01 - Valnir’s Bane

by Nathan Long - (ebook by Undead)

  Stymied by this simple manoeuvre, the orcs began hurling things at the Kurgan from a distance. There were very few rocks in the smooth tunnels, so they threw severed heads and limbs and entire bodies, both marauder and orc, then followed up this bombardment with charges. But though flying orc carcasses flattened more than a few Kurgan, the northers were prepared for the charges now, and their skill and the reach of their axes began to turn the tide.

  A few more squads of orcs spilled out of the side tunnels and joined the fray, but the Kurgan held their own until a further detachment of marauders came howling down the tunnel. They plowed into the fray like a battering ram, and the orcs quickly lost any stomach for the fight. They scattered into side tunnels like rats fleeing a terrier, leaving their wounded to the tender mercies of the marauders.

  Reiner and his men shrunk back, prepared to flee if any of the orcs came their way. None did. Nor did the Kurgan, who didn’t bother to pursue their attackers. Instead, they slaughtered the wounded orcs, stripped the bodies of weapons and armour, and marched back toward the main column.

  “Men,” said Reiner, letting out a long held breath, “I think we’re back on track.”

  The men started forward at an easy pace, following the sounds of the receding Kurgan.

  They tailed the warband at a cautious distance until they stopped to make camp. Reiner backed up the tunnel for more than half a league before he felt it safe enough to bed down. He wanted to be well clear of any pickets the marauders might set around their perimeter. The night—if it was night, for there was no telling in the sunless tunnels—passed without incident, and when they woke to the sound of the Kurgan preparing to march again, they did the same, more refreshed than they had been since they entered the endless underworld.

  Reiner spooned another dose of poppy into Oskar as they got under way. He hoped that they were nearing the end of the tunnels, for the supply was running low.

  As they travelled, side tunnels and doors began to become more numerous, until the underworld felt less like a system of tunnels and more like the halls and rooms of a castle, or the streets and avenues of a city, the chambers between them houses and tenements. More frequent, as well, were the steep ramps that led to higher levels.

  “Whoever built these tunnels,” said Reiner, as they looked around them in wonder, “this was their Altdorf.”

  “Maybe this is Altdorf,” said Oskar dreamily. “Maybe we are under Karl Franz Strasse and nearly home.”

  Hals snorted. “Don’t be daft, lad. We haven’t travelled near that far.”

  “It feels like we’ve half crossed the world,” said Franka with feeling.

  “Shhhh, all you,” said Giano, flapping a hand. “I think they stopping again.”

  The company stopped and listened, trying to determine by sound alone what was happening. At this distance it was difficult. They could hear orders being shouted and the sound of great bustle and activity, but a new sound, a deep booming howl that sounded like wind in a canyon, drowned out all the details.

  “We’ll have to reconnoitre,” said Reiner. “Maybe we can use the upper levels to spy down on them. Giano, come with me.” Franka gave him another dirty look, but there was nothing she could say.

  Reiner and Giano climbed a nearby ramp and began to weave their way through a warren of tunnels, galleries and chambers. They passed rooms, and suites of rooms, that had at one time had low wooden doors, but these had long ago been smashed in, and the contents, whatever they might have been, stolen away. At each turning they listened to be sure that the sound of the Kurgan was coming from ahead of them, then crept on.

  At last, after climbing to a third level, they turned a corner and torchlight and noise welled out of a round opening before them. Giano motioned for Reiner to drop to his hands and knees and they crawled to the entrance. It opened out onto a wide tier that ringed an enormous circular chamber. There were tiers above and below them, set back like seats in an amphitheatre, with the same steep ramps connecting them at regular intervals. The walls of the tiers were riddled with round holes, most of which led into small rooms, though whether they had been storerooms or dwellings Reiner could not begin to guess.

  The floor of the chamber was entirely filled by the Chaos war-band, who were crowded together so tightly they hardly had room to turn around. Most were sitting on their packs, or eating quick meals. The cannon squatted in the middle of them like some bird of prey surrounded by her brood. Reiner edged to the lip of the tier and looked right and left. To the right was the entrance to the chamber, a large black arch into which the tail of the Kurgan column disappeared. These men too sat where they had stopped, waiting with the resignation of soldiers everywhere. To the left was the reason for the wait and the source of the booming sound Reiner and his companions had been hearing since the halt.

  It was a wide, swift river, its channel slicing through the left wall of the huge chamber at a shallow angle like a sword cutting through the top of a skull. The rushing current roared like a dragon, crashing against the broken piers of a ruined stone bridge with such force that permanent bow waves rose up around them in great white ruffles. A heavy but clumsily built wooden bridge had been constructed upon these ruins, and it was this that had brought the march to a halt. It was only wide enough to allow three men to march abreast.

  A massively armoured warrior was calling the various captains and chieftains forward to lead their squads over the bridge one at a time, while bawling overseers directed slaves as they began pushing and turning the cannon in order to bring it into line.

  Reiner groaned as he eyed the narrow crossing. He could see no other way across the river. “I believe we have at last found Gustaf’s ‘obstacle’.”

  FIFTEEN

  Breastplates Won’t Be Enough To Save Us

  “We have two options, as I see it,” said Reiner when he and Giano returned to the others and gave them the news. “We can look for other ways to cross the river, or we can wait at the back of the queue and follow the Kurgan over once they’ve gone.”

  “I ain’t keen on waiting,” said Hals. “What’s to stop another column coming up behind us and catching us in the middle again?”

  “We mustn’t wait,” said Ulf. “If we are to reach Count Manfred in time to warm him of the Kurgans’ coming, we must get out before they do.”

  “I don’t know if that’s entirely possible,” said Reiner. “Seeing as they are crossing already, but the sooner the better, as you say.”

  “Did not Gustaf say he knew a way around?” asked Oskar, worriedly.

  “Aye,” said Hals, giving Franka a significant look. “But Gustaf is dead.”

  “We can only hope we come across it as we search,” said Reiner hurriedly. “We’ll split into two squads and search east and west of the bridge for another way across, then meet back here when we’re done. Giano, take Pavel and Oskar west. I’ll take Franz and Ulf. Hals, you stay here. If any more Chaos troops come through move one level up. We’ll find you there.”

  “Aye, captain,” said Hals.

  The others split off into left and right passages, leaving him alone.

  Reiner, Franka and Ulf gave the river chamber a wide berth, travelling east as far as the warren of tunnels would allow, then moving south to find the river. It was easy to find. Its roaring filled the tunnels, and they used the noise and the wet wind that accompanied it as a compass. After a short while they found a tunnel that seemed to parallel it. They could feel the current vibrating the left wall. The tunnel began to descend gradually and soon they were splashing through shallow water.

  About thirty paces ahead a hole had been worn through the wall by the constant abrasion of the water. Reiner could see the river through it, and a brackish backwater filled the tunnel to knee height just inside it. More water lapped in and out constantly with each cresting swell.

  Reiner and the others waded down to the hole and looked through. Reiner winced as the fiercely cold water topped his boots and trickled down his calve
s. There was little to see. The river rushed out of darkness on the left and into darkness on the right. There was no sign of a bridge.

  They moved on, winding though tunnels and galleries, tall chambers, and passages through which they had to crawl on hands and knees. There were many openings to the river, some intentional, some, like the first they had encountered, mere erosion, but no bridge. They found once the remains of one—a spur of rock that jutted out only a few steps over the river. There was another spur on the opposite side, and a tunnel mouth, beckoning invitingly.

  “Can we bridge it?” Reiner asked Ulf. “If we found some timber?”

  Ulf shook his head. “No, captain. The river is too wide and too fast. We would need two tall trees and a pier in the centre to span it.”

  “All right. Let’s try further on.”

  But there was nothing. Closer to the main chamber, they found the first of a series of narrow landings—built out into the water at the bottom of stone ramps—but these didn’t reach far enough to be of any use. There were a few on the opposite side as well. Some of them had stone pilings that jutted up like crocodile teeth along the water’s edge.

  At last they could go no further. The last landing they discovered was so close to the main chamber that they could see part of the bridge from it, and hear the bellowing of the Kurgan over the rush of the water.

  Ulf squinted at the rebuilt bridge with a critical eye. “Orc work,” he said with a sniff. “Shoddy construction. The biggest bits of timber they can find, and string to hold it together. Surprised it’s still standing.”

  Reiner shrugged. “Maybe they’ll all fall in.” He turned back the way they had come. “Let’s get back and see if the others have found anything.”

  Ulf followed, but Franka continued to stare at the bridge. “I don’t suppose we could float down to it from here, then cross underneath it through all those beams.”

  “What?” said Reiner, turning back. He smirked. “Well, you could, I suppose, if you didn’t get swept away by the current, but then where would you be? Trapped under the bridge on the far side with the Kurgan marching over your head. And soaking wet to boot.”

  “Aye,” agreed Franka. “But what if there was another landing on the other side, downstream from the bridge?”

  “You would still be swept away,” said Reiner.

  “Not if you used ropes,” said Ulf, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “Yes. If we did it in stages, it might work.”

  Reiner scowled, thinking of the cold water in his boots and imagining immersing himself entirely in it. He sighed. “Let’s see if the others have found a more civilized crossing.”

  They hadn’t. All paths stopped at the river.

  “But,” said Pavel, when Franka had mentioned her floating-down-the-river plan, “there was a landing on the far side of the river, now that you mention it. About thirty paces below it.”

  “Fifty-five feet,” said Oskar sleepily. “Give or take a foot.”

  Everybody turned to stare at him.

  “Can you truly be so precise?” asked Reiner.

  Oskar shrugged. “It is my curse.”

  “The landing above the bridge is roughly the same distance,” said Ulf. “Perhaps a little closer.”

  They moved away from the main tunnel into the criss-cross of side passages and measured out all the rope they had. Some of them had lost theirs in all the running and falling and hiding, but among them they had more than a hundred and fifty feet.

  Ulf nodded, satisfied. “This may work.”

  Reiner though it was the first time he had seen the big man happy.

  Once they had worked out who would do what and how, they made their way through the twists and turns of the city of tunnels until they reached the river again.

  Reiner and the others eyed the water with trepidation. Talking about jumping into it was one thing, the reality was quite another. It was terrifyingly swift and sure to be colder than glacier ice. Visions of smashing into the granite piers at full speed filled Reiner’s head, and from the shivers and swallows of the others they were having similar thoughts.

  “I can’t swim,” said Hals, anxiously.

  “Nor can I,” said Pavel.

  “There will be no swimming involved,” said Ulf, tying the longest length of rope around a stone piling. “The current will carry you faster than you could swim anyway.”

  “What you must do,” said Reiner, dreading it himself even as he did his best to make it sound easy “is hold your breath and try to stay underwater until you are beneath the bridge. We don’t want some dirt-eater looking over and seeing us floundering about.”

  “We shall have to leave our breastplates behind,” said Ulf, “or we will sink like stones.”

  “Leave our breastplates!” cried Hals. “Are you mad? What if we have to fight the Kurgan?”

  “If we find ourselves fighting the Kurgan,” said Reiner, “breastplates won’t be enough to save us.”

  Ulf looked toward the bridge again, paying out rope, then turned to Oskar. “Gunner, how far to the bridge?”

  Oskar was examining a hole in his jerkin with an all-consuming interest.

  “Oskar,” said Reiner. “Oskar, wake up, lad. How far is it to the bridge?”

  Oskar looked up, blinking, then squinted at the bridge. “Forty-seven feet. I’d like another sip from the bottle, please.”

  “When we reach the far shore,” said Reiner.

  Ulf paid out forty-seven feet of rope, using his enormous boot as a measure. “Too little and we won’t reach the bridge,” he said. “Too much and we’ll bash our heads in.”

  Reiner swallowed thickly, “Then I better go first, as I have the thickest head.” He wanted to go last, but it was expected of the leader that he lead.

  Ulf tied the rope around Reiner’s waist. “Don’t gasp as you come up,” he said. “They may hear.”

  “Why not tie a stone to my feet and knock me senseless,” snarled Reiner. “They’d never see me then.”

  Ulf looked as if he was considering it.

  Reiner turned and sat on the edge of the stone pier. He took a deep breath, and then another. He realised that no amount of deep breaths was going to prepare him, so with a sigh he began to lower himself into the river.

  The shock of the cold water almost made him scream, and the strength of the current pulled at his legs so fiercely that what he had meant to be a silent graceful slide became a clumsy plop as he was yanked away from the landing by the rushing water. There was no difficulty in staying underwater. The river pulled him down like a lover. He could see nothing—feel nothing but cold and the pummelling power of the current. But almost as soon as the journey had begun it was over. He jolted to a stop, face down, the rope pulling tight around his waist, and the river knocking him back and forth like a kite in a high wind. He stretched out his arms, feeling for the pier.

  It was almost impossible to push against the current, to hold his arm out to his side. If he relaxed at all his arms snapped above his head. His lungs were burning, exploding, desperate to take a breath. At last his left hand touched stone and he pulled himself toward the pier.

  His head broke water and he remembered at the last moment not to gasp, inhaling slowly instead, though he longed to suck in air in great gulps. The granite pier rose only a few feet out of the water. He climbed onto its crumbling top and clung, shivering and weak, to the wooden understructure of the orc bridge.

  He looked up, listening for some sign that he had been spotted, but heard nothing except the endless tread of Kurgan boots passing overhead. He was so cold he could barely feel his fingers. When he had recovered himself somewhat he untied the rope, gave it a sharp tug, and let it slip back into the water. He watched it slither away into the shadows like a snake on the rolling surface of the water.

  After what seemed to him to be an endless wait, in which he became convinced that the rest of the party had been discovered and slaughtered and that he was stuck on this pier alone, surrounded by Kurga
n in an endless underworld, Oskar broke the water an arm’s length from the pier. He was remarkably calm, and Reiner pulled him in with no trouble.

  “All right, Oskar?” he whispered.

  “Oh yes,” said Oskar, wiping water from his eyes. “I have no fear of water. I was raised near a lake. It is remarkably cold, though. I might just have a little sip, to keep the chill away.”

  “This is not yet the other side.”

  They sent the rope back and were joined in turn by Franka, Pavel, Hals and Giano and lastly Ulf. Everyone made their landing quietly except Hals, who cried out in pain because the rope had twisted around his broken leg and wrenched it when he stopped short. Pavel clapped a hand over his friend’s mouth until he had recovered himself and everyone looked up, waiting for a horned helmet to peer down at them. Fortunately the roar of the rushing water was loud enough to cover incidental noises.

  When at last Ulf arrived and had untied himself, he pried a piece of crumbling rock from the pier and fixed it to the end of the rope so that it would sink and not betray their presence by floating on the surface.

  “First part accomplished,” said Reiner, relieved. “Now for the far wall.”

  In a drier environment, those of the party who had a full complement of working limbs would have had little trouble navigating the understructure of the bridge, for the logs were wide and numerous. Unfortunately, the wood had not been seasoned or treated in any way—and was in fact just fresh-cut trees, with sap still oozing from the cut ends—and was slimy with moss and algae, so each step had to be carefully made. In places the logs were so poorly joined—tied together with rope rather than pinned with nails or dowels—that they shifted when weight was put on them. It reminded Reiner of a time when he had been fooling about in the apple trees of his father’s orchard after a spring rain and sprained his wrist when he lost his footing. For Hals, with his broken leg, and Oskar with his broken arm, the journey was impossible unassisted. They had to be helped every step of the way. Pavel looked after Hals as usual, and Reiner stayed at Oskar’s side, bracing him and taking his hand when he needed it. There were a few near disastrous slips, but at last they all reached the far wall and sat or leaned on the slick logs, catching their breath.