Headtaker by David Guymer

Author:David Guymer
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Black Library
Published: 2013-02-24T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

Bernard Servat knuckled the crick from his neck. The great gate to the Throne Hall of Karak Azul was a grand sight to be sure and it was hard to not be impressed. The lords of Bretonnia went to extravagant lengths to inspire such awe without ever approaching a shadow of the monolithic constructions he had witnessed under the earth, far beneath the sight of men. The Ninth Deep fortifications alone made Chateau Brionne look like the hill fort of some mountain tribe savage.

He wished some of those perfumed lords could be here to see this.

The door alone was immense. The richly scented red pine was engraved with blockish dwarfish runes. The runes were embellished with gold paint and each row of script was offset from the next by heavy bands of iron polished to a high shine and interleaved with threads of gold into rigid, angular motifs. Bernard wondered how much gold was in this one door. Probably enough to buy himself a modest duchy. It glittered in the light of dozens of flickering torches, held immobile in the fists of the statues that lined the approach.

The casual display of wealth rankled. He wondered where the famed King Kazador concealed the serfs that built such wonders for him. Every kingdom depended on the dullards that kept its cellars full and their knees bent to their betters. Two weeks in Nuln had soon soured the dream that the Empire, or anywhere, was any different from his homeland. You were weak or you were strong, and the weak seldom enjoyed such grandeur.

But it was still hard not to be impressed.

A short line stretched behind him, the dwarfs grumbling softly in their flinty tongue. Some had brought ale and bided the wait with a tankard moistening their lips. Towards the back of the line, a scruffy dwarf with the look of a goatherd was being upbraided by a hook-nosed official with a long beard plaited through silver clasps. Despite the language barrier, Bernard found the exchange diverting enough. The nearby dwarfs shook their heads disapprovingly as the disagreement rumbled on, the bureaucrat evidently objecting to the newcomer tethering his mule to the leg of one of the statues.

He turned to the two Hammerers that stood watch on the gate. The grim-faced soldiers barely reached his chest, but they were broader than he and muscled like oxen. He rubbed the bruised knuckles of his right hand ruefully. An ill-advised arm wrestle with a dwarf miner in the alcohol-hazed aftermath of yesterday’s battle was testament to the brute power in those squat bodies.

‘How much longer?’

The two dwarfs looked up at him, mirror images of disdain.

‘Kazador won’t be rushed,’ grunted one.

He stared coldly at the dwarf, recalling every feature. His eyes were icy green and sombre, grim lines chiselled into a scarred face half-concealed by a thick brown beard that spilled down his broad chest in two plaits that were knotted behind his waist. A huge hammer was strapped across his shoulders. The head

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