by Warhammer
When they had all drunk a few cups of strong ale and finished their hard tack and biscuit, the evening turned into a dwarf boasting contest, each trying to top the others with the dangers and outlandish adventures they had experienced. Gotrek was remarkably restrained, considering that, having faced down a daemon, he could top them all. He told only stories from his time adventuring with Hamnir, long before he had found his rune axe or taken the Slayer’s crest. Perhaps, thought Felix, that had nothing to do with restraint.
‘Well, none of you has ever climbed as high as I have, I’ll wager,’ said Galin, taking a swig of ale.
‘Ha!’ said Narin. ‘I climbed old Hammertop, just to have a look at the sunset. You climbed higher than that?’
Galin smiled smugly and wiped his lips. ‘I was one of the young fools who joined Firriksson when he scaled the Maiden’s Tresses.’
Thorgig gaped. ‘You climbed the Tresses? With that belly?’
The others laughed.
Galin’s eyes flashed, but then he relaxed and chuckled, patting his swelling midsection. ‘I hadn’t won my ale vault then. In fact, I was younger than you, shortbeard, and I thought Firriksson was the greatest adventurer that ever lived. Of course, we all found out later that he was as mad as a squig in heat, but then, well…’ He puffed on his pipe for a moment, his eyes far away. ‘You see, he’d heard the old wives’ tale that the Maiden’s Eye, that winks from the peak of the Maiden at sunrise and sunset, was a diamond as big as a mine cart, and he decided he wanted it. So up we went, a bunch of stripling shortbeards and Firriksson, a lunatic thunderer who used to dance harvest jigs in his tent, by himself, for a half hour every morning before breaking camp. Said it kept him fit. Lost three of us on the way up. They fell down a crevasse in an ice field. Broke every bone they had. Bad business.’ He frowned, and then shook off the memory and grinned. ‘When we get to the top, after five of the coldest days of my life, Firriksson finds the Maiden’s Eye, and it’s everything that’s promised, big as a mine cart, as clear and clean as spring water… and made entirely of salt.’
The dwarfs guffawed.
Galin shrugged. ‘So, we carved our names in it, had a lick for luck, and went back down.’
‘You think Kolin Firriksson was mad,’ said Hamnir, ‘try serving under a human. The sanest human is madder than any dwarf.’ He looked over at Felix, suddenly remembering he was there. ‘Er, no disrespect meant, Herr Jaeger.’
Felix ground his teeth. ‘None taken.’
Gotrek snorted, ‘And we once fought for one who was madder than a skaven with a warpstone helmet.’
Hamnir looked at him, laughing. ‘You mean Chamnelac!’
‘Aye,’ said Gotrek. ‘Duke Chamnelac of Cres, a pirate hunter out of Bretonnia, fierce as a badger…’
‘And almost as intelligent,’ said Hamnir, ‘but if moustaches had been brains, he’d have been a mage. Had a pair of curling soup strainers you could have hung kettles on.’
Gotrek leaned forwards. ‘We’d been chasing old Ice Eye, a Norse raider, who was the scourge of the Bretonnian coast at the time, and finally caught up with him south of Sartosa, on an island well known for being a refuge for pirates.’
‘It had been a rough voyage,’ said Hamnir, picking up the story. ‘A bad storm three days out, a run-in with a Tilean corsair that had killed twenty dwarfs and men and wounded forty more; and Chamnelac had been in such a hurry to get after Ice Eye that he hadn’t victualled or supplied himself properly. There was hardly any food or drinking water, and no surgeon. Chamnelac had left him behind by mistake.’
‘His crew wasn’t too pleased, needless to say,’ continued Gotrek. ‘We were under strength to be attacking Ice Eye in his hidey hole, and likely to die even if we won, for lack of bandages. There was talk of mutiny, and some of his officers went to him and begged him to turn back.’
‘Chamnelac refused,’ said Hamnir. ‘He called them cowards. He didn’t want to let Ice Eye get away. He anchored his ship on the far side of the island from Ice Eye’s wooden fort, and ordered the men ashore, supposedly so they could take on fresh water and hunt for food.’ He grinned. ‘When they did…’
Gotrek laughed. ‘When they did, he set fire to his ship! Burnt it to the waterline.’
‘What?’ said Arn, ‘Humans are insane.’
‘I see the sense of it,’ said Thorgig. ‘His men were wavering. He wanted to give them no choice but to attack. The only way to return home was to kill Ice Eye and take his ship. No retreat. No surrender.’
‘Very brave, I’m sure,’ said Narin, ‘but even the boldest commander likes to leave himself an out, if he can.’
‘Did it work?’ asked Ragar. ‘Did he win?’
Gotrek and Hamnir exchanged a sly look.
‘Oh aye,’ said Gotrek. ‘Chamnelac won. Took the island without a fight.’
‘Without a fight?’ asked Galin. ‘How is that possible?’
‘Because…’ said Hamnir, and then burst out laughing, ‘because Ice Eye had seen the smoke from Chamnelac’s burning ship and knew he was coming, and…’ His laughter overwhelmed him.
Gotrek grinned savagely. ‘He sailed away. Ice Eye took off with all his ships and left Chamnelac gaping on the shore!’
‘Sailed away?’ Thorgig goggled, ‘But that means that Chamnelac…’
‘Couldn’t get off the island!’ chuckled Narin, slapping his knee. ‘He’d trapped himself! What a fool!’
Thorgig frowned. ‘So, er, how did you get off, did you build a raft?’
Hamnir shook his head. ‘Too far from shore. We were stuck well and proper. In the end, after three months went by and we were all thinner than human beer, another pirate, an Estalian, dropped anchor to take on water.’
‘Did Chamnelac take his ship, then?’ asked Ragar.
Gotrek grinned. ‘Chamnelac was dead, murdered the first night we were marooned. Half his officers too. No, we signed the articles and joined up, the whole of Chamnelac’s crew. Most of them stayed on the account too, as I recall.’
‘The poor old duke birthed more pirates than he ever took,’ said Hamnir, shaking his head.
Gotrek took a swallow of ale. ‘Three months on an island with a bunch of filthy Bretonnians, and only berries and seagulls to eat, ruined my stomach for a year.’
‘You had it easy,’ said Narin. ‘I was trapped in a hunter’s shack in the Kislev oblast for two months in the middle of winter, with two ogres for company and nothing to eat but a cellar full of rotten turnips.’
‘A dwarf can live on turnips,’ said Galin. ‘Don’t sound such a hardship.’
‘A dwarf can, aye,’ said Narin. ‘Unfortunately, ogres can’t. Oh, they’ll eat them. They’ll eat anything, but it’ll only leave them wanting something… meatier. Namely, me.’
The others laughed.
Felix saw Gotrek look over at Leatherbeard as Narin told his story. The young Slayer wasn’t participating in the boasting. He sat a little way off from the others, staring into the fire through the eyes of his crudely patched mask. Gotrek glanced at him several more times during Narin’s tale. Then, while the Rassmusson brothers were trying to top him by telling a very confused story about tricking a companion of theirs into eating troll dung, he got up and crossed to him.
‘All right, Slayer?’ Gotrek asked, squatting.
Leatherbeard shrugged.
‘Not still troubled about us seeing your face?’
Leatherbeard shook his head. ‘That isn’t it. Not all of it.’
‘Well then, what’s the matter? It isn’t every day that a dwarf graduates from squigslayer to trollslayer.’
Felix could just see the corners of the young Slayer’s mouth turn up sadly through the mouth-slot of his mask.
‘I am glad to have won the name, aye,’ he said, ‘but… but I didn’t die. I didn’t end my shame. Instead, I lost my mask and made it worse.’
Gotrek chuckled, a black, empty sound. ‘Now you know the true pain of the Slayer, lad,’ he said. ‘Every victory
is a defeat, for only if we die do we fulfil our destinies; but if we don’t try to win, if we drop our axes and let the troll rip us apart, then Grungni won’t accept us into the halls of our ancestors, for he doesn’t care for suicides.’ He sighed. ‘I’ve been at it eighty years. The pain doesn’t go away, but you get used to it.’ He stood. ‘Beer helps. Have another.’
He returned to the others and the tales continued.
The next morning – if there was such a thing as morning in the stygian underworld of the Undgrin – a few hours after the dwarfs broke camp, they came to a place where it looked as if the tunnel had been crushed by a giant hand. The floor was buckled and broken, and the walls and ceiling had crumbled and fallen in. Boulders as big as houses littered the floor, crushing the twisted cart rails. Other boulders had fallen atop them, some precariously balanced, and the ceiling above the mess was mazed with cracks and missing blocks. It bulged down ominously in places.
‘Did you know this was here?’ asked Gotrek, his eyes travelling across the wreckage.
‘I had heard there was some damage from an earthquake that occurred sixty years after the mine closed,’ Hamnir said, ‘but that it was passable.’
‘I can see beyond it,’ said Narin, twisting the sliver of wood in his beard, ‘but it doesn’t look to be a pleasant stroll.’
‘Miner’s nightmare,’ said Galin, looking uneasily up at the ceiling. ‘Those blocks could come down at any minute. Any one of us so much as raises his voice or stamps his feet and… boom.’
‘My father meant to repair this,’ said Hamnir, swallowing queasily, ‘but there were always things closer to home that were more urgent.’
‘I heard he left it this way on purpose,’ said Karl.
‘Aye,’ said Ragar, ‘so that no army could get through here without it all dropping on their heads.’
‘A ready-made trap,’ said Arn.
‘A trap for us,’ said Leatherbeard uneasily. ‘A rock fall is no doom for a Slayer.’
‘Olifsson,’ said Hamnir. ‘See if you can find us a way through.’
‘Me?’ said Galin, eyes bulging. ‘Do you mean to get me killed?’
‘You are an engineer,’ said Hamnir. ‘You came for this purpose. I want your advice on this.’
Galin swallowed. ‘My advice,’ he said, ‘is to find another way around.’
Hamnir scowled. ‘You know very well there is no other way. It’s through, or back the way we came.’
‘Are you a coward after all, Olifsson?’ asked Thorgig. ‘You look a little pale.’
It was true. Galin’s normally florid face was mud grey.
‘I’m a mine engineer,’ he said. ‘As the Slayer knows his axe and Prince Hamnir knows his markets, I know walls and ceilings and the weight they will bear. That ceiling is hanging by spider webs. We won’t make it through.’
‘But we must,’ said Hamnir, ‘and you’re the dwarf to guide us.’
‘It’s death,’ said Galin, his eyes never leaving the crumbling ceiling.
Hamnir stepped to him and looked him in the eye. ‘Listen to me, engineer. I have a hold to save. I will not turn back. You are a volunteer. I have not ordered you to follow me. You are free to leave. The rest of us will try to cross through this death trap without you.’
Galin shook his head. ‘You’ll never make it.’
‘Not without you,’ said Hamnir, and he turned away to stand next to Gotrek, who was surveying the collapse.
The others turned away too. Galin stood behind them, lips tight, head down. Felix joined the others, as much to spare the engineer his scrutiny as to shun him like the rest.
‘All right, curse you,’ Galin choked after a long pause. ‘All right, I’ll have a look. I can’t have you fools stomping in and killing yourselves.’ He pushed through them, glaring furiously. He stopped at the edge of the mess, removed his pack and laid down his hammer.
Hamnir put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Thank you, engineer.’
Galin shrugged him off, snarling, and then swallowed and took a deep breath. It seemed to Felix that he might have lost his courage once more, but at last he started forwards, one cautious inch at a time. Three paces in he looked back. ‘Stay quiet.’
The other dwarfs waited as he picked his way cautiously through the boulders, placing every foot with care, testing the floor and the rubble with trembling toes and fingers. He soon disappeared around a fall of boulders, and Felix and the other dwarfs held their breath and craned their necks. After what seemed like forever, he reappeared, his legs trembling and his red face bathed in sweat. He inched back to them as slowly and methodically as he had left them, and at last let out a long breath when he stepped beyond the last bit of jumbled granite.
‘Well, there is a way,’ he said, mopping his brow, ‘but you will all have to step exactly where I step and touch only what I touch. Kicking a pebble or slipping on a bit of scree in that mess will bury us. There’re parts of that roof that…’ he shivered. ‘Well, I don’t know what’s holding it up.’
‘Couldn’t we make a big noise now and bring it down before we go on?’ asked Felix.
The dwarfs gave him patronising looks.
‘That would indeed be safest,’ said Narin, smiling, ‘but where’s the guarantee that the road would still be passable after it fell?’
‘I can guarantee it wouldn’t be,’ said Galin.
‘Ah, yes. I see. Of course.’ Felix blushed. He felt like a fool.
‘Right,’ said Hamnir, turning to the others, ‘all in one line, close together. Take the exact step the dwarf in front of you took. Galin, you have the lead. Jaeger, you come last.’
Felix’s heart thudded. ‘Why am I last?’
‘Because you have the longest legs to run with, if things begin to fall,’ said Hamnir, ‘and, forgive me if I’m blunt, you’re more likely to put a foot wrong than a dwarf.’
Felix’s fists balled. More insults.
‘It’s true, manling,’ said Gotrek. ‘We dwarfs were born to tunnels and cave-ins. We know our footing.’
‘Aye aye, fine,’ said Felix. He wanted to punch all the superior little know-it-alls in the nose, but he restrained himself. It would probably bring the roof down. He took off his red cloak and stuffed it in his pack so it wouldn’t catch on anything.
‘Follow close,’ said Galin, ‘and don’t say a word.’
The dwarfs started ahead like a caterpillar on the march, walking in lockstep, each with one hand on the shoulder of the dwarf ahead of him. They seemed to have done it many times before. Felix put his hand on Gotrek’s shoulder and did his best to follow along, staring intently at the Slayer’s feet.
It was slow going. At the front of the line, Galin tested the way with the haft of his warhammer, making certain no rock or slab he put his foot on would shift or slip. Then he would step and test again, step, and test again. The next dwarf would then place his foot where Galin had placed his, and so on. At first, this wasn’t difficult, but, as they began to weave through the maze of monolithic boulders and up through places where the floor had buckled and rose at a steep slant, the footing was trickier. The dwarfs braced each other as they went up and down, making sure they didn’t slip backwards or tip forwards.
Felix’s heart thudded so noisily as he followed Gotrek that he thought the vibrations would surely shake loose the ceiling. He was sweating like a fountain. Every trickle of dust, every clack of boot heel on rock made him cringe and hunch his shoulders. His neck ached with tension.
He watched Gotrek step over a jutting ridge of floor and carefully place his foot on the other side, exactly where the dwarf before him had placed his. Felix lifted his leg over the ridge and stepped down precisely, eyes on where Gotrek was stepping next, and…
Crack! He smacked his head on a low rock overhang. He clamped a hand over his mouth to stifle a yelp. The world was receding and turning yellow and black. His knees buckled. He had been so intent on Gotrek’s feet that he hadn’t seen the cantilevered slab of granite that Got
rek had simply walked under. He wanted to scream and jump up and down, but both would be suicide. He stood frozen. The tunnel spun around him. He was going to fall.
A grip like iron caught his upper arm. He opened his eyes. Gotrek was holding him steady, a stubby finger on his lips. Felix nodded, and then wished he hadn’t. It almost toppled him. He looked past Gotrek. The other dwarfs had stopped, and were looking back at him with expressions that ranged from pity to contempt to amusement. Galin was staring wide-eyed up at the ceiling. His lips were moving as if he was praying.
After a moment, the tunnel steadied and the dizziness passed. Felix’s head still ached abominably, and a thread of blood ran down to the tip of his nose, but he had recovered enough to walk. He motioned to Gotrek to go on. The Slayer turned back with the others and took another step. Felix ducked low under the projecting slab and followed.
Felix wasn’t the only one who erred. Halfway through the wreckage, Galin’s probing axe handle dislodged a skull-sized rock that rolled and bounced down a slanted section of floor as the dwarfs froze and looked up, their shoulders hunched. Dribbles of dust rained down from the ceiling, but it stayed in place. A little further on, Thorgig put his hand out to brace himself on a fallen block of stone and it began to tip. He gasped and stepped back, and the others looked around. The carriage-sized block was precariously balanced on a smaller rock below it, its balance point directly over the bottom rock’s edge. The dwarfs froze as they watched it teeter slowly, and then settle back with the softest of thuds. Everyone breathed again.
At last, Galin led them beyond the ruptured floor and out from under the bulging ceiling, and they all let out great sighs of relief.
Felix dabbed at his bloodied forehead with his handkerchief and looked back. His limbs were shaking with reaction. ‘I hope we don’t have to retreat this way. I don’t think I could take it again.’
