Masters of Stone and Steel - Gav Thorpe & Nick Kyme

by Warhammer

  ‘Take this,’ Halgar offered, the dwarfs all clustering around the wounded merchant. The longbeard held a flaming torch.

  Azgar took it and smothered the flame into the stone, allowing the embers to burn with radiated heat.

  ‘Brace yourself,’ he told a bleary-eyed Hakem, still only partially conscious.

  The merchant thane bellowed in agony as the slayer rammed the glowing torch into his wound, searing it shut. He tried to thrash about but Halgar held him down.

  ‘Easy lad, easy,’ he said, waiting for the nervous fits of pain to pass before he let Hakem go.

  Ralkan came forward with several strips of cloth and started to bind the bloodied stump.

  ‘Can you walk?’ Azgar asked when the lorekeeper was finished.

  Hakem staggered to his feet and, meeting the slayer’s gaze, nodded slowly. He looked around him, his bearings returning, along with his memories. There was a gaping hole, some forty feet across, from the first plateau to the one on which he now stood with the rest of his kinsdwarfs. He could only assume that was why any of the slayers were left at all – unable to pursue their foes across such a chasm.

  Bodies littered the broad expanse of stone; there were scarcely fifty dwarfs left from the hundred or so that must have got through the tunnel. Some of those that remained were throwing rat-kin corpses into the gaping drop on either side.

  Hakem noticed the ashen-faced corpse of Dunrik last of all. He was laid on his back. An attempt had been made to wipe some of the blood from his armour and face. Someone had arranged his hands over his chest, as if in quiet repose – the spear heads still lodged in his body helped shatter the illusion. The other dwarf dead were laid down too, but with their cloaks covering their faces, hands made to clasp their hammers and axes, shields rested at their sides. There seemed so few, given those that had survived, but Hakem suspected many of the dawi had fallen into the darkness along with the skaven.

  ‘We won,’ said Azgar bitterly when the merchant thane met his gimlet gaze.

  Hakem thought of Dunrik, growing cold on the slab on stone, of the dawi falling to their deaths and of the Honakinn Hammer that shared their fate in the abyss.

  ‘Did we?’ he said.

  Far down into the underdeep, beyond the barriers of even dwarfen curiosity, something stirred. Ancient memory, dark and ill-formed at first, flooded its mind as it woke from a long slumber. The scent of blood and steel filled its flaring nostrils, and it felt the subtle shift of stone down the cragged walls of its lofty cavern through its claws. The ground trembled as it shook away the dust of ages from its mighty body.

  They had forgotten it. Thought it perished all these long years. But something had changed – it could feel it. The mountain had… moved. Through its slowly resolving vision it noticed the tiny bodies of lesser beings, fallen into its domain. It approached the shattered corpses and once it reached them it began to feed.

  CHAPTER NINE

  ‘I can run no further,’ said Gromrund, puffing his cheeks and weighed down by his massive warhelm.

  For almost an hour, Uthor’s throng had fled through darkened tunnels, down stairways and shafts, with no knowledge of their destination, desperately trying to put as much distance between them and their foes. They gathered now in some nondescript gallery, not nearly as grandiose as some of their previous accommodations, or as large. Gromrund, for one, was glad of it – it meant less places for their enemies to hide and ambush them.

  Uthor turned to regard the hammerer, noting that several other dwarfs were bent over with hands on knees, breathing hard.

  ‘Very well,’ he said at last. ‘We rest for a moment, but then we must move on. It’s possible that the others survived. If we can find a way through to reach them, we might–’

  ‘We are defeated, Uthor, son of Algrim,’ Gromrund snapped. ‘Barely fifty remain out of the two hundred with which we entered. The rat-kin number in the thousands – you know this – and there are the grobi to consider as well.’

  ‘They may have worn each other down. If we were to take advantage of that…’ Uthor didn’t sound convincing.

  ‘Your vainglory will kill us all!’ Gromrund raged, squaring up to the thane, making his intentions clear.

  ‘And your courage deserts you, Karak Hirn dwarf. Why is it that you never remove that warhelm of yours? Is it to hide your shame?’ Uthor snarled.

  A deathly hush filled the small gallery as the other dwarfs waited in the charged atmosphere, as the fight they all knew was coming slowly unfolded.

  Gromrund bristled at the remark, Uthor near spitting the words at him. The hammerer clenched his fists.

  ‘Never, in all the generations of Tallhelms has this helmet ever been removed,’ he began levelly. ‘Only upon my death shall it be prised from my cold skull and given to the next in my line,’ he hissed through clenched teeth. ‘It is tradition, and to go against it would disrespect the memory of my father, Kromrund Tallhelm, and besmirch the honour of my clan,’ he concluded, beard bristling.

  Uthor fell silent in an impotent rage.

  ‘Our fallen brothers,’ Gromrund continued darkly, now he had the thane of Karak Kadrin’s attention, ‘the needless death in pursuit of false honour… It ends now,’ he promised. ‘It is over, Uthor. You have brought enough shame to your clan.’

  Uthor roared and right hooked the hammerer across the jaw. Gromrund staggered back, but like a prize-fighter, rolled on his booted heels and threw a punishing uppercut into Uthor’s chin. The thane was knocked off his feet, but got up quickly and drew his axe.

  Gromrund hefted his great hammer, leather gauntlets cracking as he tested his grip.

  ‘I will show you the courage of Karak Hirn,’ he promised, with violent intent.

  ‘Come forward then,’ Uthor replied, beckoning him. ‘And I will knock that warhelm off your foolish head.’

  ‘Enough!’ A high-pitched voice rang out, shattering the violent mood. ‘Stop this, now.’

  Borri, the Everpeak beardling, rushed to stand between the two dwarfs. As he spoke, Gromrund was struck by the authority in the young dwarf’s tone and despite his anger, lowered his hammer.

  Similarly moved, Uthor did the same, staring nonplussed at a dwarf he thought was slain in the Great Hall.

  ‘There has been enough death… enough.’ Borri sagged, full with sorrow as his indignant fury was spent.

  Uthor was incredulous.

  ‘I saw you fall,’ he ventured, stowing his axe. ‘You could not have survived,’ he added, appraising the near-pristine condition of the Everpeak noble’s armour.

  All eyes went to Borri at once.

  The beardling opened his mouth to speak but Uthor was relentless.

  ‘You barely have a scratch on you.’ The thane regarded Borri suspiciously – his own armour was bent and broken in numerous places; even one of the wings on his helmet had several feathers torn out.

  ‘I…’ Borri began, taking a step back, suddenly aware of the attention fixed on him.

  ‘It is not possible,’ Uthor breathed and noticed the gilded cincture around the beardling’s waist. He recognised one of the runes on it – he had seen it before… ‘Let me see that belt,’ he demanded, closing in on the young dwarf.

  ‘Please, it is nothing…’ Borri blathered, holding up his hands as if to ward off any further inquisition.

  ‘And your voice,’ Uthor said, eyes narrowing. ‘It sounds different.’

  Borri stepped back again, but quickly found he had nowhere to go.

  ‘Show us what’s on the belt, lad,’ said Gromrund, directly behind Borri as he put his hand on the beardling’s shoulder.

  Borri sighed in resignation.

  ‘There is something you should know, first,’ he said, placing his hands against the sides of his helmet and lifting it slowly off his head.

  Rorek chipped away at the chunk of rock with a small pick. The gallery wall at which he crouched, several feet away from where the rest of Uthor’s throng congregated, felt cold to
the touch and damp, so he worked carefully and with painstaking precision.

  The engineer had noticed the runic rubric when the dwarfs had finally stopped, partly in the belief they were not followed by rat-kin or greenskins; partly from sheer exhaustion. Rorek was oblivious to the rest of his kinsdwarfs, and when his curiosity wasn’t sated by merely examining the runes, partly obscured by calcified streaks of sediment, he had begun delicately excavating it. There was a message beneath, of that he was certain – perhaps it would provide some clue as to their location, or offer a way out. It was whilst digging out a particularly recalcitrant piece of rock, scrutinizing the markings he could discern beneath with the light of a candle, that the engineer became aware of a shadow looming over him.

  ‘What are you doing, brother?’ asked Thalgrim. The lodefinder was clearly as inquisitive as the engineer.

  ‘There are rhuns beneath,’ said Rorek gruffly, turning his attention back onto his work. ‘They may indicate where we are.’

  Thalgrim watched as Rorek chipped in vain at the hunk of rock obscuring the runic script beneath.

  ‘Stand aside,’ said the lodefinder, hefting his mattock and twisting it around in his hands to brandish the pick end.

  Rorek paused in his endeavours, annoyed at the interruption. Looking back, he flung himself aside just in time as Thalgrim’s pick smacked hard into the wall, the calcified rock crumbling under the impact.

  Rorek was mortified at first, flat on his arse as he regarded the impetuous lodefinder; when he saw the broken rock and the intact symbol that it once concealed, he grinned.

  ‘Well struck,’ the engineer added, getting to his feet and clapping a hand on Thalgrim’s back.

  ‘Indeed,’ said the lodefinder proudly, ‘I mean no disrespect,’ he went on, ‘but though the engineers of Zhufbar fashion true marvels of ingenuity, it is the miners of the karak that know the vagaries of rock and stone best.’

  Rorek nodded solemnly at that – there had ever been a strong accord between the guild of engineers and miners.

  Full of pride, Thalgrim went to remove the pick from where it had embedded in the wall, but it wouldn’t budge.

  ‘Seems to be stuck,’ he muttered beneath his breath, giving the haft of the mattock a tug. ‘Release it,’ said the lodefinder – Rorek couldn’t be sure if he was talking to him or the rock wall – trying again. Still it didn’t yield.

  The engineer went to help and after testing their grip, the two of them heaved. There was the crunch of stone as the pick end of Thalgrim’s weapon came loose, sending the two dwarfs sprawling to the ground. Another sound came swiftly afterwards, the wrenching retort of splitting stone as a large crack ran jaggedly up the wall and a thin trickle of murky water exuded from the hole made by the lodefinder’s mattock.

  ‘Grungni’s girth…’ Rorek muttered as the thin trickle became a steady stream.

  ‘May it be ever broad and full,’ Thalgrim added, watching the pool growing at their feet.

  ‘Get up,’ said Rorek as a thick chunk of stone fell away and water gushed out in its wake.

  Long, golden plaits cascaded down as Borri removed his helmet and a pair of piercing azure eyes regarded Uthor, from either side of a round, stubby nose.

  Gasps and rumbles of amazement greeted the dwarf stood before them.

  Uthor was aghast.

  ‘Rinn!’ hissed one of the Sootbeard dwarfs and promptly passed out.

  Gromrund’s hand fell from Borri’s shoulder to hang limp at his side.

  ‘By the Bearded Lady!’ he heard another dwarf gasp.

  Some of the dwarfs began smoothing down their blood and dirt-caked tunics, faces flushed a deep crimson as they went on to quickly preen their beards.

  ‘I have not been entirely truthful,’ said Borri with royal timbre, straightening up defiantly.

  ‘I am Emelda Skorrisdottir…’ She parted the chainmail of her armour, revealing a golden cincture so wondrously crafted and timelessly beautiful that some of the Sootbeard miners wept. Runes of protection were etched upon the magnificent belt around Emelda’s waist, but one in particular caught Uthor’s eye – the rune of High King Skorri Morgrimson. ‘Clan daughter of the royal house of Karaz-a-Karak.’

  ‘Rinn Tromm,’ uttered Gromrund, bowing deeply on one knee. Still gaping, Uthor followed suit, the others then taking his lead.

  ‘Arise!’ Rorek cried, hurrying towards them with Thalgrim close behind him.

  Uthor turned sharply towards the engineer, incensed at the interruption. The thane’s anger drained away when he realised his knee was wet. When he saw the torrent of water flooding through the wall in the distance, he did as Rorek asked.

  The gallery wall broke away as they were getting up.

  ‘Run for it!’ Uthor bellowed, herding the dwarfs down the long gallery.

  The last of his throng were barrelling through as the foaming wave slammed into them, smashing the lagging dwarfs like dolls against the opposite wall. Those that weren’t crushed to death were drowned soon after. Uthor was blasted by a stinging spray, replete with grit and stone shards. He recoiled against the blow and ran, flashing a quick glance behind him as he fled, hell-bent on a large metal door at the end of the gallery.

  As the massive wave crashed into the far gallery wall it demolished columns and archways in its fury. For a few seconds it swelled in the tight space, churning like the innards of some primordial beast, until it found a way through and raced after the dwarfs with gathering momentum.

  ‘The way is long indeed,’ said Azgar, stood on a lower plateau, leaning on his axe as he looked down the wending stairway.

  ‘The Endless Road,’ offered Ralkan, enjoying one of his more lucid moments, ‘with many winding turns that lead into the lower deeps. It was so named by the stonemaster who built it, Thogri Granitefist. May he be remembered.’

  Azgar bowed his head in a brief moment of solemn remembrance.

  Those who had escaped the tunnel battles with their lives had made an encampment a few plateaux down from the battle site, too tired and grief-stricken to move on immediately. After disposing of the skaven corpses they had left their slain brothers in quiet repose, unable to convey all the bodies. Only Dunrik went with them, carried on a makeshift hammock between Drimbold and Halgar. The longbeard wrinkled his nose constantly, complaining about the stink of the skaven rotting above them beyond the shattered stairway, the only bodies they couldn’t reach to toss into the abyss. It seemed he had put his grievances towards the Grey dwarf aside for the time being, and was satisfied to let Drimbold lead them as they bore Dunrik to his final rest. As the Everpeak dwarf was of royal blood, it was only right and proper that he should be afforded a funeral and interred back into the earth so he might sit alongside his kin in the Halls of the Ancestors. For now, Dunrik was set down on the ground, all of his trappings strapped tightly to his body, so that when the funeral rites were enacted he would have them in the afterlife.

  A sombre silence descended and Ralkan retreated away from the plateau’s edge to sit alone.

  Azgar was left in solitary contemplation as he regarded the abyssal gloom before him. Discernible by the ambient light cast from the Diamond Shaft, and filtered through the dust-heavy air, gargantuan dwarf faces glowered at him. They were the lords of the elder days of Karak Varn, hewn into the very rock face and made immortal in stone. As they looked upon the slayer, he found his mind wandering to the past and could no longer meet their stern gaze…

  Azgar’s head thundered like the great hammers of the lower forges. Each footstep was a physical blow, as if his skull were the metal pounded beneath the anvil.

  It had been a mighty feast, though his recollection of it was dim. He recalled besting Hrunkar, the hold’s brewmaster, at the ox-lifting and then of a drinking boast that the broad-girthed dwarf had accepted gleefully. To challenge a brewmaster to a quaffing contest, in retrospect, had been foolish.

  Azgar had no time to ponder his misplaced confidence any further; the Cragbound Gate lay
ahead and its current warden awaited him.

  ‘Tromm,’ said Torbad Magrikson, resting his axe over his shoulder and tapping out his pipe.

  ‘Tromm,’ Azgar managed, shuffling into position beside the gate as Torbad slowly walked away into the brazier-lit gloom.

  An hour passed and Azgar felt the thrumming of hammers as engineers and metalsmiths worked diligently at the forge, the resonance of their labours carrying through the very rock of the mountain. It was a soothing refrain rippling through his body as he leaned at the warden’s post. Azgar’s eyelids grew heavy and within moments he was asleep…

  Desperate cries woke Azgar from slumber, that and the rush of booted feet.

  ‘Thaggi!’ shouted a dwarf voice.

  Azgar opened his eyes blearily, suddenly aware that he was slumped in a heap against the wall. He was shaken roughly.

  ‘Awake,’ said Igrik angrily, standing before him. ‘Thaggi, Lord Algrim has been poisoned!’ he cried.

  Azgar snapped to at that, heart thumping more loudly than any raging hangover ever could.

  ‘Father?’ he asked of the ageing attendant, Igrik.

  ‘Yes, your father,’ he said, bitterly.

  Then Azgar noticed something else: the wet footprints through the Cragbound Gate, its locks and bolts slipped silently. They were not made by dwarfen boots. They were long and thin with extended toes; they were the pawprints of skaven.

  ‘Oh no…’ breathed Azgar. ‘What have I done?’

  The scene shifted then in the slayer’s mind’s eye, resolving itself into the lustrous glory of the King’s Court.

  ‘Remove his armour,’ ordered the king, his dour voice carrying despite the immensity of the mighty hall, ‘and divest him of all trappings, save his axe.’

  A four-strong throng of hammerers, their faces masked, moved in and solemnly took Azgar’s armour, belts and clothes until he was stood naked before King Kazagrad of Karak Kadrin, his son Baragor looking on sternly at the right hand of his enthroned lord.

  ‘Let him be shorn and his shame known,’ Kazagrad decreed.