Gotrek & Felix- the First Omnibus - William King

by Warhammer

‘Grab hold,’ he roared. Felix leapt up and grabbed hold of the axe shaft with his right hand, while holding the lantern in the other. Gotrek raised the axe one-handed, lifting it up, apparently effortlessly, despite Felix’s weight and the uncomfortable angle. He swung the axe inwards over the ship’s side and brought Felix with it. Felix dropped to the deck, amazed by the awesome strength the dwarf had just displayed.

  ‘Looks like we’re expected,’ he said, nodding at the mass of skaven swarming up onto the deck.

  ‘Good,’ Gotrek said. ‘I need a bit of exercise.’

  What was that, Skitch wondered? He had heard an almighty crash and the sound of wood splintering. Had those buffoons managed to crash the barge onto a sandbar again? He would not have put it past them. They had claimed to be experienced sailors and that crewing a human ship would be no problem. So far that had not proved the case.

  If they jeopardised this mission, Izak Grottle would tear them all limb from limb and devour their entrails before their dying eyes, but such thoughts brought Skitch no consolation. He knew he would be the first course at the packmaster’s punishment feast.

  When he heard the crew’s squeaks of alarm, Skitch knew it was even worse than running aground. They had been discovered by a human patrol. He cursed the bad luck which had enabled the humans to discover them. It must have been a million-to-one chance. Now he wished he had brought some rat-ogres after all. He had not done so, for fear that their roars and bellows would give away the ship’s position, but that did not seem to matter now.

  Part of him wanted to squirt the musk of fear, but then again it was his responsibility to see to his charges. He raced from the cabin into the hold. All around him, massive rats thrashed in their cages, desperate to get free and to eat. Seeing the look of feral hunger in their eyes, Skitch was glad that he had doused himself in oil of swamptoad, a substance that he knew his creations found repellent.

  Hearing the sounds of terrible carnage from above, Skitch swiftly began to throw open the cages. The rats swarmed hungrily up the gangplanks, moving towards their living, breathing food.

  Felix lashed out with the lantern. Its flame flared bright as it rushed through the air. The dazzled skaven before him leapt back, momentarily blinded. Felix took advantage of its confusion to stab it through the throat with his sword.

  The deck was already slippery underfoot with blood and brains. The Slayer had left an awful trail of destruction behind him. His axe had reduced a dozen skaven to limbless corpses. The others were fleeing backwards or jumping over the side of the barge to avoid him. Felix moved along behind, killing those who sought to outflank the dwarf and putting the dying out of their misery.

  His heart beat loudly within his chest. His sword’s hilt felt sweaty in his grip but he was not as afraid as he usually was in mortal combat. Compared to some of the fights he had been in, this one was relatively easy. Suspiciously so, in fact, considering there was supposed to be some terrible skaven weapon on board this vessel.

  Not that the relative ease of the fight would make much difference, he told himself, springing aside to duck a knife cast by one of the skaven sailors, and lunging forward to take another rat-man through the heart. All it would take would be one lucky blow, and he would be just as dead as if a rat-ogre had torn him into little pieces.

  Concentrate, he ordered himself – and then stopped in horror as the tide of furry forms started swarming up from the hold.

  Skitch snuck up the stairway and peered out at a scene of terrible violence. A monstrous squat dwarf wielding a flailing great axe had killed half the crew and seemed intent on massacring the other half. In this he was assisted by a tall, blond-furred human who held a lantern in one hand and a wicked-looking blade in the other. All around, the killer rats gnawed at the bodies of dead and dying skaven.

  Skitch froze on the spot and squirted the musk of fear. His paws locked on the last cage, in which frantic rats struggled to get away from the stink of the oil on his fur. Skitch recognised the pair who had invaded the ship. They had become something of a dark legend amongst the skaven besieging Nuln. This was the fearsome pair whom even the gutter runners had failed to slay, who had routed the warlocks of Skryre, whom it was said even Grey Seer Thanquol feared to meet again. They were formidable killers of skaven – and they were here, on this very barge!

  Skitch was no warrior and he knew he could be of no aid to the skaven in the battle above. It was possible that even the killer rats would fail to overcome this seemingly invincible twosome. It was plainly his duty, then, to escape, carrying the last of the surviving rats, to preserve them for the future when they might be used again.

  So thinking, he held the cage high above his head and leapt into the night-black waters.

  Felix watched as more and more of the huge rats poured from the hold. There was a hunger and madness in their eyes which frightened him, and he wondered if these could be the skaven secret weapon. One large fierce brute threw itself at him. He felt the horrid scurry of its paws on his leg. He lashed out, sending the beast flying and stamped down, feeling the spine of another crack beneath the heel of his boot.

  He looked around at Gotrek. The Slayer beheaded another of the skaven crew, sending a great fountain of black blood belching into the air. Before the skaven corpse hit the ground, more and more rats had swarmed over it.

  Something dropped onto Felix from above. He felt paws scrabbling in his hair, and small sharp teeth nipping his ear. A foul animal stench filled his nostrils. He dropped the lantern and reached up, feeling muscles squirm beneath fur as he plucked the rat free. Fangs nipped at his fingers as he threw the thing over the side and into the river.

  More and more rats dropped from above or pounced from the deck. He felt like he was in the centre of a swirling storm of fur. Gotrek stamped and hacked and kicked but he was in the same position. The rats were too numerous and too fierce to overcome. If they stayed they would die a horrible death by a thousand bites.

  ‘Not a death for a Slayer, I would say!’ Felix shouted.

  ‘Torch this blasted floating rats’ nest!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Torch it and let’s begone!’

  Felix looked around and saw the lantern. He picked it up and threw it with all his force onto the deck. Burning oil spilled everywhere. Felix had often heard his father say what a danger fire was on a ship. They were, after all, built of wood and sealed with inflammable pitch. Felix had never thought he would be grateful for that fact, but he certainly was now. Flames started to flicker and dance all around him.

  The smell of burning fur and flesh reached his nostrils. Squeaking rats scurried everywhere, their fur smouldering and blazing as they tried to escape the hot flames. Some leapt overboard and plummeted into the water like small living meteors. Others continued their attack with redoubled fury, as if determined to drag something else down in death with him.

  Felix decided that this was their cue to depart.

  ‘Time to go!’ he shouted. A backwash of heat blazed towards him, singeing his hair and eyebrows.

  ‘Aye, manling, I think you are right.’

  Felix sheathed his sword, turned and vaulted over the side. He tumbled into the water, rats falling all around him. After the heat of the burning ship it was almost a relief to feel the shock of cold dark water closing over his head. He kicked out and up and his head broke the surface.

  He could see that there were boats all around, come to look at the fire. Fighting the weight of his scabbard, he struck out for the nearest vessel.

  Sopping wet, Felix sat glumly on the wharf and kept his eyes peeled. So far there was no sign of the Slayer. He had not seen Gotrek since he plunged into the water. He wondered if the dwarf could swim. Even if he could, was it not possible that he had drowned trying to hold on to his precious axe? It would not exactly have been the glorious death he craved.

  His clothes were wet and his teeth were starting to chatter but still he sat, wishing that he had some of the schnapps Gotrek had bee
n swigging earlier. Felix wondered about the skaven weapon that was meant to have been on board the black ship. He knew now that he would never find out what it was. The barge was a burned-out hulk resting on the bottom of the river. The boatmen who had picked him up had held their position in mid-river and watched it burn, before accepting a handful of silver in payment for carrying Felix to the shore.

  There was a wet, slapping sound nearby Felix looked warily to his right. One of the huge, hungry rats had made it off the ship then. It clambered up the side of the ladder from the landing stage, shook its fur dry like it was a dog and trotted off up the wharf. Felix watched it go.

  Briefly Felix considered finding the boatmen again and going out to search the river for the Slayer. He knew it would be a futile effort; the Reik was too wide and the current too strong. If the Slayer had drowned, doubtless his corpse would eventually be recovered and put on display at the Old Bridge, waiting with all the others the river had taken for someone to come and claim it. Felix could check there tomorrow.

  He stood up wearily from the mooring post on which he sat and prepared for the long trudge home. As he did so, he caught sight of a familiar figure, berating an equally familiar boatman who was poling towards the landing stage. Felix waved a welcome.

  ‘Current carried me down river,’ Gotrek called, hauling himself up onto the wharf. ‘Ran into our old friend here. Took most of the night to get back.’

  ‘Going against the current,’ the weary boatman said. He looked as tired as any man Felix had ever seen, and deeply scared too. Felix could guess the nature of the threats which Gotrek had used to motivate him.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘let’s get back to the Pig and have some beer. I think we’ve earned it.’

  ‘Forgive me if I don’t join you,’ the boatman said. ‘And… and there’s the small matter of my fee.’

  Cold, wet and bedraggled, Skitch finally scuttled into the Underways. It had been a truly dreadful night. He had swum through the chilly waters carrying the last cage of rats. After that, he had scuttled along the riverbanks until he found a sewer outflow, and then he had spent the rest of the night wandering through the tunnels until he had found the familiar scent of skaven. Dodging human patrols in the dark, the trail had finally led him here.

  He was proud of himself. He had managed a long and difficult trek. He had lost his bifocals and could barely see but he had made it, and he had managed to preserve a cage full of his precious specimens. Better yet, in the cage were several pregnant females so he would easily be able to start all over again. The rats were healthy too. Even now they were showing signs of agitation. Skitch realised it was because they could smell food. He was close to the storage chambers where the supplies for the great invasion force were kept.

  Now, he thought, all he needed was a cover story to tell the sentries to explain his business. Easy enough; he would just say that he was bringing food for Izak Grottle. Anybody who knew the packmaster would believe that.

  The thought made him titter. He was still tittering when his near-blind eyes failed to pick out the stone in front of his feet and he tripped, sprawling clumsily into the dirt. The cage rolled free from his grip. The battered lock clicked and it sprang open. The killer rats bounded forth and raced off in the direction of the skaven stores.

  Skitch groaned. He knew what the consequences of that were going to be. Soon it would not be just Izak Grottle who was hungry.

  THE BATTLE FOR NULN

  ‘The days grew darker. Fear and hunger were constant companions. The great skaven plot drew to its inevitable conclusion, and it seemed to be our lot to be drawn into it. And yet, along with terror and horror, there was hope and heroism. As well as loss there was honour. The hour of utmost danger arrived and I pride myself that my companion and I were not found wanting…’

  — From My Travels With Gotrek, Vol. III,

  by Herr Felix Jaeger (Altdorf Press, 2505)

  Thanquol sat brooding on his great throne. Around him was marked a pentacle, inscribed with the head of the Horned Rat and surrounded by a double circle of the most potent protective symbols. He had invoked all of the great defensive spells he knew to shield him from the dire forces gnawing at his destiny. These were runes sovereign against curses, diseases, ill-luck and all manner of death-bringing spells. They numbered among the most powerful wards the grey seer had learned in a long career pursuing the Darker Mysteries. It was a measure of how bad the situation had become that Thanquol thought it necessary to expend so much of his carefully hoarded mystical power to invoke them all.

  Thanquol lowered his great horned head into his hands and beat a tattoo on his temples with his claws. He was worried. Things were not going according to plan. Events were starting to slip beyond his control, he could sense it. His highly trained grey seer’s intuition could feel forces at work here that were sending matters spiralling beyond the ability of any skaven, no matter how clever, to predict.

  He was not quite sure how it had all happened. At first everything had gone so well. His agents reported the destruction of the Black Ship and he knew that once more his unwitting pawns, Jaeger and Gurnisson, had done his work for him. Mere days later, the Council of Thirteen had authorised an increase in size of his invasion force. It looked like utter crushing victory over the humans was within his grasp. But then…

  But then the accursed plague had started to spread among his own forces. Soon the Underways were full to bursting with sick and dying skaven warriors. As fast as the bodies could be burned, dozens more followed. Even the skaven slaves manning the funeral ovens were falling sick. The symptoms – a hacking snuffling cough, an evil pus filling the lungs and finally a sudden onset of fatal spasms – were remarkably similar to the disease striking down the humans on the surface. Perhaps it was the same plague. It would not be the first time a contagion had made the leap between the two races.

  As if the plague were not bad enough, another menace had arisen. The corridors now swarmed with large, fierce, hungry rats. They were everywhere, devouring the corpses, eating the food supplies, fighting over scraps, defecating and urinating everywhere, helping spread the cursed disease – and at the same time starving the army. Even now some of them lurked, beady-eyed, in the corner of his chamber, avoiding his pentagram but gnawing the furnishings. He could hear some of them moving beneath his throne. They must have been there when he cast his spells. Now they were trapped inside with him.

  It would not have been nearly so bad if the offending creatures had not been rats. It was almost a sign that the Horned Rat had turned his snout away from the great invasion force, and withdrawn his blessing from the army. Certainly some of the more superstitious warriors were starting to mutter such things, and none of Thanquol’s pointed speeches and sermons had reassured them.

  It did no good for him to point out that the humans were suffering just as much, if not more, from these twin catastrophes: their granaries were empty, their food supplies consumed by the verminous host. The skaven warriors simply did not believe him. They did not have access to Thanquol’s extensive spy network on the surface. They saw only that they themselves were starving and that their comrades were falling ill, and that there was a good chance that they in turn would be the next to be smitten by the plague. Morale had suffered, and no one knew better than Thanquol that morale was always a chancy thing at best for a skaven army.

  He had done his utmost to hunt down those shirkers who muttered disloyal and treacherous remarks. He had assigned elite units of stormvermin to execute deserters on the spot. He had blasted several traitors himself with his most spectacular and destructive spells – but it had all been to no avail. The rot had set in. The army was slowly starting to fall to pieces. And there did not seem to be anything he could do about it.

  Thanquol kicked one of the rats from under his feet, where it was gnawing at the bones of the last messenger who had brought him bad news. It flew through the air and impacted on the curtain of spells surrounding the pentagram. Sparks fl
ickered, smoke belched and the rat gave an eerie keening cry as it died. The air was full of the smell of burned fur and scorched flesh as the creature fried in its own body fat. Thanquol’s whiskers twitched in appreciation and he gave a brief savage smirk of satisfaction before returning to his brooding.

  Since word of the armies’ misfortune had filtered back to Skavenblight, no more reinforcements had arrived. It was not quite the overwhelming mass of skaven warriors he had hoped for, but it would be enough, if Thanquol used all his resources of cunning and far-sighted planning. Something would have to be done to save the situation, and soon, while there was still an army left that was capable of fighting. He did not doubt that he still had enough troops at his command to overwhelm the human city if they attacked swiftly and savagely and with the advantage of surprise. Even if the army then dissolved, he would have achieved his goal. Nuln would be conquered and Thanquol could report success to the Council of Thirteen. It would then be up to his masters to rush garrison troops here to hold the city. If they did not get here in time that would not be Thanquol’s fault.

  The more Thanquol thought of it, the more this plan made sense. He could still achieve his assigned mission. He could still grasp his share of glory. He could then shift the blame for anything that happened afterwards to where it belonged – upon his incompetent underlings, and those traitors to the skaven cause who deserted the army just before its hour of triumph.

  He reviewed the forces under his control. He still had close to five thousand almost-healthy warriors drawn mostly from Clan Skab. He still had several teams of gutter runners and a cadre of Clan Eshin assassins. The various foolish adventures undertaken by their treacherous leaders had left him with only a token force from Clan Skryre and Clan Pestilens. Izak Grottle and his force of rat-ogres, though, were still a formidable presence.

  He knew that a simple frontal assault was not necessarily the best of plans under the circumstances. What he needed was a bold stroke that would lead to certain and overwhelming victory. And he believed he knew how that could be achieved.