Gotrek & Felix- the Second Omnibus - William King

by Warhammer

  ‘Wizards are welcome in the palace now. Dabblers in dark sorcery. Weavers of wickedness, steeped in sin, depraved in demeanour, fiends of unspeakable foulness.’

  Max made another mistake. He smiled, as if he could not take the whole thing quite seriously. The zealot was obviously working himself up to a pitch of fury, and he was carrying some of the crowd with him. He chose that moment to glance over at Max, resplendent in his gold brocade robes, leaning on his rune-carved staff.

  We make the perfect tableau for him, don’t we, thought Felix? A wicked wizard and a pure Kislevite maid besmirched by a debauched outlander. He forced a nasty grin onto his own face, and moved his hand to the hilt of his sword. The crowd followed the zealot’s gaze and stared at them.

  Felix could see pale frightened faces, pinched with hunger. These were scared people with an invincible-seeming foe outside their gate. Of course there would be a few of them just looking for something to vent their pent-up emotions on. It did not take Felix a lot of thought to work out who the most likely targets were going to be.

  ‘There in our midst stands one of that evil brotherhood, one of those depraved dabblers in Darkness who have brought doom down on us. See how he smirks at the success of his sinister schemes. Witness the wanton wickedness of the wild woman with him. Look on his lust-filled lewd–’

  ‘Perhaps you should use less alliteration,’ Max said, ‘and more thought.’

  To Felix’s surprise, the wizard sounded completely calm, bored almost. There was perfect confidence in his manner. He seemed to feel no doubt in his ability to handle the crowd around them and it showed in his face. The crowd sensed this too, and drew back. The zealot did not like being mocked. His thin features twisted, spittle poured from his mouth. He stabbed an accusing finger at Max, as if by the force of his gesture he could make a hole appear in the magician’s chest.

  ‘You dare! You dare to speak! You should crawl on your knees and grovel in the dirt before these good people. You should abase yourself in abject apology for your vileness. You should beg their forgiveness. You and your doxy and your mercenary outlander bodyguard should–’

  ‘We should teach you a lesson for wasting the time of these good people! We should take you to the duke to explain your treacherous words. Our only desire is to help fight the forces of Darkness outside the walls. It seems yours is to spread dissension and discontent within them.’

  Felix was surprised once more by the scorn and the power within Max’s words. The wizard was angry but it was a controlled anger that seemed to fuel his power. Without in any way changing his appearance Max had somehow become larger, and more threatening. The power within him, normally veiled, was suddenly visible. He had become quite as menacing in his own way as Gotrek was in his. Felix was impressed. He could tell the crowd were as well. They had moved backwards to leave a space between Max and the zealot.

  The fanatic climbed down from his perch, drew his ragged robes about him, and strode towards the wizard. He was a small scrawny man, and Max was far taller and broader. Whatever other flaws the man might have, Felix thought, cowardice was not one of them. Out of the corner of his eye, Felix could see some of the bully boys from the White Boar were moving into flanking positions. He nudged Ulrika to alert her, but she was already watching alertly.

  The small man strode right up to Max, his chin out, fists clenched. His eyes gleamed insanely. He stopped in front of the wizard and flexed his fingers as if considering strangling him. Max gazed back calmly.

  ‘The gods will smite you down for your sins,’ he said confidently.

  ‘If they felt that way, they would have done so before now,’ said Max with mocking reasonableness.

  Swift as a snake the zealot reached within his robes and produced a dagger. He made as if to strike Max but before he could do so, a spark of power flashed from the magician to the blade. It glowed red hot in an instant. The zealot screamed as the weapon dropped from his scorched fingers.

  The power within Max began to increase rapidly. He became a massive figure looming over the howling zealot like an angry god. He reached out gently and touched the man. Another spark of energy flowed out of him and propelled the fanatic twenty strides to lie, sprawled unconscious in the dirt.

  The crowd muttered, at once awed and angered. Felix could understand their feeling. No matter how many times he had seen Max wield magic there was something deeply unsettling and frightening about it. It was all too possible that the crowd would either flee in panic or attack them in an overwhelming mass. The crowd of people stood glaring for a moment, undecided as to what to do.

  ‘Go home!’ shouted Ulrika. At that moment she sounded every inch the commanding Kislevite aristocrat. Her voice would have commanded instant obedience from a troop of winged lancers. ‘Go home and prepare yourself for war! Tomorrow the forces of Darkness will attack and we will need every able-bodied citizen to help defend the walls. Do not listen to fools like this whipped dog,’ she said, pointing to the unconscious zealot. ‘They might mean well but they cause only fear and falling out between those who on the morrow need to stand together. All of us here, even him, will be needed come the dawn. And we will need every weapon, even sorcery, to withstand the forces that march against us!’

  The crowd responded as much to her as to the reasonableness of her words. Like Max, she was showing a new side, one he had never really seen before. When she spoke in that tone, she had presence, an aura of command that made people listen to her words, and, as was becoming obvious, obey. The crowd began to disperse save for a few who came forward to bow to her and Max, and wish them well in the coming struggle. Even the bully boy fanatics had drawn back, though whether from fear or respect, Felix could not be sure. To tell the truth, he did not care why, he was just glad that it was so.

  No one else hindered them as they made their way towards the ancient heart of the city.

  Arek Daemonclaw gazed down upon his warriors from the top of the highest siege tower. The air thrummed with energy. The great siege machines were coming to life, filled with the essence of bound daemons that would enable their enormous weight to rumble forward and crush the walls of Praag. He could feel the trapped creature’s energy seething beneath his armoured gauntlet, imprisoned by his sorcerers’ spells within the black iron walls of the tower.

  All around him the vast horde moved with one purpose and one will, his purpose and his will. Soon he would smash the city before him, and offer up the souls of its citizens to his god. He vowed he would leave no stone standing. Never again would men build a city on this spot. Thus he would avenge the defeat of Chaos two centuries ago by the accursed Magnus the Pious. He was confident. The ring of standing stones around the city was channelling ever-greater amounts of dark magical energy to his army. Every day more and more warriors arrived from the Wastes drawn by the promise of blood and souls, death and glory, loot and slaughter. Massive beastmen, burly ogres, mighty black-armoured Chaos warriors, furious reavers and marauders from the northern tribes, all manner of twisted and mutated things were being drawn to his banner, following, sometimes consciously, sometimes not, the tide of power rushing down from the north.

  Even as he watched a cloud of harpies rose in a flock and filled part of the sky over the army, their wings beating like a storm, their raucous wails and screams filling the air. They swept towards the city and were met with a cloud of arrows from the walls. Most fell short, a few found targets and the harpies wheeled and swirled away. It was not an attack; even the furious winged monsters knew their orders and would keep to them.

  Arek was not entirely content. He knew that there were those within his army who plotted against him. It was no surprise. Such had been the way within Chaos armies since the dawn of time. It did not matter. There were always those who envied their betters and schemed against them. He knew that as long as his victory looked certain, the bulk of the army would remain loyal to him. They were all too filled with the prospect of smashing the hated city of Praag to risk pointless int
ernecine strife.

  There were other rumours that worried him a little more. Scouts had reported a human army approaching from the south-west. A pitiful thing, barely worthy to be called an army in comparison with his own mighty force, but it might prove troublesome if it appeared at the wrong time. Others had seen a force of the vicious ratmen the humans called skaven teeming down from the north. It appeared that Lhoigor and Kelmain’s cunning scheme to destroy the ratmen city had failed, and the beasts perhaps sought vengeance. Yet for the moment they barely seemed worth the trouble either.

  A little more worrying was the lack of reports from within the city concerning the fate of Gotrek Gurnisson and Felix Jaeger. He had expected his agents to have succeeded in their assassination by now. It would be nice to know that the wielder of that deadly axe had been removed. Who knew what such a weapon of power was capable of? The vision he had been granted still troubled him some times. On the other hand, if he did not enter the fray himself, it could not come true.

  Arek glanced back over his shoulder and saw the twin sorcerers there. He was not pleased with them. They had been slow to obey orders recently, and quick to question his decisions. His spies reported that they had been seen in the company of his warlords, and he suspected that the twins might just be plotting against him. If so, he would soon show them the error of their ways. Actually, he was planning on doing that soon anyway. As soon as the spells were cast that would open his way into Praag, they would be consigned to the middenheap of history.

  Lhoigor caught Arek’s glance and smiled, revealing his glistening white fangs. It was a smile that would have made a lesser man than Arek uneasy. He merely thought, smile all you like, magician, your smiling days will be over soon.

  Lhoigor looked at his leader and smiled. It seemed like the best thing to do at the moment. Arek was becoming less and less stable with every day, but at least for the moment, he was the leader of the horde. That would soon change. The arrogant fool had made a suitable figurehead for this great dark crusade but his usefulness was just about ended, and with it, his life. It was his own fault too.

  Neither Lhoigor or his brother would have objected to him remaining as the figurehead of the crusade for as long as he wished, if he had only bowed to their wishes. After all, someone had to lead the army and neither he nor Kelmain were warriors or generals. It was not what they had been born to do. Arek had been a good pawn for as long as he followed his instructions. He had danced like a puppet on the strings they had threaded around him but now he was too powerful and too full of himself to listen to reason.

  Lhoigor clutched the golden staff tight in his hands. He could feel endless energy pulsing through it. Part of his mind was constantly occupied weaving and holding the spells that drew the great flow of power from the north together. He was such an accomplished mage now that he did not need more than part of his brain to do this, even though the effort would have blasted the sanity of lesser mages. He doubted that there were more than a few magicians on this pitiful world who could accomplish what he was doing now, and none of them could manage it so easily, he was sure. Perhaps Nagash at the height of his power, perhaps the Witch King of the Dark Elves, perhaps Teclis of the White Tower. Possibly they could do it. It did not matter, certainly he and his brother could. The blessing of Tzeentch was theirs, and there was little in the way of magic they could not accomplish if they set their minds to it.

  It had always been their destiny. From birth they had been marked by the favour of the Changer of Ways. Their mother had lain with a daemon during the great winter solstice orgies in the caves of her tribe. As albino twins born with claws and fangs ready to eat meat at their first meal, they had come into the world marked for great things. The old shaman of the Weirdblood tribe had recognised them for what they were immediately and had taken them from their mother and put them under his own protection. They had learned all the old warlock had to teach them before they were six years old, and were respected in the councils of the tribe.

  The Changer spoke to them in their dreams, whispering secrets of forbidden magic to them, and allowing them to guide the tribe to caches of ancient artefacts, long lost in the Wastes. Before they were ten, they had left the tribe to wander far across the lands of men. They had sought out the ancient holy sites in the Chaos Wastes, unearthed their staffs in the ruins of Ulangor, pledged their souls to the Lord of Mutation at the crystal altar of Nul. Everywhere the followers of Tzeentch were, they had gone, disguising themselves when they had journeyed in the lands of men,

  They had walked cloaked and hooded through the streets of Altdorf, and bought tomes of forbidden lore in the bazaar of books in Marienburg. They had consulted with defrocked priests of Verena, and sailed as far as Tilea. Everywhere they had gone together, sharing the bond of magical power, and the ability to speak in each other’s minds over a distance. With time, their spellcrafting skills had far outstripped those of their former masters and they had become ambassadors of Tzeentch supervising the organisation of cultists in many lands, fomenting rebellions, rousing the mutated, tempting the weak, intimidating the strong. Tzeentch had rewarded them with more gifts, and more power, and the most precious prize of all, enduring life. They had lived for centuries watching their contemporaries pass away, needing no company but each other’s.

  Eventually, their work among men completed, they had returned to the Wastes, to advance a plan they had conceived for themselves. They had decided that they would raise up a warleader and use him to spearhead a campaign to put the Old World under the dominion of Tzeentch. Arek had seemed like a good choice.

  He was strong, he was intelligent, he was favoured by the Changer, and he was a formidable general and diplomat, a combination of qualities rare in Chaos warriors. It had been a useful alliance, and they had helped make him great, leading him subtly from triumph to triumph until his reputation had been enough to cement a massive alliance of warlords from the Wastes. It had all gone well for close on a decade. It was unfortunate that Arek had chosen this moment to try and ruin all their plans by his mulishness. He had attacked too early, before the paths of the Old Ones had opened, and let his troops run out of hand.

  And now he was scheming to remove them from their place of power. It had not escaped Lhoigor’s notice how he and his brother had been left out of the recent councils of war. Soon, he thought, Arek was going to find out who the real chosen of Tzeentch were here. And he was not going to like that one little bit.

  The streets were filled with marching men. Their manner spoke of quiet desperation. Felix could see that they did not have a great deal of hope of survival, yet their grimness told another story. They intended to sell their lives dearly. In the great square at the base of the citadel grandfathers and young boys drilled with ancient rusty weapons dragged from some hidden storehouses. Women carried loaves of bread from the bakeries. The ducal guard stood by each shop and made sure that prices were in line with the duke’s orders. There was to be no profiteering here.

  Enrik might not be popular or even diplomatic, Felix thought, but he knew how to run his city. It seemed that at least some of the people were starting to realise that too. He had overheard some washerwomen commenting on the business of bread prices with approval. The only people who did not seem too pleased with the situation were some of the merchants. They did not complain too loudly though. The duke had threatened to put the heads of any profiteers on a spike outside the palace gates. No one doubted that he would be as good as his word.

  They passed into the citadel easily. The sentries recognised them and gave them no trouble. It seemed that there had been orders from the highest level to let Max through as soon as he returned. The right of entry seemed to have been extended to Felix and Ulrika.

  Felix looked over at Max and Ulrika. Since he had healed her, the two of them had spent a great deal of time together, and they seemed to get on better than she and Felix ever had. Since her recovery she had been distant to him. Part of him was jealous, and another part of hi
m was glad. He did not like the idea that she might prefer any other man to him, but at the same time, he was tired of the endless arguments and constant bickering. Now that she had passed the crisis stage of her illness, the deep love for her he had thought he felt seemed to have faded in the face of her coldness. He shook his head. He doubted that he would ever understand the nature of their relationship.

  He wondered if she did.

  Ulrika strode through the corridor. The marble flagstones echoed beneath her boots. Despite the atmosphere of dread that surrounded her, she felt a strange contentment. She was alive, and she was healthy. The weakness the plague had inflicted on her was past. The nightmares that had filled the days of her illness were fading memories. Everything had a brightness and a clarity to it, and her heart was filled with a cold clear joy. She had returned from the gates of Morr’s kingdom, and life seemed good to her.

  She felt like a different person. Her eyes had been opened to many things, and she saw her life with a clarity that had been denied to her before. She glanced over at Felix and wondered at the power he had once held over her. It seemed like the person who had fallen for him had been someone else a long time ago, someone much younger and much more naïve. She still cared about him, but the powerful sweeping passion was gone. She had been cured of it, as she had been cured of the sickness.

  She wondered about this. Was this, too, a result of Max’s magic? Had he somehow interfered with her thoughts and her emotions as he had been healing her? If so, she found she did not mind quite as much as she thought she would have. It was almost a relief to be freed of Felix’s constant intrusion in her thoughts, and the constant need to preserve her own identity and keep some distance between them by fighting. It seemed clear to her now that this is what she had been doing during all those arguments, and it was a good thing to feel free of it.