03 - Thanquol's Doom

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

  Ikit Claw recognised his enemy as well, locking eyes with Klarak across the immense sprawl of the hall. Hatred burned in the skaven’s gaze, his scarred lips peeling back to expose his fangs. Uttering a sharp snarl, the Chief Warlock gestured with the halberd he carried. In response, the skaven troops gave voice to a savage cry. The next moment, the entire horde was swarming over the smelthall, converging upon the few clutches of defenders still standing.

  Klarak grinned back at Ikit Claw. Reaching to his belt, the engineer drew a fat-mouthed pistol. He saw the Chief Warlock instinctively flinch as the dwarf’s weapon came free of its holster. A coward like all of his breed, Klarak thought, though he doubted any bullet could pierce the iron skin the ratman had forged for himself. It didn’t matter, the shot within his dragonbelcher wasn’t for the Claw.

  “Now!” Klarak roared, holding his pistol high and squeezing the trigger. A flare of fire exploded from the weapon, streaking high into the vastness of the smelthall before bursting in a violent flare of brilliant light. The most craven of the ratkin shrieked in fear at the sudden illumination. A moment later they had something to really fear.

  From hiding places on the catwalks and gangways, scores of dwarfs appeared. Each of the hidden warriors bore a heavy crossbow or long-barrelled handgun. Mixed among them were fat-bellied engineers carrying heavy satchels filled with iron-skinned bombs. Guildmaster Thori had not approved of Klarak’s trap, but his disagreement had been overruled by King Logan, forcing the Engineers’ Guild to cooperate with their rebellious colleague. Whatever their feelings, however, the engineers would play their part in the coming battle.

  Throughout the smelthall, the tops of the camouflaged slag pits were thrown back and dozens of armoured dwarf warriors burst onto the scene. The onrushing skaven recoiled as they saw the grim-faced dwarfs suddenly appear, their superstitious minds finding the manifestation as inexplicable as the conjuration of a sorcerer. The snarling clanrats faltered, no longer quite so eager to come to grips with their enemies. Happy to ply their swords in a massacre, they were less thrilled about engaging in a real fight.

  First blood was still struck by the skaven. Snapping orders to the ratmen closest to him, Ikit Claw knew the only way to stir the quailing courage of his troops was to get the smell of blood in the air. Fiercely, the Chief Warlock raised his halberd overhead, pointing it at the armed dwarfs above. Energy crackled about the blade of the ratman’s weapon, soaking up the light all around it. A bolt of dark lightning shot from the blade, hitting the iron walkway above.

  Storm Daemon, the Chief Warlock had named his weapon, endowing it with a hideous magic and then augmenting its destructive powers with a warp generator fitted just below the blade. The black lightning exploded across the iron gantry, crackling through the bodies of the dwarf crossbowmen positioned there, the metal acting as a conductor for the malignant sorcery. The stricken dwarfs didn’t have time to scream, only to twitch and writhe under Storm Daemon’s assault. After an agonising moment, the scorched bodies came hurtling downwards, their corrupted flesh splashing across the smelthall as they struck the granite floor.

  Vengeful dwarfs unleashed a volley from their crossbows and thunderer handguns. Bolts crunched down into the skulls of ratmen, bullets from the thunderers ripped through skaven bodies. Engineers lit their bombs, dropping the explosives down into the massed ratkin. With the precision of their craft, the engineers fitted short fuses to the bombs, causing them to detonate above the heads of their enemies and send a withering burst of shrapnel slashing into the verminous bodies.

  Ikit Claw’s shrieked commands echoed above the turmoil. Mobs of sword-armed clanrats converged upon the metalworkers and the dwarf warriors from the slag pits. Teams of jezzails turned their guns upon the catwalks, sniping at the dwarfs shooting down at them. Warpfire throwers played their ghastly flames across the lowest of the catwalks, incinerating every dwarf within reach of their fire.

  It was the ghastly ratmen with the hollow brass tubes lashed to their backs who took the most murderous toll on the dwarf marksmen. There was a reason the specialists were garbed in the same protective gear as the bomb-tossing globadiers, for it was the same toxic Poison Wind which they employed. Loading the brass tubes with the deadly glass spheres, the mortar teams lobbed certain death over the battlefield. The Poison Wind globes shattered against stone causeways, unleashing clouds of toxic gas that slowly drifted downwards. Even when the mortars missed their original targets, the gas would often settle upon dwarfs on a lower walkway, striking them down without warning.

  The skaven had walked into the dwarfs’ trap. The question now was whether they would stay trapped.

  Klarak and his comrades drew their steam pistols. Ahead of them, a horde of snarling ratmen came charging towards their position, hate and bloodlust blazing in their eyes. Five dwarfs against dozens of ravenous clanrat warriors, odds that would test the valour of any human knight. Yet the defenders unflinchingly faced the onrushing tide.

  At Klarak’s signal, the dwarfs unleashed a volley from their steam pistols. The repeating weapons sent a fusillade of lead punching into the rodents, spilling their mangled bodies to the floor. Taking more careful aim, Klarak targeted the masked skaven lurking about the fringes of the ratpack. With eerie precision, the engineer sent a round smashing into the heavy satchel of gas bombs one of the globadiers was carrying.

  Instantly, the globadier vanished in a cloud of green gas that billowed outwards to claim the nearest ratmen. But Klarak did not wait to see the results of his shot. Without hesitating, he spun around, clipping a second globadier, one that had been braced to hurl a gas bomb at the engineer. The second globadier flopped to the ground, shrieking as the gas bomb he had been holding shattered against the granite floor. The corrosive Poison Wind spread like a low-hanging mist, searing the legs of the clanrats. Some of the skaven unwisely stopped to discover the source of their hurt, dropping as the toxic fumes burned their way into their bloodstream. Others shrieked and leaped, scrambling over dying comrades in their frantic efforts to get clear of the gas.

  A lone dwarf charged into the panicked skaven, his axes cleaving limbs and smashing ribs at every turn. Bitter laughter bellowed as Mordin Grimstone slaughtered his foes, cutting them down without mercy. The slayer’s body dripped with the black gore of skaven blood and viscera, his axes slick with the slime of his enemies. Ten, fifteen, twenty of the ratkin fell before his crazed onslaught, but it was not enough to slake his lust for vengeance, to drown the guilt that twisted his heart.

  “He’ll be killed,” grumbled Thorlek. The ranger holstered his pistol, intending to join the berserk slayer in his crazed charge, but Horgar’s steely grip stopped him.

  “Even for you, that’s stupid,” the hammerer scolded. “Mordin’s looking for a glorious death. He doesn’t need any company.”

  Thorlek twisted free, scowling at his friend. “He might not need it, but he’ll have it!” the ranger vowed. “No dwarf, even a slayer, should have his bones gnawed by the ratkin!”

  Horgar shook his head, but he holstered his own pistol and unfastened the massive hammer tethered to his steam-powered harness. He glanced aside at Klarak. “How about it?” he asked.

  “We stay our ground as long as we can,” Klarak answered. He let his exhausted steam pistol drop to the floor and drew a fresh weapon from his belt. He was looking past the reeling clanrats, watching as a fresh horde of skaven emerged from Ikit’s tunnel. These were no fighters, but instead were a rabble of naked skavenslaves. Overseers with barbed whips lashed the wretches mercilessly, driving them towards the furnaces where some of the barazhunk beams were still waiting to be reshaped. Several of the slaves fell as crossbows and thunderers picked them off, a dozen of them were caught in the blast from an engineer’s bomb. The overseers, however, did not relent in their brutality, forcing the slaves across the smelthall to seize the precious metal.

  Klarak felt his stomach churn. Most of the barazhunk was piled nearby. As long as they could stop th
e skaven from capturing those supplies, he didn’t think Ikit Claw would have enough to complete his hellish invention. The problem was, it didn’t look like there were enough dwarfs to keep the Chief Warlock from escaping their trap.

  “Kurgaz,” Klarak called out.

  The runesmith didn’t look up, his eyes still focused on the sheet before him, his burin still trying to engrave the complex Master Rune into the metal. Klarak watched his friend labouring, concentrating with the grim determination of a true dawi, ignoring even the clamour of battle raging all around him. Time was growing short if the engineer was going to manage his contingency plan. If Kurgaz could just get the Master Rune enscribed in time, then Ikit Claw’s victory would become the ratkin’s defeat!

  “We’ll buy you more time, old friend,” Klarak swore. Turning around, he repeated his order to the other dwarfs. Whatever happened, they had to make sure Kurgaz was undisturbed.

  “It doesn’t look like the ratkin agree,” Azram remarked. The routed clanrats Mordin had been pursuing were being swept aside, bowled over by a pack of brawny vermin, their bodies protected by thick armour plates. Even under the layers of paint and filth staining it, the lorekeeper could tell the skaven had scavenged the armour from dead dwarfs. What was less obvious was the purpose of the curious pistons and cogwheels fitted to the suits of armour.

  Klarak gave the armoured skaven only a brief glance, staring past them at the grisly figure of Ikit Claw. “No, it doesn’t,” he said. His hand played across the dials of his chain vest, adjusting the settings of its mechanisms, trying to judge the intensity of Storm Daemon’s deadly magic. After the near failure of his other vest, Klarak had a better idea of what the device could withstand.

  Mordin’s war-cry rang out. The slayer had also sighted the gruesome warlock-engineer. Carving his way through the fleeing clanrats, the lone dwarf rushed to confront Ikit Claw.

  The armoured skaven interposed themselves between Mordin and their master, acting with an eerie, machine-like precision. The slayer’s axe bit through the leg of one of his attackers while he lopped the paw from another. Neither of the ratmen gave so much as a squeal of protest. What spurted from their wounds was too thick for even skaven blood and possessed a weird glow to it. Mordin stared in disbelief as his crippled foes swarmed over him, beating him down with armoured fists.

  “Zombies,” Kimril cursed, not without a shudder. For the ancestor-worshipping dwarfs there was no greater abomination than the restless dead.

  “Automatons,” Klarak corrected him. “Ratkin who have had their blood replaced with chemicals and their souls replaced with steel.” The engineer sighted along the barrel of the long pistol he’d drawn. It was a bulky weapon, not unlike a pared-down thunderer. He sighted along the barrel, then quickly sent a shot slamming into the head of one of Mordin’s attackers. The explosive shot detonated as soon as it struck the ratkin, popping its head and sending a spray of chemicals and gears spattering across its comrades.

  Ikit Claw snarled at his guards, cursing their uselessness. The Chief Warlock glared at Klarak, recognising the gold-bearded dwarf as the enemy who had foiled him in his previous attempt to build a Doomsphere. This time, his enemy would not stand in his way!

  Gripping Storm Daemon in both hands, Ikit Claw activated the weapon’s warp generator, throwing it into full power. Crackling energies formed about the black blade, a nimbus of dark power expanding from the tip of the halberd.

  “Scatter!” Klarak ordered his assistants. “Get behind cover!” The engineer did not take his own device, instead coldly sighting down the barrel of his pistol. While he stood in the open, there was every reason to expect the Claw to ignore his friends. There was a chance his vest would be able to save him from the crazed warlock’s magic. Just as there was a chance that one of his explosive bullets might be powerful enough to penetrate the monster’s iron frame.

  Muttering a quiet prayer to his ancestors, Klarak squeezed the trigger, the pistol belching fire as the volatile bullet was sent speeding on its way. In the same instant, Ikit Claw unleashed the ferocity of Storm Daemon upon the dwarf.

  Klarak shrieked in pain as black lightning crackled across his body. He could feel his teeth being pulled from his mouth, his hair being ripped from his scalp. The pistol fell from his hand, the reinforced steel glowing red hot as it struck the floor. The engineer’s clothing caught fire, his skin blistered, his beard began to shrivel. Sparks flared through his vision as the pain impossibly intensified.

  Abruptly, the black lightning dissipated. Klarak Bronzehammer crashed to the floor, smoke rising from his battered body.

  Chapter XIV

  Horgar Horgarsson rose from behind the cover of an anvil, berating himself for listening to Klarak instead of watching what the engineer was doing. It wasn’t the first time his master had sent his assistants scrambling for shelter while he lingered behind to face danger alone. Perhaps Thorlek was right, maybe his injuries had made him thick-witted.

  The hammerer glared across the smelthall. Klarak’s last shot had struck Ikit Claw. Thick black smoke rose from the warlock’s body, but the monster’s iron frame looked to be intact and whatever hurt the skaven had suffered, he wasn’t too injured to snap orders at his minions. The weird metal-limbed ratmen in the scavenged dwarf armour began to advance, their heavy steps clanking against the granite floor. Spurts of green gas erupted from engines lashed across their backs. It was with a feeling of horror that Horgar realised the vermin were wearing crude parodies of the steam-powered harness he himself wore.

  Cursing the ratkin and their fiendish talent for copying the inventions of others, Horgar turned his concern towards Klarak. The engineer’s body was still smoking from Ikit Claw’s sorcery. For a terrible moment, he thought his master was dead, but then the engineer’s body shuddered in a cough.

  “Kimril! Thorlek! Help me!” Horgar called out. The ranger and physician scrambled out from behind their own shelters, hurrying to the side of their prone chief. Azram followed behind them, loading a fresh tube of pressurised steam into his pistol.

  “Get him moving,” the lorekeeper warned, aiming his weapon at the oncoming skaven. The shots smashed into their armoured bodies, but the stolen dwarf mail was too tough to be pierced at such distance.

  “He’s alive,” Kimril said, making the quickest of examinations. Truthfully, he counted it a miracle that Klarak hadn’t been killed, even if the engineer was disorientated. “We have to get him to cover.”

  Thorlek cast about him for any spot of refuge. All around the smelthall, bullets from jezzails and thunderers were pinging from the walls, debris from bombs pelted the furnaces. What they needed was a way to get below the ricochets and shrapnel. The ranger smiled as an idea came to him. He reached down, gripping Klarak’s arm. “Let’s get him to the slag pit,” he said, nodding his beard at the hole where Mordin had been hiding. Kimril didn’t argue, wrapping his arm about the engineer’s waist. The two dwarfs and their burden quickly scrambled for the shelter of the hole.

  Horgar and Azram hung back to cover the retreating dwarfs. The pack of mechanical skaven were nearly upon them now. Horgar snarled at the oncoming ratkin. Crouching down, wrapping his reinforced arms about the anvil beside him, the hammerer strained to lift it from the ground. Grunting with effort, he raised it over his head.

  “This is for Klarak!” Horgar shouted, hurling the massive anvil full into the face of his foes. Augmented by skaven cog-wheels and warp generators, the armoured skaven were still crushed beneath the heavy missile. The anvil smashed through them with the violence of an avalanche, snapping limbs and crumpling armour, crushing gears and bursting organs. The anvil rolled through the massed skaven, felling six of them before it came to a rest.

  Unfortunately for the dwarfs, that left far too many still closing upon them. Horgar glanced at Azram. “You’d better get to cover too,” he said as he recovered his warhammer from the ground.

  The old lorekeeper grinned at Horgar. “Let a little beardling like yours
elf have all the fun?” he scoffed, drawing the sword from his belt.

  Horgar gave Azram a look of concern, but knew better than to try and force his friend to retreat. There was no time in any event. The first of the ratmen were already upon them. Horgar’s warhammer came smashing down into the snarling face of an armoured ratman, smashing its skull like a melon.

  “First to ten buys the beer,” Horgar shouted, swinging his hammer around to collapse the ribcage of another ratkin.

  “As long as we don’t count the ones you got with the anvil,” Azram said, thrusting his blade into the belly of a skaven trying to exploit Horgar’s flank. “Just like the Last Stand of Karak Varn!” the scholar exclaimed as he stabbed his wounded foe a second time.

  Horgar brought his hammer swinging around, caving the side of the skaven’s head, finishing it off. “You should know,” he said. “You’re old enough to have been there.”

  Suddenly, a sheet of green fire washed over the battlers. The mechanised skaven twisted as the flames scorched their fur and melted their armour. Azram gave voice to a single shriek as his face dripped into his beard.

  Beset on all sides by his foes, Horgar was spared the lorekeeper’s fate, the skaven blocking most of the warpfire. Still, enough of the virulent flame reached him to corrode the engine of his harness. The hammerer’s steam-powered limbs locked up, freezing into place as the motivating power jetted from the ruptured tanks. Unbalanced by the sudden stop, Horgar crashed to the floor.

  The dwarf struggled to turn his head. He clenched his teeth as he saw his attacker striding through the destruction. Wisps of smoke rose from the nozzle set into the metal talon of Ikit Claw. The ratman’s evil eyes glared down at the stricken Horgar. Burnt lips peeled back to expose a mouthful of fangs in a sadistic grin. Pointing his metal claw at the defenceless hammerer, Ikit Claw reached with his other hand to pull back the warpfire projector’s activation lever. Horgar closed his eyes, deciding he didn’t want to see the skaven gloating over him as the Claw melted the flesh from his bones.