Overlords of the Iron Dragon

by C. L. Werner

  The doors of the cabinet creaked suddenly. In tandem, Brokrin and Gotramm swung around from the dead monster and brought their pistols to bear against the heavy wardrobe. A frightened voice called out to them to hold their fire.

  ‘It’s me! It’s me!’ Skaggi called as he extricated himself from within the wardrobe. The logisticator took a quick look around the cabin, smiling when he saw the dead monster lying on the floor. ‘You killed it!’ he cheered, walking over to spit on the carcass. ‘That’ll teach you to try and make a snack of duardin!’

  Gotramm rolled his eyes at Skaggi’s after-the-fact bravado. He gripped the logisticator’s shoulder and turned him around. ‘What happened here?’ he demanded.

  Skaggi didn’t fail to notice the irritation in the privateer’s voice. It took him only a moment to compose himself, to sweep the splinters of wood from his beard and pat down the cloth that’d been torn by the monster’s claws. When he spoke he made a point of addressing his words to Brokrin rather than Gotramm. ‘I was checking about the cabin, trying to find the manifest, when that… that slinking horror rushed me from behind. It swatted at me with an old bone. It was all I could do to stumble into the wardrobe and shut myself in.’ He looked from Brok­rin to Gotramm, frowning when he saw the incredulity in their eyes. Angrily he pulled off his cap and offered to let them see the back of his skull where the thing had hit him.

  The logisticator was even angrier when he held up a mangled mash of copper leaves. ‘This is what is left of the manifest,’ he cursed. ‘That thing must have gnawed away its cover and bindings, then tried to chew up the pages! Not enough here for a rune-sage to make sense from.’

  During Skaggi’s outburst, Gotramm turned and took a closer look at the piled debris. Hesitantly he removed one of the bones scattered among the furniture. His face wrinkled with disgust. ‘This looks like a duardin bone,’ he said. ‘And something’s been chewing on it.’

  Brokrin glared down at the dead monster. It might not have brought down the ironclad, but it had certainly done its part to bring grudge-debt on its head. ‘Skaggi, remove that thing’s collar. If we can’t bring Barak-Urbaz proof of what brought down their ships, at least we can tell them what has been eating their dead.’

  Skaggi drew a long knife from his belt. Holding his arm out as far as he could reach, he began to saw away at the collar. The logisticator tried to find a positive aspect to his repugnant work. ‘This would explain the missing crew,’ he said. ‘It means the Chuitsek were dealing fair with us. We can take Djangas back to Kero and everything will be just as it was before.’ He chose to overlook the evidence that the tribe had been trading with other Kharadron.

  Mention of the nomad caused Gotramm to look back at the doorway. ‘Where is the manling?’ he asked the arkanauts gathered in the hall. He shook his head. ‘Who’s watching him?’ None of the duardin could answer. They hadn’t thought about the hunter when rushing down to investigate Skaggi’s cries.

  ‘Find him,’ Brokrin ordered, but even as he spoke, a shout of warning sounded from above their heads.

  ‘Djangas,’ Skaggi supplied needlessly. ‘He’s screaming about “jackal-folk”,’ he added, translating the man’s words.

  Gotramm took one glance at the dead monster and the gnawed bone in his hand. ‘Up on deck! Now!’ He urged his arkanauts ahead of him, back up the stairs. Behind him, he could hear Skaggi remarking on the collar’s inscription.

  ‘King,’ the logisticator quipped. ‘That’s what these manlings sometimes name their dogs.’

  Chapter IV

  Emerging from the interior of the Stormbreaker, Brokrin and his crew encountered a sinister scene. Djangas was perched atop the smashed and ruptured endrin, clinging to its torn casing with one hand while using his other to slash his knife at the monstrous throng that swarmed around him. They were kindred of the creature that had ambushed Skaggi below, scurrying about the broken ship like so many spiders. Inarticulate howls and hungry moans rose from the ghouls as they ­circled around the trapped nomad. While the duardin watched, more of the scavengers came leaping up from an open hatch lying amidships, joining the rest of the gruesome pack.

  ‘By volley! Fire!’ Drumark bellowed from the hovering Iron Dragon. At his command his thunderers sent a fusillade into the ravening ghouls emerging from the hold, bullets slamming into the scrawny brutes and pitching them back into the darkness.

  The ghouls surrounding Djangas spun around as the duardin came surging onto the deck. Several of them charged towards the arkanauts, howling with savage fury. The rattle of pistols rose from their intended prey as Gotramm’s privateers sent shot after shot into the rabid mob. The foremost of the ghouls dropped, their starved frames shattered by the aetheric guns. Those that came after, however, displayed a frenzied cunning. Springing past their fallen kin, they used the side of the deckhouse and the bulky engines that had powered the endrin as fulcrums from which to launch themselves at the duardin.

  ‘Axes and irons!’ Brokrin shouted an old Barak-Zilfin battlecry. His volley pistol snarled, catching a monstrous scavenger as it sprang at him from the corner of the deckhouse. His shot broke one of its arms, but the ravenous brute pressed its assault, snatching at him with its remaining claw and trying to bite him with its gnashing fangs. A sweep of his axe tore open the beast’s side, splitting it from hip to rib. The ghoul coughed blood as it fell away from him, crashing to the deck in a twisted mass.

  Immediately Brokrin was beset by a second ghoul, this one rushing at him from the far edge of the smashed endrin. The beast’s leap was such that it came hurtling towards him like a falling meteor. Before it could land and bear him down under its weight, Brokrin dropped into a crouch and brought his pistol up again, expelling the load in one of the unfired cylinders. The blast caught the ghoul just as it dropped towards him, hitting it full in the chest, smacking its body against the crumpled endrin before it slipped off to the valley floor.

  More of the feral scavengers came rushing at Brokrin. Another shot from the volley pistol settled for a third, his axe opened the skull of a fourth, but still there seemed no end to the monsters. All around him Gotramm and the arkanauts were locked in a deadly melee with their own foes, unable to aid the captain. Though gunfire still sounded from above, it had taken on a more sporadic and cautious tone. The swirling fray made it too easy to confuse the position of friend and foe for Drumark to risk a more ambitious attack. The best his support could do was to suppress the ghouls still emerging from the hold.

  ‘By the Guild’s purse-strings, you’ll not snack on my bones!’ Brokrin cursed as the ghouls fell upon him. He shattered the jaw of one scavenger with the studded heft of his axe, then dealt his staggering foe a vicious kick to the ribs as it stumbled away from him. Another of the monsters lunged for his extended arm, catching it in a vice-like grip while its fangs snapped against the iron vambrace that guarded his forearm. ‘I said you’ll not be dining on my bones,’ he snarled and smashed the bludgeoning weight of his pistol’s barrels against the scavenger’s head. Blood streamed from its gashed skin. The sharply pointed ear at the side of its skull was reduced to a pulpy mash, yet still the ghoul maintained its desperate assault. Brokrin could see another of the scavengers moving around from behind the one attacking him to come at him from the flank. Unless he could quickly free himself of the first ghoul, there was nothing he could do to counter the second.

  Before the ghoul could set upon Brokrin, it was itself attacked. Shouting a tribal war whoop, Djangas drove his knife deep into the creature’s chest, wrenching the blade with a vicious twist to enlarge the wound before ripping his weapon free. The ghoul lashed back at him with its claws, but the hunter was already shifting position, dodging around the back of the scavenger to rake the edge of his knife across its throat. A final glottal hiss, and the monster slumped to the deck.

  The nomad’s aid gave Brokrin the time he needed. The bludgeoning impacts of the pistol against its h
ead finally pounded an awareness of pain into the ghoul’s brain. It stopped trying to bite through his armour and instead attempted to twist away from the duardin’s reach. The moment its grip on his arm relaxed he drove the butt of his axe into its belly. Retching, the ghoul reeled away, whimpering like a whipped cur. There was no need for Brokrin to pursue the monster. As it drew away from him, the scavenger exposed itself to new danger. A shot rang out from the hovering Iron Dragon and the monster collapsed with half its head reduced to mush.

  Few of the scavengers remained now. Between the fire from above and the efforts of Gotramm’s arkanauts, the ravenous throng had been decimated. The beasts had stopped trying to climb out of the hold, unable to withstand the punishment visited on them by Drumark’s thunderers. Yet even as the tide started to ebb, a new wrinkle was thrown into the conflict.

  A series of savage bumps and bangs came from below deck. A section of iron buckled upwards, smashed out of position by the tremendous force assaulting it from beneath. Another vicious impact and the deck-plate was wrenched from its fastenings as a gaping hole appeared.

  ‘What new devilry is this?’ Gotramm cursed. ‘Up to the aftcastle,’ he warned his arkanauts back while he reloaded his pistol.

  ‘Keep alert,’ Brokrin added. ‘This may be a trick to distract us.’

  Before the duardin could withdraw to higher ground the exposed cavity disgorged a fresh pack of ghouls into the fray. Brokrin made to repel the monsters, but even as he did he found himself stumbling back. The deck was shaking again. A second and still third deck-plate crumpled upwards, expanding the narrow cavity into a gaping pit.

  Out of that pit crawled a nightmarish shape.

  ‘Beard of my Ancestors,’ Gotramm gasped as he gazed in horror at the crawling thing. His shock was echoed by the other arkanauts as they hurriedly backed away from the grotesque abomination.

  Brokrin shared their sense of revulsion. The ghouls had struck him as loathsome because of their debased semblance to men. In the hulking monster that now crawled into view, there wasn’t more than an echo of such a resemblance. It was a beast in truth, a monstrous frame covered in mangy black fur except at the hands, feet and face where the skin was dark and leathery. The feet were crooked with clawed toes. The face was scrunched forwards in a wide muzzle, sharp fangs hanging over its taut lips, squashed nose with flaring nostrils, beady eyes set far back in deep sockets. The hands were mere nubs at the end of long, leathern wings. Incongruous with its animalistic shape, the thing had draped about its chest a fine silken shirt with an elaborately frilled neck, jewels gleamed in its long bat-like ears, and about its waist there was a velveteen cummerbund.

  The huge bat-beast used its finger-claws to pull itself up from the depths of the wreck. It squinted angrily at the sky, resenting such sunlight as managed to filter its way down into the Serpent’s Craw. The creature’s nose wrinkled as it drew in the scent of battle. For an instant it stared at Gotramm and the other privateers as they met the new surge of ghouls, then it suddenly spun around and fixed its scarlet gaze upon Brokrin.

  The bestial face pulled back in the horrible semblance of a smile. It brought its clawed wing forwards in a motion that to Brokrin seemed like nothing so much as a duellist challenging an opponent.

  The inhuman horror rushed at Brokrin. Exhibiting a speed that belied its immense size, the monster crashed into him, hurling him back. He careened against the side of the deckhouse, the wind knocked out of him as breath fled from his lungs. One of the beast’s finger-claws curled under the edge of his helm, pushing it to one side. He could feel its cold, rancid exhalations spilling over his face as the fiend leaned towards him. A long lupine tongue licked across gleaming fangs as hunger swelled in the creature’s beady eyes.

  ‘Help the captain!’ Drumark’s voice shouted from the ironclad hovering above the wreck. Shots clattered about the deck, trying to provoke the bat-beast and frighten it back into the hold. The combatants were too close for more direct fire.

  ‘Help Cap’n Brokrin,’ Gotramm echoed the sergeant’s cry. He redoubled his efforts to break clear of the ghouls around him, but the scavengers were too many to be easily overcome.

  Brokrin was alone against his enemy.

  Duardin iron bit into the monster’s flesh, drawing from it a pained howl. Thrown back by his foe, Brokrin had kept hold of his axe. Now he pressed it into the beast’s belly, raking the blade from side to side in a slashing motion. The cuts were shallow but hurtful enough to disrupt the bat-beast’s attack. For an instant its prodigious strength faltered, giving Brokrin the opening he needed.

  The captain’s heavy boot came clamping down on the monster’s foot with a satisfyingly bone-crunching impact. The beast pivoted away from this newest injury to itself and in so doing left itself open to a more grievous assault. Without the monster pressing directly against him, Brokrin was able to do more than simply rake the blade of his axe against its body. He brought his arm back and around, swinging the weapon in a violent arc. The axe chopped into the creature’s body, hewing through flesh and bone, cleaving ribs as it ripped its way downwards.

  The pained howl of a moment before lifted into a shrill wail. The claw hooked under Brokrin’s helmet jerked back, ripping free the armour and pitching him forwards. Brokrin crashed face-first on the deck, but quickly rolled onto his back. The bat-beast was already pouncing after him, jaws agape and murder blazing in its eyes. Brokrin’s axe met the monster’s rush, biting into its shoulder as it sought to smash him against the deck.

  ‘Sky-folk see! Chuitsek brave!’

  Ignored by the ghouls during their fight with the duardin, Djangas had been able to climb down from his refuge. He was still unencumbered by the scavengers, free to fight or run. He chose to fight, to prove his courage to the Kharadron.

  A tribal war whoop accompanied Djangas as the hunter rallied to Brokrin’s aid. While the captain dug his axe deeper into the beast’s shoulder, the nomad leapt upon its furred back and stabbed his knife into its mangy hide. A stagnant ooze bubbled from the wounds, a crypt-broth of decay and dissolution. The bat-beast shrieked again, lashing out in a spasm that was equal parts pain and rage. Djangas went sprawling as the monster bucked him from its back. Brokrin was sent sliding across the deck by a flick of the creature’s claw.

  Spinning towards the gaping hole the bat-beast had created, Brokrin was unable to arrest his momentum. His hand slipped as he made a grab at the crumpled deck-plate leaning over the hole. The next instant he was falling into the darkness of the hold, and only a desperate swing of his axe staved off his plight. Hooking the edge of the cavity with his blade, Brokrin dangled over the side, staring down into a charnel house.

  By such light as dripped through the gaps in the deck above, Brok­rin could see that the Stormbreaker’s hold was as much a shambles as the captain’s cabin had been. Whether dislodged by the crash or ransacked by the scavengers, everything that wasn’t nailed down had been flung around. Kegs and barrels lay smashed, boxes and crates splintered. Sacks of provisions were torn and tossed about, a mire of beer and grog formed a pool at one side of the hold. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom his attention was fixated upon the bones strewn about the debris, bones pitted and scarred by the attention of gnawing fangs, bones cracked by claws digging for marrow. Here was the tomb of the ironclad’s crew.

  A feral growl was Brokrin’s only warning. A few ghouls had lingered below. Sighting the duardin captain hanging helpless above their heads, the monsters scrambled out of the darkness and leapt at him. His flailing feet kicked out, one boot smashing down into the face of a ghoul as it jumped at him. The impact of boot against flesh sent a jolt through Brokrin’s body, just enough to shift his grip on the axe. The blade slid ever so slightly, losing its precarious hold on the edge. Brokrin cried out as he dropped, plunging down into the morbid gloom.

  The duardin slammed into the bottom of the hold, sending a wave of spilled grog spurt
ing into the air. Brokrin found the impact of his fall lessened by the scavenger he’d kicked. The ghoul’s body was beneath him as he dropped, his armoured weight breaking its spine. Another of the lurking scavengers sprang at him, but a backhanded sweep of his axe sent it scurrying away, claws clutching at what was left of its face.

  Brokrin started to rise, when the faint light filtering down into the hold was blotted out. He looked up to see the bat-beast glaring down from the deck above. It brought one of its wings flashing forwards, hurling a large shape directly at him. He was just able to roll aside as the savaged body of Djangas slammed into the hold. The hunter had surely died before the beast threw him in, for no one could have survived the enormous bite that had removed half the manling’s neck.

  Brokrin glared up at the murdering beast, his thumb tapping against the heft of his axe. ‘What are you waiting for, you corpse-licking cur? Come and try for some dessert. Just come and try!’

  The furred monster launched itself from the edge of the hole, its wings spreading as it dived for Brokrin. The captain whipped his axe through the mire of alcohol he was standing in, sending a stinging spray full into the eyes of the gliding horror. The creature veered away, crashing against what remained of the hold’s ceiling. The jarring crack of its head against the roof brought the beast spinning downwards again.

  Brokrin’s axe was ready. Flashing out in a deadly arc, the blade sheared through the bat-like wing, cleaving through the arm bone and leaving the maimed limb dangling from the leathery membrane. The monster’s flight became a twisting roll. It smashed into the tilted floor of the hold, crushing several barrels beneath its hurtling mass.

  The duardin captain stormed after the maimed creature, vengeance hammering inside his heart. Vengeance not only for the defiled crew of the Stormbreaker, but also for the manling hunter who had been slaughtered by the fiend. Whatever grudge-debt the monster owed Barak-Urbaz, Brokrin had a debt of his own to settle with the brute.