by Warhammer
He had tried out a score of the swords that had been part of the plunder Milo had loaded on the four wagons, swinging them around and testing their balance, and had finally selected this one as the best of the lot, though really it felt just as wrong in his hand as all the others. He would have to get used to it though, or find a better sword if he ever made it back to civilisation. Karaghul wasn’t his any more.
It was a very strange feeling. He had had the rune sword almost as long as he had known Gotrek, and in that time it had come to feel as much a part of him as his arm. He felt naked without it – almost amputated. It seemed unfair to have it taken from him like this. He had told the truth. He had done the right thing, and he had been punished for it. And yet there was nothing he could do. Sir Teobalt wasn’t going to give the sword back to him – not unless he changed his mind, and that seemed unlikely. The old templar was hide-bound and stubborn. His faith, and his belief in the incorruptibility of his fellow knights, had blinded him more surely than the loss of his eyes might have done.
From the west wall of the village came a murmur of frightened voices. The archers all turned their heads and whispered questions at each other, then, after a moment, the news worked its way around the corner and the archers stood, snatching up their bows in nervous excitement.
‘They’re here!’ said one. ‘The boys on the west wall say they’re circling in the woods.’
‘But I’m not done waxing!’ bleated another.
‘Steady now, steady now,’ said Weir. ‘No need to rush. All the time in the world. String yer bows now, lads. Nice and easy. That’s the way.’
Those that hadn’t, strung their bows, while the rest craned their necks to watch to the west, waiting to see movement beyond the edge of the corner platform.
Felix watched with them as Kat calmly strung her bow and slipped her arrows into a leather quiver at her hip. The glare of the fires in the fields made it hard to see beyond them, but after a moment he thought he saw a suggestion of movement against the black of the woods – a glint of reflected flame, a ripple of shadow on shadow.
The archers saw it too, and their voices raised to a babble again. Weir, bless him, knew just what to say to calm them.
‘There they are, lads. Have ye ever seen such big targets in yer lives? Sigmar, even bug-boy here ought to be able to hit something that size, eh?’
The boys chuckled and their babble subsided.
Felix, on the other hand, was growing uneasier by the second. The beastmen had come a little more into the light as they circled around to the south side of the village, and he could see their numbers now. There were scores of them! The scout had said a hundred. It looked to Felix like there were double that, but perhaps he was letting fear get the better of him.
The beasts were arcing in towards the gate now, and he could see that the first twenty or so carried something heavy between them. For a moment Felix’s heart lurched at the idea that they were bringing some offspring of the giant herdstone to the village and were going to turn them all into beastmen after all, but then he saw that it was only a huge pine-tree, its branches trimmed to hand-hold stubs, and sharpened at its base.
He laughed a little wildly. What a state to come to when you were relieved that the beastmen coming to attack you were carrying only a battering ram.
The fires may have helped those on the wall see the beastmen, but they also made the fiends look more hellish then they already were, painting their fur blood-red and highlighting their cruel horns, their glittering eyes, and the curving teeth in their slavering black mouths.
The village boys whimpered at the sight, and a few of them put arrows on strings and raised their bows, but Weir barked angrily at them. ‘Not yet, ye damned yokels! Have ye got so many arrows that ye can waste ’em? Wait! Ye see the fires? Well, do ye?’
The archers nodded sullenly, like schoolboys.
‘Them fires are set at the edge of bow range,’ he scolded. ‘Ye fire now and ye’ll hit naught but snow. Wait until they come past ’em, and then go on my word, aye?’
‘Aye,’ murmured his charges in return.
‘Good,’ said Weir. ‘Now start to pick out yer targets. Pick a big one. The biggest one ye can see. These beasts, ye see, they follow the strongest. And if ye kill the leaders, the rest are lost and that much easier to beat. Have ye got a target?’
‘Aye,’ said the archers, more confident now.
‘Good!’ cried Weir. ‘Then keep an eye on him, and listen for my call.’
The archers watched the beastmen in silence as they came. They were halfway between the tree line and the line of bonfires now, and coming fast, a jostling swarm of hulking monsters that strung out behind the ram-carriers in a long fanning tail.
‘Wait for it!’ cried Weir. ‘Wait for it.’
Felix felt Kat’s hand slip into his and give it a squeeze. He looked around at her and found her smiling up at him. He smiled back and returned her squeeze, then turned away. The thought that it might be the last smile he ever received from her nearly choked him, and he didn’t want her to see the fear in his eyes.
Finally the beastmen carrying the felled pine trotted between two of the bonfires.
‘Fire!’ bellowed Weir. ‘Cut them down!’
The archers raised their bows and loosed their arrows. It was a pathetic volley. Only Kat and Weir and a few of the other soldiers hit their marks. Most of the refugees and the village boys put their shafts in the snow. Some of their arrows failed to leave the bow, and they howled from stung fingers and wrists.
‘Clumsy fools!’ shouted Weir. ‘Take it slow. Nock. Draw. Aim. Fire. And aim for their heads if you would hit their chests. Now fire!’
The boys tried again as Kat and the other trained archers fired at will, loosing five shafts to every one of theirs. Kat was concentrating on the gors carrying the battering ram, and had dropped the front three in six shots. More ran up to take their places and she rained shafts on them as well.
The biggest of the beastmen had fallen as well, pin-cushioned by a dozen arrows.
‘All right, lads, all right,’ said Weir, laughing. ‘He’s down. Now pick another.’
Kat grinned. ‘The only good thing about beastmen,’ she said to Felix out of the side of her mouth, ‘is that they don’t fire back. Imagine these boys trying to fire while ducking.’
Felix smiled, though he was secretly glad no one had asked him to take up a bow. She would be laughing at him then.
As they continued to shoot, the village boys got more confident and their aim improved. Now at least their arrows were falling among the beastmen and not in front of them.
Unfortunately, the gors came so swiftly that the lads hadn’t time for more than a few volleys before they were at the gates, and despite the help of Kat and the other trained archers, less than a score had fallen.
‘Fall back!’ called Weir, as the ram boomed against the great wooden doors. ‘To your second positions!’
The boys and the refugees lowered their bows and scurried for the ladders as Kat and a few of the other archers took final shots, sinking arrows to the fletching in necks and the tops of bestial heads as they shot straight down.
‘Come on, Kat,’ said Felix nervously. ‘We’ve got a job to do, remember.’
‘Just one more,’ said Kat, then ‘Ha!’ as she let fly a final time.
Then they were dropping down the ladders after the other archers and pounding up the street to the barricade that the villagers had built between the first two houses of the village.
As they took up their places behind it, Felix could hear the splintering of the flimsy bar Gotrek had ordered set across the doors of the gate. The bar was weak on purpose, because they wanted the beasts to succeed in coming through. The success of Gotrek’s plan depended on all the beasts moving together, and it would fail if they were spread out around the walls, all trying to climb over at different spots.
‘Arrows on strings, lads,’ said Weir, as they watched the wooden doors sh
udder and flex in the torchlight. ‘Two volleys and run again. No heroes here, aye?’
A splintering crack drowned out the archers’ response. The bar had snapped and the beastmen were surging in, shouldering the doors aside and roaring in triumph. Felix’s stomach churned as they raced towards him, and he suddenly feared that the plan wasn’t going to work. What could stop such a savage onslaught?
It seemed that the archers felt the same way, for only Kat and a few others fired. The rest just sat and stared, like rabbits before a wolf.
‘Loose, curse you! Loose!’ roared Weir, shooting into the stampede.
The villagers and refugees snapped out of their funk and fired, but poorly, and there was no time for a second volley. They had left it too long.
‘Run!’ shouted Weir.
The archers needed no further encouragement. They turned and fled down the street as fast as they could. Felix and Kat snatched up torches placed at the barricade just for the purpose and ran after them. Felix almost choked as he took a breath. The street reeked of spilled brandy – the breadcrumbs that would lead the gors to the trap if all else failed.
It seemed unnecessary at the moment. As Gotrek had predicted, the beastmen chased the fleeing villagers with murder in their savage eyes, leaping the barricade and closing the gap with frightening speed.
As they neared the village’s main intersection, Weir looked back and waved his arms. ‘Scatter! Scatter! To your third positions!’
Now was Felix and Kat’s moment. As the archers broke left and right, dodging into the shadowed yards between the little houses, Felix and Kat continued forwards, waving their torches and shouting insults over their shoulders. It was imperative that the gors follow them and not split up to hunt down the fleeing archers.
Felix looked back, worried. A few were breaking off, but the majority were continuing after him and Kat. Good. He laughed hysterically. Again – what a state to come to when you were relieved that there was a herd of beastmen thundering after you.
Felix and Kat ran into the intersection, straight for the wagon that was parked in its centre. They jumped up onto its tailgate and clambered to the top of the barrels, then turned and waved their torches at the oncoming monsters. The brandy reek was even stronger here, for the casks had been opened so that the smell would be unavoidable. Felix was afraid his torch would light the fumes.
‘Come on, you filthy scavengers!’ Felix shouted.
‘Catch me if you can!’ shrilled Kat.
The beastmen did as they were ordered and surged forwards, straight for the wagon. From his high vantage point, Felix could see that the tail of the herd was only now coming through the gate. There were still so many of them! Too many! The powder couldn’t possibly kill them all.
As the gors rushed to the wagon, Felix and Kat flung their torches at them, then leapt down and sprinted for the door of the strong house – praying now that the beastmen didn’t follow them, and that they would be enticed by the trap they had set for them.
At first he thought they had failed, for he heard hooves clattering up the wooden steps behind him and heard the Slayers curse as he and Kat dived through the door into the darkness of the stone house.
Three huge gors burst through the door behind them, but the Slayers cut them down before they knew they were being attacked, and no more followed.
Felix and Kat caught their breath and joined the Slayers at the door, where a savage joyful hooting was coming from outside. The first beastmen were surging around the cart, climbing on it and fighting each other to get to the brandy and beer, and more and more of them were pouring into the square and pushing forwards for their share. One gor had a brandy keg raised over its head and was pouring it down its throat.
‘Well done, Gurnisson,’ said Rodi. ‘They’ve taken the bait.’
Gotrek only nodded, his eye never leaving the mob outside.
‘Stupid beasts,’ chuckled Snorri. ‘Distracted by beer.’
Rodi laughed. ‘That would never happen to you, Father Rustskull.’
‘Snorri doesn’t know what you mean,’ said Snorri.
‘Er, Gotrek,’ said Felix. ‘Shouldn’t you light the fuse now?’
‘Not yet,’ said Gotrek.
‘But what if they find the blackpowder?’
‘They’ll probably drink that too,’ said Rodi.
Felix waited, tension gripping his shoulders as he watched the beastmen flood into the intersection and crowd around the wagon. The edges of the pack were starting to reach the sides of the street. It was a close game Gotrek was playing. If he waited too long, the gors on the periphery would lose interest and turn to other prey. They might also smell the blood of their fallen brothers in the strong house and come to investigate.
Finally, just as the urge to take the torch from Gotrek and light the fuses himself was becoming overwhelming, the Slayer lowered it to the ends of the bundled match cords on the floor. They flared to life and the flame crawled down their lengths towards the door, spitting as it went.
‘Stand clear,’ said Gotrek, and waved the others back.
Everybody stepped back, but not so far that they couldn’t watch the flames’ progress. It was too mesmerising.
Then, disaster.
Two gors were trying to carry a beer keg away from the rest, punching and kicking and butting as others tried to steal it from them. A clawed hand caught the top of the keg and pulled it down. The two gors lost their grip on it and it smashed down on its side. A wave of golden liquid poured from the smashed-in top.
The beastmen quickly righted the barrel, but not quickly enough. As they continued fighting over it, the spill of beer foamed towards the covered groove that the dwarfs had dug to protect the match cords. Unfortunately, the planks were no protection against liquid, and the beer bubbled down into the cut.
Felix and the others stared, stunned. Gotrek said something in Khazalid that Felix was glad he didn’t understand.
‘Right,’ said Rodi, raising his axe. ‘Give me the torch, Gurnisson. It’s time for me to meet my doom.’
‘No,’ said Snorri. ‘Snorri wants the torch.’
‘It was my plan,’ said Gotrek. ‘It will be my–’
‘Rhya’s tits!’ snapped Kat, and before any of them knew what she intended, she snatched the torch from Gotrek’s hand and raced out the door with it.
‘Kat!’ screamed Felix, and charged out after her.
Kat dodged through the surging, brawling herd like a rabbit through a country dance, ducking elbows and skipping out of the way of heavy hooves. Felix wasn’t quite so small or nimble and was knocked hither and thither by oblivious beastmen, still trying to reach the barrels of liquor.
As he stumbled on, he saw Kat run past the spill of beer and flip up one of the planks nearer the wagon with the toe of her boot. A gor saw her and let out a bellow. It was lost in the general uproar.
‘Kat! Look out!’ shouted Felix.
She was too intent. She didn’t hear. More beastmen turned as she stabbed the torch down into the groove. Sparks shot up from it, racing towards the wagon between a gor’s wide-spread hooves.
Another beastman grabbed Kat by the back of her coat and lifted her off the ground. Felix shoved between two big monsters and slashed at the gor’s arm with his new sword. Karaghul would have had it off at the elbow, but the new blade lacked weight. He only bit to the bone.
Still, it was enough. The gor roared and dropped Kat to turn on Felix. Felix ducked a swipe of its tree-stump club and pulled Kat up.
‘Run!’ he roared.
She was already running, her axes in her hands. Felix turned and hurried after her, desperate to get her to safety. More of the gors were aware of them now, reaching and swinging for them, calling to their brothers. Kat danced away from every swipe, backhanding the beasts she passed with deft hacks. Felix chopped at them as they turned after her, then plunged through them as they howled and staggered aside.
Finally they broke out of the pack and ran up the sto
ne steps of the strong house. A few of the gors chased them, and Felix felt the wind of a giant mace fan the back of his neck as he and Kat raced, side-by-side, over the threshold.
Then, just as Felix was letting out a sigh of relief, there was a deafening thunderclap and something hit him so hard in the back that he was thrown to the far end of the room and slammed against an interior wall. For a long black moment he thought that the gor had connected with its mace and sent him to some hellish afterlife, for he seemed to be in a world of darkness and flame and noise and could not tell up from down or cold from hot. His body seemed at once numb and on fire. His head spun as if he’d been in a drinking contest with Snorri Nosebiter.
Then his vision returned and he was even more confused. A ball of fire seemed to be coming from the ceiling and rising to the floor. The walls swayed as if they were made of mattresses. Heavy wet things thudded all around him like rotten fruit. A huge weight pressed on his shoulders. Finally equilibrium reasserted itself and he realised that he was propped head-down against the wall, his neck bent and all his weight on his shoulders with his arse sticking up in the air. The ball of fire was receding through the door, and there were bits and pieces of beastman lying around him like the leavings on a butcher’s shop floor. A leg with a cloven hoof lay beside him, oozing blood, while a beastman’s head hung from the wall above him, one horn impaling the plaster. Dust rained down from above.
There was a little moan from his right. He turned his head and his body slid down the wall and slumped to the floor in a painful heap. He grunted and sat up. Kat lay curled in a ball next to him. His heart turned to ice. Had the explosion killed her?
‘Kat?’ said Felix. ‘Are you all right?’
Kat pried open one eye. ‘Are we dead?’
Relief flooded through him like a river through a burst dam. ‘No.’
‘Then I’m fine–’
‘Slayers!’ roared Gotrek from the door. ‘Attack!’
Felix looked up to see Gotrek, Snorri and Rodi charging through the door, weapons at the ready.
Kat slowly levered herself up, using the wall for balance. She was shaking like a leaf. ‘Come on, Felix,’ she said. ‘There is slaying to be done.’