Felix sighed, despairing that he had failed to convince her, but at the same time overwhelmed by how much she cared for him. Their men assembled, Felke and Huntzinger stepped forwards and saluted Felix, Kat and the slayers.
“Luck to you,” said Felke. He took off his hunting horn and passed it to Kat.
“And to you,” said Kat, taking it.
“Give our regards to Sir Teobalt,” said Felix.
The slayers just nodded.
A few hours later, Felix stood watch again at the lip of the ravine, his mind still so full of worry for Kat and self-loathing for himself that it was doubtful that he would have spotted a beastman unless it had trodden on his foot.
It was just after noon and the day had so far been torture. While the slayers had paced and griped and waited for news of the armies, Felix’s mind had churned ceaselessly, trying to think of new arguments that would send Kat to safety, but failing again and again. He knew she would not leave, no matter what he said, and he watched her come and go from her patrols in a bitter, brooding melancholy. She was such a strange, unique creature — so fierce and bloodthirsty and confident, and yet so shy and good and uncertain at the same time — that it seemed a tragedy beyond all measure that she should be snuffed from the world like this, and he had spent the morning despising himself for not being able to think of a way to avert that tragedy.
Pebbles rattled behind him, waking him from his unhappy reverie. He turned to see Gotrek climbing up the steep slope to join him.
“Something wrong?” he asked as the Slayer pulled himself up the last few feet and stopped beside him, dusting his palms.
“Aye,” said Gotrek.
Felix expected him to continue, but the Slayer just stood there, looking out across the endless hills. Felix frowned, wondering if he was supposed to guess the trouble. Had Hans the Hermit returned? Had beastmen found a way into the ravine? Had something happened to Kat?
Finally the Slayer spoke. “Snorri Nosebiter will not find his doom here,” he said.
Felix raised his eyebrows. This sounded like prophecy. “How can you be certain of that?” he asked.
“I’m going to make certain,” said Gotrek. “He will not die without remembering why he took the slayer’s oath.”
“Ah,” said Felix. “I see.” He was quietly shocked at this pronouncement. Gotrek rarely thought of anything other than his own doom. To see him actively concerned about someone else’s troubles, even another slayer’s, was rare. Felix recalled that Gotrek had helped Heinz when the Blind Pig had burned down, but he suspected the Slayer had felt partially responsible for the fire. This was different. Gotrek hadn’t caused Snorri to lose his memory. This was an actual, unasked for, act of kindness.
The Slayer kicked distractedly at the ground, his head low. “I am releasing you from your vow, man-ling. You do not have to witness my doom, nor write of it. Instead, you will stay with Snorri Nosebiter, out of the battle, and when it is done, you will see him to Karak Kadrin and the Shrine of Grimnir. Then you are free.”
Felix choked, stunned. He couldn’t believe what the Slayer was saying. “Are… are you sure?” Gotrek raised his head and glared at him with his single angry eye. “Would I say it if I wasn’t?”
And with that he turned and stumped back down into the gorge.
Felix stared after him, blinking with shock. His mind whirled with a hundred questions and emotions, all fighting for his attention at once. Gotrek had released him from his vow — or rather he had given Felix a task that would give it a definite ending. He was so surprised that he wasn’t sure how he felt about it. Was he elated? That he knew he wouldn’t die beside the Slayer was a relief, he supposed, and finally putting an end to the uncertainty of when his long, mad journey would be over was a weight off his shoulders, but he couldn’t say either thing made him happy.
Did he feel angry? Not precisely. Cheated perhaps? To have dutifully followed the Slayer for more than twenty years, waiting for him to die, only to be told at the end, “never mind, you don’t have to record it after all,” rankled a bit.
But thinking about that made him realise the true enormity of the Slayer’s decision. Since Felix had known him, Gotrek had wanted only two things out of life — a good doom, and an epic poem to immortalise his legend and bring it to the world. That desire for fame was why he had asked Felix to join him on his quest for death all those years ago. It was, in a way, the Slayer’s greatest weakness — a flaw of the ego that at once drove him headlong into impossible danger, and held him back from less worthy dooms. That he was now willing to give up that dream of glory, to go to his doom without any record of it being made, to die anonymously and alone, was proof to Felix of how deeply he cared for Snorri Nosebiter. He was sacrificing the fame he had spent more than twenty years accumulating in order to try to safeguard Snorri’s afterlife, and without any certain knowledge that it would work. Felix was sure that Gotrek knew as well as anyone that Snorri’s prayers might be unanswered at Grimnir’s shrine, and yet he was willing to forego his remembrance for that faint, forlorn hope.
Understanding this, all of Felix’s initial misgivings vanished. He was not angry that Gotrek had dismissed him. He did not feel cheated. Instead his chest swelled with pride, for that dismissal meant that Gotrek trusted him enough to put Snorri’s salvation — a thing apparently more precious to him than his own fame — in Felix’s hands. It was the greatest honour Felix had ever been given.
He swore then and there that he would see it through without fail. He would hide Snorri during the upcoming battle, he would see him safely through the Worlds Edge Mountains to Karak Kadrin, he would accompany him to the shrine, and then… Felix paused, frowning. And then… what?
And then he would be free of his vow to Gotrek for the first time in his adult life. He would have… a future. A new thought exploded in his head as that sank in. Gotrek had asked him to sit out the battle and stay with Snorri for the duration. If he would not be in the battle, then Kat would not be in the battle! She would live! They both would live!
Suddenly his mind was ablaze. A future! He and Kat could be together! They could live together, have normal lives together — well, no, not that. He still had his vow to take vengeance upon the skaven sorcerer who had brought about his father’s death, and she still had her vow to vanquish the beastmen of the Drakwald, but why couldn’t they travel the Empire and the forests together for the rest of their lives, hunting skaven and beastmen and sleeping in Taal’s bower, living the simple life of the wanderer and the woodsman? It wasn’t as if he would have to change his life much. He would still be a vagabond, as he had been for the last two decades. Only now he wouldn’t be sharing the road with a surly, monosyllabic dwarf, but instead with a sweet, beautiful girl with whom he could also share his bed.
That brought him up sharp. He was actually looking forward to Gotrek’s death! And the honour of bringing Snorri to Grimnir’s shrine had become a mere stepping stone to his selfish dreams of happiness. He cringed with shame. What kind of friend was he? He should be mourning the Slayer’s imminent passing and praying for Snorri’s recovery, not gleefully planning the life he and Kat would have once he was free of both of them. How could he betray such lifelong friendships so callously? It wasn’t right.
On the other hand, Snorri wasn’t the sort to deny another person happiness because he couldn’t find his own, and Gotrek was a slayer. He wanted to die. He wouldn’t want his death mourned. He would want it celebrated. Of course, dancing on his grave before he was even dead probably wasn’t exactly what the Slayer had in mind.
Felix sighed, conflicted. There was no question that he would mourn the Slayer’s passing — and celebrate it. Gotrek had often been hard to understand, and harder to like, but their friendship, though rarely expressed, had been real, and Felix would miss it when it was gone. But he could not pretend that he wasn’t pleased and relieved that his life after Gotrek’s death, which he had often feared would be an empty and meaningless shuffle to th
e grave, would instead be full of love and life and joy.
He was suddenly impatient for his watch to be over. He couldn’t wait to tell Kat the news.
“This isn’t a trick, is it, Felix?” Kat asked warily. “You’re not still trying to send me away?”
“It’s no trick. I promise you.” Felix looked over his shoulder to where the three slayers were sitting around the cold fire pit, cleaning their weapons for what must have been the fifth time that day. They were all out of earshot. He turned back to Kat. “Gotrek doesn’t want Snorri to find his doom until he has recovered his memory, so he has excused me from the battle so that I can bring him to Karak Kadrin to pray at the Shrine of Grimnir. I will not be fighting. You’ll have no need to protect me.”
“And when you have brought Snorri to the shrine?” asked Kat.
“I’ll be free to do as I please,” said Felix, smiling. “And what I please, is to be with you.”
Kat shivered and shook her head. “I’m sorry, Felix. I want it to be true, but I can’t let myself believe it yet. It seems impossible.”
Felix chuckled and pulled her close. “Not to worry,” he said. “I understand. There is nothing worse than hope. Forget it. We won’t speak of it until it has happened.” He kissed her on the forehead, then pulled back and gazed into her worried eyes. “Just remember something that someone said to me not long ago.”
“What’s that?” she asked. Felix grinned. “There is always a chance.” A slow smile broke through Kat’s cloudy demeanour and she hugged him hard. “Aye,” she said. “Always.”
Just as the last crimson sliver of the sun sank behind blood-coloured hills, a messenger finally arrived from the armies. Felix knew the news was not good when the man saluted from his horse, but did not dismount.
“Lord von Volgen and Lord Plaschke-Miesner’s compliments,” said the messenger as they gathered around him. “And they regret to inform you that no sign of Baron von Kotzebue’s army has yet been sighted.”
“Then they will have to go without him,” said Gotrek.
“No, herr dwarf,” said the messenger. “My lords have determined that the risk is too great. If von Kotzebue does not arrive before your signal, they will retire.”
Gotrek snorted and turned away. “So much for the courage of men.”
“This is madness,” said Kat. “They must attack. They must!”
Felix stepped up to the messenger. “I thought they understood that it was vital to attack the herd while it was all in one spot. If they let them disperse, the beasts will pillage the countryside for hundreds of miles in every direction, and they will be almost impossible to root out. If von Volgen and Plaschke-Miesner retreat, they are dooming Talabecland to years of raids and slaughter.”
The messenger nodded, very stiff. “My lords are aware of this, and will go therefore to look to their own lands and strengthen the defences of their keeps.”
Rodi spat on the ground. “Tell them from me that they are cowards, and deserve the fate that this tail-turning will bring them.”
The messenger bowed in the saddle. “I will do so.”
And with that he wheeled his horse around and galloped off into the crimson twilight.
Morrslieb and Mannslieb were again rising together over the hills as Felix, Kat and the three slayers crawled towards the top of the ridge again. The guttural chanting of ten thousand savage throats floated over the summit and raised the hairs on the back of Felix’s neck. That such a huge herd of beastmen, a race famous for their fractiousness and infighting, should be in such accord that they could all chant in unison, was a terrifying thing. If this Urslak could continue to keep them unified and fixed on a single objective they would be unstoppable.
The five companions reached the top of the ridge and went forwards on knees and elbows until they could look down into the valley of Tarnhalt’s Crown. The camps of the outlying herds were deserted, their bonfires dark. All the beastmen were pressing close around the base of the central hill from all sides, a shifting, undulating carpet of horned heads and hairy shoulders, with here and there torches sticking up to cast a ruddy glow on spear-tips and broad, armoured backs.
The hill itself was ablaze with yellow light. Roaring bonfires had been set all around the towering herd-stone, causing the monoliths of the stone circle to cast thick black bars of shadow down the hill and across the swarm of beastmen that thronged it. A ring of blue-daubed guards protected the circle, lashing out at the teeming, chanting mob with blazing firebrands, keeping them back.
“Sigmar preserve us,” said Felix. It was like a scene out of the Chaos Wastes, transported to the centre of the Empire.
“He better not,” said Rodi.
“Snorri thinks it’s nice of them to stay so close together,” said Snorri. “Saves running after them.”
Felix, Gotrek and Rodi exchanged a look, but said nothing. Felix felt strangely guilty in the wake of that look, like he was in some conspiracy to murder Snorri, rather than save him.
Kat’s keen eyes saw through all the flickering chaos to the centre. “The shaman has already begun his ceremony,” she said.
Felix peered towards the circle again. He couldn’t see the hunched old beastman, but he could see, through the haze of smoke and roaring flames, the occasional pulse of blue light from the jagged veins of the herd-stone.
“It’s time, then,” said Gotrek, then turned and started back down the hill.
Felix followed him with the others, fighting down waves of conflicting emotions. The time of Gotrek’s doom was fast approaching. After all these years, he found it hard to imagine that it would really happen this time, but it was harder to see how it wouldn’t.
Felix once again felt a chill of dread as they squirmed, one at a time, through the hole in the hill that led to the ancient burial chamber and the tunnels beyond. But though the fears of some strange vengeance by old Hans made him turn anxiously at every rustle and rattle that echoed in the dark as they hurried through the subterranean labyrinth, nothing happened. They came without incident to the catacombs of Tarnhalt’s castle, and then to the ancient stairwell that led to the surface and the stone circle where the beasts performed their dread ceremony.
Kat passed her torch to Felix and drew her bow off her back as the dwarfs started up the square stone spiral. Felix followed her up, holding the torch to one side. The stairs crackled with dead leaves and dry twigs, blown down by the winds of ages, but as they got closer to the surface, the noises from above began to drown out all else — the stamping of thousands of hooves in unison, the hoarse chanting, now quickening to a frenzied pitch, the high wail of the old shaman rising above it all.
Felix found himself clutching his sword in a death grip, and his teeth were locked together like a vice. He had to keep reminding himself that he wasn’t going out to fight the herd. He was going to stay hidden with Snorri and Kat while Gotrek and Rodi went to kill the shaman and meet their doom. It still felt unlikely. Would things really be different this time?
They turned up a final flight and saw a square of night sky above them. Torchlight flickered off the stairwell’s crumbling walls. Gotrek slowed his pace and crept to the top, raising his head cautiously, then beckoning the rest up after him. They came out in the midst of a dense thicket of brambles that grew over and around broken knee-high walls — all that remained of the tower that had once surrounded the stairs.
Over their heads, Mannslieb and Morrslieb stared down, casting double shadows, and were even closer together tonight than they had been the night before, and from all around came bestial voices and the light of many fires. Felix and the others crouched down and peered through the criss-cross screen of thorny twigs to the scene beyond. Felix’s heart pounded in his chest as he saw how close they were to the circle and the beasts.
The ring of stones rose only twenty paces away, and the circle of torch-wielding, blue-painted gors that guarded it was only ten paces away. The mob that the guards were holding back was even closer. In fact the s
tairwell was within their front ranks. The mob stretched out to both sides of it and behind it all the way down the hill to the valley floor. Only the mass of bushes and the tower’s broken walls had stopped the beastmen from standing directly on top of it.
Felix heard Kat whispering frightened prayers to Taal and Rhya, and he did the same to Sigmar, all the while trying to keep his knees from shaking. It wouldn’t take more than a cough or a loud sneeze to alert the beasts to their presence, and then they would be dead in seconds.
Gotrek pushed a little way forwards through the bushes, peering more closely at the circle. The others crept cautiously after him. Through the gaps between the standing stones Felix could see the blue quartz veins of the massive herdstone pulsing like a heart in time with the rhythm of the herd’s chant, and before it, the twist-horned shaman, Urslak, standing in supplication, arms outstretched, his bird-claw robe flapping in an eldritch wind as he wailed a profane prayer. For a moment Felix thought he saw enormous blue-feathered wings sprouting from the shaman’s shoulders, but then they vanished, and he decided it had only been a trick of the flames that surrounded him.
There were two ranks of beastmen between the slayers and the shaman. The closest rank were the blue-daubed guardians. They were widely spaced, and faced out towards the herd, brandishing torches to keep them back. The massive war-leader — who Ortwin had named Gargorath the God-Touched — stood with them on the east side of the circle, his powerful arms folded as he looked down on the sea of upturned goat-like faces that stretched away from him to the base of the hill and beyond into the camp. The second rank of beastmen stood just within the monoliths, blue-robed initiates that faced in towards the shaman, chanting and shaking strange fetishes over their heads — bones, feathers, gnarled staffs and skulls of different animals and races. Felix remembered them. They had been the dancers that had preceded the stone when it was on the march.
[Gotrek & Felix 11] - Shamanslayer Page 28