Tales of the Old World Read online

  “That’s why we should catch them and stop them,” declared Grimli hotly.

  “Even if we could run as fast as they, which we can’t, lad, the grobi will lead us a merry chase up and down. They know these tunnels by every inch, and you do not,” Dammaz countered with a longing look in the direction the goblins had fled. “Besides, if we go chasing willy-nilly after every grobi we meet, you’ll never get to see what I have to show you.”

  With that the Slayer turned away and continued down the passage. After a moment, Grimli followed behind, his shield and hammer ready.

  * * *

  Grimli was surprised a little when the winding path Dammaz followed led them into a great cavern.

  “I did not think the grobi could dig anything like this,” he said, perplexed.

  “Grobi didn’t dig this, you numbskull,” laughed Dammaz, pointing at the ceiling. Grimli followed the gesture and saw that long stalactites hung down from the cave’s roof. The cavern had been formed naturally millennia ago when the Ancestor Gods had fashioned the mountains. Something caught the young dwarf’s eye, and he looked further into the hall-like cave. A massive mound, perhaps a great stalagmite as old as the world itself, rose from the centre of the cavern.

  Grimli walked closer to the heap, and as he approached his eyes made out the shape of a small arm stuck out. And there was a tiny leg, just below it. Hurrying closer still, he suddenly stopped in his tracks. The mound was not rock at all, but built from the bodies of dozens, even scores of goblins, heaped upon one another a good ten yards above his head. Walking forward again, amazed at the sight, Grimli saw that each goblin bore at least one wound, crashed and mangled by what was obviously a heavy hammer blow. He looked over his shoulder at Dammaz, who was walking towards Grimli, axe carried easily in one hand.

  “You recognise the handiwork, lad?” Dammaz asked as he drew level with Grimli and looked up at the monumental pile of greenskin corpses.

  “Okrinok did this?” Grimli gaped at the Slayer, wondering that he could be even more astounded than he was before.

  “Climb with me,” Dammaz commanded him, stepping up onto the battered skull of a goblin.

  Grimli reached for a handhold and as his fingers closed around the shattered arm of a goblin, it felt as hard as rock beneath his touch. There was no give in the dead flesh at all and his skin prickled at the thought of the magic that obviously was the cause. Pulling himself up the macabre monument, Grimli could almost believe it had been fashioned from the stone, so unyielding were the bodies beneath his hands and feet. It was a laborious process, hauling himself up inch by inch, yard by yard for several minutes, following the glow of Dammaz’s axe above him. Panting and sweating, he pulled himself to the top and stood there for a moment catching his breath.

  As he recovered from his exertions, Grimli saw what was located at the very height of the mound. There stood Okrinok. He was unmistakable; his ruby-encrusted hammer was still in his grasp, lodged into the head of a goblin that was thrusting a spear through the dwarf’s chest. The two had killed each other, and now stood together in death’s embrace. Grimli approached the ancient dwarf slowly, almost reverentially. When he was stood an arm’s length away, he reached out and laid a trembling hand upon his ancestor’s shoulder. It was then that Grimli looked at Okrinok’s face.

  His helmet had been knocked off in the fight, and his long, shaggy hair hung free. His mouth was contorted into a bellow, his scowl more ferocious than any Grimli had seen before. Even in death Okrinok looked awesome. His beard was fully down to his knees, bound by many bronze and gold bands and beads, intricately braided in places. Turning his attention back to his ancestor’s face, he noted the familiar ancestral features, some of which he had himself. But there was something else, something more than a vague recognition. Okrinok reminded him of someone in particular. For a moment Grimli thought it must be his own father, but with a shiver along his spine he realised it was someone a lot closer. Turning slowly, he looked at Dammaz, who was stood just to his right, leaning forward with his arms crossed atop his axe haft.

  “O-Okrinok?” stuttered Grimli, letting his hammer drop from limp fingers as shock ran through him. He staggered for a moment before falling backwards, sitting down on the goblin mound with a thump.

  “Aye, lad, it is,” Dammaz smiled warmly.

  “B-but, how?” was all Grimli could ask. Pushing himself to his feet, he tottered over to stand in front of Okrinok. The Slayer proffered a gnarled hand, the short fingers splayed. Grimli hesitated for a moment, but Okrinok nodded reassuringly and he grasped the hand, wrist-to-wrist in warriors’ greeting. At the touch of the Slayer, Grimli felt a surge of power flood through him, suffusing him from his toes to the tips of his hair.

  Grimli felt like he had just woken up, and his senses were befuddled. As they cleared he realised he was once again in the mine chamber, witnessing the fight with the goblins. But this time it was different—he was somehow inside the fight, the goblins were attacking him. Panic fluttered in his heart for a moment before he realised that this was just a dream or vision too. He was seeing the battle through Okrinok’s eyes. He saw Frammi and Gorgnir once more fall to the blades of the goblins and felt the surge of unparalleled shame and rage explode within his ancestor. He felt the burning strength of hatred fuelling every blow as Okrinok hurled himself at the goblins. There were no thoughts of safety, no desire to escape. All Grimli could feel was an incandescent need to crush the grobi, to slaughter each and every one of them for what they had done that day.

  Okrinok bellowed with rage as he swung his hammer, no hint of fatigue in his powerful arms. One goblin was smashed clear from his feet and slammed against the wall. The backswing bludgeoned the head of a second; the third blow snapped the neck of yet another. And so Okrinok’s advance continued, his hammer cutting a swathe of pulped and bloodied destruction through the goblins. It was with a shock that Okrinok realised he had no more foes to fight, and looking about him he found himself in an unfamiliar tunnel, scraped from the rock by goblin hands. He had a choice; he could return up the tunnel to Karak Azgal and face the shame of having failed in his sacred duty. Or he could keep going down, into the lair of the goblins, to slay those who had done this to him. His anger and loathing surged again as he remembered the knives plunging into Gorgnir and he set off down the tunnel, heading deeper into the mountain.

  Several times he ran into parties of goblins, and every time he threw himself at them with righteous fury, exacting vengeance with every blow of his hammer. Soon his wanderings took him into a gigantic cavern, the same one where he now stood again. Ahead of him the darkness was filled with glittering red eyes, the goblins mustered in their hundreds. He stood alone, his hammer in his hands, waiting for them. The goblins were bold at first, rushing him with spears and short swords, but when ten of their number lay dead at Okrinok’s feet within the space of a dozen heartbeats, they became more cautious. But Okrinok was too clever to allow that and sprang at the grobi, plunging into the thick of his foes, his hammer rising and falling with near perfect strokes, every attack crushing the life from a murderous greenskin.

  To Okrinok the battle seemed to rage for an eternity, until it seemed he’d done nothing but slaughter goblins since the day was born. The dead were beyond counting, and he stood upon a mound of his foes, caked head-to-foot in their blood. His helmet had been knocked loose by an arrow, and several others now pierced his stomach and back, but still he fought on. Then, from out of the bodies behind him rose a goblin. He heard a scrape of metal and turned, but too slowly, the goblin’s spearshaft punching into him. With blood bubbling into his breath, Okrinok spat his final words of defiance and brought his hammer down onto his killer’s head.

  “I am a dwarf! My honour is my life! Without it I am nothing!” bellowed Okrinok, before death took him.

  Tears streamed down Grimli’s face as he looked at Okrinok, his expression grim.

  “And so I swore in death, and in death I have fulfilled that oath,” Okr
inok told Grimli. “Many centuries have the Skrundigor been blamed for my act, and I have allowed it to happen. The shame for the deaths of Gorgnir and Frammi was real, and the High King was owed his curse. But no longer shall we be remembered as cowards and oathbreakers. The goblin king was so impressed that he ordered his shamans to draw great magic and create this monument to my last battle. But in trapping my flesh they freed my soul. For many years my spirit wandered these tunnels and halls and brought death to any grobi I met, but I am weary and wish to die finally. Thus, I sought you out, last of the Skrundigor, who must be father to our new line, in honour and in life.”

  “But how do I get the High King to lift the curse, to strike our name from the Dammaz Kron?” asked Grimli.

  “If you can’t bring the king under the mountain, lad, bring the mountain over the king, as we used to say,” Okrinok told him. He pointed to his preserved body. “Take my hammer, take it to the High King and tell him what you have seen here. He will know, lad, for that hammer is famed and shall become more so when my tale is told.”

  “I will do as you say,” swore Grimli solemnly. Turning, he took the haft of the weapon in both hands and pulled. Grimli’s tired muscles protested but after heaving with all his strength, the dwarf managed to pull the hammer clear.

  He turned to thank Okrinok, but the ghost was gone. Clambering awkwardly down the mound of bodies, Grimli’s thoughts were clear. He would return to Karaz-a-Karak and present the hammer and his service to the current High King, to serve him as Okrinok once did. It was then up to the High King whether honour was restored or not. As he planted his feet onto the rock floor once more, with no small amount of relief, Grimli felt a change in the air. Turning, he saw the mound was being enveloped by a shimmering green glow. Before his eyes, the mound began to shudder, and saw flesh stripping from bones and the bones crumble to dust as the centuries finally did their work. Soon there was nothing left except a greenish-tinged haze.

  Hefting Okrinok’s hammer, Grimli turned to leave. Out in the darkness dozens of red eyes regarded him balefully. Grimli grinned viciously to himself. He strode towards the waiting goblins, his heart hammering in his chest, his advance quickening until he was running at full charge.

  “For Frammi and Gorgnir!” he bellowed.

  A GENTLEMAN’S WAR

  Neil Rutledge

  The sun beat down relentlessly. Otto von Eisenkopf felt the back of his neck burning. He dare not shift the position in which he had secreted himself though, he thought, as his neck burnt even hotter—this time with shame as he remembered the ants’ nest. His first action with this confounded crew and he had to try and conceal himself on an ants’ nest! That huge fellow—Lutyens, or whatever his name was—he hadn’t laughed, he hadn’t made a single sound, in fact, adhering to thrice-cursed Captain Molders’ silence order! The man may not have laughed aloud, but Otto had seen the mirth in his eyes all right. Bah! A pox on all of them!

  By Sigmar, what was he doing lying here like a bandit, the rocks digging through his padded brigandine as the distant hoofbeats came closer? A mere brigandine! Where was his own armour? And his scalp itched enough to drive him insane. Only the gods knew what manner of lice were in the lining of the battered arming cap he’d been given. A steel arming cap! So much for the fine armet which his squire, Henryk, had polished until it shone. So much for the wonderful plumes, all the way from Araby, which his sister had carefully dyed in the family colours. How proud of them he had been, even wearing them in his hat as he travelled up to join his father. Where was the glorious war he was promised?

  Despite the faint sounds of the approaching enemy, Otto risked a slight movement, in quest of comfort alone of course, but a dislodged pebble clicked against another. He sensed the hidden eyes of Lutyens boring into him. By the Hammer, this wasn’t what he had prepared for!

  His mind drifted back to that journey of just two days ago. How different his mood had been then! He remembered the final stretch especially. They had travelled up and across open moor country, so very different from the fields and forests of his home. It had been like chancing upon a new land, bathed in sunshine, ringing with unfamiliar, haunting bird calls and the continual chatter of water over countless rocky stream beds. Water, to his mind, far sweeter and cooler than anything he had ever drunk at home. His heart had been as high and as bubbling as the larks that rose to sing as their horses had passed. He remembered that he had sung too, the old war ballads of the Empire. They had made Otto swell with pride, as he had thought he would soon be joining those illustrious ranks of legend. He had imagined himself charging head-to-head with the knightly orders.

  So much for that! Here he was, baking on hot stones like a flat cake. Lurking, lurking with a tattered handful of mercenary pistoliers, fully half of them from outside the Empire. Even that fellow, Molders, the captain, had an accent which sounded more than half Bretonnian. How could his father trust such men? Trust them to reliably scout out which route the invading Bretonnian scoundrels would take?

  Otto reflected that the Graf must be under terrible stress. His father had been made ill, perhaps, by the strain of having to defend their glorious homeland with only men such as these. Not a single knight! By Sigmar, what an insult! He resolved to himself to strive all the harder to not let his father down, to at least be a reliable pair of eyes and ears on this confounded mission. He was certainly confident he was more trustworthy than that scurvy Captain Molders. What manner of upstart was he to consider ambushing a Bretonnian noble like this? Lurking to trap a man whose code of honour would not permit him to flee even if outnumbered and who, if bested in fair combat, would certainly graciously submit to honourable capture and ransom.

  Otto’s anger began to rise. No, by Sigmar the Blessed, he would not permit this! It was his first combat and he was not going to enter it like a bandit. He would behave honourably, even if these low sell-swords would not. He could hear the hoof beats of the approaching Bretonnian party coming nearer. Abruptly he rose to his feet and crashed through the shrubs to stand on the path.

  He stood straight and proud, sweeping the path with his eyes. The Bretonnian knight was just down the track, the scarlet of his horse’s caparison dazzling in the sunlight. Riding beside him on a shaggy pony was a rough, leather-clad man with an eye patch, clutching a light crossbow, undoubtedly a local enlisted as a guide.

  Otto raised his hand. “Ho, sir knight,” he began. The Bretonnian reined in, his hatchet face looking startled. But it was the blur of movement to one side which caught Otto’s eye. Just in time he ducked, and a crossbow bolt hissed past him. The guide, still holding the bow, had now swept out his sword with his free hand and was charging him. Otto struggled to draw his own blade. The knight was shouting something. Otto cursed and stepped smartly to one side, only narrowly avoiding the guide’s murderous sword swipe. His own sword now in his hand, the young nobleman whirled to face the horseman who, rearing his mount, had turned with incredible speed to attack him again. His gaze locked by his enemy’s one blazing eye, Otto desperately prepared to dodge again but suddenly the guide fell as Lutyens burst from the scrub and discharged a pistol into the side of his head.

  Otto’s mind reeled. The huge, rather slow pistolier had transformed into a raging colossus of action. He didn’t seem to pause, even as he coolly dropped the knight’s war-horse with his other pistol. Blonde hair streaming from under his burgonet, he charged to where the squires were riding up to protect their fallen master. He glanced back at Otto and shouted, “Get at them, fool!”

  Otto hesitated. He was staring aghast at his borrowed brigandine, splattered with blood from the slain guide. He looked up as a squire charged him. Gasping aloud, Otto just managed to roll behind the dead guide’s horse. He barely parried a spear thrust from the Bretonnian and luckily managed to seize the weapon with his free hand. He stared up at the face of the squire: a grizzled, scarred man who hissed with exertion as he tried to wrest the weapon from the young noble’s hand.

  Otto stepp
ed forward, trying to jab his sword at the Bretonnian’s arm but he stumbled over the body of the dead guide, which was hanging, one foot trapped in the stirrups. Frantically, Otto tried to pull himself upright using his enemy’s spear but he fell, twisting, amongst the horses’ hooves. Through the stamping legs and dust, he stared into the scarred face as the squire grinned and stabbed down with his spear. Otto writhed but once more a pistol discharged close by and the Bretonnian, grin still fixed in place, toppled from his horse. His killer, a wiry pistolier in a dented helmet, paused just long enough to seize the horse’s bridle and pull the beast away from the young noble, before running towards the main body of the Bretonnians. Otto, panting aloud, struggled to his feet and stumbled after him.

  The knight, protected by a close knot of squires, was on his feet and ordering his men to the attack. Standing screened by his warriors, with one hand the Bretonnian attempted to beat the dust from his crimson surcoat, while with the other he held his sword aloft. “They are only brigand dogs!” he yelled. “Kill them!”

  Charging forward, Otto almost screeched as he shouted with indignation, “I am no brigand, but Otto von Eisenkopf of Barhaus! Defend yourself, insolent knight.”

  Dimly, Otto was aware that there seemed to be very few pistoliers on the road or moving through the shrubs and boulders, but now his attention was fixed on the tight group of men immediately facing him. The squires hesitated, looking to their master for guidance. Slowly the knight gestured them aside and stepped forward. “Very well,” the Bretonnian hissed, “whatever honour you have, von Eisenkopf, prepare to test its mettle.”

  The knight stood before him, looking almost warily at his young opponent. He held his sword—a fine, jewel-hiked affair—loosely by his side while his free hand toyed with a corner of his silk jupon. Otto sized his opponent up. The man was older and taller, very tall in fact, but sparsely built, with a thin face and hawk nose.