by Warhammer
‘Gotrek… the dwarfen Slayer…?’ he whispered.
Finally free, Felix leapt back to his feet, though his wrists were still manacled. The Ripper drew back into a vicious stance, his knife held out between them.
‘Felix Jaeger.’
Famous for all the wrong reasons, Felix lamented. He wound the chains of his manacles around his fists in readiness for combat.
Much to his surprise, the Ripper lunged for the heavy wooden door and began to beat upon it with the hilt of his knife.
‘Guard, raise the alarm! Send for the State Troops! He’s a wanted man!’
In an effort to silence him, Felix dived onto his back and the two of them crashed to the slick stone floor. With the wind knocked from his lungs, Felix couldn’t quite summon the strength to force his manacles over the Ripper’s head and around his neck, and so he grasped at his throat instead.
The flesh felt clammy and cold.
Letting his cap fall to the floor, the Ripper threw Felix aside as though he were a child, and stabbed down cruelly with his knife. The blade sliced through Felix’s sodden undershirt and grazed his ribs.
Felix let out a cry of pain, and punched the Ripper squarely in the jaw with a chain-wrapped fist. The blow knocked the fiend insensible, and the knife skittered from his grasp and into the murky puddle, out of sight. Felix hauled him up by the front of his coat, and sent him crashing into the nearest bench.
The frame gave way and shattered into damp kindling, but the Ripper was on his feet before Felix could recover. His eyes burned pale in the gloom as he grabbed Felix by the hair and plunged him face-first into the pool.
Felix gasped a lungful of the cold, brackish water, but his already bruised forehead struck the submerged flagstones and knocked the fight clean out of him. Icy hands on the back of his neck ground his face into the gritty stone, pinning his manacled arms beneath him. He tasted his own blood, fresh in the water.
Darkness began to creep in at the edges of his vision. He felt his heartbeat slowing, in the cold clutches of death. Somewhere in the distance he heard the whistles of the watchmen…
Too late. The Ripper had him now.
It was a strangely calming realisation. Soon, he thought. It will all be over soon.
Deep cold, like the bleakest Kislev winter.
From out of the shadows of a thousand haunted nights, he recalled her face. She was beckoning Felix into the embrace of whatever lay beyond this life, and he longed to go to her…
A pinprick of pain pierced the numbness of his hands in the water. His fingers closed around a blade.
Not yet. Not dead yet.
With every last ounce of strength he could summon, he kicked and pushed himself clear of the pool, and rolled around with the knife thrust out in both hands. The Ripper gasped as Felix plunged it between his ribs, into his heart.
Felix choked and spluttered and heaved the silty water from his lungs, even as the Ripper convulsed and fell forwards on top of him. The dead weight pinned Felix on his back in the puddle with the spreading warmth of his foe’s lifeblood soaking into his shirt, and he let his head sink to the stone flags in exhaustion.
Seconds later, the door to the cell burst inwards, torn from its hinges by the lifeless body of the milky-eyed watchman. Gotrek appeared in the vacant doorway, his tattooed muscles rippling as he dusted off his hands.
‘Oh, by my ancestors, manling,’ he barked. ‘You look terrible. Let’s get out of here.’
As they fled towards the low stone walls which marked the edge of Oberwald and the beginnings of the pine-wooded wilderness beyond, Gotrek steadied Felix as he wheezed and limped through the mud. In the fading light of early evening, the town’s alarum bell was ringing, although exactly whom the terrified citizens hoped to summon was a mystery.
‘You know… what they’ll say… don’t you?’ Felix panted, refastening his sword belt. ‘They’ll tell their grandchildren… that the Ripper… escaped from the gallows.’
Gotrek frowned.
The Oberwald Ripper – a folk-devil in the making, Felix thought. He hoped against hope that his old friend Max Schreiber, the real Max Schreiber, would never stray this far into the provinces, or at least that he would have the good sense not to go by that particular name.
‘So what was he?’ Gotrek asked. ‘Chaos cultist? A sorcerer collecting souls for his daemon-magic?’
Felix laughed. They clambered over a fence and into a field of dead grass.
‘What’s funny?’ said the dwarf. ‘Was he a degenerate mutant, then? A beastman sympathiser? No, wait – a druchii agent, masquerading as a human!’
‘No, sadly not,’ replied Felix, shaking his head. ‘I’m sorry to disappoint you, but it seems that he was just a man.’
‘But what about all this stuff he’s supposed to have done? He can jump forty feet over a house, and shoot lightning from his fingertips, from what I heard…’
Felix thought of Sabine for a moment. Poor, poor Sabine.
‘People need monsters,’ he shrugged, ‘and even when they’re lucky enough not to have any, they create their own... or they become them.’
Gotrek sneered.
‘Ha! Your kind are a strange bunch, manling.’
RED SNOW
Nathan Long
Trollslayer Gotrek Gurnisson stared out into the snow-whipped twilight with his single eye as he marched alongside a shaggy camel up the rocky pass. ‘So,’ he growled. ‘When do the ogres come?’
Usman, the gaunt-cheeked Araby axe-man, choked and muttered a curse. Sudijar, one of the camel drivers, darted uneasy looks over his shoulder. Felix Jaeger did the same. He could see nothing but whirling snow. Of course the fall of flakes was so heavy that an ogre could have been standing three paces away from him and he would still have seen nothing, so that was little comfort.
Yashef, the captain of the caravan’s guards, a thick-set, stubble-chinned tribesman from the Howling Wastes, lifted an amulet to his lips, kissed it, then tucked it back into the depths of his heavy woollen coat. ‘If the mountain spirits have mercy upon us, they won’t,’ he said. ‘With luck we will reach Skabrand, sell our goods, and return to Pigbarter without incident.’
‘We better not,’ grunted Gotrek.
Little Noor, hunched on the back of his mountain pony with a long-gun in his lap, glared at him from under his enormous furred hat. ‘Why would you curse us like this, dwarf?’
‘I was promised a fight,’ said the Slayer. ‘The caravan master said there is always a fight.’
Usman snorted. ‘If all you wanted was a fight, you should have stayed at the Sentinels and spit in a hill raider’s eye. You’d have fighting aplenty then.’
‘I’ll fight you,’ said Harjit, a towering Ind swordsman with a beard to rival Gotrek’s and muscles to rival an orc’s. ‘I’ve never fought a dwarf before.’
Gotrek snorted dismissively. ‘I want a real fight. A final fight.’
‘I’ll give you a final fight!’ said Harjit, slapping his broad chest. ‘I killed an ogre once.’
‘Aye,’ muttered Usman. ‘With your breath.’
Harjit turned on him. ‘Take that back, eater of dung!’
‘I’m afraid you have picked the wrong path, dwarf,’ said Yashef, as Harjit and Usman traded insults. ‘We do not seek misfortune. We seek fortune.’
Aye, thought Felix Jaeger, the wrong path. But he bit his tongue. He knew if he spoke, he might say something he would regret, so he just pulled his old red Sudenland wool cloak tighter around his shoulders and hugged his arms. Though one wouldn’t know it by looking at Gotrek, who travelled bare-chested even as ice crusted the crimson crest that grew from his shaved, tattooed head, the foothills of the Mountains of Mourn were as cold as a Kislevite’s grave.
As far as Felix was concerned, Gotrek had been on the wrong path for half the world around. First it was chasing a monster known as the Whisperer of Hayesh, then that foolish madness in Khemri, and after that the trek into the dark lands in the service of K
arak Azul, but always east, east and east again – always further and further from home. It seemed that after so many disappointments, Gotrek had become convinced that nothing in the Old World could kill him, and that his only chance of dying in battle, as a true slayer should, was to press on into the unknown. To this end, he had decided to travel to far Cathay and see what dangers lay in store for him there.
This fancy had led them to Pigbarter, a filthy little port city on the estuary of the River Ruin, where the people chewed a kind of nut that made their teeth black, and where, as its name implied, the primary currency was swine. There they had joined a hog merchant who was taking mating pairs of pigs up into the Howling Wastes to sell to the tribesmen there.
That journey had ended – and not a moment too soon as far as Felix was concerned – at the Sentinels, a pair of towering, wind-blasted rock formations that jutted up from the wastes like black castles. Between the bases of these basalt behemoths huddled a nameless trading post, a stopping point for the caravans that plied the ivory road from Barak Varr to Cathay and back again. Men from every point of the compass walked its dusty streets: squat moon-faced plainsmen, dark-skinned traders from Ind, fur-wrapped Kislevites, swaggering Cathayan bravos with heavy curved swords, and occasionally, looming over them all, massive ogres, guarding heavy laden rhinox or walking behind some prosperous merchant.
Tents and shacks and caves carved into the sides of the Sentinels housed merchants, money lenders, smugglers and blacksmiths, as well as hiring agencies for caravan guards, guides, scribes and interpreters. There were also inns and water sellers, and – Sigmar be praised – a bathhouse. Felix had spent nearly all the paltry pay he had received from the hog merchant there, trying to scrub away the smell of pig, and even after five baths he wasn’t sure he had entirely succeeded.
It was in that place of incessant wind that they took employment with Zayed al Mahrak, an old caravan master from Araby who told them he had travelled the ivory road thirty times. He was guiding a train of six merchants up into the Mountains of Mourn to Skabrand and needed guards willing to make the trip. Gotrek’s single eye had lit up when Zayed had warned them of the dangers they might face along the way, and had agreed to the old man’s price without hesitation, though it would hardly be enough for another bath at the end of the journey.
And so, here they were, trudging up a freezing pass into the snow-peaked mountains, with the wind howling like a daemon around them, nothing to look forward to but cold and danger for months to come, and still going east – still on the wrong path.
Felix sighed.
Usman heard him and raised an arched black eyebrow. ‘The dwarf is crazy,’ he said in Arabyan. ‘Crazier than Harjit. But you seem a sane man. Why do you follow him like this?’
Felix replied in the same language. He and Gotrek had picked it up – a little of it anyway – during their travels along the coast of the Gulf of Araby while hunting for the Whisperer. It was the common trading language of the east. ‘I made a vow. Gotrek seeks a great death in battle. I vowed to follow him until he found it, then record it in a poem.’
‘And when did you make this vow?’ asked Usman.
Felix frowned, trying to calculate. ‘Seven years ago? Eight? I’m not sure.’
Usman nodded and turned away again. ‘Perhaps you are not as sane as you look.’
Felix chuckled. ‘Perhaps not.’
A few paces ahead of them, Yashef lifted his head. ‘Did you hear that?’
Felix paused and strained his ears. All he could hear was the screaming wind. ‘Hear what?’
‘A cry,’ said Yashef. ‘A wail.’
‘I heard it,’ said Gotrek.
‘Just the wind, boss,’ said Noor.
Yashef shook his head. ‘I’ve done this trip many times. I know what the mountain winds sound like. This–’
A rumble from above made them all look up.
‘What–?’ Usman began, but he was interrupted by the thud of hooves coming from the front of the caravan.
They all turned. Old Zayed was galloping out of the night on his sturdy little pony, waving his hands at the merchants hunched on their wagons. ‘Run!’ he called. ‘Leave the carts! Avalanche! Run!’ The rumble from above nearly drowned out his words.
Yashef started pushing the other guards back down the path. ‘Move! Go!’
Felix needed no second warning. He turned and ran with the others as the camels and oxen backed and bellowed all around him, catching panic from the men.
‘Come on, Gotrek!’ he called over his shoulder.
The Slayer was looking up into the night, his big rune axe in his hand, as if wondering if he could fight an avalanche, but then he turned and trotted after the rest.
Swarming past him were the merchants and drivers and guards who had been on point. Felix could see them screaming, but the thunder of falling snow was so loud he couldn’t hear them. The ground shook with it, and Felix staggered like a drunk as he ran.
Then, with a final knee-buckling impact and a sound more felt than heard, it was over. The rumble stopped and a great cloud of fine snow billowed down the pass, enveloping them in a nearly opaque whiteness.
The guards and drivers and merchants picked themselves up from where they had fallen and looked towards the front of the caravan. There was nothing to see.
Old Zayed climbed stiffly down off his pony. ‘All here? Anyone missing?’
The merchants and guards all looked around and did a quick head count.
‘I don’t see Humayan the oil merchant,’ said one.
‘Nor his driver,’ said another.
Zayed grunted, then started forward, leading his pony. ‘We better see.’
Yashef and Gotrek followed him, but most of the others hesitated.
‘Is it safe?’ asked Sudijar.
‘Should be,’ said Zayed. ‘Just keep quiet.’
They slogged back up the path, edging around the frightened animals to the front of the column. A hill of snow rose before them, twice as tall as Felix. The back end of the first wagon stuck out of it. Felix could hear the muffled bawling of a buried ox within it. Of the missing merchant and driver there was no sign.
Old Zayed climbed up onto the back of the wagon and crawled up the wall of snow, looking further ahead. He sighed, then climbed back down.
‘Not as bad as it might have been,’ he said. ‘A day or two of digging, I hope.’ He nodded at the buried wagon. ‘Now, come. They may still be alive.’
The drivers and guards fetched the shovels that they had packed for just such an emergency, and quickly began digging the snow out from around the wagon. Gotrek fell in with a will, the instincts of his people taking over, and cleared twice what any of the men managed.
A little more than an hour later the wagon was uncovered, and the ox staggered to its feet, shaking off the last few feet of snow from its back. The merchant and his driver, however, were not so lucky. The diggers found them lying together, both clutching the ox’s reins in frozen death grips.
Old Zayed shook his head. ‘The fools. I told them to leave the wagon.’ He shrugged and turned away. ‘Make camp. We’ll bury them and start digging out in the–’
A call from the night made everyone turn and squint into the snow. Figures with torches were coming up behind the caravan, a crowd of short silhouettes following a tall, broad-shouldered shadow. The caravan guards drew their weapons. Gotrek and Felix did the same.
‘Halloo!’ came the call again. ‘Does anyone live? Is all well?’
Felix stared as the silhouettes and shadows resolved themselves into men. The smaller ones were natives of the hills – short, wiry, black-haired people, thickly bundled in sheepskin and furs and clutching tarred torches. The tall one was the last sort of person Felix expected to see out here at the end of the world – a ruddy-faced, white-haired priest of Sigmar, well past his prime.
Zayed and the others remained on guard despite the friendly words.
‘Who are you?’ growled Yashef. ‘
And what do you want?’
The priest stopped, resting his gaunt frame on a long-hafted warhammer like it was a cane, as the tribesmen gathered behind him and stared uneasily at the caravaners. Felix noticed that, except for a few old men, the natives were all young – hardly more than boys.
‘I am Father Meinhart Gessler,’ wheezed the priest in horribly accented Arabyan. ‘Our village heard the rumble of the avalanche, and we came to see if anyone was hurt.’
Old Zayed squinted suspiciously at him. ‘How did you know anyone was in the pass?’
The priest smiled and put a hand on the shoulder of a young boy beside him. ‘Girkra here saw you earlier while he was hunting. And you should be glad he–’ He noticed the bodies of the merchant and the driver for the first time and his face fell. ‘Sigmar have mercy, are they…?’
Zayed nodded. ‘Dead. Buried by the snow.’
Father Gessler lowered his head. ‘I’m sorry. May Sigmar welcome them. I had hoped no one was caught.’ He looked up again. ‘If anyone else is hurt, the village would be honoured to aid them. In fact, they welcome you all to spend the night.’
Zayed and Yashef exchanged uncertain glances.
‘We have no money, holy man,’ Zayed said. ‘And you won’t get our goods without a fight.’
Father Gessler smiled. ‘I understand your suspicions, friends, but these people are not bandits, just simple mountain folk. They would not see you suffer while they were able to help. It is cold here in the pass, and dangerous. There are avalanches, and… and worse things. Now, come. We have hot food and sturdy walls. Please, accept our hospitality.’
Zayed hesitated again, but then a great gust of wind staggered him, and he shivered. ‘Aye. Better than staying here,’ he said. ‘Lead on, holy man.’
‘Sigmar be praised,’ said Father Gessler. ‘Then turn your wagons about and we’ll begin.’
As the caravan followed the tribesmen through a maze of rocky hills, Gotrek and Felix fell in step with Father Gessler, who appeared lost in thought as he limped along, using his warhammer as a walking stick.