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

by Warhammer

  When they got to the college, Felix went to his room, closed his shutters and his curtains and lay down in bed. But tired as he was, he had difficulty getting to sleep. His mind remained filled with Wissen’s damning words. Malakai had made a spirited defence, but Felix still could not convince himself that the fire hadn’t been, at least in part, their fault. Should they have gone back and told the authorities instead of wading in? Should they have fought the cultists in a different way? Was there something else they could have done?

  When he did fall asleep, his dreams were haunted by the sounds of crackling flames and the screams of the dying.

  Felix woke to a gentle tapping on his door. When he raised his head from the pillows, a man in the robes of a physician was poking his head in. He smiled at Felix.

  ‘Sorry to wake you,’ he said. ‘But Professor Makaisson asked me to look in on you and change your bandages.’

  Felix mumbled for the man to come in and tried to sit up to receive him. He was so stiff and sore he could barely move. The physician came in and helped him up, then went gently but firmly about his work. Felix smiled through his grunts and groans. Makaisson might be mad, but he did well by his guests.

  Once all his burns and cuts had been salved and dressed and he had gone about the slow, painful process of pulling his clothes on, he hobbled through the school to Malakai’s workshop. Once again he found Gotrek wolfing down an enormous breakfast while Malakai pottered among his inventions. The Slayer too had fresh bandages, but not nearly as many as yesterday. Felix shook his head. Though he had seen evidence of it many times before, he was yet again amazed at how quickly the dwarf’s wounds healed. Many of his burns were only shiny pink spots, like punctuation marks among his tattoos.

  Felix stepped to the unfinished room’s missing wall and looked out over the city. The fires in Shantytown seemed to have died down for the most part, but there was still an ashy pall above the skyline that was not clouds. He sighed and sat down at the table and helped himself to ham, black bread and tea.

  ‘The best cure for yer gloom, young Felix, is to catch yon madmen before they dae worse,’ said Malakai. He snorted. ‘Ward Captain Wissen willnae catch ’em, that’s certain. ‘No doubt e’s out there now, flogging any poor soul he can catch, but gettin’ nae answers, I’ll warrant ye.’

  Felix nodded, but was not convinced. The best cure would have been to not let the madmen start the fires in the first place.

  Petr appeared in the door as Felix took his first sip of tea. He hurried forward, tripping over a coil of rope, then stopped at the table and pushed his wild hair out of his face.

  ‘Good news, professor,’ he said, beaming myopically. ‘Meyer at the Gunnery School says that the new cannon has cooled and seems to be without fault.’

  ‘Aye. Good news indeed,’ said Malakai.

  ‘All that remains,’ continued Petr, ‘is for the sprue to be cut and the barrel to be smoothed within and cleaned and polished without.’

  ‘And how long will that take?’ asked Felix.

  ‘Meyer said that the smiths are aware of the urgency of the situation and will work around the clock to get it done,’ said Petr. ‘They say it will be done two mornings from now.’

  Malakai shook his head sadly. ‘Men rush things. Dwarf smiths would take a fortnight tae do it, at the least.’ He shrugged. ‘But as we have tae be awa’ as soon as can be, I suppose quicker may jist be better.’

  ‘Two days.’ Gotrek grunted. ‘Time enough to find those masked cowards. Eat faster, manling. I want a look in the sewers.’

  ‘Petr,’ said Malakai. ‘Gae tae the steward and get the key to the sewer door.’

  ‘Aye, professor,’ said Petr. He turned and ran out of the room, tripping over the same coil of rope again as he went.

  Felix shook his head. How had the boy survived as long as he had?

  Felix shivered as he and Gotrek stepped through a doorway into the sewers from a cellar under the College of Engineering. It was all as it had been twenty years ago, the crumbling brick walls, the low arched ceiling, the river of filth flowing sluggishly between the two narrow ledges, the rats scurrying away into darkness, the constant echoing plops and drips, the moist reek that flooded his nostrils. Memory once again overwhelmed him – it was here that the fight with the skaven in the College of Engineering had ended all those years ago, with the steam tank crashing through the floor and coming to rest half submerged in the stew. He shivered. No good ever came of entering the sewers.

  ‘Good luck, sirs,’ said Petr, as he pushed the heavy door closed behind them.

  The boom of it closing was drowned out by a shriek.

  Gotrek and Felix spun back, drawing their weapons and holding up their lanterns. There was nothing behind them.

  ‘All right, Petr?’ called Felix as the door inched open again.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ squeaked Petr. ‘Nothing. Just pinched my finger a… a little. Good luck.’

  The door closed more slowly this time, and they heard locks and bolts clacking shut, and a soft moaning.

  Gotrek grunted. ‘A dwarf so clumsy would have been smothered at birth.’

  Felix frowned. ‘How would you know he was clumsy at birth?’

  ‘That one? I’ve no doubt he tripped coming out of the womb.’ He started down the sewer tunnel. ‘Come, manling, the Gunnery School is this way.’

  They continued down the tunnel, travelling slowly as Gotrek examined the walls on both sides, crossing back and forth over the granite slabs that bridged the stew at regular intervals. The Slayer muttered under his breath from time to time, but said nothing out loud.

  A short while later, Gotrek looked up. ‘Someone ahead.’

  He crept forward, readying his axe. Felix got a better grip on his sword. All manner of possible horrors rose up in his mind as they rounded a curve in the tunnel and the flickering glow of a torch grew stronger before them. Was it ratmen? Cultists of the Cleansing Flame? Mutants?

  ‘Halt!’ said a voice. ‘Who goes there?’

  A trio of Nuln city watch came round the curve, torches held high. They stopped when they saw Gotrek and Felix and thrust their spears nervously before them.

  ‘Who’s there?’ called the sergeant. ‘State your business!’

  Gotrek grunted, annoyed. Felix sighed. He had forgotten that Wissen had said he was going to place patrols down here. This was going to be a bit awkward.

  ‘Perhaps we should retire,’ he murmured to Gotrek, as the watchmen came closer.

  ‘We need to find the powder,’ said Gotrek.

  ‘Aye,’ said Felix. ‘But we can’t kill the watch to do it. We’re in enough trouble as it is.’

  ‘Come forward, curse you!’ said the sergeant. ‘Into the light. What are you doing down here?’

  ‘We can return later,’ continued Felix. ‘Now we know they’re here, we can avoid them next time, once their guard is down.’

  Gotrek growled, but finally nodded and began backing away.

  ‘It’s the Slayer and the other one,’ said one of the watchmen. ‘Them that burned Shantytown!’

  ‘Why so it is,’ said the other.

  ‘Stop, you!’ called the sergeant. ‘You’re not meant to be outside the College!’

  He and his men started forward at a trot.

  Gotrek cursed and stopped. Felix groaned and lined up beside him.

  The sergeant halted before them and pointed his spear. ‘Hand over your weapons and come with me. Watch Captain Wissen will want to hear about this.’

  ‘Tell him about this,’ said Gotrek. His hand shot forward and caught the shaft of the sergeant’s spear. He twisted it and the sergeant staggered left, then toppled into the stew with a thick splash.

  Gotrek advanced on the other watchmen, as the sergeant came to the surface gasping and choking and covered in filth.

  ‘You want to join him?’ the Slayer rasped.

  The watchmen backed off, wide-eyed, then turned and ran, calling and whistling for reinforcements.<
br />
  The sergeant slogged after them, waist deep in the flow. ‘Come back, cowards! How dare you desert a senior officer!’

  Gotrek chuckled nastily and made to continue forward, but there were answering cries and whistles from further down the tunnel. He cursed again and turned away.

  ‘Right, manling,’ he said. ‘We’ll return later. Let’s see what we can turn up in the Maze.’

  Felix frowned. ‘The Maze? Is that wise? We’re not well liked down there at the moment.’

  ‘And where are we liked?’ asked Gotrek.

  Felix walked through Shantytown with a heavy heart. The men and women of the Maze were wheeling their charred belongings through the streets on barrows and dog carts, their children tailing behind them. Larger wagons were carrying fresh timber, bricks and plaster in the other direction. Priests of Morr carried burned bodies away on carts and stretchers.

  Felix wore the hood of his cloak up to hide his face, but Gotrek walked openly, his singed crest and his burn scars showing, and just as Felix had feared, they were getting a lot of looks. People glared. Some whispered behind their hands to each other, but none approached. Perhaps, in the light of day, with the fires of hate somewhat cooled, they didn’t relish confronting a dwarf as fearsome looking as Gotrek. Felix was not reassured. It wouldn’t take much to spark the Shantytowners to violence again. One voice raised in anger, one pointed finger, and they would be swarmed again.

  He held his breath every time they passed another street corner orator. Each was telling the crowds that clustered around them that it was the Countess, or the nobles, or the merchants, that were to blame for the fire – that the rich were burning the poor out to make room for new warehouses and manufactories. The orators urged the Shantytowners to rise up and smash the merchants and the nobles and the fat priests who supported them.

  Gotrek stopped at the edge of one such crowd and listened to the speaker, staring intently at him. The man stood on a wooden crate near the mouth of an alley. A handful of other men surrounded him, handing out leaflets and talking in low tones with the listeners. Felix hovered beside him uneasily, anxious to move on before somebody noticed them and started calling for their heads.

  ‘Did we hear that voice last night?’ Gotrek asked.

  Felix closed his eyes and listened. The voice sounded familiar, but he couldn’t be sure. ‘I don’t know. The message certainly sounds like what the Cleansing Flame were preaching, but these men don’t wear masks.’

  Gotrek started pushing forward. ‘If it squawks like a goblin, and it smells like a goblin…’

  ‘Gotrek, wait,’ whispered Felix. ‘We’ll have the whole neighbourhood after us! We’re already getting looks.’

  Gotrek paused, considering, then nodded. ‘Aye. We need to get one alone.’ He rose up on his toes and peered through the crowd. ‘This way,’ he said, and started down the street, away from the orators.

  Felix followed him around the block and then into an alley. Gotrek strode unerringly though the zigzag labyrinth of back streets and mews until they stood in the shadows of an alley just behind the orator and his fellows.

  ‘Right,’ said Gotrek. ‘Lure one in.’

  ‘Lure…? How?’

  Gotrek shrugged. ‘You’re the subtle one.’

  Felix groaned. ‘All right. I’ll try.’

  He edged to the mouth of the alley and looked around. He was standing behind and a bit to the left of the agitators. From this angle he could watch the faces of the crowd as they listened to the speech. The orator was stirring them well. They cheered on cue. They shook their fists. They were angry, and looked to be spoiling for a fight. One of the speaker’s fellows was facing the crowd just in front of Felix, holding a fistful of leaflets.

  Felix tugged his hood down over his eyes, then stepped out of the shadows and waved at the man. ‘Hoy. Let me see one of those.’

  ‘Certainly brother,’ said the man. He crossed to Felix, holding one out. ‘Did you see the fires last night? Did you lose your home to the villainy of the landlords?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Felix, taking the leaflet and in the same motion pressing the tip of his dagger against the man’s stomach. ‘And I saw who started them too.’

  The agitator looked down, then up, meeting Felix’s eyes under his hood. ‘You!’ he gasped.

  ‘Shout and you’re dead,’ said Felix. ‘Now, into the alley.’

  The man hesitated, and made to back away. Felix caught his arm and twisted it, pressing harder with the dagger.

  The man whimpered, eyes wide.

  ‘Shhhh,’ said Felix. ‘Come on.’

  He turned with the man into the alley, bending over the leaflet as if he was discussing it with him, all the while keeping the tip of the dagger pushed firmly against his abdomen.

  ‘What do you want with me?’ whispered the agitator, as the shadows swallowed them.

  ‘Me?’ said Felix. ‘I want nothing. It’s him that wants to speak to you.’ He nodded further down the alley.

  Gotrek stepped forward, the light from the end of the alley glittering in his single angry eye.

  The agitator flinched back, almost escaping Felix’s grip. ‘The dwarf!’ he cried. ‘Powers of darkness protect me!’

  Gotrek’s hand shot out and caught him by the neck. He yanked him down to his knees. ‘Who are your leaders?’ he growled.

  ‘Leaders?’ said the agitator. ‘I don’t know what you…’

  Gotrek’s thick fingers tightened, and the man’s sentence ended in a strangled squawk.

  ‘Who are your leaders?’ the Slayer repeated.

  ‘I… I…’ squeaked the man. ‘I don’t know.’

  Gotrek slapped him across the ear. It sounded like a branch snapping.

  The man wailed in pain. Gotrek clamped a hand over his mouth until he stopped, then let up. ‘Who?’

  ‘I swear I don’t know!’ gasped the man. ‘We never see them without their masks!’

  ‘What about the man speaking?’ asked Felix.

  ‘He is above me,’ said the man. ‘But he is only the leader of thirteen men. He only does what he’s told, like the rest of us.’

  ‘And who tells him what to do?’

  ‘The leaders,’ said the man. ‘The masked ones.’

  ‘Maybe he knows who they are,’ said Felix.

  ‘No one knows,’ said the agitator.

  ‘I’ll hear it from him.’ said Gotrek. He looked around. There was a flimsy wooden door opening into the back of a tenement beside him. ‘Open that,’ he said to Felix, then dragged the cultist closer to the mouth of the alley.

  Felix tried the door. It wasn’t locked. He held it open.

  Gotrek shook the agitator. ‘Call a name,’ he rasped.

  ‘A name?’

  ‘One of your “brothers”. Call his name. Ask him to come here.’

  ‘Er, I…’

  Gotrek slapped him again. ‘Call!’

  The man cried out in pain. ‘Harald,’ he whimpered.

  Gotrek raised his fist. ‘Louder!’

  ‘Harald, come here!’ squealed the man. ‘Hurry! I need you!’

  ‘Good,’ said Gotrek, and snapped the cultist’s neck with a twist of his hands.

  The man slumped bonelessly to the ground, dead. Gotrek left him in front of the door, then entered the building and pulled his axe from his back. Felix stepped in after him.

  ‘Close it.’

  Felix pulled the door shut and drew his sword. He looked at Gotrek. ‘You killed him.’

  ‘Aye.’

  Gotrek pressed his ear to the door. Felix frowned, then joined him.

  They heard steps and a question, then a cry of alarm.

  The steps came closer.

  ‘Dolf!’ came a voice, right on the other side of the door. ‘Dolf! What happened?’

  Felix tensed.

  ‘Not yet,’ murmured Gotrek.

  The steps ran off again and Felix heard raised voices from beyond the alley. The orator’s rant faltered, then continue
d in the background. The voices got closer. It sounded like four men.

  ‘What happened to him?’

  ‘I don’t know. But I think he’s dead.’

  ‘Was he attacked?’

  ‘I see no wound.’

  ‘Perhaps his heart just stopped.’

  ‘Come on. Let’s get him up.’

  ‘Now,’ said Gotrek. ‘And stay quiet.’

  He pushed the door open. Four men hunched over the body of the dead cultist, lifting him. Gotrek cut down the two nearest before they even had a chance to look up. Felix lunged at a third and ran him through as he let go of the body and reached for his sword. The fourth opened his mouth to scream. Gotrek split his head down to his neck before he made a sound.

  ‘Inside,’ said the Slayer. ‘Leave the first.’ He grabbed two bodies by their collars and dragged them into the tenement.

  Felix caught another by the wrists and hauled at it. The body bumped heavily over the lintel and he let it drop next to the others. Gotrek threw the last on top of the others. Felix’s stomach felt queasy. He could not remember killing anyone as unprepared as the men who had just died. It did not feel honourable or heroic. He and Gotrek had quite literally caught them stooping.

  ‘That was…’

  ‘Quiet,’ said Gotrek. He closed the door and pressed his ear to it again, his axe at the ready.

  It took a few minutes, but finally another questioning voice called down the alley, and then another cry of alarm. This time the orator’s speech stopped, and Felix heard him calling to the crowd to excuse him for a moment.

  His voice rose again in the alley. ‘What do you mean, vanished? How could they have vanished? What…?’ Footsteps stopped right outside the door. ‘Is he drunk? Dolf! Get up! Bah. Get him up. Harald! Feodor! Where are you?’

  Gotrek opened the door. Two men were bent over the body, while a third, the orator, stood behind them, hands on his hips. Gotrek slashed left and right, killing the first two cultists, then leapt at the orator and punched him in the stomach. The man folded up with an explosion of breath, and collapsed moaning over the Slayer’s shoulder. Gotrek turned back to the door, carrying him.

  A chorus of cries came from the mouth of the alley. Felix looked up and saw a clutch of curious crowd members pointing and shouting. They called behind them and started down the alley.