Gotrek and Felix - Road of Skulls

by Josh Reynolds

  He opened his mouth to ask Gotrek, and abruptly, he realized that he was alone. While he had been distracted, Gotrek had continued on, unaware of Felix’s absence. His heart began to thump in his chest, fear making the rhythm erratic as he hurried on up the closest path, looking around wildly. ‘Gotrek,’ he hissed. ‘Gotrek, where are you?’

  Something snuffled. Felix turned. Lupine shadows crossed the surface of the rock wall, prowling parallel to him. He dropped to his haunches, below the line of the broken wall, one hand on his sword and his heart in his throat. Cautiously, he peered through a gap in the wall. The moon rose high and red over the opposite peaks and he saw a hint of hunched, furtive movement.

  More shadows, stretching across the rocks, rising and straining away like ink spilling across a page, and more beast-noises, snuffling and growling and panting, echoing weirdly among the rocks. They were going somewhere, but where? Had they caught his scent? Something made a hoarse noise and he rolled into the lee of a fallen stone. Shadows crept across it, cast by the beasts that he felt must surely be stalking him, back along the path he had just ascended. Felix crouched in the shadows, breath straining against his clenched teeth.

  The sound of malformed paws striking the ground echoed in his ears, warring with the pounding of his own heart. Eyes like embers peered in his direction from across the chasm, and he heard the sizzle of poisonous saliva dropping from a nearby muzzle to the ground. He eased his sword loose, knowing that if the unseen beast lunged, he’d likely have only seconds.

  A howl blistered his eardrums, impossibly close. The eyes vanished and he heard a heavy, awkward shape lope away. Felix let loose a shaky breath.

  Something clamped down on his shoulder.

  His mouth flew open, and something that smelled of grease and forge smoke clamped tight over it before the cry could escape his lips. ‘Quiet,’ Gotrek said. ‘You’d think even a witless manling would manage better than to get lost in a place like this.’

  ‘W-wolves,’ Felix stuttered when Gotrek released him. The Slayer gestured behind him. Felix saw a heavy black shape lying nearby, body cooling on the rocks. Bulging beast-eyes stared at him sightlessly. Gotrek had burst its skull. Felix shivered, realizing that the beast had been creeping up on him. Would he have felt its breath before it closed its jaws about the back of his skull? Nausea rippled through him.

  ‘Not wolves, manling,’ Gotrek said. ‘They’ve been stalking us since the outpost.’

  ‘What is it?’ Felix said, swallowing the bile that burned at the back of his throat.

  ‘A hound of Chaos,’ Gotrek said, and spat. Felix grimaced. Dogs and men were never far from one another, even in the Chaos Wastes. But Chaos hounds were no nobleman’s hunting hounds or pampered lady’s pets; they were malformed and malevolent beasts, as twisted in body and mind as their human masters. The thought that there were more of them, and close by, caused his stomach to knot in fear. Even worse, such beasts never strayed very far from their masters.

  Rocks rattled and fell around them. Felix, against his better judgement, looked up. He saw several shapes scrambling down the rough slope from the path above. Eyes like pinpricks of hellfire gazed down at him and something in him shrivelled. He pushed himself away from Gotrek as the closest of the creatures sprang straight up.

  Gotrek whipped around as a wave of beast-stink washed over them. It was a slaughterhouse smell, animalistic. The Slayer’s hand snapped out, catching the lead hound’s snout and flinging it aside with barely a shiver of effort as it lunged at him. Gristle and wet shreds of tattered meat clung to the beast’s stiff red fur. And it scrambled to its feet, panting harshly, ribcage swelling like a bellows. Its talons trailed lazy scratches in the rock and its eyes were empty of even animal intelligence. There was nothing in its hell-spark eyes save the most terrible of hungers. Its muzzle peeled back from daggerlike teeth and it gave out a deep bay. The sound rolled across the peak, and was joined by a cacophony of howls as its pack-mates scrambled towards the duo.

  Felix’s hand dipped for Karaghul’s hilt. More canine shapes loped towards them from the way they’d come, slinking through the archways and over the broken walls. ‘Gotrek, they’re all around us,’ Felix said hurriedly.

  ‘Good,’ Gotrek grunted, eyeing the closest Chaos hound with an almost avaricious gleam in his eye. When the creature sprang towards him, Gotrek was there to meet it, his axe cleaving the air with a savage whistle. Claws scored his flesh, but the Slayer paid little heed. His axe chopped down into the beast’s shoulder joint and it screamed, lurching back, pulling the Slayer from his feet as it reared and spun. Gotrek’s free hand shot out, grabbing the beast’s muzzle in an iron grip.

  Felix had no time to see what came next. Claws scraped stone and something heavy and hairy lunged for him out of the darkness, smelling of the butcher’s block. He ducked, and claws skittered off his chainmail shirt, leaving ragged holes and bruises beneath. He rolled to his feet, drawing Karaghul just in time. Fangs like kitchen knives snapped at him and he whirled. Karaghul bit deep into a hairy throat, silencing a hungry howl. The body fell, limbs jerking, and then another was coming for him, jaws agape, tongue lolling.

  Fear rippled through him as the thing’s eyes caught his own. He jerked back, narrowly avoiding the snap of its jaws. His blade sank home, and something hot and foul washed over his arm. As it rolled away, he heard the crackle of snapping vertebrae and looked up. Gotrek, with brutal élan, had hauled his creature backwards by its muzzle, and, with a second sharp blow of his fist, finished breaking its spine. It flopped limply to the stone, the light in its eyes snuffed by a hunger greater than its own. Gotrek jerked his axe free and brought it down, severing the brute’s head, and then shook the blood from his axe blade. He gestured to the one Felix had killed.

  ‘Take its head, manling. These beasts are almost as bad as trolls, especially when the moon is high,’ Gotrek said. Felix looked down and then hopped back with an oath as the beast he’d thought dead snapped at him. He stumbled back and it slithered, snake-like, after him, jaws champing mindlessly. Gotrek’s axe crashed down, splitting its skull. The Slayer jerked his weapon free and then beheaded the beast. He snatched up the mutilated head and hurled it away.

  ‘Cut their heads off, I said,’ Gotrek rumbled.

  Before Felix could reply, more howls filled the night, shattering what silence there was. Gotrek spun, his eye blazing with maniacal ferocity. By the sound of it, Felix fancied there were hundreds of the beasts surrounding them, more even than Gotrek could handle, though he looked ready to try his luck. Black shapes crawled across the rocks above them or up onto the edge of the plateau, climbing with distinctly un-canine-like agility.

  Felix swallowed thickly, and his palms were slick with sweat as he took Karaghul in a two-handed grip and made ready to die. There were too many of them. Gotrek might live through it, but Felix was only a man, and he knew only luck had kept him alive thus far. And luck had a bad habit of deserting him when he needed it the most.

  How else to explain how he was even in this predicament in the first place?

  Surely he had paid Gotrek back a hundredfold for plucking him from beneath the hooves of the Emperor’s household cavalry back during the Window Tax Riots in Altdorf, how many years ago? He had accompanied the Slayer into the dark beneath the world and worse places, fighting mutants, monsters and madmen. Surely, that drunken oath was more than fulfilled.

  No. He shook his head free of those thoughts. There was only one way the oath could be fulfilled. There was only one path open to him, and he had come too far not to take it. ‘It will be a good story. Several volumes I think; thirteen at least, with perhaps a few more,’ he murmured.

  ‘What are you muttering about, manling?’ Gotrek grunted.

  ‘I’m composing paragraphs,’ Felix said. ‘I’ll need an accurate accounting, in case you fall here.’

  Gotrek gave a bark of harsh laughter, obviously pleased. ‘Make them good ones.’

  ‘I hardly see how th
ey could be otherwise,’ Felix muttered, stung. He raised Karaghul.

  The closest of the Chaos hounds tensed, preparing to leap. Then, from somewhere in the crags above, a howl echoed down. Its effect was immediate. The circling hounds turned as one, their gore-stained muzzles tilting to unleash a communal howl. Gotrek stumped forwards, but not swiftly enough. The hounds turned and with great, bounding leaps, left Slayer and Remembrancer staring after them, the one in rage, the other in quiet relief.

  ‘Get back here!’ Gotrek roared, shaking his axe at the departing beasts.

  ‘Stroke of luck, that,’ Felix said shakily.

  ‘Luck isn’t the word I would use, manling,’ Gotrek snapped.

  ‘Where are they going?’

  ‘Same place we are by the looks of them,’ Gotrek said. His bad mood evaporated. ‘Come on, manling. I don’t know how they know about the Engineers’ Entrance, but they do, and if those things get into the hold, they’ll kill many good dwarfs before they’re put down.’

  Felix set off after Gotrek as he moved quickly in pursuit of the Chaos hounds. ‘What are we going to do?’ he said, already knowing the answer.

  ‘We’re going to kill them, manling. What else would we do with them?’ Gotrek replied.

  The Worlds Edge Mountains,

  near Karak Kadrin

  ‘Move, laggards!’ Canto bellowed, standing on a rock, sword in hand. Chaos marauders trotted past in a hurry, many with heavy baskets tied to their backs. The latter looked nervous, and they had good reason to be, Canto thought. The explosives they carried were volatile at best, composed of crude fire-pots and thunder-powder, packed into iron spheres; secrets bartered from the Chaos dwarfs who accompanied Garmr’s horde.

  Canto frowned as he thought of the stunted creatures. Several had accompanied them to Karak Kadrin to oversee the use of their war-engines, and even now, they were with Kung and Yan on the fields before the outer hold, watching and scheming while the two champions led yet another assault. Dark and malformed, with thick tusks and horns protruding from their oily beards and hair, and eyes like guttering embers, the dawi zharr were far too cunning to be trusted, with minds that moved like twisted clockwork.

  He’d dealt with the creatures often enough in his time, but he had no love for them. They were as alien in their thinking as any blood-hungry Khornate berserker. He turned and thought, speaking of which, as Hrolf clambered down the side of the crag, followed by several of his hounds. The echoes of the other champion’s bestial howl still lingered among the rocks. The hounds had been scattered in their packs through the crags as an early warning system, just in case the dwarfs decided to ambush them. Little could escape the noses of the beasts and by their howls, they had found something, though likely it was only an unlucky tribesman or scouting party. The Chaos hounds were indiscriminate when no one was there to crack the whip on them and they often returned famished and mad, catching and killing dozens every time he summoned them home with one of his bellicose howls. Maybe the appellation of ‘Dogsson’ was less mockery than the others intended, Canto thought.

  ‘Your hounds are returning?’ he called out tersely.

  ‘What?’ Hrolf said dully.

  ‘If your beasts are returning, man, you had best keep them under control or they’ll tear through our men for lack of better sport!’ Canto’s voice was a whip-crack.

  ‘Don’t tell me that, I know that,’ Hrolf growled, shaking his head.

  ‘Then do something about it,’ Canto said, one hand on his sword. Hrolf looked at the hand and the sword, and then at the man they belonged to. Canto prayed that he wouldn’t choose now to exercise his frustrations. Not when they were close to being done with this whole shambles. Hrolf snarled and trotted away to gather up his brood of filthy killers, leaving Canto feeling at once relieved and nervous.

  Hrolf wasn’t as stupid as Ekaterina and the others liked to claim. Fools like Yan openly challenged him, thinking he hadn’t the wit to notice. But Hrolf knew and remembered every slight and insult, even as a dog remembered every kick. And despite his brutish mien, the champion had come up with a cunning stratagem, as such things went.

  While the attentions of the defenders of the outer hold were on the massive army storming their walls, Canto and Hrolf would sneak in through this entrance Hrolf’s scouts had found earlier in the week, and they’d blow the unbreakable walls of the fortress down from below. Or at the very least, they’d create havoc and set loose a pack of Chaos hounds and Chaos marauders into the outer hold to collect what skulls they could before the dwarfs rallied. Khorne cared not from whence the blood flowed, as Ekaterina was fond of reminding him.

  Canto, of course, would happily allow Hrolf the honour of leading the assault. He leaned on his sword. The stone portal, wide enough for two men to step through shoulder-to-

  shoulder and covered in strange engravings, had been well-hidden, but they’d found it after a few weeks. Granted, they never would have even suspected such a thing existed had not the Chaos dwarfs mentioned the possibility of such, in passing.

  ‘They would know about such things, wouldn’t they?’ Canto muttered. The shaft clung to the rock of the crag at an angle, and once through the stones that had been used to seal it they’d seen that it was a sheer drop into a belly of hidden scaffolding crafted from stone, metal and petrified wood which spread across the steeply slanted shaft like a spider’s web. Stone and wood structures and devices of intricate design were set in odd places, and there was a platform which could descend and ascend under the control of a number of levers and pulleys. The whole thing reminded Canto vaguely of the foul mines that dotted the Plain of Zharr like blasphemous molehills, albeit smaller and more claustrophobic. It was a mine-shaft as opposed to a mine.

  When it came down to it, he supposed that there wasn’t much difference between one group of dwarfs and another. Though the ones in Karak Kadrin didn’t seem to have much use for slaves, he thought. Ancient gear-work creaked as levers were pulled and the platform began to descend at an angle into the shaft even as another rose. Hrolf and his beasts would go down next, as the others who had gone ahead set the explosives against the deep portals that the dwarfs had sealed.

  They wouldn’t have much time, once they blew open the first entrance. Hrolf would lead his beasts into the tunnels that led to the hold, to bite and slay even as Canto and the Chaos marauders sought out the roots of the wall. An entire latticework of ancient roads ran beneath their feet. If they could find the right one, they could set the remaining explosives and crack the hold like a nut.

  Or, such was the plan. Canto grunted, shivering in his armour. Something indefinable passed over him, and the feeling of being watched burned itself against his nerves. He cast a surreptitious look around, prepared to see dwarfs popping out of another of their accursed blinds, axes in hand and his death in their crooked little minds. But no enemies revealed themselves.

  He looked back at the shaft. It seemed to yawn hungrily, swallowing the tribesmen. Why had the dwarfs left it undefended? True, they had sealed it, but why nothing more? Perhaps they thought that no one would find it.

  Canto shook his head. It didn’t matter. There was nothing for it. Hrolf’s impatience had grown to monumental proportions, and he chafed at being kept from slaughter. Garmr had left them with no warning, up and taking two-thirds of the horde with him to fresher carnage, leaving them the dull, dangerous job of breaking Karak Kadrin open.

  The last lot of men had gone down into the pit, leaving only Canto and his bodyguards. Eichmann and Schaever had been with him since the Battle of the Seven Sundowns in the lands of the Mung. Both wore armour similar to his: big and baroque and shorn of sign or sigils. ‘We’re going to die down there,’ Schaever said. Eichmann grunted, saying nothing.

  ‘Possibly,’ Canto said. ‘Or maybe it will just be you, Schaever.’ Schaever had been a philosopher once, in Nuln, or so he claimed. Now he was a gloom-addled berserker. Eichmann was… Eichmann: unpleasant, blessedly quiet and efficient
in his work. Neither was a worshipper of the Blood God, or any god for that matter, though Schaever blithely argued with or perhaps prayed to something called Necoho when he thought no one was listening.

  ‘One can only hope,’ Schaever said.

  Canto shook his head. A wafting odour of spoiled meat heralded the arrival of Hrolf and his pack. The other champion was looking the worse for wear, his face covered in oozing sores. Stiff red hairs extruded through the sores, quivering in the breeze that swept across the crags. Strange shapes squirmed under the nearly translucent skin of his head and neck, and something with hot, hungry eyes and too many teeth stared at Canto through the cloudy barrier of Hrolf’s bloated throat. Hrolf made a strangled burping sound and shook his hairy head. He was on foot, and he bore no weapons.

  ‘Issh-is ith-it ready?’ he grunted, one eye bulging in its socket as if something pressed taloned fingertips to the back of it. Slobber ran down from the corners of his mouth and his hands flexed in eagerness. His eyes kept straying to the attack on the walls, where men died in their dozens, flung back by the dwarf defenders to fall and be broken on the rocks below.

  ‘It is,’ Canto said, stepping down from his perch, his men following. The creeping shapes of the Chaos hounds followed, lean and irritable and savage. They growled at him, and Eichmann made to draw his sword, his flat, empty eyes showing neither fear nor interest. Canto waved him back and gestured to the pit. ‘After you,’ he said.

  Hrolf eyed him for a moment, as if contemplating tearing out his throat. With a grunt he stagger-loped towards the pit and leapt down, his pack following him with a chorus of howls and snarls. The tribesmen manning the levers cringed, holding their weapons close, eyes wide, as the gods-touched beasts descended into the shaft. After what seemed an interminable amount of time, the platform was winched back up.