by Warhammer
‘Better get this youth a beer as well!’ Gotrek shouted. ‘He looks like he could use being loosened up a little. Now stand aside, youngling, Snorri and I have a bet to settle.’
The landlord smiled ingratiatingly. A look of relief passed over his face. It looked like the dwarfs were set on more than making up for all the custom they had driven away.
The landlord lined the beers up along the low counter. Ten sat in front of Gotrek, ten in front of Snorri. The dwarfs inspected them the way a man might inspect an opponent before a wrestling match. Snorri looked over at Gotrek, then looked back at the beer again. A swift lunge brought him within range of his chosen target. He grabbed the flagon, lifted it to his lips, tilted back his head and swallowed. Gotrek was a fraction slower to the draw. His jack of ale reached his lips a second after Snorri’s. There was a long silence, broken only by the sound of dwarfs glugging, then Snorri slammed his flagon back on the table a fraction of a second before Gotrek slammed his. Felix looked over in astonishment. Both flagons had been drained to the last drop.
‘First one’s easiest,’ Gotrek said. Snorri seized another flagon, grabbed a second with his other hand and repeated the performance. Gotrek did the same. He snatched up one in each hand, raised one to his lips, drained it, then drained the other. This time it was Gotrek who put down his beers fractionally before Snorri. Felix was staggered, particularly when he considered how much beer Gotrek had already drunk before Snorri had arrived. It looked like the two Slayers were entering into a well practiced ritual. Felix wondered if they really intended to drink all that beer.
‘I’m embarrassed to be seen drinking with you, Snorri. A girly elf could do three in time it took you to down those,’ Gotrek said.
Snorri gave him a disgusted look, reached for another ale and tipped it back so fast that suds erupted from his mouth and frothed over his beard. He wiped his mouth with the back of one tattooed forearm. This time he finished before Gotrek.
‘At least all my beer went in my mouth,’ Gotrek said, nodding his head until his nose chain jingled.
‘Are you talking or drinking?’ Snorri challenged.
Five, six, seven beers went down in quick succession. Gotrek looked at the ceiling, smacked his lips and let out an enormous cavernous belch. Snorri swiftly echoed it. Felix exchanged glances with Varek. The scholarly young dwarf looked back at him and shrugged his shoulders. In less than a minute the two Slayers had put back more beer than Felix would normally drink in one night. Gotrek blinked and his eyes looked slightly glassy, but this was the only sign he gave of the enormous amount of alcohol he had just consumed. Snorri looked not the slightest worse for wear, but then he had not been drinking all night already.
Gotrek reached out and downed number eight, but by that time Snorri was already half way through number nine. As he set down the flagon, he said, ‘Looks like you’ll be paying for the beer.’
Gotrek didn’t answer. He picked up two flagons at once, one in each hand, tilted back his head, opened his gullet and poured. There was no sound of gulping. He was not swallowing, just letting the beer run straight down his throat. Snorri was so impressed by the feat that he forgot to pick up his own last pint before Gotrek had finished.
Gotrek stood there swaying slightly. He belched, hiccuped and sat down on his stool.
‘The day you can out-drink me, Snorri Nosebiter, is the day Hell freezes over.’
‘That will be the day after the day you pay for a beer, Gotrek Gurnisson,’ Snorri said, sitting down beside his fellow Trollslayer.
‘Well, so much for starters,’ he continued. ‘Let’s get down to some serious drinking then. Looks like Snorri has some catching up to do.’
‘Is that proper Worlds Edge tabac you have there, Snorri?’ Gotrek asked, looking hungrily at the stuff Snorri was tamping into his pipe. They had all settled down by the roaring fire in the best seats in the house.
‘Aye, ’tis old Mouldy Leaf. Snorri picked it up in the mountains afore coming here.’
‘Give some here!’
Snorri tossed the pouch over to Gotrek, who produced a pipe and started filling it. The Slayer glared over at the scholarly young dwarf with his one good eye.
‘So, youth,’ Gotrek growled ‘What is the mighty doom your Uncle Borek has promised me? And why is old Snorri here?’
Felix leaned forward interestedly. He wanted to know more about this himself. He was intrigued by the thought of a summons which could excite even the normally morose and taciturn Slayer.
Varek looked at Felix warningly. Gotrek shook his head and took a sip of beer. He leaned forward, lighted a spill of wood in the fire then lit his pipe. Once the pipe was burning well, he leaned back in his chair and spoke earnestly.
‘Anything you want to say to me, you can say in front of the manling. He is a Dwarf Friend and an Oathkeeper.’
Snorri looked up at Felix. Surprise and something like respect showed in his dull, brutish eyes. Varek’s smile showed sincere interest and he turned to Felix and bowed once more, almost falling out of his chair.
‘I’m sure there is a tale there,’ he said. ‘I’d be most interested in hearing it.’
‘Don’t try and change the subject,’ Gotrek said. ‘What is this doom your kinsman has promised me? His letter dragged me halfway across the Empire and I want to hear about it.’
‘I wasn’t trying to change the subject, Herr Gurnisson. I simply wanted to get the information for my book.’
‘There will be time enough for that later. Now speak!’
Varek sighed, leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers over his ample stomach. ‘I can tell you little enough. My uncle has all the facts and will share them with you in his own time and fashion. What I can tell you is this is possibly the mightiest quest since the time of Sigmar Hammerbearer – and it concerns Karag Dum.’
‘The Lost Dwarfhold of the North!’ Gotrek roared drunkenly, then suddenly fell silent. He looked around, as if fearing that spies might have overheard him.
‘The very same!’
‘Then your uncle has found a way to get there! I thought he was mad when he claimed he would.’ Felix had never heard such an undercurrent of excitement in the dwarf’s voice. It was contagious. Gotrek looked over at Felix.
It was Snorri who interrupted. ‘Call Snorri stupid if you like, but even Snorri knows Karag Dum was lost in the Chaos Wastes.’ He looked directly at Gotrek and shivered. ‘Remember the last time!’
‘Be that as it may, my uncle has found a way of getting there.’
A sudden trepidation filled Felix. Finding the location of the place was one thing. Having a method of getting there was another. It meant that this wasn’t simply a fascinating academic exercise but a possible journey. He had a terrible sinking feeling that he knew where all this was going to end up, and he knew that he wanted no part of it.
‘There is no way across the Wastes,’ Gotrek said. Something more than mere caution was in his voice. ‘I have been there. So has Snorri. So has your uncle. It is insanity to attempt to cross them. Madness and mutation wait for those who would go there. Hell has touched the world in that accursed place.’
Felix looked at Gotrek with new respect. Few people had ever travelled so far and returned to tell the tale. To him, as to all folk of the Empire, the Chaos Wastes were but a dire rumour, a hellish land in the far north, from which the terrible armies of the four Ruinous Powers of Chaos emerged to reave and plunder and slay. He had never heard the dwarf speak of having been there, but then he knew little of the Slayer’s adventures in the days before they had met. Gotrek did not speak of his past. He seemed ashamed of it. If anything, the dwarf’s obvious fear made the place seem even more daunting. There was little enough in this world which dismayed the Slayer, as Felix well knew, so anything that did was to be feared indeed.
‘Nonetheless, I believe that is where my uncle wants to go, and he wants you to with him. He has need of your axe.’
Gotrek fell silent for long moments. ‘’Tis certainly a
deed worthy of a Slayer.’
It sounds like absolute madness, Felix thought. Somehow he managed to keep his mouth shut.
‘Snorri thinks so too.’
Then Snorri is an even bigger idiot than he appears to be, thought Felix, and the words almost burst forth from his lips.
‘Then you will accompany me to the Lonely Tower?’ Varek asked.
‘For the prospect of such a doom, I would follow you to the mouth of Hell,’ Gotrek said.
That’s good, Felix thought, because it sounds like that’s exactly where you’re going. Then he shook his head. The dwarf’s madness was beginning to infect him. Was he actually taking all this talk of journeys to the Chaos Wastes seriously? Surely this was just tavern talk and the fit of madness would pass by morning…
‘Excellent,’ Varek said. ‘I knew you’d come.’
TWO
MARK OF THE SKAVEN
The bouncing of the wagon did nothing for Felix’s hangover. Every time a wheel hit one of the deep ruts in the road, his stomach gave a troubled lurch and threatened to send its contents arcing out onto the roadside hedges. The inside of his mouth felt furry. Pressure was building up inside his skull like steam within a kettle. Oddest of all, now he had a terrible craving for fried food. Visions of fried eggs and bacon sizzled through his mind. Now he regretted not having taken breakfast earlier with the Trollslayers, but at the time the sight of them throwing back piled plates of ham and egg and chomping on great hunks of black bread had been enough to turn his stomach. But now he was almost prepared to commit murder for the same food.
It was some consolation to him that the Slayers were more or less silent, save for grumbles in dwarfish which he assumed concerned the awfulness of their hangovers or just how plain dreadful human beer was. Only young Varek seemed cheerful and bright-eyed, but then he ought to. Much to the disgust of the other two, he had stopped drinking after three ales, claiming that he had had enough. Now he guided the mules with sure tugs of the reins and whistled a happy tune, oblivious to the dagger-like looks his companions aimed at his back. At that moment, Felix hated him with a passion which could be explained only by the intensity of his hangover.
To distract himself from that, and from thoughts of the awful adventure that was surely to come, Felix gave his attention to their surroundings. It was indeed a beautiful day. The sun was shining brightly. This part of the Empire looked particularly productive and cheerful. Huge half-timbered houses rose from the surrounding hilltops. Thatch-roofed cottages, the homes of the peasant labourers, surrounded them. Big splotch-sided cows grazed in enclosures, bells tinkling cheerfully on their necks. Each bell had a different tone, which Felix deduced was to enable the herdsmen to track each individual cow by sound alone.
Alongside them a peasant drove a gaggle of geese along the dusty track for a while. Later, a pretty peasant girl looked up from the hay she was forking into a stack and gave Felix a dazzling smile. He tried to muster the energy to smile back but couldn’t. He felt like he was a hundred years old. He kept his eyes on her until she disappeared around a bend in the road though.
The wagon hit another rut and bounced higher.
‘Watch where you’re going!’ Gotrek growled. ‘Can’t you see Snorri Nosebiter has a hangover?’
‘Snorri doesn’t feel too good,’ the other Slayer confirmed and gave an awful muffled gurgle. ‘It must have been that goat and potato stew we had last night. Snorri thinks it tasted a bit off.’
More likely it was the thirty or so jacks of ale you threw back, Felix thought sourly. He almost said this out loud, but even through the misery of his hangover a certain prudent caution stopped him. He had no wish to be cured of his hangover by having his head chopped off. Well, maybe, he thought, as the wagon and his stomach gave another lurch.
Felix gave his attention back to the hard-packed stony earth of the road that jarred and juddered along beneath them, trying to focus his mind on anything except the awful churning in his stomach. He could see the individual rocks jutting out of the ground, any one of which looked like it could break the wagon’s wooden wheels if hit at the wrong angle.
A fly landed softly, ticklingly, on the back of his hand and he swatted at it miserably. It eluded the blow with contemptuous ease and proceeded to buzz around Felix’s head. His initial effort had exhausted him and Felix gave up the attempt to strike the insect, only shaking his head when it came too close to his eyes. He closed his eyes and focused his willpower on the creature, urging it to die, but it refused to oblige. There were occasionally times when Felix wished that he was a sorcerer and this was one of them. He bet that they didn’t have to put up with hangovers and the disturbances created by fat-bodied buzzing flies.
Suddenly it got darker and slightly cooler on his face, and he looked up to see that they were passing through a copse of trees which had overgrown the road. He glanced around quickly – more from habit than fear – because these were the sort of woods that bandits liked to frequent, and bandits were not uncommon in the Empire. He wasn’t sure what sort of fools would attack a wagon which contained two hungover Trollslayers, but you could never tell. Stranger things had happened to him on his travels. Maybe those mercenaries from the night before would come back seeking revenge. And there were always beastmen and mutants to be found in these dark times. In his time Felix had encountered enough of them to be something of an expert on that subject.
To tell the truth, Felix thought, he would almost welcome taking an axe blow from a beastman the way he felt right now. At least it would put him out of his misery. It was strange, though, how his eyes were playing tricks. He was almost sure he could see something small and pink-eyed skulking amongst the undergrowth a little way back from the track. It was only there for a second and then it was gone. Felix almost called Gotrek’s attention to it but decided against doing so, because interrupting the Slayer’s recovery from a hangover was never a good idea.
And it really probably was nothing after all, just some small furry animal scuttling for safety as travellers moved by on the road. Still, there was something familiar about the shape of the head that nagged at Felix’s numb brain. He couldn’t quite place it just yet but if he thought about it long enough he was sure it would come back to him. Another great lurch by the cart almost threw him off. He fought to keep last night’s goat and potato stew within his stomach. It was a long fight and he only won it when the stew had battled halfway up his throat.
‘Where are we heading?’ he asked Varek to distract himself from his misery. Not for the first time he swore that he would never touch another drop of beer. It sometimes seemed that most of the troubles in his life had somehow begun in taverns. It was amazing, really, that he had not had the sense to realise this before.
‘The Lonely Tower,’ Varek said cheerfully. Felix fought down the urge to punch him, more because he couldn’t summon the energy to do it, than from any other reason.
‘Sounds… interesting,’ Felix managed to say eventually. What it really sounded was ominous, like so many other places he had visited in his sorry career as the Slayer’s henchman. Any place called the Lonely Tower to be found anywhere in the Empire was most likely to be the sort of place no one in their right mind would visit. Fortifications in the middle of nowhere had a habit of being overwhelmed by orcs, goblins and other worse things.
‘Oh, it’s an interesting place all right. Built on top of an old coal mine. Uncle Borek took it over and renovated it. Good sound dwarfish workmanship. Looks like new. Better in fact, because the original work, human, – no offence – was a bit slipshod. It was abandoned for several hundred years till we came along, except for the skaven. Of course, we had to clear them out first, and there might still be a few lurking down in the mine.’
‘Good,’ Gotrek grunted. ‘Can’t beat a spot of skaven-slaughtering for sport. Clears up a hangover better than pint of Bugman’s.’
Personally Felix could think of dozens more appealing ways of spending the time than hunting for v
icious rat-like monsters in an abandoned and doubtless unsafe mine but he did not communicate this information to Gotrek.
Varek looked back over his shoulder to where his passengers huddled alongside their gear. They must have made a pitiful sight, for Snorri wasn’t any better equipped than Gotrek or Felix. His pack was as empty as a sailor’s purse after a spree in port. He didn’t appear to own a cloak or even a blanket. Felix was glad that he had his red Sudenland wool cloak to huddle under. He did not doubt that the nights would get pretty cold. He did not look forward to the prospect of a night on cold ground.
‘How long till we get there?’ he asked.
‘We’re making good time. If we take the short path through the Bone Hills, we’ll be there in two, three days at most.’
‘I’ve heard bad things about the Bone Hills,’ Felix said. It was true. Then again, there were few places beyond the cities and towns of the Empire that he had not heard bad things about. At once Gotrek and Snorri looked up, interest written all over their faces. It never ceased to amaze Felix that the worse things sounded, the happier a Slayer looked.
‘The skaven from the mine used to haunt them, and attack travellers. They’d come down and raid the farms as well. Nothing to worry about now though. We’ve seen them off,’ Varek said. ‘Snorri and I came all the way down here in the cart by ourselves, never sniffed a hint of trouble.’
The two Slayers slumped back into apathetic contemplation of their hangovers. Somehow Felix was not reassured. In his experience, trips through the wilderness never went smoothly. And something about the mere mention of skaven caused that rat-like shape he had noticed back in the wood to begin niggling worryingly at the back of his mind.
‘You came all the way here yourselves?’ Felix asked.
‘Snorri was with me.’
‘Are you armed?’ Felix asked, making sure that his own longsword was within easy reach.
‘I have my knife.’
‘You have your knife! Oh good! I’m sure that will be very useful if skaven attack you.’