by Warhammer
‘I don’t understand,’ said Felix. ‘If this is such a grave threat, why are the elves not going in force? No disrespect to you, high one, or to Herr Schreiber and Fraulein Pallenberger, but why have you come to us? Why haven’t you brought the navy of Ulthuan with you?’
Aethenir hesitated, looking down at the table, then spoke. ‘As I explained to the magisters last night, the Tower of Hoeth is the centre of magical learning in Ulthuan. There, the greatest mages of the world are taught the one true art. The tomes and scrolls housed within its white walls make up the most complete, and most dangerous, library that exists in the world. The tower itself is reputed to be unreachable and unbreachable. Never has anything been stolen from it before.’ Colour came into the high elf’s cheeks. ‘The loremasters of the tower are proud of this reputation, and do not wish it to be known that this shame has befallen them, so they have dispatched me, a mere humble initiate, to retrieve the book in secret before any know that it is missing. I have come with no escort except a few of my father’s household guard, all sworn to secrecy, on the pretext of examining some pre-Sundering ruins in the pursuit of my field of study. It was felt that any larger force would call attention to the theft.’
Gotrek snorted. ‘Typical elven shiftiness.’
Felix frowned. ‘How soon would you be leaving on this journey?’ he asked.
‘Immediately,’ said Max. ‘Scholar Aethenir has hired a ship, and its captain is prepared to sail on the evening tide.’
Felix turned to Gotrek. ‘Slayer, I still must retrieve Euler’s letter.’
Gotrek nodded. ‘Aye. And I’ve no time for elf snotling chases. I’ll pass.’
He turned to the door. Felix rose to follow him, bowing to Max, Aethenir and Claudia. ‘I’m sorry, but…’
‘I dreamed of you, Slayer,’ called Claudia, as Gotrek pushed open the door. ‘I saw you in the bowels of a black mountain, fighting foes without number. I saw blood rise like a tide to drown you. I saw a towering abomination crushing you in its claws.’
Gotrek paused in the doorway. Felix stopped behind him, shooting a dirty look back at Claudia. Had she really seen these things, or was she just wooing the Slayer with the only lure that could sway him?
Gotrek looked to Max. ‘Do you vouch for this girl’s seeing, wizard?’
Max nodded gravely. ‘Yes, Gotrek. She has been judged to have true powers of divination by the Lord Magisters of her order.’
‘Gotrek,’ Felix said. ‘I cannot go.’
Gotrek nodded, but a light had kindled in his single eye that Felix hadn’t seen since he had fought Magus Lichtmann and his cannon daemon. ‘Do what you have to, manling,’ Gotrek said. ‘I won’t stop you. But I must fulfil my doom.’ He turned to face Claudia, Max and Aethenir. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘I’ll come. But keep the elf away from me.’
Felix fought with his conscience as he walked with Gotrek, Max and the others to the wharf where their hired ship was docked. What should he do? Did he wish them a good voyage and have another go at Hans Euler tomorrow, or did he go with them and forget retrieving the incriminating letter? To whom was he more beholden, Gotrek or his father? Which vow came first? He had followed Gotrek for twenty years, and had never taken another vow that contradicted the one he had made to the Slayer. But Gotrek wasn’t family. He wasn’t on his death bed. On the other hand, what if the Slayer met his doom at last and he wasn’t there to witness it? That would invalidate their whole reason for travelling together. It would be a terribly anti-climactic ending to such a grand adventure.
At last he sighed and dropped back to Gotrek, who had fallen a little behind.
‘Slayer,’ he said. ‘I can’t make the decision to stay or go.’
Gotrek shrugged. ‘A dwarf’s first loyalty is to family. I will not begrudge you this.’
Felix nodded, but continued pondering. Gotrek’s permission to leave didn’t actually make his decision any easier. Mad as it sounded, he would still rather go with Gotrek towards his doom. He didn’t really care what happened to Euler. It was his father who had forced him into conflict with him. It would serve the old buzzard right if Felix just sat on his hands for the next seventeen days and let Euler send his letter to the authorities. And yet, he had promised. Hadn’t he just told Claudia that a vow was a vow, no matter–
Seventeen days! Felix’s heart lurched. That was it! That was the solution.
He turned to Gotrek. ‘I’ve made up my mind,’ he said. ‘I have seventeen days to recover the letter, so I will go with you. It can’t be more than a week up the coast and a week back. So we will have a day or two once we return, to take the letter back from Euler.’
‘We may not return, manling,’ said Gotrek.
‘Then it will be fate that kept me from fulfilling my promise,’ said Felix, insistent. ‘Not lack of will.’
Gotrek raised an eyebrow at this but said nothing as Felix went to tell Max of his decision.
The hospitality of Clan Skryre Warleader Riskin Tatter-Ear, commander of the skaven burrows under the fish-stinking man-warren the humans called Marienburg, amounted to a single damp room at the far end of an unused tunnel, barely large enough to house Thanquol, let alone all his retinue and Boneripper, and for which the impertinent young pup expected to be paid a fortune in warp tokens! The gross disrespect of it astounded Thanquol. Did he not know who he was? In the old days a mere warleader would have bowed and licked his hind paws in his eagerness to serve a grey seer of his renown.
The cold welcome had done nothing to improve Thanquol’s mood, already befouled by the slow, miserable journey that had brought him here. In his day the palanquin-bearers had been speedy and subservient. They had known their place and how to get one to one’s destination without colliding with every skaven coming the other way. Now it seemed more than they could do to all move in the same direction at once. It was therefore with little patience that he listened to his overpaid, under-successful assassin make yet more excuses.
‘My abject apologies, oh most forgiving of skaven,’ said Shadowfang from the floor where he knelt before him. ‘But though our sleep-smoke missed them at the drinking place, all is not lost.’
‘No?’ said Thanquol. ‘Have you managed to poison yourself in the process, then?’
Issfet tittered fawningly at that, and Thanquol nodded approvingly. He liked his servants servile and obsequious.
‘No, grey seer,’ said Shadowfang. ‘But we have sneak-followed the pair to a ship, and have tortured one of the sailors to reveal its destination.’
‘And…?’
The assassin squirmed uncomfortably. ‘They have no destination, sagacious one. They hunt-seek something in the stink-swamp, but know not where it is.’
Thanquol turned this information over in his head. It was unfortunate that Shadowfang had once again been unable to capture his two nemeses, but it would not be the most terrible of plans to follow them into the Wasteland where there would be no one to interfere or come to their rescue. Yes, perhaps it was for the best. Now he only needed some way of following them there.
He turned to Issfet. ‘What manners of conveyance does this fool Riskin have at his disposal?’ he asked. ‘Quick-quick.’
The tailless skaven bowed and once again nearly lost his balance. ‘I shall enquire, oh most effluent of masters.’
SIX
The Pride of Skintstaad was a two-masted trading ship out of Marienburg that Aethenir had hired with elven gold. She was a pot-bellied little barque, slow but sea-worthy, with a grizzled, vulture-beaked captain by the name of Ulberd Breda, and a crew from every corner of the Old World.
Though happy to take Aethenir’s money, Captain Breda seemed a bit uneasy about their voyage, and Felix didn’t blame him. Max’s instructions had been to sail north and west through the Mananspoort Sea and on into the Sea of Chaos until Fraulein Pallenberger called a halt. They might sail all the way to the Sea of Ice if she failed to receive any vision, and a journey into those barbarous climes was not to be made lightl
y by a little ship with winter coming on. Storms, Norse raiders and icebergs were the least they could expect if they went that far.
Felix shivered at the idea of all those days at sea, and not because of the cold or the danger. Being cooped up on the tiny ship with such a volatile mix of personalities for any length of time was sure to be a miserable experience. In fact, even before they had left the dock there had been conflict. Aethenir had come on board with seven elf warriors, taken one look at his cabin and come back out again, saying he refused to stay there until it had been thoroughly cleaned.
‘It’s filthy,’ he said with a shudder. ‘It stinks of urine and vermin. There was a rat on my bed.’
The crew snorted at that.
‘Ain’t a ship that sails that doesn’t have rats, yer worship,’ said Captain Breda.
‘You’ve never sailed on a ship of Ulthuan, then,’ said Aethenir, sniffing.
‘No, yer worship, I never has. But if we was to try to chase off all the rats on this ship we’d never leave the dock.’ He turned to one of his crewmen, an Estalian by his look. ‘Doso, go and clean his worship’s cabin.’
‘But I swabbed it this morning,’ complained Doso.
‘Then swab it again,’ growled the captain. ‘And use clean water this time.’
Doso grumbled, but did as he was told.
It was clear that, even after this extra cleaning, Aethenir was less than satisfied, but Max whispered a few words in the high elf’s ear and he dropped the matter. Unfortunately, the damage was done. The high elf had earned the ill will of the crew – men that might have treated him with the awe and respect that humans generally reserved for the elder races were, in one stroke, sneering at him behind his back and spitting on his shadow.
His warriors fared better, for unlike their master, they seemed hardened veterans – cold, silent elves who wore scarred scale mail under the green and white surcoats of Aethenir’s livery, and asked for no special favours. They found a place near the aft rail and talked quietly amongst themselves, and that was that.
Gotrek did what he always did on any voyage over water. He went directly to his cabin and stayed there. Felix hoped he continued this way, for that would lessen the probability that he and Aethenir would meet during the voyage, a situation to be avoided at all costs if blood was not to be spilled and the War of the Beard not to be rekindled.
Max and Claudia spoke briefly with the captain and also retired to their cabins, but Felix feared that there would be trouble from that quarter ere long, for as she started down the stairs to her quarters, the seeress cast a look back at him from under her golden fall of hair that made the hair stand up on the back of his neck.
Max’s Reiksguard escort found a place for themselves along the port rail and lounged there, chatting and smoking pipes and spitting over the side, as the crew made ready to make way.
At last, with a heavy mist freshening into a light rain, they cast off the lines and were towed out of the Brynwater into the centre of the Rijksweg by boats of the Marienburg port authority. Then the sails were unfurled, and they were away, sailing past the grim fortifications of Rijker’s Isle and out into the Manaanspoort Sea.
And a less breathtaking beginning to a voyage Felix could not have imagined. The sky was a dull, uninterrupted grey. The air was wet and chilly, the rain not even strong enough to be called a drizzle, and the scenery left much to be desired. The east coast of the sea, which ran almost due north towards the Sea of Chaos, was known as the Cursed Marshes, but Felix, after the fifth hour of watching them slide slowly by, was ready to rename them the Dull Marshes, because he had never seen a more uninteresting landscape in all his life – nothing but saw grass and cat-tails and stunted trees for as far as the eye could see, mile after mile after mile. Occasionally a stork would fly past, or a chevron of geese, gabbling like noisy children, or there would come the rustle and plop of some hidden swamp-dweller sliding into the still water, but that was all. It was little wonder, thought Felix, that the Empire had let Marienburg claim the marshes and the wastelands for their own. Who would want them?
There was more trouble with Aethenir at lunch – trouble with far-reaching repercussions for Felix’s peace of mind – though at its beginning, it had only been an argument about food.
Before he had even tasted the bowl of stew that one of his warriors had brought him, Aethenir had thrown it overboard. He had come up from his cabin already agitated – presumably from the lack of cleanliness – and the smell of the food appeared to be the last straw.
‘This is unacceptable!’ he said in a high, clear voice. ‘I may be forced to sleep in filth, but I refuse to eat it.’
Felix took another sniff of his stew. It smelled fine to him, if a little strong on the garlic.
Captain Breda glared at the high elf over the lip of his bowl, his mouth full. ‘You got what we all got,’ he said.
‘And I wonder you don’t die from it!’ cried Aethenir. He turned to Max. ‘Is it too much to ask for fresh vegetables and fresh meat, cleanly prepared?’
Max glanced around uneasily, but before he could speak, the cook, a peg-legged Tilean with a pot belly and a black beard that would have done a dwarf proud, popped out of the galley, glaring around. ‘Who say my meat is bad? I kill that pig myself, last week!’
‘Last week?’ Aethenir blanched. He put a hand to his forehead. ‘How is it possible that humanity has risen to such heights while the noble asur have fallen? How have they even survived? Their ships are slow, their knowledge of the world contemptible, their hygiene appalling, their food poisonous…’
Max stood, trying to stem the tide. ‘High one, please, calm yourself. Conditions could be better, I admit, but…’
The cook turned on Aethenir, shaking his spit-fork angrily. ‘I know not what this hygiene is, but…’
‘By the Everqueen, that’s obvious,’ said Aethenir as his warriors went on guard behind him. ‘Look at yourself. When was the last time you washed your hands? Why did learned Teclis ever decide to grant such shaven apes the blessing of–’
‘Lord Aethenir!’ Max yelped, stepping between him and the begrimed cook. ‘I think perhaps you would find it more congenial to dine in your cabin.’ He took the elf gently by the elbow and steered him towards the door to the underdecks. ‘I will have new food made for you, and I will oversee its preparation myself. It is part of the learning of my College to cleanse and purify. You need have no fears for your health.’
The high elf allowed himself to be led below with further placating murmurings. Everyone let out a held breath and returned to their meal, though there was much muttering from the crew and from Max’s Reiksguard swords.
‘Called our boat slow,’ said a sailor.
‘He throw my food off the ship,’ said the cook.
‘And one of my bowls,’ said Captain Breda. ‘That’ll go on the bill.’
‘Shaved apes, did he call us?’ asked the captain of the Reiksguard, a knight by the name of Rudeger Oberhoff. ‘Hope he doesn’t think we’ll be watching his back for him after that.’
His men laughed at that, but Felix didn’t see anything particularly funny about the situation. If the elf got the crew too worked up, there might be mutiny or violence, and Aethenir’s warriors looked like capable fellows. He was just glad that Gotrek had elected to stay below and drink instead of joining the others for lunch. Things could have gone much worse if he’d been there.
When Max returned to the main deck to oversee the preparation of Aethenir’s meal, Captain Breda pulled him aside and had a few words in his ear. Felix happened to be nearby, and overheard, little knowing then how those words would affect him later.
‘Magister, sir,’ said the captain. ‘Er, it might be best, milord, if yon high one was to stay off the deck as much as possible for the remainder. Out of sight, out of mind, if you get my meaning, sir.’
‘Perfectly, captain,’ said Max. ‘And I apologise for Scholar Aethenir’s behaviour. He is young, for an elf, and has never lef
t Ulthuan before. I’m afraid it’s been a bit of a shock.’
‘That’s as may be,’ said Captain Breda. ‘But he’s in for a ruder shock if he spouts off like that again, elder race or no. The men won’t stand for it.’
‘I understand completely, captain,’ said Max. ‘I will see to it personally that he stays below as much as can possibly be managed.’
‘Thank you, magister,’ said the captain, bowing. ‘You ease my mind.’
Not exactly the most doom-laden exchange of words, but that is exactly what they were for Felix, because what keeping Aethenir below decks entailed was keeping him company. For the rest of the journey, Max spent night and day in Aethenir’s cabin, discussing magic, philosophy and the nature of the world, as well as playing endless games of chess. And it was in this caretaking that the far-reaching repercussions of the ‘stew incident’ made themselves apparent, for with Max made nursemaid to Aethenir he was no longer able to keep an eye on Fraulein Pallenberger, and finding herself unchaperoned, she made a beeline for the target she had had her eye on since boarding the Jilfte Bateau – Felix.
The battle recommenced on the morning of their second day out of Marienburg. At first it seemed that it would be nothing more than a skirmish, but soon it escalated into a full-on assault, with Felix fighting a desperate rearguard action in order to get away unscathed.
The morning had begun peacefully enough, settling into what was to be the daily routine of the voyage – wake, dress, have a breakfast of oat mash, grilled flounder or pike and Tilean coffee, then watch the Wasteland go by until lunch, and then more of the same until sunset. Felix would have welcomed almost any interruption of the monotony, but not this one.
‘You look sad, Herr Jaeger,’ said Claudia, appearing at his side.
Felix jumped, startled. ‘Sad?’ he said. ‘Not at all.’ He had actually been in the middle of a reverie about what he might do with his father’s inheritance if he did manage to get Euler’s letter for him. Not that he wanted the money, of course. But if he did inherit some, what would he do with it? Visions of exquisite leather-bound volumes of his poetry dissipated into smoke as he turned to the seeress. ‘Just musing.’