Masters of Stone and Steel - Gav Thorpe & Nick Kyme Read online

  BACKLIST

  Discover more about Warhammer Chronicles from Black Library

  • THE LEGEND OF SIGMAR •

  Graham McNeill

  BOOK ONE: Heldenhammer

  BOOK TWO: Empire

  BOOK THREE: God King

  • THE RISE OF NAGASH •

  Mike Lee

  BOOK ONE: Nagash the Sorcerer

  BOOK TWO: Nagash the Unbroken

  BOOK THREE: Nagash Immortal

  • VAMPIRE WARS: THE VON CARSTEIN TRILOGY •

  Steven Savile

  BOOK ONE: Inheritance

  BOOK TWO: Dominion

  BOOK THREE: Retribution

  • THE SUNDERING •

  Gav Thorpe

  BOOK ONE: Malekith

  BOOK TWO: Shadow King

  BOOK THREE: Caledor

  • CHAMPIONS OF CHAOS •

  Darius Hinks, S P Cawkwell & Ben Counter

  BOOK ONE: Sigvald

  BOOK TWO: Valkia the Bloody

  BOOK THREE: Van Horstmann

  • THE WAR OF VENGEANCE •

  Nick Kyme, Chris Wraight & C L Werner

  BOOK ONE: The Great Betrayal

  BOOK TWO: Master of Dragons

  BOOK THREE: The Curse of the Phoenix Crown

  • MATHIAS THULMANN: WITCH HUNTER •

  C L Werner

  BOOK ONE: Witch Hunter

  BOOK TWO: Witch Finder

  BOOK THREE: Witch Killer

  • ULRIKA THE VAMPIRE •

  Nathan Long

  BOOK ONE: Bloodborn

  BOOK TWO: Bloodforged

  BOOK THREE: Bloodsworn

  • MASTERS OF STONE AND STEEL •

  Gav Thorpe and Nick Kyme

  BOOK ONE: The Doom of Dragonback

  BOOK TWO: Grudge Bearer

  BOOK THREE: Oathbreaker

  BOOK FOUR: Honourkeeper

  Discover more stories set in the Age of Sigmar from Black Library

  ~ THE AGE OF SIGMAR ~

  THE GATES OF AZYR

  An Age of Sigmar novella

  HALLOWED KNIGHTS: PLAGUE GARDEN

  An Age of Sigmar novel

  EIGHT LAMENTATIONS: SPEAR OF SHADOWS

  An Age of Sigmar novel

  OVERLORDS OF THE IRON DRAGON

  C L Werner

  BLACK RIFT

  Josh Reynolds

  LEGENDS OF THE AGE OF SIGMAR

  Includes the novels Fyreslayers, Skaven Pestilens and Sylvaneth

  Various authors

  NAGASH: THE UNDYING KING

  Josh Reynolds

  NEFERATA: MORTARCH OF BLOOD

  David Annandale

  SOUL WARS

  Josh Reynolds

  CALLIS & TOLL: THE SILVER SHARD

  Nick Horth

  THE TAINTED HEART

  C L Werner

  SHADESPIRE: THE MIRRORED CITY

  Josh Reynolds

  ~ THE REALMGATE WARS ~

  WAR STORM

  An Age of Sigmar anthology

  GHAL MARAZ

  An Age of Sigmar anthology

  HAMMERS OF SIGMAR

  An Age of Sigmar anthology

  CALL OF ARCHAON

  An Age of Sigmar anthology

  WARDENS OF THE EVERQUEEN

  An Age of Sigmar novel

  WARBEAST

  An Age of Sigmar novel

  FURY OF GORK

  An Age of Sigmar novel

  BLADESTORM

  An Age of Sigmar novel

  MORTARCH OF NIGHT

  An Age of Sigmar novel

  LORD OF UNDEATH

  An Age of Sigmar novel

  THE REALMGATE WARS: VOLUME 1

  An omnibus by various authors

  THE REALMGATE WARS: VOLUME 2

  An omnibus by various authors

  ~ LEGENDS OF THE AGE OF SIGMAR ~

  CITY OF SECRETS

  An Age of Sigmar novel

  FYRESLAYERS

  An Age of Sigmar novel

  SKAVEN PESTILENS

  An Age of Sigmar novel

  BLACK RIFT

  An Age of Sigmar novel

  SYLVANETH

  An Age of Sigmar novel

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Backlist

  Title Page

  Warhammer Chronicles

  THE DOOM OF DRAGONBACK

  Prologue

  Chapter one

  Chapter two

  Chapter three

  Chapter four

  Chapter five

  Chapter six

  Chapter seven

  Chapter eight

  Chapter nine

  Chapter ten

  Chapter eleven

  Chapter twelve

  Chapter thirteen

  Chapter fourteen

  Chapter fifteen

  Chapter sixteen

  Chapter seventeen

  Chapter eighteen

  Chapter nineteen

  Chapter twenty

  Chapter twenty-one

  Chapter twenty-two

  Chapter twenty-three

  Chapter twenty-four

  Chapter twenty-five

  Chapter twenty-six

  Chapter twenty-seven

  Chapter twenty-eight

  Epilogue

  ANCESTRAL HONOUR

  GRUDGE BEARER

  Grudge one

  Grudge two

  Grudge three

  Grudge four

  Grudge five

  Grudge six

  Grudge seven

  Grudge eight

  OATHBREAKER

  Prologue

  Chapter one

  Chapter two

  Chapter three

  Chapter four

  Chapter five

  Chapter six

  Chapter seven

  Chapter eight

  Chapter nine

  Chapter ten

  Chapter eleven

  Chapter twelve

  Chapter thirteen

  Chapter fourteen

  Chapter fifteen

  Epilogue

  HONOURKEEPER

  Chapter one

  Chapter two

  Chapter three

  Chapter four

  Chapter five

  Chapter six

  Chapter seven

  Chapter eight

  Chapter nine

  Chapter ten

  Chapter eleven

  Chapter twelve

  Chapter thirteen

  Chapter fourteen

  Chapter fifteen

  Chapter sixteen

  Chapter seventeen

  Chapter eighteen

  Chapter nineteen

  Chapter twenty

  Chapter twenty-one

  Epilogue

  CITY OF DEAD JEWELS

  About the Authors

  An Extract from ‘Neferata: Mortarch of Blood’

  A Black Library Publication

  eBook license

  Centuries before Sigmar united the tribes of man and forged the Empire, dwarfs and elves held sway over the Old World.

  Beneath the mountains of this land lies the great realm of the dwarfs. A proud and venerable race, dwarfs have ruled over their subterranean holds for thousands of years. Their kingdom stretches the length and breadth of the Old World and the majesty of their artifice stands boldly for all to see, hewn into the very earth itself.

  Miners and engineers beyond compare, dwarfs are expert craftsmen who share a great love of gold, but so do other creatures. Greenskins, ratmen and still deadlier beasts that dwell in the darkest depths of the world regard the riches of the dwarfs
with envious eyes.

  At the height of their Golden Age, the dwarfs enjoyed dominion over all that they surveyed but bitter war against the elves and the ravages of earthquakes put paid to this halcyon era. Ruled over by the High King of Karaz-a-Karak, the greatest of their holds, the dwarfs now nurse the bitter memories of defeat, clinging desperately to the last vestiges of their once proud kingdom, striving to protect their rocky borders from enemies above and below the earth.

  THE DOOM OF DRAGONBACK

  Gav Thorpe

  ‘There are many famous dwarf ales, and many renowned brewers, but the name of Josef Bugman stands as a paragon of quality. His family originally came from the Dragonback Mountains. The tale of Josef and his ancestors is one of hardship and loss, and from their story comes the ancient dwarf phrase “There’s no beer as bitter as its history”.’

  ‘Dwarfs of the Empire, a Brief History’, by Rikard

  the Holy and Njel of the Stills

  PROLOGUE

  The rasp of a small flint on metal broke the still, followed a moment later by the glow of a pale yellow flame as the old dwarf lifted a small firebox, the deep lines of her face starkly etched by its light. Her pipe was a simple clay affair, glazed a dark blue, long in the stem, with a piece of plain bronze banding just behind the bowl where in the past it had been repaired.

  Deep brown eyes looked out from under greying eyebrows, not unkindly, but carrying the weight of much life and toil. The hand that lifted the pipe from her mouth, releasing a swirl of bluish smoke between cracked lips, was gnarled, the fingernails cropped square and short, with many small scars across rough knuckles. There was a deep-rooted darkness in the skin – not dirt as such but the accumulated grime of centuries.

  She wore a heavy smock of deep red linen and over that crumpled a leather apron marked by many burns and stains and made soft by long use. She crossed her feet on the low stool as she rocked back her chair, revealing the hobnails in the soles of her boots, each piece of metal worn almost to nothing. Bright iron toecaps glinted in the light of the fire beside her.

  Around the old madam dwarf sat a semicircle of youngsters – five boys and one girl, all staring at her with rapt attention. Another, a little younger still, stood at the arched doorway, trying to hide. He didn’t succeed. She saw him and smiled, beckoning the dwarf boy to enter.

  ‘Come, Gabbik, be in or out, but not both.’

  The young dwarf entered and squeezed his way between two of the others, right in front of the old dwarf lady. He leaned forward, chin in his hands, elbows on his knees.

  ‘Settled?’ There were nods from the assembled children. The dwarf took a puff on her pipe and then laid it to one side on a small table by her right hand. She folded her fingers together in her lap and nodded to herself. ‘I have lived a long life, and a good one for the most part. It has not been easy and there has been much woe, but that is the lot for all of us in these later years. It was not always so. There was a time, though we choose to forget it, when elf and dwarf were friends. Can you imagine such a thing?’

  There were scowls and shaking of heads.

  ‘No, I don’t suppose you can. It is hard to think that there was a glorious time, before the wars and the disasters. It was in those ancient days that our story begins. Our story really starts in Karak Eight Peaks, where our earliest forefathers were born. In the great times our ancestors desired to improve their standing and with others of like mind they moved westwards, to find a place where they could mine ore for themselves and brew their own beer and delve homes the like of which they could only dream of. Amongst them were the Angbok clan.’

  CHAPTER ONE

  ‘The Angboks were miners by inclination for the most part, neither the largest nor the most powerful to live in Karak Eight Peaks, but also not the weakest or smallest. Our people since the ancestors walked among us have held to tradition and custom as the bedrock of existence, and so it must be today, for if we forget where we have come from we will wander without end. But even so, the Angboks and others of similar mind were perhaps given to a more outward-looking temperament. They were not discontent, but there was set in their thoughts a notion that the halls of Karak Eight Peaks did not contain all that they desired. So it was that a great number of them gathered and with permission from their king ventured forth, heading towards the sunset to find a new land they could add to the great empire of our people.’

  Biting her lip to stop it trembling, Haldora barely listened to her father’s words as he recited the life-wreaths of her grandmother, Awdhelga. Instead, Haldora’s thoughts were filled with more personal memories than those bold achievements listed by rote on the tomb-slab of the family crypt. She thought of ‘Gramma Awdie’ working the valves on the small brewery she built; sharpening her axe on the whetstone at the top of the western delves; telling the story of how she killed five goblins in as many heartbeats while she polished their gilded skulls.

  ‘Five years, to this day,’ Haldora’s father intoned as he stepped away from the tombstone, letting his hand drop to his side from where his fingers had been following the lines of runes cut into the granite. With due ceremony concluded, Gabbik allowed himself a sniff of grief; a personal moment as a tear glistened in his eye. ‘A fine mam.’

  He was dressed in his best clothes, like all of them, his shirt tucked into his woollen breeches, boots polished to glisten like fresh coal, hair neatly combed into a single knot, beard and moustache plaited into long braids.

  Beside him was a more unkempt, older figure, one shirt tail half-out of his leather work trousers, beard hastily combed, the scent of ale about him. ‘A fine dwarf,’ added Skraffi, widower to the renowned, some would say infamous, Awdhelga Angbok. ‘The best.’

  ‘Blackbeer and skrob kuri tonight,’ announced Friedra, Haldora’s mother. She wore a long black dress embroidered with complex knotwork in thick silver thread. Her hair was tied in two bunches held by gold-studded leather thongs. Her eyes were cast down to the bare stone floor of the mausoleum, hands fidgeting with the square of a handkerchief. ‘Awdhelga’s recipe, like always.’

  ‘My favourite,’ said Gabbik, wiping the back of his hand across his nose. ‘Aww, mam, keep safe in yonder halls.’

  In silence they filed out of the crypt, back up a short passage to the family shrine adjoining Skraffi’s meadery. The room was egg-like in shape, the fatter end of the oval carved into tiers like steps, six in all. Arranged on the highest shelf were three figurines almost as tall as the dwarfs – Grungni, Valaya and Grimnir. Ancestors to the whole dwarf race, they took pride of place: Grungni with hammer and anvil, Valaya with cloak and herbs, and Grimnir with axe and orc skull.

  On the step below were the five oldest fathers of the Angbok clan, rendered as metal discs with stylised faces, helms and beards. Beneath them the family ancestors, a mix of clay and metal badges, figurines, busts and other ornaments each made to the fashion and preference of the family at the time. A likeness of Awdhelga took pride of place in the middle of the tier, rendered out of a single piece of coal hewn by her own hand the day before she had finally died of old age.

  Next to it was a simple clay pipe, fixed just behind the bowl with a strip of bronze. This triggered the strongest memories of all – Gramma Awdie with all the clan beardlings gathered around to hear tales of the old days before the War of Vengeance and elf-brought grief.

  ‘She made herself mistress of many things,’ Haldora said with a sigh, ‘but her stories I’ll miss the most. She spun tales better than her yarn.’

  ‘And was never shy to share them, neither,’ said Skraffi. He patted his son on the shoulder. ‘Very generous was your mam.’ Skraffi turned his attention to Haldora and winked. ‘And right proud of you too, she was. ‘Tis a shame she ain’t here to teach you more.’

  ‘Everything important, she told me ‘fore she went,’ said Haldora.

  ‘That’s as you like, but there’s still plenty a trick round fireplace and kitchen you need to learn,’ said Friedra. ‘You’ll be
helping me with the kuri, won’t you now?’

  ‘Oh mam, we’re breaking into a new seam today. The gang’ll need every pick and shovel to help.’

  ‘It’s all well and good you doing your part down the mines, but you’ll not catch the eye of a future husband covered in coal dust and without a pot of something filling on your arm.’

  ‘I’m just two years past my thirtieth birthday, plenty of time for that sort of thing once I know I can earn my keep.’

  ‘You earn your keep by having floors swept, bellies full and bringing on the patter of little boots,’ said Gabbik. ‘It was a blessing the day I had a daughter, but for all the way you act we might have had a son.’

  ‘Gramma Awdie killed goblins and brewed beer and stitched the standard of Ekrund, all ‘fore she was one hundred – there’s no good reason I have to be chained to the ovens.’

  ‘Nobody’s saying that, but you’re not a stripling now, my girl.’ Friedra started towards the archway leading out into the passage towards the Angbok halls. ‘You think Awdhelga was too good to fill a trencher for her family on feast days? Show her more respect than that.’

  ‘Grammi, tell them!’ Haldora said when her mother had left, turning her attention to Skraffi, who had started to absent-mindedly polish the metal ancestor badges with the tail of his shirt.

  ‘Your mam is right, and so are you,’ he said. He fumbled in the pocket of his waistcoat and pulled out a set of thick-rimmed nose-pinch spectacles. He ceremoniously put them on and looked at the inscription of the golden badge in his other hand. ‘Grafgar Angbok. My great-uncle. Lost his left thumb in the war.’

  ‘Grammi, that’s no answer!’

  ‘Only one you’ll be getting today, Haldi.’

  ‘My name is Haldora. I am a grown-up now.’

  ‘Whatever you say, Haldi.’

  ‘We should be off to break that new seam,’ said Gabbik, heading towards the door. He looked back at Haldora and Skraffi. ‘If you two have finished with your mooning about, of course.’

  Skraffi put down the ancestor badge and followed Gabbik out.

  Alone with her ancestors, Haldora took a moment for herself. She stood in front of all the badges, deathmasks, busts and statuettes, curling a tress of hair around her left thumb. She looked at Awdhelga’s symbol on the ledge and took a deep breath.

  ‘Gramma Awdie? Thank you. Look over us today.’ On a whim she lifted the old pipe and took it with her as she turned away. ‘I hope I will be half the dwarf you were.’