Queek swung Dwarf Gouger a final time. The spike connected with the side of the king’s helmet, punching through the gromril. Queek squealed at his victory, but his cries turned to pain. He looked down. The dwarf had somehow got Queek’s own sword up, and now it pierced him at the weak shoulder joint of his armour. He stepped back, and Belegar fell over with a crash, his eyes never leaving Queek’s face.
Queek screamed as he pulled out his sword from his armpit, the weapon’s square teeth dragging lumps of his own flesh with it. Ska rushed out from the ranks of the Red Guard, but Queek shoved at his massive chest with his unwounded hand.
On shaking legs, Queek walked over to the dwarf king. He plucked Dwarf Gouger free, casting it onto the carpet of dwarf bodies. With a yell, he swung his sword over his head, severing the king’s head with one blow.
He dropped his sword and bent over, then held aloft Belegar’s head with his good arm. He stepped up onto the dwarf king’s oath stone.
‘The City of Pillars is ours, from deepest deep to loftiest peak! Queek brings you this greatest of victories, only Queek!’
His guard squeaked out their praises, and Queek showed them all the lifeless head of Belegar. Such a fine trophy. Such a shame he had to give it up.
TWENTY-TWO
The Last King of Karak Eight Peaks
Gromvarl staggered up the stairs. Black spots swam in front of his eyes, crowding out what little light there was left in the citadel. The poisoned wound in his back throbbed a strange sort of pain, at once unbearable yet simultaneously numb. He fought against it with all his dwarfish will, forcing himself on in the fulfilment of his first, last and most important oath.
The protection of Vala Kemma.
The sound of fighting still sounded from below, but it was that of desperate, lonely struggles fought in dark corners against impossible odds, and not the regimented clash of two battle lines. Screams came with it, and the stink of burning. There were only the old, the sick, and the young in the upper levels. The skaven were coming for Karak Eight Peaks’s small population of children.
Gromvarl stumbled on the steps, his feet failing to find them. He broke a tooth on the stone. Five thousand years old, and still a sharp corner on the step edge. Now that, he thought, was proper craftsmanship.
Kemma was up above, locked in her room and forbidden to fight. Gromvarl had one of the only keys, but had been forced by the king to swear he would not use it.
The king was dead. As far as he was concerned, the oath died with him.
He staggered his way upwards, his progress growing slower and slower as he went. The fiery numbness had taken hold of his limbs. He had to rest often, his unfeeling hand pressing against the stone. He knew that if he sat down he would never reach his destination.
Finally, he arrived, one hundred and thirty-two steps that had taken a lifetime to climb behind him.
The door wavered ahead of him, its black wutroth shimmering as if seen through a heat haze. He fell to his knees and crawled towards it, the poison in his blood overcoming his sturdy dwarf constitution at the last.
With a titanic effort of will, Gromvarl slid the key home in the lock. Only his falling against the door enabled him to twist it at all.
The door banged open and he fell within. He moaned as he hit the floor. He slid into blackness. To his surprise, it went away again, and he managed to heave himself up to his knees. His head spun with the effort.
‘Kemma!’ he said. ‘Kemma!’ His throat was dry. A fire raged in it, consuming his words so they came out as insubstantial as smoke.
The queen was not there. The room was too small for her to hide. There were sounds coming from her garderobe, smashing, a frantic scrabbling.
A black-clad skaven came out, a scarf wrapped around its muzzle. It was a wonder it hadn’t heard the door; then Gromvarl realised that the sounds of battle were very close behind.
Upon seeing him, the skaven assassin leapt over him, and pulled back his head sharply by the hair. A blackened dagger slid against his throat, the venom that coated it burning his skin.
‘Where dwarf-thing breeder-queen?’ asked the skaven. Like all of its kind, its voice was surprisingly soft and breathy. Not a hint of a squeak to it when they spoke the languages of others. Gromvarl found this rather funny and laughed.
The skaven twitched behind him, agitated.
‘What so amusing, dwarf-thing? You want to die?’
‘Not particularly, you thieving thaggoraki.’ He burst out laughing again.
‘Very good. You die-die just the same.’
A loud bang filled the room. The skaven slid backwards, its poisoned knife clattering to the floor. Gromvarl tossed the smoking pistol away.
‘Never did like guns,’ he grumbled, ‘but I suppose they have their uses.’ He fell onto his hands and knees. ‘Not long now, eh, Grungni, eh, Grimnir? Soon I’ll be able to look you in the eye and ask how I did. Appallingly, I’ll bet.’ He coughed, and bloody froth spattered from his mouth. Before he fell face down onto the floor, he smiled broadly.
Vala Kemma had always been as particular as any dwarf. Even in this prison in all but name, she’d kept her mail well oiled and her armour shining.
The mannequin that it had sat upon was empty.
Kemma had got away.
‘That’s my lass,’ he said into the stones of the floor. They were cool, welcoming. His breath dampened them with condensation. ‘That’s my lass,’ he whispered, and the stones were damp no more.
Kemma ran through the upper storeys of the citadel, her secret key clutched in her hand, not that she needed it now. Poor Belegar, he always underestimated her. Leaving her shut up behind a simple lock? She felt a moment of anger; it was almost like he didn’t think her a proper dwarf, probably because she was a woman.
But she was a dwarf, with all that entailed. Dawi rinn, and a vala too. More the fool him for not realising. He had always been so blinkered! Look where that had got him. Look where that had got them all.
People were running, those few warriors stationed in the top floors of the tower towards the sounds of fighting coming from the stairs, the remainder away to the final refuge with as much dignity as they could muster.
Only now, at the very end, were some of the dwarfs succumbing to panic, and not very many of them at that. Most were shouted down and shamed by their more level-headed elders, and there were plenty of them up there to do the shouting.
She caught sight of a familiar figure, bent almost double by the weighty book she had chained about her neck. Magda Freyasdottir, the hold’s ancient priestess of Valaya. Even at the end she was dressed up in the lavender finery of her office, her ankle-length, silk-fine hair bound in heavy clasps of jet.
‘Magda! Magda!’
The priestess turned, her face surprised. Kemma ran right into her arms.
‘Steady, my queen,’ she said ironically, and rightly so, for Kemma’s kingdom was by now much circumscribed. ‘I am not so steady on my feet as I was. I have someone here who might better appreciate your hugs. My king!’ she called. ‘Here he comes,’ she said to Kemma. ‘The last king of Karak Eight Peaks.’
Thorgrim came through the door, fully armed and armoured, his wispy beard hidden behind a chin-skirt of gromril plates. The sight of it made Kemma’s heart swell. Next month he would have been eleven years old, nineteen years until the majority he would never attain. In his boy’s armour he looked ridiculously young. In the visor of his helmet, his soft brown eyes, so like his father’s in particular, were wide with fear but hard with duty. My son, thought Kemma. He would have been a fine king.