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Grombrindal: Chronicles of the Wanderer – Extract

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Heat steamed from a giant crack in the earth, its roar akin to that of a godbeast giving birth to fire. The air was languid and molten. From rocky walls the graven idols of Grimnir in all his aspects sweated. The golden lines of his many mouths moved with silent utterances, eyes alive with the wit of ages and the wisdom of stone-sleep. Feeling that warm, wrathful gaze upon her, Helka Hravnsdottier bore her unnamed son to the ledge of rock overlooking Mothirzharr.

She smiled as the flameling punched at her arm with tiny fists, protesting the heat, the noise, or any of the dozen or so confused urges that could stir a month-old infant to ire.

So young, and already a fighter.

Murmuring a lullaby about blood and gold, she drew him to her breastplate, soothing his temper with the blistering touch of hot metal. The child looked up, mesmerised by her face, entirely disinterested in the wealth of brooches and jewels that framed it. Helka felt her own ambitions melt in the forge-heat of his regard. The child was just beginning to bulk out with muscle, and already Helka could discern the warrior he would become; the battles he would win, the glory he would claim, the foes he would slay. Nor did her heart shy from envisioning the manner in which he would one day die, for they were children of Grimnir, and a violent death was as inevitable as the drip-drip-drip surrender of rock to Mothirzharr. Helka’s father was long dead. Her brothers were all fallen in battle. They were at Grimnir’s side now, awaiting the call to the final battles of the doomgron, their deaths celebrated in the hearts of all who had witnessed or heard the battlesmiths’ tales. If she mourned their passing at all it was that she alone remained to have grown old.

Three Fyreslayers awaited her at the precipice, a nation’s wealth in gold and fyresteel shimmering against Mothirzharr’s sulphurous breath. To the left was an elderly duardin, streaks of ash-grey in the fire of his beard. Shadows wavering along deep crags in his face pooled into the bowls of his eyes. Ur-gold runes bulged from shrunken muscles, but his grip on his runestaff was strong, both it and he enveloped by the runes’ golden glow. His eyes were tight shut as he muttered invocations under his breath, teeth gritted against the occasional cough brought on by the gorlbrost from which he suffered in his dimming years. His name was Morthrun Bloodsmith. Power rolled off the ancient runemaster like a second source of heat, and Helka could almost feel Mothirzharr tremble at having its temper stayed.

To the right was Tangrorn. The battlesmith was as broad and strong as any rendering of the Shattered God he might forge. The icon of Grimnir he held in one hand had been fashioned from ur-gold and fyresteel, with a beard of magmadroth-hide straps studded with sapphires and blue spinel. The eyes were shadowed and grave –little more than hollows in the metal – yet they were at once somehow joyful. Grimnir in his aspect of the Father. Tangrorn struck the icon pole rhythmically on the baked rock, beard straps jingling, almost perfectly in time to the grumbling of the earth, the chanting of the lodge’s mustered fyrds, and the beating of Helka’s heart.

Between them stood Jord-Grimnir: her husband. Runefather of the Skarravorn lodge.

‘From the fires of breaking are we made,’ he intoned, his voice betraying a lifetime spent inhaling smoke and drinking fire.

He was clad for the naming ceremony in a kilt of golden scales, a large buckle bearing the image of Grimnir, and a set of crossed keys in white gold, fyresteel and Skarravorn sapphires. His helmet was a whorl of knotwork and zharrgrim runecraft, funnelling his hair into a crest that echoed the wall of heat rising from the chasm behind his back. Smoke rose from his beard. His expression, such as Helka could read of it, was one of excitement. They had both reached an age where neither had expected to see this day.

‘By the fires of making are we made strong.’

Raising one hand, he half turned, holding it out over the heat of the chasm. He grimaced, but made no other sound. The ur-gold embedded in his forearm began to hiss and sputter.

‘By the fires of our own deaths do we return.’

He withdrew his hand, flexed his fingers, then made a fist. The skin wheezed where it had reddened and cracked, but the runes remained aflame, as though the runefather had been cut open, baring the fire that burned within them all.

‘And from the fire do we rise to fight and die again!’

Bending to the ground, Jord-Grimnir scooped up a handful of grit and tossed it into the chasm. Smaller pebbles popped the moment they were free of his hand; the larger stones burned for longer, creating a brief, brilliant sheet of rain over the crack in the ground. He bowed his head.

Tangrorn beat his pole against the rock to the same steady beat.

The watching fyrds rumbled their unspoken approval as, marching in time, Kazrigar-Grimnir of the Unbrogun lodge left their ranks for the Long Walk to Mothirzharr. Brostur-Grimnir followed him. Then Rorvik-Grimnir and Vulgun-Grimnir. With them went their runesons, the priests of the zharrgrim, the battlesmiths and karls and thegns of the fyrds. No order of precedence was observed. They were Fyreslayers, united as much by temperament as by tradition, and by the spirit of their law as much as its letter. There, by the mouth of the fire, they clapped Jord-Grimnir on the back, congratulated him in terms ranging from the solemn to the ribald depending on their familiarity, tossing their own fistful of gravel into Aqshy’s furnace before making the return. Many had words too for Helka, of congratulation and commiseration, others simply touching her hair or her armour or smiling at the child in her arms as they passed.

Anticipation became as raw as burned skin in the heat. Pockets of song broke out as those who had paid their respects to Jord-Grimnir and the fire and then returned to their fyrds began to outnumber those who had not. Jord-Grimnir broke his dignified observance to bawl for silence, and Helka felt herself smile. I am, he had said earlier that day, the final preparations for the Rite of Naming frustrating him as such duties always had, too old for fatherhood to temper me now.

Last of all to the ledge were the lodges’ Hearthguard. They came as a respectful throng, leaving Helka and Jord-Grimnir unmolested in order to offer their tokens to Mothirzharr and depart.

Amongst the last group to make its walk was a warrior made striking by the white crest of hair pluming from his helmet, a beard of the same colour dressed in gold rings reaching well past his ankles. His face was old, and yet unlike Morthrun, the runemaster, he seemed stronger for his years. The way that lava will thicken and harden over time to become rock. His eyes were older yet, but at the same time harboured such a capacity for mirth that Helka could not meet them without feeling the solemnity of the occasion slipping from her. Ur-gold studded his leather-hard torso, but the runes they described were unfamiliar. His wargear, too, was exceptionally fine for a warrior of his rank.

‘A strong-looking lad,’ he muttered in passing.

‘Thank you, hearthkarl,’ she said, bowing her head in reply. The duardin grinned fire-blackened teeth at her and continued on his way. Helka soon lost him to the throng.

When it was done, the last warriors drifting back to their fyrds, Jord-Grimnir turned to Helka. Tangrorn pounded out the steady rhythm. Morthrun’s strained voice matched it with his incantations, and compelled the unruly earth to be still. Arguably, the task of shackling Mothirzharr for the ritual’s duration should have fallen to one of the runemaster’s undersmiters. But Morthrun had overseen Jord-Grimnir’s own naming, and that of his father, and the runefather would have no other for his own son.

The runefather extended his arms to his wife. Fire wreathed him. He glowed with it, his immensely muscled torso twisted by the heat. Behind him, and despite Morthrun’s best efforts, an inferno fire roared.

‘When I went before your father to claim your hand, I promised him gold and a grandson.’ Jord-Grimnir regarded the ill-tempered bundle in Helka’s arms, pride briefly unmasking the father behind the king. ‘I had come to fear that I would next stand beside him in the doomgron fyrd as an oathbreaker.’

‘I could always use more gold, husband.’

The runefather grinned as Helka handed him his son. The fyrds, never comfortable when restrained, gave such a roar of approval that the heat rising from Mothirzharr fluttered like a curtain of smoke.

‘We are the fire!’ Jord-Grimnir yelled at them. ‘In our birth. And in our death. We are the lords of our own lives. We fight so that we may die. And join the fire willingly when it is our time.’ He turned fully to face the boiling chasm, the young runeson held firmly between his giant fists. ‘And not before!’

He thrust the child into the heat, the ur-gold studding his forearms flaring within the acrid smoke.

Helka watched, open-mouthed.

The fyrds fell silent.

Tangrorn beat his staff upon the ground.

Once.

Twice.

‘Your great-great-grandfather, who was Baeldrun, son of Baelash the Sunderer, lasted a nine-beat before crying out,’ said Tangrorn as his staff struck a fourth, a fifth, a sixth.

‘Do you hear that?’ Jord-Grimnir shouted, fierce with affection. ‘Do you hear, runemother? Our son is too stubborn to cry.’

Seven.

‘Had you been present for the birth then you would know from which of us that comes.’

Eight.

‘The name you have chosen for him had best be a hero’s,’ said Jord-Grimnir.

‘I’ve one in mind.’

Nine.

Jord-Grimnir started to laugh. ‘My mountain is not hot enough for this boy!’

‘That’s enough,’ said Helka.

‘He cannot be named before the fyrds until Mothirzharr hears him cry.’

‘Your arms are burning.’

‘I’ll not be shamed by my own child.’

‘Jord!’ she yelled as the ground trembled, hot gases boiling from the fissure. The runemaster continued his chant, but the strain on his face was telling.

‘The fyrds gather to hear him cry!’ said Jord-Grimnir.

‘Then let them depart having seen him refuse.’

The runefather gritted his teeth. ‘No.’

The shelf trembled again, unbalancing Tangrorn and breaking the battlesmith’s rhythm.

Fifteen.

‘Morthrun!’ Helka snapped, turning to the runemaster.

Gold flared from Morthrun’s staff in undirected bursts, the elder folding to the ground with a wracking cough and a cry of what must have been agony. Fire shot from Mothirzharr’s jagged mouth, scorching the high ceiling, and driving Jord-Grimnir from the ledge with a shout of pain. His arms were black and steaming, except for where ur-gold burned like the bruises left after a beating from a god.

His hands were empty.

Helka looked between Morthrun and Jord-Grimnir. Her expression was volcanic. And with a strangled yell, she started towards the crevasse after her son.

‘Easy, lass,’ said the voice attached to the restraining hand on her shoulder. ‘That’d be the last unwise thing you ever do.’

‘Unhand me,’ Helka snarled.

‘I will. When you stop pulling so hard to go over.’

Helka whirled, one hand raised into a fist, finding herself face to face with the white-haired hearthkarl she had traded pleasantries with earlier. She would have knocked down her own father had he been stood behind her then – even Grimnir himself, and without care for the consequences – but something about the duardin’s expression stayed her temper. The certitude of years radiated off him like warmth from a stone.

‘Wait,’ he said.

‘For what?’

‘Listen.’

‘For wh–?’

‘You’ll know it when you hear it.’

And then she heard it: a thin and frail cry, almost buried under the infernal, never-ending outbreath of volcanic sound.

‘Now…’ Jord-Grimnir was on his back, arms black and bleeding gold. Tangrorn crouched over him. Morthrun was a few paces away on his hands and knees, overlooking the edge. ‘Now he cries.’

Helka flew at him, and it took all the hearthkarl’s considerable strength to restrain her.

‘You dropped him!’ Helka snapped.

‘He lives,’ said Jord-Grimnir. With a slow hiss of rising pain, he laughed. ‘And he will be a legend.’

Morthrun turned from the ledge, his long face drawn. ‘It is not the runefather’s fault.’

‘It is not only the runefather’s fault,’ said Helka.

‘It was Grimnir who handed you so fearless a son,’ said Tangrorn sternly. ‘As it is his stirrings that quicken Aqshy’s molten heart.’

‘I will not have you defend me, battlesmith,’ said Morthrun. ‘The fault was mine. I failed to control the fire’s wrath.’

‘I have heard enough from both of you,’ said Helka. ‘Lest I throw you in as well.’

‘I do not know what I–’ Tangrorn began.

‘Goading him always with feats of the past that might be bettered.’ Before the battlesmith could speak again, Helka turned to the stunned fyrds to shout. ‘Fetch hooks and lines.’ The Fyreslayers milled uncertainly, held back from the edge by their priests and runesons. ‘Now!’ she yelled.

‘I will retrieve him,’ said Jord-Grimnir, pulling himself upright as warriors hastened to obey.

‘You have done enough for one day, husband.’

‘It is my shame to amend.’

‘Yes, it is.’

‘You are impossible, woman,’ he snarled, but not without affection.

‘Can Mothirzharr be scaled?’ said the white-beard, in a voice so level that it gave the arguing Fyreslayers pause.

‘What is your name, hearthkarl?’ Helka asked.

‘Around here, I’ve always gone by Azkharn.’

‘With which runefather do you travel?’ said Jord-Grimnir, struggling to sit up with Tangrorn struggling equally to restrain him and tend his burns.

‘I came alone. I’d heard of Mothirzharr and the Rite of Naming and came to witness it.’

‘Mothirzharr breathes hot,’ said Morthrun, supressing a cough to answer the hearthkarl’s earlier question. His limbs shone golden as he tapped his runes for the strength he needed to stand. ‘Grimnir tosses in his slumber. The mountain feels it, and I fear the eruption from Shyish brings worse yet in store.’ He coughed again, the gorlbrost afflicting his lungs flecking the back of his fist with gold. It was difficult to remain furious with him. ‘The Mother of Fire has been explored in ages past, but not for a hundred years.’

‘And yet my son lives,’ said Helka.

‘Aye,’ the runemaster conceded with a glance at Jord-Grimnir. ‘He’ll grow to be a rare one.’

As he spoke, Fyreslayers clad in baked leathers and gold, with the blue ornamentation of the Skarravorn, returned bearing climbing tools and harnesses.

‘I will go down,’ said Helka.

‘Those days are behind you, runemother.’ Tangrorn made to lay a consoling hand on her shoulder, only for the look on her face to dissuade him of it.

‘I will go,’ she said again.

The battlesmith threw his hands up in aggravated surrender. ‘Then I will go too, and Grimnir’s best wishes to any who would try and stop me.’

‘And I,’ Morthrun wheezed.

‘You can barely stand, let alone climb,’ said Helka.

‘I will go,’ he insisted. ‘I will quell the mountain as I should have or neither of you will get near the bottom.’

‘One of your undersmiters can do that,’ said Helka.

‘Don’t disdain him his age,’ said Azkharn and, with all eyes on him again, gave the same fire-dark grin that Helka had seen first in passing. ‘Aye, maybe he’s not so mighty as once he was, but who here is? And if nothing else then he’s old enough to know what he’s talking about.’

‘The fires of Aqshy erase all deeds in time,’ said Tangrorn.

‘Aye,’ said Azkharn. ‘I’d wager they do at that.’

Helka turned to him. She was not sure what compelled her to ask, or why his presence walked goosebumps along her spine. ‘Will you come?’

‘Aye, lass. If you’ll have me.’

Click here to buy Grombrindal: Chronicles of the Wanderer.

A Black Library Publication

‘Mother of Fire’ first published in White Dwarf 460 in 2021.
‘Old Whitebeard’s Special’ first published in White Dwarf 461 in 2021.
‘The Maker’s Mark’ first published in White Dwarf 462 in 2021.
‘Protect With Honour’ first published in White Dwarf 463 in 2021.
‘Graveyard of Legends’ first published in White Dwarf 464 in 2021.
‘The White-Bearded Ancestor’ first published in White Dwarf 465 in 2021.
This edition first published in Great Britain in 2022.
This eBook edition published in 2022 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Represented by: Games Workshop Limited – Irish branch, Unit 3, Lower Liffey Street, Dublin 1, D01 K199, Ireland.

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Cover illustration by Christian Byrne.

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