Gotrek and Felix - Road of Skulls

by Josh Reynolds

  A mace snapped out, crashing into a toothy muzzle, sending a shower of teeth peppering Felix’s face. And then, a roar from a dozen or more throats, and bodies surged into the chamber from a hidden opening. Felix was jerked to his feet by strong hands and pitched into the arms of a man, a human, he noted with surprise.

  The battle was joined. Slayers, dozens of them, fell on the snarling beasts and shouting tribesmen. Brightly hued crests cut through the ranks of the Chaos horde like the fins of sharks in shallow waters. ‘What–’ Felix began.

  ‘Koertig,’ the man said gruffly. He wore a battered cuirass over clothing that had seen much hard travel, and a dented helm that covered the top half of his face, leaving an unsmiling mouth and square jaw exposed. ‘Can you use that sword?’ he said. His accent possessed the guttural tones of Nordland and he carried a long-hafted war-axe.

  ‘Yes, but who–’

  ‘I told you. Introductions later; now we fight,’ Koertig grunted, lunging at a screaming Chaos marauder. His axe sheared through the warrior’s jaw and the force of the blow spun the dying man. Felix parried a thrust spear and spitted its wielder even as he sought out Gotrek.

  The Slayer was clinging to one of the monster’s brass horns, his axe embedded in the ornate cuirass it still wore. Its claws tore trails in Gotrek’s tattooed flesh, but the Slayer hung on with inhuman determination. Around them, the beast’s followers battled the newly arrived Slayers, including the one who’d saved Felix.

  The latter was bare-chested like most Slayers, though he lacked the shorn skull. Instead, his hair had been greased and twisted into long spikes, as had his beard. A ring had been clipped to each nostril, with a chain attaching it to the appropriate earlobe, and he wielded a mace that looked to have been crafted from a chunk of firewood and an orc skull. The Slayer bellowed with laughter as he swatted a Chaos hound in the head, knocking it sprawling. Koertig grunted unhappily. Felix glanced at him.

  ‘Are you–’ he began.

  ‘Yes,’ Koertig said, sullenly.

  ‘How–’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

  Felix glanced back at the Slayer, who had fastened his teeth in a wolf’s ear even as he brought his mace down on another’s paw. ‘Is he–’

  ‘I said I don’t want to talk about it,’ Koertig growled.

  ‘Fair enough,’ Felix said. A Slayer hurtled past him, wreathed in red. The newcomers weren’t having it all their own way, despite the element of surprise. The dwarf struck the wall and flopped bonelessly to the floor, his doom found. Felix stared at the body for a moment, wondering whether the Slayer had found satisfaction, or at least relief, in those final, painful moments.

  Then, a paw almost took off his head, and he shook himself from his reverie. Karaghul pierced a hairy flank, eliciting a shriek of pain. The Chaos hound was large for its kind, and all the more vicious for that. Claws hooked his cloak and Felix stabbed out. Koertig joined him, bellowing a war-cry and sinking his axe into the creature’s back. It shrugged the Nordlander off and, frothing, snapped its jaws at Felix.

  An orc-skull mace cracked down on the creature’s muzzle. It staggered, shaking its head. It stumbled back, pressed by the Slayer’s enthusiasm if nothing else. Felix started forwards, but the orc-skull mace tapped him on the chest, stopping him. The spiky-haired Slayer looked back at him and shook his head. ‘Mine, I think,’ he said, flashing metal teeth.

  Felix nodded curtly. He looked for Gotrek, determined to help at least one Slayer. The chamber was growing quiet. The hounds, blood-hungry and savage, were growing few. The Chaos marauders were all dead, lying in broken heaps, their only-human savagery paling in comparison to that of the Slayers. Only the beast-thing that had led them into the dark remained.

  The latter stood amongst the bodies of a half-dozen Slayers, still clawing at Gotrek, who clung limpet-like to its armour. It staggered back and forth, its howls having degenerated to wheezing pants of effort. Gotrek too looked winded. Even so, his shoulder muscles swelled and he pried his axe free from the thing’s armour. It tossed its head and Gotrek swung his axe and then he was flying free, a shattered horn in his hand. Gotrek hit the ground and bounced almost immediately to his feet, albeit unsteadily. Breathing heavily, Gotrek eyed the beast. ‘Come on,’ he hissed.

  The creature snarled and lunged. Gotrek met it, axe in one hand and its horn in the other. Felix ran towards them. He heard shouts behind him, but he paid them no heed. Something hairy and strong snaked around his throat and hefted him from the ground, talon-tips digging into his neck. An animal stink washed over him and he stared up into eyes that swam with blood and rage.

  Malformed jaws dipped in anticipation, and Felix screamed.

  ‘Ho, beast, he’s not yours to kill!’ Gotrek’s axe thudded into the hairy arm, eliciting a screech. Felix was flung through the air. He hit the ground and lay, breathless. ‘Come on then,’ Gotrek continued. ‘Or did that hit take all of the fight out of you, cur of Chaos?’

  The creature’s only response was a howl as it ripped through the air towards the Slayer, talons flailing. Claws thudded down and Gotrek only narrowly avoided a messy bisection. His own weapon whipped out, carving a crimson canyon across the thing’s malformed shoulder, causing it to reel back with a wail. Gotrek spat in disgust and closed in. A fist backhanded him with bone-bruising force and sent him skidding across the ground.

  ‘Ha! My turn,’ the Slayer wielding the orc-skull mace yelped, his weapon thumping against the creature’s skull. The Slayer leapt and dived, avoiding blows that should have pulped him and returning them with interest. Nonetheless, the monster barely staggered and a contemptuous kick sent the mace-wielder flying past Felix. It was looking as if the damnable thing was impossible to kill. It lunged and its jaws closed over another dwarf’s head. It tossed its head and decapitated its prey, sending a crescent of blood spattering across the other Slayers who pressed close about it. ‘S-skulls,’ it snarled as it spat out the mangled head. ‘Skulls for the Skull Road!’

  ‘You want skulls? I see one ripe for the plucking,’ Gotrek growled as his axe buried itself into one hairy thigh. The beast screamed and whirled, reaching for him. The Slayer avoided the talon, but only just, and he lost his grip on his precious weapon. The creature wrenched the axe from its leg and flung it aside, hard enough to drive the blade into the rock of the chamber floor. Slavering, it stalked towards Gotrek, who climbed to his feet and waited for it, fists raised.

  Felix knew that even the Slayer had little hope of defeating such a beast without his axe. Even with it, it was looking to be impossible. There had to be something he could do. He cast about, mind racing, and then he caught sight of one of the metal spheres the Chaos marauders had brought into the catacombs. It was an ugly thing, made of sharp-edged iron plates welded together, with a fuse that extended like a rat’s tail. He snatched a striker up from out of the limp hand of a dead Chaos marauder and sliced the fuse to barely more than a nub with Karaghul. Then, with a shaky prayer to Sigmar on his lips, he lit it and gave it a kick, sending it rolling. The dwarfs who saw it coming scrambled aside with what, in other circumstances, Felix might have considered amusing alacrity.

  ‘Gotrek,’ he shouted. ‘Get out of the way!’

  The Slayer’s eye widened as he saw the explosive sphere rolling towards him. Then, to Felix’s horror, he snatched the sphere up and, muscles bulging, hurled it straight into the chest of his monstrous opponent. The beast caught it instinctively and grunted in confusion. Felix felt someone grab him. ‘We have to get out of here,’ the spiky-haired Slayer barked. ‘Everyone out, now!’

  The explosion, when it came, was sudden and violent. Felix was flung back into blackness as the world fell in on them. Heavy stones fell, and a cloud of smoke and dust rose to meet them. The sound was thunderous and deafening. Felix fell flat, his hands clapped to his ears. He felt as if his skull was about to pop or his bones to vibrate from their envelopes of flesh. When he felt no crushing weight, he cracked open an eye.r />
  He had been pulled back by the spiky-haired Slayer into whatever hidden aperture the Slayers had emerged from. It was yet another tunnel, but this one was more heavily, and more recently by the looks of it, reinforced, with thick stone struts and supports. Even so, it shuddered around them as dust and debris billowed through the opening. Felix flinched as tiny flecks of stone stung his hands and face. He shoved himself to his feet, though the corridor continued to shake. It sounded as if the tunnel section that he and Gotrek had traversed was falling in on itself. ‘Gotrek,’ he coughed, and then, more loudly, ‘Gotrek!’

  ‘I don’t think he made it out, human,’ the spiky-haired Slayer said. Another explosion shook them, and dust drifted down from the roof of the corridor. More dust and smoke choked the air and the Slayer grabbed Felix. ‘Back the way we came,’ he rumbled. ‘This place is coming down, and we’ll be joining your friend if we don’t get out of here. This whole section is going to collapse.’

  ‘No,’ Felix said, staring at the billowing cloud of debris. ‘Gotrek,’ he shouted.

  A clawed hand erupted from the dust and Felix stumbled back, falling on his rear. The monster coughed blood and its eyes were glazed with agony as it forced itself through the narrow aperture. The collar on its bifurcated neck seemed to pulse and steam. Felix scrambled back, gawping at it.

  ‘Grimnir’s guts, that thing just doesn’t want to die,’ the spiky-haired Slayer shouted.

  Its sides heaved like a bellows as the wounded creature shoved itself towards them. It was bleeding from hundreds of shrapnel wounds and the explosion had seared the flesh from its bones in places. Nonetheless, it continued to move, compelled by some hellish will to continue. Felix felt disgust and horror ripple through him. This – this was the end result of Chaos. A man once, and then a beast, and now some brainless, slobbering thing, trapped in a hulk of broken meat. It was hunger given form, and nothing more, the atavistic need to devour with no will or soul to guide it. To kill it would be a mercy.

  It bawled out a challenge, even as it choked on its own blood. Then, before it could lunge forwards, an axe buried itself in its back, cleaving its spine and dropping the creature flat to the ground, where it flopped bonelessly. Its fangs chewed the ground.

  ‘Stop running from me,’ Gotrek croaked, days of frustration boiling behind the words. His flesh was streaked with blood, ash and dirt, and his crest had been bent and smashed down, but he looked as ready for a fight as ever.

  Gotrek dropped off the squirming beast and walked around it. The creature eyed him dumbly, as if unable to comprehend that its doom was approaching. Gotrek stopped and stared down at it, making no move to kill it.

  ‘For pity’s sake, Gotrek,’ Felix said, unable to stand the sounds the monster was making. ‘Kill the thing and be done.’ Gotrek didn’t acknowledge that he had heard Felix, nor did he deliver the killing blow. Instead, he stood, waiting.

  The creature was dying, but not quickly. Whatever fell power had made it had also imbued it with an inhuman vitality that not even such damage as it had already taken could kill it outright. It writhed, jaws snapping. With a convulsive jerk, it flung itself forwards, maw wide. Gotrek made no effort to step aside. For a moment, Felix feared that Gotrek was going to let those maddened jaws close around him. Instead, the Slayer’s axe snapped down with finality, cutting the monster’s noise short.

  Gotrek turned. ‘Slayers have no pity, manling,’ he rasped.

  ‘Gotrek, are you all right?’ Felix said, in the silence that followed.

  ‘I’m fine, manling,’ Gotrek said. ‘Had to get my axe.’

  ‘You don’t look fine,’ Felix said.

  ‘What?’ Gotrek growled.

  ‘Nothing,’ Felix said quickly. He looked around. They were in a sloping corridor that rose upwards. It was in better condition than the tunnels, and showed signs of regular use. He wondered idly how many redundant passageways the dwarfs had in these holds. Did they simply dig new ones when they became bored with the old ones? Or was it more akin to the fabled lost streets of Altdorf – streets that were forgotten and built over after invasions and fires.

  ‘I’ve never seen a Chaos beastie go out with quite so big a bang,’ the spiky-haired Slayer said cheerfully, his mace resting on his shoulder. ‘I’ve heard the stories, Gurnisson, but I’d have never believed them had I not seen it with my own eyes.’

  ‘You know of me?’ Gotrek said.

  ‘Everyone knows you. Gotrek Gurnisson, the Doom-Thief and Jinx-Slayer,’ the other said, chuckling. ‘Slayers tell stories about you when they want to scare themselves.’

  Gotrek’s eye narrowed and he spat at the other Slayer’s feet before turning away. The Slayer shrugged, unperturbed. He looked at Felix, flashing a metal grin. Every tooth in his head appeared to have been replaced with what Felix thought were gromril replicas. ‘They call me Biter,’ he said.

  ‘No one calls you Biter,’ Koertig said sullenly.

  ‘Everyone calls me Biter,’ Biter said, still smiling. ‘Except for my Remembrancer here,’ he added. He slapped Koertig companionably on the arm, nearly knocking the Nordlander off his feet. Felix looked at the scowling Nordlander and nodded in sympathy. If Koertig saw, he gave no sign.

  Biter sniffed at Gotrek’s back. ‘He’s not exactly pleasant company, that one. Then, neither am I.’

  ‘And why should any of us be?’ another Slayer grated, rubbing ruefully at a set of slashes in his chest. He wore a harness with a number of strange clay pots attached and there were powder-burns on his cheeks and jaw. ‘There are only so many dooms to go around and fewer now. Less, if Gurnisson is here.’

  Felix looked around. Of the thirty or so Slayers who had poured into the chamber, only half were left, the others lying tangled in death with the wolf-things and the human tribesmen. He was startled by the number, wondering if Gotrek’s determination to find a worthy death was unique to him.

  ‘Quiet, Agni,’ Biter said.

  ‘I am merely saying what we’re all thinking,’ the Slayer protested. He pointed at Gotrek. ‘Gurnisson is a jinx! You said so yourself!’

  ‘I said… quiet,’ Biter said, not firmly, or harshly. He tapped Agni’s bulbous nose with his mace. ‘You are being impolite.’

  Gotrek stood apart from the others, and they seemed content to leave him be. Whether he had heard Agni’s outburst, he gave no sign. Felix joined him as did Biter, unbidden.

  ‘We’ve been waiting for them to give this entrance the old Guild try since they found it,’ Biter said, idly kicking a rock aside. ‘I thought Iron-Rear was mad for–’

  ‘Ironfist,’ Gotrek snapped.

  Biter grinned. ‘I thought Ironfist was mad to station us there, away from the fighting, but he’s cannier than he looks, the beardling.’

  ‘Beardling,’ Felix said. ‘I was under the impression that the Slayer King was older than that.’

  Biter snorted. ‘Who said anything about the Slayer King? I was talking about–’

  Before he could finish, a grinding of stone made the survivors turn to the archway, where the wall of rocks that had seemingly sealed it off revealed itself to be a cleverly designed rotating door. As it shifted aside, a Slayer stepped through. But he was unlike any Slayer Felix had seen before – his beard was woven into five thick plaits and golden discs stamped with the scowling faces of dwarf ancestor-gods dangled from each. His scalp was surmounted by three large crests of orange-dyed hair. In his hands he clutched twin axes, which were connected to thick iron bracers on his equally thick wrists by heavy chains which rattled softly as he walked. He smouldered with a visible resentment and his gaze was hard. Behind him came a number of dwarf warriors, clad in armour and carrying crossbows.

  ‘Garagrim,’ Gotrek said. ‘The War-Mourner of Karak Kadrin.’

  As the words left his mouth, the new arrival’s eyes found Gotrek and instantly narrowed to slits. He raised an axe and barked something in Khazalid. The newcomers raised their crossbows and, without hesitation, aimed them all squ
arely at Gotrek.

  ‘Gotrek Gurnisson,’ Garagrim Ironfist said. ‘You will lay down your axe and surrender yourself to the justice of Karak Kadrin, or you will die here, unmourned and unabsolved.’

  Felix’s hand found his sword-hilt, but Gotrek’s meaty paw caught it before he could draw Karaghul. ‘Gotrek,’ Felix said, eyes widening.

  Gotrek shook his head.

  ‘I will come,’ he said. But it was evident to Felix that he wasn’t happy about it. His shoulders and arms were tense and his grip on his axe was tight. The newcomers must have noticed too, for the guards took Gotrek’s axe from the Slayer and Karaghul from Felix as well. Felix, bewildered, allowed the guards to move them through the hidden doorway. Gotrek said nothing, his expression vague as he stumped along. Felix tried to talk to him, but a glare from one of the guards silenced him. In the years he’d known him, Gotrek had proven more than once that he’d rather die than be parted from his axe.

  The other Slayers followed at a respectful distance, Biter leading the way, Koertig beside him. Felix didn’t bother asking them what was going on. They looked as confused as he did, though one or two, including Agni, looked pleased.

  Was Gotrek really so hated? They had met other Slayers on their travels, and it had seemed to Felix that wariness was built into them, as essential to dwarfs as their beards. But what if it was something else? What had Biter called Gotrek – Doom-Thief? Was that what this was about?

  He looked at the Slayer. Gotrek looked tired. Not weak or fatigued, not in body, but in soul. His eye held little of its usual intensity, and his hands, normally active with pent-up energy, were balled into tight fists. Felix knew the Slayer was angry as well, but it was a smouldering anger, rather than the more usual volcanic rage. Something was going on. But until someone chose to fill him in, he wasn’t going to know what it was.