by Warhammer
‘Cost me a crown a pinch, as well,’ the landlord muttered. His peevish voice was the last thing Felix remembered before unconsciousness took him. ‘Still, Herr Kruger will pay me well for two such fine specimens.’
Wake up, manling!’ The deep voice rumbled somewhere close to Felix’s ear. He tried to ignore it, hoping that it would go away and let him return to his slumber.
‘Wake up, manling, or I swear I will come over there and strangle you with these very chains.’ There was a threatening note to the voice now that convinced Felix he’d better pay attention to it. He opened his eyes – and wished that he hadn’t.
Even the dim light of the single guttering torch illuminating their cell was too bright. Its feeble glow hurt Felix’s eyes. In a way, that was alright, because it made them match the rest of his body. His heartbeat thumped in his temples like a gong struck with a warhammer. His head felt like someone had used it for kickball practice. His mouth was desert dry and his tongue felt like someone had sandpapered it.
‘Worst hangover I ever had,’ Felix muttered, licking his lips nervously.
‘It’s not a hangover. We were dru–’
‘Drugged. I know.’
Felix realised that he was standing up. His hands were above his head and there were heavy weights attached to his ankles. He tried to bend forward to see what they were, but found that he could not move. He looked up to see that he dangled from manacles. The chains were attached to a great loop of iron set in the wall above him. He confirmed this by peering across the chamber and seeing that Gotrek was held the same way.
The Trollslayer dangled from his chains like a side of beef in a butcher’s shop. His legs were not chained, though. His frame was too short to reach the ground. Felix could see that there were leg irons set in the wall at ankle height but the dwarf’s legs did not stretch that far.
Felix looked around. They were in a large chamber, paved with heavy flagstones. There were a dozen sets of chains and manacles set in the walls. An oddly distorted skeleton dangled from the farthest set. In the wall to the far left was a huge bench covered in alembics and charcoal burners, and other tools of the alchemist’s trade. A huge chalk pentagram surrounded by peculiar hieroglyphics was inscribed in the centre of the room. At each junction of the pentacle was set a beastman skull holding an extinguished candle made from black wax.
At the far right of the room, a flight of stone steps led up to a heavy door. There was a barred window in the door, through which a few shafts of light penetrated down into the gloom. Near the foot of the stairs Felix could see his sword and Gotrek’s axe. He felt a brief surge of hope. Whoever had taken their weapons had not been very thorough. Felix could still feel the weight of the throwing dagger in the hidden sheath on his forearm. Of course, there was no way he could use it with his arms manacled, but it was somehow comforting to know it was there.
The air was thick and fetid. From the distance Felix thought he heard screams and chants and bestial roars. It was like listening to a combination of a lunatic asylum and a zoo. Nothing about their situation reassured Felix.
‘Why did the landlord drug us?’ Felix asked.
‘He was in league with this sorcerer. Obviously.’
‘Or he was afraid of him.’ If he could have, Felix would have shrugged. ‘No matter, I wonder why we’re still alive?’
A high-pitched tittering laugh answered that question. The heavy door creaked open and two figures blocked out the light. There was a brief flare as a lucifer was struck, then a lantern was lit and Felix could see the source of the mocking laughter.
‘A good question, Jaeger, and one I will be only too pleased to answer.’
There was something very familiar about this voice, Felix thought. It was high-pitched and nasal and deeply unpleasant. He had heard it before.
Felix squinted across the chamber and made out the voice’s owner. He was just as unpleasant as his voice. A tall, gaunt man, he wore faded and tattered grey robes, patched at the sleeves and elbows. Around his scrawny neck hung an iron chain bearing a huge amulet. His long thin fingers were covered in rune-encrusted rings and tipped with long blackened nails. His pale, sweating face was framed by a huge turned-up collar. He wore a skull-cap trimmed with silver.
Behind the man stood an enormous creature. It was huge, half again as tall as a man, and maybe four times as heavy. Perhaps once it had been human, but now it was the size of an ogre. Its hair had fallen out in great clumps, and massive pustules erupted from its scalp and flesh. Its features were twisted and hideous. Its teeth were like millstones. Its arms were even more muscular than Gotrek’s, thicker around than Felix’s thighs. Its hands were the size of dinner plates. Its callused, sausage-sized fingers looked like they could crush stone. It glared at Felix with eyes full of insane hatred. Felix found he could not meet the thing’s gaze and he turned his attention back to the human.
The man’s features were gaunt and lined. His eyes were the palest blue and bright with madness. They were hidden only slightly by his steel-framed pince-nez glasses. His nose was long and thin and tipped with an enormous wart. A drip of mucus hung from his nose. He tittered again, sniffed to draw the drip back into his nostrils and then wiped his nose on his sleeve. Then, recovering his dignity, he threw his head back and strode purposefully down the stairs.
The effect of impressive sorcerous dignity was spoiled a little when he almost tripped on the hem of his robe and fell headlong.
It was this last touch which stirred Felix’s memory. It brought everything else into focus. ‘Albericht?’ He said. ‘Albericht Kruger?’
‘Don’t call me that!’ The robed man’s voice approached a scream. ‘Address me as “Master”!’
‘You know this idiot, manling?’ Gotrek asked.
Felix nodded. Albericht Kruger had been in a few of his philosophy classes at Altdorf University before he had been expelled for duelling. He had been a quiet youth, very studious, and was always to be found in the libraries. Felix had probably never exchanged more than a dozen words with him in the whole two years that they had studied together. He remembered also that Kruger had vanished. There had been a bit of a scandal about it – something to do with books missing from the library. Felix could remember that a few witch hunters from the Temple of Sigmar had shown interest.
‘We were students together back in Altdorf.’
‘That’s enough!’ Kruger screeched in his thin and annoying voice. ‘You are my prisoners and you will do as I say for what remains of your pitiful lives.’
‘We will do as you say for what remains of our pitiful lives?’ Felix stared back at Kruger in astonishment. ‘You’ve been reading too many Detlef Sierck melodramas, Albericht. Nobody speaks like that in real life.’
‘Be quiet, Jaeger! That’s enough. You were always too clever for your own good, you know. Now we’ll see who’s the clever one – oh yes!’
‘Come on, Albericht, a joke’s a joke. Let us out of here. Quick, before your master comes.’
‘My master?’ Kruger seemed puzzled.
‘The sorcerer who owns this tower.’
‘You idiot, Jaeger! I am the sorcerer.’
Felix stared in disbelief. ‘You?’
‘Yes, me! I have probed the mysteries of the Dark Gods and learned the source of all magical power. I have plumbed the secrets of Life and Death. I wield the mighty energies of Chaos and soon I will have total domination over the lands of the Empire.’
‘I find that a little hard to believe,’ Felix admitted honestly. The Kruger he had known back then had been virtually a non-entity, ignored by all the other students. Who would have guessed at the depths of megalomania that lurked in his head?
‘Think what you will, Herr-clever-clogs-Jaeger with your la-di-da accent and your my-father-is-a-rich-merchant-and-I’m-too-good-for-your-sort manners. I have mastered the secrets of life itself. I control the alchemical secrets of warpstone and understand the innermost secrets of the Art of Transmutation!’
&nbs
p; Out of the corner of his eye, Felix could see Gotrek’s huge muscles beginning to bulge as he strained against the chains that held him. His face was red and his beard bristled. His body was contorted, arched to brace his feet against the wall. Felix did not know what the dwarf hoped to achieve. Anyone could see that these huge chains were beyond the strength of man or dwarf to break.
‘You’ve been using warpstone?’ That explained a lot, Felix thought. He did not know much about warpstone, but what he did know was disturbing enough. It was the raw essence of Chaos, the final and ultimate source of all mutations. Just a pinch of it was enough to drive a normal man mad. By his tone, it sounded like Kruger had consumed a barrel of it. ‘You’re insane!’
‘That’s what they told me back in Altdorf, back at their university!’ Spittle dripped from Kruger’s mouth. Felix could see that his eyes glowed an eerie green, as if there were tiny marshlights behind the pupils. Vampire-like fangs protruded from his gums. ‘But I showed them. I found their forbidden books, all wrapped up in the vault. They said that they were not meant for the eyes of mortal man but I’ve read them, and they’ve done me no harm!’
‘Yes, I can see that,’ Felix muttered ironically.
‘You think you’re so clever, don’t you, Jaeger? You’re just like all the rest, all of them who laughed at me when I said I would be the greatest sorcerer since Teclis. Well, I’ll prove you wrong. We’ll see how smart you act once I have transformed you, the way I transformed Oleg here!’
He tapped the monster on the shoulder with paternal pride. It grinned like a dog whose stomach has been scratched by its master. Felix found the sight very disturbing. Behind them Gotrek was practically standing against the wall. His arms were at full stretch, the chains holding firm, leaving him parallel to the floor. The Trollslayer was blue in the face. His features were contorted in a grimace of rage and fury. Felix felt that something would have to give soon. Either the chains would break or the Trollslayer would burst a blood vessel. That might prove to be a mercy, Felix thought. He did not see how Gotrek could overcome the monster without his axe. The Slayer was strong, but this creature made him look like a scrawny child.
Kruger raised his arm, brandishing his staff. At the tip, Felix could see that a sphere of greenish warpstone was held in a lead claw. Felix could not help but notice that the hand that held the staff was scaly, and that its fingernails resembled the talons of a wild beast.
‘It took me years to perfect the Spell of Transmutation, years,’ Kruger hissed. ‘You have no idea how many experiments I did. Hundreds! I laboured like a man possessed but at last I have the secret. Soon you will know it too.’ The sorcerer tittered. ‘Alas, it will do you no good, for you will not be clever enough to speak. Still, you’ll provide fine company for Oleg.’
The glowing tip of the man’s staff came ever closer to Felix’s face. He could see strange lights in its depth. Its surface seemed to shimmer and swirl like oil dropped on water. He could sense the terrible mutating power emerging from it. It radiated out of the warpstone like heat from a glowing coal.
‘I don’t suppose begging for mercy would help?’ Felix asked breezily. He was proud that he managed to keep his voice even.
Kruger shook his head. ‘It’s too late for that. Soon you will be even more of a witless dullard than you are now.’
‘In that case, I have to tell you something.’
Gotrek’s muscles bulged as he made one last superhuman effort, throwing himself forward like a swimmer diving headlong off a cliff.
‘What’s that, Jaeger?’ Kruger leaned close to Felix’s mouth.
‘I never liked you either, you madman!’
Kruger looked like he was going to strike Felix with the staff, but instead he just smiled, revealing his feral teeth.
‘Soon, Jaeger, you will learn the true meaning of madness. Every time you look in the mirror.’
Kruger began to chant in a strange, liquid-sounding tongue. It was not elvish but something even older and considerably more sinister sounding. Felix had heard it before, at other times when he and Gotrek had interfered with rites being performed by the followers of Chaos. Well, it looked as though this time the forces of Darkness were going to have the last laugh. He and the Trollslayer would soon be joining their ranks, however unwillingly.
With every word Kruger chanted, the warpstone glowed ever brighter. Its greenish glow drove back the gloom of the chamber and washed everything in its eerie light. Ectoplasmic tendrils emerged from the warpstone. At first they resembled glowing mist, then congealed into something more solid. There was about them the suggestion of something loathsome and diseased. As Kruger brandished his staff, its ectoplasmic emissions trailed behind it like the tail of a comet. He waved it around with grand sweeping gestures, as if with every wave the evil device gathered power.
His chanting now resembled insane shrieking. Sweat beaded the Chaos sorcerer’s forehead and dripped down his glasses. Oleg, the mutated monster, howled in unison with his master’s chanting, his bass rumbling providing an eerie counterpoint to the spell.
Felix felt his hair begin to stand on end, when the chanting stopped and an eerie silence blanketed the dungeon.
For a moment, everything was still. Felix could hardly see, so dazzled was he by the light of the Chaos staff. He could hear his own heartbeat and Kruger’s frantic breathing as he gasped for breath after completing his invocation. There was a strange metallic creaking, and a grinding of metal on stone. He opened his eyes to see one of Gotrek’s chains whip free from the wall, then the Trollslayer tumbled forward with a curse, ending up dangling above the flagstones.
Kruger turned at the sound. The monster opened his mouth and let out an enormous bellow.
Felix groaned. He had hoped the Slayer would be able to make a run for his axe. With his weapon in his hand, Felix would have backed the Trollslayer against any monster. However, Gotrek still hung from one of the chains. All he could do was dangle there, while the monster ripped him limb from limb.
Kruger seemed to realise this at the same time as Felix. ‘Get him!’ he yelled to his monster.
Oleg surged forward and Gotrek lashed out with his chain. The heavy metal links whipped towards the huge mutant’s eyes. Oleg howled with pain as the chain hit his face, then reeled backwards, crashing into Kruger. There was a snapping sound as Gotrek used his moment’s grace to break his other chain free from the wall. Kruger’s face went white. He lurched to his feet and scuttled for the stairs. The last Felix saw of him was his departing backside.
‘Now there will be a reckoning!’ Gotrek pronounced, his flinty voice guttural with rage.
The monster surged forward to meet the Trollslayer, reaching out with one ham-sized hand. Gotrek brought the chain flashing forward and down, hammering the metal into the creature’s hand. Once more it backed off. Gotrek’s one good eye squinted sideways as though measuring the distance between himself and his axe. Felix could almost read his mind. The distance was too far. If he turned his back and ran for his weapon, the monster’s longer stride would enable it to overhaul him.
Perhaps he could back towards it. As always, Felix misread the strength of the dwarf’s lust for combat. Instead of backing off, he ran forward, swinging his chain in an eye-blurring arc. It smashed into the monster’s chest, then a moment later Gotrek caught Oleg across the face with the second chain.
This time Oleg expected the pain. Instead of retreating, he advanced on towards the Trollslayer, scooping him up in a bear hug. Felix winced as he watched the giant mutant’s arms constrict. Oleg’s flexed biceps looked the size of ale-barrels. Felix feared that the Trollslayer’s ribs would snap like rotten twigs.
Gotrek brought his head forward, butting Oleg in the face. There was a sickening crunch as Oleg’s nose broke. Red blood spurted over Gotrek. Oleg howled with pain and cast the dwarf across the room with one thrust of his huge arms. Gotrek smacked into the wall and fell to the ground with a clattering of chains. After a few seconds, the Trollslay
er staggered unsteadily to his feet.
‘Get your axe!’ Felix shouted.
The dazed dwarf was in no condition to take his advice. Besides, Gotrek was out for blood. He staggered towards Oleg. The giant stood there, howling and clutching his nose. Then, hearing the dwarf’s reeling footsteps, he looked up and gave a mighty bellow of rage and pain. He rushed forward, hunkered down, arms outstretched, once more intending to catch the Trollslayer in his death grip. Gotrek stood on swaying legs as the monster thundered towards him, irresistible as an runaway wagon. Felix did not want to look – the mutant was big enough to crush the Slayer beneath his elephantine feet. Horror compelled him to watch.
Oleg reached for Gotrek, his enormous arms closing, but at the last second the Slayer ducked and dived between his legs, turned and lashed out with the chain. It wound around the monster’s ankle. Gotrek heaved. Oleg tripped and sprawled, and the chain unwound like a serpent.
Gotrek looped a length of chain around the mutant’s throat. Oleg pushed himself to his feet, pulling Gotrek with him. The Trollslayer’s weight tightened the grip of the chain around his neck. Using it to hold himself in place, Gotrek pulled himself up to behind Oleg’s neck and continued to tighten the chain. The flesh turned white around the mutant’s windpipe as the metal links bit into flesh. Felix could see that Gotrek intended to strangle the monster.
Slowly the thought percolated into the mutant’s dim mind, and he reached up with both hands to try and loosen the grip of the metal noose that was killing him. He grasped at the chain and tried to work his fingers into the links but they were too big and the chain was gripped too tight. Then he tried to reach behind his head to grasp Gotrek. The Trollslayer ducked his head and pulled himself in tight. He pulled the chain backwards and forward like a saw now. Felix could see droplets of blood emerging where the links had bit.
Now Oleg’s hand fastened in Gotrek’s crest of hair. It held fast for a moment as Oleg tugged, then his fingers slipped loose on the bear fat ointment that held the crest together. Felix could see fear and frustration begin to appear in the monster’s eyes. He could tell that the mutant was weakening. Now Oleg panicked, throwing himself backward at the wall, slamming Gotrek into the stone with sickening force. Nothing could loosen the Slayer’s grip. Felix doubted that death itself would make the dwarf loose his hold now. He could see that a fixed glazed look had entered Gotrek’s eyes, and his mouth was half-open in a terrifying snarl.
