by Warhammer
They always had been in the past. Why not this time?
‘What are we going to do?’ asked Felix. His explanation of the situation outside had not been well received. The Slayers were silent. Max looked thoughtful. The Kislevites looked worried.
‘If we wait there will be a battle,’ Max said. ‘I don’t see how it can be avoided.’
‘Maybe they’ll send scouts to investigate the caves,’ suggested Ulrika. ‘It’s only a matter of time before one side or the other plucks up the courage to investigate.’
‘In either case, our goose is cooked,’ Felix said. ‘There doesn’t seem to be any way out, unless we wait for the battle and try to sneak away then.’
‘I will not sneak away, manling,’ Gotrek said.
‘If there’s a battle, Snorri wants to be part of it,’ added Snorri Nosebiter.
‘I suspect you’ll get your wish,’ Felix said.
‘Everybody has to die sometime,’ said Ulli. He seemed to have acquired the proper Slayer attitude of brute stubborn stupidity since the fight with the dragon. Either that or he was in shock.
‘I was hoping to die a long time from now in my bed,’ Felix said.
‘I wanted to die in bed once too. Identical twins it was,’ said Bjorni. ‘I thought nothing could improve on that.’
The other dwarfs looked at him in disgust. ‘You’re all just jealous,’ he said eventually.
‘Enough of this,’ Gotrek said. ‘It’s time for an ending.’
He strode up to the mouth of the cave and raised his axe above his head, holding the shaft in both hands.
‘We’ve killed the dragon!’ he shouted. ‘If you want its treasure, you’re going to have to get it over my dead body.’
For a moment, all was silence then there was a roar of voices. A moment after that Gotrek leapt back as a hail of arrows rained down where he stood. Felix noticed that some were black-fletched, some white. He wondered which had been fired by humans, which by orcs.
‘I suppose being pin-cushioned with arrows is no death for a Slayer,’ Felix said. Gotrek glared at him.
‘You’ll see what is a suitable death for a Slayer soon enough, manling.’
‘I fear you are correct,’ Felix said and readied his blade.
‘That’s torn it,’ muttered Johan Gatz, perching himself on one of the boulders strewn across the hillside. The dwarf’s appearance had thrown the orcs into turmoil. The leading ranks obviously didn’t understand a word of what Gotrek had said, but had correctly assumed their hereditary enemy was taunting them. They wouldn’t have been orcs if they had stood for this. The nearest greenskin archers opened fire on the Slayer. The closest unit of orcs began to lumber up the hill.
What surprised Johan the most was that some of the humans had fired as well. That was a waste of arrows. He supposed the lads must be on edge from waiting. A shout from the front ranks of the humans told him exactly how on edge they were. A group of halberdiers had rushed forward to take the orcs moving towards the cave in the flank.
It was the pebble that started an avalanche. The boar riders charged straight at the nearest unit of men. Hooves churned the thin mountain soil. Enormous droppings spurted from their rear as the creatures grew excited. The mountain clan’s men, never the most disciplined of warriors and always eager to prove their bravery, rushed downslope. As they did so, some sort of drug-crazed goblin, using a chain to swing a massive iron ball almost as large as it was, broke out of the greenskin ranks and ploughed through them. In less than a minute all was a chaos of hacking, chopping, howling warriors.
Johan Gatz watched them, thinking that as soon as the opportunity arose, he was out of here.
Felix heard the crash of weapon on weapon, the screams of dying men, the guttural chanting of the orcs, the howled war cries of men. ‘What in the name of Sigmar is going on down there?’ he asked.
‘Sounds like a battle,’ Max said sardonically.
‘Your powers of observation astonish me.’
Felix crept cautiously forward to take a look, mindful of the arrows that had almost skewered Gotrek earlier. He looked down and saw that the valley had erupted into a maelstrom of combat. Man and orc and goblin were locked in battle. Most of the human units had managed to restrain themselves from charging and held the higher ground against the more numerous orcs and goblins. As he watched he saw a rank of halberdiers repulse a charge by a gang of hulking green-skinned warriors. Both sides were taking awful casualties. The humans pursued the retreating orcs and were themselves caught in the flanks by a gang of crazed goblin warriors. Even as Felix watched the men vanished beneath a tide of tiny humanoids only half their size.
A strange twanging noise attracted his attention and he glanced over to see one of the oddly garbed goblins clambering onto the giant catapult. The cable was drawn back by a team of sweating lackeys, and then suddenly unleashed. The goblin was ejected into the air and went swooping off towards the human position. It moved its be-winged arms, as if believing it could somehow control its flight, and screamed ecstatically as it flew. Perhaps it did manage to control its direction, for it descended on top of one of the human leaders, impaling him with the spike of its helmet. The impact must have broken its neck, for it did not rise after that. It was an impressive tribute to either its fanaticism or its stupidity that it would give its life like that.
Suddenly other matters urgently required Felix’s attention. One group of orcs had broken out of the general ruck and were racing up the hill towards him. He rose into a crouch and backed into the cave.
‘They’re coming,’ he shouted.
Ugrek spat on the corpse of his dead foe. So much for waiting, he thought. So much for patience. So much for planning. One shout from that accursed dwarf and those stupid Broken Nose bastards had charged in like orc boys at their first battle. He would crack a few heads and eat a few brains for that once this battle was done. By the great green-skinned gods, he would. He glanced around. It wasn’t all bad tidings. He thought that his lads could rout these humans easily enough. And then he would have the axe and the dragon’s treasure. It wasn’t going to be such a bad day after all. He shouted to his bodyguard and began to make his way across the battlefield towards the mouth of the dragon’s cave.
He was going to take the axe from the stunty’s cold dead hands, he thought. And then he was going to eat his fingers.
Johan could see the battle was finely balanced. The greenskins had the numbers, and their odd weapons and tactics were taking a toll. Those ball-wielding drugged crazed fanatics left a path of red ruin behind them until they collapsed from exhaustion or got entangled in their chains. The flyers had killed more than one brave horseman. The sheer strength and ferocity of the orcs was amazing to watch. He saw one that had to be literally hacked to pieces before it stopped fighting. They did not seem to feel pain as men did.
On the other hand, the humans were better disciplined. They had mostly managed to keep to their ranks and hold the higher ground. The crossbowmen were taking a heavy toll on the lightly armoured orcs and goblins. Even a few of those horrid giant spiders had fallen to them. If only they had a few cannons or even one of those organ guns. Or a squadron of heavy cavalry. With one charge they could have broken the orc ranks. Might as well wish for Sigmar to arrive with the host of the righteous dead, Johan thought. They did not have any knights. They were just going to have to win with what they had.
He wasn’t certain this was possible. At least some of the orcs were distracted by attempting to get at the dwarfs in the cave. And it looked like the orc chieftain, the great Ugrek himself, was trying to cut his way up there. Johan decided that he wouldn’t want to be up there when the Manflayer arrived. Not for all the gold in the dragon’s hoard.
Felix chopped down the last orc. He was breathing hard, and blood mingled with the water that saturated his clothes. Some of it was his own. He glanced around the cave mouth. Dead orcs lay everywhere. Gotrek and Snorri had done their usual bloody work. Between them they must ha
ve put paid to at least ten of the greenskins. Five lay blasted and smoking, a testimony to the deadliness of Max Schreiber’s magic. Three more lay with arrows sprouting from their breasts. Felix himself had accounted for three. He guessed the others had killed about a dozen.
They had taken casualties themselves. Standa was dead, his skull split by an orc scimitar. Bjorni had taken a nasty wound. Felix watched Max mutter some kind of healing spell that knitted the flesh together, then wrap a torn piece of his cloak around it. Bjorni looked as pale as a corpse; he had lost a lot of blood. Ulrika and Oleg moved among the bodies, retrieving arrows to replenish their quivers.
About thirty dead orcs, he estimated. It wasn’t enough. There were hundreds more greenskins out there, and almost as many desperate men, all of whom would doubtless want their share of the dragon’s treasure. Maybe that was the answer. Maybe they should offer to split it with the humans in return for their assistance. Good idea, he thought. Now all he had to do was get it to the human leader. And then wait for the inevitable treachery if they survived the fight.
Footsteps sounded from behind them. He saw Malakai and Ulli coming up the corridor. The engineer was bent almost double. In one hand he held a black bomb. He was dribbling powder from it onto the ground. Felix knew what he was doing. A spark would ignite that powder. The powder would act as a fuse. The fuse would detonate whatever cache of explosives they had left back there.
‘It’s din,’ said Malakai. ‘Black powder’s in place. If it looks like the orcs are going to over-run us, ah’ll set fire tae this pooder, an’ boom the whole tunnel comes doon. Then let’s see them get the dragon’s treasure wie a whole mountain o’ rock on tap o’ it.’
Felix shivered. He hoped it would not come to this. If it did, it would mean that he and Ulrika would be dead along with all the rest of them. It was not a reassuring thought. He walked over to the woman. It was time for them to talk.
Ugrek chopped down another human, thumped one of his own bodyguards who had accidentally blundered into him, and continued to hew his way up the hill. His mighty blade dripped with blood. His axe was smeared with gore. He bellowed instructions and encouragement to his followers, certain that victory would soon be his. Heartened by his presence the lads fought on with redoubled fury, cutting down the pinkskins by the dozen. Ugrek could smell victory.
Johan ducked back behind the rock. A random arrow had come close to ending his life and he did not feel like exposing himself to death at the moment. He glanced up and to his astonishment saw a tiny goblin, his eyes glazed in some sort of trance, go flying overhead. From its arms extended some sort of bat-like artificial wings. On its head was a sharp spiked helmet. Johan could have sworn it was shouting: ‘Wheee!’
This was madness, he thought. The orcs were mad, the goblins were mad, his comrades were mad and he was mad for staying here when he could be running. Unfortunately he found the whole scene dreadfully fascinating.
Off at the valley mouth two units of orcs had blundered into each other in their eagerness to get at the men. Now they fought each other with the same ferocious savagery they had wanted to vent on their human foes. Maybe they were from different tribes or clans, Johan thought.
Or maybe it was true what he had heard: when an orc’s battle lust was up, it would fight with anyone.
A change rippled over the battlefield. He sensed arcane powers at work. His hair stood on end. Something drew his eye to the goblin shaman the way iron filings were drawn to a magnet.
The shaman’s cloak billowed behind him. His spider had reared, raising its four forelegs as if in salute. A yellow glow blazed from the goblin’s eyes. A swirling green light flickered on the end of its staff. Streamers of greenish ectoplasm swirled outwards from its tip. When the magic energy touched an orc or a goblin, the recipient’s eyes glowed reddishly, their muscles swelled like great cables, foam erupted from their mouth and they fought like berserkers. At each point this happened the battle started to turn against the humans.
Perhaps the shaman’s uncanny powers would turn the tide, Johan thought.
‘Magic is being unleashed on the battlefield,’ Max said. ‘I think the shaman has invoked the power of the orc gods.’
‘I wish the gods would aid us,’ muttered Felix, surveying the rent in his chainmail and the agonising red cut on his side the wizard was healing. Golden light flowed from the mage’s hand, and where it touched his body the area first went extremely hot and then numbingly cold. It took all Felix’s willpower to keep from screaming. After a moment, the chill passed and sank to a dull ache. He looked down and saw the flap of skin peeled away by an orc scimitar blow had knitted together. He could still remember the agonising pain and the satisfied look on the face of the orc who had chopped at him. He had turned just too late to parry the stroke. His own blow had beheaded his attacker. It had given him a certain satisfaction knowing that he had killed the brute he thought had killed him. It was a miracle he had not been killed. He had managed to keep fighting until the greenskins were repelled and Max could heal him.
‘The gods gave us courage to stand our ground, manling, and weapons to cleave our foes. What else do we need?’ Gotrek said.
‘An army of Sigmarite Templars would be good,’ Felix said. ‘I prefer my divine aid to take tangible form.’
Gotrek merely grunted and returned his attention to the cave mouth. Snorri stood at the edge gazing down.
‘Good fight coming,’ he said. ‘Some big orcs and a shaman on a spider. The spider is Snorri’s.’
‘You can have him,’ Gotrek said. ‘The chieftain is mine.’
Bjorni shook his head. ‘I heard somewhere that female spiders eat their partners when mating. I’ve met some women who did that too.’
‘Don’t you ever think of anything else?’ Ulli asked.
‘Only when I’m fighting,’ Bjorni said. ‘And sometimes not even then.’
Max finished his spell. Felix thanked him and stood up.
‘You’ll feel real pain in a few hours, but the spell should keep you going till then. You won’t be up for much fighting though. Unless...’
Felix knew what Max was thinking. Unless the orcs swarm in, and I’ll have to fight anyway. In a few hours it wouldn’t matter since they would be dead anyway. The last wave had left Oleg dying slowly from a stomach wound that not even Max’s magic could cure. That could so easily have been me, he thought. If the orc’s blow had slightly more power behind it. If my mail had not deflected it just enough.
The man’s groans and prayers filled the chamber, and worked on Felix’s nerves like poison. It would be a mercy to kill him, he thought, and a mercy to the rest of us to silence him.
He shivered. He was becoming as bad as Gotrek and the rest of the dwarfs. Worse. None of them would have suggested such a thing.
Painfully he went over to where Ulrika sat beside the dying man, holding his hand. He noticed that both of them were silent now. Oleg’s skin looked waxy. His moustache drooped. A small amount of blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.
‘Is there anything I can do?’ he asked.
‘Nothing,’ she said softly. ‘He is dead.’
Suddenly Felix felt terribly guilty.
Ugrek led the lads right up the hill. He chopped down a few of the Broken Noses that were in his way, just to teach them not to do it again, and halted twenty strides away from the cave mouth. He turned for a moment to look back, and saw with some satisfaction that his lads were about to win the battle. The shaman’s magic had helped. Filled with the spirit of the gods, his warriors were fighting as if possessed.
The spider had borne its mystic master all the way to where Ugrek stood. No one had interfered with it. It regarded Ugrek with beady intelligent malign eyes, and the warboss wondered whether it was true, and Ixix had bound the spirit of his former shamanic master into it. Not that it mattered. If he gave Ugrek any lip, he would die like anyone else. The shaman was gibbering and pointing at something excitedly. Ugrek looked to see what it was.
In the distance he saw a small dot approaching. From its size, he would have thought it was the dragon, but the dwarfs claimed to have killed it. It would be just like a stunty to lie about such a thing, and let the dragon escape by another exit. It was too late to worry about such things now, he decided.
‘Right, lads,’ he bellowed. ‘Into the cave. Kill the stunties. Grab the treasure. Leave the axe for me!’
Having explained his plan, he implemented it instantly.
Felix watched the inexorable tide of greenskins roll up the hill and knew he was going to die. These were the largest, fiercest orcs he had ever seen, and their leader made them look weak and mild-mannered. He was huge, half again as big as a normal orc, and he bore a cleaver in one hand, and an axe in the other. His cloak of manskin billowed behind him. His tusks dripped with saliva. His voice boomed out over the battle. Felix noticed that he was looking back at something and looked to see what it was.
From beside him, he heard Ulrika gasp.
‘It looks like we might be saved.‘
‘Aye, if we can hold on long enough,’ he said sourly.
‘Who said anything about holding on?’ Gotrek asked. ‘I say we charge!’
‘Snorri agrees,’ said Snorri Nosebiter. ‘Snorri is going to kill that spider.’
The Slayers plunged downhill to meet the astonished orcs. There was a mighty crash as weapons met and the killing became fast and furious.
Johan felt a shadow fall on him, and looked up. Was this more goblin sorcery, he wondered, seeing the vast shape that filled the sky overhead? No. It did not look like greenskin work although there was certainly powerful magic here. To tell the truth, it looked more like dwarf work. It had runes on the side and it flew the banners of the Slayer King.