Contents

Cover

Krenkha Gorogna – Extract

Notes

A Black Library Publication

eBook license

Drekki Flynt:

Krenkha Gorogna

By Guy Haley

When the pot started steaming, Drekki knew they were in trouble.

Four-legged grot scuttlers marched into the cave, hunchbacks swaying over armfuls of wood. They hissed half-words in their spidery language and tittered to one another. Their joking was exclusive, not meant to be enjoyed by their duardin dinner, who scowled, bound fast in spider silk, their hands manacled behind their backs for good measure.

Quite a bind, Drekki reflected ruefully. He tested the strength of his restraints.

‘No wriggling out of this one,’ he muttered to himself. No give. No escape. Not without a knife…

He looked about for a blade or something sharp. There were too many grots to overpower. The crew’s equipment had been heaped in the far corner with little care, weapons and all – a coterie of pallid snotlings frolicked in the helms and stolen boots, giggling and squirming into everything – but that was well out of reach.

Drekki looked to the rest of his arkanauts, who were sorry and battered and tied up tight, some stuck to the cave walls. Evrokk was propped upside down on his head, worse luck for him. Not so much as a piece of flint between them. The grots had been thorough about that. Most were gagged with spider silk. Only Adrimm, Drekki and Kedren Grunnsson had their mouths free. It looked hopeless, but then Drekki narrowed his eyes. Adrimm was bound to the rickety gantry built around the grots’ large iron pot, upon which sat the grots’ shaman or leader, or… cook? Drekki wondered, schemed…

The grots heaped the wood around the cauldron base. Fire guttered. Smoke belched. The duardin choked, bringing more laughter from their captors. Their loads deposited, the grots marched back towards daylight, comically licking their lips and patting their bellies as they passed, red eyes winking with mirth. One pointed to the cauldron and mimed drowning, which the rest found perfectly hilarious.

‘Yes, yes,’ said Drekki, nodding indulgently. ‘Very amusing. I can swim, you know. But I could do with a bath.’

Still giggling, the scuttlers scuttled off to fetch more wood.

‘Working up an appetite,’ Kedren Grunnsson said, squint-eyed and calculating. ‘Cheeky grobi.[1] I’ll have their heads when we get out of this.’

‘We’ll not get out!’ wailed Adrimm Adrimmsson.

Drekki smiled slyly, as if he knew something the others didn’t. He didn’t.

‘There’s always a way out, until there isn’t,’ he said. ‘That’s what my dear old mother Karon used to say.’ Though if there is an out, Drekki thought, I better find it quick.

The pot had started to boil. A host of bones swung from strands of web hanging from the ceiling. This was a successful band of cut-throats. The odds were looking slimmer.

He wriggled some more. Still bound fast, confound it!

‘Listen to your captain, lad,’ said Kedren. ‘I’ve not met a duardin blessed with such outrageous luck.’

‘And skill!’ said Drekki, with feigned affront. ‘And skill, Kedren.’

‘Luck runs out. Skill has limits. We’re done! At least they’ll probably choke on that long beard of yours, ground thumper,’ Adrimm said. He was righteously peeved.

‘Manners,’ said Kedren mildly, though he put a dangerous edge on it. ‘I am your elder. Age still counts for you sky beards, I’m sure.’

Bokko Dwindonsson, ship’s endrinrigger, nodded vigorously. He was known for his manners, was Bokko, but he could say nothing in support of the runesmith, for his mouth was stoppered with silk.

‘Why? Why should I mind my manners?’ said Adrimm Adrimmsson. ‘Join up with me, Drekki says. Be part of the crew of the Aelsling, the fastest sky-cutter around. See the Skyshoals! Win fame and fortune!’ He kicked his feet and growled an impotent growl before turning his ire upon Drekki. The gantry trembled. ‘I could have joined any ship, any crew. I had to pick Captain Flynt!’

‘Come now, what other real choice is there for a duardin out for adventure and riches?’ said Drekki. ‘The other captains are all so dull. And poor.’ He paused for a beat. ‘Some of them are dead.’

‘Other choice?’ said Adrimm incredulously. ‘What other choice for a duardin of my calibre? Seriously?’

Second highest rating from the Arkanaut Academy in Barak-Mhornar, mouthed Kedren behind Adrimm’s back.

‘I had the second highest rating from the Arkanaut Academy in Barak-Mhornar!’ said Adrimm. ‘I had my pick.’

‘Yes, and you saw them all, those captains and their craft,’ said Drekki. ‘But you chose me. You signed my contract. You’ll see, it was the right choice. There’ll be rewards aplenty, just you wait. Nobody ties up Drekki Flynt for long.’

‘Your current plight suggests otherwise. We’re stuck and about to be eaten!’ Adrimm threw himself about. The gantry creaked. The grot atop it hissed a warning but did not come to investigate.

‘Interesting…’ muttered Drekki, looking up at the platform. It was a typical grobi build, scraps of wood and cloth. ‘Held together by optimism, that is.’

But Adrimm wasn’t listening.

‘It said nothing on any contract about getting devoured by scuttlers, Captain Flynt.’

Drekki gave Adrimm what he liked to call his captain’s eye.

‘It’s hard to allow for such things, my lad. If I put all the perils of the Skyshoals onto paper, it’d run to a thousand pages, and you’re not the quickest reader. No reward comes without risk, Adrimm. You know the Code.’

‘Don’t,’ said Adrimm, choking on his anger, ‘quote the funti-brazi Code at me!’

‘What else is it for, if not for quoting?’ said Drekki. And bending, and breaking, when occasion demanded.

‘Listen, lad,’ said Kedren. ‘All duardin like to grumble, and so they should, for the world is an imperfect place, but your moaning is getting deep into my beard, right to the roots like a flea.’

‘So much I wish the grots had been a little more diligent with their gagging,’ added Drekki, ‘and saved us your griping.’

Adrimm threw himself about impotently. The gantry shifted. Wood squeaked on wood.

The shaman scuttled over, four legs pattering. It wore a mask, spider chitin, the scavenged integument shining with the light of multiple, malevolent eyes. It brandished a large cook’s knife.

‘Ugly little beggars, aren’t you? Too many eyes and legs for regular greenies,’ said Drekki.

‘Food… stay… quiet…’ hissed the shaman in broken Khazalid. It mumbled a curse, then went back to stirring the pot.

Drekki smiled.

‘What’s the plan, Drekki?’ Kedren asked softly. ‘I know that look, lad. What are you thinking?’

‘I’m weighing up the means of escape,’ Drekki said, flashing his most winning smile.

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Notes

[1] Khazalid/Kharadrid: grots.

A Black Library Publication

First published in Great Britain in 2022. by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

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