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The King of Black Crag - Guy Haley

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THE KING OF BLACK CRAG

Guy Haley

Gorfang Rotgut, King of Black Crag and lord of the Red Fangs Tribe, sat in murderous silence. The great throne room was almost empty, just his majesty, his overrunt Gabble, and a couple of Gorfang’s big uns lingering by the hall’s giant doors, trying not to fall asleep.

And the entertainment: Birgit Boggle’s Bouncing Gobbo Entertainanters. They pranced around and showed their behinds, bells on hats a-jingling. They sang rude songs about dwarfs, which might have been funny had they all sung the same song at the same time. The defaced carvings of hall’s walls echoed to the screeching of goblin song and the unpleasant warblings of squig pipes. The noise was enough to deafen a troll. A shaved dwarf, broken in body and spirit, danced miserably on the end of a long chain. Every time he slowed down, one of Birgit’s boys poked him with a cruel spear, and he moaned hopelessly. His body was covered in scars, his ears mutilated.

Swathed in filthy tapestries against the cold, the battered crown of the long-dead dwarf king of the Crag balanced on his pointy head, Gorfang weathered the racket of with remarkable calm. At least, he had not yet killed the squealing troupe.

As far as Gorfang was concerned, the definition of entertainment was being stretched beyond tolerance by Birgit’s boys. Being an orc, Gorfang was not overly concerned with such things as definitions. He certainly was not concerned with tolerance, probably not even entertainment, come to think of it, at least not entertainment such as Birgit offered. Rending and maiming were more to his taste. Not even the leaden dance of the dwarf raised his spirits.

What should have concerned everyone was that Gorfang was beginning to contemplate a spot of rending and maiming right there and then. Gorfang glowered at the capering goblins. One caught his red eyes. The runt’s smile froze, and he faltered. His juggling balls thumped to the floor and he wobbled on the shoulders of the runt he was riding. A third slipped on a ball and banged into the juggling goblin’s mount, dropping his squig pipe. They collapsed on one another. Quicker than seemed possible, all twelve of Birgit Boggle’s Bouncing Gobbo Entertainanters were tangled in a heap, shouting high-pitched imprecations at each other. Within seconds they were punching and biting, rolling about in the filth and bones of the floor.

They said things like: ‘That was your fault!’ and ‘Nah! Shut it’ and ‘I’s gonna bite your bleedin’ nose off Klatter!’ and consequently ‘Nyargh! Ged ob be node!’ The dwarf cringed, its ruined face confused and frightened.

Gorfang half-smiled at the fight, but it slipped off his face before it could become properly established, and he growled and sat forward on his furs. He tensed, bending the ornate golden cup in his hand out of shape. Gabble recognised the warning signs and clapped loudly. His ears twitched in annoyance when Birgit’s boys paid no attention, so he lifted the long skirt of his filthy overrunt’s garb and began kicking. He wore heavy iron boots under his robes, did Gabble, right and proper for kicking runts into shape or bruising the shins of aggressive orcs. As all runts need kicking and all orcs are aggressive, Gabble used his boots rather a lot, and was therefore skilled in their application. He huffed as he booted; too many squig snacks and mushroom delights sat in the rolled fat about his midriff. Other goblins said that being overrunt had been good to Gabble, but the truth was he ate to dull his terror, and he was terrified often. Being overrunt was nothing like as easy a job as he had thought. The skills needed were many, the tasks arduous and complicated, the life expectancy short.

Gabble was smart enough not to let Gorfang know any of this. He soon had the Birgit’s tatty, motley-clad crew in a line. With a series of hissed curses and cuffs around the head he drove the troupe out of the hall. One of Gorfang’s guards kicked at the goblin holding the dwarf’s chain as he passed. The goblin dodged out of the way and the big un missed. The goblin blew a raspberry and tittered his way from the hall.

The doors creaked closed behind them.

Gorfang passed one huge hand over his face, pulling down hard on his gnarly green skin till his cheeks nearly snagged on his tusks. He cleared his throat and stared hard at his overrunt. ‘What did you do that for, Gabble?’ he said. His expression spoke of danger, lots of it.

Gabble’s stomach rumbled. ‘Eh heh. You looked like you was about to kill ’em, your great greenness.’

Gorfang nodded his barrel-sized head. ‘Well I was. They was rubbish. I might have had a bit of fun squeezing their little heads until they went squelch. You said entertainment. That was not entertaining, runt, not one bit. You mess up like that again, I’ll be looking for a new overrunt.’

Gabble shrugged insouciantly, although ever fibre of his gobliny being was screaming at him to run. ‘Dancing runts is hard to come by. Sorry, boss. Waste of teeth to squish their heads. And, er, that dwarf was funny, wasn’t he?’ Gabble gave an experimental titter.

‘Is it a waste now?’ Gorfang scratched under his chin with a dirty talon. It made a sound like a rasp on steel. He squinted at the runt. ‘I decides round here what is a waste of teeth and what is not. You want me to squeeze your head instead then? Until?’

‘Until what boss?’

‘Until it goes “squelch”.’

Gabble laughed as if Gorfang were joking. ‘Very good, boss. You want to kick something to death? I can get a couple of real squeakers sent up for you if you wants?’ Gabble leaned toward his master, his hands steepled, his mean goblin face the very image of solicitude under his ridiculous hat.

‘I hate that hat,’ Gorfang growled. ‘I hate you.’ He threw his cup down his throne room. It clattered off the steps of the dais, spilling fungus beer in a fan on the floor. Gabble’s ears twitched as the cup flew past his head, but he did not move. To allow himself a fully fledged flinch when his boss was in a mood like this would be fatal. Gorfang snatched the crown off his head and cast it onto the filthy flagstones. Gabble quivered under his robes as Gorfang unfolded himself from the throne. Up and up he went, like he would never stop standing and just keep on getting bigger. His spine unbent and he was as tall as a man, his legs straightened and he was big as a very big orc, then he stood up properly straight, which is something an orc will rarely do – crooked legs like ramrods, hunched shoulders arched back. The tapestries slipped from his enormous muscles and he raised his fists over his head, and then he was as big as an ogre. He roared, loud enough to bother Mork himself.

This is what Gorfang Rotgut, king of Black Crag, sometimes called Troll-Eater, looked like: huge, for starters. As tall as the tallest thing under the mountains, nearly as tall, it seemed to poor little Gabble, as the mountains themselves. His shoulders were as broad as the pass below the fortress, his head as big as the moon. His jaw was long and had many fine teeth. Two impressive, iron-capped tusks jutted out when his mouth was closed and eight smaller tusks were visible when he shouted or roared, which was often. His skull was broad, his brows unusually beetled, even for an orc, his eyes glowed dull red from under them when he was angry, and blazed when he was fighting. He wore scale mail and a leering face upon his belly plate – part of his famous magical armour. His boots were large enough for Gabble to set up house in. There were not many orcs of any kind either brave or stupid enough to duel with Gorfang. Stacks of the skulls of those who had tried lined niches in the walls.

‘Grah!’ shouted Gorfang. He glowered down at the goblin from on high, his eyes like two red fires in the caves of an impossible, green mountain peak. ‘I’m bored, Gabble! Bored! I don’t like being bored!’

Gabble slunk backward, his ears flattened. His fingers strayed to the bloodstain on his robe, all that was left of the last overrunt. He allowed himself a little sigh of relief as Gorfang moved off, clenching and unclenching his fists.

Gorfang slammed a ringed fist into the wall. A chip of stone fell from it. He paced up and down the cracked slabs of the dais, kicking detritus out of the way.

There was a clatter as a group of big uns ran into the hall.

‘Boss! We heard something, everything alright?’ said their leader.

Gorfang shook his head. ‘If it weren’t I’d be dead by now, so slow you lot are.’ He strode down the steps and the length of the hall. He drew his fist back as he came, and punched the big uns’ boss square in the face. The force of the blow pushed in the nose guard of the Boss’s helmet. He went down with a noise reminiscent of a terminal accident in an armoury.

‘Typical,’ said Gorfang. He shuddered and snorted like a bull. ‘Not even big uns have got any fight in them these days.’

The outburst of violence had calmed Gorfang, and he relaxed back into the usual stooped posture of the orcs. ‘Thing is, runt, there’s no one left to fight! No stunties this way for months.’

‘You beat them good boss, they won’t come back!’ said Gabble with forced gusto. ‘When they tried to come in through the mine workings last month, all them guns and armoured beardies…’

‘Hur hur hur,” Gorfang laughed. ‘Now that was a fight, eh? And what a stunty bake after!’

Gabble was pleased by Gorfang’s change in mood, and seized his chance to avoid a beating. ‘The ratties won’t show themselves neither, will they? Last lot tried that…’ He gestured to a white, horned ratskin rug laid on the floor close to the throne with a vicious smile. He nodded encouragingly as Gorfang grinned at the memory.

‘True, true,’ said Gorfang. ‘Done them in good, didn’t I?’ He chuckled hoarsely, but then he sighed, and Gabble’s ears drooped. ‘And the humies won’t try anything. Too busy tripping over their feet to give me gold so’s they can go out east, and them ogres, they wants me to pay to fight with me…’

He strode over to the looking hole occupying the whole of the wall behind the throne. Black Crag had once had scores of these ornate traceries of stone. Many had been bashed in by the orcs or broken by earthquakes. Where the tracery survived, their crystal glazing had long gone. Gabble couldn’t think why the stunties wanted so many looking holes, as a result, although Black Crag was lighter than its underground nature would suggest, it was freezing cold for nine months of the year, the broken windows allowing mountain winds free access to its deepest recesses. Stupid, if you asked him, and he’d tell you it was so even if you didn’t.

The looking holes afforded sweeping views up and down Death Pass and out onto the Badlands beyond. On a clear day, it was possible to see a hundred miles or more, but now it was night and Gorfang was not interested in what lay outside the pass. He stared out into the dark. Tiny lights wound their ways along the floor of the pass, following the old dwarf road to the Dark Lands. Greenskins of all kinds, passing back and forth over the mountains, even some foolhardy human caravans with strong guards and deep pockets to pay Gorfang’s tolls. To the left and the right of the window, the mountain’s flanks were alive with the flames of campfires and torches, as was the ruined town outside the main gates of the Crag, the camp of greenskin freebooters and other creatures drawn in by Gorfang’s reputation.

He wasn’t looking at this either. He was looking across the pass to the black shapes of the mountains on the other side.

Death Pass was broad, twenty miles maybe where the Crag was. Diagonally opposite, a little to the east, hidden behind three snow-clad peaks, was the great city of the Eight Peaks. Domain, it was said, of a new power.

‘There’s always that runt,’ Gorfang said thoughtfully. He grasped the ruin of dwarf stonework and ducked through to the wide balcony outside. One half had crumbled away and the remaining part had been reinforced with crooked timbers and rusted iron. Heads in various states of decay were mounted on spikes along the balustrade. Some of Gorfang’s large collection of banners snapped in the wind. ‘I could go pay him a visit. That might be fun.’

Gabble popped his head out of a hole low down the fretwork. ‘Boss, boss, think about it! They say he’s got the whole city under his control, or near enough. They say he’s beat the ratties and the stunties are afraid of him! They say he’s the craftiest goblin what ever there was.’

‘What’s his name again?’

‘What, him? The runt boss? Skarsnik, boss.’

Gorfang shook his head. ‘Cave runt taking a name like that. Not right. That’s an orc name that. Perhaps I should go give him some educay… educat… edu…’

‘Education, boss?’

‘Yeah that. Don’t finish me words for me Gabble. I might see what kind of squelch your head makes yet.’

‘Sorry boss.’

‘What we know about him, Gabble? What do we know about this cave runt Skarsnik?’

Gabble shook his head sadly. ‘Not much boss. I sent me best spies in and they sent them back. In pieces.’

Gorfang laughed. ‘In pieces, eh?’

‘Yeah, marinated in fungus beer. We ate them the other day. Right tasty.’

‘And not poisoned.’

Gabble wanted to say, ‘Obviously not’, but wisely refrained. ‘Nah, I had Fugwik try it first.’

‘Don’t seem like his style,’ said Gorfang. ‘I hear he’s a bit crafty, that one. What’s he up to?’

Gabble wanted to say, ‘But I just said that, boss,’ but he didn’t say that either. In general, Gabble was better at holding his tongue and not cheeking his boss than most goblins. It was how he had become overrunt in the first place, and why he was still alive. ‘Yeah boss. He is.’

Gorfang stared. The far side of the pass was unlit. Gorfang’s boys advertised their presence for all to see with fires and banners. Skarsnik’s side was dark as a slab of fresh cut midnight. True, thought the orc king, he’s not been in charge long, and most of the old stunty delvings over there are inside the stone, but there used to be fires up there. ‘Used to be lots of them,’ he said aloud.

‘Your royal greenness?’

‘Fires. Lots of fires. None now. You reckon he’s watching us?’

‘Probably, boss.’

‘Hmmm.’

Gabble gave an inward sigh. Gorfang was more thoughtful than your usual orc, and prone to voicing his interminable internal debates aloud.

‘Thing is, I is very, very bored. I could do with a good war. You do with a good war, Gabble?’

‘Oh yes your highestness, that would be fun,’ said Gabble, who really couldn’t think of anything worse than a good war, especially if he had to fight in it.

‘But if we has ourselves a good war, all them gobboes and others will sneak through the pass without paying up, and that won’t do. I likes gold.’

‘Yes boss.’

‘On the other hand, I can’t be doing with no uppity runt taking an orc name and thinking he’s the boss on me bleedin’ doorstep! Gabble – that’s a proper goblin name that, not, not… Skarsnik!’ Gorfang spat.

‘Thanks boss. Er boss, perhaps, you know, you could team up? I hear a little rumour the stunties have come back over there, got ’emselves dug in in the old castle up top. Give them a kicking together. You could–’

Gabble’s advice was cut short by an outraged bark. ‘Me, Gorfang Rotgut, baddest orc warlord of the biggest orc fort in all the Badlands and mountains, chief of the Red Fangs and boss of the Broken Toofs and a whole lot others besides, team up with a goblin? A cave runt?’

‘Er, yes boss,’ said Gabble, who suddenly felt very vulnerable with his head poking through the lattice. He pulled it out and came through to the edge of the balcony. Not too close to the warlord – the overrunt before the one before Gabble had been pitched over the edge by a drunken Gorfang one day to prove that goblins could not, in actual fact, fly. There was a crusty patch on the back of Gabble’s robe that he thought might once have been his predecessor’s brain. Nothing frightened Gabble more. Thinking about it made him feel ravenous.

‘War and fun, but no gold. Or no war, no fun and loads of gold. Or,’ Gorfang grumbled, ‘team up to fight the stunties and have everyone say I’s gone weak and them get all uppity and me have to slap them all down. Hmmm. You know what, Gabble?’

‘No, boss?’ Gabble said.

Gorfang’s top lip lifted in a smile, exposing his impressive collection of teeth. ‘I’m going to have to see old Zarrgakk, ain’t I?’

‘Boss!’ squeaked Gabble, pointing upwards. ‘Go all the way up there, up the Twisty Stairs, past the Wyvern Crag, over the Cold Place, into the Deadly Cave, past the Smasher and into the crazy wizard’s lair?’

‘You left out the Troll Hole.’

‘But boss–’

‘Shut it, Gabble. It sounds like fun. Get me armour sorted, and get me Red Fang. Have it ready for tomorrow. All shiny and polished like. I wants to look me best.’

‘Yes, boss.’

Gorfang stroked his chin. ‘Team up with the runt. Might work. Not a bad idea, Gabble. We’ll see what Zarrgakk has to say for hisself on that score.’

‘Thanks boss.’

‘Shut up, Gabble. I hate you.’

The giant orc pushed his way past Gabble, leaving the goblin’s sensitive nose full of his offensive, frightening reek. On shaky legs, the overrunt went to obey his master.

That is, once he’d got his own business out of the way.

Gabble hurried down the secret steps as quick as he could, his bare feet slapping on the stone. He’d left his iron boots at the top under a rock, the noise they’d make clanging down here would be sure to bring something on his head. Whether it was an orc or a scumbloid, it wouldn’t be nice. Without his kicking boots he felt extremely vulnerable. It was dark and mildewed on the secret stair. Damp things brushed his face, and if he stopped and held his breath he could hear something nasty scrabbling about in the dark. He didn’t like the secret steps, not one bit. They were dark and stank funny. What with the scare the king had given him today, it was altogether too much. Now he was all alone, he permitted himself to whimper. The sound escaped his lips as his feet touched each slimy step. It comforted him. It made him feel like a proper goblin to whimper. ‘What is I doing?’ he muttered. ‘I ain’t no overrunt, I should never have come here!’

It was too late for all that now. He was the overrunt of Black Crag. Stupid, he thought, where your ambitions can get you. Like dead. He should have stayed out in the Badlands, strangling travellers for coins. Happy days!

So he whimpered and he took comfort from whimpering.

He stopped when he caught the reek of fungus pipe smoke on the air.

Gabble slowed, his ears went back. He sniffed cautiously. He pulled a face, stuck his tongue out over his sharp teeth and wiped it on his sleeve. The smell of the smoke was bitter and clung to his throat.

Only cave runts smoked that muck.

He came around a curve and found the smoker, who sat cross-legged atop a large deathshroom that had not been there last week. The goblin’s long robes covered every part of him but his nose, his pipe and the hand that held the pipe. A dirty, yellow, pointy hood adorned with the badges of the Crooked Moon tribe towered over his head, tall as a goblin in itself.

Cocky, thought Gabble, wearing a bosshat that big. His nose wrinkled. Cave runts smelled peculiar: all mould, cold and damp. And this one was no normal cave runt. He smelled of magic too.

Sure enough, as Gabble approached, a green light glowed out from nowhere in particular, casting creepy shadows and spoiling any chance Gabble had of seeing into the cave runt’s hood.

‘Hello there, Gabble,’ said the shaman amicably. ‘You got something to tell me?’

‘Where’s Guk?’

‘Now, who do you think pays Guk?’ said the shaman. ‘I’s come isstead, haven’t I?’ The shaman’s accent was strange and musical to Gabble’s ears: cave runt talk. ‘Sometimes, you got to do your own dirty work, oh yus. You know about that don’t you, Gabble? Creeping down them smelly old stairs in the middle of the night.’

Gabble stopped a few steps up from the cave runt. He put one hand to the wall and snatched it back; it was streaming with freezing water. ‘I dunno what you is talking about.’

‘Oh come on, Gabble, don’t be shy, we’s all gobboes here, innit?’ The shaman was much bigger than most of the night goblins Gabble had met. One thing Gabble liked about coming down the secret stair to see Skarsnik’s spies was that whoever was at the bottom was going to be much smaller than Gabble, but not today. This loss of advantage put him on edge.

‘You is a cave runt!’ snarled Gabble. ‘We is nothing alike at all.’

The light flared brighter. Shapes appeared in the smoke. Gabble didn’t like to look at them too closely. The figure withdrew his fungus cob and pointed the stem at Gabble. Gabble’s ears flattened involuntarily against his head and he hissed.

‘Now now, you know we night goblins don’t like to be called cave runts, and I is bigger than you,’ said the night goblin. ‘So mind your manners. I’ll let it go this time. Don’t make me turn you into something… unpleasant, cos I can and I will. Let’s be friendly, eh?’

Gabble peered down the passage past the shaman. It was really dark down there, and smelled bad. No one knew about the secret stair. If anything happened, he’d disappear for good.

Gabble nodded hesitantly. ‘Alright, but I ain’t doing nothing funny. I ain’t here to sell out Gorfang, just the usual reports.’ Saying Gorfang’s name when he was about sneaky business made Gabble quail inside. He was afraid the warlord would hear somehow, although that was ridiculous.

The night goblin burped. The smell of stale fungus beer washed over Gabble. ‘That’s better. So what are you here for then? You ought to work for Skarsnik, he’s a gobbo. Better serve your own kind. There’s a new king in these parts and he’s less likely to cook you up for tea than the old Troll-Eater up there.’

Gabble shook his head. ‘Gorfang’s my boss. That’s the way it is. It’s like I told that Guk, I just want to make sure your boss and my boss stay mates; having them biff it out will be real bad for business.’

‘Indeedy,’ said the night goblin. ‘What you got then? Let’s keep the peace. Stunties about, you know. I thought mebbe we’s could talk about them and their stupid beards, oh yus.’

‘Well,’ said Gabble. He sat down with a heavy sigh. ‘Funny we should be talking about war and stunties and that…’

There was a glint of teeth and eye in the shaman’s hood. ‘Oh, do tell.’

‘Right then youse lot,’ shouted Gorfang. Goblins bustled around him, fastening buckles and strapping on the thick metal plates of the Evil Sun armour. The sun was coming up, its light blazing through the eastern half of the great window. The throne room was full of orcs grumbling about being rousted from their pits so early. ‘I is going for a special chat with Zarrgakk the Mad. I expect I’ll be back before the day after the one that comes after tomorrow, probably by teatime.’

Puzzled orcs looked at each other and shrugged.

Gorfang punched a goblin and shouted. ‘I means soon, you zogging idiots! No fighting while I’m not here. No wandering off. No starting any wars without my says so, that kind of thing.’ Gorfang was positively cheerful today; a bad sign, as far as Gabble was concerned.

‘Aren’t you going to take one of the lads with you boss?’ said Gabble.

‘What? Nah, where’s the fun in that? Besides, Zaggrakk don’t like visitors, be stupid to wind him up taking a whole bunch of boys with me. Anyway, if I go without me big uns, anything big I finds I get to kill all on me own, don’t I?’ From the runts, Gorfang took his shield emblazoned with the Evil Sun, and swung it onto his back.

‘But boss, it’s dangerous up there, all them monsters and that. You sure you ought to go on your own?’

‘Eh?’ Gorfang looked puzzled and then laughed so hard he shook the armoury runts off his limbs. ‘I’m not going on me own, Gabble. Who’s going to carry me lunch?’

Gabble felt the colour drain from his face. He suddenly felt very, very hungry.

‘Yeah, that’s right overrunt,’ said Gorfang wickedly. He bent forward and jabbed Gabble hard in the chest. ‘You’re me chief servant. You’re coming with me! Right then.’ Gorfang snatched up Red Fang, his enormous serrated sword, from the back of two struggling gobboes. He gave it an experimental swish through the air. Two more goblins approached Gabble. They were carrying a heavy backpack that smelled of food and was hung all about with torches, pans and bundles of dry mushroom firesticks. They giggled as they helped Gabble struggle into it. He wheezed as he took its weight, his legs sagging with it. He snapped at them, ordering a couple off to fetch him his warm coat and a bottle of firebrew.

‘Remember you lot, any bother and I’ll break your heads,’ said Gorfang, waggling Red Fang at his orcs. He shoved his way through the crowd, slapping favoured lackeys on the back, punching others in the head.

Way too cheerful, thought Gabble.

‘Come on then Gabble! Get a move on!’

‘Give us… a minute…’ he panted.

‘Er, nah,’ said Gorfang. ‘Get a move on. Now.’

Gabble’s goblin lackeys returned. They pushed a bottle of firebrew and a coat into Gabble’s hands. He slipped out of his pack quickly, and put the coat on before struggling himself back into the backpack straps. Gabble uncorked the bottle and took a quick swig. The warmth of it spread through his body, pushing the weight of the pack back until he could just about bear it. He stood unsteadily. Spurred by the firebrew and the warlord’s glare, Gabble staggered forward. Orcs laughed at him as he wobbled his way out.

Gabble clung to the steps of the Twisty Stairs. ‘Stairs’ was a grand term for a bunch of ice-covered, badly formed stone steps that had been half-heartedly hacked out of the rock four hundred years ago. The faces of them had probably never been flat, and they had been worn to a deadly angle by generations of greenskin warlords who’d passed this way. The greatest shamans had always chosen the mountaintop as their home.

Gabble went on all fours, his nails and knees gripping the cold rock so hard they hurt. Gorfang was unbothered by it all, striding from canted surface to treacherous stone with the thumping tread of the happy orc. Gabble hadn’t seen him in such a good mood for a long time. The orc stopped and turned back.

‘Look at that view, Gabble! You can see nearly the whole pass from up here! Wor, it makes me want to get a bunch of boys together, march out into the Badlands and knock some heads together!’

‘Er, if it’s alright with you boss, I’ll just catch up a bit while you have a gander.’ The goblin wheezed on up the stairs. The pack was a deadweight. He deeply regretted his fondness for roasted squigling.

Gorfang stopped smiling. ‘What did I say? Was it “You do what you like?” No, it bleeding well wasn’t! What did I say?’

Gabble suppressed a whimper. He looked back, and wished he hadn’t.

The Twisty Stairs spiralled away so precipitously that Gabble had to swallow his breakfast again. They waggled down the mountain, as uncertain as a serpent’s tail. Gabble could all too easily imagine it twitching and shaking him off. At the base of the steps, a spur of rock as big as a giant rose up. It was carved into a stunty’s face, but the statue had been cleft in two long ago, the raw rock where it had been broken rubbed smooth by the ceaseless wind. A diagonal line cut it clean across from right eye to chin, the other half was rubble. They’d come out there, from the door in the stunty’s mouth. There was a broken balustrade of stone around a platform to the side of the statue; perhaps it had once been a lookout post or something. The orcs had built the steps, not the stunties.

Below the platform was what made Gabble’s stomach lurch. The mountain stopped so abruptly it made it look like they were floating on a stone in the sky. He could see nothing else of the mountainside. Only the pass floor, far, far below, so far distant its detail was blue and blurry. Thick pine forest raw with scars from Greenskin axes, scabby moorland and the broad wound of the old dwarf road. Gabble saw something tiny moving on it, like worms. His head spun with vertigo as he realised they were streams of goblins or other creatures passing to and from the Dark Lands, so far away they didn’t look like gobboes at all.

Gabble whimpered and squeezed his eyes closed. Tears leaked out from their corners. He gripped the rock hard. He could just imagine Gorfang eyeing him, wondering if height made a difference to the flight capabilities of goblins, and…

‘Gabble! Oi, Gabble!’

‘Yes, boss?’ he said, as loudly as he could.

‘You gonna spend all day gawking or are we getting a move on?’

‘Sorry boss, coming boss, just admiring the view, boss.’

‘Yeah, well, do it on your own time.’

Gabble let out a quiet squeak of relief. He didn’t open his eyes until he’d turned back around and was facing up the mountain.

It was getting dark and colder by the time they went round the final bend of the Twisty Stairs. Snow blew at them in stinging flurries, cutting down the visibility. Rather than making the drop at the side of the steps seem less threatening, the blankness of the air had made the fear worse for Gabble, and the last half an hour had been a torture of chill misery, utter terror and hunger pangs. Gabble heaved a sigh of relief as the steps turned from the cliff face and cut into the rock. They came to an end, becoming a path that sloped comparatively gently upwards, comforting walls of stone rising up either side of it. Gabble sat down hard. He made sure Gorfang wasn’t looking before he pulled out his firebrew from his belt. His hands were shaking with more than the cold as he uncorked it and gulped it down. He sighed gratefully as its warmth and strength filled his limbs and tingled their way up his nose. Not his fingers though. They were as numb as rocks. He swore at himself for not bringing some gloves.

Gorfang had gone on ahead. Gabble scrambled to his feet and set off after him. The orc warlord was shouting. At first Gabble thought he was being shouted at, but then he realised Gorfang was not addressing him at all.

He came around a shallow curve to find Gorfang stood on the path. Further along was a rough stone wall, about Gorfang’s height, reinforced with bone. A pair of goblins armed with spears stood atop it, the flames of a brazier sizzling in the snow next to them. The smoke was vile; they were burning dung. The goblins smelled almost as bad; mountain gobboes, dressed in greasy fleeces, dirty scarves wrapped about their faces.

‘What’s all this about then?’ bellowed Gorfang. ‘I’m the king of this mountain. Who told you lot to build a wall across this path?’

‘Wassa password?’ said one of the mountain goblins.

‘This is my path! I’m the zogging king!’ roared Gorfang. ‘I don’t need no zogging password!’

The mountain goblins giggled. ‘Not any more it’s not. You ain’t our king.’

‘Oh yes I am, you cheeky runt. Now let me through, or I’ll kill the lot of you.’

‘Oooooh!’ said the goblin. ‘You and whose army, mate? You and fatty back there?’

The second goblin thought this hilarious. Both laughed and pointed as, all along the lip of the path more mountain goblins appeared, spears and rocks ready to be cast, arrows nocked to bows.

‘Now, wassa password?’ said the goblin.

‘Or we’ll gut you bad,’ said the other, bending low and jabbing suggestively with his spear.

‘Yeah, gut ’em!’

‘Yeah!’ agreed his companion. They pulled back their lips to show sharp yellow teeth.

‘Right then,’ said Gorfang. He snatched a choppa from his belt, tossed it in the air and caught it by the blade. He drew his arm back and flung it. The choppa spun through the air making a thick, thwacking sound, and buried itself in the talkative goblin’s chest.

‘Urk!’ said the mountain goblin, and toppled forward off the wall.

‘That do you for a password, runt?’ growled Gorfang.

The goblin glanced at his dead companion, his ears twitched but he stood his ground. ‘That’s not it.’

‘You what?’

‘I said…’

Gorfang strode up to the wall.

‘Stop him!’ screeched the mountain goblin. Arrows and stones bounced off the warlord’s armour. He caught a spear without looking and snapped it between his fingers. He kicked the wall hard in the middle. The rocks grated on one another, then slithered away, causing Gabble to bounce about to dodge them as they rumbled down the slope.

The goblin guard landed on his back, the only reason he didn’t join the rest of his shaggy-coated mates in legging it.

‘Er, yeah, that’s about right.’ He flashed a grin at Gorfang. ‘Just a test, you unnerstand. Lots of bad sorts about, your highnessness. You come on through now.’

‘You’re zogging right I will!’ said Gorfang. He picked up the goblin by the throat and pitched him down the path.

‘Aieee!’ he screamed as he flew over Gabble’s head and disappeared into the gloom.

‘Bleeding nerve of ’em!’ said Gorfang. ‘See, goblins can’t fly. Come on, Gabble!’

Gorfang strode off, muttering to himself about the cheek of all runts. Gabble followed.

‘Go on, fatty!’ shouted a voice from the dark. Somewhere above, goblins laughed.

Gabble licked his lips. ‘Zog off!’ he shouted. His boldness went as a stone crashed down feet from him, sending stinging splinters into his face. Heavy pack or not, he ran after his king, the jeers of the mountain goblins nipping at his heels.

They slept that night in a freezing cave. Gorfang had Gabble hunt about for fuel, but all he could find was a bit of heather. It took him ages to get out of the ground, and burned for all of three minutes. The sticks they had brought were exhausted almost as quickly. Gorfang was not happy, but Gabble kept up his usual chatter, and plied his boss with meat and beer from the pack. This calmed the warlord and lightened Gabble’s load significantly.

Gabble’s condition was otherwise miserable. He was freezing cold, the cave floor was hard, and sleeping in such close proximity to the king of Black Crag did little for his peace of mind. Gorfang had therefore been snoring loudly for an hour before Gabble managed to get to sleep.

His dreams were his usual unhappy ones of goblins spinning flightless through the sky, only on this occasion it was snowing, and so bitingly cold Gabble’s dream self had frozen solid before he hit the ground. Still conscious somehow, he felt his body shatter into a million pieces, whereupon it was devoured by a horde of laughing Snotlings.

And then Gorfang kicked him awake, and ordered him to make some breakfast.

There were no wyverns at the Wyvern crag, much to Gorfang’s annoyance, and so they came to the Cold Place without incident.

If the cave were cold, the Cold Place was colder; a great, fissured river of ice that creaked and groaned as they walked over it. Piles of dirty snow and stones dotted its surface, cairns erected by the frowning mountain gods of frost and snow and freezing ways to die. The sun was mercilessly bright, and Gabble’s eyes streamed from the glare of it reflected off the glacier.

The glacier reared up to one side, and they passed a giant corpse half trapped in a cliff of blue ice. To Gabble it looked like one of the giants that sometimes fought alongside Gorfang’s boys, but the body, clad still in blackened flesh, was of finer proportions. The remains of the clothes it wore were far better tailored than those that Gorfang’s giants wore, and it carried broad blade of pitted bronze in one hand as long as a tree trunk. It frightened Gabble, but he could not stop glancing at it until it had gone out of sight. If such a titan could be felled by the mountain, what chance did a fat little goblin like him have?

Gorfang’s good spirits diminished as they crossed the Cold Place and were forced to double back again and again to avoid the deep crevasses that opened up under their feet. He grew surly, and the sky clouded over as if in sympathy.

Gorfang turned to the goblin, and Gabble thought his time had come, but the warlord was smiling. ‘See Gabble, look! Nearly there.’ The big orc pointed to a round opening, fringed with old snow, that led straight into the rock; the next stage of their journey.

Gabble shifted the pack on his back. There were suspicious brown and black stains all around it. And piles of bones; big piles of bones. ‘The Deadly Cave?’ he said.

‘Nah,’ said Gorfang, shaking his head. ‘That’s not the Deadly Cave.’

Gabble relaxed.

‘That’s the Troll Hole. Keep forgetting that, don’t you? Come on, if we’re lucky there’ll be a big troll to kill. There usually is, Zarrgakk leaves meat out for ’em, extra guards. He’s got the smarts, that wizlevard. I knew this trip was a good idea.’

His mood lifted, Gorfang drew Red Fang and began to whistle.

Gabble hung his head as they crunched across the ice toward the Troll Hole. He tarried in the daylight as Gorfang went inside. He glanced at the bright patch in the sky where the sun was. Half an hour ago he’d hated it. Now he feared he’d never see it again.

‘Oi! Gabble! Gabble! Get in here!’

‘Yes boss,’ sighed Gabble.

He hated being the overrunt.

‘There’s nothing here, boss.’

‘Shut up and dance, Gabble.’

Gabble was naked apart from his iron boots and grubby loincloth. Gorfang thought the trolls could smell him better that way. He shivered as he held the torch high over his head. ‘Here, trolly trolly troll troll!’ he sang. ‘Tasty gobboes here for your tea! Er, diddly, diddly, diddly dee!’

‘Put some spirit into it, you little runt,’ growled Gorfang. ‘That song’s not very appetising.’

Gabble sang a little louder and hopped unenthusiastically from foot to foot. He was uncomfortably reminded of Birgit’s cringing dwarf. Hot pitch dripped from the torch onto his shoulder, so he was freezing and burning at the same time. His gut wobbled as he danced.

It was humiliating.

Torchlight glittered off ice and black rock. ‘There’s nothing…’

A rumble came out of the darkness, so low they felt it more through the stone than heard it.

‘Yes!’ grunted Gorfang. ‘Louder, Gabble, louder!’

‘Here trolly, folly, roll-de, troll… Boss, I feel stupid.’

A roar boomed up one of the cave’s many passages. Rank air came with it. Gabble’s ears stood bolt upright and he shrank in on himself. Scraping, heavy footsteps came toward them, then another roar.

‘Stand your ground, you cowardly gobbo,’ said Gorfang, ‘or I’ll eat you meself.’

Something vast and noisome came out of the dark. Dark eyes and drool reflected the light, then huge, pallid hands uncurled, revealing dirty grey claws as long as Gabble’s arms.

Gabble’s teeth clattered uncontrollably as the snow troll limped into the room. It was twelve feet tall, covered in filthy, matted hair. One foot was malformed, clubbed and adorned with many extra toes. Its long nose quivered as it snuffled at the air. Its dead black eyes found Gabble quaking in front of it, its expression of trollish confusion turned to one of glee and it reached out a long, long arm toward him. Gabble felt a gush of warmth run down his legs.

‘Alright Gabble,’ said Gorfang, stepping out from his hiding place. ‘You can get out of the way now. Oi! Troll!’ he shouted. ‘That’s my gobbo. Anyone’s going to eat him, its going to be me!’

The troll snatched its hand away. Its head snapped toward Gorfang.

‘Glargle…’ it said thickly. ‘Yum.’

‘Oh, a talky one, is it?’ said Gorfang. ‘Well, well, well. Come here trolly, and we’ll show you why they call me Troll-Eater.’ Gorfang swung his shield off his back and clanged Red Fang against its rim twice. ‘Let’s fight, troll boy.’

Gabble recovered enough of his wits to dive toward cover as Gorfang ran at the troll.

Gorfang was an enormous orc, but the troll overtopped him. Gorfang wasn’t bothered. He whooped and brought Red Fang around in a whistling arc. The troll followed it, its face puzzled. The blade sank deep into its bad leg. It looked at Gorfang, then at its leg, then let out a tremendous howl of pain.

‘Rargh!’ it bellowed, and backhanded the orc warlord. Gorfang twisted, but not enough, and the troll’s huge hand caught him in the side, sending him flying backwards to crash into the cave wall. Gorfang pushed himself up and shook his head. He wiped blood from his nose with his shield hand and laughed.

‘That’s more like it,’ he said.

The troll’s leg writhed, fingers of flesh pulling themselves over the wound and dragging it shut. The wound turned to a cut, then a pale scar, then faded altogether as hair grew over it. The troll lumbered forward, showing its dung-encrusted rear to Gabble.

Gabble whimpered, and shrank back into the shadows.

The troll swiped downward with its claws. Gorfang caught its wrist on his shield boss and turned the blow aside with a grunt. He rammed Red Fang into the creature’s gut and gave it a savage twist. The troll howled and clutched its belly. Gorfang leapt backwards as the beast’s fanged maw descended. The troll chomped hard onto the stone wall of the cave. Gorfang dodged under its flailing arms, cutting at its flank. The troll bellowed and circled around. Its stomach was closing up. It spat shards of broken teeth from its mouth and glared moronically at the orc. New fangs were already forcing their way up out of its gums.

Gorfang let out a joyous shout. ‘This is what I loves about trolls,’ he said, ‘they take ages to kill!’

Gorfang grinned as he battered at the troll with his heavy blade, carving great chunks from its flesh. Blood splattered across Gabble’s face. The troll aimed its heavy fists at the warlord, but as often as not they collided only with the stone of the cave as Gorfang repeatedly evaded his slow-witted adversary. He jabbed and sliced at the troll until its wiry fur was matted with its own blood. Most of its wounds closed up, but not all, and soon the troll was panting with effort.

‘Ro-oooogle,’ it slurred.

‘No chance,’ said Gorfang. ‘It’s about time we finished this. I’ve got a shaman to see.’

Gorfang let out a warcry and brought Red Fang round and down toward the troll’s forehead. The troll reacted with unexpected swiftness. Red Fang embedded itself in the creature’s arm as it punched its hand outward, palm flat, and was wrenched from Gorfang’s grasp. The troll swatted aside the warlord’s shield. It grabbed Gorfang by the chest and pinned him to the wall and began to squeeze.

‘Yummeeeee!’ it said evilly.

‘Mork’s teeth!’ said Gorfang. He gave up struggling against the troll’s iron grasp, and started slamming his shield boss into the troll’s face.

The troll gurgled. Saliva ran in torrents from its mouth.

Suddenly, it let out a screaming yell. The acrid smell of burning hair filled the cave as fire leapt up the fur on its back. The troll dropped Gorfang and clumsily batted at the flames, hopping around and warbling in panic.

‘Ooof!’ said Gorfang as he dropped to the floor. He grabbed the hilt of Red Fang, pulled it from the troll’s arm, and gave a shrill whistle.

The troll stared down at him, confused and still on fire.

‘Dumb zogger,’ said Gorfang, and with one mighty blow decapitated it.

The headless troll staggered around for a few seconds, then fell over.

Gorfang stared at Gabble on the other side of the troll’s smouldering corpse. The fat goblin stood holding his torch, a look of surprise on his face at what he’d done.

‘Don’t think this means I hate you any less, Gabble,’ said Gorfang.

‘No, boss.’

The king wiped his sword on the troll’s fur. ‘Now get a fire going and cook up some of this troll. Be a shame to let it go to waste. Cook it properly, mind. I don’t want to do a fat Grom.’

‘Yes boss.’

In the corner, the troll’s eyes rolled. The head had not yet realised that it was dead.

Gabble slunk off to find his clothes and pack, then set about looking for things to burn. He swore and spat as he collected bones and bits of old club. He hated cooking troll steaks. They were always trying to get out of the pan.

They rested a while before they passed on through the Troll Hole. If there were any more trolls about, they had the sense not to show their faces. They crossed a chasm on a rickety rope bridge, and came to a tall cleft in the rock. Skulls were heaped on either side of it, glyphs telling visitors in no uncertain terms what kinds of violent death awaited them should they proceed.

‘Now that, little overrunt, is the Deadly Cave.’ Gorfang slapped Gabble on the back as if this were a good thing, making him stagger. Across the top of his pack the troll’s head was strapped, neck charred to stop it growing a new body. As a result, it was even heavier than when they’d set out.

‘Come on then,’ said Gorfang. ‘Old Zarrgakk’ll be expecting us.’

They went into the cleft. The top was lost in darkness, the sides thick with ice. The Deadly Cave was a thin passage for much of its length, but it broadened out in the middle enough to be worthy of the name. Seated stone idols of Gork and Mork, twice the height of Gorfang, took up much of this space, their crude orcy faces glaring down at the interlopers, weapons in piles at their feet. Torches burned in sconces on the walls.

Gorfang sighed. ‘Right then. Zargakk lives just through there.’ He pointed down the cave with Red Fang. ‘Better tell him we’re here.’ He cupped his hands around his mouth. ‘Oi, Zargakk! Zargaaaaaaaaakk!’

Gorfang’s voice echoed from the stones. ‘…akk …akk …akk’ and died away.

There was no response.

‘Old zogger,’ grumbled Gorfang. ‘Oi! Zargakk! It’s me, the king! I need some advice, you crazy old dropsquig licker!’

Still no reply.

‘Right then,’ Gorfang huffed. He looked at Gabble. ‘We’re going to have to go through. When I say run, you runs, alright? Don’t get yerself squished, I’m not carrying that head all the way back to the Crag by meself.’

Gabble nodded.

Gorfang unslung his shield and drew Red Fang. He glanced at the idols. ‘Nice and slowly does it,’ he said quietly.

He walked between the Gork and Mork. Gabble looked up at them fearfully. As the greenskins passed, witchlight played around the head of one of the statues.

‘Boss…’

‘Not now, Gabble.’

There came the creak and grind of stone moving on stone.

‘Boss!’ Gabble squeaked. ‘That idol of Gork,’ he said, although he wasn’t entirely sure – it could have been Mork. ‘It just moved its head!’

More scraping. A groan. The sounds of rock moving in ways that rock isn’t supposed to move in.

‘Right. Remember what I said about running?’

‘Yes, boss.’

‘Now’s the time.’

Gorfang set off at a lumbering jog, armour jingling. Heavy footsteps followed, picking up speed. Gabble stumbled under the pack. He dared not look backwards.

Gorfang outpaced him. The footsteps of the idol grew closer and closer, shaking the ground.

Then Gabble was soaring high into the air. For a brief instant he thought that maybe goblins could fly after all, then the pain of having his ankle pinched between stone fingers hit him. He was dangling upside down. The crudely hewn face of Mork (or perhaps it was Gork, after all) opened below him, the stone magically rearranging itself to gape wider and wider. Green light blazed in the idol’s empty eye sockets. Its gullet was blacker than the blackest blackness in all the Black Crag.

‘Noooooo!’ howled Gabble. The mouth drew closer and closer. Gabble screwed his eyes shut.

Everything stopped.

Once he’d convinced himself he had not been eaten, Gabble opened his eyes.

A toothless orc, naked but for a pair of shorts and a stunty hide cloak, was leaning on a copper staff in front of the king. The stunty’s head had been flattened out, and the orc, who could only have been Zarrgakk, wore it on his own head, the skin of the stunty’s arms tied about his neck in a strange embrace. The beard of the stunty dangled on either side of the shaman’s head. It wobbled as he spoke.

‘Should’ve sent word,’ said the shaman.

‘How am I supposed to do that, when you’ve got the zogging Smasher standing guard?’ shouted Gorfang.

Zarrgakk shrugged. ‘You’re the king. You work it out.’

Zarrgakk’s lair was deliciously warm. A fire roared on a hearth in the centre of the cave. It appeared to burn no fuel, and its flames were tinged green. The cave opened out onto a shelf overlooking a rocky valley, but miraculously there was no draft.

Gabble sank down with a sigh, letting the warmth sink into his toes and ears and frozen nose. He tried to ignore the stunty heads mounted on sticks right the way around the room. Their lips worked speechlessly, and their eyes followed him around the room and glimmered with horrible awareness. If it weren’t so uncanny it would have been funny to see stunties tortured so, but as it was Gabble found it seriously disturbing.

Zarrgakk the Mad muttered something to himself and the fire jumped higher. He pulled out a couple of hollowed-out stunty heads, filled them with fungus brew from a clay jug and passed one to Gorfang. The orcs ignored Gabble, so he stole furtive swigs from his own firebrew and listened as they talked.

‘What can I do for you, your highnessness?’ said Zargakk, grinning at some private joke.

‘Word is there’s two kings in Mad Dog Pass now, and I was wondering what to do about it, Zargakk the Mad.’

‘Who calls me mad?’ snapped Zargakk. ‘Well, it certainly wasn’t me,’ he said to himself. ‘Shut up you, I’m talking to the zogging king.’ He shook his head and closed his eyes until he had composed himself. ‘Two kings? You want to know if you should biff him or not, that it?’

‘He’s just a cave runt. It looks bad,’ said Gorfang.

‘Why not biff him then?’ Zargakk shrugged. ‘Seems simple to me.’

Gorfang looked uncomfortable. ‘If I does that, there’ll be no tolls. It’s fighting or gold, and I likes them both, see. And he did beat the ratties recently. Word is he’s got them all riled up, and they’s coming to get him. Now, ways I sees it, if they’s fighting him, they’s not fighting me, so it keeps ’em out of the Crag. On the other hand, if they’s fighting him, they’s not fighting me, and I likes fighting, don’t I? Tricky.’

‘Thought about teaming up?’

Gorfang shrugged. ‘Yeah, sort of. But…’

‘He’s a cave runt?’

Gorfang made a rumble deep in his chest.

Zargakk stared right at Gabble then, although he wasn’t looking at him, but to some other place. His eyes glowed like a wolf’s caught in torchlight at night. Gabble shuddered.

‘There’s a war coming, Gorfang. A big one. Bigger than any that’s been around here for a long whiles. The stunties want their houses back, yours and Skarsnik’s. They hates you, king of the Crag, they hates you for what you did to that King Kazador, and they is going to come for you. You let them get Skarsnik and stand aside, fine, they might beat him, and then you’ll have one less rival. They might not beat him straightaway, and then you’ll not have to bother with him or the stunties for a little whiles, but there’s something come over the beardies recent, like. They’ve got all het up. You seen their whirlybirds, chugging away at night all around the sky? You lost any patrols recently?’

‘I beat them good. They don’t dare come here. I got so many in me dungeons. I kill one every couple of weeks and put his head on a spike to remind them,’ said Gorfang. ‘They is scared, I tells you.’

‘Yeah,’ said Zarrgakk thoughtfully. ‘But is they really scared? What’s old beardy doing? I’ll tell you, king, he’s not wasting his strength, that’s what. If the Eight Peaks fall to the stunties, and they is coming – Gork showed me, Mork told me – if the Eight Peaks goes, then all the rest of the stunties’ll get it into their heads that maybe they’d like their other stunty houses back, and then what?’

‘If they comes for the Crag, I’ll beat them down,’ growled Gorfang.

Zarrgakk laughed. ‘Will you? Or are the stunties strong again, strong in a ways they’ve not been for a long, long time?’ The shaman leaned over the fire, then right into the flames. His head poked through them like a puppet through a curtain, but they didn’t burn him. ‘I’ll tell you something, King Gorfang Rotgut Troll-Eater. The stunties’ pride’s taken a beating. One good victory could give them that pride back. When that happens and they realise how strong they is, who’s to say where they’ll stop?’

Gorfang snarled. Who was to tell him stunties were strong and he’d get beaten? Gabble could see the thoughts working their way across his face. But his eyes, they were thinking eyes. Gorfang was very clever, for an orc.

‘And if you get the cave runt as an ally, then who’s to say where you’ll stop? Beat the stunties…’ said Zarrgakk, let the sentence hang.

Gorfang glanced up. ‘Then the Badlands.’

Zarrgakk smiled. ‘Why stop there?’

Gorfang nodded. Dreams of conquest flickered through his mind. It had been a long time since his famous attack on Karak Azul.

‘I’ll wait,’ he said at length. ‘Gabble?’

‘Yes boss?’

‘When we get back, send me Big Boss Bograt. He’s been hanging around looking for something important to do. About time he did it. We’ve been sending gobboes over for a look at this Skarsnik, let’s send us an orc instead. gobboes aren’t up to it. Have him knock some heads together and take over them outcasts in the top city over there. Have him get to know this boss runt, and keep an eye out for us.’

‘Yes, boss.’

‘We’ll see how this Skarsnik does against the rats. Keeps ’em out of the Crag for starters. If he’s a real warboss, then he’ll do them in, and the boys won’t think me a pansy for teaming up with a real warboss, gobbo or not. If he’s not a real warboss, they’ll murder him good and proper, and the stunties can spend their time fighting the ratties instead, I can fight both and I get to keeps me gold.’

‘Now you’re talking like a king,’ said Zarrgakk approvingly.

Gorfang glanced at the troll head on Gabble’s backpack. He was longing for simpler times. ‘Makes me head hurt.’

Zarrgakk took a big pull of beer. ‘No one said being a king was easy, your highnessness.’

‘No one said it was hard. Be big, smash! That’s the orcy way. They don’t tell you about all that other stuff. All this…’ He pulled a face, ‘thinking!’

‘If they did, who’d want to do it? Someone’s got to stand up and be counted by Gork and Mork. Glory that way, and power, and more gold and teeth than you can possibly think of. Being brutal ain’t enough.’ Zargakk smiled his strange smile. ‘You gotta be cunning too.’

Gorfang nodded, but said no more. He stared into the fire as he drank his brew.

The next day, Gorfang and his goblin lackey left Zarrgakk squatting by his hearth. They’d not been gone two minutes when Zarrgakk’s neck prickled. The mouldy stink of night goblin tobacco and bad fungus beer filled his nose.

Zarrgakk rubbed his forehead, but did not turn to look. ‘You back?’ he said. His face changed. ‘Course he’s back, you idiot!’

‘Calm down you two,’ said a gravelly goblin voice. ‘He going to go for it then?’

Zarrgakk nodded. ‘Maybe. Tricky thing, getting an orc to listen to a goblin. Cave runt at that. Well tricky.’

There was a low chuckle. ‘I managed, didn’t I? We do this, Gork and Mork will both be pleased. One day, Skarsnik and Gorfang will lead the biggest Badlands Waaagh! since the days of Grom the Paunch and no mistake, oh yus.’

Zarrgakk rocked back and forth and laughed. ‘That’d be a zogging fine thing! All three of us agree on that!’

He laughed hysterically, talking to himself excitedly about war and death and post-battle barbecues.

Then he frowned. He put a finger to his lips and shushed himself, his eyes wide.

Zarrgakk turned around.

There was no one there.

‘Zogging Duffskul,’ he said. And then he laughed some more.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Guy Haley began his career on SFX Magazine in 1997 before leaving to edit Games Workshop’s White Dwarf, followed by SF magazine Death Ray. Since 2009 he has been a wandering writer, working in both magazines and novels. He lives in Somerset with his wife and son, a malamute and an enormous, evil-tempered Norwegian Forest Cat called, ironically, Buddy.

A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

Published in 2013 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd., Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK

Cover illustration by Adrian Smith

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