by Death
Yashef frowned. ‘You welcome us in, but not out of the cold? That is poor hospitality.’
Gessler shrugged. ‘The women are frightened of outsiders, and have few men to protect them. Can you blame them if they wish to lock themselves in?’
Yashef was going to say something more, but Zayed waved him down. ‘We accept your offer, holy man. High walls and shelter from the wind are hospitality enough. Thank you.’
Gessler inclined his head. ‘You are most welcome. Sigmar bless you.’
Felix put his hand over his heart at the invocation, but he was the only one.
The rest of the night passed without incident, as did the next day, unless one counted shovelling snow from sun-up to sundown. Everyone worked, even the old men and boys of the village, while the women brought food and drink at regular intervals.
Felix was saddened to see how many of them wore widow’s black, even girls who looked too young to be brides. They were a shy, sombre bunch. Most of them only ducked their heads and flinched away when the merchants and guards made their inevitable advances, but there was one, a sharp-chinned beauty with flashing eyes, who brandished her knife and bared her teeth when big Harjit made a grab for her.
The other women pulled her away, hissing reprimands, and Old Zayed chastised Harjit, and that was the end of it, but Felix found himself watching the young widow for the rest of the day. It was always the bright sparks he liked, and this one was a flame. He noticed that she wore neither Sigmar’s hammer nor the stone fang over her black robes. A woman with a mind of her own, then. He liked that too.
Finally, as the sun vanished behind the hills, they all marched back to the village. Felix could not remember his back or arms ever aching more, but they had cleared the pass, and they would be able to get on their way again in the morning.
Only Gotrek was less than happy about that, and muttered about inconsiderate monsters all through the dinner of grilled mutton and onions that the village women laid out for them.
Late that night, Felix woke as Gotrek got to his feet on the other side of their tent.
‘Whuzzit?’ he mumbled, still dozy from sleep. ‘Summin’ goin’ on?’
‘Quiet, manling,’ said the slayer, and stepped closer to the tent flap, his rune axe in his hand.
Felix listened, but all he could hear was the wind – weaker here than in the pass, but still shrieking. Then he did hear something – a scream of terror, not far away, and directly after it, a deep, guttural roar.
‘Ha!’ barked Gotrek, and raced out of the tent.
Felix scrambled out of his bedroll, but he was barefoot and dressed only in leggings and shirt. He cursed, then stomped his feet down into his boots, snatched up his sword and ducked out into the night.
Heavy snow beat against his face as he peered around in the darkness. He couldn’t see Gotrek, or anything really, but he could hear raised voices to his left, and ran towards them.
He found Gotrek looking into one of the other tents while someone inside shouted at him.
‘Go back to sleep, curse you! We’re all safe here!’
Felix joined the slayer as he stepped to another tent.
‘Who screamed?’ asked Gotrek, sticking his head in.
Harjit’s voice came out of the dark of the tent. ‘No one screamed, dwarf. Did you scream, Ghazal?’ There was a pause. ‘Ghazal? Are you there? By the thousand gods, he’s gone!’
Gotrek cursed and looked around, then stumped quickly toward the privies, which were down the hill from the rest of the village. Felix jogged after him, shivering in the wind.
The door to the privies was open, and no one was within. Gotrek looked at the white ground in front of them. Dark blotches marred it, as did footprints – enormous footprints.
‘Blood,’ said Gotrek.
He and Felix followed the blotches and footprints around the back of the privies to the log palisade. There were great fresh gouges in the wood and beads of blood running down from above.
Felix swallowed. ‘So much for the safety of the village walls,’ he said.
Yashef, Harjit and Usman and a few of the others hurried up and joined them. Yashef cursed and kissed his amulet when he saw the blood and the tracks. ‘The monster.’
‘You did curse us, dwarf,’ said little Noor. ‘I knew it was bad luck to talk of looking for a fight.’
Gotrek strode back to the tents. ‘Get your gear. We’re going after it.’
‘You think we can save Ghazal?’ asked Yashef.
‘No,’ said Gotrek. ‘But we can kill what killed him.’
‘Who wants to wager that I find it first?’ boomed Harjit.
‘We can only hope,’ muttered Usman.
Felix hid a wry smile and hurried after Gotrek.
In the end, they couldn’t find it at all. By the time everyone had put their coats and cloaks on, the tracks outside the village wall were nearly obscured by the falling snow, and they were covered entirely once the search party got up into the hills, where the wind piled the snow in deep drifts.
They did, however, find something else.
On a bluff just above the village, they came upon an old standing stone, carved with crude runes. Attached to it was a set of rusting chains and manacles, placed so that whoever was locked into them would hang spread-eagled from the stone.
Gotrek turned to one of the village boys who had come with them as guides. ‘What are those for?’ he asked.
‘That…’ stammered the boy, then clutched the hammer pendant around his neck. ‘That is the old way.’
Gotrek growled in his throat as the men from the caravan cursed and made signs of warding.
Gotrek insisted on wandering around for another hour up in the heights, determined to find something, but in the end even he grew tired of pushing through snowdrifts and returned to the village.
They found Father Gessler and old Zayed waiting for them at the gate, their eyes bright with hope.
‘Did you save Ghazal?’ asked Zayed.
‘Did you kill the beast?’ asked Father Gessler.
‘No, Zayed,’ said Yashef. ‘I’m sorry. We couldn’t find him.’ He turned on the priest, his brow lowering. ‘You said we would be safe here, holy man! You said the walls would protect us!’
Gessler stepped back, putting his hands up. ‘Forgive me. They keep out everything else. And it rarely comes into the village. I prayed that it–’
‘It never came before,’ said a scratchy voice from behind them.
Felix and the others turned to see old Nyima limping out of the night, supported by a tall wooden staff, and glaring rheumily at Gessler.
‘Not until you angered it, priest,’ she said. ‘In the old days we would chain the weakest and most worthless to the sacred stone and the beast god would be satisfied with that. Our warriors lived to protect us from other dangers.’ She spit into the snow. ‘Now you have sent the warriors against it and it has killed them all. Worse, these foolish attacks have angered it, and it feeds solely upon us, taking whoever it wishes, and we have no one to protect us!’ She raised her staff and shook it. ‘We must go back to the old ways! Only a sacrifice will appease it!’
‘One does not appease evil!’ cried Gessler. ‘One destroys it! That is Sigmar’s way.’
‘Mother Nyima, Father Hammer,’ said a new voice. ‘Must we follow either way?’
Felix turned with the others and saw a village woman in widow’s black coming forward. It was the beautiful widow who had threatened Harjit with her knife.
‘My old mother used to tell me of a time before Nyima’s grandmother,’ she said. ‘When we would kill the beasts who preyed on us. Can we not return to that way?’
‘Yes!’ said Gessler, triumphant. ‘That is the way of Sigmar! That is what I have said!’
‘No!’ said the girl, loud enough to make the priest blink. ‘You sent our men against the beast to fight it face to face, as if it were an enemy, not kill it like a beast. None returned. We must trap it in a pit, as we kill wild
rhinox and bears. Only then will we succeed!’
Gessler glared. ‘A coward’s way! A woman’s way! I sent your warriors against it clad in their faith in Sigmar! Had they truly believed, they would have triumphed, just as Sigmar triumphed against Blacktusk the Boar and Skaranorak the Dragon Ogre!’
‘Blasphemy!’ cried Nyima. She shook her finger at the girl. ‘Hold your tongue, Chela! It was when the hunter’s way failed that my grandmother first sacrificed to the beast-god, and it had not troubled us since, until this foreign fool showed up, with his hammer and his lies. The god will not trouble us again when the fraud leaves and we return to the way that works.’
At that, all three started shouting at once. The caravaners all looked at each other, uncomfortable. Felix felt it too. It is always awkward when one’s hosts fight.
Gotrek snorted and turned away. ‘I’m going to bed. I hope I can sleep through the noise.’
Felix and the others quickly followed behind him, leaving the priest, the witch and the young widow arguing in the snow.
‘Tomorrow can’t come soon enough,’ said Yashef.
The others grunted in agreement.
Felix woke once more that night, a strange sound waking him from an evil dream, and saw Gotrek sitting up in his bedroll too.
‘What was that?’ Felix asked.
‘The cry,’ said Gotrek. ‘The same we heard before the avalanche.’
It came again and Felix’s skin prickled. It was a high mournful sound, like the howl of a grieving wolf.
‘The beast god?’
Gotrek shook his head.
‘Then what?’
Gotrek shrugged and lay back down. ‘I don’t know. But it’s far from here. Go to sleep.’
The pass was buried in snow again when the caravan attempted to resume its trip the next morning. Another avalanche had come down, a little further up the trail this time, but just as deep.
Zayed and Yashef and the others cursed their various gods, then sighed and got to work digging out once again. There was nothing else to do. The only alternative was turning back, and there was no money in that, so they dug.
The day passed as the previous day had – endless hours of backbreaking work with the men toiling so hard that, though it remained bitterly cold, many of them stripped to the waist and steamed with sweat.
As they worked, Gotrek occasionally squinted up at the snowfields above the pass and muttered under his breath. Felix wondered what the Slayer was thinking, but after years of travelling with him, he knew better than to ask. Gotrek would speak his mind when he wanted to, not before.
Finally, just as night began to fall, the men cleared away the last of the snow, then headed back to the village as they had the day before, as travelling at night in the mountains was too dangerous. This time, however, Zayed demanded more from his hosts.
‘We stay in the huts tonight,’ he said to Father Gessler as they ate the meal that the village women had made for them.
The priest blanched. ‘But… but you mustn’t. The women won’t like it.’
‘I care not,’ said Zayed. ‘I’ll not have another man die to protect some savage’s modesty. Either they let us in, or we force our way in.’
‘You are the savages!’ snarled Nyima from her place by the fire. ‘You take advantage of us when we are weak.’
‘The men will keep their hands to themselves,’ said Yashef, looking around in a meaningful way. ‘Or they will answer to me, am I clear?’
There was considerably more argument after this, but in the end there was little Father Gessler or Nyima or the villagers could do. The men of the caravan were stronger and better armed. They would get in one way or another. The peaceful way was preferable. But not everybody wanted a cosy bed.
‘I will stay in a tent,’ said Gotrek.
Felix groaned as all the rest turned towards the Slayer. That meant he was staying in a tent too.
‘Let the beast god come,’ Gotrek said. ‘I’ll be ready.’
Father Gessler’s eyes widened at this, and Nyima laughed dismissively. Most of the guards rolled their eyes, but Harjit stood and slapped his powerful chest.
‘Then I will take a tent as well,’ he said. ‘I will not let the dwarf think he is the only one with courage.’
Zayed was about to complain, but Yashef stayed him with a hand. ‘You are brave indeed, Harjit,’ he said. ‘And we thank you.’
‘And the women of the village thank you,’ murmured Usman as he lit a long-stemmed pipe.
Felix shot the Arabyan a glance and they shared a smile. Nobody else seemed to have heard.
Late that night, Felix woke again to Gotrek getting to his feet.
‘The beast?’ he asked.
‘Something,’ said Gotrek, and pushed out of the tent.
Felix had slept in his clothes and boots this time, and only had to throw on his old red cloak before hurrying out after Gotrek. He blinked snowflakes out of his eyes. It was coming down even more thickly than the night before.
The Slayer padded quickly but quietly up the sloping hill through the village, pausing now and then to listen. As they neared the back wall, he motioned Felix to stop, and they both crouched down and looked ahead. Through the snow, something was climbing over the palisade, but it didn’t look or sound like any beast Felix had ever encountered.
It wheezed heavily, and paused at the top to catch its breath before throwing a leg over, then reached down and began to pull up a crude ladder.
Gotrek stood and strode forward. ‘What are you doing, priest?’
Father Gessler, for it was indeed he, gasped and dropped the ladder, then lost his balance and began to topple. Gotrek stepped under him and caught him as he fell, then set him roughly on the ground.
The priest looked up at Gotrek, frightened, as Felix joined them. ‘Herr Dwarf, Herr Jaeger, I can explain.’ He pushed himself awkwardly to his feet. ‘I…’
A curved horn dropped from his robes and thudded into the deep snow. It looked like the sort of thing cowherds in the Empire used to call their cows. Gotrek and Felix stared at it as Gessler gasped, then tried to grab it and hide it.
Felix might not have registered the significance of the horn had not Gessler reacted like a guilty child at its exposure, but suddenly he understood, and raised angry eyes to the priest. ‘I think I can guess the note this horn makes.’
‘A note to shake the mountains,’ growled the Slayer.
The priest let out a sudden sob and fell to his knees in the snow. ‘Forgive me, friends! Forgive me! I did it for the village. You must understand!’
‘I understand,’ said Gotrek. ‘I understand that you will die for this.’
‘What’s the noise?’ called Zayed’s voice behind them. ‘Have you slain the beast?’
‘No,’ said Felix, turning. ‘But we’ve caught a monster.’
Zayed and Yashef and some of the villagers were creeping warily up the hill from the huts, weapons in their hands. Old Nyima and Chela were among them.
Felix picked up the priest’s horn and held it out. ‘This is the cause of the avalanches. Father Gessler has been going out at night and blowing this where the snow is perched to fall. He’s the one who blocked the pass.’
‘What?’ barked Yashef. ‘The swine!’
‘Is this true?’ asked Chela.
‘Aye,’ said Gotrek, glaring at the priest. ‘The question is, why?’
Gessler buried his face in his hands. ‘Because I have failed! Because I had left the village defenceless against the beast!’ He looked up again, pleading with his eyes. ‘Don’t you see? I sent the men against the beast and they died! Now it preys on the women and children. I had to find a way to stop it!’
Nyima cackled like a hen.
Zayed stepped forward, trembling with rage. ‘So you thought you would feed it my men instead?’
‘No!’ cried Gessler. ‘No! I hoped you would kill it!’ He turned towards Gotrek and stretched out his hands. ‘And when I heard that you were a h
unter of monsters, I thought perhaps Sigmar had guided my hand after all. You are an answer to a prayer!’
Gotrek sneered and spat in the snow in front of the priest. ‘You deserve no answered prayer, coward. You–’
A terrified scream and a guttural roar cut him off. Everyone looked up. The roar came again, from the direction of Harjit’s tent.
‘The god!’ cried Nyima.
‘The beast,’ gasped Gessler.
‘Come on,’ said Gotrek, and pounded down the hill through the falling snow, drawing his axe as he went.
Felix and Yashef followed, but they were the only ones, slipping on ice as they ran down through the village and the roaring got louder. They caught up with the Slayer as he stumped out into the open ground beyond the huts, trying to peer through the heavy scrim of flakes.
A scream cut short made Felix cringe, but the snow deadened the sound and made it hard to pinpoint.
‘Where is it?’ asked Yashef.
Gotrek nodded ahead as he continued forward. The skin walls of Harjit’s tent were billowing and shaking. Then an angry roar came from within and it ripped asunder, and something big burst out into the night. Felix and Yashef gasped and skidded to a halt. It was difficult to make out through the snowfall, but Felix could see that it was huge and strong and covered in white fur. He could also see that it carried an enormous, ice-crusted tree branch in one hand and dragged something dark and stiff and human behind it with the other: Harjit.
‘Sigmar!’ Felix choked. ‘What is it?’
‘The yhetee,’ breathed Yashef. ‘I didn’t think it truly existed.’
‘It won’t for long,’ said Gotrek, and sprinted forward, bellowing a savage war cry.
The great white beast turned at the noise and howled a response.
‘He’s mad,’ said Yashef, backing away. ‘The dwarf is mad.’
‘Aye,’ said Felix. ‘And so am I, it seems.’ And with that he charged after Gotrek towards the beast.
The thing dropped Harjit and sprang at them with astonishing speed, raising its club. A billowing fog of ice crystals spewed from its mouth as it roared, and Gotrek and Felix were caught in the blast. It was bitterly, impossibly cold – so cold Felix’s joints stiffened instantly and his fingers went numb. A rime of frost furred Gotrek’s red crest, and a glaze of ice glossed his naked shoulders.