After a meagre dinner cooked over the low fire, Felix did his turn at watching on the lip of the gorge, looking and listening for approaching beasts, and watching as Morrslieb chased Mannslieb up the sky and then passed it by, so close that the edges of the two moons seemed to almost touch, before racing on and leaving its bigger, more distant brother in the dust of stars.
At midnight, with Mannslieb directly above and Morrslieb already setting over the eastern hills, his time was done, and he picked his way back down into the gorge to the camp and shook Gotrek by the shoulder.
“Your turn, Gotrek,” he said.
The Slayer sat up, awake instantly, and looked around. Then he stood and grabbed his axe.
“Where is the hermit?” he asked.
Felix looked to where they had leashed the old man to a stunted tree to make sure he didn’t slip away. The rope that had gone around his wrists lay on the ground, but of Hans himself there was no sign.
Felix cursed. How had the hermit escaped? He looked around. Sergeant Huntzinger was on watch, the same man who had cuffed his scout for letting the beasts creep up on them. He crossed to him as Gotrek stepped to the empty leash.
“You let the old hermit go,” said Felix. “Were you asleep?”
“What’s this?” said the sergeant, standing and turning. He cursed as well. “How can it be? I looked at him just before you came down the slope. He was lying there, asleep.”
Their voices were waking the rest of the camp, and sleepy questions followed them as they crossed to Gotrek, who was looking down at the leash. The sergeant made the sign of the hammer, for the knots that had tied the rope around Hans’ wrists were intact.
“Sorcery,” said Huntzinger.
A scrap of parchment was rolled up in the loops. Gotrek picked it up and unrolled it. It was a crudely drawn map, showing rooms and corridors, and done apparently in blood.
“Or the ropes weren’t tight enough,” said Sergeant Felke, sneering as he joined them. “Looks like you’re just as lax as your men, Huntzinger.”
“I tied those ropes myself,” protested Sergeant Huntzinger. “He could not have escaped them.”
“But he did,” said Gotrek.
Felix looked over the Slayer’s shoulder at the map. “It looks like he still wants us to go after the beasts.”
“Or walk into a trap,” said Rodi, joining them and looking too.
Felix swallowed. Was that it after all? Was Hans’ whole reason for joining him as their guide just a ruse to trick them into entering some underground trap? Perhaps he wasn’t a grave robber after all. Perhaps he preyed on grave robbers. Perhaps the gold and trinkets he sold were stolen from the bodies of his victims rather than the tombs of the old kings.
Gotrek handed the map to Felix and turned away. “Spread out and look for him,” he said. “But watch for beasts.”
Huntzinger and Felke looked affronted at this casual assumption of command, but only turned to their men and chose who would go and who would stay.
Felix, Kat, Gotrek, Rodi and the four chosen scouts spread out on different headings, leaving Snorri — who couldn’t be trusted to remember what he was searching for — and the rest to guard the camp. It was a fruitless search. Felix staggered back after two hours, half-asleep and two-thirds frozen, with nothing to report. The others came in soon after him with the same report. Hans had vanished. He was not to be found.
“Probably gone to ground in another barrow,” said Kat.
“Will he try anything?” asked Huntzinger.
Rodi shrugged. “What could an old man do?”
“He could lead the beasts down on us,” the sergeant replied.
Felix frowned. “I don’t know about that. He seemed genuinely angry with them. And he left the map. I think he truly wants us to drive them away, though I can’t guess what else he might want.”
“Do we still use the map, then?” asked Felke.
“What choice do we have?” said Rodi. “There is no other way to get to the shaman.”
“We use it,” said Gotrek. “But not blindly.” He nodded to Rodi and Snorri. “We will scout the tunnels tomorrow so that we find no surprises on the night.”
The next morning, Felix, Kat and the three slayers made their way back through the hills to the barrow that old Hans had shown them. As they approached it, Felix had the sudden irrational fear that they would find the hole into the crypt gone as if it never was, like some mysterious door in a hill in a fairy tale, but when they pulled away the bracken it was still there, an irregular black shadow in the face of the mound. Felix wasn’t sure if he was relieved or not. “I’ll go first,” said Rodi. “No, Snorri will,” said Snorri.
“I will,” said Gotrek, and stepped in front of them before they could stop him.
Felix didn’t know how the Slayer was going to fit — his shoulders looked wider than the hole by a foot — but Gotrek didn’t even hesitate. He knelt down, stuck his head and his axe arm in, then twisted and propelled himself through with his feet. A rattle and hiss of pebbles and dirt rained down after his passage and for a second Felix thought the opening was going to collapse, but then the rain eased up and Gotrek’s voice echoed hollowly from within. “It’s safe.”
Snorri went next, widening the hole even more as he shoved through it, then Kat, who didn’t even touch the sides.
“After you, Herr Jaeger,” said Rodi.
Felix took a breath, then knelt and crawled forwards. There was an awkward moment when his hands couldn’t feel any floor and his legs were hemmed in by the sides of the hole, but then strong hands were pulling him out and setting him on his feet in utter darkness.
Felix stood and cracked his head on something above him. He hissed and hunched down, rubbing his crown.
There was a sharp scraping from nearby and then a torch kindled and glowed in Kat’s hands, just in time to show Rodi crawling out of the hole like an ugly, crested mole.
“Ah,” said the young slayer as he picked himself up and dusted himself off. “Nice to be underground again.”
“Aye,” said Gotrek.
Felix looked around. They were in a long, low chamber — so low in fact that he could not stand straight in it. It seemed to have been built by people of Kat’s stature. The stone walls were carved with crude wolfs heads and skulls, as well as angular intertwining runes and symbols. Against the long walls were four stone biers, old bones in rotting, dusty clothes scattered upon them, but not a single piece of armour or weaponry or jewellery. If old Hans wasn’t a grave robber, someone else certainly had been.
Felix turned to the back of the barrow, where Hans had said the entrance to the tunnels would be. His heart sank. There was nothing but a stone wall with a crumbling relief of a running wolf. He was about to curse Hans for misleading them when Rodi laughed.
“The old man calls that a secret door?” he said. “A blind elf could find that.”
“Snorri thinks a dead elf could find it,” said Snorri. Felix closed his mouth again, chagrined, and followed the others to the back wall, thanking Sigmar he hadn’t spoken.
Gotrek reached out and pulled a stone from the wall that looked no different to Felix than any other stone, and reached into the hole that resulted. He pulled at something inside the hole, and there was a grating of iron on stone. Then he pushed at the wall with the running wolf on it with his other hand and a narrow door swung open, revealing blackness behind.
“Come on then,” said Rodi, shoving in first.
Gotrek and Snorri gave him dirty looks, then followed after, and the three of them set off into the darkness without hesitation. Felix and Kat hurried after them, looking around warily in the light of Kat’s torch. The tunnel beyond the door was as low as the barrow, and nothing more than a raw hole in the rock and dirt, kept from collapse by heavy wooden beams and posts. It smelled of mould and damp earth and decay. Spider webs hung like shrouds from the ceiling and fluttered in a constant moaning breeze. Felix hunched his head and kept one hand out to tear them
down before he walked into them.
After no more than ten paces, Gotrek’s steps slowed and he looked down at the floor. He stamped the floor with his boot heel, then did it again.
“There are many levels below us,” he said.
“Aye,” said Rodi, nodding in agreement. “At least six” He sniffed the air. “And they touch bedrock.”
“What were they used for?” asked Felix.
“Burying the dead, by the smell of it,” said Rodi.
Felix shivered, the idea of countless ancient corpses flaking to dust in the silent tombs below him giving him a sudden chill.
As they continued on, they passed other tunnels that intersected with theirs, black maws yawning in the rock walls that seemed to swallow the light of the torch, and from which Felix imagined he heard soft scuttlings and whisperings. He tensed at each one, fearing that some trap or ambush would spring out at them, and that they would hear old Hans’ mad titter echoing from the distance.
The dwarfs took lefts and rights without pausing, never once consulting Hans’ map or conferring amongst themselves. They seemed to know the way by heart, despite never having been here before.
At one intersection, wider than the rest, Gotrek looked at some symbols carved in the wooden support posts. He spat, disgusted. “These tunnels weren’t only used for escape. Vile things were done here.”
He took his axe off his back and shaved away some of the symbols with the razor-sharp blade. “Foolish man-lings,” he growled.
They walked on, Felix even more uneasy than before. Perhaps the dead in the halls below weren’t in tombs after all. Visions of crowds of weeping captives driven to mass sacrifice in some deep chamber came unbidden to his mind, and he found it hard to banish them.
A little later, Gotrek held up a hand and they stopped. The dwarfs cocked their ears to the ceiling. Felix listened too. There was a faint tremor in the air, and a distant muffled thumping that never ceased.
“We are under the herd now,” said Gotrek.
A short while later, they came to a place where the walls and floor became mortared stone. These halls were painted with browns and blues and yellows — crude faded murals of men in horned helmets and long beards fighting orcs and beastmen in great battles, and other murals of the same men on their knees, offering meat and drink to a white wolf with a moon over its left shoulder and the sun over its right.
“The catacombs of Tarnhalt’s castle,” said Rodi. “Not the best painters, were they?”
After a few more turnings, they came to an ancient stairwell. Air poured down from above, bringing with it the reek of animal fur and wood smoke. The constant vibration of the walls and ceiling was echoed by far-off roars and wails. It sounded like there was no door between them and the herd.
Gotrek stopped. “The circle is above us.”
“Looks like the old man led us true after all,” said Rodi.
“Praise Taal for that,” said Kat.
Snorri raised his head and inhaled at the bottom of the stairs. “Snorri smells beastmen,” he said. “Time to go fight them, aye?”
“No, Nosebiter,” said Gotrek. “Time to turn around and go back.”
The sudden sadness on Snorri’s face was so comical that Felix had to turn away to keep from laughing.
The rest of the day was as cold and boring as the previous one had been — more endless grey hours without news or incident. Felix had known they would hear nothing from von Volgen and Plaschke-Miesner. It was impossible that the messengers could ride to the monastery and the armies advance to the herd’s position in a single day, and yet the waiting still set his teeth on edge and tightened his shoulders into knots. When would the armies come? How many would come? Would they come at all? Having had a sample of their bickering, he knew it was entirely possible that the two young lords had fought again and that one or the other or both had decided not to come as a result.
There was also the nagging worry that — despite the encouraging evidence of the map — old Hans was lurking in the background somewhere, planning some revenge on them for holding him against his will. Felix could not imagine that the frail old man’s vengeance would be anything but petty spite, but even something seemingly insignificant might inadvertently alert the beasts to their presence and bring them crashing down upon them.
Felix made more notes in his journal, and watched again as Snorri followed Gotrek and Rodi around, babbling cheerfully. But this time he noticed that Gotrek was shooting hard, surreptitious glances at the old slayer when he wasn’t looking, and once, when Snorri had gone off to relieve himself away from the camp, Felix saw Gotrek talking earnestly with Rodi as the young slayer nodded gravely, fingering his plaited beard. When Snorri returned, the two stepped apart, for all the world like guilty schoolboys, and greeted him with painfully affected false cheer.
From this, Felix was certain that they had been talking about the old slayer behind his back, but as to the nature of their conversation, he hadn’t a clue.
Von Volgen’s messenger returned at last at dawn on Hexensnacht eve with news that the two lords’ armies would be in position by noon. “How many men?” asked Gotrek.
“Lord von Volgen says that he has found fifteen hundred men, herr Slayer,” said the messenger. “Mostly spearmen and archers, but with three hundred mounted men-at-arms, and Lord Plaschke-Miesner brings almost a thousand, two hundred of them knights, as well as two cannon.”
Felix winced. It was more than the lords had promised, but it was still far from enough. The beasts would slaughter them all. “Any news of von Kotzebue?” he asked.
“Aye sir,” said the messenger. “And good news at that. The baron has sent a messenger forwards to say that he crossed the Talabec with more than four thousand men two days behind my lord’s march, and he is pressing south as quickly as he may.”
Felix exchanged looks with Gotrek, Rodi and Kat. Kotzebue’s four thousand men would be welcome — even though they would still not put them at even odds with the beasts — but if they were two days behind at the outset, would they be here in time? It didn’t seem likely.
“My lord and Lord Plaschke-Miesner beg you to wait as long as you dare to begin your mission,” the messenger continued, “in order to give Lord von Kotzebue time to get into position.”
Felix didn’t wonder at the request. Without von Kotzebue’s troops backing them up, any attack the two young lords made would be nothing more than suicide.
“We will wait,” said Gotrek. “But if he doesn’t show by full dark, we will wait no more.” He turned to Sergeant Huntzinger and Sergeant Felke and their scouts. “Go back with the messenger. The time for scouting is done. Better to die with your comrades than with us.”
The scouts paled at this malediction, but lost no time gathering up their gear.
As they watched them pack, Felix bit his lip and turned to Kat. “You should go with them,” he said.
She looked like he had hit her. “I’ll not leave your side, Felix.”
“But, Kat—”
“I will not take the woman’s part in this,” she continued, cutting him off. Felix could hear her fighting to control her voice. “I… I thought you understood.”
The hurt in her eyes was like a dagger in his heart. “I do,” he said. “I don’t ask it because you are a woman. I ask it because…” He looked around at the staring scouts and lowered his voice. “Because I love you, and I don’t want you to die.”
“I am not afraid,” she said, lifting her chin.
“It’s not a question of that.” He sighed, then took her arm and led her away from the others. “Kat, I know you are brave, but this…” He shook his head. “It is impossible that any of us will survive. I have made a vow that I will follow the Slayer and witness his death, and I know I will die doing it. But you… you don’t need to die here. You have so much life ahead of you.”
She glared at him. “You forget I have a vow too.”
“I know you do,” he said. “But there will be othe
r herds, and other fights, fights where your help will make a difference.”
He knew as he said it that it was the wrong thing to say.
Kat’s eyes got colder still and she drew herself up. “You doubt my skills?” she asked, stiffly.
Felix ground his teeth. “That’s not what I meant, and you know it. The time for scouts is done, just as Gotrek said,” he nodded towards Felke and Huntzinger’s men, who were lining up in preparation to march. “I only want you to do what they are doing. I only want to save your life”, he cried inwardly, but did not speak it.
Kat hung her head and nodded. “You are right, Felix. This is no place for scouts. I should go.”
Felix let out a sigh of relief. At last she was seeing sense.
“But,” she said, and all of Felix’s tension returned as if it had never left. “But still I cannot leave you.”
“Sigmar’s blood, why not?” Felix cried.
She looked up at him with liquid brown eyes. “Because I do not want you to die either.”
“But Kat,” he said, exasperated. “I will die! There is no question.”
She shook her head. “I have heard your stories. You have faced certain death before, and always there has been one little thing that saved you,” she swallowed and put her hand on his chest. “What if, this time, I am that one little thing?”
Felix choked down a wave of emotion. The girl didn’t want to die by his side. She wanted to protect him. It broke his heart. “It’s impossible,” he said. “There’s no chance. None.”
She stepped closer to him. “How many times have I saved your life?”
He coughed. “Er, twice? Three times? More than that?” She looked directly into his eyes. “There is always a chance, Felix. Always.”
[Gotrek & Felix 11] - Shamanslayer Page 27
