[Warhammer] - Runefang

by C. L. Werner - (ebook by Undead)

  Looking at the mountains, Kessler could understand how they had come to consume the dwarfs, devouring their culture and society until it became impossible to separate the two. He could appreciate the formidable barrier, the great fence that protected the Empire from the howling hosts of greenskins that infested the lands beyond the mountains. If any man doubted the might of the gods he had but to see what Kessler saw, a vision of such awesome magnificence that even a hardened, brutish killer could not help but feel its power.

  Kessler could tell that his companions felt the same power pressing down upon them, the cold, passionless might that demanded respect from all it touched. The faces on the Wissenland soldiers grew drawn, their expressions stiff. Even those among Valdner’s crew who had served in Averland at the infamous Black Fire Pass and had seen the mountains before were subdued, perhaps because better than any of them, these veterans knew the capricious spirit of the mountains and the dangers of trying to cross through them.

  Skanir dismounted from the pony he had been given in Fritzstadt, a creature a good deal more pleasant than his missing mule, though the dwarf bristled at the indignity of riding an animal the men in the company regarded as fit only for children and friars. Still, there was no malice in him as he walked away from the pony, holding his head high and shielding one hand across his brow as he studied the jagged slopes of the mountains.

  “There,” he said at last in a voice made small by the weight of ages. The dwarf’s stumpy finger pointed to a great gash in the face of one of the mountains, as though a god had cleft the stone with his axe. “That is it, the place where Zahaak was destroyed once before: Drung-a-Uzkul. There is a great war-crypt of my people dug into the mountain not far from the battlefield. It will give us a place to start looking for the Sun-Fang.”

  Kessler nodded as he listened to Skanir speak, his eyes fixing on the valley where Zahaak had been defeated so long ago. Carlinda had been leading them to this place; somehow he knew this as surely as if the augur were standing beside him, whispering it into his ear. Could the war-crypt Skanir spoke of, the tomb that held the dwarfish dead from that ancient battle, be the one they were looking for? Skanir claimed that the Black Mountains were littered with such tombs, making their task still more immense. Somehow, though, Kessler could not shake the conviction that they were close, that the gods or perhaps the wraith of a dead witch had brought them here. Drung-a-Uzkul, where it had all started ages ago. It would suit the caprices of fate if this place would also play its part in ending the nightmare.

  The swordsman lowered himself from the saddle to speak with Skanir when a sharp cry from his left brought his sword leaping into his hands. One of Valdner’s men fell from his horse, an arrow lodged in his face. Shouts of alarm and panic echoed from every quarter and men scrambled to find cover.

  An ending indeed, Kessler thought, but perhaps for them not Zahaak!

  “Oooh, lookit that one Kopff!”

  The short, toad-faced brigand followed the direction of his weasel-like comrade’s pointing finger. A greedy grin crawled onto Kopff’s face. He glanced quickly up the hillside. Nearly fifty bandits were scattered up the slope, hidden behind clumps of scrub and jagged outcroppings of dark rock. A quick inspection assured him that none were looking in his direction. He let his eyes linger longer on the pile of stone behind which he knew Baldur and Rambrecht were sheltering.

  “That trim on his helmet is gold, sure as Sigmar,” Kopff hissed, turning his attention back to Schmitt. Schmitt licked his lips hungrily. Kopff nocked an arrow to the string of his bow and started to rise from behind their cover. Schmitt’s hand closed around his arm, pulling him back down.

  “Baldur said to wait for his signal!” Schmitt warned. Kopff rolled his eyes.

  “And let some opportunistic thief nab that helmet?” the bandit asked, sounding almost wounded by the suggestion. The observation rattled Schmitt and he released his hold. Kopff started to rise again.

  Schmitt pulled him back down. “I saw it first,” he said, fitting an arrow to his own bow. “I should be the one to knock him down.”

  “You couldn’t hit the backside of a castle at twenty paces,” said Kopff, shaking free of the other man’s grip.

  “The helmet’s still mine,” Schmitt persisted. “I saw it first. Fair’s fair! The helmet’s mine!”

  Kopff sighted down the length of his arrow, watching as his target slowly rode nearer. “I’m surprised at you, Schmitt! Trying to profit from another man’s hard work!” He released the string and the arrow flew down the slope, slamming into the warrior he had marked for death. The mercenary cried out, dropping from the saddle. Instantly, the hill was alive with shouts and curses, hastily launched arrows shooting down at the riders in a lethal shower of iron-tipped mayhem.

  All around Kessler was shock and confusion, men and beasts running and roaring as arrows fell all around them. Several found marks in the sides and flanks of the horses, sending the animals mad with pain and fear. Kessler clung tight to the reins of his own animal as the panic of the injured animals threatened to overcome it. He saw thrown riders scrambling across the rocky ground, trying to dodge the stamping hooves of the enraged beasts.

  Theodo’s sharp squeal of terror rose even above the screams of the horses. Tossed into the dirt by his burro, the halfling was beset by Eugen’s raging horse. The knight fought hard to regain control of his animal, but the flailing hooves pounded the ground all around the tiny cook, threatening to grind him into the dirt. Every effort Theodo made to scurry to safety seemed to drive Eugen’s horse wilder, its frantic efforts to crush the halfling becoming more intense. Finally, Ghrum’s enormous bulk rose beside the maddened steed. With a display of monstrous strength, the ogre seized the horse by the neck and forcibly jerked steed and knight to the ground. Theodo did not spare a glance for the stunned animal or its equally overwhelmed rider, but darted for the closest bunch of scrub, vanishing into the foliage as completely as a frightened rabbit.

  Most of the Wissenlanders and all of Valdner’s men had already quit their saddles, taking shelter in a dry stream-bed that offered at least some cover from the ragged fire driving down on them from the slopes. Kessler saw a few of Valdner’s men trying to reply in kind, but there were few bows among the mercenaries and none among the Wissenlanders. A loud boom thundered from nearby and acrid grey smoke blew across Kessler’s face. The swordsman glanced aside at Skanir, finding the dwarf cursing lividly at the pistol clutched in his hand.

  “Give me a solid cannon any day over one of these mouse-croakers!” he snarled, his face almost completely veiled by the smoke rising from the barrel of his weapon. Several arrows slammed into the ground nearby. Whatever the effect his shot had failed to have, it had certainly drawn the attention of their attackers.

  “Get back with the others!” Kessler yelled, and then decided that he should take his own advice as an arrow glanced from his hauberk. Sickened, he pulled his horse around, using the beast for cover as he sprinted towards the stream bed. When he was close enough, he broke away, diving into the depression. Slime and mud splashed across his face as he landed in the dregs of the stream. He quickly glanced down the length of the stream, observing that most of the men seemed to have reached it without serious injury. Keeping on his belly, he crawled along the trench to where he saw Valdner, Ottmar and Anselm. Before he could reach the mercenary captain, a dazed Eugen dropped into the trench, his tabard quickly soaking up the slime of the stream. The knight paused to wipe the filth from his chest, and then laboriously followed after Kessler.

  Valdner was barking orders to his men, trying to coerce those close enough to make a break for the stream, urging others to keep low and use whatever shelter they had found. Two of his men were beyond listening to his commands, their bodies pierced by arrows, one of Ottmar’s soldiers keeping them company. The captain snarled at the two archers in the gulley, trying to provide covering fire for the men still trapped in the open. The demand was more than their ability to meet and one of
the mercenaries was struck down as he rose from behind a dead horse and made a rush for the stream.

  “Any idea who’s up there shooting at us?” Valdner growled as he saw Kessler and Eugen crawling towards him. Kessler nodded, fury gleaming in his eyes.

  “Same ones who set that ambush before,” he said. “I recognised the men who killed the baron. They must have followed our trail all the way from Fritzstadt.” Valdner clenched his jaw tight and glared back up the slope.

  “Not much we can do until it gets dark,” the captain swore. “They have the high ground and a damn sight more bowmen than we do. If they’d waited for us to get a little closer…” Valdner shook his head. “Let’s just hope they give us the chance to make them regret that mistake.”

  * * *

  Baldur swore, pounding his fist against his leg. He rounded on Rambrecht. “Brigand trash, just like I told you!”

  The ambush should have worked perfectly, cutting down all of the Wissenlanders in one swift, certain stroke. The plan was to draw them close, up on the slopes and then fire into them from such range that even the slovenly marksmanship of bandits and outlaws couldn’t fail to find their marks. Again, events had impressed upon Baldur the quality of the men he now led. What he wouldn’t give for a score of Averheim guards!

  “The tactics were sound,” Rambrecht snapped. “It is your leadership that I find lacking.” The aristocrat’s tone dropped, becoming dangerous. “Recover the situation, Baldur. Do what you’re being paid to do.”

  The bandit chief glared at his arrogant patron. It never ceased to amaze him how the nobility always expected something from nothing. Quickly his mind turned over the possibilities. “I have an idea, but it’ll cost you.” Baldur felt a slight sense of satisfaction as he saw Rambrecht’s expression sour. “Your man down there tells us that the reinforcements they took on are mercenaries.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning we offer them a better deal,” Baldur said. He didn’t wait for his patron’s approval. Cupping a hand to his face, he leaned out from behind the boulder and shouted down to the men sheltering in the stream bed.

  “We only want the dwarf!” Baldur shouted. “Give him up and we’ll spare your lives. Whatever Wissenland is paying you, I can guarantee you more! Give up the dwarf and nobody else has to die!”

  His piece said, Baldur darted back into cover. There had been little evidence of archery on the part of the men below, but he knew that there had been a few casualties among his brigands. He was firmly determined not to join them.

  “Now what?” Rambrecht demanded.

  “Now we let them think it over,” Baldur said. “I’m sure—”

  But the rest of his thought went unspoken. A terrible scream tore apart the tense silence that had followed Baldur’s ultimatum. The bandit chief spun around, horror flashing through him. How had the Wissenlanders managed to get men behind them on the slope? All of them should have been accounted for if Rambrecht’s spy had dealt true with them.

  The full horror of the situation was impressed upon him when Baldur saw one of his bandits rolling down the side of the hill, a black-feathered arrow lodged in his back. Even as the echoes of that first scream started to fade, the air was split by a horrendous din of shrieks and war cries. More arrows clattered against the rocks as the upper slopes exploded with violence. Small, scrawny figures were charging from every crag and cranny, yellow teeth glistening from their green, leathery faces. Beyond them, large, brutish shapes bellowed and roared, crashing savage axes and immense cleavers against their shields of steel-banded lumber. The taste of acidic sickness was in Baldur’s mouth as he saw the huge monsters lunge down the hill, smashing the smaller goblins aside in their ferocious charge.

  Baldur had little enough faith in the ability of his men to fight human soldiers. Against the savagery of orc warriors, he had none at all. He had laid his trap too well, only the Wissenlanders weren’t the only ones who had been caught by it.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  From the natural trench of the stream bed, Kessler watched in amazement as roaring, howling orcs lunged down the hillside, eager to cleave bandit flesh with rusty orcish steel. The small weedy shapes of goblins cringed and crawled around the hulking monsters, loosing arrows at every opportunity, caring little if their missiles struck man or greenskin. In short, brutal order the ambushers had become the ambushed, their cries of surprise and fear ringing out even above the bellows of the orcs.

  Eugen pointed a mailed fist at the hillside, indicating a scrawny, mail-clad orc standing apart from the rush of its fellows. The monster wielded a great rod of twisted iron in its leathery paw, a collection of shattered skulls dangling from the rusty cross-beam lashed across its mid-length. A scrap of flayed skin flapped above the broken skulls, its decaying surface branded with the crude, jagged glyph that Kessler had seen in Murzklein. “Uhrghul Skullcracker,” Eugen hissed, his voice filled with a mixture of fear and loathing. Kessler looked away from the grisly standard and the crippled orc that held it, turning his attention to the knight. Eugen’s sword was in his fist, his body rising from the stream bed, his face a mask of grim determination.

  The knight was not looking at the infamous warlord’s standard, rather, he was fixated upon a great ghastly figure that lumbered down the rocky slope with all the malevolence of an avalanche. Kessler had heard stories that orcs never grew old, they simply kept getting bigger and bigger until someone or something finally cut them down. The orc he was looking at was immense, easily eight feet in height even with its slumped, apish shape. The muscles that bulged beneath its ragged tunic of piecemeal armour looked capable of crushing a man’s chest like a walnut.

  The orc carried an huge length of cruelly sharpened steel that seemed halfway between halberd and butcher’s knife. Kessler doubted if even he could lift such a weapon, much less carry it with the practiced ease the orc displayed. A great homed helmet covered the small, brutish head, bronze spikes jutting from the crown. The front of the helm was open, displaying a grotesque face that was terrible and murderous even among the savage orcs. The heavy, lantern jaw seemed to sag beneath the weight of the steel-capped tusks that curled beneath the monster’s face.

  The forehead was thick and low, scarred with the marks of claw and blade. Small crimson eyes glimmered from the depths of the face, twinkling with a malign, inhuman cunning. The dry, leathery hide of the hulking orc was darker than that of its comrades, more black than green to Kessler’s eyes.

  “Uhrghul Skullcracker,” Eugen growled again, still staring at the immense orc warlord. The orc had reached the foremost of the bandits, men who struggled futilely to bring the beast down with their frantic archery. The brute’s bestial laughter rang down from the hillside as it cut both men down with a single sweep of its gruesome weapon, splashing their remains across the rocks.

  “The goblins must have put him on our trail after Murzklein,” Skanir spat. “Leave it to craven grobi to get somebody else to take their revenge for them.” The dwarf’s eyes narrowed as he watched the orcs hacking their way through the men lurking on the hillside. There were at least twice as many bandits as orcs, but simple strength in numbers wasn’t helping them fare well against their unexpected foes. The screams of the brigands tore down from the rocks, their mangled bodies rolling down the hill like torn rag dolls.

  Eugen waited no longer. Cursing loudly, the knight rose up from the stream, brandishing his sword overhead. Kessler grabbed for his leg to restrain him, to stem the suicidal sally the veteran was set upon. The knight twisted from his grip, but before he could take another step, he was pitching back into the muck of the stream bed, his lip split where Valdner’s fist had smacked into his face. Anselm jabbed a sword at Eugen’s throat before the knight could rise, while Minhea pulled the weapon from Eugen’s hand. Kessler heard a sharp cry as Gerhard came rushing to his fellow knight’s aid, but Raban interposed his imposing bulk between the youth and his objective, the Nordlander’s powerful arms wrapping around the young knigh
t like the coils of a python.

  “Let me go!” snarled Eugen, his face purpling from Valdner’s attack. The demand fell on deaf ears, the mercenary’s expression remaining cold and fixed. “Those are men up there, damn you!” Eugen raged. “Men don’t leave men to be butchered by orcs!” That statement brought a twinge of unease to Anselm’s eyes. Kessler glanced back up the hill, a hint of guilt in his mind. Even Ottmar and Skanir showed a trace of doubt in their expressions. Captain Valdner remained resolute.

  “To Khaine’s hells with that scum,” Valdner swore. “These vermin killed the baron and would have done the same to us! I won’t lift a finger to help them and neither will you!” The sell-sword turned and faced Kessler. “I suggest we seize this opportunity: leave the orcs and the bandits to slaughter each other and use their battle to slip away. If the gods are with us, we’ll be long enough gone by the time their fight is finished. Whoever is left will have no easy time finding us again.”

  Kessler felt all eyes turn on him. He glanced once more at the hillside, watching the hulking orc warboss beating a bandit’s skull into mush against the side of a boulder. Against the hideous spectacle he weighed the memory of Ernst von Rabwald’s dead body lying in his arms and the burden of the duty he had been entrusted with. The fate of all Wissenland depended upon them.

  “The captain is right,” Kessler said and he could see the shock that swept through Eugen’s face. “Our mission is more important than antiquated notions of honour. Let these murdering curs fare as they will. They’ve certainly earned no pity from our quarter.” He looked again at the hillside where the fight was rapidly degenerating into a massacre.

  “Let’s just hope that scum can keep the orcs busy for a little while yet.” Icy hatred curdled within his breast and spite was in his voice as he said, “I’d hate to think they didn’t suffer on their way to Morr’s judgement.”