The Red Thane

Written by awarnock

“Uncle Brask, this plan o’ yers is crazy,” the young dwarven lass clad in the dark clothes and leathers favored by the Blackstone Rangers muttered in a tone that was used by every dwarven mother on unruly children to the smiling longbeard as they slipped out of the secret gate in a small tunnel that branched from the main passage between Mount Bloodhorn and Ankor Drakk.

The bulk of the Dalazidrungak Drekaz’s forces were mustering in a large chamber off the main tunnel as they readied to take Mount Bloodhorn at last. Most of Clan Alpsbane had not been able to join up with them in time to help with the assault. Of course, Brask wasn’t a dawi that limited himself to the obvious, or the sane and sensible. He’d thought up this scheme to help draw some of the grobi and urk scum out of the stronghold to make them easier to kill. If all went according to plan, as it so rarely did, Clan Alpsbane could catch them between two dwarven strongholds with no hope of escape. Most in Clan Alpsbane loved the idea, and would have gladly volunteered to be the ones to bait the hated urks out from behind their defenses, such as they were. Those that did not love the idea were not opposed to it either, many even thought the idea laudable for letting Clan Alpsbane have a hand in retaking Mount Bloodhorn. While the entire fighting force of the clan could not make it, a small band of thirty to forty dwarves could actually beat the main assault there.

No, the problem was the “bait” Brask had decided to present the orks, himself.

“Bah, ye worry too much Methi. We may take some licks, but we’ll give better’n we get, me lass. Ye can be sure o’ that,” the thane of the clan said with a chuckle, “but if it’ll stop ye from worryin’ yer pretty li’l head off yer shoulders, then ye think o’ it this way. Ye need good bait an’ lots o’ it t’land a right big’un, aye? What better bait is there than one o’ th’thane’s who’s leadin’ the dawi to retake Ekrund?”

“Aye, we agree, that’s why I’m worried, Uncle,” Methi replied seriously, stealing the mirth from the old dwarf’s expression. “What’s gonna happen when th’greenskins get ahold o’ th’news that Brask Alpsbane the Thane o’ Clan Alpsbane is at their doorstep with not e’en a legion o’ dwarves at yer side.” She looked at her uncle, her eyes pleading with him to go back into Ankor Drakk and let his faithful clansmen do this, but even as she did it, she knew it was futile. “They’ll not stop until yer dead, uncle,” she finishes quietly, though in the deep silence of the dark tunnel, her voice sounded far too loud in her ears.

“Lass,” Brask said, his voice even more quiet than his great-niece's, “I promise ye this now, I’ll see all ye make it back, e’en if I have t’drag all ye meself, an’ I’ve yet t’make a promise I haven’t kept.”

Methi could only nod. She’d never known him to make promises that he couldn’t keep, and it was amazing how comforting she found that simple truth. She looked ahead to where a few of her fellow Blackstone Rangers had gone ahead, their bows in hand, to seek out what lay ahead.

“Now lass, let’s get goin’,” he said after a moment as he turned to follow the rangers, “we’ve a long walk an’ not near enough time t’be dillyin’ around like some umgi sightseers,” he said with a mock serious growl. “If we take long enough, then th’grobi an’ urk won’t have a chance t’kill me! I’ll have keeled o’er from me old age,” he laughed, bringing a smile to Methi’s face.

“That’s it, lass! Now c’mon! We’ve got urks t’make fools o’,” he chortled as they made their way to the gates of Bloodhorn.

The trip was indeed a long one, and they didn’t have much time, not if this was going to work without giving things away. Methi prayed silently to the dwarven gods, hoping that they had indeed blessed their cause as it had seemed.

===

The cavern was a full two hundred strides from the tunnel to the walls of the stronghold that was Mount Bloodhorn and about three-quarters that many across. The walls, despite the millennia of “care” by the current greenskin occupants, still held the severe, imposing lines of a dwarven fortifications. The crude graffiti painted on those walls in media best left unthought upon, however, was obviously of grobi and urk make. Methi hid behind some loose boulders and stone that had fallen to the floor over the years, her keen eyes keeping watch on the greenskins half-heartedly patrolling the walls.

She had an arrow nocked to her bow, an actual bow instead of the crossbows normally found in the hands of dawi archers. Though some of the Alpsbane’s southern kin had raised questioning eyebrows at the Blackstone Ranger’s choice of weapon, none could doubt their effectiveness so far. Besides, the simple bows were less prone to becoming unusable than crossbows. Grit did get into those mechanisms after all, and Alpsbane bows were not like those used by man and elf, for they could actually punch through armor.

Behind her, hidden in shadows and behind more rubble from the centuries of neglect, the rest of the small band readied themselves. Most were Blackstone Rangers, like Methi, but a double handful of the baiters were shields, armed with spear and sword with large round shields at their backs. They would help beat off the grobi and urk that got too close while the archers would keep them from wanting to chance getting too close to them. A half-dozen healers and a young beardling mage made up those that remained of the thirty-odd dwarves that had been selected from the volunteers for this mission. All of them knew how to fight, and they were all among the swiftest runners in the clan. Which was just as well. Even if everything went well, they’d be running for their lives all the way back to Ankor Drakk and practitioners of the healing arts.

The young dawi mage, a lad by the name of Khadek, also had a part to play. Most of the clan thought him a little mad for pursuing the arts of the arcane, and even more thought him daft for studying illusions, but given Brask’s plan, he’d need Khadek’s skills. While the lad was no slouch with axe or bow, his skill in trickery of the arcane variety was the true reason he was selected. Not only were his illusions going to be a big help in evading the horde of greenskins Brask hoped to get out of Mount Bloodhorn, he was also going to vital in baiting that horde in the first place. As Methi watched the wall, the young dwarven mage wove a spell to make Brask appear as if he was wearing armor made of gold and set with gems. Luckily, the grobi guards were too inattentive to notice the brief flash in the tunnels as the spell took hold.

“It’d work a lot better if there wasn’t that big flash, y’know,” Brask grumbles softly as Methi gives the all clear to the others.

“Aye, I’m workin’ on it. Least it wasn’t as bright as normal,” Khadek replied in equally quiet tones. The young dwarf gathered his bow and readied an arrow. All through the section of tunnel that the dawi had hidden in, arrows were nocked and weapons readied. One by one the dawi nodded to their thane.

“A’right, then. Let’s go fishin’ fer some urk,” Brask told them with a wolf’s smile on his face.

===

Tax yawned as he completed yet another leg of yet another boring patrol. He’d wanted to be where he could get some shinies for himself, but someone had cleaned out the vault that had held the shinies that hadn’t been claimed. Must have been the damn humies too. Stunties would never have blasted open the vault since they could probably open it with some stupid stunty magic.

To make matters worse, Warboss Grimlit had been crumped, and hard. Now Tax was part of Waagh! Durlag, and any grumbling got you crumped by Durlag’s boyz. There were also rumors flying about, rumors of how the Waagh! was close to col-- cal-- fallig’ apart! There were also other rumors about how a bunch of stunties joined their kin in trying to take the place back. That wouldn’t have been much cause for concern, but even Durlag’s boyz were leery of picking a fight with stunties when they were outnumbered.

Then there were the other, scarier rumors.

There were rumors of a bunch of stunties from way up north where it never got hot and was always covered in snow that had come down to help the other stunties. They said that group of stunties was different. They said that the stunties had slaughtered a bunch of goblins and painted themselves with the squigfodder’s blood. Others said that they took the strength of the Waagh! as their own every time they painted themselves with greenskin blood. The few orcs and gobs that had come in from Bitterstone had gibbered about red-painted stunties weilding axes and going around crumping in the buff and black shootas that came from nowhere to riddle them with arrows before disappearing into the shadows. Then there was the tales told in hushed whispers about a stunty with a long, gray beard that had fought from the front of the lines like a warboss.

Tax was too smart to put much stock in such rumors. Stunties were too scared of dying to fight like warbosses, and they’d never--

Tax’s thoughts stopped with a calamitous crash as he spotted a stunty wearing the shiniest armor he’d ever seen step out of the tunnel.

“OI!”

The bellow echoed around the cavern like the crash of an avalanche and drew every eye on the walls to the lone stunty. Tax shook himself out of his surprise and leaned out to get a better look at this mad dwarf. The Waagh! warbosses would want to kill him, for his armor if nothing else. Something bothered Tax about this stunty though. Well, more than the sight of a stunty announcing his presence to Waagh! held hold with nary a sign of his kin would normally.

The beard, he realized. It’s the long, gray beard he wore, bedecked in more shinies than some warbosses had in their hoards. It couldn’t be him! He was supposed to be in Bitterstone! Besides, no stunty was mad enough to challenge an entire Waagh! all by himself!

Except, this one was.

“OI! That’s right! I’m a-talkin’ t’ye, ye elf turds,” he shouted again, the insult barely even making it through the collective shock at what they were witnessing. “I be Brask Alpsbane, th’Red Thane o’ Barak Drakk an’ slayer o’ more urks an’ grobi than I can be bothered t’recall! I be here on behalf o’ me clan t’accept yer surrender,” he shouted across the cavern. The last bit proved too much for one goblin who sent an arrow streaking for the stunty’s eye with a shriek.

Brask, however, was not as big of a fool as he appeared. A shield snapped up to bat the arrow away with contemptuous ease.

“Ah! I see ye’re opening negotiations,” he chortled, as if this was nothing but a game.

“Wot’z all dis,” a rough, guttural voice demanded. Tax turned and instinctively took a step back at the sound of the orc that lead his gang. Brask, meanwhile, continued his taunting, even as more goblins began to take potshots at him.

“A mad stunty, ‘tis, boss! Mad and covered in shinies he is,” the goblin replied quickly, hoping that would be enough to get the stupid oaf to see for himself before trying to toss him over the wall. As fate would have it, Tax did not hope in vain.

“‘Bout to be a ded stunty! Alright you grots! Get ready to crump that dumb stunty until he’s just a bloody smear,” the orc commanded and it was then that Tax noticed that the others on the wall and even in the hold beyond were beginning to stir. Apparently, news of walking loot piles traveled fast in the Waagh!.

Now, if only a few of those shinies would wind up in his pack. He’d be a right happy grot.

===

None of the arrows after the first had been anywhere close to causing Brask harm, and his taunts had quickly become scathing as arrow after arrow missed. Something felt wrong to Methi, though. The grobi watching the walls had begun to move several minutes ago, so where was the force that was supposed to be chasing them back to Ankor Drakk?

There was a creak and groan as the abused gates of Mount Bloodhorn opened for the first time since the fall of Ekrund. Brask turned to wink at the dawi behind him, as if to say I told you so!

The smile disappeared as his eyes widened in surprise, then narrowed in dread. He’d meant to draw out some of the horde holed up in the ancient dwarfhold. He’d expected some success. He’d expected a couple of hundred to take the bait.

He’d gotten several hundred lead by a burly, mean looking orc, a warboss, wielding a vicious axe.

“Take yer shots! We’re gettin’ the hells outta here lads and lasses,” Brask told them as he turned to them, his face grim and worried. A single volley flew from the tunnel and killed a score of greenskins, but there were many scores of the slavering beasts ready to take their place.

Word had spread quickly, but even the most restless Waagh! took time to gather and get going. Of course, once they managed to figure out that thane was the same as warboss to them, the excitement only grew, and one of the warbosses had ordered the gate held shut until he could lead the chase and have the best chance for looting all of the shinies off this stupid stunty’s corpse. Brask had expected only a couple of hundred greenskins. What he’d hooked was a horde that was closer to a couple of thousand.

He’d finally done it, he’d finally gotten in too deep and his kin were going to pay the price. He’d made a promise, however, and he’d keep it, one way or another.

Even if it meant dying to do it.

===

Tax had gotten separated from his boss early on in the chase. The hoots and hollers and laughter that had echoed through the tunnels those first few hours had faded. Now, there were growls and curses in their place as the hunters became more and more frustrated. All they’d found were ork boyz and grots lying in pools of their blood and riddled with stunty arrows. Not bolts, but sodding arrows! Every now and then there’d be the sounds of someone crumping, but they’d die away as suddenly as they appeared.

The boyz in his new mob were growing frustrated by their inability to find the fights that caused all the ruckus, but Tax and a few other goblins were growing worried. Each of the fights was being ended quickly, and each mob had forty or more boyz and grots, so just how many stunties were there? Despite himself, tales of Bitterstone’s fall whispered in his ears. Stunties that didn’t act like stunties ought, they’d said. Stunties more like norsey raidahs and boyz than stunties.

One of the mob’s grots came hustling down the tunnels, breaking Tax from his reverie. His eyes were wide with fear, but avarice gleamed in them. Tax’s stomach fell through the floor, for only one thing could cause that mixture of emotions.

They’d found the stunties.

===

The small warband had to stop. No dawi could keep up the pace they had forever, no matter how hearty. They’d managed to survive over a day, and Ankor Drakk was not very far now, but they need to rest, to drink, to eat, lest they collapse from exhaustion, thirst, or hunger. They had fought several greenskin mobs in their flight. They had slaughtered them, but not without cost. Most of them were sore and bore minor scrapes and bruises, but a few had been hurt badly enough that they couldn’t fight, or at least fight in the close melee that the tunnels they wove through demanded.

Methi had seen the toll each injured Dawi had taken on her great-uncle. Brask put on a brave face when he knew the others were paying attention to him, but she saw the pain and doubt on his face when he thought no one was looking. Brask didn’t mind if he got himself killed, she realized, but to see his kin hurt because of what he had decided to do was another matter. The old longbeard cared for his clanmates, his people, deeply. Each lost dawi weighed heavy on his head.

The clan had been fortunate so far. Very few of them had been killed or crippled in the fighting, and many of those that had been injured had been made right by the Temple of Valaya in Khaz Vithang. Methi knew Brask better than most, however, and she knew her Uncle Brask, the wily old dwarf that told her and her siblings tales of his adventures and of the heroes of the clan, was blaming himself for the wounds and exhausting suffered by the others. She knew the others didn’t blame him. It was their duty to follow their thane, and they’d all volunteered for this. If it ended in their deaths, then so be it.

She sat to Brask with a waterskin held in her hand for the greybeard. They both looked out into the dark tunnel, waiting for the greenskins they both knew were looking for them.

“We don’t blame ye, Uncle,” she softly told him as Brask took offered waterskin, “ye know that, aye?”

“Aye,” came the rumbling reply, like the rolling of distant thunder in a storm, “but ‘twas a fool’s errand. I knew it, an’ I might as well’ve cut ‘em meself.” The old dwarf’s shoulders slumped and his eyes grew darker, almost black.

“We don’t blame ye,” Methi told him again, emphasizing each word as she reached up to squeeze his shoulder. “We all took it upon ourselves t’follow ye. We knew what could happen an’ we followed ye anyway. Don’t blame yerself for our own stubborn foolishness. ‘Tain’t right fer ye to take all the credit fer yerself,” she told him, smiling as she joked about the stubbornness of dawi, and especially Alpsbane dawi.

Brask chuckled despite himself. He had to admit, Methi had her points, namely that they were stubborn and that they had willingly followed him. That eased the pain of knowing it was his plan that had gotten some of them hurt, though he felt that it’d be a long, long time before he ever truly forgave himself.

Still, she had a point.

“Aye, lass. I won’t be so greedy then. But we still gotta--” Brask had begun to say, but the sounds of combat and the shouts of dwarves and orcs filled the small chamber they’d stopped in. He and Methi and only begun to stand when they saw a mob of urks and grobi charging up the tunnel to them. Confusion was quickly replaced by grim determination as the dawi of Clan Alpsbane stood and readied themselves for the fight to come.

But Brask could already see that they’d never get that chance if he and Methi failed to hold them off. Both of them were on their feet, axe and shield in Brask’s hands and a dawi sword in Methi’s. They stood their ground and began to work their way through the grobi fodder with the grim efficiency of soldiers knowing that they cannot, and will not, fail. The last of the grobi rush was cut down and it was the turn of the urks.

They came with all of the ferocity of their kind, no form, no tactics, no strategy. They relied solely on their raw power and the heft of their crude weapons to do their work. The others were sorted now and moving to meet the two sides of the pincer. Brask could hear the pounding of their feet and knew that he and methi only had to hold on for just a moment more.

That is when an urk club caught Methi’s leg and with the crack of breaking bone the young dawi ranger was sent flying into the stone wall of the chamber. Rage burned through Brask’s dread and the thane leapt at the urk that had laid his niece low as half of the band charged to meet their foes and bathe both stone and blade crimson with greenskin blood.

===

Tax ran for his life.

So did the three other goblins that had been lucky enough to be at the back of the mob when the stunties had pressed their counter-attack. They’d seen what was coming before the others had and bolted for the elusive safety of the tunnels. They’d heard the deathcries of the boyz and grots that hadn’t been so lucky.

It was insane! There were only thirty of the stupid bastards! How had they managed to keep killing even when they were outnumbered, why did they continue to fight? A grot band would have broken and ran, or surrendered and allied with the warboss, long before now. What made them continue to fight? What’s more, he’d seen at least two of them fall, but he couldn’t have been able to tell from the way they continued to tear into the mob.

And to make matters worse, they’d been caught between two mobs, both larger than they were, and should have been squig fodder. How had they managed to not just fight off, but slaughter both mobs? Tax was certain that the other mob had not fared any better than the one he had been in had.

“Dey iz cursed!”

That brought Tax and the other two goblins to a skittering stop so they could look at the fourth member of their little band.

“Wot waz that Kungark? Cursed? They crumped us! No, they gutted us like we was squigbait, not them,” one of the others snarled.

“No, they’s cursed with bad magic! Like dem wards wot be around the vault from what we heard. They keep killin’ when they should be dead! I seez it! I seez one o’ ‘em get stuck good, ran through back ta front an’ the stunty still killed three o’ us afore it died,” Kungark gibbered on the edge of madness.

“Youse just scared,” the other goblin interjected, “Skrez iz right. Dey iz no cursed, or wotever it iz youse thinkz dey iz.”

“But dey iz! Dey keep comin’ even when dey shouldz be dead! I heard dey popped de head o’ a onna Mork’s or Gork’s shamans like it was nothin’! Dey is cursed! So cursed that Mork and Gork can’t even getz dem anymore!”

Tax, Skrez, and the third goblin all stared at Kungark. Gork and Mork were the biggest and baddest of the gods. Nothing was too tough for them to crump if they wanted. Nothing!

Which meant that any moment, they’d be striking Kungark down for his blasphemy, and the grots just standing there with their jaws hanging open as an encore. As one, they looked to each other then turned back to the pariah in their midst and fell on him with the ferocity of grots that were desperate to prove their devotion and piety.

Besides, they were hungry.

===

The bloodied dawi warband came to a shuffling stop as they rounded the bend in the tunnel. It was narrow here, narrow enough that only five dwarves with shields could hold it. Brask looked at his kin and cursed himself for a fool. Methi had survived, but her leg was broken and unable to support her. Six more were in similar states, carried because they were unable to run. Ten of his small band weren’t so lucky. They’d died in the fighting, and Brask had promised to get them all back to Ankor Drakk. He and the other elven that could still run had carried them. Their lungs had burned and their legs had numbed, but still they’d ran, leaving behind a trail of blood that the damned urks and grobi had found if the renewed shouts and bellows were anything to go by.

“We can’t keep ahead o’ ‘em,” Ukalgrar, the most senior of the survivors stated flatly. “We might be able t’hold ‘em off fer a little while here, but once they make their way though the other tunnels behind us... ” his voice trailed off as he shrugged.

“So that’s it then, stand here an’ die or get run down short o’ the gates,” Brask muttered. Too many had died for his stupidity, and too many more would if he did nothing to change that. What was he to do? A runner might be able to get there in time to get some help, but the hope was slim, if it existed at all.

“‘Tis not yer fault,” Ukalgrar told Brask, “we would not be here if we did not want t’be.”

“Aye, I know, but I made a promise,” the thane replied. “If we run, we don’t make it. If we stay, we don’t make it. If we send for help, we might make it, but it’s a slim hope at best. I only see one way t’make sure all o’ ye at least make it back.”

“But--” Ukalgrar began to protest, only to close his mouth with a click as he saw the glare Brask leveled at him.

“This is an order from yer thane, Ukalgrar. Ye’ll take the dead and wounded back to Ankor Drakk an’ warn them o’ what’s comin’. Am I understood,” Brask ordered, each word clipped and sharp.

“Aye, Thane Alpsbane,” Ukalgrar replied formally. Those still conscious looked at Brask with grief in their eyes as they realized what he was planning. They’d make it back to Ankor Drakk, because he’d hold off the horde here The bend was a blind corner, and the passage was narrow. The advantage of their numbers would be reduced, and their grobi archers wouldn’t be able to pick him off from afar. But even with that, it was still likely he’d die defending them from the pursuing greenskins.

“No, Uncle, ye can’t,” Methi cried out, desperately trying to stand, “ye can’t!”

“Methi, lass, someone has t’stay an’ hold ‘em--” Brask tried to explain, only to have Methi interrupt him.

“Then let me help ye! I can fight,” she blurted out, tears beginning to roll down her face as she wobbles then falls against the tunnel to support herself. “Please, Uncle,” she begged, “Please!”

Brask set his jaw firmly against the tirade that was beginning to well up as worry and anger threatened to make him say something he’d regret. He found the eyes of one of the remaining healers and nodded. Reluctantly, the dawi pulled a vial from his pack and told the others to hold her while he made her drink its contents. Methi fought, of course, she tried to throw them off, but the pain in her leg and her bruised ribs had weakened her. She begged and wheedled them to let her stay with her uncle to be with her thane in his time of need, but in the end, she coughed as the draught was poured down her throat.

“No-- please...” she pleaded weakly as sleep began to take her. She fought it, but she wasn’t a match for the brewcrafters of the clan, and she steadily lost ground in her fight to remain awake.

“I’m sorry, Methi,” Brask whispered to her as he held her hand in his, “but I made a promise.”

She feebly squeezed his fingers, too sleepy to speak. She fought to stay awake, to say anything, but like the eternal war between the mountain and the river, the mountain was doomed to lose. Slowly, her eyes closed, and dreamless sleep took the young dawi ranger.

Brask looked to the others as they gathered the dead and wounded. Ukalgrar stood and saluted the thane before turning and leaving with Methi on one of his shoulders and another injured ranger on the other, passed out from her wounds. The sound of their flight echoed through the tunnels before finally fading, leaving only the cacophony raised by the approaching greenskins. Brask took up his shield and axe and turned to face them. They would probably kill him, he knew.

But not before he piled their bodies high around him.

===

Tax once more found himself rushing down the old tunnels after the stunties. He’d been lucky enough to be at the very back of the press of goblins. With any luck, they’d all be dead before they could kill him. Even if they weren’t the boyz would make quick work of them. Besides, from the jabbering from the front, it seemed that they’d been hurt worse than he’d thought. They’d left a nice trail of blood that was easy to follow, and even with all of the boyz and grots they’d killed, there was still plenty of them to hammer the dwarf held beyond.

This was what they should have been doing all along! Chasing the stunties out of what was rightfully the Waagh’s by conquest. Crumping them so badly they pissed themselves every time they even heard the whisper of orcs or goblins. Killing them in job lots and taking the rest for food and fun. That was what they should have been doing, and if it kept the orc boyz too busy to smash grot heads, so much the better!

The cheering at the front of the line grew louder and then came the loud and clear report from the first grots in.

“There’s only one o’ ‘em stunties!”

Tax wanted to laugh. Only one? That’d hardly be a fight! The dumb stunty was as good as dead, and all it did was buy his mates maybe the few seconds it’d take to plow this one under.

That was when the screaming started.

===

Brask smelled them before he saw them. He hated that stench. It was one of decay and ineptitude, the stench of grobi. Urks at least had a tang of blood underneath their pungent odor, but not goblins. They were too cowardly, too afraid to do anything unless forced to or lead to believe they had the upperhand. He didn’t have to wait long for them. The first rounded the bend and shouted back that there was only one of him.

Brask bared his teeth in a wolf’s smile.

He let them rush in, spears thrusting. His shield turned the points and broke their shafts as he spun into them to get to the grobi behind them. His axe clove the first goblin’s head in two before the backswing caught another in the side of the skull and crushed it. Every swing of his axe took the life of another grobi. Every turn of his shield broke their spears. Every moment he lived, his kin got further and further away. Every grobi he killed was one its fellows would have to crawl over to get to him.

Brask fought to buy time, fought to kill greenskins, and fought to live just one breath longer.

===

Methi awoke to the steady pounding of boots on stone. Slowly her eyes focused on the ground steady rolling away beneath her. Her mind refused to work through the fog that filled it. How had she found herself in this predicament? Wasn’t she supposed to be with her uncle getting ready for some important mission? A little of the fog lifted at that thought. Uncle Brask was supposed to be here, but where was he?

“Uncle Brask,” she murmured, “where’s Uncle Brask?” Her mind began to clear. Something was wrong. Her uncle was supposed to here, but where?

“Open the gates! Open the gates! We’ve got wounded,” the dawi carrying her. Ukalgrar was his name. Methi frowned at the mention of wounded. How had any of them been wounded? The pain in her leg and chest returned, but it was soon pushed to the side as her mind rapidly cleared.

“No, we have to go back,” she said feebly as she began to struggle. Somewhere ahead and above the call for healers and priests went out. The tramp of boots and the thrum of drums rang out clearly, but they felt distant, unimportant.

“We have t’go back! He’s me uncle! He’s family! We have to go back,” she said, then shouted as she began to fight Ukalgrar’s grasp. They were through the gates now, and a rough voice was asking, then demanding to know where Thane Brask was.

“No! NO!” Methi fought and screamed as she was put down on the ground just inside the gate. “NO DAMMIT! HE’S STILL OUT THERE!”

Ukalgrar called for help as he struggled to hold Methi down as she tried fight her way up and go find her uncle. She didn’t hear him, or even notice as three more dawi joined the struggle. It’s only when they managed to pin her that the ranger stops. The will to fight leaving her as suddenly as the snuffing of a candle.

“He’s my uncle. he’s family,” she sobbed, “we can’t just leave him t’die. He’s family. He’s kin!”

Ukalgrar, breathing heavily from his flight and struggling to hold Methi down looks at her sadly.

“Yes, he is,” he tells her, “as are you and the entire clan. We will go find him an’ bring him back. Ye have my word on that, but ye can’t help him, not now. Not with yer leg.”

The words stung, like salt in an open wound. Methi slumped onto the ground, unable to fight anymore. All she could do was weep. She’d left behind her thane and her family, and even though the fault was not hers, the guilt was too much to bear, and so she wept. She wept as did every other member of the band that had left with Brask. There was nothing they could do now. It was all up to the hammerers and the swiftly assembling warriors of the clan. Ukalgrar had only received a few scratches in the fighting and despite carrying two dawi to safety at a full run, he left to join the growing ranks of the dwarven column.

Khadek limped over to where she lay, favoring a cracked rib from an urk’s club and sporting an ugly bruise on half his face. He stiffly settled down next to her, hissing in pain as he did so. For a long moment, he sat there just letting her grieve. Orders and responses flowed around them as dwarves rushed about to prepare for a march.

“Do not blame yerself,” the young mage told her as the column shook down into neatly, if hastily, ordered ranks, “he wouldn’t want ye t’do that.”

The silence returned, heavy and oppressive. Brask’s second, since Luca was busy with coordinating with the other dawi clans and helping with the negotiations, bellowed questions and listened to the shouted replies. Some would be left on the walls to defend the keep, but more than half of the clan’s warriors were readying to rush out to rescue their thane, or to avenge him.

“We all feel th’guilt Methi. We feel that we shoulda been better, that we shoulda done more for him, but he chose to stay. He chose to defend us because he is our thane and we his people. We’ll all grieve his death, but if he is to die this day, he did not die in vain,” Khadek told her. She didn’t speak, only nodded where she lay. The boom of the wardrums and creak of the gate announced the column’s departure. Heavy boots thundered as they marched, a double beat. Then the gates thudded close and quiet returned to Ankor Drakk.

===

Blood sprayed the goblin as his fellow was cut in two. It had been hours since they’d found the dwarf, but he still stood, blocking the way. They’d only forced him back a few strides, and the corpses of scores of grots and dozens of the boyz choked the already narrow tunnel. The goblin drew only a single breath before it joined the others in the growing mountain of corpses. Another goblin, then another died, but still Brask fought on with a grim relentlessness that only comes from a dwarf knowing he must hold the line.

So far the line had held, but it was steadily being forced back, the press of the horde was too great for it to be otherwise. The orcs had sent the goblins in first, hoping that sheer numbers would swarm the dwarf that dared deny them their fun by refusing to die. What was the point of crumping something like that? That was no fun, so in first the goblins went. It had been hours, and some of the orc boyz had gotten bored and frustrated and rushed down the dozens of side tunnels to try and get at the fleeing stunties that had to be hurt and bleeding.

Either they’d catch them, or they wouldn’t. It didn’t matter to the warboss. All that mattered was that the stunty that had become such a thorn in his side was doomed. One way or the other, he would die, and then he’d march on Ankor Drakk and raze it just to rub it in their faces that this was the Waagh’s turf now.

That thought brought a vicious smile to the warboss’s face.

===

Mail rattled, plate clanked, and feet pounded as the column of Alpsbane dawi made their way down the tunnel. Blackstone Rangers, as skilled scouts as could ever be hoped for, ran ahead of the column, barely able to scout far enough ahead for adjustments to be made and the pace kept up.

They ran as if the very Daemons of Chaos drone them. They ran with the thunder of their furious tempo echoing in the halls. They ran even though they new it was likely too late. They ran because loyalty and duty demanded it of them. They ran because they hoped to save their thane. They ran so that they could avenge his death.

None stumbled, none faltered, and they ran.

===

The tunnel had widened enough that goblins could begin squeezing past Brask’s deadly axe. Now, the thought, now they’d be able to overwhelm him. Brask, though, was a wily old dwarf. He’d survived centuries of battles and fights. He’d killed many goblins already, and he’d kill more before they finally felled him.

He became a whirlwind of death, blood flying in graceful arcs and jagged sprays all about him. His axe clove goblin flesh and his shield shattered goblin bone. They died around him like his very presence was death. Their bodies piled ever higher as he slew them and sold his life dearly.

And it was indeed his life he was selling. Here and there, a goblin spear got lucky. A scratch or insignificant cut they may have only been, but he was slowly gaining dozens of them. Eventually, they’d find their way through to scar him with more significant injuries, but that time was not yet. Scratch and cut them they did, but for each injury done, he slew a dozen of the sniveling and cowardly goblins.

===

Orcs hooted in delight as they found the blood trail once more. It had taken them time, but now the chase was on again and they’d find those stunties that escaped and kill them slow. A couple of them would go into the stew pot tonight, and the thought of stunty soup was enough to renew their enthusiasm for the chase.

Their delight quickly turned to dread as they heard a column of dwarves give a shout and saw them lower spears and pikes as they charged them. A couple of the orcs had enough warning to turn and run, not that it helped. They made it three strides, perhaps four before they died screaming on dwarven spears.

===

Brask stumbled back from the blow that had shattered his shield into so much kindling. A goblin spear tried to take advantage of the momentary imbalance, but the goblin driving it was too slow, and only managed to rend the mail covering the dwarf’s upper arm and leave a long bleeding gash. Brask was quick to recover, though, and as he batted away the offending shaft, he drew his sword and gutted the goblin like a freshly caught fish. He wheeled on the next goblin to attack him, slashing and hacking the wretched thing to pieces.

They pressed on him from all sides now. Orcs and goblins eager to end this worrisome dwarf. They died in droves, but Brask was bleeding from many wounds, and he was beginning to tire. Still he fought on. His sword was wrenched from his hand as it stuck in an orc’s ribs, and they pressed in. His axe was sundered against an orc’s skull, and they rushed in for the kill. An orc let out a hoot as he cut deep into the dwarf’s side. He died a moment later as Brask brought the greataxe at his back down on his head. He exploded into a blur of violence as he cut down orc and goblin with abandoned. He paid dearly for his success, though, and several serious wounds now ran with his blood even as he bathed in the blood of his foes.

===

The column thundered down the tunnel, their boots crushing orc and goblin corpses flat. Many of those that found themselves in front of the dwarven juggernaut died on their spears and pikes. Those few that managed to flee were cut down by Blackstone arrows. They ran on, determined to paint the tunnels red with greenskin blood. They ran on, the sounds of battle ahead in their ears.

===

Brask breathed heavily. Three spears had pierced him through, and their broken shafts were slick with his blood. His armor was rent and his clothing bloodstained. The orcs and goblins around him did not press the attack, not now when their warboss was about to fight and kill this dwarf.

“Did ye e’er wonder why I am called th’Red Thane,” Brask asked the orc.

“It ain’t ‘cause me hair an’ beard were red,” he growled as crimson flames wreathed his arms and axe. The greenskins took a step back and Brask gave a harsh, wet chuckle.

“Now burn ye bastard!”

===

Brask’s hammerers charged ahead of the column in a splitting wedge. Before them was a horde of goblins and orcs, all turned away from the onrushing wave of murderous dwarves.

“By blood! By blade! By deed!” Their warcry shook the very bones of the mountain as they slammed into the greenskins’ rear ranks and began the slaughter. Most only had time to scream in pain before their horrid voices were forever silenced. Others shouted warnings and as they realized the magnitude of the disaster now barreling over them, they broke and ran for their lives. Many died with arrows in their backs and the backs of their skulls caved in. Only now did they realize that it was all a trick to lure them to their doom.

They ran, ran for the safety of Mount Bloodhorn. They died fleeing from the clan’s warriors, and they died at the hands of an enraged thane wielding an axe bright with crimson flame.

===

It was only as they saw the crimson glow did the column slow its headlong charge. They stopped as they saw the scene before them. Their thane, bloodied but victorious, standing amid a pile of smoldering corpses, looking back down the tunnel at the trail of carnage he’d wrought. The clan, in awe stopped at the beginning of that bloody trail. The mortal wounds he’d taken were clear to see, as was the state of his armor and shield. Crimson flames wreathed his arms and the greataxe he held. He raised his axe wreathed in the crimson flame that had earned him his title high over his head.

“BY BLOOD!”

The mighty thane’s voice rang out, clarion-clear in the tunnel only lit by the flames he’d wrought.

“BY BLADE!”

The very mountain shook with his voice as he cried out the words that were raised up by every Alpsbane when battle was joined.

“BY DEED!”

He put all of his strength into that final cry, and with it, announced the victory that he had won. He’d kept his promise. He’d gotten everyone back to Ankor Drakk.

He fell to his knees as the crimson flames began to diminish. The butt of his axe slammed into the ground as he used it to hold his weary body up. The flames flickered in the darkness, and as he let out his last breath and closed his eyes, the crimson flames died.

Brask Alpsbane, the Red Thane, died with them. His life given in battle.