Keanu held Grimcrag’s wrist while Jiriki split the bag open with one lightning-swift stroke of his dagger. Gold coins spilled across the table, glinting and gleaming in the light.
“Koppa?”
“Brass my—” Jiriki began.
“Sorcery!” exclaimed the dwarf, looking sheepish, “It was all brass a moment ago, I swear.” Johan could have sworn that the dwarf was shaking, and had tears in his eyes, but he put it down to the smoke which filled the air of the gloomy inn.
The young man drew a deep breath and gave it one more try. He was one of the Marauders now, so they had to listen to him. Johan tried to look stern and authoritative, copying a look he’d seen Grimcrag use to good effect a number of times—usually when confronting ogres or trolls and addressing them as if they were naughty children who deserved spanking.
“Ahem!” Johan frowned for effect. “AHEM!”
Keanu shot the ex-Imperial envoy a glance and involuntarily spat beer across the table. “Vot’s up, jung ’un? Konstipatid?”
Grimcrag was dabbing his eyes with a dirty cloth, whilst trying to regain his composure. Jiriki was putting the last coin away in his pack to be shared out later, but he looked up and grinned at Johan’s posturing.
“Not bad, lad, not bad—now, what’s the story again?”
Seizing his chance, Johan closed his eyes and took a very deep breath, before rattling off as many of the details as he could remember of his chance encounter with the cowled wizard with the twinkling eyes.
“Err… He wants us to rescue a magic item of some sort from the clutches of the monsters—that’s undead and suchlike—from some caves under the Grey Mountains. He’s been after it for years, and it’s all he wants. He has lots of gold and treasure, and the bag is a down-payment. He lives in the big tower on the outskirts of town, and says that if we bring the artefact back, we can keep all the other loot from the dungeon—all he wants is the thing itself!” Panting, Johan finished his monologue and opened his eyes, proud of his powers of recall.
He was sitting on his own at the table. A few regulars stared at him as if he was mad, or had the plague perhaps.
Flushing a bright red, Johan picked up his pack and stumbled for the door, making his excuses as he fled. “Damn them all to hell!” he muttered, buckling on his sword belt and setting off after his companions. He could just make out Grimcrag’s stumpy figure running off at the end of the street.
“Wait for me, you callous bunch of thugs!”
Johan set off in hot pursuit. Well, he knew where they going. As he tore round the corner, he heard the unmistakable voice of an enraged innkeeper.
“Wretched Marauders! Who’s payin’ for all this beer?” Johan Anstein wasn’t stopping. This was his quest, and he was going to be in on it whether the others liked it or not.
The grey-cowled wizard had obviously been expecting them, since he was waiting by the door to his tower. It was a run-down building, perhaps a hundred feet high and little more than twenty feet in diameter. Weeds grew in thick clumps around its base, and ivy crawled up the lichen-encrusted brickwork. No windows looked out any lower than a good thirty feet up the walls, giving the tower obvious defensive capabilities.
From the top, Johan imagined, you could see for miles and miles, at least as far as the Grey Mountains, far off to the north. He also noticed that although the tower looked decrepit in places, the front door was very impressive indeed. Ten feet tall, five feet broad, its dark black timbers and heavy iron surround suggested indomitable strength and near indestructibility. It had so many locks and bolts that in places it was hard to see the wood at all.
“Spose that’s magic-locked too?” Grimcrag had asked with grudging admiration.
“Not at all, not all,” the twinkly-eyed wizard beamed from deep inside his grey hood. “You can’t beat a good set of locks and a strong door. In my experience, ostentatious displays of magic just seem to make the wrong sort… inquisitive, if you know what I mean.” With that, and the jangling of a hefty bunch of keys, they were in.
The tower was gloomy and dusty inside, betraying the fact that it had not really been occupied for some time now. Most of the doors up to the fifth floor were boarded over and nailed shut, and Johan couldn’t help being intrigued and curious. He’d never been in a wizard’s den before, not a real one.
Keanu had stayed outside “To be keeping Guard” but Johan knew that, for all his muscles, the hulking barbarian didn’t much trust the powers of magic, and stayed well clear unless he couldn’t help it. If the stories were to be believed, the only way Keanu liked to deal with wizards was with a sharp blade. However, gold was gold, a job was a job, so the Reaver was “Votchink for Troubles” outside.
“A wizard’s tower, eh, Grimcrag, Jiriki?” Johan’s voice was a muted, awe-struck whisper.
“Poor decor, very dusty, not much of a colour scheme,” the elf muttered, mostly to himself.
“Badly built, needs repointing, I’ve knocked down better,” Grimcrag added from up ahead. “Hold on a minute—how come Keanu had five tens anyway?”
“Yes, but still… oh, never mind!”
Eventually they had reached the top level and emerged breathless into the wizard’s chamber. There, seated amidst the bubbling vats, stuffed animals, astrolabes, ancient books and all the other accoutrements of his trade, the wizard had explained the mission.
It seemed that he had spent his whole life searching for the Finger of Life, a powerful magical artefact, crafted when the world was young and death but a dream.
“Read that somewhere,” Grimcrag interjected at that point. “Go on.”
The wizard explained that this item was a power to heal, to restore, and unspecified Dark Forces had conspired for years to keep it from his grasp. Now he had pinpointed where it rested, yet he was too old to go and wrest it from the powers of darkness. He needed heroes, mighty warriors of great renown, to go and retrieve the Finger of Life for him. He had heard of the great deeds of Grunsonn’s Marauders, and knew that it was Fate which had brought them to this small backwater, south of the Grey Mountains.
“The way will be hard, but think of the greater good! Think of the children to be healed, the starving to be fed!”
“It’s really that good, is it?” Jiriki inquired languidly as he peered out of the window in the tower. “Hey, Grimcrag, I can see into young Miss Epstan’s boudoir from here.”
“That good and better, young man!” exclaimed the kindly old wizard, ignoring the elf and concentrating on Johan. “You see these boxes?” He threw a stout chest open, so that sunlight glinted on the contents within. Johan gasped: he’d never seen so much gold all in one place. The wizard noticed his shock and grinned. “All as nothing compared to the Finger of Life, believe me.”
Grimcrag coughed and tried to maintain his composure, but when he spoke his voice shook a little. “Take it off your hands if you like, I can see it’s, erm, cluttering the place, and filling all your nice boxes too. If you like, that is…” His voice trailed off as the wizard flung open another chest containing a myriad assortment of gemstones. “Gggn-ngh…”
“A pretty speech, Grimcrag, but motivated by gold-lust rather than concern for my storage facilities I fear, eh?” The old man laughed at the dwarf’s obvious discomfort.
“Well, I just thought—”
The wizard swept his arm dismissively around the chamber. “The Finger sits in such company as makes this little lot worthless, and you, my friends, may have it all. All I want is the Finger.”
“Lots of treasure then?” Grimcrag had that pensive look that usually preceded a new adventure. Johan crossed his fingers behind his back. It looked as if Grimcrag was on board at least. The wizard nodded.
“Plenty of orcs and other hellspawn to test the mettle of my Ulthuan-crafted blade?” Jiriki leant out of the window, looking straight downwards, his words a careless whisper. The wizard nodded. Johan exhaled with relief; he’d thought that the elf would be the hardest to convince. Jiriki looked
over his shoulder, staring the wizard straight in the eye. The old man nodded again. After a moment, the elf shrugged and looked out of the window once more. This time he shouted: “Hey, Keanu, can you hear me down there?”
“Ja! Vot’s happenink?” The unmistakable voice drifted faintly upwards. “Is jung Anstein turning into a Toad yet?”
“No, my friend. We just wondered if you fancied liberating a fortune in jewels and gold from some of the greenskins you hate so much?”
There was a brief pause.
“Ja! Of course! Vot schtupid Qvestion!”
The minotaur bellowed and roared as it charged down the narrow underground passageway. Johan backed away fast, holding his sword in front of him. During his years of schooling to be an Imperial Envoy, he’d obviously missed the “Minotaurs: Etiquette and Handling Thereof” lessons. His sword looked ridiculously puny, even to himself. Still, if he was going to die, he might as well go down in a way worthy of one of Grunsonn’s Marauders.
“Come on then, come on then!” he shouted, inwardly preparing for a painful demise.
The minotaur grunted and slowed to a stop. Its head swung slowly to and fro as it sniffed the air warily. Its teeth were still bared, but it obviously wasn’t quite so keen to face Johan as a few seconds previously.
Anstein blinked, and regarded his sword with new respect. Perhaps Grimcrag had given him a magic one by mistake. He waved it at the minotaur again for good effect. “You want some? YOU WANT SOME?”
The minotaur growled loudly and backed off towards the darkness from where it had emerged scant seconds earlier. To the young adventurer, it already seemed as if hours had passed since he’d first seen the beast. Time moved like glue.
“Urrr… you craven coward, come taste my blade!” Johan took a step forward, much emboldened.
This was obviously too much for the massive beast, as it turned tail and fled into the darkness. Johan heard its cloven hoofs beating a rapid tattoo on the rough stone floor. He was just sheathing his sword, in pride and relief, when Grimcrag, Jiriki and Keanu came hurtling around the corridor.
“Hey, did you see that, I just…” Johan’s voice tailed off in terror.
The Marauders were looking at him with open horror and revulsion, and Johan could see what was coming—these were trained warriors who reacted first and regretted their actions later. Well, sometimes.
“No, it’s all right. It’s me—Johan!” he shrieked, wondering if somehow he had been enchanted to look like a fearsome creature. This was crazy. It was also much too late. As if in slow motion, Johan saw two arrows flash from Jiriki’s bow, even as Keanu hurled a wickedly barbed spear, and Grimcrag’s massive axe hurtled through the air. Even under the circumstances, Johan had to admire their reactions.
Still in slow motion, he backed away, dropping his sword in abject terror. The missiles crossed the short space between them. Johan mouthed silent curses. The axe glinted in the air.
Johan’s improvised escape stopped abruptly as he backed into something big and hard. Something that growled. Something whose foetid breath touched him for a split second. Something whose beady red eyes regarded him balefully in the instant before it was simultaneously decapitated by a large axe, pinioned by a spear and spitted by two arrows to its black heart.
With a growling gurgle and a fountain of viscous black blood, the immense troll collapsed and died, one viciously clawed hand dragging Johan down with it. His desperately flailing arms caught a knobbly projection of rock, which came away in his hand. Hitting his head hard on the granite floor, the last thing Johan heard was a dull grating, rumbling sound. Even as he passed out it occurred to him that they may well all be about to die.
A booted foot prodded Johan Anstein in the ribs. Callused fingers tugged roughly at his jerkin. Foul, caustic liquid was forced down his throat. A harsh voice shouted at him in a barely understandable tongue, as powerful and (from the smell) none-too-recently washed arms wrenched him moaning to his feet. Even in his groggy haze, and with his head smarting badly, Johan knew that something awful was about to happen. Maybe everyone else was dead. Maybe he was the last of the Marauders.
He blinked and tried to stand unaided, swaying dizzily but determined not to give his captors the satisfaction of seeing his weakness.
“Vot you think, Grimcrak, not holt his Liquor?”
“He’ll be alright, had a nasty knock on the head. Go easy on the lad,” Jiriki said.
“Knock some sense into him perhaps.”
“Not now, Grimcrag, the lad’s done fine by us so far, give him credit,” the elf chided. “We’d not have found the concealed door otherwise.”
Waving away another slug of the noxious brew Grimcrag was toting, Anstein looked slowly about him. He quickly ran his hands over his bruised body, checking that nothing was missing. Apparently not. A thought trickled sluggishly through his battered brain. It eventually came to rest.
“What concealed door?”
As one, the Marauders stepped aside to reveal a large portal, where before there had been only a rock wall. Evidently the piece of stone Johan had grabbed as he fell had been some kind of hidden trigger mechanism.
“Are you sure it’s the right one?” Anstein asked nervously. “I’ve seen what happens when you lot go poking around for treasure behind secret doors.”
“You’ve got the map, young ’un,” Grimcrag grunted, still affronted that Johan didn’t want any of his beer, “and all the other stuff from the wizard too.”
“Let’s just open da verdamten Door, ja?” Keanu enthused, drawing his sword.
Grimcrag began to smile, and a split-second later he had his savage axe firmly gripped in both hands. “OK! Let’s maraud!”
“Hold it, hold it!” The elven voice cut the air. “Johan’s right for once.” Jiriki was squinting at the inscriptions on the doorway. “These are very old and powerful runes, and we don’t want to break them without good reason.” He traced their shapes with a slender finger. “Very good reason indeed.”
Grimcrag peered at the symbols, muttering under his breath. “Good workmanship this. Old. Powerful.” The dwarf turned to Johan. “OK, young ’un, get the stuff out, let’s be ’aving you. Who knows what’ll be along in a minute?”
“Ja, Monsters, Dragonz even!” the Reaver chipped in enthusiastically, looking at the dark recesses in the narrow passage, perhaps to spot any lurking behemoths they had missed earlier.
Johan reached into his backpack and pulled out a selection of objects given them by the wizard. One was an old map, which Johan rolled out on the stone floor and weighted down with some bits of troll. The warriors hunched over the map, illuminated by the flickering light of their torch.
Johan carefully packed the objects away again one at a time. He had a bag to hold the Finger of Life when they found it. There was also a simulacrum of the artefact, to be placed exactly in the spot where the Finger rested. Apparently it contained enough power to paralyse the guardians whilst the Marauders made their getaway. This bit had worried Johan a great deal, nervous as he was about powerful artefacts and cursed guardians, but he feared to say anything as the other warriors had taken the announcement in their stride.
Johan had also been given a magical talisman, which would re-seal the runes on the doorway—if the accompanying instructions were closely followed. That bit had worried him too, but the others had pointed out that if push came to shove even Grimcrag could run pretty fast. Finally, there was the agreement signed by the wizard that any other treasure they liberated was theirs to keep: all he wanted was the Finger.
“OK, this is definitely the place, I’ve got the gear. Let’s do it.”
“Vot’s da plan then?”
Grimcrag scratched his bearded chin thoughtfully. “Well, in my experience, places with secret doors—ones which are magically locked by old and powerful runes, mind—spell two things.” He paused a moment and counted on his stubby fingers. “The main one is treasure. Gold.” At the thought, his eyes closed wistfully for a
few moments.
“And the second?” Johan prompted.
“Ah, the second…” Grimcrag scowled and looked fierce. “That’ll be all the hideous monsters defending the gold, all destined to die by my blade!”
“Und mine also!”
Jiriki looked heavenwards, arms folded. He tapped his foot impatiently. “And the plan is?”
Grimcrag beamed. Jiriki began to grin. The Reaver’s barking laugh cut the dank air.
“We all know the plan, don’t we? It’s the same one we’ve always used,” Grimcrag said politely, before lowering his voice to a rumbling, menacing rasp. “We goes in, we kills ’em all, we takes the loot, we legs it. Gottit?”
“Clear as a bell, my friend.”
“Ja, Kunnink!”
Johan blanched in terror. “Is that it? Shouldn’t we at least—”
But it was too late. Grimcrag and Keanu rolled back the great stone doors, ready to rush the inevitable horde of monsters. Jiriki had an arrow nocked, the string on his fine elf bow pulled taut.
A moment later and they were all reeling back in shocked surprise. Rather than the expected flood of zombies, Chaos creatures, orcs or worse, they were completely blinded by a burst of pure white light. The brightness threw the tunnel into stark whiteness, and the Marauders fell to their knees, their hands covering their eyes. The torches they carried were dropped, to gutter and die on the floor, but no one noticed, such was the intensity of the light streaming from the long-sealed cavern.
Johan hurled himself to one side of the stone doorway, where he lay panting in terror. After a moment he found that he was, surprisingly, still alive.
Johan blinked. “It’s just light!” he called out, standing up warily and dusting himself down. Shielding his eyes and peering around the doorway, he saw the others walking into the light, black silhouettes against the brightness.
Tales of the Old World Page 31
