Gotrek and Felix - Road of Skulls

by Josh Reynolds

  ‘Let’s go,’ Canto said, hesitating only for a moment. There were over a hundred men down there, and it was up to him to see that Hrolf didn’t waste them before time. He led the others onto the platform and he marvelled silently at the structure as it swallowed him up, wondering what might remain when Garmr was finished. Would any of this be left or would it all be rendered unto smoke and ruin in the name of a mad god?

  ‘We’re going to die down here,’ Schaever said again.

  Canto turned to reprimand him, only to stumble back in shock as a massive axe-blade sank into Schaever’s helm and split the skull within like a melon. A roaring, red-crested nightmare fell upon him, its axe stained with the blood and brains of his bodyguard.

  He barely drew his sword in time, narrowly deflecting the axe. And then he was fighting for his life even as the platform sank into the darkness.

  ‘Gotrek, wait!’ Felix cried out, even as Gotrek barrelled into the Chaos marauders near the edge of the pit. There were only a few of them, and they acted as if they thought that Gotrek’s sudden appearance heralded a dwarf ambush. They attacked wildly, and the Slayer butchered them without hesitation. Gotrek barely paused, flinging himself through the strange stone portal into the darkness of the shaft beyond. Felix followed, cursing himself, the Slayer and dwarfs in general. He’d seen the armoured giants, Chaos warriors, descend somehow, vanishing down into the darkness. Wherever they were going was somewhere he most certainly didn’t want to be, but there was nothing for it.

  Felix stepped through the portal, tensing as his boot slid across empty air, and then he was plummeting downwards. He screamed wildly as a kaleidoscope of stone, wood and machinery whirled around him and then he struck something hard and rough. Pain shot through his shoulder and he knew it had been dislocated. He choked on a howl of pain and looked for Gotrek.

  The platform wasn’t very big, large enough for a loaded wagon, perhaps. Gotrek and a dark-armoured Chaos warrior duelled on its edge, neither giving ground, Gotrek’s axe dragging fat sparks from the warrior’s sword. A second warrior lay nearby, quite obviously dead, given the state of his skull. And there was a third–

  Felix rolled aside, moaning as his shoulder was crushed under his weight, even as the sword chopped down into the platform. The armoured giant was a full hand taller than Felix and three times as broad. His armour glistened as if it were covered in pitch and it stank of wet, deep places and foul rites. The warrior jerked the sword free and raised it again. Felix, panicked, lunged to his feet, trying to draw his sword. Instead, he crashed into the warrior, unbalancing him.

  The warrior reeled back, dangerously close to the edge of the platform. Felix, head spinning, drove his good shoulder into his opponent’s midsection and sent him flying off. The Chaos warrior struck a support beam and vanished from view as the platform began to pick up speed. ‘We’re going faster,’ Felix said mushily. ‘Gotrek, why are we going faster?’

  Gotrek didn’t reply. The air rang with the sound of steel on steel as the Slayer and the Chaos warrior traded blows. Felix realized that Gotrek killing the controllers above meant that they were now in an uncontrolled free-fall. He staggered to his feet, grabbing one of the braziers mounted on the platform for balance. Pain radiated from his arm through his body and he gritted his teeth.

  Gotrek leapt, his axe swinging down. His opponent sank to one knee beneath the dwarf’s assault, bringing his blade up. It was sheared flat by the force of the blow, and rebounded from his helm. Felix’s ears were stung by the crash of metal. The warrior gave a snarl, slashing out blindly. Gotrek wove aside, rolling around the blow, his axe whirling, crashing. The warrior fell onto his back. He began to crab-crawl backwards, sword extended, trying to keep Gotrek at bay.

  Gotrek snarled, heedless of anything save the enemy before him. Felix could only cling to the brazier and watch as Gotrek renewed his assault. The warrior squirmed out from under the attack, impossibly quick in his heavy armour. Gotrek’s axe carved a canyon in the back of the warrior’s cuirass even as the latter leapt, hands stretching into the darkness.

  Then, with a crash, he was gone.

  ‘He ran,’ Gotrek said, in disbelief. He looked at Felix, his eye wide. ‘He ran! They’re not supposed to run!’

  ‘Yes, and we’re crashing,’ Felix yelped.

  Gotrek stumped across the rocking, shuddering platform. ‘We’re not crashing, we’re just moving very fast,’ he growled, grabbing Felix’s dislocated arm. Felix howled as Gotrek idly popped it back into its socket even as he examined the support ropes that kept the platform held level.

  ‘Will we stop?’ Felix said, biting back a whimper as he clutched his aching arm.

  ‘No, we’ll crash,’ Gotrek said. He grabbed hold of one of the ropes and tested its tension. ‘Grab hold of the rope, manling.’

  ‘What?’

  Gotrek didn’t reply, but Felix saw what he intended immediately. The support ropes weren’t tied to the platform, but instead connected to the pulley system that lowered it. The ropes themselves weren’t moving, the platform was sliding along them, the ropes slithering through its inset iron rings. ‘Gotrek, don’t–’ he began.

  Gotrek grabbed a rope and cocked his axe. Felix leapt to grab the other rope even as the axe flashed, cutting through the support ropes. The platform swung away from his feet, crashing flat against the incline and hurtling into the darkness of the shaft. Felix’s shoulder burned with pain as he clung tightly to the rope. Gotrek’s bulky form dangled nearby, though Felix could barely make him out.

  ‘I hope you have a plan for getting down,’ Felix hissed. The dark seemed to close a tight fist around him, muffling even the thunder of his heart. He could see nothing; he could only make out vague shapes around him.

  From below, there was a sudden crash, and Felix realized that the platform had reached the bottom of the shaft. Gotrek grunted and began to lurch back and forth, causing his rope to brush disturbingly close to Felix’s. Felix squawked and tightened his grip, his breath whistling in and out between clenched teeth.

  ‘Swing, manling, there’s a brace-beam just behind you,’ Gotrek said, swinging past him. The Slayer let go of his rope and Felix heard what could only be his axe chopping into the beam. He heard a grunt, then, ‘Come on,’ Gotrek said.

  ‘Gotrek, I can’t see!’

  ‘Jump anyway,’ Gotrek said.

  ‘Gotrek, this is no time for jokes,’ Felix said, peering into the darkness.

  ‘Manling, I’ll catch you. Jump,’ Gotrek rumbled.

  Felix cursed virulently for a moment, prompting a chuckle from the Slayer. Taking a breath, Felix began to move back and forth, causing the rope to swing. Then, as it swung towards the sound of Gotrek’s voice, he let go, jumping. Vertigo took him in its claws, causing his stomach to flip-flop; the dark seemed to coil around him, cutting off his breath, and he thought, for a moment, that he’d miscalculated.

  Then, something grabbed the front of his jerkin and he was dragged out of the void and deposited on a blessedly solid surface. Breathing heavily, he looked around. ‘I still can’t see anything,’ he wheezed.

  ‘I can,’ Gotrek said. ‘There’ll be a ladder here, for repair crews to use. Up,’ he added, hauling Felix to his feet. With Gotrek guiding him, Felix found the ladder.

  ‘How far down does this go?’ he said.

  ‘Far enough,’ Gotrek grunted. ‘Hurry up, manling, there’s beasts to kill!’

  3

  The Worlds Edge Mountains,

  the Engineers’ Entrance of Karak Kadrin

  The climb down into the depths of the immense shaft was surreal. Several times, Felix thought he might slip and fall, only to suddenly find the next rung. The ladder was built for dwarfs, but he climbed down it easily enough, despite the ache in his arm. Nonetheless, it took what felt like hours to reach the bottom. When he mentioned such to Gotrek, the Slayer only grunted, ‘We could have done it the fast way.’ Felix fell silent. After another interminable length, torchlight became visib
le and he skinned down the remainder of the rungs, sliding the last few without pausing. Felix dropped gratefully, if not gracefully, to the stone floor.

  The light hadn’t been cast by torches. When the platform had crashed, the braziers mounted to it had been burst and now the wood was being hungrily, if slowly, consumed by flames. Bodies lay scattered around, Norscans, wearing dark leathers and furs. They’d been caught unawares by the platform, and had paid the price. The destruction had been sudden and complete and he counted at least a dozen men or more. They’d obviously been waiting for the three Chaos warriors who’d been on the platform when Gotrek had launched himself upon them. Struck by the thought, Felix looked up, wondering whether or not the third warrior, the one who’d flung himself from the platform rather than face Gotrek, had survived. Was he still up there somewhere, clinging to the structure in the dark? Shivering, Felix turned back to the Slayer.

  Gotrek picked his way through the bodies without even glancing at them. Felix followed him silently after hefting a chunk of burning wood to use as a makeshift torch. Distant voices echoed off the stone. Felix wondered whether they’d heard the crash, and whether they cared. Sound travelled oddly in these deep spaces. Gotrek started forwards, towards a stone archway set into the wall. Felix noted a series of tracks set into the rock, much like those he’d seen in dwarf mines. The tracks moved from where the platform would have come to rest and extended into the arch. Gotrek followed the tracks, his pace quickening. Felix hurried to keep up.

  Past the arch, the tunnel floor sloped at an angle. Felix had to stoop slightly as they moved down the tunnel. It was one of several, all of them moving out from the bottom of the shaft, and all large and imposing. They had been shaped with the moving of wagons and other heavy loads in mind and the tunnel was wide and solid, made of heavy stacked blocks which seemed easily capable of holding the weight of the mountain.

  Despite the openness of the tunnel, there was a strong smell clinging to everything. It wasn’t just the stink of unwashed bodies and the beast-stench of the Chaos hounds. It burned his eyes and throat, and he was forced to cover his mouth and nose with his cloak. ‘Fire-pots and thunder-powder,’ Gotrek muttered.

  ‘I didn’t realize that the Northmen had such things,’ Felix said softly.

  ‘They don’t,’ Gotrek said. ‘They stole the secrets from my people. Or else…’ He trailed off. Felix wanted to prod him to finish, but the look in the Slayer’s eye stole his voice.

  The tunnel ended, expanding into a vaulted space that took Felix’s breath away. It was larger than any cathedral man had built, and more graceful for all that it was built of stone and solid, bulky shapes. The walls of the massive chamber were honeycombed with tunnels, stairs and tracks going in hundreds of directions. Great cracked archways and crumbled statues lined the expanse. Felix caught sight of what must have once been ancient bridges and stairs that curved down into the darkness. ‘What is this place?’ he murmured.

  ‘Ungdrin – the Underway,’ Gotrek said, almost reverentially. He touched the wall with a hesitant hand and fell silent. Then, ‘Once, these roads led to every Karak and Karaz, manling. Every hold, it was said, was linked one to the next. A dwarf could travel Karak Vlag to Karak Zorn without ever seeing daylight.’ Gotrek’s voice was wistful. His face fell. ‘All lost now. As everything is lost or will be lost,’ he said, and Felix felt a chill whisper across his backbone.

  ‘What… what happened?’

  Gotrek didn’t answer. ‘Come,’ he grunted. ‘I smell Chaos filth.’

  Felix did as well, come to that. The foul blood-odour was stronger down one of the tunnels. Gotrek paused. ‘This path leads to the fortress. There are only a few ways into the hold proper, and this isn’t one of them, but I’d wager that they don’t know that. Still, if they get in among the defenders of the fortress, they might just open the gates and get many good dwarfs killed,’ the Slayer said. He stepped into the tunnel and Felix followed with one hand on his sword hilt.

  There was no question what would happen when they found their prey, only whether or not they would survive the finding. You could move armies down here, he knew, and no one would be the wiser for it. The dwarfs had done so, in their time, but had the Chaos forces now done the same? How many men were they facing down here? Was it dozens or was it hundreds? And that wasn’t even taking into account the Chaos hounds. Had they come down here as well? The thought of facing those four legged nightmares down here in the dark wasn’t a pleasant one.

  Despite his fears, calmness settled on Felix at times like these, a chill resignation. When death lunged suddenly from the darkness, he feared and fought like any man. But when they sought it out, grim necessity washed aside the fear.

  From somewhere far above, the noise of the siege drifted down like the occasional curtains of dust that fell upon them from the vaulted roof, the distant sounds carried on the bones of the mountain. What was going on? Were the walls holding? Dark thoughts flapped across the surface of Felix’s mind. At first, he’d thought that getting into Baragor’s Watch was their best chance for survival. Now he wasn’t so sure.

  The sound grew louder as they travelled, and Felix hoped that they were getting closer to the fortress. Despite Gotrek’s impatience, they stopped for a time in a narrow antechamber, where a thin, pathetic stream of cool, clean water ran through the cracks in an ancient wall carving, splashing out of the open mouth of a carven effigy of some nameless dwarf hero. They consumed the last of the supplies they’d bought in Wurtbad, and assuaged their thirst; though Gotrek drank the water only grudgingly, no ale or beer being to hand. In the dark, Felix rested fitfully, unable to sleep despite his best efforts, and Gotrek, he thought, slept not at all.

  When Felix at last gave up on getting any sleep and opened his weary eyes, Gotrek was stepping back into the antechamber. ‘We’re not as far behind them as I thought, manling,’ he said. ‘We may just catch up with them in time.’

  ‘Oh joy,’ Felix muttered, climbing stiffly to his feet. Sitting on cold stone was something he had grown depressingly used to over the course of his journeys with Gotrek, but his thoughts had been dark and unpleasant. He supposed it was his surroundings. It wasn’t so long ago that he and Gotrek had been lost in the tunnels beneath Wurtbad, battling old, dead things. He recalled pale, feral features and the hideous strength of undead claws on his throat. He shook his head, banishing the thoughts. Better to worry about the horrors he had yet to face than ones he had already survived.

  Gotrek grinned at his obvious discomfort. ‘Hurry up, manling. There are things needing killing.’

  They crept out of the antechamber and back onto the path. The tunnel gave way to a wide cavern; indeed, not just a cavern, but something which would have easily contained the dark, ghoul-haunted crypts beneath Wurtbad or the massive chamber they’d just left a hundred times over. Barely visible in the light cast by his torch were what could only be vast supportive arches of carefully placed stone holding up the cavern roof, putting Felix in mind of the roofs of the larger temples he’d had the misfortune to visit during his life.

  Things flew through the darkness above, though whether they were large or small, he couldn’t say. Too, strange noises echoed, mingling with the sounds from above and what could only be the distant thunder of the Stir as it raced through the underground arteries from which it originated. He’d never thought that such deep places could be so loud, but time and again, he’d been proven wrong.

  Ahead of them was a wide stone bridge which crossed a deep gash in the floor of the cavern. The bridge had been a thing of beauty once, but now it was cracked and missing chunks. The statues which had once lined it had all fallen or been shattered to lay across the expanse of the bridge with the other rubble. They were forced to make their way along the far edge, and Felix made the mistake of looking down into the almost solid darkness of the chasm below. For a moment, the world spun and he felt that if he fell, he would not stop until he came out the other side of the world. ‘How far down
does it go?’ he said, half to himself.

  ‘All the way to the guts of the world,’ Gotrek said. ‘Best not to fall, if you can help it.’

  ‘Duly noted,’ Felix said and swallowed nervously. ‘How in Sigmar’s name did those engineers you mentioned get their mechanisms across this thing?’

  ‘What sort of fool question is that?’ Gotrek grunted, ‘One piece at a time, of course. It only took them a few weeks at worst. Not long at all.’

  Felix shook his head. The sort of patience such an undertaking must have required was incomprehensible to him. Looking sideways at Gotrek, he found himself wondering if the Slayer, impatient and quick to become angered by even the most minor of delays, had ever possessed such qualities. Gotrek boosted himself up onto a statue that lay on its side, its stone eyes glaring accusingly back the way they had come. He crouched and waved a hand at Felix. ‘Stay down, manling,’ he hissed through the gap in his teeth.

  Felix sank to his haunches behind the statue, one hand on his sword hilt. ‘What is it?’ he whispered. Gotrek slithered off the statue and dropped down beside him.

  ‘Sentries,’ he muttered. ‘They’re taking no chances on my people catching them unawares.’

  ‘How many of them are there?’

  ‘Three,’ Gotrek said dismissively. ‘But one has a horn, and sound carries quickly down here. One good blast and we’ll have the rest of them down on our heads before the echo fades.’ He gnawed on his lip, visibly considering the problem.

  At any other time, Felix knew that the Slayer would have simply bulled ahead, shouting for all he was worth and damn the consequences. But Gotrek had other priorities now, for which Felix breathed a silent sigh of relief. Long odds were fine for gambling, but not so much for combat. ‘We could sneak past them,’ he said.

  Gotrek growled wordlessly. Felix shook his head. ‘Fine, what do you suggest then?’