by Warhammer
An explosion like a hundred thunderclaps punched his eardrums and knocked him down and sideways in the air. Heat like a hammer slammed the left side of his body. He looked up. Beyond the shadowing white circle of the air-catcher, a black cloud of smoke was blotting out the sun. He heard a rushing crackle like coach wheels riding over dry leaves.
As the hot wind buffeted his air-catcher to the side he could see more of the sky above. The gondola of the Spirit of Grungni hung nose down from the balloon by a handful of cables, a huge hole blown in its belly. The balloon pointed up towards the sun, its underside on fire.
Why doesn’t it explode, thought Felix?
It exploded.
A continent of fire erupted into existence above him, filling the sky, and a tidal wave of sound and heat smashed into him, knocking him up, down and sideways, as if he was a ship caught in a storm. Debris pattered down onto the cloth of the air-catcher above him, then something struck him violently above the temple and his vision dimmed. The last thing he saw was the Spirit of Grungni’s gondola plummeting nose-first towards the ground, and Gotrek’s reliable drifting past below him, covered in smouldering black rubbish.
Then he knew no more.
In his private quarters deep below the city the surface dwellers called Bilbali, the ancient grey seer pored over the correspondence he had just received from Skavenblight, the words inscribed by an elegant paw on the finest man-skin vellum, sealed with the insignia of the Council of Thirteen. He snarled to himself and crumpled the scroll between his claws, then threw it on the fire.
It mattered not how beautiful the vessel, if what it carried was poison. How could they deny him again? How could they refuse him his rightful position in the aristocracy of the greatest of all skaven cities? How could they ask that he continue this exile, this banishment, this insult of a proconsulship in this forgotten backwater, so far from the hub of skaven society? Weren’t all his failures – rather, the failures that vile betrayers had falsely called his – almost twenty years gone? Couldn’t the council put it all behind them? Couldn’t they forgive and forget? Twenty was more years than most skaven lived to see. Had he not lived almost three times that number? Was he not therefore three times – nay, three hundred times – more wise? Was he not the keenest mind of three generations?
Oh, he knew he had little to show for it. All his greatest plans had been stymied, all his certain triumphs brought to crashing, calamitous ruin. But how could they blame him? Was it his fault that he had always been cursed with incompetent underlings? Was it his fault that his colleagues had been jealous backstabbers who had claimed his best ideas for their own, and sabotaged those they could not take advantage of? Was it his fault that he had been stalked by two of the most ruthless, relentless, remorseless enemies ever to cross the path of skaven-kind?
The mere thought of those fiendish beings sent him scrabbling through his papers until he found the stoppered bottle of powdered warpstone. He uncapped it with shaking paws and took a generous snort up both nostrils, then sank back with a sigh as he felt the mellow warmth of it trickle soothingly through his veins. There was nothing like it to calm his nerves. These last years would have been unbearable torture without it.
At least the two monsters were gone, he thought happily. He hadn’t heard even a rumour of them for almost twenty years. It had been the one solace of his long exile that they had ceased to plague him. Of course it would have been far more pleasurable to have had them under his power, running them through his maze, testing experimental poisons on them, making their every waking moment a living hell of…
A scratching came at his door.
‘Who is it?’ he snapped, angry to have been disturbed from such a delicious daydream.
‘Only I, oh most ancient of grey seers,’ said an obsequious voice. ‘Your humble servant, Issfet Loptail.’
‘Come come,’ said the grey seer. ‘Quick quick.’
The door opened and a scrawny skaven with a foolish, simpering look entered, his head bobbing respectfully. He stopped a respectful distance from the grey seer’s desk and swayed in place. He was a pitiful thing. He had lost his tail in a raid on a human farm once – to a female no less – and no longer had any balance. But he was smart, and listened well, and – most importantly – obeyed his master’s orders without question.
‘Speak speak, simpleton,’ squeaked the grey seer imperiously. ‘Your master is busy. Very busy.’
‘Yes, oh pernicious one,’ said Issfet, bowing and almost falling over. ‘I have news from Nuln.’
‘Nuln?’ said the seer sharply. ‘I wish to hear no news from that ill-favoured place. Have I not told you that I…’
‘You have told me always to listen for certain rumours, master, no matter where they spring from.’
‘Rumours? What rumours?’ the seer asked. ‘Speak! Quick quick!’
‘Yes, your superfluousness,’ said Issfet. ‘I discovered a report from our outpost there. Two warriors were seen in our tunnels, travelling with a group of blood drinkers. One of the warriors was a dwarf, with one eye and fur the colour of flame. The other…’
The grey seer reeled back in his chair and nearly fell. He grabbed the stoppered bottle again and upended it on his tongue. ‘My nemeses!’ he moaned as he swallowed the warpstone snuff. ‘My nemeses have returned! Horned Rat protect me!’
‘Master!’ said Issfet, a look of concern on his snaggle-toothed face. ‘Master, wait. Listen further. The news is perhaps not as bad as it seems. There comes a further rumour that these same warriors were killed in an explosion upon a dwarf airship.’
‘Killed?’ said the seer, rising from his seat, his eyes blazing with weird green light. ‘Killed? Those two? Never! I am not so fortunate.’ His claws clutched convulsively. ‘No. They are not dead. But they soon will be. This time I will be certain of their destruction!’
‘Yes, oh most impotent of skaven,’ said Issfet. ‘How could so wizened, so devoid a grey seer fail to destroy such lowly creatures?’
‘How indeed?’ said the seer, thinking back with a shudder to his previous encounters with the dangerous pair. ‘How indeed.’ He turned to the fire, gazing into it. ‘Go go,’ he said without looking around. ‘Disturb me not. I must think.’
‘Yes, master.’
‘Oh, and Issfet,’ the seer said, turning as the crippled skaven backed towards the door.
‘Yes, master?’
‘Speak of this to no one. There have been times in the past when my rivals have used these two against me. It will not happen again.’
‘Of course not, oh most parsimonious of masters,’ said Issfet, bowing low. ‘None shall hear of it. My snout is sealed.’
‘Good good,’ said the grey seer and turned back to the fire as his servant backed through the door and closed it behind him. He warmed his cold paws over the flames, then paused and looked over his shoulder, squinting suspiciously. Had there been just the faintest hint of slyness on Issfet’s face as he bowed? Had there been the shadow of a cunning smile?
Perhaps the tailless little spy was too smart. Thanquol would have to keep an eye on him.
THE OBERWALD RIPPER
L J Goulding
An air of unease had hung in the taproom that evening, and the locals spoke in hushed, reticent tones as they supped from their tankards. The inn was renowned for its fine brew, but the prevailing topic of conversation at the bar and the low wooden tables was rather more grim – word had apparently spread of the town’s troubles, and the usual crowd of tired and thirsty travellers was thin on the ground as a result. Those that had turned out were none too jovial, either.
Through the haze of pipe smoke and the dark little windows that opened out onto the main street, Felix had watched the lamplighters at work as he nursed his ale. They had hurried along in the fading evening light, glancing frantically left and right into the gloom as they went. Each had been accompanied by a similarly skittish watchman, who would regularly implore them to work faster while brandishing his sw
ord and barking on about a curfew every time someone crossed their path. As darkness had fallen, Felix had wandered back to the bar to have his tankard refilled.
These people were terrified. That much was clear. He could see it in their gaunt, haggard expressions and in the way their gazes would dart towards the door every time a stranger entered. Cold food sat untouched upon grubby platters. Trembling fingers toyed with prayer beads.
As an outsider, Felix had felt their suspicious eyes upon him from the moment he stepped over the threshold. It was, therefore, no surprise when the inevitable confrontation came.
‘Who are you to say what’s best for this town?’ demanded a burly labourer, slamming his drink down upon the bar with a splash of spilled ale. ‘You come wandering in ’ere, just like the rest of ’em, full of your own opinions and trying to tell us how to deal with things.’
A few other locals, variously seated at tables or leaning against the bar, murmured in agreement. Tension had been growing in Oberwald as more and more of the day’s traders had moved on rather than remain after dark. For a market community dependent upon out-of-town custom, news of the horror still at large had cut deep into their earnings of late.
The innkeeper, a rotund little man in a grubby apron, tried to placate the irate labourer.
‘Now then, Till – I’m sure the gentleman didn’t mean anything by it. Let’s let him finish his drink in peace.’
Felix narrowed his eyes. He sized up Till, and his potential allies: the bearded man clutching a bottle by the hearth, and the thin, reedy fellow sat on a stool with a poorly concealed knife in his breeches.
Till gritted his teeth and glared, ignoring the innkeeper entirely. ‘Don’t you think we ’aven’t tried to catch him? You think your fancy Reikland soldiers would do any better?’ He jabbed a finger at the unfortunate middle-aged merchant he was accosting, and the man winced.
Felix, sat in a high-backed pew by the window, set down his tankard as the labourer continued. His hand strayed to the hilt of Karaghul beneath his cloak almost without thought, though he found Till’s words intriguing.
‘They say the Ripper’s got eyes that burn with an ungodly fire. They say he’s quick as lightning, and half as kind. If he ain’t a daemon given flesh, then he’s sold his soul to something wicked…’
His reedy friend rose from his stool. ‘Aye, they say you can see right through him,’ he chimed in.
‘And he flies!’ added someone else.
Silence had fallen over the inn. The merchant adjusted his coat, and made a small gesture to the well-dressed young woman standing behind him.
‘I… I’m very sorry to have offended you,’ he said in a thick Reikland accent. ‘Please, mein herr, I see that your tankard is almost empty. Let me buy you another ale.’
Till snorted, but his mood seemed to soften and he grunted in agreement.
As the subdued atmosphere of the taproom returned, Felix caught the gaze of the young woman. She smiled at him and nodded, clearly having noticed him preparing to step in on their behalf. He returned the gesture and picked up his tankard once more.
Felix was glad that Gotrek had been elsewhere. The presence of a belligerent, one-eyed dwarf with a fiery mohawk could well have turned the minor altercation into a full-on brawl, and that sort of attention was exactly what they needed to avoid. Rather than join him at the inn, the dour old Slayer had stomped off into the town in search of a gambling den, or ‘somewhere a dwarf might get a flagon of proper ale, manling’.
Though sometimes tiresome, Gotrek’s demeanour often gave Felix pause to consider their surroundings more carefully. It was unlikely that a town the size of Oberwald would offer anything that Gotrek would particularly enjoy – in spite of its market trade, it was somewhat parochial and rather unremarkable.
But ‘unremarkable’ was good, as far as Felix was concerned. Unremarkable meant that he and Gotrek could disappear with a minimum of effort and notice. Given the events of the past few weeks, that was the best they could hope for.
More to the point, it was a convenient layover and a welcome break from making camp in the sparse pinewoods, or on the bare hillsides beyond.
Felix just hoped that Gotrek would remember to keep himself covered up. It was hard to remain inconspicuous when one of the pair was so… remarkable. They had spent a whole evening by the campfire in stony silence a few nights before, when Felix had dared to suggest that the proud, honourable and fearless Slayer might consider wearing a disguise while gallivanting around in public. Not that it would do much good anyway, really – he was still unmistakable as a heavily set dwarf, even in a hooded cloak.
He drained the last of his ale, resolving to speak to the innkeeper about lodgings for the night. Just as he was about to make for the bar one final time, the young woman appeared over him, two foaming tankards in hand.
‘It seems my father has set the locals all aflutter, hasn’t he?’ she said, smiling but sounding slightly awkward nonetheless. Felix rose, but before he could speak she thrust one of the tankards at him. ‘I’m sure you would have come to my rescue, had they given us any trouble. I’m Sabine, by the way.’
‘I’m–’ he began, but caught himself. His mind raced. ‘I’m Max. Max Schreiber. Pleased to meet you, Sabine.’
The two of them sat at his little table, and drank long into the night. Though her manner was initially coy, Sabine’s intentions were obvious enough to a seasoned bohemian like Felix. Nonetheless, he found something endearing about the girlish naiveté with which she tried to keep him engaged in trivial conversation while plying him with yet more ale. Her occasional excited outbursts about poetry and all their other supposedly shared interests drew disapproving looks from the locals, but they left the pair of outsiders well alone.
She was not long past twenty, and though her father’s work held little interest for her she had abandoned her studies of the arts and travelled out with his entourage on business across the province. When Felix told her of his father’s own enterprise – being careful to mention no names – and his role as the family’s black sheep, she had practically squealed with delight and confessed that she too yearned to run away and follow her own dreams. Felix had smiled politely, though inside he felt some annoyance at her immature posturing. Still, he saw a reflection of his own youth in the girl’s innocence. As she had eagerly recounted tales of her non-adventures, most of which seemed to culminate in the consumption of wine or ale with her collegiate friends, his thoughts wandered back to the days when he too had lived only for such things, and he studied her as she spoke.
Maybe it was the ale, but she did look… unconventionally attractive in the firelight. The curve of her cheek, and the flash of rebellion in her eyes; the tumble of blonde hair that she would periodically brush from her face…
He had recoiled slightly when she ran her hand gently over his forearm in mid-conversation, but he caught himself and relented to her touch. After so long on the road with Gotrek, it soothed his ego to know that he still looked presentable enough to attract any female company at all. Besides, when he tried to blink away the pleasant, drunken haze, he realised just how close she had edged towards him along the pew. It’d be rude to push her away now, he thought. She had been buying the drinks all night, after all.
When Sabine’s father eventually made to retire up to his rooms, he stopped and regarded Felix coldly. ‘Sabine, liebchen. Time for us to leave.’
‘Oh, father, I can’t go yet,’ she protested, pouting almost theatrically. ‘I’ve still got a half-tankard left.’
Felix snorted into his own drink. Sabine nudged him in the ribs.
‘Besides, this is Max. He’s a poet from Altdorf. He’s just about to show me some of his best verses.’
Making a valiant attempt to appear sober, Felix stood. He still had enough sense to keep his sword concealed beneath his cloak.
‘Max Schreiber,’ he said, offering a hand to the merchant. ‘Your daughter speaks very highly of you, sir.’ Sabine discreetly
pinched his behind, making him flinch.
Her father looked down at Felix’s proffered hand, then rolled his eyes and strode towards the door, sighing as he went. ‘By Sigmar, what have I done to deserve such a daughter? Just be ready to leave in the morning, Sabine. We must be in Lindeshof by noon.’
Felix stood swaying for a few moments. He glanced blearily around the taproom and saw that most of the others had already left. How long had the two of them been drinking? Where the hell had Gotrek gotten to?
Sabine pulled him down onto the seat and planted a long, cloying kiss on his lips. He guessed that she had probably meant it to be passionate, though all he could focus on was the fact that the room suddenly appeared to be spinning.
Oberwald ale, he thought. Stronger than it seems.
She gazed at him for slightly longer than was comfortable, and then bit her lip coyly before dragging him back to his feet. ‘Come on, you,’ she said. ‘Come and try out some of your fine words on me.’
Gotrek clutched his cards tightly in his thick, stubby fingers, squinting at them in the candlelight. He ground his teeth and tried to remember what he had played on the previous hand. Numbers and suits blurred together in his mind, and he rubbed at his forehead in frustration.
A gleek is three of kind, and the mournival four…
They had already vied the ruff, whatever that meant, and he had lost a handful of crowns to the dealer because apparently they had turned over a ‘tiddy’ on the trump draw. Gotrek would have been happy to pass each round and watch the others play until he got a better handle on the rules, but as the all-too-helpful backseat gamblers sat nearby kept pointing out, there was no point in passing in the same round as the opening vie.