by Warhammer
Gotrek started forward, pulling his axe from his shoulder. ‘Trouble,’ he said.
‘Excuse me, my lord,’ said Felix, ducking his head to Ostwald. He drew his sword and followed the Slayer.
The gun wagon was so wide that there was little room between it and the stone balustrades on either side of the bridge. They pushed around it and stopped behind Wissen’s men, who had formed a line before the wagon.
Beyond them, an angry mob of Shantytown working men and young men in students’ robes was flowing onto the bridge, screaming slogans and waving cudgels, staves and lit torches. Many of them wore yellow strips of cloth around their foreheads or arms. There were hundreds of them. They filled the street beyond the bridge.
‘Grain for the people, not the army!’ shouted some.
‘Iron workers starve while gun makers grow fat and consort with sorcerers!’ cried others.
‘Smash the guns! Smash the guns!’ roared still others.
Standing on his toes, Felix could see men in yellow masks amongst the mob, chanting and shaking their fists with the rest.
As the crowd got closer, the men at the front began to throw bricks, torches and paving cobbles at Wissen’s men. The watchmen dodged and ducked. They had no shields, and no bows or guns, so they couldn’t retaliate.
‘You see?’ said Wissen. ‘Agitators. Did I not say? Hold your line, men.’ He looked back at Groot and Magus Lichtmann and Lord Pfaltz-Kappel, who were peeking around the gun wagon. ‘Return to the isle, my lords, and ask Lord Ostwald to do the same. There will be violence.’ He glanced at Gotrek and Felix as his men set their spears. ‘You too, meinen herren,’ he said with a sneer. ‘I would hate to be responsible for the deaths of the “Heroes of Nuln”.’
‘Worry about your own hide, watchman,’ said Gotrek, sheathing his axe and smacking his fists together as the crowd swarmed closer. He caught Felix’s look and snorted. ‘There’s no honour in slaughtering untrained fools.’
But that wasn’t what Felix had been thinking about. He was wondering if there was any honour in fighting the mob at all. Uncomfortable memories flooded his mind. Hadn’t he led the mob during the window tax riots? Hadn’t he thrown bricks through the windows of the rich? Hadn’t he urged the poor to storm the Lord Mayor’s office? Hadn’t he fought the watch in the streets? It felt very strange to be on the other side of the spears. He had more sympathy for the mob than he did for the men around him. He agreed with the agitators, at least in principle. The poor should be fed. Working men should be paid a fair wage.
On the other hand, smashing things and fighting the watch never got anyone anywhere, and he doubted these fellows were going to wait for him to explain that he was on their side before they caved his head in. He pulled his sheath from his belt and slid it down over his sword. Gotrek’s way seemed best. There was no honour in slaughtering untrained fools, but at the same time, there was no honour in letting them slaughter you either.
In the middle of this reverie, a familiar shape caught the corner of his eye. A figure dressed all in black with a white shock of hair peeking from a voluminous hood, watching from the embankment. He lifted his head up to get a better look, but a flying stone skipped off the top of his head and he flinched down, cursing. By the time he stood again, vigorously rubbing his crown, the figure was gone – if it had ever been there in the first place.
A last volley of cobbles rattled all around them, and then the mob smashed into the watch’s line. Wissen’s men gored dozens, but they were but one thin line before an unstoppable battering ram of humanity. They were driven back by the sheer mass of the crowd. Some of the agitators squirmed past them, shouting, ‘Smash the gun! Smash the gun!’
Gotrek clubbed these to the ground with his heavy fists. Felix laid about him with his sheathed sword, using it as a club. But there were too many. More and more were pushing through and slipping around them. Felix saw a watchman take a brick to the temple and fall. Three workmen dragged down another, even while his spear ripped out the guts of one of their companions. More workers pushed forward, trampling the bodies. They threw glass bottles at the gun wagon. Oily liquid splashed as the bottles shattered. Torches followed, and the wagon burst into flames.
Wissen fired point blank into a protester’s face with his pistol and lashed about him with his sword, but he stepped back with every swing. ‘Fall back! Fall back!’ he cried. ‘Use the gun as a barrier!’
‘It’s the gun they’re after,’ growled Gotrek.
The watchmen didn’t hear him. They backed away, following Wissen as he retreated around the gun. Gotrek and Felix were suddenly alone in a sea of howling workmen. They flattened everyone they could reach, but they were but a small rock in a wide stream. The mob flowed around them on both sides and began clambering onto the gun, some perilously close to the flames, hitting it ineffectually with their clubs and rakes, still shouting ‘Smash the gun! Smash the gun!’
‘Push it in the river!’ shouted someone from further down the bridge. ‘Push it in the river!’
The mob took up the cry and began to rock the gun wagon back and forth. ‘Into the river! Into the river!’
‘No you don’t,’ said Gotrek, and spun towards the mob around the gun, pulling them off and throwing them aside.
Felix helped, braining the rioters with his sheathed sword and kicking them left and right. He heard glass smash beside him and something spattered his arm and cheek. He turned. Gotrek was drenched in oil. Shards of sticky glass glittered in his crest and slid down his naked back.
Gotrek looked over his shoulder. ‘Who…’
A torch sailed over the heads of the mob. Gotrek whipped his axe off his back and blocked it. It spun and glanced off his right shoulder, then bounced into Felix.
Fire bloomed on Gotrek like an orange flower, flowing up the side of his head and wreathing his crest in flame. Felix’s cloak and jerkin went up as well. The rioters flailed at them with their cudgels and staves.
‘Flame-throwing cowards!’ roared Gotrek. ‘Come and face me steel to steel!’
He and Felix slapped at the flames as the mob battered at them. They only succeeded in setting their hands on fire. The fire stuck to everything. Felix cursed, his fingers a fiery agony. Heat blasted his face. Gotrek howled with rage. He slashed around with axe, decapitating clubs and severing hands, then surged for the balustrade. Felix followed. The rioters leapt back from their flames.
Gotrek dived off the bridge. Felix was right behind him. The world spun around him – bridge, river, shore, sky, Gotrek on fire – then, with a wet slap, he plunged into the waves. The cold shocked a cry out of him and he sucked in a mouthful of water.
He kicked and flailed in a confusion of bubbles and murk. After a moment of blind terror he broke the surface, choking and retching, eyes tearing.
Gotrek bobbed beside him, throwing his dripping crest out of his eyes. One side of his face was covered in blisters. ‘That’s what I get for being merciful.’ He looked up, then his one eye widened. ‘Swim!’ he barked.
Felix followed his gaze. The bridge rose up beside them, and looming out over the balustrade, directly above them, was the exploded cannon. It was sliding off the rapidly tipping gun wagon. Felix stared, frozen, as it let go entirely, smashed through the balustrade in an explosion of granite, and began to topple off the bridge.
‘Swim, manling!’
Felix snapped out of his paralysis and kicked forward, trying to get under the bridge. Gotrek was ahead of him, swimming strongly. Felix kicked and flailed for all he was worth, but it seemed like he was treading water. He wasn’t going to make it.
With a sound like a battering ram hitting an iron door, the cannon smashed into the river. Felix felt himself being drawn back as the big gun opened a vortex in the water, then he was pushed forward again as the water surged back up. His shoulder slammed into a bridge pillar and he spun away on a roiling hill of water.
As they shot out on the other side of the bridge, Gotrek caught him and kept him afloa
t. ‘Can you swim?’
Felix rolled his shoulder and flexed his arm. They were sore, but nothing was broken. ‘I… I think so.’
‘Then come on.’
Gotrek struck out for the north bank. Felix followed, then paused and looked up. On the bridge, the rioters were dispersing, running for the shore as they whooped and cheered at their victory, Captain Wissen’s men chasing after them. Felix cursed them, his earlier sympathy entirely evaporated. The maniacs had set him on fire. He hoped they all roasted alive.
CHAPTER FIVE
‘It was a great loss,’ Lord Groot said, as he and Magus Lichtmann, Malakai and Gotrek and Felix watched the pouring of the new gun with a group of Gunnery School officials from a metal platform above the casting room floor. ‘Not in iron, though that is not cheap these days, with the shippers gouging us with “wartime prices”, but in men and honour. Not only did we lose one of the best crews in the Empire, we lost the body and spirit of Johannes Baer, whose ashes were mixed with the iron of the gun.’
‘His ashes?’ asked Felix.
The heat from the forge was making the burns on Felix’s face sting, and his left hand was sweating and itching under his bandages, but the honour of being invited to watch the pouring of a great cannon was not to be refused, so he merely stepped back a pace and hoped it would be over soon.
Felix’s left hand had been salved and wrapped, and he was wearing clothes borrowed from a student at the College of Engineering, to replace his cloak and jerkin, which had been badly scorched, and everything else, which was soaking wet. The hand still throbbed, but he didn’t dare complain. Gotrek’s entire right arm, the right side of his neck, his right ear and part of his back were swathed in bandages, and his Slayer’s crest was several inches shorter than usual where the Gunnery School’s barber surgeon had cut away the blackened parts, and yet Gotrek bore his pain and indignity with stoic silence.
‘Aye,’ said Groot. ‘It is a long-standing tradition, and a great honour. Artillery men of distinction are cremated when they die, and their ashes added to a new cannon. It is thought to imbue the gun with the fortitude and spirit that the men had in life. Johannes Baer was such a man. A great gunner and a brave soldier who died defending his gun when his position was overrun.’ He bowed his head. ‘The men who died today will soon be joined with their own guns. Today…’ He looked towards the enormous glowing crucible that hung over the casting pit. ‘Today, Leopolt Engle will be wed to his gun. He died four months ago in the siege of Wolfenberg, when the city wall collapsed under the bombardment of one of the enemy’s hell cannon. He had destroyed two of the foul machines with his marksmanship.’
A bell chimed below. Groot stepped forward. ‘They are ready.’
The others joined him. Felix stayed where he was. He could see just fine, and Groot and Gotrek’s thick frames protected him somewhat from the waves of brutal heat.
Men in heavy leather aprons and leather hoods that covered their faces and necks stepped back from the casting pit, a square hole in the stone floor that was filled with sand. In the centre of the pit, at the bottom of a slight depression, was set a wide white ring. A shallow groove had been made in the sand, leading to the ring.
‘That opening,’ said Groot, pointing, ‘is the tip of the cannon mould, made of clay, and buried upright in the sand pit. The thick rod that hangs straight down into the centre of it is the bore mould. The molten iron is poured into the mould, then when it cools, the bore mould is removed to make the gun’s barrel chamber. We use secrets taught us by dwarf gun makers to make sure that both the gun mould and the bore mould are perfectly vertical and perfectly aligned. This ensures that the cannon shoots straight and is of uniform thickness all around when finished.’ His chest puffed up. ‘Consequently, our guns are the most accurate in the Old World.’
Above the casting pit was a sturdy wood and metal gantry from which hung the massive crucible that held the molten iron that would be poured into the mould. At the moment the crucible sat over a superheated coal furnace. Foundry workers stood around it in heavy leather, scooping impurities off the top with long steel spoons and dumping them in sand-filled stone buckets. Another bell clanged and the men stepped back. A door opened behind them and onto the gantry stepped a priest of Sigmar and two initiates. These too wore the heavy scarred leather of the forge men, but their gear had the shape of temple vestments, and was stitched upon the breast with the symbols of the hammer and the twin-tailed comet. Their faces were uncovered however, and Felix wondered how they stood it.
The priest held an iron-bound Book of Sigmar folded in his arms. His face, hellishly under-lit by the liquid iron’s crimson light, was pocked with circular burn scars. He had obviously performed this duty many times before. One of the acolytes carried a gold-headed hammer, the other carried a stone urn. They too had burns on their faces, but not so many.
The workers on the gantry bowed their heads as the priest took the hammer from the first acolyte, then opened the book and began to read aloud. Lord Groot and the other men from the school who watched the ceremony lowered their heads as well. Felix did not. The ceremony was too fascinating not to watch. Gotrek and Malakai watched too. The priest’s words were lost in the roar of the furnace, but whatever the invocation was, it was brief – necessarily so, Felix thought. When he finished, he stepped back and nodded to the second acolyte.
The man stepped forward, his face running with sweat. His lips moved continuously as he opened the stone urn and upended it over the crucible. The dust that poured out glittered as it drifted down into the molten metal, and a swirl of flames and sparks shot up when it touched, splashing the holy men. The acolyte with the urn flinched back and almost dropped it as a spark struck his cheek. With an effort he controlled himself and stood solemnly as the priest finished the ceremony and closed the book.
As they backed away, the forge men stepped forward again, unlocking the crucible from its mooring and then pulling on chains that rolled it forward until it hung over the sand pit. Other chains lowered it until the bottom of the massive container was only inches above the sand. Two heavily gloved men stepped to it and grasped long handles that sprouted from its side. With long-practiced motions they tipped the crucible slowly forward until molten iron began to spill from its spout into the groove in the sand. Sparks leapt in all directions. The men poured carefully, making sure the stream was smooth and constant. It wound down the groove and into the mould like a glowing red snake slipping endlessly into a hole.
Felix blinked to moisten his eyes. The blast of heat from the pouring metal made the room even hotter than before, and they were as dry as eggshells. The entire front of his body felt on fire. He looked over at the others. All were sweating, but none showed any sign of discomfort, curse them.
‘Leopolt Engle,’ intoned Lord Groot. ‘May you, in death, bring victory to the Empire and defeat to her enemies as you did in life.’
‘May Sigmar so grant,’ said the other men of the school.
For another interminable ten minutes the forge men trickled the metal into the mould while Felix’s face felt like it would shrivel up and peel off. At last the mould filled to the brim and the men tipped the crucible back upright.
As the priest stepped forward to say one final blessing, Felix noticed that the initiate who had been burned had fainted. He lay on the gantry, still clutching the urn, while his fellow acolyte knelt over him, shaking him.
Groot and the other men of the school bowed to the cooling gun and made the sign of the hammer, then turned to depart.
Groot smiled at Gotrek and Felix. ‘Come,’ he said. ‘The heroes who defended Johannes Baer’s cannon when Wissen and his cowards turned and fled must be honoured. You will feast at my table tonight.’
‘Will there be ale?’ asked Gotrek.
‘Of course!’ said Groot. ‘As much as you like.’
‘Good,’ said Gotrek. ‘I’m parched.’
As much as Gotrek likes, thought Felix. Groot may come to regret those wo
rds.
As they walked through the grounds of the school towards Groot’s quarters in the main building, they saw guards in the uniform of the school leading away another guard. The man was raving.
‘The guns,’ he cried. ‘They were looking at me! They want to kill me!
Groot stopped the strange procession, holding up a hand. ‘Sergeant Volker, what is this? What has happened?’
The sergeant looked pained. ‘It’s Breyermann, sir, who guards the guns before they’re shipped. He’s come to believe that the guns are alive, and that they mean him harm.’
‘They stare at me!’ wailed Breyermann from behind him. ‘They hate us all!’
Groot shook his head. ‘Terrible. First Federeich mutates, and now Breyermann goes mad. What are the odds that such misfortune strikes two of our lads in one week?’
‘We thought perhaps that Breyermann caught his madness from Federeich, sir,’ said the sergeant. ‘Wouldn’t be surprised if he shows stigmata soon.’
Groot nodded. ‘Aye. You undoubtedly have the right of it. Very sad. Inform his family. And give him to the Sisters of Shallya. Perhaps they can cure him before it becomes a matter for the witch hunters.’
The sergeant saluted and he and his men led the madman away. Groot sighed and continued towards his quarters. Felix looked back at the sad procession, a jumble of half-formed thoughts churning in his head. He noticed that Gotrek was looking back too.
Late that night, as Gotrek and Felix staggered with Malakai towards the College of Engineering after Groot’s lavish feast, Gotrek stopped and turned in the direction of Shantytown.
‘I want to go to the Blind Pig,’ he said, slurring only a little.
‘You want more to drink?’ asked Felix, amazed. The Slayer had put away an enormous amount of ale at dinner. Felix had seen Groot wince as the third keg had been broached. He supposed Gotrek might be trying to numb the pain of his burns – as Felix had been doing – but then he often drank like that, so who could say?