Gotrek & Felix: Slayer (16 page)

He looked up from the latticework iron sheets that interlocked to make up the dorsal spine and saw Max and Malakai standing at the forward edge of the walkway. Max’s robes blustered in the wind but the wizard himself seemed otherwise unmoved by it, as if the wind blew through him to interfere only with the clothes he wore. Malakai’s crest pulled all over the place and his long coat snapped like a dog that had been left in a cage. The engineer did up the coat’s front buttons and pulled down his goggles. Felix noticed that they had tiny cross-hairs inscribed on the lenses. Then Felix also noticed something else.

It was dawn.

The vast inverted bowl of the sky was a spectrum of colour running from deep black overhead through shades of purple and ever-lightening blues to a crisp morning white as Felix lowered his gaze to where the mountain peaks bit into the sky. So much for sleep, he thought with belated tiredness. He’d completely lost track of time in all the excitement after the ambush in the township. Bent against the wind, he joined the others at what felt to him a safe distance from the edge. As the sun rose nearer to the horizon, the darkness on the easternmost mountaintops became shadows that lengthened and narrowed before disappearing altogether as the summits were flooded with gold.

Beside him, he heard Max sigh. Felix had felt so confined within the pass, and before that in the forest, that it came as a shock to learn that the world was still out there.

Who would have thought that in a world riven by Chaos, such beauty could still exist above its clouds?

Felix swept his gaze across the enfolding dawn, and on every mountain that he looked at he saw evidence of re-wilded roads and ancient structures. They were small things, little more than mountaineers’ lodges and certainly nothing on the scale of the dwarfhold he was standing over, but they seemed to be dotted throughout the Middle Mountains. What could have brought such lasting industry to a mountain range that everyone seemed to agree possessed nothing of value but the glory of its sunrise?

‘What are all these buildings?’ he asked Malakai, sweeping his arm across the horizon. ‘Were they part of this dwarfhold at one time?’

‘Nae, Felix, this place wiz never sae grand. Those roads wur built by adventurers that came after, lookin’ fur Kazad Drengazi here in the mountains.’

Felix felt his skin prickle and it had little to do with the wind. He pulled his cloak over his chest regardless. ‘Gotrek mentioned that place. He said that it doesn’t exist.’

‘He’s nae fool when he nae wants to be yin. He’s right. It’s naught but a bairn’s story.’

‘Tell me more,’ said Max in an urgent whisper that set Felix immediately back on edge. The wizard rested on his staff, the wind whipping through the hem of his robes, as he looked out. Then he raised one hand, palm out to the sun, bowed his head and appeared to close his eyes. He stood like that for a moment. ‘Something is out there. I hear it calling, but… not to me.’

Malakai stuck out his lower lip and turned to Felix with eyebrows raised, apparently impressed or, if he was thinking what Felix was thinking, chilled to his core. ‘Then ye’re already closer tae findin’ the danged place than anyain’s come sae fur.’

‘
Kazad
is the Khazalid noun for “fortress”, is that not so?’

‘Aye. Though ah’d ask how ye ken that.’

Max let the question ghost through him as though it didn’t exist. ‘And
Drengazi
?’

Malakai hesitated, and Felix understood why. The dwarfs were as protective of their language as they were of any of their secrets. Felix was a dwarf-friend, had been Gotrek’s shadow for over twenty years, off and on, and had been privileged to visit several of their greatest cities and even he could barely string together a sentence in the elder tongue.

‘Tell me,’ Max pressed, insistent as the wind.

‘Ah’m nae keepin’ secrets, laddie, even though they’re mine tae keep. It’s joost there’s nae guid translation fur it. It means
Slayer
, but even tha’ isnae quite right. It’s the yin Slayer. It’s all Slayers.’ Malakai shook his head. ‘Like ah said, there just isnae a right fit fur it.’

The Fortress of the First Slayer, thought Felix. Why did that have such an ominous ring of inevitability to it? Even as he considered its meaning, the shadows that the dawn had just banished seemed to be creeping back, resembling the claws of some black horror scraping across the mountains’ sides.

‘And what is it?’ Max asked.

‘What dae ye lads ken aboot Grimnir’s quest?’

Felix shook his head without turning away from his mountain view. Grimnir was said to be the first of the Slayers, the warrior god of the dwarfs who long before the dawn of man had sought to end forever the threat of Chaos by marching into the Wastes and sealing the Chaos Gate on the blade of his axe. It didn’t seem to have worked.

‘He left his people to journey alone into the Chaos Wastes,’ said Max. ‘As I understand it he intended to destroy the polar warp gates, to rid the world of magic and slay the Chaos Gods. Of course he didn’t succeed, and some speculate that he is trapped somewhere outside of time in the Realm of Chaos, locked in eternal war against the daemons of Chaos, much as Caledor Dragontamer and the great elf mages of the same era were trapped upon the Isle of the Dead.’

‘Ah wouldnae gae as far as tha’, but aye, if ye like. He gie’d one o’ his two mighty axes tae his son, Morgrim, and then went north. But naebody knows hoo far south the Wastes stretched in yon days, nor whit road north Grimnir took. Except Morgrim. And he ne’er spoke a word.’

‘So what you’re saying,’ Felix began cautiously, thinking that he understood and not liking where it was heading, ‘is that Grimnir himself might have once passed this way, thousands of years ago on his way to fight the Chaos Gods.’

‘Some dwarfs think sae,’ said Malakai with a shrug.

‘I know so,’ said Max with a conviction so absolute that if he demanded the sky turn red then Felix would have half expected it to do so. ‘It is here and there is a power in it. It calls to Grimnir’s heir for a resolution. The confluence of destiny has called us here together. I have never been more certain of anything.’

‘Tha’s the legend,’ said Malakai, a little more cagily than he had begun, unnerved himself by the wizard’s words and manner. ‘It’s said a great power is held there, waitin’ fur Grimnir’s heir tae use in the last Great War.’

‘You’re thinking it’s Gotrek, aren’t you?’ Felix said, turning back to Max and shivering. The wizard was scanning the horizon with the intensity of a hawk, his flat grey eyes like coins dropped in a well too deep and dark to grant wishes.

‘Everyone kens tha’ Grimnir’s heir is Thorgrim Grudgebearer, the High King. He has Morgrim’s axe. Unless ye’ve stowed him in yin o’ yer carts then ah reckon he’s in the Everpeak aboot noo.’

‘We will see,’ Max murmured, possibly to himself.

Felix stepped back from the ledge, arms around his chest as he backed away, and shivered as he turned around and walked the few dozen strides to the opposite edge of the cupola overlooking the approach to the castle. It didn’t help. Felix doubted whether anywhere in view of where he stood now would be far enough to escape the creeping chill of destiny that had wormed its way into his mind with the wizard’s portentous words. How many tales of Sigmar’s return, Valaya’s fall, and the death of the elven forest did Felix need to hear before he could start to accept such insane suggestions without resistance?

Could Gotrek really be Grimnir’s heir?

If what Malakai said was correct then no, but dwarfs were always so rigid in their interpretation of such things and perhaps the legend – the prophecy? – was intended to be read figuratively.

No.

They weren’t here to find this Kazad Drengazi, they were going to Middenheim, and Felix doubted that even the Vengeful Ancestor himself would be able to change Gotrek’s mind about it.

Felix winced as a spear of light from the castle’s rune-hidden approach temporarily blinded him in one eye. He bent onto one knee and held the handrail as he peered down onto the mountain trail. He saw what looked like a string of glittering specks making its way towards the castle. He watched for a moment more, his heart seeming to slow as a handful of the nearest dots resolved into helms, spear points and banner poles. An army was coming. But surely that was impossible. Still gripping the handrail, he snapped his head around.

‘Does this airship have any way of warning the castle of an attack?’

‘Ah keep tellin’ ye, there’s nae Chaos army tha’ can get oop yon road.’

‘Purely speculatively,’ said Felix.

‘Well, aye, there’s nae point wastin’ a guid vantage like this. There’s a steam horn tae alert the brig o’ danger, but the workers doon below will all ken whit it means.’

‘Good,’ said Felix, turning back to the vertiginous view and tightening his grip. ‘I have a terrible feeling that you might want to use that.’

ELEVEN

Last Dawn

Khagash-Fél sat high on his Chaos steed and regarded the citadel that the Dark Master would have him conquer. The ancient stone ruin capped the mountaintop like a skull on a shaman’s staff. Tiered battlements rose in broken procession towards the summit from which that strange metallic contraption floated like a cloud, glittering in the morning sun. He watched as lookouts with dew in their beards raised heavy, lensed devices to their eyes and peered back towards him, shouting words he could not hear in a language he did not understand. Khagash-Fél ignored them and turned to the gate.

It was an imposing, albeit rusted construct of iron that he knew from experience would be solid all the way through rather than plated oak. The gate was further reinforced with horizontal bars, bearing great spikes long enough to foul a battering ram or impale a minotaur and inscribed with runes of protection and power.

In the shadow of the gate was a small courtyard, ringed with weathered statues and large enough only for a few score men or a handful of small war machines. A deep crevasse surrounded the courtyard like a moat, spanned by a simple iron bridge that was little more than a flat length of metal with a handrail. There was not even a mechanism by which to raise it in case of attack. A small advantage. Before reaching even that choke point however, an army would be forced into almost single file by the narrowing causeway that wound sharply and steeply through the sheer walls of the mountain – and all while arrows and bolts and the gods alone knew what else hailed down from those battlements above.

In the Chaos Wastes, war was unlimited by scale or variety, but for men of the steppe, a fortification meant a hill too steep or rugged for a charging horse or at most a wooden palisade. The tribes’ experience of siege warfare came largely from folk memory, their grandfathers’ tales of once-in-a-generation campaigns against the Ogre Kingdoms or the great ziggurats of the Chaos dwarfs.

He raised his fist to signal a halt as he considered.

At his command the tribes gathered under their banners into hundred-strong units, his zarrs showing sufficient wit and experience to order their men into narrow-fronted units of four or five that would, at a push, be able to scale the final stretch of trail. Here and there, men in conical steel helmets with elaborately quilted brims delivered speeches that were greeted with roars and beaten shields. The ordered formations allowed more men to squeeze up, bringing dozens of banners and thousands of men into view between the mountains, but Khagash-Fél knew without having to see the thousands more hidden by the winding trail that the call to order would be passed down to them in moments. The air might be thin and the climes alien, but the endurance and courage of his people would see them conquer the edges of the earth and beyond.

The beastmen were another matter. They milled in the narrow gaps between the formations, stamping their hooves, bellowing challenges to the dwarfs and to each other. Gongs were clashed and great bells tolled, fetishes rattled and bones were cast as bray-shamans decked out in their most lavish hide robes presided over a dawn chorus of harsh animal cries and colour.

Khagash-Fél had already decided who would be first onto the bridge. He doubted whether he could restrain them for much longer if he wished to in any case.

‘Have you ever seen warriors as disciplined as my people?’ he said, calling back to the god-touched prophetess, Morzanna, who rode a pale steppe pony amongst his chosen warriors a respectful distance behind him. ‘They fight and live in
arbans
of ten men. Each of those will come together in battle under the banner of their
zuuns
of a hundred, and the
minghaans
of a thousand.’ He drew in a deep breath, proudly gesturing to the banner pole fixed to his backplate. ‘None before I had united the tribes to command a
tumen
of tens of thousands.’

‘The Chaos Gods abhor order in all its vagaries and forms,’ said Morzanna, examining the zuuns, islands of armoured discipline in a rebellious sea of beasts, as if uncertain whether she preferred to sink or swim. ‘Do you not find it strange that they demand it of their armies, that they should elevate champions capable of instilling it with an iron hand? If the map of our destinies is already drawn, then what place is there for Chaos?’

Khagash-Fél touched the lidded Eye on his forehead softly. He had some understanding of what it meant to see the future. It elevated a man, even as it changed him. He dismounted and closed his hand over the hilt of his sword, Ildezegtei, wrapped in the softest leather and the most sumptuous silks at his waist. He bared an inch of steel, enough to summon moans of wonder and lust from his chosen.

‘I was a mortal man, brash and headstrong, leader of an arban of brothers and blood-kith, when the Chaos dwarfs tricked me into an ambush and took us.’ He laid a finger across the concentric rings of scar tissue that covered the left side of his face. ‘On that day I swore to never again lead men to defeat and since that day I never have. With the blessing of Khorne did I walk unharmed across the river of fire to my freedom, and with this blade and the gifts of the Greater Gods did I unite my people and claim my vengeance. Tell me where the Dark Master’s rival lurks, Morzanna, and I will crush his skull in my bare hands as I once did to my captor.’

‘I cannot tell you where he is. Only where he will face you.’

‘How convenient,’ muttered Nergüi from his own position further back amongst the chosen.

‘Can you shatter the dwarfs’ doors with your sorcery?’ said Khagash-Fél, determined to give Morzanna the opportunity to prove her powers, and by extension those of the Dark Master, to men like Nergüi who struggled to cope with the pace of change. First the Greater Gods, then the Dark Master; what next?

Morzanna closed her eyes and bowed her head in the direction of the castle. The dwarfs there unhurriedly armed and armoured themselves as artillery pieces were pushed into position. ‘I cannot,’ she said after a moment had lapsed, opening her eyes and facing Khagash-Fél without apology. ‘I sense the presence of a powerful wizard here. He works against me.’

‘More powerful than you?’ asked Nergüi with a smirk.

‘Perhaps.’ She bared her teeth in a sharp smile. ‘I guarantee however that
he
will not interfere with
you
either.’

‘She leads you down a black path, warlord,’ said Nergüi, turning to Khagash-Fél and shaking his staff at the heavens. The shaman was magnificent in his bright, feathered headdress and flowing regalia. He glinted and chimed in the sunlight as though passing spirits alighted upon him to whisper their counsel. Seldom before now had Khagash-Fél doubted that they did. ‘She has guided us onto the dwarfs’ secret roads and for that I will offer her and her patron praise, but we can use these roads to strike at the city the westerners call Middenheim. It is what brought us here, warlord. We can add the tribes to the might of Archaon and you will rise to be the strongest of his right hands.’

Something in Khagash-Fél flared in anger at the mention of that particular name. Who was Archaon to him? He was a name, a myth borne east by Dolgan warbands. He was nothing but a pretender to the Everchosen Crown. He did not know where this knowledge came from but he
knew
it; there was none other than Be’lakor with the right and power to call Khagash-Fél his servant.

‘Tell me where, Morzanna.’

The prophetess extended a clawed finger and pointed to the bridge.

Khagash-Fél nodded as he spun around and strode for the causeway, just as a mighty wail went up from the flying vessel moored at the castle’s summit. The beastmen roared, taking it as a signal, and surged for the gate as one.

The dwarfs’ last dawn was here.

Gotrek pulled his good eye from the rent in the greeting hall wall that he had been sizing up for repair and turned to where Gustav, Kolya, and a handful of other men waited with tools and wooden boards held underarm. The duty foreman eyed them distrustfully through deep-set eyes, thick arms wrapped around a step-ladder as though expecting one of the men to make off with it. The deep thunderblast of the steam horn reverberated between the standing columns, shaking dust off the gantries and causing the lighting to stutter even more than before.

‘Doesn’t look like that many.’

Gustav cocked his head towards the gate and listened to the animal cries and stamping hooves. It sounded like hundreds, and he wished now that he’d followed Kolya’s example and kept his weapon with him, but the dwarfs had all assured him that their fortress was secure and like a fool too tired to make his own mind up he’d taken them at their word. He’d sworn never to put himself at the mercy of another’s judgement and yet here he was, back in the daemon’s nest. Ignoring the dwarf master-builder’s protestations, Gustav strode for his own section of wall and ripped its temporary canvas patch clear. What he saw made him gasp.

Hundreds of beastmen were swarming up the causeway towards the bridge, but worse even than that was the figure that strode amongst them.

Clad in a leering harness of battle-scarred black plate, his bare head towered over the tallest beastmen. Long grey hair hung across his broad shoulders and a braided grey beard lay like a tabard over his breastplate. His face was craggy and tattooed and looked to have been the focus of some insane artistry to leave it hellishly scarred. Blue light seeped under the lid of a third eye upon his forehead. In his hand he wielded a double-edged greatsword that looked to have been edged and fullered in gold. It sang a death song that was, like war itself, sickening to contemplate and behold and yet at the same time exhilarating beyond compare. The curve of its blade, the way it found the light, called to Gustav’s heart. He moaned softly. It would be an experience of surpassing wonder to see that blade closer to, to feel it enter his torso and slide through his guts as it sang that elegy for him and him alone.

Gotrek’s strong hand on his shoulder squeezed the alien feeling out of him.

‘Nothing to see there, manling.’

‘I…’ Gustav shook his head as the sudden lust that had moved him ebbed away to be replaced by the lingering taste in the mind of something foul. ‘I think you’re right. Sigmar, it’s the same warband we saw outside Wolfenburg. They’ve followed. I thought you said it was impossible.’

‘It is,’ Gotrek answered flatly.

‘Do you know what the wise woman says about things thought impossible?’ said Kolya before Gustav and Gotrek’s combined glares convinced him to shut his mouth.

‘Will they be able to find their way to Middenheim from here?’ Gustav yelled, some abiding insanity almost driving him to take the Slayer by the throat and shake an answer out of him.

‘Not if they’re all dead.’

Gustav retreated open-mouthed from the Slayer’s slack-jawed, boneheaded lunacy and turned for support to Kolya and the others just as the foreman and most of the other dwarfs in the hall were starting to run for the stairs up. A disbelieving laugh burst its way out of him.

‘So much for dwarf courage.’

The Slayer’s open palm struck him like a shovel. For a split second Gustav blacked out, coming around to see the ceiling spinning as he stumbled back into a man’s arms. His head filled with bells. A tooth dropped onto his tongue and he bent forwards to let it run out on a trickle of bloody drool.

‘If you were meant to be clever, manling, the gods would’ve made you a whiny little elf. Be thankful I owe your uncle a debt.’ Gotrek indicated the departing dwarfs with a dip of his crest and a grunt. ‘They’ve gone to evacuate what secrets they can, and sabotage that which they can’t,’ he said, not exactly inspiring Gustav with confidence in their chances. Then he pointed to a tanned Kislevite with the salted look of a seaman, an Erengrad docker perhaps, garbed in a sleeveless wool shirt and brown breeches held up by a rope belt. ‘You look like you want to see out the day. Get up those columns and start pulling that rigging down. It’ll hold up better than the cow-skin they’ve got flapping over the holes in the wall at the moment.’

The man nodded and got to work as Gotrek set about distributing tools and duties and then sent men dashing to the walls bearing wooden planks and salvaged iron plates. As each lighting rig came down the hall grew dimmer, illuminated predominantly now by the sunlight spearing through the breaches. And then even that was diminished little by little as men covered them with iron, found holes and began to hammer.

‘Are you mad?’ Gustav wailed. ‘We won’t be able to see.’

Gotrek grinned. His yellow teeth gleamed until the last big hole was covered and the glow from the dwarf’s rune-axe turned his face red.

‘You’ll see well enough when the wall comes down. Until then there’s nothing to look at.’

From the cupola of
Unstoppable
the assembled multitudes of Chaos looked almost like a single monstrous entity. Men were indistinguishable from beasts, and the tongue of bodies extending along the causeway put Felix in mind of the curious ant-eating creature that he had once marvelled at in the jungles of Ind. The thought that he and his friends were the ants in this scenario was not at all reassuring. The wind whistled in Felix’s ears, a thin mockery of the tumult that ensued below him. But even from this altitude, Felix could pick out the grey-haired giant in hulking Chaos armour that strode ahead of his hordes. With a crushing certainty Felix knew that this was the champion named Half-Ogre that Mann had spoken of and that Felix and Gotrek had spied in battle outside Wolfenburg.