Grettir shrugged. ‘You intend to challenge him. He will kill you.’
Ekaterina’s smile faded. She longed to split his skull and spill his crooked mind in the dirt. ‘You have seen this?’ she demanded. She immediately regretted it. That was Garmr’s weakness, not hers.
Grettir chuckled. It was a wet sound. ‘I see many things. This, I simply know. You are not strong enough to challenge him. That is why you are still alive,’ he said.
Grettir stepped back and shuffled away, leaving her standing staring after him. Ekaterina looked at Garmr, slouched on his throne, his great helm nodding, though whether in sleep or boredom she could not say. For a moment, it seemed as if he were cloaked in the shadows of great wings. And then the moment passed and Ekaterina’s hand slipped to the hilt of her sword, her fingers playing across the pommel.
She gnawed on her lip with a fang and then turned away. In the depths of the camp, she found Bolgatz the Bone-Hammer and Vasa the Lion. As she came upon them, Vasa sank curved fangs into the neck of a horse that had been strung up on chains from a tree. As the creature kicked and shrieked, he tore out its throat and chewed hungrily. He was a big man, bigger than any who followed him; almost a giant, with rolling muscles covered in fur the hue of rust, and he had the head of the beast he was named for. Feline jaws worked methodically as he chewed the meat, his eyes tracking her warily. Claws slid from his fingers as he reached for the heavy broadsword sheathed on his hip.
Bolgatz sat nearby sharpening the bone spurs that jutted from his hands with a whetstone. The Bone-Hammer had been named such for good reason; his fists could shatter armour and he had ripped beasts and men alike apart with his bare hands. Bolgatz’s fame had been assured when he had crushed and eaten the contents of the skull of the great
Shaggoth Hurgrim Peakgouger.
Their warbands, along with hers, comprised more than half of the remaining warriors of the horde. Like she and Canto and the rest, they had given oaths of servitude to the Gorewolf, and they chafed beneath them, now more than ever. It was easy to follow another into battle, but this sitting had frayed their tempers and weakened whatever bonds of loyalty they felt for Garmr.
‘Hail, Ekaterina of Kislev,’ Bolgatz rumbled. ‘The Bone-Hammer greets his sister-warrior.’
‘And I greet you, Bone-Hammer,’ she said, inclining her head. ‘And you, Vasa.’
‘Woman,’ Vasa said, licking his bloody jowls. ‘Come to challenge me at last?’
‘Not today,’ she said, smirking. ‘Though it is challenges I wish to speak of…’
Karak Kadrin,
Baragor’s Watch
Gotrek cursed, and Felix knew he was contemplating hurling himself onto the sea of enemy troops pouring into the hold. The sound of horns filled the air and Felix turned to see Garagrim hurrying towards them, his remaining men following him. ‘Fall back across the bridge, Gurnisson, unless you’d like to find your doom out here,’ Garagrim said stomping past Gotrek.
‘Fall back? We’ve got them right where we want them!’ Gotrek blustered.
‘You mean in control of Baragor’s Watch, running riot?’ Felix said, hurrying after Garagrim.
Gotrek said nothing, but Felix took his silence for assent, and the Slayer followed them. Dwarfs still struggled with knots of Chaos marauders on the crumbling wall, even as most of the surviving defenders made a fighting retreat across the stone walkways that connected the two walls. War-engines rained death on the Chaos marauders pouring into the space between the walls even as lines of dwarf quarrellers and thunderers blasted those on the parapets to cover the withdrawal of their comrades. But the Chaos forces had war-engines of their own; screaming rockets spiralled into the remaining wall, opening great craters in its surface.
Felix knew with sickening certainty that the last wall would not hold for long. Not against a concentrated assault. As they joined the withdrawal, Gotrek stared longingly at the remaining two giants. ‘Stay, if you wish,’ Felix said, disregarding Axeson’s warning to him. Gotrek shook his head and grunted.
‘There is a grander doom awaiting me than this,’ Gotrek said.
‘Besides, it’s not like you’d die anyway,’ Biter said, flashing his metal teeth at the other Slayer. He and two other Slayers were standing beside the great stone bridge that connected the outer keep to the plateau of Karak Kadrin, waiting for the other dwarfs to pass them. ‘Care to help us hold the last path, Gurnisson?’ Biter asked. ‘The engineers will need time to break the keystones and collapse the pathways, and we thought it might be a nice gesture on our part to give them that time, eh?’
‘No! Let him hold some other path,’ another Slayer snapped. Felix recognized him as the same one who’d first called Gotrek a ‘doom-thief’ in the Underway. He wore a thin harness from which a dozen metal flasks hung. Felix had a feeling that whatever was in those flasks would make someone, somewhere, unhappy.
‘I go where I want to go,’ Gotrek said. He raised his axe for emphasis. ‘Feel free to try and stop me, Agni Firetongue.’
Agni blanched and gripped his own axe more tightly. Biter laughed. He nudged Koertig. ‘Gurnisson knows the secret to making friends and influencing people, eh?’ he said, chuckling. Koertig didn’t laugh. The Nordlander looked exhausted, and his armour was as stained and battered as the man wearing it. Like Felix, the other Remembrancer had been in the thick of the fighting.
Felix looked at the parapet. The two remaining siege-giants had pulled back, their job done. The last he’d seen, they were crouching some distance from the wall, eating their dead companion. Felix felt a surge of disgust, but pushed it aside. Even with the giants gone, the Chaos marauders were climbing the wall. More and more ladders and at least one siege-tower were in place and there weren’t enough dwarfs remaining on the wall to dislodge them. Too, the war machines of the Chaos dwarfs were belching fire and flame. The wall separating the inner keep of Baragor’s Watch from the bridge to Karak Kadrin, thick and sturdy as it was, would not last long.
Ungrim and his remaining guards were the last across, and the Slayer King looked disappointed that his advisor Thungrimsson wasn’t going to let him help hold the bridge. ‘You are needed elsewhere, my king,’ Thungrimsson said firmly. ‘Orders must be given and hearts bolstered, and that is the King of Karak Kadrin’s duty.’
‘Do not worry, father, I will fight for the both of us,’ Garagrim said, almost gently. He placed his hand on his father’s arm and Ungrim laid his own over his son’s. ‘And if the time is right, I will gladly die for the both of us as well,’ he added. Ungrim scowled, but said nothing in reply. He didn’t seem particularly happy with his son’s assertion.
‘And what’s that about then?’ Felix murmured to Gotrek.
‘Ask them if you wish to know, manling,’ Gotrek said sourly. He didn’t seem pleased at the prospect of fighting alongside the War-Mourner. Going by Garagrim’s idle glare in Gotrek’s direction, Felix thought that the feeling was mutual.
‘Are you planning on telling me what you did to make the prince of Karak Kadrin hate you?’ he asked quietly.
Gotrek didn’t reply. Felix snorted. He should have known better than to have asked the question. Dwarfs were close-mouthed by nature, but Gotrek’s taciturnity was almost a weapon. He parried inquiry as easily as he did the swords of the enemy.
When Ungrim was across the path, the Slayers arranged themselves across the width of the bridge. Garagrim and Agni took one side and Gotrek, Biter and a Slayer called Varg took the other. Koertig and Felix stood behind their respective Slayers on the bridge.
The air was thick with smoke and the hum of crossbows. The Chaos marauders on the parapet were trying to regroup, but the remaining dwarfs were giving them no leeway. More of the northern warriors were climbing the interior stairs to reach the top of the outside wall, chanting as they ran. There was no strategy that Felix could see, only a blind hunger to get to grips with the enemy. The Chaos marauders didn’t seem to care that the bridge was a vital strategic objective, they only wanted to wet t
heir blades in dwarf blood.
On the whole, Felix preferred opponents who wanted to live as much as he did. It meant he stood a better than even chance of survival. He tensed, holding Karaghul in both hands. Koertig leaned on his axe, his shield hanging loosely from his arm. ‘Nervous,’ the Nordlander said. Felix didn’t know whether it was a question, but he nodded.
‘Always,’ he said.
‘I meant me,’ Koertig said.
‘Oh,’ Felix said, glancing at him.
‘I hope he dies this time,’ Koertig muttered. He had the slightly glazed look of a man pushing the boundaries of exhaustion. Felix knew the feeling, and thought he might have the same look on his own face.
‘You mean Biter?’
‘Who else would I mean?’ Koertig grunted. ‘He’s been promising me that he’s going to die soon. Swears by all his little stunted gods that today is the day, but he never does.’
‘Slayers can’t simply die,’ Felix said, recognizing the frustration in Koertig’s tone.
‘I know that,’ the Nordlander spat, rapping the head of his axe against the bridge rail. ‘He’s making a mockery of me.’
Felix didn’t know how to respond. He looked back at the plateau, where the last of the refugees were being ushered through the great doors of Karak Kadrin. Cannons, organ guns and grudge throwers lined the edge of the plateau and were unleashing a storm of death on those Chaos marauders who had managed to get over the final wall and down to the courtyard before the bridge. Dozens died, ripped apart by the war machines. Nonetheless, the followers of Chaos came on remorselessly. Sickened, Felix looked away. His gaze was drawn down, over the edge of the bridge into the chasm below. He was reminded of the bridge he and Gotrek had traversed in the Underway, and wondered if the chasm now yawning beneath his feet was part of the same great gap.
He was surprised to see a second bridge – no, less a bridge than a simple walkway – extending far, far below the edge of the plateau and slightly off to the side of the one he stood on. Indeed, such was the cleverness of its construction, Felix doubted he would have noticed it, save that he was staring straight down at it. He knew that it must extend into the Underway from the depths of Karak Kadrin, and he wondered whether it was part of the now destroyed Engineers’ Entrance, or some other route into the depths of the mountains.
A shout dragged him from his reverie. The Chaos marauders had reached the Slayers. Gotrek, of course, was the first to react, leaping to the attack. His axe caught the firelight as it slashed out in a wide arc, opening the guts of a quartet of marauders. Those behind stumbled on the bodies, and Gotrek shoved himself into the momentary gap like a hound at the kill.
Biter gave a high-pitched yell and shook his mace. He seemed to be enjoying himself, which only made Koertig glower darkly. Varg started forwards to aid Gotrek, but Biter grabbed his arm and shook his head. ‘Best give Gurnisson room to work, friend. We’ll get the run-off.’
‘I’ll not have my doom filched by that jinx,’ Varg growled. ‘You might be content to live with your shame, but some of us have more honour.’
‘Who was talking about honour? I just meant that we can’t trust the manlings to hold the bridge alone,’ Biter said. He glanced back at the two men and added, ‘No offence.’
‘None taken,’ Felix said. Koertig grunted. By the same token, Varg seemed mollified. He gripped his axe in two hands and swung it experimentally.
Gotrek’s attack had blunted the assault, but only momentarily. Warriors clad in the stiff hide armour of the eastern steppes and carrying short, serrated blades bounded forwards like wolves alongside the bulkier tribesmen from the north, both groups screaming. Felix tensed, readying himself to meet any that got past the two Slayers. The haft of Biter’s mace slid through his hand and swung out, smashing aside the first Northman to reach him. Varg jerked forwards and cut the legs out from under a screaming nomad.
Then the first marauder squeezed past the occupied Slayers. The man was big, but whipcord-thin, with scars that created patterns in the shape of screaming faces across his bare flesh.
‘Valkia, see me!’ the warrior screamed, lunging for them, his blade licking out with more enthusiasm than skill. ‘Collect their skulls for the road!’
‘Collect your own skull, savage,’ Koertig growled, catching the lunatic’s sword blow on his shield. Felix seized the opening, driving Karaghul between two of the man’s ribs. The marauder’s eyes locked with Felix’s own.
‘Valkia,’ the Chaos marauder hissed, reaching bloody fingers towards Felix. Felix jerked back and ripped Karaghul free. The abrupt motion sent the warrior tumbling from the bridge and down into the chasm below. Felix shuddered. He felt as if he had swallowed something hot and unpleasant. He looked around. Garagrim and Agni fought grimly nearby; both Slayers looked as if they had waded through a river of blood and gore, and the War-Mourner’s flashing axes were taking almost as terrible a toll as Gotrek’s. Biter laughed and swung his mace, crushing skulls and breaking weapons with every wild blow.
Felix’s attention snapped back to Gotrek as the Slayer roared and backhanded a bearded giant of a man who had stooped to stab him. The Slayer seemed to spin in place, his axe levying a brutal toll. However, there were simply too many of the Chaos marauders. They poured towards the path with undimmed ferocity, cheered on by their companions. Their chants hammered at the air, and Felix’s skin crawled at the sound of Khorne’s name as it echoed all around him. The name felt like a slow acid, etching his bones with its darkness.
The marauders seemed to gather strength from the noise. Varg shouted in pain as a hook-bladed spear sank into his belly. The Slayer’s axe took off the top of the spearman’s head, but his moment of weakness drew more blades, spears and axes. Felix felt a sinking sensation in his gut as a dozen marauders fell on the staggering Slayer, hacking and stabbing.
‘Lucky wanaz,’ Biter laughed as his fellow dwarf died. ‘Hey, Gurnisson, looks like someone else beat us across the finish line!’
Gotrek’s bellow was equal parts frustration and anger. He barrelled into the marauders gathered around Varg’s mutilated corpse, his axe slapping the life out of them one after another. Blades dug for Gotrek’s squat form, and a spear grazed his calf, nearly hamstringing him. Felix felt his heart seize and Axeson’s plea echoed in his head.
He started forwards, ignoring Koertig’s cry of protest. But before he could reach Gotrek, a familiar shape hove into view, armoured fists beating aside Chaos marauders, and a crude axe blade surmounted by cunning, daemonic eyes slashed out in a wide arc, lopping off heads and arms with contemptuous ease.
‘Away, dogs,’ a growling voice roared. ‘Away! Kung of the Long Arm comes for his due!’ The armoured champion Felix had seen earlier tore through his own men in his determination to reach Gotrek. The Chaos marauders pulled back, opening a space for Chaos champion and Slayer to face one another. Kung gesticulated with his strange axe. ‘You shed blood like a hero, dwarf,’ the champion rumbled, displaying yellowed fangs in a grin of exultation. ‘But I have killed many heroes. Kung of the Long Arm has built a mountain of corpses to take the sweet kisses of daemon-women and has fed the crows of a thousand battlefields!’ His armour was composed of baroque blood-stained plates engraved with thousands of gaping, fanged jaws that seemed to snap and bite the air as he moved.
‘You’ll feed them here as well,’ Gotrek said. He leapt forwards, and the two axes crashed together with a shivering noise that caused Felix’s ears and eyes to sting. The eyes on the Chaos champion’s axe rolled frightfully as the crude weapon connected again with Gotrek’s. Runes flared on the champion’s blade and Gotrek’s own weapon seemed to glow with an inner light.
They traded two more blows and then broke apart. Kung’s eyes narrowed. ‘You fight well, dwarf. But the bridge is ours. We will pull down your hold, stone by stone, and perform the Blood Eagle on your men and give your women to the dawi zharr as their due.’
Gotrek’s eye blazed at the mention of the Chaos dwarfs and h
e roared in fury. He sprang at Kung and his axe spun so fast that Felix could not follow the path of the blade. Sparks flew as daemon-weapon met rune-axe and Kung held his ground for a moment, but only a moment. Inexorably, the Chaos champion was forced back, step by step, off the bridge. By the way his eyes bulged Felix could tell that he was surprised by the sudden onslaught. He stumbled back into his warriors, but found no respite. Gotrek tore into them as if they were nothing more than chaff, his axe releasing a swathe of crimson and screams from the Chaos marauders who got in his way in a gory display.
Kung swung his axe up in a desperate blow, his mouth working in a silent snarl of battle-fury. The daemon-weapon shrieked as it descended. The shriek became something altogether more horrible as Gotrek’s axe rose to meet it and the edges met in a shuddery display of sparks and tearing metal; and then, with a howl, the daemon-weapon exploded, showering the crowd of Chaos marauders with shards of steaming iron.
Kung reeled, gaping at the decapitated weapon in his hands. Gotrek gave him no time to recover and darted in for the kill. His axe sank into the point where the Chaos champion’s neck met his shoulder, dragging the big man to his knees with brutal speed. Gotrek wrenched his blade free in a splatter of blood and buried it into Kung’s skull with a loud, wet sound. The Slayer’s foot shot out, catching the twitching champion in the chest, and kicked the corpse free of the blade. Chest heaving, Gotrek glared about him, as if daring the Chaos marauders to seek vengeance on their champion’s behalf.
For a moment, Felix thought that Gotrek’s look alone would be enough to hold the enemy at bay, but all too quickly, the marauders began to close in on the Slayer. Gotrek readied himself as they closed in around him.
Then, suddenly, a burst of heat and light sent the marauders fleeing in screaming disorder. Felix turned and saw Agni Firetongue stomp forwards, holding a flask in one hand and his axe in the other. As Felix watched, Agni tipped the flask back, gargled and then spat a plume of fire onto the closest of his enemies. He had cleared much of the bridge in the same manner, and his path was littered by burning bodies.
Gotrek and Felix - Road of Skulls Page 14