menghir amongst them. Haldora handed the lordling a mug of broth as he sighed heavily and leaned on the battlements looking southwards. Curls of black smoke rose from the window-shafts and lesser gates as the orcs torched the Lower Gate.
‘Generations to fashion, days to lose,’ said Menghir, with another long sigh. He accepted the broth with a weak smile. ‘I fear it will take more than mutton soup to warm my heart for a long time.’
‘It can be built again,’ said Haldora. ‘As long as we survive and prevail we can carve new halls and raise new gates.’
‘True enough.’ Though Menghir’s words shared her optimism his expression was bleak. ‘We took what treasure we could, but there are vaults there still where the wealth of ancients is hid. That cannot be recovered once taken.’
The rest of the night passed slowly, as the campfires of the orcs crept closer, engulfing the bastion and Lower Gate. The approaches to the South Gate took a turn to the west above the fortifications where the Angboks were stationed, so that Haldora could not s
ee further up the valley from where they were. Wolf riders and forest goblins on spiders infiltrated along the western and northern mountainside, and from there they gained access to the upper pastures.
They brought fire and ruin to the Vornazak Zorn, burning orchards and timber groves, despoiling the goat meadows and the tilled farmland. The smog of the destruction hung about the peak of Mount Bloodhorn and drifted north across the Dragonbacks.
‘My poor bees!’ Skraffi lamented, tugging in frustration at his beard. ‘It’s a grim day when a dwarf cannot raise his axe in defence of his bees!’
Goats and other livestock had been brought in, but the speed of the orc advance and the lack of warning meant that crops had been left in the fields. There was no room for hives inside the hold.
‘More woe,’ said Menghir, who had taken to keeping watch with the Angboks while his father attended the councils of the king. ‘I think it is not chance that brought this horde upon us before the harvest time. Our store rooms are at their emptiest, the silos and breweries holding the last of the spring grain.’
‘We can tighten belts better than any greenskin,’ said Gabbik. ‘The winter will prove a harsher enemy to them than us.’
‘But they do not take what they could use themselves,’ said Skraffi. ‘They burn but do not pillage. There is no intent for them to wait until winter.’
‘It doesn’t matter what they intend,’ said Haldora. ‘The gates will hold and they will starve.’
‘The goblins, perhaps, but the orcs will feed on the lesser creatures,’ said Menghir. ‘They might last until the snows come.’
‘Then let us hope that the snows come early,’ said Skraffi.
For several days it seemed the orcs would repeat their plan of bombardment, as they moved their remaining engines up the valley towards the main gate. These were supplemented by fresh constructions, built using timber stolen from the upland stores by the groves, though as the dwarf carpenters pointed out, this wood was still too green for such work. It did not seem to bother the greenskins as they laboured making fresh war engines, using this pilfered wood and whatever they could scavenge from the half-burned wrecks of their old machines and the remnants of the Ekrund batteries.
