Masters of Stone and Steel - Gav Thorpe & Nick Kyme

by Warhammer

  ‘This way,’ Uthor bellowed, treading carefully across a rock path that fell away at one edge into a deep, undulating pool of liquid fire.

  Emelda followed wearily. She had dispensed of her armour – too heavy and hot to bear any longer. Shimmering around her waist in the reflected glow of the lava was the cincture, her only remaining protection. Rorek followed the clan daughter, some distance behind as the trio passed the narrowing path and came upon a wide tunnel that wended upward but was fraught with shadowed alcoves and pits of flame.

  ‘Do you smell that?’ asked the thane of Kadrin, letting Emelda catch him up.

  ‘I smell only ash and fire,’ she replied, her expression haggard.

  ‘Breathe deeply,’ he told her.

  Emelda closed her eyes and took a long and lingering breath. Beyond the scent of ash-laden, fire-scorched air was another smell – something much clearer and colder.

  ‘The upper world,’ she said, opening her eyes as tears were forming.

  ‘And there,’ added Uthor, pointing in the distance to a faint corona of light. ‘The way out.’

  ‘We have escaped…’ said Emelda, her face alight with joy then twisting horribly in pain. The end of a rusted blade punched savagely through her chest as she spat a thick gobbet of blood into Uthor’s soot-stained beard. Emelda sagged forward as the lustre of the runic cincture dimmed ever so slightly and the blade was wrenched free. The thane of Kadrin rushed to catch the clan daughter and saw past her falling form the visage of a burly skaven, wielding a bent and broken sword. The creature grinned maliciously and snarled at the dwarf.

  Holding Emelda in his arms, Uthor was defenceless. He saw the blood-slicked blade poised for a second strike, one that would finish them both. Uthor let Emelda go and tried to unhitch his axe, knowing already it would be too late that, even so close to freedom, his death was assured.

  Rorek bellowed a war cry, launching himself at the rat-kin with axe in hand. The creature turned, well aware of the engineer’s presence, scraping its blade along the ground and flicking a cloud of burning ash and cinder into Rorek’s good eye. Clutching his face and screaming, the dwarf’s charge failed and he stumbled to the ground in a dishevelled heap.

  Uthor was up, though his arms were leaden, and ready to fight. He stood protectively in front of Emelda who lay prone in the dirt. Rorek was off to his left, wailing in agony and rolling back and forth. Before him was the rat-kin lord, bloodied and breathing hard, its tiny eyes full with vengeful desire.

  The skaven must have followed them, somehow got ahead and waited in one of the darkened alcoves to strike. There were so many hiding places, so many ways for unseen lurkers to attack and here, in the flattened plateau of the tunnel the creature had chosen to make its move.

  Rocks were falling swiftly now and teeming lances of water came down from the ceiling in several places where the flood had found its way through. Steam hissed where they struck the ground and vaporised.

  Uthor squared off against the rat-kin lord, side-stepping slowly, not daring to wipe the trail of sweat eking into his eyes.

  ‘Come on then,’ he gasped, the challenge unconvincing as he brandished Ulfgan’s axe.

  Chittering with glee, the skaven warlord was about to rush the dwarf when another figure stepped from the shadows and into his path.

  ‘Go,’ said Azgar, the slayer’s muscle-bound back a cross-hatch of cuts as he came between Uthor and the skaven. ‘Get the other two out,’ he added. He too must have survived the flood waters and followed the rat-kin lord to them. ‘This one and I have unfinished business.’ With that Azgar charged at the rat-kin and battered it back with a rain of savage blows.

  Steel crashed in Uthor’s ears, the rock fall a deep and resonant chorus to the cacophony as he went to Emelda.

  She was pale as he cradled her in his arms, the light dying in her eyes.

  ‘Leave me,’ she begged through blood-spattered lips, her voice little better than a shallow rasp.

  ‘We are close,’ Uthor whispered, shielding her instinctively as a chunk of rock fell and shattered close by, showering him with cutting shards. ‘Lean on me,’ he pleaded, trying to get beneath her and use his shoulder as a crutch.

  Emelda coughed as she exerted herself, spitting blood from her mouth.

  ‘No,’ she managed. ‘No, I can’t.’

  Uthor set her down carefully.

  ‘I go to my father now,’ she rasped, clutching Uthor’s hand. ‘Tell the High King that I died with honour and take Dunrik to his rest.’

  ‘Emelda…’

  The clan daughter’s hand fell away. Uthor clenched his eyes tightly shut, his grief overwhelming. Rage forced it down into the pit of his stomach and opened his eyes. He took the cincture from around Emelda’s waist reverently and secured it around his own. He took the axe of Dunrik and strapped it to his back. Muttering an oath to Valaya and to Gazul, Uthor got to his feet and was about to go after the rat-kin when he heard Rorek, sobbing not far away.

  Anger wilted as the thane of Kadrin’s gaze fell upon the stricken engineer. For a moment he flitted from it to the duelling form of Azgar, his brother, as he battled the skaven warlord fiercely. The slayer’s chain axe was shattered and he wielded the broken end like a lash to hold the darting rat-kin at bay. As Uthor watched, a fiery column burst through the ground, flinging rock and magma into the air. Another jet broke the surface, then another and another. Azgar was all but lost beyond the barrier of flame.

  ‘I told you we were not done yet.’ Azgar snarled at the skaven warlord and charged.

  Reeling against the barrage of blows, the rat-kin parried and countered furiously. At last, Azgar’s frenetic onslaught wavered and as the slayer unleashed a scything swing with his chain axe, the warlord weaved aside and stamped its foot down upon the chain as it flew past harmlessly. Having trapped the weapon, and without stalling, it brought its sword down two-handed, shearing the chain in half.

  Bladeless, Azgar fell back as it was the skaven’s turn to attack, using the length of chain that remained like a whip to keep the creature at bay. Thick beads of sweat trailed eagerly down the slayer’s body, working their way into the pronounced musculature as the two fought on a narrow precipice. Lava bubbled below the duelling warriors, exuding gaseous smoke and radiating intense heat.

  Behind him, Azgar heard the raging eruption of flame and magma as the chamber slowly started to disintegrate. If forced to back off much further, the slayer would be consumed by it. Instead, he lashed out with his chain one last time, smacking the skaven’s blade aside for but a moment and barged into the rat-kin warlord. The rat-kin bit and clawed viciously, stabbing with the spike of its left hand when it dropped its sword as the slayer slowly crushed the creature’s body. The blade fell into the lava pool and melted away. Heedless of the grievous wounds inflicted upon him, Azgar drove forward, lifting the skaven warlord up in a fierce bear hug. Claws digging into the ground, the rat-kin tried to arrest the slayer’s determined drive but Azgar was not to be denied. He reached around to the creature’s neck and, with his bare hands, tore out a raft of crude stitches. It squealed as he did it, the old wound opening readily as Azgar lifted his prey higher and up off the ground.

  The edge of the precipice beckoned.

  Azgar roared and flung himself and the rat-kin warlord over the edge…

  A struggle, so indistinct that the details were lost, ensued through the shimmering heat haze as skaven and dwarf grappled. Then they fell, off the edge of the precipice to be swallowed by the lava pool.

  ‘Brother…’ Uthor muttered, and felt his grief two-fold.

  With no time to mourn, the thane went to Rorek quickly, picking him up and hoisting the engineer onto his back with a grunt.

  ‘I cannot see,’ Rorek sobbed, rubbing at his freshly ruined eye.

  ‘You will, my friend,’ said Uthor, putting one foot in front of the other, just trying not to fall.

  ‘Are we leaving now?’ Rorek asked as he passed out.

 
; ‘Yes,’ Uthor replied. ‘Yes, we’re leaving.’

  The chamber shook with all the natural fury of an earthquake as a beast, so old and terrible that Uthor felt the strength in his legs abandoning him, emerged into the wide tunnel behind the fire columns. Even through the flame Uthor recognised this creature as a dragon, the creature called Galdrakk the Red and enemy of his ancestors. With a powerful flap of its wings that staggered Uthor backwards, Galdrakk battered the fire down and launched through it. Lava hissed at its scaly hide but did nought but scorch it as the beast landed heavily on the other side.

  Uthor found the strength to back away as the dragon regarded him hungrily. The foul creature’s snout was broken and its right eye was crushed as if it had fought recently. The wounds served only to make its appearance all the more terrifying as it came on, one thought filling Uthor’s mind as it did so.

  We cannot make it…

  An almighty wrenching of stone filled the air as a veritable avalanche of rock crashed down upon Galdrakk. The beast was so massive; it couldn’t help but be struck. A spiked rock sheared into the soft membrane of its wing, and it roared in pain, followed by a heavy boulder that bashed its snout as others rebounded from its back, neck and forelimbs.

  Uthor ran, head low as the ceiling crashed down, the thunderous cry of Galdrakk resonating in his wake. He kept running, not daring to look back, fearing that the beast might still be alive, that it might have gotten free and be on their heels. Uthor fled until, blinking, he emerged into the blazing day, a clear sky supporting an orb-like sun above him. Even then, he still ran, picking his way through mountainous crags, hastening past caves and negotiating patches of scrub and scattered scree until, gasping so hard for breath he thought his lungs might burst, he collapsed in a clearing encircled by rune-etched menhirs. Vision blurring, he recognised the sigil of Grungni and fell unconscious.

  It was a shrine to the ancestor gods. Runes for Grungni, Valaya, Grimnir and their lesser children were in evidence upon the foreboding menhirs that felt like the walls of some impenetrable citadel.

  Uthor sat in front of a small fire as he read each and every one. He didn’t know how long he had been out, but he and Rorek had not been bothered by beasts as they’d lain comatose on the bare earth.

  As far as Uthor could gather, they’d emerged far south of Karak Varn at a tributary of Skull River, which flowed quietly below them in a narrow, sloping defile. The deaths of his comrades weighed heavily upon him, but none more so than that of Emelda. For that and the failure of his oath, there would be a reckoning.

  Rorek was stirring, and it arrested the thane of Kadrin from his melancholy thoughts.

  ‘Where am I?’ the engineer asked, blinking his fire-scarred eye, red-raw and blackened from the burning ash. ‘I… I’m blind,’ he said, trying to get to his feet as he started to panic.

  Uthor laid a hand upon his shoulder.

  ‘Rest easy, you are among friends.’

  ‘Uthor…?’

  ‘Yes, it’s me.’

  ‘Uthor, I cannot see.’ The engineer’s voice was edged with mild hysteria but he lay back down again.

  ‘I know,’ the thane of Kadrin replied, sorrowful as he regarded the milky white orb of Rorek’s once good eye. The thane of Kadrin had hoped that the loss of sight might not be permanent but in the harsh daylight the wound looked grievous. He had brought this fate upon Rorek.

  ‘I smell open air, grass and fresh water, and feel wind against my face. Where are we?’ the engineer asked.

  ‘Near Skull River, south-east of Karak Varn and, by my reckoning, a day’s trek across the mountains to Everpeak,’ Uthor told him.

  ‘Are we escorting the Lady Emelda back to Karaz-a-Karak?’ the engineer asked.

  ‘No, Rorek. She fell.’ Uthor couldn’t keep the dark edge from his tone.

  ‘Then are we the only survivors?’

  ‘Yes, we are.’

  A sound beyond the shrine circle broke the solemn silence. Uthor stood up, axe in hand.

  ‘What is it?’ Rorek was panicking again.

  ‘Stay here,’ Uthor hissed and stalked out of the circle, crouched low against the ground, using the long grasses and scattered rocks to cover his advance.

  Something moved towards him in the shelter of an earthen overhang.

  Uthor stooped to grasp a handful of gravel and cast it quickly ahead of him. Then he gripped his weapon in readiness and, ducking into the shadows, waited for his quarry to approach.

  ‘By Grimnir,’ he whispered through clenched teeth, ‘I’ll split your sides.’

  Stone crunched as whatever had wandered across their camp tramped over the gravel noisily.

  Roaring, Uthor sprang from his hiding place with his axe raised, ready to mete out death.

  Ralkan recoiled from the sudden attack and fell back, the blade cutting air in his wake as Uthor swiped furiously.

  ‘Lorekeeper!’ said Uthor, lowering his blade and rushing to Ralkan’s aid as he sat, dumped on his arse.

  ‘Am I free?’ Ralkan asked, fearfully. ‘Am I alive?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, you are free and alive.’ Uthor extended his hand to help Ralkan to his feet.

  ‘Uthor!’ It was Rorek.

  The thane of Kadrin turned, as he got Ralkan up, to see the engineer staggering toward him, axe in hand as he supported himself on a menhir. ‘Is it grobi, rat-kin? Point me to them,’ he growled. ‘I can still shed greenskin blood.’

  ‘Hold,’ said Uthor, his voice jubilant. ‘It is Ralkan. The lorekeeper lives!

  ‘Tell me, Ralkan, do you have word of any of our other brothers?’

  The lorekeeper’s face darkened.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, simply.

  The way back to Everpeak was slow and laborious, Rorek’s blindness making climbing of any significance impossible, and conducted in silent remembrance. In any case, Uthor wanted to avoid much of the mountain crags. They were fell places, rife with monsters and the three dwarfs were in no condition for a fight. Instead, they went southward, following the languid flow of Skull River, keeping to the shallows, and descended into a thick forest. Wolves hunted them under the false darkness of the tree canopy and more than once Uthor had been forced to take them off the trail and hide in the wide bole of some immense oak as he heard the chatter of goblins. It stuck in his craw to skulk in the shadows, but peril stalked their every step and if they were brought to the attention of even the most innocuous predator, their doom would be assured.

  Karaz-a-Karak was a mighty and imposing shadow on a sun-bleached horizon when they finally reached it, the fiery orb red and bloody in a darkening sky that threatened the onset of night, when the true dangers of the wild were made manifest.

  Heavy of heart and of booted foot, the trio of dwarfs trudged down the gilded terracotta and grey stone runway that led to the formidable gate of the dwarfen capital. It had been many months since they’d left Everpeak. It would not be a happy reunion.

  Uthor held his head low. He was alone in the High King’s Court; both Rorek and Ralkan were being tended by the priestesses of Valaya in a set of antechambers close by.

  ‘Uthor, son of Algrim,’ boomed the voice of Skorri Morgrimson, High King of Karaz-a-Karak. ‘You have returned to us.’

  ‘Yes, my king,’ Uthor uttered with proper deference. The thane of Kadrin went down on one knee. Keeping his eyes on the ground, he dared not meet the High King’s gaze.

  ‘And the fate of Karak Varn?’ the High King asked.

  Uthor mustered his courage as he tried to find the words to relate his failure.

  ‘Speak quickly,’ the High King chafed. ‘We march to Ungor this very night!’

  Uthor looked up.

  The High King was sitting upon the great Throne of Power and dressed in his full panoply of war. Clad in shimmering rune armour as forged by the venerable Skaldour in ages past, the dragon crown sat proudly on his beetling brow and with the axe of Grimnir clutched in one hand, Skorri Morgrimson was a truly fearsome sight. In the other
hand, he held a quill, the end of which was dark with what appeared to be crimson ink. In front of the High King, upon a gilt and ornate cradle, was the Dammaz Kron. The Great Book of Grudges was open at a blank page.

  The king’s son, Furgil, stood behind him, also ready for war. The Council of Elders had been dismissed, only the High King’s loremaster, his hammerer bodyguard, and Bromgar, the gatekeeper Uthor had met many months ago, were present.

  ‘Karak Varn has fallen. Our expedition failed.’ The words were like hot blades in Uthor’s heart as he remained genuflect before his king.

  ‘Survivors?’ asked the High King, noting the presence of only the thane of Kadrin in his hold.

  ‘Only the three of us that reached Everpeak.’

  Skorri Morgrimson’s face darkened at that admission.

  ‘My lord,’ said Uthor, his voice beginning to choke as he held out the runic cincture. ‘There is something you do not know.’

  The High King’s eyes widened when he saw and recognised the cincture.

  ‘No…’ he breathed, tears welling in his eyes.

  ‘My lord,’ Uthor repeated, gathering his resolve. ‘Emelda Skorrisdottir, clan daughter of the royal house of Karaz-a-Karak joined us in our quest but fell to the rat-kin hordes. She died with honour.’

  ‘Dreng tromm,’ the king muttered, pulling at his beard, tears streaming down his face. ‘Dreng tromm.’

  Bromgar approached Uthor and took the cincture from him to present solemnly to his king. Skorri Morgrimson traced the blood-flecked runes upon its surface as if touching the face of Emelda herself.

  ‘Take it away,’ he whispered, averting his gaze from the bloodied artefact. Staring back down at Uthor, all semblances of grief and anguish drained away from the High King’s face as it became as hard as stone.

  ‘At least you can look me in the eye and say it,’ the High King stated coldly. ‘You are exiled,’ he added simply, getting louder and more vengeful, ‘cast out of the Karaz Ankor. You and the names of your companions will be etched in the Dammaz Kron in blood, never to be struck out – Never!’ he raged, getting up out of his throne and snapping the quill in half in his clenched fist.