Gotrek and Felix - Road of Skulls

by Josh Reynolds

  ‘Yet you intend to lead a throng into the north,’ Garagrim said, stepping back.

  Ungrim shook his head. ‘I must.’

  ‘But not for glory,’ Garagrim said. ‘Not to shed our burden.’ His tone was one of disbelief. His face fell. ‘You deny me one burden only to pass me another?’

  Ungrim’s eyes narrowed. ‘Watch your tone. I am still king. I am still your father, and what I do is for the good of all of us.’

  ‘So you say,’ Garagrim growled. There was no petulance in his tone, only anger.

  Ungrim turned away. ‘Tell the Slayers that all who wish may accompany the throng.’

  ‘Does that include me?’

  ‘It does not.’

  Garagrim fell silent, staring out over the forges. Then, ‘What is the grudge which binds us to Gurnisson?’

  Ungrim grunted. ‘That is none of your concern.’

  ‘It seems nothing is,’ Garagrim said, turning and starting up the stairs. Ungrim let him go. He looked out at the forges, trying to find some comfort in the dance of the distant flames and the heat and the smell of metal and ash.

  Karak Kadrin,

  the Temple of Grimnir

  Axeson stared at the axe as it sat on the dais. If he didn’t know better, he would have sworn that it was staring balefully at him, or perhaps accusingly. It was a mighty weapon, there was no denying it. Even lying there, separated from its master, it looked deadly. Like a leashed beast, readying itself to spring on the unwary if they drew too close. His gaze drifted to the split bowl. The two halves still lay where they had rolled, as did his rune stones. He bent and began to pick the stones up, one at a time, trying to read meaning in how they had fallen.

  He heard footsteps behind him, but did not stop what he was doing. ‘Is that his axe?’ Kemma Ironfist said softly. Axeson straightened and turned, bowing shallowly to the queen of Karak Kadrin.

  ‘It is,’ he said.

  She stepped past him, her eyes as cold as dampened forges as she looked at the weapon. ‘It is a beautiful thing, but ugly as well.’

  ‘I see no beauty in it,’ Axeson said, after a moment, ‘only cruel necessity.’

  ‘Nonetheless, there is a beauty in necessity.’ Kemma was silent for a moment. ‘Ungrim intends to march out tomorrow morning. What does Grimnir say?’

  ‘I have not asked. I doubt he would answer. He has told us all he intended to, I think.’

  ‘And is this my husband’s doom, then?’ Kemma said, turning to face the priest. ‘At long last, is the shame of our clan to be stricken from the record of years?’

  Axeson was silent. Kemma frowned. ‘You have a distressing habit of falling silent just when your voice is most necessary, priest.’ She smiled slightly. ‘It must be a family trait.’

  Axeson looked sharply at her. ‘I have no family.’

  ‘No. I misspoke. Forgive me, priest.’ She had not misspoken, she knew it and Axeson knew that she knew it. Queen Kemma knew entirely too much for him to play wise priest with her. Dwarf women were often seen but rarely heard, at least in Karak Kadrin, but Axeson knew that it required a woman of unusual strength and patience to live as wife to a Slayer, even if he was a king. That her son had also taken that vow meant that her burden, already weighty, was doubled and doubled again.

  There were stories about Kemma that passed through the quiet corridors of Karak Kadrin. She had been a daughter of the Donarkhun clan, as royal as any dwarf not named Grungni or Grimnir, and proud of that, but never haughty. Some said that she had wielded a hammer and borne a warrior’s shield in battle against grobi on her journey north to meet her intended for the first time. Her chaperones slain, Kemma had continued on with a determination that made even the most stubborn of longbeards mutter into their beers with shame. She had announced herself at the great gates, a dozen grobi heads tied to her sash and a sack full of gold over one shoulder. Kemma had paid her dowry in skulls and precious metals and Ungrim had had no choice but to accept, for where would he have found a queen more fitting than she?

  She had become adept, in the intervening decades, at the subtleties involved in being queen. Dwarf men practised the art of boldness, of bluff and bluster, and many of the women as well, but Kemma had ever been a woman for the quiet word and truth wielded like a blade, rather than a bludgeon. It was Kemma who greeted the envoys of the elves and men, Kemma who dealt with the wizards of the Colleges of Magic who sought rare metals and deep herbs for their spells, Kemma who had discovered the red foulness of the Lady Khemalla and led her own bodyguards in the expulsion of the zanguzaz – the blood-drinker – and her shrieking handmaidens from the human quarter of Karak Kadrin. Snorri Thungrimsson was Ungrim’s hearth-warden, but Kemma’s was the mind that directed Thungrimsson in his tasks.

  She was not more intelligent than her husband, for Ungrim had a keen mind, but she saw the world through clearer eyes. Too clear sometimes, Axeson thought. Ungrim was predictable, if in an erratic fashion, and Garagrim as well. But Kemma was not.

  ‘There is nothing to forgive, lady.’ Axeson inclined his head. ‘I don’t know,’ he added. She looked at him, her gaze questioning. He sighed. ‘I do not know if the doom I saw is the king’s. A Slayer must die, but as to which Slayer…’ He shrugged helplessly.

  ‘You only know that it is not Gurnisson,’ she said. The way she said his name provoked a thread of memory, of old gossip, well-chewed by the time Axeson had heard it, of an oath given, and an oath fulfilled and a friendship forever fractured because of it.

  Axeson nodded jerkily. ‘That much Grimnir made plain. Gurnisson’s doom is writ in the Book of Ages and has been since the first words were set onto the first page.’

  ‘But if he goes, he dies,’ Kemma said.

  ‘If he goes with the throng, he dies, yes,’ Axeson said.

  Kemma’s round features crinkled in a sudden smile. ‘Ah.’ Axeson shifted uncomfortably. She stepped down from the dais. ‘Guard that axe well, Axeson. It yearns to be reunited with its wielder.’

  ‘As I’m sure he yearns to be reunited with it,’ Axeson said.

  13

  Karak Kadrin, the Slayer Keep

  ‘I want my axe,’ Gotrek rumbled, staring up at the carved face of an ancient king. Felix thought that there was a resemblance there, however faint. Perhaps it was simply the similarity of the expression on both, the one stone and the one as good as.

  ‘I for one am enjoying our enforced period of relaxation,’ Felix said, stirring the fire-pit with an iron prod. ‘Seems like ages since we’ve had a moment just to sit.’

  ‘Slayers don’t sit,’ Gotrek said.

  ‘What do you suggest then, Gotrek? Overpowering the guards?’

  Gotrek looked at him as if he had suggested shaving his beard. Felix shrugged and made to change the subject. ‘I hope they bring us food soon.’ Guards had appeared early in the evening, bringing flint and tinder to light the fire-pit, but nothing else. Gotrek grunted. Felix heard a distant sound and rose to his feet. ‘What is it?’

  The Slayer made no reply. Felix joined him at the edge of the balcony. From down below, more sound rose and Felix felt a moment of weakness as he recognized for the first time just how high up they were. Drums and horns sounded from below, and Felix saw a great army of dwarfs marching through the ruins of the outer keep; they issued from the hidden sortie gates and deep paths almost eagerly. Squares and columns of doughty clan warriors, bearing the standards of every clan of Karak Kadrin, marched in perfect unison. It was a magnificent sight, even from the heights.

  ‘The Grand Throng of Karak Kadrin,’ Gotrek murmured. ‘Ungrim is marching out.’ His hands rested on the balcony and the stone cracked in his grip. Felix frowned.

  ‘He’s moving quickly,’ he said.

  ‘Aye,’ Gotrek said. ‘I expected the clans to argue more, but…’ He shook his head.

  ‘The words of the gods can sway even the most stubborn of men,’ Felix said. He raised his hands before Gotrek could reply. ‘I know, I know, dwarfs aren�
��t men.’

  Disgruntled, Gotrek looked away. ‘Never thought I’d be here again,’ he muttered, examining the balcony. ‘Ungrim has a sense of humour.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Gotrek smiled bitterly. ‘This is the same place he stuck me the last time I disobeyed him.’

  ‘What happened?’ Felix said. He was eager to hear the story, rare as it was that Gotrek shared anything relating to his past.

  ‘Nothing worth speaking of,’ Gotrek said, waving a hand dismissively. He turned back to watching the throng march out.

  ‘Did it have to do with Queen Kemma?’

  Gotrek stiffened. Felix pressed on. ‘You said you saved Ungrim’s life, that that is why he dislikes you. She asked you to do it, didn’t she?’

  ‘Aye,’ Gotrek said, in a quiet voice. ‘I made an oath, in the heat of the moment.’

  Felix didn’t dare inquire as to the particulars of that. It couldn’t be what it sounded like. From a man, he would have happily assumed the obvious, but dwarfs, as Gotrek took every opportunity to remind him, were not men. ‘That was all.’

  ‘Tell me about it,’ Felix said, settling back, arms over his knees.

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Gotrek, we have nothing but time,’ Felix said. It was a blatant attempt to get Gotrek’s mind off the marching army below, but Felix had little other way of doing so. ‘Tell me how you saved Ungrim’s life. If I’m to give a full recounting of your deeds upon your death–’

  ‘If I die,’ Gotrek muttered.

  ‘–upon your death,’ Felix continued, as if Gotrek hadn’t interrupted, ‘then I must know them all. Ipso facto, as the Tileans say.’

  ‘What do Tileans have to do with anything?’

  ‘I was accrediting the phrase to its proper source. It’s a very important skill for a Remembrancer, accreditation,’ Felix said primly.

  Gotrek shook his head. ‘Don’t make things up.’

  ‘That’s the point of accreditation,’ Felix said. ‘So people know that I haven’t. We wouldn’t want anyone questioning the veracity of your saga, would we?’

  ‘Who would dare?’ Gotrek growled.

  ‘Plenty of people,’ Felix said. ‘You’ll be dead, remember. And let’s be fair, I’m not all that intimidating, Gotrek.’ He thrust a finger up for emphasis and continued, ‘Hence, accreditation, and footnotes, lots of footnotes.’

  ‘Footnotes,’ Gotrek said dubiously.

  ‘Lots of them,’ Felix said, rubbing his hands together in mock-glee. ‘I’ll choke every critic between here and Marienburg with footnotes.’

  Gotrek eyed him for a long moment. Then he chuckled and slapped his belly with both hands. ‘It’s about time you displayed the proper enthusiasm for my death, manling! Fine, I’ll tell you. It’ll be a grand – eh – footnote.’ He leaned forwards. ‘It was years before I met you. Not long after I had taken the Slayer oath. We were clearing out a nest of grobi in the northern peaks, where the river runs beneath the last of the ancient skybridges. We were too close to Karak Ungor, but that didn’t bother old Ungrim. Nor me, come to that.’ Gotrek grinned. ‘You should have seen it, manling. The orcs boiled across that bridge like ants, most falling, being pushed off by the ones behind, and only me and Ungrim and a few other lads to bar the way.’

  His eye went glassy with memory. ‘There was a red rain in the valley below, that day. We held the ancient toll road from sunset to sunrise, killing hard and taking whatever the grobi could throw at us. Old Grimscour fell at dawn, dragged from his perch by a squig with its teeth in his beard. Then young Kromsson, pulled apart like a wishbone by bad old Bashrak himself.’ Gotrek grunted. ‘The grobi called Bashrak “the Gitsnippa”. As big as any three orcs and as mean as a wyvern.’ The grin had faded now, leaving a more melancholy expression in its place. ‘He killed Falnirsson after that, and Stonechewer. Then it was just Ungrim and I, and the stones were slick beneath our feet and the clouds were the colour of deep ore and full of lightning.’

  Gotrek fell silent. Felix knew that the Slayer was watching the memory unfold inside his head. When he began to speak again, his voice had lost its bluster. ‘Only one of us was needed. Reinforcements were coming – the other could have stepped back. But neither of us could give way. Neither of us was willing. So we fought, and I fought not to meet my doom, but to keep Ungrim alive.’ He looked at his hands. ‘I dragged Ungrim from beneath a pile of grobi and threw him to safety, and chopped through the ancient stone of the bridge. I sent Bashrak and all of his green-skinned court hurtling into the void and Ungrim cursed me for it.’ He closed his eye and clenched his fists. ‘I swore to keep Ungrim alive and I did, and our grudge stands.’

  ‘Does he know?’ Felix said softly. ‘About Kemma, I mean. Does he know that it wasn’t your idea?’

  ‘Of course he knows, manling. Why else would I have saved him, unless I had made an oath to do so?’ Gotrek looked at him as if he were an idiot. ‘It doesn’t matter. What’s done is done.’

  ‘And you all just pretend that nothing happened,’ Felix said.

  ‘There is no pretence. She is queen and he is king and I am what I am,’ Gotrek said nastily. ‘I’ve changed my mind. This doesn’t go in my saga, manling.’

  ‘Perish the thought,’ Felix said.

  ‘I mean it, manling,’ Gotrek growled, grabbing the front of his cloak and yanking him down to eye-level. ‘Such things have no bearing on my doom, footnotes be damned.’

  ‘What about dreams, then? Do those have some bearing?’ Felix said, stung. He blinked, surprised at himself. He hadn’t meant to say that. Gotrek seemed surprised as well. He released Felix and stepped back. Felix straightened his cloak and said, ‘I think it’s time you told me why we came here, Gotrek. I have followed you into many dangers and never once have I felt that you have had ulterior motives. But this time…’

  ‘Are you accusing me of lying, manling?’ Gotrek rasped, glaring at him. His knuckles popped as his fingers curled into big fists.

  ‘No, no,’ Felix said, stepping back quickly, palms out. ‘But you aren’t telling me everything, are you?’

  ‘I owe you then? Is that what you’re saying?’ Gotrek said, taking a menacing step forwards. Felix had rarely seen the Slayer so angry, save in the heat of battle. He felt a ripple of fear, not for the first time, that the Slayer might turn his frustrations on his Remembrancer for lack of a better target.

  ‘No, I’m not saying that either,’ Felix said. ‘I’m merely curious as to how and why we’ve ended up in this place.’

  ‘Because I would not make an oath,’ Gotrek said stubbornly.

  ‘That is not why we came here,’ Felix said, feeling fear give way to frustration. ‘Why did we come to Karak Kadrin?’

  Gotrek’s glare redoubled in its intensity. Felix felt sweat bead on his face, despite the chill of the crags. Then, Gotrek looked away. ‘I dreamt of my doom,’ he said, finally. He seemed to stagger slightly, as if his strength had left him. He leaned against the balustrade of stone. ‘I stood in the shadow of mighty mountains, and I could hear the tread of a thousand enemies,’ Gotrek intoned, looking out at nothing. ‘A dwarf, an ancient ancestor, his beard the colour of the snows of the high far peaks, came to me, cloaked and hooded, and pointed north.’

  Felix didn’t know what to say. He stood silently, waiting. Gotrek shook himself. ‘I looked north and saw a great light, like the fires that burn deep and forever in some lost mines. And I knew that my death was calling to me, manling. My doom was beckoning to me at last.’

  Felix cleared his throat after several minutes of long silence. ‘Gotrek, did you refuse to swear an oath to Ungrim because of your earlier oath to the queen… or because of your dream?’ he said carefully.

  Gotrek’s muscles bulged abruptly. The balustrade shuddered in his grip and stone cracked. Felix spun as the door opened, admitting a trio of burly dwarfs, carrying trays of food and drink. Gotrek roared wordlessly and uprooted the section of balustrade. Hefting it over his head, he turned, red-
faced, and hurled it at the rock face of the wall.

  The guards dropped their trays and scrambled out, slamming the door behind them as debris rattled down from the point of impact. Gotrek stared at the door, breathing heavily. Felix, however, only had eyes for the spilled food.

  ‘Looks like they remembered our food after all,’ he said sadly.

  The Worlds Edge Mountains, the Peak Pass

  Ekaterina watched the Bone-Hammer’s followers fight over what was left of him. After several days, only a few tattered scraps remained, but they fought over them nonetheless. The former champion’s body had been rendered to rags by the Slaughter-Hound, but there was enough left that enterprising would-be warriors could find something, some token that could give luck or protection in the battles to come.

  And there would be battles; not just among the dead warrior’s followers, who would fall on each other to determine the new leader, but deeper in the mountains. Everywhere, men saw to their horses and chariots. Weapons were sharpened and armour repaired. On their chains and altars, the madmen foamed and wailed out prophecies to the warriors who dared to gather close enough to hear them. A hundred thousand destinies clashed among the crags, and men prepared themselves to compete for the gods’ affections.

  Once, she would have been among their number. She longed for Khorne’s gaze to grace her just once, but it would not be found in such ways. Warriors were not made in mindless battle. She hungered for war the way others needed food or drink, but the wild death-dealing of marauders would not do. Not any more.

  She needed something more. Like a gourmet, her palate had evolved. There were levels to war, battles to be fought within and without. Blood could be shed without a cut being made and a skull collected without so much as tearing the skin.

  Garmr had lost fifteen of his twenty remaining lesser lieutenants in the last few days. It had been a mere matter of words to ears to set off duel after duel. Warbands consolidated and of the other four left in camp, two were loyal to her, and the other two would die quickly, if they did not join her when the time came.