by Warhammer
‘She swore that all she wanted was the information contained in one book,’ Aethenir continued. ‘A book that told of that time and of those cities.’
‘Do you mean the book that was stolen from the tower?’ asked Max. ‘Did she learn its location from you? Is she the thief?’
Aethenir hung his head. ‘It was not stolen from the tower. As I said before, none may find the tower if the loremasters do not wish them to.’ He hesitated, then went on. ‘I borrowed it from the tower, and she stole it from me.’
Rion went rigid, his eyes blazing. ‘What?’
Aethenir shrunk before that terrible gaze. ‘I swear I didn’t know until now! She promised me that we would always look at the book together and it would never leave my sight, but the night I brought the book to her we were assaulted by masked assassins. I saw her killed! Then they leapt at me, knocking me out. When I awoke from my swoon, her body was gone, and so was the book.’ He looked down the stairs towards the vault. ‘All this time I thought her dead.’
Max coughed. ‘I had always read that no books were allowed to be borrowed from the Tower of Hoeth. That they were never to leave the premises.’
Neither Rion or Aethenir acknowledged that he had spoken. They seemed to have forgotten that anyone else was there.
‘My lord,’ said Rion, with a dangerous softness. ‘You told me that you had discovered that the book was missing, and that the loremasters had sent you to find it as a test of your worthiness to be taught the arts of Saphery. You told your father this.’
Aethenir covered his face with a shaking hand. ‘I lied,’ he whispered, so low Felix almost couldn’t hear him.
‘So the loremasters of Hoeth know nothing of the truth?’ Rion asked.
Aethenir shook his head. ‘I ran away from the tower. It has been my hope that I might, with your help, find the book and return it to the library before they know it is missing.’
Captain Rion’s head sank and his fists clenched. ‘My lord,’ he said, ‘were it not my sworn duty to protect your life, I would kill you here and now.’
Aethenir paled and stepped back at that, but Rion made no move against him.
‘You have not only compromised your own honour,’ the elf captain continued, ‘but by asking your father for money and assistance in this misbegotten quest, you have compromised his honour, and the honour of all House Whiteleaf. Not to mention jeopardising the safety of our beloved homeland.’
Aethenir hung his head. It looked like he was sobbing.
Rion carried on mercilessly. ‘Recovering the book will not win back House Whiteleaf’s honour, my lord. The crime is too great. But it must be recovered even so, for to leave it in enemy hands would be an even greater crime.’
‘Yes,’ said Aethenir, still looking at the ground. ‘It must be done. It is the least that I can do.’
‘I am pleased that you think so, my lord,’ said Rion, stepping closer to him. ‘Because if you swerve from the path of honour – if you fail in the duty to your father and your house,’ he curled the front of Aethenir’s robe in his fist and jerked it up so that the young elf’s jaw came up and he was forced to look the captain in the eye, ‘I will kill you.’
‘I won’t fail, Rion,’ said Aethenir, trembling. ‘I promise you.’
Rion stepped back and bowed, very formal. ‘Thank you, lord. That is all I ask.’
‘Just a moment,’ said Max. ‘I wish to be clear. Ulthuan has no knowledge of this quest? You are not here by the authority of the Tower of Hoeth, as you previously implied? You are not an initiate?’
‘No, magister. I am the merest novice.’
‘And you are entirely on your own in this?’
‘Yes, magister.’
Max sighed. ‘Had I known this, I would not have so blithely…’ He paused, then shook his head. ‘Never mind. What’s done is done. The danger is still the same and we must still face it.’
Gotrek grunted. ‘Are you through? Can we kill some elves?’
Captain Rion turned and glared at him, seemingly displeased with his turn of phrase, but then nodded. ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘Whatever these fiends mean to do, it can only mean dark days for Ulthuan if they succeed.’
‘Good,’ said Gotrek. He turned on his heel and started down the stairs again.
‘Slayer,’ whispered Max after him. ‘We must be cautious! It is the sorceresses who maintain the whirlpool. If they die…’
But Gotrek was already striding through the arch into the antechamber. Felix and the others trailed in his wake, whispering after him urgently, as the sounds of smashing and shifting continued from the vault.
‘Wait, Gotrek,’ said Felix.
‘Stop, dwarf,’ hissed Captain Rion. ‘We need a strategy.’
‘Bring him back,’ cried Aethenir.
‘Here’s your strategy,’ rumbled Gotrek. ‘We kill everyone except the one with the stick and the hoop, then force her to take us out the way she got in.’
‘Very good,’ said Max, trotting along beside him. ‘But how?’
‘Like this,’ said Gotrek and strode up the low stairs to the half-open vault doors. ‘Come on, you corpse-faced scarecrows!’ he roared. ‘Show me you’ve got more courage than your white-livered cousins!’ Then he charged into the vault.
Aethenir gasped. Max groaned. The Reiksguard and Rion’s elves exchanged grim glances and prepared to follow him in.
‘Wait!’ hissed Felix. For once he had an idea of how to take advantage of the Slayer‘s bullheadedness. ‘Hide. Let them think he’s alone. Max, Claudia, Lord Aethenir, prepare your most deadly spells. Captain Rion, be ready to attack. Reikscaptain Oberhoff, protect the magisters.’
Oberhoff and his men obeyed, as did Max and Aethenir. Rion looked at Felix like he was a dog who had suddenly begun to sing opera, but then motioned his elves to the left of the vault door as Felix peered into the vault.
‘Firandaen,’ Rion said to the elf whose leg had been maimed by the skaven. ‘You will stay with the magisters.’
The skull-masked Endless were charging Gotrek from all sides, swerving around overturned chests and mounds of dumped treasure. Beyond them, the sorceresses stared at the Slayer, shocked. The only person who seemed entirely undisturbed was the sorceress who spun the silver hoop on the metal wand, a tall, ageless, hard-faced beauty who watched coolly as Gotrek and the Endless met in the centre of the room with a deafening crash and a flurry of flashing steel.
The Slayer disappeared as his taller foes swarmed around him, hacking and stabbing with their long slim swords. One of them fell back, a scarlet trench dug through the armour and flesh of his chest, spraying blood everywhere.
‘Magisters! Captain Rion! Now!’ cried Felix.
Max and Claudia stepped to the gap between the doors, thrusting their hands through and propelling streams of light and crackling lightning into the room. Felix, Rion and his three unwounded warriors ran in right behind the blasts. The masked druchii screamed and fell back as the blue fire and blinding light attacked their bodies, then Felix and the high elves slammed into them and five more went down, Gotrek killing two, Rion and the elves killing two more between them, and one dying fried to a crisp by Claudia’s lightning. Half of them dead already! Felix rejoiced. This might be easier than he had expected.
Felix lunged at his bedazzled opponent, but the dark elf recovered with alarming speed and Felix’s sword only scraped his armour as he blocked and whipped his blade into a blurring riposte. Felix barely brought his sword up in time. The next attack came almost before the first had finished, aiming straight for his eyes. Felix back-pedalled desperately, panic sweat prickling his skin. In two seconds Felix knew the dark elf was the best swordsman he had ever faced. There was no question of going on the offensive. Felix couldn’t keep up with his attacks. He counted himself a better than average swordsman, but he was only human. He had only been fighting with a sword for twenty-five years or so. The dark elf, on the other hand, had probably been studying the blade for two hundred years, an
d was of a race naturally more agile than mankind to begin with.
Felix blocked again, but the druchii slipped under his guard and stabbed him at the crux of his right shoulder and chest. Felix’s chainmail stopped most of it, but still the point sank an inch into meat before striking bone, driving links of mail with it. Felix fell back, barking with pain, and landed gasping on his back. The world dimmed and throbbed before his eyes. He waved his sword weakly above him with his off hand, but the druchii had turned away from him and was attacking Rion’s warriors.
The arrogance of it cut through Felix’s pain. Was he really so negligible a threat that the dark elf would turn away without finishing him off? He had never felt more dismissed. Felix struggled to get up and go on guard, then understood the druchii’s confidence. The attack had been a carefully calculated crippling blow, goring the muscle that allowed him to lift his sword. He couldn’t use it.
Beyond the melee, the woman with the wand and the silver hoop called out an order in a slithery voice, and two of her five sorceresses began scribing spells in the air. The others, Aethenir’s Belryeth included, returned to searching through the stacks of treasure chests, as they had been doing before Gotrek’s interruption – casually dumping them and kicking through their contents.
Determined to stay in the fight, if only to prove to the dark elf that he was still a threat, Felix switched his sword to his barely competent left hand, and charged him again. The Endless didn’t even look back, just threw his leg out behind him in the middle of a lunge and kicked Felix precisely on the wound.
Felix smashed to the ground, hissing and curling up in a ball. By the gods, I’m useless, he thought as he fought to remain conscious through the pain.
His eye was caught by a cloud of boiling blackness that roiled towards the combat from the two druchii sorceresses. The pain of the wound was instantly eclipsed by a greater one as the black cloud enveloped him, and a burning like red-hot brands seared through him, seeming to cook him from the inside. He screamed and beat at himself like he was on fire, though there were no flames. The high elves were affected in the same way. They fell back, cursing and wailing and blocking desperately as the Endless lunged in to take advantage. Only Gotrek fought on unaffected.
But almost as quickly as the black cloud was upon them, a bubble of light pushed it back, dissolving it in its radiance. The pain receded from Felix’s limbs as the bubble expanded beyond him. He looked to the door and saw Max and Aethenir standing within it and working in tandem, sending pulses of white and golden energy into the room as Claudia shot more lightning at the sorceresses.
The bubble of light expanded to surround the high elves, allowing them to recover, but for one it was too late. He was crumbling, blood pouring down his white and green surcoat as Captain Rion and the other two elves fought on at Gotrek’s side, surrounded by five skull-masked Endless.
Felix rolled out of the way of the combatants and staggered to his feet, while all around him invisible forces flexed and strained as the sorceresses and the magisters cast and countered each other’s spells. With one arm useless, he couldn’t hope to fight the dark elves directly, but he could at least take up his old position and guard Gotrek’s sides. He limped behind the Slayer and immediately put his sword in the way of a slashing druchii sword. It was amazing to see how much trouble the Slayer was having. He who had fought armies of orcs and hordes of skaven single-handed, and who had faced down daemons and vampires, wasn’t able to get a single strike in on the three druchii he held at bay. Though his axe was everywhere and his face was red with effort, he could not touch them, and shallow gashes covered his chest and arms.
The three druchii that fought him looked the same, blooded and winded. Their eyes, barely seen through the eye holes of their skull masks, were wide with offended surprise that any foe could last so long before them.
Rion and his remaining elves were drenched in sweat and blood, and fought their opponents with doomed desperation, for though, being elves, they might best any man alive at the sword, compared to the Endless, they were fumbling beginners. There was no question what the outcome of their fights would be, and Felix shuddered at what would happen when they had died and all the Endless were able to turn their attention on Gotrek. Against five such enemies, even the Slayer could not hope to prevail.
Suddenly, from atop a stack of treasure chests to the right of the door, Belryeth cried out in triumph and raised a sinuously curved black object over her head. The other sorceresses cheered. She turned towards the door of the chamber and smiled at Aethenir. ‘Look, beloved, the Harp of Ruin, which you have helped us find!’
Aethenir shouted something back at her in the elvish tongue, but she laughed at him.
‘No,’ she said. ‘I will speak so these fools can understand and know your humiliation. Bewitched and beglamoured, you have given into the hands of your enemies the greatest weapon of a lost age. One pluck of these strings can cause earthquakes that raise mountains from valleys or sink highlands lower than the sea bed. With this will the druchii create a wave that will sweep all the asur from Ulthuan. With this will we raise lost Nagarythe and rule the world again from our true homeland! You have doomed your people, and all for a love that never was!’
She reached into her robe and drew out something thick and square, then threw it so that it skidded across the floor to stop at Aethenir’s feet. It was a book. Aethenir stared at it, then stooped and picked it up.
‘Please thank your masters for the loan,’ called Belryeth, laughing. ‘It was everything I’d hoped it would be.’
The sorceress who spun the silver ring on the wand barked something that sounded to Felix suspiciously like ‘enough gloating’, and Belryeth and the other druchii women began making their way towards the door of the vault as they began new incantations.
With five of the sorceresses turning their attentions on them now, Max, Aethenir and Claudia were overwhelmed. Beams of darkness, like shafts from a black sun, smashed through their protective bubble. Felix saw Max stagger and Aethenir fall back, clutching his throat. Claudia wailed and tore at her face as if she were staring into the abyss. The Reiksguarders fell to the floor, screaming. Firandaen, the wounded elf who had stayed back to guard the spellcasters, pulled Aethenir and the magisters behind the vault door as blood poured from his nose, mouth, ears and eyes.
Gotrek and the elf warriors glanced towards the women, but could not disengage from the Endless, who would have cut them down the instant they lowered their guard to run. Only Felix was free. Though he knew it was death, he sprinted towards the women, his shoulder screaming with every jarring step. Belryeth turned casually and waved her free hand at him. A ripple of air rushed from her fingers and blew over him. It was as cold as death. He dropped, frozen to the bone, his teeth chattering. He couldn’t move. His very blood seemed to have turned to ice. Frost rimmed his eyelashes.
Belryeth paused, smiling, as her sisters filed out the vault door. ‘You are fools helping a fool on a fool’s errand, and you will die a fool’s death as a result.’ And with a merry laugh, she turned and followed the others out.
Though the cold would not let him turn his head, Felix could hear screams and raving from the antechamber and he knew that the Reiksguard were trying, and failing, to prevent the sorceresses from leaving. He willed his limbs to move, wanting to go to their aid, but they would not. They were frozen stiff.
After a moment the cries fell silent and all that he could hear was the clashing of sword on sword and axe, and the heavy breathing and stamping of the fight behind him. And that will end soon enough, he thought, miserably.
But then, to Felix’s surprise, Max appeared in the gap between the doors of the vault, clutching them for support and looking near death. He raised a feeble shout over the clamour of the battle. ‘Your mistresses have left you to die, warriors. Will you still fight for them?’
A cold voice came from the depths of the skull helmet of one of the Endless. ‘For the ruin of Ulthuan and the rebirth
of Nagarythe, we are proud to die.’
‘Then die you shall,’ said Max. He forced himself upright and summoned his sorcerous energies, though it seemed to age him to do so. With a grunt of pain and effort, he unleashed a stream of swirling lights at the druchii. It was weak compared to his earlier attacks, but it was enough. With the sorceresses gone, the Endless could not defend themselves from it. The lights danced in front of their eyes, blinding and confusing them.
It was their end. Gotrek and Rion and his warriors beat down their swords and chopped through their armour with brutal ease. Gotrek dismembered the three who had defied him, as the others fell to the elves.
‘Damned dancers wouldn’t stay still,’ growled the Slayer as he and the three elves stood over the pile of limbs and heads, breathing heavily.
Felix uncurled slowly as the effects of the unnatural cold faded and the stab wound in his shoulder throbbed to prominence again. He bit his cheeks against the pain.
Max sagged against the vault doors. ‘No time to rest,’ he said. ‘We must go after the sorceresses.’
Aethenir appeared behind him, swaying like an aspen. ‘Yes, hurry. They carry the doom of the asur in their hands.’
‘Then let them go,’ said Gotrek, shrugging.
‘Vile dwarf,’ said Aethenir. ‘Would you doom the rest of the world to satisfy your grudge against the elves?’
‘Why not?’ said Gotrek. ‘You doomed it for a druchii kiss.’
‘I told you,’ cried Aethenir. ‘I did not know that she–’
‘Their leader holds the key to escaping this trap alive,’ said Max, interrupting their sniping angrily.
Suddenly not even Gotrek had any objections to going after the sorceresses.
Felix, Gotrek, Rion, and his elves followed Max and Aethenir out of the vault and found a bloodless massacre. Firandaen was dead, a look of wide-eyed horror on his noble face. Captain Oberhoff and the last of the Reiksguard were dead too, icicles like daggers growing out of their mouths and eyes, and stabbing through their breastplates from within.
