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Kineater - Jordan Ellinger

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Kineater

Jordan Ellinger

An outraged shriek pierced the chill night air, and Felix looked up from where he sat by the caravan’s cook-fire. From the pitch of the shriek, he guessed it was Talia, and not her older sister. The two Kislevite women had been at each other’s throats since their carriage joined Zayed al Mahrak’s caravan in Skabrand.

Anya flung open the carriage door and stormed into the snow. Slim as a rail, and with none of the feminine curves Felix had come to associate with northern women since his time with Ulrika, Anya was only slightly less beautiful than Talia, who pursued with her hands outstretched almost into claws, her face twisted into a snarl.

Anya stomped away from her sister, then lost her footing on the icy ground and nearly fell. Picking herself up, she suddenly noticed the ring of drovers and guards who regarded her from around the fire, many cradling wooden bowls filled with an aromatic Arabyan stew. Most stared, but big Akmal – no stranger to the serving wenches and harlots of Pigbarter – hooted lewdly. Embarrassed, she straightened and assumed a regal pose only to be bowled over moments later by her sister.

‘This should be interesting,’ muttered Gotrek from where he sat next to Felix. Much to old Zayed’s distress, the dwarf had broached a half-keg of Pigbarter ale – a brew that the Slayer had pronounced weak but palatable – and was well on his way to finishing it.

It was good to see him take an interest in anything beyond the bottom of his stein, thought Felix. They had seen virtually no action since Zayed had hired ogre mercenaries as additional escorts in Skabrand, and Gotrek had fallen into something of a depression. Notorious places like Deathgate Pass and the Fallen City had passed without so much as a goblin raid, and the Slayer had begun to believe that the gods were conspiring against him. As much as Felix was embarrassed for the two Kislevite noblewomen who howled and scratched at each other like alley cats, he was glad to see his friend shake the cloud that had been hanging over him.

‘How dare you write that, you bitch,’ cried Talia, wrestling with her sister like a common street urchin. She gathered a double handful of snow from the ground nearby and mashed it into Anya’s face. ‘You daughter of a whore!’

‘She’s your mother too, you drunken fool,’ Anya sputtered. Sliding on the snow, she shoved her sister aside and then regained her footing.

Talia clumsily rolled to her feet, swaying slightly. Apparently, Felix mused, Gotrek was not the only one deep in his cups. The younger sister’s cheeks were as red as those of a brewmeister at the Festival of Sonnstill. She cursed richly in the Kislev language, then snatched up several wooden bowls from the food table and made as if to throw them.

Anya had come to her feet nearly as fast as Talia, but instead of shielding herself, she paled and simply stared open-mouthed at the mountainous shadow which loomed behind her sister.

Noting her surprise, Talia turned as well.

Vork Kineater, one of the few ogres that Felix could identify on sight, watched them from the shadows just beyond the firelight. A mountain of flesh nearly ten feet tall, he dwarfed a nearby caravan wagon. Thickly muscled arms bristling with coarse hairs were folded over his chest. A plate of crude metal the size of a man was secured to his torso by leather straps that girded his grossly distended belly. Kineater was apparently the leader of the ogre mercenaries, a position Felix suspected he’d earned through sheer bulk.

The brutes hadn’t been with the caravan long, and old Zayed had given them strict orders to camp well away from the wagons so that they would not be tempted by the thought of a midnight snack of horseflesh. That an ogre – their leader no less! – had approached this close was a dangerous sign.

Felix rose, his hand instinctively finding Karaghul in its sheath, and sent a quick prayer to Sigmar that the ogre had merely wandered into this area of the camp by mistake. He was about as willing to fight an ogre as he was to have a double helping of Zayed’s stew.

Kineater chuckled deep in his throat, an action that made his belly bounce like a tub of cheese curds. Arrogantly, he rolled his hand, as if he were watching gladiators and not noblewomen. ‘Keep fighting,’ he said, the words mashed by the yellowing tusks that jutted out from his protruding lower jaw.

Talia darkened like a storm and screeched, upending the bubbling stew pot with a two-handed push. The effort unbalanced her and she stumbled backwards, hitting Kineater’s prodigious belly, and collapsed. She coughed once, and then retched all over the ogre’s sandaled foot.

Nearly every man present winced. No one made a sound.

Kineater backed away, a confused expression on his face. He lifted his foot and shook it, unable to see beyond his gut plate, but clearly feeling the warm vomit slide between his toes. Another of the mountainous creatures had come up behind him, and Kineater turned, pointing at his foot.

‘She shared food!’

Anya rushed to her sister’s aid. The ogre turned back towards them, leaning down with a snot-encrusted face, a string of saliva hanging from his grizzled jaw. To her credit, Anya stood steadfastly before him, supporting her sister with an arm around her waist. Her refusal to cower before him seemed to anger Kineater.

‘She shared food!’ he roared.

‘Enough!’ Gotrek snatched up his axe and stomped across the campfire until he was standing in front of the ogre. The dwarf was many times smaller than the huge brute, but a tattooed Slayer with axe in hand was intimidating enough to give an avalanche pause. ‘How can a dwarf drink with all this noise? You’re souring my ale!’

Felix sighed, then drew his sword and joined the Slayer. It was rare for Gotrek to display a sense of chivalry; rare enough that Felix suspected that the Slayer was merely using the women as an opportunity to test his mettle against an ogre. Of course, even if Gotrek defeated Kineater, the rest of his troops would seek revenge and the Slayer could not fight them all.

What a way to end an epic! Gotrek Gurnisson, slayer of daemons, killed by a hired ogre in the middle of nowhere. Of course, Felix wouldn’t have to worry about writing said epic, since he would probably suffer the same fate.

Kineater’s gaze darted between Talia and Gotrek. For a moment he tensed in readiness for combat, but seemed to think better of it. He struck the ground with his club, then turned and disappeared into the darkness with the rest of his band at his heels.

Felix let out an audible breath and lowered his blade. Around the Slayer, even mealtimes could be deadly. He looked over at the two sisters, but Anya was already halfway to her carriage, her sister’s arm draped around her shoulders. Some thanks, but Felix had to admit that, with the state Talia was in, it made sense for Anya to hustle her back to their carriage as soon as possible.

Gotrek glared at the retreating ogres, and spat on the ground in disgust. ‘Come, manling,’ he said, returning to his spot by the fire. ‘That ale won’t drink itself.’

Felix had difficulty sleeping that night. The possibility of dying in a pointless brawl had reminded him how far he really was from home. Gotrek was obsessed with driving ever eastwards and Felix was honour-bound to follow, but he had never once thought his quest might take him as far as the Kingdom of the Dragon. The thought of leaving the Empire behind, perhaps never to return, was disquieting.

Mannslieb rode high in the night sky, and the full moon provided adequate light for writing, so he rose from his cot and stepped into the cool night air with his journal tucked under one arm. He found a spot near the fire, now no more than glowing embers in a pile of ash, and nodded to Hansur, the dark-skinned man from southern Ind who’d drawn first watch. The rest of the guards slept under dark woollen blankets, as close to the fire as they could get, so Felix picked a spot near the edge of the circle to avoid disturbing them. He had just opened his precious vial of iron gall ink and sharpened his quill when a shadow fell across his page.

‘My thanks to you and the Slayer for standing up to Kineater,’ said Anya. She raised her voice and looked meaningfully at Hansur. ‘Especially when none of these dogs would.’

Hansur shrugged dismissively, then wandered off towards the rear of the camp, leaving them alone. A few of the men snored or turned in their sleep, but Felix was not surprised that, after a hard day’s slog, they did not awaken.

‘It was nothing,’ he replied. Indeed, Gotrek had been the one to intervene. Felix had merely covered the Slayer’s back, as he always did. On the other hand, none of it would have been necessary had Anya’s sister not gone berserk. ‘Your sister is quite… spirited.’

Anya made a sour face, then crossed her arms and looked towards the fire, though Felix got the impression she was staring at something far away.

‘Spirited is not the word for it, I’m afraid. She’s a real hellion. Some years ago, she fell from the balcony of our rooms at the Golden Horn. She had deep bruising around her temples and blood ran from her eyes and ears. My family’s doktors claimed that, though there was no sign of mutation, the Ruinous Powers had claimed her. Her behaviour, much the same as you saw tonight, seemed to bear out those suspicions.’

Anya shuddered and drew her shawl close around her shoulders. ‘I had heard of a small sect of Cathayan monks who were said to specialise in just such injuries as my sister suffered. Rather than give her up to damnation or the pyre, I volunteered to bring her to them. Perhaps they can help her to master whatever daemon possesses her, and my sister will be returned to me.’

Felix had experience with the doktors of Praag, when he and Gotrek had helped to defend the walls during the great siege. If they had failed to treat Talia, he saw little chance that Cathayan monks would succeed. Still, were he in Anya’s place he too might have grasped at straws.

‘Please, join me,’ he said with a polite smile. He dragged another log close by, anchored it in the snow and then brushed it off with his sleeve. ‘I don’t think we’ve been introduced. My name is Felix Jaeger.’

She held out a hand. It was a formal gesture, but the corners of her mouth curled into a smile.

‘Anya Nitikin.’

Felix’s eyes widened. ‘Nitikin? The Anya Nitikin? Author of Call of the South?’

‘The same.’

Felix rose quickly, embarrassed to find himself still seated. He had never expected to meet one of the finest writers in the Empire; though she was Kislevite, Anya Nitikin wrote in Reikspiel and not Kislevarin, and the people of the Empire had come to think of her as one of their own.

‘I’m sorry, I had no idea. We used to study your work in Altdorf. I thought–’

He stopped himself quickly.

‘…that I would be older?’ she said, completing his sentence. ‘I’ve heard that before.’ She tucked her dress under her legs and sat, then adjusted her pleats. ‘You used to study my work?’ she asked. ‘Are you a writer?’

‘A poet actually, though it’s been years since I’ve published.’ He realised he was still holding his quill, and blushed. ‘Please excuse me while I put these things away.’

She nodded, so he quickly stoppered the ink vial and placed it alongside his quill in the velvet case that, after Karaghul, was his most treasured possession.

‘Why did you stop publishing?’ she asked.

Felix smiled wryly. ‘I swore an oath to record the death of an unkillable dwarf in an epic poem.’

‘Unkillable?’

‘So far.’ He shrugged, looking over at Gotrek. In spite of the cold, the Slayer slept bare-chested on top of his bedroll. He snorted in his sleep, then rubbed the side of his nose and turned over. ‘It has been years,’ Felix continued. ‘I fear that whatever promise I might once have shown has long since faded.’

‘Is that your work?’ asked Anya, indicating the small, leather-bound journal he had set aside. ‘May I read it?’

‘It’s just notes, really,’ said Felix. ‘After so many years I feared that I was forgetting some of the important details of the Slayer’s journey.’

She held out her hand. ‘I would love to take a look.’

Reluctantly, Felix handed her the journal. It was prose, not poetry, and rough at that... But on the other hand he hadn’t thought about literature in so many years that he found himself looking forward to a little recognition from a fellow artist.

‘Well,’ said Anya dryly, after leafing through a few pages, ‘I didn’t expect that. It’s really nothing more than a penny dreadful.’ Her finger stabbed down onto a page. ‘Here, you have a giant six times the height of a man, despite the fact that any such creature would collapse under its own weight. And “ratmen”? They’re nothing more than a myth!’

Felix stiffened.

A penny dreadful? From his lofty perch as a poet in Altdorf he’d looked down on those books, filled as they were with nothing but lurid stories, scandalously illustrated on cheap paper. Now Anya Nitikin, one of the most popular authors in the Empire, was looking down on him. His cheeks burned with shame and he snatched back the journal.

‘They’re just notes…’ he muttered.

Any further artistic debate they might have had was cut short by a distant scream, followed by a deep and rumbling belch. Several more belches echoed from elsewhere in the middle-distance, deep and loud enough that not even Gotrek on his drunkest day could have produced them.

The ogres were signalling to each other.

His anger forgotten, Felix hastily slid the journal into his pack and pushed Anya behind him. There were very few reasons for ogres to signal in the dead of night: either something was attacking the caravan, or it was the ogres themselves who were attacking.

A hunk of twisted flesh and rags flew over the stacked barrels at the edge of the clearing, landing in the embers of the fire. Felix knew, even before the reek of scorching hair reached him, that it was Hansur. ‘Gotrek!’ he cried. ‘The ogres are attacking!’

As he turned, a dark shape loomed up behind the barrels. Roaring a challenge, an ogre emerged into the flickering light of the campfire and uprooted a dead tree with a single tug. Swinging it like a club in an almost casual arc, he struck the stack, and a heavy barrel bounced through the campsite, crushing two men before they’d even had a chance to rise from their cots.

The ogre followed the barrel into the clearing, leading with its prodigious gut. It was not Kineater, the one who’d laughed at them earlier – this ogre wore a leather mask over its face that left only its beady eyes and gaping maw visible. A necklace of dried heads adorned its neck, their hair woven together into a cord. It might have been smaller than the first ogre, Felix thought, but not by much.

It smashed a dazed guard, still struggling from his bedroll, then rounded on Felix, raising its club for an overhead blow. ‘Humans die!’

‘Run!’ Felix yelled over his shoulder to Anya, before diving out of the way of the mighty club. The tree trunk smashed into the ground where he’d stood, breaking up the frozen sod and flinging clumps of snow to either side.

Felix drew Karaghul and stabbed at the mounds of flab and muscle that hung from the creature’s arm, but he barely drew blood. Nevertheless the ogre howled, and spun with amazing speed, heaving itself forwards. Its metal belly plate, adorned with crude toothy glyphs, loomed in Felix’s vision and once more he was forced to hurl himself aside or be crushed.

Elsewhere in the camp the caravan guards were fighting back, but Felix could see at least four more ogres stomping between them, swatting left and right with their clubs. Further away, horses screamed in their pens as an ogre slaughtered them mercilessly.

More dark and looming shapes attacked the wagons, and for a moment, Felix thought he saw Talia standing on top of her carriage, defending herself against a howling ogre with a large kitchen knife.

The only spot of real resistance centred on Gotrek. The Slayer’s red mohawk and tattooed chest were clearly visible in the moonlight as he faced down a huge brute that carried a club ringed with iron bands. Rusted chains encircled both its arms, running up its shoulders to a metal collar that was barely visible under folds of flab at its neck.

The Slayer’s axe whirled before him, but there was precious little he could target. Much like the ogre Felix faced, this one wore a metal plate on its stomach, and it kept this between itself and Gotrek’s axe. The ogre’s armour was impenetrable… But Felix wondered, what held the armour to the ogre?

Adrenaline surging in his veins, Felix ducked under the masked ogre’s next swing and sprinted towards Gotrek. He slid to a stop just behind the massive chained ogre and swung his blade – not at the beast itself, but at its belly straps.

Leather parted and then snapped. Gotrek whooped as the belly plate sagged and then fell to the ground. The Slayer hewed out with his axe and opened a wide cut in the ogre’s gut, spilling its steaming innards into the snow.

‘Good work, manling!’ Gotrek yelled over the howls of the dying ogre. ‘Now stay out of my way!’ With that the dwarf charged the ogre with the leather facemask, who was rapidly closing the distance between them.

Working together, Gotrek attacking from the front and Felix slicing the leather straps on the ogre’s flanks, they dispatched it too in short order. By the time it had collapsed to the ground, the battle was over.

The ogres had retreated.

The campsite was a mess. Men moved between their fallen brethren, tending to the wounded and putting those with crushed limbs or staved-in chests out of their misery with merciful blade strokes. Some of the soldiers carried torches out into the frozen darkness, seeking to corral wagon horses that had broken their traces and fled in panic.

Zayed al Mahrak, the caravan’s diminutive Arabyan master, had emerged from whatever hole he’d found in which to hide during the battle, and was now inspecting the damage to his merchandise. He moved from shattered crate to shattered crate, stepping gingerly to avoid patches of red, blood-crusted snow.

‘Where’s Anya?’ Felix asked Gotrek. He’d lost track of her, but hoped that she’d found a safe place to wait out the fighting. Or did he? He remembered her look of scorn when she’d read his journal. He was surprised at how much it had stung – more than any review he’d received for his poetry in the past.

The Slayer cleaned his axe with a handful of snow, and strapped it to his back. ‘You know women. She’ll probably return with the horses,’ he said with a shrug.

Felix didn’t see her amongst the wounded, so he guessed she’d fled to her carriage. He knew he should check on her, but he didn’t feel that he could face her just yet. A sudden thought occurred to him. ‘Gotrek,’ he asked. ‘What do you think of my poetry?’

The Slayer looked utterly bemused, but before he could answer, Anya Nitikin strode out of the darkness, cursing richly. She swept past Gotrek and Felix, and slapped Zayed on the cheek. Hard.

‘This!’ she said, her teeth clenched. ‘This is how you spend our good Kislevite gold? On mercenaries? Your ogres have taken my sister and it is your fault!’

‘My fault?’ responded the old man, rubbing his cheek. Anya had left a red mark on his dark skin. ‘Ogres are the most loyal mercenaries gold can buy. Kineater is himself a Tyrant, responsible for the reputation of his tribe. If the recent attack on Middenheim by the forces of Chaos had not disrupted almost all trade between the Empire and Cathay, I could not have hired him at any price.’

‘Any merchant who’d trust an ogre with his goods deserves what he gets,’ said Gotrek. ‘No dwarf would attack the caravan he’d pledged to guard.’

‘That may be, but I’d already employed every dwarf in Pigbarter,’ Zayed shot back. Of course, there had only been one dwarf in the trading town – Gotrek himself.

‘Obviously, something has given this “Kinita” cause to disregard Goldtooth’s order.’

‘No, lass, it’s Kineater,’ said Gotrek gruffly. ‘He probably ate his whole family to earn that name.’

‘I care not.’ Anya’s gaze swept over the nearby guards, who suddenly busied themselves with various mundane tasks. She rounded on the caravan master with eyes of iron. ‘Gather your men. We launch a rescue mission at first light.’

‘That is impossible,’ Zayed said with a sigh, ‘Can you not see the carnage around you? My men are injured and our horses slaughtered. Without our escort, we are at the mercy of bandits and worse. As soon as we are able, we make for Cathay by the safest roads.’

Anya’s cheeks reddened. It was obvious she had no patience left. ‘No. You will not leave my sister in the hands of those brutes.’

As much as Felix abhorred the idea of leaving Talia to Kineater’s mercy, he saw Zayed’s point. ‘Only a madman would track a tribe of ogres into the Mountains of Mourn on the faint hope that they won’t eat their captive at the first stop,’ he said. ‘Even if your sister is still alive, we’re simply too few to pose any serious threat to them.’

‘Hold your tongue, Jaeger!’ Anya’s hand cut the air like a knife. ‘My sister is alive. If Kineater’s lot were looking for food they would have taken the horses, not slaughtered them,’ said Anya. ‘This is a kidnapping, not a robbery or a hunt.’

Zayed only spread his hands helplessly. ‘Nevertheless...’ he mumbled.

Anya would not be dissuaded. ‘If you won’t help me,’ she said, ‘then at least allow me to recruit volunteers from amongst your men.’

Zayed’s eyes hardened and he crossed his arms. ‘You are welcome to ask, but you won’t find anyone foolish enough to volunteer for such a mission.’

Felix’s jaw tightened at the sound of Gotrek’s voice.

‘I’ll bring your sister back.’ The Slayer’s eye glittered in the torchlight. ‘My axe thirsts for Kineater’s blood. The coward waited until I was in my bed to attack and if there is one thing here that I object to, it’s meeting my doom in my sleep.’

Anya waited for more volunteers, but not even one of the hired men would meet her gaze. At last, she sneered at them and turned back to the Slayer. ‘Thank you, Gotrek Gurnisson. If there is even a shred of truth in the stories Herr Jaeger records in his journals, you two will more than suffice.’

To Zayed’s distress, Anya had suggested that they ride, but in order to forestall any confrontation with Gotrek, Felix had quickly pointed out that riders would make an easy target for ogre hunters. Better to follow on foot and remain hidden as long as possible.

He regretted that suggestion now.

Though they followed a wide swathe of compacted snow and chewed horse bones left by the ogres, a thin crust of ice had settled on the ground, making the journey treacherous. Worse still, without horses they were forced to carry their supplies on their backs – and, as no one had any idea where the ogres were heading, that meant several days of rations and enough wood to start a fire in a blizzard.

Even Anya carried a pack, showing surprising strength for such a slender woman. She trudged stoically behind them, wrapped in furs cut in the latest Kislev fashion. When she spoke at all, it was in short, breathy utterances through a purple scarf that covered the lower half of her face.

As the sun sank towards the mountaintops, Gotrek slowed his pace until he trotted along beside them. ‘We’re being followed, manling,’ he said gruffly, keeping his gaze on the path ahead of them.

Felix had to consciously resist looking up into the hills. Could Kineater have left sentries behind? Surely he could not have expected a rescue mission. Felix hadn’t expected it himself.

‘Ogres?’

Gotrek grunted. ‘No. Even you with your dim eyes would have spotted an ogre.’

Felix ignored the jibe. ‘One of Zayed’s guards, then?’

‘A goblin.’

‘A gnoblar,’ Anya corrected him, keeping her voice low. ‘Cousins of the grobi, to be certain, but a separate race. They are both food and slaves to the ogres. If this one has fled the cooking pot, it could very well be our ally.’

‘No dwarf would ally himself with a goblin,’ said Gotrek, vehemently.

‘Our prisoner then,’ said Anya.

‘How do you suggest we capture it?’ asked Felix.

‘The caravan guards call them “magpies” because they dart up and down the length of a caravan, stealing anything that’s not nailed down. Theft is a racial obsession for them. I suggest we camp here for the night,’ she said, unshouldering her pack and letting it thump to the ground. ‘I have a plan.’

The moon had not even risen when Felix heard a stealthy presence creeping into the clearing. Anya had ‘forgotten’ a hunk of dried beef just at the edge of their campsite. To sweeten the trap, she’d unclipped her jade earrings and placed them in a compartment of her backpack, being as obvious as possible about it.

At the sound of icy rustling nearby, Felix cracked an eyelid. A small green creature, slightly larger than a goblin, fumbled with the knot Anya had tied in her backpack. It froze as Gotrek shifted in his cot, waiting patiently until the dwarf’s breathing steadied once more before resuming its work.

With Anya’s earrings clutched in its tiny fingers, it turned to scurry back into the night. Felix tensed, but waited until it came within arm’s reach before hurling himself bodily at it.

Its reactions were lightning fast, and he barely caught hold of one of its arms. Though nothing but skin and bones, the gnoblar displayed surprising strength, squealing and gnashing at its captor. It had almost freed itself when it caught sight of Gotrek, who’d hurled his blanket aside almost as soon as Felix had made his lunge. The creature’s struggles ceased as it became paralysed with fear. Still, Felix had no doubt that if he relaxed his guard for even a second, it would slip off into the darkness and disappear.

Anya knelt in front of the creature, keeping well away from its claws. ‘Who is your ogre, gnoblar?’

‘Let Cabbage go and Cabbage will tell you,’ it whined.

‘Cabbage?’ asked Felix.

Anya looked up at him. ‘Gnoblars are a superstitious bunch. They tend to pick names for themselves that might dissuade an ogre from eating them.’

‘Cabbage?’ Felix asked again.

‘Why eat Cabbage when tasty granite lies nearby?’ squealed the gnoblar. Anya laughed and even Gotrek smirked a little. Felix had never minded the taste of a nicely boiled kohl, but he knew that Gotrek hated it with a passion.

Without warning, the gnoblar twisted in Felix’s grasp and bit down hard on his wrist, just beneath the cuff of his mail. Felix yelped and jerked his hand away, accidentally giving Cabbage just enough leeway to pull free. In a heartbeat, he had darted past Anya towards the darkness at the edge of the camp.

Only Gotrek stood between Cabbage and freedom, but he had a Slayer’s reflexes. He lunged out, snatching the gnoblar by the scruff of his neck and shaking him. A mad smile curled his lip. ‘Bite me, gnoblar, and I’ll pull your head off.’

Cabbage gulped and went limp. Gotrek shook him once more for emphasis then set him down well inside the range of his axe.

‘I no run,’ Cabbage said, looking contrite.

‘Could have fooled me,’ responded Gotrek.

‘Let’s hear him out,’ said Felix, massaging his wrist where Cabbage had bitten him. It was tender, but thankfully the skin was unbroken. Judging from the size of Cabbage’s incisors, he could have easily inflicted real damage had he intended to.

Cabbage nodded furiously. ‘Yes, yes. Gutsnorter want Cabbage find tasty-mens...’ He paused, scratching his bald head. He grunted and snuffled to himself in what Felix assumed was the ogre tongue. Surprisingly, Anya responded with a similar series of barks, and his little eyes lit up. ‘Lady speak ogre?’

Anya nodded and knelt in front of the creature, and they began to converse in the gnoblar’s odd language.

As the conversation went on, Felix had more and more difficulty hiding a smile. He’d never heard the language spoken by a human before: coming from Cabbage, it sounded halfway natural; from a distinguished noblewoman like Anya Nitikin, it sounded like she was trying to talk while slurping cold soup. On several occasions, she burped mid-sentence and Felix had to stifle a laugh. He hated himself for his childish sense of humour, but by the end of the conversation, even Gotrek had let out a few throaty chuckles.

‘Cabbage did indeed seek us out,’ said Anya at length, not noticing Felix and Gotrek’s poorly disguised mirth. ‘His master is one of Kineater’s remaining relatives named Gutsnorter. Gutsnorter claims that Kineater has gone mad.’ Anya paused, a bitter expression on her face. ‘He wants to marry my sister.’

Gotrek let out an incredulous laugh. ‘An ogre marry a human? That’s like Felix marrying a sliced ham.’

Felix blinked, about to interject, but Anya beat him to it. ‘I’ll thank you not to compare my sister to a sliced ham,’ she said, regarding the Slayer coldly. ‘Kineater is a Tyrant, and though one of the other ogres could challenge him for leadership of the tribe, he’s too powerful.’ Anya stood and stepped away from Cabbage. ‘They say that no ogre worth his salt can see past his own belly. When he steps on a splinter, he must have a gnoblar remove it. This is how Gutsnorter thinks.’

Felix scratched his head. ‘So in Gutsnorter’s mind, your sister is the splinter and we are the gnoblars.’

Gotrek grunted in disgust. ‘I’d like to put my axe in Gutsnorter’s mind.’

‘Gutsnorter,’ continued Anya, ignoring the interruption, ‘is especially devious for an ogre, and has come up with a plan for us to rescue my sister.’

At this point Cabbage chimed in. ‘Cabbage take tasty-mens through secret ways. We sneaks through kitchen and meets Gutsnorter. He steals nasty-bride from Kineater, then tasty-mens takes her away.’

Felix sighed. ‘That’s the plan? The food is supposed to break into the kitchen?’

Anya shrugged. ‘For an ogre, it’s brilliant.’

Cabbage’s ‘secret ways’ turned out to be an old cave-bear dwelling near a scree-covered escarpment at the foot of a mountain. The cave had a wide mouth, clogged with the remains of its former occupant as well as shreds of fur and bone, rotten planks of wood, and even half a caravan wheel. Moisture dripped from the tips of stalactites onto piles of detritus.

The smell of mould and mildew was powerful enough that Anya retrieved a silken handkerchief from her pack, daubed it with fragrant oil, and held it over her mouth and nose. It appeared that they were entering the ogres’ kitchen through the waste chute.

Cabbage had no problem clambering over the piles of refuse, but Gotrek grumbled, muttering words to the effect that ‘only an ogre would befoul a perfectly good tunnel’. Anya followed the Slayer and Felix took the rear, eyeing the shadows uneasily. Cabbage couldn’t be the only gnoblar who knew about these tunnels, and he half expected to see one of the scrawny green creatures dart out of some hidden nook screaming an alarm to its masters.

The tunnel soon sloped upwards towards a half-circle of light far above them. The floor became slick with some foul sludge whose origins Felix tried hard not to guess. At first, Anya hiked up her skirt to keep it out of the muck, but as they trudged ever upwards and balance became more precarious, she gave up and let the hem drag in the gunk.

Felix followed close behind her, his thoughts as dark as their surroundings. Anya’s almost casual dismissal of his journal had affected him more than he cared to admit. For the first time since his university days, he found himself questioning his own abilities as a writer. Anya was smart, beautiful, spoke at least three languages with ease, and her books were famed from Wissenland to Ostermark. Felix was… well, he’d enjoyed some small success in Altdorf, but surely after all this time he had been forgotten.

He winced to think of how arrogant he’d been to claim Gotrek’s epic for himself. The Slayer deserved someone better. He deserved someone like Anya.

‘Anya,’ he said. ‘I–’

‘Quiet, tasty-mens,’ Cabbage hissed out of the darkness, ‘or Rumblebelly will hear us.’

Gotrek clutched his axe tightly, his face twisted into a snarl as he trotted along beside Felix. ‘If he calls me a man one more time, I’ll feed him to my axe.’

The tunnel levelled out, broadening into a dimly lit chamber that reeked of peppery spice and spoiled meat. Dozens of dark shapes hung from chains around a large oven that Felix was glad to see was empty; there was no telling what horrors might have been cooking within, otherwise.

Cabbage darted across the room then waited for them at the far entrance. Caught off guard by the gnoblar’s haste, Felix hurried to follow, bumping into one of the hanging shapes and recoiling in disgust. A fleshy, bloodshot eye stared back at him; it was the corpse of a caravan horse. He shuddered, and then caught up with Cabbage.

It quickly became apparent that the ‘kitchen’ was actually a cave halfway up the mountain slope. Spread out in the valley below them was the ogre settlement.

It was one of the largest collections of tents and shacks Felix had seen outside of an army camp. They carpeted the valley floor: huge triangular structures made from the crudely cut skins of giant mountain beasts. The snow around them had been trampled into a disgusting yellow-brown slurry spotted with unidentifiable lumps of bone, or worse.

Near the edge of the settlement was a fenced-off area where junk piles were sorted by material – iron with iron, wood with wood – and a wild contraption that resembled nothing more than a catapult rose from between the stacks. The hide of something that looked disturbingly like a dark-skinned man was stretched as tight as a drum on an elaborate structure made of bone and sinew. A gnoblar was painting it with a sticky substance that might have been a kind of dye.

The only permanent dwelling was a haphazardly constructed rectangle of boulders roofed with a ship’s mast and a patched sail, despite the fact that the closest body of water was hundreds of leagues away. A team of shaggy rhinoxen was yoked outside, grunting and snorting at any gnoblar unlucky enough to pass too close.

‘No guards?’ said Gotrek, surveying the surrounding peaks.

‘If they mean to hold the ceremony tonight, they will be dozing in their tents,’ said Anya.

As they watched, an ogre emerged from one of the tents. Greasy black cords of hair hung from its balding pate, and it wore a white apron in a crude mockery of an Altdorf chef.

‘Rumblebelly,’ whispered Cabbage with a shiver.

Most of the gnoblars apparently gave Rumblebelly a wide berth, being especially careful of the notched steel cleaver he carried, but a dozen gnoblar minions followed close behind him carrying various foodstuffs, cracked dishes and bent utensils, and slabs of meat large enough that two together had to carry them on their backs.

But that was not what drew Felix’s attention. Several gnoblars near the back dragged a prisoner in their wake.

‘Talia!’ Anya cried softly. The gnoblars led the younger Nitikin sister by a leash of thick hemp rope which bound her wrists together. Talia was not giving them an easy time of it. She seemed to be especially fond of lulling them into complacency and then tugging sharply on the rope to jerk them off their feet. Though the gnoblars cursed her roundly, they dared not lay a finger on the Tyrant’s future bride.

Eventually, they disappeared into a large tent at the edge of the camp. Judging from the crimson stain in the snow just outside, it had been only recently vacated by its former occupant.

Rumblebelly moved towards several rough-hewn tables which surrounded a deep pit in the centre of the camp. Felix guessed the pit would play a part in the ceremony, since most of the activity was centered there. Already the feasting tables were stacked high with putrid dishes.

Anya noticed his fascination. ‘That pit is a tribute to the ogre god, the Great Maw. Any ogre may challenge Kineater for control of the tribe, and such challenges are frequent at events such as this. Challengers have merely to descend into the pit and face him, unarmed and unarmoured, in single combat.’ She paused to swallow, her face grim. ‘The winner eats the loser.’

‘Where’s your ogre, grobi?’ asked Gotrek, impatiently. The Slayer sounded almost hopeful that Gutsnorter would abandon them and they would be forced to hack their way through the camp.

Cabbage blinked short-sightedly and shielded his eyes from the sun. ‘Can’t see mighty Gutsnorter.’

‘Fine then,’ said Anya. ‘We’ll rescue Talia without him.’

Felix winced. To even get near Talia, they would have to sneak through a swarm of gnoblars, not to mention bypassing the infamous Rumblebelly. ‘Are you sure that’s wise?’ he asked.

Anya pushed herself from their rocky perch and headed back into the kitchen.

‘Of course. I have a plan of my own.’

Felix crouched behind the boulders at the base of the slope that led to the kitchen. A gnoblar sentry – if it could even be called that – sat on a nearby rock, watching the preparations not five paces in front of him. It yawned, its enormous nose rising skywards, then scratched its rear and flatulated almost silently. Felix thanked Sigmar that the filthy little creature was more interested in what was going on inside the camp than outside of it.

A few paces away, Anya placed a bag of red powder into Cabbage’s hands, whispering to him in the ogre dialect while Gotrek looked on, disgusted.

‘Any plan that relies on a gnoblar isn’t fit for a dwarf,’ he grumbled, but remained where he was.

Privately, Felix agreed with him. He didn’t trust Cabbage, and he disliked the fact that the gnoblar’s vaunted patron, Gutsnorter, had apparently disappeared. Anya had explained that any gnoblar without an ogre patron usually ended up in the cooking pot. As time had passed and Gutsnorter still did not appear, Cabbage had grown visibly nervous. Now, the gnoblar seemed to disagree with the set of instructions he was receiving and shook his head vigorously, pushing the bag back into Anya’s hands.

Suddenly all of the rage and impotence Felix had been feeling since the attack on the caravan, and all of the frustration and resentment towards Anya for insulting his work, boiled to the surface. He pushed himself close to Cabbage until he was eye-to-eye with the terrified creature.

‘Listen, you filthy little scallywag,’ he hissed, barely restraining himself to a venomous whisper. ‘You led us into this mess, and you’ll lead us out again. You think being eaten by an ogre is bad? When I’m done with you, there won’t be enough left for an appetiser.’

Cabbage snivelled loudly, his dark eyes wide with terror. For a moment, Felix thought he might forget the plan entirely and run, squealing, into the camp, but instead the gnoblar snatched up the bag and stepped out into the open.

‘Scallywag?’ asked Gotrek, arching his eyebrow.

Felix said nothing. He was a little embarrassed by his outburst. Throwing tantrums wasn’t his department – it was Gotrek’s.

Shivering like a beanpole in a high wind, Cabbage proceeded into the camp, clutching the bag to his chest. He skirted the feasting tables and the oblivious Rumblebelly with his cleaver, instead heading towards the pair of shaggy white rhinoxen. Though he drew a curious eye from some of the other gnoblars, Rumblebelly ignored him.

It occurred to Felix that despite sending Cabbage on his way, he had no idea what was in the bag, so he asked Anya.

‘Just some noxious powder I found in the kitchen,’ she said with a grin. ‘Ogres may be stupid, but they take their meals seriously enough to recognise a good spice when they loot one.’

‘What good will that do?’ asked Felix.

Anya smiled mischievously. ‘Watch.’

Cabbage now stood directly under the flaring nostrils of the closest rhinoxen. It shook its shaggy head and a long pink tongue snaked out to lick at its own snout. It smelled the spice, and didn’t like it. Cabbage looked back towards them nervously.

Gotrek grinned evilly and ran a thumb along the blade of his axe.

Cabbage immediately deflated and Felix didn’t blame him. The blood of brave men ran cold when the Slayer bared his teeth.

The gnoblar turned back towards the rhinoxen, shrugged, and then swung the bag in a wide arc right at the beast’s nose. Red powder exploded into the air, swirling around them both, and Cabbage scampered out of sight.

The beast and its mate bellowed and reared up into the air, then leapt forwards, straining at their harnesses. The chain that stretched from their collars to the central mast-pillar of the storage building pulled taut, and the crack of splitting wood rent the air – the pillar shifted, bringing the building’s patched-sail roof canopy collapsing down. The crash of the mast hitting the ground only goaded the rhinoxen to new levels of terror, and they stampeded straight towards Rumblebelly and his tables full of food.

The massive ogre merely grunted and casually tossed one of the tables aside, then set himself to receive the charge. In a feat of strength the likes of which Felix had never seen before, Rumblebelly grabbed one of the charging rhinoxen by the horn and forced its head down into the icy ground, and then cupped his fists together and brought them down hard upon the back of the other beast, snapping its spine in one blow.

‘Stay here,’ Felix shouted to Anya, struggling to be heard over the commotion. She nodded, stepping back under cover.

Once she was safe, Gotrek and Felix dashed over to the tent where the gnoblars had taken Talia, and Felix drew Karaghul as he approached the entrance. He reached for the flap, but Gotrek beat him to it, lowering a shoulder and barreling right through the opening.

A dozen gnoblars awaited them, screeching in alarm as the Slayer burst in. Gotrek laid about himself with his axe, felling four of the diminutive creatures in a heartbeat.

Assuming his traditional position just behind the Slayer, Felix stabbed out, disembowelling a screaming green body and then batting aside another gnoblar’s primitive club with a quick parry. A third enemy assailed him, its face covered in greasy pink powder that he supposed could only have been makeup. Felix parried a dagger thrust and returned with one of his own, and the gnoblar reeled backwards, its eye a wounded wreck. He quickly put it out of its misery.

‘Is that all?’ asked Gotrek. He stood atop a small heap of dismembered gnoblar bodies with blood spattered up and down his naked chest, darkening his fiery red beard.

Talia was gagged and lashed to a chair on the far side of the hut. Her dress was torn and she was smeared with the same awful smelling substance the pink gnoblar had worn. As ridiculous as she looked, there was still fire in her eyes.

Felix quickly crossed to her and pulled down her gag. ‘Can you walk?’

‘I walked here, didn’t I?’ she snapped.

Obviously, anger was Talia’s way of coping with a stressful situation, and after years of dealing with Gotrek, Felix had developed a thick skin. Still, he struggled to hide his annoyance as he undid her bonds. If she was this scathing in the midst of a rescue, how would she be on the long walk home?

Gotrek stood at the entrance, peering out into the settlement. ‘We’re too late, manling. Kineater’s finally hauled himself out of his den.’

As Rumblebelly had set about the fallen rhinoxen with his cleaver to the hooting delight of his gnoblar assistants, their rescue attempt had gone completely unnoticed. But now ogres had begun streaming out of their tents to gather for the ceremony, enormous slabs of fat and muscle armed with bone clubs and metal scimitars the size of a man.

Kineater had emerged from the largest tent, a head taller at least than any other ogre. The Tyrant cursed when he saw the destruction and waddled towards Rumblebelly, who stood over the rhinoxen corpses. If Gotrek and Felix didn’t hurry, their escape route would be cut off.

‘I’ll hold them back while you get the girl to safety.’ Gotrek’s single eye gleamed madly and he ran a thumb along the edge of his axe, drawing blood.

‘The girl?’ asked Talia sharply.

Felix ignored her. The Slayer was thinking of a glorious death, but even he couldn’t hold off the entire tribe. He cast a quick look out of the tent flap. It might just be possible to stick to the edge of the camp and keep as many tents between them and Kineater as possible. If they were quick enough perhaps they could manage an escape without being seen.

‘I know what you’re thinking, manling,’ Gotrek growled. ‘And I’m telling you, no dwarf should steal out of camp like a common thief.’ He followed up with a Khalazid curse for good measure.

‘You swore to return Talia to her sister,’ Felix argued, appealing to Gotrek’s sense of honour. The Slayer had never broken a vow in his life and Felix gambled that he wouldn’t start now. ‘I’m certain there will be enough glorious doom for all of us, should the ogres choose to pursue.’

Gotrek glared at him balefully for a long moment, then spat on the floor. ‘Fine. We’ll do this your way. But I’ll remember this, manling.’

Most of the ogres were already engaged in bullish shows of strength and bravado among themselves, and so the three of them were able to pass through the camp without raising a cry of alarm. On the single occasion that they were spotted by a squeaking gnoblar sentry, Talia had slit its throat with Felix’s dagger before he’d even been aware that she’d taken it.

After what seemed like a fraught eternity, they reached the edge of the line of dwellings. Anya had come much closer to meet them, and now crouched behind a large rocky outcrop a dozen yards away. Felix surveyed the open ground between them – cover was sparse, and if any member of the tribe so much as glanced in their direction, they would be seen.

‘There’s nothing for it,’ he said grimly. ‘We run.’

‘You first,’ the Slayer sulked.

Felix shook his head. ‘We all go together.’

Just as they began their mad dash for Anya’s hiding place they heard a high-pitched screech of rage and horror. Food dishes still lay scattered around the pit in the centre of the settlement, and Cabbage stood amidst them, gibbering incoherently.

Felix strained to see what the gnoblar was looking at, and then cursed under his breath.

It was a boiled ogre head. Now they knew why Gutsnorter hadn’t met them.

Cabbage blinked and then looked around, shoulders hunching in fear. Felix remembered what Anya had told him about gnoblars without a patron. He felt a brief moment of pity as Cabbage cast frantically about himself. Then their eyes met, and the gnoblar lifted a finger, stabbing in their direction.

‘Tasty-mens! Tasty-mens steal Tyrant’s bride!’

Caught in the open halfway between the tents and the rocks, there was nowhere to hide. Rumblebelly’s head swung up from his work, and his cleaver followed. Kineater bellowed in rage and stomped towards them, his belly swaying left and right as he charged.

‘I’ll deal with them,’ said Gotrek, wheeling around. ‘Get Talia and Anya back to old Zayed’s caravan.’ He took a step towards the charging ogres and banged the flat of his axe against his chest. ‘Come feel the bite of my axe, grobi-lovers!’

Not even the Slayer could prevail against a whole camp of ogres, but he might be able to hold them off long enough for Felix and the Nitikin sisters to escape. Ogres were dangerous, but slow. Even in the mountains, Felix was confident he could reach Zayed’s caravan before Kineater and his warriors did, especially if Gotrek was able to bring down the Tyrant first. That would provoke a leadership contest which would–

Felix’s eyes widened, and he stared at the pit.

A plan, a plan so insane that Cabbage himself might have come up with it, flared in his mind. If this didn’t work, Anya would be the only one left to write Gotrek’s epic, because Felix would be as dead as his companion. But there was no alternative. He had to try it.

Steeling his courage, he stepped in front of Gotrek.

‘What are you doing?’ demanded the Slayer.

Felix couldn’t suppress a mad grin. It wasn’t often that Gotrek was surprised. Then the reality of what he was about to do hit him, and it was all he could do to keep his voice from quavering.

‘Gotrek Gurnisson challenges Vork Kineater to a guts-out pit fight for leadership of the tribe!’ shouted Felix.

‘What are you doing, manling?’ asked the Slayer again.

In the bluster of their charge, the ogres didn’t hear him, so he shouted again at the top of his lungs. This time, he had an effect.

Kineater slowed his run as the meaning of Felix’s challenge penetrated his thick skull. Several more ogres stomped up, including Rumblebelly. Suddenly Gotrek and Felix were surrounded by a sea of flab and muscle and tusks. Felix came up no further than the belly of the shortest ogre. He felt childish and weak, and it was all he could do to keep from bolting in fear.

‘Do you accept the challenge?’ he yelled, doing his best to sound fearless.

Kineater put a hand on his hips and laughed deep in his belly. It was an avalanche of sound, like rocks grinding over each other. Finally he glared down at Gotrek. ‘You wanna wrestle Kineater?’ he asked incredulously.

Gotrek glared at Felix suspiciously. ‘Aye.’

Kineater’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully. Felix could tell that the Tyrant had some experience with dwarfs, perhaps with the Chaos dwarfs who had once been rumoured to have burrowed beneath these very mountains. Kineater had not ascended to the position of Tyrant by brute force alone.

‘Little dwarf cannot challenge Kineater,’ he said, looking at Rumblebelly for support, ’cause he got no ogre blood in ’im.’

Grunts of agreement sounded from the mass of ogres, and one or two of them burped hungrily.

Gotrek raised his axe and assumed a fighting stance. ‘Nice try, manling.’

Felix’s mind raced. His eyes fell on a nearby dish. Not allowing himself time to think about what he was doing, he snatched up a morsel of food from the ground and gave it to Gotrek. ‘Eat this.’

‘By Grungni’s beard, manling, have you lost your mind?’ Gotrek exclaimed. ‘I could smell the rot on this “banquet” from halfway up the mountain!’

Felix gulped, and looked up at the assembled ogres. Their confusion had kept Gotrek and Felix from being eaten thus far, but soon that confusion would give way to anger, and then a fight would be inevitable.

‘Gotrek,’ he begged. ‘Please. Trust me.’

Reluctantly, the Slayer took the morsel and bit into it. ‘Ach, it tastes foul. What is it?’

‘Gutsnorter’s finger,’ Felix mumbled. He hastily turned back to the assembled ogres, half expecting to feel Gotrek’s axe in his back. ‘There! He’s got some ogre in him, so accept the challenge, you cowardly heap of rhinox dung.’

‘Guts out’ meant that neither participant in the challenge could wear armour of any sort. Four gnoblars stripped Kineater down to his leathery skin, leaving nothing but a sweaty loincloth which appeared to have been torn from the same sail as the fallen tent canopy. Gotrek, dressed in only his breeches, was allowed to fight as he was, but before he descended into the pit Rumblebelly demanded his axe.

‘You can pry it from my cold dead hands,’ growled Gotrek, glaring with his one eye at the ogre Butcher.

‘Tyrant get axe as prize,’ said Rumblebelly, his face twisted into a scowl. ‘You win, you get it back. You lose, you don’t need axe.’

It was a stunning bit of logic for an ogre, and Felix’s estimation of the Butcher’s intelligence rose several notches. Even Gotrek seemed impressed, but he handed over the axe only reluctantly, as though he were parting with an old friend and not a deadly weapon. Perhaps, thought Felix, Gotrek thought of the axe more as the former than the latter.

As Rumblebelly turned to place the axe upon one of the feasting tables, Gotrek drew Felix aside. Though he’d thought it a necessity at the time, Felix felt terrible for tricking the Slayer into eating cooked ogre. He deserved Gotrek’s wrath and he braced himself to take whatever punishment the Slayer doled out. If he demanded that they part ways, well, Felix would accept that too.

But instead of being angry, Gotrek seemed unusually cheerful. ‘Well done, manling. This will be a grand doom indeed.’

Relief flooded into Felix. Far from being offended, Gotrek was actually pleased that Felix’s trick had resulted in a more epic death – single combat, unarmed, with an opponent four times his size? In his dwarf mind, his admittance into Grimnir’s halls would be assured.

Felix watched the Slayer descend into the Great Maw from the lip of the pit. Nearby, Talia glared evilly at Rumblebelly from where she’d been tied to the leg of a feasting table – Felix found it difficult not to like her indomitable spirit. His father was rich enough that he’d met plenty of spoiled children in his day, and even counted some among his friends. When those sheltered fledglings finally emerged from the nest of privilege, one or two brushes with the real world was usually enough to cure them of their arrogance. Talia, on the other hand, might have fought Kineater herself, if she’d had the chance. If the Cathayan monks didn’t manage to tame her, she’d make a fine soldier in the fight against Chaos.

Anya stood beside Felix, having also been betrayed by Cabbage. The gnoblar had evidently earned a position of respect for his actions. Rumblebelly himself had gnawed off a section of Cabbage’s ear which, Felix understood, meant the gnoblar had a new patron.

‘That was a brave thing you did,’ Anya said, ‘but Gotrek cannot possibly hope to win.’

‘I’ve learned over the years never to bet against the Slayer. We’ve faced down larger creatures than this before,’ Felix responded, keeping a brave face. The roars and cheers of the assembled ogres had reached an unsettling new high as Rumblebelly began some vile gastric ritual.

It was true that Gotrek and Felix had slain all manner of beasts in their travels, but always before, the Slayer had been armed with his trusty axe. He was as strong as any dwarf Felix had ever met, and they were already a hardy breed. But he could not hope to match Kineater’s strength. The ogre was just too big.

‘I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that,’ said Anya. ‘The Slayer... well, he attracts trouble, does he not. Surely you do not need to exaggerate in your journal in order to craft a compelling story about him?’

Felix started. Exaggerate? He had recorded their adventures as plainly as he could, meaning to add poetic language later, when he crafted his epic. Did she think his journal was full of nothing but lies?

Before he could respond, a new roar erupted from the crowd of ogres. The fight was about to begin.

Gotrek stood on one side of the pit, his chest and arms rippling with corded muscle. As he flexed, his tattoos seemed to dance across his skin. Facing a man, the Slayer was a short but fearsome opponent. Next to Kineater, Gotrek looked like a deformed child.

The ogre stood opposite him, a mountain of flesh with a protruding gut that overhung his feet.

On the lip of the pit, Rumblebelly belched loudly and struck his cleaver along one of the great sharpened stones that Felix supposed represented the teeth of the Great Maw, scattering a few dull sparks from the metal onto the combatants below.

Taking his cue, Kineater bellowed and charged the Slayer, leading with his gut. Obviously, he intended to crush Gotrek under his titanic weight.

For a moment, the Slayer disappeared under a sea of flesh, only to emerge on the other side of the ogre, punching at his thighs and kidneys. Hope fluttered in Felix’s chest – nearly every opponent a dwarf ever faced was taller than himself. Gotrek might look over-matched, but he was in his element.

Kineater, on the other hand, was used to wrestling ogres. Enraged, he swept his arm around in a wild haymaker, but he’d aimed for a taller opponent and Gotrek was able to slip underneath the blow. Seeing an opening, the Slayer leapt towards Kineater and battered the ogre’s kneecap. Bones snapped and the Tyrant howled in pain. He stumbled and toppled to the ground. Gotrek jumped free, like a lumberjack dodging a falling tree, but unfortunately Kineater lashed out with a meaty paw, catching Gotrek around the waist and pinning his arms to his side.

The Slayer flexed, trying to break the ogre’s hold, but Kineater shifted his weight and bore him down to the ground.

‘He’ll be killed,’ gasped Anya.

Without conscious thought, Felix’s hand fell to the pommel of his sword. It did look bad. The Tyrant rained hammer-fist after hammer-fist down upon Gotrek. How long could he resist such punishment? At times, the Slayer’s endurance seemed inhuman, but even he had his limits.

Felix stood on the very lip of the Maw, on the edge of one of the tooth-stones. The pit was fifteen feet deep: shallow enough that an ogre could climb out of it without assistance, but deep enough that Felix couldn’t jump in without fear of injury. Furthermore, Gotrek had explicitly told him not to intervene. If Felix were to rob him of his doom, the Slayer might never forgive him. Reluctantly, he stepped away from the edge and turned his attention to the crowd of ogres and gnoblars.

The pit was ringed by the dark, fleshy bodies of dozens of ogres who grunted and bellowed encouragement to their Tyrant in a mixture of broken Reikspiel and their own guttural language. Several brave gnoblars had pushed their way to the front of the crowd, where they squatted on the edge of the Maw.

As Felix watched, one of the ogres snatched up a gnoblar and popped the squealing creature into its mouth. It crunched once, twice, and then pushed a twitching, spindly arm into its maw and began to chew. Even this did nothing to distract the rest of the ogres. Apparently, the occurrence was common enough that not even the gnoblars squatting directly in front of the offending ogre so much as shifted positions. Indeed, it was probably the safest place for them, since that particular ogre’s hunger was already sated.

In the pit, Kineater pinned the Slayer under his massive bulk. Gotrek freed a hand, but could do little more than fend off the ogre’s blows. The Slayer’s face was a bloody mess and his eyepatch had been torn aside, exposing his ruined eye.

Leering in victory, Kineater leaned in close until he was nose-to-nose with his opponent.

‘I’m ’unna eat your face, little tasty-man!’

Gotrek’s expression darkened and his cheeks reddened in anger.

‘Don’t call me a man!’

Roaring with anger, Gotrek curled his free arm around Kineater’s massive neck and, pulling his face even closer, bit down hard on the Tyrant’s nose.

The ogre’s eyes widened and he reared up, instinctively recoiling from the pain. Blood poured from the wreck of his face, matting the greasy black hair on his chest.

Now free from the ogre’s grip, Gotrek climbed to his feet and spat out a lump of gristly flesh. He wiped Kineater’s blood off his lips with the back of his hand, and then crouched once again and waved the ogre forwards. ‘Come on, you sorry sack of flab. Let’s finish this.’

Kineater’s confident swagger had been replaced by cold fear. For the first time, apparently, he realised that he could be beaten. Felix had no idea how long Kineater had been Tyrant, but given his size and the relative lack of challengers amongst his tribe, he guessed it was a very long time. All of that might be now about to end – at the hands of a dwarf no less.

Enraged, Kineater turned and reached up the side of the pit, freeing one of the Maw’s tooth-stones from its moorings. He advanced on the Slayer, swinging it before him as an improvised club.

On the lip of the Maw, Rumblebelly’s brow pulled low over his beady eyes. He grunted out a word in the ogre language that Felix could understand despite the language barrier: Kineater was cheating. Worse, in his quest to defeat the Slayer he had quite literally extracted one of their deity’s teeth. Rumblebelly barked again, and beat his chest with his free hand. Several other ogres began to growl and hurl scraps of rubbish into the pit, while all around them gnoblars gazed up in horror at the sky, as if they expected swift retribution to rain from the heavens.

Down below, Kineater charged at Gotrek, wielding the great tooth-stone. At the last moment, the Slayer hurled himself aside, the club passing a hair’s-breadth over his head.

Luckily Kineater had swung too hard and overextended. Gotrek seized the opportunity, kicking at the same knee he’d attacked before. Once again, Kineater fell, and this time Gotrek was there to hammer home a vicious blow to the Tyrant’s ruined nose. In spite of the damage, the blow brought him inside Kineater’s range, and the ogre lashed out once again with the tooth. The stone hit Gotrek with rib-shattering force, smashing him into the wall.

Felix cursed. Kineater had obviously committed some kind of grave insult against the Great Maw, but by the time these ogres were done with all their bellowing and teeth gnashing, the Slayer would be dead. He knew that he should use the distraction to disappear with Anya and Talia, but somehow he couldn’t bring himself to leave Gotrek. Perhaps, like the gnoblars, years of living in fear of one enemy or another had dulled its bite? Or maybe he simply felt an overwhelming urge to see how his epic would end. If he left now, he would never know what had passed in the Slayer’s final moments. He stepped back to the edge of the pit.

Gotrek had regained his footing and faced Kineater. His eyepatch was gone completely, and his face was livid with bruises. A long, bloody wound skirted the top of his cheekbone, dripping dark red into his fiery beard.

Kineater had fared no better. Blood ran freely from his wounded nose and he could barely hobble forwards on his buckled knee. Yet still he advanced, swinging the tooth-stone in huge, deadly arcs before him.

But the Slayer had had enough.

He faced down Kineater, jaw set, a kind of madness glimmering in his eye. ‘Do your worst, you pig-skinned mountain ape!’ he yelled, his fist raised in the air.

Kineater purpled with rage, and charged. He brought the tooth-stone in an overhead arc that should have squashed the Slayer flat, but at the last minute Gotrek – who only a moment before had looked unmovable – stepped aside and let it impact upon the churned earth.

As the Tyrant shifted his weight to retrieve the stone, Gotrek seized the tooth and yanked it forwards, using the ogre’s weight against him. Overbalanced, Kineater stumbled, releasing his grip on the weapon.

The tooth was several feet in length and tapered to a brutal point, and Felix guessed it must weigh upwards of three hundred pounds. Nevertheless, Gotrek yelled a battle cry, heaved it overhead and then brought it crashing down on Kineater’s skull. The Tyrant’s head caved under the blow, spraying blood and brain matter everywhere.

A few spasmodic twitches later, Vork Kineater lay dead.

The Slayer stood over the Tyrant’s corpse, breathing raggedly, his fists clenched at his sides. He did not celebrate. To a Slayer, each victory was also a defeat, because he had not yet found his doom and would be forced to seek it elsewhere. After a long moment, he stepped away from the corpse and climbed the wall of the pit.

Silence descended over the camp like a burial shroud.

Felix stirred uneasily, wondering if he should draw his sword. Several ogres glared at Gotrek stupidly, while others scowled, chewing their spit. Not one of them had seriously expected the Slayer to beat their Tyrant; it had all just been great sport. Now that the unthinkable had come to pass, they were too stupid to know how to react. Not even the gnoblars made so much as a sound.

The only movement was from Anya who edged closer to her sister. She had drawn a dagger, ready to cut Talia’s bonds if they needed to make a sudden escape.

The Slayer put one bloody hand over the rim of the pit, then hauled himself over the lip and got to his feet.

‘My axe,’ he said to Rumblebelly. ‘Now.’

The butcher considered Gotrek grimly. Felix sensed that Rumblebelly held some sway in the absence of the Tyrant, much as a warrior priest might issue commands in an Imperial army if the general were to be disabled. He was the key to all of this. His word would be law among the tribe.

The ogre held up both arms and turned towards the crowd. ‘The Great Maw is pleased! The dwarf is new Tyrant!’ He looked back down at Gotrek and passed him his axe, his cleaver gleaming wickedly in the cold afternoon sun. He jerked a thumb at the pit. ‘Now, eat ’im.’

Felix paled. Anya had mentioned that the winner of a pit fight ate the loser, but he’d assumed that was a formality and not a mandatory requirement. In truth, his plan had ended when the fight began. He certainly hadn’t expected Gotrek to win. There was no way the Slayer was going to devour Kineater. The last thing he’d want was to be their Tyrant.

But maybe that was the answer.

‘Your Tyrant,’ Felix called out to the surrounding ogres, ‘decrees that the ogre who eats the most Vork is the new Tyrant.’

It took a moment for the crowd to process the concept, but one especially bright ogre caught on and leapt down into the pit. Another followed, seizing the first by the back of the neck and hurling him against a wall. Soon there were enough ogres in the pit to shake the earth.

Rumblebelly’s brow furrowed. ‘No! That is not the way!’

But even those ogres closest to him had waded into the fray. The lure of power was too great for their simple minds. Disgusted, he turned back towards Gotrek and Felix, his metal cleaver in hand.

Gotrek stood his ground, daring the butcher to try something. His skin was already mottled with bruises, and he blinked away blood from his swelling eye as he glared up at Rumblebelly. The Slayer lifted his axe and, with a trembling hand, drew his thumb along the blade, drawing blood. Slowly, his bruised face cracked into a smile that showed his missing teeth.

Rumblebelly stared down at the Slayer in disbelief. His gaze darted from Gotrek to Felix, to the Nitikin sisters, and then back to Gotrek. At last, he shook his head and spat on the ground. ‘Go. You are painful meat. Not worth eating.’

Not worth eating. Felix could think of no finer compliment for an ogre butcher to bestow upon them.

Rumblebelly had greatly disappointed Gotrek by refusing to obstruct their escape – preferring instead to watch the struggle for leadership unfold – but the dwarf did not seem to let it affect him unduly. He spent much of the hike back to the caravan talking with Talia. Normally taciturn, the Slayer didn’t seem to mind the Kislevite woman – Gotrek knew a thing or two about having a foul temper, and shared his wisdom with the younger Nitikin.

‘Do you think she’ll go back to her former ways?’ Felix asked Anya. They’d fallen a few paces behind Gotrek and Talia.

Anya looked up at her sister appraisingly. ‘I’m afraid her daemons won’t be banished so easily. However, I’m sure that being judged to be so ill-behaved that an ogre thinks you’re beautiful is an eye-opening experience indeed, for a woman of her station.’

Ahead of them, Gotrek had drawn his axe and was showing Talia how to keep the edge keen. She watched with rapt attention.

‘Of course,’ admitted Anya, ‘it could be that her temper has simply become more... focused?’

Felix chuckled. It was difficult to imagine a woman of Talia’s slender build wielding an axe like Gotrek’s, but he could certainly picture her with a rapier. That mental image provoked a thought of Ulrika and he felt his heart twinge. Maybe it was time to deal with the other matter.

‘Boyarina–’

‘Why the formality?’ Anya asked, lightning quick. ‘Even if we’re not old friends, we have at least shared in an adventure.’

Felix paused, unsure of how to continue. Flattery would never work on a woman like Anya, nor would deception. She already suspected he was about to ask for some favour, so he might as well spit it out. ‘I want to ask you if you would take up my duties. You proved yourself level-headed in the fight today, and of course, your literary talents are beyond question.’

Anya paused. Her gaze fell to the ground, and then back to Felix. ‘Is this because I compared your journal to a penny dreadful?’

He sighed. ‘Partly. It has been years since I’ve been published, and the life of a vagabond leaves little time to polish my prose–’

Anya cut him off, her tone harsh and impatient. ‘I said nothing about your prose. Your prose is beautiful. It is obvious that you are a poet, and a fine one at that. My complaint was not with the quality of your journal, but with its content.’ Here, she blushed and lowered her gaze, then brushed an intruding lock of hair from her eyes. ‘I thought you’d made your stories up. Now, having seen what I’ve seen, I... I feel quite foolish. Who would have thought a dwarf would be named an ogre Tyrant?’

Felix gaped. Anya Nitikin, one of the Empire’s foremost authors, thought his prose was beautiful? It was the finest compliment he’d received in years, and from an author of her calibre no less. ‘I-I…’ he stuttered, unable to find the words. ‘Thank you,’ he said at last.

‘And as for handing me your duties, there is no one quite as suited to them as you are. No one else could follow the Slayer for all these years, enduring his insults by day and fighting at his side by night.’ She smiled and put her hand on his arm sympathetically. ‘I’m afraid, Herr Jaeger, that the gods have already chosen your destiny for you, and it is to pen one of the world’s great epics.’

Felix held his head up high. He’d thought himself cursed to live as a wanderer, chasing after a doomed warrior on a futile quest. But Anya saw him as a warrior-poet, an artist who had deliberately chosen the bohemian life for his art. Perhaps he had at last found in prose something he’d been searching for in poetry. Perhaps now he had found his purpose.

‘Have you thought of a title for your epic?’ she asked curiously.

‘Years ago I had a vision of a book labelled My Travels with Gotrek in gold print,’ Felix confessed. ‘But I have been struggling to find names for each volume.’

Anya chuckled to herself. ‘The dwarf is a Trollslayer, is he not?’

Felix nodded.

‘It seems that might make a good title for your first volume,’ she said.

Felix tapped his chin with a fingertip. ‘Of course. In our second adventure we fought the ratmen in Nuln. I could take a minor liberty with Gotrek’s moniker and call that volume Skavenslayer, in their strange tongue.’

Anya’s eyes danced with barely suppressed mirth. ‘You realise that one day you may run out of new monsters to slay?’

An ironic smile graced Felix’s face. ‘I do indeed. In fact, I look forward to it.’

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

JORDAN ELLINGER

Jordan Ellinger is a recent first place winner in the Writers of the Future contest and a Clarion West graduate, and his work can be seen in numerous anthologies across the science fiction and fantasy genres. When he is not writing, he is a freelance editor attached to such projects as Every Day Fiction and Raygun Revival. You can keep up with his blog at www.jordanellinger.com

A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

Published in 2012 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd., Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK

Cover illustration by Winona Nelson

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