by Warhammer
‘Who are you?’ he asked the stranger, none too politely. The stranger regarded him pleasantly enough.
‘Johan Gatz is my name, friend. What is yours?’
‘Felix Jaeger.’
‘You are a companion to these Slayers?’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s common enough to see men and dwarfs travelling together in these mountains. It is less common to see three Kislevites, a sorcerer, a man of the Empire and a gang of Slayers journeying as a group. Have you joined together for protection on the road, or is there a tale here I might sing of?’
‘That depends on what type of songs you sing,’ Felix said.
‘All sorts.’
‘As I told you earlier, we’re going to kill the dragon,’ bellowed Ulli boastfully. Johan Gatz winced and raised an eyebrow. ‘And you are accompanying these Slayers on their death quest? Your friends here have told me all manner of tales about you and Gotrek there. You’ve led interesting lives.’
‘Apparently so.’ Felix did not know why he was offended by the man’s curiosity but he was. It was quite common for minstrels to be inquisitive. Their stock in trade was quite often as much news and gossip as it was songs and music. The dwarfs seemed none too bothered by him, but there was something about the man that rubbed Felix the wrong way. He tried telling himself that he was being unfair, that he was just upset by his conversation with Ulrika, but there was something about the man that made him suspicious.
‘How came you to be wandering through these mountains?’ Felix asked. ‘I would have thought this a dangerous region for a man to travel in alone.’
‘A minstrel may travel anywhere he pleases. Even the most savage brigand will not slay a penniless player when he can have a song for free.’
‘I had not heard orcs and goblins were so appreciative of strolling players.’
‘I am a fast runner,’ said Johan Gatz with an easy smile. ‘Though in truth, I must confess that I am somewhat alarmed by what I have found here.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes. The last time I passed this way was several years ago. The High Road then was lined with towns and villages where a man could earn his bread and some coin. The region was not so wild and lawless. There were neither orcs nor bandits here then. Had I known what I know now, I would not have come back this way but would have stayed in Ostmark regardless of the competition there.’
‘It might have been wiser.’
‘Aye, that it might. Hindsight is always wise sight, as my dear old mother used to say.’
‘You say that even the most desperate bandits will leave a minstrel alone. Have you met any?’
‘I have met some who might have been, though they let me be.’
‘Have you heard aught of Henrik Richter? He is said to be the king of the bandits hereabouts.’
Johan Gatz laughed out loud. ‘Then he rules a pretty poor kingdom as far as I can see. I have seen no great armies of bandits nor have I heard anything of this bandit king although I confess that now that you mention him, it might be a good idea for a song.’
‘I have never met any bandits quite so romantic as the ones you hear about in minstrels’ songs,’ Felix said. ‘None I have ever met robbed from the rich and gave to the poor, or fought unjust landowners for the rights of the downtrodden. The ones I met only wanted to separate my head from my shoulders and my purse from my belt.’
‘You have met many bandits then, Herr Jaeger?’ asked Johan Gatz with an odd gleam in his eye.
‘A few,’ replied Felix.
‘Then you must be a hardier man than you seem, to still be alive. You do not sound like a mercenary or a swordsman, if I may say so.’
‘Hardy enough,’ Felix said, sensing a subtle insult in the man’s words.
‘Felix Jaeger is one of the mightiest men Snorri Nosebiter has ever known,’ said Snorri from the far side of the fire. Felix looked over at him in surprise. He had not thought he had made quite such a good impression on the Slayer. Nor had he been aware that the Slayer had been listening quite so closely to the conversation. ‘Of course, that is not saying much,’ added Snorri quickly to general laughter from the dwarfs.
Felix shrugged and gave his attention back to the minstrel. ‘We go to slay the dragon,’ he said. ‘There should be a song in it, if you care to accompany us.’
‘I like living,’ said the minstrel. ‘But should you survive the experience, seek me out and I will make a song of the tale. It will probably make me famous.’
He paused for a moment, and considered his words. ‘Do you honestly think you have a chance of surviving? Can you even make it to the mountain, if what you tell me of orcs and goblins and human bandits is true?’
‘We have already put a warband of greenskins to flight,’ Felix said, knowing that he was boasting, but needled by the minstrel’s tone. Once again Johan Gatz raised an eyebrow.
‘Twelve of you did that?’
‘One is a wizard. The Slayers are mighty. Malakai Makaisson is an excellent weapons engineer.’
‘You use dwarf armaments then, gatling canons and such?’
Felix nodded. The minstrel laughed gleefully.
‘It seems you are not going about your dragon-slaying in the orthodox manner then. No white horses, no lances, no magical weapons.’
‘We are too,’ said Snorri. ‘Gotrek’s axe is magical. He killed a bloody big daemon with it. Snorri saw him. And Felix’s sword is magic too. You can tell by the runes if you look closely.’
Felix wondered if Snorri had been eavesdropping on his conversation with Max Schreiber or whether he really could tell by the runes. In either case, Felix wished he had not said anything about the weapons in front of this inquisitive stranger. He had the feeling that he himself had already said too much. He did not know why but he was starting to trust Johan Gatz less and less, and he had not trusted him very much to begin with.
‘It seems I have underestimated you,’ said the minstrel. ‘Your expedition seems remarkably well-prepared. I can almost pity any bandits you run into.’
‘It’s late,’ Felix said. ‘I need to get some sleep.’
‘That seems wise,’ said the stranger mockingly. ‘After all you have a busy few days ahead of you.’
Felix threw himself down on the far side of the fire. He took a last glance at the minstrel, and was not surprised to see the man watching him closely. He was surprised to see Max Schreiber was looking suspiciously at Gatz. It seemed he, too, had his suspicions about the man.
Felix wondered if he would wake up in the night with his throat cut, and then decided that it was unlikely. Anybody who tried it with all the Slayers around was in for a very short life afterwards.
Not that it would be much consolation if he himself were dead, Felix thought, as he dropped into a restless slumber.
Johan Gatz cursed. The gods had spat on him again. When he had noticed the wagon, he had hoped to find a small merchant caravan with maybe a few bodyguards down here. He had not expected a gang of Slayers and this bunch of heavily armed humans. He was particularly annoyed by the presence of the wizard. There was no sense in trying to slip out and give the signal that would bring Henrik and the lads down from the mountainside. The wizard was watching him too closely, and the dwarfs were as suspicious as they were surly.
It was only to be expected, he supposed. Luck had not been with Henrik Richter’s gang recently. Things hadn’t really gone right since the dragon had arrived, and the orcs moved in along the High Road. Once there had been rich pickings along this trail, at least rich enough for a smallish band of former mercenaries and cut-throats. With all the extra mouths to feed, things were not so good. Johan cursed the necessity of taking in the human refugees from the destroyed villages, but there had been no other way. They had needed extra swords just to hold their own citadel against the orcs.
He supposed he should thank Sigmar for small mercies though. At least none of the travellers had questioned his disguise as a wandering minstrel, although that h
ard eyed man, Jaeger, had seemed suspicious. Taking this lot out was not going to be an easy proposition, he could tell. It wasn’t going to be a case of offering an unsuspecting sentry a drugged drink, slitting his throat, and then summoning the boys with a lantern. These laddies were hard, and he did not want to try anything tricky with a magician watching. Anyway, he had always heard that dwarfs could smell poison and his own experience had confirmed this.
He felt certain that confident as this bunch might be, Henrik Richter and his bandit crew could overcome them. At least they could if Henrik assembled his whole army in one spot. They might even be able to do it with the fifty or so men that Henrik had in the foothills above. ‘Might’ being the operative word. This gang looked tough, and even if Henrik and the boys could overcome them, they would probably take an unacceptable number of the lads to hell with them. On the whole it would probably be best to leave them alone.
There was not going to be any profit in this night’s work, he could tell. On the other hand other possibilities suggested themselves. Perhaps he could offer the Slayers an alliance against the orcs. He knew that the stunties hated the greenskins even more than he did. Probably wouldn’t work, he thought. They were Slayers and on their way to fight a dragon, and Johan was familiar enough with the ways of dwarfs to know that getting between a stunty and a hoard of gold was a sure way to get boot prints on your chest.
It was then that the idea struck him. This was a well-equipped expedition. Perhaps the Slayers could kill the dragon. Perhaps not. But there was always the possibility that they could, or wound it badly enough so that it might be slaughtered by an army of men. If that were the case...
Skjalandir had a big hoard of treasure, that was for sure. Dragons always did. That being the case, the way to profit from this might be to follow these maniacs and see what happened. Even if they won, they would most likely be weakened enough by the battle for Henrik and the boys to overcome them. And if they lost, maybe they would weaken the dragon. It was an idea he would put to Henrik tomorrow. He was sure his cousin would grasp its significance at once.
Johan licked his lips at the thought of the dragon’s hoard of treasure. He was certain that his share would be more than enough to buy him a little tavern in Nuln and let him leave the dangerous profession of banditry aside. Perhaps things were looking up, he told himself, and drifted into dreams of mountains of gold.
Grey Seer Thanquol glared around the great antechamber of the Tower of Moulder. He was furious and he was filled with fear. Since his arrival at Hell Pit he had been kept waiting. Clanrat warriors in the distinctive livery of the Masters had shown him and Lurk to this huge room and then abandoned them there. He wondered why he had been brought here. He had never been allowed into the inner citadel of the Moulders before. Previously all his business with them had been conducted in the cavernous chambers in the crater walls that the clan used for all its business transactions. He was not sure whether it was a good sign or a bad sign that he had been brought here. Being right at the heart of the city made him feel exceedingly nervous. He reached out and touched the winds of magic, just to reassure himself. The power of dark magic was strong here. It was hardly surprising, given how close they were to the Chaos Wastes and how much warpstone dust was in the air, but it was reassuring.
Once again he inspected his surroundings, searching for the hidden peepholes he felt certain were there. It was not in the least likely that any skaven clan would allow a stranger to stand unobserved in the heart of their fortress, and Clan Moulder were possibly the most devious and suspicious of all the ratman clans.
Thanquol wandered over to the window and stared balefully out at the benighted city. It was not made from glass but from some translucent leathery substance whose scent reminded him of flesh. It was a disturbing reminder that the raw material on which Clan Moulder’s prowess and fortune was based was nothing less than the stuff of life itself.
He looked down on an eerie cityscape. Huge towers that reminded him of the tusks of some enormous beast dominated the inside of the crater. From their towering tips emerged clouds of glowing smoke: livid green, ruby, cobalt blue and all manner of other toxic shades. The pillars of smoke rose to contribute to the huge cloud of pollution that eternally hovered above the crater and sometimes descended to create thickly obscuring fog. Thanquol could tell from the faint eerie glitter that the smoke contained trapped particles of warpstone. Part of him was outraged by this flagrant waste, part of him was awestruck by the display of sheer wealth. He had no idea what was taking place within those towers but the cacophony of screams, howls and bestial roars told him that it was not pleasant.
Among the towers lay other buildings, constructed in a distinctly un-skavenish manner. The buildings were huge tents of decaying leathery flesh, thrown over massive skeletons of twisted bone. They had an odd look that suggested huge ticks or beetles frozen in place by some strange magic. These were the barracks within which the slaves and soldiers of the clans dwelt. The streets below teemed with skaven, and he realised that it was possible that Hell Pit was a ratman city second only to Skavenblight in population.
Here and there, amid the wide streets, were greenishly glowing lakes of polluted water, reputedly still contaminated by the warpstone starfall that had created the vast crater. Far away, he could see the glitter of thousands of lights, windows in the crater wall. It was rumoured that the whole wall had been burrowed out into an endless labyrinth of tunnels and artificial caves to provide burrows and laboratories for the clan. Even as Thanquol watched, a huge door opened in the crater side, and a massive creature emerged. At this distance, in the dark, Thanquol could not make out all the details, but something about the creature suggested a cave rat grown to the size of a mastodon with a howdah on its back.
Across the night sky flickered forms that Thanquol at first took to be bats, but which he swiftly realised were too big. The simplest explanation was that they were mutant bats grown to massive size, but one of them veered closer to the tower, and he realised that it was a skaven with bat-like membranes under its arms. Part of Thanquol felt horror at this blasphemy. Had not the Horned Rat created the skaven in his own image? Was not tampering with shape of the highest of all creatures the supreme sacrilege? Thanquol had always known the Moulders were mad. He had just never realised quite how insane they really were.
Still, it was a brilliant madness, in its way. Even he had to concede that. In this barren place far from the true centre of skaven civilisation, Clan Moulder had done things that even Thanquol had never dreamed of. He wondered if the Council of Thirteen were aware of quite how much the clan had achieved. Surely, he thought, there must be some way he could use all of this to his advantage.
He glanced around the room once again. Here, too, was evidence of the mad genius of Clan Moulder. The leather-covered thrones and couches appeared to be incredibly torpid living things. Every time Thanquol looked back, they had changed position ever so slightly, in a manner at once maddening and slightly sinister. The grey seer suspected that the whole room was designed to make visitors uneasy and put them off-balance in any confrontation with the builders. Finally, Thanquol found what he was looking for. High above in the ceiling amid the warpstone-powered globes of the chandelier, he saw a cluster of eyes. They swayed slightly as they observed him, and then, reacting to the fact he had noticed them, they withdrew into the ceiling, vanishing from sight.
As if this was a signal the door to the chamber opened like a set of great jaws, and the enormously fat figure of Izak Grottle waddled in. A living table covered in bone bowls and translucent fleshy plates followed him.
‘Greetings, in the name of Moulder, Grey Seer Thanquol,’ rumbled Grottle in his unnaturally deep voice. ‘Greetings indeed. It is good to see you once more.’
Thanquol doubted that his old rival was pleased to see him. Grottle had tried to betray Thanquol many times when the grey seer had led the army against Nuln. There was bad blood between them, and Thanquol had sworn he would one
day have vengeance on Grottle. He did not doubt that, if the opportunity arose, the Moulder would try to do away with him. He knew he would have to be careful.
Grottle slumped into one of the thrones. Its leathery fur moulded itself to his shape, expanding outwards to make room for his fat rump, then enfolding him in an unnatural manner. Its legs flexed slightly as if with strain, and Thanquol would have sworn he heard it emit a slight grunt. After a moment, the chair’s back started to ripple as if it were massaging its occupant. Grottle leaned forward and helped himself to a small broiled rat from the table which had manoeuvred itself into position in front of him.
‘So, Grey Seer Thanquol, you have returned bearing the spoils of your attack on the horse-humans’ burrow that you promised my Clanlords. You have come to report success in your acquisition of the dwarf airship and have brought the secrets of its construction to share with my overlords. You have come bearing tidings of the whereabouts of the Moulder troops who accompanied you on your quest.’
Grottle forced the rat whole down his throat and then smiled wickedly. He knew that Thanquol had brought no such pleasant tidings. It occurred to the grey seer that Grottle was enjoying this.
‘Not exactly,’ Thanquol said, twitching his tail uneasily. Grottle helped himself to another morsel.
‘Not exactly,’ he muttered to himself, in an almost gloating tone. ‘Not exactly. This is not good news, Grey Seer Thanquol. This is not good at all. Clan Moulder lent you the services of several hundred of its finest troops, and many, many of our deadliest beasts, on the understanding that we would share the spoils of your success. At the very least, you will be able to return our warriors and our beasts to us then.’