by Warhammer
‘Maybe we should give him some air,’ said Felix, stepping back.
‘Aye,’ said Rodi. ‘He’s been breathing Kurgan’s armpit for the last ten minutes. That would kill anybody.’
‘Chafe his wrists,’ said the captain of the spearmen.
‘Lift his legs,’ said one of his men.
‘Maybe we should give him a drink,’ said Kat, reaching for her canteen.
‘Snorri thinks that is a very good idea,’ said Snorri.
‘Ha!’ said Argrin, as Snorri’s eyes flickered open. ‘He’s alive!’
‘The poor bastard,’ said Rodi. ‘Another doom missed.’
Gotrek helped Snorri sit up. The old Slayer reached shakily for Kat’s canteen and upended it over his mouth, guzzling greedily.
Then suddenly he was spitting it all out again, covering them all in spray and hacking and gasping so much that his eyes turned red. ‘What… was that?’ he sputtered.
‘Only water,’ said Kat, looking a little alarmed.
Snorri made a face. ‘Snorri didn’t like that at all.’
Argrin crossed to a pack with a small wooden keg strapped to the bottom of it. He brought it back and handed it to Snorri.
Snorri upended it like he had the canteen, but this time he drank smoothly and happily. After a very long pull, he lowered the keg, sighed happily and licked the foam off his white moustaches. ‘That was much better.’
He handed the keg back to Argrin and looked around at everybody, ending on Gotrek. He blinked, a look of confusion on his face.
Gotrek grinned. ‘Well met, Snorri Nosebiter.’
Snorri frowned. ‘Snorri knows you,’ he said slowly. ‘Snorri knows he knows you.’ He turned curious eyes to Felix. ‘And you too.’
Gotrek’s grin collapsed. ‘Gotrek, son of Gurni,’ he said quietly.
‘And Felix Jaeger,’ said Felix.
‘It’s only been twenty years,’ said Gotrek. ‘You don’t remember?’
Snorri nodded. ‘Snorri knows Gotrek Gurnisson and Felix Jaeger. They are his old friends.’ he said. ‘Are you them?’
Felix and Gotrek exchanged a glance. Felix wasn’t sure if he had ever seen Gotrek look more unsettled.
‘Please, sirs,’ came a woman’s voice from behind them. ‘Please, can you free us from these chains?’
Everybody stood and turned. Felix flushed, ashamed. They had been so busy hovering over Snorri that they had forgotten the prisoners.
The Slayers and the spearmen hurried to them and began breaking them loose. They were a pitiful lot – a flock of shivering half-naked men and women, all huddled around the tree they had been shackled to. The women wore the remnants of Shallyan robes, and some still had dove pendants hanging from their necks. They wept and thanked the spearmen for their release. The men wore the same uniform as the spearmen – those that wore anything at all – but they reacted almost not at all to being freed, only stared unseeing at their unshackled wrists or looked about them with dark, haunted eyes, murmuring under their breath.
Kat pressed her lips together as she looked at them. ‘Neff’s men,’ she said. ‘The guards of the supply caravan. What can have done that to them to make them like this?’
Felix shuddered. He didn’t want to know.
Kat turned to the spear captain. ‘Captain Haschke, how did you find them?’
Haschke grimaced. ‘The Kurgan bastards attacked the Shallyan hospital wagons two days ago, while they were on the way south to Bauholz. One of their guards escaped and got back to the fort. He led us to the place where they were attacked, and we followed their trail here.’ He nodded sadly at the supply train guards. ‘I guess the Kurgan have been watching the trail.’
‘Aye,’ said Kat. ‘We found the supply train earlier. Neff’s dead. About seven others.’
Haschke sighed and shook his head. ‘Ah, that’s bad. I’ll be sorry to tell Elfreda.’
‘I… I’ll tell her,’ said Kat.
Haschke looked relieved.
Once they had freed all the prisoners and did what they could to get them up and moving – and put those who couldn’t move on the backs of the stolen horses – Kat invited everyone back to the camp she had made by the road. The Kurgan camp was a charnel house, and not fit to stay the night in.
The undergrowth it had taken Kat, Gotrek, Felix and Ortwin two minutes to run through earlier took half an hour to lead the horses and the staggering victims through, but finally they made it back and got everyone around the fire and settled.
Gotrek watched Snorri as the old Slayer nodded off, then crossed to Argrin and Rodi, who were cleaning and wrapping their wounds and combing out their beards and crests.
Gotrek nodded to them politely as Felix and Kat watched from nearby. ‘Gotrek, son of Gurni, at your service,’ he said.
The two dwarfs stood and bowed in return.
‘Rodi, son of Balki, at yours,’ said the short, double-crested Slayer. He had arched black eyebrows and a sly look on his sharp-featured face.
‘And I am Argrin Crownforger,’ said the bigger Slayer, whose braided crest was now unwound and hanging down over the left side of his square, lumpy face.
Gotrek acknowledged their names and they all sat again. Gotrek looked back at Snorri. ‘How long has he been this way?’ he asked. ‘His memory.’
‘Since we’ve known him,’ said Argrin.
‘Though that hasn’t been long,’ said Rodi. ‘We met him at the siege of Middenheim, a few months back.’
Felix saw Gotrek’s shoulders tense. ‘You were at the siege?’
‘Aye,’ said Rodi, his powerful chest swelling with pride. ‘Slew a daemon.’
Felix could hear Gotrek’s knuckles crack over the popping of the fire. ‘Did you?’ he rumbled.
‘It wasn’t a daemon,’ grunted Argrin, as if they had had this argument before. ‘Not a real one.’
‘It breathed fire and vanished into pink smoke when I hit it,’ said Rodi, sticking his fork-bearded chin out.
‘And it was the size of a cat,’ said Argrin.
‘Don’t lie, curse you,’ snarled Rodi. ‘It was bigger than that! It was easily as big as–’
‘A dog,’ interjected Argrin.
‘A wolf!’ protested Rodi. ‘It was as big as a wolf! A big wolf!’
Gotrek cleared his throat meaningfully. ‘So, you don’t know when Snorri Nosebiter started to lose his memory?’
The two Slayers broke off their argument and shook their heads.
‘He’s always been that way,’ said Rodi. ‘As far as we know. We sometimes have to remind him who we are, and he sees us every day.’
‘Too many bumps on the head,’ said Argrin.
‘Too many nails in the head,’ said Rodi.
Argrin shrugged sadly. ‘He remembers long ago like it was yesterday, and yesterday not at all.’
Gotrek cursed under his breath.
Argrin gave Gotrek an odd look. ‘He certainly tells enough stories of you, Gotrek son of Gurni.’
‘Aye,’ laughed Rodi. ‘And if they’re all true, then you’re the worst Slayer of all time.’
‘What was that?’ growled Gotrek, balling his fists.
Kat sucked in a breath. Felix sat up, watching warily. This could be bad. His doom was a subject upon which the Slayer was notoriously touchy.
‘Easy,’ said Rodi, holding up his palms. ‘A joke, that’s all. I just mean that you must be too good. You should have been dead a dozen times over in the years you were with Snorri, and yet you defeated everything you met – daemons, dragons, vampires – and now it’s twenty years later and you still live.’
‘Do you question my dedication to seeking my doom?’ said Gotrek, rising, his one eye flashing in the firelight.
Rodi stood too, chest to chest with Gotrek. ‘Are you putting words in my mouth? I didn’t say that.’
Felix put a hand on his sword. Kat looked from one Slayer to the other. The spearmen from Stangenschloss were turning their heads.
‘Then wha
t did you say?’ said Gotrek.
‘Come now, lads,’ said Argrin, rising and trying to step between them. ‘Let’s not fight over nothing.’
‘My honour is not nothing, beardling,’ said Gotrek, snarling at him.
Felix stepped forwards anxiously. ‘I can confirm that the Slayer hasn’t let a day go by in the last twenty years without actively seeking his doom.’ Except for those months in Altdorf where he tried to drink himself to death, he thought, but he kept it to himself.
‘Stay out of this, manling,’ said Gotrek.
Argrin put a hand on Rodi’s shoulder. ‘Apologise, Rodi. Come now.’
‘But, I didn’t…’ said Rodi.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Argrin. ‘A Slayer’s doom is between him and Grimnir, not anyone else. You shouldn’t even have brought it up. Now apologise.’
Rodi made a sulky face, but finally bowed to Gotrek. ‘Forgive me, Gotrek, son of Gurni, I should not have asked after that which is not my business. Please accept my apology.’
Gotrek hesitated, looking like he still wanted to punch the young Slayer in the nose, but then nodded curtly. ‘Accepted,’ he said, and returned to Felix, still muttering under his breath.
Slowed as they were by the Shallyan sisters and the rescued men, all of whom were wounded and half-starved, it took two further days to reach Stangenschloss. Nothing happened on the journey, but it was still a difficult trip, at least for Gotrek and Felix. Felix spent the two days watching Gotrek watch Snorri, saddened to see the Slayer at such a loss.
Snorri was as cheerful as he had ever been, and seemed no less intelligent – and no more intelligent – than he had been before, but there was definitely something wrong with his mind. He greeted Gotrek and Felix as strangers each morning, and when they reminded him who they were, he would laugh and say of course they were and remember for the rest of the day, but at the same time, he would tell them stories of his old friends Gotrek and Felix, as if they were two completely different people from the man and the dwarf who walked beside him.
Gotrek nodded as Snorri told the stories – most of which were terribly mixed up and wrong – but his face was set in a grim scowl, as if he was trying to work out a puzzle. It hurt Felix to see it. This was not Gotrek’s sort of problem. It was not a thing to be solved with an axe, or a daring rescue. There was nothing the Slayer could do to help his friend, and Felix could see it pained him. What should have been a joyous reunion with lots of drinking and property damage, had been instead an awkward and heartbreaking non-event.
Gotrek, being both a dwarf and a Slayer, wasn’t one to moan in the face of tragedy, however. Instead, Felix could see him getting angrier and angrier, and at the same time more frustrated that he had nothing to lash out at. Felix could hear him grinding his jaw as they walked, and he was constantly clenching and unclenching his fists. Given that they were going ever deeper into the Drakwald, it was inevitable that the Slayer would come across some evil that needed to be killed and he would finally find some release.
For Gotrek’s sake, Felix hoped it would come soon.
Stangenschloss wasn’t quite as impressive as Felix had expected. He had been picturing some grim, monolithic bulwark against the forces of Chaos, its towering stone walls lined with massive engines of war and bristling with spearmen, swordsmen and handgunners. In reality, it was smaller than Bauholz, and though its walls were of stone, they weren’t much taller than the village’s wooden palisade, and had been knocked down in places. The garrison was less than five hundred men, most of them gaunt from hunger and weary from a hard year of war, and there were no catapults or trebuchets that Felix could see.
Captain Haschke caught him looking around as they crossed the yard and smiled grimly. ‘It’s better than it was.’
‘You must have seen some fierce battles here,’ said Felix.
‘Not us,’ said Haschke. ‘At least not here. We were further north, with von Raukov. This place was garrisoned by a Lord von Lauterbach. They were overrun, killed to a man and the fort destroyed.’
‘So how did you come to be here?’ Felix asked.
Haschke grinned. ‘Another of my lord Ilgner’s brainstorms,’ he said. ‘We were returning south after the end, and came across this fort. It was abandoned, and all the nearby settlements ravaged by the loose ends of Archaon’s army who had melted into the forest instead of back north. Well, Lord Ilgner can’t stand to see a fly hurt, and so he says we must stay here until these horrors have been rooted out and the people can live in peace again.’
‘A most noble sentiment,’ said Ortwin, piping up.
‘Aye,’ said Haschke. ‘Though many of the men didn’t think so. They’d been fighting all year, and wanted to see their families in Averland again. There was a lot of grumbling at the first, I don’t mind telling you.’
‘Is he not well liked, then?’ Felix asked.
‘Oh no, they love him,’ said Haschke. ‘He gives ’em victories and keeps ’em fed – for the most part – and he has a way of making even the most mercenary soldier feel like he’s part of a noble cause. We’re proud of him, and proud to be holding the line. We’re just a bit… tired, that’s all.’
After he had found them a place to drop their packs, Captain Haschke brought Gotrek, Felix, Kat and Ortwin to Lord Ilgner, the commander of the fort, to give him the details of their encounter with the marauders. Abbess Mechtilde, the senior sister of the Shallyans, came too.
They found Ilgner sitting at a desk made from a heavy wooden door laid across two sawhorses. It was next to a little camp stove in a curtained-off portion of the keep’s dining hall that served him as both office and sleeping quarters. The upper storeys of the keep had been shattered during the war and not yet rebuilt, so even the officers had to make do in the common areas.
Like his fort, Ilgner was not what Felix had expected. He had thought to find some ironclad giant of a man with a dour expression and the strength of ten. Instead Ilgner was short and bustling, and looked as if he would have tended towards the pudgy side if conditions at the fort hadn’t been so dire. His hair was dark and thinning on top, his eyes were bright, and his teeth even brighter when he smiled, which was often.
‘Sigmar preserve us,’ he said when Haschke presented them. ‘Another Slayer. Y’don’t drink like the other three, do you? As much as we have welcomed their prowess these last weeks, they have near to drunk us out of beer.’
‘Slayers drink,’ said Gotrek, shrugging.
‘And not a little,’ grinned Ilgner. ‘They keep saying they’re going off to find their doom, but they keep coming back, much to my cellarer’s dismay.’ He looked up at Haschke. ‘They did come back again, didn’t they?’
‘Aye, my lord,’ said Haschke. ‘They’re having a pint even now. Claim it helps their wounds heal faster.’
Ilgner sighed, then nodded respectfully to Gotrek and Felix and Ortwin. ‘Well, you’re all welcome here nonetheless. We can use all the proven veterans we can find.’ He turned to Kat, his face growing suddenly sober. ‘So, Neff’s dead then?’
‘Aye, my lord,’ she said. ‘A third of his men as well. And the supplies taken. I’m sorry.’
‘And those that survived…’ said Haschke, then bit his lip. ‘Well, they were captured by the Kurgan, and… and they ain’t themselves.’
‘What’s wrong with them?’ asked Ilgner.
‘They’re… broken, sir,’ said Haschke. ‘Won’t speak. Won’t hardly eat. No life to them.’
‘They were most cruelly abused, my lord,’ said the abbess. She hesitated as all attention turned to her. Her face turned red. ‘The marauders told us that they were taking me and my sisters to… to breed with, to make more of their kind, but the men, they used them as… as pets, or toys. That is–’
‘No need to go on, sister,’ said Ilgner, blushing. ‘I understand your meaning. The villains were followers of the god of pleasure. They did as they do.’
Haschke put his hand on his sword hilt. ‘My lord, I beg you to l
et me take a force of men and find the rest of these degenerates. We slaughtered those we found to the last man, but they were only a raiding party. I know the main body of their force must be somewhere near, with our supplies.’
Ilgner sat down at his desk wearily. ‘Would that I could, captain. But I fear we have a more pressing problem that must be dealt with first.’
‘What’s that, my lord?’
Ilgner shoved aside the papers and mugs and dinner plates on his desk until he uncovered a map of the Drakwald. He tapped it with a finger. ‘We have reports of a great herd of beastmen, as big as anything we saw in the war, coming south out of the Howling Hills, destroying villages and settlements as they go.’ His finger trailed down the map. ‘We don’t know where they’re going, or what they want, but they’re heading this way, and they must be stopped.’
Felix and Gotrek exchanged a look at this. Ortwin was holding his breath.
Felix stepped forwards. ‘Forgive me, Lord Ilgner. We have come north seeking news of the templars of the Order of the Fiery Heart. Do you know if this is what they went to meet?’
Ilgner pursed his lips, nodding. ‘Aye. The village they left to protect was the first hint of this trouble. The day they rode forth we received five more messenger pigeons begging for our aid – all from villages and timber camps on the edges of the hills.’
‘Have you had word of the templars, sir?’ blurted Ortwin.
Ilgner shook his head sympathetically. ‘I’m sorry, lad. No one we have sent north has returned, and the refugees that stream south just babble with fear. I’ve heard nothing.’ He returned his attention to the map, moving his finger again. ‘Calls for help come from new villages every day, and each one further south than the last.’ He looked around at them all. ‘My estimate is that the herd is six days from here now. I am going north at dawn tomorrow to see for myself its size and nature.’
Haschke snapped to attention. He saluted. ‘My lord, I would be at your side in this. Please allow me to accompany you.’
Ilgner chuckled. ‘No, Haschke. You’ve only just returned from a desperate fight. You’re wounded. You’ll stay here. I’m only taking a few men anyway. It’s a reconnaissance mission, not a war party.’