by Warhammer
‘You were stealing all of that?’ Horthrad looked as if he was about to seize Glorri by the throat.
‘Stealing? These is my family trove, I’ll have you know. Just because you was planning on being a pauper don’t mean I had to be.’
‘Too heavy for you to run?’ snarled the king, making a lunge at Glorri, who dodged away.
‘Sorry, your majesty.’ Glorri punched Horthrad square in the jaw, knocking him to his backside. ‘But you’re a royal numpty.’
Glorri snatched up a gold teaplate with ruby-studded edges. He spun it sideways towards the goblins, flashing blue and orange in the light of the rune-lamp and goblin torches. It struck one of the archers in the shoulder, spoiling its aim, but this was not the only effect. Seeing the shiny metal landing in their midst, the goblins seemed to forget about the dwarfs and fell upon each other in their desire to claim the prize.
The others caught on quick and helped Glorri as he pelted jewellery and coins up at the goblins. One of the descending night goblins tried to catch a necklace of pearls as it flew past. It lost its grip as it leaned out and plummeted from the ladder with a wail, crashing into the pool just a few paces from Fleinn. He stabbed it through the eye and then wiped his sword on its hood as it sank into the water.
‘Greedy beggar should’ve known better.’
Skraffi made it to the bottom with Nakka just behind. The goblins were already getting over the distraction of the treasure – more were climbing down and the first of a new flurry of arrows hit the water.
Without saying anything, Glorri headed into one of the cracks on the other side of the chamber.
‘What about your treasure?’ Haldora called out.
‘Let the spiteful little cowards fight over it,’ the ranger called back. ‘It’ll give us more time. We’re close. Run!’
Nobody argued. They piled after Glorri, dropping shields and packs and anything else except their axes, hammers and swords. Haldora could hear the splashes and hoots as the goblins dropped into the pool and started pawing over the pile of treasure.
Glorri turned left sharply into what looked like a dwarf-made gallery.
Haldora didn’t recognise it, but she realised that one side was open to the sky, like the loggia where she had first met the king. It was night time, thick cloud obscured moons and stars and the wind was still. They were high up Mount Bloodhorn somewhere. She could just about see the flicker of hundreds of campfires in the valley below, and by their light the broken towers of the North Gate.
The steep slope was covered with trees ahead, and the remnants of a bridge crossed from the gallery over a frozen river to a cliff face on the opposite side of the gorge. The middle section of the bridge was crossed via a couple of narrow planks, which Glorri stopped to toss down into the chasm when they were all over.
Night goblins spilled out onto the gallery after them, hurling high-pitched curses and shooting arrows as they came to a halt at the end of the bridge, none of them bold enough to make the jump. Haldora heard distant wolf howls and was reminded that their goblin problems were not yet over. They had dumped their food and water in the last scramble to get away, and there were days upon days of walking ahead of them, through mountains crawling with foes and the wildlands, not to mention the winter itself.
But they were out.
They reached the sanctuary of the trees, breathing heavily, and flopped against the trunks, grinning for the first time in a long while. Haldora took a good lungful of crisp, fresh air.
Freedom.
‘We should keep moving,’ said Horthrad. ‘The goblins will figure out a way across that bridge soon enough.’
‘Let’s just rest a minute, take stock,’ said Skraffi. He peered up at the sky and shook his head. ‘Can’t see the sun. Glorri, which way’s north?’
‘We ain’t heading north,’ said the ranger. He looked at Haldora. ‘We go east, across the wildlands to Karak Drazh. I got old family there. We’ll be sure to find someone to take us in.’
‘Nonsense,’ declared Horthrad. He laid a hand on Haldora’s arm. ‘My Great-Uncle Doriaz is king of Karak Eight Peaks. Come with me and you’ll be a princess.’
‘North,’ said Skraffi. ‘Barak Varr. The wildlands to the east will be crawling with greenskins.’
‘I’m king,’ said Horthrad. ‘My command is to go to Karak Eight Peaks.’
‘Is it also your command to marry you?’ snapped Haldora. ‘Your majesty?’
‘I didn’t mean that. But someone has to make a decision.’
‘And you decided it was going to be you?’ said Glorri. He sucked air through his teeth. ‘I don’t think so, your majesty. Who’s gonna get you across the wildlands? Who knows where the water and game is and where the greenskins is at? Me. So I choose Karak Drazh.’
‘And they’re going to welcome a penniless ranger, are they?’ said Horthrad.
‘I don’t see you rolling in gold coins any more,’ Glorri said with a sneer.
‘I am of royal blood. A king.’
‘Not yet,’ Haldora said quietly, stepping away from the pair of them. ‘You said yourself, you haven’t sworn the oaths or got the crown.’
‘All right, but I am still a prince.’
A howl cut the night, not so far away. Glorri grimaced and held out a hand to Haldora.
‘I’ll keep you safe, protect you,’ he promised. The ranger was not without his faults, but he had given up the family trove to save them, and he certainly knew the wider world better than anybody else in the group. Knowledge like that would be invaluable in the years to come.
Horthrad just looked at her, confident that his offer was already known. His family connections in Karak Eight Peaks guaranteed that he would be welcomed with open arms, and few questions would be asked about how he got out of Ekrund. Although he didn’t have treasure on him, there was no doubt that old family interests in Karak Eight Peaks would supply him with a steady income soon enough.
And he was, as he had pointed out, an actual prince.
She had not thought that it would come to this. She caught her mother looking at her with a satisfied expression, as though Haldora had intended this. Certainly her father had realised the strength of potential marriage, and now Haldora had it within her power to choose the fate of her family. In such uncertain times, that was an exceptional ability.
‘Looks like you get to decide,’ said Skraffi. He sniffed the air. The wind was cutting through the trees and the stench of goblins was easy to detect. ‘Better choose quickly, Haldi.’
She looked at the menfolk, the centre of their attention, each of them waiting for her decision for a change. More than that, they were looking to her for guidance. For leadership. They expected her to know what to do, and they were prepared to listen to her.
‘It’s Haldora,’ she said firmly. ‘And this is what’s going to happen.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
‘The halls were finished and the hold was considered complete when the last stone of the South Gate was put in place by King Furdak, Grimbalki’s son. It was a mighty achievement, the first city founded since the karaks of the north mountains, and kings and thanes from the southern holds, and even the High King himself, came to see for themselves what was so special about the Dragonbacks.
Each visitor received a grand welcome, gifted with the finest Ekrund beer and liver sausage, and banqueted at no small expense until they could eat no more. They were given tours down the First Delve and saw the trophy chambers where the honours of years of fighting against the goblins were kept.
Most impressed they were, and they went back to their holds well-fed and of good spirits.
And when all the visitors was gone, the Ekrundfolk held themselves a party, even more extravagant than the hosting of the High King, even amongst the most thrifty clans, for there’s no point sparing a coin when you’re celebrating such a thing that only comes once in ten generations.
They raised tankards to toast the shades of Grimbalki and Ordorin before hi
m, and the celebrations lasted for five days and nights. And there was not a soul there, I wager, that thought that Ekrund would ever diminish, not in five thousand or fifty thousand years.
Barely a thousand was all it had, but that’s another story.’
They came from the West Gate first of all. Firelight glowed through the cracks in the piled boulders and timbers. The barricade collapsed and goblins scampered through, easily cut down by arrows and shot from the waiting dwarfs. But the breach had been opened and though more goblins died, with each one that came through those labouring behind pulled away another beam or dragged aside another rock, widening the gap.
Horns sounded the alarm, but there was nobody to respond. The dwarfs that remained in Ekrund had chosen the places of their deaths days before, waiting by one of the grand tunnels or in the halls of their ancestors.
The goblins reached the line at the West Gate, and though they were chopped apart by axe and bludgeoned to death by hammer, they were not the last. The forest goblins broke in, their spider mounts scuttling up columns and along walls. Their war-chieftain followed, atop his great arachnarok. Bolts pattered and broke on its thick hide as it towered over the waiting dwarfs, venom dripping from its maw. In its wake came more goblins, with flint spears and arrows, thousands-strong despite the many thousands of dead on the surface.
At near enough the same time, the attack on the South Gate was led by trolls, nearly fifty of them. They were of all varieties: olive-skinned river trolls that stank of rotting fish and weeds; bluish-grey stone trolls from the mountain passes; marsh trolls with brown hides and vibrant red crests; and common trolls with warty black flesh and claws as long as knives. They were tough enough to weather the missiles of the defenders as they heaved aside boulders, urged on by orcs behind.
Gabbik looked at the trolls and felt more satisfied than he had done for a long time, since before even the siege had begun.
The universe had become such a simple place now. Three things existed in his life. Himself. His axe. An uncountable number of enemies. He would bring these three elements together for as long as possible and then, at some point, it would be over.
He embraced the finality and in doing so was freed from fear, from expectation, from desire, ambition and everything else that had distracted him for the centuries of his life. The Last Oath, the ritual of joining Grimnir’s Slayers, had helped him realise that his mistakes could not be rectified, his honour was already lost. The only thing that he could do was find glory and death, and by those means he would once more be admitted to the Halls of the Ancestors.
Gabbik looked down at the axe in his hands, not recognising it. It had come from the shrine of Grimnir and there was a rune upon the blade, to part armour and flesh. There seemed an almost mischievous twinkle to the magical light that glowed from the sigil, as though the axe was looking forward to what would come next.
The Slayers sensed each other’s anticipation and as one they broke into a charge.
The trolls were thrashing into a group of clansdwarfs that met the monsters with heavy picks and hammers, slamming knobbled fists into mailed bodies, gouging innards with their claws, crushing skulls with tree-limb clubs. Gabbik picked out a particular beast – a heavy-set river troll with flared ears and webbed digits that had lank hair hanging to its waist knotted with fish bones and filth.
He slammed his axe into the creature’s leg. The rune did its work, parting flesh and then bone with ease, so that Gabbik was almost thrown off-balance when the axe head passed out the other side of the monster’s thigh.
It toppled and Gabbik was on it in moments, hacking again into its neck with lusty strokes. The troll’s flesh writhed, trying to regenerate. Parted muscle and skin attempted to knit together, snapped bones grew calcified outcrops to repair fractures.
Zhamuz joined him, an axe in each hand, and between the two of them they cut off the troll’s head and kicked it away.
‘My first troll!’ Gabbik exclaimed.
‘Great, let’s not make it the last,’ replied Zhamuz.
Gabbik turned to face the breach. There were still lots of trolls pounding and crushing, opening a path into the hall. The tunnel behind them rang with iron-shod feet, marching together. Black orcs, armoured head-to-toe, carrying pairs of scimitars and cleavers, heads encased within horned helms.
And there would be more after them, and more still. Ekrund would fall that day.
Gabbik lifted his axe and let loose a bellow that echoed over the din of battle. It was a wordless shout of challenge that drew the attention of several trolls. They heaved themselves in Gabbik’s direction, moaning and snarling.
Gabbik broke into a run to meet the degenerate creatures. The other Slayers charged with him, and from Gabbik’s lips a last battle cry that had announced the arrival of his clan for generations.
‘Durazut Angbok karak!’
He had felt the touch of this feeling before, when he had confronted the wyvern. He had been certain of dying then, and the certainty had robbed death of its power. During the long night when they had been fleeing the goblins, when exhaustion had set in and nothing mattered except getting his family safe, that had been easy too.
The memory stirred other thoughts. Thoughts of Skraffi and Awdhelga. He looked at the memories as if from a distance, as though someone else had done an etching of the scene and animated it. He was there, both in the scene as himself, now looking at it with the eye of the dead.
His wedding to Friedra. Ale flowed, her smile lifting his heart so much that he didn’t even count the cost of the banquet. Seeing her in the kitchens or laying the table or washing the floors. More than dependable: essential. The foundation of his life, upon which he had been able to build everything else.
And Haldora. Tiny little Haldora, in his hands, freshly bathed for him, curling her fingers through his beard. And Haldora grown up. The very likeness of her grandmother, in looks and heart. Strong. Independent.
So proud.
He had lived a good life. Gabbik had not realised it at the time, not thoroughly, but he had always been thankful for the blessings the ancestors had gifted to him. He had worked hard to preserve that which he loved the most, and though they had joked at his expense, they had known that while he always knew the value of gold, he also believed something else.
Family was priceless.
A good life. Now it was time for a good death.
EPILOGUE
‘And that’s how Ekrund was founded, where your forefathers and foremothers came from,’ the old dwarf finished. She puffed on her pipe, the only light left in the chamber now that the fire had dimmed. A ring of faces looked up at her, rapt with attention. Little Gabbik held up his hand and she gave him a nod of permission.
‘And was that where you killed the goblins?’ he asked.
‘Yes, I killed goblins there, young ’un, plenty of them.’
Another young dwarf thrust up her eager hand. The matronly dwarf smiled at her, crow’s feet around her eyes deepening further.
‘Yes, my lovely Awdhelga?’
‘Is that where Grammi Nakka killed a dozen black orcs in one battle? Is it true?’
The old dwarf grinned and nodded towards the doorway. There stood another equally ancient dwarf, a few strands of reddish-brown left in his hair and beard, eyes a startling blue beneath a creased brow. He was looking at the children with a distant, fond smile.
‘Evening, your majesty,’ he said with a tip of the head.
‘Why don’t you ask him yourself,’ said Gramma Haldora.
‘Though Josef Bugman’s ancestors moved into the lands that would later become the Empire, they lived for a few generations in the Grey Mountains. Dwarfs are reluctant to talk about such things to outsiders, but it is the understanding of these scholars that Josef’s ancestors were involved in some part with the founding of Karak Norn. While little can be gleaned from our libraries, Karak Norn is remarkable amongst the holds of the dwarfs for the fact that its first ruler is believed to
have been a queen. History has, alas, forgotten her name.’
‘Dwarfs of the Empire, a Brief History’, by Rikard
the Holy and Njel of the Stills.
ANCESTRAL HONOUR
Gav Thorpe
Thick, blue-grey pipe smoke drifted lazily around the low rafters of the tavern, stirred into swirls and eddies by the dwarfs sat at the long benches in the main room. Grimli, known as the Blacktooth to many, hauled another keg of Bugman’s Firestarter onto the bar with a grunt. It wasn’t even noon and already the tavern’s patrons had guzzled their way through four barrels of ale. The thirsty dwarf miners were now banging their tankards in unison as one of their number tried to recite as many different names of beer as he could remember. The record, Grimli knew, was held by Oransson Brakkur and stood at three hundred and seventy-eight all told. The tavern owner, Skorri Weritaz, had a standing wager that if someone named more beers than Oransson they would get a free tankard of each that they named. The miner was already beginning to falter at a hundred and sixty-three, and even Grimli could think of twenty others he had not mentioned yet.
‘Stop daydreaming, lad, and serve,’ Skorri muttered as he walked past carrying a platter of steaming roast meat almost as large as himself. He saw Dangar, one of the mine overseers, at the far end of the bar gazing around with an empty tankard hanging limply in his hand. Wiping his hands on his apron, Grimli hurried over.
‘Mug of Old Reliable’s, Dangar?’ Grimli offered, plucking the tankard from the other dwarf’s grasp.
‘I’ll wait for Skorri to serve me, if’n you don’t mind,’ grunted Dangar, snatching back his drinking mug with a fierce scowl. ‘Oathbreakers spoil the head.’
Skorri appeared at that moment and shooed Grimli away with a waved rag, turning to Dangar and taking the proffered tankard. Grimli wandered back to the Firestarter keg and picked the tapping hammer from his pocket. Placing a tap three fingers’ breadth above the lower hoop, he delivered a swift crack with the hammer and the tap drove neatly into the small barrel. Positioning the slops bucket under the keg, he poured off the first half-pint, to make sure there were no splinters and that the beer had started to settle.
