by Warhammer
Even now he could sense the dwarf bubbling with rage, and the man’s anxiety about their future peril. Felix Jaeger was right to be anxious, he thought. Whoever or whatever could open the Paths of the Old Ones would be a mighty foe indeed.
He let out a long sigh. He would face that peril when he came to it. Right now, his greatest worry was an axe in the back from a demented dwarf. His brother could have handled this situation so much better, he thought.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Felix pulled his sodden cloak tighter about him, and watched the air mist as he breathed. It was winter here, he thought, but winter was different from back in the Empire. In the Empire, snow lay thickly on the ground. Here it merely rained, although the rain was so cold it was like a thousand icy knives biting into your flesh. The ground squelched below his feet. The sky was the colour of lead. Stones erupted through the turf. He would almost have preferred the snow, he thought. Here it seemed like the skies wept along with the land.
For all that, the scenery was not without beauty. Occasionally when they came to gaps in the trees, he caught glimpses of rolling rugged hills, down whose sides streams scampered and played. Now and again, he thought he managed a glimpse of a stag or some roe deer moving through the forest. At the moment, in the distance he caught sight of a thin column of smoke rising into the sky. At first he was not certain, for it blended into the sky in such a way as to be almost invisible, but after a few more leagues of weary trudging, he knew that they were approaching habitation, and that it was towards this the elf had been guiding them all this time. His eyes are much, much keener than mine, Felix realised.
He wondered at the confidence of the elf. He could not have maintained the elf’s air of supreme self-possession with Gotrek muttering at his back. The elf, however, gave no impression of caring. He moved calmly and fastidiously down the slope, never missing a stride no matter how slippery the turf. For all his enfeebled appearance, he seemed tireless. Studying him, Felix noticed other things. His own boots were sodden with mud, and some of it spattered his cloak and britches. Gotrek’s boots were filthy and streaks of red clay marked his bare arms. Yet Teclis was as clean as when they had started. His boots gleamed. His blue robes shimmered. Not even the tip of his staff was stained where it hit the ground.
How was this possible, Felix wondered? Were his clothes enchanted in such a way as to repel dirt, or was there some spell at work here? From listening to Max Schreiber, Felix knew that it cost a wizard some of his personal strength and endurance each time he used magic, that it tired them out the way running a race might tire any normal man. Surely not even a wizard as powerful as the elf appeared to be would waste his strength merely on keeping clean? Or perhaps he would, Felix thought; there was a cat-like fastidiousness about Teclis that Felix guessed was typical of elves. Not only that, at any time he got downwind of the elf, he caught the scent of a faint musky perfume such as a woman might wear. Nobles of the Empire carried pomanders to ward of the stinks of the street, but he had heard of few of them wearing perfumes. Another area in which elves differed from men, he thought.
Even in the elaborate headgear and jewellery, and the fine silk robes, there was nothing effeminate about the elf. He was dressed to a different standard than a man, that was all. Human nobles dressed like peacocks for show, to display their wealth. Perhaps it was the same for elves. There was something very aristocratic about the elf, an air of hauteur and languor that Felix would have found infuriating in a nobleman, but which somehow he did not mind in the elf. He did not feel as if the elf were behaving like this to put him in his place, as the son of an uppity merchant mingling with the upper classes, but that it was just the natural air of the Elder Race.
A thought occurred to Felix – was it possible that much of the pose of the human aristocracy was modelled on the behaviour of the older and more cultured race? He would never be in a position to know anyway. Nor did it matter all that much in their present situation.
He looked at the rising column of smoke again and felt a shiver of vague apprehension. They were strangers here, and he had heard rumours that all the folk of Albion were cannibals. Perhaps they were merely seamen’s stories. There were other tales of human sacrifice and strange monsters in the swamps. The whole land was cloaked in impenetrable mists and ringed round by sharp savage rocks so that sailors rarely made landfall there save by shipwreck, and fewer still returned to tell of the treacherous voyage. And who knew if the tales could be trusted anyway? Sailors were not known for their honesty when speaking of their travels in taverns.
Looking back, the nightmarish trip through the Paths of the Old Ones was already starting to take on the quality of a dream. He doubted that the human mind could really absorb what he had seen there. It all seemed so unreal, particularly now that he was soaking in the all too real rain of Albion. He pushed his dark thoughts aside.
Albion! Were they really in Albion? Teclis seemed certain and he was in the best position of all to know. And what of his other claims, that the daemons could sense Felix and might even come looking for him? That part of his experience was all too easy to accept. He had encountered such creatures before in Praag, and in Karag Dum. He had no doubt of their malice or the fact that they might take his escape from their clutches personally. He offered up a prayer to Sigmar, for the safety of his soul, but given how effective his prayers had been in the past, he did not expect any help from the hammer wielder now. His hand strayed once more to the protective amulet the elf had given him, along with a warning never to remove it, even when he slept. It was a beautiful thing of elven workmanship. The chain was of some silvery alloy and the amulet itself was a disc of ivory inlaid with the curved elf runes, all of silver. Felix hoped that it was as powerful as it was beautiful. The thought of having his soul devoured by daemons was not a pleasant one.
He gave his attention back to Gotrek. The Slayer was being even more than usually surly. His one good eye was fixed on the elf’s back as if he were contemplating using it for axe practice. Remembering the way Gotrek had casually chopped through that tree, Felix was more impressed than ever by the elf’s composure. Still, he did not expect Gotrek to go for the elf, not without any warning anyway. Hacking an unarmed opponent down from behind was not the Slayer’s way.
He fell into step beside the Slayer, but Gotrek merely glared at him, and looked away. Felix shrugged and strode forward to talk with the elf. Anything to distract himself from this freezing, constant rain.
‘Are you related to the Teclis who fought alongside Magnus the Pious?’
‘I am he.’
It was all Felix could do to keep his jaw from dropping. It was one thing to speculate about such a thing, but another entirely to have it confirmed. The elf gave him a look of malicious amusement.
‘Long are the lives of elves,’ he said.
‘Short are the tempers of dwarfs,’ Gotrek muttered, just loud enough to be heard.
Felix did not quite know what to say next. What did you say when you met a character you had once read about in your history books as a child, one who had mingled with the contemporaries of your great-great-great-great-grandfather? He supposed there were many questions his old professors would have killed to have him ask, but right now his mind was blank. ‘So what was it like?’ he said.
‘Desperate, dirty, bloody and vile,’ said the wizard. ‘Like most battles. I saw friends die before they should have. There are few elves now, and every one lost is a tragedy.’
‘That’s a matter of opinion,’ grumbled the Slayer. The elf ignored him with admirable composure. Felix knew that he could not have.
‘Did you really fight the Witch King of Naggaroth?’
‘I am surprised that you have heard of such matters,’ said Teclis.
‘My father is a merchant. He often does business in Marienburg. There is a colony of elves there even to this day. Word gets out. Stories get told.’
‘I can imagine. Merchants are forever gossiping. I suppose it must be part of thei
r trade.’ Felix realised something else about the elf. His speech had the same sort of accent he had once heard his grandfather use back when he was a very small child. There was an archaic lilt to the tone of his words that suggested a being of great age, a fact that was singularly at odds with the elf’s youthful appearance. He was suddenly reminded of the Countess, the ancient vampire he had encountered back in Sylvania, and he shivered. This time it was not from the cold.
‘Is there something wrong?’ asked the elf politely. ‘Did my words upset you?’
‘No. You just remind me of someone I once met.’
‘From your expression, it was not a pleasant memory.’ Felix was surprised that the elf was so perceptive about humans; then again, he supposed that after several centuries of meeting them you might have insights that few others would have. Once again, his thoughts drifted back to vampires, and from there to Ulrika, and that was not pleasant either.
‘It was a vampire,’ Felix blurted out.
Gotrek gave a short bark of laughter. Felix guessed that he found the comparison all too apt.
‘You have encountered one of the arisen?’ Teclis asked. Felix saw that he was interested.
‘Several, actually.’
‘You seem to have had an interesting career, Felix Jaeger. I am constantly surprised at how much you humans manage to cram into your short lives.’ Felix could tell that Teclis did not mean to be offensive, but he was starting to understand what it was that dwarfs disliked about elves. He was starting to revise his earlier opinion about the elf’s manner. The tone was faintly patronising without intending to be, and that just made it worse.
‘I can see that I have offended you somehow,’ said the elf. His tone made it clear that he did not care in the slightest. Perhaps the feelings and opinions of lesser beings were of no relevance if you were a powerful wizard, centuries old. Felix forced himself to smile blandly. Two could play this game, he thought.
‘Not at all. It was I who offended you, perhaps, by inadvertently comparing you to one of the undead. If I gave offence, I apologise.’
‘No apology is necessary, Felix Jaeger. I have taken no offence.’
Which was probably just as well, thought Felix. The last thing he wanted was to have this powerful mage angry with him. The current situation was potentially explosive enough without him adding to it.
‘What did you think of the arisen?’ The elf’s tone was genuinely curious. ‘Why do I remind you of one of them?’
‘It’s not exactly that you remind me of them,’ said Felix, choosing his words carefully. ‘It’s merely that I was thinking that being so long-lived you might have similar attitudes and insights into the human mind.’
‘No. The arisen regard your kind as their prey,’ said Teclis. ‘There are several fascinating monographs from the period of your Vampire Counts which expound their point of view quite cogently. Manheim’s Reflections on Mortality, Immortality and Immorality, for example.’
‘Never heard of it,’ said Felix. He was quite surprised. He considered himself quite the scholar, and yet he had never heard of either the author or the book.
‘The author was one of the arisen, a lackey of one of the von Carsteins. He fancied himself as something of a philosopher. His books were privately printed and distributed among his kind. Some of them fell into the hands of Finreir after the wars of the Vampire Counts. He brought them back to Ulthuan with him.’
‘Any others that were found were most likely burned by the witch hunters,’ said Felix.
‘I know,’ said the elf. ‘Now there was a heinous crime.’
‘A heinous crime? I do not think so. What could be so heinous about destroying a work by one of those evil creatures?’
‘Destroying knowledge is never good,’ said Teclis. ‘And who is to say what is good and evil? Manheim regarded himself as no more evil than a human farmer. Indeed he regarded himself as less evil, for he did not kill his cattle but rather did his best to look out for their welfare.’
‘That is something only an elf would say,’ said Gotrek.
‘Manheim said it, not me. He was not an elf.’
‘Comparing people to cattle implies ownership,’ said Felix. ‘Is it right to own people?’
‘Elves have done so in the past. Humans still do.’
‘Dwarfs never have,’ said Gotrek.
‘Yes, yes,’ said Teclis. ‘Shall we take it as given that your race enjoys moral superiority over all others? That way we will be in agreement with the dwarfs themselves.’
‘Elves still own people. Humans, dwarfs, elves,’ said Gotrek. ‘Slavers still attack the coasts.’
‘This is true,’ said Felix.
‘Dark elves,’ said Teclis.
‘Are there any other kind?’ asked Gotrek.
Teclis halted for a moment and turned to look at the Slayer. He seemed on the verge of losing his temper. Gotrek grinned in anticipation.
‘There are dwarfs who worship Chaos. Does that mean all dwarfs are Chaos worshippers?’
Gotrek’s knuckles whitened as he gripped his axe tight. He reached up and ran his thumb along the edge of the blade. A drop of bright blood showed. Felix knew he had to do something before violence inevitably erupted.
‘Surely only the followers of Chaos will benefit if we fall out among ourselves now. We have a quest to fulfil that is more important than petty bickering.’
‘There is nothing petty about such accusations, manling,’ said Gotrek. There was a very hard edge to his voice.
‘I was merely pointing out the flaw in your logic, not making an accusation,’ said Teclis.
‘And once again is proven the old saying: an elf will twist the meaning of his words to suit any purpose.’
‘That is a dwarf saying, I imagine. I could reply with an elvish saying…’
What was it about these two, Felix wondered? Gotrek was rarely particularly rational but he was not stupid. Surely he could see the need for cooperation here? Teclis seemed like a very intelligent being but there was obviously something about the dwarf that goaded him to cold fury. It was like watching a cat and a dog eying each other. To tell the truth, he felt his own temper starting to fray.
‘Cats and dogs, elves and dwarfs, men and Bretonnians,’ he said.
‘What?’ said Teclis. Gotrek merely glared.
‘It’s an old joke,’ said Felix. ‘In the Empire, where I come from. I thought while we were all exhibiting our prejudices I might as well exhibit mine.’
‘Has your trip through that hell damaged your mind, manling?’ asked Gotrek.
‘A fine example of your human humour, I am sure,’ said Teclis. His tone of voice was a good deal chillier than the wind. Wonderful, thought Felix. I managed to distract them from each other by getting them angry with me. He could see it was an effective strategy, but he was not sure he could survive it for many days.
Felix shrugged. The sopping wet cloak shifted uncomfortably on his shoulders. He felt like comparing their behaviour to that of children but he was fairly certain it would not be good for his health. Instead he said, ‘Perhaps we should concentrate on the matter at hand. I thought you wanted to save your people, Teclis of Ulthuan. And I believed that you had made a pledge to aid him, Gotrek.’
The dwarf bristled for a moment, and Felix feared for his life, but then like an attack dog deciding not to go for the throat, Gotrek settled back and lowered his axe. ‘It has come to something when a dwarf needs to be reminded of his word by a human,’ he said.
He actually sounded slightly ashamed. Felix was glad that Teclis had the good grace not to gloat. Indeed the elf looked a little abashed himself. Perhaps I might survive this after all, Felix thought. He considered the volatile nature of his companions and the situation – then again, perhaps not.
They stood on a rise looking down on a most unusual village. Even in the gathering misty twilight, its strangeness was evident. It was built in the middle of a lake, amid a mass of reeds, and the houses appeared to either be on
stilts or situated atop small artificial islands. Actually, houses was the wrong word for them. They looked far more primitive even than Sylvanian peasant dwellings. Causeways of mud and logs linked them. Fires glowed within. A few people were still abroad. Some sat on the causeways fishing. Others drifted on the lake in coracles. A few appeared to be walking on the surface of the fen, and Felix suspected magic until a closer look revealed that they were wearing stilts.
Felix looked at Teclis. ‘What now?’ he asked.
‘We may as well seek shelter here for the night. There will be food and warmth and perhaps sanctuary where I can perform the needed rituals.’
‘And what rituals would those be?’ asked a voice from near at hand. Both the elf and the dwarf reacted instantly. Gotrek raised his axe and whirled. Teclis raised his staff and a nimbus of light played around it. Felix was impressed. He had never known anybody to take the Slayer off guard before. Nor did the elf look like one who could easily be ambushed.
He moved his hand to the hilt of his sword but did not draw it. ‘Peace,’ said the voice. It had a soft lilting accent but there was nothing weak in it. ‘There is no need for violence between us. I merely asked a civil question.’
‘Where I come from,’ said Felix, ‘it is customary for a man to introduce himself before questioning others.’
‘And where would that be, my young friend?’ Felix peered into the darkness to see who this suicidal maniac might be. He had given the man an excuse to make a civil introduction to two of the most dangerous beings Felix had ever met, and he seemed hell-bent on not taking it.