Trollslayer

by William King

  ‘I don’t know where she is. Dieter went to get her ten minutes ago.’

  ‘Well, he’s takin’ his time ’bout it.’

  ‘All right,’ Felix said. ‘I’ll go and get her.’

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ Hef said.

  ‘Oh no you won’t,’ Gotrek said loudly. ‘I trust the manling to return. You’ll stay here. The gobbos will pass this gate over our dead bodies.’

  Felix made for the mansion. He knew that Kirsten was with the sorceress. If things went as badly as he feared, he would at least see her before the end.

  He had barely reached the door when he heard a splintering sound from behind him and the heart-stopping crash of the gate falling in. He heard Gotrek bellow his war-cry, and the screams of terror from some of the warriors. Felix turned and saw a terrible sight.

  In the gateway, mounted on a great white wolf, was the shaman. Around his head crackled a halo of ruddy light. It played from the tip of his bone staff, staining the faces of all around like blood. From the wall a quarrel flashed but it was turned aside by some force before it could hit the sorcerer.

  Flanking the shaman were six mighty orcs, mail-clad, axe-armed and fierce. Beyond them was a sea of green faces and wolves. Gotrek laughed aloud and charged for them. The last thing Felix saw before he stepped inside was the Trollslayer running forward, axe held high, beard bristling, towards the source of that terrible light.

  Inside, the mansion was strangely quiet, the roar of sound outside muffled by the stone walls. Felix ran through the corridor, shouting for Frau Winter, his voice ringing eerily in the quiet halls.

  He found the bodies in the main hall. Frau Winter had been stabbed through the chest several times. Her clean, grey dress was red. She had a look of surprise on her face, as if death had taken her unawares. How had the goblins got inside? Felix thought crazily. But he knew no goblin had done this.

  Another body lay near the door, stabbed through the back as she had struggled to open it. Not wanting, not daring to believe it, Felix advanced, heart in his mouth. Gently he turned Kirsten’s body over. He felt a brief flicker of hope as her eyes opened, then noticed the trickle of blood from her mouth.

  ‘Felix,’ she sighed. ‘Is that you? I knew you’d come.’

  Her voice was weak and blood frothed from her lips as she spoke. He wondered how long she had lain there.

  ‘Don’t talk,’ he said. ‘Rest.’

  ‘Can’t. Have to talk. I’m glad I came down Thunder River. Glad I met you. I love you.’

  ‘I love you too,’ he said, for the first time, then he noticed her eyes were closed. ‘Don’t die,’ he said, rocking her gently in his arms. He felt her body go limp and his heart turned to ash. He laid her down gently, tears in his eyes, then he looked towards the door she had tried to open and cold fury filled him. Felix stood and raced down the corridor.

  Dieter’s body lay in the doorway to the baron’s room. The side of the big man’s head had been caved in. Felix pictured him rushing through the doorway in anger and being hit from the side by his prepared enemy.

  Felix sprang over the body like a tiger, rolling as he hit the ground and leaping to his feet. He surveyed the room. The old baron lay in bed, a knife through his heart, blood soaking the bandages on his chest and the sheets of the bed.

  Felix glared over at the chair in which Manfred sat, his gore-smeared sword red across his lap.

  ‘The curse is fulfilled at last,’ the playwright said in a tight voice that held the shrill edge of hysteria. He looked up and Felix shuddered. It was as if Manfred’s face were a mask through which something else stared, something alien.

  ‘I knew it was my destiny to fulfil the curse,’ Manfred said as if passing the time of day. ‘Knew it from the moment I killed my father. Gottfried had him imprisoned when he started to change. Locked him up in the old tower, took him all his food himself. No one else was allowed into that tower except Gottfried and Frau Winter. Nobody else went there until the day I did. Ulric knows, I wish I hadn’t.’

  He rose to his feet gripping the hilt of his sword. Felix watched him, hypnotised by his own hatred.

  ‘I found my father there. There was still a family resemblance in spite of the way he had… changed. He still recognised me, called me “Son” in a horrid rasping voice. He begged me to kill him. He was too cowardly to do it himself. So was Gottfried. He thought he was doing my father a kindness, by keeping him alive. Keeping alive a mutant.’

  Manfred began to edge closer. Felix noticed the blood dripping from his blade, speckling the floor. He felt dizzy and tired. The mad young aristocrat became the centre of his world.

  ‘As I felt the old man’s blood flow over my knife, everything changed. I saw things clearly for the first time. I saw the way Chaos taints all things, twisting and corrupting them as it had done to my father’s body. I knew that I was his son and that within me, carried in my blood, was the mark of daemons. I was the agent of Chaos, spawn of its loins. I was a child of darkness. It was my destiny to destroy the von Diehl line. As I have done.’

  He laughed. ‘The exile was the perfect opportunity, hell-sent. The avalanche was mine, a good start. I thought I had failed when I released the undead and they didn’t succeed in destroying my uncle and his followers. But now nothing can save you. Darkness will take you all. The curse is complete.’

  ‘Not yet,’ Felix said, his voice choked with hatred. ‘You’re a von Diehl and you’re still alive. I haven’t killed you yet.’

  Insane laughter rang out. Once more Felix felt as if he was staring at some devil in human flesh.

  ‘Herr Jaeger, you do have a sense of humour. Very good! I knew you would be amusing. But how can you slay the spawn of Chaos?’

  ‘Let us find out,’ Felix said, springing forward to the attack. Viperishly swift, Manfred’s blade rose to parry then began the counter. Swordstrokes flickered like lightning between them. Steel rang on steel. Felix’s sword-arm was numb from the force of Manfred’s blows. The nobleman had the strength of a maniac.

  Felix gave ground. Normally, cold fear of Manfred’s insanity would have paralysed him but now he was so filled with rage and hate that there was no room for terror. His world was empty. He lived only to kill Kirsten’s murderer. It was his one remaining desire.

  Two madmen fought in the baron’s chamber. Manfred advanced with cat-like grace, smiling confidently, as if amused by some mild witticism. His blade wove a web of steel that was slowly tightening around Felix. His eyes glittered, cold and inhuman.

  Felix felt the stone of the wall at his back. He lunged forward, striking at Manfred’s face. Manfred parried with lazy ease. They stood vis-a-vis, blades locked, faces inches from each other. They pushed with all their strengths, each searching for advantage. Muscles stood out in Felix’s neck, his arm burned with fatigue as slowly, inexorably, Manfred pushed back his arm, bringing his razor-sharp blade into contact with Felix’s face.

  ‘Goodbye, Herr Jaeger,’ Manfred said casually.

  Felix brought the heel of his boot down on Manfred’s instep, crunching into the foot with all his strength and weight. He felt bone splinter, saw the nobleman’s face twist in agony, felt the pressure ease. He brought his blade forward, slicing across Manfred’s neck. The playwright tottered back and Felix’s thrust took him through the heart.

  Manfred fell to his knees and stared up at Felix with blank uncomprehending eyes. Felix pushed him over with his boot and spat on his face.

  ‘Now the curse is fulfilled,’ he said.

  Mind clear and unafraid, Felix stepped out into the cold night air, expecting to find the wolf-riders and death. He no longer cared. He welcomed it. He had come to understand Gotrek thoroughly. He had nothing worth living for. He was beyond all fear.

  Kirsten, I will be with you soon, he thought.

  In the gateway he saw Gotrek, standing amidst a pile of bodies
. Blood flowed from the dwarf’s appalling wounds. He was slumped forward, supporting himself on his axe, barely able to keep upright.

  Nearby Felix saw the bodies of Hef and the other defenders.

  Gotrek turned to look at him and Felix could see that one eye was missing, torn from its socket. The dwarf staggered dizzily, fell forward and slowly and painfully tried to pull himself upright.

  ‘What kept you, manling? You missed a good fight.’

  Felix moved towards him. ‘So it seems.’

  ‘Damn gobbos are all yellow-eyed cowards. Kill their leaders and the rest turn tail and run.’ He laughed painfully. ‘Course… I had to kill a score or so of them before they agreed.’

  ‘Of course,’ Felix said, looking towards the pile of dead wolves and orcs. He could make out the wolf head-dress of the shaman.

  ‘Damnedest thing,’ Gotrek said. ‘I can’t seem to stand up.’

  He closed his eye and lay very still.

  Felix watched the small line of stragglers begin to trek northwards under the watchful eyes of the few remaining soldiers. Felix thought that they might be taken in by one of the settlements now that they were no longer being escorted by the baron’s full force. For the sake of the children he hoped so.

  He turned to the mass grave, the barrow in which they had buried the bodies. He thought about the future he had buried with them. He was landless and homeless again. He settled the weight of the pack on his shoulders and turned to look at the distant mountains.

  ‘Goodbye,’ he said. ‘I’ll miss you.’

  Gotrek rubbed at his new eye-patch irritably, then blew his nose. He hefted his axe. Felix noticed that his wounds were pink and barely healed.

  ‘There’s trolls in those mountains, manling. I can smell them!’

  When Felix spoke his voice was flat and devoid of all emotion. ‘Let us go and get them.’

  He and Gotrek exchanged a look full of mutual understanding. ‘We’ll make a Trollslayer out of you yet, manling.’

  Wearily the two of them set out towards the dark promise of the mountains, following the bright thread of Thunder River.

  THE DARK BENEATH THE WORLD

  After the dire events at Fort von Diehl, we set off with heavy hearts towards the mountains and Karak Eight Peaks. It was a long, hard journey, one not made any easier by the wildness of the country that we passed through. The hunger, the hardships and the constant threat of marauding greenskins did little to improve my state of mind, and it may be that I was perhaps particularly susceptible when I first looked on the fading grandeur of that ancient ruined city of the dwarfs, lost amid those distant peaks for all those long ages. In any case, I now recall that I had a terrible sense of foreboding about what we would find there and, as was usually the case, my fears were to prove amply justified…’

  — From My Travels with Gotrek, Vol. II,

  by Herr Felix Jaeger (Altdorf Press, 2505)

  A scream echoed through the cold mountain air. Felix Jaeger ripped his sword from its scabbard and stood ready. Snowflakes fell and a chill wind stirred his long blond hair. He threw his red woollen cloak back over his shoulder, leaving his sword arm unobstructed. The bleak landscape was a perfect site for an ambush; pitted and rocky, harsher than the face of the greater moon, Mannslieb.

  He glanced left, upslope. A few stunted pines clutched the mountainside with gnarled roots. Downslope, to the right, lay an almost sheer drop. Neither direction held any sign of danger. No bandits, no orcs, none of the darker things that lurked in these remote heights.

  ‘The noise came from up ahead, manling,’ Gotrek Gurnisson said, rubbing his eye patch with one huge, tattooed hand. His nose chain jingled in the breeze. ‘There’s a fight going on up there.’

  Uncertainty filled Felix. He knew Gotrek was correct; even with only one eye the dwarf’s senses were keener than his own. The question was whether to stand and wait or push forward and investigate. Potential enemies filled the World’s Edge Mountains. The chances of finding friends were slim. His natural caution inclined him towards doing nothing.

  Gotrek charged up the scree-strewn path, enormous axe held high above his red-dyed crest of hair. Felix cursed. For once why couldn’t Gotrek remember that not everyone was a Trollslayer?

  ‘We didn’t all swear to seek out death in combat,’ he muttered, before following slowly, for he lacked the dwarf’s sure-footedness over the treacherous terrain.

  Felix took in the scene of carnage with one swift glance. In the long depression, a gang of hideous, green-skinned orcs battled a smaller group of men. They fought across a fast-flowing stream which ran down the little valley before disappearing over the mountain edge in a cloud of silver spray. The waters ran red with the blood of men and horses. It was easy to imagine what had happened: an ambush as the humans crossed the water.

  In mid-stream, a huge man in shiny plate-mail battled with three brawny, bow-legged assailants. Wielding his two-handed blade effortlessly, he feinted a blow to his left then beheaded a different foe with one mighty swing. The force of his blow almost overbalanced him. Felix realised the stream bed must be slippery.

  On the nearer bank a man in dark brocaded robes chanted a spell. A ball of fire blazed in his left hand. A dark-haired warrior in the furred hat and deerskin tunic of a trapper protected the sorcerer from two screaming orcs, using only a longsword held in his left hand. As Felix watched, a blond man-at-arms fell, trying to hold in entrails released by a scimitar slash to his stomach. As he went down, burly half-naked savages hacked him to pieces.

  Only three of the ambushed party now stood. They were outnumbered five to one.

  ‘Orcish filth! You dare to soil the sacred approach to Karak Eight Peaks. Uruk mortari! Prepare to die,’ Gotrek screamed, charging down into the melee.

  An enormous orc turned to face him. A look of surprise froze forever on its face as Gotrek lopped off its head with one mighty stroke. Ruby blood spattered the Trollslayer’s tattooed body. Raving and snarling, the dwarf ploughed into the orcs, hewing left and right in a great double arc. Dead bodies lay everywhere his axe fell.

  Felix half-ran, half-slid down the scree. He fell at the bottom. Wet grass tickled his nostrils. He rolled to one side as a scimitar-wielding monster half again his bulk chopped down at him. He sprang to his feet, ducked a cut that could have chopped him in two and lopped off an earlobe with his return blow.

  Startled, the orc clutched at its wound, trying to stop the blood flowing down its face. Felix seized his chance and stabbed upwards through the bottom of the creature’s jaw into its brain.

  As he struggled to free his blade another monster leapt on him, swinging its scimitar high over its head. Felix let go of his weapon and moved to meet his attacker. He grabbed its wrists as he was overborne. Foetid breath made him gag as the orc fell on top of him. The thing dropped its weapon and they wrestled on the ground, rolling down into the stream.

  Copper rings set in the orc’s flesh scraped him as the thing sought to bite his throat with its sharp tusks. Felix writhed to avoid having his windpipe torn out. The orc pushed his head underwater. Felix looked up through stinging eyes and saw the strangely distorted face leering down at him. Bitterly cold water filled his mouth. There was no air in his lungs. Frantically he shifted his weight, trying to dislodge his attacker. They rolled and suddenly Felix was astride the orc, trying to push its head under the stream in turn.

  The orc grabbed his wrists and pushed. Locked in a deadly embrace they began to roll through the freezing water. Again and again Felix’s head went under, again and again he floundered gasping to the surface. Sharp rocks speared his flesh. Realisation of his peril flashed through his mind as the current and their own momentum carried them towards the cliff edge. Felix tried to break free, giving up all thoughts of drowning his opponent.

  When next his head broke the surface, he looked for the cloud of spray. To his horr
or it was only a dozen paces away. He redoubled his efforts to escape but the orc held on like grim death and they continued their downward tumble.

  Maybe ten feet now. Felix heard the rumble of the fall, felt the distorted currents of the turbulent water. He drew back his fist and smashed the orc in the face. One of its tusks broke but it would not let go.

  Five feet to go. He lashed out once more, bouncing the orc’s head off the stream bottom. Its grip loosened. He was almost free.

  Suddenly he was falling, tumbling through water and air. He frantically grabbed for something, anything, to hold. His hand smashed into the rock and he struggled for a grip on the slippery streambed. The pressure of the freezing water on his head and shoulders was almost intolerable. He risked a downward look.

  A long way below he saw the valleys in the foothills. So great was the drop that copses of trees looked like blotches of mould on the landscape. The falling orc was a receding, screaming greenish blob.

  With the last of his strength Felix flopped over the edge, pushing against the current with cold-numbed fingers. For a second he thought he wasn’t going to make it, then he was face down on the edge of the stream, gasping in bubbling water.

  He crawled out onto the bank. The orcs, their leaders dead, had been routed. Felix pulled off his sodden cloak, wondering whether he was going to catch a chill from the frigid mountain air.

  ‘By Sigmar, that was well done! We were sore pressed there,’ the tall, dark-haired man said. He made the sign of the hammer over his chest as he spoke. He was handsome in a coarse way. His armour, although dented, was of the finest quality. The intensity of his stare made Felix uneasy.

  ‘It would seem we owe you gentlemen our lives,’ the sorcerer said. He, too, was richly dressed. His brocaded robes were trimmed with gold thread; scrolls covered in mystical symbols were held by rings set in it. His long blond hair was cut in a peculiar fashion. From the centre of his flowing locks rose a crest not unlike Gotrek’s, save for the fact that it was undyed and cropped short. Felix wondered if it was the mark of some mystical order.