The end times, p.59
The End Times, page 59
Belegar parried them with stolid economy. Queek curled over a hammer strike that would have flattened a troll and landed behind the king. Belegar faced him.
‘And I thought the Headtaker a master of combat,’ said Belegar quietly. All emotion save hatred and defiance had bled from his face. He stood on legs weakened by his wound and battle fatigue, but he stood nonetheless. ‘If you are the finest warrior your kind has to offer, no wonder you must resort to cheap tricks to bring your enemies low.’
Queek snarled and ran at Belegar. He punched forwards with the head of Dwarf Gouger, intending to make Belegar sidestep onto the point of his sword. But Belegar moved aside a fraction of an inch, evading the maul. He stamped down on Queek’s sword, though it moved almost too quickly to be seen, wrenching it from Queek’s grasp. A hammer blow of his own caught Queek by surprise. The skaven warlord moved aside awkwardly, holding only Dwarf Gouger. The hammer grazed him nonetheless, bruising his sword arm and driving his own armour into his flesh. Queek jumped back, swordless, blood matting his fur.
‘Pathetic,’ said Belegar. ‘Flea-ridden vermin, swift and twitchy. There’s not a dwarf alive who isn’t worth twenty of you.’
‘Queek has killed many hundred beard-things,’ said Queek. He shook his arm. Agonising pins and needles ran from his shoulder to his hand, jangling the nerves of his fingers. His shoulder was numb. ‘Queek kill one more very soon.’
‘Probably. I am tired, and I am beaten, and the memory of our last encounter festers still in my flesh. But even as you hack the head from my neck, Queek, you will know that you could never best me in more honourable circumstances.’
Few skaven gave a dropping for honour, but Queek was one of this unusual breed. His honour was not as a dwarf would see it, but it was there, built of arrogance though it was. Queek became enraged at this slur upon it.
The duel that followed was swift, its outcome inevitable, but Belegar was not done yet. Queek spun and ducked, casting a deadly net of steel about the dwarf with his terrible maul. Belegar smashed it aside several times with his shield, but with each swipe he became weaker. Queek hooked the king’s shield with the spike of his weapon, yanking it free from Belegar’s arm with a squeak of triumph. A following blow smashed into Belegar’s side, causing the king to cry out as his wound burst wider, but Queek overreached himself and the dwarf’s hammer hit his left side, rending apart his warpstone armour and cracking his ribs. Agonised, Queek staggered, only at the last turning his stumble into a spin that had him facing the long-fur again.
He and Belegar panted hard. Belegar bled freely from the wound Queek had given him in their last encounter. Blood pooled about his feet. He had other wounds, some small, others graver. He could not see it himself, but his face was ghostly white.
Queek smiled in spite of his pain. The end approached.
‘Greet-hail your ancestors when you meet them, beard-thing. Queek will come for them next. Death is no refuge from the mighty Queek!’
Again Queek charged, putting all his cunning into a complicated swipe reversed at the last moment to send Belegar’s hammer spinning away from him. Another blow took the dwarf king in the knee, shattering it, and sending the dwarf down. But to Queek’s amazement, the king arrested his fall. Holding himself in a kneel, his weight on his undamaged leg, he glared at the skaven, his eyes poison.
Queek swung Dwarf Gouger a final time. The spike connected with the side of the king’s helmet, punching through the gromril. Queek squealed at his victory, but his cries turned to pain. He looked down. The dwarf had somehow got Queek’s own sword up, and now it pierced him at the weak shoulder joint of his armour. He stepped back, and Belegar fell over with a crash, his eyes never leaving Queek’s face.
Queek screamed as he pulled out his sword from his armpit, the weapon’s square teeth dragging lumps of his own flesh with it. Ska rushed out from the ranks of the Red Guard, but Queek shoved at his massive chest with his unwounded hand.
On shaking legs, Queek walked over to the dwarf king. He plucked Dwarf Gouger free, casting it onto the carpet of dwarf bodies. With a yell, he swung his sword over his head, severing the king’s head with one blow.
He dropped his sword and bent over, then held aloft Belegar’s head with his good arm. He stepped up onto the dwarf king’s oath stone.
‘The City of Pillars is ours, from deepest deep to loftiest peak! Queek brings you this greatest of victories, only Queek!’
His guard squeaked out their praises, and Queek showed them all the lifeless head of Belegar. Such a fine trophy. Such a shame he had to give it up.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
THE LAST KING OF KARAK EIGHT PEAKS
Gromvarl staggered up the stairs. Black spots swam in front of his eyes, crowding out what little light there was left in the citadel. The poisoned wound in his back throbbed a strange sort of pain, at once unbearable yet simultaneously numb. He fought against it with all his dwarfish will, forcing himself on in the fulfilment of his first, last and most important oath.
The protection of Vala Kemma.
The sound of fighting still sounded from below, but it was that of desperate, lonely struggles fought in dark corners against impossible odds, and not the regimented clash of two battle lines. Screams came with it, and the stink of burning. There were only the old, the sick, and the young in the upper levels. The skaven were coming for Karak Eight Peaks’s small population of children.
Gromvarl stumbled on the steps, his feet failing to find them. He broke a tooth on the stone. Five thousand years old, and still a sharp corner on the step edge. Now that, he thought, was proper craftsmanship.
Kemma was up above, locked in her room and forbidden to fight. Gromvarl had one of the only keys, but had been forced by the king to swear he would not use it.
The king was dead. As far as he was concerned, the oath died with him.
He staggered his way upwards, his progress growing slower and slower as he went. The fiery numbness had taken hold of his limbs. He had to rest often, his unfeeling hand pressing against the stone. He knew that if he sat down he would never reach his destination.
Finally, he arrived, one hundred and thirty-two steps that had taken a lifetime to climb behind him.
The door wavered ahead of him, its black wutroth shimmering as if seen through a heat haze. He fell to his knees and crawled towards it, the poison in his blood overcoming his sturdy dwarf constitution at the last.
With a titanic effort of will, Gromvarl slid the key home in the lock. Only his falling against the door enabled him to twist it at all.
The door banged open and he fell within. He moaned as he hit the floor. He slid into blackness. To his surprise, it went away again, and he managed to heave himself up to his knees. His head spun with the effort.
‘Kemma!’ he said. ‘Kemma!’ His throat was dry. A fire raged in it, consuming his words so they came out as insubstantial as smoke.
The queen was not there. The room was too small for her to hide. There were sounds coming from her garderobe, smashing, a frantic scrabbling.
A black-clad skaven came out, a scarf wrapped around its muzzle. It was a wonder it hadn’t heard the door; then Gromvarl realised that the sounds of battle were very close behind.
Upon seeing him, the skaven assassin leapt over him, and pulled back his head sharply by the hair. A blackened dagger slid against his throat, the venom that coated it burning his skin.
‘Where dwarf-thing breeder-queen?’ asked the skaven. Like all of its kind, its voice was surprisingly soft and breathy. Not a hint of a squeak to it when they spoke the languages of others. Gromvarl found this rather funny and laughed.
The skaven twitched behind him, agitated.
‘What so amusing, dwarf-thing? You want to die?’
‘Not particularly, you thieving thaggoraki.’ He burst out laughing again.
‘Very good. You die-die just the same.’
A loud bang filled the room. The skaven slid backwards, its poisoned knife clattering to the floor. Gromvarl tossed the smoking pistol away.
‘Never did like guns,’ he grumbled, ‘but I suppose they have their uses.’ He fell onto his hands and knees. ‘Not long now, eh, Grungni, eh, Grimnir? Soon I’ll be able to look you in the eye and ask how I did. Appallingly, I’ll bet.’ He coughed, and bloody froth spattered from his mouth. Before he fell face down onto the floor, he smiled broadly.
Vala Kemma had always been as particular as any dwarf. Even in this prison in all but name, she’d kept her mail well oiled and her armour shining.
The mannequin that it had sat upon was empty.
Kemma had got away.
‘That’s my lass,’ he said into the stones of the floor. They were cool, welcoming. His breath dampened them with condensation. ‘That’s my lass,’ he whispered, and the stones were damp no more.
Kemma ran through the upper storeys of the citadel, her secret key clutched in her hand, not that she needed it now. Poor Belegar, he always underestimated her. Leaving her shut up behind a simple lock? She felt a moment of anger; it was almost like he didn’t think her a proper dwarf, probably because she was a woman.
But she was a dwarf, with all that entailed. Dawi rinn, and a vala too. More the fool him for not realising. He had always been so blinkered! Look where that had got him. Look where that had got them all.
People were running, those few warriors stationed in the top floors of the tower towards the sounds of fighting coming from the stairs, the remainder away to the final refuge with as much dignity as they could muster.
Only now, at the very end, were some of the dwarfs succumbing to panic, and not very many of them at that. Most were shouted down and shamed by their more level-headed elders, and there were plenty of them up there to do the shouting.
She caught sight of a familiar figure, bent almost double by the weighty book she had chained about her neck. Magda Freyasdottir, the hold’s ancient priestess of Valaya. Even at the end she was dressed up in the lavender finery of her office, her ankle-length, silk-fine hair bound in heavy clasps of jet.
‘Magda! Magda!’
The priestess turned, her face surprised. Kemma ran right into her arms.
‘Steady, my queen,’ she said ironically, and rightly so, for Kemma’s kingdom was by now much circumscribed. ‘I am not so steady on my feet as I was. I have someone here who might better appreciate your hugs. My king!’ she called. ‘Here he comes,’ she said to Kemma. ‘The last king of Karak Eight Peaks.’
Thorgrim came through the door, fully armed and armoured, his wispy beard hidden behind a chin-skirt of gromril plates. The sight of it made Kemma’s heart swell. Next month he would have been eleven years old, nineteen years until the majority he would never attain. In his boy’s armour he looked ridiculously young. In the visor of his helmet, his soft brown eyes, so like his father’s in particular, were wide with fear but hard with duty. My son, thought Kemma. He would have been a fine king.
‘Mother!’ he shouted with undwarf-like emotion. The others looked away at the boy-king’s unseemly display. They embraced. Someone tutted.
‘I thought you were dead.’
‘I too,’ said Kemma. She looked him deep in the eyes. His return look said he knew it too, that soon they would be.
‘Where are your Valkyrinn?’ said Kemma to Magda, looking about for the priestess’s bodyguards.
‘Gone. Gone to fight, and now doubtless dead.’
‘The king is dead?’ she asked, although she knew the answer.
‘Fallen. We are the last few dawi of Karak Eight Peaks. Thorgrim is our lord now.’
‘Whatever you say, mistress Magda,’ said Thorgim.
Magda chuckled. ‘You’re the king! You don’t have to defer to me.’
‘I think I will,’ said Thorgrim gracefully. ‘If it’s all the same to you.’
The last few dwarfs were running down the hall towards the room, heavy boots banging sparks from once fine mosaics. Worryingly, this included the last few warriors. Bloodcurdling screams and a horrible squeaking pursued them.
‘We better get in, and quickly,’ said Magda. She produced from under her robes a heavy object wrapped in oilcloth and offered it to the queen. ‘You’ll be wanting this.’
‘My hammer?’ guessed Kemma.
‘Of course. No queen should stand her last without her weapon. Are we dawi, or are we umgi females to go screaming into the night?’
Kemma nodded and took the oilcloth from the priestess; there indeed was the hammer.
‘Thank you.’
‘I took it from the armoury. I had no doubt you would need it at the end. Valaya provides for her champions.’ She gave a weary sigh, and steadied herself on Kemma’s shoulder. ‘I fear she has one final task for you before the end.’
Freya beckoned her through the door. The few dwarf warriors outside nodded their heads grimly and slammed it shut. A key turned in the lock from outside, and those inside barred the door as best they could, nailing planks across the door and frame that had been left there for that purpose.
What a last stand. Here were the young and infirm, the very, very old. Those beardlings old enough to fight or who flat out refused to leave, those young unkhazali who were too young to chance the journey. Their parents’ choice, not theirs. Kemma wished Belegar had ordered them all to go.
A room mostly full of those who never would or could no longer swing an axe. But all of those strong enough to lift them held one. Cooks, merchants, beardlings and rinn. All dwarfs had warrior in them, but some were more warlike than others, and the dwarfs in that room were among the least. They were down to the very last. She and Thorgrim were the champions of the room, the last heroes of this failing land.
She looked out of the room’s small window. Snow swirled around the tower, but it could not obscure the hordes of greenskins camped outside, insolently within gunshot of the walls. It made her sick to see them. Within hours, she reckoned, they would be fighting with the skaven over her bones.
The door shook. The beardlings tried their best to be brave, the younger children were openly terrified, the unkhazali cried in their mothers’ arms. There were not many children there; Karak Eight Peaks had never been a kind environment to raise beardlings. And here they all were, Karak Eight Peaks’s hopes for the future, trapped like rats and waiting to die.
The warriors in the corridor called out their battle-cries. From beyond the door a clashing of blades and the squealing of dying skaven set up. Thorgrim looked to his mother.
‘Don’t hold your axe so tightly,’ she scolded gently. ‘It will jar from your hand, and then where will you be?’
‘Sorry, mother,’ said Thorgrim.
Kemma smiled at him sadly. ‘Don’t be sorry. You have never done a wrong to dawi or umgi or anyone or anything else.’ She reached up to pat his face as she always had, a mother’s gesture for her child. But, she realised, he was not a child any more, despite his years. He was a king. She grasped his arm instead, a safe warrior’s gesture. ‘You would have been a very great king, my boy.’
The sound of arms abruptly ceased. There was a thump on the wood and a dying gurgle. Blood pooled under the door. Queekish squeaked outside. Silence. Then the door began to shake.
The door bounced in its frame. The wood splintered. The nails in the planks worked loose, and the first of them clattered to the floor.
‘They’re coming!’ screamed Kemma. ‘They’re coming!’
The fight was short and bloody. Kemma barred the way, keeping her son behind her, but he was singled out, and he was among the first to die. Kemma held back her grief and fought them as long as she could, a succession of untried warriors taking the position at her side. The skaven were stormvermin, strong and cunning warriors, but she was a queen, her hammer driven by a mother’s grief. They stood no chance. Ten she slew, then twenty. Time blurred along with her tear-streaked vision.
Kemma felt relief when the poisoned wind globe sailed into the room over the stormvermins’ heads, and shattered on the stone walls behind her. The choking gas poured with supernatural alacrity to fill every corner. The skaven in front of her died, white sputum bubbled at its lips, eyes bulging. Kemma held her breath, though her head spun and eyes stung and blurred. She ran forwards, hoping to buy time enough for the dwarfish young to die. Better a quick death by gas than the lingering torment of enslavement that would await them should they be taken alive.
‘Dreng! Dreng thaggoraki! Dreng! Dreng! Dreng!’ she shouted, swinging her hammer wildly. Her lungs burned, she could feel them filling with fluid. She was drowning in her own blood. Still she fought, sending the skaven breaching party reeling. Behind her, the cries and coughs subsided. Good, she thought. Good.
‘Za Vala-Azrilungol!’ she cried, holding her runic hammer aloft. The runes on it were losing their gleam, the magic leaching away, becoming nought but cut marks in steel. ‘Khazuk-ha! Vala-Azrilungol-ha! Valaya! Valaya! Valaya!’ She swung her hammer for one final swing, bloodying a stormvermin’s muzzle, but she was dying, her strength fleeing her body, and they brought her down. They pinned her to the floor, and she spat bloody mouthfuls at them. She panted shallowly, but could draw no sustenance from the air. The world and all its cruelties and disappointments receded. A golden light shone behind her as the halls of her ancestors opened their doors. Before she passed through, she flung one last, panting curse at her murderers.
‘Enjoy your victory. I hope you live to regret it.’
The column of greenskins toiled up the slopes of the mountains, into the bitter chill of the unnatural winter. They were led by a toothless, wrinkled old orc clad in nothing but a pair of filthy trousers and a stunty-skin cloak with the face still attached. The head of the stunty sat on the orc’s scalp, moustaches hanging either side of the orc’s face, beard tied under his chin. Consequently the dangling arm and leg skin of the dead dwarf only came halfway down the orc’s back. He had on no shoes, no shirt, no nothing, and it was freezing cold.
