by Warhammer
Fleinn pulled Gabbik’s shield from his grasp and tossed it away, so that he could put his shoulder under Gabbik’s arm and heave him up. Gabbik tried to hop on his good leg as Fleinn dragged him through the snow.
‘Too slow,’ grumbled the other dwarf, looking over his shoulder. Gabbik glanced back too and could see the obvious silhouette of a troll lumbering right after them. ‘Up you go!’
Gabbik was unceremoniously hoisted on Fleinn’s shoulders. The dwarf surged into the snow, head down, legs working tirelessly to get them back up the valley. Gabbik breathed a sigh of relief as he saw the shadows receding back into the snows.
Some feeling was returning to Gabbik’s leg and he told his companion to put him down. Testing his weight on it, Gabbik found that he could hobble, using his axe like a walking stick. A few more dwarfs drifted towards them, some with fresh wounds. They all took a moment to rest, saying nothing, and then with a wordless agreement set off once more.
They passed broken statues of ancestors and former kings. Once they had stood on the walls and heights, now pulled down and defaced by the greenskins. Stones from tumbled ramparts littered the road – as Gabbik assumed the flatter terrain indicated they were on the road – and there were more bodies in the snow, mostly of goblins frozen by their engines, more afraid of the orc whips than frostbite.
‘Almost there,’ said Fleinn. ‘I reckon we’re almost there.’
They could see fresh tracks in the snow ahead, from dwarf boots heading back up the valley. More and more Ekrundfolk could be seen as the snow continued to clear and the sun broke through the cloud cover.
A monstrous screech had them all staring up into the sky. Dark wings soared across the pale clouds.
‘Back to the gate!’ someone bellowed. The dwarfs needed no second urging.
Gritting his teeth, trying to suppress a pained yelp with every stride, Gabbik forced himself up the road. Ahead he could see the high towers of the South Gate still standing proud of the mountainside. He dared not look up or back, but could hear the flap of immense wings.
From up ahead purple lightning leapt into the sky. Gabbik could see a runesmith, his staff held aloft, the sigils on his rod sparking with arcane energy. Around him gathered a body of dwarfs, most of them bearing double-handed hammers – the king’s personal guard. A flash of gold showed that Erstukar himself was there.
‘Keep going, keep going,’ Fleinn urged, doubling back to help Gabbik. He nodded off to the right. ‘Up the wall-stairs, there.’
The steps were carved into the bare rock, winding back and forth to one of the lesser gateways above. The rampart was mostly intact, and Gabbik could see that if they followed it along they would come to the gate tower from where they had marched forth.
‘What about the king?’ he said, looking to where Erstukar and his hammerers guarded the road. ‘We should help.’
‘You heard the prince’s command,’ said Fleinn. ‘I’m all for a fight, you know that, but they’ll close the gates on us if we take too long.’
They reached the steps and began to haul themselves up to the rampart. Gabbik kept looking back, seeing more dwarfs behind, following in their footsteps. He hoped Haldora and Skraffi were amongst them, but he could not see any familiar faces.
The wyvern plunged down through the blizzard like a dark comet, the orc warlord on its back. The beast barely slowed as it crashed into the king’s bodyguard, claws and fangs reaping a terrible toll. Gabbik stopped and watched in horror as the monster took off again, trailing falling bodies and limbs. There was something golden in its jaws.
‘The king…’ whispered Fleinn. Other dwarfs on the stair stopped to watch the unfolding spectacle.
Carried aloft, his rune armour proof against the fangs of the wyvern, Erstukar continued to lash his axe into its jaw and neck. The wyvern landed on an outcrop and thrashed its neck, hurling the king against a boulder. He lay in the snow for a moment but righted himself, eliciting a hopeful cheer from the watching dwarfs. Blue light gleamed from his axe as the king launched himself at the monster, hewing at legs and lashing tail, trying to get under the beast to split open its belly.
The wyvern was floundering in the snow and for a few heartbeats Gabbik lost sight of the battle behind a huge plume of white. As the snow settled, it revealed the king pinned against a cliff face by a taloned claw, his arms trapped.
The warlord leaned in his saddle and brought his black blade across in a sweeping arc, chopping just above the wyvern’s claws.
A collective groan rose up from the onlooking dwarfs as Erstukar’s head tumbled to the ground, leaving a spray of red mist on the snow.
Gabbik felt as though his gut had been ripped out. He fell to his knees with an anguished sob, head in his hands. He was not alone. The valley echoed with the wails and moans of grief-stricken Ekrundfolk.
A cruel laugh drowned out their laments, followed by a triumphant, wordless bellow.
Gabbik felt himself lifted to his feet. He snatched himself away from the other dwarf’s grip, utterly disheartened. He floundered against the wall of the steps, gnashing his teeth with despair.
The king was dead. Gabbik had been convinced Erstukar would lead them through this ordeal. The king was as solid as Ekrund itself, Gabbik had thought. Now he was no more. If the king could die, Ekrund could fall.
Ekrund would fall. Gabbik could see how foolish he had been to harbour any hope of victory. He had wanted to believe so much that he had ignored all of the evidence to the contrary. In doing so, he had doomed his family as well.
The thought of this brought a fresh sob out of him. His beard was already wet from ice, but tracks melted through the snow from his hot tears as he sat on one side of the steps and wept.
Other dwarfs passed. Some turned away, others gave him a pat on the shoulder or a few words of encouragement. Their assurances were nothing more than platitudes. They were all dead dwarfs walking, putting on a brave face against the inevitable.
Darkness swallowed him and he thought it was the shadow of the wyvern.
‘Pa!’
He wasn’t sure he heard right at first.
‘Pa!’
His vision cleared and he saw Haldora stood before him, blotting out the dim sun. Her face was set with her sternest look. Suddenly ashamed, Gabbik nodded to her and set off up the stairs, unable to look her in the eye. The knowledge that she was alive fuelled his steps when all other hope was lost.
There was still something worth fighting for.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
‘Another confrontation between the king and the miners’ guild was averted by the arrival of a strange dwarf by the name of Zakur Lorforsson. He was a runesmith, you see, and the first to move out of the old mountains.
Such was the appeal of having a runesmith amongst their number, the royal and mining clans put aside their differences to show Zakur that he could ply his trade as easily in the Dragonbacks as elsewhere. He was most enthusiastic, and talked a lot about the moons being just right this far south, and how Karak Eight Peaks couldn’t match the midwinter sun in the Dragonbacks.
King Grimbalki immediately appointed Zakur as the royal runesmith, as you’d expect. It seemed that Grimbalki and the Dragonback dwarfs had everything they needed except an actual hold. They had dozens of mines and the empty tunnels in Ankor-Drakk, but none of the mines so far was big enough to start a city. They were still considered zaki by most of the other dwarfs in the old mountains – homeless and a little bit on the dim side.
With only a few years left to him, Grimbalki offered a tempting reward to any prospector or clan that found a seam big enough to mine for several years, and promised not only riches but renown.’
The only sounds to break the still were the scrape of stone on stone and the metronomic grunts of the dwarfs. They stood in long lines from the lower halls behind the collapsed East Gate. All of the other entrances had been blocked and now only this one remained. They passed broken masonry from hand to hand, working in the near-d
arkness of a few candles and the last glimmers of light from the rune lanterns in the halls above.
With each rock laid on the piles blocking the huge archways, every broken column piece and chunk of debris, the light grew dimmer. Nobody was sure whose idea it had been. Possibly Prince Horthrad’s, or maybe someone else’s. It didn’t really matter. There was not enough strength left among the Ekrundfolk to drive the orcs back from the gate. Giants would come and they would break in, and the greenskins would have access to the main hold.
That could not be allowed, not without some effort to stall the shame of such intrusion. So the dwarfs laboured, piling the broken innards of their homes against the gates, filling the tunnels with stones, pulling down the props and breaking the pillars.
Slowly and surely, with all the care and diligence of their kind, the dwarfs of Ekrund entombed themselves.
Haldora worked in the line along with the others, wordlessly taking the stones from her mother and passing them to her father. In her numbed mind she laughed at herself, and in the laughter was a kernel of bitterness. She had tried so hard to be different, to be remarkable like Awdhelga. Now she really understood how she had been the same as everybody else.
She had not believed the orcs would come. She had been defiant, prideful. Ekrund would last for eternity, that had been her firmest belief. Even when the doubts had started, in the wildlands, she had ignored her instincts. Superiority and self-importance had drowned her concerns. She had felt nothing but contempt for the greenskins, along with the rest of the Ekrundfolk.
And she was no better or worse than the dwarfs around her. For so long she had wanted to be like the menfolk, but now they were all the same. Male and female, the dwarfs were all grimy and tired, labouring without difference. There was no food left to cook, no hearths to sweep. Even the children were dead or had been led to safety long ago. All of the time Haldora had spent avoiding the nature of her maidenhood and now it made no difference at all. Friedra had killed more goblins than Awdhelga now.
She was beyond fatigue, beyond pain. She existed, and that was enough. They all lived still, proof that the orcs had not yet won, proof that the dwarfs were still masters and mistresses of the Dragonback Mountains.
Vanity and pride, but it was all they had left. There was water and there were a few stores of bread, and there were a few thousand dwarfs. They would survive long enough to see the orcs dig and lever their way into the inner halls, and then they would fight with their last strength.
And then the Ekrundfolk would be consigned to history.
It was impossible to tell day and night since they had retreated from the surface. At some point a halt was called and the lines dispersed. Some of the dwarfs simply sat or flopped down where they were. The Angboks had a little area of the Third West through-tunnel set out with blankets and a candle, and to this patch of home they returned.
Nakka joined them, face smeared with sweaty grime, his beard an unruly tangle. Even so, he managed a smile for Haldora as he sat next to her.
‘I understand it now,’ said Haldora.
‘What’s that?’ he replied, half-vacant eyes looking through Haldora rather than at her.
‘I realise that Awdhelga wasn’t remarkable because she wanted to be. She didn’t set out to be a heroine or a great fighter or a master brewer.’ Haldora looked at Skraffi, but her grandfather wasn’t really listening. He had a cracked clay pipe between his lips and was sucking away merrily, though there had been no tobacco for a long while. She felt Nakka take her hand in his, his grip rough but strong and reassuring. ‘She was remarkable because she did what she had to do. She faced what life threw at her and got on with whatever needed to be done. She didn’t do it for herself. She did it for her family. She fought goblins because they attacked her. She brewed beer because the ore was running scarce.’
‘It’s always the way,’ said Gabbik. He lay on his back, eyes closed, hands clasped over his beard on his chest. He sat up and there was an odd look in his eye. ‘We all do what has to be done.’
Haldora wasn’t sure what he meant by this, but Gabbik pushed himself up and disappeared into the darkness, heading down the corridor towards the lower levels.
‘Now where do you suppose he’s off to?’ asked Friedra. ‘Not like your father to go wandering off without a word of where or why.’
‘He’s gone zakzuli,’ said Skraffi. ‘Death-mad, I reckon. Comes on you, it does, just like that. I remember Grodbar Five-fingers, from back in the war.’
Haldora fought back a sigh. Skraffi seemed to spend half of his time back in the war against the elves, and the other half daydreaming of his bees. She indulged the old dwarf’s ramblings if only because it was a distraction from the ever-present nothingness of their situation.
‘Grodbar Five-fingers? It’s normal to have five fingers, isn’t it?’
‘Not between both hands,’ chuckled Skraffi. ‘Three on the left, two on the right. Used to have a leather thing he’d use to bind his hammer into his hand.’
‘Just get some sleep, dear,’ said Friedra. ‘Tomorrow we’re emptying out an old forge store on the Fourth Level, so we can block up the Greater Stair.’
Tomorrow. It was a concept that balanced hope and despair. Tomorrow was the day they survived for. Tomorrow was the day they thought about as they toiled to bury themselves. Yet tomorrow was also the day the orcs might come. Tomorrow was another day with food dwindling. Tomorrow was pregnant with fresh disaster.
Haldora didn’t have strength enough to care, or to argue. She lay down. Her head rested on Nakka’s thigh. He was already gently snoring.
Tomorrow would come, bringing with it either relief or catastrophe. Or neither. There was nothing she could do to change their doom one way or the other.
This was the only way.
Gabbik was sure of that fact as he stopped in front of the grand archway that led into the shrine. Three immense stone blocks formed the gateway, though there was no stone or wood between. While everywhere else in the hold was swathed with darkness, that giant doorway was lit with fire. Two bowls burned to the left and right, and more flames flickered within.
He was reluctant to cross the threshold, knowing what that next stride signified. It was the end. The end of despair. The end of hope.
Standing there, willing himself to take another step, Gabbik told himself again. It was the only way. This would save them all. This would be his real legacy to the Angboks. Survival. He had hoped it would be fame and fortune, or at least a modicum of respect and a comfortable income.
He stepped under the rectangular arch and into the shrine.
By the light of the fires, the great face of the ancestor god gleamed on the wall. It was cast from purest iron, studded with copper and rubies for the red beard and the plume of hair, eyes made from sapphires as large as fists.
There were offerings heaped beneath the image – a pile of gems and gold and silver. Chests were opened, their contents of runic artefacts and family heirlooms on display to the ancestor god they had all turned to in these dire times.
Grimnir.
Deathdealer. Warbringer. Bloodwader. First of the Slayers.
He had many names, curses to set upon the foe and titles to steady the heart or fire the blood. Yet for all the names by which Grimnir was known, there was one alone that Gabbik thought about as he stared up at that broad, fierce face.
Saviour.
There were two ornate representations of axes crossed behind the mask. With two rune axes forged by Grungni, and with wards and blessing laid upon him by Valaya, Grimnir had gone north at the dawn of time. There he had faced a sea of foes and he had laid about them with his rune axes, felling an enemy with every swing. He had fought the daemons to a standstill. Grimnir had stood alone at the gates of the underhell and alone he had driven the hordes of the Dark Gods screaming back to their otherworldly masters.
The elves had their stories, of wizards and a magical vortex, but Gabbik knew the truth of the matter, as did any d
warf of true heritage. Grimnir saved the world.
All Gabbik wanted to do was to save his family.
‘I didn’t think it’d be you, but I shouldn’t be surprised.’
Gabbik looked to his right, through a smaller door to one of the side chambers he saw another dwarf, naked but for a loincloth and many piercings. It was the Slayer that had interrupted his speech at the king’s council more than half a year earlier.
‘Huh. I thought you’d be long dead,’ said Gabbik.
‘Grimnir still guides my arm, so he does,’ said the Slayer. ‘’Tis an unfortunate thing, but there you go. What did you do with my troll head, by the way?’
‘Your…? I had it flensed and mounted in the family shrine. It was my father’s hives that it despoiled before you killed it. Seemed just that we kept a reminder.’
‘Good on you, that’s the thing to do.’ The Trollslayer stepped back away from the door, inviting Gabbik in.
He hesitated.
‘You know that you’ve already made the decision, don’t you now?’ said the Trollslayer. ‘Even if you walk away, you’ll be back tomorrow. Or the day after. Or you’ll be dead.’
‘You’re right.’ Gabbik took a deep breath and then strode into the inner sanctum of the shrine.
There was only one other Slayer there – a mashed-faced dwarf who was busy drilling a hole in an ogre tusk. He already had a necklace of the same, and orc fangs, and several bracelets of smaller goblin teeth.
‘I thought you would be out there, seeking your dooms.’
‘Plenty doom enough in here, so there is,’ said the first Slayer. ‘Name’s Zhamuz, by the way. This here’s Golgodrin. Anyway, there’ll be fighting to come yet before Ekrund finally falls, and we’ll be there to see it, don’t you worry.’
‘So…’ Gabbik looked around the small chamber. It was sparsely furnished and most of it seemed to be filled with grisly trophies. ‘How do we do this?’
