Sacrosanct & Other Stories

by Various Authors

  ‘Prophecies are tricky things, Ulgathern-Grimnir,’ said Marag-Or. ‘Often they contain the seed of their own fulfilment. Who can tell?’ He pulled his arm free, and passed through the Realmgate.

  Drokki went next, leaving Ulgathern-Grimnir alone in the shaking halls of Gaenagrik.

  He took one last look at the burning Ulmount before stepping through to another world.

  He never set eyes upon his home again.

  II

  Eight days after coming into the Realm of Aqshy, the Ulgaen lodges came weary and footsore down mountain paths to the Broken Plains. Through beastman-infested swamps and into the arid Firespike Mountains they had travelled. The mood of the lodges was mixed. In Aqshy they found much to delight them, and being in their ancestral realm lifted their spirits. In the swamps the air was as warm and thick as that of a forge, and pleasingly sharp in the mountains. But their thoughts strayed often to their lost kin. They had little food, and were alone in a hostile land.

  So it was that when the plains opened up before them their hearts lifted. They were as broken as their name suggested, a country-sized lava flow that had been cracked by the movements of the earth into giant broken plates of stone, all tilted at thirty degrees, their raised sides pointing away from the mountains. They were all of a size – an endless sharp-edged landscape of black teeth salted with white sand. The plains were featureless, but for a duardin causeway running down the middle of the plain parallel to the mountain range. The road was obvious from on high, but as they reached the plains it disappeared between the jagged stone teeth, leaving the Fyreslayers to negotiate a labyrinth that taxed even their finely honed sense of direction.

  The sun beat down mercilessly. In the crevices between the rocks there was not a breath of wind. It was hot enough to bake bread, and it made them sweat, fire-born though they were.

  Though the journey to the road from the mountains was but a short part of their trek, by the time they reached it they were more exhausted than ever before, and coated with dust.

  Ulgathern-Grimnir clambered onto the causeway. In one direction the road stretched away to the vanishing point, disappearing into the shimmering heat haze of the plains. In the other direction, where the mountains thrust themselves out into the desert, lay the Voltdrang of the Volturung lodges. It was many miles away yet, but so vast in scale that they could easily see it from their new vantage.

  A whole mountainside had been refashioned into the roaring face of Grimnir-at-war. His curled beard cascaded down the rocks to merge with those of the plains. His craggy brows made a stepped series of battlements. His eyes were giant windows, also fortified, between a hooked nose topped with a rampart. The lower jaw of his roaring mouth disappeared under the stone. A huge throat went into the cliff. At the bottom of it was a massive pair of stone gates whose fyresteel reinforcements glinted in the sun.

  Tulgamar-Grimnir’s magmadroth clambered onto the road after Ulgathern. Ulgavost followed him. The three siblings stared at their goal.

  ‘That’s an impressive sight,’ said Ulgavost.

  ‘Aye,’ said Ulgathern-Grimnir.

  ‘What do we do? March up and knock?’ said Tulgamar-Grimnir. Grakki-grakkov rumbled and yawned.

  ‘I don’t have a better idea,’ said Ulgathern-Grimnir. ‘Get every­one up on the road. It’ll be quicker going, and better if they can see us coming.’

  It took far longer to get their people out of the baking crevasses than Ulgathern-Grimnir would have liked. By the time all eleven hundred of them were on the road, the sun was going down and a strong wind was coming out of the desert.

  ‘Get a move on!’ shouted Ulgathern-Grimnir. ‘We can’t be stuck out here at night!’ He turned to his brothers. ‘Get the best we have up front. Let’s look presentable. I want us to arrive as lords, not beggars.’

  Arranged with as much dignity as they could muster, they continued on the last leg of their journey.

  As they neared the hold, cairns appeared atop the rocks, singly or in twos and threes at first, then with increasing frequency until every tilted stone tooth was capped.

  ‘Armour, and arms,’ said Ulgavost.

  ‘Um, yes,’ said Drokki. ‘They build them from the many enemies who have come against their fortress and failed.’

  ‘I know that!’ said Ulgavost. ‘Everyone knows that.’

  ‘His point is, the stories are true,’ said Tulgamar-Grimnir.

  ‘They’re not just true,’ said Ulgathern-Grimnir, taking in the endless heaps of bones and armour, and the massive face growing steadily before the column. Already it was big enough to swallow the sky, and they weren’t even halfway there. ‘They don’t tell the half of it.’

  They walked on into evening. The mountain reared higher and higher, Grimnir’s face appearing titanically huge.

  The Fyreslayers were already feeling daunted when a tremendous peal of trumpets blasted out from the Voltdrang. They blared across the silent desert. With no other noise to challenge them, they seemed to go on forever.

  ‘The gates! They’re opening!’ said Tulgamar-Grimnir.

  A muted cheer went up from the column.

  The rattling of the gate mechanism came to them cleanly, again for the lack of any other noise to compete. Shouting and the sound of marching feet echoed around the wide throat of Grimnir, followed by more trumpets.

  ‘Send Brokkengird to the back,’ said Ulgathern-Grimnir. ‘I don’t want him coming out with anything regrettable.’

  Brokkengird farted loudly. Beaming at himself, he turned about and marched away to the column’s rear.

  They were close now. Outside the hold the plain had been flattened and a town constructed. The buildings were all duardin-built, but sized for a mixture of peoples, as far as Ulgathern-Grimnir could tell. The place was ruinous, the buildings tumbledown, its defensive wall so full of breaches that the few parts still at full height resembled rough pillars.

  ‘The Voltdrang seems inviolable at distance,’ Ulgavost said beneath his breath, so that only Ulgathern-Grimnir would hear. ‘These ruins tell a different story.’

  ‘Their hold stands still,’ Ulgathern-Grimnir replied. ‘That is all that matters.’

  It was there, in the central plaza of the ruins, that the Volturung Fyreslayers greeted them.

  A great lord approached them, born aloft on a litter of gold and steel made in the form of a stylised magmadroth. Eight warriors carried it, their biceps studded with runes of strength. The lord wore more ur-gold than Ulgathern-Grimnir had ever seen on one duardin. His hair was easily four feet high, framed by an elaborate helm and crest of gold and jewels. He rode the litter standing, his hands clasped on the top of a double-headed rune-axe. Behind him marched four hundred hearthguard, all heavy with gold and ur-gold.

  Horns blared one more time and the litter came to a halt on the other side of the square to the Ulgaen lodges.

  Ulgathern-Grimnir nodded to Drokki. He stepped forward and bowed so low his crest brushed the roadway.

  ‘O high and mighty lords of Volturung! We, the people of the Ulgaen lodges, have travelled many long days to meet with you. We humbly beseech you for aid. Our home is–’

  ‘You’re a sorry lot, and no mistake,’ interrupted the Volturung lord.

  Drokki stopped talking. His confidence evaporated.

  ‘Runefather!’ he began again, more weakly. ‘We ask only–’

  ‘Do you hear that? Runefather!’ The Volturung delegation laughed loudly. ‘Voltus-Grimnir wouldn’t rouse himself to greet a bunch of vagabonds like you. I am his fifteenth son, Golgunnir. I suppose I must look like a runefather to you, paupers that you are.’

  Golgunnir was old enough and richly decorated enough to be a runefather. Gold pendants hung around his neck in layers. His skin was studded with ur-gold runes. One or two more and he’d be a Grimwrath Berzerker, but Ulgathern-Grimnir was having none of h
is poor bearing, gold or not.

  ‘Right then, runeson. I am a runefather, and I invoke the right of hospitality, and the rights of seniority.’

  ‘You do, do you?’

  ‘Yes. So shut up and do me the courtesy of listening. We come here to ask for sanctuary. Our hold was destroyed. Our people are homeless. Volturung is the great-great-great grandsire of our lodge. We return to our homeland and ask for aid.’

  Golgunnir rudely looked away until Ulgathern-Grimnir had finished.

  ‘What happened to your hold?’

  ‘His brother opened a tainted Realmgate and let the hordes of Chaos come flooding in!’ shouted Brokkengird.

  ‘I thought he’d gone to the back,’ muttered Ulgavost.

  Ulgathern-Grimnir closed his eyes. His temper roared hot. ‘We are your kin!’

  ‘Ulgaen, you say? Never heard of you. Do you know how many lodges Volturung is father to?’ said Golgunnir. ‘Do you? Scores. There are nearly a dozen that claim the name Volturung in their title alone. We can’t take every failing branch back. We’re full, sonny.’

  ‘You will address him as runefather!’ said Ulgavost angrily. ‘He and Tulgamar-Grimnir both.’

  ‘I’m twice the age of your runefather. I’ve five times more warriors to command, and I’m reckoned the fourth senior of Voltus-Grimnir’s sons. Now, my father is runefather, highest lord of all the Volturung kin-lodges, which I suppose includes you. Do you see what I’m saying? Your lot, you’re a stripling lodge looking for a handout. That is not the Fyreslayer way. If you’ve got ur-gold to pay us to fight, then fine. If you have something to offer us for our mutual profit, we can talk. But you’re not moving in no matter what, not if you brought me Grimnir’s golden big toe and dropped it at my feet.’

  ‘Do you think you might show me a little respect, young one?’ Marag-Or came forward. ‘I’m older than you by far.’

  Golgunnir’s attitude changed a little. He bowed. ‘One as old as you, runemaster, is worthy of respect wherever he goes. I am sure space can be found, should you wish it.’

  The gold beads woven into Marag-Or’s beard clacked as he shook his head. ‘I’m sticking with family. They may not have much in the way of gold, but at least they have manners.’

  Golgunnir’s followers laughed again. The runeson gave them an angry look. A junior-looking runesmiter came to his side, and began to whisper in his ear, a concerned look on his face, he gestured at the Ulgaen. Golgunnir listened a moment, his face souring.

  ‘He’s getting an ear-burning,’ said Ulgavost out of the side of his mouth. ‘The bastard’s been playing with us.’

  Golgunnir nodded exasperatedly then flapped the priest away.

  ‘My noble priest, Runesmiter Keskilgirn, reminds me of my father’s offer.’

  ‘There’s an offer?’ said Ulgathern-Grimnir.

  ‘Yes, runefather,’ he said disparagingly. ‘There is room for you to settle, in a mountain three days to sunward. The Steelspike we call it, good ore land there. Nothing fancy: iron and lead and your other essentials, and you’ll have to dig deep to get to the earthblood, but there’s plenty for a duardin with a strong back and a will to bend it. It is outside of our current borders, but it’s better than nothing. You are welcome to it in exchange for your fealty, and a pledge to maintain order in the valleys and hills around it. The contract’s in the book.’ He waved his hand at a richly bound tome, made with pages of pressed tin. This was brought forward to the Ulgaen. Drokki flicked through it and nodded.

  A sense of relief radiated over the column. Ulgathern-Grimnir smiled broadly.

  ‘Tell you father that w–’

  Golgunnir held up a heavily ringed hand. A sly smile stole across his lips. ‘Before you get too effusive in your thanks, there is one other thing you need to know.’

  ‘Here we go,’ said Ulgavost.

  ‘Steelspike is infested with skaven. You want it, you drive them out.’

  Golgunnir shouted out orders, and the horns of the Volturung rang. The Volturung Fyreslayers turned about, the gates of the Voltdrang commenced their slow opening, and Golgunnir’s bearers began the delicate process of turning the litter around.

  ‘Wait! We can’t go now!’ protested Ulgathern-Grimnir. ‘Stop! You sully the customs of hospitality.’

  ‘Oh, yes. Forgot. You can camp here,’ said Golgunnir as the litter trundled round. ‘You’ll be quite safe. Chaos has grown tired of defeat before our gates. No doubt my father will send out food and ale.’ He said this as if he thought it a poor idea.

  ‘What if we fall in battle?’ shouted Ulgathern-Grimnir. The litter was facing back toward the gates.

  ‘Then your womenfolk, youngflames and such will be accepted into the lodge under the terms of bondage. They will have to earn their right to call themselves Volturung.’

  ‘That is unacceptable!’ shouted Ulgathern-Grimnir. The column was passing back through the gates of the Voltdrang.

  Golgunnir laughed. ‘It’s all you’ve got.’

  The litter passed through last. The gates clanged shut behind it, leaving the Ulgaen out in the rapidly cooling desert.

  ‘The thin-bearded weasling,’ said Ulgavost. ‘We throw our lives away fighting their battles, and our wives and children go into servitude for who knows how long.’

  ‘We’ll sort them out, won’t we, Grakki-grakkov?’ crooned Tulgamar-Grimnir to his magmadroth.

  ‘Little brother, Grakki-grakkov apart, I have no idea why father picked you as a runefather,’ said Ulgavost, leaving the sentiment ‘instead of me’ unvoiced but heavily implied. ‘If it’s such a small matter why don’t they clear it out themselves? It’s a convenient way to get rid of us and keep their honour. Times are hard, but still.’

  ‘We’ll see about that,’ grumbled Ulgathern-Grimnir.

  The gate horns sounded again. Smaller, subsidiary gates around the main opened and a stream of handcarts came out, marshalled by shouting victuallers.

  ‘Well, at least they weren’t lying about the ale,’ said Tulgamar-Grimnir cheerfully. ‘The day is looking up.’

  Ulgavost shook his head and spat on the ground. ‘A pot of ale and a hero’s death. That’s poor hospitality, and a poorer way to increase the weight of one’s purse.’

  The mountains around the Voltdrang were home to numerous holds. The Ulgaen’s passage along the highways linking them brought a variety of reactions. Some among the Volturung lodges were sympathetic to their plight, while others were openly hostile, telling them their domain was full and that the Ulgaen should seek some other place to settle.

  Ulgathern-Grimnir honoured those expressions of fellowship with small gifts of gold, and stoically bore the opprobrium of the rest.

  As they proceeded, the mountains reduced in magnificence. The smattering of volcanoes became none at all. The Fyreslayers’ affinity to the earth’s heat told the Ulgaen that the earthblood retreated far underground there, almost out of notice. The last holds they passed were little more than outposts, modest in size and means. Nubby hills covered in sandy terraced fields replaced the soaring ridges and peaks. Farmers watched them from under their wide-brimmed hats, or ignored them as they drove their plough-goats to score the earth.

  Two giant watchtowers closing the mouth of a shallow valley marked the end of the Volturung kin-lodges’ territory. Ulgaen-Grimnir and his brothers stopped to confer with the karl of the watch there, and were directed onwards.

  ‘Be careful,’ said the karl, a gruff but kindly duardin. ‘Out there, the ratkin are thick. You might not see them, but they will see you.’

  The road continued out into wild country. The valleys fractured into a wilderness of gullies. In response, the road climbed up to run along the ridges where the ground was easier. Behind them were the Firespikes, and ahead the hills became rounder and smaller, dropping down to reveal the Broken Plains once more. The desert conditions
had softened, and the rocks jutted out now not from sand but from a heavy scrub of thorny trees.

  One last mountain remained, looking over the plain: a small, sleeping volcano, as thin as a spear point. The outline of it was broken up by rickety-looking gantries and platforms, delicate against the far horizon. The smoke of industry rose from its flanks.

  ‘Brokkengird smell rat-things,’ said the Grimwrath Berzerker testily.

  ‘There’s nothing here, you maniac,’ said Ulgavost. ‘You can’t possibly smell them at this distance.’

  ‘Hey now, brother, best be careful, eh,’ said Tulgamar-Grimnir.

  Brokkengird sniffed at the air and scrambled off.

  ‘Now look what you’ve done. Come back!’ said Ulgathern-Grimnir. Brokkengird paid him no heed and vanished around a boulder.

  ‘Bah, he’ll be back. If not, good riddance. Looks like they’ve been busy over there,’ said Ulgavost. ‘How many do you reckon there are?’

  ‘Thousands,’ said Tulgamar-Grimnir.

  ‘Tens of thousands,’ said Ulgathern-Grimnir.

  Grakki-grakkov growled.

  ‘There’d be no shame in giving up, going somewhere else. It’d be better to swallow our pride than stir that lot into action,’ said Ulgavost.

  ‘Tulgamar?’ asked Ulgathern.

  ‘I’ll do whatever you think best,’ said Tulgamar-Grimnir. ‘But Ulgavost does have a point.’

  ‘N-no,’ said Drokki. ‘We have to stay here. What else can we do? Wander the world homeless? We can take it.’

  ‘There are worse things than being a wandering lodge,’ said Ulgavost. ‘Assaulting the gates of that place being one of them.’

  ‘Who said anything about a full frontal assault?’ said Ulgathern-Grimnir. ‘Are we not duardin?’ He winked at Drokki. ‘We go under it.’

  ‘Lordling full of good ideas!’ said Brokkengird, returning to the road. He threw a headless skaven corpse down at Ulgathern-Grimnir’s feet. ‘There’ll be less of these to fight head on if we go underground. Clever little lordling.’