Gotrek and Felix - City of the Damned

by David Guymer

  Pinning the Slayer under one great paw, the Beast drew back the other for a finishing blow. Gotrek had the strength of a pack of oxen. Felix had seen him fight hand-to-hand with a giant, but even he could not wrest himself from the grip of the Beast. Like a rock from the sky, the fist plummeted down. Gotrek threw everything into one last shove, shifting the pinning arm just enough to throw his shoulders from the path of the blow. The flagstones shattered, the Beast’s arm disappearing past the wrist. Arm buried in the ground, the monster roared in Gotrek’s face. Gotrek spat in its open mouth, making it choke in surprise.

  With a stony oath of his own, Gotrek crooked his left arm around the Beast’s buried paw, locked its wrist into his elbow, and then hewed his axe one-handed into its triceps. The Beast howled in pain and tried to pull away, but Gotrek gripped it tight, its struggles only causing the starmetal blade to sink deeper into the muscle. The treacly dribble of blood caused both their arms to darken.

  ‘Not so tough without a wall between us,’ Gotrek growled, wiggling his axe, causing blood to spurt across his face.

  The Beast grunted, thrashing against Gotrek’s hold, dragging the Slayer’s back across the flagstones but failing to break his grip. Gotrek winced as the Beast lifted him and smashed him back into the ground. The mutated creature pressed down, as if to crush the life from him. The stones beneath him cracked, their make as nothing to dwarfen bones. A grin of animal cunning pulled back its rotten lips and, with a bellow of raw power, it slammed its free hand into the ground and threw itself upright. Rubble raining from his clothes, Gotrek came up with it. He swung from its wrist.

  Panting heavily with laughter, the Beast spread its claws to strike.

  Felix swore and redoubled his efforts to sever Nikolaus’s bonds. Across the quay, skaven fell upon the mindless that their master’s charge had felled. They clubbed them into submission, bound them with a practiced efficiency and, Felix could not fail to notice, slit a few throats now their master was not watching. And more than a few of those glittering, versicoloured stares were now turning towards him. One advanced with short sword and club. Another came bearing a cord in its wake.

  ‘Perfect,’ Felix muttered, sawing for all he was worth before abandoning the job half done, swinging his sword around to guard and backing into the moaning coffle. Nikolaus continued to mutter, dumb to Felix’s efforts. The two flagellants beside him seemed incapable even of that. ‘Absolutely perfect.’

  The skaven’s short sword flashed before him, appearing in a downward arc with the speed of a murderous thought. It was instinct more than any application of skill that angled his blade and sent the notched length skirling down the length of his own sword. There was barely time to draw breath before a second sword-rat rounded the first. It clutched the neck of a bulging sack to its collar with one paw and stabbed a serrated blade for Felix’s throat with the other.

  Felix spun back, stamped the sword from the first ratman’s paw, using its body for cover as he rolled around it then lashed back across the throat of the second. The skaven fell with wasted breath whistling through its claws. The forgotten sack dropped, disgorging its contents onto the quay. The rope-rat squealed alarm, dropped its length of cord and snatched up the sack, sweeping the spilled bones back inside. It glared at Felix before bolting for the bridge. Felix did not have time to worry about it.

  He swept aside as the steel-capped bludgeon of the first sword-rat whisked for his skull. The heavy club caved in the face of the bound mutant at Felix’s back. The mutant gave a final moan but, lashed to the flagellants and its fellow mutants, the corpse leaned and did not fall. The skaven withdrew its bludgeon, shook it clear of pink matter, and hissed annoyance. Felix gave ground, circling the coffle until his foot struck the stone of the river wall. He teetered backwards, only just deflecting the gut-thrust that sought to take advantage. The vibrations shook his shoulder like the jaws of a wolf. His body was burned out, it was ready to drop. The arrival of a second ratman, this one dragging a weighted net, told him he was done.

  Felix leapt back and onto the wall just as the net snared the air where he had just been. His boots skidded on the slimy stone and, for a moment, he teetered on the brink of falling into the haunted water. Then his left foot struck a mooring ring and checked its slide. The club-rat hissed and swung for his trailing leg but, with the mooring ring for support, Felix dragged it in and the club whacked the algal mat so hard that it sprung free of the creature’s paw. The rat yelped as its bludgeon hummed to the foggy water. It looked stunned. Felix made sure it stayed that way, driving a kick across its snout that sent it sprawling into its captives.

  The wall was about a foot across and pasted with slime. The sword-rat was picking itself up, the net-rat egging it on. Spreading his arms for balance, Felix hastened along its top, heart lurching with every slippery step and doing flips every time the bound hand of a mindless groped for his ankles. More skaven were becoming aware of his presence, struggling to shift the uncooperative train in a bid to get at him. But the wall ahead was still clear. A sibilant hiss told him the sword-rat had joined him.

  He risked a look back.

  Quicker and more agile by far, it was closing the distance fast. Felix dared himself to accelerate, clearing the train of mindless and the snarling vermin that fought to make them move, but he knew he was not about to outrun a skaven. He considered diving into the river, using some of the floating wreckage to swim to the opposite shore, but the Middenlanders had called the water haunted and even now, with the choice between a rusted blade and that whispering dark, he knew which he favoured.

  And he could not abandon Gotrek.

  The dwarf’s arm was still locked around the Beast’s wrist as Gotrek drove a two-footed kick into its belly. The monster doubled over with a startled wheeze and let the dwarf fall. Gotrek’s axe was swinging before he hit the ground. Winded, taken aback by its foe’s ferocity, its claws flashed to deflect the torrent of blows and, inexorably, it was driven back. The mindless were barged aside or else stood there to be crushed. Gotrek ignored them, intent on the Beast. Felix saw them both fade into the bridge’s fog, nothing visible but the red blur of his companion’s rune-axe.

  Felix looked away to parry a sword thrust. His feet slipped under him, causing the ratman’s punch to swipe an inch past his nose. He swayed, too intent on not falling and cracking his skull to retaliate. His sure-footed foe showed no such qualms, fiercely pressing its advantage. Felix did not know how his own sword kept pace, but somehow it did. He could beat this rat, but not here, not with his footing constantly sliding out from under him. From the corner of his eye, he saw another pair of skaven get up from the wriggling body of a bound mutant to come his way. He had no choice.

  Mouthing a prayer, Felix turned his back and ran.

  A swift thrust stabbed between his shoulder blades. Felix grunted, feeling the bone bruise, but the mail took the brunt and he accelerated away. The sword-rat was hot on his heels.

  The river wall ended a few paces ahead. There was a gap of a couple of feet where it adjoined the angled slope of the wing wall. Felix braced his nerves, upped his pace, and leapt.

  He landed on the wing wall and swayed for balance, already slipping down its slickened slope. The sword-rat followed a second later. Felix half-spun to meet it, half-skidded on slime, swinging a kick that poleaxed the creature mid-leap. It screamed as its fall parted layers of mist and then smacked into the water with a dark spume. The tug of a weary smile announced his triumph, only for his feet to then slip and pitch him from the wall and down onto the flagstones with a ringing elbow and a curse. Rising painfully, ratmen already shrilling after him, Felix sprinted for the bridge.

  It was a mighty ruin, riding twenty feet above the river astride limestone columns each twice the girth of a man. Fog clutched its wreck possessively, making it its own, the battling forms of Gotrek and the Beast rendered ethereal in its embrace. The Beast bellowed, thinned by fog but still enough to break a splinter of dread to worry at Felix�
��s spine.

  The monster’s claws scraped blue sparks from the flat of Gotrek’s axe. Felix tried to run to his companion’s side but Gotrek had already pressed his foe deep into the mist. Felix could feel the fog slow him down. It was like running through freezing water, like fleeing from a nightmare. It was doubtless a trick of the shifting murk, but the Beast appeared to be standing taller the further into the darkness it was forced, its animal snarls adopting the vaguest spark of sentience.

  Gotrek roared, swinging two-handed for the Beast’s midriff. The Beast slapped the axe aside, then pulled up with a pained growl, the action causing its split triceps to spurt. Gotrek pressed his attack, raining down blows that would have been too swift for Felix to follow even had they not been sequestered by fog. The Beast howled in pain. Blood painted the mist red. It retreated further, enough for breathing room. It poked at its bloodied hide and panted with what looked like surprise.

  It was beaten.

  Gotrek cackled and swung his axe high above his head. The Beast issued a mighty roar and threw itself into the weapon’s path, the starmetal blade crunching through its plate-like pectoral bone.

  The Beast shuddered and, clutching the weapon to its breast, staggered back. The embedded axe yanked at its chain and jerked Gotrek’s arm after it. The chain groaned, but held, and dragged the dwarf cursing over the rubble after the retreating Beast. Blood thumped between its claws, but the Beast held the buried axe firm. On reaching the bridge’s wall, it leapt onto it, the taut chain flipping Gotrek from his feet and slamming him face down into the stone flags. It backed to the ledge, dragging Gotrek another inch along on his chest.

  ‘Kill us both,’ Gotrek roared. ‘That’d be a mighty end!’

  The Beast tittered, saliva spooling from its fur as its twisted jaw shaped into a word.

  ‘Huuurrrrlk.’

  And then it jumped.

  The short length of chain raced over the edge. Gotrek bellowed like a wounded ox as his arm snapped up.

  Felix cried out, mustering the strength to burst through the clinging fog, but too late. Gotrek’s body slammed into the wall, then was dragged over it. His ham-like left fist closed over the side of the bridge, but its surface had been burned smooth and coated with slime. The dwarf’s arm checked his own weight and that of the bone-plated Beast for barely a second.

  Felix made the wall a moment later. He heard one distant splash, followed by another. Desperately, he sought out a shock of orange, a glow of red, anything, but he could barely even see the water for the fog. Numb, he ran further along the wall, deeper into the fog, staring down into the water. Part of him expected to see his companion swinging from a stanchion, or dripping wet and climbing one of those mouldering columns. But even Gotrek could not fail to find his doom eventually. And the dwarf’s end had come exactly as Felix had always secretly feared.

  With him left to the mercy of Gotrek’s slayers.

  The leaderless skaven flooded the bridge in pursuit. Felix backed away, angled his sword, but it felt so heavy. He tried to come up with a plan that did not involve him joining his companion in the river or being hacked apart by vengeful vermin.

  He tried to think, but… just… could not.

  The mist coiled about his arms and drew him back, its embrace welcoming and cold. There was more than just solidity to it, but will. It moved with the urgings of a thousand minds, suffering as Felix could not conceive.

  ‘Felix.’

  Feeling halfway between wakefulness and sleep, Felix looked back to the warehouse he had just fled. It flickered with spectral fire. The fog darkened his eyes, but he could still discern the silvery halo that glazed the loading platform. It was a woman. Her white robes burned with a distant heat. Cosseted by the fog, his brain pleasantly dim, Felix felt no fear. She wanted something. He did not care.

  ‘Felix.’

  The mists closed. So too did his eyes.

  And she was gone.

  ‘Felix!’

  Panting and out of breath, a fierce pain stitching his sides, Rudi slumped against the ashen stone of the loading platform. His throat was caked in soot, his skin burned dry and peeling black. His sword dropped from his fingers. Flesh and steel were both drenched with human blood. Caul’s knife had been lost. He tried to remember exactly where, but his flight across the city had been such a gauntlet of terror that his mind refused to look back and face it.

  He crawled to the edge of the platform.

  On the quayside below, cloaked creatures herded a hideous pack of mutants towards the bridge. Their chittering voices were low and excited, like warriors returning home from victory. Brüder Nikolaus was amongst their number. Rudi called his name, but the prophet did not turn. He yelled again; no words this time, just a pain in his chest that demanded to be expelled. Nothing noticed.

  Rudi considered whether he might already be dead. He would not be surprised that his soul had been consigned to the Grey Vaults. He looked again at his bloodied hands. He had been tested and he had failed. Sigmar did not give third chances.

  He looked on as more of the shadow-creatures scurried in their captives’ wake. Their claws scratched through the rubble and beneath fresh corpses in search of any tiny fragment of lost bone. Their ecstatic squeals when something was unearthed made Rudi shudder. Unconsciously, he reached for his sword.

  He did not think he had ever held his mother’s hand as tightly.

  Squinting through blood-lashed eyes into smoke and fog, he waved his hand and yelled Felix’s name again. The man plainly heard. His face turned Rudi’s way. Before Rudi could call again, Felix was gone. It was as if the fog had claimed his body for its own.

  Rudi grunted as his eyes were speared by a sudden light.

  Dawn was creeping across the city with the false tenderness of a torturer. The ruined husk lightened while, at the same time, somehow darkening, sinking into its own shadows, like a rat to its burrow to wallow in its pain. He raised a hand to his eyes and peered through glowing fingers into the light. Undying screams welcomed it in ungodly chorus. Flames flicked between the tendrils of fog as though the ethereal barrier had itself been ignited by the sun’s rays.

  For in the east, the sun rose as it always had over Ostermark.

  Bestride the burned bodies of the Damned.

  Blearily, Felix shook his head. Everything had become dark, muted. The ground beneath him was strangely yielding, as if he lay on a bed of kelp at the ocean’s bottom. He could hear screams but they were passionless. Nearby, or perhaps distant, there came a resounding crump. The shocks passed through his body. They reminded him vaguely of the test firings at the Nuln Artillery School. There was an answering rumble, as of a building’s collapse. More screams. Quarrels flicked by overhead.

  What was happening?

  He remembered passing through fog, and the fog had stayed with him. It was a gauze around his eyes, and not just his eyes. He could feel it smothering his mind. Other thoughts, other minds, contested the occupancy of his skin. They came with memories he could not recall, scenes and faces he did not know. But they were too many, and unable to make him do more than twitch where he lay. Giving a low moan, he slapped his palms clumsily to his forehead. He could feel the knot behind his eyes. If he could just get his hands to it then he could pull away the veil and think again. His fingers butted cloddishly against his skull. It was with a detached concern that he noticed he felt no touch; not on his forehead nor in his fingers. He thought about rolling his head.

  Half a minute later his head rolled.

  A wiry creature in a black cloak noticed the movement and crouched beside him. It flinched as a quarrel zipped past, then poked him in the collar with a crooked black claw. The creature tittered, dragging back its hood to reveal a long, hideously disfigured face. Felix tried to speak, but could not. Muddled by conflicting thoughts, he tried to think of what he should be feeling. All he could remember was fire, pain, mutation.

  And madness.

  ‘How does it feel,’ the ratman snicker
ed, ‘to be damned?’

  Chapter 13

  Other Times

  Felix stirred with a groan. He felt as though he had matched Gotrek through a head-butting contest before finally going down in the twelfth round.

  And then had a drink to celebrate.

  He lay with eyes closed on what felt like gravel. The sound of a flowing river passed somewhere nearby, the dapple of water on rock weaving with a wilful breeze to conjure an unsettling melody. His black eye stung as if it had been dabbed with vinegar and the rest of him ached almost as much. The air was warm, unseasonably so, a midsummer mugginess that promised hotter days to come. And yet he felt cold, fog’s damp fingers in his clothes. As if the sun was a lie. Felix airily signed the hammer and prayed for death.

  But Sigmar, as was his way where Felix was concerned, failed to oblige.

  How had he gotten here?

  He remembered stepping into the fog, crossing the bridge and coming out… somewhere else.

  With one hand he massaged his temple. He recalled feeling other minds in his head but they seemed to have left him. The concoction of water and wind crafted a murmuring akin to voices. Disturbed, he opened his uninjured eye, wincing immediately before the unexpected brightness.

  An open blue sky flamed with a pink aurora. The quixotic display continued in mesmeric silence, pinks giving way to blues, which then sublimed to pink in turn. Felix stared into it, wondering what fury could make the sky itself burn. His gaze focused through the flames towards the largest and brightest body in the sky. The sun guttered fitfully in its shadow. Twice the size of its warmth-giving rival, the bloated disk of the Chaos moon, Morrslieb, throbbed a baleful green.

  Felix could not believe what he was seeing. He could just about accept that something in the air of this city might make the sky burn with pink fire. But Morrslieb had not passed so near to the world in years, and surely nothing at work here could make it so.

  Painfully, he sat up and looked downriver. The river shimmered with reflected light, as though aquatic sprites pulled at the flotsam that flowed from right to left. Upriver, more distant than Felix would have imagined possible, the sullen grey stone of the bridge was a shaded spectre in the fog. For a moment he had the strangest sense that he heard Rudi calling his name. Without warning, he doubled over, his gag reflex finally besting the resistance of his thumping skull, and vomited Sigmarshafen’s finest goat stew over his boots. He regarded the mess and grimaced.