by Warhammer
The food was hard, cave-matured cheese and stonebread. There was no place for a fire to be lit without filling the halls with smoke, and so they ate cold repast in silence, each dwarf chewing at length to soften the stonebread, breaking the monotony with sips of water – at least the springs beneath the halls were still clean. There was no spare fuel – every piece of coal, every drop of oil and every faggot of wood was reserved for the lanterns at the walls. The larger halls and corridors were lit by rune lamps, but for the most part Ekrund suffered in darkness, broken by candelight and the glow of rune weapons.
The bread had been baked at least thirty days before, when the royal ovens had still been alight. It would be good at least until spring, though even to the palate of a dwarf the taste left a lot to be desired.
‘I can’t take it!’ snapped Haldora, tossing her stonebread aside. It left a crack in the plastered wall. ‘Can we not all sit around like we’re already in our tombs?’
‘What do you want us to say?’ said Nakka, sitting next to her. He put his plate aside and laid an arm across her shoulders. ‘I’m grateful for a break today? My highest tally for an attack so far is eighteen goblins and twelve orcs?’
‘We need to talk about what we’re going to do.’ She looked at Skraffi. ‘You know what I mean.’
‘I do?’ He looked far from convinced by this notion.
‘The king has given all the clans leave to quit Ekrund if they desire. Almost half have left already. I hear a group from the Lower Western Levels are going to be heading out tomorrow. The longer we leave it, the harder it’ll be.’
‘I swore an oath,’ muttered Gabbik, as though that was all the explanation that was needed.
‘I bloody didn’t,’ said Stofrik Grimsson. ‘The lass is right, we need to have a proper talk about this. It’s a no-win situation now. There’s not enough of us to drive off the orcs.’
‘We wait them out,’ said Fleinn. ‘That was always the plan. Come winter, it’ll be a different story.’
‘If we don’t make it to winter?’ This was from Norbrindor Troggklad. In the early days he had tried to keep up everyone’s spirits with solo renditions of the old songs from the rampart, but now even he had no heart left to sing. ‘I don’t reckon the inner portal to the Lower Gate is going to last forever. From there the greenskins will take the North Bridge. That only leaves the Forgeway to the North Gate. How long before the enemy get there?’
‘We wait until winter,’ Gabbik said defiantly, not looking up from his stonebread. He knocked it against the edge of the bench, breaking off splinters of wood. ‘The orcs have less supplies than us. They’ll be forced back to the wildlands.’
‘I hate to say it, but even if that does happen, what do we do?’ said Skraffi. ‘How do we survive over the winter? How do we keep fighting if the orcs come back next spring?’
‘I swore an oath.’
Haldora almost said, ‘There’s more to life than oaths,’ but she couldn’t bring herself to speak the words. She didn’t really believe it. If oaths and honour meant nothing, they were no better than the greenskins. It was the savages, the orcs and goblins, that stabbed each other in the back and fought for control. Dwarfs were better than that, and if a dwarf was not as good as his word he was no good as a dwarf. She wished her father had not sworn to stay, but he had and now they were all bound by that rash decision.
‘You can stay as long as you like, but we’re leaving,’ said Naldorin Burlithrom, the oldest surviving member of his family; not old at all at two hundred and four, but the greybeards had died one by one on the walls. Thorek, the old thane, had eventually gone mad, driven by the memory of his beard being shaven and the torture of the goblins. He had climbed down a ladder left after one of the enemy assault and single-handedly charged the orc camp. His family had watched horrified as he had been cut in half by an ogre’s scimitar, but they were thankful that at least he had not been captured again. ‘You don’t speak for us.’
‘Nor us,’ said Stofrik. He looked at Haldora and then the others. ‘Strength in numbers. We’ll head east, back to Karak Eight Peaks. Start over.’
Haldora got up and retrieved her stonebread from the floor.
‘I’m going for a walk,’ she said, and headed back towards the defences without a backward glance.
The halls she loved, the chambers that had been her home for so long, had become a prison. She would never have thought before that she would be uncomfortable underground, but when she was forced to stay it was unbearable. It was the company of the others that depressed her the most.
They had given up, even those that were determined to stay. Nobody would say it out loud, just as they would never admit they had been wrong or confess their affection for each other. Like everything else, the sense of defeat was something shared not spoken. A tacit understanding.
As she walked down the tunnel leading to one of the archways out onto the high rampart where the latest defence was being tested, she heard the clamour of battle ahead. There was a time not so long ago, maybe even a score of days, when she had felt her heart quicken at the thought of combat – excitement and a little fear. Now it left her numb. She did not even hurry, but walked calmly to the rampart and drew her axe from her belt.
The sun was lower these days, though warm enough still to bring sensation to her cheeks as she stepped out onto the wall. She paused to look down the valley. The orcs had taken the bend and everything on the north slope was now in their hands. Only five hundred paces away, through the narrowing gorge, was the South Gate. It was a testament to the guidance of the ancestors and the persistence of the defenders that it was not yet besieged. The West Gate was a ruin, and the East Gate under constant pressure. But the South Gate, that led almost directly into the heart of Ekrund… If that fell, it would, as near as mattered, spell the end of the hold.
A fresh attack was under way. Goblins, for the most part, driven onto the weapons of the defenders by the orcs behind them. Haldora was convinced there were just as many as on that first day, despite the thousands of goblin bodies that littered the line of the dwarfs’ retreat. She had no idea how they bred but perhaps they were like rabbits, able to spawn litter after litter in seemingly unstoppable fashion.
She flinched as a shadow passed over the wall. Both wyverns were in the air, keeping close to the ground where the stone throwers and bolt hurlers had difficulty targeting them. The shaman occasionally threw down balls of green fire, some of which were stopped by the chanting runesmiths, others turning dwarfs to cinders and stone to slag.
‘Aye-aye, the Angbok Axe-maiden is back,’ said one of the dwarfs on the wall. A desultory cheer welcomed Haldora, but most of the dwarfs were preoccupied with the sea of spiteful green creatures gathering at the bottom of the wall. The sound of flints and metal chipping away at stone echoed up – the goblins had already brought down one tower with their incessant picking – but this was not the greatest threat. Two siege towers wobbled their way across the broken ground towards the rampart, the troughs and pitfalls filled in with dead goblins and dwarfs, a rough road laid out with planks, jerkins, blankets and other scavenged materials. The towers themselves were armoured with metal plates now, and doused with water from the rivers to stop lighted arrows setting fires. Bolts as long as the lances of elven knights hissed from their many levels, opening cracks in the wall or skewering the defenders depending on how the shots fell.
Haldora looked up to see what the Ekrund war machines were doing, but they were blocked by an outcrop of rock; the orc warlord had picked this fresh line of attack with some care.
‘Looks like it’ll be some axeplay,’ she said.
‘I wouldn’t be so sure,’ said Nakka, coming up from behind her. He jabbed a thumb up the mountainside, to a tower top just visible over the next crest. ‘Looks like old Stormhammer is going to show these greenskins how he earned his name.’
The runelord stood on a paved terrace, dark against the sky. A team of dwarfs appeared from a hidden door, carrying
on poles the ancient dwarf’s anvil. It was almost as tall as Haldora, and flickered with magical energies as it was set down before Nordok. The runelord stood with golden hammer raised, gazing at the skies. She could imagine his chanting – she had always assumed rune-smithing needed a lot of chanting and nobody had yet corrected her. He was too far away for his booming voice to reach, but the sworls of magical energy that coalesced around his upraised hammer glimmered brightly enough to be seen. Overhead, the sky started to churn, black clouds forming where moments before had been the greyish-blue of a pleasant autumnal day.
The riders of the wyverns also sensed something was wrong and turned their monstrous steeds northwards towards Nordok’s pinnacle.
The clouds about the anvil were blacker now, staring to twist on themselves, flickers of golden lightning sparkling between the storm and the hammer.
‘Oh…’ Haldora finally realised what Nakka had meant.
The runelord had something held in a pair of tongs in his left hand – something black and silver. He placed it upon the top of the anvil and brought down the hammer.
As Nordok smote the magical rune, the storm burst into life. Thunder pealed, rolling along the length of the valley. The drums and horns of the goblins were silenced by the deafening blast and thousands of pinched, evil faces looked skywards where the storm clouds roiled.
Down came the hammer again and this time the storm did not give voice, but spat out its wrath. A fork of lightning flashed from the darkness, striking one of the wyverns. The beast contorted, almost rolling over completely, and plunged towards the mountainside trailing burning scales and smoke. The other wyvern rider, sensing it would be next, turned and swooped out of sight, fleeing for the cover of the adjoining valley.
Again the hammer beat upon the rune and half a dozen bolts erupted from the storm, slashing down into the seething tide of goblins. Dozens were thrown into the air by the blast of the earthing magical energy, which boiled blood and split rock. Haldora blinked, the white of mystical lightning blurred across her vision.
The goblins surged towards the wall, sensing that their best chance of escaping the magical destruction was to be close to the dwarfs that were unleashing it. A forest of ladders sprang up as if from nowhere and Haldora joined the others as they set to the task of pushing them down and slaying the goblins trying to ascend.
A crack of thunder heralded a third blast from the runelord’s anvil, even greater than before. Energy leapt from goblin to goblin, turning them to charred bones as Nordok’s rune-spell reached its full potential.
Driven mad with terror, unable to retreat due to the ranks of orcs pressing on after them, the goblins scrabbled at the wall trying to climb the sheer masonry. Ladders were cast down by the score, killing dozens more of the greenskins, but for every one that fell another three leapt forward, snarling and spitting.
The lightning was almost constant. Flash after flash after flash accompanied by the boom of thunder, incinerating swathes of the massed goblins with every strike, leaving ashen piles in its wake, sprinkled with droplets of molten metal from armour and swords.
The lightning could not directly aid at the wall though, as the goblins had guessed rightly that Nordok could not risk striking his spell too close to his fellow dwarfs. Despite the efforts of the dwarfs, more and more ladders were being raised and eventually the goblins ascended to the lip of the parapet. The dwarfs were there to meet them with axe and hammer, Haldora amongst them, suddenly invigorated by the display of the runelord. It was uplifting to know that the dwarfs had not yet expended all of their might. The peace was actually more tiring than the fighting these days, and she longed to take the battle to the enemy rather than just wait for the next inevitable attack.
Another peal of thunder split the air, but this time it sounded wrong, somehow. Haldora risked a glance up to the mountaintop. The storm had become a vortex, funnelling down through the anvil. Bolts of lightning flew out from the anvil in all directions and Nordok’s hammer threw off fountains of sparks every time he brought it down. Yet the spell continued to rage, shredding companies of goblins and orcs as they pressed up against the base of the defences.
‘The mad beggar’ll bring the mountain down,’ someone shouted.
Haldora had to look away for a few moments, to sweep the hands from a goblin as it tried to climb through the embrasure in front of her. Without any hands to grip, it fell away, its scream swallowed by another roar of protest from the gathered storm.
Nordok brought down the golden hammer once more, but this time there was no lightning or thunder. With an ear-splitting screech the anvil itself shattered, hurling back the runelord, scattering flaming pieces of itself across the terrace and beyond.
A collective grumble of shock resonated through the dwarf army, followed by a slightly more relieved rumble as Runelord Stormhammer could be seen pulling himself to his feet, slightly dizzy but alive. The anvil, alas, was no more.
Haldora’s mood deflated and she set to chopping down approaching goblins with a heart growing heavy again with each swing.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
‘The mountains was never quite free of goblins, though. The wildlands tribes were driven off eventually, and the caves around Mount Bloodhorn cleared every once in a while, but like the smell from a bit of chuf that’s been under a miner’s helmet for a year, the night goblins never truly went away.
The Drakkanfolk moved north and the night goblins went west. The Drakkanfolk went west and the night goblins fled east. From the east to the north and all over again, like trying to catch fog with your hand.
But the night goblins knew better than to take on dwarfs on their home territory and not since Ankor-Drakk was retaken did they ever come in threatening numbers.’
‘The snows will come.’ It had become a mantra, repeated often amongst the dwarfs when they were not manning the gate towers or defending the corridors and halls. It seemed trite – they might just as well say ‘the night is dark’ – but it gave some small hope to Gabbik.
Autumn was almost over. He could feel it in his waters and in his bones. The north wind had been late in coming this year, but it would come, just as it did every year to herald the end of the harvest, not that anything had been grown this year, and the start of the winter.
Almost all of the overground had been relinquished to the orcs now, save for the South Gate towers and a few turrets and ramparts around it, filled with war machines and crossbows. The bolt throwers were kept trained on the skies to keep away the last surviving wyvern while the rock lobbers kept up a constant bludgeoning of the greenskin forces camped in the valley – there was no shortage of blocks of masonry and rocks from the demolished tunnels and halls from areas they had surrendered to the advancing tide.
Until recently, food had become so closely rationed that they ate only every few days. Water was still plentiful, at least, but there was not a drop of beer to be had anywhere. Gabbik sometimes dreamed of finding a small stash of his mother’s blackbeer, just a kilderkin or even a firkin, enough for a few drinks. He would wake up with mouth dry, the cuff of his shirt gnawed.
There had been a change of a happier note. With no grain left in the stores to eat, the rats were venturing further abroad. They helped supplement the stonebread and mushroom kuri that had become the norm. Grain-fed rat had always been something of a favourite amongst the West Deepfolk and Gabbik was quite adept at snaring the blighters as they scuttled along the walls searching for food.
One morning he was roasting a particularly scrawny specimen over the flame of a mining lamp. The ban on fires in the deeps had been lifted because there was already a constant haze of smoke from the orcs’ fires and the blazes that had been set in the upper levels to drive back the latest encroachment.
‘A rat’s as good as a goat, my grandpa used to say,’ Gabbik told the others. Haldora was half-asleep, resting against Nakka’s shoulder, while Skraffi stared at the roasting rat with a look Gabbik had only seen on a dwarf when gold had b
een present. He turned the stick-skewered creature in his hands and licked his lips as juices fizzed on the flame.
‘My pa said that?’ Skraffi asked, rousing himself from his trance.
His hair was totally grey now, all trace of the colour gone. His eyes were ringed with black, like everyone else’s, and he scratched his nose with broken, dirty fingernails. His beard was almost a single matted mess, stained with soot and orcish blood, and no small amount of the old dwarf’s own. There were holes in his mail and his helmet was more like a battered tureen than a war-helm, and both had not belonged to him originally. They had all been forced to take what they could from the dead.
But Elfslicer remained. The rune axe was as sharp as the day the orcs had first attacked, the blade a shining silver, the wood of the haft a deep red. The weapon was like the soul of the dwarfs. Outside all was broken and battered and almost fit to collapse, but inside there was nothing stronger. Every day of desperation and every battle fought simply hardened that core further. Like metal beaten again and again, the dwarfs that survived in Ekrund that day were each veterans now. Gabbik could not recount how many foes he had killed, nor tally the wounds he had suffered, both grievous and minor. Now and then he still felt a twinge in his scalp from the blow he had taken fighting that first patrol, but it was only one amongst many aches, pains and scars.
‘He did,’ Gabbik replied eventually, remembering Skraffi had asked a question. ‘I used to make fun of it. I would tell him that you’d never get much milk out of a rat.’
‘Rat milk?’ Haldora stirred briefly. ‘That sounds good.’