by William King
‘We don’t want any trouble,’ the man said. He let his hand move away from his weapon.
The bodyguards guffawed. Wolfgang wished his head didn’t hurt so much, so that he could think clearly. He badly wanted to ask the youth if he had seen the girl but pride kept him from asking in front of his cronies. He tried to see some way out of his dilemma but the solution just would not come to him. Life could be so hard sometimes, he thought.
He consoled himself with the thought that the girl could not have gone too far. If she was still in the town, Werner and Otto would eventually find her. And if she had decided to risk her lord’s wrath and flee back to the peasant community she’d have to pass through these lands. So a sweep of the area surrounding the town would soon reveal her whereabouts. And this hawking party would provide a particularly fine excuse for it.
And, he reasoned, no one had come looking for him so she could not have told anybody yet. Even if she did, would anybody believe her; a peasant drab accusing the son of the town’s most influential merchant? He allowed himself a smile. It was nice to know that one could still be brilliant, even with a simply dreadful hangover.
‘Come, Heinrich,’ he said magisterially. ‘Let us leave these two clowns to return to their circus. It’s too fine a morning to waste time in conversations with louts.’
He applied his spurs gently to the flanks of his mount and fought down the diminishing waves of nausea as it moved. Now that he had reassured himself, all seemed almost well with the world. He promised himself that when the girl was found she would pay for subjecting him to such excruciating, and what was worse, boring, torment.
The hills rose to meet the peak, the swell of their long curves reminding Felix of waves. Above them the mountains rose, tier upon massive tier, to block the horizon with their snaggle-toothed bulk.
Felix had feared that he would have some difficulty in locating the trail to Mount Blackfire but the path was obvious. It was a simple spur on the one he and Gotrek had followed the previous day while making their descent from the foothills of the range.
The strain on the back of his thighs and in his calves began to tell as the pathway continued to rise. It had been carved into the flank of the mountain by the passing of countless feet. Felix wondered whether the alchemist had ever followed this route or whether it was a way that had been left by less human passers-by. Some of the signs that had been scratched into the rock were in the form of a crude eye; but whether they were warnings of the goblins’ presence or territorial claim markers left by the greenskins themselves he could not tell.
Gotrek looked like he was enjoying the walk. He hummed a broken tune to himself and took the slope in his stride without any noticeable effort. He picked his way along the slippery path with no difficulty, finding footholds where Felix could see none. Soon the man found it easiest to follow in the dwarf’s footsteps. Gotrek was in an environment he was adapted to and it seemed wisest to let him lead.
Sweat rolled down Felix’s back and his breathing became heavy. He had thought himself toughened by the long trip from Karak Eight Peaks but the effort of climbing these hills was a sore one. The beating he had taken and the alchemist’s treatment had worn him out. He was worried about his ability to handle the tough climb. It would be worse if the clouds made good on their threat of rain.
The harshness of the landscape, all jutting rocks and windswept ground, matched the bleakness of his mood. Felix seethed with hatred for Wolfgang Lammel. He resented the wealthy young merchant’s easy cruelty and spoiled arrogance. In his days in Altdorf, Felix had known dozens like him but had never had to contend with being the object of their cruelty. His father’s wealth and social status had shielded him from it. In his more honest moments, he was forced to admit that perhaps he too had once behaved a little like Wolfgang. Now he had seen injustice from the underdog’s point of view and he did not like it.
He understood now why Greta had been so disturbed. He tried not to imagine what had happened between her and Wolfgang, but thoughts of Lammel forcing himself on the girl ran through his head and made him half-mad with fury. He swore that he would get Gotrek cured and make the brat pay. Cursing to himself he marched on. He fought down an urge to yell at the Slayer to stop his infernal humming.
Gotrek disappeared over the brow of a ridge. Felix swore as his feet slipped on the scree of the path and he fell, cutting his hand on the small stones. Pain stung him. He pulled himself up over the brow and found himself lying flat on soft turf.
Felix wondered why it was that sunblossom had to grow on the highest slopes just below the snowline; why couldn’t it grow here in the foothills with all the rest of the blossoms? After a moment he shrugged. In his life he had found that few things were ever easy. Maybe the alchemists only used these ingredients because they were difficult to find, to increase the mystique of their art. He would not be in the least surprised if that were the case.
He sat up and took another lozenge to dull the throbbing pain in his head. It was going to be a long day.
Hardy evergreen trees lined the steep slopes of the narrow vale, like stubble on the upturned face of a giant. High to the right, a waterfall made a series of spectacular leaps over hundred-foot drops until it plunged into the small lake at the valley’s centre. The mountains framed the valley and Felix had to crane his neck upwards to see their peaks. Looking down the vale was like looking down the sight of a crossbow, the eye focused by the line of grey peaks marching into the distance.
Here the pungent aroma of roses mingled with honeysuckle and bitterbriar. Tangled bushes fought with each other for space, the flower heads like the helmets of warring armies of colour. He wondered if there was any sunblossom present, then remembered what Kryptmann had told him about where the magical ingredient had to be picked.
A flicker of movement attracted his eye as the head of a huge elk, as high at the shoulder as a man, emerged from bushes overlooking a ledge of rock fifty yards above him. It gazed down warily as if judging whether it was safe to come down for water. Felix eyed the mighty sweep of its antlers with respect.
As the clouds parted, shafts of sunlight illuminated the valley. The chatter of birdsong reached his ears and mingled with the muted roar of the falling water. He bent to pick up a pine cone, enjoying the scaly roughness of its serrated edges beneath his fingers.
For a moment the beauty of the scene held him enthralled. Even his thoughts of revenge on the merchant’s son evaporated. He felt relaxed and at peace, and the pain of his beaten body temporarily vanished. He was glad he had seen this place, that all the steps of his long journey had brought him here. He knew he would be one of the few men who ever saw this valley. The thought pleased him.
The presence of the elk was right. It made the scene look like a perfectly composed landscape painting. Then it struck him that perhaps it was rather odd that the deer was raising a horn to its lips with a massive, suspiciously human-looking hand. Then a blast of sound echoed down the valley and before it had faded the knowledge filtered into Felix’s brain that he had not seen the head of an elk. It was the head of an altered one.
He lobbed the pine cone in the direction of the lake and, pulling his cloak around him against the increasing chill, he hurried onward and upward after Gotrek. He looked around for signs of pursuit but saw none. Even the elk-headed mutant was nowhere to be seen.
Now Felix knew for certain that they were being followed. Looking back down the winding trail he could see their pursuers, a band of mutants. All that long afternoon as he and Gotrek had climbed the flank of the mountain they had gathered behind them. The way back to Fredericksburg was blocked.
He stopped and let his breathing and heartbeat return to normal. He tried to count the number of their pursuers but it was difficult. The early evening gloom caused the creatures to blend in with the grey of the rock face. Felix made the sign of the hammer across his chest and commended his soul to Sigmar.
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br /> He had always known he would die in some out-of-the-way place. His participation in the dwarf’s quest made it inevitable. He had just not imagined it would be so soon. It was all so stupid. Gotrek would not even get his heroic doom. The Slayer was too busy staring blankly into space, oblivious to their danger.
At first it had been easy to pretend that nothing was happening; that the horn-blowing beast was but a solitary creature too scared to tackle two well-armed travellers. But as the day wore on, the signs had mounted to tell them it wasn’t so.
When Felix had seen the cloven-hoofed tracks mingling with clawed human footprints in the mud surrounding a ford, he had managed to dismiss them as old spoor, something to which he did not need to pay too much attention. Yet even then he had loosened his sword in its scabbard.
Sometime later, as Felix clambered his way ever upwards after Gotrek’s uncaring back, he had caught sight of scuttling shapes keeping pace with them. They flitted from tree to tree on either side of the path. He had tried to get a closer look but the shadow under the pines had defeated even his keen eyes. All he was left with was the impression of tentacled figures keeping carefully from view.
His nerves had begun to fray. He felt like charging under the canopy of the trees and seeking his foes. But what if he lost the path? Or what if there were more than one or two of them? Vague suspicion had kept him inactive. He had pushed aside his fears and kept climbing.
It had become almost unbearable when he had heard the horn blast away to his right and it had been answered by a similar one from the other side of the trail. He knew then that the accursed ones were closing in, that they were gathering for the feast. He was tempted to make a stand then, to get it over with – but some impulse had kept him going up towards the snowline.
He told himself it was the urge to keep trying, not to give up in the face of certain doom that drove him onwards, but he was honest enough with himself to know that it was just fear. He did not want to meet the mutants; he wanted to postpone the inevitable end for as long as possible.
Now he stood on the ridge near the snowline and looked back down the trail and knew it was finished. Here, in this frigid, windswept, barren place, his life would end along with the day. There would be no revenge on Wolfgang, no homecoming in Altdorf, no epic poem for Gotrek.
He looked at the Slayer who stood nearby, watching the oncoming mutants, his axe drooping in his clumsy grip. Felix counted about ten of them. The one in the lead was a familiar gross fat giant. His heart sank even further. He had envisaged perhaps begging for mercy or offering the prospect of a ransom, anything that would extend his life. Surely, though, the obese giant would want his revenge for the slaughter of the previous day.
Wait – what was growing at his feet? Small yellow flowers grew in clumps of thin soil in the shelter of the ridge. As the sun began to sink he realised it was what he had been sent to find. It seemed like a very slim chance but…
Swiftly he plucked a few blossoms and thrust them at Gotrek.
‘Eat them,’ he commanded. The Trollslayer stared at him as if he were truly mad. Slowly a frown passed across his scarred face.
‘Don’t want to eat flowers,’ he said in bemusement.
‘Just eat them!’ Felix roared. Like an abashed child, the Slayer shoved them into his mouth and began to chew.
Felix studied him carefully, hoping to see signs of some change in the dwarf, the sudden, miraculous return of his old ferocity stimulated by the supposed magical quality of the flowers. He could see none.
Well, it had been a faint hope anyway, he told himself.
The mutants were close now. Felix could see that it was definitely the survivors of the band which had previously attacked them. Gotrek spat out a cud of yellow and moved behind Felix.
Oh well, Felix decided, best to meet death with a sword in his hand. At least this way he would take one or two of the warp-spawned to Hell with him. As he unsheathed the sleek weapon, the fading sunlight caught the blade, and caused the runes to glow. Felix studied them as if for the first time. The approach of death made all of his senses keener. He appreciated the workmanship of those old dwarf craftsmen as he had never done before. He wondered what the runes meant, what their intricate symbolism signified. There was so much he would never know now and so much he wanted to find out.
The mutants had stopped not fifty paces away and their giant leader peered at Felix myopically. After a pause he cuffed the elk-headed mutant about the ear and advanced.
Felix wondered whether he should charge at the foul thing and hope to slay him. Perhaps that would break the morale of his confederates. Sword versus great stone club, he was sure he could win if only the others didn’t intervene. With that thought some semblance of courage returned. There was some hope. He grinned a feral grin; fear had passed him and he almost started to enjoy the situation.
The leader paused ten paces from Felix; a great wobbling mound of fat, girded around with studded leather and many weapons. Waves of blubber cascaded from his chin like tallow melting on a candle. His huge hairless head was like a ball of meat with tiny holes poked in it for the eyes, nose and mouth. To the man’s surprise he seemed quite nervous.
‘I’m not fooled, you know,’ the mutant said at last. His voice sounded like the tolling of a great bell. It boomed out from within his vast chest. He was so close that Felix could hear his phlegmy, wheezing breaths.
‘What?’ Felix said, bemused. Was this a trick?
‘I can see through your plan. Trying to get us within range of your friend’s axe, then slaughter us.’
‘But–’ The unfairness of the accusation mortified Felix. Here he was, standing waiting bravely for death and his disgusting opponent was claiming it was the other way about.
‘You must think us complete idiots. Well, the warpstone didn’t melt our brains along with our bodies. How stupid do you think we are? Your friend here pretends to be afraid but we recognise him. He’s the one who killed Hans and Peter and Gretchen. And all the others. We know him and we know his axe and there’s no way you’re going to lure us within its sweep.’
‘But–’ Now that he had mustered his courage to make a brave last stand Felix felt cheated. He wanted to demand that they get on with their attack.
‘I told Gorm Moosehead that I thought it was you, but he said “No”. Well, I was right and he was wrong, and I didn’t gather the clan just so you and your nasty friend could collect the bounty on mutant heads.’
‘But–’ Slowly it dawned on Felix what was happening. They had been reprieved. He forced his mouth firmly shut before it could betray him.
‘No! You may think you’re clever but you’re not clever enough. This is one trap we’re not going to fall into. We’re too smart for you. I just wanted you to know that.’
So saying, the mutant leader backed slowly and cautiously away. Felix watched the foul band melt back into the gloom and only then did he let out his breath. He stood transfixed for a moment. The twilight on the nearby peaks was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. He even rejoiced in the chill and the pain that throbbed in his hand. They were signs he was still alive.
‘Thank you, Sigmar, thank you!’ he shouted, unable to contain his joy.
‘What are you shouting about?’ Gotrek asked excitedly.
Felix resisted the sudden blinding urge to run him through with his sword. Instead he clapped the dwarf on the back. After a moment it struck him that they were stuck up here on the mountain until the morning. Even that thought was endurable.
‘Quick, we must gather the flowers,’ Felix said. ‘The sun hasn’t set yet!’
‘Who is it?’ Lothar Kryptmann called warily from inside, as Felix banged upon his door. ‘What do you want?’
It was just early evening and Felix was surprised by the elaborate precautions with which the alchemist greeted them.
‘It’s me. Felix Jae
ger. I’m back. Open up!’ Was it just his imagination or did Kryptmann sound more than usually nervous, Felix wondered? He turned and looked down the street. Lights glowed through the chinks in shuttered windows. In the distance he heard the clip-clop of horses’ hooves and the metalled wheels of a carriage on cobbles, heading towards the taverns of the town square. The wealthy out to play, he supposed.
‘Hold on! Hold on! I’m coming.’
Felix stopped knocking. He coughed. Just his luck to have caught a chill on that pestilential mountain-top. He mopped the sweat of fever from his brow and drew his cloak tighter against the chill mist. He glared at Gotrek, who stood stupidly at the top of the steps leading down to the basement apartment, holding the flowers he had collected. As usual the Slayer showed no sign of illness.
Bolts snapped on the door. Chains were loosened. The door opened a little. Through the chink, light spilled out along with the pungent odour of chemicals. Felix pushed the door open despite the alchemist’s resistance and forced his way within. He was surprised to see Greta standing in the room’s other doorway. She had obviously been hiding in the other rooms.
‘Do come in, Herr Jaeger,’ the alchemist said tetchily. He stood aside to let Gotrek enter.
‘Wolfgang is looking for you,’ Felix said to the girl. She looked too scared to speak. ‘Why?’
‘Leave her alone, Herr Jaeger,’ Kryptmann said. ‘Can’t you see she’s terrified? She’s had rather a nasty shock at the hands of your friend, Lammel.’
Swiftly Kryptmann outlined what Greta had seen when she ventured into the merchant’s son’s quarters the previous evening. Kryptmann was discreet about why she went but he mentioned the stigmata of Chaos she had noticed.
‘I feared as much. I should have known when he made me add warpstone to his weirdroot. I would imagine that’s when he started to develop the mark of the daemon.’
‘You added warpstone to his weirdroot? Warpstone?’
‘There’s no need to look so shocked, my young friend. Its usage is not that uncommon in certain alchemical operations. Many respectable practitioners of my art make use of it in small doses. Why my old tutor at Middenheim University, the great Litzenreich himself, used to say…’