by Warhammer
The prisoner snorted, then chuckled, then guffawed, then bent double in a violent coughing fit, tears turning to mud as they ran down his filthy face. At last he recovered and leaned back, looking at Felix with sparkling eyes. ‘Ah, my friend, I have not laughed like that in…’ His face grew grave. ‘Well, a long time.’ He bowed where he sat, one hand making flourishes. ‘My name is Halim il Saredi. My father once served the old caliph and, until recently, I served his son, Falhedar, your host, who is as cruel and tyrannical as his father was wise and just.’
‘You served him?’ Felix asked. ‘And you’re here now?’
Halim nodded. ‘For a time I thought I could help the people by using my influence to blunt Falhedar’s excesses.’ He sighed. ‘Finally I could no longer pretend that I made a difference. When I dared speak against one of his more villainous edicts he ordered my execution. I escaped into the desert, then returned in disguise not long ago to organise a rebellion with some like-minded friends.’ He smiled sardonically. ‘Needless to say, I was caught.’ He looked toward the arrow slit in his cell wall. ‘And soon I will fight the khimar, and die, but only after I am tortured into betraying my conspirators.’ He blinked, lost in thought, then grinned suddenly at Felix. ‘So – to answer your question – no, the caliph is not particularly just.’
Felix sighed. It had been a faint hope. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘And I’m sorry for your–’
A roar from the narrow windows drowned him out – the sound of thousands of voices all shouting at once.
‘What was that?’
Halim cringed away from the window, pale beneath his grime. ‘The khimar is about to take another victim.’
‘The khimar? What is that?’ Felix stood and craned his neck to look through the arrow slit. Did the beast, whatever it was, have a thousand throats?
He blinked in the blinding rays of the sun. A hot, dusty breeze blew into his face as details emerged from the glare. The window was nearly level with a broad sandy floor, encircled by high walls, and above the walls, slanting planes of colour, endlessly shifting. For a moment, he didn’t understand, for he could only see a small wedge of the world. Then it came into focus. It was an arena, like an Estalian bull ring, but much larger. The stands thronged with people. It was from them the roar had come.
On the far wall large double doors were rumbling open and something was coming out – something big.
‘The khimar,’ Halim whimpered, peering out of his window as well.
The thing emerged from the shadows of the door, padding on great clawed feet. Felix gasped. Though he had read descriptions of such a beast in books, he had never seen one in life. It had the body of a lion, but much larger – taller than a man at the shoulder, with powerful muscles rippling under its tawny, scar-inscribed fur. It had a lion’s head as well, great golden mane shining in the sun as it roared at the crowd, but the head was not alone. Sprouting from its left shoulder screamed the head of an eagle, its cruel beak snapping, while growing from its right, whipping angrily at the end of a long neck, was the head of a dark red serpent, saliva dripping from its fangs. The monster prowled to the centre of the arena, lion tail lashing, its heads looking in every direction for prey. The crowd roared again.
Felix gaped. ‘A chimera? They feed the prisoners to a chimera?’
‘Not feed,’ said Halim. ‘Fight.’ His wide eyes never left the beast. ‘We are instructed to fight it – unarmed, of course. It is more entertaining that way.’
‘Unarmed? Against that?’ Felix laughed hollowly. He pitied the poor unfortunate who would have to face all those fangs and beaks and claws. It would be a massacre.
There was a fanfare of trumpets and a tall door at the back of a raised platform slowly opened. Behind it, a portcullis rose, curtains parted, and a figure was thrust, stumbling, onto the platform, his wrists shackled in chains, his one eye blinking in the sun.
It was Gotrek.
THREE
The Slayer looked as if he was still suffering from the drugged drink that had poleaxed him the night before. He stared around stupidly at his surroundings, weaving on his powerful legs as the door closed behind him. The crowd laughed.
The chimera crept toward him, eagle beak shrieking a challenge. Gotrek’s head snapped up. He reached instinctively for his back, then looked around, baffled, at the place where his axe should have been.
Felix choked, then berated himself. Of course Gotrek wouldn’t have his axe. They were prisoners. But it was still a shock to see it. He could not remember a time when Gotrek had been separated from it.
The Slayer back-pedalled, straining to break the chains that hung between his manacles. The links were too thick. The chimera leapt onto the platform. Gotrek dived off – out of Felix’s field of vision. The chimera sprung after him. The crowd roared.
‘What’s happening?’ Felix cried.
‘I can see no more than you, friend,’ said Halim.
Felix leaned left and right, to no avail. Then his eye was caught by a splash of red in the stands. The man in the red robes! He stood in a canopied box, his silver flute winking in the shadows. Beside him on an opulent throne sat a plump man, lavishly dressed in white and gold, and wearing a golden circlet on his head that looked like a coiled cobra. They watched the contest with interest.
‘Who is the man in red?’ Felix asked.
Halim growled. ‘Dujedi il Kaadiq. The caliph’s advisor and chief sorcerer, may his soul be flayed by djinn.’
Gotrek ran past, the chimera bounding after him, and was gone again. Felix cursed in frustration.
A second later, the Slayer landed near Felix’s window in a cloud of dust – close enough for Felix to hear him grunt. He was striped across the chest with crimson claw marks. The chimera dropped down on top of him, both snake and lion heads whipping down. Gotrek swung his chains, fists together, and cracked the snake head with the heavy links, knocking it into the lion head. The beast recoiled. Gotrek surged up and headbutted it in the underbelly. It roared and fell backwards, then flipped around like the cat it was and landed on its feet. Bellowing from its three throats, it leapt at Gotrek again.
Gotrek thrust his hands up and apart and blocked the eagle’s beak with the rigid chain. It bit the links and flung Gotrek over its shoulder with a flick of its neck, then pounced after him and was gone.
Felix tried to gauge what was happening by the cheers and screams of the crowd, but he didn’t know if they were cheering Gotrek or the chimera, or just bloodshed in general. The noise rose and rose.
After a moment, the beast galloped by the window again, shaking its heads violently. Gotrek hung from them, struggling to hold away the eagle with one hand and choking the snake with the other. Its slavering fangs snapped an inch from his face. The heel of his boot was crammed in the lion’s maw, forcing it open.
Felix groaned as the combatants disappeared again. That looked like the end. At any moment one of the heads would break free and rip Gotrek to pieces.
There was an intake of breath from the whole arena, and then a roar, louder than any before. Felix cursed. That must have been it. It could have been nothing else.
But as the chimera staggered into view again, Felix saw that he was wrong. The eagle head was stuffed into the snake’s distended jaw, and Gotrek was on the beast’s back, strangling the lion head with his chains.
The red sorcerer and the man in white and gold were on their feet, shouting down into the arena.
‘By the seven fathers of Mu’Allid!’ whispered Halim, gaping.
The chimera writhed and roared, trying to reach Gotrek with its claws and disentangle its other heads at the same time. The lion head was bleeding from the mouth, its bellows hoarse and constricted.
Gotrek heaved mightily on the chain and the lion head went limp. The chimera lost its footing and fell on one shoulder. The snake head finally freed the eagle head from its jaws and turned on Gotrek. The Slayer caught it in his bare hands as it lunged, and twisted it cruelly. The eagle head tried to
reach him, but couldn’t get around the lion head.
There was a dull crack, and the snake head flopped to the ground. Gotrek leapt at the eagle head. It bit at his hand, crushing his manacle. Gotrek grabbed the powerful beak with his free hand and began pushing it open. Its paws clawed weakly at him, shredding his back and legs. He ignored them, forcing the beak further apart.
The man in white was screaming at the sorcerer, who cringed at his displeasure and began making cabalistic gestures in the air.
He was too late.
With a horrible ripping sound, the two halves of the eagle beak tore apart, splitting the flesh around it. The eagle head’s white feathers were drenched in blood and the chimera collapsed, dead. Gotrek fell beside it, utterly spent.
The arena was silent, the crowd still. Then suddenly they roared, a deafening, jubilant cheer. The caliph and the sorcerer looked around at them, furious and afraid.
Felix let out a long-held breath.
Halim’s jaw hung loose. ‘This… this is a sign,’ he said, then stepped back, suddenly calculating. ‘At least, it can be used as one. Proof that the caliph’s time has come. By the silver beard of Abdul ibn Ashid! That I have lived to see the day…’
White-uniformed guards crept toward Gotrek. He struggled up, lifting his fists. He was running with blood, his flesh criss-crossed with deep gashes. He could barely stand.
The guards spread out. They held something between them. Gotrek lurched toward them. Half of them ran forward, raising what they held – a weighted net. It settled over the Slayer. He grabbed at it, trying to tear it off, but they pulled the far edge under him, knocking him off his feet, and dragged him, kicking uselessly, toward the arena door.
Felix watched as, accompanied by a jailer, the guards hauled Gotrek down the long hall between the cages and rolled him out of the net into a cell.
Gotrek rose to his feet as they slammed the door, and stumbled to the bars. ‘Let me out!’ he spat, mouth bloody. ‘Give me my axe!’
The chief guard sneered and said something in his own language that sounded like an insult. He turned to the jailer and barked an order. The jailer bowed and ran off.
‘You are to be brought food and bandages,’ said Halim, as the guards strode away. ‘It seems the caliph wishes you to die in the arena, not in private.’
Gotrek slumped against the bars, his strength ebbing with his fury. He slid to the floor.
Halim bowed to him from his cell. ‘A magnificent battle, friend dwarf. By Kasoun’s fiery sword, if all dwarfs are like you, it seems incredible that they do not rule the world.’
Gotrek’s answer was a snore.
A short while later, a slave appeared, carrying food and bandages. He set them outside the cell and scurried away. Gotrek woke as Felix pulled it all through the bars.
‘Give me that,’ he rasped.
He dressed his wounds first, tearing the bandages with his teeth, for no blade had been provided, then ate the gruel and flat bread, muttering under his breath, without a glance for Felix or Halim.
‘Friend dwarf,’ said Halim, reverently. ‘Know it or not, you have shaken the caliph’s rule to its core today. The people have believed his hold on the throne unshakable. Now they know he can be beaten. Now is the time to strike! If only I could be free of this cell I could topple him like a rootless tree.’
The Slayer ignored him, chewing mechanically until all the food was gone, then he stood and stepped to the bars. ‘Come on, manling. I have to find my axe.’
‘Come? Come where?’ said Felix.
The Slayer grabbed two of the bars and began pulling at them.
‘Gotrek,’ said Felix, scowling. ‘Not even at your strongest…’
Gotrek continued pulling, keeping inexorable pressure on the bars. His face turned red. His arms trembled. ‘A dwarf knows iron,’ he hissed. ‘This is poor stuff.’
Felix gaped. The bars groaned. They were a half-inch further apart.
‘Poorly forged,’ grunted Gotrek. ‘Poorly set.’
Halim stood, staring. The bars were bowing, creaking and squealing. Gotrek shook like a palsy victim. The veins stood out on his neck. His muscles bulged. Sweat poured from his brow. Blood leaked into his bandages.
‘Spirits of sky, earth and water!’ breathed Halim.
Other prisoners were turning and looking. The slap of boots echoed down the corridor and the jailer appeared. He gasped then stepped to the bars, screaming and bashing at Gotrek’s knuckles with a long, iron-shod truncheon to make him let go.
Gotrek’s hand shot out and grabbed the jailer’s wrist. He pulled. The jailer’s face banged off the bars. His eyes crossed. Gotrek caught him around the neck with one massive hand and yanked forward. The jailer’s head popped through the bars like a melon seed. He screamed. He had left his ears behind. Blood poured from the sides of his head. Gotrek punched him in the temple and he slumped, unconscious.
Felix darted forward and took the jailer’s ring of keys. He stepped to the door and began trying them in the lock. In every cell, the other prisoners were stepping forward, watching with desperate eyes.
‘My friends,’ said Halim, licking his lips.
The fourth key unlocked the door. Felix threw it open.
Gotrek stomped out and took up the jailer’s truncheon, then started down the corridor. ‘Let’s go.’
As Felix followed, the prisoners called to them, begging to be released.
Halim reached through the bars of his cell. ‘Wait, friends! Wait!’
Gotrek ignored him.
‘Friends, I beg you, listen to me!’ called Halim. ‘I can help you!’
Gotrek kept walking.
‘I know a secret way out of this place.’
Gotrek shrugged. ‘I’ll make my own way out.’
‘I know where your weapons are! I can lead you to them.’
Gotrek paused, then turned back. ‘Where are they?’
Halim laughed. ‘You think me a fool, friend dwarf? I will tell you when you let me out.’
Gotrek shot a questioning glance at Felix.
Felix shrugged. ‘He said he was once an advisor to the caliph.’
Gotrek grunted. ‘Let him out.’
Felix turned back and unlocked Halim’s cell.
Halim bowed profusely as he stepped out of the cage. ‘Thank you, friends. May the blessings of your gods be upon you.’
‘Never mind that,’ growled Gotrek. ‘Where is my axe?’
Halim shook his head. ‘Oh no. We are not yet free.’
Gotrek looked like he was going to stuff the man back in his cell.
‘I will take you to your weapons,’ said Halim. ‘I promise you. But we must be away from this place first, and quickly.’
Gotrek glowered at him. ‘If this is a trick, I’ll turn you inside out.’
Halim chuckled. ‘Friend dwarf, I saw you dispatch the chimera. I have more sense than to cross you.’
Gotrek grunted, unimpressed, then motioned for him to lead on.
Halim bowed. ‘Bless you. Now come. There is a secret way to the outside.’ Halim motioned them further down the corridor, away from the exit. ‘I know it from my father’s time as court sorcerer.’
As they followed, the other prisoners clamoured to be freed. Felix paused, then took the keys and tossed them to the man in the nearest cell. He didn’t know what good it would do them, but he wouldn’t deny them the attempt.
FOUR
‘You tricked us!’ cried Felix.
‘Didn’t I tell you I’d–’ began Gotrek, standing.
‘You would do well not to do anything you will later regret,’ said Halim softly. ‘You will not retrieve your weapons without me.’
He looked entirely different, freshly bathed and with his beard neatly trimmed. The clean blue robes and snow-white headcloth helped too, giving him an air of quiet nobility. Only the gauntness of his cheeks betrayed his recent captivity.
It was after sunset on the same day that he had led Gotrek and Felix out o
f the caliph’s prison. They sat around a broad table in the cellar of a dye works. Jars of ochre and indigo and other powders were stacked against the walls, as were bolts of cloth, both dyed and undyed. The acrid scents of the dyes mixed oddly with that of the meagre meal spread before them – curried lamb, dates, cheese and fragrant tea.
A handful of men and women sat with them. A proud young beauty sat at Halim’s side, her hand on his. She was dressed entirely in black, from pantaloons to blouse to veil. Her hair was black as well – glossy waves that fell to her waist.
All of them were glaring at Gotrek and Felix.
‘You dare threaten Bey Saredi, infidel?’ growled a hard-eyed, hard-muscled man with the bearing of a professional soldier. His Reikspiel was abominable.
‘Peace, Ghal,’ said Halim. ‘The dwarf and the northerner have a right to feel ill-used.’ Halim turned to Gotrek. ‘Though I did not lie. I will bring you to your weapons, in time.’
‘But you didn’t tell us it would take usurping the caliph to do it!’ said Felix.
Gotrek’s knuckles cracked like pistol-shots. ‘I don’t care about some little squabble. You promised me my axe.’
‘Little squabble?’ said the woman at Halim’s side. Her voice was clear and sharp. ‘The fate of a nation is at stake!’
Halim put a hand on her arm to quiet her. ‘Friends, there is no other way. Your weapons are in the caliph’s palace, as I feared, locked inside his treasure vault. A thousand men guard the palace, as does Kaadiq, the sorcerer who laid you low once before. I know secret ways into the palace, true, but there is no way to the vault that is not guarded. It is not a job for two men, or three, or twenty. It is a job for an army.’
Gotrek glared death at him for a long minute, and Felix was certain that the cellar was about to erupt into bloody violence, but at last the Slayer sank back into his chair.
‘Carry on,’ he grunted. ‘But if I don’t have my axe at the end of this, your reign will be over before it begins.’
‘What did he say?’ asked Ghal, rising.
Halim waved him down, then gave the Slayer a cool look. ‘There is no need for more threats, friend dwarf. You can only kill me once.’ He turned to the others and began to speak in his own language.
