Gotrek and Felix - Road of Skulls

by Josh Reynolds

  A crash followed moments later, and Felix flinched as part of the remaining wall crumbled, showering the enemy below with fragments of rock that caused almost as much damage as the Slayers themselves. Garagrim followed Agni, dispatching any marauders who had survived the other Slayer’s fire-breath. Felix knew that when the sixth wall finally came down, there would be nothing standing between the enemy and the bridge.

  Smoke coiling from his char-stained lips, Agni glared at Gotrek. The Chaos marauders’ momentum had been broken, but they were regrouping. Agni hiked a thumb over his shoulder. ‘Get across the pathway before they blow it, Gurnisson. I’ll not risk this.’

  Gotrek growled. ‘Who are you to tell me where to go, fire-eater?’

  ‘I’m a Slayer who’s owed a doom,’ Agni snarled, nearly bumping against Gotrek. ‘You’ve had your taste of glory. It’s my turn now!’

  ‘Gurnisson, get across the path,’ Garagrim said. The War-Mourner glared Felix and Koertig into motion. ‘The rest of you as well. The Firetongue has claimed this doom for his own, and as War-Mourner I declare it his.’

  Gotrek opened his mouth to argue, but said nothing. He glared at Agni, who smirked, and then stumped across the bridge without a backwards glance. Biter followed him, whistling tunelessly. At the other end of the bridge, dwarf engineers worked furiously, dislodging the last few stones. The pathway trembled beneath Felix’s feet and he picked up his pace.

  ‘I wasn’t aware that the War-Mourner could do that,’ he said to Gotrek as they crossed.

  Gotrek sneered. ‘It’s an old custom. If he wasn’t Ungrim’s boy, I’d–’

  ‘You’d what, Gurnisson?’ Garagrim said, close behind.

  Gotrek flushed. ‘I’d show you what happens to arrogant beardlings who stand between me and my doom.’

  ‘Any time, Doom-Thief,’ Garagrim spat.

  ‘Garagrim,’ Ungrim roared. Garagrim blanched. Felix saw the Slayer King coming towards them. ‘Now is not the time,’ Ironfist grated, staring his son down.

  The path collapsed with a groan. A massive cloud of dust washed upwards as the bridge collapsed into pieces and those pieces fell down into the chasm below, gouging the sides and tumbling past the smaller pathway below. Felix turned with the others to watch Agni. The Slayer, true to his word, had remained behind, calmly barring the path to the Chaos marauders. Now that the chance of reaching the bridge was gone, the tribesmen seemed intent on revenge. Agni seemed content with this and he used the tip of his axe to nick each flask, weakening the seal on each in turn. He waved his axe in a ‘come hither’ gesture. ‘What’s in those things?’ Felix murmured.

  ‘Fire water,’ Gotrek grunted. ‘It burns until there’s nothing left to burn, when it touches the open air.’ The Slayers watched almost reverentially as their brother stalked towards the enemy. Felix thought that with the War-Mourner’s declaration, Agni’s doom had become less a personal moment than a public rite. Here, in the city of the Slayers, beneath the eyes of Grimnir, one of their own was carrying out his oath. It was almost a religious affair. Dwarfs up and down the edge of the plateau began to sing a dirge and their voices met and matched the bloodthirsty cries of the horde with inexorable strength.

  Felix felt a chill as the dirge grew in volume. Agni seemed to swell as the sound swept around him. Gotrek hunched forwards, nostrils flaring, his eye burning jealously. He had remained silent as the others joined the song. Then, as if against his will, he added his own voice to the dirge.

  Agni drained his flask. Smoke curled from his nostrils. He spread his arms.

  The Chaos marauders charged as one. Agni spewed fire. Then, with a hoarse cry, he slammed into the charred wreckage of his attackers. As he fought he tore open flasks and drained them, spitting fire. Felix had a momentary premonition, guessing what would happen when a lucky blow struck one of the flasks.

  That premonition was fulfilled a moment later. A sword chopped into Agni’s chest and a flask exploded, spreading fire around. Agni was silent as flames crawled across his body, turning his beard black. He fought on, wreathed in flame. Other flasks, touched by the fire, popped like handguns going off, spreading more fire. Agni staggered forwards, a dwarf-sized torch, his burning axe smashing out without pause.

  Silently, remorselessly, the burning shape of Agni Firetongue fought the invaders. Those that faced him burned or were chopped down. The rest staggered back, their chants to Khorne turning to ashes in their mouths. The horde had fallen silent, their eyes on the Slayer as he began to stalk towards them, his enemies retreating before him, their eyes wide with what might have been fear. One step, then two steps and Agni stumbled. He was completely engulfed in flame now. His eyes were gone, burst by the heat. His beard, his crest, all singed to scrapes of greasy smoke. Several of the flasks hadn’t yet exploded. Dwarf workmanship was sturdy. His axe fell from his hands, trailing bits of his fingers. Felix wanted to close his eyes but he couldn’t look away. The dwarf dirge rose, cresting high.

  Agni leapt towards the closest knot of Chaos marauders.

  The explosion sent tendrils of fire coursing through the packed keep. Stone and flame flattened the marauders in their dozens. Men and horses ran screaming and burning. The ground behind the sixth wall became an inferno as the fire spread, clinging to greasy furs and oily flesh.

  Felix turned away, his cloak held over his nose and mouth as the smell drifted across the chasm. He met Gotrek’s eye. ‘It burns until there’s nothing left to burn,’ Gotrek repeated. He chuckled bitterly and the fire was reflected in his single eye.

  8

  Karak Kadrin,

  the Slayer Keep

  The great doors to Karak Kadrin had swung shut hours earlier, but Felix could still feel the reverberations in his bones. Huge and ancient, their motion had set the mountain shaking and he thought that even now the echoes of their closing probably sent ripples across the surface of any underground lakes and streams below Karak Kadrin. He and Gotrek had not moved past the entry hall, and the Slayer’s eye had not left the doors since they’d closed. All of the war-engines had been pulled back into the hall, to save them from being bombarded to bits by the siege-engines of the Chaos dwarfs, which had arranged themselves in the ruins of the outer keep and were even now firing at the mountainside in which Karak Kadrin nestled in what Felix considered to be sadistic petulance.

  Faint trickles of dust occasionally drifted down from the far upper reaches of the hall. Other than the dull reverberations of the shrieking rockets and belching cannons, that was the only sign that an attack was even under way. He couldn’t bring himself to feel more than faintly concerned; Gotrek had assured him more than once, vociferously, that dwarf holds were nigh impregnable from without.

  There were hundreds of humans in the hall, and about that number of dwarfs. The humans were being taken in groups deeper into the mountains, to the far distant underground docks, where boats waited to go by the underground waterways – long ago constructed by the first dwarf inhabitants of the hold – to the safer reaches of the Stir. Karak Kadrin’s docks were no patch on those of Zhufbar, according to Gotrek, but Felix thought the very idea of underground docks was impressive enough.

  In fact, everything about the Slayer Keep was impressive. The entry hall was a huge space, with vast fluted galleries that swept up into smooth balconies that looked as if they had been coaxed from the stone by the hands of a sculptor rather than a stonemason. Ancient tiles, worn smooth by generations of traffic, lined the floors, each one a work of art in and of itself, depicting a moment from the history of the hold. Large ancestor statues, representing past generations of kings, thanes, and lords of Karak Kadrin, lined the walls, each ensconced in its own nook or cranny.

  Globes containing luminescent liquid hung from stone half-arches spaced evenly along the length of the hall, casting a soft glow across everything below, and the light carried far better than any torch or lantern Felix had seen. At the other end of the hall was a second set of great doors. These were another defence me
asure, sealing off the next section of the hold from invasion. Felix knew that dwarf holds had many entrances – not just the ones you could see. There were doors everywhere on every level, some hidden, some not.

  Regardless of the size of the attackers’ force, there was simply no way to lay siege to a dwarf hold. Not in the sense of the common understanding of the word. A mountain could no more be surrounded than it could be levelled by conventional means, Chaos dwarf ingenuity aside. With the destruction of the bridge connecting the outer keep to the plateau on which Karak Kadrin’s doors sat, the Chaos forces were stymied. Or so Felix hoped.

  ‘They can’t really build another bridge, can they?’ he said. ‘Not just like that.’ Gotrek didn’t reply. Felix looked at him. ‘And even if they did,’ he went on, ‘it’s not like they could burrow into the mountain.’ He peered at the Slayer and said, ‘Gotrek?’

  Gotrek glanced at him and knuckled his eye-patch irritably. ‘That death was mine, manling,’ he said. ‘It would have been legendary.’

  Felix shook his head. He’d known it was going to come back up. ‘It would have been stupid,’ he said.

  Gotrek flushed. ‘What?’ he snarled.

  ‘I said it would have been stupid, going up like a powder-keg, like that. Is that really how you want people to remember Gotrek Gurnisson dying?’ Felix knew he shouldn’t be challenging Gotrek this way, but he’d grown tired of the Slayer’s more-than-normal surliness over the past few hours.

  ‘Careful, manling,’ Gotrek rumbled warningly.

  ‘I am tired of being careful, Gotrek. If I am doomed to write about your doom, it had best be a doom worth being doomed to write about!’ He fought to calm himself. ‘Besides, you weren’t planning to stay anyway, were you? You said so yourself. You’re meant for a grander doom.’

  Gotrek snorted. Then, not unkindly, ‘Perhaps you’re right, at that.’ Then, he blinked. ‘What did you say, manling?’

  ‘What?’ Felix said.

  ‘Just now, about powder-kegs,’ Gotrek said. He stroked his beard. He looked at the doors again. ‘Ha,’ he said, darkly amused.

  ‘What is it?’ Felix said.

  ‘Come, manling. I must speak with the king,’ Gotrek said, moving towards a set of stone stairs set into the walls beside the doors of the hold. Felix shoved himself to his feet and followed. He hurried after Gotrek, squirming through groups of dwarfs to keep up with the Slayer.

  They found Ungrim in one of the stone blockhouses which lined the cliff-face above the doors of Karak Kadrin. The section of the blockhouse that faced out over the chasm was solid stone, reinforced by iron bands. Where the roof met the wall were a number of thin slits. Thunderers stood on a ledge that allowed them to aim their weapons out. A circular stairwell rose up at an angle into a reinforced cupola. A dwarf sat within the cupola, which rotated with a hiss of steam and a whine of gears, startling Felix. Every so often, the dwarf would shout down to a companion, who scribbled something into a heavy notebook.

  Gotrek saw Felix’s questioning look and grinned. ‘Have to keep accurate records, manling. They’ll identify the tribes and such afterwards and record the grudge appropriately. Can’t let scum like that out there get away with knocking down a keep like that.’

  ‘Future generations must know of such perfidy,’ Ungrim said. The king stood at a circular stone table, leaning forwards on his knuckles. Before him, flat on the table, was a disc of hammered gold upon which what Felix took to be a map of the hold had been engraved. Snorri Thungrimsson and Garagrim stood nearby, as well as three other dwarfs that Felix thought must be the other prominent clan leaders.

  ‘If we survive,’ Snorri grunted.

  ‘Karak Kadrin will weather this, as it has weathered every other affront to our sovereignty,’ Ungrim said confidently. He looked at Gotrek warily. ‘What do you want, Gurnisson?’

  ‘To help,’ Gotrek said bluntly.

  ‘Go man the interior defences,’ Ungrim said.

  ‘The enemy aren’t inside,’ Gotrek said, his axe resting on his shoulder. ‘Not yet anyway. I want to lead a sortie.’

  Snorri goggled at him, as did the other clan-leaders. ‘Are you mad?’ Thungrimsson said. The hammerer caught himself. ‘Never mind, of course you are. No,’ he said.

  ‘What sort of sortie, Gurnisson?’ Ungrim said.

  ‘A quiet one, right up until it gets very, very loud,’ Gotrek said, flashing a gap-toothed smile. ‘They tried to blow their way in before. I simply want to return the favour, with interest.’

  Ungrim stared at him for a moment. Felix could almost hear the gears turning in the king’s head. Then the Slayer King slapped the table and gave a loud bark of laughter. ‘Ha! That’s the best idea I’ve heard all day!’

  ‘Indeed. One might almost suspect that Gurnisson had ulterior motives,’ a familiar voice said.

  Gotrek swung around as the priest, Axeson, stepped into the blockhouse. The priest of Grimnir was clad for war, but he raised a hand in a peaceful gesture as Gotrek glared at him. ‘I intended no insult.’

  ‘You gave one anyway,’ Gotrek said.

  ‘When I heard that a mighty doom had been achieved, I thought it might have been yours,’ Axeson said.

  ‘It wasn’t,’ Gotrek said.

  ‘No,’ Axeson said, nodding agreeably. ‘We have business, you and I.’

  ‘None that I can see,’ Gotrek snapped.

  ‘No, but then you only have one eye.’

  Gotrek’s mouth thinned to a razor-line of disapproval. It didn’t take much to set him off, and Axeson seemed to be trying to make him angry, though there was no gain in doing so, to Felix’s mind. For some reason, the priest’s waspishness put Felix in mind of his own, back when he’d argued regularly with his father over his intent to become a poet, rather than a merchant. The insults had flown fast and thick and personal between them. ‘I did not come to Karak Kadrin to be insulted by you,’ Gotrek growled.

  ‘Then why did you come?’ Axeson said.

  Gotrek’s mouth opened and then closed with a snap. Felix, who had been leaning forwards in interest, felt a surge of disappointment. ‘That’s none of your concern,’ Gotrek said after a moment.

  ‘It is my concern, Gurnisson,’ Axeson said softly. His eyes fell to the axe in Gotrek’s grip, and then up, meeting Felix’s gaze. The look in the priest’s eyes was sad, as sad as Felix had ever seen a dwarf look, but also bitter, as if he bore Gotrek a personal grudge, just like everyone else in this fortress of madmen. ‘Your doom is the concern of all who dwell within Karak Kadrin.’

  Gotrek grunted. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I have seen you fall, Gurnisson. I have seen your doom, and writ in that doom was the end of all dawi. Karak Kadrin will be but the first,’ Axeson said. His tone was portentous, but Gotrek gave no mockery. Instead he shook his head.

  ‘Speak plainly, priest. What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean what I say, son of Gurni. If you meet your doom, Karak Kadrin falls.’

  Gotrek was visibly dumbstruck. Felix said, ‘How do you know this?’

  Axeson looked at him. ‘I have seen it, as I said. More is not for you to know.’

  ‘It damn well is,’ Gotrek snarled suddenly, lunging forwards, his hand knotting in the priest’s beard. He shoved him back against the wall. ‘How do you know this? Who denies me my doom?’

  ‘Release him, Gurnisson! Release him, I say,’ Ungrim bellowed. Dwarfs leapt to grab Gotrek, but none could break his hold on the priest. The Slayer was immovable.

  ‘Grimnir,’ Axeson said simply, answering Gotrek’s question. ‘There is a mighty doom coming from the north, Gurnisson. Something that will eat an army of Slayers and still not be filled, and if you face it, if you meet it in battle, you will find the death you seek, but the world will die with you.’

  Gotrek released the priest and stepped back as if he’d been struck. ‘No,’ he said hoarsely.

  ‘Is my word not good enough?’ Axeson said.

  ‘No. Not yours. Never,’ Gotre
k hissed. His eye glinted. ‘Prove it, priest, or I shall march through those gates tonight.’

  ‘You will not,’ Ungrim said. He looked at Axeson. ‘You are certain?’

  ‘As stone, my king,’ Axeson said.

  ‘No,’ Gotrek said, shaking his head. His hand clenched and unclenched and his axe trembled. ‘No, you lie,’ he burst out.

  The blockhouse fell silent. Gotrek flushed. Felix’s hand crept towards his sword-hilt. Every eye in the structure was turned towards the Slayer and every face was set like the stones that made up the walls. Gotrek hunched into himself, jaw jutting as if he were, for once, feeling the weight of his people’s disapproval. He took a breath and straightened.

  ‘I do not lie,’ Axeson said.

  ‘I do not care,’ Gotrek retorted, but calmly. He looked at Ungrim. ‘I will lead my sortie now, before the Chaos filth figure out that they’re sitting ducks.’

  ‘The sortie will go ahead, aye, but you will not be the one leading it, Gurnisson,’ Ungrim said harshly. ‘No, you will stay here, where someone can keep an eye on you.’

  ‘And how will you make me, oh king?’ Gotrek said.

  Ungrim flushed. Despite being a Slayer himself, Felix could tell that King Ironfist was unused to having his authority challenged so blatantly. Felix tensed, knowing that the next words out of the king’s mouth would be something to the effect of ‘chains,’ ‘imprisonment’ or ‘arrest them’. Would Gotrek insist on fighting his way out? He hoped not.

  ‘There is no reason for Gurnisson not to go,’ Axeson said, piercing the growing tension. Felix glanced at the priest. ‘The doom I foresaw is not here. Indeed, I’d say that without him, this sortie he proposes is likely to fail.’ He looked at Gotrek. ‘I will prove my words when we return, Gurnisson, if you are brave enough to heed them.’

  Ungrim stared hard at the priest. Gotrek did as well. Neither seemed quite able to believe the words that had just come out of Axeson’s mouth. Ungrim’s hard gaze swivelled to Gotrek. ‘My son will lead the sortie, Gurnisson. You will accompany him, but in an advisory capacity. I well know of your skills in such matters, and so the priest may be right.’