by C. L. Werner
‘Is he going to recover?’ Gotramm asked. He felt a strange kind of obligation towards the survivor since going down into the hold for his coffer. It was hard for him to describe, much less rationalise. It wasn’t as though the duardin was part of his privateer company or even a member of the Iron Dragon’s crew, yet he still felt a profound responsibility for him. He was important, somehow, in a way Gotramm couldn’t make sense of.
Lodri turned his head and gave Gotramm a stern look. Slowly he pushed the stoppers back into the bottles with his thumbs. ‘I’m doing everything I know,’ he stated, then let a cold smile pull at his beard. ‘Maybe not everything. I could bring one of the gas-carbines in here and shoot him.’ As he said the last, he pressed both stoppers home with a loud ‘pop’.
Gotramm started at the unexpected noise. Lodri chuckled and turned back to the wounded duardin. ‘Take care of your work, I will see to mine.’
Gotramm turned to leave the cabin. As he did, his eyes were drawn to the coffer. Brokrin had ordered it put here so that the survivor would see it when he awakened. The captain hoped that sight of the thing would ease the duardin’s mind. He also wanted to keep it safely away from Skaggi. Ever since the logisticator had learned there was a coffer, he had been pestering Brokrin to open it so they could claim their share of whatever treasure was inside, quoting several clauses in the Code that encouraged compensation for any charity received during a voyage.
The same curiosity vexed Gotramm. He felt his own interest in the box was justified. He had risked life and limb to recover it after all. Why should he not be allowed the first peek inside? Even as he started to reach for it, a loud cough sounded from behind him. The privateer spun around to find Lodri scowling at him.
‘You’ll keep your hands off that,’ Lodri warned. He pointed at the cumbersome lock that bulged from the front of the coffer. ‘There are forty-seven runes engraved into that lock. Press them in the wrong order and who knows what’ll happen? Might stick your finger with a poisoned needle or snap open like metal jaws to bite the whole thing off. Or maybe it’ll just blow up in your face. Whatever happens, the cap’n will expect me to patch you up and I’ve enough to annoy me right now trying to breathe some life back into this foundling.’ He made a gesture to shoo Gotramm out the door. ‘You’ll see what’s inside when he wakes. And if he doesn’t, it’ll be up to the cap’n what’s done with the thing.’
Gotramm nodded. ‘Get him up and about, Lodri. There is something precious in that coffer and I want to know what it is before Skaggi does.’
An indignant look crossed Lodri’s face. ‘If I won’t let you fiddle with it, why would I treat Skaggi differently?’
The arkanaut tossed a last jibe at Lodri while he was leaving the cabin. ‘Simple,’ he said. ‘Skaggi is apt to offer you money.’ Chuckling at his own remark, Gotramm left the healer snarling abuse at his back.
The privateer’s good humour evaporated when the Iron Dragon abruptly jounced. If not for his magnetised boots, the violent motion would have spilled him to the floor. As it was he slammed against the wall, his head bouncing off the panels. While he was rubbing a bruised ear, the ship was buffeted once more. This time he braced himself with his hands and avoided a painful familiarity with the opposite wall. From above he could hear rushing feet clomping across the deck, and raised voices.
At the far end of the corridor, Thurik popped into view. The warrior stopped on the stairs when he saw Gotramm. ‘You are needed on deck,’ Thurik shouted. ‘The ship is under attack.’
Like a swarm of angry bees, the raiders came billowing up from the mountains, emerging from the dense forests of spytepine in a burst of ferocity. Almost before the lookout atop the ironclad’s endrin spotted them, the enemies were already in striking distance. Brokrin bellowed an alert into the speaking horn mounted beside the wheel, his voice magnified across the ship.
‘All hands to battle stations,’ Brokrin ordered. ‘Incoming raiders from the port side!’ He let the horn slip back down into its cradle and shouted up to Mortrimm on the aftcastle. ‘Signal the frigates,’ he told the navigator.
Brokrin saw his old friend limp to the rail and remove a long tube from his belt. Unfolding the device, he soon had a long cylinder fitted with an array of lenses and filters in his gloved hands. Pointing the zephyrscope towards the frigates, Mortrimm spread the alarm with a series of coded flashes.
The raiders drew closer. Strange orbs of blazing light hurtled up at the ironclad, sizzling with arcane fury as they struck the metal plates. Arrows tipped in glowing crystal crackled through the air, exploding into balls of flame as they smashed against the gunwales. Brokrin watched as a billowing stream of flame shot across the prow. The eerie blue fire was thrown at the ship by a mushroom-shaped atrocity riding in a weird chariot of frozen smoke drawn by a pair of giant fluke-shaped beasts.
‘Drumark!’ Brokrin cried into the speaking horn. ‘Bring down that daemon chariot before it cooks the whole ship!’
Brokrin’s alarm sent thunderers rushing to the gunwales. The daemon-drawn chariot had already darted away, but Drumark’s warriors had no paucity of enemies in its absence. Gunfire barked at the closing raiders, returning their eldritch assault in a withering hail. Brokrin saw one bird-faced monster knocked from its disc-like steed by the impact of a bullet, its body flailing wildly as it plummeted earthwards. Another raider, a masked man in silken robes, clung desperately to the surface of his own steed as the crippled thing began to sag and droop in the air. A shrill shriek rang out as the disc lost the ability to sustain itself and both it and its rider went hurtling towards the ground.
In watching the masked man plummet, Brokrin spotted a new threat to his crew. A fluke-shaped daemon soared up and over the edge of the ship, using the vessel itself as cover against the defenders on the decks. It arced over the Iron Dragon like a breaching whale, then came diving down again.
‘Drumark!’ Brokrin bellowed, already aware his warning was too late. Luck favoured the sergeant, however, for it was the thunderer standing beside him who was smashed under the daemon. The doomed duardin uttered a thin cry as the huge mouth on the daemon’s belly closed around him. A sickening crunch of bone silenced his screams.
‘Drumark!’ Brokrin called again, but the sergeant was too furious to listen. Instead of pulling back from the daemon, Drumark pressed the barrel of his decksweeper against its leathery hide. As he pulled the trigger, the front of the monster was ripped to shreds, splattering the surroundings with shreds of flesh and splashes of stinking fluid. The daemon made a feeble effort to rise, even with most of its forequarters blown off. Drumark caught at the mangled thing, dragging it back to the deck and driving the stock of his gun into it. The sergeant continued to pummel the beast until its stubborn resilience gave out and it was still.
‘Cap’n!’ Horgarr called from the base of the endrin. ‘More coming at us from starboard!’
Brokrin saw three men in grotesquely carved masks jockey their daemonic discs across the middle of the ship, using their steeds as platforms from which to cast blades of gleaming energy and whips of crackling lightning at the duardin. Their brief rampage was brought short when Gotramm came running up on deck. A shot from his pistol kicked one cultist off the back of his steed and sent him crashing into a second, spilling both men to the deck. The enemy Gotramm had shot lay unmoving, but the other one staggered to his feet. No sooner did he unfasten the bronze mace from his belt than he was struck from the side by a skypike, spitted on the end of it like a fish. With a mighty heave, the arkanaut who’d impaled the cultist lifted him into the air and shook him off the pike’s tip, throwing him over the ironclad’s side.
‘Attack my ship, will you?’ Brokrin growled as the third cultist tried to get away. Leaning out from the wheelhouse, he aimed his volley pistol at the man as he swept past. Expertly gauging the enemy’s trajectory, the captain sent a bullet to lodge in the Chaos worshipper’s back. The cul
tist howled in pain, then pitched over and fell from his flying mount.
A crackle of energy scorched the windguard that surrounded the wheelhouse. The smell of bubbling iron and charred wood filled Brokrin’s nose as he turned about and looked for his attacker. Off and away to his left he saw an armoured warrior standing on the back of a fleshy flying disc, a veil of smoke rising about his head. From that dark cloud a cluster of eyes glared at him. The warrior looked down upon Brokrin and brought his strange mount diving for the captain.
Brokrin aimed his volley pistol up at the diving enemy, firing two barrels. Both shots seemed to evaporate before they could strike the foe’s baroque armour. The Chaos warrior flew nearer, his sword at the ready. Before he could complete the dive, he suddenly darted aside. A huge spear went flying past the warlord, heavy chain uncoiling behind it. It shot upwards, harpooning the weird daemon chariot as it came around for another assault. The skyhook ploughed through the flame-spewing rider, provoking an explosion of unnatural blue light that steadily consumed the chariot itself and the creatures pulling it. Only the skyhook was spared from immolation, dropping away as its anchorage of daemon flesh dissipated. Arrik and his team began hurriedly winding the missile back into Ghazul’s Bane.
Roaring in outrage, the armoured warlord brought his steed swinging around once more, darting through the melee being fought by the arkanauts and a pack of bird-faced beastkin. Again he flew towards Brokrin, defying the bullets that glanced from his armour and the arcane shield that guarded him.
There was a pulsating light in the warlord’s hand, some ensorcelled object clenched in his fist. As he charged towards Brokrin, he hurled the glowing object at the wheelhouse. The missile sailed over the lip of the windguard and came falling towards the captain. In doing so, its pink light became blindingly bright, expanding in size until it filled the wheelhouse entirely. When it reached its pinnacle of size, the light collapsed into a solid mass. A mass that descended upon Brokrin in a riot of tentacles and fangs.
‘Blood of the ancestors,’ Brokrin swore as he emptied his pistol into the monstrous pink abomination. The shots ripped chunks of flesh from its lumpy frame and shattered the clawed limbs it brought scratching at his face. The thing’s fanged mouth opened in a pained howl as the volley pistol shredded it. The shots knocked it back. It crashed against the inner wall and slid to the floor in a welter of shimmering liquid.
‘Now where’s that craven warlock?’ Brokrin swung around to look for the man who’d sent the daemon against him and noticed a blue glow shining behind him. The carcass of the pink monster was evaporating, but as it faded away a pair of blue lights shone out from its dissolution. Blue lights that, like the pink radiance, expanded to their utmost until suddenly collapsing into a solid mass. Soon the lights were two misshapen horrors like the one that had spawned them. It was little consolation to Brokrin that they were smaller than the parent horror. His pistol was empty.
‘Yes,’ he growled. ‘This is fair.’ The daemons giggled to one another as they leapt at Brokrin. He just had time to draw the axe from his belt and slash out at the things. His first blow caught one of them in mid-air and dashed it to the deck. He stamped his boot down on it to keep it in place while he jerked the axe free to meet the rush of its companion.
While he staved off the remaining blue daemon, Brokrin felt the mass under his boot dissolving. This time it was a crimson glow that caught his notice, causing him to look down at the squirming mess under his boot. What was left of the blue daemon was quickly dissipating. From its evaporating remains, a pair of tiny daemons coalesced out of the crimson light. Gibbering maliciously, the fist-sized imps sprang at Brokrin, scrabbling at his armour and trying to pry his fingers away from the axe.
Brokrin struggled to fend off the attentions of the red monsters. He barely managed to duck aside as the blue horror lunged for him. He caught its bulbous body beneath the ship’s wheel, using it to pin the creature in place. Brokrin pushed his body against the wheel, sending the ironclad into a sharp turn, but at the same time putting murderous pressure against what passed for the thing’s head. Under that pressure such skull as the daemon possessed burst open, exploding in a profusion of stinking ichor and blue light.
Once more, where Brokrin had slain a single daemon, more were spawning from its corpse. His own victories against the beasts were causing him to be overwhelmed.
Chaos raiders swept across the ironclad’s decks, engaging the duardin crew. Tamuzz gave the efforts of the bearded warriors to fend off the attentions of his followers only the smallest notice. He needed some of them alive to pilot the ship after he captured it, but he didn’t need all of them. If his cult happened to kill some of them it might serve as a good example to the rest.
Tamuzz was more interested in the plight of the duardin captain in the wheelhouse. ‘Yes, fool, try to strike my daemons down and be overwhelmed for your trouble,’ he gloated as he watched the brimstone horrors crawling over the captain. The daemons unfastened his armour, bit at his arms, and scratched at his face. The ironclad’s momentum faltered, the ship wagging from side to side as the beleaguered captain wrenched the wheel back and forth in his struggles.
‘I need some of your crew,’ Tamuzz laughed, ‘but I won’t need you. Your ship will have a new captain soon enough.’
Tamuzz swung around as a new threat presented itself. The cough of gas-carbines announced the intrusion of the smaller Kharadron vessels into the fray. Diving down from the afternoon sun, the frigates rushed to the rescue of the embattled flagship. A tzaangor barked in mortal agony as it was hit by the fusillade, its body tumbling through the air as it was knocked from its steed. The riderless disc kept spinning across the sky, directionless and devoid of purpose. The daemon lacked the motivation to act as an individual. It would need a sorcerer of Khoram’s skill to endow it with such guidance.
Thinking of Khoram brought a malignant gleam to the warlord’s eyes. He didn’t care for his sorcerer’s campaign of shadowy manipulation, depending upon the duardin to act in such a manner that it was to the benefit of Tamuzz’s cult. There were too many things that might go wrong, too much that was left to chance. The Orb of Zobras might have shown Khoram the most favourable designs to steer events, but Tamuzz was prepared to trust its prophecies only so far. In the end the orb hadn’t revealed to the theocrat how to save his little empire from the grasp of Chaos. Neither was it certain the relic wouldn’t be as capricious with Khoram.
Another duardin fusillade brought two more beastmen to destruction. The frigates would soon run out of targets as Tamuzz drew his followers closer to the ironclad, using the big ship as cover from the smaller ones. The other duardin would be forced to hold their fire from fear of hitting friend as well as foe. At closer range they might risk such shots, but by drawing so close they would be within the reach of the Tzeentchian warband.
That was the method by which Tamuzz preferred to work; direct coercion and control of the victim. Too much subtlety, too much reliance on trickery, was a pitfall that had undone many a scheme. The craft and cunning of those who served the Changer were renowned but at times they could become a double-edged sword. A plot could become overly complicated, the goal lost amid a tangle of needless intrigue. Safeguards against a thousand unlikely possibilities could weigh down a plan until it advanced at a snail’s pace and was overcome by its own inaction.
Tamuzz would not let that happen, not when so much was expected of him. He would do more than influence the decisions of the duardin. He would seize their ships, force them to his will. Then there’d be no ambiguity, no question of how the Kharadron would act. They would be commanded by Tamuzz and guided by his will. If another of the Changer’s cults learned of it, then that was a challenge that would be dealt with in its own time.
Do not seek needless challenges. The voice echoed across Tamuzz’s mind, and he recognised it as that of Khoram.
The psychic entreaty was insistent,
enough of a distraction that Tamuzz turned his steed away from the fighting so he could focus upon the sorcerer more directly. Khoram would know who was in command.
‘You forget who is master and who is servant,’ Tamuzz snapped. ‘It is you who is beholden to me.’
And we are both beholden to still greater powers, Khoram warned. Powers that will not forgive failure. Restrain your warriors. Limit them to a harassing raid. Keep to the plan.
Tamuzz shook his head. ‘We are winning. Even with all your portents can you not see that we are winning? We can claim victory over these duardin right now.’
That is not the path shown to us, Khoram replied.
‘What need for your elaborate ploys?’ Tamuzz spat. ‘Once the sky-vessels are captured we will have their guns to augment our own arcane weapons if some rival thinks to steal our triumph from us.’
My strategy is certain, Khoram objected. Leave the duardin to act of their own volition.
‘You underestimate the range of torture with which I am versed,’ Tamuzz said. ‘Do not tempt me to give you a sampling of how persuasive I can be.’
And you forget the powers at my command, Khoram replied.
Abruptly, a nearby cultist screamed. Tamuzz looked towards him, watching as the man went shrieking groundwards. Then another of the masked acolytes howled in despair, pawing at the empty air as he too was sent hurtling to his doom. Unlike the first warrior, Tamuzz saw why the second fell. The daemonic disc upon which he rode had suddenly winked out, vanished from existence in a burst of arcane energies.