Trollslayer

by William King

  The beast made a massive desperate swing at the Slayer’s head. Gotrek skipped back out of reach and caught the head of the club in the curve of his axe blade. With a swift twist he jerked the weapon from the beastman’s hand, disarming it.

  The dwarf’s face held an expression of cold fury such as Felix had never seen before. There was no mercy written there, only anger and grim determination. Gotrek struck it on the leg, knocking it over. Blood flowed from the tendon-cutting wound. The creature gave a shrill screech of pain and rolled over. As it did so, the ancient axe descended like that of an executioner. The eyeless beastman’s head parted from his shoulders and the thing tumbled lifeless to the ground.

  The Slayer spat on the corpse then shook his head as if in disgust. ‘Too easy,’ he said. ‘I hope that Chaos Warrior is tougher.’

  Privately Felix hoped they would never find out.

  Felix marched along with a spring in his step. He was not tired, despite his lack of sleep the previous evening and the rough terrain through which they passed didn’t daunt him. He breathed in deeply, enjoying even the still air and the musty forest scents. At least he was still capable of breathing.

  He was still alive! The sun filtered down through the leaves, catching spinning motes of dust, making them dance like fairy lights. He wanted to reach out and collect a handful of them, as if it were some kind of magic powder. For a moment the forest was transformed; they moved through an enchanted grove where foot-high mushrooms sprouted in the shadow of the great trees. Just then they did not look sinister; they were a promise of the continuity of life.

  He was still alive. He repeated it to himself like a mantra. He had passed through terror and come out the other side. His foes, the monsters who had wanted to kill him, were dead. And he was still here, to feel the sunlight and drink in the air and watch Gotrek and Kat pick their way downhill, feeling their way from stone to stone set in the mud of the steep and slippery trail.

  His senses were keener and he felt more alive, more full of energy, than he had ever been. It was simply a joy to be there.

  Webs glistened with early morning dew. Birds sang. All around the forest was pregnant with the stirrings of life. Small animals moved through the undergrowth. Felix paused to let a snake cross the path and made no attempt to kill it. This morning he had a feeling of how precious life was, how fragile.

  The fight with the beasts had brought home to him how tentative his grip on living was, how easily the cord of his life could be severed. It could have been him lying cold in an unmarked grave, or more likely filling the stomach of the beastman. The difference had been some luck, a bit of skill and the correct use of his blade. It could all have gone so much differently. One mistake and he might not have been here to enjoy this glorious morning. He could be wandering in Morr’s misty grey kingdom or pitched into the oblivion which some scholars claimed was the only thing after death.

  He knew the thought should frighten him – but it did not. Here and now he was too happy. In his mind he replayed every stroke of the fight, remembered every move with something close to love. He felt exalted; he had matched himself against mighty foes and come away the master. The forest could not frighten him today.

  He knew that the feeling was artificial; he had felt something like it before on many occasions after he had fought. He knew that it would fade and be replaced by a horror at and guilt about what he had done, but for the moment he couldn’t stop himself. He was forced to admit that, in a strange way, he had enjoyed the battle. The violence had appealed to something dark in him, something that he usually kept hidden even from himself. For a moment he felt he could almost understand those who followed the Blood God, Khorne, who were addicted to bloodshed, combat and excitement. There could be no greater thrill than gambling with your life. There was no stake higher, except perhaps your soul.

  That thought stopped him. He could see that his thoughts had been leading him down the path of sin. Perhaps all those who sold themselves to the Ruinous Powers started this way, taking pleasure in their own dark side. He had seen where that road led, and so he let his mind veer.

  Ahead Gotrek stooped to inspect some tracks in the mud. Perhaps, Felix speculated, he was too addicted to battle. Perhaps this was why he followed his peculiar vocation – perhaps it was as much for his own gratification as for the atonement of the sins he had committed. Why else would anyone follow such a strange path, that led down such dark roads? Perhaps the Slayer’s motives were less noble and tragic than he pretended.

  Felix sighed; he would never know. The dwarf was alien to him, the product of a different society with a different code of ethics, perhaps even a different picture of the world looked at through different senses. He doubted that he would ever understand Gotrek. Every time he felt close to it, the understanding eluded him. The dwarf was different – strong in ways that Felix could never hope to be, brave beyond sanity, seemingly oblivious to pain and weariness.

  Was that why Felix followed him? Out of admiration and a wish to be like him? To have his certainty and his strength? Certainly his life would have been much different now if he had not sworn his oath to follow the dwarf that drunken night in Altdorf. Perhaps he would have been happier. On the other hand, he would not have seen half of what he had seen, for good or for ill. There were times when the Slayer seemed like his own personal daemon sent to upset his life and lead him to the darkness.

  He made his way carefully down the slope, watching where he placed his feet, feeling the hard rocks under the thin leather soles of his boots. When he reached the bottom of the hill he saw what Gotrek and Kat were looking at. The path had divided at a fork. There was a league marker by the right-hand way – not the usual stone slab left to mark the Empire’s highways but a simple block cut from the trunk of a tree. Felix read it.

  ‘We’ll be in Flensburg in a couple of hours then,’ he said.

  ‘If it’s still standing, manling,’ Gotrek said and spat.

  ‘I wish I was brave like you, Felix,’ Kat said.

  Felix surveyed the open glade. The woods were thinner here and there was evidence of logging. Stumps littered the forest floor. Tangles of vegetation grew round them. Here and there saplings sprouted. The air had a hint of the fresh smell of new-cut wood about it. In the distance he thought he could hear the roar of a river. Overhead, through the break in the branches, the sky was bright and clear and blue. Far to the east, though, they could all see great storm clouds gathering. Thunderclouds piled one on the other, huge, insubstantial moving mountains drifting ever closer. Another evil omen.

  He glanced down at the girl. Her soot-covered face was serious. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I said, ‘I wish I was brave like you’.’

  He laughed at that. Something about her openness and transparent desire to be liked touched him. ‘I’m not brave.’

  ‘Yes you are. Fighting those beasts was brave – like something a hero in a tale would do.’

  He tried to picture himself as a hero from one of the sagas he had been fond of as a youth, a Sigmar or an Oswald. Somehow he couldn’t quite manage it. He knew himself too well. Those men had been god-like, flawless. In fact Sigmar had become a god, the patron deity of the Empire he had founded. People like that never knew fear or doubt or venality.

  ‘I was scared. I was only trying to stay alive. I’m not brave – Gotrek is.’

  She shook her head emphatically. ‘Yes, he is – but so are you. You were scared and fought anyway. I think that’s why you’re brave.’

  She was completely serious. Felix was amused and not a little flattered. ‘No one’s ever accused me of that before.’

  She turned and pouted, thinking he was making fun of her. ‘Well I think you are, anyway. It doesn’t matter what no one says.’

  He stood a little taller and pulled his ragged cloak tight. Strange – he had become used to seeing Gotrek as the hero of an epic tale, the
one he was supposed to write on the Slayer’s death. He had never imagined himself as a part of that tale before. He had always pictured himself more as an invisible observer, a chronicler of the dwarf’s exploits, unmentioned in the text. Maybe the child had a point. Maybe he should devote some space to his own adventures as well.

  The Saga of Gotrek and Felix. No – My Travels with Gotrek. By Herr Felix Jaeger. He could picture it as a leather-bound book, printed in immaculate Gothic script on one of his father’s printing presses. It would be written in Reikspiel of course, a popular work. Classical was too stuffy, the language of scholars and lawyers and priests. Maybe it would be read all across the Known World. He might become as famous as Detlef Sierck or the great Tarradasch himself.

  He would put in all their various adventures. The destruction of the coven on Geheimnisnacht; their skirmishes with wolf riders in the land of the Border Princes. All the events leading up to the destruction of Fort von Diehl. Their ventures into the dark beneath the world. Their battles with the Horned Man and their journey through the plague pits below Altdorf.

  He tried to imagine how he would portray himself in the story – of course he would be brave, loyal, modest. Reality began to intrude on his daydream almost immediately. Brave? Maybe. He had faced some scary situations without dishonour. Loyal? If he stuck with the Slayer until the end he would certainly be that. Modest? Unlikely, since how modest was it to include oneself in the saga of someone else’s adventures? Perhaps it wasn’t such a good idea after all. He would just have to wait and see.

  ‘If you’re not a hero and Gotrek is, why do you travel with him?’

  ‘Why do you ask such difficult questions, little one?’ Felix asked, hoping the Slayer couldn’t hear. Gotrek had wandered far ahead across the glade, wrapped up in his own dour thoughts.

  It was a difficult question, Felix decided. Why did he follow the Slayer? The simple answer was because he was sworn to. He had taken an oath that drunken night after the Slayer had pulled him out from underneath the hooves of the Emperor’s cavalry. He was honour-bound to keep his promise. He owed the dwarf a debt for saving his life.

  In the beginning he had thought that was why he had stuck by Gotrek, but now he had another theory. The dwarf had presented him with the perfect excuse to adventure, to see far places and dark things. Things that interested and excited him. He could have stayed at home and become a boring merchant like his older brother, Otto. He had never wanted that, had always rebelled against it. The Slayer’s quest had provided him with a reason to leave Altdorf. One that he had used to rationalise his own wish to go anyway. Since then he had lived an extraordinary life, one not so very different from that of the hero of a saga. He no longer knew what he would do if he ceased to travel with Gotrek. He couldn’t imagine going back to his old life.

  ‘I’m damned if I know,’ Felix said eventually.

  The arrow hit the tree trunk beside Gotrek and stayed there, quivering. The Slayer glared around, sniffing the air and peering into the long grass. Had the beasts caught up with them again? Why had they not just shot them?

  Felix looked at the black feathers attached to the shaft. It couldn’t be beastmen, he thought. It didn’t look like their type of weapon. Kat hadn’t mentioned seeing any of them armed with bows. His skin crawled with the threat of danger. He strained his senses to hear any sound. All he could hear was the wind in the branches, the singing of birds and the sound of the distant river.

  ‘That was a warning shot,’ said a voice, coarse and untutored. ‘Don’t come any closer.’

  Downwind, Felix thought, the archer is downwind. Very professional. The same thought undoubtedly occurred to Gotrek as he glared at where the words had come from.

  ‘I’ll give you a warning shot all right. Come out and face my axe,’ he said. ‘Are you warriors or weaklings?’

  ‘Doesn’t sound like a beastman,’ another voice said, off to the left. It sounded hearty. There was a hint of mirth so great that it could not be kept in check, no matter how serious the situation.

  ‘Who can tell – these are strange times. Certainly doesn’t look like a man.’ This from a woman somewhere behind them. Felix turned to look but could see nothing. The area between his shoulder blades crawled. He expected an arrow to plant itself between them at any moment.

  Gotrek’s voice was full of wrath. ‘Are you implying that I could be of your weak race? I’ll make you eat those words, human. I’m a bloody dwarf!’

  ‘Perhaps you should restrain yourself until we can see our ambushers,’ Felix whispered, then he shouted: ‘Forgive my friend. He is a great enemy of the Ruinous Powers and takes insult easily. We are not beastmen or mutants, as you can undoubtedly see. We are simple swords for hire, en route to Nuln and work. We mean no harm to you, whoever you are.’

  ‘He’s fair spoken an’ that’s for sure,’ the first voice said. ‘Hold your fire, lads. Until I give the word.’

  ‘Could be he’s a sorcerer – they’re said to be educated men,’ the woman’s voice said. ‘Maybe the child’s his familiar.’

  ‘Nah, that’s Kat from the Kleindorf Inn. She’s served me often enough. I’d know that hair anywhere.’ The jovial voice sounded thoughtful for a moment. ‘Maybe they’ve kidnapped her. I hear there’s a good market for virgin sacrifices in Nuln.’

  Felix thought that things could easily turn very nasty here. These people sounded scared and suspicious, and it wouldn’t take much to convince them to fill him full of arrows and question the child later. He wracked his brains looking for a way out. He hoped Gotrek could restrain his natural inclination to go diving headlong into trouble or they might both be finished.

  ‘Is that you, Herr Messner?’ Kat said suddenly.

  Sigmar bless you child, thought Felix. Keep them talking. Every word spoken increases the human contact, makes it harder for them to think of us as faceless foes.

  ‘Don’t kill them. They protected me from the beasts. They’re not warlocks or Chaos-lovers.’ She looked up at Felix with bright eyes. ‘It’s Herr Messner, one of the old Duke’s rangers. He used to sing me songs and tell me jokes when he came to the inn. He’s a nice man.’

  That nice man is probably only a few seconds from putting an arrow between my eyes, thought Felix. ‘Kat’s right. We did kill beasts. We may have to kill many more. They destroyed Kleindorf – they may be on the march right now. They’re led by a warrior of Khorne.’

  A large paunchy man emerged from the woods to Felix’s right. He was garbed in leathers and a mottled cloak of green and brown. Felix was surprised. He must have looked at the man several times and never known he was there. He had a bow in one big hand but he did not point it at either Gotrek or Felix. His movements were uncannily quiet for such a big man.

  He stopped ten paces from the side of the trail and stared at them as if measuring them. His face was battered and his grey hair thinning. His nose looked broken and flattened. He had cauliflower ears like an ageing prize-fighter. His eyes were as grey and cold as steel.

  ‘Nah – you don’t look like hellspawn an’ that’s for sure. But if you’re not you’ve certainly picked a fine time to go wandering in the woods – what with every warped soul from here to Kislev on the move.’

  ‘Then why are you here?’ Gotrek asked. His face was dark, his anger barely held in check.

  ‘Not that I have to answer your questions, mind, but it’s my job. Me an’ the lads keep an eye on things in these woods for the old Duke. An’ I can tell you just now I don’t like what I’ve been seein’.’

  He rubbed his nose with his knuckles and stood staring at them. Felix tried to gauge the man. He sounded like a peasant but there was a keenness to his eye and a humour to his lazy drawl that suggested a clever man cunningly concealed. He looked slow to anger but Felix guessed that, once aroused, he would be a formidable foe. In his quiet way he was frightening. The way he stood casually facing the Sl
ayer suggested one who was sure of his authority. Felix had seen his sort before – trusted retainers who had their lord’s confidence and who often dispensed instant justice on their holdings.

  ‘We are not your enemies,’ Felix said. ‘We are just passing on the Emperor’s road. We want no trouble.’

  The man laughed as if Felix had said something amusing. ‘Then you’re in the wrong place, lad. Something’s got the old beastmen stirred up like I ain’t seen them in a score of years. They’ve left a trail of destruction from wood to mountain an’ from what you’re saying they’ve done for Kleindorf as well. Pity – I always liked the place. What of Klein an’ his soldiers? Surely they must have done somethin’.’

  ‘Died,’ Gotrek said and laughed caustically. The forester looked at him. Anger was in his eyes.

  ‘Nah – there was the castle. That’s been there nigh on six hundred years. Beasts never attack fortifications. Don’t have the strategy. It’s what’s kept us alive in these cursed lands.’

  ‘It’s true. What Gotrek says is true,’ Kat said. She sounded like she was about to cry.

  ‘I’d watch out for the next village if I were you,’ Gotrek said, then added sardonically, ‘for sure.’

  Messner turned and shouted into the forest: ‘Rolf – head west an’ see what you can see. Freda – round up the rest of the lads an’ meet us in Flensburg. I’ll take our friends there. Looks like things are about to turn nasty.’

  The others didn’t respond. Felix didn’t even hear a rustle of the bushes but he sensed that their watchers were gone. He shivered. He had been standing so close to death and never even seen its deliverers. He felt his dislike for the woods returning; he preferred a place where a man could see danger approaching.

  Messner gestured for them to follow him. ‘Come on. You can tell me what you know along the way. By the time we get to Flensburg I want to know exactly what happened.’