Gotrek & Felix: Slayer (33 page)

The Slayer was a runic ghost within a swirl of starmetal, the iron core within a firestorm of raging brass and crimson flesh. Fiery ropes of saliva spooled out from the melee, scalding the lesser daemons that came too close. Others were pulped under the Bloodthirster’s feet or else carelessly eviscerated by stray lashes of its axe and whip. Its weapons beat against Gotrek’s axes like hammers striking an anvil. Conflicting magicks produced sparks of scarlet and gold, and occasionally the almighty coming together of blades evinced a shockwave that sent daemons flying and cracked the surrounding stone. The presence of both of Grimnir’s axes and the activation of the Rune of Unbinding had made a more even contest than had been the case when these two had last crossed paths within the bowels of Karag Dum, but to Felix’s snap impression the raw ferocity and overwhelming power of the Bloodthirster still held the advantage.

A molten-faced monstrosity came for Felix with a pair of spike-arms working like pistons and he was forced to look away from his companion and attend to his own peril.

He didn’t know what he was doing now, but he couldn’t call it fighting. He was dodging, backing off, only occasionally parrying. It was a dance, a drunken, fumbling, exhausted parody of a dance, one that had been described to him in a hurry but that he had never had the chance to practise before the most important performance of his life. He retreated another step.

The whine from the portal grew incrementally more focused and shrill. Its radiance shimmered across the corner of his eye, and he turned his face towards it slightly to prevent the glare from straining his eyes. In so doing he unwittingly caught sight of what was happening on the other side of the portal.

The image was garbled and difficult to make sense of, forcing a vast, perhaps infinite field into two dimensions upon a rippling, semi-translucent pool of silver. Rolling distortions confused things further. There were random bursts of light. Magical attacks, Felix realised, almost constant volleys cast from the daemon hordes towards Grimnir. A concentrated burst blistered the surface of the portal as if a source of heat had just been turned upon it. Distance did not exist within the image insofar as Felix could discern, but he saw what looked like the three greater daemons advancing on Grimnir’s back, unleashing a concerted salvo of magical fire. The Ancestor staggered. It all occurred without sound, but Felix saw pain ripple across Grimnir’s face.

Felix didn’t want to believe that Grimnir might really be in danger, but it looked like Be’lakor might actually achieve what he had boasted – rally the warring daemons to one leader and bring the mighty Ancestor down.

What would that mean for the world if he succeeded?

A sense of despair rose up to fill Felix. He was mortal, human, what could he do to fight something capable of bringing down a god?

A despairing
mittelhau
slash opened the throat of a black horror, bringing it down mid-leap and spraying corrosive blood over the near wall. A disgusting centipedal thing scrambled over its body. Felix kicked down at it with a sobbing cry, backing up, lashing out, making it to the edge of the staircase about seven or eight feet off the ground, and looked across to the cratered ring of bodies and gore through which Gotrek and the Bloodthirster still fought.

‘Grimnir, Gotrek! We have to do something.’

The Slayer bared his teeth, possibly an indication that he’d heard, but he was hard-pressed to do anything about it with the frenzied Bloodthirster raining down blows.

Felix quickly looked around for something he could do to help. Anything that was more than simply buying time for Sigmar alone knew what. He looked up. The iron chandelier swayed overhead. He bit his lip, glancing from the chandelier to where Gotrek fought in the middle of the floor. He made a quick mental calculation and cursed himself. Gustav had been right about him.

He really was a pitiably heroic old fool.

Clearing himself a space with a wild sweep of his sword, he dropped to his haunches and then leapt with his left hand outstretched for the base of the chandelier.

He caught an iron bar and swung on it, straining until his face turned red and his body shook, hauling up his armoured weight on the strength of his unfavoured arm alone. A jowly daemon-thing made a grab for his hanging leg. Felix buried his foot in its face, pushing off against it for the lift he needed to swing his sword arm over the iron latticework and pull himself up into the chandelier.

Quivering with exertion, Felix got up. He was in a cage of iron illuminated by tiny glowing stones. It was just spacious enough for him to stand and, provided he wasn’t careless about it, there were enough bars of sufficient width at the base for him to move within it. The chandelier rattled on its sturdy dwarf-made chain. Looking down through the bars, Felix saw dozens of his foul pursuers aping his actions, leaping up and grabbing on, swaying for a moment before being dragged down by others seeking to use their hanging bodies to climb. Still more surged right on up the stairs as if Felix had always been an utterly incidental concern against the portal. He saw Be’lakor, standing before the dolmen beside his throne of brazen skulls.

The daemon prince raised a claw towards Felix, a sneer on his lips.

Felix swore, charging head down through the lattice of stars and triangles until he reached the end overhanging the chamber floor.

He leapt clear, just a breath ahead of the whine of superheated air that
whooshed
behind him and ripped a fireball through the chandelier.

A hot rush of displaced air flung him clear, mangled bits of iron firing across him like a hail of crossbow bolts. His cloak tatters fluttered. Below him, the Bloodthirster tore into Gotrek, armoured hide riddled with twisted and still-glowing iron quarrels. He fought down the urge to panic, enough to control his arms and legs and to bring up his sword, upended, blade down.

And then he began to fall.

Felix gripped Karaghul’s hilt in both hands, turning all his strength and the full weight of his fall to plunge the sword into the Bloodthirster’s shoulder.

The brass clasps between breastplate and backplate split open, the enchanted blade sinking through meat and tissue to the jewel-eyed dragonhead hilt. Flame gouted from the wound, as if the likeness within the sword breathed fire, and the Bloodthirster unleashed a seismic bellow of pain. An arch of the back and a buffet of its bloody black wings threw Felix from its shoulders.

He sailed backwards through the air, arms swimming against the current, still grasping for a handhold as his back thumped into the wall.

His mail shirt stiffened painfully against his back and shoulders and the back of his head cracked against the stone. He bit through his tongue, tasted blood, then dropped back down onto the stairs on his knees, almost pitching down them except for the fact that his hands were still flailing and managed to seize a hold of the marble balustrade.

Dizzily, he stood up and patted himself down. He was bruised, but alive, and aside from the damp smear of blood under his left armpit he seemed more-or-less in one piece. The Bloodthirster had flung him onto the bottom of the right-hand stair. The daemons had avoided this side of the chamber thus far, drawn up the left hand side after Felix and like grist to the bloody mill that was Gotrek and the greater daemon down in the centre.

Gotrek backed away from the thrashing Bloodthirster. The Slayer wiped blood from what looked like a broken nose across his bicep, threw Felix an almost accusatory glare and then threw himself into the torrent pouring up that left-hand stair with a berserker howl.

Noting every daemon warrior that was gutted, hacked in two, or kicked over the edge with a deepening snarl, Be’lakor drew his long black blade. Energy crackled along its length.

The Slayer was submerged in Chaos, but Felix was convinced he saw the dwarf smile.

Felix’s hand moved instinctively to his belt for his own sword.

It wasn’t there.

Swallowing the lump in his throat, he looked up.

The Bloodthirster was ablaze with fury. It was a red star, licked by a corona of bloody fire. It clenched its fists, infernal muscles bulging where its brass plate left arms and neck exposed, tendons hardening like steel cables as it drew back its head and roared. It was a cry that would make itself heard across an abyss and cause its darkest denizens to wail. Felix staggered from it. And he saw his sword. It shone white hot in the daemon’s neck, embers spurting around it, some amalgam of daemonic blood and binding magicks.

Sigmar, what now?

Felix’s hands scrambled through his clothing for a weapon. He had a small knife inside his left boot. He took it. And a liberated Hochlander’s pistol for which he had no shot. He took that too, gripping the barrel in his left hand to wield the walnut stock like a club. He retreated until his back was to the wall and gulped.

With a final bark of fury, the Bloodthirster stomped towards him, broad shoulders swaying with the intent to rend and sever and bleed.

Felix swore, spun away from it and ran up the stairs.

The Bloodthirster’s roar pounded after him, its footfalls shaking the staircase as it too broke into a run in pursuit. The monster had wings, but it wanted to run him down. Either that or it was simply too maddened by killing rage to do anything more considered than give chase and kill.

‘
Gotrek!
’ he yelled, taking the steps two at a time.

A warning? A cry for help?

Felix wasn’t sure, but at that moment it was all he could think of to say.

He practically threw himself onto the mezzanine, breathing hard of air that stung the back of the throat with the taste of ozone. The drone of the portal was intense and the radiance it put out almost blinding, doubly so when blisters of intensity shone across its surface. Gotrek and Be’lakor were painted chrome and battling over a carpet of skulls that had previously been the daemon prince’s throne. Dark lightning arced between Gotrek’s axes and Be’lakor’s outstretched claws, reducing every lesser daemon that drew close enough to ash. The Slayer grunted and pushed as if engaged in a straightforward contest of strength. Electricity flashed across Be’lakor’s silvered form. Warpstone ice crystallised across the walls and stitched over the Ancestor faces of the dolmen.

From some deep reserve, Felix found the strength to stagger forward. A skull crunched underfoot. There was no time for horror.

Enormous muscles straining, Gotrek drove through the lightning field to hack at the daemon prince. Be’lakor’s blade met his, shards of darkness breaking off, misting around the two fighters as their battle swirled through it. Be’lakor chuckled, fading into the darkness just as Gotrek’s axe swept through the emptiness he had that moment abandoned. Gotrek growled murderously, axes tearing up the mist even as it flowed away from him, reforming before the portal into the shape of Be’lakor, hand outstretched and an incantation of power on his lips. A withering volley of black arrows burst from the daemon prince’s claws and battered away at the protective barrier afforded by the Rune of Unbinding. It glowed golden-red, projecting a shield of the same hue around Gotrek. It looked thinner than that which Max had previously conjured for himself. It flickered alarmingly under the barrage and, much like a mail shirt deflecting and absorbing a blow but leaving a horrible bruise beneath, left Gotrek struggling to get up off his knees.

Felix couldn’t believe his senses.

After everything they had been through, everything they had lost and every edge they had paid for in blood, Gotrek was losing.

He gritted his teeth and brought up his knife. Not while his rememberer still breathed.

Be’lakor noticed him standing there; battered, aged, hair curling from the electric heat and paltry weapons in hand. The daemon prince lowered his sword a fraction. His obsidian-black hand, part-way through the form of another spell, left it to smooth a cruel laugh from his lips.

‘Felix Jaeger. If it is not my downfa–’

The sneer disappeared from his face.

There was a crash from behind Felix, as of a brass foot-guard punching into marble and grinding deep. There was a sense of heat, of pressure, and terrible, terrible rage, and in what felt like devastatingly slow motion Felix turned his head to look around.

The frenzied Bloodthirster roared, storming up the steps, blinded to everything but what lay within arm’s reach of its wrath. Karaghul’s hilt blazed from its shoulder like the lance of a charging knight under the setting sun. It swept up its brass axe and threw itself forward.

Acting on instinct, Felix dropped to the ground. The daemon passed over him by inches, his skin reddening under its infernal body heat. It didn’t stop. It was too far gone for that.

It was charging straight for Gotrek and Be’lakor.

The daemon prince snarled, black eyes boring hatred into the charging Bloodthirster as his hands traced a rapid sigil through the air between them. It became treacly and dark and Be’lakor began to fade into it.

Gotrek’s crest rose through the murky soup. The nearness of the portal gave him a metallic lustre, an Ancestor idol worked from a jagged piece of tin. His axes glittered.

A measure of Be’lakor’s amusement returned as he continued to disperse.

‘What is it they say in those melodramas your companion is so inexplicably fond of – it’s behind you?’

‘You owe me the life of a rememberer, daemon, and a dwarf never forgets.’ The Slayer raised his own long-serving axe high, betraying not the slightest hint of concern at the flame-wreathed nightmare bearing down on him from behind, vengeance glittering diamond-hard in both of his eyes. ‘An eye for a bloody eye.’

He hacked down, burying his axe-blade in Be’lakor’s thigh. The daemon prince howled, a note of panic buried there in the outpouring of pain. The god-slaying Rune of Unbinding throbbed, like a swallowing throat, gorging hungrily on the shadow magic with which Be’lakor had wreathed himself. Until it was gone. Gotrek wrenched his axe free in a gout of something ethereal and grey.

Be’lakor extended a hand to the Bloodthirster; not to ravage the daemon with magic, for Gotrek’s axe had left him with none, but to appeal to the brute’s reason.