Gotrek & Felix- the Second Omnibus - William King

by Warhammer

  ‘Nor will I.’

  ‘I truly hope so.’ The vampire turned to walk away.

  ‘Countess!’ She looked back at him over her shoulder.

  ‘If you do break our truce, your existence will end. Be assured of it.’

  For a moment the fires of hell flared in her eyes. Anger, naked and unmasked, burned there. She bared her fangs threateningly. ‘I do not like threats, Herr Schreiber.’

  Max shrugged. ‘That was not a threat. It was a promise.’

  Roche glanced out from the cover of the doorway, laced his fingers and fought down the urge to crack his knuckles. It defied belief that such a small number would dare enter this keep and think to challenge his master. Why, there were almost enough of the so-called coven members here to match them. When you added the number of magical constructs the master had reanimated, they would be swept away like a child’s sandcastle by the tide.

  Of course, they did not know what was here, he told himself. If they did, they would not have come. They would have remained hiding in their pitiful keeps until the master came and winkled them out. Roche drew his short stabbing blade and glanced around.

  Far back down the corridor, skeletons moved, their bones softly clicking as they took up their positions in answer to their master’s silent command. Roche smiled as he saw the coven members flinch at the sight of them. They might be wealthy and powerful people back in their own lands, but they were finding that this was a place apart. Roche wondered what they would do when they realised that the master had no idea of granting them immortality. Probably whine and backbite and do nothing, he decided. Those that did show some spirit would swiftly learn the folly of opposing the master’s will. And then they would end up serving him as animated corpses just like those fool Kislevites. The master’s skill at necromancy had grown impressively over the past few days. It was another testimony to the fact his great plan was working.

  The master’s new consort would be the only mortal raised to near divinity in this place. Roche admitted to himself that he was a little jealous. Deep in the back of his mind, there had always rested the faint hope that he might be granted that ultimate boon. It could still happen, he thought.

  Roche saw that the Kislevites were rousing themselves. Did this mean they realised that their doom was close? Roche did not really care. He rather liked the thought of them being awake and realising what was happening to them. He always liked it when the victims struggled a little.

  Felix chopped down another ghoul. His blade crunched through its skull. The hideous creature went down with the top of its head sheared off. Felix hacked at another, and then another. Clotted blackish blood covered his whole body along with the strange green slime that oozed from the ghouls’ innards when he gutted them. He felt sick with the stench and the killing.

  The monsters were strong and terribly swift and their claws were as sharp as knives. He bled from a dozen small cuts and bites. Sweat almost blinded him. His muscles ached. At least he had more than held his own against the ghouls. His method had been simple. He stood between Gotrek and Snorri Nosebiter and let the Slayers do the bulk of the killing. In the narrow corridor, only a few of the monsters could attack at a time, and the dwarfs had wreaked terrible havoc. The ghouls were fearsome but the Slayers were engines of destruction. Felix knew that few things in the world could stand against Gotrek when the killing rage was upon him, and Snorri was far more than a match for a ghoul.

  To begin with Felix had only to stand there, and stab any of the monsters that got past the dwarfs. As the battle had raged longer and the dwarfs waded into the throng, more and more had somehow got by them and attacked Felix who must have seemed far easier prey. At one time, Gotrek fought at one end of the corridor, Snorri at the other, and Felix had been on his own against a trio of ghouls. Things had been desperate until the Slayers had fought their way back into a closer formation.

  Felix hacked another ghoul, then suddenly, to his surprise, it was over. Everything went quiet. The only other things moving were the two dwarfs. Dozens of dead and decapitated ghoul corpses filled the corridor. Gotrek spat on the nearest.

  ‘I hope the bloody vampire puts up a better fight,’ Gotrek complained, wiping ghoul blood from his forehead with his tattooed arm.

  ‘Snorri thinks Felix could have taken them on his own,’ said Snorri Nosebiter.

  Felix tried to grin. Snorri Nosebiter was probably idiotic enough to believe such a thing, but he didn’t. He had no illusions whatsoever about what his chances of survival would have been without the Slayers.

  ‘Next time, we’ll leave them to you, manling. Snorri Nosebiter can just stand there and give you some pointers on your fighting style.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Felix. ‘I look forward to it. But what now? Krieger is nowhere in sight. Shouldn’t we head back to the others? They’ll be wondering what happened to us.’

  Gotrek looked around and nodded. ‘Might as well. Who knows – they might need our help.’

  Ulrika heard the sounds of fighting off in the distance, and wondered what was going on. Adolphus had told her to wait in her chamber, and keep as far away from the intruders as possible. She was only to leave if her existence was threatened or if he came for her. He seemed to be worried that in her newly arisen condition she might prove vulnerable to attack, but she sensed there was something more to it than that. She wondered if he were hiding something from her.

  She wished that the compulsion to obey was not quite so strong. The thirst gnawed away at her mind, and no matter how much it horrified her, she was filled with a deep need to slake it.

  She sat down on the bed, and considered her predicament. The power of the Eye was such that she could not disobey a direct command. Or could she? She made for the door. She did not even reach it before her feet carried her back to where she had come from. She growled like an animal at bay.

  There was one thing. If she could hear the sounds of fighting that had just faded, perhaps the warriors could hear her. It was worth a try. She opened her mouth and let out a long, hideous scream.

  Max Schreiber concentrated on remaining calm. It was not easy. The panicked horses raced around the huge hall, desperate to find an escape from their predicament. If something was not done soon they were going to trample someone to death. Ivan had obviously reached the same conclusion.

  The old boyar nodded to two of his men. ‘Open the main door! Let the beasts out!’

  The two Kislevites were not happy. Max could tell they were thinking about what might happen if they were stranded here without mounts. ‘Do it!’ bellowed Ivan. ‘Now!’

  The soldiers hastened to obey, casting a nervous eye in the direction of the great staircase. Like everyone else, they had figured that whatever was making their steeds nervous was over there somewhere. Max knew a way to find out.

  Once again he created the floating eye. A touch of his will sent it in the right direction, covering the ground faster than a running man. From its point of view, Max caught sight of things moving beneath one of the arches. He sent the eye to investigate.

  Suddenly, he saw what waited and horror filled him. All along the corridor skeletons marched, with rusting, notched weapons clutched in bony fingers. Animated corpses, rotting skin peeling back from gangrenous flesh, clad in the ragged remains of grave clothes, shambled slowly along, a hellish glow burning in their decomposing eyes. Here and there, armed and armoured men waited. Most of them looked as sick as Max felt. Their leader was a gigantic man with a shaven head and the gaunt ascetic face of a fanatic.

  All of the mortals looked up, seeing the glowing sphere. One of the men rushed at it and slashed with a sword. Max broke the link before impact.

  ‘Get ready to fight,’ he told the Kislevites. ‘The dead walk here. Ready yourselves!’

  Pale, nervous faces turned to look at him. He could see that some of the younger ones wanted to run, but would not shame themselves.

  These were men brought up on the marches of Kislev; they had seen more
than their share of horrors. Just as well really. Their chances of survival were higher here with their fellows than fleeing through the winter darkness outside.

  Rodrik and his companions clustered around the countess, preparing to defend her with all the ardour of Bretonnian knights fighting for the honour of their lady love. The sight at once astonished and sickened Max. He took a deep breath and began the mental exercises designed to calm his mind. He forced himself to relax and be receptive to the flow of the winds of magic.

  The currents of power were turbulent here, roiling like the waters of a fast flowing stream passing through rocks. The strange corrupted wards in the walls and the evil power buried deep within the keep caused weird swirls and eddies. It was going to take all of his skill and concentration to work powerful magic.

  He pushed his palms together, interlocked his fingers and flexed them, feeling some of the tension in his shoulders unknot. The waiting was over. Conflict beckoned. His destiny was in his own hands. By his skill and power he would survive.

  Or at least, send as many of his foes back to hell as he could before he fell himself.

  Adolphus Krieger looked down from the gallery once more, watching the Kislevites and their wizard preparing to meet his forces. Give them some credit, he thought, they are brave. Few men could stand their ground against the forces of undeath at night within the walls of this keep. Of course, they did not yet know what they truly faced. And it was always possible that the countess had enthralled them. It took no courage to stand and fight when your will was bound to it.

  He was tempted to probe the defences the wizard had set around the camp, but resisted. He was not yet confident enough in his sorcerous skills to risk a direct confrontation with a powerful mage. It would be best to wait for an opportune moment, then strike. He composed himself to watch the battle until that time arrived.

  ‘What was that?’ asked Snorri, as the echoes of the scream faded.

  ‘It sounded like Ulrika,’ said Felix, wondering if this were yet another trap. Even if it was, they had to investigate it. They had come so far in search of her that they could not afford to ignore any possible trail.

  ‘It came from this direction,’ said Gotrek, stomping off down the corridor towards the source of the noise. Decision made, thought Felix. A thrill of fear and anticipation at what they would find passed through him.

  Bones clicking horribly, the skeletons marched into the great hall and deployed themselves in an evil parody of a human regiment. No human force had ever marched with such precision, thought Max. The whole mass moved in unison in response to a single will.

  Another force of skeletons entered the chamber, and then another. Walking corpses followed them, and then finally came the humans he had seen earlier, garbed in their black surcoats and britches bearing the sign of a skull flanked by two mirrored half moons. Max tried to count the numbers of the enemy. He guessed that they were outnumbered by at least ten to one. It was a second before he realised that he had spoken aloud.

  ‘Not bad odds,’ he heard Ivan Petrovich mutter. The old boyar chuckled. His men looked at him admiringly. So did Max. Straghov obviously knew how to reassure his troops under difficult conditions.

  ‘Maybe half of the lads should stand aside to give these ghoul lovers a sporting chance,’ said Max. It was a weak joke but most of the men laughed as if he had said something uproariously funny. ‘Perhaps you should all stand aside and I’ll deal with them myself.’

  He could tell by the awestruck looks that some of them thought he was serious. The clicking of bones grew louder as the enemy surged towards them. Their lack of war cries and boasts was as unnerving as the sight of them. No human army would advance without a mighty roar.

  ‘Allow me to demonstrate,’ said Max, spreading his arms wide and opening his mind to draw the winds of magic to him. A nimbus of light appeared around his head and each of his hands. He spoke words of power, focused his mind in the patterns he had been taught. The flows resisted him. As he forced one part of the pattern into place, another oozed out. It required utter concentration, far above the norm, to bind the winds of magic to his will.

  In the air above his head, between his outstretched arms, an intricate web of light sprang into being. Shimmering strands of power flowed into one another weaving among themselves like a basketful of snakes. Max strained to keep the magical structure in place while he drew all the power he could to himself. The strain was enormous. His head felt as if it would explode from the pressure. Pain stabbed through his mind. His forehead felt as if it was caught in a huge vice. His arms shuddered as if he tried to hold the weight of the world above his head.

  Power attracted power. Like was drawn to like. More and more magical energy swirled inwards now, drawn into the vortex he had created. Tendrils of it touched the real world; phantom fingers made his robes ripple as if in a breeze. His skin tingled. The tips of his fingertips felt like they were touching red-hot iron.

  Where at first he had struggled to draw power into the weave, now he was having difficulty releasing it. Power buffeted him from every direction, all of it being pulled inward. He took a deep breath, howled the final syllables of the incantation and focused every iota of willpower, every ounce of magical sinew, to cast the sphere of destruction he had created towards his foes.

  He felt something give way but was not sure whether it was in himself or the binding. An enormous weight lifted from him, and a blaze of light flashed across his sight.

  Adolphus Krieger watched in awe as the wizard struggled to cast his spell. He would not have thought it possible for any mortal to draw such power to himself in the face of the wards on this keep, but not only was the mage doing it, he was controlling a mightier flow of energy than Krieger had ever seen bound before.

  Snakes of light flickered from every corner of the room, searing the air as they were pulled into the sphere above the sorcerer. They were so bright that Krieger’s sensitive eyes almost could not bear the sight of them, and he had to force himself to watch.

  A wind sprang up from nowhere and passed through the room. Krieger wondered how it was possible for any man to contain so much power. It seemed impossible that any human form could do so for more than a few moments. Every inch of the wizard’s skin glowed. His eyeballs were molten spheres of gold.

  Then the wizard unleashed his spell. Dozens of serpents of golden light flickered through the air towards the undead horde. They covered the distance in a heartbeat. As each one impacted, a skeleton disintegrated into a clattering pile of bones. The lights in the skulls faded and died. As each shimmering snake touched a zombie, the walking corpse shrivelled and collapsed into a desiccated husk and came apart in a shower of dust. Where the lights touched men, they screamed and burned. Krieger was suddenly very glad he had chosen not to lead the attack.

  The Kislevites cheered as about half of their foes went down to Max’s spell. The rest sent a wave of arrows hurtling towards their attackers. Some buried themselves into the flesh of walking corpses and quivered there, seemingly having done no harm. Others clattered through the empty ribcages of the animated skeletons. A few took down some of the men. The effect was not what Max would have hoped for, but was hardly surprising. The walking dead were fell foes.

  Max felt the tug of magical energy being drawn to someone else. His magesight saw a wave of dark magic being drawn to the countess. A web of darkness came into being around her then tendrils leapt from it towards the undead. When it touched them they simply stopped in their tracks.

  It was a good casting under difficult circumstances, Max judged, but it was neither as strong nor as destructive as his own had been. Barely half a dozen of their foes went down. The rest covered the distance between the two sides in a few more strides. Max snatched up his staff and prepared to defend himself.

  All around him the blades of man and undead monster rang against each other. He had done all that he could. He only hoped that it was enough.

  ‘I wish she would stop screaming
like that,’ said Felix. He was angry but he suspected that his anger merely concealed a deeper-seated worry. There was something profoundly disturbing about the voice, a faintly inhuman note that suggested a mind either just on or just over the brink of being unhinged.

  ‘Be sure to tell her that when we see her,’ said Gotrek. He moved warily, the monstrous axe held in his right hand. With the ghoul blood covering him he looked as terrifying as anything they were likely to encounter here.

  They crossed a massive hall, its floor chequered in tiles of bone white and blood red. Old fusty tapestries depicting mounted men and women hunting naked people in the woods covered the walls.

  ‘Whoever furnished this place was not sane,’ Felix muttered. He expected no reply and got none. They passed a long crumbling flight of marble stairs and halted in front of the door from behind which the screaming was coming. As they reached it, the screams halted. Before Felix could reach for the handle Gotrek’s axe smashed into the wood, splintering it. The runes on the blade glowed. With swift chops the Slayer made an entry into the room.

  Ulrika waited within. She looked very pale and had lost a lot of weight but seemed otherwise unharmed. The room was richly furnished and cleaner than most in this foul place, although there were still massive cobwebs in the corners of the ceiling, and a faint smell of rot in the air.

  Felix wanted to rush over to her and take her in his arms and reassure her but some instinct stopped him. She looked up at him and smiled – and as she did so long fangs extruded themselves from her gums. A red glow entered her eyes. Seeing these changes come over that well remembered face, turning it into something at once evil and eerily familiar, Felix felt his own sanity teeter on the brink.

  ‘Sorry, manling,’ said Gotrek, striding into the room, axe held ready to strike.

  ‘Snorri’s sorry too, Felix,’ said Snorri Nosebiter as he followed.

  Felix stood by the doorway, unable to decide what to do. Looking at them, a hideous hissing sound emerged from Ulrika’s mouth.