A WARHAMMER NOVEL

THE BATTLE FOR SKULL PASS

Nathan Long

ONE

DAGSKAR EARSCRAPPER SURVEYED the carnage in the cave. There were dead Crooked Moon boys everywhere, bleeding on the cave floor, impaled on stalagmites, and bits and pieces of chopped-up ones tossed about like squig droppings. But that was all right, because there were twice as many dead Red Chin boys lying next to them. The surviving Crooked Moon boys were running about, looting the corpses and cutting the necks of any Red Chins who were still breathing, while cave squigs fed indiscriminately on the dead of both sides.

Dagskar turned to his leader, Big Boss Budgoz Three-Teeth, and grinned. 'Good scrap, hey, boss? Showed dem Red Chins who da Crooked Moons are, didn't we? Calls for a drink, I think.' He pulled a skin from his belt and held it out to Budgoz. 'Swig a' toadstool brew?'

Three-Teeth smiled, showing his three teeth, and shook his lumpy head. 'Yer a good boy, Earscrapper, smart in a fight and quick t'lash yer lads into shape, but I trust ya as far as I can throw a big 'un.' He lifted his own skin and uncorked it. 'I'll drink my own, thanks all the same.'

'Alright by me,' said Dagskar as the two goblins drank deep, then wiped their mouths on the crusty sleeves of their black robes. 'Coz I didn't poison mine.'

Budgoz turned, frowning. 'Whaddaya mean by-?' But before he could finish the sentence he suddenly doubled up, groaning and retching. 'You double crossin' little-' A convulsion interrupted him, and he heaved up a thick stream of black vomit.

'S what ya get for not trustin' me, boss,' said Dagskar, stepping back from the spreading pool.

Budgoz heaved again, his head turning an alarming shade of purple, and puked out his own intestines. They sloshed across the floor like sausages in black stew. He fell to his knees, then toppled face-first into the mess, dead as a rock.

Dagskar shook his head, clucking his tongue. 'Such a shame. Terrible, terrible.' He stepped up onto Budgoz's armoured back and turned to the horde of goblins that were gathering around him. 'A great victory, boys!' he shouted. 'But I has some sad news. Our wise and powerful big boss Budgoz has accidentally drunk some bad brew and ain't expected t'recover.'

There was an ugly murmuring from some of the goblins.

'Accidentally?' said one, crossing his arms sceptically.

'Aye,' said Dagskar, lashing out with his whip and taking the goblin's nose off at the root with a deft twist. 'Accidentally. Just like dat.'

The goblin fell back, howling and clutching his gouting nose stump as the others edged away, frightened.

Dagskar raised his whip and shook it at them. 'I is yer boss now, d'y'hear? And you is all my boys! Got that? Yer Dagskar Earscrapper's boys, now!'

'All hail da new boss!' shouted a cowering goblin.

The rest took up the cry. 'All hail da new boss!'

Dagskar nodded, pleased, then smiled to himself. 'Now,' he said under his breath. 'Now Skarsnik has gotta make me a big boss.'

ANOTHER YEAR, THOUGHT dwarf thane Godri Thunderbrand as he walked through the unfinished great hall and looked up at the arching ceiling. No more than two.

Emotions welled up in his broad, beard-buried chest as he thought of it. Soon the masons would smooth and polish the pillars. Soon the sculptors and goldsmiths would carve and gild the ancestor faces that ringed the roof. Soon the painters and weavers would cover the walls with the proud colours of Clan Byrnik and hang the heavy tapestries that told their long proud history. Soon this dusty, echoing hole in the side of Skull Pass would be a true dwarf hold.

'By Grungni's hammer, Naragrim has done a magnificent job,' said Godri's son Aurik, a golden-bearded young dwarf warrior who walked beside him through the clutter of scaffolds and piles of cut stone. 'Truly, this is a hall fit for a king, a hall like those of the holds of old.'

Rodrin, Godri's bald, black-bearded younger brother and chief miner, chuckled and shook his head. 'It isn't that, beardling. Not that it's bad,' he said, with a quick look at Godri. 'It's a triumph, all things considered, but Karak Eight Peaks in its day - well, there was nothing like it in the world.'

'Say what you will, brother,' said Godri as he reached the centre of the hall and turned in a slow circle to take it all in. 'To me it is the grandest hall ever built, for it is mine. There were times when I thought it would never come.' He sighed with a mixture of sadness and pride as he thought back to the fall of Karak Eight Peaks, when Clan Byrnik and all the other dwarf clans who had dwelled with King Lunn in the greatest of the dwarf holds had been forced to abandon it to the verminous invaders and seek shelter elsewhere.

King Lunn's words to him then came back to him now as if he had heard them only yesterday.

'AND YOU, GODRI Thunderbrand,' said King Lunn, looking down from atop his shield as Godri knelt before him in the middle of the long train of refugee dwarfs who were marching away from the fallen karak. 'Where will you go? Have you kin in other holds that will welcome you?'

'Lord king,' said Godri, looking up. 'We have kin, but we will not burden them. We will accept no charity and incur no debt.' He could barely see the king as he spoke. He was still half blind from the corrosive vapours that the skaven had pumped into the hold's airshafts. His brother Rodrin lay on a cart along with many of the others of Clan Byrnik, laid low by the poison the ratmen had dumped into the wells. 'We will make our own way, first above ground, later in a hold of our own. The earthquakes that shook our homes, and the vermin that took advantage of that ruin, may have shattered the chain of holds that linked these mountains together, but we of Clan Byrnik vow to forge a new link that will one day join with others, old and new, to make us strong again.'

The old king stroked his long white beard and nodded. 'Well said, Godri Thunderbrand. You show the true strength of the dwarfs, which is not might of arm, nor keenness of axe - though those be great - but determination and tenacity. I hail you for it, and shall give you a token of my esteem.'

'Lord king,' said Godri, bowing over his knee. 'We are honoured, but we will accept no gift, not even from you.'

King Lunn laughed. 'It is not a gift, proud thane. Indeed it is a burden - heavy, and laden with terrible honour.' He waved behind him at his baggage train. 'Amongst my treasure I carry the King's Wall, the iron chain that once surrounded my throne, and beyond which none could pass without my invitation. Each of my warriors vowed to die before letting one enemy step within it.' He sighed. 'Sadly I will have no need of it where I go, for I will be guest in another king's hold, so I shall give it to you.'

'It is a great honour, lord king,' said Godri, wondering if it was.

'Perhaps you think I am only lightening my load,' said the king, chuckling. 'But I vow to you that if you make a success of this new hold of yours, and build a throne room from which to rule, then I will visit you, and wait outside the chain at your bidding. Further, I will bow to you, and pay you the respect due a brave and defiant king.'

Now Godri truly did feel honoured. He stood tall and struck his chest in a dwarfen salute. 'My king, I accept this burden, and by Grungni, Grimnir and Valaya, I vow that Clan Byrnik will never let an enemy past the King's Wall!'

And though it had been a long, hard century since then, and there had been many setbacks and troubles, Godri and his clan had kept that vow, and wherever they had set the heavy chain, with its squat stone posts in the shape of doughty dwarf warriors, not one enemy had crossed it.

The clan had wandered for many years, searching for a rich, defensible mine, and found it at last in a valley in the south of the World's Edge Mountains known as Skull Pass, which had a good vein of gold, a clean spring, and a strong position.

But finding the valley had only been the beginning. They had been forced to live above ground these past eight decades while they slowly dug into the mountain, both to mine for gold and iron, and to dig out living quarters. More than once along the way the surface settlement they had established was almost wiped out. The winters had been hard, the orcs and goblins legion, and their clan very small and poor. But despite these many setbacks - what his grim-browed brother Rodrin referred to as ''the curse'' - they had held on tenaciously, and now they were almost ready to move completely underground.

The living quarters were built, the wells dug, the air shafts bored, the grain vaults complete, the treasure vaults and workshops ready. All that remained was to put the finishing touches on the public areas, move the grain, forge works, mill and brewery to the spaces waiting for them inside, widen the entry passage and set the great gates into the front door. In less than a year all would be complete and Godri would invite King Lunn to call upon him. Then the High King would stand outside the King's Wall and bow to him on his throne. It would be the proudest moment of his life.

GODRI SHOOK HIMSELF from his reminiscences and returned his attention to the half-finished great hall. He turned to Aurik, who, in preparation for the day when he would rule the hold, was learning to oversee much of the trading and communication with other holds. 'How soon will the gate lock and hinges be delivered from Karak Azul?'

'Hokkir the gem merchant brought word from there when he arrived with his wares yesterday,' Aurik replied. 'It should only be a matter of weeks. The hold will be secure before winter.'

'We should have made the lock ourselves,' Rodrin muttered. 'It would be done by now.'

Godri sighed. It had been a bone of contention between him and his brother for a long time. 'I will have only the best,' he said, as he had said many times before. 'Our foundries are not yet large enough or sophisticated enough to build the locks we must have.'

'And Karak Azul has agreed to take our gold, cowhides and beer in return,' added Aurik. 'The establishment of regular trade with them will ensure our prosperity for years to come.'

'But what of our security now?' said Rodrin. 'We haven't even placed the doors. What if the curse rears its ugly head again?'

Godri turned on him, lowering his shaggy white eyebrows. 'If trouble comes,' he said, 'we will deal with it as we have always dealt with it, with axe, hammer and cannon.'

'Aye,' said Aurik, jutting out his golden beard. 'Our vow to defend the King's Wall is stronger than any gate. We have no need to fear. Has my father not named the hold Karak Grom?'

'Aye, aye,' grumbled Rodrin. 'Enduring Defiance - I know. I would just feel a little better if we did our enduring and defying behind nice, thick stone doors.'

'We will, brother,' said Godri, softening. 'I promise you.'

The three dwarfs turned as steps approached them. Hurrying across the great hall came a balding dwarf in a leather apron and gloves, his grey beard neatly braided into a single club. He wiped his worried face with a red kerchief as he stepped before Godri and bowed.

'My thane,' he said. 'I must speak to you.'

'What is it this time, Naragrim Torinsson?' Godri asked, crossing his arms over his beard. Naragrim was his chief mason, and brought him news of doom and gloom on a regular basis.

'Something truly serious this time, my thane,' said Naragrim.

Aurik chuckled. 'You say that every time.'

'This time I mean it,' said Naragrim.

'You say that too,' grinned Rodrin.

Godri motioned his brother and son to be quiet, then nodded to Naragrim. 'Tell us, engineer.'

Faced with their combined attention, Naragrim hesitated, mopping the back of his neck with his kerchief. 'Well, ah, you see, my thane, some of the stone cutters were roughing out the ceiling for the main entry passage while the sappers were placing the charges to widen it, and they found...' He paused and coughed. 'They found a crack.'

'A crack?' said Godri. His heart thudded. This might indeed be serious. 'Grimnir! How big is it? Show me.'

Naragrim nodded and led Godri, Rodrin and Aurik back across the hall. 'It's big,' he said. 'Deep. It runs at a rough diagonal the whole length of the ceiling of the entry passage. And there are secondary cracks.'

He stopped at the mouth of the passage, still narrow, but with holes drilled in the side walls and charges set to blow it wider.

He pointed up through the drifting dust. 'You see?'

Godri's chest clenched as he looked up at the rough, arched ceiling of the passage where Naragrim was pointing. Even from the floor he could see the hairline fissure that snaked through the rock. This truly was bad news. The question was, how bad? 'Can the passage be saved?' he asked.

'It can, my thane,' said Naragrim. 'But without support pillars and a network of rafters, we cannot make it any wider. The roof will collapse.'

'But it must be wider!' said Aurik, stepping forward. 'How will we receive the embassies of other holds in so puny an entryway? It must be wide enough for ten dwarfs to walk abreast. It must be as great as the great hall it leads to.'

'Not without pillars, it won't be,' said Naragrim.

Rodrin groaned. 'The curse,' he muttered.

Godri ground his teeth. 'You told me you tested the stone in this mountain from tip to root and found no fault.'

'There was no fault, my thane,' said Naragrim, his hands clasped together. 'I swear it by Grungni. The stone was as sound as a king's vault.'

'Then what happened?' asked Godri.

'The earth tremor last winter,' said the builder. 'It is the only thing I can think of. It must have caused the crack, and our blasting this summer worsened it.' He looked up at Godri. 'I'm sorry, my thane. Erecting the pillars and reinforcing the ceiling will add years to the construction.'

'As long as it isn't years before we can set the doors and the lock,' said Rodrin.

Naragrim shook his head. 'That won't be affected.'

'Thank Grungni for that,' said Godri. He put a hand on the chief mason's sturdy shoulder. 'Very well, Naragrim. Build your pillars. Strengthen the ceiling. Do what you must. We have waited this long. We can wait a few years more.'

Naragrim bowed low. 'I will draw up new plans at once, my thane.' He turned and hurried away, calling new orders to his crew.

'It's been like this from the beginning,' said Rodrin, tugging his black beard and turning away. 'Famine, flood, goblins, skaven, cave-ins in the mine, and now this. I tell you, the place is cursed.'

'Nonsense, uncle,' said Aurik sharply as he followed Rodrin back into the great hall. 'There have been setbacks, true, but we have our health. We have our families. We have our lives. We will persevere. We are Karak Grom.'

Godri's chest swelled with pride at his son's admirable dwarf staunchness. He wished his brother had more of it. Had it been up to Rodrin, Clan Byrnik would have packed up and gone begging at some other clan's door long ago.

A young dwarf trotted down the entry passage as Godri fell in step with his brother and his son. 'Your pardon, thane,' he said, stopping and bowing before him. 'The dragonslayer, Borri Graniteskin, has just broken Argi Argisson's nose in the Wyvern's Demise.'

Godri stopped and sighed. On the other hand, maybe his brother was right after all.

TWO

IN A STOLEN dwarf hall deep under Karak Eight Peaks, Dagskar Earscrapper stood in the centre of a huge crowd of goblins, facing a towering, lopsided throne made of split dwarf shields and crushed dwarf helms, many with crushed dwarf skulls still inside them. Hunched on the throne sat Skarsnik, Warboss of the Crooked Moon goblins, undisputed ruler of the World's Edge Mountains.

Dagskar was having a hard time keeping Skarsnik's attention. His boys had just captured a pack of human hunters, and Skarsnik was watching as they were fed one at a time to Gobbla, his enormous pet squig.

'Budgoz's boys is my boys now,' said Dagskar. 'Five hundred goblins. He was big boss, so I should be big boss.'

Skarsnik chuckled as a human was kicked into the range of Gobbla's chain and the big squig pounced on him, gulping him down in two bites. Finally he turned to Dagskar. 'Takes more'n lotsa goblins t'be a boss, boy. What else y'got?'

Dagskar slapped his chest. 'Ain't I tough? Lookit the notches on my stuntie sticker.'

'Yrr,' said Skarsnik, his eyes drifting back to the squig as another human was goaded forward. 'Tough enough, I guess.'

'And ain't I a good leader?' added Dagskar, raising his voice over the roaring and screaming and crunching of bones. 'Didn't I squash dem Red Chins and still have half my boys left?'

'Yrr,' said Skarsnik again, nodding distractedly.

'And ain't I smart? Wasn't long ago I was shovellin' Gobbla's scat. Now look at me!'

Skarsnik did just that, turning away from the carnage and staring at Dagskar with sudden beady intensity. 'Yrr,' he said at last. 'Yer smart all right.' He waved back the goblins that were prodding the next human forward. 'Hoy. Leave off a minute!'

Dagskar edged back as Skarsnik pushed himself up off his throne and waddled down the uneven steps to the floor to circle him, his spindly arms behind his back and his pot belly swaying. 'Right,' he said. 'You wanna be big boss, dat's okay by me.'

Dagskar's green lips split in a snaggle-toothed grin. Finally!

Skarsnik wasn't finished. 'But! Y'gotta pass a test first. A big boss test.'

Dagskar's stomach turned upside down. He'd seen some of Skarsnik's tests before. Usually they involved fighting Gobbla, armed with a stick. He wasn't going to let on he was afraid, though. That would be suicide. He kept smiling. 'Fair enough. I'll take any test y'got. You name it.'

Skarsnik's smile matched his own, a full complement of razor-sharp teeth. 'Right, den. Here it is. Get rid of dem stunties in Skull Pass. Dey's like fleas on my backside. Itchy, but too hard to reach. You scratch 'em, you get t'be big boss. You blow it, yer back to squig scat, got it?'

Dagskar glared as the assembled goblins giggled. He knew what the warboss was up to. Skarsnik had sent goblins after the Skull Pass stunties loads of times, and it always ended in the goblins getting it in the neck. He obviously thought Dagskar was getting too big for his boots, and wanted to get rid of him. And it might work. Those stunties were tough, and no mistake. But what if Dagskar won? Skarsnik wouldn't look so smart then, would he? And Dagskar would be a big boss among big bosses. Everybody would want to walk behind his banner.

'I'll do it,' he said. 'Dem stunties'll be dead before it snows, or I'm squig meat.'

'Good either way,' said Skarsnik, laughing.

The rest of the goblins snickered derisively. They didn't think he had a chance.

Dagskar turned and walked out of the hall, growling under his breath. He'd show them. That stunties was as good as dead.

But to do it, he was going to need some help.

GODRI DUCKED A hurled beer mug as he stepped into the Wyvem's Demise, the taproom of Clan Byrnik's brewery, the second largest structure in the above-ground settlement that spread out in front of the future hold. Rodrin and Aurik filed in behind him. In the centre of the drinking hall was a whirling scrum of dwarfs, all throwing punches and furniture. In the centre of the scrum was a tattooed, bare-chested slayer, laying about him with fists the size of tankards, his red crest bent flat and a lump growing on his head from some previous impact.

'You farmers don't know the meaning of courage,' he was roaring. 'I've killed a dragon, I have!'

'Who saw you?' sneered a dwarf in a smith's apron.

The slayer knocked him down with a right hook. 'You doubt my word, you kruti hill trash?'

Godri had seen enough. He snatched up an iron mug and pounded it on the bar. 'Leave off, you lot! Leave off!'

There was no response. The fighters were too busy.

Aurik stepped forward and bellowed. 'Stand down for the thane! Stand down for Godri Thunderbrand!'

This worked. The dwarfs looked over their shoulders and saw who was among them and eventually stepped away from the slayer, who finally looked up when he realised he had no one left to swing at.

'Thank you, my son,' said Godri, nodding to Aurik, then he turned to the combatants. 'Now then,' he said. 'What's this all about?'

'Your lads called me a coward,' snarled the slayer, a stranger to the World's Edge Mountains named Borri Graniteskin, who had come to rid them of the troll that had been terrorising the settlement for the last year. 'They dared to claim that I have no intention of going after your troll.'

A young dwarf named Skaari Otgunsson stood up from the wreckage of a table. Godri knew him. He was a cowherd, the orphan son of a dwarf who had been one of Godri's most loyal followers. The lad usually tended the clan's herd, up in the high pastures.

'It's true,' said Skaari, combing splinters out of his short brown beard with his fingers. 'All he's done is drink twice his share and take advantage of our hospitality. It's been two weeks, and what has he done? Nothing! I lost another calf last week. We want to see some results!'

Borri pounded his chest with his heavy fist. 'I'm building up my strength! It's no small thing to fight a troll. I know. I've fought one, unlike you lot. I'll fight that troll, but not until I'm good and ready.'

Skaari made a rude noise, which was echoed by the rest of the battered dwarfs.

Borri's face turned as red as his crest and he started towards Skaari, his fists balled. 'And I'll not be called a coward by a cowherd!'

Godri pounded on the bar with the iron mug again, bending it out of shape. 'That's enough!' he shouted. 'That's enough. Any more fighting and I'll keep the troll and slay you!'

Borri turned and fixed him with cold eyes. 'Will you, now?'

Godri held his gaze, not backing down an inch. 'I'm not one to question a slayer's courage or his methods - slayers are a strange, brave breed and their ways are their own. But like all dwarfs, I do believe in value for money. Therefore, if you don't start after that troll in three days, you will no longer be welcome in Skull Pass. Do I make myself clear?'

Borri continued to stare at him, his fists clenched, then snorted. 'Three days. You think I'll need that long? I'll bring his head back in two.'

'I'm pleased to hear it,' said Godri. He turned to Hirri, the bar-keep, and flipped him a gold coin stamped with the seal of Karak Eight Peaks. 'Next round's on me, but they'll all chip in for the cost of the broken furnishings, won't they?' He swung his head back towards the combatants. They nodded their heads sheepishly.

Godri grinned and stepped back out into the early winter sunshine with Rodrin and Aurik at his back. A minor problem in the life of a thane, but he was pleased to have solved it so smoothly No feuds started, no grudges to be written in the book.

He looked around at his settlement as he strolled down its main street. On the one hand, it pained him that all was not yet underground as it should be, but on the other, it was more prosperous and populated than he could have imagined in the bad years. Dispossessed dwarfs from far and wide had come to join his clan and share his dream, and the place bustled with commerce and industry.

The brewery was hissing and booming as the ale-makers stoked the fires under the great vats. By the stream, the mill was grinding flour for their bread. The forges were clanging out staccato rhythms as the smiths shaped ploughs, scythes, hammers and axes. Tanners and leather crafters and jewellers and stone carvers all worked in front of their shops in the cool mountain air. Dwarf-wives sat in circles, carding wool and spinning yarn for clothes and cloaks.

Godri beamed with pride. Despite all the tragedies and setbacks, his people were happy. And in another year, or at the most two, they would be happy underground and all would be well. King Lunn would come and Godri would show him what his determination had wrought.

'One more winter,' he said.

Rodrin and Aurik nodded. They'd had this conversation often enough that Godri didn't have to explain further.

'Aye,' they said in unison. 'One more winter.'

DAGSKAR EARSCRAPPER PUSHED through the dense undergrowth of the forest the Crooked Moon goblins called the Niffy Woods, holding his nose. The place smelled like bad eggs and sour milk and the trees grew funny. The mushrooms that sprouted from them didn't do anything except kill any goblin foolish enough to have a taste - not that that didn't have its uses. He had already tucked some in his pack, just in case.

Dagskar's handpicked boys looked around them nervously as they followed. Night goblins didn't like the woods much as a rule, and these woods were creepier than most. The trees loomed over them like many-limbed giants, and huge spider webs stretched from branch to branch like tent-roofs; fat, goblin-sized cocoons dangling from them at the ends of sticky strands. Some of them struggled weakly.

'We almost dere, boss?' whispered Kizaz, Dagskar's diminutive banner carrier and general whipping boy, who, in addition to holding aloft a long pole with a Crooked Moon totem on the top, was lugging Dagskar's pack, spear and tent on his back.

'We're here,' said Dagskar, stepping up to a big tree with a leering face carved into its bark. He rapped on the tree with the iron knob at the end of his whip handle. 'Hoy! Nazbad!' he shouted. 'Nazbad Wartfinger! Come out, y'ugly snotling-fondler! I wants a word with ya!'

There was no response except for a strange skittering and chittering from high in the trees. Dagskar's followers gripped their spears and craned their necks, looking for the source of the sound.

'Who wants me?' came a voice from ground level.

Dagskar and his boys whipped around. Stepping out of the undergrowth was a wizened old goblin shaman in a dirty wolfskin. Weird fetishes hung from his wrists and dangled from the gnarled staff he carried. His face was painted in strange yellow designs. A handful of forest goblins on giant spiders guarded his back. The big beasts picked their way through the scrub as delicately as elves, and almost as creepy.

'Nazbad! Brother!' cried Dagskar. 'How's yer wart? Still full'a power?'

'Less of it, Earscrapper,' snarled the shaman. 'Just coz we fought humans together one time don't make us bruddas.' He folded his arms across his sunken chest. 'Whaddaya want?'

Dagskar grinned. 'Dat's Nazbad for you,' he said. 'Right to the point, as always. Fair enough. Here it is. I aim t'take out da Skull Pass stunties once and fer all, but I needs yer help t'do it. Y'want in?'

Nazbad's eyes bugged out, then he looked around at his spider boys. They all laughed.

'Somebody drop you on yer head?' he asked. 'Not a chance! Dem stunties is tough. And dey's hard to reach with a big mob too. Only way is over da bridge at No Bottom Gorge, and dey got that bottled up tighter den a fish's backside.'

'Dat's why I needs you and yer spider boys,' said Dagskar. 'To do da tippy-toein' while my boys does the heavy hittin'.' He tapped his skull with a long finger. 'I has a plan.'

Nazbad scratched his chin, thinking hard. 'An' why should we help da likes'a you take a stuntie hole? What's in it for us? Plunder?'

Dagskar waved a big-knuckled hand. 'More'n dat. If we take it, Skull Pass is yers. I don't want it. I only wanna win da fight t'show Skarsnik I can be big boss. You can nab da hole, and everythin' in it. I don't care.'

Nazbad's eyes glittered with greed. 'Da hole and everythin' in it? For true?'

'I swears by Gork and Mork,' said Dagskar, holding up his hand.

Nazbad gave him a suspicious look. 'We'll see about that. I remembers how we split shares after raidin' dat human village.'

'It wasn't me who cheated yer!' said Dagskar. 'It was Budgoz, and Budgoz is dead. I killed him!'

Nazbad still looked uncertain. 'Dat's as may be,' he said. 'But yer no better than he was.' After a moment, though, he shrugged. 'All right, why not. I'll take a chance. Dem stunties got a lotta good swag. You can have some of my spider boys, but I'm comin' along t'keep an eye on things. And if you double-cross me...' He held up his middle finger. A huge hairy wart grew from the knuckle. The bulbous thing seemed to glow green in the shadows of the forest. 'It's da wartfinger for you.'

Dagskar held up his hands in a conciliatory gesture. 'No need for dat, Nazbad. We's all friends here, right? Now listen. Meet me in da woods near da bridge over No Bottom Gorge at midnight tomorrow night, and be ready for da Waaagh! I'll be dere. But first I gotta see a troll.'

'HAS THE SLAYER still not moved?' asked Faril Hammersong as he slapped the reins against the ponies' backs. He and five other rangers were taking the timber wagon up through the sturdy oaks of Copperwood Forest to cut fire logs for the winter. This would be the last run of the year. The woodsheds were almost full and there was a scent of snow in the air.

'Nah,' said Argi Argisson, who walked alongside the cart, his axe over his shoulder. 'Two days after Thane Thunderbrand told him to put up or get out, and Graniteskin's still sitting at Byrnik's, drinking our ale like there was no tomorrow.'

Faril laughed and ducked a branch that grew down from the trees that arched over the narrow forest track. 'For him there isn't. If he doesn't go after that troll tomorrow he'll be out on his tattooed arse.'

Argi prodded his bandaged nose, which the slayer had broken in the brawl at the brewery. 'I hope he doesn't go. I want another crack at him. He put my nose out of- what was that?'

Faril looked up. He had heard it too - a clicking and shifting in the leaf-shrouded tops of the oaks. He held up a hand. 'On your guard, lads. Something's in the trees-'

A javelin shot out of the branches and struck his helm, knocking him backwards onto the bed of the empty cart as both spear and cap bounced away.

'Ware!' cried Argi, swinging his axe off his shoulder. 'Ambush! Watch your-!'

Before he could finish, giant barb-legged spiders with goblins on their backs leapt down from the trees, slamming him and the rest of the rangers to the ground. The ponies screamed in fear and tried to bolt, but more goblins swarmed out of the woods and grabbed their reins.

Faril sat up and drew his hatchet as all around him came the sounds of fighting, but then another goblin-mounted spider jumped down on top of him, pinning him down, its bony mouth-pieces clicking inches from his face. Faril got his arm free and lashed wildly at the monster, sending a mandible spinning away in a spatter of black fluids, but the thing crushed him to the wagon with its fat abdomen and tried to tear him apart with its razor-sharp claws. The goblin on its back giggled and stabbed at him with a javelin.

Faril squirmed out of the way of the thrusting point and swung up underhanded with his hatchet, biting deep into the spider's yellow and black thorax. The thing flinched and skittered back, tearing the hand axe from Faril's grip and nearly throwing its rider.

Faril scrambled up and grabbed a big tree-felling axe from under the driver's bench, and then leapt at the spider and the goblin, who were gathering themselves for another spring. But as he swung for the spider's eight eyes, the wooden haft of the axe burst into green flame, burning his hands.

With a cry of pain and surprise, Faril let go of the flaming axe, and the spider pounced on him, bearing him down again, and this time the goblin's javelin stabbed him through the chest. He clasped at the shaft with his blistering hands, trying to pull it out. The goblin did it for him, jerking it out as the spider clattered over him and hopped onto Argi, who was fighting another spider rider beside the wagon.

Blood poured out of the hole in Faril's chest and pooled around him as he struggled to sit up. His arms and legs were growing weak. He looked past the wagon, searching for someone to help him, but they were all dead or dying, pierced by the goblins' spears and torn apart by the spiders' claws.

As his vision began to fade and his head to sink back, Faril saw a scrawny goblin in a wolfskin striding down the track toward the wagon, his arms raised. Green energy radiated from him like a halo, and with each step, green flames burst from the trees and bushes around him.

They're burning the forest, he thought. I must warn the thane. He tried to move, to stand, but he was too weak. Too much of his blood was spreading across the planks of the wagon. His head fell back. The world went black around him - black and hot and smelling of smoke.

THREE

GODRI, RODRIN AND Aurik ran out of the hold and looked up over the roofs of the settlement to where the others were pointing. A towering column of smoke was rising up from beyond Boar Back Ridge and drifting south and east.

'That way lies Copperwood Forest!' said Aurik.

'It's on fire,' said Rodrin.

'Aye,' said Godri, his heart sinking. The Copperwood Forest was vital to Karak Gram's survival. The timber gathered there fuelled the hearths and forges of the settlement. They had fortunately brought in most of the firewood they needed for this winter, but what of the next, and the next after that? It took decades for a forest to grow back from a fire. There were other woods in the vicinity, but they were much harder to reach, and more dangerous to enter. This could set foundry production back for years.

'It's the curse,' said Rodrin, pulling at his beard. 'It strikes again.'

'No more of that!' snapped Godri. 'There is no curse. There will be a reason for this.' He turned to his son. 'Weren't Faril Hammersong and the others on their way there for a last wagon of timber?'

'Aye, father,' said Aurik. 'They left just this morning.' He bowed to Godri. 'Father - thane - I will take my scouts and see if I can learn the cause of this fire, and what has become of Faril's rangers.'

Godri nodded, pleased that his son was taking the initiative and stepping into the role of leader. He would make a fine thane when Godri passed on. 'Very good,' he said. 'But take no chances with the fire. Only find Faril and his dwarfs and return them safe to us.'

'I will do my best, father,' said Aurik. He bowed again, then hurried off, calling for his chosen dwarf scouts.

Behind Godri, Rodrin sighed. 'As you say, brother, there will be a reason for the fire. But behind the reason is the curse.'

'KEEP AWAY FROM dem stunties!' shouted Nazbad from the bench of the timber wagon. 'If I can't have none, you can't have none!'

The spider riders shot him sulky looks, but they pulled their mounts away from the dead dwarfs in the back of the wagon and started them scuttling forward again. Nazbad sat back down, grumbling, and flicked the reins to make the spider-skittish ponies go faster. The forest fire was spreading quickly, and had almost caught up to him and his boys, who were hurrying down the path away from it. The smell of half cooked dwarf was almost irresistible, and he wanted to sink his teeth into stuntie steak as much as the others did, but Dagskar had made him promise to bring the corpses back to the camp. He had plans for them.

'Him and his plans,' Nazbad muttered, licking his lips and looking over his shoulder at the dwarf corpses piled in the back of the wagon. 'I'm hungry.'

But the thought of having a nice stuntie-built hole to call home for him and his boys held him in check. Stunties always dug the best holes, easily defended and with plenty of room for lots of goblins, spiders and squigs. With a hole like that, Nazbad could really grow his tribe. And if Dagskar wanted to do all the hard work of getting it for him, he wasn't going to say no. So as tempted as he was to have a bit of stuntie leg, he restrained himself. Plenty of stunties to eat after they slaughtered them all in Skull Pass.

SKAARI OTGUNSSON FLICKED his switch at the withers of the last cow of the herd. 'Watch out, Hilda. It's a long way down.'

Hilda lumbered away from the edge of the ravine, lowing unhappily, and bunched up with the others. Skaari and the other cowherds were bringing the shaggy, stubborn beasts down from the summer pasture high in the hills above Skull Pass to the winter grazing just outside of the settlement. They had reached a narrow point where dense woods on the left pushed the path up against the edge of a rocky ravine on the other side. The ravine wasn't very deep, but the bottom was filled with jagged boulders, and any cow that fell down into it was sure to break a leg at the very least, and more than likely dash its brains out.

Jarl Rokisson grinned back at Skaari from where he walked, a few paces ahead. 'Going to take another poke at that slayer if he hasn't left by tomorrow, Skaari?'

Skaari shrugged and scratched his chin through his short brown beard. 'Maybe. Maybe not. He may have a big mouth, but his fists are bigger. Don't know if I want a nose like Argi Argisson.'

A little further down the line, Korik Shieldbearer looked back. 'Looks as if he can take care of himself, all right. You notice he doesn't have a scar on him? Must be why he's called Graniteskin.'

Jarl smirked. 'Or it could be because he's never slain anything. Maybe he does all his slaying in the tavern.'

Skaari chuckled. 'You mean he's a flagonslayer, not a dragonslayer?'

Jarl laughed. 'That's it! A flagonslayer! I'll wager you three rounds of Byrnik's Best he never goes after that troll!'

'You'll get no takers on that,' said Skaari, laughing. 'He-'

With a splintering crash, a huge hulking shape burst from the woods on the left, bellowing and swinging a club the size of a young tree. The massive weapon smashed into Jarl, knocking his head clean off his neck and sending it flying into the middle of the herd.

'Jarl!' Korik shouted.

Skaari stared, horrified, as the sinewy monster kicked Jarl's headless body aside and slammed into the cows, its big ears flapping, its roaring mouth a jagged black chasm in its gravel-skinned face. The splintered haft of a dwarf axe sprouted from its lumpy shoulder like a severed wing.

'The troll!' he cried, hoping the dwarfs at the front of the herd would hear. 'It's the troll!'

He pulled his hand axe from his belt and shoved forward through the terrified cattle as the troll laid about it with its club. Three cows pitched into the ravine, their spines snapped and their skulls caved in. Beyond the monster, Korik fell flat as a heifer shouldered into him, then picked himself up and drew his two hand axes.

Skaari squeezed between two last cows and ran towards the troll as Korik did the same from the other side. The troll roared and slammed its club down at Korik, but the dwarf dove past it and rolled to his feet beside Skaari.

'Together,' he said, as they faced the towering brute. 'At least one of us will strike it.'

'Aye,' said Skaari. 'Ready.'

They launched themselves at the troll, but before they took two steps, a shrieking horde of night goblins poured from the woods, whooping and charging them with spears. The cows bellowed anew, and fought even harder to get away. Four more were pushed into the ravine by the jostling.

Skaari groaned as he and Korik faced the goblins side by side. 'This is no random troll attack!' he shouted as he blocked a spear thrust and slashed the face of the grinning goblin that wielded it.

'No,' agreed Korik, kicking another goblin back. The skinny green horror tripped and was trampled by a frightened cow. His skull popped like a melon. 'These grobi have put him up to it.'

Skaari hacked down another goblin, but staggered back as two more thrust at him. They were getting dangerously close to the edge of the ravine. 'We have to get back to the settlement and warn- Look out!'

Skaari shoved Korik to the side as the troll lifted a cow over its ugly, rock-skinned head and hurled it in their direction. Korik staggered out of the way just in time, but Skaari was dead centre. There was nowhere to go. He threw himself backwards blindly and tumbled down into the ravine, bouncing through rocks and brush before landing hard on a flat boulder at the bottom.

A bulky shape blotted out the sun above him. Skaari yelped and rolled off the boulder just as the cow slammed down on it with a sick thud. The back half of the beast slid off onto Skaari and pressed him to the ground. Sharp rocks stabbed him in the side, but he was too stunned to move. He just lay there panting and staring up towards the top of the ravine as the troll continued to rampage and the goblins tried to climb onto the cows' backs.

Korik's eyes stared lifelessly back at him, his head, beard and arms hanging over the edge of the cliff as cows trampled him repeatedly. A goblin spear stuck up from between his shoulder blades.

'Korik, I'm sorry,' murmured Skaari.

A few seconds later a slightly larger goblin came out of the woods and lashed the troll with a whip. Skaari was certain the massive monster would turn and rip the goblin to shreds, but instead, the troll left off smashing and hurling cows and meekly allowed the goblin to climb up onto his shoulder and hold onto one of his flag-like ears.

From this ugly perch, the whip-wielding goblin shouted at the others, who began to calm the cows and ride them down the path. Skaari groaned. That must mean that the lads at the front of the herd had been killed too - nine dwarfs dead and a hundred head of cattle slaughtered or stolen. This was a catastrophe for the hold.

As the goblin-ridden herd thundered away in a cloud of dust, Skaari began to try to squirm out from under the crushing weight of the dead cow. He was fortunate the goblins hadn't noticed that he was still alive. If he could get free, he might be able to reach the settlement and warn them of the attack.

DAGSKAR'S BOYS YIPPED and hooted as they rode the careening cows down the rocky path.

'Ws got cow flesh for weeks!' said one. 'Cows is much tastier den dwarf flesh!'

'Gonna have a feast every night!' said another.

'Might even cook it!' said a third.

From where he sat next to the jogging troll's tent-flap ear, Dagskar grinned. 'Y'see, boys. Spoils is good when I'm da boss.' He cracked his whip in the air. 'Now, go faster! The rest of the mob is comin' tonight. We's got work t'do!'

'WE FOUND NO sign of the rangers in Copperwood Forest, father,' said Aurik as he and his scouts stood before Godri and Rodrin in Godri's long house. 'Nor the lumber wagon. But we did find these.' He laid half a charred javelin and a large blackened spider mandible on the dais at Godri's feet. Godri's hammerers, who stood guard to his right and left, turned, unable to resist a look.

'Forest goblins,' said Godri, stroking his white beard. 'And there was a fight. The javelin is chopped in half, and the mandible is severed.'

'Aye,' said Aurik. 'These were found near where the blaze began. The goblins must have set the fire. I fear they also killed Faril, Argi and the rest, and took the wagon and the bodies. Why, I do not know.'

'Grimnir take them, we ran the grobi out of Copperwood only a decade ago,' said Godri. 'They must have short memories if they think we'll let them come back.'

'But, father, why would they burn down the forest if they meant to take it back?' asked Aurik.

'An accident?' asked Rodrin. 'Goblins can't do anything without mucking it up.'

Before Godri could answer, Burin, his steward, entered and bowed.

Godri looked up. 'Aye, Burin?'

'The cowherd, Skaari Otgunsson, my thane,' said the old dwarf. 'He is sorely hurt, but said that he has terrible news which he must impart to you immediately.'

'Bring him in,' said Godri.

'More terrible news?' groaned Rodrin as Burin withdrew. 'I've had my fill lately.'

The door opened wider and the young cowherd Skaari Otgunsson limped in, followed by Burin. Young Skaari's arms and hands were covered in scrapes and bruises, and there was a nasty looking lump on his forehead. He hissed as he went down on one knee before Godri.

'Skaari Otgunsson,' said Godri. 'Be welcome in my home. What has happened to you?'

'My thane,' said Skaari. 'The herd was attacked, and stolen. Night goblins, leading a troll - our troll. It still had Bodin Bodisson's axe sticking out of its back.'

'Night goblins?' asked Aurik, surprised. 'Not forest goblins?'

Skaari shook his head. 'No, Thanesson. They wore the black robes. They attacked myself and the other cowherds, then drove off the cattle. During the fighting I was knocked into a ravine and was overlooked while the villains killed the others. Jarl Rokisson, Korik Shieldbearer, all the rest.' He swallowed. 'All dead.'

'You didn't get up and fight again?' asked Rodrin, indignant. 'You do not look as if the fall crippled you.'

'Forgive me, Thanesbrother,' said Skaari, lowering his head. 'I was...' he paused, seemingly embarrassed, then continued. 'I was trapped under a fallen cow, and could not get free.'

One of Godri's hammerers stifled a chuckle at that, and Skaari's face turned red. Godri shot a reproving look at the guard.

'Rise, Skaari Otgunssen,' he said. 'You have earned no shame. You fought to defend the herd and returned here to report the loss while wounded. I thank you for your fortitude.'

'As do I,' said Aurik.

'Thank you, my thane,' said Skaari, getting stiffly to his feet. 'Thank you, Aurik Godrisson.'

'But this is indeed terrible news you have brought us,' said Godri, stroking his beard again. 'Meat, cheese, milk and leather will be in short supply this winter, and perhaps much longer. It will be expensive to found a new herd.' He sighed. 'But I fear that isn't the worst of it.'

'Isn't that bad enough?' grunted Rodrin.

For a moment, Godri didn't answer, just stared into the middle distance, deep in thought. Finally he raised his head and looked around at them. 'I do not believe these two attacks are unrelated. There is a very clever goblin behind this. Very thorough. I think these are preludes to a greater attack - an attempt to weaken us before they move in for the kill.' He turned to Aurik. 'My son, you will take thirty dwarfs and reinforce the guard at Skarrenruf Bridge, but send your scouts ahead to search for these goblins. I would suggest looking beyond the bridge, as it is the only way to bring a large force into Skull Pass. I want detailed reports on their strength and position.'

'Aye, father,' said Aurik. 'I will send the scouts right away, then follow with the reinforcements as soon as they are ready to march.'

Skaari Otgunsson went down on one knee again. 'My thane, if they will have me, I would go with the scouts on this mission.'

Godri frowned. 'But you are wounded. Are you certain?'

Skaari grimaced. 'These goblins have killed my friends and taken my livelihood. I would help in their destruction.' He hesitated, shooting a look at the hammerer who had laughed at him. 'And... and I do not want to be known as Skaari Undercow for the rest of my life. I must do something to win a better name.'

Godri hid a smile in his beard. 'Your request is granted, Skaari son of Otgun. Go with the scouts, and may your ancestors smile upon your ventures.'

'Thank you, my thane,' said Skaari, and went to stand by Aurik and the scouts.

Aurik bowed. 'I will go and gather warriors for the bridge.'

'Just a minute,' said Rodrin, frowning thoughtfully.

Aurik paused. Godri looked around.

'Are you certain there will be a battle?' Rodrin asked. 'Perhaps they intend to just sit back and starve us out.'

'I don't think so,' said Godri. 'A goblin wouldn't bring a troll along for just a cattle raid. Trolls are too much trouble. They're up to something, I'm sure of it.'

SKAARI OTGUNSSON SET off with the scouts not an hour later, trekking quickly up the rocky pass to the high, peak-hemmed span of Skarrenruf Bridge. Badurin Sigrinsson, the leader of the scouts, spoke briefly with the bridge guards, telling them of the situation, and that Aurik would arrive there shortly to reinforce them. Then he led the others across the bridge over the great ravine and into the wilds beyond.

Though Skaari had crossed Skarrenruf many times - taking the herd across it on the way to the high pasture in the spring and back across in the autumn - he had never walked it at night before. It was a very different experience. As they reached the middle, far from the squat towers that guarded the end, the long narrow span felt to him like it was floating unmoored above the black chasm of Skarrenruf Gorge. He could feel it shift under his feet like a stone ship as the mountain winds moaned around it like the ghosts of unburied ancestors, drowning out the rushing roar of the rocky rapids hundreds of yards below. Skaari shivered, and not from the cold. He hurried after the others.

The Copperwood Forest was still smouldering on their left as the scouts stepped off the far end of the bridge, the smoky haze that rose from the trees turning the two moons blood-red, so that they looked like savage goblin eyes glaring down at them from the sky. Badurin passed the charred forest by, saying that not even goblins cared to live in a fireplace. There was another wood on the far side of a barren valley, and it was here that Badurin suggested they search.

Hugin Shatterhand, the most senior scout, found the goblins' trail a short while later and they followed it deeper into the woods, guided only by the infrequent moonlight that filtered down through the heavy screen of trees. Skaari struggled to keep up. He had made a brave front when he had knelt before Thane Thunderbrand, but the bruises and sprains and scrapes he had received falling into the ravine throbbed painfully, and slowed him considerably. The crossbow the scouts had armed him with bumped his spine with every step, hitting him right where he had landed on the rocks when he fell. He was beginning to have second thoughts about volunteering for the mission, but he still felt it was something he must do.

The story of him being trapped under a cow would get around, he was sure of it. The laughing hammerer would tell his fellow guards, and they would talk of it in the Wyvern's Demise. Skaari knew there was no real shame in an accident, but it was hard enough already being a cowherd in a community of miners and stone workers and warriors. He had to defend his honour and his name against all sorts of jocular insinuations, and this latest incident would not help matters. He needed to find an opportunity for some brave deed that would eclipse the story of the cow. He needed a chance for glory.

Ahead of him, Hugin hooted like a wood owl, the sign that he had spotted something. Skaari crept forward with the other scouts to where Hugin crouched behind the bole of a huge oak. They gathered around him.

'Forest goblins,' he whispered. 'Three together, making a circuit. And there's firelight further on.'

Skaari raised his head and peered over the sprawling roots of the old oak. Sure enough, a faint orange glow was reflected off the trunks of distant trees.

'Just one patrol?' asked Badurin.

'Not sure,' said Hugin. 'I-'

He broke off suddenly and ducked down. Skaari and the rest followed his example. The swish of bodies pushing through the undergrowth grew louder in their ears. Skaari's hand fell to the haft of his axe. The others silently drew their crossbows off their backs.

The steps grew louder, then after a moment fainter. Hugin rose up and looked over the roots of the oak again. He grinned as he sank back down. 'Two patrols then.'

The goblins tramped off into the distance again and everyone let out a breath.

'Now,' said Badurin, motioning them all forward. 'Between the patrols. We don't want them to know we were here.'

Skaari followed as the scouts padded across the patrol's path and headed toward the glow of the distant fire. A hundred silent paces on, as the yellow light grew brighter ahead of them, Hugin held up his hand again and they all stopped. He waved them back, then pointed up.

Skaari followed the line of Hugin's finger as he backed away. At first he saw nothing, but then he noticed something wafting in the wind, just under the tree branches. It was nearly invisible, like a banshee's robes, but it was there, faintly illuminated by the nearby fires. A spider web, but thicker than any Skaari had ever seen before.

A heavy body shifted somewhere above them, shaking down a rain of pine needles. They all froze, but the movement stopped and no alarm was called.

Hugin led the scouts silently away in an arc to the right, and then advanced towards the fire glow again. After another fifty paces, they found its source - a broad clearing where the goblins had made their camp. Skaari stared as the dwarfs peered forward from the edge. He had never seen goblins at rest before, only in the heat of battle, stabbing their spears in his face. They looked so unprepared and exposed it was almost pathetic.

There were hundreds of them, sleeping scattered all over the clearing as if they had been thrown there. There was only one tent, a big, patched structure with an ugly totem raised high on a pole by the entrance - the boss's tent, no doubt. The rest slept open to the sky, bundled in their black robes and huddled around smouldering fires, their weapons at their sides.

On the near side of the camp, just a few yards from where the dwarfs were crouched, a crude corral had been erected, and Skaari could see the bulky shapes of cave squigs crowded together inside it, apparently asleep on their feet. On the far side of the clearing was another corral, filled with cows.

A sudden rage boiled up within Skaari as he recognized the cows as Clan Byrnik's herd - his herd! He looked around for the troll, and saw it sitting under a tree at the edge of the camp, gnawing absently on a cow carcass. His fists clenched. These were the goblins that had stolen the herd! These were the goblins that had killed Jarl and Korik! These were the goblins that had brought him shame!

'Stay down, lad,' growled Badurin, putting a hand on his shoulder. 'What are you playing at?'

Skaari sank down again. He hadn't even realized that he had stood. 'I'm sorry,' he whispered. 'I forgot myself.'

He edged back as the scouts began conferring about how many goblins there were and how they were armed.

'Five hundred at least,' said Hugin.

'Six hundred,' countered another scout named Orn. 'Most of them spears, a few bows, a few squig riders,' he said, ticking them off on his fingers. 'And Grimnir knows how many spider riders in the trees.'

'Plus the troll,' added Hugin.

Skaari grinned. 'I guess if Borri Graniteskin won't go to the troll, the troll will come to him.'

Badurin turned and gave him a hard look. 'It's no laughing matter, beardling. With our defences as they are at the moment, these goblins have more than enough strength to kill every dwarf in Skull Pass. The deaths of the logging party and your fellow cowherds have brought us below two hundred able warriors. It will take more than a boasting slayer to save our hides. We'll need every advantage we can find.'

Skaari hung his head. 'You're right, Badurin. I'll keep my jokes to myself from now on.'

The old ranger patted him on the shoulder, and then nodded to the rest. 'Right,' he said. 'We've seen it. Let's get back.'

The scouts followed him as he slipped silently back into the woods. Skaari made to follow, but then paused to glare once more over the backs of the sleeping squigs at the vile green creatures who had killed his friends and stolen Clan Byrnik's herd. Soon he would have his vengeance. Soon he would hurt them as they had hurt him. He turned back toward the woods, but then stopped dead as an idea blossomed in his head.

Badurin had said that the clan would need every advantage if they were to defeat the goblins. Why not take the opportunity to weaken them here and now? He ran the idea over in his head to make sure there were no flaws. No. It was perfect. Even if the goblins ever figured out what had happened, Skaari and the scouts would be miles away.

He knelt and drew his crossbow off his back, levered the string back and set a bolt in the groove. He raised the crossbow to his eye and sighted toward the squig pen. He picked a big one and aimed at its rump. Killing it would only defeat the purpose.

He fired. The bolt hit home. The squig leapt in the air and roared, enraged, then turned and attacked the squigs nearest it, clawing and snapping at them. They screamed as well and fought back. The chaos spread rapidly through the pen, increasing as it went. The stupid beasts were tearing each other to pieces.

Skaari grinned. Perfect! He slipped into the woods, padding swiftly after the scouts as the screams and roars grew louder behind him. At the very least, the goblins would be short a score of squigs, and with luck, the mad monsters might wreck the whole camp. He jogged around a tree and ran straight into Badurin, who had turned back at the noise.

'What has happened?' Badurin asked.

Skaari laughed and held up his crossbow. 'I shot a squig. They've gone mad. Hopefully they'll kill a few goblins for us.'

Badurin slapped him across the face with a hard hand as the other scouts cursed. 'You young fool,' he rasped. 'They'll know we were here! They'll be marching as soon as they're able now, trying to reach the bridge before we're prepared.'

'They won't know,' Skaari protested. 'They'll think it was just the squigs fighting.'

Badurin sneered. 'And when they find your bolt?'

'They won't find it,' Skaari said, then paused. 'At least... at least I doubt they will. You can't be sure they will.'

'We can't be sure they won't either,' said Badurin, cold. 'Therefore we must assume they will.' He shook his head and turned away to lead the others further into the woods. 'I hope you haven't doomed us, lad.'

FOUR

DAGSKAR RAN THROUGH the camp as goblins scurried in every direction, shrieking and waving weapons. A squig leapt over his head, a green arm dangling from its mouth. More were bouncing through the camp, attacking each other and any goblin that tried to get near them. Across the camp he could see that the squig corral fence had been smashed down. Bits of it were on fire.

Kizaz ran up to him, arms flapping and mouth agape. 'Boss! Boss! Da squigs have escaped!'

'Is dat right?' snapped Dagskar, then clipped the little goblin over the ear. 'How'd it happen?'

Kizaz shrugged. 'I dunno, boss. Dey's squigs.'

Dagskar shoved him aside and ran on. This was a disaster. His army could disintegrate right here if he didn't stop this rampage.

Near the ruined corral a squig had a giant spider in its jaws and was shaking it until its legs rattled. Another spider was on the squig's back, biting it repeatedly, to seemingly little effect, while squig herders and spider riders danced around them, screaming at each other to call off their beasts. Gork and Mork! thought Dagskar, if me and Nazbad's boys start fighting, it's all over.

He sprinted forward, drawing his whip and his stuntie sticker. 'Leave off, you lot!' he shouted. 'Leave-'

He skidded to a stop as another squig bounded past him, dragging two squig herders clutching leashes, then ran on again.

He saw one of his boys raise a chopper to one of Nazbad's riders. Dagskar lashed out with his whip, curling it around the squig herder's hand and jerking it back. The goblin slammed to the ground.

'No!' Dagskar roared. 'No killin'!' He pushed the riders and herders apart. 'Save it for da stunties!'

'But boss,' said another squig herder. 'Dey say we started it! Dey say we sicced da squigs on dem.'

'It was da other way around,' said the one Dagskar had yanked to the ground. 'Dem spiders tried t'eat our squigs!'

'Yer off yer heads!' shouted one of the spider riders. 'Our spiders wasn't out of da trees 'til yer squigs dragged 'em out!'

'Oh yeah?' shouted a squig herder, as his mates pressed toward the riders.

The riders shouted insults and started forward too.

'Leave off!' bellowed Dagskar, cracking his whip back and forth over his head. 'Leave off or I'll stripe the whole lot of ya! If y'want to kill somethin', kill da squigs!'

'Kill the squigs?' said one of the herders. 'But-'

'Do it!' roared Dagskar and, putting actions to his words, ran forward and sank his stuntie-sticker into the spider-chewing squig's side, right where its leg met its body. The squig yelped and tried to bite him, but it had a mouth full of spider leg and couldn't. Dagskar ducked and stabbed again, and this time the squig staggered and fell on its side, grunting quizzically.

The spider on its back, still maddened, leapt at Dagskar, its dripping mandibles extended. Dagskar lashed out with his whip and coiled it around its forelegs, then flung it down and jumped on it. He stabbed it through the head with his sticker, cracking its carapace and popping several eyes.

It sagged, lifeless, as the spider riders roared in protest, but he jumped up and threatened them with his whip and they backed away.

A figure behind them, however, pushed forward, pointing a green, warty middle finger at Dagskar. It was Nazbad, and he didn't look happy. 'What is you killin' spiders for? Is you double-crossin' me? Bringin' me out ta nowhere t'kill me and my boys?'

'I ain't double crossin' nobody,' said Dagskar. 'I'm restorin' order. Gotta kill da squigs. It's da only way ta calm 'em down.'

'And da spiders?'

'If dey attacks me, yeah,' said Dagskar. 'Now come on, help me kill da rest before we lose any more boys. Then we'll sort out how dis happened.'

Nazbad scratched his glowing wart with his other hand, frowning, then nodded. 'Right. Let's get to it.'

AURIK AND HIS force of thirty dwarfs were busy bolstering the defences of the Skarrenruf Bridge when Skaari and the scouts returned a few hours before dawn. Cannon crews were winching loads of powder and shot up to the gun platforms at the top of the two squat towers that guarded the near end. Engineers were constructing wooden barricades across the width of the bridge for the thunderers to crouch behind as they fired. Dwarf warriors were donning their heavy armour and sharpening their axes.

Badurin found Aurik in the centre of the bustle, directing the leaders of the cannon crews. 'You must use nothing larger than grape shot,' he was saying. 'We cannot risk damaging the bridge.' He saw Badurin approaching and turned to him eagerly. 'Badurin! Good. Have you found them? Do you know their strength?'

'Aye, Thanesson,' said Badurin, bowing. 'Six hundred night goblins with spears and bows, the troll, some squigs, and an unknown number of spider riders, an hour's march from here. But I have graver news.'

Skaari's shoulders tensed. He knew what was coming.

'Speak it,' said Aurik.

'They may know we have found their position.' He turned hard eyes on Skaari. 'Young Otgunsson fired his crossbow into their squig pen to sow disorder in their camp. We were not seen, but...'

'But if they find the bolt,' finished Aurik.

Badurin nodded. 'They will realize we know they are there and make their move immediately so that we will have less time to prepare our defence.'

Aurik shot a quick glance at Skaari, and then turned back to Badurin. 'Hurry on to Skull Pass and inform my father of this. Also ask him to send me another thirty dwarfs. If we can stop them here, there will be no need of a further battle at the settlement.'

'Aye, Thanesson,' said Badurin, bowing and withdrawing.

'As for you, cowherd-' said Aurik, his face hard as he turned on Skaari.

'Thanesson!' cried Skaari, throwing himself on his knees before Aurik. 'I know I have made a foolish error, and I will accept any punishment you deem appropriate, but I would beg you, in the name of Grimnir, to allow me to stand at the front here at the bridge, and pay for my mistakes with a useful death, by killing as many goblins as I may before I die.'

'After such thoughtlessness, do you think you deserve glory?' asked Aurik. 'No. You will be just as useful bringing the wounded to the surgeons and assisting them in their work. If you survive the night, you will return to Skull Pass and face my father's judgment.'

Skaari hung his head, knowing Aurik was right. He deserved no better. He had betrayed the trust Thane Thunderbrand had put in him when he allowed him to go with the scouts. 'Thank you, Thanesson,' he said. 'The punishment is fitting. I swear by my ancestors that I will do this with all my will.'

DAGSKAR WATCHED HIS boys and Nazbad's boys surround the last maddened squig and stick it with about twenty spears. It gurgled like mud going down a hole, then slumped to the ground, bleeding and dead. Dagskar breathed a sigh of relief, then looked around at the carnage that the rampage had caused.

Almost two score dead and wounded goblins, both his and Nazbad's, sprawled all around the camp. A handful of giant spiders, their carapaces crushed by the squigs' huge teeth, lay on their backs, chitinous legs sticking up in the air, and nearly a dozen of the captured cows had been torn apart and half eaten, and the squig pen was on fire.

Not too bad, all things considered. At least the troll hadn't got involved, and his boys and Nazbad's boys weren't at each other's throats, and none of them had fled or deserted. Of course, he'd had a plan for the squigs, which he couldn't follow through on now they were dead - or could he? He turned to the troll and gave it an appraising look.

He was just beginning to formulate a new scheme when Nazbad waddled up, glaring at him. 'Fifteen spider-boys I lost, thanks t'you,' he snarled. 'And seven spiders. If y'can't control yer squigs, y'shouldn'ta oughta brung 'em. You owes me, either blood or spoils.'

'Don't come moanin' t'me,' said Dagskar. 'I lost more'n twenty boys, and...' He paused, reminded by Nazbad's words of his earlier suspicions. 'And I still ain't sure what stirred up dem squigs.' He turned away from the angry shaman and waved him to follow. 'Come on. I wanna see somethin'.'

'An' I wanna see da colour oyer insides,' said Nazbad.

'You'll see 'em once I eat yer head,' snapped Dagskar. 'But we'll settle dat later. Come on.'

He waved to some of his boys as he led the shaman towards the smouldering squig pen. 'Hoy!' he shouted. 'Pull all dem dead squigs out here. I wanna see da bodies!'

'What'cher lookin' for?' asked Nazbad, curious in spite of himself.

'Dem squigs was well fed. We gave 'em some of da cows. No reason for 'em t'go crazy like dat. I wanna see if somethin' got in the pen with 'em.'

'You ain't gonna blame dis on my spiders?' asked Nazbad.

'Not unless dey's t'blame,' said Dagskar.

Nazbad opened his mouth to complain, but before he could say anything, one of Dagskar's boys stood up from dragging a squig out of the pen and ran over to them.

'Look, boss,' he said, holding up a short thin shaft. 'It was stuck in a squig.'

Dagskar took it and looked at it. It was a stuntie crossbow bolt. The dirty, beardy bastards had found them, and half-wrecked his camp, and worse, they had gotten away.

He turned to Nazbad, grinning nastily. 'It weren't my squigs to blame. It was your pickets! Dey let stunties in here, and let 'em out again. I thought y'said yer forest boys was da best at scoutin'.'

'Dey is!' said Nazbad, defensively. 'Dey just-'

'Dey just nearly ruined us is what dey did!' shouted Dagskar, backing the shaman up with his anger and shaking the bolt at him. 'Now da stunties knows where we is, and what we's up to! I bet dey's blockin' da bridge as we speak.' He took out his whip and lashed a goblin at random. It howled and scurried away. Dagskar turned back to Nazbad. 'We's gotta get all da boys up and go now, or it'll be too late, and it'll be your fault!'

'Y'can't blame me!' shouted the shaman. 'I ain't responsible for my boys' mistakes.'

Dagskar sneered at him. 'Exactly. Dat's yer problem. Now go get dem riders ready, if y'can. We's leavin' for da bridge.'

Nazbad glowered at him, but couldn't seem to think of anything to say. Finally he snorted, then turned and strode towards the spider riders.

Dagskar watched him go, scratching his chin. 'You ain't gonna survive da big waaagh, shaman. So sad. So sad.' He shouted at his boys. 'Come on, you lot. Pack it up. We's gotta go! Now!'

TWO HOURS BEFORE dawn, Godri and Rodrin watched as Godri's hammerers carried the King's Wall from the hold. They marched together in a line, each carrying one of the heavy stone posts, the thick iron chain that linked them swinging ponderously between them. The posts were each carved with an ancestor face and were terrifically heavy, as were the chains, and the hammerers were puffing and red in the face by the time they had the wall stretched out in a straight line ten paces in front of the entrance. 'And down,' said Godri.

The hammerers grunted as they lowered the posts in unison. The bases thudded into the dirt and the hammerers sighed with relief.

Godri nodded approvingly. 'Beyond this wall we shall not retreat,' he said. 'I swear this by my ancestors and the gods.'

The captain of the hammerers put his hand over his heart. 'We will defend it with our lives, my thane.'

'That's all very well,' said Rodrin as he and Godri turned and walked through the settlement. 'But I'd still feel safer with the doors on.'

'Without the hinges and locks there's little point,' said Godri. 'If the goblins reach them they'll just pull them down.' He turned and looked around at the dwarfs preparing for the coming battle. 'With luck and dwarfen grit we'll stop them before they get this far and doors and locks won't be an issue.'

All over the settlement, dwarf-wives and children were carrying sacks of grain from the silos into the hold. Smiths were loading their anvils and tools onto carts and doing the same. They would not leave anything of value behind for the goblins to plunder or destroy. Thunderers were reinforcing the upper storeys of the buildings they would be firing their guns from. Sweating miners were digging trenches and pounding stakes into them before the front lines and piling the dirt into ramparts around the buildings. Engineers were setting charges in outlying structure, ready to blow them up if the goblins occupied them. Cannon crews were laying in balls and powder on the gun platform above the entrance to the hold. Godri smiled. The greenskins would know they'd been in a fight, whatever happened.

As they walked through the outbuildings, examining the fortifications, Godri saw Badurin and his scouts hurrying towards him.

'Badurin!' he cried. 'What news?'

The dour scout stopped before him and bowed. 'Grave news, my thane.'

'Speak,' said Godri.

'We have found the goblins' position, and learned their strength. There are close to six hundred of them, including spider riders and a troll.'

'No worse than we expected,' said Rodrin. 'Is there graver news than this?'

'Aye,' said Badurin, hanging his head. 'To my shame, we believe we were discovered while scouting. If so, they may be moving already, trying to hit us before we can finish our preparations.'

Godri's chest tightened. 'How far are they from the bridge?'

'Not far,' said Badurin. 'If they were quick to break camp, they could be there at any moment. Prince Aurik says he will hold it, but requests thirty more dwarfs as reinforcements.'

'He shall have them,' said Godri. 'They will leave immediately. Come.' He turned and started back towards the hold, Rodrin and Badurin and his scouts following in his wake.

'But how were you discovered?' Rodrin asked Badurin. 'Your lads have slipped past wood elves before.'

Badurin looked like he'd swallowed mushroom brew. 'The cowherd. He shot a bolt at their squigs, to stir them up.'

'The young fool,' growled Godri.

'It is my fault, my thane,' said Badurin. 'I should have schooled him better, or not allowed him to come in the first place.'

'Even so,' said Rodrin. 'He is not blameless.' He looked around at the scouts. 'Where is he?'

'He remained behind at the bridge,' said Badurin. 'Determined to make amends in battle.'

Godri nodded approvingly. 'At least he is not a coward as well as a fool.'

'Aye, thane,' said Badurin.

As they hurried past the brewery towards the hold, they saw Borri the dragonslayer watching the miners dig the trenches. He leaned on the haft of his axe with a pint in one hand. 'Fear not, lads,' he said, stifling a belch. 'You've no need of trenches and stakes while I'm here. That troll will die by my axe before he lays a single finger on this brewery!'

'And what if it attacks the mill instead?' called Rodrin.

Borri swung around unsteadily, slopping his ale. 'Why then, I'll fight him at the mill, of course.'

'I'll believe it when I see it,' muttered Godri.

He and Rodrin and the scouts continued towards the hold to assemble the reinforcements for the bridge as the miners chuckled.

FIVE

IN THE BARRACK house of the guards who watched Skarrenruf Bridge, Skaari set down the two heavy buckets beside the fireplace, then poured them into the cauldron set over the fire. Near him, on the table the guards usually used for their meals, Eorik the Surgeon was laying out his saws, scalpels, needles and thread. Meanwhile Old Harn, a peg-legged ex-ironbreaker who was one of Eorik's usual stretcher carriers, leaned into the fireplace, singeing his long grey beard as he stirred a pot of pitch, which would be used to cauterise any amputated limbs.

'Very good, lad,' said Eorik, nodding to Skaari over the top of his spectacles. 'Can't wash wounds with just any old water. Got to boil the bad out of it first.' He motioned to the door. 'Fill 'em up again. Hurry now.'

'Aye, surgeon,' said Skaari. But as he picked up the buckets again, a horn blared from outside. He looked up. So did Harn and Eorik.

'They're here!' said Harn. He limped forward, his wooden leg clopping loudly on the flags, and took up a wood and canvas stretcher. 'Come on, beardling,' he called. 'We'll be wanted soon.'

'My water first!' said the surgeon.

Skaari grunted with impatience, but took up the buckets again and ran out the door after the stretcher carrier. As Harn hopped toward the bridge, Skaari dodged through the yard of the barracks house to its well as all the rest of the dwarfs hurried the other way, pulling on their helmets and taking the last bites of their breakfast.

'Grungni take them,' grumbled one. 'Couldn't wait 'til I'd finished my sausage, could they?'

The first rays of the sun were edging the tops of the mountains that towered all around the bridge in gold, but in the winding pass all was still darkness. The warriors and thunderers made their way to the span by torchlight, the flames glinting off their armour and their weapons. Skaari looked at them jealously. He agreed with Aurik that he deserved the punishment that had been meted out to him, but he still wanted to be at the front, fighting instead of at the back, carrying away the proudly wounded.

As Skaari lowered a bucket into the well, the thane's son stepped out of his tent, looking magnificent in a gleaming suit of gromril armour, and holding the axe Grudge Ender - which had been in the possession of Clan Byrnik for generations - in one gauntleted hand. He was surrounded by four of his father's heavily armoured hammerers, and paced by the veteran thunderer.

'When the goblins reach the barricade,' Aurik told the thunderer as they started towards the bridge. 'Your lads will fall back and take up new positions in the towers.'

'They won't like that, Thanesson,' said the thunderer. 'They're going to want to get stuck in.'

'I know they will,' said Aurik. 'But that will be the warriors' job. Your lads will be thinning the ranks behind. If they fail to fall back I will hold you accountable.'

'Aye, Aurik,' said the veteran, dejected. 'They'll do as you bid.'

They travelled out of earshot as Skaari lowered the second bucket. He sighed. He wanted to fight too, but he had about as much chance of that as a goblin had of marrying an elf maiden.

Both buckets full, he staggered back into the barrack house, dumped them in the cauldron, then turned to Eorik.

'Anything else, surgeon?'

'No, no,' said Eorik, smiling as he waved him away. 'Go on. But do as Old Harn tells you, mind.'

'Of course, surgeon,' said Skaari, breathing a sigh of relief. 'Thank you.' He turned and ran out the door.

He found Harn in the lee of the left-hand bridge tower, standing beside the stretcher and lighting his pipe unconcernedly as the last of the dwarf warriors filed onto the bridge and ranked up across it.

'Are they attacking?' Skaari asked as he joined him.

'If they were attacking,' said Harn. 'We'd hear it.'

There was a low wall around the base of the tower. Skaari climbed it, then craned his neck to see down the length of the bridge. He saw murky movement and bobbing torches at the far end, but it was too far away for him to make out any detail.

At the near end, the dwarfs were all lined up and waiting. Ten thunderers stood at the front, a shoulder-high barricade erected in front of them that would allow them to steady the barrels of their guns, as well as protect them from goblin arrows. Behind them Aurik and his hammerers stared out across the bridge under Karak Grom's green and silver banner, their helmets on and their visors down. Stout dwarf warriors were lined up to either side of them and in two ranks behind. Other than a gun crew and a handful of crossbow-armed rangers in each tower, these few were all that faced the six hundred goblins at the far end of the bridge.

Skaari turned and looked behind him towards the winding path that led to the hold. He almost hoped the reinforcements would be too late. What a grand and glorious last stand it would be without them.

A distant roar made him turn back. Something was happening at the end of the bridge. A large and lumpy shape separated itself from the darkness and lumbered onto the span at an awkward trot. Skaari snarled. It was the troll - the one that had killed Jarl and thrown the cow at him - and it was running right at the dwarfs.

Skaari was surprised. It was difficult to make a troll do anything, let alone run in a straight line for any distance. They tended to get distracted, or forget where they were going. But then he saw two little goblins running after it and poking at its heels with torches. They were driving the thing before them. These really were very clever goblins.

A rattle of musket fire echoed off the mountains as the troll came in range of the thunderers. It staggered as the balls pocked it, but then recovered and kept on, roaring angrily. The two goblins capered behind it, shrilling encouragement, and Skaari stared as he realised that they were only the vanguard of a surging tide of goblins that filled the bridge from edge to edge and all the way back to the far side.

It was clear that the goblins meant the troll to smash the dwarfs' line, and then swarm in amongst them before they could reform. And it just might work. The troll was storming forward of its own volition now - the goblins' goading no longer needed now that the dwarfs had angered it.

The thunderers fired again, and again the monster was put back on its heels, but only for a moment. It recovered and charged on, raising its massive club and howling its defiance. Skaari swore, amazed. The troll had taken at least twenty shots and still it came on. The vile beast's regenerative powers were terrifyingly swift.

Then, above Skaari's head, one of the cannons spoke, belching smoke and flame. The troll flew back in a hail of grape-shot and crashed against the side of the bridge, sprawled across the parapet with its head and torso hanging far out over the black chasm. There were huge holes in its chest and abdomen now, and one of its bat-wing ears had been shot away. It pawed weakly at the air.

That's done it, thought Skaari, as the goblin horde hesitated at the sight and the two torch-wielders shrieked and poked at it. But then, to his amazement, the troll began to rise again, clutching at the rail as the massive wounds in its torso began to knit at the edges. It was unkillable!

Then the second cannon fired, spewing more shot, and punched the troll backwards over the rail. Its legs flew up and it was gone, tumbling down into the blackness of the deep ravine. Its handlers shrieked and ran back towards the goblin mob.

'Yes!' cried Skaari, punching the air.

'Fire!' bellowed the veteran thunderer.

His thunderers disappeared in a cloud of smoke as they unloaded into the greenskins. The cannons echoed their volley, spraying more heavy shot down the bridge.

'Reload!'

The smoke cleared away on the chill mountain breeze, revealing a score of mangled green corpses, and the backs of the goblin horde as they fled back towards their side of the bridge, squealing in panic.

The thunderers sent another volley after them, dropping another dozen, and they ran even faster.

The dwarfs cheered. Skaari hopped down from the wall and slapped Old Harn on the back. 'Ha! That's seen them off!'

'Aye,' Harn said, puffing on his pipe. 'For now.'

Skaari snorted. 'Let them come. If that's the best they can do we'll hold this bridge forever.'

Harn glowered at him through his pipe smoke. 'Never underestimate a goblin, beardling,' he said. 'Ask the dwarf who's lost a leg to one.'

'ARRRGH!' RASPED DAGSKAR, biting the end of his whip in frustration as his boys ran past him willy-nilly, fleeing the bridge. 'Now I've lost da troll! Now my plan is busted!' He spun to face Nazbad and stabbed a long finger at him. 'Dis is still your fault!'

'What'd I do now?' asked the shaman, folding his arms over his paunch. 'I didn't do nothin' to da troll.'

'It ain't what you did now. It's what you did den. If dem stunties hadn't got past yer boys, I woulda-'

'Oh, leave off about that!' snarled Nazbad. 'I say it's your fault. If your mob moved as fast as my spider riders we'd a'beat da stunties to da bridge.'

'And if your boys woulda done their job, we wouldn'a had t'rush!' shouted Dagskar.

'Would y'stop bringin' up old news?' said Nazbad. 'Whatta we gonna do now?'

Dagskar glared at him then turned away with a snort and surveyed his forces. What was he going to do? Shifting dwarfs out of a fortified position was like trying to push an orc through a rat hole. They just wouldn't go. The squigs would have done it, but the squigs had had to be put down. The troll could have done it, if it weren't for the stunties' cannons.

His eyes fell on the stolen herd of cows, bringing up the rear with the rest of the fodder. He paused, thinking. They weren't as savage as squigs, but they were heavier, and harder to stop once they got moving. But the damn cannons would still turn them into mincemeat before they got half way across. Unless...

He looked at Nazbad's spider riders, hunched on their mounts under the trees at the side of the path. An idea began to grow like a diseased mushroom in his mind. He would have to work fast, before the sun found its way down into the pass.

'Hoy, shaman,' he called. 'Unfurl yer ears and listen t'me. I got some work fer yer precious spider-boys.'

'MUCH OBLIGED, LAD,' said a thunderer as Skaari filled his mug from the keg he had strapped to his back.

Skaari nodded and moved to the next dwarf in line. With the goblins still milling about at the far end of the bridge, the dwarf lines could not retire, so surgeon Eorik had ordered Skaari to bring them hearty ale to keep their strength up. It was humiliating work serving the dwarfs beside whom he would rather be fighting, but it was necessary, so he did it without complaint, though he couldn't bring himself to look any of them in the eye.

He had just turned the spigot on the tap to fill the next thunderer's mug when a cry rang out behind him.

'Ware your flanks! To the right!'

Skaari turned, spilling ale. The thunderers turned too. At first all he could see was the armoured backs of the dwarfs on the right side of the bridge, all surging closer to the rail. Then came another shout.

'On the left, too!'

Then, 'The towers! The towers!'

Skaari snapped his head left and right, searching for the threat in the dim morning light. Over the heads of the dwarfs to the left he saw what looked like long black swords waving around, and he heard the grunts of dwarfs in pain. Then movement from the towers drew his eyes and he looked up. Fat black shapes, with smaller shapes on their backs were swarming up the sheer walls - spiders! Spider riders!

More spiders clambered over the sides of the bridge. Not black swords, thought Skaari - spider legs! They were surrounded!

'Grungni's beard!' swore a warrior behind him. 'They must have crawled along the underside!'

Skaari drew his hand axe and turned toward the flanks with the others.

'Thunderers!' called Aurik. 'Stay to the front. Keep your eyes on the bridge!'

But it was impossible. The spider riders were amongst them now, stabbing with spears as their mounts whipped about with their legs. The thunderers had to turn and fight. Their neat rank dissolved into a mad scrum as they joined the rest and faced the new menace. Axes chopped and hacked, cleaving goblin skulls and sending shattered spider limbs spinning. Aurik and his hammerers fought at the left side of the bridge, cracking carapaces and crushing greenskins. A dwarf staggered past Skaari, his face swollen and black from a poisoned bite. Blood haemorrhaged from his nose and ears. A thunderer fired point blank as a spider leapt at him. The spider's head exploded, and it collapsed in a clatter of legs, but its rider leapt at him, thrusting at him with his spear. Skaari hacked the goblin down, but it was too late. The thunderer fell back, the spear through the eye-slot of his helmet.

A shriek from above made Skaari look up. A spider and goblin were falling from the tower, but the spider had a dwarf in its clutches and he fell too, still fighting as they vanished into Skarrenruf Gorge. The sound of furious battle echoed from the tower tops as the crews defended their guns.

Skaari returned his gaze to the battle. One of Aurik's hammerers was down, fighting to throw off a spider that pinned him to the ground. More spiders were climbing over the struggle to reach Aurik.

'Thanesson! Beware!' Skaari surged forward, the keg on his back lending him weight and momentum, but before he could reach Aurik, he felt the bridge tremble under his feet. Something was shaking it. He looked towards the goblins, expecting to see another troll, or some other horror. Instead, he saw... cows.

The herd - his herd - was stampeding across the bridge, their eyes rolling with terror, as the whole horde of gibbering goblins poured after them like a green tide.

'Cows!' he shouted. 'Stampede! Look out!'

All around him, dwarfs looked up from their fights and stared. Aurik turned and swore.

'Fall back!' he cried. 'Off the bridge!'

Skaari could see it pained him to say it, but the thane's son was right. With the cannon crews and the thunderers fighting for their lives, there was nothing to stop the herd from trampling them to a pulp.

The dwarfs backed toward their end of the bridge, trying to extricate themselves from their fights. Skaari heaved his ale-keg at a spider rider and joined them, though he knew it would be useless. They weren't moving fast enough. The thunder of hooves was getting louder. The herd would close the distance in seconds.

The spider riders screamed as they saw the wall of cow-flesh bearing down on them. They broke away from the dwarfs, shrilling curses and scuttling over the sides of the bridge. It seemed they hadn't been told of the herd's part in the attack.

Free of their fights, the dwarfs turned and ran. Skaari wondered briefly if there was dishonour in running from cows, but on the whole he thought not. It was no more cowardly than running from an avalanche.

The first few dwarf warriors reached the end of the bridge and scattered left and right behind the towers. They were the lucky ones. The deafening rumble of a thousand hooves nearly shook Skaari off his feet. Five paces from the end, he threw himself aside. A bellowing cow shouldered him into the stone rail, crushing his ribs and knocking him to the flags. Another stepped on his leg. He covered his head with his arms and curled in a ball as the herd rushed by inches away.

Aurik lay beside him, protected by his armour and the shields of two of his hammerers, who lay on top of him, heads lowered. One of them was knocked away by a maddened cow, and went rolling and bouncing into the stream of cattle, kicked and crushed along with a score of other over-run warriors.

Skaari leapt on the shield the hammerer had left behind, holding it in place over Aurik. 'I have it, thane's son!' he cried. 'Stay down!'

His words were lost in the clattering roar of the herd's passage. Another cow kicked him in the shoulder as it leapt over him. Its back feet grazed his helm, tearing it from his head.

And then the herd was past, but there was no respite. The fading thunder of hooves was drowned by the shrill war cries of the goblins that swarmed in their wake. They enveloped the fallen dwarfs like a flood tide, stabbing down at every one they passed.

Skaari squirmed aside from three spear points and lashed out with his axe, fanning his attackers back. His ribs screamed, his arms and legs throbbed, his ears rang, but there was no time for pain: giving in to it meant death.

Aurik lurched up beside him, roaring and bleeding into his beard from a gash on his cheek as he swept out with his shield and smashed Skaari's goblins to the ground. His remaining hammerer stood beside him and guarded his left flank. Skaari instinctively snatched up the other hammerer's shield and guarded his right. A dozen goblins thrust their spears at them, howling for dwarf blood.

'Close up!' shouted Aurik to the few survivors who picked themselves up by the edges of the bridge. 'Close up between the towers!' He cleaved a goblin's skull with Grudge Ender and kicked it away, then started cutting his way to the end of the bridge. 'Come on, young cowherd,' he said. 'It seems you get to fight after all.'

Skaari's heart swelled at the words as he followed, hacking around him with his hand axe. He was protecting his thane's son - doing a hammerer's job - in the most brutal battle of his life. This was an end to be proud of! This was a death to brag of in the halls of his ancestors!

The dwarfs on the bridge rallied around Aurik, and inched towards the space between the towers. The dwarfs that had escaped the stampede regrouped and pushed onto the bridge again to join them.

They were entirely surrounded by goblins. Though most of the greenskins were still scampering across the bridge, those who had run with the herd had already reached the dwarf side, and were turning back to attack the dwarfs from the rear.

'Form a square!' called Aurik. 'All face out!'

The dwarfs, drilled in defensive tactics from birth, fell easily into ranks and files and plugged the end of the bridge, facing out both front and back. The tide of goblins stopped, though dwarfs died fighting them all along the edges of the square, which was quickly growing hollow as the warriors in the centre pushed to the edges to replace the fallen.

Skaari found himself fighting next to Old Harn, who swung an axe in one hand and the bucket of hot pitch in the other.

'It won't last,' the stretcher bearer muttered as he fought. 'We'll never hold them. There are too many.'

'Then we shall thin their ranks before we die,' said Skaari, beheading a goblin. 'And send them on to Thane Thunderbrand a shadow of their former selves.'

Harn grinned wryly. 'Read a few sagas, have you?'

'A... a few.' Skaari smiled sheepishly.

A horn sounded in the distance, barely audible over the din of battle.

Aurik's head lifted. 'The reinforcements!'

'Saved,' said Skaari, knocking aside a goblin's spear with his shield.

'No!' said Aurik. 'They must not come. They would only join us in death, and to no purpose. They must go back to the hold and protect it.' He turned to his last remaining hammerer. 'Gurgrin, your horn. Acknowledge their call, then blow ''fall back and defend - enemy coming''.'

The hammerer unslung his horn stoically, though he knew that he blew his own death song. Skaari swallowed as the sharp notes blared out over the melee - a musical version of the rat-a-tat of the old dwarf mine code. That was it then. They had sealed their fate. He wasn't frightened, but it is one thing to imagine one's glorious death. It is another to know it is a certainty.

Far off, the reinforcements' horn answered Gurgrin's blast - querying it uncertainly.

The hammerer raised the horn to his lips again and repeated the orders - ''fall back and defend - enemy coming'', ''fall back and defend - enemy coming!'', ''fall back-''

The notes cut off with a squawk and Skaari turned to see Gurgrin toppling sideways, his helmet caved in by a cannonball. Skaari stared, shocked. Where had it come from? He had heard no shot.

'Gurgrin!' cried Aurik.

Another ball smashed down on Old Harn, shattering his shoulder and knocking him to the ground.

Skaari and Aurik and the others looked up. The spider riders on the tower tops had won their fights. They stood on the battlements, hurling cannonballs down into the battle and shrieking with glee. Skaari and the others raised their shields as iron balls rained down on top of them. They thudded off the heavy wood in a crushing barrage, nearly driving the dwarfs to the ground. Skaari staggered as his arm failed and his shield cracked him on the head.

The goblins before them took advantage of their awkward position and stabbed at their bellies. Skaari brought his shield down on three spears and swung his axe over the top, cracking a knobby skull. Aurik too blocked three spears, but a fourth got through. A goblin stabbed him in the neck, just above his gromril breastplate, and the spearhead vanished into his magnificent beard. He staggered back, choking.

'Aurik!' gasped Skaari, and shoved forward to protect his leader, but a cannonball glancing off another dwarfs shield struck him on the side of the skull, and suddenly he found himself lying on his back with no memory of falling.

He stared up at Aurik as the thane's son dropped Grudge Ender to clutch at his now crimson beard, and a dozen goblins leapt on him with spears and daggers and bore him to the ground.

Then there was nothing above Skaari but sky, which strangely was getting darker, though the morning sun was at last rising above the peaks.

SIX

DAGSKAR CACKLED WITH glee as he stepped off the bridge and looked around at all the dead stunties. His gambit had worked! The bridge was his. Now there was nothing between him and the hold in Skull Pass, with its open door and half-finished defences. Ha! Taking it would be like kicking a snotling.

Or would it? Dagskar paused for a moment as he remembered that he'd lost the troll. It would be a tougher job without the big dummy's muscle backing him up. He shrugged. He'd have to make do. He had to take that hold! He had to prove to Skarsnik that he was worthy of being a big boss.

'Hoy!' cried Nazbad, picking his way through the corpses and pointing his warty green finger at him. 'Y'really made a mess of that, y'toadstool.'

'Whaddaya mean,' snarled Dagskar. 'We won, didn't we? We took da bridge.'

'We? My boys took da bridge - and paid da price. Ain't but half o'em left. Your boys just ran behind da cows, nice and safe.'

'I lost plenty' said Dagskar. 'And I didn't see you comin' up with a better plan. If I'da left it up t'you, we'd still be on da other side of da bridge, pickin' our noses.'

'Bah!' said Nazbad. 'All yer plans seem to end up with my boys gettin' skragged.'

Dagskar grinned. 'What are y'complainin' about? Less boys, more loot for dem what's left, right? Now go round 'em up. We're movin'.'

'Well den,' said Nazbad, holding up his glowing wart. 'How about I kills half your boys? You'd be laughin', right?'

Dagskar curled his lip and was about to make a retort when there was a scrabbling and shifting from the edge of the ravine. He and the shaman turned, wary.

A huge scaly hand reached over the edge and felt around for purchase. It caught at a boulder and pulled, and a massive, ugly head rose up and looked around, blinking stupidly.

The troll! Dagskar laughed out loud. The big drooler was still alive after all. Perfect! Now he could go back to his original plan. He turned to Kizaz and kicked him. 'Hoy, runt. Get da boys to put all da dead stunties on da wagon, and make sure dey gets da boss stuntie. He goes on top.'

'Gotcha, boss,' said Kizaz, and ran off, shouting orders.

Dagskar smiled. 'Dis day just keeps gettin' better and better.'

Beside him, Nazbad growled. 'For some.'

SKAARI LAY IN soothing darkness. He couldn't feel anything. He couldn't hear anything. He couldn't smell anything. There was only sweet, soft nothingness that he wished would go on forever.

Then, though he tried to keep it away, a speck of unease wormed its way into his cocoon of comfort, a niggling dust-mote of guilt that whispered that he shouldn't be enjoying this. Terrible things were happening outside the velvet black, and he should do something about them.

The guilt became a throbbing ache, which settled in the side of his head, then spread to his arms and legs. The whisper became an annoying shrilling and cluttering, like fighting stoats. He wished they would stop, and that the ache would go away. It was all making it hard to sink back into the darkness.

Then the floodgates burst and it all came flowing back at once. The spiders. The stampede. The goblins. Fighting. The crack on the skull. Aurik falling. Pain filled him like blades fresh from the forge. His skull felt like a clay pot that had cracked in the kiln. The kicks from the cows hurt all the way down to the bone. He had to fight to keep from groaning out loud. And the cluttering voices weren't going away. In fact, they were getting louder.

Skaari opened one cautious eye, then winced instantly as the sun stabbed down at him. He blinked back tears and looked around as best he could without moving his head. He was where he had fallen, at the end of the bridge, and there were dead dwarfs all around him. Old Harn lay not far off, face down in a pool of drying pitch, his white beard stuck to it. Aurik...

Aurik was gone!

Skaari turned his head to be sure. The thane's son's helmet was there, dented and dirtied, but his body and Grudge Ender no longer lay beside it. What had happened? Were the cursed goblins abusing Aurik's corpse in some way?

The sound of approaching feet made him lie still and close his eyes again. Some goblins were coming his way, nattering and snarling at each other. He thought they were going to pass him by, but instead they stopped all around him. Had they seen him move his head? Were they about to kill him? He tensed, getting ready to leap up and take as many as he could with him - not many in his current state, he was certain - but then he felt his wrists and ankles gripped in hard, long-fingered hands, and he was lifted off the ground. He nearly struggled as the goblins carried him off, but fought the impulse down. If they were going to throw him on a pile somewhere, maybe he could slip away later.

But what if they were going to throw him in the ravine? His heart thudded wildly at the thought. He opened one eye a slit and looked around, then breathed a silent sigh of relief. They were walking away from the chasm. He was being taken towards a wagon of dwarfish make, already half-full of dead dwarfs.

The goblins swung him once, twice, thrice, then heaved him up onto the cart and he thudded down in the middle of the mound of corpses. He stifled another grunt of pain as his wounds crashed into the hard parts of the dead dwarfs' armour. When the agony receded, he opened his eyes and looked around again.

The four goblins were slouching away on another trip to the bridge. To their right, two other goblins were arguing vociferously. One of them wore a hooded black robe and carried a coiled whip, which he shook in the other goblin's ugly face. Skaari remembered him. He was the one who had ordered the goblins to take his herd. The other goblin wore a wolfskin, and countless amulets and fetishes dangled from his neck and wrists. He waved his middle finger at the first goblin. There was a wart on it that glowed with a worrying green aura.

Skaari gave the two goblins a closer look. He knew the one with the whip was a leader, and from the deference the other goblins paid the one in the wolfskin - edging around him and ducking their heads in passing - he surmised that he was important too. The two goblins' garb suggested they were from two different tribes - night goblins and forest goblins, just like he and the scouts had seen at the camp - and it looked like the two sides were fighting now.

He raised his head a little more and looked further afield. Aye. The night goblins were gathering on the left side of the path to the bridge, while the spider-riding forest goblins were bunched together on the right side, and both sides were shooting squinty glances at the other. And there were hundreds of the little, savages standing about, all armed to the teeth. It seemed that Aurik's last stand at the bridge had hardly put a dent in their numbers at all. The hold was going to face the full brunt of the goblin attack, unless...

Unless the rivalry between them could be used to the dwarfs' advantage. If Skaari could get back to the hold and tell Thane Thunderbrand, he might be able to use the knowledge to make the goblins fight one another and weaken their attack. He had to try it. It might mean the difference between victory and defeat.

Skaari returned his attention to the area directly around the wagon. The goblins had left it near the barracks house, the ponies tied to the hitching post outside it. He couldn't see any goblins close by. If he could slip off and get behind the house, then he could climb up into the scrub above the path and escape. He only hoped that, wounded as he was, he could move faster than goblins on the march.

He looked back towards the bridge. The four goblins were just picking up another corpse. He had to move now. He rolled over onto his chest, moving closer to the tail-gate, then paused, listening for sounds of alarm. None. He checked around again. The four goblins were carrying the dead dwarf his way, but they were talking amongst themselves and not looking toward the wagon. None of the other groups seemed to be paying any attention either, and the two leaders were so wrapped up in their argument he could have stood up and whistled a dwarfen marching song and they wouldn't have noticed. Now was the time.

Skaari rolled over again, and dropped off the tail board onto the ground. The impact almost made him cry out, but he bit it back and rolled quickly under the wagon. Still no alarm. Good.

The head of the wagon was closer to the house. He crawled the length of it, squirming under the front axle until he was just behind the ponies. They whickered nervously and he murmured hurried reassurances. It wouldn't do for them to bolt and pull away, leaving him crouching and exposed on the ground looking foolish. They settled down and he eyed his next step.

There was a rain barrel beside the barracks house, only three quick paces away. Perfect. He got his legs under him, braced, and ran for it.

On his first step, a goblin stepped out of the house, slipping one of surgeon Eorik's scalpels through its belt for a dagger. It squawked as Skaari rushed past. Skaari cursed and kept running, limp-hopping around the rain barrel and down the side of the house. Of all the terrible luck! But perhaps if he could draw it off and kill it, none of the others would notice.

The goblin scrambled after him, shrilling curses. Skaari dodged around the back of the house, feeling at his belt. He still had his dagger. He drew it and whipped around.

The goblin careened around the corner at top speed and crashed into him. Skaari jabbed with his dagger, ripping up under the goblin's ribs. It shrieked in pain.

'Shut up, you little cannibal!' Skaari cursed and stabbed again.

The goblin fell back, mewling and holding its guts. Skaari cut its throat and it fell to the ground, silent at last. But not soon enough. Skaari looked up as he heard questioning jabbers coming from the front of the house. They had heard. Now they were coming. Time to run.

He looked around. There was a little yard behind the barracks house, with a bit of garden and a small forge for repairing weapons. At the back of that was the wall of the pass, a steep slope of jagged rock and gnarled scrub. That was his best bet. There wasn't a goblin alive that could outdimb a dwarf, or outfight him on a sheer face.

Skaari limped to the slope and started to pull himself up the jumble of boulders that littered the base of it. His ribs and wounded limbs complained loudly, and he moved at only a fraction of his normal speed, but he forced himself on.

Before he'd climbed more than six feet, goblins swarmed around the back of the house from both sides, screeching and pointing. Skaari kept climbing, but risked a look back. A few of them were running forward to climb after him, but most just howled and shook their fists. Unfortunately, another few were drawing little double curved bows and fitting arrows to the strings. He cursed. He had forgotten about arrows. He was done for.

He climbed on regardless, his back tightening with anticipation, waiting for the first arrow to pin him to the rocks. But then there was a commanding shout.

Skaari looked back again. The goblin with the whip was stepping into the yard, barking at all the others and waving its hands. Skaari couldn't understand what it was saying, but its words had an effect on the other greenskins. Though they looked less than happy about it, they lowered their bows and stepped back.

Skaari stared. Was the goblin leader letting him go? Was it some sort of trick? Then he saw another goblin take out a leather sling and pick up a rock.

Skaari cursed and climbed faster as the goblin fitted the rock into the sling and began to whirl it around its head. They were going to knock him off the cliff face, but not kill him. Why? What did they want with him? What were they going to do?

The whirring stopped and something hard cracked him on the side of the head, right where the cannon-ball had struck him before. The world went black at the edges. His fingers relaxed and slipped from their holds. He was falling. It was going to hurt when he hit.

'GOOD,' SAID DAGSKAR, as the dwarf tumbled to the ground at his feet. 'Now put 'im back on da wagon, but don't kill 'im. I needs a live one.'

'Fer what?' asked Nazbad suspiciously.

'Don't worry yer knob about it, shaman,' Dagskar said, turning away. 'It's all part'a da big plan.'

As he stepped around the front of the building he jumped up on the wagon and raised his arms. 'All right, boys!' he shouted. 'Move out. It's time t'kill some stunties!'

The goblins cheered, and the swarming column started into the pass that led to the unfortified dwarf hold.

GODRI FROWNED AS Fafgir Farrisson, the veteran thunderer who he had asked to lead the reinforcements to the bridge, marched up to the mouth of the hold with his thirty dwarfs behind him, and bowed before Rodrin and himself.

'By Grimnir, what's this?' Godri asked. 'Why have you returned? And unscathed? Where is my son?'

Fafgir, a grizzled old brawler with a broken nose and a grey beard to his waist, shuffled nervously before he replied. 'Your son ordered it so, my thane,' he said. 'We sounded a rally call when we were a mile away, to let him know help was on the way, but a horn came in response - ''fall back and defend - enemy coming''. We blew a query note, but the reply came the same - ''fall back and defend - enemy coming''.' He paused again, looking uncomfortable. 'Then... then the call cut off, all of a sudden.'

Godri felt a cold hand close around his heart. 'And you did not go forward?'

Fafgir straightened, looking both stiff and nervous. 'We followed the orders, my thane. We fell back, and we are ready to defend. I... I hope-'

'You did the right thing, veteran,' said Godri. 'If my son thought it best that you fall back, then it was best.'

He raised his head and surveyed the dwarfs who stood behind Fafgir. 'Now go and prepare for battle. We have need of every one of you on the front lines.'

The dwarfs saluted him, thudding their armoured and bearded chests with their fists. Fafgir bowed, then led them away.

As they marched off, Rodrin put his hand on Godri's shoulder. 'Brother...'

'There is no time for that,' snapped Godri. 'Make your final preparations and return to me, for I would fight at your side. Unless some miracle has happened, they will be here soon. We must be ready.'

'Aye, brother,' said Rodrin. 'We will be.' He too bowed and left, leaving Godri alone but for his hammerers.

Godri turned to Arn, their leader. 'Bring me my armour and the axe of my fathers. It is time.'

And it was. Not a half hour later, just as Arn was buckling on his last pauldron, and Godri was tugging his tight-fitting gromril and gold helm down over his head and lowering the stern-visaged visor, a cry went up from the cannon crews on the platform above the open door.

Godri took the axe Thaggstok, with which his father's father had saved Clan Byrnik from the vile skaven a thousand years ago, and stepped to the King's Wall and looked to the south and west. Rodrin joined him, returning in his finest armour, a warpick over his shoulder and his horned helm under his arm, and followed his gaze. Where the narrow path from the bridge opened out at the top of the valley, a dark stain was spreading, like black blood spilling from a wound. Goblins. Hundreds of them.

The cold hand around Godri's heart tightened into a fist. 'My son is dead,' he said. 'The filth would not have won past him if he still had strength to draw breath.'

Rodrin groaned beside him.

Godri put a hand on his shoulder, then stepped out beyond the King's Wall and beckoned him and the hammerers to follow. 'Come,' he said, hefting Thaggstok. 'We go to war.'

He was glad he had lowered his visor. Rodrin and the others would not see his tears.

SEVEN

AS HE AND his boys strode down the sloping track to the valley floor, Dagskar looked down to where the stunties had dug their hole. The mouth of it was built out from the rocky face of the mountain on the far side of the valley, and their little above-ground settlement spread out from it in a half-circle. The sturdy little stone buildings were all tightly packed together, with pastures and fields of wheat and vegetables making a band of gold and green beyond them.

He smiled as he watched the little black specks of the dwarfs moving up to take their places at the edges of the settlement. They were spread very thin along their lines. Very thin. His boys must outnumber them six to one.

'Dead easy,' he said. 'Like steppin' on ants.'

As his army reached the bottom of the hill Dagskar called Nazbad and his underbosses to him. 'Right,' he said. 'Spread out and surround da town, but keep well back 'til I gives da word, got it?' He glared around at them as they nodded and grunted. 'Anybody what goes in early, I feeds 'em to da troll, feet first.'

'I'd like t'see ya try it,' said Nazbad.

'Mess with me and y'just might,' snarled Dagskar.

The shaman began to puff up and Dagskar sighed and put up his hands.

'Alright, alright, Wartfinger,' he said. 'I knows yer mad at me, but if y'wants dat stuntie hole for yer boys, den we's gotta work together, got it?'

'I wants it, alright,' said Nazbad. 'Da question is, can you get it?'

'I can if y'stop jawwin' at me and pitch in like y'promised,' said Dagskar. 'Now, listen. Tell yer spider-boys t'sneak up da mountain and get behind da stunties. When dey sees my boys attack from da front, dey comes down and sticks 'em in da rear, right?'

Nazbad glared at him suspiciously. 'Sounds like yer givin' my boys da hard bit again,' he said. 'Sneakin' behind enemy lines.'

'It's all da hard bit!' snapped Dagskar. 'We's fightin' stunties, ain't we? Now, go tell yer boys what t'do, den come back 'ere and make with da waaagh! Move it!'

The shaman glared at him, and for a second, Dagskar thought he'd have to kill him right then and there, which would be bad timing to say the least, but at last the shaman snorted.

'I'll send 'em,' he said. 'But not all of'em. I ain't goin' into a scrap with da likes'a you without some boys ta watch my back.'

He gave Dagskar a final look, then turned and strutted away as if it was him who was the boss.

Dagskar watched him go, then turned to his under-bosses again. 'Alright, get yer boys set. We go as soon as he starts 'is chant.'

As the boys split up and hurried back to their mobs, Dagskar glared again at Nazbad, who was giving the orders to his riders. The shaman was asking for it. Well, he'd settle him as soon as the battle was over - maybe even a bit before.

SKAARI SHUFFLED BEHIND the wagon full of corpses, gasping for breath and wincing in pain as it trundled forward, following the goblin horde that advanced on the dwarf settlement. The goblins had tied him to the wagon's tailgate and made him run behind it the whole way from the bridge, and had whipped and kicked him when he had fallen. Consequently, his knees and shins were cut to ribbons, adding to the symphony of pain that was playing at full volume in his battered body.

The homey smell of hops wafting across the fields from the brewery broke through his agony and brought his head up. He looked around. The bulk of the goblins were marching straight for the settlement. Only a mob of spider riders was taking a different tack, scuttling off toward the hills to the east. Skaari groaned as he took in the scene. The sight of the stout stone buildings of the settlement, seen over the heads of the advancing goblin army, filled his heart with an agonizing mix of hope, fear and shame.

The hope was that the buildings would stand, and that the green tide that swept forward would break upon them and recede. The houses looked so solid and strong, it seemed impossible that there could be any other outcome, and yet, he had thought the same thing of the dwarf line at the bridge, just before the spider riders had attacked.

The fear was for the dwarf-wives and children who hid themselves in the hold beyond the settlement. If the dwarfs who defended it died, then the wives and children would die too, and not in the heat of battle, but trapped and tortured by evil-minded savages who had hated dwarf-kind since the dawn of time.

The shame came from the thought that his foolishness and pride might yet cause that unthinkable outcome. To think that what had started as his selfish attempt to amend a paltry embarrassment might lead to the downfall of the hold weighed on his heart like a capstone. He ran through the steps, as if hoping that somehow this time the end would be different. His embarrassment at being trapped under a cow had made him volunteer for the scouts, where his shot at the squigs had let the goblins know they had been scouted, which had brought them to the bridge before the reinforcements had time to arrive. There he had failed to protect Aurik, and then failed to escape the goblins when he had the chance, so that he had no chance to bring them the possibly battle-changing intelligence of the rivalry between the greenskin leaders.

Truly, the hold would be far better off right now if the troll had killed him right at the first, when the goblins had stolen the herd. He would have done far less damage dead than alive.

And he feared he would do more damage yet if he didn't escape. The goblin boss had some plan for him, he was sure of that, some scheme that would weaken the dwarfen defences even more. Well, he would kill himself before he allowed that to happen. He would strangle himself with the ropes they had bound him in.

No. He dismissed the thought even as it came to him. Death alone was not good enough. Preventing the goblins from using him was only a half measure. If he was going to die, he wanted a death that would truly make up for his stupidity. He wanted it to smash the goblins and save the hold. He wanted to do something heroic - but what? He wasn't sure he could even free himself from his bonds. They had tied his hands together so tightly that he could hardly feel them anymore, and left him on a short lead. He might be able to chew through his bonds, given time, but the goblins driving the wagon would surely notice before he got very far. Perhaps he could find something sharp.

The wagon slowed. Skaari looked around. The shaman, the goblin leader, and their henchmen had halted in the middle of the summer pasture while the bulk of their army continued forward towards the settlement, spreading out to encircle it as they went. Skaari sneered as he saw a tiny goblin hoist an ugly half-moon standard above the leader's head - just like goblins, he thought, leading from the rear. Disgusting. The shaman began doing some sort of dance, rattling his fetishes and raising his hands up in the air. Magic. Even more disgusting.

Skaari continued his survey of the area. A mob of roughly forty night goblin reserves waited to the leader's right, while a dozen spider riders gathered to their left. The troll squatted a little further on, gnawing on a dead cow while four night goblin handlers kept an eye on it.

The goblins driving the corpse wagon reined the frightened ponies to a halt, stopping them near the spider riders, then got down and stood before the wagon, guarding it - and Skaari.

Skaari sighed. He was in a perfect position - less than twenty paces behind the leader and the shaman - if only he could get free and get a weapon. He examined the wagon more closely. There were no metal hasps or hinges within reach that had a sharp enough edge for his purposes. But what about the bodies of the dwarfs that were piled upon it? Perhaps the goblins had left one of them with his dagger or axe. No, there wasn't a blade among them. They'd been stripped of all weapons. He groaned. He would never get away.

An angry chittering made him look up. One of the night goblins was trotting past the spider riders, bringing some message to the guards who watched the troll, and the spider riders were giving him some lip, jeering at him and flicking snot at him. The night goblin replied in kind, and it looked for a moment that there would be a scuffle, but then the boss of the spider riders shouted at his boys and they quieted down.

Skaari smiled as an idea formed in his head. Perhaps he could do something heroic without breaking free.

Just then the goblin shaman shrieked, and a bright flash of green light exploded over his head. A harsh horn blast echoed across the field in its wake, and a horrible shrilling screech rose up from the goblin army in answer.

'WAAAGH!'

'HERE THEY COME,' said Rodrin.

'Good,' said Godri. 'My heart thirsts.'

They stood with the hammerers in the gap between the brewery and the mill, letting the bulky buildings guard their flanks as the goblin horde sprinted towards them, screaming and shaking their weapons with the green light of battle frenzy blazing from their eyes.

A trench dug earlier by Rodrin's miners opened at the dwarfs' feet. It was a yard deep and filled with sharpened stakes. Any goblins that charged them would fall into the trench first, and then have to climb out again, while the dwarfs rained hammer and axe blows down on them from above. Similar trenches encircled the whole village - a simple but effective way to gain the high ground.

A cloud of black arrows arced over the advancing goblins and angled down towards the dwarfs.

'Shields high!' called Godri, and as one, Rodrin and the hammerers raised their shields over their heads.

It was hardly necessary. Most of the arrows landed well short of the mark. In fact, some shot the charging goblins in the back. Only a few reached the dwarf line, and those barely scratched the paint of their shields.

'Pathetic,' said Rodrin. 'We'd be in more danger if they spat at us.'

As the goblins closed, the thunderers occupying the top floors of the mill and the brewery returned fire, filling the air with smoke and the pleasing stench of powder. The goblins' screams of rage turned to shrieks of agony as the musket balls ripped through them, bringing down more than a score.

The deeper bark of the cannons boomed from behind the dwarf lines, and cannonballs whistled over Godri and Rodrin's heads to skip through the greenskin lines like flat stones off the surface of a lake, sending goblins and goblin bits splashing in all directions with each bounce.

The goblins were not deterred. The mad light in their eyes only blazed brighter, and they leapt over their fallen comrades without a second glance - entirely focused on closing with their ancient enemies.

'Shields to the fore!' called Godri, holding Thaggstok aloft. 'Dress your line!'

The hammerers brought their shields down and stood shoulder to shoulder, forming an unbroken wall of wood and steel. It was a mere formality. The first charge of goblins tumbled into the trench before them, the screaming savages impaling themselves on the stakes and crashing down on the hard earth to be crushed by those who followed.

Rodrin laughed as he looked down into the pit at the dead and squirming goblins. 'It really isn't fair,' he said.

'They deserve no better,' said Godri, with more emotion than he intended.

The goblins that had survived the fall scrambled to their feet and tried to claw their way up the sheer wall of the trench. Others stabbed up ineffectually with their spears. Godri slashed down at them with mighty Thaggstok, sheering off spear tips and staving in heads. Rodrin and the hammerers did the same, bashing mercilessly at the trapped goblins like they were rats in a gutter.

On the far side of the trench, the advancing goblins were trying to stop from jumping in, but they were being pushed forward by the mass of their fellow greenskins behind them, who did not yet know of the danger. They tumbled in, skidding their heels and shrieking, all their earlier battle lust gone, while some tried to push back through the onrushing press.

'Ha!' laughed Arn, crushing the skulls of two goblins in one swipe. 'It's a massacre. It'll be over before it starts.'

A roar from the left drew Godri's attention. Stout dwarf warriors stood on a long earthen rampart that had been built up around the brewery using the dirt dug from the trench, fighting a mob of goblins that swarmed up its sloping front. Near the centre of that line, Borri Graniteskin had pushed halfway down the incline, up to his chest in goblins and swinging an axe and a burning torch in a dizzying blur of fire and steel.

The greenskins fell back from him in bloody pieces, shrieking and howling as they died.

'Bring me the troll!' the slayer roared, shaking his axe and revealing the clay fire pot he had slung under his arm. 'Where is the troll?'

'Grimnir's bloody axe,' Godri said, as another handful of goblins fell by the slayer's hand. 'The blowhard can actually fight!'

'I never would have believed it,' chuckled Rodrin.

A grunt from Arn drew Godri's attention to the field again.

'What is that?' asked the thunderer, pointing as he kicked another goblin back into the trench.

Godri followed his finger. A shimmering green translucence was gathering above the dancing goblin shaman, far at the back of the horde. It looked like the phantom fire one sometimes saw at the top of flagpoles and lightning rods - a flickering, half-seen will-o-the-wisp - and it began to drift their way.

'Magic,' spat Rodrin. 'The foul winds.'

'Pay it no mind,' barked Godri. 'Hold the trench.'

Rodrin and the hammerers growled their agreement and returned their full attention to the trench and the goblins, hacking and bashing at them with a steady, tireless rhythm. Godri did too. From long experience he knew it was better to focus on a threat one could fight than worry about an intangible one.

And the goblins in the trench were at last becoming a true threat. Enough of them had died in it now that it was starting to fill with their bodies, and the scores pouring into it were now protected from the stakes by a carpet of their fallen comrades. Soon it would be so full that they would be able to run across it like level ground.

Godri caved in a goblin's chest with Thaggstok, then shattered the jaw of another with the back swing. Still not a dwarf he could see had fallen - proof that forethought and preparation were the best defence against mindless savagery.

A dwarf horn rang out from the right flank - a staccato of coded notes. 'Enemy behind - riders - surrounded.'

'That's Dargin's horn!' said Rodrin as he shouldered a dying goblin back into the pit. 'But who could have got behind him? His lads put their backs against the mountain side.'

'The spider riders,' said Godri. He kicked down another goblin, then looked to where his runners waited behind the line - swift rangers with little armour. 'Hugin! Tell Ogriff to bring his miners to Dargin's aid.'

'At once, my thane!' said the ranger, and sprinted back towards the entrance of the hold, where Ogriff and the other reserves waited.

SKAARI LOOKED ACROSS the pasture towards the front line as the distant roar and clash of battle rang in his ears. His brothers were holding, but for how long? The horde of goblins that rushed towards them seemed without end, and the shaman in the wolfskin was beginning another dance. Now was the time to put his plan into action, before it was too late, but unfortunately the start of the battle had made it more difficult.

The night goblin and spider rider reserves had crept forward, like small boys drawn towards a puppet show, straining their necks to see the action. He had been left behind at the back of the wagon, out of range for what he had in mind. But then at last - a prayer answered the wagon guards couldn't resist edging forward either. They prodded the ponies forward and moved the wagon up behind the night goblins and spider riders for a better vantage point, then climbed on the bench at the front to watch. Perfect.

Skaari looked around on the grassy ground. They were in the winter pasture, where his herd should have been grazing, had the goblins not stolen it. There were a few pebbles scattered amidst the grass, but they were too small. He needed something substantial.

He paused as he saw a cowpat, sun-baked, and as hard as petrified wood. Again perfect.

Unfortunately, the ropes that tied him to the wagon were too short for him to reach his hands to the ground, so he wedged the toe of his boot under the cowpat and pried up until it was free of the grass. He raised his head. The night goblin reserves were closest. The ones at the back of the mob were less than ten paces away.

He took a deep breath and got his foot well under the cowpat, eyeing a potential target. He would have to make this good on the first try. The trick wouldn't work twice.

'Grimnir guide my aim,' he whispered, then kicked the cowpat at the night goblins.

He held his breath as it sailed up in a high arc. For a moment he was afraid he hadn't given it enough distance, but then it angled down again and clocked a short, sinewy goblin on the side of the head, just over the ear. It cringed and ducked as the ancient crap shattered and fell about it in a cloud of dust.

Skaari quickly whistled loud in the spider riders' direction, and was rewarded when a couple of the riders at the back of the pack looked over just as the little goblin was glaring around to see who its attacker was. It saw the spider riders turning their heads and squinted suspiciously at them.

Now came the tricky part. Though it hurt his cracked ribs terribly to do it, Skaari bellowed out a whooping laugh and slapped his thighs like he had never seen anything funnier.

The dirtied goblin and the two spider riders turned, looking quizzically at him. Skaari laughed at them, pointing first to the two spider riders and miming throwing the cowpat and it sailing through the air, then pointing at the little goblin and miming being hit in the head. He guffawed again and crossed his eyes, tottering like he was drunk.

'They got you good, laddie!' he called. 'And no mistake!'

The little night goblin turned to glare at the spider riders, snarling. They held up their hands and shook their heads, but he wasn't having any of it. He picked up the shards of the calcified cowpat and threw it at them, showering them in faecal dust, then jabbed his mates in the ribs and pointed at the spider riders, describing the attack.

The spider riders shouted angrily as they shook off the dirt and snatched up cowpats of their own. They hurled them at the little goblin, but their aim - as was often the case with goblins - was off, and the dry clods clobbered entirely innocent goblins on the heads. They turned around, enraged, and started throwing cowpats too.

Skaari chuckled, pleased with himself for a job well done, then leaned against the wagon to watch the fun. If he knew his goblins, the battle would have a second front in a matter of seconds.

EIGHT

GODRI FOUGHT ON mechanically, cutting down goblin after goblin as they tried to climb from the trench, but his mind remained with Dargin on the right wing. The goblins' savagery was not so mindless after all. A flanking attack, using troops that could manoeuvre vertical terrain: there was a mind behind this assault - a dangerous mind - one that must be destroyed, before it destroyed them.

A bolt of green lightning shot down from above, booming loud and blasting Arn and a few of his hammerers off their feet. Godri looked up. The shaman's shimmering green cloud hovered above them. Another bolt shot from it, and another. Crackling energy slammed Godri to the ground like the slap of a giant green hand. It rippled over his armour and froze his joints. His teeth ached with it, and his arms stuck out stiff from his sides, rigid, as he hissed and cursed. Rodrin and the rest were the same, lying twisted and clutching the ground as green flickers danced over their bodies.

A last bolt and the shimmering cloud vanished like a mirage, leaving only jagged lines on the inside of Godri's eyelids. Shrill cheers filled his ears as he raised his head. The goblins were surging up out of the trench, and swarming towards the fallen dwarfs.

Godri raised his shield and blocked a spear thrust, then cut his opponent's legs out from under it with Thaggstok. He struggled to his feet, cursing and slashing, surrounded. All around him, his dwarfs were in the same straits - chest-deep in a swirling swamp of scrawny green horrors. Arn went down under the tide, a goblin stabbing him in the face with a dagger. Damn the shaman! His pitiful spell hadn't killed a single dwarf - magic never bothered dwarfs much - yet it had distracted them just long enough to allow the goblins to get in amongst them. They were already flowing behind the brewery ramparts and attacking the backs of the defenders there. The dwarf line was broken. It would be impossible to stem the tide.

'Fall back!' he called. 'Blow the horn. Back to the second trench!'

DAGSKAR NODDED, PLEASED, as he surveyed the battle. All over the settlement, the dwarfs were falling back to rearward positions. The mill, the brewery, the grain storehouses were all his. It was going well.

'What a mess!' cried Nazbad beside him. 'We's gettin' slaughtered!'

Dagskar scowled at him. 'What battle is you watchin'? We've got 'em on da run!'

'But dey's killin' five'a us for every one o'dem we kills!'

'Good thing we got six'a us for every one o'dem then, ain't it?' Dagskar laughed. 'If it did da trick, I'd waste twice as many.' He shrugged dismissively, then grinned as he looked over the stuntie lines. 'Da' real killin's gonna start now anyway. It's time for da troll.'

But as he turned to call for the troll, a babble of angry goblin voices rose up to his left, and he saw a mess of night goblins and spider riders surging towards each other around the corpse wagon, fists swinging and daggers flashing.

'What's all this?' He roared, and charged towards the brawl, uncoiling his whip as he went. Kizaz trotted after him, the banner swaying crazily above him.

'Hoy!' cried Nazbad, turning as well. 'Lay off!' He ran for the fray too.

Dagskar waded into the fight, cracking his whip and pulling goblins off each other. 'You can't fight here!' he shouted. 'Dis is a battle!'

A spider rider was strangling a night goblin. Dagskar whipped the rider across the shoulders, cutting deep.

'Get off!'

The goblin turned, snarling, and hacked at him with a hand axe. Dagskar caught the axe and twisted it from its hand, then buried it in the goblin's head.

A hard hand spun him around, and he found himself eye to eye with Nazbad.

'What was that?' rasped the shaman. 'You killed one'a my boys!'

'And he was killin' one'a my boys!'

The shaman snarled and held up his hand, middle finger extended, wart glowing. 'D'you want me t'give you da finger? I ain't gonna stand fer dis!'

Dagskar had had enough. The shaman had done what he needed him to. He had broken the dwarf line.

Now he was just in the way. Dagskar lashed out with his axe and cut off the raised finger at the root. It spun away in a spray of black blood, the green glow of its wart fading as the shaman shrieked and fell back.

'My finger!' he wailed. 'You cut off my wartfinger!'

Dagskar leapt after him, aiming another axe blow at his head, but the shaman blocked with his staff and countered with a crack to the shins.

All around them, the night goblins and spider riders threw themselves at each other in a rage, coming to the defence of their leaders.

'Kill da over-grounders!' cried Dagskar. 'Dey's breakin' da pact!'

'Call da boys back!' Nazbad bellowed to a rider with a horn around his neck. 'We's been betrayed!'

AT THE FALLBACK line - this one flanked by a forge and a stonecutter's workshop - Godri, Rodrin and the surviving hammerers were filling another trench with dead goblins. Godri had seen a dozen dwarfs fall as they retired to the new position, and knew that dozens more must have died all along the perimeter of the settlement, but the retreat had been orderly and their lines still held.

Even Borri Graniteskin had fallen back with the rest when the goblins had set fire to the brewery, and now fought side by side with Godri.

'By Grimnir, I'll not fall to a goblin's spear!' he'd growled when the others had teased him for retreating. 'That's not a doom worthy of a slayer. I'm waiting for the troll!'

A gabble of harsh horns sounded from behind the goblin lines, all blowing different phrases. Godri didn't know what they meant, and it seemed the goblins didn't either. Some of them looked back, seemingly confused. Others turned and tried to retreat, while still others continued forward. Scuffles and shoving matches broke out amongst them.

The dwarfs were not hesitant to take advantage of their enemy's confusion, decapitating turned heads and cutting down goblins that were already fighting each other.

'This is it!' wheezed Rodrin, grinning. 'They've fallen out. They'll collapse any minute!'

A cheer went up from the right. Godri looked down the lines to see the spider riders retreating from Dargin's lines, skittering back towards the command position with musket shot peppering their backs. Dargin's lads started after them, cutting through the goblins before them and roaring with bloodlust.

Godri cursed. 'No! The fool! Don't be drawn!' He turned to his trumpeter. 'Blow: ''hold fast!'' Hurry!'

The trumpeter blasted out the call, repeating it again and again, and at last Dargin's lads halted their advance. But Godri could see they were surrounded by goblins now and fighting on all sides, while more greenskins poured through the gap they had left. Godri looked back. He had only a handful of reserves left.

'Go!' he shouted at them. 'Shore up the right!' He ground his teeth. If any other part of the line broke they would have to fall back to the King's Wall - and from that there was no retreating.

A DEAD NIGHT goblin flew through the air, flung like a rag doll by one of the hulking spiders in the centre of the brawl. The goblin crashed in a heap beside the wagon, almost directly at Skaari's feet. Skaari stared. It was a gift from his ancestors, for the goblin was still clutching his spear!

Skaari looked around cautiously, but his guards had long since abandoned their posts to join the scrap. No one was watching him. He stretched forward and hooked the haft of the spear with a questing boot toe, then drew it back and raised it carefully to waist height. He caught it in his numbed fingers and propped it against the tailgate of the wagon, then leaned on it to keep it steady.

Another quick look around. The goblins were still at it, though it would be over soon. Only a few last spider riders fought on, defending their leader. Skaari would have to work fast while they were still distracted. He put his bound wrists to the jagged edge of the spear tip and began to saw.

DAGSKAR HAD TO hand it to Nazbad. Even without his wartfinger and his waaagh, the pot-bellied little shaman could fight. He'd blocked him strike for strike while all around them their boys tore each other apart. Dagskar was bleeding all over from the sharp bits at the end of Nazbad's staff, and his head was swimmy from all the knocks. But he had given as good as he got. The shaman was covered in whip-stripes and blade cuts, and was missing an ear and the first three inches of his nose.

Finally, Dagskar got in a lucky shot with his stuntie sticker and chopped Nazbad's staff in two, and the shaman stumbled back, disarmed.

He held up his nine fingers in supplication. 'Give us a break, Earscrapper. It was just a misunderstandin'. You know how it is. Da boys get rowdy sometimes.'

Dagskar kicked the shaman down and stood on his throat. 'So does I, brudda. So does I.'

And with that he stabbed straight down with his stuntie sticker and buried it between Nazbad's beady little eyes. The shaman twitched, then slumped loose as dark blood oozed up around the edges of the sword.

Dagskar wrenched it free and looked up. All around him his boys were finishing off the last of the spiders and the spider riders. He grinned. That was just fine. The forest boys had done what he needed them to do. They'd got him across the bridge, and tore up the stuntie lines from behind. He didn't need them anymore.

'Good work, boys!' he shouted. 'Now we don't gotta share da spoils with 'em!' He raised his whip and shook it. 'Now get back to da stunties, ya lazy layabouts!'

The goblins squealed with bloodlust and ran back towards the dwarf line.

Dagskar nodded after them, satisfied, then turned away. 'Now, where was I?' He waved to the boys who were watching the troll. 'Hoy, bring da dummy over and get 'im on da wagon!' He started towards the wagon. 'And where's that sneaky little stuntie?'

He stopped. The captured dwarf was gone. His ropes lay limp on the ground.

Dagskar cursed. The plan wasn't going to work without the dwarf. He scrambled up on top of the corpse wagon and looked around anxiously.

SKAARI HELD HIS breath as he crept for the long grass in the fallow field next to the pasture. Once there he could crawl unseen to the dwarf lines and join the fight where it mattered. He chuckled at his own cleverness and good fortune. The spider riders were all dead, their threat removed from the battlefield, and it was him that had done it - and all with a cowpat!

He'd even managed to escape in the confusion - an added bonus he hadn't expected. Now perhaps he could find more ways to make up for his incompetence and folly.

He breathed a sigh of relief as he reached the fallow field and began to push through the tall stalks. He was safe now. He-

A soft noise behind him made him freeze. Had that been a footfall? He turned his head, but before he could see anything, a weight slammed him to the ground and something jagged and sharp pressed into his neck.

Fetid mushroom breath made him wince as a leering voice whispered in his ear. 'Goin' back t'yer mates, are ya?' A harsh cackle nearly deafened him. 'That's just what you'll do!'

GODRI AND RODRIN AND Borri Graniteskin fought side by side before a surging press of goblins. Godri's arms were weary, his gromril armour seemed to weigh a tonne, and the goblin horde hadn't collapsed like Rodrin had predicted it would; nonetheless, he was cautiously optimistic. After the scare on the right flank, the dwarfs had regrouped well, and were holding their positions all along the line. There were many dead, but those that remained still fought with heart, and did not waver.

The same could not be said for the goblins. The squabbling at the rear of their position seemed to have died down, but the horde hadn't recovered. They no longer fought with their earlier seething rage or oneness of purpose, and Godri could see that they were growing tired of throwing themselves against the dwarfs' unbreakable wall of shields. They looked ready to turn around and go home. He hoped it was soon.

A movement from beyond the greenskin line caught his eye as he bashed down another goblin with his shield. He stared. A wagon was speeding straight for them. A dwarf wagon, with a dwarf driver shaking the reins and the ponies galloping as if possessed. It looked as if it were piled high with dwarf dead.

'Who...?' he said, squinting at the driver, trying to make out his face. And what was that beside him?

'It's the cowherd!' cried Rodrin. 'Skaari Otgunsson, and... and he has Aurik with him!'

Godri looked again as the wagon raced closer, and his heart soared. Rodrin was right. Beside the cowherd on the wagon's bench lay his son, his head in Skaari's lap, the axe Grudge Ender held slack in his hand. Godri couldn't tell if Aurik was alive or dead. It didn't matter. His son was returned to him!

'Break the line,' he roared. 'Let them through! Let them through!'

The ponies trampled straight through the goblin ranks as the dwarfs parted to let them pass. Godri thought he saw a goblin leap from between them and roll away at the last second, but it might have been flung up by their crushing hooves.

Godri and Rodrin backed out of the dwarf line as Borri the slayer and the remaining hammerers closed the gap and faced the goblins again. Godri's heart pounded with anticipation as he and his brother hurried to the wagon. It was only as he got closer that he noticed that the cowherd looked strange. He had a rag stuffed in his mouth, and his hands were bound to the reins. Not only that, he was tied to the bench - as was his son.

The beardling mumphed at him, eyes rolling wildly, trying to say something through the rag.

'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 looked 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.

'Ten!' shouted Naragrim. 'Nine! Eight! Seven...'

DAGSKAR CRACKED HIS whip over the heads of his goblins as the last of his horde tried to shove in to the tunnel after their comrades, who filled it from wall to wall.

'Push harder!' he cried. 'Drive 'em back! Cut their beards off! Eat their livers!'

His scrawny chest swelled with pride as he stepped into the shadow of the tunnel at the back of the pack, Kizaz waving the Crooked Moon banner over his head. He had done it! He was walking into the stunties' hole! He was gonna be a big boss! There was no way Skarsnik could tell him no now!

A deep-throated ''crump'' interrupted his thoughts. The ground jumped beneath his feet as if it had been hit by the hammer of a god. Before he could do more than mouth a confused 'Wha-?' a boiling wall of flame, smoke, rocks and bits of goblin exploded out of the tunnel and blasted him back, heels over head, to crack his skull against one of the stone posts of the stunties' chain fence, while dead and dismembered goblins landed all around him like a green and red avalanche.

The last thing Dagskar was conscious of before all went black was a deep shuddering rumble, like muffled thunder.

GODRI PICKED HIMSELF up from the floor at the centre of the great hall, coughing in the thick cloud of smoke and granite dust that filled it. The other dwarfs were doing the same. Even at such a distance, the force of the explosion had knocked them on their backs. Many of them were wiggling their fingers in their ears, trying to pop them.

The few goblins that had chased them into the hall when they had fallen back were sitting up too, looking dazed. Some were staggering in circles, clutching their heads. Godri squinted past them through the veil of settling dust, looking toward the entry corridor, from which the rumble and crash of falling rock still echoed. The dark doorway was filled to the top with a mix of rubble and crushed goblins that spilled out into the chamber like meat from a sausage casing.

His plan had worked, perhaps too well. It would take them ages to dig out the corridor, and if what Naragrim had said about the crack in its ceiling was true; it might not be repairable at all. He sighed. That speculation was for the future. There was more immediate work to be done.

'Come,' he said, picking up his axe. 'Let's finish them.'

Rodrin and Naragrim and the others fell in beside him and started towards the disoriented goblins.

'Now this will be a slaughter,' said Rodrin, grinning savagely.

'This will be vengeance,' said Godri.

The others murmured their agreement and raised their weapons.

A loud scraping from above them stopped them in their tracks. They looked up. Dust and pebbles rained down from the roof, pattering around the dizzy goblins.

Godri blinked through the grit. A fan of hairline cracks was climbing up the dome roof of the great hall from the collapsed arch of the entry corridor, spreading as it went, and the screeching of stone sliding against stone shivered the room.

'Grungni,' breathed Rodrin. 'What now?'

With a deafening crash, a chunk of granite as big as a troll broke away from the roof and plummeted to the floor, squashing a stupefied goblin flat. A shower of lesser chunks followed it as more cracks spread.

'No,' said Naragrim, stepping forward. 'No! The fault!' A boulder slammed down next to him. He didn't seem to notice. 'It was worse than I thought.'

Another huge block tore out of the ceiling and the cracks widened and multiplied as they arced over the top of the dome. More blocks followed the first. A dwarf sprung away from one, only to be crushed by a second.

Godri pointed to a small corridor at the far side of the chamber. 'Back!' he shouted over the thunder. 'To the living quarters! Hurry!'

The dwarfs turned and ran as fast as they could across the wide hall. Those that could only limp were helped by the rest. Godri put his good shoulder under Rodrin's arm and they ran side by side, supporting each other as a torrent of granite boulders chased them, pounding the floor to splinters and raising an almost impenetrable cloud of dust.

A rock the size of an orc's head glanced off Godri's broken shoulder and his knees buckled as pain overwhelmed him, but Rodrin hauled him up and they hurried on. Goblins ran with them, shrieking, all thoughts of slaughter lost to blind panic. Another boulder bounced along the floor like a huge ball, crushing dwarf and goblin alike.

At last the dark arch of the corridor that led to the living quarters appeared out of the dust before them and the dwarfs ran for it. Godri and Rodrin paused just outside it and urged the others on, sometimes hauling in those too weak or hurt to continue, or kicking back a goblin that dared seek shelter in the narrow corridor.

Godri looked back once more as the last warrior ran through, just to be sure. The thick-set silhouette of a dwarf stood in the centre of the room, turning in circles and looking up at the roof as rocks and rubble rained down all around him.

'Naragrim!' Godri roared. 'Hurry!'

But the architect did not heed him, only raised his arms and face as if in supplication.

'Leave him,' said Rodrin, putting a hand on Godri's shoulder. 'We must go.'

Godri let his brother pull him into the safety of the corridor, but could not help but look back.

The top of the dome gave way all at once and Naragrim was gone. Godri blinked as the dust cloud from the impact billowed up and spread across the chamber, then poured into the corridor and engulfed him and the last of the brave sons of Karak Grom in a fog of grit.

He wiped his eyes. They were tearing up.

Because of the dust.

TEN

ON THE MORNING of the next day a team of engineers cut through the iron grate that capped one of the narrow shafts that brought air deep into the bowels of the hold and pushed it open. A pair of hammerers climbed out, then helped their thane, Godri Thunderbrand, and his brother Rodrin step out onto a narrow ledge on the flinty mountainside that rose above Skull Pass.

The two brothers stepped to the edge of the outcropping as more of their followers crawled from the shaft behind them. Together they looked silently down at the ruins of the settlement they had built there.

The brewery was a blackened hulk. The forge and the mill had been razed to the ground. The houses were wrecked. Not a single building had escaped damage. Their herd was dead or dispersed, the forest where they hunted game and gathered fire wood had been burned to sticks, and their crops had been trampled and looted.

And it was worse inside the mountain. Once the cave-ins and tremors had at last stopped, Godri, Rodrin and the surviving engineers had surveyed the damage to the hold. The front passage was of course completely blocked, and the ceiling of the great hall collapsed, but that was only the beginning. Smashed by the falling ceiling the floor of the great hall had caved in, burying the guild halls under it. Worse, the passage to the grain vaults had also collapsed. It would be months before they would be able to dig it out and reach the grain. This and the loss of the herd meant that, with winter coming on, he had neither meat nor bread nor beer with which to feed his people. There was a real danger that they would starve.

And these depredations did not count the cost in lives. His son was dead. Indeed, more than half of Godri's warriors were dead, and many that lived were badly wounded. There were but a few more than a score fit to defend the hold, should the goblins strike again.

Rodrin sighed. 'I told you the place was cursed. We won't be able to survive the winter. We'll have to go to Karak Azul and ask them to take us in.'

Godri shook his head. 'No, brother. This is Karak Grom - Enduring Defiance. We will find a way. We will survive. We will rebuild. By Grungni and Grimnir and my ancestors, I swear it.'

His followers gathered around him, staring down into Skull Pass and nodding gravely. 'Aye, thane,' they said. 'We will survive. We will rebuild. We are Karak Grom.'

IN THE STOLEN dwarf hall deep under Karak Eight Peaks, Dagskar Earscrapper stood once again before Warboss Skarsnik's throne, waiting while Skarsnik gnawed the last strips of meat off a tasty-looking human leg.

'Ya failed,' the warboss said at last, tossing the bone aside. 'Y'didn't pass da test.'

'I did!' protested Dagskar. 'Dem stunties is helpless. Dey got no defences. I could finish 'em like dat.'

Skarsnik raised an eyebrow. 'Is dey still in their hole?'

Dagskar shuffled his feet. 'Well, yeah, but...'

Skarsnik whistled. There was a grunt from behind his throne and an enormous shape bounded out and landed with a thud in front of Dagskar, goggling at him and drooling from its cavernous mouth.

'No, boss!' cried Dagskar, backing away. 'Not Gobbla! I can beat 'em! I swears I-'

With a bouncing lunge, the massive squig snapped up Dagskar whole and began to chew noisily. The goblin didn't even have time to scream.

Skarsnik crooned at Gobbla affectionately, then looked up at his assembled boys and grinned. 'Right,' he said. 'Who else wants a go?'

Table of Contents

THE BATTLE FOR SKULL PASS

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN