Gotrek & Felix- the Third Omnibus - William King & Nathan Long

by Warhammer

  It wasn’t enough.

  Though they had fallen into formation with an organisation so practiced that it was almost instinct, the dwarfs were still too drunk and exhausted to stand against an enemy that felt no pain and was slowed only by the most grievous wound. Hamnir’s order had slowed the massacre, but not halted it. Not one of the orcs had fallen, and the dwarfs were dying in droves.

  Gotrek cut an orc off at the knees. It crawled forwards on the stumps. The Slayer cursed and jumped back, slashing at its arms.

  ‘We must fall back,’ said Hamnir, hacking ineffectually at an eyeless orc. His voice was tight with suppressed panic. ‘We cannot hold here!’

  ‘Fall back to where?’ asked Gorril. ‘We left dead orcs all over the hold. If they’re all like this, we’ve nowhere to run!’

  ‘We could abandon the hold,’ said Galin.

  ‘No!’ said Hamnir. ‘That I will not do. Not after all we went through to win it.’

  ‘What then?’ asked Narin.

  ‘The Diamondsmith clanhold!’ Hamnir cried at last. ‘Their door is still whole. We will retreat there until we can recover and decide what to do.’

  ‘Aye,’ said Gorril. ‘Good.’

  Hamnir stepped back from the front line and blew the war horn again. ‘Fall back! Fall back!’ he called. ‘Pass the word. Retreat to the Diamondsmith hold! Through the kitchens to the stairs and up!’

  The dwarf companies began to retire in orderly fashion, forcing a path through the shuffling orcs towards the high table and the door to the kitchens.

  The legless orc caught Gotrek’s ankle as he tried to follow Hamnir. The Slayer stumbled and nearly fell. He booted it in the face. ‘Damned thing! Die!’

  The orc shrugged off Gotrek’s kick and snapped at his knees with its tusks. Gotrek cursed and decapitated it. It flopped to the ground, its limbs still at last.

  ‘It stopped,’ Gotrek said, goggling at it drunkenly.

  ‘Look out!’ Felix dragged Gotrek back as an orc axe missed his neck by an inch. Gotrek jerked away from Felix’s hand and decapitated that orc too. It collapsed like an empty sack.

  Hamnir laughed, still drunk himself. ‘You’ve done it, Gurnisson! You’ve found the way.’

  ‘Ha!’ said Gotrek, indistinctly. ‘Knew it all along.’

  ‘The head!’ called Hamnir, up and down the line. ‘Cut off the head and the body dies! Pass the word!’

  ‘Prince,’ said Gorril eagerly. ‘Call off the retreat! We can finish them!’

  ‘No,’ said Hamnir. ‘We are too tired – too drunk. We will die trying. We must recover ourselves first.’

  The journey to the intact hold was a nightmare. Even knowing how to stop them, the orcs were hard to kill, and more attacked the dwarfs’ flanks at every cross corridor and open chamber, stumbling out of the dark in a grey-green tide. At last, with orcs hemming them in on every side, the dwarfs reached the great doors of the Diamondsmith clanhold.

  Once again, Hamnir rapped the mine code with the butt of his axe and, once again, they waited, while the dwarfs held off the press of orcs as best they could.

  ‘Curse them,’ said Gorril after five minutes had passed and many brave dwarfs had fallen. ‘Where are they?’

  ‘No doubt they sleep soundly,’ said Hamnir, ‘bellies full and free from fear at last.’ He rapped on the door again.

  At last there was an answering tap and the doors swung slowly open. Hamnir called the companies back one at a time and they made an orderly retreat into the hold, until only he, Felix, Gotrek and Gorril stood with Gorril’s clan brothers, fighting off a wall of unblinking, unrelenting orcs.

  ‘Now! Back as one!’ Hamnir cried. Then, ‘The doors! Close the doors!’

  The dwarfs backstepped quickly, ranks still neatly dressed, as the doors swung in. The orcs pushed forwards, trying to follow them, but the doors closed inexorably, crushing a handful of orcs to paste between them. Gotrek, Felix and Gorril’s lads decapitated the few that got in, the doors were locked tight, and all was quiet.

  Hamnir leaned against the wall, catching his breath, and then pushed himself wearily upright and turned to the dwarfs ranked up at the ready in the dim corridor – all that remained of the force that had rallied to help Hamnir retake Karak Hirn not three weeks ago. They were much reduced. The battles with the living orcs and the orcs reborn had more than halved their number.

  ‘Well fought, cousins,’ Hamnir said, between breaths. ‘Now come, let us impose on the hospitality of our recently rescued brothers. We must rest before we can fight again.’

  The dwarfs parted and turned about, allowing Hamnir, Gorril, Felix and Gotrek to lead them down the corridor to the hold’s central chamber. Galin and Narin came with them, having grown used to travelling with Hamnir.

  Felix started as they entered the huge hall. Thane Kirhaz, Birri, Ferga and the other survivors were ranked up like an army in the middle of the hall, staring at them as they entered. All, even the women, were armed, if only with fire tongs and rolling pins.

  Hamnir squared his shoulders and saluted them, overcome at this display. ‘This is very brave, cousins,’ he said, ‘coming to our aid when you are in such straits yourselves, but there is no need. We are safe for now, and once we have slept and recovered ourselves, we will deal with the menace in the hold.’

  The survivors said nothing. Nor did they move – they only stood and stared, unblinking.

  ‘Kirhaz?’ said Hamnir uncertainly. ‘Birri? Are you well? Have you room for us to take our rest?’

  Kirhaz raised his crossbow. It trembled in his shrivelled hands. He fired – a weak shot. The bolt struck Hamnir in the shin.

  ‘You threaten the Sleeper,’ said Birri. ‘You must die.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Hamnir cried out, as much in surprise as in pain, and nearly fell.

  ‘Prince Hamnir!’ Gorril caught Hamnir and held him upright.

  Everyone gaped at the Diamondsmith dwarfs, stunned. Kirhaz dropped his crossbow with a clatter and drew his axe. He and Birri motioned the other survivors forwards. They shuffled ahead listlessly, raising their weapons.

  ‘Thane Kirhaz, Birri, I don’t understand,’ said Hamnir, wincing as he put weight on his punctured leg. ‘Why do you attack us? Who is the Sleeper?’

  Kirhaz and Birri didn’t answer. Their gaunt troops came on, staring fixedly at Hamnir and his beleaguered army. Gotrek growled wordlessly.

  ‘Grimnir, what’s the matter with them?’ cried Hamnir.

  ‘They… they are just like the orcs,’ said Gorril. ‘How can this be? How did we not notice before?’

  Hamnir took a step back. The others did the same. The entire army edged away from the strange, silent dwarfs.

  ‘Is the Sleeper what we sensed in the mine?’ asked Felix uncertainly. ‘Has it turned their minds with sorcery?’

  ‘Impossible!’ said Hamnir, as if trying to convince himself. ‘Dwarfs laugh at sorcery. It doesn’t affect us.’ He called to Kirhaz, who was raising his axe. ‘Thane Helmgard, please! Come to your senses. Birri, have you forgotten our friendship? Ferga, make them listen.’

  Ferga walked beside her father, as implacable as the rest, a carving knife in her hand. She didn’t respond.

  Gotrek stared at the approaching dwarfs, his one eye dull and miserable. He put a hand on Hamnir’s shoulder. ‘They’re tainted, scholar,’ he said sadly. ‘I don’t think they can be saved.’

  ‘What? What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean,’ Gotrek paused, before going on, his voice rough. ‘We will have to kill them.’

  ‘No!’ said Hamnir, wild-eyed. ‘No! We rescued them! We can’t turn around and kill them now! I won’t do it!’

  ‘They mean to kill us,’ said Gotrek.

  ‘There must be a way!’ Hamnir looked around desperately.

  A few Diamondsmith dwarfs had reached his lines and were swinging pathetically at their cousins. Their blows were slow and weak. Hamnir’s dwarfs parried them easily, some crying out to their
attackers by name, begging them to stop. It would have been the work of an instant to cut them all down, but none of the dwarfs had the heart to do it, and instead blocked and held them off.

  ‘The gemcutters’ guild hall!’ said Hamnir suddenly, pointing to an ornate doorway open on the left wall. ‘We will trap them inside, and then descend into the mine and find what has caused this horrible change, this “Sleeper”, and kill it! Then they will recover!’

  Gotrek shook his head. ‘You’re fooling yourself, scholar. They’re too far gone. Look at them.’

  ‘How can you say that?’ Hamnir cried, furious. ‘How can you condemn them when there might still be hope?’

  ‘Experience.’

  ‘Damn your experience! I refuse to believe it is too late! Stay your hand. I will not kill my own kin.’

  Gotrek growled in his throat, but did not attack.

  Hamnir whispered to Gorril. ‘Pass the word. Retreat into the guildhall, rearguard first. When they follow us in, we will lock the door behind them, and then exit out the rear door and trap them within.’

  Gorril saluted and hurried to each company, murmuring to their commanders, as more and more of the shambling dwarfs closed with Hamnir’s army, and the strange, one-sided battle intensified. The dwarfs were relieved not to have to attack their cousins, and obeyed Hamnir’s orders eagerly. The companies closest to the guildhall door backed through it while those before them protected their retreat.

  Birri, Kirhaz and Ferga angled towards Hamnir and his companions.

  Birri raised his hand and pointed. ‘Kill the prince. Kill the Slayer. It is the will of the Sleeper.’

  The mindless dwarfs obeyed, turning and joining Kirhaz, Birri and Ferga as they slashed at Hamnir and Gotrek, while all along the line the rest attacked Hamnir’s troops.

  Kirhaz raised his axe at Hamnir. Gotrek knocked it out of his hands. Felix blocked and parried as three dwarfs attacked him. Individually, they were nothing. Together, coming after his drunken slumbers and the mad, breathless retreat from the undead orcs, they were almost more than he could handle. If he could have fought back, the combat would have been over in a second, but he was as reluctant as the dwarfs to slay those he had come to rescue.

  Birri aimed a smash at Gotrek with a hammer. Gotrek blocked it easily and kicked at him. The engineer barely seemed to feel it and struck again. Gotrek parried and kicked harder, frustrated. Birri staggered back and tripped over one of his companions, landing hard on his shoulder. He was up again almost instantly. Felix caught a glint of gold around his neck, under his beard.

  ‘Gotrek!’ Felix called, pointing at Birri. ‘He wears a torque.’

  ‘What?’ cried Hamnir, and almost took Ferga’s knife in the face as he turned to look.

  Gotrek caught Birri’s hammer in a bind, and twisted, disarming him. ‘Get it, manling. Get it off him.’

  Felix started forwards, blocking to both sides, but Birri stumbled back behind the other survivors.

  ‘Stop them!’ he murmured. ‘Kill them!’

  The blank-eyed dwarfs turned to do his bidding, getting in Gotrek and Felix’s way as he retreated.

  It would have been easy to follow him if they had wished to cut down the dwarfs in the way, but getting through them without harming them was more difficult.

  ‘He’s the leader,’ rasped Gotrek as he prodded the dwarfs back. ‘Not Kirhaz.’

  ‘After him, Gotrek,’ said Hamnir. ‘Take him, but don’t kill him. Perhaps this malaise will lessen if you remove his torque.’

  ‘Aye, scholar,’ said Gotrek, pushing forwards another foot. ‘Come on, manling.’

  They broke through at last, just as Birri was disappearing into a hallway on the far side of the room.

  Gotrek stole a glance back at Hamnir as they limped after the engineer. ‘Too soft-hearted for his own good. Always has been.’

  They entered the corridor. Birri was nowhere in sight. Gotrek cursed. They hurried down it as fast as they could, which wasn’t very fast. Their wounds, and all the drinking and fighting they had done had taken their toll. They hissed and grunted with every step.

  Felix hobbled down a side corridor and looked in an open door. Birri was not within. He tried a closed door. It was locked.

  ‘Manling,’ came Gotrek’s voice. ‘Back here. I hear him.’

  Felix returned to the main corridor. Gotrek was starting down a stairwell. Felix followed. At the bottom was another corridor. They looked left and right.

  ‘There.’ Gotrek pointed to the left.

  Felix peered down the dim corridor. Far in the distance, he could see a dark form shuffling away from them.

  ‘Got more strength than the others,’ he said.

  ‘It’s the collar,’ said Gotrek.

  They started after him. It was a very sad race. Birri might have been fitter than the rest of the Diamondsmith defenders, but not by much. He lurched and staggered like a sleepwalker. Unfortunately, Gotrek and Felix were hardly better. They gained on him steadily, following him through corridors and chambers, and down winding stairs, but it was slow going. Gotrek grunted with each step, his damaged leg as stiff as a board. Felix was so dizzy with drink and weariness that he had to keep one hand on the wall to steady himself.

  They had almost caught up with the engineer when he ducked into a side passage and put on a burst of speed. They hurried to the corner in time to see him scuttle through a wide door, through which glowed a steady orange light.

  Gotrek and Felix limped through the door after him and stopped dead. They were in an engineer’s workshop, its high ceilings lost above a web of girders and gantries, pulleys and heavy chains. The walls were crowded with workbenches, kilns, forges and machines the purpose of which Felix couldn’t even begin to fathom. Along the far wall, copper water tanks, steam engines and open cisterns were grouped around a large, grated drain in the floor.

  The thing that had taken them aback sat in the centre of the room on a length of steel track. It had once been an Undgrin mine cart. Now, it looked like nothing more than an enormous iron scarab, crouching on six spoked wheels. Curved iron plates covered it like a carapace, and the muzzles of swivel guns stuck out through slotted openings. A huge cannon hung above it on chains, waiting to be lowered into a revolving housing on its roof.

  ‘Sigmar,’ breathed Felix, ‘it’s some kind of steam tank! Like we saw in Nuln!’

  ‘This “Sleeper” means to mount attacks from the Undgrin,’ muttered Gotrek. ‘With that at the head of an orc army…’

  He trailed off as Birri appeared on top of the armoured cart and clambered forwards to an open turret. He grabbed the crank of a strange, multiple-barrelled gun, and swung it towards them.

  Gotrek and Felix dived for cover as Birri wound the crank and the gun began spitting a stream of bullets. Felix slid behind a forge as the rain of lead kicked dust off the flagstones where he had stood. Gotrek crouched behind a small smelting furnace. The noise of the gun was deafening.

  ‘You only delay the inevitable,’ called Birri over the clatter. ‘The Sleeper will not be denied.’

  ‘I’ll deny him to my last breath, betrayer,’ said Gotrek, looking around at the room’s equipment. ‘Dwarfs are dead because you set new traps in the hangar corridor.’

  ‘Defended the hold, as I have always done,’ said Birri, firing over their heads.

  ‘How did this happen, engineer?’ shouted Felix. ‘Where did you get the torque?’

  ‘I…’ For a moment Birri’s calm confidence seemed to falter. ‘I wanted to get out. To get help. Too many grobi at the main gate. Used our secret door and made for the hidden hangar door. Caught. Fought. Foolish. None can fight the Sleeper. The others died. I fell and was taken below. Still I fought, but at last… at last I accepted the gift. Brought to my brothers in the hold.’ He fired again and his voice strengthened. ‘Now I am invincible.’

  ‘We’ll see about that,’ said Gotrek. He motioned to Felix and pointed to winches bolted into the floor near their hiding
places. Felix examined them. The chains that held the cannon above the tank cart wound around them. Gotrek made a hacking gesture.

  Felix nodded, but eyed the heavy chains uncertainly. Gotrek would sever his in one blow, but could he?

  ‘Join us,’ called Birri. ‘Join us and you will be invincible too.’

  ‘Invincible?’ said Gotrek, barking a harsh laugh. ‘You try to tempt a Slayer with that?’

  He held up three fingers, two, and then one. Felix surged up and rolled to his winch, raising his sword. The gatling gun chattered to life. Felix swung down with all his might and the sword bit deep into a steel link, but didn’t sever it. He cursed as he heard Gotrek’s chain snap behind him. The stream of lead was spewing his way. He hacked again.

  The chain parted. Felix dived to the side as bullets smashed into the winch. He rolled behind a massive kiln and looked up.

  The huge cannon was swinging down on its two remaining chains like the clapper of some gigantic bell, loose chains flailing, but because Felix’s cut had been late, it didn’t swing straight. It swerved around Birri like one magnet repulsed by another.

  ‘Ha!’ the engineer cried. ‘You see? Invincible!’

  The cannon swung to the limit of its arc. With a sound like twin pistol shots, the last two chains snapped, and the cannon crashed down behind the tank cart, its butt-end smashing through the iron grate that covered the huge drain. The cannon dropped out of sight like a crossbow bolt dropped down the neck of a bottle. Its chains followed it, rattling violently through their pulleys and lashing like furious snakes.