by Warhammer
‘It’s no trick. I promise you.’ Felix looked over his shoulder to where the three Slayers were sitting around the cold fire pit, cleaning their weapons for what must have been the fifth time that day. They were all out of earshot. He turned back to Kat. ‘Gotrek doesn’t want Snorri to find his doom until he has recovered his memory, so he has excused me from the battle so that I can bring him to Karak Kadrin to pray at the Shrine of Grimnir. I will not be fighting. You’ll have no need to protect me.’
‘And when you have brought Snorri to the shrine?’ asked Kat.
‘I’ll be free to do as I please,’ said Felix, smiling. ‘And what I please, is to be with you.’
Kat shivered and shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, Felix. I want it to be true, but I can’t let myself believe it yet. It seems impossible.’
Felix chuckled and pulled her close. ‘Not to worry,’ he said. ‘I understand. There is nothing worse than hope. Forget it. We won’t speak of it until it has happened.’ He kissed her on the forehead, then pulled back and gazed into her worried eyes. ‘Just remember something that someone said to me not long ago.’
‘What’s that?’ she asked.
Felix grinned. ‘There is always a chance.’
A slow smile broke through Kat’s cloudy demeanour and she hugged him hard. ‘Aye,’ she said. ‘Always.’
Just as the last crimson sliver of the sun sank behind blood-coloured hills, a messenger finally arrived from the armies. Felix knew the news was not good when the man saluted from his horse, but did not dismount.
‘Lord von Volgen and Lord Plaschke-Miesner’s compliments,’ said the messenger as they gathered around him. ‘And they regret to inform you that no sign of Baron von Kotzebue’s army has yet been sighted.’
‘Then they will have to go without him,’ said Gotrek.
‘No, Herr dwarf,’ said the messenger. ‘My lords have determined that the risk is too great. If von Kotzebue does not arrive before your signal, they will retire.’
Gotrek snorted and turned away. ‘So much for the courage of men.’
‘This is madness,’ said Kat. ‘They must attack. They must!’
Felix stepped up to the messenger. ‘I thought they understood that it was vital to attack the herd while it was all in one spot. If they let them disperse, the beasts will pillage the countryside for hundreds of miles in every direction, and they will be almost impossible to root out. If von Volgen and Plaschke-Miesner retreat, they are dooming Talabecland to years of raids and slaughter.’
The messenger nodded, very stiff. ‘My lords are aware of this, and will go therefore to look to their own lands and strengthen the defences of their keeps.’
Rodi spat on the ground. ‘Tell them from me that they are cowards, and deserve the fate that this tail-turning will bring them.’
The messenger bowed in the saddle. ‘I will do so.’
And with that he wheeled his horse around and galloped off into the crimson twilight.
Morrslieb and Mannslieb were again rising together over the hills as Felix, Kat and the three Slayers crawled towards the top of the ridge again. The guttural chanting of ten thousand savage throats floated over the summit and raised the hairs on the back of Felix’s neck. That such a huge herd of beastmen, a race famous for their fractiousness and infighting, should be in such accord that they could all chant in unison, was a terrifying thing. If this Urslak could continue to keep them unified and fixed on a single objective they would be unstoppable.
The five companions reached the top of the ridge and went forwards on knees and elbows until they could look down into the valley of Tarnhalt’s Crown. The camps of the outlying herds were deserted, their bonfires dark. All the beastmen were pressing close around the base of the central hill from all sides, a shifting, undulating carpet of horned heads and hairy shoulders, with here and there torches sticking up to cast a ruddy glow on spear-tips and broad, armoured backs.
The hill itself was ablaze with yellow light. Roaring bonfires had been set all around the towering herdstone, causing the monoliths of the stone circle to cast thick black bars of shadow down the hill and across the swarm of beastmen that thronged it. A ring of blue-daubed guards protected the circle, lashing out at the teeming, chanting mob with blazing firebrands, keeping them back.
‘Sigmar preserve us,’ said Felix. It was like a scene out of the Chaos Wastes, transported to the centre of the Empire.
‘He’d better not,’ said Rodi.
‘Snorri thinks it’s nice of them to stay so close together,’ said Snorri. ‘Saves running after them.’
Felix, Gotrek and Rodi exchanged a look, but said nothing. Felix felt strangely guilty in the wake of that look, like he was in some conspiracy to murder Snorri, rather than save him.
Kat’s keen eyes saw through all the flickering chaos to the centre. ‘The shaman has already begun his ceremony,’ she said.
Felix peered towards the circle again. He couldn’t see the hunched old beastman, but he could see, through the haze of smoke and roaring flames, the occasional pulse of blue light from the jagged veins of the herdstone.
‘It’s time, then,’ said Gotrek, then turned and started back down the hill.
Felix followed him with the others, fighting down waves of conflicting emotions. The time of Gotrek’s doom was fast approaching. After all these years, he found it hard to imagine that it would really happen this time, but it was harder to see how it wouldn’t.
Felix once again felt a chill of dread as they squirmed, one at a time, through the hole in the hill that led to the ancient burial chamber and the tunnels beyond. But though the fear of some strange vengeance by old Hans made him turn anxiously at every rustle and rattle that echoed in the dark as they hurried through the subterranean labyrinth, nothing happened. They came without incident to the catacombs of Tarnhalt’s castle, and then to the ancient stairwell that led to the surface and the stone circle where the beasts performed their dread ceremony.
Kat passed her torch to Felix and drew her bow off her back as the dwarfs started up the square stone spiral. Felix followed her up, holding the torch to one side. The stairs crackled with dead leaves and dry twigs, blown down by the winds of ages, but as they got closer to the surface, the noises from above began to drown out all else – the stamping of thousands of hooves in unison, the hoarse chanting, now quickening to a frenzied pitch, the high wail of the old shaman rising above it all.
Felix found himself clutching his sword in a death grip, and his teeth were locked together like a vice. He had to keep reminding himself that he wasn’t going out to fight the herd. He was going to stay hidden with Snorri and Kat while Gotrek and Rodi went to kill the shaman and meet their doom. It still felt unlikely. Would things really be different this time?
They turned up a final flight and saw a square of night sky above them. Torchlight flickered off the stairwell’s crumbling walls. Gotrek slowed his pace and crept to the top, raising his head cautiously, then beckoning the rest up after him. They came out in the midst of a dense thicket of brambles that grew over and around broken knee-high walls – all that remained of the tower that had once surrounded the stairs.
Over their heads, Mannslieb and Morrslieb stared down, casting double shadows, and were even closer together tonight than they had been the night before, and from all around came bestial voices and the light of many fires. Felix and the others crouched down and peered through the criss-cross screen of thorny twigs to the scene beyond. Felix’s heart pounded in his chest as he saw how close they were to the circle and the beasts.
The ring of stones rose only twenty paces away, and the circle of torch-wielding, blue-painted gors that guarded it was only ten paces away. The mob that the guards were holding back was even closer. In fact the stairwell was within their front ranks. The mob stretched out to both sides of it and behind it all the way down the hill to the valley floor. Only the mass of bushes and the tower’s broken walls had stopped the beastmen from standing directly on top of it
.
Felix heard Kat whispering frightened prayers to Taal and Rhya, and he did the same to Sigmar, all the while trying to keep his knees from shaking. It wouldn’t take more than a cough or a loud sneeze to alert the beasts to their presence, and then they would be dead in seconds.
Gotrek pushed a little way forwards through the bushes, peering more closely at the circle. The others crept cautiously after him. Through the gaps between the standing stones Felix could see the blue quartz veins of the massive herdstone pulsing like a heart in time with the rhythm of the herd’s chant, and before it, the twist-horned shaman, Urslak, standing in supplication, arms outstretched, his bird-claw robe flapping in an eldritch wind as he wailed a profane prayer. For a moment Felix thought he saw enormous blue-feathered wings sprouting from the shaman’s shoulders, but then they vanished, and he decided it had only been a trick of the flames that surrounded him.
There were two ranks of beastmen between the Slayers and the shaman. The closest rank were the blue-daubed guardians. They were widely spaced, and faced out towards the herd, brandishing torches to keep them back. The massive war-leader – who Ortwin had named Gargorath the God-Touched – stood with them on the east side of the circle, his powerful arms folded as he looked down on the sea of upturned goat-like faces that stretched away from him to the base of the hill and beyond into the camp. The second rank of beastmen stood just within the monoliths, blue-robed initiates that faced in towards the shaman, chanting and shaking strange fetishes over their heads – bones, feathers, gnarled staffs and skulls of different animals and races. Felix remembered them. They had been the dancers that had preceded the stone when it was on the march.
‘It is possible,’ muttered Gotrek.
‘Aye,’ said Rodi, nodding. ‘Only a handful to kill before we reach the old goat – if we’re quick. After that…’ He shrugged and smiled savagely.
‘Snorri is ready,’ said Snorri eagerly. ‘Snorri thinks this is going to be a good fight.’
Gotrek and Rodi exchanged another glance, then backed towards the stairs, beckoning to Snorri to follow.
‘Come here, Snorri Nosebiter,’ said Gotrek, looking uncomfortable. ‘I want to speak of your part in this.’
A look of impatience passed over Snorri’s ugly face, but he followed Gotrek, stepping past Rodi, who hung back behind him.
‘Why waste time talking?’ said Snorri. ‘Snorri knows what to–’
With a sound like a cannon ball hitting a wooden floor, Rodi struck Snorri with the heavy iron pommel of his axe, just below the lowest nail on the back of his skull. The old Slayer’s eyes rolled up into his head and he sank to his knees, then pitched forwards, flat on his face. Rodi looked down at him, shame and sadness mixing in his eyes.
‘Sorry, Father Rustskull,’ he said. ‘It had to be done.’
‘Have…?’ said Kat. ‘Have you killed him?’
‘Do you think a little tap like that could kill Snorri Nosebiter?’ asked Gotrek.
But nevertheless, the Slayer felt Snorri’s pulse, then he and Rodi lifted his limp body and rolled him down the stairs.
The two Slayers stood for a long moment, looking down into the darkness at their friend, then Gotrek turned to Kat.
‘You have the horn?’
She unslung it from where it hung at her waist and held it up.
‘Good,’ said Gotrek, then looked to Felix and fixed him with a hard bright eye.
‘And you know what to do?’
‘Aye, Gotrek,’ said Felix. ‘I do.’
Gotrek nodded, then turned with Rodi towards Tarnhalt’s Crown, running his thumb down the blade of his axe so that it bled, but then, after a step, he paused and turned back. He crossed to Felix and held out his hand. Felix took it, a lump suddenly constricting his throat.
‘Goodbye, manling,’ said Gotrek. ‘You have been a true dwarf-friend.’
‘Thank… thank you, Gotrek,’ said Felix, hardly able to speak. ‘I–’
But Gotrek had already turned away and joined Rodi as he pushed towards the edge of the thicket.
Felix looked at his hand. There was a streak of blood across the back of it where Gotrek’s sliced thumb had pressed it. He blinked his eyes and turned away, emotion threatening to overwhelm him, only to find himself facing Kat, looking up at him with sad eyes. He turned from her too, afraid she was going to say something comforting, but she seemed to know better. She only put her hand on his back and kept silent.
‘Now!’ came Gotrek’s harsh whisper.
Felix looked up in time to see Gotrek and Rodi streaking out of the bushes fast and low, straight for the two outer circle guards who stood between them and the stone circle.
The noise of the chanting and the darkness near the bushes covered the Slayers’ approach, and the gors were dead before they even knew they were being attacked. Gotrek cut the legs out from under his, then chopped off its head as it hit the ground. Rodi gutted his with the leading blade of his double-headed axe, then severed its spine with the back blade as he shouldered past it.
The Slayers ran on. Felix looked around. It seemed none of the other beastmen had noticed them yet. He clenched his sword in anxiety. They just might make it. If they could get through the robed beastmen that stood within the stones–
A roar from the right brought his head around. One of the outer guardians had seen the Slayers and was running after them, calling to its comrades.
Kat sent an arrow at it. The gor stumbled but kept going. More were following him. She drew another arrow.
Gotrek and Rodi reached the circle and slammed into the backs of the chanting initiates who danced in the gaps between the stones. Three went down instantly, taken completely by surprise, but three more turned and gave battle, striking out with staves and sickle-shaped daggers. Bellows of anger came from those in nearby gaps as they saw what was happening to their fellows, and a few surged towards the Slayers, but the old shaman in the centre was too focused on his ritual to notice, and most of the chanters were, so transported by the frenzy of their invocation that they continued on, oblivious.
The two Slayers were making short work of the robed beastmen, but not short enough. The blue-painted guardians were coming swiftly behind them and would reach them before they were clear. Kat poured more arrows into the guards and a few fell, but she was only one archer. Most did not.
‘They’re not going to make it,’ she said.
Felix knew it, and he fought the urge to rush out and help them. It was wrong for him not to be at the Slayer’s side. He felt guilty and ashamed, but Gotrek had told him to stay with Snorri, and he had sworn he would do so.
‘Where are the dirty beastmen that hit Snorri on the head?’ said a blurry voice behind them.
Felix and Kat turned to see the old Slayer standing at the top of the stairs, rubbing the back of his head with a meaty hand and weaving slightly as he blinked around.
‘Ah! There they are!’ he said, squinting ahead. ‘And Snorri’s friends are taking them all!’
The old Slayer started forwards, wading through the brush towards the fight, a lump the size of an apple on the back of his skull.
TWENTY
‘Snorri, wait!’ hissed Felix, dogging the Slayer’s steps as he pushed through the brambles. ‘You can’t go, remember? You must recover your memory first.’
‘Aye, Slayer,’ said Kat, following on his other side. ‘You won’t be allowed into Grimnir’s hall.’
‘Snorri knows,’ said Snorri. ‘He’ll take care of that just as soon as he sorts out these beastmen.’
‘But the beastmen will sort you out!’ said Felix, exasperated. ‘You’ll meet your doom here, Snorri!’
‘And it will be too soon,’ said Kat.
‘But there are beastmen,’ said Snorri, breaking through the last of the bushes.
Felix looked around to see if any beastmen had noticed them. They were all looking towards Gotrek and Rodi. He grabbed Snorri’s arm as Kat caught the wrist of his hammer hand.
&n
bsp; ‘Snorri, please!’ said Felix.
Snorri shrugged off Felix as if he were a fly, then gently pried Kat’s hand away, all without breaking stride. ‘You don’t have to hold Snorri back,’ said Snorri. ‘There are plenty of beastmen for all of us.’
Felix and Kat made another grab for him, but just then Snorri swept his hammer up over his head and charged forwards, bellowing a Khazalid war cry.
Felix groaned, all his dreams of escaping Gotrek’s doom and starting a new life vanishing in an instant. The cheese-brained old idiot had ruined everything. He turned to Kat. ‘I… I’m sorry. I have to protect him. I promised.’
Kat shrugged and gave him a sad half-smile as she settled her bow over her shoulders and drew her axes. ‘And I promised to fight at your side.’
He wanted to tell her no, and send her back to the stairs, but there was no time for argument. If this suicide was going to mean anything, he had to help the Slayers reach the shaman. As one, he and Kat sprinted after Snorri into the fight, roaring and screaming and slashing at the backs of the blue-painted beastmen that surrounded Rodi and Gotrek. Felix was so full of rage that he cut down two beastmen in one savage stroke. He just imagined they were Snorri.
As the beasts fell, Felix saw Gotrek look up from slaying a beast-initiate to see Snorri fighting beside him. Gotrek snarled and looked around. He found Felix and glared at him with his one angry eye.
Felix shrunk from his displeasure. ‘He woke up,’ he called, ducking a huge club. ‘I couldn’t–’
Gotrek cursed and gutted another beastman with an unnecessarily vicious twist of his axe. Beside him, Snorri dashed out the brains of another, while Rodi head-butted a third between the legs. All at once they were through the initiates and stumbling into the middle of the stone circle. Gotrek, Rodi and Snorri turned to face the blue-painted guardians who had been fighting so hard to stop them from entering it, but the beastmen skidded to a stop at the line of standing stones, staring at the huge glowing herdstone in abject fear, and would come no further.
