by Warhammer
The four guards shouted and charged forwards, raising their swords. Gotrek roared in response and again swung the mighty cauldron around himself, then let go of the chains. It flew towards the guards, bowling one over and sending the others leaping over the low wooden rails that divided up the room. Felix, Euler and the others rushed forwards to attack them before they recovered.
Felix hacked one of them in the neck as he tried to rise, then parried a wild slash from another. His arm was so weak the second druchii’s blow almost drove his sword back into his face. He fell back, blocking another stronger attack by a hair’s breadth. Felix cursed. It seemed even lowly druchii prison guards were better, faster swords than he. He made a desperate chop at the guard’s flickering blade and knew it wouldn’t be enough, but then an iron pole slashed down and crushed the druchii’s head like an egg.
Felix looked around. Gotrek was roaring past him to where Euler and three of his men were trying to bring down the last guard, who fought them furiously.
One of the pirates stumbled back, screaming, his guts spilling from a tear in his belly. Gotrek shoved him aside and slammed the yoke down on the druchii’s arm, snapping it and knocking his sword to the ground. The pirates ran the druchii through, then hacked him to pieces in a release of pent-up fury.
Behind the melee, the prisoners were stumbling out of the cell and blinking around in somnambulant wonder. The prisoner Felix had given the ring of keys to opened another cell door and waved his arms at those within.
‘Free! You’re free!’ he cried.
Felix wondered for a brief second if he was doing the poor, half-starved wretches any favours freeing them. They would probably be killed by the guards for escaping. There was no time to think about it.
The pirates took the swords and daggers from the dead guards and advanced on the cage. Gotrek and Felix joined them, pushing to the fore, just in time to see the three guards spill from the guard room holding odd-looking crossbows. The clerk had vanished into the other room, and Felix heard the brazen clangour of an alarm bell.
Gotrek, Felix and the others slammed into the cage bars, stabbing through them at the guards, who jumped back out of reach and fired their crossbows. One missed Felix by a hair’s breadth, and one of the pirates fell back, screaming and clutching his face. Felix’s stomach dropped when he saw new bolts appear in the slots of the bows and the bowstrings draw back by themselves. They would be slaughtered!
Felix and the pirates swiped at the guards with their swords, but only Gotrek, with the length of the iron pole, could touch them. He knocked the crossbow out of one guard’s hands and struck another on the shoulder, ruining his aim.
The guard with the keys on his belt fired at the Slayer, but Gotrek ducked and the bolt struck a prisoner. The Slayer stabbed at the key guard again, but missed. He dodged back, turning for the guard room door with his companions, who were realising too late that they should have stayed back. Gotrek flailed after him with the pole, but hit another instead, knocking him to the floor.
Cursing, Felix shoved up to the bars, reversed the overseer’s dagger in his hand and flung it end over end. The knife struck the key guard pommel-first on the back of the head and he careened off the wall to fall to the floor next to the other fallen guard.
‘Good work, manling,’ said Gotrek.
Unfortunately, the blows hadn’t been enough to knock either guard out. They started picking themselves up again instantly, but they had fallen too close to the bars of the cage and the pirates ran them through as they stood. The key guard collapsed to the floor again, his left foot tantalisingly within reach.
Felix shot an arm through the bars, reaching for the druchii’s ankle as the last guard grabbed him under the arms and tried to pull him back into the guard room. Felix pulled the other way, grunting with effort, the guard’s ankle slipping from his grip. Then Gotrek’s yoke shot forwards and poked the last guard in the chest. He fell back, winded.
Felix pulled for all he was worth – which wasn’t much just then – and dragged the dead guard an arm’s length closer to the bars. He let go and reached for the keys. They were just an inch from his fingertips.
The last guard sat up, gasping, and crawled forwards to grab his dead comrade’s arms again, but with a thwack that made Felix’s ears ring, Gotrek’s yoke came down across the druchii’s shoulders and dropped him to the floor.
Felix pulled again on the dead guard’s ankle and brought him another foot closer. He thrust out his hand and this time closed his fingers around the key ring. It had two keys. He ripped it off the guard’s belt and pulled it through the bars, then tossed it to Aethenir, who hovered anxiously behind the pirates.
The high elf stepped to the cage door as Felix, Gotrek and the pirates kept their eyes on the doors. He tried one key. It didn’t work. Euler cursed.
He tried the other and there was a satisfying click. Euler and Felix shoved past him, slamming the door open and stabbing all the fallen guards again just to be sure.
As the pirates stripped the dead guards of their swords and crossbows and pushed past to loot the guard room, Gotrek stumped to the exit door, a lattice of heavy iron slats, and shook it. It barely rattled. Through it Felix could see worrying movement at the end of a short corridor.
‘Come on, dwarf,’ snapped Euler uneasily. ‘Don’t tell me we’re finished before we’ve begun. I thought you had a plan.’
Gotrek examined the edges of the door with care, ignoring him. Both the lock and the hinges were hidden behind the fitted stone of the door frame.
‘Damned dwarf slaves built too well for their masters,’ the Slayer growled. ‘Might be tougher than I thought.’
A black-shafted bolt glanced off a slat and rattled into the room. A few more clattered off the lattice, but did not come in. Felix jerked back and looked through the door again. Half a dozen guards were lined up at the end of the short corridor, aiming repeating crossbows at them.
‘Manann’s depths,’ groaned Euler. ‘We’re done for.’
‘Not yet. Come on.’ Gotrek turned away from the door and jogged back into the larger portion of the room, pushing through the milling crowd of freed prisoners and striding for the massive cauldron carts. ‘And clear the door!’ he called.
Felix, Euler and his pirates trotted after the Slayer, curious. Gotrek checked both carts. Each was taller than a man, and each carried twelve of the cauldrons – six below and six above – all hanging by their chains from stout wooden racks built into a heavy frame. On the first cart – the one that had fed their cell – all but two of the cauldrons were empty, but on the second cart, all were full.
‘This one,’ said the Slayer, slapping it. ‘Turn it round.’
Felix and a few of the pirates inched the heavily laden cart until it faced the door as Gotrek stepped to the other cart and lifted one of the empty cauldrons off its rack. He carried it to the full cart and used the chains to hook it to the front, like the nose of a battering ram, then came around the back and joined the rest at the push bar.
Farnir, the young dwarf slave, and the two dwarfs who had pushed the cart approached them.
‘Let us help,’ said Farnir. ‘Please.’
Gotrek turned his back on them without a word.
From the cell door, the old dwarf slave cried to the others. ‘Don’t! Stay here! Wait for the masters!’
‘Clear the way!’ called Felix, waving at the aimlessly wandering prisoners.
‘Now!’ said Gotrek, and shoved at the bar. Felix and the pirates joined him. The cart started rolling, swiftly picking up speed as it rumbled across the flagstones. They ran faster. The hanging cauldrons swung back a little, creaking and sloshing.
If the door doesn’t open, thought Felix, this is going to hurt.
The cart hurtled through the open cage door with inches to spare on either side, and slammed into the outer door with a sound like dwarf ironclads colliding. The twelve full cauldrons swung forwards, adding a second impact and sending gruel and water spla
shing everywhere. The racks cracked and splintered, and some of the cauldrons jumped their hooks and crashed to the floor.
The lattice door, unfortunately, didn’t open. Felix and the others crashed into the back of the cart. Felix’s cheek smashed against the wooden frame, loosening teeth, and his ribs were crushed against the push bar as the pirate behind him slammed into him. He had been right. It hurt.
Groaning and cursing, Gotrek, Felix and the pirates stepped out from behind the cart to survey the damage to the door. The lattice of slats bulged out in the centre where the nose-cauldron had smashed into them, and the door’s iron frame was bowed in, but the hinges still held, and the bolt of the lock had not quite slipped its collar.
‘Again!’ called Gotrek, and began pulling back on the push bar.
It was clear, as they hauled it back into the big room, that the cart had lost much of its structural integrity. The wheels wobbled and some of the cauldrons hung off it at odd angles, nevertheless it still rolled. When they had it in position, Gotrek fitted it with another nose-cauldron – the first one had cracked and was squashed nearly flat – and they pushed at it again.
This time it rattled and shuddered as it bounced across the floor, and they had to fight to keep it going straight. One of the cauldrons banged off the edge of the cage door as they charged through, but they made it, and slammed into the outer door again. The noise was even worse this time, and cauldrons and timbers flew everywhere, but with a deafening clang, the outer door flew open and they were through and staggering into the wide corridor after the rapidly disintegrating cart.
‘Keep on!’ shouted Gotrek.
Felix and the others obeyed the order and sprinted down the corridor towards the thin line of archers as arrows ricocheted off the swinging cauldrons and stuck in the shattered spars. The rest of the pirates followed in their wake, crouching in ragged double file behind the cart’s bulk, some of them holding more cauldrons in front of them like shields, others firing back with crossbows purloined from the guards and the guard room.
Felix heard a shouted order and the archers fell back before them, disappearing to the left. Then, about ten strides from the end of the hallway, the front right wheel of the cart fell off and wobbled away as the cart slammed down on its axle end, scraping a groove in the flagstones. Gotrek and Felix and the other pushers unfortunately didn’t stop pushing in time, and the cart swerved wildly, pivoting on the dragging axle, then toppled slowly forwards to crash on its side. It skidded noisily to a stop as cauldrons and bits of wood bounced away ahead of it, and a tide of water and mouldy gruel spread out before it.
The escapees halted just before the end of the hallway, not wanting to run into a hail of arrows, and edged forwards. Felix peeked left and right, trying to see the lay of the land.
The room was large and octagonal – the junction of four corridors – all identical to the one they were in. The archers had retreated to the mouth of the corridor to their left. In the angled wall to their right was another iron gate – this one guarding a broad stairway that led up into darkness. Six guards stood at the ready behind it, armed with swords and crossbows.
‘A crossfire,’ said Felix, his heart sinking.
‘And another gate for which we have no key,’ said Aethenir.
‘Don’t think the cart is going to be much use this time,’ said Euler.
Gotrek was glaring at the gate with his single eye, edging out further than Felix thought safe to have a good look. It was not a lattice this time, but a line of close-set iron bars that stretched from floor to ceiling, with a wide, vertically barred door in the centre. Much easier to shoot through, thought Felix, swallowing nervously.
But Gotrek didn’t seem daunted. ‘Easy,’ he said at last, then turned to Euler. ‘Cauldrons for shields around me and crossbows in the middle.’
Euler nodded and whistled up four of his pirates. They took up four of the cauldrons, wrapping the chains around their arms so they could hold them like shields, then clutched crossbows in their opposite hands. Felix grabbed a fifth cauldron, groaning with the weight. Even when empty the things were staggeringly heavy, and yet Gotrek had swung a full one around like it was a mace. Then Felix and the four pirates formed up in a tight circle around Gotrek, as the rest of the pirates and prisoners made ready to run for it the instant the door was opened. Felix noticed that the three young dwarf slaves had joined with the rest.
‘Now,’ said Gotrek.
Felix and the others ran out and right, aiming for the gate. Crossbow bolts immediately began spanging off the cauldrons and skittering past their feet and Felix was hard pressed to slow his pace to Gotrek’s. The temptation to run from the shooting was almost overwhelming.
As they reached the gate, the pirates fired their crossbows through the bars at the guards behind it, forcing them back towards the stairs. Gotrek stabbed forwards with the iron pole. The frame of the door was nothing but four long iron bars, forged into a rectangle, and the space between it and the door was about two fingers wide. Plenty of room for Gotrek to wedge the end of the iron pole and pull, which is what he did. He jammed the end into the gap just above the square plate that hid the deadbolt, and began to pry sideways, trying to bend the door frame out far enough that the deadbolt would pop out of its socket and the door would spring open.
Gotrek crouched down and heaved mightily. The frame shrieked. Felix and the other shield carriers crouched with the Slayer, trying to hide as much of their bodies behind the cauldrons as they could as they fired over them at the druchii behind the gate. The archers backed up the stairs and fired back. More bolts clanged off Felix’s cauldron. The tip of one punched through. One of the pirates howled as another pierced his naked foot and he almost fell.
Gotrek kept pulling. The door frame was bending out, but not enough. The pole was bending more than the frame. Felix was afraid it was going to snap.
‘I thought you said this one would be easier,’ said Felix.
‘Shut up, manling,’ Gotrek rasped.
A guard tumbled to the ground, a bolt through his chest. Another turned and fled up the stairs, out of bolts, but the other four kept firing. A hot stripe of pain burned across Felix’s shin as a bolt tore a trench in it. Another skipped off the stone floor and buried itself in Gotrek’s calf. He grunted, but kept pulling.
‘Hurry, dwarf,’ gritted one of the pirates.
Felix heard the slap of bare feet rushing towards them, but before he could turn to look, someone shoved through two of the cauldrons. Felix almost struck out with his sword, but checked when he saw that it was the young dwarf Farnir. A bolt stuck from his back.
Without a word, the slave grasped the pole about mid-way along its length and added his strength to Gotrek’s. The door frame groaned. Felix readied his sword in anticipation. The pirates fired the last of their bolts at the guards.
‘One, two, THREE!’ rasped Gotrek, and he and Farnir heaved together. The metal screamed and suddenly Gotrek and Farnir were staggering sideways as the door sprang open.
The guards on the stairs dropped their crossbows and rushed down to hold it shut, but they were too late. Felix and a pirate slammed through behind their cauldron shields, knocking them back and slashing at them before they could draw their swords. Gotrek and the others charged in behind. The Slayer swept the legs out from under two of the guards with the pole, and Felix bowled another down with his cauldron. He stabbed the dark elf in the throat as he stepped over him, then turned to face another. There were none left to face. The pirates had finished them all off.
Felix threw aside the cauldron with a relieved sigh. His shoulder felt broken from carrying it. There was a thunder of running feet. Felix turned to see Aethenir, Euler and the rest of the pirates, as well as a mob of prisoners, breaking cover and running towards them. A handful fell to the arrows of the druchii in the far corridor, but the rest kept coming.
Gotrek pulled out the bolt that had pierced his calf as the first pirates pushed through the door and armed thems
elves with the weapons of the dead guards. Aethenir selected a crossbow.
‘Well done, dwarf,’ called Euler.
The Slayer shrugged and turned to the stairs. ‘This is only the beginning.’
Felix and Aethenir joined him and they started up the stairs into darkness with Euler and his pirates and the rest following behind.
Felix feared that they would find the ark’s entire garrison waiting for them at the top of the stairs, but though they heard alarm drums booming in every direction, the reinforcements were apparently still on their way. He was glad of it. It had been six flights. His legs were like jelly from the climb and he was soaked with sweat.
Aethenir leaned against the wall, his eyes half-closed. Beside him, Euler was gasping for breath, hands on his knees, as his pirates recovered around them, looking anxiously up and down the wide, high-ceilinged corridor.
After a moment Euler collected himself and stood. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Which way is the harbour?’
‘You certain you won’t change your mind, Euler?’ asked Felix.
Euler laughed. ‘Very.’
Gotrek pointed left down the hall.
Euler bowed to him. ‘Thank you, Herr dwarf. You’ve done us a great service.’ He turned to Felix, smiling. ‘Well, Herr Jaeger. It seems this is goodbye.’
Felix nodded, not about to join the pirate in his false bonhomie. ‘Goodbye, Euler. Good luck, I suppose.’
Euler’s smile broadened. ‘You don’t understand, Herr Jaeger. This is goodbye!’
And with that, Euler and his pirates attacked.
SIXTEEN
Felix fell back, throwing up his sword in a desperate parry, and barely turned aside Euler’s blade. Beside him, Gotrek roared as a sword lashed him across his back, then spun in a circle, swinging his iron pole and fanning the pirates back. To one side Aethenir cowered against the wall.
