Masters of Stone and Steel - Gav Thorpe & Nick Kyme

by Warhammer

  ‘Bah,’ snarled Halgar, the old dwarf getting to his feet. ‘He has said nothing else since we dragged him from his hole.’ The longbeard walked away to go glare at Drimbold, the end of his pipe flaring to life as he lit it.

  Lokki watched him go, then turned back to Ralkan and reached for the book he had pinioned to his chest. The lorekeeper seemed reluctant to part with it, but, with some gentle urging from Uthor accompanied by several dried strips of meat, released it.

  ‘’Tis the Karak Varn Book of Remembering,’ Uthor said solemnly.

  Lokki opened it, thumbing carefully through the thick parchment pages. Names in their hundreds of thousands were etched within, names of all the dwarfs of Karak Varn that had lived and died: their clans, their deeds and how they met their end.

  Lokki skipped ahead to the last of the entries and read aloud.

  ‘Marbad Hammerfell, journeyman ironsmith, fell to a skaven blade in his back. Fyngal Fykasson, stonecutter, died by drinking water from a tainted well. Gurthang Copperhand, miner, inhaled deadly skaven gas.’ He lingered on this last one and mouthed a silent oath to Valaya. ‘There are hundreds like this,’ he said, ‘killed by the rat-kin, stabbed in the back with spears and daggers, poisoned in their sleep!’

  Uthor clenched his fists until his knuckles cracked. He was breathing loud and heavily, his face flushed a deep red.

  Before he could say or do anything, Rorek emerged from the secret chamber beneath the statue of Grungni.

  ‘As far as I can tell, there are several tunnels,’ he began, ‘extending far into the hold and across many deeps. But they are narrow; I doubt any of us could get through them.’

  ‘Little wonder he is so filthy,’ Lokki remarked with a short glance at Ralkan. The lorekeeper, having devoured the meat given to him by Uthor, was staring aimlessly.

  ‘I found markings scratched onto the wall in the chamber immediately below…’ said Rorek, arresting Lokki’s attention. For the first time the thane noticed that Ralkan had a small rock pick tucked into his belt.

  ‘…made by some tool or other,’ Rorek continued. ‘If they equate to years, he has been here for a while.’ The engineer’s expression was grim as he regarded Lokki.

  ‘How did this doom befall Karak Varn?’ Lokki asked the lorekeeper again. ‘How long have you been in hiding?’

  Ralkan’s lips moved soundlessly. There was desperation in his eyes as he met the thane’s gaze.

  ‘Red eyes…’ he sobbed at last, tears flowing down his face, making pale streaks in the grime. ‘Red eyes, everywhere.’

  ‘It is simple,’ Uthor said firmly, on his feet and pacing the length of the audience chamber, ‘we find the hold’s book of grudges – that will tell us all we need to know.’

  ‘And risk alerting whatever sacked this hold to our presence?’ Gromrund countered. ‘It is reckless folly.’

  Uthor rounded on the hammerer, who was sat on one of the stools, an imposing sight in his warhelm and full armour. ‘The hammerers of Karak Hirn are obviously of less stern stock than those of Kadrin,’ he snarled.

  Gromrund shot to his feet, thumping his hand down so hard upon the table that it shook, spilling ale with his vehemence, much to the annoyance of the other dwarfs.

  ‘The brethren of Horn Hold are ever bold, and not lacking in courage,’ he bellowed. ‘I would not sit here and have their name–’

  ‘Quiet fool,’ hissed Halgar, reproachfully, ‘lest you have forgotten your own desire for caution at rousing the denizens of this place.’

  The entire dwarf throng were once again arrayed around the table – all except Ralkan, who had retreated to a corner and was mumbling quietly. Some smoked pipeweed, others nursed tankards forlornly – ale supplies were running low. This was despite the fact that Rorek had discovered a hidden vault inside the room that contained several reserves of beer, doubtless left there in preparation for the council. The assembled dwarfs were locked in a long and hard debate, not to be rushed into rash action without due and proper consideration, about what they should do. All except Drimbold, who was eyeing the finery of Hakem’s merchant attire, before averting his attentions to Halgar as something else caught his interest.

  ‘I say we venture into the deeps,’ said Uthor, eyeing Gromrund as the dwarf sat back down, clearly disgruntled and chewing his beard in agitation. He switched his gaze to Lokki, knowing as a thane of a royal clan and with his venerable companion, it was his favour he needed to sway. ‘It is our duty to discover the fate of our kinsdwarfs and avenge them! What do we, sons of Grungni all, have to fear from ratmen?’ he added, top lip curling in a derisive sneer. ‘We can scare those cowards away.’

  Lokki remained thoughtful throughout Uthor’s impassioned rhetoric.

  ‘How are we to find the kron?’ asked Hakem, using a second beard comb to preen himself. ‘I for one have no desire to scramble around in the dark, looking for something that might not even be there.’

  ‘Indeed,’ Gromrund chipped in, suddenly emboldened again. ‘Even the ufdi sees the madness in what you are suggesting.’

  If Hakem thought anything about the slight, he did not show it.

  ‘The lorekeeper can guide us,’ Uthor said simply, addressing the group again. ‘But he is zaki,’ Rorek whispered, casting a furtive glance at Ralkan before he twirled his finger around his temple.

  Uthor turned to the lorekeeper. ‘Can you guide us?’ he asked. ‘Can you take us to the dammaz kron of Karak Varn?’

  There was a flash of lucidity in Ralkan’s eyes and a moment’s silence before he nodded.

  Uthor looked again at Lokki. ‘There you have it, the lorekeeper is our guide.’

  Lokki returned Uthor’s gaze, and was careful not to look to Halgar for guidance. This was something he would have to decide for himself. As member of a royal clan, be that of the Vaults or nay, hereditarily he had the highest status, despite the fact that both Halgar and Gromrund had longer beards. He was the leader.

  ‘We head into the lower deeps,’ he said, ignoring the grunting protestations of the hammerer, ‘and retrieve the dammaz kron. The fate of Karak Varn must be known and these facts presented to the High King.’

  ‘It is settled then,’ said Uthor, with no small measure of satisfaction.

  ‘It is settled.’ Halgar spoke his approval.

  ‘I have one question,’ Drimbold piped up, beer froth coating his beard as he supped from his own weather-beaten tankard. ‘Wise grey beard, why do you have an arrow sticking out of your chest?’

  Halgar scowled.

  The dwarfs travelled down a long and narrow tunnel. They had passed numerous hallways, clan chambers, armouries and galleries during that time. So far, no more dwarfs of Karak Varn – not even skeletons – save for Ralkan, were found in the creeping dark of the deep. All that remained, it seemed, were the last vestiges of a toppled kingdom, its reclaimed glory wrecked by calamity, its once proud stature rendered to rubble. Dust lay thick in the air and it was tainted with the bitterness of regret and defeat.

  The dwarfs had discovered, during Ralkan’s more lucid moments – which were becoming ever more frequent – that the dammaz kron, the book of grudges, was in the King’s Chambers located in the second deep. Much of the hold, even the upper levels, was in a state of utter ruination – fallen columns and statues, collapsed ceilings and gaping chasms all in evidence – and the dwarfs had been forced to take a fairly circuitous route. The narrow tunnel, fraught with rubble and jutting rocks where the walls had split, was merely part of that route.

  Uthor strode alongside Ralkan, who was at the head of the group, the lorekeeper leading the way. Often he stopped suddenly, causing a clash of armoured bodies and muffled swearing behind him, pausing to regard his surroundings and then set off again without a word.

  ‘Like I said, zaki,’ Rorek, immediately behind them, had whispered in Uthor’s ear. ‘Are you sure he knows where he’s going?’

  Gromrund walked beside the engineer and wore an expression like brooding thunder. The
hammerer had been silent throughout the trek, positively bristling at the will of the ‘council’ going against him. He gripped his great hammer tightly, glowering behind the mask of his helmet as he focused meaningfully on the back of Uthor’s head.

  Behind them Hakem and Drimbold, a bizarre pairing of wealth and poverty. Hakem cast frequent, sideways glances at the Grey dwarf, who stooped occasionally to pick something up and add it to his pack. The merchant-thane took great pains to ensure the strings of his purse were tight and his possessions securely fastened. Drimbold paid no heed to his discomfort and smiled back at Hakem broadly, using a silver fork, encrusted with jewels – Grungni only knew where he had appropriated it from – to pick strips of goat meat from his blackened teeth.

  Lokki and Halgar brought up the rear, taking care to watch the route the dwarfs had taken, lest anything be following them.

  ‘What do you think of the son of Algrim?’ Lokki asked, keeping his voice low.

  Halgar thought on it a moment, scrutinizing Uthor carefully and considering his answer before he spoke. ‘He is a hazkal, to be sure. But he fights as if the very blood of Grimnir flows in his veins.’ The longbeard blinked twice and rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. ‘And he bears a heavy burden, I know not what.’

  ‘Are you all right, old one?’ Lokki asked the longbeard. Halgar had been rubbing his eyes intermittently for the last hour, gnarled fingers kneading out whatever fatigue ailed them.

  ‘An itch, is all,’ he growled, ‘Damn grobi stink is everywhere.’ The longbeard stopped rubbing and stalked on a little harder, making it clear the conversation was at an end.

  Halgar was old, so old that Lokki’s father, the King of Karak Izor, had urged the longbeard not to take the road with Lokki, that one of his hammerers could accompany him instead. Halgar had snarled his derision at the stoutness of hammerers in ‘these times’ and more placidly had said he wanted to ‘stretch his legs.’ The king had relented, unwilling to go against the wishes of one of the oldest of the clan. Besides, there was the debt of Halgar’s grandsire to consider, and the king would never oppose the pursuit of a pledge of honour. But throughout their journey to Karak Varn, Halgar had been prone to dark and reflective moods. Lokki had often woken in the night, after quaffing too much ale and needing to empty his bladder, to find the longbeard staring off into the dark as if looking at something just beyond his field of vision, just beyond his reach. It was as if he sensed an end was coming and he had no desire to wither and atrophy in the hold, scribing of his last days in some tome or scroll. He wanted to die with an axe in his hand and dwarf armour on his back. Lokki hoped his own end could be so glorious.

  After that, Lokki fell into silence, remaining watchful of the dark.

  The long stairway stretched down into the waiting blackness of the second deep. Much like that which led to the audience chamber at the great gate, it was broad and illuminated by gigantic iron braziers wrought into the fearsome image of dragons and other creatures of ancient legend. The flames cast dancing shadows on the walls, throwing ephemeral slashes of light onto finely carved mosaics fashioned into the rocks. Each one was broken up by thick stone pillars, marked by rune bands of the royal clan of Karak Varn.

  ‘Here, does High King Gotrek Starbreaker slay the elf king and take his petty crown,’ intoned Halgar, pointing to one of the mosaics. On it, Gotrek Starbreaker was depicted in refulgent, golden armour, his axe drenched with blood. An elf corpse lay at his feet, the Phoenix Crown held aloft in the High King’s hand and presented to a mighty throng of dwarfs arrayed about him.

  ‘Lo, does the Bulvar Troll-beater, three-times grandson of Jorvar who did flee at Oeragor, face the grobi hordes, and reap a doom worthy of the sagas of old,’ he said wistfully. Bulvar was a slayer, and bore a massive crest of red hair upon an otherwise shaven head. Half his body was painted to resemble a skeleton – an affectation common among the cult and indicative of the slayers’ death oath – the other half was scribed with swirling tattoos and runic wards of Grimnir. Bulvar was alone, surrounded by orcs, goblins, trolls and wyverns. His last stand was made upon a great host of greenskin carcasses, the twin axes in his hands slaying goblins for all eternity.

  ‘And there,’ added the longbeard, ‘King Snaggi Ironhandson, son of Thorgil, who was sired by Hraddi, atop his oathstone at the Bryndal Vale after the sixth siege of Tor Alessi.’ The noble figure of the dwarf king stood upon a stout, flat rock with the rune of his clan carved onto it, his warriors with shields locked around him as they faced off against a host of elves with levelled spears. ‘Great was Snaggi’s sacrifice that day,’ said Halgar, his expression faraway as he became lost in remembrance and the expedition moved onward.

  At last the dwarfs negotiated the stairway, taking care to avoid numerous pitfalls that bled away into the dark nothing of the underdeep far below.

  From there they passed through a great, wooden door that only yielded when Lokki, Uthor, Gromrund and Hakem heaved on the mighty iron ring bolted to it, and into a feast hall – its hearth cold and long extinguished. A guild hall followed, of the Ironfinger miners, if the runic rubrics lining the walls were any proof, and then a long, vaulted gallery, until the dwarfs were before another great gate.

  Standing almost fifty feet tall, it was decorated with a final mosaic – rendered in copper, bronze and gold – surrounded by a gilded, jewel-encrusted arch. There were voids in the arch where some of the gemstones had been prised loose and stolen. Such defilement brought about ambivalent feelings of sorrow and rage in the onlooking dwarfs.

  ‘Ulfgan…’ Halgar struck a sombre note, barely a choked murmur, as if his voice held the burden of ages. ‘The last king of Karak Varn.’

  The mosaic was cracked, some of the gemstones set in it missing, each empty socket like a wound in stone.

  ‘It is the King’s Chamber,’ he breathed.

  ‘It is no use,’ stated Gromrund. ‘The gate is barred, and no locksmith can grant us entry. We have no choice but to turn back.’

  The dwarfs had been outside the gate to the King’s Chamber for almost an hour. A thick, steel bar lay across it on both sides that would only be opened by means of a great iron key – that which was carried only by the hold’s gatekeeper and chief of the hammerer guards, or by the king himself. Since the dwarfs had neither, their quest to retrieve the Karak Varn Book of Grudges had stalled.

  Rorek worked slowly and painstakingly at the lock hole, ignoring Gromrund’s naysaying and derogation.

  Uthor, stood patiently by the engineer’s side, would not be baited into another argument.

  ‘I am in agreement with Gromrund,’ said Hakem, deliberately keeping his distance from Drimbold, who was lurking at the edge of the gallery in the shadows, doubtless looking for more trinkets to further burden his weighty pack. ‘There is no more we can do here.’

  The hammerer looked around the throng for further supporters but found none.

  Halgar’s eyes were far away as he regarded the King’s Gate. Lokki seemed intent on thoughts of his own as he watched intermittently between the engineer cycling through his many tools and the darkness that lay behind them. Uthor was predictably tight-lipped, and maintained a certain grip on his axe haft.

  Again, it seems the ufdi is the only one willing to side with me, thought Gromrund, with some annoyance.

  ‘Hakem may be right,’ Lokki said at last.

  Hakem! Hakem the ufdi! You mean Gromrund Tallhelm, son of Kromrund, who fought at the steppes of Karak Dron is right, thought the hammerer with growing ire.

  ‘Though it galls me, there is no way past the King’s Gate without the key and I will not take up arms against it.’

  Uthor bristled, looking as if he were about to protest, when he was interrupted by the voice of Drimbold.

  ‘I’ve found something,’ said the Grey dwarf, stepping out of the shadows, ‘What’s this?’ He pointed out a concealed rune marking set in the stone and glowing dully in the gloom.

  Halgar snapped out of his th
oughts and stalked over to investigate, grumbling beneath his breath.

  ‘Stand aside, wanaz!’ he bawled at Drimbold, scowling. The Grey dwarf ducked quickly out of the furious longbeard’s path, allowing Halgar to get up close to the rune, which was set just above head height into the rock itself.

  ‘Dringorak,’ Halgar said, tracing the rune with his finger, rather than reading it. ‘Cunning Road. It is a rhun of disguise.’

  ‘I thought only rhunki could detect such things,’ said Gromrund, eyeing the Grey dwarf suspiciously.

  ‘Aye,’ Halgar replied, ‘but this one has lost much of its potency. Doubtless from the grobi filth and rat-vermin infesting these once great halls,’ he snarled, hawking a gobbet of thick phlegm onto the ground. ‘Still, ’tis remarkable that you saw it.’ Halgar glared at Drimbold.

  ‘Just luck,’ said the Grey dwarf diffidently.

  The longbeard turned his attention back to the rune and carefully felt the rock beneath, then drew a rune of passage in the dust and grit. He waited a moment and then used his gnarled fingers to find the edges of a door. Halgar opened it carefully.

  ‘A tunnel lies beyond,’ he said.

  Lokki looked at Ralkan, but the lorekeeper was elsewhere.

  ‘Bring him with us,’ he said to Hakem. ‘We enter the tunnel.’

  The tunnel was short and narrow, the dwarfs emerging quickly through a great, cold hearth and into the King’s Chamber.