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Gotrek & Felix: The Reckoning - Jordan Ellinger

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Gotrek & Felix: The Reckoning

Jordan Ellinger

There is nothing quite like watching the torch-lit streets of a city that wants you dead receding into the night. From where Felix stood on the stern of the Dorabella, he could just make out tiny orange dots moving up and down the docks as the city watch searched for them. Unfortunately for them, dozens of ships choked the busy harbour. There’d be no telling which one they’d gotten on.

‘You must have made many friends among di Peacocks for dem to still be chasing you dis late at night,’ said Captain Di Venzo, a portly old Tilean who dressed as colourfully as he spoke. When Gotrek and Felix had dashed up his gangplank in the dead of night, he’d taken them on eagerly. The docks of Miragliano hadn’t exactly been filled with men eager to make the dangerous voyage to Lustria, land of the man-eating lizardmen, and he was desperate for paying passengers. Though Gotrek wasn’t much of a sailor, the rune axe strapped over his shoulder had convinced Di Venzo that he’d be good for something. The Tilean hadn’t cared much that the city watch had been in hot pursuit at the time. After all, half his crew were probably wanted men. ‘Ne’er seen the Peacocks so upset,’ he said, spitting on the deck for emphasis.

Felix sighed, remembering the drunken fight Gotrek had started at the Purple Sheep. ‘Accusing a nobleman of cheating at dice likely nets you a night in jail. Cut off his hand for the same crime and they turn out the whole city watch.’

‘Better you let dem catch you,’ said Di Venzo with a smirk. ‘Most men choose de gaol over de Dark Continent. De hangman’s noose offers a cleaner death.’ He smiled, revealing yellowed teeth. ‘Now, signor, I go. I’ve got to whip dese bastards into shape.’

Felix nodded, but continued to stare back at the city as Di Venzo returned to the sterncastle. Only a moment ago he’d been glad to leave and now he was sorry to see it go.

Lustria.

After having failed to find his doom in the north, Gotrek had abruptly stated that if nothing in the Old World could kill him, he’d try the new one instead. Their travels together had taken them everywhere from the seediest brothels in the Border Princes to the skies high above the Chaos Wastes in an airship piloted by a mad engineer, but the thought of travelling to a continent where humans had a mere foothold, and that the rest of the land was ruled over by the ancient and mysterious Scaled Ones, scared Felix more than he liked to admit.

Of course, he’d had little choice in the matter. As Gotrek’s Rememberer, he’d vowed to record the Slayer’s death in an epic poem, and it would be pretty difficult to do that from across an ocean.

He turned away from the railing and found a nearby crate to sit on. The Slayer was ensconced in their cabin, trying to spend as little time on deck as possible. Dwarfs have no love for ocean travel, and Gotrek less than most. There was no glory in a death at sea. He’d most likely be passed out in a hammock, the tankard of ale he’d taken with them when they’d fled the Purple Sheep dangling from his fingers.

Felix envied the dwarf’s ability to sleep wherever and whenever he chose. Instead of joining him, Felix decided to jot down a few notes on the day’s events in his journal. Perhaps amputating Viscount von Korloff’s arm over a set of loaded dice might merit a stanza or two in Gotrek’s epic.

He’d just freed his journal from his pack when the Dorabella lurched abruptly and the sound of breaking lumber rent the air. He was thrown against a cabin wall, hitting hard enough that he dropped it. The precious book landed on its spine, then flopped open, the wind fluttering its pages.

Overhead, a scream ripped through the air as the sudden stop tore a sailor from the rigging and threw him into the ocean forty feet below. A lantern flew off its hook and smashed against the deck, spreading oil and fire in its wake. Overhead, lines snapped taut and the mast groaned. The sails were full, but the ship had stopped dead.

Still struggling to catch his breath, Felix snatched up the journal and quickly shoved it back into its pouch. He’d spent months writing in the gods-be-damned thing – he wasn’t about to see it slip overboard.

More cries of alarm sounded, and then Di Venzo began roaring orders at the top of his lungs. The captain strode amongst the crew, cursing and clubbing them back into some semblance of discipline. He sent a few to help the poor bastard who’d gone into the sea, and then directed others to beat at the spreading flames from the overturned lamp with their surcoats.

Felix hesitated, wondering if he should join them. Fire was every sailor’s nightmare, but it was nothing these men hadn’t fought before. Under Di Venzo’s watchful eye, they formed a human chain with the man on the end lowering buckets into the ocean by means of a rope.

Instead, he decided to investigate why the ship wasn’t moving. What had they struck? If it was a sandbar, they could hopefully put out one of the longboats and tow the schooner to freedom before the sun rose and they were discovered. If it was a rocky shoal, they might all have to swim for shore. He wanted to find out which before he woke the Slayer.

The ship lurched again. Wood cracked and the rigging above Felix danced madly in the torchlight. A stack of crates slid against each other and tumbled to the deck, forcing him to leap to the side to avoid them. He found himself pressed up against the ship’s rail as the ocean surged and churned below him.

Near the bow, a dark shape the size of a whale rose out of the waves, forcibly lifting the front of the Dorabella out of the ocean. Stunned, Felix couldn’t help but stare at it. Silhouetted figures dashed along its spine, stopping at a cylindrical protrusion near its bow. Metal shrieked as they swivelled it to face the ship. A flash and then a boom blossomed from it, revealing the low, sleek contours of a ship, but not one Felix had ever seen before. Made from huge plates of riveted copper, it looked like a kettle had been crossed with a fish. Could this be some infernal skaven device for travelling beneath the waves? Their cunning knew no bounds.

A spear point the size of Felix’s head smashed into the side of the Dorabella. A cable attached to the spear grew taut and the Tilean schooner lurched again as it was drawn close to the submersible. They were being boarded!

Felix spun away from the railing, looking for Captain Di Venzo. Despite the crew’s best efforts, the fire had spread along the seams of tar between deck boards. Men still attempted to douse the flames with buckets of water, but the captain was nowhere in sight. Perhaps he’d heard the crash and gone to investigate? Felix caught the arm of Alessio, the orphan who served as Di Venzo’s cabin boy, as he dashed by.

‘Go below decks and awaken my travelling companion. Tell him we’re being boarded. And be careful,’ he said as the boy dashed off. ‘He’s probably drunk.’

Felix watched him go and then set off in search of the captain. He found him near the overturned crates at the rear of the ship.

‘Herr Jaeger,’ he called to Felix. ‘Our cargo has shifted! If we don’t get dese crates to de bow, we’ll take on water.’

Di Venzo still thought they’d struck a sandbar! He’d been so concerned with keeping his ship afloat he hadn’t even looked over the railing.

‘You’ve got bigger problems, captain,’ Felix shouted back. ‘You’re being boarded!’

Di Venzo’s eyes widened. He set down the crate he was carrying and dashed around the sterncastle towards the bow, followed closely by Felix. Just as he arrived, a few strangled cries of alarm sounded from the sailors stationed there. Dark shapes moved across the deck, cutting men down where they stood.

‘Forget the fire, men,’ he roared thrusting his scimitar into the air. ‘Repel de boarders!’

A short, but powerfully built, figure clumped out of the shadows towards Felix bellowing a war cry and hefting a huge maul. This was no skaven, as Felix had initially suspected, but a dwarf!

‘Wait, I–,’ he said, throwing his hand out. Before he could utter another word, the maul crashed down at him. He barely drew Karaghul in time to parry and the force of the blow shook his arm down to the bone. He tried a quick riposte, and though the dwarf’s strike had left him open, he was so heavily armoured that Felix’s blow drew sparks. Ineffective though it was, it caused the dwarf to take a step back, wary of another strike.

Why were dwarfs attacking a Tilean schooner? They were far from their holds in the Worlds Edge Mountains. There must be some mistake…

The dwarf darted in again and swiped at him with the hammer, a huge sweep that would have taken Felix’s head clean off his shoulders. Instead, Felix stepped inside the blow and brought the pommel of his blade down on the dwarf’s helmet, denting the metal and provoking a grunt of pain. The dwarf’s knees buckled and he began to drop, but just as Felix was about to turn in search of Gotrek, he drove his shoulder into Felix’s chest. They slammed into the ship’s mast and Felix slumped to the ground, crushed by the weight of a fully armoured dwarf. His vision momentarily dimmed and the enemy warrior raised his maul for the killing blow. There would be no parrying this time. Karaghul had slipped from Felix’s grip and lay on the deck a few feet away. It was unarmed.

‘Wait!’ he yelled, throwing his hands in front of his face in a plea for mercy. ‘I’m a dwarf friend,’ he shouted.

The figure grunted hollowly. ‘You’re no friend of mine,’ he said, hefting his maul. Felix quickly scanned the deck, looking for something that could help, a rope, a weapon, but his eyes alighted on his backpack. Unattended, the fire had spread across the deck towards the mast, and now licked at the leather. His journal!

Out of sheer desperation, he pushed off from the mast and launched himself at the dwarf. He caught the haft of the maul on his shoulder and felt it go numb, but he was still alive. Momentum carried him into his opponent. It was like hitting a wall of steel. Dwarfs were shorter than humans, but far stockier and this one was solid muscle. Grabbing the haft of the maul, Felix kicked out and landed a blow squarely on the dwarf’s breastplate. He stumbled backwards, tripped over a coil of rope and crashed to the deck.

The maul was far too heavy for Felix to use effectively, so he cast it to the side, where it thumped onto the deck. He looked around. Men screamed in pain as a dozen enemy warriors moved through them, their heavy armour easily turning aside the sailors’ cutlasses. The smell of burning tar and wood smoke hung thick in the air, making Felix’s lungs burn and his skin smart.

He cast about desperately for Karaghul and spotted it lying on the deck near the railing. He hesitated. Should he go for the weapon or the book? He had a split second to make the decision and in the end he couldn’t let his journal burn. The Siege of Praag was contained in that book. It could not go up in flames! Forgetting about his sword, he dashed towards the fire and snatched up the backpack, beating at the flames with his red Sudenland cloak.

The pack was ruined of course, and his quill singed beyond recognition, but the jar of ink, although hot to the touch, was whole and his journal safe within its oiled leather carrying case. He tucked them into a pouch on his cloak, and then cast about for his sword. It was nowhere to be seen. Had it slid off the deck into the ocean? The thought of losing Karaghul made his heart twinge. The blade had been at his side through so many adventures it felt like a part of him. Losing it would be like having an arm chopped off. Worse, he thought. He had two arms, but there was only one Karaghul.

He felt, more than heard, displaced air against his cheek and dodged backwards just in time to avoid a hammer blow. The armoured dwarf he’d knocked down before stepped out of the flames.

‘You just don’t quit, do you?’ asked Felix in frustration.

The warrior shrugged. ‘I’m a dwarf,’ he said, by way of explanation.

Alone and still unarmed, Felix cursed his luck. Why hadn’t he gone for his sword? He looked around for help, but the battle had moved away from them and if there were any sailors still alive, he couldn’t see them. He didn’t stand a chance.

Just as the dwarf stepped in for the killing blow, a snarling figure emerged from the flames and hurled itself at Felix’s opponent. Bare-chested and tattooed, Gotrek Gurnisson batted aside the maul with his rune axe and lashed out with a ham-hock fist. It impacted the dwarf’s armoured jaw with a metallic clang that sent him crashing to the deck. Gotrek didn’t even bother shaking his hand after the blow.

‘Barely out of port and you decide to burn down the ship around my ears?’

‘Good to see you too, Gotrek,’ said Felix. The pig grease that the Slayer used to shape his hair into a crest had partially melted and smeared his skull and forehead. His skin was an angry red from the heat, almost as red as his fiery beard. He clutched his rune axe tightly in one hand. In the other… a sword?

Gotrek grunted and then held out the weapon, pommel first. It was Karaghul. ‘You wouldn’t be much good to me without a sword.’

Felix’s heart sang as he took the blade, feeling again its perfect balance and heft. He’d genuinely thought he’d lost it. ‘Gotrek…’ he said.

‘Save it,’ responded the dwarf gruffly. He looked down at the fallen warrior. ‘Now let’s see what kind of dwarf attacks an unarmed man.’

He knelt in front of the armoured warrior and ripped off his helmet with one hand, revealing a heavy set dwarf with features that looked like they’d been chiselled from stone. Dark eyes and a large, craggy nose framed a black beard bound into a warrior’s braids with thick golden clips. ‘Vabur Nerinson,’ said Gotrek with a curse.

‘You know him?’ asked Felix, stunned.

‘Of course I know him,’ spat Gotrek. ‘He’s a Reckoner out of Barak Varr. If Vabur’s here then that means… Norri Wolfhame! Come out and face me, you coward!’

Dark shapes stepped through the flames. Their leader wore mail and an open-faced horned helmet that flaunted a thick, white beard. He was flanked by two soldiers of identical height and build, each levelling black powder rifles. Their armour, too, was identical, except that one helmet was moulded in the shape of a lion and the other an eagle.

‘Gotrek Gurnisson,’ called the dwarf with the white beard – Wolfhame, Felix guessed. ‘You’re under arrest in the name of King Byrrnoth Grundadrakk.’

Just as he finished speaking, a burning spar above them cracked and popped, littering the group with ash and charred rigging. The Reckoner paid no attention to it. Single-minded to the point of razor-like focus, he seemed to be unaware that they were standing in the middle of an inferno.

‘What’s the charge?’ asked Felix.

Wolfhame’s gaze found his and Felix was suddenly embarrassed to have spoken. He felt like a child who had broken the silence in one of Sigmar’s temples.

‘Treason,’ Wolfhame answered, eyes glittering in the firelight.

Treason? The pair were guilty of a lot of crimes, but as far as Felix could remember they’d never committed treason against the King of Barak Varr. Could Wolfhame be pursuing them because of some crime Gotrek committed before he’d come upon Felix in the Window Tax Riots? But that was twenty years ago! Just how long had these dwarfs been pursuing the Slayer?

‘Your king was the one who committed treason, Norri, and you know it,’ growled Gotrek.

Wolfhame continued on as if Gotrek hadn’t spoken. ‘And – as if that wasn’t enough – common thievery.’

Felix felt his jaw clench. Gotrek hunched his shoulders and took a step towards Wolfhame, prompting the twin warriors to tighten their grips on their rifles. After a visible struggle, Gotrek regained control of his temper. Felix had seen him deflect arrows before with his rune axe, but charging two dwarf warriors with rifles levelled was madness, even for him. It was the goal of every Slayer to die gloriously, not anonymously at the hands a couple of Reckoners with rifles.

‘Explain yourself, Norri Wolfhame,’ growled Gotrek. ‘I’ve been called traitor before, but never a thief.’

Before the Reckoner could elaborate, a low, thumping groan came from the bow and the crack of split wood rent the air once more. Though the sturdy dwarfs were unmoved, Felix stumbled and nearly fell as the ship’s deck lurched. As he regained his footing, he spotted two longboats already in the water, rowing frantically for shore. The crew had abandoned ship – and for good reason. He could see the sea pouring over the Dorabella’s stern as she finally began to sink.

‘Can we hurry this up a little?’ he asked nervously. Ocean water swept up the deck towards them, and Felix noticed with some distress that the stern of the ship was almost completely submerged. When would these blasted dwarfs get to the point? ‘Do you plan to take us prisoner or carry out the sentence right here on the deck? Because if it’s the latter, the sea will soon beat you to it.’

‘I am not permitted to discuss the details of your crimes in front of an umgi,’ said Norri Wolfhame to Gotrek, eying Felix suspiciously.

‘The manling is my Rememberer and a dwarf friend. Anything you need to say to me can be said in front of him,’ replied Gotrek.

‘How do you merit a Rememberer?’ asked one of the twin warriors in surprise. He was quickly silenced by a stern look from Wolfhame. Annoyed, the Reckoner turned back to Gotrek.

‘You’re already aware of why you’re wanted for treason,’ he said, his face stony and unreadable. ‘As for the theft? The vault of Musin Balderk has been breached.’

‘You lie,’ sneered Gotrek with such ferociousness that the twins cocked their rifles. ‘I built that vault myself. It would take a dozen dwarfs with a barrel of black powder the size of this ship more than a week to get in. If you’ve let that happen, then there’s no help I can offer you.’

For the first time since they’d met, Norri Wolfhame lost his composure. His cheeks reddened and his beard twitched. ‘Are you accusing me of incompetence?’

‘Come, manling,’ said Gotrek, lowering his axe and stomping towards the three Reckoners.

Felix took a few hesitant steps after Gotrek, still unsure what had happened. One minute it looked like the Slayer was determined to go down with the ship and the next he was, well, if not surrendering, then at least agreeing to terms. ‘Where are we going?’

Gotrek’s single eye glittered. ‘To Barak Varr. I want to see for myself how these fools let someone into my vault.’

Despite the immense amount of dwarf technology that went into the construction of a vehicle that could travel for days beneath the waves, Felix couldn’t help but think they were travelling inside a floating dungeon.

Since space inside what Gotrek called a Nautilus was at a premium, everything was sized for a dwarf and Felix was forced to crouch in the narrow passageways. His back hurt the instant he set foot inside the vessel, and hurt more when he considered that it might take weeks of travel to reach the Barak.

They were led along a narrow passageway down what Felix assumed was the ‘throat’ of the giant copper fish. They passed rooms filled with narrow bunks and then a small infirmary where a few dwarfs were being treated for minor burns sustained in the inferno above. The entire vessel smelled like lamp oil, only heavier and more pungent. Once, Felix put his hand down on what he thought was a guardrail only to have it come away covered in grease.

They turned onto a metal gangplank made from wire mesh that allowed Felix to see into the inner workings of the vessel. It was like staring into a clock. A tangle of gears and pipes turned an enormous shaft that disappeared towards the stern of the ship. The air here smelled of oil and what the dwarfs called ‘blackwater’. It was a pleasant smell, but one that Felix knew better than to inhale too deeply.

Wolfhame led them down the gangplank to a small, windowless cell in the back of the submersible. It had probably once held provisions, judging from the stink of rotten potatoes that hung in the air. A few smokeless lamps gave the room a yellowish pall, and strange copper pipes that were hot to the touch skirted the ceiling. At first these made the cramped cell unbearably hot, but as the Nautilus descended into the depths the walls grew cold and Felix began to think the ship’s designers had placed them there deliberately to keep the room’s occupants warm.

The Slayer had told Norri that he was coming to Barak Varr as an engineer, not a Slayer, but Felix couldn’t help thinking that the vault of Musin Balderk was but the smallest part of it. His mind kept going back to the charge of treason. Dwarfs were a stubborn bunch and valued loyalty above all else. Felix had studied at the university at Altdorf and he could count the number of dwarfs accused of treason on one hand and not need the thumb. Yet, despite the seriousness of the charge, Gotrek had said nothing in all the years they’d travelled together. Felix could not keep his gaze away from the Slayer’s fiery red crest and body tattoos. Could Wolfhame have been hunting Gotrek for the very crime that had caused him to take the Slayer’s Oath?

Despite Felix’s attempts to engage the Slayer in conversation, he would not speak of it. After a few days, he would not speak at all, merely staring darkly at a spot on the opposite wall.

With a sigh, Felix opened his journal, bit an edge into his singed quill and put ink to page. He had found precious little writing time on the road, and had not yet written of the death of Arek Daemonclaw and the events that had followed.

The days passed quickly, and he lost track of how long they were at sea. Guards came by twice a day to empty their chamber pot and feed them a thin, but nourishing, gruel. Though Felix had no way of telling time from the confines of his cell, mealtimes were so regular he could predict them by the grumbling of his stomach.

By the time he noticed a change in the constant hum that Gotrek had explained came from the ship’s engines, he’d filled forty pages. Soon afterwards, the ship lurched and a dull, metallic thump echoed through the ship’s hull. The hatch’s handle spun and it hissed open. Norri Wolfhame stepped over the threshold, still in full armour. Felix suspected he slept in it.

‘Finally muster enough courage to face me without your two henchmen, Wolfhame?’ sneered Gotrek. The pair were technically prisoners, but no one had been brave enough to relieve Gotrek of his rune axe. Wolfhame eyed it warily and fingered his hammer, but did not draw it.

‘We’ve docked under the palace. From here we will be proceeding directly to the king’s private chambers via a secret route. Though it is supposed to be reserved for the king’s private use, some members of the palace staff have been known to use it on occasion and if we should encounter them, you will remain silent. Should you utter the slightest sound, my men will kill you where you stand.’

Felix rose slowly, feeling every ache and pain of the long voyage in a cramped space. He was disappointed to hear they’d already docked. Last time they’d been in Barak Varr, they’d been aboard a Bretonnian merchantman, and seen first-hand the huge sea cave in which it was situated. He’d been looking forward to seeing such a sight again. Lanterns the size of a carriage strung to the ceiling with huge chains had set fire to the perfectly still ocean and highlighted the busy harbour beyond.

It was only when he stood on the deck of the Nautilus that he realised the true magnitude of what Wolfhame had said. Unlike the harbour of Barak Varr, this was nothing more than an enclosed gorge that had been enlarged just barely enough to accommodate the Nautilus. Wolfhame’s pilot must have had incredible mastery of his vessel in order to pilot it between the narrow walls. No crates or supplies lined the docks, making it obvious to Felix that the harbour only served one purpose – to bring people to and from the palace in secret. Dwarfs were such a pragmatic breed that, even though Wolfhame had just told them the dock was reserved for kingly use, it was undecorated. He glanced at Gotrek as the Slayer followed the Reckoners up a rough-cut stairway and through the secret passage. Why the need for this level of secrecy?

He wished he could ask Gotrek if he knew what was going on, but Vabur Nerinson, the black-bearded dwarf the Slayer had felled with a single punch, marched only a few feet away. His giant maul was slung over one shoulder and he carried his dented helmet under one arm. Every time he caught Felix’s eye he smiled evilly and petted his weapon. Better to remain silent than to give that one an excuse to soothe his wounded pride on Felix’s skull.

The walls of the passage were unmarked and the ascent so steep that Felix had to concentrate on keeping up to the hardy dwarfs. Soon he was sweating and breathing heavily. He longed to spot some kind of sign that would mark their progress, a floor number, or at the very least, another exit, but the walls were plainly cut stone and there were no doors in sight. Finally, they emerged into a wide hallway. In contrast to the corridor they’d just left, the construction here was superb. Intricate carvings graced the walls and several stone busts of past kings sat on a series of pedestals that ran the length of the hallway. Wolfhame led them deliberately to the huge oaken doors that marked the entrance to King Grundadrakk’s chambers.

A half-dozen of his closest advisors were gathered around a large oaken table, upon which rested a map of the lower tunnels as large as a bed sheet. Thumb-sized stone figures dotted the map, some carved to look like Ironbreakers, while others, more crudely carved, looked like ratmen.

Felix could identify Grundadrakk immediately, despite never having met him. Completely bald with a flowing white beard that stretched nearly to his belt buckle, he towered over his advisors. Even bent over the tunnel map as he was, Felix could tell he was as large, or larger, than Gotrek – perhaps even as wide as Snorri Nosebiter. He was a giant among dwarfs.

‘Your majesty,’ said Wolfhame as they entered. ‘I’ve brought you Gotrek Gurnisson, the Trollslayer.’

The king carefully picked up a stone figure, and then circled the map and placed it at a different spot. He surveyed it, checked its relationship to the other carvings, its distance, its height, and only then looked up with a frown. ‘He’s still got his axe.’

‘Let the dwarf who wants to take it from me step forward,’ said Gotrek, grinning evilly and running a thumb up its blade until he drew blood.

‘I should have you executed,’ said the king nonchalantly. Having placed the ratman where he wanted it, he rose and turned towards them, judging them with a glance. ‘This Grim Brotherhood nonsense,’ he said, waving his finger at Gotrek’s tattoos and crest, ‘has never impressed me. There are those – even amongst my advisors – who believe that the Oath absolves one of all their crimes. This is false. It is just that Slayers usually have the good grace to die before their sentence can be carried out.’

‘Are you saying I’ve been avoiding my doom?’ Gotrek asked, his voice low and dangerous. Felix could sense the air in the room grow cold. Grundadrakk’s advisors drew away from the king unconsciously, clearing the space between them.

Only one venerable dwarf remained at the king’s side. He was stocky, sporting a belly that overhung his belt. He wore jewellery in the manner of the richest merchant-princes, one who fought wars in the marketplace rather than on the battlefield. Each finger glimmered with a jewelled ring, and he wore a thin silver band across his forehead. His forked beard was immaculately oiled and his skin free from blemishes. Though Felix admired his courage, Gotrek would cut right through him on the way to the king, unless Felix did something to defuse the situation.

‘Why have you, um, summoned us, your majesty?’ he asked quickly, and then gulped when all eyes turned towards him. Far from defusing the situation, he’d turned their anger on himself instead.

‘Drumnok,’ said the king to the oiled merchant-prince. ‘Who is this umgi?’

‘Unless I miss my guess, he is Felix Jaeger, your majesty,’ said the merchant prince, ‘Dwarf friend, and Rememberer to Gotrek Gurnisson.’

Felix was surprised that Drumnok had identified him so easily. Had news of their deeds spread so far? ‘You have impressive sources, my lord.’

Drumnok shook his head. ‘Just Drumnok. I’m no thane – merely an ale merchant who’s done well for himself. But to answer your question, we’ve been pursuing Gotrek Gurnisson for more years than you’ve been alive. It was only prudent that we compile a list of known associates.’

Felix flushed. Of course. It would take years for news of their part in the Siege of Praag to filter down from the north, if it ever did. In most parts of the Empire, they were far from heroes. In fact, they were still wanted criminals. It was a blow to his ego to be known merely as Gotrek’s accomplice, but he supposed it fit.

‘Where is the book, Trollslayer?’ asked the king, his attention shifting back to Gotrek like a lion picking which sheep to devour. He picked up another figurine, a crudely carved skaven, and traced its contours with his thumb.

‘Book?’ asked Gotrek. ‘You brought me back because of a book?’

‘Don’t play with me, Trollslayer,’ said the king. ‘I’ve not forgotten what you did.’

Slayer and king glared at each other with hatred pure and cold. Felix felt certain that Gotrek had at last met his match – at least in stubbornness.

‘The Book of Grudges.’ Drumnok stepped forward, knowing, like any good merchant, when to break an impasse. ‘It went missing from the vault of Musin Balderk under the very noses of my personal guard.’

‘What problem is that of mine?’ asked Gotrek sullenly.

‘No problem at all,’ said Drumnok, steepling his fingers. ‘Except that the vault was untouched. Not a mark on it. My finest engineers went over it inch-by-inch and could not determine how the theft was committed. Only one dwarf could open that vault and not leave a trace–the engineer who designed it.’

Felix felt his stomach sink. All the secrecy that had shrouded their visit suddenly made sense. The Book of Grudges was one of the most sacred artefacts in a dwarf hold. In it was written every wrong that had been committed against a particular clan for thousands of years. Each new grudge was written into the book in the king’s own blood, and it was considered a mark of personal triumph for a monarch to extract justice for a past grievance and cross a grudge off the list.

Without the book, the king could not show his face in public. There was no telling how the hold would react should they learn of its disappearance. Wolfhame’s threat to kill them, should they utter a word to a member of the palace staff, had obviously not been idle. Grundadrakk would do anything to keep knowledge of the theft from leaking out. The only reason they were still alive was that he believed they had something to do with it.

‘I’ve been penned in these quarters for a solid month, Trollslayer,’ said the king, banging his fist on the table so hard the stone figures jumped. ‘My subjects are beginning to forget what I look like. I don’t care if you stole the book or your faulty design allowed it to be stolen. You owe me a book and I want it back.’

Instead of getting angry, Gotrek lapsed into silence. It was one thing to question his ability as a Slayer, but it was quite another to question his skill as an engineer. He took the former personally. He took the latter as a challenge. He was, in all likelihood, mentally reviewing plans he’d memorised decades ago, looking for any flaw.

‘Did no one else have access to the vault?’ asked Felix.

‘No one,’ said Drumnok firmly.

‘No,’ said Gotrek. ‘There was another. My former apprentice. Malbak Drumnokson.’

‘How convenient,’ sneered the king. ‘Malbak is the one who accused you of the theft.’

‘Convenient for whom, your majesty?’ Felix asked pointedly. ‘Two dwarfs had access to the vault and one of them was a thousand leagues away when the crime was said to have taken place.’

Grundadrakk’s eyes narrowed and he turned to Drumnok. ‘Your son says he had evidence that the Trollslayer was the culprit?’

‘He swears it, your majesty,’ replied Drumnok firmly.

Grundadrakk considered this for a while, and then finally set the skaven carving back on the tunnel map. ‘You know I’ve always been grateful to you for your counsel, my friend,’ he said to Drumnok, ‘but the umgi raises a valid point. It is difficult for even the best of thieves to commit a crime from a thousand leagues away.’

Drumnok reddened and his belly shook indignantly. ‘Your majesty, I–’

‘Clear every corridor from here to the vault,’ said King Grundadrakk to Wolfhame who nodded smartly. ‘And have Malbak Drumnokson meet us there. It is time for us to get to the bottom of this.’

They took the same hidden passage they’d used to come from the harbour. The king was large enough that his bulk nearly filled the corridor and he cursed fate richly for necessitating that he use the infernal passageway. When they’d travelled roughly halfway back to the docks, Norri Wolfhame stopped in what appeared to be the middle of an empty hallway and opened a hitherto unseen door that led down another series of corridors to the vault area. Felix wondered just how extensive this network of secret passageways was. It appeared to him that Barak Varr was riddled with them.

Malbak Drumnokson met them in front of a massive stone door. Short, even for a dwarf, he looked nothing like his father, except for the rapidly developing paunch he tried to keep hidden behind a leather girdle. His beard was as red as the wispy hair that grew out of his ears and not on his head. He wore a thick gold chain around his neck and sparkling earrings pierced his ear. Gotrek grunted and told Felix that no member of Malbak’s line could bear to be parted from the precious metal for even a day, which explained Drumnok’s occupation as a merchant, and his son’s as a vault engineer. Malbak was breathing heavily, as if he’d had to jog to meet them at the vault.

‘Your majesty, I–’ he said, beginning a bow that was arrested when he spotted Gotrek. ‘You!’ he said, his voice loaded with hatred. ‘You should be dead.’

Gotrek grinned a toothy smile that showed the yellow stumps he called teeth. ‘Gods willing.’

‘Malbak!’ barked Drumnok sternly. ‘You forget yourself in front of the king.’

Malbak looked chastised, turning and completing the bow he’d started before he’d spotted the Slayer. ‘Your majesty. It is always an honour to have you grace the vaults.’

‘And it’s always a pain in the neck to come down here,’ grunted the king. Despite his size and relative health, Felix could tell that Byrrnoth was feeling his age. ‘To think that before the skaven attacked, we used to store most of this stuff several levels down.’

‘The skaven, your majesty?’ asked Felix, trying to hide his disgust. The world’s most prolific thieves arrive and everyone was surprised when there was a theft? There must be more to it.

‘I know what you’re thinking, Herr Jaeger,’ said Drumnok reprovingly. ‘The skaven may have attacked the lower levels, but they have come nowhere near here. In fact, much of the treasure in the lower vaults was brought here specifically because this vault was deemed impregnable. After all, it was built by one of the Barak’s most capable engineers–and Gotrek Gurnisson.’

Malbak and his father exchanged satisfied looks, but if Gotrek caught the slight, he ignored it. He tapped a finger to his lips as he studied the vault door.

‘Open it,’ he said softly.

Grundadrakk ignored the lack of a title and simply nodded at Malbak. The younger engineer removed a golden chain from around his neck, from which dangled a large key. He moved towards the door and began to hum a deep and complex melody as he traced his finger across a string of runes. One by one the runes lit up, until their flickering blue light illuminated a keyhole. Malbak inserted his key into the lock, turned it, and then stepped back. Somewhere inside the smooth stonework, huge gears ground together and huge weights thunked into place as the door slid open.

Felix was amazed by the thickness of the stone. Made from solid bedrock, it must have weighed hundreds of tons and yet it was so perfectly balanced a child could have pushed it shut.

Though the inside of the vault was no large than the room in which they’d stayed at the Purple Sheep, there was more wealth inside than Felix had ever seen before. Gold ingots piled as high as a dwarf could stand, jewels the size of a clenched fist set in sterling silver necklaces, a rack of unfathomably ancient scrolls… and the empty lectern where he guessed the Book of Grudges had once rested. Felix had never felt much desire for wealth, but looking upon the contents of that vault he felt a stirring in his chest that the dwarfs might call gold lust. Karl Franz himself would weep over the treasure laid before them, and Felix guessed there were many more vaults just like it hidden in the underground expanses of Barak Varr.

Gotrek surveyed the treasure critically, as if he was mentally weighing the contents of the vault. At last, he stirred. ‘I need four dwarfs to help me empty it.’

‘Empty it?!’ King Grundadrakk nearly popped a vein. ‘It took weeks just to move it up here.’

Drumnok hurried forward, gently placing a hand on Gotrek’s shoulder, then yanking it back when Gotrek glared at him. ‘The vault of Musin Balderk shelters some of the Barak’s most precious artefacts – not to mention a few state secrets. We can’t simply store it in this antechamber.’

‘Fine,’ said Gotrek, crossing his arms and leaning casually against the door. ‘Find the book yourselves then.’

‘Wolfhame,’ said the king between clenched teeth. ‘Order your men to help the Slayer empty the vault.’

Six hours later, the vault was empty and the antechamber littered with untold wealth. The dwarfs stood in the hall stretching weary limbs, watching each other suspiciously to see who among them would show the first signs of fatigue, all the while trying to conceal their own tiredness.

The heaviest object by far was a large golden statue of Grimnir that Drumnok claimed was life-sized, even though it was twice as large as Gotrek himself. Much more crudely carved than the other treasures, Felix supposed the dwarfs valued it more for its sheer weight than its craftsmanship.

Though Gotrek had done the majority of the heavy lifting, he strode straight into a corner of the vault and kicked at a pile of refuse – gnawed wood, chewed bones, and droppings.

‘Skaven spoor,’ said Gotrek.

‘Impossible,’ said Drumnok, with a glance at the king. ‘It must be something else.’

‘Step into the vault and I’ll make sure you get a closer look,’ growled Gotrek with an evil grin.

‘You said that some of these treasures used to reside in the lower vaults? The ones that had been attacked by the skaven?’ asked Felix.

‘Yes,’ Drumnok answered reluctantly, ‘but they were untouched when we beat back the ratmen. They could not have laid a paw on so much as a single gold piece. Even so, when we transferred their contents here for safekeeping, we had each item inspected by a runesmith. There was no trace of skaven sorcery on any of them.’

He stepped back from the vault. ‘Even if they were somehow able to bypass the vault’s defences with a spell, why would they take the book? We know the skaven have no love for gold, but this vault contains quite a few magical trinkets. Why would they settle for cheap parchment when they could have taken those? And how would they escape with their stolen goods? Any skaven wandering these halls would be cut down by a hundred angry dwarfs.’

‘Seafaring dwarfs,’ said Gotrek, spitting on the floor. To a Karak-born dwarf, ocean travel was anathema and seafaring dwarfs the victims of some collective madness. The occupants of Barak Varr, wealthy though they were, were met with scorn in some quarters.

‘Tread carefully, Slayer,’ growled Wolfhame, glaring at the Slayer.

Gotrek’s face twisted into a snarl. ‘One more word from you, Norri Wolfhame, and you’ll be picking my axe out of your teeth,’ he said, his finger stabbing into Wolfhame’s chest. He rounded on King Grundadrakk. ‘The ratmen may have your book, but they didn’t get past my door. My vault did what it was supposed to do.’

The king regarded the Slayer with outright hatred. Then his eyes narrowed craftily. ‘You’re forgetting something, aren’t you Gotrek? We have evidence of your involvement in the theft.’ He beckoned Drumnok’s son forward. ‘Malbak?’

‘Your majesty?’ Malbak had been enjoying the conflict from the rear, not having offered to help the Reckoners clear the vault.

‘You said you had evidence that Gotrek was involved?’ said the king triumphantly. ‘Show it to him.’

‘Your majesty, my word as an engineer…’

‘The evidence, Malbak!’ Grundadrakk’s triumphant tone gained a frustrated edge.

‘Very well.’ Malbak drew an iron chisel from a pouch and handed it to Wolfhame, who handed it to the king. ‘Gotrek left this behind after he… fled.’ He beckoned them over to a patch of bare stone on a corner of the vault’s door. ‘There,’ he said, accusingly. ‘I believe you’ll find those marks match Gotrek’s chisel exactly.’

To Felix, the stone looked like any other stone. No chisel marks were apparent. Not for the first time was he envious of the dwarfs’ keen eyesight.

The king and his advisors approached the stone and studied the markings. After a moment, when the king rose, a pulsing purple vein was apparent on his forehead. ‘Do you take me for a fool, Malbak?’

Malbak paled. ‘Your majesty?’

‘Even the umgi can see that these marks are from the vault’s construction,’ said the king with a dismissive wave at Felix, who could only shrug sheepishly at the others. ‘And in any case, if you’ve been in possession of Gotrek’s chisel all the while, how do you think he used it to gain entry to the vault?’

‘He…’ Malbak glanced nervously from the king to Drumnok and back again. ‘He must have stolen it… there’s no one else who could have gotten past the vault’s defences!’

Grundadrakk shook his head and muttered a curse under his breath. When he turned back to Gotrek, his demeanour had completely changed. ‘You may not be guilty after all, Trollslayer, but that does not change the fact that the skaven have my book.’

‘So send your armies after them and leave me to find my doom!’ said Gotrek petulantly.

Grundadrakk shook his head, then met the eyes of all who were present. ‘Our armies have tried to dislodge the skaven and failed. They are too numerous. But a smaller expedition, consisting of no more than a dozen dwarfs, might escape their notice. Norri Wolfhame will head just such an expedition, consisting of all who know of its loss – with the exception of my faithful advisor, Drumnok.’

‘Your majesty,’ said Norri Wolfhame, struggling to conceal his shocked expression. ‘Assuming the Slayer is right and the skaven have stolen the book, how are we to find it? We have no idea which skaven have it, or where they could have gone.’

Drumnok coughed and stepped forward. ‘Our scouts know in which direction the skaven forces retreated. Surely, they will have taken such a prized artefact to the very centre of their armies. Go where the skaven forces are most numerous and you’ll find the book.’

Felix’s heart sank as the collected dwarfs erupted in a cacophony of objections. The skaven were present in large enough numbers to sack the lower vaults, and yet a small group of dwarfs was supposed to succeed where the army had failed? The king was sending them on a suicide mission. At least Felix got some small satisfaction from watching the smug grin fade from Malbak’s face as he realised that Grundadrakk had ‘volunteered’ him along with the others.

‘You cannot expect…’ he sputtered to the king.

‘Silence!’ roared Grundadrakk. He waited for the last objection to die in a mutter, then continued. ‘If you succeed, then the book will be returned with none the wiser. If you fail, then you’ll take the secret of its loss with you to your graves.’

‘I’m not doing your dirty work, Byrrnoth,’ said Gotrek. To emphasise his point, he crossed his arms and leaned against the corner of the vault.

‘You’ll go,’ said Grundadrakk grimly. ‘Your name was the last inscribed in the book. Bring it back and I’ll make sure it’s crossed off. Stay here and I’ll make sure your doom isn’t fit to be sung about in the seediest tavern this side of Karak Eight Peaks.’

Gotrek darkened like a storm. Tell him to do a thing and he was more than likely to do the opposite just to spite you. Felix was genuinely worried that he’d draw his rune axe and hack his way to the sea gates. If there was one thing about Gotrek, it was that he could not be bullied. Once again, it was up to Felix to defuse the situation.

‘Thank you, your majesty,’ he said thinking fast.

Slayer and king both blinked, and then turned and stared at him.

‘What are you playing at, manling?’ asked Gotrek suspiciously.

‘Indeed?’ said the king, arching an eyebrow.

‘I am merely thanking your majesty for granting Gotrek the chance at a doom worthy of an epic,’ he explained. ‘A suicide mission to retrieve a valuable artefact from the clutches of an untold number of skaven warriors? That’s the kind of doom Trollslayers salivate over.’

Thankfully, he was able to keep the quaver out of his voice. A suicide mission was all well and good for a Slayer… but it was far less appealing to his Rememberer.

Gotrek paused as he considered this. Then his face cracked into a toothy smile and he clapped Felix on the back. ‘I like the way you think, manling!’

‘Yes,’ said Grundadrakk as Felix did his best to maintain his smile. ‘I have a feeling the umgi is smarter than he looks.’

The need for secrecy coloured every aspect of their preparations. Supplies could only be procured through Drumnok, and he was so stingy that he treated every request as if Felix had asked for his first-born. While they waited for rations and packs, and all the other supplies one needed for a journey into hostile territory deep underground, they were confined to their quarters. Gotrek threatened to break down the door until King Grundadrakk sent him a cask of Bugman’s to shut him up. Of course, that meant he was hung over the morning the expedition departed. Even so, the prospect of a grand doom gave him new energy and he quickly took the lead.

Norri Wolfhame quickly joined the Slayer at the head of the column – his Reckoner’s instinct no doubt compelling him to stay close to the dwarf he’d tracked across half a continent. Gromnir and Gromnar walked just behind the Slayer as if he were their prisoner. If Gotrek noticed them at all, he didn’t show it.

Malbak, furious that he’d been embarrassed in front of the king, skulked just behind the Reckoners, cursing under his breath and bemoaning his fate, while Vabur Nerinson walked nearby, still carrying his dented helmet like a mark of shame.

The king had specified that the expedition consist of all those who knew of the book’s disappearance, but Drumnok, ever the merchant, decided that that didn’t mean others couldn’t tag along. Wanting to afford his son the best possible chance of survival, he’d used his considerable influence and deep pockets to buy the services of Ulgar Masonsheart, a skilled runesmith, and his apprentice, Glorin. Ulgar wore a bearskin cloak and a long iron-shod staff covered in runes. His apprentice’s staff was newer, but carried its own set of runes.

Labouring along at the back of the column was Tebur Tanilson, a Thunderer who had lost half his hearing in an explosion years earlier. He was by far the oddest member of the expedition. His beard was patchy with old burn scars. He stank of saltpetre and brimstone, and his fingernails were pitted and blackened by blackpowder. Though he carried a rifle, it was his pack that had gotten him banished to the rear of the column. It was as black as his fingernails and bulged in odd places. From the way the other dwarfs winced whenever he set it down for a rest, Felix guessed that he carried some kind of bomb. On those few occasions when they got an opportunity to speak, he referred to Felix as ‘Herr Jogger’.

The final member of their expedition was Martinuk Ironshield, a gruff dwarf with a scarred face and ruddy red hair who wielded an axe and shield with quiet confidence. He wore a set of goggles around his neck as well as an odd mask made from a dark, rubbery material. It reminded Felix of the cone-shaped masks worn by doktors in Altdorf.

Martinuk smiled grimly when Felix asked about it. ‘I saw a ratman wear something like this the day my clan was ambushed in the Lower Reaches. Many of our warriors died tearing at their throats and clawing at their eyes that day, victims to clouds of poison gas emitted from hollowed-out egg shells the skaven threw at us. I tore off one of their masks and wore it during the battle. Doing so saved my life. Later I took their design, improved upon it, and crafted this.’

Vabur Nerinson, walking nearby, barked with laughter. ‘You put your face in there? Might as well kiss a skaven on the lips. You’ll be dressing like them next, won’t you?’

Martinuk shrugged, untroubled by the larger dwarf’s jibe. ‘Lungs as big as yours can hold a lot of gas, Nerinson. When the time comes, you’ll beg me to let you wear it.’

‘Not likely,’ said Vabur. He swung his maul in a casual arc and shattered a lump of stone the size of his head that occupied the path in front of him. ‘They’d have to get past my hammer first.’

‘So you say,’ said Martinuk, nodding his head.

Despite spending half his life in the company of a dwarf, Felix had never quite become used to travel underground. Though dwarf-built tunnels were wide and well-constructed, often they weren’t especially tall, forcing him to duck his head in places. Without the sun, it was impossible to tell time and he felt like they could have been trudging for hours or even days. The dwarfs seemed to possess a sixth sense that told them when to stop for lunch and when to break camp, for which he was thankful. Night fell whenever they hooded their lanterns, which, in turn, plunged them into pitch blackness.

Though the areas close to Barak Varr were safe and well-maintained, as they proceeded further into the depths, signs of prosperity began to dwindle. The dwarfs here were sallow-cheeked with shorter, scraggly beards, and wore clothing badly in need of repair. Some were prospectors, combing over already heavily-mined veins of minerals in the hopes of finding a few nuggets the original owners had missed, while others were hermits who cared little for social comforts and had chosen a life away from the hold. Still others were simply mad.

They encountered their first threat in an ancient tunnel that ran close to a massive underground wall that kept the sea outside at bay. The rocks were slick with moisture and a small stream carved its way down the centre of the passage they followed. Even dwarf masonry did not last forever, and they’d just left behind a small crew of stonemasons who were patching a hole when a huge spider leapt out of the darkness at Felix. All eight legs extended as it flashed through the air towards him; it was brought down at the last moment by Vabur’s maul. Another blow crushed it into pulp.

‘Thank you, herr dwarf,’ said Felix white-faced.

‘I was worried about the stonemasons,’ said Vabur with a shrug. He scraped spider innards off his maul with the bottom of his boot, slung the weapon over his shoulder and continued on down the corridor. After a few moments, Felix quickly joined him.

When they entered the skaven warrens, Felix longed for the comforts they’d left behind in the dwarf-built tunnels. Most passageways twisted oddly, as if the skaven had merely dug where it was easiest to dig. The walls were crudely carved rock – Felix had heard stories that the skaven often made slaves dig with their bare paws and, looking at the way the stone was furrowed he believe it to be true. It was easy to catch clothing on rocky outcroppings, or even cut a hand on a sharp piece of stone. Sometimes the tunnels became so narrow that he had to turn sideways and shuffle through an opening with a cheek pressed against the rock. He had nightmares of getting stuck and being trapped beneath hundreds of tons of rock and ore until he starved.

Despite being heavier-set, the dwarfs seemed to have no problems navigating the maze of tunnels. Even Vabur Nerinson, whose shoulder-width must have been twice as wide as Felix’s, somehow managed to squeeze through openings sized for skaven.

They began to encounter a few skaven patrols, which they quickly dispatched. Despite this, there was little sign of the ‘massive army’ that had attacked the Barak. These skaven looked hungry and their fur was matted with filth. It looked to Felix like they’d gotten lost or cut off when the main skaven force retreated.

They’d slept three times – though whether that meant three days had passed was anybody’s guess – when Felix began to hear the roar of distant water. The crude skaven tunnels soon opened up into a series of caverns. Torchlight glimmered off an underground river that churned and spat foam onto wet walls. The walls here were plain bedrock shot through with veins of granite like glittering white lightning bolts flashing amidst rolling thunderclouds. A wide ledge ran along the river’s edge from where it emerged from a rounded tunnel that might once have been a lava tube to where it disappeared underneath a shelf of rock. As far as Felix could tell, they had two choices – continue through the caverns and see if they opened into more skaven tunnels, or try and follow the ledge upriver, through the lava tube, towards the unknown.

Wolfhame, marching ahead of the group to avoid having his night vision spoiled by their lanterns, raised a hand to stop them, then advanced to a spot at the edge of the river and knelt.

‘Skaven spoor,’ he said, lifting a ball of dirt to his nose. He dropped it in disgust, and then wiped his hand on his armour. ‘They’ve been here recently. They could be the band we seek, or they might simply be scouts for the skaven force that attacked the vaults.’ He kicked at a pile of refuse nearby, and then looked around. ‘Be alert. These tunnels are unknown to us. The skaven could be anywhere.’

‘Unknown?’ asked Gotrek looking up towards the ceiling. ‘How they can be unknown? There’s dwarf construction here.’

Though Felix peered through the gloom, he could see nothing but the jagged rock the river had carved out of the bedrock.

‘You have sharp eyes, Slayer,’ said Vabur Nerinson, gruffly. He walked over to the tunnel wall and ran his fingers across the wall. ‘The river made this tunnel, but dwarfs worked it.’

The smooth patch of stone Gotrek had spotted was a reinforcing column, so cunningly crafted that Felix would never have seen it had Vabur not pointed it out. ‘Could this be a forgotten part of Barak Varr?’ he asked.

‘No,’ said Malbak, adjusting his belt buckle around his belly. ‘The tunnels under the Barak have to be carefully planned and constructed in order to keep out the sea. Besides, we’re days away from the hold.’

‘It’s old,’ said Vabur. He stepped back, his gaze following the column up to the ceiling.

Felix gulped. If a dwarf said something was old, he might very well mean it was from an era before Sigmar united the tribes of man. To a race with a lifespan several times that of the oldest man, ‘old’ meant ‘ancient’.

‘Karak Tam,’ said Martinuk quietly. The name hung in the air as the mercenary eyed the other dwarfs meaningfully.

Felix felt the temperature drop two degrees. Karak Tam? He struggled to remember his geography. Barak Varr was far from the mountains in which the dwarfs typically built their holds. Surrounded by the Border Princes, the closest thing to a mountain range nearby were the Varenka Hills – if they could even be called that. A goblin could spit over them on a windy day. It would be a poor location for a dwarf hold. ‘What’s Karak Tam?’ he asked.

‘A story,’ said Wolfhame scornfully. ‘A fable.’

‘There is some truth in those old stories,’ said Ulgar. The runesmith’s voice was as deep and gravelly as the sound of two rocks grinding together deep beneath the earth. He tapped his rune-covered staff against the ground, and it began to glow a violet colour that illuminated the ancient masonry. He reached out and touched the worked stone reverently, then quickly drew back.

‘Karag Dron,’ he said, turning to Felix, ‘the volcano your race calls ‘Thunder’, was once mined by a clan of dwarfs who used its fires to craft the finest weapons. For many generations their forges churned, until one day the mountain erupted. Racing to outrun the lava flows, the survivors fled east, towards the sea. Legend has it that they stopped in the Varenka Hills when their king came upon a boulder that was struck through and through with gold. He proclaimed it a miracle. Unfortunately, the boulder had been brought there by fields of ice that had long ago retreated, and the surrounding regions were so poor in metals the newly founded hold was unable to support itself. In order to survive, they redoubled their efforts to become the finest weaponsmiths in the world. And they succeeded! Their weapons were without peer. It was said that a king who wielded a weapon from Karak Tam could never be defeated in battle. Many of the weapons in your race’s legends were forged at Karak Tam.’

‘If it was such an important hold, why is it now forgotten?’ asked Felix.

‘The War of Vengeance,’ said Gotrek with a sneer.

‘The hold could not survive without a constant supply of new metals,’ Wolfhame explained. ‘But with our forces committed against the pointy ears, there was no metal to spare.’

Felix found it ironic that a hold renowned for crafting weapons would be a casualty of war, but what Wolfhame said made sense. A rune blade might be invaluable to a king, but a thousand iron axes would be worth much more to an army.

‘They say some of the finest weapons ever crafted by a dwarf still lie within the vaults of Karak Tam,’ said Malbak, striding back towards the gear as if some of those weapons were rusting into oblivion with each passing second. ‘The contents of even one of those vaults would be enough to make us all as rich as King Grundadrakk.’

‘Be mindful of why we came down here,’ said Wolfhame dangerously. ‘It’s the Book of Grudges we seek, not personal gain.’ He turned to Gromnir and Gromnar, the twin Reckoners. ‘Scout out the passage ahead. For all this talk of ancient riches, do not forget that skaven now infest these tunnels.’

The two saluted in unison, then turned and clumped off into the darkness. Felix shook his head. The heavy plate they wore made them the worst scouts in the history of the profession. But perhaps that was Wolfhame’s plan. Those two would trigger any skaven trap long before the expedition’s more vulnerable members got close–such as Malbak.

The portly engineer spoke to Ulgar’s apprentice in hushed, but urgent tones. Glorin wielded a rune-covered staff, which, like his master, he had caused to glow violet. Malbak was using its light to struggle into his pack.

Felix neither liked, nor trusted, the engineer. It was obvious that he’d thought Gotrek long dead, and thus a convenient scapegoat for a break-in he could not explain. When Gotrek had actually shown up, instead of admitting his mistake he’d tried to cover it up with a hastily contrived excuse. Felix resolved that he would keep a careful eye on Malbak for the duration of their mission.

Most of the other dwarfs had finished admiring the column and were beginning to make their way after the twins, so Felix bent to retrieve his own pack, and then thanked Glorin when the apprentice held out his staff to offer more light.

It was only when Felix rose that he saw the silvery cord descend from the gloom above Malbak’s head. Coiled into a loop at its end, it slipped quietly around the engineer’s neck and then jerked tight. Malbak’s eyes flew open and his hands went to his throat as he was hoisted silently into the air.

Felix dropped the lantern and went for Karaghul, but there was no way he could make it to the engineer in time. ‘Glorin!’ he yelled in alarm.

Glorin turned in surprise. He saw Malbak’s feet dangling in the air and panicked, dropping his staff and leaping after the engineer. He caught Malbak’s lower legs in a bear hug, their combined weight dragging them down.

Felix darted towards them, intending to cut through the cord with Karaghul, but a flash of silver in the light of the dropped torch alerted him to the presence of another noose. He ducked, but not fast enough and felt the cord settle around his shoulders. Desperately, he dropped his sword and grabbed at it. He managed to free his neck, but the noose tightened around his arm instead. The cord jerked and he felt it constrict, the material biting into his skin. It was strong like iron, but as supple as silk. Had it settled around his neck as intended, he might have asphyxiated.

The force on the cord grew and he was lifted to the tip of his toes and then into the air. The river churned beneath him, soaking him with spray. If he fell into that he might be swept miles downriver. Suddenly his struggles to get away turned into struggles to hang on.

Above him, a score of dark shapes clung to the roof of the tunnel. Humanoid rats with dark, greasy fur that reeked of blood and offal clung to the ceiling with the aid of a foul-smelling tar they’d painted onto their paws. Though dwarfs had excellent senses of vision and hearing, smell was not in high demand in their dry and dusty mountain holds and was not as well developed. Even Felix had not been able to detect the pungent aroma, masked as it was by the churning spray of the river below. The skaven had planned their ambush well.

Though each rat warrior was armed with several blades, they kept them sheathed, preferring to rely on the nooses and other, non-lethal, forms of attack.

Felix’s shout of alarm had alerted the other dwarfs. Gotrek raced back towards them, axe bared, and sliced through the cord around Malbak’s neck, sending both the engineer and the younger runesmith tumbling to the ground.

‘Come down here and face me, you cowardly tail-biters!’ he yelled, shaking a fist at the ceiling. Several more nooses descended towards him, catching him around the fist and neck. Instead of avoiding them, the Slayer let them come and then laughed evilly as he yanked down sharply. Caught off-guard, a half-dozen skaven were pulled from their moorings and tumbled to the cavern floor.

Behind the Slayer, Ulgar chanted in the harsh Khazalid tongue and a rune on the tip of his staff exploded into brilliant violet light, illuminating the skaven warriors. The roof positively seethed with skaven, more than Felix could easily count. Most clung to the ceiling with the aid of the tar he’d seen earlier, but the more massive among them hung on to ancient loops of metal that had been hammered into the rock. Most of the silver cords ran through these, back to a hidden ledge where more ratmen waited to haul in their prey. Most were dressed in black, but at least one albino rat – a grey-furred creature he recognised as one of the fearsome grey seers – was visible in their midst.

Their leader appeared to be a huge rat-ogre, half as large as their largest warrior, naked but for a ridge of red fur that ran from its sloped forehead to the tip of its tail. Strange purple whorls marked its skin in a terrifying parody of Slayer’s tattoos. Even with the aid of the metallic loops and black goop, it was a wonder to Felix that it could keep that vast body suspended. The strength in those muscles must be immense! Either that or the grey seer he’d spotted earlier had used some dark skaven sorcery to enable the feat. Regardless, it paid no attention to Felix. It had eyes only for Gotrek.

At its squeaked command, several ratmen bit daggers between their teeth and dropped towards the Slayer and the young runesmith apprentice. Others followed, and soon it was raining fur and steel.

Two of the largest ratmen carried between them a metallic net that glinted in Ulgar’s purple light. They landed on either side of Glorin, who was still regaining his feet, and swept him into the netting. They called up to the roof in the skaven tongue and he too was lifted towards the ceiling.

Below, Gotrek laid into the skaven with his axe, knocking aside their pitiful attempts to parry. His axe was a blur of steel and wherever he went, death followed closely. A skaven warrior lunged at him with a crude axe. Gotrek ducked aside and put his rune axe through the back of its skull, spewing blood and brain matter onto the floor. For a moment, there was a lull in the battle as the skaven skittered back from his blade, wringing their paws and clawing at their masters for mercy. In one fluid motion, Gotrek bent, picked up the skaven weapon and hurled it at the ceiling.

The axe flashed within a hair’s breadth of Felix’s ear and embedded itself into the chest of the skaven warrior who was hauling him to the ceiling. It stared at the axe dumbly and then vomited a torrent of blood and phlegm into the river far below. It let go of the cord around Felix’s arm as its body went limp, and it would have fallen were it not for the noxious black bonding agent on its paws. A second skaven made a valiant attempt to hang onto the cord, but Felix was far too heavy for it, and it squeaked in alarm as the rope cut into its fingers.

Felix felt a brief moment of weightlessness before he plunged twenty feet into the river below. He hit the surface hard on his back and sank like a stone. Cold water stabbed into him like a knife and the shock of it almost made him gasp. For a few desperate moments, he didn’t know which way was up. He opened his eyes but, this far from the lantern light, it was as dark as a grave.

Already short of breath, he struggled to free himself from the cord. He felt the knot come loose just as a stone hit him hard in the back, nearly driving out what little air he had left.

The current had him.

He was being swept along the bottom towards the unknown. His chain shirt felt like a rock tied to his back, but there wasn’t time to remove it. Desperate for air, he got his feet under him and kicked for the surface. He swam as hard as he could, and then his head hit rock hard enough that he nearly blacked out. With dogged determination, he clung to consciousness. To lose it meant death.

He clawed at the rock, feeling for an air pocket, anything. His lungs were screaming and his vision was dissolving into a smear of red.

Suddenly a hand grabbed his mail and yanked him hard against the current. He broke the surface with a gasp and sucked in air sweeter than any he’d yet known as he was hauled onto the rocks. After he’d caught his breath, he looked up at his rescuer and then recoiled in fear. A rubbery black face with dark, beady eyes stared back at him.

‘Gas,’ a muffled voice said, and then a calloused hand removed the skaven mask, revealing the scarred face and broken nose of Martinuk the mercenary. He pushed a second mask into Felix’s hand. ‘Put that on. You’re going to need it,’ he said, hooking a thumb over his shoulder at billowing green clouds that rolled across the cavern floor.

The skaven on the roof were throwing small, egg-shaped bombs at the dwarfs. Wherever one landed it shattered, releasing more gas. Martinuk had told them he’d witnessed his friends go mad and tear at their own skin at a single whiff, but this weapon seemed to have a different purpose. On the edge of the battlefield, Vabur Nerinson was caving in a skaven brainpan with every swipe of his maul, but as the gas hit him, his movements slowed and grew clumsy. Ratmen wearing masks similar to Martinuk’s retreated and let Vabur swing drunkenly around himself. When he finally sank to his knees, they advanced with a net.

‘Quit dawdling! They need our help,’ said Martinuk, strapping his mask back on.

Felix mimicked the dwarf’s motions and strapped the rubber thing to his own skull. The pungent aroma of offal and fur hit him like a punch in the face. ‘It smells like wet rat,’ he said in dismay.

‘You look like a wet rat,’ said Martinuk pointedly. He drew a long dagger and passed it hilt-first to Felix. ‘Take this.’

‘Thanks,’ said Felix grimly. He felt naked without Karaghul, but at least he’d dropped it on dry land and not lost it in the river. Otherwise it might be halfway to the ocean by now.

Martinuk pulled his mask tight, saluted, and said something that was too muffled for Felix to make out. Without waiting for an answer, the mercenary drew his axe and leapt into the fog, shouting a slurred battle cry. Felix reluctantly did the same, eyes watering at the smell.

The combination of mask and rolling clouds of gas deadened all sound. Visibility was restricted to vague shapes that passed into and out of view, furred creatures struggling with armoured dwarfs. Some of the dwarfs had already fallen and were being dragged away by skaven warriors. The enemy was fighting to capture, not kill – quite unlike any skaven Felix had ever fought before.

Suddenly, a furry form materialised out of the fog. Its eyes were yellow and bloodshot, the fur around its muzzle slick and oily, encrusted with dried snot. It reeled back, not expecting a fully armed and alert adversary. Felix sliced open its belly with Martinuk’s dagger, then took its sword and left it to gasp out its last breaths of air on the cold rock.

More skaven appeared through the gas, each taken off guard by Felix’s appearance. The battles were short and furious. The ratmen fought to take prisoners. Felix fought to kill.

Soon, he heard Gotrek shouting curses through the gas. As he turned towards the sound, he tripped over a still form. It was Ulgar, the runesmith. The dwarf was sprawled on his stomach. His bearskin cloak nearly covered him, which explained why the skaven hadn’t found him yet. His staff had stopped glowing and lay nearby. Felix stared at the swirling runes on its tip. This gas was skaven magic. If only Ulgar were awake, he’d find some way to dispel it!

Tentatively, Felix reached out to shake the runesmith and was rewarded with a groan. He was barely conscious. He quickly knelt and rolled Ulgar over. Holding his breath, he removed his mask and strapped it onto the runesmith. Instantly, the pungent aroma of urine and bitter almonds hit him. A terrifying thought suddenly occurred to him. Dwarfs were notoriously resistant to poison and other toxins. If the skaven had mixed their gas to render them unconscious, it might very well kill a human like Felix.

A skaven warrior bumbled out of the gas in front of him. It wore a mask, but it had been neatly sliced open, along with most of its muzzle. A few yellowed teeth stood in stark contrast to the white of shattered bone. Its eyes went wide with fear and a new aroma punctuated the gas. The musk of fear, Felix had heard the ratmen call it.

He advanced on the skaven, feeling no pity. The ratmen were brutal warriors who took slaves when food was plentiful and ate them when it wasn’t. It was easy to set aside all thoughts of mercy when he knew none would be given in return.

He expected the ratman to turn and flee, but instead, in a blind panic, it rushed forward and headbutted Felix in the sternum. He felt the air whoosh out of his lungs and he had to twist to avoid falling. Something warm and slick coated his wrist, and he realised the crazed skaven had run straight onto his blade.

Even with no air in his lungs, Felix tried to hold his breath, but the damage was done. His head began to feel heavy and woolen, and weariness stole over him like a burial shroud. He sank to his knees and felt the dagger slip from his hands. Gotrek could fight a few minutes without Felix at his side. He was only going to take a short nap.

Suddenly, the sound of chanting filled the air, and then the sharp rap of steel on stone, once, twice, three times. A slight wind began to stir the gas, merely twirling a few eddies at first, and then growing in power until it was a wall of wind that shoved the gas up the river tunnel like a physical thing. The dissipating clouds revealed the aftermath of an intense battle. Most of the dwarfs were down, some in the process of being tied up by stunned skaven who’d suddenly lost their cover.

Only Gotrek still stood. He was surrounded by a wall of dead skaven and hacked off limbs. The gas had slowed but not stopped him, and even a slowed Gotrek was more than a match for a few score skaven.

Close on the heels of the wall of wind was another sensation. Something reached deep into Felix’s guts and infused him with energy. At first, it felt like he’d eaten too many Arabyan peppers, but soon there was a fire in his belly that suffused him with strength… and rage. He leapt to his feet and hurled himself at the nearest skaven. Still stunned, the ratman fell easily under his blade.

He was soon joined by the other dwarfs, who’d also been energised by Ulgar’s runic power. Together they cleaved left and right with joyous abandon. Gromnar and Gromnir appeared and formed an iron wall, penning the skaven in while Gotrek hacked them to pieces. At some point during the battle, Felix came upon Karaghul lying on the tunnel floor. He hooked its hilt with a toe, kicked it into the air and caught it with one hand, and then stabbed an unwary skaven who’d thought to take advantage of his distraction.

With the dwarfs at full strength, the skaven stood no chance and began to flee up the river tunnel. Those without black fluid on their paws scrabbled at the walls, and then hurled themselves into the river in terror. Soon, the skaven had retreated. The battle was won.

The dwarfs were bloody, but mostly unharmed. The skaven forces, on the other hand, had been decimated.

‘How did we win?’ asked Felix, stunned by the sheer number of enemy corpses.

‘They fought to capture, not slay, manling,’ said Gotrek, kicking a skaven corpse into the river. It landed with a splash, then disappeared beneath the churning foam. ‘Though for what purpose, I can’t begin to guess.’

‘Why did you not fall to the gas like the rest of us, Slayer?’ asked Wolfhame suspiciously.

Gotrek shrugged. ‘I’ve always preferred slaying to sleeping.’

For the first time since they’d met, Norri Wolfhame cracked a smile. He took Gotrek’s hand, shook it once, and then clapped him on the back.

But not all of their members had escaped unscathed.

‘Glorin?’ called Ulgar. When there was no answer, the old runesmith called his apprentice’s name again, a note of desperation in his voice. Alarmed, Wolfhame did a quick head count. Glorin was nowhere to be found.

‘They took him,’ said Tebur. The Thunderer’s tone was grim, but his voice was comically loud, the result of one too many shattered eardrums. ‘Netted him, but good.’

‘If they’ve harmed a hair in his beard I’ll burn every one of them to a cinder,’ said the old runesmith, eyes blazing. A few of the runes atop his staff shimmered ominously. Felix felt their power prickle the back of his neck. He almost felt sorry for the ratmen. Almost.

‘Can you track them?’ asked Wolfhame of Gromnir, or perhaps Gromnar. Felix was still having difficulty telling them apart.

‘Don’t need to,’ said the Ironbreaker matter-of-factly. ‘They went up the tunnel.’

Wolfhame sighed. ‘After that, iron skull.’

Gromnir nodded. ‘We tracked the Slayer, didn’t we?’

‘And it only took you twenty years to catch me,’ said Gotrek with a snort.

Wolfhame put his hand on the Reckoner’s chest to stop him before he could do something rash. ‘Then we go. Now. There isn’t a skaven alive who can outrun a dwarf underground.’

‘You’re joking!’ Malbak’s voice broke and he tried to cover his fear with a cough. ‘Follow them? Have you all gone mad?’

One of Vabur Nerinson’s massive hands crashed down on Malbak’s shoulder. His bushy, black eyebrows were drawn low, his eyes dark and serious. ‘If Glorin hadn’t grabbed your feet, it would be you we’re chasing after.’

‘I know,’ Malbak admitted. ‘He’s a hero. I’ll remember him always. But we were nearly killed.’ He looked around at the assembled dwarfs for an ally and found none. ‘They’ll be expecting us this time.’

An angry silence reigned that was only broken when Martinuk held up a handful of rubber masks. ‘My fellow dwarfs. Might I suggest we take a few of these along? Just in case?’

They pursued the skaven for two days without rest, and by the morning of the third day Gromnir admitted that the trail had gone cold. The black liquid gave the ratmen too much of an advantage. While the skaven raced along the roof of the river tunnel, the dwarfs had to do the best they could on foot. At times the way narrowed to a crack and they had to claw their way along slick rocks as the river raged behind them. Other times they found their way blocked entirely and had to find another route.

Exhausted, they’d stopped for a quick meal of hardtack and stale cheese and were about to resume the pursuit when Ulgar gave a cry. ‘We’re close! My apprentice is nearby.’

Gromnir scratched his head and looked down the tunnel. They were in the middle of another detour and the passageway was dark and crudely constructed. ‘Can’t be,’ he said gruffly. ‘We can’t have gained on them that much.’

‘Unless they doubled back,’ offered Gromnar.

Gromnir shook his head. ‘They’re days ahead. Why would they double back?’

‘I’m telling you, he’s near,’ said Ulgar, pushing himself into their midst. He held out his staff and pointed to one of the runes. It glowed a faint green. ‘I’ve enchanted it to glow when a dawi is near.’

Felix was about to point out that several dawi were near, but thought better of it. Obviously, Ulgar had accounted for the others. If his staff was glowing, it meant that Glorin was nearby.

Exhausted though they were, the team stumbled into a trot, intent on rescuing the apprentice. Felix was relieved to see Ulgar’s staff brighten as they proceeded. Could Glorin have escaped his captors and made his way back towards the group? Felix began to feel the faintest ray of hope that the apprentice might be alive after all.

As they rounded a final corner, they spotted a figure slumped against the tunnel wall.

It was indeed a dwarf.

But it was not Glorin.

The dawi they’d found was near death. He was emaciated, hovering on the edge of starvation if not firmly in its grip. His face was harsh and lined, marred by what appeared to be a permanent squint and framed by a wispy white beard he’d tucked into a battered leather belt. He wore crude rags that might once have been sturdy dwarf wool and his pants were stained by sweat and viscera. His feet were over-large, even for a dwarf. Completely bare, they were cut and scratched in a dozen different places. If he’d fled his captors, he’d done it barefoot over sharp rock.

Vabur offered the Longbeard his aleskin and the dawi took it gratefully. He sputtered and choked on the first pull, then began to drink so vigorously that Vabur had to rescue the skin before it was completely emptied.

‘Not too much, ancient one. It’s zharrgot,’ he cautioned. He took a pull himself then looked around sheepishly at the disgusted looks on the other dwarfs’ faces. Even Felix couldn’t hide his loathing. Zharrgot tasted like the rutz and tended to give one the same. ‘I have a weakness for pepper ales,’ admitted the giant dwarf with an uncharacteristic blush.

‘What are you called, ancient one?’ asked Norri Wolfhame.

‘Balir,’ said the dwarf. ‘Balir Balirson.’ He blinked up at the group. ‘I’d ask if I was in Grimnir’s halls, except I can’t imagine what an umgi would be doing there.’

‘This is Felix,’ said Gotrek. ‘Dwarf friend and Rememberer.’

Felix ignored Balir’s slight. Judging from the look of him, the Longbeard had been through a lot. They gave him food from their meagre stores and, after a quick meal, he pronounced himself if not whole, then at least passable.

He’d been the leader of a patrol sent into the lower vaults to investigate signs of skaven encroachment when that was still but a rumour. They’d run into a group of ratmen using the same tactics as the ones who’d attacked Wolfhame’s crew at the river ambush, except they hadn’t had Martinuk on hand to distribute skaven masks. They’d quickly fallen victim to the gas.

Balir had awoken in a nightmare.

He’d found himself in a tiny cell with a dozen other dwarfs dressed in rags, each of them so pale and thin that their ribs shaded their bellies and their skin was like parchment stretched over bone. He didn’t recognise any of them and they spoke in heavily accented Khazalid that he had difficulty understanding. They were at the end of their physical strength and had little interest in communicating, so he passed the time making and then discarding plans to escape. How long he had languished there, he did not know, but the number of dwarfs in his cell dwindled daily as skaven guards dragged them screaming into the lower tunnels.

When Balir’s turn came, they took him down into the bowels of what he soon realised was a dwarf hold. The masonry was ancient and crumbling, but he recognised the quality of dawi work. His guards brought him to a large central chamber. Many more black-clad skaven like the ones who’d ambushed Balir’s team were stationed about the room, their tails twitching occasionally as they stood at attention.

At the far side of the room was a massive vault door that was large enough to ride a herd of mountain ponies through at once. An intricate rune was carved in the wall above it and on the floor below lay a pile of stinking corpses, many so badly rotted that it was impossible to tell what race they might once have been.

The guards threw him to the floor in front of a skaven shaman. Given Balir’s limited comprehension of the ratman tongue, he could discern only that the other skaven called it ‘Tazuk’.

Tazuk was a fearsome sight. He wore a dawi skull for a helmet and, Balir realised in horror, a cape made from dawi skin. A dozen golden loops pierced his muzzle ridge from his snout to his beady little eyes. Worst of all, the creature wore around his neck a necklace made from what Balir could only assume was braided beard hair. The skull, beard, and cape made Tazuk look more like a dwarf than a rat, and Balir soon guessed that that was the point.

In any other circumstance, Balir might have laughed. A skaven wanting to be a dwarf! Imagine! One look into Tazuk’s eyes and the laughter died in his throat. He was indeed mad, and it was the kind of insanity would drive the grey seer to kill without mercy or remorse.

It was then that Balir knew that if he didn’t escape he would end up like one of the corpses in front of the vault. While Tazuk cursed his troops in their weird, squeaking tongue, Balir seized a curved knife from the belt of one of his guards and stabbed the creature in the knee. Before it could even squeal in pain, he spun and plunged his dagger into the eye of the other guard, and then bolted for the door.

Luck was with him. He’d caught the assembled skaven by surprise. Only a single black-clad rat stood between him and the door. In a fair fight, Balir knew he could have defeated the guard, but he could not afford to waste the seconds it would take to kill it. He had only moments before the rest of the skaven came to their senses.

Instead of engaging it, he ducked his head and charged forward, hoping to bowl it over and make his escape. The skaven shrieked in alarm and try to hurl itself aside, but it was too late. They crashed together. Seconds later several distinct pops told Balir why this particular skaven had been so desperate to avoid him. The ratman had been carrying dozens of gas-filled eggs, most of which had burst open when he’d fallen.

Sweet-smelling gas filled the central room as Balir untangled himself from the skaven warrior. Dark green clouds stung his eyes and burned his throat, but he was able to push onwards and soon left the gas behind. It had done its work on the skaven though, knocking out Tazuk and much of his household guard. No pursuit was mounted for several hours.

The Longbeard finished his tale with a grunt. ‘And for the first time in days I decided to take a short nap. That’s when you lot showed up to interrupt it.’

Norri Wolfhame’s brow wrinkled. ‘A mad skaven wearing a dawi skin? A pile of corpses? What are we to make of this?’

‘Who knows what foul rituals the ratmen perform away from the eyes of the dawi?’ answered Malbak with a shrug. ‘Perhaps they were sacrificing prisoners to their god.’

Vabur Nerinson bounced the head of his maul in the palm of one hand. ‘I knew a dwarf who wore a string of skaven ears around his neck. The ratmen could be doing the same with dawi bones. We’re a badge of honour to them.’ He seemed to approve, despite the gruesomeness of the thought.

Felix shook his head as the others debated the meaning of the story Balir had told them. He knew far less about the ratmen than the dwarfs, but he could not imagine them leaving a pile of corpses to rot. They were rumoured to eat whatever their paws could grasp, and he’d seen with his own eyes evidence that they ate their own dead. So why stay away from the bodies? Could they be poisoned? That made no sense. Skaven were reputed to eat warpstone and other toxic brews that would fell even a dwarf. So if the corpses weren’t poisoned, somehow the skaven must have been prevented from approaching them. But how? Balir had mentioned the presence of a rune nearby.

‘Can you sketch the rune you saw?’ he asked suddenly, interrupting the others. Quickly, he outlined his line of reasoning to the group.

‘Of course I can,’ said Balir gruffly. He took a dagger from Vabur and carved out its likeness in the rock-dust that coated the floor of the passageway. Ulgar grunted once when he was halfway through, then again when he was done.

‘The armoury,’ the old runesmith muttered to himself. ‘The armoury of Karak Tam.’

‘Ulgar?’ asked Norri Wolfhame. ‘Do you recognise the rune?’

Ulgar looked up with haunted eyes. ‘We must send for the armies of Barak Varr right away.’

‘You’re not serious…?’ asked Wolfhame hesitantly.

‘When you spoke of Karak Tam I thought, as many of you did, that it was merely a legend,’ admitted the runesmith. ‘But the secret to crafting the rune Balir has drawn was lost to us in the War of Vengeance. It is said that the magics involved in its creation were such that it took a dozen of the finest runesmiths ever born to the dawi race over a hundred years to craft, and craft it they did. Over the entrance to the armoury of Karak Tam.’

‘What does it do?’ Malbak asked breathlessly.

Ulgar ignored him, instead focussing on Balir. ‘You made a mistake fleeing from the skaven. The safest place for you would have been inside the armoury. The rune you speak of kills any non-dawi who crosses the threshold.’

There was a moment of silence as they digested this. A rune that kills any creature but a dwarf! If the secret to its creation hadn’t been lost, who knew what the dawi nations might look like today? Felix could well imagine the dour race scrawling one over the entrance to every hold.

‘If I’d have been safe inside the armoury, why did the skaven bring me there?’ asked Balir.

‘It wanted you to bring out whatever was inside,’ offered Felix. It seemed obvious to him, but the dwarfs looked at him like he’d just suggested that Tazuk the Mad had wanted Balir to cover himself in honey and dance a jig with a cave bear. The idea that a dwarf would cooperate with the skaven was so foreign to them that they hadn’t even considered it. ‘That’s why the skaven who attacked us strove to capture, not kill us. This “Tazuk” believes there are still powerful weapons locked inside the vault and he will need dwarfs to get them out.’

‘It’s possible,’ admitted Balir. ‘I was the last of the prisoners to be removed from my cell. Maybe they sent the others into the armoury, and they were smart enough not to come out.’

‘Can Tazuk be on to something?’ asked Wolfhame of Ulgar. ‘Could there still be weapons inside the armoury?’

Ulgar shrugged. ‘The histories do not say. But if there are, they would be among the most powerful rune weapons in existence. The dwarfs of Karak Tam were some of the finest runesmiths and weaponsmiths in the entire dawi nation. Their weapons feature prominently in many of our legends. If they were to fall into any hands but a dwarf’s it would be a disaster. If a mad skaven were to get a hold of them…?’

‘Grimnir’s beard,’ said Wolfhame, his armoured fist crashing into his palm. He stared down the tunnel towards Karak Tam, then back the way they came. ‘King Grundadrakk must be alerted, but I’ll not leave poor Glorin to such a fate. We’ll send our strongest warrior back to Barak Varr while we continue the pursuit.’

Gotrek cursed. ‘You mean your second strongest warrior.’

Felix looked back up the tunnel. They’d followed a relatively straight path upriver, but before that? He remembered the twisting tunnels carved by skaven slaves. How could anyone retrace their steps through that maze? ‘Does anyone remember the way?’ he asked.

They all looked at him like he was mad. ‘You don’t?’ Malbak blurted out, before being elbowed into silence by Martinuk.

‘Don’t make fun of the umgi,’ whispered the mercenary. Felix flushed scarlet. Of course a dwarf would remember. Navigating these kinds of tunnels was second nature to them.

‘Vabur,’ said Wolfhame, ignoring Felix’s outburst. ‘It’s you. Get going.’

The giant dwarf crossed his arms stubbornly. ‘I’m not fleeing to the surface like a coward. Send Malbak. He doesn’t even want to be here.’

‘I would dearly love to send Malbak,’ said Wolfhame with a roll of his eyes, ‘but I worry the message would not get through. No. It has to be you.’

Vabur puffed up, somewhat mollified by Wolfhame’s confidence in his skills.

The white-bearded Reckoner knelt in front of Balir. ‘I would not ask this if the situation were not dire, but the ratmen have captured one of our own and we mean to rescue him. Can you lead us back to the Karak?’

The Longbeard looked up at the other dwarfs with suspicion that quickly gave way to weary resignation. ‘I can,’ he said.

‘Then it’s settled,’ said Gotrek rubbing his hands gleefully. ‘My axe will feast on skaven blood tonight!’

But Gotrek’s axe did not feast on skaven blood that night, nor the next.

Balir’s presence in the group both helped and hindered them. He was able to lead them around skaven scouting parties but, despite his stubbornness, he was simply unable to match the pace they’d set before. Gromnir, who seemed to be the twin most versed at tracking, informed them that they were days behind the group who’d taken Glorin. Felix could only hope the skaven would keep the apprentice in a cell for a few days before they brought him before Tazuk and give them time to rescue him.

It was during one of their infrequent rest periods that Martinuk approached him.

They’d scattered up and down a narrow tunnel, each of them dropping their packs in the dust and then wearily following them to the ground. Gotrek had gone ahead to scout with one of the twins, so Felix had taken the opportunity to catch up on his writing. He’d been relieved to find that his journal had remained safe in its oiled leather pouch during his dip in the river and had just put pen to page when Martinuk sat down beside him. He cut a slice of hard cheese off a block and offered it to Felix. It was stale, but it made the hardtack go down easier, so Felix took it gratefully.

‘How goes the Remembering?’ asked Martinuk abruptly.

Felix studied the page, knowing that the question was probably just one of the niceties of conversation and deserved a flippant answer. ‘Not well,’ he admitted. ‘Gotrek’s adventures span many years. I find my greatest problem is deciding what parts to leave out.’

Martinuk grunted. His fingers beat against the block of cheese. Felix could tell the dwarf wanted something from him, but couldn’t find the words. He closed the journal and returned it to its pouch. ‘Was there something you wanted to ask me?’

‘I saved your life back there,’ the mercenary said gruffly.

Felix nodded solemnly. ‘I owe you a great debt, herr dwarf.’

Martinuk nodded as if the matter were settled. Abruptly, he spoke again. ‘Why him?’

Puzzled, Felix spoke slowly. ‘I don’t follow.’

‘You’re Gotrek’s Rememberer. Why is he worthy of your services? Trollslayers take oaths to end their lives because of some great shame – often a crime they’ve committed,’ said Martinuk. ‘Gotrek’s a criminal. And yet you’ve sworn an oath to immortalise his deeds in an epic poem.’

‘I–’ Felix stuttered. Though their actions during the Window Tax Riots had made them wanted men across half the Empire, he’d never consider the fact that Gotrek’s own race might think of him as a criminal. ‘I suppose I never thought of it that way,’ he admitted. ‘Gotrek speaks little of his past, and has never spoken about the events that caused him to take the Slayer’s Oath.’

‘And what if those events make him unworthy of an epic?’ Martinuk asked softly.

Felix considered this and found he didn’t have an answer. That in itself terrified him. To Felix, Gotrek’s life began on that fateful day in the midst of the riots when he’d rescued Felix from the Reiksguard. But dwarfs were exceptionally long-lived, and Gotrek may have lived the equivalent of many human lifetimes before they’d met. His deeds as a Slayer formed the bulk of Felix’s epic, but what if the foundation was rotten? What if Felix had spent the last twenty years of his life recording the deeds of a criminal?

King Grundadrakk’s words to Gotrek echoed in Felix’s ears: Your name was the last inscribed in the book.

Gotrek had been the engineer in charge of constructing the vault in which the Book of Grudges was housed – likely the Royal Engineer. Had he committed some crime that had gotten him banished from the Barak?

Felix looked up and down the line of dwarfs. Likely he was the only one amongst them who was in the dark about the nature of Gotrek’s great shame. Although curious, he’d never pressed Gotrek on its nature, but he resolved to ask again the next time they stopped.

The Slayer himself emerged from the darkness at the end of the tunnel, followed closely by Gromnir.

‘We’ve found a vault,’ said Gromnir excitedly.

‘That’s not the right vault,’ said Balir angrily.

The expedition had gathered on a terrace overlooking a great hall far beneath them. The twins had found places at a marble banister, evidently fearless of being seen by whatever was below, while Norri Wolfhame stood with arms folded near the Longbeard. Malbak hung far back with Ulgar and Tebur Tanilson, near a pile of wood dust that had once been a painting.

The sheer volume of the hall amazed Felix. It was nearly a hundred feet deep and several hundred across. Though it was lit only by scattered torches in iron wall braces, the dwarfs could no doubt see to its far recesses. Felix, on the other hand, had some difficulty piercing the gloom, even from their elevated vantage point.

A fine layer of rock-dust lay everywhere on the floor below them, disturbed by narrow paths of skaven tracks: paw prints followed by wide smudges where their tails occasionally dragged against the ground. The hall had once been home to a fountain, in the centre of which stood a majestic statue of Grimnir, judging from the dual axes.

A circle of raised rock surrounded the statue, forming what might once have been a reflecting pool. Dry now, it had probably once been fed by the very same river they’d followed into the depths. It was the kind of fountain lovers in Altdorf might have cast copper pieces into as they wished for romance. Of course, thought Felix wryly, dwarfs as a race were too cheap to throw money into puddles, but it was likely that the fountain had served some similar romantic purpose.

At the far end of the hall was an enormous door – larger, even, than the vault of Musin Balderk. It lay slightly ajar, balanced on steel hinges that reflected the flickering torchlight so well that Felix judged them to be nearly free of rust – a miracle for such an ancient monument. Though Felix stood at the edge of the terrace, it was too dark to see into the next room.

‘Look!’ said Gromnar. ‘Dwarfs!’

Several figures shambled towards the vault in single-file along the far wall. They followed one of the paths the skaven had beaten through the rock-dust. They wore thick grey cloaks stained the colour of iron ore, so that they looked like boulders come to life. They moved with a peculiar gait as if they were in constant pain, but if they’d been tortured, their torturer was nowhere to be seen.

‘They’re not dwarfs,’ said Gotrek with a curse.

‘What makes you say that?’ Wolfhame rubbed his chin as he studied them. ‘Those are Ironbeard cloaks, unless I miss my guess. They were a smallish clan that mined a vein of magnetite on the outskirts of Barak Varr before the skaven came. They disappeared during the war.’ His eyes were grim as he met their gazes. ‘We’d thought them the first victims of the ratmen, but now we know they came here instead.’

‘Ironbeard cloaks or no, no dwarf would ally himself with a skaven,’ said Martinuk with a curse. Gotrek nodded in agreement, but his brow creased when Martinuk averted his eyes and spat on the ground instead. It was an odd feeling for Felix to encounter someone who treated the Slayer not as a hero, but as a criminal. ‘If they have joined with the ratmen,’ continued Martinuk, ‘then they should be dealt with in the same manner as the skaven – axe first.’

‘Balir?’ asked Wolfhame, turning to the Longbeard. ‘What do you know of these dwarfs?’

Balir glowered into the darkness. ‘Maybe the dwarfs I shared a cell with were Ironbeards, but I passed through this hall during my escape and there were no dawi to be found.’

‘Something is rotten in Marienburg,’ said Felix with a scowl. He shrugged when the dwarfs looked at him with puzzled expressions. ‘It’s a human saying. It means that there is something amiss.’

‘Marienburg is indeed a cesspit then,’ said Wolfhame. Felix suppressed a sigh. Dwarfs were a literal breed, and explaining a decent metaphor was often more trouble than it was worth.

Gromnar had kept his eyes trained on the column of dwarfs. If Gromnir was the tracker, then Gromnar was the scout. He had the keenest eyes of any of them. ‘They’ve got a prisoner.’

Felix looked where the Reckoner indicated. A solitary skaven warrior walked among the ranks of the dwarfs. Smaller than average with a snub nose like an Altdorf bullhound, it clutched its tail in its paws, as if reassured by its presence. Other than this the ratman was unarmed and unarmoured, though it carried a heavy pack on its back. Felix could see no sign of restraints, or anything at all to keep the skaven from darting away from the column.

‘Maybe the vault is some kind of prison?’ suggested Gromnir as the column disappeared behind the door.

‘What good would a skaven prisoner be to a dwarf?’ asked Ulgar. The runesmith looked disgusted by the very thought. ‘What would you feed it? Other skaven?’

‘They have been known to eat their own kind,’ said Martinuk darkly.

‘There’s another one,’ said Gromnar.

An enormous skaven emerged from the open door of the vault carrying a huge golden hammer embossed with runes. Half again as tall as the dwarfs, it was the same beast Felix had seen clinging to the ceiling at the river ambush. Naked, except for a red crest of fur that ran from its creased brow to the spot where its tail might once have been, its crude tattoos were clearly visible even in the dimness. It paused at the entrance, the glow from the room beyond highlighting its silhouette, and scanned the terrace where the dwarfs were hidden. Though Felix thought he felt its gaze on him, it was bright in the hall below and dark on the terrace. It must not have been able to see past the gloom. After a moment, it barked something to those inside in its crude language, and then turned around and lumbered back into the vault, leaving the door ajar behind it.

‘Grimnir’s beard,’ barked Wolfhame loud enough that Felix worried they’d be heard, despite the distance. ‘A skaven Trollslayer!’

Everyone looked at Gotrek, clearly expecting some kind of explosion. The Grim Brotherhood was often referred to as a cult, with the Slayer’s Oath at its heart. Their markings were sacred. Beyond sacred – they defined all Trollslayers. This skaven mockery was sacrilege of the highest order.

Instead of storming down the stairs, axe bared, as everyone expected, Gotrek merely narrowed his eyes. ‘Mine,’ he said quietly.

‘Caution, Slayer,’ said Ulgar with his dark rumbling voice. A set of yellow and disfigured eyes belonging to the cave bear skin he wore as a cloak glimmered just above his own. ‘Unless I miss my guess, Tazuk has managed to free at least one of Karak Tam’s fabled weapons from its armoury. The golden rune weapon wielded by the Ratslayer was the Flamehammer. Though it may not work correctly for a skaven, it will retain some fraction of its power. And a powerful weapon it is.’

‘I’ll pit my axe against a hammer any day or night,’ sneered the Slayer, unbuckling his axe and swinging it back and forth to test its weight.

‘Remember our purpose, Gotrek,’ cautioned Norri Wolfhame. ‘We’ve come to rescue Glorin and to find the Book of Grudges.’

‘That’s not my purpose,’ growled Gotrek. ‘My doom awaits.’

‘And a glorious doom it would be, wouldn’t it?’ asked Martinuk darkly. ‘Die in battle against a few dwarfs and a painted rat, and leave an innocent boy like Glorin to fend for himself. You Slayers think of no one but yourselves.’

Gotrek reddened and glared at Martinuk with his one good eye. ‘Did you say something, mercenary?’

‘You heard me,’ responded the dwarf, unlimbering his own axe.

Thinking quickly, Wolfhame nodded to the twins. Gromnir stepped in front of Gotrek, while Gromnar placed himself squarely in front of Martinuk, each a wall of solid metal.

‘Dwarfs do not fight dwarfs when there are skaven to be killed!’ Wolfhame said in a stage whisper. ‘When we get back to Barak Varr you two can gut each other for all I care, but for now you’ll both be silent.’

‘I’ll be silent when I’m dead,’ said Gotrek with a growl, and such was the fury that underlay his tone that Gromnir took a nervous step back, armour or no.

‘The Ratslayer is the same creature that led the ambush at the river,’ Felix quickly interjected. ‘I saw him when I was hoisted to the ceiling. All we have to do to find Glorin is follow him back to wherever he came from.’

‘When were you going to tell me about this, Rememberer?’ asked Gotrek balefully.

‘My eyes aren’t as good as a dwarf’s,’ countered Felix. ‘I wasn’t sure of what I’d seen.’

If there was one thing he’d learned in his years travelling with the Slayer, it was that if you ever needed to placate a dwarf, all you needed to do was appeal to his vanity. A dwarf’s senses were so acute that they tended to think of humans as blind, deaf and dumb by comparison. To their way of thinking, it wasn’t Felix’s fault that he hadn’t gotten a good look at the Ratslayer. He was only human.

‘It seems you’ll get your wish after all, Slayer,’ said Ulgar. The runesmith had stepped to the railing and clutched it with both hands. ‘If we find this mad Seer Tazuk, then we find my apprentice. And, as the manling says, that red-haired monstrosity will lead us right to him.’

They descended via an ancient stairway cut into the wall. The vault door that the Ratslayer had used was perilously close to where they stood. Even Felix could hear gentle chanting through the slightly-open door, dark words rich with eldritch meaning and pain. He’d heard rumours long ago of a race of dwarfs who’d surrendered themselves to Chaos and wondered now if these Ironbeards might not have done the same.

‘I don’t like it,’ said Wolfhame studying the vault door. ‘There could be ten dwarfs or a hundred in a vault that size.’ He turned to the Longbeard. ‘Is there a way around them?’

‘There is,’ Balir admitted. ‘But it would take days to circle around to it. This is an old hold, built in times of great conflict. The founders of Karak Tam wanted to defend only one entrance and this is it. The armoury lies beyond this room,’ he said.

‘We could fight them,’ said Gotrek, an evil gleam in his eyes.

‘They’ll be quickly reinforced,’ said Balir with a shake of his head. He pointed at several dark side passages. ‘The bulk of the skaven dwell outside the hold. Tazuk has only a small force within, perhaps to avoid sharing the loot with the entire horde.’

‘We should go around,’ said Malbak a little too shrilly. He blanched when the others glared at him. ‘Well, it’s obvious the Ironbeards don’t have the book, isn’t it?’

‘Oh, quit dribbling on the floor, Drumnokson,’ said Gotrek, unable to disguise his loathing of his former apprentice. Felix wondered if there was more to it than Gotrek’s customary disdain of cowards. Could Malbak have had something to do with Grundadrakk’s grudge?

Martinuk had stolen ahead and slipped into the shadows near the vault door in order to get a look inside. He returned as quietly as he could, leaving small divots in the rock-dust like a deer track across fresh snow.

‘The chamber beyond is huge, and a set of… obstacles separate us from the other dwarfs,’ said the mercenary hesitantly. ‘If the Slayer can keep his mouth shut for more than a few minutes, we can slip around them with none the wiser.’

Gotrek swelled up like a balloon.

‘What kind of obstacles?’ Felix asked quickly. Silently, he cursed Martinuk for provoking the Slayer. How long before those two came to blows?

Martinuk cast a nervous eye at the rest of the group. ‘Best you see for yourselves,’ he said finally. Without another word, he turned and started back for the door, leaving them to follow as they chose.

Before hurrying to join Martinuk at the door, Wolfhame quietly instructed them to step in Martinuk’s footprints to better disguise their numbers, and further threatened to disembowel the first man or dwarf to make a sound.

It was only when they were pressed against the wall just outside that Felix got his first look at the chamber beyond the door. It was almost as large as the one in which they now stood, and lavishly decorated by stone carvings on the walls. Once, they might have depicted heroic deeds by dwarfs of old – a dawi-version of the epic poem Felix was writing for Gotrek – except that some had been defaced by lewd carving of genitalia and scrawling glyphs that Felix guessed where curse words. A line of pillars marched down the centre of the room, each of which was carved to resemble a dawi warrior holding up the ceiling. These statues were too enormous to deface, but their feet had been chiselled away, and often been replaced by crude carvings of ratmen wielding swords. It was obvious the skaven had been here at some time in the recent past.

Piles of rubbish and possibly excrement lay about the periphery of the chamber, as if the dwarfs had been using it for a toilet before converting it to its current purpose. Though the smell assaulted Felix even from this distance, the score or so of dwarfs who surrounded a central stone slab that was placed between the massive pillars seemed unaffected. Each of them stood as if hypnotised by their leader. A hollow-eyed dwarf dressed in rags that might once have been holy robes stood over the skaven prisoner. It lay its stomach on a crude stone altar, tail outstretched. The dwarf held a rusty butcher’s knife in one hand and raised it to cut off the tail at its pinkish base.

What they were up to, Felix could not begin to guess. The stink of madness lay about the place. Perhaps these dwarfs had caught whatever disease had rendered mad the grey seer, Tazuk.

The sole exit was on the other side of the chamber. Martinuk led them around the edges of the vault, keeping the piles of rubbish – the ‘obstacles’ to which he’d referred – between himself and the Ironbeards. Privately, Felix thought they could have simply walked straight to the opposite door, so engrossed were the dwarfs in their ritual. The whole room reeked of Chaos magic and foul, rotting things.

‘Gold…’ Malbak whispered behind him. The engineer had stopped in his tracks and was staring at one of the midden piles. ‘It’s all gold.’

Felix’s eyes widened. Something deep within the pile was reflecting amber torchlight. It was gold! Piles of it. Coins, ingots, and who knew what else.

What kind of dwarf kept his gold in a pile of trash? A skaven might hoard gold in such a manner if it wished to hide it from its rivals, but dwarfs as a race had too much respect for the metal to treat it in such a fashion.

‘Leave it,’ he hissed to Malbak. The others were leaving them behind, and Felix had no wish to be in the room when the Ironbeards’ ritual was complete.

‘What harm could it do to take just one piece?’ asked the engineer in annoyance. He reached into the midden pile and drew forth half a gold chain. The other half appeared to be caught on a bone spur deep within the pile. ‘Just… need to…’ he grunted, giving it a tug.

Felix eyed the shifting offal warily. ‘Malbak…’ he said, reaching for the dwarf.

Suddenly, the pile shifted and an avalanche of trash crashed down around their ankles, narrowly missing Felix. Malbak held the gold chain triumphantly, but the echoes of the crash still reverberated throughout the vault.

In the centre of the room, twenty dwarfs looked up, their skin sloughing away like melted wax. Felix realised to his horror that the creatures inside the vault weren’t dwarfs after all. They were skaven wearing dawi skins like clothing. Amber rodent eyes, shot through and through with wormy veins, stared at the dwarfs through crudely cut eye holes. Even though their snouts were stunted and deformed compared to normal skaven, they could not quite fit them under their skin masks and their faces bulged hideously at the snout. If they had tails at all, they were small pink nubs, scarred over at the top. That was why they had been walking oddly as they entered the vault, Felix realised. None of them had tails.

The skaven-dwarfs stared at Malbak and the others with cold, dead eyes, and then drew wickedly curved blades from under their skin-cloaks. Their leader, the one who’d been about to sever the tail of their prisoner, pulled down its mask like the hood of a cloak, to better see its attackers. Its eyes were pools of blood in snowy white fur that glared at them in hatred. Felix recognised it immediately as a grey seer… not Tazuk, but no less dangerous. With a hideous squeak, it ordered the attack.

‘Grungni’s forge and anvil, it can’t be. They’re not dwarfs at all,’ gasped Norri Wolfhame. The Reckoner’s eyes reflected the horror they all felt. Skaven, dressed in dawi skins.

‘Nobody dishonours a dawi by wearing their skin,’ growled Gotrek as he freed his axe. His single eye burned with a kind of fury Felix had rarely seen before.

Martinuk glared at Malbak with undisguised disgust. ‘You may be an idiot, Malbak, but at least we have a fight on our hands.’ With that, he drew his axe and hurdled the offal pile, followed closely by the Reckoners.

Malbak quickly stuffed the gold chain into his shirt, and then unapologetically began rummaging through the midden pile for more gold. ‘There might be weapons in here,’ he said lamely.

Felix shook his head as he drew Karaghul and joined the dwarfs in battle. The skaven outnumbered them three to one, and he was certain he’d seen one or two of their number dart down the hallway towards reinforcements. Malbak’s most profitable mission might end up being their last.

As usual, the fighting was thick and furious around the Slayer. Gotrek’s axe wove a cage around him as he parried blows and then brought his axe around to sever a spine or amputate a wrist. A particularly powerful strike shattered a skaven blade into shrapnel that flew back into its eyes and face, provoking a shriek of dismay.

Felix took up his customary position behind and to the left of the Slayer. Even Gotrek couldn’t swing his axe in every direction at once, and it was Felix’s job to protect the Slayer’s flank. Several skaven had circled around Gotrek, well out of reach of his flashing axe, and now leapt to the attack. Felix cut the shortened snout off one with a backhand stroke, leaving it with nothing but a shrieking mass of tongue and enamel for a face. He kicked it in the chest, sending it reeling back into its fellows. A second ratman, more agile than the rest, lunged inward before Felix had regained his balance and stabbed at him with a recurved dagger. Unable to twist again in time, he felt the rat’s blade skip along his mail shirt and was once again grateful for its protection. He brought the pommel of his sword down on the skaven’s skull and felt something give. It stumbled backwards, half its body limp and unresponsive. It was almost a mercy when Felix cut it down.

Elsewhere, Gromnar and Gromnir wove through the tangle of skaven reaping lives like a farmer reaps wheat at harvest. Experts at armoured fighting, they were pure offense, relying on their armour to deflect those few blows that got past them.

Though Norri Wolfhame was as heavily armoured as the Reckoners, he fought with more finesse. When a snarling skaven hurled itself out of the crowd, black fur matted in its own blood, Wolfhame merely ducked and let the creature fly overhead. It landed heavily on the ground beyond and before it could recover itself he hewed downward with his hammer, splitting its skull like kindling.

A boom echoed out from the middle of the skaven horde and fur-lined gore was hurled into the air. Felix turned with the others and spotted Tebur Tanilson giggling madly as he lit the wick of a second metal globe and hurled it at the ratmen. He hadn’t even bothered to load his rifle, preferring the mayhem his charges wrought.

From atop the dais, the grey seer drew a few pellets of something that glowed a sickly green from under its skin-robe and popped them into its mouth, barely bothering to chew before swallowing them down. It shuddered, then squeaked as if in pain or ecstasy and began chanting a hideous ritual. Two points of stagnant light lit up in the vicinity of its belly, glowing beneath its skin and fur, which spread to the creature’s arms and legs. With a final shriek to its Horned God, it hurled the malevolent light at the dwarfs.

Felix braced himself for the effects of the skaven magic, but at the last second the blast made a right angle turn and flew into Ulgar’s staff. The runesmith watched the last of the eldritch power fade into one of the finely wrought runes at its tip, and then turned around and used it to smite a particularly brave skaven, caving in its chest.

As the combat wore on, Felix settled into a comfortable rhythm. Chop, parry, riposte. Crazed as they were, these skaven had no skill – they practically threw themselves onto his blade. Still, they had numbers. During a lull in the fighting Felix looked out into the horde and saw more warriors pouring out of the side tunnels. Worse, the grey seer had directed the majority of its troops to the entrance, cutting off their escape.

‘Gotrek,’ he called over his shoulder as he kicked a skaven body off his blade. The ratman collapsed and its dwarf skin settled over it with a sound that might have been a sigh of relief.

‘What is it, manling?’ grunted the Slayer. A rat-ogre had emerged from the crowd, tusks protruding from a distended jaw. It bellowed, drowning out Gotrek’s next words. The Slayer leapt forward and, with no more effort than he’d expended on any other foe, disembowelled it and sent it tumbling into the crowd. The Slayer had already amassed a heap of corpses in front of him, and the floor was slick with their viscera.

‘They’ve cut off our escape,’ Felix yelled, pointing at the door with Karaghul. Gotrek looked over just in time to see four skaven slam it shut. The last one, quicker than the rest, attempted to dart around the door before it was fully closed and was crushed to a paste by a hundred tons of stone.

‘They’ve cut off their own escape, manling,’ said Gotrek with a chuckle. Though he bled from a dozen minor wounds, he had barely begun to sweat. ‘They’re trapped in here with me now.’

Felix ducked the tip of a spear wielded by a one-eared skaven with blood on its muzzle. He grasped the shaft with his free hand and jerked it towards him. The skaven screamed as it was pulled onto the tip of his blade.

During a brief lull in the fighting, he scanned the room, looking for the others. He could see only one of the twins, and aside from Wolfhame, who stood in a circle of crushed corpses, the others were lost in the fog of war. Were any of them still alive? There must be hundreds of skaven and they could attack from all directions. If the expedition stood any chance of survival, they needed to get somewhere where they could force the skaven to come at them in small numbers.

Now that the door was closed, there was only one way out – a narrow passage that extended deeper into the hold. It wasn’t perfect, but it was their only chance for survival.

‘Gotrek,’ he called over his shoulder. ‘We’ve got to make for that passage.’

‘Go on without me, manling,’ answer Gotrek happily. ‘My doom calls!’

Felix shook his head. A greater doom awaited the Slayer than death at the hands of Tazuk’s insane minions. On the other hand, who was he to decide where and when Gotrek met his end? If the Slayer chose to perish here, that was his business. Unfortunately, if Gotrek fell, his Rememberer would not last long on his own. Felix looked up at the bare stone of the ceiling and felt an intense longing to see the sun again before he died. He would not perish here.

‘If you die now, your epic dies with you and the only thing the world will have to remember you by is your name in Grundadrakk’s Book of Grudges,’ he shouted.

Stunned, Gotrek momentarily dropped his guard. He rounded angrily on Felix. ‘That is an evil line of reasoning, manling,’ he said accusingly. Behind him, a black-furred skaven leapt forward, hoping to take advantage of the Slayer’s distraction. Its dagger descended towards Gotrek’s exposed back. The Slayer blocked it without even bothering to look, shattering its dagger and leaving it panicked and weaponless. ‘I won’t forget this,’ he threatened.

Turning back around, he swatted the black-furred skaven into the next life with the edge of his axe, then began fighting his way towards the door. Felix breathed a sigh of relief and followed. Gotrek wasn’t afraid of dying – he welcomed it. But he guarded his epic jealously. It was his one concession to vanity.

They joined up with Wolfhame and Gromnir, whose lion-crested helmet was covered in gore. The four of them fought back to back in a circle that slowly spun towards the far exit. Nearby, Martinuk had formed a kind of barricade behind a pile of offal and he’d cut down so many skaven as they swarmed over it that it had begun to collapse under the weight of their bodies. As soon as he spotted them, he renewed his attack, axe-clutched in one hand. He dragged a bundle of rags with the other that turned out to be none other than Malbak.

They found Tebur at the door. The skaven had left him for dead, or perhaps set him aside to devour as soon as it was safe. A gash in his chest hissed as he breathed, revealing something ropy and grey that might have been a lung. He looked up at Felix through bushy white eyebrows and caught his gaze with eyes Felix hadn’t realised were blue.

‘Herr Jogger,’ he wheezed, beckoning Felix down to his level. ‘T-take my pack,’ he said. A gout of fluid spilled out of his mouth and stained his beard. The pack he offered Felix felt lumpy and solid and dangerous.

‘I can’t take this, Tebur,’ said Felix regretfully. It felt odd to refuse a dwarf’s dying request, but there was no way he could carry it and fight the ratmen at the same time.

‘No, Herr Jogger,’ said Tebur with a toothy smile. He produced two of his metal globes, each casting off sparks from a burning wick. ‘If ye don’t take it, ye’ll be blasted apart with the rest of ’em.’

Felix’s eyes widened. He tore open the top of Tebur’s pack. The acrid scent of blackpowder that wafted out told him everything he needed to know. Tebur was carrying more explosive powder on him than an Imperial Iron Company.

‘Gotrek!’ he yelled over the din of melee.

Norri Wolfhame was the first to disengage from the press of ratmen. He looked down at the explosives in Tebur’s hands and cursed. ‘Gromnir!’ he called, grabbing the Reckoner by the pauldron. ‘We’re getting out of here!’

Gromnir looked down, his lion-crested helmet opened in a roar that framed his face. ‘No! Gromnar is still out there!’

‘He’s dead,’ yelled Wolfhame.

‘No!’

All of a sudden, Martinuk appeared out of nowhere and clunked the back of Gromnir’s helmet with the haft of his axe. Despite the metallic ringing, Gromnir did not go down, but he was off balance enough that Wolfhame and Martinuk were able to wrestle him into the passage.

Malbak stood nearby, bloody and cut. Felix shoved Tebur’s bag into the engineer’s hands and propelled him after the Reckoners, and then drew Karaghul and stood next to the Slayer. He wouldn’t put it past Gotrek to try for his glorious death right here in the passage.

‘Gotrek,’ he yelled, sidestepping a skaven blade and then stabbing out an eye with the tip of his blade. ‘Remember the Book of Grudges!’

The Slayer snarled and cut a ratman in half. He bent down and retrieved a spear from the ground and then sighted carefully along its length with his one good eye. With a mighty heave he hurled it across the room. The weapon shot straight over the heads of the horde and buried itself in the chest of the grey seer. The rat froze in mid-squeak. As the greenish warpstone fire died out around it, it tottered to the edge of the dais and fell into the crowd.

‘One less rat,’ said the Slayer, his smile revealing a mouthful of crooked yellow teeth.

Felix couldn’t help but grin alongside Gotrek as he turned away.

At his feet, Tebur sighed and went still, releasing the metal balls. They bounced on the ground and then rolled towards the skaven as their sparking wicks disappeared inside their shells. Before they could go off, skaven warriors were swept aside as if by the hand of a vengeful god, and Ulgar stepped out of the crowd. ‘I thought you were never going to kill that wizard,’ he barked at Gotrek.

The two metal balls rolled between his legs and he recognised them instantly. Spotting Tebur’s corpse, he cursed and then dashed forward with all the grace and speed that runesmiths were famous for not having.

Gotrek and Felix followed an instant before smoke and fire obliterated the passageway behind them.

They were now eight in number.

Tebur’s two explosive balls had produced enough fire and flame to set off the rest of his supplies, save for the barrel Malbak now carried. The conflagration had obliterated most of the skaven horde. If not for a final burst of speed, Gotrek and Felix would be nothing more than charred corpses, crushed into jelly when the passageway had caved in behind them.

Gromnar was gone and presumed dead, though no one had seen him since the opening minutes of the fight. Gromnir’s armour was so dented that he was unable to sit, and so knelt on one side of the corridor, weeping openly. It was a rare enough sight among the dwarfs that none of them seemed to know what to do about it, and now and then one attempted to awkwardly console him.

Martinuk had a deep gash in his leg that he’d sustained in his mad dash towards the corridor. He took out a noxious smelling black paste from a pouch at his belt, smeared it on the wound, and then briefly set it on fire before hissing in pain and quickly snuffing the flame with his cloak. Privately, Felix thought that the treatment was worse than the wound itself, but in a few minutes Martinuk was pacing back and forth as if he was uninjured.

Balir’s arms and chest were coated with blood, but the gruff Longbeard assured them it belonged to those he’d slain. Mostly.

The skaven had left Ulgar alone while he’d fought the grey seer. Perhaps they knew better than to interfere in a magical duel, or perhaps they hoped the runesmith would kill the seer so that one of them could take its place. However, he was not unharmed. He’d sustained his wounds when he’d activated the rune to deflect Tebur’s explosion. The runes at the top of his staff had heated to a searing white and then shattered, spraying shrapnel over the runesmith’s shoulders and back. Thankfully, his magic had held out and they’d emerged whole from the corridor.

Wolfhame stared back into the passage. Great slabs of rock and stone blocked the way back and the smell of dust was still thick in the air. ‘Skaven dressed in dawi skins,’ he said. ‘I would never have believed it.’

Though Wolfhame had been at the centre of it, his armour and his skill with a hammer had mostly protected him. The same could not be said of Malbak. He was bloody from a dozen different wounds, and he’d lost the tip of one ear to a skaven blade. He sat apart from the others with Tebur’s keg of blackpowder, still wearing the gold chain that had started the battle.

Gromnir seemed to notice him sitting there and rose all of a sudden. Tears had carved a dusty path in his cheeks and soaked his beard. ‘You! You did this!’ he roared, pointing his axe at the engineer. ‘You’ll die for what you’ve done!’

He strode across the floor and swung at Malbak like a woodsman cutting kindling. If it weren’t for Wolfhame’s hammer catching the haft of Gromnir’s weapon, the engineer would be dead.

‘Calm yourself!’ said Wolfhame and such was the fire in his voice that Gromnir took a step back. ‘We’re trapped in a hold full of skaven with no book and no way to return to the surface. We don’t even know if Vabur Nerinson was able to alert King Grundadrakk to our whereabouts, which means that not only are we trapped, there might not even be a rescue coming.’ He sneered down at Malbak. ‘The engineer might not be much of a fighter, but we’ll need every dwarf – and man,’ he said, nodding at Felix, ‘to work together if we want to return to our holds.’

Gromnir spat on the floor, but remained silent.

‘They know we’re here now,’ said Malbak. ‘They’ll come again in greater numbers. We need to turn back.’

There was such a note of despair in his voice that Felix almost took pity on him. Coddled by his father’s money and power, assigned a prestigious apprenticeship under Gotrek, and then given a cushy job guarding the vault of Musin Balderk, he’d probably never set foot outside the Barak. Wolfhame, Gotrek, even Felix himself, were hardened to the terrors of battle. Malbak wasn’t. That didn’t excuse his cowardice, but it did put it in a different light.

‘That way is blocked,’ said Wolfhame in disgust. ‘And I wouldn’t turn back in any case. We’re here for the Book of Grudges and I won’t return to King Grundadrakk empty-handed.’

Martinuk spoke up from the edge of the group. ‘Sorry to interrupt your speech-making, but I’ve found something at the other end of this passage that you’ll want to see.’

While the others had been arguing, Martinuk had scouted ahead. He took them down the corridor to a room that might have been a twin to the one they’d just left. The ceiling was so high that it was lost to the light from their lanterns. Instead of torches in iron wall sconces, the whole room was lit by an eerie green glow that came from a set of tubular tanks that lined either wall.

Felix stared in awe at the tanks. Set in brass bases larger than carriage wheels, they reminded him of nothing more than the glass test tubes he’d sometimes seen Imperial doktors use to store medicines. The glass alone was as tall as he was and must have cost a fortune to produce. He wondered if even Emperor Karl Franz’s personal glass blowers had the skill to produce something of this scale. Surely, it couldn’t be skaven work. It had to be some forgotten technology left behind by the dwarfs.

Riveted copper pipes through which murky fluid flowed connected each tank to its neighbours before rising upwards and disappearing in a tangle of metal into a hole in the ceiling. A low mist clung to the floor of the room that swirled into shapes that dispersed at the slightest disturbance. He felt like he was walking between the pillars of a temple to some forgotten god, only recently awakened. The air here was charged with evil and reeked faintly of cinnamon.

‘Ulgar,’ said Wolfhame, his gruff tone poorly disguising his fear. ‘What manner of magic are these?’

The runesmith advanced on one of the tanks and studied it. A nearby pipe gurgled as something semi-solid passed through it on its way to the ceiling. Ulgar brushed aside his cave bear hood as if to get a better look at it, and then muttered a few words under his breath. The tip of his staff began to glow a soft magenta, turning the green liquid a bluish brown. Warily, he tapped the glass with the tip of his staff. Clunk, clunk.

Confident that it was thick enough to resist a few blows, he advanced still further. Wiping a thin sheen of water droplets from the exterior of the tube, he cupped his hand over his brow and peered into its depths.

A sound echoed back at him from inside the tank. Clunk, clunk.

Ulgar looked back at the rest of them grimly. Felix wondered if anything could be living inside the tube, some horrible skaven experiment. They’d already seen ratmen wearing the skins of dwarfs. To what other depths of depravity could the skaven sink? Suddenly, he felt a wild urge to get as far away from the tank as possible.

Ulgar turned back towards it, and then reeled back with a shout as a dark face smashed up against the glass from the inside.

While the rest of them started back, Gotrek merely stood there, arms folded. ‘Put away your weapons,’ he said in annoyance. ‘It’s not getting out.’

Felix was embarrassed to find Karaghul in his hand, and he wasn’t the only one. Wolfhame had drawn his hammer, and Martinuk his axe. As they put away their weapons, the Slayer drew his and advanced on the tank. Ulgar barely had time to get out of the way as Gotrek wound up and smashed the tube with his axe.

Glass shards rode a wave of viscous liquid onto the floor. A body came with it, which Gotrek scooped up with one arm and deposited on the floor nearby. Pale as a worm and barely clad in soiled rags, it looked like a dwarf, but its face was grossly distended into a muzzle with a disturbingly humanoid nose on the end. The hair on his head and – most shamefully – his beard had been shaved, but new tufts of coarse brown hair grew from his shoulders and back and on the nape of his neck.

‘Glorin!’ said Ulgar, running to his apprentice’s side. He knelt quickly and began to treat Glorin’s wounds, muttering soothing words as he did. The apprentice gasped in short, hard breaths, as if there was so much liquid in his lungs he could not draw in enough air.

Felix could not believe his eyes. It was difficult to recognise the young apprentice. He’d heard of creatures in Sylvania who were half wolf and half man – and had even had a close brush with a mutant or two who might have looked like Glorin did now, but dwarfs were notoriously resistant to mutation. What had the skaven done to him? And to what purpose?

Ulgar’s calming words had an effect on the apprentice. Glorin’s breathing soon slowed.

‘By Grungni’s hammer and forge.’ Malbak took a few tentative steps towards the pair. He looked genuinely distraught. Glorin had been the one who’d saved Malbak from a similar fate. If not for his sacrifice, it would be the engineer lying on the floor with the face of a beast.

Ulgar looked up at Malbak as he knelt beside them and quickly covered up a flash of annoyance when he saw the expression of the engineer’s face.

‘What’s wrong with him?’ asked Malbak of the master runesmith.

‘He’s cursed,’ said Ulgar bitterly. He touched Glorin’s distorted cheek then yanked his hand away as if it had been burned. ‘The skaven have some foul magics at their disposal, but I’ve rarely seen them work on the dawi. Perhaps this foul liquid eased the transformation. For what purpose, I can’t begin to guess.’

‘Can you fix him?’ Malbak’s voice was small and loaded with guilt.

‘Sometimes the best cure is a quick and merciful death, boy,’ answered Ulgar, though Malbak was far from a boy.

‘Did you know about this room?’ asked Wolfhame of Balir, anger flaring.

‘The armoury is near here and I passed through this room in my flight, but never would I have guessed its purpose,’ admitted the Longbeard. ‘If I had, I would never have left it intact.’

‘We’ll destroy these tanks and make sure that no dwarf ever again shares Glorin’s fate,’ said Norri Wolfhame.

‘Wait,’ said Felix. He ignored the dwarfs’ stares as he looked down at the spot Malbak had just vacated. The engineer had left behind Tebur’s great cask of black powder.

The way back was sealed, leaving only one other entrance to this room… If they could somehow lure the skaven here and then detonate the keg, they might be able to even the odds.

‘Ulgar,’ he said, ‘you told us that the rune Balir saw above the armoury door barred entry to any but a dwarf.’

‘Aye,’ said the runesmith suspiciously.

‘Tazuk the Mad,’ said Felix to himself. His mind was racing. Skaven wearing dwarf skins, a curse designed to turn a dwarf into a skaven… it all made a twisted kind of sense. Tazuk wanted the weapons of Karak Tam so desperately he’d become unhinged. When the skaven were unable to enter the vault he’d tried to ‘fool’ the rune by dressing his own warriors in dawi skins. Transforming young Glorin into a skaven was merely the latest iteration of Tazuk’s madness.

‘What are you thinking, manling?’ rumbled Gotrek, but Felix was too caught up in his thoughts to pay heed to the dangerous undercurrent in the Slayer’s tone.

‘How many prisoners were in your group, Ancient One?’ he asked of the Longbeard.

Balir scratched his head and glared at the ceiling as if the answer could be found amongst the shadows. ‘Two score? Perhaps more?’

Two score! Hadn’t Balir told them earlier that it was possible that some of those dwarfs were already inside the armoury? That they’d been smart enough not to come back out?

‘I need to see the armoury,’ he said.

Gotrek, Felix, and Balir knelt near a stone balcony overlooking the armoury of Karak Tam. The room below them had obviously been intended for a last defence of the armoury’s treasures and was littered with cunningly placed stone benches that could quickly be overturned to offer cover from archers, while leaving open a killing field in front of the massive stone door that guarded the armoury.

Tazuk stood on a central dais, holding the Book of Grudges before him, exhorting his followers with all the fanaticism of a warrior priest and all the majesty of a squeaking rat. He was the same grey seer who’d ambushed them at the river near the start of their quest – the line of piercings that ran up his snout could not be mistaken. He still wore his armour of finger bones and his skull helmet. He looked like something old, newly arisen from the grave.

The door to the armoury of Karak Tam stood nearly twenty feet high and twenty more across.

‘Just as I thought,’ he said. ‘The door is closed.’

‘What are you getting at, manling?’ asked Gotrek.

‘That door is sealed,’ he said, indicating the vault. ‘Why would the skaven do that? They want inside so badly it’s driven them mad.’

He drew back away from the balcony and kept his voice low. ‘The skaven have been sending dwarfs inside to retrieve Karak Tam’s weapons, but like you said, no dwarf would aid a rat. I think Balir’s right. I think there are dawi inside that armoury.’

‘They’d be in rough shape, but if we could get word to them that we’re here to help it might help to even up the odds,’ said Balir thoughtfully.

‘Is there any way to alert them to our presence?’ asked Felix.

‘Certainly, manling,’ said Gotrek with a grin. ‘We fight our way through fifty skaven and knock.’

Felix looked back the way they’d come. A skaven sentry lay on the floor in a pool of blood. Its head lay a few feet away. Fifty-on-three were poor odds indeed, but he could not help but think the Slayer had gone up against worse.

‘We can use Grundlid,’ offered Balir.

‘Grundlid?’

‘Hammertongue. It’s a tapping language we use to convey meaning through the rocks themselves.’ The Longbeard glanced at the skaven below and, seeing that most watched Tazuk with rapt attention, he stole to the rear of the balcony and selected a section of wall that appeared to be cut from solid bedrock. He tapped it quietly with the pommel of his dagger, then waited, with his hand pressed against the rock.

Though Felix listened for some response, none came. In the chamber below, Tazuk squeaked viciously and a dozen skaven warriors thrust their fists at the ceiling. How long until one of them looked up and spotted the three of them skulking about on the landing? How long until the sentry was missed? Perhaps it might be better to simply abandon the plan and retreat back to the other room.

Balir’s face lit up. ‘They’ve responded.’

Felix realised he’d been holding his breath and let it out slowly.

Balir tapped out a complex code of short and long taps, and then awaited another response. ‘They’re two score in number and starving to a point where they just want to slay the skaven before they die. Unfortunately, they’re not able to open the door from the inside.’

‘We’ll have to open it from this side then,’ said Gotrek with a grin that said he’d like nothing more than to leap into the skaven horde below and hack his way to the door.

‘We’ll have to fight our way there,’ said Balir gruffly. ‘That big one worries me.’ He nodded at the hulking mass of rat flesh that stood next to Tazuk. The Ratslayer was not quite as tall as some of the other rat-ogres in the room, but he was twice as wide as any of them. Felix could tell that he was built like a dwarf, as if Tazuk had somehow managed to combine the best of both races. A golden hammer hung from his belt, the weapon Ulgar had called the Flamehammer.

‘How do we get from here to the armoury door and then hold it long enough for the dwarfs to open it from the inside,’ Felix asked to no one in particular. They’d have to fight their way through the entire horde to reach it and, as good a fighter as Gotrek was, even he could not fight them all. If only they had some kind of disguise that would allow them to pass through the skaven unseen.

He scanned the balcony, looking for some inspiration, and his gaze alighted on the slain skaven sentry. A horrible thought occurred to him.

‘I think I know how we can do it,’ he said.

Felix had felt so confident in his plan on the balcony, but now, facing seven dwarfs, some of them badly injured, he almost laughed at how ludicrous it was. If any of them had suggested an alternate course of action, he probably would have taken it.

‘Well, spit it out, manling,’ said Gotrek.

Felix cleared his throat and adjusted his chain shirt with a roll of his shoulders. Gotrek was right. If he didn’t spit it out, he would lose his nerve.

‘All right. The skaven outnumber us fifty to one, and when those rats we didn’t kill in the antechamber join up with Tazuk’s bunch, it’ll be worse than that. We need to strike now, before that happens.’

‘Strike? There’s only eight of us,’ said Malbak. He’d lost the whine from his voice ever since he’d seen what the skaven had done to Glorin, but he wasn’t stupid.

‘Yes,’ said Felix hastily, ‘but we have Tebur’s black powder bomb. A smaller amount than this killed nearly everything in the other room. If we can somehow lure the skaven here, we’ll retreat down the side passage and seal it behind us. Once we’re out of the blast area, we’ll set off Tebur’s bomb, kill the skaven, and bury the poor souls in those tanks all at the same time.’

‘That’s a fine plan, but it has at least one flaw,’ said Wolfhame. ‘What’s to stop them from simply retreating back the way they came?’

‘Well, that’s where Malbak comes in,’ said Felix reluctantly.

‘Me?’ Malbak exclaimed.

‘Balir used Hammertongue to communicate with the dwarfs inside the armoury. Though they’re few in number, they’ve pledged to attack the skaven from behind. But they can’t open the armoury door from the inside.’ He looked to Balir for support. The Longbeard nodded for him to go on. ‘Someone needs to get past the army of skaven and open the door.’

Malbak’s face and cheeks reddened with indignation. ‘You want me to fight through an army of crazed ratmen in order to secure the aid of a handful of starving dwarfs?’

‘Sounds like a job for a Slayer,’ reasoned Martinuk.

‘Aye,’ said Gotrek, his face splitting into a wicked smile. ‘But if I took that position the skaven would die before they got to this room.’

Felix glared at the mercenary before turning back to Malbak. ‘We’ll need every available warrior to block the side passage. What good is it to close the back door if the rats can escape out the front?’

‘You’ve seen me fight,’ said Malbak in disgust. ‘I won’t get more than five steps before they cut me down.’

Felix felt bad bullying the engineer, but he agreed with Malbak’s self-assessment. He was useless with a blade. On the other hand, the side corridor was wide enough that it would take the rest of the fighters to hold it against the skaven. Felix hated himself for what he was about to do, but the engineer was the only one they could spare.

‘You… won’t have to fight,’ he said reluctantly.

Gotrek cast a bloody lump at Malbak’s feet. The dark brown fur of the skaven sentry he’d killed was stained with gore and smelled like copper and offal. Gotrek’s axe was eternally sharp but was meant for killing skaven, not skinning them. Chunks of flesh still clung to the fur.

‘I got the idea from the skaven,’ Felix explained. ‘It’s crude, but if we create enough of a distraction it should get you past them, provided you stick to the shadows.’

‘What about the smell?’ asked Wolfhame dubiously. The Reckoner stared at the skin morbidly and nudged it with his toe.

‘You can’t seriously be considering–’ exclaimed Malbak in alarm.

Gotrek held up a pair of brownish sacks, criss-crossed with a web of purplish veins. ‘That’s what these skaven glands are for.’ He seemed to be taking entirely too much pleasure in Malbak’s predicament. ‘They call it ‘the musk of fear’. Maybe it’ll cure your stink.’

Despite Malbak’s protests, it had taken surprisingly little convincing to get him to wear the skaven skin. Felix had noticed a change come over the engineer ever since they’d found Glorin. Malbak was still a braggart and a coward, but it seemed that the sight of the apprentice runesmith’s ruined face had aged him years.

‘In poor light, and with a little luck,’ said Wolfhame as he stepped away from the engineer, ‘you could pass for a skaven warrior.’

‘I don’t see a difference,’ said Gotrek with a bark of laughter. Malbak glared daggers at him, but said nothing, smouldering quietly.

Felix eyed the others. Gromnir shrugged while Gotrek merely grinned. It would take more than poor light for the most blinded of ratmen to recognise Malbak as anything but a dwarf. The skaven sentry had been rail-thin, as most skaven were, while the engineer was heavy-set even for a dwarf. Wolfhame had done his best to cure the skin with a torch, but it still showed enough blood to make Malbak look like he’d sustained a mortal wound. They’d scooped out the ratman’s brains, but its skull was too small for Malbak’s head, and he wore it like an ill-fitting hat. Worst of all, he smelled like a tannery. Felix had a sneaking suspicion that the so-called ‘musk of fear’ was something that approximated urine. Felix mouthed a silent prayer to Sigmar that the skaven would be struck by a sudden and inexplicable plague of blindness. Otherwise, Malbak’s mission would be short-lived.

Balir returned from setting up Tebur’s keg, wiping his hands on a dirty white cloth. ‘Your Thunderer knew his black powder. We should be well away from here when that goes off,’ he said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder.

In the days before he’d taken up the hammer, he’d been something of a Thunderer himself, or at least so he told them. After watching him work, Felix began to believe. Balir’s training had returned with record speed.

Tebur had been organised if nothing else, and had packed the charges and blasting caps necessary to set off the bomb in the same sack. Balir had examined it with a critical eye, pronounced it adequate and commenced to work.

While Balir tampered with the keg, Norri Wolfhame and Ulgar had done what they could to hasten Glorin’s spirit into the afterlife. Interrupted mid-transformation, the apprentice had died shortly after Gotrek had broken the tank. To Felix, that was a mercy. Life in that state was too horrible to contemplate. They dared not set fire to his body with the skaven so close. Gotrek had dispatched a few sentries and soon Tazuk would begin to notice their absence. Instead, they placed him close to Tebur’s keg. It was undignified, but it would do the job.

While the others made their preparations, Felix tried to pen an entry in his journal – an entry that might be his last if their plan failed. He tried putting his pen to paper but found he couldn’t write. Martinuk’s words rang in his ears. Was Gotrek a criminal? He had to know.

He found the Slayer leaning against a wall, chewing on some hardtack.

‘Gotrek?’ he asked nervously. The Slayer had never been very forthcoming about the events surrounding his shaming and Felix worried that he would once more be rebuffed. ‘Why does King Grundadrakk hold a grudge against you?’

The Slayer glared up at him as he munched his hardtack. ‘That is none of your concern, manling.’

Felix nodded and turned away, but after a moment he turned back. He struggled to find words to describe how he was feeling, to sum up the conflict he felt. At last, he gave up. ‘I have to know,’ he said simply.

Gotrek studied him. Felix could not begin to guess what was going through his mind. It was for a Slayer and a Slayer only to know his shame. Felix had violated centuries of tradition just by asking. Perhaps Gotrek read something in Felix’s expression that he’d never seen before, because finally he spoke. ‘You’d better have a seat.’

Felix sat and waited patiently for the Slayer to continue.

‘The road to Karak Kadrin is long, and I did not travel directly to the Shrine of Grimnir after…’ Gotrek trailed off, his eyes grew distant. ‘Though Barak Varr was not directly in my path, it was one of the places I came before I swore the Oath. I’d run into a druchii raider in some nameless port and by the time I’d cut off his third finger he’d told me that Grundadrakk’s predecessor had had a hand in my shaming.’

Gotrek cracked his knuckles one by one as his thoughts returned to the events that had taken place all those years ago. ‘My wounds were still fresh and I was mad with rage. The guards recognised me from my former employment as the Royal Engineer and since I had not yet taken the Oath, they didn’t realise the danger their king was in.’

His face twisted into a snarl and his fist crashed into his palm. ‘He knew when he found me waiting for him in his chambers why I’d come. He didn’t even call for his guards. Instead he just laughed, like it was some great joke. I left him in a pool of his own blood, but I could not wipe that grin off his face. It stayed frozen on his corpse.’

Felix’s heart grew cold. Had Gotrek just confessed to murder? Had he killed the previous king of Barak Varr in cold blood? No wonder Grundadrakk had sworn a grudge against him. No wonder Norri Wolfhame had tracked him across the world for over twenty years.

‘What part did he play in your shaming?’ Felix asked.

Gotrek looked at him sharply. ‘That is not for you to know, manling.’

‘I must know,’ said Felix. ‘For the epic.’

Gotrek shrugged. ‘Then I release you from your oath.’

Felix shook his head. ‘It’s not that. I just need to know if the king’s death was justified.’

‘I could swear an oath that it was,’ said Gotrek. ‘But after all our travels together you either trust me or you don’t.’

With that, he rose and walked away. Felix watched him go, his emotions in turmoil. Gotrek had killed the previous king of Barak Varr in cold blood, but did that make him a murderer?

After all our travels together you either trust me or you don’t.

In all those years, Gotrek had left a bloody trail across half the Empire, but he’d never killed an innocent. He was a complicated dwarf. Martinuk had called the Grim Brotherhood ‘a selfish bunch’, but Gotrek had time and again sacrificed a glorious death to right some wrong. His code of honour compelled it.

You either trust me or you don’t.

Could he trust Gotrek? Who better to trust? Every moment the Slayer lived was evidence that he cared for causes greater than himself.

Felix felt as if a great weight had been lifted off his shoulders. Inspired, he unslung his pack and retrieved his journal from its oiled pack. He put his pen to paper and the words began to flow.

It was some of the finest prose he’d ever written.

When the preparations were complete, Norri Wolfhame called them all together in the centre of the room. ‘Everyone know their places?’ he asked when they were all assembled.

Felix had sought Gotrek out and, instead of explaining himself, simply read some of the passages he’d written. The Slayer seemed to approve and all was well between them again. Now Felix stood side by side with Gotrek in the small circle of dwarfs that huddled around Wolfhame.

‘So the Slayer and the manling attack the skaven and draw them back to this room,’ said Norri, quickly outlining the plan. ‘While we hold them here, Malbak will slip into the horde and make his way back to the armoury where he will release the Ironbeards. They will, in turn, attack the horde from behind and drive them further into this room. When the skaven are massed at their thickest, Ulgar will detonate Tebur’s keg from afar, killing as many as possible. After that, it should be a simple matter for the Ironbeards to aid us in mopping up the scraps.’

Even though it was his plan, Felix could not help thinking how foolish it was. Everything had to work perfectly for it to succeed. If the Slayer failed to lure enough of the skaven away from the armoury, if Malbak turned coward and ran, if the skaven managed to overwhelm the Reckoners too soon… if any part of it failed, they were all doomed.

He looked around at the others, hoping that they didn’t feel the same way he did. Most wore sombre, but determined looks. Gromnir’s face was especially grim. Perhaps the Reckoner was thinking of the fate that had befallen his brother. Felix thought of his own brother, Otto, in faraway Altdorf. How long had it been since they’d shared a meal? Years? He resolved to visit as soon as he could. If he survived.

The Reckoners and Ulgar took up their stations at the room’s one remaining entrance while Gotrek, Felix, and Malbak proceeded towards the armoury. When they reached the tunnel, Malbak took up his position.

‘Good luck, engineer,’ said Felix stoically. Malbak nodded in return. Perhaps the most important part of their plan rested on his shoulders. Had that been a terrible mistake? They would soon see.

Gotrek and Felix proceeded down the tunnel towards the armoury, alone once again. They said nothing because no words needed to be spoken. They were merely two warriors about to confront their doom.

When they were near, Gotrek stopped. ‘A Slayer is enough of a distraction to get their attention,’ he said. ‘You can go back with the others.’

Hope flared in Felix’s chest. None of them had decent odds of escaping Karak Tam alive, but Gotrek would face the worst odds of all. Half the skaven horde would descend on him. ‘No,’ said Felix. ‘What kind of epic ends with its subject disappearing down a tunnel never to be seen again?’

‘I’ll try not to die before I lead them back to you,’ the Slayer offered.

Felix shook his head. ‘What can I say? I’m a slave to my art.’

No further words needed to be spoken between them. They’d placed their fates in the hands of the gods. One wanted to die gloriously and the other wanted to write about it from the comfort of a warm inn. This day’s end would see which one got their wish.

The sound of a hundred rodents chanting a foul ritual grew louder as they passed down the corridor, until they emerged into the circular room which held the armoury. The room was packed with skaven and smelled like sweat-soaked fur and musk. Tazuk stood in front of the armoury door, dressed in his bone armour, with the Ratslayer at his right hand. They were the only skaven facing the entrance, and so far they hadn’t noticed the pair.

Gotrek stood on the threshold, waiting to be seen. Slayer’s honour was a peculiar thing, Felix reflected. Gotrek had killed more men than some armies and yet he was reluctant to stab an enemy in the back. Finally, he walked up to one of the taller skaven and coughed. It cast a look over its shoulder, then squeaked and spun around.

That seemed to satisfy whatever condition Gotrek’s honour demanded, because in the next second it was choking on its own blood with a gaping axe wound in its chest. Before the body could hit the ground, the Slayer had ripped a dagger out of its sheath and hurled it straight at Tazuk. If a rat-ogre hadn’t chosen that moment to stand upright and investigate the sound, it would have caught the Seer in the throat. Instead the rat-ogre dropped with a dagger in its eye.

Tazuk screeched in outrage, but the Slayer was already at work, hewing at the skaven like a lumberjack chopping wood. An instant after Gotrek’s first kill, Felix stabbed a skaven warrior through the gut before it had even drawn its blade and then lashed out again, severing an arm and stabbing into the face behind it.

It wasn’t until the Ratslayer bellowed in anger and tried to force his way through the crowd towards Gotrek that Felix realised perhaps the biggest flaw in their plan. The whole thing was predicated on Gotrek retreating and drawing the skaven after him, but the Slayer had been thirsting for a chance to bring down the Ratslayer since he’d first laid eyes on the giant rat. Instead of retreating, Gotrek hacked his way further into the crowd, bellowing challenges and threats in the direction of the crested rat-ogre.

Felix struggled to keep up. Gotrek swept his axe in wide arc that clove flesh and bone with equal alacrity, but even he could occasionally let an enemy through his guard. Once, an axe blow severed a skaven’s arm and knocked the ratman to the ground. An instant later, driven by some foul magic no doubt originating with Tazuk, it leapt back to its feet, dagger in its other paw, and lunged at the Slayer’s back. If Felix hadn’t stabbed it at the last minute, Gotrek might have found his doom at the hands of an opponent he’d already killed.

Suddenly, a skaven spear lanced out of the crowd and caught Felix square in the chest. The air exploded out of his lungs and he was thrown backwards, tumbling to the ground. His vision reddened at its edges and he struggled to breathe. Dark blurs that he knew were skaven warriors squealed in triumph and pressed forward, only to be stopped at the last moment by a massive metal shape.

It was Gromnir. The huge Reckoner with the lion-created helmet bull-rushed a skaven warrior that sported a mismatched tusk in its muzzle, slamming into it with full force. As it stumbled back, he lashed out with his axe, decapitating another skaven and sending its head into the crowd.

Norri Wolfhame reached down a hand and helped Felix to his feet. Surprised to find himself alive, Felix felt around on his chest for blood, but came away with only a few damaged links of chain. If he survived this battle, he’d most likely have a deep bruise on his sternum, but his chain shirt had protected him from what was probably a very dull spear.

‘Aren’t you supposed to be guarding the other room?’ he asked Wolfhame as the latter blocked a skaven dagger.

‘We’ve been following the Slayer for nearly twenty years. I doubted he’d do as he was told,’ said the white-bearded Reckoner.

Martinuk and Balir fanned out beside him. The Longbeard wielded one of Martinuk’s spare axes in one hand and a hammer in the other. Though there’d been plenty of spare armour salvaged from the skaven sentries they’d slain, he wore only the clothes they’d found him in. Felix could easily imagine him grumpily refusing to don anything previously worn by a rat.

‘All right, brother dwarfs,’ said Norri Wolfhame. ‘We’re all Slayers today. Sell your lives dearly, and try and take as many of them with you as you can.’

Ulgar looked up at where Tazuk stood on the stone dais in the centre of the room. ‘That one killed my apprentice. If you can keep the ratmen off my back, I’ll show him that skaven sorcery is no match for dawi rune magic.’

The dwarfs quickly formed a wall of shields around the runesmith and began to tear into their enemies. Though they were few in number, they were heavily armed and armoured, and far better trained than the skaven fighters. When Wolfhame had proclaimed a single Reckoner to be worth ten skaven lives, he was being pragmatic, not optimistic.

Still, thought Felix as he fell in beside the Reckoners, the sheer number of enemy fighters would beat them down eventually. Exhaustion would slow their reflexes or pure chance might thin their numbers. A skaven victory seemed inevitable.

Elsewhere, the tide of battle was conspiring to keep the two Slayers apart. Though both fighters shouted oaths and curses at each other, somehow they could not quite meet. Finally, the last few ranks of skaven parted and there was nothing to hold them back from each other.

Suddenly, Tazuk screeched and pointed at the small group of armoured Reckoners near the door. Reluctantly, the Ratslayer disengaged and turned towards them.

‘Come back here, you filthy offal-eating flea-bitten skrug-lover!’ Gotrek bellowed, shaking his fist at the retreating Ratslayer. A skaven warrior dared to attack him. He killed it almost indignantly, and then began hacking his way back towards the Reckoners.

Suddenly a small grey skaven shoved into Felix. In a flash, Felix had brought Karaghul around, ready to cut it down. At the last second, he realised that it was no skaven after all. It was Malbak. Frantic and terrified, the engineer disappeared into the melee, all but ignored by the other skaven.

That Ulgar’s rune magic had worked was a minor miracle, but a greater one was that Malbak was making his way towards the armoury door. Glorin’s death had matured the young engineer. If he lived, he would be a better dwarf for the experience.

Martinuk fought close to Felix, assuming the same position Felix usually occupied when he fought with the Slayer. The mercenary fought quick and dirty, disembowelling his opponents more often than not and leaving them to bleed out their lives on the ground.

He’d just killed a large black ratman with red eyes when Felix noticed him drop his guard and stumble backwards as a few metal stars blossomed from his chest. A slim skaven with a whip-like body stood only a few feet away. Certain it had killed the mercenary, it turned towards Felix, fanning more throwing daggers in its hand like a gambler with a deck of cards. A moment later Martinuk’s blade pierced its chest and it dropped to the ground, dead as a stone.

Mortally wounded, the mercenary could not properly defend himself. Though Felix struggled to reach him, he disappeared under a hundred skaven bodies. When they were done with him, they rose with dripping blades and came for the rest of the company.

A huge form shoved its way to the front of the press of skaven. The Ratslayer was half again as tall as Felix. Its crest stood as stiff and straight as a horse’s freshly cut mane, and its pallid skin was mottled and scarred. From this distance Felix could see a thin sheen of unshaven fur that covered its tattooed body.

It had already hacked through half the skaven army to get to them, and evidence of the mayhem it had caused lay all about it. A piece of meat was draped limply over its shoulder, a long purplish vein painting blood over its chest. The other skaven drew back, much as a school of minnows part before a shark, giving the huge beast room to do as it would.

The Ratslayer picked its target carefully – the largest, most intimidating among them. Though Felix was the tallest of the lot, Gromnir easily outweighed him in muscle alone, and his mail made him almost unstoppable. The Ratslayer shifted its grip on its enormous golden hammer. The craftsmanship of the weapon was exquisite – runes covered its length in an intricate pattern that formed a dragon’s head, its open jaw embossed on the hammer’s face.

A circle cleared around Gromnir and the Ratslayer – no skaven was brave enough to come between them. The crested rat took a step forward, and then another, and then it rushed forward as it swept its arms downward in an overhand strike. Gromnir deflected the blow with his shield. Any other weapon would have bounced harmlessly off from the dwarf-crafted steel, but the runes on the Flamehammer flared to life and it left a furrow of melted slag across the face of Gromnir’s shield. The hammer face hit the floor hard, kicking up fragments of glowing rock with the impact.

Gromnir gasped as heat seared his arm and shook the shield loose. It broke in two as it hit the ground, the halves reminding Felix of a shattered plate. Undeterred, Gromnir shifted to a two-handed grip on his axe and lashed out in a vicious sweep that would have cut the Ratslayer in two had it connected. Instead, the giant rat dexterously parried Gromnir’s axe with the haft of its hammer, and then stepped forward and struck the Reckoner square in the breastplate. Though it looked to Felix that the blow had been a glancing one, Gromnir bellowed in pain and fell back, clawing at his armour. A glowing red circle had twisted the metal and Felix smelled sizzling flesh. Gromnir was essentially cooking inside his armour.

Wolfhame rushed in to try and cover for the Reckoner, but the Ratslayer shifted opponents seamlessly. Felix noticed that the runes on the Flamehammer seemed to sputter to life and then die again at random, as if the runes that lined its length would not work properly for a skaven. The Ratslayer seemed to recognise when its weapon wasn’t functioning properly – parrying when the runes were dim and attacking ferociously when they flared to life. The battle raged with furious intensity while both fighters exchanged blows. Unfortunately, the white-bearded Reckoner had learned from the Ratslayer’s battle with Gromnir and watched the hammer warily. The Ratslayer took advantage of this distraction, feinting with the weapon and then kicking out with a clawed foot that knocked Wolfhame to the ground.

Felix was the only one left standing, and the Ratslayer’s eyes narrowed as it turned to face him. His palm was sweaty and he shifted his grip on Karaghul. The beast had just dispatched their most powerful fighters in mere seconds. What hope did he have? Though Karaghul was also a rune weapon, it was attuned to dragons and he figured that the likeness of one on the hammer’s head wouldn’t count for much.

The speed of the Ratslayer’s attack belied its size. Felix was barely able to get Karaghul up to parry. Though he’d put all his strength into the block, the skaven was far stronger. Its strike batted aside his sword and passed close enough to his head for the wind of its passing to tug at his hair.

The spot where Karaghul had impacted the golden hammer glowed cherry red and, though it took a moment for the heat to radiate up the blade, Felix gasped in pain. Despite the searing heat, he dared not drop the blade. Instead, he lunged at the Ratslayer and cut it along its thigh. It screeched in pain, but the wound only seemed to anger it, and it struck out again, the hammer passing inches above his head. Once again Felix attacked, stabbing up at its wrist. He was rewarded with a gout of blood, but not enough to disable it.

The Ratslayer shrugged off the wound and raised the hammer overhead. Felix watched it intently, knowing that one blow would send him into Morr’s embrace. Suddenly, the Ratslayer snatched at him with its other hand, catching him hard about the throat. Claws dug into his soft flesh like daggers and he was lifted into the air. He had fallen prey to the same trick that had felled Wolfhame. He’d watched the weapon and not the fighter.

With his air supply cut off, he flailed about desperately with Karaghul, but he wasn’t able to do much damage while he was dangling in the air. The Ratslayer raised its hammer to end him when a voice cut through the crowd.

‘Trying to steal my doom, manling?’

It was Gotrek. Small specks of blood and fur and brain matter that were spattered about his body gave him the impression of a grinning corpse. Sweat had mingled with skaven blood and he left a bloody trail as he advanced into the circle of ratmen, axe at the ready.

The Ratslayer grinned evilly and casually tossed Felix aside. He landed in a heap close to Norri Wolfhame. Air rushed back into his lungs and his vision cleared. He felt like he had a crushed windpipe and it was difficult to swallow, but as he stood a quick inventory told him that aside from a few minor scratches, he was unhurt.

In the centre of the room, Tazuk the Mad was obviously displeased that his army had ceased to fight the intruders, and screeched orders for them to attack. A few brave ratmen began to once again advance on the dwarfs, but the Ratslayer countermanded them with a bellow. He wanted no interference in this battle. Surprisingly, the skaven drew back at his command. Felix wondered who was really in charge here: Tazuk or the Ratslayer.

The two Slayers faced off and slowly began to circle one another, each testing his opponent out with a flurry of blows that was quickly parried. Each time the two weapons connected, sparks showered the floor around them, which Felix hoped were coming from the Ratslayer’s hammer and not Gotrek’s axe. He’d always thought that the runes on the Slayer’s weapon made it invulnerable, but as he watched the metal gradually redden under the Ratslayer’s onslaught he wasn’t so sure. Balir had told them that Karak Tam had produced many of the dwarf race’s most powerful weapons. Could the Flamehammer be a match for Gotrek’s rune axe?

The Ratslayer attacked in earnest now, raining blow after blow on Gotrek, forcing him to give ground reluctantly. The Slayer was by far the strongest dwarf Felix had ever met, but the skaven beast had a dwarf’s frame and an ogre’s muscle. The Flamehammer flashed in golden arcs that descended again and again, each blow lethal, each barely turned aside by Gotrek’s axe.

The Slayer’s weapon was glowing merrily now from blade to haft, and the smell of burning flesh polluted the air. The runes on the Flamehammer occasionally sputtered out, forcing the Ratslayer to retreat, but far less often than in the battle with Norri Wolfhame. It was as if the weapon recognised the power in Gotrek’s axe and was determined to match it with its own. Gotrek’s hands and arms were seared and he grimaced as his weapon betrayed him, but it was a testament to his willpower that he held fast to the axe, even though it had become a burning brand. Felix could feel waves of heat coming off the rune weapon, and it left a trail as it arced through the air. No matter how tough Gotrek was, there would come a point when his hands were seared into useless lumps. After that, it was only a matter of time until the Ratslayer brought him down.

Suddenly, it looked like it was over. The Ratslayer feinted left and Gotrek could not recover in time. The hammer smashed into his right arm with a sickening thud and the sizzle of burning flesh. The Ratslayer leered and, instead of pulling the weapon back for the killing blow, it pressed it further into the wound, revelling in the pain it must be inflicting. Gotrek grimaced in agony. Any other dwarf would have dropped his weapon and collapsed, but Gotrek merely shifted the axe to his left and struck out – not for the Ratslayer, but at the hammer itself.

More sparks burst forth and the Flamehammer was knocked away, leaving Gotrek with a new mark – a brand on his right arm in the shape of a dragon’s grinning mouth.

The Ratslayer roared again and struck out with its hammer. Instead of parrying, Gotrek chopped at the weapon again. Confused by this new tactic, the Ratslayer stepped back, but Gotrek pursued. Instead of targeting the beast, he went after the Flamehammer with a vengeance, chopping at it again and again. On those few occasions when the Ratslayer managed an attack, its hammer was met with full force by Gotrek’s axe, and every time the two weapons met the combatants were showered with sparks. Felix could not tell which weapon was giving them off. The Slayer’s axe was now glowing so ferociously that he couldn’t see if the blade was notched, and the Flamehammer was so intricately carved that any crack was lost amongst the runes.

It was a daring strategy. True to his word, Gotrek was literally pitting his axe against the Flamehammer, gambling that the ancient weaponsmiths of Karak Tam could not have crafted a weapon to match its power. His grimace of pain had twisted into a mad grin as he struck with such fury that the Ratslayer was forced to its knees. Gotrek had become a berserker, crazed with pain and battle lust. He abandoned all pretence of skill and simply beat at the Ratslayer with abandon. The white-hot axe crashed down again and again on the haft of the Flamehammer until, with a flash of brilliant light, it snapped and the rune axe buried itself in the Ratslayer’s skull. So mad was Gotrek with berserker fury that he didn’t even realise that he’d killed his opponent until three strikes later.

He arose from that corpse like some avatar of grim violence, breathing heavily, a silver snake of saliva matting his fiery red beard. Not a creature stirred. Not a sound intruded on that place but the Slayer’s tortured breath. He turned on the other skaven, madly daring them to attack, but not one of them moved. Even Tazuk stood in quiet contemplation of the massacre he’d just witnessed.

A baritone rumble broke the silence, the sound of rocks shifting deep beneath the earth. The vault door shifted behind Tazuk, and then with a gasp came open. A glittering horde emerged, dressed in shimmering gromril armour and wielding sparkling weapons. At their fore stood a pathetic-looking skaven warrior that was no skaven at all. Malbak had taken advantage of the distraction to open the vault, and the captured dwarfs poured forth, hacking into the skaven army from the rear with weapons from the days of yore.

Caught between Gotrek and the Reckoners on one side and the heavily armoured dwarfs on the other, the skaven had no choice but to fight, and the room dissolved into chaotic battle. It was every warrior for himself. Felix started to assume his customary position behind and to the left of the Slayer, but quickly realised that Gotrek was fighting left-handed now and shifted to the other side. If the fight with the Ratslayer had at all tired him out, Gotrek didn’t show it. If anything he drew power from his wounds and cut through the skaven army like a scythe through wheat.

At one point, Felix saw a great cave bear rear out of the melee and strike down Tazuk with a blow from a glowing white staff. He soon realised that it was no cave bear. Ulgar stood above the downed grey seer and struck him again and again with the butt of his staff, with every blow bellowing out, ‘This is for my apprentice, you vermin-loving whoreson!’

All of a sudden, the press of skaven gave way to armoured dwarfs and Felix realised that they’d met the Ironbeards in the middle. Skaven corpses lay all around them. A few survivors were fleeing for the exits as fast as their paws could carry them.

Gromnir was dead. He’d removed his melted armour and fought on bare-chested until a skaven spear had taken him in the gut. He’d killed three more ratmen before he succumbed to his wounds. They found Balir’s body under a pile of skaven, a mad smile still plastered across his face. He’d demanded vengeance for what the rats had done to his clan and he’d achieved it, in the end.

After the remaining dwarfs had counted their dead, they greeted their brothers from the armoury. Though each was resplendent in some of the finest armour Felix had ever seen, when they removed their visors, he could see gaunt, half-starved faces. So weakened were they by hunger and battle that some of them could barely hold an axe.

Of the dwarfs who’d set out from Barak Varr, Norri Wolfhame, Ulgar and Malbak had survived, and each of them had been changed by the horrors they’d witnessed. Only Gotrek, by now immune to horror, was unchanged. He’d cursed Ulgar when the runesmith had insisted on putting his broken arm in a sling and complained bitterly when he put a salve on the brand he’d gotten on his right arm.

Norri Wolfhame waited patiently for Ulgar to finish before he laid into the Slayer. ‘We had a plan, didn’t we? You were supposed to lure them back to the experiment room.’

Gotrek merely shrugged, then winced in pain and rubbed his shoulder. He favoured the Reckoner with a glare. ‘Plans change. Seems to have worked out in the end.’

‘Speaking of the experiment room,’ said Felix, ‘didn’t we…?’

A dull ca-rumph echoed through the hold and the hall through which they’d entered coughed rock-dust. Tebur Tanilson’s keg of black powder had gone off after all. Perhaps it had simply gone off on its own. More likely some of the fleeing skaven hadn’t been able to restrain their curiosity. Either way Glorin would finally sleep in peace.

It was Norri Wolfhame who finally remembered the purpose of their quest. He found Tazuk’s body and pried the Book of Grudges free from the paws that clutched it even in death.

‘Grungni’s hairy beard,’ he exclaimed when he opened it.

‘What’s wrong?’ asked Felix.

Instead of answering, Wolfhame passed him the book. The leather felt strange and coarse in Felix’s hands. The tome was very thin, too thin to hold all the grudges of Barak Varr from now to antiquity. When he opened it, he could see why. It was filled with nothing but scrawled characters interspersed with pictures of skaven, sometimes involved in lewd acts.

‘It’s not the Book of Grudges,’ he said simply. He passed it to Gotrek, who leafed through it himself.

‘I don’t believe it!’ said the Slayer.

Malbak stared at the book, then at the carnage that lay all around him. ‘If that’s not the Book of Grudges, then where is it? We searched the vault of Musin Balderk and it wasn’t there.’

Felix stared at Tazuk’s corpse. It had never been a question that the skaven seer was mad. He’d dressed up his own warriors in the skins of dwarfs, and even tried to cross the dawi with his own race in a hideous experiment. He’d tried to emulate the dwarfs in every way, so why create a fake book? Why not try and steal the real one?

Felix creased his brow. Maybe he had. They’d found skaven spoor in the vault of Musin Balderk, after all. But they hadn’t found any skaven. And Gotrek himself had told them that no break-in had occurred.

Suddenly, Felix remembered the huge statue of Grimnir outside the great hall where they’d first engaged the ratmen. And then there were the piles of gold in the next room… What if the ratmen had broken into the vault and not been able to get out?

‘I think I know what happened to the real Book of Grudges,’ he said.

‘You’d better know what you’re doing, manling,’ said Gotrek balefully.

The trip back to the surface had been harrowing. They’d found a store of mouldy cheese and wheat that the skaven hadn’t fouled, and though it wasn’t much, the starving Ironbeards had fallen on it like it was a king’s banquet. Though the skaven had been vanquished, the dwarfs still encountered scattered pockets of resistance as they fought their way to the surface. If not for the weaponry they’d salvaged from the armoury of Karak Tam they might not have made it. While none of the weapons they found was the equal of the Flamehammer, put together with the gromril armour, the small group of half-starved dwarfs was a force to be reckoned with.

Halfway to the surface they’d encountered Vabur Nerinson, who led a small force of dwarf Ironbreakers. After a hearty greeting and a moment of silent contemplation for those who’d lost their lives, he’d escorted them the rest of the way back to the Barak.

Now they stood once more outside the vault of Musin Balderk, thinner in numbers but fatter in great deeds. Though the Ironbeards had returned to their holds after paying tribute to the king in the form of fabulous rune weapons and gromril, Norri Wolfhame, Malbak, Vabur and Ulgar had chosen to remain with Gotrek and Felix.

King Grundadrakk stood nearby, arms folded across his chest, his golden crown sitting uneasily on his bald head.

‘We’ve searched this vault before, Herr Jaeger,’ said the king angrily. ‘I’ll be quite displeased if we have to search it again.’

‘We know exactly what we’re looking for,’ said Felix, nodding at Malbak.

The apprentice engineer had kept his skaven skin and wore it now like a cape – a badge of honour for one who’d had a very short supply when they’d originally left the Barak. He stepped forward and traced the opening runes, humming the correct melody to activate them, and then hauled open the door.

As Grundadrakk watched suspiciously, Felix handed Gotrek a cruder axe than the Slayer’s rune weapon, one that wouldn’t be mourned if it were to suffer damage from what he was about to do with it. Gotrek stepped past the engineer and hefted the weapon. Before anyone could react, he brought it down in an overhead sweep that cut the massive golden statue of Grimnir in half. Three desiccated skaven corpses tumbled out of its interior. It was obvious they’d starved to death.

He bent down and pulled a large and ornately bound book from their clutches. Without saying a word, he marched over to Grundadrakk and shoved it into his hands. They exchanged a long and dangerous look, and then the Slayer spun on his heel and stomped down the hall. Felix turned and followed.

‘I haven’t dismissed you yet,’ bellowed Grundadrakk holding the Book of Grudges in his hands. ‘Where are you going, Gurnisson?’

Gotrek answered without even turning around. ‘To get myself a drink!’

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

The author of the Gotrek and Felix tales 'Kineater' and 'The Contest', along with the short story 'The Butcher's Beast', Jordan Ellinger is a Clarion West graduate and winner of the Writers of the Future contest. He has also contributed to several anthologies across the science fiction and fantasy genres. He works as a freelance editor and is currently planning more adventures across the Old World.

A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

Published in 2013 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd., Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK

Cover illustration by Winona Nelson.

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