Battle for Skull Pass Read online

  “What is this, lad?” asked Godri, drawing his dagger. “What’s happened to you?” He stepped up onto the wagon and cut Skaari’s hands free of the reins, then pulled the rag from his mouth.

  “It’s a trap!” shouted Skaari. “It’s a trap! Get away!”

  Suddenly, from the bed of the wagon, a huge shape surged up, shrugging off the dead dwarfs that had covered it like dry leaves. The troll! It roared with bestial rage and raised a club the size of an ancestor stone over its ugly head.

  Godri threw himself backward as the massive weapon came down and slammed into the wagon, but he wasn’t fast enough. The end of it mashed his shoulder and he crumpled to the ground, his mind whirling and black with pain.

  Through the agony he heard shocked cries and angry bellows.

  “Defend the thane!”

  “Get him away!”

  “Hold the line!”

  “Brother, do you live?”

  “Back off, you weaklings! The troll is mine!”

  Dagskar cackled as he saw the dwarf line collapse in the middle, the troll wreaking havoc among them. This is what he had been waiting for.

  He turned to his reserves, who were straining forward like squigs on a leash. “What are y’waitin’ for?” he shrieked. “Tear ’em apart!”

  The boys howled with glee and streamed forward, waving their spears and choppers.

  Skaari lay in a tangle of ropes and reins, barely conscious and hanging half off the wagon, still loosely bound to the shattered bench. The troll’s club had come down inches from him, smashing the bench and stunning him, then the big beast had leapt over him, roaring and swinging at Thane Thunderbrand.

  He raised his head to find himself surrounded by a nightmare. A hammerer screamed as the troll’s club flattened him to a grisly pancake. Another was crawling away using only his hands, his legs crushed to a paste. Rodrin and another hammerer were dragging the thane away, back towards the hold. Godri slumped between them, unconscious or dead, his gromril armour crushed and torn at the shoulder. The slayer was trying to pull a fire-pot over his head while dodging behind the troll and roaring for its attention.

  And beyond this chaos, all along the lines, dwarfs were turning and running to help while the goblins surged through the gaps, shrieking with delight. The dwarfs’ defence was collapsing, and it was all his fault!

  Tears of rage and shame came to Skaari’s eyes as he struggled to free himself from the slack ropes that held him to the bench. He should have thrust his neck forward when the goblin put his blade against it. He should have killed himself before he let this happen! Instead he had frozen with fear and let the evil little savage bind him to the wagon and send him off with the buried troll in tow—an innocent-looking package with death inside.

  He gave an angry tug on his ropes and fell to the ground with a thud as they finally unravelled. Goblins and dwarfs fought all around him, with the troll and the slayer performing a mad dance in the middle that sent all the rest scattering. The troll kept slamming its club at the slayer, and the slayer kept rolling away and hacking it across the back or the legs, cursing and bellowing all the while. He was still having trouble getting the strap of the fire-pot off over his head, so his actions looked strangely comical.

  Skaari pushed himself to his feet in the lee of the wagon, looking for a weapon as the mad melee swirled around him. He had to join the fight. He had to make amends, even in the smallest way, for all the terrible things his actions and inactions had caused. He saw that poor dead Aurik lay beside him, his axe Grudge Ender still clutched in his hand. Skaari nearly wept at the sight. Instead, he knelt and pried the precious axe from his thane’s son’s fingers.

  With a cry of triumph, the slayer at last pulled the strap of the fire-pot over his head and cocked his arm back to throw it. The troll spun around, swinging its club for Borri’s head. The slayer leapt aside again, but this time he was just a second too slow. The club grazed his hip and sent him spinning through the air to crash down next to the wagon. The fire-pot bounced out of his hand at the impact and rolled across the ground, almost under the troll’s feet.

  Skaari stared at the clay pot as the monster strode towards the fallen slayer. This was it. This was what he could do. Without fire, the troll was nearly unkillable. Its wounds closed almost as quickly as they were made. But fire cooked its flesh and made it impossible for it to knit together again. Skaari might not be able to kill it himself, but he could make sure someone else could do the job.

  The slayer rolled under the cart as the troll pounded the ground where he had been. Now!

  Skaari short hafted Grudge Ender, then sprinted past the troll as it lifted the cart and heaved it aside. The fire-pot lay at an angle in the grass next to a massive footprint, its little flame guttering under its open-sided cap. Skaari snatched it up and turned.

  The slayer was diving away from another club smash, but his bruised leg buckled as he landed. The troll’s swipe had hurt him. He writhed on the ground.

  Skaari ran forward. “Troll!” he screamed. “Turn and face your doom!”

  He flung the fire-pot at the monster’s broad scaly back. The clay vessel smashed on its knobby spine and oil splashed everywhere, then exploded with a “whump” of flame as the fumes caught.

  The troll screamed and twisted, dropping its club and slapping ineffectually at its back as it turned. Skaari raised Grudge Ender and charged, bellowing his clan name.

  The troll snatched him up like he was a doll and crushed him in its monstrous grip. He could feel his ribs snap like twigs. He hacked down at its wrist with Aurik’s axe and made a deep cut. The troll howled and threw him down.

  His skull hit something hard. Bright agony spiked like lightning through his brain. The world swam before him, and he felt his collar grow heavy and sticky. He raised a shaking hand to the back of his head. There was a hole where there shouldn’t be. Blood was pouring out of it like a river.

  The troll loomed above him, its head on fire as it reached for him. Then Borri slammed into it, roaring and hacking. The troll caught the slayer and raised him high, tearing at him with its huge hands. Borri’s axe flashed. The troll fell. So did Borri. Both were headless.

  Skaari chuckled painfully as his vision dimmed. He had fought with Borri Graniteskin when he’d first met him. Now he would walk with him to the halls of their ancestors.

  They had killed the troll, and though that single act might not have saved the day, they had still died trying valiantly to erase their shame, and to the spirits of their fathers, that was all that mattered.

  Skaari was content.

  NINE

  Godri’s teeth snapped shut as a bump jarred him. He hissed in pain and the world came back to him, rocking and jouncing. He was being carried between Rodrin and one of his hammerers as a few others held off the mob of goblins that swarmed after them.

  Then he was being lifted.

  “Sorry, brother,” said Rodrin. “This will hurt.”

  Rodrin and the hammerer heaved him up and dumped him over the chain of the King’s Wall to land heavily on the other side. Rodrin was right. It did hurt. Quite a lot. Beneath his crumpled armour, Godri’s left arm and shoulder felt like all the bones had been replaced with jagged gravel, which was likely near enough to the truth.

  Rodrin and the hammerer threw themselves over the chains after him, and were quickly followed by a stream of battered dwarfs, falling back from different positions all over the field.

  Rodrin and the hammerer pulled Godri back behind the ragged line that was forming at the Wall and laid him on steps that rose up to the entrance of the hold.

  “Stay here, brother,” said Rodrin. “I will fetch you a surgeon.”

  “No,” said Godri. He struggled to rise. “Let me stand. I will not lie down while my warriors fight.”

  “But your arm,” said Rodrin.

  Godri tore his cloak off his shoulders. “Tie it up,” he rasped. “The King’s Wall shall be my shield.”

  Rodrin looke
d doubtful, but folded Godri’s slack arm in front of him and tied the cloak like a sling around one shoulder so that it was tight against his chest. Even that was painful, but at least it held the limb still.

  Godri stood and hefted Thaggstok one-handed, then nodded. He could fight. That was all that mattered.

  “Take heart, noble sons of Karak Grom,” called Rodrin. “Your thane lives! Fight in his name. Fight in the name of our hold!”

  The dwarfs holding the line behind the chain of the King’s Wall roared in response. “For Thunderbrand! For Karak Grom!”

  Godri stepped forward and looked along their rank. The situation was bad. His dwarfs could not bring any guns to bear on the goblins. The thunderers were all engaged hand to hand, fighting side by side with the rest of the warriors, and the cannons, almost directly above them on the platform over the door to the hold, could not tilt down far enough to find a target. They would have to win the battle standing and fighting toe to toe.

  That, of course, was the dwarf way, their strength and their pride. He knew that his lads’ hearts were strong and their will indomitable. He knew that they would fall before they faltered. But they were so few now, and wounded and weary besides, that he feared it might not be enough. But it must be. It must!

  His fists clenched as he looked beyond his fighting few—and beyond the roiling wall of goblins that pressed in on them from all sides—to the brave dead dwarfs whose bodies lay littered all over the settlement like shattered boulders. So many dead. It hurt him to see them. Karak Grom was small enough that he knew them all, and their fathers, brothers, sisters and mothers as well. He knew the heartbreak that would come when the battle was over, whether they won or whether they lost. He would not let their sacrifices be for naught. Though it seemed almost hopeless now, he would not let the hold fall.

  “For Karak Grom!” he bellowed, stepping to the chain with Rodrin and the hammerers and hacking with mighty Thaggstok at the goblins that fought to tear it down. “For our clan and our fallen!”

  “For our clan and our fallen!” echoed the dwarfs, and fought on with renewed fervour.

  Dagskar cursed. He’d thought it was over! He thought the stunties had caved at last, but the stubborn rock-eaters were holding the line again, and now his troll was dead, burning like a bonfire with the body of the ugly red-crested slayer still clutched in its crisping claws.

  “Where’r my arrow boys at?” he snapped.

  “Uh, dey’s in da brewery, I think,” said Kizaz, tottering behind him with his standard. “Tryin’ t’get da beer out before it boils.”

  Dagskar snarled and clubbed the little goblin with the handle of his whip. “Well get ’em out! Dey’s got work t’do!”

  With the arrows came a terrible decision.

  Godri was convinced they could have held off the goblins indefinitely had it only been axes against spears, dwarf strength against goblin savagery, but when the black rain began to fall, there was no defence they could make. If they raised their shields, the goblins trying to claw their way over the King’s Wall would gut them; if they lowered their shields, the arrows would stab down at shoulders and skulls and necks and wither their ranks from above.

  Certainly not many of the arrows got through. Most glanced off the dwarfs’ sturdy armour, but enough found holes in torn mail, or bare heads that had lost their helms, or unprotected arms or knees, and dwarfs continued to fall. And with each that died, the goblins pressed harder, and Godri’s line got thinner and thinner. Soon there would not be enough to hold them back. The savages would break through some gap and get behind them, and it would be over. The dwarfs of Karak Grom would be cut down in front of the open door of their hold and the goblins would pour in to pillage and slaughter the innocents who hid within.

  Godri could not let that happen. And there was a solution. If they retreated into the entry passage they would be safe from the arrows, and there would be no danger of the goblins flanking them. It would be a perfect position. But it would mean retreating from the King’s Wall, and he had made a vow that he would never do that. How could he face King Lunn, having dishonoured his gift?

  He fought on, indecisive, as more dwarfs died around him. The last of his hammerers fell to goblin spears as he tried to pull a black arrow from his neck. Rodrin had lost his helm and one of his pauldrons and was bleeding from a gash across his scalp. A mob of goblins forced open a gap on his left and pushed through, shrieking and flailing like rabid weasels. They were butchered almost immediately, but two dwarfs fell pushing the rest back and closing up the hole.

  “We must retreat,” he said to Rodrin.

  Rodrin shot an astonished glance at him. “But… but the King’s Wall! You pledged that you would hold it or die!”

  “I know,” said Godri through clenched teeth. “And I will carry the shame of breaking that pledge to the grave and beyond, but I cannot allow my personal shame to stand in the way of the safety of my people. I will not lose the hold to keep a vow. I will not let our wives die at goblin hands to preserve my honour.”

  He turned to his trumpeter. “Blow: ‘fall back—hold the passage’.”

  The trumpeter stared. “My thane?”

  “Blow it! Sound the retreat!”

  “Aye, my thane.”

  Dagskar howled with delight and relief as he heard the stunties’ horn and saw his boys leap the chain fence and swarm after them as they retreated into the hold. At last! At last! The hold would be his.

  “Yes!” he cried. “After them! In! Kill da stunties! Take their hole!”

  He scurried forward to lead from the rear.

  In the narrow passage, Godri ducked a thrusting spear and chopped the goblin behind it in the side. It squealed and fell, but three more trampled over it and stabbed at him. With his left arm wrapped and unable to carry a shield, he couldn’t block, and was forced to take a step back.

  He cursed. There had been too many steps back. Though the dwarfs killed every goblin that reached them, there were so many of them pushing into the passage that it didn’t matter. The pressure from the ones at the back drove the ones at the front forward, forcing them into the dwarfs’ weapons. The carpet of dead goblins was so high that the live ones were leaping down on the dwarfs from the top of it. They were like a cresting wave crashing into a shoreline, and the dwarfs were drowning in them.

  A thunderer to Godri’s left fell as a dying goblin dragged his axe down and two more leapt over it to stab him through the throat. Rodrin gasped as a spear punched through his armour and cut his leg. Naragrim, Godri’s red-faced chief mason, swung a digger’s pick like a lunatic, appalled that greenskins had defiled the hold that he had designed.

  “It’s not even finished yet!” he cried. “They’re going to dirty it up before it’s done!”

  “They may do worse than that,” hissed Rodrin, limping.

  Another step back. Godri saw that the dwarf line had retreated past another one of the explosive charges Naragrim’s engineers had placed in holes in the walls of the passage to widen it. He grimaced. He had been using the holes as a measure of the success of the battle, and it wasn’t going well. There were ten sets of charged holes along the corridor, and they had backed past six now. Only four more and the dwarfs would be forced into the great hall and the goblins would be able to swarm around their flanks and surround them, then it would be over at last.

  A small part of Godri almost welcomed it. He was so weary, and his shoulder and arm ached so much that he could barely see, let alone think. It would be a relief to just lower his axe and let there be an end to it. He forced himself to remember that he wasn’t thinking only for himself. The hold was counting on him. The dwarf wives and the children, the dwarfs that fought at his side. He could give up for himself, but not for them.

  He gutted another goblin with Thaggstok, but again, more savages forced him back. Another explosive charge passed by as the dwarfs retreated another step. Only three more before the end of the passage and the end of their defence, and there
was no end to the stream of goblins that filled the passage from wall to wall. They stretched back all the way to the entrance and beyond. There would be no stopping them. It was already too late. They would kill all his dwarfs and destroy the hold. He would never see it complete. He would never see Naragrim’s work finished. He would never live below ground again.

  As he thought of Naragrin’s work, a horrible idea filled his mind—a terrible idea—an idea that would push back his dreams of completing the hold for years, perhaps decades; maybe end them entirely.

  The goblins forced him back another step as he tried to find another solution. He could not.

  “Naragrim,” he said, turning to the architect. “Fall back behind us. When we reach the door to the great hall, fire the charges in the passage.”

  Naragrim paled as he turned to him. “But, the fault!” gasped the engineer. “The ceiling will come down!”

  “Exactly.”

  Rodrin stared at him as Naragrim hesitated. “Brother. Is there no other way?”

  “Only to fight on as we are, with no hope of success.” He turned and barked at Naragrim. “Go. Ready the charges.”

  The engineer bowed, his face grim. “Aye, my thane.” He turned and pushed back through the dwarf ranks.

  After another minute of grinding slaughter and retreat, the dwarfs’ front line stood at last in the door to the great hall, and the goblins pressed harder than ever, sensing that victory was within their grasp.

  “The fuses are ready, my thane!” called Naragrim from one side of the door.

  “Then light them and call a count!” shouted Godri. He looked to his left and right. “Hold the line here until Naragrim’s order. Let no goblin pass. Then run to the centre of the hall and take cover behind your shields!”

  A hissing crackle reached Godri’s ears as sparking flames consumed the matchcord that snaked in from the great hall to run under the goblins’ feet and along the bases of the corridor walls.