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

by Warhammer

  Otto’s chest puffed up. ‘Well, you know, I pride myself on fitting the man to the job and the job to the man. Part of the secret of my success. Shall we order a sweetmeat for after? And a little more wine?’

  ‘Yes, that sounds like a good idea,’ said Felix. That would give him more time to come up with a way to kidnap Gephardt. Felix looked across the room again as Otto summoned the server. Gephardt was gone!

  Felix’s heart thudded violently. He hadn’t expected the man to move so quickly! He was already on his way to warn his masters, no doubt. This was bad. He had to get back and tell Gotrek. If they moved immediately, they might be able to catch Gephardt before he talked to the Cleansing Flame.

  Felix turned back to Otto. ‘On second thought, perhaps we should be getting back,’ he said. ‘You’ve given me a lot to think about.’

  Otto frowned. ‘Are you well, Felix? You look a bit green.’

  Felix swallowed. ‘The duck, I think. I’m not accustomed to such rich food anymore.’ He smiled weakly. ‘I suppose I’ll have to get used to it.’

  A few fitful raindrops spattered the steps as Felix and Otto stepped out of Wulf’s. Thick clouds hid the moons and the wind was cool and wet. Otto summoned his coach and it trotted up. Felix followed Otto into it, glad that it was covered. It looked like a storm was coming.

  As they started up Commerce Street towards Kaufman district gate, Otto crossed his hands over his broad belly and burped contentedly. ‘You’re staying at the College of Engineering?’ he asked. ‘Shall I drop you there?’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Felix. The faster he got back the better. ‘Very nice of you. And thank you for the dinner.’

  ‘Not at all. Happy to. I’m just glad you’ve finally come around to deciding to make something of yourself. Once you start with the company we’ll dine out like this all the time. Though I hope you don’t want to go to Wulf’s next–’

  Otto was interrupted by a shout, and the coach slewed to an abrupt stop with a neighing of horses and a skidding of hoofs on wet cobbles. Felix and Otto flew forward out of their seats. Felix heard the bodyguards curse as they were thrown from their perches and tried to land on their feet on the street.

  Felix pulled himself up and dropped his hand to his sword.

  ‘Manni! Yan! Olaf! What is it!’ called Otto.

  ‘Men, sir,’ came the coachman’s voice.

  ‘Men with swords,’ said one of the bodyguards. ‘Near a dozen.’

  Fear gripped Felix’s heart. Who was it? Hermione’s gentlemen? Men from the Cleansing Flame? Had Countess Gabriella decided to kill him after all?

  ‘Easy, gentles, easy,’ said a Shantytown voice. ‘We only want yer valuables, not yer lives. Hand ‘em over peaceable and there’ll be no need for violence.’

  Felix gaped, amazed. Shallya’s Mercy! Was it only a robbery? Could he be so lucky?

  ‘Stand away, you ruffians!’ retorted the other bodyguard. ‘You’ll get steel before you get gold.’

  ‘No no!’ cried Otto. ‘Don’t fight them! It isn’t worth your lives. Stand down.’ He pulled himself up and peeked out the window. ‘Come forward, gentlemen. We’ll give you what we have.’

  ‘That’s the way, m’lords,’ said the Shantytown voice as boots approached the coach from either side. ‘Nice and easy.’

  ‘You watch yourselves,’ growled a bodyguard. ‘No tricks.’

  ‘Sigmar’s beard!’ said Otto as he wiggled the rings off his fingers and started stuffing them under the cushions of the bench. ‘The brass of these fellows. Right in the middle of Commerce Street! Where is the watch when they’re wanted?’

  Felix sat back on the bench as the bootsteps reached the coach’s two doors. His hand went to his dagger. The coach rocked on its springs and two scarred, grinning faces appeared in the windows.

  ‘Evening, gentles,’ said the one on Felix’s side, a swarthy fellow in a soft hat.

  The other, who lacked a right eye, looked from Otto to Felix and back. ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘These are the ones.’

  The two robbers drew pistols from their doublets and stuck them through the windows.

  Felix struck out in two directions at once, kicking hard against his door with the heel of his boot, while at the same time backhanding his dagger at the man in Otto’s window.

  There was a splintering of wood and both pistols fired, deafening Felix and filling the coach with smoke. Felix heard a cry, but couldn’t tell who it was. He didn’t think he’d been hit, so he hoped it wasn’t him. He launched himself at his door and was gratified to feel it slam open and to hear a body hit the street.

  The words, ‘these are the ones,’ echoed through Felix’s head as he stopped and surged for the opposite door. He came up hard against it. The window was empty. He looked out. The one-eyed man lay on the ground, a messy hole in his throat, shot by his companion it seemed. Beyond him, more thugs were running forward. An ambush then, not a robbery. The only question that remained was, were these cultists from the Cleansing Flame, or hirelings of Lady Hermione or Countess Gabriella?

  Felix turned to Otto, just visible now through the clearing smoke. He cowered against the back of the bench, eyes wide and darting, his fat chins trembling.

  ‘Stay in the coach!’ Felix barked. ‘And defend yourself!’

  He leapt out of the smashed door, and almost fell as his new boots slid on the wet street. The taller of Otto’s bodyguards – Yan, his name was, Felix remembered – had killed the swarthy shooter and was turning to face the charging thugs. Felix drew his runesword and joined him.

  One of the thugs fell before he reached them, a fletched bolt in his leg. Out of the corner of his eye, Felix saw Manni, the coachman, cranking a small crossbow.

  Then Felix and Yan were surrounded, swords and clubs swinging at them from every direction. Felix knocked a cudgel from someone’s hand and ran through a swordsman. He was relieved to see that Yan was a veteran. He did not flinch or panic. He met the greater numbers calm and alert, and though he made no touches, he took none either. It seemed that Otto had spent wisely when he had hired his guards.

  Felix killed another thug, gashing his throat, then unstrung another’s knee. The assassins wore no armour, and Karaghul was a heavier, keener sword than their rapiers and short swords. He batted them out of the way with ease. The greatest difficulty was keeping his feet on the slick cobbles.

  A shout came from the other side of the coach, and then a shriek from Otto.

  ‘Master Felix!’ called the coachman. ‘They’re getting in!’

  Felix cursed. ‘Fall back with me,’ he shouted to Yan, then flourished wildly with his sword and jumped back out of combat. Yan ran with him as he turned and ran for the back of the coach. Yan gasped and almost fell as a thug slashed him across the back. Felix caught his arm and they surged on, their three remaining opponents close behind them.

  Olaf had acquitted himself well. Two corpses lay at his feet, and another was staggering away, trying to hold his guts in. But the bodyguard was slumped, motionless, against the coach door, his chest and face painted with blood. A thug kicked him aside and grabbed at the coach door. There were three more behind him.

  Felix bellowed to get their attention, then barrelled into them, slashing left and right. One fell back, torso split from shoulder to hip, and the others dodged away, but one gashed Felix under the left arm and the cold shock of steel burned across his ribs. He grunted and stumbled aside.

  Yan hacked the man down, then covered Felix as he turned. Felix’s first thought, ridiculously, was that they had ruined his new doublet. Then the pain came in earnest and he forgot about the doublet.

  There were seven assassins left between Felix and the coach. Seven against two, and he was wounded, blood running down his side. It would be quite a joke if, after persevering against nearly every horror the Old World had to offer, he was finally killed by common alley bashers on the high street in Nuln.

  A thug at the back shoved some of the others forward. ‘Hold them off w
hile we kill the fat one!’ he said, then screamed as a bolt from the coachman’s crossbow punched down through his collarbone.

  The others turned their heads at the noise. Felix and Yan charged instinctively. The thugs fell back, caught off guard. Felix and Yan pressed them against the coach, swinging wildly. Felix disarmed one and chopped another’s club in half. Yan pinned one to the coach, but took a knife point across the cheek. Felix gutted the one he had disarmed, and clubbed another in the temple with the dragon-headed pommel of his sword.

  The assassins had had enough. They broke and ran, scattering to the shadows on both sides of the street. Felix and Yan made no attempt to follow.

  Felix put the point of his sword to the neck of the man who had taken Manni’s bolt in the collarbone as Yan despatched the rest of the wounded with professional efficiency. ‘Who sent you?’

  The man spat at him, his eyes wild with fanatical ardour. ‘You are dead!’ he said. ‘The flame will consume you! You and all your kind!’ He pushed himself forward deliberately, impaling his neck upon Felix’s sword, and laughed wetly as the blood pumped from his throat. ‘Change is coming!’ he hissed, then slumped back, dead. Felix shivered. Just like the one who had killed himself on Gotrek’s axe. Their fanaticism was frightening. At least now he knew who had sent them.

  ‘Is it over?’ asked Otto, peeking out from the coach.

  Felix nodded. ‘It’s over.’

  He knelt down beside Olaf. The bodyguard was breathing, but only barely. Yan squatted down and the two of them picked him up.

  Otto opened the coach door and they laid him on the floor. ‘To Doctor Koln’s house, Manni,’ he said. ‘Hurry.’

  As Yan pulled himself onto his perch behind, Felix climbed back in the coach. He eased back onto the bench with a weary hiss and closed his eyes. The coach lurched forward, jarring his wound. He grunted, in pain, and opened his eyes.

  Otto was glaring at him. ‘This was no simple robbery.’ he said. ‘They were after us. After you!’

  ‘I’m sorry, Otto,’ said Felix. ‘I…’

  Otto wasn’t listening. He was too angry. ‘This has something to do with Gephardt’s son, doesn’t it? That’s why you wanted to go to Wulf’s! You had no interest in talking to me about working for the company. You were having one of your adventures, and now you’ve got me caught up in it! Sigmar! I might have been killed!’ His face suddenly paled. ‘Gods! I still might! Gephardt must have known me as surely as I knew him. He will come after me. He will come after Annabella and Gustav!’ Otto’s eyes blazed with fury. His round cheeks flushed red. ‘How dare you! How dare you endanger my family with your mad antics!’

  Felix hung his head. ‘I’m sorry, Otto. I didn’t think it…’

  ‘Clearly, you didn’t think!’ shouted Otto. ‘You are insane! Get out! Get out and don’t come back!’

  ‘I…’ Felix felt like a daemon was twisting his intestines with both hands. It was true. He hadn’t thought – not until it was too late. He had been so intent on finding the leaders of the Cleansing Flame that he hadn’t considered fully the consequences for those around him. It didn’t matter that Otto didn’t know anything. The cultists had seen him with Felix, and would assume he was a threat. ‘At least let me see you to your house,’ he said. ‘They might come back.’

  ‘No!’ said Otto. ‘I don’t want you near me or…’ He hesitated, his eyes flicking nervously to the coach window, then nodded. ‘All right, to my house. But never come again. I will not let you in my door.’

  ‘I understand,’ said Felix sadly. He couldn’t argue. Otto was in the right. He brought wrack and ruin with him wherever he went. First he burned down whole neighbourhoods, now he had marked his brother’s family for death. The hero of Nuln indeed!

  They deposited Olaf with the doctor – and Otto waited impatiently as the old man salved and stitched and bound the long gash under Felix’s arm as well – then hurried on under clouds that threatened rain, but did little more than spit.

  As the coach pulled up to Otto’s house, the front door opened, and young Gustav stepped out wearing a rain cloak over his scholar’s robes. He had a lantern in one hand and a satchel in the other.

  Otto practically leapt out of the coach. ‘No!’ he said, waving his hands. ‘Back in the house! You’re not going out!’

  ‘What?’ asked Gustav. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, father. I’m only going to–’

  ‘No! You’re not going anywhere!’

  ‘But… but why?’

  ‘Because your uncle…’ Otto turned to glare at Felix as he stepped out after him, ‘Has made us the target of some crazed madmen who he is at feud with!’

  Gustav frowned. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Nor do I,’ said Otto. ‘Nor do I wish to. One moment he is asking questions about Linus Gephardt’s son, the next we are attacked in the street by…’

  ‘Gephardt’s son?’ asked Gustav, his brow knotted. ‘You mean Nikolas? What does Nikolas have to do with–’

  ‘You know him?’ asked Felix eagerly.

  ‘Nikolas? He is a classmate at university.’ Gustav sneered. ‘Fancies himself a pamphleteer. I’ve read better prose in an account ledger.’

  ‘Do you know where he lives?’ continued Felix.

  ‘He lives at his father’s house, just–’

  ‘No!’ cried Otto. ‘I forbid it! He has already wound us too close to his folly. You will not assist him!’ He turned on Felix and pointed towards the street with a shaking finger. ‘You have hurt us enough. Go. Go and don’t come back.’

  Felix nodded sadly. ‘Very well.’ He bowed to his brother. ‘I am sorry, Otto. And I will do everything I can to fix this.’

  ‘I don’t want to hear any more,’ said Otto. ‘Just go. Go!’

  Felix sighed and started down the street towards the gate to the Neuestadt, his mind boiling with guilt and anger and a determination to honour his promise to Otto and make things right for him and his family. The rain picked up. He pulled up the hood of his fancy new cloak. It, at least, was still in one piece.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Felix walked out onto the roof of the College of Engineering, his brother’s words still echoing through his mind. Bright lanterns pushed back the night, making the flat green copper roof and its crenellated edges appear to be a island in a dark and endless sea. Slanting raindrops slashed past the lanterns like little comets.

  Students were rolling barrels of black powder out from the stairwell and stacking them in piles beneath the Spirit of Grungni, which hovered above them like an iron cloud. A winch was lifting a net full of barrels up through a hatch into the belly of the gondola. Another net was spread out on the rooftop and barrels were being placed in its centre. Beyond all the activity, a gyrocopter sat like the withered husk of some gigantic insect, chains securing it to the roof.

  Malakai stood by the net, supervising the loading. Gotrek was with him. Felix limped towards them. There was nothing wrong with his legs, but his wounded side was so stiff he could hardly walk straight. It throbbed with blunt, insistent agony. All he wanted to do was dull his brain with ale and try to sleep, but the Slayer needed to hear of the night’s events.

  The two dwarfs looked up as he approached.

  ‘Evening, young Felix,’ said Malakai.

  ‘You must have found something,’ said Gotrek. ‘You’ve been fighting.’

  ‘Aye,’ said Felix. ‘I found out what a fool I can be.’ He cast a distracted eye up at the barrels that were disappearing into the hatch. ‘I don’t dare to hope that you’ve recovered the powder in my absence.’

  Malakai shook his head. ‘This is the new powder, bought with Lord Skinflint-Keppel’s money. But what happened tae ye?’

  Felix sighed. ‘I went to Wulf’s. One of the cultists we fought last night wore–’

  ‘Aye, a wolf’s head pendant. Ah noo a’ aboot it,’ said Malakai. ‘Gurnisson told me all o’ what went on in yon cellar. Nae need tae explain. Go on.’

  Felix frowned,
uneasy. How much had Gotrek said? Had he mentioned Ulrika? Countess Gabriella wouldn’t like that. Well, he couldn’t very well ask Gotrek that in Malakai’s presence, could he? He coughed and continued. ‘Well, I saw a man at the club with a burned hand. Unfortunately he saw me too, and he sent some thugs to waylay me and my brother on our way back to his house. There was a fight. My brother… my brother has told me to never come back to his house.’

  ‘And why, pray tell?’ asked Malakai.

  ‘He blames me for getting him involved and bringing trouble to his door.’ Felix sighed as the daggers of guilt stabbed at him again, almost as painful as the cut in his side. ‘And he is right. I should have found some other way into Wulf’s. Now the Cleansing Flame are after him as well. And his family. I fear I have doomed them with a death meant for me.’

  Gotrek and Malakai snorted in unison.

  ‘Men,’ grunted Gotrek, contemptuously.

  ‘A dwarf would have added his axe tae his brother’s and faced his enemy at his side,’ said Malakai.

  ‘Did you catch this burned man?’ asked Gotrek.

  ‘No,’ said Felix. ‘But I learned his name, and where he lives.’

  ‘Good,’ said Gotrek, turning towards the stairs. ‘Let’s go.’

  ‘Gurnisson!’ snapped Malakai. ‘Don’t be an ass. Can’t ye see the lad needs a wee lie doon?’

  Gotrek stopped and looked back, glaring at Felix’s blood-soaked shirt. He seemed offended that Felix had got himself wounded. ‘There’s no time. These fools could use the powder tonight. And the Spirit of Grungni leaves in less than two days.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ said Felix, though he felt anything but, in body or soul. ‘But I don’t think we’ll be able to reach him tonight anyway.’

  ‘Who says we won’t?’ Gotrek snarled.

  ‘He’s a rich man’s son,’ said Felix. ‘He lives at his father’s house in the Kaufman district. The city watch doesn’t let commoners through the Altestadt gates at this time of night. Particularly not when they are wanted criminals such as ourselves.’

  ‘Then we’ll take the sewers,’ said Gotrek. ‘Come on.’