by William King
The one called Hef looked up from the table against which he had pinned the struggling girl.
‘Aye, Lars, right pretty he talks, and all that nice golden hair, like cornstalks. Could almost take him for a girl himself.’
‘When I come off the mountains anything looks good. I tell you what: you take the girl. I’ll have this pretty boy.’
Felix felt his face flush. He was getting angry. He hid his anger with a smile. He wanted to avoid trouble if he could. ‘Come on, gentlemen, there’s no need for this. Let me buy you all a drink.’
Lars turned to Hef. The third mountain man guffawed. ‘He has money too. My luck’s in tonight!’
Hef smirked. Felix looked around desperately as the big man advanced on him. Damn, where was Gotrek? Why was the dwarf never around when a man needed him? He turned to face Lars. ‘All right, I’m sorry I interfered. I’ll just leave you gentlemen to it.’
He saw Lars relax somewhat, letting down his guard as he advanced. Felix let him come closer. He watched the trapper spread his arms as if he were about to hug him. Felix suddenly jabbed his knee hard into Lars’s groin. With a whoosh like a blacksmith’s bellows, all of the air ran out of the big man. He doubled over with a whimper. Felix grabbed his beard and pulled the man’s head down to meet his knee.
He heard teeth break, and the trapper’s head snapped backwards. Lars fell on the floor gasping for breath and clutching at his groin.
‘What in the name of Taal?’ Hef said. The big trapper lashed out at Felix and the force of the blow sent him reeling across the room into a table. He tipped over a tankard of ale.
‘Sorry,’ Felix apologised to the drink’s startled owner. Felix struggled to lift the table and hurl it at his assailant. He strained until he thought the muscles in his back would crack.
The drunk looked at him and smiled wickedly. ‘You can’t lift it. It’s nailed to the floor. In case of fights.’
‘Thanks for telling me,’ Felix said, feeling someone grab him by the hair and slam his head into the table. Pain smashed through his skull. Black spots danced before his eyes. His face felt wet. I’m bleeding, he thought, then realised it was just the spilled beer. His head was smashed into the table a second time. As if from very far away he heard footsteps approaching.
‘Hold him, Kell. We’re gonna have us some fun for what he did to Lars.’ He recognised the voice as belonging to Hef.
Desperately Felix jabbed backward with his elbow, ramming it into the hard muscle of Kell’s stomach. The grip on his hair loosened somewhat. Felix tore free and he turned to face his assailants. With his right hand he frantically fumbled for the beer stein. Through a haze he saw the two gigantic trappers closing in. The girl was gone – Felix saw the door close behind her. He could hear her start shouting for help. Hef was loosening a knife in his belt. Felix’s fingers closed over the handle of the stein. He lashed out and hit Kell square in the face with it. The trapper’s head snapped around, then he spat blood and turned back to Felix, smiling moronically.
Fingers, muscled like steel bands, grabbed Felix’s wrist. The pressure forced him reluctantly to drop the stein. Despite frantic resistance, Felix’s arm was inexorably forced up his back by Kell’s superior strength. The smell of bear fat and body odour was almost overpowering. Felix snarled and tried to writhe free but his struggles were fruitless.
Something sharp jabbed into his throat. Felix looked down. Hef brandished a long-bladed knife at his throat. Felix smelled its well-oiled steel. He saw his own red blood trickle down its central channel. Felix froze. All Hef had to do was lean forward and Felix would be walking in the kingdom of Morr.
‘That was downright unfriendly, boy,’ Hef said. ‘Old Lars was only bein’ affectionate and you had to go and bust his teeth. Now what you reckon we should do about that, we bein’ his friends ’n’ all?’
‘Kill the thnotling fondler,’ Lars gasped. Felix felt Kell push his arm further up his back until he feared it would break. He moaned in pain.
‘Reckon we’ll just do that,’ Hef said.
‘You can’t,’ the trader behind the bar whined. ‘That’d be murder.’
‘Shut up, Pike! Who asked you?’
Felix could see they meant to do it. They were full of drunken violence and ready to kill. Felix had just given them the excuse they needed.
‘Been a long time since I killed me a pretty boy,’ Hef said, pushing his knife forward just a fraction. Felix grimaced with the pain. ‘Gonna beg, pretty boy? Gonna beg for your life?’
‘Go to hell,’ Felix said. He would have liked to spit but his mouth felt dry and his knees were weak. He was shaking. He closed his eyes.
‘Not so polite now, city boy?’ Felix felt thick laughter rumble in Kell’s throat. What a place to die, he thought incongruously, some hell-spawned outpost in the Grey Mountains.
There was a blast of chill air and the sound of a door opening.
‘The first one to hurt the manling dies instantly,’ said a deep voice that grated like stone crushed against stone. ‘The second one I take my time over.’
Felix opened his eyes. Over Hef’s shoulders he could see Gotrek Gurnisson, the Trollslayer. The dwarf stood silhouetted in the doorway, his squat form filling it widthwise. He was only the height of a boy of nine years but he was muscled like two strong men. Torch light illuminated the strange tattoos that covered his half-naked body and turned his eye sockets into shadowy caves from which mad eyes glittered.
Hef laughed, then spoke without turning round. ‘Get lost, stranger, or we’ll deal with you after we’ve finished your friend.’
Felix felt the grip on his arm relax. Over his shoulder, Kell’s hand pointed to the doorway.
‘That so?’ Gotrek said, stomping into the room, shaking his head to clear the snow from his huge crest of orange-dyed hair. The chain that ran from his nose to his right ear jingled. ‘By the time I’ve finished with you, you’ll sing as high as a girly elf.’
Hef laughed again and turned around to face Gotrek. His laughter died into a sputtering cough. Colour drained from his face until it was corpse-white. Gotrek grinned nastily at him, revealing missing teeth, then he ran his thumb across the blade of the great two-handed axe that he carried in one ham-sized fist. Blood dripped freely from the cut but the dwarf just grinned more widely. The knife in Hef’s hand clattered to the floor.
‘We don’t want no trouble,’ Hef said. ‘Leastwise, not with a Trollslayer.’
Felix didn’t blame him. No sane man would cross a member of that doomed and death-seeking berserker cult. Gotrek glared at them, then lightly tapped the hilt of his axe against the floor. While Kell was distracted, Felix seized the opportunity to put some ground between himself and the mountain man.
Hef was starting to panic. ‘Look, we don’t want no trouble. We was just funnin’.’
Gotrek laughed evilly. ‘I like your idea of fun. I think I’ll have some myself.’
The Trollslayer advanced towards Hef. Felix saw Lars pick himself up and start crawling towards the door, hoping to slip past the Trollslayer while he was distracted. Gotrek brought his boot down on Lars’s hand with a crunch that made Felix wince. It was not Lars’s night, he decided.
‘Where do you think you’re going? Better stay with your friends. Two against one is hardly fair odds.’
Hef had broken down completely. ‘Don’t kill us,’ he pleaded. Kell, meanwhile, had moved away, bringing him close to Felix again. Gotrek had moved right in front of Hef. The blade of the Slayer’s axe lay against Hef’s throat. Felix could see the runes on the ancient blade glinting redly in the torchlight.
Slowly Gotrek shook his head. ‘What’s the matter? There’s three of you. You thought they were good enough odds against the manling. Stomach gone out of you?’
Hef nodded numbly; he looked as if he was about to cry. In his eyes Felix could see a superstitious terr
or of the dwarf. He seemed ready to faint.
Gotrek pointed to the door. ‘Get out!’ he roared. ‘I’ll not soil my blade on cowards like you.’
The trappers scurried for the door, Lars limping badly. Felix saw the girl step aside to let them by. She closed the door behind them.
Gotrek glared at Felix. ‘Can’t I even stop to answer a call of nature without you getting yourself into trouble?’
‘Perhaps I should escort you back,’ Felix said, inspecting the girl closely. She was small and thin; her face would have been plain except for the large dark eyes. She tugged her cloak of coarse Sudenland wool about her and hugged the package she had purchased in the trading post to her chest. She smiled shyly up at him. The smile transformed that pale hungry face, Felix thought, gave it beauty.
‘Perhaps you could, if it’s not too much trouble.’
‘No trouble whatsoever,’ he said. ‘Maybe those ruffians are still lurking about out there.’
‘I doubt that. They seemed too afraid of your friend.’
‘Let me help you with those herbs, then.’
‘The mistress told me to get them specifically. They are for the relief of the frostbitten. I would feel better if I carried them.’
Felix shrugged. They stepped out into the chill air, breath coming out in clouds. In the night sky the Grey Mountains loomed like giants. The light of both moons caught on their snow-capped peaks so that they looked like islands in the sky, floating above a sea of shadow.
They walked through the squalid shanty-town which surrounded the trading post. In the distance Felix saw lights, heard lowing cattle and the muffled hoofbeats of horses. They were heading towards a campsite where more people were arriving.
Gaunt, hollow-cheeked soldiers, clad in tattered tunics on which could be seen the sign of a grinning wolf, escorted carts drawn by thin oxen. Tired-looking drivers in the garb of peasants gazed at him. Women sat beside the drivers with shawls drawn tight, headscarves all but obscuring their features. Sometimes children peeked out over the back of the carts to stare at them.
‘What’s going on?’ Felix asked. ‘It looks like a whole village on the move.’ The girl looked at the carts and then back at him.
‘We are the people of Gottfried von Diehl. We follow him into exile, to the land of the Border Princes.’
Felix paused to look north. More carts were coming down the trail, and behind them were stragglers, limping on foot, clutching at thin sacks as if they contained all the gold of Araby. Felix shook his head, puzzled.
‘You must have come through Blackfire Pass,’ he said. He and Gotrek had come by the old dwarf routes under the mountain. ‘And it’s late in the season for that. The first blizzards must already be setting in up there. The pass is only open in the summer.’
‘Our liege was given until year’s end to leave the Empire.’ She turned and began walking into the ring of wagons that had been set up to give some protection from the wind. ‘We set out in good time but there was a string of accidents that slowed us down. In the pass itself we were caught by an avalanche. We lost many people.’
She paused, as if remembering some personal grief.
‘Some say it was the “Von Diehl Curse”. That the baron can never outrun it.’
Felix followed her. On the fires sat a few cooking pots. There was one huge cauldron from which steam emerged. The girl pointed to it.
‘The mistress’s cauldron. She will be expecting the herbs.’
‘Is your mistress a witch?’ Felix asked. She looked at him seriously.
‘No, sir. She is a sorceress with good credentials, trained in Middenheim itself. She is the baron’s adviser in matters magical.’
The girl moved towards the steps of a large caravan, covered in mystical signs. She began to climb the stairs. She halted, hand poised on the handle of the door, then she turned to face Felix.
‘Thank you for your help,’ she said.
She leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek, then turned to open the door.
Felix laid his hand on her shoulder, restraining her gently. ‘A moment,’ he said. ‘What is your name?’
‘Kirsten,’ she said. ‘And yours?’
‘Felix. Felix Jaeger.’
She smiled at him again before she vanished inside the caravan. Felix stood looking at the closed door, slightly bemused. Then, feeling as if he was walking on air, he strolled back to the trading post.
‘Are you mad?’ Gotrek Gurnisson demanded. ‘You want us to travel with some renegade duke and his rag-tag entourage? Have you forgotten why we’ve come here?’
Felix looked around to see that no one was looking at them. Not much chance of that, he decided. He and the Trollslayer nursed their beer in the darkest recess of the trading post. A few drunks lay snoring on the trestle tables and the sullen glowers of the dwarf kept the casually curious at bay.
Felix leaned forward conspiratorially. ‘But look, it makes perfect sense. We are heading through the Border Princes and so are they. It will be safer if we ride with them.’
Gotrek looked at Felix dangerously. ‘Are you implying I fear some peril on this road?’
Felix shook his head. ‘No. All I’m saying is that it would make our journey easier and we might get paid for our efforts if the baron could be persuaded to take us on as mercenaries.’
Gotrek brightened at the mention of money. All dwarfs are misers at heart, thought Felix. Gotrek appeared to consider for a second, then shook his head. ‘No. If this baron has been exiled he’s a criminal and he’s not getting his hands on my gold.’
He ducked his head and looked around with paranoid shiftiness. ‘That treasure is ours, yours and mine. Mostly mine, of course, since I’ll do the bulk of the fighting.’
Felix felt like laughing. There was nothing worse than a dwarf in the throes of gold-lust.
‘Gotrek, we don’t even know if there is any treasure. All we’ve got to go on are the ramblings of some senile old prospector who claims to have seen the lost hoard of Karak Eight Peaks. Faragrim couldn’t remember his own name half the time.’
‘Faragrim was a dwarf, manling. A dwarf never forgets the sight of gold. You know the problem with your people? You have no respect for your elders. Among my people Faragrim is treated with respect.’
‘No wonder your people are in such dire straits then,’ Felix muttered.
‘What was that?’
‘Nothing. Just answer me this. Why didn’t Faragrim return for the treasure himself? He’s had eighteen years.’
‘Because he showed proper fiscal caution–’
‘Meanness, you mean.’
‘Have it your way, manling. He was crippled by the guardian. And he could never find anybody he could trust.’
‘Why suddenly tell you then?’
‘Are you implying I am not trustworthy, manling?’
‘No. I think he wanted rid of you, he wanted you out of his tavern. I think he invented the cock-and-bull story about the world’s largest treasure guarded by the world’s largest troll because he knew you would fall for it. He knew it would put a hundred leagues between you and his ale cellar.’
Gotrek’s beard bristled and he growled angrily. ‘I am not such a fool, manling. Faragrim swore to the truth on the beards of all his ancestors.’
Felix groaned loudly. ‘And no dwarf has ever broken an oath, I suppose?’
‘Well, very rarely,’ Gotrek admitted. ‘But I believe this one.’
Felix saw that it was no use. Gotrek wanted the story to be true, so for him it was true.
He’s like a man in love, thought Felix, unable to see his beloved’s frailties for the wall of illusions he has built around her. Gotrek stroked his beard and stared into space, lost in contemplation of the troll-guarded hoard. Felix decided to play his trump card.
‘It would mean we wouldn’t ha
ve to walk,’ he said.
‘What?’ Gotrek grunted.
‘If we sign on with the baron. We could hitch a ride on a cart. You’re always complaining that your feet hurt. This is your chance to give them a rest.
‘Just think about it,’ he added enticingly. ‘We get paid and you don’t get sore feet.’
Gotrek appeared to contemplate this once more. ‘I can see I’ll get no peace unless I agree to your scheme. I’ll go along with it on one condition.’
‘What’s that?’
‘No mention of our quest. Not to anybody.’
Felix agreed. Gotrek raised one bushy eyebrow and looked at him cunningly.
‘Don’t think I don’t know why you’re so keen to travel with this baron, manling.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You’re enamoured of that chit of a girl you left here with earlier, aren’t you?’
‘No,’ Felix spluttered. ‘Whatever gave you that idea?’
Gotrek laughed uproariously, waking several slumbering drunks.
‘Then why has your face gone all red, manling?’ he shouted triumphantly.
Felix knocked on the door of the caravan he had been told belonged to the baron’s master-of arms.
‘Come in,’ a voice said. Felix opened the door and his nostrils were assailed with the smell of bear fat. Felix reached for the hilt of his sword.
Inside the caravan, five men were crowded. Three Felix recognised as the trappers he had met the previous evening. Of the others, one was young, richly dressed and fine featured, hair cut short in the fashion of the warrior nobility. The other was a tall, powerfully built man clad in buckskins. He was tanned and appeared to be in his late twenties although his hair was silver grey. He had a quiver of black-fletched arrows slung over his back and a powerful longbow lay near his hand. There seemed to be a family resemblance between the two men.
‘Thatsh tha bashtard,’ Lars said through his missing teeth. The two strangers exchanged looks.
Felix stared at them warily. The grey-haired man inspected him, casually assessing him.