‘Shhh!’ said Ulgathern-Grimnir.
At his command, the Mining Fellowship ceased work, muffled picks stilled at mid-stroke.
‘Douse the lamps!’ said Ulgathern-Grimnir.
The two runelamps in the tunnel went out. Sparks of fire glinted in the eyes of the duardin. They stayed stock-still for several minutes.
A quietly tapped code gave the all clear.
‘Alright,’ Ulgathern-Grimnir whispered. ‘Continue.’
The Ulgaen Mining Fellowship set to work again, timing their blows to the pulsing of machinery that resonated through the rock.
For three hours they toiled, the Ulgaen warriors keeping watch. Some of them thought they should use the runesmiters’ magic to melt their way through the rock, though none dared say it. But Ulgathern-Grimnir needed the zharrgrim to save their strength for the task ahead, and he did not want to give the skaven advance warning of their approach. Magma tunnelling was anything but quiet.
‘All change!’ said Amsaralka. The Mining Fellowship stepped back from the rockface, rotating their arms and stretching their muscles out. A fresh band came forward and took up their tools.
‘Let me help,’ said Ulgathern-Grimnir.
Amsaralka smiled at him. ‘Mining is not a leader’s work. What would your warriors say?’
‘They’d say there is a runefather who gets his hands dirty with his people,’ said Ulgathern-Grimnir. They touched noses briefly.
‘No, runefather,’ she said. ‘I’ll not have you hacking away at the rock. One more day and we’ll be through into the cavern. One wrong blow could bring the wall down before we’re ready.’
Ulgathern-Grimnir took a step back. ‘As you wish, my lady.’
‘Soon we’ll be done,’ she said.
‘Then the real work begins,’ said Ulgathern.
Brokkengird strode along the rough road towards the Steelspike. His onyx greataxe was already slick with skaven blood. He sang a very loud, very rude song as he approached. Some three hundred yards in front of the main gate, he stopped and planted his feet firmly apart.
‘Oi, oi, oi! Furry little thieves! Brokkengird is here! Brokkengird wants your mountain! Come out and give it to him, and maybe you keep your worthless heads!’
A small, sharp crack answered his challenge. There came the musical passage of a bullet through the air. It exploded into fragments ten feet in front of the berzerker.
‘And Brokkengird knows how far silly ratguns fire!’ He laughed uproariously at nothing in particular. ‘Come out if you want Brokkengird. He is not going anywhere.’
A dozen gun reports rippled across the mountain. The bullets came a fraction of a second later. Most reached no further than the first, kicking up a storm of stony splinters from the road. One buzzed towards Brokkengird, but he leaned out of its way contemptuously.
‘Brokkengird better shot with rancid old grot head!’ he shouted.
The gunfire stopped. The ramshackle gate creaked wide. A moment later, a regiment of tall black-furred skaven marched out.
‘Oh good, you send your best out first. It is very boring when you do it the other way.’
The stormvermin broke into a clattering scamper. As they neared Brokkengird they levelled their halberds.
Brokkengird grinned widely. The ur-gold hammered into his muscles glowed. He waited until he could see the beady black eyes of the skaven warriors. Only then did he roar, ‘Grimnir!’ and throw himself forward.
Brokkengird exploded into the regiment. Ratmen flew everywhere. He tore through the middle towards the leader, hunched at the back. Their captain levelled a pistol at Brokkengird, but he cut the ratkin in half before its finger could pull the trigger. Bellowing incoherently, Brokkengird slew every last one of them. In short seconds, there was nothing but corpses littering the road, the sole survivor fleeing as quickly as it could back towards the gates. Someone shot the ratman down, then the guns turned again upon the Grimwrath Berzerker.
Bullets smacked into the corpses. Brokkengird did a little jig, dancing around their impacts. Waving his axe, he walked backwards until he was once more out of range.
Gongs and bells rang. More ratmen came out of the gates, hundreds of them this time, forming up in blocks with a discipline belied by their ragged appearance. They arrayed themselves in a curved battle line along the base of the mountain. They waited for their signal, filthy banners flapping in the breeze.
Then, with a clamour of gongs, the skaven swarmed forwards. Brokkengird howled with delight.
Brassy horns trumpeted out a belligerent march. Behind Brokkengird, Tulgamar-Grimnir’s magmadroth roared. Two hundred Ulgaen warriors climbed out from their hiding places in the valley that the road ran through, and marched out to join Brokkengird.
The battle for the Steelspike had begun.
Drokki took Marag-Or’s arm, although whether it was to steady the old longbeard or himself he was not sure. This was it, the final action. He sent a mental prayer to Grimnir.
‘Now!’ yelled Ulgathern-Grimnir.
Fifteen pickaxes, stripped of muffling rags, swung together at the wall. A hole opened up. A draft of stale air came through.
‘Again!’ ordered Ulgathern-Grimnir.
The Mining Fellowship hewed once more. This time the thin shell between their tunnel and the burrowings of the skaven gave way. Stone spilled into a broad, tubular corridor. The duardin flooded after it.
The tunnel was on an incline, curved in a way that suggested it to be a spiral. Chittering came from both directions. That from above sounded angry, that from below insane.
Ulgathern-Grimnir dragged his grandaxe through the hole. The tunnel was fifteen feet wide, broad enough to wield his weapon effectively. Days before, Drokki had hammered fresh runes into his muscles. Once again the grandaxe was light and easy for him to brandish.
A foul wind blew from the bottom of the spiral. The stench was indescribable. Drokki gagged on it.
‘We’ll hold the way here,’ said Ulgathern-Grimnir. ‘You do what you must, Drokki.’
‘The stench is stronger that way, it must be the right direction,’ he said breathing through his mouth.
‘That will be where the skaven mothers are,’ said Marag-Or, seemingly unaffected by the stink. He frowned at the young runemaster. ‘Come now, Drokki, it’s only a bit of rat smell. Show some backbone, my boy.’
Drokki nodded so hard his beard flapped, holding his breath just the same. The runemasters’ escort of auric hearthguard and Vulkite Berzerkers fell in around them, led by Grokkenkir. They left Ulgathern to form up his warriors. The sound of tramping duardin feet echoed down the tunnel as the runefather led his war party further up the spiral.
A minute later the clash of arms rang out behind and above them.
‘For good or for ill, we come to our greatest test,’ said Marag-Or.
The corridor continued down and down, the battle noise growing fainter. The horrendous cacophony of squealings from the bottom became louder.
Drokki counted the revolutions of the spiral – five, ten, twenty. When he got to thirty-nine, it began to level out and ran straight. The stench had become so great it filled Drokki’s body from the toes of his boots to the tips of his crest. Marag-Or stumped on, unperturbed, but the Vulkite Berzerkers and hearthguard swore and coughed. The smell was as thick as smoke.
Copper pipes emerged from holes to run along the wall. Water dribbled from the joins. Steam hissed out through imperfect patching. There was a sharp, dry odour beneath the overwhelming rat stench. It was similar to the sensation ur-gold brought, but far less clean. Drokki’s spine tingled; he smelled warpstone, and it came from the water pattering onto the floor.
‘It’ll take forever to purify this mountain,’ said Drokki.
‘One thing at a time, lad,’ said Marag-Or. ‘We’ve got to take it first.’
The t
unnel opened up. A vast lava chamber, empty of earthblood, loomed large. A ramp led up the side to catwalks criss-crossing the void. Strange machines and thick pipes were dotted around the place. Brass troughs full of blood gruel, overhung with filthy spouts closed by spinwheel valves, were placed at regular intervals around the chamber.
These were the feeding stations of the skaven mothers. There were dozens of them, crowded around the troughs, packed together for warmth. Long, hairless abominations, they lay on their sides, useless limbs clutching at the air in pain and madness. Their bellies heaved with unborn young and their multiple dugs were thick with unclean milk. The naked, blind bodies of infant skaven squirmed over each other all around them, fighting for nutriment. Death hung heavily over the mothers. The crushed corpses of luckless ratlings lay about the floor, many half devoured. The skaven mothers’ anaemic skin was streaked with dried blood and their own filth. From their gaping, razor-toothed maws came that endless, deafening squealing.
‘Grimnir’s holy fires,’ breathed Drokki. The stink was so thick he thought he would choke on it.
‘About there should do it,’ said Marag-Or, pointing to the centre of the room. ‘Auric hearthguard, remain by the entrance. Grokkenkir, clear us a way.’
‘Yes, runemaster,’ said the karl. He and a half dozen of his warriors moved forwards and set to work, slaying the skaven mothers and stamping their pink young underfoot. They were merciless in what they did. The skaven were the ancestral enemies of all duardin, Fyreslayer or otherwise.
The mothers screamed louder, and thrashed about, trying to bring their snapping mouths into reach of their assailants. They did little but crush their own children. Grokkenkir hacked the head from one sickly monstrosity, then another, until a path of bloated, pale corpses carpeted the way to the middle of the room.
‘Come on, we’ll follow. Perhaps you should lend a hand?’ said Marag-Or. Drokki hefted his axe in his good hand and nodded. He wanted very much for the squealing to stop.
Shouts came from behind them, and the runemasters turned back to see the hearthguard guarding the tunnel point to the rickety catwalks leading down from other tunnel mouths high overhead. There was movement up there, burly skaven beastmasters squeaking with rage at the duardin’s trespass.
Marag-Or ordered the rest of the warriors that accompanied the runemasters to block the bottom of the catwalk. Then he readied his own axe.
‘They’ll hold them off, young one. This won’t take long.’
Drokki buried his axe in the head of a skaven mother. He wiped blood from his face with the back of his arm and blinked.
Marag-Or nodded. ‘That’s the spirit.’
A skaven warlord screeched shrilly as Ulgathern-Grimnir drove his grandaxe’s haft into its chest, crushing its ribs. It went down thrashing, bloody froth at its lips.
‘Shoddy craftsmanship, that armour,’ he said.
The clanrats of the warlord wavered, but held. Then another half dozen fell to Ulgathern-Grimnir’s hearthguard berzerkers, and their nerve went. The Ulgaen surged forward as the skaven fled. The braziers attached to the hearthguard’s axes whirled around on their chains, touching off fires on the ratkin’s clothes and fur. The creatures fled, spreading flames among their fleeing fellows.
‘Hold!’ roared the runefather. Brass horns blared, conveying his orders. The duardin halted. The tunnel floor was carpeted with warm ratkin bodies.
‘We’ve a moment, move these back down the line. Stop them using their dead as cover. Halvir’s fyrd, come up front, let Brangar’s lot take a rest.’
The duardin moved smoothly past one another. Footing became better as the corpses were passed down the line from hand to hand. The few Fyreslayers who had been wounded were helped back to the break-in tunnel, where the Mining Fellowship waited to tend their hurts.
Drums and gongs rang down the corridor. Typical skaven tactics, thought Ulgathern. They were seeking to exhaust his folk with repeated waves, uncaring of the lives of their own warriors.
But then, there were always so very many of them.
This time they came with firethrowers, four weapons teams skulking behind the front ranks of a skaven regiment.
‘Ware!’ shouted Ulgathern-Grimnir. ‘Warpfire!’
He plucked a throwing axe from his belt and hurled it. His rune-empowered might sent it smashing right through the body of a skaven, but the first death took its impetus, and it bounced harmlessly from the shield of the warrior behind. Auric hearthguard with magmapikes hurried to his side from the back ranks and set up a bombardment. The skaven squealed as they were set ablaze and crushed by molten stone. One firethrower gunner was battered down by a hail of lava bombs, while his ammunition bearer became tangled by the tubes and harness connecting them, and he was crushed underfoot by the mass of skaven pushing from behind. Another exploded with a dull crump, immolating a score of ratmen. Ulgathern-Grimnir grinned, but when the fire blew out, the skaven were still coming.
By now the tunnel was thick with acrid smoke. Skaven burned everywhere. Still his hearthguard did not relent, pummelling the lead elements of the second wave with their magical weapons.
Then the firethrowers came into range.
Gouts of green-tinged fire burst outward. Skaven engineers played the jets back and forth, forcing the Fyreslayers to fall back, shields up. Several were caught, their screams turning to bubbling moans as their flesh sloughed away from their bodies in shrivelling sheets.
Ulgathern-Grimnir was at the heart of it. Warpfire, hotter than any natural heat, burst over his skin as the twin streams were directed at him. The pain was immense, but he refused to move. Grimnir’s fire answered the flames of the skaven. His eyes blazed. His ur-gold runes burned with protective magic. Setting his shoulders directly into the jets, he marched forward. The pressure of the burning liquid was great and he struggled against it. His runes fizzed with energy. One gave out with a bang, overcome by the ferocity of the skaven weapons. The molten metal streamed down his arm, but Ulgathern-Grimnir refused to die.
He made it to the skaven line with a wild grin on his face. Skaven blinked and cowered, unsure what to do. The engineers shut the fire off before it was reflected back onto themselves.
Ulgathern-Grimnir’s crest of hair had lost a good foot in height, and smoked vigorously. His skin was blistered and red, his wargear blackened. He lifted his arms to show that he was not seriously hurt, and laughed in their faces.
‘I am Ulgathern-Grimnir, a runefather of the Ulgaen lodges. I was born of fire, forged in fire, and empowered by fire. Your little candle can’t hurt me.’
He swung his grandaxe the full width of the corridor, its razor-sharp head felling a swathe of the ratmen.
With a roar the Fyreslayers charged up to their lord’s side. This time, they did not stop, but advanced a step for every skaven they killed.
The ground rumbled. A hot wind blew from the depths. The Fyreslayers cheered.
‘About time too,’ said Ulgathern-Grimnir as the skaven were driven back. ‘Get on lads, drive them up and out, we don’t want to be in here when the mountain blows!’
‘Aid me, Drokki!’ called Marag-Or. His eyes glowed with yellow firelight. Ash sifted down from his mouth with every word. He slammed his staff into the ground. ‘I call on the mountain! Bring forth your earthblood! Fill the hollow chamber of your heart! Purify yourself!’
The beastmasters of the birthing chamber fought ferociously against the Fyreslayers. They were bigger than normal skaven, incensed by the slaughter of the mothers, and took a heavy toll on the duardin. Drokki watched as a Vulkite Berzerker threw his bladed shield at a fresh party of skaven entering the hall by a secret tunnel, decapitating one and piercing another through the heart. The warrior gripped his axe and charged into the gap opened up by his shield, but was quickly swamped.
‘Drokki!’ called Marag-Or again. ‘To me!’
Drokki
hurried over to the ancient runemaster. The fires of his own runic iron flared bright in sympathy with Marag-Or’s magic as he snatched it from its belt loop. He waited for Marag-Or’s next beat, then joined in, pounding on the rock in time with his old master.
‘I call on the mountain! Bring forth your earthblood! Fill the hollow chamber of your heart! Purify yourself!’ they shouted together.
The ground shifted. A crack opened in the rock. Superheated steam roared out, cooking mewling skaven young by the score.
‘Yes! Yes!’ shouted Marag-Or. ‘You can feel it, can you not, Drokki? The power of the earthblood. Feel it rise!’
‘I call on the mountain! Bring forth your earthblood! Fill the hollow chamber of your heart! Purify yourself!’ they shouted again. Their staffs slammed into the rock. Cracks ran out from their feet. The chamber quaked. The cracks widened into crevasses, the ruddy light of sluggish magma shining upwards from deep underground.
The skaven’s sensitive noses twitched at the smell of burning rock. When another earthquake sent some of their feeding gear tumbling into the fires of the earth, they gave up their struggle, turned tail and ran.
‘Everyone out!’ shouted Marag-Or. He grabbed Drokki’s arm. ‘No more now, lad, we don’t want this place to go the way of the Ulgahold. Enough to burn the vermin out, no more.’
Grokkenkir’s warriors ran for the tunnel they had arrived by, dragging their wounded with them. The mountain no longer needed the runemasters’ encouragement and set up a terrific shaking all on its own. Molten rock oozed from the crevices in the floor, pooling in depressions. The cavern became as hot as a furnace. Skaven mothers, living and dead alike, burst into flame.
Drokki led Marag-Or over the broken cavern floor as best he could, helping him over the wider cracks, kicking skaven dead and boulders out of the way. Grokkenkir beckoned to them from the tunnel mouth, his eyes straying over Drokki’s shoulder at the rising tide of lava.
Sacrosanct & Other Stories Page 43