by Various
They rounded a bend only minutes after setting out, and suddenly a large shape sprang into view. It was a paddleboat, moving so slowly that the skiff and its passengers shot past it, leaving the irregularly spaced torches lining its sides doused in their wake.
The vessel was large and square-shaped, with a boat-house at its aft-section, and a towering pyramid of kegs at its bow. The kegs had been haphazardly tied down with lengths of leather, chain and cloth. Goblins crawled over the pyramid like red-eyed ants, and orcs with whips and axes supervised their efforts to keep the pyramid shipshape.
Grudi howled a war-song and twisted the wheel, spinning the skiff around for a second pass. Snorri clambered up onto the rail as they shot forwards. As they closed in on the front of the paddleboat, Snorri could see that his suspicions had indeed been correct: the boat was being pulled by teams of river trolls. Two of the brutes strained at the prow, pulling against thick harnesses and hauling the boat bodily through the water.
As the skiff shot back towards the boat, Snorri leapt onto the team of trolls, using the head of one to springboard onto the other. He brought his hammer down between his feet as he landed. The troll immediately sank below the water, nearly taking Snorri with it. Using his axe like a grapple, he scurried up the prow onto the paddleboat.
Heaving himself over the rail, he came face-to-face with a shield-wall of black-clad goblins. Several orcs loomed behind them, and one of the brutes cracked a whip over the goblins’ heads, sending them rushing forwards. Snorri swept his axe out and beheaded the spears that darted for his flesh. Then, with a roar, he bulled into the goblins, his weapons leaving a mangled trail of greenskins in his wake.
Meanwhile, Grudi had spun the skiff again and was charging towards the aft section of the paddleboat, which, thanks to Snorri’s impetuous assault, had slowed to a crawl. ‘Hold on, manlings!’ he roared, not looking back at his passengers. He wrenched the wheel and the skiff bounced up and smashed full-tilt into the boathouse, splintering wood and glass and sending green bodies flying.
After a few moments of stunned silence, Staahl kicked his way free of the wreckage, his sword in one hand and his skin of Bear’s Milk in the other. Pulling the stopper with his teeth, he poured the skin haphazardly into his mouth and roared out a daring approximation of a bear’s snarl as he charged towards the nearest orc. Uttering their own cries, his knights followed suit, hacking and slashing at the bewildered goblinoids.
Grudi was the last to free himself. Spitting blood and splinters, he crawled out of the wreckage and shook himself. Then, freeing his axe, he charged towards the pyramid of barrels.
Snorri reached it at the same time, albeit on the opposite side. At the apex, a massive orc squatted, overseeing the battle and occasionally uttering incomprehensible orders to his underlings. Clad in patchwork gromril armour that had quite obviously been stripped from dead dwarfs and strung together to make something that would fit, the orc was an imposing sight. Knotted beards had been tied to its belt and it gestured with a dwarfish axe.
Berserk, Grudi began to climb the pyramid. Foaming and cursing, he chopped at goblins and barrels alike. Snorri began to climb the other side, and shouted up taunts at the orc, who looked back and forth between them with what appeared to be indecisive eagerness.
‘He’s mine, Nosebiter!’ Grudi howled, lopping off a goblin’s head and booting the body at Snorri. ‘That’s the one who took my hand and the life of my kin! He’s mine! My doom!’
‘Only if Snorri doesn’t get there first, Grudi Halfhand!’ Snorri said, selfish desire propelling him to climb faster.
‘Back off!’ Snarling, Grudi lashed out at the makeshift straps that held the pyramid to its shape. The straps parted with a shriek and the barrels began to shift. Snorri nearly lost his footing and lashed out with his axe, hoping to anchor himself. Instead, the axe sank into an already rolling barrel and the Slayer was yanked off the pyramid as the barrel bounced down towards the deck. Snorri screamed in frustration as the orc boss receded into the distance.
The barrel struck the deck and shattered. Snorri bounced once and slammed into the hideous face of a troll as it began to pull itself up out of the water. Instinctively Snorri struck out, burying his axe in the monster’s shoulder. It reared back, hauling him over the rail.
A strong hand fastened on his ankle as Staahl rushed to his aid. ‘Hold on, stunty!’ the big man said.
‘Let Snorri go, fatty!’ Snorri said, kicking at his would-be rescuer. ‘Snorri is going to his doom!’ The troll, in pain, buried its talons in the Slayer’s shoulders. Staahl lost his grip as dwarf and troll toppled into the water.
‘’Ware!’ someone shouted. Staahl whirled and saw the barrel pyramid beginning to wobble and dissolve into a crashing mess of wood and alcohol. At the tip of the disintegrating pyramid, the orc boss and Grudi Halfhand fought a savage duel atop an ever-rotating cask. Axe crashed against axe for several moments, until, inevitably, their duelling ground dropped out from under them. Orc and dwarf disappeared beneath the avalanche of barrels. The knights scrambled for cover even as the barrels crashed to the deck in a chaotic cacophony. The paddleboat dipped with the force of the collapse, and several knights were almost thrown overboard, including Staahl.
As silence returned, the last surviving cask bounced down the pile of shattered barrels and rolled towards the rail. As it struck it, the top popped off, spilling out a familiar shape. Staahl, pulling himself back on board, looked down at it and grinned. ‘Hello, Rodor, you old lush! Have a nice time?’
The ex-Grandmaster didn’t answer, but Staahl took the rictus grin for assent. Stepping over the body, he joined the other knights in staring at the pile. Angmar shook his head.
‘What a waste,’ he said softly. Staahl put an arm around his shoulders.
‘I know. That’s an awful lot of good beer gone.’
‘I meant Grudi!’ Angmar snapped. He crouched and hauled aside a chunk of wood, revealing an arm ending in a hook extending from within the pile. The knights watched silently as Angmar and Staahl pulled the limp body of the Slayer from out of the debris.
‘He died as he lived,’ Angmar said softly.
‘Aye. Covered in blood and liquor,’ Staahl said piously. ‘Sigmar bless the stunted little madman. And Snorri as well, wherever he–’
A troll’s head slid across the deck and bounced over Grudi’s body. The knights turned as Snorri hauled himself over the rail, dripping wet and covered in black blood. He looked at them, then at the body at their feet. And then at the now-empty cask of Wynters.
‘Is that the Wynters?’
‘Unfortunately,’ Staahl said.
‘Is he dead?’ Snorri said, pointing at Grudi.
‘Ah… yes,’ Angmar said.
‘Lucky bastard,’ Snorri said. ‘Got his doom when Snorri doesn’t even have a drink.’ He sighed and sat down on a dead orc. He looked around and sighed again, rubbing his palm over his crest of nails. ‘Snorri begins to understand why his friend Gotrek Gurnisson is so sour.’
A Place of Quiet Assembly
John Brunner
‘You’ll have a comfortable trip,’ the landlord of the coaching inn assured Henkin Warsch. ‘There are only two other passengers booked for today’s stage.’
Which sounded promising enough. However, before they were even out of sight of the inn Henkin was sincerely regretting the maggot that had made him turn aside from his intended route and visit a place he had last seen twenty years before. One of his fellow-travellers was tolerably presentable, albeit gloomy of mien – a young, bookish type in much-worn clothes, with a Sudenland cloak over all – and Henkin might have quite enjoyed chatting with him. But the third member of the party was a dwarf, reeking of ale and burdened with a monstrous axe, who thanks to his huge muscle-knotted arms took up far more room than might have been estimated from his stature. Worst of all, his crest of hair and multiple tattoos marked him out as a Slayer, self-condemned to seek out death in combat – a most discomforting fellow t
raveller!
If only I could pretend I don’t speak Reikspiel, he thought.
The inn’s bootboy, however, had put paid to any chance of that. While hoisting Henkin’s travelling bag to the roof of the coach, he had announced for the world to hear, ‘This here gentleman hails from Marienburg! I’ll wager he can report much news to help you pass away the miles!’
Presumably he hoped the flattery would earn him an extra tip. It failed. Scowling, Henkin handed him the least coin in his pocket and scrambled aboard.
Whereupon the ordeal commenced.
It wasn’t just that the road was hilly and potholed. He was expecting that. But somehow the dwarf – fortunately in a jovial mood – had taken it into his head that no one from the Wasteland had a proper sense of humour. Accordingly he launched into a string of what he thought of as hilarious jokes. They began as merely scatological; they degenerated to filthy; and at last became downright disgusting.
‘…and there he was, over ears in the privy! Haw-haw!’ Naturally, Henkin’s disinclination to laugh served, in his view, to prove his original point. So he tried again, and again, and yet again. Mercifully, at long last he ran out of new – one should rather, Henkin thought, say ancient – stories to tell, and with a contemptuous scowl leaned back and shut his eyes, though keeping a firm grip on the haft of his axe. Within moments he began to snore.
At which point his companion murmured. ‘I must apologise for my friend, mein herr. He has had – ah – a difficult life. Felix Jaeger, by the way, at your service.’
Reluctantly Henkin offered his own name.
‘Well, at least the weather is fine,’ the other went on after a pause. Glancing out of the window, he added, ‘We must be approaching Hohlenkreis, I suppose.’
Against his will Henkin corrected him. ‘No, we haven’t passed Schatzenheim yet.’
‘You know this part of the world?’ Felix countered, his eyebrows ascending as though to join his hair.
Henkin, in his turn, started at the landscape. The road, cut from the hillside like a ledge, was barely wide enough for the coach. Here it wound between sullen grey rocks and patches of grassy earth. Higher up the slope were birches, beeches and alders, last outposts of the army of trees that occupied the valley they were leaving. Towards the crest of the pass they would cede place to spruce and larch. That was a haunt of wolves…
‘There was a time,’ Henkin said at length, ‘when I knew this area better than my own home.’
‘Really? How so?’
Henkin shrugged. ‘I was sent to school near here. To be precise, at Schrammel Monastery.’
‘That name sounds familiar…’ Felix frowned with the effort of recollection, then brightened. ‘Ah, of course! Schrammel is where we’re due to put up for the night. So we shall enjoy your company at the inn also?’
Henkin shook his head. ‘No, by the time we arrive there should be an hour of daylight left. I’ll walk on to the monastery – it isn’t far – and invoke an ex-pupil’s traditional right to a meal and a bed. Yesterday, on impulse, I decided that being so close I shouldn’t miss the chance.’
‘Hmm! Your teachers must have left quite an impression!’
‘They did, they did indeed. Inasmuch as I’ve succeeded at all in life, I owe it to their influence. I don’t mind admitting it now, but I was an unruly youth.’ As he spoke, he thought how oddly the words must strike this stranger’s ears, for today he was portly, well dressed and altogether respectable – ‘to the point where our family priest feared there might be some spark of Chaos in my nature. It was his counsel that led to my being sent to a monastery run by followers of Solkan to continue my studies. At Schrammel I was rescued from danger that I didn’t realise I was in. I often wish I’d been able to complete my education there.’
‘You were withdrawn early?’ Felix inquired.
Henkin spread his hands. ‘My father died. I was called home to take over the family business. But – well, to be candid, I wasn’t cut out for it. Last year I decided to sell up, even though I didn’t get anything like a fair price.’ An embarrassed cough. ‘My wife had left me, you see… If only my teachers had had time to reform my character completely, cure me of my excessive capacity for boredom… At first I hated the place, I admit, because the regime was very strict. How I remember being roused in winter before dawn, having to break the ice in my washbowl before morning prayers! And the sound of a hundred empty bellies grumbling in the refectorium as they brought in the bread and milk – why, I can almost hear it now! As we boys used to say, it made nonsense of the monastery’s watchword – “A Place of Quiet Assembly”!’
He gave a chuckle, and Felix politely echoed it. ‘Of course, they had to be strict. Unvarying adherence to routine: that was their chief weapon against the threat of Chaos – that, and memorising. Memorising! Goodness yes! They stocked my head with lines I’ll carry to my dying day. “Let loose the forces of disorder – I’ll not quail! Against my steely heart Chaos will ne’er prevail!”’
‘Why!’ Felix exclaimed. ‘That’s from Tarradasch’s Barbenoire, isn’t it?’
Henkin smiled wryly. ‘Yes indeed. They made me learn the whole thing, word-perfect, as a warning against arrogance. I forget what I’d done, but I’m sure I deserved it… I’m impressed that you recognise it, though. I thought Tarradasch was out of fashion.’
‘Oh, I can claim nodding acquaintance with most of the great works of the past. To be candid, I have ambitions in that direction myself. Oddly enough, that’s partly why I’m travelling in such – ah – unlikely company.’
‘Really? Do explain!’
Felix obliged. After detailing the agreement whereby he was to immortalise his associate’s valiant deeds in a poem, he described a few of the said deeds – thereby causing Henkin to cringe nervously away from the slumbering dwarf – and eventually turned to a general discussion of literature. Thus the time passed pleasantly enough until with a grating of iron tyres on cobblestones the coach drew up outside Schrammel’s only inn, the Mead and Mazer.
‘I’d advise you,’ Felix murmured, ‘to get out first. Gotrek may resent being woken up… Will you return from the monastery to join us for the rest of the journey?’
‘That’s my intention, yes,’ he said with a grimace. ‘I shall be roused in plenty of time, I’m sure.’
‘I look forward to seeing you then. Enjoy your – ah – sentimental visit.’
Having arranged for his heavy luggage to be looked after at the inn, Henkin set off cheerfully enough with a satchel containing bare necessities. The weather at this hour was still clement, though ahead he could see wisps of drifting mist. He remembered how clammy it used to feel on his fair skin when he and other malefactors were sent on a punishment run. The prospect of being enshrouded in it dampened his spirits. Moreover the passage of time seemed to have made the path steeper than it used to be, and he often had to pause for breath.
Nonetheless, the sight of old landmarks encouraged him. Here, for example, was the gnarled stump of an oak which his school-friends had nicknamed the Hexengalgen – witches’ gallows. Its crown was gone, felled no doubt in a winter gale, but there was no mistaking its rugose bark, patched now with fungi that he recognised as edible. Seeing it reminded him how hungry he was, hungry enough to be looking forward even to the meagre victuals on which the pupils at the monastery survived: coarse bread, watery bone-broth and a few sad vegetables. But the teachers ate the same, and they’d seemed hale enough.
Of course, he was accustomed to finer fare these days. He hoped his digestion would cope…
The way was definitely steeper than he had allowed for. The distance from the oak-stump to the next landmark – a moss-covered rock known as Frozen Dwarf because it bore a faint resemblance to one of that quarrelsome and obnoxious race – seemed to have doubled. How different it had been when he was seventeen!
Nonetheless he plodded on, and the sun was still up when he breasted the final rise. Thence he could survey a peaceful view he once had
hated, yet now had power to bring tears to his eyes.
Yes, it was unchanged. There were the buildings he recalled so clearly, ringed with a forbidding grey stone wall. Some were veiled by gathering mist, but he could identify them all. There was the dormitorium, with its infirmary wing that fronted on neat square plots planted with medicinal herbs as well as vegetables for the pot. The kitchen where the latter were cooked was a separate building, separate even from the refectorium, for its smoke and, in summer, the hordes of flies it attracted to the scent of meat, made it a noisome neighbour. Over there was the schola, which as well as study-rooms contained the library… He wondered who now had charge of the great iron keys that used to swing from the cord of Frater Jurgen’s brown robe, keys that granted access to the locked section where only the best and most pious students were admitted, there to confront revolting but accurate accounts of what evil the forces of Chaos had accomplished in the world. Jurgen, of course, must be long dead; he had been already stooped and greying in Henkin’s day.
Then there were the byres, the stables, the sheds where wandering beggars were granted overnight shelter – and finally, drawing the eye as though by some trick of perspective every line of sight must climax with it, the temple, where worship was accorded to the God of Law and none other, the most dedicated and vindictive of Chaos’s opponents. Unbidden, lines from a familiar hymn rose to Henkin’s lips:
‘Help us to serve thee, God of Right and Law! Whene’er we pray to Thee for recompense, Avenge our wrongs, O–’
That’s odd! The name was on the tip of his tongue, yet he could not recall it. Surely it would come back if he recited the lines again? He did so, and there was still an infuriating blankness. Yet he’d known it when talking to Felix in the coach!
‘Oh, that’s absurd!’ he crossly told the air. ‘I must be getting senile before my time!’
Annoyed, he slung his satchel more comfortably and descended the path that led to the tall oak gate, surmounted by a little watchtower, which constituted the sole means of passage through the encircling wall. Darkness deepened around him at each step. On the hilltop the sun had not quite set, but before he reached the valley floor night had definitely fallen, and chilly shrouds of mist engulfed him even as he tugged the rusty bell-chain.