Tales of the Old World (9 page)

“Worried, lad?” asked Dammaz, appearing out of the gloom. He had disappeared
frequently in the last week, returning sometimes with a blood-slicked axe.
Grimli knew better than to ask.

“A little,” Grimli admitted with a shrug.

“Take heart then,” Dammaz told him, squatting down on the opposite side of
the fire, the flames dancing in bright reflections off his burnished jewellery.
“For fear makes us strong. Use it, lad, and it won’t use you. You’ll be fine.
Remember, strike with confidence and you’ll strike with strength. Aim low and
keep your head high.”

They sat for a while longer in quiet contemplation. Clearing his throat,
Grimli broke the silence.

“We are about to enter Karak Azgal, and I’d like to know something,” Grimli
spoke. “If you don’t want to answer, I’ll understand but it’ll set my mind at
rest.”

“Ask away, lad. I can only say no,” Dammaz reassured him.

“What’s your interest in me, what do you know about the Skrundigor curse?”
Grimli asked before he changed his mind.

Dammaz stayed silent for a long while and Grimli thought he wasn’t going to
get an answer. The old dwarf eventually looked him in the eye and Grimli meant
his gaze.

“Your distant forefather Okrinok Skrundigor failed in his duty many centuries
ago, for which the High King cursed him and all his line,” Dammaz told him. “The
name of Skrundigor is inscribed into the Dammaz Kron. Until such time as the
honour of the clan is restored, the curse will bring great pain, ill fortune and
the scorn of others onto Okrinok’s entire heritage. This I know. But, do you
know why the High King cursed you so?”

“I do,” Grimli replied solemnly. Like Dammaz, he did not speak straight away,
but considered his reply before answering. “Okrinok was a coward. He fled from a
fight. He broke his oaths to protect the High King’s daughter from harm, and for
that he can never be forgiven. His selfishness and betrayal has brought misery
to seventeen generations of my clan and I am last of his line. Accidents and
mishaps have killed all my kin at early ages. Many left in self-exile, others
became Slayers before me.”

“That is right,” agreed Dammaz. “But do you know exactly what happened,
Grimli?”

“For my shame, I do,” Grimli replied. “Okrinok was sworn to protect Frammi
Sunlocks, the High King’s daughter, when she travelled to Karak Azgal to meet
her betrothed, Prince Gorgnir. She wished to see something of her new home, and
Prince Gorgnir, accompanied by Okrinok and the royal bodyguard, took her to the
treasuries, the forges, the armouries and the many other great wonders of Karak
Azgal. Being of good dwarf blood, she was interested in the mines. One day they
travelled to the depths of the hold so that she could see the miners labouring.
It was an ill-chosen day, for that very day vile goblins broke through into the
mines. They had been tunnelling for Grungni knows how long, and of all the days
that their sprawling den had to meet the wide-hewn corridors of Karak Azgal it
was that one which fate decreed.”

Grimli stopped and shook his head with disbelief. A day earlier or a day
later, and the entire history of the Skrundigors may have been completely
different; a glorious heritage of battles won and loyal service to the High
King. But it had not been so.

“The grobi set upon the royal household,” continued Grimli. “Hard fought was
the battle, and bodyguard and miners clashed with a countless horde of
greenskins. But there were too many of them, and their wicked knives caught
Frammi and Gorgnir and slew them. One of the bodyguards, left for dead by the
grobi, survived to recount the tale to the High King and much was the woe of all
the dwarf realm. Yet greater still was the hardship for as the survivor told the
High King with his dying breath, Okrinok Skrundigor, upon seeing the princess
and prince to be slain, had fled the fight and his body was never found.
Righteous and furious was the High King’s anger and we have been cursed since.”

“Told as it has been to each generation of Skrundigor since that day,” Dammaz
nodded thoughtfully. “And was the High King just in his anger?”

“I have thought of it quite a lot, and I reckon he was,” admitted Grimli,
poking at the fire as it began to die down. “Many a king would have had us cast
out or even slain for such oathbreaking and so I think he was merciful.”

“We will speak of this again soon,” Dammaz said as he stood up. “I go to
Kargun Skalfson now, to seek permission to enter Karak Azgal come tomorrow.”

With that the Slayer was gone into the gloom once more, leaving Grimli to his
dour thoughts.

The stench of the troll sickened Grimli’s stomach as it lurched through the
doorway towards him. It gave a guttural bellow as it broke into a loping run.
Grimli was rooted to the spot. In his mind’s eye he could see himself casually
stepping to one side, blocking its claw with his shield as Dammaz had taught
him; in reality his muscles were bunched and tense and his arm shook. Then the
Slayer was there, between him and the approaching monster. In the darkness,
Grimli could clearly see the blazing axe head as it swung towards the troll,
cleaving through its midriff, spraying foul blood across the flagged floor as
the blade continued on its course and shattered its backbone before swinging
clear. Grimli stood in dumbfounded amazement. One blow had sheared the troll
cleanly in two. Dammaz stood over the rank corpse and beheaded it with another
strike before spitting on the body.

“Can never be too sure with trolls. Always cut the head off, lad,” Dammaz
told him matter-of-factly as he strolled back to stand in front of Grimli.

“I’m sorry,” Grimli lowered his head in shame. “I wanted to fight it, but I
couldn’t.”

“Calm yourself, lad,” Dammaz laid a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Next
time you’ll try harder, won’t you?”

“Yes, I will,” Grimli replied, meeting the Slayer’s gaze.

For two days and two nights they had been in Karak Azgal. The night before,
Grimli had slain his first troll, crushing its head with his hammer after
breaking one of its legs. He had already lost count of the number of goblins
whose last vision had been his hammer swinging towards them. Over twenty at
least, possibly nearer thirty, he realised. Of course, Dammaz had slain twice,
even thrice that number, but Grimli felt comfortable that he was holding his
own.

Dammaz had been right, it did get easier. Trolls still scared Grimli, but he
had worked out how to turn that fear into anger, imbuing his limbs with extra
strength and honing his reflexes. And most of all, it had taught Grimli that it
felt good to kill grobi. It was in his blood, by race and by clan, and he now
relished each fight, every battle a chance to exact a small measure of revenge
on the foul creatures whose kind had ruined his clan so many centuries before.

They were just breaking camp in what used to be the forges, so Dammaz
informed him. Everything had been stripped bare by the evacuating dwarfs and
centuries of bestial looters and other treasure hunters. But the firepits could
still clearly be seen, twenty of them in all, spread evenly across the large
hall. Grungni, God of Smithing, was represented by a great anvil carved into the
floor, his stern but kindly face embossed at its centre. Dammaz told him that
the lines of the anvil used to run with molten metal so that its light
illuminated the whole chamber with fiery beauty.

Grimli would have liked to have seen that, like so many other things from the
days when the dwarf realms stretched unbroken from one end of the World’s Edge
Mountains to the other. Such a great past, so many treasures and wonders, now
all lost, perhaps never to be regained and certainly never to be surpassed.
Centuries of treachery, volcanoes, earthquakes and the attacks of grobi and
skaven had almost brought the dwarfs to their knees. They had survived though;
the dwarfs were at their fiercest when hardest pressed. The southern holds may
have fallen, but the northern holds still stood strong. In his heart, Grimli
knew that the day would come when once more the mountains would resound along
their length to the clatter of dwarf boots marching to war and the pound of
hammers on dwarfish anvils. Already Karak Eight Peaks was being reclaimed, and
others would follow.

“Dreaming of the golden age, lad?” Dammaz asked, and Grimli realised he had
been stood staring at the carving of Grungni for several minutes.

“And the glory days to come,” replied Grimli which brought forth a rare smile
from the Slayer.

“Aye, that’s the spirit, Grimli, that’s the spirit,” Dammaz agreed. “When
we’re done here, you’ll be a new dwarf, I reckon.”

“I’m already…” started Grimli but Dammaz silenced him with a finger raised to
his lips. The Slayer tapped his nose and Grimli sniffed deeply. At first he
could smell nothing, but as he concentrated, his nostrils detected a whiff of
something unclean, something rotten and oily.

“That’s the stink of skaven,” whispered Dammaz, his eyes peering into the
darkness. Grimli closed his eyes and focused his thoughts on his senses of smell
and hearing. There was breeze coming from behind him, where the odour of rats
was strongest, and he thought he could hear the odd scratch, as of clawed feet
on bare stone, to his right. Opening his eyes he looked in that direction,
noting that Dammaz was looking the same way. The Slayer glanced at him and gave
a single nod of agreement, and Grimli stepped up beside him, slipping his hammer
from his belt and unslinging his shield from his back.

Without warning, the skaven attacked. Humanoid rats, no taller than Grimli,
scuttled and ran out of the gloom, their red eyes intent on the two dwarfs.
Dammaz did not wait a moment longer, launching himself at the ratmen with a
wordless bellow. The first went down with its head lopped from its shoulders;
the second was carved from groin to chest by the return blow. One of the skaven
managed to dodge aside from Dammaz’s attack and ran hissing at Grimli. He felt
no fear now; had he not slain a troll single-handedly? He suddenly realised the
peril of overconfidence as the skaven lashed out with a crudely sharpened blade,
the speed of the attack taking him by surprise so that he had to step back to
block the blow with his shield. The skaven were not as strong as trolls, but
they were a lot faster.

Grimli batted away the second attack, his shield ringing dully with the clang
of metal on metal, and swung his hammer upwards to connect with the skaven’s
head, but the creature jumped back before the blow landed. Its breath was foetid
and its matted fur was balding around open sores in places. Grimli knew that if
he was cut, the infection that surrounded the pestilential scavengers might kill
him even if the wound did not. He desperately parried another blow, realising
that other skaven were circling quickly behind him. He took another step back
and then launched himself forward as his foe advanced after him, smashing the
ratman to the ground with his shield. He stomped on its chest with his heavy
boot, pinning it to the ground as he brought his hammer smashing into its face.
Glancing over his shoulder, he saw Dammaz was still fighting, as he’d expected,
a growing pile of furry bodies at his feet.

Two skaven then attacked Grimli at once, one thrusting at him with a poorly
constructed spear, the other slashing with a wide-bladed knife. He let his
shield drop slightly and the skaven with the spear lunged at the opportunity.
Prepared for the attack, Grimli deflected the spearhead to his right, stepped
forward and smashed his hammer into the skaven’s chest, audibly splintering ribs
and crushing its internal organs. He spun on the other skaven but not fast
enough, its knife thankfully scraping without harm along the links of his
chainmail. He slammed the edge of the shield up into the skaven’s long jaw,
dazing it, and then smashed its legs from underneath it with a wide swing of his
hammer. The creature gave a keening, agonised cry as it lay there on the ground
and he stoved its head in with a casual backswing.

The air was filled with a musky scent, which stuck in Grimli’s nostrils,
distracting him, and it was a moment before he realised that the rest of the
skaven had fled. Joining Dammaz he counted thirteen skaven corpses on the ground
around the Slayer, many of them dismembered or beheaded.

“Skaven are all cowards,” Dammaz told him. He pointed at a darker-furred
corpse, both its legs missing. “Once I killed their leader they had no stomach
for the fight.”

“Kill the leader, I’ll remember that,” Grimli said as he swung his shield
back over his shoulder.

For the rest of the day Grimli felt the presence of the skaven shadowing him
and the Slayer, but no further attack came. They passed out of the forges and
strong rooms down into the mines. The wondrously carved hallways and corridors
led them into lower and more basically hewn tunnels, the ceiling supported now
by pit props and not pillars engraved with ancient runes. The stench of skaven
became stronger for a while, their spoor was littered across the floor or of the
mineshafts, but after another hour’s travel it faded quickly.

“This is grobi territory, lad. The skaven don’t come down these ways,” Dammaz
informed Grimli when he commented on this phenomenon.

As they continued their journey Grimli noticed even rougher, smaller tunnels
branching off the workings of the dwarfs, and guessed them to be goblin tunnels,
dug out after the hold fell. There was a shoddiness about the chips and cuts of
the goblin holes that set them apart from the unadorned but neatly hewn walls of
dwarf workmanship, even to Grimli’s untrained eye. As he absorbed this
knowledge, Dammaz led him down a side-tunnel into what was obviously once a
chamber of some kind. It was wide, though not high, and seemed similar to the
dorm-chambers of Karaz-a-Karak.

“This is where it happened,” Grimli said. It was a statement, not a question.
He realised this was where Dammaz had been leading him.