Marriage of Moment

by Josh Reynolds

  ‘Gotrek,’ Felix shouted.

  ‘I saw, manling,’ Gotrek said, hurrying towards them.

  ‘Don’t look at it, highboots,’ Esme whispered harshly, grabbing Felix’s hand and pulling his torch down. ‘The sight of Jabas drives folk mad.’ She nodded to the whimpering halfling.

  ‘Aye, turn around, manling,’ Gotrek flipped his hand absently, his eye locked on the shape on the ceiling, ‘No need to watch this, it won’t be a minute. I’ll just chop its heart out and we can get back to finding the Moot-rat. With Metternich gone, that map’s all ours.’ His face was set in a tight grin, and his one eye was narrowed in anticipation. He ran a calloused thumb across the edge of his axe and stuck the crimson digit into his mouth.

  ‘Gotrek–’ Felix began, but Esme forced him to turn away.

  ‘One side, manling, there’s a god that needs killing. I’ll need the elbow room,’ Gotrek said, stomping past him. ‘Ho, beast, come and get me! I’m not planning to spend all day searching for you in this oversized rock garden!’

  And then Jabas came.

  Felix only caught a glimpse of the thing, but that was enough for him – there was something of the bat about it, and the insect and the frog, amongst other more abominable things. It was malevolence made into flesh, and its cry pierced his skull like a blade. Felix dropped to his knees, his hands clapped to his ears. It fell upon the Slayer like a bolt from the blue, a sudden strike of scales, talons and teeth. A serpentine tail, dotted with bony boils, slithered swiftly about the Slayer, seeking to ensnare him in its slimy coils. Gotrek’s roar was muffled by the bulk of the creature as it crouched over him, its scales glittering in the torchlight.

  Felix, on his knees, heard the wet thunk of Gotrek’s axe and the scrape of scales on stone as he pulled his hands from his ears. He heard the Slayer bellow hoarsely, and the thing responded in kind with a sort of gibbering shriek that made Felix’s flesh itch. He felt wrong somehow, as if the thing had infected the air about it with madness. Felix could feel that madness clawing at the edges of his mind. He had seen many horrific sights in his time with Gotrek – sights that would have blasted the mind of any other man – but he knew, with an atavistic instinct, that to see the thing that the Shandy worshipped would be to go stark, raving mad. He felt the vibration of the battle through the stone floor. He caught the guttural snarl of Gotrek’s laughter cut short, and heard flesh part beneath cruel talons. Fear gripped him. If Gotrek fell, how long would he and Esme last?

  Desperate, Felix drew Karaghul and saw movement reflected in the unnatural sheen of the blade. It wasn’t ideal, but it would have to do. He’d heard stories of creatures that could kill with a glance, and of men who’d slain them while looking at a reflection, rather than the thing itself. He whispered a quiet prayer to Sigmar and hurled his torch across the room, over the combatants.

  Fortunately, even with the light, all he could see in Karaghul’s length was a black smudge. The thing’s tail suddenly lashed out, carving a lengthy gouge in the wall of the room. Felix ducked and twisted, barely avoiding being pulped. He sent Karaghul humming upwards to chop into the snaky length of muscle and alien meat. Bile-like blood spattered across him, burning his flesh and charring his jerkin and cloak. The thing gave an abominable screech that set blisters of black to pop across Felix’s vision. Momentarily blinded, he lashed out again, cursing as more acidic blood struck him, leaving red marks on his hands and face. A flailing talon struck him, scratching down his jerkin and nearly snagging his mail. He staggered back.

  Gotrek bellowed and cursed, and the flash of his axe filled Felix with hope. The Slayer didn’t seem to be suffering from any beast-induced insanity. Then, perhaps he was already mad. He caught a glimpse of a curling horn and saw that Gotrek had gripped it and hauled himself onto the thing’s back. It rolled over, trying to crush the Slayer. Its bulk struck the wall of the chamber with a dull crunch, but the Slayer was more nimble than his shape implied.

  As the creature’s malformed skull swung away, Felix risked a look and saw that Gotrek was clinging to the front of the beast’s skull with limpet-like tenacity, gripping its horns, his brow pressed to a point between its eyes. His axe was buried – apparently stuck – in the wattles of scaly flab that ringed the thing’s neck. Before Felix’s horrified gaze, Gotrek reared back and brought his forehead down with a sound like a stone smashing an egg. The creature’s rear limbs skidded out from under it as it gave a piercing whine. Gotrek struck it again, his forehead slamming down like a smith’s hammer. Its tail snapped out spasmodically, striking the walls and filling the air with debris.

  Felix ducked under the tail, but, in the process, tripped over the mad halfling. The latter shot to his feet, shrieking madly, and flung himself at Felix, pudgy fingers hooked like claws. Felix rolled across the floor, trying to dislodge the biting, spitting, wailing halfling. As the crazed creature bit at him, Esme suddenly appeared behind him and wrapped one arm around her would-be suitor’s throat and jerked him off. With a grunt, she slung the other halfling into the side of the cistern. The crazed halfling struck the stone and bounced forward, right into Esme’s fist. He fell. Felix rolled to his feet and flung himself at Esme, scooping up the halfling and carrying them both away from the flailing tail. Its bony protrusions snagged his cloak, tearing it. As he bobbed to his feet, Esme in his arms, he saw that Gotrek’s face was red with blood, and thin plumes of yellow bile-smoke rose from his brawny frame where the thing’s blood had spattered him.

  The Slayer had torn a horn from the beast’s skull and was using it as an improvised club, battering the thing senseless. It slumped against the wall, shrieking. The shriek rose in decibel as Gotrek tossed the horn aside and lunged to grab the haft of his axe. Muscles bulging, Gotrek ripped the axe loose and brought it down hard enough to split flesh and bone and crack the stone floor beneath. The ugly head bounded loose from the stubby neck and pinwheeled across the floor, jaws still snapping. The bloated body seemed to deflate, and hissing, churning yellowish blood spewed from the stump, striking the wall and floor and sending up a thick cloud of smoke.

  ‘Ha,’ Gotrek said, stepping back. He swept the blood from his face and grinned. ‘I told you. It didn’t take long at all.’ He spat and peered at the wall, which now had a decided hole in it. ‘Ha! I knew it!’ He pointed. ‘Look, manling! A secret tunnel,’ Gotrek said. ‘That’s how they did it, the little sneak-thieves. I should have known. I’ve never met a halfling who didn’t cheat.’

  Before Felix could stop him, Gotrek had clambered over the creature’s body and through the hole its stinking blood had melted through the stone wall. Felix looked down at Esme, who was staring at the beast’s body in shock, and perhaps a bit of fear. He patted her shoulder helplessly. ‘I’m… sorry?’ he tried.

  ‘Jabas is dead?’ she said softly.

  ‘Unless he’s one of those gods who comes back to life, almost certainly,’ Felix said, picking his torch up.

  ‘Come on, manling! There’s gold to be claimed!’ Gotrek bellowed, from the other side of the hole. Felix moved towards the carcass and gingerly climbed up it, helping Esme do the same. The body was settling in stages, slumping and falling inward, as if whatever passed for its blood was devouring it from inside out. Even dead, it was no less nausea inducing than before. Climbing up its haunch, he noticed what looked like blisters pushing through its scales. Curious, he stabbed one with Karaghul. Something horrible latched onto his blade, and a thin whistling cry stabbed his ears. Something moved in the fluid discharge, and he caught the glint of wet scales. Cursing, Felix twisted his blade and bisected the tiny monstrosity. He looked at the other blisters – there were dozens now, and more seemed to be forming. ‘What in Sigmar’s name is this thing?’

  ‘My folk call them zakikdum – “the madness that walks”,’ Gotrek supplied cheerfully, blood still running down his face into his matted beard. ‘I’ve heard your folk call them jabberslythes. They usually haunt marshes. Not hard to kill, but hard to get rid of. Leave thos
e blisters be, manling. Otherwise we’ll have a pack of the things nipping at our heels. They don’t breed so much as moult.’

  Feeling distinctly queasy, Felix joined Esme and Gotrek in the tunnel. Gotrek was already moving. ‘I can smell gold. Come on,’ the Slayer said.

  The tunnel was on a downward slope, and Felix wondered whether they could use it to get out. He didn’t think Shandeux was going to look kindly on them for killing his god. He looked down at Esme padding beside him and wondered what she was thinking. Was she worried that the creature had done for Stefano? He made to comfort her, when suddenly they were stepping out of the darkness and into bright torchlight.

  ‘Stefano,’ Esme shouted.

  A heavy-set halfling was on the floor, lying amidst a slick of gold spilled from several chests. It wasn’t much by Felix’s reckoning. Barely a baron’s ransom, let alone a king’s. The halfling – Stefano – was pinned to the floor by Rodrigo’s boot, and the Estalian gazed at Gotrek with wariness. Esme tried to run to her lover’s side, but Felix held her back. Felix realised, with a sinking sensation, that Rodrigo wasn’t the only guard in the room. There were a dozen of them. The trapped halfling twisted around and said, ‘Esme! I told you I could find the treasure!’

  ‘What’s this, then?’ Gotrek rumbled, hefting his axe for emphasis.

  ‘Just a bit of a miscommunication,’ Stefano said, grabbing at Rodrigo’s boot.

  ‘Miscommunication nothing, you little sneak-thief,’ Rodrigo said. ‘You tried to cheat us. We don’t take kindly to that.’

  Gotrek stepped forward, and the guards tensed, readying their weapons. Rodrigo took his foot off Stefano, who scrambled towards Esme, babbling explanations. Felix didn’t bother to listen. He could see what had happened easily enough. Stefano had obviously known about the passage and had led Rodrigo and the others to the gold. ‘Esme and Metternich weren’t the only ones with a plan, were they?’ he said.

  Rodrigo grunted. ‘Stefano was worried that Metternich would betray them. Wisely, I’ll admit, given that he’d already made a deal with us to take all of the treasure for ourselves. All we had to do was find the map.’ His eyes turned hard. ‘But there was no map. The little thief was trying to cheat us.’

  Gotrek growled wordlessly. ‘No map, is it?’ He glared first at the halflings, and then at Rodrigo and his men. ‘Then I’ll take the gold, until I find it.’

  ‘Over my dead body,’ Rodrigo snapped. ‘I want something for my trouble.’ His men were already scooping what little gold there was into sacks. ‘Even if it’s not the hoard I was promised.’ His eyes flickered past Gotrek. ‘Where is Metternich anyway?’

  ‘Dead,’ Gotrek said and grinned. ‘Care to join him?’

  ‘Watch your mouth, dwarf,’ Rodrigo said. ‘There’s more than enough of us to handle you, Slayer or not. We’ve fought our share of berserkers in these mountains.’ His men stopped scooping up gold and drew their own swords. Gotrek laughed.

  ‘Aye, maybe so,’ he said. ‘But you’ve never fought me.’ Then the Slayer was hurtling forward, as if propelled from a cannon. His axe spun in his hands, stirring a whirlwind of destruction amongst the startled guards. Men died screaming as the dwarf rampaged among them, bellowing happily as he lopped off limbs or bisected bodies.

  Rodrigo, who was no fool, had dodged the dwarf’s charge. He scrambled towards Felix and the halflings, his sword extended. ‘I’ll settle you little rats at least,’ he snarled and lunged. Felix drew Karaghul and blocked Rodrigo’s blow in the same motion. They sprang apart instantly and faced each other warily. Rodrigo yanked a dagger from his belt. His eyes narrowed. ‘Altdorf school, eh? Liechtenaur, single-sword style, isn’t it?’ he said, commenting on the way Felix held his blade.

  Felix grunted in surprise. ‘Yes, and you – that was a textbook de Carranza estocada, if I’m not mistaken,’ he said. ‘A powerful thrust, but easily countered by the Adler versetzen.’

  ‘As you demonstrated, and from the sheath, no less. Very impressive,’ Rodrigo said, smiling slightly. ‘A swordsman, then. There are few of us in these lands. Mostly hack-and-hew amateurs.’

  ‘The way certain people use blades is quiet distressing, I will admit,’ Felix said. ‘It’s all power and no finesse.’ He raised Karaghul in both hands to the side of his head, the point aimed at Rodrigo.

  ‘Says the man employing Blum’s Ochs guard,’ Rodrigo said, ‘and at close range to boot!’

  ‘I may have gotten a bit sloppy, but I’m not the one using a Carrancistas technique with a Pachequistas extension,’ Felix said haughtily.

  Rodrigo grunted, and Felix smirked, knowing he’d scored a point. The man looked at the dagger in his hand and frowned.

  ‘You wound me, and rightly,’ Rodrigo grated. He smiled ruefully. ‘It will be nice to ply my trade against a true master of the subtle art for once. Ready yourself, for now we–ack!’ Rodrigo’s eyes rolled up and he sank down, clutching at his back. Esme stood behind him, a dagger in her hand.

  She looked at Felix in apparent disgust and shook her head. ‘Do all humans talk so much before they fight, or just you?’ she said.

  ‘Ha! I’ve yet to get an answer to that particular question,’ Gotrek said, ripping his gory axe free of the last guard. The dwarf had butchered twelve men in as many minutes, and was obviously feeling cheerful. He snatched up a bulging bag of gold and slammed it into Stefano’s arms, nearly knocking the halfling over. ‘Come, manling, let’s grab what we can and leave this midden-heap before the stink of the dead gets all over my gold.’

  Felix sheathed his sword sourly and did as Gotrek bade. Between the four of them, they managed to gather all of what remained, though Felix was sure that the two halflings had secreted some of it about their persons while Gotrek was otherwise occupied. Felix said nothing. There was more gold here than he and the Slayer could comfortably carry, and it served Gotrek right, given the trouble he’d put Felix to in this ill-advised venture.

  Then, with Stefano in the lead, they began to move up the hidden corridor, back towards the keep. Stefano kept up a steady stream of babble the entire way. ‘I found it entirely by accident, you know. But I was smart enough to keep the old man from finding out. I’ve been pilfering gold for a few months now, but we needed more than I could carry if Esme and I were to live comfortably,’ he said, as they approached the featureless slab of a door that marked the entrance to the secret tunnel from the keep. He reached out a stubby hand and touched a seemingly ordinary stone in the wall, and the door swung open on unseen hinges. Gotrek sniffed, unimpressed.

  ‘I’ve seen beardlings build better secret doors,’ he muttered as they stepped out. Felix saw that they were in the chamber outside the maze with its great portcullis. A thought occurred to him and he glanced at Esme.

  ‘How did you and Metternich get in there, anyway, if not through that door?’

  ‘A question I will most assuredly find the answer to in time,’ said an unpleasantly familiar voice. Stefano gave a yelp and dropped the bag of gold he’d been carrying, which split upon impact sending coins rolling in every direction. Felix’s hand froze on the hilt of his sword as he saw the semi-circle of guards waiting for them, crossbows at the ready.

  Shandeux sat on a rock nearby, smoking a pipe. ‘That’s six you owe me, Emil,’ Shandeux cackled, slapping his knee and looking at one of the crossbowmen. ‘I told you the dwarf would do it. He’s a mean one, I said.’ Shandeux looked at Esme and clucked his tongue. ‘Such a lack of gratitude, girl,’ he said. ‘After all I’ve done for you.’ Esme glared at him. Shandeux’s gaze came to rest on Felix. ‘A cuckold before you’re even married, hey, big fellow?’

  ‘Quiet, crook-back,’ Gotrek rumbled. ‘We’ve passed your little test. I’ll be taking my reward, now.’ He made to pick up the bag Stefano had dropped, but the twitch of the crossbows in the guards’ hands caused him to hesitate. Gotrek wasn’t frightened, Felix knew, but getting punctured by a bunch of backwoods guards wasn’t exactly a fitting doom.

  �
��So this was what – a game? You knew what Esme and Metternich were trying to do, didn’t you? That’s why you didn’t bat an eye when Gotrek and I showed up,’ Felix said, trying to distract them. Gotrek might survive – he’d done so against worse odds – but it wasn’t the Slayer that Felix was concerned about. ‘What was the point?’

  Shandeux shrugged. ‘Not much to do in the mountains,’ he said, sucking on his pipe. ‘You’ve got to make your own fun.’

  ‘And what about the beast?’ Felix asked.

  Shandeux grinned. ‘My guard-dog, you mean? It was here when old Shandy first arrived, lurking in these vaults. It had made this crag its lair. It was while he was running from it that my ancestor found the kernel of this trove of wealth,’ he said, swinging out an arm. ‘My ancestor tricked it into these corridors and sealed it off, hoping it would die. No such luck, though. Damn thing just kept living, year after year, century after century, scrabbling around these darkened corridors, eating anyone stupid enough to come in. That’s why they built the outer keep, to put as much distance between themselves and it.’

  ‘And over time, they came to believe that it was a god,’ Felix said. He could hear something, like the skittering of rats. Something was moving through the tunnel.

  Shandeux cackled. ‘It does something to your head, even at a remove. Most of those who came with old Shandy went a bit barmy after a while. Those who weren’t eaten, I mean. And the barmy ones were easy to convince, and the others either got religion or got fed to the beastie. Send it a few meals a year, and it stays quiet, mostly. We’d run out of family members quick, if we fed it from our own ranks, so my old gran hit on the idea of sending out for – heh – suitors. It’s stood us in good stead since. Only some of us knew the truth. It kept us safe, y’see. Kept everyone here, where Shandy could keep an eye on them and keep them out of harm’s way. Besides, if they’d known what it really was, they might want to divvy up the gold and leave – and we couldn’t have that.’