Berthold's Beard

by Joshua Reynolds

  BERTHOLD’S BEARD

  Josh Reynolds

  No birds sang.

  Felix Jaeger paused, one hand on the hilt of his sword, his eyes flicking from the ruined doorpost to the shattered wall to the gaping ceiling. The ancient house had more holes than Averland cheese and it stank of age and beasts. The foundations might be stone, but the rest of the manse was rotting. Walls slumped against one another and the roof sagged down with alarming inexorability. Rotten support timbers stabbed down into the floor like the fangs of some long-dead leviathan. A pelt of hairy mould covered everything, and as he stepped through the hole in the wall the floorboards beneath his feet creaked and dipped alarmingly and Felix imagined for a brief, sickening moment that he was stepping onto the back of some vast, breathing thing.

  ‘Gotrek,’ he hissed; then, louder, ‘Gotrek!’

  There was no reply save the sound of the house shifting on its foundations, settling. Swollen wood squealed. Felix stopped and glanced over his shoulder. It had felt as if there had been something on their trail since they’d entered the wild hills north of Wolfenburg. The Middle Mountains were rife with beastmen and had been for centuries, as the degenerate descendants of the rampaging hordes of Gorthor the Beastlord bred in the dark glens and bowers.

  ‘Aldrich,’ Felix tried. Aldrich Berthold was the sole heir to the substantial mercantile empire of the Wolfenburg Bertholds, a family that had, of late, gone through an inordinately unusual number of suicides, accidental self-immolations and at least one incident involving cuttlefish. Aldrich was also the nominal owner of the ruin Felix found himself in.

  Star Hall, as it had once been known, had been abandoned centuries earlier, during the invasion of the aforementioned Beastlord. The Bertholds had left behind their former lives as country gentry for the urban comforts of Wolfenburg and had flourished ever since. At least if you listened to the gossips and wags. But though it had been abandoned, Star Hall remained and its secrets with it.

  Felix cursed under his breath. ‘Gotrek,’ he cried out. ‘Where are you?’ It had taken them several days to reach the hall; its location was a well-guarded secret among the Berthold clan, and for good reason, to hear Aldrich tell it. But evidently not that well-guarded, for Gotrek’s keen senses had caught a whiff of a cooking fire before either Felix or Aldrich had seen the thin query mark of smoke rising above the ruin and into the deepening dusk as they crossed the bluff above.

  Gotrek had insisted on circling around. Aldrich had vanished not long after. Felix found himself in the unenviable position of being utterly alone.

  Wood creaked beneath a sudden weight.

  Instincts first shaped by the finest fencing master in Altdorf and honed in hundreds of melees since brought his sword up to almost gently tap aside the falchion’s grimy edge as it dropped towards his head. His perception of the world around him had slowed to a crawl in those first few moments of surprise, but now as the blades touched and rang, motion, thought and time once more lurched forwards at their proper speed. Felix did not stop with the parry. Instead, he loosened his red Sudenland travel cloak from about his throat and spun, stealing his opponent’s momentum and tangling the snorting, gibbering beastman that had leapt at him in the cloak’s folds.

  The creature, more goat than man and more man than dog, staggered to its knees. The edges of the cloak flared, revealing its broad, hairy back. Felix rammed Karaghul between its shoulder blades and sawed upwards with professional brutality, cutting short a bleat of agony. He rode the creature to the ground, forcing his weight down on the hilt of the sword. Beastmen took altogether too much killing for Felix’s liking. As he wrenched the sword free, he heard Gotrek’s joyful roar and noted that for some, however, it was just the right amount.

  A sense of relief flooded through him as another beastman crashed through one of the rotten interior walls and landed in a heap of blood and wood splinters. Another staggered backwards through the hole, its boar-like maw opened in a squeal of desperation. A moment later, a short, impossibly broad shape followed with a bloodthirsty roar.

  Gotrek Gurnisson buried his rune-scrawled axe into the swine-thing’s prodigious belly and lifted it off its disturbingly childlike feet with the force of the blow. Bone cracked and flesh ruptured as the wailing thing folded over the blade and slid off in two squirming pieces. ‘Ha!’ Gotrek snarled, his one good eye glinting with battle-lust as he spun. ‘Come on, scum, come to Gotrek!’

  The beastmen obliged, tumbling towards the Slayer like a pack of slavering hounds through the hole in the wall. For a moment, the squat form of the dwarf was utterly obscured, save for his tall crimson crest of hair which bobbed above the hairy shapes engulfing him. Then a beastman, its bovine head hanging at an odd angle and its bottom jaw nearly sheared off, flew from the scrum to crash against a fallen support beam. There was a sympathetic groan from the manse, and Felix feared that the decrepit structure would collapse in on them. Then he was too busy fending off a bird-headed monstrosity to do anything other than fight. The creature was as quick as the crow it resembled, and it croaked vaguely intelligible curses as it chopped at him with the ill-cared-for woodsman’s axe in its talons.

  Its berserk assault forced Felix back against one of the fallen beams. It was all he could do to avoid or parry the flashing axe as it bit at his face and limbs. Then the bird-man gave a startled squawk and staggered around, a gaping wound in its back. Felix grimaced as blood and feathers splattered him and then Gotrek was kicking the dead thing aside. ‘Having trouble, manling?’ the Slayer grunted dismissively. His broad frame was striped with so much blood that his tattoos were almost obscured and the massive, ham-sized paw that clutched his rune-axe was drenched to the shoulder joint.

  ‘When do we not, Gotrek?’ Felix shot back as he wiped strangely hairy feathers out of his eyes. What sort of beast grew hair and feathers? The strands seemed to curl around his fingers as he brushed them hurriedly away. Gotrek grunted again, with what Felix thought might be humour. It was hard to tell with a being as taciturn as Gotrek.

  There were a half a dozen of the beasts left, though they didn’t appear confident that their numbers would provide any sort of advantage. Having seen Gotrek in action far more times than he cared to admit, Felix could understand the brutes’ hesitation. Gotrek raised his axe threateningly and started forwards. Watching a dwarf run was akin to watching an avalanche slide sideways, and the Slayer’s impossibly smooth yet lumbering charge was no exception. There was a sense of violent inevitability to it that always impressed Felix.

  It seemed to have the opposite effect on the beastmen; with a chorus of howls, barks, grunts and cat-screams, they rushed to meet Gotrek. Felix bit back a curse and followed the Slayer. It wasn’t as if Gotrek needed the help, but he was honour-bound to aid the Slayer as best he could. And if that meant keeping him from dying an ignoble death because he was too unobservant to guard his back, then so be it. Gotrek deserved a better death than these beasts could give him.

  A beastman slashed wildly at him with a club topped by the fanged jawbone of a wolf. Felix skidded aside and caught sight of Gotrek driving his head into a cloven-footed nightmare’s belly even as his axe took off another’s leg at the knee joint. The club came at him again and he twisted aside, the yellowed teeth of the jawbone biting only empty air. The club’s wielder was as hairy as the others, its goatish features nearly obscured by a mop of tangled, matted hair. It screamed and came at him again. Felix drove Karaghul into its chest. He grunted as the blade bit into bone and he was forced to plant a foot on the creature’s chest to try and retrieve his sword.

  Even as he did so, however, he heard the scrape of hooves. He turned, trying to jerk his sword free as something both feline and equine shrilled out a triumphant cry and leap
t from its perch on one of the fallen support beams. A pistol cracked, and the creature dropped in mid-leap, crashing through the floor and into the darkness below. Felix gaped, and then looked around, spotting Aldrich Berthold crouching near the gap in the exterior wall. Aldrich pointed with his smoking pistol. ‘Look out, Jaeger!’

  Felix jerked Karaghul free just in time. The axe that had been aimed at his head slid off the blade in a shower of rust flakes and sparks. The simian-faced mutant grunted as Felix kicked its kneecap out of place and he split its skull as it fell. Felix turned as Gotrek brought the last beastman down.

  The Slayer had his hands wrapped around its neck, his axe being embedded in the skull of another. As Felix approached, Gotrek efficiently crushed the thrashing creature’s throat. The Slayer let it fall to the floor and wiped his hands on his trousers. ‘Filthy beasts,’ he grunted, spitting on the body.

  ‘My thanks, Aldrich,’ Felix said as he cleaned his sword. ‘That was a timely intervention.’

  ‘I’m paying a lot for your services, Jaeger,’ Aldrich said. ‘I’d hate to see that money go to waste.’

  Gotrek’s eye blazed at the mention of money. Even the merest whiff of it did odd things to dwarfs, and it was one of the few things that could stir Gotrek other than the promise of a glorious death. Aldrich had promised them Gotrek’s weight in gold to escort him to Star Hall. The journey was normally to be undertaken alone, but the rash of accidents among his kin had made Aldrich wary, and as the last surviving Berthold he felt comfortable breaking with tradition. Felix couldn’t fault him for that.

  ‘Did you find the fire?’ Felix said. ‘Was it the beasts?’

  Gotrek grunted in assent. ‘Back there,’ he said, hiking his thumb over his shoulder. He looked down into the hole in the floor through which the beast that Aldrich had shot had plunged. ‘Smells foul down there,’ he added.

  ‘Who knows how long those creatures have been squatting here,’ Felix said, sheathing his sword. He looked at Aldrich. ‘I’m surprised no one ever mentioned it to you.’

  ‘There’s a lot I don’t know,’ Aldrich said, holstering his pistol. ‘I didn’t even know I was related to the family, despite the name, until last week.’ He looked around. ‘I certainly wasn’t expecting to have to come here.’

  ‘Why are we here anyway?’ Felix said. ‘You weren’t very clear about that in Wolfenburg.’

  Aldrich frowned. ‘I’m looking for something,’ he said after a moment.

  ‘What?’

  ‘A beard,’ Aldrich said.

  Felix blinked. ‘What?’

  Aldrich made a face. ‘Well, more a lock from a beard.’

  ‘Maybe you’d best explain, manling,’ Gotrek rumbled, cleaning his axe on the mane of one of the dead beastmen.

  ‘The Bertholds are – were – a large family,’ Aldrich said. ‘And their fortune is even larger. Star Hall was built with that fortune, by Bollin Berthold, the first Berthold.’ Aldrich looked around. The shadows cast by the setting sun were deepening and creeping across the floor. ‘He was entombed here, in the vaults below, before the Beastlord put Ostland to the torch. When the family left, they left him here. It’s become a... tradition of sorts, for those coming into their inheritance to come to Star Hall and pluck a hair from the beard of the first Berthold in order to prove their blood to the family’s legal representatives, the firm of Flywheel, Shyster and Flywheel.’ Aldrich made a face. ‘They’ve been seeing to the family’s interests since the time of the Three Emperors.’

  ‘Odd sort of tradition,’ Felix said. He glanced around. There was a sound he couldn’t place. A faint scurrying or slithering that he dismissed a moment later as the sound of branches in the evening breeze.

  ‘No odder than anything else you manlings come up with,’ Gotrek said. ‘This place still smells of beasts.’

  ‘We should start a fire. It’s getting dark,’ Aldrich said, looking uncomfortable.

  ‘I would have thought you’d have wanted to claim your prize,’ Felix said.

  Aldrich shook his head. ‘If there are beasts about, I’d rather wait until daylight, if it’s all the same to you, Jaeger.’ He grinned. ‘What’s one more night after all?’

  ‘May as well use the beasts’ fire pit,’ Gotrek said. He led them through the hole in the interior wall and into the room beyond. It had been a parlour once, Felix judged. Architectural styles didn’t change much in the Empire, much less Ostland. It was in as bad a shape as the rest of the house and there were holes in the floor and the walls that put Felix in mind of rat-holes. There was a stone fire pit in the centre of the room, and charred kindling still smoked within it. Felix sniffed.

  ‘I was expecting it to smell like a sty,’ he said.

  ‘Maybe the beasts haven’t been here as long as we thought,’ Aldrich said.

  ‘Someone was,’ Gotrek said, tapping his axe on the edge of the fire pit. ‘Those beasts didn’t start this fire.’

  Felix was about to reply, when he again heard the soft scurrying sound. Rats in the walls, perhaps? Or something else... Felix watched the hairy patches of mould clinging to the walls undulate in the breeze and he repressed a shudder.

  ‘Of course the beasts set the fire,’ Aldrich said. ‘Who else could have?’

  Felix caught sight of something out of place in the debris of the room. He strode over and drew Karaghul, using the blade to lift the object in question. ‘Perhaps whoever owned this?’ he said, showing his companions the boot.

  ‘It’s a boot,’ Aldrich said.

  ‘It’s got blood on it,’ Felix said.

  ‘Bah, the beasts probably killed some traveller,’ Gotrek said. ‘Not everyone is as lucky with a blade as you, manling.’

  Felix ignored the backhanded compliment. ‘But first forced him to light a fire?’

  ‘I’ve heard stranger things, manling,’ Gotrek said with a shrug. ‘It doesn’t matter. Whoever set the fire is gone and the beasts are dead. And if there are more, well, we’ll soon fix that.’ He ran his thumb along the edge of his axe for emphasis.

  As the fire curled to life, the sky, just visible through the gaps in the roof, turned dark. Felix watched the smoke rise through the gaps. Gotrek sat staring into the fire, his attentions turned inwards, as ever. Sometimes Felix wondered what it was the Slayer saw in his mind’s eye on such occasions. But only sometimes – for the most part, he was glad that such things were hidden from him.

  Aldrich, on the other hand, only seemed to get more nervous as the night went on. From the way he had coolly potted that beastman earlier, Felix had assumed that the man wasn’t easily rattled. But then, Felix couldn’t fault him for being a bit out of sorts. The fire cast weirdly dancing shadows on the walls and the sounds didn’t help. Every creak and sigh set Felix’s hackles to bristling. And there was something else... A steady sound, distant but unceasing, like the beat of a drum.

  Finally, he said, ‘Gotrek, do you hear that?’

  Aldrich started at the sound of his voice, nearly dropping the piece of jerky he was chewing on. Dried meat and cheese were all they had brought in the way of supplies. Felix had assumed that they could catch a rabbit or a bird, but the signs of wildlife had dwindled the closer they’d come to Star Hall, though he blamed that on the beasts. But it was strange how even the grass and trees seemed to shy away from this place.

  ‘Hear what, manling?’ Gotrek said, shaking himself from his reverie and turning.

  ‘That,’ Felix said, gesturing. ‘That sound, whatever it is... Do you hear it?’

  ‘It’s water,’ Gotrek said dismissively. ‘Water beating on stone; these mountains are the worse for water, with weak roots and too much limestone.’ Gotrek knocked his knuckles on the stone of the fire pit. ‘Soft stones these. That is why you men could shape them as you did. No need for skill.’

  The echo of Gotrek’s knuckles was loud in the silence. It bounced from pillar to post, growing louder and quieter in turn. Felix felt a chill that had nothing to do with the night. ‘Why did
they call this place Star Hall anyway?’ he said, more to fill the oppressive silence than from any real curiosity.

  ‘The usual reasons, I’m told,’ Aldrich said absently. ‘A star fell here. Its landing created the clearing the house occupies.’

  Gotrek was suddenly on his feet, and there was a look on his face that Felix didn’t like. He sniffed, suddenly alert to the stench he’d smelt all night. He’d put it down to the stink of the dead beasts, but he wondered if that were the case. There was a persistent dampness to the smell, like wet hair, he thought.

  The sound was back as well, and louder. Not just the dull thudding but the scurrying. Felix’s suddenly sweaty palm dropped to Karaghul’s hilt. Aldrich hadn’t moved, but it was clear that he heard it as well.

  In the shadows, shapes moved. Gotrek gave a triumphant bark and leapt on one, his big hands snapping out to grab a flapping limb. With a roar, he tossed the figure into the light. ‘Ha! Caught you,’ he shouted. Felix leapt to his feet, his sword in hand. ‘Watch him, manling, I’ll take care of the others,’ Gotrek said, grinning wildly.

  ‘Gotrek–’ Felix began, looking in horror at Gotrek’s captive. Gotrek snatched up his axe and bounded into the shadows, ignoring him. Felix looked back at the body that Gotrek had dumped at his feet. The man was dead, and had been for several days, by the look of the wounds that had done for him. But that was not what caused Felix’s gut to turn icy with fear.

  Something long and black and glossy stretched from the body into the darkness and as Felix watched, the serpentine shape twitched, causing the body to jerk and sway upright. Then, with nary a sound, it was dragged back into the darkness. Gotrek roared out inarticulately, and Felix saw him striking out at bobbing, weaving shapes that moved less like living things than puppets on strings. But what was pulling those strings?

  ‘Aldrich, did you see–’ Felix turned and looked down the barrel of Aldrich’s pistol.

  ‘I have seen far more than I liked, Jaeger,’ Aldrich rasped, his eyes wide and his face twitching with strain. ‘Now be a good hired sword and get out there with your friend.’