by Warhammer
On the other hand, he never fought better than when the sword awakened and he surrendered his will to it. He had killed the Chaos-twisted dragon Skjalandir with it, had he not? Of course, he had nearly died in the doing of that mighty deed, something that he didn’t think the sword cared about in the least.
The sea dragon had still not reappeared. Felix, Gotrek and Aethenir looked around warily, dripping with freezing water. Had the dragon rider left them to drown? Had it decided they were too insignificant to fight?
‘Gotrek,’ called Felix. ‘Are you all–’
With no warning, the end of the boat Felix and Aethenir clung to exploded upwards as the dragon’s head smashed up through it from below. Felix and Aethenir pinwheeled through the air as the long neck shot up like a geyser. Felix came down hard, still clutching a splintered plank, and bobbed to the surface, gasping for breath, in time to see the massive beast looping back on itself to plunge at Gotrek, who balanced, legs bent, on the capsized stern of the boat, roaring a dwarfish challenge.
‘Over here, damn you!’ Felix cried, filled with the sword’s purpose, but to no avail.
The rider tucked herself behind her conical shield, and dug her spurs into the dragon’s flanks. The beast’s battering-ram head rocketed down towards the Slayer. At the last second, he dived to the side, swinging his axe behind him.
Dragon and rider smashed down through the stern and disappeared into the water. Now Felix understood what the conical shield was for. It pushed the water aside so that the rider wasn’t punched off the back of its mount every time it dived beneath the waves.
Then he noticed that the dragon seemed to have taken Gotrek with it. The Slayer had vanished.
‘Gotrek?’
The serpent and rider shot up again. Gotrek came with them, his axe hooked behind the rider’s leg. The rider slashed down at him with her curved sword and the Slayer blocked with his armful of gold bracelets, then grabbed the rider’s leg and freed his axe.
The rider hacked down at him again, but Gotrek’s weight on his leg ruined her balance and she missed. Gotrek swung the axe over his head and buried it in the rider’s gut, punching through her armour with a bright clang.
The rider screamed and tumbled from the saddle. She and Gotrek splashed down in a spinning tangle and disappeared under the waves. The sea dragon plunged after them, roaring its anger.
Felix waved his sword at it. ‘Face me, dragon!’ he shouted.
The serpent ignored him, intent on killing he who had killed its master. It dived down into the water, then came up again, looking around. Gotrek bobbed up behind him, one arm over the remains of the rowing bench.
‘Down here, sea wyrm!’ he roared. ‘My axe thirsts!’
The sea dragon howled and lunged down at him, jaws agape. Gotrek kicked aside, letting go of the bench and swinging his axe two-handed. There was a crack of impact and then both dragon and Slayer vanished beneath the water in a violent splash.
‘Damn you, Slayer!’ called Felix. ‘The dragon was mine.’
Only echoes returned to him. The sea was quiet. The ripples were spreading and fading.
‘Perhaps they have slain each other,’ said Aethenir, looking around with worried eyes.
But then Felix noticed that the runes on his sword were glowing brighter. ‘It’s coming back!’
The sea dragon surged out of the sea right beside them, its scales flashing by so fast that they blurred. It thrashed its head back and forth like a terrier trying to kill a rat, and Felix feared the worst, but when he got a good look, he saw that Gotrek was not in its mouth, but hanging from the beast’s back, one leg caught in a loop of its bridle, and flopping about like a banner in a high wind. The Slayer‘s axe was buried in the side of the sea dragon’s snout, and it was this that was causing it to writhe so wildly.
It weaved towards Felix and Aethenir, and Felix kicked towards it, clinging to his plank.
‘Yes! To me!’ he cried, then slashed at it as it collided with him. Karaghul bit deep, cutting through the dragon’s protective scales as if they were made of cheese, and opening it to the bone. Blood and black bile spilled from the gaping wound and the serpent howled in pain, turning to face its new attacker.
Felix roared up at it as it rose above him, its eyes meeting his for the first time. ‘Come, drake! Your death awaits!’
Beside him Aethenir screamed. ‘No, you lunatic! You’ll be killed!’
Felix didn’t care, as long as his blade got another chance to strike. The serpent reared back. Felix saw Gotrek catch its reins and begin to pull himself upright.
‘HOOG!’
The head shot down at Felix like a ball from a cannon. He raised his sword, howling in anticipation. A hand grabbed his collar and jerked him back. The head smashed down into the water an inch from his chest. Even so, the momentum of the beast pulled him under and he spun in a jumble of water, bubbles and whirling timber.
The hand still had a hold of him when he came back, sputtering, to the surface. He turned to find Aethenir gripping him and a section of the broken rowboat.
‘Interfering elf!’ he spat, water shooting painfully from his nose. ‘I nearly had it!’
‘I saved your life,’ said Aethenir.
‘Did I ask for it?’
The elf shook his head, wonderingly. ‘You’re both mad.’
Just then, with an enraged ‘HOOG!’ the sea dragon exploded from the waves again, twisting and snapping at something on its back. Felix and Aethenir could see that it was Gotrek, his short, powerful legs clamped around the serpent’s neck just behind its head, his axe raised high, roaring a wordless battle cry as water flew from his crest and beard.
Just as the sea dragon rose to its highest height, the Slayer slashed down and buried the axe’s blade deep into its brain-pan, spraying blood in all directions.
With a last soft ‘hoog’, the fires died in the sea dragon’s eyes. For a brief moment, as Gotrek struggled to wrench his axe free, it hung motionless in the air, then toppled, Gotrek still clinging to it, as slow and inevitable as a tree falling in a forest, right for Felix and Aethenir.
‘Flee! Swim!’ cried the elf, and kicked wildly while clinging to the timber.
Felix kicked with him. The serpent slapped down beside them with a smack that hurt the ears and pushed them forwards on a surging swell. Its huge body slipped swiftly beneath the waves, leaving little eddies and whirlpools in its passing. It also seemed to have taken Gotrek with it, for he was nowhere to be seen.
Felix turned in a circle as the seconds ticked past. Had the Slayer not managed to free his axe? Was he still caught in the beast’s bridle straps? Had he found his doom at last?
But then, after it seemed that there could no longer be any hope, a familiar head broke the waves, gasping and choking and flipping its crest out of its eye.
‘Gotrek! You live!’ said Felix as he reached a hand out.
‘Aye,’ said Gotrek catching his hand. ‘Worse luck.’
Felix pulled him to the floating plank and the three of them clung to it and just breathed for a while. With the death of the sea dragon, Karaghul’s runes faded out, and so too did Felix’s all-consuming hatred for dragonkind, to be replaced by sick fear at all the suicidal risks he had just taken. Had he really shouted in the dragon’s face and waited for its attack?
He turned to Aethenir. ‘Thank you, high one, for pulling me aside. And I apologise for insulting you.’
Aethenir waved a dismissive hand. ‘You were ridden by the sword. I took no offence.’
Around them, the grey light of pre-dawn was beginning to push back the darkness. The mist continued to lift and the sea remained calm. The miserable night was over. Not that it mattered. Though they had survived the fight with the sea dragon, they were as dead as if it had eaten them, for without a boat, the cold of the sea would kill them long before their thirst or hunger ever did.
‘Perhaps the skaven will save us,’ said Aethenir. ‘Perhaps they’ve been watching all along.’
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Gotrek spat into the water. ‘Saved by skaven. I’d die first.’
Then little more than a mile away, silhouetted against the pearl-grey horizon, Felix saw jutting black crags rising from the sea. ‘An island!’ he cried, pointing. ‘Look! We’re saved!’
The others followed his gaze and peered into the half-light.
Beside him Aethenir moaned. ‘No, Herr Jaeger, that is no island, and we are not saved.’ He shivered and lowered his forehead to the shattered plank. ‘We are doomed.’
THIRTEEN
Felix turned to Aethenir, confused. ‘What do you mean? Certainly it’s an island. Look at it.’
The high elf shook his head. ‘It is a Black Ark. A floating city, a piece of sunken Nagarythe held above the water by the profane magics of the druchii. It is a moving fortress from which the black ships of the corsairs spill to pillage and enslave. And it is coming our way.’
Felix blinked at Aethenir, aghast, then turned back to the island. Fear gripped his heart. It was closer now, much closer, and he had a sudden understanding of its scale. It rose hundreds of yards out of the sea, and must have been nearly a mile across. Towers and thick-walled fortifications jutted up all along the tall crags, and palaces and temples and citadels climbed steeply towards the centre, where a massive black keep glowered down on the rest of the island like a black dragon surveying its chosen domain.
Felix turned in the water, looking around for some escape. There was none. ‘This is madness,’ he said. ‘We were after one tiny ship! The cursed skaven put us in the way of the wrong druchii!’ He lowered himself again so that only his head showed above the water. ‘Perhaps they won’t see us. Perhaps they will think we are dead and pass us by.’
‘No, manling,’ said Gotrek. ‘They will not.’
Felix looked at him. The Slayer‘s single eye blazed.
‘This is what I have been waiting for,’ Gotrek said, never looking away from the ark. ‘This is the black mountain the seeress promised. This is my doom.’
And mine too, thought Felix. For if Gotrek met his death on that floating rock there was no way Felix would ever make it off alive.
As they watched, a piece of darkness broke off from the craggy island and became a black ship with a lateen sail.
‘Are they looking for us?’ asked Felix, swallowing.
‘They are looking for the rider,’ said Aethenir. ‘They will have heard the beast’s battle cries, and are coming to investigate.’
And so it seemed, for the sleek ship rowed straight for them while Gotrek chuckled under his breath.
‘Once we kill these,’ he said, ‘we sail it back to the island. Then the real slaying begins.’
Felix looked at Gotrek agog. The Dwarf was serious. ‘Putting aside that it may be difficult to kill a whole ship full of druchii, not to mention an island,’ he said. ‘Three men aren’t enough to sail us there.’
‘The galley slaves will row us back,’ said Gotrek.
‘And why would they do that?’ asked Aethenir.
‘To see their masters die.’
The ship was getting close now, slowing and arcing towards the wreckage. Gotrek watched it like a wolf eyeing an approaching sheep, seemingly unaware that he was the prey and the ship was the predator.
‘Closer,’ he murmured. ‘Closer.’
Aethenir, on the other hand, seemed to be praying. Felix joined him.
The ship heaved to a considerable distance from them and sat in the water, drifting slowly. It was a low, evil-looking craft, with a blood-red sail, rows of sweeps and giant, bow-like bolt-throwers lining both rails. Felix saw a flash of reflection from the deck. Someone was observing them with a spyglass.
A muffled command echoed across the water and one of the bolt-throwers turned their way.
‘They’re going to fire!’ cried Aethenir.
‘Dive!’ said Gotrek, and disappeared below the water.
Aethenir dived, but before Felix could follow there was a sharp clack, and something shot from the weapon. It wasn’t a bolt. Halfway through ducking down, he paused to watch the strange, amorphous shape come towards them, twisting and blossoming as it came. A net!
Panicked, he let go of the floating timber and dropped under the water, then panicked again as he remembered he was wearing chainmail, and was starting to sink. He kicked and flailed desperately with his arms, clawing his way back to the surface, and finally caught a hold of something, but it wasn’t the wreck. It was the net. He grabbed it gratefully anyway and pulled his face up to the air, sticking his head up through the weave of ropes.
Gotrek and Aethenir had risen too, and were also clinging to the net.
‘To the edge,’ said Gotrek. ‘Before they draw it in.’
But as they tried to pull themselves along the underside of the net, they realised that their hands were stuck fast to the ropes they had first touched. They pulled and yanked, but it was no good. It was worse than tar, and it wasn’t just their hands that were trapped. The strands that lay upon Felix’s shoulders were stuck to his chainmail. A strand that had fallen across Gotrek’s head was stuck to his scalp and his crest. Aethenir’s long blond hair was caught in it, as were the sleeves of his robes.
Gotrek growled a curse as he tried to pull his hand away from the stickum. He could not. He brought a foot up and hooked it in the rope for leverage, then heaved mightily. After much straining and grunting, his hand tore free, leaving a patch of skin, but then his boot was stuck.
‘Grimnir take all tricksy elves!’ he cursed as he tried to free his foot. Without thinking, he grabbed the net for leverage and was back where he started. He roared with frustration.
The black hull of the corsair ship suddenly loomed up beside them, and ropes and grapnels snaked out from the deck and splashed in the water. The grapnels hooked the net and winches lifted it slowly clear of the water.
Felix, Gotrek and Aethenir came up with it, hanging at awkward angles and getting more entangled as more of the net touched their bodies and their clothes. Gotrek was the most tightly held, for he had struggled the most, and by the time the net had been swung over the deck, he was covered from head to toe in the sticky ropes.
As the winches lowered them to the deck, figures in ragged clothes spread out a canvas tarpaulin that shone greasily, and it was onto this that they were dropped – none too gently – on their faces.
A chorus of laughter rang out as they crashed down, and Felix turned his head to see that they were surrounded by tall dark elves in close-fitting grey surcoats, over which they wore heavy cloaks that looked as if they had been made from the hide of the sea dragon Felix and Gotrek had just fought. The corsairs looking down at them with sneering smiles on their long, gaunt faces.
‘You’ll be laughing with your necks when I get free,’ snarled Gotrek from where he lay.
A pair of red-heeled boots strode through the crowd of legs and stood before them. Felix looked up. A tall druchii with an amused smirk on his lips looked down at him. He wore a red sash belted around his surcoat and his long, braided hair was pulled back with silver wire.
‘What strange fish my net has caught,’ he said in heavily accented Reikspiel. ‘An Old World flounder, a cave-dwelling rock fish and an Ulthuan minnow – and none of them market fresh by the smell of them.’
‘Free me and face me, you corpse-faced coward,’ said Gotrek.
The dark elf’s eyes widened in mock amazement. ‘By the Dark Mother, a talking fish! And with such an ill-favoured tongue.’ He stepped forwards delicately to the edge of the oiled tarpaulin and kicked Gotrek savagely in the cheek with his high heel.
Gotrek snarled and lunged, blood welling from a deep gouge, but trussed as he was, he could do nothing.
The druchii stepped back. ‘I am almost curious enough to ask how three such strange companions came to be floating out in the middle of the sea alone, but not quite. No matter where you come from, you all go to the same place.’ He turned away and said something to his lieutenants, waving a di
smissive hand.
One of the lieutenants bowed and, in turn, gave orders to the ragged human slaves who spread the tarp, but then another corsair pointed at Gotrek and said something that caused the druchii captain to turn back and look at him again.
The crouching humans were padding towards the captives, holding strange objects that looked something like oil lamps, but the captain waved them back again. They shrank away as he began to circle the net, staring at Gotrek intently. Felix couldn’t figure out what had caught his attention, but Aethenir understood the murmured exchanges between the druchii.
‘He is interested in your axe, dwarf,’ whispered the high elf. ‘And your sword, Herr Jaeger. He recognises them as powerful weapons and knows collectors who will pay well to own them.’
Gotrek snarled at that. ‘No one touches my axe. No one.’
But there didn’t seem to be much he could do about it at the moment. The axe was on his back, and his arms were so entangled in the sticky ropes that he couldn’t reach it.
After circling the net twice, the dark elf stepped back and waved the slaves forwards again. Felix thought he had never seen sadder-looking men in all his life – emaciated, dead-eyed creatures with patchy, close-cropped heads and permanently stooped shoulders. They came and crouched next to Felix, Gotrek and Aethenir, deftly avoiding the sticky ropes while they held up the strange lamps and began smearing black paste into a little metal reservoir above the flames.
‘Brothers,’ whispered Felix. ‘Help us. Free us and we will free you. We will slaughter these slavers and return you to the Old World.’
The men didn’t even turn their heads, just kept at their task as if he hadn’t spoken. Wisps of smoke began to rise from the black paste as the little pan that held it heated up.
Felix tried again in the few words of Tilean he knew, and then in halting Bretonnian. The men made no response.
‘Damn you, are you deaf?’ snapped Felix. ‘Do you not want to be free?’
‘Leave them be, Herr Jaeger,’ said Aethenir. ‘They have been so long under the druchii lash that they have forgotten what freedom is.’
