There came a sudden, tearing sound and Uthor’s eyes widened as he saw the rope tied to the nearside stake begin to fray. It coiled apart seemingly in slow motion, the thin strands unravelling inexorably as he watched. Already, the bridge was beginning to sag to one side as the shredding rope yielded to the tension put upon it.
“Move,” he cried, waving the dwarfs on urgently even as a violent shudder passed through the bridge. “It will not hold!”
Uthor heaved the Grey dwarf past him, nigh-on pushing him. He looked back to the Sootbeards, urging them on. They moved quickly, determination in their eyes.
The rope snapped.
The sudden feeling of the world giving way beneath him filled Uthor’s senses. His vision blurred as the crumbling bridge below and the vaulted ceiling of the gallery merged as one. Smoke-drenched darkness came rushing towards him. His breath pounded in his chest and he thought of his hold, the lofty, cloud-wreathed peaks he would never see again; of his quest unfulfilled and the shame it would bring to his clan; of his father lying on his deathbed, as he faded away bereft of glory and unavenged; of Lokki, slain with a skaven knife in his back. Uthor wanted to cry out, to shout his anger at the ancestors, to defy them, but he did not. Instead, he felt the coarse brush of twined hemp against his fingers and grabbed it tightly.
A bizarre sensation of weightlessness passed quickly and Uthor was slammed into the side of the chasm, his shield and weapons — mercifully well-secured — clanking as they struck rock. The dwarfs shoulder blades were nearly yanked from their sockets as the weight of his armour pulled at him. White heat blazed up his arms and a dizzying fog obscured his vision. For but a moment, he lost purchase and the rope burned through his grasp, tendrils of smoke spiralling from his leather gauntlet. Uthor roared, biting back the pain as he gripped the rope hard to arrest his descent, one-handed, the other arm flailing about as he spun and thrashed. At last it was over and a hot line of pain gnawed at his arm, back and head. Through the dense aural fug of resonating metal in his ears from his helmet, the dwarf heard shouting.
“Uthor!” the voices cried.
“Uthor!” they said again.
Uthor looked up through a haze of dark specks, a spike of pain flaring in his neck and saw Rorek. The engineer had a rope around his waist and was peering over the edge of the chasm.
“Here,” Uthor said groggily. He didn’t recognise the sound of his own voice.
“He lives!” He heard Rorek say. The dwarfs vision kept coming in and out of focus. When it returned, Uthor noticed Drimbold being hauled up the dangling bridge by Gromrund and Dunrik. The Grey dwarf clung to his pack, trinkets spilling out of it as his rescuers heaved. The lost treasure shimmered in the torch light — Uthor’s world was darkening — they looked like falling stars…
“He is slipping,” said Rorek urgently, turning to Thundin and Hakem who were holding the rope with feet braced. “Lower me down…”
Rorek watched as Uthor drifted into unconsciousness… and let go of the rope. Before the engineer could cry out a half-naked dwarf barrelled past him out of the corner of his eye.
Azgar was leaping through the air, a pledge to Grimnir on his lips as he swung his axe-chain rapidly in a wide circle. Over the edge of the chasm he went, through a faint wall of heat and plunged into the endless abyss. He turned his body in mid-flight, releasing the axe-chain and flinging it upwards in the direction he had just come. He watched for a moment to see the heavy blade arc over the lip of the gaping gorge and then wrapped both hands firmly around the chain. The links clattered and the chain pulled taut as the axe blade bit home above him.
Azgar felt the tension jar violently through his shoulders and back, but, grunting back the discomfort, he held on. The chasm wall rushed to meet him, promising to shatter his bones in a single crunching impact. Azgar absorbed the slamming force with his feet, bending his knees as solid stone made its presence felt. As he did, the slayer ran sideways like a mountain goat herder: nimble, light and assured. He reached out and caught Uthor’s arm in one meaty fist. The slayer roared with the effort, thick cords of muscle standing out in his neck, arms and back. The chain lurched in his grasp for a moment and the two dwarfs fell a few feet. Azgar looked up in alarm as he imagined the axe blade churning a furrow in the flagstones above.
Uthor opened his eyes, to see a wild-eyed slayer looking at him. Azgar’s face was red. Veins stuck out on his forehead that was beaded with sweat.
“Hold on,” he snarled through gritted teeth.
Uthor looked down and saw the gaping blackness, a vague line of distant fire running through it. He gripped the slayer’s arm with one hand and held onto the chain with the other, bracing his feet against the chasm wall.
At the chasm’s edge, Rorek breathed a sigh of relief. He stepped back, untying the rope from around his waist. He checked to make sure Thundin and Hakem still gripped it and then tossed the end of the rope into the gorge.
“Coming down,” he bellowed.
Rorek took hold of the rope, wrapping it loosely around his wrist, just as it went taut. He felt the pull against his arms lessen as several more dwarfs joined him.
“Take the strain…” he cried. “Now, heave!”
The dwarfs hauled as one, dragging the thick rope through their fingers, hand-over-hand in perfect unison.
“Heave!” Rorek bellowed, and they did again.
The command repeated several more times until two dwarf hands — one wearing a shredded leather gauntlet, the other hairy-knuckled and tanned — reached up over the edge of the precipice clawing rock with their fingers.
With Rorek and the others holding the rope firm, Gromrund and Dunrik reached down and hauled Uthor over the edge and onto solid earth once more. Two of the Grim Brotherhood grasped the thick wrist of Azgar and soon enough the slayer too was no longer imperilled.
Gasping for breath, Uthor regarded him sternly and gave a near-imperceptible nod of gratitude. Azgar reciprocated, dour-faced, and yanked his axe blade from where it had carved its way into the rock. After he’d gathered up the attached chain, ignoring the muttered admiration of a few of the clan dwarfs, he walked away from the chasm edge to be amongst his kin.
“Where are Furgil and Norri?” Uthor asked of Rorek, looking around once Azgar was out of eyeshot.
The engineer’s face darkened, as did the faces of those dwarfs stood around him.
Drimbold was amongst them, sat clutching his pack. The Grey dwarf’s expression was distraught.
“They fell,” he breathed.
“They fell,” echoed Halgar, stalking through the throng, dwarfs barrelling quickly out of the grizzled longbeard’s way. “They died without honour,” he snarled at Drimbold. Halgar’s ire was palpable as he eyed the bulging pack the Grey dwarf clung to.
“The bridge it was—” Drimbold began.
“Overburdened,” said the longbeard.
“I thought it would—”
“You do not get to speak,” Halgar raged. “The bodies of our kin were smashed on rock, immolated in the river of fire. Forever they will wander the catacombs of the Halls of the Ancestors, bodiless and with deeds unreckoned. Your greed has condemned them to that fate. You should throw yourself off into the underdeep…” the longbeard growled. “Half-dwarf, I name thee!” he bellowed for all the throng to hear.
Shocked silence followed the declamation.
Halgar stormed off, grumbling heatedly as he went.
Several amongst the throng muttered in the wake of the insult he had levelled against Drimbold. To be so besmirched… especially by a venerable longbeard, it was a heavy burden indeed. A host of accusatory faces gazed down at the Grey dwarf. Drimbold did not meet their gaze but, instead, held onto his pack tightly like it was a shield.
Uthor watched the Grey dwarf thoughtfully, his head still thundering from his fall. He saw the borrowed helmet, the tarnished armour, the blunted hand axe: these were not the trappings of a warrior.
“You were not summoned to the war cou
ncil, were you, Drimbold?” said Uthor.
“No.” Drimbold’s voice was barely a whisper, shoulders slumped and mournful.
“You know this place too well.” Uthor’s eyes narrowed. “All the times you have guided our guide, you knew which way to go, didn’t you? When we thought you lost to the rat-kin as we fled for our lives, you escaped another way.”
Drimbold’s face fell further still as the weight of his leader’s discovery struck him like a physical blow. The Grey dwarf exhaled deeply, his shame could be no greater, and then spoke.
“When Gromrund and Hakem found me, I had been looting from the hold for months,” he admitted. “There is a cave — I have hidden it well — not far from the karak, where the treasure lies. I knew there were dangers, of the grobi and the rat-kin, and I took steps to avoid them.” Drimbold’s voice grew more impassioned. “Karak Varn was lost and its treasures laid bare for any greenskin to steal or defile. My clan and hold are poor—” he explained fervently, “far better that the lost riches be in the hands of the dawi, so I sought to reclaim them.” The look in Drimbold’s eyes was one of defiance. It faded quickly, replaced by remorse.
“You knew of Kadrin’s death and the fall of the hold, yet you said nothing?” Uthor said, clearly exasperated.
“And likely he is a Sournose Grum and not a Sourtooth as he alleged,” snarled Gromrund, the hammerer having bustled his way forward upon hearing his name mentioned.
Uthor fixed him with a reproachful glance.
Gromrund scowled back and stood his ground.
“My clan knew of the prosperity being enjoyed by Lord Kadrin,” Drimbold continued, “so I ventured to the hold in the hope of panning some of the ore from the edges of Black Water. I did not think the Karak Varn dwarfs would miss it.”
Uthor’s expression darkened at that admission, but Drimbold went on, regardless.
“I discovered the skeletons by the Old Dwarf Road, just as you did,” he said shamefully. “And yes, I am one of the Sournose Grums.”
He could not meet the thane of Karak Kadrin’s gimlet gaze any longer, nor the fierce anger of the hammerer, and lowered his eyes.
With the throng looking on, Uthor regarded the Grey dwarf in stony silence.
“Yours is a heavy burden,” he uttered prophetically. “Furgil Sootbeard and Norri Sootbeard,” he added, “may they be remembered…”
“We’ve lingered here long enough,” Uthor said after a moment, addressing the throng. “Make ready, we muster out for the Great Hall at once.”
The throng was forming up into organised ranks, gathering at the exit and waiting for Uthor as he strode purposefully to the front to meet Ralkan.
Rorek followed in his stead.
“With no bridge to speak of,” said the engineer, “how are we to go back?”
When Uthor turned to him he was smiling darkly. “There will be no turning back.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Hoisted up on Unguis back in a crudely woven basket, Skartooth looked over the goblin runners hurrying ahead of the greenskin horde as they tramped through the narrow tunnel. The roof was low and, on more than one occasion, the warlord had thumped the troll hard with the pommel of his sword after his head had struck a jutting rock.
Fangrak trudged alongside, the chieftain’s thick hobnailed boots crunching gravel underfoot. A great mob of orcs followed close behind him, shoulders hunched in the tight confines of the tunnel. Behind that there came yet more goblins. Wreathed in their black, hooded cloaks, they were little more than scurrying shadows in the gloom.
Skartooth had almost gathered the entire tribe for his “cunnin plan”.
“You is sure this is the way?” moaned Fangrak, again, snarling at an orc bumping into him.
“Ow many times ave you gotta be told?” whined Skartooth. “These is gobbo tunnels and I knows ’em like the back of my ’and.” Sneering, the goblin warlord showed Fangrak his puny claw for emphasis. A look of surprise briefly crossed his weaselling face as he saw something there as if for the first time, before he continued. “All that snotling rutting must ave addled your brain,” Skartooth said with a malicious grin.
“Hur, hur, ruttin’,” droned Ungul.
Skartooth started laughing uncontrollably in the basket, spittle flicking from his tiny, wicked mouth. The hilarity stopped abruptly when he almost fell out, for which he struck Ungul viciously across the back of the neck. The troll turned to snarl at him, but when it met Skartooth’s gaze, fell quiet and acquiesced.
“You leave the thinkin’ to me,” warned Skartooth, his attention back on Fangrak.
Fangrak clenched his fists. No one spoke to him like that. When Skartooth looked away again, bawling at the goblin runners, he rested one meaty claw on the hilt of a broad dagger at his waist. Ungul glared at him as he did it, regarding the chieftain hungrily. Fangrak let it go — if it weren’t for that beast… He was averting his gaze when he saw an ephemeral glow emanating from some symbols etched onto the spiked collar Skartooth wore around his neck. They looked like shamanic glyphs…
After crossing the chasm, the throng had been forced to take yet another detour. The main gate leading into the Great Hall was blocked by rubble; so massive was the ruination that even with the clan of miners they had, it still would have taken several days to get through. Another gallery had brought them to this point, the Wide Western Way. The tunnel was aptly named. Such was its girth that the throng could have marched fifty dwarfs across in four long lines, gazing up at its thick, vaulted arches in the light of the smouldering brazier-pans chained above. They did not. The long tunnel’s state of dilapidation prevented it, with its broken pillars and sunken floors. Instead they strode in a column no more than four shields wide and in deep ranks; ever watchful of the pooling shadows that stretched from walls they could not fully see.
Naturally Uthor took the advance party, though even he was forced to concede the head of the column — that went to the Sootbeards. Though expansive, the Wide Western Way was fraught with pit falls and rock-strewn in places. It would be easy to slip in the gloom and never be seen again. The miners were ensuring the passage was clear and safe. There’d already been too many lost needlessly to the creeping dark.
Thalgrim was amongst them, overseeing their endeavours. It was painstaking work. Uthor had instructed that the throng stay together and in formation, lest anything be lurking in the darkened recesses of the tunnel. It meant excavating the scattered rock falls that impeded the dwarfs’ path, and quickly. He paused a moment, his miner’s mattock over one shoulder and lifted his pot helmet a little to wipe away a swathe of sweat.
“Mercy of Valaya, may her cups be ever lustrous, what is that stench?” said Rorek, wrinkling his nose. He looked back to Uthor for support, but the thane seemed lost in another of his dark moods.
The engineer was in the advance party, too, his structural expertise invaluable as they made progress down the Wide Western Way.
“Nothing,” said Thalgrim, sitting his helmet back down on his head quickly.
The pungent aroma still clung to the air and Rorek gagged.
“A pocket of gas, perhaps — nothing to worry about,” the lodefinder assured him.
Rorek mouthed the word “gas” to Uthor, who looked askance at the lodefinder with some concern.
“Shouldn’t we make certain?” he ventured.
“No, no. It’s probably just some cave spores we’ve disturbed. Foul smelling, perhaps but certainly harmless, my brother.” Thalgrim was about to busy himself with something, thus avoiding further questioning, when he saw that the passageway narrowed ahead. The two walls on either side arced in dramatically in a cordon of around six shield widths. Bereft of brazier-pans, it was also miserably dark.
“Call a halt,” he bellowed, as the Sootbeards started to gather in the sudden bottle-neck.
“Do you think this route will finally lead us to the Great Hall?” Hakem asked.
Dunrik shrugged, seemingly distracted as he kept one eye on his cou
sin walking just ahead of him.
The Everpeak noble had offered little by way of conversation, despite the hour that they had been traversing the Wide Western Way, which Ralkan claimed would get them to their destination.
The lorekeeper travelled with them for now, in the middle of the column, staying out of the way of the miners’ excavations. The last thing the dwarfs needed was their guide crushed beneath a slab of fallen rock or lost to the underdeep, in spite of his occasional befuddlement.
“I have my doubts,” whispered the Barak Varr dwarf conspiratorially, careful not to raise his voice so that Ralkan could hear him.
Still Dunrik gave him nothing.
The column was slowing. The armour of the ironbreakers, who were a few ranks in front, clattered as they started to bunch up. Thundin raised his gauntleted hand in a gesture for the throng to stop.
The message went down the line, a hand raised every ten ranks or so, until it reached Azgar and his slayers who were guarding the rear. Halgar had joined them, the longbeard preferring their silent, fatalistic company to that of the rest of his kin.
Hakem tried to look ahead to see what the delay was, but all he got was a small sea of bobbing dwarf heads.
“Perhaps it is another wrong turn?” the merchant thane offered.
It seemed Dunrik had no opinion on the matter.
Hakem was a gregarious dwarf by his very nature. He liked to talk, to boast and regale people with tales, and was not prone to long bouts of brooding like some of his kin. As a trader, his livelihood and the prosperity of his clan depended on the bonds he could forge, but despite his best efforts Dunrik was proving tight-lipped.
He was not the only one, either. Since the tragedy on the bridge, Drimbold had become like an outcast. He travelled in the column, much like the rest, but he kept his eyes down and his mouth shut. At least it meant Hakem didn’t need to keep such a hawk-like watch over his purse and belongings. It was small recompense for the grief he felt in his heart.
[Warhammer] - Oathbreaker Page 13