“I do not like the look of this path,” said Rorek, sweating profusely.
Stretching out in front of them was a long and wide road, wretched with cracks venting intermittent plumes of steam and sharp, jutting rocks.
“It is the only road we have left,” Uthor told him, exhaustedly. The thane of Kadrin was finding it hard to speak. Vapours of thick, repressive heat made legs and arms leaden and lungs burn. Carried on an arid, air-choked breeze that robbed breath and will, the effect was stifling.
“Then it is the way we must go.” Emelda mustered her resolve, swallowing back the taste of soot and ash on her tongue.
After the Barduraz Varn and the shallow bridge, the trio had rested for but a moment on the stone plateau, none of them wanting, or willing, to talk about the sudden appearance of Gromrund or what it meant for the hammerer. Gathering up their strength, they’d pressed on down shallow corridors bereft of light, going deeper and deeper into the hold aware that the flood waters might be just behind them.
At one point, Rorek had noticed a marker stone etched in runic script. “The Lonely Road” it read — it was aptly named. They’d ploughed on in silence, finding no further signs, no indication of where they might be headed. Thunder roared above them constantly and small rock chips fell from the ceiling and scattered down the walls as the Black Water did its work. Then, at last, it caught them, a crushing wave of such fury that they’d fled before it. An ancient door of the underdeep had impeded their escape but together they’d released the elder portal and sealed it shut behind them with the last of Rorek’s door spikes, descending into the magma caves at the very nadir of the karak.
Emelda took the first steps across the plateau, treading the most solid route through a cracking path rimmed with piles of hot, burning ash and cooling cinder. Uthor and Rorek followed tentatively behind her.
“Stay away from the edges,” she called from the front.
Uthor peered over the crumbling plateau periphery into deep pits of boiling lava, bubbling with submerged eruptions and gaseous emissions. When a section of rock broke off and fell away into it, only to be devoured instantly, he shrank back and stepped a little faster. All the while, the earth shook and the ceiling rattled, the sound of muted thunder emanating loudly through it.
“Watch out!” Uthor cried.
Emelda looked up and leapt aside as a dislodged spike of rock came crashing down and impaled into the hot earth where she had been standing. The clan daughter got to her feet, just as Uthor arrived, quickly dusting off a thin patina of scorching ash.
“Tromm,” she breathed, her face red and sweaty.
“Tromm,” Uthor returned.
“We had best not linger,” Emelda added, noting more errant chunks of stone impacting against the ground and shattering.
Uthor nodded and the three of them moved on hurriedly.
Hakem was dead. Ralkan knew it in his heart, even if he didn’t see him fall. Galdrakk the Red was a legend, a dark tale to scare beardlings to sleep or taunt a wazzock. The lorekeeper did not think for a moment that such a beast still existed. Yet he had seen it with his own eyes, even envisioned his own doom at its claws. Hakem had changed that doom and made it his own.
Ralkan cursed aloud, tripping and smashing his knee as he scrabbled in the darkened corridors, stumbling blindly, not knowing where he was but desperate for a way out. Honour was of little consequence to the lorekeeper now. He had to try and live or Hakem’s noble sacrifice, his great deed would be for nought. That thought drove him and the certainty that once it was finished with Hakem, Galdrakk’s appetite would not be sated and the beast would be coming for more…
Thratch’s head was spinning. He smelled damp fur and realised he was wet. Cold stone was hard and sharp against his back. Blurring memories filled his mind as he struggled to wake fully, of the battle with the dwarf-things, of the terrible thunder…
The painted dwarf-thing was fast, maybe faster than Thratch. No — that wasn’t possible. No warrior, dwarf-thing, green-thing or skaven had ever bested him— even the assassins of Clan Eshin had failed in all their clumsy attempts to slay him. No, Thratch was king of his domain and no half-naked, furless dwarf-thing was going to change that.
Ducking instinctively, Thratch was forced to the task at hand and the raging dwarf-thing with his chain-cutter. More out of defensive self-preservation than any measure of sword skill the warlord swatted the shiny blade away, though he took pains to snarl his indifference at his enemy.
Thratch lunged, trying to gut the fat dwarf-thing like a stuck pig. The painted creature was fast but not fast enough and the warlord squealed inwardly with delight as he cut it, licking the shed dwarf blood from his blade. Frenzy filled his mind at the taste of it, the imminence of the kill intoxicating. Thratch would wear the dwarf-thing’s head like a hat when he slew it.
The warlord drew down a wicked swipe to finish it but the painted dwarf-thing disappeared at the moment of victory. Searing pain flared in Thratch’s back, dispelling his blood frenzy. Keen, skaven ears heard the split sections of plate hitting the ground as they were torn free. Silver flashed as the painted dwarf-thing came on.
Thratch blocked madly as the blows rained down — such fury! The glaive haft snapped under the barrage. Thratch threw the bladed end at his assailant desperately, fighting the urge to squirt the musk of fear and flee blindly. The skaven took a step back and came close to flight. No — he was master of this realm. Thratch had never fled; his strength was what marked him for greatness, it was the very thing that would get him noticed by the Council of the Thirteen and cement a vaunted position in the highest echelons of Skavenblight.
Thratch drew his sword. Rushing forward, he cut the dwarf-thing across the stomach. The skaven licked his muzzle — how succulent its entrails must taste. Another swipe, savage and unrelenting now — the dwarf-thing was tiring and Thratch could feel it. He shaped for another pass, the final blow, when the ground started shaking. Using his tail as a third leg, Thratch kept his feet.
Something didn’t smell right. Thunder was rising; he could hear it distinctly getting closer. Thunder? Beneath the earth? Thratch turned. A mighty wave rose up before him, edged with white, frothing foam, thick with skaven and dwarf-thing bodies swept up in its watery maw. Thratch’s fur stood on end, eyes widening in abject terror as he faced the pounding inundation. He pumped the musk of fear into the air around him as the remorseless wave crashed down…
Pain flared in Thratch’s back from where the painted dwarf-thing had struck him. The skaven warlord winced as he got shakily to his feet and wiped the blood from his muzzle, trying to remember what had happened after the wave hit. Memory was sparse, like scratchings of meaning at the back of his mind. Darkness came first and then sound had fallen away as he was carried off into the gloom.
Trying to piece together the time between then and now, Thratch wandered wildly through the dwarfen deeps, too dazed and incoherent to do anything else. Scent, faint but distinct wafted over him on a hot breeze. Thratch’s nose twitched; the stinking aroma of soot and iron was familiar. It was like acrid bile in his throat — the hated stink of dwarf-things.
Thratch was angry as he followed the stench. His lair was flooded, his engine was likely destroyed and his army decimated. He still had his sword, though it was chipped and a little bent, that was good. He’d need it to exact his vengeance.
“This way,” Uthor bellowed, treading carefully across a rock path that fell away at one edge into a deep, undulating pool of liquid fire.
Emelda followed wearily. She had dispensed of her armour — too heavy and hot to bear any longer. Shimmering around her waist in the reflected glow of the lava was the cincture, her only remaining protection. Rorek followed the clan daughter, some distance behind as the trio passed the narrowing path and came upon a wide tunnel that wended upward but was fraught with shadowed alcoves and pits of flame.
“Do you smell that?” asked the thane of Kadrin, letting Emelda catch him up.
&
nbsp; “I smell only ash and fire,” she replied, her expression haggard.
“Breathe deeply,” he told her.
Emelda closed her eyes and took a long and lingering breath. Beyond the scent of ash-laden, fire-scorched air was another smell — something much clearer and colder.
“The upper world,” she said, opening her eyes as tears were forming.
“And there,” added Uthor, pointing in the distance to a faint corona of light. “The way out.”
“We have escaped…” said Emelda, her face alight with joy then twisting horribly in pain. The end of a rusted blade punched savagely through her chest as she spat a thick gobbet of blood into Uthor’s soot-stained beard. Emelda sagged forward as the lustre of the runic cincture dimmed ever so slightly and the blade was wrenched free. The thane of Kadrin rushed to catch the clan daughter and saw past her falling form the visage of a burly skaven, wielding a bent and broken sword. The creature grinned maliciously and snarled at the dwarf.
Holding Emelda in his arms, Uthor was defenceless. He saw the blood-slicked blade poised for a second strike, one that would finish them both. Uthor let Emelda go and tried to unhitch his axe, knowing already it would be too late that, even so close to freedom, his death was assured.
Rorek bellowed a war cry, launching himself at the rat-kin with axe in hand. The creature turned, well aware of the engineer’s presence, scraping its blade along the ground and flicking a cloud of burning ash and cinder into Rorek’s good eye. Clutching his face and screaming, the dwarfs charge failed and he stumbled to the ground in a dishevelled heap.
Uthor was up, though his arms were leaden, and ready to fight. He stood protectively in front of Emelda who lay prone in the dirt. Rorek was off to his left, wailing in agony and rolling back and forth. Before him was the rat-kin lord, bloodied and breathing hard, its tiny eyes full with vengeful desire.
The skaven must have followed them, somehow got ahead and waited in one of the darkened alcoves to strike. There were so many hiding places, so many ways for unseen lurkers to attack and here, in the flattened plateau of the tunnel the creature had chosen to make its move.
Rocks were falling swiftly now and teeming lances of water came down from the ceiling in several places where the flood had found its way through. Steam hissed where they struck the ground and vaporised.
Uthor squared off against the rat-kin lord, sidestepping slowly, not daring to wipe the trail of sweat eking into his eyes.
“Come on then,” he gasped, the challenge unconvincing as he brandished Ulfgan’s axe.
Chittering with glee, the skaven warlord was about to rush the dwarf when another figure stepped from the shadows and into his path.
“Go,” said Azgar, the slayer’s muscle-bound back was a cross-hatch of cuts as he came between Uthor and the skaven, “get the other two out,” he added. “He too must have survived the floodwaters and followed the rat-kin lord to them. This one and I have unfinished business.” With that Azgar charged at the rat-kin and battered it back with a rain of savage blows.
Steel crashed in Uthor’s ears, the rock fall a deep and resonant chorus to the cacophony as he went to Emelda.
She was pale as he cradled her in his arms, the light dying in her eyes.
“Leave me,” she begged through blood-spattered lips, her voice little better than a shallow rasp.
“We are close,” Uthor whispered, shielding her instinctively as a chunk of rock fell and shattered close by, showering him with cutting shards. “Lean on me,” he pleaded, trying to get beneath her and use his shoulder as a crutch.
Emelda coughed as she exerted herself, spitting blood from her mouth. “No,” she managed. “No, I can’t.” Uthor set her down carefully.
“I go to my father now,” she rasped, clutching Uthor’s hand. “Tell the High King that I died with honour and take Dunrik to his rest.”
“Emelda…”
The clan daughter’s hand fell away. Uthor clenched his eyes tightly shut, his grief overwhelming. Rage forced it down into the pit of his stomach and opened his eyes. He took the cincture from around Emelda’s waist reverently and secured it around his own. He took the axe of Dunrik and strapped it to his back. Muttering an oath to Valaya and to Gazul, Uthor got to his feet and was about to go after the rat-kin when he heard Rorek, sobbing not far away.
Anger wilted as the thane of Kadrin’s gaze fell upon the stricken engineer. For a moment he flitted from it to the duelling form of Azgar, his brother, as he battled the skaven warlord fiercely. The slayer’s chain axe was shattered and he wielded the broken end like a lash to hold the darting rat-kin at bay. As Uthor watched, a fiery column burst through the ground, flinging rock and magma into the air. Another jet broke the surface, then another and another. Azgar was all but lost beyond the barrier of flame.
“I told you we were not done, yet.” Azgar snarled at the skaven warlord and charged.
Reeling against the barrage of blows, the rat-kin parried and countered furiously. At last, Azgar’s frenetic onslaught wavered and as the slayer unleashed a scything swing with his chain axe, the warlord weaved aside and stamped its foot down upon the chain as it flew past harmlessly. Having trapped the weapon, and without stalling it brought its sword down two-handed, shearing the chain in half.
Bladeless, Azgar fell back as it was the skaven’s turn to attack, using the length of chain that remained like a whip to keep the creature at bay. Thick beads of sweat trailed eagerly down the slayer’s body, working their way into the pronounced musculature as the two fought on a narrow precipice. Lava bubbled below the duelling warriors, exuding gaseous smoke and radiating intense heat.
Behind him, Azgar heard the raging emption of flame and magma as the chamber slowly started to disintegrate. If forced to back off much further, the slayer would be consumed by it. Instead, he lashed out with his chain one last time, smacking the skaven’s blade aside for but a moment and barged into the rat-kin warlord. The rat-kin bit and clawed viciously, stabbing with the spike of its left hand when it dropped its sword as the slayer slowly crushed the creature’s body. The blade fell into the lava pool and melted away. Heedless of the grievous wounds inflicted upon him, Azgar drove forward, lifting the skaven warlord up in a fierce bear hug. Claws digging into the ground, the rat-kin tried to arrest the slayer’s determined drive but Azgar was not to be denied. He reached around to the creature’s neck and, with his bare hands, tore out a raft of crude stitches. It squealed as he did it, the old wound opening readily as Azgar lifted his prey higher and up off the ground.
The edge of the precipice beckoned.
Azgar roared and flung himself and the rat-kin warlord over the edge…
A struggle, so indistinct that the details were lost, ensued through the shimmering heat haze as skaven and dwarf grappled. Then they fell, off the edge of the precipice to be swallowed by the lava pool.
“Brother…” Uthor muttered, and felt his grief twofold.
With no time to mourn, the thane went to Rorek quickly, picking him up and hoisting the engineer onto his back with a grunt.
“I cannot see,” Rorek sobbed, rubbing at his freshly ruined eye.
“You will, my friend,” said Uthor, putting one foot in front of the other, just trying not to fall.
“Are we leaving now?” Rorek asked as he passed out.
“Yes,” Uthor replied. “Yes, we’re leaving.”
The chamber shook with all the natural fury of an earthquake as a beast, so old and terrible that Uthor felt the strength in his legs abandoning him, emerged into the wide tunnel behind the fire columns. Even through the flame Uthor recognised this creature as a dragon, the creature called Galdrakk the Red and enemy of his ancestors. With a powerful flap of its wings that staggered Uthor backwards, Galdrakk battered the fire down and launched through it. Lava hissed at its scaly hide but did nought but scorch it as the beast landed heavily on the other side.
Uthor found the strength to back away as the dragon regarded him hungrily. The foul
creature’s snout was broken and its right eye was crushed as if it had fought recently. The wounds served only to make its appearance all the more terrifying as it came on, one thought filling Uthor’s mind as it did so.
We cannot make it…
An almighty wrenching of stone filled the air as a veritable avalanche of rock crashed down upon Galdrakk. The beast was so massive; it couldn’t help but be struck. A spiked rock sheared into the soft membrane of its wing, and it roared in pain, followed by a heavy boulder that bashed its snout as others rebounded from its back, neck and forelimbs.
Uthor ran, head low as the ceiling crashed down, the thunderous cry of Galdrakk resonating in his wake. He kept running, not daring to look back, fearing that the beast might still be alive, that it might have gotten free and be on their heels. Uthor fled until, blinking, he emerged into the blazing day, a clear sky supporting an orb-like sun above him. Even then, he still ran, picking his way through mountainous crags, hastening past caves and negotiating patches of scrub and scattered scree until, gasping so hard for breath he thought his lungs might burst, he collapsed in a clearing encircled by rune-etched menhirs. Vision blurring, he recognised the sigil of Grungni and fell unconscious.
It was a shrine to the ancestor gods. Runes for Grungni, Valaya, Grimnir and their lesser children were in evidence upon the foreboding menhirs that felt like the walls of some impenetrable citadel.
Uthor sat in front of a small fire as he read each and every one. He didn’t know how long he had been out, but he and Rorek had not been bothered by beasts as they’d lain comatosed on the bare earth.
As far as Uthor could gather, they’d emerged far south of Karak Varn at a tributary of Skull River, which flowed quietly below them in a narrow, sloping defile. The deaths of his comrades weighed heavily upon him, but none more so than that of Emelda. For that and the failure of his oath, there would be a reckoning.
[Warhammer] - Oathbreaker Page 28