Masters of Stone and Steel - Gav Thorpe & Nick Kyme

by Warhammer

The longbeard’s expression was one of solemnity as he opened his mouth and sang a dour lamentation in a sombre baritone, all the while Dunrik getting closer to the forge fires.

  In ancient days when darkness wracked the land,

  ‘twas Grimnir ventured north with axe in hand.

  To the blighted wastes he was so fated

  to slay daemons, beasts and fell gods much hated.

  Thunder spoke and tremors wracked the earth

  Grimnir the Fearless fought for all his worth.

  With the gods of ruin arisen all around,

  with rhun and axe did Grimnir strike them down.

  He closed the dreaded gate and sealed the darkness in

  lest it curse the Karaz Ankor again.

  Go now brave dawi, go if you are able

  to Grungni’s table – he is waiting.

  In the Halls of the Ancestors with honour at your breast,

  you will find your final rest.

  Lo there is the line of kings arrayed,

  your place among them is assured – they await you.

  Go now brave dawi, the hammers ring your passing,

  the throng amassing in the deep – your soul will Gazul keep.

  Go now brave dawi, in glory you are wreathed,

  unto the Halls of the Ancestors received.

  As Halgar finished, Dunrik’s body, already wreathed in flame, was plunged deep into the sea of coal and fire. In moments, he was consumed by it.

  ‘So then does Dunrik, son of Frengar, thane of Everpeak and the Bardrakk clan pass into the Chamber of the Gate to await his ancestors,’ said the longbeard.

  ‘May he be remembered.’

  ‘May he be remembered,’ the throng responded in sombre unison, all except Emelda who kept her head bowed and stayed silent.

  Ralkan, standing near to Halgar, inscribed Dunrik’s name in the book of remembering, the massive tome held up for him by two dwarfs of the Stonebreaker clan.

  As Halgar fell silent, Uthor stepped forward and turned to the gathered assembly. In his left hand he held a dagger. With a single, swift gesture he drew the blade across his palm, making a fist immediately afterwards, and then passed the dagger to Halgar, who wiped it clean. Uthor then waited for Ralkan to come forward. The lorekeeper carried a small receptacle and held it beneath the thane’s cut hand. Uthor clenched his fist and allowed the blood to drip into the receptacle. When he was done, Emelda bound the wound as Ralkan went back to the book of remembering. The entire ritual was conducted in total silence.

  ‘Let it be known,’ uttered Uthor, Ralkan scribing the words in the thane of Kadrin’s own blood into the tome in front of him, ‘on this day did Dunrik of the Bardrakk clan fall in battle, slain by skaven treachery. Ten thousand rat-tails will avenge this deed and even then may it never be struck from the records of Karak Varn and Everpeak. So speaks Uthor, son of Algrim.’

  Emelda raised her head and peered into the flames of the vast pit, the axe of Dunrik clutched firmly in her hands.

  ‘An oath was made,’ said Uthor, addressing the throng – less than half that which ventured from their holds to reclaim Karak Varn.

  It had been several hours since Dunrik’s interment and Uthor had spent that time consulting deeply with Thalgrim and Rorek. Halgar and Gromrund had been privy to their discussions too. Uthor had wanted Emelda to be present as well, but the clan daughter had retreated into herself following her kinsdwarf’s passage to the Chamber of the Gate and was not to be disturbed. Once they were done, their decision made, Uthor had bade Gromrund to gather the throng together in readiness for his address.

  Uthor was standing on the forgemaster’s platform, beneath the arch, and all the dwarfs were arrayed below in their clans. The Bronzehammers, Sootbeards, Ironfingers and Flinthearts of Zhufbar, dark of expression, their numbers thinned by attrition. Alongside them were the Furrowbrows and the Stonebreakers of Everpeak, crestfallen and sullen. The latter bore the standard of the slain Firehands in dour remembrance. Gromrund stood amongst them, slightly to the front. The hammerer knew what was coming and was stern of face. At the back of the group was Azgar, surrounded by his fellow slayers. The Grim Brotherhood were as fierce and threatening as ever. Uthor paid them, and Azgar, no heed as he continued.

  ‘An oath to reclaim Karak Varn in the name of Kadrin Redmane, my ancestor, and of Lokki Kraggson…’

  The thane of Karak Kadrin looked over at Halgar, stood beside him, leaning on the pommel of his axe and scowling deeply at the warriors below.

  ‘To wrest the hold from the vile filth that had infested it, the same wretches that took dawi territory, took their very lives in spite of our dominion of the mountain.’

  There was muttered discord at that, as all around the throng chewed and pulled at their beards, spat in disgust and gnashed their teeth.

  ‘We have failed in that oath.’

  Sobbing and vociferous lamentation accompanied Uthor’s remark. Some dwarfs began stamping their feet and drumming axe and hammer heads against their shields.

  ‘And Karak Varn is lost to us.’

  Shouting echoed from the back ranks, loud grumblings of discontent and dismay filled the chamber, threatening to turn riotous.

  Uthor beckoned for silence.

  ‘And yet,’ he said, struggling above the residual din. ‘And yet,’ he said again as the foundry quietened at a glower from Halgar, ‘we will have our vengeance.’

  A great, warlike cheer erupted from the dwarfs below and the shield thumping began anew, together with the collective stamping of feet. The noise boomed like thunder, the throng abruptly ebullient and heedless of their enemies.

  ‘If dawi cannot have the karak,’ Uthor continued, ‘then none shall!’

  The thunder rose in great pealing waves, ardent voices adding to its power.

  ‘As it was years ago, so it shall be again. The hold of Karak Varn will flood and all within shall perish.’ The thane’s gaze was as steel as he regarded his kin. ‘So speaks Uthor, son of Algrim!’

  From fatalism came defiance and the desire for vengeance. It was etched upon the face of every dwarf present as indelibly as if carved in stone.

  ‘Sons of Grungni,’ Uthor bellowed. ‘Make ready. We go to war again. For wrath and ruin!’ he cried, the axe of Ulfgan held aloft like a rallying symbol.

  ‘For wrath and ruin!’ the booming thunder responded.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Uthor stalked from the forgemaster’s platform and down the stairs into the foundry plaza.

  ‘Well spoken,’ muttered Gromrund, the hammerer turning on his heel to walk alongside the thane. The still cheering throng parted like an iron sea to let them through.

  ‘Aye, it was,’ Uthor replied, without arrogance then turned to look at the hammerer directly. ‘Does this mean we see eye-to-eye at last, then?’

  ‘You are not the only one who has much to atone for, son of Algrim,’ came the terse response. ‘If it is to be wrath and ruin, then so be it.’

  Uthor smirked at that.

  ‘Good enough,’ he said then added, ‘summon the clan leaders and gather the engineers. We know what we must do; now we must devise how it is to be done.’

  ‘Make no mistake,’ Uthor told them, ‘most of us are likely to die in the enactment of this plan.’

  The thane of Karak Kadrin sat upon a small wooden coal chest within a circle of his kinsdwarfs, next to the statue of Grungni. All of those who had first ventured into the hold were present – all except Lokki, of course. Thalgrim joined them, too, for the Sootbeards. As an expert in geology, his knowledge of the vagaries of rock and stone would be invaluable. Azgar took his place amongst the council as representative of the Grim Brotherhood – much to Uthor’s chagrin – though if death was to be their fate then the slayer would have little qualms. The other clan leaders were present also, for the decisions the dwarf assembly was about to make would affect them all. Only Emelda was absent, still seeking solitude for her grief.

  Further off into the plaza t
here was a flurry of activity as dwarfs sharpened axes, beat the dents from armour and made their final oaths to the ancestors. Strangely, the mood was not one of grim melancholy; rather it was jovial and comradely, as if the spectre of some unknown doom had been lifted.

  ‘Better to die with honour than festering in the uncertain dark, awaiting a long and drawn out demise,’ growled Henkil of the Furrowbrows, supping on a long-necked pipe.

  ‘Aye, let us meet our doom with axes to the fore,’ said Bulrik – who represented the interests of the Ironfingers – brandishing his axe. The other lords and leaders muttered their approval of these remarks and stamped their booted feet in agreement.

  ‘It is as well,’ said Uthor as the bravado died down, ‘for I do not expect to live out the rest of my days and neither should you.’

  Grim resolution settled over the group. Only Halgar was unmoved, the old longbeard having seen and heard it all before.

  ‘All we can hope for is to do our part and die well. Lorekeeper,’ added Uthor, ‘tell us all how.’

  Ralkan, who had been silent up until now, shuffled forward on his own coal chest and, producing a thick wedge of chalk from within his robes, started to draw onto the flagstones.

  ‘Karak Varn has ever stood beside the Black Water,’ he explained, his frantic scribing seemingly irrelevant to his rhetoric. ‘In the Golden Age it was a great boon to the hold, for the crater in which the lake’s depths resided were thick with seams of ore and precious gromril.’

  Ralkan looked up at that and observed the awe-struck expressions of his kin with satisfaction, their eyes alight with the lustre of great days past.

  ‘It was during the reign of King Hraddi Ironhand that the Barduraz Varn was fashioned, a great sluice gate that when opened would yoke the strength of the Black Water to drive wheels that powered the forge hammers of the deeps and allow the prospectors of the hold to sift for minerals.

  ‘Hraddi was a wily king and well aware of the dangers that such a gate presented, should it fail or it be opened too far,’ the lorekeeper continued, his audience enrapt. ‘He instructed his engineers to build a deep reservoir beneath the Barduraz Varn in which the water could flow and at the lip of this magnificent well he bade miners hew tunnels that would carry the water to an overflow in the form of a vast and heavy grate. Such was the ingenuity of Hraddi’s engineers that the grate would always open in the exact same increments as the Barduraz Varn, so that no matter how wide the sluice gate opened the hold would never flood.’

  Throughout the explanation, Ralkan pointed to his crude rendering – leastways, it was by dwarf standards – of the gate, reservoir, tunnel and overflow grate.

  ‘But was the gate not destroyed during the Time of Woes?’ Kaggi of the Flinthearts interrupted.

  Ralkan regarded the clan leader in sudden befuddlement.

  ‘I believe the gate is still intact,’ Rorek interjected on the lorekeeper’s behalf. ‘The flooding we have seen has been isolated to certain chambers. Were the gate to be ruined then the extent of the water would be much greater and there are the records of the hold to consider–’

  ‘Yes,’ said Ralkan abruptly, remembering his place again. ‘My lord Kadrin did lead an expedition to the Barduraz Varn and found it to be in working order, though he did not linger. Much of the chamber was inundated and the lower deeps – although many of the skaven and grobi had been driven out – still held hidden dangers not so easily persuaded to leave.’ The lorekeeper suppressed a shudder as if in some fearful remembrance.

  ‘If we are to flood the hold,’ Rorek continued, ‘then we must destroy the overflow mechanism.’

  An uncomfortable undercurrent of shock and disapproval rippled through much of the assembly. To deliberately set out to sabotage dwarfen craft was almost unthinkable and something not to be undertaken lightly.

  ‘Dreng Tromm,’ said Henkil, ‘that it should come to this.’

  ‘That is not all,’ said Uthor. ‘Once we have ruined the overflow, so that it stays shut, we must open the Barduraz Varn as far as it will go.’

  ‘The rat-kin are not without wit,’ said Hakem, sat across from the thane of Kadrin. The Barak Varr dwarf now wore a bronze hook, fashioned by Rorek and strapped onto the stump in place of his severed hand. ‘Even if we are able to block the grate and open up the hold to the Black Water, they will flee before it into their tunnels and return once the flood has drained away.’

  ‘Which is why we must start a second inundation, only from above,’ Uthor replied, now looking to Thalgrim.

  The lodefinder was busy scrutinising a small rock; the thane of Kadrin fancied he was even conversing with it. Thalgrim snapped upright when he realised the eyes of the council were upon him.

  ‘Yes, above,’ he said quickly. ‘The temporary shoring we found in the third deep as made by Engineer Dibna can be brought down; it ruptures slightly even now. A shaft from that chamber leads all the way to the underdeep and to the overflow tunnel.’

  ‘We must divide our throng into three skorongs,’ Uthor said, picking up the slack. ‘One will head for the Barduraz Varn; a second will go in the opposite direction, first to the overflow and then to Dibna’s Chamber, thus starting the flood.’

  ‘And what of our enemies?’ asked Bulrik. ‘They will not be gathered together. How are we to ensure they are all destroyed when the waters come?’

  ‘If this plan is to succeed,’ Uthor said, ‘then we must draw the skaven to one place and channel the bulk of the rushing Black Water to it, ensnaring them until the flood can do its work. Like any rat trap,’ he added, ‘it requires bait. This is where the third skorong comes in, and theirs is a grim task indeed.’ Uthor’s face darkened. ‘They will hold the rat-kin, here, in this very chamber.’

  ‘And be drowned along with the skaven.’ Bulrik finished for him.

  ‘It is possible that some might survive, and any of us who do must take word of this to the High King with all haste. But, yes it is likely most will die.’ Uthor’s tone was sombre but firm.

  ‘It will be a noble sacrifice.’

  ‘How then are we to goad them?’ asked Henkil. ‘If the slaughter in the Wide Western Way taught us anything, save for the treachery of skaven’ – a bout of spitting accompanied that remark – ‘it is that their warlord has some intelligence. Likely they will not come of their own accord.’

  ‘Halgar?’ Uthor turned to the longbeard.

  The venerable dwarf scratched at the grobi arrow stub embedded in his chest, before leaning forward.

  ‘I have fought fiercer and wilier foes – that is for certain, but this vermin chief is not without base cunning,’ he said, chewing on the end of his pipe. ‘Like most creatures, even those wretches that prey upon us dawi in the dark and usurp our lands, the rat-kin nest. I can smell the stink of their lair even now, rotting below us like a rancid carcass,’ Halgar added, sneering with disgust. ‘In my younger days, I once came upon such a nest – I feel its canker crawling over my skin as I remember it. Litters of the foul things were all about, spewed from rat-kin birth mothers that were fattened on urk and dawi flesh. My brothers and I brought flame and retribution to the foul dwelling, slaying the birthing rats first of all. It drove the rat-kin into frenzy and they came upon us with such fervour that we fled back whence we came. Grokki, my clan brother, and I, realising we would not outrun the vermin, cut down the braces to the tunnel which we were in and brought the weight of the mountain down upon us and our pursuers. Of my kin, I was the only one to survive. This,’ he said, holding up his ruined hand, ‘and the deaths of Grokki and the rest of my brothers upon my conscience, was my reward.’

  The longbeard allowed for a moment of sombre silence, before he went on.

  ‘Much like then we must find the filthy rat-kin nest and destroy all that lay within. That will bring them to us, mark my words on that.’ With that the longbeard leant back, a heavy plume of pipe smoke issuing into the air around him.

  ‘An expedition must venture from the foundry, once the
other skorongs are under way,’ Uthor said by way of further explanation. ‘It will be small, designed to infiltrate past whatever guards the rat-kin will undoubtedly have in place and delve into the very heart of their nest. Rorek,’ added Uthor, looking over to the engineer, ‘has fashioned something that will get the ratmen’s attention.’

  The Zhufbar dwarf grinned, revealing white teeth in his ruddy beard.

  ‘A fine plan,’ Henkil concurred, ‘but who is to do what?’

  ‘Our most experienced warriors will be in the first two skorongs. The way will be perilous and should either fail then all our efforts will be for nought,’ Uthor replied, ‘Gromrund shall lead those heading for the overflow and Dibna’s Chamber,’ – the hammerer nodded his assent – ‘together with Thalgrim, Hakem, Ralkan and no more than three warriors from the Sootbeard clan,’ he said with a glance at Thalgrim to make sure he was paying attention.

  ‘You, Henkil,’ the thane continued, regarding the clan leader, ‘will accompany Rorek, Bulrik, Halgar and I to the Barduraz Varn, which leaves the rest to hold the skaven at–’

  ‘No lad,’ said Halgar, his face illuminated briefly by his pipe embers before it was cast back into shadow. ‘I am too old to be running around the underdeep. I will stay here. I like the smell of the soot and metal; it reminds me of the Copper Mountain,’ he added. ‘Besides, they will need my nose to find the rat-kin nest,’ he said, tapping one of his nostrils.

  ‘But venerable one…’

  ‘I have spoken!’ Halgar bellowed, but his expression soon softened, ‘I have fought in many battles, more than I can recall; let this be my last, eh?’

  Uthor’s shoulders sagged. To be without Halgar as he ventured to the gate was almost unthinkable. ‘Very well,’ the thane said softly. ‘Drimbold, you will join us to the gate.’

  ‘I wish to stay here, too,’ said the Grey dwarf, ‘and fight alongside my kin.’

  Halgar raised an eyebrow, but gave no other indication as to what he thought of Drimbold’s pledge.

  ‘Very well then,’ Uthor said with a little consternation. ‘Kaggi, you shall accompany us.’