by David Guymer
‘I do try to be, when I can,’ Morzanna murmured after they had gone, speaking to the frigid air.
‘Your enduring capacity for compassion provides me an eternal wellspring of succour, my child,’ the air answered back. ‘How it pleases me to experience your broken heart and dashed dreams over and over again.’
‘I do not dream.’
Laughter’s echo rang in her ears. ‘I trust that you are ready for the end?’
Morzanna looked up the craggy, barren scarp that stoic Temugan had marked, her gaze following the incline until rock faded into cloud and ultimately disappeared altogether. There was a fortress up there. She could feel the power emanating from it, but even with that to aid her she doubted whether she had the ability to transport more than just herself over so great a distance by magical means. And any fortress of dwarf-make – particularly this one – would have potent runic wards woven into its design to prevent just that kind of solitary raid. It worked both ways, of course, and this particular citadel had been constructed as much with the aim of trapping things within as presenting a defence against those without.
She bared her fangs. It might as well have been on the moon.
‘There is always a way. There must be, for I have seen myself there, as I have seen you. I need time to consider it. There are limits to my skill, Dark Master.’
‘For you, perhaps, but not for me, not here. Here the fabric of the mundane is pierced by the divine. Can you feel it, Morzanna? The End Times begin now, and neither earth nor sky shall ever be as they were again.’
A ripple of power passed through the air, an in-breath that broke over the hollow silhouette of a bat-winged demi-god. The Dark Master was revealed for the briefest of moments before folding back under the surface layers of reality. As with the mountain topsoil, the boundaries between planes were thin here, worn fine enough by the waxing of Chaos that Be’lakor was almost capable of manifesting his own form.
The origins of Be’lakor’s curse of immateriality pre-dated the written word, at least in human culture – but she had seen pictographic slabs buried in prehistoric ruins under the frigid marshes of Albion that alluded to a Dark Master, and read texts unearthed from the elven ruin of Oreagar that purported to be the translation of a proto-Khemrian oral myth, of a champion of such malevolent ambition that he was stripped of his physical form by his god.
Tzeentch himself had done this and now, one layer at a time, Be’lakor was undoing it.
A greater demonstration of her master’s power she did not need, but from the rumble shaking the permafrost beneath her feet she feared she was about to receive one.
This one wasn’t for her. This was for the world.
The ground had begun to shake, stones running downslope until, as the force of the quake intensified, great boulders were torn from the mountainside and sent crashing down. The sound of several thousand men crying out in unison momentarily overwhelmed even the shaking earth. Morzanna turned towards the muster ground, looking on in mortification as one of the mountains, across which columns of men were still marching, shook itself apart. Millions of tons of rock collapsed in on itself as though its foundation had just been ripped away. Men were still screaming, but it was no longer possible to hear them over the crash of rock. Another mountain split up the middle and fell apart, town-sized slabs of earth tumbling away. Morzanna stood speechless.
To whom did one pray when gods walked amongst you?
The ground lurched, almost hurling Morzanna from her feet. Her slight build spared her. Hundred of tribesmen and horses were less fortunate, tossed aside as another peak at the far south end of the valley vented the phenomenal internal strain with a magmic eruption that blasted its summit apart. Morzanna dropped, sinking her claws down to the permafrost and feeling the ground’s tormented shudder. It bucked, throwing Morzanna up and then rising up to meet her. She slammed back down, still rooted by her claws, and then looked up.
The Kazad Drengazi mountain was falling away before her eyes, but it wasn’t collapsing.
The valley was rising.
She had heard of cabals of the ancient Slann conducting such earth-shaping rituals, but never had she believed that any individual alive today could perform them. Be’lakor’s power waxed with the onset of the End Times, and with his proximity to the daemon gate locked away within the Slayer Fortress he was close to the godhood he had long craved. And he was getting closer.
‘Your only task is the Slayer-Monks,’ said Be’lakor, his voice the roar of upthrusting rock. ‘Theirs is the power to summon the wrath of Grimnir, and that is an encounter I am not ready for.’
The screams of ten thousand pierced the clouds as the valley floor drove them higher, the laughter of black gods welcoming their terrified souls to the heavens.
‘Yet.’
‘Grimnir,’ Felix breathed, gazing up into the lean, brutal face of the dwarf who looked down on him in return with something between godly indifference and outright hostility. ‘But he’s a… isn’t he a…?’
‘Those are the times you are living in, manling,’ Grimnir answered gravely, his voice a rumble redolent of war-wagons heading into hostile mountains, the rising clamour of a call to vengeance.
Felix simply stared.
He had been hearing tales of Sigmar’s second coming since before his departure from Altdorf and, in truth, had not given them great credence. Even after all he had seen it seemed unlikely. If the gods cared enough to intercede in their faithful’s affairs then why wait until things were as bad as this? But it was one thing to hear a story of a distant war in a foreign province from a bar-fly who had himself seen neither; it was quite another to find oneself within the undeniable aura of the divine. He gazed up, certain that his body was shrinking or that the ground was drawing him under.
‘You don’t sound much like I’d imagine a god talking,’ said Felix, gawking like a country maid before a civic parade of Reiksguard Knights in shining armour.
‘Nothing’s forever, lad. I wasn’t always thus, and perhaps I won’t always be.’
With that the Vengeful Ancestor dismissed him and turned to Gotrek.
‘You’re a true Slayer, Gotrek, a credit to my name. Ten millennia ago I left a mighty power here – and a burden – waiting for my heir in the End Times. You’ve proven yourself well worthy of it, and capable of bearing it.’
Gotrek bared a grin. Felix couldn’t blame the dwarf for being pleased. It wasn’t everyday one came in for personal praise from their god.
‘Grimnir…’ Felix absently repeated.
Ignoring him, the Ancestor raised an arm like a felled and muscularly carved oak and pointed through the lines of pillars to the door that the Slayer-Abbot had initially led them through. ‘The Realm of Chaos. It’s not a place you can describe to one who’s never seen it. What lies beyond that door I’ve fought the last ten thousand years to keep out. But these are the End Times and my strength wanes. And you’ve my leave to pass, son of Gurni.’
‘Isn’t that the way out?’ Felix hissed, leaning in towards Gotrek.
‘This is Grimnir’s path, manling,’ Gotrek muttered, looking almost embarrassed to be explaining this in the Ancestor’s presence. ‘There is no way out from here.’
‘Oh,’ said Felix, sitting with his arms around his knees while he processed that small but, on reflection, rather pertinent piece of information. ‘But… the abbot left. And they locked it, didn’t they?’
Gotrek shook his head, despairing of manling simple-mindedness.
Well, no matter, as Kolya would undoubtedly have said had he been here. It wasn’t as if there was much left for any man where they had come from. He thought of his wife and daughter. He had been prepared to offer his life for a glimpse of them and whether out of compassion or cruelty he had been granted it. If they did still live, and if there was anything he could sacrifice to buy them one more hour of freedom, o
f happiness, or even simply of life then Felix would give it in a heartbeat.
‘Pick yourself up,’ said Gotrek. ‘We’ve not found what we came for yet.’
‘Not him,’ Grimnir rumbled as Felix leaned into his haunches as a preliminary to the ever-worsening task of standing up. ‘You proved yourself worthy, Gotrek. He did not. He’s sentimental. He doesn’t understand the scale of this war, the sacrifices that must be made.’
‘He’s a dwarf-friend and a rememberer,’ said Gotrek. ‘That’s all you need to know.’
Grimnir’s eyes flared, his upper body somehow swelling even further as the Ancestor closed both hands around the haft of his axe. A rumble passed through the pillars like vibrations through the skin of a drum, disturbing the rune-light. Felix swallowed, feeling abysmally small. The mountain itself seemed to tremble around him.
‘You would argue? With me?’
Gotrek glanced at Felix, then set his jaw. Blood trickled from unhealed cuts as he squared his shoulders to his Ancestor. ‘On this? Aye, I would.’
‘For once in your life, Gotrek, be sensible. It’s Grimnir for pity’s sake.’ Suddenly, the only thought in Felix’s head was the words that the mutant seeress had spoken to him in his dream.
You are powerless against the opponent that awaits you in Kazad Drengazi, Felix, and Gotrek’s passing will be the doom of this world.
This was the place, and something frantic in the back of Felix’s brain told him that it was mere minutes from the time. Urgency filling his veins with fire, he got up to stand at his companion’s side. ‘It’s all right. I’ll wait here for you, or find another way out if I can.’
‘No one calls my rememberer unworthy. He as good as says it of me as well.’
With a chuckle that could have cracked an anvil, Grimnir stomped a few paces back and raised his axe. ‘Then come, Gotrek Gurnisson. Bloody your axe if you can.’
Gotrek readied his axe, tension singing from every sinew, his one eye sparkling with the ruddy gold of rune-light. If Felix didn’t know better, he’d think that a part of the Slayer was secretly pleased that it had come to this. What greater challenge of his prowess could there be? What greater doom?
But it may be enough to save the next.
That was what the seeress had said next, but what did that even mean?
‘Stop this,’ Felix shouted, no longer caring that he spoke out of turn before a god. ‘You’ll die here if you don’t.’
Gotrek ignored him completely and Grimnir merely laughed.
‘A true Slayer is more than just the manner of his doom or the measure of his disgrace. He is an aspect of me. His sacrifice is an echo of my purpose. And you are a true Slayer, Gotrek, perhaps the last great Slayer.’
As if that were a challenge that he could not allow to go unanswered, Gotrek launched himself at the Ancestor with a roar. Too quick for a dwarf of his physicality and power, Grimnir slid aside, his axe licking out with seeming nonchalance but with sufficient force to beat aside Gotrek’s blade and send the Slayer spinning off-balance. Gotrek adjusted quickly, swapped his axe out of his ringing hand, growled to mask his surprise, and came again.
What exactly happened next, Felix couldn’t say for certain.
Grimnir unleashed a blizzard of blows that Gotrek must have somehow managed to parry simply because he remained standing throughout. Felix could not imagine how the Slayer managed it. At times it was as if the Ancestor possessed eight arms, and watching them as they went about the business for which Grimnir was lauded was like trying to track the wings of a dragonfly in flight. The entire fight lasted perhaps ten seconds from first blow to last. Felix couldn’t be sure. His mind had slowed to a crawl, numbed by the speed and fury expended before his eyes.
But what happened after, Felix felt he had always known.
He was watching prophecy unfold.
The Vengeful Ancestor swept his starmetal blade across Gotrek’s body and then held it there, high, head bowed. Everything seemed to stop. Felix’s heart lurched between beats. He saw the blood glisten on the rim of Grimnir’s raised blade.
Then with a painful, physical sensation of acceleration, time resumed.
Gotrek was torn from his feet and spun half around. There was no resistance, no effort to regain his feet and fight again. The Slayer slapped to the ground like a side of red meat. His axe clanged down behind him with a funereal knell. The dwarf lay on his side. Blood speckled his tattoos and formed a spreading pool under his savaged chest. Felix stared at his friend’s face in horror. Perhaps it was this place, this palace of vengeance, or perhaps it was the company, but Felix could feel his pulse hammer behind his ears and he felt the terrible urge to empty his lungs, beat his chest and rage at the utter, utter stupidity of the universe.
This was one too many.
Gotrek Gurnisson was dead.
EIGHTEEN
Last Stand
The valley floor rose above the outer wall of Kazad Drengazi like the mighty crest of a wave. It even caught the sun like one, foaming as it did with the steel glint of marauder mail and weapons. Gustav Jaeger gaped as the impossible was redefined before his disbelieving eyes. Off to the left, across the cloud sea, a mountain crumbled in slow motion, sinking straight down under the surface. The very earth beneath them seemed to be shaking itself apart. His lamellar plate rattled violently as he gripped the crenellations of the citadel’s innermost defensive ring. Dwarfs in ringmail togas dashed past in both directions, yelling their own special gibberish despite the fact that no one could hear a thing over the birthing roar of a new mountain and what felt like the death rattle of the old.
The growing mountain rose higher, blotting out the sun over the citadel’s gatehouse and casting a long shadow over a swathe of the lower wards. More Slayer-Monks ran from the creeping shadow like ants from rising floodwaters, bearing nothing but their odd clothes and their weapons and fleeing for the next level of fortifications. Gustav could feel his bones vibrating against each other. He ground his teeth but they chattered anyway. The rising mountain leaned in and slowly, inevitably, like a hewn oak, it began to topple towards the gatehouse.
Gustav mewled something prayer-like, throwing himself down to hug the solid marble crenel as the fantastical tonnage of rock crashed over the gatehouse, flattening it as though it were made of sand and obliterating the curtain wall utterly. The ancient stonework of the inner ring sanded his cheek as it shook.
Compacted rock piled into the citadel, layering strata and substrata and a hot metamorphic core as the sheer weight and pressure caused parts of the avalanche to glow red and vent steam. The surface layer rushed forward, like a breaking wave racing up a beach, demolishing walls and buildings alike as it went.
Tiny by comparison were the men and horses that rode the wave. Gustav fancied they were screaming but of course it was impossible to hear. Hundreds were thrown off and crushed, but there were more than enough left behind to overwhelm the score or so dwarfs that haunted this deceivingly mighty citadel.
The rock wave ploughed down the second curtain wall, exhausting the last of its momentum to spill over into the grand, empty streets that lay beyond. For a moment there was calm, the universe taking a breath to realign itself to the new arrangement. Rubbled buildings settled. Loose rock tumbled back downhill.
Then there was a cry, exuberant and shrill, and a horde of terrified-looking marauders surged through the breaches and into the citadel’s second level. Horsemen spurred ahead, galloping uphill towards the next gate and loosing arrows at the barest hint of a dwarf.
Gustav lifted himself from the crenel, watching as a group of Slayer-Monks wielding a combination of axes and flails, hammers and maces, each with a weapon in either hand, charged from a ruined building and mowed through the flank of a marauder column. Their ferocity was tremendous and Gustav clenched his fist and gave a small cheer as he saw one amongst their number hammer down the ebony-ar
moured Chaos warrior that had been leading the marauders’ advance. Even as he allowed himself to imagine that the monks’ efforts might buy the defenders of the third wall a few minutes, a skirmishing line of horsemen thundered behind the infantry column, firing at the gallop and riddling the brave dwarfs with murderously accurate bow-fire.
The resistance crushed, the marauders roared and marched on.
A loud bang from immediately by his left ear startled Gustav from the nightmarish scene. He turned, a sulphurous pillow of smoke smothering him for a moment and then wafting by. Malakai Makaisson dropped his longrifle to the crenel and reloaded, shouting something incomprehensible to the Slayer-Abbot who stood beside him with his twin axes crossed over his chest as he did so.
‘Orzhuk akaz uruk. Glihmhad hugorl al ikrim,’ the abbot growled back.
‘It’s rude to talk in a language we can’t all understand,’ Gustav shouted, a little hysterical and not at all sure he shouldn’t be.
The engineer hefted his loaded longrifle and swung it around as if to take a pot-shot at Unstoppable, floating like a silver cloud above their heads. His red glimstone sight played across the airship’s prow until the aiming dot found the splintered view screen for the bridge. There, Makaisson waved his hand through the beam in a sequence of sharp cuts and brief pauses, dots and dashes.
‘Ah was joost askin’ him if he minds havin’ a wee bit o’ his castle bloon up,’ Makaisson explained.
‘Blown up?’
‘Joost a wee bit.’
‘And?’
Makaisson grinned, returning his signalling hand to his gun barrel and shouldering the weapon.
‘Ah told ’em he disnae.’
The Slayer was dead.
Those four words struck at Felix’s mind like a chisel to a gravestone. The Slayer was dead. A tide of images ran through his brain. Faces. Places. The exotic lands they had seen together, the enemies they had battled side by side, the friends they had made. And those they had lost. He remembered a lot of drinking, a good deal of arguing, and an almost endless amount of travelling, often while cold, wet, hungry and on foot, but for some reason the memory of those forgotten hours in Gotrek’s company almost made him smile but for the burning grief that had his muscles seized.
