Chris Wright - Age of Sigmar - Omnibus

The angry red sky was reduced to a ragged patch that flickered with distant lightning. He was back in the underway to Gaenagrik, and he hurried down out of sight.

A few hundred steps from the opening, the tunnel broadened. The raw rubble of rockfalls was replaced by carefully laid blocks of granite. Smooth setts, so artfully laid that the joins were almost invisible, paved the floor. He held up his lantern and ignited it with a word.

The old road to Gaenagrik stretched ahead into the black.

This is it then, he thought, and set off at a hurried pace.

Signs of war were visible here and there — the bones of an overlooked duardin, or shattered remnants of enemy armour. The underway was otherwise free of debris and in good condition. The realms were filled with ruins, but ‘duardin-made, eternally stays’ went the old saying, and here that was evident.

The underway sloped downward. Gaenagrik Mountain was lower than the Ulmount. He went as fast as he dared, trying to make his footfalls as light as possible, painfully aware that this was the route his own ancestors had fled along when Gaenagrik had fallen, and that to all objective sense he was heading the wrong way.

He went unchallenged. Bones were the only things he saw.

After a time a pair of richly carved gates materialised in his lantern light. They were ajar, the gap between them an impenetrable black. The drafts of the tunnel were forced into sighing winds by the narrowness of the gap, and Drokki smelled slow decay.

He squeezed between them, and came into the outskirts of Gaenagrik. The road split, half going upward, half down. Doorways to deserted guardrooms showed as dark holes. Nervously he sniffed the air, his zharrgrim-trained nose searching for ur-gold. The smell of ur-gold was like no other, a tingle at the back of the sinuses, like before a good sneeze. It didn’t take him long to find it. That would help him find the duardin he sought. Doing so would either save his life, or end it. He patted the pouch of fresh ur-gold runes at his belt, hoping that they would be enough.

Glancing around, he set off on the upward path.

Once in the hold, Drokki had no concern about encountering the enemy. This was the renegade grimwrath berzerker Brokkengird’s territory, and that made Drokki very nervous, more nervous than if he were facing a horde of pleasure-worshippers. Never mind that Drokki had come to find the grimwrath; Brokkengird was insane.

Not the best of allies, but Drokki could see no other way. Only Brokkengird knew the safe route to Gaenagrik’s realmgate.

Drokki followed his nose. The road continued upward at an unvarying incline. A canyon, carved straight by duardin picks, opened up to his side. On the far side roads switched back and forth up the cliff, leading to the open mouths of mines. Lava glow came from the bottom of the crevasse, so faint it must have been hundreds of feet down. Strange sounds came out of the dark, louder and odder the further in he walked.

When Drokki reached the top of the canyon road, the smell of ur-gold had the back of his nose tickling. He held up his runic lantern, playing the bright yellow cone of light over a wide plaza, its walls carved with friezes showing the daily life of duardin centuries dead.

Something barged into Drokki’s back, sending him flying. He rolled over and over, coming to a halt face down over the precipice. His lamp flew from his hand, clattering from the canyon walls before spinning away. The light of it dwindled to nothing. He did not hear it hit the bottom.

A hard hand gripped him by the scruff of the neck and threw him backwards as if he weighed nothing. He flew across the plaza into the carved walls. Stone met his back, bruising his ribs and driving the wind from him, and he slid to the floor, gaping like a landed fish for breath as a figure advanced on him from the dark. He saw only the gold at first, glowing runes studded into skin in such numbers they should have torn the bearer apart with their magic. The smell of ur-gold was maddeningly strong, almost strong enough to overcome the powerful stink of unwashed duardin.

Brokkengird had found him.

‘Ur-gold for Brokkengird!’ said the duardin gleefully, aiming his axe at Drokki’s head. The runemaster rolled out of the way as he swung. Rock chips stung his cheek as the axe blade bit into the pavement.

Drokki kicked out in desperation, his feet meeting a body as yielding as rock. The priest wriggled back, but Brokkengird grabbed his ankle and yanked hard, dragging Drokki right towards him. The berzerker jumped onto the runemaster’s chest, laid his axe haft across his neck, and began to throttle.

‘Ur-gold! Ur-gold! Brokkengird kill, Brokkengird keep!’ He laughed madly.

Drokki pushed at the axe haft, but Brokkengird burned with the might of Grimnir, and his strength was terrifying.

‘Stop, stop!’ gasped out Drokki. ‘I can bring you more, much more.’

‘They all say that to Brokkengird when Brokkengird comes for them,’ said Brokkengird, and pressed down on his axe harder. The haft closed Drokki’s airway.

‘Pouch!’ he squeaked. ‘Ur-gold I brought for you! It’s… in… my… pouch…’ He flapped at his belt helplessly. A roaring filled his head. Blackness spotted with dancing colour crowded his vision.

Brokkengird removed his axe.

‘Ur-gold in pouch? No promise to go away and come back and never return? Many try to bribe Brokkengird, to keep their worthless beards.’

‘I have it, in truth!’

‘Then show Brokkengird.’

Drokki drew in a great wheezing breath and clutched at his neck.

‘Go on then,’ said Brokkengird. He grinned nastily. Even his teeth were made of ur-gold, haphazardly hammered into his gums. ‘Show me what you have.’

Drokki sat up. Still gasping, he undid the strings of his pouch and tipped out three new runes. ‘These are freshly forged,’ he croaked. ‘Warm from the forge and full of Grimnir’s might.’

Brokkengird reached out and took one of the runes reverently. He fingered it, and his face lit up with greed. ‘Good. Now Brokkengird will kill you.’

‘I can get you more!’ said Drokki hurriedly, holding out the other two.

‘How much more?’

‘Lots.’

‘You won’t come back, they never do,’ said Brokkengird. He stood up and lifted his axe. ‘No. Brokkengird kill you now, if it’s all the same to you.’

‘I will come back!’ protested Drokki. ‘I need to. I need you.’

Brokkengird lowered his axe a touch. ‘It’s a long time since anyone needed Brokkengird, longer since anyone wanted him. Why?’

‘I need a guide through Gaenagrik. I want to get to the realmgate.’

‘Got a little message to deliver?’ said Brokkengird. ‘Going to see his mother?’

Drokki shook his head. He reached out for Brokkengird’s hand. Brokkengird looked at it, then back at Drokki’s face.

Drokki pulled his hand back, and got heavily to his feet. His chest burned, and his throat felt like it was clogged with hot rocks.

‘We’re leaving, to found a new lodge.’

‘Nowhere to go. Nothing to see. Only Chaos. Chaos everywhere,’ said Brokkengird. ‘Stay home, little priest.’

‘The end is coming,’ said Drokki. ‘And you can either kill me now and die with everyone who won’t leave, or you can take us to the realmgate, be handsomely paid for it, and live.’

Brokkengird cocked his head on one side. His filthy, stinking crest flopped sideways. ‘Forty runes.’

‘Twenty.’

‘Thirty-five,’ said Brokkengird.

‘Twenty-seven…’ said Drokki.

‘Done,’ interrupted Brokkengird.

‘…and an oath,’ continued Drokki.

Brokkengird snarled. ‘No oaths!’

‘Brokkengird better swear not to harm me, and to lead the lodge to the Gaenagrik realmgate, or Brokkengird won’t get anything,’ said Drokki. For one awful second he thought Brokkengird would strike him down, but the renegade berzerker let his axe head thump to the floor, and reached out one hand. He spat on it. His spittle sizzled in his palm.