Masters of Stone and Steel - Gav Thorpe & Nick Kyme

by Warhammer

  ‘Well done, lad,’ said Halgar, coughing some of the smoke from his lungs and smacking Thorig on the back.

  The Zhufbar dwarf nodded exhaustedly, and lifted his helmet to wipe a swathe of sweat from his forehead.

  ‘But we must not linger,’ the longbeard continued, eyeing the inferno that prevented the rat-kins immediate pursuit. Even now, vaguely discernible through the blaze, slaves heaped great clods of dirt into the wall of fire in an effort to extinguish it. ‘Destiny awaits us,’ he added, grinning.

  The dwarfs fled back whence they had came, Azgar to the fore retracing his steps flawlessly. Only the Grim Brotherhood remained. Drimbold noticed the warriors, standing solemnly before the raging fire wall, axes held in readiness.

  ‘Come on,’ the Grey dwarf cried at them, slowing his flight, ‘the rat-kin will soon give chase!’

  Azgar saw Drimbold falter and tracked back to drag him onward.

  ‘But they will surely be slain,’ the Grey dwarf said.

  ‘As is their oath,’ Azgar told him. ‘They knew their part in this. Their sacrifice will stall the rat-kin long enough for us to make ready in the foundry.’

  ‘They are your warriors; you have not even bid them farewell.’

  ‘That is not our way,’ Azgar replied. ‘They go to meet with an honourable death.’ The slayer’s tone was almost longing. ‘Soon they will be received in Grimnir’s hall, to fight the endless battle,’ he added, fixing Drimbold with his stony gaze. ‘I envy them, Grey dwarf.’

  ‘This is not as the lorekeeper described it,’ said Rorek, scratching his head.

  ‘It bears the name of the brewmaster, though,’ Uthor replied, pointing out a stone plaque in which the words ‘Brondold’s Hall – His Brew Will Be Remembered’ were carved in Khazalid. ‘This must be where Ralkan meant for us to go.’

  ‘It more resembles a lake than any drinking hall I have ever seen,’ added Emelda.

  The three dwarfs were standing upon a stone-slabbed platform, which fell away at the edge into a vast expanse of turgid, greenish water, many hundred feet long. The murky lagoon of crud was still, like tarnished glass, the upper portions of columns protruding through it all the way to the high ceiling. Foamy deposits lapped around the pillars where they split the surface, and clustered at the edges of the walls. Braziers still flickered, just above the waterline, an incredible feat given that they must have been lit for over fifty years or more. They were a further example of the miracle fuel of the dwarf guildmasters. The light illuminated massive bronze heads, belonging to submerged statues and depicting the ancient brewmasters and lords of the hold, the tips of their beards dipping into the rancid reservoir.

  Save for the stone epithet dedicated to the long dead brewmaster, numerous wooden barrels, kegs and steins held fast in the stagnant, reeking water made it clear this was indeed the drinking hall that Ralkan had described.

  ‘You will reach Brondold’s Hall, arriving from the northern portal,’ the lorekeeper had said. ‘Beneath the south wall there is a trapdoor. Though bolted, it will lead into the drainage tunnels below. Traverse this tunnel and you will emerge in the reservoir of the Barduraz Varn.’

  Uthor recalled the words dimly – Ralkan had said nothing of a vast, uncrossable lake. Regarding the massive expanse of flood water, he noticed a dwarf skeleton clinging to one piece of floating detritus like some macabre buoy. It was the first time the throng had seen any of their slain brethren in the entirety of the hold, save for the remains of King Ulfgan. Uthor felt a tingle of dread reaching up his spine as he watched the dead dwarf, bobbing lightly in the rank water despite the illusion of stillness, and was reminded of the recent loss of Bulrik and Henkil. He tried to crush the memory quickly, but couldn’t prevent his mind wandering back to those frantic moments at the waterfall, the pallid face of Rorek appearing through the spray with news of the clan leaders’ deaths.

  The rest of the way down the narrow path had been conducted in silent remembrance. So much death, and so needless – I have brought this fate upon them. I have brought it upon us all, Uthor thought darkly, averting his gaze to peer into the impenetrable murk. A raft of unseen terrors that might be harboured in the water’s depths sprang unbidden into his mind. All dwarfs knew of the slumbering beasts that lay in the bowels of the Black Water, awaiting prey foolish enough to quest there.

  ‘Let us quit this place with all haste,’ said Emelda quietly at Uthor’s shoulder. The thane of Kadrin turned to her and saw the concern for him etched upon her face.

  ‘Yes,’ Uthor agreed, his grim disposition diminishing before her countenance. ‘But how are we to cross,’ he added, moving away from the clan daughter to stand at the edge of a grand stairway that had once led down to the revelry of the hall but was now swallowed by a greenish mire. ‘I can see no rafts.’ Uthor crouched down and dipped one finger into the water, removing a thin piece of clouded film that overlaid the surface of the unnatural lagoon.

  ‘We cannot swim it,’ Emelda replied, gazing out across the stagnant plain, ‘the distance is too long.’

  ‘We would not get far in our armour, anyway,’ Rorek piped up, ‘even using the barrels for buoyancy.’ The engineer was inspecting a statue that had collapsed on the stone platform, leastways the detached head and part of the torso had. Rapping it lightly with a small hammer from his tool belt, a dull gonging sound resonated around the chamber.

  ‘Hollow,’ Rorek muttered, scrutinising the statue head further. The fall had made a clean break at the neck and he was able to peer inside its massive confines. ‘Perhaps… Uthor,’ he added suddenly, turning to the thane, ‘we’ll need those barrels after all.’ The engineer proffered a length of rope with a small metal grapnel attached. ‘Have you ever been fishing?’ he asked.

  The thwomp of whirling rope cut through the air, followed by a snap as Uthor let fly. His aim was true but the barrel shattered under the impact of the grapnel… again.

  ‘You are a warrior born, son of Algrim,’ said Emelda, who’d been watching the thane’s efforts for several swings, while Rorek busied himself with the statue head. She had no clue what the mercurial engineer was planning, but she felt certain it would not adhere to the strictures of the Engineers’ Guild. ‘Even fishing for barrels, you cannot resist the killing stroke.’

  Uthor looked askance at Emelda, slightly ruffled and reddening at the cheeks. He was about to swing again when he stopped himself and turned to face the clan daughter.

  ‘You think you can do better?’ he asked, offering the rope and grapnel, now lathered in the water’s stagnant residue.

  Emelda smiled and took the rope and hook. She then walked over to the edge of the platform and tested the weight of them in her hands. Taking a step back, she swung the rope around swiftly in a wide arc with practiced ease, the clinging filth attached to it flicking outwards in a vile spray. Emelda then let fly. She noticed Uthor watch it as it landed just behind a barrel.

  ‘A good effort,’ said the thane, puffing up his chest slightly and trying to keep the grin from his face.

  Emelda didn’t take the bait; she merely gathered the rope slowly, allowing the grapnel to trail through the water and snag on the end of the barrel, after which she drew it in effortlessly. When the barrel bobbed against the edge of the platform she turned to Uthor.

  ‘A defter touch was required,’ she explained.

  Uthor muttered gruffly to himself as he stooped to pick up the barrel and set it on the platform.

  ‘Where did you learn that?’ Uthor asked as Emelda cast out again and snagged another barrel.

  ‘My father taught me,’ she replied, dragging her catch through the murky water. ‘Fishing in the mountain streams and lakes of Everpeak.’

  ‘You mean the High King?’

  ‘No,’ said Emelda, bringing the barrel to the water’s edge for Uthor to retrieve. ‘The High King is not my father.’

  ‘My apologies, milady, when I saw you in the court of Karaz-a-Karak, I thought–’

  ‘My fath
er is dead.’ The rope sagged briefly in Emelda’s grip and she looked at Uthor. ‘He was the king’s cousin. When he was killed, King Skorri took me on as his ward in recognition of an old debt between them.’

  ‘Dreng tromm,’ uttered Uthor, head slightly bowed in respect. ‘May I ask, milady, how did he die?’

  ‘He was inspecting our family’s mine holdings and there was a tunnel collapse. We lost thirteen brave dawi that day. When the prospectors recovered their bodies they found that some of the braces had been gnawed upon and a second section of tunnel undermining the upper shaft.’

  ‘Rat-kin,’ Uthor assumed.

  ‘Yes.’ Emelda’s expression was pained but also flushed with contained rage. ‘So you see I not only came here to ensure that the great days of the Karaz Ankor return, but on a matter of personal grudgement also.’

  Uthor fell silent and then took his leave when Emelda turned away. He went over to Rorek to find out what he wanted with the barrels. The whip and pull of the rope and grapnel followed in his wake as Emelda worked out her anger.

  ‘Do you have any beer skins?’ Rorek asked, intent on an inverted distilling funnel set into a metal frame.

  ‘You seek to drink us a way across the lagoon?’ Uthor countered, a bemused look on his face as he reached onto his belt. ‘Here,’ he added, ‘though they dried up long ago.’

  ‘Good,’ Rorek replied, taking the skins Uthor offered without looking. ‘No use in wasting grog,’ he added, working meticulously.

  ‘That is the last of them,’ said Emelda, appearing behind Uthor with one more barrel. The thane avoided her gaze for the moment, the weight of her grief adding to his own. She set the barrel down. When she rested her hand upon his shoulder, Uthor felt his mood lighten instantly.

  ‘We are almost ready,’ said Rorek, interrupting the silent exchange as he got to his feet and revealed the contraption he’d been labouring over. The small funnel was set over a tiny fire that burned with a white-hot flame. Vaporous heat was visible emanating from a shallow metal cup in which the fire was contained that fed into one of Uthor’s beer skins affixed to the narrow spout of the funnel. Uthor’s eyes widened as, in seconds, the leather skin inflated and became fat with heat vapour.

  Satisfied, Rorek bent down and plucked the skin from the spout and stoppered it quickly. He then raised the skin to his ear.

  Uthor was nonplussed and exchanged a worried glance with Emelda. ‘Grungni’s rump, tell me you are not trying to converse with that skin. I thought only the lodefinder was prone to such madness.’

  ‘I am listening to hear if any air is escaping,’ Rorek explained, then lowered the skin to look at Uthor again. ‘It is not,’ he added.

  ‘Fascinating, I am certain,’ Uthor stated, ‘but how is this to get us across the lagoon?’

  ‘Alone, it will not,’ Rorek told them. ‘We need this.’ The engineer pointed to the bronze statue head. The Zhufbar dwarf had lashed all of the barrels, save the last, retrieved by Emelda, to the outside and had bored a hole through the very top of the statue’s helmet, wide enough for a rope to pass through.

  ‘Have you been eating frongol, engineer?’ Uthor asked, staring at the giant bronze head.

  ‘Stand aside,’ Rorek growled, muttering beneath his breath as he tramped past the thane. Once he’d reached the platform’s edge, he unslung his crossbow.

  ‘You’d best not be pointing that thing anywhere near me,’ Uthor warned him.

  Rorek ignored the baiting and hunted around on his voluminous tool belt. Finding what he was looking for he attached it to the crossbow by means of its ingenious racking mechanism. After ratcheting the ammunition back, the engineer braced himself and took careful aim, flicking up the sighting ring with his thumb. He pumped the trigger and the crossbow loosed, sending a large, harpoon-like bolt into the roof with a rippling length of rope chasing after it. The thick, metal quarrel stuck fast with a shudder of stone, and three spiked prongs flicked out of a concealed compartment inside the shaft to latch onto the rock like a pincer. The rope was attached to the other end of the quarrel by means of a small pulley.

  ‘Grapnel bolt,’ Rorek explained with no small amount of boastful pride, gathering up the slack in his hands until the rope was taut. ‘Here, take this,’ he added, passing Uthor a section of rope before rushing over to tether the opposite end to the statue head.

  ‘And what am I to do with this, engineer?’

  ‘Pull,’ came the laconic response.

  Uthor did as he was told, Emelda joining in when she realised what Rorek intended. The engineer added his own brawn to the task and as they heaved the rope running through the pulley the statue head was slowly lifted upright and then off the ground.

  ‘Keep going,’ Rorek snarled through clenched teeth; the bronze head was monstrously heavy. As it rose higher, the weight of the statue swung itself out over the lagoon.

  Satisfied with its elevation, Rorek shouted, ‘Stop!’ adding, ‘hold it there,’ as he let go of the rope before taking the trailing end piling behind Uthor and Emelda. He then tied it around the upper remains of the statue that still sat on the platform until the rope was taut.

  ‘Now,’ Rorek said. ‘Release it slowly.’

  Uthor and Emelda did as they were asked. With a savage creak of metal as it tightened further at its anchor point, the statue head lurched down a few feet before it came to a halt. Rorek wiped a swathe of sweat from his forehead, and not from his earlier exertions.

  ‘It holds,’ he announced.

  ‘I can see that, engineer,’ said Uthor. ‘What would you have us do now?’

  ‘Now,’ Rorek said, turning to face them both, ‘we get wet.’

  Uthor tied off a makeshift belt of inflated beer skins around his waist and chest as he prepared to walk down the grand stairway and into the wretched water.

  ‘There is no honour in this garb,’ he moaned. ‘If I am slain and found like this by my ancestors there will be a reckoning against you and your clan, engineer.’

  ‘Without them you will sink like a stone in your armour,’ Rorek replied. ‘And then where would your honour be?’

  Uthor grumbled beneath his breath and started down the steps. Emelda awaited the outcome pensively behind him.

  Ice blades stabbed into his legs as the thane of Kadrin waded into the water. Now up to his waist, the stagnant film sheathing the lagoon parted before him like clinging gossamer. At last he found the courage to plunge out into the open depths. Uthor felt the pull of his armour dragging him downward into the murk and for a moment he panicked, seeking the edge of the platform in an effort to heave himself up and out.

  ‘Don’t flap,’ Rorek snapped at him. ‘You will sink and drown.’

  ‘Easy to say stood on dry land,’ said Uthor, spluttering water. ‘I have already had my dunkin’ – dawi are not meant for water.’ Taking a breath, spitting the turgid fluid from his mouth, Uthor managed to calm down and spread his arms wide as Rorek had instructed him. Pushing away slightly from the edge, incredibly he found he was afloat.

  ‘By the beard of Grimnir, I can’t believe that worked,’ Uthor said, relieved and still spluttering – the beer skins only just putting his head and shoulders above the waterline.

  ‘Neither can I,’ Rorek muttered beneath his breath.

  ‘Speak up,’ growled Uthor, bobbing up and down slightly like a cork in soup, using his arms like oars to slowly position himself beneath the hollow statue head hanging above.

  ‘I said, now milady can try.’

  Uthor grumbled some more and fell silent as he waited for Emelda, similarly laden with inflated beer skins, to join him in the water.

  Rorek came last of all, the engineer seeming as if he almost enjoyed the swim. All three positioned themselves beneath the shadow of the hanging statue head, staring up into its vast hollows. The engineer ferreted around in the water, reaching for something on his belt and eventually pulled out a throwing axe.

  ‘Give that to me,’ Uthor barked, ‘you would as
likely hit one of us.’

  Flushed with embarrassment, Rorek passed the weapon to Uthor.

  ‘You had best be right about this, engineer,’ Uthor warned, holding the axe in one hand. ‘Now you will see the killing stroke,’ he boasted, winking at Emelda.

  With a grunt, Uthor let fly. The throwing axe span through the air and sheared the tethered rope in two, sending the hollow statue head plummeting earthward. In the instant before the massive thing plunged into the water, the three dwarfs huddled together instinctively. Uthor noticed Rorek had his eyes closed and his fingers firmly crossed. ‘Grungni’s balls...’ he muttered as the statue head crashed down.

  ‘Wait, I hear something,’ Hakem hissed, edging up to the end of the tunnel before peering surreptitiously around the curved corner.

  At the end of a short, wide corridor was the overflow grate. Two mighty hammerers fashioned from the very rock of the mountain stood sentinel before the massive gate that dominated the entire back wall of the tunnel. Their hammers were part of the actual mechanism that allowed the water through. At this moment they were clasped together – the Barduraz Varn was obviously still closed.

  Huge cogs of iron with broad, fat teeth were bolted to the left facing wall and a bewildering array of interlinking chains and conjoined pistons fed from them to the inner-workings of the grate itself.

  Dwarfed by the immense structure was a small cohort of rat-kin, obviously sent to guard the grate from interference – a dozen clanrats and a pair of Clan Skryre engineers bearing another fire-spewing contrivance, similar to that which had caused such havoc in the Wide Western Way.

  Hakem rolled back around the curve to where the others were waiting.

  ‘Twelve guards,’ the Barak Varr dwarf reported, his demeanour increasingly taciturn and pugnacious since losing the Honakinn Hammer.

  Gromrund cracked his knuckles and readied his great hammer, sloshing determinedly through the floodwater. ‘There is little time for it,’ he said matter-of-factly, ‘but needs must.’

  Hakem stopped him.