Warhammer: Return of the Dragon.

"Brother Ollie, did you hear that noise?"

The dull and silent tunnel was illuminated by only a few lights. This was the weakest defense area of ​​Karak Dreadnought. After the earthquake destroyed most of the secret escape hatches, the dwarves were surprised to find that countless secret tunnels had appeared under the mountain fortress at some point.

Most tunnels were destroyed by explosives to prevent Skaven infiltration as much as possible, while some difficult-to-handle reinforced tunnels could only be defended by the most determined Ironbreakers.

Karak Dreadnought was not wealthy. The gold and silver mines had long been exhausted over time, and the king could not afford a set of expensive meteorite rune plate armor for systematic use.

The few Ironbreakers can only form the smallest organizational unit, using steel and courage as walls to guard the infinite darkness in the tunnel, because they know that behind them are the fireplaces, wine barrels and halls left by their ancestors.

The constant gurgling sound made Bardin Gorrikson a little nervous. He was a dwarf warrior with outstanding talent. He won the favor of a beauty when he was young and became one of the very few people in the dwarf society who had a wife.

He could have joined the king's guard and become an honorable warrior of the hammer, but he resolutely joined the ranks of the iron-breaking warriors and lived in loneliness and darkness.

Badin held the Iron Dragon Cannon firmly in his hand and pointed it at the unknown depth of the hole between his legs. This was the secret entrance that he and his brother had just found, and it was obviously the trace of excavation by the rats.

"Blow up?"

"Don't be silly. A few detonators can't blow up such a deep cave."

"Where's the rocket launcher?"

"Three more rounds."

Bardin was silent. Looking at the piles of ratmen and greenskin corpses in front of him, he put down the iron dragon cannon and raised the shield axe instead.

"Without the favor of Morkin, I can kill a thousand ratmen and greenskins with my axe."

"I have twice as many as you, two thousand."

"Then I'll kill three thousand."

A sneaky figure poked his head out of the cave. The helmet was a style he had never seen before, and the stench of rat all over his body made Bardin choose to deal with this guy with an axe.

"What? I'm not a rat man."

Acting faster than thinking is the result of Bardin's long-term training. He sneakily lowered his head and successfully avoided the axe's chop. This made the Iron Broken Warrior very angry. He raised the Iron Dragon Cannon and wanted to burn the big rat man into a dough stick.

"Wait, Bardin, he seems to have...pointed ears."

"Have you ever seen pointy ears?"

Bardin was a little confused. The dwarves in the Grey Mountains actually had little contact with the elves. Even though the atmosphere here was more open than in the large mountain fortresses in the World's Edge Mountains, it was difficult to change the dwarves' customs.

The vast majority of dwarves spend their entire lives in mines, workshops, and mountains. Dwarves who want to venture out into the world are mostly called outliers.

"I saw him in Altdorf. When he was young, he was busy soliciting business for the clan and selling some junk to the lower class."

The experienced cousin secretly took out the detonator from behind and loudly asked the people in the tunnel below.

"Who are you? How did you find this place?"

"Don't talk nonsense. How did I find the short pile when I was looking for the ratmen? Is this the underground tunnel of Karak Dreadnought Fort?"

The cousin and Badin looked at each other and saw that it should be the reinforcements from outside.

The worried cousin asked a few questions, the kind that the rat man was sure he wouldn't know.

"Who is your pointy-eared monarch? How many kingdoms are there on the island? How many years ago did the oathbreaker die?"

He was full of confidence, but a dark shadow passed by. Elvis raised his sword on the Ironbreaker's shoulder, and his helmet was covered with rubble. He had been climbing up and encountered some rubble attacks from time to time. He thought it was deliberately lured by the ratmen, but he didn't expect to touch the underground tunnel of Karak Dreadnought.

"I'm here to save you. Stop talking nonsense. What's the current situation of Karak Dreadnought?"

The sword was slowly lowered, and as Elvis took off his helmet, revealing an elven face, the dwarf let down his guard a little.

As long as they are not ratmen or greenskins, you can only say a few words and then take action depending on the situation.

"What else can we do? We are surrounded by enemies."

The answer was as expected, causing Elvis to look around, and he soon noticed the corpses of ratmen and greenskins that filled the tunnel.

"It seems that they are still one step faster..."

As Gragrim climbed out of the tunnel and talked with the two Ironbreakers for a while, the Dreadnought warriors believed that these people were indeed here to provide support.

Elvis came to the pile of corpses and squatted down to check the composition of the ratmen. There were a lot of storm rats, clan rats, slave rats, and some plague monks...

“You didn’t encounter any Clan Eshin guys.”

The words were almost certain, leaving my cousin confused for a moment as to what the Eshin Clan was.

It's too late... The worst case scenario is that the Master of Death might assassinate Tullinger himself.

"Quinnir, Victor, stay where you are. The two of you and Gragrim, come with me to find Tullinger immediately!"

"Is the situation bad?" Gragrim fiddled with his chain axe. He was planning to kill ratmen here with his fellow dwarves to have fun.

"Master of Death... If the Rat Council pays enough attention to Dreadnought Fort, Clan Eshin cannot be absent. Your king is in danger."

…………

"You must leave, this is the only way to survive!"

Thorgrin used all his strength to tell Thuring and the longbeards about the impending disaster, but all he got in return was a series of firm gazes as strong as mountains.

Tullinger was very young, with a beard that barely reached his chest. He usually respected the High King very much and supported every decision of Thorgrim as much as possible, but this time, he could not obey.

"Your Majesty, this is Karak Dreadnought Fort, the most important legacy left to us by our ancestors. Every brick, every doorway, and every statue is the result of the hard work and will of the Dreadnought Fort dwarves.

We can die, but we cannot leave, even if we sink into the abyss with the mountain fortress."

"Think of the Angrand clan and the bottomless stone steps. As long as the clan exists, the mountain fortress will exist!"

"But your notice stated that Karak Dreadnought Fort is about to sink. This is different from the Eight Peaks Mountain and the Bottomless Stone Steps. Even if I flee with my people, I will return here a hundred years later and build a huge mountain fortress.

But can this mountain fortress still be called Karak Dreadnought?"

The dwarf king's unwillingness to change made Thorgrin grit his teeth. This stubbornness and obstinacy made the dwarves strong, and perhaps it will also become an epitaph...

"Is this the responsibility of a king to his people? He would rather die hugging a grave than listen to the innermost thoughts of those who want to live."

The sudden sound made both sides look sideways, and they saw an elf walking with his chest crossed, looking at all the dwarves present with disdain.

"Imrick...you shouldn't be here."

"If I don't show up, all of you will die..." (End of this chapter)