Gotrek nodded as Snorri told the stories — most of which were terribly mixed up and wrong — but his face was set in a grim scowl, as if he was trying to work out a puzzle. It hurt Felix to see it. This was not Gotrek’s sort of problem. It was not a thing to be solved with an axe, or a daring rescue. There was nothing the Slayer could do to help his friend, and Felix could see it pained him. What should have been a joyous reunion with lots of drinking and property damage, had been instead an awkward and heartbreaking non-event.
Gotrek, being both a dwarf and a slayer, wasn’t one to moan in the face of tragedy, however. Instead, Felix could see him getting angrier and angrier, and at the same time more frustrated that he had nothing to lash out at. Felix could hear him grinding his jaw as they walked, and he was constantly clenching and unclenching his fists. Given that they were going ever deeper into the Drakwald, it was inevitable that the Slayer would come across some evil that needed to be killed and he would finally find some release.
For Gotrek’s sake, Felix hoped it would come soon.
Stangenschloss wasn’t quite as impressive as Felix had expected. He had been picturing some grim, monolithic bulwark against the forces of Chaos, its towering stone walls lined with massive engines of war and bristling with spearmen, swordsmen and handgunners. In reality, it was smaller than Bauholz, and though its walls were of stone, they weren’t much taller than the village’s wooden palisade, and had been knocked down in places. The garrison was less than five hundred men, most of them gaunt from hunger and weary from a hard year of war, and there were no catapults or trebuchets that Felix could see.
Captain Haschke caught him looking around as they crossed the yard and smiled grimly. “It’s better than it was.”
“You must have seen some fierce battles here,” said Felix.
“Not us,” said Haschke. “At least not here. We were further north, with von Raukov. This place was garrisoned by a Lord von Lauterbach. They were overrun, killed to a man and the fort destroyed.”
“So how did you come to be here?” Felix asked.
Haschke grinned. “Another of my lord Ilgner’s brainstorms,” he said. “We were returning south after the end, and came across this fort. It was abandoned, and all the nearby settlements ravaged by the loose ends of Archaon’s army who had melted into the forest instead of going home. Well, Lord Ilgner can’t stand to see a fly hurt, and so he says we must stay here until these horrors have been rooted out and the people can live in peace again.”
“A most noble sentiment,” said Ortwin, piping up.
“Aye,” said Haschke. “Though many of the men didn’t think so. They’d been fighting all year, and wanted to see their families in Averland again. There was a lot of grumbling at the first, I don’t mind telling you.”
“Is he not well liked, then?” Felix asked.
“Oh no, they love him,” said Haschke. “He gives ’em victories and keeps ’em fed — for the most part — and he has a way of making even the most mercenary soldier feel like he’s part of a noble cause. We’re proud of him, and proud to be holding the line. We’re just a bit… tired, that’s all.”
After he had found them a place to drop their packs, Captain Haschke brought Gotrek, Felix, Kat and Ortwin to Lord Ilgner, the commander of the fort, to give him the details of their encounter with the marauders. Abbess Mechtilde, the senior sister of the Shallyans, came too.
They found Ilgner sitting at a desk made from a heavy wooden door laid across two sawhorses. It was next to a little camp stove in a curtained-off portion of the keep’s dining hall that served him as both office and sleeping quarters. The upper storeys of the keep had been shattered during the war and not yet rebuilt, so even the officers had to make do in the common areas.
Like his fort, Ilgner was not what Felix had expected. He had thought to find some ironclad giant of a man with a dour expression and the strength often. Instead Ilgner was short and bustling, and looked as if he would have tended towards the pudgy side if conditions at the fort hadn’t been so dire. His hair was dark and thinning on top, his eyes were bright, and his teeth even brighter when he smiled, which was often.
“Sigmar preserve us,” he said when Haschke presented them. “Another slayer. Y’don’t drink like the other three, do you? As much as we have welcomed their prowess these last weeks, they have near to drunk us out of beer.”
“Slayers drink,” said Gotrek, shrugging.
“And not a little,” grinned Ilgner. “They keep saying they’re going off to find their doom, but they keep coming back, much to my cellarer’s dismay.” He; looked up at Haschke. “They did come back again, didn’t they?”
“Aye, my lord,” said Haschke. “They’re having a pint even now. Claim it helps their wounds heal faster.”
Ilgner sighed, then nodded respectfully to Gotrek and Felix and Ortwin. “Well, you’re all welcome here nonetheless. We can use all the proven veterans we can find.” He turned to Kat, his face growing suddenly sober. “So, Neff’s dead then?”
“Aye, my lord,” she said. “A third of his men as well. And the supplies taken. I’m sorry.”
“And those that survived…” said Haschke, then bit his lip. “Well, they were captured by the Kurgan, and… and they ain’t themselves.”
“What’s wrong with them?” asked Ilgner.
“They’re… broken, sir,” said Haschke. “Won’t speak. Won’t hardly eat. No life to them.”
“They were most cruelly abused, my lord,” said the abbess. She hesitated as all attention turned to her. Her face turned red. “The marauders told us that they were taking me and my sisters to… to breed with, to make more of their kind, but the men, they used them as… as pets, or toys. That is—”
“No need to go on, sister,” said Ilgner, blushing. “I understand your meaning. The villains were followers of the god of pleasure. They did as they do.”
Haschke put his hand on his sword hilt. “My lord, I beg you to let me take a force of men and find the rest of these degenerates. We slaughtered those we found to the last man, but they were only a raiding party. I know the main body of their force must be somewhere near, with our supplies.”
Ilgner sat down at his desk wearily. “Would that I could, captain. But I fear we have a more pressing problem that must be dealt with first.”
“What’s that, my lord?”
Ilgner shoved aside the papers and mugs and dinner plates on his desk until he uncovered a map of the Drakwald. He tapped it with a finger. “We have reports of a great herd of beastmen, as big as anything we saw in the war, coming south out of the Howling Hills, destroying villages and settlements as they go.” His finger trailed down the map. “We don’t know where they’re going, or what they want, but they’re heading this way, and they must be stopped.”
Felix and Gotrek exchanged a look at this. Ortwin was holding his breath.
Felix stepped forwards. “Forgive me, Lord Ilgner We have come north seeking news of the templars of the Order of the Fiery Heart. Do you know if this is what they went to meet?”
Ilgner pursed his lips, nodding. “Aye. The village they left to protect was the first hint of this trouble. The day they rode forth we received five more messenger pigeons begging for our aid — all from villages and timber camps on the edges of the hills.”
“Have you had word of the templars, sir?” blurted Ortwin.
Ilgner shook his head sympathetically. “I’m sorry, lad. No one we have sent north has returned, and the refugees that stream south just babble with fear. I’ve heard nothing.” He returned his attention to the map, moving his finger again. “Calls for help come from new villages every day, and each one further south than the last.” He looked around at them all. “My estimate is that the herd is six days from here now. I am going north at dawn tomorrow to see for myself its size and nature.”
Haschke snapped to attention. He saluted. “My lord, I would be at your side in this. Please allow me to accompany you.”
Ilgner chuck
led. “No, Haschke. You’ve only just returned from a desperate fight. You’re wounded. You’ll stay here. I’m only taking a few men anyway. It’s a reconnaissance mission, not a war party.”
Haschke looked crushed.
Ilgner turned to Kat. “Kat, if you’re well, I’d have you as scout.”
“Of course, sir,” she said.
Ortwin stepped forwards, then went down on one knee. “My lord Ilgner, my friends and I have vowed to discover the fate of the Templars of the Fiery Heart. We would be most grateful to be allowed to join you as you go north, and seek our answers there.”
Ilgner raised his eyebrows, seemingly amused at the boy’s formality. He turned to Kat. “And do you vouch for these noble seekers, scout?”
“Aye, my lord,” she said, her eyes bright. “They are the finest warriors and bravest, most honourable friends I have ever known. And the boy can fight too.”
Ortwin glared at her as Ilgner grinned.
“Well then,” he said. “It seems we’d better have them, hadn’t we?”
After they left Lord Ilgner, the companions split up. Felix got a bucket of hot water from the cook and scrubbed himself clean behind the barracks, then went to the place that Haschke had found for them — a second-floor room in a half-demolished tower — and had a short nap, for it had been a gruelling trip from Bauholz.
He was plagued by dreams of skulking forms moving in shadows, and his father screaming curses as clawed hands ripped at his flesh. But his curses weren’t directed at his torturers, but at Felix, who looked in at the window and shrank back as his father’s bleeding eyes turned accusingly towards him, as he jerked at the bell rope by his bed, futilely ringing for help that would never come.
Felix woke to the jangling clang of a distant dinner bell and the smell of boiled cabbage. It was not the most appetising odour in the world, but it was a relief after the horrors of his nightmare. The dream lingered unpleasantly as he pulled his boots on, and he could still feel his father’s eyes glaring at him as he started down to the dining hall, silently demanding to know why he had taken Sir Teobalt’s quest and abandoned the vengeance that he was owed.
As he was crossing the muddy courtyard, Felix saw Kat standing by the kitchen door with a woman in an apron. The woman was looking down, her shoulders slumped, and Kat held one of her hands, patting it awkwardly. Felix slowed, struck by the seeming sadness of the scene. What had happened, he wondered? He realised he was staring and made to continue — he didn’t want to intrude on someone else’s misery — but then he saw Kat step back and say some final word to the woman, and he paused again. The woman nodded at Kat’s words, but didn’t look up, and after an awkward moment, Kat turned and walked away, her head down too.
Felix hesitated between withdrawing and going to her, and in that instant she looked up and saw him. She paused for a moment, then dropped her head again and continued towards him.
“Hello, Felix,” she said, not slowing as she reached him.
“Are you all right, Kat?” he asked. “Who was that woman?”
Kat paused, then continued around him towards the dining hall, still not looking up. “Neff’s wife, Elfreda,” she said. “She bakes our bread. I… I told her—” Her words cut off short and she broke into a sudden trot. “Ex…. excuse me.”
“Kat!” Felix hurried after her and caught her by the elbow.
She struggled for a moment, but when he turned her around she fell against his chest, knocking her forehead on his breastbone and sobbing silently. Felix wrapped his arms around her and held her tight. She clung to him, the front of his jerkin balled in her fists as her tears soaked the cloth.
“I’m sorry, Felix,” she mumbled. “It’s only… only…” and then she was off again.
Felix patted her back and shushed her gently, marvelling again at her contrasts — so savage in battle, so sure of herself in the wild, so courageous in the face of death, and yet still so human beneath it all.
She head-butted his chest, angry. “Why can I look at Neff’s corpse without a tear, but when I go to tell ’Freda…” She sobbed again.
Felix stroked her filthy hair and decided not to remind her that she had cried then, if only silently. Instead he said, “I suppose it’s because the dead are past suffering. It is those who survive them who feel the pain of death.”
She nodded, still weeping. “She wanted him to go south before winter locked them in, but he… but he was too loyal to Ilgner. He wouldn’t go! Poor ’Freda.”
There were fresh sobs after that. Felix let her cry herself out, wrapping her in his red Sudenland cloak and looking sadly down at the top of her head. She weeps here because it is safe, he thought. In the Drakwald there is no room for tears. She has to be alert and on guard at all times. Emotion would kill her, so she saves it up until she is out from under the trees. He was oddly pleased that she felt safe enough in his arms to let herself go like this.
After a while her sobs subsided and she lay against him, sniffing. Finally she raised her head and looked up at him with a lopsided smile.
“I’m sorry, Felix,” she said. “I think… I think I’ve ruined your jerkin.”
He chuckled. “Tears are hardly the worst things that have stained this rag,” he said.
They stood that way for a moment, wrapped in each other’s arms, smiling fondly at each other, but then, without anything changing, something changed, and Felix’s heart lurched. One second, the embrace had been innocent, a brother hugging a sister, and then, without warning, it was innocent no longer.
It wasn’t that Felix was suddenly overcome with lust. It was just that he had all at once remembered that he was a man and Kat was a woman and that it felt very nice to hold her like this. He paused, heart pounding, and felt Kat tense too. She had become aware of it as well.
Their eyes met, and for the briefest second an electric understanding passed between them, then they broke free of each other, practically leaping apart, suddenly unsure where to look.
“Er…” said Felix, apparently very interested in what was going on across the yard. “Well, we’d best get to dinner then, eh?”
“Aye,” said Kat, intently rewrapping her scarf. “Aye, dinner. Yes.”
They turned and hurried towards the dining hall, both looking straight ahead.
Things continued uncomfortably at dinner. While Gotrek listened to Snorri’s mixed-up stories of the siege of Middenheim, and Rodi and Argrin laughed and shared stories with their friends among the Stangenschloss garrison, Felix and Kat ate quietly, not speaking to one another, and shying away from eye contact. Every once in a while Felix would look up and find Kat staring at him, only to look away when he caught her. And at other times he would find himself staring at her, only to look away when she caught him.
Felix cursed himself each time. What was wrong with him? It wasn’t right! The girl was almost half his age!
On the other hand, he told himself, she was older than Claudia, and he had allowed himself to be seduced by her. But he hadn’t known Claudia when she was seven! Nor had he cared for Claudia the way he did for Kat. Claudia had been a manipulative fool who had wanted to use him as a way to rebel against the strictures of her cloistered life, and in a weak moment he had been ready to use her in return.
Kat was different. Felix felt responsible for her. He had shaped her past, and was concerned for her future. He didn’t want to hurt her through some callous, casual lovemaking. She was no tavern girl or courtesan who gave her favours easily and often. She was… Kat, still in his mind the solemn little girl who had waved and cried when he and Gotrek had left her to go to Nuln all those years ago.
If he and Kat came together — and the brief electric look they had exchanged had made him unable to think of anything else — it would have to mean something. It would have to be as lovers, and not just as friendly sparring partners. And that, he feared, was impossible, for a number of reasons.
First were their oaths. Kat was bound to the Drakwald by her vow to rid i
t of beastmen. Felix was bound to Gotrek by his vow to follow him and record his doom. He could never tell one day to the next where he would be. Nothing he and Kat shared could last for long, for Gotrek never kept still.
Second was their ages, something that hadn’t mattered so much with Claudia, who would have never been more than a momentary affair. It would be different if he remained with Kat. No matter what Max said about Felix’s longevity, he would still be in his sixties when she was forty. It would be fair to neither of them.
Third, and now that he thought of it, most important, was the stark fact that he wasn’t sure if he was in love with her. He loved her, certainly, but it was the tender, protective love one has for family, rather than the soul-piercing, heart-enflaming love that one had for… for…
Ulrika.
Felix cursed when he thought of her. Was he always going to be comparing other women to her? It would never be a fair test. They had been a perfect match of temperament and inclination. Restless wanderers who struck sparks off each other like flint and steel. Beside her, Claudia was a spoiled, snivelling brat, and Kat was a sweet-natured but unworldly yokel. It was hopeless. Neither woman could hold a candle to her, and yet love with them was possible, if he wanted it, where it never would be with Ulrika. Ulrika had been made a vampire. She no longer lived by the laws of the living. There could be nothing between her and Felix that would not lead to death or destruction for one or both of them. He had to forget her. It was imperative. Someday he would have to give up and settle for his second choice.
He looked at Kat again. He knew Ulrika would not begrudge him taking up with the girl. It had been she after all who had said that they must find solace among their own kind. But what solace could be had when he would be taking Kat’s love without being able to return it in full? The guilt would kill him. She deserved more than what he could give.
[Gotrek & Felix 11] - Shamanslayer Page 11
