Contents

Cover

Buyer Beware – Gav Thorpe

About the Author

An Extract from ‘Overlords of the Iron Dragon’

A Black Library Publication

eBook license

BUYER BEWARE

Gav Thorpe

A maw-krusha in full flight is a thing of brutal, terrible beauty. The bulge of powerful muscles driving its immense pinions up and down. The curve and recurve of wing flaps rising and falling with each beat. The spiked tail as it weaves from side to side, every twitch making small adjustments to the immense beast’s trajectory. Ropes of drool trailing from sword-length fangs, each a stained-ivory slash against the dark tongue within the mouth, the bucket-like jaw opening wider and wider as the beast falls upon its prey.

This monster was a particularly dazzling specimen, bronze-like scales glistening against the ochre sky of the Ironpeaks of Chamon. Dark red stripes marked the upper scales and the crest that stretched back along to the fins of the tail, while the underbelly was mottled with a purple hue. Eyes like ruby peered out from beneath the heavy brow as the maw-krusha turned around a promontory of dark rock, its wingtip scraping through the last remnants of autumnal leaves, scattering red and gold flutters.

The magnificence of nature in its primal form was quite lost on the handful of stocky figures running full tilt down the mountainside ahead of the descending behemoth.

They had divested themselves of their heavy aeronautic suits for this stealthy venture and were clad only in thick woollen undergarments from ankle to throat, varying in hue from the dark blue of panting, grey-haired-and-bearded Thorkki Longintooth to a somewhat beer-stained cerise worn by Nukduk, via outfits of sober beige, dazzling yellow and a regal purple. This last garment, further adorned with gold stitching of a sky-anchor upon the left breast, marked out the small group’s leader, as did the ornately feathered wide-brimmed hat that he continued to hold atop the shaggy mass of black hair upon his head.

Karazi ‘Fairgold’ Zaynson, captain of the Night’s Daughter. Pieces of dried leaf clung to the bushy falls of his dark beard, which had a reddish streak in the moustache and down the cheeks, a feature considered particularly fetching among the folk of Barak-Mhornar. In his other hand he held the handle of a bulging dark leather satchel, as did two of his companions.

There was not so much a path to follow down the slope as a slightly worn trail through the scattered bushes and twisted trees. The leaves were dry on the ground, crackling and billowing around the duardin as they pounded down the mountainside. Heavy breaths and the swoop of wings flung more arboreal detritus into the air, so that the slope became a shifting mass of dead foliage, sliding underfoot and gathering in drifts ahead.

‘I tol’ you they’s never too far from tha nest!’ shouted Rogoth, he of the sun-bright yellow undersuit. His locks and beard were as golden as his nether-wraps, flowing like streamers behind him as he vaulted a half-buried log.

‘And I told you to keep running,’ Fairgold growled back.

Ahead the mountainside appeared to become sky, the yellowish grass suddenly giving way to a haze of empty air. A jutting shoulder of rock barred the way, so that the group would either have to break towards the open side of the mountain or turn back up the slope.

‘Where’s the Daughter?’ yelled Thorkki, face crimson between near-white beard and brow.

‘Keep running!’ bellowed Fairgold. He angled right towards the open slope where they had left the Night’s Daughter. ‘This way!’

‘Yer a gold-drunk fool,’ snapped Rogoth, heading left. ‘This way!’

The other three duardin chased after their captain. A few heartbeats later Rogoth stumbled as his boot caught on a twist of root. He did not lose his footing, but the trip was enough for him to stagger to a halt for a moment. Fairgold slowed, head turning to look at his crew member.

A massive shadow engulfed Rogoth.

‘Get down!’ yelled Fairgold but it was too late. A moment later, jaws as big as the aeronaut snapped shut and the maw-krusha swooped up, leaving a splash of blood and shredded yellow where Rogoth had been. Nukduk gave a wail of despair and slowed down, neck craning as he watched the maw-krusha ascending. Fairgold skidded to a halt, heavy boots sending up dust from the dry mountainside. He took two steps back and grabbed Nukduk’s arm.

‘It’s coming back,’ the captain said, tugging. ‘We’ve got to go.’

‘Go where?’ snarled Nukduk, digging his heel into the ground as Fairgold tried to pull him into a run. ‘The Daughter’s gone without us!’

‘They haven’t gone nowhere, you flange-headed dolt,’ insisted Fairgold, loosening his grip. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the maw-krusha wheeling across the slope, ready for another diving attack. ‘Stay here if you want to end up like Rogoth.’

A glare at Thorkki and Zanna brought them after Fairgold as he gathered speed down the slope once more. Nukduk followed a moment later.

‘Where are we going?’ Zanna called, her braids like flails as her head whipped back and forth between the clifftop ahead and the descending maw-krusha coming from the left.

‘Trust me,’ said Fairgold.

He powered on, panting hard. A sudden gust lifted up the brim of his hat, flipping it from his head. He tried to turn and snatch it, but his short legs were not suited to such manoeuvres and he fell backwards, cradling the satchel to his chest on instinct as he rolled over. Zanna was nimbler, plucking the headwear from the air as it slipped past her. Back on his feet, Fairgold accelerated again, just behind his crew.

Out of the corner of his eye he could see the vast shadow of the maw-krusha approaching fast. Just a few paces from the cliff’s edge the others started to slow. Fairgold drew in a deep breath. It was too late to stop now. Legs pumping harder than a ship’s piston he caught up with the others, arms outstretched, and shepherded them to the edge.

As a group they leapt into the open air.

Rising below them was the Night’s Daughter, her burnished hull and aether-gold cistern gleaming. Custom-built, she was longer than most shipyard vessels of Barak-Mhornar, her aether-gold tank and oversized skyscrew engines mounted lower and further rearward for speed. Where ships built for the battleline of the city fleet had bulging carbinades mounted in their prows, Fairgold’s unaffiliated freegun vessel sported more crew room with shuttered firing slits in place of fixed pintle guns, currently bristling with weapons from within. It was a remarkable piece of work given it had been put together from a dozen different salvages and wreck raids. For a couple of heartbeats, Fairgold admired the vessel as he fell, before he and Zanna slammed into the side of the balloon-like aethertank while the other two aeronauts fell to the deck a little further below. Fairgold slid down the side of the cistern, fingers scrabbling at rivets and thick banding until he came to a stop. Zanna held on to the rail around the pilot’s hatch above him, satchel in the other hand, captain’s hat clamped between gritted teeth. He felt the whole ship throbbing as the engines powered it upwards past the cliff.

‘Sorry!’ Eskar Druadak shouted past Zanna from her piloting position. ‘The cliff was going to break. Had to circle and wait. Didn’t want that maw-krusha to see us.’

‘Everyone else all right?’ Fairgold called out as he allowed himself to carefully slide further down the aethertank until his foot touched a stabiliser fin. A chorus of half-hearted affirmatives broke the drone of the engines. A sudden wind as the Night’s Daughter crested the cliff set the vessel swaying, and for a moment there was nothing beneath Fairgold and a long drop down to the cliff bottom.

The ironclad steadied as Eskar started to turn it away from the mountainside, but as she did so, Fairgold, face pressed against the bronzed tank as he clung on like a High Magnate holding a ha’penny, saw the maw-krusha swooping like a thunderbolt.

The company was already at quarters as the order to ready weapons rang across the ship. A score of aethershot carbines and pistols presented towards the maw-krusha from deck, firing slits and support stanchions, while the arkanauts at the main gun hurriedly turned their great cannon towards the incoming beast. It was still traversing when the first small-arms shots crackled out, dappling the Night’s Daughter with muzzle flare. Bullets speckled the thick hide of the monster with little visible effect. Breech-cranks snapped and screeched as the aeronauts readied for a second volley. There would be no time for a third.

The main cannon boomed into angry life, setting the Night’s Daughter shuddering from the serrated prow ram to the skyrudders aft of the main screw. The jolt nearly threw Fairgold from his precarious perch, so that he was clinging on with one hand as he watched an explosion of shrapnel engulf the hurtling maw-krusha. It burst from the cloud of sharp metal and black smoke with mouth agape. Blood trailed from its face and left shoulder, and it rolled to one side as fresh carbine fire crackled below, a clawed foot lashing out as the beast swept past.

Engines now at full ahead, the Night’s Daughter powered cloudwards, leaving the wounded monster to land lopsided at the clifftop, screeching its rage.

Picking his way to a support strut, Fairgold was about to slide down to the main deck when he saw flashes of blue sparks and a slick of dark smoke trailing from the gouge ripped into the side of the aether-engine by the maw-krusha’s vengeful claws. Metal had parted like paper and a pipe hissed steam within. Even as he found footing on the deck, the captain could sense all was not well with his ship, a stuttering in the stroke of the engines.

Even so, his first thought was not for the ship but the endrineer below.

‘Verna!’ he bellowed into the smoke-filled chamber beneath the aethertank. The smell of burnt rubber and hot metal assailed his nostrils.

A goggled face smeared with grease appeared from the bank of vapour, a knitted beard-hammock protecting dark brown whiskers.

‘She’s fine,’ said the duardin, wiping his oil-stained hands on a rag. ‘Me too, thanks for asking. Busy.’

‘What’s the damage, Oggin?’ asked Fairgold.

The endrinrigger sucked air through his teeth and shook his head.

‘Not good.’ He turned to call back into the hidden depths of the endrinroom. A muffled voice replied and Oggin repeated it for his captain. ‘Couple of displaced packing glands… Thumbnail rupture on the eduction pipe… Splinters in the crossheads.’

Fairgold rubbed his beard thoughtfully, waiting for Oggin to continue. Nothing else was forthcoming.

‘You dunno what any of that means, do you?’

‘Nope. Except splinters, I know what they are.’ Fairgold leaned past the assistant to address the mistress. ‘How long? Can we make Breakward Stark?’

‘I’ll get us there, but we’ll have to make do with endrin-shimmies until we land for proper repairs,’ came the reply.

‘You’re the best!’ Fairgold called before turning away from the hatch, to find himself confronted by Thorkki. The greybeard stood with fists on hips, brows knotted tighter than one of the rigger cables that held the endrin-tank in place.

‘You still going to the orruks, after what’s happened?’

‘Why wouldn’t I?’

‘Rogoth is dead!’ Thorkki shook his head, which set his beard to waggling fiercely from side to side. ‘Don’t that mean nothing?’

‘It means nothing if we don’t finish the deal,’ snapped Fairgold. ‘He’ll still get his share.’

‘What you gonna do with it? Stick it on a pile of maw-krusha sh–’

‘Arrangements will be made!’ barked the captain. ‘All shares will be paid, in full, as promised.’

Thorkki grumbled some more but Fairgold pushed past, ignoring him.

‘Eskar?’

The young pilot gave him a thumbs up from her position at the forecradle of the main superstructure.

‘Already on our way, captain!’ she called down. ‘Quarter speed’s the best we can do.’

Fairgold signalled his thanks and returned his attention to the rest of the crew, trying to find the right words. He failed. Everything that came to him, a usually gifted orator, seemed trite.

‘Stand down from quarters, Thorkki,’ he told his first mate. The greybeard hesitated and then complied, giving his beard a short tug of salute. ‘Get some grub and rest, and then stand to again when we get to Breakward Stark.’

As the other duardin busied themselves, Fairgold moved to the starboard rail near the bow, staring ahead into the golden clouds at the horizon, the twin jutting peaks of Breakward Stark just about visible against them. About two hours, Fairgold reckoned, but his thoughts quickly moved away from the immediate future.

‘I told him to go right,’ he muttered to himself.

The Night’s Daughter had never purred; it had too many craft involved in its parentage to boast the kind of engine you’d find in a thoroughbred ironclad. A growl, perhaps. More of a snarl, if one was being critical. And now it had a sporadic cough as the ship limped towards its rendezvous with jury-rigged pistons and whatever other endrin-based miracles Verna had enacted. Fairgold hadn’t moved from the bow rail and the ship’s company was quiet. The gate peaks of Breakward Stark were large ahead, while if he glanced back, he saw a smear of smoke in their wake, dispersing across the glimmering Ironpeaks.

It was nearly time.

‘Thinking too much?’

He turned with a smile at the sound of Verna’s voice.

‘Maybe about the wrong things,’ Fairgold confessed.

She had her endrin-suit on, thick black leather with ribs and plates of metal bound into it where a powered harness could be attached. While Oggin was usually sooty, oil-stained or in some other way marked by his labours, Verna had a knack for remaining almost spotless despite spending half her life below deck. Not that her haunt of choice wasn’t without consequence – Fairgold could smell lubricant off her from ten steps away. Her light brown hair was pulled tightly back in a large plait but dozens of strands had worked loose, each trying to escape on its own trajectory.

She approached, assuming a businesslike expression that Fairgold knew would cost him money.

‘Karazi…’ When she used his birth name, he knew it was going to be a lot of money.

‘What do we need to replace?’ he asked with a resigned sigh.

‘Main bracket head,’ she said.

‘I know that bit,’ replied Fairgold. ‘That’s part of the hull, not endrinworks! You didn’t mention it earlier.’

‘Because I couldn’t fix it earlier. Anyways, you’d have seen it, if you’d had a proper look where that bloody great gash in the side is. Like I haven’t got enough to do.’

He stepped closer, arm snaking out for an embrace as apology, but she evaded with a twirl that almost decapitated Fairgold with her iron-threaded braid.

‘Got to sort me tools,’ she told him. ‘Piston heads to remove, threads to cut, all sorts of delicate work. And you need to be getting ready to make the deal.’

Fairgold nodded and followed her back to the main deck. He stopped a moment to lay a hand on the ironwork around the main endrinroom. He could feel the occasional splutter, the deck juddering perceptibly with each missed beat. Verna had done her best work, now it was his turn to do his.

A bell clamoured into life along with repeated calls of ‘All Hands! All Hands!’ Booted feet thundered on iron steps and wooden decking as the ship’s company, some twenty duardin in all, burst from below decks and dropped from hammocks slung from the main deck stanchions. Thorkki bellowed orders, relayed by his juniors, setting the crew to tidying away everything on the deck, readying the guns and their personal weapons.

When they were done they stood in several loose ranks in front of Fairgold, clustered on the forward section of the main deck.

‘I’ve told you many times, there’s no such thing as one big deal,’ the captain began. ‘We don’t do getting rich quick on this ship. You might as well chase skymaids and cloudsilver if that’s your thing.’

‘Or legendary wrecks!’ someone piped up from the back, but Fairgold could not recognise the voice.

‘Looking for the Night’s Gift is different,’ he said slowly, scowling at the group as a whole. It was no secret that he wanted to find the remains of the infamous sky-ship, and he wouldn’t have it held against him. ‘That’s family, not business. Anyway, this job is going to be one of the biggest deals we’ve made. It’ll be tough, we’ve got to hold our nerve, and it means handling the orruks properly. Ten of you are coming with me. The rest will be guarding the Daughter. We get the map from the orruks, swift screws back to Barak-Mhornar and then it goes to the highest bidder at the Goldworth. And if the rumours of the Ironpeaks are to be believed, that map is going to be worth as much as an ironclad or more.’

As he rubbed his hands at the thought, Fairgold could feel the ship dipping as Eskar started to direct the vessel groundwards. Ahead the captain could see the twin peaks getting taller and taller. Nestled between them was a lush valley of forests, haphazardly hacked out in places by the orruks that lived there, reminding Fairgold of the pates of crew members that had saved a penny too much at the dockside barber’s.

‘Coming in a bit steep-like,’ said Gorddo, head of the starboard team, turning to the others, who were muttering in similar discontent.

‘We’re losing trim!’ shrieked Eskar from the piloting wheel above and behind Fairgold. She was so taken aback she forgot her studied Westdock-of-Barak-Zilfin accent. ‘Not ’nough power, too much weight for’ard!’

The ship was quickly pitching forwards. Skyscrews whistled in protest while increasing creaks and groans from the superstructure warned of the strain as gravity fought the buoyancy of the aether-gold.

‘Get aft!’ bellowed Thorkki, waving the crew to follow as he started towards the endrin-block and aethertank.

‘Aft, you sod-soled, jelly-kneed laggards!’ Eskar encouraged from above.

The ship’s complement bundled aftward, stumbling up the steepening deck. Fairgold staggered to the endrinroom hatch and grabbed hold of the frame.

‘We need more power!’

‘T’ain’t no more,’ Oggin called back.

‘Then grab something strong and get ready for a bump.’

Fairgold turned to see what lay ahead. A sea of dark green and silver trees as far as the eye could see.

‘Cap’n!’ Eskar’s call dragged Fairgold’s eyes away from the rapidly approaching treetops. ‘I can’t haul us up.’

He grabbed a rigging cable and climbed up as quick as he could, dragging himself over the rail of the fore-cradle to stand beside the pilot. She had one hand on the wheel and the other on the main pitch trim lever, looking as though she were wrestling two immense stone vipers.

‘Aim for that gap,’ said Fairgold, pointing towards a curving slash through the trees that could have marked a road. He grabbed the trim lever in both hands as soon as Eskar let go, turning to put his whole weight on it as ailerons and stabilisers fought mechanically to straighten themselves.

The nose lifted slightly and then, as the aerodynamics of the guide fins assisted the aether-gold, rose faster, but not so quick that they didn’t crash through the foliage of the first few trees. In a plume of broken branches and scattered leaves they burst out across the cleared way, which was indeed a road of the very muddy and rutted variety.

‘Steady off,’ Eskar called down the speaking tube to the endrinroom, before lifting her voice to the rest of the crew with a bellow untoward for her petite size and generally refined disposition. ‘Ballast up, you snail-wits!’

Rather more precipitously than they were used to, the Night’s Daughter’s crew brought the ship to a halt, ploughing a deep but short furrow in the muddy road. As the sky-ship bobbed into a hovering position with its keel just above the ground, Fairgold gave Eskar a kiss on the forehead.

‘We’re here!’ he called out and lifted off his hat with a whoop. ‘Time to seal a deal!’

The air in the valley was thick with humidity and Fairgold was sweating inside his full suit by the time he had readied himself and descended the rope ladder to the ground. Wet mud oozed under his boots and flies buzzed from the trees to investigate this new intruder into their world. The air was tainted with sulphur from the surrounding volcanic mountains, which had recently belched forth a vast cloud of aether-gold vapours. If the rumours were true, a sky-seam had been discovered the likes of which Fairgold believed could fuel a fleet for half a season or more. Enough to sponsor another expedition to find the Night’s Gift. Caught in the strange astromagnetic winds of Chamon, the aether-gold would soon disperse and it was a race against time to get the location from the orruks and back to Barak-Mhornar to sell it.

Their last calls of farewell ringing from the trees, Fairgold and his companions set off up the road, leaving the others to patch the damaged hull and finish the endrin repairs. Clad in bulky aethersuits, the contingent tramped up the road, heavy boots sinking into the mud.

‘With a following wind we’ll be back by nightfall, no problem,’ the captain said cheerfully to his satchel bearers.

The orruk settlement was more impressive than Fairgold had anticipated – he had been expecting some hybrid of dung heap and salvage yard. The road, such as it was, had brought them to a wooden gatehouse set within a stockade of stripped tree trunks, each broader than a duardin. As he passed within, the captain saw a score and more dwellings had been built in a broad gash of hacked-down forest. Timber walls held up roofs of metallic leaves so that each appeared crowned with bronze and silver and copper. Smoke dribbled from the chimney of a solitary stone building set apart from the others; gangs of grots and a few humans laboured at piles of dirt beside it, while ingots of purer metal appeared on pulled sleds from the other side of the foundry. The handful of greenskin guides-cum-guards that had met the duardin on the rough road steered the group towards a longer, higher building than the rest, presumably the hall of the warboss.

‘Slaves,’ said Thorkki.

‘Not our problem,’ said Fairgold. He had seen the chains on the ankles of the humans and the whip marks on their backs. ‘We’d join them if we tried anything.’

Indeed, the Kharadron contingent was outnumbered by at least a factor of ten, as armour-clad brutes stepped out of their barracks-like homes to stare at the trade delegation. They were expected, but that did nothing to soften the raw hostility in the eyes of the orruks as clawed fingers flexed on weapon hilts and fangs were bared.

‘What if they decide just to rob us?’ suggested Golkin.

‘I was hoping we’d have the Daughter nearby to even the odds. Don’t give them ideas.’

The interior of the chieftain’s hall was dark, lit only by a firepit in the middle, beyond which sat the warboss on a great chair of stone and iron. In the gloom the creature seemed to be a towering statue of red and black metal. The escorts growled and snarled in the orruk tongue and then moved back to stand sentry with a pair of even larger greenskins at the door.

‘Come,’ rumbled the orruk. It lifted a hand ringed with gold and bones and beckoned them past the haze of the embers. ‘Safe in my house.’

‘We bring good news, mighty Orgaggarok of the Falling Fist,’ said Fairgold. Like the orruk he spoke a trading language that was the bastard child of the celestial tongue of Azyr.

‘Show me,’ said the orruk, heaving his bulk upright. Like his minions he was clad in a full suit of armour, adorned with blades and spikes that made every part of his body a weapon. Standing, he was twice as tall as Fairgold. The captain was dressed in leather and steel harness and suit, but he was here to trade, not fight. The crew were likewise in their battle-gear, for ‘purely precautionary purposes’ as the captain had told them, and each carried a blade and pistol of some kind. Fairgold tried not to let his gaze be drawn to the mighty cleaverblade at the warlord’s hip, which was almost as tall as he was.

At a gesture from the warboss two orruks appeared from the shadows, rolling the round of a felled tree. They set this down beside the firepit to use as a table. Fairgold noticed ruddy stains on the wood and hoped it was just looted wine, but knew he was trying to trick himself.

‘Map first, if you please,’ said Fairgold, not wishing to begin with any kind of concession.

‘Oggin!’

The endrinrigger appeared out of the gloom at Verna’s call, the pieces of a valve in his hands.

‘Endrinmaster?’

‘I said to put the sprocket cap back on the main exchanger before taking off the capitulating ring.’ The Night’s Daughter’s creator pointed at the offending part with a multi-headed tool. ‘We’ve lost pressure in the flux chamber.’

Oggin pushed up his goggles and rubbed an eye with a thumb, leaving a grey smear over his eyelid like kohl.

‘Why’s the capitulating ring after the main exchange? That’s not what it’s supposed to do,’ he asked, looking innocently at his mistress.

‘’Cos I built it that way, all right,’ snapped Verna. ‘S’quicker to swap the pressure taps over when you’re trimming.’

‘But then–’

‘Isn’t the time, rigger,’ she cut him off. ‘Go fetch a couple of hands, there’s some manual pumping to be done.’ Then, almost under her breath, she continued, ‘Going to be late… Fairgold’s not going to be happy.’

Compromises had been made. Three of Fairgold’s crew brandished their satchels like shields as proof that he had the goods, while a scrawny grot held a rolled-up parchment as evidence of Orgaggarok’s good intent.

With the chieftain was a smaller orruk that wore less armour but was bedecked in bone fetishes and other talismans. The warchanter, for such it had been introduced as, grunted and gabbled while gesturing wildly for some time. Flecks of saliva spattered the table-trunk and occasional green sparks flickered in the orruk’s mad gaze.

‘Hard work to find your sky-gold,’ said Orgaggarok. ‘Many head hurts and danger for Gorzbang. Strong Mork breath, yes?’

Fairgold took this to mean the aether-gold and the magical current that had conjured it from the Chamon winds.

‘So-so,’ he replied, waggling a hand. ‘You know Mork. A breath for one is just a fart for another.’

The orruk’s brow furrowed and red eyes pinned Fairgold to the spot. The chieftain’s lip curled, revealing a dark gum and thick fang.

‘Perhaps it is time for some disclosure,’ Fairgold said quickly. He gestured to Thorkki and Snorrlig. Each opened their satchels and brought forward a leathery egg about the size of Fairgold’s head. They placed them on the table, each held up by a rope quoit.

Orgaggarok flexed his hands appreciatively and bent forward to examine the eggs, tongue lolling from his wide mouth. He muttered something unintelligible.

‘Fine specimens, delicately handled since acquisition, as promised,’ said Fairgold, indicating the eggs with a flourish. He was wondering just how strong ‘Mork’s breath’ was blowing. ‘An orruk that owned such beasts would be a terror to behold and the envy of others.’

‘Good,’ Orgaggarok nodded. ‘Blue lines and green patches means… prey finder? Good tracker. Brave. Loyal maw-krusha.’

‘Yes? Rare? I mean, valuable. A very valuable addition to the stable of any warlord looking to pillage and plunder.’

The massive jaw shut with a crack and the orruk’s murderous gaze fell upon Fairgold once more. A tentative claw prodded at one of the eggs.

Fairgold smiled as best he could.

‘Is there a problem?’

Receiving the half-thumb ratchet claw from Oggin, Verna tightened the last fastening bolts under the piston line. She heaved herself out from under the bulk of the endrin-block and handed the tool back.

‘I’ll run the pressurisation test,’ said the rigger.

‘We’ll skip it,’ said Verna. ‘Seals are all tight. It’s going to take a while to get to full pressure as it is.’

‘But what if…’ Oggin mumbled into silence beneath Verna’s unblinking but not entirely hostile stare. ‘Right. I’ll go tell Edra shall I?’

‘There’s a good lad,’ said Verna, moving her attention to the main gauges. ‘Quick as a Magnate’s debt collector, if you please.’

As Oggin opened the door to the main deck it seemed to Verna that the sky was almost dark.

‘A guide, perhaps?’ suggested Fairgold, trying to ease the discussion along. ‘Two maw-krushas is quite a bargain just for a map. If there was a guide to help us locate the aether-ore…’

A short and savage conversation erupted between the warlord and one of the other orruks. The tension caused sparks to start fizzing from the eyes of the warchanter.

‘Gorzbang can smell Mork’s breath for you,’ declared the warlord, while next to him the warchanter twitched and dribbled.

Fairgold looked at the orruk shaman, who seemed about to explode. A smile slid onto the duardin’s lips without effort.

‘A generous offer. Very generous. But I would not dare keep one of your most powerful advisors away from you for such a length of time.’

The warchanter started to say something with a voice oddly screeching for an orruk, but a gesture from Orgaggarok had the magically volatile creature quickly dragged out of the hall by two burly enforcers. When they returned, they brought with them an orruk in a heavy apron of scaled skin over its armour. Evidently some kind of maw-krusha expert. A coiled whip hung at the belt of the apron. There was a fresh burst of fang-baring and snarls, followed by vigorous nodding from the beastmaster.

‘These eggs old,’ said Orgaggarok. ‘Snarskab say so.’

‘No, freshly plucked from the nest by my hand!’ protested Fairgold. He thrust an accusing finger at Snarskab. ‘I’ll not have my word tarnished by such accusations.’

Orgaggarok tilted his head at Fairgold’s theatrics and the duardin subsided with a bow.

‘Please continue.’

‘Old egg. Ready open,’ insisted the warlord. A clawed finger prodded one of the eggs, which seemed to move back and forth of its own accord. The chieftain made a fist and then opened the fingers wide. ‘Burst?’

‘Hatch?’ suggested Fairgold before he realised what he was saying. ‘They’re about to hatch?’

The captain kept his expression as a fixed smile but could feel his companions backing away slightly from the table. Fairgold rallied quickly.

‘Not long to wait, eh?’ He forced a chuckle. ‘Means they are good, yes?’

The orruk considered this and then nodded once.

‘Only two?’ he rumbled, red eyes flicking to the third satchel. Fairgold glanced back at Hengirod, who was holding his bag as though it were a shrapnel shell with a lit fuse.

‘Only one map?’ Fairgold replied instinctively. Of course, there was only one map, but it was his nature to get every concession he could. Part of him wished his lips to stop moving but it was overruled by habit. ‘There is still the question of a guide to answer. And, of course, the problem is that such aether-veins come and go. How am I to know whether the aether-gold will be there tomorrow, or the day after?’

The orruk rippled a lip, which might have been a smile or a grimace; it was impossible to tell. Fairgold held his nerve, meeting the gaze of the warlord while trying not to return any of the belligerence in its stare.

‘Huh. Good map. Two clouds sky-gold,’ said Orgaggarok. The warlord lifted up two clawed fingers. The map-bearer came forward and let the chart unroll, showing a roughly daubed but legible illustration of the region around Breakward Stark. There were two streaks of bright yellow: one above the mountains nearby and another closer to the coast of the Sea of Copperdust.

‘Two sky-gold clouds, better than two eggs.’ The orruk eyed the third satchel pointedly.

Fairgold took a breath slowly, trying not to look impressed. A second aether-vein! Not only would he cover the repairs to the Daughter, he could fund two expeditions to look for the Night’s Gift too, and still have a small saving left over to procure a few shares in a promising company.

‘Two for two seems like a bargain,’ he began, but saw the furrowing brows once again and veered away from further haggling. ‘But you have been most generous already and I am sure we can reach an agreement soon.’

He waved Hengirod forward. The other duardin deposited a third egg on the table before retreating swiftly, throwing nervous glances at the rest of the crew members.

‘Three good,’ snarled the orruk chief.

The beastmaster leaned forward, looked at the eggs for a few heart-stopping moments and then roared a few words to its lord. Orgaggarok responded with an interrogative snarl and there followed more fang snapping, grunting and pointing. The warboss stood so quickly he almost knocked over the table.

‘Snarskab say eggs come from Iron Peaks!’ bellowed the orruk. He thrust an accusing finger at Fairgold. ‘Iron Peaks is Falling Fist land.’

‘Is it?’ Fairgold replied with all the false innocence he could muster.

‘These my eggs. You take and sell to me. Thief!’

Fairgold grabbed a monstrous egg in each hand and held them up, making obvious his intent to dash them to the floor. Orgaggarok froze, beady red eyes flicking between the duardin and the eggs.

‘It’s still a good deal,’ said the captain, taking a step back. The scrape of chairs and blades in scabbards sounded from other parts of the hall. Behind him, his crew laid hands on pistol handles and sword grips.

The orruk warlord bared dagger-teeth in reply.

‘Catch!’

Fairgold threw the eggs – one to the chieftain, another to the beastmaster. As they scrabbled to catch the falling eggs, Fairgold dodged past the trunk-table and smashed his right fist into the face of the map-grot, pulling the parchment from its loosening grip as the diminutive greenskin toppled backwards.

Orgaggarok intercepted him as he turned. For the second time since waking up that day, Fairgold found himself staring into the flared nostrils of a monstrous creature that wanted to kill him. For the second time since waking up he found himself issuing the same command.

‘Run for it!’

Before obeying himself, Fairgold flexed his right wrist in a particular way, activating the springload built into the arm of his drift harness. A one-use aethershot cane slapped into his waiting palm, trigger under his thumb. In an instant, the duardin captain moved his aim from warlord to egg, stopping Orgaggarok in mid-swing.

The ruse would only work for a heartbeat, but in that heartbeat Fairgold lifted his aim and opened fire, a spray of aetheric-propelled bullets ripping into the face of the beastmaster.

One of his companions fired, the crack of aethershot ruddily lighting the hall for a second. In the next instant, blades clashed and orruk shouts competed in volume with duardin curses. Orgaggarok swung his cleaver. Fairgold ducked, losing the tip of his hat-feather and the tiniest sliver of ear as the blade swept down and into the trunk-table. A heartbeat later, Fairgold had a blade in one hand and a proper pistol in the other. He fired at the red-armoured shapes around him, thrusting his blade without much thought as the melee spilled towards the firepit. He came face to face with a grot, who spat at him and then turned tail to run.

The orruks drew back, recovering from the surprise, giving the duardin a precious few moments to gather about their captain, a hedgehog of pointing swords and pistol muzzles. Huddled together they moved towards the door, at least a brace of pistols moving to confront any orruk that dared approach, discouraging further assault. Having levered his cleaver from the table, Orgaggarok stomped forward, helmed head carving furrows in the beams of the ceiling. Faced with a wall of aethershot pistols he paused, snarling and snapping like a wakened guard hound.

With gesturing pistols, they waved the guards away from the doors and managed to negotiate their way across the threshold. Outside, dusk was settling fast. A few other orruks were taking an interest, but for the moment the sounds of fighting had not caused enough of a stir to rouse the rest of the settlement.

Fairgold looked around, scanning the sky above the wall for any sign of the Daughter. Ruddy dusk painted the air behind the peaks and twilight orange gave way to night blues in the other direction, equally devoid of sky-ship. He’d been hoping the others had turned up during the negotiations.

Eyes returning to the warlord as the orruk exited the hall, Fairgold called out.

‘You’ve got the eggs! Nobody else has to get hurt.’ Fairgold swished his blade back and forth a few times. ‘Especially you.’

Orgaggarok rumbled a laugh in response, swinging his blade. ‘But it fun,’ the warlord growled back. ‘Not kill you quick. Got fire nice and…’

The orruk trailed off, gaze moving up and away from the duardin. Fairgold felt a sudden chill as a long evening shadow fell across him. He half turned, laughing.

‘The Daughter, by Valaya’s bountiful bosom! Later is better than…’ The captain’s celebration was cut short as he saw not an armoured ironclad cruising over the wall of the stronghold but a monstrous reptilian with a scab-crusted face and shoulder.

Fairgold let out an un-duardin-like shriek and threw himself to the dirt as the maw-krusha swept down.

The raucous shouts of the orruks could have been surprise, panic or elation, or perhaps all three. The warlord brandished his cleaver and bellowed at the diving monster while his companions started converging on the hall from across the settlement.

‘The gate!’ snapped Fairgold, picking himself up. Ahead, the wooden gates were wide open but a crowd of grots were gathering around the massive capstan that would wind them shut. More grots on the towers hastily repositioned their bolt throwers and catapults to target the maw-krusha. Inside the stockade the beast crashed to a landing in front of the hall, hurt wing almost failing as claws scrabbled furrows through the dirt.

The duardin dashed as fast as they could towards the narrowing rectangle of woodland visible through the gates, Fairgold bringing up the rear as he glanced over his shoulder. Claw matched against iron, the maw-krusha and warboss slashed at each other with unbridled savagery, ripping armoured scales and metal plates from one another.

‘Captain!’ Thorkki’s shout drew Fairgold’s attention back to their own situation. A clamorous clanging from an alarm gong brought several dozen orruks towards the gate to help the grots. And the gap of the gate was now only wide enough for two abreast, closing fast.

A chorus of bestial shouts followed by a monstrous roar confirmed the battle outside the hall was still ongoing. Looking at the distance between his crew and the gate, Fairgold faltered in his stride.

‘Ease off,’ he told them. ‘We’re not going to make it.’

The others came to a ragged halt and unconsciously formed a circle as orruks pounded towards them from across the stronghold.

As blades were raised, a distant boom echoed across the treetops an instant before the blur of a shell slammed into the side of the maw-krusha, showering the ground and orruks with broken scales and bloody chunks of flesh. Duardin and orruk alike gave throat to their happiness as the Night’s Daughter hauled into view over the peakward wall; the latter turned to angry bellows as aethershock torpedoes blasted the wooden wall into fire and splinters, the flaming blossom hurling grots and orruks high through the air. Carbine fire followed swiftly while rope ladders unrolled down the sides of the descending ironclad.

The duardin needed no encouragement from their leader and threw themselves towards the trailing ladders as the ship passed through the flame and smoke, pulling themselves up even as companions reached down to help.

Pistol and blade in hand, Fairgold watched their backs, turning slowly until he came to face towards the hall. The maw-krusha was still alive, but only barely. The confrontation had smashed away some of the pillars so that the front of the hall had collapsed, bringing down a wall and half the roof. In the corner of his eye Fairgold could see the flicker of flames where the stronghold wall used to be.

Past the twitching maw-krusha he saw the orruk chieftain. The warboss levelled his blade in accusation and bellowed something in the greenskins’ guttural language. Fairgold needed no translator to recognise a bloody oath of vengeance when he saw one.

To his left and right orruks closed in, some of them falling to marksman fire from the Night’s Daughter, others weathering the bullets with sparks and chips from their thick armour. The closest was almost within blade reach. Fairgold would have to turn his back to make for the ladders…

He held his ground, aiming his pistol at the closest foe.

‘Grab my hand.’

Fairgold turned to find Verna behind and above him, drifting closer in full dirigible suit, aetherturbines buzzing loudly. She held out a gloved hand, the other encased in a handmade aethershot rig that spat a hail of projectiles at the swarming orruks. As Fairgold holstered his pistol and grabbed hold, howls of anguish surrounded him, swinging blades missing his dangling booted feet.

The pair flew higher, soaring over the rising Night’s Daughter. Shots from the greenskin war machines clanged against the hull and ricocheted around Eskar and the aethertank as she steered the ironclad up and away. Down in the settlement Fairgold spied the human slaves throttling grots with their chains before they made a dash for the gaps in the burning wall.

Verna guided them back towards the foredeck as the ship lifted out of range of the orruk war engines. She let Fairgold drop to the planks at the bow before attaching herself to a hitching ring on the outer hull.

Ahead the sun set over the wooded mountains, bathing the valley in ruddy gold. Even as the Breakward Stark disappeared in evening haze, Fairgold had a feeling that it was not the last he had seen of Orgaggarok and the Falling Fist.

‘You were lucky none of us got killed,’ snapped Thorkki. ‘And for what?’

In his cabin with Verna, Eskar, Thorkki and a few others, Fairgold tightened a bandage round his arm where an orruk blade had nicked him in the scramble from the hall. Verna helped him tie the knot as he fumbled at the ends of the bandage with stubby fingers.

‘For this!’ crowed Fairgold, dragging a rumpled and slightly torn rag of parchment from out of his armoured jerkin. He unrolled it on the chart table and, with a broad grin, plunged a fat finger onto one of the streaks of yellow. ‘There’s aether-gold in them hills! Two clouds!’

‘The map!’ cried Thorkki.

‘You didn’t think we’d walk away with nothing, did you?’ He gave Thorkki an admonishing look. ‘When have I ever come out of a deal with hands as empty as an aelf’s promise?’

‘Well…’ began Thorkki, but Verna cut him off.

‘I’m sorry we couldn’t get to you sooner,’ she said, laying a hand on the captain’s arm.

‘If we had pushed any harder, the screws would have fallen off,’ said Eskar. ‘You should have seen her, dashing about like a mad thing to keep everything ticking over, keeping us all on our toes.’

‘Of course you did,’ said Fairgold, taking Verna’s hand to give it a squeeze. ‘I never doubted for a heartbeat that you’d be there.’

They shared a smile before he returned his gaze to the others.

‘As you know, I never leave myself without an option or two,’ Fairgold beamed. ‘We’ve come out of this even better than I hoped. You see, there were four eggs in that nest, not three. We can find someone else that’ll pay for a maw-krusha egg.’

‘Where is it?’ asked Verna.

‘Nukduk’s looking after it in the galley,’ said Fairgold.

His gaze met that of Thorkki, whose eyebrows were slowly knotting in thought.

‘That orruk told you they was really close to hatching…’ said the greybeard.

As Fairgold bolted towards the cabin door, a hoarse shriek sang out across the Night’s Daughter, followed by a drawn-out cry of alarm and the crash of falling plates and pans.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Gav Thorpe is the author of the Horus Heresy novels Deliverance Lost, Angels of Caliban and Corax, as well as the novella The Lion, which formed part of the New York Times bestselling collection The Primarchs, and several audio dramas including the bestselling Raven’s Flight. He has written The Red Feast for Age of Sigmar, as well as many novels for Warhammer 40,000, including Ashes of Prospero, Imperator: Wrath of the Omnissiah, Rise of the Ynnari: Ghost Warrior, Rise of the Ynnari: Wild Rider, Jain Zar: The Storm of Silence and Asurmen: Hand of Asuryan. He also wrote the Path of the Eldar and Legacy of Caliban trilogies, and two volumes in The Beast Arises series. For Warhammer, Gav has penned the End Times novel The Curse of Khaine, the Warhammer Chronicles omnibus The Sundering, and much more besides. In 2017, Gav won the David Gemmell Legend Award for his Age of Sigmar novel Warbeast. He lives and works in Nottingham.

An extract from Overlords of the Iron Dragon.

The sorcerer’s face curled back in a leering rictus, exposing the blackened stumps of bone hidden behind his lips. There was something almost batrachian in his visage, bulbous eyes jutting from puffy folds of skin. Unlike the flesh around them, there was no softness in Khoram’s toadlike eyes, only a rapacious hunger as they stared both outwards and inwards.

Possibilities and potentialities, the twistings of doom and fate, the shadows of futures yet unmade. Scenes of glorious victory and visions of annihilating disaster, each waxing and waning like the falling sands of time. The ebb and flow of prophecy was unrelenting and unforgiving. The weak of mind were consumed by the ordeal of divining insight from the tide of omen and portent, driven mad by their inability to confine such knowledge into purely mundane perceptions. The weak of spirit lost themselves in the cosmic expanse of the infinite, flesh and soul obliterated as they surrendered to the cyclopean enormity where past and future united into a single moment that defied the mortal conceit of time. Humanity had been the first and least of the sacrifices Khoram had rendered to his black arts.

The sorcerer was a tall man, his body disfigured by the manifold blessings thrust upon him by his dread god. Grossly mutated, his robes and armour folded awkwardly about his frame. The side of his neck bulged with a hideous feathered growth, pushing his head down towards the opposite shoulder. One hand, the less malformed of his extremities, gripped a long staff. The other hand, ending in elongated, boneless digits, beckoned to the fist-sized sphere of glass that hovered around his head. At his summons, the sphere came to rest, floating just before his eyes.

Wind rippled the sorcerer’s robes, disturbing the feathers of the growth on his neck. The beast upon which he stood shuddered, shifting slightly as it adjusted its flight through the darkling skies, high above the bleak hills of Shadowfar. The sorcerer’s boots were gripped by hairy tendrils that emerged from the creature’s back, melded into its very substance. The flattened, ray-like daemon could no more divorce itself of its rider than it could shed its own organs. Its corporeal form had become subsumed by Khoram, existing as an extension of his own. Through the skies of Chamon it would carry him until such time as it was dismissed and its physical mass dissolved into vapour. There would always be another daemon ready to enter the Mortal Realms to replace it when the sorcerer was in need.

Khoram’s wormy fingers reached out and curled around the scintillating sphere, little ribbons of steam rising where his cobalt-hued skin rested against the glassy surface. Even flesh that had been transformed by the blessings of Mighty Tzeentch wasn’t immune to the corrosive touch of temporal abeyance.

‘Mighty is your power, oh Orb of Zobras,’ Khoram hissed to the gleaming sphere. ‘You are prophecy manifest. Prediction given physical form.’ He felt the heat in his fingers gradually lessen. The sorcerer thought of the great seer who had created the orb. ‘Zobras sacrificed much to achieve you,’ he told the relic. ‘At the height of his power he commanded daemons to forge you from the essence of time and dream. You are the pinnacle of his magic.’

The flattery spilled off Khoram’s tongue, tasting bitter in his mouth. By arduous rite and obscene ritual, the sphere had been soulbound to him, orbiting him like a captive star. To command the orb was never enough, however. It had to be appeased. Zobras had ignored the will of the relic he had created and in the end it had betrayed him when the armies of Chaos laid waste to his theocracy. The prophet’s ruin was a warning, a reminder to remain humble before the Dark Gods.

‘Reveal to me the path of things yet to become,’ Khoram enjoined the orb.

He stared into the sphere, peering into its thousands of facets. Each one bore its own story, its own interpretation of how the future would unfold. Trying to concentrate upon all of them would be futile, an effort that had driven lesser sorcerers mad. Khoram, however, had received one blessing from his god that made all the difference.

‘There! There!’ The words sounded from the feathered growth on Khoram’s neck. A tiny face peered out from the midst of the feathers, clusters of black eyes fixated upon the orb’s planes. ‘There!’ the homunculus repeated.

Khoram diverted his attention from the images his parasitic daemon had rejected. He depended upon the creature’s guidance to lead him to the most propitious of the visions. A connoisseur of lies, the tretchlet unerringly sniffed out the truth for its master.

The sorcerer’s eyes gleamed as his familiar drew his attention to the image playing out within one of the facets. The moment he focused upon the image and his mind digested the scene, the other surfaces around it changed. Now they exhibited a new array of futures, possibilities derived from the initial prediction. Again, Khoram felt the tretchlet guiding him to the most truthful of the prophecies. Mustering his resolve, he tore his gaze away from the orb. It was unwise to peer too far ahead at one time. Therein lay the route of obsession and the madness of infinity.

Looking away from the orb, Khoram gazed out across the cloud-swept skies. Ugly fogs of scintillating amber cascaded through the atmosphere, thrown aloft by the forests of spytepine that infested the hills far below. Buzzing swarms of tiny blot-midges flocked to the amber, greedily glutting themselves on the shimmering motes of hardened sap. Those that fed too lustily became weighted down by their feast, crashing onto the slopes below, their carcasses fertilising the very trees that provoked their downfall. The flux of Change in action, from benefactor to exploiter, from predator to prey. The role played one moment was but a mask that could swiftly be torn away, either by expedience or by the whims of fate.

Khoram’s left hand closed tighter about the whorled runestaff he held. Glancing down at the daemon upon which he stood, the sorcerer drove the spiked butt of the implement into one of the scarred grooves that circled the creature’s forward edge. The disc-shaped thing snarled in irritation as the goad jabbed at it. Wormy tendrils tried to writhe up from underneath the daemon’s body, but their reach was incapable of threatening the mortal on its back. The creature let out another snarl, the shudder of its annoyance shivering through its substance up into Khoram’s feet. The circular daemon floated upwards, racing towards the height to which its master directed it.

The roar of battle crashed upon the sorcerer’s ears. The skies below him were filled with conflict. Savage warriors draped in kilts of sapphire and malachite soared through the air on daemonic chargers similar to the one Khoram rode. Fiery chariots harnessed to still larger daemons careened across the atmosphere, trailing plumes of smoke and flame in their wake. Bird-faced half-men glided about the fray, borne aloft upon shrieking daemon-steeds and loosing arrows of bone from bows cut from the tendons of gargants.

The warhost of men and monsters spiralled around a clutch of fantastical craft. Great ships soared over Shadowfar, supported by metal cupolas suspended above their decks. From prow and stern, each ship directed an array of weaponry against their tormentors. Beams of golden light streaked out at masked warriors, punching through their flesh as they solidified into bullets just before reaching their targets. Harpoons rocketed away from cylindrical launchers fixed to the decks, the spears impaling howling beastmen, leaving them dangling against the keel until the chains fitted to the projectile were reeled back in.

From the decks, from armoured baskets fastened to the cupolas and the sides of the hulls themselves, the crew of the sky-vessels directed a determined defence. Pistols belched shot into the very faces of the attackers, larger snub-nosed weapons spewed blasts that shredded the wings of beastmen and scoured the hides of daemons. Axes and pikes were employed to deadly effect, hacking through the beaked faces of the monstrous raiders or plucking warriors from the backs of their steeds to send them plummeting to the earth far below.

‘How unfit for the storm are our foes,’ Khoram mused, the tretchlet gibbering in agreement. The crews of the sky-vessels were utterly unlike their vicious foes. They were shorter and stockier, broadly and stolidly built. Most wore bulky armour of heavy metal plates, their faces locked inside helms with glowering masks and golden beards. ‘They lack the grace and agility of those born to the skies. Brutes of rock and stone that seek to conquer the tempest with their puerile inventions.’

The sorcerer shook his head. ‘The duardin are a meddlesome breed. Whatever the peculiarities of their creed they invariably demand great effort to dispose of. More effort than some are willing to expend.’

As the thought came to him, Khoram gazed back into the orb. Responding to his mind, the facets shimmered and displayed a new array of images. Each facet displayed the same Chaos warrior standing upon the back of a daemonic disc. He presented a gruesome aspect, his baroque armour still dripping with the sacrificial blood used to anoint it before the fighting. Dismembered fingers dipped in wax were plastered about his gorget like hideous candles. Veiled by the smoke rising from the smouldering fingers his horned helm was an indistinct suggestion of shape and motion. Only the nine eyes that stared from the jumble of visors scattered across the helm’s face exhibited any clarity, shining through the smoke like angry embers.

‘Tamuzz is in a particularly wrathful humour,’ Khoram told his homunculus.

As he watched, an armoured duardin defending the bow of one of the ships jabbed at the warlord’s daemon-steed with a pike, ripping into its mottled hide. Tamuzz brought the fiery blade of the glaive he bore crunching down into the duardin’s head. Even as the enchanted blade bit through iron helm and bony skull Tamuzz pressed the attack, not relenting until he had cleft the enemy from pate to palate.

‘Losing so many of his followers in the fighting has upset him,’ Khoram stated. ‘For all the blessings Mighty Tzeentch has seen fit to bestow on him, Tamuzz still reckons power in tired old conceits of mortal rule and domination.’

Seen in the facets of the orb, Tamuzz ripped his glaive free and sent the body of the slaughtered duardin hurtling over the side of the ship. The warlord sought another foe, but even as he did Khoram sent a tendril of magic rippling through the orb to reach into Tamuzz’s mind. ‘Come to me,’ Khoram hissed, his homunculus echoing the words in a greasy titter. ‘Come to me.’ He was careful to invest the summons with more suggestion than command. Too overt a touch would rouse Tamuzz’s resistance and Khoram knew from past experience that the warlord’s will was strong enough to defy his magic if he was aware of its influence. ‘Set the thought in his head, let Tamuzz think it is of his own volition and there is little he will not do,’ Khoram boasted to his tretchlet. The daemonic parasite whined, reminding his master that his boast wasn’t entirely true.

The dark spectre of the warlord came speeding away from the battle, a thin slick of ichor seeping from the injured daemon that supported him, leaving a greasy smear in his wake.

‘My slaves perish, curseling,’ Tamuzz hissed at Khoram as he soared towards the sorcerer.

‘Mighty Tzeentch demands payment,’ Khoram replied. ‘The Changer does not favour slaves…’

Tamuzz shook the massive glaive he bore, the arcane energies bound within it causing a flicker of power to coruscate along the blade. ‘Spare me your philosophy. You promised me the sky-vessels. Bring them down.’

Khoram cocked his head to one side, staring past Tamuzz to watch the battle over the warlord’s shoulder. He saw one of the warlord’s adepts pitch from the back of his daemon-steed when a duardin shot him in the face. ‘They will fall,’ Khoram said. ‘But they will fall when it is propitious to a greater purpose. The purpose to which we both strive.’

The flash of arcane energy faded from the warlord’s glaive. The smouldering eyes lost their lustre, almost seeming to pull the veiling smoke tighter around them. ‘I have not forgotten,’ Tamuzz replied.

‘Then let us do what is needed of us,’ Khoram said. He waved his snaky fingers away towards the horizon. ‘We must harry them still further away from Shadowfar. The next valley. That is where their doom will come.’ The sorcerer nodded at the orb circling him. ‘Such is the prophecy that guides us.’

‘I will lose more warriors,’ Tamuzz objected, some of the edge creeping back into his tone.

‘You will gain more, glorious Tamuzz,’ Khoram insisted. ‘Through me, you will be at the right hand of Power.’

Click here to buy Overlords of the Iron Dragon.

A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

First published in Great Britain in 2020.
This eBook edition published in 2020 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Cover illustration by Tomas Duchek.

Buyer Beware © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2020. Buyer Beware, GW, Games Workshop, Black Library, Warhammer, Warhammer Age of Sigmar, Stormcast Eternals, and all associated logos, illustrations, images, names, creatures, races, vehicles, locations, weapons, characters, and the distinctive likenesses thereof, are either ® or TM, and/or © Games Workshop Limited, variably registered around the world.
All Rights Reserved.

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN: 978-1-80026-331-4

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

See Black Library on the internet at
blacklibrary.com

Find out more about Games Workshop’s world of Warhammer and the Warhammer 40,000 universe at
games-workshop.com

eBook license

This license is made between:

Games Workshop Limited t/a Black Library, Willow Road, Lenton, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, United Kingdom (“Black Library”); and

the purchaser of a Black Library e-book product (“You/you/Your/your”)

(jointly, “the parties”)

These are the terms and conditions that apply when you purchase a Black Library e-book (“e-book”). The parties agree that in consideration of the fee paid by you, Black Library grants you a license to use the e-book on the following terms:

* 1. Black Library grants to you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, royalty-free license to use the e-book in the following ways:

o 1.1 to store the e-book on any number of electronic devices and/or storage media (including, by way of example only, personal computers, e-book readers, mobile phones, portable hard drives, USB flash drives, CDs or DVDs) which are personally owned by you;

o 1.2 to access the e-book using an appropriate electronic device and/or through any appropriate storage media.

* 2. For the avoidance of doubt, you are ONLY licensed to use the e-book as described in paragraph 1 above. You may NOT use or store the e-book in any other way. If you do, Black Library shall be entitled to terminate this license.

* 3. Further to the general restriction at paragraph 2, Black Library shall be entitled to terminate this license in the event that you use or store the e-book (or any part of it) in any way not expressly licensed. This includes (but is by no means limited to) the following circumstances:

o 3.1 you provide the e-book to any company, individual or other legal person who does not possess a license to use or store it;

o 3.2 you make the e-book available on bit-torrent sites, or are otherwise complicit in ‘seeding’ or sharing the e-book with any company, individual or other legal person who does not possess a license to use or store it;

o 3.3 you print and distribute hard copies of the e-book to any company, individual or other legal person who does not possess a license to use or store it;

o 3.4 you attempt to reverse engineer, bypass, alter, amend, remove or otherwise make any change to any copy protection technology which may be applied to the e-book.

* 4. By purchasing an e-book, you agree for the purposes of the Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations 2000 that Black Library may commence the service (of provision of the e-book to you) prior to your ordinary cancellation period coming to an end, and that by purchasing an e-book, your cancellation rights shall end immediately upon receipt of the e-book.

* 5. You acknowledge that all copyright, trademark and other intellectual property rights in the e-book are, shall remain, the sole property of Black Library.

* 6. On termination of this license, howsoever effected, you shall immediately and permanently delete all copies of the e-book from your computers and storage media, and shall destroy all hard copies of the e-book which you have derived from the e-book.

* 7. Black Library shall be entitled to amend these terms and conditions from time to time by written notice to you.

* 8. These terms and conditions shall be governed by English law, and shall be subject only to the jurisdiction of the Courts in England and Wales.

* 9. If any part of this license is illegal, or becomes illegal as a result of any change in the law, then that part shall be deleted, and replaced with wording that is as close to the original meaning as possible without being illegal.

* 10. Any failure by Black Library to exercise its rights under this license for whatever reason shall not be in any way deemed to be a waiver of its rights, and in particular, Black Library reserves the right at all times to terminate this license in the event that you breach clause 2 or clause 3.