Tales of the Old World (10 page)

“Aye, that it is, lad,” the Slayer confirmed with a nod that shook his bright
crest from side to side. “This is where Okrinok Skrundigor was ambushed. Here it
was that Frammi and Gorgnir were slain by the grobi. How did you know?”

“I’m not sure as I know,” Grimli replied with a frown. “I can feel what
happened here, in my blood, I reckon. It’s like it’s written in the stone
somehow.”

“Aye, the mountain remembers, you can be sure of that,” Dammaz agreed
solemnly. “You can rest here tonight. Tomorrow will be a hard day.”

“What happens tomorrow?” asked Grimli, unburdening himself of his shield and
pack.

“Nothing comes to those who hurry, lad, you should know that,” Dammaz warned
him with a stern but almost fatherly wag of his finger.

That night, Grimli’s dreams were troubled, and he tossed and turned beneath
his blanket. In his mind he was there, at the betrayal so many centuries before.
He could see Frammi and Gorgnir clearly, inspecting the bunks of the wide
dormitory, protected by ten bodyguards. Gorgnir was wide of girth, even for a
dwarf, and his beard was as black as coal and shone with a deep lustre. His dark
eyes were intelligent and keen, but he was quick to laugh at some jest made by
Frammi. The princess, to Grimli’s sleeping eye at least, was beautiful; her
blonde hair tied up in two tresses that flowed down her back to her knees. Her
pallor was ruddy and healthy, her hips wide. Clad in a russet gown, a small
circlet of gold holding her hair back, she was unmistakably the daughter of a
High King.

In his dream-state, Grimli sighed. The lineage of those two would have been
fine and strong, he thought glumly, had they but been given the chance to wed.
At the thought, the deadly attack happened.

It seemed as if the goblins sprang from nowhere, rushing through the door
with wicked cackles and grinning, yellowed teeth. Their pale green skin was
tinged yellow in the lamplight, their robes and hoods crudely woven from dark
material that seemed to absorb the light. The bodyguards reacted instantly,
drawing their hammers and shields, forming a circle around the royal couple. The
goblins crashed against the shieldwall like a wave against a cliff, and
momentarily they were smashed back by the swings of the bodyguard’s hammers,
like the tide receding. But the press of goblins was too much and those at the
front were forced forward into the determined dwarfs, crushed and battered
mercilessly as they fought to get at the prince and princess. Soon they were
climbing over their own dead, howling with glee as one then another and another
of the bodyguard fell beneath the endless onslaught. The shield wall broke for a
moment, but that was all that was needed. The goblins rushed the gap, pushing
the breach wider with their weight of numbers.

This was it, the dark moment of the Skrundigor clan. It was Gorgnir who fell
first, bellowing a curse on the grobi even as his axe lodged in one of their
skulls and he was swarmed over by the small greenskins. Frammi wrenched the axe
free and gutted three of the goblins before she too was overwhelmed; one of her
tresses flew through the air as a sword blade slashed across her neck.

Almost as one the three remaining bodyguards howled with grief and rage,
hurling themselves at the goblins with renewed ferocity. One in particular, a
massive ruby inset into his hammer’s head, smashed a bloody path into the grobi,
every blow sweeping one of the tunnel-dwellers off its scampering feet. His helm
was chased with swirling designs in bronze and gold and he had the faceplate
drawn down, showing a fierce snarling visage of Grimnir in battle. The knives
and short swords of the goblins rang harmlessly off his mail and plate armour
with a relentless dull chiming, but they could not stop him and he burst clear
through the door.

The other two bodyguards fell swiftly, and the goblins descended upon the
dead like a pack of wild dogs, stripping them of every item of armour, weapon,
jewellery and clothing. They bickered and fought with one another over the
spoils, but soon the pillaging was complete and the goblins deserted the room in
search of fresh prey. For what seemed an eternity, the looted bodies lay where
they had been left, but eventually a low groan resounded across the room and one
of the bodies sat up, blood streaming from a dozen wounds across his body.
Groggily he stood up, leaning on one of the bunks, and shook his head, causing
fresh blood to ooze from a gash across his forehead. He staggered for a moment
and then seemed to steady.

“Skrundigorrrr!” his voice reverberated from the walls and floor in a low
growl.

The dream was still vivid when Grimli was woken by a chill draught, and he
saw that the fire was all but dead embers. He added more sticks from the bundle
strapped to his travelling pack and stoked the ashes until the fire caught once
again. As it grew it size, its light fell upon the face of Dammaz who was
sitting against the far wall, wide awake, his eyes staring intently at Grimli.

“Did you see it, lad?” he asked softly, his low whisper barely carrying
across the room.

“I did,” Grimli replied, his voice as muted, his heart in his throat from
what he had witnessed.

“So, lad, speak your mind, you look troubled,” Dammaz insisted.

“I saw them slain, and I saw Okrinok fight his way free instead of defending
their bodies,” Grimli told the Slayer, turning his gaze from Dammaz to the heart
of the fire. The deep red reminded Grimli of the ruby set upon Okrinok’s hammer.

“Aye, that was a terrible mistake, you can be sure of that,” Dammaz grimaced
as he spoke. The two fell into a sullen silence.

“There is no honour to be found here,” Grimli declared suddenly. “The curse
cannot be lifted from these enduring stones, not while mighty Karaz-a-Karak
endures. I shall return there, swear the Slayer oath and come back to Karak
Azgal to meet my death fighting in the caverns that witnessed my ancestor’s
treachery.”

“Is that so?” Dammaz asked quietly, his expression a mixture of surprise and
admiration.

“It is so,” Grimli assured the Slayer.

“I told you not to be hasty, beardling,” scowled Dammaz. “Stay with me one
more day before you leave this place. You promised you would come with me, and I
haven’t shown you everything you need to see yet.”

“One more day then, as I promised,” Grimli agreed, picking up his pack.

They entered the goblin tunnels not far from the chamber where Grimli had
slept, following the sloping corridor deeper and deeper beneath the World’s Edge
Mountains. They had perhaps travelled for half a day when they ran into their
first goblins. There were no more than a handful, and the fight was bloody and
quick, two of the grobi falling to Grimli’s hammer, the other three carved apart
by the baleful blade of Dammaz’s axe.

“The goblins don’t live down here much. They prefer to live in the
better-crafted halls of Karak Azgal itself,” Dammaz told Grimli when he
mentioned the lack of greenskins. “But there are still plenty enough to kill,”
the Slayer added with a fierce grin.

True enough, they had not travelled more than another half mile before they
ran into a small crowd of greenskins moving up the tunnel in the opposite
direction. The goblins shrieked their shrill war cries and charged, only to be
met head-on by the vengeful dwarfs. In the confines of the goblin-mined cavern,
the grobi’s weight of numbers counted for little, and one-on-one they were no
match for even Grimli. As he smashed apart the skull of the tenth goblin, the
others turned and ran, disappearing into the darkness with the patter of bare
feet. Grimli was all for going after them, but Dammaz laid a hand on his
shoulder.

“Our way lies down a different path, but there will be more to fight soon
enough,” he told Grimli. “They will head up into Karak Azgal and fetch more of
their kind, and perhaps lie in wait for us somewhere in one of the wider spaces
where they can overwhelm us.”

“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.