by Various
And froze, caught between adoration and astonishment.
For those were not arms that reached to the roof. Arms there were, ending in monstrous hands, and legs with vast broad feet. Towering above them, though, sprouted by a hideous head, were – horns? No, tentacles! They flexed! And each one ended, as it curved towards him, in a gaping pseudopod-coronaed face…
It spoke – from which of its three mouths, Henkin could not tell. It said, in a voice like the grating of rocks against rocks when spring floods undermine a hillside and presage landslides in a valley:
‘Speak my name. You only need to speak my name and life indefinite awaits you. Live forever!’
Almost, the name emerged. Yet, somewhere in the inmost depths of Henkin’s awareness, something rebelled. Some part of him complained, its mental tone no better than peevish – like his mother’s when his father had offended her by winning an argument – a sense, one might say, of obstinate conviction.
That’s not the God of Law, he thought. It looks more like the one I’ve striven against throughout my life!
For what felt like half eternity, Henkin stood transfixed with puzzlement. He knew the name he was supposed to speak. He was quite unable to recall the other one. It followed, by the twisted logic that held him in its grip, that he should utter the one he could.
On the other hand, if he did, there was some kind of penalty… or something… or… Raising his hands to his temples, he swayed giddily, gathered his forces, licked his lips, prepared to make a once-and-for-all commitment–
And there came a thunderous crash at the oaken door, as of a monstrous axe shattering its timbers like the flimsy partitions of a peasant’s cot.
Which turned out to be exactly what it was.
Slowly, like a fly trapped by the resin that in a thousand years would be more profitably sold as amber for embalming it, Henkin turned. At the far end of the aisle something was moving so fast he could barely follow it. Also his ears were more assaulted than they had been by the gong.
The moving thing was the axe. He could not see its wielder. But it was the wielder he was hearing. He had been told, he had read, how terrible was the war cry of a dwarf in berserk state. Not until it blasted back in echo from the arched roof of the temple was he able to believe its force. Gotrek’s first victim, after the door, had been Frater Knoblauch, whose head, staring at his body on the stone flags, bore an expression suggesting it felt it should, but couldn’t quite, recognise the nearby carcass.
At that sight the boys, screaming at the pitch of their lungs, broke and ran, trampling the fraters who tried to stop them, hurling their torches aside, heedless of whether they landed at the foot of the hangings. Flames leapt up. Smoke mingled with the mist. Alberich and his companions, cowls thrown back, turned snarling to confront the intruder, Henkin for the moment forgotten.
‘Hurry! Warsch, run! This way, you fool!’
Still bemused by the grip of enchantment, Henkin stared towards the speaker, waving frantically from near the door. He ventured muzzily, ‘Is that you, Felix Jaeger?’
‘Of course it’s me!’ Felix shouted. He had a sword in his hand, but such work was better left to his companion. ‘This way! Move! Before Gotrek brings the roof down on our heads!’
Sluggishly, Henkin sought mute permission from the prior – he felt he had to. Or from Jurgen, or Wildgans. But the attention of all three was on the dwarf. Drawing themselves up within their cowled robes, they seemed tree-tall compared with him. Magical auras flashed as they mustered for a counter-attack. ‘Poor fool!’ Henkin heard distinctly, in Alberich’s voice. ‘To think he imagines a mere axe can slay one who has lived a thousand years!’
They stretched out their arms. Horrors indescribable assembled at their conjunct fingertips.
Ignoring the other fraters and the fleeing boys, Gotrek ceased his bellowing. Poised on the balls of his feet, brandishing his axe, he looked far more terrifying than before: no longer dancing with the ecstasy of blood-lust, but gathering himself into himself, eyes gleaming with mad joy… Shaking from head to toe, Henkin realised what he was watching: a Slayer on the brink of conviction that here might be the end of his quest.
As if to confirm it, the dwarf began to sing – not shout his war cry, not utter threats, nor curses, but to chant in dwarfish. Surely, thought Henkin in wonder, it was the ballad of his family’s deeds: that family who must all be dead, for else he’d not have taken to his lonely road.
Sneering contempt, Prior Alberich and his companions mustered all their magic force, prepared to cast–
And in exactly that brief moment when they had no power save what was being drawn into their spell, Gotrek hurled his axe.
He threw so hard it carried him with it, for he did not let go. Was it a throw or a leap? Or was it both? Dazed, Henkin could not decide. All he could tell was this: such was its violence, the flying blade mowed Alberich and his companions like corn beneath the harvest-scythe. The dwarf, who had spun clear around, landed on his feet before the idol. Panting, but still gasping out his song, he raised the blade anew, this time menacing the statue itself.
Where had the spell-power gone? Into the axe, Henkin abruptly realised. It must have! For what he had taken for arms upholding the temple roof – what turned out to be half-horn, half-tentacle – they were descending, their hideous fanged mouths like flesh-eroding lampreys closing on the stubby form of Gotrek. His singing, now the boys’ screams had faded, was not the only noise to be heard. Suddenly there were menacing creaks and grinds as, its support removed, the building began to sag and sway…
‘Move, you fool!’ thundered Felix, seizing Henkin’s arm, and dragged him away on quaking ground to the music of snapping timbers, tumbling stones and crackling flames, amid the destined downfall of Schrammel Monastery.
Abruptly it was bitterly cold, and they were very weak, and time seemed to grind to a stop.
Henkin wished the moving earth would do the same.
It was dawn. Dew-sodden, Henkin forced his eyes open and drank in the sights revealed by the returning sun. He saw mounds of rubble, the line of the fallen wall, smoke drifting from what had been the temple and now looked more like a tent propped up by broken poles – but no other movement save seekers of carrion come cautiously to glean the ruins. Plus a stir amid the smouldering wreckage, as though a trace of Chaos lurked there still, shifting and wriggling.
Of neither fraters nor pupils was there any sign.
Nor, come to that, of Gotrek.
Wrapped in his red wool cloak, Felix sat brooding on a nearby rock. Without preamble Henkin demanded, ‘Where’s the dwarf? He saved my life!’
Felix gave a dour shrug. ‘It looks as though he’s achieved his ambition. The temple collapsed with him inside. I only just dragged you out in time… Well, it’s what he’s always wanted. And I suppose I should be glad to be released from my pledge at last.’
‘But how did it all happen?’ Henkin sat up gingerly. ‘Perhaps warpstone dust? In the air, the food, our very blood?’
‘That, or some like manifestation. At any rate, for centuries this monastery has functioned as a tool for–’
‘Tzeentch!’ Henkin blurted. That was the word he had been tempted to utter, the name of the power his family’s priest had feared already held him in his grip. And the name of the God of Right and Law came back to him, too.
Soberly, Felix nodded.
‘Indeed. How better might the servants of the Changer of the Ways disguise their work than by pretending to serve Solkan? It must have cost them dear to adopt such a static guise, but in the long term I suppose they felt it worth the effort to plant so many converts in staid, respectable families.’
Scrambling to his feet, Henkin said bitterly, ‘If only my father and our priest could have known what a fate they were condemning me to! I did want to follow in my father’s footsteps – I swear it! I wanted to build up our business, make it the wealthiest in Marienburg, and instead my life has been a mess! Here I am entering mid
dle age without a wife, without a career, without anything my family hoped I would enjoy! And all because my father was duped into sending me here because I was so unruly and the monastery was called “A Place of Quiet Assembly”!’
‘Quiet it wasn’t,’ roared a distant voice. ‘Not last night, anyway!’
Startled, Felix and Henkin glanced around. Gotrek was emerging from the wrecked temple, axe over shoulder. He must, Henkin reasoned, have been the cause of what he’d mistaken for simple subsidence.
And the dwarf did not look pleased in the least.
Faintly Henkin caught a whisper from Felix: ‘Oh, no…’
But there were things he still needed to know. Urgently he demanded, ‘How did you find out? And why did you come after me? You too could have been ensnared!’
Resignedly, Felix explained.
‘We discovered over dinner that everyone at the inn knew about the monastery – “the Monstery”, as they call it. With that, we forgot all thought of food.’
‘You mean the landlord could have warned me?’ Rage boiled up in Henkin’s throat.
‘Of course he could! But he looked forward to inheriting your luggage.’ Brushing dust from crest and eyebrows, the dwarf sat down beside Felix and inspected his axe, cursing under his breath.
‘Why, the–’
‘Save your breath,’ Felix cut in. ‘Gotrek made him a promise. He knows what’s going to happen to him when we get back if he’s so much as laid a finger on your belongings.’
‘When…?’ Henkin had to swallow hard. ‘But, herr dwarf, were you expecting to return?’
Felix drew a hissing breath, as in alarm.
There was a long silence. Eventually Gotrek shrugged. In a tone so different from the one Henkin had heard during yesterday’s coach-ride that it was hard to credit the same person was speaking, he said gruffly, ‘Last night didn’t pay off, but it was one of the likeliest chances to have come my way. For that, I’d even forgive someone who lacks a sense of humour! If I hadn’t picked up such a charge of magic… In the upshot, though,’ he said, glowering, ‘all it’s landed me with is another verse for Felix’s poem and another doom cheated from me!’ He lifted his axe as though to strike Henkin out of his way.
Henkin hesitated. Within him, he now knew, Tzeentch the Changer of the Ways held sway but had not yet conquered. Very well! If Tzeentch’s disciples could control their mutable nature long enough to delude the world into imagining they served the rigid Solkan, could he not govern himself at least for one brief moment, do and say the right and necessary thing? One did after all know a little about Slayers…
Resolved, he drew himself to his full height.
‘Gotrek,’ he said, daringly. ‘I heard you sing as you confronted them!’
The huge-knuckled fists tightened on the axe; the muscles of the shoulders tensed; the glare intensified.
‘Herr dwarf! I’m aware how rare a privilege that is! I’ll treasure it!’
The massive hands relaxed, just a trifle.
‘Of course, I shall never, so long as I live, mention the fact to another living soul! Not until your companion has completed his poem – the great work that will immortalise your deeds.’
From the corner of his eye Henkin noticed that Felix, visibly surprised, was nodding.
‘I’m only sorry, herr dwarf, that my unworthy self could not after all be the means of your attaining your ambition!’
Had that gone too far? By now he was practically gabbling.
‘If you’ll accompany me back to the inn, although we must have missed the morning coach, I promise you we shall pass the time until the next most pleasantly, with abundance of food and ale at my expense, and you may tell me all the jokes you wish and I’ll applaud the verses Felix makes about your deeds here today!’
For a moment Henkin imagined he might have won Gotrek over. But then the dwarf shrugged again, rising. Words could not portray the mask of misery he wore.
‘What’s the use? You humans care only about your own miserable lives. When Felix composes his account of what happened here, he’ll miss the point, as usual… Ah, never mind. It was a good fight, at least. So I’ll take you up on the ale. It does beat water. All right, let’s get on back to Schrammel.’
Felix failed to suppress a groan.
But, since there was no better bargain to be had – and since last night not merely a life had been saved, but a soul – Henkin and he fell in behind the dwarf and duly trudged back to the Mead and Mazer.
Kineater
Jordan Ellinger
An outraged shriek pierced the chill night air, and Felix looked up from where he sat by the caravan’s cook-fire. From the pitch of the shriek, he guessed it was Talia, and not her older sister. The two Kislevite women had been at each other’s throats since their carriage joined Zayed al Mahrak’s caravan in Skabrand.
Anya flung open the carriage door and stormed into the snow. Slim as a rail, and with none of the feminine curves Felix had come to associate with northern women since his time with Ulrika, Anya was only slightly less beautiful than Talia, who pursued with her hands outstretched almost into claws, her face twisted into a snarl.
Anya stomped away from her sister, then lost her footing on the icy ground and nearly fell. Picking herself up, she suddenly noticed the ring of drovers and guards who regarded her from around the fire, many cradling wooden bowls filled with an aromatic Arabyan stew. Most stared, but big Akmal – no stranger to the serving wenches and harlots of Pigbarter – hooted lewdly. Embarrassed, she straightened and assumed a regal pose only to be bowled over moments later by her sister.
‘This should be interesting,’ muttered Gotrek from where he sat next to Felix. Much to old Zayed’s distress, the dwarf had broached a half-keg of Pigbarter ale – a brew that the Slayer had pronounced weak but palatable – and was well on his way to finishing it.
It was good to see him take an interest in anything beyond the bottom of his stein, thought Felix. They had seen virtually no action since Zayed had hired ogre mercenaries as additional escorts in Skabrand, and Gotrek had fallen into something of a depression. Notorious places like Deathgate Pass and the Fallen City had passed without so much as a goblin raid, and the Slayer had begun to believe that the gods were conspiring against him. As much as Felix was embarrassed for the two Kislevite noblewomen who howled and scratched at each other like alley cats, he was glad to see his friend shake the cloud that had been hanging over him.
‘How dare you write that, you bitch,’ cried Talia, wrestling with her sister like a common street urchin. She gathered a double handful of snow from the ground nearby and mashed it into Anya’s face. ‘You daughter of a whore!’
‘She’s your mother too, you drunken fool,’ Anya sputtered. Sliding on the snow, she shoved her sister aside and then regained her footing.
Talia clumsily rolled to her feet, swaying slightly. Apparently, Felix mused, Gotrek was not the only one deep in his cups. The younger sister’s cheeks were as red as those of a brewmeister at the Festival of Sonnstill. She cursed richly in the Kislev language, then snatched up several wooden bowls from the food table and made as if to throw them.
Anya had come to her feet nearly as fast as Talia, but instead of shielding herself, she paled and simply stared open-mouthed at the mountainous shadow which loomed behind her sister.
Noting her surprise, Talia turned as well.
Vork Kineater, one of the few ogres that Felix could identify on sight, watched them from the shadows just beyond the firelight. A mountain of flesh nearly ten feet tall, he dwarfed a nearby caravan wagon. Thickly muscled arms bristling with coarse hairs were folded over his chest. A plate of crude metal the size of a man was secured to his torso by leather straps that girded his grossly distended belly. Kineater was apparently the leader of the ogre mercenaries, a position Felix suspected he’d earned through sheer bulk.
The brutes hadn’t been with the caravan long, and old Zayed had given them strict orders to camp well away from the
wagons so that they would not be tempted by the thought of a midnight snack of horseflesh. That an ogre – their leader no less! – had approached this close was a dangerous sign.
Felix rose, his hand instinctively finding Karaghul in its sheath, and sent a quick prayer to Sigmar that the ogre had merely wandered into this area of the camp by mistake. He was about as willing to fight an ogre as he was to have a double helping of Zayed’s stew.
Kineater chuckled deep in his throat, an action that made his belly bounce like a tub of cheese curds. Arrogantly, he rolled his hand, as if he were watching gladiators and not noblewomen. ‘Keep fighting,’ he said, the words mashed by the yellowing tusks that jutted out from his protruding lower jaw.
Talia darkened like a storm and screeched, upending the bubbling stew pot with a two-handed push. The effort unbalanced her and she stumbled backwards, hitting Kineater’s prodigious belly, and collapsed. She coughed once, and then retched all over the ogre’s sandaled foot.
Nearly every man present winced. No one made a sound.
Kineater backed away, a confused expression on his face. He lifted his foot and shook it, unable to see beyond his gut plate, but clearly feeling the warm vomit slide between his toes. Another of the mountainous creatures had come up behind him, and Kineater turned, pointing at his foot.
‘She shared food!’
Anya rushed to her sister’s aid. The ogre turned back towards them, leaning down with a snot-encrusted face, a string of saliva hanging from his grizzled jaw. To her credit, Anya stood steadfastly before him, supporting her sister with an arm around her waist. Her refusal to cower before him seemed to anger Kineater.
‘She shared food!’ he roared.
‘Enough!’ Gotrek snatched up his axe and stomped across the campfire until he was standing in front of the ogre. The dwarf was many times smaller than the huge brute, but a tattooed Slayer with axe in hand was intimidating enough to give an avalanche pause. ‘How can a dwarf drink with all this noise? You’re souring my ale!’
