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Buyer Beware – Extract

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BUYER BEWARE

Gav Thorpe

A mawcrusher in full flight is a thing of brutal, terrible beauty. The bulge of powerful muscles driving its immense pinions up and down. The curve and recurve of wing flaps rising and falling with each beat. The spiked tail as it weaves from side to side, every twitch making small adjustments to the immense beast’s trajectory. Ropes of drool trailing from sword-length fangs, each a stained-ivory slash against the dark tongue within the mouth, the bucket-like jaw opening wider and wider as the beast falls upon its prey.

This monster was a particularly dazzling specimen, bronze-like scales glistening against the ochre sky of the Ironpeaks of Chamon. Dark red stripes marked the upper scales and the crest that stretched back along to the fins of the tail, while the underbelly was mottled with a purple hue. Eyes like ruby peered out from beneath the heavy brow as the mawcrusher turned around a promontory of dark rock, its wingtip scraping through the last remnants of autumnal leaves, scattering red and gold flutters.

The magnificence of nature in its primal form was quite lost on the handful of stocky figures running full tilt down the mountainside ahead of the descending behemoth.

They had divested themselves of their heavy aeronautic suits for this stealthy venture and were clad only in thick woollen undergarments from ankle to throat, varying in hue from the dark blue of panting, grey-haired-and-bearded Thorkki Longintooth to a somewhat beer-stained cerise worn by Nukduk, via outfits of sober beige, dazzling yellow and a regal purple. This last garment, further adorned with gold stitching of a sky-anchor upon the left breast, marked out the small group’s leader, as did the ornately feathered wide-brimmed hat that he continued to hold atop the shaggy mass of black hair upon his head.

Karazi ‘Fairgold’ Zaynson, captain of the Night’s Daughter. Pieces of dried leaf clung to the bushy falls of his dark beard, which had a reddish streak in the moustache and down the cheeks, a feature considered particularly fetching among the folk of Barak-Mhornar. In his other hand he held the handle of a bulging dark leather satchel, as did two of his companions.

There was not so much a path to follow down the slope as a slightly worn trail through the scattered bushes and twisted trees. The leaves were dry on the ground, crackling and billowing around the duardin as they pounded down the mountainside. Heavy breaths and the swoop of wings flung more arboreal detritus into the air, so that the slope became a shifting mass of dead foliage, sliding underfoot and gathering in drifts ahead.

‘I tol’ you they’s never too far from tha nest!’ shouted Rogoth, he of the sun-bright yellow undersuit. His locks and beard were as golden as his nether-wraps, flowing like streamers behind him as he vaulted a half-buried log.

‘And I told you to keep running,’ Fairgold growled back.

Ahead the mountainside appeared to become sky, the yellowish grass suddenly giving way to a haze of empty air. A jutting shoulder of rock barred the way, so that the group would either have to break towards the open side of the mountain or turn back up the slope.

‘Where’s the Daughter?’ yelled Thorkki, face crimson between near-white beard and brow.

‘Keep running!’ bellowed Fairgold. He angled right towards the open slope where they had left the Night’s Daughter. ‘This way!’

‘Yer a gold-drunk fool,’ snapped Rogoth, heading left. ‘This way!’

The other three duardin chased after their captain. A few heartbeats later Rogoth stumbled as his boot caught on a twist of root. He did not lose his footing, but the trip was enough for him to stagger to a halt for a moment. Fairgold slowed, head turning to look at his crew member.

A massive shadow engulfed Rogoth.

‘Get down!’ yelled Fairgold but it was too late. A moment later, jaws as big as the aeronaut snapped shut and the mawcrusher swooped up, leaving a splash of blood and shredded yellow where Rogoth had been. Nukduk gave a wail of despair and slowed down, neck craning as he watched the mawcrusher ascending. Fairgold skidded to a halt, heavy boots sending up dust from the dry mountainside. He took two steps back and grabbed Nukduk’s arm.

‘It’s coming back,’ the captain said, tugging. ‘We’ve got to go.’

‘Go where?’ snarled Nukduk, digging his heel into the ground as Fairgold tried to pull him into a run. ‘The Daughter’s gone without us!’

‘They haven’t gone nowhere, you flange-headed dolt,’ insisted Fairgold, loosening his grip. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the mawcrusher wheeling across the slope, ready for another diving attack. ‘Stay here if you want to end up like Rogoth.’

A glare at Thorkki and Zanna brought them after Fairgold as he gathered speed down the slope once more. Nukduk followed a moment later.

‘Where are we going?’ Zanna called, her braids like flails as her head whipped back and forth between the clifftop ahead and the descending mawcrusher coming from the left.

‘Trust me,’ said Fairgold.

He powered on, panting hard. A sudden gust lifted up the brim of his hat, flipping it from his head. He tried to turn and snatch it, but his short legs were not suited to such manoeuvres and he fell backwards, cradling the satchel to his chest on instinct as he rolled over. Zanna was nimbler, plucking the headwear from the air as it slipped past her. Back on his feet, Fairgold accelerated again, just behind his crew.

Out of the corner of his eye he could see the vast shadow of the mawcrusher approaching fast. Just a few paces from the cliff’s edge the others started to slow. Fairgold drew in a deep breath. It was too late to stop now. Legs pumping harder than a ship’s piston he caught up with the others, arms outstretched, and shepherded them to the edge.

As a group they leapt into the open air.

Rising below them was the Night’s Daughter, her burnished hull and aether-gold cistern gleaming. Custom-built, she was longer than most shipyard vessels of Barak-Mhornar, her aether-gold tank and oversized skyscrew engines mounted lower and further rearward for speed. Where ships built for the battleline of the city fleet had bulging carbinades mounted in their prows, Fairgold’s unaffiliated freegun vessel sported more crew room with shuttered firing slits in place of fixed pintle guns, currently bristling with weapons from within. It was a remarkable piece of work given it had been put together from a dozen different salvages and wreck raids. For a couple of heartbeats, Fairgold admired the vessel as he fell, before he and Zanna slammed into the side of the balloon-like aethertank while the other two aeronauts fell to the deck a little further below. Fairgold slid down the side of the cistern, fingers scrabbling at rivets and thick banding until he came to a stop. Zanna held on to the rail around the pilot’s hatch above him, satchel in the other hand, captain’s hat clamped between gritted teeth. He felt the whole ship throbbing as the engines powered it upwards past the cliff.

‘Sorry!’ Eskar Druadak shouted past Zanna from her piloting position. ‘The cliff was going to break. Had to circle and wait. Didn’t want that mawcrusher to see us.’

‘Everyone else all right?’ Fairgold called out as he allowed himself to carefully slide further down the aethertank until his foot touched a stabiliser fin. A chorus of half-hearted affirmatives broke the drone of the engines. A sudden wind as the Night’s Daughter crested the cliff set the vessel swaying, and for a moment there was nothing beneath Fairgold and a long drop down to the cliff bottom.

The ironclad steadied as Eskar started to turn it away from the mountainside, but as she did so, Fairgold, face pressed against the bronzed tank as he clung on like a High Magnate holding a ha’penny, saw the mawcrusher swooping like a thunderbolt.

The company was already at quarters as the order to ready weapons rang across the ship. A score of aethershot carbines and pistols presented towards the mawcrusher from deck, firing slits and support stanchions, while the arkanauts at the main gun hurriedly turned their great cannon towards the incoming beast. It was still traversing when the first small-arms shots crackled out, dappling the Night’s Daughter with muzzle flare. Bullets speckled the thick hide of the monster with little visible effect. Breech-cranks snapped and screeched as the aeronauts readied for a second volley. There would be no time for a third.

The main cannon boomed into angry life, setting the Night’s Daughter shuddering from the serrated prow ram to the skyrudders aft of the main screw. The jolt nearly threw Fairgold from his precarious perch, so that he was clinging on with one hand as he watched an explosion of shrapnel engulf the hurtling mawcrusher. It burst from the cloud of sharp metal and black smoke with mouth agape. Blood trailed from its face and left shoulder, and it rolled to one side as fresh carbine fire crackled below, a clawed foot lashing out as the beast swept past.

Engines now at full ahead, the Night’s Daughter powered cloudwards, leaving the wounded monster to land lopsided at the clifftop, screeching its rage.

Picking his way to a support strut, Fairgold was about to slide down to the main deck when he saw flashes of blue sparks and a slick of dark smoke trailing from the gouge ripped into the side of the aether-engine by the mawcrusher’s vengeful claws. Metal had parted like paper and a pipe hissed steam within. Even as he found footing on the deck, the captain could sense all was not well with his ship, a stuttering in the stroke of the engines.

Even so, his first thought was not for the ship but the endrineer below.

‘Verna!’ he bellowed into the smoke-filled chamber beneath the aethertank. The smell of burnt rubber and hot metal assailed his nostrils.

A goggled face smeared with grease appeared from the bank of vapour, a knitted beard-hammock protecting dark brown whiskers.

‘She’s fine,’ said the duardin, wiping his oil-stained hands on a rag. ‘Me too, thanks for asking. Busy.’

‘What’s the damage, Oggin?’ asked Fairgold.

The endrinrigger sucked air through his teeth and shook his head.

‘Not good.’ He turned to call back into the hidden depths of the endrinroom. A muffled voice replied and Oggin repeated it for his captain. ‘Couple of displaced packing glands… Thumbnail rupture on the eduction pipe… Splinters in the crossheads.’

Fairgold rubbed his beard thoughtfully, waiting for Oggin to continue. Nothing else was forthcoming.

‘You dunno what any of that means, do you?’

‘Nope. Except splinters, I know what they are.’ Fairgold leaned past the assistant to address the mistress. ‘How long? Can we make Breakward Stark?’

‘I’ll get us there, but we’ll have to make do with endrin-shimmies until we land for proper repairs,’ came the reply.

‘You’re the best!’ Fairgold called before turning away from the hatch, to find himself confronted by Thorkki. The greybeard stood with fists on hips, brows knotted tighter than one of the rigger cables that held the endrin-tank in place.

‘You still going to the orruks, after what’s happened?’

‘Why wouldn’t I?’

‘Rogoth is dead!’ Thorkki shook his head, which set his beard to waggling fiercely from side to side. ‘Don’t that mean nothing?’

‘It means nothing if we don’t finish the deal,’ snapped Fairgold. ‘He’ll still get his share.’

‘What you gonna do with it? Stick it on a pile of mawcrusher sh–’

‘Arrangements will be made!’ barked the captain. ‘All shares will be paid, in full, as promised.’

Thorkki grumbled some more but Fairgold pushed past, ignoring him.

‘Eskar?’

The young pilot gave him a thumbs up from her position at the forecradle of the main superstructure.

‘Already on our way, captain!’ she called down. ‘Quarter speed’s the best we can do.’

Fairgold signalled his thanks and returned his attention to the rest of the crew, trying to find the right words. He failed. Everything that came to him, a usually gifted orator, seemed trite.

‘Stand down from quarters, Thorkki,’ he told his first mate. The greybeard hesitated and then complied, giving his beard a short tug of salute. ‘Get some grub and rest, and then stand to again when we get to Breakward Stark.’

As the other duardin busied themselves, Fairgold moved to the starboard rail near the bow, staring ahead into the golden clouds at the horizon, the twin jutting peaks of Breakward Stark just about visible against them. About two hours, Fairgold reckoned, but his thoughts quickly moved away from the immediate future.

‘I told him to go right,’ he muttered to himself.

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A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

First published in Great Britain in 2020.
This eBook edition published in 2020 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Cover illustration by Tomas Duchek.

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ISBN: 978-1-80026-331-4

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