by C. L. Werner
There was no jubilation as the Iron Dragon climbed away from the collapsing outpost. Counting the comrades already lost in battle, those who had perished in Finnolf’s Fortress brought the toll to over a third of the ironclad’s complement. The crew was sombre as they considered that comrades like Thurik, Drumark, and even Skaggi were gone.
Arrik scratched under his eyepatch and grumbled into his beard. ‘All that aether-gold lost,’ he muttered.
Gotramm spun around on the gunner, fixing him with a furious look. ‘There was no aether-gold!’ he snarled. ‘It was all a trick, an enchantment conjured by Chaos. What we brought here was not aether-gold but the essence of a daemon waiting to be given form!’
Arrik backed away, stunned not simply by Gotramm’s tone but by the haunted look in his eyes. ‘I only meant… what we have been through…’
Horgarr laughed, but there was no cheer in the sound. ‘If we had listened to Brokrin, none of this would have happened. He knew. From the first he knew something was not right.’
Guilt stabbed at Gotramm as he heard Horgarr’s words. It was true. If they had only listened to Brokrin.
‘Vorki!’ he shouted to the wheelhouse. ‘Keep us close to Finnolf’s Fortress! I want to look for survivors.’
Mortrimm grabbed hold of Gotramm as he started towards the ship’s prow. ‘You think someone is alive in all that?’
Gotramm shook him off. ‘I don’t think it,’ he told Mortrimm, ‘but by all my ancestors, I pray for it.’
Gotramm peered through a spyglass and scoured the mountain below. The peak was continuing to destroy itself, sections of the slopes crashing inwards as chambers inside collapsed. The brooding visage of the thane broke apart, sealing off the entrance. It was at that point Gotramm told Vorki to turn the ship and fly around to the other side of the mountain. Even if one of their crew had found a way over the toxic flood he would have no way of digging through all the rubble.
He knew he was looking for Brokrin. Gotramm just could not accept that he was gone, that the debt of honour he owed to him could never be repaid. He had helped Skaggi sway the crew to mutiny. Now it was a wrong he could never set right.
As the ship started around the peak, a peculiar pattern to one of the columns of smoke rising into the sky caught Gotramm’s attention. He focused the glass on a shape standing near a smoking chimney, waving something over the opening to create the distinct pattern he had noticed. ‘Grace of Grungni,’ he muttered, almost unable to believe his eyes. He thought he recognised the object in the black, a soot-black figure, a broad-sleeved shirt he had last seen…
It was Brokrin! He had managed to somehow escape the refinery and climb his way almost to the very top of the peak. ‘It is the cap’n!’ Gotramm fairly shrieked.
The declaration brought a dour silence to the crew. There was a sense of shame on most of their faces as they looked to one another. Those aboard the ship had been told about Brokrin’s intervention in the refinery. Those who had been there knew they owed their lives to Brokrin as much as Grokmund. There was nothing they could do for Grokmund, but they might still help Brokrin.
Against this had to be weighed the fact Brokrin was their old captain. They had mutinied against him, a deed that could only be exonerated by bringing great profit back to Barak-Zilfin. The loss of the aether-gold made that impossible, but there was another way to clear themselves. They could simply leave Brokrin behind. Nobody would ever need to know about the mutiny then.
Horgarr saw the shame on the faces of the crew as they considered this option. He raised his voice, ensuring his words reached every duardin on the deck. ‘The cap’n risked his life for us, even after we turned on him,’ he told them. ‘He could have left and saved himself, but he didn’t. He came back to help us. Now he needs our help. Are we going to turn our backs on him again?’
‘No,’ Gotramm said. ‘We’re not.’ His eyes bore into those of every crewman. ‘We are Kharadron. We live by the Code and the Code says no shipmate is to be cast off except when he has brought ultimate dishonour to the sky-hold. If we turn from him, it will not be Captain Brokrin who is the oathbreaker, but each one of us.’
There were no protests when the ship was brought around and the Iron Dragon flew back to the crumbling peak. The crew attacked their duties with gusto. Skywardens fixed tethers to themselves and checked their aether-endrins. With the mountain coming apart, the safest way to rescue Brokrin was to hold the ship off and send skywardens down to pick him up.
The Iron Dragon shuddered as the pinnacle came away from the peak and went sliding off to its ruin. The resultant avalanche sent a plume of snow across the deck. The crew looked on in horror as the raging spill swept downwards. It was diverted by a craggy outcropping, sliding off to the left instead of continuing on towards the prostrate captain.
Without waiting to get any closer, the skywardens went over the side. Manipulating the feed of fuel into their aether-endrins, they were able to descend quickly to the slope. The tethers that attached them to the ship grew taut. Carefully Vorki brought the ironclad still closer, giving the duardin the slack they needed to reach Brokrin.
The cheer that went up as the skywardens descended to the chimney and reached Brokrin wasn’t restrained. The joy was genuine. Whatever their worries about the future might be, the Kharadron were happy they had been able to rescue Brokrin.
‘Bless all the gods! They have him!’ Mortrimm shouted, stamping his good foot in glee.
‘You can’t kill the cap’n,’ Arrik declared. ‘He is tough enough to wrestle an ogor and come out best!’
Gotramm choked on the rush of emotion that filled him. Brokrin alive! A chance to redeem his honour. A chance to make amends for his mistakes and the disaster they had helped inflict on the Iron Dragon’s crew.
The skywardens swiftly rose. The tumult of falling rocks and cascading snow forced Vorki to back away even as they came flying up towards the vessel. There would be time enough to recover them and their captain once they were a safe distance away.
Or would there be? Just then Gotramm spotted someone else moving across the snowy slopes. He recognised the sorcerer who’d presided over the Prismatic King’s summoning. He could feel the man’s vengeful gaze fixated upon the Iron Dragon. He thought of Thurik and the hideous manner in which his friend had died. Could the sorcerer inflict a similar spell on them from so great a distance?
The sorcerer’s voice was raised in a terrifying ululation. No fire leapt from the sorcerer’s hands, no lightning shot out from his shrieking mouth. Instead there was a primal shifting in the atmosphere around the Iron Dragon. In the clouds above Finnolf’s Fortress, a mammoth shape emerged, drawn back into the time-place the sorcerer needed it to be.
Gotramm felt as though a blade of ice had stabbed his heart. This, he felt, was the monster that had settled the Stormbreaker and her fleet. The immense claws, the long smashing tail, the savage jaws – these were things that could have wrought the havoc they had seen in the wrecked sky-vessels of Barak-Urbaz.
None of the duardin failed to recognise the nature of the beast the sorcerer had conjured to destroy them. From prow to stern the cry went out, a shout almost primordial in its tone of dread.
‘Dragon!’
The instant he was on deck Brokrin hastily unfastened the harness the skywardens had attached to him. All around him the duardin were hurrying to their combat stations. The captain shook his head as he saw the thunderers readying their arms and the arkanauts preparing skypikes. He caught hold of the nearest skywarden as he prepared to go over the side. ‘You can’t do any good out there,’ he warned him. Brokrin pointed at the gigantic flying reptile as it circled above the ship. ‘You would not even be a snack for that thing.’
The reptile was immense. Easily three times the length of the Iron Dragon, its long tail lashed wildly behind it as it soared through the sky. The claws on its feet were bigger than
a beer barrel and thicker around. The teeth in its main head were as long as the Chaos warlord’s glaive, those in the smaller head that jutted out from the side of its neck still more like swords than fangs. The leathery pinions that bore it aloft were dark and membranous, dull in consistency, unlike the shiny gleam of its sapphire scales.
The dragon was the very vision of death, a thing of such immense power that even the Kharadron sought to invoke its might when they named the ironclad. The beast that now menaced them was a monster of its mighty breed.
Brokrin saw that his point had been made. Leaving the skywardens, he hurried to the wheelhouse, where Mortrimm was having an impassioned talk with Gotramm.
‘I am telling you we can’t fight this thing,’ the old navigator was insisting. ‘We lost the obsidian harpoon for the skyhook. Nothing else we have will pierce that wyrm’s hide deep enough to do any good.’
Gotramm shook his head. ‘We can’t outrun it either. If we are to be destroyed anyway, I say we die fighting.’
Brokrin interrupted both officers. ‘We will fight,’ he told Mortrimm. He then shifted his gaze to Gotramm. ‘Not because we are going to die, but because we are going to win.’ Brokrin pointed at the deck. ‘Get everyone below and tell them to hold their fire. The less activity the dragon sees, the less we do to annoy it, the less inclined it will be to wash our decks in fire. The only duardin I want up here are a team to send off a supremacy mine and Arrik’s lads to crew the skyhook. Everybody else goes below.’
Gotramm shook his head. ‘I would rather stay. All of this is my responsibility.’
Brokrin clapped his hand on the arkanaut’s shoulder. ‘I need you below. When I pipe the signal to you, I need you to empty the holds. Every drop of Grokmund’s cursed aether-gold is going to be put to good use.’
Gotramm nodded. ‘I think I understand, but will it work?’
‘If it doesn’t, we will not be around long enough to ask if it was a bad idea,’ Brokrin told him.
‘Arrik is short a few gunners,’ Mortrimm stated. ‘I could act as spotter for them. I might not get around as well as I used to, but my vision is still good.’
Brokrin nodded his agreement. Picking up the speaking horn, he relayed his command to the duardin on the deck, sending them down into the holds and alerting the gunners at the gas-carbines to hold their fire. Horgarr led a pair of arkanauts across to the prow, the supremacy mine held between them. When the command was given, they would send the devastating explosive overboard.
Relieving Vorki at the wheel, Brokrin brought the Iron Dragon into a steep climb. The dragon had finished its preparatory circling above its prey. Now it came diving down, smoke billowing from its jaws, its claws splayed, ready to rend and tear into the Kharadron sky-vessel.
‘I hope you know what you are doing, cap’n,’ Vorki muttered.
Brokrin shook his head. ‘After our run-in with Ghazul I made a study of the great beasts that prowl the skies of Chamon. That meant reading a lot about dragons and their habits. There is a theory that a dragon is a bit of a miser when it comes to its fire. It would rather demolish prey with its claws and tail and conserve its flame.’ He gave a grim laugh. ‘Of course if it is challenged or antagonised, it comes in for blood and does not hold back.’
Vorki licked his lips anxiously. ‘So… We do not upset it is what you are saying?’
‘Not until we need to,’ Brokrin said. ‘If this works, it will need exact timing.’
The wyrm was diving straight at the Iron Dragon, on a collision course with the ship. Brokrin had to maintain that course until the last possible moment. He had to outmanoeuvre a beast born to rule the skies.
With the lives of every duardin on board depending on him, Brokrin was not going to fail. He refused to accept that his luck was so pernicious that it would doom them all.
‘Be ready with the skyhook,’ Brokrin called to Arrik. ‘Fire as soon as the wyrm flies past the ship.’ He gave Horgarr and Gotramm similar warnings. Like himself, they would each need exact timing or all would be lost.
Brokrin watched as the dragon came winging ever closer. He could see the cold reptilian malice in its eyes. Smoke continued to stream from its jaws. Every moment he expected the great beast to expel a gout of flame into the ironclad, to turn the ship into a flying pyre and explode the theories he had read.
The dreaded flames never came. Nearer and still nearer the wyrm dived, its claws outstretched, ready to snatch up the ship like a falcon swooping upon a songbird. Brokrin bided his time, denying the fear that would provoke him into acting too soon.
‘Wait,’ Brokrin admonished his crew. ‘Wait until the dragon is too close to pull out of its dive.’
Closer and closer. The musky reek of the dragon bathed the deck, drawing tears from the eyes of the duardin. Brokrin wiped them away, keeping his desperate vigil. The beast was near now, within rifle range.
Still Brokrin waited. The reptile was close enough to hit with a decksweeper, then it came close enough to throw a spear at.
‘Up!’ Brokrin sent the ironclad lifting away with such suddenness that his crew were astonished their ship could act so quickly. The dragon was likewise surprised, diving past the vessel, only empty air in its grasping claws. Brokrin saw the wyrm fly below the rising ship. He knew it would quickly ascend, turn around and come at them once more. The next time it would not be fooled by the same trick.
It was up to the Kharadron to ensure the reptile never got the chance for another attack. Brokrin heard Arrik snap the command to fire. The harpoon screamed away from Ghazul’s Bane. The first phase of his desperate ploy to bring down the dragon had begun.
Khoram felt the awesome power of the dragon pulsing through his body. The sorcerer sat behind the reptile’s primary head, his finger-tentacles embedded in grooves cut into one of its horns. Beneath his feet a shard of mirror had been embedded in the monster’s hide, an enchanted replacement for the scale he used to control the monster. By means of the scale he could command the wyrm. Through the mirror he could project himself onto the reptile’s back by means of a few simple conjurations.
Escaping the crumbling refinery had taxed Khoram’s powers. Transmuting his physical form into a vapour that could swiftly ascend the flues that peppered the chamber’s ceiling was no mean feat of magic. It had left him depleted, even after the Prismatic King’s boon of power. Without that gift from his Master he might have shared in the fate of Tamuzz and his followers.
His powers virtually exhausted, Khoram still had enough energy to invoke any already-prepared spell. Through the harmony of scale and mirror, he transferred himself from the mountain and onto the dragon’s back. It was a perfect place from which to conduct the only plan left to him now.
Revenge.
Gazing down at the Iron Dragon, Khoram felt only contempt for the duardin. True, they had managed to thwart the Prismatic King’s return, but that was only a temporary victory. Daemons were eternal and the Master would rise again. Khoram had missed his chance to serve in that ascension, but some other sorcerer would bring it to fruition.
The duardin were trying to flee as they sighted the dragon. Khoram commanded the monster to destroy them. He had sensed its frustration at holding back before, now it would attack with ruthless abandon. ‘Destroy the ship and everything on her,’ he ordered the dragon. ‘Scatter her across the jungle. Let the bones of the duardin rot in the foetid filth. Let their names be lost to their kindred.’ He knew enough of the Kharadron’s ways to know that would be more horrible than anything to them.
The Orb of Zobras swung around Khoram’s face, strange scenes playing out across its many facets. The sorcerer ignored the relic, determined to savour the sky-vessel’s destruction. He watched as his dragon dived down to claim its prey.
When the Iron Dragon lifted away from the wyrm’s assault, Khoram growled in frustration. ‘The fools are only delaying the inevitable!’
he snarled at his homunculus. There was no chance they could elude the wyrm forever.
But it seemed the duardin had no intention of running. As the dragon flew under the ship, the skyhook mounted on its forecastle fired its harpoon into the beast. The lance was not strong enough to pierce the reptile’s scales – Khoram could sense that by the way the dragon reacted. But the spear was caught in those scales, and with its chain connecting it to the ironclad, the wyrm was pulled back, its flight arrested.
The dragon spun around, raking its claws across the chain and snapping it instantly. In turning, however, it brought itself close to the prow. Khoram recalled the explosive that had been set against the chimeras. Now he saw another one turned out against his dragon. Hurriedly he drew one of his protective talismans from beneath his robes, calling upon its energies to fend off the oncoming assault. The duardin heaved the mine over the side, sending it fluttering down towards the wyrm’s horned head. It detonated with a tremendous explosion, rocking the ironclad from side to side.
The dragon dropped away, smoke sizzling from its scorched heads. Khoram continued to cling to the horn, his robes smouldering, his head ringing from the nearness of his escape. A snarl of triumph slipped from his lips. The duardin had used their most devastating weapon – to no avail! The mine had not visited any grievous harm on the dragon, it was only stunned momentarily. It dipped away from the deck, flying beneath the ship as it tried to recover its senses.
Then, as the dragon swung slowly under the ironclad, the real attack was made. Khoram stared up in shock. The gates of the ship’s holds were opened, dumping out their contents. The aether-gold that had not been taken to the refinery came spilling out. Away from its vein, the ore was heavier than the air around it. It pelted the dragon in a golden rain. Steam rose from the wyrm’s scales as the gas collected on them. Even with slivers of daemonic energy bound into it, the aether-gold was not caustic enough to bite through the dragon’s scales or burn through the sorcerer’s wards.