Masters of Stone and Steel - Gav Thorpe & Nick Kyme

by Warhammer

  The noise came again, insistent and repetitive. He was too far away from the ironclad door for it to be anything beyond it in the flooded chamber. Still, he couldn’t place it. Gromrund looked around and caught sight of Thalgrim sat by the arch, silently gripping his stomach.

  ‘Lodefinder,’ he called out to him.

  Thalgrim looked over and the hammerer beckoned him.

  The lodefinder was a little weary as he reached the sweating dwarf wearing nought but his boots, smalls and a massive warhelm.

  ‘Listen,’ said the hammerer urgently.

  CHAPTER TEN

  ‘It’s coming from the wall,’ said the lodefinder, eyes brightening when he heard the sound. He rushed over, smoothing the wall with his hands to detect the subtle movements in the stone. ‘There,’ he said again, pin-pointing the exact position from which the noise was emanating.

  By now Rorek, the Sootbeards and a number of other dwarfs had noticed the sudden commotion and were heading onto the anvil platform.

  It was a welcome diversion. The throng had been waiting several hours for Uthor’s decision on their next course of action. The thane was brooding when the flurry of movement began, drawing deep of his pipe and sitting in abject silence.

  ‘Grundlid,’ said Thalgrim, ear pressed against the wall. ‘There’s a message,’ he added. ‘We are sons of Grungni. It is them! Our brothers live!’

  More and more dwarfs were gathering on the anvil platform as word of Thalgrim’s discovery spread quickly.

  ‘Where?’ asked Uthor urgently, having fought his way through to the front of his throng.

  Thalgrim looked back, nearly beside himself. ‘I will find out,’ he said, tapping back with meticulous precision using Grundlid, or Hammer-Tongue, the secret language of miners and prospectors. A series of careful scrapes and taps, with varying duration and intensity, could convey a message. Most amongst the dwarfs knew its rudiments but only the most vaunted lodefinders were privy to its intricacies.

  ‘The mines,’ said Thalgrim, catching snatches of Grundlid as he responded with a long scrape of stone and three heavy raps, followed by a long, lighter one.

  ‘We must get to them,’ said Uthor.

  ‘They are below us,’ Thalgrim offered, between taps.

  ‘The lodefinder and I will follow the message and bring them to the foundry. The rest of the throng will await our return here.’

  Gromrund stepped forward, about to protest, but a look from Uthor silenced him. The thane of Karak Kadrin wanted to atone for his mistake, even if only in part.

  ‘The less of us that venture from the safety of the foundry the better, and the less likely it will be that the skaven and whatever lurks in the dark will be aware of us. If the others still live, we two will find them.’

  ‘We three.’

  Emelda emerged through the pressing masses, the dwarfs respectfully allowing her passage. ‘I’m coming with you.’

  Now it was Uthor’s turn to bite his tongue. The royal clan daughter’s gimlet gaze told him all he needed to know of her reasons. Dunrik might be amongst them. She had to know.

  ‘Maintain a watch on all ways in and out.’ Uthor addressed his throng as he, Thalgrim and Emelda stood before the only exit to the foundry that wasn’t flooded on the other side. ‘When we return, Thalgrim will provide a simple signal in Grundlid.’

  Uthor went to walk forward when Gromrund stopped him.

  ‘Grungni go with you,’ said the hammerer, back in his armour again when he gripped the thane’s shoulder.

  ‘And you,’ Uthor replied, unable to keep the surprise from his face.

  The guards at the foundry door hauled away the locking bar and tugged on thick, iron chains attached to it. Screeching metal filled the air and a gaping black void of the unknown opened out before the three dwarfs, so dark and infinite it swallowed the light from the foundry whole.

  ‘This way,’ said Thalgrim, moving off quickly through a dilapidated corridor. ‘Very close, now,’ he added.

  Uthor wasn’t convinced that the lodefinder was talking to him or Emelda as the two of them ventured warily after Thalgrim. The path was treacherous, fraught with pit falls, sharp rocks and heavy debris. Dust motes fell eagerly from sloping ceilings with every step and Uthor dared not raise his voice above a whisper, lest the whole lot come crashing down on their heads.

  ‘Slow down, zaki,’ he hissed, struggling to keep pace. The thane cast a glance behind him and saw that Emelda was on his heels and showing no evidence of fatigue. When Uthor looked back, there was no sign of the lodefinder.

  Grimnir’s tattooed-arse, he thought angrily, the wattock has probably fallen to his death and left us lost in this labyrinth. The thane increased his pace, stumbled and nearly slipped but got his footing at the last moment, in the hope of catching sight of Thalgrim. He took another step and realised there was nothing beneath his foot. Scrambling for purchase, Uthor’s hand gripped the wall but slipped on moisture slick stone. Flapping wildly, he was about to plunge headlong into a drop of sharp rocks when he felt his fall abruptly arrested.

  Emelda, holding onto the thane’s belt, hauled Uthor back onto solid ground.

  ‘I hope this is the right way,’ she said as Uthor flushed with embarrassment at being saved by a woman. The thane of Karak Kadrin looked back at the wall and noticed thin rivulets of water trickling down them and seeping into the porous rock at their feet.

  ‘So do I, milady,’ he said, striving to regain his composure.

  Their eyes met for but a moment, before Uthor looked away abashedly.

  ‘Not far.’ The lodefinder’s voice drifted on a shallow and foetid breeze to break the sudden silence.

  Relief washed over Uthor, and not just because their guide was still alive. He emerged from the debris-strewn corridor to find Thalgrim standing pensively before a triple forked archway. Each of the three roads were carved into the likeness of a dwarf face and led down still further – they had been steadily descending ever since leaving the foundry. The decline was shallow, but Uthor had felt it, even as he clambered over broken columns, stooped beneath fallen ceilings and crawled through shattered doorways.

  ‘Which way?’ Uthor asked, a little out of breath.

  Thalgrim sniffed at the air, and felt the rock of each fork in turn.

  ‘Down here,’ he said, indicating the left passage. ‘I can taste the ore seams, feel them in the rock. The mines are this way.’

  ‘You are certain this is the way?’ Uthor asked, unconvinced by the lodefinder’s tone.

  ‘Fairly,’ he replied.

  ‘And the other tunnels?’

  Thalgrim looked Uthor in the eye.

  ‘Our enemies.’

  The shallow ledge ended in a narrow archway, through which a much wider and flatter platform opened out. It was a lodecarrier’s waystation, one of several in Karak Varn, designed to service the many mines and act as barrack houses for the miners and lodewardens. Upturned ore carts and scattered tools littered the ground and smothered torches were cast aside like tinder. Whoever had been here had clearly left in a hurry.

  ‘The Rockcutter Waystation,’ said Ralkan as the dwarfs started filing into the room. ‘We are in the eastern halls of the karak.’

  ‘We will wait here,’ Halgar decided, at the head of the group with Azgar and his slayers – one of the Stonebreaker clan carried Dunrik’s body, along with Drimbold, now. The old longbeard eyed the darkness wearily. In one corner of the modest chamber a broad shaft had been carved into the rock. A wrought-iron lift cage nestled within, battered and bent, the iron rusted and split, with a length of piled chain languishing nearby. A second shaft lay on the opposite side, leading down.

  Ralkan approached it carefully. The lorekeeper stuck his head into the shaft and looked up and down.

  ‘The rhun-markers are clear,’ he said. ‘It leads right down to the foundations of the hold.’

  ‘And up?’ Hakem remarked.

  ‘Dibna’s Drop,’ Ralkan answered, looking bac
k at the mauled merchant thane. ‘The room we passed in the third deep is above.’ Clearly, the long period of calm had improved the dwarf’s lucidity.

  ‘And that?’ growled Halgar, pointing.

  A third exit lay ahead in the form of a broken down doorway. Even in the gloom, it was possible to make out an ascending tunnel leading off from it. Besides Dibna’s Drop, it was the only possible ingress to the waystation.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Ralkan confessed, memory fogging once more.

  The longbeard grumbled beneath his breath. The last message in Grundlid had been close. Their kinsdwarfs were on the way to them. He only hoped they would get there before something else did.

  ‘Someone approaches,’ Halgar hissed, gesturing toward the broken doorway. Shallow footsteps could be heard from beyond the threshold to the room, growing louder and with each passing moment. The dwarfs gathered together, the dull chorus of axes and hammers scraping free of their sheaths and cinctures filled the air.

  ‘What if it is not dawi?’ Hakem asked, shield lashed to his wounded arm, an axe held unfamiliarly in his remaining hand.

  Halgar glanced at Azgar, glowering menacingly at the doorway in the gloom, before he replied.

  ‘Then we cut them down.’

  When Thalgrim and Uthor emerged from the tunnel they were met by a host of axe blades and hammer heads.

  ‘Hold, dawi!’ said Uthor, showing his palms.

  ‘Son of Algrim.’ Halgar stepped forward, stowing his axe and clasping the thane of Kadrin’s forearm in what was an old greeting ritual.

  ‘Gnollengrom.’ Uthor reciprocated the gesture, and nodded in respect at being so honoured.

  ‘So you’re alive, after all,’ the longbeard added, very nearly cracking a smile.

  ‘As are you,’ Uthor replied, throwing a dark glance towards Azgar as he noticed the slayer’s presence for the first time.

  ‘Round rump of Valaya!’ Halgar blurted out suddenly when he saw Emelda emerge from behind Thalgrim, who was currently being slapped on the back and hugged by the Stonebreakers.

  ‘There is much to be told,’ Uthor said, by way of explanation. More gasps of shock greeted the revelation from the assembled dwarfs.

  ‘Please,’ Emelda said, stepping forward, her eyes bright and hopeful as she scanned Azgar’s throng. ‘Where is Dunrik?’

  Halgar’s face fell.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, with sorrow in his eyes, ‘there is much to be told.’

  ‘So few of you,’ said Uthor as he sat around one of the coal troughs in the foundry. The way back to the iron sanctuary had been slow and trod with great care, but had passed without further incident. The returning dwarfs were met with heartfelt joy. The buoyant mood was short-lived however, when it was realised just how many had rejoined them. That, together with the maiming of Hakem and Dunrik’s death, had conspired to create a grim, desolate atmosphere.

  ‘We are fortunate to be alive at all,’ said Halgar, breathing deeply as he savoured the aroma of the foundry, a chamber unsullied by skaven and redolent of ancient days. After that brief indulgence, the longbeard’s face turned grim. ‘The rat-kin were ready for us. They have been tracking us ever since we entered the hold…’ Halgar looked deep into the coal fires, supping on his pipe. ‘Such cunning! I have never seen the like in skaven.’

  ‘How did Dunrik die?’ Uthor asked, after a few moments of silence.

  ‘Impaled by ratman spears – he died a noble death, protecting his kinsdwarfs.’

  ‘May he be remembered,’ Uthor uttered, his guilt like an anvil trussed around his neck.

  ‘Aye, may he be remembered,’ Halgar added.

  Emelda was divested of her armour and instead wore the plain purple robes of Valaya she had beneath her chain and platemail. The clan daughter had even removed the runic cincture – it glowed dully, nearby, in the reflected light of the vast forge pit.

  She was alone at the forgemaster’s platform in the foundry. Dunrik’s cold body lay before her on the anvil. The rest of the reunited throng were sat below, most in hunched silence, contemplating their plight.

  ‘Dunrik,’ she whispered, placing her hand on the dwarf’s clammy brow. His flesh was pale now, much like it had been when he’d escaped from Iron Rock. She had tended his wounds then as part of her training – for the priestesses of Valaya were battle-surgeons in times of war – and the bond between them had been forged. After that, he’d become her bodyguard and confidant – there was nothing Dunrik would not have done for her; he’d even defied the will of his king to get her to Karak Varn. How she wished to take that back: to be at Everpeak, dreaming of glory and restoring the great days of the dawi to the Karaz Ankor, instead of preparing his corpse for interment.

  ‘Are you ready, milady?’ said a small voice.

  Emelda turned to see Ralkan stood, head bowed, beneath the archway to the platform. She smeared away the tears on her face with the sleeves of her robes.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, mustering some resolve.

  Silently, Ralkan walked forward. He carried pails of water, one in each hand, gathered from the vast cooling butts stood against the foundry walls. Setting the buckets down, he helped Emelda remove Dunrik’s battered armour. The clan daughter wept as she struggled, with Ralkan’s assistance, to pull some of the armour away from the embedded spear hafts. Beneath mail and plate, Dunrik’s tunic and breeches were so badly sodden with blood that they had to be cut free. Emelda did this, careful so as not to pierce the dwarf’s flesh or defile the body in any way. Next came the extraction of the embedded spear hafts. Each was like a wound against the clan daughter as she removed it.

  Naked upon the anvil, Dunrik was washed head to foot and his beard combed. Emelda wrung blood soaked bundles of rags regularly and sent Ralkan back for fresh water on several occasions. After these ablutions Emelda stitched the spear wounds closed and redressed Dunrik tenderly with a borrowed tunic and breeches, uttering a pledge to Valaya as she did it. Ralkan had washed the original garments as best he could, but they were still wretched with blood and cut nigh-on to ribbons, so could not be salvaged.

  Gromrund – working at one of the forge troughs below with Thalgrim operating the bellows – had repaired Dunrik’s armour, and even given the shortness of time and the state of its degradation it still shone as if new. The hammerer brought it up the platform and left it there without a word.

  Emelda dismissed Ralkan and clad Dunrik in his armour by herself. After a few moments, it was almost done and as she affixed the final clasps of Dunrik’s left vambrace she went to retrieve the dwarf’s helmet. Emelda paused before she placed it on him, setting it down on the anvil next to his head, and traced her finger down the scar the orcs of Iron Rock had given him long ago.

  ‘Brave dawi,’ she sobbed. ‘I am so sorry.’

  ‘What is that beardling doing?’ snapped Halgar, suddenly.

  Uthor was grateful of the distraction, so grim was his mood, and looked over to where Rorek – who was anything but a beardling – was tinkering with a globe-like object made of iron and copper. To one side of the engineer there sat a doused lantern. While Uthor watched, the Zhufbar dwarf picked it up and carefully poured the oil into a narrow spout fashioned into the globe. He then set the globe down and started to unravel a section of rope from that which was usually arrayed around his tool belt.

  ‘I know not,’ Uthor answered.

  ‘Mark my words, he’ll be for the Trouser Legs Ritual before long or maybe a cogging,’ the longbeard grumbled.

  Uthor was about to reply when Hakem approached them. His wound had been cleaned and redressed by Emelda in abject silence, before she had gone to tend to Dunrik.

  ‘They are ready,’ he uttered.

  ‘Here lies Dunrik, may Valaya protect him and Gazul guide his spirit to the Halls of the Ancestors,’ Emelda declared, her voice choked.

  She stood at the edge of the great fire pit beyond the statue of Grungni. Dunrik was before her, resting upon a cradle of iron. The Everpeak dwarf was full
y armoured, the metal gleaming thanks to the efforts of Gromrund and Thalgrim, and wore his helmet. His shield lay by his side. Only his axe was missing. Emelda carried the ancient weapon as she invoked the funerary rites of Gazul, drawing the Lord of the Underearth’s symbol – the great cave and entrance to the Halls of the Ancestors – upon the flat blade. Though Emelda was a priestess of Valaya, she was also learned in all the rites of the ancestor gods, even those lesser deities such as Gazul, son of Grungni.

  ‘Gazul Bar Baraz; Gazul Gand Baraz,’ she intoned, honouring the Lord of the Underearth, beseeching his promise to guide Dunrik to the Chamber of the Gate. The ritual conferred the dwarf’s soul into his axe, and when it was buried in the earth Dunrik would pass from the chamber and be allowed to enter the Halls of the Ancestors proper. Only in times of dire need was such a measure undertaken. Since there was no tomb, no sanctuary for Dunrik’s body, Emelda would not leave it in the foundry to be defiled. This was the only way he might know peace.

  Inwardly, she pitied those others who had fallen, bereft of honour – left to wander the underdeep as shades and apparitions, ever restless. It was no fate for a dwarf to endure.

  The rattling of chains attached to the makeshift bier arrested Emelda from her remembrances. It was time.

  Sweating from the emanating heat haze, Thalgrim and Rorek pulled a chain, hand over hand, through one of the pulleys suspended above the pit of fire. Hakem and Drimbold pulled another, the merchant thane managing despite only having one hand. Each chain was split at the very end and branched off into two sections attached to the ends of the iron cradle. As the dwarfs heaved, Dunrik was lifted slowly off the ground. Once he had reached the zenith of the chamber, the chains were locked in place and a third chain dragged by Uthor pulled Dunrik high over the pit of fire. Now in place, and through means of ingenious dwarf engineering, he could be lowered slowly into the raging flames.

  As Uthor did so, very slowly, Halgar stepped forward and Emelda, head bowed respectfully, retreated back.