Masters of Stone and Steel - Gav Thorpe & Nick Kyme

by Warhammer

  ‘Course not, ma,’ said Haldora. She hugged Friedra, and when she tried to pull away her mother’s embrace tightened. ‘I’ve got to go. You know I have to do this. What sort of daughter would I be?’

  ‘One that minds her mother,’ said Friedra, finally releasing her grip. ‘But I see that don’t mean anything to you. Well, go on then, with your shield and axe, you go and play at warriors and leave your poor old mother here by herself.’

  ‘I’ll be back,’ Haldora assured her. ‘With pa and Skraffi too. I promise.’

  She turned away and walked out of the gate beside Nurftun, who raised a hand in farewell.

  ‘I thought your pa would have taught you an important lesson by now,’ Nurftun said quietly as they passed through the shadow of the gatehouse.

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Haldora. She glanced at him and saw that his face was grim-set beneath his fur-lined helm.

  ‘Never make a promise unless you’re certain you can keep it.’

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  ‘Garudak and the folk of Ankor-Drakk controlled the approaches to the east road. With this privileged position he charged a premium on all goods heading up to the king, and filled his coffers with gold and goods intended for the higher passes.

  The king stayed true to his cause and didn’t complain, but simply built another road that headed from the southern slope before turning eastwards to the old mountains. As before he lined the road with mingols to protect the traders and settlers, and sent out a call to the Urbarvornfolk that hadn’t yet moved to the mountains. A great many of them were lured by promises of gold, and they joined the Angboks and other clans in claiming Mount Bloodhorn to the west and south, building small stations and cutting terraces into the mountain’s flanks for crops and pastures.

  And all the while they dug the rock and hoped to find something worth a mine.’

  ‘If we don’t make camp now, we’ll be the ones what need rescuing,’ declared Nurftun.

  The moons had set and though the sky was almost cloudless and the stars were bright, his point was well made. The grass of the wildlands was still rising and falling in gentle hillocks but the dells between the patches of high ground were becoming boggier as they neared the marshlands.

  ‘We could pass by five hundred paces from them and never know,’ added Fleinn.

  ‘Or walk past a hundred dead orcs,’ said Durk.

  Haldora thought it curious that these venerable dwarfs were not telling her this outright but were trying to persuade her, as though she was in charge. She considered this a little more and realised that although Nurftun was the eldest and had sent ahead the scouts and given out the orders for who was to keep watch, it was to her that Nurftun looked for guidance, as though she knew any better.

  For a moment this pleased her greatly, knowing that these well-respected dwarfs were showing her the same respect they had for each other. And then cold realisation reminded her that she had no idea what she was doing. She was no ranger, and she certainly had no experience trying to find someone in the dark wildlands. On this occasion the old dwarf saying held true: look to the longest beard for wisdom.

  ‘Yes, you’re right,’ she told Nurftun. ‘There’s no point getting ourselves hopelessly lost too.’

  The other dwarfs waited a moment until Nurftun gave the final nod, and then with surprising speed they were unpacking their bags and pitching up tents, all by the light of the stars and a couple of lanterns. It seemed like no time at all had passed before there was a blaze going, and almost immediately after there was a ring of dwarfs sitting on stones and logs, sausages spitted on the ends of twigs above the flames, which spat and hissed with the dripping fat.

  ‘Ale?’ Haldora turned to find Durk handing her a leather cup filled frothing to the brim.

  ‘How? Who?’ She didn’t remember seeing a cask or even a keg amongst the belongings.

  ‘Bazza,’ explained Durk, nodding to one of the Troggklads. The red-haired dwarf was quite young and he had his pack on the ground, a tap sticking out of one side. ‘His whole pack’s basically a portable barrel. Clever, eh?’

  ‘Yes,’ Haldora had to admit. She took the beer and drank deep, fortified by the brew. ‘Very clever.’

  Somebody else offered her a piece of bread with a sausage balanced on it, which Haldora accepted without thought. She wasn’t hungry but it seemed the polite thing to do, and it was nice that someone else was cooking for a change. Out here the male dwarfs had barely made mention of her gender and they were treating her just like one of the lads. Perhaps that’s why they were happy to listen to her opinion too – for the moment she was just one of them.

  ‘You should get some shuteye,’ suggested Fleinn. ‘We’ll start out again at daybreak.’

  ‘Not tired,’ replied Haldora, wrapping her sausage in the slice of bread before taking a bite. It was boar and herb, and hot juices ran down her chin. ‘Got any mustard?’

  A jar of a thick yellow substance with a flat knife protruding was procured from someone, which Haldora slathered gratefully onto her sausage. She took another bite and the heat of the mustard almost burned the roof of her mouth.

  ‘Good mustard!’ she called out, panting for breath. She received a grateful thumbs up from one of the dwarfs around the fire. ‘I’ll get that recipe for my ma.’

  The group sat in silence for the most part, drinking beer, chewing sausages and staring into the flames. The only thing more hypnotic than firelight was gold, and there was precious little of that in the camp – the dwarfs always had a few coins about their person but any real amount of wealth was left behind when they travelled any distance.

  Haldora thought of all the treasure, the gemstones and crowns and sceptres and weapons and armour and torqs and cutlery and all the rest that had been lost in Karak Varn. The value alone was depressing enough, but the history tied up in those artefacts was irreplaceable. The refugees that had made it as far as Ekrund had not lost only their wealth but also their connection to their ancestors.

  ‘Must be terrible,’ she said, only realising afterwards that she had spoken aloud.

  ‘What’s terrible?’

  ‘The Varnfolk. Well, their doom. They lost everything. Got to start from first scratch again.’

  ‘Their ancestors managed it,’ said Fleinn. His expression was thoughtful, not unkind. ‘All our ancestors managed it. They’ll cope all right, the Varnfolk. We’d do best not to step in their path, and that’s all they need. Give them a few picks and a tunnel to dig and let them get on with it, I reckon.’

  What anybody else reckoned was lost as they were all snapped out of their thoughts by a shout to the south. As one the dwarfs turned to look and the reason for the call of alarm was clear. A red star was ascending into the sky some distance away, burning bright and trailing ruddy smoke.

  ‘The flare!’ Haldora was on her feet in a moment. ‘We have to get going!’

  ‘Wait on a moment,’ said Nurftun, grabbing Haldora’s arm as she headed towards the canvas awning beneath which her axe and shield were stowed. ‘We can’t go charging about like toadstool-addled werits. We have to have a plan.’

  ‘A plan?’ Haldora looked at the flare, which was still rising, though more slowly now. ‘We head towards the shiny red thing. If we see any orcs or goblins we kill them.’

  ‘It’s not that simple,’ said Nurftun. ‘If they’ve sent up a flare that’s serious trouble. What if it’s more than we can handle? We’d just be throwing ourselves in the spoil as well.’

  ‘What else do you expect us to do?’ Haldora asked. ‘Just wait?’

  ‘Mebbe,’ replied Nurftun. He pointed northwards. ‘They’ll see that flare at Undak Grimgazan and come looking. We might be better waiting for them.’

  ‘And my pa and the others? I’m not going to just leave them.’

  ‘It’s a warning flare, Haldi,’ said Fleinn. ‘This isn’t just a few goblins scrounging about in the marshes. They sent up a flare ‘cos they don’t think they’re going to be able to
warn anyone themselves.’

  ‘It’ll take the rest of the night for anyone to get here from Undak Grimgazan.’ Haldora felt panic starting to rise, tightening her chest, making her bosom heave as her breath came shorter and shorter. ‘Anything could happen to my pa before then. We need to go now.’

  ‘There’s a way of doing things, Haldi,’ said Nurftun, almost pleading with her.

  ‘It’s Haldora!’ she snapped back. She raised her voice to be sure all of the dwarfs could hear. ‘Some of you can stay, or maybe go back if you want to. I’m going to help Nakka and Gabbik and the rest of the lads. That’s what we came out here to do. I’d rather die with my axe in my hand beside them fellows than with a goblin arrow in my back, heading to the towers.’

  This struck a nerve in many of the dwarfs. Many of them were shaking their heads, beards trembling at the subtle accusation in her words. Nurftun looked fit to explode, his eyes bulged so much.

  ‘Is that it?’ he growled. ‘Is that what you think of me, when I’m only looking not to add more Angbok blood to what’s spilt already?’

  ‘Are you so sure we can do nothing?’ Haldora demanded. ‘It’s just over that ridge. Let’s go and take a look. You came this far, why not just a bit farther? If there’s too much for us to handle, then you can go back and wait for the garrison. At least we can try!’

  Nurftun looked at her sourly for several heartbeats, saying nothing. Finally he nodded once and turned to the others. In another moment he was barking out orders for the group to ready their weapons and the fire to be doused.

  ‘What about the camp?’ asked Fleinn. Haldora realised that her time as trusted leader was over, and all attention was on Nurftun.

  ‘Leave it. We can pick up the stuff later, and if not… Lives is more important than canvas.’

  Bronze and iron and runes glittered in the campfire as axe blades were bared and hammers unslung, before the fire was doused and the dell plunged into darkness. The flare’s descent was retarded by a linen canopy above the burning canister of blended powders, showering ruddy sparks and dousing quite a stretch of land in its glare.

  ‘After me,’ announced Nurftun, and within three dozen heartbeats of the flare being launched the whole group were moving out at a trot, heading southwards.

  The ridge that Haldora had pointed out angled south-east, a last rocky outcrop of a spur of the Dragonbacks covered with ferns and thorny bushes. It was hard to tell exactly, but as they neared the rise it seemed to Haldora that the flare was falling not far away. The wind would have carried it some distance in the time it had taken them to cover the nine hundred paces and more from the camp, but she was hopeful that her father and the rest of the patrol were just on the other side of the rise.

  The ground steepened quickly and Haldora was forced to pull herself up with her hands as much as to walk, with thorns scratching at her face and fingers, snaring her cloak and tunic while burrs latched onto her braided locks. She ignored it all, filled with a burning determination to make it to the top of the ridge. The panic she had felt at the thought of losing her loved ones had subsided, to be replaced by a gnawing dread in the pit of her gut; a dread she could not allow to manifest fully.

  She had not quite crested the rise but some of the others had and their excited shouts spurred her on to cover the last few dozen paces, panting hard as she rose up amongst the bushes and was able to look south.

  She heard the fighting before she saw it – the clash of metal and hoarse cries of anger and pain. The yelp and howl of wolves told her all she needed to know before she finally saw a cluster of dwarfs in the ruddy gloom, a few hundred paces from the bottom of the ridge, encircled by goblins on wolf back.

  At that distance she could not count how many were there in the poor light, but there were fewer than the twenty that had set out, she was sure. Haldora had no means of recognising who was still alive. She whispered a plea to Grimnir to lend strength to their axe-arms and hoped that Nakka, Gabbik and Skraffi were amongst the living. She could not yet bring herself to entreat Valaya to guide their spirits to the Halls Beyond if they were not.

  ‘Bows and crossbows!’ Nurftun announced. ‘Get your arrows and bolts ready.’

  The southern slope was not as steep as the northern, and the entangling bushes were sparser, making progress back down to the plains that bit swifter. As she descended, Haldora could see that the ring of dwarfs keeping back the attacks of the wolf riders was not staying in place but moving slowly towards the ridge. Step by step the dwarfs were heading for the higher ground.

  ‘They’re coming this way,’ she said. ‘We’ll be with them soon!’

  Her hope rose and then suddenly guttered as she saw one of the dwarfs go down, pounced upon by two giant wolves and their green-skinned riders. The other dwarfs surged around their fallen comrade, hurling back the raiders with a brief counter-charge.

  ‘Let’s announce ourselves, lads!’ shouted Fleinn. ‘Maybe scare these beggars off, eh?’

  Haldora slammed the butt of her axe against her shield and shouted along with the others, raising a clamour that could be heard all the way down in the wildlands. The wolf riders fell back briefly, giving the patrol time to break into a steady run towards the ridge. Soon enough the wolves were closing in again though, convinced that they could take down one group before they united with the other.

  ‘Get your legs moving!’ shrieked Haldora, breaking into a headlong run, heedless of the danger of falling head over heels down the slope. ‘Hurry!’

  She heard the other dwarfs surging after her – the rattle of stones, the flap of feet and the jingling of mail as twenty-five sturdy warriors hurtled down the ridge towards the goblin attackers. The wolf riders broke away from harassing the patrol and formed up together. It might have been the darkness but they looked bigger than the creatures she had fought with the rangers. And there seemed even more than when she had first laid eyes on them, maybe forty or fifty with more still appearing out of the darkness.

  Screeching horns split the night and the goblins charged. Nurftun called his group to a halt and they formed up, shields to the front, bows and crossbows sending a shower of missiles down the slope to greet the onrushing greenskins. Arrowheads glinted red in the last light of the flare, which had landed somewhere to the east and had now almost guttered out. A few wolves yelped in pain and riders screamed as the projectiles found their mark, but there were too few to break the goblins’ momentum.

  Haldora felt more afraid now than when she had been alone amongst the wolf riders during the ambush. Not for herself, but because she realised that Nurftun to her left and Fleinn to her right would be depending upon her axe and shield to guard them as much as they were guarding her. She pictured herself with Nakka, dancing light-footed back and forth across the high pasture.

  The thought that he might be dead brought tears to her eyes and a lump to her throat, her arms started to tremble and the fear grew. Her mother had been right, she had no place here. This was warrior-work, not chopping parsnips and coalroots.

  She could step back, she realised. The goblins were still some distance away, even though they were closing fast. More arrows sprang out to meet them while the few dwarfs with crossbows were still reloading their weapons. There was time for her to withdraw, to let the shieldwall reset in front of her.

  Nobody would blame her in the slightest.

  And that sent a surge of resentment through her. Like rods of iron reinforcing a pillar, indignation strengthened her limbs. The thought that it was expected she would step back, that she would retreat and leave the fighting to the menfolk, was like a tumbler of Fulnir’s mushroom spirit – ‘dragon’s breath’ it was called around the clan. Heat washed up through her, driving away the tiredness and the numbness, filling her with vigour and anger.

  ‘Come on, you sour-faced, beady-eyed goat turds!’ she shrieked. She lifted up her axe. ‘Come and taste dwarf iron!’

  ‘Easy there, lass,’ said Fleinn with a surprised smirk. He had his el
ven blades ready, held loosely by his sides. ‘Save your energy for the fight, eh?’

  ‘Sod ‘em,’ said Haldora, grinning back, feeling slightly foolish at her outburst. ‘They’re not worth the breath.’

  The wolf riders tried to circle around to the north, but Nurftun held the line right and the dwarfs turned with them. The goblins then split and looked to attack from two directions at once, but again Nurftun held them ready, two lines back to back in an oval. Between the snarls and snaps of the wolves and the high-pitched shrieks and yells of the goblins, the night was alive with noise, though the dwarfs faced them in stoic silence broken occasionally by a puff on a pipe, the striking of a flint to light the same, or a hawk and spit to clear a bit of phlegm.

  ‘Easy, lads.’ Nurftun spoke softly but without any hesitation. ‘Watch the flanks and turn on the left foot.’

  The cacophony of yowls and screeches reached a crescendo and with another clamour of whining horns and shrill war cries the goblins charged, coming at the dwarfs roughly from the east and the west, along the line of the ridge.

  The thorn bushes and unsteady footing slowed the momentum of the attack and forced the goblins to spread out lest they trip each other as their mounts dodged past bracken thickets and jumped over gulleys. Nurftun had picked the spot after some consideration, amongst some of the tallest bushes and with a large boulder stopping the wolves from charging directly at the eastern end of the line.

  The first wolf to reach the line had its throat slashed by Durk. Another, its shoulder already pierced by an arrow, stumbled as Fleinn slashed at its muzzle with his swords, falling in front of Haldora. She acted without a second thought, moving with her shield forward to ward away the rider’s spear, her axe cleaving into the wolf’s head between the eyes. She wrenched the blade free and swung again, chopping the arm from the goblin on its back.

  It felt natural, without effort.

  There was cursing and crashing around her, but Haldora trusted the dwarfs to either side and behind and focused on the patch of ground in front that was her responsibility. Goblins and wolves were dying, the snap of fangs on shields and armour, the wet smack of hammers crushing bones through green flesh sounding as though it was right next to Haldora, but she allowed nothing to distract her.