A key turned in the lock and the door swung open. Four druchii guards, armed with drawn swords, filed in and stood to either side. After them came a whip-wielding overseer leading six strong-looking slaves. Two of them were dwarfs, one gnarled and greying, the other very young, who carried a huge metal cauldron between them, hung from chains hooked to a long metal pole that they bore on their broad shoulders. The other four slaves were human, and they split into pairs and walked down the length of the cell carrying torches and prodding any of the prisoners that didn’t move.
Gotrek growled, deep in his throat. Felix looked around to see what the matter was and found the Slayer staring at the dwarfs.
“What’s the matter?” whispered Felix.
“Dwarf slaves,” rumbled Gotrek. “The most despicable creatures in the world. They are without honour.”
Aethenir looked up at that. “Surely even a dwarf can’t blame someone for being captured by slavers.” He smiled sadly. “We ourselves are guilty of that.”
“A dwarf should die before capture,” Gotrek snarled. “And no true dwarf should live as a slave. He should kill himself first.”
He spat, then sat with his knees up, glaring at the dwarfs, his single eye glittering balefully Felix decided it was wisest to keep silent on the subject, and watched them too.
The dwarfs carried the cauldron to the raised bench and then tipped it so that the contents spilled into it. Felix recoiled as he realised what was happening. The bench was in reality a food trough. They were being slopped, like pigs.
A thin grey gruel flowed down the channel and the prisoners scooped at it with their hands as it passed, daubing it into their mouths and gulping it down. Even proud Euler and his crewmen mucked in with the rest, elbowing weaker men and women out of the way. It didn’t seem enough to feed them all, and it wasn’t. When the dwarfs had emptied the first pot, they went out and carried in a second pot and spilled that down the trough as well.
Felix knew that there would come a time when he would be fighting for a mouthful of the muck just like all the others, but just now it turned his stomach and he stayed where he was. Gotrek and Aethenir seemed similarly disinclined to try it.
As the dwarf slaves finished pouring the slop into the trough, the human slaves continued their examination of the prisoners. If a prisoner didn’t respond to their prodding, they kicked him. If there was still no response, they grabbed him by the wrists and dragged him to the door.
Felix’s heart leapt when he saw this. Here was the way to escape! All they had to do was play dead and they would be taken out of the cell! His heart sank again when he saw the overseer take out a curved dagger and cut the throat of every prisoner the slaves brought to him, before allowing them to take the body out the door. So, they had thought of that one. He sighed.
The dwarf slaves went out again and returned with a third cauldron on their shoulders, but this one they did not immediately pour. Instead they waited at the end of the trough, and Felix took the time to study them. Both were strong, and both had their hair cropped to patchy stubble. They had beards too, but only just. These had also been trimmed to little more than an inch all over. Not since poor Leatherbeard had Felix seen more naked-looking dwarfs. They wore breeches and filthy aprons, but no shirts or shoes, and their eyes were as dead and emotionless as those of zombies.
After a moment, the overseer cracked the whip over his head. “Hurry up, you filthy cattle!” he cried in Reikspiel. “I’ve twelve more cells to feed!” The prisoners at the trough flinched and scooped faster.
Haifa minute later, the overseer decided he had waited long enough and snapped his fingers. The two dwarf slaves lifted the last cauldron and tipped it into the trough. This time it was water that rushed down the trough, and the prisoners stuck their faces down into it and guzzled greedily.
Felix’s thirst got the better of him and he shoved forwards. He couldn’t yet imagine eating the food, but he needed water desperately. Gotrek and Aethenir joined him, and they squeezed to the trough. Other prisoners whined and complained when he shouldered past them, but he was too thirsty to care. He stuck his head down in the trough and sucked at the thin current of water that ran down the channel. He had never tasted anything so good in his life. Gotrek and Aethenir slurped on either side of him. They sounded like pigs. It didn’t matter. Water was all that mattered.
With the last cauldron empty and the last corpse dragged from the cell, the slaves and the overseer went back out through the door, followed by the guards with drawn swords. Then the door swung shut with a clang, and Felix heard the key turn in the lock.
Gotrek raised his head from the trough and glared at the door, and Felix wondered if he was thinking about how difficult it might be to break through, or how many of the guards he could kill before they raised the alarm.
“Filth!” barked Gotrek. “Kissers of pale arses. Your ancestors disown you.”
After the prisoners had drunk and licked the trough clean and settled back to their places, Felix asked the woman who had told him about the salt water how often they were fed.
“Twice a day,” she mumbled. “Leastways, it might be. No telling the days now.”
Felix thanked her and turned to his companions. “We have to talk to the slaves,” he said.
“The dwarfs? Never,” growled Gotrek.
“The dwarfs or the humans,” Felix insisted. “They’re our only way of finding out what’s going on beyond the door. They might be able to tell us where the corsair captain lives. Where Max and Fraulein Pallenberger are.”
“And where the Harp of Ruin is,” said Aethenir.
“I’d sooner kiss a troll,” sneered Gotrek.
Felix sighed. “Well, I’ll talk to them.”
A few hours later, Felix began to regret not eating. It wasn’t that the cell did anything to arouse the appetite. The reek of unwashed bodies and human waste was nauseating, the cold wet air made him shiver and sweat at the same time, and the constant pestering of the flies was enough to drive him mad. He felt fevered and close to vomiting, yet his stomach wouldn’t be denied. He tried to remember the last time he had eaten. It had been before the skaven had captured them. Had that been two days ago? Three days ago? His limbs trembled with weakness just sitting there. He snapped awake several times, never realising that he had fallen asleep.
At last, several hours after Felix had given up hope of the overseer ever coming again, the sound of rumbling wheels woke the prisoners and they rushed to the trough. This time Felix, Gotrek and Aethenir joined them. Felix fought forwards to be the closest to the food slaves. It wasn’t easy. Weak as he was, he was stronger than the other prisoners, whose confinement and poor diet had wasted them away, but there were more of them and they were just as desperate as he—a scrabbling mass of frenzied skeletons. Felix was elbowed in the face and kneed in the ribs as he shoved closer. They squirmed around him and under him like sickly wolves.
Then suddenly, his path was cleared. A woman with mottled bruises all over her naked arms and legs was plucked out of his way. A man in the uniform of the Marienburg coastal patrol was dragged back. Felix looked around. Gotrek had entered the fray, picking prisoners up and putting them firmly behind him. The Slayer didn’t look at Felix, but he seemed to be making sure that Felix would get an opportunity to talk to the slaves. Felix said nothing. Speaking of it might anger Gotrek and make him change his mind.
With the Slayer’s help he bellied up to the trough right at the end, closest to the door, harvesting a crop of dirty looks for his pains. Gotrek and Aethenir were right next to him. Euler and his crewmen, the strongest men on the left side of the pen, were directly across from him.
Euler smiled wickedly at him over the trough. “Decided to join us for dinner this time, have you?”
Felix opened his mouth to speak, but just then the key turned in the lock and the guard and the overseer filed in, followed by the human and dwarf slaves.
He waited anxiously as the slaves carried the first cauldron
to the trough, its chains creaking as it swung from the pole they shouldered. To his relief, the slaves were the same dwarfs as last time. They stepped forwards and tipped the contents of the cauldron into the trough. Felix paused as he reached down to scoop up his first mouthful. Hungry as he was, he almost backed away.
It was thin oat gruel, more water than meal, but had that been its only sin, Felix would have dug in with a will. Unfortunately, it was rotten as well, made with mouldy grain, and a sweet reek of mildew rose from it. In addition, Felix could see fat weevils and rat droppings floating in the gruel.
Felix heard Aethenir retch, but Gotrek began shovelling the stuff into his mouth with both hands. Felix did his best to follow his example, though it was an act of will to put it in his mouth and he wished he could have kept it from touching his tongue. More than once he had to fight down the urge to vomit.
He did not attempt to communicate until the dwarfs had poured the second cauldron and returned to wait by the trough with the cauldron of water. Felix shot a quick look at the overseer, who prowled impatiently near the door as he had before, then, as he bent down and pretended to scrape at the last smears of the porridge in the bottom of the trough, he spoke in low tones.
“My friends, we need your help. The fate of your homelands and holds hangs in the balance. We seek the location of the quarters of Corsair Captain Landryol Swiftwing.” Felix risked a glance up at the slaves. They were staring ahead as if they hadn’t heard. He looked down again and continued. “And also where two recently captured human wizards are being held—a man and a girl. If you have any fondness for your old lands, I beg you, bring us this information and—”
A pain like liquid fire exploded across Felix’s back and he reared up, crying out.
The overseer was drawing back his whip for another strike. “No talking, vermin! I’ll have your tongue!”
The prisoners scattered away from Felix like terrified rats. Euler and his men stared at him and backed away.
The overseer lashed out again. Felix put up a hand, but the tip of the whip licked past it and striped his shoulder and neck. The pain made his eyes water, and he instinctively reached out to grab the leather strand and yank it from its wielder’s hand.
Gotrek shouldered him hard and he missed.
The druchii laughed. “That’s it, human dog. Take a lesson from the rock-eater. Fight the lash and die. Obey and live.” He cracked the whip over their heads. “Now back! You’ve had your fill. For today and tomorrow. Neither of you will eat for the next two feedings.”
Felix clenched his fists with pain and rage, but forced himself to lower his head and turn away from the trough. Gotrek and Aethenir followed him. As they sat, Felix cast another glance at the cauldron slaves. Neither of them had shown any reaction when Felix had been whipped, and they remained stone-faced now, staring straight ahead as they tipped the cauldron full of water into the trough. Had they heard? Had they understood? Did they care? Would they do anything? Or were they too scared or too dulled by their years of captivity to try?
The two dwarfs emptied the cauldron, then turned to the door without a backwards glance. Felix waited until the overseer and guards had followed them out and locked the doors behind them, then let out a long-held breath.
From across the room came a cackling laugh. “Serves you right, Jaeger! What were you playing at, you fool?”
Felix looked over and saw Euler and his men grinning savagely at them. He grunted and turned away, probing gently at the whip cut on his neck. “I hope that was worth it.”
Aethenir shook his head. “The slaves will do nothing. They are too cowed. They have lived too long under the lash.”
“And we will have to wait two feedings to learn one way or the other,” said Felix bitterly. He looked at the high elf. “At least you will get to eat tomorrow.”
Aethenir made a face. “A debatable pleasure,” he said.
The Slayer shrugged and motioned for them to return to the trough. “Water is more important than food. Drink.”
* * * * *
Felix wondered how he was going to survive without eating again for a full day. He had managed to choke down only a few handfuls of the miserable porridge, and he was hungry again almost immediately after he had finished it. The thirst was excruciating as well. His head throbbed with it, the pain a dull counterpoint to the singing agony of his whip cuts, which prevented him from leaning against the wall or lying on his back.
When he heard the rumble of wheels again he almost couldn’t bear it. He fought the urge to charge the trough and get as much gruel down his throat as he could before they pulled him away. But he couldn’t do that. If they wanted to have any hope of getting information from the slaves, he had to make the overseer forget he existed.
He wondered if that would be possible. The druchii looked his way as soon as he came in the door, then laughed when he saw that Felix and Gotrek were staying away from the trough.
“Good dogs,” he said. “A slave who is quick to learn can rise high with us. Just ask these fellows.” He turned and slapped the shoulder of the younger dwarf slave as he was pouring the gruel into the trough, causing him to slop some on the ground in surprise.
The druchii hissed and clubbed the dwarf on the back of the head with the brass-pommelled handle of his whip. “Clumsy cur! Dare you waste food?”
The dwarf lowered his head and said nothing, merely continuing to hold the cauldron steady as he poured, though blood ran down the back of his head to his neck. Felix heard Gotrek growl at this, and his fists clenched, but he remained where he was.
After that, the overseer’s anger seemed sated, and he returned to pacing impatiently as the slaves went back for the second cauldron and the prisoners gobbled and slurped noisily at their meal. Felix was disgusted with himself when he realised he was envious of them.
As the dwarf slaves waited with the cauldron of water and the human slaves dragged the morning’s bodies away, Gotrek did a strange thing. He hadn’t moved or said a word since the overseer had struck the young dwarf, but now he leaned forwards and, without looking up, slapped the filthy floor three times, then twice more.
The noise was hardly loud enough to be heard over the noise of the prisoners feeding, and no one seemed to notice. Felix was about to ask him what he was doing but the Slayer shook his head. After a few seconds, he slapped the floor again, no louder than before, and in the same pattern. And then once more a few seconds later.
The third time, for the briefest of seconds, the dwarf slaves’ eyes flicked up, wide, then dropped again instantly. The older dwarf frowned and stared fixedly at the trough, but the younger dwarf’s eyes suddenly looked alive. Felix looked from the two dwarfs to Gotrek, unsure what had just happened. Then he saw the younger dwarf’s finger silently tapping on the rim of the cauldron. Was it the same rhythm, or was it just idle motion? Felix glanced nervously at the overseer. The druchii didn’t seem to have noticed the exchange.
“Don’t look, manling,” Gotrek muttered under his breath.
Felix looked away, though his curiosity was killing him. Gotrek patted the floor again, much softer than before, and in new and different patterns. It reminded Felix of something, but he couldn’t quite place it.
A moment later, the overseer snapped his fingers, and the slaves poured the water into the trough and left, followed quickly by the overseer and the guards. Felix waited impatiently until he heard the lock turn and the rumble of wheels fade away, then turned to Gotrek.
“What was that?” he asked. “What passed between you?”
Gotrek stood and started pushing to the trough. “Water first,” he said.
Felix grunted with annoyance, but followed Gotrek. Aethenir came too, and they all drank as much as they could, as well as scraping up the few meagre grains of gruel the others had left.
When they had finished, Gotrek sat back down near the wall. “The mine code,” he said. “For talking through walls with picks and hammers.”
Felix slapp
ed his forehead. “Yes! I remember now. Hamnir used it to communicate with the dwarfs inside the lost… hold…” He trailed off as Gotrek turned a cold, angry eye on him, and Felix realised that it was the first time he had mentioned Gotrek’s former friend in his presence since they had left Karak Him. Apparently the wound was still fresh. Fear and embarrassment made him flush. “I’m sorry” he said quickly. “I didn’t mean to interrupt. What did you tell them?”
Gotrek gave an angry snort. “I told them that they were cowardly oathbreakers who should have taken their own lives rather than become slaves to elves. Then I told them to tell me where our weapons are, and where Max and the girl and the harp are, the next time they come, or I’d return to their holds and let their clans know what had become of them.”
Aethenir sniffed derisively. “That’s sure to get results.”
“You told them all that in a few slaps?” asked Felix, incredulous.
Gotrek shrugged. “More or less.” He lay down on his side and closed his eye. “Now we wait and see.”
* * * * *
Felix found it hard to be so calm about it. He was restless and jumpy, hunger gnawing at his belly while impatience gnawed at his mind. He started wondering what they would do with the information if they got it. Could they even break out of the cell? With Gotrek’s strength and fighting prowess, he didn’t doubt it, but how far would they get after that? He could not remember the way from the harbour to the slave pens or how many guards were beyond the cell door. His brain had been too fogged with the smoke of the black lotus at the time, and none of it linked together.
[Gotrek & Felix 10] - Elfslayer Page 22
