Masters of Stone and Steel - Gav Thorpe & Nick Kyme

by Warhammer

  ‘But you cannot argue that they attack without a scheme of sorts,’ said the king. ‘See how they show rough organisation, the wolf riders scouting our forces, the main army dividing to attack from several directions at once. They did not follow the patrols back to Ekrund, it has been their intent to assault us for some time.’

  ‘That is true,’ said Nordok. ‘For now, at least, some warlord or council of such creatures holds sway over the horde, directing its purpose if not commanding as we would understand such a thing.’

  ‘That’s a good thing,’ said Prince Horthrad. ‘Isn’t it? If this horde has a general it can be killed. And when winter comes and they find themselves still camped outside our walls, freezing and starving, it will take more than brute force and charisma to unite such a fractious host.’

  ‘It is something for which we can hope,’ admitted the runelord. ‘If we last until winter.’

  The mountainside rang with the shouts of teamsters and overseers, as caravans of war engines were being brought down from the upper fortifications and dragged out of the halls of the Lower Gate. With them came engineers, who fussed with lenses and counting stones and calculations, sighting the war machines at advantageous locations along the walls, and rigging pulleys and ropes to hoist bolt throwers and stone lobbers up to the highest towers.

  Haldora was comforted by the noise of hammers driving home wedges and banging in fixing spikes, the hoarse chanting of apprentices hauling on block and tackle to raise the enormous arm of a trebuchet into position, the burr of saws and drills, and the chip of stone hammers as platforms and turntables were built and embrasures opened in battlements that needed them. The industry showed the Ekrundfolk at their best, united in purpose and bending all will to a task at hand.

  ‘Impressive, isn’t it?’ Horthrad said quietly, joining Haldora at the rampart. ‘The labours of all Ekrund set to the job of killing orcs. Just wait until they start loosing their deadly ire!’

  ‘You really like the machines, don’t you?’

  ‘I do,’ the prince admitted with a shy smile. He looked down at a line of machines being assembled on the tier below where they were stood. ‘Down there, that’s history. Those two bolt throwers on the left, they’re called Windrip and Ironstorm. Designed and built by Thorgad Rinkeldraz, my great-grand-uncle. They first saw battle at the second siege of Barak Varr, where they sank two elven hawkships and drove off a dragonship. They saw battle nearly a score of times after, more than any single dwarf.’

  ‘But they can’t tell us what it was like, they don’t have memories like a veteran,’ Haldora said, and she was sad at the truth of this.

  ‘Not themselves, but there are those that can tell their stories for them,’ said the prince. He leaned out over the stones and encouraged Haldora to do the same. He pointed and she could just about see a mangonel being bolted to a turntable atop one of the towers near to the road.

  ‘What’s that?’ she asked.

  ‘Ask your father about Heartbreaker, one day.’

  ‘How would he…?’ Horthrad answered her with a wink, and she understood, leaning further forward in her excitement. ‘That’s one of the engines pa crewed? He never really talks about it.’

  ‘Most of the older folk need to reach a certain age before they can pass the time talking about old wars and battles. Perhaps there needs to be a minimum amount of grey in the beard, or maybe grandchildren, before they feel it is decent to talk about events where folks gave their lives.’

  ‘But once they start, you can’t stop them,’ said Haldora with a laugh. The prince did not share her humour and she felt awkward for a moment. ‘What is it? What’s wrong?’

  ‘Just a feeling,’ said Horthrad. ‘This is history happening right now. Forget the conquest of the old mountains, that’s for the ancestors. Our fathers and grandfathers, they made themselves in the fires of the war against the elves. This day, these coming days, will be the battles of our generation. The orcs and goblins are returning. Two holds have fallen already. Our lives, our legacies, will be defined by the war against the greenskins.’

  It was hard for Haldora to imagine an older version of herself looking back at this moment, or even children or grandchildren listening to stories of this day. Awdhelga had been larger-than-life and her stories, whilst never fabrication, had seemed to have an element of embellishment about them. Thinking about what had happened in recent times made her wonder if perhaps those fanciful tales had contained more truth than Haldora had credited.

  ‘Horthrad!’ They turned at Rodri’s call. ‘If you’ve finished flirting, there’s war-talk to be had!’

  Haldora felt blood rushing to her cheeks and she quickly turned away, suddenly flushed. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Horthrad similarly flustered. He mumbled something she didn’t quite understand and strode off along the wall.

  A servant appeared at her shoulder and coughed discreetly.

  ‘You have visitors, Lady Angbok,’ he said.

  ‘Visitors? And, I’m not a lady.’

  ‘You are now, my lady,’ said the servant, nodding sagely. He stepped aside, allowing her to see past to the steps winding up from the storehouses below the tower. Three figures stepped out onto the rampart, blinking in the light.

  ‘Pa! Ma! Skraffi!’ Haldora burst past the servant and threw herself at her family, trying to give them all a hug at the same time, until all four of them were brought together in an embracing huddle. It was Gabbik that broke the reunion, parting them, his expression awed as he looked around. Beneath his helmet his head was heavily bandaged and there was a thick gel-like ointment covering his face and sticking in his beard.

  ‘That’s the king,’ he whispered, almost hoarse with exhilaration. ‘And the princes. And the council. Look, that’s Alderinni Galbokkor, the Chancellor Excellent of the Royal Estates. He’s the head of purchase accounts for the whole of Ekrund! If only we could get a contract…’

  ‘We’re not here on business,’ said Skraffi. He looked carefully at Haldora, one eye almost closed with a bruise. ‘Are you well, Haldi? About what I said earlier… If I was sharp…’

  ‘It’s Haldora,’ she said automatically. ‘I don’t know what you said earlier, it’s all quite a blur, but if I took offence at the time I don’t recall.’

  Gabbik turned towards her, a look of sudden horror on his face. He grabbed her hand and patted it madly, fingers trembling.

  ‘It is good to see you again, lass. Really good. I know it’s bad that we upped and left you like that, and you must have been right sore at me for doing it, but it was for the best, you understand?’

  ‘It was rather cruel to leave me like that,’ said Haldora. Her father seemed to crumple with guilt beneath his beard and she could not stay angry at him. ‘But I understand why you did it. If I’d gone with you, chances are it would have been less likely any of us came back.’

  ‘Good, good, so glad you understand.’ Gabbik’s gaze wandered back to the royal court, who were inspecting a strange contraption of gears and slings, next to it a pyramid of glass balls filled with orange liquid. ‘And you must introduce us to your new friends.’

  ‘I don’t think they’re my friends,’ said Haldora. ‘In fact, I’m not sure at all why I’m even back here.’

  ‘I think that was plain, wasn’t it?’ said Friedra, with a smug smile. Her eyes flickered to the king’s group and back again. ‘We saw Prince Horthrad talking to you when we came up.’

  ‘Horthrad? I think he’s just being kind because his brother took a dislike to me. I see there’s quite a rivalry between them, of a sorts.’

  ‘There was more to that than sibling rivalry,’ said Skraffi, nudging Haldora in the ribs. ‘A prince, eh? Gabbik, what do you reckon to that?’

  Haldora was not amused by the speculation and when her father turned back to her he was met by a withering glare, the likes of which made him straighten as if scolded, no doubt having less-than-pleasant memories of Awdhelga’s wrath.

  ‘I, er, that is,
Haldora has made it clear she has no intent to marry in the foreseeable future.’ He coughed, and then continued as he looked away, avoiding her stare. ‘But if she so chooses to let a prince woo her, that would of course be a marvellous thing for the Angbok clan.’

  ‘I am not after anybody wooing me,’ Haldora said with gritted teeth. ‘Prince or any other.’

  ‘Oh my.’ Friedra’s quiet exclamation drew their attention to what was happening along the road.

  The sun was now on Mount Bloodhorn, revealing the true extent of the forces massing against the dwarf hold.

  There were thousands of goblins, some on wolf back, others in chariots pulled by wolves, most of them on foot carrying crude spears and shields. These were not the cave-dwelling, sun-fearing creatures that hid in the caverns and tunnels of the Dragonbacks. Ragged banners and totems of bones and skulls were like a forest above the mass, indicating tribes and war parties brought together from many places. These were wildlands-born, lured up from the south with promises of loot and vengeance. The goblins brought with them broad boar-drawn wagons laden with timber and rope that Haldora assumed were unassembled war engines of some form.

  Alongside the wildlands goblins came greenskins clad in leather armour and dark cloaks, taller than goblins but not as burly as the orcs: hobgoblins. Haldora knew of them only from old stories, for they had been driven from the wildlands many centuries before, and were thought to haunt the Dark Lands past the old mountains and into the tundra of the north. To see them here, on foot and riding monstrous pale wolves, leant credence to the argument that the horde had been forced together, or possibly drawn, from a massive area.

  Some of the goblins did not move along the road, but clambered amongst the rocks and gulleys. They sported extravagant headdresses of feathers and banners of plumage and bones. A great many of them rode on the back of giant spiders with hides of black and red and purple, which skittered and leapt from rock to rock leaving trails of web. Some of the spiders were as big as horses and a few bigger still.

  At their heart rode a chieftain on an extravagant throne decorated with hundreds of gaudy feathered banners, carried atop a spider-beast as large as a herder’s cottage. It was midnight black with a thorax striped with blood red, its underparts a sickly pale yellow. Plates of lacquered wood and sharpened staves had been hooked into its carapace, providing a rough sort of armour, and more goblins hung from ropes and capered in swaying howdahs, ready with small bows and viciously barbed javelins.

  Almost as numerous as the goblins were the orcs. Some were hunched, scrawny creatures from the southern jungles, clad in little more than rags and armed with stone axes, their olive skin decorated with tribal tattoos. These savages wailed as if tormented, driven to madness by hatred of the dwarfs and the burning light of the sun.

  The bulk of the orcs came in a great mass, strewn with banners and tribal colours, some a rag-tag huddle around their standards, others with more semblance of discipline and war-craft. Rumbling chariots pulled by armoured boars almost as big as horses cut through the horde, as did tribes of orcs mounted directly on porcine steeds.

  Behind the goblins came a phalanx of brutal warriors clad in heavy armour, marching in step. Haldora knew these too only from legend: black orcs of the Dark Lands. Unlike the majority of orcish kind, the black orcs were not only warlike but militaristic. They were organised and disciplined, and so intimidating was their presence that the natural unruliness of the greenskins around them was quelled. Of single mind and purpose, the black orcs advanced with ladders and rams, using the goblins as a shield to cover their advance.

  The steady beat of drums reverberated up the valley, along with the cry of shrill horns and the blare of brassy clarions. Beasts howled and snarled and roared, and overhead the surviving two wyverns passed back and forth, out of range of the bolt throwers, their shadows flitting across towers and ramparts.

  ‘We best get back to the rest of the clan,’ said Gabbik. ‘It won’t be long now before the fighting starts.’

  ‘What about contracts and such?’ asked Haldora. ‘We might not get so close to the king again.’

  Gabbik glanced south and shook his head. ‘Some things are more important, like the company of one’s own kin in bad times.’

  ‘Besides,’ said Skraffi, ‘now that you’re on first name terms with the prince, I’m sure we can get an audience any time we like.’

  There was a shout before Haldora could argue against this and all eyes turned to see the cause. A battery of catapults on the wall furthest south had loosed its boulders towards the horde. Four rocks sailed down the valley and crashed into the teeming masses, leaving rents in the goblin horde like claw marks on flesh.

  There was no cheering. More goblins surged into the welts in their ranks, the score or more killed just a tiniest drop in the ocean of bitterness and spite that boiled up the southern road.

  Haldora remembered Lord Garudak’s warning that the Lower Gate could not hold. She was no war expert but it seemed a pessimistic appraisal. The walls were high, the gates and towers strong, and though giants and wyverns threatened, there were bolts and boulders by the hundred to greet any assault. And even if the orcs could close to the walls themselves, several thousand dwarfs awaited them.

  ‘How’s Nakka?’ Haldora asked as the Angboks headed towards the steps, realising she had not heard any news of him since her family had arrived. She felt a pang of guilt that she had not thought of him earlier.

  ‘He’s right enough,’ said Skraffi. ‘Probably looking forward to a bit of orc-slaying.’

  ‘I worry about him, a little bit,’ said Friedra. ‘I’d not say he’s battle-crazy, but he does like a good fight.’

  ‘He reckons the Troggklads have Grimnir’s blood,’ said Haldora.

  ‘That’d do it,’ said Gabbik.

  They descended the steps to the inner hall and from there started the journey back to the main gatehouse where Stofrik, Fleinn, Nakka and all the others were waiting for them. It took some time to negotiate the many tunnels, ramps and stairways from the top of the mountainside to the valley floor, and in that time the mood inside the hold changed.

  The number of runners going from one place to another increased, many of them coming up from the southern fortifications, but a fair few from the west as well. Haldora recalled seeing the other tendrils of the horde passing up the mountains to the west and east.

  There had been a buzz of excitement when the king had arrived, but that had been replaced by a pensive mood about the halls and chambers. Every dwarf of age from the Lower Gate and the king’s companies, as well as a few strays like the Grimssons, Angboks and Fundunstulls, were manning the walls, leaving only womenfolk and beardlings inside. A steady stream of victuals passed from the kitchens and lower deeps up to the defences, and an equally steady stream of empty baskets, packs and unladen children returned.

  As they came closer to the gatehouse itself, Haldora thought she could hear something, coming from the open stairwells ahead and the light shafts leading up to the surface. It was a throbbing noise, as though the ground was shaking, though she heard no impacts that might cause such a thing. It grew louder and louder as time passed, growing in intensity and volume more than could be accounted for by her nearing the walls.

  The answer was revealed when they finally walked out onto one of the crenulated walkways leading to the bastion wall. The valley to the south thronged with greenskins, lurking at the extreme range of the furthest war engines. Now and then a bolt or rock would gouge a swathe into their ranks, but filled with the bloodlust of the initial attack even the goblins were unmoved by their casualties.

  Thousands of throats were giving voice to a war chant – the shrill calls of the goblins to the bass bellows of the orcs and stentorian shouts of ogres and giants. It was a wordless utterance, as far as Haldora could tell. A simple, bestial outpouring of rage and the will to destroy, short and guttural, over and over again.

  Waa-orc! Waa-orc! Waa-orc!

  Th
e black orcs clubbed blades on iron shields to set a beat, picked up by drums and horns, echoing back from the neighbouring valleys as the tumult of the horde spread from one arm to the other, filling the mountains with a deafening cacophony. Feet stamped and spears shuddered, trolls moaned and wolves howled. The wyverns were perched on either side of the divide, not so close that the dwarf artillery could target them, overlooking the building frenzy below.

  Waa-orc-waa! Waa-orc-waa! Waa-orc-waa!

  It seemed impossible but the volume increased even more. Haldora caught her father glancing over his shoulder up at the summit of Mount Bloodhorn. She spared a look too, the highest peak swathed with snow as it was all year round, though there was not so much yet that an avalanche might be caused.

  The tempo of the chanting and drumming increased, reaching a fever pitch. Tens of thousands of bare, booted and sandaled feet stomped the beat, and it was the echoes of this that Haldora realised were reverberating in the hold below. The whole south valley was shuddering with a massive declaration of destruction.

  Waa-waa-waa-waa-waa-waa!

  Red eyes and fanged mouths, a sea of spears and swords, a tide of unrivalled violence. Haldora realised her legs were trembling not from the vibrations but from a far deeper cause. She swallowed hard and stopped herself from glancing at her companions. No doubt they would not be showing any signs of fear, and she refused to be the one to display any reaction to the terrifying appearance of the orcs.

  And then there was silence for a moment. The dwarfs saw the orcs and goblins looking west and followed their gaze, to see a gargantuan orc chieftain mounted on one of the wyverns with a glinting axe raised above its head.

  The axe dropped down, pointing towards the Lower Gate, intent clear.

  Waaaagh!

  With a drawn-out bellow the horde surged up the valley.