by Warhammer
‘Guts out’ meant that neither participant in the challenge could wear armour of any sort. Four gnoblars stripped Kineater down to his leathery skin, leaving nothing but a sweaty loincloth which appeared to have been torn from the same sail as the fallen tent canopy. Gotrek, dressed in only his breeches, was allowed to fight as he was, but before he descended into the pit Rumblebelly demanded his axe.
‘You can pry it from my cold dead hands,’ growled Gotrek, glaring with his one eye at the ogre Butcher.
‘Tyrant get axe as prize,’ said Rumblebelly, his face twisted into a scowl. ‘You win, you get it back. You lose, you don’t need axe.’
It was a stunning bit of logic for an ogre, and Felix’s estimation of the Butcher’s intelligence rose several notches. Even Gotrek seemed impressed, but he handed over the axe only reluctantly, as though he were parting with an old friend and not a deadly weapon. Perhaps, thought Felix, Gotrek thought of the axe more as the former than the latter.
As Rumblebelly turned to place the axe upon one of the feasting tables, Gotrek drew Felix aside. Though he’d thought it a necessity at the time, Felix felt terrible for tricking the Slayer into eating cooked ogre. He deserved Gotrek’s wrath and he braced himself to take whatever punishment the Slayer doled out. If he demanded that they part ways, well, Felix would accept that too.
But instead of being angry, Gotrek seemed unusually cheerful. ‘Well done, manling. This will be a grand doom indeed.’
Relief flooded into Felix. Far from being offended, Gotrek was actually pleased that Felix’s trick had resulted in a more epic death – single combat, unarmed, with an opponent four times his size? In his dwarf mind, his admittance into Grimnir’s halls would be assured.
Felix watched the Slayer descend into the Great Maw from the lip of the pit. Nearby, Talia glared evilly at Rumblebelly from where she’d been tied to the leg of a feasting table – Felix found it difficult not to like her indomitable spirit. His father was rich enough that he’d met plenty of spoiled children in his day, and even counted some among his friends. When those sheltered fledglings finally emerged from the nest of privilege, one or two brushes with the real world was usually enough to cure them of their arrogance. Talia, on the other hand, might have fought Kineater herself, if she’d had the chance. If the Cathayan monks didn’t manage to tame her, she’d make a fine soldier in the fight against Chaos.
Anya stood beside Felix, having also been betrayed by Cabbage. The gnoblar had evidently earned a position of respect for his actions. Rumblebelly himself had gnawed off a section of Cabbage’s ear which, Felix understood, meant the gnoblar had a new patron.
‘That was a brave thing you did,’ Anya said, ‘but Gotrek cannot possibly hope to win.’
‘I’ve learned over the years never to bet against the Slayer. We’ve faced down larger creatures than this before,’ Felix responded, keeping a brave face. The roars and cheers of the assembled ogres had reached an unsettling new high as Rumblebelly began some vile gastric ritual.
It was true that Gotrek and Felix had slain all manner of beasts in their travels, but always before, the Slayer had been armed with his trusty axe. He was as strong as any dwarf Felix had ever met, and they were already a hardy breed. But he could not hope to match Kineater’s strength. The ogre was just too big.
‘I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that,’ said Anya. ‘The Slayer... well, he attracts trouble, does he not. Surely you do not need to exaggerate in your journal in order to craft a compelling story about him?’
Felix started. Exaggerate? He had recorded their adventures as plainly as he could, meaning to add poetic language later, when he crafted his epic. Did she think his journal was full of nothing but lies?
Before he could respond, a new roar erupted from the crowd of ogres. The fight was about to begin.
Gotrek stood on one side of the pit, his chest and arms rippling with corded muscle. As he flexed, his tattoos seemed to dance across his skin. Facing a man, the Slayer was a short but fearsome opponent. Next to Kineater, Gotrek looked like a deformed child.
The ogre stood opposite him, a mountain of flesh with a protruding gut that overhung his feet.
On the lip of the pit, Rumblebelly belched loudly and struck his cleaver along one of the great sharpened stones that Felix supposed represented the teeth of the Great Maw, scattering a few dull sparks from the metal onto the combatants below.
Taking his cue, Kineater bellowed and charged the Slayer, leading with his gut. Obviously, he intended to crush Gotrek under his titanic weight.
For a moment, the Slayer disappeared under a sea of flesh, only to emerge on the other side of the ogre, punching at his thighs and kidneys. Hope fluttered in Felix’s chest – nearly every opponent a dwarf ever faced was taller than himself. Gotrek might look over-matched, but he was in his element.
Kineater, on the other hand, was used to wrestling ogres. Enraged, he swept his arm around in a wild haymaker, but he’d aimed for a taller opponent and Gotrek was able to slip underneath the blow. Seeing an opening, the Slayer leapt towards Kineater and battered the ogre’s kneecap. Bones snapped and the Tyrant howled in pain. He stumbled and toppled to the ground. Gotrek jumped free, like a lumberjack dodging a falling tree, but unfortunately Kineater lashed out with a meaty paw, catching Gotrek around the waist and pinning his arms to his side.
The Slayer flexed, trying to break the ogre’s hold, but Kineater shifted his weight and bore him down to the ground.
‘He’ll be killed,’ gasped Anya.
Without conscious thought, Felix’s hand fell to the pommel of his sword. It did look bad. The Tyrant rained hammer-fist after hammer-fist down upon Gotrek. How long could he resist such punishment? At times, the Slayer’s endurance seemed inhuman, but even he had his limits.
Felix stood on the very lip of the Maw, on the edge of one of the tooth-stones. The pit was fifteen feet deep: shallow enough that an ogre could climb out of it without assistance, but deep enough that Felix couldn’t jump in without fear of injury. Furthermore, Gotrek had explicitly told him not to intervene. If Felix were to rob him of his doom, the Slayer might never forgive him. Reluctantly, he stepped away from the edge and turned his attention to the crowd of ogres and gnoblars.
The pit was ringed by the dark, fleshy bodies of dozens of ogres who grunted and bellowed encouragement to their Tyrant in a mixture of broken Reikspiel and their own guttural language. Several brave gnoblars had pushed their way to the front of the crowd, where they squatted on the edge of the Maw.
As Felix watched, one of the ogres snatched up a gnoblar and popped the squealing creature into its mouth. It crunched once, twice, and then pushed a twitching, spindly arm into its maw and began to chew. Even this did nothing to distract the rest of the ogres. Apparently, the occurrence was common enough that not even the gnoblars squatting directly in front of the offending ogre so much as shifted positions. Indeed, it was probably the safest place for them, since that particular ogre’s hunger was already sated.
In the pit, Kineater pinned the Slayer under his massive bulk. Gotrek freed a hand, but could do little more than fend off the ogre’s blows. The Slayer’s face was a bloody mess and his eyepatch had been torn aside, exposing his ruined eye.
Leering in victory, Kineater leaned in close until he was nose-to-nose with his opponent.
‘I’m ’unna eat your face, little tasty-man!’
Gotrek’s expression darkened and his cheeks reddened in anger.
‘Don’t call me a man!’
Roaring with anger, Gotrek curled his free arm around Kineater’s massive neck and, pulling his face even closer, bit down hard on the Tyrant’s nose.
The ogre’s eyes widened and he reared up, instinctively recoiling from the pain. Blood poured from the wreck of his face, matting the greasy black hair on his chest.
Now free from the ogre’s grip, Gotrek climbed to his feet and spat out a lump of gristly flesh. He wiped Kineater’s blood off his lips with the back of his
hand, and then crouched once again and waved the ogre forwards. ‘Come on, you sorry sack of flab. Let’s finish this.’
Kineater’s confident swagger had been replaced by cold fear. For the first time, apparently, he realised that he could be beaten. Felix had no idea how long Kineater had been Tyrant, but given his size and the relative lack of challengers amongst his tribe, he guessed it was a very long time. All of that might be now about to end – at the hands of a dwarf no less.
Enraged, Kineater turned and reached up the side of the pit, freeing one of the Maw’s tooth-stones from its moorings. He advanced on the Slayer, swinging it before him as an improvised club.
On the lip of the Maw, Rumblebelly’s brow pulled low over his beady eyes. He grunted out a word in the ogre language that Felix could understand despite the language barrier: Kineater was cheating. Worse, in his quest to defeat the Slayer he had quite literally extracted one of their deity’s teeth. Rumblebelly barked again, and beat his chest with his free hand. Several other ogres began to growl and hurl scraps of rubbish into the pit, while all around them gnoblars gazed up in horror at the sky, as if they expected swift retribution to rain from the heavens.
Down below, Kineater charged at Gotrek, wielding the great tooth-stone. At the last moment, the Slayer hurled himself aside, the club passing a hair’s-breadth over his head.
Luckily Kineater had swung too hard and overextended. Gotrek seized the opportunity, kicking at the same knee he’d attacked before. Once again, Kineater fell, and this time Gotrek was there to hammer home a vicious blow to the Tyrant’s ruined nose. In spite of the damage, the blow brought him inside Kineater’s range, and the ogre lashed out once again with the tooth. The stone hit Gotrek with rib-shattering force, smashing him into the wall.
Felix cursed. Kineater had obviously committed some kind of grave insult against the Great Maw, but by the time these ogres were done with all their bellowing and teeth gnashing, the Slayer would be dead. He knew that he should use the distraction to disappear with Anya and Talia, but somehow he couldn’t bring himself to leave Gotrek. Perhaps, like the gnoblars, years of living in fear of one enemy or another had dulled its bite? Or maybe he simply felt an overwhelming urge to see how his epic would end. If he left now, he would never know what had passed in the Slayer’s final moments. He stepped back to the edge of the pit.
Gotrek had regained his footing and faced Kineater. His eyepatch was gone completely, and his face was livid with bruises. A long, bloody wound skirted the top of his cheekbone, dripping dark red into his fiery beard.
Kineater had fared no better. Blood ran freely from his wounded nose and he could barely hobble forwards on his buckled knee. Yet still he advanced, swinging the tooth-stone in huge, deadly arcs before him.
But the Slayer had had enough.
He faced down Kineater, jaw set, a kind of madness glimmering in his eye. ‘Do your worst, you pig-skinned mountain ape!’ he yelled, his fist raised in the air.
Kineater purpled with rage, and charged. He brought the tooth-stone in an overhead arc that should have squashed the Slayer flat, but at the last minute Gotrek – who only a moment before had looked unmovable – stepped aside and let it impact upon the churned earth.
As the Tyrant shifted his weight to retrieve the stone, Gotrek seized the tooth and yanked it forwards, using the ogre’s weight against him. Overbalanced, Kineater stumbled, releasing his grip on the weapon.
The tooth was several feet in length and tapered to a brutal point, and Felix guessed it must weigh upwards of three hundred pounds. Nevertheless, Gotrek yelled a battle cry, heaved it overhead and then brought it crashing down on Kineater’s skull. The Tyrant’s head caved under the blow, spraying blood and brain matter everywhere.
A few spasmodic twitches later, Vork Kineater lay dead.
The Slayer stood over the Tyrant’s corpse, breathing raggedly, his fists clenched at his sides. He did not celebrate. To a Slayer, each victory was also a defeat, because he had not yet found his doom and would be forced to seek it elsewhere. After a long moment, he stepped away from the corpse and climbed the wall of the pit.
Silence descended over the camp like a burial shroud.
Felix stirred uneasily, wondering if he should draw his sword. Several ogres glared at Gotrek stupidly, while others scowled, chewing their spit. Not one of them had seriously expected the Slayer to beat their Tyrant; it had all just been great sport. Now that the unthinkable had come to pass, they were too stupid to know how to react. Not even the gnoblars made so much as a sound.
The only movement was from Anya who edged closer to her sister. She had drawn a dagger, ready to cut Talia’s bonds if they needed to make a sudden escape.
The Slayer put one bloody hand over the rim of the pit, then hauled himself over the lip and got to his feet.
‘My axe,’ he said to Rumblebelly. ‘Now.’
The butcher considered Gotrek grimly. Felix sensed that Rumblebelly held some sway in the absence of the Tyrant, much as a warrior priest might issue commands in an Imperial army if the general were to be disabled. He was the key to all of this. His word would be law among the tribe.
The ogre held up both arms and turned towards the crowd. ‘The Great Maw is pleased! The dwarf is new Tyrant!’ He looked back down at Gotrek and passed him his axe, his cleaver gleaming wickedly in the cold afternoon sun. He jerked a thumb at the pit. ‘Now, eat ’im.’
Felix paled. Anya had mentioned that the winner of a pit fight ate the loser, but he’d assumed that was a formality and not a mandatory requirement. In truth, his plan had ended when the fight began. He certainly hadn’t expected Gotrek to win. There was no way the Slayer was going to devour Kineater. The last thing he’d want was to be their Tyrant.
But maybe that was the answer.
‘Your Tyrant,’ Felix called out to the surrounding ogres, ‘decrees that the ogre who eats the most Vork is the new Tyrant.’
It took a moment for the crowd to process the concept, but one especially bright ogre caught on and leapt down into the pit. Another followed, seizing the first by the back of the neck and hurling him against a wall. Soon there were enough ogres in the pit to shake the earth.
Rumblebelly’s brow furrowed. ‘No! That is not the way!’
But even those ogres closest to him had waded into the fray. The lure of power was too great for their simple minds. Disgusted, he turned back towards Gotrek and Felix, his metal cleaver in hand.
Gotrek stood his ground, daring the butcher to try something. His skin was already mottled with bruises, and he blinked away blood from his swelling eye as he glared up at Rumblebelly. The Slayer lifted his axe and, with a trembling hand, drew his thumb along the blade, drawing blood. Slowly, his bruised face cracked into a smile that showed his missing teeth.
Rumblebelly stared down at the Slayer in disbelief. His gaze darted from Gotrek to Felix, to the Nitikin sisters, and then back to Gotrek. At last, he shook his head and spat on the ground. ‘Go. You are painful meat. Not worth eating.’
Not worth eating. Felix could think of no finer compliment for an ogre butcher to bestow upon them.
Rumblebelly had greatly disappointed Gotrek by refusing to obstruct their escape – preferring instead to watch the struggle for leadership unfold – but the dwarf did not seem to let it affect him unduly. He spent much of the hike back to the caravan talking with Talia. Normally taciturn, the Slayer didn’t seem to mind the Kislevite woman – Gotrek knew a thing or two about having a foul temper, and shared his wisdom with the younger Nitikin.
‘Do you think she’ll go back to her former ways?’ Felix asked Anya. They’d fallen a few paces behind Gotrek and Talia.
Anya looked up at her sister appraisingly. ‘I’m afraid her daemons won’t be banished so easily. However, I’m sure that being judged to be so ill-behaved that an ogre thinks you’re beautiful is an eye-opening experience indeed, for a woman of her station.’
Ahead of them, Gotrek had drawn his axe and was showing Talia ho
w to keep the edge keen. She watched with rapt attention.
‘Of course,’ admitted Anya, ‘it could be that her temper has simply become more... focused?’
Felix chuckled. It was difficult to imagine a woman of Talia’s slender build wielding an axe like Gotrek’s, but he could certainly picture her with a rapier. That mental image provoked a thought of Ulrika and he felt his heart twinge. Maybe it was time to deal with the other matter.
‘Boyarina–’
‘Why the formality?’ Anya asked, lightning quick. ‘Even if we’re not old friends, we have at least shared in an adventure.’
Felix paused, unsure of how to continue. Flattery would never work on a woman like Anya, nor would deception. She already suspected he was about to ask for some favour, so he might as well spit it out. ‘I want to ask you if you would take up my duties. You proved yourself level-headed in the fight today, and of course, your literary talents are beyond question.’
Anya paused. Her gaze fell to the ground, and then back to Felix. ‘Is this because I compared your journal to a penny dreadful?’
He sighed. ‘Partly. It has been years since I’ve been published, and the life of a vagabond leaves little time to polish my prose–’
Anya cut him off, her tone harsh and impatient. ‘I said nothing about your prose. Your prose is beautiful. It is obvious that you are a poet, and a fine one at that. My complaint was not with the quality of your journal, but with its content.’ Here, she blushed and lowered her gaze, then brushed an intruding lock of hair from her eyes. ‘I thought you’d made your stories up. Now, having seen what I’ve seen, I... I feel quite foolish. Who would have thought a dwarf would be named an ogre Tyrant?’
Felix gaped. Anya Nitikin, one of the Empire’s foremost authors, thought his prose was beautiful? It was the finest compliment he’d received in years, and from an author of her calibre no less. ‘I-I…’ he stuttered, unable to find the words. ‘Thank you,’ he said at last.