Gotrek & Felix- the Second Omnibus - William King

by Warhammer

  He smiled, showing teeth like any normal mortal’s. The killing fangs were still retracted. ‘I did not ask you to answer. I asked you to think about it,’ he said quietly. ‘Actually, I know you have thought about it. How could you not?’

  Again that smug self-assurance, again that certainty that she could not but do what he wanted. The annoying thing was that he was right. He had a way of putting things that, combined with the situation itself, made it impossible not to think about what he wanted her to. Once again she felt like a fly snared in a particularly strong and subtly woven web. She ignored him, knowing that to say anything would be to grant him another victory. He shrugged and glanced out of the window into the moonlight.

  Despite her efforts to keep them out, the questions he had asked her blazed through her brain. It was as if his presence transmitted them into her mind by some mystical power. He had asked her what the difference was between him and her. He preserved his life by taking the life of mortals. She preserved hers by taking the lives of cattle, birds and other living things.

  The answer had seemed so simple at first. He killed people, sentient things with loves and hates and thoughts and passions. He had asked her how she could not be certain that animals did not feel the same things. After all, once she had said her old dog had understood her.

  ‘Are you prepared to kill to defend yourself or your family? You don’t need to answer. I already know what you will say.’ She spoke just to be contradictory. ‘Of course I would.’

  ‘What is the difference between doing that and killing to prolong your life?’

  ‘The difference is that I would not be the aggressor. I would be defending myself.’

  ‘What about to protect your land?’

  ‘I would fight to protect it.’

  ‘So you are saying you value your land more highly than another person’s life.’

  ‘If they tried to take my land, yes.’ He shook his head and gave her a mocking smile.

  ‘And if your allies call on you to fight, you would kill to protect their lands?’

  ‘I would be honour bound to.’

  ‘So now your honour is worth more than another person’s life. I think I am more honest than you. I can truthfully say I value my existence more highly than I value theirs.’

  ‘That is your privilege,’ she said. ‘What happens when you run into someone who feels the same way about you?’

  ‘You already know the answer.’

  Ulrika fell silent. She knew his questions were just another one of his games, designed to make her feel inferior and weak, to break down her resistance. She could not understand why he bothered, other than perhaps because he got some sick sadistic pleasure from it.

  She did not regard herself as having a particularly philosophical turn of mind. Such a thing was hardly a necessity for the daughter of a frontier nobleman of Kislev. All she needed to be able to do was manage an estate and wield a weapon, not be able to answer complex ethical riddles. She felt out of her depth here, confronted with a puzzle that was way beyond all her previous experience.

  She was willing to admit that eternal life and eternal youth were not without their attractions. But the price being asked here was too high.

  Beside her, Adolphus Krieger smiled as if he knew exactly what she was thinking.

  She really wished to put a dagger through his heart at that moment, but she suspected that if she could, it would make no difference. He seemed so invulnerable.

  Max watched the sun rise from the walls of Waldenschlosse. It did not cheer him. The meat he had eaten last night sat in his stomach as if made of lead. The weakness he had felt since recovering from his investigation of the Eye of Khemri stayed with him. He summoned a splinter of power, and wrapped himself in it, to keep out the chill, to warm himself. His old masters would have shuddered to see him use power in such a way but, right at this moment, he did not care.

  The warmth spread over his skin and brought a flush to his cheeks but it did not touch his heart. It was no wonder; the view from the castle was enough to chill the blood of any man. The keep stood atop a great rocky crag. As the shadows of night retreated he saw the corpse of the town. That was the best way he could describe the ruined and half-deserted township. Waldenhof seemed less like a living city than a prison or a camp in which the refugees of some terrible disaster huddled, waiting for the next dreadful doom to descend on them.

  In the distance, beyond the tumbled-down town walls, lay a seemingly endless dark forest. There was a brooding sense of presence about it, as if ancient evil things still lurked there, waiting to strike. It was said the woods of Sylvania had been a haven for creatures of darkness since the time of Sigmar. Max found it easy to believe. Not even the plumes of smoke rising from the snow-covered hovels below reassured him much. The town looked even less prepossessing by daylight than it had the night before.

  Max had thought he would have slept well last night. After all, he had had a real bed and a real room heated by a real fireplace. He had not done so. His sleep had been full of nightmares. His body had become so accustomed to hard ground that he had constantly shifted on his mattress in a futile search for rest. The room had seemed stuffy and it had been hard to breathe. Perhaps he was becoming ill, but his routine monitoring of his physical health had shown no signs of it. His protective spells seemed to be working. He doubted if he was coming down with a flux or plague. It must simply be worry and exhaustion.

  He invoked the location spell on the Eye of Khemri. It had stopped moving, as it often did at this time of day. Well, at least he had answered one mystery. If Krieger were a blood drinker, that would explain why he travelled mostly at night. Max prayed that finally the vampire had reached his goal and they would soon overtake him. It seemed logical that they would: Sylvania was most likely his destination. The question was, what horror did he plan when he reached his eventual goal? He surely intended to use the Eye for some unspeakable purpose.

  Max saw Felix emerge onto the battlements. He looked considerably the worse for wear. He was pale and sweating, despite the cold. His hair was lank and his beard unkempt. The tattered red cloak was drawn tight about his shoulders. He gave a great hacking cough that made his whole body shudder. He shuffled along the battlements towards Max like an old man, moving very cautiously. The wizard was not surprised. The stone was slippery, and it was a long drop to the hard flagstones of the courtyard below.

  ‘Morning, Max, you’re up early,’ he said. His voice was hoarse, and Max was sure he could hear a wheezing noise coming from his chest.

  ‘I did not sleep well.’

  Felix smiled. ‘You look how I feel.’

  ‘I could say the same about you,’ said Max.

  ‘This is a depressing place.’

  ‘You can say that again.’

  ‘And it’s a depressing time. The winter is deep. The hordes of Chaos are on the march. The forces of the undead muster, and we’re right in the middle of it. It’s funny – when I was a child I always wanted to have adventures like the ones I read about in books. Now I find myself having adventures and I wish I was a child back in my father’s house again.’

  ‘These are dark times,’ said Max. To his surprise, Felix burst out laughing, and kept laughing till his mirth ended in a spasm of coughing. ‘What was that about?’ Max asked.

  ‘You really do sound just like a wizard should sometimes, Max. Would you care to make some ominous prophecies now?’

  ‘I don’t think you are in the right frame of mind for them. Maybe I will wait till it’s dark and the wolves are howling outside. Maybe then you’ll shiver appropriately at my oracular pronouncements.’

  ‘I think I’m shivering quite enough at the moment.’

  Max turned and looked away towards the horizon. In the distance, he could see a huge plume of dark smoke rising. ‘What is that?’ he asked. He answered his own question. ‘Most likely just the fire from some townsman’s hut.’

  Felix shook his head. ‘No. The billows a
re too big and too dark. It’s no normal fire. Not unless he has set fire to his whole street in an effort to keep warm. Not that I would blame him if he had.’

  A horn sounded from one of the nearby watchtowers. The call echoed through the courtyard and was answered from other towers.

  ‘It would seem we are not the only ones who have noticed,’ said Felix.

  Within minutes, a company of men-at-arms had assembled in the courtyard. ‘I suppose we had better go and help them investigate,’ said Felix without much enthusiasm. He coughed long and hard before shuffling towards the stairs.

  Even as Max watched a mass of people appeared before the castle, emerging from the tumbled down streets of the decaying city. They looked as if they had been running for their lives. There were raggedly clad men, women clutching babies to their breasts, and small children. A few of the men clutched pitchforks and other weapons. Some had pitifully small sacks over their shoulders that Max guessed held a few possessions. All of them seemed to be scared. The villagers in the huts below emerged from their homes to meet them. After a few seconds of chatter they began to shout for their masters to open the gates.

  ‘It seems there has been another raid in the night,’ said the countess. She strode over and glanced at Max and Felix. Max looked at her. She was pale and very beautiful, very much the languid aristocrat, and there was something about her that he disliked. ‘Rudgar and his men will ride out and investigate, although I doubt that they will find anything. The creatures will have melted away into the woods by now. They always do. They are very good at it.’

  Even as she spoke, Rudgar, Rodrik and a group of knights thundered past, going hell for leather through the snow into the woods, looking for all the world as if they were out hunting. A few even let out wild whoops of excitement, and blew upon their horns exactly as if going to hounds. Max was not too impressed by their grasp of tactics. Why warn your foes that you are coming? He had never suspected the count and his son as being the brightest of men and here was proof of it. Gotrek and Snorri Nosebiter were stomping down the stairs now, hefting their weapons and looking as cheerful as men on their way to an Elector countess’s ball.

  ‘Better hurry,’ he said ironically. ‘Otherwise you’ll miss the battle.’

  The two grinned as if he was not being sarcastic and began trotting in the direction of the smoke. Felix coughed behind his hand, and began to move off too. Max supposed he had to fill the conditions of his oath.

  ‘Wait,’ said the countess. ‘Get horses from the stable. We’ll all get there quicker.’ Max noticed that he seemed to have been included in that. He found himself moving towards the stables almost automatically. There was something very subtly commanding about the countess.

  It was a twenty minute ride through the snow-covered streets to where the outskirts of the city touched the woods. All around rotting buildings loomed, frightened people glancing out from shadowy doorways. Max’s breath steamed in the air. The horse raced along smoothly underneath him, great muscles bunching and uncoiling. Riding was exhilarating, and he thought he might be able to understand the behaviour of the young nobles earlier.

  ‘Your face is very grim, Herr Schreiber,’ said Countess Gabriella. ‘Any particular reason, or are you always this way?’

  Max forced himself to smile, and to relax a little. He might not like the countess much, but there was no need to be rude. It served little purpose. And really, who was he to judge her? He hardly knew the woman, after all.

  ‘I am worried. About Ulrika and about Adolphus Krieger.’

  ‘You have every reason to be. He is a very wicked man.’

  Max glanced over at her. In the cold clear morning light, he could see that she was not as young as he had first thought. Over the veil, small lines were visible at the corner of her eyes. Expertly applied make-up almost concealed them but they were there. And there was a sheen to her black hair that suggested to Max that it was dyed. She was older than he was by ten years at least, he guessed.

  ‘Are you talking from personal experience?’ Max was not sure why he said that, the words just slipped out. He could see Felix give him a warning look. Perhaps his tone had been a bit insensitive, he thought, but he could not help it. The woman brought out the worst in him for some reason.

  ‘You could say that,’ she said. ‘He is an old enemy of my husband’s family. Or rather, they are old enemies of his.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘The Emperor granted us the castle that he had occupied before the Wars of the Vampire Counts, before everyone knew what he was. He resented that a great deal, and he swore to take it back and have revenge on my husband’s entire line.’

  ‘He certainly knows how to hold a grudge,’ said Felix. There was a note of mild irony in his voice.

  ‘You don’t understand, Herr Jaeger. You have no comprehension of the way the undying ones think. They look like mortals, but they are not like mortals. They are not sane, as you would judge sanity. What they are twists their minds. They are no more comprehensible to most people than a spider would be, if we could read its thoughts.’

  ‘That’s an uncomfortable idea,’ said Felix, and the tone of irony was gone.

  ‘The undying ones are disturbing things. They are predators and mortals are their prey. They are driven by needs and drives that are incomprehensible to the living.’

  Max fought down a shiver. Somewhere out there Ulrika was in the hands of a creature like this, and that was the best he could hope for, if the thing had not simply slain her out of hand and drunk her blood to sustain its unnatural existence. Somewhere deep in his heart red-hot anger began to blaze. If that had happened Adolphus Krieger would pay; it would not matter how long it took, Max would hunt him down and make an end of him. It did not matter how powerful the creature thought he was, he would discover there were other powers in this world.

  Max reached out and touched the weave of his location spell again. It was still there. He could still feel it. Suddenly, he just wanted to be away from here, for the chase to be on once more. They were wasting time here. Every heartbeat might prove vital. He pushed the thoughts back. This woman could tell him things that might help. It was always best to know your enemy, particularly if they were as powerful and dangerous as he feared Adolphus Krieger might be. Surely remaining here for a few more hours would not make that much difference. Just the extra rest would let them move faster over the next few days. Surely that alone would make this delay worthwhile.

  He tried to convince himself, but he still felt guilty. ‘Tell me more of Adolphus Krieger,’ he said.

  ‘Little enough is known of him. He was one of von Carstein’s most trusted minions. He led armies in the field for him during the Winter War. It is said even von Carstein feared him. He vanished after Hel Fenn. Many thought he had perished with the other undying ones. My husband’s family did not.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Things happened. My kinfolk died under mysterious circumstances, and always after reports of someone who looked like Krieger had been spotted in the area. Some thought his ghost had returned to haunt the family. Others knew he still existed and was taunting them. The undying ones can afford to take a long time over their revenges, and they like to spin these things out. Compared to them a cat toying with a mouse is merciful.’

  She spoke on, telling bloodcurdling tales of Krieger’s misdeeds, and anecdotes from her family history. As Max listened he began to build a picture of Krieger that chilled the blood. And this was the man who had Nagash’s amulet! Putting aside rescuing Ulrika it occurred to Max that it would be a very bad thing to allow the Eye of Khemri to stay within his clutches.

  Felix listened to Max and Gabriella talk as he rode. His cough was worse. His lungs felt clogged but he managed to stay upright on the horse. He kept his eyes peeled studying the surroundings. If there were beastmen about, he wanted to see them before they saw him. These half-abandoned streets were perfect for an ambush. Idly he wondered where the Slayers were. They had not overtaken
them on the road, but he would not have put it past Gotrek and Snorri to have taken a shortcut.

  His nostrils twitched. From up ahead he could smell burning. It seemed that they were closer than he had thought. A pity. He had a few questions he wanted to ask of the Countess Gabriella. She seemed the best informed of all the Sylvanian nobles, although he supposed it was quite likely that any of them could answer his questions. There was a lot he wanted to know about the undying ones, and the Carstein bloodline, particularly since he felt a cold certainty that one of these nights he was going to find himself in some out of the way place hunting Krieger or others of his ilk. Such episodes had all too frequently punctuated his career as the Slayer’s henchman.

  He wanted to know how many of the tales concerning vampires were true and how many were old wives’ tales, and it seemed to him that the Sylvanians were best placed to be able to answer them. No time like the present, he told himself.

  ‘Countess, is it true that the undying ones are much stronger than ordinary men, strong enough to rip a man’s heart out with their bare hands?’

  If Max was displeased with this interruption he did not let it show. He looked at the countess expectantly. She considered for a moment.

  ‘Some of them certainly are. Krieger is… if the old tales are to be believed.’

  Wonderful, thought Felix. I stood in a room with a man capable of rending my flesh with his bare hands, and I was quite prepared to fight him. I may have to do so again.

  ‘Why do you say “some of them”?’ Max asked. It was a good question, and Felix wished he had thought of it.

  ‘The undying ones vary in their characteristics far more than humans. You hear many stories of them, and it’s a certainty that all of them have some basis in fact. It’s just that not every tale holds true of every blood drinker.’

  ‘Can you give me an example?’

  ‘They are said to be unable to abide the sign of the hammer, or to pass any window barred with daemonroot. In some cases this is true. There are documented reports of the undying fleeing from priests of Sigmar when presented with holy symbols. But equally there are believable accounts of them tearing apart priests who confronted them, and trampling on the holy signs and laughing.’