The doom of dragonback, p.30
The Doom of Dragonback, page 30
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 been 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.’
‘Sorry, dear,’ said Friedra, ‘it’s just your father going on. There isn’t any rat milk, I’m afraid.’
Haldora slipped back into her semi-comatose state, eyes fixed on the cooking rat. Her jaw slowly worked and there was a piece of leather sticking out of her mouth – Haldora had taken to chewing a piece of belt-strip to keep herself from feeling empty.
Friedra was in remarkably good spirits. Like all the womenfolk she had been tested, forced to fight when the orcs broke through – there was little in the world more fierce than an Ekrund-maid fighting to protect her loved ones and home. She darned and scavenged and had even learnt a little metalcraft to fix the rings of their mail and reset the heads on their weapons.
‘You are an inspiration,’ he told her quietly.
‘That’s nice, dear,’ she replied, returning her attention to patching a pair of red-and-black checked trousers. Gabbik vaguely remembered seeing them on a dead body at the arch of the upper tunnels to the Third Deep, but he wasn’t sure. He didn’t ask Friedra where she managed to find so many raw materials and she wasn’t going to volunteer the information any time soon.
A shout echoed down the tunnel some distance away. None of them paid it much heed – there was always some ruckus or other these days. They were off-shift, and that was all that mattered. Gabbik gave the rat an experimental prod with his knife.
‘A little bit longer, nobody wants the squits from half-cooked rat.’
The call was repeated, coming closer. This time they could make out the words. Almost instantly they were all alert, Angboks, Troggklads and even a few Nordekkers and Thornsons on their feet. Metal scraped on leather and wood as weapons were readied.
Nakka ran to the door and took up the call, raising the alarm for those further down the tunnel.
‘Goblins in the deeps! Bear arms! Night goblins in the deeps! Bear arms!’
It had been a matter of little remark that the goblins that had occasionally pestered Ekrund with their raids had not made an appearance since the start of the siege. At the outset patrols had been sent into the mines to watch for any sign of encroachment. Of late such diligence had been impossible. Every dwarf was needed for the gatehouse and to defend the inner portals against the orcs and goblins in the workings that had fallen.
The night goblins had been patient, and they had amassed their strength. Several thousand of them poured up from several mine workings, converging on the upper halls in black-robed waves. The dwarfs knew better than to throw themselves piecemeal against such an attack and the command came from the king for the Ekrundthrong to muster in the Hall of Eighty Pillars.
The massive chamber was pragmatically named for the eighty vast columns that held up its high ceiling, each pillar nearly thirty times the height of a dwarf. The hall had once been a natural pocket in the mountain, and had been mined and later shaped by masons into an octagonal space a little less than six hundred paces across. Each of the eight walls was broken by a tall archway. It served as a cross-road of sorts, between the Rinkeldraz chambers, the Central Hall and two tunnels down to the mine workings.
The Angboks arrived from the western side of the hall. There were, at most, two thousand dwarfs present, all that could be spared from the defence of the upper reaches being assailed by the orcs. They were quickly marshalled by Prince Rodri into a fighting line between a company of crossbow dwarfs and a fearsome band of Trollslayers. Haldora had not really paid much heed to the Slayers before. She had heard what had happened to her father at the king’s council, and that several more of the Cult of Grimnir had arrived soon after, but now there were thirty or forty of them.
She sidled over towards the outlandish warriors and waved at the nearest.
‘Hsst! Hey, you!’
The Slayer turned, his high orange crest as stiff as a fence, the rest of his scalp dappled with undyed stubble. His face was little more than a red-dyed beard and a pair of eyes, everything else was scar tissue and the mashed remnants of a nose. Haldora couldn’t imagine an uglier dwarf, and she had once met Norgamm ‘Ogre Face’ Hastengrom.
‘Milady?’ the Slayer said, in a curiously aristocratic accent that took Haldora by surprise. She guessed he was from Karaz-a-Karak, the High King’s hold.
‘Where are you from?’ she asked. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘As to the first, I cannot say. My past is buried beneath my shame and I will not speak of it. As to the second question…’ The Slayer pointed a rune-decorated axe across the hall towards the corridors leading south. ‘I came to slay or be slain.’
‘How comes there’s so many of you?’
‘Ekrund is doomed,’ said the Slayer. ‘We were drawn here by the call of Grimnir to find our glorious deaths. Seven of the brotherhood have already been released from their guilty burden since the siege began.’
‘Just gobbos today, I think,’ Haldora said. She tried to look sympathetic. ‘I think it’ll mostly be slaying today, not slain.’
‘Perhaps,’ said the Slayer.
A shout of warning turned their attention across the hall. Haldora hurried back to her place between Skraffi and her father. She slipped her axe free from its sling and held her shield up to her chest. Gabbik spared her a glance.
‘Whatever comes up them tunnels, be ready for…’
His voice trailed off as something monstrous and red squeezed through one of the archways opposite. It was basically a huge sphere with a mouth and two legs. Its hide was scarlet, pocked and ridged like old leather armour. Two black, beady eyes glared at the dwarfs over a maw filled with sword-like fangs. A team of night goblins hurried past, dragging on chains hooked into its flesh. It stepped out into the hall, claws raking across the bare stone floor, prodded forward by more goblins with jagged goads.
Crossbows greeted the beast with a storm of bolts. Most clattered uselessly from its thick skin, two of the night goblins were felled and a handful of quarrels stuck in its flesh. Opening its mouth even wider, pink tongue lolling like a serpent, the monstrous cave-thing issued a weirdly high-pitched mewing.
Some of the dwarfs started to snigger. Haldora couldn’t help herself as a chuckle burst out. The laughter was infectious, spreading from one company to the next, until it seemed that the whole hall was filled with guffaws and sniggers.
A shadow blotted out the lanterns in the tunnel beside the cave-thing and the laughter started to subside. It fell silent as another monstrous beast, even larger than the first, heaved itself into view. The hysteria that had gripped the battle-mad dwarfs drained away, and Haldora cast a glance at the Slayer she had spoken to. He was talking excitedly with his companions, and they all seemed rather enthusiastic.
