“Lorekeeper,” bawled the merchant thane. “Lorekeeper, slow down.”
In his frantic flight after Ralkan, Hakem raced through a myriad of tunnels. After a while, it became clear they had lost the skaven or that they had deliberately given up the pursuit. As he slowed, and a sense of creeping, ancient dread came over him, Hakem could understand why.
Ahead of him Ralkan was still running, though the lorekeeper was obviously exhausted now and had slowed down considerably. Hakem picked up his pace, trying to close the gap. He saw Ralkan look behind him, though the lorekeeper gave no indication he had seen the merchant thane. Then he slipped and fell to his knees. Ralkan was up swiftly and bundling himself around a corner was lost from sight.
Hakem hurried on. Sweat dappled his forehead and he noticed the air was getting warmer — his sodden clothes were gradually drying in it.
This tunnel is ancient, thought the merchant thane as he reached the corner, a sulphurous stench pricking at his nostrils, mixed with old fear. Hakem caught up to Ralkan at last. The lorekeeper’s leather jerkin, the one he wore beneath his robes, was torn and he was feeling his way slowly along the wall.
“What is it?” Hakem asked, aware that Thalgrim had just reached them both.
Ralkan traced his fingers over a dust-shrouded symbol.
“Uzkul,” he muttered. He turned to the merchant thane, his face an ashen mask.
“Uzkul?” Thalgrim asked.
Ralkan nodded slowly.
Something was wrong, the lorekeeper was behaving more strangely than usual. Slightly on edge, Hakem looked past him and further down the tunnel. He saw a faint glow ahead.
“Perhaps it is an ancient hearth hall,” Ralkan offered, following the merchant thane’s gaze. The lorekeeper’s voice seemed far away as he said it, padding calmly down the tunnel and towards the light.
“You are sure this is the way?” Hakem asked as he followed, sharing a worried glance with Thalgrim alongside him. The sulphur stink was getting stronger with every step.
Ralkan didn’t answer.
“Heed me, lorekeep—” the merchant thane began as he reached Ralkan, standing at the mouth of a huge cavern. The words stuck in Hakem’s throat, gaping in awe as he was bathed in a golden aura.
“We must turn back,” said Rorek.
“There is no back,” Uthor replied, angrily.
Before them was a narrow stone bridge, spanning a deep gorge. A rushing spout of water surged violently across it, falling away into the dark recesses of the crevice beyond and below.
After they’d left the chamber of the Barduraz Varn, the dwarfs had sealed the door shut behind them. Making haste, for they knew the flood water would reach them soon enough, they had reached the bridge. Uthor had tried to cross, tied to Rorek and Emelda but the force of the spouting deluge had crushed him flat and nearly pitched the thane right over the edge. He’d crawled back, drenched and defeated with the rushing water battering him at every clawed inch.
“Then this is the end,” Emelda uttered with resignation. “We cannot cross and we cannot retreat. I envy Azgar and the others,” she said, noting the tightening of Uthor’s jaw at the mention of the slayer, “at least they will die fighting.”
“I see something,” said Rorek, suddenly, squinting past the pounding water. The engineer pointed to the other side of the bridge and the mouth of another, small, portal. “It’s not possible,” he gasped.
From beyond the bridge, shrouded in darkness, a vaguely outlined figure hailed them. Any words were lost, swallowed by the roar of the thrashing water as the figure waved to them with an outstretched arm. Though mostly sketched in silhouette, the shape and size of the figure’s warhelm was unmistakable.
“Gromrund?” breathed Uthor and suppressed a shudder, uncertain as to what he was actually seeing.
Gromrund’s silhouette waved again and pointed down to the bridge.
Uthor followed the gesture but couldn’t see anything past the rush of the water.
“I thought he was at the overflow grate in the opposite end of the hold,” Emelda whispered, clutching the talisman of Valaya around her neck for reassurance.
“He was,” Uthor replied darkly, searching through the pounding river for some sign of what Gromrund wanted them to find.
Then he saw the frayed edges of a rope. It was only a few feet away; Uthor could reach it at a stretch.
“Hold onto my ankles,” said the thane of Kadrin as he got down onto his stomach.
“What?” Rorek asked, still staring at the shadow beyond the bridge.
“Just do as I ask!” Uthor barked.
Rorek crouched down with Emelda beside him, and the two of them gripped Uthor’s ankles as he crawled back across the bridge, the river battering him relentlessly.
Fingers numbing from the cold, Uthor reached out and gripped the rope.
“Pull me back,” he cried.
Dragged from out of the swell, Uthor clutched one end of the rope in his hand. On the other side of the bridge, Gromrund showed them the opposite end and beckoned for them to cross.
“Are you sure about this?” Rorek muttered, his voice a little tremulous as he eyed the dark portal and the shadow inside it.
“It is our only chance.” Uthor pulled the rope until it was taut. He saw Gromrund take the strain on the other end. With an oath to Valaya, he stepped bravely onto the bridge. At first he was battered to his knees but using the rope for support he got back to his feet and crossed, hand over hand, inch by painful inch. Rorek and Emelda followed.
It felt like hours but they reached the other side, collapsing into an exhausted heap on a small stone platform.
“My thanks, hammerer—” Uthor began but as he looked over to where Gromrund had been standing the rope fell slack. The Karak Hirn dwarf was gone.
Azgar leapt from the forgemaster’s anvil, clearing the last lines of dwarf defenders and landing amidst a clutch of rat-kin warriors who scattered before him. Before the vile creatures could close in again, the slayer swung his chained axe in a punishing circle, slicing meat and bone. Churning deeper into the fray, amidst a storm of severed limbs and shredded torsos, Azgar found his prey.
Shrieking a challenge the rat-kin warlord came on fearlessly, ducking the first swing of the chain as it stepped inside the killing arc and swatted away the second revolution of the deadly blade with the flat of its glaive. Pulling the weapon down, it made a powerful lunge that Azgar was hard pressed to dodge. The slayer twisted from the glaive’s path, though it nicked the skin of his left side and drew blood.
Snarling exultantly, the warlord then licked the crimson droplets bejewelling its blade and surged at Azgar again. The slayer rolled beneath a wild, overhead swipe, gathering up his chain axe as he did so and gripping the haft to wield it conventionally. A vertical strike from the glaive followed, and the slayer dove forward to avoid it, gutting a black-furred skaven that got too close, before whirling on his heel and side swiping the overstretched warlord. The blow carved into the rat-kin’s back, ripping off plates of armour. The warlord cried in pain, blocking a second blow with the haft of its glaive. Roaring back, Azgar struck again and again, until he sheared the glaive haft in half.
Staggering backward, the rat-kin warlord tossed the bladed end at the slayer, who smashed it aside with the flat of his axe. It slowed Azgar enough for the rat lord to draw its sword.
Slowly, the duelling warriors were afforded room to fight, neither skaven nor dwarf willing to step into the path of their whirling blades.
Azgar swung again, releasing a little chain for additional reach and surprise. The rat-kin warlord saw it coming and weaved out of the weapon’s death arc. Rushing forward, the blurring steel flicking past its ear, the creature cut the slayer across the torso, using the momentum of the blow to carry it beyond the dwarf’s reach.
Azgar felt wet blood between his fingers, clutching at the wound as he nearly fell to one knee. Screeching, high-pitched and sporadic, emanated from the rat-kin warlord’s m
outh in what the slayer could only assume was laughter. The dwarf stood and turned, the blood from his torso was already clotting, grinning contemptuously.
“Come on,” he growled, beckoning the skaven on, “we’re not done yet.”
Halgar saw the slayer dive from the anvil but quickly lost him in the melee. There were no tactics, no scheme to the battle now. It was about dying and surviving, pure and simple. The remaining dwarfs, although few and surrounded by foes, fought as if the very spirit of Grimnir were with them. Halgar’s heart swelled, belting out his deathsong with every blow and thrust of his axe. During the carnage he had lost his shield and wielded the weapon in two hands.
Cutting down a rat-kin slave, the longbeard screwed up his eyes again — the blurring was getting worse and dark patches lingered menacingly at the periphery of his vision. When Halgar opened them he saw something advancing toward him. Whether it was his failing eyesight or some brand of foul sorcery, he could not tell but it seemed as though it were a ragged blanket of drifting blackness. Shadows, as if drawn like moths to a lantern, mustered to it until the thing resolved itself in front of the longbeard. Out of the gathered darkness came a flash of metal. Halgar, acting on instinct, parried the dagger blow and took a step back as a second, blindingly fast swipe, cut through the air in front of him.
The longbeard bellowed defiantly, stomping towards his assailant and swinging his axe. Eyesight blurring badly now, Halgar missed by a foot.
The assassin recoiled, the old dwarf knew now it could only be such a creature, dodging the blade with effortless grace. Regrouping quickly it struck out again, severing the tendons in the longbeard’s wrist. The axe clanged to the ground from Halgar’s nerveless fingers. The second dagger punched into his chest and the longbeard suddenly found he could barely breathe.
Halgar fell onto his knees, trying in vain to staunch the blood flowing eagerly from his chest.
Drawing near, certain of its kill, the skaven assassin hissed with gleeful, undisguised malice. Ironically, it was blind and upon opening its mouth to gloat revealed it had no tongue, either. But something else caught the longbeard’s attention, so close that even he could see it — the last thing he would ever see as his vision darkened completely. It was an ear, cut from the head of some unfortunate victim. Embedded in the lobe was a gilded earring that bore the rune of the royal clan of Karak Izor. It had once belonged to Lokki.
Halgar roared, reaching out blindly to strangle the creature that had killed his lord. He grasped air and felt two dagger thrusts in his torso. Doubling over, one hand supporting his weight lest he collapse, the longbeard tasted copper in his mouth as he spat out blood. His nose twitched. He could smell Lokki’s killer close by. Halgar dropped his head submissively, knowing that the creature would draw in to finish him. The stench of it grew so pungent it must be upon him. Halgar reached across his body with his half hand, the other no more use than a prop with the tendons slashed, and gripped the grobi arrow embedded in his chest. The air and scent shifted around him. This was it.
Halgar tore the arrow free, blocking the overhead strike of the skaven assassin with his other arm, and rammed it into the rat-kin’s throat. He felt it flail; slash weakly at his back and side. Strength failing, Halgar held it there pushing the arrow tip even deeper. The thrashing stopped and the skaven assassin slumped. Halgar fell onto his back, life blood eking across the foundry floor. Though he couldn’t see, as the longbeard heard the onrush of flood water smashing into the chamber and the shrieking terror of the drowning rat-kin, he smiled.
“Grungni’s hoard,” Hakem gasped. “May its glittering peaks reach the summit of the world.”
Gold: a shimmering, gilded sea of it stretched out in front of the dwarfs who stood agog at the threshold to the immense chamber. Illuminated by the natural light of a narrow and lofty shaft far above, piles of the lustrous metal soared into its vaulted ceiling like mountains, touching the ends of dripping stalactites. Gems and jewels glittered like stars in the shining morass, together with copper-banded chests that jutted like wooden islands between refulgent straights. Ornate weapons: swords, axes, hammers and others of more elaborate artifice protruded from vast treasure mounds. So immense was the hoard that it was impossible to take it all in with a single look. The chamber itself was cavernous and appeared to tail off into an anteroom at the back that was lost from view.
Hakem could taste the gold on his tongue; its strong, metallic scent filled his nostrils. He had to fight the urge to run wildly into the room and immerse himself in it. But then he noticed something else amidst the hoard’s lustrous mirage, skeletons picked clean, and fire-blackened armour and snapped blades. Great pools of heat-emanating sulphur confirmed Hakem’s sudden suspicions and the creeping dread he had felt earlier returned. The chamber was inhabited.
Thalgrim mumbled something next to him. Hakem turned to find the lodefinder glassy-eyed and slack-jawed. A thin trail of drool came off his bottom lip and stretched all the way down to the floor.
“Gorl,” he garbled drunkenly.
“No,” the merchant thane cried, reaching out to grab him. But he was too late. Thalgrim stumbled madly into the chamber, burbling “Gorl, gorl, gorl!” as he went.
Hakem went after him, despite every fibre of his being willing him not to. Ralkan followed in an entirely different delirium.
“Thalgrim,” Hakem hissed, stalling a few feet from the cavern mouth, not daring to raise his voice much above a whisper. “Wait!”
The lodefinder was oblivious and, after diving amidst a mountainous pile of gold, went barrelling onward.
An inferno of roaring, black-red flame engulfed Thalgrim from an unseen source. The wave of heat emanating from it was incredible and felled Hakem to his knees. Ralkan collapsed into a heap before it, screwing his body up into a ball and whimpering. Hakem lost sight of Thalgrim in the fearsome blaze, shielding his eyes against its terrible glare. When he looked back, there was nothing left of the lodefinder except ash — he didn’t even scream.
Survival instinct got Hakem to his feet. He rushed over to Ralkan and dragged him up by the scruff of his neck.
“On your feet,” the merchant thane snarled beneath his breath.
Ralkan obeyed as whatever fear seizing him drained his will.
Tremors shook the ground, sending coins and gems cascading from their lofty summits, so violent that Hakem struggled to stay standing.
From around the collapsing mounds of gold there emerged a beast so ancient and evil that many who lived had never seen its like.
“Drakk,” Hakem whispered, Ralkan murmering next to him and gripping the merchant thane’s runic for dear life. Hakem felt his courage, his resolve and his reason stripping away as he beheld the snorting behemoth.
So massive was the dragon that its bulk pushed the mountainous treasure peaks aside, nearly filling the width of the immense chamber. Red scales that glistened like blood covered a brawny body fraught with scars. Its barrel-ribbed chest was broad and sickly yellow. Deep, black pools of hate served for eyes and regarded the dwarfs hungrily. Claws the length of swords three times over and half again as thick, scraped the ground as the creature sharpened them raucously. Raising its long, almost elegant, neck the dragon stretched its mighty, tattered wings and roared.
Mind-numbing terror gripped the dwarfs as they fought the backwash of dragon breath, rancid with the stink of sulphur and rotting meat. The beast made no attempt to advance. It merely snorted and hissed, tongue lathing the air as it tried to taste the fear of its prey.
Hakem gritted his teeth and forced his arm to move, prizing Ralkan’s fingers off his tunic one-by-one. Released from the lorekeeper’s grasp the merchant thane felt a sudden epiphany come over him, a surety of knowledge that let him bury his fear beneath something raw and primal.
“Go,” Hakem said calmly.
Rigid with fear, Ralkan responded with a murmur. “Go,” he said again, more fiercely this time. Eyes locked on the beast, the lorekeeper took a half step back.<
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“I have lost my honour,” Hakem uttered with absolutely certainty and took off his tunic. “There is nothing left,” he continued, throwing down his belt. “Perhaps if I die here, there will be some honour in that.” He tore off the hook that was strapped to his arm and unravelled the bandage — the wound was still bloody and seeped through it.
“Go, lorekeeper,” Hakem said, reaching down and taking up a hammer from amongst the scattered treasure. “Recount my deeds that my name at least might live on.”
Ralkan took another fearful step.
“Flee you fool — now!” Hakem raged, shouting in the lorekeeper’s face.
Ralkan found his will at last and fled.
“Now we are alone, you and I,” said the thane of Barak Varr, the frantic footfalls of the lorekeeper diminishing behind him as he allowed his blood-soaked bandage to fall to the ground. He bit into the stump of his wrist, reopening the wound and bringing fresh blood to the surface. Daubing it ritualistically over his bare chest in the arcane sigils of old, he muttered an oath to Grimnir.
The dragon sloped forward, baring its long and deadly fangs — its gaping maw could snap an ogre in two.
Hakem gripped the hammer.
“Come,” he said with grim finality. “Face me and forge my legend.”
Rearing up on its haunches, the dragon snarled. There was the faintest trace of amusement in its eyes as it dove towards Hakem with bone-crushing force.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Uthor had descended into a ravine of fire. Here in the very bowels of the underdeep the blood of the mountain itself ran in thick channels of lava. Blistering heat haze emanated from the syrupy magma rivers, gouts of liquid flame spitting sporadically to the surface. Igneous rock dusters swam the lava tributaries, shifting like miniature archipelagos, and ran as far as the eye could pierce dust and flame down a long and craggy catacomb.
Columns, carved from the rock in the earliest days of the world, supported a ridged and spiked roof that rose high into a billowing pall of grey-black smoke.
[Warhammer] - Oathbreaker Page 27