Roaring with frustration, Gotrek gave up trying to close with passing ratmen and charged the back of the skaven line, cutting a hole through it with his axe. He only killed a few, for, as before, they jumped out of his way. The Slayer halted beside Felix, shaking his axe, his crest hanging limp from the pelting rain as he bellowed at their foes. “Craven ratkin! Give me a proper fight!”
But they did not. The skaven continued to shy away from them. Gotrek and Felix had almost no enemies facing them at their portion of the line.
The Reiksguarders and the high elves were not so fortunate. The swordsman beside Felix crumpled, impaled by a spear, and another lay face-down on the sand. One of the high elves was stepping back behind his comrades, his left leg a bloody ruin. Though the men and the elves seemed to be killing ten skaven for every one that fell on their side, there were so many of the beasts that it didn’t matter. The sheer mass of the vermin pressed the whole party back towards the dunes, step by inexorable step, and threatened to encircle it as well.
Behind the thin line of Reiksguard and elf warriors, Max wove trails of light in the air that expanded into a shimmering bubble of energy that encircled himself, Claudia and Aethenir. Within the circle, Aethenir motioned the wounded elf into the bubble and began making gestures in the air over his leg, while Claudia, looking terrified but determined, mouthed a spell and let loose a blast of lightning from her hands that caused the skaven front line to twitch and fall. So the girl had a use after all, thought Felix, uncharitably.
Just as he thought it, Claudia screamed. He looked back again. Gotrek did too. Bursting from the sawgrass at the base of the dune to their rear were black shadows, throwing metal stars and glass globes. Men and elves alike cried out as the stars bit into their limbs and torsos.
An elf warrior instinctively knocked a globe out of the air with his sword and it shattered. He and another elf went down as if shot, as green mist blossomed from the glass ball and enveloped them. The skaven hacked them savagely as they fell. Captain Rion and the other elves dodged back and covered their noses and mouths. The mist drifted into the skaven ranks and half a dozen collapsed. Two of the globes landed with a soft thud on the wet sand at Felix’s feet. He picked them up in one hand and hurled them towards the sea. They left a faint familiar odour on his fingers.
Gotrek snarled and ran at the star-hurling shadows.
“Protect the wizards,” cried Felix to the swordsmen, then raced after the Slayer.
But just as they were about to close with the murky shapes, a deep bellow rose above the noise of the rain. Gotrek stopped in his tracks and looked around. A massive black-furred, rat-headed creature, nearly twice Felix’s height and thick with mutated muscle, was bounding down the dune towards Max, Aethenir and Claudia. Max spun and shot a blast of light at it. The creature howled but did not slow. Claudia sent a bolt of lightning at it. It hardly seemed to notice.
The wounded high elf pushed away from Aethenir’s ministrations and limped to intercept it, his teeth clenched but his sword at the ready. Captain Rion and the other elf warriors looked back, but they were engaged with the skaven front line and could not break away.
Gotrek sprinted to get between the wounded elf and the rat ogre, his one eye blazing. “Mine, you chalk-faced thief!” he roared. “Leave off!”
Felix ran behind the Slayer, but suddenly, with a jerk at his chest, he wasn’t running any more. He was flat on his back.
He looked down at himself. There was a noose of thin grey cord wrapped around his chest. His heart thudded with sudden recognition, even as he picked himself up and turned to look where the noose led. The attack in Altdorf! It had been the skaven! And the attack in Marienburg as well! The globes smelled the same as the gas that had knocked out everyone at the Three Bells! But why did the skaven want to capture them?
“Loose me, you damned rope twirlers!” bawled Gotrek beside him.
Felix chopped through the line with his sword and turned to see that the Slayer was similarly infested with nooses. One was around his neck, another looped around his left wrist and another around his right ankle. They did not stop him by any means, but they did slow him, and the wounded elf reached the rat ogre first, his shining blade parrying the monster’s massive claws with a deafening clang.
Enraged, Gotrek gathered up all the ropes that held him in one hand and pulled savagely. Black-clad skaven stumbled out of the shadows at the end of the ropes. Gotrek roared and charged them—then vanished into a pit that opened up in the sand below his feet.
Felix stared. One moment, the Slayer had been running full tilt, axe raised, the next moment he was gone, to be replaced by a dark hole in the ground with wet sand trickling down into it.
“Gotrek!” Felix ran to the edge of the hole and nearly fell in himself as the edge crumbled and fell down on the Slayer below. Gotrek clawed at the sides of the pit, half-buried in wet sand, as he tried to climb out, but the sand broke apart under his fingers and he sank back.
“Hang on, Gotrek!” cried Felix. “I’ll get you out!”
Just then a chittering from beyond the hole brought his head up. The black-clad skaven were running at him, holding what looked like a big leather bag. Felix grabbed the rope that was wrapped around Gotrek’s wrist and hauled on it one-handed while lashing out at the skaven with his blade, but the Slayer was too heavy and the sand too loose. The skaven danced back out of reach, then darted in at his back and cut the cord.
He fell back as the cord snapped, then rolled to his feet, on guard, panic rising in his chest. There was no pulling Gotrek out. Not with the skaven ambushers trying to stuff him in a sack. And with the Slayer out of the fight the vermin might win, and he and Felix would be taken prisoner. He shivered at the thought. That was an unthinkable outcome. He had to get Gotrek out, but how?
Then he saw the way. Unfortunately, it meant putting himself in the path of a marauding monster. Felix hacked around at the assassins, fanning them back, then raced through the rain towards the wounded elf and the rat ogre. The skaven scampered after him. To one side, the remaining Reiksguard and elf warriors had surrounded Max, Claudia and Aethenir, and were fighting desperately to keep the skaven horde from breaking through their circle.
Felix ran past them and hacked the massive rat beast in the side as it swung again at the elf. It roared and turned to him, and the elf staggered back in relief. He was in bad shape, barely able to move on his maimed leg, and three fingers of his left hand were missing.
“Fall back!” Felix shouted, taking a step back and slashing at the assassins behind him. “Let me lead it away!”
The high elf nodded and stumbled aside as Felix waved his sword in the brute’s face. It bellowed and lumbered forwards, swiping at him with its massive claws. Felix ducked, then turned and ran, hacking down two of the bag-wielding skaven who were creeping up behind him, and looking back to be sure the thing was following. It was—too fast! Felix sprang ahead as the monster’s fists pounded the sand just inches from his heels, almost jarring him off his feet. The assassins scampered out of its path.
As he reached the hole, Felix bent down and scooped up another of Gotrek’s noose ropes, then dived forwards as the rat ogre’s claws whooshed over his head. He rolled to his feet and faced the towering rat ogre. It raised its arms and charged. Felix dodged aside, holding the rope and swiping at the ambushers, who were scurrying around the outskirts of the fight, still trying to put him in the bag. The beast stumbled into the rope. Felix quickly ran behind it, wrapping the cord around its legs, then got in front of it again, jerking the cord tight.
“Come on, you overgrown sewer rat!” he shouted, waving his sword. “Come and die!”
The monster obliged, striding forwards with a savage bellow as Felix dodged back. The rope around the rat ogre’s waist pulled taut behind him, and with an explosion of sand, Gotrek was dragged from the hole—by the neck!
Felix gaped, and nearly had his head taken off. He’d grabbed the wrong rope! Sigmar, had he strangled the Sla
yer?
Felix ducked to the side, forcing the rat ogre to stop and change direction. Its tail of rope went slack, and to Felix’s great relief, he saw Gotrek stagger to his feet, cursing and clawing at the noose that had cinched his beard to his neck.
The giant beast swung its claws again. Felix dodged back, then darted in under its massive arm and stabbed it between the ribs. The point sank deep. The thing roared and twisted, wrenching the sword from Felix’s hands and clubbing him to the sand with a flailing elbow.
It raised its fists over its head to deliver the death blow. Felix crabbed feebly backwards, weaponless and stunned, knowing he was dead. But suddenly the rat ogre was toppling sideways as its right leg fell away from its body in a shower of blood. It crashed down onto its back, thrashing and screaming. Gotrek stood behind it, his axe dripping gore. He raised his axe high, then chopped down through the beast’s bony skull with a sickening crunch. The muscle-bloated body went slack and Felix breathed a sigh of relief.
Gotrek levered his axe out of the rat ogre’s skull and ran at the skaven assassins, who were creeping in again. “You’ve got a funny sense of humour, manling.”
“I grabbed the wrong rope!” said Felix, staggering up and joining. “I didn’t mean it.”
It seemed, however, that the assassins had had enough. They scattered before Gotrek and Felix like cockroaches, whistling shrilly as they ran.
The whistle appeared to be a signal, for the mob of skaven that were still pressing the Reiksguard swordsmen and Aethenir’s retinue broke away from the battle and raced back towards the shore. The men and elves chased them, but the ratmen dived into the waves and swam strongly out to sea, their long snouts making streaming bow waves in the black water.
Felix stared after them as he and Gotrek strode down to the surf. “Where are they going?” he asked. “Do they have a ship?”
Gotrek shrugged. There was no ship to be seen except the Pride of Skintstaad, now burnt to the waterline and sinking fast. “I hope they drown.”
Felix said a silent prayer for Captain Breda and his crew as he took a final look at the dying ship and turned back and surveyed the aftermath of the battle. Skaven bodies littered the beach, misshapen lumps of fur surrounded by clotted red sand. There were too many men and elves lying among the horrors, however. Two of the high elves were dead, gutted while knocked out by the skaven’s sleep gas. Four of the Reikland swordsmen were dead as well, impaled by skaven spears, and a fifth was dying, a river of blood pouring from a deep gash on his inner thigh. Captain Oberhoff and two others were all that were left, and even they bled from numerous wounds. They knelt by the dying man, holding his hands and speaking comforting words to him as his face drained white and his head began to nod. Captain Rion prayed over the two elves that had fallen.
Max, Claudia and Aethenir were untouched. Their guards had done their job, and had paid for it. Aethenir cast spells of healing on the wounded elves, and Max waited for the Reiksguarders to finish saying goodbye to their companion so that he could do the same to them.
Claudia knelt on the wet sand, soaked to the bone, staring around at all the carnage, blank with shock. Felix almost asked her how she was enjoying her freedom, but decided that was too cruel and held his tongue.
Max eyed Gotrek and Felix as they neared. “They were after you,” he said, bitterly. “I should have remembered that you two always bring trouble with you.”
Felix shook his head. “I don’t understand it. What do they want with us? We’ve fought them before, but that was twenty years ago. These can’t possibly be the same ones, can they?”
Max shrugged. “Nonetheless, they want you, and they want you alive. You were the only ones they didn’t try to kill. I only hope they don’t come for you again until we have parted company.”
Felix nodded, fighting down a wave of guilt. Max was right. The skaven attacks had hurt everyone but their intended targets. He was about to tell Max about the attacks in Altdorf and Marienburg, when a glint of red and blue on the chest of one of the skaven assassins caught Felix’s attention. It seemed out of place amidst the rest of the ratman’s filthy possessions.
He stepped closer and toed aside the vermin’s ragged black garment. Threaded onto a dirty string around its neck was a collection of odd trinkets—bones, coins, a human ear, bits of amber and tin, and, in the middle of this trash, a gaudy gold ring, set with sapphires surrounding the letter “J” picked out in rubies.
Felix blinked at it for several seconds, uncomprehending. He recognised it, but it was so out of place in its current surroundings that for a moment he couldn’t place it. Then he knew it, and his heart turned to a fist of ice.
It was his father’s ring.
EIGHT
“We must go back to Altdorf!” Felix cried, ripping the ring from the slimy cord around the skaven’s neck. “Immediately!”
The others turned towards him, curious.
Felix held up the ring. “This vile creature has my father’s ring! It must have… It must have…” Felix found that he could not bring himself to voice what he feared the skaven must have done. “I don’t know what it has done. But I must return to Altdorf at once to find out!”
Gotrek’s eyes narrowed as he looked at the ring.
Max stepped forwards, concerned. “Felix, this is terrible. Are you certain it is your father’s ring?”
“Of course I’m certain,” snapped Felix, holding it out. “Look at it. It has the Jaeger J. The last I saw it, it was on his hand. The skaven have been in his house! I must go back as soon as possible!”
“No!” cried Claudia from behind them. “You will not!”
They turned. She was struggling to her feet, encumbered by her wet robes.
Felix glared at her. “Are you ordering me?” he asked, hotly.
“No,” she said again, staring sightlessly past him towards the sea, her eyes rolled up in her head. “We will not leave.” She thrust out a trembling finger, pointing past the drifting column of black smoke that was all that was left now of the Pride of Skintstaad. “We will go there! That is where the evil lies!”
Felix cursed under his breath. Damn the woman and her inconvenient visions. He was really beginning to think she did it on purpose.
The others looked out over the water in the direction she pointed. Felix reluctantly joined them, hoping against hope that there would be nothing there. Unfortunately, there was.
About a mile out, a distance they had not been able to see when the rain was at its heaviest, there was a break in the thick clouds that blanketed the sky from horizon to horizon, and the ragged edges of the hole were slowly circling like porridge being stirred by a spoon. A shaft of bleak sunshine streamed straight down through the hole. Felix shivered at the unnatural sight. It was hard to tell through all the mist and rain, but it looked like the water below the opening was swirling in exactly the same way that the clouds were.
“No, curse it! I refuse!” he said, the blood pounding strongly in his temples. “Ancient evils from the dawn of time can wait for once! My father might be… might be harmed, and I intend to return to his side at once!”
“We haven’t got a ship, manling,” said Gotrek.
“I don’t care! I’ll walk!”
“Certainly we will walk, Felix,” said Max, in the sort of patient voice one would use to speak to a pouty child.
“We have no choice now. But as we’re here, we should do what we came to do. One day out of twenty won’t make a difference.”
“It could make all the difference in the world!” shouted Felix, glaring around at them all. Didn’t they understand? His father could be dying. The skaven might have done anything to him.
Gotrek knelt and cleaned the blood from his axe with a handful of sand. “The rats have already done what they have done, manling,” he said without looking up. “No matter how fast we return, we can’t turn back time.”
Felix bit back an angry reply, trying to find some fault in the Slayer’s cold logic, but at last
, with a final kick at the dead skaven, he let out a breath. “All right, fine. Let’s go have a look at where the evil lies, but then I’m going back to Altdorf, with you or without you.”
“Thank you, Felix,” said Max.
The others turned away and began preparing to row out to the cloudbreak. Felix stepped to the dead rat ogre and began wrenching his sword out from between its ribs.
“Manling,” said Gotrek.
Felix looked around to find the Slayer fixing him with his one hard eye.
“Yes?”
“Revenge is patient,” Gotrek said, then sheathed his axe and turned away.
Half an hour later, after Max and Aethenir had seen to the survivors’ wounds as well as they could, and after the bodies of the slain had been buried in the sand and the grave marked so that they could be retrieved later, the remains of the landing party set out towards the swirling clouds in a single boat. Gotrek, Felix, Captain Rion, his three unwounded elves and the two remaining Reiksguard swordsmen manned the oars while Aethenir, Max, the wounded elf and Reiksguard Captain Oberhoff sat in the back and Claudia stood at the front, staring ahead into the wind and rain like a living figurehead. Felix once again fought the urge to push her in.
Several times during the journey he got the distinct feeling that they were being watched, but when he looked back, he could see no one on the shore, and no skaven snouts bobbing in the water, so he decided it was his imagination, though it was still a mystery where the swimming ratmen had gone.
The closer they got to the opening in the swirling clouds, the more the rain let up until, about half a mile from it, they reached the eye of the bizarre storm and all became bright and clear, with the autumn sun slanting down through the ragged aperture and shining on the dark blue water—and something else.
[Gotrek & Felix 10] - Elfslayer Page 11