Masters of Stone and Steel - Gav Thorpe & Nick Kyme

by Warhammer

  The water was getting steadily higher. There was only a few feet left before it engulfed the tunnel completely.

  Hakem nodded.

  ‘Hold on,’ Thalgrim said and ripped his pick free. Using the column for support, he smashed the weapon, two-handed, into the bare rock. The wall crumbled and an opening was made wide enough for the dwarfs to pass through. Thalgrim went first, diving into the unknown, then Ralkan and finally Hakem.

  First there was darkness then the sense of falling as the merchant thane struck the ground hard. He was rolling and skidding on his backside down a long and narrow tunnel, an undercurrent of rapidly rushing water beneath carrying him. So black were Hakem’s surroundings and so disorientated was he, that all he could discern was that he was going down; down into the darkest depths of the hold.

  ‘Is there no other way,’ Uthor cried over the din of the thunderous skaven pumping engine.

  ‘Rhun-seals are wrought by rhunki using rhun magic, as are the keys that unlock them. It is far beyond my skill. Without such a key we cannot release the bar and as long as the bar is engaged the Barduraz Varn will not open.’

  As if to mock them, the echoing report of the wyvern-horn rang loudly through the chamber.

  ‘We must release the Black Water now,’ Uthor raged. ‘In this deed at least, I will succeed.’

  ‘We cannot,’ Rorek told him. ‘Besides the rhun-key, there is no other way.’

  ‘Grimnir’s hairy arse!’ Uthor slumped down on his backside, Ulfgan’s axe in his lap. ‘The lorekeeper mentioned nothing of this. If we survive, I will personally see to it that his beard is shorn.’ He gripped the haft of his axe as he thought about the retribution he would visit upon Ralkan. Regarding the glinting blade, the runes glowing faintly as he held the weapon in his grasp, something dawned on him.

  ‘These rhun-keys,’ said Uthor suddenly, getting to his feet. ‘Who would bear such a thing?’

  Rorek stared back at him, slightly dumbfounded. ‘What does it matter?’

  ‘Who would bear it? Answer me!’

  ‘The rhunki that made it, of course,’ Rorek blathered, unsure as to the reason for Uthor’s sudden, urgent behaviour.

  ‘Who else?’ The thane of Kadrin was delving beneath his chainmail shirt.

  ‘The king,’ Rorek finished. ‘The king of the hold.’

  ‘Do you remember the King’s Chamber?’ Uthor asked the engineer.

  ‘Of course, you bear noble Lord Ulfgan’s axe to this day.’

  ‘Yes, I do. But the axe was not all we salvaged from his private rooms.’

  Realisation dawned on Rorek’s face.

  Emelda stood watching the entire display nonplussed.

  ‘The talisman,’ said the engineer.

  Uthor found it beneath his armour, where he’d put it for safe keeping after fleeing the hold, and held it aloft.

  Ulfgan’s talisman – it bore the rune marking of the royal clan etched around the edge and in the centre was the badge of his ancestor, Hraddi. Flickering brazier light shone through two square holes in the eyes and a third in the mouth. Without looking, Uthor knew they would fit the mechanism perfectly. They had their key.

  Uthor placed the arcane device into the recess in the wall, fixing the three holes in position over the iron studs. It clamped into place with a dull, metallic thunk.

  ‘Turn it,’ said Rorek, standing just behind him and looking over the thane of Kadrin’s shoulder. Emelda waited next to the engineer, silently apprehensive.

  Uthor did as Rorek told him and turned the rune key once. Beyond the wall, he heard the sonorous retort of a hidden mechanism at work. Screeching metal filled the chamber, smothering even the sound of the chugging engine, as the mighty locking bar disengaged spitting out dust and stone chips. Hinged at one end, the huge bar split into two from a previously imperceptible join and fell away to clang thunderously into a thick bronze clamp on either side of the Barduraz Varn.

  Moving away from the alcove, Uthor took his place at the huge wheel crank in the centre of the stone platform. His companions followed him, and together they turned the massive device that set yet more hidden feats of engineering in motion.

  From below, a sudden onrush of water could be heard as the Barduraz Varn rose magnificently. Hauled up by a raft of iron chains, the great gate ascended vertically in slow and juddering increments, feeding gradually into a long and deep recess set into the chamber roof way above where the dwarfs stood on the stairway. Pushed past the point of no return, the gate would keep opening, its momentum as inexorable as the flood waters crashing through it, until it was fully released.

  From their vantage point on the stone platform, Uthor gazed across the gradually deepening reservoir to another set of stone steps on the opposite side of the vast chamber. They led up to a thick, wooden door. With the destruction of Rorek’s diving helm the way back was shut; this might be their only possible escape route.

  ‘Head for that portal,’ he cried, starting down the stone steps. ‘Make haste,’ he called back, ‘the chamber will soon be flooded.’

  The dwarfs negotiated the stairs quickly, slowing only slightly when they edged past the still whirring wheel. When they reached the bottom, the crude struts of the pumping engine were beginning to buckle under the sustained battering of the emerging Black Water. Several of the observation platforms had already been felled and swirled in the growing reservoir amongst the rotting debris of rat-kin corpses.

  Slogging back across the carcass-ridden lagoon, making the most of the few islands of rock that had yet to be submerged, the dwarfs finally reached the second stairway, plunging waist deep into the water to get to it. Tramping up the stone steps was a great relief and once they had gained the upper platform and the threshold to the portal, they looked back.

  The Barduraz Varn was a third of the way open and with smashing force the inundation unleashed by it crushed the pumping engine utterly. Rat-kin slaves mouthed silent screams as they were pummelled into the thrashing depths, together with their wheeled prisons that collapsed and split against the swelling water. Like a fallen standard conceding defeat, the metal prongs at the zenith of the engine were the last to crumble. Arcs of lightning flared defiantly as a massive wave engulfed the tower and it was dragged into the depths. Flashes, stark and diffuse, raged for a moment and were still as if the infernal engine had never existed.

  Having seen enough, Uthor turned away and made for the wooden door.

  Hakem was flat on his back, his clothes sodden and torn. Dazed, he got to his feet absently feeling a fat bruise bulging on his head. Darkness surrounded the merchant thane and an old, stagnant stench wafted over to him on a warm and shallow breeze.

  ‘Thalgrim,’ he hissed, crouching down and scrambling around for his borrowed axe. It was nowhere to be found. Patting down his body, he realised he still had his beard-irons. Hakem looked at them for a long moment then unhitched the irons from his belt and dropped them to the ground.

  ‘Here,’ came the whispered reply of the lodefinder, close by.

  ‘Lorekeeper,’ Hakem called quietly again, detecting Thalgrim’s vague outline just ahead.

  ‘Am I dead yet?’ Ralkan answered.

  Eyes adjusting to the gloom, Hakem made out the prone form of the lorekeeper, flat on his back and languishing beneath a faintly trickling waterfall that fed into a thin, downward wending stream. It seemed the rushing waters had been diverted at some point during their descent. Hakem wasn’t about to question it.

  ‘You’re not dead,’ he said, standing next to the exhausted lorekeeper. ‘Now, get up,’ he added, helping Ralkan to his feet.

  Thalgrim joined them. Incredibly he still carried his pick though, try as he might, he couldn’t light the clutch of candles gripped in his meaty fist.

  ‘Waterlogged,’ the lodefinder explained unnecessarily.

  Hakem ignored him. These were the lowest deeps, that much he was certain, and as a thane and bearer of the longest beard it was his duty to get them through it an
d somehow out of Karak Varn.

  ‘What is this place?’ he asked Ralkan.

  The lorekeeper rubbed the water from his eyes and wrung out his beard, before peering intently at the surrounding gloom.

  ‘We are at the lowest part of the underdeep,’ he murmured, picking out age-worn runes and sigils carved into keystones.

  The tunnel was wide but low. The three dwarfs were gathered where it flattened out to a level plain. Just beyond it the tunnel fell downward in a gradual slope. Other than that, the only other way was back up, over the lip of stone from which the dwarfs had been disgorged and a long, hard climb through the rapids.

  ‘Is there a way out from here?’

  Ralkan scratched his head and fell silent. It wasn’t a good sign.

  ‘I don’t remember this place,’ he admitted. ‘I do not think I have ever been here… Yet…’

  ‘Yet?’

  ‘There is something familiar,’ he said. ‘This way,’ the lorekeeper decided finally as he headed down the slope.

  It felt like they’d been wandering the tunnels for an hour, though Ralkan could not be sure – his judgement of the passage of time had been irrevocably damaged during his period of hidden isolation in the hold.

  With each step that carried him further into the lower reaches of the underdeep a strange disquiet gnawed at him. Smothering it to the back of his mind for now, the lorekeeper led them on until they reached another crossroads.

  The Barak Varr dwarf said something – Hakem, that was his name – Ralkan didn’t hear what it was. His head was hurting. Nothing looked right.

  East, he thought suddenly. East – that feels right, and took the left fork.

  About halfway down the tunnel, the lorekeeper thought he heard something – faint, but it was definitely there. Vile squeaking drifted over to Ralkan on the weak breeze. Fifty years in the dark. Squeaking and scratching. Squeaking and scratching.

  No – it wasn’t right. Something boiled up inside the lorekeeper, something he’d buried. It slid, leaden in his gut, and icily up his spine until it dried his tongue to sand. Ralkan turned on his heel and fled.

  ‘Skaven,’ Ralkan hissed as he rushed passed Hakem.

  The Barak Varr dwarf looked ahead down the tunnel. His heart caught in his mouth when he saw the skulking shadows against the wall, stretching towards him. Then came the squeaking, chittering sound of the rat-kin as the horde grew ever closer. Judging by the terrible cacophony, there must have been hundreds. Hakem’s first thought was the flood waters might not reach them here; his second was he couldn’t fight them and live. He gave chase after the lorekeeper with all haste, urging Thalgrim, who was dawdling in the tunnel, to follow him. The lodefinder was not far behind as Hakem fled by the crossroads and went after Ralkan, straight down the western fork.

  ‘Lorekeeper,’ bawled the merchant thane. ‘Lorekeeper, slow down.’

  In his frantic flight after Ralkan, Hakem raced through a myriad of tunnels. After a while, it became clear they had lost the skaven or that they had deliberately given up the pursuit. As he slowed, and a sense of creeping, ancient dread came over him, Hakem could understand why.

  Ahead of him Ralkan was still running, though the lorekeeper was obviously exhausted now and had slowed down considerably. Hakem picked up his pace, trying to close the gap. He saw Ralkan look behind him, though the lorekeeper gave no indication he had seen the merchant thane. Then he slipped and fell to his knees. Ralkan was up swiftly and bundling himself around a corner was lost from sight.

  Hakem hurried on. Sweat dappled his forehead and he noticed the air was getting warmer – his sodden clothes were gradually drying in it.

  This tunnel is ancient, thought the merchant thane as he reached the corner, a sulphurous stench pricking at his nostrils, mixed with old fear. Hakem caught up to Ralkan at last. The lorekeeper’s leather jerkin, the one he wore beneath his robes, was torn and he was feeling his way slowly along the wall.

  ‘What is it?’ Hakem asked, aware that Thalgrim had just reached them both.

  Ralkan traced his fingers over a dust-shrouded symbol.

  ‘Uzkul,’ he muttered. He turned to the merchant thane, his face an ashen mask.

  ‘Uzkul?’ Thalgrim asked.

  Ralkan nodded slowly.

  Something was wrong; the lorekeeper was behaving more strangely than usual. Slightly on edge, Hakem looked past him and further down the tunnel. He saw a faint glow ahead.

  ‘Perhaps it is an ancient hearth hall,’ Ralkan offered, following the merchant thane’s gaze. The lorekeeper’s voice seemed far away as he said it, padding calmly down the tunnel and towards the light.

  ‘You are sure this is the way?’ Hakem asked as he followed, sharing a worried glance with Thalgrim alongside him. The sulphur stink was getting stronger with every step.

  Ralkan didn’t answer.

  ‘Heed me, lorekeep–’ the merchant thane began as he reached Ralkan, standing at the mouth of a huge cavern. The words stuck in Hakem’s throat, gaping in awe as he was bathed in a golden aura.

  ‘We must turn back,’ said Rorek.

  ‘There is no back,’ Uthor replied, angrily.

  Before them was a narrow stone bridge, spanning a deep gorge. A rushing spout of water surged violently across it, falling away into the dark recesses of the crevice beyond and below.

  After they’d left the chamber of the Barduraz Varn, the dwarfs had sealed the door shut behind them. Making haste, for they knew the floodwater would reach them soon enough, they had reached the bridge. Uthor had tried to cross, tied to Rorek and Emelda, but the force of the spouting deluge had crushed him flat and nearly pitched the thane right over the edge. He’d crawled back, drenched and defeated with the rushing water battering him at every clawed inch.

  ‘Then this is the end,’ Emelda uttered with resignation. ‘We cannot cross and we cannot retreat. I envy Azgar and the others,’ she said, noting the tightening of Uthor’s jaw at the mention of the slayer, ‘at least they will die fighting.’

  ‘I see something,’ said Rorek, suddenly, squinting past the pounding water. The engineer pointed to the other side of the bridge and the mouth of another, small, portal. ‘It’s not possible,’ he gasped.

  From beyond the bridge, shrouded in darkness, a vaguely outlined figure hailed them. Any words were lost, swallowed by the roar of the thrashing water as the figure waved to them with an outstretched arm. Though mostly sketched in silhouette, the shape and size of the figure’s warhelm was unmistakable.

  ‘Gromrund?’ breathed Uthor and suppressed a shudder, uncertain as to what he was actually seeing.

  Gromrund’s silhouette waved again and pointed down to the bridge.

  Uthor followed the gesture but couldn’t see anything past the rush of the water.

  ‘I thought he was at the overflow grate in the opposite end of the hold,’ Emelda whispered, clutching the talisman of Valaya around her neck for reassurance.

  ‘He was,’ Uthor replied darkly, searching through the pounding river for some sign of what Gromrund wanted them to find.

  Then he saw the frayed edges of a rope. It was only a few feet away; Uthor could reach it at a stretch.

  ‘Hold onto my ankles,’ said the thane of Kadrin as he got down onto his stomach.

  ‘What?’ Rorek asked, still staring at the shadow beyond the bridge.

  ‘Just do as I ask!’ Uthor barked.

  Rorek crouched down with Emelda beside him, and the two of them gripped Uthor’s ankles as he crawled back across the bridge, the river battering him relentlessly.

  Fingers numbing from the cold, Uthor reached out and gripped the rope.

  ‘Pull me back,’ he cried.

  Dragged from out of the swell, Uthor clutched one end of the rope in his hand. On the other side of the bridge, Gromrund showed them the opposite end and beckoned for them to cross.

  ‘Are you sure about this?’ Rorek muttered, his voice a little tremulous as he eyed the dark portal and the shadow inside it.


  ‘It is our only chance.’ Uthor pulled the rope until it was taut. He saw Gromrund take the strain on the other end. With an oath to Valaya, he stepped bravely onto the bridge. At first he was battered to his knees but using the rope for support he got back to his feet and crossed, hand over hand, inch by painful inch. Rorek and Emelda followed.

  It felt like hours but they reached the other side, collapsing into an exhausted heap on a small stone platform.

  ‘My thanks, hammerer–’ Uthor began but as he looked over to where Gromrund had been standing the rope fell slack. The Karak Hirn dwarf was gone.

  Azgar leapt from the forgemaster’s anvil, clearing the last lines of dwarf defenders and landing amidst a clutch of rat-kin warriors who scattered before him. Before the vile creatures could close in again, the slayer swung his chained axe in a punishing circle, slicing meat and bone. Churning deeper into the fray, amidst a storm of severed limbs and shredded torsos, Azgar found his prey.

  Shrieking a challenge, the rat-kin warlord came on fearlessly, ducking the first swing of the chain as it stepped inside the killing arc and swatted away the second revolution of the deadly blade with the flat of its glaive. Pulling the weapon down, it made a powerful lunge that Azgar was hard pressed to dodge. The slayer twisted from the glaive’s path, though it nicked the skin of his left side and drew blood.

  Snarling exultantly, the warlord then licked the crimson droplets bejewelling its blade and surged at Azgar again. The slayer rolled beneath a wild, overhead swipe, gathering up his chain axe as he did so and gripping the haft to wield it conventionally. A vertical strike from the glaive followed, and the slayer dived forward to avoid it, gutting a black-furred skaven that got too close before whirling on his heel and side swiping the overstretched warlord. The blow carved into the rat-kin’s back, ripping off plates of armour. The warlord cried in pain, blocking a second blow with the haft of its glaive. Roaring back, Azgar struck again and again, until he sheared the glaive haft in half.

  Staggering backward, the rat-kin warlord tossed the bladed end at the slayer, who smashed it aside with the flat of his axe. It slowed Azgar enough for the rat lord to draw its sword.