The Dragon Engine

by Andy Remic

  The night was moving slow. The slaves were allowed gentle exercise around the compound whilst the cauldron of rancid meat bubbled. Beetrax, Dake, Jonti, Talon, Lillith and Sakora walked with other prisoners, most of them dwarves, a couple of them weak and filthy human specimens who had, by various means, found themselves in the hands of the Harborym.

  Dake walked beside a ragged specimen, late fifties, long grey hair, straggled beard. Although his body was hard, he lacked body fat, and was looking stretched, weak and wasted.

  “How did you end up here, old man?”

  “I lived in one of the villages at the foot of the Karamakkos. Like you, I didn’t know the dwarves existed; I thought the Harborym extinct. All of us did. It is a common misconception!” He gave a bitter laugh through cracked, blackened lips. His bare back bore the brunt of many lashes, healed now, but showing a rebellious, earlier life as a slave.

  “How were you captured?”

  “I was out fishing, on the River Makkos. Fresh water comes down from the mountains, rich waters for mackerel and trout.” He sighed, plodding in the wide circle around the barracks. “I was day-dreaming, as you do in these situations. I had two bites sat in a bucket. The wife and my daughter, Lanna, nine years old – well, she was nine back then – they were going to have a fine supper! Except somebody snuck up behind me, hit me with a club. I woke up in a cart on my way under the mountain.”

  Dake looked at him. “How long have you been here?”

  “Three years.” He smiled, but there was not one iota of humour. “My little girl will be twelve now. And still wondering what happened to her father.”

  “Why you?” asked Dake, his voice gentle with a creeping horror.

  “Why not? When these bastards are running low on slaves, they send out teams into the villages and towns surrounding the mountains. They are careful who they take. The dark rumours are of mountain goblins – but there are no bloody mountain goblins. Just these bastards looking for fresh meat to work the mines; to keep the gold flowing.”

  “Have you tried to escape?”

  “Twice. You see the scars on my back? They said next time I’d be food for the Dragon Engine.” He grinned then, but his eyes were dark, hooded, filled with a casual desolation. “I want to see my daughter again. Just one last time before I die. I don’t care if I die, truly, but I just want to see her face; to witness what kind of young woman she has become.”

  “Did you not try to petition the king? King Irlax? I have heard he is a fair ruler, from the other slaves.”

  “Aye. He is a fair ruler to the dwarves. But what does he care about our kind? In their history books, we – us humans – kept the dwarves as slaves and had them work the early mines under atrocious conditions for hundreds of years. These cities under the mountain, they were built with dwarf blood. They see us as natural enemies, right down to the bone. They see themselves as victors over a cruel master race; and now every man they bring here is another small victory for their ancestors, for their honour. We are scum to them, Vagandrak man. They love to see us suffer.”

  “Does this King Irlax ever come down here? If I could just get to speak to him… the trade we could offer with Vagandrak…”

  “They don’t want to fucking know, boy,” snapped the old man, flashing Dake a look of annoyance. “You think they don’t understand the value of their gold, their jewels, their alloys, the iron they smelt in huge furnaces powered by the mindless dragons? Of course they know. They simply fucking hate us. Hate us to the bottom of their hearts. They don’t want our trade. They want our slavery, our obedience, and our blood.”

  “Oh,” said Dake, and felt totally deflated. They carried on walking, and Dake looked over to the cauldron. Steam was rising from the stew. It smelt like rotting corpses on a week-old battlefield.

  To one side of the cauldron, five dwarf overseers were cackling at some joke. They held flagons of ale, and golden droplets painted their beards. Further back by the barracks, several other overseers were attempting to fix some kind of hydraulic engine, full of brass pistons and large, multi-toothed cogs. Their hands were covered in oil. And Krakka stood by the barracks, axe on his back, laughing at some joke he had cracked to Val, the point-faced dwarf who was still abusing Lillith. They were both leering over towards the slaves, and Dake’s face went hard. He could only guess at which perverse, sickening anecdote the rapist dwarf was regaling his superior.

  But that’s okay, he thought.

  Because things are about to change…

  “Stew time!” bellowed a dwarf overseer, standing on a crate and holding a big, black, evil-looking ladle which was more weapon than food-serving implement. His cheeks were flushed red with the after-effects of quaffed ale. At this moment in time, he looked particularly jolly. There was a certain relaxed atmosphere. Beetrax and Talon were laughing at some joke, and Beetrax swaggered over to the cauldron on its iron stand above the fire. Steam curled. The contents bubbled, stinking bad.

  “Hey, would you like me to serve it up?” said Beetrax amiably, a big smile edging through his beard.

  “Ha! I see you, Beetrax. The limp is getting better.”

  “Yes,” he winked, “my bollocks are made from iron. But seriously, anything I can do to help. It would be my pleasure.”

  The dwarf, named Pleddo, considered this. “Okay then, get yourself up here on this crate. But be warned, we’ll be watching the fucking portions! Too many lumps on any one plate, I’ll be forced into giving you twenty lashes!” He patted the whip at his belt and roared with laughter, as if physically punishing humans was one huge moment of comedy.

  “No worries there, my friend,” said Beetrax. “I’ve learned my lessons. You know I have. I’m a good boy now. Don’t want to be a fucking eunuch is this lifetime, nor the next!” He hobbled forward, and looked up at the dwarf on the crate. The dwarf stepped down, and handed the ladle to Beetrax, who took the iron implement and stared at it, his shackles rattling.

  “Now you be sure to give fair portions, Vagandrak man,” Pleddo grinned.

  “I will,” nodded Beetrax, still smiling. “Beginning with yours.”

  “What?”

  Beetrax reversed the ladle, and rammed the long, iron handle into Pleddo’s eye, driving it deep past eyeball and soft, squishing flesh, and pounding it into the brain beyond. Pleddo dropped like a sack of coal, Beetrax following him down, kneeling with him, and withdrawing the ladle with a schlup of pulped brains.

  “Talon, I need you!”

  Talon grabbed the sledgehammer from the wall of the barracks and sprinted forward. Beetrax held his hands ahead of him on the rock floor, and Talon skidded, the sledgehammer whirring up and over, the head whistling down to crack against the shackle chain.

  “Again!” screamed Beetrax.

  Talon hefted the sledgehammer, and swung it once more. It whistled a thumb’s breadth from Beetrax’s nose, and slammed into the chain, breaking it.

  “Sort the others,” growled Beetrax, climbing to his feet and lifting his stew ladle. It gleamed black, like the deadly cooking implement it was, dripping mashed dwarf brains. He turned on the four shocked overseers, as they stood, tankards held limp, mouths open in disbelief, staring at their fallen comrade.

  “You bastard!” screeched one.

  “Come to daddy,” growled Beetrax, and charged, ladle in one fist, length of chain in the other. The four overseers were unprepared, but still hard bastards wearing chainmail and helmets and bearing swords and axes. As behind, Talon cracked open the chains of the other Vagandrak heroes, his aim as true and perfect as his archery skills, so Beetrax felt the pure fucking joy of battle surge through his veins like a drug, and all his anger, all his frustrations, all his hate, erupted as pure and unadulterated

  Violence.

  They were dragging weapons from scabbards as he struck. The ladle hammered into one throat, making the dwarf choke and stumble back. Trax lashed left with the shackle’s length of chain, which whipped across a dwarf’s eyes making him cry ou
t, grabbing his face, sword half-drawn. Beetrax grabbed the sword, front-kicking the dwarf away and drawing the blade in the same movement. He turned on the other two, grinning, fury raging through him like an ocean tsunami swell. He rolled his neck, tendons cracking, and rolled back his shoulders, feeling the power within his muscles, within his frame, and understanding the total fucking annihilation he could bring against other living organisms. With joy. With love. With wrath.

  “Come on, you cunts,” he growled, and charged. His blade hacked down, was blocked, but swept down in a low loop that hacked the dwarf’s leg free beneath the knee. He hit the ground screaming. The other swung his blade, but Beetrax blocked the blow, twisted his wrist and plunged the point forward. It was an old battlefield trick that worked well against mud-orcs. The point entered above the dwarf’s Adam’s apple and Beetrax leant forward, putting his weight into it, watching the point explode from the back of the dwarf’s neck in a shower of gore. Blood pattered like rain. The one-legged dwarf was screaming, and Trax withdrew his blade and smashed it down on the screaming dwarf’s head, three times, splitting the skull in half like a crushed melon. Brains leaked out in a long stream, peppered with skull shards. The dwarf choking on his knees from the ladle-blow got the sword in the face, ending his life. The one remaining from the five stared at Beetrax, and held up his hands in horrified submission. A left slice removed seven fingers, which pattered on the rocks, and the following overhead blow smashed his steel helm into his skull, folding the steel into cracked bone and jellied brain, and dropping the dwarf as effectively as any sledgehammer blow.

  Silence drifted like ash.

  “Come on!” screamed Beetrax, and the others, their chains broken by Talon, ran forward and scooped up the swords and axes of the killed dwarves. Lillith approached Beetrax, holding out a double-headed axe, for which Beetrax swapped the short iron sword. He looked down lovingly at the butterfly blades. Some dwarf had given this weapon love and care, sharpening and oiling, oiling and sharpening. Beetrax kissed the blades. “Don’t worry,” he whispered. “I’ll do you some justice.”

  From the barracks poured thirty grumpy dwarf overseers, many still carrying their whips, to find themselves facing a fully tooled-up company of battle-hardened ex-soldiers.

  Talon came forward; he was the only one still wearing his shackles chained together.

  “Come here, lad, I’ll sort you,” said Beetrax.

  “Er, I’d rather have somebody with two eyes make the strike. Sakora?”

  “Pleasure.”

  The sledgehammer whirred, and split the chains. Talon caught the short sword and weighed it thoughtfully. “Just like old times?”

  “We have some cunts to kill,” growled Beetrax.

  Over by the overseer barracks, Krakka was purple with rage, apoplectic with fury, and dancing around like a dwarf under the influence. “KILL THEM, KILL THEM ALL, YOU FUCKING USELESS BASTARDS!” he screamed. Disorientated, filled with ale, the overseers moved forward in a ragged line towards the Vagandrak men and women, the battered heroes, the abused, who stood their ground and grinned unnervingly, their eyes full of uniform hate.

  The other slaves had shuffled backwards, away from the arena of slaughter. Jael was amongst them, his face grey, his eyes shining, his face unreadable, licking his lips, his fists clenching and unclenching.

  “KILL THEM ALLLLLL!” screamed Krakka, as Val hid behind him.

  Beetrax frowned. “I reckon that’s five each,” he said.

  Talon glanced at him. “Well, you already did five.”

  “They don’t count. How’s this – if I beat you, you buy the fucking wine?”

  “Agreed.”

  The dwarf overseers charged, chainmail clanking, and were amazed when the slaves did not break and run. In fact, they were even more amazed when Beetrax strode towards them, with great loping strides, and faced the lead overseer – a broad dwarf named Loppa, renowned for violence and bad temper – who charged at Beetrax, his axe sweeping up, his stroke experienced, his cold blue eyes fixed, his mouth a grim line. The axe swept down, and Beetrax… twitched to one side, the smallest and most accurate of movements, the enemy axe slicing past him as his left elbow struck out, breaking the dwarf’s nose, his axe slamming low, cutting through tendons to hamstring the overseer. He hit the rocks, sliding, screaming suddenly, grabbing at his folded leg as Beetrax loomed over him.

  “That fucking hurts, eh laddie?”

  “Fuck you, slave.”

  “Slave? You reckon?” Beetrax’s axe slammed down, splitting the dwarf’s face in two. It was not a pretty sight. “You’re a slave to my fucking axe,” he said.

  The two forces clashed in that underground mine, as the other slaves cowered and watched, and the lake lapped softly at its inky shores. Axes and swords rose and fell, the strike of clashing iron echoed out, reverberating, so different to the usual clank and smash of sledgehammers on rock, the rattle of chains from the carts, the bray of an occasional stray donkey.

  The dwarf overseers were tough bastards. But they were more used to whimpering slaves cowering under whips, no matter what background they’d originally crawled from. And each of the Vagandrak heroes had spent the last twenty years as soldiers, bred and honed and experienced in battle.

  Dake fought with a mechanical precision, almost dancing between the enemy, his sword the master of the sneaky cut, the swift stab, the backhand cut from nowhere. Jonti moved as her reputation described. She was The Ghost once more. Dwarves wondered how the fuck they died. Talon, like Dake, was accurate, a machine killer, but out of his comfort zone with a blade. What he really desired was a good yew bow and fifty straight arrows…

  Lillith, ever the pacifist, stayed to the rear, helping where she could, defending where she could. But she had developed a new coldness, and on two occasions plunged a dagger through a dwarf overseer’s eye and stepped aside as he puked blood onto the rough stone ground.

  Sakora danced, beautiful moves, a knife in each hand becoming an extension of her athletic blows; an exotic dance of death, her movements underlined with a new hate.

  And Beetrax led the battle, his sheer brute power, his massive hate, his raging fury like an unstoppable machine, an insane lion enraged with hunger, ready to kill, embracing the slaughter.

  Beetrax’s adopted axe cut left, slicing a dwarf from clavicle to hip, despite his chainmail. Rings popped and pinged. The blade’s point opened his flesh like a crazy zip and his insides unfolded slowly onto the rocky ground like so much butcher’s offal. His scream was cut short by the stamp of a boot.

  The return back-hand strike opened another enemy’s throat, so that blood spewed from this impromptu tracheotomy. The dwarf fell to his knees, lips working noiselessly as his newly formed second mouth made bloody hissing sounds.

  Swords rose and fell. Blood and body parts hit the ground with wet thumps. The Vagandrak soldiers, high on a drug of frustration and hate, worked in perfect harmony; an efficient, oiled machine, tighter than they had ever been. They covered one another. Watched one another’s backs. Killed for each other. Defended each other. Sparks flew. Swords clashed. Blood spattered the rocky ground like crimson rain. Blades cut through arms and legs. Dwarf skulls were crushed. Eyes sliced. Throats cut. Bowels opened, allowing intestines to slop to the ground.

  And then it was over.

  They stood, panting, barely a scratch upon them, spattered with blood globules, a shocked look on all their faces which appeared after any sudden encounter, after any battle; the glances around, searching for loved ones, searching for brothers and sisters, to check they were good, and alive, and whole; to check the whole party hadn’t descended into rat shit. Into blood, and dark death.

  “Lillith?”

  “Beetrax.”

  “Check the bodies.”

  “Yes.”

  Beetrax whirled around, could see the rest of the slaves still cowering. His eyes roved over his friends. All were standing. Nobody was on their back puking blood. All had looks on faces
that suggested… life. Then his gaze shifted to…

  Krakka.

  The Slave Warden.

  He was rooted to the spot, frozen suddenly, as if caught in an embarrassing position from which he could not escape.

  “YOU!” bellowed Beetrax, pointing across the open space between the barracks, and Krakka stared at him. “I want YOU, you fucking cunt. Right here, right now.”

  Suddenly, from the surrounding tunnels which led to the mine came a great commotion. It was a stomping of boots, the clanking of chainmail, many boots, many chainmail coats, and from the tunnels emerged an army of armed and armoured dwarves. They carried loaded crossbows, quarrels gleaming, stocks oiled, hands steady as these soldiers streamed from the tunnels and spread out…. Ten, twenty, forty, sixty, a hundred fucking dwarves, heavily armed, crossbows targeted on the Vagandrak slaves.

  Beetrax, Jonti, Talon, they looked around, spun around, watching in horror as so many enemies emerged, all with projectile weapons. With military precision, boots stomped and crossbows levelled. Beards bristled. Fists clenched. Fingers tightened on triggers as eyes sighted and they took aim.

  Silence fell. The silence of a child’s funeral. The silence of a mass burial. The silence of the tombworld.

  Krakka was almost bouncing. “Throw down your fucking weapons!” he screeched. “Throw them down, or we’ll cut you down! Do it! Do it FUCKING NOW!”

  Dake tossed down his sword, which clattered on the stone. He eyed the dwarves coolly, but he knew impossible odds when he saw them. Jonti followed, tossing down her own blade, followed by Sakora, and Lillith and Talon, who gave a twisted grimace of despair. We were so close. So close… where did these bastards come from? How did they know?

  Finally, only Beetrax stood, clutching his butterfly axe in both hands, a great scowl on his face as he faced a hundred crossbow-armed dwarves. Rage passed across his features in various stages. Slowly, he mellowed, and seemed to relax. Despite their bravery, despite their killing, they were well and truly outnumbered.