[Gotrek & Felix 10] - Elfslayer

by Nathan Long - (ebook by Undead)

  “I swear to that as well,” said Felix.

  Euler glared down at them, but finally sighed and waved a hand. “Fine. I agree to those terms.” He motioned to his men. “Throw down a ladder.”

  A few minutes later they were all aboard, standing on the deck and shivering in the cold breeze. Claudia leaned against Max, her lips blue and her limbs shaking, but Euler had yet to offer them any food or shelter or dry clothes.

  He stood in front of them with his arms crossed above his round belly. “Now then,” he said. “Who stole this treasure and where did they go?”

  Felix looked at Max and Aethenir. They nodded.

  “It was dark elves. They sank our ship and headed…” Actually he couldn’t be sure where they had headed, but Euler had come from the south and would have seen them if they had gone that way, so north was a safe bet. “They headed north. Our seeress can divine their location if,” he said pointedly, “she doesn’t die from exposure first.”

  “Dark elves?” said Hans, hesitant.

  His men looked uneasily at each other.

  “Not a war ship,” said Felix hastily. “A scout, smaller than your own ship.” He coughed, then lied through his teeth. “They carry enough elven gold to repay you for your house and buy another just like it, as well as provide handsome shares for us and your men.”

  Euler fingered his chin, thinking. “One ship?” he asked.

  “One ship,” agreed Felix.

  “Any wizards?”

  “Not a one,” said Felix. It wasn’t technically a lie. Sorceresses were different than wizards, weren’t they?

  After another second, Euler nodded. “Very well, Herr Jaeger, but if you have deceived me in this, I will find some other way to make you pay” He turned to his men. “Find quarters and food for them.” He turned away, then glared back at Felix. “Bring me the word of the seeress as soon as she learns their location.”

  Felix bowed. “Of course, Herr Euler.”

  When evening mess was served, Gotrek, Felix and Claudia brought their plates to Max and Aethenir’s lantern-lit cabin to discuss their plans. Only the elves and the wizards had been given private quarters, probably more out of fear than hospitality. Gotrek and Felix had had to find places on deck to sleep, for none of Euler’s surly crew would give up an inch of hammock space below.

  Now they were all wedged into a cramped little cabin with two narrow cots along the side walls. Felix sat on an overturned bucket by the bulkhead. Gotrek stood near the door, legs braced wide.

  “I don’t believe,” said Max, between mouthfuls of beef stew and peas, “that Herr Euler will be very pleased when he learns we have deceived him.”

  Felix ate greedily as well. Whatever his shortcomings as a human being, Euler did not skimp when feeding his crew. The food was easily among the best Felix had ever had on board a ship.

  “Who cares?” grunted Gotrek.

  “I do, dwarf,” said Aethenir with a sniff. “If this man is our only way home once we have wrested the harp from the druchii, then we cannot afford to anger him.”

  Gotrek sneered as he shovelled a hunk of beef into his mouth. “After what you did, you should be ashamed to go home. A dwarf would have shaved his head and sworn to die.”

  “I am prepared to die,” replied Aethenir, raising his head and trying his best to look noble. “But I am also prepared to live, and continue to make recompense for my crime.”

  “Such a shame demands death,” said Gotrek.

  Aethenir shook his head pityingly. “That is why the dwarfs have fallen. Their greatest warriors are always shaving their heads and killing themselves.”

  Gotrek lowered his wooden spoon, glaring dangerously at the high elf.

  Max coughed. “Friends, please, if we could return to the matter of Captain Euler. Some of us have no great shame to be expunged and would like to return from this journey alive. Have you any suggestions?”

  For a moment there was nothing but the sound of chewing.

  “We can’t fight his crew without casualties,” said Max at last. “And we can afford no more casualties.”

  “Could we take the druchii ship?” asked Felix.

  Max shook his head. “There are too few of us to crew it.”

  Claudia looked up from the bowl of stew that she cupped in both hands. Her eyes were still dull, but the colour had returned to her cheeks. “Could… could we make sure the druchii ship sank?” she asked. “So that Captain Euler would think the treasure sank with the ship, and would not know we lied?”

  Felix nodded, approving. The girl was quick—mad, of course—but quick. “It would be surer than facing them hand to hand.”

  Aethenir, however, was frowning. “Sink the ship? And lose the harp?”

  “Isn’t that the general idea?” growled Gotrek.

  “Are you mad, dwarf?” cried Aethenir. “A treasure like that cannot be lost again. There would be much we could learn from it.”

  “Being a student of history, scholar,” said Max to the high elf, “you must certainly know that treasures like that have a way of being used for terrible things, no matter the intentions of those who preserve them. Perhaps it would be best to let it sink.”

  “But what guarantee is that?” the high elf asked. “The druchii raised it from the sea once. What is to stop them from doing it again?”

  “You won’t tell them where it is next time,” said Gotrek dryly.

  “Will you leave off, dwarf!” snapped Aethenir. “I am doing what I can to amend the fault.”

  “How would we do it, though?” asked Max, forestalling Gotrek’s reply. “Euler would be suspicious if he saw any of us deliberately trying to sink it.”

  “Some spell, perhaps?” asked Felix.

  Max’s brow wrinkled as he thought. Claudia pursed her lips, but in the end they shook their heads and the others returned to thinking.

  “Well,” said Max when no one came forwards with a suggestion. “We will think more upon it. Go and sleep. Perhaps the answer will come to us in the morning.”

  As he was following Gotrek up the stairs to the deck, Felix felt a hand on his arm and turned. It was Claudia. She looked up at him, biting her lip.

  “I seem always to be apologising to you, Herr Jaeger,” she said finally.

  “Er, there’s no need,” said Felix, edging back.

  “But there is,” she insisted. “I was vile to you this morning, and I feel terrible about it. I snapped at you when you were only asking about my welfare.”

  “Oh, it was nothing,” said Felix, taking another backwards step up the stairs.

  “But it was. I could see how I had hurt you. And yet. Her voice caught in her throat. “And yet, when the waters came crashing in, you picked me up and carried me to safety, though you were grievously wounded. Such selflessness, such charity in the face of my rude behaviour…”

  “Well, I couldn’t let you drown, could I…?” Felix tripped as the next step caught his heel. He stopped himself as Claudia reached to catch him. They ended up very close.

  She looked up at him with her wide blue eyes, smiling shyly. “I have caused you considerable anger, pain and embarrassment, Herr Jaeger, but I believe you were beginning to warm to me before all this. Captain Euler has given me a private cabin. If you would like a more comfortable berth than the deck…”

  “Ah, I wouldn’t actually,” said Felix, sweat breaking out on his brow as he backed up onto the first step. “Thank you all the same. As delightful as I find your company, I don’t think that either of our reputations would survive a repeat of last night’s events. Now, if you will excuse me…”

  “It doesn’t happen every night,” said Claudia, pouting.

  “Yes, but if it did,” said Felix, still backing up. “All in all, I think the risk is too great.”

  Claudia’s eyes began to burn into him with an unsettling keenness.

  “Not that I don’t appreciate the honour,” he continued. “But, er, it’s for the best, I think, don’t you? Good nigh
t.”

  And with that he fled to the main deck, feeling her angry gaze upon his back all the way.

  * * * * *

  Gotrek and Felix bedded down on the foredeck, laying out their bedrolls on either side of the cages that held the ship’s goat and chickens. The barnyard stench was enough to make Felix’s eyes water, but they were out of the way of the crew and, more importantly, for Felix anyway, out of Claudia’s reach.

  Felix stretched his cloak across the rail and the cages to make a little tent over his bedroll before he lay down, for the night was cloudy and cold and there was a chilling drizzle wetting the deck. The goat stared reproachfully out of its cage at Felix for a while, but then lost interest and curled up in its nest of hay.

  Felix found it difficult to sleep. The day had been so full of terror and danger that he hadn’t had a moment to think, but as he lay there, all the thoughts that fighting for his life had pushed from his mind now flooded back and preyed upon him. Was his father unharmed? Did he still live? What had the skaven done to him? He wanted desperately to get back and learn the answers to these questions, and yet, in the heat of the moment, he had convinced Euler to go the other way, chasing after the dark elf ship. Knowing the scope of what the sorceresses intended to do, he knew it was the right thing to do. The needs of the many outweighed his need to discover his father’s fate, but it was still agony to be sailing in the opposite direction from Altdorf.

  Part of his concern for his father was undoubtedly guilt. He had wished the old man dead on many occasions, and now that it was possible that he actually might be, Felix felt responsible, as if one of his petty wishes had come true. But it wasn’t just that. He truly was responsible, for the skaven had undoubtedly visited his father while hunting for him and Gotrek. Gustav Jaeger—if he was indeed dead or hurt—was just another victim of the plague of vermin that had been trailing Felix since Altdorf—which was only a lesser strain of the epidemic of mayhem and bloodshed which followed Gotrek and Felix wherever they went. Truly, he thought, it was probably best for the Empire that we stayed away for twenty years. The land would likely have half its current population had we remained.

  At last exhaustion won out over worry and guilt, and dragged him down into a dark and anxiety-haunted sleep.

  He woke again, as he had the morning before, to nearby rustling in the dark, and at first his foggy mind thought that it must be Claudia again.

  “Really, Fraulein Pallenberger,” he mumbled. “Your tenacity is alarming.”

  The rustling stopped and he heard a grunt that sounded very little like Claudia. He froze and opened his eyes. It was still night, and very dark, but a faint yellow flicker reached him from the lanterns hung on the main deck, giving him just enough light to see by.

  The first thing that he saw was the goat, almost eye to eye with him, and staring at him again. Felix let out a relieved breath. It had only been the goat. Then he paused. The goat had not blinked. And it was lying on its side. And it had a rusted metal star sticking out of its throat. And blood was soaking the straw beneath it. From somewhere nearby came another muffled grunt and then thrashing and thumping sounds.

  “Gotrek?”

  Through the goat cage he could see flashes of violent movement on the far side. He heard hoarse cries of surprise from the main deck and looked that way. A crewman was slumped across the taffrail, three metal stars sticking from his back.

  “Gotrek!”

  Then he heard the rustling again, directly behind him. He twisted around. A black shape with glittering black eyes crouched by the rail, clutching something in its bony little hands. The hands darted forwards and the something was jerked down over Felix’s head.

  Felix gasped and inhaled a horrible smell—the smell from the glass globes the skaven had used. Immediately his head started to swim and his limbs began going numb. A horrible seasick nausea made his stomach roil. He cried out and swung his scabbarded sword. There was an impact and he heard a squeak and a thud. He snatched the bag off his head and staggered up, falling against the goat cage. His hands and face were sticky with the foul, narcotic paste.

  The skaven assassin was up as well, and reaching towards him with hooked metal claws curling out over its true claws.

  Felix threw an unsteady foot out and booted the creature in its narrow chest. It squealed and toppled backwards over the side of the ship. But three more skaven took its place, carrying ropes with what looked like fish hooks on the ends. The vermin seemed to distort and stretch as they approached. In fact, the whole ship was twisting and melting around him like it was made of hot wax.

  Felix stumbled back, his gorge rising, as the world swam around him. On the far side of the goat cage, Gotrek was on his feet, legs braced wide, slashing around with his gore-smeared axe and struggling to pull a bag from his head while scrawny black shadows capered around him, swinging the barbed ropes at him. Unfortunately for the Slayer, one of the ropes was wound around his neck, pulling the bag tight. Incoherent roaring came from within. Three black forms lay dead at his feet, their guts spilling across the deck.

  Sharp pains stabbed Felix’s arms and legs, bringing him back to his own predicament. Fish hooks pierced his clothes. Another bit into his bare wrist as he tried to lift his sword to cut them away. The dancing black shapes wobbled and oozed like they were behind warped glass as they wrapped him up in a cocoon of ropes.

  Felix surged towards them with the slowness of a dream, the acrid smell of the drug paste filling his nose. Pain erupted all over his body as the hooks dug deep into his flesh, but it felt like it was happening to someone else. The shadows squirmed out of the way, wrapping him tighter and dragging him towards the rail. He struggled feebly, fading in and out of consciousness, and seeing the chaos around him in a series of long blinks, surrounded by moments of blackness.

  In one blink, he saw Euler’s crew running in panic from skittering black shapes as big as dogs. In another blink, he saw spindly shadows carrying something wrapped in a bed sheet as the last elf warrior fought towards them through a crowd of spear-wielding ratkin. In a third blink he saw Gotrek drop to one knee, using his axe to hold himself up, the leather bag still tight around his head. In a fourth blink, he saw Claudia running out onto the decks in a nightdress, anguish in her eyes as Max tried to hold her back.

  “I saw it!” she wailed, fighting to get free of him. “I saw it! Oh, gods, forgive me!”

  In the next blink the night clouds were above Felix, and he felt his feet go out from under him. The disorientation made him vomit all down the front of his chest. Hard little hands were lifting him over the rail, and he saw more rising to take him as he was lowered, upside down, towards the waves.

  The last thing he saw before unconsciousness swallowed him was a glinting green shape humping up out of the water like the back of a verdigrised brass whale. The beast had a huge black blowhole in the centre of its back, and skaven were crawling in and out of it like ants.

  Felix puked himself awake, the rising of his gorge so painful in his raw throat that it tore him from the leaden grip of unnatural sleep. It was the worst waking of his life.

  The first thing he was aware of, beyond the dripping of sputum down his chin, was the throbbing in his head. It felt like someone was slowly and methodically cutting into the back of his skull with a carpenter’s saw. His vision pulsed in time with the throbbing, going from dim to painfully bright with each thud of his heart. His mouth tasted like an orc’s armpit, and his body ached from head to foot—most particularly his arms, which seemed to be drawn back so far behind his back that he could barely breathe. His ankles throbbed too, and he couldn’t feel his feet at all. The pain of it all made him wish he had stayed unconscious.

  When his vision cleared somewhat, he saw a puddle of filthy water below him, floating with what looked like a film of fur. The view did not improve when he raised his head. He was in some sort of low-roofed metal room, the walls and ceiling crawling with grimy pipes and strange brass reservoirs that sprouted taps a
nd spigots from every surface. Every bit of it looked like it had been salvaged from a dwarf engineer’s rubbish tip. Rats fought over something in one corner.

  The room was nearly as hot as the pouring room at the Imperial Gunnery School at Nuln, but as humid as a jungle of the Southlands. Water sweated from the pipes and dripped from the ceiling, and from all around came a howling, booming roar that made the room—and Felix’s head—vibrate horribly.

  Then Felix heard a familiar grunt to his left. He turned his head and nearly vomited again, for the movement had triggered what felt like an avalanche of boulders inside his skull. When he could breathe and think again, he blinked away the tears and looked left.

  Gotrek was beside him, his huge arms bound tightly behind him around a heavy, corroded brass pipe. His ankles had been bound as well, in such a way that his feet did not touch the ground. There were deep cuts and gouges all over the Slayer’s body, and his beard was clotted with blood and filth. His head hung low, but Felix could see that he was conscious, and looking around the room with his single eye.

  A third figure hung limply from another pipe beyond Gotrek—Aethenir. He was less battered and bloody than Gotrek, but just as covered in filth, and with a purple bruise on his left cheek that bled at its centre.

  None of them had their weapons.

  “So, you live, manling?” said Gotrek.

  “Aye,” said Felix.

  Gotrek looked up at him. Trails of bright green mucus ran from his nose and the corners of his mouth. “I’m sorry to hear it.”

  Flashes of the fight on Euler’s ship returned to Felix’s mind as he tried to work out why Gotrek would say such a thing—rat faces and ropes, Max and Claudia shouting, the elf warrior fighting shadows, claws pulling Felix over the side.

  “The others,” he said. “What happened to them? Do they live?”

  Gotrek shrugged. “Alive or dead, they’re better off than we are.”