by Warhammer
The mountains themselves had changed appearance just as dramatically. At dawn they had been bright, clean titans, almost hospitable-seeming. Now they loomed large, dark and forbidding in the dreary light. The further peaks were obscured by more cloud. He felt his own mood darkening. The change in the weather had added to the ominous, oppressive atmosphere caused by knowing that they were coming ever closer to the dragon’s lair.
Ulrika had moved to the head of the column and was scouting alongside Standa and Oleg. It made a certain amount of sense. She had by far the keenest eyes in the party and would be able to perceive a threat before anyone else. At least, such had been her logic. Felix felt that it was just as much to get away from him. She had become remote and withdrawn again, and ignored all his attempts at conversation. He was fast coming to the conclusion that he would never understand women, or at the very least never understand her.
He became aware that Max Schreiber had fallen into step beside him. The mage’s face wore a curious look, at once exalted, yet indrawn. His first impressions this morning had been correct, Felix thought. There was something different about Max now. He looked even more like a sorcerer than ever he had before. Felix tried to tell himself that it was because now he was simply more aware of the power the mage wielded, but he knew it was more than this. A distinct change had come over the magician in the past few days. Now, more than ever, he seemed like a figure of hidden might.
‘Felix, may I ask you a few questions about the sword you bear?’
‘Why?’
‘I am interested in it. It seems to me to be an artifact of considerable power, and it seems to be... awakening.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean I have sensed changes in it. The weapon harbours some sort of sentience, and it is gaining in strength.’
Felix thought about the burst of power he had received in the battle yesterday, and the way the blade had shielded him from dragonfire on the Spirit of Grungni. He had long known the weapon possessed magical qualities but not until recently had it exhibited anything like these powers. In the past it had simply been a blade that never lost its edge, with runes that glowed mysteriously under certain circumstances.
‘Do you think that it is dangerous in any way?’ he asked nervously. Max shrugged. A frown marred his fine features.
‘I do not know. All magical weapons are in some way perilous. They are repositories of power that can sometimes affect their wielders in unpredictable ways. Sentient weapons are the most perilous of all, for they can warp the minds and souls of those who carry them.’
Felix felt his flesh crawl at the magician’s words. He did not doubt that they were true. He fought down the instinctive urge to draw the blade and simply cast it away that rose up in him. ‘Are you saying that the blade might be able to control me?’
‘It is unlikely, unless it is particularly potent, and you are particularly weak-minded, which, I hasten to add, you do not appear to be. It might be able to affect your thinking a little, or take partial control in moments of stress. A weapon of the type I suspect this is could not control you, if you decided not to let it. At least, I hope not.’
‘You are starting to worry me, Max.’
‘That is not my intention. Could I ask how you came by the weapon?’
Felix considered this for a moment. ‘It belonged to the Templar Aldred of the Order of the Fiery Heart. I took it from him after he died.’
Even as he said the words, Felix realised that this was both true and untrue. The blade had belonged to Aldred only for moments, when he had snatched it up from the hoard of the Chaos troll in Karag Eight Peaks. The Templar had come seeking the blade; it had not belonged to him. And yet, it felt like it did, or at least it felt like it belonged to his order. Felix had on many occasions felt as if he were merely the temporary custodian of the blade and he had fully intended to return it when the time was right. He mentioned all of these thoughts to Max. The magician looked thoughtful.
‘It seems to me that the blade has been influencing your thoughts for a long time, albeit subtly. It also sounds like you have been unconsciously resisting its influence, which is both normal and instinctive when it comes to magic.’
‘Why would this blade be trying to influence me?’
‘Perhaps there is a geas attached to it. Or perhaps it is one of those weapons which possesses a single overriding purpose. Maybe it was forged with the destruction of a particular foe or type of foe in mind. Have you ever thought that this might be the case?’
‘I suspect you already know the answer.’
‘Just looking at the workmanship of the hilt is a clue, I would say. I would guess that the blade started to show changes after we encountered the dragon.’
‘You would be right.’ Felix told the mage of the way the blade had protected him from dragonfire, and of the way it had intervened in the previous day’s battle when he had felt he might not survive to confront the beast. Max listened intently until after Felix had finished then said, ‘I think your blade was forged to be a bane to dragons.’
‘Do you mean you think it will give me the power to kill Skjalandir?’
‘I don’t know. I think it could hurt Skjalandir in a way that a normal blade could not but I don’t think it will guarantee you could kill him. There are plenty of examples from history of heroes armed with the most potent magical weapons failing to kill the great drakes. Even Sigmar only wounded the Great Wyrm, Abraxas.’
‘You are not reassuring me, Max,’ Felix said. ‘I thought for a moment I was about to become the hero of some mighty tale.’
‘Truthfully, Felix, judging by your deeds you and Gotrek are already that. I am a magician, not a prophet or a seer, but I do not think it is entirely by chance that your sword, Gotrek’s axe, Malakai’s weapons and even my own self are here. I suspect the workings of fate. If I were a more vain and a more devout man, I would see the hand of the gods.’
‘I find that difficult to imagine,’ Felix said. ‘I find it easier to believe that Gotrek and I live under the curse of the gods.’
‘You are too cynical, Herr Jaeger.’
‘If you had seen what I have seen, you would be cynical too,’ said Felix.
Max looked at Felix, as if trying to weigh how serious he was. After a moment, he glanced away.
‘Gotrek was right,’ he said. ‘It’s going to rain. Hard.’
The track descended into a long valley that might almost have been in the lowlands of the eastern Empire. Trees covered the slopes of the valley sides. Dry-stone walls turned the hills into a patchwork of overgrown fields. Here and there, patches of wild flowers bloomed. Felix caught the distinctive scent of wildberry and summer-thorn roses. Houses were visible among the walls, and at first glance, a stranger might easily have taken the place as inhabited.
A second glance would convince them otherwise, Felix thought. The grey unmortared walls, built like the dykes themselves, were scorched and blackened as if by fire. The sod roofs of many had caved in. Weeds had overgrown the kitchen gardens. There were no signs of domesticated beasts anywhere. Just the occasional dog, gone feral, which looked at them with hungry eyes and then slunk away.
‘Dragon work,’ Ulli said.
‘Or the work of reavers,’ Gotrek said, gesturing to a patch of white bones bleaching in the long grass. Felix walked over to them and discovered grass growing through the eye sockets of a human skull. A rusty blade lay near at hand, and by pushing the grass aside, he discovered the rotting remains of a leather cuirass. It looked like it had been chewed, perhaps by hungry dogs.
Even as he studied the remains, he felt cold wetness on his hair and on his face. The dark clouds above had finally made good on their promise of rain.
‘We can shelter amid these ruins,’ Max said. ‘Part of the roof is still intact, and we can rig a tarpaulin over the rest of it.’
‘Why not just creep into the back of the wagon?’ suggested Steg, with a glint in his eye.
‘Over ma dei
d boadie!’ Malakai said. Something in Steg’s appearance suggested that he might not be averse to that idea.
‘I don’t suppose the ruins will be haunted,’ boomed Ulli. He looked a little pale and nervous once more.
‘You’re not afraid of ghosts?’ Bjorni asked. ‘Are you?’
‘I fear nothing!’ Ulli said. ‘But only a fool tempts the wrath of the spirits of the dead.’
‘I suppose that means we should send Snorri in,’ Bjorni said nastily.
‘Snorri thinks that’s a good idea,’ said Snorri, oblivious to the insult. ‘Snorri isn’t afraid of ghosts.’
‘There are no ghosts in this place, or if there are they are the ghosts of mewling men, and what need have we to fear them,’ Gotrek said and stomped after Snorri.
‘Might as well get in out of the rain,’ Felix said, and looked around to see if the Kislevites agreed with them.
‘Ah’ll joost stay wae ma wagon,’ said Malakai Makaisson, glaring at Steg from under his beetling brows.
Steg shook his head, and disappeared inside. He was smirking to himself. For the first time it occurred to Felix that Steg might actually enjoy tormenting the engineer – and that in some perverse way, Malakai took pleasure in being tormented. He shrugged. If the Slayers wanted to indulge in such petty bickering it was no business of his.
The rain drummed down on the roof of the cottage. It was a typical peasant dwelling: one large room which had once been inhabited by humans, their dogs and their cattle. Rain puddled in the middle of the packed earth floor under the hole in the roof. Rats scuttled about amid the remains of the furniture. Despite the damp, Snorri had managed to get a fire crackling over by the chimney, and the not unpleasant smell of wood smoke filled the room. More clouds of smoke drifted across the chamber, mingling with the weed fumes from the Slayers’ pipes. All of the Slayers save Ulli had produced them, and were puffing away in the morose silence that passed as companionability among dwarfs.
Listening to the rain, Felix found time to be glad that the goblins had not attacked them in the middle of the storm. He wondered how Malakai’s gunpowder weapons would have functioned then. Not well, he guessed. He prayed that it was a fine day when they finally confronted the dragon. That made him think of the sword. He drew it from the scabbard and began to inspect the blade, studying it with an intensity he had never used before.
It was a well-made weapon. From the dragon’s head on the pommel to the runes on the blade it gave every indication of high quality. The steel of the blade gleamed. The edges were razor sharp despite the fact he had never taken a whetstone to them. The runes caught the firelight, but, at that moment, appeared merely decorative. There was no hint of any sorcerous power lurking within the blade, and, looking at it, Felix found it hard to believe that there could be. The weapon seemed so prosaic that, were it not for his memories of its power, he would have thought it merely another rich man’s blade, not some mystical weapon. Then again, Firebeard’s hammer had looked the same way back in the Temple of Grimnir, and Felix knew exactly how potent it was.
‘You look thoughtful,’ Ulrika said. Felix looked up at her. She had been standing in the doorway not moments before, staring out into the rain.
‘And you look lovely,’ he said.
‘Always ready with flattery,’ she said, but there was no hostility in her tone. ‘What were you thinking about?’
‘I was thinking about this sword, and how I found it, and about the dragon.’ Without meaning to, he found himself telling her of the quest to Karag Eight Peaks, of how he and Gotrek and Albrecht and the others had fought their way into the dark tunnels beneath the mountains, and had slain the Chaos troll. He told her of the spirits of the dwarf kings who had appeared before them, and of how they had left the treasures of the lost city in the tomb and he spoke of the eerie grandeur of the ancient dwarf city. It was only when he noticed that silence had fallen over the chamber that he realised that all the dwarfs were listening to him. Suddenly embarrassed, he stopped, but Snorri looked over at him and said, ‘Go on, young Felix. Snorri likes a tale as much as the next dwarf and yours is a good one.’
The other dwarfs nodded acquiescence, so Felix spoke on, telling of battles with Chaos warriors in the woods of the Empire, and encounters with evil cultists in the cities of men. He talked of the battle with the skaven amid the blazing buildings of Nuln, and of the long voyage across the Chaos Wastes in search of the lost dwarfhold of Karag Dum. It was dark by the time he finished, and the silence in the chamber had intensified. He realised that at some time during his speech the rain had stopped.
He looked up, and at that moment the smoke cloud which filled the room billowed under the impact of the night breeze, the same breeze that parted the storm clouds. Through the gap he caught a glimpse of the cold sky. Two moons hovered there. The larger one shone silver, sending a chill light down to bathe the land. The lesser moon glowed greenishly, and the aura that surrounded it obscured the stars. He was certain that its glow was brighter than ever he had seen it before, brighter even than on that unholy Geheimnisnacht when he and Gotrek had fought with the worshippers of Slaanesh. He knew then, in the innermost recesses of his soul, that the power of Chaos was growing in proportion to the moon’s glow, and that however long he lived, that moon was going to grow brighter until its light eclipsed its larger sibling. He was suddenly dreadfully afraid.
If any of the dwarfs noticed they gave no sign. Eventually, Bjorni spoke, ‘By Grungni, Grimnir and Valaya, Felix Jaeger, you have seen more of the ancient holy places of the dwarfs than many of the dwarfs. I do not know whether you have been blessed or cursed, but I believe that somehow the gods look on you with favour. Why else would you have been chosen to wield the Hammer of Firebeard?’
All the other dwarfs except Gotrek nodded their agreement. Felix noted that some time during his tale-telling Gotrek had vanished outside. He could hear the Slayer talking to Malakai Makaisson now that he had stopped speaking himself. Bjorni glanced around, a feverish light illuminating his ugly face. He spat into the fire, rubbed his hands and spoke:
‘Tis a night for tale-telling so I’ll give you a yarn. Some of you may have heard the awful rumours about the night I met two elf maidens in a tavern in Marienberg. I want to tell you that the story is not true. Well, not entirely true. It happened like this...’
The groans and jeers of the other dwarfs threatened for a moment to cut him off but he continued unabashed. Felix looked over at Ulrika. ‘Shall we take a walk?’ he asked.
She nodded agreement.
The smell of damp and rain-soaked earth assaulted Felix’s nostrils. He looked around warily. They had walked a long way from the cottage and the fire. Perhaps too far for safety in these perilous mountains. Still, he sensed that they had both wanted to be alone, to speak freely, far from the dwarfs. This was the one way they could have some privacy. He was willing to risk the danger, if only for a few minutes.
Ulrika’s hand felt warm in his. He noticed that her fingers were calloused from blade-work. Her hair smelled faintly of sweat. As did her clothes. It was not a romantic scent but it was hers, and he liked it. He glanced at her face, admiring the profile. She was most certainly beautiful, and at that moment looked thoughtful.
‘Felix, what is to become of us?’ she asked.
He considered her question for a moment, knowing he was no closer to an answer than he had been in Karak Kadrin. After a while he spoke.
‘I will go with the Slayers to face the dragon. You will go on to Kislev and carry your father’s warning to the Ice Queen. If I survive I will seek you out.’
‘Then what?’
‘Then most likely we will go to Praag or wherever the armies muster to fight the Chaos hordes.’ He glanced up at the greenly glowing moon, and shivered. ‘And then perhaps we will die.’
‘I do not think I want to die,’ she said softly. It sounded as if it came as a revelation to her. Perhaps it did. He knew she was born and bred on the plains of northern Kislev, wher
e duty and death were things children were taught as soon as they were old enough to understand their meanings.
‘No one does.’
‘I have been given a holy trust by my father. I am to bear word of his need to our liege lady. And yet I find myself thinking of... abandoning my duty and running away, of finding a place to hide for a while to laugh and love and live. I find myself thinking this and I am horrified. What would my father think? What would the spirits of my ancestors think?’
‘What do you think?’
‘If I were to run away, would you go with me?’
Felix looked at her. At that moment, he forgot about his oath to Gotrek, about the destiny that Max Schreiber had talked of, about his own dreams and illusions of heroism. ‘Yes. Do you want to go?’
She was silent for a long moment, and he could see the struggle written on her face. A tear trickled down her cheek, and he almost reached out to wipe it away. Something kept him from doing it. He felt that at that moment, their two lives were hanging in the balance, and that perhaps she could change their destinies with a single word. He looked into her eyes, and saw a spirit at war, and thought, she truly does love me. He was going to speak, but at that moment she turned away. He did not move his hand. The silence lengthened. ‘I do not know,’ she said. ‘I do not know you and I do not know myself any more. You are a fool, Felix Jaeger, and you have made a fool of me. I will go with you to face the dragon.’
She turned and fled away from him back towards the ruined cottage, running as if all the fiends of Chaos were at her heels. Felix wondered what had happened, and realised that he did not have a clue.
Felix returned to find a stranger by the fire. He was a tall, scarred man, garbed in leather. A wide-brimmed leather hat shaded his face. A longsword lay scabbarded by his side. A bundle of cloth, tied to the end of a staff pushed into the earthen floor and the lute the stranger plucked idly with his fingers marked him as a wandering minstrel.
No one was showing the slightest interest, but the stranger did not seem too bothered. He looked only too grateful for the fire, and companions to share it with. Felix wasn’t really all that interested in him. He wanted to talk with Ulrika but she had already cast herself down on the far side of the fire, and lay between her bodyguards, seemingly determined to pretend he was not there. Felix felt obscurely hurt. His pride was wounded. If that’s what she wants, he thought, then let her get on with it. He wanted some time to think about what she had said anyway.