by Warhammer
Volundr frowned. Khorne had spoken to him in a dream. His thunderous whispers had drawn him from the haze of pain that had been his constant companion since Klaxus and the shattering of the Black Rift. Khorne had spoken to him then, as well.
In his dream, the god had shown him things – impossible things. Nurgle huddled, blinded and injured, in his manse, his servants in disarray. Tzeentch spreading his wings, ready to ascend when the Blighted One descended – as Khorne had ascended when his rival Slaanesh had vanished. The ancient pacts were undone, the old balance askew. Where there had been Four, there might now be Two, if Nurgle succumbed.
And perhaps soon, only One.
Khorne would be that one. For was Khorne not the strongest of the Four, and the eldest? All that was had been his in the beginning, and would be again. And to that end, as mightiest of the Four, was it not fitting that his strongest champions carried those weapons forged at his command?
Thus had Khorne commanded his forgemasters to find those things that had been lost, and lay them at the foot of his throne of skulls. Even now, somewhere in the black seas of infinity, those who were worthy enough to wield the Eight Lamentations in Khorne’s name were being gathered. And so Volundr would find the eight weapons and become Master of all Forges, rather than simply one.
Something croaked.
Volundr looked up, alert. A raven sat perched high above him, watching him with its glittering black eyes. The bird cocked its head and croaked again. It almost sounded like laughter.
‘A spy, then?’ Volundr hefted the chain, and the war-anvil that dangled from it. The bird leapt away, in a skirl of loose feathers. Volundr watched it sail away, into the depths of the cavernous forge. Unease gnawed at him.
‘Ride swiftly, Ahazian Kel. For both our sakes.’
Volker strode through the folds of the salt-mist that permeated the Veins, one hand on the pistol in his belt, his rifle leaning across his shoulder. The mist slunk in from the sea every evening, to curl through the knot of rickety buildings that rose about him, inundating every nook and cranny.
The quality of the structures that lined the cobbled streets declined steadily the further away from the city centre one got. Here, it was a warren of cramped wooden cages, one set atop the next. Shadows pooled thickly in arterial alleyways, and gas lamps cast a hazy glow across the misty streets. Pools of stagnant water occupied dips in streets slick with night soil and tallow. This effluent clumped against the edges of the gutters, alongside the beggars and the drunks, and worse things besides.
As he passed an alleyway, someone coughed discreetly. He caught a glint of steel out of the corner of his eye and paused. They’d been following him for a few streets now, he thought. Not surprising. Good-quality weapons fetched a high price on the docks. No one was safe in the Veins – roof runners and alley-men took their prey with impunity. He swung his rifle down, into the crook of his arm, his thumb on the hammer. ‘Think carefully, friends,’ he said. ‘How much are you willing to pay, to take what I have?’
Moments passed. He considered a warning shot, and then discarded the idea. It would be a waste of a bullet he might otherwise need. He was just about to speak again when he heard the splash of retreating footsteps. The alley-men had chosen to seek less well-armed prey. He sighed, shouldered his rifle and continued on.
Besides the ever-present smell, the tangled streets were full of sound and colour, beneath the muffling folds of the salt-mist. Even with the skaven scratching at the gates, life went on. It was the nature of the realm, and the city raised on its soil displayed that savage zest for life in every aspect of its function.
Here in these streets, the descendants of the lowborn fisher folk who’d made the Coast of Tusks their home rubbed shoulders with off-duty freeguild guardsmen and glowering duardin. The majority of the city’s population lived and worked in the Veins, whether they wanted to or not.
Market stalls occupied every corner and crossway, with merchants from as far away as Vindicarum hawking their wares. Meteors and motes readily changed hands, the coins of meteoric iron being among the most commonly traded currency. But there were more esoteric forms of legal tender on display – quicksilver ingots, crudely shaped coins of ur-gold, iridescent scales harvested from dragon hatchlings. But above them all were the glimmerings – crystal vials of vaporous secrets and prophetic whispers, gleaned from the shard of Mallus occupying the bay. Some hoarded these to trade later, while others consumed them for their own illumination.
Volker paused to watch as a swarthy man in cerulean robes pried loose the stopper on one such vial and inhaled the contents. The coloured vapour seeped into his lungs and the man doubled over, coughing. When he straightened, he had a horrified expression on his face. He screamed and staggered, clawing at his head. His friends rushed to help him as he sank to the street, weeping. Not every secret was worth knowing. Volker quickly moved on.
Grungni’s message pounded in his head like a drumbeat. The shock of it was beginning to wear off, and Volker felt a twinge of trepidation. It wasn’t every day that one met a god. Especially a god not one’s own.
A doorway lantern crackled and Volker tensed. It had sounded like laughter. Overhead, a raven croaked. He looked up, but the bird was nowhere in sight. He realised that he’d turned down a blind alley and stopped. The lanterns here were crude things, barely flickering. But they blazed to impossible brightness ahead of him, as if to light his way.
A chill ran through him as he caught sight of a shadow on the wall. It hunched forwards in the light of the lanterns, shaggy and huge. Eyes like sparks fixed on him as the shadow turned, one massive paw beckoning him on.
The ground trembled beneath his feet, echoing with strange reverberations. Unthinking, he clasped the hammer-shaped amulet that hung around his neck. Normally he gave it no thought, but here, now, he desired nothing more than the comfort the sigil of Sigmar offered. The rumble receded. The glow of the lanterns had faded to a soft radiance. In the luminous haze, he thought he saw a face – Grungni’s face. The god spoke, as he had on the battlefield, without sound.
Volker nodded slowly. When the gods called, a man had little choice but to go. He continued on. The lanterns flickered out behind him as he passed them. There was a strange glimmer ahead, and a new, more tangible unease rose in him. The way forwards was blanketed in thick webs. As the lights played across them, strange colours rose from within their patterns. It was almost hypnotic.
Dream-spiders. Volker grimaced in disgust. He eased through the webs of unfulfilled prophecy, ignoring the whispered promises and half-glimpsed visions that rose up whenever he tore a strand. To give in to the colourful lure of the webs was to risk winding up just one more smiling, blood-drained corpse in the back alleys of Excelsis. Spiders the size of rats scuttled from his path, their iridescent bodies glinting eerily in the dark.
A strand of web brushed against his cheek, and visions danced before his eyes. He saw himself falling from a great height, something black and terrible swooping towards him. His heart jumped with the echoes of a phantom pain, and he staggered. His mouth tasted of ashes. He thrashed his way free of the webs using his long rifle to tear them, and stumbled towards the end of the alley. There was a door there, set into an incongruous stone frame.
A massive hand reached out of the dark and caught him.
‘No go,’ a deep voice rumbled. Volker looked up. The ogor looked down. The brute was twice his height, and clad in crudely beaten plates of iron, over threadbare trousers. He was bald, save for a tightly wound scalp lock, and flowing moustaches that hung to either side of a toothy grin. Indecipherable brands marked his grey flesh – most were primitive in design, but one was immediately recognisable as the duardin rune for ‘forge’.
‘I’m expected,’ Volker said, hesitantly. He kept his hand away from the pistol in his belt. The ogor held a hammer in his other hand, and one swing of it would be enough to pulp Volke
r’s skull, if he wasn’t careful.
The ogor said nothing. Instead, he lifted the hammer and gave the door a resounding tap, shaking it in its frame. Then he set the weapon lightly against Volker’s shoulder. ‘We see,’ the brute said, almost cheerfully. ‘If no, I smash your skull, yes?’
Volker swallowed thickly, and nodded. ‘That seems entirely reasonable.’
They didn’t have to wait long. The door opened and a wizened, bearded face peered out. ‘What?’ a thin voice wheezed, from within the bramble of white hair.
‘He is expected,’ the ogor growled, peering down at the newcomer.
‘Is he?’ The face turned to Volker. ‘Are you?’
It was a duardin, Volker realised. But a very old one. Older even than Jorik or Oken. So old that all that wasn’t absolutely necessary had worn away, leaving a narrow blade of a duardin. Axe-sharp eyes studied him warily.
‘I am.’
‘He is,’ the newcomer said, glaring at the ogor. ‘Why’d you stop him?’
‘I guard door,’ the ogor said, patiently.
‘Yes, but he’s expected.’
The ogor shrugged. ‘So I knock, yes?’ He grinned and shoved Volker towards the door, nearly knocking him off his feet. ‘You are expected.’
Volker looked back and forth, trying to make sense of the exchange. The newcomer grumbled impatiently. ‘Are you coming in or not?’ The door swung inwards. Volker had to duck to enter. It was smaller than it looked.
Heat enveloped him as the duardin shut the door. The red glow of firelight stained rough-hewn stone walls. From outside, the building had merely been another wooden tenement, but inside it was something else again – larger than it ought to have been, impossibly vast. He turned, and saw strange runes carved into the stone frame of the door. They shone with an orange light, and he quickly looked away.
‘A realmgate?’ he asked softly. His voice echoed, even so.
‘No,’ the old duardin said. He was scrawnily built, beneath the thick furs that draped his form. His hair was wild and unkempt, as was his beard, and old scars marked his hollow cheeks. ‘Don’t be daft. Realmgates are big things. Loud.’ He turned and beckoned Volker. ‘Now, be silent and follow me.’ He limped away, moving as if the very act of walking pained him.
Volker looked around, trying to pierce the haze of smoke that clung to everything. He had the impression of immense pillars rising along curved walls. The runes etched into their circumference glowed with heat, and red cracks ran through the dark stones of the floor. He could hear the sound of hammers ringing down on steel and stone, and the quiet murmur of voices, somewhere beyond the pillars. But he could see nothing save vague shapes and the scarlet glow of forges. Sweat ran down his face and neck. What was this place?
The old duardin led him along an uneven path. Volker stumbled more than once, and nearly fell after colliding with a hunched shape. He backed away, apologising to the grumbling figure. The old duardin grabbed him by the coat. ‘Stop bothering them, you daft fool. Can’t you see that they’re working?’
‘I can’t see anything,’ Volker protested.
‘Umgi,’ the old duardin said, derisively.
Volker jerked free of his grip. ‘I know what that means.’
‘Then you are not wholly ignorant.’
‘Why am I here? What is this place?’
The old duardin flushed, and jabbed a thick finger in Volker’s chest. ‘This place is sacred, umgi. A place only for those who seek it. That is not you.’ The vehemence in the duardin’s voice startled Volker.
‘I meant no offence,’ he began, in halting Khazalid.
‘Do not sully our tongue with such inferior pronunciation,’ the duardin growled, eyes narrowed. Spittle flecked his beard. ‘If you must speak, use your own language. You would not borrow the tools of another – why do you feel free to borrow words?’ He poked Volker again. ‘Are you a thief, then?’
Volker shook his head. Before he could reply, a deep voice did so for him. ‘He is no thief, Vali, my son. No more than Sigmar is a thief, or the Six Smiths. No more than any of those who seek this place out, to learn what I have to teach them.’
The old duardin – Vali – stepped back. He bowed his head, a disgruntled look on his face. Volker turned slowly. He could feel the power of the being standing behind him, like warmth blasting from a furnace. Driven by instinct, he sank to one knee, head bent, before he could get more than a glimpse of the squat, massive shape.
‘Rise, son of Azyr,’ the god rumbled. His voice echoed through Volker like the reverberation of a hammer striking metal, dragging him to his feet. He felt at once scalded and frozen, like a chunk of metal thrust first into flame and then into water. Malleable, and yet brittle, as if the god broke and reshaped him with every word.
There was warmth there, and kindness. A craftsman’s consideration. But also a lurking ferocity that sent a thrill of primal fear shooting through the roots of Volker’s soul. He tried to push it aside, to concentrate on what he could see. He had never met a god before, and woven in amid the fear was a faint thread of curiosity.
Grungni was clearly a duardin, but a duardin the size of an ogor. He reminded Volker of one of the great statues that lined the deep paths the Dispossessed had carved beneath the city. He was dressed in a stained, much-patched smock over his bare torso. His thick arms were crossed over a chest like a powder keg, and bandy legs supported his bulk.
It was the last thing that most struck Volker about the god’s appearance, even more so than his beard of smoke and mane of fire. It was impossible to believe that those small, bent legs could support such a massive frame.
Grungni chuckled. ‘They were broken, long ago.’ He reached down and patted his thigh. ‘By my own hammer, no less. An insult I spent an eternity attempting to repay.’
‘Did you?’ Volker asked, before he could stop himself.
Grungni smiled. ‘It depends on your perspective. One could say that I am even now in the process of paying it back.’ His smile widened, displaying teeth like hot cinders. ‘Some grudges are best nurtured.’
Volker shuddered. The god’s smile put him in mind of a cannon’s muzzle in the moments before it belched fire and smoke. ‘You summoned me here.’ It wasn’t a question. The duardin did not question their gods. They spoke, and the gods replied, or not, as they wished. He wasn’t a duardin but he knew that much.
Vali growled something beneath his breath. Grungni’s smile faded. ‘Go, Vali. I would speak with our guest.’ The old duardin bowed low and retreated, still grumbling. Grungni sighed. ‘You must forgive him. Vali is old. I have kept him by my side for more years than I can count. Selfish of me, perhaps. But then I am old as well, and set in my ways.’
Volker said nothing. It seemed rude to interrupt the god while he was talking. Grungni’s eyes twinkled and he held out his hand. ‘May I?’ Volker handed him the long rifle. Grungni took the weapon and examined it carefully, murmuring to himself as he ran his fingers along the rifle’s length. ‘A good weapon, this. Old technique – duardin?’
Volker nodded.
Grungni chuckled. ‘I can feel the memory of its shaping still clinging to the barrel. A light touch, but skilful. You should be proud.’
‘I had help,’ Volker said, mouth dry.
‘The best craftsmen do, whether they admit it or not.’ The god’s voice grew sad, and Volker felt it, in his heart. ‘Once I had the help of many like myself.’ He held out the rifle, and Volker took it gingerly. The wood and metal were warm, and felt somehow lighter, as if the god’s touch had changed the weapon in some indefinable way.
‘We had a sister, Grimnir and I. Aye, and more than one. Brothers too. Sons and… and wives.’ He paused and shook his head. ‘Our voices shaped the realms of metal and fire, and the roots of more realms besides. Our song drew up the stones from the seas and our hands crafted the mountains.’ Grun
gni frowned. ‘Or maybe I misremember. I am old, as I said, and I have lived many lives. Older even than he who sits upon the throne of Azyr.’
His voice grew soft, like the crackle of dying fire. ‘Sometimes, I think I am older than all that ever was. I see my brother marching into the snowy north, axe in hand, crafting a road of enemy skulls. Then I see him again, wreathed in fire and falling away into legend. Both are him, and yet not.’
Volker said nothing. The words were not meant for him, he knew. That he was here was incidental. Grungni spoke to the shadows on the smithy wall, and the flames that roared in the unseen forges, not to him. Not to a human.
The god laughed softly. ‘And what is a human, Owain Volker, but untempered iron, awaiting the heat and the hammer’s touch?’
Volker stiffened. Had the god read his mind, or were his feelings so plain?
‘Both and neither.’ Grungni reached out and caught him behind the head with one massive hand. Volker froze. The strength in that hand could crush his skull like an egg. The heat of Grungni’s palm blackened the ends of his hair. The god studied him with eyes like melted gold. Finally, he released Volker and stepped back, as if satisfied. ‘Yes. Oken was right. There is steel in you, son of Azyr. Good.’
‘Oken? Is he here? What–?’
Grungni smiled. ‘All in good time. But first, come. There are others you must meet. Time is short and we have much to discuss.’
Four
Eight Weapons
Grungni led Volker deeper into the smoke and heat of the smithy. The god ignored his questions, and eventually Volker fell silent. He contented himself with listening to the sounds of industry echoing from the hazy depths. There were many such places in Excelsis, buried deep within the halls of the Dispossessed.