by Warhammer
As Felix and Kat stole horrified glances through their own fights, the war-leader’s wounds once again closed up, and he was as whole as he had been at the start of the fight. Gotrek staggered up to face him again, as weary as Felix had ever seen him, and bleeding from a half-dozen deep wounds, but his single eye still blazing with fury. Gargorath was his exact opposite – for though his body was once again unmarked, and he still fought with unnatural energy, as he strode forwards, his glowing blue eyes registered fear and uncertainty. It was clear that he had expected the fight to be over long ago.
Then, with alarming suddenness, it was over. Felix caught a flash of inspiration in Gotrek’s eye as he blocked another of Gargorath’s brutal slashes. The Slayer backed away, feigning weakness, then, as the war-leader slashed again, Gotrek turned his axe so that the blade met the haft of the daemon weapon edge on. With an inhuman shriek and a blinding flash of blue light, the head of the vulture-headed axe was severed from its haft and spun away to bite the bloody ground with its glowing eyes fading to black.
Gargorath was left holding a sizzling stick.
With a triumphant roar, Gotrek charged in, bringing his axe up in an overhand swing that bit into the beastman’s gold and steel breastplate so deeply that the rune-inscribed head disappeared entirely. Gargorath grunted and staggered back, tearing the axe from Gotrek’s grip. He looked down at the weapon, blinking stupidly, then, with the slow majesty of a stone tower collapsing, toppled backwards to land flat on his back.
Gotrek chuckled, than stepped up onto the dead beast’s massive chest, levered his axe free and spat in his face. ‘Heal that, you overgrown sheep,’ he rasped.
The other beasts had fallen back from Gotrek at the death of their invincible leader, but now they surged in again, howling for his blood. He roared in response and rushed to meet them.
Kat and Felix raced to him and fought at his side, still in the blissful trance of nothing-left-to-lose – though Felix was slightly sad for the Slayer. He almost wished that Gargorath had killed the Slayer, for it was certainly a grander doom to die fighting a great leader then to be laid low by the faceless numbers of the endless herd. He also grieved for Snorri, who would not now be supping in Grimnir’s halls, but instead would wander as a forlorn ghost for the rest of eternity. But these were passing concerns, as all his being was taken up with the sheer physical joy of block and parry, strike and counterstrike. He took a terrible cut on the leg, but didn’t feel it. A club numbed his off hand. He didn’t feel that either. He was content to go down fighting in the middle of the great swirl of battle, knowing that he went with his friends at his side.
Then, at the edge of his consciousness, he heard a boom, and then another boom, and then a blare of horns and a roar of voices all raised in unison. He killed a beastman who looked away from him, craning its neck to find the source of the sounds.
For a moment, Felix could not conceive of what was happening. Since he had raced down into the battle from Tarnhalt’s Crown, the scope of his world had been no more than the beasts around him and the short time he had to fight them, so this strange intrusion of distant sounds was as alien to him as air would be to a fish. But then, above the rising roar, he finally understood the words the far-off voices were shouting.
‘Von Kotzebue! Von Kotzebue! The Empire! The Empire!’
TWENTY-TWO
It struck Felix as funny how quickly all his fear and pain and worry for the future came back with the knowledge that help had arrived. Hope was an evil thing. Without hope he had been at peace, knowing that his death was inevitable. With hope, suddenly he was desperate to stay alive and keep alive those that were nearest and dearest to him. Suddenly his heart was hammering with anxiety, and his limbs aching with fatigue. Could he stay alive long enough for von Kotzebue’s army to reach them? Could he protect Kat? Could Snorri be saved? Was the old Slayer still alive?
The wounds that hadn’t troubled him when he knew that they were only momentary precursors to death now nearly crippled him with their agony. He felt faint and sick and weak, and wasn’t sure he could continue to fight – something that hadn’t mattered in the least only seconds before.
Over the horned heads of the beastmen that surrounded him and Kat and Gotrek, Felix saw columns of ranked cavalry pouring down over the hills to the east and west, with wide ranks of spearmen racing down after them, snare drums rattling and banners waving as cannons and mortars belched fire over their heads. A great cheer rose from the throats of the beleaguered men in the centre of the thronging beastmen at the sight, and Felix and Kat raised their voices as well.
Felix couldn’t see the impact when the two prongs of von Kotzebue’s army slammed into the flanks of the herd, but he could feel it and hear it – a heavy shuddering crash that shook the ground and sent a ripple through the beastmen, like a boulder being thrown into a swamp.
All around Felix and Kat, von Volgen’s and Plaschke-Miesner’s soldiers and sergeants were calling encouragement to each other and fighting with renewed vigour.
‘Hold on, lads!’ cried one. ‘Help’s on the way!’
‘Saved, by Sigmar!’ called another.
‘Look sharp, now!’ shouted a third. ‘Don’t want those damned Middenlanders seeing us look beat, do we?’
‘All be over soon,’ said a fourth.
Of course, there was a lot more fighting to be done before it was all truly over, but at least the tide had turned. Felix and Kat and Gotrek lined up with a company of swordsmen, and they presented a united front against the panicking beasts.
For a time, the gors fought savagely against the three fronts that were ranged against them, and hundreds of Von Kotzebue’s men fell after the initial charge, as well as hundreds more in the deteriorating square of troops trapped in their centre, but after less than a quarter of an hour, as withering volleys of arrow fire ate away at their edges, and the spears of the infantry and the lances of the knights pressed in on them on both sides, the beasts finally could take no more and turned and fled south, clawing and killing one another in their desperation to be away.
After that it was butchers’ work, with von Kotzebue’s lances riding down fleeing packs of beasts, while his infantry closed the jaws of their pincer movement to catch the rest in the middle. It was not easy work, however. In fact, this was the hottest fighting of the battle for the survivors in the remains of the square, for the beastmen in their terror fought with the frenzy of trapped rats, and tried to tear a hole through the Empire lines in a desperate attempt to escape. There were a terrible few minutes where many men who had thought salvation was at hand were felled by flailing horns and clubs and axes. But finally von Kotzebue’s men cut down the last few gors and the rescuers met the survivors in the centre of the blood-soaked and eerily silent field.
‘Well met, cousins,’ said a greatsword captain in blue and grey who stood beneath von Kotzebue’s banner.
‘Aye,’ said a Talabecland sergeant. ‘If a little late.’
The captain ignored his comment and looked around. ‘Do Lord von Volgen and Lord Plaschke-Miesner still stand?’
‘Yer a bit late for that too,’ said a voice from the ranks.
‘But too soon for me,’ muttered Gotrek under his breath, as the conversation between the armies continued. ‘Another few minutes and I would have found my doom.’
Felix rolled his eyes. ‘I’m sorry you were disappointed.’
Then his pain caught up with him and he groaned and looked for a place to sit and bind his wounds. Kat did the same, as did the rest of the army. All around them the soldiers sank down in weariness and pain, calling for surgeons and drinking from canteens and flasks. The cries of the wounded and dying were pitiful to hear.
Then a deeper voice boomed over the rest. ‘Gurnisson! Here!’
Gotrek, Felix and Kat looked up. Rodi was waving a torch at them from beside the pile of beastman corpses he and Snorri had made. He held Snorri’s warhammer in his hands. Gotrek grunted, then stumped heavily towards him.
Felix and Kat exchanged a look, then rose again and limped after him. Felix was certain they would find Snorri dead, and was saddened by it. What a terrible irony that only the one who could least afford to die had perished.
‘Is he dead?’ asked Gotrek, as they approached.
Rodi shook his head and Felix breathed a sigh of relief.
The young Slayer was covered in gashes from head to foot, the worst being his left cheek, which was opened to the bone, but he seemed to be unbothered by any of them. ‘He lives,’ he said. ‘But I broke my axe on a beastman’s skull, and have need of yours.’
Without further explanation he turned and crawled up and over the ring of dead beastmen, using Snorri’s hammer to balance himself. They followed, wobbling on the loose and uncertain ground.
In the centre of the ring lay Snorri, alive, but only barely. He was whiter than any dwarf Felix had ever seen, and bruised and cut all over.
He grinned weakly when he saw them. ‘Snorri got the big bull,’ he said.
‘Aye, Father Rustskull,’ said Rodi, pointing with the head of the warhammer. ‘But the big bull got you too.’
Felix blanched as he looked where Rodi indicated. Snorri’s right leg was a mangled mess from just below the knee – a tangle of shredded meat and shattered bone. His foot was missing entirely. A tourniquet had been tied above the knee to stop the flow of blood, but there was already too much on the ground.
‘The minotaur hit him with its axe,’ said Rodi. ‘But it was dull from chopping trees. He needs a good, clean cut.’
Gotrek nodded. Felix winced, though he knew it had to be done.
Gotrek wiped his axe as clean as he could on the shirt of a dead soldier, then took Rodi’s torch and held it under the cutting edge until both sides were black with carbon, then handed the torch to Kat.
‘Sit on him,’ he told Rodi. ‘And hold the leg.’ He looked at Felix. ‘Manling, hold the good leg aside. Little one, bring the torch close.’
Felix nodded and squatted to grab Snorri’s left boot as Rodi sat on the old Slayer’s stomach and pressed down on his upper leg, just above the knee, while Kat, looking slightly queasy, lowered the torch.
‘Snorri is ready,’ said Snorri, closing his eyes.
Gotrek stepped up and raised his axe, sighting down with his one eye to line up his swing.
Felix pulled Snorri’s left leg away from his right, then turned his head so he wouldn’t have to see. There was a swish and a thud, and Snorri grunted and jerked, then lay still.
Felix opened his eyes again and looked. The damage had been cut away, leaving a clean, straight cut through bone and muscle that looked disturbingly like an uncooked steak. Because of the tourniquet there wasn’t much blood, which somehow made it even worse. At least he lives, Felix thought. At least Snorri still has a chance to recover his memory before he meets his doom.
Rodi stood and turned, looking pleased with Gotrek’s work. ‘All right, Father Rustskull?’
Snorri opened his eyes and nodded, though he looked even paler than before. ‘Snorri is fine, but he would like a drink soon.’
‘And Snorri shall have his drink,’ said Rodi. ‘Just as soon as we find a surgeon with some hot pitch.’
Gotrek wiped his axe clean again, then found two discarded spears and crossed them. He and Rodi lifted Snorri onto the spears, then picked them up like stretcher ends and carried the old Slayer out of the ring of beastman corpses and across the field in search of a surgeon, with Felix and Kat following behind.
Felix shook his head as they walked, amazed that they had all survived. The battle he had been certain would be the Slayers’ doom had ended, and they were all still alive. Maybe they truly were fated for some great destiny. It seemed the only explanation for their continued existence.
A cold wind blew through the valley as they walked past the place where Gargorath and his headless axe lay on the ground. Felix shivered and pulled his old red cloak closer around him. The wind stank of death and moaned like a tormented soul. Then he paused, the hair rising on the back of his neck, and looked around.
Though the moaning and the chill and smell continued unabated, nothing moved in the wind. Felix’s hair didn’t flutter around his face. His cloak didn’t flap around his legs. The banners of the armies didn’t lift in the breeze.
He turned to the others. They had stopped too. All around the field, conversations stalled and the cries of the wounded died away.
Kat’s eyes were as wide as saucers. ‘Something… something is wrong,’ she said.
Gotrek and Rodi set Snorri’s litter down and readied their weapons warily.
‘The light,’ said Gotrek, frowning. ‘It’s the light.’ He looked up.
Felix and the others followed his gaze, and a collective gasp escaped their throats.
The moons were colliding, directly over their heads. Morrslieb was eclipsing Mannslieb, sliding across it like a dirty coin covering a freshly minted one. As they watched, the Chaos moon occluded its fairer sister entirely, and Mannslieb’s clean white light vanished, to be replaced by a sickly green luminescence that spread across the battlefield like a plague, making the wounded and the dying appear not only maimed, but diseased as well.
All over the valley, soldiers stared up into the sky, cursing and praying to their gods.
‘It’s the end!’ cried a man. ‘We have sinned and this is our punishment!’
‘Sigmar save us!’ wailed another.
A rustling from behind him made Felix turn. A wounded beastman was trying to rise, though it only had one hand. Gotrek kicked it in the head and it fell over. Felix blinked. The beastman had no intestines either. They had fallen out through the hole in its abdomen. Felix shivered. How was the thing alive?
Another beastman twitched and tried to stand. And another. Beside them, an archer with an axe through his chest and a missing arm opened unseeing eyes and sat up.
Felix stepped back and backed into Kat, who was looking at a drummer boy with no legs squirming on the ground and trying to turn over.
‘What is happening?’ she asked.
Felix only shook his head, unable to form an answer.
A heavy thudding and shifting to their left made them all turn. Kat gasped. Rodi cursed. Gotrek grunted. Felix stared, his heart pounding double time in his constricted chest. Gargorath was getting to his feet. Though Felix could see the monster’s shattered ribs through the gaping hole Gotrek had smashed in his breastplate, the war-leader was somehow still alive.
‘It’s impossible,’ Felix said.
All over the battlefield, broken figures were standing, both man and beastman, while soldiers cried out in dismay and fear.
Kat clutched Felix’s arm. ‘What is happening?’ she asked again, an edge of panic creeping into her voice.
‘It is midnight on Hexensnacht,’ said a weird, shrill voice behind them.
They turned. A tall thin figure in plate armour was clanking stiffly towards them, its head cocked at an uncomfortable angle. ‘The year has turned,’ it said. ‘The age of the Empire of man has passed.’
Felix stumbled back as he saw that the knight was Sir Teobalt, the blood still running sluggishly from the fatal wound the bestial templar Orenstihl had given him. His face, as he approached them, showed no animation. His eyes stared fixedly above them and to the left, and though his jaw moved, it was jerky and stiff, and not quite in time with his words. ‘The age of the Empire of the dead has begun.’
‘Grungni!’ said Rodi. ‘What’s happened to him?’
‘What has happened to him,’ said the thing that had been Sir Teobalt, ‘is what will happen to you all.’
Felix frowned. The voice wasn’t Teobalt’s, but he recognised it all the same. How did he know it? He couldn’t think.
‘My necromancy could not work with the herdstone present,’ said the same voice from beside them. They turned and saw that Gargorath’s jaws were moving too. ‘But I knew your axe could destroy it,’ the beast said. ‘So I showed you the way
to smash it.’
‘And smash it you did,’ said the same voice again from yet another direction.
Felix and the others spun around.
Lord von Volgen and Lord Plaschke-Miesner were lurching towards them, von Volgen no more than a paper-skinned mummy, and both dead from terrible wounds. ‘Then I whispered in the ears of these young lords,’ the corpses said together. ‘Telling them to attack. Telling them of the glory to be found in death.’
As the dead youths continued speaking, the same high eerie voice began to echo from the mouth of every dead beastman and every risen soldier on the field. ‘Now,’ it chorused. ‘Now I invite you to join them in that glory.’
The corpses of the men and beastmen laughed in shrill unison as they lumbered towards Gotrek, Felix, Rodi and Kat, raising their weapons in their stiff hands, and though Felix had failed to recognise the voice that rattled from their dead throats, he suddenly recognised their laughter.
It was the mad giggle of Hans the hermit.
ZOMBIESLAYER
Nathan Long
‘There was no end to the horror. No sooner had we felled the beast-shaman and sundered the stone that might have destroyed the Empire, than a new threat arose, deadlier and more gruesome than the last, an army of the living dead, ten thousand strong.
‘In the dire days that followed, when madness and despair were our constant companions, it seemed certain that his doom had found Gotrek at last, though in a form no Slayer would ever wish for. But despite the danger and hardship and the threat of an unworthy death, Gotrek’s most painful challenge came not from our enemies, but from his oldest friend. To save the soul of Snorri Nosebiter, Gotrek’s sacred oath to Grimnir would be tested as never before, and I could not be sure which would break first, the friendship or the vow.’
– From My Travels with Gotrek, Vol VIII, by Herr Felix Jaeger
