Gotrek and Felix - Road of Skulls

by Josh Reynolds

  Axeson glanced at him, as if surprised he could speak. ‘I didn’t ask him to send for you, human. Just Gurnisson,’ Axeson said harshly.

  Felix flinched at the tone. Axeson seemed to be an equal opportunity insulter, and he wondered whether perhaps he had found a dwarf even more irascible than Gotrek.

  Gotrek stepped forwards. ‘Talk then, priest,’ he said. Had Gotrek hesitated before that last word? Felix looked at the Slayer.

  Axeson frowned. ‘Have you put your name on the pillar in the Temple of Grimnir yet, Gurnisson?’

  ‘What does one have to do with the other?’ Gotrek said, knuckling his eye-patch. ‘No, I haven’t, as you well know.’

  ‘Aye, you haven’t. You were never one for tradition, were you?’ Axeson said.

  ‘Is that why you brought us here?’ Felix asked, before he could stop himself. Gotrek didn’t look at him. Axeson smirked.

  ‘Of course it wasn’t, human. No, Gurnisson came because he couldn’t do otherwise, not when there’s doom on the wind.’

  Gotrek stared at Axeson. ‘What doom, priest? Stop talking in riddles or else–’

  ‘Or else what?’ Axeson said. ‘Will you smash the life from me, Gurnisson?’ He stepped close, his beard bristling, and for a moment, Felix wondered whether Gotrek would. Gotrek’s eye widened slightly and he stepped back, shaking his head. Axeson’s expression changed then. The sneer faded, and Axeson looked away, almost ashamedly. Something had passed between them, Felix knew, but he couldn’t say what, and for a moment, just a moment, a surge of jealousy possessed him.

  It wasn’t the first time that some hint of Gotrek’s past had been teased before him, some moment, frozen in time, that he would never be allowed to examine. Mostly, he didn’t think about it. It served no purpose other than idle curiosity. But other times, the need to know was almost overpowering. Did Axeson know Gotrek’s shame? Did he know what crime had set Gotrek on his current path? Was that the source of their mutual dislike? Felix knew that if he were foolish enough to ask, he would never receive an answer.

  ‘The Skull Road,’ Axeson said. ‘What do you know of it?’

  ‘It is the road of retreat,’ Gotrek said. ‘We walked it when the coming of Chaos drove our people south.’ Felix had heard the term before, though only rarely, and only from dwarfs. The path that led into the Worlds Edge Mountains from the Chaos Wastes was a road few travelled and fewer still returned from.

  ‘Some clans call it Grimnir’s Road,’ Ironfist said, softly.

  Axeson nodded. ‘Aye and it is at that.’ He looked at Felix. ‘Do you speak for this manling, son of Gurni?’ Gotrek nodded once, brusquely. Axeson grunted and went on. ‘The skulls the road is named for are not ours, or those of elves or men. They are the skulls of daemons and those foul things which marched beneath the banners of Chaos. They are the skulls which Grimnir took on his last march north.’ Axeson shook his head. ‘Grimnir cut through the very stuff of Chaos, and made order from it, in that place. He bathed those lands in the blood of daemons and drove back the Wastes.’

  Felix’s mouth was dry. As Axeson spoke, he could almost see that which he described. In his mind’s eye, he saw one lone dwarf, pitting himself against the entirety of Chaos, and forcing it back, mile by painful mile, through sheer determination and ferocity. He glanced at Gotrek and the others and knew that they were seeing something similar in their heads.

  ‘Grimnir made a road of skulls into the north, and disappeared. And now, something has come south, following the same route and bringing ruin with it.’

  A chill mass settled in Felix’s gut. He had seen the horrors of Chaos before, far too closely for his liking. He wanted to speak but couldn’t. Gotrek didn’t have that problem. ‘And what has this to do with me?’ he said, almost hopefully.

  ‘Nothing,’ Axeson said. The word echoed in the silence of the temple. ‘In fact, you shouldn’t be here at all.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’ Gotrek snarled, a vein pulsing in his head. His own eye bulged and blazed with barely restrained fury. ‘Speak, priest, what do you mean?’

  Before Axeson could reply, there came the deep, rolling sound of a war-horn. It echoed through the temple, and King Ironfist sat up straight on his throne, cursing. Felix couldn’t tell the difference between one horn blast and another, but the dwarfs reacted as if this one was different to the others. ‘What is it?’ he said. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘It’s another assault,’ Garagrim growled, hefting his axes. ‘A big one,’ he added, smiling crookedly at Felix. ‘Gurnisson’s stunt in the Underway must have annoyed them.’

  ‘So?’ Gotrek snapped. He glared at Axeson. ‘Get back to this doom of yours, priest!’

  Ironfist and his son were already heading for the doors, the hammerers marching in formation around them. There was neither discussion nor argument. They simply moved as one, knowing their priorities instinctively. Ironfist paused at the doors and turned back. ‘Son of Gurni, if you are interested in a doom, there will be more than one on the walls!’ he called out.

  ‘Listen to him, Gurnisson,’ Axeson said, locking eyes with Gotrek. It was something few others had ever done, and Felix found himself quietly impressed with the aged priest. ‘I will still be here when you are finished.’

  ‘Maybe I will find my doom here,’ Gotrek said, not looking away.

  ‘Do you really believe that?’ Axeson said.

  Gotrek flushed. His teeth surfaced from his beard, flashing in a tiger’s grimace. He was working himself up to a killing fury, Felix knew. ‘Gotrek,’ he said. Gotrek hesitated, and then looked away from Axeson.

  ‘Let’s go, manling,’ he said, stumping past. ‘I want to kill something.’

  Felix made to follow him. A hand on his wrist stopped him. He looked down at Axeson.

  ‘Keep him alive, Remembrancer,’ Axeson said quietly. It wasn’t just a warning, he thought, but almost a plea. Felix blinked, suddenly uncertain. Gotrek was already gone, following the others. Felix nodded jerkily in reply to the grim-faced priest and hurried after the Slayer.

  6

  Worlds Edge Mountains,

  the Peak Pass

  ‘Tell me of the road, Grettir, and you will live another day,’ Garmr said to his cousin, as he stood atop the war-shrine and placed another skull. It was the fifth today, and it was still red and raw and wet.

  At the foot of the shrine, Grettir gazed hatefully up at his enslaver and said, ‘The road is blocked, as it was yesterday and the day before, cousin.’

  Garmr grunted, one steel-shod finger tapping the skull. ‘Karak Kadrin still stands.’

  ‘Of course it still stands,’ Grettir spat, hauling at the chains that held his slim form bound to the altar. He was, or had been, a tall man, as tall as Garmr. Now he was hunched and broken from years of being dragged behind the war-altar he was chained to. More chains criss-crossed his chest and arms like a harness, making it hard for him to move or even breathe. His robes, once fine and the colours of magic itself, were now soiled and stiff with grime. His hands were locked in taloned golden gauntlets and they flexed as if aching to unleash the magics which were his birthright. Instead, the fingers curled into tight fists and he glared at his cousin’s back through the hundred and one eyes which blinked on the surface of his crystal mask.

  ‘Of course it still stands,’ he said again. ‘It stands because you dragged half of your army away to do… What? What are we doing here, cousin?’

  Garmr glanced at Grettir. ‘So much spite, Many-Eyes,’ he murmured. ‘What a warrior you would have made.’

  Grettir snarled wordlessly and jerked at his chains. Garmr chuckled and turned back to the skull. He ran his fingers over it, tracing sharp patterns in the red. Then, abruptly, he turned and strode down the eight stairs of the altar and jerked his axe free from where he’d embedded it in the ground. With one hand he grabbed Grettir, and with the other, he swung the axe down, severing the chains that held the sorcerer tied to the altar.

  The war-altar
and shrines sat amidst the ragged camp that the army had created amidst the crevices and crags of the Peak Pass, and the nooks and crannies of the nearby mountains were now stuffed with skulls. Garmr had collected thousands since he’d left the far north, and their placement was the careful work of weeks. Auguries had been cast, and each skull had its place. Some had been set into the ground like paving stones. Others had been hung from the scabrous trees which clung stubbornly to the hills. Still more had been placed in cracks in the stones of the slopes. Eight had been nailed to the walls of a long abandoned dwarf outpost. Three had been hung carefully from the neck of a wild griffon, though it had cost the hanger’s life to do so. The creature had gone mad, bucking and screaming, and flown off.

  Orcs and worse things occupied these peaks, and his army had spent their time here well. There were enemies aplenty, including the servants of lesser gods. Garmr glanced to the side as he hauled Grettir along. A lithe warrior, hermaphroditic and alluring even now in its agony, dangled from a roughly constructed wooden ‘X’. Shreds of black robes and the ragged remnants of pink and cerulean armour hung from its androgynous form as it strained against the brass spikes set into its hands and feet.

  The Slaaneshi had attacked soon after they’d begun to travel up the serpentine length of the Peak Pass. They had a fortress here, in a fallen dwarf hold somewhere in the deep mountains, many hundreds of miles to the north. Hundreds of hell-striders, men with coruscating tattoos, riding hideous daemon-things that were more serpent than horse and more woman than serpent, had ridden down on Garmr’s army in an orgy of violence, accompanied by scything hellflayers and screaming seeker chariots. Horsemen had clashed in the narrow crags, and Garmr himself had brought this one, a rival champion, down, shearing through the neck of its mount with one blow of his axe.

  It had put up a semi-respectable fight, even then, leaping and slashing with its wailing, weeping spear. Garmr had easily silenced the spear’s noise and had beaten the champion to the ground. He’d considered killing it then and there, and taking its skull, but the potential for future amusement had stayed his hand. They were fragile, the Slaaneshi, but they recovered quickly enough.

  Garmr stopped, looking up at it. It snarled down at him, a long, serpentine tongue extending from its lamprey mouth, the stinger on the tip jabbing uselessly at the air between them. Garmr laughed. ‘Look at it, cousin. Look at the weakness that it embraces.’

  ‘One man’s weakness is another man’s strength, cousin,’ Grettir said. Garmr looked at him, his gaze unreadable behind his snarling helm.

  ‘What would you know of strength?’ Garmr asked softly. ‘You chose the path of weakness, cousin. Our tribe would spit on you.’

  ‘You mean if you hadn’t slaughtered them?’ Grettir spat. ‘You mean if you hadn’t butchered every single one of them, including my wife and children, your nieces and nephews – our kin!’

  ‘It was an honour. Their skulls are the roots of the road, cousin.’ Garmr stared in incomprehension at the cursing sorcerer. ‘They would have understood.’

  ‘What would you know about it?’ Grettir barked, throwing Garmr’s words back into his face. ‘I cast my lot with the Changer to find a way to teach you the error of your ways, cousin. I sold my soul for vengeance.’

  ‘You sold it cheaply then,’ Garmr said, chuckling. ‘The Changer delivered you into my grasp quickly enough. You should be grateful I didn’t simply kill you out of hand.’

  ‘I’ll make you wish you had,’ Grettir snarled.

  ‘Maybe. But until then, you have your uses. Bring a beast,’ Garmr roared out, dragging Grettir into the centre of the camp. ‘I would speak to my servants.’

  Slaves wearing little more than scars and collars hustled to obey; one of the massive gorebeasts, mutated animals fit only for labour, war or slaughter, was jerked forwards on heavy chains by dozens of slaves. It shrilled as it was hauled from the traces of the chariot it had been attached to and thrust out with its horns and talons. Its porcine jaws slammed shut on a slave who got too close and the man’s howl of agony was cut short as he was flung into the air and trampled beneath the creature’s claw-hooves. It bucked and kicked, crushing bone and pulverizing men with every wild motion.

  Nevertheless, the slaves managed to drag it towards Garmr, who shoved Grettir to the ground and raised his axe. The gorebeast shrugged the slaves off with a last burst of frantic strength and gave a deafening grunt as it charged forwards. Garmr didn’t move. As the beast drew within an arms-length of him, Garmr’s axe crashed down, splitting its brute skull from crown to chin. The beast dropped to the ground, dead on the instant. Its back legs lashed out, once, and then it was still.

  Garmr pulled his axe free and gestured. Slaves hurried forwards, grabbing the beast’s legs and hauling it over onto its back. Garmr put a foot on its chest and split its sternum with another stroke of his axe, opening its chest wide. Then, at a slight motion, warriors lunged forwards, grabbing several slaves before they could scurry away. A gibbet, heavy with meat-hooks and iron chains, was wheeled forwards and the struggling slaves had their arms lashed to their sides and their ankles tied together as they wailed and howled. Then, one by one, they were hung upside down on the gibbet, their heads dangling over the gaping cavity of the dead beast’s torso.

  ‘Ekaterina,’ Garmr said. ‘Fill the bowl.’

  The sharp-toothed woman slid forwards through the crowd, holding a curved blade in one hand. With practised efficiency, she slit the throat of each slave in turn, cooing and gently scolding the next in line as she did so. Blood spilled into the dead beast, overflowing its split ribcage. When each slave was silent and draining, Ekaterina stepped back, her tongue caressing the dagger’s blade.

  ‘Work your witchery, cousin,’ Garmr said, looking at Grettir. ‘Show me what I wish to see.’

  Grettir leaned over the blood-soaked carcass, grunting in distaste. His clawed fingers cut the air above the blood, swirling it. Garmr watched intently, hungry for something he couldn’t quite put his finger on.

  The hunger, the need, had been with him for centuries as mortals judged such things. He had spent what seemed like millennia wreathed in the comforting savagery of the eternal battle which raged across the northern pole. Garmr had fought his way there from the lands of the Kvelligs, butchering hundreds in the process. He led armies and warbands and marched alone when no one else was left. He had clawed his way ever northwards, drawn by the scent of the Blood God’s breath.

  Farther and farther north he went until he entered the mad cacophony of the Eternal Battle, where immortal armies waged unceasing war. Brazen fortresses rose over blistered veldts of hairy flesh and plague-clouds spurted from brightly-hued rocks. It was everything he could have wished.

  There, amid the cosmic blood-letting, Garmr had earned the title ‘Gorewolf’, bathing in seas and messes of blood, piling skulls to Khorne. And it seemed to him, in those heady days of war, that Khorne’s fiery gaze fell upon him and found his efforts good. As Garmr’s strength waxed, so too did his prestige. Chieftains and captains and heroes flocked to his banner, killing each other just for the chance to serve him. He roamed the Wastes, spreading the Gospel of Murder.

  But it had not been enough. It was never enough.

  ‘I can drink an ocean of blood, and my belly will not burst,’ Garmr murmured. It was something Hrolf was fond of saying, and for Garmr it was the truth. He looked away from Grettir’s display. It would take time for his cousin to shape his auguries. Every minute not spent in pursuit of Khorne’s will felt wasted and the urge to kill rose in him. It was a sign that he was favoured. And why would he not be favoured? Was he not the Gorewolf? Had he not taken the skulls of the mightiest champions? Was he not the one who had defeated the King of Skin and the Howling Queen? Had he not taken the spine-ring of the Gynander? Had he not bound the Slaughter-Hound?

  At that thought, he shifted slightly, feeling the red haze of the Slaughter-Hound as it prowled the crags nearby. Brute-thoughts, mere bursts of de
sire and frustration, sizzled up and down their mental link, enhancing his hunger for battle. The Slaughter-Hound was always hungry. It was always angry. It existed in a state of constant berserkgang, never calming, never sleeping, but only killing, even as he once had.

  It was not a thing of Khorne, not really. And yet Khorne had gifted it to him. Khorne had led him to it, had delivered Grettir into his hands, giving him the tools necessary to bind it. It was as much a part of Garmr as Hrolf’s beast was of him.

  Ulfrgandr, the Slaughter-Hound, the Great Beast of the Tenth Peak, whose jaws had cracked the scales of Scaljagmir the toad-dragon, and whose claws had shredded the Storm-Pillars of the Mountainous Hierophant. The beast whose heart now beat in time to his and whose bloodlust he could feel. It was unstoppable and immortal and as a consequence, so too was Garmr. Bound to the beast as he was, he was unkillable as long as it lived. And there was nothing short of Khorne himself that could slay the Slaughter-Hound. His fury fed the beast and calmed the red tides that washed his soul. It took the war-madness from his eyes and let him see the world clearly.

  It had let him see that the world was not enough. There was more to be had. There were greater battles, wars undreamt of by mortal man, waged on worlds far from this, against enemies unseen. An eternity of slaughter beneath the stars was what he wanted.

  The Eternal Battle was what he desired, not just to participate, but to spread it. He would banish the barriers that kept the Chaos Wastes confined and the Eternal Battle, the war without end, would spread with the Wastes, engulfing the wide world in a conflagration of cosmic proportions. Khorne would teach men new ways to revel and rejoice and kill and the world would become a cinder, burned clean by unceasing slaughter. A battlefield as wide as the horizon, and enemies everywhere, that was what Garmr wanted. That was what all of this was for.

  Warriors murmured. Garmr’s eyes snapped open. Grettir’s ritual was reaching its crescendo.