[Gotrek & Felix 11] - Shamanslayer

by Nathan Long - (ebook by Undead)

  “One crown, fifteen shillings total,” said his man helpfully.

  “Gotrek, don’t,” said Felix as the Slayer raised his fist.

  “I’ll pay. We can’t afford trouble. We…”

  He paused as he heard the shing of drawn steel beside him. Everybody turned.

  Ortwin stood with his sword drawn, glaring at the leader of the guards. “You are dishonourable men!” he said in his high, clear voice. “These are not the honest laws of the Empire, and you have no right to enforce—”

  One of the guards clubbed him from behind and he fell forwards, his blade gouging the leader of the guards in the leg as he slumped to the ground.

  “Committing violence upon an officer of the law!” roared the leader. “Get them!”

  His men charged in from all sides, clubs swinging. Gotrek blocked with his forearms as Felix ducked and snatched up a stool and the three pistoliers scattered away.

  “Sorry, lads,” called von Weist. “Not our fight.”

  “Good luck to you!” cried Abelhoff.

  Felix parried a club with his stool and kicked a guard in the knee. Gotrek buried his fist up to the wrist in the leader’s soft belly, then swung at two more guards as the fat man crashed to the floor, puking. Felix cracked another guard on the helmet with his stool, then turned as a cudgel across the shoulders staggered him. One of the guards stood on the table, raising his arm for another strike.

  Felix kicked the edge of the table and the man stumbled forwards. Felix swatted him with the stool as he fell. Gotrek shoved a guard into a stone pillar, then threw another over his shoulder, sending him crashing through another table.

  In less than a minute Gotrek and Felix stood panting in the centre of a ring of bruised and fallen men, all groaning and holding various parts of their anatomies. The room burst out into spontaneous applause. The Wissenland spear company whistled and stomped their feet. The pistoliers clapped politely.

  “Good show!” cried von Weist.

  But before the cheering had died away, another crowd of guards had run through the door — a score at least — all breathing hard and with weapons drawn. At their head was a trim, compact man with a head that thrust forwards like a crow’s. He wore a captain’s uniform, and four pistols and an expensive rapier at his belt.

  “What’s all this?” he said, with a voice like a file scraping rusty iron.

  SIX

  The burly barman hurried out from behind the bar. “Captain Ludeker! These men—”

  “Never mind, Geert,” said Ludeker, his sharp eyes fixing on Gotrek and Felix. “I see what they’ve done.” He stepped forwards, his hands behind his back, shaking his head as soldiers and curious citizens of Bauholz began to edge into the tavern to see what was going on.

  “Disturbing the peace,” said Ludeker. “Destroying private property. Drawing a sword within the boundaries of the town. Resisting arrest. Striking officers of the law. Damaging the uniforms and equipment of officers of the law.” He smiled darkly as he stopped in front of Gotrek and Felix. “Such barbaric behaviour cannot go unpunished. Fifteen days in the strong house, and a fine of…” His eyes slanted to Gotrek’s gold bracelets. “Of twenty gold crowns, or the equivalent.”

  Gotrek laughed, harsh and loud. He beckoned Ludeker forwards with a massive hand. “Come and take it.”

  Ludeker drew two of his pistols and aimed them both at the Slayer. “You’re making it worse for yourself, dwarf. Thirty crowns.”

  Felix sneered. “You’re not an officer of the law,” he said. “You’re a thief in uniform.”

  Ludeker turned one of the pistols towards Felix. “Forty crowns. Do you want to go higher?”

  Just then there was a commotion in the crowd and Kat pushed through to the front, her eyes wide.

  “Felix! Gotrek! What happened?” she gasped.

  Ludeker glanced at her. “Take her too,” he said. “She’s the one who brought these troublemakers.”

  Felix knew he shouldn’t. He knew that the best thing to do was to try to talk their way out of the situation — to bargain with Ludeker, or find a way to buy some breathing room, but somehow he just couldn’t help himself. He threw the stool at Ludeker’s head.

  Ludeker ducked and fired convulsively, his shots going wild.

  Gotrek roared a laugh and charged. Felix was right behind him.

  Ludeker scrambled back, tossing aside his spent guns and grabbing for the other two. “Get them! Kill them!” he bellowed.

  Gotrek knocked the captain’s front teeth out and sent him skidding across the stone floor on his back.

  There was a moment of shocked silence as the guards stared at the unmoving body of their leader, then they swarmed in, screaming, holding swords in their hands this time, not cudgels.

  Gotrek pulled his axe from his back and swept it at the oncoming men. Felix ripped Karaghul from its scabbard and flashed it around him in a wide arc.

  “Stay back!” he shouted. “Do you want to die for this stupidity?”

  They didn’t listen. Felix parried and kicked and dodged as the guards mobbed him. Behind him he heard screams and shearing steel and snapping limbs as Gotrek went to work. Felix stabbed a man in the chest and elbowed another in the nose. A third man was coming up fast on his right. Then he fell, and Felix saw Kat standing behind him, holding a crimsoned hand-axe.

  Surrounded by a distant wall of mesmerised onlookers, Felix, Gotrek and Kat fought in a whirlwind of Ludeker’s men — kicking, swiping, ducking and lunging. Felix took a cut on the back and gave back a gash across the brow. Kat tripped a man and cut off the fingers of his sword hand. Gotrek took off the legs of another man with one swipe.

  That was the end of it. The guards had expected a onesided slaughter, but hadn’t thought they would be on the receiving end. Those who could still run ran, shoving through the crowd to escape the terror of Gotrek’s bloody axe. Those who couldn’t run crawled away, weeping and begging for mercy.

  “Blatht you, dwaaff!” lisped a hoarse voice.

  Felix and Gotrek turned to see Ludeker, his four front teeth missing, aiming his second pair of pistols at them. Gotrek hurled his axe just as Ludeker fired.

  Sparks flashed off the spinning axe and one of bullets ricocheted past Felix’s ear, while another shattered a mug behind Gotrek. Ludeker was punched off his feet as the rune weapon caught him in the face and slammed him into the wall, his head split in two halves from crown to chin. He slid down the wall, his guns dropping from his slack hands, and slumped to the ground. Blood pumped from around the edges of the axe like a fountain and poured down Ludeker’s neck, turning his uniform from grey to red.

  The room was silent for a long moment. People were staring and backing away. Ortwin was sitting up and blinking around at the half-dozen corpses, bafflement and horror in his eyes. Felix felt like the squire looked. His stomach roiled with sudden nausea. No matter how corrupt, these had been Empire men. They had no doubt fought Archaon’s hordes. It shouldn’t have come to this.

  Kat stumbled to him and clutched his arm. “We’d better go,” she said, glancing towards the door. “The others will be back before long, and with guns.” She shook her head as she watched Gotrek pull his axe from Ludeker’s face. “Can’t wait two days anymore. We’ll have to leave for Stangenschloss right away.”

  “Aye,” said Gotrek. “I was sick of the place anyway.”

  “How did this happen?” murmured Ortwin.

  “Just go,” said Felix.

  He steered the boy towards the door. Gotrek and Kat went with them. The crowd parted silently before them, frightened. Even the three pistoliers eyed them askance as they passed.

  Felix was glad to have the air in his face as they stepped out onto the street, even if it was cold enough to freeze his snot.

  As they were running across the bridge to the refugee camp, they came upon Noseless Milo and his gang trotting the other way, all armed to the teeth. The big bandit gave them a grin and a jaunty salute. “Hear I owe you lads a favo
ur,” he said. “Ta.”

  His men laughed at that.

  As they ran on, Milo turned and called after them. “Herr Doktor’s house will be mine now, Kat! A warm bed and a warm fire any time you want it!”

  Kat curled her lip, not bothering to look back. “He should give it back to the doctor,” she muttered.

  “Ludeker’s dead?” asked Doktor Vinck, shocked. He was giving a shave to a man in the uniform of the Talabheim city guard, and almost nicked his ear.

  “Yes, doctor,” said Kat, angrily stuffing her belongings into her pack. “But we didn’t start it. He tried to kill Felix and Gotrek.”

  “It was my fault,” said Ortwin, hanging his head where he knelt beside Sir Teobalt. “Had I not drawn my sword, things might not have come to such a pass.”

  Felix, off to one side tying up his bedroll, wished he could have told the boy it wasn’t true, but really, it was. If the squire hadn’t drawn steel, they might have got out of that tavern for a few shillings.

  “My dear boy,” Vinck said, returning to the task at hand with renewed vigour. “Don’t apologise. I would rather Ludeker had faced the hangman’s noose after a lawful trial, but he was a cancer upon the heart of this town that has sorely needed excising, and I am not sad to hear of his passing.”

  “Milo is already trying to pick up the reins,” said Kat sadly, then looked up, eyes hard, as a thought occurred to her. “And he might come looking for us afterwards. He might be worried we’ll do the same to him.”

  Sir Teobalt struggled up onto one elbow, wincing. “You must leave the village with the others, young Ortwin, and quickly. Go north to Stangenschloss in my name and pursue these rumours you have heard. Perhaps, when you send word to me, I will be well enough to join you.”

  “But we must take you with us!” said Ortwin. “They may try to hurt you when they cannot find us.”

  “He cannot be moved,” said Doktor Vinck. “He must have rest.”

  “I see no reason why they would try to hurt me,” said Teobalt. “And even if they do, my life is not as important as the recovery of the order’s regalia. I have said I would recover it or die in the attempt. The danger means nothing to me.”

  Gotrek grunted approvingly.

  Felix stood and shouldered his pack. “We better go, then.”

  Kat stood too. Her pack and bow were slung across her back. “Aye,” she said.

  “May Taal watch over you,” said Doktor Vinck.

  “And Sigmar guide your path,” said Sir Teobalt.

  Ortwin bowed low over Sir Teobalt’s hand. “I will not fail you, sir,” he said, then he turned and joined Felix and the others as they ducked through the tent flap and out into the cold white day.

  It had begun to snow.

  Felix found himself in a black mood as he and the others tramped north along the banks of the Zufuhr and deeper into the Drakwald. As the lazy snowflakes settled on his eyelashes and melted into his red Sudenland wool cloak, his mind turned sourly to the infinite corruptibility of man.

  He had sensed no taint of Chaos in Bauholz, had seen nothing that reeked of cult activity, had found no vile altars or eldritch symbols daubed on the walls, and yet it was as foul a pit of villainy as any he had ever seen. Why was it that the corrupt were always strong and the good always weak? Why did the Ludekers and Noseless Milos of the world flourish while good men like Doktor Vinck were crushed and killed and shoved aside?

  Felix sighed. He knew the answer, and it depressed him. It was because the good and strong went forth to battle the forces of darkness and died to defend mankind while the cowardly stayed at home and preyed on the weak who were left behind. In that way the corruption of Bauholz was the fault of Chaos, for though the vile forces of the Dark Gods had not reached the village, those that would have protected it against corruption from within had gone north and not come back, leaving it defenceless against the depredations of purely human predators who saw opportunity where others saw tragedy.

  He wondered if perhaps greed was the unacknowledged fifth god of Chaos — some gold-skinned brother to lust, madness, disease and hate. Certainly greed seemed to do as much evil as the others, seducing men and women to steal from their brothers and sisters, to grind down those weaker than themselves, driving them into mad schemes and desperate gambles, birthing robbery, kidnapping, blackmail and murder.

  But perhaps not. The fault might lie within the nature of man himself, for though the greed of the dwarfs was proverbial, Felix had never seen one so degraded by it that he would stoop to murdering one of his own to satisfy his lust for gold. The dwarfs might indulge in sharp dealing, or take advantage of outsiders, but dwarf thieves and murderers were rare, and kidnappers and blackmailers were, as far as he knew, unheard of. It was man — weak-willed, frightened and desperate — that made blood sacrifices to greed, and swore terrible oaths at its glittering altar.

  His thoughts flew back again to his father, who, though he’d had a successful business in legitimate trade, and who had more money than he could have spent in two lifetimes, had still felt compelled to consort with smugglers and pirates, and to deal in forbidden books, because he must have more! And Felix’s brother Otto looked set to follow his father’s example. When Felix had shown him the letter that proved Gustav’s crimes, Otto had been more concerned with losing the family business than restoring the family honour.

  All his brooding left him with the glum belief that mankind would finally be dragged down into the pit, not by the gods of Chaos, but by its own frail, fallible nature, and that no amount of heroic victories over the marauders and the orcs and the skaven would save it from its self-inflicted demise.

  Of course, that didn’t mean one stopped fighting them — particularly not those scheming lurkers in the shadows, the skaven. His hand gripped his sword hilt hard as he thought again of what they had done to his father. Revenge would be sweet when he finally—

  “Go carefully here, Felix,” said Kat.

  Felix looked up, blinking. He had been following behind her blindly, lost in his thoughts, and hadn’t been looking where he was going. They had come to a high-banked stream which fed into the Zufuhr. Someone had laid a log across the stream as a crude bridge, but the bark was glassy with ice and covered with a dusting of powdery snow. A false step and he might have plunged into the stream — not wise in weather like this. Being wet in freezing weather was a more certain death than a fight with beastmen.

  “Thank you, Kat,” he said, as he picked his way across the log.

  Gotrek followed onto the log behind him, stumping along without pause as if he were on solid ground. Ortwin came more hesitantly, but with a little tottering and arm-flapping he was across too, then Kat bounded effortlessly across like a, well, like a cat, and they were on their way again.

  Felix looked at her as she took the lead again. She moved down the nearly non-existent path with perfect confidence and grace, her stride light and her head turning to one side and the other as she listened to the forest, her posture relaxed yet ready — a complete contrast to how she had been in Bauholz. There she had been nervous and ill at ease, afraid of Ludeker and Milo, uncertain how to deal with the people she spoke to. All the strength and calm she had shown in the battle with the beastmen had disappeared when they had approached the village gates — now it was back again.

  Felix quickened his steps and caught up to her. “Er, Kat,” he said.

  She looked up. “Yes, Felix?”

  “How did you come to this?” he asked. “Your profession, I mean. My last memory of you is seeing you and the old forester — I forget his name — waving goodbye to us as we left Flensburg for Nuln.”

  “Papa,” she said, nodding. “Herr Messner.” Then she smirked at him. “I was mad at you when you went away. I wanted to go with you.”

  Felix smiled. “I remember.”

  “It just seemed natural to me,” she said. “Leaving with you, I mean. You saved my life. I saved yours. We’d killed that… that woman together.” She s
hivered. “I didn’t want to stay in another village. I’d felt safer travelling in the woods with you than when the beasts came to Kleindorf. There was somewhere to run in the woods. There was somewhere to hide.”

  Felix paused, uncomfortable at the mention of the woman — the strange, beautiful champion of Chaos who had led the beasts during their pillaging of the two towns — who looked so much like the girl he walked beside now. “That woman,” he said. “I… Did anyone ever tell you about her? About who she was?”

  Kat’s eyes narrowed. “You mean that she was my mother?”

  Felix let out a relieved breath. He hadn’t been sure he could have told her even now. He was glad she already knew. “Messner told you?”

  She shook her head. “I figured it out.” She tugged out the long lock of white hair that grew among her dirty black tresses. “My witch-lock.” She snorted and pulled off her stocking cap, then smoothed the lock back down and put it back on. “I don’t care about her. Herr Messner and his family were my real family — Magda and Hob and Gus. I’m Katerina Messner now.”

  Felix chuckled. “Ah. So you liked living with them after all.”

  Kat nodded, her eyes faraway. “I loved them. Herr Messner — well, at first he and Magda tried to get me to learn the things that other little girls learned, cooking, sewing, mending, but… I didn’t like those things. I wanted to do what Hob and Gus did. I wanted to go out with Herr Messner and learn how to shoot rabbits, and follow trails, and kill beastmen.”

  Felix looked at her. A hardness had come into her voice.

  “They thought it was because of what I had seen in Kleindorf, and in the raid on Flensburg, and they hoped that I would forget it in time.” She gave a sad smile. “It was because of that, because I never wanted to let anything like that ever happen again.” She shrugged. “But I didn’t forget it. It never left me. And when Herr Messner realised that I wouldn’t change, he didn’t try to turn me away from it anymore. He took me out with Hob and Gus and taught me everything he knew.”