Collections

THE REALMGATE WARS: VOLUME 1
Various authors
Contains the novels The Gates of Azyr, War Storm, Ghal Maraz, Hammers of Sigmar, Wardens of the Everqueen and Black Rift

THE REALMGATE WARS: VOLUME 2
Various authors
Contains the novels Call of Achaon, Warbeast, Fury of Gork, Bladestorm, Mortarch of Night and Lord of Undeath

LEGENDS OF THE AGE OF SIGMAR
Various authors
An anthology of short stories

RULERS OF THE DEAD
Josh Reynolds & David Annandale
Contains the novels Neferata: Mortarch of Blood and Nagash: The Undying King

WARCRY
Various authors
An anthology of short stories

GODS & MORTALS
Various authors
An anthology of short stories

MYTHS & REVENANTS
Various authors
An anthology of short stories

Novels

• HALLOWED KNIGHTS •
Josh Reynolds
BOOK ONE: Plague Garden
BOOK TWO: Black Pyramid

EIGHT LAMENTATIONS: SPEAR OF SHADOWS
Josh Reynolds

• KHARADRON OVERLORDS •
C L Werner
BOOK ONE: Overlords of the Iron Dragon
BOOK TWO: Profit’s Ruin

SOUL WARS
Josh Reynolds

CALLIS & TOLL: THE SILVER SHARD
Nick Horth

THE TAINTED HEART
C L Werner

SHADESPIRE: THE MIRRORED CITY
Josh Reynolds

BLACKTALON: FIRST MARK
Andy Clark

HAMILCAR: CHAMPION OF THE GODS
David Guymer

SCOURGE OF FATE
Robbie MacNiven

THE RED FEAST
Gav Thorpe

GLOOMSPITE
Andy Clark

GHOULSLAYER
Darius Hinks

BEASTGRAVE
C L Werner

NEFERATA: THE DOMINION OF BONES
David Annandale

THE COURT OF THE BLIND KING
David Guymer

Novellas

CITY OF SECRETS
Nick Horth

THIEVES’ PARADISE
Nick Horth

CODE OF THE SKIES
Graeme Lyon

THE MEASURE OF IRON
Jamie Crisalli

Audio Dramas

REALMSLAYER
David Guymer

REALMSLAYER: BLOOD OF THE OLD WORLD
David Guymer

THE BEASTS OF CARTHA
David Guymer

FIST OF MORK, FIST OF GORK
David Guymer

GREAT RED
David Guymer

ONLY THE FAITHFUL
David Guymer

THE PRISONER OF THE BLACK SUN
Josh Reynolds

SANDS OF BLOOD
Josh Reynolds

THE LORDS OF HELSTONE
Josh Reynolds

THE BRIDGE OF SEVEN SORROWS
Josh Reynolds

WAR-CLAW
Josh Reynolds

SHADESPIRE: THE DARKNESS IN THE GLASS
Various authors

THE IMPRECATIONS OF DAEMONS
Nick Kyme

THE PALACE OF MEMORY AND OTHER STORIES
Various authors

Contents

Cover

Backlist

Title Page

Warhammer Age of Sigmar

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Epilogue

About the Author

An Extract from ‘The Court of the Blind King’

A Black Library Publication

eBook license

From the maelstrom of a sundered world, the Eight Realms were born. The formless and the divine exploded into life.

Strange, new worlds appeared in the firmament, each one gilded with spirits, gods and men. Noblest of the gods was Sigmar. For years beyond reckoning he illuminated the realms, wreathed in light and majesty as he carved out his reign. His strength was the power of thunder. His wisdom was infinite. Mortal and immortal alike kneeled before his lofty throne. Great empires rose and, for a while, treachery was banished. Sigmar claimed the land and sky as his own and ruled over a glorious age of myth.

But cruelty is tenacious. As had been foreseen, the great alliance of gods and men tore itself apart. Myth and legend crumbled into Chaos. Darkness flooded the realms. Torture, slavery and fear replaced the glory that came before. Sigmar turned his back on the mortal kingdoms, disgusted by their fate. He fixed his gaze instead on the remains of the world he had lost long ago, brooding over its charred core, searching endlessly for a sign of hope. And then, in the dark heat of his rage, he caught a glimpse of something magnificent. He pictured a weapon born of the heavens. A beacon powerful enough to pierce the endless night. An army hewn from everything he had lost.

Sigmar set his artisans to work and for long ages they toiled, striving to harness the power of the stars. As Sigmar’s great work neared completion, he turned back to the realms and saw that the dominion of Chaos was almost complete. The hour for vengeance had come. Finally, with lightning blazing across his brow, he stepped forth to unleash his creations.

The Age of Sigmar had begun.

PROLOGUE

A wet soup of brains and blood spattered across the bare rock wall as the spiked mace came smashing down. The stricken warrior collapsed in a twitching heap, his feet drumming against the floor as his life leaked away. The man’s killer brought its cloven hoof clomping down on his armoured chest, staving in the ribs beneath the bronze breastplate. The hulking beastman raised its horned head in a bellow of triumph.

The savage roar ended in a gurgling wail, a feathered shaft suddenly sprouting from the beastman’s furred throat. It tried to rip the arrow free, but as it closed its clawed fingers around the missile it became a writhing adder. The serpent sank its venomous fangs into the goat-headed monster’s wrist, sending a stream of burning death into the bestigor’s veins. It crashed to the floor beside the human whose head it had pulped.

Through the litter of corpses that lay strewn about the winding hallway, the archer slipped into view. Cloaked from head to toe in a purple mantle that blended itself to the deep shadows with eldritch facility, the bowman peered warily at the bestigor he had just slain. Too intent upon satisfying himself that the powerful brute was indeed dead, he failed to veil himself in the dark folds of his cloak when a masked figure appeared at the furthest bend of the hall. Before he could react, the newcomer raised a gnarled finger and gestured at him.

Gore exploded from the corners of the archer’s eyes as an invisible wave of arcane power smashed into him. He crumpled to his knees while the magical assault ravaged him from within, churning his organs into mush. In too much agony to lift his bow, the tortured man upended his quiver and sent a writhing nest of arrow-adders slithering towards his destroyer.

The masked warlock waved his hand at the crawling vipers. One of the serpents rolled onto its back, contorting as smoke and wisps of flame bubbled up from beneath its scales. The rest of the adders kept coming. The warlock gestured again, his movements frantic now, but once more the malefic spell concentrated itself upon a single snake, leaving the rest of them unharmed. When he unleashed a third conjuration only to find his magic reduced to a lone reptile, the warlock turned to flee. As he did, he found the passage behind him blocked by a coven of robed cultists arrayed in golden masks much like his own.

The foremost of the cultists jabbed at the warlock with an iron spear. He darted back, avoiding the barbed head, but in doing so put himself within reach of the arrow-adders. Envenomed fangs struck at his foot. He stumbled to the floor, his mask muffling his shrieks as more of the snakes bit into him.

The magister leading the cultists raised her spear and motioned to her followers. Moving with an eerie unity, they hurried across the corpse-strewn hall. The sound of swords crashing together drew them towards one of the connecting corridors. Fingering their crooked knives and barbed spears, the cultists pursued the clamour of battle. As they did, they kept vigilant, only too aware that the sounds which goaded them on could be heard by others.

Within the bedlam of Shadowfar’s dark vastness, there was no shortage of enemies to be found.

The clamour of battle was only the faintest echo in Yoshiro’s ears. He had to exert himself to hear it at all, focusing his enchanted senses on the labyrinthine corridors that coursed through the fortress. There was almost no corner of the Sapphire Palace that was not gripped by fighting. Scores of warbands prowled the halls, each seeking to assert their primacy over the rest. Heroes and horrors from across the realm had come to claim dominance over the castle and claim the power of Tamuzz for their own.

Yoshiro smirked at such petty affairs, his sallow features shifting between visages as he did so. He cared nothing for the dead warlord’s crown. Let the others squabble over such inconsequential trappings. He had come to Shadowfar seeking real power. Power far more substantial than what the others were killing themselves to claim.

The hunt for that power had drawn Yoshiro here, to the sanctum hidden in the upper reaches of Shadowfar. From the powerful enchantments that concealed the place, the sorcerer suspected it was only partly fixed to the realm of Chamon, some of its essence dispersed into other realities. It took a practitioner of the black arts to find this place uninvited. It took a true erudite to safely penetrate that barrier of unreality. There had been others who had tried. He had seen their mangled corpses in the corridors outside. One, a pretty witch with a third eye in her forehead, had come nearest to succeeding. She had actually pierced the barrier, but her magic wasn’t equal to the ordeal. Part of her was still in the hall outside. The rest was in here, fused to the very wall itself.

Yoshiro sneered as he glanced back at the witch and considered the folly of those too weak and ignorant to claim the power he sought. Subtle changes rippled through his flesh, his skin darkening, his nose and eyes broadening until his countenance took on the character of a jungle-born Varasian gargant-hunter. Yoshiro scowled at the involuntary shifting. It was the dweomer of the sanctum that provoked these spasms of sorcery, at once both disconcerting and enticing. For such power to affect him meant the curseling Khoram had been even mightier than he had believed him to be.

Yoshiro willed his body back into what he considered his own aspect. His face resumed the gaunt, hungry appearance that he commonly affected when it was not more useful to become someone else. It was almost like flexing a muscle, to keep his features from sliding away again.

The sorcerer turned away from the dead witch and marched deeper into what had been Khoram’s sanctum. The cavernous chamber glowed with an uncanny light. Great braziers smouldered with arcane fire in the nine corners, their coruscations throwing a shifting panoply of hues across the hall. Yoshiro could see the sorcerous circles that had been drawn upon the floor. Nine concentric rings, each surrounded by chalked sigils and symbols of magical power. The stumps of black candles squatted amongst the circles, the stagnant smell of corpses rising from their puddled wax. The sorcerer’s attuned eyes could still detect the aetheric emanations that rose from the circles, the radiant residue left behind by the conjurations that had been performed here.

Yoshiro studied the magical emanations, casting his own spells to detect their nature. Were they the last flickers of old enchantments or were they indication of some ghastly ward yet to be evoked? Some final power left behind by Khoram to protect his secrets? Even after evoking his magic, he could not be certain which possibility held true.

The sorcerer’s attention shifted away from the circles and towards the tables and shelves that occupied one end of the sanctum. Eager anticipation rushed through Yoshiro. Here was what he had come so far to find: the arcane knowledge gathered by Khoram, whispered to the curseling by his daemonic homunculus and taught to him by the infernal Prismatic King itself! Laying both hands upon his chest, Yoshiro summoned the most powerful protective magics known to him. The hair upon his head changed from black to silver as he drew deeply upon his own vital forces to augment his spells. A wave of exhaustion crawled through him as his life energy was consumed. No time to seek another to serve as sacrifice, not when such a treasure was within his grasp. By exertion of sheer willpower, he shook off the debilitating lethargy and focused on the task at hand.

Surrounded by the sorcerous aura, Yoshiro strode past the circles and towards the shelves. His breath caught as he saw the piles of books and scrolls gathered there. His mind swelled with imaginings of what secrets they might hold.

‘One gets nothing for nothing.’

The voice was barely a whisper, but in the silence of the sanctum it crashed against Yoshiro’s ears like a peal of thunder. The sorcerer’s skin faded to an icy hue, his visage peeling back into the anthropoid snarl of a Horak snow-stalker. His hands swept before him in arcane passes, each finger twisted like the claw of a falcon.

‘There is a price to be paid. There is always a price to be paid.’

Yoshiro had focused his attention on the circle, believing the voice emanated from there. Now he spun around, directing his gaze towards the near wall. His eyes widened with surprise when he found himself staring up at a large mirror. The reflection within that mirror was not his own. He saw a tall man-like shape with cobalt-hued skin, dressed in dark robes and black armour. The figure’s face was almost frog-like, with bulging batrachian eyes. His stature was contorted, his posture twisted by the bulbous feathered growth that sprouted from his back. It was when that growth opened yellow eyes and clacked its hooked beak that Yoshiro knew whose reflection it was he gazed upon.

‘Khoram, the Ninth Prophet!’ Yoshiro gasped. In his horror, his features shifted again, his stature diminishing in a childlike semblance of fright. ‘You’re dead!’

The reflection nodded in agreement. ‘As there are degrees of life, so there are degrees of death. The flesh I wore is gone, but my image was preserved within this glass.’

Yoshiro struggled to compose himself, taking on his gaunt aspect once more. ‘An image caught within a glass,’ he mused. ‘A shadow and an echo trying to cheat the Prismatic King of its vengeance. You failed the daemon lord and now hide from its eternal wrath. What power can you conjure from your refuge, Mighty Khoram?’

‘Perhaps only that which was already prepared when I wore a mantle of flesh,’ Khoram answered. He pointed a wormy hand towards the ring of circles. ‘It would be unwise to taunt me, Yoshiro Turnblood. You were a student of Yondo. Do not forget it was my magic that destroyed your teacher.’

Colour flushed through Yoshiro’s face. ‘I’m unlikely to forget my father’s death,’ he growled.

Khoram’s face pulled back in a cold sneer, displaying blackened stumps of teeth. ‘Then you have a choice to make. Do you wish for the power I can give you, or vengeance for your father?’ The daemonic tretchlet on his shoulder gibbered in amusement. ‘You are a disciple of Great Tzeentch. I already know which purpose brought you here.’

The reflection turned and gestured to something that stood beyond the shelves Yoshiro had noted before. The sorcerer’s pulse quickened when he saw a massive stone lectern supporting an impossibly huge black-bound tome. Heavy chains circled the book, binding it to the lectern.

‘The Maleficara,’ Yoshiro hissed, his tone lustful. It was to possess that volume of profane knowledge that his father, Yondo, had challenged Khoram, and invited his own destruction.

‘It will be yours,’ Khoram promised. ‘Secrets beyond even Yondo’s imagining will be yours. If you will aid me. What wisdom do you seek? The power to command mighty dragons? The ability to bend the minds of your enemies and make them your slaves? Or is it escape you desire? A way to spare your soul from the pacts and promises you’ve made in your quest for power? I can give you these things, and more, if you serve me.’

Yoshiro turned back towards the mirror. ‘You are but an image caught in glass. What if I simply take the Maleficara for myself?’

‘You could try,’ Khoram agreed. ‘But before you do, consider the malignity of the wards which protect my sanctum. Then consider how much more potent are the spells that watch over my most prized treasure. Do as I bid and you may claim the Maleficara without danger. Otherwise… need I remind you of Yondo’s fate?’

Yoshiro sneered at the mirror. ‘I am not my father. My powers are far beyond his.’ He gestured at the Maleficara. ‘The book will be mine, and the reflection of a dead fool will not stop me.’

From beneath his robes the sorcerer drew out a brilliant gemstone, a jewel as big as his fist. It glowed with all the colours of the rainbow, shifting between each ray of the spectrum. He stared at it for a time. The jewel was a relic that had cost him much to possess. It had many powers which had served him well over the years. The power he would now draw from it, however, was one that would destroy it utterly. He would lose this treasure, but in doing so he would gain a much greater prize.

‘Protective wards to wrack any mortal bold enough to take the Maleficara,’ Yoshiro hissed. He laughed at Khoram’s image. ‘What happens when it is nothing mortal that defies your magic?’

As the sorcerer spoke, he cast down the jewel and whispered an inhuman name. The gemstone shattered when the name was spoken and a thick vapour boiled upwards. It took only a few heartbeats before the vapour started to draw back upon itself, the billowing cloud condensing into a more definite shape. Soon, a grotesque figure stood between Yoshiro and the book.

It was shorter than a man, but much broader, with squat toad-like legs and long ape-like arms. It had no neck, but a leering face with a beaked mouth jutted out directly from between the shoulders. Its wet, glistening hide was a dull pink peppered with welts of cobalt blue. The thing’s eyes glimmered with a ferocious intelligence, spiteful and malignant.

‘Bring me the book,’ Yoshiro commanded the daemon, his finger thrust at the object in question. ‘Bring me the book and you are free,’ he added when the creature hesitated.

‘The names of nine thousand daemons are trapped within those pages,’ Khoram announced from his mirror.

Yoshiro’s face curled back into a vicious scowl. ‘I am your master. Bring me the book or return to the gemstone.’

It would be a strain upon his powers, but he had the knowledge to make good on his threat. The pink daemon understood this and did not hesitate further. Uttering a shrill ululation, it hop-scurried to the pedestal.

Yoshiro grinned when he saw his daemon draw close. The arcane wards set by Khoram now assailed the creature. Strange purple fires and crackling lances of black lightning struck at the daemon, scorching its pinkish hide but wreaking far less havoc than they would have against mortal flesh. The daemon scampered still closer and now was assaulted by a phantasmal blade that erupted out of thin air to slash at it with its cleaving edge. This time the daemon burst apart in a flare of blue light. When the eruption of energy was expended, both the sword and the pink monster were gone, but in the daemon’s place were a pair of smaller horrors, blue child-sized creatures that scrambled for the lectern.

The split halves of Yoshiro’s daemon reached the Maleficara simultaneously. Both tried to grab the book at the same time, but as their clawed hands touched it the creatures instantly disappeared. Vanished as though they’d never been conjured into the halls of Shadowfar.

‘Now the book holds the names of nine thousand daemons,’ Khoram mocked from his mirror, ‘plus one. Perhaps you will listen to my offer, Yoshiro.’

The sorcerer glanced from the image in the glass to the chained tome and back again. ‘I’ll invoke the Changer’s ten thousand forbidden names to bind you to your word. Perhaps your mirror is enough to hide you from the Prismatic King, but there’s no hiding from Tzeentch.’

‘It is a pact then,’ Khoram agreed. ‘By the nameless horrors of Tchar, let it be.’

Yoshiro raised his hand in objection. ‘Before I’ll wager my soul upon eternal torture, first I would know what’s expected of me. I know what I’ve been promised. Now I’d know what you want.’

There was a cold glimmer in Khoram’s toad-like eyes as he stared back at Yoshiro. ‘A purpose near to your own heart. There is a Kharadron ship and her captain. That is the reason for my disgrace. Within this refuge, I cannot move against my enemy. You can.

‘What I want is revenge. Revenge upon the Iron Dragon and Captain Brokrin.’

CHAPTER ONE

Brokrin Ullissonn looked about the guildhall, his eyes roving across the massive cast-iron ancestor-lords who stared back at him from the ceiling. The ornaments in each duardin’s beard were picked out in a dazzling array of gemstones. He scrutinised the rich hangings that spilled down the sides of the metal pillars which supported the domed roof. The fabric was finest cloth-of-gold and the rune-glyphs woven across them had been dyed the rich purple that could only be harvested from the ink of the harkraken. The walls of the assembly room were covered in long slabs of black granite, each a dozen feet across yet thin as a beardling’s whiskers. The stone panels created the impression of mountain halls and vaults deep beneath the hills where the ancestors of the Kharadron had once reigned. The floor, however, dispelled such illusions. Wrought from crushed lapis and shining with the glow of pearl, the tiles under Brokrin’s feet conjured the image of lofty heights far above the tallest mountains. The new domain the Kharadron had claimed for their own.

Brokrin stroked his plaited blond beard, an almost wistful look creeping into his eyes. How much he would rather be out there among the clouds, steering his ship into unexplored skies! There had always been a streak of wanderlust in his veins, something that made him impatient and restless if he tarried too long in one place. The longest he had ever spent in the sky-hold of Barak-Zilfin was the six months it had taken to repair the Iron Dragon after her fight with the monster Ghazul. Only a few days since returning to the port after their escape from Finnolf’s Fortress, and he was keen to be away again.

Though this time Brokrin had good reason to want to be away.

Except for the few custodians he had left aboard the Iron Dragon, the rest of Brokrin’s crew were with him in the assembly-room. Nearest to him was the navigator, Mortrimm, chewing on the clay stem of his pipe. The white-bearded duardin glanced over at Brokrin and frowned at the captain’s wandering attention. He gave him a nudge of his elbow and nodded to the far side of the room.

Brokrin reluctantly returned his attention to the tiered rows of seats where the merchants of the Tenguild League, the backers of the Iron Dragon’s last voyage, glowered down at him and his crew. Each of the traders seemed to vie with his neighbour in the ostentation of his garb. Richly brocaded jackets with jewelled buttons and elaborate sashes of silk were accompanied by rakish hats, sagging beneath the weight of rare feathers sewn into their brims. The gloved fingers of every merchant were a riot of rings and gilded nails, while their beards were thick with ornaments of diamond and ruby. Around the traders, liveried servants hurried to refill ivory flagons with the headiest of beers and richest of ales.

Not all the duardin who bustled around the merchants were mere attendants. There were a number of logisticators too, scrambling from one trader to another with sheets of copper. Brokrin could guess what had been etched onto those metal pages. Tallies of expenditures, a catalogue of what it had cost the Tenguild League to outfit the Iron Dragon for her last voyage. Other records would denote the profit these merchants had expected to recover from the voyage. Still others would display the gains made by other ships… and the guilds who had backed them.

‘I’d rather go another round with Ghazul than stand here and have these leeches scowl at me,’ Brokrin grumbled under his breath.

Mortrimm exhaled a mouthful of smoke. ‘So would I,’ he muttered. ‘Ghazul can’t revoke your charter. The Tenguild League can.’ He gave Brokrin a sharp look. ‘That’s why you need to pay attention and show them some respect.’

‘I’m not some cadet fresh from the Academy,’ Brokrin muttered. ‘I know the way things work. No venture can escape politics. The backers always have to feel in charge.’ He shook his head. ‘They sit behind in pampered luxury while the ships are out there braving the skies in their name.’

‘You’ve got that same stubborn streak in you as your father,’ Mortrimm observed, just a touch of exasperation in his voice. ‘When you’ve the choice between pragmatism and ideals, you always choose ideals. You know how this works. The backers have to feel in control of their investment at all times. They need to know their money is going to turn a profit. Not just to enrich their coffers but to assuage their confidence that they’re in control even when their ships are away.’

‘I’m not a cadet,’ Brokrin reminded Mortrimm again. ‘I know the way things are and how they’re done. You helped me find my footing when I was starting out, but I’ve got my sky-legs now.’

Mortrimm gave Brokrin a sombre smile, but didn’t say anything more. The old navigator had been something of a mentor to Brokrin, and there was still more than a trace of teacher and pupil in their relationship even after all these years.

Brokrin turned his attention back to the Tenguild League. Each time a logisticator brought another report to them, the scowls on the faces of the merchants deepened. They were being told that their latest venture had not only failed to bring them profit, but it had incurred a loss on their investment. The impact on their coffers would be insult enough, but the impact against their confidence was something else. They would need to do something to reaffirm their control.

‘That’s the ugliest crowd this side of an orruk mob,’ the young privateer Gotramm commented, his words just loud enough to reach Brokrin’s ears.

‘Keep quiet and look attentive,’ Horgarr, the Iron Dragon’s endrinmaster, told Gotramm. ‘We’re in for it enough already,’ he added in a low tone that Brokrin strained to hear.

Brokrin could guess what was on the mind of every duardin on his crew. The Tenguild League held his charter, and by extension they could claim both his ship and his command. There was, however, a way Brokrin could negate that threat. Within the Kharadron Code there was a stricture which detailed the subject of mutiny, and how a ship’s captain could incur no responsibility for a voyage when his command was taken away from him. Brokrin had been against the disastrous trip to Finnolf’s Fortress. Egged on by the avaricious Skaggi, the Iron Dragon’s crew had staged a mutiny against him, turning command of the ship over to Gotramm.

Yes, there was an out for Brokrin if he told his backers about the mutiny. It would mean the ruin of the crew. The mutineers would be impressed into indentured service until they made full restitution to the Tenguild League. None of them would ever sail on a ship again – even the most hard-pressed captain would not sign mutineers to his crew.

Brokrin had told his crew he would forget what had happened, but now that they were back in Barak-Zilfin and with their backers scowling down at them, he was certain there were some like Horgarr who had doubts about how much Brokrin would sacrifice for them. Doing as they feared and revealing what had happened to the backers was certainly the pragmatic thing to do. But as Mortrimm said, he was always choosing ideals over pragmatism. He clung to the romantic notion that the crew of a ship were like a family, ready to risk anything in their power for one another. He hadn’t saved these duardin from the creatures of Chaos simply to see them ruined by a bunch of balance sheet-obsessed backers.

One of the merchants stood up from his seat and smoothed the front of his jacket. His beringed fingers toyed with the ornaments laced through his beard. Zagrimm, often called the Coin-Pincher behind his back, was notorious for his sharp dealing. Somehow it didn’t surprise Brokrin that the miser would be the first to demand a reckoning.

‘The accounts present a dour picture, Captain Brokrin,’ Zagrimm said. ‘The tally of expenses is quite concerning to us. More so when you return with empty holds.’

Before Brokrin could try to respond, Zagrimm was addressed by a merchant seated several tiers above him.

‘It has been a poor season for everyone,’ the trader said. He wore a golden beard-sheath and had stains of powdered sapphire under each of his eyes. The gromril pipe that protruded from his lips had an aetherwork bowl, its chemical flame ensuring it would never go cold. The long coat he wore was of the finest cut and adorned with dragonhorn buttons, the rings on his fingers more resplendent than those of any duardin in the guildhall.

‘I know it has been a poor season, Orrik,’ Zagrimm replied, irritation struggling with deference for command of his tone. ‘But even a poor season should bring something more than debt.’ He reached to the closest logisticator and plucked the copper page from his hand. ‘You’ve looked at the accounts. There’s nothing there to show for our investment!’

Orrik nodded slowly. ‘A poor season,’ he repeated, apparently unable to add anything more to his argument. Some of the traders were looking towards him, a thoughtful if unhappy look on their faces.

Zagrimm would not be placated, however. ‘The Iron Dragon’s gained a reputation for poor seasons,’ he stated. His eyes darted back to Brokrin and he pointed at the captain. ‘Ever since you ran into the monster Ghazul your ship has been unprofitable. A sinkhole for investors.’

‘But it was you who suggested we back the Iron Dragon,’ one of the other merchants reminded the miser. ‘You suggested that her captain would be agreeable to a smaller share of the profits because of his bad luck.’

‘That was when I thought there would be some profit to be shared out,’ Zagrimm said. ‘Before I understood that all this talk of bad luck and curses was more than just idle rumour.’

‘The fact that the Iron Dragon’s the only ship to ever tangle with Ghazul and remain in the sky does not sound like bad luck,’ Gotramm objected, his voice ringing out through the assembly-room. The traders frowned at the young privateer, irritated by his outburst.

‘Aye, Captain Brokrin has brought our ship through skies no other cap’n could,’ the first mate, Vorki, added, to the annoyance of the merchants.

‘It was the cap’n’s planning that saw us vanquish a two-headed dragon,’ the one-eyed gunner Arrik stated. ‘If not for him, none of us would be here and there’d be no ship at all.’

Brokrin’s heart swelled with pride to hear his crew rushing to his defence. He knew, however, that their support would count for little with the backers.

Zagrimm made a dismissive wave of his hands. ‘None of that changes the matter at hand. The Iron Dragon’s holds are as barren as a beerhall on Brynruf. There’s nothing to share out to any of you and very little for those who backed your voyage to recover their investment.’

Brokrin bristled at the way Zagrimm looked at him. There was a sneering ugliness in his eyes. ‘To recover our expenses, we’ll take the ship,’ Zagrimm pronounced.

‘You can’t sell the Iron Dragon,’ Gotramm protested.

Zagrimm nodded in agreement. ‘You have me there. Your ship has garnered such an ill reputation nobody would buy her. So our only recourse is to break her up and sell her for scrap.’

The trader’s announcement brought snarls of outrage from the crew. Even a few of the other merchants looked uncomfortable with Zagrimm’s intentions.

Brokrin stepped forwards, turned and motioned to his crew to quiet down. Once their outrage was dulled to a few sullen grumbles, he faced Zagrimm and the other merchants.

‘There’s no fault in the Iron Dragon. She’s a good ship. It is I who have failed you, not her. If there’s no captain in Barak-Zilfin who would take her, you could easily secure a handsome bounty by selling her to another sky-hold.’

The suggestion brought new objections from the crew. The duardin of the Tenguild League whispered amongst themselves. It was Orrik who vetoed Brokrin’s suggestion.

‘To sell a ship built in the coghalls of Barak-Zilfin to another sky-hold is a serious matter,’ Orrik stated. ‘It is all but forbidden by the Code. We’d have to petition the Admirals Council for permission. Unless they could be convinced that none of our engineering advantages would be bestowed on another hold by selling the Iron Dragon, they’ll not permit it. No, the only way to regain our investment is by scrapping the ship.’

Brokrin felt as though the bottom dropped out of his belly. He was empty inside, all hollowed out by this talk of scrapping his ship. The windmasters of Barak-Zilfin revered the ships they sailed upon. He would sooner shave his beard and endure that life of disgrace and shame than see the Iron Dragon turned to scrap. The angry bellows of his crew said that they felt the same way.

Orrik banged his flagon down on the arm of his chair, demanding silence from the Iron Dragon’s crew. When he had it, he leaned forwards and peered intently into Brokrin’s eyes.

‘You’re an experienced hand, Brokrin. Even when stories started about your ship being under Ghazul’s curse, you always managed to bring something back for your investors.’

A chill crawled down Brokrin’s spine as he heard Orrik speak. He was an experienced captain and he wasn’t naïve enough to miss the inference behind the trader’s statement. He decided to feign ignorance just the same.

‘This time the wind was against me,’ he said.

Orrik tapped his beard-sheath with one of his rings. ‘But maybe there were mitigating circumstances? Things that were beyond your control… and your responsibility.’

Even the other merchants knew what Orrik was fishing for now. Zagrimm sputtered in protest, but he knew that the matter was no longer something the Tenguild League had control over. The Code was very clear on that point. If there had been a mutiny on the Iron Dragon they could not hold Brokrin responsible for the voyage.

Brokrin returned Orrik’s expectant gaze. It was almost beyond belief that the wealthiest member of the Tenguild League was offering him such a chance. If he told them about the mutiny, then he would save both his charter and the Iron Dragon. The backers would have to accept their losses and seek redress from the mutineers.

The hollow emptiness expanded to rush through his entire body. Brokrin felt as though an icy hand had closed around his heart. He could feel the eyes of his crew on him, none of them daring to draw a breath while they waited to hear what he would tell the merchants. It was their lives and freedom against his charter and the Iron Dragon.

‘I’ve told you everything that happened,’ Brokrin said, forcing the words out before he could reconsider them. ‘Our venture failed to find a profit. There’s nothing more I can add.’

Zagrimm settled down, a relieved smile on his face. Several of the other merchants had similar expressions. Not all of them were as prosperous as Orrik, or as ready to accept a loss.

Orrik sank back in his chair. ‘Thank you, Captain Brokrin,’ he said, his tone terse, his words clipped. ‘You and your crew may go. You’ll be informed of our decision.’

The bright light of the sun bore down upon Brokrin as the aethermatic lift carried him up the side of the sky-hold. Through the clouds below Barak-Zilfin he could just make out the shining waters of the Alloy Ocean and the snow-capped peaks of the Ferrium Mountains. A frigate in the blue and bronze colours of the hold was sailing away towards the north, its endrin glimmering in the sunlight. He felt a tinge of envy seeing the sky-ship soaring away on some new venture. There were few things he would not have given to trade places with the frigate’s captain.

One of those things, of course, was the Iron Dragon. She was secured in her berth far below, watched by guards from the Tenguild League. It was rare, but not unheard of, for the crew of a seized ship to cast aside both the Code and their honour and try to take their vessel back. Seldom did such a reckless and desperate ploy accomplish anything. Those few who did succeed in stealing their ship would then have to face the armadas of Barak-Zilfin. Even if they escaped, their lot would be that of renegades, shunned by all Kharadron and with grudge-marks posted on their heads by their own sky-hold.

By Grungni, though, it was tempting! If Brokrin could have done it by himself, he might have tried it. But he wouldn’t let the duardin of his crew risk themselves in such an endeavour. If it were in him to sacrifice them for his ship, he would have done so in the guildhall when there was a real chance of getting the Iron Dragon back.

The metal basket of the lift sped upwards, bearing Brokrin away from the sky-hold’s inner levels. The workshops and markets, forges and refineries were far below now. He was climbing past the clan-houses and arkanaut academies, rising above the coghalls and shipyards where Barak-Zilfin’s great vessels were designed and constructed. Higher and higher he was borne, until the basket was speeding through a layer of grey cloud. Condensation dripped down the glass walls of the basket, further obscuring Brokrin’s sight. When the lift pierced the mist, he was greeted to a sight he had only ever seen from afar before. The towering windfasts of Barak-Zilfin’s most powerful duardin.

Far above the alchemical smoke and smells of the levels below, the mighty towers stabbed up into the azure sky. Colossal sculptures hulked outwards from each facade, stern visages turned towards the heavens above. Great domed roofs bulged from the peak of each windfast, their golden tiles blazing in the sunlight. Elaborate arrays of metal shafts rose still higher, lightning rods cast into the shape of protective runes and familial sigils, clan-brands and the emblems of a hundred guilds. Scattered around the windfasts, and predominating at the edges of the sky-hold, were immense fortifications bristling with cannons and torpedoes. Brokrin could just make out squads of armed duardin patrolling along the battlements.

The lift came to a halt at the periphery of an elevated walkway of cold-forged steel. The writhing scrollwork of the railing impressed him with its intricate design. He was less impressed by the lone duardin who stood waiting for him. If not for the banner he carried, Brokrin would have found the scraggly-bearded servant utterly forgettable. But the clan-glyph on the banner made him someone of keen interest. It was the clan-glyph of Orrik Goldhand.

‘You’ll follow me, Captain Brokrin,’ the servant said as he sketched the slightest of bows. Without waiting for an answer, the duardin swung his master’s banner up over one shoulder and marched away.

Brokrin tugged his beard in annoyance at the servant’s impertinence. There were few people he would take that kind of arrogance from. His annoyance only increased when he reflected that short list would include anyone associated with Orrik. It wasn’t often that a Kharadron of his rank was called to Barak-Zilfin’s sunside. He was willing to bet it was even rarer when such a summons promised a captain a way to save his ship from the scrapyard.

Brokrin swallowed his bruised pride and followed Orrik’s servant along the walkway. They were a good hundred feet above what could be classed as sunside’s street level. The elevated path wound past several of the towers, but never did it connect with any of them. It was only when they approached a lofty spire that bore the same clan-glyph his guide carried that Brokrin appreciated the truth. The pathway, and perhaps even the lift itself, were only for the use of Orrik and those engaged in his service.

The servant paused outside an arched doorway that opened between the legs of a cast-bronze ancestor-lord some fifty feet tall. Brokrin could not see exactly what his guide did at the door and the gilded pane of runes that stood beside it. Whatever it was, the heavy door was pulled inwards by an aethermatic engine, and was then swung aside by the same growling machinery. The servant gestured to the portal.

‘The master awaits you in the conservatory,’ the scraggly-bearded duardin stated.

Brokrin was led down a long hall, its floor tiled in dark marble, the walls adorned with a collection of golden grudge-masks that was as impressive as it was extensive. He was no expert on appraising the value or artistry of the pieces, but he could recognise the dulled sheen that characterised some of them and indicated their great age. Just in raw mineral value, the collection could finance a dozen expeditions like Brokrin’s last venture.

Yet the circumspect entry to the hall and the relative paucity of connecting corridors and rooms made Brokrin suspect this was anything but the regular entrance to Orrik’s tower. This was for receiving guests in a more direct and businesslike manner. And even here the merchant-lord wanted to impress visitors with his wealth and power. The grudge-masks were more than simple ostentation: they carried a meaning at once recognised by any duardin. Each represented a debt that had been redeemed by Orrik’s clan, either in coin or in blood.

The guide brought Brokrin to a set of double-doors cast in bronze and richly engraved with a scene of airships flying before a new-risen sun. The servant pressed his hand against a rune-plate and the doors slid back into their frames, only a slight murmur rising from the machinery which opened them.

Within was a wide room with a ceiling somewhat lower than that of the hall outside. Brokrin saw a floor of polished hawkwood, and walls that were clad in granite-like sheets of feldstone, each of the light-grey panels cunningly crafted to display a vein of gold snaking through them. The ceiling overhead conveyed the same semblance of a rocky roof, even with the rough nubs of faux stalactites to complete the illusion of an underground grotto. For all that the Kharadron had ascended into the skies and become masters of wind and cloud, they remained duardin, and something deep within their hearts could not fail but to hearken to the cavernous vaults their ancestors had ruled long ago.

The guide rapped the end of the standard he bore against the floor. ‘Captain Brokrin Ullissonn of the Iron Dragon,’ he announced.

When Brokrin stepped inside the conservatory he was struck by the heady smell of tobacco and the coppery tang of old books. He glanced at the shelves around him, the iron-banded folios with their thin metal pages. He noted a range of subjects, from treatises on grading the quality of different exotic woods to surveys on the richest strains of volcanic glass in the Salamander Vales.

Across the room from the shelves was an open area with a number of stone seats arranged in a loose circle. Between them was a raised ring of rough rock, not unlike the mouth of a well. A warm golden glow rose from the ‘well’, the emanations of an alchemical stove. From the hue of the glow, Brokrin guessed that it was fuelled by refined aether-gold of extreme purity.

Two of the chairs were occupied, and as Brokrin entered the conversation between them faded away. One of the chairs’ occupants he recognised as Orrik. The other was a crook-nosed, silver-haired Kharadron who matched descriptions of the merchant’s major-domo, Vaskin. The presence of the latter gave Brokrin pause. Vaskin had a reputation for twisting the Code into knots when it came to expanding his master’s fortune at the expense of his business partners. There were grot pawnbrokers who would balk at some of Vaskin’s tactics.

‘Captain Brokrin,’ Orrik greeted him and gestured to one of the chairs around the stove. He darted a look at Vaskin and ran his fingers through his beard. Devoid of the expensive sheath, it had a ruddy colour that bespoke exotic dyes and conditioning. ‘We were just discussing you,’ the merchant-lord said.

Brokrin took a seat opposite Vaskin, positioning himself so he could see both the major-domo and his master without turning his head. ‘I can only assume it was in regard to my ship.’

He tried to keep his tone deferential, but couldn’t keep an edge of temper from his voice. A friendly informant from the Tenguild League had already advised Brokrin what had happened. Orrik had bought out the other backers and taken claim of the note against Brokrin’s last venture. The disposition of the Iron Dragon was now in the hands of these duardin.

Even if they had altruistic motives, Brokrin couldn’t help but resent that fact. It stung his pride to have his ship’s fate determined by someone else.

‘Lord Orrik has taken your debts onto himself,’ Vaskin stated, dispensing with pleasantries.

Orrik frowned at his major-domo’s abruptness and turned towards Brokrin. ‘I well know the affection you bear for your ship. I’m a son of Barak-Zilfin too. It offends me that some of my business partners would even contemplate scrapping a vessel as fine as the Iron Dragon. That is why I compensated them and absorbed your debts.’

Brokrin bowed his head in gratitude. ‘It relieves me that she’s to be saved from the scrappers. I’m certain she’ll perform capably for whichever captain you appoint to command her.’

Orrik’s next words sent a thrill of shock through Brokrin.

‘I already have a captain in mind. That is why I summoned you. There’s no Kharadron who knows the Iron Dragon better than you do. And certainly no captain who bears her the affection you do. I need both of those qualities. The experience to command the ship and the love to see her safely home again.’

‘You’re being offered this command with some conditions,’ Vaskin explained. He reached into his coat and brought out a thick sheaf of papers. ‘You may examine this contract at your leisure, but in brief it states that in exchange for the return of your charter you’ll undertake certain voyages for Lord Orrik.’

Brokrin rubbed his chin. ‘I accept that you’ll get the better of this deal, but what I want to know is how I can get her back.’

Vaskin’s smile was as crooked as his nose. ‘You may forsake your share in the profit from these voyages and put it against the debt Lord Orrik has incurred on your behalf. Plus a modest amount of interest, naturally.’

‘Naturally,’ Brokrin repeated, an uneasy shiver rolling through his flesh. Knowing Vaskin’s reputation, he could imagine the kind of interest he’d be responsible for.

‘I would expect you to be ready to sail within the week,’ Orrik told Brokrin. ‘A matter has come up for which the Iron Dragon is most qualified.’ He glanced over at Vaskin and nodded.

The major-domo rose and walked to a nearby table. Vaskin lifted a battered tome and opened it. Brokrin saw that it was a logbook, the sort carried by almost every Kharadron ship bigger than a gunhauler. Vaskin flipped it open and glanced at its contents. Without looking at Brokrin, he posed a question.

‘You’ve heard of Profit’s Ruin, the Sea of Doom?’

Brokrin’s skin felt like it was crawling when he heard the dreaded name. He did his best to hide the reaction from Orrik and Vaskin.

‘That’s an old story. Every skyfarer has heard it. I don’t know that there isn’t a Kharadron who sights a dark cloud on the horizon and wonders if Profit’s Ruin is behind it. Many is the ship that fails to come home that they say was taken by the Ruin.’

‘It is more than a fable,’ Orrik stated. He pointed at the book Vaskin held. ‘That came from a Kharadron ship that was caught by Profit’s Ruin. The writer was there for decades before he dropped the logbook for others to find.’

‘Profit’s Ruin is a floating mass of weeds that snares any ship that strays into its reach,’ Vaskin said. ‘The captain of that frigate survived the capture and was able to record much about the Ruin while he was there. He was even able to chart its course through the skies of Chamon.’

Brokrin nodded as he considered that last bit of information. ‘If there’s a chart, then it’s possible to anticipate where the Ruin will be. And find it.’

Orrik clapped his hands together. ‘Precisely! We can find Profit’s Ruin. It just needs a ship that can hazard the journey and a captain bold enough to take on the risk!’

Bold? Brokrin thought. Or desperate?

Vaskin tapped his finger against the logbook’s cover. ‘There’s a fortune to be made here. Think of all the ships Profit’s Ruin has claimed over the centuries, their holds filled with cargo ripe for salvage.’

Orrik brushed aside Vaskin’s statement. ‘Why mince words? Captain Brokrin is with us, aren’t you?’ He didn’t wait for an answer before continuing. ‘The logbook does more than just chart the Ruin’s course. It tells how the Sea keeps itself in the sky. The writer speaks of a great tree at the core of the Sea! Brokrin, that tree is surrounded by a golden glow! He speaks of cutting shiny growths off the vines and finding them to be filled with condensed aether-gold!’ Orrik gestured to smudges on the logbook. ‘I’ve had aether-khemists examine those stains and they found them to be an extremely pure quality of aether-gold. You understand what this means?’ The merchant-lord clapped his hands together again. ‘By the Code, that damn weed generates its own aether-gold!’

Brokrin gave Orrik an incredulous look, then shifted his gaze to Vaskin. He almost expected the major-domo to give him a knowing wink and confirm his suspicion that Orrik Goldhand was mad. Instead, Vaskin simply nodded.

‘The writer of the logbook made a careful study of the place. He had been trapped there for decades.’ Vaskin paused and then gave a name to the author. ‘This logbook was kept by Master Navigator Kharrik Dragontooth.’

‘Kharrik Dragontooth,’ Orrik emphasised. ‘The duardin who discovered the Kingmaker Lode and the Gold-Storm of Oldwind! Not some nobody, but a navigator responsible for finding enough aether-gold to choke a dozen gargants. Kharrik wasn’t somebody who could be mistaken about what he found.’

‘But… a tree that makes aether-gold?’ Brokrin had a hard enough time accepting there was a chart, but this was too much.

‘Think of it!’ Orrik chuckled. ‘What could be a more incredible treasure! An endless supply of aether-gold! Certainly there will be risk,’ he said, forcing some calm back into his voice. ‘But what voyage is without its risks? And has anyone gambled on a greater fortune?’

‘You forget one thing about Profit’s Ruin. Every tale I’ve heard about it says no ship ever leaves,’ Brokrin pointed out.

Vaskin set the logbook back on the table. ‘The Iron Dragon would be in the scrapyard if not for Lord Orrik. Your charter would be revoked if not for Lord Orrik. Many ships leave Barak-Zilfin, but yours wouldn’t. Does it make a difference if you end your voyages here – in disgrace – or in Profit’s Ruin seeking glory?’

Brokrin scowled at the major-domo’s candour. It didn’t help that Vaskin was right. ‘I’ll have to take the matter up with my officers. A voyage of this sort is not one I can order them to undertake.’

‘Of course,’ Orrik said. ‘And I will trust you to be discreet. You can tell them of the Sea without advising them about what’s at its heart.’

‘Salvaging the wrecks there should be enough of an enticement,’ Vaskin suggested.

Brokrin gave him a hard look. ‘Any duardin who sails with me will get honest compensation and a fair share.’

‘Certainly,’ Orrik agreed. ‘And if you don’t have enough willing to crew the Iron Dragon, I’m certain Vaskin will be able to provide whatever specialists you need.’

Kharadron at the end of their rope and with Vaskin holding their debts.

Brokrin simply nodded. ‘I’m certain he will,’ he said. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll have to explain this proposition to my officers. I’ll bring their answer.’

‘Don’t be overlong,’ Vaskin advised. ‘Though it would complicate matters, if he needs to Lord Orrik can find another captain for the Iron Dragon.’ The major-domo grinned at Brokrin. ‘You understand, the greatest asset to using your ship and your crew, captain, is that nobody will ask any questions if things don’t work out and you should all go missing. No one will look too closely into why you were lost. They’ll simply assume you were trying to escape your debts. That is why the Iron Dragon is uniquely appropriate for this venture.’

Brokrin looked across the faces of the duardin assembled in his cabin on the Iron Dragon. Their reactions to everything he had told them ranged from Horgarr’s incredulity to Mortrimm’s grim resignation and everything in between.

‘Well, that’s Orrik’s offer,’ Brokrin finished. ‘I was not going to speak for any of you. Not on something like this.’

Horgarr snorted with derision. ‘Goldhand’s daft,’ the endrinmaster said. ‘I’ve never seen anything to convince me the Ruin’s more than a story told to scare beardlings. I say we follow Orrik’s chart, and when we find nothing then that’ll be his concern, not ours.’

Vorki removed the crooked hat from his head and played with the falcon feather stuck into its brim. ‘There’s a good point there, cap’n. I might not be so convinced as Horgarr that there’s nothin’ to find, but we can’t go and assume this chart’s right. You looked over the contract. Is there any kind of clause in the event we find nothing?’

‘Every duardin who sails on this venture will be compensated,’ Brokrin told his first mate. ‘There’s provision in the contract to pay the crew even if the voyage isn’t profitable.’

‘And what about the Iron Dragon?’ Gotramm asked. The young arkanaut captain could not keep the worry out of his words. When Skaggi had incited the crew to mutiny on the last voyage, he had been the one elected as the new captain. If Brokrin had revealed the fact, Gotramm would have been indentured. More than an empty pocket, decades of working to pay off his debt to the Tenguild League would have dampened his courting of his beloved Hilda. Brokrin had heard Gotramm express his gratitude many times, but beneath it he knew there was a tremendous sense of guilt.

‘We don’t find Profit’s Ruin, they still scrap her?’ Lodri, the ironclad’s powder-monkey and sometime wound-stitcher scowled as he posed the question. He met the glowering looks that were directed at him. ‘You think Orrik or Vaskin is going to take a loss? If they’ll pay the crew even if we find nothing, then you can bet your beard the money’s coming from somewhere.’

Brokrin sighed and set his hands on the table in front of him. ‘She’s for the scrapyard if we don’t find the Sea.’

Arrik, the one-eyed master gunner, slapped his palm against the beam beside him. ‘One last voyage, then, at all events. A chance to say a proper farewell to the old girl.’

‘You assume we’ll find nothing,’ Mortrimm interjected. There was a chill in his voice and Brokrin could see that the navigator’s face was pale. ‘Beware assuming you know everything that’s in the sky simply because you’ve sailed her.’ He gestured to his leg and the aethermatic brace that enclosed it. ‘There was a time when I laughed at stories of Ghazul and called those who’d seen the monster “daft”. I’m not laughing now.’

‘Ghazul is one thing,’ Horgarr said, ‘but to believe there’s a carpet of weeds just floating around gobbling up every ship it comes upon…’

Mortrimm’s voice took on a sombre note. ‘I’ve seen it,’ he said.

The claim surprised even Brokrin. He had heard many stories over his years sailing with Mortrimm, but never had the grizzled veteran mentioned Profit’s Ruin.

‘It’s as real as death,’ Mortrimm continued, his eyes roving across the others. ‘Aye, and you can trust every tale you’ve heard about it. Ships lost to it don’t come back.’

‘Perhaps what you saw was a harkraken or–’ Arrik wasn’t able to finish his suggestion before the navigator cut him off.

‘I was fresh from the Academy then,’ Mortrimm said. He pointed the clay stem of his pipe at Gotramm. ‘Less hair on my face than you have now, lad. I was learnin’ my way steering a gunhauler attached to the Windfarer.’

Brokrin froze when he heard Mortrimm name the ship. The Windfarer had been lost over a century ago. Mortrimm’s father had served on her as navigator. What had started as a warning parable now took on the quality of a personal tragedy as Brokrin listened.

‘The Windfarer was a fine ship,’ Mortrimm said, his eyes agleam with memory. ‘Perhaps not so sleek or trim as the Iron Dragon, but I dare say in those days there wasn’t a grander krontanker that ever left Barak-Zilfin’s coghalls. She’d just taken on a cargo of aether-gold from a rich vein and was heading for home when she came upon Profit’s Ruin. We crested the peaks of the Gargant’s Bones and there it was… a green morass of weeds that stretched almost as far as the eye could see. Leagues across, and right in our path!’

‘What did you do?’ Vorki had stopped fidgeting with his hat as Mortrimm’s story took hold of him.

‘We were out in the gunhaulers,’ Mortrimm explained. ‘Keeping watch for grot pirates that had been dogging us for weeks. That was the only thing that saved us. We were able to steer away before the Ruin could snare us.’ He paused, his eyes focusing on the ceiling, unable to hold the gaze of his comrades. ‘The Windfarer was a big ship. She had too much momentum to steer away in time. I saw the Ruin reach out to her with ropey tendrils and drag her down into its depths. That was the last I saw of her.’ The navigator clenched his teeth, oblivious to the clatter of his pipe on the floor as he bit through the stem. ‘That was the last anyone saw of her.’

Lodri let out a grim chuckle. ‘Well, that makes me excited to find this thing,’ he said. ‘I’m overjoyed to be a part of this plan.’

‘Nobody’s forcing you to put your name on the muster,’ Gotramm snapped at him.

‘Nobody except the copper-pinching vultures who want to scrap our ship,’ Lodri shot back. He looked at Brokrin. ‘I’m in, cap’n. If it means my bones are doomed to be weed-food, I’m in.’

‘Without dishonouring Mortrimm’s recollections,’ Horgarr said, with an apologetic look to the navigator, ‘I still don’t believe this place exists. If half the stories told about the Ruin are true, then there shouldn’t be a ship left in the sky. I can’t accept that such a thing could be real. But if there’s any chance to save the Iron Dragon, then you’d have to chain me to the Endrineers’ Hall to keep me from going.’

One after another, the officers of the ironclad affirmed their intention to sail with Brokrin. They felt sure they could speak for the rest of the crew as well. Gotramm and Horgarr offered to find the duardin they’d need to fill out the muster. Everyone was agreed that the fewer crewmen Vaskin sent them, the better it would be.

‘If this works out, we might even turn a healthy profit,’ Vorki reminded everyone. Brokrin hadn’t told them about the glowing tree Orrik said was at the core of the Ruin, but he had spoken of salvage rights to any wreck they came upon.

‘We might even find the Windfarer’s tanks filled with aether-gold,’ Arrik said.

Brokrin saw Mortrimm wince at the mention of his father’s ship.

‘Yes,’ he said, almost in a whisper. ‘We might even find the Windfarer.’

CHAPTER TWO

Orrik Goldhand grinned as he peered into the eyepiece of his aether-scope. The magnified image of a Kharadron ironclad soaring off towards the Auric Hills was the subject of his scrutiny. The Iron Dragon was away, bound upon the grand venture which would make Orrik the wealthiest duardin in Chamon.

The merchant-lord shifted in his velvet-lined chair and pressed the eyepiece closer to his face, as though he could somehow get closer to the ironclad and urge her to greater speed.

Vaskin stood to one side as his master watched the Iron Dragon. They were alone in the observatory high atop the skyfast. Orrik was careful to avoid letting too many of his servants know what he was up to. A single slip, an injudicious remark, might warn one of his rivals that he had a new money-making scheme. He had a reputation for never backing a losing bird. Anything Orrik touched, they said, turned to gold.

‘They’ll not leech off me this time,’ Orrik muttered. ‘No parasites trying to profit from my investment.’

Vaskin looked around the opulence of the observatory with its theme of maps and charts. A huge astronomical globe fashioned from the resin-coated eyeball of a megalofin dominated the setting, a star-filled sphere thrice as tall as any duardin. The sapphire-tinted tiles underfoot depicted the constellations and the drift of aether-gold veins. The curved ceiling overhead was painted as a perfect representation of the sky. Aethermatic lamps and shadow-casters could create different clouds and weather, changing the display from a cloudless dawn to a stormy dusk. The major-domo shook his head. Orrik already had wealth beyond imagining, yet he still coveted more. And wasn’t about to share.

‘Then no one follows them, my lord?’ Vaskin asked.

Orrik waved aside the question. ‘If anyone did, it would mean you made a mistake. I told you to be discreet about implementing your plan. Yet within minutes of my taking over her debts, half the sky-hold seemed aware I owned the Iron Dragon.’

‘News like that would be impossible to hide,’ Vaskin pointed out. ‘You ruined his clan’s fortune, so even if the rest of the Tenguild League could keep quiet, Zagrimm wouldn’t.’

Orrik turned away from the aether-scope and glowered at his major-domo. ‘I’ll not have it! Every move I make, there’s some vulture swooping in to steal from me! I take the risk, I make the investment, and then part of the gold that should be in my coffers ends up in somebody else’s. I’ll not have it!’

Vaskin nodded his head. ‘It’s the price of your reputation, my lord. You can’t make a move without being watched. You take the eagle’s share, must you begrudge the vultures their scraps?’

Orrik swore into his beard, his brow knitting with anger. ‘My investment, my profit. All of it! Do you hear me, Vaskin? All of it.’ He peered closely at the crook-nosed duardin. ‘It is a strangely meek position for you to be taking. I’ve never known you to give quarter to these parasites before.’ His gaze became suspicious. ‘Perhaps that is why no ship follows the Iron Dragon. Somebody knows where they’re going. Somebody with access to that chart has forgotten his honour and decided to betray his master.’

‘My lord, only we who are here and Captain Brokrin…’

‘Yes, and whoever you sold out to,’ Orrik snapped. He shook his fist at Vaskin. ‘Got me to play my part nicely, didn’t you? You needed me to get involved so you could sell this scam to your dupes! Make a show of me buying up the Iron Dragon’s debts and get everyone wondering where she’s off to. Then you come along and show off your charts!’ The enraged merchant glared at Vaskin. ‘Tell me, you cur, who did you sell me out to?’ Orrik demanded. ‘How much were you paid to betray me?’

Orrik swung his fist at the major-domo, but the punch never landed. A few inches from Vaskin’s face, the merchant-lord froze, his entire body held by an invisible grip. His eyes bulged in disbelief and horror.

‘I told no one,’ Vaskin scolded Orrik. ‘And I have been paid nothing… yet.’

Orrik strained to free himself from the intangible grip that held him. He tried to speak, but all that tumbled from his lips was a panicked sputter.

‘You’re right, Orrik,’ Vaskin continued. ‘You did play your part well. You bought the logbook, you bought the Iron Dragon’s debts, and you compelled Brokrin to sail off to Profit’s Ruin.’ The smile that wormed across Vaskin’s face was impossibly wide, stretching from ear to ear. ‘You were easy to manipulate, but then greed is such a crude motivation to exploit.’

The invisible grip that held Orrik suddenly evaporated. He stumbled backwards, away from the major-domo. His eyes darted about the observatory. He licked his lips nervously, aware that the only way out of the room was past Vaskin.

‘What… what has happened to you, Vaskin?’ he said.

Vaskin laughed, a sound that was more the croaking of ravens than hearty duardin humour. Orrik’s terror mounted as he watched the major-domo grow taller before his eyes.

‘Quite a bit has happened,’ Vaskin said. ‘The Vaskin you knew has been dead several weeks now, but you were too fixated on the promise of adding to your wealth to notice.’

Orrik continued to back away. He moved towards the rack of spanners and hammers used to make adjustments to the aether-scope. ‘Who are you? What are you?’

‘There’s power in names,’ Vaskin said. ‘You’ll understand if I don’t give you mine. As to what I am, I’m whatever I need to be.’ His stature had increased by several inches. Now his shoulders began to broaden, and his lean build swelled.

Orrik had reached the rack of tools now. He had one hand behind him, the fingers fumbling for anything stout enough to use as a weapon.

‘I shouldn’t do anything rash,’ Vaskin warned. ‘There’s one more thing I need of you. Zagrimm and the others aren’t following the Iron Dragon because they’re convinced it’s a decoy. Someone told them that you were leaving on another ship.’ Again the impossibly wide smile flashed. ‘They think whatever you’re doing, it promises so much wealth that you’re going out to personally lead the expedition.’

‘In a harpy’s eye I will!’ Orrik roared. His hand swept out from behind him, brandishing a heavy iron spanner. He lunged for Vaskin, swinging the improvised weapon at the major-domo’s head.

Vaskin simply lifted his hand. From the outstretched fingers, an arc of purple lightning crackled across the room. The sorcerous bolt shot into the spanner and flared through Orrik’s body. The merchant screamed as his skin blackened and his beard burst into flame. He took one last step, then slammed down on the floor.

Vaskin stared down at the smouldering duardin. ‘As you’re indisposed, I’ll have to play your part now,’ he told Orrik.

The last image that filled Orrik Goldhand’s fading sight was that of Vaskin’s altered shape completing its transformation, filling out until it was the mirror image of his own.

‘Don’t be too distressed,’ Yoshiro mocked Orrik. ‘No one will make money from Profit’s Ruin. I can promise you that much.’

Yoshiro kept to the shadows as he descended from the lofty heights of Barak-Zilfin down into the depths of the port. While he kept his movements furtive, he became less and less cautious the farther from sunside he went. There was a reason he wore the appearance of Orrik Goldhand. He wanted to be seen. He wanted to be followed. He wanted to convince anyone who might be suspicious of the Iron Dragon that the ironclad was simply a decoy. It wouldn’t do to be too obvious about it, but Yoshiro needed to keep the attention on himself. For a time, anyway.

The shapeshifting sorcerer paused in an alcove beside a cogwright’s workshop. Turning his back to the street, he made a point of looking inconspicuous. The fine dragonskin boots, of course, were at odds with the tatty cloak he wore, and perhaps he was just a bit too deliberate in the way he kept the hood drawn down over his face. Yoshiro knew there were people watching him. At least three duardin and a grot sneak who was frightfully good at his role. There was a fourth duardin he wasn’t certain of. While the rest kept their distance, the other fellow would draw quite close. Yoshiro suspected he was either a mugger or scouting targets for a street gang. Either way, he wasn’t connected with the spotters the sorcerer wanted following him. He was tempted to duck into a dark alleyway and give the villain a surprise.

Heat against his chest made Yoshiro reach beneath his coat and draw out a sliver of glass that hung from his neck on a thin chain. As he stared down into it, he saw not the avaricious visage of Orrik but the ghastly countenance of Khoram. The mirror-bound curseling’s gaze met Yoshiro’s and the shard quickly became cool again.

‘Do not take undue risks.’ Khoram’s words pressed into Yoshiro’s mind. ‘Not at this juncture, and not for anything so petty as a common thief.’

Yoshiro scowled at the mirror. It was a fragment chipped away from the great glass in Shadowfar, a talisman that allowed the two sorcerers to communicate. ‘You think my powers so frail that I cannot vanquish a simple thief?’ he whispered at Khoram’s image.

‘I think you may draw unwanted attention if you make a show of your powers,’ Khoram warned. ‘It was vanity to use magic to kill the merchant. To do so again would be reckless.’

Yoshiro stroked his beard in perfect imitation of Orrik. ‘You fret over trifles. Who’ll miss a thief?’

Khoram’s eyes blazed with anger. ‘It is not the thief but the magic that is my concern. The Kharadron are not completely ignorant of sorcery, and have their ways of detecting it should they feel the need. More, there are others in the sky-hold who might take an interest. The Changer’s disciples are everywhere… and neither of us want them to become involved.’

Yoshiro nodded. He was not sure about the efficacy of the Kharadron when it came to tracking down sorcerers, but Khoram’s warning about Tzeentchian rivals was prudent. The cults devoted to the Changer were many and widespread. Perhaps even here in Barak-Zilfin there were agents of Chaos hidden away, watching and waiting.

‘I’ll keep to the main streets and deny the robber a chance to strike,’ Yoshiro assured Khoram. His hand tapped the sleeve of his left arm. ‘At worst there’s this little firewand of Orrik’s. The Kharadron will not be unduly disturbed if a thief is killed by a duardin weapon.’

‘Just avoid a confrontation,’ Khoram said. ‘More than your sorcery, it is your subtlety which is now put to the test.’

Annoyed, Yoshiro put the shard back beneath his coat. The curseling’s condescension was becoming intolerable. Whatever great magics Khoram had discovered, whatever arcane secrets and eldritch lore he had locked away in his sanctum, he seemed to have forgotten that it was he, not Yoshiro, who was a bodiless spirit trapped in a mirror. Yet might that arrogance not play into Yoshiro’s hands? Let Khoram feel superior. Overconfidence was a vulnerability Yoshiro had found almost as easy to exploit as greed.

Yoshiro turned back into the street and made his way towards the port and the berth where his ship awaited him. His keen senses kept tabs on his followers. The ones he considered in the pay of the Tenguild League and others stuck to him and were eventually joined by three more. The duardin he had decided was a robber drifted off after he descended a few more levels. Like any predator, the thief didn’t like hunting outside his own territory.

The berth he sought was situated in a dark and neglected corner of the port. Here the aetheric lamps burned with a dull, flickering glow that cast long shadows along the gantries and walkways. The warehouses and supply sheds had a slovenly and unkempt appearance, paint peeling away from their metal walls and the runes branded on their sides scarred by corrosion. Yoshiro saw none of the workshops and traders that were so common elsewhere in the sky-hold. The only evidence of commerce here was a few scruffy pedlars with wheeled carts that belched coal smoke and several seedy taverns.

Yoshiro pushed past a pedlar trying to sell suspiciously cheap griffon-hide gloves. He gave a wide space to the doorway of a tavern where two drunken duardin were trying to open each other’s throats with the jagged end of a bottle. Further down the street he was accosted by a hook-handed Kharadron who was seeking support to bring a grudge against the Aether-Khemists’ Guild. He brushed the petitioner aside and continued to the rusted causeway beyond.

The causeway projected out beyond the edge of the port to form a kind of pier. If the light before was fitful, here it was absent almost entirely. The sullen glow that illuminated the ship was just enough to mark her general size and shape. Less prominent details, like her name and the colours she bore, were consigned to the shadows.

Yoshiro didn’t hesitate. He marched out onto the pier and to the lone vessel secured to it. As he approached, a duardin dressed in deep grey and with a brace of pistols tucked under his belt came down the gangway and stepped into his path. He didn’t say a word, but simply glared at Yoshiro.

‘Let him pass, Borazz,’ a gruff voice called out from the shadowy ship. ‘We’ve been expecting our passenger for a good while now.’

A scarred duardin appeared at the gunwale, half of his face a burned mash of grey blisters, one eye locked behind a crystalline lens. The Kharadron wore an elaborate beard-sheath shaped into long, golden coils that contrasted with the black of his jacket. He smiled down at Yoshiro.

‘You’re late, Orrik. That’ll cost you extra.’

Yoshiro jabbed a thumb at the street behind him. ‘I was followed, Skarskorr,’ he explained, then added a lie into the mix. ‘Trying to lose them wasn’t easy, and I’m not sure I did.’ He turned and gave the frigate a quick scrutiny. ‘We might be followed when we leave here, Halfbeard.’

Skarskorr glowered at the sobriquet. ‘If you want to lose anybody when we leave, that’ll cost you more.’ His hands tightened their hold on the gunwales. ‘Double if you call me “Halfbeard” again. You’re buying my time, Goldhand, not my pride.’

Yoshiro walked past Borazz and up the gangway. He glanced across the frigate’s deck and the shifty-eyed crewmen he could see. Then he turned his attention to Skarskorr.

‘You will be paid well if you meet my expectations.’

Skarskorr held his hand towards Yoshiro, palm uppermost. ‘I’ve expectations of my own,’ he said. The unmarked side of his face smiled when a small leather bag fell into his grip. He undid the fastening and pawed through the assorted gemstones within. He gave a satisfied grunt and put the retied bag inside his jacket.

‘I want you to make a big show of making ready to disembark,’ Yoshiro told the scarred captain. He again jabbed his thumb at the street. ‘For their benefit,’ he said.

‘Give ’em time to report back and have their own ships ready?’ Skarskorr mused. He gave Yoshiro a suspicious look. ‘You’re not bucking attention, you want it.’

‘If you know you’re being followed, then it is easier to make plans to lose them,’ Yoshiro said. ‘Away from Barak-Zilfin, there will be more opportunity to be sure we are alone.’ He paused and tapped his foot against the deck. ‘That is, if this ship is all you claim her to be.’

The jibe brought an angry protest from one of the observing crewmen, a barrel-chested thug whose head seemed to sprout directly from his shoulders. ‘Skorr’s Glory can dance rings around these tubs you windmasters build.’

‘Enough of that, Grak,’ Skarskorr snapped at his underling. ‘Can’t you see I’m conducting business here?’ He turned back to Yoshiro and shook his head. ‘Had to take ’im on,’ he apologised. ‘He’s my sister’s cousin’s younger uncle, on my father’s side.’ He tapped the side of his head. ‘Always a bit dense, that part of the clan.

‘Now, I’ll admit that Skorr’s Glory isn’t the fastest ship in the sky. She isn’t the best armed or the most armoured, either.’ His half-smile took on a sinister quality. ‘But she’s the sneakiest. You give the word and she’ll lose anybody that follows us.’ His gaze became studious. ‘What’s the plan after that? Thinking to draw a couple ships out, get them in trouble and then salvage the wrecks? We can do that, for some extra consideration.’

‘Nothing quite so piratical,’ Yoshiro said. For a second he thought he saw disappointment in Skarskorr’s eye. ‘Once we’ve lost our followers, I’ll need you to do some following of your own. An ironclad called the Iron Dragon.’

Skarskorr frowned. ‘She outguns us,’ he said. ‘Besides, it’ll be tricky picking up her trail. She left port this morning. Skorr’s Glory can follow her, but not if we have to dodge these friends you’re expecting.’

Yoshiro waved aside the captain’s concern. ‘First lose anybody who takes up our trail,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry about finding the Iron Dragon.’ He reached into his coat and drew out the battered logbook. ‘You see, Halfbeard, I happen to know exactly where they’re going.’

The wind whipped through Brokrin’s hair as he walked the Iron Dragon’s deck. He exulted in the cold feel of the air and the crisp, clean smell of the high altitudes. After the turmoil of facing his backers, he needed this. The open sky and a good ship beneath his feet. These were what a Kharadron needed to feel alive!

The sound of hammering brought Brokrin’s gaze towards the great endrin that rose above the ship. Horgarr’s endrinriggers were busy tending the machinery, wheeling about it on their bulbous aether-endrins, cables keeping them fastened to the ship so a strong gust wouldn’t send them flitting across the sky. Orrik had been quite liberal with his gold when repairing and refitting the Iron Dragon, but there were always kinks to be knocked out of anything fresh from the workshops. Quite literally, to judge by some of the adjustments Horgarr had ordered.

Brokrin was content to leave the endrinmaster to his work. He knew Horgarr was more than capable in his area of expertise. If he said a gearbox needed a few whacks from a hammer to put it in top shape, Brokrin wasn’t about to argue.

Raised voices brought Brokrin towards the prow. He saw several of the thunderers from the ship’s Grundstok company gathered around one of the new additions to the crew. Kerrum had been recruited to act as sergeant for the thunderers after the death of Drumark at Finnolf’s Fortress. He was an experienced campaigner, even serving on a few battleships in his time, but he had an abrasive sense of discipline. It was the reason he didn’t have a ship when Mortrimm engaged him – he’d been found a bit too tough on his old command and considered a drain on morale.

Brokrin shook his head. He didn’t think the morale of the thunderers could get any worse. Everyone on the Iron Dragon felt the loss of their old sergeant, Drumark, but none more keenly than the warriors he had led. There was a grim streak running through every duardin’s heart, but after Finnolf’s Fortress, the thunderers had become almost fatalistic. They barely raised an eyebrow while Kerrum showered them with abuse.

‘You call that a formation?’ Kerrum growled at the warriors. ‘I’ve seen plague-addled manlings who could form a straighter line with their vomit! Smarten it up, you beard-lice, or I’ll hit you so hard your descendants will feel it!’ The blond-haired sergeant looked up when he saw Brokrin approaching. ‘Attention, you boot-biters, here’s the cap’n!’

The thunderers made an effort to reform their ranks and present Brokrin with a show of respect. He could see the hollowness in their eyes, however. These weren’t the same warriors who had served Drumark so well. The heart had been cut out of them.

‘We’ve been through a lot, lads,’ Brokrin told the thunderers. ‘We’ve had our share of troubles, but I’ve always been able to say not a one of you ever shirked your duties or hesitated to put yourself at risk for our venture. I’ll need your strength again, and I know that when I need it you’ll not let me down.’

He saw some of the thunderers respond to his inspiring words. In time they’d rally. His worry was whether they had that much time. He turned to Kerrum.

‘What do you think of your command, sergeant?’

Kerrum gave a stern glance at the thunderers. ‘I’ll have them fighting fit when you need ’em, cap’n. If I can teach manlings to hold a hackbut, I can teach this lot to keep a formation.’ He raised his voice and shouted at the warriors. ‘I want you to practise that diamond pattern until you can pick your spot in your sleep! Not that you gutter-crawlers will be getting any of that until you get this right!’

Brokrin had started to walk away when Kerrum caught him by the elbow.

‘A word with you, cap’n,’ he said, his voice so low it seemed almost impossible that it issued from the same mouth that had been berating the thunderers a moment before.

‘You have a complaint, sergeant?’ Brokrin asked.

‘In a roundabout way,’ Kerrum said. ‘It’s my command. I’ve always been able to whip warriors into shape. You break ’em down and then build ’em up again into someone stronger than they were before.’

Brokrin shook his head. ‘These are experienced warriors. You don’t need to break them to do your job.’

Kerrum tugged at the onyx earring he wore. ‘That’s what I’m telling you, cap’n. You say I don’t need to break ’em. I’m telling you I can’t break ’em. They’re already broken. They might have been top-notch before, but the way they are now, I don’t know I’d put them up against a blind orruk with a slingshot.’

‘Are you calling them cowards?’ Brokrin challenged Kerrum. ‘I can assure you they aren’t.’

‘I didn’t say they were,’ Kerrum countered. ‘In a way, they’re even worse. When you go into a fight, you have to know what you have to fight with. A coward… well, you know they’re going to bolt at the first sign of trouble. Those lads there, they simply don’t care. They don’t seem to have any skin left in the game, if you will. In a serious fight, I don’t know if they’d care if they made it through or not.’ He stopped tugging at the earring and looked back at the thunderers. ‘You have to know the comrade fighting beside you is giving it his all – not just for his sake, but for everybody’s.’

Brokrin digested Kerrum’s observation. It fit in line with his own. ‘See what you can do with them,’ he said. ‘I’ve an advantage over you. You only see them the way they are now. I saw them before. I know what they’re capable of.’

Kerrum nodded. ‘Fair warning, cap’n, but I won’t be soft on ’em. Some of the captains I’ve served under before didn’t like my methods, but I think even they would agree I get results.’

‘See what you can do, sergeant,’ Brokrin repeated before taking his leave of Kerrum.

As he walked away, he could hear him hurling another tirade at the thunderers.

Another problem soon reared its head when Mortrimm came up from below and started towards Brokrin. He could tell from the way the old duardin was puffing at his pipe that something was vexing him.

‘A word with you, cap’n,’ Mortrimm said. ‘If you wouldn’t mind, I think you should go down and pay a visit to these slack-witted, scruffy-bearded privateers of yours!’

Brokrin wondered what Gotramm’s arkanauts could have done to so upset the navigator. He looked towards the wheelhouse and the raised deck behind it. The privateer captain was busy helping Arrik and the gunners refit Ghazul’s Bane, and had been for some time. Whatever had happened, it was clear Gotramm wasn’t a part of it.

‘If you’ve a problem, you should speak with him first,’ he said, nodding at the gun deck. ‘If he thinks I need to take a hand, that’s when I get involved.’

‘I know the blasted chain of command,’ Mortrimm growled. ‘It isn’t just the egg-sucking arkanauts! It is… well, come and see!’ Without waiting to see if Brokrin would follow, he turned and stamped back to the steps leading below.

Intrigued by the navigator’s fiery temper, Brokrin followed Mortrimm down. Their path led them through the narrow hallway and to the forward hold where the arkanaut company was berthed. Mortrimm started to reach for the door, but Brokrin clapped a hand on his shoulder and motioned for him to wait.

He could faintly hear voices coming from the hold. Loud voices, filled with excitement and agitation. Brokrin struggled to make sense of the few words he was able to catch, but they were too jumbled to be of any use. Then, through the clamour, he heard a very distinct sound. The rattle of bones tumbling across a deck. He shot Mortrimm a shocked look. The navigator looked away quickly and threw the door open.

‘All right, you damn pirates, here’s the cap’n!’ Mortrimm yelled.

Brokrin could see the hammocks of the arkanauts slung between the beams, swaying with the ironclad’s motion. Normally there would be sky-chests underneath each berth, but these were largely absent now. A trail of old boots, worn belts and tattered clothes led away from the bunks to the centre of the hold. There, as Brokrin had expected once he heard the clatter of dice, the arkanauts were gathered in a circle. They looked up when they heard Mortrimm shout. Their eyes went wide with alarm when they saw Brokrin standing behind the navigator.

‘Gambling, and not even a day out of port,’ Brokrin said. He paced around the circle of privateers. ‘A pretty big game, too, listening to it from outside. Too big for me to ignore. You know the artycles each of you signed. No gambling at the start of a voyage. I’ll not have the losers bearing a grudge against the winners…’

‘Begging pardon, cap’n, but this isn’t gambling.’

The voice rose from the centre of the circle. A lean duardin with a knife-like nose and a scalp as bald as a wyvern’s egg stood up, a pair of dice clenched in his fist. When he saw Brokrin’s eyes dart to them, he hastily ducked his hand into his pocket.

Brokrin saw now why Mortrimm hadn’t gone to Gotramm. The arkanauts were only part of the problem. The ringleader appeared to be Agrilo, the ship’s new logisticator. ‘It certainly looks like gambling,’ he stated.

Agrilo smiled and nodded his head. ‘Well, I can understand how it might look that way, but beggin’ the cap’n’s pardon, it isn’t what it looks like.’

‘If it isn’t gambling, then what is it?’ Mortrimm snapped.

Agrilo blinked as he considered the question. ‘Charity,’ he said. He looked at the arkanauts around him, holding their attention. ‘You see, we know this is a perilous venture and were concerned about those of our shipmates who might not make it back.’

‘That explains all of the shouting and the dice… how?’ Brokrin demanded.

‘Well, a simple collection of donations for the families of lost comrades would be… cold, almost reptilian,’ Agrilo explained. He again looked at the privateers and made little gestures with his hand. ‘So, I decided it would be better to invest the process with a festive atmosphere. Something that’d make the crew feel like real participants. That way they’d feel a sense of pride and accomplishment when they receive the donations.’

‘You just said this was for lost shipmates.’

Agrilo bowed his head in reverence. ‘And when the families of our dear comrades know the sacrifice we all made to see to their welfare, it’ll make their hearts swell with pride. They’ll be able to recall their departed one with honour, knowing they made provision for those they best loved.’

Brokrin glanced aside at the arkanauts. Every one of them looked agog, stupefied by Agrilo’s glib tongue and the audacity that kept him talking.

‘Why do these sky-chests look like they’ve been looted by starving orgoths?’ Brokrin asked, gesturing to the upended chests and the belongings strewn about the hold.

‘Your crew is incredibly generous, cap’n,’ Agrilo beamed. ‘You should be proud of them. Utterly selfless when they can help a comrade. They give and give until it hurts.’

‘I’m going to hurt you,’ Mortrimm growled, balling his fists. Brokrin could see now the pile of coins, rings, belts, watches, weapons and other ornaments lying on the floor. Among them he spotted several of Mortrimm’s pipes.

‘Who’s going to look after this fund?’ Brokrin asked.

Suddenly Agrilo was the very image of humility. ‘I’m the most qualified to undertake that chore. As logisticator I have to mind the accounts for the ship. Managing the fallen comrades fund won’t be too much of a burden on my time.’ He pressed a hand to his heart. ‘It’s the least I can do for such a worthwhile charity.’

‘Charity?’ Mortrimm was almost apoplectic now. ‘You blood-bat scavenger! You cheated me out of my best pipes and then refused to extend me credit!’

‘I see now,’ Agrilo tutted. He looked to Brokrin. ‘I’m afraid there has been a mistake. You see, Mortrimm must have thought that we were gambling. But we weren’t, were we, lads?’ He looked across at the arkanauts and received hearty nods of agreement. ‘So I thought he was donating his pipes for the families of our fallen comrades. Then when he offered his leg-brace as collateral for credit, I realised his mistake and naturally refused.’ He bent down and recovered the pipes from the heap. ‘Since it was a misunderstanding, I think we can all agree you should have your pipes back.’

‘Keep them,’ Mortrimm said as he turned and stalked out of the hold. ‘I don’t want your charity.’

‘The charity doesn’t go to you, but your family,’ Agrilo called after him. Then he looked at Brokrin and shook his head. ‘I apologise for that, cap’n. If I’d any idea he thought…’

Brokrin looked past Agrilo at the heap of winnings. ‘I want everything there catalogued,’ he declared. ‘Just to be clear that no gambling has been going on, and I don’t have to punish anyone for gambling, all of these donations are to be returned once they’re put on the list.’ His eyes swept over each of the assembled arkanauts. ‘When we get back to port, everything on the list will be collected and distributed to the families of any of our comrades who don’t come back with us. If not, I might decide everyone here went against the ship’s artycles and was gambling.’

‘Just as you say, cap’n.’ Agrilo clapped his hands. ‘All right, lads, help me count all this stuff.’

Brokrin cut him off. ‘That’s your job, Agrilo. You’re the one who’s administering the charity. So you’re the one who does all the counting.’ He felt the logisticator might have an argument crooked enough to get him out of even that much responsibility. Rather than listen to it, he joined Mortrimm out in the hall.

Mortrimm was still fuming. ‘What prison did Vaskin get that chiseller out of? Logisticator? Having him watch the books is asking the hawk to watch your chickens!’

Brokrin sighed. ‘Did he force you to join the game? Unless he did, then you’ll forgive me if I’m not entirely sympathetic.’

‘I went in there to put a stop to it,’ Mortrimm protested. He scowled as he continued. ‘I just… well, that crook got me so confused that before I knew it…’

‘You were betting your favourite pipes and trying to get credit on your leg.’ Brokrin sighed again. ‘I suppose I could take some solace that Agrilo appears to be keeping up morale. Maybe I should have him get with the thunderers and try to put some verve back in them.’

‘He’ll pick their pockets and then start on their socks,’ Mortrimm said. He started to add some further commentary but his attention was suddenly drawn to a duardin running back and forth across the corridor.

Brokrin groaned. ‘Now what’s going on?’

‘That’s Thullig, the aether-khemist Vaskin sent us,’ Mortrimm said.

‘I know who it is. What I want to know is what he’s doing.’

Brokrin continued to watch as the heavyset Thullig scrambled from one doorway and into another, then back again. The first door was that of the cabin he had been assigned, the second was that of the starboard hold. Each time he left the cabin his arms were wrapped around boxes and sacks. Brokrin could see the necks of bottles and alembics protruding from some of the boxes.

‘He’s moving his apparatus,’ Mortrimm said, without further explanation.

Brokrin marched over to the cabin’s entrance and waited for Thullig to come back out. When the aether-khemist emerged, he almost crashed into Brokrin.

‘Excuse me, but you’re in my way,’ Thullig stated as he tried to get past Brokrin with the box he was carrying.

‘Mind your tongue,’ Mortrimm snapped. ‘That’s the cap’n you’re speaking to.’

‘I assigned you that cabin,’ Brokrin said. ‘Why are you moving all your equipment into the starboard hold?’

‘Ah, cap’n, yes. Yes, I was moving my gear. I can manage it myself, though.’

‘Why are you taking everything into the hold?’ Brokrin asked again.

‘Don’t you know?’ Thullig asked. ‘There are some very unusual properties about that hold. It would be interesting to find out what they mean.’

Brokrin watched as Thullig hurried away.

‘Tell me he doesn’t have access to anything explosive,’ Mortrimm said.

‘That’s going to be a new standing order,’ Brokrin replied. He shook his head. A sharpster for his logisticator and a lunatic for his aether-khemist. He was beginning to wonder if Orrik and Vaskin really wanted this expedition to succeed or if they had simply taken bets on how long it would take for the Iron Dragon to crash.

‘Grungni preserve us,’ Brokrin whispered as Thullig headed back to his cabin for more equipment. It wasn’t often that he invoked the gods, but Brokrin had a feeling he could use all the help he could get on this voyage.

CHAPTER THREE

‘Whatever you might think about Orrik, he knows a good chart when he sees it.’

Mortrimm’s words were muttered with such venom that they might have been a curse.

Brokrin took the spyglass the navigator proffered him and raised it to his eye. The Iron Dragon was just cresting the cloud-swept summits of the Shivering Peaks. The grim mountains, known for the vicious flocks of wyverns that roosted there, had been gripped by a sinister silence as the ironclad flew above them. Brokrin had ordered all the Grundstok thunderers and Gotramm’s arkanauts on deck, weapons at the ready in anticipation of at least a few of the winged reptiles taking interest in them. But there had been nothing, not so much as a lizard’s head poking out from the mouth of a cave as they sailed past. Much as he didn’t want to tangle with the beasts if he didn’t have to, Brokrin was disturbed by what their absence might portend. Something was keeping them in their lairs.

Keeping them out of the sky.

The view through the spyglass offered Brokrin nothing but rolling patches of dark clouds. A big storm was moving through the region, spilling away to the south as the Iron Dragon sailed east. He didn’t think the storm had anything to do with the unaccountable timidity of the wyverns, any more than it had inspired the loathing in Mortrimm’s voice. Yet he could see nothing else, and told the old navigator as much.

‘There,’ Mortrimm said, pointing the stem of his pipe at the north-east. ‘Keep the glass turned there and you’ll see it soon enough.’ There was a haunted timbre to his voice as he continued and named what he expected Brokrin to find. ‘Profit’s Ruin. The Sea of Doom.’

Brokrin felt a cold tingle run through him when he heard the name spoken in such a manner. He was already on edge from the brooding atmosphere about the Shivering Peaks, and Mortrimm’s attitude only added to the captain’s uneasiness. At their core, he supposed, every Kharadron who plied the skies of Chamon had a bit of superstition in them. And there might be no superstition regarded with more dread than the grim Profit’s Ruin, the graveyard of lost ships and vanished crews.

He kept the spyglass trained in the direction Mortrimm had told him. Still there was nothing but the rolling clouds heavy with rain.

‘I don’t see…’ Brokrin choked off the statement and blinked in bafflement. Had he really just seen what he thought he’d seen? A patch of vibrant green visible through a tattered wisp of cloud? Even if there were a range of mountains near to the Shivering Peaks, no foliage would grow at such a height.

He was about to dismiss the sighting as nerves and imagination when another tattered edge of the storm swept past, and exposed what lay beyond.

Brokrin’s breath caught in his throat. Again, there was but a fleeting glimpse, but this time long enough for him to be certain of what he had seen. A great tangle of greenery floating on the winds. What he saw looked immense, and even from so brief a glimpse he could tell it was but a portion of some greater whole. How much greater was an enigma that spurred him to caution.

‘You see it now, cap’n?’ Mortrimm asked.

‘Aye,’ Brokrin replied, his voice low. He lowered the spyglass and returned it to Mortrimm. ‘It looks to be moving against the storm. Following the course laid on Orrik’s chart.’ He shuddered as he considered how easy it would have been to have run full into Profit’s Ruin if they had plunged blindly through the storm.

‘What course do you plan to take?’ Mortrimm wondered.

Brokrin shook his head. ‘We don’t know how big the Ruin is. We can only speculate. If we try to get behind it, we might instead run smack into it. The only course I see is to try and rise above it and get ahead of it.’

Mortrimm scratched at his beard. ‘We could still turn back,’ he suggested. ‘Only you and I have seen it.’ He gestured to the other duardin on deck. Those who had glasses were watching the peaks below, keeping vigil lest the wyverns come flying up from their caves. ‘We could tell Orrik the chart was wrong.’

Of all the duardin Brokrin knew, he would have reckoned Mortrimm as the most straightforward and trustworthy. He doubted there was a duplicitous whisker in the navigator’s whole beard. Yet here he was suggesting they turn tail and lie to the financier of the expedition.

The sharp look Brokrin gave him caused Mortrimm to lower his eyes and stare down at the deck.

‘I know it’s a dishonour to even suggest such a thing.’

‘Then why did you suggest it?’ Brokrin wanted to know. ‘Is it what you told us, about your father?’

Mortrimm sketched the briefest nod and looked towards the clouds. ‘His ship was taken by the Ruin.’

‘Then this is your chance to find out what happened,’ Brokrin said.

‘I wonder…’ Mortrimm replied. ‘I wonder if there are some things it is better not to know.’

The navigator bowed and staggered off to convey Brokrin’s orders to Horgarr and his endrinriggers. Brokrin watched him go, his gaze drawn to the aethermatic brace fitted around Mortrimm’s leg. A memento from Ghazul, that injury. Mortrimm had served him fearlessly then. It was strange to hear that edge of fear in his voice now.

Was it Profit’s Ruin that scared Mortrimm? Or was it what he might find there?

The Iron Dragon ploughed through the heavy clouds, sailing straight through the storm. Rain pelted the decks and hammered against the hull. Lightning flashed all around the ship, crackling against the ionised aether-endrin Horgarr had cast away to soar above the ironclad and draw to itself the furious thunderbolts. The grumbling roar of the storm set the plates in the deck shuddering and every duardin of the crew could feel its vibrations in his teeth.

Brokrin watched from the wheelhouse. He had relieved Vorki, taking the steering of the ship onto himself. The Iron Dragon and her crew had been caught in worse tempests, though never making the kind of speed they were coaxing from the engines right now. All the same, he was confident that both ship and duardin would hold. What he wasn’t so confident about was whether they’d be fast enough. When they won clear of the storm, would they be ahead of Profit’s Ruin or would they come barrelling straight into it? Keeping ahead of the Ruin they’d be able to react if it looked like they’d lose it in the clouds, but there was a risk of misjudging how quickly it was moving. The image of slamming into the floating jungle was something to make the most long-bearded admiral quake in his boots.

It was a gamble, Brokrin knew that. From their fleeting glimpses of the Ruin both he and Mortrimm had tried to estimate its speed. They had come up with a rough figure, but there were far too many variables for his liking. Foremost was the question of whether Profit’s Ruin floated on its course at a constant speed – Orrik’s chart was vague in that respect, and their own observations too brief to offer anything conclusive. Then there was the matter of the wind, which was driving the storm southwards, and against which the Iron Dragon was trying to make gains. The Ruin was clearly moving against the wind, but was it still subject to the elements? Was the wind retarding its own progress, or was it completely immune to the gales that swept across it?

Too many questions and no time to answer them. The storm was too high to climb above, and the terrain around the Shivering Peaks too treacherous to run closer to the ground. Trying to wait out the storm was, of course, a possibility, but Brokrin didn’t like that either. There was too much uncertainty over how quickly the Ruin was moving. He wasn’t going to risk losing track of it now that they were so close.

No. The course to take was the one he’d chosen. Get ahead of Profit’s Ruin. Brokrin felt this was their only chance to do it. Chasing something that was almost a myth, he couldn’t shake the fear that it would slip away back into the shadows of legend if he gave it half a chance. Then he would really have to tell Orrik they didn’t find it. That would be the end of his charter and the finish for the Iron Dragon.

‘Cap’n!’ Gotramm’s voice cried out from port side. Brokrin craned his neck and could see the privateer clinging to the gunwale to steady himself against the storm. Even the magnetised boots the arkanaut wore were little defence against such a gale. ‘We have to heave to! We have to wait out the storm!’

Brokrin simply looked away and focused on the wheel again, trying to keep the ship steady against the currents that raged around her. He was surprised when a lean face with a rain-soaked beard showed up at the door.

‘I know you have a good reason for doing what you’re doing,’ Agrilo told him. ‘But whatever it would cost to wait out the storm, I’d be willing to take a cut in my share to make it good.’

‘Not up for debate,’ Brokrin said. ‘Every one of you signed on for this voyage and trusted your lives to me.’

Agrilo’s eyes were wide with alarm. ‘But cap’n, listen to reason. We can’t buck both the storm and the Ruin!’

Brokrin shot the logisticator an angry scowl. ‘Unless you want those to be your last words, you’d better close that door and leave me to steer my ship.’

To his credit, Agrilo knew when a fight was lost. He ducked out of the wheelhouse as though he’d been shot from a cannon. The door slammed against its frame.

Ugly reminders of Skaggi’s plotting on his previous voyage filled Brokrin’s thoughts. Where Skaggi had been moved to mutiny by greed, Agrilo might do the same out of self-preservation. Brokrin decided he’d have to keep the logisticator close once they were through the storm.

Lightning crashed against the aether-endrin, the bright flash of the strike casting the whole ship in a brilliant glow. Brokrin could see his crew hunkered down wherever they could find a secure handhold. Only a handful of duardin were below. Everyone else was up here, exposed to the elements. They were obeying their captain’s orders, standing ready for the wyverns if they should appear. Brokrin wondered how they would react if he told them why he was really keeping them on alert. It wasn’t every day that a Kharadron was asked to face the nebulous threat of Profit’s Ruin. It might make the intent of their voyage all too real to them when they had their first good look at the Ruin with their own eyes.

Another lightning bolt struck the aether-endrin, this time connecting so violently that the device was torn free from its cable. Brokrin leaned from the window and watched as the bulbous instrument went flying away, fingers of electricity flashing after it. The Iron Dragon had lost her best defence against the storm. Now they would have to rely on the rods fitted at prow and stern.

‘Horgarr!’ Brokrin bellowed into the ship’s loud-mouth array. ‘Get your endrinriggers to raise the rods!’

Brokrin smiled when he found Horgarr already had his technicians hurrying to either end of the ship, anticipating the necessary action. They scrambled to the gearboxes that controlled the lightning rods. As they activated them, the mechanisms chugged into life. Foot by foot, the iron rods telescoped upwards, rapidly climbing until they were a dozen feet above the height of the ironclad’s immense endrin. They vibrated wildly in the wind, whipping back and forth in crazed gyrations. Brokrin studied them with concern. He had seen rods break before, in a strong enough wind. He had also seen a half-severed rod come lashing across the deck like a gargant’s scythe. He reached again to the loud-mouth array and debated if he should send the crew below.

Then a ragged cheer rose from those duardin along the port side. Brokrin looked in that direction and saw a sliver of daylight shining through the clouds. The sliver grew, expanding with every heartbeat. The Iron Dragon was through. They had pierced the storm.

The duardin elsewhere on the ship took up the cheer. They were still praising the Iron Dragon’s conquest of the storm when those who had first proclaimed that victory started to fall silent. All too soon, the reason for that silence became apparent to all.

Brokrin called Vorki back to the wheelhouse and marched out on deck as the awed silence took hold of his crew. He turned his eyes to the south, and saw the sight that had deadened their joy.

‘Grungni’s grace,’ Brokrin whispered. The fleeting glimpses he had seen through the spyglass were ill preparation for what he now saw.

Enormity was the first impression that weighed down upon Brokrin. The sheer unbelievable size of the thing. Profit’s Ruin looked large enough to swallow a sky-hold and still not be filled. Acre upon acre of tangled greenery, a morass of vines and branches, leaves and stalks that stretched away in every direction. If the edge of the storm that boiled around the Ruin were indeed the end of its scope, then Brokrin estimated it might be a few leagues across, and perhaps equal to that in depth.

Then there was the very aspect of the Ruin to consider. That riot of intertwined vines and branches, writhing this way and that like a nest of sky-adders. From below, great ropey roots spilled down from the mass, dangling away from it for hundreds of feet. Brokrin could see ghastly black thorns stabbing out from the greenery, as menacing as pikemen standing guard upon the battlements of a castle. Scattered about the mass, he could see other discolouration too, less regular than the stands of thorns, but much larger in size. It was a sombre moment when he realised those marks were wreckage, the last remains of the ships claimed by Profit’s Ruin.

‘It looks like someone cut the top off a jungle and sent it drifting across the sky.’ Mortrimm’s words intruded on Brokrin’s thoughts.

‘It’s a sight to rival anything I’ve seen,’ Brokrin agreed. ‘And I dare say both of us have seen many strange things in the sky.’

Mortrimm simply nodded. ‘You see the wrecks?’ he asked. ‘Which one, I wonder, is the Windfarer?’

Brokrin was troubled by the strange tone in the navigator’s voice. It was at once eager and dour, an admixture of desperate hope and bleak dread. ‘Maybe I was wrong,’ he said as he rested his hand on his friend’s shoulder. ‘It’s been a long time. Will anything good come from knowing now?’

‘I don’t know,’ Mortrimm confessed. ‘Part of me wants to know more than anything in Chamon. Part of me is afraid to know what happened.’ He sighed and gestured to the rest of the crew. ‘Far simpler to understand them. All they have to worry about is getting some salvage and getting away again. There’s no mystery for them.’

Brokrin looked back at the imposing vista of the Ruin’s greenery. ‘Getting in and getting out again is problem enough to occupy anybody. Those vines aren’t so placid as they seem. It’ll need careful study to find out how they react and how they can be circumvented.’

‘You sound as though you have some kind of plan.’

‘We keep ahead of Profit’s Ruin and we study it,’ Brokrin said. ‘At worst, perhaps we clear away a patch of it with mines and use that as our entry.’ He smiled at Mortrimm. ‘Now that we’re here, we can take our time. Unlike those who were caught unawares by the Ruin, we know what to expect.’

Even as he said the words, a shout from above proved Brokrin wrong.

‘Starboard! A ship to our starboard!’ The alarm was given by the endrinrigger posted in the cupola attached to the great endrin itself.

Brokrin swung around and immediately spotted what the lookout had seen. Creeping out from the storm was a sleek frigate painted in midnight blue. He didn’t recognise the ship and it was too distant to read the name, but he knew those colours. They were flown by the Kharadron of Barak-Mhornar. The most unscrupulous duardin to ever ply the skies of Chamon.

And the Iron Dragon was caught between them and Profit’s Ruin.

Skarskorr Halfbeard peered through the spyglass with the lens of his mechanical eye, magnifying the image of the Barak-Zilfin ironclad a hundredfold. He could make out the runes on her prow that named her as the Iron Dragon. Distrust of his employer kept him from divulging that fact. He was canny enough to know there were things Orrik was keeping from him. If the merchant-lord wanted to keep secrets, then Skarskorr would too.

‘She’s a big ironclad with a big skyhook mounted to her gun deck,’ Skarskorr informed Orrik as they stood on the raised observation platform above the wheelhouse. ‘Can’t be certain she’s the ship we’re after…’

‘Of course it is the ship we’re after!’ Orrik snapped. ‘Who else would be here!’ He jabbed a finger against the captain’s chest. ‘Tell me, what was your first reaction on seeing that floating forest out there?’

Skarskorr scowled at the duardin merchant. ‘You know damned well my crew took fright and wanted to run. Started grumbling about Profit’s Ruin.’

Orrik returned the scowl with an arrogant smile. ‘But you weren’t scared, were you, Halfbeard? What if I were to tell you that is Profit’s Ruin? That’s how I know this is the ship we’re after! Even if somebody else did stumble on the Ruin, they’d take one look and then scamper off quicker than your cutthroats could.’

Skarskorr licked his lips. Angry as the scolding from Orrik made him, the revelation that they really were looking at Profit’s Ruin filled him with dread. He was tempted to draw his pistol and shoot the merchant in the belly, then order Skorr’s Glory to dive back into the storm. Something about the fiery look in Orrik’s eyes made him reconsider that idea.

‘What now?’ he said, trying to make the question sound like a demand. Skarskorr was still captain of this ship, blast it!

‘Now your gang of sky-wolves will do what they’re being paid to do,’ Orrik hissed. He waved at the Iron Dragon. ‘Your ship sits between her and the open sky! She can go nowhere unless it is through you! Use your guns and bring her to heel. Drive her back! Drive her into the Ruin!’

There was more than a touch of the fanatic in Orrik’s voice. Skarskorr wondered at the merchant’s fury. Surely whatever was really going on, it had little to do with money. He didn’t like that. People who didn’t care about money were reckless. They didn’t give enough thought to getting back home.

‘She outguns us…’ Skarskorr tried to beg off doing whatever Orrik had in mind.

‘You boasted that Skorr’s Glory is the slipperiest ship in the sky,’ Orrik countered. ‘You don’t need to outgun the Iron Dragon. All you have to do is hold her off. Don’t give her the room to manoeuvre when the Ruin comes at her.’

The merchant reached into his tunic and brought out a leather bag. He grabbed Skarskorr’s wrist and plopped the heavy pouch into his hand.

‘Brightstone,’ Orrik said. ‘Enough to buy the lives of every pirate on this ship! Do what I tell you, Skarskorr. If you lose some of your crew it will mean a bigger share for yourself.’

Skarskorr couldn’t argue with that logic. A greedy glint returned to his eye as he shouted into the frigate’s loud-mouth array.

‘Train every gun on that ironclad,’ he growled. ‘We open in volley. Push her back into the… that mess of weeds!’ He stamped his foot down on the roof of the wheelhouse. ‘If Skorr’s Glory gets so much as a scratch, I’ll peel your hide,’ he warned the helmsman.

The frigate turned about, presenting her side to the ironclad. Skarskorr could see the Iron Dragon trying to match the move, but in that respect, Orrik was right. Skorr’s Glory had the edge when it came to speed and manoeuvring. Before the bigger ironclad could even get partway through her turn, the Glory’s cannons were growling and sending their shots hurtling at their target.

Skarskorr wasn’t overly surprised to see that the cannons had little impact on the heavily armoured Iron Dragon. The guns on Skorr’s Glory were small, meant for quick reloads and close range. Given a choice, tackling a ship as big as the ironclad, he would have preferred to drop a supremacy mine in her path and try to steer her into it with harassing fire. Now he would try to make do with the sinister Ruin serving him instead of a mine.

‘Turn her about and give the starboard guns a crack at her,’ Skarskorr snapped across the loud-mouth array. He could see flashes from the Iron Dragon and knew she was firing at the frigate with her aether-carbines. What really worried him, though, was that big skyhook at her rear. The harpoon mounted to her looked big enough to rip clean through his own ship and keep on going.

‘Borazz!’ he shouted to the pistol-laden sharpshooter. ‘Get any scug who knows his arse from a gun barrel and start shooting at her gun deck!’

Borazz looked up at his captain from the deck below. ‘At this range we won’t hit anything!’

‘I don’t need you to hit ’em! Just make ’em damn nervous!’ Skarskorr told him. ‘Make ’em keep their heads down so they can’t put that harpoon through our hull! Snap to it, or I’ll cut your ears off and feed ’em to the buzzards!’

The sharpshooter scurried away, barking out commands to those of the crew who were handy with a gun. Skarskorr chuckled at the haste his threat impressed upon Borazz. Most of the crew had been with him long enough to know his threats might be colourful, but they weren’t idle.

‘Don’t damage her,’ Orrik warned as the starboard cannons fired at the Iron Dragon and Borazz’s duardin began blasting away at the gun deck with their thunderers and pistols. ‘Just push her back into Profit’s Ruin!’

‘The only way we can do that is make ’em more worried about us than they are the… weeds,’ Skarskorr returned. ‘Give ’em half a chance to think and they’ll know they can pick us off from farther back than we can smack them around.’

Orrik’s eyes blazed with that fanatical gleam and his voice took on a ghastly quality that had no business coming from a duardin throat. ‘You boot-stealing brigand, attend my words. If the Iron Dragon is not sent – intact – into Profit’s Ruin, then you will be made to answer for it. Answer most dearly.’

Skarskorr felt his stomach turn as the wrath of his patron was impressed upon him. He had openly mocked human kings and orruk warlords, but this duardin merchant-lord had him almost quaking in his boots.

‘Don’t… don’t worry. I know… what I’m doing.’ He turned hastily away from Orrik and growled further commands into the loud-mouth array. ‘Gun crews, watch your shots! Pester them, but don’t do serious damage!’ He fumbled for a reason why. ‘We want to take her as a prize,’ he lied. ‘Any crew who hits her bad will answer for it!’

Though he didn’t think he could make any of his crew suffer half whatever Orrik had in mind.

The guns barked again as Skorr’s Glory swept back around and turned her port-side guns on the Iron Dragon once more. The volley cracked against her armoured hull, denting some of the plates and knocking out one of the aether-carbines near her prow. The return from the ironclad was vicious, forcing the frigate into a sharp climb. Despite the evasive manoeuvre, Skarskorr heard the crunch of armour plates and knew he’d suffered at least one hit in the exchange.

‘We can’t keep this up,’ he protested to Orrik. ‘The Iron Dragon outguns us and we can’t bring enough damage to her to make her forget about the… weeds. Not without risking knocking her out of the sky, which you don’t want us to do.’

Orrik scratched his beard and gave Skarskorr a strange look. ‘Bring me your least important crewman,’ he said. ‘Someone you won’t miss.’

Skarskorr felt his gorge rise. He was a black-handed villain who’d done many things that would have his ancestors gnashing their teeth, but whatever Orrik was planning, he felt it was beyond even his jaded conscience. Yet one look at that fanatic fire in the merchant-lord’s eyes and Skarskorr knew if he didn’t move quick, it would be him instead of one of his crew.

‘Gori! Up to the captain’s deck, on the double!’ Skarskorr shouted across the loud-mouth array. He hoped the command sounded more authoritative than he felt at the moment.

Orrik was already doing… something. Skarskorr watched as the merchant pulled a bag from his tunic and poured a grey powder on the deck. Despite the wind and tumult of the swaying frigate, the powder did not stir, but remained where it fell, soon describing a circle that surrounded the two of them. Then Orrik drew out a black candle. It blazed into life without any visible source, and Skarskorr felt the hairs at the back of his neck stand on end. He fingered his pistols and fixed a frightened eye on his employer.

A final touch came when the thick smoke of the candle billowed out to become a heavy curtain around the observation deck. Skarskorr couldn’t pierce that veil, even with his mechanical eye.

‘Now we can proceed unobserved,’ Orrik chuckled. ‘Your crew will ask questions. This way you can quiet them with a few lies.’

Skarskorr heard the frantic tramp of boots as someone hurriedly climbed the ladder to the observation deck.

‘Captain! What is it? Are we on fire?’ Gori’s cries drew closer, but before he could come plunging through the smoke to join them there was a hideous peal of laughter.

Then Gori screamed.

‘Too bad he was not inside the circle with us,’ Orrik chuckled again. The sound of his laughter was only slightly less monstrous than whatever was in the smoke.

Skarskorr shouted at his crew, telling them there was no fire threatening the ship. Then he rounded on Orrik. ‘What’ve you set loose on my ship?’ Skarskorr demanded, drawing one of his pistols.

‘Something that is already gone,’ Orrik answered, seemingly indifferent to the pistol aimed at him. ‘It has an errand to attend to, now that it has been fed,’ he added as he reached down and snuffed out the candle.

At once the veil of smoke was gone. Skarskorr looked to the spot where he had heard Gori scream, but there was no trace of him, not even a splash of blood. He grimaced and rounded on Orrik. Then he stopped and stared past the merchant-lord to the storm visible behind him.

A great swirling funnel of black clouds was streaming outwards from the edge of the storm. It spooled out like chain chasing after an anchor. Only it was not an anchor the funnel was after, but the Iron Dragon. Skarskorr watched in amazement as the clouds bore down on his foe.

‘I thought you didn’t want her destroyed,’ he gasped. His finger tightened about the trigger of his pistol, but one look into Orrik’s eyes made Skarskorr demur. He was too experienced a rogue not to recognise a fight he couldn’t win. There was one life on his ship he wasn’t about to risk – his own. Slowly, with great care, he lowered his weapon. ‘That thing… it will wreck the Iron Dragon worse than my guns ever could.’

‘You misjudge the intent of my servant’s errand,’ Orrik answered, though there was just a trace of uncertainty in his words. Perhaps, Skarskorr thought, bravado had got the best of his employer and he had done something that was more powerful than he wanted it to be.

Skarskorr set his spyglass to his eye once more. Now he could see the crew of the Iron Dragon scrambling about, trying to figure out a way to dodge the funnel, the frigate’s cannonade and the oncoming Profit’s Ruin. He had to give grudging admiration for their efforts. They made a good game of it, but the odds were simply too great to be overcome.

Skarskorr held his breath as the ironclad strayed ever closer to the Ruin. He heard the shouts of his crew. They might have had their misgivings about the funnel cloud, but they didn’t know it was summoned by some sorcerous trick of Orrik’s. Skarskorr was struck by the ghastly elemental force Orrik had conjured. The magic that had been set loose against the Iron Dragon was a thing that made the captain’s blood run cold. How easy would it be for Orrik to turn these black arts against him and his own ship? The crew of Skorr’s Glory were fortunate in their ignorance about the nature of the cloud. When the Ruin came alive, however, they knew exactly what it was. And that knowledge had them crying out to ancestors and gods they’d only ever evoked in curses before.

‘Belay that chatter!’ Skarskorr snarled across the loud-mouth, for all the good it did. Inside, if he was honest, he was just as frightened as they were.

As the Iron Dragon was pushed back, the morass of weeds and branches began to vibrate, quivering with a strange animation. Then the quivering grew into lethargic undulations, as though something colossal were being roused from a long slumber. Vines began to untwine from their neighbours, branches shook themselves free from the growths clumped about them. One by one, the coils of the Ruin prepared themselves.

The funnel cloud was raging across the ironclad, smashing into her and pushing her across the sky. The Iron Dragon turned her fire now upon the strange cloud, for all the good it did them, striving desperately to drive it back and slip free.

Skarskorr thought the ironclad’s crew must be crazed to waste their efforts shooting at a cloud. Then he saw the Ruin’s vines come whipping out from the edge of the sea. A number of them lashed across the funnel cloud, battering away at it with vicious savagery. There was something more than rain and mist in the cloud, for he could hear a distinct wail of agony as the vines tore the funnel apart and scattered its wispy fragments through the air. He shuddered to imagine what the thing was that Orrik had called and which had taken Gori away.

Destruction of the funnel brought no respite for the Iron Dragon. Brought close to Profit’s Ruin, she too was beset by the coils. Branches grabbed at her, raking across her hull while green tendrils wound about her like the tentacles of a harkraken. Skarskorr could see her crew frantically attacking the coils with axes and skypikes, but their efforts weren’t enough to stave off the mighty grip that held them. Slowly at first, the ironclad was dragged down, pulled under the leafy surface of Profit’s Ruin.

‘I will need an aether-endrin,’ Orrik announced.

Skarskorr lowered the spyglass and blinked in disbelief at the merchant. ‘You can’t mean to go in there after them! They’re finished. You saw, the Ruin caught hold of them and dragged them down. Nobody who goes into Profit’s Ruin ever comes back.’

Orrik only smiled. ‘I will need an aether-endrin. You will maintain position and await my return. I can assure you, you will be paid handsomely for your trouble.’

Skarskorr shook his head, but called for his endrinmaster to rig up a harness for Orrik. It was not too long before he saw the duardin merchant flying away. He watched through his spyglass as Orrik neared the Ruin. The vines reached out for him as he came close. Skarskorr wasn’t sure if he descended through the leaf canopy on his own or if he was dragged down by one of the coils.

He wasn’t so sure he even cared. Certainly not about Orrik, although the promise of money when he returned nagged at Skarskorr’s avarice. Balanced against that was the menace of black magic and sorcery. Why should Orrik pay if he could just conjure up a spell that would destroy the frigate? No, the more Skarskorr thought about it, the more he hoped he never laid eyes on Orrik Goldhand again. If he died in Profit’s Ruin, so much the better.

‘What do we do, captain?’ Borazz asked Skarskorr when he came down from the observation deck. ‘Are we going to wait for that lunatic?’

Skarskorr could read the emotion behind the sharpshooter’s words. It reeked of fear, fear that he knew was rife among his crew. Fear of Profit’s Ruin. A fear he shared with them.

‘That’d be throwing good gold after bad,’ Skarskorr decided. ‘We’ll take what’s already been paid us and head for safer skies.’ He stared back at the green morass of the Ruin, its vines still undulating with agitated life. ‘He won’t be back,’ he declared.

‘Nobody comes back from Profit’s Ruin.’

CHAPTER FOUR

‘Repel boarders!’ Brokrin shouted the command across the Iron Dragon’s grudge-caller, blasting the order across the sky. Even as he yelled into the brass horn of the device, he thought the words somewhat absurd. Could the writhing tangle of vines and branches lashing out at the ironclad truly be called ‘boarders’?

The green, leathery vines whipped across the decks. Gotramm’s arkanauts converged on them, hacking away with swords and axes. Kerrum and the thunderers fired at the outstretched branches, blasting off bits of bark with each shot. Horgarr and his endrinriggers went to work with torches and aethermatic saws, attacking anything that swept towards the ship’s great endrin. Arrik and the gun crew hunkered down around Ghazul’s Bane, using the massive skyhook as a bulwark while they slashed out with their hatchets.

Brokrin and Vorki both tried to move the ship’s wheel, to steer her away from the smothering embrace of the Ruin’s coils. Every time the Iron Dragon started to veer away, more vines came undulating up from the verdant sea. Tendril after tendril, the ship was being smothered by the vicious foliage. Huge rubbery leaves blocked the aether-carbines and torpedo tubes, ropey stalks fouled the turbines and rudder, and thorns as big as skypikes dug into the hull and deck.

Across the sky, Brokrin could see the midnight-blue frigate watching his ship’s plight. The pirates were standing off now, no longer firing on them. He could imagine the thoughts of the rogue captain, the pragmatism that caused him to conserve ammunition when Profit’s Ruin could finish off the Iron Dragon all on its own. He did not know what had provoked the confrontation, whether it was robbery or revenge that spurred the frigate to attack. He tried to think if there were any Kharadron he had offended so deeply that they would harbour so great a grudge against him. Even his rival Brokk Grungsson of Barak-Nar would not have been driven to such feckless tactics.

‘Cap’n! These weeds are going to crush us!’ Vorki railed as he watched the prow of the ship start to buckle and distort under the pressure of the vines wrapped around it. Gotramm and two of his privateers were frantically chopping away at it with their blades, spilling sap and fibres across the deck.

Brokrin clenched his fists in frustration. Profit’s Ruin was relentless, sending ever more coils up to snag the Iron Dragon. Even if the duardin managed to cut away the vines and branches already gripping their ship, there seemed an endless mass of them the Ruin could yet bring to bear. Shooting, chopping and cutting: all were accomplishing nothing but to delay the inevitable.

In his agitation, Brokrin happened to look back towards the stern. Here there were no defenders aside from Arrik’s gunners up on the gun deck. Here too, the vines were less vicious than they were up around the prow and endrin. They seemed content simply to hold, rather than constrict. An idea suggested itself along with the observation. Because the vegetation was animated, perhaps Brokrin had mistakenly assumed its actions were the product of active thought. Perhaps the vines were simply reactive, returning the hostility of the Kharadron with violence of their own.

Leaning to the grudge-caller, Brokrin hesitated. If his supposition was wrong, he might doom the ship. Then again, for all the difference their defence was making, he may as well take the gamble.

‘All crew! Belay that last order!’ Brokrin yelled. ‘Don’t attack the vines! Leave them alone, as you value your honour and that of your ship!’

Confused shouts rose from every part of the ironclad, but the Iron Dragon’s crew was disciplined enough to adhere to their captain’s command. Backing away from the branches and vines, the duardin kept their weapons at the ready as Profit’s Ruin tightened its hold upon the ship. Brokrin saw Sergeant Kerrum raise his decksweeper and aim it towards the vines that came slithering across the mid-deck.

‘That was an order, not a suggestion, sergeant!’ Brokrin snapped, his ire echoing across the grudge-caller. Sullenly, Kerrum lowered his weapon and stared at the wheelhouse.

There were many crewmen looking askance at the wheelhouse and the order Brokrin had given them.

‘Cap’n, what are–’

Brokrin silenced Vorki’s question with a wave of his hand.

‘Wait, watch and pray,’ he told the first mate. ‘If I’ve any luck left, maybe I’m right about this.’

The duardin watched as the vines continued to entwine their ship. Coil after coil spilled over the decks, slithering with a gradual motion the crew were able to avoid without undue difficulty. Some of them wrapped about the base of the great endrin, rippling past Horgarr and his endrineers.

Brokrin held his breath, watching for the tendrils to tighten, to hear the first crack as the decks buckled under the pressure. But it was as he had observed with the stern. Once the coils were in place and unmolested, they were satisfied to simply hold.

When enough branches and vines were wound about the Iron Dragon, the ironclad gave a violent lurch to starboard.

‘Easy, lads,’ Brokrin called out to his crew. ‘There’s nothing we can do except let it happen. We can’t cut away the vines faster than Profit’s Ruin can send new ones up at us. Trying to attack them only makes them tighten and try to break the ship.’

Agrilo’s voice rang out from amidship, ‘But we’re being pulled down into Profit’s Ruin!’

‘Aye,’ Brokrin shouted back. ‘We’re being pulled down into the Ruin. If it has to happen, I’d rather we went as a whole ship rather than spattered across it in bits and pieces!’

The admonishment silenced any other protest. Warily, the crew turned away from the vines and stared down at the tangled morass of the Ruin itself, a green hell into which they would soon be plunged.

‘What difference will it make?’ Vorki whispered to Brokrin. ‘If we go down fighting or not?’

Brokrin stared at the gigantic mass of weeds and branches as the Iron Dragon was dragged into the canopy of leaves. ‘I’d wager every other ship caught in Profit’s Ruin fought as long as she could and went down a complete wreck. If we can keep the Iron Dragon intact, that’ll give us an advantage. A way out, if we’re lucky.’

Brokrin frowned at that last word. Luck was a fickle mistress, and the Iron Dragon had had more bad than good in her time. If the bad streak continued, they might never find a way off. The Iron Dragon and all aboard her would simply vanish into the ledger of lost ships and the legend of Profit’s Ruin.

The ship came to rest with less impact than Brokrin had braced himself for. The thick layers of branches and leaves the ironclad was dragged through helped to deaden her momentum, and the intertwined strands of vines served as a cushion when the Iron Dragon was drawn down to what served as the bottom of Profit’s Ruin. Instead of the bone-jarring crash he’d expected, the impact was no worse than being shaken up by a strong headwind.

Brokrin leaned out from the wheelhouse, looking around at his crew as they staggered back to their feet. Most of them glowered at the vines which held the ship, while others sent anxious glances at the canopy overhead. The gap through which the Iron Dragon had been pulled was already closing up, new leaves and branches sprouting from those damaged by the ship’s descent. Very quickly their surroundings took on an amber hue as the sunlight was filtered through the great mat of translucent leaves.

‘The vines are tightening!’ Gotramm’s cry of alarm was accompanied by the creak and shift of the straining foliage and the resisting hull.

Brokrin swung around and vaulted one of the vines as he dashed towards the great endrin.

‘Cut power!’ he shouted to Horgarr. ‘She’s trying to pull us back up and it is provoking the vines!’

The endrinmaster turned around and reached to the console at the base of the bulbous endrin. With the help of his assistants, Horgarr quickly threw levers and opened flywheels. A moment later there was a sickly hiss from the vents at either end of the endrin and a yellow mist of released aether-gold spurted into the air. The ship’s upward impetus dissipated, and with it the vines grew still once more.

‘Blasted weeds!’ Horgarr cursed, tossing a spanner at the nearest of the vines. ‘That was two bells’ worth of lift we just wasted!’

‘We aren’t going anywhere, anyway,’ Mortrimm told Horgarr. ‘This way at least the hull doesn’t get crushed.’

Agrilo waved his hands in frustration. ‘So we’re just going to leave these creepers wrapped around the ship?’ The logisticator kicked the nearest of the vines and quickly shuffled backwards when it lurched towards him.

Brokrin eyed the coils banded about his ship. His gaze focused upon one of them in particular, and followed it over the side.

‘Gotramm! Get some paint on that tendril! I want it marked out.’ He turned and barked orders to Arrik and the gunners. ‘Fetch up the biggest and sharpest axes we have. Horgarr, I want your fastest and most portable saw… and an endrineer who knows his way around it.’

‘What do you have in mind, cap’n?’ Vorki asked.

‘Just an idea,’ Brokrin said. ‘Maybe it’ll work, maybe it won’t.’

At the moment his crew was agitated, confused and more than a little scared. The best way he knew to get them back into a pliable mindset was to give them something to focus on.

‘We can’t attack these vines here, but maybe if we got at them a bit closer to the root we could clear them away. Like pulling up a weed, you don’t get anywhere just cutting the stalks.’ Brokrin gave Vorki a grim smile. ‘If nothing else, at least it’ll make all of us feel better.’

He marched out across the deck to join Arrik’s gunners and Horgarr’s endrineers. The endrinmaster had two of his apprentices each carrying a large and savage-looking circular aethermatic saw.

‘I figured that two would be better than one,’ Horgarr said. ‘And if you’re worried, we have a third one in reserve. I know how you don’t like to put all the aether-gold in one endrin.’

Brokrin gave the saws a quick evaluation. He could see Agrilo doing the same. While the logisticator was calculating their value, Brokrin had a different concern.

‘They look heavy. We may have to move quick if I’m wrong. Or even if I’m right.’ He shook his head and gestured to one of the saws. ‘We leave that one here. If this works, we’ll have work for it soon enough.’

Mortrimm gave Brokrin a curious look. ‘If you’re thinking anybody who goes overboard to do some pruning might have a tough time getting back, why not go see Thullig? He might be able to concoct some sort of acid to use against this stuff.’

‘Burning it might be a worse mistake than trying to cut it,’ Brokrin said. ‘We at least know somewhat how the vines react when you take a blade to them.’ He shifted his attention to Gotramm and the privateers as they slathered on dollops of dark paint to one of the vines.

‘Marked from port to starboard,’ Gotramm called out as his duardin finished.

‘That’s going to be our victim, then,’ Brokrin announced. He shifted the pistols in his belt and addressed the crew. ‘I’m going to lead a party out across the branches and try to follow that vine there to its root. We’re going to try and cut it off at its source.’

A short while later, Brokrin looked over the duardin he had selected to accompany him, feeling a twinge of guilt as he considered Arrik and the gunners. He wanted them with him because in their present circumstances the harpooners were among the most expendable of his crew. He regretted the necessity of bringing two endrineers along, but the bulky aethermatic saw was too much for one hand to lug around on his own.

‘Agrilo,’ Brokrin decided as he noted the logisticator staring at the vines. ‘Take Mordrik’s place. Help carry the saw.’

Agrilo blinked in surprise at the command and jabbed a finger at his own chest. ‘Me, cap’n? I’m sure there’s somebody better qualified to do that than me. I mean, I’m not as fit or agile as I once was. All those long hours labouring over balances takes the edge off a Kharadron, you know…’

‘I need someone to help carry the saw,’ Brokrin said. ‘You’re elected.’ He didn’t add that the logisticator was even more expendable than Arrik’s gunners should things go wrong.

Waving aside Agrilo’s excuses, Brokrin led his tiny band to the ship’s side, close to where the vine they had marked out snaked away into the green tresses of Profit’s Ruin.

‘Your ancestors guide your trail,’ Mortrimm told him as he clambered over the side.

Brokrin smiled at the old Kharadron saying, recalling all the times his father had told him the same thing. The smile faded when Brokrin remembered Mortrimm’s father, and that they might even now be close to where the Windfarer had crashed.

Brokrin’s group slid down the Iron Dragon’s hull on stout guide ropes. At his command, the crew remaining aboard cast a net over the side once the band was clear. It might very well be that they would be making a very hasty return to the ship. In that event, he didn’t want to lose any time fumbling about for guide ropes.

‘Feels like walking across a megalofin’s carcass,’ Arrik grumbled as he stamped his boots on the tangle of vines he was standing on. Each strand was thicker around than the Iron Dragon’s hull, and coloured a deep green with lighter shiny patches. They had a rubbery texture and gave slightly under the press of the duardin, making a very peculiar footing.

‘You’ve crawled around on a megalofin?’ Agrilo asked, a note of revulsion in his tone.

Arrik chuckled. ‘Over, under and inside,’ he said. ‘You have to get messy if you want to collect all the profitable bits from one of those beasties.’ He gave his gunners a sly look. ‘Not as nasty as fighting a balance sheet, but still not the sort of work everybody has the stomach to hear about.’

Brokrin pointed at the vine Gotramm had painted. ‘Keep your eye on that one,’ he told Arrik. ‘We follow that one back to where it starts, or at least branches off.’

‘And then we go to work on it?’ one of the gunners asked.

‘Once everyone is in position,’ Brokrin said. He looked around at his group. ‘We’ll have to work fast. We want to chop through it before it can react and do anything to the ship. If we can cut it off before it can tighten, then we can try the same with the others.’

He pointed to the tangle of branches and vines that stretched away in every direction, above and below as well as the columnar growths that rose from every side.

‘We’ve already seen that when you attack one of these things their neighbours will get involved, so keep your eyes open.’

Agrilo turned a sour glance at the aethermatic saw. ‘If that happens, I’m sure you want someone with more muscle carrying this thing. In fact, I think…’

‘If we have to leg it back to the ship, we leave the saw,’ Brokrin stated. ‘We’re trying to see if this will work, not how quickly we can get ourselves killed.’

Cautiously, Brokrin led his duardin out across the mesh of vines. The strange texture under their feet made for awkward walking, as did the tendency their boots had to cling to sticky patches of sap. More alarming were the frequent gaps they found, spots where the vines were thinner and less connected to one another. Here they could see through Profit’s Ruin to the blue sky below. A reminder, if any were needed, of the unnatural world which they had ventured into.

Brokrin was aware of a subtle swaying that rippled up through his feet. Accustomed to the rolling of an airship’s deck, he did not find the sensation uncomfortable, but simply another facet of Profit’s Ruin to be noted, in case it should provide some kind of utility later on. He imagined that even something as enormous as the Ruin couldn’t completely ignore the winds and so the power of the air currents made itself known as it coursed through the vines.

‘Look at those shiny patches,’ Arrik said, pointing his axe at the heavier branches that stretched overhead.

Darker than the green vines, almost a deep brown in hue, the branches were coated in gnarled bark, yet even they had those bright splotches of vibrant colour. At Arrik’s suggestion, Brokrin watched one of the discolourations for a moment. He soon saw what the master gunner had found so remarkable. The splotch wasn’t simply glowing, it was flickering with a subtle ebb and flow of light that had a somewhat golden colour.

‘I’m a bit more concerned about keeping an eye on the ship,’ Agrilo said. Though the group had been marching for only a short time, the Iron Dragon was almost lost to view, concealed by low-hanging leaves and gnarled twists of columnar vines.

Brokrin scratched at his beard and tried to display more confidence than he felt. ‘We still have the vine to follow back,’ he assured the others, patting the green tendril they had been pursuing away from the ship.

He looked back towards the Iron Dragon. It wasn’t his imagination; the leaves and vines did look to be thicker than they had been before. Profit’s Ruin was closing up the path they had taken.

As he made that observation, a cold chill ran through Brokrin. He couldn’t tell his crew what was happening. They were already edgy enough.

‘We’ll cut it here,’ Brokrin said.

He pointed to the vine and motioned Arrik and his gunners to position themselves around it with their axes. Agrilo and the endrineer lugged the aethermatic saw up onto the top of the growth.

‘We’re far enough from the ship that it won’t have time to do anything to her when we start cutting.’ He hoped none of the duardin would challenge him on that. There was, of course, no way to know how the vine would react… or how quickly.

Raising his fist, Brokrin called the saw into action. The machine growled into life and the endrineer brought it slashing into the top of the vine. Green fibres and translucent sap sprayed upwards as the whirring blade ground its way into the plant. At the same time, Arrik and his gunners got to work, hacking away at it from the sides in a play to meet the same path as the saw.

A shudder swept through the vines around them. Brokrin could feel the agitation surge up through his feet. At once there was a change in the atmosphere. No longer did Profit’s Ruin convey merely a sense of strangeness. Now there was a sense of menace.

‘Watch out!’ Brokrin shouted. Taking a firm grip on his axe, he lunged towards Arrik and intercepted a thin creeper that was dropping down towards him. Like some jungle python, the leafy mass drew back to lash out at the captain. A swing of his axe severed several feet of the tentacle, leaving it writhing at his feet. The rest of the creeper drew back up into the canopy overhead.

‘Faster!’ Agrilo shouted to the endrineer as more creepers came hurtling down towards them. The logisticator had a fat-bladed sword in his hands. He swung wildly as the tendrils whipped away at the two duardin.

Brokrin clambered up to help the beleaguered pair. ‘Get back to the ship,’ he shouted to Arrik and the gunners. They didn’t need to be told twice. Wrenching their axes from the sides of the vine, they trotted off in the direction of the Iron Dragon.

A clutch of tendrils were chopped down when Brokrin put his axe to work. With Agrilo’s help, he was able to keep the chokers from getting to grips with the endrineer.

‘Leave it,’ he told the duardin working the saw.

The endrineer shook his head, his face dripping with sap. ‘I’m almost through,’ he protested.

‘We’re all almost through,’ Agrilo snapped as he hacked away at one of the creepers.

Brokrin could see larger vines starting to spool down from above, as though Profit’s Ruin had realised the creepers weren’t strong enough to deal with the duardin. Bigger masses of foliage slithered upwards from what he had come to think of as the ground.

They were being surrounded. Soon they would be cut off entirely.

‘We need to leave. Now!’ Brokrin warned. The last was uttered in a surprised yell as the vine they were standing on began to buck and shake.

‘Almost there,’ the endrineer objected, then his voice was raised in a satisfied shout. ‘That’s it!’

The bucking, shaking heave of the vine grew worse still. Brokrin was thrown off, as was Agrilo. The endrineer tumbled away from the bisected vine, his body caked in stringy fibres and sticky sap. He gave one glance back at the bulky saw he had left at the bottom of the cut, then cried out in anguish as the tortured writhing of the vine smashed the tool into a crumpled mess of metal.

‘Back to the ship!’ Brokrin ordered, shoving the endrineer and propelling him down the path they had followed. He gave one look back at Agrilo, waving the logisticator to follow. The masses of vines, creepers and branches converging on the severed tendril made it look like the entire landscape had risen up to strike back at them.

Brokrin could just see Arrik and the others on the path ahead. There was no trace of the ship now, so thick had the intervening foliage grown. The gunners used their axes to hack a path clear, littering the trail with leafy debris. Following behind, Brokrin could see the leaves closing in again. He urged the endrineer to move faster and exhorted the same from himself. He could hear Agrilo just behind him, gasping as he tried to keep up with the other duardin. How far behind the logisticator the enraged vines might be, he was afraid to contemplate.

The vine they had followed away from the ship was still lashing about like a dying serpent. Brokrin could see its green colour fading to a dull, withered yellow. The glowing splotches stood out even more vividly, almost blazing with light. Angry embers in a dying fire.

Brokrin heard the muttered curse as Agrilo stumbled. ‘Don’t wait for me,’ he commanded the endrineer. Spinning around, hands clenched tightly around his axe, he dashed back towards the fallen logisticator.

Agrilo lay beside the severed vine, a strange look on his face as the creeper writhed only inches away from him. He had lost his sword and blood seeped from a wound in his scalp. He held a hand towards Brokrin as the captain came for him.

‘Cap’n, I…’

Brokrin shook his head, not looking at Agrilo but rather at the heaving mess of tendrils slithering after them. ‘No excuses, just get moving!’ he roared.

He brought his axe swinging around, cleaving a vine as thick around as his arm when the tendril came within reach. The severed length flopped to the ground, while the rest of it recoiled in pain. A second vine came shooting towards him only to meet the same fate, then a full dozen of their kind were rushing for him. Whether Agrilo was recovered or not, there was no more Brokrin could do.

With the mass of vines striking at him, Brokrin plunged through the leafy obstructions that tried to bar his way. He kept one eye on the severed tendril, using its leprous, withered colour to keep his way true. So intent was he on following the vine that the first he knew he was within sight of the Iron Dragon was when he heard Gotramm shouting.

‘It’s Cap’n Brokrin!’ the arkanaut yelled.

Brokrin dared to look away from the vine to see the Iron Dragon’s crew gathered about the gunwales. Thunderers’ guns barked as they fired at the surging mass of vines that pursued him. Less robust than the coils that had snagged the ironclad, Brokrin’s hunters retreated when they were struck. By the time he reached the net and started climbing, only a few vines still pursued him. They slapped against the hull and started to snake their way after him on the net until Gotramm and his privateers leaned over the side and started chopping them back with skypikes.

Brokrin heaved himself up over the gunwale and crashed heavily onto the deck. He met the anxious gaze of his crew. He was relieved to see Arrik, Agrilo and all the other members of his shore party had made it back. Then his gaze was drawn to the painted tendril, the section of vine that had been coiled around the ship. It was a withered, inert mass now. No longer a threat to the Iron Dragon.

‘Your daft scheme worked, cap’n,’ Horgarr said.

Brokrin nodded and tried to catch his breath. ‘It worked,’ he agreed. ‘But let’s try to think of a better way to do it before we try that again.’

Gathered around the large table in Brokrin’s cabin, the officers of the Iron Dragon were a dour group. Outwardly, Brokrin could see the frustration in their faces but sometimes a haunted, worried look would creep into their eyes. They had found Profit’s Ruin and were now one of its victims.

‘We’ve managed to cut up and cast aside the dead vine,’ Gotramm reported. ‘It was tough work, but at least we could do it without having it try to crush the ship.’

Vorki bobbed his head in agreement. The first mate was a rarity at these conferences, typically busy tending the wheel while the captain was gone. With the ship caught fast there was little need for him to be on deck, however. ‘Aye, we can give the rest of the weed the old heave-ho right enough. Provided somebody wants to risk his beard trying to cut it back away from the ship.’

Horgarr frowned at that. ‘It will not do any good to prune these weeds if we can’t lift off again.’ He tapped his finger against the table for emphasis. ‘You all saw the way the Ruin kept fighting until we drained the energy off from the endrin. If we go and cut away every weed that has a hold of the Iron Dragon, it’s just wasted effort. Profit’s Ruin’s just going to grab us again if we try to fly away.’

‘Maybe we can pin the weeds we cut to the hull,’ Kerrum suggested. ‘Trick the Ruin into thinking we’re just another of its creepers reaching up for the sun?’

An ugly laugh hissed past Mortrimm’s pipe. ‘Profit’s Ruin isn’t so easy to fool. If it was, nary a ship would have been lost to it before. This place doesn’t care what we look like. It knows its own.’ He exhaled a plume of smoke, then swept his hand through the cloud, chopping it in two. ‘The Ruin only cared about that vine the cap’n killed so long as it was attached. Otherwise it would have reacted when we were carving it into sections and tossing it over the side.’

Kerrum scowled at the navigator’s logic. ‘Maybe Thullig can…’

At mention of his name, the aether-khemist looked up. He gave an embarrassed smile to the others. ‘What was that? Did I miss something? Whatever you think is best will get my vote.’

It might have been missed by the other officers, but Brokrin had noticed the way Thullig kept whispering to Agrilo. The logisticator wasn’t able to hide his irritation at the furtive attention. Brokrin wondered why Thullig was so animated. Since leaving port he’d kept almost exclusively to the hold, stirring only during the pirate attack and subsequent capture by the Ruin. Now he appeared inordinately attached to Agrilo… and had been ever since his return to the ship.

Brokrin set the question aside when Horgarr raised his voice and addressed the room.

‘All I know is that we came here to salvage the wrecks the Ruin’s claimed over the centuries and now, unless we do something astonishing, we’re going to become one of those wrecks. The cap’n did a clever job of getting us through in one piece, but it won’t do us any good if we can’t get away again.’

Nods of agreement and murmurs of support accompanied the endrinmaster’s statement. Horgarr had put into blunt words what each of them was feeling. The gnawing fear that instead of discovering a legend they were going to become part of it.

Brokrin stood and leaned across the table. ‘When we left port, I told all of you we were seeking Profit’s Ruin simply for salvage. That’s only a part of it. The part of it I was allowed to tell you.’

A hush came across the officers. Keen interest was on each of their faces now. Even Thullig looked curious about what the captain was going to say.

‘I was taken into confidence by Orrik and Vaskin when I was given the chart,’ Brokrin explained. ‘Upon my honour, I was not to divulge our true objective in coming here lest rumour should carry to another crew and set rivals seeking the same prize we’re after.’

‘Something more than whatever’s in the hulls of these wrecks?’ Agrilo asked. There was a worried look in his eyes, but an eager curl to his lips as he waited for Brokrin’s answer.

Brokrin paused, wondering how much he should divulge. The crew needed something to aspire towards, a goal that would make them think less of the danger they were in. They needed to think on the opportunity that danger had given them. The prize that was worth such risk.

‘Orrik Goldhand’s convinced that the centre of Profit’s Ruin is what keeps it afloat. That’s why he bought the Iron Dragon’s debts and saved her from the scrappers. That’s why he funded this voyage as our one and only backer. His claim is that the heart of the Ruin is made of aether-gold.’

The announcement brought gasps of wonder from his officers. Kerrum blinked in bewilderment, trying to wrap his head around the concept of so much aether-gold in one place. Horgarr was pensive, his technical mind trying to work out the logistics of such a possibility and just how much aether-gold it would take to keep the entire Ruin aloft. The others exhibited a reaction that was somewhere between the two extremes.

‘So that’s why the scoundrel had us beard the dragon in its cave,’ Mortrimm said. ‘A big strike of aether-gold!’ The old navigator took out his pipe and rapped the bowl against his leg. ‘Or maybe nothing but fool’s gold. How can he be so certain that it’s aether-gold that keeps this freak in the sky?’

Agrilo rounded on Mortrimm. ‘How can you doubt?’ he snapped with a degree of emotion that surprised all at the table. His face coloured and he continued in an apologetic tone. ‘I mean, if a shrewd merchant-lord like Orrik would invest so much into this venture then certainly he must know what he’s doing. He didn’t make a fortune chasing after wind-fairies.’

‘He convinced me,’ Brokrin told Mortrimm. ‘Orrik was too wary of what he’d discovered, too frightened that somebody else would find out and beat him to the prize. No, he’s certain and I share that certainty. The profit we’ll bring back to Barak-Zilfin isn’t what’s down in the wrecks, but what’s in the Ruin itself.’

‘That doesn’t lessen our troubles,’ Gotramm said. ‘It only goes to double them. Now it isn’t enough to just get away from Profit’s Ruin. We need to strike out for its heart and collect the aether-gold as well.’

Brokrin sank back into his chair and ran his fingers through his beard. ‘Yes, we’ll still have to figure out how we’re going to free the Iron Dragon and save our skins,’ he admitted. A broad smile stretched across his face as he looked at each of his officers in turn. ‘But when we get to the Ruin’s heart, those skins we’re trying to save are going to be rich.’

‘What good’s gold to a dead duardin?’ Mortrimm muttered.

Agrilo sneered at the remark. ‘What good’s life to a poor one?’

Brokrin couldn’t refute the merit of either statement. Dead or poor, either were fates no Kharadron wanted to entertain.

‘We’ll keep part of the crew on the ship,’ Brokrin announced. He pointed at Mortrimm. ‘You’ll be in command of things here. Keep a watch on Profit’s Ruin in case the vines decide to take an interest in her again. The other part of the crew will set out onto the Ruin and strike out for the centre. I’ll lead that party.’

‘Are you sure you should take such risk onto yourself, cap’n?’ Gotramm asked.

Brokrin smiled. Of them all, Gotramm should know what the burden of command felt like after the mutiny and their experiences at Finnolf’s Fortress.

‘It was my agreement with Orrik that brought us here,’ he said. ‘If we’re to see things through, I’ll not ask anyone to take my part. Besides,’ he added with a thin smile, ‘I already know what it takes to outrun these vines if we make Profit’s Ruin upset.’

CHAPTER FIVE

The vines and branches were quiet as the Kharadron disembarked from the Iron Dragon. After the frantic retreat to the ship, Brokrin half expected Profit’s Ruin to resume the attack. He watched the lethargic undulations that pulsed through the foliage as though each vine were a jungle serpent waiting to strike. The other duardin exhibited similar misgivings, carefully measuring each step they took, reluctant to reach out to the overhanging tendrils to steady themselves even when a strong breeze caused the matted vegetation to sway.

Only one among them displayed any verve. Agrilo kept a bold pace and defiantly approached the branches. He took the smaller ones in hand without compunction and gave them a careful scrutiny.

‘Be careful you don’t rile the weeds!’ Gotramm barked at Agrilo.

Agrilo turned and gave the privateer an ingratiating smile. ‘Better to find out what it takes to make it upset here and now,’ he said. ‘This way we’re still close enough to the ship to get back.’

Brokrin glanced over his shoulder at the Iron Dragon. The faces of the crew peered back at him from over the gunwales. He felt a pang of guilt as he spotted Mortrimm watching him. The old navigator had been the first to volunteer, but Brokrin felt compelled to reject him on account of his crippled leg. If the Ruin started acting out again, the duardin would have to move fast. As bitter as the decision was, he had to order Mortrimm to stay on the ship.

‘We don’t need to bring more trouble to the ship,’ Brokrin said. ‘If we have to run, then we run, but let’s not provoke anything if it can be helped.’

‘I just thought, if I ranged out ahead of everyone and there was any sort of trouble…’ Agrilo’s gaze swept across the other eight duardin in the exploration party. ‘Better it should happen to me than risk all of us, right? I mean a logisticator isn’t of so much use in these circumstances as an arkanaut or a thunderer. If anything did happen…’

Brokrin shook his head. He couldn’t figure out the reason for Agrilo’s newfound altruism, but he trusted it about as much as a grot with a sharp knife. ‘No one from my crew’s expendable,’ Brokrin stated. ‘Not even a logisticator. Now get back here with the rest of us.’

‘And stop fiddling around with those vines,’ Horgarr added. The endrinmaster gave Brokrin an apologetic look. ‘Sorry, cap’n, but if he has to irritate these weeds, as you say, it’d be best he did it far away from the Iron Dragon.’

Brokrin nodded. ‘She’s a tough ship,’ he said. ‘She’ll pull through this. You’ll make sure of that.’

Horgarr glanced at the tangle of greenery all around them. ‘Orrik seemed to think the wrecks of every ship lost to the Ruin are still here. If they are, we might salvage some parts to bolster the Iron Dragon. Give her endrins enough power to break free. Reinforce the hull enough to withstand the vines.’

‘Whatever can be done, I know you’ll do it.’ Brokrin clapped Horgarr on the shoulder. He gave a last look back at the ship and the crew who had remained behind. ‘Mortrimm certainly expects the wrecks to be out here.’

‘For a while I thought you might have to clap him in irons to keep him from coming,’ Horgarr said as the explorers resumed their march.

‘For a while, I was afraid I would,’ Brokrin replied. He waved his hand at the tangled branches and the leafy canopy overhead. ‘I can’t pretend to know what it must be like, to think your father might be out there…’

‘The Windfarer was lost a long time ago,’ Horgarr reminded him. ‘Even if they survived the crash, how could they have sustained themselves? Leaves and tree bark, allowing the vines didn’t strangle you when you tried to take it?’

Brokrin scratched his beard. ‘I don’t know. We’ve only seen a small bit of this place. It might not all be the same. The Ruin’s big…’

‘So big it would be a miracle in itself to stumble on the wreck of one particular ship lost over a century ago,’ Horgarr said. He patted the copper case that held the simple lodestone compass hanging from his work belt. ‘At least we know what direction to strike out for if we want to find the middle of these weeds. Trying to find the Windfarer would be… unrealistic.’

‘I know,’ Brokrin agreed. ‘Mortrimm knows too. But we can know something in our heads and still feel something different in our hearts.’ A bitter laugh rasped across his lips. ‘There isn’t much profit to be had looking for something to bury. And nothing respectable around here to make a cairn from, anyway.’

Horgarr nodded. ‘I dare say it’d be worse to try and cast ashes into the wind. If these weeds get angry about axes, you can bet they have no love for fire.’

Brokrin looked at the tangled mat of branches on which the duardin were marching. ‘There’s an old bit of wisdom I learned my first week at the Academy. I was told never to burn a ship you’re still standing on, no matter how good the insurance might be. Until we’ve a way off Profit’s Ruin, I’d be just as anxious about an open flame as any of these vines.’

Agrilo kept an easy grip on the hatchet he carried. It was a stout little tool with an exceedingly keen blade and a magnificent griffon-hide grip that gave him remarkable purchase. He’d managed to haggle Lodri down to an eighth share – not of the Iron Dragon’s profits, or at least his cut of them, but rather from the private opportunity he had discovered. It irked Agrilo to no end that the crude powder-monkey was shrewd enough to realise he was charting a different course than that of Captain Brokrin. Perhaps he had been overanxious in cutting a deal with Lodri. Nothing aroused suspicion quite like a display of excitement.

Agrilo was trying his best to curb that excitement, but was finding it harder and harder to contain. If Brokrin hadn’t called him back, he might have done something reckless. He might have got lost or snatched up by some annoyed vine. Or, even worse, given away the game. At the moment there were only two others aware of his discovery. Lodri, in for an eighth share, and Thullig, who had about the same. The aether-khemist was a bit too eccentric to cut a proper deal. Then again, his part in things wasn’t really an active one now. The real work was going to be Agrilo’s lookout.

The logisticator frowned as he mulled that over. He liked money. He detested work. Right now, those two inclinations were clashing. More work for himself would mean less money to share out. Or would it? The more Agrilo saw of Profit’s Ruin and its tangled branches, the more he began to reconsider some of his ideas. Less work if he took others into his confidence, even if he did have to give them shares. They would be shares from a much bigger haul than Agrilo would secure on his own.

Agrilo looked at the masses of branches that stretched away at either side of the path the explorers were following. His eyes gleamed as they focused on the bright patches that shone amid the greenery. Lodri’s hatchet could make quick work of the bark around those glittering blemishes. The vines hadn’t reacted when he’d removed one of them before.

He turned his gaze back towards the explorers. Kerrum and two of his thunderers were at the front of the little column, followed by Brokrin and Horgarr, then two of the arkanauts. It was a compact group designed to meet any trouble they might encounter. By the very nature of the expedition, these were all brave duardin. Just the sort Agrilo could use. If only he could figure out who might be the most interested in cutting a side deal that wasn’t in the Iron Dragon’s charter.

Considering that question, Agrilo suddenly realised that his count was off. Somebody was missing! The thought that the vines might have silently snatched one of them without anyone noticing sent a chill through him. His grip tightened on the hatchet. He’d have to tell Brokrin, even if it meant turning back.

Agrilo swung around to see if he could spot where they might have lost their missing companion. He found the duardin standing right behind him, hands on his hips and a scowl on his face.

‘You’re falling behind,’ Gotramm told him.

Agrilo dipped his head in contrition. ‘Cap’n Brokrin said I shouldn’t stray too far ahead of the group, but he didn’t say anything about hanging back a little.’ He glanced around and then confided to Gotramm in a whisper. ‘You see, I’ve this thing about crowds. I always have. Too many people around causes me to itch all over.’

‘Except when you’re gambling,’ Gotramm said.

‘The game distracts me from my problem,’ Agrilo replied. ‘The thrill of the dice… the drama of the wager… the gripping tension of seeing who luck will favour…’

Gotramm shook his head. ‘Enough,’ he growled. ‘If you want tension and thrills, just keep your eyes on the vines and try to figure out if they’re going to attack us. That should be enough to keep you sociable.’

The privateer motioned Agrilo forwards. The small group was just starting around a curve in the path. Agrilo tarried for a moment, and as soon as the last arkanaut was out of sight, he put his hand on Gotramm’s chest to hold him back.

‘A moment of your time,’ Agrilo begged. ‘You have me by the beard, Gotramm. All that talk about crowds and itching was a ploy, but you saw right through it. You see, what I was really hanging back for was a chance to talk to you. Alone.’

Gotramm’s eyes narrowed with suspicion. He plucked Agrilo’s hand away and pushed him forwards. ‘Whatever you have to say, I’m not interested.’

‘But you are interested,’ Agrilo insisted. He tried to dig his heels into the branch he was walking on, but succeeded only in gashing the bark with his boots. ‘Every Kharadron’s interested in making a good profit. And I know you’ve even better reason than most, what with your hopes of getting married and–’

‘We’re not discussing Hilda or my ambitions,’ Gotramm snarled. ‘I’ve been led astray before by a conniving liar who thought to exploit me for his own ends.’

‘Conniving liar!’ Agrilo threw the words back at Gotramm. ‘Listen, I’ll admit I can twist the truth into a good knot at times, but I don’t connive and I don’t exploit. I always give people a fair shake and let them make their own decisions.’ He mellowed his tone and gave Gotramm a sympathetic look. ‘I know my predecessor was something of a rogue, and that you probably distrust all logisticators because of him, but I assure you I’m not proposing a mutiny or anything so audacious.’

‘Then why do you want to talk alone?’ Gotramm accused, unmoved by Agrilo’s placating tone. ‘Why the secrecy? You’re up to something that I’m sure the cap’n will be very interested to hear about.’ He gave Agrilo a shove forwards. The logisticator stumbled a few paces, then spun around, desperation on his face.

‘You ever hear the expression that too many engineers will ruin the motor? Well, something of that sort,’ Agrilo said. ‘I’ve discovered something that promises to be very lucrative, but it might not be that way if we have to share it with the entire crew… and the backers.’

Gotramm’s scowl grew more intense. ‘You cheating chiseller, you’d break the Code just to line your own pockets! Anything acquired on the voyage that has value is to be shared between the crew and the backers.’

Agrilo shook his head and grinned. ‘The Code stipulates “the voyage”. But when you’re in port, and you happen on a business venture, that doesn’t fall into the province of the ship’s charter. It’s considered your own affair, both in the matter of risk and reward.’

‘Are you saying Profit’s Ruin is a port?’ Gotramm’s scowl turned into a look of incredulity.

‘In a manner of speaking, yes,’ Agrilo said. ‘There’s a codicil that’s quite pertinent to our situation here. When a ship is incapable of flight for a prolonged period of time, then she’ll be considered to be in a port of call. The crew is still subject to the charter and the commands of their captain, but – and this is most important – they’re at liberty to pursue any opportunities of their own provided they do not conflict with either the charter or the captain’s commands.’

‘We’ve agreed to split any salvage,’ Gotramm pointed out. ‘And now we find that Orrik backed us because he wanted us to find the heart of the Ruin. If there’s any profit there, it still falls under the charter.’

‘Agreed,’ Agrilo said. ‘But what if I told you there was another way to make money off the Ruin? Would that be of interest to you?’

Gotramm was quiet for a moment. His face pulled back in an annoyed grimace. ‘We’re falling too far behind,’ he told Agrilo. ‘Get moving so we can catch up.’

Agrilo made no objection this time. He could see that hungry look in Gotramm’s eyes, hear that eager edge in his voice. Even if the privateer wasn’t aware of it, he was hooked. The trick now was to pay out the line slowly and then reel him in.

There was just one problem that unsettled Agrilo as he marched back to the rest of the explorers. How big a share would it take to bring Gotramm into the fold?

The walls of entwined branches drew closer as the duardin pressed on. Gotramm could feel them closing inwards, creeping tighter with every step he took. The narrowing of the way was gradual, so incremental that it couldn’t be seen. But it was happening. He was certain of that.

The rest of the explorers appeared oblivious to the change. Gotramm studied them carefully, looking for any sign that they felt what he felt; had noticed what he had noticed. Yet there was nothing. No anxiety. No trepidation. They just kept trudging along as though they were walking about the streets of Barak-Zilfin without a care in the world.

Gotramm hefted his sword. The sunlight filtering down through the leaves above sparkled along the keen edge. The blade held his gaze, promising him deliverance from the fear that pounded inside his breast. He looked at the tangled mass of vegetation. Just on the other side of that wall perhaps he would find another path, a path that would deliver them straight to the heart of Profit’s Ruin and the treasure that would make them all rich.

The privateer drew a long breath, forcing a degree of calm back into his mind. Gotramm was a true son of the skies. He never felt quite right in a confined space for very long. Normally it was something he could control, but with everything else he had to worry about, his claustrophobia was running amok. If only Agrilo had kept his schemes to himself. Wondering what the logisticator was up to was simply one more problem he didn’t need right now.

Gotramm looked back over his shoulder. The path behind looked very much like the one ahead. There had been some diversions along the way, but Horgarr had always steered them right with his compass. If they did have to backtrack and return to the ship, at least it would be a straight course. Unless the hideous Ruin had decided to move things around on them once they were gone.

‘Grimnir’s Axe, don’t even think about that,’ Gotramm told himself. If anything was going to work him into outright panic, that was certainly it. Sure, there was a kind of animation to Profit’s Ruin, but they had seen nothing to indicate it had any true sort of awareness to it. Even less that there was some sort of malignant intelligence governing the living sea.

Gotramm quickened his pace. After his talk with Agrilo, he had decided to bring up the rear of their little group, just to make sure the logisticator didn’t get up to anything. Now he found the post to be unbearable. He needed the company of his fellows, the surety of other duardin around him. Maybe then the press of the branches wouldn’t be so overwhelming.

The column came to a stop just as Gotramm rejoined his companions. He looked around, wondering why they had stopped, then spotted Agrilo up at the front talking with Brokrin and Horgarr.

‘I tell you, cap’n, I’ve been keeping a careful eye on these branches,’ Agrilo said. ‘Trying to be sure they aren’t up to anything.’ He gestured with his hatchet to a bulbous, bright-coloured nodule that projected from the side of a branch just to the right of the path. ‘I remember this growth. We’ve passed this spot before.’

Horgarr shook his head and stared down at the lodestone in its box. ‘That isn’t possible,’ he said. ‘We’ve been keeping north nor’-east this entire time. You have to have made a mistake.’

Agrilo folded his arms and gave the endrinmaster a defiant look. ‘The reason I’m a logisticator is I have a knack for remembering the little details. And I’m telling you this is a little detail I remembered.’ He leaned down and cocked his head to the side. ‘If you look at it just right it resembles my Guildmaster’s nose.’

Gotramm listened to the exchange with mounting agitation. He glanced again at the path behind them. Was it only fancy, or was the way closing up? He fought down the fearsome notion and instead made his way to the front of the column.

‘What’re you saying, Agrilo?’ Gotramm demanded. ‘That we’ve been walking around in circles?’

Agrilo pointed again at the nodule. ‘All I’m saying is that we’ve passed this spot before. How and why are questions I leave others to solve.’

Brokrin looked from Agrilo to Horgarr. ‘Is it possible the compass is faulty?’ he asked the endrinmaster.

Horgarr tapped his fingers against the copper casing. ‘This has been in my family for three generations now and not once has it played me false.’ He wagged his thumb at Agrilo. ‘He has to be wrong.’

‘I say I’m not,’ Agrilo grumbled. ‘We’ve been past this spot before. I know it.’

‘You can’t both be right,’ Brokrin stated.

Gotramm felt the panic welling up inside him. The walls of branches were drawing close now; he could even sense the leafy canopy descending towards them, dropping down like a suffocating shroud.

‘What if they are, cap’n?’ he asked Brokrin. ‘What if the Ruin is moving around on us, only we haven’t noticed it? What if it’s just guiding us along until it decides to collapse this path entirely and crush us between its walls?’

Brokrin reached towards Gotramm. ‘Enough of that,’ he ordered. ‘You’ll start a panic.’

The captain’s words only made the pounding desperation louder inside Gotramm’s brain.

‘Maybe there’s a time to panic,’ he declared. His eyes darted back and forth, watching as the walls drew tighter. ‘Maybe that time is now!’

Before Brokrin could try to stop him, Gotramm lunged at the tangle of branches Agrilo said they had passed before. His sword came chopping down, shearing through the bark just behind the nodule. Sap spurted from the wound, dribbling down in a sticky stream. He raised his weapon to strike another blow.

At that instant, the vines around the duardin erupted into violent activity. No more the lethargic undulations that had characterised them before; now the greenery lashed out with ropey coils. Gotramm was whipped across the face by a slender stalk that dropped at him from above. A thorny tendril cracked across Agrilo’s arm and drew blood from his shoulder.

‘We’re under attack!’ Kerrum shouted. His decksweeper roared as he turned it upon the mass of writhing vines that emerged from the tangled branches. His two subordinates copied the sergeant’s actions, firing into the enraged foliage. Sap and fibrous debris were sent spraying across the path as the shots struck home. A few of the tendrils fell limp against the branches, but for each that collapsed a dozen more took its place.

‘Everyone to the centre of the path!’ Brokrin yelled. ‘Back to back! Don’t let anyone become separated!’

As best they could, the duardin rallied around Brokrin. Gotramm knew he should do the same, but it was panic rather than reason that ruled him now. He defied the vines that struck at him and continued to hack away with his sword. His beard was matted with sap, his skin split and bleeding where the tendrils lashed him, yet still he would not break away. He had to cut his way clear. He had to reach the open space he knew was just beyond the branches.

‘Gotramm! Get over here! That’s an order!’ Brokrin’s shout rang out over the clamour of the strange battle. Duardin with axes and swords, gunstocks and knives, striking against the teeming masses of vicious weeds.

Gotramm tried to respond to Brokrin’s order, but then his frantic efforts bore results. He had a hole chopped through the tangle of branches. Air, fresh and clear after the stuffy, rank atmosphere of the path, rushed across the privateer’s face.

‘Cap’n! I’m through!’ Gotramm exclaimed. Even as the triumphant cry echoed across the path, he was pushing himself through the hole he had cut.

Raw horror rushed through Gotramm when he saw what lay on the other side of the tangle.

Nothing. There was nothing on the other side, only the open sky. By some convolution of the branches, the explorers had been brought to the edge of Profit’s Ruin!

Before Gotramm could pitch forwards and plunge into the emptiness, he felt himself grabbed from behind. Not the cold grip of the vines, but the warm touch of flesh and blood. His own momentum was turned against itself and he tumbled back onto the path. He fell prostrate among the severed vines and splintered wood.

Gotramm looked up to his rescuer, but his gratitude fell silent on his tongue. He wasn’t looking at a duardin, but at a tall human woman with coppery skin and flaxen hair. She was dressed in a cloak made of leaves and was gazing at him with a severe expression on her face.

‘Who’s that?’ Horgarr cried out.

The strange woman turned from Gotramm and waved her arms at the other duardin. ‘Stop!’ she cried. ‘Lay down your weapons!’

The language bore a rough semblance to that employed by the mountain folk of Thune.

‘We’d rather go down fighting,’ Brokrin snapped, his blade sweeping across a vine that was trying to curl around his leg.

The woman took a step towards them. ‘You will not be hurt if you stop,’ she insisted. Exasperated, she turned towards Gotramm. ‘Make them understand. If they persist then they’re all going to die!’

Gotramm didn’t know that they would fare any better if they laid down their weapons, but it was certain that they weren’t going to fight their way free. More and more of the weeds were being brought to bear against the Kharadron. Now there were sharp-edged branches jabbing at them, like a phalanx of spearmen.

Observing the plight of his comrades caused Gotramm to appreciate something else. Since she had pulled him back through the hole, none of the vines had tried to attack him. Maybe this human did know what she was talking about.

‘Cap’n!’ Gotramm shouted. ‘Do what the human says! The plants aren’t attacking me now!’

Brokrin turned his head and gave the privateer a lingering glance. Gotramm saw him bite his lip as he wrestled with the choice he had to make.

‘Stand down, lads!’ Brokrin ordered. ‘We can’t win this fight anyway.’

As he dropped his blade, several vines wrapped around Brokrin’s body. The other duardin were similarly beset, to varying degrees. It looked to Gotramm like the plants farther away from the fighting had lost interest in them, but those nearer the fray persisted for a few moments.

‘You said they would not be hurt,’ Gotramm growled at the woman.

She gave him a sharp look and walked towards Brokrin and the others. As she did, she began to sing in a thin, whispery tongue unlike any language Gotramm had ever heard before. The vines coiled around the duardin slowly disengaged. They retreated back into the canopy or slithered into the tangled walls that bordered the path. Soon the explorers were free.

The woman gave the duardin a reproving look and then turned back towards Gotramm. ‘Tell your men they mustn’t antagonise the Ruin further. I’m not sure it’ll be appeased by a mere song if it’s angered again.’

Gotramm shook his head and pointed at Brokrin. ‘He’s our captain, lady. Captain Brokrin Ullissonn of the Iron Dragon. He decides what we do.’

The woman turned back towards Brokrin. ‘I’m Esmira,’ she said. ‘If you value your life and the lives of your men, you will not cause offence to the Sea.’

Brokrin tugged a dead vine from his arm. He looked at Gotramm, then faced Esmira. ‘We’re grateful for your help,’ he said. ‘But as to not causing offence to this Sea of yours, I don’t know that I can promise that. You see, we don’t intend to stay here and it doesn’t seem the Profit’s Ruin wants to let us leave.’

The human sat on one of the branches that jutted down from the canopy and listened while Brokrin explained the situation to her. Some of what he said didn’t appear to interest her, other things brought her to intense curiosity. Much, however, just seemed to confuse her. It took the captain a few minutes to guess the reason why.

‘What’s your tale, Esmira?’ Brokrin asked. ‘How long have you been caught in the Ruin?’

The woman leaned forwards and rested her hands across one knee. ‘I’ve been here a long time,’ she said, a haunted tone in her voice. ‘So long now that I can only dimly remember what it was like outside.’ She nodded at the thick twist of branches that served as the firmament of the path. ‘It’s almost like a dream to me now, that world below.’

‘Below?’ Brokrin asked. ‘You mean you once lived on the ground? Then how did you get drawn up into the Ruin?’

Esmira tapped her foot against the branch that supported her. There was a distant look in her eyes. ‘Our village was rich and large. The gods had smiled on us, for we honoured them all and raised great temples in their name. At least, we thought we honoured them all. There must have been one who was forgotten by the priests.’

Her hands clenched her knee and her voice dropped into a frightened hiss.

‘I remember when the village died. Angry black clouds filled the sky and turned day into night. Through that blackness plunged a great spiral of giant roots. They ripped and tore and lashed across the village, smashing and destroying. They churned the buildings into dust and brought down the precious temples. Not man nor beast did they spare, but rent all asunder that were caught in their path. Deep into the earth they burrowed, gouging a mighty pit. Then they drew the savaged soil upwards. Up and up and up! Through the black clouds! So very high, until at last the floating forest appeared. They pulled the dirt up into the forest with all the broken and crushed things the roots had mangled in their fury.’ She looked intently at Brokrin. ‘I was a little girl then, caught by the roots and pulled up into the Sea of Doom. For some reason, the gods had spared me, and I was brought alive into the forest.’

Horgarr twisted his moustache and considered Esmira’s tale. ‘Any natural plant needs minerals and nutrients from the soil,’ he said. ‘That tornado of roots must be the Ruin’s way of providing for itself.’ He gave the human a sympathetic look. ‘Your village must have simply been in its way when it got hungry.’

‘And you’ve truly been here ever since? All alone?’ Gotramm wondered.

Esmira raised her head and looked at the canopy above and the vines all around them. ‘You’re never really alone here,’ she said. ‘The Sea’s always with you. Watching without eyes. Listening without ears. Always aware of you.’

‘But you’ve managed to survive,’ Brokrin said. ‘Profit’s Ruin hasn’t killed you.’

‘You seem to have some kind of affinity with it,’ Gotramm added. ‘When you saved me… when you helped all of us… you knew what the tendrils would do. You knew how to calm them.’

A thought occurred to Brokrin. ‘You say it has no eyes or ears,’ he said, ‘yet it responded to that song…’

‘Perhaps it was not the words but the melody,’ Horgarr suggested. ‘The vines may have somehow felt the vibration of Esmira’s voice.’ He turned and looked back up at her. ‘The question is, how did you happen to know the right song and the right pitch to appease the Ruin?’

Esmira shook her head. ‘I… I do not know your meaning. I was taught the… the way of that song a very long time ago. I do not remember when.’

Horgarr would have asked Esmira more, but Brokrin restrained him. ‘We don’t mean to intrude,’ he told her. ‘We’re grateful for your help and, if I may be so bold, we would ask your aid. You know this place and its ways. We don’t. As you have seen, we don’t know what to do and how to conduct ourselves without provoking Profit’s Ruin.’

‘What is it you are looking for?’ Esmira asked. ‘You’ve strayed far from your ship. You wish me to guide you back there?’

Brokrin weighed the challenge in Esmira’s voice. The isolated survivor who had made this incredible forest her home for many years. It was perhaps natural that the thrill of finding someone else in this wilderness should give way to suspicion. Or was there something more than that in her shifting attitude?

‘We left our ship to see if we could reach the core of the Ruin,’ Brokrin said. ‘We were curious to see what was there and whether it might help us to leave this place.’

Esmira was silent for a moment, then, with a lithe motion that belonged more to a crag-leopard than anything human, she dropped down from her perch. ‘You seek the heart of the Sea,’ she told the duardin, then focused her gaze on Brokrin. ‘Do you know what you will find there?’

Brokrin drove all thoughts from his mind of aether-gold and the riches Orrik believed they could wrest from Profit’s Ruin.

‘No,’ he lied. ‘Do you know what’s there?’

The woman turned from him and drew her cloak of leaves a little tighter around herself. ‘If you wish me to, I can guide you there,’ she said. Brokrin could feel her eyes on him, appraising him as keenly as any gem-cutter ever studied a stone. ‘You wouldn’t find it on your own,’ she added.

‘Then we’ll accept your help,’ Brokrin said. ‘If we find something that will help us, I would offer you passage on our ship.’ He waved his hand at the branches under his feet. ‘We can take you back to the world below.’

His offer appeared to genuinely surprise Esmira. There was a look of confusion on her face.

‘The world below,’ he heard her whisper.

‘We’ll take you back to your own people,’ Gotramm said. Brokrin frowned at his choice of words, as Esmira’s village had been obliterated long ago. The privateer must have realised the same, for he quickly added, ‘To a city of humans where you’ll find people like yourself.’

Esmira did not seem to know how to take this offer of rescue. She raised her eyes from the duardin and looked at the greenery all around them, as though trying to imagine a world different from the one she had known for so long.

‘I’ll inspect the path ahead and see that it’s not too difficult for you,’ she finally said. Without further explanation, Esmira stalked off down the trail.

‘What do you think she means about making sure the path isn’t difficult?’ Kerrum asked Brokrin when the human was out of view.

Horgarr answered for their captain. ‘I think she’s going to sing to these weeds and get them to clear the way for us,’ he said.

‘She might be able to do that,’ Brokrin agreed. ‘She’s been here a long time, and we’ve already seen the power she has over these vines.’

‘But do you think she can lead us to the heart of Profit’s Ruin and the aether-gold?’ Agrilo asked.

Horgarr put a more important question to Brokrin. ‘Do you think we can trust her?’

Brokrin shook his head. ‘That’s less of a worry to me than whether Esmira feels she can trust us. Whether she does or not will decide where she leads us.’

‘What do you mean, cap’n?’ Gotramm glanced down the trail to where Esmira had gone. ‘Where else would she take us?’

‘If she’s suspicious of us,’ Brokrin said, ‘she might be taking us into a trap.’

The duardin did not notice the black-feathered bird that was perched high above them in the leafy canopy. The raven observed Brokrin and his explorers with an intensity beyond that of any simple animal. Had the Kharadron captain noticed the creature, he might have found something familiar about its eyes. Something that reminded him of Vaskin. Or at least what he had met wearing Vaskin’s shape.

Yoshiro shifted his clawed feet and waited for the duardin to get under way again. So far, everything was falling into place according to Khoram’s design. The curseling’s plan had even foreseen the wild woman who’d arrived to save the Kharadron from the angry vines. Yoshiro didn’t like to lean too heavily on prognostication, however. Even the most exacting prophecy had a nasty habit of turning around and biting those who tried to manoeuvre to benefit from the future.

No, the sorcerer would make his own amendments to Khoram’s plan. Yoshiro turned his beaked head and stared at the mirrored glass that hung from his feathered neck. He could feel the subtle vibration of arcane energy that exuded from the mirrored shard, just as he could sense the latent energies that coursed through the Ruin’s branches.

Yoshiro fixed his attention on the sly-faced duardin they called Agrilo. He had watched while Agrilo removed the cyst-like nodule from where Gotramm had cut a hole through the edge of Profit’s Ruin. He had looked on as the logisticator hid the object in a small satchel slung over his shoulder. Even removed from the branch, there was a pulsation of energy from the ovoid cutting.

The sorcerer was not sure what that might mean, but if there was a way to turn that power to his own purposes, he was going to find it.

CHAPTER SIX

Brokrin kept a careful watch on Esmira as the strange woman led the explorers through the eerie world of Profit’s Ruin. He was impressed by the rapid progress she made through the labyrinth of branches and vines. At the same time, a feeling of uneasiness began to creep up on him. Was their speed due to Esmira’s knowledge of the floating forest or was it something else? Was it perhaps that the weeds were opening up a path for her to follow?

‘I would’ve thought no one could make sense of this tangle,’ Gotramm commented as he marched up beside Brokrin. ‘The Ruin seemed to me to be as much in flux as any real sea, yet this human can pick her way as easily as Mortrimm could follow a skychart.’

Brokrin nodded to the privateer. ‘I would’ve agreed with you, but for us to be right about the Ruin would mean that something is wrong.’ He glanced around at the rest of the duardin and lowered his voice so none of them would hear him. ‘Something wrong… with her.’

Gotramm blinked in surprise. ‘Cap’n, she saved my life,’ he objected.

‘Aye,’ Brokrin agreed. ‘Maybe she had a reason. Just as maybe Profit’s Ruin has a reason to let her pass through it so easily… and us with her.’

‘Why?’ Gotramm asked.

‘If I knew that,’ Brokrin sighed, feeling the weight of his responsibilities pressing down on him, ‘I would be able to plan how we should react. As it stands, I’m lost in the storm with only instinct and wit to steer us back to port.’ He balled his hands into fists and shook his head. ‘By the Code, I’m getting the Iron Dragon clear of this place. Whatever it takes, and woe to those who try to stop me.’

Gotramm scowled at Brokrin. ‘Esmira could have let me die. She didn’t. If she means us ill, why bother to help me?’

‘Maybe to gain our confidence,’ Brokrin said. ‘So we’d follow her without asking too many questions.’

Gotramm shook his head. ‘If you don’t trust her, then why follow her?’

Brokrin gave the privateer a grim look. ‘What other choice do we have? The Iron Dragon is caught fast, and if we try to free her we’ll have Profit’s Ruin trying to crack her in half. We’ve got to find some way to beat it. Esmira just might know how.’

‘What about the heart of the Ruin? You still intend to find it and get it for Orrik?’

‘We may as well try. When we get the Iron Dragon free, I wouldn’t mind if we left with a full hold and some profit to show for all our trouble.’ Brokrin turned his head and glanced again at the rest of the Kharadron explorers. ‘They deserve it. Every last one of them.’

Gotramm glanced at Agrilo. ‘Maybe some deserve a little less.’

Brokrin chuckled at the remark. ‘I’ve a feeling Agrilo’ll get more than his share unless everybody keeps away from his dice.’ He smiled at Gotramm. ‘You might do well to set an example for your arkanauts in that respect.’

‘I don’t roll against Agrilo to stuff my pockets,’ Gotramm protested. ‘I do it to wipe that smug grin off his face.’

‘That’s exactly what he banks on,’ Brokrin pointed out. ‘Make your opponent angry and he’s more apt to make mistakes.’ He stopped and ran his fingers through his beard. ‘Maybe that’s how we can handle Profit’s Ruin. Make it mad so it makes mistakes.’

‘Cap’n, it’s just a bunch of weeds,’ Gotramm said. ‘It reacts, but it doesn’t get mad. Not the way a person would.’

Brokrin stared at the walls of vines around them, at the leafy branches above. ‘Maybe…’ he muttered. He wasn’t so convinced that there was nothing more to Profit’s Ruin than an expanse of forest. The magic that kept it in the sky, the enchantment that poured movement into its vines, that same force might have done much more to the vegetation. A kind of communal awareness, perhaps, that stirred through the plants and made them act…

‘Grungni’s Anvil,’ Brokrin gasped as he gazed ahead.

The masses of branches and vines had opened up, exposing a vast clearing. Sunlight poured down from the resultant gap in the canopy, shimmering across a wondrous sight. Huge blocks of white stone with silver veins stood gleaming in the daylight, brilliant in their majesty. Each of the blocks was caught in a mesh of branches, jutting up from the strange floor at odd angles.

Esmira waved back to the duardin, encouraging them to follow. As she walked into the clearing, Brokrin was struck by the megalithic size of the stones. Even knowing the architectural feats of the ancient duardin, he could only think in terms of primordial gargants when looking on the immense blocks.

‘Cap’n! What… what is this place?’ Agrilo wondered, staggering forward with eyes agape at the impossible sight. ‘How is it here?’

Brokrin could only shake his head.

Horgarr provided another aspect to the mystery. ‘These stones were cut long ago,’ the endrinmaster said, gesturing to the closest of the blocks. ‘You can see where wind and rain have gnawed at the edges. These might have been raised in the Age of Myth, before the hordes of Chaos swept across the realms.’

‘But how long have they been here?’ Gotramm waved at the stones with his sword. ‘And how did they get…’ His voice trailed off and he pointed towards a sight deeper in the clearing.

While the blocks Brokrin had first seen were jumbled and scattered, what the duardin now gazed on was a complete and intact structure. Cyclopean in its dimensions, the immense building stood half-shrouded in branches and vines, its white stone shining in the sun. Great columns flanked its sides while its roof arched upwards at a steep angle. Enormous carvings of fantastical beasts adorned its walls, standing out in stark relief amidst sculpted arboreal scenes. A massive entranceway was flanked by tremendous statues, the space beyond shrouded in shadow.

‘This looks old enough to have been built by the gods themselves,’ Gotramm whispered in awe.

‘Aye,’ Kerrum agreed, ‘but what’s it doing here?’

Brokrin glanced around at the jumbled blocks strewn about the clearing. ‘Esmira said that Profit’s Ruin sometimes sends down a cyclone of roots. Perhaps all of this was caught up in them.’

Horgarr coughed and spat into the vines. ‘The human might have been caught up by accident, but there’s no chance that building was.’ He leaned down and plucked a fallen leaf from the floor with either hand. With his left he simply snatched it up, crushing it into crisp fragments. The leaf he grabbed with his right he did by forming a cage with his fingers and drawing it carefully upwards. He held out his hand and displayed the intact leaf to make his point.

‘This is a temple,’ Esmira said. Unnoticed by Brokrin and the others, she had drifted back through the branches to rejoin them. ‘It was built long ago by a people who are no longer.’ There was sadness in her eyes as she looked at the building. ‘Only the cold earth remembers the gods who were honoured here. The earth and the wind… and the trees.’

Brokrin felt an eerie chill as he listened to the haunted tone in her voice. ‘What sort of gods were they?’ he asked.

Esmira stared at Brokrin, her gaze piercing into his soul. ‘Gods too kind to be remembered, too benevolent to endure. When the time for war came upon them, they had forgotten what it meant to fight. They could not change and answer the cries of those who honoured them and so they could only watch as darkness swept away all who cried out to them.’

‘How is it that this temple’s here, in Profit’s Ruin?’ Brokrin asked.

‘I do not know,’ Esmira replied. She made a dismissive roll of her shoulders. ‘Mayhap it was caught up in the coils long ago. Or it could be that it has always been here, a part of the forest when it first fled into the sky.’

Brokrin did not care for the sound of that last suggestion. It fit into his own worries that there was some overall awareness that governed the Ruin. Not intelligence as might be applied to duardin or human, but a consciousness all the same.

‘Is this where you live?’ Gotramm interrupted.

Esmira nodded. ‘This is where I stay,’ she said. ‘The Sea is restful here and I do not need to be so careful of where I tread.’ She pointed to the temple’s entranceway. ‘I sleep there when I am fatigued. If you wish to rest, here would be the best place to do so.’

‘We Kharadron are a hardy folk,’ Brokrin told Esmira. ‘We can go much farther before we need to rest.’ He studied her closely before adding, ‘You said you might lead us to the heart of the forest.’

Brokrin saw the slight start his reminder gave the woman. He could not decide whether it was because she was still uncertain about the duardin or if it was because she had no intention of taking them to the centre of the Ruin. What he did detect was a degree of reserve, the kind of caution he often saw humans exhibit before they started to haggle over prices. It struck him as absurd. They had already offered to take Esmira with them once the Iron Dragon was free. What more could they offer her? What else could there be to negotiate?

‘Please,’ Esmira gestured towards the temple. ‘I would welcome you to rest here.’ She glanced around at the branches and the canopy beyond the clearing. ‘I would like to speak with you where it’s quiet.’

To Brokrin’s ears, the only sounds were the whistle of the wind and the creaking of the branches. Whatever else there was to hear, it was lost to him. Or perhaps Esmira was not worried about hearing things, but being heard?

Brokrin motioned for the human to lead the way. As the duardin started to follow her, he caught Gotramm’s sleeve. ‘Stay on your guard,’ he whispered. ‘The human’s anxious about something.’

‘You think she leads us into a trap?’ Gotramm’s words had a slight edge of challenge to them.

‘I don’t know,’ Brokrin said. He stared hard at Esmira’s back. ‘It may even be that she doesn’t know. Stay vigilant and be ready to act.’

He stared at the ancient temple with its worn corners and faded carvings.

‘Pass the word to the others. Whatever might happen, I don’t want to be caught unaware.’ Brokrin looked around at the enfolding jungle, unable to shake the impression that he was being watched.

The closer they approached the temple, the more Brokrin was impressed by the scope of the construction. Clearly the scattered blocks all around the clearing had once been connected to the building, for they all bore a similar craftsmanship and had the same silver-veined stone. He wondered if the intact portion of the building was simply the shrine itself, and the ruins around them were all that remained of an even more colossal structure.

‘Those must’ve been a long time being hauled into position,’ Horgarr stated as he pointed up at the statues. ‘Cut from a single stone, unless they used some sort of wizardry to make them.’

Brokrin gave the two statues a quick study. He didn’t have the same eye for detail that Horgarr had, but he was willing to agree with the endrinmaster. There was no evidence of any join anywhere on the two sculptures.

‘We can be grateful time has worn them down,’ he said. ‘They’re not pleasant to look on now, I can only imagine how nasty they were when they were new.’

The statues were grotesques, fantastical beasts such as Brokrin had never seen. The one to the right might be called a winged lion, though there were other elements that lent it a still more unsettling aspect, like the suggestion of scales instead of fur and a long beard instead of a mane around its head. The beast to the right was even stranger, a sort of winged elk with clawed hands and a mouth distorted by long tusks. If they had ever had living models, Brokrin was reassured by the thought that such beasts must have perished ages ago.

Brokrin turned his gaze from the statues to the darkened interior of the temple itself. The room was cavernous, big enough to provide a berth for the Iron Dragon and a compliment of gunhaulers. As Esmira preceded the duardin into the room, a soft blue light slowly began to illuminate the inside. It took Brokrin a moment to appreciate that the light came from several crystals embedded in the ceiling. He was reminded of the starstones spoken of in fables, great rocks that fell from the skies long ago yet still pulsated with the glow of the heavens. These, however, were no myth but things he could see for himself. Moreover, their light was not a constant, but rather a response to the proximity of visitors.

‘Look at them,’ Agrilo hissed. He pointed as Esmira continued deeper into the temple. More of the crystals ebbed into life the further she went. ‘They seem to be aware of her.’

‘It may be a response to motion,’ Horgarr suggested. ‘Like the weeds outside.’

‘Light from motion,’ Gotramm mused. ‘That’s something that would be worthwhile if we could bring it back to the sky-hold.’

Brokrin shook his head. ‘Even if you could pry them from the roof without breaking your neck, we’re guests here. Not looters.’

Agrilo gave him an appealing smile. ‘Would it do any harm to ask her if we could have one of them? Maybe two? Three if she’s generous?’

Brokrin shook his head again and motioned the explorers onwards. The puzzle of the light crystals and their potential value was less concerning to him now than the reasons Esmira had brought them here.

‘Keep your mind on what’s going on,’ he cautioned his duardin.

The inside of the temple was barren. If there had been an altar or furnishings, they had been removed long ago. Faint discolourations on the walls suggested murals might have been painted there once, but whatever scenes they had depicted had been eroded by time.

Esmira stopped at the very centre of the room, directly beneath one of the lighted crystals. ‘We can speak freely here,’ she stated.

Brokrin studied the woman, trying to discern any hint of treachery. ‘Why couldn’t we speak before? Why did we have to come here?’

‘Who would hear us if we spoke outside?’ Gotramm asked, his tone more sympathetic than Brokrin’s. ‘Are there other people in Profit’s Ruin?’

Horgarr took up that line of inquiry. ‘You said that you were the only one brought up into the Ruin when its roots came down. Was that a lie? Are there more of your people here?’

Esmira shook her head. ‘No. There are no… people.’

‘What about duardin?’ Brokrin demanded. He did not like the evasiveness in Esmira’s language or the mounting anxiety she was exhibiting. More, he was thinking of the many Kharadron ships the Ruin might have claimed over the centuries. He tried not to think of the Windfarer and Mortrimm’s father. ‘Are there other duardin lost here?’

‘No, you’re the first of your kind I’ve ever seen,’ Esmira insisted, though again with a certain hesitancy. ‘But I… we… are not alone here. There are others.’ She gave Horgarr a sharp look. ‘But not people,’ she told him.

‘If not people, then what else is up here?’ Gotramm asked.

‘Things,’ Esmira whispered, her eyes narrowing and glancing about nervously. ‘They don’t come here, though. We can speak here and they will not listen.’

‘Would these things understand if they did listen to us?’ Gotramm pressed. ‘Can they understand what we say?’

There was no mistaking the obvious fear in Esmira’s eyes when she slowly nodded. ‘They’re terribly clever,’ she said.

Brokrin felt a horrible premonition. ‘You have seen them? You can describe them?’

Esmira repressed a shudder as she closed her eyes and related what she had seen. ‘They’re not so tall as I am, but taller than your people. Not so strongly built as you. Their faces are long and sharp and horrible to look on. Their eyes are red and narrow. Their ears are big and pointed. They have strange vestments of hair all over their bodies and…’

Brokrin turned to Horgarr. ‘Have you lead and paper? Give them to Esmira.’

Turning to the woman, he encouraged her to draw what she had seen. He watched anxiously as the woman’s hand scrawled on the paper. Gradually a loathsome shape appeared. Esmira did not need to finish drawing for the duardin to recognise her subject.

‘Skaven,’ Gotramm hissed, his fingers tightening around his sword.

‘Skaven? Up here?’ Agrilo gasped. ‘How?’

Horgarr smacked his fist into his palm. ‘Anything the Kharadron make, the filthy ratkin’ll steal. Oh, they have airships of their own, and likely more than a few have been caught by Profit’s Ruin.’

‘And if anything could survive up here, it’d be the skaven,’ Kerrum growled. ‘If they got close to starving, they’d just eat their own until something else came along.’ The thunderer’s eyes blazed with hate. ‘Or somebody.’

‘They’re horrible creatures,’ Esmira agreed. ‘But the Sea hasn’t been able to get rid of them.’

Brokrin’s eyes narrowed with interest when he heard that. From what he had seen, the Ruin was hostile to any intruder and would do its best to eradicate anyone who provoked it.

‘How have the ratkin been able to fend off the vines?’ he asked.

Esmira shook her head, a little too quickly for Brokrin’s liking. ‘You’ll have to be careful of them,’ she warned. ‘If they should learn about you, they’ll come for you.’

That was believable enough. Whether for food, slaves or simply plunder, the skaven would be keenly interested in anybody else caught in Profit’s Ruin. To all the duardin’s other troubles they could now add the threat of ravenous ratkin.

‘The skaven, can we reach the centre without meeting them?’ Brokrin asked.

Esmira took her time before answering. ‘If we’re cautious, we can find a path that will avoid the creatures,’ she finally said.

Agrilo perked up and put his own question to her. ‘The heart of the Ruin. Do you know what’s there? Is there treasure?’

‘I’ve been there,’ Esmira stated. ‘There’s a great light there. A golden light that drifts on the air, but clings unto itself and does not vanish with the sun.’

‘Aether-gold…’ Agrilo gasped.

Horgarr nodded at Esmira’s words. ‘It might be that’s how this place stays aloft. Somehow it draws aether-gold from the sky-veins and uses it to suspend itself.’

‘Or else it has found a way to produce its own aether-gold,’ Agrilo speculated. His hand fell to the satchel he carried. He quickly suppressed his smile when he noticed the excited looks the other duardin gave him. ‘Of course, that’s unlikely. I mean, a bunch of weeds making aether-gold…’

Brokrin kept silent. Agrilo was making the same speculation that had moved Orrik to finance the venture. If there was any reality behind that speculation it would mean more wealth than any of them could ever hope for. Allowing, of course, they could get it back to the Iron Dragon.

And if they could get the Iron Dragon back into the sky.

Brokrin decided to broach that subject with Esmira now that they were in a place she felt she was safe from eavesdropping skaven. After all, it would mean as much to her as to any of them to get the ironclad airborne again. She knew the ways of Profit’s Ruin. She might also know some way to keep the vines from retaliating when the Kharadron cut their ship free.

Just as Brokrin started to speak, a tremendous crash reverberated through the temple. An instant later a second rumble went rolling through the building. A heavy cloud of dust came rushing through the entrance. The gritty fog swept over everything, smothering the light from the crystals and blinding the duardin.

Brokrin did not need to see, however, to feel the repeated tremors that shook the temple, or the dolorous claps that rolled through his ears. The footfalls of something immensely heavy.

Something that was coming into the temple.

Brokrin’s first instinct was to seize Esmira, thinking that this was some ploy she had set into motion. When he spotted her through the cloud of dust, however, one look at the shock on her face made him realise that whatever was happening wasn’t anything she’d planned.

‘It’s the statues!’ Horgarr cried out. ‘They’re alive!’

Out from the dust, the colossal statues came lumbering into the temple. The one that resembled a lion dragged itself by its forepaws, its back section shorn away at the waist. The elk-like sculpture was more intact, advancing with booming footfalls.

‘Thunderers! Take aim!’ Kerrum shouted, mustering his warriors.

‘No!’ Esmira cried. ‘There’s another way out!’ She waved the duardin away towards the back of the temple.

The thunderers fired at the statues, their shots blasting stony chips from them. ‘Follow the human!’ Brokrin snapped at them when they prepared to shoot again. Already Agrilo and Horgarr were running after Esmira. With Brokrin’s command, the thunderers and arkanauts did the same.

‘You were right!’ Gotramm grumbled as he ran towards the back of the temple with Brokrin.

‘I don’t think so,’ Brokrin answered. ‘She looks as surprised as we are!’

The duardin hurried across the temple. Ahead of them, the crystal lights flared into life. Esmira dashed to the rear wall and slapped her hand against one of the faded murals. A doorway slowly fell open, sunlight pouring through it.

‘This way!’ she shouted.

The temple continued to quake as the animated statues pursued the Kharadron. Monolithic in size, the stone beasts were ponderous in their advance, smashing the floor with their massive paws. The elk-headed monster leaned forwards and snapped its jaws at Kerrum when the sergeant turned to try for another shot. If he had needed a reminder to keep moving, it was a forceful one. Shouldering his weapon, he dashed after the other thunderers.

Brokrin turned and sent a barrage from his volley pistol crackling across the elk-monster’s face. One of the stone eyes was obliterated in the discharge, reduced to a jagged crater. The loss did not phase the statue. Instead it simply turned towards the captain and stalked towards him with grim intent. Brokrin sent another volley into the beast, taking some solace from the fact he had distracted it from Kerrum.

He held his ground almost until the monster was upon him. When it leaned forwards to snap at him with its stone jaws, Brokrin dived to one side. As he hit the floor, he fired again at the statue, cracking the side of its jaw and knocking several tusks from its mouth.

Before the beast could snap at him again, it was struck in the side by a rapid series of shots. Gotramm and his arkanauts, supported by Kerrum’s thunderers, sent a focused barrage into the beast. Its shoulder was shattered by the concentrated volley, cracking the join between its wing and its body. With a loud snap, the right wing fell away, slamming against the floor. The rest of the monster crashed down, unbalanced by the sudden loss. Its clawed feet kicked at the air as it flailed about.

‘Cap’n!’ Gotramm called. ‘Hurry!’

Brokrin picked himself up and dashed towards the secret door. The stone lion was crawling across the severed wing, dragging itself with remorseless intent towards the duardin. The Kharadron hurried through the narrow doorway.

Brokrin was the last through the doorway, the lion close behind him. He emerged into the clearing, the vine-wrapped blocks of stone all around him. Esmira and the other duardin were ahead of him. The human shouted something to him, but before he could make out the words there was a violent rumble behind him. He spun around, eyes going wide when he saw the stone lion’s bearded face filling the doorway. It drew back and then came slamming against the opening, trying to force its way through. The jagged cracks that snaked up through the surrounding walls made Brokrin consider the beast might just manage the feat.

Levelling his volley pistol at the monster, Brokrin blasted away its nose and eyes. Just like the elk-headed statue, the lion appeared to give scant attention to its injuries. It simply snapped at him with its jaws and tried again to force its way through the door.

‘I’ve something it won’t like,’ Horgarr growled. The endrinmaster dashed past Brokrin, a contact charge clenched in his fist. When the lion snapped at him, Horgarr tossed the bomb into the statue’s mouth and dived to one side.

The contact charge exploded in the beast’s mouth. Stone jaws and pieces of rubble went spraying across the clearing. Brokrin’s face stung as little splinters cut his skin. The lion fared much worse. The entire front of its head was reduced to rubble, crumbling away as the statue suddenly slumped against the ground. Whatever animation had possessed it, the obliteration of its head was an injury it wasn’t able to shrug off.

Brokrin rubbed the blood from his face and scowled at the destroyed statue. He glanced over at Horgarr. ‘You could’ve tried that sooner,’ he told him.

Horgarr rose and dusted himself off. ‘I was worried I might bring the roof down on our heads if I tried that inside.’

‘A cool head even in calamity,’ Brokrin said. He turned towards the rest of his crew. They were gathered around Esmira. Kerrum had taken the woman’s spear away while Gotramm covered her with his pistol.

‘You were right, cap’n,’ Gotramm conceded. ‘We shouldn’t have trusted the human.’

Brokrin scrutinised Esmira. She still looked stunned by what had happened, quite different from her confidence when she had helped them against the vines.

‘She showed us the way out,’ Brokrin reminded his crew. ‘If not for that, I’m not sure any of us could have escaped from there.’

Kerrum shook his head. ‘She had to save her own skin, didn’t she?’

‘I do not know how any of this could happen,’ Esmira said. ‘By all the gods, I do not know how this can be. If I’d ever thought this would happen I’d not have brought you here. The statues have never moved before.’

‘Well, they’ve done some moving today,’ Agrilo muttered. The logisticator darted a worried look at the temple. ‘You don’t think the other one…’

The walls of the temple quaked as they were struck from within. The duardin backed away and scrambled for the shelter of the stone blocks. Esmira ran back towards the building. Brokrin could hear the lilting song as she cried out to Profit’s Ruin. Branches slithered up from the ground, pressing against the temple wall.

‘What’s she doing?’ Gotramm wondered.

Brokrin watched as the temple shivered and cracks appeared across the wall. ‘She’s trying to bolster the wall,’ he said. ‘Only I don’t think it’ll work.’ He checked the charge on his volley pistol and snapped a command to the privateer. ‘Keep everyone here and hold your fire. If something goes wrong, stay in cover.’

He didn’t wait for an argument but hurried towards the temple. Esmira was still singing out to Profit’s Ruin, bringing more of the branches up to support the wall. Brokrin grabbed her arm and pulled her back just as the side of the structure came crashing down. The shattered fragments of the wall ripped through the skein of branches and gouged into the weakened floor of the Ruin. Brokrin felt his gorge rise when he saw the barren sky that was exposed by the plunging stones.

‘It’s too late,’ Brokrin yelled.

The elk-headed statue forced its way through the ruptured wall. The monster dragged its single wing against the ground as it adjusted to its disordered balance. The clawed feet stabbed at the weakened mesh of branches, probing and testing for a spot rugged enough to support its weight.

Brokrin decided not to give the monster the chance to find a path it could use. Dashing towards it, he fired the volley pistol at it. He knew the weapon was incapable of inflicting any real harm against the statue. He also knew that whatever animation moved it lent it a semblance of life as well. He didn’t need to hurt it to annoy it.

The elk-like head snapped at him with its mangled jaws. Lurching after him, the beast fluttered its remaining wing and tried to use it to propel itself after Brokrin.

‘That’s it, you ugly brute!’ Brokrin jeered, waving his pistol at the monster in an effort to vex it still further. He risked a glance back at the stone blocks where Gotramm and the others were. If they disobeyed him and fired at the statue now, it would ruin his gambit.

The monster struck at him with its clawed foot, punching a hole through the weakened branches. It used the weight of its wing to drag itself back onto firmer ground. Even as it did, Brokrin could see the branches writhing with animation of their own. Esmira was singing again, this time not to support the temple wall but to weaken the firmament beneath the statue.

Brokrin fired at the beast again, seeking to distract it from its growing peril. The statue swung its head back around. It tried to twist around to come after him again. As it did, the knot of branches beneath it frayed away. The monster threw its head back in a silent cry as it went hurtling through the fissure that opened under it. Brokrin had a glimpse of the beast as it plummeted through the sky.

Then he was scrambling for his own life. The hole that had opened under the statue was continuing to expand rapidly. One of the stone blocks was upended and went sailing earthwards. Brokrin felt his own footing fray away, slithering out from beneath his boots. He screamed as he found himself falling backwards.

He had not fallen far, however, before his hands caught hold of a tangle of vines. Brokrin blinked in amazement as a green net was cast down across him, supporting him and lifting him up from the hole in the branches. As he was borne up into the clearing, he saw Esmira standing at the edge of the hole. Sweat dripped from her brow and there was a strained look on her face, yet she continued to sing to the vines until Brokrin was back on firm ground once more.

The duardin captain slumped against the branches. Brokrin shuddered to consider how close he had been to death. He looked over at Esmira. She gave him a weak smile and then fell over. He stumbled over to her side, reaching her before the other Kharadron.

Brokrin lifted Esmira to a sitting position. ‘I’m indebted to you, and a duardin does not discharge his debts lightly,’ he said.

Esmira gave him a smile that had a little more strength than before. ‘I’d have been crushed under the wall, but for you,’ she said. She looked across at the other Kharadron as they came running up. ‘Are you convinced now I did not know this would happen?’

Brokrin answered for his crew. ‘I’m convinced,’ he said, eyeing his duardin. ‘If you meant us ill, there were far easier ways to dispose of us than trying to kill yourself with us.’ He looked at the branches on which they stood.

‘That makes sense,’ Horgarr agreed, ‘but it leaves us with a bigger problem. If Esmira didn’t make the statues attack, then what did?’

The raven watched from a perch in the vines as the duardin started to march away from the clearing. Events had almost ended in disaster. When Yoshiro had aroused the temple’s guardians, he had not reckoned on how strong their lingering essence was. Driven by a bestial animus, the statues had sought not merely to drive Brokrin’s crew from the temple but to destroy them as well.

‘Your impatience nearly cost us everything,’ Khoram scolded him from the mirror. ‘The most primitive brayherd shaman knows better than to call up that which it cannot control.’

The accusing words stung Yoshiro the more bitterly for the truth within them. But he would not admit as much to Khoram.

‘The woman who is guiding them is a threat,’ he told the curseling. ‘She has some curious power of her own. I could not take the chance that she would detect my presence and warn Brokrin. That would cost you everything even more surely than the duardin’s death.’ The raven cocked his head to one side and made the best approximation of condescension. ‘I stand to gain much by this plan of yours, but do not forget that it is you who will lose if it fails.’

‘I will make your name known to the princes of Tzeentch,’ Khoram threatened.

‘And will that help you?’ The raven bobbed his head and flexed his wings. ‘I think not. You chide me for my impatience, yet it is your vanity that threatens this scheme. You do not need Brokrin, you merely want him. To slake your revenge.’

‘And I will have him,’ Khoram declared. ‘He is part of our bargain, and do not forget.’

‘He is part of our bargain,’ Yoshiro conceded, ‘but he is not the whole of the bargain. We can do without him if we must. If he becomes a hindrance, I will dispose of him. You can, after all, do without.’

Without waiting for Khoram to respond, Yoshiro dispelled the arcane communication. Let the curseling feel the bite of a bitter truth.

The raven looked up and saw the last of the Kharadron following Esmira back into the forest. The sooner the woman led them to the heart of Profit’s Ruin, the closer they would be to the next part of Khoram’s plan. And the closer Yoshiro would be to claiming the secrets of Shadowfar for himself.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Brokrin’s thoughts were grim as the duardin dived back into the forest. He was a fair judge of humans. At least, he considered himself so. He would have wagered half his shares that Esmira was being honest with them and that her shock over the sudden attack by the statues was genuine. As she led them back through the tangle of vines and branches, he noticed a marked hesitance, an uncertainty that had not been there before.

‘She appears to be rattled,’ Gotramm remarked. ‘Less sure of herself than she was before.’

Brokrin caught the suspicion in his tone. ‘If she’d wanted to kill us, there were easier ways to go about it than calling up those monsters,’ he said. ‘You saw the way the branches responded to her song. From the first, if she’d wanted to get rid of us I think all she had to do was open the ground under our feet.’

Gotramm looked anxiously at the leaf-littered mesh of branches they were walking on. ‘Maybe she has other plans. Maybe she’s just trying to gain our confidence.’

‘Wasn’t it you who insisted we could trust Esmira?’

‘And you were the one who warned it wasn’t enough if we trusted her, but that she needed to trust us,’ Gotramm reminded him. He nodded his chin at their guide. ‘She could’ve decided not to take us to the heart of the Ruin. She could be leading us in circles.’

‘Or the path might have changed,’ Brokrin stated, expressing a fear that had been growing on all their minds. ‘These trails may no longer be the way Esmira remembers them.’

Gotramm shook his head. ‘She found the way to the clearing and the temple.’

‘Esmira may not be the only one who can guide Profit’s Ruin,’ Brokrin said. ‘Someone taught her how to control the vines and branches. It may be that whoever it is is still around… and has taken an interest in us.’

‘She insists she’s alone,’ Gotramm said. ‘She told us she didn’t know how she learned to sing to the Ruin.’

‘Esmira claimed she didn’t remember,’ Brokrin replied. ‘But recall what she said about Profit’s Ruin. That you’re never alone. That it’s always watching and listening.’

‘Did she mean the skaven?’ Gotramm wondered.

‘I don’t think so. I think she meant the forest itself, and perhaps something more. Perhaps whoever taught her how to control the vines. Someone she says she doesn’t remember.’ Brokrin looked ahead at Esmira. ‘Or someone she has been made to forget.’

On the trail ahead, Esmira suddenly stopped. Brokrin noticed the way she stared off to the left of the path and then quickly turned towards the right. She waved for the duardin to follow, but her actions seemed agitated. Brokrin wondered what she had spotted to injure her composure. He decided he would find out for himself.

Instead of pressing ahead, Esmira waited for the duardin to join her. She kept towards the centre of the path, subtly steering them towards the right by her positioning. Brokrin stopped and stared past the woman. He pointed with his axe at the leftward path.

‘What’s that way?’ Brokrin asked.

‘Danger,’ Esmira replied. She gestured to the right. ‘This way will bring you where you want to go.’

Brokrin nodded to the path Esmira was trying to divert them from. ‘If there’s something here that could harm us, I need to know what it is. At least see for myself what menace I’m leaving at our back.’

‘It’s safer… this way,’ Esmira insisted.

Gotramm stepped forwards. ‘If the way is so dangerous, surely you could sing to the vines and close it?’

Brokrin considered that point. He thought perhaps Esmira’s affinity with Profit’s Ruin had a very specific limitation. Maybe she couldn’t get it to do anything it didn’t want to do. That meant, for whatever reason, it wanted to keep this path open.

‘We have to know,’ Brokrin told her. ‘There’s enough threatening us right now that I can’t lead my crew on if there’s trouble brewing at our backs. We’ll follow your path, but first I want to know what’s down this way.’

A shiver of fear went through Esmira. Whatever she was worried about, this wasn’t like the statues. She knew what was waiting down this path. Whatever it was, she wouldn’t tell them about it. The duardin put several questions to her, asking if it was the skaven she was worried about, but still she wouldn’t speak.

‘We’ll not get anything more from the lass,’ Kerrum decided. He smiled at Esmira and patted the barrel of his decksweeper. ‘Whatever is down there, it won’t be happy when it meets me.’

Esmira scowled at the sergeant’s remark. She turned and faced Brokrin.

‘If you insist, I will show the way.’ There was a note of challenge in her tone, but Brokrin thought if she wasn’t so proud then her words might have been an appeal.

Brokrin had his own pride, however, and he didn’t appreciate secrets that might endanger his duardin.

‘We’ll go this way,’ he said, pointing to the left. ‘At least far enough to judge for ourselves the gravity of your warning.’

They had been marching down the leftward path for some time before Gotramm noticed a change. It wasn’t anything that could be immediately seen, for the twisted coils of vines and weeds that stretched out above, beneath and around them appeared no different than before. The shiny nodules were still a recurring feature, invariably drawing Agrilo’s attention. Gotramm could never manage to spot the logisticator doing it, but he was certain Agrilo was collecting some of the nodules as they went. It might have been his imagination, but he thought Agrilo’s bags were a bit fuller than they had been.

No, the change Gotramm sensed wasn’t anything that could be seen. It was a sort of nameless anxiety, a feeling of being watched, of being under some kind of hostile scrutiny. He tried to find the source of his uneasiness, but all he could see was a black bird perched among the vines preening its feathers. It had an unpleasant look to it, and if there’d been any rocks to throw at it, he might have tried his aim.

The arkanaut marched on. His eyes drifted towards Brokrin, up near the head of their little column. To his chagrin, Gotramm wondered if his captain might be the cause of his agitation. On their last voyage, the crew of the Iron Dragon had treated him wretchedly. But instead of calling them out for what they’d done, Brokrin had risked his commission to cover for them. He’d shown loyalty to a crew who’d betrayed him. Yet how was Gotramm returning that loyalty? By falling in with Agrilo and this scheme to cheat the captain.

That feeling of being watched wasn’t Profit’s Ruin keeping tabs on him, or some slinking skaven spy. It was Gotramm’s conscience, condemning him for yet another feckless decision. He glanced aside at Agrilo and the bag hanging from his belt. It was true, divided among the whole crew – and the backers – the treasure he’d found wouldn’t go very far. Shared between just the logisticator and himself, it would be different. They might turn a reasonable profit. Enough profit that Gotramm could marry Hilda and start his own family. That was the dream, but was he willing to cheapen it by buying it with what he’d always feel was dirty money?

‘Better keep your eyes on these weeds,’ Horgarr told Gotramm. Distracted by his thoughts, he hadn’t heard the endrinmaster coming up to him.

‘I’m afraid if I pay too much attention, I’ll notice how close they are,’ Gotramm said. It wasn’t precisely a lie, but at the moment his claustrophobia was under control. His pangs of guilt weren’t. ‘It’s a strange thing, to know the open sky is all around you, but still feel like you’re being pressed in, shut off from every side.’ He frowned as he appreciated what he’d just said. ‘I mean, I know it’s like that on a ship, but somehow it’s different here.’

Horgarr gave a solemn nod. He leaned close enough to the privateer that Gotramm could feel the endrinmaster’s beard on his shoulder. ‘Don’t let it get around, but I know how you feel,’ he said in a low voice. ‘Sometimes it seems the weeds are closing in, like they’re pushing all the air out of you. Makes you want to scream.’

Gotramm gave Horgarr an imploring look. ‘How do you… how do you keep it inside? How do you make sure nobody knows?’

The endrinmaster dropped a hand to his belt and furtively withdrew a small steel flask adorned with the glowering face of an ancestor-lord. Or was it glowering? It seemed to Gotramm that despite the fierce expression, the face was winking its eye. Horgarr handed it to him.

‘That’s grey lightning,’ Horgarr whispered. ‘I owe passing my entry tests to the Guild to that. Just tip it to your lips and get a drop or two on your tongue. Burns a bit, but it gets the brain a little fuzzy so your problems don’t seem so bad. Makes you feel better.’

Gotramm started to raise the flask. Suddenly, he lowered his hand and handed the thing back to Horgarr. ‘With the fix we’re in, the cap’n doesn’t need me even a “little fuzzy”. Thank you for trying to help, but I’ll have to do it on my own.’

Horgarr smiled as he slid the flask back onto his tool belt. ‘Glad to hear you say that.’ He pinged the side of the flask with his thumb. ‘It took me a damn sight too long to realise when you lean on something to get through a problem, it doesn’t solve anything. It just makes you weaker.’

‘Then why carry the flask?’ Gotramm asked.

‘I drank to get over that closed-in feeling,’ Horgarr answered. ‘Then I had to get over depending on the booze to fix my problems. I kicked it the same way I kicked being afraid of close places. I forced myself to face them.’ He gave the flask another tap with his thumb. ‘I keep that with me because when it’s with me, I’m not running from it. So long as I don’t drink it, I’m stronger than it is.’

Gotramm nodded. He could appreciate Horgarr’s policy. He’d used it himself once, back in his Academy days. There’d been an accident while practising marksmanship. One of the other cadets had been injured… by the flash from Gotramm’s pistol. For days after, he’d been afraid to even touch the gun. It was only by forcing himself to pick it up, to take it down to the range and practise with it, that he’d been able to overcome his fear.

Horgarr changed the subject and gestured towards Esmira. ‘I’m still not sure about her. The cap’n thinks she’s all right, but I just don’t follow his course.’

‘She helped save the cap’n when those statues attacked,’ Gotramm reminded him. He glanced over at the woman, then returned to scanning the vines all around them for anything that seemed out of place.

‘I’m still thinking that she called them up, somehow,’ Horgarr said. ‘Some of the really wild human tribes have witches that can do that sort of thing. They call them elementalists, druids, all sorts of strange things.’

‘Why would she call them up to attack us, just to then help us fight them?’

Horgarr had an answer for that. ‘Magic isn’t dependable the way a machine is. Could be she started something that got bigger than she expected it to.’

Gotramm shook his head. ‘But for what reason?’

‘Build our confidence in her,’ Horgarr suggested. ‘Get it so we’d just follow where she wants us to.’ He nodded meaningfully at the path they were on. ‘It’s clear she didn’t want us to take this route. Maybe this’ll take us to the heart of Profit’s Ruin. Maybe the other way wouldn’t.’ He looked again at the compass he was carrying and frowned.

‘Are we heading the right way?’ Gotramm wondered.

‘Not so much as we were before,’ Horgarr grumbled. ‘Still, there’s some reason she didn’t want us going this way.’

That much was obvious to all of them, and Esmira’s refusal to explain what sort of ‘danger’ was ahead had all of the duardin on edge.

‘What do you think she’s worried about?’ Gotramm suddenly stopped. There was a smell in the air now, faint but distinct. It was a smell no Kharadron could mistake.

The smell of aether-gold.

Horgarr tapped his compass, but the needle didn’t move. ‘Can’t be much,’ he stated. ‘This needle swings to where the biggest concentration of aether-gold is. So whatever’s nearby isn’t as much as what’s farther ahead.’ His eyes darted over to Esmira and he took on an even more suspicious expression. ‘Even so, I think we’re about to find out why she didn’t want us going this way.’

Gotramm didn’t need the endrinmaster to explain his meaning. He had the same idea. Somewhere up ahead of them, buried in the tangle of vines and weeds, was a Kharadron ship.

Another victim of Profit’s Ruin.

As soon as he smelled that faint whiff of aether-gold, Brokrin felt cold inside. It wasn’t the crisp, sharp smell of a raw vein. It was the dull, subdued scent of ore that had been collected, concentrated and processed. He could think of only one source for that in Profit’s Ruin. A wrecked sky-ship.

Brokrin quickened his pace, his face turning grim. Of course he’d known there were Kharadron ships lost in here, but it was a different thing to know it in an abstract sense compared to having the smell of a wreck in his nose. When talking about this plan with Orrik, he’d imagined it would feel no different to salvaging any other wreck. Only it wasn’t. Perhaps it was simply the legend of Profit’s Ruin and the mystery wound into it, but Brokrin felt a sense of tragedy. Was that because the Windfarer had been lost here? Or was it because the Iron Dragon would become another of the Ruin’s victims unless they found a way to free her?

Esmira stayed with Brokrin, her longer legs easily matching his gait. ‘I didn’t want you to go this way,’ she told him. ‘It would have… I could have spared you…’

Brokrin didn’t hear the rest of her explanation. His focus was entirely upon a snarl of steel projecting from a knot of vines. It was clearly of Kharadron manufacture. Part of a rudder, but a rudder from a ship much bigger than an ironclad like the Iron Dragon. A sick feeling started to grow inside him as he thought about the kinds of ships that would be large enough to need a rudder like that.

‘Grungni’s Hammer,’ Kerrum muttered when he came forwards and saw the rudder. ‘What did that fall off?’

The other duardin came around the snarl in the path and expressed similar wonder when they saw Brokrin’s discovery.

‘Any stories about the Ruin taking down a battleship?’ Agrilo asked. It was a suggestion that sent a chill through them all. If the most powerful sky-ships built by the Kharadron couldn’t withstand Profit’s Ruin, what chance did that give their ironclad?

Brokrin didn’t think the rudder was off a battleship. He was of a different mind.

‘Krontanker,’ he stated. ‘One of the big tankers for carrying aether-gold out of a large vein. We know it has claimed some of them.’ His voice was sombre, thinking of Mortrimm’s father and the Windfarer.

Horgarr nodded in agreement. ‘Aye, some of the old designs did use these big cloud-knives for their steering. You’ve the right of it, cap’n. Krontanker is likely.’

‘Then where’s the rest of the wreck?’ Gotramm asked.

The question was no sooner spoken than Brokrin turned his head back and stared up at the canopy above them. The gleam of metal could be seen where sunlight penetrated the leaves. Here and there a darker patch showed among the vines where a piece of steel or iron was caught. It was a debris field, a scrapyard ripped from a ship as it careened down into the Ruin’s hungry grasp.

‘It leads off in that direction,’ Brokrin stated. It wasn’t lost on him that the pattern of debris followed the same course as the path they were on. In a normal forest, he’d have believed the path was a trail left by the crash, a scar of destruction from the wreck. But Profit’s Ruin was anything but normal. The debris was above the path, not scattered along it.

Brokrin turned to Esmira. ‘Do you know what’s ahead?’

He waited while she slowly nodded.

‘This trail, it’s deliberate, isn’t it? It wanted us to find this.’ Perhaps he was crediting the Ruin with too great an awareness, but he couldn’t shake the impression that they’d been led here.

‘I warned you not to go this way,’ Esmira said. She lowered her eyes, unable to hold Brokrin’s gaze. ‘It could only bring you pain.’

‘You can’t hide from pain, Esmira,’ Brokrin growled. He was angered by her attempt to conceal this from them. ‘Not even in Profit’s Ruin.’

Brokrin pressed ahead and stormed around the next curve in the path. He could see more debris in the canopy above and a few heavier pieces of scrap caught in the vines. The trail continued to follow the path – or the path continued to follow the trail. Brokrin felt like he was being led by the nose, played with by the forces of Profit’s Ruin.

His anger swelled as he considered it all might be a ploy on Esmira’s part, warning them away so that they would be determined to do the opposite. After all, it was she who was able to control the vines and open these trails. He gave her a suspicious glower and then pushed on, uncaring if the human followed him or not.

Around the next turn, the path opened out into a vast glade. Thin tendrils of vine rose up from the surface to connect with the canopy overhead. That canopy was thinner here than elsewhere, allowing a great deal of sunlight to pour down into the clearing. The vines and weeds were vibrant and green, not as thick and scaly as those Brokrin had seen elsewhere. He judged that they must be young growth, replacements for vegetation that had died off.

It took Brokrin a few moments to recognise the cause. His first impression was just a hulking nest of vines, but then he caught the glint of metal shining through the green tendrils. Again and again he saw the metallic glimmer, and as his eyes followed those signs he began to appreciate what he was looking at.

Entombed in that mound of vines was a sky-ship, a vessel of incredible size. To compare the Iron Dragon to the enormity of the wreck would be to compare a rain-spite against a chimera. Brokrin was gazing at the grave of a cloud-swimming leviathan. The final resting place of a colossus born in a Kharadron shipyard.

‘It is a krontanker,’ Horgarr marvelled as he joined Brokrin at the edge of the glade. ‘By the Code, that has to be a krontanker under all those weeds!’

The other duardin were similarly amazed. Agrilo even pointed out a few spots where a faint, gold-hued mist could be seen drifting away from the vine-choked bulk. Gotramm edged forwards, pistol and sword in hand as he made a closer inspection.

Brokrin turned to Esmira. There was only one question he had for the woman.

‘Are there any survivors?’

Esmira shook her head. ‘None that I have seen. I told you that your crew are the first of your kind I have ever met.’ She waved her hand at the wreck. ‘This happened long ago, before I was drawn up into the Sea.’

‘My people are a hardy and long-lived race,’ Brokrin informed her.

‘I can only say again that I have never seen any of your kind before.’ Esmira cast her gaze anxiously around the clearing. ‘It isn’t safe here. We should go.’

‘We’ll leave when we’re finished,’ Brokrin growled. He gestured to his crew. ‘Spread out. Try to find out what happened to her. Find out what ship she was. Horgarr, see if there’s anything we can salvage that might be useful.’

Brokrin regretted that last command. It made him think about the Iron Dragon ending up like the krontanker, buried under masses of vines. Lost to the sky and the ken of the Kharadron.

Brokrin advanced towards the prow while Horgarr headed amidships. The thunderers and arkanauts fanned out along the length of the ship, examining the hull wherever it was exposed. Agrilo circled around the spots where wisps of aether-gold continued to seep away from the vessel’s immense tanks. Strangely, he seemed less interested in the seepage than he was about the shiny nodules that bulged from the vines that gripped that part of the ship.

Closer to the prow, Brokrin could see old dead branches underneath the fresher, more vibrant growth. He wondered if the decayed vegetation was residue left over from the crash. It was reassuring to think Profit’s Ruin could be hurt in such a lasting fashion. At the same time, he had to reflect that even a ship as vast and powerful as a krontanker had been unable to defy the Ruin’s strength.

As he climbed up onto a thick rope of tangled vines, Brokrin could see a wide stretch of hull that stood exposed many yards above him. He had a premonition of dread as he shouldered his axe and grabbed for the vine above him. Hand over hand, like scrambling up a ship’s ladder, he ascended towards the exposed hull. The ease of his climb only heightened his uneasiness. Again, he felt like he was being led here. Drawn to some revelation something wanted him to see.

Brokrin saw. Given how thick the vines were clumped about the rest of the krontanker, he didn’t think it was possible for it to be mere chance that the expanse of hull he gazed on was so unobstructed. The weeds almost seemed to act like a frame around it. Within that frame, the runes that gave the ship’s name were engraved in gold. It was a name not unknown to Brokrin.

Windfarer.

He was looking at the ship Mortrimm’s father had been on when it was lost a century ago. Brokrin turned his head and gazed down the length of the krontanker, at the heavy mat of vines that entombed her. After a hundred years, could even a duardin survive in such conditions? He considered it doubtful, but they had to check. They had to make some kind of search. He owed that much to Mortrimm.

Brokrin started to climb back down when he saw Esmira standing below him. He glared at her, wondering just how much she knew. Witchcraft. Magic. All the trickeries of sorcery. He’d been duped into trusting her. Now he felt that she’d been playing him for a fool from the very start.

Esmira stared up at him, apparently oblivious to his hostile mood. Her expression was almost frantic. ‘We have to leave here,’ she said. ‘We’ve already been here too long.’

Brokrin had a harsh answer for her appeal, but it went unspoken as a shout rang out from back near the keel.

‘Cap’n!’ Gotramm cried. ‘Over here! I’ve found something!’

Gotramm shouted again for Brokrin and the rest of the crew. He knew all of them would want to see what he’d found.

The privateer had used a bit of strategy when exploring the wreck. Seeing the way it was encased in vines, he felt they’d probably have to cut their way through to get inside. The weed might be hard enough to get past unless Esmira could coax it into withdrawing, but the hull would be another problem entirely. Then he thought about the rudder they’d seen, and the idea came to him that there might be part of the ship where the outer hull had already been breached.

Gotramm was surprised when he reached the keel. While the higher section was wrapped in vines, closer to what passed for ground it was almost entirely devoid of growth. He could see a few strands, sickly and yellow, but otherwise the vegetation appeared to shun this part of the ship.

There was something more. As Gotramm had hoped, the rudder breaking away had ruptured the hull, ripping a huge, jagged opening into the ship that was ten yards wide and about twice as high. The sunlight shining into the opening showed two levels of decks, and the hatches of the aether-gold tanks that flanked those decks. He could only see a dozen feet or so, but from what he could tell the interior of the ship was reasonably intact. That could mean there would be plenty of salvage – allowing they could get any of it back to the Iron Dragon.

While he waited for the other duardin, Gotramm noted something wrong with the scene he was looking at. Damage that couldn’t be explained by the crash. He’d been inside a krontanker before, and remembered the complex valves that should have been attached to the hatch of each tank. Here they were simply missing. So too were the networks of pipes that would enable the ship’s crew to divert aether-gold from one tank into another to equalise pressure. The implication was clear. When Horgarr joined him, he told the endrinmaster what he’d found and what he thought it meant.

‘Somebody’s been stripping the krontanker,’ Gotramm said. ‘Maybe there were survivors after all?’

Horgarr ran his fingers through his beard. He removed an aetheric lamp from his belt and turned its activation rune. Bright yellow light spilled from the lamp’s eye. ‘I’ll take a look,’ he said.

Horgarr stepped up onto the lower deck. It was tilted at a sharp angle, so he had to balance himself against the wall as he made his way down towards the first hatch. As he moved, Gotramm could see more of the ship’s interior illuminated by the light. It was just as bleak and desolate as the area close to the breach.

Brokrin came jogging over along with the thunderers and the rest of the arkanauts. ‘What’ve you found?’ he asked.

‘A way inside,’ Gotramm answered, pointing at the opening beside him. ‘It looks like somebody was salvaging parts. It could be there were survivors. Horgarr’s gone in to look.’

‘Alone?’ Brokrin filled the word with distaste. He motioned to Gotramm. ‘Take your arkanauts in there and keep watch.’

Gotramm was just starting to climb into the krontanker when Esmira came around to the back of the wreck. Her eyes were wide with fright. She clutched at Brokrin’s arm.

‘Get them out of there,’ she pleaded. ‘It isn’t safe.’

Brokrin spun around. ‘I’ve had enough of this,’ he snarled. ‘Why isn’t it safe?’

At that moment, a shot rang out, echoing through the wreck’s metal halls. Horgarr cried out in pain and slumped down beside the hatch he’d been inspecting. The lamp went flying from his hand. It bounced crazily down the corridor, rattling away into the darkened interior. Its rays spun wildly around. As they did, they illuminated the skulking enemy who’d shot the endrinmaster.

Creeping along the tilted corridor was a lanky creature with a body covered in brown fur and a narrow, rat-like head. It wore a crude hauberk fashioned from hide, and in its forepaws it held an ugly-looking pistol with a funnel-shaped mouth. Greenish smoke rose from the pistol, glowing even after the bouncing light ceased to throw its rays on the creature.

‘Skaven!’ Gotramm shouted. In defiance of his own warning, he swung up through the breach onto the deck and scrambled down the corridor towards Horgarr. As he charged, he fired his own pistol at where he’d seen the ratman. His shot spanged against the metal wall, but in the muzzle flash, he saw the creature’s eyes reflect the light. He adjusted and fired again. This time there was a shrill squeak of pain and he heard something crash against the deck.

Gotramm felt no elation at downing his enemy. Because the second muzzle flash was reflected back to him by at least a dozen sets of eyes!

Kerrum grabbed Gotramm’s shoulder and pushed him down. The Grundstok sergeant shouted to Horgarr. ‘Endrinmaster! Keep low!’

Gotramm hoped Horgarr was able to hear and comply, because in the next instant Kerrum let loose with his decksweeper. The discharge of the gun roared like thunder within the corridor, shrieking through the interior of the ship with almost elemental fury. As its echoes rippled away into the distance, the squeals of wounded skaven rang out. A frantic scamper of clawed feet told that the ratkin who’d escaped the blast didn’t feel like challenging the decksweeper again.

‘Go and get Horgarr!’ Kerrum shouted, pulling Gotramm back to his feet and pushing him towards the endrinmaster.

Gotramm’s head was still ringing with the decksweeper’s roar, upsetting his balance. It was an effort to keep on his feet as he manoeuvred to where Horgarr had fallen. He could see faint movement. At least the endrinmaster was alive.

‘Get some light in here!’ Brokrin shouted. Gotramm glanced back to see that the corridor behind him was filled with duardin. At Brokrin’s order, one of the arkanauts ignited an aetheric torch and held it high.

The instant the light sprang into being, the corridor echoed with cries of alarm. Gotramm swung around. He was only a few feet away from Horgarr. And the thing crouched on the endrinmaster’s back. A black-furred skaven bared its fangs at him. A long, saw-edged knife was clenched in one of its hands. This was all he had time to see before the ratman sprang at him.

Gotramm was knocked onto his back by the impact, his pistol flying from his hand. He felt the skaven’s knife scrape across his armour. The mail held, but he knew the fiendish beast was trying to find a weak spot to sink its blade home. He tried to bring his sword up, but the ratman shifted its pose and stamped down on his arm with both feet, pinning it to the deck. A bullet whistled down the corridor as one of the other duardin tried to pick the skaven off. It reacted by crouching low against Gotramm’s chest, trying to make itself a smaller target. He could feel its rancid breath on his face, its wiry whiskers scratched his cheeks. The beady red eyes stared down into his own.

Gotramm brought his free hand up and punched the skaven in its muzzle before the beast could try to bite his face. As it reeled back, he used the same hand to flip down the mask of his helm. If he was going to die, he’d be damned if his nose was going to end up in a ratman’s belly.

The sound of duardin charging down the corridor gave Gotramm new hope. If he could just hold the ratman a little longer he’d have help. The skaven knew it too. Suddenly it had no interest in Gotramm. The creature shifted around and darted to the wall. His arm free again, Gotramm lurched upwards and tried to slash at it with his sword. His blade struck sparks from the metal wall, narrowly missing the long, naked tail.

It was Gotramm’s last chance to strike a killing blow. The ratman hit the top of the wall and then used its claws to scurry along the ceiling, back into the darkness of the interior. Shots rang out as the duardin fired on the skaven, but none of them hit home.

Gotramm gave only fleeting notice to the skaven as it fled. He hurried over to Horgarr, frightened by what he might find. The endrinmaster was face down, crumpled against the edge of the deck and the wall. When Gotramm rolled him over, Horgarr moaned in pain. Whatever other havoc had been done to him, at least he was alive.

Brokrin came up carrying a lamp. The light revealed the wound in Horgarr’s shoulder where the skaven had shot him. Chips of bone were scattered amid the gore and there was a ghastly green discolouration to the blood. Gotramm had fought the skaven often enough to recognise one of their most vile tricks.

‘Poisoned bullet,’ he cursed when he saw the wound. Gotramm was puzzled by the strange look Brokrin gave him.

‘That wasn’t the only thing poisoned,’ Brokrin said. He nodded at Gotramm’s chest.

Gotramm looked down and saw a sickly patina where the ratman’s knife had scraped across his armour. The mail seemed corroded, as though it had been splashed with acid. He shuddered to think what the same stuff would do to flesh. Hastily he drew his own knife and cut away the straps. His armour spilled to the floor in a heap. For good measure, he gave it a solid kick.

‘We’ve got to get Horgarr out of here,’ Brokrin stated. ‘The skaven are routed right now, but soon enough their leaders will bully them into trying something else.’ He turned his light and looked down the corridor. A few yards away, the floor was littered with dead and wounded ratmen. Tied to the back of each creature was a basket woven from vines, and in each basket was an assortment of scavenged parts from the krontanker.

‘No survivors, then,’ Gotramm cursed. ‘Just this vermin picking at the wreck.’ He leaned down and helped Brokrin lift Horgarr off the floor. One of the arkanauts came forwards and tied a cloth around the endrinmaster’s wound. Kerrum and the other thunderers kept watch.

As they started back down the corridor, a shout from outside sent a chill through Gotramm’s veins. It was Agrilo calling to them, and he was saying the last thing any of them wanted to hear.

‘Hurry, cap’n! Hurry! The skaven are swarming on the upper deck! They’re going to cut you off!’

Brokrin turned his light again. This time they could see dozens of red eyes far off in the distance. ‘No,’ he said, his voice low with tension. ‘They’re not trying to cut us off. They’re trying to surround us.’

Gotramm could hear the shrill, chittering laughter of the skaven echoing through the wreck. The way things stood, the vermin had every reason to laugh.

CHAPTER EIGHT

‘Skaven above you!’ Agrilo shouted another warning, then rushed over to Esmira. He spun her around and pointed at the upper tier. Ratmen were creeping out from a hole in the keel above the breach the duardin had entered.

‘They’re going to trap them inside! You have to do something!’

Esmira shook her head, sorrow in her eyes. ‘There is nothing I can do,’ she said, and Agrilo could feel her shiver in his grip.

The fatalism in her tone infuriated Agrilo. ‘You have to try,’ he snapped. ‘Sing to those weeds. Send some vines to choke those rats!’

‘It won’t work,’ Esmira told him. She closed her eyes, though, and Agrilo could hear the faint sound of her incantation.

Around the back of the wreck, the foliage was in motion. Green tendrils shot towards the gash in the keel just as the first few ratmen were emerging. One of the skaven was caught by the vines, its verminous body crushed in the constricting grip. The others made no effort to rescue their comrade, but fled back into the darkness of the wreck. Agrilo clenched his fist in victory, certain that Esmira’s vines would keep the ratkin at bay.

His sense of triumph wilted inside him. Agrilo saw a cloud of yellow vapour explode around the vines. The tendrils writhed as the leprous cloud drifted across them. He saw ghastly black splotches spread across their stalks. Their leaves curled back into shrivelled husks. The vine holding the crushed skaven cracked under the creature’s weight and crashed down on the deck, nothing more now than a desiccated shell. The other vines sluggishly tried to draw back from the keel.

Now Agrilo saw a different kind of skaven come creeping forwards. This one’s body was encased in an oil-slick cloak and apron, its long face completely encased by a masked helmet. It had a big cylinder of metal strapped to its back and a big leather bag slung over its shoulder. From this bag, its gloved hand removed a sphere of some kind. Agrilo saw it toss the globe at the retreating vines. There was the sound of breaking glass as the projectile crashed against the deck just ahead of the vegetation. Another cloud of yellow gas erupted from the broken sphere and spilled across the vines. They withered under the poisonous vapour and pulled away from the keel entirely.

Agrilo knew why Esmira said it was useless. She already knew the skaven had a poison that could defeat the vines. Already he could see the masked ratman waving to its fellows, urging them onwards once more. A surge of verminous brown fur and sharp blades scurried out into the light.

‘They don’t care about us,’ Agrilo grumbled. ‘We’re too few to bother about when they can trap the crew.’ His words were bitter. He fingered his sword, knowing there was nothing he could accomplish by rushing the skaven except to get himself killed. He’d be no help to Brokrin and the others.

Or was that true? Agrilo swung around and grabbed Esmira’s arm. ‘Can your weeds pry open that wreck?’

‘The vines would need a gap to gain purchase…’

Agrilo grinned. He’d been collecting nodules off the vines and found them to be bigger and more numerous around the krontanker’s tanks, gathered around cracks where aether-gold had escaped long ago. With his exacting memory for detail, he recalled dozens of leaks. He quickly spotted the one he wanted. He only hoped the duardin inside the wreck hadn’t moved deeper into the krontanker. The skaven were being wary right now, but once the ratmen committed themselves to the attack, their speed was ghastly.

‘We can count on only one chance at this,’ he said. He pointed to the faint mist of aether-gold rising from the crack he felt should be just ahead of the crew. ‘There! Send the vines there! There’s a fissure they can use to get inside.’

Esmira began to sing again, the strange melody reaching out to Profit’s Ruin. Again there came a ripple of motion through the vegetation. Crawlers snaked across the surface and dropped down from the canopy. Some of the tendrils holding the wreck shifted and moved. For a moment, the cracked tank was exposed, the drift of aether-gold increasing as some of the foliage covering it was removed.

Then the gathered vines struck. First a little green finger wormed its way into the crack, then another and another joined it. As the fissure expanded, more vines pulled at the wreck’s hull. Larger and thicker tendrils forced their way in. The faint drifts of aether-gas became a golden cloud that rushed upwards. The grinding groan of metal being peeled back by Profit’s Ruin echoed across the glade.

It would work! It had to work! Agrilo was hopeful as he watched the rapid demolition inflicted by the vines. Then his eyes strayed back to the keel. The skaven were leaping down now, hurling themselves from the upper tier to the lower deck. They moved with sickening haste, a white ratman wearing armour and carrying a halberd goading them onwards like a houndmaster whipping up his pack. Shots rang out from inside the wreck as Brokrin’s group reacted to the vermin stealing up on them from behind.

‘Faster!’ Agrilo moaned. ‘You have to get them out of there!’

Esmira didn’t reply, but Agrilo could see the sweat pouring down her face, the spasms that shook her body, the pallor that had come upon her skin. She was making a supreme effort to rescue the duardin.

But would it be enough?

All around him, the wreck trembled. Such was the violence of its quaking that Brokrin thought the krontanker was going to roll onto her back. Capsize, even while gripped by the tenacious coils of Profit’s Ruin.

Feral snarls sounded from the other end of the corridor. Brokrin could see skaven jumping down from the upper tier. They gnashed their fangs and brandished their blades before charging along the deck.

‘Fire!’ Kerrum shouted. On his command both of his thunderers shot into the oncoming ratkin. So tightly packed were the vermin that there was no question of missing them. Skaven were hurled back by the impact of the bullets, tossed into the faces of those following behind. For an instant, the assault degenerated into a confused bedlam.

‘Fetch-kill beard-things!’ a shrill voice shrieked from behind the other skaven. Brokrin spotted a white-furred ratman with a halberd at the back of their attackers. It waved the weapon menacingly at the others and forced them onwards. ‘Slay-bring much-much meat!’

Brokrin blanched at the ratman’s savage snarl. ‘They mean to eat us, lads!’ He shook his axe defiantly at the squeaking mob. ‘Let’s make ’em lose their appetite! Arkanauts, cover the thunderers. Kerrum, keep shooting into them until their fangs are at your throat. Gotramm, keep watching the interior. Warn us the first you see movement that way.’

The duardin were stronger and hardier than a skaven when matched one to one, but the slinking rodents never showed themselves when the odds weren’t in their favour. Brokrin judged that the pack coming at them from the keel numbered at least forty. With that white-furred ratmaster behind them, Brokrin knew the only way to break the enemy was to make them more afraid of the duardin than their leader’s wrath.

Brokrin drew down the mask of his helm and made ready to meet the skaven charge. If they could just kill ratmen quickly enough, maybe they could throw the monsters into a panic.

The wreck shook again, more violently than before. This time the sound of tearing metal screamed through the corridor. The noise agitated the ratmen, caused them to fall over themselves as they tried to stop their charge. The motion, however, disturbed the aim of the thunderers and their shots went wild, smashing into the floor and ceiling well ahead of the ratkin. Brokrin tried to steady himself as the krontanker trembled.

‘The whole thing’s coming apart!’ Kerrum cursed.

Brokrin could see that the skaven had the same opinion. The white-furred leader darted out to the gash in the keel, placing itself so that it could scurry away if the wreck collapsed. That same vestige of safety wasn’t something it intended to extend to its minions.

‘Coward-traitor!’ the creature shrieked as it chopped down a retreating ratman with its halberd. ‘Fight-kill! Fetch-bring beard-things!’ The brutal display turned the skaven and sent them back to the attack. Their only way to escape the ship was to slaughter the duardin.

‘Cap’n, the ones inside are going crazy!’ Gotramm shouted, pointing deeper into the krontanker.

Turning around, Brokrin could see dozens of red eyes shining in the darkness. The sound of verminous paws rushing across the deck was so intense as to be heard even above the shriek of tearing metal. Brokrin tapped Kerrum on the shoulder and drew his attention to the menace coming at them from behind.

‘You might manage one blast from the decksweeper when they get close.’

Kerrum nodded, his eyes grim. ‘After that, it’s axe-work.’ He tapped his finger on the cleaver-like bayonet slung under the barrels of his gun.

Shots rang out as the thunderers picked off ratmen. There was one thing to be thankful for, Brokrin thought as he watched the pack of ratkin boiling up from inside the wreck. Except for the skaven that shot Horgarr, there’d been no sign of other guns. If they’d a few shooters with them, they’d have the duardin in a murderous crossfire.

The wreck continued to shudder and sway. The sound of tearing metal became even louder, but now the skaven were so filled with bloodlust that the noise didn’t even upset them. The ones rushing out from the darkness were no longer indistinct shadows, but became fanged nightmares as they swarmed into the light from the aethermatic lamps. Brokrin held his volley pistol, ready to unleash its havoc on whichever ratmen made it through Kerrum’s decksweeper.

Before the skaven were that close, however, the hatch sealing off one of the aether-gold tanks exploded inwards, ripped from its fittings by a compelling force. The hatch spun off like a cannonball, smashing through some of the ratmen and tearing them to shreds. The survivors reeled back, chittering in terror. A moment later, they had a fresh reason to know horror.

Brokrin watched in amazement as a mass of thick vines rushed out from the open hatchway. They latched onto the wall around the hatch. Every second, more and more greenery spilled through the opening and grabbed the wall. Then the tendrils began to pull.

‘It’s Esmira! She’s calling the vines to help us!’ Brokrin could barely hear his yell as the sound of tearing metal again screeched through the ship. This time without an intact wall to muffle the noise, the clamour was almost deafening. For the sharp-eared skaven, it was even worse. Many of them dropped their weapons to clamp their paws against their heads and try to block out the sound.

Sunlight poured into the corridor as the vines ripped the hole wider.

‘Cap’n, they’re coming back!’

Brokrin spun around to see one of the arkanauts pointing to the skaven near the keel. Some of them were moving, not all of them of their own volition. A pair of ratmen dressed in leather cloaks and with all-encompassing helmets on their heads were slowly moving along the deck. Ahead of them, each gripped another skaven and held the struggling wretch before themselves like shields. In their other hands, the masked vermin clutched green spheres that gave off a yellowish glow. Brokrin knew whatever was inside those globes was death for the duardin.

‘No use trying to shoot them!’ Brokrin shouted, thinking it doubtful with the wreck still shuddering around them that any marksman could get a bullet past those living shields. He turned and waved his axe at the hole the vines were expanding. ‘Out this way! Hurry!’

Brokrin helped Gotramm gather up Horgarr, and the entire company rushed for the opening. Fear churned in his stomach as they came close to the vines. He was certain Esmira had sent them to rescue the duardin, but he worried about how much control she had over them. Would the weeds lash out as soon as they got close? Was he leading his crew away from one death only to be struck down by another?

Even as the duardin scrambled through the rent wall and dashed towards the sunlight, Brokrin held his breath. The writhing masses of vines were on either side of them now, continuing to pull at the wall and expand the hole. He could see them undulating like mighty snakes, rippling with prodigious strength. The least motion and the vines could strike any of them down. In these confines and in such proximity, there’d be no chance of avoiding an attack.

Only when he and Gotramm carried Horgarr out into the glade did Brokrin feel even somewhat relieved. One sideways glance at the krontanker’s hull showed him the awesome power Esmira had set into motion. The thick metal plates had been peeled back like the skin of an onion, folded in upon themselves in ragged strips.

‘Cap’n! Over here!’ Agrilo’s shout rang out across the glade. Brokrin spotted him standing back from the ship. Esmira was beside him, her entire body shaking, her skin as pale as death. Only the logisticator’s support kept her on her feet.

Brokrin let one of the arkanauts, Morri, take over for him and left Horgarr to hurry over to Agrilo and Esmira.

‘I tried to warn you when the skaven started to sneak around to your back,’ Agrilo explained, ‘but they were just too fast.’ He looked up at Esmira. ‘She’s been getting the weeds to punch another way out for you.’

Brokrin studied the human. It was readily apparent the toll her weird magic was taking on her. He laid his hand on her shoulder. ‘Esmira, we’re out,’ he said. ‘You can stop now.’

Her eyes tried to focus on him, but they couldn’t quite manage.

‘You… got… away…’ Esmira’s voice came in a weak whisper. The last dregs of strength fled from her and she slumped against Agrilo. Brokrin helped the logisticator lay her down. He could see that she was still breathing, although in rapid gasps that reminded him of a fish out of water. He was certain it wasn’t a good sign.

‘Cap’n!’ Kerrum yelled. ‘The vines have stopped moving!’

‘Look after her,’ Brokrin told Agrilo. He swung around to see Kerrum and the thunderers with their guns aimed at the hole they’d just escaped through. True to the sergeant’s shout, the tendrils were still. From inside the krontanker, the agitated chittering of the skaven could be heard rising in volume.

‘Won’t be long before they come out,’ Kerrum warned.

‘They won’t let us get away that easy,’ Brokrin spat. He glared at the weed-covered wreck. Again he asked himself how many ratkin were crawling around inside. ‘Too many to fight’ was the only answer he was certain of. Yet fight was the only thing they could do. They’d have no chance of outrunning the ratmen, certainly not with the state Horgarr and Esmira were in.

They had to fight. However hopeless it might be.

Gotramm set Horgarr down beside Esmira and turned back towards the wreck. He could see Brokrin and the thunderers staring expectantly at the hole in the hull. Dagar, the arkanaut who’d stayed back while Gotramm and Morri carried Horgarr, was keeping an eye on the keel in case the vermin came out that way. With their attention focused on where they expected the skaven to emerge, none of them were watching the rest of the krontanker.

As Gotramm started back to rejoin Brokrin, he spotted movement on the top of the wreck. Not the slither of vines, but the slinking creep of ratmen. The vermin were spilling out from hatches on the krontanker’s main deck like a swarm of angry bees. They scurried down the thick ropes of weeds and rapidly descended towards the floor of the glade.

‘Up top!’ Gotramm barked. He fired his pistol and picked off one of the skaven. The creature squeaked in pain and lost its grip, plummeting down the side of the wreck.

Brokrin and the thunderers turned about and trained their weapons on the ratmen. The captain’s volley pistol peppered them with bullets and sent three of the vermin hurtling to their doom. Each of the thunderers picked off another of the skaven while Kerrum kept his decksweeper ready for when the ratkin were lower and closer to its vicious spread.

Even with six of their number killed in a matter of heartbeats, the horde rushed onwards. Dozens of skaven remained, apparently indifferent to the toll the duardin were taking on their numbers. Gotramm noted that away from the gloomy confines of the wreck, the ratmen looked especially scrawny and miserable, with bald patches in their fur and ribs visible under their skin.

‘It’s a feint!’ Brokrin shouted. ‘They’re using these wretches to distract us!’

The captain’s warning had just been given when a pack of far more robust skaven came scurrying out from the gash in the keel. Dagar called out a warning, but his words were lost in a scream of agony. The white-furred leader pointed its halberd at the arkanaut. From the tip of the weapon an arc of green lightning crackled across the glade and struck him down. Electricity snapped about Dagar’s body, charring his flesh and burning his beard. His sword dropped from his hand as every muscle in his body flexed simultaneously. For an instant, he stood transfixed upon the bolt of energy, then he crashed to the ground, smoke rising from his charred corpse.

‘Cowardly cur!’ Gotramm roared. He tried to shoot the white ratman, but hit one of the skaven around it instead. The leader glowered at him for a second before ducking back behind a screen of its minions.

‘Kill-kill! Guard-protect terrible-kind Gnawfang!’ the white skaven howled as it hid behind its underlings.

Gotramm sent another shot into the pack and dropped one of the guards, but the action nearly proved his undoing. Fixated on the leader, he failed to spot a third group of skaven emerging from the hole created by the vines. The first he was aware of them was when a glass sphere smashed down a few feet away from him. Yellow gas erupted from the shattered globe and rapidly chewed into the weeds. Where the cloud touched the floor of the glade it yellowed and crumbled, wilting as though under incredible heat. In only a few seconds, the gas had gouged a crater in the mass of entwined vines and branches. Gotramm winced to think what the gas would have done to him had the globe struck him.

Two masked ratmen and a score of other skaven came scurrying out from the wreck, using the same exit that had saved the duardin moments before. Gotramm cried out to his comrades.

‘Poison gas! They’re using poison gas!’

‘Not for long!’ Kerrum shouted back. The sergeant spun around and unleashed a withering hail of fire from his decksweeper. The spread pelted the ratmen. One of the gas-bombers was hit in the barrage… as was the bag of spheres it carried. A mass of yellow fumes erupted from the globes when it was struck. The poison billowed across several of the other ratmen with horrifying effects. The vermin dropped, twitching and writhing in torment as foam bubbled from their mouths and blood gushed from their eyes and ears.

The corrosive gas did its vicious work on the vines as well. With more of the poison present, the decay was even more rapid and ghastly than before. A great pit expanded away from where the gas-bomber fell, sucking down its body and those of the dying ratmen. The rest of the group tried to flee, but the pit expanded too quickly, and they too were sucked down. For a moment, the other masked ratman teetered on the edge of safety, but then the vine it was gripping turned yellow and brittle. It flaked away in the creature’s hands and it too vanished into the pit. From the way the skaven screams dwindled off, Gotramm decided the pits must have opened clear through Profit’s Ruin down to the open sky.

‘They’re breaking off!’ one of the thunderers cheered. It was true, the skaven clambering down the side of the wreck were wheeling away to the right. Gotramm thought it might be the first sign of a retreat, until he spotted the bladed head of the skaven leader’s halberd being waved in the air and motioning towards that side. The ratmaster was giving directions to his vermin, redeploying them to suit the changing battlefield.

‘No!’ Gotramm yelled. ‘They’re trying to come around us from the sides.’ He could see the plan now. The skaven intended to crush the duardin between two mobs of ratkin. With the thick stalks of Profit’s Ruin at their backs and the gaping hole in front of them, the expedition would have nowhere to run even if they wanted to.

Brokrin holstered his pistol and started towards the mob coming from their left, the one that included the skaven leader. He clenched his hands tight around the haft of his axe. ‘Keep firing into them!’ he barked at his crew.

Gotramm grabbed Brokrin and tried to hold him back. ‘You’ll never cut your way through to their leader. It’s suicide to even try.’

Brokrin laughed and pulled free from the privateer. ‘Aye, that’d be suicide. It’s also not what I have in mind.’ He glanced at the pistol in Gotramm’s hand. Shifting his grip on his axe, he drew his volley pistol and offered it to Gotramm. ‘Put that sword away and cover me with this. I’ve a plan that might pull our fat out of the fire.’

‘What’re you going to do?’ Gotramm asked as he took the pistol.

‘Try to use the Ruin itself against the ratkin,’ Brokrin growled. ‘Esmira can’t use her magic, so I’ll have to try something else.’ His expression darkened and there was a sombre look in his eyes. ‘Mind, it might be just as suicidal as charging right into them, but it’s the only thing I can think to try.’

‘I’m with you, cap’n,’ Gotramm vowed. Brokrin nodded and they started out towards the ratmaster’s pack.

Gotramm made sparing use of the volley pistol as they moved, firing only one barrel at a time. The accuracy was bad, but he didn’t care about hitting the skaven, just making them less eager to rush ahead. He kept his own pistol in reserve, in the event the leader showed some backbone and emerged from behind its guards. There wouldn’t be any more green lightning if it did, Gotramm swore to Dagar’s spirit.

When they were twenty yards from the other duardin, Brokrin set to work. He steadied his feet and brought his axe swinging around at one of the dangling creepers. The blade bit deep into the vine, pulpy mush bubbling from the gash. It recoiled and struck out, trying to snare him in its thorn-covered length. He ducked back and brought the axe whipping around again. Another vine was struck and coaxed into wrathful agitation. He attacked a third vine, cutting away its tip.

There was no need to strike again. An entire area of the glade erupted into motion. Gotramm was forced to dodge aside as a strangling tendril looped down at him from above. Brokrin was scrambling away from the crawling violence that lashed out at him.

Gotramm looked past the captain to see the skaven mob still rushing ahead. They faltered when they saw the riled-up weeds, but the white-furred leader bullied them onwards. As they came closer, the vines reacted with hostility. Already agitated, they made no distinction between the ratmen and the duardin who’d cut them.

‘It’s working!’ Gotramm shouted as he ran to catch up to Brokrin. ‘Your plan’s working!’

‘Great, as long as the Ruin decides to stop chasing us!’

Gotramm glanced back and saw that Brokrin’s hope was already being realised. The skaven being attacked were striking back. They slashed at the vines with their swords and axes. With each blow, the malignance of Profit’s Ruin was focused more narrowly upon the vermin. More and more tendrils erupted from the floor or spilled down from the canopy to attack the ratmen. He saw some of them lifted high into the air with noose-like coils around their necks. Others were pulled down into the floor of the glade, either to be dumped into the open sky or entombed within the tangled branches. Some of them were pulled apart by multiple creepers, rent asunder by the fury of the vegetation.

‘They’ll never make it through that,’ Brokrin said, his voice brimming with surety. He clapped Gotramm on the shoulder. ‘Now we have to help the thunderers keep the rest of them off us.’

‘That still won’t be easy,’ Gotramm said. ‘There’s at least two score of them against seven of us.’

‘Only if they still have the stomach to fight,’ Brokrin growled. He looked back at the skaven fighting with the vines.

Gotramm followed Brokrin’s gaze. The ratmaster’s mob was being decimated. There was only so much effort the leader could bully and cajole from its minions. Finally, they broke. A dozen or so survivors went fleeing back to the edge of the glade and little tunnels of yellowed vines that gaped in the wall of greenery. Among them was the white skaven, its halberd tucked under one arm as it scurried away in a panic no less complete than that of its underlings.

‘They’re running!’ Kerrum cried out. At first Gotramm thought the sergeant was talking about the leader’s pack, but when he turned around, he saw that the mass of scrawny wretches was also in retreat. It seemed without the domineering presence of the ratmaster they’d no appetite for fighting the duardin.

‘Give them another volley to make sure they keep going,’ Brokrin ordered the thunderers. Gotramm followed him over to where Agrilo and Morri stood guard with the wounded.

‘Think they’ll be back, cap’n?’ Agrilo asked.

‘We don’t take any chances,’ Brokrin answered. ‘Get them ready to move.’ He looked across the glade. Away to their right was another trail, a proper trail rather than the wilted rat tunnels the skaven used. ‘That looks about as good as anything,’ the captain said. ‘We’ll follow that path.’

Gotramm nodded. ‘Maybe it’ll lead us closer to the heart of Profit’s Ruin.’ He looked over the wrecked krontanker. ‘As you say, we certainly can’t stay here. With those skaven around, there’s no chance anybody survived.’ He tugged at his beard and looked towards the prow. ‘I wonder what ship she is?’

A strange look came into Brokrin’s eyes as he looked towards the prow. He was slow to answer and his voice had a mournful quality to it.

‘I didn’t see her name.’

Gotramm felt there was something being left unspoken, but he didn’t press the matter. Instead he looked over at Dagar’s body.

‘Let me borrow your axe a moment,’ he said. Brokrin handed over the weapon. Gotramm walked over to the dead arkanaut and used the axe to push his armoured body across the branches. The yellowed pits left by the skaven poison had stopped expanding. He could see now that the hole left by the sphere thrown at him had burned its way clear through to the bottom of Profit’s Ruin. There was only open sky below, and a distant brown smudge that might be land.

‘May your ancestors welcome you,’ Gotramm whispered as he pushed the corpse into the hole. He watched it tumble down and then plummet groundwards. When Dagar was nothing but a distant speck, Gotramm walked back to the other duardin.

‘Thank you,’ he said as he returned the axe to Brokrin. ‘Whatever happens to his bones down below, it’ll be better than leaving him up here to be gnawed on by ratkin.’ A sombre look was in his eyes. ‘I know it would have been foolish to carry him with us.’

‘Every duardin hopes for a peaceful grave,’ Brokrin told him. ‘But the brave ones accept they may never have one. It’s simply the reality.’ He gave a regretful look at Horgarr. The endrinmaster was unconscious, and though they’d managed to bind his wound, the flesh around it was discoloured. Whatever was on or in the skaven bullet, its poison was spreading.

‘We’ll do the same for Horgarr if it comes to that,’ Gotramm said.

Brokrin stiffened and shook his head. ‘A sky grave for all but the last,’ he declared. His eyes were hard when he matched Gotramm’s gaze. ‘Let’s get moving. This is an unwholesome place.’

As he watched Brokrin help Agrilo with Esmira, Gotramm wondered which place he meant. The glade? The whole of Profit’s Ruin? Or was it the krontanker that especially provoked that touch of melancholy? From the way the captain had looked towards the prow, Gotramm suspected the latter.

Gotramm didn’t need to see the name now to know what it was. He also knew he’d never say anything about it. But it did make him wonder. In all the vastness of Profit’s Ruin, how was it that they’d stumbled upon the Windfarer?

Yoshiro had watched from the branches while Brokrin and his crew fought the skaven. He’d waited to see in which direction they’d leave the glade. When they did, however, he didn’t follow. It was a different trail he took up. One that wouldn’t please Khoram, but one which would make the sorcerer’s job much easier.

The black raven flittered through the branches, Yoshiro’s spells allowing him to follow the frantic trail of the creature he was hunting. The tunnels the ratmen had burned through the vines were a confusion of switchbacks and dead ends, paranoid diversions to confound pursuing enemies. Of course, the skaven failed to consider magic could still track them.

When the white-furred Gnawfang and the two ratmen with him emerged from the cramped tunnels onto a more proper path, Yoshiro was there ahead of them. He no longer wore the shape of a bird, but had settled once more into the image of Orrik. He knew what kind of reaction sight of a lone duardin would provoke. He was counting upon it.

In typical fashion, Gnawfang let his guards crawl out of the tunnel ahead of him to check for any sign of danger. The two skaven flinched when they saw Orrik, but quickly their surprise turned to feral hate. They waved their swords and charged at the disguised sorcerer. Before they were even five feet from the tunnel, the spell he’d prepared was loosed upon them. The ratmen staggered and fell as their hearts exploded inside their chests.

Gnawfang was oblivious to the fate of his guards when he emerged from the tunnel. When he saw them lying dead on the floor, his lips pulled back in a snarl, exposing his yellowed fangs. He pointed his halberd at Orrik. Energy crackled around the weapon, pulsating from the large generator strapped to his back. Yoshiro could sense the immense – if erratic and unstable – arcane power within that generator. Only something as mad as a skaven would run around with such a device strapped to him.

That observation made Yoshiro alter his plans slightly. He focused upon Gnawfang, holding him in a mesmeric gaze. He would need considerable time to take any kind of control over the ratman, if such was even possible, but right now all the sorcerer needed was to make the creature hesitate.

‘I can kill you easily,’ Yoshiro snarled at Gnawfang. He gestured at the dead guards and held up his hand. ‘All I have to do is snap my fingers, and you die.’

Gnawfang’s eyes narrowed with hate, but a sharp fug rose from the creature, a scent Yoshiro recognised as the smell of frightened skaven.

‘Beard-thing lie!’

Yoshiro laughed. ‘You’d be dead before you could find out,’ he promised. ‘But if you don’t want to talk to a duardin, I can do something about that.’

Gnawfang cringed back in utter terror as the sorcerer cast aside the image of Orrik. Yoshiro’s body stretched and narrowed, shifting away from the broad, squat build of Orrik Goldhand. Now he was the tall, lean figure that was his own. He peered at the shocked Gnawfang.

‘Yes, sorcery,’ Yoshiro laughed. ‘You see, I’m no duardin. They’re my enemy as much as they’re yours. It could be that we might help one another.’

The skaven was still afraid, but there was no mistaking the crafty gleam in his eyes. ‘Witch-thing? Servant-slave of Tyrant-Gods?’

Yoshiro was amused by the skaven term for the other Dark Gods. As though their own Horned Rat was a kind and lenient deity. ‘Let us say that I have an arrangement with them,’ he said. ‘They lend me power and I lend them my service.’

Gnawfang lashed his naked tail against the floor. ‘What does witch-man want?’ There was still suspicion in the skaven’s attitude.

‘We can help one another,’ Yoshiro said. ‘The duardin are my enemy too. You can help me destroy them. We can take their ship…’

Chittering laughter rose from the white skaven. ‘Fool-thing! Already have-have ship. Great-mighty vessel of great-mighty Kilvolt!’

‘Indeed,’ Yoshiro mused. So the ratmen had a ship of their own, did they? That lent a new perspective on things. ‘You will take me to see this Kilvolt.’ He could see the fear that flickered through Gnawfang’s eyes when he heard the sorcerer utter the name. ‘If you’re afraid of Kilvolt, wouldn’t it be smart to have a friend who isn’t?’

As he posed the question, Yoshiro’s body was again shifting its appearance. His posture shrank and thinned, his face stretched outwards into a long muzzle. Fur bubbled up across his skin. In only a few moments, he was a perfect replica of one of the dead skaven guards.

Gnawfang ran his tongue across his fangs. ‘Yes-yes,’ he agreed. ‘Smart-wise to have… friend.’ There was a sliver of treacherous ambition in the ratman’s laughter.

‘Take me to your ship,’ Yoshiro said. He bobbed his head in approximation of a skaven gesture. ‘On the way we can discuss how you can help me. And how I can help you.’

CHAPTER NINE

The duardin plunged back into the winding interior of Profit’s Ruin. Brokrin could see from Horgarr’s compass that their path was still trending towards the centre of the Ruin. For the moment that was of less concern to him than putting distance between his crew and the glade where the Windfarer was entombed. He was worried that the skaven would rally and try to pick up their trail again. His crew might not be so lucky in another fight with the ratkin.

‘At least she’s getting some colour back,’ Brokrin observed when he glanced at Esmira. Together with Agrilo he was carrying the human along the trail. Behind them, Gotramm and Morri did the same with Horgarr. It was left to Kerrum and his thunderers to keep a guard. The sergeant was out front leading the way, his two marksmen were at the rear keeping a watch for any skaven following them.

‘She didn’t hold back,’ Agrilo said with a frown. ‘When we needed her help the most, she came right out and gave it her all.’ He shook his head and looked away. ‘I’m sorry I doubted her.’

The logisticator wasn’t alone in that sentiment. Brokrin too had his regrets.

‘I should’ve listened to her. She was right. All we found by taking that path was pain.’

‘You think she knew the skaven were there or might be there?’ Agrilo asked. ‘She might’ve kept quiet about them thinking if we knew they were there we’d go after them. We were pretty tough when we talked about the rats.’

‘And she was afraid of them,’ Brokrin sighed. ‘She didn’t want us chasing after them, so she didn’t tell us they were there.’ Even as he said the words, Brokrin wasn’t convinced by them. He couldn’t forget their incredible fortune in stumbling on the Windfarer. Of all the wrecks in the Ruin, how could it be that the krontanker was the one they chanced upon? He didn’t believe in coincidences like that. Something had wanted them to find it. Some force that Esmira wasn’t ignorant of.

Brokrin glanced at Esmira’s face. She was still in a stupor, but there was a pained expression there that made him wonder. For some reason her visage seemed troubled by something beyond the physical. A mental or perhaps emotional turmoil. Maybe the pangs of guilt? He thought again of her claims that in Profit’s Ruin, one was never really alone. What other presence did she feel? Was it merely the vines, or was it something more? Something with the intelligence and power to steer the duardin right to where the Windfarer lay? And if so, to what purpose?

‘Cap’n, Horgarr’s getting worse,’ Gotramm called out, rousing Brokrin from his dark ruminations.

Brokrin called a halt. He helped Agrilo lower Esmira to the floor and then walked back to the arkanauts and Horgarr.

‘He’s bleeding again,’ Brokrin cursed into his beard when he saw the endrinmaster.

‘It’s that skaven bullet,’ Gotramm said. ‘Every time we move we jostle it a little more and start Horgarr bleeding again.’

Brokrin leaned down and looked into Horgarr’s face. He was reaching out to pry open his eyelids when the endrinmaster jerked back at his touch.

‘I’m not hidin’ any gold behind my eyes,’ Horgarr groaned. ‘And if you try to get any from my teeth, by the Code, I’ll bite your fingers off.’

‘At least getting shot hasn’t made you less sour,’ Brokrin joked, but there was no humour in his expression. He could see for himself how bad the endrinmaster was.

‘The way I’m leakin’, all that’ll be left is suds and scum,’ Horgarr retorted. He tried to laugh, but it came out as a ragged cough. He turned his head and tried to look at his wound. ‘I understand some scavenging rat put a hole in me.’

‘You were shot by a skaven,’ Brokrin told him. It wouldn’t do any good to hide the gravity of the situation from Horgarr. Not with the decision Brokrin knew he’d have to make.

Horgarr winced, a flicker of new anguish flashed in his eyes. ‘That’s it, then. Grungni only knows what filth they rolled that bullet in when they were casting it.’

Gotramm scowled at the morbid resignation in Horgarr’s tone. He looked to Brokrin. ‘Cap’n, we’ve got to stop. Rest and try to get the bullet out.’

Horgarr cough-laughed again. ‘I don’t want any of you deck-swabbers pokin’ around my insides with a knife. There isn’t enough liquor on the Iron Dragon to make me think that’s a good idea.’

‘Then we’ll go back to the Iron Dragon and have Lodri deal with you,’ Gotramm told him.

‘Allowing Lodri can fix me up, how do you plan to find the way back?’ Horgarr scolded him.

Brokrin tugged at his beard as he weighed the unsavoury choice before him. ‘Horgarr, we’ve sailed together a long time. You know if there was any…’

‘Forget it,’ Horgarr grumbled and brushed aside Brokrin’s apology with a wave of his hand. ‘I’m no beardling fresh from the Guild. I know what you’ve got to do. You’ve five other duardin to think of, not just me.’

‘We’re not leaving him,’ Gotramm snapped. The privateer’s eyes blazed as he caught the gist of the conversation. ‘We can carry him. We just need to rest and to get that bullet out.’

‘While we’re doing that, the skaven could catch up to us,’ Brokrin reminded him. ‘We’ve no idea when they’ll rally and come looking for us. Or if they’ll bring friends with them when they do.’

‘If they rally and if there’s any more of them,’ Gotramm said. He turned his head when he felt Horgarr patting his shoulder.

‘You do the cap’n wrong, lad,’ Horgarr said. ‘He likes this even less than you do. But he’s got to do what’s best for everybody. There’s no guarantee you’d get the bullet out even if you do stop. And while you’re pokin’ around, the skaven might just stumble on us. If that happened, I wouldn’t be able to show my face in the halls of my ancestors.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Brokrin sighed.

‘Nothin’ to be sorry about,’ Horgarr replied. ‘Nobody’s fault. Just bad luck…’ He tried to bite back the last words when he saw the guilt on Brokrin’s face.

Bad luck. It had dogged the Iron Dragon and her crew ever since the ironclad’s miraculous escape from the monster Ghazul. There were times when even Brokrin thought the ship must be under a curse. This was one of those times.

‘Captain Brokrin, do not leave him behind.’

The duardin turned about at the sound of Esmira’s voice. She still looked two shades away from the grave, but her eyes were open and she was sitting up, holding onto Agrilo and using him for support.

‘If you’ll trust me, I can help him.’

If he trusted her. Brokrin didn’t know if he did. There was too much that was enigmatic about her and all that had happened since meeting her. Certainly she’d helped them out of danger, but he wasn’t sure that she hadn’t put them into danger in the first place. Still, with Horgarr’s condition, he knew he didn’t have a choice.

‘What do you want us to do?’ Brokrin asked.

Horgarr gripped his arm. ‘No. Not for my sake. She might still have…’

Brokrin shook his head. ‘Esmira got us out of the krontanker. If she wanted us dead, she could’ve just walked away then.’ He turned back to the human. ‘Tell us what you need.’

Esmira was silent for a moment. Brokrin could see her lips moving, but she spoke no words. At least, no words he could hear. At last she nodded, and her gaze focused on him again.

‘Stay on this path. Keep going the way you’re going and look for an opening on the right. It will lead to another glade.’

‘We didn’t have so much fun in the last glade,’ Kerrum growled. ‘Not sure we’ve enough ammunition to muck about in another one.’

‘The skaven won’t be there,’ Esmira assured them. ‘Nor will they find us while we’re there.’

Brokrin thought that last part of her statement was less confident than the first, but he offered no challenge. She was giving the duardin hope right now, at a time when they needed it the most. Even if it was just an illusion, he wasn’t going to dash those hopes without a much more substantial reason.

‘All right,’ Brokrin called to his crew. ‘Let’s get moving.’ He moved forwards and again helped Agrilo carry Esmira. ‘If this works, I will be in your debt,’ he told her. ‘Brokrin Ullissonn always repays his debts. Just tell me what you want to balance the account.’

Brokrin felt the shiver that rushed through Esmira.

‘I don’t know if you can,’ she whispered. It seemed to Brokrin that the words were meant for herself rather than him. ‘It may be beyond your ability.’

‘I can try,’ Brokrin said. ‘In the end, that’s the most anyone can do, is to try.’

As he spoke the words, Brokrin wondered exactly what Esmira was thinking of. And whether it was her own idea or originated from somewhere else.

Wrapped in the shape of a skaven, Yoshiro kept close to Gnawfang as they navigated the tangled pathways and erratic tunnels that criss-crossed Profit’s Ruin. Along the way they were joined by ragged bands of ratmen. Survivors from the fighting with Brokrin’s crew. Many of the skaven had baskets slung over their backs that were filled with scrap looted from the Kharadron wreck.

Yoshiro grew tense each time they met more skaven. He knew his altered form would fool them, but he soon saw for himself the bullying hierarchy they employed to maintain status among themselves. Even the scraggliest of the creatures delighted in tormenting any ratman beneath them in the pecking order. The guard whose identity now acted as Yoshiro’s must have had many rivals and enemies. Several times Yoshiro was confronted, but always they were chased off by a show of teeth from Gnawfang. The white skaven didn’t have any challengers. At least, not among the ratmen they met up with on their trek from the krontanker.

‘Kilvolt Gnash.’ Gnawfang growled the name. ‘Mighty-great Kilvolt,’ he added with an audible sneer. ‘Wise-smart. So wise-smart he brings airship too close-near vine-cloud. Vines catch-crash ship. Leave all-all skaven stranded.’ He paused and ground his fangs together. ‘Wise-smart Kilvolt.’

Gnawfang had muttered similar tirades throughout their march through Profit’s Ruin, uncaring of how many other skaven were around. Yoshiro was incredulous that the warlock-engineer should so openly disdain his master.

‘Is it wise to speak this way?’ Yoshiro asked. He looked around anxiously at the ratmen around them.

Gnawfang noted the reason for the sorcerer’s concern. A peal of chittering laughter rang out. He gave the other ratmen a contemptuous gaze. ‘This fool-meat not speak-squeak. Fool-meat know Gnawfang will cut tongues if any speak-squeak.’

Yoshiro stared in open amazement at the audacity of the creature. With every step, Gnawfang seemed to swell up a little more, growing just a bit more arrogant and bold. The sorcerer knew he could take one bit of comfort: he was the reason for the aggrandised attitude. Perhaps he’d sold the value of their joining forces a little too well to Gnawfang. He imagined that prior to meeting the sorcerer, Gnawfang was as grovelling and submissive towards Kilvolt as any of the other skaven were to their betters.

‘All it needs is one to talk. To get word to Kilvolt about you,’ Yoshiro cautioned.

‘Witch-man not understand,’ Gnawfang chittered. ‘All skaven plot-plan. All skaven say other skaven traitor-meat. If Kilvolt listen-believe, then have no skaven to work-serve.’

Yoshiro tried to wrap his head around the treacherous confusion of the skaven. A lower skaven would lie about his immediate superior to their immediate superior in an effort to remove a rival and advance himself. The higher up a skaven was in their treacherous hierarchy, the more underlings he had trying to pull him down. It was a skein of confusion and deception as to impress even an acolyte of Tzeentch.

‘You should still be careful,’ Yoshiro admonished. ‘My neck is right beside yours. I’d worry less if you worried more.’

‘No worry-fear,’ Gnawfang said. ‘Together Gnawfang and witch-man stronger than Kilvolt. Then Gnawfang is master.’

Yoshiro bobbed his head, a sign of both agreement and submission among the ratmen. Inwardly, he was thinking about the reckless ambition of his new ally. He was also thinking about what Gnawfang would do the moment he was in charge. He’d have to try and beat him at his own game.

The skaven began to squeak and chitter. They raised their muzzles and sniffed at the air. Yoshiro did the same, simply to conform and not attract attention. He’d shifted form to that of a ratman, but he didn’t have the memories to interpret the panoply of smells that hit him. Trying to define anything from the bewildering medley was too much for a brain only recently endowed with the senses of a skaven. There was one odour that was distinct, however: a greasy chemical smell that certainly didn’t belong to the Ruin’s vegetation.

‘We are here-home,’ Gnawfang said. He bruxed his fangs in a happy display. All of the ratmen were relieved to leave the jungle.

Yoshiro kept close to Gnawfang as the ratmen scurried out into an enormous clearing. He was taken aback by its size, larger even than the glade where the krontanker was. The branches that surrounded the area were blackened, the vines were dried-out husks. Even the floor of the clearing was withered, a latticework of dead growth with horrendous gaps between the stalks. The canopy above was utterly devoid of leaves, just a ceiling of skeletal limbs clawing at the sky.

In the midst of this desolation, Yoshiro saw the skaven airship. It was not as vast as the wrecked krontanker, but it dwarfed the Iron Dragon, easily ten times the size of the ironclad. In shape it was a long ovoid with rounded projections jutting out from its sides like a set of stumpy wings. A flanged tail stuck out from the ship’s rear. At the fore, a great wedge of spiked metal protruded some fifty feet ahead of the vessel, obviously intended to ram and hold whatever enemy strayed into the path of this aerial colossus.

‘There, witch-man,’ Gnawfang hissed. ‘There is Kilvolt.’ He gestured with one paw and drew Yoshiro’s attention away from the airship.

Aside from the immense airship, the clearing was littered with piles of scrap and gangs of labouring skaven. Some were busy cutting and reshaping pieces of metal from the scavenged parts. Others had bundles of buds and leaves that they were boiling down into some sort of soup. A few, their bodies encased in protective smocks and face-enclosing helmets, were working at what appeared to be an outdoor alchemist’s shop, pouring an assortment of vile-looking concoctions into metal canisters and glass spheres.

‘Kilvolt,’ Gnawfang repeated, annoyed by Yoshiro’s distraction. This time the sorcerer followed the ratman’s pointing claw.

A large group of skaven were clustered around the edge of the clearing. Here, Yoshiro could see a wide swathe of open sky, the clear blue almost alarming after the murk of the Ruin’s interior. The ratmen were gathered about a trellis fashioned from dead branches. Atop the trellis was something that resembled a giant bat. It took him a moment to realise that the strange creature was a skaven strapped into a harness with stiff, leathery wings. There was some sort of bucket-shaped device fastened at the back of the harness, and he could see a thick chain hook on the underside. The creature attached to the contraption was squealing excitedly, but there was more fear than enthusiasm in its cries.

Yoshiro’s gaze dropped to the base of the trellis. At once he picked out Kilvolt Gnash from the rest of the skaven. First, because all of the other skaven cringed at his merest glance. Second, because he was surrounded by big black ratmen wearing metal armour, the first such creatures Yoshiro had seen. Lastly, it was because his witchsight could discern a certain arcane aura about the leader. It bore some faint resemblance to the dweomer he’d detected around the halberd and power-canister Gnawfang carried. This, however, seemed ingrained in the creature, perhaps a residue from working with such strange amalgams of magic and machinery for too long.

Kilvolt sat in a chair that rested on the backs of several emaciated skaven. His fur was grey with speckles of black running through it. His face was partly obscured by a metal mask that connected to a helmet fashioned from some strange green ore, two sculpted horns curling back over his neck. He wore a kind of hauberk adorned with a riot of belts and bandoleers. Yoshiro could see the grips of several pistols sticking out of ratskin holsters. One of Kilvolt’s paws was heavy with oversized rings. It was a gesture from this ringed hand that set events into motion up on the trellis.

At Kilvolt’s signal, two ratmen armed with long spears poked and prodded the one strapped into the harness. Eventually they provoked the other skaven into running off the edge of the structure. The winged harness carried him out into the open air. Yoshiro was impressed by the feat, for he didn’t sense any active magic at work. By means of the harness, the skaven was flying, soaring away from the trellis.

As the ratman climbed and wheeled, his glide took him farther away from the dead grotto the skaven had made their lair. Nearing the living growth further out, his panicked screams intensified. The vines were moving, roiling around like a nest of angry snakes. Before the ratman could try to correct his direction, the tendrils lashed out at him. Pilot and glider were both caught in a crushing grip. Yoshiro could hear the crack of bones as the skaven was pulverised by the constricting vines. The tendrils drew back and let the twisted wreckage fall. As it did, the chain that bound it to the trellis grew taut. Most of the skaven clustered around Kilvolt sprang into action. They scurried over to the chain and started to draw it back.

Once the mangled wreckage was recovered, Kilvolt again waved his ringed hand. A second skaven strapped into a winged harness was led up to the trellis.

‘Kilvolt seek-find way to escape,’ Gnawfang explained. He gave Yoshiro a wary look and pointed at the skaven airship. ‘Better-good wait inside. Kilvolt see witch-man now, might decide witch-man should fly.’

Yoshiro wasn’t sure if Gnawfang’s worry was well founded, but he wasn’t going to put it to the test. He didn’t want to be forced to show his hand trying to escape whatever insane experiment Kilvolt was conducting.

He still had time. Brokrin and the Iron Dragon weren’t going anywhere.

Brokrin was starting to think they weren’t getting anywhere, that the opening Esmira said they’d find was nothing but fatigued imagination on her part. Then he saw it, a gap in the wall of branches about ten feet wide and about half as tall. It seemed made especially to fit them, an impression that he couldn’t shake. Just like stumbling onto the Windfarer, it was suspiciously convenient. But any chance to save Horgarr, however suspicious, was a chance he had to take.

Kerrum waited for a nod from Brokrin before passing through the opening. A moment later he stepped back onto the path.

‘Another glade. Smaller than where the krontanker crashed.’ He slapped the barrel of his decksweeper. ‘As you heard, no skaven around.’

‘I said those things wouldn’t be here,’ Esmira reminded Brokrin.

‘Ratkin would squeeze into places that’d surprise you,’ Agrilo told her. ‘If there’s a way for them to get in, they’ll find it.’

Esmira looked like she was going to respond to Agrilo, but only shook her head, before saying, ‘It is safe here. You can help your friend.’

The last decided Brokrin. ‘Okay, we’ve got nothing to lose,’ he called out. ‘Bring Horgarr in here and let’s see what we can do.’

As the duardin followed Kerrum from the path, Brokrin still didn’t know how Esmira intended to help Horgarr. When he crossed over into the glade, he suddenly didn’t care any more. The area they’d entered had such a feeling of peace and tranquillity that it was almost soporific. He felt a warmth that welled up inside, easing away all the aches and pains that nagged at his body. Even the turmoil in his mind felt subdued. His worries were still there, but they no longer oppressed him, dragging at his spirit.

Brokrin had to confess that the glade had a beauty about it that even a duardin could appreciate. The vines here were thin and graceful, rich with colourful blooms and lush green leaves. There was a silvery sheen to the light that filtered down through the canopy above, as clear and bright as anything Brokrin had ever seen, but at the same time so soft and inviting that his eyes relished the brilliance. Great leafy stalks, thick and stout as bushes, pushed up from the glade’s floor and gave off a heady fragrance that was at once vibrant and subdued.

‘What is this place?’ Gotramm muttered as he helped carry Horgarr into the glade.

‘A place of restoration and revival,’ Esmira answered. She gently eased herself away from her duardin supporters. Though she wobbled at first, she didn’t fall and Brokrin noted that her complexion was darker and healthier than it had been on the trail. Whatever enchantment governed this place, she was responding to it even faster than the Kharadron.

‘By the Code,’ Agrilo swore. ‘If I could bottle this place up and sell it, I’d make so much money even I couldn’t count it all!’

Horgarr made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a cough. ‘There isn’t that much money in all Chamon,’ he cackled. In his mirth, he set his wound to bleeding again.

Brokrin could see that the same feeling of euphoria he experienced was shared by his crew; even Horgarr. But while the glade’s enchantment was drawing away the bruises and scrapes the rest of them suffered, the endrinmaster’s wound looked to be too severe to be coaxed away by such subtle magic.

‘Take it easy, Horgarr,’ Brokrin said. He motioned for the arkanauts to lay the endrinmaster down on the soft carpet of young vines. The septic ugliness of his wound was almost too much to bear. Brokrin had gambled that they could help Horgarr. It looked like that gamble was lost.

‘Your friend needs more,’ Esmira said. She walked over to the bush-headed vines.

Brokrin watched in bewilderment as she plucked thumb-sized berries from the leaves. He was certain there’d been no berries only a moment before.

Esmira walked back over to Brokrin. ‘I will need something to put the juice in.’ She gestured to the flask hanging from his belt. Brokrin removed it and jolted down the last of the stout that was inside. Strangely, he didn’t even feel the drink as it went down.

Esmira crouched down and held the open flask before her. She crushed the berries between her hands and let their amber-coloured juice drip down into the container. It seemed impossible to Brokrin that so much juice could be drawn from only a handful of berries. When she was finished, she looked up at him.

‘Will you allow me to give this to him?’ she asked Brokrin.

‘Might as well, cap’n,’ Horgarr shouted. ‘Can’t do any harm now.’ It was a grim point, but one that Brokrin couldn’t argue with.

‘If it’ll help him, do it,’ Brokrin said.

Esmira walked over to Horgarr. While the duardin gathered around and watched, she put the flask to his lips. Despite his earlier encouragement, Horgarr sputtered and struggled when he felt the juice in his mouth. After a moment, his protest gave way to a greedy thirst. He wrapped his hands around the flask and pulled it from Esmira’s grip. She backed away and motioned to Gotramm.

‘Remove the binding,’ she said. When Gotramm peeled away the bandage, Esmira stared gravely at the discoloured wound. ‘It isn’t enough,’ she told the duardin.

She retraced her steps back to the bushy vine and collected more berries.

Brokrin noted the intensity on Esmira’s face when she walked back to Horgarr. She looked fully restored now, without a trace of the deathly exhaustion of before. He wondered if she would tax herself to such an extreme trying to heal Horgarr. Then he considered whether he’d try to stop her if she did. For all they owed her, she was still a human, while Horgarr was Kharadron.

‘I need to get the juice directly into the wound,’ Esmira informed Brokrin. Her voice grew regretful as she added, ‘It will hurt him. A lot.’

‘Grab hold of Horgarr, lads,’ Brokrin told his crew. Gotramm and Morri took care of his arms while Brokrin and Agrilo got the legs. The thunderers shouldered their guns and pressed down on his waist. Only Kerrum was left free to keep watch.

‘Forgive me,’ Esmira said to Horgarr. She clapped her hands together and mashed the berries between her palms. Then she sat beside the endrinmaster and laid her juice-stained hands over his raw wound.

Horgarr cursed lividly as Esmira’s hands came into contact with his savaged flesh. Then the endrinmaster passed out. Brokrin didn’t even want to imagine the magnitude of an agony that could offset the soporific magic of the glade.

Esmira’s fingers kneaded Horgarr’s flesh, plying it as though it were dough. Putrid, discoloured blood dribbled from the wound, drawing with it nasty green flakes of what looked like iron. The intense expression never left Esmira’s face as she worked, her eyes completely focused on the injury.

How long the human worked on Horgarr, Brokrin was never certain. By degrees, however, the endrinmaster’s skin took on its normal colour and the blood seeping out became a dark red. At first he thought it was a trick of his eyes, but soon it was clear to him that Horgarr’s wound was actually closing, the flesh and skin and bone regenerating. Like the leaves of a plant, he thought, as a chill ran down his spine.

At last, a round ball of green-coloured metal was expelled from Horgarr’s flesh. Esmira jerked away from the skaven bullet. It was left to Kerrum to kick the thing away. With the ejection of the bullet, Horgarr’s wound rapidly closed up.

Esmira stood and stared down at her patient. ‘We need to let him sleep for a little while. Let him awaken on his own. When he does, we can be on our way again.’

‘Which way is that?’ Brokrin asked.

Esmira turned and pointed to the opening in the vine wall. ‘Back to the path,’ she said.

While the other duardin cheered Esmira and thanked her for healing Horgarr, Kerrum drew Brokrin aside. He could see that the sergeant was flustered, a haunted look in his eyes.

‘You left me on watch,’ Kerrum said. ‘I’m not proud to admit it, but I looked away a few times.’

Brokrin nodded. It was excusable, under the circumstances. He was impressed that Kerrum took his duties so seriously that even so slight a transgression upset him.

But that wasn’t what bothered Kerrum.

‘Cap’n, I’d swear on my father’s beard that opening isn’t where it was,’ Kerrum whispered. ‘It was to my back when I turned around to kick that bullet away. Now it is off to my right. It moved. I know it did.’

‘Anywhere else, I’d say you’d been drinking bad grog,’ Brokrin said. ‘Here, in this place, I wouldn’t call you a liar if you said a thirty-five foot gargant danced a waltz while wearing a furnace for a hat.’

‘Then you think it did move?’

Brokrin looked back at the bush-vines. He gestured at the berries with a thumb. ‘I’d swear on my father’s beard that there weren’t any berries there until Esmira decided she needed them.’

Kerrum’s expression grew even more troubled. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I don’t think this place existed at all until she needed it to,’ Brokrin told him. ‘That’s how she was certain there’d be no skaven. There couldn’t be. The glade, the opening, the berries, none of it was here until she needed it.’

Kerrum glanced furtively at Esmira. ‘You think her magic’s that powerful?’

‘No,’ Brokrin replied. ‘I don’t. It was no imposture, her feebleness when we left the krontanker. She was all done in. Something else did all of this, made it ready for her to use.’

‘Is that a good thing?’

‘I don’t know,’ Brokrin confessed. ‘But whatever it is, it’s a lot stronger than she is.’

He looked at the opening. Visually it appeared the same, but after what he’d seen with the berries, he was convinced Kerrum was right.

‘Whatever’s calling the shots, it led us here,’ Brokrin said, ‘but it doesn’t want us leaving the way we came in.’

Kilvolt’s inner sanctum proved to be a deranged confusion of spare parts and half-abandoned inventions. To Yoshiro’s eyes it was more junk heap than throne room, yet it was amidst this cramped squalor that the skaven leader had his command post.

Armoured skaven prowled the approaches to the chamber, which was deep inside the airship. Up close, Yoshiro could see the scars where some sort of arcane mutilation had been performed upon each of them. He wondered if that accounted for their larger size and more robust musculature. Each carried a halberd similar to the one Gnawfang bore, with cords and cables running from the haft of each weapon to cylinders built into their armour.

Yoshiro smiled and corrected himself. The halberd Gnawfang had borne. Much to his anxiety, the warlock-engineer had been disarmed by the guards before being allowed into Kilvolt’s lair. It was the first time since forming an alliance with the creature that Yoshiro had seen the ratman upset.

Well, Gnawfang would have a lot more to be upset about in a little while.

Skaven guards escorted Gnawfang and Yoshiro through the maze of clutter. He could tell that the armoured ratmen were itching for an excuse to explode into violence. The slightest wrong move and they’d cut them down.

‘Kilvolt poison-spices guard-food so they shun bribes,’ Gnawfang whispered, his tail twitching anxiously. ‘Add antidote-spice so guards not sick-die. Sometimes Kilvolt lets one guard-rat die. Warning for other guard-rats.’

‘A practical way to ensure loyalty from vermin who’d sell their mother for a slice of mutton,’ Yoshiro commented.

Gnawfang scowled at him. ‘What-mean witch-man? What-mean “mother”?’

There wasn’t time for an explanation even if the sorcerer had felt like giving one. The guards brought them around a turn in the trash-maze. Ahead of them was a space which was remarkably open given the hoarded clutter everywhere else.

In the middle of that cleared area was a raised platform on which stood a throne-like seat of copper and brass. Resting in the chair was the helmeted figure Yoshiro had noted giving orders at the trellis.

The mask that covered Kilvolt’s face left his eyes and muzzle exposed. Neither looked pleased.

‘Gnawfang comes back,’ Kilvolt hissed. ‘Bring little-small scrap. Lose many-much slave-meat.’ The skaven leader leaned forwards and clenched his beringed hand. ‘Explain, flea-biter! Explain failure!’

Gnawfang’s fur bristled at the abuse heaped upon him by his master. He gave a sly look to Yoshiro and bared his fangs in anticipation. At any moment, Yoshiro knew he would challenge Kilvolt’s dominance.

Unless the sorcerer acted first.

‘Mighty Kilvolt Gnash!’ Yoshiro shouted. He moved away from Gnawfang and pointed at the confused warlock-engineer. ‘This wretch plots against you and thought to use me as his assassin.’

While he spoke, Yoshiro shifted out of his skaven form. It taxed his power to transform as quickly as he did, but he knew the effect would be all the more impressive. In only the blink of an eye, where there had been a mangy brown skaven there now stood the triumphant sorcerer.

‘Traitor-meat!’ Gnawfang howled. Before he could lunge for Yoshiro, he was clubbed down by Kilvolt’s guards. They battered him viciously until the enthroned ratman waved them off.

‘Traitor-meat,’ Kilvolt mused as he contemplated Gnawfang’s bloodied figure. He bared his fangs in a contemptuous sneer. ‘Fool-meat! Think-plot against generous Kilvolt?’ More guards came hurrying through the maze of junk. He pointed to the sprawled ratman. ‘Cage,’ he growled. ‘Kilvolt decide fitting punishment later.’

As some of the guards carried Gnawfang away, Kilvolt fixed his red eyes on Yoshiro. The sorcerer hadn’t moved since denouncing Gnawfang, a decision imposed on him by the ring of armoured skaven that surrounded him.

‘Now, human, why help-save Kilvolt?’ the skaven wanted to know. Even with his guards around Yoshiro, he’d drawn one of his pistols and had it aimed at the sorcerer’s head.

‘I helped you because you can help me,’ Yoshiro answered. He was careful not to smile. He’d learned the skaven interpreted a display of teeth as a threat on his walk with Gnawfang.

‘Why Kilvolt helps human?’ the warlord-engineer growled.

Yoshiro was cautious when he answered. ‘I know you’re trapped here,’ he said. The remark brought growls from his guards, but Kilvolt barked at them to be quiet. ‘I know your ship can’t leave. But I also know a way to change that.’

He thought about what Gnawfang had told him during their march. About what had brought the skaven to Profit’s Ruin months ago.

‘I know how to find what you need,’ Yoshiro said. He saw suspicion in Kilvolt’s eyes, but there was also eagerness. ‘Help me, and you help yourself. You’ll like the work. All you have to do is kill a few duardin.’

CHAPTER TEN

Brokrin was both relieved and disturbed by the speed with which Horgarr recovered. He judged that it was less than an hour before the endrinmaster was fit enough for travel. It was eerie to see the effect. It smacked of sorcery, of things best left unknown and untouched. Esmira’s evocation of Profit’s Ruin had brought about this miraculous healing, but Brokrin was too old a trader to believe such a boon came without a price. He only wondered who would pay that price. Would it be the human, or would it be the duardin?

The expedition set out along the trail. Brokrin was still convinced that Kerrum was right, that when he looked away the entrance into the glade had changed, yet to all appearances the path they now followed was no different to the one they’d earlier walked. The other duardin didn’t seem aware of any change, except perhaps Agrilo. The logisticator had been more attentive to their progress than the others, paying particular notice to the vines and branches they passed. He would inspect particular patches of growth. Despite Esmira acting as their guide, he seemed to be marking the vines, leaving a trail they could follow if they lost their way.

Brokrin shifted his notice from Agrilo to Esmira. She was up ahead of the group again, playing the part of pathfinder. Frequently she would jog out of sight, rounding a corner to check their route. Brokrin was always frustrated when the human did that. He’d sent Kerrum up to the front to act as her guard. Partly it was for protection, for despite her insistence he wasn’t convinced that there weren’t any skaven around.

The other reason for having Kerrum stick close to her was because Brokrin couldn’t shake his reservations about Esmira. His doubts were magnified once Horgarr was feeling better. Esmira had been insistent, almost demanding, that they should leave the glade and get moving again. She was in a hurry, but Brokrin didn’t know why. If she really believed there were no skaven around, then what impelled her to such haste?

‘I get the impression she’s reluctant to take us where we’re going,’ Gotramm said to Brokrin when Esmira vanished again around a turn in the trail.

‘I had just been thinking the opposite,’ Brokrin told the privateer. ‘If you were to ask me, I think she can’t get us there fast enough.’

The conversation brought a gruff laugh from Horgarr. ‘Suits me. The faster we get there, the faster we find that treasure Orrik wants so badly.’

He held out his compass and excitedly showed his companions the needle. It was pointing in the same direction they were moving. The pulsating quiver that made it shiver up and down was an even greater cause for excitement.

‘That trembling shows it’s a big strike. The more aether-gold, the more the needle bounces about.’ Horgarr grinned and winked at Brokrin. ‘You forget that curse nonsense. Even if this notion Orrik has about growing aether-gold on trees is so much foolishness, there’s enough of it where we’re going to still make everyone on the Iron Dragon rich.’

‘Maybe that’s why Esmira’s so uneasy,’ Gotramm mused. ‘Could be she’s worried that we won’t share the aether-gold. That we’ll just strand her here once she takes us to it.’

Brokrin watched as Esmira rejoined Kerrum at the front of the column. Now that he was looking for it because of what Gotramm had said, he did see anxiety in her face.

‘She does look troubled,’ he stated. ‘But I don’t know that it’s because she thinks we’ll cheat her.’

‘You don’t think she really knows how to get to the heart of Profit’s Ruin?’ Gotramm asked.

Horgarr grumbled and held out the compass. ‘She’s taking us closer to the aether-gold,’ he insisted.

‘Oh, she knows the way,’ Brokrin said. ‘She’s leading us there just as fast as she can. I think what bothers her is what happens when we get there. Maybe she’s having reservations about what will happen to us.’

‘You’d look twice at a jackpot and call the game rigged,’ Horgarr grumbled. ‘Why can’t good things happen once in a while?’

‘They do,’ Brokrin conceded. ‘But it’s when you expect them to happen that you walk into trouble.’

Gotramm tried to confound Brokrin’s bleak reasoning. ‘Cap’n, since we met her, Esmira has only done good by us. She saved us from those statues, got us out of the wreck when the skaven had us surrounded.’ He pointed his thumb at Horgarr. ‘She even brought this Guild-buzzard back from the doorstep of his ancestors.’

‘She did all of that. She was always ready at the right place and the right time.’ Brokrin gave both of them a sharp look. ‘I can’t accept that much luck. She’s a part of what’s going on here. Part of something that’s been manipulating us since we left the Iron Dragon.’

‘You think she’s that powerful?’ Gotramm was dubious. ‘She was all done in after freeing us from the wreck. Or do you still think that was some kind of ploy?’

‘No, the toll that rescue took on her was real,’ Brokrin said.

He hesitated, debating whether to tell them of the Windfarer or not. He decided against sharing that particular detail, and merely pointed to the other unlikelihoods the situation evoked.

‘She’s made veiled references to someone or something else in Profit’s Ruin. Something that helped her survive up here. That is still helping her… when she does what it says.’

‘You’re claiming there’s someone in Profit’s Ruin who’s got that kind of magic,’ Horgarr said, considering the idea. ‘You think Esmira’s working with this unknown someone in some way.’

‘Or something,’ Brokrin reminded them. ‘It need not be a person. But whatever it is, it’s powerful and always watching.’

‘Never truly alone in the Ruin,’ Gotramm mumbled, recalling Esmira’s words to them.

‘What do you think is out there?’ Horgarr asked. ‘And how much control do you think it has over Esmira?’

Brokrin studied the woman as she slipped around another bend in the trail and vanished from sight. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘If I knew the answer to either question, I might not feel like a skyrigger who’s just realised his aether-gas is running low.’

The interior of the skaven airship was dirty, cramped and reeked of musk. Yoshiro felt like he was crawling in a coffin, so tightly did the walls press in upon him. He couldn’t stretch out his arms on either side without having his elbows connect with the wall, though he seldom made the experiment. He’d quickly discovered the slipshod metallurgy of skaven forges: the steely passages were often rough and jagged with little spurs just waiting to rip his skin.

The skaven flourished in this dark, claustrophobic maze. They navigated largely by scent and touch, letting their whiskers brush against the walls to help them find their way. Lights were few, restricted to places where some degree of precision was demanded of the ratkin working there.

Armoured guards surrounded Yoshiro as he accompanied Kilvolt Gnash through the warren of winding corridors. The warlord-engineer boasted continuously about the attributes of the immense airship. From what Yoshiro was able to distil from the self-aggrandising account Kilvolt foisted on him, he belonged to a sect of skaven called Clan Skryre, and had convinced the clanleaders to give him the resources to construct the vessel.

‘But there was a problem,’ Yoshiro ventured.

Kilvolt stopped ahead of him in the corridor, his tail snaking back and forth in a display of irritation. He rounded on the sorcerer, lips pulled back to expose his sharp yellow fangs.

‘Yes-yes, witch-man,’ he growled. ‘Underlings, traitor-trash like Gnawfang, built ship wrong-bad.’ He rapped his paw against the metal wall. ‘Too big-heavy,’ he snapped. He glared at Yoshiro a moment, then gestured with his paw. As he moved down the corridor, the human and the guards followed.

‘You said this would be the mightiest ship in the sky,’ Yoshiro reminded Kilvolt. ‘Able to tackle anything the Kharadron could build. Certainly…’

Kilvolt stopped and looked back again. His red eyes glowered at Yoshiro. ‘What did Gnawfang say-squeak? What does witch-man already know-think?’

Looking aside at the guards, Yoshiro wondered if he’d pushed too far. Instead of closing around him, the ratmen were backing away. It seemed they didn’t want to share in whatever Kilvolt might do to the sorcerer.

‘I know you are trying to get to the heart of Profit’s Ruin,’ Yoshiro answered. ‘I know that you came here to find what keeps it in the sky…’

‘Already know what keeps forest in sky,’ Kilvolt declared. ‘Bright-wood. Bright-wood keeps vine-jungle in sky.’

The warlord-engineer turned again and ordered Yoshiro to follow him. Ahead, a flicker of light shone at the end of the corridor. The air grew hot, and a burnt smell drifted over the sorcerer. Soon they were walking into a massive room, its size all the more daunting after the cramped confines of the tunnels. Support beams and ratwalks stretched away high above their heads, with the curved ceiling a dozen feet above the gantries and girders. Many corridors opened into the chamber at every level, and out of these dark openings a seemingly endless scurry of ratmen came and went.

The floor was dominated by massive bins made from bone and plaster. In the face of each container was a barred opening, from which green-black lumps of stone spilled out. Groups of scrawny skaven took clumps of this stone and brought them across to the far wall, where a gigantic steel oven stood. Two of the biggest skaven Yoshiro had yet seen stood beside this furnace. Chains were embedded in their flesh and fastened to the sides of the oven, while one hand had been removed from each of the giant ratmen and replaced by a spade. When the skinny slaves dumped the stones on the floor, the bigger creatures used their shovels to scoop them up and toss them into the furnace.

‘Fuel,’ Kilvolt stated, pointing a paw at the bins. ‘Warpstone to power Kilvolt’s ship.’ He ground his fangs in irritation. ‘Traitor-trash build too heavy-big! Ship needs too much warpstone. Uses fuel too fast-quick!’

Yoshiro nodded. He wasn’t fooled by talk of traitor-trash. Kilvolt had promised too much and built too large. His airship used too much fuel, limiting how far it could range from the warrens of the skaven.

‘So you came to take the bright-wood?’

Kilvolt gestured at the bins. Yoshiro could see now that several of them were empty. ‘Wing-bats bring-fetch bright-wood,’ he said excitedly. ‘Bright-wood burn better-good. Better-good for ship.’ He lost his momentary glee and slipped back into brooding severity. ‘Kilvolt try to take bright-wood. Fool-scum sail my ship too close. Vine-jungle catches us, pulls us down. Traps us here.’

‘That was months ago,’ Yoshiro said. ‘You’ve tried to take the bright-wood since then. But you can’t find the way.’

‘Bright-wood moves,’ Kilvolt snarled. ‘Send many patrols to find-take.’

The sorcerer presumed to disagree with Kilvolt. ‘The heart of Profit’s Ruin doesn’t move,’ he said. He quickly continued before the warlord-engineer did anything lethal to him. ‘The branches and vines, those move. They turn your patrols around before they can get close. Try however many times you want, you won’t reach it. It won’t let you.’

Kilvolt bared his fangs. ‘Tree-things try to keep skaven from forest-places before. Tree-things find-learn better than try to stop Kilvolt.’

‘Whatever Profit’s Ruin is, it is not like the sylvaneth. It has its own methods and powers. You won’t find the centre unless I help you.’ Yoshiro held his hand out, and with an exertion of his will his fingers began to sprout feathers. ‘I can lead you through no matter how the vines try to trick you.’

Kilvolt watched in fascination as the feathers gradually sank back into Yoshiro’s skin. ‘Witch-man will guide-show because of beard-things? Wants beard-things dead?’

Yoshiro thought of the mirror hanging from his neck. Those weren’t words Khoram would like, but as he’d already told the curseling, they didn’t need Brokrin. They needed the Iron Dragon and what Kilvolt was calling ‘bright-wood’.

‘The duardin are enemies of the both of us,’ Yoshiro said. ‘Even if they weren’t in the way, you’d like them dead. But now you have an even bigger reason to stop them. They’re after the bright-wood too.’

The skaven gnashed his fangs. He turned and stretched his paw. The oversized rings on his fingers blazed with violence. From each ring, a stream of lightning crackled across the chamber and struck one of the scrawny slaves. The victim gave one squeak of pain, then his body was enveloped in searing flashes of energy. The ratkin crashed to the floor, his fur smoking, his eyes boiled in their sockets.

‘No!’ Kilvolt howled. ‘Beard-things not steal-filch bright-wood! Bright-wood will feed-fill furnace! Bright-wood power my ship! The Indomitable Terror of Kilvolt’s Unconquered Genius will fly again! Will escape vine-jungle! Will be glory-envy of all Clan Skryre!’

Yoshiro kept silent while the warlord-engineer ranted. Kilvolt would move fast now. He would act with overwhelming force when the threat of losing the fuel he needed so badly was hanging over him. That was the one detail of Gnawfang’s account that Yoshiro had needed to verify for himself. He’d been around the skaven long enough to know that only a fool trusted anything one of the ratkin said.

Yoshiro was no fool. As Kilvolt would find out, if he thought the sorcerer didn’t have his own uses for the bright-wood.

Gotramm was still thinking about Brokrin’s dire musings hours later when it became his turn to take up position at the back of their column. Despite the captain’s misgivings about Esmira, the most overt danger threatening the group remained the skaven. If the ratkin were to pick up their trail, none of the duardin thought the vermin would be slackers about pursuing it. As a consequence, Brokrin had implemented a rotation so that they’d always have a set of fresh eyes watching for the vermin.

As though conjured by his thoughts about slackers, Gotramm noticed that Agrilo was gradually drifting back towards him. The logisticator was circumspect in his purpose, but Gotramm wasn’t fooled. Agrilo wanted to talk to the privateer, and the only reason for doing that away from the others had to be to discuss the precious nodules the logisticator had been cutting from the vines.

Gotramm’s hand fell to the bag strapped to his harness. He felt a pang of guilt over all the nodules he’d let Agrilo bring him to carry. His shares in the logisticator’s ‘port of call independent venture’ were generous enough, but he still felt his conscience nagging at him. Even if the Code supported the idea, he didn’t feel it was right to hold out on Brokrin and the rest of the crew.

When Agrilo joined him, Gotramm intended to explain his misgivings. He’d try to make the logisticator understand his own position. ‘Agrilo,’ he began, ‘listen, I’ve been thinking…’

Waving his hand, Agrilo motioned for Gotramm to be quiet. He gave a furtive glance to their surroundings and then ducked a hand into the bulging bag hanging off his belt.

‘Look at this,’ Agrilo said, excitement flashing in his eyes. He held out a nodule for Gotramm to look at. As he did so, he was careful to keep his body angled so that the other duardin couldn’t see it.

The thing shimmered and sparkled. Gotramm felt his pulse quicken and his breath catch when he looked at it. There was the unmistakable lustre of gold about the nodule. When Agrilo handed it to him, it felt heavy, and more like metal than any kind of growth.

‘I think they must be like cysts,’ Agrilo said. ‘Only instead of water, these are made of aether-gold. Maybe that’s what’s happened to all the cargo from the ships lost in Profit’s Ruin.’

‘Or maybe it’s drawn in from the veins the Ruin floats through,’ Gotramm suggested. He looked past the logisticator at the rest of their group. He could see Horgarr glancing at his compass, verifying that they were still heading towards the aether-gold. ‘Or maybe it is drawn off from the heart of the Ruin. A by-product of whatever keeps it in the sky.’

‘Wherever it comes from,’ Agrilo said. ‘I know this much.’ He removed a second nodule from his bag. ‘The nearer we get to the centre, the richer these things are. Ever since we left that glade where Esmira helped Horgarr, I’ve been cutting them free every chance I get.’ A sour look came over his face as he made an admission. ‘I pitched the ones I already had. These are better. They’ll be worth more.’ He looked at Gotramm’s bag, and nodded. ‘Let the group slip ahead at that next bend and we’ll dump what you have and swap it for what I’ve got.’

Gotramm was stunned by the logisticator’s suggestion, until a moment’s thought made him realise that Agrilo would make sure to fill his own bag again soon enough. Better ore between them would mean more profit to be divided. Which, of course, brought him back to his conscience.

‘Agrilo, look, there’s only so much we can carry between us,’ Gotramm said. ‘Shouldn’t we tell the others and deal them in?’

The sour look was back on Agrilo’s face, but so was an embarrassed flush that saw colour rushing into his cheeks. ‘I… uh… already invited some of the others to take shares in our independent venture. As you say, there’s only so much we can carry between us. It’ll pay out in the end, I assure you.’ He handed Gotramm another nodule as the privateer discarded the ones from his bag.

For all that he’d wanted to bring the others into the deal, Gotramm resented that Agrilo had done so without discussing it first.

‘You take on new partners without asking the old ones first?’

‘I didn’t think you were so selfish,’ Agrilo gasped, feigned shock in his eyes. ‘The profit we stand to make, we can afford to be generous with our shipmates.’

Another nodule passed between the two duardin.

‘Then why the secrecy?’ Gotramm pointed out as he put the higher-grade nodule into his bag. ‘Why not tell the cap’n?’

‘Because we can’t be that generous,’ Agrilo told him as he gave Gotramm another nodule. ‘Tell Brokrin and he’ll demand everything be split with everybody back on the ship. This is just between this shore party.’

‘And your partners who stayed on the Iron Dragon,’ Gotramm reminded him. He arched an eyebrow. ‘Exactly how many shares are we splitting?’

Agrilo grinned and tried to hide how much the question flustered him. ‘Well… I mean, we’ll have a lot more to divide. Better for everyone. Look, is it smart to have a lot of a little when you can have a little of a lot? Why eat squab when you can have gryphon?’ Agrilo handed another nodule to Gotramm.

Gotramm didn’t even look at it as he stuffed it into the bag. ‘How many?’ he asked again.

‘Well… a few.’ Agrilo showed Gotramm the now empty bag he carried. ‘I can fill this with the better nodules. We’ll have a lot more to share between us.’

‘How many?’ Gotramm demanded. He was growing exasperated by the logisticator’s evasion.

Before Agrilo could fit some kind of response on his glib tongue, shouts rang out from the front of the column. Gotramm had sword and pistol in his hands as he dashed around the turn in the winding trail.

He’d let the rest of the group get a bit further than he’d intended during his subterfuge with Agrilo. When he rounded the corner, he didn’t see anyone, but he could still hear shouting from up ahead, beyond the next turn in the trail. The only thing that eased the sense of dereliction Gotramm felt was that the sounds he heard weren’t the cries of battle. They were expressions of amazement and wonder. Excited yells, not the sounds of desperation and panic. As he jogged down the green-walled path, he tried to imagine what could provoke such a reaction from his fellow Kharadron.

When he made the next turn, Gotramm had his answer. The path opened out into an immense glade, a clearing more titanic in its proportions even than that caused by the krontanker’s crash. The floor here seemed to be grass, a vibrant carpet that waved in the crisp breeze that rolled across it. There was no canopy above to block the sun and throw the Ruin into shadow. Here the open sky stood stark and clear, unobstructed and magnificent. Gotramm took a strange reassurance from seeing the sky above him, rather than the brief and menacing glimpses he’d had of it through broken branches and withered vines.

As inspiring as the clear sky was, however, it wasn’t this that had captured the fascination of the duardin. All of them stood staring in awe at a pair of gigantic trees that grew in the middle of the glade. One was a tremendous growth of thin branches, which formed a kind of skein or lattice as they spiralled upwards. Its bark was purest white, like new-fallen snow, a white so bright that it stung the eyes where the sun hit it just right. The branches rose up some two hundred feet, before giving way to a mane of golden leaves that drooped and swayed in the wind.

More than the pale tree itself, however, it was what lay behind the nest of branches that enraptured the duardin. Within that cage was a steady light, a blazing golden luminescence unlike anything they had seen before. This near to it, any resemblance to aether-gold vanished. The richest aether-gold ever found by the Kharadron would be tawdry and cheap beside the purity of the light emanating from within the nest.

If this could be harvested, if it had similar qualities to aether-gold, Gotramm was staggered by the enormity of wealth the pale tree represented. The tree was at least fifty feet in diameter, and for much of its two hundred-foot height, except where the mane of leaves drooped, the golden light was present. More than present; it was consistent and strong.

Gotramm heard the ecstatic gasp Agrilo uttered when the logisticator entered the glade and laid eyes upon the pale tree. When he glanced at the other duardin, he saw that there were joyful tears dripping from his eyes.

It was all incredible and exhilarating. All of them were gripped by a sense of wonder, almost unable to tear their eyes away from the glorious sight of the pale tree. Most of the duardin only gave a fleeting glance to the other tree that grew in the glade. It rose a hundred yards from the pale tree and looked as impressive as a shrub beside the colossal magnificence of its companion. Yet there was something about the smaller tree that made Gotramm’s attention linger on it… and set some deep and primal part of his psyche on alert.

The smaller tree stood only ten feet high, and was only a few feet around. Its trunk was gnarled and twisted, the bark having a silvery colour to it. There were no leaves on its branches, and they stretched out from the top of the tree like skeletal hands scratching at the sky. Gotramm thought that a black patch along one side of the tree might be the residue of a fire it had survived long ago. As he took a few steps forwards, he started to notice the many scars and gashes in the wood. These too had some nebulous suggestion of antiquity about them, the edge of each cut softened and dulled by time and the elements while remaining sharp and livid at their cores.

Then his eyes caught an even more peculiar feature. In the middle of the trunk, an eccentric pattern in the bark seemed to create a figure. It was defined not so much by a difference in colour as it was by a variation in texture. The figure, such as Gotramm imagined it to be, had a smoother pattern to it, like exposed heartwood, and lacked the roughness of the bark around it. Gotramm thought he saw a bust in that pattern. A head and shoulders, part of a chest – even the semblance of long, flowing hair. He rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand and tried to clear the illusion.

Instead he noticed something else, something that Brokrin and the others, in their fascination for the pale tree, had failed to observe or act upon. Gotramm saw Esmira kneeling before the silver tree, her head bowed. It was an attitude that reminded him of a subject bowing before a king. But there was more than that, something that sent a chill down his spine.

Gotramm could see Esmira’s lips moving, and though he could hear no words, he was convinced she was talking to the image in the tree.

Brokrin gazed on the pale tree in rapturous awe. Here, he knew, was the solution to all his woes. He had no doubt in his mind that the light trapped within the pale tree was aether-gold, an ore so pristine as to be unmatched in the long history of Kharadron exploration. He was certain the vaporous ore locked within the skein of branches would mark a profit not seen before in Barak-Zilfin. This voyage would become legendary, an epic saga to be related down through generations of duardin. There would be no more talk of a curse hanging over the Iron Dragon, or ugly whispers about his fitness for command.

The wealth represented by the pale tree was more than money to Brokrin. It was redemption.

‘Do you think it’s really making it on its own somehow?’ Brokrin asked Horgarr.

The endrinmaster still had his eyes locked on the pale tree when he answered. ‘It seems fantastic. No, it has to simply be holding the aether-gold. Like a living krontanker.’ Horgarr nodded his head, warming to his own speculation. ‘Even that would be valuable to Orrik if he can figure out how to grow more of them.’ He cocked his head to one side and studied the tree and the glow within it. ‘Still, if it is what Orrik thinks it is, it’ll change everything.’

Brokrin hadn’t given full thought to that aspect, he realised. If the pale tree did somehow produce its own aether-gold, and if Orrik Goldhand could cultivate more of them, the whole of Kharadron society would change. There’d be no more need to ply the skies seeking rich veins and making new strikes. All the aether-gold they could ever need would be grown within their own sky-ports. And Orrik would become the wealthiest and most powerful Kharadron of them all. He’d of course appreciated the riches Orrik would gain from this venture, but only now did he really consider the authority he’d possess. He wasn’t sure if any duardin should have that much power. He was certain a ruthless profiteer like Orrik couldn’t be trusted with it.

The dark turn his thoughts had taken made Brokrin tear his gaze away from the pale tree. He looked back at the smaller tree that was the only other fixture in the grassy glade. He noticed Gotramm staring at it and, following the privateer’s gaze, appreciated for the first time that Esmira was abasing herself before the strange growth. His already troubled thoughts took an even grimmer turn. He was thinking again of the mysterious force that had sought to steer them through Profit’s Ruin. A force to which the human was beholden… if not outright enslaved.

‘Horgarr, snap out of it and get the others ready for trouble,’ Brokrin told the endrinmaster.

Horgarr looked away from the pale tree long enough to see the severity on Brokrin’s face. That expression sobered him instantly, banishing the golden dreams that had filled his mind. He didn’t question or argue, he only nodded and hurried to break the rest of the crew from their fascination.

Brokrin left Horgarr to his work and walked towards the silver tree. The grassy floor of the glade was not exactly as it seemed, for it grew out of the interlaced branches and vines that served as ground here, rather than solid dirt and soil. The blades of grass caressed him as he moved through them, gently trying to coax him back towards the pale tree. Brokrin resisted the effect and kept his eyes on Esmira. By focusing on her he was able to fend off any urge to go back.

Brokrin walked to where Gotramm was standing. He gave the young arkanaut an approving nod. ‘Something’s wrong here,’ he said.

‘I’ve been watching her,’ Gotramm reported. He pointed his sword at the silver tree and indicated a strangely marked spot on the trunk. ‘She’s been… well, I’d swear she’s been talking to it, cap’n.’

‘Stand ready,’ Brokrin ordered. ‘I’m going to find out what’s going on, once and for all. If it goes wrong, take charge of the expedition.’

He didn’t give Gotramm a chance to take the task onto himself, but marched away from him towards the silver tree.

As Brokrin got nearer, Esmira heard him approach. She jumped to her feet and stepped in his way. ‘Please, try to understand,’ she said. There was a frantic look on her face.

‘I intend to,’ Brokrin told her. He moved around the human. When Esmira reached for him, he pushed her away. ‘I want answers,’ he growled. ‘I want to see who’s been leading me around here like I have a ring through my nose.’

A few more steps brought Brokrin almost to the base of the silver tree. This close, he could see that the strange markings Gotramm had been indicating undeniably resembled a man-shaped bust, pushing outwards from the bark. Though still composed of wood, the smoothness of that shape tried to evoke the appearance of skin. The curves of shoulder and neck, even the flow of long hair, were too distinct to be a mere trick of perception. There was a face, too, with thin, pointed features and a harsh sort of beauty.

Brokrin corrected himself. It wasn’t a human semblance at all, but something more fey and delicate. The only face he’d ever seen that had any similarity to it was that of an aelf.

Gazing at the face, Brokrin jumped back in shock when wooden eyelids snapped open and revealed two glowing motes of amber light shining within. The bust pushed itself outwards further still, until it protruded several inches from the trunk. There was no expression on the aelven face, but he could see its lips moving. No words issued from the wooden mouth.

At least, none that he could hear.

‘This is the Keeper of the Garden,’ Esmira whispered, drawing up to stand beside Brokrin. ‘You’re right, it has been watching you. It has been aware of you since you first were drawn into the Sea of Doom.’ She paused and licked her lips before confessing more to him. ‘It sent me to find you. To test and judge you.’

Brokrin threw Esmira’s words back at her. ‘Test? Judge?’ he growled. ‘This thing has toyed with us, thrown us into danger after danger just to test us? Esmira, I’ve lost crew in Profit’s Ruin. It is only by luck that more of us haven’t died.’

‘It wasn’t luck, it was the Keeper who saved you. You must believe that.’

‘I don’t,’ Brokrin snapped. He glared into the expressionless wooden face. ‘You saved us, Esmira. You might have used the magic it taught you, but that’s all.’

‘You’re wrong,’ Esmira insisted. ‘What you think is magic is only my connection to the Keeper. My ability to petition its aid and focus its control over the Sea.’

‘Then your Keeper must’ve been unwilling to help against the skaven,’ Brokrin reminded her. ‘I saw the toll rescuing us from the krontanker took on you. That was you, Esmira, not it. If this Keeper is so benevolent, why didn’t it help you then?’

Esmira lowered her eyes. ‘The Keeper wished to see if you could prevail on your own. Without its help.’

‘There you have it,’ Brokrin said. He pointed an accusing finger at the Keeper’s wooden face. ‘Look at it, Esmira. Really see it. Does that look like a face that cares about anyone? That could care about anyone?’

‘You see only the surface,’ Esmira reproved him, acid in her tone. ‘That aspect is something the Keeper grew to console me in my loneliness. Something I could look at and not feel alone. It knows what it is to be alone. More than you could imagine.’ She stared at the aelven face and wept.

‘Once the Keeper grew below, part of a vast forest. Then the destroyers came with axe and fire, with their terrible monsters and their dark magic. The Keeper strove to save something of the forest, to preserve it so it wasn’t all lost forever.’ She turned her tear-stained face towards Brokrin. ‘The Keeper did as your people have done. It rose into the sky and found a new life. But it was the last of its kind. It was alone.’

‘And that gives it the right to lead my crew into danger?’ Brokrin growled. ‘To snare ships out of the sky?’

Esmira gave Brokrin a cold look, a look as icy as that which shone in the Keeper’s luminous gaze. ‘You can speak the answer to that. What did you come to Profit’s Ruin for, except to plunder and steal? So have others. Many times. The Keeper has groomed the vines to protect the Sea. Any that come too near are snared.’ Her voice grew sombre. ‘The ships are destroyed and, when necessary, so are their crews.’

Brokrin waved his fist at the aelven face. He could see its mouth still moving. ‘Are those your own words, or its?’

‘I know how to listen to the Keeper’s voice,’ Esmira replied. ‘If you could hear, you would understand. The Keeper has no malice. What is done has been done out of necessity.’

‘Necessity?’ Brokrin challenged.

Esmira nodded. ‘The… skaven. Their ship was pulled down by the Sea months ago. Many of them survived the crash. The Keeper has tried to destroy them, but they have strange weapons – poisons and fires – that it can’t fight against. The skaven have killed entire patches of the forest.’

Brokrin snarled at the aelven face. ‘So you thought to use us to fight the skaven? Is that why you didn’t destroy us outright? So you could try to make us fight your battle for you and then dispose of us after?’ He heard the angry rumblings from the rest of his crew. No duardin liked being tricked.

‘You came here to exploit Profit’s Ruin,’ Esmira reminded them. ‘You wanted to take what was in the heart of the Sea. Now that you see it, you think you can make yourselves rich. How are you any better than the Keeper? You do what you do for yourselves. It does what it does to preserve the Sea.’

An anguished howl from Agrilo had Brokrin turning about. Unlike the rest of them, the logisticator had remained by the pale tree, drawing steadily closer to it. Now he scrambled away from it, running for all he was worth to rejoin the crew. There was a look of terror on the bald duardin’s face.

‘It isn’t aether-gold!’ Agrilo yelled. ‘It isn’t aether-gold! There are… faces in it!’

Esmira laid her hand on Brokrin’s shoulder. ‘No, the treasure you covet isn’t what you thought it was.’ She pointed to the pale tree. ‘The Keeper grew it to bring the forest into the clouds. It is cultivated from whisperwood. The tree is a cage for the energy that keeps the Sea in the sky.’

She glanced at the aelven face. Brokrin saw her hesitate before explaining what was inside that cage. He knew what the Keeper told her to say wasn’t to her liking.

‘What you thought was aether-gold are the spirits of all those claimed by the Sea of Doom,’ she said.

Brokrin glared at the silver tree. ‘So that’s your great secret? You don’t defend yourself from ships, you seek them out. Prey on them for spirits to put into your cage.’

‘The Keeper will spare you if you destroy the skaven,’ Esmira assured him.

‘Otherwise what?’ Brokrin sneered. ‘We’ll all die? Was that why it wanted us to find the Windfarer? As a warning of what would happen to us if we didn’t do what it wanted?’

The expression on the face didn’t change, but Brokrin thought the glow in its eyes grew more intense. Angry.

‘You must do what the Keeper demands,’ Esmira said. ‘Try to understand, Brokrin. It grew in an age of war and destruction. These things have shaped it. They are what it knows. Anything it can’t control it has to regard as a threat.’ She moved away from Brokrin and pointed to something he hadn’t noticed before. A hundred yards from the silver tree was a small mound of earth. From this, a slim sapling no taller than his waist was growing.

Brokrin walked over and looked at the young tree. It was clearly drawn off the Keeper, but the bark bore no scars. There was a face here, just as wooden as that of the bigger tree, only this one had an expression. An attitude of serenity and contemplation. Utterly unlike the cold pragmatism of the Keeper.

‘The Keeper understands that things aren’t what they once were,’ Esmira explained. ‘This was grown from a cutting. When it is old enough and strong enough, it will provide balance.’ She let her fingers caress the star-shaped leaves that grew from the sapling’s branches. ‘It can afford to learn compassion and trust.’

Brokrin shook his head. ‘Will the old Keeper allow it to? Or will it decide that such things are too dangerous to Profit’s Ruin?’

Brokrin spun around as his crew started shouting. The vines that surrounded the enormous clearing were in motion. Already they were moving to close off the path by which they’d entered. Others undulated menacingly towards the duardin.

‘More threats?’ Brokrin snarled, rounding on the silver tree. He drew his volley pistol and aimed it at the aelven face. ‘Don’t think you’re the only one who can make threats!’

‘Brokrin, no!’ Esmira cried. She tried to grab his arm, but before she could reach him, Horgarr pulled her back. ‘Don’t antagonise the Keeper! If you do, you’ll die!’

‘What kind of life does it offer us anyway?’ Horgarr said. ‘We stay up here in the clouds, scratching a living until it decides to drag our spirits out and put them in that cage?’

‘It doesn’t have to be that way,’ Esmira pleaded.

Brokrin heard Gotramm cry out. The rest of the crew were being forced back by the encroaching vines. The Keeper was trying to herd them into one spot. The easier to dispose of them.

‘I’m sorry, Esmira, but it does have to be that way,’ Brokrin said. He stared at the aelven face, searching it for the least hint of empathy or compassion. Anything that would show him he was wrong, that the strange mind that dwelt within the being was not so remote that it couldn’t be reasoned with. There was nothing, however – only a sense of cold, calculating authority. Something so apart from the duardin that it couldn’t even be called arrogance. It was more like a blacksmith rejecting ore for his forge, there was so little commonality between the judge and the judged.

Brokrin steadied his hand. He fired the volley pistol into the Keeper’s face. The aelven visage exploded under the barrage. Splinters of wood were sent flying in every direction.

Immediately the clearing started to tremble. The duardin were thrown off their feet by the violent quaking. The grass undulated like green waves, rippling from one edge to the other. At the centre of the disturbance was the silver tree with its shattered face. Brokrin blinked in confusion when it seemed to him that the tree was becoming taller. He thought at first that it was the floor under it being pushed upwards. Instead, he saw a gnarled mass of scarred silver wood thrusting itself upwards from below.

The truth of what was happening staggered Brokrin more than the tremor. He looked on as the silver tree was thrust higher and higher. Beneath it, a growth as old and colossal as the whisperwood was emerging from the depths of Profit’s Ruin. He knew now the mistake he’d made. The silver tree with its aelven face wasn’t the Keeper – it was only one of its uppermost branches. Now the being itself had been roused.

Brokrin saw a blocky, forty-foot-wide body with two long arms sprouting from its shoulders. Colossal legs thirty feet around supported the timber torso, each ending in a broad foot of writhing roots. There was no head, but a series of cavities in the body shaped the rough outlines of a face. There was no effort at even an aelven semblance in that face, only a set of gashes in the wood. A wide mouth with thousands of jagged splinters for teeth, and two gaping eye sockets from which angry amber fires regarded the duardin.

They had come to seek out the heart of Profit’s Ruin. Now they had found it.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The towering form of the Keeper loomed over the duardin, a colossus of timber wrapped in vines. The amber eyes glowered down at Brokrin with something too primal to be defined as simply malice.

Brokrin felt terror pulse through him as he gazed up at the ancient titan. But his fear was not so great that it made him bow.

‘We’ll not be your slaves,’ he hissed. He brandished his axe. ‘Even the biggest tree is cut down one chop at a time.’

Esmira broke free from Gotramm and darted at Brokrin. She clung onto his arm and dragged down his axe. ‘No! You don’t understand!’

‘What’s there to understand?’ Horgarr snarled. ‘I’ll not wait for the damn thing to step on me!’ He reached into a sack hanging from his belt and drew out a cylindrical device. A ring of runes was engraved around its radius, and it was over these that his fingers played. The endrinmaster pressed several of them in sequence. Each rune slowly sank down, creating a small recess in the cylinder’s surface.

The Keeper stretched out its long arm. Branches at the extreme end of the limb rippled outwards, forming clawed fingers that reached down for Horgarr. The action brought a prompt response from Kerrum and his thunderers. The Grundstok company opened up on the tree-creature, their shots peppering the extending talons. Several were blasted away, spinning across the glade in a spray of dark blood-like sap. A few flopped back, broken and limp, writhing like dying snakes.

Esmira swung around and shrieked at the duardin. ‘Stop! Don’t fight the Keeper!’

‘We’re not just going to sit idly by and let it stick our spirits in that whisperwood cage,’ Brokrin growled.

He shook Esmira off of him, feeling no regret when she fell at his feet. She’d chosen her side. She wasn’t an ally now. He only hoped she wouldn’t become an enemy.

‘Kerrum, keep firing into the thing! Gotramm, you and Morri come with me.’ He glanced over at Horgarr and nodded at the device in his hands. ‘We’ll keep it off you so you can use that,’ he told the endrinmaster.

‘Stop fighting!’ Esmira implored. Her face was frantic. ‘You’re threatening the Keeper!’

Brokrin gave her a grim look. ‘Lady, we’re going to do a lot more than threaten it!’ He barked an order to Agrilo when Esmira tried to grab his legs. ‘Keep her from getting in the way! Bind her if it comes to it!’

While the logisticator took control of Esmira, Brokrin led the others in a charge against the Keeper. The colossus was focused upon the gunfire the thunderers were putting into it. Despite its great age, this was something new in its experience. It didn’t seem aware of how to react. It would form new fingers and reach for the duardin, only to have the growth shot away. Weeds and vines slithered through the grassy sward from the surrounding jungle of branches, but they hesitated to close upon the duardin.

Brokrin’s group rushed the towering Keeper. As they came close, vines rippled away from its body to intercept them. Brokrin’s axe and the swords of the arkanauts kept the tendrils back. When the colossus reached for them with its other hand, a full blast from the volley pistol exploded its spindly fingers and splintered its palm.

‘The leg!’ Horgarr shouted to Brokrin. The group shifted their angle of attack. Brokrin’s axe came chopping into the timber. By his third swing, he had a notch deep enough for Horgarr’s purpose.

The endrinmaster pressed one more rune on his device. A set of steel spikes popped out along the edge of the cylinder. With a mighty effort, he slammed the device into the raw wood exposed by Brokrin’s axe. It stuck in the notch and resisted the vines that spooled down and tried to tug it free.

‘Run!’ Horgarr yelled at the others.

It was an order the endrinmaster didn’t need to give twice. Brokrin withdrew as quickly as his legs would carry him. So did the others. As he turned his back on the Keeper, a ghastly image kept running through his mind. He saw the tree-creature’s hand closing about him, or a cluster of vines constricting his body and pulling him back towards the giant.

Neither fate transpired, however. The worst thing Brokrin experienced as he ran away were the cries from Esmira, her panicked wails that the duardin stop fighting the Keeper.

When the explosion came, it was even more tremendous than Brokrin had expected. The domination bomb Horgarr had nailed to the Keeper’s leg was designed to quickly scuttle a ship. In the open clearing, its unleashed fury was deafening, and the shock wave from its detonation sent all the duardin sprawling in the grass.

Brokrin looked up from the ground to see the damage the bomb had inflicted upon the Keeper. The giant’s leg was a blackened stump, ripped almost clean through. Blood-like sap gushed from the immense hole created by the blast. There was no change in the gash-like face on the Keeper’s torso, but the amber lights had dwindled in their vibrancy. The giant tried to take a step, but its mangled leg disintegrated beneath its weight and the colossus crashed to the floor, the impact sending a tremor pulsing through the glade.

‘What have you done!’ Esmira screamed. She tried to pull away from Agrilo, but the logisticator had her in a firm grip.

Brokrin rose from the ground and gave her a stern look. He could appreciate the turmoil she was in, but she had to understand they’d only done what they needed to do to survive.

‘There was no other way,’ he said. ‘The Keeper would have killed us.’

‘All you had to do was stop fighting,’ Esmira sobbed.

Kerrum waved his smoking decksweeper at the wall of vines and weeds that had spilled out into the glade. ‘You’d rather we waited so it could smother us in vines?’ he growled.

Esmira looked from the sergeant to Brokrin. ‘Those aren’t meant to harm you,’ she said in a low voice. ‘They’re there to keep them away.’

Even as she spoke, Brokrin heard who Esmira meant by ‘them’. From the jungle surrounding the glade, he could hear the squeaks and chitters of skaven.

Far more skaven than they’d fought before.

Yoshiro again wore the guise of a raven as he led the ratmen through Profit’s Ruin. The Ruin did its best to confound Kilvolt’s horde. As they scorched tunnels through the branches and vines, the foliage ahead of the dead areas would try to turn them around or send them hurtling down gaping holes. Without the sorcerer to guide them, the skaven push would have ended as all the other attempts they’d mounted in the months since their ship crashed: in disaster.

The arcane mark he’d placed on Brokrin at Orrik’s palace was like a beacon, guiding him straight towards the duardin. He was confident the wood-witch was leading Brokrin to the heart of Profit’s Ruin. Khoram had told him the secret of the strange forest and what kept it in the sky. The duardin would be taken there so their spirits would feed the whisperwood.

The persistent urge that nagged at Yoshiro’s mind finally won out, and he landed on a branch to commune with Khoram. From the stream of invective that poured into the sorcerer’s brain, it was clear the curseling was livid at being ignored for so long.

‘Be at ease,’ Yoshiro cackled. ‘All that we hoped for will soon be ours. I have recruited a horde of ratkin to distract the guardian. They are following my scent and will soon converge on our enemies. Then I will be able to secure the whisperwood we need.’

Khoram was anything but at ease. ‘The plan was to let the duardin distract the Keeper while you claimed the whisperwood.’

As best he could in his avian shape, Yoshiro sneered at Khoram’s ire. ‘I have improved on your plan. The Keeper will be overwhelmed. And while it is busy with the ratkin, I will take what we need.’

‘What of Brokrin and his crew?’ Khoram demanded.

‘The skaven will settle with them as well,’ Yoshiro declared. ‘My plan kills two birds with one rat. Or a few hundred rats, but you get my meaning.’

‘I want Brokrin alive!’ Khoram raged within his mind. ‘I want him to see his ship and everything he cherishes destroyed before his eyes! I want…’

‘We don’t always get what we want,’ Yoshiro told him, cutting off the connection. Now that he’d deigned to respond to the curseling, the urge to speak to Khoram lost its power. It would take Khoram some time to rebuild its suggestive force to a degree that would compel Yoshiro to answer his summons.

By then it would be all over.

Yoshiro flew back to the horde of ratmen. He had to soar past the scurrying masses of brown-furred skaven crawling in the tunnels. Kilvolt was no braver than Gnawfang had been. He kept himself well to the rear of his army so that if his minions did run into disaster, he wouldn’t be there to share in it.

The warlord-engineer was surrounded by his armoured guards. Most of them were alive, but one was lying on the trail with red foam dribbling from its mouth. Yoshiro supposed that the creature hadn’t been given the antidote in its daily ration. He wasn’t troubled by Kilvolt’s casual murder of his own underlings. What troubled him was the white-furred creature that stood beside the skaven leader.

Yoshiro was already changing shape as he flew down towards Kilvolt. ‘I thought you killed that traitor,’ he growled, pointing at Gnawfang.

The white skaven reacted by baring his fangs and lowering his halberd. A sharp look from Kilvolt subdued his henchrat’s rage.

‘Brave-loyal Gnawfang?’ Kilvolt chittered. ‘Traitor? No-no! I spoke with Gnawfang. All is good-right.’ The warlord-engineer’s eyes gleamed, and there was an expression of murderous mischief in them. ‘He hates witch-man much-much. I told him not to hurt-harm, but if I wasn’t here…’ The ratman’s words trailed off in a squeak of laughter.

So that was Kilvolt’s ploy. Use the threat of a vengeful Gnawfang to ensure Yoshiro’s obedience. The sorcerer glowered at the white skaven. Since their last encounter, he might have taken safeguards against sorcery – talismans and devices that might confound magic. Yes, Yoshiro judged that to be likely, otherwise the ratman wouldn’t dare show him such hostility. And, of course, Kilvolt would find it in his own interest to make Gnawfang a formidable menace if he was going to hold him over the sorcerer’s head.

‘Your vanguard is almost at the heart of Profit’s Ruin,’ Yoshiro informed Kilvolt. ‘I suggest you get them ready to carry out our battle plan.’

Kilvolt flicked his ears in amusement. ‘Battle? Fight? No-no, witch-man. Skaven fetch-take bright-wood. That is plan.’

‘But the duardin… and what if the bright-wood is guarded?’

Kilvolt shook his head. ‘I only want-need bright-wood. Witch-man can fight beard-things.’ He chittered again as the sorcerer glared at him.

Yoshiro hadn’t been naïve enough to think the skaven would hold to their agreement, but he’d thought they could at least be depended upon to kill Brokrin’s group for him. If they wouldn’t, it meant he’d have to adjust his own plans.

Hopefully in such a way that he’d be able to even the score with Kilvolt and Gnawfang.

The squeaks and howls of the skaven rang out across the glade. Gotramm could see a patch of the vine wall turn black, a great plume of smoke spiralling upwards. Soon the black patch expanded, becoming a wide swathe of charred vegetation. The scorched area was swiftly hacked apart by axes and swords, opening a gap through which verminous faces peered.

‘They’re comin’ through the wall!’ Morri shouted.

‘We can’t hold out against that many,’ Kerrum swore. The sergeant looked aside at Horgarr. ‘I don’t suppose you brought any more bombs?’

Horgarr shook his head. ‘Risk having two of them knock together and go off? No, lad, I figured it would be more sporting to give Profit’s Ruin a chance to kill us on its own.’

Brokrin looked back at the fallen Keeper. Vines writhed all around the toppled colossus, but otherwise the tree-creature wasn’t moving. ‘We can’t undo what’s been done,’ said the captain, ‘but if we weren’t going to stand back and let the Keeper crush us, we’re not going to let the skaven get us without a fight.’

‘It’s open ground,’ Gotramm said, waving his hand at the broad expanse of the glade. ‘Maybe if we had a way to keep them from swarming us we could make a go of it, but out in the open we’ll be overwhelmed.’

Brokrin turned towards Esmira. Strangely, Gotramm noticed, she looked at the captain with regret rather than accusation. He motioned for Agrilo to release her. ‘Can your magic do anything?’ he asked. ‘Something to hold the skaven back?’

‘You intend to fight those things?’ she asked. ‘Then I will help you. If you can fight them, you may give the Keeper time to recover.’

Gotramm wasn’t sure he liked the sound of that. The duardin had just about blown its leg off. He doubted the tree-creature would be amiable towards them.

Brokrin cast an uneasy look towards the timber giant, but when he spoke to Esmira he made no mention of the Keeper. ‘We need some kind of cover,’ he said. ‘A shelter to keep the ratkin off of us.’

‘Esmira, the Keeper made the vines into a wall around the glade,’ Gotramm suggested.

Esmira shook her head. ‘The Keeper’s control over the Sea is far older and greater than my own.’

‘We don’t need anything that big,’ Brokrin explained. ‘Just a barrier between us and the skaven. A bastion, maybe six or seven feet high.’

‘Whatever we’re doing, it had better be quick!’ Kerrum yelled. The skaven had hacked holes large enough now that some of them were trying to squirm through, while others gnawed and clawed at the gaps to widen them still further.

‘I’ll try,’ Esmira said. ‘All of you, come close to me.’ She sat down on the sward and closed her eyes. Her lips moved, but only the faintest whisper could be heard, a sound more like the rustling of leaves than anything that could be called speech.

In response to Esmira’s conjuring, the floor of the glade around the duardin began to roil about like an angry sea. The green grass was torn apart as branches and vines reared upwards all around them, coiling and piling upon one another until they found themselves within a tight box of foliage seven feet high with a space a little more than thrice as wide inside the barrier. Gaps between the vines afforded them a view of the clearing outside.

The skaven had hacked their way into the glade. A tide of vermin scurried out from the jungle, chittering and snarling. Most of them were scrawny, tatterdemalion creatures, but mixed among them were masked ratmen with large bags slung over their shoulders.

‘Cap’n! They’ve got more of those gas-bombers!’ Gotramm’s eyes narrowed when he spotted a white-furred skaven creeping along behind the others. He recognised the leader who’d led the attack at the krontanker where Dagar had died.

Brokrin joined him at the opening. He drew Gotramm’s attention to another ratman, one with speckled grey fur and a clutch of oversized rings on his hand. ‘Kilvolt,’ Gotramm hissed, recognising the villain whose trickery had almost killed the Iron Dragon’s crew months before.

‘Whatever happens,’ Brokrin told the privateer, ‘I’m making sure he doesn’t get away from us this time.’ He frowned when he looked down at his volley pistol. ‘If we can just coax him close enough.’

Gotramm cursed under his breath. ‘Skaven have no sense of honour. The only way one of their leaders gets close is if he thinks he’s already won.’

‘Maybe there’s a way we can convince him.’ Brokrin turned and called out to Kerrum. ‘Get your lads up top and open fire on the ratkin. Keep laying into them until I tell you to stop. But when I say stop, you do it. We’ll only have one chance to sucker Kilvolt in.’

Gotramm had his own pistol ready, resting its barrel on the vines to steady the weapon. The skaven were rapidly crossing the sward. They didn’t even glance towards the Keeper and the little bastion Esmira had raised. Their attention was fixed completely upon the pale tree, and it was towards this that they were hastening.

Then the thunderers started shooting. Each time the weapons barked, one of the ratmen went down in a welter of gore. Kerrum’s decksweeper spattered shot across the skaven. At such distance the sergeant didn’t kill any of them, but he left clutches of squealing vermin pawing at their painful wounds.

The rush of the ratmen faltered, their headlong drive across the clearing losing its momentum. At least, that was until Kilvolt sprang into action. The grey rat pointed his ringed hand not towards the duardin bastion, but at his own minions. Arcs of crackling lightning flashed from the rings and immolated several of the hesitant vermin. The lethal discipline bore immediate results, as the skaven resumed their charge towards the pale tree. This time, even the fire from the duardin wasn’t enough to break their charge.

‘They’re ripping it apart!’ Horgarr shouted as he watched the first ratmen reach the tree.

The skaven assaulted the pale tree with rabid ferocity. With axes, claws and fangs, they tore at it, ripping away great slivers of whisperwood. As each ratman claimed a piece of the tree, it would turn and scamper back to their jungle tunnels.

Gotramm felt a spectral chill blow across the glade. From the widening gaps in the white tree, he could see flashes of light squirming free. Whisperwood. A cage for the spirits claimed by Profit’s Ruin. Spirits that were now escaping from their prison and passing into the underworlds so long denied to them.

‘No, you idiots! Take the wood from the top first!’ The shouts came from a strange-looking man standing at the base of the tree. He wore curious robes and had a sinister air about him that Gotramm could feel even from this distance. Whoever he was, the human clearly was in league with the ratmen. Gotramm suffered no pangs of conscience when he tried to put a bullet in the man. His only regret was that he missed his shot and struck down one of the skaven instead.

The human turned and glared at the bastion. Gotramm felt as though the man’s eyes were staring straight at him. Then, before his gaze, the man transformed into a black-feathered bird and flew around the side of the pale tree and out of his line of sight.

‘The ratkin have some kind of sorcerer with them,’ Gotramm warned the others.

‘Wonderful,’ Horgarr grumbled. ‘I was just saying that this all felt too easy.’

Just as the endrinmaster spoke, the glade was again stricken by a vicious rumbling. Gotramm felt cold inside when he realised where the sound was coming from. He rushed up to the walkway and glanced back to where the Keeper had fallen.

The colossus was fallen no longer. It lurched upright, its damaged leg wrapped around with a spiral of vines. The amber lights in its face blazed with an overwhelming sensation of rage.

The lord of Profit’s Ruin was alive. And it was angry.

Yoshiro fumed at the nearness of his own escape. The duardin who’d fired at him had failed not because of a lack of skill or any arcane acumen on the sorcerer’s part, but simply due to the limitations of his weapon. Had the shooter been a sylvaneth hunter with a bow of living wood, Yoshiro knew he’d be dead right now.

The sorcerer decided to drop the pretence of helping the skaven. It was obvious that Kilvolt was more interested in getting the whisperwood than exterminating the duardin. Kilvolt had needed Yoshiro to guide him to the heart of Profit’s Ruin. Yoshiro had needed Kilvolt to wipe out Brokrin’s crew. It was obvious now that neither of them had any further use for the other.

In the guise of a raven, Yoshiro flew around the pale tree. Its appearance was deceptive. Between the skein of whisperwood were patches of translucent amber that acted to constrain and imprison the spirit energy the Sea of Doom needed to remain in the sky. Harvesting the whisperwood from higher on the tree would still have released the spirits, but in a far more gradual manner than the catastrophe Yoshiro now saw unfolding.

The skaven were ripping apart the base of the tree, compromising its stability. If the tree collapsed, the trapped spirits would be freed all at once, a cascade of unleashed energy. Instead of slowly sinking down from the sky, Profit’s Ruin would plummet earthwards. Yoshiro wanted to alert Kilvolt to this calamity before it destroyed all the sorcerer’s plans, but he was only too aware of Gnawfang’s presence. Even now, the white skaven might have been given free rein to deal with the man.

One good sliver of whisperwood was all Yoshiro needed. As he flew around the trembling pale tree, he croaked in frustration. He couldn’t pry a piece free in his current shape, nor carry it away with him. He’d need to take another form, but he knew if he did so he’d be putting himself at risk again. Between the duardin and Gnawfang, he had too many enemies in the glade.

To his list of foes, Yoshiro was compelled to add another when a terrific rumbling shook the glade. He wheeled around to see the Keeper rise from its collapse. The immense tree-creature was unlike anything Yoshiro had seen before, some monstrosity of a lost era. Its amber eyes flared with furious intensity. It stared down at the weird bastion from which the duardin were firing into the skaven. For a moment, he thought the Keeper would smash the structure with one of its tremendous feet.

Then the Keeper turned and its glowing gaze fixated upon the skaven and the havoc they were wreaking against the pale tree. It reared back, its gash-like mouth stretched in a primordial roar. The bellow was elemental in its fury, having within it the wrath of an avalanche and the madness of a hurricane. The skaven froze in their depredations to watch in horror as the giant lumbered towards the pale tree.

‘Fool-meat!’ Kilvolt’s sharp voice rang out above the frightened squeals of his minions. ‘Fetch-bring bright-wood! Fast-quick! Hurry-scurry!’

There was panic in the warlord-engineer’s voice, his words running together with the same anxious fright that ruled his underlings. Unwilling to set himself at any great risk, he directed Gnawfang to lead an attack against the Keeper. After being threatened with Kilvolt’s deadly rings, the white skaven loped away to collect his troops and intercept the timber colossus.

Gnawfang led his pack of skaven out across the glade. His troops were stronger and less mangy than the slaves hacking apart the pale tree. Many of them wore bits of armour and carried swords that were more than rusted scrap. Others were masked globadiers, the same as those Yoshiro had seen deployed at the wreck. Most sinister of all, however, were three teams of ratmen who bore with them the vicious apparatus that had allowed Kilvolt’s horde to burn their tunnels through Profit’s Ruin. The rear member of each team had a big barrel strapped to its back, while the foremost carried a big metal sprayer. Hoses connected the nozzle to the barrel, and both skaven wore smocks of oiled rat-hide to protect themselves from the deadly mixture sloshing about inside the cask.

Yoshiro looked on as Gnawfang bullied his troops closer to the Keeper. One of the weapon teams got too excited and sent a burst of green alchemical fire shooting towards the giant before it was in range. A few of the ratkin warriors ranged ahead of the team were caught in the flame, transformed into living firebrands as the spray engulfed them. Their screams echoed across the glade.

The Keeper swung around when it noticed the fire, but immediate retaliation came from a different quarter. Brokrin’s duardin trained their attention on Gnawfang’s vermin. The enfilade struck down one of the globadiers, dropping him in a burst of caustic gas that obliterated him and three nearby skaven, then continued to bore a crater in the floor. One of the weapons teams panicked as scatter-shot peppered the barrel they carried. The gunner fled, while the ratman carrying the barrel was splashed by the chemicals dripping from the holes. It shrieked in agony and writhed in the grass as the volatile mixture seared through the supposed protection of its gear.

The ambush from the duardin forced Gnawfang to divert part of his forces. He ordered the remaining weapons teams onwards while he led a pack of warriors and globadiers against the bastion. Yoshiro wasn’t deceived by the tactic. It was an excuse for Gnawfang to avoid fighting the Keeper, rather than any deeper strategy, that motivated him.

The Keeper lumbered onwards. As it approached the pale tree, more and more of the skaven retreated, fleeing with only a few handfuls of the whisperwood. Before the colossus could reach the savaged tree, however, the skaven weapons teams attacked. No doubt emboldened by the Keeper’s fixation upon the pale tree, the vermin held their ground as they sprayed the giant with alchemical fire. Green flame licked up the creature’s arms and legs, scorching its bark and charring it a deep black.

‘Leave it alone, you filth!’

The voice that rang out across the battlefield was human. Yoshiro knew it had to be the strange woman who’d been helping Brokrin. He spotted her standing outside the bastion, her hands spread wide, her eyes ablaze with the same kind of amber glow that was in those of the Keeper. He could sense the peculiar magic she was evoking, drawn from some power beyond his ken.

The skaven weapons teams had no chance to send a second jet of flame sweeping across the Keeper. The woman’s magic claimed them in a matter of heartbeats. The mesh of vines and branches on which they stood cracked apart, fragmenting as though struck by some mighty hammer from below. The ratmen and their deadly machinery fell into the void, their shrieks fading away as they plunged down through the sky.

Yoshiro glared at the woman. He didn’t need the wood-witch making things more complicated than they already were. There were certain spells he could cast even in his current shape, spells that would eliminate her as a factor. One look at her told him she was exhausted. She wouldn’t have the defences to resist his magic.

Before he could cast the spell, Yoshiro was forced to wheel away by the approach of the Keeper. He flew above the hulking behemoth as it staggered towards the white tree. Flames still smouldered all across its body, but the huge tree-creature refused to be stopped. A fearsome desperation gripped it as it ploughed through the fleeing skaven to reach the pale tree.

The marauding vermin had wrought considerable damage to the tree. A steady plume of spiritual energy was now seeping from the many gashes and holes they’d created. The Keeper didn’t bother about the skaven who scattered from its path or scrambled away from the tree. Instead it flung its arms wide and embraced the teetering whisperwood spire. As it hugged itself close to the pale tree, the sound of rending wood and crackling timber shuddered through the air.

Yoshiro could see the spiritual seepage dwindle to almost nothing. He gaped in fascination at the reason. The Keeper was using its own body to seal the rent. It was merging itself into the pale tree. The sorcerer considered dropping down and changing his shape so he could claim a sliver of whisperwood. With the duardin and Gnawfang busy with one another and the rest of the skaven gripped by confusion, he judged this would be the best time to strike.

Then Yoshiro noted the vines that were unspooling from the Keeper’s body. The vines that were stealing across the pale tree like great serpents, and hunting the handful of ratmen who’d climbed up its trunk for safety rather than try to flee past the Keeper. Their end was as gruesome as it was swift.

The Keeper wasn’t just mending the pale tree. It was protecting it as well. The only way Yoshiro could get past it would be to divert the giant’s attention elsewhere.

He thought again of the woman, and how her eyes had shone with that same amber glow.

‘Gotramm! Go get Esmira!’ Brokrin barked the order while he snapped off a shot that dropped one of the oncoming skaven. Focused upon the ratmen, he hadn’t noticed the human was gone until he saw the skaven fire-throwers sucked down into pits that opened under their feet. It reminded him of the spell she’d used to deal with the living statue. A quick glance around the box-like bastion showed him an opening at the back that hadn’t been there before.

‘I’ll keep her safe, cap’n,’ Gotramm called out as he drew away from the firing slot and darted outside.

Brokrin hoped the privateer wasn’t making a promise he couldn’t keep. The glade was a mess of confused violence. The skaven seemed to be everywhere, scurrying about the clearing in disorderly mobs. Some hurried back into the jungle, slivers of whisperwood stuffed into the baskets on their backs, while others raced around in confusion. Kilvolt and a bodyguard of armoured skaven kept close to the tunnels, ready to bolt if the havoc extended in their direction. Then, of course, there were the ones converging on the duardin strongpoint, led by the white ratman from the Windfarer. Brokrin had drawn their ire when he ordered Kerrum’s thunderers to shoot at them.

It still felt unreal to Brokrin, fighting to defend a creature that only minutes before they’d been trying to kill. But he’d been swayed by one unquestionable fact – the skaven were their mutual enemy. The Keeper had crushed several skaven under its feet when it lumbered over to the pale tree. Its mere presence had caused the skaven to abandon their looting of whisperwood.

‘The big weed is using its own body to stop up the cracks,’ Horgarr muttered. ‘We can be thankful for that. Unless I miss my guess, that light we saw seeping out of the tree is like aether-gas venting from a cracked endrin. Enough of it leaves, and…’ He jabbed his thumb downwards.

Brokrin cracked off a shot from another chamber of his pistol and felled one of the ratkin. ‘We’ve got to live long enough to worry about falling.’ He glanced over at Morri. ‘Be ready with that cutlass. You and Horgarr will have to repel boarders if this doesn’t pan out.’

He watched as the ratmen continued their charge. The masked bombers used their slighter comrades for cover, seeking to avoid the fire from the Grundstok thunderers. Sometimes Brokrin would see one dart out and lob one of its caustic globes.

‘As soon as one of those bombs hits, everybody play dead,’ Brokrin called to his crew. As he gave the order, at the back of his mind he wondered if there’d be any acting involved. He was trusting to the inaccuracy and overeagerness of the ratmen, betting that he could trick the vermin into thinking they’d done better than they had.

The skaven had closed to within thirty feet when one of the bombers tossed a sphere that cracked against the bastion’s outer wall. Brokrin and the others backed away as the acidic vapour withered and corroded the vines. He didn’t know what the stuff would do to someone’s lungs, but he wasn’t going to risk finding out.

The fire from the bastion fell silent. Triumphant chitters rang out as the skaven sprang forwards. All of them were eager to pick over the bodies of the duardin, and the lack of resistance as they came onwards encouraged their greed. Determined to gain the most from the corpses, each ratman strove to be the first to get inside the bastion. They circled around the section where the gaseous poison continued to eat at the vines, but soon a good number of them were trying to climb the walls.

‘Now!’ Brokrin called out. He turned to the nearest slit and fired his volley pistol into the furry body pressed against it. There was a spurt of black blood and a bestial wail. As the first creature was flung back by the shot, he stepped to the gap and fired a second shot at one of the masked bombers outside. The creature crumpled, its gloved paws clutching at its bleeding throat.

From above there sounded the roar of the thunderers and the brutal blast of the decksweeper. Leaning over the edge of the bastion, Kerrum and his troops took a murderous toll on the ratmen. While the thunderers reloaded, the sergeant used the axe-bayonet fixed to his gun to slash any ratkin who tried to climb over the wall.

Inside the bastion the howls of battle were no less fierce. Morri and Agrilo stabbed their blades into any gap where they saw skaven fur. Their swords were soon slick with verminous blood and their beards coated in the gore of their enemies. Horgarr posted himself at the opening Esmira had made. His hammer crushed the skulls of the overconfident ratkin as they tried to rush inside. He had four lying at his feet before the rest stopped trying to use that way to get in.

Brokrin knew they couldn’t just count on their stubborn defence. They had to take the attack back to the ratmen. Sallying from their bastion would be the last thing the skaven would expect the duardin to do. He hoped it would be one surprise too many for their craven hearts to endure.

‘Horgarr! Morri! With me! Agrilo, mind the gap!’ Brokrin shouted, his fists clenched about the haft of his axe.

Together the three charged out of the opening left by Esmira.

Any cohesion that remained to the skaven force vanished when Brokrin’s crew emerged from behind their walls. Half a dozen were still trying to climb the walls; about twice that number were hanging back, debating whether to risk the carnage that had overwhelmed their companions. When the duardin came out, this group turned tail and started to run.

But there was a third clutch of skaven. The white-furred creature from the Windfarer with a handful of companions was rushing towards a different target.

A target Brokrin realised that he wouldn’t be able to reach in time.

Yoshiro wore his human form again. It was the shape he was most comfortable in, one that he didn’t have to devote any concentration to maintaining. Right now he needed all of his concentration. He had to get the Keeper away from the pale tree, and there was only one thing in the glade he thought it would value more.

The sorcerer was almost upon the silver sapling when he found himself forced to turn about and invoke a counter-spell to disperse the hostile magic that surged towards him. The animated vines fell limp and lifeless when they met the protective shell that surrounded him. He stared past the neutralised vegetation to regard the witch who’d roused it into action.

‘Leave the Inheritor alone,’ the woman commanded him. Her voice was frail, her body shaking from the effort of her hasty conjurations. He doubted she had enough left in her to stand on her feet, much less cast another spell. Of far more menace was the duardin beside her.

‘Do what she says, sorcerer,’ the Kharadron said. He had both pistol and sword ready in his hands as he added a threat to his demand. ‘I missed before. I won’t miss again.’

Yoshiro smiled at the hesitation in the duardin’s voice and the worry on the woman’s face. He understood the reason. The sapling stood between them. A shot from the pistol would certainly hit the sorcerer, but it might do so by smashing through the little tree first. Clearly that was something the witch wouldn’t risk.

Then Yoshiro saw something unfolding behind his enemies that changed their confrontation entirely. ‘You might want to save your shots,’ he hissed. ‘I think you’ll need them.’

It was the witch who turned to see if this was some kind of trickery. Her cry convinced the duardin that it wasn’t. Rushing up behind them was Gnawfang, along with five other skaven. The white ratman had his halberd lowered, lightning crackling along its length. Yoshiro laughed to see the despair on his enemies’ faces. They knew it was already too late. Gnawfang would–

The bolt of lightning that flared from Gnawfang’s halberd crashed into Yoshiro with such force that he was thrown back a dozen feet. He felt teeth explode inside his mouth as electricity raced through his body. The stink of burnt hair and scorched flesh was in his nose. It took a moment for his eyes to focus again, and when they did the flash of bright sparks blurred his vision. But for the protective magic he’d evoked to guard against the witch, Yoshiro judged he would have been killed by the treacherous attack.

Gnawfang was paying for his petty revenge on the sorcerer. In loosing the charge of his halberd against Yoshiro, he’d ignored his other enemies. The duardin charged into the ratmen. His pistol barked, and the shot smashed into Gnawfang’s shoulder. Black blood gushed across the white fur, and he reeled backwards. Gnawfang tried to fend off the furious assault, but the halberd was too heavy to effectively use with only one arm.

While their leader was beset, the other skaven cringed back. Before they could decide whether to help Gnawfang or enjoy watching him get slaughtered, the ratmen had foes of their own to contend with. Brokrin and two other duardin rushed into the vermin, flying at them with vindictive savagery. In a matter of moments, four of them were dead and the last was fleeing across the glade.

Gnawfang’s struggle with his opponent ended when the white ratman failed to block a thrust of the duardin’s sword with the haft of his halberd. The Kharadron drove his blade up to the hilt in the skaven’s chest. Gnawfang snapped at his killer’s face, his fangs barely missing the duardin’s nose. Then life fled from the vermin and he was naught but a dead thing, transfixed by his enemy’s sword.

Yoshiro took satisfaction from watching Gnawfang die, but there was no delight. He’d have to change his plans now. There was no chance of getting the skaven to kill the duardin, not with Kilvolt already gone back into the tunnels. There was no chance of getting the Keeper away from the pale tree, not with so many defenders gathered around the sapling.

Yoshiro would have to settle for some piece of whisperwood already gathered by the ratmen instead of one selected for its arcane potency. He would also have to compromise and take a more dangerous course to get onto the Iron Dragon. The first step of which would demand immediate action.

With his body still wracked by the effects of Gnawfang’s attack, the focus to work his spell taxed Yoshiro to the utmost. He selected the most inconspicuous of the duardin he could see. The one most likely to be let back aboard without a lot of questions. Fixating upon his target, the sorcerer sent his malefic will searing into his victim’s heart.

Gotramm looked down in triumph at the carcass of the white skaven. He felt he’d honoured some of the debt the ratkin owed to Dagar by killing this monster. It would need much more to balance the murder of a duardin, but this was the first step.

Brokrin, Horgarr and Morri stood over the other slaughtered ratmen. All of them looked weary from the frantic battle against the skaven. Across the clearing, Kerrum and the thunderers continued to take potshots at the vermin as they fled.

‘I said I’d protect Esmira,’ Gotramm told Brokrin. ‘What’s wrong? You didn’t trust me?’

‘We were feeling cramped inside the bastion, so came out for some recreation,’ Brokrin replied.

A sharp cry ended their banter. Gotramm saw Morri clutch at his chest and then topple to his knees. Horgarr was beside the arkanaut in an instant, hands at his wrist and neck. He looked up and shook his head sadly.

‘He’s dead,’ the endrinmaster growled. He looked back at the bastion and the dead skaven clumped around it. ‘He must’ve got some of that damn gas in his lungs. Grungni knows what filthy poisons the skaven brew for their bombs.’

The endrinmaster’s explanation rang hollow in Gotramm’s ears. He could see from Brokrin’s expression that the captain wasn’t convinced either. Whatever had struck Morri down, it was nothing they could see. Nothing they could fight.

Gotramm stared at his dead comrade. ‘Shame and ruin to all skaven.’

‘Skaven thrive on shame and ruin,’ Brokrin said. ‘The only hurt you can do them is to kill them.’

‘I intend to,’ Gotramm swore. ‘I intend to.’ He shook his head. ‘It just doesn’t seem enough. Not for what they take from us.’

‘Help me,’ Esmira called out to the duardin.

They turned to find her crouched at the base of the sapling, scooping away earth with her hands.

‘What’re you doing?’ Horgarr asked.

Esmira looked up at him. ‘We have to take the sapling. It is the Inheritor.’

She seemed perplexed when the duardin didn’t immediately understand. She waved her hand towards the pale tree.

‘The Keeper is dying. It’s giving its life to mend the whisperwood and keep the Sea from falling. When it is spent, the forest will become wild until the Inheritor is strong enough to become the new Keeper.’

‘If the Keeper dies, you’ll have no control over Profit’s Ruin?’ Brokrin asked.

‘My power comes from the Keeper,’ Esmira said.

‘Without your powers, can we get back to the Iron Dragon?’ Gotramm said, worried. Then a thought came to him. ‘You said the sapling will be the new Keeper. Will it give you any power?’

Esmira shook her head. ‘I don’t know. I don’t know how long it will take the old Keeper to fade completely into the whisperwood. I don’t know when the Inheritor will become strong enough, or if it will want anything to do with me.’ She gave them all an imploring look. ‘I do know it isn’t safe to leave it here. We must take it with us.’

Gotramm stepped around the sapling and felt a chill run through him. On the ground there was the charred outline of a human body, but there was no sign of a corpse.

‘Cap’n, she’s right,’ he said. ‘The skaven had a manling sorcerer with them. We caught him trying to do something to the sapling. That white rat I killed blasted him with green lightning. I thought he was killed, but there’s no body.’

Brokrin looked across the glade and the destruction of the conflict that had raged here. Kerrum and the others were withdrawing from the bastion and walking over to join them.

‘All right, dig up the sapling, but let’s be fast about it.’ Brokrin pointed at the pale tree and the Keeper’s body slowly being drawn into it. ‘We came here for aether-gold. We didn’t find any.

‘Let’s get out of here before this venture costs us any more than it already has.’

CHAPTER TWELVE

Devastating tremors shook Profit’s Ruin. Branches cracked and came crashing down through the canopy, ripping through the mesh of vines and creepers. The floor of the Ruin split and heaved, stretching apart to open vast chasms. Clumps of foliage withered into brittle husks that shattered at the merest touch, their dust blown away by the maddened wind that rushed through the jungle. Writhing, undulating tendrils struck at one another, weaving themselves into constricting knots as the turmoil spread.

‘I don’t see how we’re ever going to get through this!’ Agrilo cried as the duardin dashed through the mayhem.

Brokrin didn’t know either. In the hours since they’d left the heart of Profit’s Ruin, things had become increasingly turbulent. If it kept up, it wouldn’t matter if the Keeper sealed the breach in the whisperwood; the Ruin would rip itself apart before it could fall from the sky.

‘Esmira, we’ll never make it back to the Iron Dragon,’ Brokrin said.

The human had her arms wrapped around the sapling she called the Inheritor. Before Brokrin spoke to her, she’d been cooing to the thing, eerily reminding him of a mother with her baby. When she looked up and stared at him, there was a detached, almost dazed expression in her eyes.

‘We’ll pass safely through. The Sea won’t harm us,’ Esmira declared. ‘While the Inheritor is with us, no harm can come to us.’

Gotramm waved his sword at the crazed vegetation all around them. ‘What about the Iron Dragon? Is she safe in all of this? Or are we going to win through and find just a twisted wreck?’

That question pierced the daze that had come upon Esmira. Alarm flashed across her face.

‘If the ship’s wrecked we’ll have no way to escape,’ Brokrin reminded her, ensuring the importance of the fact broke through to her distracted mind. ‘You’ll be trapped here. You and that sapling.’

Esmira shook her head. ‘That cannot be,’ she said. ‘We must leave. The Keeper’s control over the Sea is fading as the whisperwood absorbs it. The lack of the Keeper’s guidance has made the forest wild with panic. We cannot stay here.’

‘Then we need to get back to the ship faster,’ Brokrin told her. ‘We’ve got to get away from here before things get worse.’

The woman was quiet for a moment. Her eyes strayed back to the sapling she carried. For a moment, Brokrin feared she was going to slip back into that eerie daze, but when she looked back at him, her eyes remained clear. ‘There is a way, but it’ll be dangerous.’

‘Lass, we just fought a horde of skaven lobbing poison at us,’ Horgarr laughed. ‘I think we’re old hands at danger right now.’ The comment brought some grim smiles from the other duardin.

Esmira turned from them and looked towards the wall of vines at their left. A weird noise rose from her lips, a sound that was uncannily reminiscent of creaking branches and groaning trees. Brokrin decided it must be some sort of invocation, magic taught to her by the Keeper, for soon after she spoke, the wall pulled itself apart. Successive layers of vines and branches did the same and opened a long tunnel through the jungle.

‘We must hurry,’ Esmira said. There was a faint amber glow in her eyes. Brokrin thought he saw a flicker of the same light in the little aelven face on the sapling’s trunk. The observation brought a hundred questions into his mind, but there was no time to put even one of them into words.

‘Right, lads! Esmira’s opened a road for us, let’s not dawdle!’

Brokrin waved his crew forwards and the duardin set off at a jog through the newly created tunnel. As they advanced, he could hear the sinister groans and shudders that rumbled through the vegetation. Sometimes a vine would slither away and try to block the path again. Always it was warned back by Esmira’s song, but it sent a chill down Brokrin’s spine. If her command of Profit’s Ruin was so erratic, what was to keep the foliage from closing in around them, mashing them to pulp in a press of vegetation?

Brokrin had thought that was what Esmira meant by the need for bravery. At least, that was until they reached the end of the tunnel. What lay ahead of them was the open sky, bright and clear with only a few wisps of white cloud sailing far below the Ruin.

‘I will call a path for us,’ Esmira said. ‘You’ve told me that speed is vital. This is the fastest way to get back to your ship.’

Brokrin watched in astonishment as the human began a new song, one that seemed to thrum through his very bones, so deep was its cadence. Profit’s Ruin responded, and from its edge, branches creaked outwards and wound themselves together. What they were shaping soon became obvious to him, and it filled him with a shivering horror.

The branches were making a narrow bridge, a pathway around the Ruin’s interior. It projected some twenty feet from the turmoil of Profit’s Ruin, far enough that it was rocked by a different turmoil – the cold winds of high altitude. Brokrin could see the bridge sway and creak. Except for the few branches that connected it to Profit’s Ruin, the span was surrounded by open air. There’d be no metal for the magnets in his boots to clamp fast to, and only a fall of tens of thousands of feet if he lost his footing.

‘This… is madness,’ Kerrum gasped. The sergeant recovered from his shock and turned a broad grin on his thunderers. ‘I’m proud to be part of this plan, aren’t you, lads?’

‘Esmira said this is the quickest way,’ Brokrin told his crew. ‘So let’s get moving.’

Brokrin held his breath as he stepped out onto the bridge. He wasn’t bucked off immediately by the buffeting winds, but he could feel their menace.

‘This is the only way,’ Esmira said as she joined Brokrin on the bridge.

Brokrin moved onwards and waved his arm for his crew to follow. He couldn’t muster the recklessness to jog along the span, but he did compel a steady pace.

As they moved across the bridge, Esmira would sing out to Profit’s Ruin and conjure extensions out from the jungle. When she did so, a section behind the duardin would crumble away. The phenomenon magnified the horror Brokrin felt. What if the portion of bridge they were on decided to break away? He risked a glance at the Ruin and saw that its crazed thrashing was becoming worse. How long could Esmira’s magic restrain such a primal force?

Brokrin wasn’t alone in his fear. He could see it on the faces of all his crew. Gotramm had sheathed his sword and was instead gripping a little gilded etching of his sweetheart, Hilda. Kerrum kept rubbing his fingers against the scowling face of an ancestor-lord bolted to the stock of his decksweeper. Agrilo was muttering prayers to Grungni and making all manner of promises about correcting his ways.

Esmira claimed that the bridge around Profit’s Ruin was faster than trying to plunge through it, sparing them the attentions of the increasingly wild vegetation, but to Brokrin their journey felt like an eternity. Finally, after what seemed to him like days, Esmira beckoned a final span out from the jungle. This one, however, was different. Instead of circling the Ruin, it curled back into it. A tunnel, much like the one they’d used before, opened up where the bridge rejoined Profit’s Ruin.

‘Your ship is here,’ Esmira said. The glow was back in her eyes, and this time Brokrin knew it was more than imagination that made him see the same light shining from the Inheritor.

‘By the Code, I never want to do that again!’ Horgarr cried, lunging past the rest of the crew to gain the comparatively firm floor of Profit’s Ruin. The rest of the duardin weren’t shy about joining him.

Brokrin was the last to follow. He held back so he could escort Esmira off the bridge. Though she appeared hale, he couldn’t forget the toll evoking her magic had taken on her at the krontanker. For her to be lost now after so many years trapped in Profit’s Ruin, with escape so near, was a tragedy he wouldn’t countenance.

Gotramm thought he’d never seen anything as beautiful as the Iron Dragon looked when he turned a bend in the path and caught sight of the ironclad. He heard Lodri shout something. The powder-monkey must have been posted to keep watch, and he wasn’t slow in spreading the word that the shore party was coming back. Soon the gunwales were filled with jubilant faces cheering their return.

Nets were already hanging over the sides of the ship and the duardin were quick to climb them. The jungle around the Iron Dragon was in violent animation, the foliage ripping into itself in savage confusion. Kharadron tried to fend off those tendrils that took interest in the ship with skypikes, heaving them away rather than cutting them down. So far, at least, they’d been able to keep Profit’s Ruin from inflicting any serious damage to the ironclad.

Mortrimm was waiting when Gotramm climbed over the side. The old navigator grabbed his hand and shook it with enthusiasm.

‘Ancestors be praised! You’ve made it back.’ He shook his pipe at the turmoil around the ship. ‘The Ruin’s getting crazier by the minute. We were about to give you all up for lost.’

‘Like a broken bolt, we’re not so easy to get rid of,’ Gotramm told him. He looked across the ship. In spite of the danger that was all around them, he drew great comfort just from being on the Iron Dragon. Her familiar lines reassured him. Gave him a false sense of control.

Brokrin was the last of the expedition to reach the deck. He’d taken the sapling from Esmira and lashed it to his back. The greater stamina of the duardin made it easier for him to carry it on board than the human. She rushed over to him when he came over the side and quickly undid the ropes that bound the tree to his body. It was clear to Gotramm that she was more concerned about the sapling than she was the captain’s exhaustion.

‘We made it, cap’n,’ Gotramm smiled at Brokrin. He took a flagon of ale from Arrik and brought it over to their leader. Brokrin greedily drank down the alcohol. His face flushed, but the drink did revive him.

‘Get the ship ready to sail,’ Brokrin barked out.

Horgarr nodded and hurried towards the great endrin.

‘Everything’s ready,’ Mortrimm reported. ‘We were just waiting for you.’

The navigator’s words puzzled Gotramm. ‘You’ve had everything ready? You’ve been burning aether-gas since we left?’

Agrilo shook his head. ‘Don’t be foolish. Profit’s Ruin went wild and Mortrimm decided to try and slip away. Better to risk the Iron Dragon in the air than just let her get smashed where she lies.’

It was sensible reasoning, but Mortrimm glowered at Agrilo just the same.

‘You think we’d be so churlish as to just leave you here to rot?’

There was a tone bordering on rage in the navigator’s voice, and Gotramm was reminded that his father had suffered just such a fate when the Windfarer was lost. Mortrimm’s next words stunned all those who’d returned from the jungle.

‘Morri came back about two bells past,’ Mortrimm said. ‘He said the rest of you were still trying to get back.’

Confusion and fear spread across the faces of the survivors.

Gotramm put the reason into words. ‘Morri’s dead. We saw him die.’

Arrik laughed at the statement. ‘Then he makes for a mighty solid ghost. Had to call to us for the nets to be lowered before he could climb up. I could hear his boots scraping against the hull all the way too.’

A new cause for horror closed icy fingers around Gotramm’s heart. He turned to Brokrin.

‘Is it possible he was still alive? That we left him behind and he was still alive?’

‘No… he was dead,’ Brokrin declared. ‘I’d swear to it.’ He fixed his gaze on Arrik. ‘Where’s Morri now?’

‘He went below,’ the master gunner reported. ‘He was about all done in from getting back to the ship.’

‘Find him,’ Brokrin ordered. ‘Bring him to me.’ Arrik and a few of the crew hurried away to carry out the command.

‘Even if we were wrong,’ Gotramm said, shuddering at the idea, ‘could Morri have got back to the ship on his own?’

Esmira answered that question. ‘There’s no way he was alive, and no way that he could have reached your ship before us,’ she said.

‘I tell you, it was Morri,’ Mortrimm insisted. ‘I’ve served with him long enough to know him by sight.’

Gotramm thought of the human sorcerer who’d been with the skaven. The one he’d seen change himself into a bird. Maybe his magic would let him change into other things as well. They hadn’t found a body after the man had been blasted by the white skaven.

‘Maybe it was only something that looked like Morri,’ he said to the others.

‘Sergeant, take your thunderers below and help Arrik find him,’ Brokrin told Kerrum. His expression hardened. ‘Any sign of danger, don’t scruple over bringing him up here alive.’

Gotramm was sickened by the words. The mad hope that Morri somehow had survived and made it back to the ship refused to leave him. Balanced against that, however, were his own certainty that the arkanaut was dead and Esmira’s insistence that it was impossible he could have reached the ship before them. From what he’d seen of the Ruin’s turmoil, it was unlikely a duardin by himself could have got more than a dozen yards out from the glade in one piece.

‘You really think it was something other than Morri we let aboard?’ Mortrimm asked. Now there was uncertainty in his voice.

Brokrin nodded his head. ‘I believe so, but we’ve more pressing matters to set to rights.’ He waved at the vines gripping the Iron Dragon and the tangle of branches overhead.

Gotramm stood by as Brokrin approached Esmira. The human already knew what was needed from her.

‘I need a place where I can sit and have a clear view of the Sea,’ she said.

‘In front of the wheelhouse?’ Gotramm suggested. It was less exposed than the prow, and the duardin could make Esmira secure there. Whatever her facility in Profit’s Ruin, the human had never been on a sky-ship before.

‘The wheelhouse,’ Brokrin agreed. They led Esmira to the spot. She sat down with the sapling cradled in her lap. Together with a few of the crew, Gotramm and Brokrin hastily constructed a ring of ropes around her for Esmira to hold onto once the ship was airborne.

‘We begin,’ Esmira said once they were through. Gotramm’s flesh crawled at the way she said we. There was a strange kind of emphasis to the intonation that unsettled him.

A moment later, he saw what she meant. Gotramm watched as the amber light glowed in Esmira’s eyes and the same light emanated from the sapling’s face. The woman and the Inheritor were uniting in some manner he couldn’t begin to comprehend, grafting themselves in an arcane pattern that magnified her intentions and focused the sapling’s power.

First the wild confusion of Profit’s Ruin grew quiet around them. After the agitation of a moment before, the stillness was uncanny. Then a loud crack banged out across the silence. It was followed by another and still another.

‘The vines!’ Vorki yelled. The first mate dashed from one side of the ship to the other, amazement in his face. ‘The vines holding the ship are snapping!’

In a matter of moments, the coils that held the Iron Dragon were broken. As the last fell away, the ship lurched upwards. Horgarr bellowed orders to control the ascent, lest they crash into the canopy. But even as he started to issue the commands, the covering peeled back, curling in upon itself and exposing a swathe of sky overhead.

Gotramm looked in wonder at Esmira. For all her displays of control over Profit’s Ruin, there had lingered that little seed of doubt that she could really free the Iron Dragon. Now that last doubt was crushed.

The Iron Dragon had done something no ship before her had ever done. She’d escaped the Profit’s Ruin!

Brokrin looked across the decks of his ship and felt an immense relief flood through him. They’d found no wealth waiting for them at the heart of Profit’s Ruin, but at least they were escaping from its remorseless coils. Brokrin unlimbered his gear and gave his tattered pack a quick scrutiny. It was rough from the ordeal, but at least he and it were back. That was enough of a victory for the moment. Other consequences could wait until their return to Barak-Zilfin and their reckoning with Orrik Goldhand.

‘By the Code!’ Mortrimm howled. ‘We did it! We escaped Profit’s Ruin!’

The old navigator’s words brought a pang of guilt to Brokrin. He still didn’t know if he should tell Mortrimm about stumbling on the Windfarer. He didn’t know if it was the right thing to do. He also didn’t know if he had the right not to tell Mortrimm he’d discovered the lost krontanker that had taken his father down with it.

‘The first ship to ever break free from Profit’s Ruin,’ Brokrin agreed. He tried to make his voice sound more upbeat than he felt.

Mortrimm caught the dour note just the same. He stared out across the writhing, undulating mass of vines. His face darkened and his hands curled tight about the rail. Brokrin knew he was thinking of his lost father. Was it better for him to know?

The navigator suddenly went rigid and pointed his hand down at the Ruin.

‘Look!’

Brokrin did look, and a feeling of dread came upon him. A vast shape was rising up from Profit’s Ruin, ripping through the vines and branches that lashed out at it and tried to pull it down.

In shape it bore some resemblance to a gigantic bat, and for one hideous moment he thought it was the monster Ghazul, climbing up to seek vengeance on the Iron Dragon. It only took an instant to see that this leviathan wasn’t a creature of flesh and blood, but a machine made of a black metal, with flames spurting out from its underside. A ship so colossal as to dwarf most Kharadron vessels, but of a pattern utterly divorced from the designs of the sky-ports. A huge tail with four flanges wagged behind the enormous vessel, while stubby wings projected from either side of the dark hull. Brokrin could see viewports spattered across the massive machine, blazing red in their settings of dark metal. Scratched across the sides were deep scars. Brokrin recognised them as the slash-dash writing of the skaven.

‘We’re the first ship to escape Profit’s Ruin,’ Brokrin swore. ‘But only by a matter of minutes!’ The deck of the Iron Dragon rang with the cries and shouts of the crew as they sighted the huge ship.

‘They’ve spotted us,’ Mortrimm stated. The skaven ship was slowly pivoting towards the ironclad.

‘It might have size, but we’ve speed and manoeuvrability on our side!’ Horgarr crowed from under the great endrin.

Even as he spoke, the skaven ship disgorged an answer to its deficiency. From hatches on its wings, a swarm of smaller ships were unleashed. Black and bat-like, they were smaller than a gunhauler, but at the same time didn’t have a bulky endrin providing them with buoyancy. Each had a glowing green bubble set between its wings, and this sent sparking pulses of energy back to a funnel-like device at the rear of the little ships. One after another they sailed off, the funnels spitting out little bursts of force that had them flittering away from the main vessel and out across the sky. The strange engines were unreliable – Brokrin watched three of them fail and send the metal bats spinning back down into Profit’s Ruin – but with over two dozen of the machines, there were more than enough to be a threat to the Iron Dragon.

‘They’ll pen us in and hold us for the big rat,’ Mortrimm snarled.

As the little skaven ships soared nearer, Brokrin could see they were more like gliders than sky-boats, with an armed ratman strapped in underneath the wings. Of course, each of the vermin had some sort of weapon clutched in its paws.

‘We won’t run,’ Brokrin vowed. He pointed at the big skaven ship. ‘We can’t let that thing find its way into the shipping lanes. If we can bring that atrocity down, we’ll be saving who knows how many Kharadron from destruction.’

He moved over to the wheelhouse and repeated his determination across the loud-mouth array so that every duardin aboard would be aware of the fight ahead of them.

‘That big brute climbing up after us is a skaven ship,’ Brokrin warned his crew. ‘It doesn’t matter how the vermin built it, what matters is we’ve a chance to knock it down here and now! We can save countless Kharadron from robbery and murder if we can put an end to that ratship. Every duardin here can hold his head high when he meets his ancestors, when he tells them we sent that abomination crashing back into Profit’s Ruin!’

His speech brought cheers from his crew, and they hastened to get ready for the fight.

As the crew primed the Iron Dragon’s weapons, Brokrin looked over at Esmira.

‘How much control do you, or the Inheritor, have over the Ruin?’ he asked.

Before she could answer, he spotted Thullig scrambling about the deck trying to help. He shouted to the aether-khemist.

‘Thullig, that incendiary you wanted to use to burn Profit’s Ruin…’

The aether-khemist stared at Brokrin in confusion. ‘You said we couldn’t use it because the danger of the fire blowing back onto the ship was too great to risk.’

‘We’re free now,’ Brokrin said, trying to remain patient with the eccentric duardin. ‘I’ve got a plan that depends on that concoction of yours.’

Thullig’s face spread in a youthful grin. ‘Yes, cap’n!’ he exclaimed. ‘I’ll get it straight away!’ He hurried off, fairly throwing himself down the hatchway as he hurried to his makeshift laboratory.

Brokrin turned back to Esmira. ‘I need your help for this to work…’

Kilvolt Gnash was on the command deck, pacing between the frantic packs of engineers and mechanics who scrambled about the massive arrays of controls and gauges that governed the ship’s machinery. He felt contempt for these underlings, only able to focus upon the smallest part of the grand design. Only he knew every intricacy of his ship. Especially after arranging the assassination of the other designers. He alone knew which of the control panels were redundant and which were entirely fake. Redundancy and fakery were the only real ways to stamp out sabotage and treachery.

Kilvolt glanced aside when one of his guards abruptly slumped over and began haemorrhaging. The warlord-engineer lashed his tail in annoyance and motioned for some slaves to drag the dying ratman away. He could have sworn he’d put the antidote in all of their meals when they got back to the Indomitable Terror. Perhaps some conniving underling had been poisoning the antidotes. That was the sort of faithless trickery he’d have expected from a feckless fleabag like Gnawfang. But of course that particular problem had solved itself back in the glade, killed by the beard-things after disposing of the witch-man. There was a great satisfaction that came from enemies eliminating themselves for you.

The warlord-engineer chittered happily when he studied the gauges at the panel beside him. He swung around and shoved an oblivious mechanic out of his way to consult a second set of gauges. No, there was no mistake, it displayed roughly the same levels. The bright-wood they’d plundered from the heart of Profit’s Ruin was burning far more efficiently than warpstone in his airship’s furnace. Ripping free of the Ruin had taken less power than he’d expected. The observation set his pulse roaring with greedy ambition. They’d circle back around and snare the rest of the bright-wood. Seize it all! Now they had the power to defy the Ruin’s attacks.

‘Great-terrible Kilvolt,’ a piebald ratman squeaked timidly and drew his master’s attention to the portal glass at the front of the command deck.

Kilvolt swung around. He ground his fangs together when he saw the beard-thing ship sailing away from Profit’s Ruin. The sight incensed him so much that he pulled the warplock pistol from his belt and shot the piebald ratman through the head. Bad news was something anyone with half a brain should know to keep to himself, and he didn’t want halfwits playing around with the controls of his ship.

‘Beard-things!’ Kilvolt snarled. He swatted his guards aside and seized the mouthpiece of the ship’s ratcaller. Loudsqueakers strewn throughout the ship would carry his demands to every skaven aboard. ‘Beard-things,’ he hissed, pausing to hear the menacing echo reverberate across the command deck. ‘Beard-things flee-fly! Stop beard-things! All guns ready! All fly-fangs launch! Leave no beard-things alive!’

Kilvolt could hear his orders being repeated in the nearby corridors and rooms. He could see dials adjusting as gun crews opened portals and brought their weapons into action. On the airship’s wings, he could see the hangars of the fly-fangs opening and the bat-like interceptors being brought up from below.

The Indomitable Terror was a warship without rival, but there were still deficiencies implemented by his treacherous co-designers that forced Kilvolt to find other means of addressing them. Foremost was the ponderous speed of his huge ship. He’d been promised something that would soar through the sky like a dragon. Instead what he had was as ungainly as a dying megalofin. If he’d had the time to devote to designing every nook and cranny of his airship, Kilvolt knew there’d be no such problem. For now, however, he needed to use the fly-fangs to keep the duardin busy until he could get the big guns into play.

A volley from the ironclad’s weapons boomed through the sky. Kilvolt laughed at the frightened squeals of his minions. They spurted the musk of fear, filling the air with their cowardice.

‘Fool-meat!’ Kilvolt cursed as the duardin shots pelted the Indomitable Terror. He flicked his ears in amusement as he listened to the rounds slam uselessly against the airship’s thick armour. ‘Beard-things cannot hurt us! This best-greatest machine built by Clan Skryre! Beard-things cannot hurt us.’

Kilvolt exulted in his cool superiority. They were all afraid, even the pathetic brutes who were supposed to be guarding him. But he wasn’t afraid! The Indomitable Terror had such thick armour on her hull that the consensus among the other warlock-engineers was that she’d never be able to fly at all. Kilvolt had proven those treacherous idiots wrong. His ship not only flew, she was strong enough to shrug off the worst the duardin could throw at her. It would take impossibly precise aiming to hit anything important…

The Indomitable Terror shook violently as the duardin fired another attack into her. Kilvolt was knocked off his feet and crashed to the floor. He was agitated enough that he bit the guard who helped him up. He spat the severed finger at the whining warrior and sprang at the closest display panel. It was lit an angry red, flashing in warning. Even swatting it several times didn’t straighten it out. It still insisted something was wrong.

‘Mighty-tyrant Kilvolt,’ a tinny voice squeaked over the loudsqueaker. ‘Beard-things shoot-smash outer-left rudder.’

Kilvolt gnashed his fangs and glared at the loudsqueaker. He’d remember that voice, and deal with the defeatist rat once this was all over. For now he glowered at the minions around him.

‘We have five rudders,’ he reminded them. Redundancy. They could still steer the ship with just one. ‘Beard-things can’t shoot-smash all,’ he added with a scornful spit.

The gigantic airship shook again. The same tinny voice started to say something over the loudsqueaker, but Kilvolt exploded it with a crackle of lightning from his rings. He pounced on the mouthpiece and snapped orders to his gun crews.

‘Make fly-fangs attack beard-things!’ Kilvolt snarled, glaring out the portal at the bat-like fliers. It was all their fault, the scheming traitors! If they’d closed with the ironclad faster, the duardin could never have started firing on the Indomitable Terror.

Well, the duplicitous vermin were about to learn how unwise it was to plot against Kilvolt Gnash. They’d have no choice but to dive on the ironclad. By the time the duardin dealt with the interceptors, the Indomitable Terror would be upon them.

The duardin might have escaped Profit’s Ruin, but they wouldn’t escape from Kilvolt.

Thullig scrambled below decks. He could hear the aether-carbines barking away from the prow of the ship as the Iron Dragon fired at the skaven vessel. A shudder passed through the ironclad as torpedoes were added to the barrage.

The aether-khemist had doubts about how potent such attacks would be against the ratkin leviathan. He hoped Brokrin had some clever idea in mind, because as things stood, he didn’t see how they’d be able to escape the skaven. What use the captain had for Thullig’s incendiary was a riddle he didn’t have time to think about. He was just thrilled to contribute something to the ship’s chances.

Kerrum’s search party met Thullig in the hallway. ‘Did you see Morri?’ the sergeant asked when he saw him.

Thullig shook his head. ‘The cap’n asked me to get some of my chemicals. I just got down here myself.’

Kerrum nodded. ‘Call out if you see him. He might be dangerous. He might not be what he looks like.’

The last warning was more than a little unsettling, Thullig thought, as he entered the hold where he’d established his laboratory. He ignited the lamp and started towards the kegs of incendiary he’d prepared just in case Mortrimm decided to risk his plan. As he did, he noticed something that hadn’t been there before.

Leaning up against the wall of the room were several long strips of pale-coloured wood. They hadn’t been there before. Thullig was certain of it. They did look familiar, though. It took him a second to recall why. They were what Morri had been carrying when he returned to the ship.

Thullig’s eyes searched the room as he slowly backed towards the door. He saw the kegs of incendiary. The alembics where he’d been analysing the strange nodules Agrilo had given him. The logbook where he’d been recording the peculiar properties of this particular part of the ship. His eyes took in everything, but he didn’t see any sign of Morri beyond the strips of wood.

A hiss from behind him made Thullig spin around before he reached the door. He was ready to shout for Kerrum, thinking Morri would be standing there. He instantly felt foolish. All that was there was a big black ship rat. He should have known better. Kerrum’s patrol had already been in here. There was no place for the missing arkanaut to hide.

But there were places for a rat to hide. That was the thought that occurred to Thullig when he looked down at the rodent. It stared back at him, its beady eyes glistening with malignance. No, more than malignance. A kind of compulsion. He felt a will greater and more focused than his own hammering at the walls of his mind.

The walls came down and Thullig could only watch in paralysed fascination as the rat quickly swelled in size. It grew into a human shape, a man he’d never seen before. The man smiled at him, but it was a cruel and malicious smile.

The human turned over the mirror that hung around his neck. Thullig could see a horribly mutated figure reflected in the glass, an image he knew couldn’t have a source inside the hold.

‘We’re here, Khoram,’ the human told the image in the glass. ‘I’ve brought the whisperwood into the hold where they kept the Prismatic King’s essence.’

Thullig’s eyes went wide with horror as the twisted shape in the mirror laughed.

‘Excellent, Yoshiro! Now all we need is Brokrin, and all will be as I intended!’

Yoshiro glared down into the glass. ‘Forget your petty revenge, curseling! There’s no time for such an indulgence. The Iron Dragon is beset by enemies. Any time now, the skaven could blast her from the sky. If you want to escape that prison, you’ll have to compromise.’ He pointed at Thullig. ‘I’ve arranged another host for you. Now either you accept things as they are, or I leave you to enjoy existing as a shadow caught in a mirror.’

Khoram raged inside his glass, but soon subsided. ‘Very well, Yoshiro, we’ll do this your way.’

Thullig tried to shout in defiance, to rail against the schemes of these wizards, but Yoshiro’s spell held him fast. It was all he could do to draw a breath.

The sorcerer shook his head. ‘It’s not enough, Khoram. Swear that the pact is fulfilled regardless of which body you take. Swear it by the name you fear to utter. The daemon whose wrath you dread. Swear it by the Prismatic King!’

The name of the ghastly daemon encountered by the Iron Dragon on her prior voyage wasn’t unknown to Thullig. His horror was compounded when he heard it invoked by Yoshiro. Those who trafficked with daemons brought not only death, but damnation as well.

‘I swear,’ Khoram snarled.

Yoshiro set the mirror down on the floor and turned towards Thullig.

‘Good,’ he laughed. ‘Now we can begin.’

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The immense airship slowly turned towards the Iron Dragon. The duardin had sent torpedoes crashing into the flanged tail section, tearing through two of its rudders.

‘The blasted thing isn’t slowing down,’ Mortrimm snarled as he studied their enemy through his spyglass. ‘Those rudders should be the most vulnerable thing on that ship.’

‘They would be on one of ours,’ Brokrin said. ‘That or the endrin. But I’m at a loss to figure out what the ratkin did to put that behemoth into the sky.’

He took the spyglass from Mortrimm and studied their adversary. Smoke billowed from the twisted scrap left by the torpedoes, but the other rudders were spaced far enough apart that they’d only suffered dings and dents from the explosions. His gaze strayed to the underside of the ship, where tongues of flame flared from the vessel’s belly.

‘We might try hitting them from below…’

The suggestion trailed off as Brokrin’s notice was drawn to the airship’s side. A section of the hull pivoted and a platform rotated into view. There was a huge machine bolted down to the platform and a pack of ratmen scrambling around it, throwing levers and turning flywheels. From the top of the machine, a thick pole emerged and slipped forwards until it was pointing away from the skaven ship and towards the Iron Dragon. The tip of the pole separated, extending into the prongs of a fork. Once the prongs were in place, energy crackled across the pole. Green lightning sizzled between the tines, until between them an orb of electricity formed.

‘They’re getting ready to shoot back!’ Brokrin shouted to his crew. ‘Vorki! Hard to starboard!’ He didn’t know what the skaven weapon could do to the ironclad, but he’d be happy not to find out.

Brokrin’s fear proved unfounded. The Iron Dragon wasn’t the target of the skaven lightning-cannon. The electric orb was hurled instead at the swarm of small bat-like ships. It collided with one of them, exploding it in a burst of flame and charred debris. The reason for firing on their own quickly became apparent.

Shots from the thunderers and arkanauts on the ironclad’s deck had kept the winged skaven at bay until this point. The duardin hadn’t brought any of them down, but they had impressed on them the danger of trying to get closer. Now, from their own airship, the ratmen were being advised of an even greater threat – the ire of their own leader. The warning worked, and the rat-wings came soaring towards the Iron Dragon.

‘They’d rather take their chances with us than against their own,’ Mortrimm growled.

‘We must still be out of range of the big one’s guns,’ Brokrin said. ‘They get close to us and they’ll be safe from Kilvolt. Our only chance of driving them off is to make them more afraid of us than the boss-rat.’

Brokrin turned away from the rail and called out to Gotramm.

‘Have your arkanauts stand ready to let loose with a concentrated volley when those rat-wings get closer. Don’t waste shots until you can be sure they’re too close to miss, and then let them have it.’ He caught Agrilo’s eye and told him to hurry below and bring Kerrum’s search party up. The mystery of Morri’s return would have to wait. He needed every gun he had on deck right now.

‘Cap’n,’ Arrik shouted from the gun deck. ‘We might not be able to hit anything that small and fast with Ghazul’s Bane, but we damn sure could put the fear into them.’

Brokrin grinned at the idea. ‘Get them scared,’ he told the gunners. Skaven were too self-centred for any real discipline. Whatever they did they did out of either fear or greed. Anything that could rattle their nerves was liable to break whatever cohesion they did have.

‘Here they come!’ Mortrimm shouted. He had his own pistol out, but like the arkanauts, he was waiting to be sure of hitting his targets.

Brokrin glanced at his own volley pistol. If he unloaded every barrel at once, he was certain to hit the rat-wings, but if he held his fire there was a greater chance of dealing the enemy some serious damage. He was weighing his options when Kerrum’s party rushed up from below and took position.

The skaven were much nearer now. Close enough that Brokrin could make out individual details. The wing-like fliers were all of the same pattern, but of haphazard construction, varying wildly in consistency. The pilots slung in their harnesses between the wings were no different. Some wore elaborate masks and helmets with long coats of oiled leather, while others took to the sky with no more protection than a set of goggles over their eyes. Each ratman had some sort of weapon clenched in its paws, however: long, ugly rifles and braces of pistols. One of the masked skaven had a nasty-looking sprayer of some sort, hoses running from it back to a tank bolted to the wingframe. Brokrin was reminded of the flame-projectors they’d used on the Keeper, and sickened at the thought of what they could do to his ironclad.

‘Sergeant, wait for Arrik!’ Brokrin ordered the thunderers. As he gave the command, some of the eager skaven started firing at the Iron Dragon. Fingers of flame flashed from the muzzles of rifles and pistols as the ratmen tried to pick off the duardin. A few of their bullets whizzed past, one even banged against the hull, but the distance was still too great for any accuracy.

Fortunately, the great skyhook called Ghazul’s Bane wasn’t trying to be accurate, just menacing. Arrik shouted the command and the gun cast its long harpoon towards the oncoming skaven, heavy chain spooling out behind it. It didn’t come close to hitting any of the rat-wings, but what it did was panic the vermin. Several wheeled away, spinning upwards and downwards to avoid the missile. Some coaxed extra thrust from the furnaces set between their wings and sped forwards, rushing ahead of the main swarm towards the ironclad. A few turned completely around and darted back towards Kilvolt’s airship. The big lightning cannon didn’t fire on them, but Brokrin did see skaven sharpshooters on top of the vessel using their jezzails to make retreat look less appealing.

‘Pick your rat and let ’em have it,’ Kerrum growled.

The thunderers opened up on the rat-wings that were rushing ahead of the swarm. Their shots ripped into the bat-like machines, smashing through the thin metal. One of the fliers ignited as a bullet pierced its glowing power generator, the entire vehicle transforming into a firebrand as it plummeted earthwards. Another of the rat-wings spun away in a mindless spiral, the operator dead in its harness.

Three more of the advanced rat-wings drew closer. The rifle one of them carried snapped off a shot; a flash like lightning rippled away from its barrel and caught one of the endrinriggers. The stricken duardin fell from the great endrin’s cupola and slammed to the deck, a blackened hole scorched through his mask and helmet.

Mortrimm targeted the skaven sharpshooter, hitting it with his pistol as it swooped too close to the ironclad. The ratman squealed and clutched at its bleeding arm while its rifle fell from its grip and dangled at the end of a strap fastened to the vermin’s waist. The injured pilot tried to swing away, but in its hasty turn the edge of the wingframe glanced off the railing. The impact gashed the gunwale, but utterly crumpled the wing that dealt the blow. The flier went careening over the side; unable to keep itself in the air it plummeted downwards through the clouds.

The other rat-wings met the fire of Gotramm and his arkanauts. Their volley slammed into one of the vermin before it could bring its own pistols to bear. The flier arced sharply upwards, leaping over the Iron Dragon, before it pitched downwards again and went racing off, the pilot dead at the controls.

The arkanauts were less devastating to the last of their immediate foes. Their shots punched through the wingframe, but none managed to hit the squirming pilot. The masked skaven glowered at them and dragged a spherical bomb from the satchel strapped to its chest. Before it could lob the globe at Gotramm, however, it was shredded by Brokrin’s volley pistol. The glass sphere exploded in the skaven’s hand, bathing it in green vapour. The rat-wing left a trail of smoke as it tumbled through the sky.

‘That’s another one I owe you,’ Gotramm called to Brokrin. The privateer’s voice was more anxious than exuberant. He’d come a bit too close to being victim instead of victor.

Brokrin gazed out at the rest of the swarm. They’d been delayed by the skyhook, but they weren’t frightened off. Arrik was reeling in the harpoon, but there’d be no chance for another shot before the rat-wings were on them. And beyond the small fliers, the big airship was drawing steadily closer. How soon would Kilvolt’s guns be in range? Before they were, Brokrin had to get his plan into action.

‘Mortrimm, keep them fighting,’ Brokrin told the navigator. ‘We can’t let them box us in. If we take some knocks from the little ones to keep us away from the big one, that’s the way it has to be.’

Mortrimm gave him a bewildered look. ‘Where are you going?’

‘Down below,’ Brokrin replied. ‘I want to know what’s keeping Thullig and that fire-juice of his!’

Kilvolt gnashed his fangs in satisfaction as he watched the fly-fangs race towards the Iron Dragon. The threat they posed was demanding Brokrin’s full attention. He didn’t have the luxury of launching more torpedoes at the Indomitable Terror now. His hands were full trying to keep his crew safe from the skirmishers.

‘Pathetic,’ Kilvolt sneered as he watched the scene unfolding. ‘Feeble-brained beard-things. To think I once believed I could learn-steal from them.’ He glanced around at the skaven on the command deck, daring any of them to make a peep. Certainly, he’d got inspiration from the Kharadron and studied their inventions, but those were things only a suicidal idiot would mention in his presence.

The warlord-engineer looked again at the aerial battle. Brokrin was proving to be a suicidal idiot too. Even the lowest fang-leader in Skavendom would know better than to put himself and his ship at risk simply over concern for his underlings. Yet the beard-things were obsessed with such lunacy, even more than man-things. They’d go to moronic excess trying to protect another duardin. It was proof of their inferiority to the skaven, this reckless lack of clear thinking. The fly-fangs didn’t have the firepower to bring down the Iron Dragon, only her crew. The destruction of the sky-ship was a job for the Indomitable Terror, not wretched underlings. Brokrin had a chance if he was only willing to let the fly-fangs pick off his crew and try to rush past them.

Instead, Brokrin was trying to stand and fight. Kilvolt chittered happily.

‘Soon I make a tail-warmer of your fur, beard-thing.’

Kilvolt hissed into the ratcaller and sent his commands through the airship’s loudsqueakers.

‘All guns, stand ready! Burn-blast beard-things from the sky!’ He felt the tremor that went through the vessel as weapon platforms pivoted out from behind the armoured hull. The air crackled as lightning cannons and warp-casters were powered up and made ready for the attack.

A sense that something wasn’t right made Kilvolt spin around. He grabbed for one of his guards to shield himself with the henchrat’s body, but desisted when he saw that the source of his unease was a mangy-looking skaven slave standing at the doorway.

‘What cat-bait let this fool-meat in here?’ he demanded as he flashed his fangs at the ratkin around him.

The slave came cringing forwards, striving to both bow to the fearsome warlord-engineer and keep his throat exposed in a display of loyalty.

‘M-m-mighty-t-t-terrible K-k-kilvolt,’ the slave stammered, fear spurting from his glands. ‘Thaqwitt Burnpaw say ratcaller not-not work-talk. Send lowly Shakquee tell-report for great-fearsome Kilvolt…’

Kilvolt glanced over at the loudsqueaker he’d turned into scrap. His annoyance refocused on Shakquee. ‘Speak-squeak,’ he demanded, his tail shivering with irritation.

The slave bobbed his head again. ‘Burnpaw say-tell that furnace use much-much bright-wood…’

Whatever else Shakquee might have said boiled off the slave’s tongue when Kilvolt sent a crackle of lightning from his rings to envelop the ratkin. The discharge arced across nearby workstations and cooked a few mechanics luckless enough to be standing too close.

Kilvolt turned back to the mouthpiece, his temper flaring. Was Burnpaw stupid or was he plotting something? Sending a slave scampering all the way from the engine room to whimper excuses!

‘Burnpaw,’ he growled over the ratcaller. ‘If you want-like keeping your skin, give me results, not excuses! Next time, I burn-blast not just messenger. I burn-blast you too!’

The warlord-engineer glanced again at the destroyed loudsqueaker. He pointed a claw at one of the nearby engineers.

‘Stand-listen in the hall,’ he ordered. ‘Bring-fetch reports.’ He gestured at the charred Shakquee. ‘Take trash-meat away.’

The engineer hastened to obey, but he didn’t look particularly enthusiastic about the distinction Kilvolt had given him. That impertinence was almost enough to earn the rat immolation, but Kilvolt hesitated. He’d wait to hear what kind of messages the engineer brought back to the command deck before doing anything rash. It was a short-sighted leader who disposed of his minions with undue haste. Kilvolt prided himself on his visionary genius and forward-thinking. The crew of the Indomitable Terror were blessed by the Horned One to have such a considerate overlord.

When they shot down the Iron Dragon, Kilvolt might even be magnanimous enough to only execute a few of them for taking so long to bring about his glorious victory.

Brokrin hurried below, lunging down the steps when he left the Iron Dragon’s deck. The corridor was filled with deep shadows, the lights dulled to a mere glimmer as all available power was diverted to the ironclad’s engines and weapons. He thought it was the dimness that lent a sinister air to the scene as he dashed towards the hold where Thullig had established his laboratory. Yet when he stood outside the hatch, Brokrin found that the impression of wrongness only grew more intense. He glanced back at the stairs, tempted to go and get help. The sounds of battle that drifted down into the hall decided him. There simply wasn’t time to indulge uncertain fears.

‘Thullig! What’s keeping you?’ Brokrin called out as he opened the hatch and moved into the hold.

At once a foul smell engulfed him. A rancid, evil reek that had nothing to do with chemicals and reagents. It was the odour of the profane and the obscene, the stink of blackest magic. With it came a piercing cold, a chill that stabbed down to the spirit itself.

‘Sorcery,’ Brokrin gasped as he drew his axe.

The hold was dark, but not so black that Brokrin failed to see the sallow-featured human who stood in the room. In front of the man, arranged in a strange nine-sided pattern, were slivers of whisperwood. The splinters glowed with an eerie light, a luminescence that seemed to feed rather than fight the shadows around it. A similar phosphorescence exuded from the walls, ceiling and floor of the hold. Brokrin was reminded that this was the place where the uncanny aether-gold had been stored. The aether-gold that had been contaminated by the daemonic essence of the Prismatic King.

‘You’re late,’ the human snickered. ‘We were forced to start without you.’

Brokrin could see now that there was something standing in the nine-sided pattern. The luminescence itself made it only a shape, but he recognised the general size and dimensions of a duardin. There was a shard of reflective glass resting at the figure’s feet, emanating a weird purple light of its own.

‘Whatever you’re doing, it ends now!’ Brokrin thundered. He raised his axe and started towards the human.

The sorcerer waved his hand and a crippling pain seared through Brokrin’s body, as though every muscle in him had decided to tense up simultaneously. He didn’t drop the axe – he couldn’t. Even blinking was beyond him as the continuous spasm raged through him.

‘I could kill you for that,’ the sorcerer sneered. ‘But I think I’ll leave it for another to do.’ A twisted smile dragged itself across the human’s face. ‘There’s an old friend who’s eager to see you again.’

The purple light spread from the mirror, boiling up over the duardin standing within the whisperwood design. As it rippled up the figure, Brokrin saw that the victim of the ritual was Thullig. The aether-khemist had a vacant look on his face, but as the light spread across him, his features distorted in agony. He tried to scream, but no sound issued from his straining throat.

‘You’ll find this instructive.’ The sorcerer stepped around Brokrin and pointed at Thullig. ‘What you’re seeing is quite a remarkable transition. The shifting of an image caught in glass to a physical host.’ He leaned over to grin at the captain. ‘You’ve been most obliging. You’ve acted precisely as Khoram anticipated.’

As he spoke, the sorcerer’s face changed. Brokrin watched in shock as the human visage shifted into the sly look of Vaskin, then into the domineering Orrik. Finally, he saw the face of Morri gloating over his plight.

‘All flesh is mutable to one who knows the secret,’ the man boasted. He turned and looked at Thullig. The aether-khemist was now fully engulfed in the purple light. ‘So long as one has a vessel of flesh to work with.’

Brokrin’s mind reeled as he watched the ghastly transformation unfolding before him. Thullig’s body was changing. The stout build of the duardin was narrowing into the more slender outline of a human figure. Thullig began to grow taller even as his beard curled back under his flesh. A feathery blob bubbled up from his back, swelling into a grotesque parasite with burning eyes.

What had been Thullig turned towards Brokrin, and as the aether-khemist’s face sloughed away, new features rose to replace them. The flesh turned a deep blue; the visage spread into a grotesque, frog-like semblance. He found himself looking into a face redolent of evil and madness. Never had he felt such hate as he saw blazing in the bloated, batrachian eyes.

‘Yoshiro, I must thank you,’ the thing that had consumed Thullig’s body addressed the sorcerer. ‘This is indeed better than I’d intended. I wanted to steal this swine’s flesh for my own, to feel his soul being blotted out as I stole his body. But this way, ah, this way I can watch him suffer. I can savour the horror in his eyes as he feels my vengeance!’

Mention of vengeance brought realisation to Brokrin. The feathered hunch was on the wrong side of the body now, but it was clear to him who his ‘old friend’ was. The sorcerer from Finnolf’s Fortress. The madman who’d tried to sacrifice the Iron Dragon’s crew when he revived the daemonic Prismatic King.

The recognition he saw in Brokrin’s eyes brought a pleased laugh from the resurrected warlock.

‘We have met, but not been introduced.’ He put a hand against his chest. ‘I am Khoram of Shadowfar, Ninth Prophet of the Changer.’ His lips spread in a smile as feral as anything that ever curled the muzzle of a skaven. ‘Remember me while you’re dying.’

Khoram and Yoshiro had their attention fixated upon Brokrin’s frozen form. So it was that they didn’t notice someone in the corridor behind him. The first Brokrin was aware of the presence was when a leather bag was lobbed into the hold. There was a blinding flash, and he realised what the bag must have been. A priming charge from one of the torpedo racks.

‘Two against one is a coward’s gamble!’ Agrilo shouted, rushing in after throwing the explosive.

The sudden attack caught both sorcerers by surprise. Yoshiro clutched at his eyes, while Khoram staggered back. The shapechanger was nearer to the door, so it was against Yoshiro that Agrilo’s charging form crashed. Both hurtled onwards and crashed into the table. Jars and alembics were overturned and splashed their contents across the sorcerer’s back. Powerful acids bit through Yoshiro’s robes and sizzled against Agrilo’s skin.

The seizure wracking Brokrin weakened when Agrilo struck Yoshiro. With the sorcerer’s concentration broken, the captain was able to fight clear of the spell’s paralysing grip. Though still in pain, he was able to move again. He saw Khoram turn from where he’d staggered after being blinded. The disfigured sorcerer appeared to think Brokrin was still paralysed, for it was towards Agrilo that he turned and unleashed a flare of scintillant light. The arcane bolt struck the logisticator from behind, throwing him off Yoshiro and smashing him against the wall. Yoshiro fell from the table, his robes steaming from the acid eating into him.

Brokrin sprang at the frog-faced warlock. His axe came cleaving down, a gleaming arc of deadly steel. Khoram caught the motion at the last instant and tried to dodge the blow. Instead of burying his blade in the sorcerer’s head, Brokrin struck the feathered growth on his back. Iridescent fluid spurted from the mangled thing as it was hacked in half.

Khoram shrieked in agony and staggered back. ‘You’ll suffer for this!’ he threatened, but when he crossed his arms and drew upon his magic, it was to conjure a shimmering barrier between himself and Brokrin. When the axe came chopping at the man’s body, it was repelled by the translucent wall. Only by an effort of stubborn defiance did Brokrin manage to keep hold of his weapon as he was thrown back by the protecting ward.

‘Your tricks won’t save you,’ Brokrin growled.

‘You failed to kill me once,’ Khoram mocked him. ‘You will fail again! Your endurance will run out before my magic.’ He laughed when Brokrin lunged at him and was again thrown back by the barrier. The impact sent the duardin sprawling on the floor. This time the axe went spinning from his grip.

Lying on the floor, Brokrin saw something he hadn’t from a higher vantage. Little strands of purple light continued to spill from the shard of mirror, connecting it to Khoram’s stolen body. How great was the link between the sorcerer and his talisman?

Khoram cackled like a true daemon as he glared down at Brokrin. At a gesture, he dismissed the shimmering barrier. He raised his hand and pointed at his enemy.

‘Now you die.’

‘After you,’ Brokrin snarled and brought his palm crashing down against the mirror. The glass exploded under his blow, shattering into dozens of shards.

Khoram’s shriek filled the hold, the piercing wail not merely of death, but of damnation. The sorcerer’s body was wrenched apart, severed into jagged pieces just as the mirror had been. The gory fragments scattered about the room, slamming against the walls and ceiling. For a moment, they retained the dismembered appearance of the slaughtered warlock. Then a ghastly metamorphosis occurred as the morbid litter turned back into that of a duardin. Brokrin shuddered and looked away from Thullig’s mutilated corpse.

Without warning, searing torment dropped Brokrin to his knees. It felt as though every inch of his body was on fire. He managed to twist around to see Yoshiro rising off the floor. The shapechanger’s body was blistered and scarred by the acid, his robes hanging off him in burned tatters. But it was the sorcerer’s face that was his most horrible feature. It kept twisting and shifting between visages, refusing to settle into a single appearance. Human, duardin, skaven or animal, each face that flickered into view shared one similarity. All bore an expression of apoplectic rage.

‘Do you have any idea what you’ve done?’ Yoshiro shouted. His fingers glowed with purple light and Brokrin’s pain increased, the burning sensation seeping down into his very bones. ‘Khoram was going to reveal all his arcane secrets to me! Power to make even daemons tremble at my might! And you killed him!’

The glow around Yoshiro’s hands grew brighter, the spell afflicting Brokrin becoming still more agonising. Only by sheer force of will was the duardin able to stay conscious. His fingers curled around one of the shards of broken mirror. He ground his teeth against the magical torment and set his steely gaze on the sorcerer. He had only one chance to break free.

In a blur of motion, Brokrin whipped his hand around and sent the fragment of mirror flying at Yoshiro. The sharp glass slashed his already burnt arm, and the sorcerer recoiled with both pain and surprise. More importantly, for just an instant, he ceased to concentrate on his spell.

The break in concentration lessened Brokrin’s torture enough that he sprang from the floor and flung himself at Yoshiro. Before the sorcerer could react, Brokrin had one hand around his throat and another pinning his arms against his chest. Viciously, he drove his enemy against the table and slammed the man’s head against the acid-stained litter of glass.

‘If you want Khoram’s secrets, chase after him in the underworld!’ Brokrin snarled as he maintained his strangling grip. Yoshiro’s face steamed where the acid bit into his flesh, the burned areas no longer shifting shape along with the rest of his visage. He started to snarl something, but whether curse or spell, it was silenced when Brokrin drove him back against the shattered glass.

Then the sorcerer’s body suddenly swelled, bulging outwards and breaking Brokrin’s grip. The captain was hurled to the floor as Yoshiro’s shape took on the raw, brutal bulk of an orruk. But something was wrong with the transformation. The burned areas refused to conform to the new shape Yoshiro had taken on. His body bubbled and hissed as the injured areas shifted back into scarred human flesh. The sorcerer trembled, trying to force his body into some kind of cohesion.

Brokrin didn’t give Yoshiro time to control his rebellious flesh. He caught up Agrilo’s sword from the floor and charged at the ghastly shapechanger. Yoshiro glared at him from a face that was part orruk and part human, the mismatched eyes blazing with hate. As Brokrin drove the sword up into the sorcerer’s chest, the intense glare collapsed into a glassy stare. Yoshiro’s form withered on the edge of the blade, shrivelling up like a dead insect. When Brokrin withdrew his weapon, the corpse that fell to the floor was as desiccated as a mummy.

With the example of Khoram fresh in his mind, Brokrin stamped his boot against the dried-out skull until it had been crushed into dust. He didn’t want any more ‘old friends’ coming back to visit him.

‘Let’s not ever do this again,’ Agrilo said, coughing. The logisticator came crawling away from where he’d fallen, his forehead bulging with a bump the size of his fist and blood streaming from his broken nose.

Brokrin smiled, relieved that the logisticator, at least, had survived. ‘There has to be a next time first,’ he warned. Brokrin retrieved his axe from the floor and started looking around the hold. The sounds of fighting still drifted down from outside.

‘Over there,’ Agrilo said, and waved his hand at several kegs stacked against the wall, well away from the table where Thullig had conducted his experiments. ‘I had Thullig label everything to make sure it was all accounted for. Look for a fire rune and you’ll have what we need.’

Brokrin staggered over and found the containers with the incendiary. He shifted one onto his shoulder and bent down to try to grab another. ‘Feel up to helping me?’

‘Not a word of this to the Guild,’ Agrilo told Brokrin. He stumbled over and lifted up one of the kegs. ‘Logisticators are expressly prohibited from acting like stevedores except in an emergency.’

‘Don’t you think this counts?’ Brokrin asked as he started for the corridor.

‘We might think so, but the Guild might not,’ Agrilo explained. ‘You see, there’s a fine for breaking the rules…’

When Brokrin reached the Iron Dragon’s deck, he found the situation far worse than he’d feared. The rat-wings swooped and dived at the ironclad, their pilots firing away at the crew. Horgarr had sent skyriggers aloft to try and fend off the vermin. They lurked about the periphery of the great endrin and jabbed at the bat-like fliers when they flew past with hooks and skypikes. Gotramm and his arkanauts continued to send shots into their enemy, but the situation was too dire to withhold until they could mass for a volley. Kerrum’s thunderers had been scattered, and three of them sprawled near the rail, their bodies surrounded by a noxious green fog.

‘Mortrimm! Arrik!’ Brokrin shouted. He waved his arms until the navigator came rushing over to help him with the keg of incendiary. Arrik brought his gun crew down and they relieved Agrilo of the barrels he was carrying.

Brokrin looked off to the port side. The giant skaven ship was much closer now. He could see the weird cannons that jutted out from its hull. Not just one lightning gun, but rather half a dozen strange devices that sparked and crackled with menace. As he watched, one of the weapons lurched violently on its platform and sent a sizzling band of black energy scorching through the sky. The attack only narrowly missed the ironclad’s prow. A second gun loosed a stream of lightning that splashed across the Iron Dragon’s hull in a sheet of electricity. One of the arkanauts was caught in the discharge and was thrown over the side by the force of the impact.

‘Get this loaded into the mines!’ Brokrin ordered. He left his crew to hastily carry out his instructions. Horgarr broke away from defending the great endrin to help them.

Brokrin started back towards the wheelhouse and Esmira. He was thrown to the deck when a skaven bullet slammed into his armour. The force of the shot was enough to break ribs, but not enough to penetrate his mail. He snarled at the rat-wing as it soared past, but didn’t let it distract him from what he had to do. Painfully, he staggered onwards.

‘We’re ready,’ he told Esmira.

The human ran her fingers gently through the sapling’s branches. ‘So are we,’ she said. She looked up at Brokrin and there were tears in her eyes. ‘The Inheritor must endure. This is the only way.’

A beam of green lightning flared across the deck, burning a hole through the starboard rail. Brokrin clenched his teeth and turned back towards the bow. He watched as Horgarr and the others began dropping mines over the side. The rat-wings clearly recognised them as weapons, for they wheeled away and gave them a wide berth. The mines, however, ignored the vermin. They weren’t set to be triggered by the proximity of an enemy. They were rigged with aethermatic timers. Until the countdown hit zero, they’d remain inert.

Brokrin watched the mines sink away towards the writhing, undulating mass of Profit’s Ruin. He swung back around and barked orders to Vorki inside the wheelhouse.

‘Hard to port! Follow the mines down! We’ll only have one chance at this!’

The rat-wings pursued the Iron Dragon as she dipped back towards Profit’s Ruin. Any hesitation on their part was curbed by the looming presence of Kilvolt’s ship. It too was descending to chase after the Kharadron. Brokrin could imagine the sadistic glee of the ratkin. They thought the duardin were running, and nothing excited a skaven so much as seeing an enemy flee from them.

‘Keep at it, lads!’ Brokrin shouted in encouragement to the crew as they continued to fend off the rat-wings. Most of the fliers had fallen behind as Vorki cajoled every last speck of speed from the ironclad. The few who were keeping up thought better of pressing the attack by themselves. It wasn’t terribly enticing for them to fight even a fleeing enemy if there weren’t plenty of their fellows nearby to court the retaliation of their foe.

Soon the ironclad was a hundred yards ahead of the nearest of her pursuers. The Iron Dragon flew so low that her keel scraped against the Ruin’s canopy. The duardin cast anxious looks at the mass of weeds and vines beneath them, only too aware of what had happened the last time they’d drawn so close to Profit’s Ruin. Brokrin couldn’t repress his own worries, but so far Esmira’s influence over the jungle was keeping it placid.

It was essential to Brokrin’s plan that the skaven likewise think of Profit’s Ruin as safe – or at least that Kilvolt should. If their leader was convinced, the rest of the vermin would be bullied into believing the same. Watching the ratmen pursuing the Iron Dragon, he felt the scheme would work. The fliers were following in their wake and trying to overtake them. Behind the smaller ships, Kilvolt’s titanic vessel pressed on, beams of energy crackling from its guns.

Lower and lower the skaven dipped. Brokrin watched for the moment when the timers would run out. When they did, a dozen mines detonated at once from amidst the greenery of Profit’s Ruin. Thullig’s incendiary was thrown in every direction, splashing across the vines in fiery drops. Soon great swathes of the Ruin became a carpet of flame.

‘Now, Esmira! Now!’ Brokrin cried out. He looked over and saw the intense jade light that shone from both the woman and the sapling.

The formerly placid Profit’s Ruin now erupted into violent life. Tendrils wreathed in fire shot upwards and plucked rat-wings out of the air. The fliers were dragged down into the raging inferno and swiftly swallowed by the flames. The small ships tried to dart and wheel, but they’d been lured too close to the Ruin to escape the masses of vines that grabbed at them. A skaven would avoid one nest of coils only to fly straight into another.

Brokrin looked past the plight of the smaller ships and focused on Kilvolt’s leviathan. A terrible doubt seized him as he saw the tendrils clutching at the enormous machine. While they could rip away gun platforms or snatch lone ratmen from the hull, would they be enough to overcome the giant airship itself?

The survival of the Iron Dragon depended upon the answer.

The Indomitable Terror’s command deck was all panic and confusion. Kilvolt had executed several of his underlings but it had not been enough to bring the rest of the cowards in line. He despatched his guards to bully the engineers and mechanics back to their stations. So long as the treacherous curs obeyed him, he was certain they could still prevail.

‘Retract-recover all guns!’ Kilvolt snarled into the ratcaller. He’d already seen through the portal two of the weapons ripped away from the hull by the vines. He didn’t intend to lose any more of them. It was bad enough watching the fly-fangs being dragged down into Profit’s Ruin. The idiot pilots didn’t have sense enough to keep the costly machines away from the burning tendrils!

‘Brokrin…’ Kilvolt hissed. This was all the duardin’s fault. Luring the Indomitable Terror into a trap. Setting Profit’s Ruin on fire and provoking it to attack the skaven.

No, that couldn’t be the case! Kilvolt rejected the nonsense that he could be outsmarted by a beard-thing. It was treachery! Conniving, slinking betrayers sabotaging his flawless strategies!

‘More speed,’ Kilvolt snarled into the mouthpiece. ‘Catch-fetch beard-things!’

Kilvolt ground his fangs together as a tremendous jolt shook the airship. Far from gaining speed, the Indomitable Terror was slowing down. He glared at the Iron Dragon as the ironclad sailed on. Between them, fire continued to spread across Profit’s Ruin. Blazing vines whipped up at the airship, trying to snare it in their coils.

‘More speed! More-much power!’ Kilvolt shrieked into the mouthpiece. He glanced around the command deck, looking for someone to blame. His gaze settled on the engineer he’d sent out into the hall. That underling came creeping back, reeking of fear.

‘Grand-tyranical Kilvolt,’ the engineer squeaked. ‘Burnpaw tell-say that all bright-wood is used-gone. Warn–’

Kilvolt cut down the engineer with a blast from his rings. Warn? Who was Burnpaw to warn Kilvolt about anything? And how dare this wretch convey such a message to his warlord-engineer!

Kilvolt turned back to the ratcaller and made new demands of his crew. ‘All-all power-speed! Follow-catch beard-things!’ He started to add a threat to his demands, but then the Indomitable Terror shuddered even more violently than before. Through the portal he could see the mesh of burning tendrils that now grasped the airship.

‘Weed-vines have us!’ Kilvolt screamed into the ratcaller. ‘All-more power! Climb-rise! Climb-rise!’

In spite of the fury of Kilvolt’s frantic orders, the Indomitable Terror didn’t pull away. The command deck was cast into darkness as power failed. The only light came from the viewing portal, and the inferno that now consumed Profit’s Ruin.

Kilvolt was thrown backwards as the airship tilted. For an instant he had a clear view of the open sky, and dared to believe the Indomitable Terror had managed to break away. The intense heat that hammered at the airship told a different story. The open sky was blotted out by smoke and flames as the skaven were dragged down into the conflagration.

EPILOGUE

Profit’s Ruin plummeted earthwards as the flames spread and finally consumed the whisperwood tree. Like a fiery comet, it plunged through the clouds to at last crash upon a desolate plateau deep within the Grimvast Mountains.

The Iron Dragon circled above the plateau while the fallen Ruin continued to burn. All through the night, the fires blazed and sent an orange glow into the sky. In the morning, however, the immolation abated. By the afternoon, only a few flickers remained. The rest was a smouldering blackness that stretched across the plateau and spilled down into the valleys below.

Brokrin was sombre as he watched Profit’s Ruin being consumed. A dread menace to the Kharadron, a hazard that had claimed many duardin ships, yet there was something bittersweet about its destruction. A legend was no more, and the skies of Chamon would somehow feel the poorer without Profit’s Ruin lurking somewhere at the edge of fable.

The other duardin seemed to share Brokrin’s sentiment. Though they’d cheered the entrapment of Kilvolt’s skaven, once the massive airship was pulled down into the burning Ruin, their attitude became more dour. Even Mortrimm, who had more reason than any of them to hate Profit’s Ruin, took no joy in watching its fall. With the Sea of Doom gone, Brokrin decided he would tell his old friend about the Windfarer. Not now, but when all of this was past them. When the time was right.

Strangely, the one person aboard the Iron Dragon who was exuberant was Esmira. She’d been mournful as Profit’s Ruin fell, but now that its blackened remains were heaped across the land, her attitude was inexplicably joyous. She impressed on Brokrin the need to descend to the plateau. After all she’d done for them, Brokrin couldn’t refuse her this request.

The Iron Dragon descended to the plateau. Nets were thrown over the side so that Esmira could disembark. Brokrin and the others who’d survived the expedition into Profit’s Ruin followed her. As he had before, Brokrin carried the sapling.

Esmira smiled when Brokrin handed the tree over to her. Her fingers caressed the silvery leaves.

‘So ends Profit’s Ruin,’ Gotramm remarked as he stared out across the smoking remains, the snarls of blackened branches and charred vines.

‘No, it is not the end,’ Esmira told the privateer. ‘It is a new beginning. The ashes of the Sea will enrich the soil here. It won’t be many seasons before a wondrous forest grows where we stand.’

‘A new Ruin,’ Brokrin said. ‘I don’t know how to accept such news. The old one was a menace to our ships.’

Esmira nodded in understanding. ‘The old Keeper was cultivated in a time of darkness and despair. The soil in which it grew was drenched in blood and war. It was shaped by those things, and it was those things that coloured its regard for everything else. It thought only of survival.’ She held the sapling towards Brokrin. ‘The new Keeper will be different. It will have me to nurture it and guide its growth. This is a time when all isn’t darkness and despair. There is light and hope, things that were lost to the old Keeper.’

Brokrin gazed intently at the aelven face that grew out from the sapling’s bark. Its expression was far more benign than what he’d seen growing on its predecessor.

‘Whatever grows here will be better than what came before it,’ Esmira declared. She waved her hand at the remains of Profit’s Ruin. ‘When the old forest has cooled, I will plant the Inheritor and it will grow into the new Keeper. Together, we will make something better.’

Deep in his heart, Brokrin was certain it would be just as Esmira described. A new forest would rise upon the plateau. A forest less hostile to the world around it than Profit’s Ruin.

The Iron Dragon was on her way back to Barak-Zilfin and Brokrin was in his cabin filling out the ship’s logbook. He wasn’t certain what to make of the shapeshifting sorcerer Yoshiro, but even if it had been the human masquerading as Orrik Goldhand, there’d be someone back at the sky-port who’d demand an accounting. Somewhere there’d be a record of the voyage… and who was entitled to see some profit from the venture.

Brokrin looked up when he heard a knock at the door. ‘Enter,’ he called out. He was surprised when Agrilo came in. The logisticator still looked like a troggoth had stomped on him.

‘Cap’n, may I speak with you?’ Agrilo asked, an uneasiness in his tone that surprised Brokrin.

‘You want to check the logbook against your ledgers?’ Brokrin asked.

Agrilo shook his head. ‘No, cap’n, there was something else on my mind.’

Before he could say anything more, there was another knock at the door. This time it was Horgarr who entered. The endrinmaster gave Agrilo a puzzled look, then glanced at Brokrin.

‘Cap’n, there was something I’d wanted to discuss.’ He glanced back at the logisticator. ‘When you’re alone.’

Agrilo bristled at the remark. ‘I was here first,’ he said. ‘Let me finish and then you can have your say.’ The logisticator stared at the bag Horgarr was carrying.

‘I’ve shipped with the cap’n longer,’ Horgarr objected. ‘Seniority always goes first.’

Before the argument could escalate further, there was another knock at the door. This time it was Gotramm who came in. Like Horgarr, he had a big bag in his hands. He gave both the endrinmaster and Agrilo a suspicious look.

‘Cap’n, there’s something I’d like to talk to you about… when you’ve the time.’

Brokrin started to ask what was going on when there was another knock at the door. This time it was Kerrum and the two thunderers who’d gone into Profit’s Ruin. They too were carrying bags.

‘Looks like everybody had the same idea,’ Kerrum said.

He walked over to Brokrin’s table and opened the bag he was carrying. Upending it, he laid a dozen shiny nodules of gold-coloured wood before the captain. His two thunderers did the same. He glanced over at Agrilo and for an instant there was a look of embarrassment on his face.

‘Look, cap’n, I know we didn’t come away with what we were supposed to from Profit’s Ruin. So me and my lads decided to offer our shares from an… independent venture we took part in. Whatever these’ll bring, use our part to appease the backers and pay the expenses.’

Horgarr pushed his way forward and laid his own bag down. ‘I came here for the same reason,’ he stated. ‘I’m not sure how much it’ll come to, but take my share too.’

Gotramm darted a stern look at Agrilo. ‘It seems just about all of us are here for the same reason,’ he said as he set his bag down. ‘Whatever my share comes to, split it with the crew. They should have something for all we’ve risked.’

Brokrin tapped his finger against one of the nodules. ‘What if I told you that what you’ve got here is a condensation of pure aether-gold? Each of these bags would need a hold’s worth of gas to balance them.’

Brokrin reached under the table and brought out the bag he’d carried through Profit’s Ruin. It was loaded down with more nodules than any of the others. He chuckled when he looked at the shocked faces of his crew.

‘Orrik already had an idea about Profit’s Ruin drawing aether-gold into itself. I didn’t want anyone getting his hopes up until I brought some back to be analysed. It struck me as cruel to wave the promise of a fortune in front of your noses until I was sure.’

‘I took over for Thullig and finished analysing the samples,’ Agrilo told the others. ‘When I finished, I offered up my split to help out the cap’n and the rest of the crew. I’m glad to see the rest of you feel the same.’

The cabin was buzzing with confusion for a moment. Brokrin silenced the murmuring.

‘We’ll set aside the share due to Thullig and give it to his family. Once the ship’s expenses are dealt with, then we’ll split the rest according to the charter. Each crewman or his heirs will get their due share.’ He slapped his hands down on the table and grinned at the duardin. ‘Smile, lads, we’re all rich now!’

The decision was agreeable to all, but Gotramm still had a suspicious look. He kept his eyes on Agrilo.

‘I don’t get it. You were the one who told everybody to keep quiet. That this was a side venture that was independent of the voyage and the charter. Why the change?’

‘Can’t I have a conscience without somebody trying to second-guess me?’ Agrilo objected. ‘That’s unfair. I’m a member of this crew too, you know. Can’t I feel guilty about holding out on my comrades?’

Kerrum wasn’t buying the logisticator’s speech. ‘What’d you do? Promise everybody too many shares?’ This brought a loud discussion about how much Agrilo had offered to each of his partners. After a long debate, however, no one could find anything wrong with his arithmetic. Still confused about Agrilo’s sudden altruism, the other duardin eventually left Brokrin’s cabin.

‘I’m sorry about that,’ Brokrin told Agrilo. ‘I guess they just can’t believe a logisticator can be generous.’

Agrilo smiled as he moved to the door. ‘Generous nothing,’ he said, holding up his hand. ‘I still have my dice.’

Brokrin shook his head as Agrilo left the cabin. He could see no reason to go after him. Anybody who let himself get talked into gambling with the logisticator was going to get what he deserved.

Besides, the quicker the Iron Dragon’s crew found themselves with empty pockets, the quicker they’d be ready to set sail again.

Even in bad luck, sometimes there was a silver lining.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

C L Werner’s Black Library credits include the Age of Sigmar novels Overlords of the Iron Dragon, The Tainted Heart and Beastgrave, the novella ‘Scion of the Storm’ in Hammers of Sigmar, and the Warhammer Horror novel Castle of Blood. For Warhammer he has written the novels Deathblade, Mathias Thulmann: Witch Hunter, Runefang and Brunner the Bounty Hunter, the Thanquol and Boneripper series and Warhammer Chronicles: The Black Plague series. For Warhammer 40,000 he has written the Space Marine Battles novel The Siege of Castellax. Currently living in the American south-west, he continues to write stories of mayhem and madness set in the Warhammer worlds.

An extract from The Court of the Blind King.

Prince Lurien slumped boredly into the Jade Throne of Briomdar. An artefact of whale ivory and aquamarine, it had thin strands of jade woven through an armature of living coral by the shamanic tide magicks of the isharann chorralus. The physical discomfort of that seat was offset somewhat by the novelty, and by the still-fuzzy glow of his mother’s death. Lurien smiled and shifted position. It was the ‘living’ part, he decided. The coral. In essence, he was sitting on a cunningly crafted rock, one that would regrow itself for each new generation of royalty and never be worn to fit an aelf’s shape. There was a lesson from the gods there, his mother would have said, about hubris and impermanence.

And Queen Lágethé, Tidemistress of the City of Seers, a proven authority on hubris, was now well placed to muse on impermanence.

Her soul, on the other hand…

With a weary sigh, Lurien wound a gauntleted finger through the algal strands of his periwig. The lengths were tied into knots and braids, luminescent turquoise wound with coarse-textured gold. The royal colours of Briomdar. With the bone of his jaw resting against his knuckles, he watched the performance.

The néthic dancer swirled, fishlike, between scattered groups of hooded isharann and ceremonially armoured akhelian, swimming through the deep green ethersea of the hall with the glowing chorrileum shard held above her head. Her body had been painted in mourning purple, marked further in subdued golden pigments with the runes of Erek, Thial and Néthu, with long streamers of black algal hair arranged in fishtails that swarmed over the emblems of the old gods of the dead like cleaner fish about a sacred allopex. Slave dancers of both sexes rippled through the hall in her wake, ribbons trailing from poles. With graceful tumbles, they swam together to conjure scenes from the age of eolas: red dragons breathing golden fire, white isles falling under black seas, golden goddesses devouring the world.

Surrounded by whorls of flesh and colour, the nobility of Briomdar engaged in abstinence, performing the solitary dances of the court. The avarai. The sarail. Or even, for those more daring, the iltaer, in which an aelf partnered with another on the opposite side of the hall. Every great house was accounted for but one, and yet the sense Lurien took from it was emptiness.

Nothing upset the sensibilities of the deepkin like the company of another of their kin.

Lurien watched the dancers with a curled lip. The Dance of the First Age, from the epoch before the Awakening, was a little morbid, even for his idea of entertainment.

With his left hand he wiggled the stem of his wine flute.

A girl bearing a conch shell was beside him almost immediately.

She looked about thirteen or fourteen, although her actual age was impossible to determine: namarti souls aged more quickly than the ivory-skinned perfection of their bodies could show. It was her scars, though, that fascinated Lurien. The namastir ‘half-soul’ rune branded into her forehead. The imperfect flesh that had grown over her hollow eye sockets. The hadrilkar slave collar with the swarming reef emblem of the house of Lágethé. Her bald white scalp had been polished with scented fish oils. Lurien held out his flute, already looking away. The girl flinched from the sudden movement, but didn’t allow any of the dark caulep wine to splash the turquoise-and-gold mosaic of the prince’s armour as she poured.

‘Will that be all, my prince?’ she murmured.

‘For now.’ Lurien darkened his ghoulishly white lips with wine. ‘But do not venture far.’ He watched the dancers distractedly as the conch girl eeled away.

He took a sip of the wine, amusing himself with the thought of how much more enthralling it would be to have the slaves calling him ‘my king’ after the assembral.

‘I hear that the Mirai Wardens are going to inter her above King Lorthael.’

Lurien turned to the three knights lounging variously about the foot of the throne. Each had come clad in piecemeal armour of turquoise scalloping and fine lace, the heraldries of their akhelian houses drifting with their long cloaks in the currents. The hall was a lattice woven of coral strands and gossamer algal netting that draped the original wooden scaffold of the Crannstock, and the icy currents in the ethersea that drove through its many openings never ceased. Lurien frowned down at the three. He was not sure which of them had spoken.

‘The namarti wench?’

The three akhelian laughed, a sound like the last air gurgling from the lungs of a drowning man.

‘Only you would have his mind on his slaves at a time like this,’ said Éodrain, his own gaze nevertheless lingering overlong on the departing girl. His colourless eyes were hooded, as though what he saw both bored and disappointed. His chin was pointed. The pale flush of too much caulep blued his cheeks. He drained the flute.

‘He pities you your royal duties,’ said Calohaire. A scar from a fyresteel axe cleft his left eye up the middle, which, coupled with the angular, ashen jawline of the Briomdar idoneth, lent him a permanently critical look. He glanced to Éodrain and smirked. ‘Or should that be envies?’

Éodrain’s shapeless leer took on an appearance of disgust.

Calohaire laughed coldly. ‘A king must set aside his spiritual discomfort and think of the enclave. Would you not agree, Vágös?’

The third aelf gave a disinterested grunt, his eyes fixed on the eolas dances.

‘Your problem, my prince, is that you treat the namarti almost as though they are real people with feelings,’ Calohaire went on. ‘It confuses them. They do not understand it.’

‘Do you not whip a fangmora that defies you?’ said Éodrain, speaking with a faint slur.

‘And when did you last mount a bound-beast, Éodrain?’ Calohaire laughed.

Lurien laughed as well.

Éodrain said nothing, instead summoning the conch girl for more wine.

‘Do you mean to leer through the entire rite of passage, Prince Lurien?’

An aelf in an austere harness of translucent white plate and a high-buckled cloak swam up to the throne. She was as bald and grey as a manatee, and cadaverous as a skeleton crab, all sharp bone and thin cords of muscle. Her cloak bore the spiked-gauntlet emblem of Túrach – the City of Spines. A group of asglir’akhelian in coats of silvered scales, conical helms and cloaks of identical bearing milled amongst the dancers, disarmed as the custom of assembrals required. Lurien put away his smirk. His retainers studiously occupied their gazes elsewhere.

‘Queen Anaer.’ Lurien bowed his head. ‘Do you come to request the next dance?’

Éodrain sniggered softly.

Anaer glared at him, unblinking.

‘I come because this is an assembral, and you are my host.’ She dipped her head to the precise angle of Lurien’s bow. ‘Were it not for our traditions, the descendants of the cythai would have scattered into the oceans when they first found their way from the Bright Haven and lived solitary lives until one by one they perished.’ Her mouth firmed slightly, noticeable only because of the wastage of flesh from her jawline. ‘Traditions such as rising when you address a queen.’

Lurien startled himself by rising, swiftly covering his embarrassment with a florid bow and then offering the Queen of Spines his hand once more.

Éodrain covered his mouth with his hand.

‘I am considered the finest dancer in the Jade Court,’ said Lurien.

‘Lágethé must have been very proud.’

Lurien felt the spite trickle out of him.

He sat back down.

‘I disliked your mother very much,’ said Anaer.

‘You were not alone.’

‘I found her ambition to rule vulgar. Hers and her sister’s. And I thought her energy… distasteful. You.’ She pursed her lips as she appraised him, slumped in his chair, caulep flute hanging limp between the fingers of one hand. ‘You I have not seen since the tyrant of the azydrazor invited me to witness your mhair trials.’

‘I passed, if I remember.’

‘Everyone passes mhair, Prince Lurien. It is how you pass that defines an akhelian warrior.’

Lurien spread his hands. ‘And?’

‘It can take a century to properly appreciate an ishratisar-made sword.’ Her gaze flicked up from her shallow appraisal and back to Lurien’s eyes. Her stare was lazy and unfocused. ‘A glance alone will show the faults in a bad one.’

The queen of Túrach bowed once more, then turned to rejoin the mailed knights of her entourage. Éodrain emitted a snort that Lurien choked, stillborn, with a glare.

‘I am told she does not even eat,’ Calohaire whispered. ‘They say she sustains herself on malice and the beast souls that she consumes.’

Vágös nodded as though this were truth, incontrovertible as the Light of Teclis.

‘My prince?’ Éodrain waved his fingertips across the twisted barbs that decorated Lurien’s pauldrons as a delegation of warriors armoured in lapis blue came next to pay the customary respects to the throne.

Lurien straightened, determined to make more of an impression on the king of Guethen than he had with Anaer.

‘Galrohir,’ he said, bowing his head lower.

The giant aelf’s face was marbled with scars, new and old, from a hairline nick across his pointed chin to an ugly knot of pallid lines around his eyes that were so tightly drawn that Lurien initially thought they had to be tattoos. His eyes were yellowed, his flesh sickly in hue if not obviously deficient in health. His armour was twisted and barbed to evoke angry waves, coloured every blue-green shade of a slaughter at sea. A dark haze of imprisoned magic gave him a shimmering outline, though it was not of the armour. Magic both ancient and potent abounded in the deep places of the oceans, but the Guethen infamously never employed such materials in their armour. It came from the poleaxe sheathed diagonally across his back. A hilt of merkraken bone and black jewels projected over his left shoulder.

‘King Galrohir,’ said the aelf. His voice was like shingle being slowly worked into sand. He did not bow.

Lurien bit his lip. Even Anaer had bowed.

‘I thought there were no titles amongst equals.’

‘There aren’t. You may claim equality when Vanglyr and the akhelian council emerge from conclave to give their verdict to the assembral.’ He looked around. ‘Where is the House of Vanglyr anyway? Is it not time?’

‘I am sure he will be here soon.’ Lurien held on to his smile. The verdict of the akhelian council was, of course, only a formality.

As well as he could remember from the lessons that he had cared to attend in the first instance, only a handful of heirs in the thousand-year history of Briomdar had ever been rejected by the akhelian council. The incompetent generally removed themselves from contention through death and misadventure long before the incumbent’s demise, and Lurien was nothing if not cautious in his misadventures. If that were not reassurance enough for him, and if he were of the kind that sought after reassurance, then Raidlord Vanglyr’s infamous devotion to Queen Lágethé would suffice. Lurien smiled to himself. For a race that clove to material abstinence and seclusion as its ideals, the idoneth took a rare delight in intrigue. The tyrant of the azydrazor was known to have been a frequent night guest of his queen. He would do nothing to harm her legacy now.

Lurien bowed as though accepting Galrohir’s critique. ‘I am just relieved that you could attend, King Galrohir. None of my invitations were returned.’

Galrohir crossed his arms over his chest. ‘I was out raiding. You might be familiar with the idea of it.’

‘I am passingly familiar with the notion,’ Lurien replied, more caustically than he had intended. ‘And in fact it is my opinion that the enclaves have been raiding rather too frequently of late. It is more than just fishing villages and lost sylvaneth for the picking on the shores of the Green Gulch these days. The stormclaimed have raised a mighty keep of Azyrite stone on the mouth of the River Dwell, and claim a thousand leagues of coast for their own. Those fishing villages are great towns now, with walls and armies to defend them.’

He sat forwards, feeling his cold flesh warm to the passion of the old argument.

‘And yet even as the stormed god encroaches, some worm whispers in the mind of the Gulch Empress of Coryza, telling her to cede those territories she still possesses that she might cast yet more bilgeships into the sea. She hunts us, Galrohir. They all hunt us now. Skaven submersibles prowl the shallows of Dwy-Hor. Slaaneshi seekers and soulblight agents of the Undying King pick through the ruins of your raids for whatever clues to our existence you leave behind.’

He slumped back in his throne, sneering.

‘Your akhelian have done more than any to see our namarti…’ He waved his hand vaguely ‘…problem deferred, but enough is enough. A strong king of Briomdar might be wise to rein in the warriors of Guethen.’

Lurien’s retainers were holding their breath. For a moment, he feared he might have gone too far. Assembral was one of the few occasions when a king of the idoneth was permitted to challenge another. By his reputation, the king of Guethen was probably brutish enough to put that little-used law to the test. Slowly, Galrohir began to smile. It was the cruellest, most murderous expression that Lurien had ever seen outside of his own mirror.

‘That is a fine cut to your eye I see, Lord Calohaire.’ Galrohir looked past Lurien to address his retainer. ‘Taken in Vanglyr’s latest raid, correct? I heard you rode your fangmora against the Okthallin lodges with great skill.’ Lurien bristled at the offhand dismissal. His retainer looked genuinely pleased that the king of Guethen knew his name.

‘It was taken,’ said Lurien, clearly enunciating each word lest Galrohir be in danger of misunderstanding, ‘because you and the raidlord have left nothing more on the coast to be won. The soulscryers instead guided Vanglyr’s phalanx onto the mountain lodges of the fyreslayers. Hardly easy pickings.’

‘The only things that come easily are those which no one values,’ said Galrohir, and smiled. ‘Teclis, his fourth lesson to the Awakened. Teclis it was who drew the cythai from the belly of the Gorged God, but it was his brother, Tyrion, who stayed the god’s hand when he saw the cursed things he had made. Blindness, we are, as much as hubris.’

‘I never took you for a student of the gods,’ said Lurien.

Galrohir tilted his head back, as if to look down his hooked half-moon nose at the enthroned prince. ‘When you take a warrior’s soul, he will insist you fight for it. Remember that.’ He turned from Lurien, then nodded. ‘Lord Calohaire.’

Lurien trembled with barely suppressed venom as Galrohir made his departure. ‘Who does that ugly gathal think he is?’

‘The king of Guethen,’ said Calohaire. ‘Perhaps we should not put ourselves on his bad side.’

‘When did you become so friendly with Galrohir?’ said Éodrain, peering over the rim of his flute.

‘I have never met any knight of Guethen before now.’

‘So he just…’ Éodrain waved airily. ‘…heard of your deeds, did he?’

‘Fuéthain,’ Lurien swore.

‘My prince?’ said Calohaire.

‘There are barely a hundred true-souled idoneth in that sulphurous pit to the underworld they call an enclave, you know. And he thinks he can intimidate me.’

‘But over twenty hardened namarti battalions,’ said Calohaire. ‘Their raids bring in a great number of sou–’

‘Yes, yes, yes.’ Lurien wormed into the back of his throne. ‘His legions of conch girls and eolas dancers terrify me. Guethen is an angry little power that Lágethé tolerated because the growth of the enclaves was in her interests at the time. No. It is only Túrach that comes close to being Briomdar’s rival for influence in the Green Gulch.’

‘And you and Anaer seem to get along so well.’ Éodrain smirked and sipped at his wine.

‘No matter.’ Lurien waved his hand dismissively. ‘Disputes are heated and untidy. Anaer hates that more than she hates me. Mahbòr is… well, he’s Mahbòr.’ They all nodded sagely at that wisdom. ‘And Aunt Laramé loves me.’ He smiled at the rare feeling of genuine affection. Deciphering the family trees of the idoneth nobility was like trying to pick salt out of water. With so few healthy-souled children born and, purely by the arithmetic involved, most of those being born to namarti, the entire edifice of house and heritage was a fascinating charade of adoption and strategic marriage designed to generate the appearance of noble lineages dating back to the cythai. Laramé and Lágethé had been something rarer even than a true-souled child.

They had been blood twins. Isharann queens.

‘The queen of Elgaen would never go against her sister’s heir.’

‘Where is she?’ Calohaire muttered, still glaring ice daggers at Éodrain.

‘She would not want the others to see her grieve,’ said Lurien, his eyes distant. ‘Anaer in particular. They would not understand her loss.’

‘I don’t recall you being so interested in politics at the azydrazor,’ said Calohaire.

‘I simply never set my mind to it before. It’s really not complicated.’

‘The azydrazor was a long time ago for us all,’ Vágös mused.

‘It speaks!’ declared Éodrain, the caulep raising his voice too loud.

Vágös bared translucent teeth, and then, saying nothing further, turned back to the gathering. His mouth parted slightly in surprise.

‘As Mathlann protects…’

‘What?’ said Lurien, sitting up.

‘Oh my,’ said Éodrain.

Calohaire pointed. ‘King Mahbòr has arrived.’

Surrounded by a globe of silent knights in beryl-green warplate and circlets of thorns, the Laughing King of Dwy-Hor danced a traíga quickstep that was completely out of tempo with his fellow guests and the dour mood of the assembral. His partner was a female akhelian in a wooden masque and a long cloak of woven sea-green leaves. Her bare arms were tattooed with a spiralling spread of thorns, one hand upon her king’s shoulder, the other around his waist.

Lurien watched in scandalised fascination.

‘They are… touching.’

‘Is that the queen of Dwy-Hor?’ said Calohaire.

‘No,’ said Lurien. ‘Mahbòr is unwed.’

‘That is not what I heard,’ said Éodrain.

‘No one cares what you heard, Éodrain,’ said Calohaire. ‘Still less where you heard it.’

‘I heard that he wed that tree spirit of his,’ said Éodrain, his voice low.

‘Do not be absurd,’ said Calohaire.

‘It is true.’

‘It is not.’

‘They call her Queen of the Deepgrove.’

‘Enough,’ said Lurien. ‘All of you.’ He stared into the Deep Nothing, frowning through one of Lágethé’s half-remembered contemplation exercises. ‘If there’s one thing I do not want to be thinking about right now, it’s that.’ The three akhelian chuckled, equal parts disgust and lurid fascination. ‘In any case, I heard he adopted her as his daughter.’

Éodrain lowered his caulep flute. ‘He wouldn’t. Even he wouldn’t.’

‘Wouldn’t he?’ said Lurien. ‘Why then does he keep her?’

Vágös shook his head. ‘She is a pet. A trophy. A reminder of his last raid on the Cueth’ene.’

‘Why would he want to remember?’ said Éodrain.

The other akhelian shrugged.

‘They do things differently in Dwy-Hor,’ Lurien mused.

An explosion of brightly coloured heralklir fish burst from the hall’s pearl-inlaid doorway before Lurien could continue. The fish had been bred by the enclave’s embailors over hundreds of generations for their short memories, the tendency to scatter from any significant grouping of aelves and the royal turquoise and gold of their scales. The school ribboned and ballooned towards the heralklirs’ favoured hiding places in the ceiling’s arches, stilling sombre dances and leaving hushed conversation in their wake. Lurien closed his mouth and turned to the doorway, to the armoured aelves whose procession had disturbed the tiny heralds.

Vanglyr.

And the akhelian council.

The prince’s retinue pulled themselves upright and surreptitiously concealed their wine flutes. Despite every conscious effort to remain seated and prideful, Lurien found himself straightening, pushing himself up to hover in the ethersea above the Jade Throne. It did not matter how long it had been since an akhelian passed his mhair. Vanglyr Fellglaive, raidlord of Briomdar and tyrant of the azydrazor, still had the power to command absolute obedience from his former charges.

Where the Fellglaive passed, the water bubbled, agitated even under the tremendous pressures of the ocean floor to boiling by the power he wore. The unformed magic that filled the deepest oceans of the Mortal Realms manifested in numerous ways. In planktonic form it fed the mouths of the great behemoths that prowled below the depths of mortal prey. It sustained empires of daemons unaligned to any god, whose powers waxed and waned with the tides. And it would, in rare conjunctions of the spheres, break in apocalyptic storms that could scour an ocean and leave not a ripple upon its surface. In some rare places it deposited as a metal that some jewel of intuition in the idoneth psyche had bade them to name ithilmhair. Armour forged from its seasilver scales would withstand a blow from Sigmar’s hammer. A blade of it would cleave any ward.

Noble guests and namarti performers alike drifted into a wide circle as the akhelian came to face the Jade Throne. The tyrant said nothing until the hall was quiet and everybody was still. Though Vanglyr was a tall aelf, he did not loom like Galrohir. Rather, he was a cold force of charisma around which brine might freeze and mortal souls hasten to obey. Only the néthic dancer bearing Lágethé’s chorrileum shard continued to twist and gyrate around the circle of souls.

‘For eighty-three years has Queen Lágethé ruled Briomdar,’ said Vanglyr, his voice so resonant and deep that Lurien felt it almost as a vibration on his skin rather than in his ears. ‘She oversaw the growth of the isharann túrscoll to one without rival in the oceans of the seven realms. And she bade Briomdar rise from the old wood citadel of the Crannstock to an enclave of a hundred thousand souls.’ The namarti dancers bowed their heads in homage. A handful of Briomdain nobles mimed silent handclaps. ‘And it was under her rule that Briomdar eclipsed her sister enclave, Túrach, as the pre-eminent civilisation in the Green Gulch.’

Lurien sought out Anaer and her retinue, eager to see what the Queen of Spines made of that remark, only to find her quietly conferring with Galrohir. Both their expressions were inscrutable. Lurien frowned, wondering what those two could possibly have to talk about.

‘But now her body is empty.’ Vanglyr’s voice lowered still further. He growled as he surveyed the gathered nobility. ‘Her soul.’ He raised a hook-taloned gauntlet and gestured to the maroon-painted macabre, the néthic dancer, who swirled uncaringly about the hall, higher, higher in the ethersea where the full stillness of the nobles’ attention could follow, holding the glowing chorrileum stone aloft. ‘Her soul goes to blessed isolation. Lágethé need feel no more.’ If the tyrant suffered any pain at the loss of his lover and queen, there was no way to know it. ‘Briomdar must find its way without her guidance.’

Lurien put his hand to the turquoise-and-gold dominoes that adorned his breastplate. His heart was pounding underneath, so hard it seemed almost perverse that he could not feel it through the metal.

‘I am ready to guide it,’ he said.

Silence overtook the hall.

Anticipation was a vernal tide, swelling around him, bearing him up, lifting him high. He was drunk on caulep, a little, tipsy with expectancy. If there was one thing in the Mortal Realms that could sweeten becoming king of Briomdar, it was being crowned so by Vanglyr Fellglaive.

Lurien closed his eyes.

There was a hiss as an ithilmhair blade left its scabbard.

‘By the custom of assembral,’ said Vanglyr, ‘I challenge your claim to your mother’s crown.’

Click here to buy The Court of the Blind King.

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 Johan Grenier.

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ISBN: 978-1-78999-324-0

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