by Warhammer
He wondered if that would be possible. The druchii looked his way as soon as he came in the door, then laughed when he saw that Felix and Gotrek were staying away from the trough.
‘Good dogs,’ he said. ‘A slave who is quick to learn can rise high with us. Just ask these fellows.’ He turned and slapped the shoulder of the younger dwarf slave as he was pouring the gruel into the trough, causing him to slop some on the ground in surprise.
The druchii hissed and clubbed the dwarf on the back of the head with the brass-pommelled handle of his whip. ‘Clumsy cur! Dare you waste food?’
The dwarf lowered his head and said nothing, merely continuing to hold the cauldron steady as he poured, though blood ran down the back of his head to his neck. Felix heard Gotrek growl at this, and his fists clenched, but he remained where he was.
After that, the overseer’s anger seemed sated, and he returned to pacing impatiently as the slaves went back for the second cauldron and the prisoners gobbled and slurped noisily at their meal. Felix was disgusted with himself when he realised he was envious of them.
As the dwarf slaves waited with the cauldron of water and the human slaves dragged the morning’s bodies away, Gotrek did a strange thing. He hadn’t moved or said a word since the overseer had struck the young dwarf, but now he leaned forwards and, without looking up, slapped the filthy floor three times, then twice more.
The noise was hardly loud enough to be heard over the noise of the prisoners feeding, and no one seemed to notice. Felix was about to ask him what he was doing, but the Slayer shook his head. After a few seconds, he slapped the floor again, no louder than before, and in the same pattern. And then once more a few seconds later.
The third time, for the briefest of seconds, the dwarf slaves’ eyes flicked up, wide, then dropped again instantly. The older dwarf frowned and stared fixedly at the trough, but the younger dwarf’s eyes suddenly looked alive. Felix looked from the two dwarfs to Gotrek, unsure what had just happened. Then he saw the younger dwarf’s finger silently tapping on the rim of the cauldron. Was it the same rhythm, or was it just idle motion? Felix glanced nervously at the overseer. The druchii didn’t seem to have noticed the exchange.
‘Don’t look, manling,’ Gotrek muttered under his breath.
Felix looked away, though his curiosity was killing him. Gotrek patted the floor again, much softer than before, and in new and different patterns. It reminded Felix of something, but he couldn’t quite place it.
A moment later, the overseer snapped his fingers, and the slaves poured the water into the trough and left, followed quickly by the overseer and the guards. Felix waited impatiently until he heard the lock turn and the rumble of wheels fade away, then turned to Gotrek.
‘What was that?’ he asked. ‘What passed between you?’
Gotrek stood and started pushing to the trough. ‘Water first,’ he said.
Felix grunted with annoyance, but followed Gotrek. Aethenir came too, and they all drank as much as they could, as well as scraping up the few meagre grains of gruel the others had left.
When they had finished, Gotrek sat back down near the wall. ‘The mine code,’ he said. ‘For talking through walls with picks and hammers.’
Felix slapped his forehead. ‘Yes! I remember now. Hamnir used it to communicate with the dwarfs inside the lost… hold…’ He trailed off as Gotrek turned a cold, angry eye on him, and Felix realised that it was the first time he had mentioned Gotrek’s former friend in his presence since they had left Karak Hirn. Apparently the wound was still fresh. Fear and embarrassment made him flush. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said quickly. ‘I didn’t mean to interrupt. What did you tell them?’
Gotrek gave an angry snort. ‘I told them that they were cowardly oathbreakers who should have taken their own lives rather than become slaves to elves. Then I told them to tell me where our weapons are, and where Max and the girl and the harp are, the next time they come, or I’d return to their holds and let their clans know what had become of them.’
Aethenir sniffed derisively. ‘That’s sure to get results.’
‘You told them all that in a few slaps?’ asked Felix, incredulous.
Gotrek shrugged. ‘More or less.’ He lay down on his side and closed his eye. ‘Now we wait and see.’
Felix found it hard to be so calm about it. He was restless and jumpy, hunger gnawing at his belly while impatience gnawed at his mind. He started wondering what they would do with the information if they got it. Could they even break out of the cell? With Gotrek’s strength and fighting prowess, he didn’t doubt it, but how far would they get after that? He could not remember the way from the harbour to the slave pens or how many guards were beyond the cell door. His brain had been too fogged with the smoke of the black lotus at the time, and none of it linked together.
His restlessness and the pain from his whip cuts wouldn’t let him sleep, so he got up and shuffled as quietly as he could to the door. There was a viewing port in it about the size of a playing card. The chain between his wrists and his ankles was so short he could barely lift his head high enough, and he had to twist it at an uncomfortable angle to see out into the area outside the cell.
It was a square room lined with cell doors. At the far end, a narrow area was separated off from the rest by a cage of iron bars that protected the door to the hallway and two smaller doors. The main area was further divided by low wooden walls that were meant to channel prisoners from the cage door to the doors of the various cells. The hallway door was a lattice of bars through which he could see a short hall that led to a larger torchlit area in the distance. That was as far as he could see, but he vaguely remembered that they had come into the torchlit area by coming down some stairs.
He sighed. That stairway might as well have been on Morrslieb. There were at least three locked doors between him and it – the cell door, the cage door and the hallway door – and there were guards to deal with as well. In the left-hand room beyond the cage he could see the office where the robed clerk worked, while in the right-hand room he could see half a dozen guards lounging. The gods only knew how many more might guard the stairway.
He almost gave up and went back to the wall to sit with Gotrek and Aethenir, but if they were going to try something, it would be imperative to know everything they could about the world beyond the cell. He watched a little longer, though it was putting a terrible crick in his neck. Nothing happened. The guards laughed and occasionally walked through the caged area to speak to the clerk in the other room, but that was all.
Felix lowered his head and crouched beside the door. This wasn’t telling him enough. He needed to see what happened when the food came, which guards had keys, what doors were opened and when. He sighed and sat down to wait.
He found that the other prisoners were all looking at him, wondering what he was doing. Euler’s gang were glaring at him and whispering amongst themselves. But after a while, when he did nothing but sit, they lost interest and returned to sleeping or staring at nothing.
Felix did his fair share of sleeping and staring as well, but finally, after what seemed to his tortured mind to have been several weeks, he heard the rumble of distant wheels and commotion among the guards. He pushed himself back to his feet, groaning at the stiffness in his shackled arms and legs, and raised his eye cautiously to the little port again.
The hallway door was swinging out, and one of the druchii guards was opening the cage door with a key. Eight other guards stepped into the main area of the room, then turned and watched as the overseer and a procession of carts rolled in from the hall. There were three carts, and the first two were enormous – taller than a dark elf and consisting of sturdy wooden frames from which hung the heavy iron cauldrons that held the gruel and the water. Dwarf slaves pushed these, straining mightily. The third cart was an empty box on wheels, pushed by humans, and Felix couldn’t think what it was for until he remembered that the human slaves took dead bodies out of the cells.
Once the eight guards a
nd the overseer and the carts were all inside the main area of the room, a guard at the cage door locked it behind them. Four of the guards remained near the door, watching, while the other four travelled with the overseer and the carts as they began to move from cell to cell. Felix watched the whole process unhappily. The druchii weren’t taking any chances. The hallway door and the cage door had been locked before any of the cell doors were opened, and the guard with the key to the cage door remained outside it, and Felix wasn’t sure who had the key to the exit door or how it was opened.
He sighed and went back to Gotrek and Aethenir. It wouldn’t do for the overseer to find him crouching by the door.
‘What did you see, manling?’ asked Gotrek.
As briefly as he could, Felix sketched out the layout of the central chamber and the guards who stood between them and the exit.
‘It’s impossible,’ moaned Aethenir.
Gotrek stroked his beard thoughtfully.
Then the cart wheels rumbled close and the prisoners rushed to the trough. Aethenir looked as if he meant to stay with Gotrek and Felix, who were still on starvation punishment, but Gotrek pushed him forwards.
‘Go,’ he said. ‘Can’t have you weaker than you already are.’
Aethenir made a face, but he went.
Felix waited in anxious anticipation as the key turned in the lock. If Gotrek had got through to the dwarf slaves, they might have brought them information. But when he looked at them, Felix moaned with disappointment. Neither of them looked their way, nor did they betray any signs of nervousness. They weren’t tapping their fingers or feet. They weren’t doing anything except their job, emptying the cauldron of watery meal into the trough and going back for the second.
‘Eyes down, manling,’ murmured Gotrek.
Felix forced himself to look at the floor, though it killed him to do it. He wanted to know.
Beside him, Gotrek patted the floor as he had done before, then waited. Felix’s ears strained. Had he heard a faint tap-tap in response? With the sounds of shuffling and slobbering that filled the room it was hard to tell. Several times he caught himself in the act of looking up and jerked his head back down.
Finally it was over and the slaves and the guards filed out. Gotrek gave a grunt of satisfaction as the door slammed shut once again and Felix looked up at him.
‘Well?’ he asked.
Gotrek nodded. ‘I know the way to our weapons and to Max and the girl.’
‘You know the way?’ asked Aethenir. ‘You mean you can lead us there?’
‘Aye,’ said Gotrek.
The high elf looked amazed. ‘How is that possible?’
‘That is the purpose of the code,’ said Gotrek. ‘Guiding dwarfs through mines at a distance.’
‘But what about the Harp of Ruin?’ Aethenir asked. ‘Do you know where it lies?’
Gotrek shook his head. ‘They didn’t know. They hadn’t heard of it.’
Aethenir hung his head. ‘Of course they wouldn’t. They are only slaves after all.’ He sighed. ‘Well, it is a beginning. Perhaps we can question some druchii along the way.’
Gotrek chuckled evilly. ‘Aye. Good idea.’
They all looked up as they heard the rattling of chains coming their way. Euler was shuffling towards them with One-Ear and Broken-Nose at his back. He stopped in front of them and looked down, a suspicious look on his jowly, unshaven face.
‘What are you up to, Jaeger?’ he asked.
Felix did his best to look uncomprehending. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Don’t think we haven’t noticed,’ Euler sneered. ‘Trying to talk to the slaves. Looking out the window. Whispering to each other. You’re thinking about making a break.’
‘Doesn’t every prisoner?’ said Felix.
‘It’s impossible,’ Euler snorted. ‘We had a look too, the first day. You’ll never get past the cage. Even if you do, the second door will stop you cold. Do you know how it opens?’
‘I haven’t a clue,’ said Felix, trying to sound uninterested, though it would indeed be nice to know.
‘There’s no key – just a lever inside the clerk’s office,’ said Euler. ‘We saw it when they brought us in. He looks through a little window into the hall and only pulls it if all’s well. You haven’t a chance.’
‘If you didn’t think we had a chance,’ rumbled Gotrek, ‘you wouldn’t be pestering us.’
Euler smiled slyly. ‘Ah, so you are thinking about it.’
Gotrek looked up at him, his face expressionless. ‘And if we were?’
Euler exchanged a look with his men, then turned back to him and leaned in. ‘If you can get us to the harbour, we can get you away.’
Felix’s heart leapt. He had been prepared to die when there didn’t seem to be any option, but if Euler could get them off the ark…
‘How?’ he said, perhaps too eagerly.
Euler glanced at his men again, then shrugged. ‘I suppose there’s no harm, seeing as you couldn’t manage it without us.’ He squatted down and began drawing with his fingernail in the filth of the floor. ‘That tunnel that leads to the underground harbour,’ he said. ‘Very clever. Hard to find if you don’t know it’s there. Keeps the weather out too. But…’ He tapped his sketch. ‘It’s very narrow. If one were to sink a ship in it, all the rest would be bottled up tight.’ He smiled up at Felix. ‘You help us get to a ship, we’ll get you home, Herr Jaeger.’
It could work, thought Felix. We might be able to leave after all! Then he paused. ‘Didn’t you say you would settle what was between us if we escaped?’
Euler looked embarrassed at that, then shrugged. ‘I’m prepared to put that aside if you are, Herr Jaeger. What are petty grievances in a situation like this? We need each other.’
‘Well, then I…’ Felix paused again and looked over at Gotrek. What would the Slayer think of him leaving? Would he count it as a betrayal? As cowardice?
The Slayer didn’t seem to notice his hesitation. He turned to Euler. ‘Are you prepared to fight when the time comes?’
‘Oh aye,’ Euler said. ‘If you can get us through the doors we’ll fight every long-ear between here and freedom.’
Gotrek nodded. ‘Then we have a deal.’
Euler smiled. ‘Excellent. Just give us the nod when you’re ready.’ He inclined his head to Gotrek and Felix, then turned and shuffled away, his men flanking him.
‘We can’t trust him,’ said Felix, when Euler had returned to his own side of the cell. ‘He still wants his vengeance, despite all his smiles.’
‘We can trust him as far as the harbour,’ said Gotrek. ‘And we need him no further, unless you mean to go with him.’
Felix paused, his face flushing. ‘I… I haven’t decided.’
‘You swore to record my death, manling,’ Gotrek said. ‘Not to die with me. I won’t stop you.’
Felix bit his lip, still conflicted. Every sensible part of his brain was saying that he should go with Euler, but his loyalty to Gotrek and his desire to see the story to the end were once again making him think twice.
Just then, the key turned in the lock. Everyone looked up, because it had been much too short a time for another feeding and they hadn’t heard the rumble of the cauldron carts. The door opened and a double file of uniformed druchii marched in, longswords drawn. There were eight of them, each with a cruel rune stitched into the breast of his dark purple surcoat. They moved with grace and precision, holding themselves erect and alert. Felix marked them as several cuts above the guards who usually visited the cell.
They were followed by two richly dressed druchii who held scented pomanders to their noses. A handful of slaves accompanied them, some carrying witchlight torches and others brooms. The male druchii was shorter than most elves Felix had so far seen, and with a weaker chin. He wore a heavily brocaded black coat over a dark red velvet jerkin and had so many rings on his fingers that Felix was surprised he could lift his hands to his face. The rune the guards wore was stitched into his jerkin
as well. The female was beautiful in a heavy-lidded, sleepy sort of way, and wore a massive sable fur coat over a sea-green silk slip that hugged her voluptuous body and seemed more suited for the boudoir than the slave pen. Her hair was piled on top of her head and held in place by what looked like half a dozen miniature stilettos.
The man bowed the woman into the cell and then snapped his fingers. Two of the slaves hurried forwards and swept and scraped the stone floor in front of them clear of filth and then sprinkled what smelled like rosewater on the bare flags. The couple stepped fastidiously into the cleared area, then the man snapped his fingers again, and two larger slaves pushed into the huddled mass of prisoners, shoving a witchlight torch into the dark corners of the cell.
While they waited, the two druchii chatted to each other in their own tongue, occasionally laughing or shaking their heads at something the other had said. Felix looked to Aethenir and saw that the high elf was concentrating very hard on what they were saying.
After a moment, the two big slaves dragged a handful of young girls and boys out of the crowd, shoving back their wailing mothers and fathers, and brought them before the druchii. The man gestured to the children like a horse trader trying to sell a horse, seemingly pointing out height and build and other qualities. The woman ignored the man’s words and gave each of the children a thorough going over, pulling back their lips to see their teeth, snapping her fingers in front of their eyes and watching them blink. Then she gestured to the slaves and they tore the children’s clothes off one by one and turned them roughly around in front of her. An angry murmur rippled through the cell.
Felix’s hands clenched, and his heart thudded in his chest. He heard Gotrek rumbling beside him like an angry bear.
Felix leaned in to Aethenir. ‘Is she buying them?’ he asked.
Aethenir nodded. ‘She is from a brothel. The other druchii owns us.’
‘A brothel!’ Felix wanted to leap across the cell and strangle both of them, and he must have given in to the urge, because suddenly Gotrek was holding him back.
