by Warhammer
A particular smell brought Skraffi to full consciousness. He had been half-awake, dreaming of bacon, but it was not the aroma of juicy, sizzling rashers that now assaulted his nostrils. They all stank, after so long underground, but dwarfs spent a lot of their time together in such a state and a comradely onk was literally nothing to be sniffed at. This, however, was something more akin to orc dung.
Skraffi opened an eye, fearing the worst. He saw another dwarf, quite scrawny, stooping over Haldora.
‘Hey there,’ said Skraffi, not shouting because it would alarm the others. ‘What you sneaking about for like some frongol-picker? Get out of it before you get a kick up the don–’
‘No bother, no bother,’ said the other dwarf, standing up sharply. His beard was thin and straggly, always a sign of an untrustworthy sort, and like the others he was covered in filth. There was, however, something even more rank about the grime covering this individual: the returning stench of goblin dung.
‘What’re you skulking about for?’ said Skraffi, snatching up the candle to shine a little more light on the interloper. The stranger was dressed in leather armour and furs – the garb of a ranger. Skraffi recognised him now, or rather remembered seeing him about, although never working on the line. ‘Who are you?’
‘Glorri,’ said Haldora, sitting up. ‘His name is Glorri, and he’s a creeping stinker.’
‘If you isn’t going to be polite, I shall take me services elsewhere,’ said the ranger, feigning departure. Skraffi grabbed the other’s arm.
‘What services?’ he demanded. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘A way out, isn’t it?’ Glorri looked at Haldora. ‘She knows. I told her already. A secret way out, not through the North Gate.’
‘Like I said before, we’re oath-bound to stay here,’ said Haldora. ‘Get off with you, and wash that goblin-stink out of your beard.’
Glorri looked genuinely contrite for a moment. He swept off his hat and held it in both hands, revealing lank shoulder-length hair. His moustache drooped and his bottom lip quivered for a moment.
‘That’s not such a problem, Haldora, not anymore. It was your father’s oath, weren’t it?’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Haldora, standing up. ‘What do you mean that’s not a problem anymore?’
‘Where’s Gabbik?’ Friedra had been roused by the discussion and was rubbing the sleep from her eyes. ‘I never heard him coming back.’
‘He’s not coming back,’ Glorri said quietly, eyes downcast. ‘Not ever.’
‘What do you mean?’ Haldora demanded again, grabbing Glorri’s leather jerkin and shaking him a couple of times. ‘Where is he? What happened?’
‘He’s down in the Second Hall, Fourth Level,’ said the ranger, reluctant to provide this information. ‘He said not to say, but I don’t want nobody blaming me.’
Friedra was already up and stomping away, muttering angrily to herself. Haldora followed, stopping to pick up her axe and shield. Skraffi was left with Glorri. He eyed the ranger suspiciously.
‘I don’t know what tricks you’re up to, wanaz, but when I find out there’ll be a reckoning.’
‘You got me all wrong, Skraffi, all wrong.’ Glorri sagged even more. ‘I just want to help.’
‘Trying to impress Haldora?’
‘A dwarf’s gotta try, ain’t he? Gotta try.’
‘Stay here,’ Skraffi snapped.
He hurried after the others, catching them up before they reached the Fourth Level. There were less dwarfs down here; for some reason most of them camped close to the Lower Gate, although that was likely the most dangerous place to be. Skraffi supposed that it was better to be caught up in the first rush of the attack than spend your last days being hunted down like an animal.
They arrived together at the Second Hall. It was more a glorified corridor than a proper hall, linking two galleries of the Second Deep, but it had a vaulted ceiling and tiled floor all the same. The rune lantern that had hung from the ceiling had been pulled down, but a few of its crystals were being used by a group of dwarfs at the far end of the hall. Except for them the chamber was empty, and on coming closer Skraffi understood why.
They were Slayers.
Seven of them. There had been more and less during the course of the siege, as some had found their dooms and others had sworn the Oaths of Grimnir to swell their numbers.
‘Has one of you lot seen…’ Friedra’s question tailed off as one of the Slayers turned at the sound of her voice.
Like all of the other Slayers, his head was shaved to the scalp except for the thick crest of hair dyed orange, pulled up into spikes with fat and lime. His beard had been dyed also, in memory of Grimnir’s ruddy hairs, and across his face glistened the blue of two fresh tattoos in the shape of runes, one on each cheek.
Dreng – to slay – and dum – darkness, doom, despair.
Despite the changes, Skraffi immediately recognised Gabbik.
Haldora let out a gasp of horror, and clasped to Skraffi’s side. Friedra stood in silence, trembling.
‘Gabbik, what have you done?’ Skraffi asked.
‘Gabbik’s gone,’ replied the Slayer that had been his son. ‘He took the Oaths of Grimnir and will never return.’
‘What have you done, lad? Why’d you do it?’
‘Gabbik knew it was for the best.’ There was a dull look in his eyes, as though the life had been drained from them.
‘He, I mean you, just gave up?’
‘He didn’t give up.’ Some semblance of animation returned. ‘He did what he had to do, and sacrificed the last thing he had to offer.’
Friedra was still mesmerised, unable to speak. Haldora would not look at him, leaving Skraffi to try to make some sense of it all.
‘There was no need, lad. We could have coped. We would have died together, at least.’
‘Gabbik took the oath so that nobody has to die. He’s gone, you see? Gabbik’s gone. Dead to the world, to all intents. No more. He took the Last Oath and is no more.’
‘I understand,’ Haldora said meekly, finally turning to look at what had become of her father. She reached out but he flinched from her touch.
‘You do?’ said Skraffi. ‘What do you understand?’
‘The oath,’ said Haldora. There was a glimmer of something in the Slayer’s eyes: not pleasure, but a spark of brief happiness. ‘Gabbik is gone, he took the Last Oath. Like he said, no more. No other oath binds him.’
‘Or his family!’ said Skraffi, catching on. He looked at his son in amazement. ‘Did you seek out Glorri first? Is that what this is about? So we can leave Ekrund?’
‘Gabbik heard Glorri talking to Haldora, and he wanted her to be safe, wanted her to leave. But the oath bound them to the halls of Ekrund, and to break oath is to be worse than dead. He could not leave that as his legacy to the clan. Now he has taken the Last Oath, Gabbik has freed his family from the bonds that existed before.’
Skraffi did not know what to say. He wanted to say thank you, and to hug his son, and to celebrate being freed from the oath, but all he could think about was the tattooed figure before him, resigned to a violent death, ashamed and alone until that bloody moment.
‘I hope that you… I hope Gabbik realises how thankful we are for what he did.’ Skraffi stroked his beard slowly, looking into that uncompromising gaze. It was spooky, as though he really was talking to someone other than his son. He did not know what was sworn in the Last Oath, what other rites were practised by the Brotherhood of Grimnir, but seeing the effects first-hand on someone he knew made the old dwarf shudder. ‘I hope,’ he managed to say, ‘that Gabbik knew his father was proud of him and that… He knew that his father loved him.’
There was no reaction from the Slayer, he took this message without even a blink. Gabbik spared them any further torment. He turned away, darting one last look at Haldora, and joined the other Slayers.
‘Friedra?’ Skraffi touched her shoulder.
Her eyes snapped to Skraffi’s as though comi
ng out of a trance. She swallowed hard, wiped a single tear from her cheek and nodded to herself, trying to smooth the creases out of her tunic.
‘We can mourn later,’ she said. ‘Let’s get packed up and ready to go. We’ve been here long enough already.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
‘Norboron Angbok broke the rock over the largest seam of coal in the Dragonbacks, but unfortunately in his excitement he got drunk and fell down a chasm before he could tell the king. Or so the family legend has it. The claim itself was made by Storrin Goldnose, a remarkably gifted prospector who happened upon Norboron’s little camp a few days later.
He was called Burlithrom back then, but after the size of the coal seam was confirmed he and all his descendants were granted the title of Goldnose by King Grimbalki and they have served as prospectors and miners to the royal clans ever since.
And the seam was a whopper. Hundreds of dwarfs could labour on it at a time, going down and down and down into the bowels of the mountains. They built a whole gate just to reach it, not far from the king’s stockade, and it became the most important place in all of the Dragonbacks.
The First Delve it was called, though some named it after the winding stair that followed its course into the bottom levels – Ekrund. The king liked this a lot and took it as the name for his city, and so eventually the dwarfs whose adventurous ancestors had left Karak Eight Peaks dug a new home and became the Ekrundfolk.’
They found Glorri where they had left him, nervously chewing grubby fingernails as he sat amongst their things. He looked up sharply as they approached, furtive and restless. Haldora wondered if he had spent so long tracking goblins in the wildlands that he had started thinking and acting just a bit too much like them.
‘I told you, I had nothing to do with it,’ Glorri said, standing, hands held up defensively. ‘I didn’t know what he was gonna do, he just said that the Angboks would need my help and I was to come up here this morning.’
‘It’s morning?’ Friedra sounded surprised. She had said little on the journey back up from seeing Gabbik. Haldora could sense the tension in her mother, like water held behind a dam. She hoped it stayed in check long enough for them to get away. ‘I thought it might be late afternoon. Are you sure it’s morning? How can you be sure?’
‘A ranger knows these things,’ said Glorri, tapping the side of his nose. ‘It’s second nature, it is.’
Haldora packed up what little remained of their possessions – a few heavily darned blankets, a sack of dry bread and some water canteens. Friedra sharpened her axe and Haldora’s, while Skraffi took a small hammer to the iron rims of their shields, knocking in extra nails, smoothing out the dents. Glorri watched all of this with a rodent-like restlessness, moving from foot to foot and fidgeting with his beard until Friedra fixed him with a stony glare.
‘So, where is it you’ll be taking us, master ranger?’ she asked, scraping the whetstone along the edge of Haldora’s axe. ‘Where’s this secret route?’
‘It’s not pleasant,’ Glorri warned. ‘There’s goblin tunnels, old ones, some of the way. A bit of crawling on your belly, and we can’t afford no lights.’ He plucked at his clothes and shrugged. ‘And there’ll be some dung.’
‘Goblin tunnels?’ said Skraffi. ‘How do you know they’re safe? Why aren’t they guarded, by them or us?’
‘Nobody thinks they go anywhere. The goblins is all killed, long time before the attack, years ago. And it looks like they come to a dead end, but there’s actually a crack in the rock, just about big enough to squeeze through on your hands and knees. Hard to find, but I found it. Smelt the air. Rank, but different. I been all the way to the surface, checked it’s clear.’
‘And then you just came back?’ Skraffi looked unconvinced. ‘To help us out?’
‘It’s not safe overground,’ said Haldora. She looked at Glorri and realised that it must have been quite an ordeal, crawling around in the filth and darkness on his own, hoping that the route led somewhere, wondering if he would be set upon by goblins or worse at any moment. ‘He told me before, didn’t you? Goblins and wolves in the woods to the north, right?’
‘That’s right. I don’t think I can make it on me own, not if I run into trouble.’
‘We can’t sneak out a whole army,’ said Friedra. ‘But four’s not much better than one in a fight, and more likely to be seen.’
‘That’s a good point,’ said Skraffi. ‘We could do with a few extra bodies, just in case we meet trouble.’
Glorri did not look happy about this but he said nothing.
‘What do you think?’ Haldora asked him. ‘Ma and Skraffi are right, we can’t fight off a pack of wolf riders with just the four of us. How many do you reckon we could take, and still be able to slip through the woods without drawing too much attention?’
‘That’s a tricky one,’ said Glorri, gnawing his lip. ‘A dozen, I’d say. No more than a dozen. Who you thinking of taking?’
‘Fleinn and Durk, of course, if they want to come,’ said Skraffi. He looked at Haldora. ‘And Nakka too. Maybe old Thundred would want to join us.’
‘What about Prince Horthrad?’ suggested Friedra. They looked at her, taken aback, and she shrugged. ‘Why not? He might want to come, and if we turn up at Karak Eight Peaks or Barak Varr with a royal prince we’re more likely to get let in.’
‘That’s another good point,’ said Skraffi with an appreciative nod. ‘I like your thinking.’
‘Be quick and quiet about it,’ said Glorri. ‘We don’t want everyone and their pony following us, causing a racket, do we? And I ain’t sure about bringing the prince. That’ll be noticed, for sure.’
A rumble caused them to stop what they were doing and look up. It had come from above, towards the South Gate. All around them dwarfs paused and looked to the south, sharing a moment of trepidation. Then came a muffled thudding, punctuated by rapid tapping that echoed through the still halls and tunnels.
From a city that had once taken several days to traverse north to south and east to west, from the highest pinnacle to the lowest deeps, Ekrund had been reduced to a handful of levels and a dozen or less halls. The noise reverberated from the south to the north, and then it seemed as if there was a reply, a knocking and creaking that came back from the northern galleries behind the collapsed gate.
‘The orcs are digging in,’ muttered Glorri. He looked at Skraffi. ‘How long do you reckon it’ll take them?’
‘Days, at least,’ said Skraffi. ‘Leastways, it took us seven, eight days to fill up them gateways and tunnels.’
‘They’ve got giants, and ogres, and trolls,’ said Haldora. ‘And goblins under the lash.’
‘It seems to be coming from everywhere,’ said Friedra, as more thuds and scraping disturbed the quiet of the hold. ‘Will your route still be safe?’
‘If we don’t hang around gabbing about it, yeah,’ said Glorri, fidgeting even more than before, like a beardling needing permission to relieve himself but too intimidated to interrupt the conversation of his elders and betters to ask to be excused.
‘You fetch Nakka and the other Troggklads and what other lads you think would make good company,’ said Friedra, sounding decisive as she looked at Skraffi. She turned her attention to Haldora. ‘Find Horthrad and speak to him. Sound out what he’s about, but if you’re not sure, don’t tell him we’re going, he might not like that.’
‘Are we sure this is what we want?’ Skraffi asked before Haldora could go. He looked at each of them. ‘There’s no surety we’ll be any better off outside than in, and even if we get away from the Dragonbacks, there’s folk that will always think less of us, might not give us sanctuary.’
‘You saw what pa’s done, to give us this chance,’ said Haldora. ‘He did that so we could leave with honour and that’s what we should do.’
‘We’re leaving,’ Friedra said sternly. ‘I lost too many folks I know and cared for, I’m not losing Haldi too.’
‘Haldora,’ she corrected without
thought.
‘All right, if you’re done with your heart to hearts,’ said Glorri, ‘maybe you’d like to get a shift on before the goblins turn up.’
Haldora nodded and set off, heading up towards the South Gate. The dwarfs were roused by the noise of the greenskins’ excavation, but a lot of them were milling around, not sure what to do. A steady stream filed up towards the South Gate, mostly out of habit. There was no telling where the orcs might break through first, or how long it would take.
Others just waited, especially the younger ones. Most of the longbeards they looked to for guidance were dead. The king had been killed and ever since a vagueness had pervaded the Ekrundfolk. Nobody had heard from Prince Rodri or his personal company since they had tried to lead a break out through the West Gate; everybody assumed they had been killed. Horthrad was overwhelmed by the turn of events. He was not more than a year over coming of age and nobody had ever thought he would become king. Most of the council were dead. The loremasters and runelords and guild leaders that would have advised and guided him had been gutted and beheaded and ripped apart by vile monsters.
Haldora had seen him occasionally, wandering almost ghost-like amongst his people, listening to their praises and complaints, their hopes and fears, saying little in return. She could not imagine how he felt, inheriting the throne of a hold about to be overrun, made lord of a doomed people. They looked to him to be a leader but he did not have it in him to lead.
She found him alone on a gallery overlooking the First Delve. Even lit by a handful of lanterns, it was still an impressive place, a great hole in the earth that went down five deeps, around its edge a spiral stair wound into darkness. Bridges and tunnels and galleries broke its flanks, but the sheer-sided shaft seemed to suck everything down into it.
The noises of digging and rocks breaking outside the halls reached even here. The thuds and cracks seemed to spiral down with the steps, all the way into the lowest depths.
‘I wouldn’t do it,’ she said, coming up beside Horthrad.
‘Do what?’ he asked, not looking at her.
