Gotrek and Felix - Road of Skulls

by Josh Reynolds

  The second giant had moved off, and the great hooked blades it had in place of hands chopped straight through the wall before becoming lodged in the stone somewhere in the middle. As the beast struggled to free itself, the men who’d caught a ride on its chain and rope-bedecked harness swarmed up and across it onto the damaged wall.

  Felix moved towards them, leaving the giant to Gotrek. Once again, he thought of Axeson’s words, but he brushed the thought aside. There was little he could do to help Gotrek in any event. Karaghul vibrated in his hands as he brought it down on a hastily interposed shield made of crudely beaten metal, with strange glyphs and markings scattered across its surface. The warrior who bore it shoved Felix back with a growl and struck at him with an axe. Felix gave a frantic shout and grabbed the man’s matted beard, and jerked his head down against the stone of the parapet. His head cracked like an egg.

  Behind them, the siege-giant howled. Felix turned and saw that Gotrek had reached the rounded shoulder-guard and that his axe was buried in the giant’s cheek-guard. As he watched, Gotrek wrenched his blade free and chopped it in again. He was hacking at the armour, trying to get at the creature within. Marauders were climbing up towards him, intent on stopping him from killing their living war machine, or perhaps just intent on killing Gotrek.

  Something grabbed him and jerked him aside even as a sword looped towards him. ‘Watch yourself, Jaeger. If you lose your head, Gurnisson will be inconsolable, I have no doubt.’ Felix turned and saw the gleam of metal teeth. The Slayer called Biter smiled up at him and then whirled him out of the way so that he could lunge past him with his mace. A Chaos marauder slumped, head burst like a melon. ‘Glad you could join us,’ Biter continued, flicking blood from his weapon.

  ‘Wouldn’t have missed it,’ Felix grunted.

  ‘That’s the spirit!’ Biter said cheerfully. ‘Oh look. More toys!’

  Felix looked. Behind the siege-giants, siege-towers had been mobilized. They were, like everything else the enemy had constructed, brutal-looking things, built heavy and impossibly vile looking. They were pulled by teams of mutant spawn and mutated trolls, who roared and gibbered as they dragged the towers towards the wall. There weren’t many of them, but with most of the defenders concentrating on the trio of giants, they were unopposed as they drew close to the walls.

  The third giant drove its shoulder into the wall further down, close to where King Ironfist had made his stand. The massive pick-axe in its hand slashed out, not at the rock, but at the dwarfs who stood on it. The armoured body of a

  hammerer flew backwards from the wall. Ungrim roared out a dour chant as his axe flashed, chopping through the haft of the giant’s weapon, shattering it. The giant screamed in rage and its second pick-axe sank into the parapet with a crash. With a jerk of its deceptively gangly limb, it tore a section of the wall away and flung it heedlessly behind it. A siege-tower exploded, caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  Ungrim didn’t seem perturbed by this display of monstrous strength. He tossed his axe to his opposite hand and snatched up the hammer of one of his fallen guards. With a snarl worthy of the beast he faced, he crushed the skull of a marauder who’d dared to try the parapet.

  Garagrim howled as he flung himself at the second giant. His twin axes clashed against the giant’s blades, causing it to jerk away from the wall. Felix heard the screams of the warriors it crushed beneath its heels. Then his view was obscured as a siege-tower smashed into the cracked and shattered parapet. Biter gave a pleased bark as the ramp dropped and marauders leapt out, almost as eager as the Slayer who went to meet them.

  Felix saw Koertig wade into the warriors from the side. Biter’s Remembrancer fought without his charge’s glee. Felix could sympathise. He knew what it was to be pulled in the wake of a Slayer. It required a certain flexibility that he thought the Nordlander struggled with. Dwarfs hurried to join the duo in repelling the enemy. Felix left them to it, even as another tower joined the first. As the ramp fell, he set a foot on it and charged in. Biter followed him with a whoop.

  In the sweltering darkness, Felix sliced Karaghul across the line of snarling faces. He had no thought save preventing any more of the enemy from getting onto the wall. A giant roared and there was a crash that shook the tower. What’s left of the wall, Felix thought grimly. Biter was screaming curses as he thrashed and battered at the marauders. Felix tried to protect the wild-haired Slayer as best he could.

  A serrated spear-blade dug at him, opening a line along his face. One more scar for the collection. Warmth spilled down his neck and he stumbled, falling back against the wall. The spear came for him again, stabbing into the wood and bone of the tower.

  With a stupefying crash, the top of the tower was ripped free by a tornado of slithering chains. The spearman was gone, ripped into the sky by the giant’s flail. Felix sank down, watching as the flail slashed down again, taking half of the siege-tower with it in a cascade of splintered wood and bone. The giant had staggered into the tower and was jerking and lashing out wildly, screaming in agony.

  Gotrek clung to its head, one hand gripping the cheek-flap of its helm. The flap was attached to the flesh of its jowl, and every flex of Gotrek’s muscles pulled it painfully taut. The Slayer wielded his axe one-handed, slashing at the marauders who crawled like fleas across the giant’s shoulders and chest. A Chaos marauder was struck and he screamed as he was catapulted off the giant, trailing red.

  ‘That’s the way, Gurnisson! Ha-ha!’ Biter howled, shaking his mace. The siege-tower shuddered, already beginning to come apart thanks to the giant’s blow. Felix and Biter made it off just as the tower gave a groan and slumped, crashing down to the ground in stages. Another tower burned merrily, but there were more Chaos-worshippers on the parapet than off. The wall shuddered again as the hook-claw-armed giant tore single-mindedly at the stonework, despite the wounds Garagrim’s axes had made in its arms and shoulders. The War-Mourner himself was occupied by marauders, who swarmed around him, stabbing and hacking, trying to bring the princely Slayer down. Garagrim cleaved through ragged furs and primitive armour, but he was steadily pushed away from the giant despite his best efforts.

  Biter caught Felix’s eye. ‘You handle yourself, Jaeger?’

  Felix nodded brusquely. ‘Go help him,’ he said. Biter grinned and charged wildly towards the struggling knot centred on Garagrim. Felix swatted aside a heavy blade, nearly numbing his wrist in the process, as a marauder frothed at him. Karaghul spun up and across and the marauder staggered back, clutching at his face. Felix moved past him, pushing the wounded warrior over the parapet with his elbow as he went. It wasn’t strictly honourable, but as far as Felix was concerned, honour went out the window when it was life or death.

  Gotrek had surmounted the siege-giant’s head. His axe drew sparks as he hammered at the helmet, seeking to crack it. The giant was no longer concerned with the wall; instead it pawed vainly at its head with its wrist stumps, its flails clattering as they struck its armour. It staggered away from the wall, and for a moment Felix feared that it would carry Gotrek out amidst the enemy. Then, the helmet split in two with a screech, tumbling from the giant’s head, tearing flaps of skin and scalp as it did so. The giant stiffened and gave an agonized shriek. Gotrek had one hand dug into the raw morass of the giant’s head, holding on for dear life. His axe came up and slammed down, right at the central point of the crown of the giant’s skull. Its shrieks became slurred and it staggered forwards, straight towards the section of wall Felix was occupying.

  Felix threw himself out of the way as the monster collided with the wall, dislodging stone and shaking the edifice down to its roots. It collapsed, head and shoulders over the parapet, its flails striking ineffectually against the stone. Gotrek, still perched on its head, jerked his axe free and struck home again. The giant thrashed but it seemed unable to pull itself up. Gotrek roared out an oath and struck a third time. The giant gave a wheezing whine and went limp. A death-stink billowed from its massive carcass
, washing over Felix, causing him to gag. Gotrek dropped off it onto the parapet. He was breathing heavily, and his entire frame was streaked with blood and sweat and grime. He grinned at Felix. ‘That one took a good bit of killing,’ he said. ‘Too stupid to know when they’re dead, these big ones.’

  ‘Sounds familiar,’ Felix said.

  ‘What was that, manling?’

  ‘I said things look bad,’ Felix said. The wall was swamped; organized defence had given way to chaotic melee. Despite the dwarfs’ best efforts, the siege-giants had done their work and done it well. Whole sections of the wall were shattered and split by the war machines of the Chaos dwarfs, and Chaos marauders poured through the gaps on horseback or on foot, howling as they entered the inner keep.

  The final wall had fallen.

  7

  The Worlds Edge Mountains,

  the Peak Pass

  Ekaterina spun, her curved blade licking out like the tongue of a serpent. The Norscan howled as she opened his guts to daylight. His companions backed away, nervous. The dying man sank to his knees and she used him as a springboard, lunging for the next. He narrowly blocked her blade, his eyes wide with fear. She could smell the stink of his weakness and it infuriated her. She hissed and bent back, hooking his ankle with her foot. As he fell, she split his skull. The third man screamed and charged. His axe lopped off a lock of her hair as she jerked her head out of the weapon’s path. Her sword caught him in the belly and with a cruel smile she dragged it upwards, angling to avoid the heart.

  He gasped and slid off the blade. She watched him writhe dispassionately. His next few moments would determine his final fate. In satisfaction, she watched him flop forwards and try to lift his axe.

  She walked around him, tracing the circumference of his scalp with the tip of her sword. ‘You are as brave as you boasted, Artok. Maybe you are worthy at that.’

  He gave a wordless roar and swiped clumsily at her. She stepped on the flat of the axe and drove it down, and pierced his eyeball with the tip of her blade. With a casual shove, she perforated his brain and then retracted her sword smoothly. Artok toppled, dead.

  Around her, the horde set up a roar. Weapons rattled and men shouted until they were hoarse. The madmen harnessed to the war-altars shrieked and snarled, pawing at the air. Ekaterina traced her fingers through the blood on her blade and stuck them in her mouth as she stepped over the bodies and sauntered towards her master.

  The thought set a snarl rumbling in her belly. No man was her master. Not even a man like the Gorewolf. Once, maybe, he might have been, but she knew better now. There was only one master, and her oaths of loyalty to him were of sterner stuff than any foresworn words to a mortal warlord.

  Garmr sat slumped in his throne-altar, watching her, his eyes as unreadable as ever. The lupine features of his helm resembled those of the leering face she saw sometimes in her dreams, but Garmr was only a pale imitation of the god he professed to serve.

  ‘Well?’ he said.

  ‘Two skulls for the road, my lord; the third stank of fear.’

  Garmr grunted. She licked her fangs. ‘I have tested them, as they wished, and found two more step-stones for our Lord Khorne to march upon.’

  Garmr nodded. At a lazy gesture, men scrambled forwards, skinning knives in their hands. Swiftly they set to work, freeing the skulls from their casings of flesh. The third body was dragged away, to be fed to the beasts. Ekaterina glanced at Grettir, who squatted, as always, beside Garmr’s throne like a malevolent toad. The eyes on his helm blinked in strange patterns and made her queasy if she looked at them for too long.

  That Garmr had not yet killed the creature was incredible. They needed no sorcerers for their task, and she could feel Khorne’s displeasure thrumming through her every time Garmr sought his cousin’s auguries. But Garmr insisted on keeping the maggot alive. It was a folly on his part, one of many.

  Garmr jerked on Grettir’s chain, pulling the sorcerer off his feet and into the dust. ‘Tell me of the road, cousin. Tell me what I wish to hear,’ he rumbled.

  ‘It is not yet complete. The skulls of barbarians, brave or not, you have aplenty. You lack keystones, cousin,’ Grettir spat. ‘I have told you that.’

  ‘Have you?’ Garmr snarled. ‘It grows harder to pierce the veil of your mewling and glean meaning.’

  Something howled, as if to echo his snarl. Horses and gorebeasts screamed and squealed as the reverberations of the cry slithered over the rocks and sent daggers of ice into the nape of every warrior’s neck. Even Ekaterina shivered. The Slaughter-Hound bayed again, high in the wild crags. Something shrieked, the sound caught and buffeted by the deep, thunderous bay. A troll perhaps, or some devolved Chaos-beast following in the army’s wake. Regardless, the Slaughter-Hound had it now and it would soon be nothing at all.

  On his throne, Garmr shuddered, and Ekaterina knew that he was seeing what the creature saw, and tasting the blood it tasted. She remembered Garmr before he had bound himself to the beast; he had been a warrior then, all blood and fire and ferocity. But something had changed. Spilling blood for Khorne was no longer enough for the Gorewolf. Something, some desire, ate at him. It had grown worse when he’d forced Grettir to bind the Slaughter-Hound, Ulfrgandr. In binding the beast, Garmr had lost something. His ferocity had dimmed and his love of battle had passed into the beast that loped on the far flanks, venting its fury on the world, rather than their enemies.

  Garmr was no longer beloved of Khorne. She knew it, though she could not say how. She heard whispers sometimes, and the rattle of cloven hooves just out of sight. She felt hands on her shoulders, guiding her, stirring her rage to a fine white heat. Eyes like twin stars, red and dying, met hers and a soft voice, like the rasp of a cat’s claws on flesh, spoke in her head and she felt powerful.

  ‘Mistress,’ a voice said.

  She turned. ‘Boris,’ she said. Her man was bulky, his face hidden behind a leather mask. He had followed her from the dark, distant times before she had taken her destiny and throttled it, and his composure now belied his rage in battle. ‘Well?’

  ‘He sent them, as you said,’ Boris growled. ‘Two riders, with news of the siege.’

  ‘What news?’ she said, feeling not hot now, but an icy calm.

  ‘They’ve taken the outer keep. The men said that Hrolf is dead’

  She grunted and said, ‘And what of Canto and the others?’

  ‘They said nothing of Kung or Yan, but Canto demands that Garmr return,’ Boris said, his disdain evident. Ekaterina’s lips curled.

  ‘Coward,’ she muttered, but her contempt was tempered with thoughtfulness. The army at Karak Kadrin would fail. Garmr was counting on it, she knew. Another of Grettir’s blasted prophecies. But Canto was resourceful. Cunning, even, and more so than Hrolf, especially, and he would retreat, rather than die fighting. The question was, would he return, or would he flee west or further south?

  ‘What about the Hell-Worker?’ She would not weep if the stunted ones were killed; she had little love for their clanking contraptions, and could not imagine that Khorne favoured those who used them. Two of Khorreg’s assistants – daemon-

  smiths, they called themselves – still remained with the horde, overseeing the growling, shuddering hellcannon that the dawi zharr had brought at Garmr’s request. As much as she despised the stunted creatures, she liked their war-engines even less. Something about the cannon put her in mind of the Slaughter-Hound; it was all crouching menace and bloody promise. It ached to break its chains and destroy all that lay in its path. While she could well understand its feelings in that regard, she had no wish to be in its path should it ever gain its freedom.

  ‘He still lives,’ Boris grunted. She nodded. If Khorreg fell, it was likely that the remaining dawi zharr would leave the horde. Garmr’s bargain had been with the Hell-Worker alone, after all. She had intimated to Yan that if something were to happen to the Hell-Worker, it would be all to the good.

  ‘What of the messengers?’ she sai
d.

  ‘We did as asked,’ Boris said and mimed slitting his throat.

  Ekaterina nodded, satisfied. Garmr grew more impatient by the hour and every day without news drove him to use Grettir to see what was going on. The horde could sense their lord’s impatience and were growing restive. The battle with the Slaaneshi had not been enough. More and more fights broke out by the day, as the warriors’ bloodlust sought an outlet among their closest companions. The army would be drowning in blood within days or else be on the move, as Khorne willed.

  Someone laughed. She turned and saw Grettir watching her. Garmr was preoccupied, watching the images the sorcerer had conjured in the puddles of blood spilled by her opponents. She lifted her blade and raised the sorcerer’s chin with the tip. ‘What amuses you so, Many-Eyes?’

  ‘A great number of things, woman,’ Grettir said, shuffling forwards, his chains rattling. He let her blade drift across his windpipe and past his jaw. ‘Do you plot treachery, or aid?’ he hissed. ‘What thread do you pluck?’

  ‘I serve the Blood God,’ she said, stepping back. Grettir smelled of thunderstorms and sugar and her stomach lurched.

  ‘Of course you do,’ he said. ‘We all do.’

  ‘Not you.’

  ‘Don’t I?’ Grettir said. ‘Not willingly, I admit.’

  Ekaterina chuckled and sheathed her sword. ‘What do you care what I do, sorcerer?’ she said.

  ‘I don’t. I am merely curious.’

  ‘A lie,’ she said.