CHAPTER TWELVE

TROGGOTHS

A day and a half passed without incident. Ramarius led them to the way out as promised. As they got closer to the edge, evidence of things living in the maze became apparent. Ramarius hunted there, after all, so things had to make it their home. Then something in particular gave Kedren cause for concern. He leaned out over the edge, watching intently.

‘Captain,’ Kedren said. ‘Look over there.’ He pointed to a grubby shelf of ice.

Drekki took out his spyglass. The shelf was overhung, almost a cave. Through the glass he saw smears of dung and blood all over it.

‘You see it? Looks like troggoth sign to me.’

‘Hmm,’ said Drekki. Kedren knew a thing or two about troggoths. ‘Ready the crew. We could be in for a fight.’

The expanse of open air closed in, getting narrower. The high, wide, open space was broken up by fangs of ice. Isolated to begin with, these protrusions grew more numerous, and the ceiling of the lead lower, until the Aelsling was sailing through a series of narrow channels. The going was slow. There was more and more aether around them, until all the ice shone with golden light, and Otherek’s excited shouts competed with the sound of his instruments.

Drekki checked the ship’s compass. The aetherically charged needle should always point to the edge of the realm. In the passages, it was confused by the aether trapped in the ice, and was spinning around upon its bath of chamonite.

Drekki tapped the glass dome. It did nothing to stop the antics of the needle. He looked about. This was difficult ground. Every lump of ice looked like all the others. The channels shifted constantly. Drekki reckoned he’d last an hour navigating without Ramarius before he was totally lost.

His crew couldn’t see the peril. The liquid gold of aether shone everywhere around them. In closed helms, eyes glinted. The gold was almost close enough to scoop up in a bucket.

‘Look at that!’ Adrimm said. Aether light danced all over him.

‘We should mine this place,’ said Bokko greedily, his tools hanging limp in his hands. More of the crew were drifting towards the gun­wales, duty forgotten.

‘It is a rich seam,’ Otherek said. His instruments were pinging louder than ever. His excitement mounted. ‘Very rich!’

‘If we staked a claim,’ said Umherth, ‘we’d never have to work again.’

Uzki laughed wildly to see it.

They were entranced by the gold, each of them lost in private thoughts of wealth. Except Drekki. There was no way the Geldraad would fund an expedition somewhere this dangerous when there were easier lodes to plunder. He knew that, though the pull of the gold was hard to suppress, and he made sure to keep his eyes off the alluring shine. He told himself any claim would be practically worthless, and it would take hours for Otherek to gather enough readings to ensure good documentation. He told himself this and he told himself again. Still the gold pulled at his heart.

He marched to the cockpit and sounded the horn.

‘Watch it, lads! You’re getting the fever! There’s plenty of aether at the end of this voyage. Back to your positions! Gord, see to it! And you, Evrokk, keep your eyes ahead.’

Gord, whose interest in gold of any kind was limited to its power in purchasing food, began shoving the others away from the side.

‘Back to work!’ he said. ‘Go on! Shiny time is over.’

Then he stopped.

‘Look at that!’ he bellowed, his ogorish voice blasting the Kharadron out of their reverie. ‘Troggoth!’

Gord followed his announcement by discharging his handcannon, obscuring what he’d seen with gun smoke. When it cleared, there was nothing there.

It was enough of a warning for Drekki.

‘All hands! Prepare for combat!’ he shouted.

The ship’s horn wailed. The bell rang. Hrunki leapt into the turret and slammed the hatch over her head. Aether light glowed as she charged up the sky cannon. The rest of them pointed their guns outwards, the gold-spell broken.

Nothing happened for a while.

They puttered on, Evrokk softly cursing at every course correction he had to make. The aethershine dimmed to nothing, the bergs crowded more tightly, making it darker at every turn.

Ramarius flew back to make sure they were with him still. Trokwi buzzed about his head.

‘There are troggoths ahead. Many of them!’ Ramarius said.

‘We’ve seen,’ said Drekki. ‘Is there another way?’

‘No,’ said Ramarius. ‘Fly fast and true and Drekki will live.’ He swung around and flew on, the channel so narrow there he had to bring his wings right in, and shove off a skyberg with his legs to get through. As the Aelsling approached the gap, Trokwi descended to his perch on Drekki’s shoulder.

‘It better not get tighter than that,’ Evrokk said.

‘Tighter than a cutter in its scabbard,’ Drekki said with a grin. Evrokk’s hiss of indrawn breath only made him laugh. The hull kissed ice on both sides. Drekki heard things whispering and moving, and saw the glint of ice-cold eyes from deep crevasses. But they did not attack, and he dared hope they might leave unmolested.

He had a thought. ‘Uzki, get below.’ Better to be safe than sorry.

Uzki protested but Drekki’s glare was fierce even through his helmet lenses. The youngster headed inside, head drooped.

Beyond the narrow channel, the passage opened a little, and he found the way lit by daylight. They were nearly out. They were in a large cavity in the floe, a cave whose walls were made up of huge, shifting chunks of ice. On the far side was a tall slit of a flat, brilliant white. A faint breeze came from there.

‘The exit is there!’ Ramarius said. ‘Come now, duardin!’

It was then that a fist-sized chunk of ice exploded on the forward endrin.

Drekki ran to the space between the two globes and looked up.

‘Movement! Get me a light!’

The ship’s searchlight angled upwards and snapped on, revealing huge figures clambering about on the ceiling, claws punched deep into the ice. They were hard to see because they were white, with frosted plumes of bluish fur on their forearms and calves. Dozens of pairs of cold blue eyes turned upon the ship.

A collective hissing filled the cavern. The troggoths raked at the bergs, swinging effortlessly from the ice as they hacked huge chunks out and hurled them at the Aelsling. Boulders rained down by the hold-full.

Drekki dove back under the shelter of the endrins. ‘Open fire!’ he roared, as ice bounced off the deck.

Aethershot blasted from every side of the Aelsling. A strobing light reflected off the ice, sending every motion into the jerky animation of a beardling’s zoetrope. The troggoths let out shrieks of outrage as they were hit. But troggoths are tough, and renowned for swift healing. Though they howled, their bodies swallowed much of the aethershot, and they became angrier.

Hrunki drew a bead on one with the cannon and let fly. That did the job. The troggoth exploded; another was shaken loose, and fell screaming into the ice below.

‘Hah! Try regenerating from that,’ Adrimm gloated.

Drekki stood upon the poop, loosing shots from Karon. He couldn’t see where they went: the effusions of so many aether weapons in a dark space with reflective walls made a nonsense of vision, and the troggoths were perfectly camouflaged. They took on aspects of what they ate, so the wisdom went. This lot had eaten a lot of ice. They blended into it, invisible but for their glowing eyes.

Through the flicker he saw a troggoth leaping from the ceiling cave. It hit the Aelsling. It roared, showing rows of teeth rusty orange with iron.

‘Funti drukk!’ Adrimm yelled, turning about and shooting at the troggoth. It bounded forward, huge, ice-clear talons swiping. Umherth peppered it with shot. It knocked him aside, and he skidded along on his back, swearing loudly. The troggoth punched at Adrimm, sending him flying. On the ledges of the cavern walls, more troggoths gathered. Some were getting ready to jump.

‘Stand back!’ Kedren yelled, unleashing the fiery belch of his blunderbuss. Rune-inscribed pellets roared out in a cone, igniting as they flew. Flesh hissed as the pellets sliced into the troggoth, and it howled and reared back, beating at the flames the pellets set in its fur. The wounds in its skin did not close. Fire was anathema to them. Kedren cast down his gun, and pulled his axe up from its belt loop. Runes incised in the head flared into life, the edge burst into flames, and the runesmith went in swinging.

The cannon boomed again. More troggoths were knocked free from their perches, but they were jumping now, lots of them. One landed on the deck with the snapping of bones, but as Drekki watched he heard them click back into place, and saw its wounds reknit. He ran at it, great axe raised, and decapitated it before it could rise.

Kedren’s burning axe brought the first troggoth low. The turret fired again. Ice fell from the cave roof, hammering at the ship. Drekki loosed off shots and made for the prow.

‘Hrunki!’ Drekki pounded on the turret. The speaking hatch swivelled down. ‘Hrunki! Get out of there. You’ll bring the roof down on us. We need your eye on deck.’

‘Aye aye!’

The turret hatch swung open. Hrunki came out firing a pistol in her uninjured hand.

They were into the mass of the troggoths now. Drekki had never seen so many in one place, had never even heard of such a gathering. There were dozens, hundreds maybe, all lined up on the skybergs, hurling lumps of ice at the ship and roaring in their uncouth tongue. Most were too far away to do much harm, but there were more than enough that could.

Bullets of compressed aether fizzed through the air, keeping the decks clear. Every troggoth that leapt aboard was cut down by concentrated aether-fire, and finished off by Kedren with his fiery axe.

There was a clanging from the endrins. Drekki guessed a troggoth, clambering all over them, razor-sharp claws raking up curls of metal from the globes. Already, Bokko and Otherek were engaged; he could hear them fighting. Bokko yelled for aid. A huge billow of superheated air roared from Otherek’s anatomiser. The scalded corpse of a troggoth slipped off the endrin and bounced from the gunwales, then vanished into the deeps.

‘Kedren! Fancy exercising your axe?’ Drekki called. ‘There’s more of them up top.’

Kedren split the skull of the troggoth he was fighting, then cut off the remains of its head with a single swing. He nodded. Together, they clambered up the shrouds, Drekki to the forward endrin, Kedren to the rear.

They were just in time. Drekki arrived to find a troggoth looming over Bokko, swinging wild fists at the endrinrigger. Bokko was desperately fending them off with his cutter. It was more swatting than swordplay, and he was rapidly tiring. Otherek looked on, anatomiser wavering, unable to intervene for fear of flash-boiling his friend. Drekki fired the skyhook from the top of his axe, letting it thump into the ice a raadfathom ahead of the Aelsling. He squeezed the lever, the compact aether-winch reeled in the line, and he let the harpoon whip him up and over the endrin top. As he reached the apex of his short flight, he came close to the ceiling; a troggoth swiped for him, and he proffered a rude gesture with his free hand.

‘Stay off my ship, you frozen bozdoks!’ he hollered.

Being that close to one was not pleasant. They stank, as all troggoths do, of unclean places, and blood-rich dung, and the spilled guts of their unfortunate victims.

His descent was swift, the line reeled ever shorter as the Aelsling passed under the embedded hook. Drekki grinned at his own perfect timing, landing feet astride. With a sharp tug, he yanked his skyhook free from the ceiling, simultaneously drawing Karon and opening fire.

‘Enjoy the sharp words of my dear old mum,’ he said. ‘For she spoke as harshly as this gun!’

The broad spread of his pistol hammered into the troggoth’s back. It moaned at the burn of the bullets, clawing at itself in pain. Drekki swung his massive axe around one-handed, the runes Kedren had stamped into its blade flaring, until the edge burst into flame. The troggoth was unbalanced. Drekki took advantage, the awkward surface proving no difficulty to his experienced feet, magnetic boots clamping him to the globe, and cut through the troggoth’s leg with a swing of his axe. The troggoth slipped, the talons on its remaining foot scraping deep scratches in the metal. Bokko stabbed it hard in the gut, then it fell.

‘About time, captain!’ Bokko shouted.

‘Aye aye, Bokko, better late than never.’ Playing his axe across his front in figures of eight, Drekki put on a fiery display. Troggoths within grabbing distance recoiled from the flames.

‘Captain!’ Bokko called. ‘Behind you!’

Drekki sidestepped. Bokko shot past him with his pistol, drilling a troggoth sneaking along the ceiling neatly between the eyes.

Together, Drekki and Bokko kept back other troggoths who might be tempted to give boarding a try. Kedren and Otherek did the same atop the other endrin.

Foiled, the troggoths swung back and forth on the ceiling, screeching and throwing icicles like spears.

The ceiling climbed higher. The troggoths up there were left behind. That still left the ones on the ledges to the side.

Drekki risked peering down. The crew were all unharmed, no injuries. Ice piled on the deck, stained with reeking, black troggoth blood.

‘Drukk! But there are a lot of them.’ He elbowed his endrinrigger. ‘Still think we should be mining this ice field, Bokko?’

‘I hope Khenna’s all right,’ he said. ‘This noise will be playing havoc with her. She has a…’

Drekki rolled his eyes. ‘A headache. Yes. We all know.’

A roar came from ahead. Drekki looked over the endrin, and Aelsling’s hammer, forever extended forward.

Ramarius was flying at them with his mouth gaping wide. It was a fearsome sight, and made Drekki shudder.

‘Cover your faces!’ Ramarius roared.

‘Ancestor’s dongliz!’[46] Drekki yelled, guessing what the dragon intended. ‘Stop!’

Too late. A blast of flame followed, washing along the length of the Aelsling. Drekki turned from it, the fire whipping around his legs. Sudden, unbearable heat replaced the biting cold. It was, admittedly, worse for the troggoths, who shrieked and fell burning from the hull of the ship. Ramarius roared in triumph and rushed by.

‘Are you mad?’ Bokko yelled.

Metal groaned dangerously. From cold to hot in a fraction of a second. Rivets burst.

Ramarius was banking around for another pass.

‘No, Ramarius!’ Drekki shouted. ‘No!’ He waved his axe frantically.

Trokwi shot off the captain’s shoulder straight at the face of the drake. Ramarius pulled up short, the fire dying in his throat before he could unleash it.

‘Last thing we need, fire on top of ice,’ shouted Drekki, driving back a troggoth from a ledge with his gun before it could leap. Another came bounding on all fours; he shot it in its glittering face, and it dropped heavily, skidded, and tumbled bonelessly over the edge.

‘Exit ahead, captain!’ Urdi called.

‘I’d better get back down,’ said Drekki. ‘You good, my endrinrigger?’

Bokko nodded, and slotted another aether magazine into his gun.

Drekki disengaged his mag-boots, and slid down the side of the endrin globe, using his axe to steady himself.

He landed amid a melee. There were three of the beasts aboard, and the ship was drifting close to the sides again, where more troggoths raced back and forth, building up speed to hurl themselves over. Evrokk put the Aelsling into a sliding turn to get away. The jumping troggoths fell into the sudden gap, while the arkanauts hardly swayed on their feet.

Of the troggoths on board, one was corralled by Umherth and Hrunki, who filled it so full of aethershot it finally agreed to die. Gord grappled another. An ogor-versus-troggoth battle was a sight to behold, Gord’s bulk and powerful muscles against the troggoth’s wiry, slippery strength. He wrestled with it, ignored the cuts of its claws, elbowed it in the mouth when it tried to bite him, until, slowly, he inched round its back, got his arm round its head and with a yell of triumph, broke its neck. He heaved it over the side before the damage healed.

The last was at the prow. Skyhooks and guns kept it pinned there.

‘Keep the deck clear! Don’t let any more aboard! Evrokk, full speed ahead!’ Drekki commanded. The ship accelerated. A boulder boomed off the hull. The channel narrowed again.

A troggoth leaned out from the ice, grabbing Evtorr’s leg. He gripped the rails, but the monster pulled hard, dragging him off to Grungni knew what fate. Adrimm shouldered his gun, then with a fierce chop, cut off the troggoth’s hand at the wrist. He pulled Evtorr back onto the deck, though he struggled with the still-living fingers of the hand, finally managing to yank it free and toss it overboard.

Ramarius passed overhead again, breathing flame, aiming safely at the sides of the passage. His jet cut out and he flew through the last of his flames, trailing smoke from his wings.

Drekki ran for the prow, shooting as he went. The last troggoth finally fell with a strange whimper. Urdi was on it immediately, hacking off its head as Drekki ran by. At the prow, Drekki flung himself against the figurehead of Aelsling, and leaned out. He must have been fired up. He’d never treat his ex-wife with such disrespect normally.

‘We’re nearly there!’ Drekki called. ‘Aim for the gap!’

The cave mouth was fast approaching, now a tall oval, still glaring whitely. He assumed it must be snowing outside.

‘Is that a… fist?’ Urdi said, mouth agape.

Drekki looked sharply to the side of the cave.

‘Brunkdok grung!’[47] Drekki said. ‘This isn’t fair!’ Because what he was looking at was indeed a giant fist.

The skyberg flanking the left side of the cave mouth was not a skyberg at all, but the biggest dankhold troggoth Drekki had ever seen. Who knew how it had got so big? Who knew where these things came from in the first place? He’d only ever heard tell of such creatures in the tallest of tall tales, and had scoffed along with the rest of the listeners. He’d fought troggoths before, what duardin hadn’t? The last not so long before, in a lost karak alongside Kedren. That had been big. Not this big. This was as big as a myth. But it was real, and it was huge – an immense, craggy being of ice-blue flesh and frosted crannies. Eyes the colour of winter skies gleamed in cavernous sockets. It had long hair like hoarfrost, bizarrely fine, that drifted about its shoulders. Its fingers were the size of cannons, its tongue as big as Drekki. It moved ponderously, the ice covering its huge limbs cracking free loudly.

‘Let Ramarius handle this!’ Ramarius crowed, with enormous overconfidence, as it turned out.

‘Arrooooooo!’ the giant troggoth roared, and an icy gale rushed from its mouth, turning back Ramarius’ flames as he released them, battering him, folding his wings. A patina of frost raced over the reptile’s skin. Ramarius stalled, and fell.

‘Grungni krogn,[48] it killed our dragon!’ Adrimm shouted.

‘Take evasive action!’ Drekki bawled back down the length of the deck. ‘Hrunki, back in the turret!’

Their problems were not confined to the gargantuan troggoth. More of its lesser kin appeared from the caves in the ice and ran along the ledges. They threw themselves heedlessly over the clear air. They smashed into the sides, some of them with such force they bounced clean off. But then one got aboard, then another.

‘You’ve got to be kidding!’ Adrimm wailed from behind. One of the dead troggoths had recovered, and got up. It moved woozily towards Adrimm. Drekki went to help him, but was engaged by one of the new arrivals. Adrimm was on his own.

‘I don’t get enough of a share for this!’ Adrimm fired and fired, but the troggoth seemed to be getting better, not worse. It ran at him.

There was a blur, impressive in stature and gut. Gord slammed it from the side, stamping on its shin with bone-shattering force, jammed his elbow under its armpit, half lifted it, and ran it over the gunwale.

Hrunki carved a path across the deck, booting severed limbs out of the way that scrabbled about, blindly looking for their owners. Umherth covered her, his aethershot coming dangerously close, but never hitting.

Drekki had his own problems. The troggoth he faced was unusually fast, and his axe blows hit metal more often than flesh. A claw swiped at him. It was all he could do to dodge it.

A shadow fell on him.

He half-expected a second foe, but it was Gord who stood behind Drekki. He bellowed something in his ogorish language, and slammed his punch dagger into the chest of the troggoth. He might as well have been picking at an ice block in a coldhouse. It backhanded Gord hard with an ice-spined fist, spinning his head about and opening the ogor’s cheek. Hot blood arced up the endrins.

The troggoth looked back down at Drekki and roared, its iron teeth bared. Karon barked, three bullets at a time. The vile thing simply leered.

For a moment, Gord was stunned. Only for a moment. He snarled, and when the troggoth lunged at the captain, Gord shot it in the head. Point-blank range. Not even Gord could fluff that. The pieces of face that landed at Drekki’s feet wore a surprised expression. He kicked them over the side before they could crawl back onto the skull. Gord rammed his dagger home into the troggoth’s chest again, and used it to pitch the body over the side.

So the big ones Gord could handle, but the really big one was a different artycle entirely. It turned its full attention on them. A massive hand descended, gaining speed, ready to smash the ship from the sky.

The Aelsling tilted evasively, the airscrews blurred.

‘Hang on, everybody!’ Evrokk shouted.

The shadow of the hand was over them. All Drekki could see were fingers, and the death they carried.

Hrunki got back into the turret. The hatch clanged shut. She wasted no time, working so fast Drekki suspected she was kicking the operating levers with her feet on her way into the seat. The sky cannon traversed towards the troggoth, and she let fly.

A sky-cutter’s cannon fires a considerable amount of aether. Compressed to steel hardness and sent on its way faster than sound by the cunning of the duardin, it makes a formidable mess on impact. The shot hit the troggoth square in the palm. The limb exploded.

Giant lumps of finger hit the ship with wet slaps. The stump of the arm whisked past a beardhair’s breadth away, hosing the endrins with black blood. The Aelsling rocked in the wash of it.

‘Full speed ahead!’ Drekki roared. Another troggoth chanced a leap. Locklann dropped his cutter, snatched his shotgun from his back holster and fired. Deck sweepers lived up to their name. The deck was swept. Where the troggoth had landed there was only squirming offal.

The head of the giant troggoth turned, blue eyes burning hatred at the ship. The monster cradled its arm. Flesh ran over the stump. A new hand was forming, tiny pink buds sprouting that bloomed into fingers.

The ship was going too fast to be easily boarded. The ice-troggoths stood on the cliffs, lobbing missiles. A little like the world’s least friendly snowball fight. Ice chunks banged off the endrins. Drekki thought the ship would hold, until it didn’t. A boulder caved in a plate and broke something vital. A spray of high-pressure aether jetted from the forward globe. The Aelsling dipped, and began to slow.

‘We’re getting pounded!’ Urdi yelled.

‘Almost there,’ Drekki said. ‘Come on, Evrokk!’

‘We’re too late, it’s got us!’ screamed Adrimm.

The troggoth was reaching for them again. It was so big, it seemed to be moving slowly. Illusion only: in a trice its reaching hand was almost on them, the hand re-forming as it opened.

‘Sorry, lads,’ said Drekki. ‘I guess this is it.’

There was a rage-filled streak, and a flash of gold.

Ramarius flew out of the clouds of ice and fog, drawing in a huge breath. The troggoth turned to him, too late. The drake spat a lance of fire at the creature’s arm. They could feel the heat from raadfathoms away. Flesh ran like wax. The troggoth screamed most horribly.

Ramarius flew through the boiling cloud of steam his fire had unleashed. The new hand fell away. The troggoth shrieked with rage. It blew out another freezing breath, but Ramarius dipped and flew on, a glittering cone of ice chasing him.

‘Out! Out! Out!’ the drake shouted as he overtook them and sped through the crack into the white glow of outside.

The Aelsling followed, and found herself plunging straight into a howling blizzard. The wind caught the endrins, making her bounce. Snow accumulated quickly on the duardin’s armour, gathered like tears at the bottom of their eye-lenses.

Drekki smacked Adrimm on the shoulder and laughed. ‘See! We made it. I said we would.’

‘Captain!’ Otherek shouted, jumping down from the endrins. He lacked Drekki’s flair, and his foot turned on a lump of ice, sending him sprawling.

Drekki turned. There was a troggoth still on board, clambering up over the rails. It was badly wounded, but those wounds were closing. Bullets streaked by. A few hit. None stopped it. It made directly for Drekki.

Drekki raised Karon to point at its face. That should do the trick. ‘A bad day to tangle with Drekki Flynt, my friend!’ He smiled, and pulled the trigger.

Click.

Karon had said all she had to say. The magazine was empty.

‘Funti drukk,’ said Drekki.

Gunshots banged, quick but methodical. The first one shattered the knee of the troggoth, the second blew off its raised fist, the third burst the opposite shin. The creature toppled forward. The crew leapt on it, hacking it to pieces.

Behind, revealed, Khenna stood with her legs planted firmly apart, the door to the lower decks open, the nozzle of her rifle smoking.

Snow piled up against the dead troggoth. It did not rise again. The crew fell back, panting.

‘Will you keep the noise down!’ she shouted furiously. ‘I’ve got the worst funti headache!’

‘I did say,’ said Bokko, as she stamped back below decks and slammed the door after her.

‘I suppose this means she must be better,’ said Drekki.