She nodded and closed her eyes again and he stood, then limped to the Sister of Shallya and drew her into the hall.
“Sister,” he murmured. “Will she live?”
The sister looked at him, then pursed her lips. “I don’t know,” she said. “She has come as close to starving as is possible without succumbing. And you have both been subject to the enervation of the necromancer’s spells. Neither of you may recover your full strength.” She shrugged. “At least you were both in vigorous health at the start. Perhaps that will count in your favour. Rest and Shallya’s blessing are what is needed now, lots of rest.”
Felix nodded, distracted, as the sister bowed and started down the hall. He looked back through the door at Kat, chewing his lip. What if the two of them were enfeebled like this for the rest of their lives? It might not be so bad for him. After all his years on the road, after all the fighting and running and chasing, it wouldn’t be so bad to live quietly, to read and write and think for a time. But for Kat? She was a child of the forest, a hunter. What would she do if she couldn’t survive in the wild on her own? What if she were housebound or bed-bound for the rest of her life? It would kill her. She would sicken and die, like a wolf in captivity.
He closed his eyes. If that was her fate, it might almost have been better that she had died.
“I am no doctor,” murmured Max, stepping though the door to join him, “but my advice is, that while rest is indeed what is needed now, in the long run, you would both do better to go where Gotrek goes, despite the dangers.”
Felix looked up at him. “I am bound to anyway,” he said. “But Kat too? Why do you say that?”
Max nodded at Gotrek, who was following him into the hall with Snorri. “I mentioned before that some of your unusual vitality seemed attributable to your remaining near Gotrek all these years. Whatever the cause of it, it seems that your association with him has kept you healthy and mended wounds that should have been the end of your adventuring.” He looked towards Kat, sleeping in her bed. “I cannot say if this strange influence would work on Kat as well, but it certainly couldn’t hurt,” he said, smiling. “Also, I don’t think you could keep her from following even if you chained her to her bed.”
A glimmer of hope stirred in Felix’s heart. He hadn’t been sure he believed Max’s theories about his health when the magister had first shared them with him, and he still wasn’t now, but if it was true! It could be the saving of Kat. It might make her well again!
“Sounds like rubbish to me,” Gotrek grunted. “But no one ever got strong lying in bed. She can come if she wants.”
Max smiled at Gotrek. “Excellent. And where do you go now, Slayer? What unspeakable abomination do you intend to throw yourself at next?”
Felix looked at the Slayer, as curious as Max was. Their most recent journey had begun when they had gone north to fight the beastmen at the behest of Sir Teobalt of the Order of the Fiery Heart, and they had become caught in the web of Kemmler’s schemes after that, but now, as far as he knew, Gotrek had no goal other than his perennial quest to find his doom, and that might lead him anywhere.
But as Felix waited for the Slayer to speak, he saw him slide his one eye towards Snorri, and suddenly he knew the answer.
“We go,” Felix said, turning back to Max, “to Karak Kadrin, to accompany Snorri Nosebiter on his pilgrimage to the Shrine of Grimnir.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Nathan Long was a struggling screenwriter for fifteen years, during which time he had three movies made and a handful of live-action and animated TV episodes produced. Now he is a novelist, and is enjoying it much more. For Black Library he has written three Warhammer novels featuring the Blackhearts, and has taken over the Gotrek and Felix series, starting with the eighth installment, Orcslayer. He lives in Hollywood.
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