by Guy Haley
The river was long dry, the streams that fed it blocked by the actions of time or the dwarfs’ enemies, the natural columns and peaks of the stone smashed. The trough had become instead a dry ditch, the rusted remains of the machinery that had once tamed the river broken in the bed. But the walls were true, sheer dwarf masonry still flawlessly smooth, affording no purchase to the most skilful of skaven climbers, and so it still presented a formidable obstacle to invaders. For fifty years the Arch of Kings had aided Belegar in keeping the ways open between the citadel and the dwarf holdings in Kvinn-wyr. Additionally, it provided an easily defensible choke point to fall back to, should need arise. Now the dwarfs had been driven out of their halls in the White Lady, that need had arisen, and the ditch kept the enemy from coming any closer to the citadel from the mountain. The Arch of Kings was the key defence for the west.
Belegar’s enclave had erected a gatehouse on the eastern side of the riverbed, modest by the standards of their ancestors’ works, but sturdy enough. As the road descended from the apex of the bridge’s curve, it encountered thick gates of iron and steel that barred the way to the citadel. A wide parapet with heavy battlements hung over the road, overlooking the river beyond. The wall-walk was machiolated over the foot of the bridge, to allow objects to be dropped onto the heads of attackers. Similarly, murder holes pierced the stone of the gate’s archway before the gate and behind it. A portcullis was set behind the gate, behind that, another gate, and behind that was a regiment of ironbreakers, well versed in the arts of war and irritable with the lack of decent ale.
Ikit Claw’s weapons went there first.
‘Movement!’ called Thaggun Broadbrow, the lookout that fateful day. His fellow quarrellers immediately started on the windlasses of their crossbows, drawing back the strings. They were practised; their bows were drawn quickly and the sound of bolts slipping into firing tracks clacked up the battlement.
‘See,’ said one to another, ‘I always held that crossbows are better than guns. Where are the handgunners, eh? Out of powder, that’s where. Whereas me, my lad, will always have a missile to hurl, as long as there’s a stick and a knife to sharpen it with to hand.’
‘Aye, true that, Gron, too true.’ Gron’s companion tapped out his pipe on the wall and carefully stowed it before fitting his own bolt into his bowstock. ‘Always be able to send a couple of them away, no matter what the situation.’
‘Grim. That’s what it is, Hengi. Grim.’
‘Aye. Grim comments for grim times.’
‘Rat ogre!’ called the lookout. ‘Rat ogre...?’ Thaggun’s voice trailed away into astonished query.
Gron peered out into the dark. ‘Now what by the slave pits of the unmentionable kin is that?’
‘Big, that’s what,’ said Hengi, sighting down his weapon at the beast approaching.
Big didn’t cover it. This was the largest rat ogre any of them had ever seen, and being dwarfs oathsworn to defend Karak Eight Peaks to the bitter end, they’d seen more than their fair share of the things. This one was a head higher than the biggest, covered all over in iron and bronze armour. Grafted to each arm was a pair of warpfire throwers, the tanks feeding each thick with plating.
‘I don’t like the look of that,’ said someone. ‘Why isn’t it charging?’
‘Ah, who cares? We’ll have it down in a jiffy,’ said another.
‘Not before it goes crazy and kills half its own!’ said someone else.
But the rat ogre plodded forwards, showing none of the snarling, uncontainable antipathy its kind usually evidenced.
‘Quarrellers of the Grundtal clan! Ready your weapons!’ shouted Gron.
The clansdwarfs rested their weapons’ stocks on the battlements, secure in their position behind the thick stone.
‘Take aim,’ called Gron.
They each chose a point on the rat ogre.
‘Loose!’ said Gron, who would never be caught dead saying ‘fire’.
Artfully crafted steel bows snapped forwards on their stocks, sending bolts of metal and wood winging at the rat ogre, by now halfway across the bridge. A unit of skaven bearing the banners of Clan Rictus ran cautiously behind it.
Not one of the bolts hurt the creature. They hit all right, but clattered off its armour. A couple punched through or encountered weak spots and stuck in the creature’s flesh, but it was unaffected.
‘Reload! At it again!’ cried Gron. ‘You lot down there better be ready,’ he shouted through a hole to the gate’s ironbreaker guards.
Quickly the dwarfs wound back their bows and fitted fresh missiles. Again they fired, to similar effect. Several clanrats fell screaming from the bridge, felled by wayward bolts, but the rat ogre stomped along, blinkered by an eyeless helm. There was a smaller rat riding its back, Gron noted. The rat ogre’s arms came up to point brass nozzles at the gates.
‘Everyone down!’ yelled Gron.
With a whooshing roar more terrifying than dragon-breath, green-tinged fire belched from the rat ogre’s weapons. It washed against the gates and melted them like wax. Backwash shot up through the murder holes onto the parapet. Several quarrellers were hit this way, spattered by supernatural flames that would not go out. They screamed as the fire burned its way through cloth, armour, flesh and bone.
The sharp smell of molten metal hit Gron’s nose. The Axes of Clan Angrund below were shouting, orders to form up and sally forth echoing up. It did no good.
The warpfire throwers blazed again. The rat ogre held them in position for a long time, melting its way through the portcullis and the second gate. The stones warmed under Gron’s feet. Screaming came from below as the ironbreakers were engulfed. A terrible way to die – Gron had seen it before. They would be cooked alive in their armour, if not outright melted.
‘Bring it down, lads!’ he bellowed. ‘Get it away from the bridge!’ Doing so was suicidal, but this thing had to be stopped.
His warriors stood up and crossbow bolts rained down. At this close range they had greater penetrative effect, and the rat ogre roared in pain. It took a step back and raised its arms.
‘Down!’ shouted Gron, and once more the quarrellers hit the stone flags. The battlements could not save them. Green fire washed over and around them, setting the quarrellers ablaze. Gron felt the diabolical heat of it as a patch stuck to him, charring its way into the skin of his left arm. A gobbet of it hit his right thumb. He gritted his teeth; no one suffered like a dwarf. But try as he might, the agony was unbearable and he screamed.
The fire abated. His arm and hand no longer burned, but were useless. His left arm he could not feel at all aside from an awful warmth. His right hand was clawed and blackened. His dawi were all dead or mortally wounded. The stone of the parapets glowed red-hot, the crenels melted back to rotten-toothed stumps.
Hengi rolled onto his back, groaning.
‘Hengi! Hengi!’
‘My eyes… Gron, my eyes!’
Gron looked out. The rat ogre had moved aside. Skaven waited for the ruined gates to cool. He saw then that the rider of the rat ogre was nothing of the sort, but some hideous homunculus grafted to its flesh.
‘Hengi, Hengi, take my bow.’ He thrust his weapon at his blinded kinsman as best he could with his ruined limbs. Hengi’s hands were sound, but his upper face was a red raw mess, his eyes weeping thick fluids. Lesser creatures would have been howling in agony, but they were dawi. Pain could not master them. ‘They’ve something controlling the rat ogre, some creature of theirs. If we can kill it, we might be able to stop it.’
‘Shoot then,’ said Hengi, his voice thick with bottled pain.
‘I cannot, my arms are ruined. You will have to do it. Let me aim it for you, here!’
Gron guided Hengi to a crenel whose merlons were not red-hot, pushing him with his shoulders into the gap. The pair were hidden by the smoke of stone burning beneath them, allowing Hengi
to fumble the crossbow onto the wall. Gron got behind Hengi and sighted down it as best he could.
He squinted. ‘Left a touch. Up, up! No, down. Easy, Hengi. Now,’ he said.
The last discharge of a dwarf crossbow upon the King’s Archgate occurred, sending a bolt fast and true to bury itself in the wizened creature on the back of the rat ogre. The monster reacted immediately, shaking its head as if coming out of a drugged sleep.
It roared. Clanrats squeaked in fear. The warpfire throwers belched again and again, fired by the furious monster without thought. Gron looked on with satisfaction as the rat ogre spun round, setting the regiment alight. Presently its fuel ran out and the skaven brought down their wayward creature eventually, but only after one regiment of thaggoraki had been entirely destroyed, and three more fled.
Gron looked back over the dry river. The darkness was alive with movement and red eyes. As soon as the rat ogre was dead, they were on the move again.
He sank back against Hengi. Soon the skaven would be coming for them.
‘Let’s not let them take us alive, eh? Lad?’ said Gron. ‘You’ll have to go last, I can’t move my hands at all.’
Hengi nodded. His knife slid from his belt.
All along the third line of defence, similar things were happening. Rat ogres armed with ratling guns, upscaled poisoned wind mortars and other terrible weapons came against the dwarfs. One by one the gates fell, with such speed that the dwarfs of the Khrokk line had no time to prepare, and this too fell the same day.
The way was open to the citadel.
EIGHTEEN
A Gathering of Might
Duffskul hiccupped and waddled along the corridor to Skarsnik’s personal chambers in the Howlpeak. He hummed to himself as he went, trailing clouds of stinking shroomsmoke behind him. He was wearing his best wizarding hat – a once very bright yellow, now so grubby it was almost green – and a collection of charms that hummed with Waaagh! magic.
The little big ’uns and moonhats by Skarsnik’s chambers scrambled over themselves to open the doors.
‘A fine welcome, oh yus. You got the right respects for your betters, grotty boys,’ he said. They simpered gratefully at his praise.
In the corridor it was freezing; the constant winds whistling through the windows gave the mountain its goblin name and its hurty-bit biting temperatures. In Skarsnik’s rooms it was a different matter, swelteringly hot from the fire blazing in the hearth. Duffskul brought in a gust of sharp-smelling winter with him, but it was swiftly defeated, carried off by the vapours steaming from his robes in the sudden heat.
‘Duffskul, me old mate,’ said Skarsnik, looking up from his work. As usual papers tottered around him, and on many other desks too, to which he flitted as he worked. He wrinkled his eyes, holding a parchment at arm’s length.
‘Too much reading’s bad for you, boss, oh yus.’ Duffskul kicked old bones, rags and bottles out of the way as he made his way over to a sturdy dwarf chair near the fire. Gobbla lay asleep on the filthy rug before the flames, whiffling gently in his sleep.
‘Someone’s got to keep these zogging idiots in line,’ said Skarsnik. ‘Can’t do it if you’s not organised…’ His words trailed away as he deciphered whatever it was that he had written there.
‘I always said you was a funny little runt. Done us proud you have wiv all that thinking there in the old brain box.’ Duffskul rubbed his hands together in front of the fire and sighed contentedly. His heated robes gave off the most noxious smell. ‘Ooh, that’s nice, ooh, that’s very nice!’ He smacked his lips and pulled out his gourd of fungus beer. He sloshed it around disappointedly. ‘If only I had a little drinky to help meself really enjoy it.’
Skarsnik had gone back to his work, the enormous griffin quill in his hand scratching over his parchment.
‘Wanna drink? Help yourself,’ he said distractedly.
Duffskul didn’t need telling twice. He grabbed up the nearest bottle and uncorked it. ‘You is running low.’
‘And you is going to have to brew up a lot more fungus beer. And preferably stuff that don’t taste of old sock!’ said Skarsnik. ‘Precious few stunty barrels to nick, and none of the grapey goodstuff coming out the west these days, so don’t you go gulping it all. I needs me drinks to thinks,’ he said, and giggled quietly.
Duffskul guzzled anyway, glugging priceless Bretonnian wine right from the bottle until it had nearly all gone. ‘Ahh! Now that is better. Ooh, that is a lot better.’
‘Right. Now you is all nice and comfy, why don’t you tell me what you is doing here,’ said Skarsnik, finally looking up and laying down his quill. ‘I am a very busy goblin.’
‘Ain’t you just, ain’t you!’ giggled Duffskul.
‘Get to the point, you mad old git,’ said Skarsnik affectionately. Duffskul had been with him right from the very start, and had stuck with him when others had wandered off, turned traitor or inconsiderately died.
‘Well, we has questioned the ratty scouts.’
‘Yeah?’
‘And we has kept careful watch on their doings and all that, oh yus.’
‘Tolly’s boys?’
‘Best sneaks in the peaks,’ said Duffskul. ‘And I has been trying to speak with da Twin Gods! Gork and Mork, what you has visited and who is the mightiest greenies of them all.’
‘Right. And? Are the ratboys going to attack, then? They’ve got them stunties well bottled up. Only a matter of time before they make their move on me. When and where, that’s what I want to know, when and where.’
‘And you shall know, king of the mountains!’ Duffskul swivelled in the armchair, and leaned on its torn, overstuffed arm. ‘The rats are going to try and drive us out for good, starting with orctown in the old stunty city and da camps outside the walls.’
‘Right,’ said Skarsnik, who had expected as much. ‘East Gate?’
‘Drilla’s boys went to kick out the stunties yesterday. Empty. Well, it was – full of black orcs now.’
‘Hmm.’ Skarsnik drummed his fingers on the table. ‘Well, let’s ambush the little furry bleeders.’
‘They’ll be expecting that,’ said Duffskul.
‘Course they will! That Queek’s not an idiot, even if he is as mad as snot on one of your better madcap brews. But what he’s not gonna be expecting is a special ambush, and so I’s going to make it a very special ambush. He’ll definitely not expect that!’
‘Oh no, oh yus,’ said Duffskul.
‘The Waaagh!’s building, Duffskul, greenies coming to me from left right and centre.’ He paused, and looked down at his lists, running ink-stained fingers down the parchment. ‘I reckon I should meet with this Snaggla Grobspit. Drilla’s lads have already come over. Time to take that cheese-stealing maniac to task, don’t you fink?’
‘Oh yes, boss! Oh yes. Oh yus,’ said Duffskul, his eyes spinning madly in his face. ‘And I’ve got a cracking idea meself.’
‘Have you now?’ said Skarsnik. ‘Right then, tell me all about it, and we’ll figure out exactly what we is going to do…’
The paired skaven warpsteam engines at the gates of the Hall of a Thousand Pillars chuffed madly, whistling as they vented pressure to equalise their efforts. Masked Clan Skryre engineers looked out from the haphazardly armoured embrasures holding their machines, then scuttled back to their charges, fiddling with knobs and tossing levers. Satisfied that their pistons were synchronised, the tinker-rats blew whistles at one another, then set about yanking more levers into the correct positions to open the doors. The tone of the engine’s voices deepened as their gearing wheels thunked into position, engaging with the massive cogs that worked the door mechanisms. Huge gear chains twanged as they came under tension. Machinery hidden high in the roof of the Hall of a Thousand Pillars rattled, and the great gates of the underhalls of Karak Eight Peaks creaked open.
The skaven massed behind
the doors shrank back in terror of the sunlight. Few of them had ever been overground, and the prospect of a world without a roof sent a chitter of nervousness through their ranks.
‘Hold-hold!’ their masters ordered, cracking whips and punching the most timid.
The gates crushed rubble and other detritus to powder as they opened. Ponderous but unstoppable, they were one hundred feet tall. The tired sun picked out their decoration as they swung inwards, the runes and clan marks of the beard-things that made them still fresh as the day they had been carved.
‘Forward!’
The first claws of skaven scurry-marched up the ramp leading into the surface city.
All around Karak Eight Peaks, skaven emerged blinking and terrified into the sunlight, pale though it had been made by the choking ejecta of the world’s volcanoes and the endless, uncanny storm that wracked the skies. At the fore of the warriors emerging from the Hall of a Thousand Pillars into the surface city went Ikk Hackflay, a rising star in Queek’s entourage. He was a logical replacement for Thaxx and Skrikk, whose heads now graced the Grand Warlord’s trophy room.
From the skaven-held mountains, more warriors emerged. Four of Queek’s five clawpacks. Reduced by months of war, they still numbered in the tens of thousands. Over one hundred thousand warriors marched forth. Every column flinched as it walked out into the day, and not just for the frightening lack of a ceiling. They all expected to be ambushed as they came out, no matter how well hidden or supposedly secret their burrows were.
They were not ambushed. The immediate fighting they had planned for never came. They surfaced instead to a ghost town. The thickly packed orc-shacks and tents in the city were empty, as were the encampments in the weed-choked farmland beyond the city walls.