by Various
But as the chimera staggered into view again, Felix saw that he was wrong. The eagle head was stuffed into the snake’s distended jaw, and Gotrek was on the beast’s back, strangling the lion head with his chains.
The red sorcerer and the man in white and gold were on their feet, shouting down into the arena.
‘By the seven fathers of Mu’Allid!’ whispered Halim, gaping.
The chimera writhed and roared, trying to reach Gotrek with its claws and disentangle its other heads at the same time. The lion head was bleeding from the mouth, its bellows hoarse and constricted.
Gotrek heaved mightily on the chain and the lion head went limp. The chimera lost its footing and fell on one shoulder. The snake head finally freed the eagle head from its jaws and turned on Gotrek. The Slayer caught it in his bare hands as it lunged, and twisted it cruelly. The eagle head tried to reach him, but couldn’t get around the lion head.
There was a dull crack, and the snake head flopped to the ground. Gotrek leapt at the eagle head. It bit at his hand, crushing his manacle. Gotrek grabbed the powerful beak with his free hand and began pushing it open. Its paws clawed weakly at him, shredding his back and legs. He ignored them, forcing the beak further apart.
The man in white was screaming at the sorcerer, who cringed at his displeasure and began making cabalistic gestures in the air.
He was too late.
With a horrible ripping sound, the two halves of the eagle beak tore apart, splitting the flesh around it. The eagle head’s white feathers were drenched in blood and the chimera collapsed, dead. Gotrek fell beside it, utterly spent.
The arena was silent, the crowd still. Then suddenly they roared, a deafening, jubilant cheer. The caliph and the sorcerer looked around at them, furious and afraid.
Felix let out a long-held breath.
Halim’s jaw hung loose. ‘This… this is a sign,’ he said, then stepped back, suddenly calculating. ‘At least, it can be used as one. Proof that the caliph’s time has come. By the silver beard of Abdul ibn Ashid! That I have lived to see the day…’
White-uniformed guards crept toward Gotrek. He struggled up, lifting his fists. He was running with blood, his flesh criss-crossed with deep gashes. He could barely stand.
The guards spread out. They held something between them. Gotrek lurched toward them. Half of them ran forward, raising what they held – a weighted net. It settled over the Slayer. He grabbed at it, trying to tear it off, but they pulled the far edge under him, knocking him off his feet, and dragged him, kicking uselessly, toward the arena door.
Felix watched as, accompanied by a jailer, the guards hauled Gotrek down the long hall between the cages and rolled him out of the net into a cell.
Gotrek rose to his feet as they slammed the door, and stumbled to the bars. ‘Let me out!’ he spat, mouth bloody. ‘Give me my axe!’
The chief guard sneered and said something in his own language that sounded like an insult. He turned to the jailer and barked an order. The jailer bowed and ran off.
‘You are to be brought food and bandages,’ said Halim, as the guards strode away. ‘It seems the caliph wishes you to die in the arena, not in private.’
Gotrek slumped against the bars, his strength ebbing with his fury. He slid to the floor.
Halim bowed to him from his cell. ‘A magnificent battle, friend dwarf. By Kasoun’s fiery sword, if all dwarfs are like you, it seems incredible that they do not rule the world.’
Gotrek’s answer was a snore.
A short while later, a slave appeared, carrying food and bandages. He set them outside the cell and scurried away. Gotrek woke as Felix pulled it all through the bars.
‘Give me that,’ he rasped.
He dressed his wounds first, tearing the bandages with his teeth, for no blade had been provided, then ate the gruel and flat bread, muttering under his breath, without a glance for Felix or Halim.
‘Friend dwarf,’ said Halim, reverently. ‘Know it or not, you have shaken the caliph’s rule to its core today. The people have believed his hold on the throne unshakable. Now they know he can be beaten. Now is the time to strike! If only I could be free of this cell I could topple him like a rootless tree.’
The Slayer ignored him, chewing mechanically until all the food was gone, then he stood and stepped to the bars. ‘Come on, manling. I have to find my axe.’
‘Come? Come where?’ said Felix.
The Slayer grabbed two of the bars and began pulling at them.
‘Gotrek,’ said Felix, scowling. ‘Not even at your strongest…’
Gotrek continued pulling, keeping inexorable pressure on the bars. His face turned red. His arms trembled. ‘A dwarf knows iron,’ he hissed. ‘This is poor stuff.’
Felix gaped. The bars groaned. They were a half-inch further apart.
‘Poorly forged,’ grunted Gotrek. ‘Poorly set.’
Halim stood, staring. The bars were bowing, creaking and squealing. Gotrek shook like a palsy victim. The veins stood out on his neck. His muscles bulged. Sweat poured from his brow. Blood leaked into his bandages.
‘Spirits of sky, earth and water!’ breathed Halim.
Other prisoners were turning and looking. The slap of boots echoed down the corridor and the jailer appeared. He gasped then stepped to the bars, screaming and bashing at Gotrek’s knuckles with a long, iron-shod truncheon to make him let go.
Gotrek’s hand shot out and grabbed the jailer’s wrist. He pulled. The jailer’s face banged off the bars. His eyes crossed. Gotrek caught him around the neck with one massive hand and yanked forward. The jailer’s head popped through the bars like a melon seed. He screamed. He had left his ears behind. Blood poured from the sides of his head. Gotrek punched him in the temple and he slumped, unconscious.
Felix darted forward and took the jailer’s ring of keys. He stepped to the door and began trying them in the lock. In every cell, the other prisoners were stepping forward, watching with desperate eyes.
‘My friends,’ said Halim, licking his lips.
The fourth key unlocked the door. Felix threw it open.
Gotrek stomped out and took up the jailer’s truncheon, then started down the corridor. ‘Let’s go.’
As Felix followed, the prisoners called to them, begging to be released.
Halim reached through the bars of his cell. ‘Wait, friends! Wait!’
Gotrek ignored him.
‘Friends, I beg you, listen to me!’ called Halim. ‘I can help you!’
Gotrek kept walking.
‘I know a secret way out of this place.’
Gotrek shrugged. ‘I’ll make my own way out.’
‘I know where your weapons are! I can lead you to them.’
Gotrek paused, then turned back. ‘Where are they?’
Halim laughed. ‘You think me a fool, friend dwarf? I will tell you when you let me out.’
Gotrek shot a questioning glance at Felix.
Felix shrugged. ‘He said he was once an advisor to the caliph.’
Gotrek grunted. ‘Let him out.’
Felix turned back and unlocked Halim’s cell.
Halim bowed profusely as he stepped out of the cage. ‘Thank you, friends. May the blessings of your gods be upon you.’
‘Never mind that,’ growled Gotrek. ‘Where is my axe?’
Halim shook his head. ‘Oh no. We are not yet free.’
Gotrek looked like he was going to stuff the man back in his cell.
‘I will take you to your weapons,’ said Halim. ‘I promise you. But we must be away from this place first, and quickly.’
Gotrek glowered at him. ‘If this is a trick, I’ll turn you inside out.’
Halim chuckled. ‘Friend dwarf, I saw you dispatch the chimera. I have more sense than to cross you.’
Gotrek grunted, unimpressed, then motioned for him to lead on.
Halim bowed. ‘Bless you. Now come. There is a secret way to the outside.’ Halim motioned them further down the corridor, away from the
exit. ‘I know it from my father’s time as court sorcerer.’
As they followed, the other prisoners clamoured to be freed. Felix paused, then took the keys and tossed them to the man in the nearest cell. He didn’t know what good it would do them, but he wouldn’t deny them the attempt.
4
‘You tricked us!’ cried Felix.
‘Didn’t I tell you I’d–’ began Gotrek, standing.
‘You would do well not to do anything you will later regret,’ said Halim softly. ‘You will not retrieve your weapons without me.’
He looked entirely different, freshly bathed and with his beard neatly trimmed. The clean blue robes and snow-white headcloth helped too, giving him an air of quiet nobility. Only the gauntness of his cheeks betrayed his recent captivity.
It was after sunset on the same day that he had led Gotrek and Felix out of the caliph’s prison. They sat around a broad table in the cellar of a dye works. Jars of ochre and indigo and other powders were stacked against the walls, as were bolts of cloth, both dyed and undyed. The acrid scents of the dyes mixed oddly with that of the meagre meal spread before them – curried lamb, dates, cheese and fragrant tea.
A handful of men and women sat with them. A proud young beauty sat at Halim’s side, her hand on his. She was dressed entirely in black, from pantaloons to blouse to veil. Her hair was black as well – glossy waves that fell to her waist.
All of them were glaring at Gotrek and Felix.
‘You dare threaten Bey Saredi, infidel?’ growled a hard-eyed, hard-muscled man with the bearing of a professional soldier. His Reikspiel was abominable.
‘Peace, Ghal,’ said Halim. ‘The dwarf and the northerner have a right to feel ill-used.’ Halim turned to Gotrek. ‘Though I did not lie. I will bring you to your weapons, in time.’
‘But you didn’t tell us it would take usurping the caliph to do it!’ said Felix.
Gotrek’s knuckles cracked like pistol-shots. ‘I don’t care about some little squabble. You promised me my axe.’
‘Little squabble?’ said the woman at Halim’s side. Her voice was clear and sharp. ‘The fate of a nation is at stake!’
Halim put a hand on her arm to quiet her. ‘Friends, there is no other way. Your weapons are in the caliph’s palace, as I feared, locked inside his treasure vault. A thousand men guard the palace, as does Kaadiq, the sorcerer who laid you low once before. I know secret ways into the palace, true, but there is no way to the vault that is not guarded. It is not a job for two men, or three, or twenty. It is a job for an army.’
Gotrek glared death at him for a long minute, and Felix was certain that the cellar was about to erupt into bloody violence, but at last the Slayer sank back into his chair.
‘Carry on,’ he grunted. ‘But if I don’t have my axe at the end of this, your reign will be over before it begins.’
‘What did he say?’ asked Ghal, rising.
Halim waved him down, then gave the Slayer a cool look. ‘There is no need for more threats, friend dwarf. You can only kill me once.’ He turned to the others and began to speak in his own language.
Felix let out a nervous breath. The crisis seemed to have passed.
As they could not understand the discussion that followed, Gotrek and Felix had little to do but wait. Gotrek spent the time eating and drinking – mostly drinking – but Felix entertained himself observing the play of personalities around the table.
Halim was clearly admired by the others – worshipped by some – as was the woman. She had a regal bearing that spoke of noble birth, but seemingly none of the spoiled selfishness that often went with it.
Ghal was the most passionate of them, pounding the table to make his points. He and Halim argued and bantered like old friends, but every now and then, when someone else was speaking, Felix noticed the warrior’s gaze stray to the woman’s hand, where it rested upon Halim’s.
After more than an hour, the conversation wound down, and Halim turned back to Gotrek and Felix. ‘So,’ he said. ‘We have a plan. In three days, Caliph Falhedar and Kaadiq the sorcerer hear the reports of the tax collectors in the throne room of the palace.’ He looked around at his followers. ‘That day, riots will break out all over the city, drawing as many guards as possible from the palace. More rioters will attack the palace gates. When they do, I and a select few will enter the palace gardens through the seventh summer house.’ He smirked. ‘Wise ruler though he was, the old caliph had a weakness for women of easy virtue, and built a secret passage to that pavilion to smuggle them in.’ He nodded at Gotrek and Felix. ‘You will be with us. It will be your duty to kill Kaadiq and defeat his crimson guard. I will deal with Falhedar.’
‘What?’ snapped Ghal. ‘I was to kill Kaadiq! It was he who slew my brothers. I must–’
‘Do you wish revenge? Or success?’ asked Halim, his eyes burning into Ghal’s.
Ghal held his gaze for a long moment, then at last shrugged and looked away.
Halim turned to the young woman in black. ‘When the tyrant and his vulture are dead, my beloved betrothed, Yuleh il Toorissi, Princess of the Blood and niece of the old caliph, will ask me, before the spirits of air, land and water, and before the people of the city, to be her husband and rule with her at her right hand.’ He smiled. ‘And with their blessing, I will accept.’
‘Their blessing?’ Ghal laughed. ‘When you have the crown, and the army, and a princess of the blood? Will you truly step aside if the crowd says nay?’
‘I would not have attempted this venture if I did not think the people would support me,’ said Halim. ‘But if they do not…’ He shrugged, his expression grim. ‘Then at least I will have had the satisfaction of ridding my land of the greatest leeches it has ever known.’
He turned to Gotrek and Felix. ‘So, friends, will you do your part?’
Felix shrugged.
Gotrek was scowling. ‘If you kill the caliph and the sorcerer, you still have the palace guard beating down the doors. I suppose you want me to kill them for you too?’
Halim shook his head. ‘The loyalty of the guards is maintained by the Serpent Crown – an artefact of great power. It protects the wearer from poison and steel, and grants the ability to bend the wills of weak men. If Falhedar is killed, or the crown removed, his guards will lose heart.’
Felix frowned. ‘But if you put it on, couldn’t you command them to surrender entirely?’
Halim’s face drained of colour. ‘I will not wear that crown. It is a vile thing.’
‘But in times of trouble, maybe a necessary one,’ said Ghal.
‘No!’ barked Halim. His hands were clenched. ‘No. I will wear the Lion Crown. The true crown.’ He turned to Gotrek and Felix. ‘Ras Karim has two crowns. The first, the Lion Crown, was made by the founder of this city, Karim the Benevolent. It is only a crown. It has no magic. But it is a symbol of just rule, and he who wears it and honours its legacy is loved by the people.’ He shot a glance at Ghal. ‘The second crown, the Serpent Crown, was made for Falhedar by Kaadiq, after the first attempt on his life.’ He sneered. ‘I hear he wears it to bed.’
Princess Yuleh flashed a mischievous grin. ‘I hope you don’t do that, beloved. I would find it very uncomfortable.’
Halim chuckled and squeezed her hand.
Ghal grunted and looked away.
Gotrek and Felix exchanged a glance.
5
On the day of the attack, smoke rose from a dozen points in the city, and riots and demonstrations choked the streets with people. Company after company of palace guard was dispatched to put down the disturbances.
When Halim estimated that more than half of the garrison was chasing phantoms in the slums, he sent a ragtag army to the front gate, to pepper it with rocks and arrows and generally make a lot of noise.
Gotrek and Felix waited with him and Ghal and Yuleh and fifty armed men in an abandoned house with a secret door in its basement. Strangely, Halim was armed, not with a tulwar, but with an ugly wooden club with sharp
chunks of basalt set into the end. The princess wore mannish garb, her hair hidden under a headscarf.
At last, word came that most of the remaining palace troops were engaged at the front gate. Halim opened the secret door and they ran swiftly through a narrow, lightless passage that ended, after more than a hundred yards, in another underground room – a dungeon of sorts, though curiously, all the fetters and whips seemed to be made of silk and satin, rather than iron and leather.
Above this was an opulent pleasure pavilion, a miniature palace of rose marble and satin pillows, of silver tables and tasselled lamps. Through its windows Gotrek and Felix looked with the others across a garden awash with flowers and fountains and exotic trees to an enormous palace that gleamed in the sun like a gilded sapphire. Spires and minarets rose from its every corner, and gold-pillared arcades ringed its upper storeys. There were no guards to be seen, only sounds of battle echoing in the distance.
Halim and Yuleh led the rest at a trot through the endless grounds until they came to a more modest garden, hidden by hedges, where melons and pears and nut trees grew. A genuflecting servant let the interlopers in at the kitchen door and they filed silently through a maze of service corridors until they came to a narrow stair, at the head of which was a stout door.
Halim turned as his men crowded forward. ‘Through that door is the Court of Palms, and beyond it, the throne room. We must cross the court like the wind, for if the guards close the throne room doors before we reach them, we are done before we begin. Are we ready?’
Ghal grunted. The men muttered their assent. Felix drew the scimitar he had been given. It felt alien and unbalanced in his hand.
Gotrek smacked into his palm the iron-shod truncheon he had taken from the jailer. ‘Let’s get this over with,’ he growled.
Halim and Ghal crept up the stairs with the others behind them. Halim pressed his ear to the door, then shoved through it at a run.
The others burst through after him into a huge indoor jungle. Palm trees soared overhead under a faceted glass ceiling. Exotic flowers exploded from dark foliage, parrots and monkeys clutched drooping vines. Felix saw the far wall as if looking into a clearing. A towering archway revealed a golden-pillared room beyond.