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

by Warhammer

  Felix made to follow them, then paused and turned, looking back at the burning warehouse. He couldn’t just leave and do nothing. His eyes turned to the surrounding tenements. ‘Fire!’ he shouted. ‘Fire in Pappenheimer’s Warehouse! Fire!’

  Gotrek and Ulrika stopped and looked back at him.

  After a second, Gotrek raised his voice too. ‘Fire!’ he bellowed. ‘Wake up! Fire!’ He banged on a stone post with the flat of his axe, making a horrendous racket.

  Ulrika joined them, her voice high and clear. ‘Help! Help! They’re burning Shantytown again!’

  Felix heard shutters opening and voices calling questions in the tenements around them. They ran on. It wasn’t much. But at least it was something.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said Felix as they trotted through the Neuestadt towards the Universitat area. ‘We searched the school and the watch searched under the school. And they’ve been patrolling down there ever since. The powder hasn’t been found. Where has the Cleansing Flame hidden it?’

  ‘Somewhere we didn’t look,’ said Gotrek.

  Ulrika laughed.

  Felix rolled his eyes. He was going to say something snide, but he saw that Gotrek was deep in thought, and so kept quiet.

  ‘The skaven tunnels,’ Gotrek said at last. ‘The ones that the vermin came out of when they attacked Nuln. These lunatics must have found them.’

  Ulrika frowned. ‘But would powder placed all the way down there be enough to bring down the Gunnery School?’ she asked as the three of them entered the Reik Platz and passed by the Deutz Elm, continuing west.

  ‘Aye,’ said Gotrek. ‘If it were set correctly. The sewers run under the school. If they found tunnels that run under the sewers, they could cave the sewers into the tunnels. The school would sink like a ship.’ He growled deep in his throat. ‘They must have an engineer among them.’

  Felix groaned. ‘But how are we to stop it? If we go down there and try to warn the watch, they’ll only try to arrest us again, as they did last time. They won’t listen to anything we have to say. Damn Wissen for a thick skulled fool.’

  ‘I’ll beat it into their heads,’ rasped Gotrek, but then he sighed. ‘No, you’re right, manling. Arguing with those fools would only slow us down.’ He paused and looked around, then started down a side street. ‘Come. We will find a rat hole here that will take us under the sewers to the powder.’

  Felix and Ulrika followed him half a block to an iron grate set in the street. Gotrek heaved it up and held it open.

  ‘In,’ he said.

  ‘Wait,’ said a voice behind them.

  Gotrek, Felix and Ulrika looked around. Gotrek dropped the grate back into its frame with a clang and pulled his axe off his back.

  Ulrika drew her sword and went on guard. ‘What do you want?’ she asked.

  Striding towards them from the main street was a phalanx of dark figures. Some Felix recognised from his visit to the countess’s brothel – the tall, impossibly thin shadow of Mistress Wither, hidden entirely within her trailing black robes and impenetrable veil; the beautiful, cold-eyed Lady Hermione, who wore a hooded cloak over her dark blue attire, and who was followed by a handful of her swaggering, immaculately dressed heroes, who were now clad in perfectly polished breastplates and morion helmets.

  Beside them were persons Felix had never seen before – a cluster of skulking villains led by a voluptuous, coarse-looking vampiress, fairly bursting from the low-cut red bodice and hitched-up red skirts of a street trull. She might have been ravishing, were it not for the scar that pulled up the left corner of her mouth into a permanent leer. Her followers were just as unnerving – vicious-looking doxies and alley bashers, all scarred and wild-eyed, and armed to the teeth with daggers, cheap swords and iron shod cudgels. A more disreputable collection of human scum Felix had never seen. One of them towered above the rest, a filthy, bearded giant of a man who carried a stone-headed hammer in a huge, hairy fist. Felix could smell him from twenty paces away.

  ‘Good evening, friends,’ said Lady Hermione sweetly.

  Gotrek growled low in his throat.

  Ulrika did not lower her guard. ‘Are you here to fight us?’ she asked. ‘Have you not spoken to the countess?’

  Lady Hermione smiled. ‘Fear not, sister. The countess informed us of your message, and has sent us to aid you.’ She cast a sideways glance at the vampire harlot beside her. ‘Madame Mathilda has added her support as well.’

  Ulrika frowned, suspicious. ‘You’re here to help?’

  ‘And why shouldn’t we be?’ asked Madame Mathilda, in a low accent. ‘It’s our city as much as it is yers.’ She grinned and nodded at Felix. ‘This yer lover boy, Kossar? Right sweet little buttercup, ain’t he? Worth turnin’, of a surety.’

  ‘We do not turn men, Mathilda,’ said Lady Hermione with a sniff. ‘It only weakens the line. As dearest Gabriella learned to her cost.’

  ‘No!’ said Gotrek suddenly. ‘I won’t do it!’ He glared at Ulrika. ‘I’ve stood for you, Ulrika Ivansdaughter. You were a good companion once, and your father a Dwarf Friend and Oathkeeper, but these… these…’ He couldn’t seem to find a word vile enough to describe the assembled vampires. ‘These will die by my axe before they fight by my side.’

  ‘You haven’t time to fight us, Slayer,’ said Lady Hermione calmly. ‘And you waste time arguing.’

  ‘The lady’s right, dwarf,’ said Mathilda, scratching herself intimately. ‘Don’t waste yer energy fighting the likes of us when we want the same as you want. It ain’t common sense.’

  ‘Damn common sense!’ snarled Gotrek. ‘You die here, or I do.’

  He dropped into a fighting stance. Hermione’s handsome swains and Mathilda’s ragged bashers did the same. Mistress Wither rattled like dead leaves in a wind. Ulrika looked from one side to the other, as if uncertain who to help.

  Felix cursed under his breath. This fight couldn’t happen. He was no happier fighting on the same side as Lady Hermione and Mistress Wither than Gotrek was, but there was no time. Win or lose, the fight would slow them and possibly wound them so badly that they would not be able to win the fight that mattered. He hated to play on the Slayer’s sense of honour. It seemed a low thing to do, but as regrettable as it was, the vampires were right. ‘Gotrek. Did you not vow vengeance on the Brotherhood of the Cleansing Flame for the destruction of Heinz’s tavern? Did you not say that you were even willing to give up going to Middenheim to defeat them? Will you then let the Cleansing Flame triumph in order to fight a street brawl with unworthy opponents?’

  ‘Unworthy?’ snapped Hermione, but no one paid her any attention.

  For a long moment, Gotrek remained glaring at the vampires, his massive chest heaving and his huge fists clenching. Then, at last, he let out a breath and lowered his axe. ‘You’re right, manling. You’re always right.’ He turned back to the sewer hole. ‘One of these days it will be the death of you.’ He wrenched up the grate and tossed it aside as if it weighed nothing. ‘Let them follow if they can,’ he said, then jumped down into the hole.

  Unfortunately for Gotrek, the vampires and their minions followed him with ease. Though he trotted through the foul brick tunnels at a brisk clip, the Slayer was a dwarf, and his short legs were no match for human strides, let alone the vampires’ inhuman vitality. And Gotrek wasn’t able to travel as fast as he might like, for he stopped to examine the walls and walkways as he went, though what exactly he was looking for Felix wasn’t sure. Felix could hardly see his footing in the uncertain light of the lanterns that Lady Hermione’s gentlemen carried, never mind signs and traces.

  The Slayer spared not a single glance for their companions, only trotted on with his axe in a death grip, all the while cursing bitterly in Khazalid under his breath.

  ‘Ain’t no sewers in the Faulestadt,’ said Madame Mathilda from behind them. ‘More’s the pity. Nothing like a sewer for sneaking about, I say.’

  ‘How sad,’ said Lady Hermione. ‘You’ll have to make do with th
e gutter.’

  Madame Mathilda laughed, the echo booming down the tunnel. ‘Now now, dearie. No fighting in front of company.’

  Ulrika rolled her eyes and gave Felix an apologetic shrug at this exchange.

  ‘Who is Madame Mathilda?’ he asked, leaning close to her ear.

  ‘Another of the countess’s rivals,’ replied Ulrika quietly. ‘She rules the slums south of the river as Countess Gabriella rules the Neuestadt. Her web of spies stretches through the mobs and gangs and brothels of the Faulestadt as Countess Gabriella’s stretches through the noble houses and the palace. A very dangerous woman.’

  ‘That much I gathered.’

  ‘Whispering sweet nothings, are you?’ said Mathilda with a dirty chuckle. ‘Ain’t they just darling.’

  Felix and Ulrika drew apart.

  After a few more minutes, Gotrek stopped suddenly and faced the tunnel wall. ‘Ha!’ he said, then, ‘Hmmmf! Even humans could have done a better job.’

  ‘A better job of what?’ asked Felix.

  He could see no difference between this and any other part of the tunnel, but he had long ago given up trying to see the subtleties of construction and design that were as obvious to the Slayer as the differences in the prose styles of two different authors were to Felix.

  Gotrek didn’t answer, only stepped up to the wall, reversed his axe, and swung the blunt side at it. It smashed right through, and a fall of crumbling bricks clattered to the floor, leaving a ragged black gap. A cold wind blew from it that reeked of skaven. Felix gagged.

  ‘You say the skaven bricked this up?’ he asked.

  ‘Aye,’ said Gotrek. ‘Hiding their tunnels.’ he sneered. ‘Or trying to.’

  Felix shrugged. He would never have found the tunnel, and it didn’t appear that any other human had either.

  Gotrek swung again and the hole widened. Felix joined him, kicking at the wall with his boot. Ulrika did the same.

  ‘Here, Pinky,’ called Madame Mathilda. ‘Give it a go.’

  The hairy giant edged forward, pushing his foul stench ahead of him. He swung his stone-headed hammer wildly, nearly taking Felix’s head off, and knocked a huge hole in the wall.

  Gotrek ignored even this, merely widening the hole with a few more strokes of his axe and stepping through as if the others weren’t there. Felix and Ulrika followed him. The others crowded in behind.

  The skaven tunnels were round and irregular, like the animal burrows that they were, the walls crosshatched with claw marks of the vermin that had dug them. The air inside was cold and stale. Spider webs hung like drifting lace from the curving ceilings. Felix scanned ahead nervously, looking for signs of recent usage, but did not see any fresh dung or rotting garbage. Perhaps the tunnels had been abandoned since their attack on Nuln had been driven back. But if so, why was the smell of them still so present?

  Though the tunnels twisted and turned and rose and fell and branched like the roots of a tree, Gotrek stumped through them as if he had walked through them a thousand times before. He did not pause at intersections. He did not stop to get his bearings. He just turned left, then right, then up, down and back without hesitation. Felix was thoroughly lost in minutes, and it seemed their companions were too.

  ‘Are you certain we go the right way?’ asked Lady Hermione imperiously.

  ‘If yer leading us into a trap,’ said Madame Mathilda. ‘Ye’ll get more than ye bargained for, dwarf.’

  Gotrek only grunted.

  Felix translated for him. ‘You are more than welcome to go your own way.’

  ‘Ha!’ barked Mathilda. ‘No fear! Ye’ll not lose us in this stinking warren.’

  ‘You don’t feel at home?’ sneered Hermione.

  A few minutes later Felix found himself walking beside Ulrika, who was apparently deep in thought. Her profile, in the low light, was heartbreakingly beautiful. He looked quickly forward and back. Gotrek was ten paces ahead of them. The vampires and their minions were a ways behind, bickering with each other in low tones.

  He leaned in towards her. ‘Ulrika.’

  She looked up. ‘Hmmm?’

  He hesitated and licked his lips. ‘Ulrika, I just…’

  ‘Don’t, Felix,’ she said, looking away. ‘There is nothing to say.’

  ‘But…’

  ‘Please,’ she said. ‘Don’t you see? There is no way to fix it. There is no way to go back and change our fate, so talking of it – of what might have been – will only make it worse.’

  Felix paused, his mouth open, wanted to contradict her, but he couldn’t. He hung his head. ‘Aye, I suppose you’re right.’

  ‘In fact,’ said Ulrika, ‘it might be better if we never saw one another again.’

  ‘What?’ Felix looked up at her. But he had only just found her again! ‘That… that seems cruel.’

  ‘Seeing you is crueller, for then the wound stays open, and will not heal.’

  Felix hated the cold logic of it, but she was right. Remaining in her presence would only be torture. It would only remind him of what he could never have. And yet separating from her again was just as intolerable. What a choice. What a…

  He looked back at her suddenly, struck by a thought. ‘This isn’t another test, is it? Some impossible conundrum of honour that I cannot hope to win?’

  Ulrika smiled, then looked at him wryly, her eyes gleaming sapphires in the torchlight. ‘No, Felix. It’s not a test. We’ve outgrown that, remember. It’s just the cold, sad truth. We need to find our happiness among our own kind, where…’ She paused and took a deep breath. ‘Where it is possible to find it.’

  Felix sighed and nodded. ‘Aye. Though at the moment the possibility seems hard to imagine.’

  ‘When the wound heals, Felix,’ she said. ‘When the wound heals.’

  ‘Hssst!’ said Gotrek suddenly. He held up a hand and cocked his head down a cross tunnel.

  The others fell silent.

  Felix strained his ears. At first he could hear nothing but his own breathing, but then, at the very edge of his hearing came the faintest chittering and squeaking. It might have been rats, and then again it might not have. As he listened, it faded away.

  ‘They’re still here?’ asked Lady Hermione, her voice rigid with disgust.

  ‘Oh, aye,’ said Mathilda. ‘We see ’em now and then, or rather their spoor, but not much, and not often. Think they’re still scared of Nuln – thanks to handsome here, and his grumpy little friend.’

  Felix heard Gotrek’s teeth grinding as he started forward again. It sounded like he was chewing rocks.

  About half an hour later, Gotrek slowed. ‘We’re close to the school,’ he said to Felix. ‘Tell them to cover their lanterns.’

  Felix turned back to the others. ‘Cover your lanterns,’ he said.

  Hermione motioned to her gentlemen and they closed the slots of their lanterns and hid them under their cloaks. Felix cursed inwardly as the tunnel went black. He didn’t want to bump around blindly in the dark, but at the same time, asking Gotrek to guide him in front of Ulrika and the others was embarrassing. But then, just as he was about to give in and ask Gotrek for his shoulder, he realised it was in fact not entirely dark. Far ahead there was a faint red glow on the wall of the curving tunnel.

  Gotrek crept forward, his axe at the ready. Felix put a hand on the wall and followed along behind him, Ulrika at his side. The others came after them, moving with uncanny silence.

  As they got closer to the red light, Felix began to hear sounds of activity – low voices, thuds, clunks, scrapes, and intermittent hammering. There were more cross tunnels in this area, and even to Felix’s untrained eye, it seemed apparent that some of them had been shaped by men, not ratmen. There were wooden support beams holding up the ceilings of some of them, and unlit lanterns hung from the walls that appeared to be of human make.

  Just beyond one of the branching corridors, the tunnel slanted steeply down, dropping eight feet in roughly ten paces, then turned sharply to the right and out of si
ght. Reflected light flooded the base of the slope from around the corner, and the sounds of activity were much louder. A wave of sewer smell made Felix wrinkle his nose.

  Gotrek, Felix and Ulrika crept down the ramp, then edged forward and leaned out around the corner. Gotrek grunted as he saw the source of the sounds. Ulrika hissed. Felix choked.

  Before them was a large, low-roofed chamber, longer than it was wide, crudely hollowed out of the earth and lit by lanterns hung from hooks pounded into the rock walls. The roof was supported by two rows of rough pillars – no more than thin columns of rock that had not been dug out. Felix was amazed that they could hold up the weight of the earth above them at all. They seemed much too slender. The floor was a muddy soup, dotted with puddles of water that dripped constantly from the roof.

  Figures moved among the pillars, roping barrels of black powder to them, drilling holes in the barrel tops, and spooling out long lengths of match cord that they laid on top of planks set on the ground to keep them out of the mud. Most of these figures were human, but others were not – not anymore. The sight of the worst afflicted among them made Felix want to gag.

  A flash of green drew his gaze away from a hideous woman with a head like a rotten apple. Between the rows of pillars a pair of mutants – one huge and covered in maroon fur like that of a long-haired cat, the other a translucent blue thing like an upright, man-sized frog – walked from barrel to barrel. The furred beast carried an iron cauldron that glowed from within with a pale green light, and at each barrel, the blue frog dug its webbed hand into the cauldron and pulled out a fistful of glowing green embers. He trickled the embers into the hole that had been drilled in each barrel top, then used a mallet to pound a wooden plug into it and walked to the next, licking glittering green dust from his claws with a tongue like a snake.

  Felix’s heart thudded as he and Gotrek and Ulrika pulled back into the tunnel and climbed back up the steep slope to where the others waited.

  ‘Well,’ said Felix with a shudder. ‘We’ve found the powder.’

  ‘And the cultists,’ said Ulrika.

  ‘A crude bit of sapping,’ said Gotrek. ‘But it’ll do the trick. The chamber runs under the sewer that runs under the Gunnery School. When they blow those pillars, everything comes down.’