Hammerhal & Other Stories

by Various

  ‘How unfit for the storm are our foes,’ Khoram mused, the tretchlet gibbering in agreement. The crews of the sky-vessels were utterly unlike their vicious foes. They were shorter and stockier, broadly and stolidly built. Most wore bulky armour of heavy metal plates, their faces locked inside helms with glowering masks and golden beards. ‘They lack the grace and agility of those born to the skies. Brutes of rock and stone that seek to conquer the tempest with their puerile inventions.’

  The sorcerer shook his head. ‘The duardin are a meddlesome breed. Whatever the peculiarities of their creed they invariably demand great effort to dispose of. More effort than some are willing to expend.’

  As the thought came to him, Khoram gazed back into the orb. Responding to his mind, the facets shimmered and displayed a new array of images. Each facet displayed the same Chaos warrior standing upon the back of a daemonic disc. He presented a gruesome aspect, his baroque armour still dripping with the sacrificial blood used to anoint it before the fighting. Dismembered fingers dipped in wax were plastered about his gorget like hideous candles. Veiled by the smoke rising from the smouldering fingers his horned helm was an indistinct suggestion of shape and motion. Only the nine eyes that stared from the jumble of visors scattered across the helm’s face exhibited any clarity, shining through the smoke like angry embers.

  ‘Tamuzz is in a particularly wrathful humour,’ Khoram told his homunculus.

  As he watched, an armoured duardin defending the bow of one of the ships jabbed at the warlord’s daemon-steed with a pike, ripping into its mottled hide. Tamuzz brought the fiery blade of the glaive he bore crunching down into the duardin’s head. Even as the enchanted blade bit through iron helm and bony skull Tamuzz pressed the attack, not relenting until he had cleft the enemy from pate to palate.

  ‘Losing so many of his followers in the fighting has upset him,’ Khoram stated. ‘For all the blessings Mighty Tzeentch has seen fit to bestow on him, Tamuzz still reckons power in tired old conceits of mortal rule and domination.’

  Seen in the facets of the orb, Tamuzz ripped his glaive free and sent the body of the slaughtered duardin hurtling over the side of the ship. The warlord sought another foe, but even as he did Khoram sent a tendril of magic rippling through the orb to reach into Tamuzz’s mind. ‘Come to me,’ Khoram hissed, his homunculus echoing the words in a greasy titter. ‘Come to me.’ He was careful to invest the summons with more suggestion than command. Too overt a touch would rouse Tamuzz’s resistance and Khoram knew from past experience that the warlord’s will was strong enough to defy his magic if he was aware of its influence. ‘Set the thought in his head, let Tamuzz think it is of his own volition and there is little he will not do,’ Khoram boasted to his tretchlet. The daemonic parasite whined, reminding his master that his boast wasn’t entirely true.

  The dark spectre of the warlord came speeding away from the battle, a thin slick of ichor seeping from the injured daemon that supported him, leaving a greasy smear in his wake.

  ‘My slaves perish, curseling,’ Tamuzz hissed at Khoram as he soared towards the sorcerer.

  ‘Mighty Tzeentch demands payment,’ Khoram replied. ‘The Changer does not favour slaves…’

  Tamuzz shook the massive glaive he bore, the arcane energies bound within it causing a flicker of power to coruscate along the blade. ‘Spare me your philosophy. You promised me the sky-vessels. Bring them down.’

  Khoram cocked his head to one side, staring past Tamuzz to watch the battle over the warlord’s shoulder. He saw one of the warlord’s adepts pitch from the back of his daemon-steed when a duardin shot him in the face. ‘They will fall,’ Khoram said. ‘But they will fall when it is propitious to a greater purpose. The purpose to which we both strive.’

  The flash of arcane energy faded from the warlord’s glaive. The smouldering eyes lost their lustre, almost seeming to pull the veiling smoke tighter around them. ‘I have not forgotten,’ Tamuzz replied.

  ‘Then let us do what is needed of us,’ Khoram said. He waved his snaky fingers away towards the horizon. ‘We must harry them still ­further away from Shadowfar. The next valley. That is where their doom will come.’ The sorcerer nodded at the orb circling him. ‘Such is the prophecy that guides us.’

  ‘I will lose more warriors,’ Tamuzz objected, some of the edge creeping back into his tone.

  ‘You will gain more, glorious Tamuzz,’ Khoram insisted. ‘Through me, you will be at the right hand of Power.’

  Grokmund Wodinssin watched from midship as carnage waxed and waned all around him. The gold fillings in his teeth felt as though lightning were racing through them, an impression that had always presaged some disaster. The last time he’d felt that unpleasant tingling in his teeth was when Lodrik Kodraksimm had challenged him to a drinking contest and he lost his stake in a most profitable voyage.

  What he felt now was far worse. Grokmund thought if he champed his teeth sparks might fly out, so fierce was the sensation. Was it because of greater danger or because he had more to lose this time? He glanced at the deck beneath his feet, picturing the box locked away in his cabin below. The aether-khemist’s tests had given every indication that this find would make all their fortunes, would expand the wealth of Barak-Urbaz a hundredfold. If Grokmund was right, this venture would mean more than riches – it would mean fame and glory. The mightiest duardin in the sky-hold would regard them with honour.

  Grokmund ducked down as a daemon-riding cultist flew above the Stormbreaker’s deck. As the brawny human passed, he brought a heavy mace swinging at the aether-khemist. The bludgeon struck sparks from the duardin’s helm but failed to deal any greater damage. As the enemy soared away he was struck from behind by the rifle-fire of a Grundstok thunderer. The cultist sagged across the disc-like daemon, borne away as the creature flew onwards.

  Grokmund rose slowly, shaken by the nearness of his escape. Mutant beastkin darted around the ships of Admiral Thorki’s fleet like megalofin pups in a school of sungills. The Kharadron defenders sent volley upon volley into the raiders, felling some but leaving far too many to press the attack. Swooping from below the hulls of the frigates and gunhaulers, diving down from on high to slash at the great endrins that kept the vessels aloft, the ambushers were taking a slow but steady toll upon the Kharadron. Lifeless skyriggers drifted away from the fleet, the small aether-endrins fitted to their backs keeping them airborne until at last their fuel would run out and bring them sinking earthwards. Some of the skywardens who’d attached cables to the frigates now dangled from the sides of the ships, their aether-endrins damaged, their bodies clanging incessantly against the iron-plated hulls.

  ‘You’ll lose your head that way,’ Admiral Thorki reproved Grokmund as he helped him back to his feet. Encased in a heavy suit of aether-powered armour, Thorki was easily able to lift Grokmund with one hand while his other aimed a volley pistol at the raiders. He sent a bullet smashing into the beaked face of a beastman as it came whipping towards the ironclad’s endrin. The maimed creature dropped its bow and pawed at the gory wreck of its face before vanishing into the distance.

  ‘I have to do my part,’ Grokmund told Thorki. ‘Protecting the find is all that matters now.’

  Thorki shook his head. ‘We need you to make certain of our claim and secure full rights to the find.’ Despite their magnetised boots, both duardin felt the deck beneath them tremble as aethershot carbines mounted in the hull plastered the attackers with a withering volley. Around them, Grundstok thunderers blasted away at the raiders with their rifles and mortars, trying to keep the attackers from swarming the ironclad’s decks. ‘Get below,’ Thorki told the aether-khemist.

  Grokmund remained where he was. ‘If the ship falls it won’t matter anyway,’ he said. ‘I’d prefer to die fighting than hiding down in the hold.’

  Thorki conceded the point grudgingly. ‘If you get yourself killed, our backers will shave my beard,’ he snapped. The adm
iral swung around, shouting commands to the gunners up on the forecastle. He gestured with his pistol towards a pack of bird-faced beastkin that were flying at the ship from starboard. ‘Udri! Bring them down!’

  At Thorki’s command, the gunners swung around the great volley cannon bolted to the roof of the forecastle. The whole ship shook as they fired the weapon. Caught in the explosive discharge the centre of the oncoming pack was shredded, daemons and beastmen alike plummeting from the sky. Arkanauts rushed to the gunwales, picking off mangled survivors with their pistols.

  ‘We’re winning!’ Grokmund shouted. The very next instant he felt a withering heat smash against his face. Visions of glory evaporated as a spout of sorcerous fire splashed against the side of the ship, immolating the arkanauts that had been picking off wounded beastmen. Behind the flames came a sinister chariot drawn by slavering daemons. Standing in the chariot, seemingly growing up from its bed, was a foul fungoid thing with stumpy arms that sprayed jets of shimmering orange fire. An arkanaut sprinting past Grokmund was caught in the flames, flailing about wildly as the daemonic fire clung to him and gnawed greedily at his armour. Another arkanaut tried to help his comrade smother the flames only to have the fire leap eagerly to his gauntlet, bubbling and sizzling as the metal began to melt.

  Grokmund hastened to the stricken arkanauts, gesturing to Thorki to hold back. ‘Keep everyone away,’ he warned the admiral.

  Closing upon the fire-wrapt duardin, Grokmund employed his anatomiser, drawing out the air from his immediate surroundings. The daemon-fire had little kinship with natural flame, but even it couldn’t withstand the resulting vacuum. In a heartbeat, the ghastly fires were snuffed out. The arkanaut whose gauntlet had been afflicted staggered around, befuddled by the anatomiser’s effects. His comrade was little more than a charred smear on the deck.

  The injured duardin ripped away his mangled gauntlet and flexed his fingers, ensuring they could still hold a weapon before trusting his pistol to them again. ‘Profit to you, Master Grokmund,’ he thanked the aether-khemist, his voice distorted by the breathing mask fitted to his helm. His eyes narrowed as he stared at the sky. ‘I’d pay tenweight in gold if that murdering scum would come in range of my gun.’

  ‘Let me see where it has gone,’ Grokmund said. The enhanced array of lenses on his helm made it possible to succeed in his purpose. The discordant pattern of splotches and blemishes that marked the stalk of the fungoid fire-sprayer was distinct enough to recognise again. Grokmund saw it diving for one of the frigates, again letting its daemonic flames splash across the decks and harry the crew. The long-suffering frigate could do little to repel the monster, so depleted had the ship’s crew become. Yet the chariot made only one attack. It didn’t linger to press its advantage, or remain to vanquish its enemy. Instead it went speeding away to assault a gunhauler and then to turn upon another frigate.

  A suspicion grew in Grokmund’s gut. He swung around to Thorki. ‘The Chaos scum are up to something,’ he declared. Carefully he picked out another of the attackers, a bird-faced beastkin loosing shimmering arrows at the sky-vessels. He watched it fly past one of the frigates then duck away to come at the Stormbreaker. An arrow sizzled against the plated hull, then the creature was wheeling away again, seeking out a new target.

  ‘They aren’t pressing their attacks,’ Grokmund told Thorki. He quickly pointed to the almost crewless frigate. ‘They aren’t seizing advantage when they gain it.’

  ‘Sky-devils eat their bones,’ Thorki grumbled. He raised a spyglass to his eye, watching as the raiders displayed more coordination than he had considered them capable of. ‘They’ve some design in mind. Deliberately wearing us down.’

  A fierce war-cry brought the two duardin spinning around. Grokmund pulled back just as a half-naked cultist came diving down at him upon a daemonic disc. The man slashed at him with a crooked blade, the serrated edge biting into the blue-green steel covering his shoulder. The impact sent Grokmund staggering back a pace. Before the masked human could strike at him again, he raised his atmospheric anatomiser and pressed its actuation rune. This time, instead of drawing in the air, the mechanism expelled a plume of virulent gas. The cultist raised his heavy shield to block the blast of the noxious aether, but the vapour simply billowed over its edges. The man shrieked as the gas seared his face. Wracked with pain, he fell from his daemonic steed onto the ironclad’s deck. The daemonic disc flew away, unconcerned by the fate of its late rider.

  Thorki fired his volley pistol at another of the cultists, preventing the man from aiding his stricken companion. Bullets ripped into the daemonic steed as its rider sent it rearing back to absorb the shots. Then the man was leaping down, slashing at the admiral with a crooked blade.

  Grokmund moved towards the foe he had knocked to the deck. He unlatched the heavy hammer from his tool belt and stalked after the fallen cultist. The man was clawing at his face, struggling to remove the beaked mask he wore. He had it free just in time to see Grokmund’s hammer swinging at his face. A crunching impact spilled the man back to the deck, a mash of brains and bone dripping from the duardin’s hammer. Before Grokmund’s shocked gaze, the corpse twitched and writhed, its contours shrinking and shrivelling. The warrior he’d struck down had been powerfully built, in the prime of condition for a human. The corpse at his feet was that of an old man, wrinkled and wasted. Only the swirling tattoo across his chest proclaimed that this was indeed the same foe. Grokmund touched his thumb to the face of the steel girdle he wore, pressing against the forehead of the revered ancestor moulded across it. Such repulsive sorcery was disturbing even to an aether-khemist.

  As Grokmund turned from his fallen foe, Thorki was just settling his own adversary. The admiral’s gauntlet was around the cultist’s neck. With a brutal clenching of his fist, Thorki crushed the man’s throat. He tossed the twitching body to the deck and swung around.

  ‘It would seem they’ve tired of their strategy just as we suspect it,’ Thorki said. The admiral sprinted towards the forecastle, shouting orders to Udri and the gunners. ‘Fire wherever they bunch up! Break their resolve!’

  The men who had attacked Grokmund and Thorki were not alone. They were part of a renewed surge of enemies, a universal increase of ferocity. The enemy now pressed home their assaults, no longer content to harass, to strike and run as they had before. Gunhaulers went down with all hands as flying leech-like daemons latched onto their endrins and compromised their integrity, rupturing fuel lines and reservoirs to send jets of aether spilling into the atmosphere. Skyriggers were shot down by the arrows of beastmen, struck again and again by the piercing shafts. One frigate had its prow turned into a conflagration as three chariots concentrated their attacks against it, the fungoid daemon-riders loosing blast after blast of eerie flame at the ship.

  Grokmund fended off the attack of a charging beastman, managing to break one of the rope-like feelers of its disc-steed as the creature retreated. He could see the endrinriggers hovering overhead trying to keep the attackers away from the tanks of the endrin above the ironclad’s deck. They spun away, attacking with their rivet-guns and saw-blades, lashing out with the tools they used to repair the ship in order to defend it.

  The ironclad’s captain was likewise doing his best to protect the ship. Since the attack had begun the Stormbreaker had been pushed to top speed, striving to pull away from the foes. An uncanny headwind had defied them, retarding their efforts at escape. Having spotted a method to the attack, Grokmund now wondered about that stubborn gale. The fleet had turned in the direction of least resistance in trying to escape the attack.

  Until these last moments the slaves of Chaos had been content simply to harass the fleet. Now they pressed the attack with unrestrained ­malice. Why, Grokmund asked himself, unless the reason for such restraint had passed? Like the wind, the enemy had been trying to steer them, lead them to some point they wanted the Kharadron to be. The nauseating image of ripperbats herding prey in
to the waiting fangs of their colonies filled his mind.

  Grokmund turned from the fray unfolding about the ironclad’s port side, hurrying towards the forecastle to alert Thorki of their danger. ‘They are herding us into a killing-ground!’ he shouted to the admiral.

  Thorki was just climbing the ladder up to the forecastle when he heard Grokmund calling to him. He looked back, puzzlement in his eyes.

  ‘They are trying to drive us into a trap,’ Grokmund declared. ‘That is why they press their attack now!’

  ‘We can outrun them,’ Thorki stated. ‘That is the best way to reduce our losses.’

  Grokmund shook his head, waving his fist in the air. ‘Don’t you see? This hellish wind is conjured by their sorcery! It pushes us where they want us to go. Their attack is simply to force us to stay the course.’

  Thorki paused in his climb. ‘The only other choice would be to smash our way through them. That would cost us too much to accomplish.’

  ‘Risk some to save the rest,’ Grokmund advised. ‘Trying to save every­thing might bring the whole fleet to ruin.’

  Thorki turned his head, looking across the embattled ships of his fleet. ‘We have lost too much already,’ he said, his tone almost accusing.

  ‘If my box does not make it back to Barak-Urbaz, then their deaths count for nothing anyway,’ Grokmund snapped. He had to get Thorki to appreciate their peril. Only the admiral had the authority to command the fleet and turn them around before it was too late.

  Before Grokmund could press his point a ghastly figure swooped down upon the forecastle – a huge man clad in armour and wearing a tall helm topped with spiralling horns, his face hidden in a murk of smoke. The flying daemon he was riding sank its jaws around the head of Udri, who was loading the volley cannon. Even as the gun commander fell, the daemon’s rider lashed out with the fiery glaive he bore, the red-hot edge shearing through armour and bone to leave another gunner mangled at his feet.