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Warhammer

Slayer’s Honour - Nathan Long

A Cask of Wynters - Josh Reynolds

A Place of Quiet Assembly - John Brunner

Kineater - Jordan Ellinger

Prophecy - Ben McCallum

The Tilean’s Talisman - David Guymer

Last Orders - Andy Smillie

Mind-Stealer - C.L. Werner

The Two Crowns of Ras Karim - Nathan Long

The Funeral of Gotrek Gurnisson - Richard Salter

About The Authors

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This is a dark age, a bloody age, an age of daemons and of sorcery. It is an age of battle and death, and of the world’s ending. Amidst all of the fire, flame and fury it is a time, too, of mighty heroes, of bold deeds and great courage.

At the heart of the Old World sprawls the Empire, the largest and most powerful of the human realms. Known for its engineers, sorcerers, traders and soldiers, it is a land of great mountains, mighty rivers, dark forests and vast cities. And from his throne in Altdorf reigns the Emperor Karl Franz, sacred descendant of the founder of these lands, Sigmar, and wielder of his magical warhammer.

But these are far from civilised times. Across the length and breadth of the Old World, from the knightly palaces of Bretonnia to ice-bound Kislev in the far north, come rumblings of war. In the towering Worlds Edge Mountains, the orc tribes are gathering for another assault. Bandits and renegades harry the wild southern lands of the Border Princes. There are rumours of rat-things, the skaven, emerging from the sewers and swamps across the land. And from the northern wildernesses there is the ever-present threat of Chaos, of daemons and beastmen corrupted by the foul powers of the Dark Gods. As the time of battle draws ever nearer, the Empire needs heroes like never before.

Slayer’s Honour

Nathan Long

1

‘What a cesspit,’ said Gotrek Gurnisson.

Felix Jaeger had to agree. They had smelled it before they topped the last rise in the road – a heady reek of rotting garbage, raw sewage, burnt meat and stale beer. Now that they were walking through its weathered wooden gates, Felix thought the sight of the place as offensive to the eye as the odour had been to the nose.

Deadgate squatted at the end of a narrow valley in the shadow of the ruined dwarf hold, Karak Azgal, which loomed on a rocky eminence above it. To Felix, the settlement’s spread of crude, shingled roofs and dirty streets looked like a crusty brown stain seeping down the slope from an ancient granite cistern.

This was near enough the truth, to hear Gotrek speak of it. When the dwarf lords who ruled Karak Azgal had stopped trying to win the hold back from the orcs and goblins and other monsters that had taken up residence in its depths, they had instead thrown it open to adventurers, letting them delve into it in search of its fabled treasures – for a fee, of course. Word spread of this great opportunity and, despite the fact that Karak Azgal lay far from civilized lands, deep in the remote southern tail of the Worlds Edge Mountains, the valley was soon crawling with fortune hunters, all hoping to come away with dwarf gold, ancient weapons of great power, and gems the size of apples. To service these newcomers, a human settlement had grown up outside the hold. At first it was just a trading post, selling food and supplies for those going underground, but places to spend what loot the adventurers brought back to the surface quickly sprang into being – taverns, fighting pits, gaming parlours, brothels, mortuaries – until it became Deadgate, not so much a town as a clapboard abattoir, designed to flense gold from pockets before their owners made it out of the valley.

Garish signs assaulted Felix’s eyes as he and Gotrek walked down the muddy main street, all painted on the fronts of the buildings or swinging over their open doors – the Painted Lady, the Red Rooster, the Pit of Blood, the Palace – each with its bill of fare beneath it, whether this were beer, wine, gambling, fighting, or female companionship.

Below the signs, barkers in flashy clothes sang out those same bills of fare to the hard-faced men who wandered the streets, trying to entice them within, while in the street, costermongers, charm sellers and professional criers were all making their pitches at the top of their voices.

‘Gold-hunting canaries! Take one into the deeps and it will lead you to treasure!’

‘Pears from the Badlands! One fresh for two pfennigs! Ten rotten for one!’

A human man holding a banner with a rearing dragon emblazoned upon it was shouting the loudest. ‘Thane Thorgrin Dragonslayer needs you to fight the greenskin menace! Apply at the hold to join his throng. One gold coin per day of fighting, and free access to the deeps for a month. Make your fortune and save the hold!’

As they walked past a gaudy tavern called the Grail, Gotrek and Felix were accosted by a smiling villain who bowed and scraped before them. ‘Come right in, mein herr and herr dwarf. This way. It’s a long, dusty road from the Badlands to the Worlds Edge Mountains. Why not wet those dry throats with a few mugs of real dwarf ale? Or if your navel is touching your spine, we can fill you up. We have sausages and pies and–’

‘Dwarf ale?’ asked Gotrek, stopping.

‘Indeed, herr dwarf,’ said the tout. ‘Bugman’s Best. Six kegs, brought up through the pass just this morning.’

The Slayer glared at the man. ‘If you are lying, I’ll come back here and feed you the mug.’

‘No lie, friend,’ said the man, holding up his hands. ‘We aren’t so foolish as to try to fool those who know. Indeed, there’s another of your kin within, and he can’t get enough of the stuff.’

Gotrek grunted and pushed through the swinging double doors. Felix followed him into the smoky interior, looking around warily. It did not look like the sort of place that would serve Bugman’s – and if it didn’t, there would be trouble. It was decorated in a shoddy attempt at Bretonnian courtly style, with arched doors and heraldic tapestries and high-backed chairs – but the patrons did not look like they would be at home reciting chivalric poetry at the High Castle of Couronne. A harder, more scarred collection of sell swords and fortune hunters Felix had never seen. Nor did the thick-necked bruisers who manned the bar look like they had been hired for their knowledge of viticulture.

‘Are you sure you want to die in a town this ugly?’ Felix asked as he and Gotrek stepped around a pair of bouncers dragging an unconscious patron to the door.

‘I won’t die here,’ said Gotrek, pushing to the bar. ‘The spider is in the deeps, so that jeweller said.’

‘Ah, the deeps,’ said Felix. ‘I’m sure they’ll be much more attractive.’

‘They will be dwarf halls,’ said Gotrek. ‘A fitting place for a Slayer to die.’

‘Not so fitting for a poet, unfortunately,’ said Felix with a sigh, then signalled the barman. ‘Two Bugman’s, please.’

They had first heard of the dread spider known as the White Widow in the dwarf hold of Ekrund, where they had ended up after their misadventures in the Black Gulf left them stranded south of the Dragonback Mountains. A dwarf jeweller there, Harn Taphammer, had told them of it as he was appraising the few gems they had salvaged from the shipwreck. He said a human adventurer had come to him to have a ruby the size of a knuckle bone set into a medallion. The man had no left arm and no ears, and walked with a limp – all wounds, he said, from the guardian of the treasure trove from which he stole the ruby, the White Widow, an albino cave spider the size of a hay wagon that made its nest in the deepest reaches of Karak Azgal.

Naturally, Gotrek had set off for the Worlds Edge Mountains the next day. Naturally, Felix had gone with him.

The barman set two froth-capped mugs down in front of them. ‘A silver shilling each, please.’

Gotrek scowled, incredulous. ‘You’re selling Bugman’s Best for only a shilling?’

‘Aye, herr dwarf. Good beer at fair prices, that’s the Grail’s motto.’

Gotrek slid two shillings across the bar then picked up his mug. His single eye glittered sceptically as he lifted the mug to his nose. He inhaled, then grunted, noncommittal, and stuck his flame-red moustache in the foam and drank. Almost immediately he choked and coughed and held the mug at arm’s length, staring at it.

‘Grungni,’ he breathed. ‘It is Bugman’s.’

Felix blinked, surprised, and tried his. It was cool and clean and crisp, with a taste that brought to mind wheat fields and mild autumn days, and it went down his throat like golden light. It was quite possibly the best beer he had ever drunk.

‘How does a hole in the wall tavern at the godforsaken arse-end of nowhere have Bugman’s Best on tap?’ he asked as he came up for air.

‘Good, isn’t it?’ said someone at his shoulder.

Felix turned. A wiry man with dark hair pulled back in a ponytail stood beside him, waving to the barman. He had a nose like an axe blade and an engaging smile, and was dressed in stained, sturdy travelling clothes.

‘Very good,’ said Felix.

The man’s blue eyes took in Gotrek then darted back to Felix. ‘A Slayer and his rememberer, am I right?’

‘That’s right,’ said Felix. The Grail was proving a place of wonders. First Bugman’s Best at rotgut prices, and now this. Many men knew what a Slayer was, but few knew the position of rememberer. Felix was more used to explaining what he did than acknowledging it. ‘I’m surprised you know the word.’

The man grinned. ‘I’ve some little experience with it.’ He took two fresh mugs from the barman, then nodded towards the fireplace. ‘My companion Agnar and I have a table by the hearth. Would you care to join us?’

Felix followed his gaze and stopped, staring. At the table the man indicated sat a Slayer, staring into the fire, his three orange crests bright red in the light of the flames.

2

Gotrek stared too, and his brow lowered. Felix knew from experience that Slayers did not always relish the company of others of their kind. They were generally solitary types, brooding on their pasts and singularly focussed on making their futures as short as possible. Gotrek’s best friends Snorri Nosebiter and Malakai Makaisson were Slayers, but there had been others of his kind to whom he had taken an instant dislike. Felix, on the other hand, had never met another rememberer before, and the prospect of talking to someone who understood what his life entailed was too tempting to pass up. Despite Gotrek’s wary glare, Felix nodded to the dark-haired man.

‘Lead on.’

In any other company, the grizzled Slayer sitting at the table would have been the most intimidating drinker in the tavern. He was old enough that grey roots were showing at the base of his three red-dyed crests and braided beard, and his oft-scarred, heavily-muscled arms were so covered with fading tattoos that they were nearly solid blue from thick wrists to broad, bulging shoulders. His face was like a wood knot – so gnarled and battered that Felix could barely see his eyes – and he had a drinker’s nose in the centre of it as red and lumpy as a halfling’s fist.

Compared to Gotrek, however, he was practically puny. Gotrek was the biggest dwarf Felix had ever met. Even without his foot-high Slayer’s crest, he was nearly five feet tall – half a head taller than Agnar – and almost a foot broader in the shoulder, with arm muscles that writhed like mating pythons at his every move. A great red beard flowed down over Gotrek’s broad chest to tuck into a wide leather belt, and a patch covered his missing left eye. The eye that remained was as sharp as an ice-pick, and as bright as the gleaming blade of his ancient rune axe. Felix had known raging drunks twice Gotrek’s size to mumble apologies and quietly leave the room when confronted with the full power of that malefic gaze.

Agnar looked up at Gotrek as they approached with ill-concealed mistrust, but his rememberer was all smiles.

‘Agnar Arvastsson, may I present to you…’ He looked to Felix. ‘Pardon me, who may I present?’

Felix inclined his head. ‘Felix Jaeger and Gotrek Gurnisson, at your service.’

‘A pleasure,’ said the rememberer. ‘And I am Henrik Daschke, late of Talabheim – and just about every other city in the Empire.’

Agnar eyed them anew at their names. ‘I’ve heard of you,’ he said in a heavy voice. It sounded like he’d put away quite a bit of Bugman’s already. ‘You went north into the Wastes. You found Karag Dum.’

‘Aye,’ said Gotrek, and took a seat opposite him.

‘I heard also that you found your doom,’ said Agnar. ‘In Sylvania.’

‘No,’ said Felix, taking the seat to Gotrek’s right as Henrik sat by Agnar and gave him his mug. ‘We were–’ He paused, not wanting to try to explain the tunnels of the Old Ones and Albion and all that had come after. ‘We just got lost.’

‘I remember now.’ Henrik raised an eyebrow. ‘But that was years ago. A long time to be aslaying.’

Gotrek bristled. ‘What do you mean by that?’

Henrik held up his hands. ‘Nothing, Slayer. Only that you must be indomitable in battle.’

Gotrek grunted and took another long pull at his Bugman’s.

Henrik turned to Felix. ‘And I’m surprised you are alive at all,’ he said. ‘The lot of a rememberer is an uncertain one, is it not?’

Felix shrugged, uncomfortable. Henrik was right, of course. Like Agnar, Gotrek was a Slayer, sworn to redeem himself for some secret shame by dying in battle against the deadliest monsters he could find. Felix had become his rememberer when, in the middle of a drunken binge, he had vowed to immortalise his death in an epic poem. Since then he had found himself the victim of a precarious paradox. How was he to stay close enough to Gotrek to faithfully record the details of his doom, and at the same time escape that doom himself? It was a puzzle that he had thought about often since their travels began, but it felt strange discussing it in front of the Slayers. ‘It has its moments,’ he said at last.

Henrik laughed. ‘Moments indeed. How many times have I followed Agnar into some deadly melee in order to witness his last moments, only to find that they were likely to be mine too. It’s enough to make one want to stay at the inn and make up a doom out of whole cloth, hey?’

He clapped Felix on the shoulder, and Felix smiled weakly, then shot a glance at Agnar to see how he was taking it. He was shaking his head, but did not look particularly put out.

‘Always with the jokes, rememberer,’ he said. ‘One day you’ll take it too far and I’ll slay you.’

‘Then who would do your remembering for you?’ asked Henrik.

Agnar just chuckled and had another drink. Gotrek eyed him with an expression halfway between pity and disgust. Felix felt a similar emotion, and was going to make his excuses when Henrik turned to him again.

‘And what brings you to Karak Azgal?’ he asked. ‘Going after some horror of the deeps?’

‘A spider called the White Widow,’ said Felix. ‘We heard rumour of it in Ekrund. As big as a steam tank, they said.’

‘You’re here for the same?’ asked Gotrek.

Henrik laughed. ‘Fear not, Slayer. There are dooms for all in the halls of the Dragon Crag. No, we came hoping to fight a monster of Chaos it is said lurks in the very deepest part of the mines, but another menace has risen that prevents us from descending.’

‘What’s that?’ asked Felix.

‘Orcs,’ said Agnar.

‘Did you not hear old Thorgrin’s criers in the street as you came in?’ asked Henrik.

‘“Make your fortune and save the hold”?’ asked Felix.

‘That’s the one,’ said Henrik. ‘And it needs saving. Thorgrin is desperate. Apparently, a warboss by the name of Gutgob Stinkfoot has conquered all the orcs that live in the lower depths, and is stirring them up to make war on the hold above. Thorgrin fears Gutgob has the numbers to wipe out Karak Azgal and Deadgate both and he’s recruiting everyone who can hold a weapon to help him make a stand.’

‘The orcs stand between us and our dooms?’ asked Gotrek.

‘And Thorgrin,’ said Henrik. ‘He has forbidden entry into the hold until the greenskins are dealt with. The only way to get in is to sign up with his throng.’

Gotrek snorted. ‘Let me hunt this spider, and I’ll kill any orcs I find on the way.’

‘He wants an army,’ said Agnar, shaking his head. ‘Anyone acting alone lessens the troops he can field.’

Gotrek growled and took another drink.

‘But he’ll let anyone who fights into the depths afterwards, without paying the treasure hunting licence?’ asked Felix.

Henrik nodded. ‘It’s not a bad deal. But I know a better one.’

‘What’s that?’ asked Gotrek.

Henrik jerked his thumb at the bar. ‘Louis Lanquin, who owns this place, has got Thorgrin’s go-ahead to raise a regiment of his own, to fight alongside the dwarfs. He’s paying twice what Thorgrin is paying, and he’ll pay the licence fee for any who are in at the kill.’

‘And why would he spend all this coin?’

‘A simple matter of economics, friend dwarf,’ said an accented voice behind Felix.

Felix turned and saw a richly dressed man with oiled blond hair and lace at his throat and cuffs stepping towards the table. He had a paunch and a double chin, but the breadth of his shoulders and the scar that crossed his nose at the bridge spoke of a more vigorous past. His eyes too had the keen alertness of a fighting man, no matter that he tried to hide it with a merry twinkle.

‘I am Louis Lanquin of Quenelles, at your service,’ he said, bowing with a flourish of his hand.

Felix inclined his head politely. ‘Felix Jaeger and Gotrek Gurnisson, at yours,’ he said. ‘And my compliments to your cellar. We were surprised to find Bugman’s here.’

Lanquin quirked a smile. ‘Another enticement to woo men – and dwarfs – to my cause. Those who sign with me will drink free in my establishment for the rest of their lives.’

‘Why?’ asked Gotrek again.

Lanquin put his hand to his breast. ‘Thane Thorgrin is not the only one to have a stake in the survival of this town. The dwarfs may rob the treasure seekers coming and going with their tolls for entry and their taxes on what is taken from the hold, but there is still enough left in their pockets afterwards for a poor innkeeper to make a living. I do well here, and I would like to continue to do well, and I do not have the confidence that Thorgrin’s few recruits will guarantee that. Thus–’ He produced a stack of four gold coins between his fingers as if by magic, then set it on the table. ‘I am willing to make a substantial outlay now, in order to assure continued return in the years to come.’

He divided the stack in two and slid two gold coins towards Gotrek, and two towards Felix. ‘Monsieurs Agnar and Henrik have signed on. What say you join them? With warriors of your calibre in our ranks, we are sure to win.’

Felix looked to Gotrek. This was his to answer.

The Slayer stared at the gold with a dwarf’s usual reverence, but at last he shook his head. ‘A Slayer who finds his doom needs neither gold nor ale afterwards. Your reward is meaningless.’

Agnar blinked at this statement, as if he hadn’t considered it that way before, and Lanquin looked as if he were going to make another argument, but finally he shrugged and took back his gold.

‘As you will, friend dwarf,’ he said. ‘Perhaps you will change your mind. Until then, drink your fill. It is on the house.’

Felix groaned. Giving free beer to a Slayer was sure to lead to fighting and property damage, and the prospect of paying more gold to Lanquin than he had offered in order to repair tables, chairs and broken windows loomed large before him, but to his surprise, Gotrek was practically abstemious for the rest of the night. He only drank ten mugs of Bugman’s, and did little more than exchange war stories with Agnar. Felix did the same with Henrik, enjoying himself despite the mocking tone the man put into every tale he told. Henrik might be a blowhard, but he knew Felix’s every concern and complaint. He laughed at jokes and stories that only another rememberer would understand. He had known the loneliness and the homesickness and the cold nights in the middle of nowhere. He had suffered through the rages and black moods of his companion. He had made the hair’s breadth escapes and survived the wounds and fevers that were an inescapable part of following a Slayer. Henrik might not be Felix’s friend, but he was his brother. That could not be denied.

3

After sleeping the night at the Grail, Gotrek and Felix woke to a light but steady rain that soaked them to the skin as they trudged up the muddy zigzag path to Skalf’s Hold, the dwarfs’ above-ground settlement built upon the ruins of Karak Azgal.

Walking with Gotrek through the dragon-mouthed gate in the thick stone walls at the top of the broad plateau, Felix was struck with wonder. There could not have been a greater contrast between the town on the hill and the town in the valley. Within the hold’s walls was a tidy grid of neatly paved, rain-washed streets, all lined with squat stone houses and commercial buildings of dwarfish design, and all immaculately cared for. There was no trash in the gutters, and the only smell was that of someone baking bread. Felix had seen dwarf riches before – vast, gilded chambers deep underground – but this modest holdfast in the middle of the moonscape of the Worlds Edge Mountains struck him as more ostentatious than the most lavish guild hall. It was as if some nobleman had allowed his beautiful daughter to walk naked and unescorted through the worst slums of Altdorf. She might not show any outward display of wealth, but the noble’s confidence in her safety spoke of great reserves of hidden power.

Gotrek grumbled under his breath as they walked towards the keep that rose in the centre of the town. ‘Not proper. A dressed-up defeat.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Felix.

Gotrek snorted. ‘The kin of Skalf Dragonslayer lost Karak Azgal, and couldn’t win it back. Instead they built a town on top of it and charged others to do their fighting for them.’ He flashed a thick-fingered hand at the prosperous houses. ‘All this was built not on mining or smithing. It was built on fees and taxes taken from the fools who come to seek their fortune below.’

Felix looked around again, seeing it in a new light. ‘So it’s no different than Deadgate.’

‘Aye,’ said Gotrek. ‘A marble-walled cesspit instead of a clapboard one.’

The streets around the town’s central keep were filled with heavily armed dwarfs with the dragon of Karak Azgal on their shields, as well as a more motley collection of mercenaries, adventurers and fighting men, all hunching stoically in the rain. The square to the north of the keep had been turned into a makeshift military camp, with tents of all shapes and descriptions lined up in ragged rows. Recruiters were out in force, offering Thane Thorgrin’s coin to fight the greenskins, and ale and food sellers were carting their wares around in barrows and doing brisk business with the troops and applicants.

Gotrek ignored it all and strode through the open doors of the keep itself. A table had been set up under a tent in the middle of the courtyard, and would-be warriors were lined up to make their mark in the recruitment book. Gotrek ignored this too and stumped towards a door that led into the keep itself. The dwarf guards who stood on either side of it stepped in his way, and a dwarf sergeant crossed to him, his hand on his axe.

‘What’s your business here, Slayer?’

‘I want a licence to enter the hold,’ said Gotrek. ‘I seek the cave spider.’

‘Licences are not being issued,’ said the sergeant. ‘Not until Stinkfoot’s been dealt with. You want to go down, join up. You’ll have plenty of fighting.’

‘I don’t care about your fight. I go to my doom.’

The sergeant’s eyes went cold. ‘You don’t want to help your race? You don’t want to help your brothers save their hold?’

Gotrek spat at his feet. ‘You don’t want to save the hold. You want to save your little sky-bare surface town so you can go on selling licences and candle stubs.’

‘What did you say?’ The sergeant’s eyes had gone from ice to fire in a blink.

Felix swallowed and dropped his hand to his hilt. If this came to blows it would be bad. Gotrek might find his doom at the hands of fellow dwarfs, or worse, he might slaughter half the settlement.

‘If you saved the hold,’ continued Gotrek. ‘You’d lose all your business. You’d have to work for a living.’

‘Get out,’ said the sergeant through clenched teeth. ‘Before I throw you out. We don’t want help from the likes of you.’

‘On the contrary,’ said a voice from behind him. ‘A Slayer is just what I need.’

The sergeant looked around as a white-bearded dwarf in gromril plate stepped through the door into the rain, followed by a retinue of dwarf Hammerers. The sergeant and the guards saluted him but he looked only at Gotrek. He had a bulging gut beneath a breastplate that had been custom-made to accommodate it, and a round, pink face under his white beard. He looked like a shop keep, but the fine armour and the deference of the guards said otherwise.

‘Thane Thorgrin,’ said the sergeant. ‘I was just removing this–’

‘Stand down, Sergeant Holdborn,’ said the thane, then nodded to Gotrek. ‘Your assessment of the situation is harsh but accurate, Slayer. We have profited from the loss of the hold, but better that than abandon it altogether. The sale of all those candle stubs will one day allow us to raise an army strong enough to purge the depths once and for all.’

‘And meanwhile you let greenskins nest in the halls of your ancestors and grant licences to fools to be eaten by them.’

The rotund thane smiled. ‘I have often thought that it was much easier for a dwarf to be uncompromising when he intended to die at his earlier opportunity.’

Gotrek snorted and turned back towards the gates. ‘I’ll go back to the Bretonnian. At least he’s an honest thief.’

‘Go if you wish,’ said Thorgrin as Felix started after the Slayer. ‘But I can give you one thing the innkeeper can’t.’

Gotrek kept walking.

‘The lair of the White Widow,’ called the thane. ‘My scouts have found its location.’

Gotrek stopped, then turned back.

‘Help us defeat the greenskins,’ said Thorgrin. ‘And I will tell you where it lives.’

‘Where do I sign?’ said Gotrek.

By the time Gotrek and Felix had penned their names in Thorgrin’s book and received his coin, and been told to report back to the keep the next morning before sunrise for the thane’s big push into the hold, the earlier light rain had become a downpour. It came straight down in sheets so thick it was impossible to see more than five paces in any direction, and the gutters of Skalf’s Hold’s cobbled streets were swift-running streams a foot deep.

Deadgate had no cobbled streets or gutters, and was consequently a swamp. By the time Gotrek and Felix had made their way down the zigzag path and passed through the settlement’s eastern gate, they were slogging through knee-high mud, and the streets had emptied completely, the doors and shutters of the ramshackle inns and houses closed tight against the torrent. The place might have been a ghost town.

Even so, Felix was surprised when he started seeing ghosts. Out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw a hooded figure hunched in the mouth of an alley to their right, but when he looked properly, it was gone. There was nothing but rain and a pile of barrels. Another figure appeared at the corner of a building, but it too vanished when he turned towards it.

Gotrek stopped in the middle of the flooded street and glared around, peering out from under his sodden crest, which had flopped down over his one eye. ‘We are being hunted.’

‘Haunted?’

‘Hunted.’ He lifted his rune axe from his back and readied it.

‘Only two streets to the Grail,’ said Felix, drawing his sword. ‘Should we make a break for it?’

‘We’ll have to get through them first,’ said Gotrek.

Felix followed the Slayer’s gaze. Five hooded figures were appearing out of the obscuring torrent like spectres materialising from the ether. Unlike spectres, however, they were armed with very real looking swords. He heard a splash behind him and the scrape of steel. Four more were blocking their retreat, and more stepped from the alleys on either side.

Felix went on guard and raised his voice to be heard over the rain. ‘What do you want?’

‘To get paid,’ said one.

And with that, they attacked.

4

Felix faced out behind Gotrek and braced for the ambushers’ attack. The Slayer, however, didn’t wait. He roared towards the charging men, churning the mud and whirling his axe around his head like the blade of a dwarf gyrocopter. Busy with his own assailants, Felix didn’t see what happened next, but he heard the clang of steel meeting steel and the sick chop of steel meeting flesh, followed by the shrieks and gasps of butchered men, and knew Gotrek was faring well.

He, on the other hand, was in some difficulty. The men he faced were not great swordsmen by any stretch, but there were a lot of them, and they all had one target, while he had many. He flashed around with Karaghul and knocked aside two blades, but three more were sweeping towards him. He jerked back and left to avoid them, and nearly pitched face-first into the mud as it sucked at his boots.

A bright bite of pain flared above his elbow as one of the blades nicked him, and two more swords stabbed for his face as he stumbled. With a desperate swat, he batted them aside, then crashed into the men who had wielded them, more by accident than design.

The first went down at the impact, but Felix clung to the second and spun him around, just in time for him to take the blades of two of his comrades in the stomach. Felix shoved the gutted man forward, then slashed over his shoulder with Karaghul and caught one of the assassins in the neck and the other on the back of the hand. As they staggered back, the man who had fallen tried to push himself up under Felix’s feet. Felix chopped down and he sank into the mud, red staining the brown.

The others came in again, more wary now, six of them, and Felix backed away, sword out, tearing off his cloak with his free hand. The heavy wool was saturated with water and made him feel as if he were being dragged down by the shoulders. He wrapped a few folds of it around his wrist for a buckler and held it out to the side.

‘Come on, then,’ he said.

But the men were staring past him, faces uncertain, and when he dared a glance over his shoulder, he knew why. One of Gotrek’s attackers was toppling, headless, into the mud, and the bodies of five others floated face down in spreading pools of crimson. The slayer was backing up two more, one of which was holding a bent sword in front of him and weeping, while the other was missing his left forearm and clutching the stump. Two more were fleeing into the rain.

Felix grinned savagely at the men who hesitated before him. ‘Aye. And if you kill me, he’ll really be mad.’

He had to give them credit. Three of them actually came at him again. Felix slapped the leftmost one with his drenched cloak, knocking him into the centre one, then parried the blade of the right-hand one and backhanded him across the arm.

The man stumbled away, hissing and dropping his sword, and Felix turned on the other two, whirling his cloak in their faces and stabbing under it. They leapt back, then kept retreating, staring over his shoulder.

Felix looked back and saw Gotrek slogging through the mud towards him, spattered in blood, with brains dripping from the blade of his axe.

Felix cursed and splashed after them. ‘Stop!’ he called. ‘Stand where you are! Who sent you? Who is paying you?’

They turned and ran without answering and he splashed after them, but floundered in the mud and went to his knees as they vanished into the downpour. With a sigh he struggled to his feet and slogged back to Gotrek, who was turning the bodies of the fallen face-up in the mud and pulling back their hoods.

‘Any left alive?’

The slayer shook his head. ‘Those we didn’t kill drowned.’

Felix looked at the uncovered faces of their attackers. He recognised none of them. They were all of the type common to Deadgate – lean, scarred men who looked hungry enough to kill their own mothers for meat. Well, they were sated now.

‘Any idea who they were, or what they wanted?’

Gotrek grabbed one by the ankle. ‘No. But I know who might.’

He started down the swampy street towards the Grail, dragging one of the corpses through the mud behind him.

Louis Lanquin wrinkled his nose as he looked at the dead man lying in a spreading puddle of filth and blood in the middle of his tavern.

‘He is no acquaintance of mine,’ he said. ‘And I wish you had asked me to come out to see him, rather than bringing him in and dirtying my floor.’

The place was crowded with patrons seeking shelter from the rain, and they were all staring at Felix, Gotrek and the corpse. Felix noticed that Agnar and Henrik were not among them. Maybe they were still sleeping it off. Agnar had outdrunk Gotrek three to one the night before.

‘You didn’t pay him to kill us?’ growled Gotrek.

The Bretonnian laughed. ‘My friends, if I had wanted to kill you, I could have poisoned your Bugman’s last night, or murdered you as you were sleeping it off.’ He signalled two bouncers and gestured to the body, then looked back to the Slayer. ‘There are many factions here in Deadgate, and more in Skalf’s Hold, and some of them do not want the dwarfs to win. If they thought your deaths would further their cause, they would not hesitate.’

With practiced speed, the bouncers brought a sheet of canvas, laid it beside the dead man and rolled him onto it. As they dragged him towards the door, a servant came in with a mop and bucket and began cleaning up the mud. Within a minute, all trace of the corpse’s visit was gone.

‘I bear you no ill will for suspecting me,’ said Lanquin. ‘They who have just fought for their lives are bound to look on the world with some mistrust.’ He waved to the bar. ‘Please. You are welcome to drink as before, on the house. Think of it as an apology for how shabbily my adopted town has treated you thus far.’

Felix looked at Gotrek. The Slayer shook his head.

‘We would not presume upon your hospitality further, monsieur,’ Felix said. ‘You have already been too generous. Thank you all the same.’

Lanquin shrugged. ‘As you will, and I wish you a more restful time wherever you go.’

He bowed as Gotrek and Felix strode to the door and splashed out into the rain again.

‘He’s lying,’ said Gotrek. ‘Those killers were his.’

‘You can’t know that,’ said Felix.

‘I don’t have to know it, manling. I know it.’

‘But why would he want us dead? Because we took Thorgrin’s coin instead of his? That doesn’t make sense. Don’t they both want the same thing? Why would Lanquin kill anyone who aimed to fight the orcs?’

‘Maybe he wants the orcs to win,’ said Gotrek.

Felix looked at him askance. ‘That makes even less sense. You heard him last night. It is a simple question of economics. He needs Deadgate to survive just as much as Thorgrin does.’

Gotrek shrugged. ‘Sense or no sense, I sleep with one hand on my axe tonight.’

‘Aye,’ said Felix. ‘Aye.’

After spending a night at an inn called the Palace, Gotrek and Felix woke, mildly surprised they hadn’t been attacked in their sleep, and returned before sunrise to Thane Thorgrin’s keep. They were not alone. The courtyard of the keep was packed with dwarfs of Karak Azgal’s throng, neat blocks of axe-wielding warriors, Thunderers with their blunderbusses over their shoulders, and Ironbreakers clad head-to-toe in heavy plate armour. Behind the dwarfs were a less orderly mass of human mercenaries – a mix of hardened adventurers, greedy treasure seekers and nervous shopkeeps, come to protect their properties and investments in Deadgate. They were divided into squads behind more seasoned captains, and were haphazardly armed and armoured. Nevertheless, there were a fair amount of them. Felix reckoned that, all told, there were roughly three hundred dwarfs, and two hundred mercenaries lined up and awaiting orders, and to his surprise, Agnar and Henrik were among them.

The grizzled Slayer kept his eyes on the floor and seemed to weave on his feet as Felix and Gotrek crossed to them, while Henrik gave them a chagrined look.

‘Agnar took what you said about gold and free ale to heart,’ he said. ‘So we followed your example.’

‘A Slayer who meets his doom doesn’t need those things,’ said Agnar, still not looking up. ‘And I didn’t trust the Bretonnian.’

‘Aye,’ said Henrik with a snort. ‘Too nice by half. We’ll fight for Thorgrin and let fate lead us, as we always have.’

‘We’re glad to have you at our side,’ said Felix, though he wasn’t sure he was speaking for Gotrek. The Slayer just grunted and glared into the middle distance with his single eye while they waited for orders. Of course, that was his expression whether happy, angry or indifferent, so it was difficult to tell.

A short while later, Louis Lanquin arrived with the troops he had recruited, a force of about a hundred men, and was directed by Thorgrin’s lieutenants to squeeze them in on the left side of the courtyard. He bowed with stiff politeness to the Slayers, then kept his eyes forward. It seemed to Felix that the innkeeper had done better with his recruiting than the thane had. Though there were fewer of them, most of his troops looked harder and more experienced than the humans Thorgrin had managed to recruit, and better equipped. He seemed to have spared no expense in outfiting them with quality arms and armour.

‘A substantial outlay to assure a continued return,’ murmured Felix.

With a rumble, the doors to the inner keep opened, and Thane Thorgrin strode out onto the steps with his Hammerers and banner carrier behind him. He saluted the assembly, then raised his voice.

‘Citizens and friends of Karak Azgal, today begins a great venture. With this great army of dwarfs and men, we will shatter the alliance of tribes that Gutgob Stinkfoot has bullied together, and beat back the greenskin menace for decades to come. The safety and security of the Dragon Crag will be assured, and we will all be able to get back to business as usual.’

Gotrek snorted, and a few of the surrounding dwarfs looked around at him, but none spoke.

‘It will not be an easy fight, nor a pleasant one,’ continued Thorgrin. ‘But I am confident that our superior tactics and weaponry will win the day. We intend to lead the orcs into a slaughterhouse from which there is no escape, and you will be the butchers!’

There was a cheer, mostly from the dwarfs, and Thorgrin waved for silence.

‘A word of warning, before we enter the depths, to those not of our throng,’ he said. ‘During this war, our laws pertaining to treasure hunting remain in effect. All volunteers leaving the hold will be searched, and any treasures found are subject to the usual taxes. Any treasures deemed to be important relics of Karak Azgal’s history will be confiscated. Anyone attempting to hide treasures from the authorities will be imprisoned. You are already being paid handsomely, and given opportunities to search the depths not normally granted. We will not take kindly to those who attempt to take advantage of our generosity.’

There was a general grumbling, but nobody made any open complaint, and Thorgrin continued, outlining his battle plans and the responsibilities of each of his sub-commanders. Felix didn’t get to hear most of it, however, for only a moment later, Holdborn, the dwarf sergeant who had butted heads with Gotrek, stepped up to him and Agnar and gave a curt bow. ‘Slayers,’ he said. ‘If you would come with me. Thane Thorgrin has a special duty he would like to give you.’

Gotrek barked a laugh. ‘Does he want us to unclog his jakes?’

Sergeant Holdborn gave him a cold smile. ‘I only wish. It is a clearance hardly more pleasant, though. This way.’

5

Gotrek, Agnar, Felix and Henrik followed Sergeant Holdborn through a side door into the keep, then down a narrow stair into an underground chamber surrounding a great shaft that slanted into the earth. A mechanism of pulleys and chains for hauling things up and down the incline hunched at the top of the shaft, and a crew of dwarfs was fixing a stout, wheeled cannon to a hook. As Sergeant Holdborn crossed to them, they began to let out the chain and lower it into the depths.

Holdborn nodded to the leader of the crew, a burly dwarf in a leather apron with a tightly braided beard and a handkerchief tied around his bald head, then turned to Felix, Henrik and the Slayers.

‘This is Engineer Migrunssun. He and his crew are tasked with bringing cannon to the old firing platform in the minehead of the eastern gem shafts. They will be part of our enfilade when the battle starts. Unfortunately, the minehead is overrun with ghouls. This is where you come in.’

Gotrek and Agnar nodded, pleased, while Felix swallowed. He noticed Henrik was looking pale as well.

‘Thick as maggots on a week-old corpse,’ said Migrunsson, grinning. ‘And we’ll need to clear them out completely. Can’t have ghouls trying to eat you while you’re aiming a field piece. Distracting.’

‘You expect the orcs to come up through the mine shafts, then?’ asked Henrik. ‘You’re training your guns on them?’

Holdborn shook his head. ‘That is the other duty of the engineers. They will be caving in the shafts, among other passages. Sealing them off, so the greenskins can’t come up behind us.’

‘The firing platform looks two ways,’ said Migrunsson. ‘It’s a fortified room above an archway between the minehead chamber and the Great Hall of the Guild of Jewellers, and it has gun ports into both rooms. Thorgrin plans to make the great hall his field of battle. We’ll poke our muzzles through the windows up top and be able to rake the orc flanks from an untouchable emplacement.’

‘Untouchable?’ asked Gotrek. ‘What’s to stop the greenskins coming through the archway from the great hall?’

‘Ah, well,’ said Migrunsson. ‘That arch is sealed off. Has been since the ghouls started congregating in the minehead. The orcs won’t get through it. Not without a battering ram.’

‘But with the arch sealed off,’ said Sergeant Holdborn, ‘neither will you. You’ll have to go the long way around.’

‘Naturally,’ said Felix under his breath.

Henrik grinned bleakly at him.

The dwarf cannon crews pushed a heavily laden wagon towards the slanting shaft. It was loaded with blackpowder barrels and crates of cannon shot. A smaller wagon rolled out behind it, piled with food, firewood and other supplies. Felix’s eyes widened. How far was it to the eastern minehead?

Catching his look, Migrunsson chuckled. ‘It’s only a few hours’ march, rememberer. But we might be waiting a long time for the greenskins to accept our invitation to dance.’

‘I hope you find your doom, Slayer,’ said Sergeant Holdborn, saluting Gotrek. ‘It’ll save me seeing your face again.’

Gotrek growled at his back as he turned and strode off. ‘It’ll save your hide, watchman.’

The chain stopped rattling off the winch and then went slack. Migrunsson started winding it back up and nodded to Felix, Henrik and the Slayers.

‘Head on down,’ he said. ‘Two more carts and we’re off.’

Gotrek and Agnar started down the slant shoulder to shoulder. Felix and Henrik hesitated, then went after them.

‘Once more, eh?’ asked Henrik.

‘At least,’ said Felix.

The walls of the shaft closed in around him and a chill wind blew up from below. He shivered, though from cold or premonition, he could not tell.

Sturdy little mine ponies were hitched in teams of two to the cannons and the wagons once they reached the bottom of the incline, and soon the artillery train was under way. Gotrek, Felix, Agnar and Henrik went first, followed by Migrunsson and the cannon crews – three dwarfs to a gun – then the guns themselves, the powder wagon and supply wagon, each with a dwarf driver, and the last with a dwarf field surgeon, and lastly, a rearguard of six Thunderers, who would be adding musket fire to the heavy shot of the cannons when they reached the emplacement.

‘The long way around’ was long indeed, and treacherous. Engineer Migrunsson assured them that things were much worse further down, but Felix thought that this first ‘civilized’ level was bad enough to be getting along with. They went by way of service passages and side tunnels, which, being dwarf work, were still wide enough for six dwarfs to walk abreast, and three times as tall as Felix – at least they would have been had they been in good repair. Unfortunately, they were not.

In the light of the torches that swung from the wagons, Felix saw everywhere signs of battle and cataclysm. Walls were slumped into rubble around blackened craters. Huge stones had fallen from the ceiling. In some places, the ceiling had come down entirely and the train had to skirt the blockage by way of smaller tunnels. In other places, the floor had buckled so steeply that all the dwarfs had to get behind the cannons and push, to help the ponies get them over the hump.

Though Felix saw no orcs or ghouls or other horrors, their spoor was everywhere – gnawed human bones, piles of scat, mounds of rotting rubbish, a long streak of dried blood where a body had been dragged – and he heard strange moans and screeches echoing out of dark cross tunnels. There were signs of human intrusion as well – holes broken through walls with pickaxe or explosives, abandoned lanterns and gloves and canteens scattered about, dead ‘gold-hunting canaries’ in tiny wicker cages, messages scrawled at intersections in many different languages.

‘Go not this way. Giant rats.’

‘Anya, I waited, but they’re coming. I love you.’

‘Merde. Je tourne en rond.’

There was a place where the ceiling had bulged down to within six feet of the floor, as if melted by some terrible heat, and the drivers had to lead the ponies through for it was too low to ride on the wagons. Felix’s hair rose on his scalp as he ducked under that bulge and he felt a sick prickling under his skin that made him want to scrub himself with lye.

Migrunsson led them through all of it as if they were going on a walk through a meadow, turning left and right without hesitation and humming a jaunty little marching song. Henrik sang too. Not the same song, but a tuneless little tune like a nursery rhyme, though so soft Felix couldn’t make out the words. It began to grate on his nerves after a while, but he didn’t want to start an argument, so he didn’t say anything. Agnar walked in silence, drinking from a canteen that Felix was almost certain didn’t contain water.

They walked until Felix got hungry, and quite a while after that, but finally Migrunsson put up a hand and slowed to a stop.

‘Eat something and have a drink,’ he said. ‘We are close to the ghoul nest now. You’ll need your strength.’

The cannon crews and drivers took biscuit and dried meat from their packs, and lined up for ale poured from a keg on the supply wagon.

‘Ghouls started biding in the minehead twenty years or so ago,’ Migrunssun told the Slayers as they knocked back a few mugs. ‘Some master of the dark arts set up house there, stealing bodies of dead adventurers and performing weird rites upon them, but he didn’t last long. A band of heroes led by a hammer priest went down there and caved his head in, then burned his body. Ever since then, though, ghouls seem to be drawn to the place. It’s like they can still smell the black magic in the stones.’

‘And you haven’t tried to cleanse the place?’ asked Henrik.

‘Oh aye,’ said Migrunsson. ‘Many a time. But they always come back. Worse than roaches.’

When the dwarfs had finished their meat and drink, they drew their hand axes and jammed their helms down on their heads and murmured vows to their ancestors. The Slayers didn’t pray, just rolled their necks and limbered up their arms in preparation for the fight to come.

Agnar’s weapon was a long axe as tall as he was, with a sharply curved head and a vicious spike at the heel. He and Henrik drank one last mug of ale each, and Henrik refilled Agnar’s canteen from the keg for him. When they were finished, Henrik drew a heavy broadsword and made the sign of Sigmar’s hammer on his chest.

‘I’ve never quite got over it,’ the rememberer murmured to Felix as they went to stand behind the Slayers in the line of march. ‘The nerves before a battle.’

‘Nor I,’ said Felix.

Engineer Migrunsson whistled the column forward and the Slayers strode ahead into the darkness beyond the wagon lanterns. Agnar was listing a little as he walked.

The smell came first – a faint sourness that wrinkled the nose and clung to the back of the throat. A minute later it was an eye-watering reek, equal parts rotting corpse and unwashed beggar, and as the flags of the tunnel became littered with bones, excrement and torn clothes, it swelled to a choking miasma of death that made Felix wish he had not eaten anything at their stop. Henrik turned and vomited against the wall, and the dwarfs soaked their kerchiefs in ale and tied them over their noses and mouths before continuing.

The glow of a fire flickered on the walls of the tunnel ahead, and a hunched form was briefly silhouetted. It raised a misshapen head towards the oncoming company, then darted into an open archway, gibbering warnings.

‘Through there is the minehead chamber,’ said Migrunsson, priming a flintlock. ‘Their home sweet home.’

Ahead, the passage echoed with howls of rage and the slap of bare feet on stone. Felix’s stomach slid into his guts as he watched churning shadows looming larger against the tunnel wall. Then they appeared. A seething tide of fish-white horrors poured out of the archway and bounded at the dwarfs: long-armed, crook-backed subhumans – males and females – their slavering mouths filled with sharp teeth and their eyes filled with nothing but hunger.

The nearest went down to Migrunsson’s musket, its head exploding in a crimson shower, but the rest vaulted its toppling body and surged ahead, clawing and shrieking and snapping their jaws. Gotrek and Agnar charged forward to meet them, and dismantled half a dozen into bloody chunks with their first swings, but the tunnel was too wide for the two Slayers to stop them all, and dozens more swarmed past to launch themselves at Felix, Henrik and Migrunsson’s cannon crews.

Hook-clawed hands slashed at Felix’s face and grabbed at his arms. Saw-toothed mouths shrieked at him, nearly overwhelming him with breath that smelled like putrid meat. He lashed out with Karaghul, gagging, and carved great wounds into the horrors, cleaving flesh and shattering bones and knocking them to the floor. Beside him, Henrik fought with a wide-eyed determination that showed both skill and terror. Felix guessed he looked about the same.

Around them, the dwarfs met the ghouls’ crazed flailing with practised formation, spreading across the width of the tunnel and hewing with their hand axes like threshers advancing down a field. Felix and Henrik kept pace with them, content to take the protection of their flanks and let the Slayers do their butcher’s work out in front of the line.

Watching them, Felix was once again stunned by the speed and savage fury of their kind. They spun like drunken tops, axes blurring and red crests whipping about, and the ghouls seemed to just fall apart around them. White limbs flew in arcs of blood. Scarred heads toppled from bony shoulders. Guts spilled from torn torsos. Agnar was not quite as fast or strong as Gotrek, but his long axe had a greater reach, and he whirled it around him like a fan blade, lopping heads and crushing skulls. Gotrek got in closer, shearing legs and splitting ribcages, and was soon crimson from head to toe.

With this red whirlwind at its head, the dwarf column chopped its way to the archway and through it into the minehead, a high, firelit staging room with a huge black opening on the west wall and a smaller on the north. On the east wall, a wide flight of steps rose to a door above a sealed arch – the firing platform. They had reached their destination.

Scores of ghouls were rising from where they crouched around feeble fires and loped across the filth-slicked floor for the dwarfs. Beyond them, the flames showed shoulder-high heaps of bones and clothing and broken implements piled in the corners, and crusted rag-mounds that Felix feared were beds. Bodies lay half-eaten near the fires – some human, some dwarf, some ghoul. The death reek wafting from them was so thick Felix could almost see it.

‘Hold the cannons in the passage!’ called Migrunsson.

The driver of the first cannon parked it side-on to the door as the dwarfs followed Gotrek and Agnar into the room. The other drivers ranked up in front of the cannon, protecting it, while the Thunderers who had been the rearguard climbed on top of it, straddling the barrel, and began firing their muskets over the dwarf line into the ghouls with a steady, ceaseless rate of fire.

Without the walls of the tunnel to protect their flanks, the dwarfs were quickly surrounded, and fought in a tight square against the leaping, shrieking ghouls. Even so, and outnumbered two to one, the battle seemed a foregone victory for Migrunsson’s troops. Not one dwarf had yet fallen, and the floor was littered with the dismembered corpses of ghouls. Between the dwarf line’s steady winnowing, the Thunderers’ sniping, and the Slayers’ mad slaughter, the gibbering fiends would soon fall.

Felix shattered a ghoul’s clavicle with a heavy down-stroke then glanced at Henrik, fighting beside him in the dwarf square. The rememberer fought with a tight smile lining his face.

‘Better once it starts, eh?’ said Felix.

‘Much,’ said Henrik. ‘Anticipation is always worse than–’ His head lifted. ‘What was that?’

Felix cocked an ear as he fought on. He didn’t hear anything other than the shrieks of the ghouls and the butcher shop chop of steel cutting flesh – or did he? Was that a rumble he felt through his feet? The cannons weren’t rolling. The dwarfs weren’t charging. What was shaking the ground?

Then, above the rumble, he heard a roar. Not the shrill howling of ghouls, but a deeper, angrier sound.

‘Retreat to the door!’ called Engineer Migrunsson. ‘Something’s coming from the mines!’

Felix gutted another ghoul and stole a look back towards the great square portal of the minehead, beyond which a broad ramp descended into darkness – except the ramp was no longer dark. Fire moved in its depths now, and huge shadows loomed on its bare rock walls.

Henrik groaned. ‘Sigmar’s balls, one thing at a time!’

His prayer, if prayer it was, was not answered. As the dwarfs began an orderly retreat towards the door, up from the ramp poured a flood of armoured green brutes, all howling a savage battle cry.

6

‘Waaagh!’

Two score orcs charged for the dwarfs in a foaming, yellow-eyed rage, huge cleavers and crude axes swinging from fists bigger than Felix’s head. The ghouls scattered before them, shrieking in terror, as the dwarfs continued to retreat to the door. The Slayers, however, answered the greenskins’ roar with one of their own, and chopped through the fleeing ghouls to meet them.

A massive monster with a crude helmet that seemed to have been nailed to his head broke from the pack and smashed down at them with a mace like a beer keg stuck on the end of a fence post. They dodged aside as it shattered the flagstones, and Agnar hewed at its elbow, splintering the bone. Gotrek leapt onto its forward leg and buried his rune axe in its skull, splitting its spiked helm and its face. The orc toppled backwards, dead, and Gotrek leapt from its falling body into the mob, slashing around in a frenzy. Agnar fell in beside him, matching him stroke for stroke and seeming no worse for the constant stream of drink he had poured into himself.

After that there was no time for Felix to look to anything but his own survival. More than half the orcs had swept past the Slayers, and Felix, Henrik and Migrunsson’s dwarfs only had a second to form up in the door before they ploughed into their line like a green avalanche.

Felix ducked a swipe by a cleaver and stabbed the orc who wielded it with Karaghul, but the weight and momentum of the hulking savage drove him back into the hall until he crashed into the wheel of the gun carriage behind him. To either side of him it was the same. Henrik was flat on his back, an orc careening past him with its guts looping to the floor. Migrunsson was pressed against the muzzle of the gun, exchanging blows with an orc more than twice his height. Two of his dwarfs were dead, cut down and trampled under heavy, steel-shod boots.

Nevertheless, the line held. When the orcs’ impetus ran out, the dwarfs were still standing, and still fighting, while the Thunderers atop the first cannon fired into the faces of the orcs, sending them reeling back with shattered jaws and burst eyes.

Felix knocked aside a cleaver that would have split Henrik in two and hauled him to his feet.

‘Much obliged,’ Henrik gasped, and impaled the neck of an orc that was aiming for Felix.

‘Likewise,’ said Felix.

He cut the legs out from under the orc that Henrik had spitted, but as he spun to slash at the next, he heard the crack of a gun from inside the minehead chamber. He would have mistaken it for an echo from the dwarfs’ muskets, except that he saw, through the orcs’ flailing limbs, Gotrek stagger, and a blossom of blood appear on his broad left shoulder.

Felix choked in surprise as the slayer recovered and fought on. Someone had shot Gotrek! But who? Orcs didn’t use guns. Felix tried to see further into the minehead chamber, but the row of brawling monsters blocked his view.

‘Curse you! Let me by!’

In a panic, Felix fought forward, stepping out from the dwarf lines and driving back the orcs before him. He chopped through the fingers of one, then shattered its knees as its cleaver fell from its stumps. He hacked open the skull of another that had taken a dwarf musket ball to the shoulder.

‘You madman,’ called Henrik. ‘You’re exposing your flanks!’

‘Someone’s shooting at the slayers!’

As the next orc fell, Felix was afraid he would see Gotrek and Agnar with their heads blown off, but they were still fighting back to back in the centre of a dozen roaring greenskins, with a dozen more sprawled across the floor amongst the white corpses of the ghouls the slayers had slain before.

Another shot came, and one of the orcs fighting Agnar stumbled, howling. Felix turned at the muzzle flash, an afterimage of a spindly, kneeling figure holding a long-barrelled gun etched into the backs of his eyes. The shot had come from the mine shaft. He tried to see into it, but it was too dark.

‘Engineer Migrunsson!’ he called. ‘Someone’s shooting from the minehead.’

Migrunsson looked, and apparently saw the gunner.

‘Thunderers!’ he barked. ‘The minehead! Get that shooter!’

Two of the Thunderers turned from blasting the orc line and fired on the ramp. Felix could not see the result, but they must have struck true, for no more shots came from the darkness.

Another dwarf fell at the line, his chest caved in by an orc axe, and the greenskins pressed for the gap. Three Thunderers jumped down to fill it, swinging their gun butts, but one died before his feet touched the ground, and the other two were driven back into the cannon.

‘Close up!’ called Migrunsson. ‘Keep them out!’

An orc broke through the line and leaped onto the gun to smash the rest of the Thunderers. Felix thought it was the end, but just as the greenskins cut down the closest gunner, a high shrieking shivered the air and the ghouls, their courage restored, flooded back into the chamber, howling for vengeance.

They fell upon the orcs first, and their interference ended the battle. Attacked from front and back, the orcs quickly fell to the slayers’ axes and the steady murder of Migrunsson’s line. Sadly, the thanks the ghouls received for this timely intervention was their extinction. With the orcs dead, Felix, Henrik and the dwarfs fell upon them and slaughtered them all. Even those that turned and fled were shot down by the Thunderers before they reached the doors.

As the dwarfs saw to their dead and Migrunssun called for the surgeon, Felix and Henrik looked to the slayers. Agnar was on one knee, catching his breath and drinking from his canteen, while Gotrek was examining his shoulder wound, one of many he had received in the fight.

Henrik shook his head. ‘Your Gotrek certainly slays his share, doesn’t he? And then some.’

Felix glanced at him. It seemed an odd thing to say. ‘He likes to fight, yes. As does Agnar, I see.’

‘A bit,’ said Henrik, then crossed to the old slayer. ‘Another doom missed, Agnar. I’m sorry. Have a drink?’

Felix frowned after him for a moment then joined Gotrek. ‘How bad is it?’

Gotrek shrugged. ‘It passed through.’

‘Did you see the gunner?’ asked Henrik, looking uneasily towards the mine shaft.

‘I saw him fall,’ said Agnar.

He stood and started for the ramp. Gotrek, Felix and Henrik followed him. There was no body, but Gotrek found a spatter of blood on the stones, and then a trail of drops that went down into the darkness.

‘Who do you think it was?’ asked Henrik. ‘Or what?’

Felix frowned and sniffed around the area where the blood drops were thickest. He couldn’t smell anything. The reek of ghouls was too overpowering. Still…

‘I only saw a silhouette,’ he said. ‘But something about it…’ He shrugged. ‘It didn’t look human to me.’

‘An orc?’ asked Agnar, incredulous. ‘A ghoul? They don’t use guns.’

Felix shook his head. ‘It was skinnier than that, and smaller, except for its head. I think it might have been–’

‘A skaven,’ said Gotrek.

Henrik laughed. ‘A skaven? Ridiculous.’

Felix turned to him, raising an eyebrow. ‘You don’t believe in them?’

Henrik gave Agnar an amused roll of the eyes.

‘Oh no,’ said the rememberer. ‘We’ve proof of their existence carved upon us. I can show you the scars. I only meant it is ridiculous that skaven would be helping orcs.’

‘You think it was human, then?’ asked Felix. ‘Would that be any less ridiculous?’

‘Not all humans love dwarfs,’ said Henrik. ‘Perhaps it was a servant of the Ruinous Powers, causing chaos where he might.’

Felix nodded. That made more sense than a skaven assassin, if only slightly, though it didn’t explain how the shooter had come to be there. Was he following the orcs? Was he their ally?

‘We should go after it and find out,’ said Agnar, looking down the dark ramp.

Gotrek grunted agreement, but Henrik looked askance.

‘We’ve agreed to help Migrunsson. We can’t leave him now. He’s lost five dwarfs.’

The slayers nodded reluctantly and started back up to the chamber, but as Felix fell in with Gotrek he saw Henrik hold Agnar back and begin speaking to him in low tones. The old slayer’s brow lowered as he listened, and he scratched his beard and frowned after Gotrek. Felix wondered what Henrik was saying, and was going to mention it to Gotrek, but just then Migrunsson and the surviving cannon crews appeared at the top of the ramp, rolling blackpowder barrels and resting pickaxes on their shoulders.

‘Well fought, slayers,’ said the engineer, as they started down the ramp. ‘Your prowess saved us, and the cannons.’ He gestured back to the chamber. ‘Rest while we set the charges and place the guns. We should be on our way to the second spot in an hour or so.’

‘Thank you, Engineer Migrunsson,’ said Felix, then looked back at Henrik and Agnar. Whatever they had been talking about, they were done now, and Henrik gave him a cheery smile. Felix smiled back reflexively, then continued up the ramp into the chamber, unsettled without knowing why.

7

The slayers did not rest. After allowing themselves to be patched up by the dwarf field surgeon, they went to help the cannon crews get the cannons up the stairs and into the enclosed firing platform, but they did not work together. When Gotrek joined one crew, Agnar joined the other. When Gotrek asked Agnar to pass him a pry bar, Agnar did it without looking Gotrek in the face, and answered him in monosyllabic grunts.

Felix would have taken this for typical dwarfish terseness, but for the fact that he had seen the slayers conversing together before, and they had been practically chatty then. Gotrek seemed to notice this new tension as well, but being a dwarf, he made no mention of it, merely grunted in turn and got on with his work.

The stairs to the gun emplacement were wide, but the door was narrow, so the cannons needed to be dismantled and carried through it a piece at a time – first the barrel, then the wheels and pieces of the gun carriage – before being reassembled within. Also, the gun ports had been sealed up at the same time as the archway below, so they had to be reopened to make room for the barrels of the cannons. Felix helped with this, swinging a mattock to knock the bricks loose, then took the opportunity to look through one into the Great Hall of the Jewellers’ Guild, which was Thane Thorgrin’s chosen field of battle.

By the bright glow of the tall work-lamps that shone above the engineers and dwarf troops who were preparing the ground, Felix could see that the guild hall was an enormous room, handsomely decorated in the monumental dwarf style. Towering statues of dwarfs in guild vestments held up an arched roof that stretched over an open floor that looked to Felix to be as big as the Reikplatz in Nuln. It was longer going north and south than it was east and west, with large archways in the narrow ends. Felix saw teams of dwarfs preparing supplies and chalking off the dwarf lines at the north end of the hall, while other cannon crews placed guns on a balcony above the north arch.

Migrunsson mopped his gleaming scalp with his kerchief and leaned in the gun port next to Felix, pointing to the arch in the south wall. ‘Thane Thorgrin’s plan is that we close off all paths into the hall except that one. If the greenskins want battle, they will have to come through there – straight into those guns there. We’ll leave them no way to flank us or sneak around behind.’

‘And from here you’ll be able to shoot into their sides as they charge,’ said Felix.

‘Aye,’ said the engineer, grinning. ‘It’ll be a slaughter.’ He pushed away from the port. ‘But first we have to finish closing off the other paths.’

He gave Felix a friendly salute, then went to supervise the second team of dwarfs who were busy setting charges in the walls of the mineshaft.

Less than an hour later, they were ready to light the fuses. The dwarfs moved the carts and ponies well up into the passage to the north of the minehead chamber, playing out matchcord as they went, then, when everyone was clear, Migrunsson took up the fuses and bowed his head.

‘It’s a sad day when a dwarf must destroy the works of his fathers,’ he said. ‘But to save the body, sometimes a limb must be severed. Forgive us, ancestors, for this necessary sin.’

And with that, he touched flame to the fuse ends. Felix and the others watched them hiss and spark down the corridor.

Felix tensed as he saw the flames vanish into the minehead chamber, waiting for the roof to come down on his head, but the blasts, when they came, were surprisingly small – a quartet of heel-jarring thumps and a billow of smoke and flame that dissipated as it entered the passage.

Henrik looked up and took his fingers from his ears. ‘That’s it? Did all the charges go–’

A heavy rumble interrupted him, growing louder and shaking dust and pebbles from the ceiling, before tailing away again. Now a much thicker cloud billowed into the passage and rolled their way. Henrik blinked.

Migrunsson smirked. ‘A true engineer knows it isn’t the size of the blast, but the placement of the charges.’ He pulled his kerchief up over his nose and started forward into the dust. ‘It’s done, I think. But best go back and have a look.’

The minehead chamber was entirely covered in a thin coating of grey granite powder. The corpses of the orcs and ghouls looked like stone statues of themselves, and the geometric designs on the floor were completely hidden. The mineshaft portal was still there. Indeed it had been blown wider and taller, and for a moment, Felix thought the dwarfs had failed, but then he saw that all the rock that had fallen from the ceiling and walls had tumbled down into the slanting shaft, choking it completely. It would take days to remove all the rubble, particularly if one were working from below.

Migrunsson nodded sadly as he examined the cave-in, then turned back to the north corridor. ‘Well done, lads. On to the next.’

The next was a bridge.

Migrunsson led them down two levels to a wide natural chasm that cut east and west for as far as Felix could see – admittedly not very far – and dropped away to a glowing red line far below. An oven-hot updraft rose from it that had them all sweating in moments. The bridge that spanned the chasm was wide and solid, with statues of dwarf ancestors holding lamps set at regular intervals along its length, and stretched from an archway cut into the north side of the chasm to another arch in the south side.

Looking up, Felix could faintly see more archways in the sides of the rift, and the broken remains of other bridges, all fallen away, before the heights of the chasm swallowed them in darkness.

‘This one’s a bit trickier,’ said Migrunsson. ‘It would be easy enough to blow it up and be done with it, but…’ He grinned. ‘I’d rather take a few score greenskins with it, so we’ll weaken it instead – and let them find out it’s broken when they’re falling towards the lava.’

Gotrek chuckled approvingly. Agnar seemed about to do the same, but then shot a look at Gotrek and only grunted.

‘What do you want us to do?’ asked Felix.

Migrunsson pointed to the south end of the bridge. ‘Guard that arch. We don’t want any greenskins discovering the surprise before it’s ready.’

Henrik swallowed. ‘Er, you’re going to weaken the bridge, then ask us to walk back across it when you’re done?’

Migrunsson laughed. ‘The four of you could jump up and down on it from here to Valdazet and it wouldn’t fall. It will take all the weight and stomping of a greenskin warband on the march to shake it down.’

Henrik nodded, but did not look entirely convinced. Nevertheless, he went with Gotrek, Agnar and Felix to guard the end of the bridge.

Though there was nothing to do but stand around while the dwarfs worked, Felix found it impossible to relax. The heat from the lava made him sweat inside his chainmail, and the thought of invisible assassins firing on them or orcs raging out of the darkness made the space between his shoulder blades itch as if someone had carved a target there with a poisoned thorn. For more than an hour, he did nothing but pace and check his weapons and watch Migrunsson and his crew don harnesses and drop over the sides of the bridge to chip away at the network of stone supports that made up its understructure.

Gotrek seemed entirely absorbed with the process, watching with arms folded and single eye intent. Agnar watched too – though he stood as far from Gotrek as he could manage – but Henrik soon grew bored, and once again began to sing his repetitive little melody while staring into the darkness of the tunnel.

Felix ground his teeth and tried to shut out the tune, but Gotrek was not so polite.

‘Do you have do to that?’ he asked over his shoulder.

Henrik sniffed. ‘I only do it when I’m nervous.’

‘So, all the time then,’ said Gotrek, and turned back to watching the engineers.

‘You’ll take that back, Gotrek Gurnisson,’ said Agnar, glaring at him.

‘Take what back?’

Felix turned, wary. Now what?

‘No one insults my rememberer,’ growled Agnar. His voice was slurring a little with drink and anger. ‘Particularly not an underhanded doom-stealer like you, Gurnisson.’

Gotrek raised an eyebrow. ‘I’ve stolen no doom.’

‘You have!’ Agnar stepped towards the slayer. ‘You interfered with my fight. You killed greenskins that might have killed me. I saw you! Henrik saw you!’

‘I killed every greenskin I could reach,’ said Gotrek. ‘You did the same. What of it?’

Felix looked at Henrik. His eyes were glittering. It was as if he wanted to see the slayers fight. Felix flashed back to the aftermath of the fight with the orcs. Was this the nonsense that Henrik had whispered in Agnar’s ear?

‘You deliberately blocked attacks that were aimed at me. I might have found my doom but for you.’

Gotrek snorted, dismissive. ‘I didn’t stop to weigh which were yours and which were mine. I fought to kill.’

‘You fought to keep me from finding my doom before you found–!’

Gotrek held up a hand. ‘Stop.’

‘I’ll not stop, you cheating–’

‘Be quiet. Listen!’

Agnar cut off and listened. Felix strained, but could hear nothing. Apparently Agnar could, however, for the anger vanished from his face, to be replaced by grim concentration. He and Gotrek drew their weapons and stepped silently onto the span, then craned their necks to look up at an archway above them that pierced the south face of the chasm. Felix and Henrik tiptoed after them.

The archway was more utilitarian than the ones that capped the bridge they were on, with little ornamentation, and a torn and twisted end of a mine cart rail-line dangling from it like the lolling tongue of some steel serpent.

‘What is it, Gotrek?’ asked Felix.

‘Something moving in that rail tunnel,’ said the slayer.

‘Aye,’ said Agnar. ‘Gone now though, I think.’

They all stood silent, but the noise of Migrunsson’s crews tapping on the stone supports of the bridge drowned out all else.

‘Engineer,’ called Gotrek. ‘Hold your work.’

Migrunsson waved his dwarfs silent and everyone stopped what they were doing and strained their ears.

At first Felix could hear nothing, but then a faint metallic keening reached his ears, like someone rubbing a rosined bow across a flexed saw blade.

‘What is it?’ he asked. ‘It sounds like–’

‘The rails,’ said Agnar. ‘The rails are singing. Something is coming down the track!’

8

‘Clear the bridge!’ roared Gotrek. ‘Get off now!’

The gun crews scrambled to comply, but half were still busy under the span, weakening the understructure, and those on top did not abandon them. They hurried to the ropes and heaved mightily to pull their brothers up. Migrunsson fell in with the rest, holding down a hand to haul a gunner over the rail and then pulling at another rope.

Gotrek, Agnar and Felix started forward to help, but before they had taken a step, the singing of the rails rose in volume and a clattering rumble added to it. The whole chasm shook with the noise.

Felix looked up at the twisted ends of the rail-line. Dust was shivering from them and they twitched like insect antenna. The rumble became a roar, drowning out the hoarse cries of the dwarfs, and then, as if the cliff face had vomited a string of iron sausages, a long train of mine-carts shot out of the tunnel mouth and arched down in freefall, straight at the bridge.

Felix watched in horror as the carts, all filled to the brim with rocks and boulders, crashed down amongst the scattering dwarfs and punched through the bridge like a massive cannon ball, smashing it in two. Half the dwarfs fell instantly, dropping away with the shattered stones, or dragged over the edge as the carts snagged their ropes. The others scrabbled to get clear, but they had done their sabotage too well.

With the centre of the span gone, and the rest of the supports weakened, the remains of the bridge could not stand. As the dwarfs crawled for the ends or climbed their ropes, the stones fell out from under them, toppling after the broken centre like sand running out of an hourglass. The gunners, the cannon crews, and Migrunsson too, trying even to the last to push the others to safety, plummeted away towards the glowing red line, ropes and harnesses trailing after them, their howls of rage rising on the hot wind.

Gotrek stood at the broken end of the span, ten paces out from the wall of the chasm, clutching the railing with one hand, and gripping Agnar by the wrist with the other. The old slayer was dangling over the abyss, his face as grey as river clay.

Gotrek gave him a nasty grin. ‘Should I let you go, Agnar Arvastsson? I wouldn’t want to rob you of a doom.’

‘Pull me up, curse you,’ rasped Agnar. ‘You know falling is not a proper slayer’s death!’

Gotrek hauled Agnar up and dropped him on the broken flagstones beside him. The old slayer grunted and pushed himself to his feet.

Henrik stepped forward to help him. ‘Maybe Gurnisson’s forgotten what a proper slayer’s death is,’ he sneered. ‘After all, he’s been ten years searching for one.’

Gotrek’s brow lowered and he balled a fist, but before he could use it, a shot rang out from above and a bullet struck between the three of them, spraying them with splinters of stone. The slayers dodged left and right, and Henrik hunched back towards the archway with Felix. They looked up. The same spindly shadow was backing into the darkness of the rail tunnel, reloading as it went. Gotrek snatched up a chunk of rubble from the edge of the bridge and heaved it up after it.

The rock vanished into the arch and an angry squeal echoed from the hole. Gotrek, Felix and Agnar all looked at each other and backed under the lee of the arch.

‘Skaven,’ they said in unison.

‘Hoy!’ came a voice. ‘Who still lives?’

They looked across the chasm. Two of the wagon drivers stood in the opposite arch, peering across at them.

‘The slayers and their rememberers!’ called Felix. ‘But take cover. There is a marksman above us.’

The drivers looked up, then stepped back into the tunnel. One shouted from the shadows. ‘We have ropes and pegs. We can get you across.’

‘Not with that gunner above us,’ muttered Felix.

‘We shouldn’t go back anyway,’ said Henrik. ‘Thorgrin will want to know what part the skaven are playing in all this. We should find them and discover their plans.’

Felix laughed. The way he spoke of it, it sounded as simple as going to the baker for some bread, not making their way through trackless, troll- and orc-infested catacombs without guide or map. ‘You know the way to their lair, do you? An hour ago you didn’t think they were involved.’

Henrik raised his chin. ‘Agnar is an excellent tracker. If we can find the trail of the assassin above us, he can find their lair.’

‘Aye,’ said Agnar. ‘I’ll find them. Let’s go. There’s no going back anyway.’

Gotrek didn’t move. He was staring directly at Henrik. The rememberer caught the look square between the eyes and stumbled at its fierceness.

‘Wh-what are you looking at?’

‘You have twice questioned my dedication to seeking my doom, human,’ said Gotrek. ‘Do not do so a third time.’

‘Or what?’ growled Agnar, stepping up to him.

Gotrek looked him up and down. ‘If a dog bites me, I beat the master for not teaching it manners.’

Agnar snarled and raised his fists. Felix jumped between him and Gotrek.

‘Slayers, please!’ he said. ‘Save it for the skaven, eh?’

The slayers stood nose to nose for a long moment, then Gotrek turned and stumped down the passage. Agnar and Henrik started after him, glaring at his back.

Felix sighed and looked across to the drivers. ‘Go back to Thorgrin. Tell him he fights skaven as well as orcs. We’re going further in.’

‘Skaven?’ called the drivers in unison.

‘Aye,’ said Felix. ‘Skaven.’

‘Very well,’ said the first. ‘If we make it, we will tell him. Good luck to you.’

‘Thank you,’ said Felix, then lit his slotted lantern and started down the passage after the others into the unknown. ‘We’ll need it.’

Felix and Henrik followed Gotrek and Agnar as they stumped forward, exploring side passages and debris-strewn stairways, looking for a way up to the rail-line tunnel and the trail of the skaven long-gunner. The whole party moved in a sullen silence, the recent squabbling suspended but most decidedly not forgotten. Felix could practically see the waves of anger pulsing between Agnar, Henrik and Gotrek. And he was fairly angry himself.

It seemed obvious to him that the rememberer was trying to provoke a fight between Agnar and Gotrek, but he couldn’t figure out why. As far as Felix could remember, Gotrek had given Henrik no cause to be angry – at least no more cause than the brusque slayer normally generated. The rememberer seemed to have developed his dislike for him in an instant. What was the reason for it? He couldn’t truly think that Gotrek had denied Agnar his doom on purpose, could he?

After a lot of dead ends and backtracking, the slayers eventually found their way up to the rail-line tunnel above the broken bridge, but the skaven gunner was long gone. Its spoor, however, was not. Tracks in the dust led back along the twisted rails and its greasy rodent stink lingered in the air.

They followed the tracks along the rails and through an ancient foundry. Ten great stone smelting furnaces squatted along the walls of a long, rubble strewn room – one of them had exploded some time in the distant past, and its stones were scattered all over. A dozen or so mine carts sat on the rails that ran past the smelters, or lay smashed and toppled on their sides.

In the centre of the room, they found a wide area of overlapping skaven tracks. Some were the usual, narrow dewclawed imprints, but some were bigger, with heavier claws. The prints went back and forth from the rails to the piles of rubble around the exploded smelter.

‘Rat-ogres,’ said Gotrek, pointing to the larger prints as Felix held up his lamp. ‘The ratkin made them fill the carts with stones, then push them down the rails.’

‘That would have taken all the time Migrunsson’s crew were working on the bridge,’ said Felix.

Gotrek nodded. ‘They spied on us from the beginning.’

Agnar and Henrik added nothing to this conversation. Henrik just hummed his annoying tune. Agnar followed the skaven’s trail out of the room to the west.

Gotrek fell in beside him, and the party followed the tracks down a broad stair to a lower level, then through a series of chambers that seemed to have been dwarf clan halls and common areas – galleries, meeting halls, feast halls – each larger and grander than the last. There was more ancient damage here – ceilings fallen in, walls crumbled. One room was charred black, and the stone pitted as if by acid. Another was filled with the skeletons of goblins, hundreds of them, all mounded at the edges of the room, as if they had died trying to escape something in the centre.

As they descended to the next level, the copper tang of recently spilled blood and the stench of skaven and acrid chemicals grew so strong that Henrik and Felix covered their mouths.

‘We must be close to their lair,’ said Felix, wiping tears from his eyes.

Gotrek shook his head. ‘The stench of a burrow is much worse. This is… something else.’

They followed the smell to an ancient workshop – and discovered a scene out of a nightmare. Between the dusty work tables and forges lay the bodies of scores of human warriors, their faces and bodies twisted in attitudes of agonising rictus, and the lanterns they had carried still burning. Felix stepped into the room to examine them more closely, then stepped back, gagging. Whatever poison had killed the men still lingered in the air, and it burned his eyes and nose.

‘This just happened,’ said Gotrek, covering his nose. ‘Not an hour ago. Their blood is still fresh.’

Felix squatted and raised his lamp, deciding it wisest to make his examination from the door. The eyes of the corpses bulged from their sockets, and bloated black tongues stuck from their mouths. The men’s hands were at their throats, and some had clawed great wounds in their necks in their desperation. The blood was still pooling beneath them.

‘Who are they?’ he choked. ‘And why didn’t they flee?’

‘They tried,’ said Gotrek. ‘Look.’

In the dim light of the dead men’s lanterns, Felix could barely make out what he was indicating, but he saw it at last. Splintered wood on the other doors of the room. One still had an axe buried in it. The men had tried to cut their way out.

‘They were locked in,’ he said at last. ‘A trap. What a horrible way to die.’

Agnar broke his silence at last. ‘I know that one,’ he said, pointing at a well-armoured man near the door. ‘He took Lanquin’s coin. As did that one. And him too.’

Felix turned to him. ‘They are all Lanquin’s mercenaries? But how did they come here?’

Henrik cleared his throat. ‘He made us swear not to speak of it to any who did not sign up with him, but Lanquin did not think Thane Thorgrin’s battle would win the day. He thought it would be better to take the fight to the orcs, and said he would send the best of his recruits to kill Stinkfoot in his lair.’

‘And he didn’t tell the thane?’ asked Felix.

Agnar shook his head. ‘The thane wouldn’t have allowed it.’

‘With good reason, it seems.’ Felix shuddered. ‘What a fool. To send his best men to die in a skaven trap. Who is left to fight in Thorgrin’s battle?’

‘The rank and file,’ said Henrik. He shivered too. ‘I warned him it was a mistake. He wouldn’t listen.’

Gotrek turned back to the corridor.

‘A mistake the ratkin saw coming,’ he muttered, but only Felix heard him.

Another level down and things got more confusing. The area was a warren of clan burial chambers and treasure vaults, all mostly ransacked and desecrated. Tracks of all kinds wound through the halls – the boots of men, the hind-claws of skaven, the calloused feet of orcs, the paws of huge beasts – and Felix lost the trail of their particular skaven entirely, but Gotrek still seemed to be on the scent.

A while later the tracks of men, dwarfs and skaven all but vanished, and those of the orcs multiplied. The sour, fungal reek of the greenskins grew thick in the air, and rough symbols were daubed on the walls in blood and dung. These depicted fists, axes, skulls, but most of them had been crossed out, and a crudely drawn foot with wavy lines rising from it drawn on top.

‘I guess the rumours about this Stinkfoot becoming boss are true,’ said Henrik.

‘And the skaven walk openly into his territory,’ said Felix, looking at the skinny tracks that overlay the orcs’ heavier prints in the muck of the corridor.

‘Not openly.’

Gotrek turned at an intersection, then stopped at a narrow crack broken through the wall of the side corridor, studying it. ‘They’re sneaking in. This way.’

‘And we’re going to follow them?’ asked Henrik, uneasily.

‘You wanted to discover their plans,’ said Gotrek.

He gripped the edges of the hole and pulled himself through. It was a tight squeeze, and he scraped his naked torso front and back before he called for the rest to come ahead.

Henrik swallowed and pushed his lantern through before him. ‘At least we know the rat-ogres didn’t go through this.’

Felix followed him, and Agnar brought up the rear. They found themselves on a narrow ledge, close to the ceiling of a looted vault. Dwarf ancestor faces looked down on smashed chests, heaps of trash, broken furniture and skeletons – dwarf, man, orc and skaven – that lay littered across the floor. A crude wooden ladder ran down to the mess from the ledge, but Gotrek disdained it and leapt to a stone statue of a prim dwarf maiden standing on a pedestal, then slid down to the floor. Agnar followed suit, but Henrik took the ladder and Felix followed him.

Looking around with his lantern, he saw that the skaven tracks crossed to a bigger hole knocked through the far wall. The doors of the vault were ajar, but the dust there was undisturbed. Felix could hear faint noises coming through it, however – the distant howling of orcs, the throb of their drums, and somewhat closer, a grunting and snorting that sounded like angry boars.

Gotrek started to the hole in the far wall, but before he got halfway there, orc shouting erupted in the near distance, and running boot steps thudded beyond the vault’s partially open door. Gotrek and Agnar went instantly on guard, and Henrik and Felix drew their swords a second later, lining up behind them. The boot steps boomed closer, but ahead of them came a skittering clicking, then something scrawny and hunched scrambled through the vault doors and bolted for the ladder.

Gotrek and Agnar slashed at it as it went by, but it dodged past in a streak of brown fur, then ducked Felix’s thrust and shot up the ladder to the ledge – the skaven gunner, hiding no more.

It grabbed the ladder in its disturbingly human hands and began to pull it up behind it, beady black eyes glittering malevolently. Felix lunged for the ladder, but just then the doors of vault slammed open and a crowd of orcs shoved in, shouting and holding up torches as they looked around. They pulled up short as they saw the slayers in front of them, and raised their weapons, roaring. Felix let go of the ladder to face them as Henrik glared up at the skaven.

‘Won’t do your own dirty work, will you? Clever bastard.’

Its chittering sounded like laughter as it wormed through the hole, dragging the ladder after it.

Henrik turned back to the orcs and readied his sword. ‘Well, we’ve killed this many before, haven’t we, Agnar? We’ve killed ten times as many.’

Even as he spoke, the room shook with a heavy tread, and the orcs guffawed, grinning at the slayers as if they had a secret. Felix looked uneasily to the door in time to see an ugly head the size of a beer keg duck under the lintel and look around, ears flapping like drooping flags.

‘Sigmar’s balls,’ said Henrik. ‘A troll.’

9

Agnar seemed considerably happier than his companion. ‘I knew I would find a doom here.’ He shot a hard look at Gotrek. ‘Unless you rob me of this one too.’

‘I robbed you of nothing,’ growled Gotrek.

The troll stood to its full height as it came into the room, a looming, lumpy horror with skin the texture of lichen-blotched stone, muscles like ship’s cables, and a reek that smelled like low-tide in high summer. It held no weapon. The massive, bone-knuckled hands at the end of its ape-like arms were weapons enough. Its lugubrious long-nosed face stared stupidly as the orcs prodded it forward, pointing at the slayers.

‘Prepare fire, rememberer,’ said Agnar.

‘Aye, Agnar,’ said Henrik, unhooking his lantern from his belt and looking around.

Felix did the same, hunting for something to burn. He and Gotrek had fought a troll once before, in the crypts below Karak Eight Peaks, and had only defeated it by setting it aflame. Without fire, its flesh regenerated almost instantly. Even severed limbs grew back in time. But what to burn? The sundered treasure chests would provide some wood, but not enough for a big blaze. He supposed they could gather all the furniture and smashed chests, but– He stopped as he saw the solution. Hidden under a broken table was a pile of rolled up carpets, covered in dust.

‘Henrik, here!’

They ran to the table and heaved it up as Agnar charged the troll, roaring a Khazalid battle cry. Gotrek, to Felix’s surprise, charged the orcs. Was he letting Agnar have the glory? Was he avoiding the troll? Neither seemed likely, but what then?

The orcs seemed surprised as well, and stumbled back, wrong-footed, in the face of his fury. Gotrek opened up the first with a slash across its belly, then smashed the cleaver from the hands of the second and buried his axe in its spine as it turned to flee. It fell and he severed its leg at the hip, then flung it at the troll.

‘Hungry, rock head?’

The leg smacked the troll in the side of the head, and the smell of blood and fresh orc meat made it lick its lips and turn for the treat. Agnar took advantage of this distraction and stepped in, swinging for its legs. His long-hafted axe bit halfway through the monster’s left knee and it crashed down on its side, lowing like a lovesick moose.

As Felix and Henrik pulled at a heavy roll of carpet, the six remaining orcs roared to see their champion laid flat and charged in, attacking the two slayers. Agnar ignored them, severing the troll’s knee so the wound wouldn’t heal, and paid for it. An orc with a cleaver took a chunk from his arm, spinning him around with the weight of the blow, but Agnar whipped his axe up in mid-turn and sank it into its bare green chest, then recovered and faced two more as blood poured down his forearm. Gotrek fought three more, a fourth dead at his feet. Behind him, the troll was pushing to its knees, its stump already closing.

‘Come on!’ called Felix. ‘We’ve got to start the fire!’

Felix shouldered one carpet while Henrik grabbed another, and they ran them back. The troll was up, weaving unsteadily on its right knee and its severed left leg, and lashing around in a blind rage. It crushed the skull of Gotrek’s last opponent with its stone-hard fist, and knocked Gotrek flying. The slayer crashed headfirst into a sealed stone treasure chest, then slumped to the floor beside it, dazed and bleeding.

Unable to crawl after Gotrek on its mismatched legs, the troll picked up the stone statue of the dwarf maiden and threw it at him. Felix’s heart thudded in alarm, for its aim was true, but at the last second the slayer flung himself aside and the statue smashed into the wall, sending marble chips flying everywhere.

Gotrek staggered to his feet, off-balance, and charged the troll, roaring defiance. At the same time, Agnar finished the last of his orcs and ran at the troll from behind. The monster swiped at Gotrek, tearing tufts from his crest with its claws, but the slayer ducked and hacked through its elbow, severing its right arm. Agnar swung for its right thigh and chopped its leg off. It fell back, howling, three limbs lost, and clawed for Agnar with the last. He dodged back and Gotrek stomped on the thing’s wrist, pinning it, then sliced through its arm at the shoulder.

Felix had never felt sorry for a troll before, and likely never would again, but the sight of the monster lying helpless, armless and legless, like a turtle on its back, as it keened in pain and confusion, jolted him with pangs of unwanted empathy. Still, the limbs were already growing back, white spurs of bone extending from the severed tibias and fibulas, and strands of muscle beginning to form around them.

‘Burn it,’ said Gotrek.

Felix threw his carpet over the troll as Henrik did the same. Henrik then emptied the contents of his lamp’s oil reservoir over everything and took up a torch from a fallen orc.

‘Maybe next time you won’t be so foolish as to be born a troll,’ he sneered, then touched the torch to the carpets and stepped back as they started to burn.

He and Felix and the slayers threw broken furniture and shattered chests onto the flames, then tossed the monster’s severed limbs in the middle of it. Gotrek stepped to the troll’s head and severed it with a swift chop. Felix breathed a sigh of relief as its frightened howls ceased.

After they were sure the thing was well and truly burning, and after Henrik had helped Agnar bandage the wound in his arm, Gotrek started again for the skaven’s hole in the wall. Felix and Agnar made to follow, but Henrik held the old slayer back and whispered in his ear, gesturing angrily at the burning troll.

Felix looked back, suspicious. ‘Coming?’

Henrik stepped from Agnar and they started forward, the old slayer shooting a hard look at Gotrek’s back.

‘Aye, coming.’

The skaven’s hole in the wall led into what seemed to be a tight drainage pipe. It was covered with a crust of dry algae and the reeking residue of the passage of many skaven, and angled down to the left and up to the right. Gotrek examined the tracks, then started up on hands and knees with Felix following. It quickly turned left and levelled out, and Felix guessed that it was running above the corridor outside the vault.

A moment later, he was proved right, for he came to a tiny hole bored through the floor of the pipe that looked down into the corridor.

‘Skaven spy holes,’ he murmured. ‘Have we been watched all along?’

As the party moved on, the pounding of drums began to echo loudly down the pipe ahead of them, and they heard the guttural grunting of arguing orcs. A few more yards and the pipe split left and right, and the drums boomed up from a wide hole in the floor of the left-hand pipe. Gotrek stuck his head through it, then lowered himself down. Felix, Agnar and Henrik followed, dropping one after the other into what appeared to be a pump room. A smaller pipe ran down one wall into a fat brass reservoir, and there were valves and levers sticking from it, and more pipes running from it. A narrow door, held open by a pile of garbage, led back into the corridor, and noise and light spilled in through the gap. It sounded as if the orc argument were reaching a crescendo.

Gotrek eased through the half-open door with the others following behind. To the east, the passage vanished into darkness, but just ten paces to the west, it opened onto a wide, pillared balcony that looked out over a vast dwarf-built chamber with a soaring cross-vaulted roof. The walls were pierced with balconies and galleries that rose in overhanging tiers above the smoky light of the fires that burned below, and echoed with the deafening howls of hundreds of orc warriors.

Gotrek, Felix, Agnar and Henrik crouched on the balcony and peered through the balustrade to the savage horde below.

Gotrek’s single eye kindled eagerly at the sight. ‘This is a worthy doom.’

10

The floor of the enormous chamber was crammed with a seething ocean of orcs, above which rose banners marked with dozens of crude symbols – glaring suns, red fists, grinning moons, cracked skulls and bloody axes. The green monsters were all shouting and shaking weapons and torches over their heads and looking towards the middle of the room where four big bonfires blazed.

There crowded the biggest mob of all, over three hundred orcs rallying around dirty green banners with the crude symbol of a stinking foot painted on them in white. Inside the area marked off by the four bonfires was a square of open floor, and two orcs lay dead within it, while two more circled each other.

‘What’s going on?’ asked Henrik.

‘A challenge,’ said Gotrek.

One of the orcs was as big as any Felix had ever seen, head, shoulders and chest above the rest, and muscled like a mutated ape. He was dressed in heavy rusted armour, studded all over with spikes, and had a helm with an even bigger spike sticking straight up from the top of his head.

His opponent was shorter, and, though well-muscled and encased in crude plate, was not nearly as massive as Spike Helm. He also walked with a limp, his right foot bound up in dirty bandages. But there was a confidence to his stance, and a cunning in the turn of his head.

‘The little one is Stinkfoot?’ asked Henrik. ‘He doesn’t stand a chance.’

‘Let’s hope so,’ said Felix. ‘With him dead, the orc alliance falls apart, and we can all go back to the tavern.’

‘Let’s hope not, then,’ said Agnar, shooting a sour glance at Gotrek. ‘I still haven’t been able to claim my doom.’

Spike Helm took a few exploratory swipes at Stinkfoot, all the while howling and gargling orcish insults, but Stinkfoot did not fight back. He just stared at the bigger orc and turned to keep him in front of him. Enraged by this behaviour, Spike Helm charged. Stinkfoot side-slipped and Spike Helm stumbled past, his spiked mace crushing only air, then turned again to face the warboss.

Across the circle, Stinkfoot raised his bandaged foot and thrust it at Spike Helm as if he was trying to kick him in the privates. He didn’t come close. His opponent was six paces away from him, and yet, astoundingly, the huge orc went down anyway, toppling like a side of beef cut from a hook to sprawl on the floor, unmoving.

Felix stared as all the orcs in the room quieted in fear and awe. Had it been magic? Had it been a trick? Was the stink of Stinkfoot’s foot so vile that it could kill an orc at six paces?

‘That wasn’t right,’ said Agnar. ‘How did he do that?’

Stinkfoot stepped up onto the huge barrel chest of his fallen rival and raised his bulging arms, roaring his dominance to the others. The orcs echoed his roar, shaking their weapons and headbutting each other in excitement. The chamber shuddered with the sound of it.

Over this clamour, Stinkfoot roared again, and pointed with his axe to a great archway on the north side of the chamber. The orcs howled in response, then gathered up and started forward.

‘It begins,’ said Agnar. ‘They go to war.’

‘And we’re too late to warn Thorgrin,’ said Henrik.

‘But not too late to do what that dead orc couldn’t,’ said Gotrek. He nodded towards a balcony over the great arch through which Stinkfoot’s army was flowing, and towards which Stinkfoot himself was slowly moving. It was connected to the one they were on by a columned gallery. ‘If we run, we can jump down on the greenskin before he passes under that arch.’

Agnar’s eyes glittered eagerly. ‘Aye. Aye!’

The two Slayers hurried north into the gallery.

As Felix and Henrik started after them, Henrik cleared his throat. ‘Slayer Gurnisson, ah, perhaps you should let Agnar jump first when we get there.’

‘Why?’ asked Gotrek without slowing.

‘Er, well, you have robbed Agnar of two dooms already on this trek. To make up for it–’

Gotrek ground his teeth. ‘I’ve robbed no one. If he wants to jump first, let him try.’

‘You interfered. Twice,’ insisted Henrik, raising his voice.

Felix cringed. ‘Quiet! The orcs are right below us.’

Henrik ignored him. ‘You blocked blows meant for Agnar during the minehead fight! And just now you distracted the troll when it was sure to have killed him! A slayer’s honour demands–’

Gotrek snorted. ‘No manling can lecture me about a slayer’s honour. I warned you I would–’

‘Then I will lecture you!’ barked Agnar, and stopped to face him. ‘Gotrek Gurnisson, you have left the way of the slayer. A true slayer could not follow the true path for ten years and still live.’

Gotrek stopped and stared at him with his single baleful eye for a moment, then turned and continued down the passage. ‘There’s no time for this. We must reach the arch.’

‘Do you deny it, then?’ asked Henrik. ‘Do you call Agnar a liar?’

‘What are you doing?’ whispered Felix. ‘Why stir trouble when they’ll both find their dooms in that jump? Leave it be!’

Henrik carried on as if Felix hadn’t spoken. ‘Will you let him call you a liar, Agnar?’

‘I will not!’ Agnar stumped after Gotrek and spun him around with a hand on his shoulder. Gotrek shoved him back, sending him into the wall.

‘Do not lay hands on me, Agnar Arvastsson.’

Agnar pushed off the wall and stepped again in front of Gotrek, blocking the way to the balcony. ‘Why did you attack the orcs just now, when there was a troll before you?’ He asked. ‘A true slayer should attack the most dangerous foe.’

‘I killed the orcs to distract the troll with their meat,’ said Gotrek, with surprising restraint. ‘It made it easier to kill. Now let me by.’

‘Easier to kill?’ Agnar shook with rage. ‘Easier to kill? A slayer does not make his enemies easier to kill!’

‘For Sigmar’s sake, lower your voice!’ said Felix.

Nobody paid him any attention.

‘Does he not?’ asked Gotrek. ‘Why do you carry that axe?’

Agnar blinked, confused.

‘If you wanted to make your enemies harder to kill,’ said Gotrek. ‘You would attack them unarmed, yet you don’t.’

‘An axe is a Slayer’s weapon!’ said Agnar. ‘It is tradition. That’s not the same as–’

‘Grimnir asks of us that we fight our enemies with all our skill and strength,’ said Gotrek. ‘Anything less is suicide, which he disdains. Do you think he means us not to use our strength of mind? I fight with all the strength I possess.’ He gave Agnar a withering look and stepped past him. ‘It seems you do too.’

‘I do!’ shouted Agnar, thumping his chest. ‘I fight with all my strength. Who says I do not?’

‘Quiet!’ whispered Felix again, but fortunately, the orcs were making too much noise and didn’t hear.

‘He’s insulted you, Agnar,’ called Henrik. ‘He says you have no strength of mind!’

Felix shoved him, hissing. ‘Do you want them to fight? You are keeping them from their doom!’

Henrik shoved him back. ‘I am defending my friend’s honour, which you and your friend seem determined to take from him!’

‘Is that what you say, Gurnisson?’ asked Agnar, getting in front of Gotrek again. ‘Do you think me a fool?’

‘You’re both fools!’ cried Felix, pointing over the balcony. ‘Stinkfoot is getting away.’

Agnar looked up from glaring at Gotrek and blinked as if waking. ‘Curse you. You’ve slowed me down!’

He raced down the galley again with Gotrek pounding after.

‘I’ve slowed you down?’

‘Agnar!’ called Henrik, but this time the old slayer was deaf to his words and continued on. Felix was glad of it. It meant he wouldn’t have to shut Henrik’s mouth for him.

Unfortunately, Agnar’s belated hurry was too little too late. By the time they reached the balcony, the very tail of the orc army was filing through the arch below it, and Gutgob Stinkfoot was long gone.

Agnar punched the balustrade in frustration and glared at Gotrek. ‘We might have made it if not for your arguing!’

‘Aye,’ said Gotrek. ‘I shouldn’t have argued. I should have knocked you out and been done with it.’

‘Well, there’s no time to argue now,’ said Felix, trying to change the subject. ‘We must find a way back to the first level and warn Thorgrin of their coming.’

Gotrek shook his head and turned away from Agnar, who was looking murder at him. ‘First I want to see what killed the greenskin’s challenger.’

Gotrek stumped to a broad stair that descended from the balcony to the floor of the chamber. Agnar glared after him, looking as if he might bury his axe in Gotrek’s back, but then cursed under his breath and followed. Felix did the same, watching Henrik like a hawk. He still didn’t know what the rememberer was up to, but whatever it was, he wasn’t going to let him do it.

At the bottom of the stairs, Gotrek stepped onto the broad floor and started towards the four bonfires. As Felix followed his spine itched between his shoulder blades. He felt as exposed as a cockroach in the middle of a bare floor. Anybody could see them, but they could see nothing outside the fires’ square of light.

As he reached the challenge ground, Gotrek knelt by the enormous, spike-helmed orc, examining his legs and torso, but found no mark or sign of sorcery. Neither was there any wound on his arms or face, but when he heaved the great brute over onto his front, Felix noticed something sticking from the back of its neck.

‘A dart.’

He plucked it out carefully and showed it to Gotrek, who examined it. It was small and crudely made, and fletched with what looked like beetle wings. The rusty iron tip was crusted with some tarry greenish black substance.

‘A ratkin dart.’

Henrik and Agnar examined the other two challengers. They had died in the same fashion.

‘Stinkfoot’s foot did not win the day after all,’ said Felix.

‘Does he know that?’ asked Gotrek, then cocked his ear.

There was a whizzing sound, and the slayer snapped out his hand and clamped it shut. When he opened it again there was another dart in it, poisoned like the others.

Felix and Henrik hit the floor, covering their heads, but the slayers stood and drew their weapons, looking in the direction the dart had come from – the gallery on the south wall of the chamber. Four strange missiles arced out of the darkness after the dart, and Gotrek and Agnar braced to knock them out of the air, but they didn’t fall upon the slayers, but instead landed in the fires.

In the brief second before they struck, Felix saw they were little burlap bags, each trailing a tail of dust, and he feared they were blackpowder, but when they touched the fire they burst into clouds of blackness that put out the flames and left them in darkness but for the lamps at their belts.

In the dim light that remained, Gotrek hauled up one of the smaller dead orcs and held it up before him. Agnar followed his example, and not a moment too soon. Another dart thudded into his orc a second later. A third whizzed by Felix’s ear.

Gotrek turned to him and Henrik. ‘Darken your lanterns. They’re shooting at the light.’

Felix and Henrik gulped and closed the slots of their lanterns, then crouched in the lee of the huge green corpse-shields as the slayers started towards the south gallery. Henrik started his singing again, but this time Felix had had enough.

‘Stop that,’ he whispered. ‘They’ll hear you!’

‘They already know we’re here,’ said Henrik. ‘And it calms my nerves.’

‘So does poison.’

The skitter of clawed feet in the darkness made Felix freeze. They were coming from all directions. Henrik fumbled for his lamp.

‘Wait,’ said Gotrek. ‘Wait for my word.’

Felix put his finger on the lever that opened the slots, and held his breath. The skittering was closing in all around. It sounded like they were right on top of them. It took all his willpower not to open the lantern.

‘Now!’ said Gotrek.

Felix slapped open the slots, and the light streamed out, revealing a black-clad skaven in mid-leap. It squealed and shielded its eyes at the fire-glow, and Felix slashed with Karaghul, biting deep into its hip. It rolled off into the darkness, yelping, but there were more behind it.

Gotrek heaved his orc at two, flattening them, then shattered the legs of a third with his rune axe as it leapt the green corpse. Agnar shrugged his orc off his shoulders and swung his long axe at two that charged in at him, curved knives glistening green in the flickering light. The dead orc’s back was pincushioned with throwing stars.

Henrik ducked another skaven as it leapt over his head, then slashed after it, but missed by a mile. Two more appeared at the edge of Felix’s vision, hurling more throwing stars. He grabbed the edge of his red Sudenland cape and swept it in front of him, and felt them thud into the heavy wool.

The assassins sprung in after their stars, hooked steel claws strapped to their wrists. They were blindingly fast. Felix parried the claws of the first an inch from his neck, and only his chainmail saved him from those of the second. They cracked across his forearm like hammers, but did not break the rings.

He swept Karaghul in a backhand as they flitted past him, and caught one in the back, sending him sprawling and thrashing, but the second eluded the blow and tossed a glass globe over its shoulder.

‘Oh, bollocks!’

Felix dove for the thing and caught it just before it shattered on the floor, then rolled up and hurled it into the darkness after the skaven who had thrown it. A tinkle of glass and a horrible retching told him he had found his mark.

Gotrek snatched another dart out of the air and threw it at a skaven that fought Henrik, then hurled his axe in the direction the dart had come from. There was a terrible squeal and then a thud, and all the other skaven suddenly froze, then turned and fled, leaving a stinking cloud of animal musk behind.

Felix coughed and spat and squeezed his burning eyes, then followed Gotrek as he strode into the darkness to retrieve his axe. On the floor lay a skaven with a blowgun in one hand and a long-barrelled gun strapped across its back.

‘The one who shot you,’ said Agnar, coming up behind them.

‘Aye,’ said Gotrek, pulling his axe from its chest. It had buried itself in its solar plexus. ‘The one who knew we would be in the minehead chamber. The one who led the greenskins and the troll to us.’

Gotrek wiped his axe blade off on the skaven’s black head-wrap, then noticed a roll of parchment sticking from a pouch on its belt. He pulled the parchment free.

‘You shouldn’t touch them,’ said Henrik. ‘They cover themselves in poison.’

Gotrek ignored him and unrolled the parchment.

‘What is it?’ asked Agnar.

Gotrek looked at it, then handed it to Felix. At first what was drawn upon it just looked like a jumble of squares and lines and arrows, but then he realized it was a map of the depths – part of them anyway – with portions marked in the claw-scratch script of skaven writing, but the ratmen weren’t the only ones to have written upon the map. Notes had been scribbled upon it in a human hand, in Bretonnian. A cold chill went down Felix’s spine as he saw them.

‘Lanquin wrote this.’

‘You can’t know that,’ said Henrik. ‘He’s not the only Bretonnian in the world. There’s a whole nation of them.’

‘What does it say?’ asked Agnar.

Calling upon the meagre Bretonnian he had learned while studying poetry at the University of Altdorf, Felix struggled to decipher the words. ‘Apportez votre rongeurs ici. Uh, transport… no, bring, your rats… to here. Nous allons laisser cette voie accessible. We will allow… passage to… No, that’s not right. We will let the path to be… unguarded!’

Felix looked at the map again and saw an arrow pointing to a small passage that led into what he recognised must be the Great Hall of the Jewellers’ Guild. It opened up behind where the dwarfs intended to set their battle line. ‘Blood of Sigmar! Whoever wrote this says he will let the skaven come in and attack the dwarfs from the rear!’

‘Let me see that,’ said Henrik, and snatched the map from Felix’s fingers.

‘It must be Lanquin,’ said Felix as Henrik pored over the parchment. ‘Who else would be in a position to promise them such an advantage? How does a man stoop so low!’

‘He’s already done worse,’ said Gotrek.

‘What could be worse than that?’ snarled Agnar.

Gotrek motioned back the way they had come. ‘The room with the poisoned men. The Bretonnian didn’t send the best of his recruits into the deeps to kill Stinkfoot. He sent them to die – in a skaven trap.’

Felix stared at him. ‘But – but why would he do that?’

Gotrek shrugged. ‘To take them out of the fight. To weaken the thane’s army so the orcs win.’

‘That’s insane! He can’t want that! He–’ Felix cut off as another thought blasted that one aside. ‘That’s why he wanted us to take his coin! He wanted us to sign up with him so he could send us to our deaths with the others!’

Agnar shook his head like a confused bull. ‘All that Bugman’s – a trap.’

Felix pointed to the parchment in Henrik’s hands. ‘We have a map. We must use it to find a way back to Thane Thorgrin as quickly as we can. We must warn him of this treachery before the battle begins.’

‘Two of us must,’ said Gotrek. ‘The other two must attack the ratkin where they prepare their attack and slay all that can be slain.’

Agnar grunted in agreement, but Henrik rolled his eyes. ‘And I suppose that’ll be you and Jaeger, then. While Agnar and I run your errands for you.’

‘What?’ said Agnar, looking up. He turned hard eyes on Gotrek and hefted his axe. ‘I’ll be damned if I will.’

11

Gotrek snorted. ‘Put it away, puppet. Your master pulls your strings again.’

‘I am no one’s puppet, Gotrek Gurnisson,’ said Agnar, dangerously. ‘Least of all yours. If you think to send me away while you go to your doom–’

‘Your twister said that,’ growled Gotrek. ‘Not I. Come with me if you wish. The manlings can return to the thane.’

Henrik’s eyes blazed. ‘Now he would deny you your rememberer! He would have you die alone and forgotten, with no one to tell the tale of your last battle!’

Felix had had enough. Henrik’s carping and accusations had worn him raw at last. He shoved the rememberer, sending him sprawling over the corpse of the black-clad rat.

‘You’re talking rubbish!’ he barked. ‘Gotrek denies Agnar nothing he doesn’t deny himself!’

Henrik’s eyes glittered with triumph as he looked up from the floor. ‘Agnar, they lay hands upon us! They mean us harm!’

The old slayer turned towards Felix, raising his long axe. ‘No one touches my rememberer, human. Defend yourself.’

Gotrek snarled and knocked the axe aside with his own. ‘Stand down, fool! You’ve listened to this jackal for too long!’

Agnar brought his axe back into guard, his eyes blazing and his arms trembling with rage. ‘You strike me now, Gurnisson? You insult me to my face? Henrik is right. It is you I have listened to for too long!’

And with that, he charged, slashing wildly. Gotrek backed away, blocking the attacks, but made none of his own. Nonetheless, Henrik chose to see Gotrek’s retreat as an act of aggression, and leapt at his back, his sword high.

‘Die, coward!’

Felix cursed and whipped Karaghul from its scabbard just in time to block the strike. Henrik grinned like a skull as he turned to face him, slashing high and low.

‘Ah, you show your true colours at last!’ he hissed. ‘All “hail-fellow-well-met” in the tap room, but it’s knives in the back when we’re too deep to call for help. I know your kind!’

Felix parried the blows with difficulty. Ordinarily he would not have called Henrik his equal as a swordsman, but whatever madness was possessing him had given him a frenzied strength and speed, jittery and unpredictable, and it was hard to know where he was going to strike next.

‘You describe yourself!’ said Felix, retreating before the torrent. ‘You invite us to drink with you, you fight by our side, and now you attack us on the flimsiest of pretexts. I begin to wonder if you are a pair of rogues in disguise, or–’

Felix faltered as something clicked in his head. Henrik saw the opening and gashed his leg. It stung, but not as sharply as Felix’s epiphany. Not a pair of rogues, no. Agnar was a true slayer, of that there was no doubt. But Henrik? Who had suggested Gotrek and Felix take Louis Lanquin’s coin? Who had had a barely credible ‘change of heart’ when Gotrek and Felix joined Thorgrin’s throng? Who had sung an annoying little tune before every appearance of the skaven?

‘You’re with Lanquin!’ cried Felix, attacking Henrik with new vigour. ‘You never changed sides! You joined Thorgrin’s horde to keep an eye on us, to make sure we died in the depths! You are with the skaven!’

Henrik choked. ‘The skaven? You’re mad! No dwarf would side with the ratkin!’ He glanced over his shoulder. ‘Do you hear him, Agnar? Now he calls you a traitor to your–!’

He broke off with a yelp as Felix took advantage of his distraction and sliced open his arm above the elbow, then knocked his blade from his hands.

Agnar roared at this and tried to fight past Gotrek. ‘Let me by!’

Felix advanced on Henrik, sword extended. ‘I said nothing of Agnar Arvastsson, you conniver. You tricked him too. You’re pitting him against Gotrek, hoping both will die.’

‘Don’t listen to him, Agnar!’ cried Henrik. ‘You know I am your truest friend. I would never–’

Felix put Karaghul to his throat.

‘Talk, rememberer,’ he said. ‘What are Lanquin’s plans? Why is he colluding with the skaven?’

Henrik put his hands up and opened his mouth as if to comply, then turned and fled across the huge room like a scalded dog. Felix cursed and pounded after him, but Henrik was younger, slimmer and less heavily armoured, and outran him with ease.

‘Rememberer!’ called Agnar. ‘Where are you going?’

‘Goodbye, Agnar,’ Henrik called over his shoulder. ‘I will sing the song of your doom in the taproom of the Grail. It will be the greatest doom ever remembered – hundreds of skaven, thousands! Men will weep to hear it.’

‘But… but the skaven didn’t kill me.’

‘Oh, they will,’ laughed Henrik as he sped for an archway on the western wall. ‘That I promise you! They’ll kill all of you.’ And with that he began singing his annoying song again as loud as he could manage.

Felix slowed to a stop as Henrik ran under the archway into the corridor, and quickly vanished but for the bobbing glow of his lantern. Felix watched it dance out of sight, then sighed and started back towards the slayers. They were no longer fighting. Agnar was staring at the archway with a look so blank and stunned that it would have been comical if it hadn’t been heartbreaking. Gotrek put a hand on his shoulder, but had the decency not to say anything.

‘Five years,’ said Agnar. ‘Five years, he was my rememberer.’ His brow lowered. ‘I must find him. I must slay him.’

‘Aye,’ said Gotrek. ‘But his villainy must be stopped first. Time enough for vengeance after the skaven are slaughtered.’

Agnar hesitated, then nodded. ‘Very well. But who will warn the thane?’

‘I’ll go,’ said Felix, though he had no idea how he’d manage it. He didn’t know where he was, he didn’t know how to get to the Great Hall of the Jewellers’ Guild, the place was crawling with orcs, skaven, trolls and Sigmar knew what else, and…

Felix groaned. ‘Henrik has the map. That tricky little–’

Noises to the east brought his head up. Hunched shadows were moving in the darkness at the east end of the chamber, spilling out of the tunnels that fed into it. He swallowed. ‘Maybe the map is the least of our problems.’

Gotrek and Agnar looked around, and Agnar started forward, growling under his breath.

Gotrek stopped him. ‘We must make sure the manling gets away first.’

Agnar shot him a look that had some of his old animosity in it, but then nodded, and he and Gotrek started for the western end of the hall, jogging as fast as their short legs could carry them.

Felix struggled to shorten his pace so that he wouldn’t swiftly outdistance them. ‘Are they after us?’ he asked, looking warily over his shoulder. He heard no squeals of challenge.

Gotrek shook his head. ‘They head for the same shaft as we do. It is the quickest way to the upper levels.’

Felix stared at him. ‘How do you know where they’re going? How do you know where we’re going?’

Gotrek shrugged. ‘I read the map.’

There was a shriek of dismay behind them. Felix looked back, but all he could see was milling shadows.

‘They have found the bodies of their assassins,’ said Agnar, without looking back.

‘Now they’re after us,’ said Gotrek.

Gotrek led Felix and Agnar through the corridors of the vault level with the shrill cries of the skaven growing steadily closer behind them. The passages were high and wide in this area, with few twists and turns, and it felt to Felix as if they were trying to outrun a cresting wave. At last he and the slayers ran through a crumbling arch into a large square chamber that made Felix’s skin prickle and his shoulders hunch with fear as soon as he entered it.

A ghostly grey glow illuminated a scene out of a builder’s nightmare. It looked as if some drunk giant had constructed a house of cards within the chamber and hadn’t been too neat about it. Scrap-wood scaffolding rose up in uneven layers along all four walls, and a precarious forest of supports held up portions of the mortared stone ceiling, which looked as if it might come down in a heap if someone sneezed. The walls behind the scaffolding showed signs of battle damage – shattered marble, scorched granite, and broken bas-reliefs – and it seemed the scaffolding had been erected to attempt repairs, but it must have all happened a long time ago, for the wooden joists were warped and sagging under the weight of stone they supported, and the whole thing was covered in dust and thick with spiderwebs.

It was from these webs that the light emanated, a pale putrid pearlescence that made the scaffolding look as if it were covered in spectral shrouds. Lumpy cocoons hung from the beams as well, tethered by thicker strands. Some were the size of dwarfs. Some were the size of orcs. All glowed like misshapen moons.

In the centre of the room, a more well-constructed structure rose amidst the cobwebbed scaffolding. It was a square column of iron latticework, roughly twenty feet to a side, that vanished up into darkness through a wide hole in the ceiling, as well as down into a corresponding hole in the floor. Felix had seen such cage-lifts in other dwarf holds, but none so elaborate or ornate. On this one, in addition to the metal cage enclosed within it, an iron stairway wound around the outside of the shaft, going both up and down.

The slayers ran for the wide iron bridge that extended from the edge of the hole to the shaft, but as they got closer Felix saw they were too late. The lift cage was already rising.

Henrik’s grinning face appeared between the bars as it rattled up towards the darkness. ‘Weep not, Agnar! You are no worse a dupe than the fools who stand beside you, or Thorgrin and his kin, or the orcs who go to fight him. We duped them all! Duped the skaven into helping Stinkfoot become warboss so he would rise against the dwarfs. Duped the dwarfs into fighting back. And once they wipe each other out, it will be Lanquin and I who rule Skalf’s Keep and collect the taxes, while our skaven partners rule the deeps. A mutually beneficial relationship.’

‘If you believe that,’ snarled Gotrek, ‘you’re more a dupe than any of us.’

‘Rememberer!’ roared Agnar. ‘You will die by my axe for your treachery! I swear it!’

‘Treachery?’ called Henrik as he vanished through the roof. ‘I have given you a certain doom! What more could a slayer want from his rememberer?’

The rainstorm patter of hundreds of clawed feet behind them turned Felix and the slayers around. The ratmen were spilling through the scaffolding-supported archway in a gibbering, chittering tide – spearskaven in rags and human-skin hoods; swordskaven in rusty armour and brass helms, towering, hideously mutated rat-ogres with crude weapons grafted to the stumps of their wrists and giant mutant rats the size of bulldogs, all spreading to the right and left to surround them.

Gotrek stepped to the base of the iron stairway and readied his rune axe. ‘This is their route to the top. Manling, go to the thane. We’ll hold them here.’

Felix looked up. The stairs were endless. He wondered if he would die from exhaustion climbing them. It was at least a less certain death than fighting a hundred skaven with his back to a bottomless precipice. He swallowed as he realised that he and the slayer were parting ways at last. ‘Are you sure, Gotrek? I will not witness your doom. My vow–’

‘Your vow is fulfilled. You know what my doom will be,’ said the slayer. ‘Write it well.’

‘Write mine too,’ said Agnar, snarling. ‘And shove it down Henrik Daschke’s throat.’

‘I will,’ said Felix. ‘With pleasure.’

The skaven were edging in from all sides now, the rat-ogres wading through the smaller troops to the fore, and shots were being fired from the back. It was time to go.

‘Farewell, slayers,’ said Felix, trying to keep any unseemly emotion out of his voice as he started up the iron stairs. ‘Die well, and may Grimnir welcome you–’

The stairs shook violently, cutting him off. He clung tight and looked up. Was the cage coming down again? Was the scaffolding collapsing?

The skaven edged back from the shaft at the noise, and the slayers looked around for the source of it. Then Felix saw it – not above, but below in the darkness, and rising swiftly.

It looked at first like the hand of a giant, though more slim and graceful, climbing up the latticed side of the iron lift shaft like a man might walk his fingers up his lover’s arm. They weren’t fingers, however. They were legs, bone white, and as hard and sharp as sabres, but longer than lances. There were eight of them, extending from a fat misshapen abdomen that glowed with the same grey glimmer as the cobwebs. Eight glassy black eyes looked up at Felix from a hard, hammer-shaped head under which twitched pincers that could have snipped him in half with one bite. There was something round and glowing rising from its carapaced back, but Felix couldn’t quite see it, for a cloaked skaven sat in front of it, riding the gigantic horror as if it were a warhorse.

‘Gotrek,’ said Felix through lips suddenly dry. ‘Your cave spider is here.’

12

Gotrek, Agnar and Felix dived away from the iron stairs as the White Widow pulled itself out of the hole and slashed its hooked forelegs at them. Its rider, an ancient black-robed skaven, shrieked orders at it and whacked the spider’s carapaced head with an orb-topped brass staff.

Looking at it full on and standing before them, the cave spider was terrifying – a mountain of hard chitin, crusted white with what looked like bat droppings, its bulging abdomen looming twice Felix’s height, and its graceful legs spreading as wide as a merchant ship’s deck. The skaven troops feared it as well, and backed under the rickety scaffolding as it ticked delicately across the floor. Gotrek, however, nodded approvingly.

‘This will be a fight,’ he said.

‘What is that on its back?’ asked Agnar.

Felix looked again at the strange sphere that glowed behind the skaven. It was a barrel-sized globe of brass plates, bound to the White Widow’s thorax with leather straps, and riveted together so poorly that sick green light seeped through the joins and glowing steam leaked from it in a fog. A short brass rod with a pulsing gem fixed to the end sprouted from it like a lightning rod, and a crude lever stuck up beside it.

‘A bomb,’ said Gotrek. ‘A warpstone bomb.’

‘But they’ll kill themselves too,’ said Felix.

‘So long as they win,’ said Agnar. ‘Rat-lords care not if rat-troops die.’

The black-robed skaven shrilled orders at the hundred-strong mob of ratmen cowering under cover of the scaffolds, and they hesitantly began to edge behind the giant spider and run up the iron stairs as it held Felix and the slayers off.

Felix cursed. ‘They’ll reach Thorgrin before my warning does.’

‘At least you’ll witness my doom,’ said Gotrek.

‘And share it,’ muttered Felix.

The slayer didn’t seem to hear him. He charged the White Widow, roaring a dwarf battle cry. Agnar was only a split second behind him. The cave spider stabbed down at them with its scythe-like forelegs, shattering the stone floor as they dodged past and swung for its body with their axes. It scuttled back on its six other legs and they missed, then had to duck and weave as the forelegs slashed for them again.

On the White Widow’s back, the skaven sorcerer chanted and raised his brass staff, causing flickers of green lightning to play about the orb that glowed at its end. Felix was ready to leave the fighting of the spider to Gotrek and Agnar. As they would say, it was ‘slayer’s work’, but he could certainly protect them from being brought low by magic when all they wanted was a good fight.

He scooped up a fist-sized rock from the rubble that was scattered across the floor and hurled it. It missed, but just barely, and the skaven flinched back, losing the rhythm of his chant. He chittered angrily and glared at Felix, then began again. Felix found another rock and flung it. This time it found its mark and mashed the skaven’s furless nose.

With a shriek of rage, the ratman swatted its spider mount between its two rows of eyes, goading it towards Felix, who backed under a low course of scaffolding and searched for another rock.

Dancing under the White Widow’s legs, Gotrek and Agnar struck home as it moved. Agnar’s long axe sent splinters of chitin flying, but didn’t crack its carapace. Gotrek, however, armed with his starmetal rune axe and considerably more muscle, broke through its left foreleg, biting into the meat inside. Black ichor sprayed him and the spider staggered sideways, trying to escape the pain of the wound.

With cries of triumph, the Slayers pressed their advantage, hewing like woodsmen at the shattered limb, trying to widen the break.

The White Widow’s right foreleg stabbed at them, and Agnar did not dodge in time. It knocked him flying, and he skidded to a stop a foot from the edge of the lift hole, half-conscious, blood welling from the back of his head.

Gotrek spun away as the bladed leg swept in again, and chopped into a back leg instead. It was a brutal strike, half-severing the joint, and leaving the limb flopping loosely and trailing fluids. Felix had never heard a spider shriek before. Indeed, he hadn’t known they could, but this one did – a high reedy sound, like violin bows rubbing together.

‘Felt that, did you?’ laughed the slayer.

He pressed his advantage as the White Widow reeled sideways, its balance thrown. His axe slashed at the monster’s other legs, splintering them and leaving star-shaped cracks with every impact. The spider swiped and snapped back at him in a frenzy, its forelegs blurring as they tried to lance its prey. Gotrek was swifter, however, and fought within its reach, almost under its belly, making it back up in order to see where he was.

Shrieking with frustration, the skaven sorcerer beat the White Widow mercilessly with his staff, but the monster continued to retreat from the thing that was causing it pain – and into disaster. Its massive abdomen backed into the scaffolding along the west wall, snapping supports and causing the whole structure to groan and shift.

‘Sigmar save us,’ said Felix, as the platform above the spider buckled and sagged.

After that, the outcome was inevitable. Felix had earlier compared the scaffolding to a house of cards, and like a house of cards, when the bottom card was pulled out, the rest went with it. A chain of collapses followed the first, all the platforms and ladders and cross braces slowly folding in and crashing down upon the White Widow and the shrieking skaven.

Gotrek backed away as the first boards and posts began to topple, then turned and ran as the rest came rumbling after. He sprinted to Agnar, just now picking himself up at the edge of the hole, and dragged him aside as the wreckage struck the floor and spread in a tide of wood that spilled all the way to the precipice and sent planks and boards spinning away into the darkness below.

Through the rising cloud of dust, Felix could see that, under the debris, the giant spider still moved, and he thought it might rise up and shrug it off, but then, with a thunderous cracking and splintering, the granite cladding of the ceiling, which the scaffolding had been holding in place, peeled from the roof and crashed down on top of it, burying it completely.

‘Well,’ he said, coughing. ‘I think you got it.’

Agnar shook his head. ‘It might still live. We should dig down and make sure.’

‘There’s no glory in killing a trapped beast,’ said Gotrek. ‘And no time. Thorgrin must still be warned of the skaven and the Bretonnian’s treachery.’

Agnar scowled. ‘The skaven must be halfway there already. We’ll never catch them.’

Gotrek looked towards the lift. ‘We’ll beat them easily.’

‘But the cage is gone,’ said Felix. ‘Henrik took it.’

Gotrek ignored him and walked out onto the iron bridge, now partially bent from the rocks that had fallen on it, and eyed the cluster of cables that stretched down one side of the shaft. Felix followed him out, his heart palpitating.

‘Gotrek, I hope you’re not thinking–’

‘There’s no faster way.’

‘But how will we stop? If you cut the cable, the cage will drop and pull us up, I see that, but we’ll be going too fast. We’ll be pulled through the pulley at the top of the shaft. We’ll come out like sausages!’

‘The cage will stop here,’ said Gotrek. ‘And we will stop just short of the pulley.’

‘How? Are you going to hook your axe into the wall as we fly past? Even you aren’t that strong.’

Gotrek didn’t answer; he just stamped on the iron bridge with a heavy foot as if to test it, then strode to the scaffolding that still stood above the archway through which they had entered the room, all the while craning his neck and looking up at the ceiling.

‘What is he doing?’ asked Agnar.

‘I have no idea,’ said Felix.

Gotrek remained before the scaffolding, stroking his beard for a moment, then at last hefted his axe and started chopping at a particular support post.

‘Gotrek!’ cried Felix.

‘Into the passage, manling,’ said Gotrek. ‘And you, Arvastsson.’

Felix and Agnar hurried past Gotrek into the passage, as, in three deft strokes, he cut the through post and it snapped under the weight. Again the scaffolding above began to fold in on top of itself. Gotrek stepped into the passage to stand with Felix and Agnar as it all crashed down to the floor and spread out across it in a roaring cascade.

Suddenly unsupported, the braces that held up the ceiling fell after it, and huge chunks of masonry began to plummet down and smash the floor below – at first only a few, but then more and more, an ever widening collapse that sent arches and keystones and decorative corbels thundering down to shake the ground. And as they hit, they bounced off the drift of wooden refuse and avalanched towards the iron bridge. The great stones bounded across it and slammed into the front of the lift shaft, denting and tearing it, and the stones that followed the first caved it in even more, until, as the rain of masonry finally subsided, there was a great, concave bulge in the shaft, filled with rocks.

Felix stared as the dust subsided. ‘You’ve pinched it shut.’

Gotrek nodded. ‘Now the lift cage will hit the rocks and stop.’

‘And the cable will stop short of the pulley,’ said Agnar.

‘And fling us against the walls of the cage to be crushed into jelly,’ groaned Felix.

Gotrek shrugged. ‘It might, but we’ll beat the skaven.’

13

‘I should have seen it,’ growled Agnar, as he and Gotrek hacked through the iron latticework of the lift shaft with their axes. ‘I should have known him for a rogue from the beginning.’

‘Perhaps he wasn’t one at the beginning,’ said Felix, slotting a ladder taken from the wrecked scaffolding through the lattice. Wedged into a corner of the shaft, it made a makeshift platform they would be able to step on. ‘A man might think being a rememberer a grand thing for the first few years, but come to regret it later.’

Gotrek looked around at him, cold-eyed. Felix squirmed under his attention, but went on.

‘A man might get impatient, and want to get on with his life. He might want riches and comforts. He might want to settle down.’

Agnar chewed his lip through his beard as he swung again. ‘He always joked about hoping I’d find my doom quickly, so he might spend all my gold while he was young. Perhaps it wasn’t a joke.’

Felix frowned as he slotted a second ladder into the shaft about five feet below the first. ‘What gold is this?’

‘All I have collected over my years of slaying, I put in a dwarf bank in Talabheim. It is to go to my family, who I shamed before becoming a Slayer, but I granted Henrik a part of it.’

‘And he will take all of it,’ growled Gotrek.

With a final swipe of his axe, he finished the hole in the lattice, then squeezed through and crossed the ladder to the cables. Each was as thick as his leg and made of wound steel. He tapped them with the heel of his axe, listening to the tone, then nodded and scored one with the blade.

‘Bring the rope, manling.’

Felix stooped through the hole, then edged out onto the ladder and crossed to the cables, clinging to the walls of the shaft for support. He handed Gotrek a coil of rope recovered from the collapsed scaffolding, and the slayer proceeded to tie him tightly to the cable at the waist and under the arms so that he was facing out. The ropes were so constricting that Felix could hardly breathe, and he began to panic again about slamming into the walls when the cable was loosed, but there was nothing for it now.

When Gotrek finished tying him, he beckoned Agnar ahead. The old slayer squeezed into the shaft with his own coil of rope over one shoulder, and let Gotrek tie him to the cable too, back to back with Felix. When that was done, Gotrek lowered himself down to the second ladder and took his axe from his back, then started hacking at the woven steel.

Felix closed his eyes in helpless terror as he felt the shuddering of it through his spine. The rune axe bit into the softer metal with ease, and the smaller strands parted with deep, heartstopping twangs.

After a moment, the chopping stopped, and Felix pried open his eyes and looked down. Gotrek was tying himself to the cable at the waist, leaving his torso free. Just below him, a few thin strands of the cable remained uncut, twanging and singing with the stress of holding so much weight. Once he had bound himself to his satisfaction, Gotrek used the leftover rope to tie his axe to his wrist so that even if he lost his grip it would not fall.

Finally he was ready, and raised the axe over his head. Felix wanted to close his eyes, but couldn’t. If he was going to die, he wanted to see it coming.

Gotrek swung down between his legs, chopping into the remaining strands below his feet. One snapped and the rest groaned. He swung again.

Felix heard a bright twang and, with a jolting rush, his stomach dropped into his boots. The filigreed lattice blurred past at an alarming rate, inches from his eyes, and the upward force was so strong that he could not raise his arms against it or take a breath. At least the thing he had feared the most did not happen. Though the cable bowed out towards the side of the shaft and the struts flashed by less than an arm’s length from his chest, he was not crushed against it.

A look below showed him why. The frayed end of the cable, less than a yard below Gotrek, was pressed against the side of the shaft, scraping off a cascading shower of sparks and making a deafening shriek as it rose, holding its passengers away from death with its rigidity. Gotrek, closer to the end than Felix, was even closer to the wall, and was sucking in his gut and holding down his beard to keep it from being ripped off at the roots. Over the screaming of metal on metal and the rattle of the shaking shaft, Felix heard a wild whooping. It took him a moment to realise it was the slayers, howling with savage glee.

Chambers and rooms flicked by as they whipped past, separated by short intervals of black, and a few seconds later the plummeting cage shot by inches behind them, dropping so fast that Felix hadn’t time to fear it crushing them before it was gone.

An eyeblink after that, Felix saw a flash of movement outside the cage, and caught a frozen picture of a gaping ratty face staring at him amongst a swarm of others. They had shot past the skaven troops, still labouring up the stairs that wound around the shaft one step at a time. Gotrek had been right. They were going to beat them to the first level – if they lived.

Only seconds later, the ride came to an end, and what Felix had earlier feared finally happened. As the boom of a huge impact echoed up from below, the cable jerked to a stop, snapping Felix’s teeth shut, then slapped back and forth like a pendulum in a wind storm. Felix was crushed against the side of the shaft, and only great good fortune let his heavily bound chest take the blow and not his head. Even so, all the air was knocked out of him and his ribs felt like they had been hit with a sledgehammer. His knees too cracked against the steel, and he hissed in agony.

‘All… alive?’ he asked as the swaying stopped.

Behind him and below, the slayers grunted in the affirmative, and he saw that they had taken some damage too. Agnar had blood streaming from his scalp where the front few inches of his slayer’s crest had been ripped away by some passing snag, and it looked like his nose had been broken. Gotrek had deep scrapes and bruises on his shoulders and forearms, and a great welt over one eye.

As he looked around, however, Felix feared that they had a greater problem than their wounds. They were dangling over a bottomless pit in the centre of the shaft, tied securely to the cable, and the door they had hoped to reach was more than thirty feet above their heads.

‘Are you certain you thought this through, Gotrek?’ Felix asked.

‘Swing, manling,’ said Gotrek. ‘With me. You too, Arvastsson.’

Gotrek began to swing his arms, legs and rune axe back and forth in a slow, strong rhythm. Felix and Agnar did the same, moving as he moved. At first the effect of their motion on the heavy cable was negligible, and Felix feared it was all for naught, but after a while their feeble wiggle became a slight sway, and then, as the movement of the cable added itself to their momentum, their swings got longer and longer, until, finally, Gotrek was able to reach out and grab the lattice of the shaft.

The first time, it ripped from his hand, but the second time he was able to catch a crossbar with the hook of his axe and they stopped in mid-swing. Gotrek pulled himself hand over hand up the haft of the axe, then grabbed onto the lattice and clung there as he untied the rope that bound his waist to the cable. One end of this he retied to the lattice, then unwound the other.

‘Gotrek!’ Felix cried. ‘You’ll–’

The last few coils whipped off Gotrek like a chain going through a pulley and the cable sprang free again.

‘All part of the plan, manling,’ said Gotrek, as Felix and Agnar swung again to a stop in the middle of the shaft.

‘I’m relieved to hear there is a plan,’ said Felix.

Gotrek coiled up the loose rope and made to throw it at him. ‘Catch it and pass it around you, then throw it back.’

Felix caught it with a wild grab, then passed it behind him to Agnar, who handed it back to him on the other side.

‘Now lift it so it is above your heads,’ said Gotrek as Felix heaved the remaining length back to him.

Agnar and Felix took the rope, which was at their waists, and edged it up over their shoulders and heads until it was wrapped around nothing but the cable.

Gotrek nodded approvingly, then threaded the loose end of the rope through the lattice and started hauling at it, winching them closer and closer to the side with every pull.

Finally, Felix was able to grab the lattice and pull himself closer. Gotrek swiftly tied off the rope, then used his rune axe to cut through Felix and Agnar’s bonds, and they were all clinging like flies to the side of the shaft.

‘To the door,’ said Gotrek.

Though Felix’s knees ached and his arms shook, and his head spun with vertigo, he climbed with the slayers to the folding gate. It was closed, and locked with a geared hook, but one swing of Gotrek’s axe and the lock fell away in pieces. Felix crawled gratefully out onto an iron bridge as the slayers pushed the doors open, and into a room very similar to the one in which they had entered the shaft, except that this one was in better repair. He sighed with relief as he reached the floor. It felt good to have solid stone under his feet again.

The room had a large arch on its north wall, but it had been sealed up with granite blocks, and recently, if the footprints and blobs of dried mortar around its base were any indication. The sounds of a big battle came from behind it – the roar of orcs, the battle chants of the dwarfs, the clash of weapons and the thunder of cannons – all muffled, but still loud.

Gotrek grunted. ‘They’ve already begun. Come on.’

He and Agnar started for a smaller open door in the west wall. Felix followed, confused. It looked hardly large enough for him to fit through, let alone a rat-ogre.

‘The skaven are coming here?’ he asked. ‘I thought Lanquin had kept a passage open for them.’

‘You didn’t look at the map,’ said Gotrek. ‘They are exiting the stair one level down and coming up from the north, behind the thane.’

‘Ah,’ said Felix, chagrined. He had looked at the map, but he didn’t have a dwarf’s perfect recall of such things. ‘I must have misread it.’

Gotrek stepped into the narrow passage. ‘This funnels into the path Thorgrin left open for the greenskins. Part of the plan to make sure they could approach the battlefield from only one direction.’

Felix swallowed. ‘So we’ll be entering the great hall on the orc side of the battle?’

Agnar smiled, an evil glint in his eye. ‘Aye. Right at their backs.’

14

After a few twists and turns in the dark, the passage opened into a grand promenade, fully thirty paces wide, and five times Felix’s height. It was decorated in high dwarf style, with towering ancestor figures holding massive braziers in outstretched hands, and great battle scenes laid out in mosaic on the wall panels between them – and it reeked of orcs.

The signs of their passage were hard to miss – grimy footprints in the dust, greasy smears where their hands and shoulders had rubbed against the walls, discarded bones where they had eaten on the march – and the sounds of their advent came loud from the north.

Gotrek and Agnar started towards the noise at a trot and Felix followed, drawing Karaghul. Ahead, an arch as wide and tall as the promenade flickered with fire and movement, and as they jogged through it into the Great Hall of the Jewellers’ Guild, it resolved into a scene of furious battle.

The dwarfs had set huge bonfires around the great hall to illuminate it for the battle, and in their hot orange light, Felix could see Stinkfoot’s orc army swarming the tight dwarf front. As Engineer Migrunssun had pointed out to him before, Thorgrin had chosen his position carefully, lining up his dwarf and human infantry four-deep across the narrow end of the great hall with the walls at either end protecting his flanks. This limited the number of orcs that could face his dwarfs at one time, and left a lot of the greenskins crowded together behind their comrades, all scrabbling and shoving at each other to get to the front.

All in all it was as neat and tidy a battle line as Felix had ever seen, but unfortunately, he and the slayers were on the wrong side of it, and there was no way to reach it except through the orcs. The closing off passages that had forced the greenskins to attack from the front had brought Gotrek, Agnar and himself to the same place – and there were more dangers than just rabid orcs in the way.

On the east side of the room, the cannons and gunners that Migrunsson had placed in the minehead firing platform had perfect position to rake these frustrated tag-alongs in the flank, and mangled orc bodies splashed up like green spray every time a cannon fired and the huge iron balls skipped through them. Felix looked at them askance as the slayers advanced. He didn’t fancy being blown to bits by cannons he had helped to place.

More cannons and muskets boomed behind Thorgrin’s line, firing over the dwarfs’ heads from a balcony above the archway that led to the stairs to the surface, while Lanquin’s mercenaries – those he hadn’t sent to the depths to die – held the west end of the line, keeping the orcs at bay with spears and swords.

As Felix scanned the mercenaries, he saw Henrik behind them, gesturing feverishly as he talked in Lanquin’s ear. Agnar saw him too, and changed course towards their position.

‘There you are, rememberer,’ he growled and picked up his pace.

‘Manling,’ said Gotrek as they followed. ‘When we’re through the line, go to the thane. Tell him the ratkin will attack from behind his guns, from the balcony.’

‘Aye, Gotrek.’

Ten paces on, the Slayers charged into the back of the massed orcs. The greenskins didn’t hear them coming. All their attention was focused on the dwarfs and humans ahead of them, and the bite of Gotrek and Agnar’s axes severing their spines was their first indication that they were flanked.

Five died before the rest even knew the slayers were among them. Then flying blood and body parts alerted them and they turned, roaring, upon their whirling, slashing foes. It was then that Felix attacked, hacking at their necks and backs as they closed on the slayers. He killed two in as many seconds, and hamstrung a third as he dodged through the press.

An orc with a rusty cleaver swung at his head. Felix ducked and Gotrek’s rune axe arced up and smashed through the brute’s lantern jaw from below. Felix sidestepped to avoid its falling corpse and stabbed over Gotrek’s shoulder into the neck of another.

It fell, spraying blood from a severed artery, and they pressed on, carving a red swathe through the green tide, step by step, until only one last rank of orcs stood between them and Lanquin’s mercenaries, and these, attacked from both in front and behind, died quicker than the rest.

‘Who are you?’ barked a dark-browed sergeant as Felix and the slayers stepped over the corpses of the last orcs.

‘We have news for Lanquin!’ called Felix before the slayers could say anything undiplomatic. ‘News from the deeps.’

‘Aye,’ muttered Agnar as the man waved them impatiently past and the line closed up behind them. ‘News of his death.’

Gotrek and Agnar pushed through the mercenaries and started immediately for Lanquin and Henrik. The two men stared in shock at the slayers, then backed away, pointing and shouting. Felix grinned at their reaction as he turned and ran for Thane Thorgrin, who was fighting at the centre of the dwarf line. It was a fool’s game betting on a slayer’s demise, as the two traitors were learning to their cost.

Thorgrin, for all Gotrek’s grumbling that he was a soft-handed, surface-dwelling brigand who had grown fat by charging others to fight his battles for him, was still dwarf enough to lead from the front when forced to war. He stood upon a broad shield held aloft by two sturdy shieldbearers, and was hewing away at the front line of Stinkfoot’s black orc retinue with a will. Stinkfoot, by contrast, was hanging back and kicking his rotting foot in Thorgrin’s direction, but it seemed its magic had abandoned him, for the thane did not fall.

‘Thane Thorgrin,’ Felix called from the back of the ranks. ‘You are betrayed. Louis Lanquin has sided with the skaven and is going to let them attack your rear! They will come from the balcony.’

The battle was too loud. Thorgrin didn’t hear, but Sergeant Holdborn was in the second row of the Hammerers who protected the thane’s right side. He heard.

‘What is that, rememberer?’ he asked, stepping back from his troops. ‘Where is Engineer Migrunsson? Where are the other engineers?’

‘Killed by a skaven trap,’ said Felix. ‘Two survivors were to have come back and told you.’

Holdborn scowled suspiciously. ‘No one came back to us. And what is this talk of skaven? We fight the greenskins.’

‘The skaven manipulate the orcs, and Lanquin too, and–’ He broke off with a curse. ‘There’s no time to explain! Tell Thorgrin that Lanquin has cleared a path for the skaven, they will attack from–’

‘Fall back! Retreat! Retreat!’

Felix and Holdborn whipped around to see Lanquin and Henrik running for the archway that led to the surface and shouting over their shoulders for their mercenaries to follow. Gotrek and Agnar were in hot pursuit, but their short dwarf legs could not match the traitors’ pace, and the two men were through the arch before the slayers had crossed half the floor.

The mercenaries ran past them, breaking from the orcs all along the west flank and fleeing after Lanquin. Many died as the greenskins surged after them and cut them down, but just as many made the archway and vanished.

Sergeant Holdborn cursed as a tide of orcs began to sweep around the now undefended west wing of the dwarf line and attack them from the rear. Felix groaned as a realisation struck him. The Slayers may have goaded Lanquin into running earlier than he had planned, but this retreat had always been part of his plan. He had always intended to take his troops to the surface and leave the dwarfs in the lurch. How else to ensure their destruction and leave himself the last man standing? His treachery was now complete.

Gotrek and Agnar abandoned Lanquin and Henrik and turned to stop the orcs, but though they fought like ten dwarfs, they were only two, and could not hold them all back.

‘Thane Thorgrin!’ roared Holdborn. ‘We are flanked! We must shore up the west!’

Thorgrin looked around, and nearly died for it as the black orcs he was facing took advantage of his distraction. Fortunately, his shieldbearers did their job, and backed him out of the arc of the orcs’ cleavers, and he returned to the fight a second later, calling out orders as he parried the greenskins’ blows.

‘Sergeant! Peel off the back rows of the Hammerers and Ironbreakers. Wheel and cap the flank! Tell the Thunderers to turn all their guns to the west!’

Holdborn bawled the orders to his troops and they stepped back and turned towards the new front with practised calm, marching at the crazed orc charge in a perfect line.

The sergeant next looked up to shout orders to the Thunderers on the balcony, but there was no need. They had already turned on their own initiative, and were firing down into the greenskins, while the cannon crews were starting to wheel their field pieces into position.

They died before they could finish the turn.

The closed door behind them smashed open and an enormous rat-ogre roared out, sweeping around with handless arms that ended in metal scythes, severing dwarf heads and impaling dwarf chests. From around the mutated monster a seething swarm of ratmen spilled onto the balcony, and the Thunderers and cannon crews fell to knives in the back and claws across the throat.

Felix cursed and ran for Gotrek and Agnar. ‘Slayers! The skaven! The skaven are here!’

15

Gotrek and Agnar looked up to the balcony as one, then jumped back from their combats and ran for the balcony stairs as the Hammerers and Ironbreakers took their place and tore into the orc advance. The torrent of skaven flooded down the stairs and slammed into the Slayers on the bottom step, but Gotrek and Agnar crushed them back like a fist to the face, snapping brass-tipped spears and rusty swords and making red ruin of the furred limbs that wielded them. Felix fell in behind, hacking down those ratmen who tried to leap over the Slayers to swarm easier prey beyond. He knocked a spearrat out of the air with a swipe from Karaghul, then spitted the belly of another as it flew at him, a verdigrised scimitar clutched in its paws.

‘Go back to the greenskins, Gurnisson,’ said Agnar, as the slayers battled step by step up the flight. ‘This is my doom. Though I did not know it, my actions aided the skaven. I have lost honour a second time, and I will die for it here.’

‘It will take more than you to close that door, Arvastsson,’ said Gotrek. ‘But I will give you the holding of it.’

Agnar nodded, and they fell silent, concentrating on mowing down the skaven and driving them back up the stairs. On the balcony above, the rat-ogre picked up one of the cannons and hurled it over the balustrade at the dwarf troops. It slammed down in the midst of a squad of Longbeards just to the left of Thane Thorgrin, crushing half of them before bouncing into the greenskin lines and flattening as many orcs.

‘Leave off, you pea-brain rodent!’ roared Agnar, as the rat-ogre bent to pick up another cannon. ‘Fight me!’

The rat-ogre ignored him and got the second gun up to his chest. With twin bellows of rage, Agnar and Gotrek redoubled their attacks and surged up the stairs, making mincemeat out of the skaven that stood in their way.

They reached the top just as the rat-ogre got the gun over its head. It roared at Gotrek as he hove up before it, and made to drop the cannon on him, but Agnar darted behind it and hamstrung it. With a howl of pain, it fell, its legs buckling, and the cannon crashed down on its chest, pinning it.

Gotrek hacked its head off and pointed at the door, where a second rat-ogre was bursting onto the balcony at the head of a second wave of skaven. ‘Go, Arvastsson. Hold it until I can seal it shut.’

‘Aye, Gurnisson,’ said the old slayer, his eyes glittering. ‘Take your time.’

And with that he charged.

The rat-ogre slashed at him with wrist-blades the size of scythes. Agnar dodged its left-hand blade and shattered the right with a chopping parry from his long axe, then followed up with an overhand smash. The rat-ogre dodged back to avoid having its head caved in and pressed into the skaven that followed it. They squealed in fear, but some squirmed by and sprang at Felix and Gotrek.

‘How will you close the door?’ asked Felix, slashing at the ratmen. ‘It’s smashed to bits.’

‘Smash it some more,’ said Gotrek.

Felix heard him grunt and risked a look back. The slayer stood under the muzzle of the last cannon, and was pulling down on it with one hand as he swept his axe around at the skaven with the other. His efforts were tipping the cannon forward and lifting its back stock off the ground so it was balanced only on its wheels, and he was leaning on it with all his strength, urging it around.

‘Keep… the rats… clear,’ Gotrek rasped. The cords of his neck stood out like taut rope.

‘Aye, Gotrek,’ said Felix, and laid into the skaven, cutting them down and kicking them out of the path of the cannon’s ponderous turning.

In the door, Agnar battered the rat-ogre back with furious blows, carving red trenches in its grey fur and shearing off its second wrist blade, but it gave as good as it got, rocking the old slayer with bone-knuckled blows and rending his flesh with its chisel-shaped claws. Agnar was reeling on his feet, and sprays of blood flew from his beard with every swing of his axe.

The lesser skaven squeezed past this titanic battle in ones and twos, ducking the flashing steel and flying fists, and charged on. Felix thought he could hold them – at least until Gotrek got the gun around – but a quick glance to the floor of the great hall and he wondered if it would matter. The dwarfs were in dire shape, with the Hammerers and Ironbreakers who had been sent to stop the flank attack nearly overrun, and Thorgrin’s retinue being pushed back almost to the balcony.

‘The orcs are winning, Gotrek.’

‘One… more… minute…’ grunted the slayer.

Facing back to cut down a pair of leaping skaven, Felix saw that Gotrek had turned the gun so it was pointing directly at the arch, and was now cranking the elevation screw vigorously and raising the barrel higher. Felix wondered if he meant to blow the rat-ogre’s head off.

A second later, he saw there would be no need.

He heard a bellow, and looked over the heads of his chittering opponents. The beast had Agnar in its grip, its claws digging deep into his flesh and snapping his ribs as it lifted him off the ground. It tried to catch his fighting arm with its other hand, but Agnar fought through the pain and swatted at the snatching claw, severing two thick fingers, then chopped down at its neck, cutting though meat and bone and arteries. The monster hissed an airless roar and dropped him to clutch at its throat. Agnar swung again as he fell, gashing open its belly so that its bloated black intestines spilled to the floor. The steaming viscera entangled the old slayer as the rat-ogre toppled. He tried to stand, but the floor was too slick. The monster’s massive skull crashed down, headbutting him and knocking him flat on his back across the threshold of the door with the rat-ogre on top of him.

Immediately, the skaven that had been trapped behind the mutated behemoth flooded out, scrambling over its body and stabbing at Agnar with spears, swords and daggers. He swept at them with his axe and fist, but there were too many, and he was too stunned. Though a handful fell to his deadly flailing, twice as many buried their blades in his naked torso, then surged on as he twitched and gouted blood. And there were more behind them – many more.

‘Gotrek!’ cried Felix as he braced for their impact.

‘Fire in the hole!’ roared Gotrek.

Felix glanced behind and saw the slayer putting a flame to the touch hole of the cannon, which was pointing directly at Felix’s head!

He yelped and ducked away, cutting down skaven as he went, before a deafening boom shook the balcony and smoke and fire blinded him. The shot was followed immediately by an even louder crack, like thunder directly overhead, and yet more shaking and booming.

Coughing and blinking, Felix looked through the smoke to see the arch of the door collapsing. Gotrek’s shot had shattered the keystone, and with its removal, the door could not support itself. Huge blocks of masonry caved in on top of shrieking skaven, and the roof of the passage beyond the door followed suit like dominoes. In seconds it was filled to the ceiling with rubble and the shrill agony of dying ratmen. The skaven sneak attack was stopped.

But as he and Gotrek clambered over the rubble to finish off the ratmen who had escaped the collapse, Felix saw that, as he had predicted, it wasn’t going to matter. The thin line of Hammerers and Ironbreakers was dead, trampled underfoot by five times their number of orcs, and now the rest of the dwarfs and men were pressed front and back by slavering greenskins.

Stinkfoot, either frustrated by his foot’s poor showing as a weapon, or emboldened by the dwarfs’ desperate situation, finally limped through his black orc bodyguards and closed with Thorgrin, swinging an axe that looked like it had been crusted with the grot from between his toes.

As he and Gotrek killed the last of the skaven, Felix looked down to see the warboss’s vile weapon flash down like a grimy lightning bolt. Thorgrin flinched back, covering his nose with his free hand, and the axe only nicked his vambrace, but it didn’t stop there. The greasy blade swept on to chop through the shield the thane stood on, splitting it in two and sending Thorgrin crashing to the ground as Stinkfoot slashed at his shieldbearers.

‘Thorgrin’s down, Gotrek,’ said Felix. ‘We better–’

With a Khazalid war cry, the slayer vaulted the balustrade and leapt down at Stinkfoot, his axe high over his head. The warboss looked up just in time to take the keen blade of the rune axe right between his beady yellow eyes. Gotrek split his head like a melon, all the way down to his underbite, then hit him high in the chest with his knees and rode his body down to the ground to roll to his feet right in the middle of his retinue of black orcs.

‘Come on, you snot heaps!’ roared Gotrek. ‘Avenge your leader!’

Felix’s heart thudded, expecting the end as all the towering orc champions turned towards the slayer, but they were looking as much at Stinkfoot’s corpse as they were at Gotrek, and when one began to advance on the slayer, raising its club, another shoved it and tried to get ahead of it. Within seconds, they were all fighting each other, fist and cleaver and headbutt, with Gotrek standing forgotten in their middle.

The slayer roared, enraged, and hacked Stinkfoot’s stinking foot off at the knee, then dug his fingers into the oozing meat of the cut to wrap them around the severed shinbone and raised it up like a club. With this foul instrument in one hand and his rune axe in the other, he laid into the brawling black orcs like a whirlwind, swatting them in the teeth with the rotting appendage, then hacking them to bits as they fell back, choking and retching.

The dwarfs and humans were not slow to take advantage of this turn of events, and rallied all along their lines, driving the orcs back and reforming into squares.

‘Sigmar,’ Felix breathed. ‘Has he done it? Has he turned the battle–?’

Before he could complete the thought, the room shook from a great impact. The orcs and dwarfs were too engaged in their battle, and didn’t seem to notice, but Felix had felt it and looked around, trying to see the source. He saw nothing out of the ordinary, and was about to start down the stairs to join Gotrek when it came again. This time he was able to pinpoint the source of the sound. It was coming from the far left end of the room. He stared into the dim distance and saw grey dust hovering near the sealed-up entrance to the lift chamber.

Another heavy boom and Felix saw the dust shiver from the arch as it shook from an impact. A fracture line appeared between the blocks of the barricade. Something was trying to smash through!

‘Gotrek!’ Felix shouted, but the clamour of battle was too loud. The slayer didn’t hear him.

‘Gotrek!’

With a final thunderous impact, the wall that sealed up the entrance exploded outward in a jumble of heavy blocks, and a shape like a glowing white hand smashed through to stagger into the room.

The White Widow had returned from its rubble grave, and both the warpstone bomb that was strapped to its back and the wrinkled skaven who rode it appeared mostly intact.

16

As the White Widow made its unsteady way towards the battle on its seven good legs and one broken one, the ancient skaven leapt from its back and scuttled away to hunch in the shattered archway, where it began waving its scrawny arms and shaking its orb-topped brass staff. A dim green light glowed to life within the orb, and Felix saw a similar light begin to glow within the matching globe on the rod that sprouted from the bomb on the spider’s back.

Felix’s insides fluttered with moths of dread as he realised that the skaven sorcerer meant to use a spell to detonate the bomb from afar!

Felix hopped over the balustrade and jumped down on the pile of black orc corpses that Gotrek had left heaped there. It wasn’t a pleasant landing, and he ended up covered in black blood and orc smell, but it was softer than the floor and quicker than the stairs. He rolled off the putrid bodies and ran through the battle, setting his sights on the White Widow and the skaven.

Two orcs slashed at him as he ran past. He ducked their blows and tried to run on, but they blocked the way. He snarled with frustration. He had to stop the sorcerer!

A rotting, bandage-covered foot hit the left orc in the face as Felix ducked its axe, and it stumbled back, gagging. Felix chopped it in the ribs, then flinched aside, his eyes watering, as the foetid foot bounced his way. Gotrek appeared next to him and finished the orc off with an axe to the chest, then turned on the second. It snarled as it swung at the Slayer, and Felix thrust Karaghul through its neck.

‘Gotrek!’ he gasped as he ran on. ‘The White Widow! The bomb! The skaven–’

‘Get the rat, manling,’ said Gotrek, shoving the dying orc out of his way as he started forward again. ‘I’ll get the spider.’

Felix ran on, pounding across the endless marble floor as the green glow in the matching orbs grew brighter and brighter. If the warpstone bomb detonated here it would not only kill everyone in the Great Hall of the Jewellers’ Guild, it would make all of the upper levels unlivable for anyone except for the skaven, who thrived on the vile stuff. For decades – perhaps centuries – to come, anything that descended into Karak Azgal would die from its eldritch emanations.

His heart thudded at the implications. Was that what the skaven had intended all along? Had they helped Stinkfoot unite the orcs and lead them against the dwarfs just so both sides would be all together in one place – an easy target for their bomb? It sounded like just the sort of thing the ratmen would do. Felix almost laughed to think of Lanquin and Henrik helping the skaven in the belief that they would share the depths with them. What had Henrik called it? A mutually beneficial relationship? The cracked and leaking bomb strapped to the back of the White Widow was proof that the ratmen wanted Karak Azgal all to themselves. Lanquin and Henrik were betrayed along with everyone else.

The skaven sorcerer backed under the broken arch as Felix sprinted at him, pulling a long bronze knife that buzzed with strange black energy. Just the drawing of it made the hair stand up on Felix’s arms, and the hum it emitted drilled into his brain.

Felix slashed at the ratmage without slowing, trying to bear it down by sheer momentum, but it slipped left with jittery speed and he missed, while its buzzing blade flicked past less than an inch from his ear.

He flinched and spun to face the sorcerer, and the blade was again in his face. He parried desperately and felt a sick trembling as the blades touched and the knife’s power crackled down Karaghul’s length. In all this, the skaven had not stopped his chant, and his staff continued to glow brighter.

Over the ratmage’s shoulder, Felix saw Gotrek hacking madly at the White Widow. The eight-legged monster slashed back just as furiously, stabbing down with its sabre-sharp forelegs and striking sparks from the marble floor. The slayer dodged past the blows and tried to close with it, aiming for the soft underbelly of its abdomen, but it skittered in a nimble circle and kept him before it.

Beyond that fight, Felix could see the battle raging on, with the dwarfs now firmly back in command, while the orc army disintegrated into a dozen squabbling warbands. The various bosses who had bowed to the power of Stinkfoot’s stinking foot, now realising that there was no leader, had all decided that they could be the leader, and all over the field, the bosses were ignoring their common enemy and turning on each other. The dwarfs were now sure to win.

It would not matter, however. It wouldn’t even matter whether Gotrek killed the White Widow. If Felix didn’t kill the skaven mage, the bomb would still blow, and all would be for naught. They would die from the blast, or worse, become twisted, mutated parodies of themselves. He had to finish it.

In desperation, he barged forward, slashing wildly, and deliberately left himself open. The skaven could not resist the bait. It stabbed at his chest.

Felix caught its stringy wrist and stopped the blade a half-inch from his chest. Hissing angrily, the mage swiped its only available weapon at him – its staff. This was what Felix had wanted. He parried the swipe with Karaghul, putting all the strength he could muster into the block, and bit deep into the brass shaft. A bright flash blinded him and leaping arcs of energy sizzled down Karaghul to paralyze his arm with stabbing shocks, but the glowing orb dimmed and fizzled.

The skaven sorcerer shrieked with rage and clubbed Felix’s head with the staff, making suns explode behind his eyes and sending him reeling into the arch. With limp arms, he raised Karaghul to defend himself, but the ratmage was turning away from him, chanting and shaking the staff at the spider, which continued to battle Gotrek.

The globe on the staff flared bright for a moment, then died completely and fell off to bounce across the floor. Chittering with fury, the skaven hurled the rest of the staff away and scampered for the White Widow, its robes flapping like dirty wings. For a second, Felix thought the mage was racing to attack Gotrek, but instead it danced between the spider’s legs and clambered onto its back.

In his stunned state, this seemed to Felix a bizarre and foolhardy thing to do. Gotrek was backing the White Widow up with every slash of his axe. He had sheared off the first yard of its left foreleg and caved in three of its eight eyes, and its thicket of mandibles was a splintered, oozing mess. But then Felix saw the skaven reaching for the lever beside the fading orb, and he realised its intent. It was going to trigger the bomb manually. It was going to blow itself up, and the rest of them with it.

Heart thumping in his chest, Felix pushed himself up and ran for the fight. ‘Gotrek! The skaven! Kill the skaven!’

The slayer was too focused to hear him, and it was too late anyway. The ratmage had grabbed the lever and was pulling on it. They were all going to die.

The lever didn’t move.

While Gotrek laid into the White Widow, meeting its every leg-slash with a hack from his axe, the skaven hauled repeatedly upon the bomb’s brass-handled switch, but nothing happened. Felix laughed with relief. The contraption must have been damaged when the roof fell in on it.

Squealing with frustration, the skaven bent closer to the mechanism, trying to find some way to unstick it and being jounced around like a flea on a hot skillet as Gotrek drove the White Widow into the lift room. Felix added his sword to the slayer’s axe, hope rising in his chest. If they could kill the spider before the skaven freed the switch, they might just have a chance.

Gotrek was bruised and running with gore from head to foot, and the little finger of his left hand was bent backwards at an alarming angle. Nevertheless, he attacked the beast in a wild fury, his one eye ablaze with savage joy, and his teeth bared in a bloody grimace.

‘The bomb, Gotrek,’ said Felix. ‘We have to stop the skaven from setting it off.’

‘Just as soon as I’m done with this spider, manling.’

‘But–’

But what other course was there? It would be impossible to reach the skaven until the White Widow was dead. Unless….

Felix looked around for something to throw at the mage, as he had done before, but the blocks that had fallen from the arch when the spider had smashed through it were too large. There was nothing the right size.

Then, suddenly, there was.

As Gotrek and Felix slashed at the spider, it reared up to avoid a blow, and its flailing forelegs cracked against the broken arch above them. A fresh course of blocks tumbled down at the impact, and smashed those that had already fallen, sending Gotrek and Felix diving aside to avoid being crushed by rubble.

The White Widow pounced upon Gotrek as he struggled to rise, stabbing at him with its one remaining foreleg, but the slayer rolled, and the sharp tip only tore his thigh instead of impaling it. Gotrek grunted and staggered up under the spider, his leg buckling, but right where he wanted to be, and he did not let pain stop him from striking true. He chopped upward with his rune axe and buried it deep in the monster’s abdomen.

The White Widow reared up like a spooked stallion and backed away, ichor gushing from the wound, and for a second time, Felix heard it scream. Gotrek limped after it, slashing at the spider’s legs where they connected to its body, and it cringed back to the edge of the lift hole, its back feet slipping off into thin air.

On the thing’s back, the ratmage was continuing to yank on the lever, still to no avail. Felix picked up a turnip-sized piece of rubble and hurled it, but missed. The White Widow was scrabbling at the edge now, clinging on desperately in the face of Gotrek’s brutal barrage, and the skaven was being jerked around like a puppet.

Gotrek’s axe burst one of the spider’s larger eyes, then crushed a mandible. ‘Come on, you oversized woodlouse!’ he roared. ‘Fight back! Slay me!’

The spider tried, but with the loss of an eye, its aim was off, and its strikes landed wide. Gotrek hacked off a leg and it jerked back, its fat abdomen hanging out over open space. Felix thought that would be the end of it, but its back legs found purchase on the filigree of the lift shaft, and it braced itself over the drop.

Felix saw the opening just as Gotrek did, and together they sprang forward to hack at the White Widow’s three middle legs, spread wide on the lip of the hole. Gotrek sheared through one, Felix cracked another, then kicked it off the edge as it drew back.

The spider listed sharply as its props fell away, and stabbed down with its remaining foreleg to catch its weight, but Gotrek chopped through that one too and it collapsed, its hammer-hard head crashing against the edge, then slipping off. The hooks of its back feet tried to hold onto the lift shaft, but its weight was too great, and they lost their grip. The White Widow fell.

Felix stepped to the edge with Gotrek and looked down as it plummeted away, bouncing and jolting off the walls. The last thing he saw before the spider vanished into the darkness was the skaven sorcerer, still pulling feverishly on the lever of the bomb.

Gotrek spat after it. ‘Interfering rats. Without the weight of that scrap yard contraption on its back, the spider might have beaten me.’

Felix nodded. ‘It would have made a grand doom.’

‘Aye,’ said Gotrek, then turned and started back into the Great Hall of the Jewellers’ Guild.

As Felix followed him, a huge shock jolted the room, bringing rocks and dust down from the high ceiling and stopping dead every combat on the field of battle as the dwarfs and orcs looked up and dodged falling rubble. Felix picked himself up from where the impact had knocked him off his feet, then scrabbled away as a giant block broke from the arch and bounced across the floor. He looked around, heart pounding. A hellish green glow was pulsing from the depths of the lift shaft.

‘Wh-what was that?’

Gotrek shrugged and kept walking. ‘The ratmage finally got that lever to work.’

17

Gotrek and Felix strode back towards the battle, but it was nearly over. Riven with infighting, the orcs had had enough, and were scattering for the promenade with the dwarfs and humans in hot pursuit. Those orcs left on the field were dead or dying under the dwarfs’ thorough throat cutting.

Gotrek ignored it all and continued towards the balcony where Agnar had met his doom. To one side, Felix saw Thorgrin on his back, his helmet off, surrounded by a circle of concerned dwarfs. A dwarf surgeon was tending to his wounds. Gotrek ignored him too, and stumped up the balcony stairs. Agnar lay dead from a score of stab wounds amongst drifts of slaughtered skaven. His legs were buried under the massive corpse of the rat-ogre he had slain, and the rubble of the collapsed doorway, but his butchered torso was uncovered and his face, in death, had a look of peace that Felix had never seen upon it in life.

Gotrek pried Agnar’s axe from his still-clenched hands, then cleared the rubble and the rat-ogre’s corpse from his legs and lifted him up as if he weighed no more than a child.

‘Bring his axe, manling.’

Felix grunted as he picked up the long-hafted weapon. It was twice as heavy as he had expected. He followed Gotrek down the stairs, then to the corridor that led to the stairs to the surface, where the dwarfs and humans were laying their dead. As Gotrek knelt and laid Agnar with the others, Thorgrin, now bandaged and splinted, limped forward with the assistance of his remaining shieldbearer.

‘Well met, slayer,’ he said. ‘I mourn that you did not find your doom as your comrade did, but I thank you for slaying the orc and the White Widow. I – we – are in your debt.’

Gotrek bowed his head over Agnar as if Thorgrin wasn’t there. ‘You have restored your honour, Arvastsson, and died as a slayer should,’ he said. ‘May Grimnir welcome you to his halls.’

Felix stepped forward to lay Agnar’s axe on his chest, but Gotrek took it. ‘No, manling,’ he said, standing and turning towards the door. ‘That axe has a vow to keep.’

Thorgrin bowed and tried again to thank him. ‘Is there any reward we could offer you? Two months’ entry into the hold with the licence waived, perhaps? Lodgings at the Golden Mug?

Gotrek stepped past him and through the door without slowing. ‘Your war isn’t over, brigand. There are still more rats to kill.’

The Grail appeared to be closed when Gotrek and Felix reached it. The front door was locked and barred, and the gate to the stable yard was chained shut. Sounds of frantic activity drifting over the high fence, however, suggested that it was not entirely empty.

Gotrek sheared through the chain with one swipe of his axe and pushed the gate open. In the yard, still soupy with mud from the recent rain, Louis Lanquin and Henrik Daschke were busily saddling and bridling a pair of horses and throwing heavy-laden saddle bags over their rumps. A pack mule was already loaded with satchels and trunks. They looked up at the noise of the gate and froze as they saw Felix and the Slayer sloshing towards them.

Henrik backed to his horse, scrabbling blindly for the reins with one hand and his sword with the other. ‘Ride,’ he said. ‘Now. The dwarf is a maniac. We must not face him.’

Lanquin smiled. ‘And we won’t.’ He drew a pair of heavy pistols from his saddle holsters and aimed them at Gotrek and Felix. ‘You should have taken my gold, dwarf. You might have died as a slayer should.’

Gotrek sneered. ‘By poison gas? That is not a slayer’s death.’

Lanquin’s cool amusement faltered as Gotrek kept walking towards him, undaunted. Henrik clutched the innkeeper’s shoulder.

‘Come on! Let’s fly!’

Lanquin shook him off. ‘I have more saddlebags to pack.’ He thumbed back the hammers on the guns. ‘Stand where you are, curse you!’

‘A loaded gun is no threat to those who are ready to die,’ growled Gotrek.

Felix wanted to remind him that some present were not quite ready to die, but at that moment Lanquin turned both guns on the slayer.

‘Then I shall unload them,’ he said.

Gotrek hurled his axe as the Bretonnian squeezed the triggers. The axe hit first, smashing into Lanquin’s shoulder, and the pistols went off at wide angles as he crashed to the mud, screaming in pain. Felix ran forward to kick the pistols from Lanquin’s hands, but Henrik leapt in his way, slashing with his sword. Felix parried the blow, then raised Karaghul to riposte.

‘Hold, manling,’ said Gotrek.

Felix held, on guard, and glanced back at him. ‘You want me to spare him? After all he’s done?’

‘Agnar Arvastsson swore that this betrayer would die by his axe. It would not be fitting to let a slayer’s last oath go unfulfilled.’ Gotrek pulled Agnar’s long axe from his back and stood before Henrik.

‘Step aside, manling.’

‘You’re going to kill me in cold blood?’ squealed the rememberer. ‘That’s murder.’

‘You have your sword. Defend yourself,’ said Gotrek.

Henrik stepped back, shaking.

‘Defend myself? Against you? That’s still murder! You know I can’t win!’

‘You should have thought of that before you betrayed the oath you took to your slayer,’ said Gotrek. ‘Now fight.’

‘No listen, slayer,’ whined Henrik. ‘I was wrong, I know that. But you don’t know–’

He stabbed for Gotrek’s throat with his sword, trying to take him by surprise. The slayer was too quick. He knocked the thrust aside with such force that the blade snapped, then buried his axe in Henrik’s chest.

Henrik coughed blood all over Gotrek’s hands as his body went rigid, then his head slumped forward and he sagged to his knees in the mud.

Felix heard splashing behind him as Gotrek pulled Agnar’s axe free, and turned to see Lanquin staggering for the back gate, his left arm red to the wrist from Gotrek’s axe cut, which had laid him open to the bone. Felix leapt after him and put himself between the Bretonnian and escape.

Lanquin held up his hands.

‘Please, I beg you,’ he sobbed. ‘I only want to leave. Take my gold, all of it!’

‘Why would we let you go when we killed Henrik?’ asked Felix. ‘You’re the worst of the lot. You colluded with the skaven to kill the dwarfs. You sent men who had sworn loyalty to you to their deaths. You tried to have us killed in the street.’

‘Yes, but what will you get if you kill me?’ It was a cold day, but the sweat was pouring from Lanquin’s brow like a river. ‘Only what I have here. Spare me and I’ll tell you where I have more. You may have it all. All my wealth!’

Gotrek retrieved his axe from where it had fallen in the mud, then stepped up to Lanquin and cleaned it on his fancy cape before sheathing it on his back beside Agnar’s.

Lanquin swallowed, hope kindling in his terrified eyes. ‘You – you’re not going to kill me?’

‘You don’t deserve a quick death, innkeep,’ rumbled the slayer, then turned towards the stables. ‘Hold him while I fetch some rope, manling. We’ll leave him for the thane.’

Lanquin whined and complained, but a minute later they had tied him to a hitching post and were examining the contents of the saddle bags and trunks as he wept quietly behind them. There was a fortune of gold coins in the satchels, and a treasure trove of jewel-studded crowns, armour and weapons that looked like they had been worn by dwarf kings and princes in the mule’s packs and trunks, items far too fine for the thane to have ever allowed to be taken from the hold.

‘Hmmm,’ said Felix, looking at a jewelled comb that might have bought a townhouse in Altdorf. ‘Take the relics back to Thorgrin and keep the coin?’

Gotrek grunted. ‘It’s more than the brigand deserves, but who wants to lug all that around? Maybe just… this.’

He took a sturdy gold bracelet and slipped it around his wrist, then sealed the saddlebags and slung them over his shoulder. Felix shouldered the other set and grunted to his feet under its weight. He gave Lanquin a sly salute, then led the pack mule out of the stable after Gotrek – where they came face to face with Thane Thorgrin, Sergeant Holdborn, and a phalanx of dwarf constables. A rough crowd of mercenaries and treasure hunters had gathered behind the dwarfs to see what had brought the thane of Skalf’s Keep to the stinking streets of Deadgate.

Thorgrin bowed politely as he looked past them into the yard. ‘It seems we owe you another debt, slayer. You have detained the villain who masterminded this whole false war.’ He nodded to the saddlebags and the pack mule. ‘And I see that you have already chosen your reward. Very good. For all that you have done, you deserve it.’

Gotrek just glared at him, so Felix bowed for the both of them. ‘Thank you, thane. And we have also–’

‘There is the small matter of the tax, however,’ said Thorgrin, speaking over him. ‘As you know, all treasures taken within the confines of Karak Azgal are subject to a ten per cent tax, and if they are of particular historical significance to the hold they may not be taken at–’

‘You mealy-mouthed thief!’ snarled Gotrek. ‘We were bringing it back to you! Here. We don’t want it!’

He took the reins of the mule from Felix and handed them to Thorgrin.

‘It’s all yours.’

The thane stared as the dwarf constables took down and opened the trunks and revealed the great treasures within, then turned back to Gotrek and Felix and bowed again. ‘The return of such important relics is a fine and noble gesture, heroes, and I am humbled by it, but, may I ask, what do you carry in the other saddlebags?’

The veins in Gotrek’s neck were throbbing, and his face was turning a dangerous red. Felix stepped ahead of him, speaking quickly.

‘It is nothing from Karak Azgal. We took it from Lanquin. Gold coins. His profits from the Grail, I would guess.’

‘No doubt,’ said Thorgrin. ‘And you are welcome to it, b-but–’ He stuttered as Gotrek fixed him with his blazing single eye, then continued. ‘But, you seem to be under a misapprehension about the boundaries of Karak Azgal. It is not just the deeps, but also Skalf’s Keep and Deadgate. The tax applies to treasures found here as well. If you would allow us to count–’

Gotrek exploded. ‘You cheap chiseller! I came here to seek my doom, not to hunt treasure.’ He ripped open the saddlebags, then snatched Felix’s from his shoulder and did the same to them. ‘If you want your ten per cent, take it.’

And with that he hurled the open saddlebags over the heads of the thane and the constables and into the crowd. The gold coins flew everywhere, and the mob immediately cried out and dropped to their knees to scrabble in the mud for them.

As the constables strode into the confusion, bellowing for everyone to stop, Gotrek picked up the trunks carrying the ancient crowns and axes and armour and threw them too, spilling the ‘important relics’ into the muck, to the horror of Thorgrin, but the wild delight of the crowd.

Felix laughed as the thane sputtered and gaped. It was worth the loss of the gold to see the look on his face.

‘Slayer!’ Thorgrin cried. ‘This is an outrage! You have deprived the council of its rightful–’

Gotrek pulled Agnar’s axe off his back, and the thane stepped backwards, wary.

‘Will you attack me now?’ he cried. ‘What do you want?’

Gotrek slashed down with the axe and planted its blade in the mud at Thorgrin’s feet. ‘I want you to bury that with the body of Slayer Agnar Arvastsson, the only dwarf or man I met in this cesspit who wasn’t a thief.’

The slayer turned away from the stricken thane and started for the town gate.

‘Come on, manling. This place stinks.’

A Cask of Wynters

Josh Reynolds

‘Snorri is working up a thirst!’ Snorri Nosebiter shouted as he gleefully brought his hammer down on the pointed skull of a goblin. The goblin made a sound like mud squelching underfoot and dropped to the forest floor. It spasmed as Snorri stepped over it and wrenched his hatchet out of its companion. The second goblin toppled forwards from where Snorri’s thrown axe had impaled it against a scrub pine. Wiping the blade against his breeches, he took in the scene.

The goblins had sprung their ambush with all the cunning of born backstabbers. A full thirty of the stunted humanoids had raced from concealment the moment Snorri and his companions had begun their ascent of the slope. Clad in filthy cloaks and hoods covered in branches and leaves, the goblins were obviously old hands at ambushing merchants brave enough to use a route other than the Old Dwarf Road through Black Fire Pass.

Unfortunately for them, Snorri and his companions were anything but merchants. Case in point, Volg Staahl of Averheim, the leader of the impromptu expedition. Staahl was sometimes called ‘the Voluminous’; he was a big man with an even bigger voice. Clad in battered plate-mail, he roared out a bawdy drinking song as he swept three goblins off their feet with one swing of his massive sword.

‘Haha! Hurry up, Slayer. Winner buys the drinks!’ Staahl bellowed, his ginger beard coated with goblin blood. Near to him, all three of his fellow knights were giving a good account of themselves. But then, the templars of the Order of the Black Bear had had plenty of practice fighting goblins. Indeed, other than halfling coursing, it was their favourite pastime. Staahl and his brother knights had left the warm alehouses of Averheim for the cold peaks of Black Fire Pass on a mission of honour, as well as by the request of the final member of their party.

A few feet away from the knights, the individual in question drove the wicked hook that had replaced his left hand into a goblin’s ear and broke the creature’s scrawny neck with a vicious jerk. He was a dwarf and, like Snorri, a Slayer, though his crest was a small thing yet and his beard had yet to recover fully from its ritual shearing in the Temple of Grimnir. He called himself Grudi Halfhand, though the brothers of the Black Bear knew him by a different name.

Once, Grudi had been Grudi Wynters, son of Olgep Wynters, Master-Brewer and personal friend of Caspian Rodor, former Grandmaster of the Order of the Black Bear. Now, both Rodor and Wynters were dead, and the brewery with them. That was why they were all here today, fighting goblins on the scrub slopes of the Black Mountains.

Whistling cheerfully, Snorri trotted towards the melee, the fading sunlight glinting off the trio of nails hammered into the crown of his skull. ‘Save some for Snorri, fatty!’ he said, picking up speed. The Slayer catapulted himself at the last moment, hurling himself into the goblin ranks like a thunderbolt, his hatchet and hammer swinging.

‘Don’t call me fatty, stumpy!’ Staahl growled, plucking a goblin up and snapping its neck. He tossed the carcass at Snorri and it bounced off the Slayer’s massive shoulders. Snorri laughed unapologetically and stamped on a goblin.

The goblin gave a strangled squeak, and then silence fell on the slope. Snorri looked around, disappointment settling on him like a cloak. ‘Oh. Are they all dead then?’

‘No. Some of them buggered off,’ one of the knights said wearily, sinking into a sitting position on a dry log. He removed his helmet and ran a hand through his sweaty hair. Big and blond, Angmar of Nordland was a novice of the order, though his sour expression spoke of a man with more than his share of experiences, and most of those bad. ‘Still alive, brothers?’ he continued. The other two knights answered back, one after the next. They were a motley duo, even among the less than orderly ranks of the Knights of the Black Bear.

‘I yet live, and the ladies of Averheim can rest easy,’ said Flanders Drahl, a beautifully moustachioed student of the Marienburg school of duelling for fun and profit. He carried not a longsword but a rapier, and wore only a light hauberk of leather and ringmail. Near him was Grim Hogan, a Kislevite with a face like a stormcloud and a heavy mace that was stained with blood.

‘Pah. Goblins. They are no threat,’ he grunted. ‘They flee like rats at the slightest sign of resistance.’

‘And why wouldn’t they flee? We are mighty warriors, are we not?’ Grudi Halfhand barked, thumping his bare chest with his hook. He blanched a moment later, and spent a tense few seconds trying to extricate the tip of his prosthesis from the meat of his tattooed chest. Snorri chuckled and the other Slayer glared at him. ‘Well, some of us are mighty warriors,’ he said nastily. ‘Others are just senile old rust-skulls!’

‘Right now Snorri doesn’t feel mighty so much as thirsty,’ Snorri said, ignoring the jibe. ‘Where is this brewery of yours, Grudi Halfhand? Where is the cask of Wynters you promised Snorri?’

‘It is here, Nosebiter. Just up the slope,’ Grudi said, running the curve of his hook across his bristly crest. ‘Right where I left–’ He stopped and flushed. ‘Right where I last saw it.’

Snorri grunted. The two Slayers were as different as night and day: Grudi was young and eager to die, while Snorri was… Snorri.

Bigger and wider than most dwarfs, Snorri Nosebiter was a barrel of muscle covered in equal parts scar-tissue and tattoos. His crest, composed of three orange nails, had once been brightly painted, but it had since become tarnished, chipped and rusty. Grudi wondered whether the latter was at least partially responsible for Snorri’s distinct lack of precociousness. Rust on the brain couldn’t be anything other than harmful. But then, the same could be said of the nails.

‘Snorri thinks we should find that beer, Grudi Halfhand,’ Snorri continued, slapping one tree-trunk thigh with his hammer. ‘Killing goblins makes Snorri thirsty.’

‘Everything makes Snorri thirsty!’ Grudi said, waving his hook under Snorri’s nose. ‘Breathing makes Snorri thirsty! If Snorri needed a drink so badly, he should have stayed in Averheim!’

‘And what fun would that have been, when all of Snorri’s friends were here?’ Snorri said.

‘We’re glad to have old Snorri aren’t we, lads?’ Staahl said, clapping a hand on Snorri’s shoulder. ‘Anyone who can outdrink twelve cubs of the order in a single night is a worthy companion on this quest!’

‘I still say he cheated,’ Hogan said. ‘A hollow leg, perhaps.’

‘The only thing hollow on Snorri is his head,’ Grudi said, his hook still waving under Snorri’s nose.

‘Don’t make fun of Snorri,’ Snorri said gently, pushing the hook away. ‘You haven’t earned the right.’ Grudi hesitated, and then drew his hook back. He swallowed thoughtfully. It was easy to forget that the old Slayer had survived more than his share of battles, even as dim as he was. They said Snorri had fought a daemon once, or at least survived an encounter with one. Grudi, in contrast, had had his hand bitten off by an orc. It had been a big orc, but still… Not quite so glorious, all things considered. ‘Only Snorri’s friends can make fun of him,’ Snorri continued, looking around.

‘Snorri must have plenty of friends then,’ Grudi muttered.

‘One or two,’ Snorri said, giving Grudi a gap-toothed grin. The grin faded as the Slayer recalled the last time he had seen Gotrek Gurnisson and Felix Jaeger. He had been dragged into a glowing portal by a hurricane of daemonic tendrils, and Gotrek had, unfortunately, rescued him. Catapulted out of the portal, he had collided with the wizard Max Schreiber and been knocked unconscious. When he and the wizard had come to, both Gotrek and Felix were gone and the portal had been dark.

Where the duo had gone, or what their eventual fate had been, Snorri did not know. Schreiber’s magic could not find them, and though Snorri had made a pilgrimage of Gotrek’s old haunts, no one had heard from the one-eyed Slayer. It had been three years since then, and Snorri was coming to think that Gotrek had just possibly met his doom at last.

Which would be just like Gotrek as well: selfish to the last, hogging a mighty doom and leaving poor Snorri to settle for something more boring. Because whatever else you could say about Gurnisson, it was a certainty that he was destined for an end worthy of at least two sagas; possibly three. ‘Though Snorri would like a saga too,’ he muttered. ‘Just a little one.’

‘What?’ Grudi said, looking askance at him.

‘Snorri was saying that he hates goblins. They give Snorri the runs something awful.’

Grudi turned with his mouth open to ask the obvious question. Seeing the look of innocent obliviousness on Snorri’s face, he stopped short and drove past it. ‘We all hate grobi,’ he said. ‘Even other grobi hate grobi.’

‘These goblins were foragers,’ Drahl said, kicking one of the bodies. ‘Orcs will send them out to catch game of one size or another.’

‘Then they’re still up there,’ Hogan said. ‘How many was it again, Halfhand? A hundred? Three?’ He looked at the younger Slayer, his eyes as hard as flint. ‘How many took the brewery?’

‘No more than a dozen after we got through with them!’ Grudi protested.

‘Snorri will take the first six then,’ Snorri said, scratching at his head with his hatchet. ‘You lot can split the rest.’

‘Hardly fair,’ Staahl rumbled. ‘One for each?’

‘Have them all, if you like. My only concern is the honour of our order,’ Angmar said. ‘I intend to see that we get what is ours.’ He stood and replaced his helmet. ‘Come on. If we’re going to fight orcs, I’d rather not do it in the dark.’

‘Spoilsport,’ Snorri said, stuffing his weapons into his belt. ‘Snorri once fought an orc with both eyes covered in dung.’

‘Was this before or after you routed a daemon horde in the Chaos Wastes?’ Grudi said, waggling his eyebrows. ‘Or was it around the time you crawled down a dragon’s gullet and killed it with its own fangs?’

‘After. And before,’ Snorri said, peering hard at the other dwarf. ‘Are you making fun of Snorri again?’

‘No,’ Grudi said firmly, resting his axe on his shoulder. He looked at the knights. ‘If we hurry, we can reach the brewery by dusk.’

‘Perfect!’ Staahl said, rubbing his hands together. ‘Just in time for a drink, eh, Snorri?’ he continued, nudging the Slayer. ‘We’ll drink to old Rodor’s memory. Him and mad, bad Leitdorf!’ Grandmaster Rodor had fallen in battle alongside the former Elector Count of Averland, Marius Leitdorf, battling an orc invasion the previous year.

It was the dregs of that same invasion that had caused the death of Olgep Wynters and taken the second-best brewery ever produced by the elder race for themselves. Snorri shuddered slightly, thinking of all that ale and beer going to waste in grobi gullets. If that wasn’t a crime worthy of a grudge he didn’t know what was.

‘Snorri doesn’t just want a drink. He wants Wynters,’ he said, rubbing his palm over the flat heads of his nail crest. The knights murmured in agreement. As a friend of their order, Wynters had supplied them with enough drink to drown a village, a gift the boisterous knights never took for granted. There were few enough places that would serve them in Averheim these days thanks to their penchant for un-knightly behaviour, and a ready supply of alcohol was considered a necessity by the members of the order.

But Wynters’ Own was special. It was rumoured to be the perfect blend of tastes and ingredients, a drink that even the dwarf gods themselves would fall to fighting over.

Grudi made a face. ‘And if the greenskins have left any, you’re welcome to it. It’ll be the last of it, and likely all the sweeter because of that,’ the young Slayer said grimly. ‘I’m the last of my clan, and I’ll brew no more.’ He gestured uphill. ‘Let us go.’

As the group set off, Snorri ambled alongside Staahl. The big knight looked down at Snorri and said, ‘Is it really as good as they say?’

‘Better, Snorri thinks,’ Snorri said, smacking his lips. ‘Wynters was almost as good as Bugman’s Best. Makes Snorri’s mouth tingle just to think of it.’

‘No wonder old Rodor had himself sealed inside a cask of it when he popped off,’ Staahl said, shaking his head. ‘Should have seen the party we had to celebrate his passing, my friend. It was a glorious thing. Glorious!’ This last was said in a roar that set the birds to flying from the trees.

Angmar whirled. ‘Quiet, you great oaf!’

‘Is that any way to talk to your Grandmaster?’ Staahl blustered.

‘When that Grandmaster is you? Yes!’

‘He’s loud,’ Snorri said.

Staahl nodded. ‘And unpleasant. You’d think he’d show me a bit of respect, considering my august status.’ Staahl had been voted into position as head of the diminutive order after a drinking contest that had lasted for forty-eight hours. As the last man with seniority standing (or swaying), he’d taken Rodor’s seat for his own.

It was during this same contest that Rodor’s body had been ceremoniously stuffed into a cask of Wynters XVI in a ritual overseen by the old brew-master himself. On the anniversary of Rodor’s death, every man in the order was to take a ceremonial drink from the grave-cask of Caspian Rodor. No man alive had ever tasted such a batch, it being reserved for dwarf kings and heroes. There were many stories as to how Rodor had warranted such treatment, but as to which was true, no one could say save Olgep Wynters, and he was dead.

Unfortunately, when the brewery had fallen to the greenskins, the grave-cask had fallen with it. A fact that the notoriously inobservant order had been unaware of until the newly shorn and christened Grudi Halfhand had shown up on the very day his father was due to escort the cask to the Averheim chapter-house and told his sad tale.

Now, the Grandmaster of the order and his chosen honour-guard (or, rather, those sober enough to make the trip) intended to get both the body and the beer back, though not necessarily in that order. And if they happened to help Grudi Halfhand free his father’s brewery from the clutches of its new owners, so much the better.

‘Would the both of you be quiet?’ Angmar said, glaring at them both. ‘I’d rather not wade through orcs unless we have to.’

‘Snorri thinks that perhaps he doesn’t understand much about being a knight,’ Snorri said, frowning. Staahl gave another booming laugh.

‘Certainly not my kind of knight, no!’ He threw back his head and began to sing a bawdy song. One by one, the other knights joined him, as did Snorri, who sang with more energy than rhythm. Angmar and Grudi exchanged a look. The young knight shrugged. He had acted as an aide to Rodor, before he’d got his skull pulped by a troll, and had functioned in the same capacity for Staahl ever since. He well knew his elder’s quirks and peculiarities.

Grudi, on the other hand, had only been travelling with Snorri Nosebiter for a few weeks. The older Slayer had joined him as he travelled down the Old Dwarf Road towards Averheim, fresh from his oath-taking at the Shrine of Grimnir. So far, despite Snorri’s relative infamy, the young dwarf was unimpressed.

‘This is not an occasion for singing,’ he said, glaring at the group. ‘Not unless it’s a dirge,’ he amended.

‘You are sourer than Snorri’s old friend Gotrek,’ Snorri said. ‘He once scowled so hard his eye popped out.’

‘What?’

Snorri mimed his eye popping out of the socket and flashed his worn teeth in a grin. ‘Snorri saw it happen.’

‘I’ve read one of Herr Jaeger’s pamphlets,’ Drahl said. The handsome knight stroked his moustaches speculatively. ‘I thought Gurnisson lost his eye fighting wolf riders.’

‘Felix Jaeger is – was – a good man. Good fighter. Bad poet,’ Snorri said, shaking his head. ‘Granted, Gotrek put his eye back after Snorri saw it pop out, so he could have lost it later…’ He shot a glance at Grudi. ‘Grudi Halfhand is still sour, though.’

‘And don’t I have reason to be?’ Grudi snarled, his patchy beard bristling with rage. He thrust his hook at the sky. ‘The grobi took my hand, my home and my honour! You may not take your vows seriously, rust-skull, but I do!’

It was Snorri’s turn to bristle. He squinted at the other Slayer and rested his hands on his weapons. ‘Snorri takes his vows very seriously, beardling,’ he said quietly, his eyes dark with old memories. Grudi suddenly recalled the other stories about Snorri Nosebiter: not the ones about his deeds, but about his shame. About how Snorri had been so determined to make right his wrongs that he had taken three nails from the Shrine of Grimnir and hammered them into his own head in order to hold the memory of his shame forever foremost in his thoughts. It took a determined dwarf to shear his beard; it took a mad one to perforate his own skull.

‘I never said you didn’t,’ Grudi said, keenly aware of the knights gathered around. He raised his hand in a placating manner and stepped back. Snorri relaxed instantly, his grin returning and his shoulders slumping.

‘Oh. Well, in that case, Snorri thinks we should keep going.’

The slope grew steeper as they continued on, and the scrub trees grew thicker. They pressed together so closely that what sunlight was left in the sky had to fight fiercely to squeeze through the branches. The knights had the hardest time of it, clad in their heavy armour. Even Drahl, who was wearing the lightest mail, was puffing slightly. The order, like all warriors of their ilk, usually rode horses. Averland was known for the quality of its horseflesh, and the Knights of the Black Bear got their pick. Unfortunately, the mountains were no place for horses.

As such, the knights had been forced to forgo their dwarf-forged plate mail in favour of less refined heavy cuirasses and helms that had been crafted by the foremost Averheim blacksmiths. However, it was still a load to carry, even for a strong man. In contrast, the dwarfs marched clad only in ragged trousers and jerkins, like true Slayers. Armour would have only prevented them from reaching their ultimate goal: their doom.

It was a goal that Grudi seemed eager for, even above and beyond his oath. Snorri watched the younger Slayer and felt a vague sense of annoyance at the downright suicidal eagerness the other dwarf displayed as he stumped along. Grudi Halfhand was on a mission to find a specific doom, at a specific time, and as they drew ever closer to their goal, his pace increased and his eyes grew ever-madder.

It was a madness Snorri recognised, however dimly. He had possessed it once himself, before one drink or one blow to the head too many had put a soft blanket of dullness over his wits and memories. Nowadays he could only recall the vaguest of sensations, and the phantom presences of a dwarf woman and a child haunted his all too frequent bouts of sobriety, when he couldn’t exorcise them with drink or pain.

Blunt fingers stroked the largest of the pale scars that curled across his massive chest. He couldn’t for the life of him remember where they had come from, though he recalled that Gotrek had been there. And a daemon… A big, red one. Snorri shook his head and hurried to catch up with Grudi. It wouldn’t do to be beaten to his doom by a beardling.

‘Tell us about it,’ Drahl said suddenly.

‘What?’ Grudi said, glancing at the knight.

‘The brewery. What happened? You didn’t really say…’

‘Not that he needed to. Orcs happened, popinjay,’ Hogan grunted, thumping his mace against his thigh. ‘We all know what that’s like well enough.’

Grudi frowned and scratched at his crest. ‘We saw the goblins first. They crept through the tunnels beneath the brewery like vermin. We thought it was just an isolated raid… The grobi love beer and ale.’

‘Considering the fungus-squeezings they usually drink, I don’t blame them,’ Staahl said. He tugged at his beard. ‘I’d attack a brewery for a good beer after a diet of that rot.’

‘It wasn’t just goblins, though,’ Grudi went on. ‘As they fell on us from within, the orcs assaulted our walls from without. Not many of them, but enough. We were only forty dwarfs, good and true, and they were three times our number.’

‘Sound like good odds to Snorri,’ Snorri said.

Grudi shot him a poisonous look. ‘It would. But we weren’t Slayers. Not then, anyway,’ he continued, looking slightly embarrassed. ‘We weren’t warriors. We were brewers and vintners. Merchants.’ He looked helpless for a moment, and Staahl cleared his throat.

‘Never mind that. We will teach them the error of their ways, young master dwarf.’ Staahl slapped him on the shoulder, causing the unprepared Grudi to nearly lose his balance. ‘And we will get our grave-cask back as well!’

Despite the momentary boost in morale, by the time the sun drifted over the rim of the tallest mountain peaks, disappearing in a burst of orange radiance, the knights were wheezing and staggering. Angmar called a halt, his pale features flushed crimson and his blond locks plastered to his skull with sweat.

‘We must stop,’ he said.

Grudi spun, his eyes bulging. ‘No! We’re almost there!’

‘And a load of bollocks that’ll do us if we’re too tired to stand when we get there!’ Staahl said, gasping like a beached fish. He squatted, his hands on his knees, his head bent. ‘I was not meant to march, but to fight.’

‘But–’ Grudi began.

‘We will scout ahead,’ Snorri said. He caught the other Slayer by the shoulder. ‘Let the manlings rest, Grudi Halfhand.’ He tapped his nose. ‘Snorri thinks dwarf noses are more useful for finding beer than the eyes of men anyway, eh?’

The other Slayer allowed himself to be pulled away. ‘We are so close,’ he muttered.

‘Aye. But men tire quickly. Snorri has fought beside them often and he knows this to be true,’ Snorri said genially. ‘Let them rest. We will kill the grobi who have been following us since we crested the rise.’

‘What?’ Grudi said, looking alarmed.

‘You didn’t know?’ Snorri shook his head and pulled on a ragged earlobe. ‘You need to learn to listen, beardling, or else you’ll never earn a mighty doom.’ He yanked his weapons from his belt and slammed the heads together. ‘Listen.’

From between the trees echoed the gentle padding of heavy paws. Grudi’s nostrils flared as he caught a whiff of wolf-musk. ‘Grobi are smart,’ Snorri said. ‘Sneaky-smart, not dwarf-smart, but smart. They watch and learn. They were waiting for us to make camp. If an ambush doesn’t work in the light, try it again in the dark.’

The first wolf lunged out from between the trees, its foaming muzzle closing on Grudi’s prosthesis with a loud clang. Mounted precariously on its back, a goblin thrust a spear at the dwarf. Grudi yelped and grabbed the spear, hauling it and its wielder off the wolf and tossing them away.

‘Get it off! Get it off!’ Grudi said, trying to shake the wolf from his hook. For its part, the animal scrabbled at Grudi’s arm and chest, its claws scraping red lines across his flesh.

‘Snorri is busy, do it yourself,’ Snorri said, as two more wolves leapt at him out of the darkness. His hammer sang out, crushing the skull of one and sending its green-skinned rider spilling off. His hatchet skimmed the head of the second and sent the goblin rider flying back, its intestines trailing after it like a ragged cloak.

Shrill cries split the night as more wolves bounded forwards. Snorri grabbed the scruff of the second wolf’s neck and sent the beast hurtling into the newcomers. All of the animals went down in a snapping, snarling tangle. Snorri spun as the goblin whom he’d forcibly de-wolfed sprang up, a crude spear in its knobbly fingers. The blade carved a thin trench in Snorri’s cheek as it went past. Growling, Snorri slapped it aside and brought both his weapons around, pulping the goblin’s skull.

Grudi, meanwhile, had finally dislodged the wolf and had snapped its neck, though it had gnawed his fingers bloody. Flexing his hand, he lashed out with his hook, decapitating a goblin that got too close. He drew his axe and made ready as more wolves rushed out of the trees. They loped around him, their riders glaring at him with hatefully glittering eyes. There were a dozen of them.

Then, suddenly, three fewer as a longsword flashed, lopping off a trio of bat-eared heads. ‘Ho Averheim! Ho Leitdorf!’ Staahl bellowed, stomping on a wolf that was too slow to get out of the way. Red-faced and sweating, Staahl kicked wildly at another wolf as he swung his sword over his head in an undignified manner.

‘Feeling rested, fatty?’ Snorri said, head-butting a wolf and sending fangs flying.

‘Just didn’t want you to meet your doom before you poured me that beer you owed me,’ Staahl said. From behind him came the battle-cries of the other knights as they joined the fray. Hogan’s mace crushed skulls as Drahl’s sword danced across scrawny bodies, and Angmar’s own, rather more blunt, blade-work did for the rest.

The remaining wolves scattered a few moments later, racing off into the night with mournful howls, their riders either dead or dying. ‘Wonderful,’ Angmar said. ‘They know we’re coming now!’

‘Doubtful,’ Staahl wheezed. ‘And so what if they do?’

‘There’ll be an army on our heads, that’s what!’ Angmar snapped. ‘How will we get Rodor’s body then, eh?’

‘Well, if we stand here yammering it’s not going to make much difference,’ Grudi said, wrenching his axe out of a wolf’s head. ‘If you delicate manlings are rested, we can go.’

‘In the dark?’ Drahl said.

‘Brighter than a tunnel lit by candles,’ Snorri said. ‘Trust our noses, manlings.’

The two Slayers started off through the trees, following a trail only they could see. Soon enough, the sound of running water reached even the ears of the knights. Angmar silently motioned for a halt. The Slayers crouched and Snorri reached out with his hammer and pushed aside a thorn bush.

Below them, a sturdy, three-storey building rose out from the rock of the mountain-side. It crouched over a softly rushing mountain stream, and the stink of goblins hung heavy on the air. ‘The secret of a good brew is in the water, my father said,’ Grudi murmured, his face stiff with anguish. ‘One of many secrets that will be lost tonight.’

‘You sound certain of your doom,’ Angmar said, shuffling up to join them. ‘Maybe you’ll survive, like Snorri here.’

Snorri glanced at Angmar, a stricken expression on his face. ‘What has Snorri ever done to you, manling?’

‘I just meant–’

‘You lack politesse, Angmar. This is why I’m Grandmaster, by the by,’ Staahl rumbled. He patted Snorri awkwardly on the shoulder. ‘I’m sure you’ll get your brains dashed out, my stumpy companion.’

‘Truly?’ Snorri said, brightening.

‘Of course! We’re all likely to die, after all,’ Staahl said. ‘But at least we won’t die sober. Break out the Bear’s Milk!’ he continued, turning to his men. The other knights began to rummage in their packs or at their belts, and one by one they extracted wineskins and miniature casks.

Angmar sighed and did the same, unstoppering a clay bottle. ‘Must we?’

‘Tradition,’ Staahl said. ‘I brought plenty,’ he went on, tossing two more skins to Snorri. ‘One for each of our stunted brothers.’

Grudi bristled at the comment on his height, but Snorri slapped the skin into his arms before he could comment. The dwarf looked down at the skin curiously. ‘What is it?’

‘Tradition!’ Staahl said again.

‘Fermented bear’s milk and vodka,’ Angmar said, upending his bottle.

‘Tradition,’ the other knights said in unison, swigging from their various containers.

‘Pah!’ Staahl said, dragging the back of his hand across his mouth. ‘Now, let us see what there is to see.’ He leaned over the dwarfs and peered at the darkened brewery. It had been, for lack of a better term, corrupted. Orcish graffiti was splashed across the walls in substances too foul to name, and crude wooden sigils were nailed to the shutters and doors. Huts made of mud and stone had been built up against the brewery as the orcs’ numbers swelled. In the darkness, a number of cooking fires gleamed and heavy shapes moved through and around the building.

‘Orcs,’ Snorri said. ‘Good.’

‘There are more of them than I thought there’d be. Why are they all still here?’ Drahl said.

‘Who can say?’ Hogan said. ‘Maybe they’ve taken up brewing.’ Grudi stared at him in horror.

‘Orcs know a good thing when they see it,’ Staahl said. He frowned and took another swig of Bear’s Milk. ‘I’d wager your father had a century’s worth of beer and ale stored in there, wouldn’t you say?’

‘More. We had the largest stores this side of Barak Varr,’ Grudi said proudly. ‘That stream runs underneath the brewery and into the guts of the mountains. We sank hundreds of kegs and casks into the silt to stay cool. They’re all still there.’

‘If the orcs haven’t gotten to them,’ Angmar said. He burped and shook his head. ‘No. There’s something going on down there. Listen.’

They did so, and were rewarded with the sound of squabbling. It echoed from the rocks and soon enough there came the sound of weapons clashing. A wolf yelped piteously somewhere as something heavy crashed to the ground. Then there was a roar that shook them all down to the soles of their boots.

‘What is it?’ Grudi said, trying to make out what was happening. ‘What’s going on?’

‘It’s been almost a year since they took the brewery. Like as not the brutes are having a falling out. Let’s get down there before they kill each other,’ Staahl said.

‘Surely you mean “after”,’ Angmar said.

‘Definitely the other one,’ Snorri said, hopping to his feet. He threw himself down the slope, his weapons in his hands. The knights gave a drunken cheer and, at Staahl’s bellowed command, followed the Slayer.

The orcs had no sentries as such: a few goblins roamed the outskirts of the camp, but they turned and fled, squealing the alarm as Snorri thundered towards them. The first orc to exit its hut got a clout with the Slayer’s hammer that crushed its skull. The second, more swift than its predecessor, locked axes with Snorri and the two strained against one another as battle was joined.

Snorri smashed his head into the orc’s own and the brute staggered. Then, with a growl, it reciprocated. Snorri shook his head to clear it and grabbed the orc by its filthy hauberk and gave it another headbutt. Tusks flew and the brute slumped in Snorri’s hands. Dropping it, he wiped blood off his brow and turned. A third orc brought a heavy maul down and Snorri was forced to hurl himself aside as it pulverised the orc he’d knocked out. Dragging the weapon up for another blow, the orc turned to follow Snorri and ran right into his axe. Grinning, Snorri jammed it in further and then extricated it, covering himself in green blood in the process.

Snatching the maul before it could hit the ground, he spun in a circle and let it fly. It caught an orc on the run and sent it flying into the stream. Snorri picked up his own hammer and looked around for more opponents.

Nearby, Grudi was methodically driving his hook into what had been the throat of the orc he straddled. Staahl and his knights had crashed into the few orcs that had tried to make an organised stand, and as Snorri watched, the big man swept his sword through his opponent’s belly. Surprised, and without the advantage of numbers, the orcs were proving little match for the men.

‘This doesn’t make sense,’ Drahl said, kicking a twitching orc off his blade. ‘Where are the others? This camp should have three times this number of the monsters.’ He looked around. ‘Where are the alarms? What’s going on?’

‘Maybe they heard us coming and fled,’ Staahl said.

As the last of the creatures fell, Grudi bounded towards the great doors of the brewery. They had been smashed off their hinges and then repaired in the primitive fashion common to orc buildings. Without pausing, he snatched up an orc and crashed into the doors, using the body as a battering ram.

‘Father! I have returned!’ he cried.

‘Snorri thinks that was perhaps a bad idea,’ Snorri said.

‘Oh?’ said Staahl.

There was another roar, louder than the one they’d heard earlier, and then the young Slayer came hurtling back out of the doors, his limp body bouncing off a pine and tumbling to the ground. Snorri nodded thoughtfully. ‘Yes.’

‘Troll!’ Angmar cried, gesturing with his sword. And it was. Something big and foul that stank of stagnant water and mouldy stone shouldered its way out of the doors, a ragged harness dangling from its bloated body.

‘Big troll,’ Hogan said, gripping his mace tightly.

‘River troll,’ Snorri said, grinning eagerly. He trotted towards the beast, rotating his wrists as if warming up for the fight to come. He leapt forwards, embedding his axe deep into the meat of the creature’s side. It shrieked and clawed at him with webbed talons. Using his axe as a makeshift piton, Snorri swung himself onto the troll’s back and grabbed a handful of the harness it wore.

‘Snorri would like to play you a melody,’ he said, cocking his hammer back. He brought it down between the troll’s flared ears with every ounce of strength he could muster. The beast stumbled and shook its head. Snorri hit it again and again. Each blow gave the creature pause, but none put it down. Grunting in frustration, Snorri reached down and ripped his axe free and chopped down on the troll’s thick neck. Talons tore at him as he whipped the hammer back and struck the head of the axe, driving it deeper into the troll’s flesh. The monster gargled as it wobbled in a circle, trying to pull Snorri off.

The others had shaken off their shock at the sight of the troll and were moving to help. Soon enough a ring of swords encircled the beast. But Staahl stopped them from doing anything more. ‘Hold! Let the Slayer find his doom, if he’s able,’ the big man said.

‘Thanks, fatty,’ Snorri said, grabbing one of the troll’s ears. He turned until he was squatting on its skull and whacked the axe again. The troll reached up and grabbed him, yanking him off and slamming him to the ground. Gasping, Snorri fought to pry its fingers off as it opened its mouth and the smell of bile washed over him.

Then, the troll made a comical sound, halfway between a burp and a whimper, and its head popped off its axe-weakened neck, propelled on a stream of boiling vomit. Snorri scrambled aside as the head crashed down where he’d lain only moments earlier.

He got to his feet and kicked the head aside. ‘That was fun. Snorri has worked up quite a thirst,’ he said, yanking his axe free of the troll’s bulk and walking towards the brewery. ‘Someone get Grudi Halfhand up. Snorri wants his Wynters!’

‘There is no Wynters!’ Grudi snarled as Angmar helped him to his feet. The younger Slayer’s face was consumed by a purple bruise, and he was missing several teeth. ‘There’s nothing left. They’ve taken it all!’

‘Taken it? How?’ Staahl said, his disbelief evident in his tone.

‘See for yourself!’ Grudi flailed his hook towards the shattered doors. ‘All gone,’ he groaned.

Snorri and the others stepped inside and saw that Grudi hadn’t been exaggerating. The brewery’s central hall was as bare as a pauper’s grave, unless you counted the foetid piles of orc and troll dung clinging to the corners.

Snorri ambled forwards, scanning the empty spots where, until recently, kegs and casks and barrels had rested, piled one atop the other. He stopped at a set of stone steps and crouched, resting his palm on the top step.

‘What is it?’ Staahl said, handing him a skin of Bear’s Milk. Snorri took the skin and rinsed his mouth out before answering.

‘Snorri feels water.’

‘Staahl hears water,’ Staahl said, flicking an earlobe. ‘Didn’t your friend say that the river runs beneath this building?’

‘Aye,’ Snorri said. He rubbed the head of his hammer across his crest carelessly. ‘There weren’t many of them out there, were there?’ he said slowly, his eyes crossing slightly with the effort of stringing his thoughts together. ‘Grobi like groups, the bigger the better.’

‘So where were all of them, eh?’ Staahl pulled on his lower lip. The two of them stared down into the darkness at the bottom of the steps, one tapping on the nails in his head, the other scratching his nose.

Snorri blinked. ‘Harness.’

‘What?’

‘Harness. The troll was wearing a harness. Snorri used to use harnesses like that, with mine ponies.’

‘The troll was a pony?’

‘Yes. No.’ Snorri shook his head. ‘Snorri is going downstairs. Are you coming, fatty?’

‘Try and stop me, stumpy.’

The two warriors descended the steps, Snorri in the lead. The orc-stink grew stronger, as did the troll-smell. Broken barrels and straps littered the steps and the floor at the bottom. The sound of the stream grew louder, becoming an almost thunderous roar.

‘Can’t see a blasted thing,’ Staahl said. In answer, Snorri stamped on a stone at the bottom of the steps. Instantly, a network of similar stones lit up with a soft glow. Staahl blinked in the sudden flush of light. ‘What…’

‘Light-runes. Very costly. Wynters was doing well, Snorri thinks.’ Snorri tapped a rune emblazoned on a floor stone with his foot.

‘He supplied most of the taverns in Averland.’ Staahl shrugged. ‘We drink a bit more than most.’

‘Snorri thinks perhaps a bit more than a bit.’

‘Was that a joke?’ Staahl said, a bit goggle-eyed.

‘Was what a joke?’ Snorri said blankly. ‘Snorri has found the river.’ He gestured with his hammer, and Staahl whistled in awe.

‘The little buggers built an entire wharf down here,’ he said.

And they had. Stone jetties and platforms filled the cavernous cellar. Bigger by far than the brewery above, with all manner of industrial achievement the likes of which the knight had never before seen. Snorri moved carefully across the wharf, his bald head swinging this way and that. He sniffed the damp air.

‘Goblins,’ he said.

‘Where goblins?’ Staahl said, drawing his sword.

The arrow skipped off the foremost nail in Snorri’s crest and clattered to the ground. He gestured with his hammer. ‘There goblins,’ he said. Small, black-robed shapes scuttled across the upper viewing platforms that extended over the wharf. More arrows peppered the ground around the duo. Staahl hopped back, his sword swiping an arrow out of the air.

‘How many, do you think?’ Staahl said.

‘Barely a mouthful,’ Snorri replied, charging towards the loading pulleys and ropes that hung over the wharf. Stuffing his axe through his belt and clutching his hammer in his teeth, Snorri grabbed a rope and swung out over the river.

As the dwarf made his move, Staahl found himself on the pointy end of a number of spears. The goblins crept out from between the kegs and crates. They were paler than the others, and clad in mouldy black robes, their beady red eyes shining in the faint light. As one, they charged towards the knight, uttering falsetto screeches.

‘Ho Averheim!’ Staahl roared, his voice echoing throughout the cellar. He charged forwards, meeting the spears with his sword. Meanwhile, Snorri had reached the apex of his swing and he let go of the one rope and threw himself towards the next. In that fashion he swung across the gap and crashed belly-first into the closest platform.

Wheezing, he pulled himself up even as an arrow skimmed across his shoulder. Ignoring the burning sensation it imparted, he charged towards the archers, scattering them with a series of wild blows. The goblins screamed as they fell towards the river below. Snorri watched them tumble into the water in frustration. ‘Get back here! Snorri wasn’t done killing you yet!’ he bellowed.

Down below, Staahl’s shout had summoned the others. Grudi crashed into the goblins with a wild yell, killing three in a flurry of savage eagerness. The others tried to flee, going in every direction as the Knights of the Black Bear set to with a vengeance.

After a few moments, the last of the goblins had fallen. Angmar kicked it contemptuously and looked around. ‘It’s as if they were trying to delay us.’

‘Funny, I thought they were trying to kill us,’ Staahl said, wiping dark blood off his blade.

His aide looked at him. ‘That too, but what would this ambush have accomplished?’

‘Beyond killing us?’

‘Yes,’ Angmar said.

‘Snorri thinks it was a distraction,’ Snorri said. ‘Snorri thinks they took the beer somewhere.’

‘How?’ Angmar said, looking around. ‘I see no way they could–’

‘The boats,’ Grudi said, wiping blood off his battered face. The two knights looked at him. ‘The boats!’ Grudi said, gesturing. ‘They’re gone!’

‘Boats?’

‘Paddleboats. Steam engines. We used them to make deliveries to Zhufbar, Karak Hirn and the Everpeak via this river. It runs all through the Black Mountains and even into the Worlds Edge Mountains,’ he said, stumping towards the wharf. He peered at the river, his face contorting in fury and sudden realisation. ‘Trolls. They’re using trolls to pull them! First they take our lives, then they take our ale, and now they’ve taken our boats. And they’re not even using them properly! What next?’

‘Not all the boats,’ Snorri said, dropping to the wharf. He nodded at a bobbing shape covered in a heavy tarp. ‘Unless Snorri is mistaken. Which is possible.’

‘That’s not a boat,’ Grudi said darkly. ‘It’s a menace. Even the grobi were smart enough to realise that.’

‘Looks like a boat to Snorri,’ Snorri said, whipping the canvas off and revealing what sat below. It was shaped like a skiff – flat bottomed with a narrow prow – but on its rear was an odd contraption that looked like equal parts cannon and propeller.

‘What is it?’ Drahl murmured.

‘A debt owed,’ Grudi said. He glared at the skiff. ‘An engineer of my father’s acquaintance offered to design a better distillation device for him. Unfortunately, it distilled liquor into explosives and blew itself, and part of the brewery, up. In recompense, Makaisson–’

‘Malakai Makaisson?’ Snorri said, his eyes widening.

‘Yes,’ Grudi grated. ‘Yes, Malakai Makaisson, the maniac!’ He shook himself. ‘He gave that...that monstrosity to my father in payment of his debt. Said it would help us make deliveries in record time.’

‘And did it?’ Staahl said.

‘Oh yes. Record time, as he promised. Too bad it moved too fast for us to keep the cargo from flying off!’ Grudi gesticulated. ‘And not just cargo. We lost three couriers the last time we used it!’

‘Sounds like just what we need, Snorri thinks,’ Snorri said, climbing aboard. ‘Unless Grudi Halfhand didn’t intend to catch the grobi?’

‘Catch–’ Grudi blinked. Then his face hardened. ‘Of course I intend to catch them! I will fulfil my oath or find my doom in the process!’ He stomped towards the skiff. ‘One side, Nosebiter… I’m the only one here who knows how to pilot this craft!’

‘Wait for us,’ Staahl said, hurrying forwards. The other knights hesitated and the Grandmaster whirled on them, his face flushing. ‘Are you cowards coming or not? We have a Grandmaster to reclaim! Not to mention the beer he’s floating in!’

The knights climbed aboard sheepishly. Staahl glared at them for a moment and then transferred the look to Grudi. ‘Well? What are we waiting for?’

Grudi looked at Snorri. ‘Nosebiter… Start the engine.’

Snorri stumped to the back of the skiff and glared at the strange propeller contraption. Then, with a grunt, he whacked the central plate of the construct. It depressed with a hiss of long-dormant hydraulics and there was a growl worthy of a dragon. The skiff shifted in the water, and then it was moving.

The sudden thrust caused Snorri to fall, and the knights hastily grabbed the rails as Grudi battled the steering mechanism, his lips peeled back from his teeth and pressed tight. Such was their speed that his nascent crest was flattened against his skull and one of the knights lost his helm.

The boat jerked from side to side as Grudi fought the controls. True to his claim, the vessel wasn’t the gentlest of its kind. In fact, it was positively murderous. It moved too fast, and jerked too wildly to be anything other than a last resort. With the Bear’s Milk sloshing in their bellies, the knights began to look as green as the orcs they were hunting. Snorri, however, was enjoying himself. Crouched in the prow, he beat the flat of his axe against the side of the boat and howled out an overly cheerful dirge.

They rounded a bend only minutes after setting out, and suddenly a large shape sprang into view. It was a paddleboat, moving so slowly that the skiff and its passengers shot past it, leaving the irregularly spaced torches lining its sides doused in their wake.

The vessel was large and square-shaped, with a boat-house at its aft-section, and a towering pyramid of kegs at its bow. The kegs had been haphazardly tied down with lengths of leather, chain and cloth. Goblins crawled over the pyramid like red-eyed ants, and orcs with whips and axes supervised their efforts to keep the pyramid shipshape.

Grudi howled a war-song and twisted the wheel, spinning the skiff around for a second pass. Snorri clambered up onto the rail as they shot forwards. As they closed in on the front of the paddleboat, Snorri could see that his suspicions had indeed been correct: the boat was being pulled by teams of river trolls. Two of the brutes strained at the prow, pulling against thick harnesses and hauling the boat bodily through the water.

As the skiff shot back towards the boat, Snorri leapt onto the team of trolls, using the head of one to springboard onto the other. He brought his hammer down between his feet as he landed. The troll immediately sank below the water, nearly taking Snorri with it. Using his axe like a grapple, he scurried up the prow onto the paddleboat.

Heaving himself over the rail, he came face-to-face with a shield-wall of black-clad goblins. Several orcs loomed behind them, and one of the brutes cracked a whip over the goblins’ heads, sending them rushing forwards. Snorri swept his axe out and beheaded the spears that darted for his flesh. Then, with a roar, he bulled into the goblins, his weapons leaving a mangled trail of greenskins in his wake.

Meanwhile, Grudi had spun the skiff again and was charging towards the aft section of the paddleboat, which, thanks to Snorri’s impetuous assault, had slowed to a crawl. ‘Hold on, manlings!’ he roared, not looking back at his passengers. He wrenched the wheel and the skiff bounced up and smashed full-tilt into the boathouse, splintering wood and glass and sending green bodies flying.

After a few moments of stunned silence, Staahl kicked his way free of the wreckage, his sword in one hand and his skin of Bear’s Milk in the other. Pulling the stopper with his teeth, he poured the skin haphazardly into his mouth and roared out a daring approximation of a bear’s snarl as he charged towards the nearest orc. Uttering their own cries, his knights followed suit, hacking and slashing at the bewildered goblinoids.

Grudi was the last to free himself. Spitting blood and splinters, he crawled out of the wreckage and shook himself. Then, freeing his axe, he charged towards the pyramid of barrels.

Snorri reached it at the same time, albeit on the opposite side. At the apex, a massive orc squatted, overseeing the battle and occasionally uttering incomprehensible orders to his underlings. Clad in patchwork gromril armour that had quite obviously been stripped from dead dwarfs and strung together to make something that would fit, the orc was an imposing sight. Knotted beards had been tied to its belt and it gestured with a dwarfish axe.

Berserk, Grudi began to climb the pyramid. Foaming and cursing, he chopped at goblins and barrels alike. Snorri began to climb the other side, and shouted up taunts at the orc, who looked back and forth between them with what appeared to be indecisive eagerness.

‘He’s mine, Nosebiter!’ Grudi howled, lopping off a goblin’s head and booting the body at Snorri. ‘That’s the one who took my hand and the life of my kin! He’s mine! My doom!’

‘Only if Snorri doesn’t get there first, Grudi Halfhand!’ Snorri said, selfish desire propelling him to climb faster.

‘Back off!’ Snarling, Grudi lashed out at the makeshift straps that held the pyramid to its shape. The straps parted with a shriek and the barrels began to shift. Snorri nearly lost his footing and lashed out with his axe, hoping to anchor himself. Instead, the axe sank into an already rolling barrel and the Slayer was yanked off the pyramid as the barrel bounced down towards the deck. Snorri screamed in frustration as the orc boss receded into the distance.

The barrel struck the deck and shattered. Snorri bounced once and slammed into the hideous face of a troll as it began to pull itself up out of the water. Instinctively Snorri struck out, burying his axe in the monster’s shoulder. It reared back, hauling him over the rail.

A strong hand fastened on his ankle as Staahl rushed to his aid. ‘Hold on, stunty!’ the big man said.

‘Let Snorri go, fatty!’ Snorri said, kicking at his would-be rescuer. ‘Snorri is going to his doom!’ The troll, in pain, buried its talons in the Slayer’s shoulders. Staahl lost his grip as dwarf and troll toppled into the water.

‘’Ware!’ someone shouted. Staahl whirled and saw the barrel pyramid beginning to wobble and dissolve into a crashing mess of wood and alcohol. At the tip of the disintegrating pyramid, the orc boss and Grudi Halfhand fought a savage duel atop an ever-rotating cask. Axe crashed against axe for several moments, until, inevitably, their duelling ground dropped out from under them. Orc and dwarf disappeared beneath the avalanche of barrels. The knights scrambled for cover even as the barrels crashed to the deck in a chaotic cacophony. The paddleboat dipped with the force of the collapse, and several knights were almost thrown overboard, including Staahl.

As silence returned, the last surviving cask bounced down the pile of shattered barrels and rolled towards the rail. As it struck it, the top popped off, spilling out a familiar shape. Staahl, pulling himself back on board, looked down at it and grinned. ‘Hello, Rodor, you old lush! Have a nice time?’

The ex-Grandmaster didn’t answer, but Staahl took the rictus grin for assent. Stepping over the body, he joined the other knights in staring at the pile. Angmar shook his head.

‘What a waste,’ he said softly. Staahl put an arm around his shoulders.

‘I know. That’s an awful lot of good beer gone.’

‘I meant Grudi!’ Angmar snapped. He crouched and hauled aside a chunk of wood, revealing an arm ending in a hook extending from within the pile. The knights watched silently as Angmar and Staahl pulled the limp body of the Slayer from out of the debris.

‘He died as he lived,’ Angmar said softly.

‘Aye. Covered in blood and liquor,’ Staahl said piously. ‘Sigmar bless the stunted little madman. And Snorri as well, wherever he–’

A troll’s head slid across the deck and bounced over Grudi’s body. The knights turned as Snorri hauled himself over the rail, dripping wet and covered in black blood. He looked at them, then at the body at their feet. And then at the now-empty cask of Wynters.

‘Is that the Wynters?’

‘Unfortunately,’ Staahl said.

‘Is he dead?’ Snorri said, pointing at Grudi.

‘Ah… yes,’ Angmar said.

‘Lucky bastard,’ Snorri said. ‘Got his doom when Snorri doesn’t even have a drink.’ He sighed and sat down on a dead orc. He looked around and sighed again, rubbing his palm over his crest of nails. ‘Snorri begins to understand why his friend Gotrek Gurnisson is so sour.’

A Place of Quiet Assembly

John Brunner

‘You’ll have a comfortable trip,’ the landlord of the coaching inn assured Henkin Warsch. ‘There are only two other passengers booked for today’s stage.’

Which sounded promising enough. However, before they were even out of sight of the inn Henkin was sincerely regretting the maggot that had made him turn aside from his intended route and visit a place he had last seen twenty years before. One of his fellow-travellers was tolerably presentable, albeit gloomy of mien – a young, bookish type in much-worn clothes, with a Sudenland cloak over all – and Henkin might have quite enjoyed chatting with him. But the third member of the party was a dwarf, reeking of ale and burdened with a monstrous axe, who thanks to his huge muscle-knotted arms took up far more room than might have been estimated from his stature. Worst of all, his crest of hair and multiple tattoos marked him out as a Slayer, self-condemned to seek out death in combat – a most discomforting fellow traveller!

If only I could pretend I don’t speak Reikspiel, he thought.

The inn’s bootboy, however, had put paid to any chance of that. While hoisting Henkin’s travelling bag to the roof of the coach, he had announced for the world to hear, ‘This here gentleman hails from Marienburg! I’ll wager he can report much news to help you pass away the miles!’

Presumably he hoped the flattery would earn him an extra tip. It failed. Scowling, Henkin handed him the least coin in his pocket and scrambled aboard.

Whereupon the ordeal commenced.

It wasn’t just that the road was hilly and potholed. He was expecting that. But somehow the dwarf – fortunately in a jovial mood – had taken it into his head that no one from the Wasteland had a proper sense of humour. Accordingly he launched into a string of what he thought of as hilarious jokes. They began as merely scatological; they degenerated to filthy; and at last became downright disgusting.

‘…and there he was, over ears in the privy! Haw-haw!’ Naturally, Henkin’s disinclination to laugh served, in his view, to prove his original point. So he tried again, and again, and yet again. Mercifully, at long last he ran out of new – one should rather, Henkin thought, say ancient – stories to tell, and with a contemptuous scowl leaned back and shut his eyes, though keeping a firm grip on the haft of his axe. Within moments he began to snore.

At which point his companion murmured. ‘I must apologise for my friend, mein herr. He has had – ah – a difficult life. Felix Jaeger, by the way, at your service.’

Reluctantly Henkin offered his own name.

‘Well, at least the weather is fine,’ the other went on after a pause. Glancing out of the window, he added, ‘We must be approaching Hohlenkreis, I suppose.’

Against his will Henkin corrected him. ‘No, we haven’t passed Schatzenheim yet.’

‘You know this part of the world?’ Felix countered, his eyebrows ascending as though to join his hair.

Henkin, in his turn, started at the landscape. The road, cut from the hillside like a ledge, was barely wide enough for the coach. Here it wound between sullen grey rocks and patches of grassy earth. Higher up the slope were birches, beeches and alders, last outposts of the army of trees that occupied the valley they were leaving. Towards the crest of the pass they would cede place to spruce and larch. That was a haunt of wolves…

‘There was a time,’ Henkin said at length, ‘when I knew this area better than my own home.’

‘Really? How so?’

Henkin shrugged. ‘I was sent to school near here. To be precise, at Schrammel Monastery.’

‘That name sounds familiar…’ Felix frowned with the effort of recollection, then brightened. ‘Ah, of course! Schrammel is where we’re due to put up for the night. So we shall enjoy your company at the inn also?’

Henkin shook his head. ‘No, by the time we arrive there should be an hour of daylight left. I’ll walk on to the monastery – it isn’t far – and invoke an ex-pupil’s traditional right to a meal and a bed. Yesterday, on impulse, I decided that being so close I shouldn’t miss the chance.’

‘Hmm! Your teachers must have left quite an impression!’

‘They did, they did indeed. Inasmuch as I’ve succeeded at all in life, I owe it to their influence. I don’t mind admitting it now, but I was an unruly youth.’ As he spoke, he thought how oddly the words must strike this stranger’s ears, for today he was portly, well dressed and altogether respectable – ‘to the point where our family priest feared there might be some spark of Chaos in my nature. It was his counsel that led to my being sent to a monastery run by followers of Solkan to continue my studies. At Schrammel I was rescued from danger that I didn’t realise I was in. I often wish I’d been able to complete my education there.’

‘You were withdrawn early?’ Felix inquired.

Henkin spread his hands. ‘My father died. I was called home to take over the family business. But – well, to be candid, I wasn’t cut out for it. Last year I decided to sell up, even though I didn’t get anything like a fair price.’ An embarrassed cough. ‘My wife had left me, you see… If only my teachers had had time to reform my character completely, cure me of my excessive capacity for boredom… At first I hated the place, I admit, because the regime was very strict. How I remember being roused in winter before dawn, having to break the ice in my washbowl before morning prayers! And the sound of a hundred empty bellies grumbling in the refectorium as they brought in the bread and milk – why, I can almost hear it now! As we boys used to say, it made nonsense of the monastery’s watchword – “A Place of Quiet Assembly”!’

He gave a chuckle, and Felix politely echoed it. ‘Of course, they had to be strict. Unvarying adherence to routine: that was their chief weapon against the threat of Chaos – that, and memorising. Memorising! Goodness yes! They stocked my head with lines I’ll carry to my dying day. “Let loose the forces of disorder – I’ll not quail! Against my steely heart Chaos will ne’er prevail!”’

‘Why!’ Felix exclaimed. ‘That’s from Tarradasch’s Barbenoire, isn’t it?’

Henkin smiled wryly. ‘Yes indeed. They made me learn the whole thing, word-perfect, as a warning against arrogance. I forget what I’d done, but I’m sure I deserved it… I’m impressed that you recognise it, though. I thought Tarradasch was out of fashion.’

‘Oh, I can claim nodding acquaintance with most of the great works of the past. To be candid, I have ambitions in that direction myself. Oddly enough, that’s partly why I’m travelling in such – ah – unlikely company.’

‘Really? Do explain!’

Felix obliged. After detailing the agreement whereby he was to immortalise his associate’s valiant deeds in a poem, he described a few of the said deeds – thereby causing Henkin to cringe nervously away from the slumbering dwarf – and eventually turned to a general discussion of literature. Thus the time passed pleasantly enough until with a grating of iron tyres on cobblestones the coach drew up outside Schrammel’s only inn, the Mead and Mazer.

‘I’d advise you,’ Felix murmured, ‘to get out first. Gotrek may resent being woken up… Will you return from the monastery to join us for the rest of the journey?’

‘That’s my intention, yes,’ he said with a grimace. ‘I shall be roused in plenty of time, I’m sure.’

‘I look forward to seeing you then. Enjoy your – ah – sentimental visit.’

Having arranged for his heavy luggage to be looked after at the inn, Henkin set off cheerfully enough with a satchel containing bare necessities. The weather at this hour was still clement, though ahead he could see wisps of drifting mist. He remembered how clammy it used to feel on his fair skin when he and other malefactors were sent on a punishment run. The prospect of being enshrouded in it dampened his spirits. Moreover the passage of time seemed to have made the path steeper than it used to be, and he often had to pause for breath.

Nonetheless, the sight of old landmarks encouraged him. Here, for example, was the gnarled stump of an oak which his school-friends had nicknamed the Hexengalgen – witches’ gallows. Its crown was gone, felled no doubt in a winter gale, but there was no mistaking its rugose bark, patched now with fungi that he recognised as edible. Seeing it reminded him how hungry he was, hungry enough to be looking forward even to the meagre victuals on which the pupils at the monastery survived: coarse bread, watery bone-broth and a few sad vegetables. But the teachers ate the same, and they’d seemed hale enough.

Of course, he was accustomed to finer fare these days. He hoped his digestion would cope…

The way was definitely steeper than he had allowed for. The distance from the oak-stump to the next landmark – a moss-covered rock known as Frozen Dwarf because it bore a faint resemblance to one of that quarrelsome and obnoxious race – seemed to have doubled. How different it had been when he was seventeen!

Nonetheless he plodded on, and the sun was still up when he breasted the final rise. Thence he could survey a peaceful view he once had hated, yet now had power to bring tears to his eyes.

Yes, it was unchanged. There were the buildings he recalled so clearly, ringed with a forbidding grey stone wall. Some were veiled by gathering mist, but he could identify them all. There was the dormitorium, with its infirmary wing that fronted on neat square plots planted with medicinal herbs as well as vegetables for the pot. The kitchen where the latter were cooked was a separate building, separate even from the refectorium, for its smoke and, in summer, the hordes of flies it attracted to the scent of meat, made it a noisome neighbour. Over there was the schola, which as well as study-rooms contained the library… He wondered who now had charge of the great iron keys that used to swing from the cord of Frater Jurgen’s brown robe, keys that granted access to the locked section where only the best and most pious students were admitted, there to confront revolting but accurate accounts of what evil the forces of Chaos had accomplished in the world. Jurgen, of course, must be long dead; he had been already stooped and greying in Henkin’s day.

Then there were the byres, the stables, the sheds where wandering beggars were granted overnight shelter – and finally, drawing the eye as though by some trick of perspective every line of sight must climax with it, the temple, where worship was accorded to the God of Law and none other, the most dedicated and vindictive of Chaos’s opponents. Unbidden, lines from a familiar hymn rose to Henkin’s lips:

‘Help us to serve thee, God of Right and Law! Whene’er we pray to Thee for recompense, Avenge our wrongs, O–’

That’s odd! The name was on the tip of his tongue, yet he could not recall it. Surely it would come back if he recited the lines again? He did so, and there was still an infuriating blankness. Yet he’d known it when talking to Felix in the coach!

‘Oh, that’s absurd!’ he crossly told the air. ‘I must be getting senile before my time!’

Annoyed, he slung his satchel more comfortably and descended the path that led to the tall oak gate, surmounted by a little watchtower, which constituted the sole means of passage through the encircling wall. Darkness deepened around him at each step. On the hilltop the sun had not quite set, but before he reached the valley floor night had definitely fallen, and chilly shrouds of mist engulfed him even as he tugged the rusty bell-chain.

The dull clang was still resounding when there was a scraping noise from above – a wooden shutter being slid back in the watchtower – and a cracked voice demanded who was there.

Remarkable, he thought. That sounds exactly like Frater Knoblauch who kept the gate in my day! Oh, I suppose each gatekeeper must copy the mannerisms of his forerunner…

Stepping back, tilting his head, unable to make out a fact but discerning the glimmer of a lantern, he called out an answer.

‘Henkin Warsch! I used to be a pupil here! I claim by right a meal and a bed!’

‘Henkin Warsch!’ the gatekeeper echoed in astonishment. ‘Well, well! That’s amazing! I’ll unlock in a trice!’

And he was as good as his word, for the heavy panels swung wide before Henkin had drawn two more breaths. There in front of him, unmistakable in the faint yellow gleam of his lamp, was Frater Knoblauch in person, wheezing with the effort of hurrying down the narrow stairs.

‘But – no, it can’t be!’ Henkin exclaimed. ‘You can’t possibly be Frater Knoblauch!’

‘And why not?’ the old man riposted.

‘I thought… I mean: I left here twenty years ago!’

‘So you expected me to be dead, is that it?’ the other said caustically. ‘Well, I suppose to a boy anyone over fifty seems an ancient. No, here I am, as hale and hearty as anyone may hope at my age. Our way of life is a healthy one, you know – we don’t rot our bodies with drink or waste our vitality by wenching! Come in, come in so I can shut the gate. A bed you can certainly have, but if you want food you’ll have to make haste. It’s after sunset, you know, and we still keep the same hours.’

Henkin’s stomach uttered a grumble at the prospect of going supperless to sleep, bringing back to mind the joke he had repeated to his travelling companion.

‘But I don’t think they’ll have started yet,’ Frater Knoblauch added reassuringly, and set off at a clumsy scuttle towards the refectorium.

He led Henkin through an entrance reserved for teaching staff, which as a boy he had been forbidden to use, and time rolled back as he found himself on the great dais where he had never before set foot save to sweep it free of crumbs, looking down on the dim-lit hall. There, just as in the old days, ninety or a hundred drawn, pale boys sat unspeakingly before bowls of stew and lumps of coarse black bread. Those whose turn it was to dish out this exiguous repast were returning tureens and ladles to shelves along the wall and darting back to their places on wooden benches the sight of which brought recollected aches to Henkin’s buttocks.

‘You’re in luck,’ Knoblauch murmured. ‘Grace has not been spoken. Wait here. I’ll inform the prior.’

Henkin followed Knoblauch with his gaze. Even if the gatekeeper was the same, the prior certainly couldn’t be: Alberich had been over seventy. But it was the custom for the staff to eat with their cowls raised, to discourage even an exchange of glances that might infringe the spirit of the absolute rule against conversation at table, so the man’s features were invisible. Listening to Knoblauch, he nodded gravely, indicated with a finger that the visitor was to be shown to a seat and food brought for him – in precisely the way Alberich would have.

No, that is impossible, he thought. He must simply have schooled himself into a perfect imitation of the former prior!

One of the senior boys was signalled and came at a fast walk, never of course a run. Having received instructions, he approached Henkin, looking dazed, as though he could not believe anyone would voluntarily return to this place once released. He ushered him to the last unoccupied chair at the high table, and delivered the same stew and bread as served all the company. Then he made for a lectern halfway along the left-hand wall, whereon reposed a large leather-bound book, and stood waiting, eyes on the prior.

Ah! It’s all coming back, all coming back! During the main course there was always a reading, some kind of homily or moral tale! How I used to hate my turn for duty, not just because I read so badly but because it meant going hungry for still a while longer, until I was allowed to wolf down cold leftovers before rushing to catch up with the others…

The prior rose and spoke in a reedy but resonant voice, as much like Alberich’s as were his movements – and, as Henkin now perceived, his stature, too: Alberich had been unusually tall. Instead of reciting the expected grace, however, he made an announcement.

‘Fraters! Boys! Today we witness a singular event. We share our repast with a former pupil. Fleeing the hurly-burly of the world he has rejoined us in our place of quiet assembly. I bid you all to welcome Henkin Warsch.’

He turned his head towards Henkin, but the cowl so shadowed his face that no expression was discernible. At a loss, Henkin did what he would have done at home: rose from his chair, bowed awkwardly first to the prior and then to the body of the hall, and resumed his seat.

Apparently nothing more was expected, for the prior proceeded to intone the grace. At once there was a susurrus of gulping and chewing and swallowing, as though the great room were full of ravenous hogs incapable of squealing. To his own surprise – for the stew looked and smelled even less appetising than he had expected – Henkin found himself tucking in just as eagerly. Bland and flavourless the food might be, not to mention half-cold, but it was filling, and his long trudge from Schrammel town had bequeathed him a ferocious appetite.

Having waited until the first frantic mouthfuls had been consumed, the boy at the lectern raised his voice. Henkin failed to catch his introductory words because he was chomping down on another hunk of bread–

And, speaking of missed words: that grace. It includes the name I couldn’t remember just now: the name of – of…

He shook his head, confused. He hadn’t heard it.

At least, however, it didn’t matter that he had missed the title of the reading. He recognised the opening line, having heard it countless times, and read it too.

‘The Hate Child,’ he whispered soundlessly. ‘Yes, of course.’

He composed himself to listen to the familiar tale, not certain whether he was actually hearing it, or whether it as well was emerging from memory.

‘In the distant past, in a province of Bretonnia, there ruled a noble count named Benoist, surnamed Orguleux for his great vanity. It was his ambition to have his own way in all things, and for that he was a mighty man, of body large and of nature determined, rare were the times when he was disappointed. None, though, may stand against death, and it came to pass that his wife, whom after his fashion he may have loved, died in confinement with their first child, and the baby also shortly after.

‘Distracted by fury and sorrow, he went forth among the villages and hamlets of that land, begging or stealing his food, sleeping in barns and ditches, until he looked to a passer’s glance like a common vagrant.

‘It so fell out one evening that he crossed a woman of surpassing fairness, feeding geese beside a river when the moons were full. Smitten by her countenance, he made himself known, saying, “I am Count Benoist, your lord and master. My wife is dead. It is you I choose to be my new consort, and to seal the bargain I shall take you now.” Though he had seen himself reflected in the pools he drank from, and so knew that he was dirty and unkempt, he was used to his own way in everything.

‘Now the beauteous woman, who was called Yvette, was versed in arcane lore. She understood he made no empty boast. Curtseying, she said, “My lord, this is an honour to me and my family. But you must not take me now. It is the Night of Savage Moons, a time when the forces of Chaos are drawn tidewise from the Northern Wastes, and warpstone dust, it’s said, blows in the wind. Come for me tomorrow instead, and I shall willingly consent to be your bride.”

‘Enraged, Count Benoist threw her to the ground and used her as he would, despite her warnings. So cruelly did he whelm her that she fainted, and after he was done he slung her on his shoulder and bore her unaided to his castle, where he commanded servants to attend her.

‘On the morrow when she woke, she said to him, “I keep my word. Summon priests that they may marry us.” He did, for she was very beautiful. But he did not know she married him for punishment. Perhaps she too was unaware. It had happened on the Night of Savage Moons.

‘In the fullness of time she bore a son and called him Estephe. He grew up tall and comely, a fit heir. But there was in him a certain moody wildness, so that now and then he and his youthful companions fell to riotous carousing, while at other times black misery held him in thrall and he would speak to none, but walked alone and muttered curses.

‘It chanced that on the day he turned eighteen, by when he overtopped his father and was nimbler with a sword, he was in the grip of such despair. That day his mother told him how he had been got on her against her will. So presently he sought the count and ran him through, and on the battlements he played at kickball with his father’s head, wherefore all held him for accursed, and rightly so.

‘Thus may it be seen how we must always be on guard, for the subtlety of Chaos knows no bounds.’

The reader closed the book. The slowest eaters among the boys gobbled their last frantic scraps of food. All rose as the prior pronounced concluding grace – and once again Henkin missed being reminded of the name of the God of Law, for a frightening idea distracted him.

Why, he thought, there was something of that boy in me, and traces still remain! Thank goodness Father sent me here, for otherwise… I had just such bouts of depression, and I too ran amok and thought it funny to break windows or rob peasants on their way to market! Besides, my mother never welcomed her husband’s physical attentions, which is why I was and am an only child… Was Estephe, too? The story doesn’t say.

But there was no time to wonder. The boys were filing, quickly but silently, towards the dormitorium, bar those whose task it was to clear away the bowls and sweep up crumbs. He was expecting the prior and the rest of the staff to approach, ask questions, find out why he had decided to pay this visit, allow him to express the gratitude that had suddenly filled his heart as the moral of Count Benoist’s fate sank home. But nothing of the sort happened. Nodding to him solemnly in turn, they too left the hall, and in a moment he found himself alone but for another of the older boys, this one carrying a candlestick, who confided in a whisper that he was to guide Henkin to his room. So at least he was permitted to sleep alone, instead of on one of a hundred hard platforms covered with bracken-filled bags by way of mattress, no pillow, and just a single threadbare blanket such as he had shivered under in the old days. However, the staff’s quarters he was shown to were only marginally more luxurious…

He hadn’t retired at such an early hour in years. At first he was sure he wouldn’t be able to sleep. In a way he welcomed the prospect. As though some vestige of his youthful self had returned, he looked forward to brooding over his annoyance at this cold reception. Then, even as he closed the wooden shutters against the now-dense mist, he was overcome by a vast surge of weariness. Yawning so hard he felt his head might split, he tossed aside his boots and outer clothing, rinsed his mouth and splashed his face with water from a cracked ewer, blew out his candle and lay down. He was asleep before he could draw the blanket over him.

He woke to midnight darkness. But not silence. The stones enclosing him, the very air, were resonating, to the boom of a vast and brazen gong…

Even as he prepared to be angry at this premature arousal, a thrill of anticipation permeated his entire body. With it came a clear and penetrating thought, more naked feeling than mere words. Yet it might be glossed as:

I forgot this! Only now do I remember it! How could it have escaped my memory, this which offered compensation for the cold and hunger, this which made it worth my while to spend so many agonising months in quarters barely better than a prison? This is the summons to the Quiet Assembly!

He was on his feet, feverishly snatching at his boots and cloak, aware of stirrings beyond the walls on either side, in the dormitorium below, even above the roof where owls were circling, and doubtless bats, the soft pat of their wings adding to the wonderful reverberation of the gong. Fingers a-tangle with excitement, he finally contrived to tie his laces, and rushed to the landing.

He instantly checked his pace. Of course. It must be slow and solemn, like everything here. Recollection seized him as he saw the pupils emerging one by one onto the stairs ahead of him, moving as though they were still lost to sleep, but surely, and with implacable intent.

At their rear he fell in, and found as he would not have expected when he arrived, but now thought was perfectly natural, the prior himself standing beside an open door admitting curls of mist. Hood thrown back, he was flanked by two attendants handing lit torches to the boys. Still cowled, they bore remarkable likeness to Frater Jurgen the librarian, iron keys and all, and Frater Wildgans who had been Henkin’s chief instructor. But he was of no mind to let such matters trouble him.

Yes: the prior was Alberich. And seemingly no older. And now confronting Henkin as he descended the last cold tread of the stone flight, and bowing to him. Bowing! Saying nothing – yet his action was more eloquent than words.

Henkin’s heart began to pound in perfect unison with the gong, while his paces, and the pupils’, likewise kept time to it. Conscious that this ceremony was the honour due him for his decision to return, he followed the triple line of torch-bearing boys. ‘Jurgen’ and ‘Wildgans’ fell in beside him, and the prior himself took up the rear.

They were, of course, being summoned to the temple.

Ah! This is how it was, he thought. This is the way we used to be brought face to face with the elemental essence of Law and Right! Not by dull rote learning, not by memorising moral tales and masterworks, not through obedience to the discipline impressed on us with bread and broth – and, occasionally, necessary stripes – but by being brought from slumber at the dead hour when the random fretful forces of the body are most sluggish, least subject to the whims and wilfulness of daylight, and shown the unbearable fact of the god whom otherwise we knew as nothing more than words…! This is what saved me, thanks to the selfless dedication of the teaching fraters. How could I never have thought of it from then till now? How could I have overlooked for twenty years this sensation of the marvellous, this drunken joy?

He felt himself swaying, so tremendous was the charge of expectation that imbued his being. No other prospect of high events had matched it: not his wedding, not the birth of his children, not his first coup in the trade he had inherited from his father, then in the others he had turned to as his early interest waned; nor this first (of many) undetected love affairs – nor even the last which had been detected and cost him his marriage and his former livelihood. This had no parallel. This was what had made life here endurable, and now he was to experience it again.

He wanted to cry out in gratitude, although his tongue seemed tied, exactly as it had been when he strove to recall that thought-to-be familiar hymn.

Ah, it didn’t matter. Within the hour, within minutes perhaps, a name would spring to his lips and set the seal on his destiny. He needed only to utter it aloud, and he would be accepted, in some way he did not yet comprehend, but he would. Oh yes: he would, when it was time.

Here at last was the entrance to the temple. Knoblauch stood on guard. Passing him, the boys drew up in serried ranks to either side, facing a high and distant idol. The torches they bore cast but wan illumination on the rich hangings that lined the walls, for mist had gathered within the temple, too, as though wafted indoors by the wings of the circling bats and owls. The idol itself, so tall that its raised arms reached the roof, was scarcely visible. It didn’t matter, though. Henkin knew with comfortable assurance what god was honoured in this fane: the one whose law upheld not only roof but sky, to whom he was already dedicated, and who had drawn him hither after two decades.

Ah! How few among all humankind can boast they have held steadfast for so long to a pledge undertaken in youth!

Henkin started. He was curiously uncertain whether the thought had sprung unbidden to his mind, or whether Prior Alberich had uttered the words – which, oddly, had been followed by what sounded like a chuckle. He made to ask, but was forestalled. Knoblauch swung the heavy doors shut with a thud, and in the same instant the gong – which had become almost deafening – ceased to boom.

Amid an air of total expectation, Henkin found himself advancing along the central aisle of the temple, the boys on either side as still as rocks, even when a splatter of wax dripped from a torch and landed scalding on the back of a bare hand, staring with indescribable longing towards the mist-veiled idol. Henkin remembered that longing now, how it ached, how it festered, how it could only be assuaged by such a ceremony as was now in progress.

Yet there was no chanting of anthems, no procession of gorgeously attired acolytes, no incense, no heaps of offerings, none of the trivia to be found in almost any other temple. Of course not. This rite was unique.

It was, after all, the Place of Quiet Assembly.

Of their own accord, his feet ceased to move. He stood before the statue. If he glanced up, he would be able to recognise it, and the name that hovered on his tongue would be spoken. The fruit of his education would ripen on the instant. He would become a perfect servant of the god’s cause – which, ever since his schooldays, had been what he wanted most.

Wondering why he had not returned here long ago, to join Alberich and Knoblauch, Jurgen and Wildgans and the rest, he glanced from side to side seeking approval. He met an encouraging smile from the prior.

At least, he forced himself to believe it was a smile. It involved lips parted over a set of teeth remarkable for so elderly a man, and there was a glint of expectation in his eyes, so…

Deciding not to look too long, Henkin clung to the remnants of the delight he had felt on the way hither – now, for some strange reason, it had begun to dissipate – and boldly threw his head to stare directly at the image of the god.

And froze, caught between adoration and astonishment.

For those were not arms that reached to the roof. Arms there were, ending in monstrous hands, and legs with vast broad feet. Towering above them, though, sprouted by a hideous head, were – horns? No, tentacles! They flexed! And each one ended, as it curved towards him, in a gaping pseudopod-coronaed face…

It spoke – from which of its three mouths, Henkin could not tell. It said, in a voice like the grating of rocks against rocks when spring floods undermine a hillside and presage landslides in a valley:

‘Speak my name. You only need to speak my name and life indefinite awaits you. Live forever!’

Almost, the name emerged. Yet, somewhere in the inmost depths of Henkin’s awareness, something rebelled. Some part of him complained, its mental tone no better than peevish – like his mother’s when his father had offended her by winning an argument – a sense, one might say, of obstinate conviction.

That’s not the God of Law, he thought. It looks more like the one I’ve striven against throughout my life!

For what felt like half eternity, Henkin stood transfixed with puzzlement. He knew the name he was supposed to speak. He was quite unable to recall the other one. It followed, by the twisted logic that held him in its grip, that he should utter the one he could.

On the other hand, if he did, there was some kind of penalty… or something… or… Raising his hands to his temples, he swayed giddily, gathered his forces, licked his lips, prepared to make a once-and-for-all commitment–

And there came a thunderous crash at the oaken door, as of a monstrous axe shattering its timbers like the flimsy partitions of a peasant’s cot.

Which turned out to be exactly what it was.

Slowly, like a fly trapped by the resin that in a thousand years would be more profitably sold as amber for embalming it, Henkin turned. At the far end of the aisle something was moving so fast he could barely follow it. Also his ears were more assaulted than they had been by the gong.

The moving thing was the axe. He could not see its wielder. But it was the wielder he was hearing. He had been told, he had read, how terrible was the war cry of a dwarf in berserk state. Not until it blasted back in echo from the arched roof of the temple was he able to believe its force. Gotrek’s first victim, after the door, had been Frater Knoblauch, whose head, staring at his body on the stone flags, bore an expression suggesting it felt it should, but couldn’t quite, recognise the nearby carcass.

At that sight the boys, screaming at the pitch of their lungs, broke and ran, trampling the fraters who tried to stop them, hurling their torches aside, heedless of whether they landed at the foot of the hangings. Flames leapt up. Smoke mingled with the mist. Alberich and his companions, cowls thrown back, turned snarling to confront the intruder, Henkin for the moment forgotten.

‘Hurry! Warsch, run! This way, you fool!’

Still bemused by the grip of enchantment, Henkin stared towards the speaker, waving frantically from near the door. He ventured muzzily, ‘Is that you, Felix Jaeger?’

‘Of course it’s me!’ Felix shouted. He had a sword in his hand, but such work was better left to his companion. ‘This way! Move! Before Gotrek brings the roof down on our heads!’

Sluggishly, Henkin sought mute permission from the prior – he felt he had to. Or from Jurgen, or Wildgans. But the attention of all three was on the dwarf. Drawing themselves up within their cowled robes, they seemed tree-tall compared with him. Magical auras flashed as they mustered for a counter-attack. ‘Poor fool!’ Henkin heard distinctly, in Alberich’s voice. ‘To think he imagines a mere axe can slay one who has lived a thousand years!’

They stretched out their arms. Horrors indescribable assembled at their conjunct fingertips.

Ignoring the other fraters and the fleeing boys, Gotrek ceased his bellowing. Poised on the balls of his feet, brandishing his axe, he looked far more terrifying than before: no longer dancing with the ecstasy of blood-lust, but gathering himself into himself, eyes gleaming with mad joy… Shaking from head to toe, Henkin realised what he was watching: a Slayer on the brink of conviction that here might be the end of his quest.

As if to confirm it, the dwarf began to sing – not shout his war cry, not utter threats, nor curses, but to chant in dwarfish. Surely, thought Henkin in wonder, it was the ballad of his family’s deeds: that family who must all be dead, for else he’d not have taken to his lonely road.

Sneering contempt, Prior Alberich and his companions mustered all their magic force, prepared to cast–

And in exactly that brief moment when they had no power save what was being drawn into their spell, Gotrek hurled his axe.

He threw so hard it carried him with it, for he did not let go. Was it a throw or a leap? Or was it both? Dazed, Henkin could not decide. All he could tell was this: such was its violence, the flying blade mowed Alberich and his companions like corn beneath the harvest-scythe. The dwarf, who had spun clear around, landed on his feet before the idol. Panting, but still gasping out his song, he raised the blade anew, this time menacing the statue itself.

Where had the spell-power gone? Into the axe, Henkin abruptly realised. It must have! For what he had taken for arms upholding the temple roof – what turned out to be half-horn, half-tentacle – they were descending, their hideous fanged mouths like flesh-eroding lampreys closing on the stubby form of Gotrek. His singing, now the boys’ screams had faded, was not the only noise to be heard. Suddenly there were menacing creaks and grinds as, its support removed, the building began to sag and sway…

‘Move, you fool!’ thundered Felix, seizing Henkin’s arm, and dragged him away on quaking ground to the music of snapping timbers, tumbling stones and crackling flames, amid the destined downfall of Schrammel Monastery.

Abruptly it was bitterly cold, and they were very weak, and time seemed to grind to a stop.

Henkin wished the moving earth would do the same.

It was dawn. Dew-sodden, Henkin forced his eyes open and drank in the sights revealed by the returning sun. He saw mounds of rubble, the line of the fallen wall, smoke drifting from what had been the temple and now looked more like a tent propped up by broken poles – but no other movement save seekers of carrion come cautiously to glean the ruins. Plus a stir amid the smouldering wreckage, as though a trace of Chaos lurked there still, shifting and wriggling.

Of neither fraters nor pupils was there any sign.

Nor, come to that, of Gotrek.

Wrapped in his red wool cloak, Felix sat brooding on a nearby rock. Without preamble Henkin demanded, ‘Where’s the dwarf? He saved my life!’

Felix gave a dour shrug. ‘It looks as though he’s achieved his ambition. The temple collapsed with him inside. I only just dragged you out in time… Well, it’s what he’s always wanted. And I suppose I should be glad to be released from my pledge at last.’

‘But how did it all happen?’ Henkin sat up gingerly. ‘Perhaps warpstone dust? In the air, the food, our very blood?’

‘That, or some like manifestation. At any rate, for centuries this monastery has functioned as a tool for–’

‘Tzeentch!’ Henkin blurted. That was the word he had been tempted to utter, the name of the power his family’s priest had feared already held him in his grip. And the name of the God of Right and Law came back to him, too.

Soberly, Felix nodded.

‘Indeed. How better might the servants of the Changer of the Ways disguise their work than by pretending to serve Solkan? It must have cost them dear to adopt such a static guise, but in the long term I suppose they felt it worth the effort to plant so many converts in staid, respectable families.’

Scrambling to his feet, Henkin said bitterly, ‘If only my father and our priest could have known what a fate they were condemning me to! I did want to follow in my father’s footsteps – I swear it! I wanted to build up our business, make it the wealthiest in Marienburg, and instead my life has been a mess! Here I am entering middle age without a wife, without a career, without anything my family hoped I would enjoy! And all because my father was duped into sending me here because I was so unruly and the monastery was called “A Place of Quiet Assembly”!’

‘Quiet it wasn’t,’ roared a distant voice. ‘Not last night, anyway!’

Startled, Felix and Henkin glanced around. Gotrek was emerging from the wrecked temple, axe over shoulder. He must, Henkin reasoned, have been the cause of what he’d mistaken for simple subsidence.

And the dwarf did not look pleased in the least.

Faintly Henkin caught a whisper from Felix: ‘Oh, no…’

But there were things he still needed to know. Urgently he demanded, ‘How did you find out? And why did you come after me? You too could have been ensnared!’

Resignedly, Felix explained.

‘We discovered over dinner that everyone at the inn knew about the monastery – “the Monstery”, as they call it. With that, we forgot all thought of food.’

‘You mean the landlord could have warned me?’ Rage boiled up in Henkin’s throat.

‘Of course he could! But he looked forward to inheriting your luggage.’ Brushing dust from crest and eyebrows, the dwarf sat down beside Felix and inspected his axe, cursing under his breath.

‘Why, the–’

‘Save your breath,’ Felix cut in. ‘Gotrek made him a promise. He knows what’s going to happen to him when we get back if he’s so much as laid a finger on your belongings.’

‘When…?’ Henkin had to swallow hard. ‘But, herr dwarf, were you expecting to return?’

Felix drew a hissing breath, as in alarm.

There was a long silence. Eventually Gotrek shrugged. In a tone so different from the one Henkin had heard during yesterday’s coach-ride that it was hard to credit the same person was speaking, he said gruffly, ‘Last night didn’t pay off, but it was one of the likeliest chances to have come my way. For that, I’d even forgive someone who lacks a sense of humour! If I hadn’t picked up such a charge of magic… In the upshot, though,’ he said, glowering, ‘all it’s landed me with is another verse for Felix’s poem and another doom cheated from me!’ He lifted his axe as though to strike Henkin out of his way.

Henkin hesitated. Within him, he now knew, Tzeentch the Changer of the Ways held sway but had not yet conquered. Very well! If Tzeentch’s disciples could control their mutable nature long enough to delude the world into imagining they served the rigid Solkan, could he not govern himself at least for one brief moment, do and say the right and necessary thing? One did after all know a little about Slayers…

Resolved, he drew himself to his full height.

‘Gotrek,’ he said, daringly. ‘I heard you sing as you confronted them!’

The huge-knuckled fists tightened on the axe; the muscles of the shoulders tensed; the glare intensified.

‘Herr dwarf! I’m aware how rare a privilege that is! I’ll treasure it!’

The massive hands relaxed, just a trifle.

‘Of course, I shall never, so long as I live, mention the fact to another living soul! Not until your companion has completed his poem – the great work that will immortalise your deeds.’

From the corner of his eye Henkin noticed that Felix, visibly surprised, was nodding.

‘I’m only sorry, herr dwarf, that my unworthy self could not after all be the means of your attaining your ambition!’

Had that gone too far? By now he was practically gabbling.

‘If you’ll accompany me back to the inn, although we must have missed the morning coach, I promise you we shall pass the time until the next most pleasantly, with abundance of food and ale at my expense, and you may tell me all the jokes you wish and I’ll applaud the verses Felix makes about your deeds here today!’

For a moment Henkin imagined he might have won Gotrek over. But then the dwarf shrugged again, rising. Words could not portray the mask of misery he wore.

‘What’s the use? You humans care only about your own miserable lives. When Felix composes his account of what happened here, he’ll miss the point, as usual… Ah, never mind. It was a good fight, at least. So I’ll take you up on the ale. It does beat water. All right, let’s get on back to Schrammel.’

Felix failed to suppress a groan.

But, since there was no better bargain to be had – and since last night not merely a life had been saved, but a soul – Henkin and he fell in behind the dwarf and duly trudged back to the Mead and Mazer.

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.’

Prophecy

Ben McCallum

I

Thunder was a god’s spoken wrath.

The sound had the shape of a snarled curse. The heavens’ anger was rich with spite. It rumbled into the physical realm as a literal thunderclap, the aftershock of a god’s volcanic contempt, a deity’s ill-temper translated into the world of natural laws and physical constants.

It was a command that left nothing unchanged. The land yielded like clay to the god’s primordial brutality. Mountains fell flat in storms of tectonic agony, throwing up enough dust and ash to obscure the horizon. A filthy ocean of oil and blood boiled away in a blink-fast instant of hissing vapour. A toxic bank of fog formed in its sudden absence, vast enough to choke a nation.

The god-thunder lengthened into a predator-growl, like the roar of some great hunting cat from antiquity. It opened a snaking trail of fissures in the parched earth, reminiscent of the earthquake-ravaged islands of the far south.

Finally, with a snorted boom of disinterest, the riot of change fell silent and the god glanced elsewhere.

It was the nature of the Chaos Wastes to warp and heave in such a way. It was a land slaved to malignant energies, doomed to conform to the whims of the aethyr. This cursed state owed every one of its torments to the ugly rent in reality at the world’s northern pole. It was here that the breath of the gods was at its foulest.

It infected every principle of nature, every foundation of existence. Distance was a quaint notion, here. A league could be travelled in a matter of footsteps, or it could stretch out into endlessness at any given moment. In the ever-changing landscape, mountains could crawl across the horizon, becoming meaningless and confusing points of reference.

Time, too, became a fickle thing. Anyone foolish enough to lie down and sleep upon the Wastes might wake to find that either mere moments had passed or themselves aged by half a century.

Even roving warbands from the Hung and Kurgan territories turned their noses up at this region. It was merely the first step of damnation’s long road. The destruction wrought by the tyrannical god was a diluted echo of something fiercer further north. Ambitious warlords struck deeper into the heart of the Wastes to fight for the gods’ favour, where the suspension of order became stranger still, and far more dangerous.

But of the death of mountains and oceans, two souls paid no heed. They didn’t hear the god-thunder, even as it drowned out their screams.

Twins. Brothers, identical in all but minor ways. Their albino-pale skin showed an unhealthy grey under the weak light of the blighted skies. Their eyes marked them as souls with a god’s favour – in the magic-rich air of the Wastes, they were flickers of crimson fire.

They howled like dogs. It was not a dignified sight. They stumbled over their long robes, barking at phantoms, drooling at nightmares only they could see. Pain was plastered over their gaunt features. And fear. Fear was a tangy spice in the chill air.

Around them, ghosts blinked in and out of existence, either through their own uncontrolled talents, or as quirks of the haunted land. Colourless figures flickered as indistinct insights into whatever madness ran amok inside their skulls.

It was not such a rare sight in the northern reaches of the world. For here, this was how men dreamed.

Most men dream in silent repose.

It was never their way. As children, the twins would howl into the late hours, screaming at the scenes that played behind their eyes. The tribe’s elders would gather in cautious silence, straining to steal any meaning from the youths’ anguished cries. Old men would lean over their cots, thin, gnarled hands outstretched as if to snatch their secrets from the air. The pair were blessed; they all knew that from the moment the children had left the womb. Ordinary infants aren’t born with a carnivore’s needle teeth.

That practice soon ceased as the twins matured, and the howling became violence. Whatever secrets Tchar whispered to them, it turned the silent youths into snarling animals. Night after night, they bled under each other’s ferocity.

Sharpened teeth weren’t the only sign of the Changer’s favour. Kelmain – Goldenrod, as he would soon come to be known – possessed fingernails that were blade-sharp claws on his right hand, the fierce gold of a cold steppe sunrise. Lhoigor – Blackstaff, true to his slightly quieter, more introverted nature – was much the same, save that his were dark silver on the opposite hand.

Emerging unscathed each morning, they kept their secrets to themselves. No one enquired too deeply about what these children, so obviously born with Tchar’s blessing, saw. It was foolish to pry. When the mood took them, they offered whispered warnings of trouble down the road, of rival tribes waiting in ambush.

No one realised that even in their hushed seclusion away from the rest of the tribe, they rarely spoke with their actual voices. It was their first expression of sorcerous talent, an ability to communicate with each other through thought alone. They shared the same dreams, experienced the same hungers and passions, and through the harsh years of their nomadic upbringing, they plotted the route their lives would take, like the charted course of a raiding vessel.

With this power, with these gifts, they set off into the world, dreaming their dreams of what was to be, beholden to no one except the Changer.

Consciousness returned with a strangled gasp.

Kelmain’s vision swam, painting the world in bleary smears. The ragged inhalation awakened his physical senses. He tasted blood’s copper tang on his tongue, and spat it into the foul wind.

Worrying. Something inside him must have ruptured. Visions always took their toll, but this was severe.

He closed his eyes as his pulse began to quicken in the claws of a panic attack. The helplessness of disorientation was rare to a man like him, but the landscape had changed again. When the vision had taken him, there had been mountains on the horizon. Now there was just a distant dust storm, a smudge of black off to the... north. Or perhaps east.

He grappled the momentary weakness. Throttled it before it could taint him further.

He sat up delicately. The ash beneath him held his imprint, his robes leaving a confused outline on the ground. He bit back a groan, his every muscle offering him a thousand different pains. It was an effort to still the trembling.

Lhoigor came awake opposite him. Where Kelmain would rouse slowly and carefully, his brother all but fled the visions. The seizures could be staved off, and willpower could force their muscles to obey, but Lhoigor always floundered, always let his fear master him. His screams were a confession of weakness.

Stop it, he scolded. There was nothing of kindness in the voiceless communication.

‘I am sorry, brother,’ came Lhoigor’s breathless reply. His voice was scratchy and hoarse at being so rarely used. ‘It always makes me so disorientated.’

They sat in silence for several long moments, gathering their wits, cataloguing their pains. One brother scowled at the barren earth, grim and silent, where the other turned his crimson eyes skywards, as if entreating heaven to relieve him.

‘Brother.’ Lhoigor’s voice still shook, uncertainty creeping into his tone.

Lhoigor.

‘What did we see?’

You saw. We both saw.

‘Nevertheless,’ Lhoigor pressed. Minor convulsions wracked his spindly frame. ‘I would hear you speak it aloud.’

Kelmain sighed, composed where his brother was honest with his weakness.

‘We saw him,’ he said, using his actual voice for the first time in days. ‘We saw the Slayer.’

II

The dragon opened its eyes.

Lhoigor faltered in his chanting. It was something few mortals had ever witnessed, and it startled him, despite the fact that he had already foreseen this moment. To see such a beast in the flesh, to actually feel its breath gust past him...

Focus. His brother’s rebuttal was hard. Impatient. This moment was crucial.

It was easy for Kelmain to say. To one attuned in such a way, the dragon’s ancient intelligence was a palpable presence. It was not just a powerful creature. Its consciousness was a transcendent thing, an order of magnitude above humanity’s frail perceptions. Even the Slight Ones, who claimed companionship with these draconic gods, were like children in comparison.

Lhoigor, focus.

It was an effort to shrug off his fascination, but he took up the intonations where he left off, his thin lips framing impossible syllables. They rose and fell in time with the ancient creature’s slow, pounding heartbeat. Its lids began to drop again, closing over unfocused, reptilian eyes.

Despite its elevated perceptions, the sleeping god’s senses were shut off to the world. Its centuries-long slumber, thus far undisturbed, was a deep, abyssal state of rest.

At the periphery of his focus, Lhoigor sensed his brother’s movements. Kelmain was stalking around the cave, his feet shuffling in the darkness. His pulse quickened as he felt what his twin gripped in his golden-clawed hand.

With fearless bare-skin contact, Kelmain hefted a shard of heaven.

Wyrdstone, the scholars of the Empire named it. It was the stuff of the aethyr, condensed by the mortal world’s laws into a shard of luminous rock. To the men of the civilised south, it was pure corruption, a hazard to be purged and avoided at all costs. To merely be in the presence of the volatile substance invited mutation and madness. From their pulpits, priests and holy men representing a pantheon of southern gods urged their flocks to spurn the afflicted, to scorn those blackened by the Shadow’s touch.

It was the cause of a thousand stillbirths and deformities across humanity’s various kingdoms and nations. A mere flake tossed into a well would doom a whole community. Beastmen and verminkin hoarded it as a rare and precious treasure, the former worshipping it as a gift from the Ruinous Ones, the latter prizing it as currency and a valued food supply.

Kelmain plunged it into the dragon’s scaly flesh.

The sleeping god groaned. It was a sound like the precursor to a volcanic eruption, a rumble of deep tectonic unrest. Lhoigor saw movement beneath its eyelids. Its dreams – whatever gods dreamed – darkened. He smiled as he chanted.

The spell was a simple one, made easier by the presence of wyrdstone. The substance was flaky, and its potency persisted even when it was burned or dissolved in liquid. It mingled with the dragon’s potent blood, and with a soft exertion of his will, Lhoigor began to guide it through the creature’s veins. It invaded arteries like a disease, carrying naturally into the chambers of the beast’s ancient heart.

The effect was unnerving in its immediacy. Mucus began to drool from the dragon’s slitted nostrils, its constitution already beginning to unravel as the taint thrived. The pitch of its heartbeat changed; instinct readied the dragon to fight an enemy that had already won.

Lhoigor’s smile widened, his unnatural teeth showing bright in the cave’s dank gloom.

‘It is working,’ he whispered breathlessly. He turned to his brother, seeing his expression mirrored: two vultures grinning over a carcass. ‘Another. Our work will be done before dusk falls. Skjalandir wakens today.’

Another shard of heaven appeared in Kelmain’s clawed hands, and the sleeping god’s dreams grew darker still.

It was fated to die. This, they realised only after their work was done.

Swollen, corrupted, the dragon thundered from its lair for the first time in an age, no longer the exalted creature it had once been. Its mind was in a clawed grip, squeezed until all that was left was the overriding impulse to defend itself against threats that didn’t exist.

It was a fallen god.

It met the night sky with the promise of annihilation. Its ability to breathe gouts of flame from its fanged maw had been fouled: now acid and bile drooled from between its teeth every time it opened its mouth to scream.

It heaved its bloated bulk into the skies on tattered wings, but it was too heavy to fly. Its form had been warped too much for the fallen god to achieve natural flight for very long. With every beat of its wings, it ravaged its own draconic musculature to stay aloft.

Everything within a mile of the fallen god’s screams cowered. Birds broke their formations, scattering in the frantic need to flee. Nocturnal hunters howled and yelped, gnawing at their own bodies in confusion and fear. A community of humans and dwarfs eking out a grim existence in this relatively secure stretch of the Worlds Edge Mountains awoke to the roaring of a god soon to vent its wrath upon their homes.

The twins did not see. The sense of premonition that seized them stole the nightmarish scene from their sight, replacing it with a whirlwind of unwritten futures, a roiling storm of prophecy.

It was the price they paid for the potency of their visions. Prophecy was like experiencing a seizure, as if it was a curse rather than a gift. This was something they both knew and hated, because it reminded them of lesser seers who needed hallucinogens and incantations for their abilities to function. The injustice of it stung deeply.

But these were thoughts for afterwards, when their muscles ceased trembling and the headaches passed. It was a bitterness that both nurtured in their hours of recovery, and both had entreated their god of claws and feathers to allay the pain.

He only answered with more visions. More agony.

In the vision’s embrace, they saw a god’s death.

And the Slayer.

The dragon dies.

Skjalandir’s killer is a sword. The blade is a yard of ornate steelwork and burning runes, dragon-hilted and vicious. They know without understanding why that it is invested with the purpose of being the nemesis of all dragons, forged in the time when the blood shed between the elder races was still hot.

The blade’s wielder is almost entirely unimportant. Blond-haired and shouting curses, he moves with a ferocity that isn’t his own. His uncharacteristic courage is an expression of the blade’s molten need to enact its purpose. The wielder is an unknowing puppet.

The blade skewers Skjalandir’s brain. It is over as quickly as that. Their plan to ravage the mountain fails. The scheme that would have eventually seen the legendary Slayer Keep powerless beneath Skjalandir’s shadow dies with the stolen bravery of one fool with an enchanted sword.

In a flare of exultant bliss, the blade falls silent, inert now that its task is done.

All of these thing are irrelevant.

Skjalandir’s killer did not come alone. His companions boast a ramshackle bundle of loyalties and allegiances: humans and dwarfs, adventurers and Slayers. The vision compels them to focus on one soul, a dwarfish Slayer who seems not to savour victory’s taste as the others do.

Brother, look...

I know, Lhoigor. I see it.

Look at his axe.

I know. I see.

The course they had charted so many years ago became a quaint irrelevancy.

The vision left them as they always did, but the revelation of what they had seen made their post-prophecy pains seem a small thing.

‘The scope of this is troubling,’ Lhoigor observed. His words came with a small burble of blood where his needle teeth had pierced gum.

‘At times, you wildly exaggerate, Lhoigor, but you irritate me far more when you understate things.’

Kelmain was a master of his own emotions, and peerless at masking his fears and insecurities with arrogance and false confidence. Lhoigor looked away to cover a smile at his brother’s blunder. He spoke. He actually used his voice.

‘I will be rational for both of us, then. Where do we stand?’

Kelmain took a calming breath, marshalling his willpower.

We will return to Daemonclaw as if nothing has happened. We say nothing of the dragon, and nothing of the fools who are fated to kill it. I will never admit failure to him. His petty little horde will have its siege.

‘And the dwarf?’

Kelmain glanced over the valley. From their vantage at the cave mouth, the mountain offered a wide view of the surrounding terrain. They heard the thunder of Skjalandir’s distant rampage. As the twins talked, they saw the dragon plunge from the air, his fire a tiny gout of malevolence in the darkness. In that moment, a dozen souls perished.

Daemonclaw is beyond foolish, but he is... blessed. Slightly. Enough for him to be of use to us. He will not be blind to the dwarf’s presence. He will at least suspect what he represents.

‘But Praag is long distant from here. You think the dwarf will be present for the siege?’

Lhoigor, came Kelmain’s admonishment. Equilibrium was restored. Stop being such a fool. Think. We were showed this dwarf for a reason. He possesses rare significance. He will have a part to play in the razing of Praag.

‘And what part would that be?’

Kelmain’s lips twisted into a rare grin. His hoarse voice was rich with vicious amusement.

‘I think he is going to kill Daemonclaw.’

III

Daemonclaw.

Warlord. Champion of the Changer. A master of swordsmanship, a fiercely competent sorcerer. Uniter: a warrior of Tchar who held together the warring slaves of gods that despised each other.

And, the brothers knew, born a pampered lordling of the Empire he was destined to conquer.

They knew the warlord better than he knew himself. They knew his birth name, and they knew the petty viciousness that led him to swear his soul to the Changer. The childish need to murder his political rivals with clever poisons exposed him to a minor conjurer. This was what set him on Tchar’s path, and took him far north of his birthland.

He was... competent. This, the brothers also knew. It was a tale repeated a thousand times across the bloody history of the north. Followers flocked to this fledgling warlord, won through cunning and force. He visited the ancient shrines, spattered the ritual circles with the blood of his conquests, and slowly, over the long years, Tchar took notice.

The god of claws and feathers extended his taloned hand, and thus Arek Daemonclaw was born.

Much was owed to the brothers, of course. He would have failed early on, had Kelmain and Lhoigor not seen that burning ember of potential. Their counsel secured his victories. Their warnings saved his armies. Their formidable power parted oceans in the depths of the Wastes that his forces might cross unhindered, and their prophetic gifts interpreted the Changer’s shifting whims. All for Daemonclaw. All in the name of an Empire in ruins.

The warlord was theirs. They owned this creature.

And now, on the eve of a city’s destruction, on the very precipice of his army’s first victory, their pet was showing... resentment.

Rebellion, even.

The warlord railed against their warnings. ‘Cross the Lynsk in winter,’ the brothers counselled. ‘Your warriors are no stranger to marching through the snows.’

Oh, how he had flown into a rage, then. He claimed that to wait was idiocy. They would not expect an invasion at the height of summer. It was the pampered lordling who spoke that day, impatient for blood.

They did not contradict him. They did not even act against him. But the brothers began to wonder. Had they made the correct choice? Was this truly the man who would usher in the Time of Changes?

His army was vast. It was a patchwork coalition of tribes and warbands, over a hundred thousand damned souls hungry to tear down a city’s walls. It spoke of the power that Daemonclaw wielded that a champion of the Changer could win over servants of other, rival powers.

It seemed right. It seemed like this was... it.

Summer was a poor season to begin this war. The Empire and its ancestral dwarfish allies could respond hastily without the snows stunting their movements. That was something that could not be allowed to happen. That was why the brothers awakened Skjalandir, to cripple the Slayer Keep, denying the Empire reinforcements.

But that plan had failed. And now this Slayer had been revealed to them. What next, then? What did he represent?

It was prudent, the brothers decided, to be adaptable. Fluid. History would be made here.

They doubted Daemonclaw would be the one writing it.

The warlord was afraid.

To his credit, he was a master of veiling his deeper emotions. A trait that Kelmain could respect, even if he wasn’t fooled.

Arek Daemonclaw was a titan. He moved with physical arrogance and a striding gait, unhindered by the blessed plate armour that had painfully fused to his living flesh.

The brothers had inscribed the runes adorning it personally, a glowing screed of warding text – fire’s harsh illumination against the black of iron plate – deflecting harm back at anyone dimwitted enough to confront him. Even as he strode into their tent, demanding they offer him a vision, he was almost unkillable by virtue of their efforts.

Daemonclaw reached down, his armour creaking softly, to move the pieces of the chessboard. It ended the game in a victory for the white player.

The brothers glanced up at him, identical, vicious smiles written across their pale faces.

‘Why do you always do that?’ Khelmain asked.

‘I fail to understand why you play each other at all.’ The warlord’s voice was a rumble of petulant syllables. It teased through the visor of his expressionless war helm.

‘One day we hope to establish which of us is the better player,’ came Lhoigor’s answer.

My, his feathers are ruffled. I wonder what ails him.

Perhaps he has seen a certain Slayer sally forth from the walls, no? The voiceless communication was ripe with amusement. Their smiles widened.

‘How many games have you played now?

‘Close on ten thousand.’

‘What is the score?’

‘Kelmain’s victory, which you foresaw, puts him one ahead.’

There was a pause. The warlord looked off into the darkness of the tent, his sapphire eyes glancing over the scattered miscellanea that made up the brothers’ worldly possessions. Outside, the walls of Praag held against a massed charge of beastmen. Their braying death agonies drifted into the tent.

Breath of the Changer, he chafes at confessing his fears. This is glorious.

‘You did not come here to discuss our chess playing, fascinating as it doubtless is,’ Lhoigor prompted.

‘What do you require of us?’

‘What I always do: information, prophecy, knowledge.’

‘Tchar has granted us a great deal of the latter,’ Lhoigor sighed with mock wistfulness.

‘Sometimes too much, I think,’ Kelmain observed.

After several hesitant moments, the warlord shook his armoured head, and ploughed into what Kelmain and Lhoigor had already known for several weeks.

Daemonclaw did indeed glimpse the Slayer.

The dwarf was a machine. A murderous engine.

How he came to be in Praag, the brothers didn’t know, but that was an irrelevance. The city was a convergence of a hundred thousand fates. Tchar had placed the son of Grimnir here for some bleak purpose. Almost certainly to thwart Daemonclaw.

The warlord explained that the Slayer had emerged from the city walls like wrath’s very avatar. He was like a force of nature. Every movement caused something to die. Stinking, bestial corpses were piled high by the time the Slayer withdrew.

It was, the warlord explained, his weapon that caused him a moment’s... unease. A trifling matter. A point of simple curiosity.

‘Your forebodings are doubtless justified,’ Kelmain’s tone was sage. Patient.

‘Sometimes Lord Tchar chooses to send warnings in just this manner.’

Oh, he does indeed.

‘I require more information than this,’ the warlord growled. The sound was a deep thrum of aggression. He wasn’t blind to the brothers’ amusement.

‘Of course.’

‘You wish to learn more of this axe and its bearer.’

‘Naturally.’

‘You wish us to invoke the name of the Changer and ask him to grant you the boon of a vision.’

The brothers moved in synchronicity, the temperature dropping with the gathering of sorcerous energies. Daemonclaw took a step back, his plated boot clunking loudly against a tent pole dug into the earth. He envied and feared what they were capable of.

The boon of a vision indeed, Arek. I pray you find this to your taste, my lord.

‘Look, my lord. Let the Changer reveal all things.’

And reveal, he did.

A dwarf at the forge.

The blow of a hammer against heated starmetal throws up a flare of eye-aching sparks.

The anvil is a work of ancient genius. Dwarf artisanry cages and tames the winds of magic, imbuing it with the qualities that the runesmith requires. An axe takes shape on the iron surface, the metal hammered into a lethal smile.

The weight of ancient prehistory is a musky scent in the air, mingling with the dwarf’s sour sweat. He hammers, and hammers, and hammers, until...

A battle.

A dwarf ripples with spiralling tattoos, the play of ink over iron-hard muscles giving them motion of their own. The blood that spatters him is foul and black, the stink of it overpowering every other sense.

He bears an axe. The axe, alongside its twin, gripped in clenched fists. He wields them like he was born for this. As if this is his very purpose.

The first great incursion, the warlord hears Kelmain’s whispered voice.

At the very beginning, Lhoigor affirms. There is awe in their voices. Longing.

The dwarf is a leader of armies. The numbers... the scale... The warlord has seen nothing like this before. Soldiers without end. Violence without restraint. The sky roils in apocalyptic motion, and a million souls wage war for a world that is already doomed.

The warlord sees the dwarf’s insane decision. He sees him marching off into the heaving north, to deny the hordes their prize of his beloved mountains.

He sees the axe, cast away, before he strides into his final battle.

The axe is found.

Karag Dum. The lost northern hold. The vision shows walls unblackened by time’s ravages, and towers manned by bearded warriors. They fight for their souls.

The Wastes are young here, but the malignant energies expand their cancerous influence. Daemons walk the earth freely, and hurl themselves at the stone fortifications. The defenders are beleaguered. Flagging. Morale is nothing more than a grim need for survival.

The axe’s new wielder performs a single act of stunning bravery. A bloodthirster, the very avatar of the Blood God’s wrathful purpose, perishes, defenceless against the baneful runes hammered onto the weapon’s surface. Its demise is a shower of boiling blood. The wielder dies in scalding agony, never having the chance to savour his victory.

Another scoops the weapon from the ground. An oath forms on his lips, to bring vengeance to the great enemy that threatens to swallow up the world.

He leaves Karag Dum in glory, and dies in failure.

A convoy.

Wagons. Armoured in steel plates.

An expedition, Lhoigor breathes. To find lost Karag Dum.

Futile, of course.

Over weeks, the procession trails through the Wastes, each wagon gradually falling to misfortune and destruction. One remains, set upon by braying monstrosities, and the passengers emerge to defend the stricken vehicle.

Decades into the future, a warlord in a tent outside a burning city takes a sharp breath.

It’s him, Kelmain observes. The humour in his tone is malicious, serrated like a blade.

The Slayer, Lhoigor says. Gotrek Gurnisson.

The dwarfs abandon their ruined wagon, the expedition a failure. The Wastes does its vile work. The three survivors are separated, and Gurnisson trudges on alone. To see him in this way, as this diminished warrior bereft of the trappings of a Slayer is astounding. He looks so unremarkable, so... tame.

And then, he finds the axe.

The cave is inhabited by a creature. It lairs here, dragging back its kills, smearing the walls with its filth. Gurnisson needs the shelter. He starts a fight he can’t win.

The axe is hoarded at the back of the cave, amid a pile of bones and a handful of rusting trinkets the creature considers precious. In desperation, Gurnisson takes up the blade.

The moment his fingers brush against the weapon’s handle, the warlord feels the brothers spasm. It’s a moment that’s so rare that it feels as if the stars are in some unheard of, auspicious alignment. Fate’s threads stretch taut. Some even snap.

Gurnisson lived through that night. He even made it...

…home.

A valley. Picturesque. Serene.

Gurnisson is already changed. Dwarfs are thick, compact creatures. His musculature is swollen beyond what passes for normality. And his nature, too, is not the same. The dwarf’s soul has become a darker thing.

The axe changes the wielder, brother. He has grown.

Home, however, is not as he left it. He walks among a village of blackened structures and ravaged bodies. He pauses over a female with an infant clutched in her bloodied hands.

Gurnisson bows his head. In the ashes of his broken life, he weeps.

Vengeance.

Gurnisson snarls a violent promise in the hall of a dwarf lord.

The enthroned noble watches with a highborn’s sneering dispassion. The words they exchange are heated, laced with a mutual dislike. There is some unresolved history here, a past slight that stokes anger’s flame.

With a lazy gesture of one broad hand, the noble orders Gurnisson’s death, and thus secures his own.

It’s a charnel scene. The lord’s chamber, richly appointed in rare gold and the elaborate tapestries of a ruling clan, becomes a gory mess of broken bodies and spattered blood.

When Gurnisson shaves his head, he takes his time. With a blade taken from the slain lord’s belt, he cuts away his hair, leaving the stubbly crest that signifies a dwarf undertaking the Slayer Oath.

He leaves that chamber in the throes of shame, and begins a ceaseless hunt for his own doom.

Altdorf.

Accursed Imperial capital. Birthplace of the pretender-god Sigmar Heldenhammer.

The tavern is the usual squalid dive so common in all Imperial cities. Whoring and drinking, pissing and retching, the sweating mass of humanity squanders what few copper coins they have to forget about the harshness of their lives.

Gurnisson is here. And another. A human.

That... fool... slew Skjalandir. It was him.

They are drunk, and locked in intense conversation. The bonds formed during heavy drinking often endure the longest, but the human utters perhaps the stupidest words he will ever speak.

He slurs an oath. To a dwarf.

An oath.

The warlord dies.

Praag burns. Flame consumes the outer districts, and the raucous chanting of the conquering invaders is a deep chorus in the ruined streets and alleys.

The sky is red. Literally, the very clouds are the deep crimson of arterial blood. Sorcery charges the air as the enchantments woven into the city’s broken walls bleed freely into the blighted skies. Everything smells of smoke and fire, blood and dying, looting and murder.

Creatures that should not be wander the streets, feasting on the dead. They behold the world with beady scavenger eyes, avoiding anyone who comes close, and tearing out the throats of the mortally wounded.

Praag burns, and yet the warlord dies.

His life ends in a flurry of violence, surrounded by the heaving press of his own warriors. Gurnisson – the Slayer, the axe wielder – roars like a Lustrian carnosaur. The blade he fears, the weapon that is fated to end his life, is a blazing beacon of hatred for the warlord’s kind. It exults in the pain it is about to inflict. It howls its contempt for the Great Powers.

His armour is breached, the enchantments of his slave-sorcerers burned out and useless. He feels his own blood snaking down the inside of the damaged plate in hot trickles.

It flashes down in a blur of hot starmetal – gromril, the dwarfs name the rare and precious metal – and severs the warlord’s head from his shoulders.

A hush falls over the–

–stop this end this Kelmain Lhoigor I have seen en–

–warlord’s forces. They pause in their destruction, uncertainty replacing the buzz of malicious celebration. Gurnisson’s human companion stoops to collect the warlord’s head, and holds it aloft so that they can all see.

‘Your warlord is dead!’ he shouts, his teeth bared in angry triumph. ‘Your warlord is dead!’

He nearly lost his balance.

Stunned, he held out a plated hand to steady his bulky form. His breathing came in ragged gasps, his warped throat turning the sound into a panted growl.

‘Your visions,’ he said, when his pulse had slowed, ‘have done nothing to reassure me.’

The brothers watched with the warmth of a glacier. Their smiles were hungry. They scented the warlord’s weakness.

He will tell us to kill the dwarf, brother. He will think that he can stop this.

That he will, Lhoigor.

How best to handle it?

The way we always handle him. Humour him. Let him believe he is in control. He has scented his own demise. He will only grow more fearful as the hour draws closer.

This war, this city... It was all for naught?

No. Think of what will transpire. We have engineered the slaughter of thousands. This blow is not grievous enough to lay Kislev low entirely, but Praag will take years to rebuild. This army will scatter, but we will endure. And there are other, worthier warlords.

True enough, brother. True enough.

They gave Daemonclaw their assurances that such a fate could be avoided, and that death was just a mere possibility. They wove their lies with guiltless ease, and he calmed.

‘See to it the dwarf and his human henchman die. See that the axe is lost and not found again soon.’

‘We shall do our best,’ Kelmain lied with a smile.

‘If the vision truly came from Tchar, it would be blasphemy to try and interfere with the destiny he plans for you.’ Lhoigor couldn’t help himself.

‘Nonetheless, do it.’

‘As you wish.’

They glanced at each other as he left, the black and white pieces of the chessboard sliding back into their starting positions.

Delicious.

IV

The vision had not shown the actual truth. Not entirely.

After all, Arek’s decapitation was not as clean as he had been shown. Not at all as clean.

Dwarfs are often compared to their human allies and neighbours. Popular Imperial literature describes them as ‘short but stout’, always measuring them by human standards. The frowning, bearded little lords of the Worlds Edge Mountains; useful to have at your side in a fight, valuing a promise, and taking their quaint oaths very seriously.

Humans could be very stupid, sometimes.

To accuse a dwarf of having a dour nature is to misunderstand dawi psychology completely. It disregards an ancient culture’s pathological obsession with every slight, every injustice, every loss it has ever endured. Every month, another hold has to be scourged of verminkin. Every week, a new greenskin warleader trumpets his dominance by lining the mountain roads with fresh trophy pikes.

To mock the importance they place in keeping oaths and fulfilling promises is to devalue a society that has endured since civilisation’s bloody dawn. To break a promise, to spit on an oath, is to throw brotherhood in their faces. It’s the fulcrum upon which their society spins. It is all they have.

Every dwarf knows this. And they also know that the limits of their anger far exceed what humans have the capacity to comprehend.

He put every remembered grudge into the blow. He summoned every shred of frothing, black rage into the strike that felled Daemonclaw and ended the razing of Praag. And yet, despite all these things, the axe forged in antiquity by an ancestor-god only partially severed his head.

He grunted a Khazalid curse, blood and spit spraying from his lips. With a broad, flat boot, he forced the hissing gromril to bite deeper, as if he was breaking ground with a shovel. In the space between armoured pauldron and full-face war helm, black, polluted blood squirted from the wound in time with the dying warlord’s failing heartbeat.

The head came free with the wrench of tearing sinew, and his armoured body crashed to the ground.

What happened next, the vision had represented with chilling accuracy.

‘Your warlord is dead!’ cried Felix Jaeger. ‘Your warlord is dead!’

The brothers did not even spare a moment’s attention as their puppet died.

They, of course, had abandoned him. Outside the walls, they had listened politely to the demands of Daemonclaw’s heralds to stop the spread of fires within the city. The army had to winter here, after all. Smoking ruins offered little shelter.

Lhoigor had declined in a sorrowful, regretful tone, and with a gesture, their armour became molten slag.

‘Now that Arek’s farce is concluded, have we a plan?’

Kelmain’s rebuke had none of its usual venom. He was almost kindly, as if talking to a dim child.

Of course we do, Lhoigor. We start again.

‘Oh?’

Kelmain gave a shrill laugh. Around them, the brothers’ cabal of lowly acolytes and half-hearted disciples listened with their shaven heads bowed in deference. No one commented on the apparent one-sidedness of the conversation.

As this gaping wound in Kislev scabs over, all we must do is guide another soul along the paths Arek took. Except this time, we shall be careful to study his worthiness more closely, no? We should choose a man who thinks slightly less of himself than this fool did.

Lhoigor dipped his bald head in concession of his brother’s wisdom. ‘If this is the case, I thought perhaps we could alter our route to include the mountains? I would very much like to examine Skjalandir’s carcass.’

Kelmain’s answer was spoken aloud so the acolytes could hear his words.

‘We travel by swifter means, my brother.’ He showed them his needle-teeth in what looked more like a threat-display than a grin. ‘Would you die for us? We are in a hurry.’

In silent, wordless loyalty, they cut their own throats to power the brothers’ spell. With a thick bang of displaced air, they left the stink of a burning city behind them, and the fleeing hordes that had already begun to fight amongst themselves.

V

‘We saw,’ Kelmain repeated, almost choking the words from his parched throat, ‘the Slayer.’

Lhoigor shivered. The images were scars in his mind’s eye. He couldn’t banish what the vision had shown. His blinking was rapid.

‘Is he following us?’

Lhoigor...

‘He must have followed us from Praag, Kelmain. You saw what he is capable of.’

If one more fearful muttering passes your lips, I swear by the blood of the Changer I will kill you myself.

Kelmain’s chest rose and fell in anger, as well as fear of his own. Something was wrong. The quality of the vision had been too... violent. Too vivid. Even more than the premonitions they usually endured. And the weakness was passing too slowly.

Tchar’s holy breath, his skull ached.

As he rose to his feet, the trembling of his knees shocked him. With a golden-clawed fist gripping his staff for support, he limped a few steps to encourage circulation. Lhoigor remained where he was, biting his silver claws in fretful thought.

At last, Kelmain sighed. ‘You realise this is an opportunity.’ He used his ravaged flesh-voice. Lhoigor always responded better this way.

‘How so?’ His brother didn’t even look up.

‘Recall the vision.’

‘I... don’t want to, brother.’

‘Lhoigor. Recall the vision. Describe what we saw.’

The silver-clawed sorcerer took a shuddering breath. Kelmain shook his head in wonderment. It was true that the two almost shared souls, that was how fundamental their bond was, but some things remained hidden from each other. Lhoigor never realised that he possessed a fractional superiority in raw talent, where Kelmain refined his own abilities with tight, masterful control.

‘He was walking through the Wastes. He seemed possessed by anger.’

‘No. That isn’t what we saw. Clear your head. This is vital. Recall the vision accurately, Lhoigor. Don’t be afraid.’

As calm settled over the tension of the silver-clawed brother’s shoulders, he began to talk.

Not walking.

Staggering. The Slayer is staggering.

His boots scuff the ashen earth of the Wastes, footsteps trailing behind him for countless leagues. Gurnisson can barely stand. He cackles a madman’s laugh, as if this wretched state of being holds some private hilarity.

The bleakness of cold sunlight catches on his golden armbands. The priceless metal is worn and scratched from a journey that has surely taken months. Every hour of that trek shows. New scars stand out as livid blemishes on pale, tattooed skin.

His presence is somehow diminished. This isn’t the warrior who bested Daemonclaw. It seems that even the axe’s influence can’t – or perhaps won’t – sustain him. He holds the blade out in front of him, swinging drunkenly at enemies who aren’t there.

With the one eye that remains to him, blinking and clogged with dust, he stumbles after landmarks that won’t stay still, mumbling over the sanctity of mountains, cursing the false tranquillity of open valleys.

No anger. No wrathful pursuit of two twin sorcerers.

Just a Slayer fated to find his doom in the north.

‘Let’s kill him ourselves.’

Kelmain hid a private smile. Like a child shown the foolishness of his fear, Lhoigor had certainly perked up.

Now you are thinking like my brother again.

They began to walk without paying attention to where they were going. It seemed an illogical thing to do, but it didn’t matter where you thought you were heading in the Chaos Wastes. It took you along its own paths, and guided you into its numerous pitfalls.

I am sorry, brother, Lhoigor said for the second time that day. That vision was so strong. I was not myself when I came to.

In truth, neither was I, Kelmain confessed, his reluctance to admit this obvious in the hesitance of his thoughts. Normally my wits convalesce swiftly. Not today.

Does it give you pause? The strangeness of it?

Kelmain shrugged his spindly shoulders. We stand on the precipice of the gods’ realm. We should be surprised that vague abnormality was all we experienced, no?

It is possible that the vision isn’t accurate. Lhoigor was voicing a concern neither really wanted to face up to. Perhaps something interfered, poisoning our perceptions with false visions.

Kelmain took a long, impatient breath. If that is the case, then we will deal with it as it comes. The possibility of destroying this Gurnisson, perhaps bending his weapon to our purposes, is too great an opportunity to pass over. He added, You darken my thoughts.

The journey continued in silence, not even with their voiceless communication. Each brother kept his own counsel, perhaps wondering which of fate’s threads would snap with the Slayer gone.
Or perhaps they simply pondered how they would murder him.

He was almost dead. It quite removed the fun from the situation.

He was far gaunter than the vision showed. His bones were visible on account of the severe wasting of his muscles, the bumpy curvature of his ribcage hiking with each spluttered breath. He couldn’t even stand up.

He cradled his axe on the ground underneath him, as if sheltering it from predators. And the bands decorating his arms seemed too dull to be true gold. Curious.

The brothers stalked around him, as lean as vultures, bent over in their predatory intent.

‘You are ours, Slayer,’ Kelmain teased, the words close to a sneer. ‘Finally, this is the doom that has eluded you these past decades.’

Despite the taunt, neither brother actually moved any closer. The dwarf was dying, but he was still dangerous. Obscured under his bulk, that axe waited.

‘Do I congratulate you, dwarf? In your dim, oafish mind, is this a victory for you?’ Lhoigor sniped. ‘What a life it must be, to have death as your foremost ambition.’

The brothers tittered like hyenas, and the Slayer glanced up at them.

With two eyes.

Both gleamed with madness, even if one was milky with blindness.

‘He should possess only one eye...’ Kelmain began. The thought was finished as the dwarf heaved himself to his feet, brandishing his lethal weapon with the skill and strength of an infant.

‘It is not him,’ Lhoigor breathed. ‘This is not Gotrek Gurnisson.’

They burned him alive.

When he rushed at them in one final, doomed burst of suicidal violence, his weapon swinging in weak arcs, as worthless as the blade itself.

Realising they had been fooled, cursing whatever entity had fouled their gift, they annihilated the dwarf’s body with acid fire, and watched the emerald flame consume his wasted flesh. His dyed beard and crest went up first, in a spectacular moment of illumination. Then his inked flesh split open under the heat, spattering his boiling blood across the dust.

‘Brother,’ Lhoigor said, after a long time of watching the flames. The blackened husk was a wretched shape, the impression of limbs extended in a plea for deliverance. ‘We should go, now.’

Let me linger a while longer, Lhoigor. Let me scent his scorched bones for just a few more moments. I will have at least that satisfaction. He growled. I dislike being fooled.

‘It is over now. He is dead, and the spirit who engineered this has had its fun.’

Kelmain didn’t seem to be listening.

‘Brother? Can you still your temper, just for this small while?’

Lhoigor... come here. Look at this.

A golden claw pointed at the dwarf’s burned husk, where blood had scabbed into the dust.

‘What?’

Kelmain sunk to his haunches, staring intently at where the blood had fallen the thickest. Do you recognise this shape?

‘I am not sure. It could be anything.’

You have studied more maps than I. I think I have seen this shape before.

Even as they watched, something stirred in the aethyric winds. The scabbed blood reverted to its liquid state, and began to flow of its own volition into a sticky, sanguine pool.

‘Yes,’ Lhoigor was breathless. Excited. ‘Yes, I do know this shape. It even mimics the contours of mountains.’

They locked eyes. Two pairs of crimson orbs widened as they felt the warp and weft of their fates shifting, stretching.

‘Albion.’

Two brothers left a charred corpse in the dust.

They left side by side, striding with a dark purpose, animated with the exultant rightness of the task that lay before them. The sanguine omen had pointed them to that mist-wreathed isle. As portents went, it was a rather unsubtle thing, but in their eagerness, they gave it little thought.

They gave the Slayer’s blackened husk not even a second glance. It rocked in a gentle wind, the ash that had once been its living flesh flaking off in drifting falls.

And then it sat up.

The crunch of breaking charcoal was like hearing a twig snap in the forest. The head, little more than a featureless stump of blackened flesh, beheld the world without eyes, and scented the wind without a snout.

It rose spasmodically to its feet, flakes of burned matter raining down from its body. The impression of a mouth – sharp and pointed like a beak – thrust through the brittle shell that formed the husk-thing’s face.

It cawed long and loud, a sound rich with good humour.

When it spoke, the husk-thing had several voices at once.

‘Albion,’ came Daemonclaw’s reverberative drawl, underlaid by Gotrek Gurnisson’s gruff, grunting tones. The mockery was obvious. ‘Breath of the Changer. It’s Albion.’

It pointed its beak skywards to caw its cackling laughter to the skies again, and opened its yellow, avian eyes.

‘And what waits for you there, little brothers?’ The bird-husk spoke in Felix’s Jaeger’s smooth, cultured voice, while Ulrika Magdova echoed him in perfect harmony. ‘What waits, indeed?’

The bird-husk’s back exploded into vibrant motion. Feathered wings, the blue of calmer skies, ruffled in the wind as more and more of its blackened shell began to fall away.

‘Oh, I hope we have made the right decision,’ the daemon croaked, in the hoarse tones of Kelmain and Lhoigor. ‘I hope the spirit who engineered this has had its fun.’

The Tilean’s Talisman

David Guymer

From now on, Siskritt intended to do as he was told. No more, no less. He cowered beneath the table as the slaughter raged around him. Trembling, he risked a peek through the cage of his own claws. The room resembled the aftermath of a stampede: tables and chairs had been smashed to kindling and the floor rushes were thick with the blood of countless corpses, both skaven and man-thing.

Heedless of the carpet of carrion, the melee swirled on through the same dense smoke that seared Siskritt’s snout. The roar of warpfire flooded his ears as the tavern’s frontage burned, fingers of green-black flame licking hungrily at the beamed ceiling, casting the whole orgy of bloodshed in an unearthly glare and exciting his whiskers with the tang of warpstone.

A sudden crash above his head made him jump and he bit down hard on the pommel stone of his shiny new sword to keep from yelping out loud in terror. A dirty, gold-furred arm fell across his view, the battered wooden shield it bore sliding free and rolling to a halt at his feet. The Horned One’s sigil stared into him. Silently, he screamed into the precious stone. It was a sign. He was going to die here.

Unconsciously, his paw moved to the talisman around his neck.

It had been worth it, whatever happened. The talisman belonged to him now. It would protect him. The horrors of the room seemed to fade as the talisman’s magic seeped through his fur and flesh, flowing lazily up his arms and filling his mind with calm thoughts. He closed his eyes and could almost hear its whispering voice, reassuring him, encouraging him.

He pulled the sword from his mouth and regarded the gleaming blade. This was ridiculous, now that he thought about it. It was just one dwarf.

Siskritt snarled, shaking his head as the moment passed. This was not just any dwarf: it was like a warpstone-powered engine of death.

The dwarf tore its axe from the belly of another skaven, its momentum carrying it through a low spin to take the legs from the next. An iron-shod boot across the struggling warrior’s windpipe put an end to his suffering.

Siskritt watched as the dwarf took advantage of the momentary lull to wipe skaven blood from its good eye.

In the far corner of the tavern, the few surviving man-things still hung on. Backs to the wall and side-by-side, they fought a losing battle against the endless tide.

The dwarf hefted its axe with a sneer. It opened its mouth to speak and, though Siskritt could not make out every word, its joyful belligerence was plain to see. It hurled challenges at the swarming clanrats, cursing their cowardice as the axe bit deeply into their wiry bodies. In a furious panic, skaven warriors turned swords and teeth upon one another, but there was nowhere left to run. With a final roar of laughter, the dwarf barrelled forwards, tossing the survivors aside like grass. It burst through the press of furred bodies, bellowing a war cry as it swung its axe for a warrior that knelt across a prone man-thing on the rush-covered floor.

The skaven sprayed the struggling man-thing’s grimy red cloak with fear-musk and hurriedly raised his blade in defence, but the dwarf’s axe clove the rusted weapon in two like rotten matchwood. The tip skittered off into the darkness as the rune-encrusted axe buried itself in the skaven’s skull.

The man-thing heaved the dead skaven away and clambered upright, suddenly wracked by a fit of coughing as it drew in a lungful of the acrid smoke. Siskritt could not clearly see its face through the haze, but the man-thing was tall, and its armour writhed with green shapes reflected from the spreading warpfire. He recognised it as the dwarf-thing’s companion, Feelicks. The man-thing gabbled something in Reikspiel, but the dwarf merely laughed as it sent another warrior flying with a swipe of its bare fist.

It spoke slowly, in the usual manner of the dwarfs, but Siskritt still struggled to puzzle out their conversation. He cursed bitterly as the exchange passed over his head.

A shrill note from the doorway grabbed the man-thing’s attention as a fresh wave of skaven warriors spilled through the blazing portal. Charging ahead of the rest, a wicked halberd held high in both paws, was a massive, black-furred brute in armour the colour of malachite, a challenge shrieking from his throat.

The dwarf grinned. Its man-thing friend sagged.

Siskritt leapt from his hiding place, sword in paw. He was saved. Nobody was stronger than Krizzak. He rushed to join the battle, already picturing how the grateful chieftain would reward his bravery.

The dwarf lumbered forwards to meet Krizzak’s mighty charge, swinging its axe in a killing arc. At the last instant the giant skaven checked his run and the axe instead tore out the ribcage from one of his more slow-witted brethren. Taking advantage of the mis-strike, Krizzak threw his weight against the dwarf, pinning its weapon and burying his teeth into its neck.

The dwarf bellowed like an enraged bull, and with a strength that defied reason, it ripped the skaven’s jaws clear with its free hand. The dwarf compressed its grip around the huge skaven’s throat, and Krizzak thrashed and squealed – a pathetic, mewling sound that seemed unreal coming from the jaws of the giant warrior – and sank his claws deeply into the dwarf’s bicep. Blood ran freely down the dwarf’s arm, but its hold didn’t loosen. Instead, the dwarf roared and hauled down hard, smashing the skaven’s snout with a brutal headbutt, splattering its own tattooed hide with its foe’s blood and sputum. Krizzak staggered back a pace, shaking his head to clear it before the dwarf’s axe parted it from his shoulders.

Too late, Siskritt realised he was alone, and face-to-face with a monstrosity: the vivid orange mohawk, the skaven gore smeared across the fearsome patterns on its brutish face, the axe wielded with unnatural strength that dripped with the still-warm blood of his kin. He sprayed himself with fear scent.

A faint tinkling skirted the boundaries of his perception, vaguely registering as the sound of his sword clattering to the floor from his trembling fingers.

He was thrown back into his senses by a body bowling into him. He looked up into a familiar face twisted with fear.

‘Crassik?’ he squeaked in surprise. With no time for any further thought, he spun his litter-brother around and shoved him into the dwarf’s path. ‘Fight, Crassik-brother. Kill-kill!’

Whirling away, Siskritt dashed for freedom. He had only to make it to the cellar and from there he could easily lose the dwarf in the tunnels. The cellar, he thought with black despair, why had he not just stayed down in that cellar?

Siskritt stumbled through the shattered furniture away from the rampaging dwarf. Frantically he threw his gaze left and right but could see nothing through the smoke. He forced himself to be calm. Yes! The cellar was to his right; even through the fire he could detect the rancid ale smell. He dashed in that direction, vaulting the bar, only to blunder straight into the man-thing Feelicks. This time he saw its frightful face, blackened with ash and its pale hair pasted to the skin with spatters of blood.

Only their mutual surprise spared Siskritt’s life.

His paws twitched instinctively for his weapon, but too late he recalled how he had dropped it. The man-thing’s eyes widened, and it raised its sword above its head for the killing blow.

Siskritt scrunched his eyes tight and waited for death.

The talisman vibrated on its chain, a muffled bell tolling inside his skull, and for an instant he was enveloped by an incandescent shield of light. The man-thing cried out in alarm as the sword was wrenched from its grip and fired into the ceiling like a missile from a bolt thrower.

Hesitantly, expecting his head to split like a cracked nut if he moved too hastily, Siskritt opened one eye. The man-thing’s sword was buried to the hilt in the rough wooden beams, the owner’s knuckles whitening around the grip as its feet kicked ineffectually at the empty air, trying to turn its own weight and straining muscles to tug the weapon free.

Siskritt tittered and scooped up a fallen blade. It wasn’t his nice new one, but there’d be other swords. The man-thing dropped to the floor empty-handed and spun into a fighting crouch in front of him, raising its fists as he approached. Siskritt rejoiced. Just one unarmed man-thing and he would be free!

Suddenly the man-thing relaxed, a smile splitting its ugly face. Siskritt’s nose twitched at this puzzling behaviour, but the heavy footsteps behind him sent cold dread marching up his spine, scattering all thoughts of the man-thing in its wake.

He spun on his heel as the dwarf approached.

The fighting was over. His kin were all gone and the tavern was a dead place. The only sounds that remained were the crackling of the wooden structure as it was consumed by warpfire, the heaving breaths of the man-thing, and the footfalls of the dwarf that seemed to echo the frantic hammering of his own heart.

‘You!’ he hissed in broken Reikspiel. ‘How you still live-breathe?’

The dwarf raised its axe. ‘Because nothing has killed me yet.’

Siskritt snarled. His talisman would spare him. He lived with the Horned One’s blessing. He sprang forwards, ducking under the dwarf’s swing to stab at its belly. The dwarf swatted aside the flat of his blade on its wrist and, with a deftness of foot that would not have been misplaced on an Eshin assassin, shifted its balance to bring the axe backhanded between Siskritt’s shoulder blades.

As it had before, the talisman flared into life. It caught the axe in mid-swing.

The dwarf roared as the talisman held its weapon in a supernatural grip, the axe’s runes glowing hot as it burrowed into the flickering barrier. The talisman’s song became a scream, filling Siskritt’s ears with pain. Just as he felt he could endure no more, the light fled before the dwarf’s axe, drawing back into the talisman and leaving him deafened and in darkness. He stared at it in disbelief as the dwarf’s axe punched into his spine.

His sword slithered free from nerveless paws and he sank to his knees, crumpling over onto his side. His face struck the floor but he barely felt it, his nose filling with the scent of blood, wood dust and mouldering straw.

The talisman lay before him, amidst the corpses, as far away as its chain would allow, almost as though it were trying to escape him. Siskritt tried to stretch out a paw to reclaim it but his arms no longer obeyed. Sound and colour bled from his world as his vision closed in around the talisman.

Why had it left him? Why could he no longer hear its whispering voice? Why had it betrayed its new master at the moment of his greatest need?

It was the last thing he saw as the darkness claimed him.

Siskritt watched his litter-brother work as the blood ran in tiny rivulets between the flagstones, relishing the fleeting warmth as it moved languidly between his toes. Drawing his sword, he padded over to where the dead man-thing lay, the notched and rusted weapon reflecting nothing of the cellar’s dim torchlight.

He prodded the corpse with the blunted tip of his blade. ‘Fool! Can’t you see, is not the one!’

Crassik sniffed. ‘You sure, Siskritt-brother? Man-things look all same-same to me.’

Siskritt snarled, treasured notions of skaven supremacy offended by his litter-brother’s slack-jawed idiocy. ‘This one doesn’t have it. Is just a child-thing. Look how small it is! And is too pale. The man-things of Tilea have darker hides. You spend more time watching man-things back home, then you not be so stupid-slow.’

He sighed. Perhaps it had been too much to hope that their target should fall so invitingly into their lap; Siskritt had never been overly burdened with the Horned One’s favour.

Vaguely, he realised his litter-brother was still speaking.

‘We must be going-gone. Lesskreep kill-feed for rats if missed.’

‘Fool!’ Siskritt resisted the impulse to lash out. Crassik was nearly twice his size, and not too beholden to his litter-brother’s wits to administer a beating of his own. ‘None will miss us. Who will miss two from so many? None. None will care.’

‘But–’

‘Graaah!’ With a cry of exasperation, Siskritt ignored his better judgement and cuffed the other skaven across the snout. ‘Sneak into man-thing town is what Lesskreep said, and sneak-sneak is what we do. If no other skaven knows this tunnel then is because they are not half so smart as Siskritt. Lesskreep will be pleased.’

And besides, he thought, when he found this man-thing merchant, this Ambrosio Vento, and took the talisman it wore for himself, maybe he would feed Lesskreep to the rats instead…

Siskritt chewed his weapon nervously. If any of that was going to happen, then it had to happen soon. At best, he had an hour before the attack began. When that happened, his opportunity would be lost and the Tilean’s talisman would be looted from its corpse as a pretty bauble by whoever found it first and was strong enough to keep it longest.

And that, Siskritt acknowledged, would not be him.

He returned his attention to the immediate problem, looking up at the ominous portal to the surface world. For so foreboding a thing it was a simple affair: plain and pale-coloured, raised about the height of a man from the floor, and accessible by a half-dozen roughly hewn stone steps. Giant barrels loomed in the shadows on either side like leering trolls as he padded silently towards the steps. A man-thing might have been given pause, but Siskritt was born to darkness.

He pressed his muzzle to the door and listened.

His hearing was exceptional, even by the standards of his own race. He could pick up the strains of several man-thing voices, but they were distant and his grasp of Reikspiel far too rudimentary to pick out one voice amongst so many. He stayed a moment longer, the scent of the damp wood filling his nostrils, until at last he was satisfied he could open the door in safety.

He returned his attention to Crassik. ‘You watch-see, you watch-guard. Understand? You pay attention. I go see. Anyone comes in here you kill-kill. Be quiet.’ He gestured at the dead man-thing. ‘And no eat-eat. You pay attention. You listen for me. I call, you come run-quick. Understand?’

Crassik said nothing, preferring to stare sullenly at his own paws. Siskritt smirked. His litter-brother didn’t want Siskritt to have the talisman for himself, but Siskritt was in charge, and Crassik far too big and stupid to help him steal it. Too bad for Crassik.

‘Understand?’ he repeated.

‘I watch tunnel. Come run quick-quick. I understand.’

Siskritt took a deep, steadying breath, cracked open the door, and scuttled hesitantly into the light.

It was blinding. And terrifying.

With trembling paws, Siskritt clung to the door frame, reassuring himself that escape was possible at any time. Gradually, the white glare began to fade and a vision of a smoothly cut, upward sloping stone passageway came into focus. A high-pitched squeak, well beyond the range of feeble man-thing ears, escaped his lips.

It was strange, he thought, to be so fearful of walking amongst the man-things. He had spent many nights crouched in the shadows of Sartosa, ever alert for even the most meagre of opportunities for his own advancement. But the Tilean port city was a warren of bolt holes and hiding places from years of discreet skaven exploration, and Siskritt knew every inch of it better than the scratches on his own claws. Even now, after many weeks’ absence, he could picture its close, densely shadowed alleys, filled with the detritus of a city awash with poverty and prosperity in equal measure.

Feeling emboldened by thoughts of home, he managed to slide one foot-paw forwards. He winced slightly, half expecting his leg to be burned from his body by the unfamiliar environment. When it was not, he felt his courage return like a rising tide. He flitted along the passageway’s upward incline, moth-like, towards the second doorway, cowering beneath the open frame to peer at the man-things beyond.

He supposed it was some kind of common room, typical the world over of all man-thing buildings of similar function, no doubt: wide, straw-covered floor; high ceiling supported by sagging beams and joists; a score of rectangular tables and short stools littering the floor space; and a long bar opposite the doorway.

The room was near deserted. His sharp eyes counted no more than a dozen men: the old, the sick and the crippled. Their conversations were muted, and their eyes were dead inside haunted faces. Siskritt cared not for their fears.

Upon their first arrival in the Badlands, the clan had stirred up the local orc-thing tribes who had gone on to burn a swathe through this barren corner of the Old World. It had been the grey seer’s plan and Siskritt couldn’t help but admire the old skaven’s cleverness, even though the merest thought of the grey-furred rat set loose the fear of the Horned One himself in his soul. At the cost of a few hundred clan warriors, the seer had unleashed a horde of the orcs into the man-thing territories, and even now most of those of an age to fight were somewhere out in the Badlands hoping to repel the supposed marauders. And while orc and man-thing slaughtered each other in the fields, Siskritt and his kin would rise up to claim what remained.

Siskritt peeked out from the doorway and behind the length of the bar, pulling his head back to relative safety with all the speed of a serpent’s flickering tongue. He snarled silently, nibbling at his dulled sword blade in consternation.

The bar was just a single stretch of plain wood with nothing at either end. It could give him a clear and concealed run across the common room, and to the stairway he had glimpsed at its opposite end. Were it not, that was, for the fat man-thing standing squarely in the way as though placed there by the Horned One himself as some wicked taunt. Siskritt bit down hard on the metal as he took another, more measured, look.

Tasting iron on his lips, he withdrew his sword and hefted it thoughtfully. These men were on the very brink of madness after months of war against the orc-things, their soft minds ready to snap, to be sure. Catching the fat one unawares, Siskritt could kill it easily and swiftly – both things he liked – and he suspected there was a good chance that these others would not come willingly to its aid. He could be gone and away before anyone caught a glimpse of him. A good chance…

But not good enough a chance for Siskritt. He liked to deal in certainties. Anything less left a chance for error, and when the cost of failure was so high…

Well, what in this world could be more valuable than his own life?

Not for the first time that day, he cursed the haste he’d been forced into. He didn’t like it. It made his fur crawl and his tail itch. Every sound and shadow sent his heart into his mouth. As if skaven lives were not already too short! He didn’t understand the rush, and that bothered him. What bothered him much more was the danger that that entailed for him. Damn that stupid grey seer, and damn Hellpaw too! Siskritt didn’t understand how someone as big and frightening as the warlord could be pushed around by anyone, even the insidious Thanquol.

He shivered. He had met the grey seer just once, and then only briefly, for he had felt a sudden urge to be anywhere but in that infamous skaven’s presence.

What was Thanquol after? He’d have given anything to find out. He shivered again, and changed his mind. He really didn’t want to know.

He gnawed upon his blade to keep his fear in check and chanced another look along the bar. The fat man-thing was lost in conversation, but he could neither see to whom he was speaking nor understand the words he uttered. Nor did he much care. All he could see was a few inches of bright orange hair flaring up from behind the bar. Yet another child-thing; this place seemed infested with them.

Riven with indecision, he hopped back and forth, one foot to the next, expelling some of the anxious energy that was bubbling up inside him. He had come too far, risked too much, to be thwarted at the last by… by a… a stupid, fat man-thing.

His racing thoughts were disturbed by a distant scream from somewhere outside the tavern. His ears pricked up, though none of the man-things seemed to notice. As if the first had been some kind of signal, the strains of pained and frightened man-thing voices started rising from all across the town, merging together with the sound of slamming doors and of weapons being drawn. It was a cacophony that was most pleasing to Siskritt.

At last, the noise reached the weak ears of the man-things. They raised wrinkled faces from their cups and muttered to each other fearfully. Siskritt found most of what was spoken incomprehensible, but one word stood out, a word that was common to all lands and languages of men throughout the world.

Orcs.

He couldn’t help but smirk. Yes man-things, he thought, turn to face the orc-thing that isn’t there, and die with a skaven sword in your back. It was at times such as this that the sheer magnificence of the skaven intellect simply demanded to be recognised.

Muffled noises filtered through the sturdy walls of the tavern: confused shouts, screams, the pounding of running boots on cobbles, and the dull clamour of steel on steel.

The men shuffled nervously from the doorway and towards the bar, perilously close to where Siskritt lay hidden. For a moment he feared that man-thing soldiers would come bursting in, but such fears were instantly scattered by the roar of an explosion, close enough to rattle the door in its hinges and bring clouds of dust and grime streaming from the rafters, sending the man-things into fits of coughing. He flinched momentarily, but gripped the wooden frame tightly to steel his nerve.

The fat man-thing cursed in words Siskritt did not know, before reaching behind it to a spot on the wall that was hidden from Siskritt’s view and plucking a giant war hammer from a sconce. Siskritt gulped to see the ease with which the silver-haired man-thing hefted the massive weapon, seeing for the first time the broad shoulders and powerful muscles that had lain hidden beneath thick rolls of fat. A former adventurer settled down for retirement, no doubt. He should’ve suspected as much. In many ways life in the Badlands bore similarity to life in the clans: only the strongest could survive and thrive.

Again, he cursed the enforced haste. If he could have had just one day to scout the tavern…

The innkeeper strode across the room with a calm authority, its hammer glowing with an inner power. Finally the fat one neared the door, squat and suddenly forbidding as if it were a portal to the Chaos Wastes themselves. Before it could lay hands upon the handle, a voice spoke out. Its words were in slow, deliberate Reikspiel, and Siskritt could just about make them out.

‘I wouldn’t open that door just yet, manling.’

The speaker strode from where it had been hidden behind the bar. The enormous orange mohawk came into view like the sails of a smuggler’s ship rounding the horizon, followed by the muscular, heavily tattooed shoulders of a dwarf Slayer.

The fat one turned to the dwarf to say something that seemed to Siskritt to be quite innocuous, but the dwarf spat back a venomous reply that was far too quick for him to follow. The man-thing dropped its eyes and raised an empty palm in surrender, and spoke again, this time more softly.

Siskritt cursed the man-things and their pointless plethora of languages and dialects. He would gladly have traded a paw to know what it was they were saying.

The dwarf cast the innkeeper a glance before returning his stare to the doorway. The man-thing towered above him, but the dwarf had an aura that dominated the room. Even Siskritt felt himself hanging on his next words. ‘I don’t know, manling. I’m just looking forward to killing it.’

Siskritt snickered. Foolish dwarf-man, no orc-things for you this day.

Taking one last look, he scurried behind the protection of the bar and dashed with silent haste to its far end. It was only a short hop from the bar to the shelter of the stairway. His ears twitched as the sounds of battle drifted closer.

A green-black glow was streaming through the cracks in the door, accompanied by the murderous crackle of warpfire, bathing the man-things in a ghastly light. The air was practically fizzing with warpstone ash. There was a brief struggle in the street outside: shouts, screams, shrill squeaks, and metal sliding though meat. The door rattled angrily, as though something soft and heavy had just been thrown against it. The wail of a man-thing melted into a gurgle and, by its silhouette, Siskritt saw it slump against the outside of the door.

Suddenly, it was as though a spell of quietude had been broken.

The fat one began bellowing orders and the man-things snapped into life. Tables and chairs were dragged into a crude barricade, while those that had them readied their weapons. Siskritt picked out ridiculous names called between the man-things: Roodolf, Gunter, Holegur, Feelicks. The one named Roodolf hurried for the cellar door, fumbling with a heavy iron ring of keys.

The sense of entrapment closed in upon him like claws around his throat. Between the rising barricade and the man-thing Roodolf, there was no way out. Panic rose in him as Roodolf drew closer and closer.

Grah! Now or never!

Half running, half crawling, he scrambled across the straw covered boards and behind the thin wall of stone that partitioned the stairway from the common room. He came gasping to a halt on the first step as he waited for his panicked heart to slow. Silently, he promised himself he would never ever do anything like this again.

He glanced back around the wall just in time to watch the man-thing disappear down into the cellar. For a short moment he thought of Crassik; he would not grieve for the idiot, but the sudden feeling of isolation wormed its way through his veins. He was alone, trapped in the lair of the man-things!

He took a deep breath, and though the air was thick with man-thing fear, he felt calmer. Crassik or no Crassik, he had always been alone. One Siskritt amidst a hundred thousand less deserving skaven. He ignored the shouts and noises of the busy man-things and returned his attention to the task in hand. The talisman was so close now he could almost feel its weight around his neck.

The stairway was short. He counted ten bare wooden treads leading up to the building’s second level, but they were widely spaced, more suitable for the long stride of a man-thing than for Siskritt’s short legs. He leapt delicately from one step to the next, taking great care to land silently, though he doubted the sound of a creaking board would carry far above the excited chittering of a thousand clanrat warriors closing in on an easy kill.

The upper floor was better kept than the lower. A wide, carpeted hallway stretched ahead of him, its stained and faded patterns barely visible after years of wear. To the left was an evenly spaced trio of low, recessed doorways leading to the guest rooms, each one carved with the likeness of a different fantastical beast. He could not quite discern the carvings on the further two, but the nearest door carried a rendering of a three-headed chimera, sufficiently lifelike to make him squeak out in alarm when he rounded the corner to find it six inches away and glaring into his face.

The wall to the right was broken by several wide and intricately leaded windows, and the view beyond was one to warm the heart of any skaven.

The city burned.

Half of the skyline was alight, with pockets of green-tinged flame in hotspots throughout the city. Siskritt’s heart swelled at the inherent greatness of his race. Let the foolish man-things sit behind their walls and battlements. How useless they were in the face of skaven cunning. He watched as another explosion carried the roof from a nearby building, its walls bursting like overripe fruit to be consumed by the warpstone-fuelled fires.

The flames painted the hall with an eerie green light through the windows, as though Siskritt himself swam in molten warpstone, trapped behind glass for the amusement of some half-crazed Clan Skryre warlock.

He was dragged from his reverie by a sound from further along the hallway, and he dived through the chimera door just as a pair of armed men clattered past him and down the stairs. From the furthest doorway a voice yelled after them in the Tilean tongue that Siskritt knew well.

‘I’m the one that pays you, you ungrateful dogs! Not this excuse for a city!’

For a few moments, Siskritt could hear the man-thing still hanging upon the threshold as if fully expecting its minions to return.

‘Fine then! Die together, all of you!’

The door slammed closed and Siskritt grinned to be the beneficiary of such unlikely luck. Listening to his prey’s former bodyguards lending their efforts to the man-things below, Siskritt mouthed a silent thanks to the munificence of the Horned One.

He spared a glance over the empty, unmade chimera room. The eldritch warplight from outside cast long shadows that flickered and danced across the walls and ceiling. Even in this state, the room smacked of human luxuries he could only imagine… But one day soon he would have all of this, and more. He squeezed his eyes tight with pleasure at the prospect. His paw closed over his chest where his talisman might soon rest. Yes, he would have all this and much more besides.

He crept back into the hallway, reassuring himself that the Tilean’s guards were fully occupied downstairs and would not be returning any time soon. Satisfied, he moved lightly past the second guestroom – a manticore, he thought – and around a long table towards the third.

Suddenly, a low rumble vibrated its way up through his feet. He stared out of the window in horror as the tall building across the street subsided into an evidently ill-judged skaven tunnel, burying hundreds of panicked clanrats as they swarmed clear. Broken tiles tumbled from its roof and peppered the rough stucco walls of the inn. As realisation finally dawned, Siskritt rolled under the table just as the tiles from the building’s elevated garret smashed through the windows, showering the hall with glass and heavy lengths of gritty lead that thundered against his scant cover. Rolling into a ball, he buried his face in his fur until the scraping of settling rubble and the thin cries of buried skaven told him the barrage had ceased.

Timidly, he unblocked his ears and poked his snout from his hiding place. The sounds of slaughter came clearly now through the voided windows, the wind laced with screams and heavy with the scent of smoke and burning flesh. He took a sniff, but he could smell little beyond his own blood, welling up where a sliver of glass had lacerated the soft flesh of his nose. Squeaking alarm, he squashed his bloodied snout beneath the tattered sleeve of his tunic.

The last wisps of courage fled his body with the blood from his precious nose and he scampered clear of the table, blind to everything but the instinct to escape. He collided headlong into a wall, collapsing tail-over-head into a heap before righting himself in a blur of blood and fur. Witless with panic, he trembled in the shadow of the wall, catching short rapid gasps of the charnel house air. Slowly, his nerve returned and he gingerly pulled his sleeve from his face. He gave his nose a tentative dab with the cleaner – relatively speaking – side and almost fainted with relief when it came away bloodless.

He gave the cloth an experimental sniff. Blood, dirt, faeces. All of the familiar smells.

Using the window ledge for support, he pulled himself upright, tiny slivers of glass twinkling from his fur in the fiery green glow, and peered down into what remained of the street below.

The man-thing city was overrun. The sounds of fighting continued in more distant quarters, but here clanrat hordes flowed through the thoroughfares like high-tide in the Sartosa marina, and the only sounds to punctuate their excited chittering were the cries for mercy of the nearly dead.

Everywhere, he could see skaven warriors spilling from open doorways carrying looted treasures and man-things: the living, the dead, and the half-consumed. The inn itself seemed to have checked their advance, a lone bulwark placed in the path of an unstoppable tide. One particularly creative skaven had fashioned a battering ram from an abandoned cart and was attempting to smash through to the last pocket of defenders within. Siskritt watched with detached disdain as the impromptu siege engine fell apart under the pressure without having made a dent in the heavy doors.

Fools. Someone would pay for that failure. Siskritt could have done better.

True enough, some poor unfortunate – whether the guilty party or no – had already been run through by one of his nearest compatriots, and a maddened brawl broke out before normality was restored by a high-pitched barrage of threats and bluster from a larger rat in the muddied green armour of the clan.

As Siskritt watched this minor sideshow unfold, the excitement in the street had quite palpably turned up a notch. Scanning the crowd, he could just about discern a huge black-furred skaven arriving from a side street.

It was Krizzak, Hellpaw’s feared lieutenant and second in command of the whole clan. He and his stormvermin elite were shoving a path through their lesser brethren, while a group of smaller figures trailed behind in his wake, clutching an unlikely array of machinery in their paws.

Siskritt’s nose twitched.

Lubricant… accelerant… a cocktail of chemicals he couldn’t begin to identify but had learned, through hard experience, to recognise a mile away. The delicious taint of warpstone reached his nostrils with bleak inevitability.

Warpfire thrower!

‘No, no, no. Now-now Siskritt, before whole wretched man-thing place comes down!’

He turned to face the final door, carved into the features of some kind of a feathered monster. A griffon… Or possibly a cockatrice? He didn’t care. It was nothing but the final obstacle between himself and the first step on his path to greatness. His fur tingled.

Drawing his sword, he kicked at the door with a snarl. Once. Twice.

On the third kick the lock gave and the door burst inwards. He charged through, experiencing a bravado that came only through an immediate sense of absolute mortal terror, his blade held before him as though he had a rabid plague rat by the tail.

At that exact moment, the side wall of the tavern was wreathed in a great gout of warpfire from the crew below. The surviving windows exploded inwards as fiery tendrils licked at the beams and plasterwork. Siskritt screeched in terror as he was hurled from his feet and into the room on billowing wings of unholy flame.

The Tilean merchant threw itself to the floor and wailed as Siskritt descended upon it, wreathed in a halo of green-black fire. A pewter goblet it had been clutching fell from its fingers, the blood-red contents already spilled over its silken finery.

Ignoring the stupid man-thing entirely, Siskritt hissed and snarled as he swatted out small fires in his fur and clothing, his tail spinning an intricate spider’s web of afterimages as its flickering tip lashed through the air. His wild eyes darted about the room seeking some means of escape…

But then they settled upon the talisman.

He caught his breath and his eyes narrowed, terror at once overcome by a fierce, jealous avarice. It was here. It would be his!

With wisps of smoke rising from his warpfire-scorched fur, he advanced towards the snivelling man-thing, crushing the fallen goblet beneath his paws as it scrambled backwards. He was invincible. I am Siskritt, fearsome and great, scourge of the man-things, and soon-to-be favoured of the Horned Rat!

The man-thing, who Siskritt knew was called Ambrosio, retreated until it sank into the corner, its eyes dilated with fear and its face slack with incomprehension. Siskritt had little sympathy as he closed the distance between them with short, quick steps. Despite all the evidence before their flabby noses, the man-things continued to refute the very existence of the skaven.

A Tilean of all people, dwelling in the shadow of Skavenblight itself, should know better.

‘W-wh… what…’ The man-thing cowered like a monkey cornered by a bird of prey. It might be better dressed than a monkey, it might be taller, but its flapping lips gabbled no less gibberish.

‘Quiet, man-thing. Be silent-still.’

‘Y-you speak Tilean! Are you a daemon sent to punish me?’

Siskritt responded with a burst of chittering laughter. ‘Yes-yes. I’m a daemon of… of… man-thing gods. Give me talisman and I’ll go away-gone.’

He held out an expectant paw. He hoped the man-thing didn’t notice how it trembled. He hoped the man-thing’s weak nose couldn’t smell his fear scent.

The man-thing started to weep, tears scouring twin trails over its sand-worn cheeks. Ambrosio folded down to grovel at Siskritt’s feet, either uncaring or blindly unaware of the man-thing blood that was congealed there, spongy and soft like jelly.

Siskritt cocked his head in bafflement as the man-thing began to babble a litany of supposed sins for which it was, of course, wholly repentant. The whole spectacle might have been amusing were he not so pressed for time. His back blistered in the terrible heat, and alarming groans of tortured wooden beams spread through the building. Not far below his feet, he heard the solid doors of the tavern collapse.

There would have been no need for orders. The weight of warriors filling the street would be pushing the nearest skaven through the hanging curtain of cinders and into the inn where the frightened man-things waited. The first dozen might die in agony, stepping in molten metal, fur set alight by dancing flames. Already, the frantic screams of skaven and man-thing were echoing through the smoky corridors like the unquiet spirits of the damned. Ambrosio snivelled on the carpeted floor as the sounds of chaos and carnage grew.

It was only through an effort of great will that Siskritt did not snivel right alongside the man-thing. He held his paw outstretched. ‘The talisman, man-thing! Hurry-Hurry.’

‘M-my talisman? Of course. It belonged to a man I sold as a slave. Am I being punished for that sin? If I buy back his freedom, will I be allowed to live?’

‘Yes-yes, man-thing will live! Just give talisman quick-quick or foolish man-thing die!’

Fingers sticky with sweat, Ambrosio yanked at the chain about its neck, the links tearing at its straggly beard in its haste to see the item removed. It pressed the talisman eagerly into Siskritt’s paws as though relieving itself of a curse from the gods.

Siskritt beamed with delight. In a way, it was.

His gaze settled on the talisman in his paws as though pulled by a puppeteer’s strings. The chaos of battle ebbed away as the talisman held his full attention. Long seconds passed with only the sound of his own breathing and, if he closed his eyes, the faintest whispering inside his mind, congratulating him on being such a clever skaven. So much work, so much risk, so much planning, and now it was his. Lovingly, he traced his claws across its surface.

The talisman was jet black within a latticework of platinum and a long silver chain. Even were it not magical, this pendant could doubtless have bought him his own clan. But magic it was; Siskritt could feel it. It felt unnaturally heavy in his paw given its size, and it had a presence, as though it was regarding him in return.

He pushed the eeriness aside and popped the chain around his neck, the talisman falling to rest against his thighs.

He felt strong. The man-thing had kept the talisman hidden beneath his silks, but Siskritt let it hang over his rags with pride. Let the others know I am a skaven to be reckoned with!

Ambrosio sank to one knee, having seemingly travelled through the veil of madness and well beyond the other side. ‘I have served you, servant of the gods. Will you keep your promise to me? Will you permit me to live?’

Siskritt shuffled forwards and reached down for the sword in the man-thing’s hand. The merchant released its grip willingly. Siskritt held the blade in his admiring hand. It was a long and beautiful weapon, double-edged with a cruciform hilt and tapered to a wicked point that drew blood when he laid his finger upon it. Elegant lettering traced the length of the blade from tip to hilt. He recognised the curling Arabyan script, but he could no more read it than he could this man-thing’s mind.

It was a fine weapon indeed.

Siskritt looked up at Ambrosio. ‘Of course I help, man-thing. You help-help, I help-help.’

The merchant followed him out into the hallway, but it paused at the shattered windows. The wind was angry and its breath was hot with fiery green cinders, roasted meat, and blood: always the pervasive iron whisper on the tongue, of blood.

Ambrosio was aghast. ‘What has happened here? Have I brought this terror upon them all?’

‘Quiet now, man-thing. I say Siskritt will help you.’

The street was largely empty, barring a few hold-outs that had successfully avoided the fighting. The whole frontage of the building was alight with warpfire, and even just standing here at the window was uncomfortably akin to being strung above some hungry giant’s fireplace.

Silently, Siskritt crept up behind Ambrosio. Jumping up from one leg, he planted a firm kick with the other into the merchant’s back. Had it been further from the window it might not have fallen, but its clumsy feet caught on the base of the wall and tipped it over the edge, its silks flapping madly in the rising heat as it pitched forwards with an undignified yelp. The man-thing disappeared into the flames before it had even a chance to scream.

An ominous groan from the floorboards beneath the steaming carpet sent Siskritt scurrying for the stairwell. Somehow, the fighting downstairs raged on and he could hear the booming war cry of the crazed dwarf rallying the survivors for a final stand. Siskritt drew his enchanting new weapon and waited for the right moment to join in the fray. He was injured and bloodied: no one could claim that he hadn’t been present all along.

He fondled his talisman and grinned; a smile filled with wicked, yellowing teeth. He could almost taste the greatness that would soon be his. Lesskreep, Krazzik, Hellpaw, and yes, even Thanquol. They would all recognise his power.

He flew down the stairs like a shadow to rejoin his victorious brethren.

Gotrek spared his companion a glance before walking over to where the last ratman lay. He pulled his axe free from the dead creature’s spine, the blade coming loose with a wet squeal of bone and a small gout of dark blood. Almost as an afterthought, he stamped down on the pathetic creature’s little trinket, grinding the black shards into dust beneath his boot.

He scanned the room, looking for more enemies but, disappointingly, there appeared to be none left alive.

Felix came up behind him, hacking and wheezing in the smoke. ‘Now, may we leave? Or are you going to insist on having one more drink first?’

Gotrek ignored him, instead clambering up onto one of the few remaining tables and grabbing the hilt of his companion’s runesword. He tugged it free from the ceiling without the slightest effort. Agape, Felix almost failed to catch the weapon as Gotrek tossed it over to him.

‘No,’ he said finally. ‘The ale in this place tastes like orc-spit.’

Felix raised a blood-caked eyebrow, and shrugged before starting for the cellar door. Gotrek stopped him with a raised meaty fist.

‘Where do you think you’re going, manling?’

‘That last ratman was headed this way, obviously there’s a way out.’

Gotrek shook his head and laughed his deep, gruff laugh. Lumbering into a run, he drove through the flames and out into the street. The sounds of battle resumed.

Felix sighed as he swallowed a curse. ‘A burning city filled with an army of ratmen? Of course we’re going that way.’

Last Orders

Andy Smillie

Fredric Gerlach’s underpants were wet. He was, however, confident that he hadn’t pissed himself. The dark patch on the crotch of his trousers was merely an embarrassing reminder not to stand too close to the ale taps during a bar-fight. Fredric gave up trying to pat himself dry with the tails of his shirt, which itself was half-drenched, and cast his eyes over the destruction his patrons had visited upon his establishment. Dozens of caskets, kegs and what looked like all of his glasses lay smashed on the floor, their contents seeping away between cracks in the cobbles. Ruined tables and broken chairs were strewn across the Skewered Dragon’s length. Blood and fleshy matter clung to everything like a fungus. Here and there Fredric spotted dismembered limbs, dotted around like macabre ornaments. And the bodies – dozens of them, perhaps fifty – they would be the hardest to explain. Not for the first time that night, Fredric mouthed a silent prayer to his god that he wasn’t among them.

A short man with square shoulders and a barrel chest pushed his way through what was left of the front door, the pathetic slat of timber swinging on its remaining hinge for the last time before clattering to the floor. Fredric recognised the man as Watch Officer Herman Faulkstein, an officious bastard with a mean temper and little regard for personal privacy. Fredric exhaled noisily and swatted a fly away from his face; he had so hoped they’d send someone less zealous. He doubted there was any chance of him getting away from this stink in a hurry.

Faulkstein bent down to examine the body nearest the door. Like the rest of the corpses piled around the tavern, it lay awaiting the administrations of Morr. The god of death’s priests would be along soon enough. Faulkstein sighed; the robed attendants and their macabre traditions gave him the creeps. Drawing his dagger the watchman slipped the blade under the corpse’s head and lifted it up.

If Faulkstein had bothered to ask, Fredric could have told him who the body was. He could tell from the tattered, orange-brown robe draped over its bony shoulders. Well, that and the body’s proximity to the door. Ansgar Ernot had been a mumbling hedge wizard with a spine so weak it was a wonder it had kept the man upright. He would have made a break for it as soon as someone had as much as raised their voice. Though even with a head start he hadn’t managed to outrun the bolt that was buried in his back.

Faulkstein withdraw his dagger and wiped it clean on his sleeve. Standing up, he met Fredric’s gaze and motioned for the barkeep to join him.

Fredric flashed his biggest grin, a set of stubby, blackened teeth adding to its obvious insincerity, and dropped down from his perch on the bar. The watchman led him to a table in the far corner, one of the few that was still in one piece.

‘Have a seat, Herr Gerlach.’ Faulkstein righted an overturned stool and invited Fredric to sit down.

Fredric took a seat and made an attempt at smoothing down his shirt as the watchman sat down opposite him.

‘Tell me, Fredric,’ said Faulkstein leaning an elbow on the table and resting his chin against his fist.

The barkeep stopped fidgeting with the boil on his neck. ‘Tell you what?’

The watchman leant forwards so that his face filled Fredric’s vision. He spoke softly, locking eyes with the barkeep and lingering over every syllable. ‘Everything.’

Few are abroad on Geheimnisnacht. It is an ill-omened night, when the lesser of the twin moons, Morrslieb, rises full in the sky and bathes the world in eerie light. On Geheimnisnacht, anyone of sane mind fastens shut their doors, douses the flames from their hearth and bids the world turn to morning.

Though, as was apparent from the army of vagrants filing out of the Skewered Dragon with their stench and their foul language, not every denizen of Middenheim could be considered sane. Still, thought Fredric, insanity was good for business; he’d barely stopped pulling ales since the first chime of evening.

In Fredric’s experience, two things drove men to drink: women and superstition. Geheimnisnacht was full of both. Tales abounded of young maidens being stolen in the night, dragged from where they slept into the darkness of the Drakwald, there to be sacrificed on the altar of a bestial god. Just as frequent were the stories of witches and sorceresses, whose powers reached their zenith under the Chaos moon’s gaze, and who stalked the streets ready to claim the souls of the unwary.

‘Oi, barkeep!’ Heinrich Lowen shoved a tankard under Fredric’s nose. ‘Does this look clean to you?’ The witch hunter spat through the mixture of broken teeth and metal studs that filled his mouth.

Fredric stared at the man for a moment. He had picked the wrong ale-hole if he was intent upon pressing his pious lips to clean tankards.

‘A dog wouldn’t drink from this,’ Heinrich finished, slamming the flagon onto the bar.

There wasn’t a soul in the Dragon that hadn’t heard the tale of how the witch hunter had come about his crooked dentures. A dreaded fiend, a murderer, a rapist, a man gripped by the trappings of the Dark Gods and imbued with their power had struck Heinrich. It was a mighty blow. The murderer’s ensorcelled fist had smashed into the witch hunter’s jaw with the force of Ulric’s hammer, splintering teeth and bone. But even beaten and bloodied, Heinrich would not be laid low. The witch hunter had climbed to his feet, filled with righteous zeal. He had taken up his sword, and despite his grievous injuries, slain the heretic before the man could land a second blow, bisecting him from shoulder to torso.

It wasn’t the truth, of course.

Heinrich had been the victim of a far more dangerous beast. A woman scorned, Heinrich’s wife, Freyda, had tripped up the witch hunter as he stumbled home drunk. Then, as he lay concussed on the ground, she had fastened her foot into one of the iron-shod boots her husband used to try witches by the lake, and kicked her cheating spouse full in the face.

Women and superstition. Fredric bit down a chuckle, took the cloudy tankard of ale from the surly witch hunter and placed it behind the bar. He’d serve it to someone less discerning later.

He pulled another mug from the rack hanging over the bar. ‘This one do?’ Loosening the towel from his belt, the barkeep gave the flagon a quick polish and proffered it to Heinrich.

The witch hunter grunted, took the tankard from Fredric, and stumbled back towards his table.

Fredric watched him go. Heinrich was a constant thorn in his arse, always complaining about one thing or another, but his sour temper and reputation for spotting ‘heretics’ kept the weirder elements of the citizenry away.

The witch hunter’s drinking partner, however, was nothing but trouble. A captain in the army, Gustav Helser was nursing the same flagon of ale he’d been staring at for the last hour. Gustav was a tall, broad man with thick arms and knuckles that had been broken more than once, making them look like iron rivets when he clenched his fists. Fredric glanced at the elongated broadsword resting by the captain’s side. Gustav never took his hand from its hilt and never drank more than would let him wield it. He was the sort of man who would run you through for something as petty as pickpocketing. Fredric didn’t trust him, and neither did the Dragon’s other patrons.

Except for Ernot. The fool of a wizard trusted everyone. Well, he trusted that they had more coin than he, which was reason enough for him to count no one beneath his attentions. Ernot, seemingly unable to read Gustav’s mood, had wandered over to his table intent on coin. Fredric watched with bated breath as the wizard conjured a flame into the palm of his outstretched hand. The flame swelled in size until it was as large as a flagon of ale. The wizard brought it up to his mouth and blew on it softly. Its centre opened like a mouth, giving birth to a larger flame that appeared in Ernot’s other hand. With a flurry, the wizard placed his hands behind his back, leaving the two flames hanging in the air. Burning through hues of orange-blue, the flames circled each other, sizing each other up like warriors in a duel. At some unseen gesture from Ernot, the smaller one darted forwards, leaving a thread-line of embers in its wake, and swallowed the larger one whole. Smouldering bright red, the remaining flame flickered with growing intensity before exploding into a mist of sparking embers that drifted to the floor. Someone at a nearby table began to applaud. Ernot extended his hand for payment.

Gustav ignored him, leaning forwards to flick an errant ember from the table.

Ernot withdrew his hand, annoyance flashing across his face before his practiced showman’s demeanour reasserted itself. ‘Surely, dear captain, you wouldn’t see a fellow servant of the Empire go–’

Gustav was on his feet, his sword at Ernot’s throat before the wizard could finish. ‘Do not dishonour the men who have died to protect these lands with your slander. You are an aberration, a deviant who is not so far removed from the devils we fight. It is only by Ulric’s grace that you are allowed to march beside your betters.’ Gustav poked a jabbing finger into Ernot’s forehead. ‘Now be gone and bother me no more.’

Ernot’s humour fell away, his eyes turning to smouldering coals, set alight by some unseen fire. Smoke began to rise from the captain’s blade.

‘Sit down, friend.’ Heinrich spoke to Gustav, but his crossbow pistol was pointed at Ernot.

‘Enough.’ Faulkstein held out a hand to silence Fredric. ‘I’ve seen the wizard already.’ The watchman flicked a finger towards the two priests of Morr stooped over Ernot’s body.

Faulkstein ruffled his nose at the pungent incense wafting from the iron censers attached to their belts, and pulled a handkerchief from his pocket. ‘You two,’ the watchman turned from Fredric, waving his arm in irritation at the priests, ‘can’t you wait until I’m finished here? They aren’t going anywhere.’ Faulkstein swept his arm around the room to indicate the mass of corpses littering the bar.

‘No, we cannot,’ one of the priests answered without looking up. ‘They belong to Morr now and he will not be kept waiting. No, that wouldn’t do at all.’ The priest stopped and angled his head up at Faulkstein. ‘That is, of course, unless you’d rather invite plague, or worse.’ The priest paused to touch the silver talisman dangling around his neck, ‘the curse of undeath upon us?’

Faulkstein uttered a curse under his breath and returned his attention to Fredric. ‘Enough prattle. I don’t have time to hear about every wolf-gnawed drunkard that stumbled across your path tonight. Tell me about the outlaws.’

Fredric looked confused, and for good reason. Not that he would have told them to their faces, but most of the Dragon’s patrons would have been considered scum by anyone in the Empire with even a breath of honour. Almost to a man, they were wanted by someone for something. You didn’t drink in a back alley sump unless you had little other choice or, as was the case with Gustav, liked a good fight.

‘Outlaws?’ Fredric repeated the watchman’s question, turning his palms face up and trying to sound casual.

Faulkstein clicked his tongue in annoyance. ‘The dwarf and the human.’

‘The dwarf and the human? Watch officer, sir. This is Middenheim, there are as many dwarfs and humans drowning their sorrows in taverns as there are rats in the street.’

Faulkstein sighed hard, gripping the table in an effort to calm himself, ‘The poet, Felix Jaeger and that Slayer, Gotrek Gunnison.’

‘Felix Jae–’

‘Yes,’ interrupted Faulkstein, his hand raised as if to strike Fredric. ‘Jaeger and the Slayer.’ The watchman locked eyes with the barkeep. ‘I know they were here.’

‘Ah, yes, them,’ Fredric nodded, sitting back in his chair in an effort to distance himself from the seething watchman. ‘The dwarf and the human. Adventurers.’ Fredric swatted a fly away from his face. The creature persisted until he glared at it. ‘Yes, I remember,’ his brow knotted as he thought back. ‘They came straight to the bar...’

‘Ale!’ The dwarf banged his fist on the counter top, the numerous gold rings covering his fingers rattling. ‘And whatever watered-down filth my companion fancies.’

‘Coin first.’ Fredric made it a rule never to serve a dwarf before he’d paid. For all their fabled powers of recollection and their tiring ability to hang onto grudges long past the point of reason, dwarfs were as forgetful as halflings when it came to settling up.

‘You’d do well to serve me now, manling.’ The irate dwarf thumped the bar again. ‘I am thirsty. Keep me waiting at–’

‘Forgive my friend, it’s been a long night,’ a man cut in and tossed a bag of coins to Fredric. ‘This should see us through till morning.’ The man took a seat at the bar next to the dwarf, and ran his hand through the thick of his blond hair.

Satisfied by the weight of the purse, Fredric filled two flagons and slid them along the bar to the dwarf.

‘And for my companion?’ the dwarf said mid quaff, ale foaming over his red beard.

Fredric bit down a reply, filled a third tankard and handed it to the man. ‘Is he always this–’

‘Grungni’s beard,’ the dwarf interrupted, spitting out a mouthful of ale in disgust. ‘This, this sewage that you’ve deemed to call ale, tastes like a minotaur’s arse.’

Fredric gritted his teeth; the dwarf was pushing his luck. The barkeep thought about reaching under the bar and retrieving his sword. About reaching over and cutting the impudent short-arse’s tongue out. He eyed the swirls of runic tattoos that snaked up the dwarf’s neck and disappeared beneath his iron helm, and the muscled forearms that were no doubt the result of a lifetime wielding the monstrous axe slung across the dwarf’s broad back.

Fredric took a breath and thought better of his fantasies. ‘I’ll fetch you another.’

‘Don’t insult me, boy. Get me a fresh one from your cellar. Something worthy of a son of Grungni.’ The dwarf shook his fist at Fredric and knocked the flagon to the ground. ‘Best ye pray to your god that it’s better than this rat-piss or I’ll carve you up and drink your blood instead.’

Fredric had never heard of a dwarf who drank blood; as a rule they drank ale. Still, no sense in risking that the dwarf glaring murderously at him was the exception to the rule.

‘Pieter,’ Fredric called to the aged vagrant holding up the end of the bar, and tossed him the beer-sodden towel of his office. ‘Watch the bar for me.’ He pulled back the oak sideboard covering the entrance to the cellar. ‘And Pieter, try not to drink more than the customers.’

Fredric ducked inside the opening behind the bar and fished a candle from a barrel filled with sand. Straightening the wick, the barkeep held it up so that its wick kissed the brazier burning overhead and caught alight. Cupping his free hand around the flame, Fredric descended the stone incline to the basement, taking care not to slip on the slimy fungus that clung to the well-worn cobbles. At the bottom, he turned right towards the barrel room and–

‘Ulric!’ Fredric let out a shriek and dropped the candle. He’d collided with someone.

‘Watch where you’re going!’

‘Who’s there?’ asked Fredric, trying to keep his voice level.

‘Turn out the light!’

Reflexively, Fredric stomped out the flame. An act he immediately regretted. ‘Who’s there?’ he asked again, his hand moving to the knife on his belt.

‘It’s Luipold.’

‘The rat catcher?’

‘Yes, you fool. Who were you expecting? A flower-wreathed maiden of the court?’

Fredric relaxed the grip on his knife and scolded himself for his foolishness. He’d allowed too many tales of murder on Geheimnisnacht to fuddle his senses. ‘Luipold, you’re still down here?’ Fredric had commissioned the catcher after several casks of ale had gone sour, and he’d heard scratching behind the wine racks.

‘Yes, these things take time, Herr Fredric.’ Luipold appeared from the darkness his face within a breath of the barkeep’s.

Fredric winced, the man stank of sulphur. ‘Ah, Luipold, you frightened me there. I thought you’d be long done.’ Fredric fought down the urge to gag under the pungent assault of the rat catcher’s breath. ‘What has it been? Two days now?’

‘You have quite the infestation,’ Luipold pressed a dead rat into Fredric’s hand, ‘and I fear the light from your candle has scared them back into their holes.’ The rat catcher put his arm around Fredric’s shoulders. ‘Please, get what you came for and trouble me no more until my work is complete.’ Luipold left the rat in Fredric’s palm, turned and disappeared into the gloom.

Fredric realised he was holding his breath and exhaled. He was glad to be rid of the man. ‘Just the rat catcher,’ he said, steadying himself. Dropping the rat at his feet, the barkeep wiped his hands on his trousers, and continued to the barrel room. In the darkness, Fredric was forced to feel his way past the wine racks to the ale caskets, his searching hands demolishing the thick cobwebs that coated the wine bottles like skin: superfluous proof that the Dragon’s patrons weren’t big on wine. His fingers traced the familiar iron band that bound the wood of the ale barrels, and he stopped. It felt sticky. Withdrawing his hand, Fredric rubbed his fingers together; there was some sort of wet powder coating the barrel. He brought his hand up to his nose to sniff it, but quickly changed his mind. The rat catcher had likely coated the place in poison, inhaling it was sure to be unwise. Fredric shuddered.

Pushing the creepy encounter with Luipold from his mind, Fredric bent over and pressed his ear to each of the ale barrels in turn until he heard the familiar gurgling of Gutrot XI. A particularly potent brew, Gutrot continued to ferment until drunk, and would eat through any cask or tankard if left standing long enough. ‘This’ll sort that Ulric-damned, knee-biter out,’ he muttered, satisfied the XI would placate the dwarf, and save him from a beating. He dragged the barrel from the rack and made to roll it up the slope.

‘I’m heading up now,’ Fredric called into the darkness. Luipold didn’t respond.

‘Get back on the other side there,’ Fredric said, securing the Gutrot to one of the ale taps and shooing Pieter away from another. He cursed; the skin on his hands felt tight and irritable. He glanced down at the sticky, white mire that clung to them despite his best efforts to rub it off. It didn’t look like any poison he’d ever seen, more like chalk mixed with gunpowder, and something else; something thick and wet. He shrugged. Thinking too much about something never led you to a good place. Wiping his hands on Pieter’s back, Fredric pushed the vagabond out from behind the bar.

The barkeep slid a double-thick, forged tankard under the ale tap, and filled it with Gutrot. ‘Now then, master dwarf...’ Fredric looked round to find the dwarf and his human companion lost in a press of leering drunkards. He felt his shoulders tighten in expectation of a fight.

‘And you were all alone? With no means of escape?’ one of the crowd asked, throwing his arms into the air and the contents of his flagon over those around him.

‘Aye!’ said the dwarf as he pushed his way to the bar. ‘It was a close call but they were no match for dwarfish steel.’ The dwarf grinned, pointing a thumb over his shoulder at his axe. ‘We sent them all to their gods with our boots on their backs and defeat in their guts.’ The crowd cheered as the dwarf finished his tale. Retaking his seat at the bar, the dwarf turned to Fredric and pointed to the XI. ‘My nose says that’s the good stuff.’

‘The very best.’ Fredric felt his shoulders relax, and he slid the dwarf his drink. The stunty warrior’s ill humour and furnace-like temper had seemingly been cooled by his audience’s adulation.

The barkeep poured himself a carafe of ale and settled behind the bar, joining the crowd as they listened to the adventurers recount their exploits. Between quaffs of Gutrot, the dwarf told a tale of how they had slain a nest of trolls in the ruins of Karak Eight Peaks, of how together they had journeyed to the world’s end and battled daemon lizards that walked upright like men. Then it was the dwarf’s floppy-haired companion’s turn to speak.

‘Just this very night,’ he began in hushed tones, ‘we came upon a shadowy cult in the Drakwald.’

The crowd cheered at the Drakwald’s mention, many of them having lost friend and kin to the accursed forest and its foul denizens.

The adventurer, an accomplished storyteller, waited for the crowd to settle before continuing. ‘At first we thought them to be no more than errant villagers practicing a heathen ritual beneath the moons, but when they threw back their dark cloaks it was neither men nor women whose sinister eyes stared back at us...’

A hush fell over the crowd as the adventurer polished off his drink.

‘Well who was it?’ one of the crowd ventured, the anticipation too much for him. The man’s cheeks flushed red as he looked around, embarrassed. ‘Who was it?’ he asked, quieter this time, proffering the adventurer another ale by way of encouragement.

The adventured smiled and took the drink, ‘They were neither man nor beast but a vile mix of the two,’ he continued, curling his fingers and narrowing his brow with practised theatre. ‘They had bestial faces, clawed hands and cloven hooves–’

Tumult at the rear of the huddle drew the adventurer’s attention as his audience stumbled into one another, shouldered aside by a lumbering newcomer who was as broad as he was tall. An angular forehead chiselled from hardened bedrock sat above a thicket beard. Dozens of animal pelts hung over his immense shoulders. Bound by cords of sinew and tendon, and stinking of blood and faeces, they were as much a testament to the hunter’s prowess as they were proof against the winter’s cold.

Fredric looked up at the broken horn of ivory protruding from the iron plate that armoured the hunter’s massive gut, and felt his mouth go dry. He knew an ogre when he saw one. This would not end well.

‘Jaeger.’ The ogre locked eyes with the adventurer and growled.

The adventurer’s mouth fell open without riposte, his handsome features marred with dread.

The ogre snarled and smashed his forehead into the human’s nose, which broke with a sickening crunch. The adventurer fell backwards, blood spraying from his nose, and crashed over a stool onto his arse. Throwing out his arms, the ogre knocked back the crowd, clearing a space for him to stare down the dwarf. A hammer appeared in one of the hunter’s muscled hands, a jagged blade in the other.

The dwarf swallowed heavily, dropped down from the bar stool, and reached for his axe.

The ogre’s hammer swung into the side of the dwarf’s head, ringing off his helm moments before the hunter’s foot connected with his chest, shooting him backwards through two onlookers and into the back of the wizard Ansgar Ernot. Mid parlour trick, Ernot stumbled, thrusting one of the flames he’d summoned onto his would-be patron. The flame devoured the man even before he could scream. Engulfing him in an eldritch fire, the aberrant conflagration burned away his innards, leaving behind only a charred husk that flaked apart and tumbled to the floor like morbid snowflakes. The other flare landed on Heinrich’s table, setting it ablaze.

‘Ulric damn you!’ The witch hunter scrambled hastily to his feet, drawing his crossbow.

With that the bar erupted. Emboldened by an evening of ale and the dwarf’s rousing tales of adventure, the men of the Dragon became warrior legends in their own minds. Curses sworn and steel unsheathed, they attacked one another with vigour, seeking to hack and slash their way to glory.

Fredric reached under the bar to grab his blade–

The ogre smashed the blond adventurer’s head into the counter top inches from Fredric’s own panic-stricken face. The barkeep recoiled in fright, scrambling back against the wall as fast as his jellied limbs would allow. Fredric watched as the ogre reversed his grip on his hammer and stamped it down on the adventurer’s head. The man’s skull cracked like an egg, spilling bloody matter onto the bar. The hunter looked at Fredric and snarled, though whether in derision or amusement, the barkeep couldn’t tell. Gripping the adventurer by the pulped remains of his head, the ogre pivoted on the spot and tossed the human’s corpse into the dwarf who was struggling to his feet. Unable to move, the dwarf raised his arms to shield himself but was sent crashing back to the ground by his former companion’s momentum.

His curiosity outweighing his fear, Fredric shuffled forwards and peered over the bar.

The ogre was closing on the dwarf.

An idiot with too much courage and too little sense attacked the hunter from the rear, breaking a chair over his broad back. The blow barely registered. The ogre continued forwards, gutting the man with a casual back-handed swipe of his blade, before slamming a fist into a wounded soul unlucky enough to be in the way.

The ogre reached the dwarf.

The hunter loomed over him like a vengeful effigy, grunting as the dwarf tried in vain to free himself from under the man’s corpse. Placing an armoured foot on top of the dwarf’s chest, the ogre sealed the adventurer’s fate.

‘No! Wait!’ The dwarf cried out in panic, one handing scrabbling for a weapon while the other came up to shield his face.

The ogre ignored him, bringing his hammer down in an over-handed swing that caved in the top of the dwarf’s skull and shattered the vertebra in his back.

Despite the horror of the situation, Fredric chuckled. Had the dwarf survived, he’d have been even shorter than before.

Faulkstein rolled a measure of smokeweed between his thumb and forefingers. ‘So then…’ The watchman took another pace forwards, side-stepping a body that had a sword planted in its back like an errant road sign, towards a dense pile of bodies. Popular place to die, he thought. ‘That would put them about here?’ Faulkstein kicked the nearest body.

‘Yes.’ Fredric craned his neck to get a look at where the watchman was standing. ‘Yes, I think so.’ He stood up, vigorously scratching at the boil on his neck, and walked to the watchman. ‘Yes, that’s right. There’s the human there,’ Fredric brought his hand down to point, but stopped when he noticed the filmy layer of pus covering it. ‘Damn it.’ Wiping his hand clean on the side of his tunic, Fredric used his other one to point out a bloodied body lying almost side-by-side with another to Faulkstein’s left.

Faulkstein bent next to the corpse Fredric had indicated. The man’s clothes were soaked in blood, his blond hair matted with filmy viscera where the ogre’s hammer had caved in his skull. The watchman made to turn the corpse over–

‘Stop!’ The priest of Morr held out his arms and stepped between the watchman and the corpse.

Startled, Faulkstein backed off. Recovering, he glared at the priest. ‘Why? What is it?’

‘I bid ye, sir, do not disturb the children of Morr.’ The priest settled next to the body, fussing over it with the same care and urgency that Faulkstein had seen apothecaries display when they treated the wounded.

Incense clung to the priest’s robes like death’s shadow, forcing the watchman to pull his tunic up around his nose. ‘May I?’ Faulkstein asked with mock sincerity, bending next to the dwarf’s corpse.

‘You may. He is a dwarf, he has no business with Morr, and Morr’s disciples none with him.’ The priest turned away.

Faulkstein unsheathed his dagger and lifted what was left of the dwarf’s head off the cobbled floor. By the looks of things the dwarf had been killed by the same bludgeoning weapon that ended the life of his companion. Judging by the size and angle of the indentation, the barkeep had been right: they’d both fallen prey to the same foe. ‘I–’ Faulkstein stopped short, his gaze falling on the dwarf’s chest. ‘My dear Herr Fredric, you are even stupider and inbred than you appear.’

‘Sir?’ Fredric’s mouth hung open in exaggerated offence.

‘This dwarf is not Gotrek Gurnisson.’ Faulkstein glared at Fredric. ‘And this...’ the watchman jabbed a finger at the priest of Morr’s back, ‘is unlikely to be Felix Jaeger.’

The barkeep stared back, bemused.

‘Do you know nothing of Trollslayers?’ Faulkstein asked, his patience long since gone.

‘Only what passes from the lips of bards and rumour mongers...’ Fredric paused to swat an ornery fly away from his face. ‘Dwarf Slayers are a cult of disgraced warriors. They seek death in battle to make up for one failure or another. It’s all a bit fatalistic–’

‘Yes,’ Faulkstein cut him off, ‘but those warriors, Herr Fredric, who seek death, rarely wear armour.’ Faulkstein tapped his dagger against the steel of the dwarf’s breastplate. ‘Besides, this dwarf doesn’t have the strength in his arms to accomplish the feats attributed to Gurnisson.’ The watchman poked the dead warrior’s bicep with his dagger. Impressive though the dwarf’s physique was when compared to that of a man’s, it was not the monolithic build Faulkstein’s quarry possessed.

Fredric stared at the dwarf’s arms; each was easily the size of his own thighs. He felt a chill run down his spine at the thought of the iron sinews that must surely criss-cross Gotrek’s frame. ‘An easy mistake, I feel, watchman. The dwarf’s stature presents him as far mightier than I.’

‘True enough.’ Faulkstein sheathed his knife and stood up. ‘And that, Herr Fredric, brings me to my final question.’ The watchman started towards Fredric. ‘How is it that you came to survive this butchery? The dwarf, the witch hunter and the captain,’ Faulkstein motioned to each of the bodies in turn, ‘they were hard men, men of violence and steel. Even the wizard, with the aid of his sorcery, should have had a better chance at survival than you.’ Faulkstein pressed his finger into Fredric’s chest, nudging the barkeep back towards the wall. ‘Yet they were all slain, cut down by a foe beyond even their considerable battle craft. So tell me, how is it that you, a mere barkeep, with naught but a rusted blade to defend yourself, survived when these men of strength could not?’ Faulkstein folded his arms, his eyes stabbing into Fredric as they searched for the truth.

Fredric felt his skin itch under the watchman’s stare. ‘I-I hid,’ he stammered.

‘You hid?’

‘Y-yes,’ The boil on his neck was itching more than Fredric could bear. He clamped his hand around it and continued, ‘I went to the cellar–’

‘Where?’

‘The cellar. I hid in the cellar.’

‘Why hide? Why not simply flee?’

Fredric made to answer but the watchman continued. ‘And what of the rat catcher, where is he?’

‘Th-the rat catcher?’ Fredric felt as though the boil was eating his neck. He dug his nails into it and winced at the pain. ‘Dead, he is dead, sir. I saw him on the floor.’ Fredric flinched as Faulkstein shot a hand out towards his head.

The watchman pulled the torch from a sconce on the wall behind Fredric. ‘Show me.’

Faulkstein followed Fredric through the timber door behind the bar onto the slope of well-worn cobbles that led to the cellar, the torch casting grim shadows that fought and danced on the stone of the walls.

‘Careful, it gets slippery,’ warned Fredric.

Faulkstein stumbled, grunting at the barkeep’s too-late warning. Struggling to reset his footing, the watchman braced a hand against the wall. The stone felt moist and warm, like sweat-slick skin.

Faulkstein shook the thought from his head and continued down the slope. Dank air wafted up from below and he could feel his throat narrowing as a pungent tang filled his nostrils. Despite himself, the watchman longed for the acrid taste of the incense that wafted incessantly from the priests of Morr. It turned his stomach to think what wretched drink was left to brew in such a place as the Dragon’s cellar. Only the familiar snapping of the kindling as it burned in the torch brought Faulkstein comfort, the sound transporting him from the drudgery of the descent to the chair by his hearth, where a tall measure of wine awaited him. Thankful that his investigation was almost over, Faulkstein pushed on, down and into the cellar proper.

Despite the light of the torch, the darkness was unrelenting. Faulkstein shuffled forwards, feeling his pulse quicken with every footstep.

‘Here, let me.’ Fredric appeared as if from nowhere. Taking the torch from the startled watchman, he lit a large brazier at the centre of the room. Light raged into life and spilled out to illuminate the vaulted room.

Faulkstein blinked hard as his eyes adjusted, the smell of burning oil assailing his nostrils. Glad of the brief respite from the choking odour of the place, the watchman cast his gaze around the room. To the left, stacked on their sides, were row upon row of wooden caskets. Up ahead, a single dark-wood rack spanned the far wall, its cobwebbed shelves filled with a random assortment of glass bottles and pewter containers. To the right, huge iron drums stood upright, large patches of algae betraying their disrepair. The floor was covered in an off-white powder that had been used to mark out a pattern Faulkstein had never seen before: three circles connected by a triangle, which itself was encircled by a larger circle. The watchman studied the lines of powder, his analytical mind searching for meaning.

‘Herr Fredric.’ Faulkstein paused, disliking the slight quiver that had crept into his voice. His head swam from looking at the chalky circles. He licked his lips and swallowed: there was something wrong about the cellar, he could feel it in his gut. ‘Where does the rat catcher’s body lie?’ The watchman focused himself on his task, hoping to curtail his rising need to be elsewhere.

Fredric smiled, the firelight lending his features a sinister quality, and pointed over the watchman’s shoulder. ‘He is there, by the entrance.’

Faulkstein turned round and looked back towards the way they had come, straining his eyes to see in the half-gloom. A skeleton dressed in rags sat doubled over in a lee of the wall.

How?

The question hung in the watchman’s thoughts like an iron weight threatening to drown him.

How had he missed the body? How could it have decomposed so quickly? How had–

Fredric stuck a knife up and under Faulkstein’s ribcage and into his heart. The watchman shuddered and fell forwards onto his knees, blood haemorrhaging from his mouth as he spoke for the last time. ‘How?’

‘That’s the wrong question, Herr Faulkstein,’ Fredric bent down to whisper in the dying watchman’s ear. ‘“Who” is the only question that truly matters.’ Fredric dragged Faulkstein’s body into the middle of the daubed triangle and pulled the knife from his chest. ‘His name is Pharo’sla,’ Fredric spoke as the blood from the watchman’s body began to mingle with the powder, causing it to glow and writhe like a tortured serpent. ‘He thanks you for your part in his summoning.’ Fredric waited for the last of the life to leave the watchman’s eyes, and cut off his head.

Fredric exited through the cellar into a narrow alley. It had been raining, turning the dirt of the street into a sludgy soup. Sighing, he looked up at the sky. The twin moons were still in ascendance, their fey light blanketing the city. Fredric pulled a scroll from his tunic and unrolled it to reveal a map of the Empire. Many innocents had died to make the map, their skin flayed from their screaming faces and pressed using foul magics. Fredric grinned darkly as the outline of Middenheim was replaced by a sickly-green dot that pulsed in time with the other bulbous markings scattered around the provinces.

Six down, one to go.

Fredric felt a nausea grip his stomach as Nordland began to glow faintly, an infernal buzzing clawing at his mind.

North. A thought not his own distilled from the chatter of insects, beckoned him onwards.

Securing the map in the folds of his clothing, Fredric took care to avoid the worst of the puddles, and turned down a side street. Tall buildings towered to either side of him, their ramshackle walls blocking out the moons’ glow. He paused for a moment to appreciate the relative darkness; he’d spent enough time in the light that evening.

‘Ah, there you are. You took your time.’ The voice came from the shadows.

Fredric turned to find a lone figure leaning against the wall, chewing a pencil.

‘Fredric Gerlach is it? Or perhaps you’d prefer Luipold Gunda?’ The figure tucked the pencil behind his ear and stood upright, levelling a sword at Luipold’s throat.

Luipold took a step back, the entire night flashing through his mind.

The barkeep, Fredric, had interrupted his incantation. The fool had stumbled into the cellar, breaking Luipold’s concentration. But he’d shooed him away without incident, filling his head with tales of vermin and the difficulty of catching them in the light. But Fredric returned. He’d sought safety, in a cowardly attempt to flee the fight raging upstairs, only to find a worse horror awaiting him: Luipold in the throes of his spell, his skin splitting and reforming as pustulent ooze ran from his pores. Fredric had turned to run, but Luipold moved first, staving the barkeep’s head in with a loose cobble. His strength waning, Luipold needed a vessel to finish the rite. The fight upstairs would bring the Watch. His mind raced, panicking as the consequences of failure struck him: his soul forfeit to the capricious nature of his patron. He had to move fast. Luipold snuck upstairs. Crouching behind the bar he searched for a solution. A wizard lay dead by the door. A shame, the taint of his magic would have pleased Pharo’sla. The brute with the broadsword, Luipold smelt the mark of faith upon him; he would do. Luipold made to blindside the captain, attack while he was engaged with the ogre, but... Luipold fought against the fog choking his memory. Something had struck the nearest ale tap, struck him. Then there was darkness.

‘Who are you?’ Luipold growled at the figure.

‘Felix Jaeger.’

‘The poet?!’

Felix dipped his head in a mock-bow. ‘The very same.’ Felix pointed his sword over Luipold’s shoulder. ‘And that’s Gotrek.’

Luipold turned to face the dwarf.

‘Aye, that’s me,’ Gotrek Gurnisson pointed a muscled thumb at his chest. ‘You’ve been a hard one to catch up to. Thought you’d given us the slip back in Altdorf.’ Gotrek fed the haft of his axe through his fists and rolled his neck loose. ‘Won’t be having that this time.’

Luipold bared his gnarled teeth, ‘Fools! Your blood shall christen my master’s rebirth!’ Luipold roared in pain-filled ecstasy as his left leg swelled to more than double its size, the flesh of his thigh bursting through his trouser leg to reveal a diseased scar that ran the length of the muscle. Reaching down, Luipold clawed opened the wound. Maggots wormed their way from his insides, crawling out from his flesh and scrambling across his fingers before falling to the street.

‘That’s, well, it’s just plain unpleasant,’ Felix joked, but the nausea rising in his stomach stole the smile from his lips. His vision began to blur as a dire buzzing wracked his skull and oppressed his wits.

With a gurgle, Luipold drew a bone-sword from the flesh-scabbard in his leg. The blade dripped with pus and vehement venom that dripped in thick teardrops to chew away at the ground. ‘By the will of my master, I will end you both for your meddling.’ Luipold hefted his blade and charged at Felix.

Gotrek was there in an instant, shouldering his powerless companion out of harm’s way, and bringing his axe crashing into Luipold’s blade. ‘Best stay back, lad, this one’s feisty.’

Luipold snarled, holding his ground as his ensorcelled might fought to overcome Gotrek’s muscled frame. ‘I will feast on your corpse, dwarf.’ The words slicked off Luipold’s tongue like pustulant honey.

Gotrek fought against the pernicious odour carried on the cultist’s breath, but it seeped into every pore of his flesh, eroding his strength from within. He felt himself weakening, his enemy’s blade inching closer to his face.

Felix dropped his sword, pressing his hands to his ears in an effort to block out the infernal buzzing. Through the murk of his vision he saw Gotrek, down on one knee, Luipold looming over him. Without thought, he dashed forwards and threw himself into the cultist. Caught by surprise, Luipold hit the ground hard, his head smashing into the well-trodden earth of the street. Felix rolled away, choking on the thick miasma that surrounded the cultist.

‘Kill him!’ Felix spat the words through the thick phlegm that blocked his nose and filled his mouth like a diseased soup.

‘Just warming up,’ Gotrek assured him.

Luipold pushed himself to his feet. His cheekbone was broken. No matter, he’d be gifted with something far greater in time. Seeing the dwarf approach, Luipold thrust his blade at Felix. ‘The dwarf will not save you this time.’

Gotrex glanced at Felix; he was choking under an expanding pool of bile that streamed from his nose and mouth. The dwarf grunted and raised his axe.

Luipold charged, sweeping his blade downwards as before. Gotrek met it head on, as he had done earlier. But this time, as Luipold pressed forwards to drive the attack home Gotrek stopped resisting. As the cultist stepped forwards, the dwarf spun low, whipping his axe around in a tight arc to chop his legs off at the knees.

Screaming, Luipold toppled over. His chin broke as it slammed into the ground, and the screaming stopped. Luipold should have prayed, offered a platitude to the dark god he’d failed in the hope it might save his soul from a measure of the eternal torment that awaited it. But he didn’t. Instead he lay open-mouthed, staring dumbly at the ruined stumps of his legs, as Gotrek’s axe cleaved through his neck.

Mind-Stealer

C. L. Werner

The sharp stench of solder and melted copper made Thanquol’s whiskers twitch. The grey seer’s body shook as his nose rebelled against the smell and his body was wracked by a terrific sneeze. The little bells fixed to his horns jangled discordantly as he tried to cleanse the odour from his sinuses.

‘Fast-quick,’ the grey-robed ratman snarled, spitting each word through clenched fangs. His paw clenched tighter about the heft of his staff, the icons and talismans tied about its metal head clattering against the scarred wood. Never a particularly patient skaven, Thanquol’s temper was coming to a boil.

The object of his ire didn’t seem aware that messy sorcerous death was hovering just over his shoulder. The brown-furred skaven continued to fiddle with his spanners and hammers, sometimes reaching into the pockets of the leather apron he wore to fish out some strange tool or instrument. The stone slab which was serving as his workbench was littered with a confusion of metal gears and copper wire, ratgut tubes and little slivers of refined warpstone. The sickly glow of the warpstone was reflected in the thick goggles the skaven wore, making it seem as though his eyes had been replaced with hellish flames.

‘Soon-soon,’ the brown skaven chittered. ‘No worry-fear, Great-Mighty Thanquol! Krakul Zapskratch is good-smart warlock-engineer! Best-best in Under-Empire!’

Thanquol scowled at the magnitude of Krakul’s boasting. Only an empty-brained slack-wit would spew such an outrageous lie and expect his betters to believe him! To think that any warlock-engineer with real ability would be wasting his life as an itinerant tinker-rat wandering from burrow to burrow, selling his services to whatever three-flea warlord he could find! Just for daring to make such a bold-smelling lie, the grey seer was tempted to call down the wrath of the Horned One upon the fool-meat and burn him to a cinder!

Of course, there was a very good reason why Thanquol couldn’t do that. Krakul Zapskratch might be a loathsome, lying, sneaky ill-smelling braggart, but he was also the only warlock-engineer in Greypaw Hollow. Kill the tinker-rat, and there was no one else in the miserable, misbegotten warren capable of making the repairs Boneripper needed.

The grey seer’s eyes narrowed as he glared down at the enormous body lying stretched across the stone slab. Had it been standing, the creature would have been three times the size of its master, a towering construction of steel, bone and wire fuelled by a warpstone heart and driven by the arcane mechanics of Clan Skryre’s techno-sorcery. In shape, it retained a morbid resemblance to a living rat-ogre, and the warlock-engineers had even used the bones of Thanquol’s first Boneripper when assembling their creation. The skeletal automaton had been a gift-bribe by Kaskitt Steelgrin, meant to buy the grey seer’s services in a crooked scheme to ransack the treasury of Bonestash while the skaven were busy fighting the dwarf-things of Karak Angkul.

Thanquol lashed his tail in amusement. Kaskitt had paid for his treachery and presumption. Boneripper belonged to him now, without any obligations to a wire-chewing scrap-rat and his larcenous schemes. Even the control valve the warlock-engineers had hidden among Boneripper’s gears, designed to shut the rat-ogre down should it be ordered to attack any skaven of Clan Skryre, was gone, disabled by dwarfish pistol-fire. The grey seer had impressed upon Krakul what would happen to him if he so much as thought about repairing that particular mechanism.

Of course, that didn’t keep Thanquol from watching every move the warlock-engineer made. It didn’t matter if he had no idea what Krakul was doing with all his strange gizmos. The only important thing was for Krakul to think the grey seer knew what he was about. There was, after all, a chance that Krakul wasn’t the mouse-brain he seemed.

Krakul frittered around with a nest of corroded wires and punctured tubes situated behind Boneripper’s metal chestplate. Thanquol could hear the tinker-rat tutting under his breath as he removed the damaged mechanisms. There was a distinctive green glow about the wires, and Krakul was careful to handle them only with a set of insulated tongs.

Thanquol’s ears sank back against the sides of his skull, his head crooking back in a glowering gesture. He wasn’t about to listen to Krakul chide him about having Boneripper lug a large quantity of warpstone for days on end. The corrosion could have been caused by anything! Maybe some of the smelly fluids Clan Skryre used as coolants, or the warpfire projector built into Boneripper’s third arm. The lummox had suffered enough damage from bullets and boulders that almost anything could have leaked down inside its chest. The green glow emanating from the wires didn’t mean anything!

Agitated squeaks rose from the tunnel outside Krakul’s burrow. Thanquol pulled aside the man-hide curtain which separated the workshop from the main tunnel. Across the narrow corridor, he could see other skaven faces peering out from their holes. He followed the direction of their gaze, his nose twitching as the smells of blood and fear-musk excited his senses. Greypaw Hollow sat beneath a forest and it wasn’t unusual for Warlord Pakstab to send groups of clanrats out to scavenge the wilderness for food and materials.

What was unusual was for one of these expeditions to return in such a sorry condition. Thanquol could see the miserable little ratkin, their fur bloodied, their eyes wide with fright. Several of them bore ugly gashes and deep wounds, hobbling about on broken legs and hugging broken arms to their chests.

Thanquol clapped a paw against his ear to stifle the shrill, wheedling voices of the scavengers as they reported their misfortune to a furious Pakstab. Whatever had befallen the fool-meat, whether they had scurried right into a troll hole or been stampeded by a herd of cattle, it was Pakstab’s problem. Another petty inconsequence that was far beneath the dignity of a grey seer to notice. Thanquol had more important things to occupy himself with.

He was just turning his head to return to Krakul’s workshop when a particular whine froze him in his place. Thanquol felt a tingle of fear squeeze at his glands and a cold hand close about his heart. It was a shaking paw that drew the rat-skull snuff-box from his robe.

The grey seer felt an intoxicating rush of warmth course through his body as he sniffed the pulverised weed, burning away the fear and allowing hate free reign. Thanquol gnashed his fangs, spinning about and marching out into the tunnel. Skaven heads vanished back into their holes as the enraged sorcerer stalked past.

Had he heard right? He would find out! He would find out if these flea-spleened maggots had really seen what they had seen!

The few skaven bold enough to emerge from their burrows to investigate the curious squeaks and smells of the returned scavengers quickly scurried out of Thanquol’s way as the sorcerer marched up the corridor. Even the armoured stormvermin, their claws wrapped about the hafts of hatchet-headed halberds, cringed when they saw the intense hatred blazing from the grey seer’s eyes and sniffed the murderous aggression in his scent.

Grey Seer Thanquol brushed past Pakstab as though the warlord wasn’t even there. His paw trembled with rage as he closed his fingers around the throat of one of the scavengers. The little ratman’s eyes boggled in terror as Thanquol pulled him close.

‘What did you smell-see?’ Thanquol hissed. ‘Speak-squeak! Quick-quick!’ The only sound the crippled ratman could make was a wet rattle as the grey seer throttled him. Absently, Thanquol released his choking clutch, glaring as the dead skaven toppled to the floor. The temerity of the worm-fondler to die when the mighty Thanquol had questions to ask him! Out of spite, the grey seer kicked the corpse in the head, then turned his attention to the other scavengers.

‘You!’ the grey seer pronounced, pointing a claw at one of the ratmen, a portly creature missing an ear, half his tail and most of one paw, each of the injuries so fresh that black blood leaked from his wounds.

‘Mercy-pity!’ the ratman whined, awkwardly falling to his knees and exposing his throat in a gesture of submission. ‘No-no hurt-harm, most merciless of priests, great gnawer of–’

Thanquol ground his fangs together, in no mood to be flattered by this fool-meat. ‘What did that to you?’ he snarled, jabbing the end of his staff into the scavenger’s mangled paw. The wretch squealed in agony, quivering on the floor. Thanquol lifted his head, casting his eyes across the other scavengers.

‘We smell-track man-things in forest,’ one of the scavengers hastily spoke up. ‘Many-few man-things carrying many-many strange-meat in wheel-burrow. We try-fetch food-fodder from wheel-burrow.’

Thanquol’s eyes narrowed with impatience. He didn’t care a lick for any of this. ‘What kept you from stealing the food?’ he demanded, smacking the quivering skaven on the floor with his staff. The fresh squeal of pain had the desired effect. The other scavenger couldn’t finish his story fast enough.

‘Breeder-thing see us!’ the scavenger cried. ‘Call-bring much-much man-thing! Fight-kill much-much! Many-many die-die from one-eye and dwarf-thing!’

Thanquol swatted the quivering skaven again as he slowly strode towards the talkative scavenger. ‘A man-thing and a dwarf-thing did this to you?’ he growled. He raised a claw to emphasise his next point. ‘With one eye?’

The scavenger’s fright had risen to such a state that he couldn’t speak, simply bobbing his head up and down in a desperate effort to appease the fearsome sorcerer.

Gotrek Gurnisson and his mangy man-thing, Felix Jaeger! By the malicious malevolence of the Horned One!

Vengeance boiled up inside Thanquol’s black heart. The grey seer rounded upon Pakstab, pointing a claw at the startled warlord’s nose. ‘Get-fetch your battle-rats!’ the enraged sorcerer snarled, foam dripping from his mouth. ‘Great enemies of skavendom have hurt-harm your valiant scouts! I will avenge their injuries upon these heretic-things with your army!’

Pakstab blinked in confusion. His whiskers trembled, his eyes narrowed with suspicion. Thanquol could read the warlord’s thoughts. He wanted no part in fighting whoever had savaged his scavengers. He certainly wanted nothing to do with Thanquol’s vengeance.

Hissing a curse, invoking one of the thirteen forbidden names of the Horned Rat, Thanquol gestured with his staff at one of the injured scavengers. An emerald glow suffused the metal icon fitted to the top of the staff. The same green glow surrounded the doomed scavenger. The ratman had time to shriek once before his body collapsed into a pool of steaming green mush.

‘We march-kill enemy-meat now!’ Thanquol screamed, turning his blazing eyes back upon Pakstab. The warlord nodded his head with an eagerness that was obscene. That was the beauty of a gratuitous display of destruction magic: there was never a need to repeat it.

Thanquol turned away to leave Pakstab to gather his warriors. He could be confident that Pakstab would marshal his forces quickly. After all, the warlord would be right there beside Thanquol when they made the attack. Anything that happened to the grey seer would happen to Pakstab too.

Worse, Thanquol promised, if Gotrek and Felix slipped through his paws! What he would do to Pakstab would be such a horror that his screams would be heard in Skavenblight!

As the grey seer stalked back down the tunnel towards Krakul’s workshop, he barked orders at the tinker-rat, using a bit of his magic to magnify his words so that they carried into the farthest corners of the burrow.

‘Fix-finish Boneripper, wire-nibbler! I want my rat-ogre on its feet and ready to kill-slay!’ Thanquol brushed aside the curtain, fixing his imperious stare on the warlock-engineer. Krakul’s eyes might have been hidden behind his goggles, but there was no mistaking the frightened posture and smell of the tinker-rat.

Thanquol reached into his robe and removed a little sliver of black cheese from his pocket. He stared at it for a moment, then glared at Krakul. ‘You have until my third nibble to fix Boneripper,’ the grey seer pronounced. ‘After that, I will burn off one of your fingers every time I take another bite.’

Krakul was an eccentric, scheming scrap-fondler, but he had the good sense to know when a sorcerer was making an idle threat. With almost unseemly haste, the warlock-engineer leapt back to the stone slab, tools clattering against Boneripper’s metal chassis, as he hurried to finish the repairs.

The confusion of smells emanating from the caravan threw each of the skaven into a state of anxiety and excitement. The good, familiar odours of oats and wheat, the appetising scents of horses and oxen, the reek of human sweat and the stink of iron and bronze; these all mixed in a single aroma that tantalised the skaven, made their bellies growl and their paws itch. The promise of full bellies and a bit of plunder was one that every ratman dreamed about.

Still, there were other smells teasing the keen skaven noses. There was a heavy, greasy stench one old crook-eared ratman said was troll. There was a musky, reptilian fug none of the skaven could identify. There was a sinister coppery smell that reminded Thanquol of the abominations Clan Moulder kept in Hell Pit, though he wasn’t about to offer that insight to any of his yellow-spleened underlings.

The other smells didn’t matter, because Thanquol had detected the scent he was looking for. It was that vile mix of tattoo ink and cold steel, animal starch and cheap beer, all wrapped around the dirt-stench of a dwarf.

Gotrek Gurnisson! He was travelling with the caravan, and if he was there, then that damnable Felix Jaeger was with him! Thanquol didn’t know what trick of fate had thrust his two most hated enemies into his clutches, nor did he care. It was enough that the Horned Rat had smiled upon him and bestowed this delectable gift upon him. Before he was through with them, he’d offer the human’s two eyes and the dwarf’s single, blood-crazed orb as a burned offering to the Horned One by token of gratitude. Maybe he’d even teach them how to pray to the Horned One for mercy.

Not that it would do them any good.

When the humans made camp. That would be the time to do it. Their horses would be grazing, their wagons unhitched; at least some of their number would be sleeping. The skaven could set upon them and slaughter half the company before they had a chance to blink!

Yes, it was a good plan. The audacity of Pakstab’s weasel-tongued track-sniffer Naktit to try and take credit for developing such a plan! Because the scout-rat had mentioned something of the sort first, he had the temerity to believe the same idea hadn’t already occurred to Thanquol! Why should a grey seer share his innermost thoughts with the sort of verminous rabble Greypaw Hollow dared call warriors? It had been sorely tempting to let Boneripper smash the creeping little nuisance into paste for his arrogance.

But that would have been the petty, spiteful reaction of a lesser skaven. Thanquol was grand enough to be gracious and forget the failings of his underlings. With Gotrek and Felix nearly in his grasp, he felt magnanimous enough to ignore the stupidity of lesser ratmen. The Horned One had granted him a mighty boon; surely Thanquol could allow similar beneficence. Yes, he’d let Naktit keep his worthless little life.

Unless something went wrong! If that happened, he’d have Boneripper squeeze the creepy little tick-tracker until his eyes popped out of his skull.

It was early morning when the skaven started trailing the caravan, slinking through the dense thickets and close-set trees, always keeping out of sight while maintaining a clear view of the trail. The wagons were unusual, the sort of thing that even Thanquol with his vast experience and study of humans had never seen before. Their sides were painted in bright, garish colours, flags and pennants waving above them, bold words emblazoned on their sides. The horses and oxen which pulled the wagons were similarly arrayed, bright plumes fastened to their bridles and garlands of flowers tied about their necks. The men driving the wagons were also dressed in bright, gaudy clothing, sporting billowy breeches and vibrant vests and headscarves.

Most perplexing of all were the half-dozen cage-carts. These followed behind the other wagons, their contents hidden beneath tarps. The smells rising from them and the brief view of bars afforded by the trailing edge of the tarps, left no doubt that each cage held some living beast. Low growls, sullen snarls or angry howls rose from some of the carts. Most of the sounds were new to the skaven, though a few of the cries were familiar enough to send shivers down their spines. The old crop-eared ratman started whining about trolls again – at least until Boneripper stepped on his head. Fear was a useful thing, but only when the ratkin knew what they should be most afraid of.

Thanquol peered through the bushes, trying vainly to spot his hated foes, but there was no sign of either Gotrek or Felix. The grey seer concluded the two were inside one of the wagons. It would be in keeping with their perfidious natures to hide themselves away.

Taking a pinch of warpstone snuff, Thanquol resisted the burning desire to launch the attack immediately. He didn’t care that more of Pakstab’s clanrats would die in such an impulsive raid than in a carefully planned assault. It was the possibility that Gotrek and Felix might escape that stayed his paw. However much it vexed him, he would have to wait. Naktit insisted the time to attack would be when the caravan settled down to camp and it was Thanquol’s experience that humans, with their pathetic vision, wouldn’t travel at night. He could wait.

As it transpired, however, he didn’t have to wait that long. Thanquol blinked in bewilderment when, just a little past noon, the caravan came to a halt. He watched in wonder as the wagons moved into a wide clearing and the men driving them began to unhitch their teams. There were still a good six hours of daylight left, a fact each of the light-sensitive skaven appreciated quite keenly. Surely the humans weren’t stupid enough to squander…

Thanquol grinned, turning his eyes to the ground at his feet, envisioning the deep, dark burrow of the Horned Rat. Truly his god was favouring him! First to deliver Gotrek and Felix to him, then to make the stupid humans stop well before nightfall. The skaven could rest and recuperate from their forced march through the forest.

The only thing Thanquol didn’t like was the size of the clearing. Every skaven was agoraphobic and the clearing elicited a feeling of unspeakable dread. The forest had been dense enough to be almost comforting, but all the open sky above the clearing was another thing entirely. It would be a bit better at night, but even so, the thought of all those stars glaring down at them like so many hungry eyes was something to make the glands clench.

A few of the humans were sent away on horseback, galloping off down the trail. Thanquol dismissed them from his thoughts after snarling an order to Pakstab that no opportunistic sword-rat should bother them. He didn’t want the humans breaking camp when their outriders failed to return and they became uneasy. He wanted the stupid creatures to think themselves perfectly safe and alone until the very moment of the attack.

For the second time, Thanquol blinked in disbelief. The humans that remained in camp were removing poles and an immense roll of canvas from one of the wagons. While he watched, they spread the canvas out across the clearing, then began to prop it up from beneath with the poles. It was unbelievable, but the humans were constructing some kind of massive tent, effectively placing a roof over the clearing! Truly the Horned One had decided to recognise and reward his selfless and valiant servant!

Gratitude to his god died on his tongue when Thanquol spotted two figures climbing down from one of the wagons. One was a tall human with long blond hair, the other was a stocky dwarf, his head shaved except for a single strip of ginger fur running down the centre of his scalp. Flecks of foam dribbled from Thanquol’s mouth as he glared at his hated enemies. His fingers closed around a nugget of warpstone hidden in the seam of his robe.

It would be so easy! Bite down on the warpstone, draw its sorcerous energies into his body and unleash a spell of such devastation that the two blood-ticks would burst into a thousand gory fragments! All the humiliation and disgrace that these two had brought upon him would be avenged in one moment of sadistic violence!

Thanquol let his paw fall empty at his side. It was too easy. Too easy for Gotrek and Felix. All the times they had meddled in his affairs… No, they wouldn’t get off so easy! For them, there would be no quick death.

‘Pakstab!’ Thanquol snarled. The warlord scurried forwards, his posture displaying a submissiveness rooted in fear, but his fur bristling with a far less docile resentment. The grey seer bared his fangs at Pakstab until the warlord was well and truly subdued.

‘Keep your tree-rats quiet,’ the grey seer hissed. ‘We wait until nightfall and the man-things sleep.’ He jabbed a paw towards the wagon where his enemies stood. ‘I want those ones alive!’

Dismissing the warlord from his mind, Thanquol returned his attention to the clearing. Soon it would be dark and then the humans would go to sleep. That was when he would lead Pakstab’s brave warriors into combat.

He only wished there was a way to make Gotrek and Felix understand they had only a few hours left to live!

Thanquol reached over and snatched the far-eye from Krakul’s hand, an effort made easier since the warlock-engineer was short a few fingers. The grey seer ground his fangs together in a fit of anger.

Crickets chirruped, owls hooted, bats flittered about the trees. It was night, as black and welcoming as the tunnels of Skavenblight.

Why, then, were the humans still awake! Even worse, there were more of them! The outriders had returned after only a short time, but it wasn’t long after that more humans began to trickle into the camp. These weren’t so brightly dressed as the ones from the caravan, and they stank of dirt and manure: typical odours of the slavelings humans used to grow their crops and tend their flesh-beasts.

Thanquol didn’t care who they were or where they came from. What he wanted to know was what they were doing! By the horns of the Horned One, none of it made sense to him! The field-humans, obviously a lesser clan than the brightly dressed ones, had wandered about the camp as though they each of them were a fangleader inspecting a new burrow. The caravan humans hurried about, performing every sort of bizarre labour at the slightest command of the field-humans.

The grey seer was still scratching his ears at some of the things he had seen. There was a gangly human who could spit fire and another one that was able to stick a sword clear down his throat without skewering himself! He saw a grungy little man-thing in voluminous robes engaged in the rather despicable antic of biting the heads from live chickens. As he would soon spit out the chickenhead, Thanquol could make absolutely no sense of this particular activity. There was a pair of breeders who capered about on a thin rope stretched between two poles, displaying an agility that would have impressed even a murder-adept of Clan Eshin. He watched another human gallop around the camp on a horse, flipping and jumping all around the animal, making the grey seer wonder if some saboteur had slathered grease across the horse’s back.

None of it made any kind of sense! The field-humans would slap their hands together in moronic fashion, howling loudly and baring their teeth at the caravan-humans. Yet the threatening display only excited the caravan-humans to new efforts.

Thanquol removed the spyglass from his face long enough to scowl at Naktit. So, the humans would go to sleep once it was dark, would they!

The grey seer’s nose twitched as a new smell reached him. It was the odour of magic, crude but powerful. Forgetting Naktit for the moment, Thanquol swung back around and directed the spyglass upon the source of the aethyric energy.

What he saw made his glands tighten. Some of the brightly-clad humans were opening the door to one of the cages. Locked inside was an enormous troll! As soon as the door was open, the brute lurched out into the clearing, roaring and thumping its chest! Thanquol could only scratch his ear in disbelief. The humans were insane to let such a monster loose!

The field-humans screamed and started to scatter, but before they could get far a caravan-human wearing a broad-brimmed hat called out to them, ordering them to stop. He turned and faced the troll, drawing from the crimson sash he wore not a sword or axe or blunderbuss but a slender flute. Before the amazed grey seer’s eyes, the troll stopped, its dull eyes staring down at the little man.

Expecting any sort of horrific violence to follow, Thanquol’s wonder increased when the man began to play his flute. The troll lifted up its huge feet and began to dance!

Thanquol scowled as he heard the field-humans screeching and slapping their hands together. He focused his attention not on what he could see, but upon what he could feel. Sniffing the patterns of magic in the air, he could follow the slender strands of energy emanating from the troll. One strand led back to one of the wagons where a bound human lay hidden, his mouth tightly gagged. As he struggled, his movement struck Thanquol as peculiar, more like an idiot’s fit than the resistance of a grown man-thing.

The other strand of magic led to a dark little pavilion set aside from the main tent. Just visible at the entrance of the pavilion was an old breeder, her flesh withered, all the meat shrivelled by age. Thanquol could tell at a glance that the breeder-thing was a mage by the grey hue of her hair. It was easy to forget that human breeders sometimes developed such abilities, a sure sign of their inferiority to the skaven whose breeders’ only purpose was to make and nurse more skaven.

The breeder-witch was doing something, weaving her magic between the idiot-flesh and the troll. Whatever she was doing, it gave her control over the troll, control more perfect and precise than any cave-lurking goblin chief had ever dreamed of.

The presence of a sorceress made Thanquol reconsider the wisdom of the planned attack. It was always dangerous to risk the powers of an unknown wizard, even if it was just a breeder-thing. If he had an apprentice to send out to cast spells and draw the witch’s attention, he would have felt better.

A cruel smile flashed upon Thanquol’s verminous face. Lowering the spyglass, he turned towards Krakul. Few among the warlock-engineers had true magic, and he rather doubted that Krakul was one of those who did. However, many of the contraptions crafted by Clan Skryre mimicked magic in their effects. Surely enough to trick a stupid breeder-witch!

‘Brave-wise Krakul,’ Thanquol said. ‘I give you the honour-glory to lead the attack.’

Krakul looked like he’d swallowed one of his own spanners. The warlock-engineer looked about him, as though hoping there was some other skaven named Krakul standing nearby.

‘Great and holy Thanquol the Terrifying!’ Krakul squealed. ‘I am not worthy of such distinction. I am only poor-small tinker-rat–’

‘Stop whining,’ Thanquol snapped. ‘You’re going.’ He drew upon the smallest measure of his sorcery, causing his eyes to take on a ghoulish green glow. ‘Or would you rather stay?’ he hissed. Krakul didn’t have any real magic, but Thanquol certainly did. It was perhaps wise to remind him of that fact.

‘Take the clanrats and attack from the right,’ Thanquol ordered. ‘Naktit’s scouts will come from the left. Once you have the man-things’ attention, Pakstab will lead the stormvermin and strike the centre.’

‘Where will you be, invincible one?’ Pakstab asked, his tone not quite as servile as it could have been.

Thanquol smoothed his whiskers. ‘I will stay here and ensure nothing goes wrong with your plan.’ Now that so many unforeseen complications had become part of the situation, Thanquol felt it was time to distance himself from responsibility for organising the attack. After all, these were Pakstab’s warriors. Why shouldn’t the warlord shoulder the responsibility if they couldn’t adapt to changes on the battlefield?

Pakstab glared murderously at the grey seer, his fingers twitching about the hilt of his sword. The warlord glanced past Thanquol at the imposing hulk of Boneripper. Grinding his fangs together, Pakstab relented. Turning away, he began squealing orders at his underlings. If he was expected to lead the attack, he was going to make sure there were plenty of skaven around him to do the brunt of the fighting. It was exactly the sort of cowardly, selfish scheming Thanquol had come to expect from a greedy, grasping thug like Pakstab. It was unfortunate for Greypaw Hollow that there was no leader of Thanquol’s calibre ruling the warren, a leader with the cold resolve and iron self-control to set aside his own desires for the betterment of all skavendom.

The grey seer drew a sharp intake of breath as his eyes fell upon one corner of the clearing. Most of the field-humans had gathered to watch the dancing troll, giving Thanquol a better view of the rest of the space. Now he could see a burly dwarf standing beside a pile of boulders, an immense hammer in his thick hands. Judging by the broken stones around him, the braggart had been showing off his brainless physique, smashing rocks for the entertainment of the field-humans, glutting his drunken ego on the empty-headed praise of buffoons and churls!

Gotrek Gurnisson! Well, this was the last time he would interfere in Thanquol’s affairs!

Spinning around, the enraged grey seer snapped commands at Boneripper. ‘Kill-burn-slay!’ Thanquol shrieked at the skeletal rat-ogre, the warp-tooth fitted to the sorcerer’s ear pulsing with power as it transmitted his fury to the hulking automaton. Without hesitation, Boneripper reared up and charged out from the forest, hurtling towards the clearing like a warp-fuelled avalanche.

Squeaks of shock and dismay rose from the bushes and underbrush. The creeping skaven warriors of Greypaw Hollow weren’t in position yet. They wailed against losing the element of surprise when Boneripper charged past them, bemoaning the squandered opportunity for massacring the humans without a fight. Many of them turned tail, ready to scurry back to their dark burrows.

Thanquol dissuaded the warriors from their cowardly retreat with a show of force. Summoning the might of the Horned One into his body, harnessing the aethyric currents around him, the grey seer pointed his staff at the closest of the fleeing ratmen. A crackle of green lightning leapt from the head of the staff, coiling about the retreating stormvermin, cooking him inside his armour. As the smouldering ratman crashed to the ground, Thanquol’s magically magnified voice thundered over the clearing.

‘All-all fight-kill!’ Thanquol roared. ‘Kill much-much or suffer-die!’

The threat turned the frightened skaven around. By now Boneripper had reached the clearing. The carnage it was causing among the hapless humans helped to further bolster the fragile courage of the ratmen. Squeaking their war-cries, the verminous horde descended upon the caravan.

Thanquol lashed his tail in frustration. That idiot Boneripper! Stupid, brainless oaf of a scrap-heap! Couldn’t it tell when he wanted it to do what he said and when he didn’t? The brute had spoiled the ambush by its moronic interpretation of its master’s outburst!

But was it Boneripper’s fault? Might that treacherous tinker-rat Krakul have done something to the rat-ogre, changing it from Thanquol’s clever, loyal, unquestioning bodyguard into a lumbering dolt with only the vaguest semblance of intelligence? Yes-yes, that certainly sounded probable! It wasn’t so long ago that Ikit Claw had unreasonably developed some paranoid ideas about Thanquol and tried to kill him. It was more than coincidence that Krakul was of the same clan as the Claw!

Thanquol yipped in alarm as another idea came to him. Hiking his grey robe up above his knees, he dashed towards the clearing. The timing of Krakul’s treachery had spoiled the perfect ambush, opening the possibility that Gotrek and Felix might escape! And now it occurred to him that this might be Krakul’s real purpose. Thanquol had long known that there had to be someone using the two insufferable interlopers against him. Neither one of them was clever enough to continually be interfering in the grey seer’s schemes. There had to be a traitor, a villain from the lowest dregs of skavendom whose pride and arrogance couldn’t abide the greatness of Thanquol’s genius. It was another skaven who kept thrusting the pair in his way!

It was up to Thanquol to see that his enemies were taken alive, that they might confess who it was that had…

Again the grey seer yipped in alarm. The mangled body of a stormvermin went flying past him, almost bowling him over as it went tumbling into the bushes. A second body crashed to earth almost at his feet.

Thoughts of traitors and vengeance abated as Thanquol began to appreciate his surroundings. In his haste, he’d scurried well ahead of the main body of Pakstab’s warriors. He was in the clearing, under the tent, with a frightened mob of humans rushing about, screaming and wailing in abject terror.

Unfortunately, the troll wasn’t frightened of the skaven. It had stopped dancing, too. Instead it had lumbered out and intercepted the boldest and most eager of the stormvermin. With decidedly un-troll-like deliberation, the monster brought its scaly fists pounding into one ratman after another, each powerful blow smashing a furry body into ruin.

Thanquol froze as the ugly brute turned towards him. The musk of fear spurted from his glands as the troll opened its jaws wide, roaring at the grey seer. The monster’s hand tightened about the squealing clanrat it held, breaking every bone in the skaven’s body. The fearful display forced Thanquol into action. Drawing upon his sorcery, he pointed his staff at the troll, sending a blast of malignant magic full into the monster’s face.

Wisps of black smoke rose from the troll’s head as the spell crackled across its flesh. But the brute didn’t fall. As the smoke cleared, it glared at Thanquol. The scaly, blackened skin of the monster’s face may have been scorched by his magic, but already the incredible regenerative powers of the troll were undoing the damage. Before Thanquol’s eyes, the burned skin began to heal. Snorting and huffing, the troll lumbered towards the skaven sorcerer.

‘Boneripper!’ the grey seer squeaked as the troll swung at him. The monster’s tremendous fist smashed into the ground Thanquol had been standing on before making a frantic leap for one of the posts supporting the tent. He wrapped his limbs about the post, clinging to it as though it were the mast of a sinking ship. A sideways glance showed him the troll using its other hand to pull its fist from a crater that had punched clear down to bedrock. His glands spurted fear-musk as he considered what such a blow would have done to him had it landed.

‘Boneripper!’ the sorcerer shrieked again. He wasn’t certain if his bodyguard heard him; the range of the warp-tooth which controlled the rat-ogre had never been explained to him. Worse, there was the possibility that Krakul had done something to limit Thanquol’s control. He should never have trusted that snivelling scrap-rat!

Something else heard him, however. Turning its head upwards, the troll glared at Thanquol. There was a chilling intelligence in the monster’s eyes, a keenness of hate that he’d never seen any troll exhibit before. Frantically, Thanquol pawed at his robe, seeking a piece of warpstone to fuel another spell – a spell strong enough to overcome the troll’s regeneration.

Bellowing its rage, the troll charged towards Thanquol’s post. The grey seer squeaked in terror, the sliver of warpstone slipping from his paws. He watched as the glowing green stone hurtled downwards, seeing his last hope of survival falling with it.

Suddenly, Boneripper’s skeletal bulk was between Thanquol and the oncoming troll. The rat-ogre’s piston-driven arms closed about the troll’s enormity, crushing it in an embrace of steel and sinew. The troll flailed about in Boneripper’s grip, trying to tear its way free.

The two monsters might have stood there all night, immovable object against irresistible force. But Thanquol had other ideas. Baring his fangs, glaring at the troll’s ugly visage, he snarled an order at Boneripper: ‘Burn-slay!’

Obediently, Boneripper lifted its third arm, pressing the nozzle of the warpfire projector against the troll’s skull. There was a tremendous flash of light, a resounding boom and a thunderous crash that knocked Thanquol from his perch. The grey seer smashed to earth, moaning as the impact rattled his bones.

When his head stopped ringing, Thanquol darted a look over at the troll. It was dead now, only a smoking stump of neck rising from its shoulders. Boneripper’s warpfire had burned the monster’s head off! The threat to himself vanquished, Thanquol looked for his bodyguard. The explosion had thrown Boneripper to the ground, its third arm nothing but a jumble of twisted metal and shattered bone. The rat-ogre didn’t move, even when Thanquol snarled an order at it to do so.

Wonderful! The slack-witted dolt had destroyed itself! Surely it should have understood not to use its warpfire at such close quarters! By the Horned One, what could have possessed the lummox… But, of course, it was Krakul and his treacherous meddling with Boneripper’s mechanisms! When Thanquol got his paws on the filthy maggot-chewer…

The grey seer forgot about Krakul when he spotted two figures rushing at him from across the clearing. Thanquol’s empty glands clenched as he recognised the hated Gotrek and Felix! His paw drew another shard of warpstone from his robe, popping the sorcerous rock into his mouth, sending magical energy coursing through his veins. He could cast a quick spell that would get him a hundred miles away, far from Gotrek’s murderous axe and Felix’s flashing sword!

Only… the dwarf wasn’t carrying his deadly axe. He was still lugging around that huge hammer. It was the human who was brandishing an axe, but a far smaller one than the weapon of Gotrek Gurnisson.

It was a trick! That was why they weren’t using their usual armaments! That was why Felix had grown so tall and muscular, why the dwarf had changed his tattoos and added a ring of metal studs across his brow! They knew the mightiest sorcerer in the world, the most favoured disciple of the Horned Rat, a genius so insidious that even the Lords of Decay trembled in his presence – they knew that there was no hope of resisting their unconquerable foe! They had taken these stupid measures to try and disguise themselves, as though anyone could hide from Thanquol’s wrath!

Thanquol stretched forth his paw, the malignity of his magic erupting in a blast of terrific force. The pulsation of raw aethyric energy sizzled across the clearing, causing grass to wither and cloth to burst into flame. The head of the human’s axe dripped to the ground in a molten mess, the wooden heft of the dwarf’s hammer became a mass of fire. Thanquol chittered in triumph as his hated enemies stopped their crazed charge and stared stupidly at their ruined weapons!

‘Die-die now-now!’ Thanquol hissed, unleashing a withering blast of green fire against his foes. Their screams fell silent as their bodies boiled beneath the fury of his sorcery. The grey seer cackled wildly as he watched his enemies writhe and twist in the malignant flames.

He had dreamed of this moment for so long! There was no restraint now, no thought of interrogation and torture, just utter destruction – the extermination due to these low creatures who had dared trifle with his greatness! He grinned savagely as he watched the agony blazing in the eyes of his dying enemies.

And then cold, hateful realisation forced itself upon Thanquol in his moment of triumph. Looking into the eyes of his enemies, he couldn’t escape the observation that the dwarf had two and the human only one! His mind went back to the wounded scavenger-rat’s report. What Thanquol had heard was ‘one-eyed dwarf’, but what the scout had said was ‘one-eye and dwarf’. The grey seer was prepared to believe many things, he might even accept that Felix would put out one of his eyes in an effort to hide from Thanquol’s wrath, but the one thing he couldn’t believe was that Gotrek had similarly been able to grow a new eye. As loathe as he was to admit it, these two weren’t his hated arch-foes!

Outraged fury caused Thanquol to send another blast of magic into the twitching bodies. His enemies in Greypaw Hollow were behind this, goading him into this foolish attack! He’d see that they paid for playing upon his selfless drive to exterminate the enemies of skavendom!

Before the grey seer could visit further destruction upon the corpses, a roar sounded from behind him. Thanquol spun about, staring in horror at a gigantic beast. The thing was bigger than either Boneripper or the troll, so large that there was something absurd about it as it crawled out from its cage, about the idea that something so enormous had been able to fit inside so small a space.

Where the troll had been a scaly brute, this creature was a shaggy monstrosity, its body covered in greasy, black fur. Four arms projected from its muscular torso, two of them terminating in great bony blades like the pincers of a tunnel-mantis. The beast’s head was like that of a goat, three spear-like horns thrusting outwards from its forehead. For all its monstrousness, there was a terrible gleam of intelligence in the beast’s eyes, the same expression of hate and determination he had seen in the troll’s eyes.

Once again, Thanquol could smell magic in the air, tendrils of energy that drifted between the beast and a human who was flailing against three others who were trying to bind him with chains. Again, the grey seer followed the coils of energy back to the aged breeder-witch. She stood, glaring back at him, her wrinkled face drawn back into an expression of loathing.

‘Keep Abela’s body safe!’ the witch shouted at the men trying to chain the lunatic thrashing about on the ground. ‘We must give him time to use the ghorgon to destroy the underfolk!’

The ghorgon, for such Thanquol decided the four-armed beast must be, lost no time trying to follow the witch’s orders. The creature came charging forwards, swatting aside those skaven unlucky enough to get in its way, slashing them with its bony blades or clawing them with its powerful hands. One stormvermin, driven mad with fear, tried to gut the monster with a pole-axe. For his efforts, the ratman was knocked to the ground and pulverised beneath the ghorgon’s hoofed feet.

The air was heavy with the musk of fear now, Pakstab’s craven warriors fleeing before the ghorgon’s assault. Thanquol could hear the warlord’s weasely voice calling off the attack, enjoining his weak-spleened vermin to retreat. The traitor-meat had no compunction about abandoning his confederate and spiritual advisor on the battlefield, even after all the generosity and beneficence Thanquol had showered upon Greypaw Hollow!

The ground trembled under his feet while Thanquol stared after his vanished allies. Spinning back around, the grey seer squeaked in fright. Barrelling down upon him, each of its four arms raised to visit murderous death upon him, was the ghorgon! Without any of Pakstab’s cringing ratkin to slaughter, the beast had made incredible time crossing the clearing.

Thanquol’s own terror saved him. Where a second of thought or deliberation would have doomed him, instinct rose to his rescue. Pointing his claw at the charging ghorgon, the grey seer unleashed the full force of the spell he had conjured.

A sheet of crackling green lightning crashed into the ghorgon. The beast howled in agony as its fur burst into flame, fingers of warp-lightning searing through its flesh and blackening its bones. The smouldering carcass of the monster crashed to earth, its momentum propelling it onwards. Staggered by the reckless release of such a mighty spell, Thanquol couldn’t even muster the energy to dash aside as the huge bulk came sliding towards him. Even dead, the ghorgon was massive enough to smash the grey seer into paste.

Thanquol sighed with relief when the sliding body came to rest almost at his very feet. That relief ended with a shrill screech that made him jump.

‘You’ve killed Abela!’ the breeder-witch wailed, pointing her withered hand at Thanquol. ‘You’ve killed my son!’

Thanquol could smell the currents of magic gathering about the old witch as she summoned the aethyric powers to her with vengeful abandon. Before he could raise his own defences, he felt the unleashed fury of the witch wrap itself about him in an invisible coil. He could smell the thread of energy writhing back to the witch. Worse, he could sense the thread working its way across the clearing, closing upon a little cage suspended near the troll-wagon. A small, wiry green creature moped about in the cage, its long arms dangling between the bars.

Fear thundered in Thanquol’s heart. He understood the magic of the breeder-witch. She had placed the mind of her whelp into the ghorgon, and she had done the same with the troll and another human. Now she intended to force Thanquol’s mind into the loathsome body of a snotling!

Panic seized the grey seer. He struggled frantically against the hag’s curse, pawing at the air, trying belatedly to raise a magical barrier against her spell. Bit by bit, he could feel the magic taking hold of him, could sense his inner being ripped from his flesh, sent drifting towards the cage.

‘Boneripper!’ Thanquol yelled, crying out to his bodyguard to save him, forgetting for the moment the brute’s collapse after destroying the troll.

The rat-ogre seemed to have forgotten as well. Awkwardly, Boneripper rose up from the ground, its shattered arm still smoking. The automaton swung about, facing towards Thanquol, obediently waiting for further orders, oblivious to the stream of magic winding past its towering bulk.

Before Thanquol could call out to the rat-ogre to order it to kill the witch, he felt the last vestiges of his essence drawn out from his body. His spirit, his mind, was sent hurtling across the clearing. A flash of unspeakable cold, a confusion of whirring light and sound, and then there was only darkness.

It took a tremendous effort of willpower to vanquish that darkness, an effort that Thanquol found almost beyond him to make. Only the thought of all the enemies and traitors who would outlive him sustained him in his moment of despair. Feeling as though a thousand daggers pierced every corner of his being, as though a great fire had been sent raging through his chest, the grey seer fought his way back to consciousness.

The first thing that struck Thanquol was the almost complete absence of smell. What little he could discern were the aroma of old bone and the stink of metal, both underlaid with a tantalising hint of warpstone. The next thing which impressed him was his vision. It was much sharper than before, but everything had a strange, unworldly green hue to it. There was no sensation of touch: he couldn’t feel the bars of the cage or even the floor under his feet. He couldn’t even feel his heart beating in his chest!

Terror flooded through Thanquol’s mind as he considered the only possibility. The spell had been too much for the snotling’s fragile body to endure. His spirit had been hurled into a corpse! Any moment now his essence would be sent on its long journey to the burrows of the Horned One, there to answer for his failures and mistakes!

Thanquol shivered in horror at that fate. The Horned Rat knew he existed only to serve the vicious god of the skaven, that there was no more loyal or steadfast priest to enter the Order of Grey Seers! Yet, even in the afterworld there might be spies and traitors, filling the Horned One’s ears with lies about Thanquol’s devotion.

For a second chance! Thanquol would give himself utterly to the Horned One, devote himself purely to service to his god if only the Horned Rat would give his humble priest another opportunity to serve him!

In his terrified grief, Thanquol raised his hand to cover his eyes. It wasn’t the fact that the arm of what should have been a corpse moved when he willed it to move that shocked Thanquol. It was the shape of that arm. Not the leathery green limb of a snotling, but the massive, bony arm of a skeletal colossus!

Something had gone wrong with the breeder-witch’s spell!

Thanquol swung his body around, feeling the immense power of his new form. He glared down at the witch, savouring the terror gripping her features. The hag had not brought about his destruction, but her own. The transfer of Thanquol’s spirit into the body of the snotling had been intercepted, blocked when Boneripper lurched up from the ground. Instead of being cast into the fragile body of a greenskin runt, Thanquol had been invested into the mighty frame of a rat-ogre!

The grey seer opened his skeletal jaws and chittered malignantly, the sound crackling like lightning across the clearing.

The witch turned aside, glaring towards Thanquol’s real body. Her voice cracked as she shouted orders to the other caravan-humans.

Thanquol watched the humans go racing towards his old body. Let them have it, the weak, puny husk of rat-flesh! What need had he of a body of fragile flesh when his genius was enshrined in a hulk of bone and steel, merged with the pinnacle of Clan Skryre engineering!

He raised his skeletal paw, intending to send a spell searing down into the witch’s body. Thanquol cringed when nothing happened. He couldn’t feel any magic coursing through his new body. Worse, he couldn’t sense the aethyric emanations around him! He tried sniffing at the witch, but couldn’t discern even the faintest whiff of magic!

Suspicion flared through Thanquol’s mind. If he couldn’t smell magic, he could see confidence, and the witch was much too confident now. Somehow, in some way, Thanquol sensed he was still bound to his old body. He remembered the care the humans had taken with the bodies of their kinsmen when the witch cast their minds into the monsters.

Howling in panic, Thanquol charged across the clearing, the skeletal claws of the rat-ogre swatting aside the converging humans as though they were flies. He didn’t waste the time to savour the havoc, but sprang for the horned ratman standing alone and vulnerable. Invested with Boneripper’s mind, Thanquol’s old body stood unmoving, gripped by the idiocy that required commands from its master to give it motivation.

Thanquol tried snarling at his old body, to get Boneripper to flee, but without the warp-tooth, he had no way of commanding the stupid brute. Instead, he resorted to scooping up his body and tucking it under the rat-ogre’s arm. Without further hesitation, Thanquol dashed into the forest, leaving the clearing and the caravan behind.

He needed time to understand what had happened to him, time to study the effects of the witch’s curse. Then, once he was master of this condition, he would come back and settle with the witch and his hated enemies Gotrek and Felix!

Thanquol spent almost an hour lurching through the gloom of the forest before he found the other skaven. He cursed the dim-senses of his new body. With a proper nose, he would have been able to find the fools quickly. Instead, he had been forced to grope about in the brush looking for tracks.

After deserting him, his duplicitous allies had retreated to a shadowy patch of scrubland a league or so from where the caravan had made camp. Thanquol could hear them arguing amongst themselves, trying to concoct some lie that would make their abandonment of skavendom’s greatest hero believable when Skavenblight sent its representatives to Greypaw Hollow.

Thanquol listened to the vainglorious squeaking of Warlord Pakstab for a full minute. It was just as well Boneripper’s body didn’t have a stomach, because it surely would have turned hearing the weak-spleened maggot-nibbler touting his brave effort to reach the embattled grey seer. Only the arrival of three gigantic beast-things had driven him away. He knew that the noble Thanquol wouldn’t have wanted Greypaw Hollow’s valiant warlord to throw away his life needlessly.

Snorting with contempt, Thanquol lumbered out from the trees. The sudden appearance of the skeletal rat-ogre brought squeals of fright from the skaven. Thanquol lashed his bony tail in amusement. Unable to smell, he’d been forced to judge the wind by sight alone, but he’d managed to prevent Boneripper’s scent from betraying his presence to the treacherous ratmen. Surprise was his, and he intended to use it to the fullest.

‘Pakstab-meat,’ Thanquol snarled. The skaven were doubly horrified to hear the grey seer’s voice thundering at them from Boneripper’s jaws. ‘Stop-speak, before I ring your neck!’

The warlord fell to his knees in shock. ‘Terrible Thanquol… is-is that you?’

The rat-ogre loomed over Pakstab, swatting him across the muzzle with a bony claw. The blow sent the ratman tumbling through the scrub. ‘Next stupid question?’ Thanquol growled, turning his skull-like visage so he could stare down at each of the skaven in turn.

‘What-what happened?’ Krakul asked, the warlock-engineer’s eyes boggling excitedly behind his goggles.

Thanquol took a shaking step towards the tinker-rat. ‘You should have stayed quiet,’ he warned. He lifted Boneripper’s massive claw, intending to swat the treasonous little scrap-licker. As he did so, however, he felt a cold pain in his side. His entire body shivered to a stop.

Krakul clapped his paws together, chittering maliciously. The reason was obvious to Thanquol: the faithless weasel had repaired the safety valve, making it impossible for Boneripper to hurt a skaven of Clan Skryre.

Boneripper, however, was a being without mind or will of its own. Thanquol possessed the finest mind in the Under-Empire and a willpower that could resist the wiles of gods and daemons alike. Snarling against the cold pain, Thanquol reached down to his side, clawing at his back until he ripped Krakul’s gizmo from its fastenings. Holding the device between his skeletal talons, he glared down at the warlock.

‘This belongs to you,’ Thanquol hissed, hurling the gizmo down at Krakul. The warlock-engineer shrieked once as the heavy bronze safety valve struck him, shattering his skull into a pulpy mess.

The other skaven wailed in horror, falling to their knees, exposing their throats in submission. It was sorely tempting to annihilate every one of the vermin, but Thanquol knew he needed them. He’d had time to do a lot of thinking while hunting for his disloyal underlings. He didn’t like the conclusions he’d reached.

Strong and powerful, mightier than any vessel of flesh and bone, the rat-ogre’s unliving body was nevertheless cut off from the aethyr, denying Thanquol access to the divine power of the Horned Rat and the black sorcery which emanated from such power. For a grey seer, being denied this was even more terrifying than the diminished sensory stimulation offered by Boneripper’s mechanical senses.

There was another aspect which chilled Thanquol to his very marrow and made him feel very small and timid despite his new brawn and bulk. How many Bonerippers had there been? Each of them dying in some spectacular and gruesome fashion? There was something hideously unlucky about rat-ogres, something that was positively fatal to them. Thanquol didn’t like the idea that he had inherited the current Boneripper’s ill fortune when he’d switched bodies with the brute. He felt as though he were scurrying about a drain, fighting against time and current before he was sucked down to a horrible doom!

No! He had to get back into his own body – and he had to do it quickly. The only way to do that was to force the breeder-witch to undo her curse. She had to know the secret of such magic, she must have used it many times with the beasts of her carnival!

‘Hear-listen!’ Thanquol growled at the grovelling skaven. ‘All of you obey! Find-seek breeder-witch! Don’t hurt, only find!’ Thanquol could see the scheming wheels turning in the brains of his underlings, so he decided to add a threat to his command.

‘Hurt-harm breeder-witch and I will go to Greypaw Hollow!’ Thanquol snarled, rearing up to the rat-ogre’s full height. He thumped both bony claws against his chest, recalling how formidable the troll’s performance had been. The effect was only somewhat lessened when he dropped his real body to the ground.

‘I will kill your breeders, crush your whelps and take your warpstone!’ Thanquol threatened. ‘I will make Greypaw Hollow the lowest of thrall-clans! You will all be fodder-meat for the snake-maggots of Clan Verms!’

The dire threat brought renewed promises of fealty and obedience from the skaven, their whines and squeaks echoing through the forest. They could be counted upon to do what Thanquol demanded of them. His threat would keep them in line.

Of course, after all he had suffered, Thanquol intended to carry out every part of his threat, whether the simpering ratkin obeyed him or not.

Thanquol stared down at the little village, cursing for the umpteenth time Boneripper’s lack of smell. With a proper nose, he’d be able to pick out the breeder-witch’s scent from the air. He could tell in an instant if Naktit was lying to him and punish the track-rat accordingly. The only thing that made him dubious of such treachery was the fact that the other skaven had no way of knowing about this particular infirmity. As far as they knew, Thanquol could smell as keenly as any of them.

Unless, of course, that filthy tinker-rat Krakul had said something before he died.

Flexing the massive arms of the rat-ogre, Thanquol glowered at his underlings. The scouts had been gone only a short time before reporting that the caravan had been abandoned. There were signs of a fight that must have happened after Thanquol’s… withdrawal. From the evidence, the fighting had been between two groups of humans. The scouts couldn’t say which of the humans had won, but they had been able to follow the witch’s scent back to this village.

Thanquol ground his fangs in annoyance. Naktit said that the witch had been taken to the biggest building in the village. The grey seer knew that sort of structure; it was one of the god-burrows the humans built to worship the confusing pantheon they followed. This particular one had a big hammer on its spire. Thanquol knew that particular cult quite well – the followers of Sigmar had a positive mania for burning any wizard or witch they could get their hands on. If he didn’t act fast, the breeder-witch would be dead and the secret of her curse lost with her!

He couldn’t let that happen! More and more, Thanquol felt the gnawing dread that something dire would happen, that the same fate which had overtaken six other Bonerippers would soon befall this one! To save himself, he had to save the witch from the witch hunters!

‘You are sure-certain there is a tunnel?’ Thanquol snapped at Naktit.

The scout bobbed his head in frantic eagerness. ‘Yes-yes, Horrible One! Man-thing temple-place always have tunnel! Use to hide-flee when man-thing gods make war!’

Thanquol reached a huge claw to his face to brush his whiskers, only belatedly remembering that Boneripper didn’t have any. It was true enough that the different priests of the humans sometimes made war against each other. The first thing they would do in such a war would be to burn down the houses of other gods. But would humans have enough brains to build an escape tunnel?

The rat-ogre’s skull twisted about, craning downwards to regard the horned ratman standing at Thanquol’s feet. There was such a look of dull idiocy on the grey seer’s face that Thanquol felt a gnawing horror crawl through him. Whatever happened, he had to return to his own body. He couldn’t abandon it to the mindless Boneripper. He had to be back inside his own fur, feeling blood coursing through his veins, a heart pounding in his chest! He had to restore his connection to the Horned One’s power! More, he had to get a sniff of snuff. His nerves, or whatever he had in the rat-ogre’s body, were on edge for lack of a pinch of warpsnuff. It didn’t do any good to dump the stuff into the rat-ogre’s nasal cavities; it would only burn up in the automaton’s furnace.

Yes, they would attack the human village. Pakstab would lead the majority of the skaven in an assault against the village walls, drawing the humans away from the temple. While the humans were occupied with Pakstab’s diversion, Thanquol and Naktit’s scouts would use the tunnel to sneak into the crypt beneath the temple. Humans had a tendency to lock their captives underground, so he was hopeful the breeder-witch would be there.

If not – well, every last ratkin in the expedition knew what Thanquol would do to them if anything went wrong!

Thanquol snarled as his metal shoulders brushed against the ceiling of the tunnel, sending a cascade of debris raining down upon him. Belatedly, he remembered to shield the horned body strapped to his back, twisting about awkwardly so the rat-ogre’s metal chest took the brunt of the rubble. After all he had gone through, it would be a cruelty beyond imagination to have his real body mangled before he could return to it.

Or was that the point? He glared suspiciously at the narrow tunnel and at Naktit. Had that been the scout’s scheme, to lure Thanquol down here where the rat-ogre’s ridiculous size would prove disadvantageous? Where Boneripper’s very bulk threatened to bring the entire hole crashing about his ears?

Thanquol bit down on his suspicions. As much as it galled him, he had to trust Naktit. He had to trust that the breeder-witch was where the scout said she was. He was a bit reassured by Naktit’s presence – surely the tracker would know he’d be the first casualty if Thanquol found out he was lying.

Eventually, the tunnel wormed its way beneath the stone foundations of a building. So far, it appeared Naktit’s report was accurate. The only building in the human warren large enough to warrant such ponderous foundations was the temple. Thanquol began to feel a bit more optimistic. When this was all over, he might even allow Naktit to live.

Human voices, low and distorted, began to filter into the tunnel. Ahead, Thanquol could see a heavy stone wall with a ring set into it. This, as Naktit hurried to explain, was the entrance to the temple. On the other side was the crypt.

‘…confess, woman, while you still have a tongue to do so!’ The voice was harsh and cruel, almost skaven-like in its vicious inflection.

‘You will torture me anyway, templar, so what use are my words?’

The second voice set Thanquol’s jaws clacking together. It was the breeder-witch! From her tone, she sounded weak, possibly wounded. Maybe dying? Thanquol fought down the panic that threatened to overwhelm him. He had to wait, let Pakstab draw away the other humans. Then he could safely step in and snatch the breeder-witch.

‘By Sigmar’s hammer, you will confess all your evils!’ the witch hunter snarled. ‘You will confess that you are in league with the creatures of Chaos, that you lured the people of this community to your encampment in order to feed their flesh to your hideous masters!’

‘The Strigany are no servants of the Old Night,’ the witch spoke, her voice weary. ‘The monsters you speak of attacked my people as well as yours.’

‘Evil will always turn upon itself,’ the witch hunter snapped. He might have said more, but the sound of frantic voices and hurried steps interrupted him.

‘Brother Echter! The monsters are attacking the village!’

‘They have come to save their infernal mistress,’ the witch hunter swore. ‘Rally the militia! These abominations must not be allowed to reach the temple!’

The sound of rushing feet faded as the humans raced upstairs. Thanquol gave them enough time to be well and truly gone before telling Naktit to open the secret door. Pakstab’s warriors would keep the humans occupied while they slipped in and stole the breeder-witch.

Naktit and his scouts tugged at the iron ring, slowly pulling back the block that sealed off the tunnel. Thanquol bristled at the delay. Lumbering forwards he seized the top of the stone with his claws and dragged the ponderous obstruction aside. Glaring at the skaven, he motioned for them to hurry onwards into the crypt.

The room on the other side of the wall was long and narrow, its sides lined with deep niches. Within each niche reposed the mouldering bones of some long dead human, the remains sealed away by an iron gate. A set of stone steps rose up into the ceiling, blocked by a trapdoor.

Except for the skaven, there was only one other living occupant in the crypt. The breeder-witch was locked inside one of the niches, her arms bound to her sides with heavy leather straps, her face disfigured by a heavy wax seal marked with the sign of the twin-tailed comet.

Thanquol brushed aside the scouts, rushing to the witch’s niche. The hag groaned in terror when she saw the ghastly rat-ogre peering at her through the bars. Then a cackle of amusement wracked her aged body.

‘Not liking your new home, rat-fiend?’ she laughed.

Thanquol’s claw lashed out, pounding against the gate and denting its iron bars. ‘Fix-change!’ he snarled at her. ‘Away-take curse-hex or I smash-kill slow-slow!’

The witch peered at him with hateful eyes. ‘Kill me and you’ll never get back,’ she threatened, pointing her chin towards the horned ratman lashed behind the rat-ogre’s shoulders.

Thanquol recoiled at the witch’s words. He crouched lower, trying to assume a meek posture. It was difficult to manage with a body as massive as Boneripper’s.

‘Fix-change,’ he repeated, trying to keep his voice low and pleasing. ‘Save-help me and I save-help you. Other man-things not hurt-harm.’

Again the witch laughed. ‘Help me? Can you give me back my sons who you and your vermin slaughtered?’

Thanquol smashed his fist against the ceiling, bringing a trickle of dust down upon his head. Of all the times for a human to start acting stupid! Here he was offering this one a chance to escape torture and slow death, and all she could talk about were her dead whelps!

A sound behind him caused Thanquol to turn. Running feet in the temple above, people rushing towards the trapdoor. The humans were coming back!

Another sound drew Thanquol’s attention to the far wall. Naktit and his scouts were back in the tunnel, pushing the block back into place. At once the enormity of Pakstab’s treachery was apparent. The warlord had led the attack only long enough to make Thanquol think everything was going according to plan. As soon as the grey seer had time to get into the crypt, the coward had called off the attack. Now Naktit was closing off the only route of escape! Once again, the traitors of Greypaw Hollow were leaving him to face the humans alone!

Thanquol lurched towards the closing tunnel, then turned back around. What use to escape if he left the witch behind? He needed her to break the curse! If he left her behind, the priest-humans would kill her and then he’d be trapped inside Boneripper for the rest of his life. Which, given the durability of rat-ogres, wasn’t likely to be long.

The trapdoor was being pulled open even as Thanquol turned back towards the witch’s cell. The harsh voice of the witch hunter shouted from the top of the stairs.

‘Behold! The heretic’s creatures have come to save her!’

Brother Echter’s statement was punctuated with a pistol shot. Thanquol could dimly feel the bullet crack against the rat-ogre’s back. From past experience, he knew it would take more than that to slow down Boneripper. However, there was just a chance that the human would reach the same conclusion and start shooting at Thanquol’s body.

Turning around, protecting the body lashed to the rat-ogre’s back, Thanquol roared at the frightened men clattering down the stairs, pounding his claws against his chest. The display appeared to impress the humans just as much as it had Pakstab’s skaven. The men following the witch hunter cried out in despair, then turned and fled back up the stairs.

‘You’ll not frighten me, mutant!’ Brother Echter swore, undaunted by the defection of his followers. Boldly, he drew a second pistol from his belt.

Thanquol was in no mood for such nonsense. Lunging forwards, he brought Boneripper’s massive claw slashing down, tearing deep furrows through the witch hunter’s flesh. The mutilated man screamed through the tatters of his face and crashed to the floor.

The skeletal rat-ogre turned back towards the witch’s cell, shaking his bloody claw at the obstinate hag. ‘You will suffer much-much unless you fix-change!’ Thanquol growled.

‘You killed everything I cared for,’ the witch told him. ‘And if you kill me, you’ll never get back!’

Thanquol clenched his bony hands, shaking with frustration. How could he threaten something that didn’t care if she lived or died? Worse, how could he threaten something that in dying would doom him as well?

Before he could work out the dilemma, the crypt echoed with the explosive report of a pistol shot. The hag’s gloating countenance became twisted with pain, a bright bloom of blood springing from her breast. Wailing in horror, Thanquol brought Boneripper’s giant foot smashing down upon the mangled witch hunter. Vengefully he stomped out the lingering spark of life that had enabled Brother Echter to shoot the witch.

Filled with despair, Thanquol went back to the cell. The breeder-witch was lying upon the floor, bleeding out from her wound. If he had had his magic, he could have helped her, much as it offended his senses. But the hag’s own curse made this impossible. He could only watch helplessly as the witch died, and in dying sealed his own fate.

Thanquol railed against the injustice of it all! To be doomed to such a cruel end because of the crude magic of a filthy breeder-thing, and all because a bunch of slack-witted fool-meat had led him to believe his mortal enemies were near! If he had the chance again, he would kill every last rat in Greypaw Hollow for goading him into this useless flea-hunt! By the Horned One, they should suffer for doing this to him!

As Thanquol bemoaned his fate, as he watched the witch die, a strange sensation came upon him. A flash of unspeakable cold, a whirring blur of light and darkness…

The grey seer fought against the darkness, though this time the struggle was far less than it had been before. When he could see again, it was with the clear vision of skaven eyes. A thousand smells rushed into his nose, a hundred sounds trickled into his ears. He could feel the blood flowing through his veins, the heart pounding in his chest. For good measure, he twitched his whiskers.

He was back in his own body! Again he could feel the aethyric forces flowing about him, the glory of the Horned Rat waiting to shape itself at his command. Thanquol couldn’t understand how the curse had been broken. Some final, desperate effort to gain the grey seer’s aid on the part of the witch?

Thanquol struggled to peer over Boneripper’s shoulder to see into the cell. Irritably, he snarled an order at his bodyguard, telling it to turn around. With its usual slavish obedience, the rat-ogre shifted its position.

The witch was dead, there was no mistaking that smell! Thanquol ground his fangs together as the solution to his deliverance came to him. The hag had been toying with him! She had told him if she died he would never break the curse when it was her very death that had ended the enchantment! How he wished she was alive so he could wring her neck!

For the moment, however, he had more pressing problems. The humans would recover from their fright soon, and when they did, they would come back to the crypt in force. It would be best for him to be far away when they did.

Then there was the small matter of Greypaw Hollow and the treachery of its denizens. Thanquol would teach those rats the price for betraying him!

But first he’d have one of them cut him loose. The idea of travelling all the way to Skavenblight tied to Boneripper’s back wasn’t exactly appealing.

He’d spent more than enough time around the rat-ogre.

The Two Crowns of Ras Karim

Nathan Long

1

‘The Lurking Horror?’ chuckled a merchant in orange robes. ‘A tale to frighten children. It does not exist.’

‘It exists,’ said a hard-faced man in the garb of a river pilot. His accent was almost impenetrable. ‘Not a year ago it made off with half the sheep of my tribe and ate my cousin Amduj.’

‘Do you know where it dwells?’ asked Felix.

The pilot shrugged. ‘It is everywhere and nowhere. It steps from behind the night, and can open a door in a shadow.’

Gotrek growled, annoyed. ‘Very helpful.’

Felix sighed and looked around the low, arched common room, trying to gauge who else in this foreign place might speak Reikspiel. He and Gotrek were in the Forbidden Garden, a house of ill repute in Ras Karim, a port some hundred leagues east of Copher, asking after a legendary monster said to haunt the desert south of the city.

They had first learned of the beast on Sartosa, where Gotrek had overheard an Arabyan pirate bragging that he had seen it kill fifty men, and that it had a hide of black iron that no mortal weapon could pierce. The tale had worked upon the Slayer like a red cape to an Estalian bull. He bought passage on the first ship heading south, and they had followed the rumour of the Horror from Lashiek, the corsair city, to Copher, the spice port, and now to Ras Karim. But though everyone they spoke to in their travels had heard of it, none could agree where it lived, or what it was, or if it was anything more than a myth.

The mellow glow of intricately pierced tin lamps pushed back the darkness of the hot, dry evening, revealing clusters of men reclining on satin cushions around knee-high tables, drinking fragrant mint tea from tiny cups and sipping smoke from water-filled pipes. The air was heady with smoke and the cloying scent of night jasmine, blooming in the courtyard garden that gave the place its name.

In the centre of the tables, veiled, bare-midriffed dancers in gauzy pantaloons swayed to whining flutes and pattering drums, while other women served and sat with the men, murmuring seductions in their ears and leaning lasciviously against them as they fed them chunks of spiced lamb.

Not all eyes were on the dancers, however. More than a few men glanced furtively at Gotrek and Felix. Felix tried to convince himself that this was only natural. Men of the Empire were not often seen this far south and east, and dwarfs were undoubtedly rarer still, particularly bare-chested, red-crested, one-eyed dwarfs with shoulders wider than many doorways.

A thin man at Felix’s elbow coughed politely. His head was shaved, and gold-rimmed spectacles perched on his nose. ‘Noble foreigners, if you truly seek the Horror, it would be wiser to enquire on the morrow in the Street of Scholars.’ He sniffed in the direction of the other men. ‘There you will receive science and fact, not rumour and tall tales.’

‘Thank you, learned sir,’ said Felix, bowing and hoping he’d got the honorific right. ‘We will do so.’ He looked at Gotrek. ‘Tomorrow then?’

Gotrek shrugged. ‘Aye. Though the sooner I find my doom, the sooner I can stop drinking this piss water.’ He made a face as he finished his mug. ‘Worst beer I’ve ever had.’

‘That is because it is not beer,’ said the merchant. ‘Ras Karim is not rich in wheat like your northern lands. It is tialva, made from sorghum.’

‘Sorghum?’ Gotrek choked. ‘Valaya preserve me.’ He glared behind the bar. ‘Do they have anything else?’

The merchant nodded. ‘Try the arag, our native drink. It is made with anise, and very potent.’

‘Anise.’ Gotrek shuddered. He turned away from the merchant and pounded the bar. ‘Barkeep! More piss water!’

Felix cringed and looked around to see if anyone had taken offence. They were still being scrutinised, but thankfully no one seemed to have understood Gotrek’s words.

As he turned back to tell Gotrek to keep his voice down, Felix noticed a pair of dark eyes looking at him. He stopped, held by their gaze. They belonged to one of the women of the house. She leaned against a fat pillar, staring boldly at him. Behind her translucent veil her full lips curved into a knowing smile. The rest of her voluptuous charms were revealed beneath an equally transparent sleeveless top and pantaloons. Felix gulped. It had been a long, dry journey to Ras Karim. Very dry.

She stepped toward him, her belt of coins jingling softly with each sway of her hips.

‘Greetings, esteemed foreigner,’ she said in a low, honeyed voice.

‘Greetings,’ said Felix, awkwardly. His tongue seemed suddenly too big for his mouth.

‘Would you like to add a coin to my belt?’ she asked, looking up at him through black lashes. She smelled of vanilla and smoke. ‘I have never had the coin of a northman before. I hear they are large, and of very hard metal.’

Felix coughed, blushing. He turned to Gotrek. ‘Gotrek, as we must wait until tomorrow…’

The Slayer shrugged. ‘Do what you will, manling. I’m going to see how much sorghum beer it takes to get me drunk.’ He pounded on the bar again. ‘Barkeep! Where’s that piss water?’

Unclothed but for her veil and her shimmering belt, the dancer’s golden-brown curves were even more astounding. Felix swallowed convulsively as she took his hand and drew him toward the bed, a low, cushioned dais in the centre of her small, opulent room, piled high with silk pillows and overhung with a sheer canopy.

Felix cleared his throat. ‘Aren’t you going to remove your veil?’

‘My veil?’ She smiled as she knelt before him. ‘That would be immodest.’ She began unbuckling his belt. ‘Now, please, tease me no more. I must see what you have in your coin pouch…’

‘Oh, devil of the north,’ cried the dancer a while later. ‘You shake me to my core!’

She clutched Felix to her in ecstasy.

‘Er,’ said Felix, pausing. ‘I think that was the building shaking, actually.’

‘Indeed,’ purred the dancer. ‘So powerful. So potent.’

The room shook again, and this time Felix heard a crash from below.

‘Ah, I think there might be some trouble.’

The dancer pouted. ‘The men fight. They always fight. Forget them, beloved.’ She ground against him. ‘Come, I hunger for you.’

Felix was hungry too, but just as he returned to her embrace, there came a thunderous crash, then a muffled, ‘By Grimnir’s beard, you’ll pay for that!’

More thuds and smashes followed, along with angry cries and the high-pitched shrieks of frightened women.

‘Sigmar curse him!’ groaned Felix. He disentangled himself from the dancer’s arms and reached for his clothes.

‘You leave me, noble warrior?’ she moaned, dismayed. ‘Where do you go?’

‘To speak with a Slayer about timing,’ growled Felix.

‘Sigmar take you, Gotrek!’ cried Felix, still buckling on his sword belt and stamping his left foot into his boot as he shoved through the angry sailors and merchants and artisans who were all trying to come to grips with the dwarf. ‘Can you not go one night without stirring up trouble? I’d only just–’

He paused. Gotrek looked awful. Though he fought like a badger, he was sweating and pale – almost green – and his eyes were unfocused.

Felix ducked as a tribesman swung a stool at him, then kicked the man in the knee. ‘Gotrek?’

Gotrek heaved a merchant in loose breeches into the crowd. Five men went down, but Gotrek almost did too. He was reeling.

‘Gotrek?’ said Felix again as he tripped one man into another. ‘Are you drunk?’

Gotrek shook his head. Sweat sprayed from his beard. ‘Something…’ He punched a man in the stomach, then kneed him in the face when he doubled up. ‘Something wrong… with the beer.’

Felix frowned. ‘Wrong?’

Gotrek swung at a man with fierce eyes and fiercer moustaches. He missed! The man kicked Gotrek in the chest to no effect. Gotrek shoved him unsteadily to the floor and staggered back. ‘My head… hurts.’

The barkeep was shouting at the crowd. His nose was twice its normal size and streaming blood, and he had two alarming black eyes. He pointed to the door.

The brawlers started pushing Gotrek and Felix toward the street like they were flotsam floating on a sweaty sea. Felix was tempted to draw his sword and even the odds a bit, but dared not. The local authorities might forgive a tavern brawl. Murder they would not.

Unfortunately, some of the brothel’s patrons didn’t share his compunction. A tribesman was drawing a curved dagger. Gotrek caught his wrist and gave him an uppercut that snapped his teeth together with a crack like a pistol-shot.

The barkeep roared in his native tongue, waving his hands, and Felix saw other men reluctantly sheathing knives and scimitars. Must be fastidious about blood on his flagstones, he thought.

Gotrek spun a herdsman around by his belt and tossed him into the crowd. Felix punched a black-bearded trader in the face and dodged a kick from a brawny labourer. He heard a shout behind him and turned. Four men were running at them with one of the low tables tipped on its side like a shield. Gotrek tried to get his axe out to split the table, but he fumbled it. The table bashed into them and forced them backwards.

Gotrek slurred a dwarfish curse and pushed back. Felix joined him, but they could get no traction.

Felix looked back. They were skidding toward the door.

‘Get around it!’ he called. ‘Gotrek–’

Too late. With a crash, the table hit the edges of the door and shot them tumbling out into the dusty street.

Gotrek surged up, roaring and throwing blind punches, but no one had followed them out. Instead, the Forbidden Garden’s heavy wooden door slammed shut in their faces, and Felix heard bolts shoot shut and locks clack closed.

Felix got painfully to his feet and looked around. They were entirely alone. There wasn’t a soul on the street. And it was quiet. No noise of traffic. No night bird’s cry. Not a sound came from the houses around them. Even the shouting and commotion from inside the brothel had stopped as if it had never been.

Gotrek stood clutching his head and swaying, his legs wide-braced and shaking, as if he struggled under a great weight. ‘Drugged,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘Cowards drugged me.’

‘Drugged?’ Felix wondered why. Did they hope to rob the Slayer? The only things of value either of them carried at the moment were their weapons. Their journey to the east had beggared them.

‘Let’s go back to Ishurak’s ship,’ he said. ‘You can sleep it off there.’

Gotrek nodded queasily. ‘Just… point me in the right direction.’

‘This way.’

Felix started toward the docks, Gotrek lurching along behind as if his legs were made of wood. Their steps echoed eerily off the moon-washed stucco buildings that lined the street. Ahead of them a lit window went dark. The shutters of another banged shut, and Felix heard the click of a lock. A baby wailed, then was silenced.

Felix slowed, his hand dropping to his hilt. Something was wrong. Gotrek didn’t look up. All his concentration was focused on putting one foot in front of the other.

There was a tiny sound behind them – the softest scuff of sole on sand. Felix turned. He stared. A semicircle of motionless, identically dressed men stood behind them, heavy tulwars in their gauntleted hands.

2

The men wore bronze breastplates over blood-red livery, and spiked helmets wrapped in blood-red turbans. Their faces were hidden, veils of fine bronze mail draped over their features, obscuring them utterly. They showed no flesh at all.

Gotrek snarled and drew his rune axe, holding it unsteadily before him. Felix drew his sword. The masked warriors advanced in unison, going on guard as one.

A voice cried out a command.

They stopped.

A man in gold-trimmed red robes stepped from behind them. He was tall but hunched, as if his high, column-shaped hat made his head too heavy for his stringy neck. Swinging before his sunken chest was a small silver flute that hung from a long necklace. He looked at Gotrek and Felix with a mixture of curiosity and contempt. ‘Do not hurt our guests,’ he said in a smooth voice, and Felix realised he was speaking Reikspiel for their benefit. ‘The dwarf will fall soon enough.’

Gotrek growled. ‘Fall?’ He was having difficulty forming words. He started forward, axe raised, but his legs were rubber. He listed sideways. ‘Fall?’

With each step, the weight of Gotrek’s impairment seemed to press more heavily upon him. He tripped and caught himself with his axe, then staggered on.

Felix advanced too, aiming for the gold-robed man, but he stepped back, the mail-masked soldiers closing ranks before him.

‘I… will not… fall…’ Gotrek rasped.

He fell, forehead thudding against the rough, dry earth.

At a sign from the tall man, the red warriors moved in.

Felix stood over Gotrek, sword out, ready to protect him to his death. ‘Who dies first!’ he cried.

Pain and sparking fire exploded inside his head, and he felt his shoulders hit the street. The last thing he saw before all went dark was the barkeep standing above him with a cudgel, bowing obsequiously to the man in red, who tossed him a gold coin.

Felix woke with harsh morning light stabbing him in the eyes. It wasn’t his first waking. He had vague recollections of swinging head-down over a uniformed shoulder, of being dropped on a stone floor, of barred doors clanging shut. Now he woke fully, and wished he hadn’t.

He was in a dark cell – more like a cage – with iron bars on three sides and a stone wall on the fourth. Sunlight lanced through an arrow slit in the wall. He sat up to get out of its savage beam and groaned. His head felt like it was made of loosely jointed scrap-iron. It clanged when it moved. He felt his skull gingerly. There was an egg-sized lump behind his ear, and a smaller one on his forehead, and he was thirsty – terribly thirsty. It was as dry and as hot as an oven in that low-roofed space. His skin felt like it might crumble to powder.

He looked around. ‘Gotrek, are you…?’

Gotrek wasn’t in the cell. Felix looked through the bars beyond it. His cage was one of hundreds, arranged in neat rows that vanished into the gloom of the dungeon. In every cell, emaciated figures huddled on the floor – asleep or dead, Felix could not tell. Gotrek wasn’t in any of the cells he could see.

The prisoner in the next cell rolled over and looked at him. ‘Ah, the pale one awakes,’ he said, his cultured voice belying his rags and matted beard. ‘A man of the Empire, yes?’

‘Yes,’ Felix nodded, then groaned. His head rang like a gong.

‘Welcome then, honoured friend,’ said the ragged man, sitting up. ‘All that I may call mine is yours.’ He smirked as he scratched himself. ‘I am currently wealthy in fleas.’

‘Where am I?’ asked Felix. ‘And where is Gotrek? The dwarf.’

‘You are in the dungeons of the Palace of Penitence, guest of his divine eminence, Falhedar il Toorissi, Scourge of the Bermini, Conqueror of the Medgidal hill kings, Defender of the Faithful, and Caliph of our fair city of Ras Karim.’ The man scratched himself again and looked down the corridor outside the cells. ‘As for your squat friend, our gracious hosts took him away in chains not a half-hour ago. I know not where.’

Felix slumped back against the stone wall, groaning. Imprisoned in a strange land. They could die here and no one would know what had become of them. Gotrek wouldn’t like it much. Rotting in a cell was not a proper death for a Slayer. But… but perhaps there had been some mistake. Perhaps if they could speak to someone they might be released.

He looked at the man in the next cell. ‘This caliph. Is he a reasonable man? Is he just?’

The prisoner snorted, then chuckled, then guffawed, then bent double in a violent coughing fit, tears turning to mud as they ran down his filthy face. At last he recovered and leaned back, looking at Felix with sparkling eyes. ‘Ah, my friend, I have not laughed like that in…’ His face grew grave. ‘Well, a long time.’ He bowed where he sat, one hand making flourishes. ‘My name is Halim il Saredi. My father once served the old caliph and, until recently, I served his son, Falhedar, your host, who is as cruel and tyrannical as his father was wise and just.’

‘You served him?’ Felix asked. ‘And you’re here now?’

Halim nodded. ‘For a time I thought I could help the people by using my influence to blunt Falhedar’s excesses.’ He sighed. ‘Finally I could no longer pretend that I made a difference. When I dared speak against one of his more villainous edicts he ordered my execution. I escaped into the desert, then returned in disguise not long ago to organise a rebellion with some like-minded friends.’ He smiled sardonically. ‘Needless to say, I was caught.’ He looked toward the arrow slit in his cell wall. ‘And soon I will fight the khimar, and die, but only after I am tortured into betraying my conspirators.’ He blinked, lost in thought, then grinned suddenly at Felix. ‘So – to answer your question – no, the caliph is not particularly just.’

Felix sighed. It had been a faint hope. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘And I’m sorry for your–’

A roar from the narrow windows drowned him out – the sound of thousands of voices all shouting at once.

‘What was that?’

Halim cringed away from the window, pale beneath his grime. ‘The khimar is about to take another victim.’

‘The khimar? What is that?’ Felix stood and craned his neck to look through the arrow slit. Did the beast, whatever it was, have a thousand throats?

He blinked in the blinding rays of the sun. A hot, dusty breeze blew into his face as details emerged from the glare. The window was nearly level with a broad sandy floor, encircled by high walls, and above the walls, slanting planes of colour, endlessly shifting. For a moment, he didn’t understand, for he could only see a small wedge of the world. Then it came into focus. It was an arena, like an Estalian bull ring, but much larger. The stands thronged with people. It was from them the roar had come.

On the far wall large double doors were rumbling open and something was coming out – something big.

‘The khimar,’ Halim whimpered, peering out of his window as well.

The thing emerged from the shadows of the door, padding on great clawed feet. Felix gasped. Though he had read descriptions of such a beast in books, he had never seen one in life. It had the body of a lion, but much larger – taller than a man at the shoulder, with powerful muscles rippling under its tawny, scar-inscribed fur. It had a lion’s head as well, great golden mane shining in the sun as it roared at the crowd, but the head was not alone. Sprouting from its left shoulder screamed the head of an eagle, its cruel beak snapping, while growing from its right, whipping angrily at the end of a long neck, was the head of a dark red serpent, saliva dripping from its fangs. The monster prowled to the centre of the arena, lion tail lashing, its heads looking in every direction for prey. The crowd roared again.

Felix gaped. ‘A chimera? They feed the prisoners to a chimera?’

‘Not feed,’ said Halim. ‘Fight.’ His wide eyes never left the beast. ‘We are instructed to fight it – unarmed, of course. It is more entertaining that way.’

‘Unarmed? Against that?’ Felix laughed hollowly. He pitied the poor unfortunate who would have to face all those fangs and beaks and claws. It would be a massacre.

There was a fanfare of trumpets and a tall door at the back of a raised platform slowly opened. Behind it, a portcullis rose, curtains parted, and a figure was thrust, stumbling, onto the platform, his wrists shackled in chains, his one eye blinking in the sun.

It was Gotrek.

3

The Slayer looked as if he was still suffering from the drugged drink that had poleaxed him the night before. He stared around stupidly at his surroundings, weaving on his powerful legs as the door closed behind him. The crowd laughed.

The chimera crept toward him, eagle beak shrieking a challenge. Gotrek’s head snapped up. He reached instinctively for his back, then looked around, baffled, at the place where his axe should have been.

Felix choked, then berated himself. Of course Gotrek wouldn’t have his axe. They were prisoners. But it was still a shock to see it. He could not remember a time when Gotrek had been separated from it.

The Slayer back-pedalled, straining to break the chains that hung between his manacles. The links were too thick. The chimera leapt onto the platform. Gotrek dived off – out of Felix’s field of vision. The chimera sprung after him. The crowd roared.

‘What’s happening?’ Felix cried.

‘I can see no more than you, friend,’ said Halim.

Felix leaned left and right, to no avail. Then his eye was caught by a splash of red in the stands. The man in the red robes! He stood in a canopied box, his silver flute winking in the shadows. Beside him on an opulent throne sat a plump man, lavishly dressed in white and gold, and wearing a golden circlet on his head that looked like a coiled cobra. They watched the contest with interest.

‘Who is the man in red?’ Felix asked.

Halim growled. ‘Dujedi il Kaadiq. The caliph’s advisor and chief sorcerer, may his soul be flayed by djinn.’

Gotrek ran past, the chimera bounding after him, and was gone again. Felix cursed in frustration.

A second later, the Slayer landed near Felix’s window in a cloud of dust – close enough for Felix to hear him grunt. He was striped across the chest with crimson claw marks. The chimera dropped down on top of him, both snake and lion heads whipping down. Gotrek swung his chains, fists together, and cracked the snake head with the heavy links, knocking it into the lion head. The beast recoiled. Gotrek surged up and headbutted it in the underbelly. It roared and fell backwards, then flipped around like the cat it was and landed on its feet. Bellowing from its three throats, it leapt at Gotrek again.

Gotrek thrust his hands up and apart and blocked the eagle’s beak with the rigid chain. It bit the links and flung Gotrek over its shoulder with a flick of its neck, then pounced after him and was gone.

Felix tried to gauge what was happening by the cheers and screams of the crowd, but he didn’t know if they were cheering Gotrek or the chimera, or just bloodshed in general. The noise rose and rose.

After a moment, the beast galloped by the window again, shaking its heads violently. Gotrek hung from them, struggling to hold away the eagle with one hand and choking the snake with the other. Its slavering fangs snapped an inch from his face. The heel of his boot was crammed in the lion’s maw, forcing it open.

Felix groaned as the combatants disappeared again. That looked like the end. At any moment one of the heads would break free and rip Gotrek to pieces.

There was an intake of breath from the whole arena, and then a roar, louder than any before. Felix cursed. That must have been it. It could have been nothing else.

But as the chimera staggered into view again, Felix saw that he was wrong. The eagle head was stuffed into the snake’s distended jaw, and Gotrek was on the beast’s back, strangling the lion head with his chains.

The red sorcerer and the man in white and gold were on their feet, shouting down into the arena.

‘By the seven fathers of Mu’Allid!’ whispered Halim, gaping.

The chimera writhed and roared, trying to reach Gotrek with its claws and disentangle its other heads at the same time. The lion head was bleeding from the mouth, its bellows hoarse and constricted.

Gotrek heaved mightily on the chain and the lion head went limp. The chimera lost its footing and fell on one shoulder. The snake head finally freed the eagle head from its jaws and turned on Gotrek. The Slayer caught it in his bare hands as it lunged, and twisted it cruelly. The eagle head tried to reach him, but couldn’t get around the lion head.

There was a dull crack, and the snake head flopped to the ground. Gotrek leapt at the eagle head. It bit at his hand, crushing his manacle. Gotrek grabbed the powerful beak with his free hand and began pushing it open. Its paws clawed weakly at him, shredding his back and legs. He ignored them, forcing the beak further apart.

The man in white was screaming at the sorcerer, who cringed at his displeasure and began making cabalistic gestures in the air.

He was too late.

With a horrible ripping sound, the two halves of the eagle beak tore apart, splitting the flesh around it. The eagle head’s white feathers were drenched in blood and the chimera collapsed, dead. Gotrek fell beside it, utterly spent.

The arena was silent, the crowd still. Then suddenly they roared, a deafening, jubilant cheer. The caliph and the sorcerer looked around at them, furious and afraid.

Felix let out a long-held breath.

Halim’s jaw hung loose. ‘This… this is a sign,’ he said, then stepped back, suddenly calculating. ‘At least, it can be used as one. Proof that the caliph’s time has come. By the silver beard of Abdul ibn Ashid! That I have lived to see the day…’

White-uniformed guards crept toward Gotrek. He struggled up, lifting his fists. He was running with blood, his flesh criss-crossed with deep gashes. He could barely stand.

The guards spread out. They held something between them. Gotrek lurched toward them. Half of them ran forward, raising what they held – a weighted net. It settled over the Slayer. He grabbed at it, trying to tear it off, but they pulled the far edge under him, knocking him off his feet, and dragged him, kicking uselessly, toward the arena door.

Felix watched as, accompanied by a jailer, the guards hauled Gotrek down the long hall between the cages and rolled him out of the net into a cell.

Gotrek rose to his feet as they slammed the door, and stumbled to the bars. ‘Let me out!’ he spat, mouth bloody. ‘Give me my axe!’

The chief guard sneered and said something in his own language that sounded like an insult. He turned to the jailer and barked an order. The jailer bowed and ran off.

‘You are to be brought food and bandages,’ said Halim, as the guards strode away. ‘It seems the caliph wishes you to die in the arena, not in private.’

Gotrek slumped against the bars, his strength ebbing with his fury. He slid to the floor.

Halim bowed to him from his cell. ‘A magnificent battle, friend dwarf. By Kasoun’s fiery sword, if all dwarfs are like you, it seems incredible that they do not rule the world.’

Gotrek’s answer was a snore.

A short while later, a slave appeared, carrying food and bandages. He set them outside the cell and scurried away. Gotrek woke as Felix pulled it all through the bars.

‘Give me that,’ he rasped.

He dressed his wounds first, tearing the bandages with his teeth, for no blade had been provided, then ate the gruel and flat bread, muttering under his breath, without a glance for Felix or Halim.

‘Friend dwarf,’ said Halim, reverently. ‘Know it or not, you have shaken the caliph’s rule to its core today. The people have believed his hold on the throne unshakable. Now they know he can be beaten. Now is the time to strike! If only I could be free of this cell I could topple him like a rootless tree.’

The Slayer ignored him, chewing mechanically until all the food was gone, then he stood and stepped to the bars. ‘Come on, manling. I have to find my axe.’

‘Come? Come where?’ said Felix.

The Slayer grabbed two of the bars and began pulling at them.

‘Gotrek,’ said Felix, scowling. ‘Not even at your strongest…’

Gotrek continued pulling, keeping inexorable pressure on the bars. His face turned red. His arms trembled. ‘A dwarf knows iron,’ he hissed. ‘This is poor stuff.’

Felix gaped. The bars groaned. They were a half-inch further apart.

‘Poorly forged,’ grunted Gotrek. ‘Poorly set.’

Halim stood, staring. The bars were bowing, creaking and squealing. Gotrek shook like a palsy victim. The veins stood out on his neck. His muscles bulged. Sweat poured from his brow. Blood leaked into his bandages.

‘Spirits of sky, earth and water!’ breathed Halim.

Other prisoners were turning and looking. The slap of boots echoed down the corridor and the jailer appeared. He gasped then stepped to the bars, screaming and bashing at Gotrek’s knuckles with a long, iron-shod truncheon to make him let go.

Gotrek’s hand shot out and grabbed the jailer’s wrist. He pulled. The jailer’s face banged off the bars. His eyes crossed. Gotrek caught him around the neck with one massive hand and yanked forward. The jailer’s head popped through the bars like a melon seed. He screamed. He had left his ears behind. Blood poured from the sides of his head. Gotrek punched him in the temple and he slumped, unconscious.

Felix darted forward and took the jailer’s ring of keys. He stepped to the door and began trying them in the lock. In every cell, the other prisoners were stepping forward, watching with desperate eyes.

‘My friends,’ said Halim, licking his lips.

The fourth key unlocked the door. Felix threw it open.

Gotrek stomped out and took up the jailer’s truncheon, then started down the corridor. ‘Let’s go.’

As Felix followed, the prisoners called to them, begging to be released.

Halim reached through the bars of his cell. ‘Wait, friends! Wait!’

Gotrek ignored him.

‘Friends, I beg you, listen to me!’ called Halim. ‘I can help you!’

Gotrek kept walking.

‘I know a secret way out of this place.’

Gotrek shrugged. ‘I’ll make my own way out.’

‘I know where your weapons are! I can lead you to them.’

Gotrek paused, then turned back. ‘Where are they?’

Halim laughed. ‘You think me a fool, friend dwarf? I will tell you when you let me out.’

Gotrek shot a questioning glance at Felix.

Felix shrugged. ‘He said he was once an advisor to the caliph.’

Gotrek grunted. ‘Let him out.’

Felix turned back and unlocked Halim’s cell.

Halim bowed profusely as he stepped out of the cage. ‘Thank you, friends. May the blessings of your gods be upon you.’

‘Never mind that,’ growled Gotrek. ‘Where is my axe?’

Halim shook his head. ‘Oh no. We are not yet free.’

Gotrek looked like he was going to stuff the man back in his cell.

‘I will take you to your weapons,’ said Halim. ‘I promise you. But we must be away from this place first, and quickly.’

Gotrek glowered at him. ‘If this is a trick, I’ll turn you inside out.’

Halim chuckled. ‘Friend dwarf, I saw you dispatch the chimera. I have more sense than to cross you.’

Gotrek grunted, unimpressed, then motioned for him to lead on.

Halim bowed. ‘Bless you. Now come. There is a secret way to the outside.’ Halim motioned them further down the corridor, away from the exit. ‘I know it from my father’s time as court sorcerer.’

As they followed, the other prisoners clamoured to be freed. Felix paused, then took the keys and tossed them to the man in the nearest cell. He didn’t know what good it would do them, but he wouldn’t deny them the attempt.

4

‘You tricked us!’ cried Felix.

‘Didn’t I tell you I’d–’ began Gotrek, standing.

‘You would do well not to do anything you will later regret,’ said Halim softly. ‘You will not retrieve your weapons without me.’

He looked entirely different, freshly bathed and with his beard neatly trimmed. The clean blue robes and snow-white headcloth helped too, giving him an air of quiet nobility. Only the gauntness of his cheeks betrayed his recent captivity.

It was after sunset on the same day that he had led Gotrek and Felix out of the caliph’s prison. They sat around a broad table in the cellar of a dye works. Jars of ochre and indigo and other powders were stacked against the walls, as were bolts of cloth, both dyed and undyed. The acrid scents of the dyes mixed oddly with that of the meagre meal spread before them – curried lamb, dates, cheese and fragrant tea.

A handful of men and women sat with them. A proud young beauty sat at Halim’s side, her hand on his. She was dressed entirely in black, from pantaloons to blouse to veil. Her hair was black as well – glossy waves that fell to her waist.

All of them were glaring at Gotrek and Felix.

‘You dare threaten Bey Saredi, infidel?’ growled a hard-eyed, hard-muscled man with the bearing of a professional soldier. His Reikspiel was abominable.

‘Peace, Ghal,’ said Halim. ‘The dwarf and the northerner have a right to feel ill-used.’ Halim turned to Gotrek. ‘Though I did not lie. I will bring you to your weapons, in time.’

‘But you didn’t tell us it would take usurping the caliph to do it!’ said Felix.

Gotrek’s knuckles cracked like pistol-shots. ‘I don’t care about some little squabble. You promised me my axe.’

‘Little squabble?’ said the woman at Halim’s side. Her voice was clear and sharp. ‘The fate of a nation is at stake!’

Halim put a hand on her arm to quiet her. ‘Friends, there is no other way. Your weapons are in the caliph’s palace, as I feared, locked inside his treasure vault. A thousand men guard the palace, as does Kaadiq, the sorcerer who laid you low once before. I know secret ways into the palace, true, but there is no way to the vault that is not guarded. It is not a job for two men, or three, or twenty. It is a job for an army.’

Gotrek glared death at him for a long minute, and Felix was certain that the cellar was about to erupt into bloody violence, but at last the Slayer sank back into his chair.

‘Carry on,’ he grunted. ‘But if I don’t have my axe at the end of this, your reign will be over before it begins.’

‘What did he say?’ asked Ghal, rising.

Halim waved him down, then gave the Slayer a cool look. ‘There is no need for more threats, friend dwarf. You can only kill me once.’ He turned to the others and began to speak in his own language.

Felix let out a nervous breath. The crisis seemed to have passed.

As they could not understand the discussion that followed, Gotrek and Felix had little to do but wait. Gotrek spent the time eating and drinking – mostly drinking – but Felix entertained himself observing the play of personalities around the table.

Halim was clearly admired by the others – worshipped by some – as was the woman. She had a regal bearing that spoke of noble birth, but seemingly none of the spoiled selfishness that often went with it.

Ghal was the most passionate of them, pounding the table to make his points. He and Halim argued and bantered like old friends, but every now and then, when someone else was speaking, Felix noticed the warrior’s gaze stray to the woman’s hand, where it rested upon Halim’s.

After more than an hour, the conversation wound down, and Halim turned back to Gotrek and Felix. ‘So,’ he said. ‘We have a plan. In three days, Caliph Falhedar and Kaadiq the sorcerer hear the reports of the tax collectors in the throne room of the palace.’ He looked around at his followers. ‘That day, riots will break out all over the city, drawing as many guards as possible from the palace. More rioters will attack the palace gates. When they do, I and a select few will enter the palace gardens through the seventh summer house.’ He smirked. ‘Wise ruler though he was, the old caliph had a weakness for women of easy virtue, and built a secret passage to that pavilion to smuggle them in.’ He nodded at Gotrek and Felix. ‘You will be with us. It will be your duty to kill Kaadiq and defeat his crimson guard. I will deal with Falhedar.’

‘What?’ snapped Ghal. ‘I was to kill Kaadiq! It was he who slew my brothers. I must–’

‘Do you wish revenge? Or success?’ asked Halim, his eyes burning into Ghal’s.

Ghal held his gaze for a long moment, then at last shrugged and looked away.

Halim turned to the young woman in black. ‘When the tyrant and his vulture are dead, my beloved betrothed, Yuleh il Toorissi, Princess of the Blood and niece of the old caliph, will ask me, before the spirits of air, land and water, and before the people of the city, to be her husband and rule with her at her right hand.’ He smiled. ‘And with their blessing, I will accept.’

‘Their blessing?’ Ghal laughed. ‘When you have the crown, and the army, and a princess of the blood? Will you truly step aside if the crowd says nay?’

‘I would not have attempted this venture if I did not think the people would support me,’ said Halim. ‘But if they do not…’ He shrugged, his expression grim. ‘Then at least I will have had the satisfaction of ridding my land of the greatest leeches it has ever known.’

He turned to Gotrek and Felix. ‘So, friends, will you do your part?’

Felix shrugged.

Gotrek was scowling. ‘If you kill the caliph and the sorcerer, you still have the palace guard beating down the doors. I suppose you want me to kill them for you too?’

Halim shook his head. ‘The loyalty of the guards is maintained by the Serpent Crown – an artefact of great power. It protects the wearer from poison and steel, and grants the ability to bend the wills of weak men. If Falhedar is killed, or the crown removed, his guards will lose heart.’

Felix frowned. ‘But if you put it on, couldn’t you command them to surrender entirely?’

Halim’s face drained of colour. ‘I will not wear that crown. It is a vile thing.’

‘But in times of trouble, maybe a necessary one,’ said Ghal.

‘No!’ barked Halim. His hands were clenched. ‘No. I will wear the Lion Crown. The true crown.’ He turned to Gotrek and Felix. ‘Ras Karim has two crowns. The first, the Lion Crown, was made by the founder of this city, Karim the Benevolent. It is only a crown. It has no magic. But it is a symbol of just rule, and he who wears it and honours its legacy is loved by the people.’ He shot a glance at Ghal. ‘The second crown, the Serpent Crown, was made for Falhedar by Kaadiq, after the first attempt on his life.’ He sneered. ‘I hear he wears it to bed.’

Princess Yuleh flashed a mischievous grin. ‘I hope you don’t do that, beloved. I would find it very uncomfortable.’

Halim chuckled and squeezed her hand.

Ghal grunted and looked away.

Gotrek and Felix exchanged a glance.

5

On the day of the attack, smoke rose from a dozen points in the city, and riots and demonstrations choked the streets with people. Company after company of palace guard was dispatched to put down the disturbances.

When Halim estimated that more than half of the garrison was chasing phantoms in the slums, he sent a ragtag army to the front gate, to pepper it with rocks and arrows and generally make a lot of noise.

Gotrek and Felix waited with him and Ghal and Yuleh and fifty armed men in an abandoned house with a secret door in its basement. Strangely, Halim was armed, not with a tulwar, but with an ugly wooden club with sharp chunks of basalt set into the end. The princess wore mannish garb, her hair hidden under a headscarf.

At last, word came that most of the remaining palace troops were engaged at the front gate. Halim opened the secret door and they ran swiftly through a narrow, lightless passage that ended, after more than a hundred yards, in another underground room – a dungeon of sorts, though curiously, all the fetters and whips seemed to be made of silk and satin, rather than iron and leather.

Above this was an opulent pleasure pavilion, a miniature palace of rose marble and satin pillows, of silver tables and tasselled lamps. Through its windows Gotrek and Felix looked with the others across a garden awash with flowers and fountains and exotic trees to an enormous palace that gleamed in the sun like a gilded sapphire. Spires and minarets rose from its every corner, and gold-pillared arcades ringed its upper storeys. There were no guards to be seen, only sounds of battle echoing in the distance.

Halim and Yuleh led the rest at a trot through the endless grounds until they came to a more modest garden, hidden by hedges, where melons and pears and nut trees grew. A genuflecting servant let the interlopers in at the kitchen door and they filed silently through a maze of service corridors until they came to a narrow stair, at the head of which was a stout door.

Halim turned as his men crowded forward. ‘Through that door is the Court of Palms, and beyond it, the throne room. We must cross the court like the wind, for if the guards close the throne room doors before we reach them, we are done before we begin. Are we ready?’

Ghal grunted. The men muttered their assent. Felix drew the scimitar he had been given. It felt alien and unbalanced in his hand.

Gotrek smacked into his palm the iron-shod truncheon he had taken from the jailer. ‘Let’s get this over with,’ he growled.

Halim and Ghal crept up the stairs with the others behind them. Halim pressed his ear to the door, then shoved through it at a run.

The others burst through after him into a huge indoor jungle. Palm trees soared overhead under a faceted glass ceiling. Exotic flowers exploded from dark foliage, parrots and monkeys clutched drooping vines. Felix saw the far wall as if looking into a clearing. A towering archway revealed a golden-pillared room beyond.

Ten guards in white and gold stood before it, spears at parade rest. As Halim’s force sprinted from the shadows they cried out, but after that their response was calm and practised. Eight stepped forward, grounding their spears to meet the charge, while the other two began to pull closed a pair of heavy golden doors, richly worked with scenes of war and triumph.

Halim’s front rank drew recurved bows and fired on the fly. The men pulling the door fell, twisting and screaming, but more ran from the throne room to replace them. Halim’s force was still fifty feet away.

Another flight of arrows and the doors slowed again, but they continued to close.

‘Step aside, Grimnir curse you!’ roared Gotrek.

The Slayer had fallen behind, his short legs unable to compete, but his bellow parted those in front of him, and he side-armed his iron-tipped truncheon toward the door with all his might.

It spun noisily across the floor, scraping white gouges in the green marble. The guards leapt aside as it came, fearing for their ankles, and it slid past them to wedge between the two doors just before they met, keeping them open.

The guards started hauling them apart again to get the truncheon out, but it was too late. Halim’s men crashed into them, overwhelming them quickly and shouldering open the doors. Guards within tried to hold them closed, but they were no match for the fifty rebels outside.

Gotrek snatched up the truncheon and pushed through the widening gap, the first into the throne room. He bashed left and right and the doors opened more quickly. Felix, Ghal and Halim came in behind him, Halim’s men flooding in after to meet a score more white-clad guards. The last rebels slammed the doors behind them and set massive bolts.

Felix stole glances around him as he fought. The throne room was dazzling. White and gold pillars rose above a yellow-canopied dais. On the walls, tall windows alternated with jewel-covered tapestries of hunts and battles and courtiers at play.

On a gilded settee on the dais, surrounded by the motionless, chainmail-veiled red and bronze warriors who had captured Gotrek and Felix outside the Forbidden Garden, a man was rising and staggering back, a trembling hand pointing at Gotrek. He was of middle height and build and age, but magnificently dressed in snow-white robes, with a round, childish face under the golden coils of what could only be the Serpent Crown. ‘The dwarf!’ he cried to Kaadiq, who stood beside him, a hand clutching his silver flute. ‘The slayer of my khimar! Get him away. Protect me. He is a daemon!’

Gotrek looked every inch a thing of the nether realms just then, drenched in blood and brains as he swung his terrible iron-shod club in a humming circle, breaking limbs and smashing skulls.

‘Fear not, your benevolence,’ said Kaadiq, soothingly. ‘He will not reach you. None of them will.’ He called to his mail-masked men. ‘Crimson Ones, protect the caliph. Protect me.’

The red and bronze warriors stepped forward as one, forming a line between the rebels and the dais. Kaadiq began waving his fingers and singing under his breath.

The last of the throne room guards went down under the rebels’ ferocious onslaught. The rebels cheered and rushed forward. The Crimson Ones went on guard and struck in unison, like the pistons of some hellish machine. Though outnumbered more than two to one, the masked warriors repelled even Halim and Ghal with brutal ease. Gotrek fought three. They blocked his every strike. Another drove Felix back with bone-jarring blows.

Behind the rebels, a huge crash shivered the throne room doors. Felix heard cries and orders from without. It sounded as if the palace guard had brought a battering ram.

Kaadiq’s singing grew louder.

Halim turned to Gotrek. ‘Quickly friend, before his enchantments can take effect! You must break through!’

‘Right,’ said Gotrek. ‘Watch my sides, manling.’

Gotrek waded forward, swinging his truncheon two-handed, as Felix fell in behind him and to his left. The Slayer forced two of the mail-masked warriors back a step, but could not break their guard. Another cut at his flank. Felix lunged forward and parried the strike. It was so strong that his fingers stung.

He hacked the warrior across the arm. His scimitar glanced off as if he were encased in gromril plate. Gotrek clubbed one to the floor with a blow that should have caved in his ribs. He sprang up again. The Slayer growled like a thwarted bear.

Felix’s opponent smashed his unfamiliar sword out of his hand and lunged. Felix ducked the tulwar, then slashed at the Crimson One’s eyes with his dagger. The veil of mail ripped away. Felix gasped.

There were no eyes behind it. The warrior’s skull-featured head was carved from grey, weathered granite.

6

‘Gotrek!’ choked Felix. ‘They’re not men!’

‘I know that, manling,’ said Gotrek, cracking another in the head so hard that its helmet flew off and cracks appeared in its stone cranium. ‘Men don’t get up when I hit them.’

The thing kept fighting.

As the caliph cowered and the sorcerer chanted, the stone men chopped the rebels to pieces. Behind the fighting, the bolts of the throne room doors groaned and buckled. The palace guard were almost in.

The sorcerer’s droning chant began buzzing strangely in Felix’s ears, and suddenly he could hardly keep his eyes open. His arms felt leaden. He wasn’t alone. All along the rebel line, Halim’s men were dying as their arms drooped and the stone men buried their tulwars in their chests.

‘It won’t work, sorcerer,’ growled Gotrek. ‘Not without drugging me again.’ He tripped a stone man to the floor and leapt over it, swinging for Kaadiq.

The sorcerer yelped and dodged behind the caliph’s throne. Gotrek gave chase.

The sleepy buzz instantly vanished from Felix’s mind, and he saw Halim’s men recover themselves as well. It made little difference. The stone men could not be stopped. Swords did nothing. Heavier weapons might knock them down, but they fought on just as strongly.

‘Ushabti!’ called Kaadiq, dancing awkwardly back from Gotrek. ‘Protect me. Kill the dwarf!’

But before the stone men could turn, Gotrek flung his truncheon again. It caught the sorcerer at the knees and he crashed, shrieking, beside the dais.

At the same time, with a final bash of the battering ram, the throne room doors exploded open, and a flood of white uniformed guards poured in, charging the rebels.

Gotrek stood over Kaadiq, truncheon raised, ‘Get in my head, will you?’ he roared, then smashed down. The iron-shod club stove in Kaadiq’s skull like an eggshell. Gotrek laughed evilly. ‘Ha! Now I’m in yours!’

The stone men clattered to the ground like unstrung puppets, all life gone from them. Relieved, Felix and the rebels turned to fight the palace guards, but they were so few now, and the guards so many, that their destruction seemed inevitable.

Gotrek swung his truncheon at the caliph, but it swerved in the air and missed him.

‘No!’ cried Halim. ‘Iron won’t touch him!’ He leapt onto the dais, swinging his basalt-studded club. It caught Falhedar on the shoulder and knocked him from his settee. Strangely, the crown stayed firmly on his head.

Halim leapt on the caliph and grabbed the crown, tugging at it. It wouldn’t come off. In a glance behind him, Felix saw that it was sewn to Falhedar’s scalp – threads going through his skin.

‘Coward!’ Halim pulled harder and the crown came away, ripping flesh and hair with it. The caliph shrieked, his head a ragged, bloody mess.

Yuleh stepped up before him, curved dagger held high. ‘For my father,’ she said, and plunged it into his heart.

‘For my country,’ said Halim, and sank his blade next to hers.

All around the room, the white-clad guards faltered and blinked around, as if waking from a dream. The rebels knocked their blades aside and tore into them.

Halim stood, Falhedar’s bloody crown in one hand. ‘Stop! Friends! It is over!’

The rebels stepped back reluctantly. They did not lower their swords.

Halim addressed the bewildered guards. ‘Loyal men of the palace, the yoke of the Serpent Crown has been lifted from your shoulders. Your wills are your own again.’ He gestured to the bodies at his feet. ‘Caliph Falhedar is dead. The red sorcerer is dead. You need no longer fight to protect them. Instead I invite you to join me and return our land to its former glory.’

He was met with silence. The guards seemed too stunned to respond.

At last a captain of the guard gathered his wits. ‘And under what crown will you rule?’ he asked sullenly. ‘The Serpent or the Lion?’

Halim looked down at the bloody crown in his hands. He seemed to hesitate, then threw it savagely from him. It chimed as it skipped across the marble floor. ‘The Lion Crown,’ he said. ‘Only the Lion.’

The captain looked at his fellows. They seemed as suspicious as he. He turned back to Halim. ‘From now on we follow the man, not the crown. Prove yourself a lion and we will follow.’

Halim bowed. ‘That is all I ask.’

‘Halim!’ called Ghal. ‘They say this and you trust them? Slay them before they change their minds!’

‘I trust them more for this honesty than if they kissed my feet and swore a thousand oaths,’ Halim said. He turned to Gotrek and Felix. ‘Come, friends, the Lion Crown is in the vault, along with your weapons.’ He took a strange key from Falhedar’s belt and started across the throne room. ‘Ghal, call peace at the front gate, and let in the rest of our brothers. Yuleh, go with them. Your presence will win over any hold-outs.’

‘Aye, beloved,’ said Yuleh.

‘Aye, Halim,’ said Ghal begrudgingly.

Gotrek and Felix followed Halim out of the room.

The door of the caliph’s treasure vault was a great slab of iron-bound stone, secured with bolts, bars, and magical wards. Halim slid the four shafts of the rune inscribed key – one of gold, one of silver, one of iron, and one a slim rod of jade – into a four-holed lock set in a steel plate in the centre of the door, then turned it right, left, and right again. With a ratcheting of clockwork, the bars raised, the bolts withdrew, and the door rose up into the ceiling.

Gotrek sneered. ‘Human gimmickry.’

He and Felix stepped with Halim through the door into a glittering grotto of treasure. The vault was enormous, larger than the throne room, and doors in each wall opened into further rooms. Felix had never seen so much wealth and art gathered in one place before. Bound chests were stacked to head height along the walls. Rugs and statues and weapons and full suits of gem-encrusted armour rose in haphazard mounds, through which wound narrow paths. Books with gilded bindings spilled from overflowing shelves. Vases and urns and gold-and-silver lamps cluttered every corner, as well as spyglasses and maps and clockwork toys, jewels and crowns and sceptres. In one corner was a silver-barred cage, in which, confusingly, was locked a carpet. A statue of a monkey with a very superior smirk gazed at him from another corner. On a tall onyx stand in the centre of the mess was an alabaster egg that seemed to glow from within with an inner fire. And these were only the first things that caught his eye.

Halim sighed. ‘Somewhere among all this is my crown, and your weapons.’

Felix groaned.

Gotrek started forward, his one eye glittering as he took in the mountains of golden treasure. He licked his lips. ‘Let’s get started.’

The others followed him.

‘Be careful,’ said Halim. ‘I am told that after I left his service, Falhedar placed a guardian within the vault.’

‘What kind of guardian?’ asked Felix, looking nervously around.

‘I know not.’ Halim shrugged. ‘But it should only be released if the protective wards are broken. Since we entered with the key, it should not trouble–’

A deafening clang interrupted him. They spun around. A heavy iron portcullis had dropped down to block the exit.

7

Halim stared at the portcullis. ‘That isn’t supposed to happen unless intruders have breached the door.’

An ugly laugh echoed from above. They looked up. A dark balcony ran above the door – some sort of guard platform. Ghal grinned down from it. It was hard to see him clearly in the shadows, but there seemed to be streaks of red on his face, and something strange on his head. ‘Imprisoned again!’ he chortled. ‘And this time you won’t escape alive.’

‘Ghal!’ cried Halim. ‘What are you playing at?’

‘I couldn’t believe it when you returned,’ Ghal growled. ‘I had worked so hard to have you arrested. Then it would have been me who stormed the palace! Me who liberated the country! Me who was crowned caliph! Me who married the beautiful Yuleh.’ An evil smile spread across his face and he beckoned behind him. ‘Well, now it will be me.’

A pair of Ghal’s picked men stepped forward. Yuleh struggled between them, her wrists bound, her mouth gagged.

‘Yuleh!’ Halim called. ‘Release her, you fool! Do you think the others will stand for this?’

Ghal stepped forward, and Felix saw that it was the Serpent Crown he wore on his head, still crusted with blood and dangling hairy scraps of Falhedar’s scalp. ‘The others are in my power,’ he said. ‘And my palace guard is slaughtering your beggar army as we speak.’ He touched the crown. ‘You were a fool to leave this behind.’ He took something from his belt. ‘And this.’

He raised the object to his lips. It was Kaadiq’s silver flute. Ghal was no musician, but he was able to pipe a simple tune on the thing – shrill and loud.

Halim scowled, confused. ‘Nursery tunes? Are you mad as well as a fool?’

Ghal stopped playing and grinned down at him. ‘Did no one tell you of Kaadiq’s new pet? Have you not heard of the nature of the guardian of the treasure room?’

‘Pet?’ said Halim, and looked worriedly from door to door. ‘What sort of pet?’

Ghal only laughed and resumed playing his piercing tune on the flute.

‘Friends,’ said Halim to Gotrek and Felix. ‘I fear–’

There was a crash from the right-hand room, and a low hissing. Halim and Felix froze. Gotrek looked up, but continued searching methodically through the treasure. Another crash came, then a scraping, like a coat of heavy chainmail being dragged across the floor. Felix saw movement through the arch.

A blunt, poison-green snake head the size of a rowboat ducked through the door, followed by a neck like a flexible tree trunk. Huge yellow eyes blazed as it swung angrily from side to side, knocking suits of armour and statues flying. It didn’t appear to like Ghal’s music, but the melody seemed to act as a goad as well. It saw the men and the dwarf and lunged at them, jaws snapping. Its fangs were as long as Felix’s forearms. Its tail had yet to come through the door.

Gotrek and Felix dived left and right. Felix crashed into the silver cage that contained the carpet. As he stood, he almost thought the rug had flapped at him and strained angrily at the silver bars.

He edged away from the strange thing and returned his attention to Halim, who was slashing at the snake’s flank with a found sword. The steel turned harmlessly on the thick scales. The snake twisted back to reach him, its snout clubbed him to the ground, then darted forward, jaws distending.

Gotrek hauled Halim out of the way just in time. He was unconscious, a great bruise growing on his forehead.

Felix found a tasselled spear and jabbed the snake’s side, shouting to draw its attention. The tip pierced the scales an inch, no more. The snake hissed and reared up, turning on him. Felix scrambled behind a cluster of statues. Ghal’s flute squealed. The snake shot after Felix.

Gotrek jumped on the serpent, riding it like a horse, and battered it with his truncheon. The blows did little but annoy it. It left off chasing Felix to double back and snap at Gotrek. The Slayer bashed it on the nose and it reared back in pain, bucking him to the floor.

Ghal piped louder. The snake returned to the attack.

‘Gotrek! Don’t fight the snake!’ Felix cried. ‘Stop the flute!’ Felix cast the spear he held. Ghal flinched away as it struck the wall beside him, his melody faltering. The snake slowed its attacks.

Gotrek saw the connection. He picked up a heavy jewelled bracelet and flung it. Ghal ducked.

Felix threw an entire set of golden dishes, one after the other, denting them irreparably. Gotrek hurled a ruby the size of a baby’s fist. Chips flew as it struck the wall.

Ghal gasped and lowered the flute. ‘My treasure! You’re destroying my treasure!’

The snake calmed the instant he stopped playing. Ghal cursed and resumed, shriller and faster than before. The snake cringed like a whipped slave, but turned back to Gotrek and Felix.

Felix slung jade chess pieces as he dodged away from its teeth. One caught Ghal on the forehead and he staggered, but kept playing.

Gotrek dived over the snake’s coils and came up beside the onyx stand in the centre of the room. He grabbed the alabaster egg and heaved it.

Ghal bellowed. ‘No! Not the phoenix egg!’ He threw aside the flute and lunged forward to catch the egg. It glanced off his thumb and he bobbled it, eyes wide, then at last trapped it between his hands. He breathed a sigh of relief and set it down carefully on the balcony floor.

The snake nosed half-heartedly after Felix.

‘You only delay the inevitable, fools!’ shouted Ghal, snatching up the flute again and beginning to play. A dreadful squawking honk blared from it.

The snake jerked its head up and turned on him, hissing angrily.

Ghal swallowed and looked at the flute. Throwing it aside had kinked it and crumpled its delicate silver bell. He tried to bend it back into position, then blew it again. The noise was worse than ever, a farting, unmusical bleat.

The snake shot toward him, scattering heaps of treasure as it came. Ghal backed away, tootling madly. The snake kept coming, enraged by the horrible noise.

Ghal threw down the flute and screamed, but the snake didn’t desist. It had found its tormenter at last. Its head snapped forward. Ghal shrieked as the huge jaws crushed him and shook him like a rat. The Serpent Crown flew from his head and fell into the vault.

Halim recovered consciousness just in time to see Ghal disappearing into the snake’s maw. ‘Spirits of earth,’ he murmured, horrified.

Freed from the crown’s influence, Ghal’s men ran from the balcony in terror. Yuleh did too.

‘My axe!’ shouted Gotrek.

Felix turned. The snake’s passage had caused an avalanche of treasure to spill across the floor, and on top of it was Gotrek’s axe and Felix’s dragon-hilted sword.

They grabbed their weapons and turned. The snake had swallowed Ghal and was pushing through the balcony door after Yuleh.

‘No!’ Halim staggered up unsteadily and hacked at its tail with his scimitar.

The snake didn’t notice.

‘Stay back,’ said Gotrek.

He raised his axe over his head and swung down mightily. The blade bit deep into the snake’s flesh, cutting to the bone.

The snake spasmed and hissed, squirming backward out of the doorway to turn and face this savage attack. Its huge head shot down at Gotrek like a meteor, jaws gaping. The Slayer rolled aside and the snake scooped up a mouthful of golden treasure.

Felix slashed at it and opened an angry wound in its side. Perhaps it was that the snake was some mundane kin to dragons, but the runed sword seemed to cut through its flesh like hot wax. The snake hissed and turned, massive head looming above him.

‘That’s it, manling,’ called Gotrek. ‘Distract it.’

Distract it, thought Felix as he dived away from the slavering jaws. His death might distract it, for a second. He rolled under a low table. The snake’s snout upended the table and came on. Felix ran into a wall. There was nowhere to go. He swung his sword desperately.

The snake reared back for the kill.

‘Die, serpent!’ Gotrek roared, and ran up the snake’s arching neck to its massive head. He swung, off-balance. The axe exploded the snake’s left eye, splashing yellow jelly everywhere. The snake bucked in agony, hissing, and Gotrek crashed shoulders first on the stone floor.

The snake whipped down at him, its jaws snapped shut, and the Slayer was gone.

Felix stared. It had been like a magic trick. One moment Gotrek had been lying in a heap against the wall, the next moment he had vanished.

8

Felix looked up at the snake, rising up and tipping its head back. A thick lump was making its way down its gullet.

‘Halim!’ he called, rushing forward. ‘Help me! We have to get him out! We have to–’

Suddenly something bright appeared in the centre of the snake’s throat – a sharp wedge of metal. The beast writhed and twisted, hissing in agony. A line of red appeared around the steel wedge. It lengthened and widened as the steel slid further down the snake’s length.

The snake flopped on the ground, coiling and uncoiling in violent death throes. Felix and Halim dodged and ran as its tail beat the ground, pulverising a fortune in golden treasures.

The wedge pushed further out through the snake’s flesh, revealing it to be an axe. It was followed by an arm, then another arm, prying the two edges of the wound wide. Then an ugly head with an eye patch poked out, and Gotrek shouldered his way out of the snake’s still twitching body. His crest was plastered to his skull and he glistened with blood and mucus. He coughed and spat and noisily cleared his nose, then grinned evilly at Halim. ‘Ghal says hello.’

‘You…’ said Halim. ‘Dwarf… I…’ He burst out laughing.

Felix joined him. ‘I thought…’ he said. ‘I really thought that this time…’

Gotrek sneered. ‘A common snake? Do you insult me?’

A rattle of chains made them turn. The portcullis that blocked the vault door was rising and Yuleh ran through, still bound and gagged.

‘Beloved!’ said Halim, striding to her. He cut her ropes and tore off her gag and they embraced. Gotrek and Felix turned to give them privacy. Gotrek mopped his face with a cloth-of-gold scarf.

‘Now friends,’ said Halim, turning from Yuleh after a long moment. ‘The Lion Crown.’

They spread out and searched the six rooms of the vault, until at last Yuleh found it, shoved into a mahogany cabinet. Halim took it with trembling fingers. It was a beautiful thing, simple but elegant. A circular silver band set at the front with a carved amber lion’s head, out of which gazed deep emerald eyes.

‘This,’ he said, ‘is the true heart of Ras Karim.’

As they walked back to the vault door, stepping around the motionless body of the giant snake, Halim saw the fallen Serpent Crown. He stooped and picked it up, then stood looking from one crown to the other.

‘Destroy it, beloved,’ said Yuleh, staring at the cobra-headed circlet with distaste. ‘Destroy it so that it may never again tempt you or any other caliph to cruelty.’

Halim hesitated. He looked toward the door. ‘Ghal may not have been the only conspirator. We may be surrounded by traitors. The palace guard may turn against us. What if I have need of its protection? Of its power?’

Yuleh stared at him, her eyes troubled. ‘Then it will not be Ghal who the snake devoured, but you. And it will be Ghal who walks out of this room, not you.’

Felix coughed. ‘It didn’t do much to protect Falhedar from you, did it? In fact, it seems to have inspired you to overthrow him. Put it on and there will soon be another Halim who will rise up to overthrow you.’

Halim frowned, still uncertain, but at last he sighed. ‘You are right. It must be destroyed. It is an evil thing, that wants too much to be worn. I will destroy it, as soon as…’ He hesitated again. ‘As soon as…’ He cursed. ‘No! It is too tempting! It must be done now!’ He turned to Gotrek. ‘Friend dwarf. Your axe has slain one serpent today. Now slay another.’

He threw the bloody crown on the floor before the Slayer. Gotrek nodded and lashed down with his axe. With a flash of green flame, the crown was split in two. The others stepped back. The two halves of the thing sizzled and melted into a puddle of black slag.

‘Magic,’ sneered Gotrek, disgusted.

Halim blinked at the smouldering black mess, then nodded. ‘Thank you, friend dwarf. You have done me a great service.’ He lifted his head and squared his shoulders. ‘Come, let us see what fate awaits us in the throne room.’

9

Four days later Gotrek and Felix stood with Halim and Yuleh outside the stables of the caliph’s palace – their palace now.

There had been a wedding, and a coronation. Yuleh, the last of the line of the old caliphs, had crowned Halim with the Lion Crown, then knelt with him before the high priest of Ras Karim to be pronounced man and wife, and caliph and queen, as the multitudes cheered outside the great gold domed temple in the centre of the city.

Now the newlyweds bowed to the poet and the Slayer.

‘Friends,’ Halim said. ‘We could not have done it without you.’ He touched his hand to his chest. ‘Truly. All might have gone very differently had you not been there. Even at my moment of determination the crown tempted me. Had you not been there to destroy it…’

‘We are indebted to you both,’ said Yuleh, who looked every inch a queen in flowing blue robes and sapphires in her black hair.

Gotrek shrugged. ‘It was only a snake.’

‘The snake was the least of it,’ said Halim, grinning. ‘As you well know.’ He turned and clapped his hands. ‘We have gifts for you. To aid you in your hunt for the Lurking Horror.’

A servant came forward leading a camel. Its humped back was piled high with trunks and packs and water skins.

‘Also these,’ said Yuleh, taking a small pouch from her robes. ‘Gold and gems enough to take you around the world.’ She pressed the pouch into Felix’s hand. ‘Though you would be welcome to stay here as long as you liked.’

Felix wouldn’t have minded in the least. With the rebellion over, the palace was a beautiful, peaceful place, full of fountains, gardens, and delectable women.

‘No thanks,’ said Gotrek. ‘We’ve stayed too long already.’ He saluted the royal couple in dwarf fashion, fist over his heart.

Felix sighed and bowed resignedly. Gotrek had never been one to relax and enjoy the good times while he could.

A short while later, Gotrek and Felix led their camel through the dusty streets of Ras Karim on their way to the city gate. Felix looked around with interest, taking in all the curious costumes, the unusual architecture and the unintelligible script of the signs.

‘More for my journals,’ he said. ‘It always amazes me, the infinite variations of man’s many cultures. How strange and alien the customs, how odd–’

‘Rubbish,’ grunted Gotrek. ‘Man is the same everywhere. Only the hats are different.’ He picked up his pace, tugging on the camel’s bridle. ‘Now hurry up, manling. I’ve got a monster to slay.’

The Funeral of Gotrek Gurnisson

Richard Salter

Thunder rumbled in the overcast sky and the rain came down in sheets. It was as gloomy as dusk, yet the day had not reached noon. Felix Jaeger stood silently in the graveyard, his hair matted and his clothes drenched. The downpour bothered him not at all.

A priest approached and cleared his throat.

Felix looked up. ‘Thank you for doing this at such short notice.’

The priest bowed his head.

‘I am happy to help. I have never… officiated the funeral of a Slayer before. However… it was my understanding that a customary send off for one such as he would involve more of a…’

‘Celebration?’

‘Indeed, yes.’

‘He did not die a hero’s death,’ Felix explained. ‘Anything more would not be appropriate.’

‘Very well.’

Six pallbearers carried the coffin towards the open grave. They stopped close by and placed the casket on iron stands. At such short notice, Felix had only been able to procure a human-sized casket and a cheap one at that. Its occupant would be mortified if he could see this dreary scene.

The priest began the incantation while Felix stood impassive. His eyes were downcast, water dripping from the end of his nose. Rain collected in the brim of his hat, occasionally overflowing like torrents of tears.

He had told nobody about the funeral. While word had a habit of getting out, it was unlikely anyone would reach here in time. There were many who would want to attend, either to mourn Gotrek’s passing, or to dance on his grave.

Felix was aware of a figure standing beside him, someone who didn’t fit into either category.

The tavern was packed with revellers when Gotrek and Felix dragged themselves inside. Neither of them felt like joining in the fun. They sat down at the only free table, in the corner, awash with spilled beer and other detritus. They ordered food and ale, and then fell into a silent funk. Felix watched everyone else having a good time with weary resentment.

‘It feels like my feet have pounded every cobblestone in Kutenholz,’ Felix said in an attempt to break the silence between them. He had to speak up to be heard over the background din.

Gotrek merely grunted. Thankfully their food, a tough, unidentifiable meat with day-old bread, arrived so they had an excuse not to talk. If Felix weren’t so hungry he would already be in his room, collapsed on his bed with exhaustion. He suspected that the Slayer, despite his formidable stamina, felt much the same.

As soon as they were done eating, Gotrek drained his tankard, bid Felix a gruff goodnight and shuffled over to the stairs. Felix waited until the Slayer had disappeared from view and then stood up. He wanted to ask everyone here if they had seen anything strange these past few weeks, but he was too bone-tired. Their search for the cursed liche Pragarti had led them to this town, but then the trail had gone cold. It was frustrating to say the least. Perhaps tomorrow he and Gotrek should lay low and let trouble come to them. If history was any indicator, they shouldn’t have to wait long.

For now, to bed.

Felix dragged himself up the stairs. Each step took more effort than the one before. Once at the top he stumbled to his door and struggled to get the key in the lock. He felt so disconnected, he was sure he must have been drugged. But no, the fog in his head was only due to fatigue. He locked the door behind him and fell onto his bed, not even bothering to undress. Sleep took hold almost immediately.

Felix awoke suddenly. He sat upright and listened. Had he dreamt the noise? Despite the gloom he saw nothing out of place. He was just about to lie down when another crash jolted him fully awake.

Felix jumped out of bed and grabbed his sword. The disturbance came from the next room. Gotrek!

He burst into the corridor and tried to open Gotrek’s door, but it was still locked. Now he could hear shouting: Gotrek’s gruff voice telling someone to stand still.

Felix assessed the door as best he could in the semi-darkness. The wood nearest the top hinge seemed fairly rotten as he probed it with a finger. He was about to kick the door in when he remembered he had no boots on. A broken foot wasn’t going to help anybody.

Luckily, the innkeeper had been awoken by the noise. He shuffled his ample frame along the corridor, complaining the whole time.

‘What is going on in there?’ he demanded of Felix.

‘Open the door and we’ll find out.’

The landlord sifted through a huge brass ring holding enough keys to keep all of Nuln’s gaols secure.

After what seemed an age he unlocked the door. Felix burst in. The window to Gotrek’s small room was open and the furniture was smashed and tipped over. In the centre of the room, a black-clad assassin was struggling mightily to free his ankle from Gotrek’s grip. The Slayer’s eyes were closed and he didn’t appear to be conscious.

‘Sigmar’s beard!’ the assassin cried. ‘Why won’t you just die?’

Kicking hard, the killer managed to wrest his leg free.

Felix leapt over a toppled wardrobe and threw himself at the assassin, tackling him to the floor. The killer kicked and punched with painful accuracy but Felix clung on. Finally he managed to pin him down.

‘Who sent you?’ Felix growled.

‘Like I’d tell you that,’ the assassin spat. Felix grabbed his sword and pushed the blade against the man’s throat.

‘I’m guessing you didn’t intend this to be a suicide mission, so I’ll ask again. Who sent you?’

‘I wasn’t told a name. My employer just said you would meet at the dwarf’s funeral.’ The assassin stared past Felix and cried, ‘He’s on his feet again!’

Felix knew he’d been fooled as soon as he turned his head. Gotrek was still comatose. Too slow, he turned back as the assassin twisted and punched, connecting with Felix’s jaw, sending him sprawling.

The man disappeared through the window before Felix could even get up.

With enormous difficulty, Felix dragged the prone body of Gotrek down the stairs. He cringed every time the dwarf’s head bounced off each wooden step. His aching back and weary arms begged him to stop. Finally he reached the bottom. At this hour the tavern was empty and the chairs were stacked on the tables. The landlord had already stomped off to bed, ordering Felix to vacate the premises immediately.

Breathing hard, unable to believe just how heavy one dwarf could be, he dragged his companion across the wooden floor as fast as he could manage. It took him precious seconds to unbolt the door, his hands shaking from the exertion.

At last he was out on the street. He felt drizzle on his face, the slight sting of water helping to cool his overheated skin. The street was empty save for a couple of drunks engaged in a fight on the corner. Felix headed in the other direction, dragging Gotrek two doors down from the inn.

He banged on the door in front of him, then banged harder when there was no response. After a few agonising moments he heard someone inside. A small hatch in the door slid open to reveal a suspicious pair of eyes.

‘What are you doing waking me at this hour?’

‘Please, it’s an emergency.’

‘It had better be!’

‘My friend,’ said Felix, unsure if the apothecary could see the prone body lying in a puddle at the foot of the door. ‘He’s been poisoned. I need you to save him!’

The eyes shifted up, down, left and right, looking for robbers ready to pounce. Warily, their owner opened the door and peered out into the rain. Then he stood back, waiting impatiently while Felix struggled to bring the Slayer inside.

‘You could help!’ Felix said.

‘I am helping. If you would rather go elsewhere, that’s fine by me.’

Felix held his tongue.

The apothecary examined the prone Slayer. ‘Hmm,’ he said as he peered into Gotrek’s eyes and checked his throat and neck. He felt for a pulse, a look of amazement on his face. ‘Quite remarkable,’ he said.

‘What is it? Is he going to be all right?’

The apothecary chuckled. ‘My dear fellow, it’s a wonder he isn’t dead already! I see the point of entry here on the arm, likely a poison dart.’

That explained how the assassin had been able to poison Gotrek. The Slayer was legendary for his ability to hear an attacker coming, even in his sleep. After being hit with the dart, Gotrek must have made it to the window, dragged the assassin inside before he could escape, then beat him up while trying to stay consciousness.

‘Can you save him?’

‘Yes, but it won’t be easy.’ The apothecary hurried to the back of his shop and pulled down various jars from a high shelf. ‘Your friend has been poisoned with ragethar, a poison so potent that one drop could kill an ogre. Lucky for you, I have an antidote.’ He peered through crescent-moon spectacles at another label. Felix willed him to hurry up. ‘Ah ha! Here it is, yes.’

He shuffled back to the prone dwarf. Felix noticed he was carrying two jars.

‘The poison needs two antidotes?’ he asked.

‘Hmm? Oh, no no. One of these is the antidote, but that won’t work on its own. I need to slow your friend’s heartbeat down to almost nothing or else the poison will spread faster than the antidote can stop it.’

The apothecary must have noticed Felix’s unconvinced expression. ‘Don’t worry, my dear boy. He’ll be sleeping for a week or so, but when he wakes he’ll be right as rain. Hmm? Yes indeed.’

Felix couldn’t shake the feeling he was heading down a path he’d rather not follow. But what choice did he have? He nodded.

Two minutes later, Gotrek appeared even closer to death than before. There was no sign of breathing, no shadow of life. Felix had never seen him so… helpless. The enormity of what had happened hit him like a mounted regiment. He knew it would be up to him to protect Gotrek while he recovered. Assuming he ever recovered. At the same time, he must find out who poisoned the Slayer.

And then Felix had an idea.

He stood in the pouring rain, listening to the priest pass last rites over Gotrek’s coffin.

‘You’re out early,’ Felix said to the woman standing beside him.

‘It’s my kind of weather,’ she replied.

‘I thought you couldn’t stand the Slayer.’

Ulrika chuckled. ‘I want to make sure he’s really dead.’

‘How did you hear?’

‘A lady does not reveal her sources.’

‘You are no lady. At least, not any more.’

They stood in silence. Felix was aware that his boots were sinking into the boggy ground. After a time he said, ‘I’m trying to find out who killed him.’

‘Do you have any suspects?’

Felix laughed loudly, drawing stares from the pallbearers and the priest. He cleared his throat and put on a solemn expression.

‘Oh, you’re serious. Where do I start? The most obvious suspect is Pragarti. She’s here in Kutenholz, somewhere.’

‘You know, the most obvious suspect is rarely the real culprit.’

Felix nodded. ‘Aye. While the list of those with a motive might be long, the number of folk likely to be in the vicinity is much shorter.’

‘As far as you know.’ Ulrika was quiet for a moment, then she said, ‘So we should start with Pragarti then?’

‘You know of her?’

‘Of course, I’m looking for her too. Why else do you think I’m in this Sigmar-forsaken town?’ Ulrika stepped towards the casket, her lithe form conjuring thoughts in Felix’s mind that were inappropriate at a funeral. ‘Can I see the body?’ she asked.

‘Why? Are you thirsty?’

‘No!’ Ulrika seemed genuinely offended.

‘A morbid sense of curiosity, perhaps?’

‘I want to examine him for clues.’

‘Fair enough.’ Felix ushered the priest over and whispered in his ear. The holy man nodded and took a step back. Felix signalled to the pallbearers and, with some difficulty, they raised the lid of the casket. All six of them gasped and stood back.

Felix and Ulrika hurried forwards to peer inside.

The coffin was filled with books. Of Gotrek’s body there was no sign.

‘I don’t know anything!’ the mortician spluttered, trying to maintain his composure despite the hand clamped around his throat, pinning him to the wall.

Ulrika squeezed a little harder. Felix swore he could see the man’s eyes popping out.

‘I find that unlikely,’ Felix said. ‘Now, we can do this the easy way’ – he drew his sword – ‘or we can do this the fun way.’

Felix raised the weapon and rested it in the crook of his free arm. He lined the point up with the mortician’s right eye and slowly inched it closer.

The man screamed and writhed, desperate to break free.

Felix was disappointed. ‘I’ve not even started yet!’

The mortician was trying to say something. Ulrika released her grip just enough to allow him some air.

‘All right!’ he gasped. ‘Please, I beg you. Let me go… I’ll tell you.’

‘Some people are just determined to spoil the fun, don’t you think, Ulrika?’

She probed one of her fangs suggestively with the end of her tongue and then said, ‘They can be a real drain.’

She released him. He crumpled to the floor and struggled to recover his breath. All the while he stared warily, not at Felix’s sword but at Ulrika’s teeth.

Felix sheathed his blade and hopped up onto an unoccupied slab, hoping it had been washed down since its last use.

‘If there’s something you’re keen to tell us, out with it.’

The mortician lay wheezing with his back to the wall, his gaze still locked on Ulrika.

‘A woman… dressed in robes… came with others… forced me… took the dwarf’s body…’

‘And where did they take him?’ Ulrika asked.

‘I don’t know! I swear… I have no idea. They paid me… and left.’

She raised an eyebrow. ‘Paid you?’

‘A token amount… for my trouble.’

‘Oh, you’re going to need a lot more payment than that…’

Ulrika advanced on him, but Felix stopped her.

‘Don’t! He can’t help us any further. It’s obviously Pragarti who took Gotrek and I don’t think he knows where she is.’

‘Luckily, I do,’ Ulrika said, heading for the door.

Felix stared at her in surprise. Not only was he in search of the same foe as Ulrika, but all this time she knew where the liche was hiding!

‘You know, if you’d told us you were here earlier, we could have avoided all this,’ Felix said as they left the mortuary. ‘Gotrek might still be alive.’

Ulrika laughed. ‘Oh Felix, I know he’s not dead!’

As he struggled to keep up with her, Felix longed for a day when he knew something, anything, that was still a secret.

It took about half an hour to reach Kutenholz’s traders’ district. Ulrika passed by warehouse after warehouse, eventually stopping at a derelict site where an old building had collapsed in on itself. One wall had crumbled entirely and the entrance was blocked by fallen beams.

‘Why are we here?’ Felix asked. ‘Gotrek and I searched this area already.’

Ulrika didn’t say a word. She walked towards the nailed-shut doors and, without hesitation, stepped right through them as if they weren’t there.

Felix was suddenly all alone. He glanced about, looking for anyone who might be able to assure him he had not gone mad.

Hesitantly, he followed. He reached the doors and held out a hand. It passed straight through the illusion. He closed his eyes and stepped forwards.

When he looked again he saw the wall of a perfectly intact, smaller warehouse. Ulrika was moving along the outside of the real building, looking for a way in. Felix glanced behind him and saw the fake, ruined shell. From this side he could see it shimmer and fizz. He could even make out the street beyond.

‘Felix, come on!’

He turned just in time to see Ulrika disappear through a window she had forced open. Felix climbed in after her.

The warehouse was full of activity. Felix resisted the temptation to stand and stare. Instead he ducked down behind the same pile of boxes Ulrika used for cover. He peered out at the warehouse floor, watching the multitude of workers carrying lanterns, boxes, crates, pieces of metal and other, unidentifiable objects back and forth. They appeared to be constructing some sort of altar in the centre of the space on a raised dais. Supervising them were a smaller number of hooded figures in long grey robes – no doubt Pragarti’s loyal disciples.

‘Do you have any idea how long we spent looking for this place?’ Felix hissed as he moved back out of sight.

‘Aye. Now shut up.’

After all this was over, Felix was going to need a seriously long chat with the vampire, preferably before Gotrek recovered. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be a lot of talking going on; just violence.

Felix had no idea how much time had passed, he might even have nodded off for a moment. He hadn’t had much sleep last night, after all. Ulrika was tapping him on the shoulder.

‘What? What is it?’

She pointed in the direction of the warehouse floor. ‘The Slayer,’ she said.

Felix peered around the boxes. There was a lot less activity now. The altar was complete and the workers had withdrawn. Only the hooded minions remained, standing solemnly in a circle around the dais.

Four of them came into view carrying a litter, upon which lay the body of Gotrek Gurnisson. Felix rose involuntarily, but Ulrika pulled him back down.

‘Not yet!’ she hissed.

‘What are we waiting for?’ Felix whispered angrily. ‘Come to think of it, why didn’t we grab Gotrek before they brought him in here?’

‘Too many people about,’ Ulrika replied. ‘Plus, I want to see what happens.’

‘Whatever’s about to happen, it won’t be good for Gotrek!’

‘Relax, Felix.’

‘Tell me what she’s up to or I swear I will give us away right now.’

Ulrika sighed. ‘Fine. Pragarti is planning a spell, a big one.’

‘I know that!’ said Felix. ‘That’s why Gotrek and I were trying to find her and stop her. She’s been gathering ingredients and followers all across the Old World. We’ve been tracking her for months, but we have no idea what the spell is for.’

‘It will kill every first-born child in the Empire.’

‘Sigmar’s beard!’

Ulrika continued. ‘The final ingredient is the blood of a dead hero.’

‘Gotrek? But he’s not dead!’

‘Exactly. Why do you think I’m waiting to see what happens?’

Felix fell silent and watched as Pragarti stepped onto the dais. She lifted her hood to reveal a hideous, skull-like head. Sunken eyes gazed down at the prone Slayer while boney fingers toyed with the crest atop his head. Her parched skin clung tightly to withered cheek bones and her ghastly teeth, no longer concealed by lips, chattered as she began an incantation.

Despite the risk to Gotrek, Felix was also curious to see what would happen. Hopefully it would involve Pragarti’s pickled innards spread over a wide area.

‘Get up!’

The voice was so loud, everyone in the vast space turned to look.

Felix and Ulrika rose slowly. There was a gasp from many of the assembled throng. The two men who had discovered the eavesdroppers were carrying pistols. Their faces were obscured by their grey hoods.

‘Why am I being interrupted?’ Pragarti snapped, her voice echoing.

‘Supreme sorceress,’ one of the men said, pushing his captors out into the open. ‘We found these two watching the proceedings.’

As Felix approached, Pragarti’s fury turned to humour.

‘Herr Jaeger,’ she said. ‘And Ulrika Magdova! I’m so glad you could join us. Have you come to pay your last respects?’

‘You’ll regret poisoning the Slayer, Pragarti,’ Felix said, matching her steely gaze.

‘I would love to take the credit, Herr Jaeger, but I would be doing the real killer a disservice. It’s true I wanted Herr Gurnisson dead, but I had not intended him to die for a week or so. But since someone went to so much trouble, I thought it best to take advantage of such delightful happenstance. Genuine heroes are hard to come by.’

At first, Felix assumed she was lying. But why wouldn’t she take credit for the Slayer’s death if she was responsible? With no reason to lie, she must be telling the truth. So, if not Pragarti, then who had sent the assassin?

Ulrika slapped Felix on the arm to get his attention. He followed her gaze to the far corner of the warehouse where a sewer grating had been flipped over.

Nobody else had noticed. All eyes were fixed on Pragarti.

The sorceress didn’t seem to care that her prisoners weren’t paying attention to her. ‘I shall continue, then, if that’s all right with you and your distinguished friend, Herr Jaeger.’

‘Yes, please do,’ Felix said, turning back. ‘It’s just a shame you won’t get to finish the spell. I for one would love to have seen the results.’

Pragarti smiled – at least Felix assumed it was a smile, it was hard to tell.

He glanced once again at the grating in the far corner. Something was emerging. No, not something. Somethings. Dozens of them. Black, fast moving, rodent-like.

Oh no.

Now all eyes turned to the flurry of activity in the corner. Swords were drawn, pistols readied, cloaks and hoods shaken off.

Felix backed away, following Ulrika’s pre-emptive retreat. Nobody stopped them. A surge of black fur, twitching whiskers and deafening squeaks was pouring out of the sewer. A large area of the space was now coated with writhing ratmen. It was like watching a swarm of giant insects. The smell of them was overwhelming: musty and cloying.

‘Gotrek!’ Felix yelled to Ulrika, taking a step towards the dais.

‘There isn’t time,’ Ulrika insisted, pulling him back with astonishing strength. ‘We have to go or we’ll be cut to ribbons!’

The skaven descended on Pragarti’s followers like a waterfall of thick, black pitch. Screams of dying men filled the air, mixing with the cacophony of chittering and squawking.

The sheer number of skaven was enough to convince Felix to turn and flee. As he ran he glanced back at Pragarti. She seemed twice her usual size now. Fire and lightning crackled from her bony digits. Creature after creature fell in crisp, toasted heaps at her feet as one by one she deep fried them in their own fur. The unnatural skaven stench was joined by the sickly sweet smell of sizzling flesh and smoldering fur. Hundreds of the creatures were roasted by Pragarti or cut down by the swords and pistols of her followers. But they didn’t stop; the torrent of black fur seemed endless. Felix had seen skaven attacks like this before, but still he couldn’t tear his eyes away.

‘How have you survived this long?’ Ulrika said. She yanked Felix’s arm again and led him out of the building. The terrible screams of the dying – human and ratkin alike – were instantly muted as they passed back through the false image of the derelict warehouse. The illusion of shattered commerce masked the terrible battle taking place within. Felix was glad of it.

‘What now?’ he asked.

‘Now we wait.’

‘For what?’

‘I have a theory,’ Ulrika said. ‘Ragethar is a skaven poison. Perhaps they’ve come to collect Gotrek’s body. All we need to do is wait until they win, then follow them.’

Felix stared at the ruined facade for a moment, lost in thought.

‘Perhaps you’re right.’

When they re-entered some time later, it was hard to breathe. Clouds of scalded fur made the air thick. Bodies, skaven and human, littered the floor. The dying could be heard moaning and whimpering. Felix ignored them all. There was only one body he was interested in.

He leapt up onto the dais but saw that it was empty. He searched for some sign, any evidence that the Slayer had been consumed. Thankfully there was none.

‘They took him?’ Ulrika asked, eyeing the dead and wounded like a hungry, fat man would ogle a banquet table loaded with fine meats and delicacies.

‘Aye, I think so.’

She nodded. ‘Stands to reason. So we go after them?’

Felix saw no other choice, though he wished for one. He must have spent a good quarter of his life in sewers and tunnels. He knew full well that Gotrek would never leave him down there with a bunch of ratmen. He placed a hand on his sword hilt to still his nerves and followed Ulrika to the corner of the room.

In their haste to retreat, the skaven had left the grate open. Patches of fur clung to the sides of the square entrance. Felix tried to avoid making contact with anything as he dropped down into the tunnel below. Ulrika landed silently beside him and pointed ahead.

‘The skaven will go as deep as possible as quickly as possible. Come on.’

The smell down here was stomach-churning, though slightly more tolerable than that of the battle’s aftermath in the warehouse. Felix sloshed through the town’s detritus as quickly as his aching legs would carry him, hoping that none of the undesirable flotsam spilled into his boots. He found himself missing the wide sewers of Nuln with their ledges alongside the water channel. Kutenholz was a town just big enough to warrant a sewer system, but it wasn’t extensive. Every now and then they would pass under a grating, which allowed some light to filter down into the tunnel.

After a time, Felix could hear the rush of flowing water some distance ahead. Presumably this was the sewer’s outlet to the river. Instead of continuing on, Ulrika led him to a side tunnel. Felix realised it was in fact a large hole, gnawed into the stones lining the sewer walls. As they walked, all trace of light faded and the ground sloped downwards. Felix knew they were entering the skaven undertown. He was aware of labyrinthine nests hidden beneath the Empire’s cities, but it disturbed him that even towns such as Kutenholz had their own secret hives of activity beneath the surface.

Felix only became aware that Ulrika had stopped when he walked into her. He could barely make her out and was grateful for her astonishing night vision. He stepped back and unsheathed his sword part of the way, as quietly as he could. But a moment later, she started up again so it must have been a false alarm.

After what seemed like a lifetime of walking, the tunnel opened out. Ulrika halted again.

‘That way is a large chamber,’ she whispered. Felix couldn’t see where she was pointing. ‘It will likely be full of skaven. I’m surprised we’ve not seen any yet.’

Felix could hear noises from the gloom: voices, squeaking, chattering.

‘We should find another way in.’

‘Aye. Let’s go this way.’

Ulrika headed off. Felix struggled to keep up with her. His leg muscles burned.

Finally, light crept into the tunnel. The sound of a single skaven speaking, punctuated by roars and squeaks from a large audience, carried clearly to Felix. In time, the pathway opened onto an empty platform, set up high above a huge chamber. As they crept out onto the rickety balcony, they could see below them hundreds of skaven gathered in the large space. All those present, mostly clanrats with a few rat-ogres here and there, stared up at a single, grey-furred creature addressing them. Its robes and markings were familiar to Felix, but the skaven itself was not. This grey seer was young, eager, no doubt deadly. At its feet lay the prone body of Gotrek.

Clearly, all was not well with this skaven army. It was hard to tell since they spoke in their native tongue, but to Felix it seemed as though the chieftains were speaking out against their leader, questioning his motives.

One of them spoke louder than the rest in a series of squeaks and hisses.

To Felix’s surprise, he could understand every word the irritated grey seer spoke in reply.

‘Castle Reiksguard can wait. Capturing the Slayer’s body is not waste of time-effort. The Council of Thirteen will reward us when they receive this gift. All of us will be rewarded, yes-yes?’

The reaction to this sounded more positive. In the enclosed cavern the noise was deafening.

‘Why is he speaking Reikspiel?’ Felix asked Ulrika in a whisper.

‘He’s showing off,’ she replied.

Another chieftain spoke, this time in broken Reikspiel. ‘Who is Slayer, Grey Seer Gnawklaw? Why Council care?’

Gnawklaw tapped his staff upon the stone floor impatiently, quieting the din that accompanied the chieftain’s question. It was clear most of the assembled skaven didn’t understand the exchange but were following their chieftain’s lead.

‘He is much-much valuable. This prize is far greater than anything Castle Reiksguard has to offer. Besides, we can go there later. We will take both prizes to the Council and all of us will share in this success. We will achieve what my predecessor could not.’

Something about the way Gnawklaw said ‘predecessor’ put Felix in mind of an old enemy. He shuddered.

‘You risk first mission as grey seer, and all our lives on hunch?’ the chieftain said.

‘What guarantee do we have that you will not take all the glory for yourself?’ another asked.

Gnawklaw rapped his staff on the ground again to quell the roar of agreement.

‘I only need to present the Slayer’s head to the Council. Perhaps I should divide up the rest and share amongst you? Then you too will have proof of your role in the death of the greatest skaven nemesis!’

These words received the biggest roar of approval so far, enough to make Felix’s ears ring. Once the noise had calmed down, he whispered to Ulrika. ‘They’re going to chop Gotrek up! We have to get him out!’

‘I don’t think so,’ she replied. ‘Look.’

Once again, Ulrika’s sharp eyes had spotted what Felix had missed. He peered again at the Slayer’s corpse-like form. Was that a twitching hand he spied?

It couldn’t be. Gotrek wasn’t supposed to wake up for a week at least!

‘We will not become great by scuttling around, stealing from man-castles in the dead of night. We will become great by delivering the body of our greatest enemy to the Council of Thirteen. We will achieve glory! Now, who wants a cut-slice of Slayer?’

Gnawklaw drew a wickedly sharp blade from his robes, and in one swift moment, took a chunk out of Gotrek’s crest. Felix winced but saw no blood. Still, the Slayer was going to be angry. The grey seer tossed the handful of hair into the crowd and the skaven chattered and squeaked appreciatively.

‘What’s that? You want a piece of his body? How about a hand?’

A roar of approval.

‘Ulrika!’ Felix hissed, hand on his sword, making ready to jump from the platform.

The skaven blade swished towards Gotrek’s arm, but to the grey seer’s shock it didn’t make contact. A hand clamped around his wrist.

Gnawklaw screamed. He tore his arm free and spoke a very rapid incantation. A puff of smoke accompanied his hasty departure.

Panic struck in a ripple effect, from those skaven nearest the front all the way to the back, as the ratkin all tried to leave at the same time. Many were trampled to death by the confused rat-ogres. Some made it out. Others were cut down by the hacking and slashing of a very angry Slayer armed with the razor-sharp blade of a grey seer.

‘Why are you running away?’ Gotrek cried, his voice slicing through the terrified mob as keenly as the knife parted their flesh. ‘I’m dead, remember?’

Bits of skaven flew in all directions as the Slayer took out his frustrations upon them.

‘You want a piece of me?’ he roared, slicing a startled clanrat in two.

Felix and Ulrika jumped down from the ledge, their weapons ready. A mass of fleeing skaven tried to change direction when they saw the danger ahead, but not fast enough. Ulrika was a whirr of motion, dead clanrats dropping at her feet like the faithful worshipping Sigmar himself. Felix did his fair share of damage, his sword gutting, stabbing and slashing at the hateful creatures as they tried to run.

It wasn’t long before Ulrika and Felix reached Gotrek.

‘I am not happy,’ the Slayer grumbled.

‘Good!’ Felix said. ‘Take it out on the vermin!’

Gotrek was only too keen to comply. The remaining skaven had rallied a defence of sorts, forming a barrier between the three comrades and the retreating chieftains.

‘Did you bring my axe?’ the Slayer asked.

‘No,’ said Felix. ‘I didn’t think you’d be needing it.’

Gotrek grunted. ‘Looks like we will need to fight our way out of here, manling.’

‘Wouldn’t have it any other way.’

The two companions yelled an impromptu battle-cry and charged, smashing into the skaven front line like a two-man avalanche.

Ulrika rolled her eyes. ‘Men,’ she said. Then she too rushed to join the fight.

Felix emerged into the moonlight, grateful for the cool night breeze on his face and the feeling of freedom. They were some way from Kutenholz, on the banks of the river Delb. His eyes had grown so accustomed to the dark of the tunnels that here, outside, it might as well have been noon on a summer day.

Ulrika and Gotrek emerged from the tunnel. Both were covered in skaven blood. Felix assumed he was too. He collapsed by the river, lying on his back and drinking in the sky and the stars. It was a beautiful night by any measure, but it felt even sweeter to be alive and out in the open air again. He rolled to the water’s edge and drank for a good while.

Gotrek flopped down beside him. ‘Where’s my axe, manling?’ he demanded.

Typical Gotrek. Not, ‘Why was I dead?’ but, ‘Where’s my axe?’

‘It’s safe, don’t worry.’

‘And the assassin?’

‘Just a mercenary.’

Gotrek grunted. ‘I have not been poisoned for a long time. I heard the assassin but assumed he had come to slit my throat. Didn’t see the dart until it was too late. I assume we know who hired him.’

‘Not for sure,’ said Ulrika.

‘What is she doing here?’ Gotrek asked, as if noticing her for the first time.

‘I’m just helping to save your life,’ Ulrika snapped.

‘Unlikely,’ said Gotrek.

Ulrika coughed. ‘Excuse me! I fought Pragarti and the skaven today, risking my neck for you.’

‘You have been busy,’ Gotrek said.

Felix turned on his side and propped his head up with one hand. He tossed small stones into the river with the other.

‘It’s curious, though, Gotrek. Every step of the way, Ulrika’s been several moves ahead of me.’

‘Not that curious, manling. The vampire is as slippery as a buttered eel.’

‘How dare–’

‘And isn’t it curious,’ Felix continued, ‘that Ulrika knew you’d been poisoned with ragethar, even though I never mentioned it to her?’

‘I talked to the apothecary,’ she explained.

‘Perhaps, or maybe you already knew which poison was used.’

Before Ulrika could say anything, Gotrek moved with surprising speed. He leapt at the vampire, forced her to the ground and held the skaven blade against her throat.

‘Let me go!’ Ulrika hissed, struggling to break free of the Slayer’s iron grip.

‘Bite me,’ said Gotrek.

Felix stood up and walked over. He crouched down close to Ulrika’s face.

‘And then I thought about how unlikely it was that the apothecary just down the street from the inn would not only recognise the symptoms of an obscure skaven poison but also have the antidote handy. By your own admission, you wanted Pragarti to believe Gotrek was dead so her spell would backfire. That’s why you had him poisoned. Am I right?’

‘Damn heroes,’ she spluttered. ‘You were so painfully obvious, stomping around looking for Pragarti! I couldn’t go near you without her spies seeing me, and I didn’t want her to know I was on her trail. I wanted her spell to backfire because she thought the Slayer was dead. If I had told you what I was planning, she would have found out.’

‘I hope for your sake the plan worked and Pragarti is dead,’ Gotrek said, his face mere inches from Ulrika’s. He pressed the blade against her neck, drawing blood.

‘Damn skaven interrupted us. I don’t know if she escaped or not.’

‘A pity. So, vampire, why should I not kill you right now?’

‘Felix will not let you!’ Ulrika insisted.

Felix didn’t relish this. He was mad at Ulrika for what she had put him and the Slayer through. But her heart – cold and unbeating as it was – was in the right place. The threat to the Empire had been averted.

‘Let her go,’ Felix said.

‘You do not tell me what to do, manling!’ Gotrek thundered.

‘I’m not telling you, Slayer. I’m asking you.’

For a moment Gotrek seemed about to slice Ulrika’s head clean off. Then he growled in frustration and released her. She was on her feet in a second, but smart enough not to draw her weapon. She touched the fine cut on her neck and then licked the blood from her fingers.

‘You had best stay away from us in future,’ Felix warned. ‘Next time I may not ask Gotrek to spare you.’

Ulrika scowled at them, and then she was gone.

Gotrek and Felix sat by the river as the first rays of dawn crept across the forest floor.

‘Next time, I will ensure your funeral is more fitting,’ Felix promised the Slayer.

‘Aye, manling. Though I wonder if I am capable of dying.’

‘Let’s never stop trying to find out, eh, Gotrek?’

‘I’ll drink to that.’

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

NATHAN LONG

Nathan Long hails from Los Angeles, California, where he began his career as a screenwriter in Hollywood. He has written a wide selection of Warhammer fantasy novels, including the Blackhearts trilogy and more recently the adventures of Ulrika the Vampire. To many fans, he is best known for his work on the hugely successful Gotrek & Felix series, including five full-length novels and the first Black Library fantasy audio drama, Slayer of the Storm God.

JOSH REYNOLDS

Formerly a roadie for the Hong Kong Cavaliers, Josh Reynolds now writes full time and his work has appeared previously in anthologies such as Specters and Coal Dust, Historical Lovecraft and How The West Was Weird as well as in magazines such as Innsmouth Free Press and Hammer and Bolter. Feel free to stop by his blog (http://joshuamreynolds.blogspot.com/).

JOHN BRUNNER

John Brunner (24 September 1934 – 26 August 1995) was a prolific British author of science fiction novels and stories. His career spanned over four decades and won him many accolades. His 1968 novel Stand on Zanzibar, about an overpopulated world, won the 1968 Hugo Award for best science fiction novel. It also won the BSFA award the same year. The Jagged Orbit won the BSFA award in 1970.

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

BEN MCCALLUM

Ben McCallum is a writer hailing from the grey north east of Scotland. In his busy schedule of fast cars and gorgeous women, he somehow finds the time to paint and assemble the legions of the damned, procrastinate over very important tasks, and argue with his friends over which superhero is really, truly the best. He can converse with wild animals in their own tongue, but he doesn’t make a big deal out of it.

DAVID GUYMER

It has been many long years since David Guymer first succumbed to the Curse of the Horned Rat. In that time, he has appeased his dark master by devoting his energies to the study of the plagues of mankind. By the hours of daylight he prods hopefully at bacterial strains until they bend to his diseased will, but with the coming of darkness he retreats to his burrow to write stories of magic and chaos as he plots the downfall of the surface-dwellers.

ANDY SMILLIE

Forged from beef and brawn, Andy Smillie emerged from the blacksmith’s fire like a slab of Scottish iron. Hailing from the northern reaches of Glasgow, he crossed the border into England intent on conquest, but instead found gainful employment at Games Workshop. Leaving a trail of carnage in his wake, he eventually settled in the Black Library where he works in marketing by day and as a literary superhero by night. His writing credits include a swathe of articles for various sci-fi, fantasy and hobby magazines. His debut work of fiction, ‘Mountain Eater’, was released in 2011 in the digital publication Hammer and Bolter. You can read his blog at http://asmileylife.wordpress.com/

C.L. Werner

C. L. Werner was a diseased servant of the Horned Rat long before his first story in Inferno! magazine. His Black Library credits include the Chaos Wastes books, Mathias Thulmann: Witch Hunter, Runefang, the Brunner the Bounty Hunter trilogy and the Thanquol and Boneripper series. Currently living in the American south-west, he continues to write stories of mayhem and madness set in the Warhammer World. Visit the author’s website at www.vermintime.com

RICHARD SALTER

Richard Salter is a British writer and editor living near Toronto, Canada with his wife and two young sons. He edited the short story collection Short Trips: Transmissions for Big Finish Productions and is now working on World’s Collider, an apocalyptic anthology. He has sold over twenty short stories including tales in Solaris Rising: The New Solaris Book of Science Fiction, Phobophobia from Dark Continents Publishing and Machine of Death 2. Visit him online at www.richardsalter.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

© Games Workshop Limited 2012. All rights reserved.

Black Library, the Black Library logo, Games Workshop, the Games Workshop logo and all associated marks, names, characters, illustrations and images from the Warhammer universe are either ®, TM and/or © Games Workshop Ltd 2012, variably registered in the UK and other countries around the world. All rights reserved.

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978-0-85787-511-2

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