by C. L. Werner
His disc now free from the sorcerer’s enchantment, Tamuzz urged his steed back towards Shadowfar. ‘Attend to them and quickly,’ Tamuzz called after the sorcerer. ‘Leave none alive.’
Khoram smiled at the warlord’s last order. ‘No,’ he whispered to his homunculus. ‘Not all of them. The orb has shown there is greater potential if one of them survives.’ He gazed after the departing warlord. ‘He knows my plan,’ the sorcerer said. ‘In his anger has Tamuzz forgotten that detail?’
The tretchlet chirruped in reply, affirming Khoram’s suspicion. ‘He thinks to bait me into spoiling my own ploy. Tamuzz is having second thoughts. He has become more worried about the price of failure than the rewards of success. He hopes to craft a scapegoat to excuse his failure. Such abject treachery might amuse Great Tzeentch enough to forgive him his failures.’
Khoram didn’t like the energetic agreement his homunculus made to the last statement. It was something the sorcerer would have to be wary of. Whatever common allegiances he shared with Tamuzz they each had their own ambitions. Glory wasn’t a thing easily divided.
The sorcerer was soon alone in the sky, the rest of the warband withdrawn to Shadowfar or dispersed back into the Realm of Chaos. Only the duardin remained. The duardin and the creature that had been following them from above all through the battle. Khoram drew from the skavenskin bag that held his arcane paraphernalia a shard of mirror, a fragment from the legendary Maze of Reflection. Gazing into it he saw the image not of himself but a reptilian creature soaring through the clouds on leathern wings. Holding his arm up, he let the tretchlet gnaw at his wrist with its sharp fangs. A trickle of blood escaped his torn flesh. Withdrawing his arm he held it above the mirror and allowed a single drop to splatter against the glass. Instantly the image of the flying reptile vanished.
Thorki watched as the Chaos raiders fled across the sky. Around him, his crew began to cheer. Soon enough they would reflect on the comrades they had lost, the damage inflicted upon their ships. For now it was a moment of victory.
‘Reload the cannon!’ Thorki commanded the surviving gunners. Briefly, his gaze fell upon the headless body of Udri. It was an ignoble death for any duardin, much less an old campaigner like his chief gunner.
The admiral stepped to the rail of the forecastle and bellowed orders to the arkanauts on the deck below. ‘Ready weapons! This may be a trick! Keep your eyes open! Be vigilant!’
Thorki looked around for Grokmund. He had lost track of the aether-khemist during the fray. His stomach turned to think Grokmund was among the casualties. Thorki dropped down from the forecastle and started to inspect the dead. He caught hold of the ship’s quartermaster, Frekrin. ‘Have you seen Grokmund?’ he demanded.
‘No, admiral,’ Frekrin answered.
A thought came to Thorki. ‘Check his cabin. Find his box.’ If Grokmund had not been thrown overboard by the attackers, then he might have gone below to check on their find. The quartermaster hurried below to carry out his orders.
‘Above us! Above us!’ Frantic cries rained down from the observation cupola high up on the endrin. The shouts were echoed from the remaining skyriggers as they turned their heads upwards.
‘Gods below,’ Thorki prayed as he stared into the heavens.
Like a gathering fog, a colossal shape appeared in the sky above the Kharadron fleet. Its dimensions were enormous, twice the length of even the Stormbreaker. A huge reptile with scales of lustrous blue and blackish green, immense wings that stretched away from its broad shoulders and fanned out for a dozen yards in either direction. Four massive legs were folded against its pallid underside, each ending in a set of sickle-like talons. A serpentine tail writhed behind it, tipped by a cluster of blackened spikes. Along its back, like a phalanx of spearmen, were double rows of spines, transparent membranes held taut between them. The beast’s head was elongated, jutting forwards in a fanged snout, bulbous multifaceted eyes bulging from the edge of its horned skull. The head was supported by a long, sinuous neck, a neck that was bifurcated midway along its length. Here the neck branched out into a thick stump to which a second, smaller head was attached.
‘Dragon!’ Thorki bellowed, the word rushing across the deck like a sliver of ice. He turned back towards the volley cannon. ‘Reload! Reload!’ The depleted gunners frantically tried to match the urgency of the admiral’s tone.
Shouts of alarm rose from each of the ships, commands yelled across voice pipes calling for more speed and hasty manoeuvres. A barrage of gunfire struck up at the flying reptile, lances of aethershot from rifles, which crackled ineffectually across the thick scales. Heavier weapons struggled to draw a bead upon the monster as the ships that carried them tried to re-position themselves. A harpoon flew up at the wyrm, passing through the membrane of its wing. The cannon of a Grundstok gunhauler roared, smashing its salvo against the beast’s belly.
With a thunderous shriek of annoyance, the dragon hurtled downwards. Its claw smashed into the gunhauler that had fired at its belly, shearing through its endrin and turning the vessel into so much wreckage. The crumpled ship fell towards the earth, smoke and shimmering aether bleeding from its ruptured hull.
Thorki scrambled back up the ladder and helped his crew rearm the volley cannon. ‘Aim for the belly,’ he enjoined the gunners.
Hurriedly they targeted the descending dragon and fired. The fusillade crackled against the wyrm’s scales but not so ineffectually as the gunhauler’s salvo. The dragon howled in pain, smoke and blood dribbling from the pock-mark scars inflicted by the cannon. With an angry hiss, the reptile dived upon the ironclad.
The thunderers and arkanauts on the decks fired their guns at the beast as it came for their ship. Endrinriggers detached the cables that bound them to the ironclad and rose up to meet the oncoming beast. Drill cannons and skyhooks peppered the scaly hide but did nothing to stem the reptile’s descent. A lash of the dragon’s tail sent two endrinriggers tumbling through the sky, their aether-endrins ruptured by the violence of the assault. A third was reduced to pulp by the monster’s talons, his corpse flung back at the ironclad like a mangled bullet.
‘Faster! Faster!’ Thorki howled at the gunners as they rearmed the volley cannon. Every second more of his crew was slaughtered by the beast. Every instant might bring final destruction to them all. He turned his head, staring up at the reptilian behemoth. What he saw matched his worst fear.
A glowing fire built at the back of the dragon’s throats. Both heads leered down at the Stormbreaker. With a deafening rush, the wyrm sent its fire spilling down upon the ship. The endrin supporting the ironclad shuddered, hoses and pipes rupturing as the tremendous heat washed across them, the lookout posted in its cupola broiled in his own armour. The flames swept down onto the decks, melting armour and fastenings, evaporating cables and ropes. The arkanauts caught in the blast were cooked instantly, reduced to sooty smears on the deck. A few surviving thunderers took aim, firing a couple of vindictive shots at the brute.
The dragon roared, the wrathful note rolling across the sky like thunder. Its dive brought it slamming down onto the endrin. Claws impervious to the heat of its own fire clenched tight about the bulky device, tearing into its metal skin. It swung its heads around as Thorki brought the volley cannon to bear upon it.
‘We’ll hit the endrin!’ one of the gunners protested when he saw what Thorki intended.
‘We will also hit the dragon,’ Thorki told them. There was not any help for it. If they held off, the reptile would send them crashing anyway. If they brought the beast down with them then at least they could save the rest of the fleet.
The hesitation of the gunners was brief, but long enough for their enemy. Hissing, the dragon sprang from its perch upon the crumpled endrin and came lunging down on the forecastle. The volley cannon was smashed under its massive weight. Thorki cried out in agony as the beast’s weight pressed down on him, pinning him beneath its huge claws. Almo
st daintily, the dragon’s main head arched down and snapped up one of the gunners. Jealous, the secondary head bit at the dangling legs, tugging at its portion of the prey until the doomed gunner was pulled in half.
Shots from the other ships of the fleet turned the dragon from its gory repast. A fresh surge of pain swept through Thorki as the reptile lunged up into the air and the tremendous weight lifted from him. The heavy armour he wore had offered scant protection from the dragon’s enormity. Instead of bursting under its mass he’d been crushed, ribs splintered and bones shattered. Blood dribbled from his torn body, surrounding him in an expanding pool. It was all he could do to keep his eyes open, to resist the pull of the grave as warmth fled from his flesh.
Thorki could see some surviving thunderers desperately trying to climb up to the endrin, to repair some measure of the damage inflicted upon it. Even as they dragged wreckage over to form a crude ladder, one of the compromised reservoirs inside the endrin burst, belching a stream of aether gases. Thorki heard their cries of horror as the ironclad’s plight became clear. The ship lurched, throwing the broken admiral to the deck below.
Thorki landed in a tangle of shattered limbs. He felt hands fumbling at him, managed to turn his head enough to see Frekrin trying to drag him away with one hand while the other gripped Grokmund’s box. Sight of the aether-khemist’s treasured find added a final note of bitterness to Thorki’s ordeal.
‘Too late,’ Thorki told Frekrin. ‘All is lost.’
Frekrin persisted in trying to move Thorki. ‘There’s still a chance, admiral. If we…’
Whatever the quartermaster intended, it remained unspoken. The stricken ironclad lurched again, drawing renewed cries of despair from the surviving crew. Frekrin was knocked off his feet, even the magnetised boots unable to maintain their grip. Thorki saw him thrown across the deck to fall into a hole in the planks near the forecastle. One instant he was there, then he was gone.
Much like Thorki’s ship, the admiral reflected. The efforts to save the endrin were futile. The end was inevitable now. ‘All is lost,’ Thorki repeated. He felt the tomb closing around him, his pulse faltering in his veins.
A last cry of terror from his crew reached Thorki’s ears.
The buoyancy of the ship failed and Stormbreaker fell like a rock into the valley miles below.
Khoram watched the ironclad’s destruction with a deep satisfaction. It was like planting a seed. A seed from which great things would grow.
The sorcerer glanced back at the rampaging dragon as it ploughed across the sky, striking the survivors of the fleet. A frigate that had survived its first attack now hurtled earthwards as a twisted mess of wreckage. The others would soon follow it. Khoram didn’t give their obliteration much concern. All that was of consequence to him was that the ironclad was where he needed it to be. The valley the Orb of Zobras had shown him.
The field that would soon yield a most auspicious fruit.
Chapter II
The beacon fire billowed from the rocky summit, a twisting serpent of flame and smoke rising up through the twilight sky. Bone totems surrounded the wooden mound, dismembered skeletons of giant beasts and vanquished enemies bound together with cords of dried sinew until they merged into great pillars surmounted by the skulls of fallen chieftains.
Far above the beacon, three bulky vessels sailed through the sky. The largest of the three flew ahead of her companions, dipping down as she advanced, drawing nearer to the summit. Bold runes engraved into her prow proclaimed her as the Ang Drak in formal duardin, though those who sailed upon her thought of her by the more familiar name of Iron Dragon.
To Captain Brokrin Ullissonn, the ironclad was more familiar than his own skin. Standing up near the prow of the ship, he could feel every shiver that went through his vessel’s hull, sensing it like the heartbeat of a living thing. He knew the Iron Dragon well enough to know when she was healthy and when she was ill even before the endrinriggers found out. She was a part of him and he was a part of her.
Through the aether-glass he held to his eye, Brokrin could see every detail of the tribal display raised around the beacon. There was a light dusting of snow on the totems, a sign that they had been put there before the last snowfall, meaning they had stood there at least four days. Under the blond plaits of his beard, the duardin smiled. He wasn’t gulled by the totems and the banners.
‘The Chuitsek might be good hunters but they’re also sharp traders,’ he said. ‘All those trophies arrayed around the beacon are just an advertisement. They’re telling us why we should come down and barter with them.’ Brokrin removed the glass from his eye and collapsed the bronze tube back into a flattened oval.
‘How many other Kharadron saw the beacon before we did, do you think?’
The question came from Mortrimm, the gruff old aether-navigator who’d been plying the skies so long that he’d made many a voyage under the command of Brokrin’s father. There was a gentle touch of reproof in his tone as he spoke, a mild reminder that it was not wise to spend a profit that might not be there.
‘Other traders from Barak-Zilfin,’ Brokrin shook his head. ‘We were late leaving the sky-hold and this route is known well enough among the guilds.’ His hand clenched into a fist.
‘Just bad luck,’ Mortrimm said. He was regretting the reaction he had drawn from Brokrin. ‘It happens to everyone. Better to be delayed a few days rather than ride the winds with a leaky endrin.’
‘Bad luck,’ Brokrin repeated. ‘The Iron Dragon gets more than her share of that. If our luck gets any worse, we’ll find that ships from the other holds have started straying into our trade routes.’
Mortrimm pointed a finger to the horizon where the first stars could be seen twinkling in the darkening sky. ‘Spring constellations,’ he stated. ‘The most profitable time to visit the Chuitsek is after the thaw when they are eager to get rid of the pelts and skins that kept them warm through the winter. Nomads are not fond of carrying too much with them between the seasons.’
‘The other holds trade with other tribes,’ Brokrin told the grey-bearded navigator. ‘They will know now is the time to make deals. If somebody beat our ships to the rendezvous then all we can expect to find are their leavings. Whatever they deemed too shabby to carry back to Barak-Zilfin.’
Mortrimm frowned at Brokrin’s mood. ‘And you will chalk that up to more bad luck,’ he challenged. ‘A captain needs at least a little confidence to be prosperous. If you can’t find that then you may as well have saved us all the bother and stayed home.’
The gruff rebuke was enough to rouse Brokrin, as Mortrimm had expected it to. From deep in his gut a rumble of annoyance rolled through his stout frame. ‘By the Twenty Lightnings of Grungni, I will beat this ill luck that has dogged me these many seasons! One fiasco after another, chipping away at the profit margins of my ventures until I was forced to dole out slivers of my own shares to appease our backers at Barak-Zilfin! The pyre-tempest that nearly burned the Iron Dragon from the sky and made the cargo of ar-ale in the hold boil over and go bad. The pack of piratical grobi that so vexed the Iron Dragon that we failed to reach the Zephyr-strike before the bulk of its rich aether-gold veins was already locked away in tankers from Barak-Mhornar.’
‘You forget the shimmerstorm that befouled every piece of navigation so that even I could not make sense of our position,’ Mortrimm interjected. ‘We burned weeks of fuel before finding our way back to the trade routes.’
‘That was nearly as costly to repair as the infestation of scabicles that pitted the armour plating when we were coming back from Dwimmervast,’ Brokrin said. ‘We had to put in at Barak-Nar for an overhaul and it cost us an eighth-share of the feydust we were carrying before they were through.’
Brokrin shook his head, a bitter taste in his mouth. That last incident particularly rankled him. To go limping into another sky-hold was infamy enough without begging the favour of Barak-
Nar. He had too much of a history with the gold-fingered Brokk Grungsson, had crossed paths with the opportunistic magnate too many times to have fond thoughts of either him or his blasted sky-port. If ill fortune plagued Brokrin, then his rival had been born with a luckstone in his mouth. Brokk had beaten him to the salvage of the trawler Grudgemonger after its calamitous run-in with a harkraken. He had been first again at signing the trade treaties with the Arwatti dervishes and the rich lapis they dredged up from the desert sand. He had been the one to discover the Grimmhold Lode while Brokrin was busy chasing a treasure map that wasn’t worth the animal hide it was drawn on.
Brokrin banged his fist in irritation against the iron rail, too angry to wince at the crackle of pain that shot through his forearm. ‘Bad luck all around!’ he growled. ‘I feel like there is a buzzard hovering over my shoulder, darkening the path wherever I turn.’ He laughed, but it was a cheerless sound. ‘Look at me,’ he told Mortrimm. ‘Even something as innocuous as trading with the Chuitsek has me thinking in terms of disaster. Maybe the whispers they mutter behind my back are more than bitter griping. Maybe there is a curse.’
Mortrimm was quiet a moment, digesting Brokrin’s words. When he did speak, his voice was sombre. ‘If there is a curse – and I do not say there is – then it is up to you to break it.’ He tapped the side of his head. ‘That starts up here.’
The steady clomp of heavy boots caused Brokrin to glance at the stair behind them. His crew knew his moods by now; there were only a few who’d intrude upon him while he was up near the prow, alone with his thoughts. One was Mortrimm. Another was Drumark, a duardin who would not recognise tact if it was forty feet tall and bellowing the bawdiest pub-song ever heard in Barak-Zilfin.
The black-bearded sergeant of thunderers mounted the steps with the plodding grace of a drunken ogor, a smell of stale beer and aethershot billowing ahead of him. Though the sergeant was exacting about the appearance of his soldiers, his own steadily decayed the longer they were out of port. Right now he was at about the midpoint of dishevelment, his clothes stained, his armour splotched, his hair tangled, his beard knotted through a string of beads so he could avoid combing it. There was a splotch of grease along the side of his bulbous nose that almost looked like a dirty tear.