Gotrek & Felix- the Third Omnibus - William King & Nathan Long

by Warhammer

  Gotrek turned to them. ‘Pointless killing grobi until we find what’s behind them, so keep quiet.’

  ‘But how will we find it?’ asked Galin. ‘It could be anywhere.’

  Gotrek held up his axe. The runes on its head glowed faintly. ‘They burn brighter the deeper we descend. It’ll lead us.’

  He opened the door and they stepped into the Karak Hirn mines. They saw few greenskins as they trekked through corridors and down shafts, many fewer than they had seen on their way up from the Undgrin, but it surprised Felix that they saw any at all. He had expected that they would all be up battering at the minehead doors, trying to get back into the hold, but in every forge and foundry they passed, at every workface and tailings pit, orcs and goblins still toiled, making weapons, machinery and armour.

  It chilled Felix to think of it. How many orcs were employed here that some could still be spared from attacking the doors to continue working? And what supreme confidence must the mind behind this enterprise have to carry on with the day-to-day work as if the retaking of Karak Hirn was a certainty? But then, any mind that could bend the will of a hold full of dwarfs and turn them against their brothers had every reason to be confident. Could such a thing, whatever it was, be defeated? If it could direct the actions of an army of orcs and dwarfs, what could it do if it turned all its power upon a single man or dwarf?

  Felix’s mind turned more and more often to this hopeless line of reasoning the deeper they went into the mine. Each level down, his mood got blacker and his conviction that there was no way they could win the coming battle got stronger. The knowledge that this gloom was undoubtedly artificial – an invasion of his consciousness by the thing they sought – did not ease his mind. In fact, it reinforced his fears that the thing was unbeatable. Its ability to twist his mind and make him feel hopeless was proof that there was indeed no hope of beating it. He chuckled bleakly to himself. If the rune axe wasn’t already showing them the way, they could certainly have used his mood for a guide. The blacker it was, the closer they must be. When he cut his own throat they would know they were at the source.

  Though they said nothing aloud, Felix could tell that the dwarfs were affected by the thing’s presence as well. They twitched and shook their heads as if beset by mosquitoes, and he could hear them muttering under their breath. Galin occasionally moaned and put his hand over his eyes. Even Gotrek was touched by the malaise, though he showed it by cursing in furious whispers and rolling his shoulders as if trying to shrug off a yoke.

  Ten deeps down, three levels below the entrance to the Undgrin, the corridors grew narrower and the side passages fewer. This was the newest area of the mine, many of the tunnels were only tentative feelers pushed through the rock, looking for fresh seams of ore, and had not yet been heavily worked or expanded. The rune on Gotrek’s axe glowed so brightly that they no longer needed lamps to see by, and the feeling of dread in Felix’s heart pressed down on him like a giant hand, nearly paralysing him. He felt as if his bones had turned to lead. It was a supreme act of will just to put one foot in front of the other.

  As they made their way down a cramped corridor, Gotrek paused. There was a light ahead – torch-glow coming from an opening in the left-hand wall. Sounds of movement came from it as well.

  ‘Back and find another way?’ whispered Narin.

  ‘Hide until they’re gone?’ suggested Galin.

  Felix blinked at the dwarfs. He had never seen such fear in their kind before. Of course, he felt the same, but he was only human.

  Gotrek spat, disgusted. ‘Go back if you want,’ he said. ‘There is no other way.’ He held up his axe. ‘What we seek is beyond here, and I saw no other branches.’

  ‘Still,’ said Galin, chewing his moustache, ‘it might be wise to check. Look around a bit.’

  Gotrek shrugged. ‘It’ll only be a few grobi.’

  ‘But, they could kill us,’ said Narin. He was shaking.

  Gotrek looked around at him, disgusted. ‘You’re afraid of orcs now?’

  ‘I… No,’ said Narin. He shook his head violently. ‘No. What’s gotten into me? Of course not.’

  ‘I know what’s gotten into us,’ said Galin, quavering. ‘It’s the Sleeper. It knows we’re coming. It’s making us afraid. It can read our minds. It’s hopeless. It’s–’

  Gotrek flattened him with a left hook. ‘Pull yourself together, Stonemonger. Whatever it is, if it lives and breathes, it can fall to an axe.’

  Galin sat up slowly, rubbing his jaw through his beard. ‘I’m sorry, Slayer. It’s… it’s hard to keep it out.’

  ‘I told you not to come. Now fight it or go back and leave me be.’ Gotrek turned and eased towards the torch-lit opening. The others inched along behind him, weapons at the ready. Felix’s legs were shaking so much it was hard to walk. He knew it was the Sleeper making him afraid, but that didn’t make the fear any easier to dispel, or his heart pound any less.

  Gotrek pressed against the wall and leaned forwards to peek into the opening, the light of his rune axe hidden under his arm. He frowned, watching through the door for a long moment, before stepping silently past it and motioning the others to follow.

  The other dwarfs were similarly transfixed as they passed the door. Felix came last, and he looked in with a mixture of curiosity and dread, his mind imagining all sorts of horror and filth. Instead, what he saw was a handful of orcs at the far end of a long, low chamber, assembling a wooden crate around a ridged, resinous sack the size of a hogshead of ale. Beneath a sheen of mucus, it had the texture and translucent lustre of insect wings. Through it, Felix could half see something pale and half-formed curled inside. There were at least twenty assembled crates set along the walls of the room, and enough unbuilt to hold twenty more of the glistening sacks.

  The dwarfs whispered together a safe distance down the corridor.

  ‘Dozens of them!’ Narin was saying. ‘Dozens!’

  ‘But… but what are they?’ asked Galin. ‘And what birthed them?’

  Gotrek turned down the dark corridor. ‘We’ll know in a minute.’ He started forwards.

  Only a hundred feet further along, they came to a crude side tunnel dug in the right wall. It slanted down at a sharp angle into the earth.

  Gotrek’s axe blazed like a torch as he stood on the tunnel’s threshold. ‘This is it,’ he said.

  He marched into it. Felix tried to follow, but found that he could not. A wave of fear and despair stronger than any that had previously washed over him turned his legs to lead. His little joke about cutting his throat was suddenly no joke. He was so frightened, and so certain that whatever was at the end of the tunnel would not only kill him but turn him into a mindless monster that would turn on his friends and spread the Sleeper’s influence far and wide, that he wanted to push his dagger through his neck just to make an end of his misery and save the world. He wanted to tear his eyes out so that he wouldn’t have to see it, but his hands were shaking too hard. Narin and Galin were similarly paralysed.

  Gotrek looked back at them. ‘What now?’

  ‘Don’t you feel it, Slayer?’ asked Narin, his teeth chattering. ‘Are you made of stone?’

  ‘I feel it,’ said Gotrek, ‘but the worst that can happen is that we die, and that’s been true since we left Rodenheim.’

  ‘Death is not the worst,’ choked Galin. ‘It will take us. It will make us like the Diamondsmith clan. It will turn us against our own kind.’

  ‘It will, if you just stand there and quake,’ said Gotrek. ‘Stop thinking and start walking. That’s the only way.’

  He turned and started down the tunnel again, and whether it was Gotrek’s words, or the mere fact that listening had freed him momentarily from the bottomless spiral of his imaginings, Felix found that he was able to move again. Narin and Galin too started after the Slayer, following the tunnel deeper into the earth, straight as an arrow.

  ‘This is orc work,’ muttered Narin, ‘but orcs never dug anything this straight.’


  A hundred yards down, the tunnel stopped at a wall of polished basalt blocks, mirror smooth, and so well set that it was almost impossible to see the joins between them. A wide, low door, narrower at the top than the bottom, opened into a pitch-black chamber, a border of strange symbols all around it.

  ‘This is old,’ said Galin, caught between wonder and horror, ‘older than dwarf-kind. What made this?’

  ‘Not dwarf, nor man, nor elf,’ said Narin. ‘That’s certain.’ He pointed at the symbols. ‘Are those wards meant to keep something out, or something in? Is this a temple, or a tomb?’

  ‘Whatever it is,’ said Gotrek, ‘it should have stayed buried.’ He stepped through the black door.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Felix, Galin and Narin followed Gotrek into the buried basalt structure. Felix had to duck under the low lintel. The red light of the rune axe reflected darkly from the glossy black walls, revealing a large octagonal room with more of the low trapezoidal doorways leading off into darkness. Felix shuddered. There was a feeling of unfathomable age about the place that reminded him of the tunnels of the Old Ones that he and Gotrek had almost lost themselves in during their travels with Teclis. It made him feel very young and small and insignificant.

  Something about the scale of the doors made him realise that the place had not been built for anything that walked on two legs. For a moment, he tried to imagine what it might have been, but then he stopped himself. Following that line of speculation would send him screaming up the tunnel again.

  It was almost comforting to see signs of orcish occupation in this alien place. Orcs might be horrible viscous monsters, but they were familiar horrible, viscous monsters. Long planks had been laid over a wide circular hole in the centre of the room to make a bridge, and a trail of dust, pebbles and orc footprints crossed from the door that Felix and the dwarfs had entered to another in the far wall. The place had the familiar stink of orc to it too – a harsh animal stench, mixed with the reek of death and rotting garbage.

  ‘How did the orcs know this was here?’ asked Felix, staring around. ‘How did they find it?’

  ‘They didn’t,’ said Gotrek. ‘It called them.’

  ‘Gurnisson,’ said Narin. ‘Hide your axe a moment. I think I see light.’

  Gotrek tucked the head of his axe under his arm, blocking the glow of the rune and plunging the room into darkness. As his eyes got used to the dark, Felix saw a pale green phosphorescence coming from the far door, so dim that it was hard to be sure whether it was really there. Then something blocked it. Huge shadows hunched rapidly towards them along the hall.

  ‘Something’s coming!’ said Galin.

  Gotrek unshielded his axe as Felix, Narin and Galin went on guard. Out of the far door ducked six huge mutated orcs, each the size of the warboss they had faced in the grand concourse, their black faceted eyes glittering red in the rune-glow. A choking rotten egg smell wafted from them like a cloud.

  Felix and the dwarfs gagged and covered their mouths as the orcs spread out, moving to encircle them and hefting their weapons.

  ‘Grungni!’ said Narin. ‘These aren’t orcs any more. They’ve become something else.’

  ‘Mutants,’ spat Galin. ‘Tainted by Chaos.’

  It was true. The mutations that had twisted the warboss were fully realised in the hideous creatures that faced them now. Where the warboss had been pale, these were dead-fish white and glistened with a sticky sheen. Where he had been covered in lumps and tumors, these sported translucent barbs and horns growing from their skulls and shoulders like milky icicles. One had a ring of tiny tentacles sprouting from the centre of its chest around a suppurating stoma. Their arms were long and distorted, reaching almost to the ground, and their forearms were crusted over with spined glassine carapaces, like the shells of albino cave crabs. Gold and onyx glinted at their necks.

  Gotrek ran his thumb along the blade of his axe, drawing blood. He grinned. ‘Now this will be a fight.’

  ‘It’ll be a slaughter!’ moaned Galin. ‘They have torques. All of them have torques. They’re all invincible. This is the end.’

  ‘Shut up,’ said Gotrek angrily. ‘We take them off is all.’

  ‘And cut their heads off,’ said Narin, grimly, ‘to make sure they don’t attack again after they’re dead.’

  ‘Manling, with me,’ said Gotrek. ‘Take the collars and I’ll kill them. Galin, do the same for Narin. Go!’

  Gotrek and Felix ran at the orcs to their left, while Narin and Galin ran to the right, but it was impossible. The orcs seemed to know instantly what they intended, and when Felix tried to edge around the first, the others attacked him and not Gotrek. He had to skip like a schoolgirl to avoid getting gutted. Gotrek got in the orcs’ way and held them off, but they were immensely strong as well as untouchable, and forced him back.

  Galin and Narin were having the same trouble. They fell back before the other three orcs, dodging and parrying madly, then ducked aside and ran for the other side of the room. The orcs followed.

  ‘Not working, Gurnisson!’ called Narin.

  Felix returned to Gotrek’s side, slashing around him with all his might, though he knew it was pointless. His sword skimmed off the orcs’ slimy white flesh as if it was stone.

  ‘Try again,’ grunted Gotrek as he bashed at the orcs.

  Felix nodded and made to circle behind the orcs, but they were on him again in an instant. He fell back. On the far side of the covered hole, Galin and Narin were trying to avoid being cornered.

  Felix looked at the hole again, and the boards that covered it. ‘The hole!’ he cried.

  ‘What?’ said Gotrek.

  Felix broke away and ran to the hole. He dropped his sword and started heaving aside the planks. A wave of death reek rushed up at him like a punch in the nose. Under the planks, the hole dropped straight down for about ten feet. Sigmar only knew what its original purpose had been, but it was a grave now. Heaped at the bottom were a score of orc corpses, so old and rotten that their skeletons were showing through their putrefying flesh.

  Felix cursed. He’d hoped it was some sort of well. The orcs would climb out of this in an instant.

  ‘Watch out, manling!’

  Felix rolled aside instinctively as an orc cleaver slashed down at him. It splintered the plank he had been about to lift. The orc swung at him again. Felix dived low and rolled past it, snatching up his sword as he came to his feet.

  ‘Good thinking,’ said Gotrek, backing away from the other two. ‘Narinsson! Olifsson! Clear the boards!’

  ‘No. Won’t work,’ gasped Felix, ducking another swipe. ‘Not deep enough. They’ll climb out. Unless…’ An idea came to him. He leapt back to Gotrek and snatched the unlit lantern from his belt. Then he dodged around the orcs to the hole again and smashed it on the rim. The glass reservoir inside the tin case shattered and oil leaked out. Felix shook it along the edge of the hole until the orc lunged after him. He threw the lantern in its face and squirmed past it, barely deflecting an overhand bash.

  The orc turned for another attack, slipped on the oil, recovered and came after him. Felix backed away from it, smashing his own lantern as he had Gotrek’s, and sprinkled another stretch of the lip with oil. The orc’s axe smashed black splinters out of the basalt floor an inch from his foot. He jumped away again.

  As the orc lumbered after him, Felix marvelled at how clear his head was. The Slayer had been right. Once the fighting had started, his fear had fallen away. It wasn’t gone, coils of dread still slithered in Felix’s stomach, but it wasn’t all-consuming now. He could think. He could act. He didn’t want to give up. He didn’t want to die.

  On the far side, Narin and Galin were trying to obey Gotrek’s order and pull up the planks, but with three orcs chasing them, they weren’t having much luck. They were too busy dodging axes to grab the boards.

  Gotrek backed towards the hole, luring his two orcs forwards. At the edge, he feinted left, sending one lurching to the side to try to block hi
m, and then veered back and chopped at the other’s midsection.

  The orc took the blade of the rune axe on its exposed white flesh with no more than a grunt, and stepped in to swing its ponderous axe at Gotrek’s head. The Slayer surged forwards under the slash, ramming his shoulder into the orc’s gut and pressing up at it with the haft of his axe, held in both hands like a staff.

  Propelled by Gotrek’s lift and its own forward motion, the orc went up and over the Slayer’s back, and came down with a smash on the remaining boards. They snapped like dry twigs under its enormous weight and it fell into the hole, landing on the mounds of its rotting kin.

  Gotrek’s second orc charged him, mace raised. Gotrek rolled left, out of the way. The mutated greenskin tried to stop and turn, but he slipped on the spilled oil and skidded into the hole, landing on top of the first.

  Galin and Narin ran past Gotrek along the edge of the hole with their three hulking pursuers hot on their heels. The dwarfs deftly avoided the drips of oil, but the lead orc was not so nimble. It crashed down on its back, right arm and leg hanging over the edge of the hole. Felix, backing away from his orc, saw the opportunity. He ran and kicked the orc in the side. It slid into the hole, scrambling with its transparent claws at the slippery edge, before dropping over the side.

  Felix spun and ducked a bash from his orc’s cleaver and found himself back to back with Gotrek, Galin and Narin. The three remaining orcs surrounded them. Behind them, corpse-white hands were reaching up and pawing at the rim of the hole, trying to gain purchase on the slippery basalt.

  ‘Evened the odds,’ said Gotrek, approvingly. ‘Now, you three kill one, while I hold the other two.’

  ‘You can hold two?’ asked Narin.

  ‘Depends how quick you kill the one,’ said Gotrek. ‘Go!’

  Suddenly the Slayer became a whirlwind of flashing steel, the red glow of the rune axe leaving curving comet trails inscribed on Felix’s retina as he pushed two of the orcs back with simple brute ferocity.