Felix wasn’t sure what had caused the change. The escape from the black ark had been one of the most gruelling challenges they had ever faced, and yet Gotrek seemed fitter and healthier than ever. Perhaps it had been the opportunity to fight the age-old nemesis of his race, the dark elves. Perhaps it had been the prophecy the daemon had spoken in the summoning chamber, that Gotrek was fated to die killing a daemon greater than itself. Whatever it was, Gotrek was in better spirits than he had been since they had left Karak Hirn.
The Slayer looked up as Felix motioned to the serving girl for an ale and sat down beside him.
“What did you learn, manling?” he asked.
Felix sighed. “Everything I feared. My father is dead. The skaven tortured and killed him.” He clenched his fists and turned to look at the Slayer. “I vow that I will have my revenge on that vile old rat or die in the attempt.”
Gotrek nodded approvingly. “Well said.” He took a pull from his stein. “Though he could already be dead. He fell into the sea.”
Felix shook his head. “No. He lives. I know it. And I will kill him.”
The serving girl brought Felix’s ale. Gotrek raised his stein. “To vengeance,” he said. Felix did the same and they knocked them together. “To vengeance!”
They both drank deep, then slammed the mugs down on the wooden table. Felix wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He felt as if, after such a pronouncement, he should get up and stride off manfully towards his enemy, but he had no idea where the evil ratman might be.
“So, er, where do you suppose we find him?” he asked after an awkward minute.
Gotrek belched and started on his second beer. “I wouldn’t worry about it, manling. If he’s alive, I’ll wager he’ll find us. All that is required is that we be ready.”
“Aye,” said Felix. “Ever vigilant.”
“There he is!” said a high voice from the front of the tavern.
Gotrek and Felix jumped up, almost upsetting their steins as they drew sword and axe, but it was no skaven sorcerer who had cried out, but a youth in squire’s livery, who was pointing directly at them.
Felix blinked in confusion. The boy had a bowl haircut, and was dressed in doublet and hose of deep blue, with a red heart haloed by fire emblazoned on the right breast. He stood with a tall, frail-looking old knight with a bald head and a magnificent white beard, whose pale blue eyes shone with the light of fanaticism. Under a heavy wool mantle, the knight wore clothes of the same blue. Felix had never seen either of them before in his life. “Do you know them?” he asked Gotrek out of the side of his mouth.
“No,” said Gotrek. “Do you?”
“Haven’t a clue.”
The knight made his way across the taproom with stiff dignity, while the youth, who could have been no more than seventeen, followed in his wake.
Gotrek growled a warning as the two approached the table, but the old knight never took his angry eyes away from Felix’s face.
“What do you want with me?” Felix asked.
The old knight reached into a pocket within his cloak and pulled out a book. He cast it on the table with a disdainful flick of the wrist. “Are you he who wrote this dreck?”
Felix looked down at the book. It was the second volume of his travels with Gotrek. He blinked with surprise. It was the last thing he had been expecting.
“Well, I wouldn’t call it dreck,” he said at last. “But, yes. I wrote it.”
“And did you venture ’neath Karak Eight Peaks with the templar Aldred Keppler, of the Order of the Fiery Heart?”
This was getting stranger and stranger. Felix exchanged a glance with Gotrek. The Slayer shrugged.
“We did,” said Felix at last. “What is this all about?”
“And did you take the sword Karaghul from his corpse, though it was not yours to take?”
“Uh, well…” said Felix.
“Answer not, craven,” cried the old knight. “For I see it upon your person even now!” He thrust an accusatory finger at Felix, his eyes blazing with righteous fury. “The sword belongs to the Order of the Fiery Heart! Your twenty-year thievery is at an end, Felix Jaeger. Return it to us at once!”
TWO
Felix stared at the ancient knight, utterly staggered. He had carried Karaghul for so long that he had almost forgotten that there was a time when it wasn’t his. He couldn’t imagine being parted with it. It was the best sword he had ever owned. Its runic power had once allowed him to slay a dragon, and do mortal harm to a sea serpent more recently. He might not have survived either encounter without it.
“I… I always meant to give it back,” he stuttered.
“A likely tale,” sneered the knight.
“I did,” said Felix. “Only… only I haven’t been to Altdorf in twenty years.” Which wasn’t precisely true. He had been here for two months before leaving for Marienburg and the Wasteland, and he hadn’t thought once of looking for the Order of the Fiery Heart and giving back the sword. That they had claim on it had slipped his mind long long ago.
That brought another question to Felix’s mind. “How did you know I was here?”
The old knight cast a baleful look at the boy at his side. “The order’s chapter house is nearby. My squire, Ortwin, may Sigmar have mercy on his soul for such a waste of hours, has read your braggart’s tale, and recognised your companion in the street from the descriptions therein. Now, return the sword you stole.”
“He didn’t steal the sword, knight,” said Gotrek; glaring up at him.
The knight glared back, apparently not one whit intimidated by Gotrek’s fierce one-eyed gaze. “Did he have Templar Keppler’s permission to take it?”
Felix shivered, remembering how the troll had ripped Keppler’s head clean off at exactly the moment that he had found the sword. “Ah, he didn’t get the chance,” he said. “He was dead before he could say anything.”
“How can I know this to be true?” asked the knight, “The whole tale might be false. You might have set upon the noble templar and robbed him of it,” Gotrek gave him a level look. “Dwarfs don’t lie.” This seemed to give the old knight pause. He inclined his head respectfully towards Gotrek. “Your pardon, herr dwarf. The honesty and honour of your race is well known, and I would not question it under normal circumstances, but to hold something which belongs to another for more than twenty years…”
“I… I will give back the sword,” said Felix, though his heart sank when he said it. It was like saying he would cut off his leg. “I never meant to keep it, but we were away for so long.” He began to unbuckle his sword belt from his waist. “It became a part of me.”
“And in your absence, you have denied its power to a generation of Knights of the Fiery Heart. Who knows what prodigies they might have performed armed with such a noble sword. Far greater deeds than you ever assayed, I’ll warrant.”
Felix paused as he wrapped the belt around the scabbard. There was no need for the old knight to be insulting. “I slew a dragon,” he said.
“And scores of orcs and undead,” said Gotrek.
“And turned back the hordes of Chaos,” said Ortwin.
The knight shot the squire an angry look at this.
“It said so in the books,” the boy persisted.
Felix held out the sword, and something, perhaps the dignity of the old knight, or the solemnity of the occasion, compelled him to go down on one knee as he did so. “Sir knight,” he said, “I will return this sword to your order as I always meant to, but… you should know that I never dishonoured it, or the memory of Templar Keppler, and… and if there is any way that I might convince you to let me keep it, I promise I will not dishonour it in the future. I have grown so accustomed to it that I don’t know what I would do without it.”
The knight raised an incredulous eyebrow. “You want me to give you the sword? Which has been a relic of our order for nigh on five hundred years? No. You have held it long enough.”
“Well, er, perhaps I could, ah, bu
y it from you, or make some trade for it.”
Out of the corner of his eye Felix saw Gotrek wince at that, and the look on the old knight’s face confirmed that he had said the wrong thing.
“Buy it!” cried the knight. “Buy a holy relic? You might as well ask to purchase the honour of our order. Are you some base merchant? A sword such as this is not to be bought and sold. It is to be passed from templar to templar so that it may be used in the never-ending battle against the forces of darkness.”
Felix flushed, embarrassed, and scrambled for some better argument. “I’m sorry, sir knight. I… I misspoke. What I meant to say was, ah, could I perform some service for you? Some, uh, deed of honour or quest, that would convince you I was worthy to carry the sword?”
The knight stared down at him for a moment, then snatched the sword from his upraised hands. “No,” he said. “I do not believe you misspoke. I believe you revealed your true nature in your first statement. The sword will return to the order, and to honour, at last.”
He turned away with a sweep of his heavy cloak and walked, stiff and proud, towards the door.
The squire hesitated, looking at Felix and Gotrek with an appraising eye, then snatched up his book and turned and hurried after the knight, calling to him in a loud whisper, “Master Teobalt. Wait. Master.”
But the knight did not slow, and the curtain swished closed behind them as they pushed out into the street. Felix stared after them though they were already out of sight.
“Get off your knees, manling,” said Gotrek gruffly. “They’ve gone.”
Felix had forgotten he was kneeling. He looked around. People were staring. He scrambled up, embarrassed, then sat back on the bench and patted his empty waist. Karaghul was gone. His sword. He felt naked without it. He didn’t know what to do. He would have to get another sword, of course, but how could he replace it? Certainly he had hated Karaghul at times, when its dragon-loathing nature had invaded his mind and urged him into suicidal situations, but it had protected him as well, and defeated many a great and powerful enemy. He had had it so long, and it was so much a part of him, that he wasn’t sure he would be himself without it.
“It… it seems I need a sword,” he said.
“Aye,” said Gotrek.
“And a drink,” he said.
“Aye,” said Gotrek. He pounded the table. “Barkeep! Two more! No, four more!”
The rest of the night passed in a sodden blur of beer and bewilderment. Felix sat benumbed as Gotrek handed him mug after mug and ordered him to drink them down. He did so mechanically, staring into the middle distance as his mind spun in slow circles, like a wobbly cartwheel after the cart has tipped into a ditch.
He tried to focus on how he was going to reap his revenge on the skaven, but visions of bursting in on the grey seer in its lair and cutting its scabrous head off kept bringing him back to Karaghul, and he would mourn its loss all over again.
This grief took on different shades as he moved through the various stages of drunkenness. Sometimes he wanted to weep. Sometimes he laughed at the bitter humour of it. Other times he flushed with anger, and grew determined to stride to the templar’s chapter house and demand the sword back. Still other times, he considered throwing himself at the templar’s feet and begging.
In the end, he did none of those things, only took the next mug and methodically drank it dry, and the mug after that, on into the night.
The next morning he nearly did weep, for when he awoke at last, still dressed except for one boot, and with his head hammering like a cave full of dwarf smiths, he reached blindly for his sword belt, as he had done every day of his adult life, and found nothing.
He turned and stared at the bedpost, where he always hung his sword when he stayed in inns, and his heart dropped into his guts. It was gone! Someone had stolen Karaghul! He leapt up, about to call to Gotrek in the next room, and rouse him to go after the thief. But just as he filled his lungs to shout, he remembered, and his heart sank even further. The sword wasn’t stolen. He had given it away. He would never see it again.
He sank back down on the bed and lowered his throbbing head into his hands. What had he done? What had honour made him do? How could he have been so foolish?
He sat there just breathing for quite a while, his mind drifting in a fugue of pain and regret, but then a sharp rap on the door jarred him awake again. “Who is it?”
“Wake up, manling,” came Gotrek’s voice. “We must find you a sword today.” Felix groaned and stood. “Don’t remind me.” He straightened his clothes and crossed to the door, and even though he knew Karaghul was gone, even though he knew he was going out to look for a new sword, it still made his heart jump when his arms brushed his sides and he didn’t feel the familiar shape of the old blade’s pommel knocking against his wrist as it always did.
As it always had, he corrected himself. As it never would again. He took a deep breath and opened the door. It was going to be a long day.
Felix squinted against the light that streamed through the leaded windows as he and Gotrek shuffled down the stairs to the taproom. The smell of sausage and fritters and stale beer made his gorge rise, and he swallowed with difficulty. He needed fresh air and a walk, and perhaps a nice quiet puke in an alley somewhere.
A pair of fiery blue eyes caught him as he followed Gotrek towards the exit, and he stumbled as if he’d been hit. It was the old templar! The knight sat ramrod straight at the table nearest the door, glaring at Gotrek and Felix from under shaggy white brows. His squire stood behind him, gazing at them with a more anxious expression.
Felix’s heart leapt as he saw that Karaghul was resting across the templar’s knees. He had come to give it back! He had changed his mind! The sword would be Felix’s again! But if that was the case, why was he looking at them so coldly?
“You rise late,” the old knight said as they stopped before him. “I have waited here since dawn.”
“You just missed us, then,” said Gotrek. “That’s when we went to bed.”
The knight sniffed, disgusted, then turned to cast a baleful glance at his squire, as if it was somehow all his fault. The squire shrank before his displeasure.
Felix stepped forwards and inclined his head respectfully. “You wanted to see us about something, sir knight?” he asked, trying to keep the pathetic hope out of his voice.
The knight did not look at him. Instead he turned and stared at Gotrek, who stood, arms crossed over his beard before him. “Swear by the honour of your ancestors and your gods that you will answer me truthfully,” he said at last.
“I so swear,” said Gotrek, without hesitation.
The knight picked up the copy of My Adventures with Gotrek — Vol II which lay on the table beside him. “Are the events in this book, and in the other volumes of your travels, true? Did you and your companion truly perform the deeds written of therein?”
Gotrek nodded. “We did.”
“And there is no exaggeration, or embroidery in the telling?”
“None that I know of,” said Gotrek.
The knight continued to look hard at the Slayer for a long moment, then at last turned to Felix. The expression on his face said that he would rather be drinking urine. “I will not give you the sword,” he said. “But you may earn the right to carry it.”
Felix blinked, shocked but elated. “H-how?”
“You spoke of doing some service for me,” said the knight. “My squire assures me that you are a man of honour and valorous deeds, and your companion confirms it. Well, we shall see. If you wish to once again wield the sword, I would have you travel north with me into the Drakwald, to discover what has become of the rest of our order — brave templars who went north to fight Archaon’s hordes and did not return. Be they alive, we must save them. Be they dead, we must recover the order’s holy banner and regalia. If you prove yourself worthy on this quest, I will grant you the stewardship of Karaghul. If you are unworthy, I will take the sword from you, whether you would return it
or not. Do you accept this venture?”
Felix paused, though every fibre of him wanted to scream, “Yes!”
“What do you mean by ‘stewardship’?” he asked.
“The sword belongs to the order,” said the knight, raising his bearded chin. “And always will. But if you show me that you are the hero this book claims, I will grant you the right to carry it until you die or dishonour it, or until the order requires it again, at which time it will be returned to us.”
Felix frowned. As much as he wanted the sword back, that sounded fishy He had no objection to holding Karaghul as steward. He had no son to pass the sword to, and it was doubtful he ever would. But “until the order requires it again” could mean the day after he helped the templar find his fellow knights. It could be a trick.
And there was another consideration. Only last night he had made a vow to hunt down the evil old skaven who had slain his father, and kill it in its lair. Could he let a wild goose chase into the deep woods get in the way of that vow? It didn’t seem right, even to win back Karaghul. On the other hand, as Gotrek had said, the skaven were likely to come to him. Perhaps it was better to stay in the wilderness until they did. Fewer innocent people would be endangered that way.
“Archaon’s hordes still haunt the Drakwald?” asked Gotrek.
The knight nodded. “So I have been told,” he said. “As well as beastmen, orcs, goblins and horrors too strange to be described. It will be a perilous journey.”
Felix glanced at the Slayer, and saw his one eye shining with bloodthirsty anticipation. He sighed. Whatever he might have decided in the end, it didn’t matter now. The decision had been made.
Felix turned back to the old knight and nodded. “Very well,” he said. “I will take this quest. And I will do my best to prove myself worthy of possessing, er, carrying I Karaghul — for however long you are pleased to grant it to me.”
[Gotrek & Felix 11] - Shamanslayer Page 2