‘See,’ said one to another, ‘I always held that crossbows are better than guns. Where are the handgunners, eh? Out of powder, that’s where. Whereas me, my lad, will always have a missile to hurl, as long as there’s a stick and a knife to sharpen it with to hand.’
‘Aye, true that, Gron, too true.’ Gron’s companion tapped out his pipe on the wall and carefully stowed it before fitting his own bolt into his bowstock. ‘Always be able to send a couple of them away, no matter what the situation.’
‘Grim. That’s what it is, Hengi. Grim.’
‘Aye. Grim comments for grim times.’
‘Rat ogre!’ called the lookout. ‘Rat ogre...?’ Thaggun’s voice trailed away into astonished query.
Gron peered out into the dark. ‘Now what by the slave pits of the unmentionable kin is that?’
‘Big, that’s what,’ said Hengi, sighting down his weapon at the beast approaching.
Big didn’t cover it. This was the largest rat ogre any of them had ever seen, and being dwarfs oathsworn to defend Karak Eight Peaks to the bitter end, they’d seen more than their fair share of the things. This one was a head higher than the biggest, covered all over in iron and bronze armour. Grafted to each arm was a pair of warpfire throwers, the tanks feeding each thick with plating.
‘I don’t like the look of that,’ said someone. ‘Why isn’t it charging?’
‘Ah, who cares? We’ll have it down in a jiffy,’ said another.
‘Not before it goes crazy and kills half its own!’ said someone else.
But the rat ogre plodded forwards, showing none of the snarling, uncontainable antipathy its kind usually evidenced.
‘Quarrellers of the Grundtal clan! Ready your weapons!’ shouted Gron.
The clansdwarfs rested their weapons’ stocks on the battlements, secure in their position behind the thick stone.
‘Take aim,’ called Gron.
They each chose a point on the rat ogre.
‘Loose!’ said Gron, who would never be caught dead saying ‘fire’.
Artfully crafted steel bows snapped forwards on their stocks, sending bolts of metal and wood winging at the rat ogre, by now halfway across the bridge. A unit of skaven bearing the banners of Clan Rictus ran cautiously behind it.
Not one of the bolts hurt the creature. They hit all right, but clattered off its armour. A couple punched through or encountered weak spots and stuck in the creature’s flesh, but it was unaffected.
‘Reload! At it again!’ cried Gron. ‘You lot down there better be ready,’ he shouted through a hole to the gate’s ironbreaker guards.
Quickly the dwarfs wound back their bows and fitted fresh missiles. Again they fired, to similar effect. Several clanrats fell screaming from the bridge, felled by wayward bolts, but the rat ogre stomped along, blinkered by an eyeless helm. There was a smaller rat riding its back, Gron noted. The rat ogre’s arms came up to point brass nozzles at the gates.
‘Everyone down!’ yelled Gron.
With a whooshing roar more terrifying than dragon-breath, green-tinged fire belched from the rat ogre’s weapons. It washed against the gates and melted them like wax. Backwash shot up through the murder holes onto the parapet. Several quarrellers were hit this way, spattered by supernatural flames that would not go out. They screamed as the fire burned its way through cloth, armour, flesh and bone.
The sharp smell of molten metal hit Gron’s nose. The Axes of Clan Angrund below were shouting, orders to form up and sally forth echoing up. It did no good.
The warpfire throwers blazed again. The rat ogre held them in position for a long time, melting its way through the portcullis and the second gate. The stones warmed under Gron’s feet. Screaming came from below as the ironbreakers were engulfed. A terrible way to die – Gron had seen it before. They would be cooked alive in their armour, if not outright melted.
‘Bring it down, lads!’ he bellowed. ‘Get it away from the bridge!’ Doing so was suicidal, but this thing had to be stopped.
His warriors stood up and crossbow bolts rained down. At this close range they had greater penetrative effect, and the rat ogre roared in pain. It took a step back and raised its arms.
‘Down!’ shouted Gron, and once more the quarrellers hit the stone flags. The battlements could not save them. Green fire washed over and around them, setting the quarrellers ablaze. Gron felt the diabolical heat of it as a patch stuck to him, charring its way into the skin of his left arm. A gobbet of it hit his right thumb. He gritted his teeth; no one suffered like a dwarf. But try as he might, the agony was unbearable and he screamed.
The fire abated. His arm and hand no longer burned, but were useless. His left arm he could not feel at all aside from an awful warmth. His right hand was clawed and blackened. His dawi were all dead or mortally wounded. The stone of the parapets glowed red-hot, the crenels melted back to rotten-toothed stumps.
Hengi rolled onto his back, groaning.
‘Hengi! Hengi!’
‘My eyes… Gron, my eyes!’
Gron looked out. The rat ogre had moved aside. Skaven waited for the ruined gates to cool. He saw then that the rider of the rat ogre was nothing of the sort, but some hideous homunculus grafted to its flesh.
‘Hengi, Hengi, take my bow.’ He thrust his weapon at his blinded kinsman as best he could with his ruined limbs. Hengi’s hands were sound, but his upper face was a red raw mess, his eyes weeping thick fluids. Lesser creatures would have been howling in agony, but they were dawi. Pain could not master them. ‘They’ve something controlling the rat ogre, some creature of theirs. If we can kill it, we might be able to stop it.’
‘Shoot then,’ said Hengi, his voice thick with bottled pain.
‘I cannot, my arms are ruined. You will have to do it. Let me aim it for you, here!’
Gron guided Hengi to a crenel whose merlons were not red-hot, pushing him with his shoulders into the gap. The pair were hidden by the smoke of stone burning beneath them, allowing Hengi to fumble the crossbow onto the wall. Gron got behind Hengi and sighted down it as best he could.
He squinted. ‘Left a touch. Up, up! No, down. Easy, Hengi. Now,’ he said.
The last discharge of a dwarf crossbow upon the King’s Archgate occurred, sending a bolt fast and true to bury itself in the wizened creature on the back of the rat ogre. The monster reacted immediately, shaking its head as if coming out of a drugged sleep.
It roared. Clanrats squeaked in fear. The warpfire throwers belched again and again, fired by the furious monster without thought. Gron looked on with satisfaction as the rat ogre spun round, setting the regiment alight. Presently its fuel ran out and the skaven brought down their wayward creature eventually, but only after one regiment of thaggoraki had been entirely destroyed, and three more fled.
Gron looked back over the dry river. The darkness was alive with movement and red eyes. As soon as the rat ogre was dead, they were on the move again.
He sank back against Hengi. Soon the skaven would be coming for them.
‘Let’s not let them take us alive, eh? Lad?’ said Gron. ‘You’ll have to go last, I can’t move my hands at all.’
Hengi nodded. His knife slid from his belt.
All along the third line of defence, similar things were happening. Rat ogres armed with ratling guns, upscaled poisoned wind mortars and other terrible weapons came against the dwarfs. One by one the gates fell, with such speed that the dwarfs of the Khrokk line had no time to prepare, and this too fell the same day.
The way was open to the citadel.
EIGHTEEN
A Gathering of Might