by David Guymer
A breathtaking sense of loneliness pervaded the place, not that of an old man or a friendless warrior, to which Felix could relate, but that of a being that by its nature had no equal. The very stones that he stood upon now had once felt the tread of a god. It was an awesome, humbling feeling, and one that Felix would hesitate to call pleasant. He remembered when he and his father and brother had taken to the streets to witness the coronation of Karl Franz. He had caught a glimpse of Sigmar’s mighty hammer, Ghal Maraz, during its presentation to the new Emperor and the feeling he had now was similar to what he had experienced at that moment.
Insignificance, but married to a counterintuitive sense of collective importance, a physical connection to something ancient and powerful.
With an effort, he pulled his thoughts away from the divine and looked up.
The sleek mass of Unstoppable hung conspicuously against the violet sky, an uncanny combination of sun and starlight glittering from her gun-turrets. This wasn’t the first time that Felix had experienced such altitudes. There were peaks in the Worlds Edge Mountains which – as any dwarf would tell anyone – made all others resemble bumps in the ground, but he had never seen a sky like this. It was more than just altitude.
Some other force was at work here to thin the barriers between worlds.
Malakai Makaisson was halfway down the swaying rope ladder, laden with enough of an arsenal to take the peak by force twice over if he had to. The longrifle that Felix had experienced the business end of during their accidental encounter in the Middle Mountains was slung over one shoulder. With the other elbow, Makaisson pinned an enormous multi-barrelled, crank-operated handcannon to his side. A satchel that the engineer had rather gleefully informed him was filled with bombs bounced against his back. A brace of heavily modified pistols was buckled at his hip and a small axe hung from his belt by a thong.
Felix didn’t want to meet the thing that would warrant the axe.
Following some distance above the engineer came Gustav Jaeger, climbing cautiously in full armour, the wind pulling plaintively at his ponytail and wolfskin cloak. Behind him came a string of frighteningly well-outfitted and intense-looking men. When the last of Gustav’s company had their boots on the ground, Makaisson tugged twice on the ladder, then threw a salute with the barrel of his longrifle towards Unstoppable’s prow.
The airship pulled slowly up and away. The stony emptiness of abandonment crawled up in its place.
‘Over here, manling.’
Felix turned towards his companion’s voice and gave a start. His hand dropped to his sword hilt as one by one the soldiers looked around and cried out in alarm. Makaisson swung up his longrifle, only to turn it down into the ground with an exclamation of what sounded like surprise.
Facing Gotrek was another dwarf, although quite possibly the strangest-looking one that Felix had ever seen. Blue, red and purple spiral tattoos covered his bald head and a row of metal rings pierced his jaw in place of a beard. He was wearing what looked like a toga, but which clinked as he slipped out from between the line of statues into the plaza. Closer inspection revealed it to be a weave of bronze ringlets rather than cloth. Gotrek held his axe up warningly. The strange dwarf halted and stared, apparently fixated upon Gotrek’s weapon. He pointed at it.
‘Ahz.’
Felix turned, bemused, to Gotrek who shook his head.
‘It’s not Khazalid, manling. Or no strain of it that I’m familiar with.’
‘I didn’t realise there were dialects of Dwarfish.’
Gotrek snorted, not taking his eye off the stranger. ‘You’ve never been to Kraka Drak, have you?’
‘He said axe,’ said Makaisson, haltingly. ‘Ah think.’
‘Ahz!’ the stranger repeated.
‘Aye, very clever,’ Gotrek grumbled, tightening his grip and drawing his weapon nearer to his chest as though anyone could be fool enough to try and take it from him.
‘You can understand him,’ Felix murmured to Makaisson from the corner of his mouth.
‘Ah wouldnae say tha’ exactly, but ma hame is a bit oot o’ the wye too and it sounds a wee bit similar.’
‘I thought that dwarfs didn’t change like that,’ said Gustav.
‘They don’t,’ said Gotrek flintily. ‘That should tell you how long they’ve been cut off up here.’
‘They–’
Felix looked up to note that, as they had been talking, more monkish dwarfs had shuffled into view. At least a dozen, but no more than twenty. Fewer than there were statues. Gotrek’s ears were, of course, sharper than his and the Slayer had likely marked their approach some time ago. Felix wished that he could be reassured by his companion’s diffident attitude to finding himself surrounded in a strange citadel by an even stranger force of dwarfs.
A place, lest he forget, that they had both been told would be the Slayer’s doom.
The newcomers closed in with a metallic shuffle, murmuring, pointing at Gotrek and also occasionally at Makaisson, often with some kind of whispered argument involved.
‘Everyone lower their weapons,’ said Felix, raising his hand slowly from his scabbard and trusting to Gustav and his nervous men to do the same. The last thing anyone needed right now was a sweaty finger on a pistol trigger.
Makaisson held his longrifle across his thighs. He turned slowly about, pausing to listen to snippets of conversation before moving on. His face was a grimace of concentration. ‘They’re all sayin’ somethin’ tae dae wi’ a prophecy. Somethin’ aboot their ancestors’ lang wait. And Grimnir.’ He cocked his head intently and turned halfway around. ‘And the End Times.’ His grimace tightened still further, then he shook his head. ‘Ack, ah cannae follow it all. Ah wish they’d all stoap whisperin’.’
Gustav nudged Felix in the ribs and nodded urgently towards the temple.
A powerfully built dwarf was descending the steps. He was massively broad. A bronze breastplate shaped into an impossibly well-defined musculature was strapped over his ringmail toga. A purple cloak hung from his shoulders. The elaborate tattoos on his bare head depicted an epic struggle between dwarf and daemon. The dwarf in particular was remarkably well rendered, and his tattoos showed a near-identical scene: the battle continuing, as in the temple entablature, seemingly without end. In one bear-paw of a hand the newcomer held up an axe that could have been an exact replica of Gotrek’s own. Strapped to his back and covered by his cloak but for the handle and the rim of the blade was another, equally large, that could have been its twin. Even Felix could see that these were both lesser blades. Masterfully forged though they undoubtedly were, they were weapons of common steel rather than the starmetal that had gone into the making of Gotrek’s mighty axe. The runes engraved into them seemed to be symbolic, ceremonial maybe, rather than brutally functional.
The whispers ceased as the dwarf – some kind of an abbot, perhaps – reached the bottom step. There he stopped, shoulders back and axe upheld as though it were the personal standard of an emperor, appraising the company of men and dwarfs with eyes like pommel stones.
‘Khzurk a garak. Uruk ak a Grimnir.’
Gotrek swore. Like Felix, he had been under the unfair expectation that the leader of these dwarfs would speak in a form they could all understand.
‘He welcomes Grimnir’s heir tae his fortress,’ Makaisson translated after a moment’s thought. ‘And he wants tae ken which o’ us it is.’
Felix glanced between Gotrek and Malakai. The two Slayers traded looks and Makaisson chuckled.
‘Ye dinnae actually think it’s me dae ye?’
With a shrug, hard face as emotive as fresh-hewn stone, Gotrek strode towards the abbot. There was an excited whisper of approval from the watching dwarfs that made the hairs on the nape of Felix’s neck prickle. He couldn’t help but feel that there was more going on here than a few poorly translated words of archaic Khazalid could convey. Without
thinking about what he was doing, Felix drew his sword and fell into step behind his companion.
‘Rhingul!’ barked the abbot, throwing up his free hand to bar Felix’s approach with a dark-haired fist the size of a paving slab. ‘Kilza al elgrhaza ak hukan za!’
Despite the intensity of the dwarf’s words, Makaisson grinned broadly. He began to chuckle.
‘What did he say?’ Felix hissed.
‘He said the elf will huv tae wait here.’
‘Elf?’
Gotrek growled, unamused. ‘These dwarfs must have been up here since the passing of Grimnir. When their ancestors built this fortress, manling, Sigmar’s twenty-times great-grandfather was living in a cave on some elf princeling’s estate.’
Felix had thought his mind had acclimated to the scales of time he had had to deal with of late, but still relentless reminders of how ancient this place was made his head spin. These dwarfs had been standing vigil on this spot all this time. They pre-dated the Empire and like true dwarfs they had outlasted its fall.
All for this moment.
For Gotrek.
For a moment Felix feared he actually was going to pass out. Breathe, he reminded himself again. He wished with every aching fibre of his heart that Max could have been here to see this moment. The wizard had been right. By every god there had ever been, he had been right.
Gotrek made a series of pointed gestures with his axe and grunted something in his gravelly native vernacular that clearly put across the point that this ‘elf’ went where Gotrek said he went. The stern-faced abbot managed to look genuinely taken aback for a moment, then bowed and stepped aside. His brother monks hurried forward with a rustle of bronze to form a procession to line the route to the temple.
No question then where they were heading.
The most ominous-looking building in the entire fortress.
Felix turned back momentarily to clasp his nephew’s arm in his. It was a warrior’s shake, hand to elbow, unsentimental, but both men seemed to find it a little difficult to let go.
‘We’ll hold the fort until you get back,’ said Gustav, his lightness only exposing the cracks in his voice. He waved towards the cloud sea. ‘You know, just in case.’
‘We’ll be back before you realise we’re gone,’ Felix returned.
He couldn’t say why, but he knew that neither one of them believed him.
The inside of the temple was too large to be accounted for by its external dimensions. Hundreds of huge pillars as broad as oak trees ran in rows in every direction. The only light source was the angular, axe-stroke runes that glowered from the square sides of the columns and the hazy, uncertain walls. Trying to look at the walls made Felix’s eyes water and his mind want to fold inside out. The floor appeared to curve slightly upwards as it approached them, as if at some unimaginably distant point left would overlap with right, the ceiling becoming a floor, and so on for infinity. Felix put a hand over his eyes and followed the Slayer. Their footsteps echoed around him.
‘Gharaz uk azaki,’ said the abbot gravely, sweeping his arms around the surreal environment and clearly under the misimpression that he was imparting something of dire import. Felix wished they had brought Makaisson with them, but the monks had seemed quite reluctant to let even Felix pass the threshold. It had taken another round of elaborately articulated threats from Gotrek on his behalf to prevent the monks from taking his weapon at the door.
‘Zhorl,’ said the abbot, apparently satisfied and turning to walk back the way they had come.
Felix watched him go for a moment, then sighed nervously and looked around. There didn’t seem to be any other way out. His skin felt hot and he pulled at the collar of his cloak. ‘Are you sure you don’t understand any of what he just said?’
‘Are you sure you don’t speak Arabyan?’
Felix bit his lip and glanced back. The doors ground shut, coming together with a resounding knell. There was the sound of locks being turned and bolts being drawn. Felix was half-expecting to hear heavy objects being piled up against the door and actually felt a little disappointed when it didn’t happen.
‘That sounds ominous.’
‘You worry too much, manling.’ The Slayer gave his surroundings a hard look, as if to subjugate them into more solid form with dwarfish opprobrium alone. His lips drew back to expose a snarl of yellow, broken teeth. ‘Come out, whatever you are. My axe thirsts.’
Felix tensed on instinct.
The Slayer’s booming shout resounded between the pillars, but rather than fade away it grew louder, echoes overlaying, strengthening, feeding itself until it became something greater. The pillars thrummed a basso vibration, as if the infinite dimensions of this temple had been designed to serve as the voice box of a titanic mountain god.
‘WHY HAVE YOU COME HERE, SLAYER?’
Felix clamped his hands to his ears and screamed, his legs buckling under the auditory assault. The voice was not communicating in any language that he understood, and yet every word was delivered firmly and defiantly into his brain.
Gotrek stuck his finger in his ear and wiggled it about, then stuck out his jaw and shouted back: ‘I heard there was something here worth having, though I’m yet to see it.’
‘AND YOU BELIEVE YOURSELF WORTHY OF THE BIRTHRIGHT OF GRIMNIR’S HEIR?’
‘Are you saying I’m not?’
A low rumble reverberated through the floor, setting Felix’s organs to quivering like jelly. He had the horrible feeling that it was laughter.
‘YOU ARE FAMILIAR WITH THE SLAYER OATH.’
‘Of course I am,’ Gotrek grunted, running a meaty palm through his crest with a leer. ‘This isn’t for show.’
‘RECITE IT TO ME.’
Gotrek ground his teeth, the thick muscles of his neck bulging. He threw a cornered beast look towards Felix.
Felix hesitantly uncovered his ears. ‘What’s the matter? You do know it, don’t you?’
‘Of course I know it,’ Gotrek snapped, making Felix wince. His one-eyed gaze swept the columns, a caged bear hunting its tormentor. His voice sank to a low growl. ‘But I’ve never said it aloud before.’
Again that subterranean rumble greeted the Slayer’s remark. The red-gold rune-glow grew marginally brighter. ‘NEITHER DID I.’
‘And who are you, mountain?’ Gotrek demanded, eye narrowing.
The laughter sank into the stones, the voice rebuilding like a clap of thunder. ‘RECITE IT TO ME.’
Gotrek snarled dangerously, raising his axe as if to lash out at the first thing that came within reach, then suddenly lowered his arms and bellowed at the top of his lungs: ‘I am a dwarf! My honour is my life and without it I am nothing. I shall become a Slayer. I shall seek redemption in the eyes of my ancestors. I shall become as death to my enemies.’ Gotrek clenched his fists over his axe and stared challengingly into the rune-lit temple. ‘Until I face he that takes my life and my shame.’
Felix listened with increasing discomfort as the Slayer spoke, aware that he was a party to something intensely personal, and likely something that no human before him had ever heard. At the same time, he sensed a shift in the flows of power that ran through the temple, like water being siphoned off from some mighty dam.
For what purpose, Felix could only guess at.
The rune-light flickered.
‘And you expect to find such a one here, my son?’
Felix spun around, startled. The voice this time did not boom from every quarter, but instead emerged from the throat of a very ordinary-looking dwarf who had appeared behind them. His overalls were workmanlike and his big hands calloused and stained with grease. His dark brown beard petered down to his thick waist, his hair cropped roughly close into a bowl shape as if to make a better fit for a miner’s helmet. The hue of his eyes however, the set of his nose, the angle of his jaw, all reminded Felix of Gotrek.
The Slayer twisted his head half around, his deep growl catching halfway up his throat.
‘Do you know him?’ Felix asked.
‘Gurni Gurnisson,’ said Gotrek sullenly. ‘My father.’
‘That’s your father?’
‘Don’t be daft, manling. Of course it’s not my bloody father.’
Stung, Felix clamped his mouth shut and backed away from the two dwarfs. Or the dwarf and the… apparition? Avatar? If he was honest, Felix had no idea what stood in front of him right now. He had even less idea about what it wanted.
‘But I am, Gotrek,’ said Gurni, a terrible sadness breaching the stoicism in his eyes. ‘Denied the Ancestors’ Hall by your disgrace, doomed to wander this world as a revenant shade. But you are my blood and this place will be the death of you if you continue. I beg you, please, turn back before it is too late.’
Gotrek shook his head, his own expression a granite mask set into a permanent scowl. ‘I am no longer your son. I have forsaken my home, my family, my name. Only a worthy doom will return them to me.’
‘And if you fall in dishonour, what of me? There will be no other. You are the last of the line of Gurni.’
Gotrek looked to his axe and glowered. Felix thought he knew what the Slayer saw there. Snorri Nosebiter had described to him the scene that the goblin raiders had left of his home, of his wife and daughter.
‘Don’t I know it,’ said Gotrek.
‘What then of your king?’ asked Gurni, taking a step forward and raising his voice to shout. ‘The hold of your ancestors is beset on all sides and will soon fall. You are but one dwarf, I know, and maybe even your axe would make no difference, but your place is there.’
‘I have no place until I lie in the ground,’ said Gotrek. He glanced sidelong towards Felix, lips curling up into a harsh smile. ‘And I’m sick of wandering about.’
