Gotrek & Felix- the Second Omnibus - William King

by Warhammer

  Let’s see. There was the Bretonnian noblewoman, Katherine, who had turned out to be nothing more than an empty, posturing fool. Her beauty had dazzled him for a while into thinking she might have the intelligence and the grace to be worthy of eternity at his side.

  How wrong he had been. The woman had cared more for her mirror than she had for anyone else. It had been a distinct pleasure to watch her squeamishness as the lines appeared on her face, grey appeared in her hair, and age had eaten away her beauty.

  Then there was the peasant girl turned courtesan from Nuln, what was her name? Oh yes, Marianne. She had been all that he had desired. Beautiful, intelligent, witty, charming, cultured even, with the erudition of those who have painfully acquired it by their own efforts. She had possessed a playfulness and a curiosity that had promised she would not have succumbed easily to ennui, and he had been drawn to her for many reasons. But she had been treacherous, and selfish, and deceitful. Remembering how he himself had turned against the countess, he had foreseen that she too would eventually turn on him, and that would have been too painful to endure. So he had watched over her, aided her and protected her until eventually she had died wealthy, respected and one of the great noblewomen of the Empire. Her rise had provided them both with amusement.

  There was Alana, that strange bitter woman, half witch, half-seeress who had taught him all those dark secrets and opened his eyes to the power of mortals’ magic. To her as much as to the countess did he owe his knowledge of sorcery, and the knowledge that mortals tried to hide even from themselves. She had died before he had ever had a chance to make his mind up about her, torn apart by some appalling creature she had summoned in a blasphemous ritual on Geheimnisnacht, a victim of her own overwhelming ambition and desire for control. He was not certain, but he guessed that he would not have embraced her. Their relationship had always been about power, who would have it, who would wield it. She would have wanted to bind him to her with magic, as much as any one of the cattle had ever been bound by the dark kiss.

  There had been others, so many others, down the long centuries. Their faces sometimes drifted before him when he entered the trance state that in the Arisen replaced sleep. Sometimes they all blended together, sometimes they changed into faces he had never seen, but would eventually. One thing you learned over the centuries was that sooner or later most things would occur.

  It was strange, he mused, how much of the flesh was left behind and how much stayed when you were embraced. He no longer craved meat or drink or sex or drugs. But still he craved companionship. Perhaps it was the only thing he had in common with the cattle any more. He still was on the lookout for that one special woman now, as much as he had been when he first met the countess back in Parravon three centuries ago, as much as when he had been little more than a boy attending his first ball at the king’s court.

  He pushed the thoughts aside. Here he stood on the brink of the greatest triumph any of the Arisen had ever managed, on the brink of madness goaded by something he could not explain, and he was thinking of women. He smiled wryly. It was one of the few habits of mortality he had not been able to rid himself of.

  Perhaps, he thought, he should kill this woman now, drain her dry in the ecstasy of the kiss, just to prove to himself that he could still do such a thing. Pointless, he told himself, you know you can. It has been something you have done all too easily over the past few weeks. If you really want to prove you are still in control you should let her live. The reaction of the beast in his brain as it resisted the idea showed him that he was correct. For the moment then, he would let her live. She could travel with him for a while. It never hurt to have an extra vessel lying around in case of need. He could not afford to weaken Roche by tapping him on this journey, and he utterly loathed drinking the blood of animals. Only the direst of necessities could drive him to it now. Anyway, it would not be seemly for the soon-to-be lord of all vampires to drink from a deer.

  He identified the footsteps approaching down the corridor long before he heard the knock on the door. Roche had a very distinctive gait. He walked very softly for such a heavy man. Adolphus’s keen senses told him that there was no one else close by. He walked to the door and turned the key in the lock. It was an elementary precaution that he never forgot to take in rooms like this ever since a chambermaid had entered his room and found him with the drained corpse of a streetwalker in the days after the countess had first embraced him.

  Roche looked down on him unsmilingly. Adolphus gazed back, measuring him. He was a huge man, strong as a blacksmith, quick as cat, with the manners of a chamberlain and the morals of an assassin. Like his father and his grandfather before him, Roche served as Adolphus’s most trusted personal retainer, and was privy to all but his darkest secrets. It was a position he had been groomed for since he was a small child.

  ‘The sledge is ready, master,’ said Roche. His voice was melodic and not a little sad, it should have belonged to the priest that he so often impersonated. ‘We can leave as soon as you are ready.’

  ‘Very good, Roche.’

  ‘The young lady, master?’ Roche’s voice was mild. He just wanted to know what to do. He could be told to wrap her in a sheet and take her to the coach or to chop her into little pieces and feed her to the dogs. He would do either with the same quiet, calm efficiency, had done so often in the past.

  ‘She will be accompanying us.’

  ‘Very good, master. I considered the possibility that you might wish to do this and have taken the liberty of loading extra supplies. I hope this meets with your approval.’

  ‘As always, Roche, you think of everything.’

  ‘It is my pleasure to serve, master.’ They exchanged knowing smiles.

  ‘Let us be away, Roche. We have a long road ahead of us, and the sooner we are out of this backwater kingdom, the happier I will be.’

  Ivan Petrovich Straghov was calm now. Felix was glad. He had been shouting threats and curses strong enough to make a dockworker blanch just minutes before. Now he was restricting himself to just a few choice anatomical epithets. He turned and glared at Felix. The younger man suddenly felt that the tent had become far too small.

  ‘We will find her,’ he said, in a challenging tone, as if Felix had just contradicted him. ‘And when we find the man who has taken her, I will string him up by the balls and…’

  He went on to describe exactly what he would do. With most people, Felix would have assumed they were speaking metaphorically, but Ivan Petrovich was a march boyar. He fully intended to carry out those threats no matter how physically impossible they sounded. Felix did not envy Adolphus Krieger if the old nobleman ever got his hands on him.

  ‘First, we have to find him,’ Gotrek said. His harsh gravelly voice sounded almost calm compared to the Kislevite’s but for all his bluster Ivan Petrovich would never in a hundred lifetimes be able to match the menace in it. The effect was like a dash of cold water in the Kislevite’s face.

  ‘How will we do that?’ The Slayer shook his head. He looked baffled and frustrated. Felix knew this would just make him even more short-tempered. Felix moved over to the charcoal brazier and warmed his hands. Ivan Petrovich could have had chambers in the Citadel if he wanted, but he chose to stay with his men, who were bivouacked in tents on the edge of the city in the old Kislevite horse-warrior style. Felix would have complained about the cold, but he’d already heard enough comments about soft southerners to last him a lifetime.

  The march boyar’s question was a good one though. Felix had not held out much hope that Krieger would keep his promise and release Ulrika, and over the past few days even that tiny flicker had died. How did you find one man and his prisoner in a city as large and chaotic as Praag? How did you prevent them leaving if that is what they sought to do? Ivan Petrovich had his riders, but in the cold and the snow a sweep around the city would be difficult. On the plus side, anyone setting out would be more noticeable than usual. Not too many people were leaving the city at the moment. Trick
les of refugees were still streaming in.

  Felix was baffled. He needed to know more. He needed to know what the purpose of the talisman was, and what the dark magician intended to use it for. He desperately needed to know whether Ulrika was still alive.

  If I were an evil sorcerer and I wanted to keep myself hidden in Praag, how would I do it? In the books and plays he had read as a youth it was always easy. Evil mages lived in ruined towers, crypts in cemeteries and huge mansions built with their ill gotten gains. A search of all such locations in the city should turn him up. Unfortunately, Felix had long ago learned that things were rarely that simple. If Krieger had any sense, he would be keeping a very low profile indeed, disguising himself somehow. How would he do that? Felix wished he knew.

  ‘You are looking thoughtful, manling,’ said Gotrek. ‘Have you got any useful suggestions?’

  Despite the apparent irony in his tone, Felix could tell that the Slayer was serious. During their long association, the thinking in situations like this usually fell to him. Sadly, at the hour of their greatest need, his mind was a blank. He shook his head and sat down on the thick rug covering the tent floor, and began to trace the convoluted weave with his fingers. His head hurt, his eyes ached and his nose was running. He was definitely coming down with something.

  ‘We need a magician,’ he said.

  ‘We had one,’ said Gotrek. ‘Unfortunately, he seems to be no longer with us.’

  ‘That might change,’ said Felix.

  ‘You’re saying we should be patient,’ said Ivan Petrovich. His tone implied that Felix had suggested they take up molesting goats.

  ‘Sometimes, it’s the only thing you can do,’ said Felix wearily.

  ‘Spare us the pearls of wisdom, manling.’

  ‘If you have any better ideas,’ said Felix. ‘I am open to them.’

  The silence was deafening.

  Roche drove the sledge towards the gates. On the back was a cheap wooden coffin, bags of feed for the ponies, a ragged tent and a few other things. He cracked the reins to keep the animals moving. The runners hissed on the snow as they moved towards the gate.

  The guardsmen on duty looked at him with more suspicion than they normally might. Roche met their gazes easily. The sergeant looked at a scroll, and then eyed him once more, as if checking to see whether he matched a description. Roche kept an expression of bovine stupidity on his face. It matched the peasant garb he wore. If these fools were looking for the master, they would be looking for a nobleman, and maybe a blonde-haired girl. They would hardly be looking for him.

  He was confident. If they searched the sledge he had his story ready and all the evidence would confirm it. Even so, he felt a slight tension rising within him. Things could go wrong. They had in the past; they might do so again now.

  ‘What’s your business, peasant?’ asked a short man who had emerged from behind the guards. His fine uniform and his swaggering arrogant manner marked him as an officer of some sort, most likely one of these so-called Kislevite nobles. Roche did not like his manner. He memorised the man’s face, in case an opportunity for vengeance should arise in the future. It wasn’t likely under the circumstances, but you could always hope. A few minutes alone with Roche and his flaying tools would soon rid him of that cocky manner, along with a lot of skin.

  ‘Going back to the farm, bury my brother,’ said Roche. He could do a convincing impression of the thick guttural Kislevite commoner accent when he had to. ‘I promised him I would. Said before he died that he wanted to lie alongside ma and I said I would see to it.’

  ‘Take him back and burn him, that’s my advice. There’s beastmen in those woods now, despite the patrols.’ It was the sergeant who spoke now. His tone was not unfriendly. There was a certain amount of sympathy in it. The hard-faced officer glared at the man. The sergeant’s face became a blank mask, his mouth snapped shut. The Praag city guard still used the lash to enforce discipline. Roche had found there was nothing like it for instilling obedience.

  ‘People try and smuggle things in coffins,’ said the officer. ‘People try all sorts of things.’

  Roche looked at the arrogant idiot but kept his face blank. Most smugglers would be trying to get things into the city, not out. Still, it was not a peasant’s place to point these things out to a nobleman. Peasants in Kislev were obedient, just like they were back home in Sylvania.

  ‘I promised him,’ said Roche, as if he were so stupid he was still answering the sergeant. ‘He made me swear by Shallya and Ulric that I would do it. He loved ma. He loved the old place. He said we should never have come to the city. Said he wanted to be buried under the pines.’

  ‘Open the box,’ said the officer. It was obvious that for some reason he had taken a dislike to Roche. People often did. Roche was used to it. It was his appearance he supposed. Still, there was nothing he could do about it now.

  ‘But he’s dead,’ said Roche.

  ‘If you won’t open it, I’ll have my men do it.’ Roche saw the soldiers flinch. They might not have any objections to cutting a man down in hot blood, but none of them wanted to open a coffin that might contain a week-old corpse.

  ‘What did he die of?’ one of the guards, a whey-faced boy, whose tunic barely fitted, asked nervously.

  ‘The coughing sickness. A month ago he was healthy as you. One day he starts coughing and wheezing, says it’s difficult to breathe. Two days ago he was gone, after a month of sweating and fevers and wracking his lungs. It wasn’t pretty.’

  The soldiers looked even more nervous now. There had been many strange plagues in the city since the siege. Maybe they were remnants of the evil spells cast by the followers of Nurgle, the Plague Lord. Maybe they were just a product of overcrowding, rotten food, the cold and bad sanitation. It was said more folk had died of sickness since the siege ended than had ever died in the battle. Roche could believe it. It was often the way.

  ‘I said open the box. Let’s take a look at what you got in there.’

  ‘A corpse,’ said Roche sullenly.

  ‘You’ll be one soon if you don’t open it,’ said the officer. He was obviously one of those small men who liked using every speck of power he had been granted. And he obviously liked venting his authority on such hulking giants as Roche. Roche would definitely remember this man. He might even make a special trip back to Praag for him, if the master allowed. He did not like being bullied.

  Roche clambered down off the sledge and walked back to the coffin. The soldiers all drew back slightly save the officer who strode officiously along beside him. Just one minute with the flaying tools, that’s all I ask, thought Roche. He levered open the coffin, and did his best to stand so that his shadow fell on the master. He knew how the sun affected his tender skin.

  The officer looked down on the recumbent form. The master was garbed as a peasant too, and his hair was messed up. His pallor did not require make-up; the smudges of dirt on his face served to highlight the paleness of his skin. They had done this several times in the past when they needed to leave a city in a hurry. Roche could remember his father and grandfather telling him tales of similar departures, some in considerably more dangerous circumstances than this one.

  The officer removed his glove and laid a hand on the body’s chest, as if not wanting to quite believe his eyes.

  ‘Definitely dead,’ he said disappointedly.

  ‘That’s why I am going to bury him.’

  ‘And I’ll have less of your sauce,’ said the captain. ‘Another word and I’ll have my men peel your hide off.’

  Roche looked at his boots to hide the fury in his eyes. He loathed these petty jumped-up officials with a passion and he had been forced to deal with more than his fair share down the years. Now is not the time, he told himself. He did his best to look like the absolute embodiment of browbeaten peasantry.

  The officer looked like he was seriously considering having his men tear the coffin apart. That would not be such a good thing, Roche thought, for then they m
ight find the hidden compartment beneath the master that held the talisman. Who knew what the master might do under those circumstances. Roche knew all about his obsession with that ancient trinket, had been forced to listen to tales of it on countless evenings, till even he was sick of it, and his master’s plans. If I hear the name of Nospheratus one more time, thought Roche, I will…

  The officer took another closer look at the master. Roche held his breath. He had a dagger hidden in his boot. If anything happened, the first thing he would do was stick it in the cocky officer’s gut and twist. Men took a long time to die when you did that right. Roche knew this from practical experience. Eventually though, even this man seemed to tire of his petty bullying.

  ‘Get out of here,’ he said. ‘Go bury your dead.’

  Roche nodded dumbly, clambered onto the sledge and cracked the reins. He could see looks of something like sympathy in the soldiers’ eyes.

  ‘It looks like your friend is starting to heal,’ said the priestess of Shallya. There was grey in her hair but her calm face was very pretty. She smiled as she spoke. ‘He’s still very, very weak but I think he has come back from the brink. I believe he will live.’

  Felix glanced around the small spartan chamber. Max had been moved to the hospice on the temple grounds at the duke’s insistence; that way the most powerful of the healers would always be on call. Felix smiled back at the woman. ‘I am glad to hear it.’

  ‘Herr Schreiber is a very strong-willed man, and there is a power in him that aids the healing.’

  ‘Do you know what happened to him?’

  ‘No – the Mistress of Healers claims that some malign energy entered his brain somehow. It cost her an enormous effort to drive it out. She has been confined to her own room for a day now. Your friend must be a very important man for the duke to insist she did this.’