Masters of Stone and Steel - Gav Thorpe & Nick Kyme

by Warhammer

  The following night, however, before any new stone had been hurled at the walls, the orcs came at the towers and walls in siege engines and with tall ladders and long ropes. Haldora was roused from her sleep by the horns of the hold sounding the alarm.

  She snatched up shield and axe – always close to hand – and with the others off-duty she dashed out onto the ramparts. She could see little, for the smoke of the fires swathed the stars and the orcs had approached under the cover of this darkness without torch or lamp.

  This time it was not the goblins that came first, but the toughest, largest of the orcs, including the black orcs from the Dark Lands. These were a far more fearsome prospect than wildlands goblins and spider riders. Haldora’s mouth was dry as she watched hundreds of the brutal creatures massing between the rocks below, pushing ladders up from the foot of the wall.

  The dwarfs pushed back the ladders where they could and rained down firebombs, burning oil and stones. There were no crossbows though, for the order had been to conserve arrows and bolts for the defence of the main gate. Instead slings and hand catapults tossed stones and lead bullets at the armoured greenskins.

  Ladders crashed against the wall to the left and right. The orcs swarmed up them like ants on a branch as the dwarfs tried their best to push them back. The weight of the greenskins made shifting the ladders difficult once there were any number of orcs on them, so Haldora ran back and forth helping out as best she could with those ladders still arriving.

  She found Nakka standing between two ladders, a double-bladed axe in his hands. Black orcs were clambering up on each side, cleaver-like blades in their fists, iron-bound shields held up to protect against the shower of projectiles raining down. In the brief flare of flashbombs and fire globes she saw snarling, bestial faces and red eyes filled with hateful intent.

  The first orcs to reach the top of the wall were greeted by the axes of the waiting dwarfs. Nakka’s axe swung left and right, hewing down a greenskin to each side with every blow. Haldora battered away at the shield of another orc as it tried to pull itself over the battlement. She saw an opening as it stepped into the embrasure, and cut its leg off at the knee with one downward chop. Howling, the orc toppled back, bouncing off the following greenskin before disappearing into the gloom.

  A blade snapped out towards Haldora, sparking from the stone beside her head with a loud clang. Other dwarfs threw the orc back with axes and hammers, and the one after. A shout warned of more orcs reaching the rampart to the left. Haldora found herself at the front of the counterattack as two burly black orcs vaulted over the battlements, each carrying a pair of blades.

  She brought up her shield as the first orc leapt towards her. Its blow almost broke her arm, splitting the shield through the metal rim and a hand’s span of wood, the tip of the blade missing Haldora’s ear by a fine margin. The force of the strike knocked her backwards and she was only kept upright by the press of dwarfs behind her, who surged past, battering and chopping madly.

  Haldora almost fainted, realising how close she had been to that orc blade cutting her throat or cleaving her skull.

  She was just a stupid girl playing at being a warrior, no match for the beasts that were pushing their way onto the top of the wall. Awdhelga had killed a few goblins but she had never faced black orcs nor the monstrous elite of the greenskin wildlands tribes that would be following.

  ‘Are ye gonna fight or watch, lass?’ barked someone beside her. She didn’t recognise him, but his black beard was matted with thick orc blood and his hammer smeared with the same.

  ‘Get the kettle on, dear,’ said another, ‘if you want to be useful. This is going to be thirsty work.’

  They didn’t mean anything by it, they really didn’t, but their dismissive attitude was like a firebox to the fuse of a bomb. Haldora was not going to be treated like that, not by anybody.

  ‘Durazut Angbok karak!’ she screamed, breaking into a run.

  She buried her first axe swing between the shoulders of an orc looming over a wounded dwarf by the parapet. Dragging the blade free she chopped again, severing its spine just above the waist. She thrust her shield out to catch a swinging maul and then swept her axe low, cracking open her attacker’s shins.

  After that the melee became a blur of snarling faces, splashing blood and tireless axe strokes.

  The attack was relentless for three whole days and the dwarfs equally tenacious in their defence. When the orcs finally withdrew, the goblins came. When the goblins withdrew, the giants and ogres assaulted with rams and towers, sending trolls ahead to soften up the defenders. And when they were finally beaten back, the orcs came again.

  Eventually the enemy warlord called a halt to the assaults, pulling back its forces behind log ramparts and earthworks that had been thrown up under the cover of the attack. Protected by fascines and walls of dirt-filled sacks, the engines resumed their pounding, targeting the defences on the dog-leg of the valley from the opposite side.

  The orc and goblin dead were piled up beneath the walls and towers, in some places so deep that later assaults had simply clambered up the corpse ramps to attack. Dwarf teams with long poles and hooked ropes did their best to pull down these piles, but they had to work in short bursts – any group that spent a lengthy amount of time on the walls was targeted by boulders and bolts, while spider riders scuttled closer and unleashed flurries of barb-tipped arrows.

  The forest goblins became more problematic as it was discovered that their missiles were coated with spider venom. Most of those hit by these envenomed arrows survived, but it brought a debilitated state – fever and partial paralysis – and sometimes delirium.

  Skraffi felt as if he could sleep for five days straight, having fought for the whole of the latest assault. Sleep would not come though, as the tormented grunts and moans of the poisoned dwarfs conspired with the fireside chants of ogres and greenskins to keep him awake.

  It was with some relief that Gabbik came to him in the ruddy twilight before dawn and told him that they had been summoned to the king’s court again.

  ‘I don’t know what hare-brained mission they have for us this time,’ confessed Gabbik.

  ‘Only one way to find out,’ said Skraffi.

  ‘What about Haldora? She would want to come too.’

  ‘She’s helping her mother,’ said Skraffi, ‘doling out gruel to the wounded in the lower towers.’

  ‘She’s a good girl.’

  ‘Aye, one of the best.’

  They were both too tired to clean the gore from their armour or comb their beards and it was in such ragged state that they were brought before the council, which was being held not far away in the hall of Thane Rozgard of Clan Brikbok. They were not the only ones whose appearance was in poor maintenance; the hall was filled with dwarfs sporting bandages and fresh wounds, as well as bloodied tunics and unpolished mail.

  ‘Not a hare-brained mission, I reckon,’ said Skraffi, seeing the assortment of thanes and guildmasters on display. ‘This is serious.’

  The king was in his rune armour, clean, Skraffi noticed, though the two princes were in attendance too and they were less well-presented. Erstukar’s cheeks looked sunken and his eyes were red-rimmed from sleeplessness. Skraffi had heard that the king had been fighting for the West Gate. He did not know whether it boded well or ill that he had made the two-day journey back from there to hold this council.

  Erstukar Rinkeldraz’s first words settled that matter.

  ‘The West Gate will fall,’ announced the king. A hubbub of dismay rose up, quickly silenced as the king held up his hand for quiet. ‘Not soon, but the outer towers have been taken, three days ago, and now they have giants and two rams at the gates. We are evacuating everybody from the West Halls and collapsing the bridges across the Frigidflow.’

  This was grim news, and was received with more groans of disappointment.

  ‘That is not all. I will issue the order for the throng in the southern valley to pull back to the South Gate. We
cannot hold Kundazad-a-Zorn. The defences are too exposed to withstand another assault, and we must always retreat in good order to ensure gates and doors are barred in our wake. The Lower Gate is almost overrun.’

  ‘Totally overrun!’ someone shouted in correction. ‘The engineers collapsed the third and fourth halls on the First Deep. Nobody is coming in or going out that way.’

  Erstukar grimaced at this news and his shoulders hunched a little more.

  ‘The East Gate holds well, for the moment. The North Gate stands free of threat, also for the moment.’ The king took a shuddering breath. ‘A time is upon us to face a drastic decision – one that will remain with us for the rest of our lives.’ He looked at his two sons. Horthrad gave him an encouraging nod while Rodri looked as though he was chewing a live wasp. ‘This is too momentous a choice for me to take on my own, even with advice, and so it will be put to a vote. The simple question we must answer is whether we continue to fight for Ekrund, and risk being overrun entirely, or whether we use the time we have bought for ourselves to leave these halls in timely fashion and good order.’

  The hall erupted in an uproar of raised voices and wagging beards and pointing fingers. There was no measured council, not even the back and forth of good-humoured debate, but forthright and emotional argument conducted at the loudest volume possible. Gabbik added his own words of condemnation being levelled at the king.

  ‘I already gave up my halls for this hold, I’ll not see that sacrifice wasted!’ Gabbik bellowed. ‘By my beard and my ancestors I will lay down my blood for Ekrund before I see a greenskin in these hallowed tunnels.’

  ‘Careful now,’ said Skraffi, pulling Gabbik back a little as he tried to forge his way through the crowd pressing in around the king. ‘Oaths are not sworn lightly, my lad.’

  ‘I mean it,’ said Gabbik. He was exhausted but his blood was up. ‘All my life I’ve strived to make Ekrund a better place for my daughter to live in, and for Clan Angbok to have better prospects than when I were a lad. I would rather have my beard shorn off and the memories of my ancestors defiled than give up all that hard work because of a bunch of green-skinned savages. I’ll kill every last one of them myself if I have to.’

  ‘Hear that?’ someone else called. ‘That’s Gabbik Angbok. If he swears to defend the hold to his death, I’ll be damned if the Norstroggums will be found wanting.’

  ‘If the Angboks stay, we stay!’

  ‘Nonsense,’ Skraffi shouted back. ‘You’ve all got blood-fever, I swear. This ain’t glory or death time, it’s time to wear our beards straight and make the right choice.’

  ‘The Varnfolk held on too long,’ said Prince Horthrad, ‘and now they are almost wiped out. We came from Karak Eight Peaks two thousand years ago, we can go back. But only if we live!’

  ‘You’re half the dwarf your brother is,’ another thane shouted. ‘What’s the opinion of Rodri?’

  There was a clamour of calls to hear Rodri’s desired course of action. The prince held up his glittering rune axe.

  ‘This blade does not leave my hand until every greenskin has been slain!’ he roared, and half the dwarfs in the hall chorused their approval.

  ‘You’ll die holding it, that’s for sure.’ These words silenced the crowd, coming from the lips of Nordok Stormhammer.

  The ancient runelord was clad in armour plate etched with dozens of runes, surrounded by a silver aura of magical energy. In one hand he held a hammer that glowed with a golden hue, in the other a staff of iron tipped with a figurative lightning bolt, bound with bands of precious metals and studded with gems carved with more runic shapes. A few of the gems looked blackened and burned, their magic expended combating the sorceries of the orc and goblin shamans.

  ‘You will leave, Nordok?’ a thane asked.

  ‘I go or stay as my king commands,’ said Nordok. He looked at Erstukar and raised his hammer in salute. ‘But if you ask for my advice, I say that being a good runesmith is about timing. When to heat the rune a little more, when to quench it in troll blood, when to strike upon the anvil and when to leave it be. If the orcs break into the main hold it will be too late for us. We cannot fight and retreat at the same time. Those that stay in these halls may well be defending their tombs.’

  ‘If we don’t fight,’ said Gabbik, ‘the orcs will take Ekrund for sure.’

  ‘They will,’ said the runelord, and offered no further comment.

  ‘The time is upon us to cast our votes,’ said King Erstukar.

  ‘No, no vote!’ someone shouted. ‘We must all stand to defend the hold, by your command.’

  ‘I’m not trusting the future of my clan to the axe-arms of a bunch of Nurthilguls,’ came the retort. ‘We’re not staying here to die, you can stuff your vote up your jerkin.’

  Once more the hall descended into accusations and shouting at cross-purposes. A flare of white light stilled them all. Nordok lowered his runestaff and glowered at them.

  ‘Our kin even now die at the walls, and this is how you behave?’ he growled. ‘Your ancestors would recoil in shame at your lack of respect.’

  This was one of the gravest chastisements the runelord could heap upon them, and the thanes and masters mumbled apologies, not looking each other in the eye.

  ‘There can be no vote,’ the king said, looking forlorn. ‘This is not a time for the many to command the few. Each clan, each family, must choose for itself the right path. I will stand, for Ekrund is my hold and I swore oaths to defend these halls, come what may. I place no bond upon any other to fight with me, and I do so in the knowledge that our doom might already be inevitable. Clan Rinkeldraz will hold the tide back as long as we can, so that others might yet know future generations. Go forth from here and speak with your own people, and decide for yourselves whether you stay or go. There is no shame in either option.’

  ‘So this is our doom, is it?’ said Skraffi. ‘Exile or extinction.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  ‘The mines of the Dragonbacks, both upper and lower, steadily grew, and although Ankor-Drakk never quite fulfilled its early promise, the upper slopes became the centre of a growing city. As well as the Angbok forges there were breweries aplenty, and tanneries and mills and dancing halls and all kinds of places.

  All of this was above ground, mind, not like most dwarf holds. The mines was still being worked, you see, and that meant no living in them. Towers and halls with roofs of wooden tiles and slate were erected to house the growing Drakkanfolk, who were now united again under one king.’

  The days and nights dragged on.

  Some were spent at the rampart, fighting a seemingly endless tide of foes. Others were spent within the guard rooms and tower chambers, listening to the crack of stone on stone as rocks and boulders turned walls and turrets to rubble around them.

  Sometimes the wyverns came, roaring and shrieking, driving companies of dwarfs back into the hold until crossbows and mangonels could be mustered to drive off the winged brutes. Giants split open fortifications with tossed boulders and bare hands. Trolls let loose wicked claws and acidic vomit upon the defenders, while ogres gorged themselves on the dead of both sides and sang their cooking songs around massive campfires.

  The quieter the dwarfs became, the louder the greenskin cacophony. For the most part the walls were silent, and within the hold the corridors and halls echoed emptily. The clash of metal and the hoarse war cries of the clans were a relief at times, a break from the unending silence of cold forges and untapped mines.

  Every day was a drawn-out agony, of waiting for the next assault or bombardment. Nobody spoke, except for the barest essentials of food and hygiene. There was talk of rationing the beer further, for the vats were almost empty and the grain being ground for stonebread. This almost caused a revolt by the South Gate, but the king himself came down and spent a few days fighting and talking, easing the minds of those at the sharpest end of the attack.

  Sometimes Haldora fancied that the orcs were tiring of the siege. The autumn eq
uinox came and there was no assault, no attack by the war engines. A whole day and night passed without a single arrow being loosed or a single blade being unsheathed. It was eerie and it grated on her nerves more than the persistent horn blasts calling her back to the wall when she was sleeping, or the stench of death and sweat that permeated everything she wore and every part of the towers and walls. The grey stones were stained black with dried blood, from dwarf and orc alike. The clouds were often thicker than the smoke that came from the pyres built to burn the dwarfish dead to stop disease and the fires of the enemy.

  Sometimes the Ekrundfolk retreated during the night, on those irregular occasions when they were not being attacked directly. Always better to pull back when calm and patient. There was never any question of a rout – those defences that had been taken by force had fallen drenched in dwarf blood, for not a warrior would turn his back on a foe at hand.

  They would sneak away from the walls, leaving lamps burning and a few volunteers from amongst the badly wounded to keep the defences looking occupied. It burned pride like a spark from the furnace on the skin to slip away into the tunnels, bringing down pillars and props and archways to stop the orcs moving any further beneath the mountain, but there was no alternative.

  And day by day the gaps grew, from those killed by the foe and those families that finally took the decision to quit Ekrund. They left without fanfare, taking what provisions they had been able to muster. Watch rotas were changed, new orders circulated to cover for those gone. Every day it felt as though the whole hold was weakening. Even as dwarfs left, intent on survival, it swayed the balance against the favour of those who stayed behind.

  Ekrund was being bled dry.

  Six days after the equinox lull – six days filled with near-constant catapult attack and several forays by the orc shaman on his wyvern – the Angboks and the other East Deeps families found themselves together off-watch. Their billet was a former grain store with a few benches dragged in from a nearby ale hall. Blankets were piled neatly in one corner, while some of the younger clan members worked a grinding wheel to the axes and daggers of the warriors.