01 - Empire in Chaos (21 page)

Re-seated, Grunwald sealed the bottle of sanctified holy water once more. It
was precious—certainly not drinking water—but it should have been like acid
to a devotee of the Ruinous Powers. But then, that meant nothing. The enemy was
cunning.

There was a screech of metal on metal as the wheels of the steam engine
locked. Those few dwarfs who had been standing were knocked from their feet and
fell to the floor of the aisle heavily, cursing. Equipment and rucksacks fell
from overhead shelves, crashing down upon those still seated, who slid along the
bench seats towards the front of the carriage. Grunwald caught hold of the bench
as he began to slide, but lost his grip when Thorrik’s immense armoured weight
slammed into him, and was almost crushed against an ornately crafted bronze
armrest in the shape of a rearing dragon, Annaliese half fell from her seat and
would have flown up the carriage if Eldanair hadn’t grabbed her arm with
preternatural speed and pulled her to safety. Grunwald winced as the weight of
Thorrik pressed against him, and he was sure that his ribs were going to break.
With a final grinding screech, the engine halted.

Muttering, the dwarf picked himself off Grunwald and stood, brushing his
beard with his hand. Grunwald just glared at him, shaking his head, his ribs
aching.

“You alright?” he asked Annaliese, and the girl nodded back at him. The elf
was speaking to himself, his voice scathing, as he looked through the slats upon
the side of the carriage into the darkness beyond. The dwarfs through the
carriage were huffing and stomping their feet, their voices rising in tones of
anger and accusation. Many looked half asleep as they straightened helmets
knocked to the side and retrieved fallen stowage.

“Why in the name of the gods did this thing stop?” he asked Thorrik, who
glared back at him with humourless eyes. He coughed something in his crude
language.

“How should I know, manling?” snapped the dwarf in Reikspiel.

“I wonder where we are,” said Grunwald, joining Eldanair in peering out of
the metal slats. “And what time of day it is. Such notions as day and night mean
nothing down here.”

“Well I would say it is around midday on the surface,” said Thorrik as he
began to load his pipe from a pouch. Grunwald gave a snort and looked at the
dwarf incredulously. Not a sliver of light penetrated this far beneath the
mountains—it was like some hateful, Stygian abyss.

“And how could you know that?” he said derisively.

“I’m a dwarf, manling,” snarled Thorrik, his eyes blazing in the flickering
lantern flame. “You wouldn’t understand such things.”

Grunwald snorted again, and turned back to peer out into the darkness. Now
that the engine had halted, there was no movement of air, making it feel even
more heavy and oppressive.

“Judging by the time that has passed and the speed of
Grimgrandel,
I
would guess we are almost half way. Somewhere between Zhufbar and Mount Gunbad.
Possibly beneath Black Water.”

“Beneath what?”

“Black Water—the inland sea of the mountains.”

“So you are saying that above us is not only miles of rock, but also a sea?”

“Aye, lad. No need to get so worked up. This is dwarf engineering—built to
last.”

Great, thought Grunwald, shaking his head. He looked back out through the
slats, squinting his eyes to see something, anything outside. Nothing. It was as
if the world ended a foot beyond the carriage. He turned his head to say
something to Thorrik, but as he opened his mouth to speak, a black arrow hissed
past his head. It struck the metal roof of the carriage and ricocheted down into
the press of dwarfs milling around on the next aisle over.

More arrows slipped through the slats of the carriage, clattering loudly, and
dozens more shattered on the outside of the carriage. One of the arrows slammed
into the leather backrest a hair’s-breadth from Thorrik’s face. The dwarf pulled
the arrow from the leather, his face furious as he looked at the crude black
dart—its tip was of sharp stone, bound to the wooden shaft with sinew, and the
flight was stringy and frayed raven feather. Thorrik’s face reddened.

“Grobi!” he bellowed in a thunderous voice. He slammed his helmet down over
his head, and leapt to his feet, scrabbling for his shield and axe. “Grobi!” he
yelled again.

The dwarf handgunners primed and readied their weapons, and within seconds
they took up places at the side of the carriage. Though Grunwald had been unable
to see anything in the gloom beyond, the dwarfs clearly were more adept and
within seconds the air was filled with the deafening booms of the guns firing.
Smoke filled the carriage. Eldanair fired his longbow out into darkness, and
Grunwald, hunkering down away from the slats through which arrows still
penetrated, dragged free his heavy crossbow.

Annaliese was beside him, crouching down away from the windows, her eyes
fearful.

“Stay down,” ordered Grunwald. He then hefted his crossbow pointing it out
through the slats. Lanterns had been turned out into the darkness, and he could
see the reflection of hundreds of eyes out there. He could hear them now too,
their cackling and their screeches. He fired, sending the crossbow bolt slamming
between two of the glimmering reflections, which disappeared instantly.

A sharp whistle rang out along the line of carriages, and venting steam
hissed out of dragon-headed vents along the top of the carriage. The angled
metal shutters running the length of the carriage began to close, and the sound
of arrows striking them from the outside echoed dully within. Gears and heavy
metal cogs ground, and the sides of the carriages began to unfold outwards, like
mechanical drawbridges being lowered. Dwarfs stepped forwards side-by-side,
locking their shields together as the carriage-walls were lowered. The arrows of
the enemy shattered against shield and helmet, and Grunwald ducked down behind
the armoured wall of dwarfs, re-loading his crossbow.

Eldanair was standing on the bench beside him, firing arrows over the heads
of the dwarfs into the darkness. He swayed to the side as an arrow streaked
towards his head, his face impassive, and sent an arrow back in response.

The heavy stabilising columns of the carriage sides boomed as they hit the
ground, and with the grinding of gears and the hiss of steam, the slats rotated
from their closed position, forming broad sets of stairs onto the ground of the
tunnel.

There was a deep bellowing war-cry and Grunwald saw one of the unarmoured
dwarfs with bright red spiked hair step forward, elbowing his way through the
shield wall to stand alone and defiant. He raised his axe up over his head and
roared incoherently. An arrow slammed into the meat of one of his powerful,
thick upper arms, driving through the flesh to protrude out the other side a
good six inches.

He grabbed it in one meaty fist and pulled the length of the arrow through
the bloody wound, teeth clenched and hissing against the pain, before tossing it
dismissively to the ground. With another roar, he hefted his axe and thundered
down the metal stairs, lumbering at the enemy now revealing itself as it stepped
forwards into the light blaring from focused lanterns on the engine.

Another red-haired berserker warrior launched himself towards the foe
creeping forwards, and as the line of dwarfs stepped down the stairs to meet
them, each pounding footstep in unison, Grunwald got his first look at them.

They were small, shorter even than the dwarfs advancing towards them, and
their greenskinned frames were weak and spindly, all but hidden beneath black
robes and pointed hoods. They held a veritable wall of barbed spears out in
front of them, and they hissed and screamed at the dwarfs.

Grunwald stepped alongside the dwarf handgunners, who stood still within the
carriage, laying down a wall of fire over the heads of their advancing kin.
Dozens of the deep-dwelling goblins were ripped apart by each volley, but their
bodies were trampled uncaring beneath the feet of the others pushing forward.
Hefting his now loaded crossbow to his shoulder, he fired. The bolt slammed into
the forehead of a wildly screaming goblin whose black robe was rimmed with
yellow stitched dags, and who had been waving a leg bone over his head from
which dangled all manner of teeth, hair and a strange likeness of a grinning
moon. The goblin fell without a sound, and was lost amongst the leering crowd of
goblins.

The red-haired dwarf berserkers reached the line of the enemy, and they
splintered the spears angled towards them with wild swings of their axes before
ploughing into the midst of the foe, cutting and rending. Their weapons traced
bloody arcs through the air, and they cut down dozens of foes before they were
overcome, falling to their knees and bleeding from a score of wounds. They were
lost from sight as the black-robed goblins swarmed over them, jabbing with
blades and spears.

A moment later a goblin pushed to the front, a severed dwarf head held up
above his head. He screamed incoherently and hurled the head towards the dwarf
line. As the goblins advanced, one of them kicked the bloody head across the
floor, and others bustled against one another to continue the game.

Grunwald heard a rumble of outrage rise from the dwarf ranks, and they closed
towards the goblins with renewed determination.

“Ware the beasts!” roared Thorrik as the advancing rank of night goblins
before them parted. A group of powerful creatures, little more than gaping
mouths on legs, were pulling their diminutive retainers forwards, who were
trying to maintain some control over them with chains and spiked goads. As he
watched, one of the creatures broke away from its master and turned on it,
ripping an arm from its socket with one crunching bite.

The other creatures had their cold, black eyes focused on the dwarfs, and
needed no encouragement. Their handlers released them, and they came bounding
across the stone floor of the tunnel towards the dwarfs.

“Hold the line!” roared a voice as the dwarf warriors continued their
relentless advance, stepping shoulder to shoulder, their overlapping shields
creating a near impenetrable wall of steel.

Thorrik was in the front rank, and he focused on one of the beasts leaping
towards him, its gaping mouth exposing thousands of crooked, serrated teeth.
Little more than a reddish ball of muscle, the creature was all mouth, and it
barrelled towards him at a great speed. Thorrik had fought these war beasts of
the grobi many times in the tunnels he and his kin guarded, and knew they were
dangerous foes.

Still, he had learnt a thing or two about them in his years as an
ironbreaker, and as it launched itself at him, he waited until he saw the large
black irises of its eyes roll backwards, a moment before impact. Then he took a
quick step forward, and smashed the boss of his gromril shield into its face,
shattering teeth and halting it in its tracks. It felt like he had slammed the
shield into solid rock, and Thorrik was forced back a step. His axe sang out,
and he sank the blade into its bulbous head, killing it instantly.

Others were not so experienced, and the reddish creatures chomped down upon
shields, ripping them away with brutal shakes of the head, severing more than
one arm in the process as their jaws snapped viciously.

Arrows flashed in as shields were ripped down low, and several dwarfs groaned
in pain as the shafts sank into exposed necks, and pierced mailed chests. An
arrow struck Thorrik in the forehead, but no goblin weapon could hope to pierce
the precious gromril that protected him.

The dwarf to his left was struggling with one of the beasts, pulling his
shield down, shearing through the metal with its powerful jaws. Blood began to
flow as teeth bit into the arm strapped behind the shield, and the creature
began shaking its head to and fro furiously as it tasted it. Thorrik smashed the
creature between the eyes twice before it went limp, but even in death it did
not release its grip. The dwarf, gritting his teeth against the pain, hacked at
it until it was cut nearly in half before he was able to rip his arm free.

Seeing a flash of movement above, Thorrik yelled a warning as one of the
beasts descended from above, a screaming goblin clutching its back. A
white-fletched arrow thudded into it as it fell, but it slammed down amongst the
dwarf line, its overextended jaws engulfing a warrior to the knees. Blows rained
down on it, scoring deep wounds in its side and cutting its rider down, but it
bunched its powerful legs and leaped up into the air once more, dwarfen legs and
boots protruding from its mouth.

But then the lines of dwarfs and goblins struck, and the killing began in
earnest. Thorrik hacked left and right with his axe, scything down goblins,
carving through the flesh of the diminutive creatures. They snarled hatefully,
baring sharp teeth and their eyes flashing, as they stabbed at him over their
shields with spears. Barbed blades jabbed at him and he was struck a dozen
times, but not one of the blows was able to pierce his armour.

His axe smashed into one of the goblin’s wooden shields, splintering the wood
and shattering the arm behind. With his return blow, he drove his axe blade into
the goblin’s leering face, and dark blood splashed out as its skull was caved
in. The dwarfs to either side stepped forward with him, pushing into the goblin
masses and hacking with their weapons. The dwarfs were heavily outnumbered, but
the goblins died in droves before them.

Setting their shields against their shoulders, the dwarfs began to physically
push the goblins back, heaving forwards to the beat of a metal drum that started
up. With each solid step, the dwarfs stamped their feet into the ground and
grunted heavily, creating a deep pounding echo through the cavern. Goblins were
cut down and trampled beneath the heavy boots of the dwarfs as they pushed
forwards.