by Various
Then, above the rumble, he heard a roar. Not the shrill howling of ghouls, but a deeper, angrier sound.
‘Retreat to the door!’ called Engineer Migrunsson. ‘Something’s coming from the mines!’
Felix gutted another ghoul and stole a look back towards the great square portal of the minehead, beyond which a broad ramp descended into darkness – except the ramp was no longer dark. Fire moved in its depths now, and huge shadows loomed on its bare rock walls.
Henrik groaned. ‘Sigmar’s balls, one thing at a time!’
His prayer, if prayer it was, was not answered. As the dwarfs began an orderly retreat towards the door, up from the ramp poured a flood of armoured green brutes, all howling a savage battle cry.
6
‘Waaagh!’
Two score orcs charged for the dwarfs in a foaming, yellow-eyed rage, huge cleavers and crude axes swinging from fists bigger than Felix’s head. The ghouls scattered before them, shrieking in terror, as the dwarfs continued to retreat to the door. The Slayers, however, answered the greenskins’ roar with one of their own, and chopped through the fleeing ghouls to meet them.
A massive monster with a crude helmet that seemed to have been nailed to his head broke from the pack and smashed down at them with a mace like a beer keg stuck on the end of a fence post. They dodged aside as it shattered the flagstones, and Agnar hewed at its elbow, splintering the bone. Gotrek leapt onto its forward leg and buried his rune axe in its skull, splitting its spiked helm and its face. The orc toppled backwards, dead, and Gotrek leapt from its falling body into the mob, slashing around in a frenzy. Agnar fell in beside him, matching him stroke for stroke and seeming no worse for the constant stream of drink he had poured into himself.
After that there was no time for Felix to look to anything but his own survival. More than half the orcs had swept past the Slayers, and Felix, Henrik and Migrunsson’s dwarfs only had a second to form up in the door before they ploughed into their line like a green avalanche.
Felix ducked a swipe by a cleaver and stabbed the orc who wielded it with Karaghul, but the weight and momentum of the hulking savage drove him back into the hall until he crashed into the wheel of the gun carriage behind him. To either side of him it was the same. Henrik was flat on his back, an orc careening past him with its guts looping to the floor. Migrunsson was pressed against the muzzle of the gun, exchanging blows with an orc more than twice his height. Two of his dwarfs were dead, cut down and trampled under heavy, steel-shod boots.
Nevertheless, the line held. When the orcs’ impetus ran out, the dwarfs were still standing, and still fighting, while the Thunderers atop the first cannon fired into the faces of the orcs, sending them reeling back with shattered jaws and burst eyes.
Felix knocked aside a cleaver that would have split Henrik in two and hauled him to his feet.
‘Much obliged,’ Henrik gasped, and impaled the neck of an orc that was aiming for Felix.
‘Likewise,’ said Felix.
He cut the legs out from under the orc that Henrik had spitted, but as he spun to slash at the next, he heard the crack of a gun from inside the minehead chamber. He would have mistaken it for an echo from the dwarfs’ muskets, except that he saw, through the orcs’ flailing limbs, Gotrek stagger, and a blossom of blood appear on his broad left shoulder.
Felix choked in surprise as the slayer recovered and fought on. Someone had shot Gotrek! But who? Orcs didn’t use guns. Felix tried to see further into the minehead chamber, but the row of brawling monsters blocked his view.
‘Curse you! Let me by!’
In a panic, Felix fought forward, stepping out from the dwarf lines and driving back the orcs before him. He chopped through the fingers of one, then shattered its knees as its cleaver fell from its stumps. He hacked open the skull of another that had taken a dwarf musket ball to the shoulder.
‘You madman,’ called Henrik. ‘You’re exposing your flanks!’
‘Someone’s shooting at the slayers!’
As the next orc fell, Felix was afraid he would see Gotrek and Agnar with their heads blown off, but they were still fighting back to back in the centre of a dozen roaring greenskins, with a dozen more sprawled across the floor amongst the white corpses of the ghouls the slayers had slain before.
Another shot came, and one of the orcs fighting Agnar stumbled, howling. Felix turned at the muzzle flash, an afterimage of a spindly, kneeling figure holding a long-barrelled gun etched into the backs of his eyes. The shot had come from the mine shaft. He tried to see into it, but it was too dark.
‘Engineer Migrunsson!’ he called. ‘Someone’s shooting from the minehead.’
Migrunsson looked, and apparently saw the gunner.
‘Thunderers!’ he barked. ‘The minehead! Get that shooter!’
Two of the Thunderers turned from blasting the orc line and fired on the ramp. Felix could not see the result, but they must have struck true, for no more shots came from the darkness.
Another dwarf fell at the line, his chest caved in by an orc axe, and the greenskins pressed for the gap. Three Thunderers jumped down to fill it, swinging their gun butts, but one died before his feet touched the ground, and the other two were driven back into the cannon.
‘Close up!’ called Migrunsson. ‘Keep them out!’
An orc broke through the line and leaped onto the gun to smash the rest of the Thunderers. Felix thought it was the end, but just as the greenskins cut down the closest gunner, a high shrieking shivered the air and the ghouls, their courage restored, flooded back into the chamber, howling for vengeance.
They fell upon the orcs first, and their interference ended the battle. Attacked from front and back, the orcs quickly fell to the slayers’ axes and the steady murder of Migrunsson’s line. Sadly, the thanks the ghouls received for this timely intervention was their extinction. With the orcs dead, Felix, Henrik and the dwarfs fell upon them and slaughtered them all. Even those that turned and fled were shot down by the Thunderers before they reached the doors.
As the dwarfs saw to their dead and Migrunssun called for the surgeon, Felix and Henrik looked to the slayers. Agnar was on one knee, catching his breath and drinking from his canteen, while Gotrek was examining his shoulder wound, one of many he had received in the fight.
Henrik shook his head. ‘Your Gotrek certainly slays his share, doesn’t he? And then some.’
Felix glanced at him. It seemed an odd thing to say. ‘He likes to fight, yes. As does Agnar, I see.’
‘A bit,’ said Henrik, then crossed to the old slayer. ‘Another doom missed, Agnar. I’m sorry. Have a drink?’
Felix frowned after him for a moment then joined Gotrek. ‘How bad is it?’
Gotrek shrugged. ‘It passed through.’
‘Did you see the gunner?’ asked Henrik, looking uneasily towards the mine shaft.
‘I saw him fall,’ said Agnar.
He stood and started for the ramp. Gotrek, Felix and Henrik followed him. There was no body, but Gotrek found a spatter of blood on the stones, and then a trail of drops that went down into the darkness.
‘Who do you think it was?’ asked Henrik. ‘Or what?’
Felix frowned and sniffed around the area where the blood drops were thickest. He couldn’t smell anything. The reek of ghouls was too overpowering. Still…
‘I only saw a silhouette,’ he said. ‘But something about it…’ He shrugged. ‘It didn’t look human to me.’
‘An orc?’ asked Agnar, incredulous. ‘A ghoul? They don’t use guns.’
Felix shook his head. ‘It was skinnier than that, and smaller, except for its head. I think it might have been–’
‘A skaven,’ said Gotrek.
Henrik laughed. ‘A skaven? Ridiculous.’
Felix turned to him, raising an eyebrow. ‘You don’t believe in them?’
Henrik gave Agnar an amused roll of the eyes.
‘Oh no,’ said the rememberer. ‘We’ve proof of their existence carved upon us. I can sh
ow you the scars. I only meant it is ridiculous that skaven would be helping orcs.’
‘You think it was human, then?’ asked Felix. ‘Would that be any less ridiculous?’
‘Not all humans love dwarfs,’ said Henrik. ‘Perhaps it was a servant of the Ruinous Powers, causing chaos where he might.’
Felix nodded. That made more sense than a skaven assassin, if only slightly, though it didn’t explain how the shooter had come to be there. Was he following the orcs? Was he their ally?
‘We should go after it and find out,’ said Agnar, looking down the dark ramp.
Gotrek grunted agreement, but Henrik looked askance.
‘We’ve agreed to help Migrunsson. We can’t leave him now. He’s lost five dwarfs.’
The slayers nodded reluctantly and started back up to the chamber, but as Felix fell in with Gotrek he saw Henrik hold Agnar back and begin speaking to him in low tones. The old slayer’s brow lowered as he listened, and he scratched his beard and frowned after Gotrek. Felix wondered what Henrik was saying, and was going to mention it to Gotrek, but just then Migrunsson and the surviving cannon crews appeared at the top of the ramp, rolling blackpowder barrels and resting pickaxes on their shoulders.
‘Well fought, slayers,’ said the engineer, as they started down the ramp. ‘Your prowess saved us, and the cannons.’ He gestured back to the chamber. ‘Rest while we set the charges and place the guns. We should be on our way to the second spot in an hour or so.’
‘Thank you, Engineer Migrunsson,’ said Felix, then looked back at Henrik and Agnar. Whatever they had been talking about, they were done now, and Henrik gave him a cheery smile. Felix smiled back reflexively, then continued up the ramp into the chamber, unsettled without knowing why.
7
The slayers did not rest. After allowing themselves to be patched up by the dwarf field surgeon, they went to help the cannon crews get the cannons up the stairs and into the enclosed firing platform, but they did not work together. When Gotrek joined one crew, Agnar joined the other. When Gotrek asked Agnar to pass him a pry bar, Agnar did it without looking Gotrek in the face, and answered him in monosyllabic grunts.
Felix would have taken this for typical dwarfish terseness, but for the fact that he had seen the slayers conversing together before, and they had been practically chatty then. Gotrek seemed to notice this new tension as well, but being a dwarf, he made no mention of it, merely grunted in turn and got on with his work.
The stairs to the gun emplacement were wide, but the door was narrow, so the cannons needed to be dismantled and carried through it a piece at a time – first the barrel, then the wheels and pieces of the gun carriage – before being reassembled within. Also, the gun ports had been sealed up at the same time as the archway below, so they had to be reopened to make room for the barrels of the cannons. Felix helped with this, swinging a mattock to knock the bricks loose, then took the opportunity to look through one into the Great Hall of the Jewellers’ Guild, which was Thane Thorgrin’s chosen field of battle.
By the bright glow of the tall work-lamps that shone above the engineers and dwarf troops who were preparing the ground, Felix could see that the guild hall was an enormous room, handsomely decorated in the monumental dwarf style. Towering statues of dwarfs in guild vestments held up an arched roof that stretched over an open floor that looked to Felix to be as big as the Reikplatz in Nuln. It was longer going north and south than it was east and west, with large archways in the narrow ends. Felix saw teams of dwarfs preparing supplies and chalking off the dwarf lines at the north end of the hall, while other cannon crews placed guns on a balcony above the north arch.
Migrunsson mopped his gleaming scalp with his kerchief and leaned in the gun port next to Felix, pointing to the arch in the south wall. ‘Thane Thorgrin’s plan is that we close off all paths into the hall except that one. If the greenskins want battle, they will have to come through there – straight into those guns there. We’ll leave them no way to flank us or sneak around behind.’
‘And from here you’ll be able to shoot into their sides as they charge,’ said Felix.
‘Aye,’ said the engineer, grinning. ‘It’ll be a slaughter.’ He pushed away from the port. ‘But first we have to finish closing off the other paths.’
He gave Felix a friendly salute, then went to supervise the second team of dwarfs who were busy setting charges in the walls of the mineshaft.
Less than an hour later, they were ready to light the fuses. The dwarfs moved the carts and ponies well up into the passage to the north of the minehead chamber, playing out matchcord as they went, then, when everyone was clear, Migrunsson took up the fuses and bowed his head.
‘It’s a sad day when a dwarf must destroy the works of his fathers,’ he said. ‘But to save the body, sometimes a limb must be severed. Forgive us, ancestors, for this necessary sin.’
And with that, he touched flame to the fuse ends. Felix and the others watched them hiss and spark down the corridor.
Felix tensed as he saw the flames vanish into the minehead chamber, waiting for the roof to come down on his head, but the blasts, when they came, were surprisingly small – a quartet of heel-jarring thumps and a billow of smoke and flame that dissipated as it entered the passage.
Henrik looked up and took his fingers from his ears. ‘That’s it? Did all the charges go–’
A heavy rumble interrupted him, growing louder and shaking dust and pebbles from the ceiling, before tailing away again. Now a much thicker cloud billowed into the passage and rolled their way. Henrik blinked.
Migrunsson smirked. ‘A true engineer knows it isn’t the size of the blast, but the placement of the charges.’ He pulled his kerchief up over his nose and started forward into the dust. ‘It’s done, I think. But best go back and have a look.’
The minehead chamber was entirely covered in a thin coating of grey granite powder. The corpses of the orcs and ghouls looked like stone statues of themselves, and the geometric designs on the floor were completely hidden. The mineshaft portal was still there. Indeed it had been blown wider and taller, and for a moment, Felix thought the dwarfs had failed, but then he saw that all the rock that had fallen from the ceiling and walls had tumbled down into the slanting shaft, choking it completely. It would take days to remove all the rubble, particularly if one were working from below.
Migrunsson nodded sadly as he examined the cave-in, then turned back to the north corridor. ‘Well done, lads. On to the next.’
The next was a bridge.
Migrunsson led them down two levels to a wide natural chasm that cut east and west for as far as Felix could see – admittedly not very far – and dropped away to a glowing red line far below. An oven-hot updraft rose from it that had them all sweating in moments. The bridge that spanned the chasm was wide and solid, with statues of dwarf ancestors holding lamps set at regular intervals along its length, and stretched from an archway cut into the north side of the chasm to another arch in the south side.
Looking up, Felix could faintly see more archways in the sides of the rift, and the broken remains of other bridges, all fallen away, before the heights of the chasm swallowed them in darkness.
‘This one’s a bit trickier,’ said Migrunsson. ‘It would be easy enough to blow it up and be done with it, but…’ He grinned. ‘I’d rather take a few score greenskins with it, so we’ll weaken it instead – and let them find out it’s broken when they’re falling towards the lava.’
Gotrek chuckled approvingly. Agnar seemed about to do the same, but then shot a look at Gotrek and only grunted.
‘What do you want us to do?’ asked Felix.
Migrunsson pointed to the south end of the bridge. ‘Guard that arch. We don’t want any greenskins discovering the surprise before it’s ready.’
Henrik swallowed. ‘Er, you’re going to weaken the bridge, then ask us to walk back across it when you’re done?’
Migrunsson laughed. ‘The four of you could jump up and down on it fro
m here to Valdazet and it wouldn’t fall. It will take all the weight and stomping of a greenskin warband on the march to shake it down.’
Henrik nodded, but did not look entirely convinced. Nevertheless, he went with Gotrek, Agnar and Felix to guard the end of the bridge.
Though there was nothing to do but stand around while the dwarfs worked, Felix found it impossible to relax. The heat from the lava made him sweat inside his chainmail, and the thought of invisible assassins firing on them or orcs raging out of the darkness made the space between his shoulder blades itch as if someone had carved a target there with a poisoned thorn. For more than an hour, he did nothing but pace and check his weapons and watch Migrunsson and his crew don harnesses and drop over the sides of the bridge to chip away at the network of stone supports that made up its understructure.
Gotrek seemed entirely absorbed with the process, watching with arms folded and single eye intent. Agnar watched too – though he stood as far from Gotrek as he could manage – but Henrik soon grew bored, and once again began to sing his repetitive little melody while staring into the darkness of the tunnel.
Felix ground his teeth and tried to shut out the tune, but Gotrek was not so polite.
‘Do you have do to that?’ he asked over his shoulder.
Henrik sniffed. ‘I only do it when I’m nervous.’
‘So, all the time then,’ said Gotrek, and turned back to watching the engineers.
‘You’ll take that back, Gotrek Gurnisson,’ said Agnar, glaring at him.
‘Take what back?’
Felix turned, wary. Now what?
‘No one insults my rememberer,’ growled Agnar. His voice was slurring a little with drink and anger. ‘Particularly not an underhanded doom-stealer like you, Gurnisson.’
Gotrek raised an eyebrow. ‘I’ve stolen no doom.’
‘You have!’ Agnar stepped towards the slayer. ‘You interfered with my fight. You killed greenskins that might have killed me. I saw you! Henrik saw you!’
‘I killed every greenskin I could reach,’ said Gotrek. ‘You did the same. What of it?’