by Warhammer
Felix watched him too, as much for his oddity as his workmanship. He had never seen a quieter dwarf. The race as a whole seemed born to bluster and brag, but Kagrin hardly ever raised his eyes, let alone his voice. On one or two occasions, however, Felix caught Kagrin frowning at him, only to look away as soon as Felix met his eyes. Other dwarfs in the camp stared at Felix as well, belligerent, challenging glares as if they were offended by his mere presence and asking him to defend the existence of his whole race. Kagrin’s gaze was different – more curious than angry.
Then, on the evening of the fourth day, after they had made camp and eaten dinner, Kagrin sat down near Felix and began to work on the dagger as usual. It took him an hour of filing and tooling before, at last, he looked up at Felix and cleared his throat.
‘Aye, goldsmith?’ said Felix, when Kagrin failed to speak.
Kagrin looked around, as if fearful of being overheard. ‘Er, I… I wished to ask, as you are human…’ He trailed off. Felix was about to prompt him again when he finally found his voice, rumbling almost inaudibly. ‘Are… are dwarfs well thought of in the lands of men?’
Felix paused. He didn’t know what question he had been expecting, but that wasn’t it. He scratched his head. ‘Er, well, yes, generally. Their craftsmanship is highly praised, as is their honour and steadfastness. There are some among the less learned who look upon dwarfs with suspicion and jealousy, but most treat them with great respect.’
Kagrin seemed heartened by this answer. ‘And… and there are places where dwarfs live peacefully beside men?’
Felix looked at him surprised. ‘There have been dwarf enclaves in the cities of the Empire for a thousand years. You haven’t heard of them?’
Kagrin’s shoulders tightened and he looked around again. ‘Shhh! Aye, I have, but I’ve heard… I’ve heard it said that dwarfs must lock themselves in at night, for fear of men out to murder and rob them. They say dwarfs have been burnt at the stake as enemies of man.’
‘Who says this?’ asked Felix, frowning.
‘Dwarfs of my clan.’
‘Ah.’ Felix nodded. ‘Forgive me if I impugn the motives of your clan brothers, but perhaps they are reluctant to lose a goldsmith of your calibre, and tell you tall tales of the barbarity of man to dissuade you from leaving.’
‘I haven’t spoken of leaving!’ hissed Kagrin angrily. His fists clenched.
‘Of course not, of course not,’ said Felix holding up his palms. ‘I can see that you are only curious. So, er, to satisfy that curiosity: I have never heard of dwarfs being burnt at the stake or called enemies of men. It is true that there have been accounts of mobs – instigated usually by jealous and desperate smiths – attacking dwarf houses, but it is rare. I haven’t heard of it happening in this century at all. Dwarfs are long established in the Empire. Most of these passions cooled long ago. A dwarf who did contemplate setting up shop in the Empire would have little fear of trouble, and great prospects for success, particularly if he was as skilled a goldsmith as… well, as some I could name.’
Kagrin nodded brusquely, and then shot a guilty look towards Thorgig, who sat with a handful of other dwarfs, playing a game with stone pawns and dice.
He turned back to Felix and bowed his head. ‘Thank you, human. You… you have, er, satisfied my curiosity.’
Felix nodded. ‘My pleasure.’
He watched after Kagrin as he gathered up his tools and retired to his tent. It was strange to think of someone who no doubt had thirty years on him, as a ‘poor lad’, but Felix couldn’t help it. It was clear that Kagrin felt torn between the lure of the wide world and the bonds of friendship and family. He had a hard road ahead of him, whatever road he chose. Felix wished him well.
After six days marching at the slow but steady dwarf pace, the Black Mountains, which had been a low saw-toothed line on the horizon when the dwarfs had left Barak Varr, filled the northern sky, an endless line of giants that stood shoulder to shoulder for as far as the eye could see to the east and west. Dark green skirts of thick pine forest swept up to the towering black granite crags that gave the range its name. Their snowy peaks shone blood red in a blazing sunset.
‘Home,’ said Thorgig, inhaling happily as he gazed up at the splendid peaks.
For mountain goats, thought Felix, groaning at the thought of all the climbing to which he would soon be subjected. A cold wind blew down off the slopes. He pulled his old red cloak tighter around him and shivered.
And perhaps he shivered for reasons other than the cold, for, although the dwarfs thought fondly of the place as home, it stirred in Felix less pleasant feelings. It had been not far from here that Gotrek and Felix had helped the ill-fated Baron von Diehl try to found a settlement, only to have it razed to the ground by wolf-riding greenskins. At Fort von Diehl Gotrek had lost his eye, and Felix had lost his first love. He shook his head, trying to keep her ghost at bay. Kirsten. He wished he hadn’t been able to remember her name.
‘There is Rodenheim Castle,’ said Hamnir, a little further on, pointing to a stern, squat-towered castle perched on one of the forest-covered foothills that splayed out from the mountains like claws. ‘It is a great shame that Baron Rodenheim won’t be among those who muster here to help us. He was a true Dwarf Friend. May his gods receive him.’
The army started up the weedy cart track that wound up the hill to the castle, and soon began to see signs of its demise. The little village that clung to the slopes below it was shattered and burned, the stone houses roofless and toppled, the shrines desecrated. Cracked bones were heaped in corners like snowdrifts. A horrible stench came from the town well. Flies hovered above it. The red twilight painted the scene with a bloody brush. Felix had seen a lot of slaughter and ruin in his years with Gotrek, so it no longer turned his stomach, but it never failed to depress him.
The castle too was the worse for wear. Though its walls still stood, they were scorched and black in places, and great chunks had been knocked off the battlements. Flags with the insignia of Karak Hirn flew over the roofs of burned towers.
As the dwarf army approached, a horn echoed from the walls, and Felix could see stout figures carrying long-guns marching to their positions behind the crenellations. Torches flared to life above them, revealing dwarf crews readying catapults and trebuchets and kettles of boiling lead. The horn was answered by another, followed by cries and commands from within.
A white-bearded thunderer in well worn chainmail climbed onto the battlements above the gate, his finger on the trigger of his gun. ‘No closer, by Grimnir!’ he bellowed, when the head of Hamnir’s column had come in range. ‘Not until you announce yourself and your purpose!’
‘Hail, Lodrim!’ called Hamnir. ‘It is Prince Hamnir Ranulfson, and I’ve brought six hundred brave dwarf volunteers. Have we leave to enter?’
The thunderer leaned forwards, blinking myopically. ‘Prince Hamnir? Is it you? Valaya be praised!’ He turned and shouted over his shoulder. ‘Open the gates! Open the gates! It’s Prince Hamnir, come with reinforcements!’
With a creaking of winches, the portcullis went up and the drawbridge came down. Both showed signs of recent battle, but also fresh repair.
Even before the bridge had thudded to rest, a dwarf was running across it, arms outstretched. ‘Hamnir!’ he cried. ‘Prince!’
He was tall for a dwarf – almost four and a half feet, and powerfully built. His receding brown hair was pulled back in a club, and bright white teeth flashed through a thick beard that spilled down his barrel chest to his belt.
‘Gorril! Well met!’ said Hamnir, as the two dwarfs embraced and slapped each other’s backs.
‘I am relieved to see you alive,’ said Gorril.
‘And I, you,’ replied Hamnir.
Gorril stepped back and bowed, grinning. ‘Come, prince, enter your hold, meagre human surface hut though it may be.’ He turned to the cluster of dwarf warriors who stood in the castle door. ‘Away with you! Prepare Prince Hamnir’s quarters! And see if you
can find beds for six hundred more!’
Hamnir turned and signalled the column forwards, then strode with Gorril through the gates and into the castle’s courtyard, as Gotrek and Felix, Thorgig and the rest marched in after. The yard was crowded with cheering dwarfs, and more were pouring from every door, all hailing Hamnir and the new troops.
‘You made it unscathed?’ asked Gorril as they pushed through the crowd of wellwishers.
‘Some trouble with orcs as we left Barak Varr,’ said Hamnir. ‘Nothing since.’ He looked at Gorril hopefully. ‘Any word of Ferga?’
‘Or my father?’ asked Thorgig, urgently.
Gorril’s brow clouded. ‘None. I’m sorry.’ He gave Thorgig a sympathetic look. ‘You and Kagrin are the only dwarfs of the Diamondsmith clan to have escaped. Many died in the defence, and your father is believed to have locked the others in his hold. They may still live, though food will be growing short.’
Thorgig clenched his fists. ‘I should be with them. If they are hurt…’
‘You can’t blame yourself,’ said Gorril. ‘You held your position as ordered, and then there was no going back.’
‘Then I should have died.’
Hamnir laid a hand on the young dwarf’s shoulder. ‘Easy now. If the worst has happened, at least we will have opportunity to avenge them.’ He looked around at the cheering crowd and nodded approvingly at Gorril. ‘Thorgig told me you were sending for aid. It seems you were successful.’
Gorril made a face. ‘Not so many as we could have wished. The other holds hadn’t many dwarfs to spare. Too many gone north.’ He shrugged. ‘But let’s leave that for tomorrow, aye? Tonight’s for feasting!’
He turned to the crowd. ‘Set the board, you layabouts. Your prince has come home!’
There was a great cheer and axes and fists were thrust in the air. But as Gorril led Hamnir toward the keep, two dwarfs pushed forward.
‘Prince Hamnir,’ said the first, a hammerer with a braided red beard. ‘As leader of this throng, we ask you to dismiss the dwarfs of the Goldhammer Clan, who have dishonoured the good name of the Deephold Clan by denying my great-great-great-grandfather the rightful command of his Ironbeards in the battle of Bloodwater Grotto, fifteen hundred years ago!’
‘Don’t listen to him, prince,’ said the other dwarf, a broadshouldered miner with jutting blond eyebrows. ‘We are guilty of nothing but common sense. A troll had his great-great-great-grandfather’s arm off at the shoulder before that battle. What was my great-great-great-grandfather to do? A general must think of what is best for the battle. We–’
Two other dwarfs pushed in front of the first two. ‘Prince, you must hear us first!’ cried one, a burly, black-bearded ironbreaker. ‘Their paltry dispute is nothing compared to the feud that exists between we of the–’
‘Enough!’ roared Gorril, waving them all away. ‘Will you badger the prince before he has his helmet off? Hamnir will hold council tomorrow and hear grievances then. Surely grudges that have stood for a thousand years can wait one more day.’
The dwarfs grumbled their displeasure, but stepped aside.
Gorril rolled his eyes at Hamnir. ‘It has been like this since the others began to arrive. All want to help. None want to work with anyone else.’
‘It never changes,’ said Hamnir.
Gotrek grunted, disgusted.
‘Tell me what happened,’ said Hamnir. ‘Thorgig and Kagrin told us what they knew when they came to Barak Varr, but their stories were a bit… confused.’
The feast was over, and Hamnir, Gorril, Gotrek and Felix, and a handful of the survivors from Karak Hirn were gathered in Baron Rodenheim’s private apartments, which had been set aside for Hamnir, to discuss the coming action.
Despite Gorril’s words, it hadn’t been much of a feast, as supplies were low, but the dwarfs had done their best, and none at the head table had wanted for food or ale. Felix had had an uncomfortable time of it, for the dwarfs, being handy with their tools, and unwilling to suffer the indignity of trying to use human-scale furniture, had sawn down the legs of all the tables and chairs in the keep’s great hall so that they better fit their short, broad frames. Felix had eaten his dinner with his knees up around his ears, and his back ached abominably.
Now, tired from the long days of marching, and a bit drunk from the many toasts that had been drunk to Hamnir and Karak Hirn and the success of the mission, he nodded drowsily in an unscathed high-backed chair, while the others talked and smoked by the fire in chairs edited for dwarf use.
Gorril sighed. ‘It was a bad business, and very strange… very strange.’ He sucked at his pipe. ‘The orcs came up from our mines, but not like any time before: not in a great screaming rush that we could hear coming from the highest gallery, not fighting amongst themselves, and not stopping to eat the fallen and raid the ale cellar. They came silent and organised. They knew every defence we had: all our alarms, all our traps, and all our locks. They knew them all. It’s almost as if they had tortured the secrets out of one of us, or there was a traitor in the hold, but that’s impossible. No dwarf would give secrets to the grobi, not even under torture. It was… it was…’
‘Eerie, is what it was,’ said a white-bearded dwarf, an ancient veteran named Ruen, with fading blue tattoos at his wrists and neck. ‘In seven hundred years, I’ve never seen grobi act so. It’s not natural.’
Felix noted that, like Ruen, most of the survivors were white-haired longbeards, too crippled or enfeebled to follow King Alrik north to the war. Younger dwarfs had stayed behind as well, for someone had to guard the hold while the king was away, but most of those had died defending it when the orcs came.
‘They came when we slept, and destroyed two clanholds outright – slaughtered everyone, dwarf, woman and child,’ said Gorril, his jaw tight. ‘The Forgefire and Proudhelm clans are no more. There were no survivors.’
Hamnir’s hands clenched.
‘As I said,’ continued Gorril, ‘Thane Helmgard was seen to order the Diamondsmith clan to lock themselves in. We don’t know if they were successful.’
‘Then there is at least a chance,’ said Hamnir, more to himself than the others. He sat lost in his thoughts for a moment, and then looked up. ‘How does it stand now? What do we face?’
‘The orcs defend the hold as well as we did,’ Gorril laughed bitterly, ‘perhaps better. Our scouts report that the main doors are whole and locked, and they were shot at from the arrow slits. Orc patrols circle the mountain, and there are permanent guards watching all approaches.’ He shook his head. ‘As Ruen said, they don’t behave like orcs. No fighting amongst themselves. No getting bored and wandering from their posts. It’s uncanny.’
Gotrek snorted. ‘So they have some strong boss or shaman who’s scared them into toeing the line, but they’re still grobi. They’ll crack if we press them hard enough.’
Gorril shook his head. ‘It’s more than that. You haven’t seen.’
‘Well, I better see quick,’ Gotrek growled. ‘I want to be done with this scuffle and heading north before I lose my chance at another daemon.’
‘We’ll try not to inconvenience you, Slayer,’ said Hamnir dryly. He turned to Gorril. ‘Have we a map?’
‘Aye.’
Gorril took a large roll of vellum and spread it on a shortened table between the dwarfs. They leaned forwards. Felix didn’t bother to look. He had seen dwarf maps before. They were incomprehensible patterns of intersecting lines in different colours that looked nothing like any plan Felix had ever seen. The dwarfs pored over it as if it was as clear as a painting.
‘So, they guard the main door,’ said Hamnir, his fingers moving over the velum, ‘and the high pasture gate?’
‘Aye. They ate our sheep and rams,’ said a hunched old dwarf. ‘We’ll need to buy new breeding stock.’
‘And the midden gate? That lets out into the river?’
‘Three miners went up it five days ago, to have a look. They came back down in pieces.’
‘What of Duk Grung mine?’ asked an old thunderer with an iron-grey beard. ‘The Undgrin connects it to our mines. The grobi came up at us from below. We could do the same to them.’
Hamnir shook his head. ‘It’s three days to the mine, Lodrim, and then two days back underground, if the Undgrin is clear. The Diamondsmith clan may starve by then, and the grobi might guard the way from the mines as strongly as they guard the front door.’ He tapped the map with a stubby finger. ‘Do they patrol the Zhufgrim Scarp side?’
‘Why should they?’ asked Gorril. ‘It’s a sheer face from Cauldron Lake to Gam’s Spire, and there’s no entrance to the hold.’
‘Yes there is,’ said Hamnir, with a sly smile. ‘There’s the passage to old Birrisson’s gyrocopter landing. You remember? Near the forges.’
‘You’re out of date, lad,’ said old Ruen. ‘That hole was closed up when your father took the throne. Doesn’t hold no truck with such modern nonsense, your da. He burnt all those noisemakers to the ground.’
‘Aye,’ said Hamnir, nodding. ‘He told Birri to wall it up, but Birri is an engineer, and you know engineers. He wanted to keep one of the gyrocopters, and to have a place to work on all the toys my father frowned upon. So, he walled up the passage at both ends, but set secret doors in them, and made a workshop of it.’
‘What’s this?’ cried Gorril. ‘The old fool built an unprotected door into the hold?’
The other dwarfs were muttering angrily under their breath.
‘It’s protected,’ said Hamnir, ‘engineer fashion.’
‘What does that mean, pray tell,’ asked Lodrim dryly.
Hamnir shrugged. ‘That secret door has been by the forges for a hundred years, and none of you have found it. The one on the mountain face is as cunningly concealed. If dwarfs can’t find it, could grobi? And Birri set every trick and trap an engineer can conceive of inside. If they found the outer door, they’d be chopped meat before they got the inner.’
‘It isn’t enough,’ said Lodrim.
‘How do you know of this, young Hamnir,’ asked old Ruen, ‘and why did you keep such a grave crime from your father’s knowledge?’