Gotrek and Felix - Road of Skulls

by Josh Reynolds

  Felix did so, straining against the resistance of the rotor. Even with both hands, it took him a few tries. When he finally got it moving, it rotated slowly, in an almost desultory fashion. Gotrek pumped a lever, and the speed picked up. Felix slid beneath the gyrocopter and into the sling even as the struts left the stone, bouncing slightly and knocking the air from him. He reached out, grabbing the struts. ‘Anytime, Gotrek,’ he said.

  Behind them, metal rang on metal. Felix twisted, looking back over his shoulder. Axeson had his back pressed against the door, and there was a look of strain on his face. He wouldn’t be able to hold the door shut for much longer.

  The gyrocopter bounced again and then shot upwards in a plume of dust. Felix coughed and spat and pulled the goggles awkwardly over his eyes. His whole body shook as the gyrocopter took off, and he gritted his teeth as they rattled in his head. He heard Gotrek laughing as the rotors chopped the air. Then the comforting solidity of the stones of Karak Kadrin dropped away and they were in the air.

  Felix thought he might have screamed, but he wasn’t sure.

  ‘The human screams loudly,’ one of the guards said, shading his eyes to watch the departing gyrocopter as it bounced through the air.

  ‘Maybe it was a war cry. Very big on the war cry, humans,’ another said.

  ‘Quiet, both of you,’ Garagrim growled, casting a glare at the two ironbreakers. ‘Someone get a representative of the Engineers’ Guild up here! And pilots,’ he snarled. Then he transferred the glare to the priest lying on the ground. Axeson had been knocked aside by the forcing open of the aerie door, and he sat up, rubbing his shoulder. ‘Well? What have you to say, priest?’

  ‘You’re welcome?’ Axeson said, heaving himself to his feet.

  Garagrim raised a fist, but refrained from striking the priest. He couldn’t say what stayed his hand. Maybe it was tradition or honour perhaps, or maybe fear; traitor or not Axeson was still a priest, still beloved of the gods. Or maybe he simply couldn’t bring himself to strike a fellow dwarf.

  Despite what he knew others said of him, Garagrim was not as hot-headed or as pig-blind as he acted. He had merely taken on the role of a Slayer, and played it to the best of his ability. But he could think when he needed to. ‘You let them go. No, you helped them escape,’ Garagrim said. It wasn’t a question, though Axeson answered it as if it was one.

  ‘Indeed I did,’ Axeson said, straightening his robes. ‘If Ungrim had simply listened to me, none of this would have been necessary.’ He met the War-Mourner’s glare. ‘But he didn’t. The question now is, will you?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Garagrim said, momentarily taken aback.

  ‘You were intending to pursue Gurnisson, weren’t you?’

  Garagrim hesitated. His eyes narrowed. ‘Are you going to tell me why I shouldn’t?’

  ‘Actually, I was going to tell you why you should,’ Axeson said. ‘You must muster a second throng and–’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Garagrim interjected. ‘I don’t plan on listening to you either way. You have played us false, priest, and I–’

  ‘Will stop bellowing,’ Queen Kemma said, sweeping out onto the balcony, flanked by her guards. The ironbreakers and the clansmen traded glares as Kemma looked around and made a ‘tut-tut’ sound. ‘I knew he went too quietly,’ she murmured.

  ‘You expected this?’ Garagrim said, looking at his mother in shock.

  ‘Of course,’ she said, ‘as did you, my son.’

  It was Axeson’s turn to look startled. ‘What?’

  ‘The sewers,’ Garagrim grunted. ‘I suspected Gurnisson would try and escape, but I thought he’d go down as he did before, not up. I’ve had warriors stationed down there for days now.’

  ‘Unhappy warriors, I might add,’ Kemma said. She ran her fingers across the edge of a rotor.

  ‘But how would you have–’ Axeson began.

  Garagrim hiked a thumb at the balustrade. ‘The storm flues, priest. They lead in and out of the mountain. It is how Gurnisson escaped the last time my father tried to imprison him.’ He frowned. ‘Apparently he rode down them during a storm, like a log on a flume.’ He shook his head. ‘He was as mad then as he is now.’

  ‘And let us pray that he is as successful this time as he was then,’ Kemma said. ‘Regardless, you will do nothing to the priest.’ She looked at her son. ‘The priest was acting under my orders.’

  ‘He was?’ Garagrim said.

  ‘I was?’ Axeson said.

  ‘He was,’ Kemma said, folding her hands into her sleeves. ‘I will take full responsibility for this debacle. Let Ungrim break his fangs on my walls, if he wants, if – when – he returns.’ She pointed at Garagrim. ‘Marshal a second throng of half of those warriors who remain. You will march out at as soon as possible.’

  ‘Me? But father said–’ Garagrim began, even as a savage joy filled him.

  ‘Do not pretend to be stupid, my son,’ Kemma said harshly. ‘There is more at stake than your father’s honour or ours. Our people must be preserved.’ She swung around, her gaze capturing the huffing representative of the Engineers’ Guild as he stepped out onto the balcony, mouth open to bellow about impropriety. By long tradition, the aeries set aside for gyrocopters were forbidden to any save Guild members. ‘Master Flinthand,’ Kemma said. ‘I need these devices of yours in the air within the hour. Scour the mountains in all directions. A storm is coming and I would know when it is drawing close.’

  Garagrim watched his mother bully the engineer into shocked silence and smiled. He had hoped Gurnisson would escape and give him cause to pursue. Indeed, he had been going to see Gurnisson to propose just that. Despite their mutual dislike, he’d been certain that the other Slayer would have taken him up on his offer. This way was better. This way, there was no guilt for disobeying his father, for helping Gurnisson, for any of it. The War-Mourner’s palms itched for the feel of his axes’ hafts.

  A Slayer would die, that had been the prophecy. And that Slayer was going to be him, even if he had to hamstring Gurnisson to do it.

  16

  The Worlds Edge Mountains, high in the air

  Jostled, frozen and bruised, Felix clung to the struts with numb fingers. Every limb ached and his ears throbbed with the noise of the gyrocopter’s rotors. Even with the goggles, his eyes stung from the harsh caress of the wind. Too, he was having trouble breathing. Luckily, the gyrocopter wasn’t meant for high altitudes, and it was descending even as it drove forwards.

  ‘Still alive, manling?’ Gotrek called out. Felix could barely hear him, over the noise and wind. Deciding to save his breath, he merely stuck a hand out from beneath the gyrocopter and waved it stiffly. Gotrek laughed. ‘Good!’

  Felix wanted to ask him how he knew where he was going. Actually, he wanted to ask him to land, or at least swoop low enough so that Felix could slide out. Likely Gotrek would simply ignore him. So, instead, Felix tried to enjoy the ride.

  He dozed, despite the aches and the cold. There was little else to do, hanging suspended as he was. He tried not to move too much, despite the silent pleading of his joints for even the briefest of stretches. Felix had lost track of time soon after they’d ascended, so he had no way of telling how long they’d been in the air. How fast could a gyrocopter fly, he wondered?

  The sky was growing darker, but that might simply have been the shadows cast by the craggy peaks of the Worlds Edge Mountains that flashed past, intermittent monoliths of grey and brown. Scrub trees and winding paths, the latter carved by untold centuries of travellers, passed below him. From above, the mountains looked, if not beautiful, then at least breathtaking. That was a far cry from walking through them, where every bend in the trail promised some new misadventure. That was Felix’s experience, at least.

  At least here, high in the air, it was safe–

  Felix blinked as an unpleasant sensation crept across the back of his neck. Then, casually, he glanced over his shoulder. His eyes widened. He gave a yell and jerked his legs back
even as the griffon’s beak snapped shut on the space his foot had only moments before occupied.

  The creature had drawn close enough to stretch out its neck and scrape his boot-heel. It was a malignant mixture of bird, lion and nightmare. He had seen griffons before, in the Imperial Zoo in Altdorf – of his and Gotrek’s visit to which, the less that was said the better – but this beast was no human-raised war-beast. It was feral, and infinitely more frightening for the fact that no cage separated them. More, it had the look of sickness about it. Clumps of feathers had fallen from its head and there were great scabrous patches on the once sleek flanks of its feline shape. Its claws were split and jagged and its beak cracked, as if it had been in a fight recently. In fact, its whole attitude was one of a creature driven into a berserk fury by a period of prolonged violence.

  The creature’s cruel beak gaped as it stretched one vulture-like forepaw towards his legs, its eyes empty of anything save a volcanic rage. From around its neck dangled a heavy collar, burdened by a trio of still stained skulls, the browning bone etched with ruinous sigils. Felix squirmed in his hammock and as he moved, the gyrocopter, thrown off by his weight, dipped. Gotrek bellowed. ‘Stop moving, curse you!’

  The griffon snarled and swooped, its beak snapping at Felix. He jerked to the side. He had nowhere to go, nowhere to run. He couldn’t even draw his sword. His fists hammered on the bottom of the gyrocopter as he tried to draw Gotrek’s attention to his plight.

  The griffon fell back and rose up, eyes blazing madly as it surged towards him, like a ferret entering a rat-hole. Felix pushed himself back. If he could reach up and grab the barrel of the steam-gun, perhaps he could–

  The griffon hit the sling and thrashed, its claws tearing the tough canvas. The hooked tip of its beak gashed his armoured vest, scattering rings of mail and knocking the wind out of Felix. The canvas tore and split and Felix’s stomach swam upwards into his throat as he fell. Desperately, he shot a hand out, reaching for something, anything, to halt his fall. He caught hold of a strut with a flailing hand and the gyrocopter dipped and rolled to the left.

  Felix felt as if his spine were a bullwhip that had just been cracked, and he gritted his teeth against the agony. In his blind panic, he had grabbed the strut with his sore arm. His shoulder burned and he grabbed it instinctively. Legs kicking, he saw the griffon swoop beneath the gyrocopter with a screech that hammered at his ears.

  ‘What are you doing down there, manling?’ Gotrek shouted, leaning over the side of the cockpit.

  ‘Griffon!’ Felix shouted.

  ‘You’ll have to wait until we land,’ Gotrek shouted back.

  ‘No! Griffon,’ Felix bellowed.

  The griffon struck the tail of the gyrocopter, its claws sinking into the wood as its tail lashed. It ducked under the rotors and shrieked again. Gotrek twisted in his seat, his face splitting in a wild grin. He turned back and grabbed the control stick. ‘Hang on, manling!’

  Gotrek yanked back on the stick, and the nose of the gyrocopter bobbed upwards. Felix’s grip slipped and he was swung back against the belly of the machine. He scrabbled at the tattered scraps of the canvas and grabbed hold, praying that it would bear his weight. The griffon, meanwhile, lost its hold and tumbled through the air, screaming. Its wings gave a snap and it was propelled upwards, passing so close to Felix that he could smell the foul, animal odour that clung to it.

  It belly-flopped onto the nose of the gyrocopter, pulling it down with its weight, and Felix heard Gotrek roar. He couldn’t see anything, couldn’t do anything save clutch frenziedly at the scraps of canvas. The wind passed over him like soft razors, digging into his exposed flesh. The gyrocopter lurched and rolled, its rotors whining. Felix was slammed against wood and metal as the machine seemed to fall through the air. Teeth bared, lips pressed flat by the wind, Felix reached for the opposite strut. Grabbing it, he hauled himself up, every muscle howling in agony as he stretched for the base of the tail section. Boots balanced on either strut, he grabbed hold and began to pull himself along.

  Of course, he had no idea what he was going to do when he got there. He looked down and immediately wished he hadn’t. The ground was a spinning blur of colours, all smashed together in a rapidly approaching morass. The ground was coming up fast, too fast, and Felix knew, though he had no experience in such matters, that there was no way they could pull out of the dive in time. Where was Gotrek? What was going on?

  He got his answer a moment later. The gyrocopter shook as the griffon suddenly tumbled past him in a flurry of feathers and blood. Felix nearly lost his balance as the beast writhed in the air, its talons snatching at the struts and side of the gyrocopter with predatory determination. It caught sight of him and one bird-talon swiped out, reaching for him. He hauled himself out of its path, swinging out over the void as its claws sank into the belly of the gyrocopter. Dangling out, cloak whipping in the wind of their descent, Felix snatched Karaghul from its sheath, knowing it would do him no good, but not wanting to die a messy death on its claws.

  The griffon hissed, wings flapping and its muscles bunched. Then it stiffened and screamed. An orange crest rose over the crown of its head as Gotrek climbed its back. The Slayer roared out an oath and brought his axe back over his head and then down, chopping into the massive tendons of one of its wings. It spun, the bad wing nearly buffeting Felix from his slippery perch. Gotrek was smashed back against the plummeting gyrocopter. Felix was jolted loose, his fingers slipping from the wood.

  He was falling, and this time Gotrek wasn’t going to be able to save him.

  There was no fanfare for the second throng. No rolling drums or groaning horns or cheers to send this force on their way. Instead, silent faces watched and murmured oaths. From the crumbling parapet of the outer wall, Queen Kemma and Axeson watched as Garagrim led his throng to war from one of the blockhouses that lined the mountain face above the main doors.

  ‘It’s quite small,’ Axeson said.

  ‘So is a dagger,’ Kemma said. She turned away and looked out over the plains before the hold. She shaded her eyes and peered towards the mountains. ‘The gyrocopters have reported that Ungrim has nearly reached the north-eastern edge of the Peak Pass. The enemy as well,’ she added, frowning. ‘It will take Garagrim several days, even travelling as lightly as he is. If he is not in time…’ She looked at Axeson. ‘What have your stones said?’

  ‘Nothing of note,’ Axeson said, shrugging.

  Kemma’s frown deepened. ‘That is not good enough, priest. I have sent my husband and my son into the cauldron. The least you could do is stir it.’

  Axeson made a face. ‘Not an entirely apt metaphor, perhaps.’

  ‘We are not discussing poetry,’ she said. ‘The future of Karak Kadrin perches on the sharp end.’

  ‘All we can do is be patient, my lady,’ Axeson said, not meeting her eyes. ‘All we can do is wait.’

  ‘And we dwarfs are good at waiting,’ Kemma said, with a sigh. ‘Except Slayers, obviously.’ She rubbed her brow. ‘Will Gurnisson be in time, do you think?’

  ‘Gurnisson will be there,’ Axeson said confidently. ‘He can do nothing else.’

  ‘It is a dangerous game you are playing, you know,’ Kemma said. She looked at the mountains, as if trying to pierce distance and obstacle to see her husband. ‘Dicing with fate can have nasty consequences.’

  ‘He said something similar,’ Axeson said. There was no need to elaborate on who ‘he’ was.

  ‘He would know,’ Kemma said. ‘He is a slave to fate, that one. We all are, to some degree, but him most of all.’ She glanced at Axeson. ‘It is the axe, isn’t it?’

  ‘I… think so, yes,’ Axeson said. He trembled slightly, recalling the grim immensity which had seemed to squat within that blade. The stones in the temple had resonated quietly with the blade, so quietly in fact that only Axeson had heard it. Grimnir, like all of the gods of the dawi, was simultaneously an ancestor and a god. Age had lent him great wisdom and great power for all that
he had been lost in the north. Something of him yet remained, in Karak Kadrin and in every temple dedicated to him, and it was perhaps that shard that resonated with the blade.

  The axe was wrapped tight in chains of destiny, and its wielder with it. The priest could see them, as clear as a vein of ore shining in the dark. Dooms clustered about Gurnisson like crows, and he brushed them aside as easily. But there was one waiting for him that he would not be able to avoid. That was what Axeson had seen, in dreams and thrown stones. And he was determined to see that destiny come to fruition. If only so that he could at last discover his own.

  He had been a foundling, like all priests of Grimnir must be, with neither clan nor family to comfort him. Most children were given up to the temple by clans of low status or shameful reputation, while others, like he himself, were orphans. His parents were a mystery, his origins ignored. But he knew. Dwarfs were born delvers and secrets were no harder to dig through than rock. Axeson was not his name, but it was who he was.

  ‘The axe brought him here, in our time of need,’ Kemma said, shaking him from his reverie. Then she shook her head. ‘No, that’s not right, is it?’

  ‘No,’ Axeson said. ‘Gurnisson didn’t come for us. We are incidental.’ He placed bitter emphasis on the last word. He gestured to the mountains. ‘Two destinies will meet in the Peak Pass, my queen. We can only pray that Gurnisson’s is stronger than that of our enemy.’

  The Worlds Edge Mountains, the Peak Pass

  ‘We’ll reach where old Ranulfsson’s throng met their doom in a few days at this rate,’ Dorin said. The Slayer sat on a dead Chaos marauder and lit his pipe. Blood covered his face and bare chest, and his sword was planted blade first in the ground. ‘If this is the best that we can expect from them, I doubt any of us will find our dooms there.’ Ungrim’s throng had made good time, despite stopping to slaughter any groups of Chaos marauders they happened to run across.