by Warhammer
The Slayer looked at Haldora oddly, head cocked to one side. ‘Might I ask a question of you?’
‘Of course.’
‘We are here to find an end to our shame. Why are you still here?’
‘My father,’ sighed Haldora. ‘An oath.’
‘Ah, I see,’ said the Slayer, nodding sagely. His expression saddened, if that was possible for a mess of puckered flesh and scabs. ‘There’s always an oath.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
‘Eventually the seams at Ankor-Drakk were emptied. There was no more coal or ore to be had from them, no matter how deep and far the dwarfs looked. There were some that said the mines should become the city of the Dragonbacks, but Grimbalki said no, true to his oath that his stronghold would put Ankor-Drakk to shame.
Not all the clans were so bothered, and with Lord Garudak they started turning tin mines and coal shafts into hallways and galleries and chambers. The king refused to visit, and though he was of an age now when his end was approaching, he would not be swayed from the notion that his throne would be set in the higher peak.‘
There was more waiting than fighting in the days that followed the night goblin incursion. The cave dwellers had been driven back into the depths but the mines had been lost. The last of the oil stores were expended setting fires in the deepest caves and tunnels, driving the interlopers back to their lairs. What bang powder remained was used to bring down the Hall of Eighty Pillars, sealing the greenskins in with the flames. Here and there smoke leaked from fissures and old tunnels like the fumes of a dormant dragon.
The snows came, light flurries and nothing more. It was as if nature itself had sided with the greenskins. Although the wind was bitter and the nights drew longer, the orcs looted plenty from the captured halls and towers to burn on their fires while the dwarfs shivered below.
Not much of the hold remained in the control of the Ekrundfolk. The South Gate held, as did a line of tunnels and hallways to the North Gate, above and below for a handful of levels. Somewhere between fifteen and twenty thousand of them remained, but there were not the towers or ramparts for them to man – the greenskins’ war engines continued to pummel Mount Bloodhorn day and night.
Gabbik had become used to the noise of the impacts, echoing dully through the halls like the incessant knocking of an annoying neighbour. A lot of the time he was not quite sure if he was awake or asleep. The banging reminded him of forge hammers and pick axes, and he would dream of the time when he had simply been Vice-Treasurer of the Ekrund Miners’ Welfare and Social Society.
He drank in Fulnir’s ale hall, the finest of Awdhelga’s blackbeer by the pitcher. There was roast hog and roast mutton, and platters of cheese as tall as any dwarf, and honey and kuri chutney. They tallied the day’s takings and swapped stories of seams and ore and sang the old songs until it was time to go to bed.
The banging did not stop though, and the noisy neighbour would not go away. Gabbik woke up, and the first thing he was aware of was the gnawing emptiness in his stomach.
‘What I wouldn’t give for a nice juicy rat,’ he muttered, sitting up.
The hall wasn’t quite so cold as when he had fallen asleep. More dwarfs had come in while he had slumbered, and now the King’s Chambers were packed with Ekrundfolk. The air misted with their breath and the heat from their bodies staved off the chill that seeped in from overground.
Nobody said anything. There was little enough to say, and few enough to say it.
Remembering the dream, it brought a pang of sadness to recall that Fulnir was dead. The ale hall and breweries had been abandoned in the first days of the attack, along with all the halls of the Angboks. Fulnir had been eaten by a wyvern not long after. So many dead and so few left.
‘A curse on those that turned from their kin,’ he grumbled, remembering the Grimssons and Fundunstulls and all the others that had run away.
‘Aye, and a curse on orcs with warm clothes too,’ said Fleinn, rousing himself on the floor nearby, a patched blanket around his shoulders. ‘The snows will come, my backside. Fat lot of good that’s done us.’
‘Might yet,’ said Gabbik, but his heart was too broken for hope.
‘The north-west galleries have fallen,’ Fleinn told him.
‘The orcs took them?’
‘No, they’ve actually fallen, down into the Hall of Three Kings. The runesmiths brought them down when the orcs were crossing. Still a big fight though.’
‘We were waiting for word from the king, but nothing came. I think the First Deep has been lost.’
‘So has one of my pretty elf blades,’ Fleinn said sourly. He lifted up the blanket to show an empty scabbard. ‘It stuck in the chest of a black orc and then the Grungni-cursed thing fell down a stairway and I couldn’t get my sword back.’
‘Sorry to hear that.’ After such a catalogue of death and disaster, it seemed such a small thing, but Gabbik felt that this was some kind of omen. Fleinn without his swords was like… Well, it was like Ekrund without dwarfs. An impossibility. ‘Those were nice swords. For elvenware.’
‘You see, that was always the thing,’ said Fleinn, leaning closer, dropping his voice. ‘They were elf-style, all right, but they were from before the war. I took them apart once to have a look, and there was dwarf runes on the tangs of the blades. Made by Mojolnik Skrantok, runesmith and forgemaster of Karak Vlag, no less. Worth a fortune.’
Gabbik stood up. ‘Those no-good thieving orcs. We’re going to get your sword back.’
‘Sit down, you silly beggar,’ said Fleinn.
‘I mean it.’ Gabbik gritted his teeth and clenched his fists. ‘It’s too much, just too much.’
‘What’s too much, pa?’ He turned to find Haldora rubbing her eyes, her helm on wonky over her unkempt shock of hair.
‘Fleinn lost a sword. I’m going to get it back.’
‘I’ll come with you,’ said Haldora. She fumbled around and found her axe and shield. ‘Where did he lose it?’
‘I’ll come too.’ Skraffi grinned and polished the blade of Elfslicer with his cuff. No matter how many goblins and orcs he cut down, there was never a speck of blood on the silvered head of the rune axe.
There were other volunteers, as word rippled out across the hall that the Angboks were going on another mission. They had become talismans of sorts, as the king had hoped, but Gabbik couldn’t help but think that sometimes the longbeards and hammerers and other thanes were merely humouring the king.
‘Gabbik’s getting an expedition together,’ he heard someone say.
‘The Angboks are going on a mission.’
‘Those mad Angboks are at it again.’
The voices hushed and silence filled the hall.
Actual silence. The pounding of the goblin engines had ceased.
‘The snows?’ someone asked quietly.
‘Have they come? Is it the snows?’
‘Winter’s here, proper, by Grungni’s shade!’
‘Let’s see them green-skinned beggars deal with a blizzard or two and see how they like mountain life.’
‘They’ll be pushing harder than ever to get in,’ Skraffi warned. ‘If the snows have come. Better in than out, and they’ll want in worse than ever.’
Suddenly a boom resounded through the hall, passing from south to north, setting the lanterns to shaking. The dwarfs fell silent again, cowed by the enormous sound. It came again, a few heartbeats later, the noise spreading along halls and tunnels like ripples on a mountain mere. And again, a third huge impact that made Gabbik flinch even though he had almost been expecting it.
And then a double-thump came, worse than the single boom of before, like a monstrous heartbeat.
‘Giants,’ Haldora said. ‘The giants are at the main gate.’
A collective sigh rose up from the assembled dwarfs. Giants, not snow.
‘It’s only a matter of time,’ said Haldora. ‘Rune-bound or not, the gates can’t hold forever.’
‘They just have to hold long enoug
h,’ Gabbik replied. ‘Until the snows come proper.’
‘That’s not going to help!’ shrieked Haldora, her patience finally worn out. ‘Snows could bury the army and they’ll still keep coming. The orcs aren’t going anyway, not with the snows, not ever.’
‘You don’t know that,’ said Gabbik.
‘I know that they’re not going to be held back from the North Gate forever, pa. Even if the South Gate holds, we’ll be surrounded sooner rather than later. We won’t be able to get out.’
‘What of it? We’re not going anywhere.’
‘Why must you be so stubborn?’
‘Why do you have to be so foolish?’ he bellowed. He regretted the words instantly and dropped his voice. ‘I swore an oath, Haldi. An oath by our ancestors. You know what that means. Would you have Awdhelga and all the others cast from the Halls of the Ancestors because we did not have the heart to see this through to the end?’
‘So, we have to join them first, do we?’ his daughter snapped. She shook her head and turned away. ‘And it’s Haldora.’
‘I’m staying.’ Friedra had come up behind Gabbik without him noticing. She laid a hand on his arm. ‘When we wed I swore oaths too, to protect and serve my family above everything else. We have to stick together.’
‘We’ll all die here, ma,’ said Haldora, turning back, tears streaking her blood- and grime-coated face. It was the first time Gabbik had seen her cry since she had been an infant and knew no better.
‘We all die somewhere, dear,’ said Friedra. She patted Gabbik’s hand and then moved to join her daughter, wrapping an arm across her shoulders. Another boom of a gigantic impact shuddered across the hall. Friedra looked up and tutted. ‘Might as well die at home as anywhere else. That’s what being kin is about.’
Haldora let out something of a sigh and a sob combined, her shoulders quaking for a moment before she regained some control. Wiping tears and snot from her face she looked at Gabbik, fierce rather than sullen.
‘Family,’ she said. ‘Live together, die together.’
‘Durazut Angbok karak,’ Skraffi said quietly. He held out a fist in a symbol of solidarity.
‘Durazut Angbok karak,’ the rest of them replied, holding out clenched hands too.
Gabbik noticed that there was a ring of other dwarfs watching them. He suddenly felt self-conscious and drew his hand back with an embarrassed cough. Pulling out his axe he stood up and glared at the onlookers.
‘What’s the matter, nothing else to do?’ he snarled.
‘What’s to be done, Gabbik?’ Fleinn replied.
Another hammering blow echoed past.
‘I don’t know about you lazy beggars, but I’m going to go and see who’s damn well knocking.’ Gabbik brandished his axe, the blade notched but still sharp, catching the light of the lanterns overhead. ‘And I’m going to give them short shrift if they’re not polite.’
Gabbik gathered quite a following as he marched through the halls, up towards the South Gate. Haldora suppressed smiles as she heard mutterings of ‘Gabbik Wyvern-burner’ and ‘those Angbok lunatics’. More than seven hundred dwarfs ended up following, some stirred by Gabbik’s defiant streak, others not sure what was going on but damned if they were going to miss out.
They had entered the Second Deep, a level below the gate when the thunderous hammering stopped. Not sure what this meant, the gaggle of warriors hurried on, almost running up the last sweeping set of stairs in the hall behind the gate.
The wide space was already packed with dwarfs, most of them in the colours of the king and his clan. They formed a solid semicircle around the buckled gates, which had been shored up with timbers and piled rocks. A few bolt throwers had been salvaged during the retreat from the walls and were pointed at the huge portal. For all that the orcs looked about to make immediate ingress, the atmosphere was disconcertedly relaxed.
Gabbik and his vocal band slowed to a halt when confronted with the gate’s defenders. The other dwarfs turned and looked at them, most with disapproving glares. A small party broke away from the rest and headed towards the Angboks. Haldora’s spirits lifted when she recognised Prince Horthrad.
‘Gabbik, what are you doing here?’ the prince asked, shooing away the bodyguards that had followed him. Horthrad put his axe over his shoulder and looked at the dwarfs still coming up the steps. ‘And why have you brought so many friends with you?’
‘We, that is, I, er,’ Gabbik floundered under the prince’s scrutinising stare. He was reduced to a mumble. ‘The giants. We, that is, I was going to kill the giants. I mean we were. The giants.’
‘Thank you,’ said the prince. He took a step back and gestured towards two half-naked, heavily tattooed dwarfs with red crests sitting on the lower steps of one of the tower stairs. They both looked glum, even for Slayers. ‘The thought is appreciated but the Slayers heard about the giants first.’
‘They’re dead?’
‘One of them is, and the other is missing an arm and I doubt will be back soon.’ The prince darted a quick smile at Haldora. ‘I see you wish to add giant-felling to your generous list of talents.’
Haldora smiled back and stepped close to Horthrad, indicating that she wanted to talk privately. The prince escorted her a few steps away from the others, and kept his voice low.
‘You really shouldn’t be up here, it’s very dangerous.’
‘No more than anywhere else I’ve been fighting,’ said Haldora, patting her axe haft in her hand. ‘But let’s not get into that here. You have to help me.’
‘What can I do for you?’
‘My father swore an oath, in hasty mood, and now we can’t leave the hold.’
‘There’s a lot of that around,’ said the prince, casting a glance to where the king was with his hammerers, discussing plans with Rodri. ‘I don’t see how I can help.’
‘The king could release him from his oath, if you spoke to him.’
‘I see.’ Horthrad looked across the hall to Gabbik. ‘Did he swear the oath to the king?’
‘I’m not sure. It was more of a general oath-swearing. By our ancestors and such.’
‘I don’t think it’s in my father’s power to waive such an oath,’ the prince said with an apologetic shrug. ‘He could relinquish fealty again, but he did that when he gave the thanes permission to leave Ekrund more than a hundred days ago.’
‘Damn,’ muttered Haldora. She forced a smile. ‘It was worth trying.’
She was about to step away when Horthrad’s hand on her arm stopped her.
‘Are you so eager to leave?’ he said. ‘Do you think we have no hope?’
‘Slim hope, no hope, what’s the difference?’ she said. She tugged free from his grasp and waved her axe at the buckled gates, the cracked pillars and the bloodstained tiles of the floor. ‘There’s nothing left to defend, except pride.’
‘And revenge,’ said Horthrad. ‘The longer we stay, the more greenskins we kill. You’re right, Ekrund can’t hold much longer. All we can do is make the taking of our home as bloody as possible for them.’
‘And that’s it? I thought you had loftier goals than revenge.’
‘We are all bound to the wills of our fathers,’ Horthrad said with a nod towards Gabbik. ‘Princes more than most.’
Haldora went back to her family, nothing more to say. The crowd had already started to disperse, drifting back down into the lower halls, the promise of battle unfulfilled. The Angboks followed them in silence; there was nothing they could say to each other that would change what had to be.
They had reached the second deeps and were passing a side tunnel when Haldora heard her name called from behind. The voice sounded familiar and she turned back to see who it was. A lamp light in the smaller tunnel caught her attention and she headed towards it. At first she could not see the figure holding the lamp, but as he placed the lantern in an alcove the yellow light illuminated the features of Glorri, the ranger.
‘Hello, Haldora,’ he said, giving her a grin miss
ing several teeth. ‘How you been keeping?’
‘Well enough, if you leave out the death and misery,’ she said. The smell of tobacco hung in the air, though she had not seen a dwarf smoking a pipe in quite a few days. ‘What do you want?’
‘To help you, my maiden in distress. Surely. I overheard what was being said down below, with you and your folks. It’s a right pickle, no mistaking that.’
‘What of it?’
‘The North Gate, it ain’t gonna hold forever, and once it’s gone…’ Glorri clapped his hands together sharply, making Haldora flinch. ‘We’re all gonna be stuck.’
‘I know that. But my father’s oath can’t be broken.’
‘His oath, not yours, and not mine.’ Glorri looked around conspiratorially. ‘And the North Gate ain’t so safe any more, leastways not once you’re outside. The last few families what left, they never got more than a league from the gates before the goblins caught them. Night goblins, in the caves above the road now, and wolf riders if you make it as far as the Crooked Pass.
‘We’re not leaving,’ Haldora said, more firmly than before.
‘I know another way,’ said Glorri, winking. ‘Out through the mines. Spotted it a few days ago. Nobody else knows about it, and the goblins don’t neither. We can slip out that way, head west to the coast and then be up to Barak Varr without so much as a spot of bother from the greenies nor princes.’
‘You want me to run away with you?’ The thought made Haldora ill, and if she had eaten anything in the last three days it might well have turned her stomach. As it was, her gut was so empty it felt as hard as stone. ‘The two of us, together?’
‘Not just us,’ said Glorri, eyes bulging with surprise. ‘I’d go on me own if I thought it was safe, but I figure I’d like some friends around if I do happen to run into the odd wolf or orc, if you understand me. What nobody knows, nobody needs to know, oath-wise and such, if you take my meaning.’
‘I understand you. You think we would forget the oaths we swore, damn our forefathers and foremothers to shame and torment? Just so you can get away from here with someone to watch your back?’
