Gotrek and Felix: The Anthology (17 page)

It was during this same contest that Rodor’s body had been ceremoniously stuffed into a cask of Wynters XVI in a ritual overseen by the old brew-master himself. On the anniversary of Rodor’s death, every man in the order was to take a ceremonial drink from the grave-cask of Caspian Rodor. No man alive had ever tasted such a batch, it being reserved for dwarf kings and heroes. There were many stories as to how Rodor had warranted such treatment, but as to which was true, no one could say save Olgep Wynters, and he was dead.

Unfortunately, when the brewery had fallen to the greenskins, the grave-cask had fallen with it. A fact that the notoriously inobservant order had been unaware of until the newly shorn and christened Grudi Halfhand had shown up on the very day his father was due to escort the cask to the Averheim chapter-house and told his sad tale.

Now, the Grandmaster of the order and his chosen honour-guard (or, rather, those sober enough to make the trip) intended to get both the body and the beer back, though not necessarily in that order. And if they happened to help Grudi Halfhand free his father’s brewery from the clutches of its new owners, so much the better.

‘Would the both of you be quiet?’ Angmar said, glaring at them both. ‘I’d rather not wade through orcs unless we have to.’

‘Snorri thinks that perhaps he doesn’t understand much about being a knight,’ Snorri said, frowning. Staahl gave another booming laugh.

‘Certainly not my kind of knight, no!’ He threw back his head and began to sing a bawdy song. One by one, the other knights joined him, as did Snorri, who sang with more energy than rhythm. Angmar and Grudi exchanged a look. The young knight shrugged. He had acted as an aide to Rodor, before he’d got his skull pulped by a troll, and had functioned in the same capacity for Staahl ever since. He well knew his elder’s quirks and peculiarities.

Grudi, on the other hand, had only been travelling with Snorri Nosebiter for a few weeks. The older Slayer had joined him as he travelled down the Old Dwarf Road towards Averheim, fresh from his oath-taking at the Shrine of Grimnir. So far, despite Snorri’s relative infamy, the young dwarf was unimpressed.

‘This is not an occasion for singing,’ he said, glaring at the group. ‘Not unless it’s a dirge,’ he amended.

‘You are sourer than Snorri’s old friend Gotrek,’ Snorri said. ‘He once scowled so hard his eye popped out.’

‘What?’

Snorri mimed his eye popping out of the socket and flashed his worn teeth in a grin. ‘Snorri saw it happen.’

‘I’ve read one of Herr Jaeger’s pamphlets,’ Drahl said. The handsome knight stroked his moustaches speculatively. ‘I thought Gurnisson lost his eye fighting wolf riders.’

‘Felix Jaeger is – was – a good man. Good fighter. Bad poet,’ Snorri said, shaking his head. ‘Granted, Gotrek put his eye back after Snorri saw it pop out, so he could have lost it later…’ He shot a glance at Grudi. ‘Grudi Halfhand is still sour, though.’

‘And don’t I have reason to be?’ Grudi snarled, his patchy beard bristling with rage. He thrust his hook at the sky. ‘The grobi took my hand, my home and my honour! You may not take your vows seriously, rust-skull, but I do!’

It was Snorri’s turn to bristle. He squinted at the other Slayer and rested his hands on his weapons. ‘Snorri takes his vows very seriously, beardling,’ he said quietly, his eyes dark with old memories. Grudi suddenly recalled the
other
stories about Snorri Nosebiter: not the ones about his deeds, but about his shame. About how Snorri had been so determined to make right his wrongs that he had taken three nails from the Shrine of Grimnir and hammered them into his own head in order to hold the memory of his shame forever foremost in his thoughts. It took a determined dwarf to shear his beard; it took a mad one to perforate his own skull.

‘I never said you didn’t,’ Grudi said, keenly aware of the knights gathered around. He raised his hand in a placating manner and stepped back. Snorri relaxed instantly, his grin returning and his shoulders slumping.

‘Oh. Well, in that case, Snorri thinks we should keep going.’

The slope grew steeper as they continued on, and the scrub trees grew thicker. They pressed together so closely that what sunlight was left in the sky had to fight fiercely to squeeze through the branches. The knights had the hardest time of it, clad in their heavy armour. Even Drahl, who was wearing the lightest mail, was puffing slightly. The order, like all warriors of their ilk, usually rode horses. Averland was known for the quality of its horseflesh, and the Knights of the Black Bear got their pick. Unfortunately, the mountains were no place for horses.

As such, the knights had been forced to forgo their dwarf-forged plate mail in favour of less refined heavy cuirasses and helms that had been crafted by the foremost Averheim blacksmiths. However, it was still a load to carry, even for a strong man. In contrast, the dwarfs marched clad only in ragged trousers and jerkins, like true Slayers. Armour would have only prevented them from reaching their ultimate goal: their doom.

It was a goal that Grudi seemed eager for, even above and beyond his oath. Snorri watched the younger Slayer and felt a vague sense of annoyance at the downright suicidal eagerness the other dwarf displayed as he stumped along. Grudi Halfhand was on a mission to find a specific doom, at a specific time, and as they drew ever closer to their goal, his pace increased and his eyes grew ever-madder.

It was a madness Snorri recognised, however dimly. He had possessed it once himself, before one drink or one blow to the head too many had put a soft blanket of dullness over his wits and memories. Nowadays he could only recall the vaguest of sensations, and the phantom presences of a dwarf woman and a child haunted his all too frequent bouts of sobriety, when he couldn’t exorcise them with drink or pain.

Blunt fingers stroked the largest of the pale scars that curled across his massive chest. He couldn’t for the life of him remember where they had come from, though he recalled that Gotrek had been there. And a daemon… A big, red one. Snorri shook his head and hurried to catch up with Grudi. It wouldn’t do to be beaten to his doom by a beardling.

‘Tell us about it,’ Drahl said suddenly.

‘What?’ Grudi said, glancing at the knight.

‘The brewery. What happened? You didn’t really say…’

‘Not that he needed to. Orcs happened, popinjay,’ Hogan grunted, thumping his mace against his thigh. ‘We all know what that’s like well enough.’

Grudi frowned and scratched at his crest. ‘We saw the goblins first. They crept through the tunnels beneath the brewery like vermin. We thought it was just an isolated raid… The grobi love beer and ale.’

‘Considering the fungus-squeezings they usually drink, I don’t blame them,’ Staahl said. He tugged at his beard. ‘I’d attack a brewery for a good beer after a diet of that rot.’

‘It wasn’t just goblins, though,’ Grudi went on. ‘As they fell on us from within, the orcs assaulted our walls from without. Not many of them, but enough. We were only forty dwarfs, good and true, and they were three times our number.’

‘Sound like good odds to Snorri,’ Snorri said.

Grudi shot him a poisonous look. ‘It would. But we weren’t Slayers. Not then, anyway,’ he continued, looking slightly embarrassed. ‘We weren’t warriors. We were brewers and vintners. Merchants.’ He looked helpless for a moment, and Staahl cleared his throat.

‘Never mind that. We will teach them the error of their ways, young master dwarf.’ Staahl slapped him on the shoulder, causing the unprepared Grudi to nearly lose his balance. ‘And we will get our grave-cask back as well!’

Despite the momentary boost in morale, by the time the sun drifted over the rim of the tallest mountain peaks, disappearing in a burst of orange radiance, the knights were wheezing and staggering. Angmar called a halt, his pale features flushed crimson and his blond locks plastered to his skull with sweat.

‘We must stop,’ he said.

Grudi spun, his eyes bulging. ‘No! We’re almost there!’

‘And a load of bollocks that’ll do us if we’re too tired to stand when we get there!’ Staahl said, gasping like a beached fish. He squatted, his hands on his knees, his head bent. ‘I was not meant to march, but to fight.’

‘But–’ Grudi began.

‘We will scout ahead,’ Snorri said. He caught the other Slayer by the shoulder. ‘Let the manlings rest, Grudi Halfhand.’ He tapped his nose. ‘Snorri thinks dwarf noses are more useful for finding beer than the eyes of men anyway, eh?’

The other Slayer allowed himself to be pulled away. ‘We are so close,’ he muttered.

‘Aye. But men tire quickly. Snorri has fought beside them often and he knows this to be true,’ Snorri said genially. ‘Let them rest. We will kill the grobi who have been following us since we crested the rise.’

‘What?’ Grudi said, looking alarmed.

‘You didn’t know?’ Snorri shook his head and pulled on a ragged earlobe. ‘You need to learn to listen, beardling, or else you’ll never earn a mighty doom.’ He yanked his weapons from his belt and slammed the heads together. ‘Listen.’

From between the trees echoed the gentle padding of heavy paws. Grudi’s nostrils flared as he caught a whiff of wolf-musk. ‘Grobi are smart,’ Snorri said. ‘Sneaky-smart, not dwarf-smart, but smart. They watch and learn. They were waiting for us to make camp. If an ambush doesn’t work in the light, try it again in the dark.’

The first wolf lunged out from between the trees, its foaming muzzle closing on Grudi’s prosthesis with a loud
clang
. Mounted precariously on its back, a goblin thrust a spear at the dwarf. Grudi yelped and grabbed the spear, hauling it and its wielder off the wolf and tossing them away.

‘Get it off! Get it off!’ Grudi said, trying to shake the wolf from his hook. For its part, the animal scrabbled at Grudi’s arm and chest, its claws scraping red lines across his flesh.

‘Snorri is busy, do it yourself,’ Snorri said, as two more wolves leapt at him out of the darkness. His hammer sang out, crushing the skull of one and sending its green-skinned rider spilling off. His hatchet skimmed the head of the second and sent the goblin rider flying back, its intestines trailing after it like a ragged cloak.

Shrill cries split the night as more wolves bounded forwards. Snorri grabbed the scruff of the second wolf’s neck and sent the beast hurtling into the newcomers. All of the animals went down in a snapping, snarling tangle. Snorri spun as the goblin whom he’d forcibly de-wolfed sprang up, a crude spear in its knobbly fingers. The blade carved a thin trench in Snorri’s cheek as it went past. Growling, Snorri slapped it aside and brought both his weapons around, pulping the goblin’s skull.

Grudi, meanwhile, had finally dislodged the wolf and had snapped its neck, though it had gnawed his fingers bloody. Flexing his hand, he lashed out with his hook, decapitating a goblin that got too close. He drew his axe and made ready as more wolves rushed out of the trees. They loped around him, their riders glaring at him with hatefully glittering eyes. There were a dozen of them.

Then, suddenly, three fewer as a longsword flashed, lopping off a trio of bat-eared heads. ‘Ho Averheim! Ho Leitdorf!’ Staahl bellowed, stomping on a wolf that was too slow to get out of the way. Red-faced and sweating, Staahl kicked wildly at another wolf as he swung his sword over his head in an undignified manner.

‘Feeling rested, fatty?’ Snorri said, head-butting a wolf and sending fangs flying.

‘Just didn’t want you to meet your doom before you poured me that beer you owed me,’ Staahl said. From behind him came the battle-cries of the other knights as they joined the fray. Hogan’s mace crushed skulls as Drahl’s sword danced across scrawny bodies, and Angmar’s own, rather more blunt, blade-work did for the rest.

The remaining wolves scattered a few moments later, racing off into the night with mournful howls, their riders either dead or dying. ‘Wonderful,’ Angmar said. ‘They know we’re coming now!’

‘Doubtful,’ Staahl wheezed. ‘And so what if they do?’

‘There’ll be an army on our heads, that’s what!’ Angmar snapped. ‘How will we get Rodor’s body then, eh?’

‘Well, if we stand here yammering it’s not going to make much difference,’ Grudi said, wrenching his axe out of a wolf’s head. ‘If you delicate manlings are rested, we can go.’

‘In the dark?’ Drahl said.

‘Brighter than a tunnel lit by candles,’ Snorri said. ‘Trust our noses, manlings.’

The two Slayers started off through the trees, following a trail only they could see. Soon enough, the sound of running water reached even the ears of the knights. Angmar silently motioned for a halt. The Slayers crouched and Snorri reached out with his hammer and pushed aside a thorn bush.