by Warhammer
‘You are saying that we should do nothing?’
‘I am saying that we should wait, Ulrika. There is nothing to be gained by attacking the thing headlong. Look at the way it smashed that gyrocopter. It could easily do the same to us.’
Ah, that was good, thought Grey Seer Thanquol. He felt a monstrous surge of pleasure from destroying that dwarf flyer even at the cost of some dozens of his followers’ lives. They were after all expendable. Most skaven were. He was simply glad he wasn’t one of them.
He shook his head as a new problem struck him. During the moments that he had chased the flyer, he had let go of the Spirit of Grungni. It was heading skyward once more at a great rate of knots. Thanquol reached out with his tentacles of power, determined that he would soon put a stop to that.
No sooner had he grasped the airship once more than he became aware of another challenge. Gotrek Gurnisson, Felix Jaeger and that other accursed Slayer were on the ground and moving towards him. Of course, he was in the air above them but even so he was a little worried. Just the proximity of the Slayer was enough to get on Thanquol’s sensitive nerves. He hated that vile creature with a passion.
Now he had the means to end that threat once and for all. What he could do with the gyrocopter he could surely do to one solitary Slayer. Grinning daemonically, he prepared to smash Gotrek Gurnisson into the dirt.
Felix watched the wave of power come towards them. Dozens of streamers of greenish energy raced forward like the tide, smashing aside the screaming skaven between Gotrek and Thanquol. Felix had no doubt whatsoever what would happen when that energy reached them, it was going to be the end of him. He almost closed his eyes, knowing that his doom was moments away but at the last second, determined to see the death that was his, he forced himself to watch.
Now, thought Grey Seer Thanquol, bringing his powers to bear on Gotrek Gurnisson. Now you die!
Felix saw the leading streamers reach Gotrek. As they did so the Slayer brought his axe round in a great arc. The runes on its edges blazed ever brighter where they came into contact with the grey seer’s spell. A smell of ozone filled the air. The streamers flew apart in a cloud of sparks, having met with an ancient magic stronger than they. Felix offered up a prayer to Sigmar and whatever other gods might be listening. The remaining streamers withdrew, coiling upwards and backwards away from Gotrek like a cobra about to strike. Felix knew the Slayer had bought them only a moment’s respite.
Thanquol felt as if his fingertips were on fire. Of course, it was only the destruction of his spell that he was sensing but the sensation was similar. He cursed the dwarf. He might have guessed that it would not have been so easy to effect his doom. Still, perhaps if the Slayer was invulnerable, his henchman would not prove to be. He could at least destroy Felix Jaeger.
Felix saw the streamers of light part and begin to flow around Gotrek. To his horror he realised that they were aimed at him, and there was nothing he could do about it. The skaven sorcerer obviously intended to see him dead. The spell rushed onwards, a dozen tendrils moving to the right and left of Gotrek, surging directly towards Felix. At least, thought Felix, the skaven mage was killing more of his own warriors. The way they fell to bits as the energy scythed through them did not bode well for his own fate.
Ulrika watched what was happening with her heart in her mouth. She saw Gotrek repulse the grey seer’s attack and for a moment thought it might be enough. Then she saw that Thanquol intended to attack Felix.
‘Can’t you do something?’ she asked Max Schreiber.
‘In a moment I will try a counter spell. I think I understand what the grey seer is doing now and I might be able to pick apart the weave of it.’
‘Felix doesn’t have a moment,’ Ulrika said, knowing it was already too late.
Felix steeled himself to meet death. This was not quite the way he expected it but then it was said that death never came by the route you thought it would. He braced himself, preparing his muscles for one last futile leap to safety. He doubted there was any way he could avoid the spell. It was all over. The tide of dazzling light hurtled towards him. He fought down the urge to scream.
This was more like it, thought Grey Seer Thanquol, certain that this time at least he was about to kill one of his sworn enemies. That would teach Felix Jaeger to oppose the might of Thanquol. But just before he could crush Jaeger like the insect he was, the Slayer struck once more, lashing out quicker than the eye could follow, first to his left, then to his right, severing the energy bands with that awful axe. Thanquol shrieked with pain. It was like having his own tail cut off.
Worse yet, he felt the warpstone-induced power within him start to stutter and fade. Not now, he thought. No. Not now. Not with triumph so close. But unfortunately, it was so. The energy was already starting to drain out of him. It looked as if the airship was going to escape.
Well at least, he thought, my minions will destroy those upstarts, Jaeger and Gurnisson. Even as he thought it a peculiar sinking sensation struck him. Why is the ground coming closer, he wondered?
‘Now,’ Ulrika heard Max Schreiber mutter, and then the mage began to move his hands and incant in some language she did not understand. As she watched a complex structure of light began to take shape in the space in front of the magician, and then with a gesture of his hand he sent it spinning out towards the grey seer. When it struck Thanquol the glow around the skaven sorcerer faded and he went tumbling headlong to the earth.
‘Now would be a good time to attack,’ Max suggested to her. She did not need to be told a second time.
‘Let’s go!’ she shouted and raced out of the mansion, plunging into the surprised skaven from behind. Roaring with battle-lust the Kislevite survivors followed her.
Felix watched in surprise as the glow faded around the grey seer and he began to sink to the earth. He ducked the swing of a skaven warrior and gritted his teeth as he parried a second one. The shock of the impact passed up his arm. He braced himself and slashed downwards cleaving the skaven’s skull in two, then whirled to strike the other, slashing it across the throat. Ahead of him Gotrek and Snorri hacked a bloody path towards the skaven mage. They were determined that nothing was going to stop them this time. Bombs continued to rain down from above, dropped by the now freed airship and the circling gyrocopters.
Every time a bomb hit the ground Felix flinched. He half expected one of them to go off near him, and for his body to be torn apart. He heard a voice shouting at the stupid dwarfs to stop bombing them, and he was surprised to discover that it was his own. He hoped that some time soon somebody up there would realise what was happening on the ground and cease the barrage. Felix doubted that Gotrek’s heroic doom encompassed being torn limb from limb by his comrades’ explosives. Still Felix had seen worse and stupider things happen in battle, and right now, all was chaos round about them.
Slashing around him with renewed vigour Felix hacked his way through the skaven force.
It just wasn’t fair, thought Grey Seer Thanquol. Just when victory was within his grasp it had been snatched away by the incompetence of his lackeys, and the inferior quality of warpstone sent to him by those cretins back in Skavenblight. Why was he doomed to be constantly thwarted in this manner? He was a good and faithful servant to the skaven cause. He was devout in his prayers to the Horned Rat. He asked so little. What was the problem?
He lay exhausted on the ground, prostrated by the sudden failure of his warpstone-induced power, and by the unweaving of his spell. Slowly but surely, the full implications of this sunk in. Somewhere out there was a mage potent enough to undo his work, a mage who was undoubtedly fresh and not drained of energy by his selfless efforts to protect his ungrateful minions, a mage who even now might be planning the destruction of Thanquol while he was vulnerable. The thought made Thanquol’s glands tighten with the urge to squirt the musk of fear. This was not a fitting reward for his long service to the Horned Rat and the Council of Thirteen, he decided.
Suddenly he became aware
of another and even more terrifying threat. Off to his right, he could hear the bestial bellowing of Gotrek Gurnisson, as the Slayer smashed his way through the skaven troops. Doubtless the dwarf had nothing more in his tiny mind than an unjustifiable desire to exterminate Thanquol and rob the world of his genius. And doubtless the dwarf’s henchman, Felix Jaeger, would be there to gloat at Thanquol’s demise.
What was he to do?
As if he did not have enough reasons to focus his mind on departure, Thanquol heard the sounds of human war-cries from behind him. Where had these new forces come from? Had human reinforcements arrived during the fight? Was this some work of the enemy mage? It mattered not.
With the terrifying onslaught of bombs from above, the blood-curdling prospect of combat with Gotrek Gurnisson to the fore, and the attack of this massive new force from behind, Thanquol could see only one option open to him. He would heroically elude capture by this overwhelming force of enemies, and return to exact his revenge another day.
Mustering the last remnants of his powers, he muttered the words of the spell of escape. It would only carry him a few hundred strides out of the fray but this would be enough. From there he would begin his tactical withdrawal.
‘Where has that accursed mage got to?’ Felix heard Gotrek growl. Felix had no answer. They had reached the spot where he would have sworn he had seen the grey seer fall, and there was nothing there except a faint brimstone aroma in the air. Unreasonably annoyed, Gotrek slaughtered two skaven simultaneously with a stroke of his axe and turned around to look at the monstrous form of the rat-ogre as it approached.
‘Mine!’ he roared.
‘Snorri’s!’ shouted Snorri.
‘Race you for it,’ answered Gotrek and rushed forward.
Get on with it, thought Felix as he looked around him. There was a sudden lull in the battle. The strange stink that he had come to associate with frightened skaven attacked his nostrils. He supposed he could not blame them. Their leader had vanished. They were being ripped apart by bombs, assaulted by two of the most vicious Slayers in the world, and ambushed from behind simultaneously. Felix could understand their demoralisation. He doubted that any human force would be less afraid.
Still that did not mean that the peril had passed. The skaven still massively outnumbered their foes, and if given time to realise it, they would return to the fray and quite possibly win. Right now was the moment to seize the advantage and hopefully turn the tide of battle.
He looked around and saw the rat-ogre flanked on one side by Gotrek and the other by Snorri go down under a blizzard of blows. It toppled like a falling oak. If the sight of that did not help them rout the skaven force, nothing would. Shouting a battle-cry, he charged forward. Gotrek and Snorri accompanied him.
Suddenly from up ahead he thought he heard the sound of human war-cries, of one familiar voice shouting orders and encouragement to the troops. His heart leapt. Surely he was hallucinating. There was only one way to find out.
Lurk stopped gnawing the flesh of the dead skaven. His hunger momentarily assuaged, he could give his attention back to matters at hand. Behind him he could hear the squeal of terrified skaven, the triumphant shouts of the humans, and the berserker roars of dwarf Slayers. He could tell the battle was lost. It was as certain as the ache in his bones from hitting the ground. Of course, he knew that if it were not for the pain of his injuries, he could turn the tide of battle by his intervention. Unfortunately his bruises, and could that possibly be a sprained ankle, prevented it.
From out of the gloom, beams of golden light scythed into the skaven, slashing them down. It looked like their enemies had sorcerous resources too.
Definitely lost, he thought to himself. Definitely time to go. He picked himself up, glanced around to make sure that no one had noticed him, and scuttled off into the night.
Moving through the carnage of the battlefield Felix caught sight of a familiar figure. His heart leapt. Ulrika was alive. Thinking of nothing else, he moved towards her through the mass of skaven. All around him ratmen turned and fled. They had learned to fear his flashing blade and his proximity to the two Slayers. His mere presence at this moment seemed enough to unnerve them. There was little doubt in his mind that the ratmen were beaten. They milled around looking for a way out, their formation broken, their discipline gone. The loss of their leader and the surprise onslaught from their former captives had been enough to rout them. Now it was only a matter of staying alive while they fled.
‘Ulrika!’ he shouted, but she did not hear him. At that moment, a huge black-furred skaven leapt at her. Terrified that he was about to lose her just when he had found her at last, Felix raced forward to intervene. He need not have bothered. Ulrika parried the ratman’s blow, and put a stop-thrust through its heart. Gurgling in pain, the skaven tumbled forward onto its knees, and then sprawled headlong in the dirt, surrounded by a rapidly spreading pool of its own lifeblood.
Ulrika caught sight of something out of the corner of her eye, and whirled ready to attack. For a long tense moment she and Felix faced each other. Neither moved. Neither said anything. Then simultaneously they both smiled, then made to move together. Unable to stop himself, uncaring of the danger, Felix caught her in his arms. Their lips met. Their bodies strained against each other.
Surrounded by the howling madness of battle, they stood like they were the only two people in the world.
Max Schreiber looked around him. He was tired. As much from the magic he had just wrought as from the reaction to the beating he had taken last night. His limbs felt heavy with fatigue. Not even as an apprentice when he had maintained many a days-long vigil in the service of his master had he ever felt so worn out. Still, victory was theirs. The skaven were routed, and even though they still had numerical superiority, he doubted they would return. They were not by nature courageous creatures and it took them a long time to get over defeats.
Max liked to think of himself as a scholar, not a warrior, but he felt satisfied with what he had done here. He had taken a stand against the forces of Chaos and he had helped turn them back. Part of him found the experience far more satisfying than casting protective spells on the homes and vehicles of his clients. He began to understand the thrill of battle he had always read about. He smiled sourly as he caught sight of Felix and Ulrika kissing.
It appeared that for a sheltered scholar he was getting a crash course in all manner of emotional turmoil. He felt jealousy gnaw away at him, and he knew that not all of his magic could root it out.
He was more than a little attracted to Ulrika. For the past few days he had felt himself in the grip of passion. He really should have left the mansion days ago but had stayed on under the pretence of waiting for the Spirit of Grungni’s return. Seeing the way that Ulrika looked at Felix he guessed that there was little chance of her responding to his ardour.
Unless, the most unworthy thought struck him, something were to happen to Felix Jaeger. Surprised at his own savagery he sent a hail of golden beams slashing into the retreating skaven.
They died in a most gratifying way.
Silence came suddenly. The battle was over. The dead lay in piles around the mansion. The Spirit of Grungni hovered overhead, nuzzling the docking tower like a horse being hitched to a post. The skaven were defeated.
It was late. Felix felt tired but elated. He held Ulrika’s hand as if he feared she would vanish if he let go of it, and she did not seem at all inclined to lose his grip. All his forebodings on the trip back now seemed senseless and futile phantoms. She was as glad to see him as he was to see her, and he could not begin to express how happy that made him. Instead he could only stand and gaze stupidly into her eyes. Words just would not come. Fortunately, she seemed content with that.
Snorri stomped over. ‘Good fight that,’ he said. Black blood crusted his bandages and he bled from dozens of new small cuts but he seemed happy with his lot.
‘Call that a fight?’ Gotrek said. ‘I’ve had more dangerous haircuts.’
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‘I wouldn’t want to meet your barber,’ Felix said.
‘Felix made a joke,’ said Snorri. ‘Snorri thinks it’s funny.’
‘Let’s get some beer,’ Gotrek said. ‘Nothing like a bit of light exercise to work up a thirst.’
‘Snorri wants a bucket of vodka,’ said Snorri. ‘And Snorri shall have it.’
Dwarfs had started to climb down the docking tower where the Spirit of Grungni was moored. Soon a small contingent of them were helping the Kislevites pile up the bodies for burning.
Felix thought this was as good a time as any for he and Ulrika to retire to their chamber. She agreed.
‘I never thought I would see you again,’ Ulrika said.
The dawn was beautiful. Golden beams of sunlight slanted down and caught the endless sea of grass around them. Birds sang. It was so calm that if it were not for the faint smell of burned flesh in the air, Felix would have found it difficult to believe that any battle had taken place the previous evening.
‘There were times when I thought I would never see you again. A lot of them,’ he replied.
‘Was it bad?’
‘Very.’
‘In the Wastes?’
‘In the Wastes and in Karag Dum. You would not believe me if I told you what we found there.’
‘Try me.’
‘All right,’ he said, gathering her close in his arms.
‘That’s not what I meant,’ she said, then kissed him.
‘It will do for the moment,’ he said, pulling her down into the long grass.
‘Yes,’ she replied.
Afterwards, as they lay naked on his old woollen cloak, she leaned on her elbow and began to tickle his face with an ear of grass. ‘What was it like in the Chaos Wastes?’
‘Do we really have to talk about it?’
‘Not if you don’t want to.’
He considered for a time before replying. ‘It is a terrible place. Like the dream of insane gods.’
