by Various
‘Prepare fire, rememberer,’ said Agnar.
‘Aye, Agnar,’ said Henrik, unhooking his lantern from his belt and looking around.
Felix did the same, hunting for something to burn. He and Gotrek had fought a troll once before, in the crypts below Karak Eight Peaks, and had only defeated it by setting it aflame. Without fire, its flesh regenerated almost instantly. Even severed limbs grew back in time. But what to burn? The sundered treasure chests would provide some wood, but not enough for a big blaze. He supposed they could gather all the furniture and smashed chests, but– He stopped as he saw the solution. Hidden under a broken table was a pile of rolled up carpets, covered in dust.
‘Henrik, here!’
They ran to the table and heaved it up as Agnar charged the troll, roaring a Khazalid battle cry. Gotrek, to Felix’s surprise, charged the orcs. Was he letting Agnar have the glory? Was he avoiding the troll? Neither seemed likely, but what then?
The orcs seemed surprised as well, and stumbled back, wrong-footed, in the face of his fury. Gotrek opened up the first with a slash across its belly, then smashed the cleaver from the hands of the second and buried his axe in its spine as it turned to flee. It fell and he severed its leg at the hip, then flung it at the troll.
‘Hungry, rock head?’
The leg smacked the troll in the side of the head, and the smell of blood and fresh orc meat made it lick its lips and turn for the treat. Agnar took advantage of this distraction and stepped in, swinging for its legs. His long-hafted axe bit halfway through the monster’s left knee and it crashed down on its side, lowing like a lovesick moose.
As Felix and Henrik pulled at a heavy roll of carpet, the six remaining orcs roared to see their champion laid flat and charged in, attacking the two slayers. Agnar ignored them, severing the troll’s knee so the wound wouldn’t heal, and paid for it. An orc with a cleaver took a chunk from his arm, spinning him around with the weight of the blow, but Agnar whipped his axe up in mid-turn and sank it into its bare green chest, then recovered and faced two more as blood poured down his forearm. Gotrek fought three more, a fourth dead at his feet. Behind him, the troll was pushing to its knees, its stump already closing.
‘Come on!’ called Felix. ‘We’ve got to start the fire!’
Felix shouldered one carpet while Henrik grabbed another, and they ran them back. The troll was up, weaving unsteadily on its right knee and its severed left leg, and lashing around in a blind rage. It crushed the skull of Gotrek’s last opponent with its stone-hard fist, and knocked Gotrek flying. The slayer crashed headfirst into a sealed stone treasure chest, then slumped to the floor beside it, dazed and bleeding.
Unable to crawl after Gotrek on its mismatched legs, the troll picked up the stone statue of the dwarf maiden and threw it at him. Felix’s heart thudded in alarm, for its aim was true, but at the last second the slayer flung himself aside and the statue smashed into the wall, sending marble chips flying everywhere.
Gotrek staggered to his feet, off-balance, and charged the troll, roaring defiance. At the same time, Agnar finished the last of his orcs and ran at the troll from behind. The monster swiped at Gotrek, tearing tufts from his crest with its claws, but the slayer ducked and hacked through its elbow, severing its right arm. Agnar swung for its right thigh and chopped its leg off. It fell back, howling, three limbs lost, and clawed for Agnar with the last. He dodged back and Gotrek stomped on the thing’s wrist, pinning it, then sliced through its arm at the shoulder.
Felix had never felt sorry for a troll before, and likely never would again, but the sight of the monster lying helpless, armless and legless, like a turtle on its back, as it keened in pain and confusion, jolted him with pangs of unwanted empathy. Still, the limbs were already growing back, white spurs of bone extending from the severed tibias and fibulas, and strands of muscle beginning to form around them.
‘Burn it,’ said Gotrek.
Felix threw his carpet over the troll as Henrik did the same. Henrik then emptied the contents of his lamp’s oil reservoir over everything and took up a torch from a fallen orc.
‘Maybe next time you won’t be so foolish as to be born a troll,’ he sneered, then touched the torch to the carpets and stepped back as they started to burn.
He and Felix and the slayers threw broken furniture and shattered chests onto the flames, then tossed the monster’s severed limbs in the middle of it. Gotrek stepped to the troll’s head and severed it with a swift chop. Felix breathed a sigh of relief as its frightened howls ceased.
After they were sure the thing was well and truly burning, and after Henrik had helped Agnar bandage the wound in his arm, Gotrek started again for the skaven’s hole in the wall. Felix and Agnar made to follow, but Henrik held the old slayer back and whispered in his ear, gesturing angrily at the burning troll.
Felix looked back, suspicious. ‘Coming?’
Henrik stepped from Agnar and they started forward, the old slayer shooting a hard look at Gotrek’s back.
‘Aye, coming.’
The skaven’s hole in the wall led into what seemed to be a tight drainage pipe. It was covered with a crust of dry algae and the reeking residue of the passage of many skaven, and angled down to the left and up to the right. Gotrek examined the tracks, then started up on hands and knees with Felix following. It quickly turned left and levelled out, and Felix guessed that it was running above the corridor outside the vault.
A moment later, he was proved right, for he came to a tiny hole bored through the floor of the pipe that looked down into the corridor.
‘Skaven spy holes,’ he murmured. ‘Have we been watched all along?’
As the party moved on, the pounding of drums began to echo loudly down the pipe ahead of them, and they heard the guttural grunting of arguing orcs. A few more yards and the pipe split left and right, and the drums boomed up from a wide hole in the floor of the left-hand pipe. Gotrek stuck his head through it, then lowered himself down. Felix, Agnar and Henrik followed, dropping one after the other into what appeared to be a pump room. A smaller pipe ran down one wall into a fat brass reservoir, and there were valves and levers sticking from it, and more pipes running from it. A narrow door, held open by a pile of garbage, led back into the corridor, and noise and light spilled in through the gap. It sounded as if the orc argument were reaching a crescendo.
Gotrek eased through the half-open door with the others following behind. To the east, the passage vanished into darkness, but just ten paces to the west, it opened onto a wide, pillared balcony that looked out over a vast dwarf-built chamber with a soaring cross-vaulted roof. The walls were pierced with balconies and galleries that rose in overhanging tiers above the smoky light of the fires that burned below, and echoed with the deafening howls of hundreds of orc warriors.
Gotrek, Felix, Agnar and Henrik crouched on the balcony and peered through the balustrade to the savage horde below.
Gotrek’s single eye kindled eagerly at the sight. ‘This is a worthy doom.’
10
The floor of the enormous chamber was crammed with a seething ocean of orcs, above which rose banners marked with dozens of crude symbols – glaring suns, red fists, grinning moons, cracked skulls and bloody axes. The green monsters were all shouting and shaking weapons and torches over their heads and looking towards the middle of the room where four big bonfires blazed.
There crowded the biggest mob of all, over three hundred orcs rallying around dirty green banners with the crude symbol of a stinking foot painted on them in white. Inside the area marked off by the four bonfires was a square of open floor, and two orcs lay dead within it, while two more circled each other.
‘What’s going on?’ asked Henrik.
‘A challenge,’ said Gotrek.
One of the orcs was as big as any Felix had ever seen, head, shoulders and chest above the rest, and muscled like a mutated ape. He was dressed in heavy rusted armour, studded all over with spikes, and had a helm with an even bigger spike sticking stra
ight up from the top of his head.
His opponent was shorter, and, though well-muscled and encased in crude plate, was not nearly as massive as Spike Helm. He also walked with a limp, his right foot bound up in dirty bandages. But there was a confidence to his stance, and a cunning in the turn of his head.
‘The little one is Stinkfoot?’ asked Henrik. ‘He doesn’t stand a chance.’
‘Let’s hope so,’ said Felix. ‘With him dead, the orc alliance falls apart, and we can all go back to the tavern.’
‘Let’s hope not, then,’ said Agnar, shooting a sour glance at Gotrek. ‘I still haven’t been able to claim my doom.’
Spike Helm took a few exploratory swipes at Stinkfoot, all the while howling and gargling orcish insults, but Stinkfoot did not fight back. He just stared at the bigger orc and turned to keep him in front of him. Enraged by this behaviour, Spike Helm charged. Stinkfoot side-slipped and Spike Helm stumbled past, his spiked mace crushing only air, then turned again to face the warboss.
Across the circle, Stinkfoot raised his bandaged foot and thrust it at Spike Helm as if he was trying to kick him in the privates. He didn’t come close. His opponent was six paces away from him, and yet, astoundingly, the huge orc went down anyway, toppling like a side of beef cut from a hook to sprawl on the floor, unmoving.
Felix stared as all the orcs in the room quieted in fear and awe. Had it been magic? Had it been a trick? Was the stink of Stinkfoot’s foot so vile that it could kill an orc at six paces?
‘That wasn’t right,’ said Agnar. ‘How did he do that?’
Stinkfoot stepped up onto the huge barrel chest of his fallen rival and raised his bulging arms, roaring his dominance to the others. The orcs echoed his roar, shaking their weapons and headbutting each other in excitement. The chamber shuddered with the sound of it.
Over this clamour, Stinkfoot roared again, and pointed with his axe to a great archway on the north side of the chamber. The orcs howled in response, then gathered up and started forward.
‘It begins,’ said Agnar. ‘They go to war.’
‘And we’re too late to warn Thorgrin,’ said Henrik.
‘But not too late to do what that dead orc couldn’t,’ said Gotrek. He nodded towards a balcony over the great arch through which Stinkfoot’s army was flowing, and towards which Stinkfoot himself was slowly moving. It was connected to the one they were on by a columned gallery. ‘If we run, we can jump down on the greenskin before he passes under that arch.’
Agnar’s eyes glittered eagerly. ‘Aye. Aye!’
The two Slayers hurried north into the gallery.
As Felix and Henrik started after them, Henrik cleared his throat. ‘Slayer Gurnisson, ah, perhaps you should let Agnar jump first when we get there.’
‘Why?’ asked Gotrek without slowing.
‘Er, well, you have robbed Agnar of two dooms already on this trek. To make up for it–’
Gotrek ground his teeth. ‘I’ve robbed no one. If he wants to jump first, let him try.’
‘You interfered. Twice,’ insisted Henrik, raising his voice.
Felix cringed. ‘Quiet! The orcs are right below us.’
Henrik ignored him. ‘You blocked blows meant for Agnar during the minehead fight! And just now you distracted the troll when it was sure to have killed him! A slayer’s honour demands–’
Gotrek snorted. ‘No manling can lecture me about a slayer’s honour. I warned you I would–’
‘Then I will lecture you!’ barked Agnar, and stopped to face him. ‘Gotrek Gurnisson, you have left the way of the slayer. A true slayer could not follow the true path for ten years and still live.’
Gotrek stopped and stared at him with his single baleful eye for a moment, then turned and continued down the passage. ‘There’s no time for this. We must reach the arch.’
‘Do you deny it, then?’ asked Henrik. ‘Do you call Agnar a liar?’
‘What are you doing?’ whispered Felix. ‘Why stir trouble when they’ll both find their dooms in that jump? Leave it be!’
Henrik carried on as if Felix hadn’t spoken. ‘Will you let him call you a liar, Agnar?’
‘I will not!’ Agnar stumped after Gotrek and spun him around with a hand on his shoulder. Gotrek shoved him back, sending him into the wall.
‘Do not lay hands on me, Agnar Arvastsson.’
Agnar pushed off the wall and stepped again in front of Gotrek, blocking the way to the balcony. ‘Why did you attack the orcs just now, when there was a troll before you?’ He asked. ‘A true slayer should attack the most dangerous foe.’
‘I killed the orcs to distract the troll with their meat,’ said Gotrek, with surprising restraint. ‘It made it easier to kill. Now let me by.’
‘Easier to kill?’ Agnar shook with rage. ‘Easier to kill? A slayer does not make his enemies easier to kill!’
‘For Sigmar’s sake, lower your voice!’ said Felix.
Nobody paid him any attention.
‘Does he not?’ asked Gotrek. ‘Why do you carry that axe?’
Agnar blinked, confused.
‘If you wanted to make your enemies harder to kill,’ said Gotrek. ‘You would attack them unarmed, yet you don’t.’
‘An axe is a Slayer’s weapon!’ said Agnar. ‘It is tradition. That’s not the same as–’
‘Grimnir asks of us that we fight our enemies with all our skill and strength,’ said Gotrek. ‘Anything less is suicide, which he disdains. Do you think he means us not to use our strength of mind? I fight with all the strength I possess.’ He gave Agnar a withering look and stepped past him. ‘It seems you do too.’
‘I do!’ shouted Agnar, thumping his chest. ‘I fight with all my strength. Who says I do not?’
‘Quiet!’ whispered Felix again, but fortunately, the orcs were making too much noise and didn’t hear.
‘He’s insulted you, Agnar,’ called Henrik. ‘He says you have no strength of mind!’
Felix shoved him, hissing. ‘Do you want them to fight? You are keeping them from their doom!’
Henrik shoved him back. ‘I am defending my friend’s honour, which you and your friend seem determined to take from him!’
‘Is that what you say, Gurnisson?’ asked Agnar, getting in front of Gotrek again. ‘Do you think me a fool?’
‘You’re both fools!’ cried Felix, pointing over the balcony. ‘Stinkfoot is getting away.’
Agnar looked up from glaring at Gotrek and blinked as if waking. ‘Curse you. You’ve slowed me down!’
He raced down the galley again with Gotrek pounding after.
‘I’ve slowed you down?’
‘Agnar!’ called Henrik, but this time the old slayer was deaf to his words and continued on. Felix was glad of it. It meant he wouldn’t have to shut Henrik’s mouth for him.
Unfortunately, Agnar’s belated hurry was too little too late. By the time they reached the balcony, the very tail of the orc army was filing through the arch below it, and Gutgob Stinkfoot was long gone.
Agnar punched the balustrade in frustration and glared at Gotrek. ‘We might have made it if not for your arguing!’
‘Aye,’ said Gotrek. ‘I shouldn’t have argued. I should have knocked you out and been done with it.’
‘Well, there’s no time to argue now,’ said Felix, trying to change the subject. ‘We must find a way back to the first level and warn Thorgrin of their coming.’
Gotrek shook his head and turned away from Agnar, who was looking murder at him. ‘First I want to see what killed the greenskin’s challenger.’
Gotrek stumped to a broad stair that descended from the balcony to the floor of the chamber. Agnar glared after him, looking as if he might bury his axe in Gotrek’s back, but then cursed under his breath and followed. Felix did the same, watching Henrik like a hawk. He still didn’t know what the rememberer was up to, but whatever it was, he wasn’t going to let him do it.
At the bottom of the stairs, Gotrek stepped onto the broad floor and started towar
ds the four bonfires. As Felix followed his spine itched between his shoulder blades. He felt as exposed as a cockroach in the middle of a bare floor. Anybody could see them, but they could see nothing outside the fires’ square of light.
As he reached the challenge ground, Gotrek knelt by the enormous, spike-helmed orc, examining his legs and torso, but found no mark or sign of sorcery. Neither was there any wound on his arms or face, but when he heaved the great brute over onto his front, Felix noticed something sticking from the back of its neck.
‘A dart.’
He plucked it out carefully and showed it to Gotrek, who examined it. It was small and crudely made, and fletched with what looked like beetle wings. The rusty iron tip was crusted with some tarry greenish black substance.
‘A ratkin dart.’
Henrik and Agnar examined the other two challengers. They had died in the same fashion.
‘Stinkfoot’s foot did not win the day after all,’ said Felix.
‘Does he know that?’ asked Gotrek, then cocked his ear.
There was a whizzing sound, and the slayer snapped out his hand and clamped it shut. When he opened it again there was another dart in it, poisoned like the others.
Felix and Henrik hit the floor, covering their heads, but the slayers stood and drew their weapons, looking in the direction the dart had come from – the gallery on the south wall of the chamber. Four strange missiles arced out of the darkness after the dart, and Gotrek and Agnar braced to knock them out of the air, but they didn’t fall upon the slayers, but instead landed in the fires.
In the brief second before they struck, Felix saw they were little burlap bags, each trailing a tail of dust, and he feared they were blackpowder, but when they touched the fire they burst into clouds of blackness that put out the flames and left them in darkness but for the lamps at their belts.
In the dim light that remained, Gotrek hauled up one of the smaller dead orcs and held it up before him. Agnar followed his example, and not a moment too soon. Another dart thudded into his orc a second later. A third whizzed by Felix’s ear.