Contents

Cover

The Lost Karak – Guy Haley

Notes

A Black Library Publication

eBook license

THE LOST KARAK

By Guy Haley

‘Kedren, stop me if I’m getting you wrong, but you want me to haul over the Aelsling and put you off on that?’

Drekki Flynt jerked his flat thumb over his shoulder, making his drillbill dance out of the way. Gauntlet leather creaked with the insistence of the gesture. The crew couldn’t help but shift their gazes to the mass of rock drifting out past the gunwales, three thousand aerial raadfathom[1] away. The lads were all on deck, fourteen of them, Gord the ogor at the back towering over the lot. Even he was drawn in by the dispute, and that was saying something for the tension.

‘That’s about the size of it, yes,’ said Kedren. The old runesmith grabbed at his belt and pulled it up. He’d never got comfortable with Kharadron aeronautical gear. You just had to be born to it, Drekki supposed.

Drekki flipped up his flight mask, revealing a face as full of contrasts as snowfields on stone: dark skin and bright white beard, laughter lines and the cracks of yesterday’s frowns. Steel-grey eyes narrowed against the raw, unfiltered Hyshlight.

‘I don’t know. Can’t it keep?’ Drekki said. He sucked the wind through his teeth. He liked the way it tasted in the elevations of the Third Air; cool and clean and full of life. ‘We’ve a fair tailwind. We’re making good headway. We’ve got a schedule to keep. Five days to Bavardia from here. We have to be on time for this one, Kedren. The client was insistent on that.’

‘Master Grunnbor,’ the Dispossessed corrected him. He drew himself taller, though he could not match Drekki’s uncommon height. No one aboard but Gord was bigger than the captain. Four foot two!

‘Right,’ said Drekki. ‘We’re having one of those days, are we?’

Kedren’s nostrils flared. Brows beetled over a craggy scowl, cliffs on the edge of collapse. The atmosphere thickened under his rising temper. If there’d been a barometer near, it would have burst. Kedren Grunnbor kept his moods stoppered but when they blew, they blew.

‘Just let me off. I have to go there. It’s a short diversion for you. You can just leave me.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

‘I’m not being ridiculous. This is a serious business.’

‘What is your business?’ said Drekki pleasantly.

The look he got back was anything but pleasant. ‘My business,’ said Kedren.

‘Hmm,’ said Drekki. He looked at the island. It was middling large by the standards of the Third Air, but otherwise unremarkable, just one of hundreds of thousands of chunks of land that made up the Adromite Skyshoals. An unruly forest thatched the top. Clouds streamed across the tree crowns, a sure promise of localised rains. A little vegetation tumbled off the drop; mostly the sides were raw, sharp-edged planes of granite seamed with glinting ores. Could it be that? Dispossessed duardin were hungry for metals mined from the ground, but this was Chamon, and where in the realm were there not minerals aplenty?

‘One way or another, I’m going over. I’m asking nicely.’ Kedren took in a resentful breath so expansive his flight suit squeaked. ‘Please,’ he added.

‘I’m sorry, what… Please?’ said Drekki. ‘Did you just say please?’

‘You heard, lad.’ Kedren muttered something too quick and quiet for the crew to catch. The most ancient of Kharadron beard lords spoke Khazalid as it had been spoken on the ground, but Drekki’s crew were young and full of fire. The language had evolved somewhat in the sky. A lot had changed since the Age of Myth.

Drekki sucked air again, making it whistle, then let it out all at once.

‘Master Zhurafon, if you please!’ He beckoned his aether-khemist to him, and walked a little way up the deck where they would not be overheard.

Magnetic boots clicked and released on the Aelsling’s plating. ‘Yes, Captain Flynt?’ Otherek Zhurafon said.

‘You and old Kedren are two nuts on one bolt thread, tight as rivets,’ said Drekki, low and conspiratorial.

‘He’s as much your friend, Drekki,’ said Otherek.

‘Aye, he’s a mentor to me, but he talks to you from the bottom of his ground-stamping heart. He respects you. You’ve got history, he’s contracted by you. So tell me, what’s he want with this pebble? Why’s he not want to say?’

Otherek Zhurafon turned to the island. A grumble reverberated in the breathing flutes of his mask, followed by a pronounced sniffing.

‘Can’t smell anything valuable. No aether-gold.’ He lifted up a gauge at his belt. Blue light flashed on a flat screen as he clicked it on. Numbers danced. ‘Chamonite, zero point zero three parts per million – Grungni’s Breath, less. No other traces. Nothing harvestable here.’ He clicked it off.

‘Something more mundane?’ asked Drekki. ‘Gems? Ivories? Useful alchemicals? Maybe a touch of treasure for us?’ His eyes glinted.

‘Couldn’t rightly say,’ said the khemist.

Drekki thought him somewhat reluctant, and pressed. ‘Then what can you rightly say, Otherek?’

‘Well, it could be… I thought it could be…’ He trailed off.

‘Speak your mind, master khemist.’

‘Home,’ said Otherek simply.

‘Is it?’ Drekki said. ‘Could it?’ He glanced at the runesmith, but his face remained as unchanging as a crag of sulky granite, secrets sealed in the grain. Drekki peered back at the island. Crow’s feet bunched round his eyes. They crinkled deeply when he smiled, though now he squinted in search of profit.

The island was turning slowly on its axis, bringing more interesting aspects to view. Drekki unsnapped his telescope from his harness, and pulled out the tube. Crystal lenses flashed. Swarms of smaller rocks leapt close, the bigger island blurry behind. Drekki twisted the focusing ring, and the little islands became dark smears; now it was the large fragment’s turn to loom. It turned as if on display, revealing by degree a gentler incline that the forest crawled cautiously down. It was even thicker, greener and wilder than that on top, but not so choking it could conceal the works of elder days. Statues poked out of dripping groves. Pale scar lines of stairs and paths threaded the trees.

‘It’s a Karak,’ Drekki said with a quiet awe.

‘It’s more than a Karak,’ said Zhurafon. ‘It’s one of the Karaks. One of the elder ones.’

They both looked at Kedren now. He’d sucked his lips into his beard, so sour his glower had become.

‘You’re right,’ said Drekki. He snapped his telescope shut. ‘That settles it. We’re all going.’

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Notes

1. One aerial raadfathom is the distance a hypothetically average sky-ship powered by the long-obsolete Mark I Grindisson aether-endrin would traverse horizontally in a single second. The measurement is old, from the dawn of the sky-ports, and calculated according to Nav-Master Groffin Terrenk’s aethermatical mode.

A Black Library Publication

First published in Great Britain in 2021 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

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ISBN: 978-1-80026-719-0

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