‘You leave, my friend, we have lost too many heads full of wisdom. Go back and be safe. My duty is here. The time for counsel and talk is done. The Axe of Grimnir will speak for me.’
‘Thorgrim, please!’
Thorgrim jerked his head at the living ancestor. Two of his hammerers broke from the ranks of the Everguard. ‘Escort Loremaster Tork back to the eighteenth deep. Keep him safe.’
‘Aye, my king,’ said his warriors.
Tork gave the king a helpless look, his rheumy blue eyes brimmed with concern that threatened to spill into the deep lines on his face. ‘If I were but two hundred years younger…’
‘You have swung many axes for the glory of Karaz Ankor, my friend,’ said Thorgrim. ‘Let those younger take your place. Yours is a different burden.’
‘I…’
‘Go!’ said the king.
The living ancestor shook off the hands of the hammerers. ‘Very well. But stay safe! This is foolishness. You should not risk yourself.’
‘You are wrong, loremaster,’ said Thorgrim, his flinty eyes returning to regard the door. ‘It is exactly what I should do.’
The clink of the Everguard’s armour receded. Silence regained its hold over the throng. One hundred ironbreakers, irondrakes in support, and three score of his Everguard.
It should be enough, thought Thorgrim.
The doors’ runes flickered and went out. The rock at their centre glowed bright orange, a pinprick at first that spread out in a perfect circle. The stone of the Granite Gate had been chosen well; there was not a flaw in it.
‘Close secondary portcullises!’ bellowed the gatewarden of the Granite Gate.
Three sets of heavy iron portcullises descended simultaneously from slots in the roof, their machinery noiseless. Only when they met the ground, and their heavy-toothed bottoms slid into matching holes in the floor, did they make the faintest clink.
The glow in the doors spread to engulf their middle, top to bottom. The light of it glowed redly from the ceiling and polished floor, catching in the eyes of ancestor statues, whose faces, changed by shadowplay, took on horrified expressions. A dribble of molten rock ran from the gate’s centre, creating a hole that grew as the rock collapsed outwards, a hole that guttered a plume of fire.
‘Irondrakes!’ called the gatewarden. ‘Airshaft doors ready!’
Fifty runic handcannons were levelled at the door.
The Granite Gate sagged all at once, its perfection lost in a pool of cooling slag.
‘Fire!’ bellowed the gatewarden. Tongues of flame burst from the irondrakes’ guns, aimed at the centre of the hole. Whatever was on the other side exploded noisily before it could withdraw. Green-tinged fire rolled out, licking at the irondrakes’ enchanted armour without effect. Squeals of dismay came from the other side of the doors. The stink of skaven fear and burning rock washed over the throng, and the air became stuffy and difficult to breathe.
The stone skinned over and cooled to a dull, ugly grey. A thick vapour obscured whatever lay on the far side of the broken gate.
Next came a hissing noise, as a green mist issued from the breach.
‘Gas! Gas! Gas!’ shouted the gatewarden. ‘Airshafts open!’
The noxious fog rolled towards the dwarfs, sinking low to the floor. The clink of rolling glass and its shattering followed. Lesser plumes of poison sprouted as short-lived mushroom clouds around the front of the dwarf line.
The gatewarden’s orders were quickly obeyed. Dwarfs cranked open large steel flaps, revealing shafts that stretched far up the mountain. Steam engines churned on levels above, creating a ferocious wind that blew downwards, exiting from angled horns to blow the gas back towards the door. More squeaking came.
Thorgrim smiled to hear them panic. The dwarfs were slow to embrace the new, but when they did, you could be sure it would be perfect.
The gas dissipated, misting the air. It was in danger of choking the dwarfs, and so the doorwarden ordered the steam engines disengaged. The pumped wind ceased, and the natural pressure difference between the low halls and the high mountain sucked the gas away, venting it harmlessly high above the tree line many thousands of feet above their heads.
Only then did the skaven come. As usual, the frantic squealing of slaves being driven at the dwarfs preceded the main assault. These were shot down without mercy, the blasts of the irondrakes’ handcannons immolating them by the handful.
‘No matter what they do, they are not coming through this tunnel,’ said Thorgrim.
In that, the High King was wrong.
What should have come next was more slaves, thousands of them, sent to die solely for the wasting of the dwarfs’ ammunition.
Through the reek of battle came no slaves. Instead the smoke curled around a great shape, horned and tall as a giant. Light warped around it, as if recoiling from the unnatural beast, shrouding it in a flickering darkness.
‘Verminlord,’ called out Thorgrim. ‘This one is mine!’
The rat-daemon strode forwards. Jabbering in some unholy tongue, it swept its glaive in a wide arc, allowing its hand to slip far towards the counterweight at the bottom, and extending its reach to well over fifteen feet. Trailing green fire, the weapon impacted the first portcullis with a thunderous clash. The steel was sundered, deadly shrapnel from its destruction slicing into the ranks of irondrakes. ‘Fire!’ called the gatewarden. Handgun fire from embrasures in the walls joined the shorter-ranged bursts of the irondrakes. All were stopped by the cloak of shadow that wreathed the daemon. The second portcullis was broken. Thorgrim ordered his thronebearers forward. They obeyed instantly, bearing the great weight of the High King’s throne without complaint. The ironbreakers parted ranks to allow their king passage.
‘Shield wall!’ roared the gatewarden. A line of overlapped steel formed to the front of the ironbreakers. The irondrakes withdrew, leaving the ironbreakers facing the monster before them. The third portcullis was thrown down, its refuse clattering off the ironbreakers’ shields. The verminlord threw back its head and squealed.
Then the skaven attack began in earnest, a rush of clanrat warriors pouring through the ruined gateway. As they reached the heels of their demigod, the daemon broke into a run, glaive thrumming around its head.
Thorgrim raised up his axe, and roared out a challenge. The creature came right at him. It brought its weapon down in an overhead sweep that would have slain a rhinox. But the mystic energies of the Throne of Kings responded and a flaring shield of magic stopped the blow three feet above Thorgrim’s head. He shouted his war cries, voicing the unyielding defiance of the dwarfs, and struck back. The Axe of Grimnir clove through the shadow protecting the creature and into its evil flesh. Blackness like ink spilled in water escaped from the wound, bringing with it the scent of rot. Thorgrim’s beard prickled at his proximity to the thing. He bellowed again, and swung again, and the creature blocked, spinning its glaive around the axe, nearly tearing it from Thorgrim’s grasp.
The skaven were upon his warriors. Driven to a great fervour of war by the presence of their god’s avatar, they slashed with their weapons with strength beyond their feeble bodies, and bit so hard they broke their teeth. But they did not care. Thorgrim’s bearers hewed about them, keeping the creatures from their lord while he duelled with the daemon.
The verminlord struck again, thrusting with the point of its glaive, spear fashion. The rune of eternity blazed again, but the warpmetal – greenish black and as unearthly as its owner – slid through the protective magic. The great strength of the verminlord punched it through the Armour of Skaldour, ripping open Thorgrim’s side. The poisonous pain of warp contamination burned in his blood, but his roar was one of anger for the damage done to his panoply, for the skills to repair it had long been lost. The verminlord regarded him with amusement glittering in its red eyes. It assumed a guard posture, ready to strike again.