01 - Empire in Chaos (26 page)

With a final nod to his father, the War-mourner walked down the steps towards
his army, and a great clamour of chanting, stamping of feet and the blare of
horns sounded out.

“And so the throng of Karak Kadrin goes to war,” said Thorrik, turning away
from the spectacle. With the grinding of gears and the venting of steam, the
giant doors of the slayer keep opened, and daylight bright and sharp speared
inside the hold, bringing with it ungodly screams and the smell of fire.
Thousands of crude drums beat from the valley outside—the pounding of the
enemy.

A flight of single-manned, steam-powered flying machines lifted from the
chamber floor, their rotary blades spinning in a blur of motion, setting the
hair and beards of those below flapping with the wind they generated. The
gyrocopters flew out through the slowly opening portal, up into the grey skies
that were almost blinding after so long without seeing sunlight.

With a roar, the army of Karak Kadrin readied itself for battle, turning
towards the ever-expanding archway of light.

“Come,” said Thorrik, his voice gruff. “It is time.”

They descended into darkness, travelling deeper and deeper into the heart of
the mountain and the mine-workings that created a labyrinth of passageways far
beneath the surface. The sound of chains running out was deafening, as was the
heavy repetitive clunk and pounding of the steam engine that lowered the steel
platform down into the abyssal darkness below.

Karl was clearly still angered at having to leave his beloved warhorse back
in the dwarf hold. The faces of his knights were similarly grim. Eldanair looked
directly upwards, his long, emotionless face turned towards the distant light at
the top of the mining shaft that was getting ever smaller with every passing
minute.

The air was hot and stifling the deeper they went, and Grunwald found himself
sweating profusely beneath his breastplate and he took his hat off to wipe his
brow. Apart from Thorrik and the miner-turned-slayer Abrek Snorrison who was to
act as their guide, the only one that seemed to remain calm as they descended
deeper beneath the ground was Annaliese. Her fist was clasped tightly around her
symbol of Sigmar, and she spoke the simple prayers that Grunwald had taught her
like a mantra. Her face was serene and tranquil. The shuttered lanterns seemed
to create a halo-like glow around her, her blonde hair shining in the darkness,
luminous and golden.

It seemed to Grunwald that their descent was never-ending, and he would not
have been at all surprised to have found themselves transported to the fiery
underworld at journey’s end.

Finally, the platform hit solid ground, and the boom of it striking rock
echoed up the sheer shaft that led into Karak Kadrin.

The grim slayer Abrek indicated forward with his bearded chin, and barked
something in Khazalid to Thorrik. The slayer hefted a massive mining pickaxe in
one hand, while in the other he held a lantern, its light blinding, focused with
polished metal and shutters to project its light in a single beam.

“This is it,” said the ironbreaker, his voice muffled behind his gromril
helm. “Abrek and I take the lead. The rest of you follow, two abreast. We move
now. This last mine entrance will be sealed within the hour.”

Karl organised his men, his orders crisp and brooking no argument. He took up
position with one of his knights as the rear guard. They all held their swords
drawn, and all but those holding dwarf-made alcohol-fuelled lanterns wore their
shields strapped to their arms.

“Daughter of Verena, let your light be our guide in the darkness,” said Karl,
invoking Myrmidia, the goddess of the Blazing Sun. Grunwald walked at the side
of Annaliese in the middle of the party, with Eldanair ghosting their footsteps
a pace behind, an arrow nocked to his bow, his face alert and tense. The witch
hunter had loaded and primed his wheel-lock pistols, and he walked with one of
them held in his left hand—his brutal mace in the other. Annaliese, radiating
calm, walked with her hammer held in both hands.

Into the labyrinth of abandoned mining passages they went, lanterns lighting
the way. Through twisting corridors hewn of solid rock they marched, the humans
pointing their lanterns down dark passages criss-crossing their route, their
eyes straining. Some of the corridors they passed were broad, and steel tracks
like those of the steam engine were laid on the stone floor.

Within minutes, Grunwald had lost his bearings, utterly and completely. If
Thorrik and Abrek fell, then they would have little chance of ever making their
way out. It was a veritable maze, with passages leading everywhere. They passed
shafts that rose higher into the mountain and others that sank still deeper. The
concept of time had no meaning down here.

The ground began to shudder, and Thorrik halted the column of marching
warriors. There came an echoing boom reverberating up the passageway, and rocks
and dust fell from the ceiling onto the column. Grunwald shielded his head with
his arm. A heavy rock fell onto Thorrik’s helmet, but it cracked as it struck
him, and the pieces fell around him. The dwarf made no reaction. Exactly which
direction the sound came from was impossible to discern, as was its distance.
Rumbling crashes boomed and rocked the earth beneath their feet. More rock and
debris fell, cracking sharply against the knights’ armour, they all looked
fearfully around them, feeling the weight of the mountain pressing down upon
them.

“What is it?” Grunwald hissed, voicing the thoughts of all the humans.

Thorrik’s voice ghosted back to his ears, sounding distant and faint.
“Earthquake?”

“The shaft is being sealed by engineers behind us. What you hear are
controlled blasting charges closing off the mines so that the enemy may not find
a way into the keep.”

“No way back then,” muttered one of the knights behind Grunwald darkly.

“We shall make it through,” said Annaliese, her voice calm and strong.
“Sigmar is with us.”

The last detonations died away, rocks settled and they were surrounded once
more by an oppressive silence. Dust continued to fall for several minutes, until
that too ceased. Grunwald took off his broad hat, and brushed the stone dust
from its rim.

They began to march once more, through twisting passageways and climbing up
and down steps hewn from the rock.

“Annaliese,” said Eldanair, making Grunwald jump with shock at the voice at
his ear. He had heard the elf speak only a handful of times, and he was not used
to the strangely alien, singsong voice of the warrior. Annaliese turned towards
the elf, who was as tense as a taut bowstring. The elf gestured sharply to his
ear.

“Thorrik,” said Annaliese, understanding Eldanair instantly. “Stop the
column. Can you hear anything?”

The column drew to a halt, and Karl barked sharply at his knights to silence
the sound of their clanking armour.

At first they could hear nothing. But then, very faintly they too could hear
what it was that had alerted Eldanair.

Very distant, very faint, there was the sound of drumming. A dull roar echoed
from afar, and the sound of metal striking metal, in time with the drumming—the sound of blades being rhythmically crashed against metal shield-rims.

Abrek snarled something in the dwarfen tongue, and seemed ready to begin
running straight towards the sound. Thorrik nodded his head but said something
in an authoritative tone, holding the slayer at bay.

“The greenskins are near,” said Thorrik, his voice filled with anger, but
perhaps also a hint of eagerness, Grunwald thought. “Drawn to the sound of the
detonations.”

Several of the knights swore, and Karl barked once more, silencing them.

“If they come, then we fight them,” said the preceptor.

“Oh, they come,” said Thorrik, his voice menacing and full of growing
enthusiasm. “And we
will
face them.”

“Our main aim is to get out of these mines—to get to the Empire,” said
Grunwald, his voice containing a warning. “We fight if we must—but we do not
seek battle here.”

Abrek began speaking, harshly and quickly, his voice rising in anger,
punching the air with his pickaxe to make his point. Though Grunwald could not
see Thorrik’s face, hidden as it was in darkness, he could feel the tension in
the dwarf, the conflicting desires. At last he said a single word in his
language. When the slayer raised his voice to argue, Thorrik barked this one
word again, more forcefully.

“Aye,” said the ironbreaker, turning towards Grunwald. “It is as you say,
manling.”

The column began moving once more. In the distance, the sound of the
greenskins grew louder.

They travelled through the stygian darkness for what seemed like days in the
claustrophobic tunnels, trusting that the dwarf slayer Abrek knew where he was
leading them. It was not a clear, direct route they took, but rather it
meandered left and right, up and down, and Grunwald lost count of the number of
intersections and cross-passages they passed.

They halted several times to rest and eat, chewing the dried, salty meat that
Thorrik had acquired from Kadrin Keep. They ate in silence and in darkness.
Strange sounds seemed to come at them from all angles, the sounds of metal on
stone, odd scraping sounds, dull roars and the sound of falling rocks.

The drumming had faded, and Grunwald hoped that they had managed to bypass
the greenskins moving somewhere within the abandoned mines, though in truth he
found that being unable to hear the passage of the hateful creatures was even
more worrying. The humans jumped and started at the odd reverberations that
echoed up to them from the depths of lower passages, the scuttling sounds of
creatures scratching just beyond the lantern-light, and at the strange winds
that seeped from cracks and fissures in the passage walls.

Hot air was exhaled from the deep, blasts of steaming, wet breath that wafted
up from below. Small rocks tumbled down from the darkness above them as they
passed through vast caverns carved, Thorrik said, thousands of years earlier by
the writhing of monstrous beasts of the underworld that the ancient ancestor
gods had wrestled. Giant stalagmite columns rose from the uneven ground,
climbing high into the darkness, glistening with moisture and gleaming with a
cold light of their own.

Clusters of glowing pinpricks of light speckled overhead, numbered in their
tens of thousands, an imitation of the stars that pierced the heavens at night.

In some places there were oddly glowing patches of foul-smelling fungus.
Swearing, Thorrik and Abrek angrily kicked and stamped the bloated, palid
growths into nothingness and great clouds of spores rose from them as they
deflated. The humans and the elf covered their mouths and noses so as not to
breathe in any of the foetid spores.

There was much evidence of mining activity in the passages and corridors, and
in many places the roof and ceiling was supported with great iron beams. The
rock faces were rough and broken, and the passages twisting and convoluted as
they followed seams of precious metals.

There was no warning when the first attack came. They were passing through an
open area that might have once been a dwarf encampment, and there were numerous
entrances and side-passages that opened into the room. An arrow streaked out of
the darkness and took one of the knights, who had raised his visor against the
heat, squarely in the face. An instant later there was a braying sound of a
horn, seeming to come at them from all sides. Other arrows whistled in at the
column, striking the shields that the knights raised defensively, and clattering
off the stone floor. More distant horns and the sound of heavy feet pounding on
stone began echoing all around them.

And then the enemy was upon them, bursting from side corridors, roaring and
beating their weapons against their shields. Some carried crude torches of
dripping, stinking pitch, and the flames lit up their brutish, savage faces
starkly. There was no time for thought as frantic combat erupted on all sides.
Grunwald fired his pistol into the face of a hulking orc that launched itself at
him with a pair of massive cleavers and fire burst from the barrel of the gun.
The orc fell to the ground, but others leapt over the corpse, their gaping maws
filled with thick tusks, roaring as they set upon the column.

Karl yelled orders, and the Knights of the Blazing Sun met the charging
enemies with shield and sword. They stepped forward, their broad-bladed swords
cutting and stabbing frantically. Steel sang through the air as blades sliced
into thick-muscled green bodies, cutting through limbs and hacking into necks as
thick as a man’s body. The savagery and suddenness of the attack was staggering.
Blood began to flow freely, and the sound of roars and screams echoed
deafeningly over the din of clashing swords and shields.

A monstrous figure stalked out of the darkness towards Grunwald, a massive
orc warrior, encased head to toe in crude, heavy armour. Its helmet was
all-encompassing, fashioned to house its massive, protruding jaw, and curving
tusks emerged from square, steel mandibles. It bore a jagged, steel shield and
swung a heavy, thick bladed cleaver at Grunwald as it stepped forwards.

The witch hunter swayed back and the lethal blow whistled past his face.
Drawing his second pistol, he fired it at close range into the chest of the
hulking greenskin, the sound painful to the ear. The lead shot smashed though
the steel plates of the beast and deep into its body, knocking it back a pace.
Stepping forward quickly, Grunwald smashed his mace into the head of the
creature. With a sickening crunch of metal and bone, the beast took the blow,
its heavy head knocked to the side, but it recovered quickly, slamming its
shield into Grunwald’s face, making him stumble backwards, his head ringing.