by William King
Even the castle brooding on the crags above the village appeared neglected and ill-cared for. Its walls were crumbling. It looked as if it could be stormed by a group of snotlings armed with pointed sticks, which was unusual for a town which appeared to be surrounded by a horde of menacing mutants. On the other hand, Felix thought, even the mutants about here seemed a particularly unfearsome bunch, judging by the attack they had attempted earlier.
He took another sip of his ale. It was the worst beer he had ever tasted, as thoroughly disgusting a brew as had ever passed his lips. Gotrek threw back his head and tipped the entire contents of the stein into his mouth. It vanished as fast as a gold purse dropped in a street of beggars.
‘Another flagon of Old Dog Puke!’ Gotrek called out. He turned and glared at the locals. ‘Try not to deafen me with the sound of your mirth,’ he bellowed.
The customers refused to meet his eye. They stared down into their beers as if they could discover the secret of transmuting lead into gold there, if they only studied it hard enough.
‘Why all the happy faces?’ Gotrek enquired sarcastically. The landlord placed another flagon on the counter before him. Gotrek quaffed some more. Felix was gratified to note that even the Trollslayer made a sour face when he finished. It was a rare tribute to the nastiness of the ale. Felix had never seen the dwarf show the slightest discomfort or hesitation in drinking anything before.
‘It’s the sorcerer,’ the landlord said suddenly. ‘He’s a right nasty piece of work. Things have never been the same since he came an’ took over the old castle. Since then we’ve ’ad nothin’ but bother, what with the mutants on the road and all. Trade’s dried up. No one comes here anymore. Nobody can sleep safe in their beds at night.’
Gotrek perked up at once. A nasty grin revealed the blackened stumps of his teeth. This was more to his liking, Felix saw.
‘A sorcerer, you say?’
‘Aye, sir, that he is – a right evil wizard.’
Felix saw that the customers were all glaring at the landlord strangely, as if he was speaking out of line, or saying something they had never expected to hear him say. Felix dismissed the thought. Maybe they were just frightened. Who wouldn’t be, with a servant of the Dark Powers of Chaos in residence over their village?
‘Mean as a dragon with toothache, he is. Ain’t that right, Helmut?’
The peasant who the landlord addressed stood frozen to the spot, like a rat petrified by the gaze of a snake.
‘Ain’t that right, Helmut?’ The landlord repeated.
‘He’s not so bad,’ the peasant said. ‘As evil sorcerers go.’
‘Why don’t you just storm the castle?’ Gotrek asked. Felix thought that if the dwarf couldn’t guess the answer to that from the whipped-dog look of these poor clods, he was stupider than he looked.
‘There’s the monster, sir,’ the peasant said, shuffling his feet and staring down at the floor once more.
‘The monster?’ Gotrek asked, more than a hint of professional interest showing in his one good eye. ‘A big monster, I suppose.’
‘Huge, sir. Twice as big as a man and covered in all sorts of nasty mut… mut… mut…’
‘Mutations?’ Felix suggested helpfully.
‘Aye, sir, those things.’
‘Why not send to Nuln for help?’ Felix suggested. ‘The Templars of the White Wolf would be interested in dealing with such a follower of Chaos.’
The peasants looked at him blankly. ‘Dunno where Nuln is, sir. None of us ever been more than half a league from Blutdorf. Who’d look after our wives if we left the village?’
‘An’ then there’s the mutants,’ another villager chipped in. ‘Woods is full of them and they all serve the magician.’
‘Mutants as well?’ Gotrek sounded almost cheerful. ‘I think we’ll be visiting the castle, manling.’
‘I feared as much,’ Felix sighed.
‘You can’t mean to attack the sorcerer and his monster,’ one of the villagers said.
‘With your help, we will soon rid Blutdorf of this scourge,’ Felix said shakily, ignoring the nasty look Gotrek threw him. The Trollslayer wanted no assistance in his quest for glorious death.
‘No, sir, we can’t help you.’
‘Why not? Are you unmanly cowards?’ It was a stupid question, but Felix felt he had to ask. It wasn’t that he blamed the villagers. Under normal circumstances he would have been no more keen than they were to confront a Chaos sorcerer and his pet monster.
‘No, sir,’ the villager said. ‘It’s just that he has our children up there – he’s keeping them as hostages!’
‘Your children?’
‘Aye, sir, every last one of them. He and his monster came down and rounded them all up. There was no resisting either. When Big Norri tried, the creature tore his arms off and made him eat them. Nasty, it was.’
Felix did not like the glint that had entered the Trollslayer’s eye. Gotrek’s enthusiasm for getting to the castle and fighting the monster radiated across the room like heat from a large bonfire. Felix wasn’t so certain. He found that he shared the villagers’ lack of enthusiasm for the direct approach.
‘Surely, you must want to free your children?’ Felix asked.
‘Aye, but we don’t want to kill them. The magician will feed them to his monster if we give him any lip.’
Felix looked over at Gotrek. The Trollslayer jerked his thumb meaningfully in the direction of the castle. Felix could see he was keen to be off, hostages or no hostages. With a sinking feeling, Felix realised that there would be no getting out of this. Sooner or later, he and the dwarf were going to end up paying Blutdorf Keep a visit.
Desperately, he searched for a way of staving off the inevitable. ‘This calls for a plan,’ he said. ‘Landlord, some more of your fine ale.’
The landlord smiled and fussed about at the bar pouring some more ale. Felix noticed that Gotrek was eyeing him suspiciously. He realised that he wasn’t really showing the proper enthusiasm for their quest. The landlord came back and thumped down two more steins with an enthusiastic smile.
‘One for the road,’ Felix said, raising his ale jack. He swigged away at the beer, which tasted even fouler than it had previously. Because of the taste, he wasn’t quite sure, but he thought there was a faint chemical tang to the beer. Whatever it was, a few more sips left him feeling dizzy and nauseous. He noticed that Gotrek had finished his ale and was calling for another. The landlord obliged and the dwarf swigged it back in one gulp. His eyes widened, he clutched his throat and then he fell back as if pole-axed.
It took Felix a moment to register what had happened and he stumbled forward to examine his companion. His feet felt like lead. His head swam. Nausea threatened to overwhelm him. There was something wrong here, he knew, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. It was something to do with the ale. He had never seen the Trollslayer fall over before, no matter how much beer he drank. He had never felt so bad himself, not after so few beers. He turned and looked at the landlord. The man’s outline wavered, as if Felix was seeing him through a thick fog. He pointed an accusing finger.
‘You drudged… I mean drunk… no, I mean you drinked our drugs,’ Felix said and fell to his knees.
The landlord said, ‘Thank Tzeentch for that. I thought they would never go down. I gave that dwarf enough skavenroot to knock out a horse.’
Felix fumbled for his sword but his fingers felt numb and he fell forward into the darkness.
‘Cost me a crown a pinch, as well,’ the landlord muttered. His peevish voice was the last thing Felix remembered before unconsciousness took him. ‘Still, Herr Kruger will pay me well for two such fine specimens.’
‘Wake up, manling!’ The deep voice rumbled somewhere close to Felix’s ear. He tried to ignore it, hoping that it would go away and let him return to his slumber.
‘Wa
ke up, manling, or I swear I will come over there and strangle you with these very chains.’ There was a threatening note to the voice now that convinced Felix he’d better pay attention to it. He opened his eyes – and wished that he hadn’t.
Even the dim light of the single guttering torch illuminating their cell was too bright. Its feeble glow hurt Felix’s eyes. In a way, that was all right, because it made them match the rest of his body. His heartbeat thumped in his temples like a gong struck with a warhammer. His head felt like someone had used it for kickball practice. His mouth was desert dry and his tongue felt like someone had sandpapered it.
‘Worst hangover I ever had,’ Felix muttered, licking his lips nervously.
‘It’s not a hangover. We were dru–’
‘Drugged. I know.’
Felix realised that he was standing up. His hands were above his head and there were heavy weights attached to his ankles. He tried to bend forward to see what they were, but found that he could not move. He looked up to see that he dangled from manacles. The chains were attached to a great loop of iron set in the wall above him. He confirmed this by peering across the chamber and seeing that Gotrek was held the same way.
The Trollslayer dangled from his chains like a side of beef in a butcher’s shop. His legs were not chained, though. His frame was too short to reach the ground. Felix could see that there were leg irons set in the wall at ankle height but the dwarf’s legs did not stretch that far.
Felix looked around. They were in a large chamber, paved with heavy flagstones. There were a dozen sets of chains and manacles set in the walls. An oddly distorted skeleton dangled from the farthest set. In the wall to the far left was a huge bench covered in alembics and charcoal burners, and other tools of the alchemist’s trade. A huge chalk pentagram surrounded by peculiar hieroglyphics was inscribed in the centre of the room. At each junction of the pentacle was set a beastman skull holding an extinguished candle made from black wax.
At the far right of the room, a flight of stone steps led up to a heavy door. There was a barred window in the door, through which a few shafts of light penetrated down into the gloom. Near the foot of the stairs Felix could see his sword and Gotrek’s axe. He felt a brief surge of hope. Whoever had taken their weapons had not been very thorough. Felix could still feel the weight of the throwing dagger in the hidden sheath on his forearm. Of course, there was no way he could use it with his arms manacled, but it was somehow comforting to know it was there.
The air was thick and fetid. From the distance Felix thought he heard screams and chants and bestial roars. It was like listening to a combination of a lunatic asylum and a zoo. Nothing about their situation reassured Felix.
‘Why did the landlord drug us?’ Felix asked.
‘He was in league with this sorcerer. Obviously.’
‘Or he was afraid of him.’ If he could have, Felix would have shrugged. ‘No matter, I wonder why we’re still alive?’
A high-pitched tittering laugh answered that question. The heavy door creaked open and two figures blocked out the light. There was a brief flare as a lucifer was struck, then a lantern was lit and Felix could see the source of the mocking laughter.
‘A good question, Jaeger, and one I will be only too pleased to answer.’
There was something very familiar about this voice, Felix thought. It was high-pitched and nasal and deeply unpleasant. He had heard it before.
Felix squinted across the chamber and made out the voice’s owner. He was just as unpleasant as his voice. A tall, gaunt man, he wore faded and tattered grey robes, patched at the sleeves and elbows. Around his scrawny neck hung an iron chain bearing a huge amulet. His long thin fingers were covered in rune-encrusted rings and tipped with long blackened nails. His pale, sweating face was framed by a huge turned-up collar. He wore a skull-cap trimmed with silver.
Behind the man stood an enormous creature. It was huge, half again as tall as a man, and maybe four times as heavy. Perhaps once it had been human, but now it was the size of an ogre. Its hair had fallen out in great clumps, and massive pustules erupted from its scalp and flesh. Its features were twisted and hideous. Its teeth were like millstones. Its arms were even more muscular than Gotrek’s, thicker around than Felix’s thighs. Its hands were the size of dinner plates. Its callused, sausage-sized fingers looked like they could crush stone. It glared at Felix with eyes full of insane hatred. Felix found he could not meet the thing’s gaze and he turned his attention back to the human.
The man’s features were gaunt and lined. His eyes were the palest blue and bright with madness. They were hidden only slightly by his steel-framed pince-nez glasses. His nose was long and thin and tipped with an enormous wart. A drip of mucus hung from his nose. He tittered again, sniffed to draw the drip back into his nostrils and then wiped his nose on his sleeve. Then, recovering his dignity, he threw his head back and strode purposefully down the stairs.
The effect of impressive sorcerous dignity was spoiled a little when he almost tripped on the hem of his robe and fell headlong.
It was this last touch which stirred Felix’s memory. It brought everything else into focus. ‘Albericht?’ He said. ‘Albericht Kruger?’
‘Don’t call me that!’ The robed man’s voice approached a scream. ‘Address me as “Master”!’
‘You know this idiot, manling?’ Gotrek asked.
Felix nodded. Albericht Kruger had been in a few of his philosophy classes at Altdorf University before he had been expelled for duelling. He had been a quiet youth, very studious, and was always to be found in the libraries. Felix had probably never exchanged more than a dozen words with him in the whole two years that they had studied together. He remembered also that Kruger had vanished. There had been a bit of a scandal about it – something to do with books missing from the library. Felix could remember that a few witch hunters from the Temple of Sigmar had shown interest.
‘We were students together back in Altdorf.’
‘That’s enough!’ Kruger screeched in his thin and annoying voice. ‘You are my prisoners and you will do as I say for what remains of your pitiful lives.’
‘We will do as you say for what remains of our pitiful lives?’ Felix stared back at Kruger in astonishment. ‘You’ve been reading too many Detlef Sierck melodramas, Albericht. Nobody speaks like that in real life.’
‘Be quiet, Jaeger! That’s enough. You were always too clever for your own good, you know. Now we’ll see who’s the clever one – oh yes!’
‘Come on, Albericht, a joke’s a joke. Let us out of here. Quick, before your master comes.’
‘My master?’ Kruger seemed puzzled.
‘The sorcerer who owns this tower.’
‘You idiot, Jaeger! I am the sorcerer.’
Felix stared in disbelief. ‘You?’
‘Yes, me! I have probed the mysteries of the Dark Gods and learned the source of all magical power. I have plumbed the secrets of Life and Death. I wield the mighty energies of Chaos and soon I will have total domination over the lands of the Empire.’
‘I find that a little hard to believe,’ Felix admitted honestly. The Kruger he had known back then had been virtually a non-entity, ignored by all the other students. Who would have guessed at the depths of megalomania that lurked in his head?
‘Think what you will, Herr-clever-clogs-Jaeger with your la-di-da accent and your my-father-is-a-rich-merchant and I’m-too-good-for-your-sort manners. I have mastered the secrets of life itself. I control the alchemical secrets of warpstone and understand the innermost secrets of the Art of Transmutation!’
Out of the corner of his eye, Felix could see Gotrek’s huge muscles beginning to bulge as he strained against the chains that held him. His face was red and his beard bristled. His body was contorted, arched to brace his feet against the wall. Felix did not know what the dwarf hoped to achieve. Anyone could see that these huge chain
s were beyond the strength of man or dwarf to break.
‘You’ve been using warpstone?’ That explained a lot, Felix thought. He did not know much about warpstone, but what he did know was disturbing enough. It was the raw essence of Chaos, the final and ultimate source of all mutations. Just a pinch of it was enough to drive a normal man mad. By his tone, it sounded like Kruger had consumed a barrel of it. ‘You’re insane!’
‘That’s what they told me back in Altdorf, back at their university!’ Spittle dripped from Kruger’s mouth. Felix could see that his eyes glowed an eerie green, as if there were tiny marshlights behind the pupils. Vampire-like fangs protruded from his gums. ‘But I showed them. I found their forbidden books, all wrapped up in the vault. They said that they were not meant for the eyes of mortal man but I’ve read them, and they’ve done me no harm!’
‘Yes, I can see that,’ Felix muttered ironically.
‘You think you’re so clever, don’t you, Jaeger? You’re just like all the rest, all of them who laughed at me when I said I would be the greatest sorcerer since Teclis. Well, I’ll prove you wrong. We’ll see how smart you act once I have transformed you, the way I transformed Oleg here!’
He tapped the monster on the shoulder with paternal pride. It grinned like a dog whose stomach has been scratched by its master. Felix found the sight very disturbing. Behind them Gotrek was practically standing against the wall. His arms were at full stretch, the chains holding firm, leaving him parallel to the floor. The Trollslayer was blue in the face. His features were contorted in a grimace of rage and fury. Felix felt that something would have to give soon. Either the chains would break or the Trollslayer would burst a blood vessel. That might prove to be a mercy, Felix thought. He did not see how Gotrek could overcome the monster without his axe. The Slayer was strong, but this creature made him look like a scrawny child.
Kruger raised his arm, brandishing his staff. At the tip, Felix could see that a sphere of greenish warpstone was held in a lead claw. Felix could not help but notice that the hand that held the staff was scaly, and that its fingernails resembled the talons of a wild beast.
