CHAPTER SEVEN 
Horns sang all over the dwarf-held part of Karak Eight Peaks, echoing down corridors and up forgotten shafts, so that it was impossible to tell where they were coming from.
‘That’s the signal! Here they come, lads!’ cried Borrik Norrgrimsson. His ironbreakers, Norrgrimlings all, held their shields up and locked them together, awaiting the arrival of the ratmen.
‘It’s about time the thaggoraki got here,’ growled Hafnir Hafnirsson, Borrik’s second cousin. ‘I’m eager to split a few heads.’
‘We’ve been standing in this hall for two months waiting for this lot. I’m sure we can hang on for a few more minutes,’ said the Norrgrimlings’ notoriously miserable Ironbeard, Gromley. ‘Now shut up, or you’ll put the thane off. He’s on to something.’
Borrik kept a careful eye on all three entrances to the Hall of Reckoning. Two dwarf-made stairwells leading down into the enemy-infested second deep, and a massive pit, gnawed by some unspeakable thing, gaped in the middle of the floor. Not goblin work, or Borrik was an umgi. Other places gave him cause for concern. He had a keen eye for tunnelling, Borrik, and had spent a goodly amount of time tapping at the walls with variously sized hammers. There were more tunnels behind the walls, some of them worryingly new. And if there was one thing ‘new’ meant to dwarfs, it was trouble.
When Belegar assigned him to the hall, he had examined every inch thoroughly. Four hundred and one half-dwarf paces long, part of a broad thoroughfare that once ran east-west through the first deep to join with the Ungdrin Ankor. Blocked at both ends by rock falls, it would have been of little concern, save one thing. The fall at Borrik’s end was pierced by a narrow gap, shored up by a failed expedition many centuries ago. At the other end, in a chamber hacked out of the loose rubble, was a steel-bound door that led into another passageway. This in turn led to the lower parts of the citadel. The door of Bar-Undak was its name, a messenger’s access way to the Ungdrin in happier days. Now, in Borrik’s seasoned opinion, a bloody liability. Belegar had been determined to keep the hall open, it being one of the more easily defensible ways into the deeps. So it stayed open, as did thirty-nine other ways, thought Borrik grimly. Thirty-nine. Sometimes the king was a real wazzok.
In this tunnel, the Axes of Norr were arranged, two dozen in all, their front rank of ten flush with the low entrance. Seven irondrakes – the Forgefuries – were ranged in front of them.
‘If Belegar has one fault, it’s optimism,’ he grumbled to his banner bearer, Grunnir Stonemaster.
‘Aye,’ said Grunnir, his eyes fixed like Borrik’s on the arched stairwells leading into the hall. ‘Like you, my lord, I find anything other than healthy cynicism in a dwarf entirely unnatural. But I’ll say this, what other trait would lead a dwarf to try to retake Karak Eight Peaks? There’s a lot to be said for bloody-mindedness. I thought you of all people could respect that.’
‘If it had been down to me, I would have blocked off this tunnel long since. As I’ve said to the king a dozen times…’
Grunnir rolled his eyes. He’d heard this opinion a lot recently. Borrik wasn’t one to let a point lie.
‘…ever since Skarsnik’s grobi got pushed out of the upper levels two years gone–’
‘It’s been obvious the thaggoraki are planning something,’ said Grunnir, finishing his thane’s words for him, so often had he heard them before. ‘You’re not the king, Borrik. And you and me and all the rest of us followed him here, didn’t we, you grumbaki?’
‘So? I’ve every right to grumble.’
‘As has every dwarf with a beard as long as yours, cousin. My point is that we all share Belegar’s fault – if it is a fault – in being here at all. So it’s not really his fault, is it?’
Borrik sniffed. There was no arguing with that. He was quiet a moment. ‘I’d still have sealed this tunnel off, mind.’
‘Oh, give it a rest, would you?’ said Grunnir. Borrik raised his eyebrows. ‘Thane,’ added Grunnir.
‘That’s better,’ said Borrik.
There was so much history around them. Ancestor faces at the top of the stairways told of Vala-Azrilungol’s glory days. The rock falls recalled its weakening and downfall, the marks of the mason who had chiselled out the tunnel they now defended harked back to one of the many doomed attempts to reclaim it, while the gaping, tooth-gnawed pit before them told them all who Karak Eight Peaks’s real masters were now.
A hideous chittering echoed up out of the dark.
‘Right, that’s it, here they come,’ said Borrik. ‘Ready, lads!’
A musty draught blew up from the tunnels.
‘By Grimnir’s axe, there must be a lot of them,’ said Grunnir, flapping his hand in front of his face. ‘I can smell them from here!’
Hafnir grinned. ‘There’s always a lot of them, but it doesn’t matter how many, because we’re here. One hundred or a million of them, they’ll not get past!’
‘Aye!’ shouted the lads.
Stone-deadened explosions sounded down the stairs, sending a brief, fiercer breeze washing over the dwarfs that smelt of gun smoke, sundered rock and blood.
‘That’ll be the traps, then,’ said Hafnir. Grim chuckles echoed from gromril helms.
More explosions sounded, closer now. Any other attacking army might have been discouraged, but the skaven were numberless and were never put off. Borrik hoped they’d killed a lot anyway.
The first skaven spilled into the room, eyes wild with fear. They were scrawny, badly armed if at all, mouths foaming. They saw the dwarfs in their corner. The front rank hesitated but were pushed on, those attempting to go against the tide falling under the paws of their fellows.
‘Typical,’ said Borrik, indicating the rusted manacles and trailing chains of the lead skaven with a nod of his head. ‘Slave rats. They’re going to try and wear us down.’
‘Don’t they always?’ said Grunnir.
‘Just once, it’d be nice to go straight to the main course,’ moaned Gromley.
‘In your own time, lads,’ said Borrik, nodding at Tordrek Firespite, the Norrgrimlings’ Ironwarden leader. The Forgefuries levelled their weapons. The skaven scurried forwards, forced on by the mass of ratkin boiling up out of the depths. The far side of the chamber was a mass of mangy fur, crazed eyes, twitching noses and yellow chisel teeth.
‘Fire!’ said Tordrek.
Thick blasts of searing energy shot out of the Forgefuries’ guns, punching through skaven and sending them sprawling back into the mob. The fallen disappeared under their scurrying colleagues. Many fell into the hole in the centre, forced over the edge by the surging press; others stumbled and were crushed underfoot.
‘Fire!’ cried Tordrek again. Once more the irondrakes spoke, misting the air with gunsmoke.
‘Fire!’ he said one more time. The entire front rank of the skaven horde had been smashed, but thousands more came on behind them.
‘That’s close enough. Part ranks!’ shouted Borrik. The dwarf ironbreaker’s formation opened up like a clockwork automaton, allowing the Forgefuries to slip through to the back. They went unhurriedly into the small chamber around the door of Bar-Undak, as if there weren’t a numberless pack of crazed thaggoraki snapping at their heels.
‘Close ranks!’ bellowed Borrik. The gromril-clad dwarfs slid back together, presenting their shields as the first skaven hit home.
The skavenslaves were slight creatures, no bigger than grobi and less heavily built. The wave of them crashed feebly upon the shield wall. Rusty blades and rotten spears broke on impenetrable gromril. More and more skaven piled in from behind, pinning the arms of the foremost, crushing the air out of their lungs. The dwarfs stolidly pushed back, unmoved by the immense pressure. The skaven trapped at the front snapped at the dwarfs, shattering their teeth on armour. The dwarfs responded by swinging their axes, chopping the foe down with every swing. They could not miss. Behind the shield wall it was surprisingly peaceful, as if the dwarfs waited out a storm battering the windows of a comfortable tavern.
‘This is too easy,’ grunted Kaggi Blackbeard, hewing down his fourteenth skaven.
‘Aye, but how long can we keep it up?’ said Hafnir. ‘How long will your muscles hold? This is not a contest of arms, but one of arms!’ he laughed.
‘I’m just getting warmed up,’ said Kaggi. ‘And save your puns for when you’ve a better one, Hafnir.’
Desperate claws scrabbled over the shields held over the front rank by those in the back, as a slave forced itself through the narrow gap between shields and tunnel ceiling.
‘Oi! Oi! Up top!’ shouted Grunnir. The skavenslave dropped down behind the back rank. It brandished a knife, realised where it was, vented the foulest stink and was promptly chopped down for its troubles.
‘Woohoo! Smell that! It’s like Albok’s been at the chuf again!’ said Kardak Kardaksandrison.
‘You want to be up front,’ said Hafnir. ‘Fear stink. It’s all over me shield.’
‘It’ll take an age to clean off,’ said Gromley miserably. ‘You mark my words. Don’t get any of that muck in your beard or you’ll run out of water before you ever get it out.’
‘Here comes another!’ warned Hafnir.
A second and third skaven scrambled over the shields, more intent on getting away from the crush than fighting. They found no escape. One was hewed down in midair, the other gut-barged by Tordrek and stamped to death by the Forgefuries.
The floor became slippery with spilt blood, but the surefooted dwarfs barely noticed. The skaven were not so lucky, skidding over in the viscera of their slaughtered littermates.
‘Pressure’s easing off!’ shouted Hafnir. The proof of his words came as more rotting spears and rusting blades battered against the shield wall as the skaven found room to move.
‘Ready,’ ordered Borrik. ‘Prepare to advance!’
The dwarfs in the front pulled their shields in tighter, while those at the back lowered them from over the front rank’s heads.
‘Forward!’ said Borrik. ‘Deep formation!’
Swinging their axes, the Axes of Norr stepped forwards, mowing down skaven. As they advanced, they smoothly rearranged their formation, so that they were arranged into a block four dwarfs deep and five wide, the thane at the front in the middle. Shields overlapped to the fronts and sides, making them a walking fortress of gromril and thickset dwarfish limbs.
‘Charge!’ yelled Borrik.
‘Gand dammaz! Az baraz! Norrgrimsson-za!’ The dwarfs shouted the ancient war cry of their clan, and broke into a stately jog. They were not fast, but when they hit they were unstoppable. The skaven parted in front of them, scrabbling over each other to get out of the way. The Axes of Norr ploughed on. The stink of terrified skaven became overpowering, that sweet, old-straw smell of rodent urine mixed with something stronger and far more acrid.
Almost as one, the remaining rats broke and fled. Borrik and his ironbreakers pursued them, still in formation, as far as the pit in the centre of the chamber.
‘Halt!’ cried Borrik. ‘Forgefuries!’
Blazing bolts of energy seared past the dwarfish block, cutting down fleeing ratmen. The skaven tore at each other in their haste to escape, ripping their comrades to pieces. Many were pushed into the hole, or leapt into its fathomless depths in blind panic. Another volley went booming past. The skaven poured back down the stairwells.
And shortly came running back out again, the fleeing, terrified rats who had just exited the room driven back into it by a fresh legion of skavenslaves.
‘They’re coming again,’ shouted Hafnir.
‘They always come again, lad,’ said Kaggi.
‘Pull back, lads. Back to the tunnel!’
The dwarf formation halted and reversed, faces always to the enemy, pulping the corpses of their foes under weighty dwarf boots. Once in the tunnel mouth, they held their ground again.
One more time the dwarfs rushed out. One more time the skaven were cast back. The fighting went on for hours, until the last assault broke, and the skaven fled. Borrik had his panting ironbreakers rest, ordering Tordrek forward with his irondrakes.
That time, the skaven did not come again. The ironbreakers rotated their shoulders and worked aching muscles, complaining loudly that they had not enjoyed proper exercise before the skaven fled. They broke out pieces of stonebread and chuf – the hard survival cheese of their kind. A keg of ale stored by the door of Bar-Undak was broached and leather flagons passed around thirsty lips.
‘Oh look at that,’ spat Gromley. ‘Look at that!’ He ran his finger along a tiny scratch in his shield. ‘Ruined! Absolutely ruined.’
‘Shut up and drink your ale,’ said Grunnir.
Gromley stared mournfully from the depths of his helm. ‘It’s all right for you to say that. Nobody’s scratched your shield, have they?’ He shook his head. ‘No respect for good craft, you youngsters. Happy with umgak work, you are. Now, in my day I’d have got a bit of sympathy. But is one of you reaching for your polish to help an old longbeard grind out the damage? No. And we wonder why we’re in this mess!’
‘Show some respect, shortbeards,’ said Uli the Elder, the oldest of their number. ‘Let’s not let our standards slip.’
Good natured jeers vied with heartfelt grumbles.
At the front, Borrik conferred quietly with Tordrek.
‘When will they come again?’ Tordrek asked.
‘Too soon. We’ve been lucky. I reckon we’ve accounted for about four hundred of their lot, for not a single one of the lads.’ He sucked deeply on his pipe. ‘Good work, and greater fortune, but it can’t last.’ He called back over his shoulder. ‘Hafnir! Gromley! Get me some blackpowder.’ He pointed the stem of his pipe at the doors. ‘I reckon it’s time to get ready to stop up some mouseholes. The rest of you, we need some clear space to fight. I want these corpses shifted to one hundred paces out.’ The others gulped their ale and moved out from the tunnel, wiping suds from their beards with the backs of bloodied hands. ‘And be clever about it,’ said Borrik. ‘Don’t stack ’em – we don’t want to give the thaggoraki anything to hide behind, do we?’ He pointed the stem of his pipe at a young dwarf, barely sixty years old, who was doing just that. ‘Call yourself a Norrgrimling, Albok? Think, lad! What would your old dad say?’
‘Sorry, thane.’ Albok pushed over the pile he’d made with a boot. ‘Where do we put them then?’
Borrik grinned and jabbed with his pipe stem. ‘Chuck them down that there hole.’
Albok heaved a skaven corpse into the black, his thick arms tossing it as easily as a wet fur blanket. No sound came. Albok cocked his head appreciatively, and began to throw them in quickly.
‘That’s right, lads, don’t tarry. We’re not going to have long before the little furry kruti come back for another go.’
Queek paced back and forth angrily. He struck down the messenger, drawing blood from his muzzle.
‘Still standing! Still standing! What squeak-nonsense Clan Skryre tinker-speaker bring to Queek? Four mountains were bombed-targeted. Only one collapse! What news of Skarsnik?’
‘No sign of him, O most undefeated and puissant of overfiends,’ said the messenger. ‘The other tall-rock, it also nearly gone. White Mountain-place, half size it was. My masters…’
Queek glared at him so hard the skaven pulled his head all the way back into his shoulders. The sight of it was so pathetic that Queek laughed madly.
‘Stupid-meat, or brave-meat, hrn?’ Queek bounded over and flipped the Clan Skryre skaven onto his back with a footpaw. He leaned in and sniffed. ‘Stupid-meat.’
The skaven squealed in terror, exposing his neck and spreading his arms. Queek had lost interest and walked away. ‘And you, rest of you! Why beard-things not dead?’
‘It stupid beard-things fault!’ said Skrikk. ‘Not mine, oh no. Seventy thousand slaves we sent…’
‘Thaxx say one hundred thousand!’ said Thaxx.
Skrikk shrugged. ‘Skrikk count, Thaxx lie. Terrible, terrible shame. And I thought him so loyal. No doubt great and fiercely intelligent Queek can see to the traitor-meat squirming beneath loyal-fur.’
‘Thaxx Redclaw the most loyal–’ began Thaxx.
‘No squeak-tellings! Beard-things!’ snapped Queek so loudly Skrikk flinched.
‘They are not killing the slaves quickly enough, grand one,’ said Grotoose. ‘They have chosen good spots for defence and cannot be dislodged. Our slave legions can attack on narrow fronts where they are easily slain. This is not the way to beat them.’
‘You tell Queek that stupid-meat beard-things, with their slow and stupid minds, are outwitting the swiftest thinker-tinkers in all of the Under-Empire?’
The assembled skaven looked at one another and pointed fingers. Queek squeaked loudly, stopping the accusations and counter-charges of incompetence before they could begin.
‘Enough, enough! Enough with slaves and weak-meat! Send in the clanrats. Call in the stormvermin. Kill the beard-things. Kill them all dead-dead!’
‘What of orders?’ said Thaxx. ‘What of Lord Gnawdwell’s commands?’
‘I do not care. Queek general here – where is Gnawdwell?’
‘In Skavenblight?’ ventured one.
‘Yes-yes, whereas Queek the Mighty here. We will win. Nothing else is important. We will destroy. Queek will show the whole world that Queek is the mightiest, the best, the most deadly! We will see what Gnawdwell says about orders then.’
The messengers bowed several times and rushed away. The clanlords and potentates of the City of Pillars attempted a more dignified exit. Queek’s long mouth split in a hideous grin and he waved his paws at them. ‘You too, hurry-scurry! Queek not like sluggards. Loyal Ska tell sluggards what Queek thinks of slow-meat.’
‘Queek does not like them,’ said the giant stormvermin, ‘and I don’t like them either.’
‘Boo!’ shouted Queek, making as if to leap into their midst, and away they fled spraying fear musk, much to Queek’s amusement.
The chamber was empty bar the patter of retreating paws and the smell of fear. Queek snickered to himself.
‘You see, Ska? This is why Queek is so great.’
There came no reply. Ska was thankfully brief in his praise of Queek. All the bowing and scraping and insincere flattery that characterised skaven social interaction the warlord found tiresome, but Ska usually said something.
Queek’s nose twitched. Something was wrong. A smell of old fires, rubbish and hot warpstone made him sneeze. The light leached from his surroundings, leaving everything grey. Ska was unmoving, frozen in position. He called for his guards, but they did not come.
Movement in the unmoving world caught his eye. He did not turn to it, not immediately. Something big was in the corner.
He spun around, leaping into the air and twisting his entire body. Dwarf Gouger leapt into his hand, and moved in a blurred arc impelled by all his weight and speed. His serrated sword came up next, aimed directly at the vitals of his giant ambusher.
Queek crashed into the stone. The creature was not there.
‘Oh ho! You are as good as they say. But mighty Queek could be the mightiest of all mortal skaven, and he still would not catch me.’
Shadows boiled all around him, darting like swarms of flies over the marshes. Queek hissed and made feints and jabs, but the darkness moved away from him, slipping around his weapons like water.
‘Who-you?’ he cried. His fur bristled with a fear he would not allow himself to feel. For the first time in years, his glands clenched. ‘What you want with Queek?’
The darkness ran together and parted for an instant, affording the warlord a glimpse of a masked, rodent face, ten feet in the air, topped with three sets of horns, two straight, one curved. The ends of them were twisted into the runic claw-mark of Clan Eshin.
‘I am Lurklox, Shadow Lord of Decay, one of the twelve above the twelve. And what I want with you, strutting warlord, is your victory.’