Gotrek and Felix: The Anthology (24 page)

Felix stiffened.

A penny dreadful? From his lofty perch as a poet in Altdorf he’d looked down on those books, filled as they were with nothing but lurid stories, scandalously illustrated on cheap paper. Now Anya Nitikin, one of the most popular authors in the Empire, was looking down on
him
. His cheeks burned with shame and he snatched back the journal.

‘They’re just notes…’ he muttered.

Any further artistic debate they might have had was cut short by a distant scream, followed by a deep and rumbling belch. Several more belches echoed from elsewhere in the middle-distance, deep and loud enough that not even Gotrek on his drunkest day could have produced them.

The ogres were signalling to each other.

His anger forgotten, Felix hastily slid the journal into his pack and pushed Anya behind him. There were very few reasons for ogres to signal in the dead of night: either something was attacking the caravan, or it was the ogres themselves who were attacking.

A hunk of twisted flesh and rags flew over the stacked barrels at the edge of the clearing, landing in the embers of the fire. Felix knew, even before the reek of scorching hair reached him, that it was Hansur. ‘Gotrek!’ he cried. ‘The ogres are attacking!’

As he turned, a dark shape loomed up behind the barrels. Roaring a challenge, an ogre emerged into the flickering light of the campfire and uprooted a dead tree with a single tug. Swinging it like a club in an almost casual arc, he struck the stack, and a heavy barrel bounced through the campsite, crushing two men before they’d even had a chance to rise from their cots.

The ogre followed the barrel into the clearing, leading with its prodigious gut. It was not Kineater, the one who’d laughed at them earlier – this ogre wore a leather mask over its face that left only its beady eyes and gaping maw visible. A necklace of dried heads adorned its neck, their hair woven together into a cord. It might have been smaller than the first ogre, Felix thought, but not by much.

It smashed a dazed guard, still struggling from his bedroll, then rounded on Felix, raising its club for an overhead blow. ‘Humans die!’

‘Run!’ Felix yelled over his shoulder to Anya, before diving out of the way of the mighty club. The tree trunk smashed into the ground where he’d stood, breaking up the frozen sod and flinging clumps of snow to either side.

Felix drew Karaghul and stabbed at the mounds of flab and muscle that hung from the creature’s arm, but he barely drew blood. Nevertheless the ogre howled, and spun with amazing speed, heaving itself forwards. Its metal belly plate, adorned with crude toothy glyphs, loomed in Felix’s vision and once more he was forced to hurl himself aside or be crushed.

Elsewhere in the camp the caravan guards were fighting back, but Felix could see at least four more ogres stomping between them, swatting left and right with their clubs. Further away, horses screamed in their pens as an ogre slaughtered them mercilessly.

More dark and looming shapes attacked the wagons, and for a moment, Felix thought he saw Talia standing on top of her carriage, defending herself against a howling ogre with a large kitchen knife.

The only spot of real resistance centred on Gotrek. The Slayer’s red mohawk and tattooed chest were clearly visible in the moonlight as he faced down a huge brute that carried a club ringed with iron bands. Rusted chains encircled both its arms, running up its shoulders to a metal collar that was barely visible under folds of flab at its neck.

The Slayer’s axe whirled before him, but there was precious little he could target. Much like the ogre Felix faced, this one wore a metal plate on its stomach, and it kept this between itself and Gotrek’s axe. The ogre’s armour was impenetrable… But Felix wondered, what held the armour to the ogre?

Adrenaline surging in his veins, Felix ducked under the masked ogre’s next swing and sprinted towards Gotrek. He slid to a stop just behind the massive chained ogre and swung his blade – not at the beast itself, but at its belly straps.

Leather parted and then snapped. Gotrek whooped as the belly plate sagged and then fell to the ground. The Slayer hewed out with his axe and opened a wide cut in the ogre’s gut, spilling its steaming innards into the snow.

‘Good work, manling!’ Gotrek yelled over the howls of the dying ogre. ‘Now stay out of my way!’ With that the dwarf charged the ogre with the leather facemask, who was rapidly closing the distance between them.

Working together, Gotrek attacking from the front and Felix slicing the leather straps on the ogre’s flanks, they dispatched it too in short order. By the time it had collapsed to the ground, the battle was over.

The ogres had retreated.

The campsite was
a mess. Men moved between their fallen brethren, tending to the wounded and putting those with crushed limbs or staved-in chests out of their misery with merciful blade strokes. Some of the soldiers carried torches out into the frozen darkness, seeking to corral wagon horses that had broken their traces and fled in panic.

Zayed al Mahrak, the caravan’s diminutive Arabyan master, had emerged from whatever hole he’d found in which to hide during the battle, and was now inspecting the damage to his merchandise. He moved from shattered crate to shattered crate, stepping gingerly to avoid patches of red, blood-crusted snow.

‘Where’s Anya?’ Felix asked Gotrek. He’d lost track of her, but hoped that she’d found a safe place to wait out the fighting. Or did he? He remembered her look of scorn when she’d read his journal. He was surprised at how much it had stung – more than any review he’d received for his poetry in the past.

The Slayer cleaned his axe with a handful of snow, and strapped it to his back. ‘You know women. She’ll probably return with the horses,’ he said with a shrug.

Felix didn’t see her amongst the wounded, so he guessed she’d fled to her carriage. He knew he should check on her, but he didn’t feel that he could face her just yet. A sudden thought occurred to him. ‘Gotrek,’ he asked. ‘What do
you
think of my poetry?’

The Slayer looked utterly bemused, but before he could answer, Anya Nitikin strode out of the darkness, cursing richly. She swept past Gotrek and Felix, and slapped Zayed on the cheek. Hard.

‘This!’ she said, her teeth clenched. ‘This is how you spend our good Kislevite gold? On mercenaries? Your ogres have taken my sister and it is your fault!’

‘My fault?’ responded the old man, rubbing his cheek. Anya had left a red mark on his dark skin. ‘Ogres are the most loyal mercenaries gold can buy. Kineater is himself a Tyrant, responsible for the reputation of his tribe. If the recent attack on Middenheim by the forces of Chaos had not disrupted almost all trade between the Empire and Cathay, I could not have hired him at any price.’

‘Any merchant who’d trust an ogre with his goods deserves what he gets,’ said Gotrek. ‘No dwarf would attack the caravan he’d pledged to guard.’

‘That may be, but I’d already employed every dwarf in Pigbarter,’ Zayed shot back. Of course, there had only been one dwarf in the trading town – Gotrek himself.

‘Obviously, something has given this “Kinita” cause to disregard Goldtooth’s order.’

‘No, lass, it’s
Kineater
,’ said Gotrek gruffly. ‘He probably ate his whole family to earn that name.’

‘I care not.’ Anya’s gaze swept over the nearby guards, who suddenly busied themselves with various mundane tasks. She rounded on the caravan master with eyes of iron. ‘Gather your men. We launch a rescue mission at first light.’

‘That is impossible,’ Zayed said with a sigh, ‘Can you not see the carnage around you? My men are injured and our horses slaughtered. Without our escort, we are at the mercy of bandits and worse. As soon as we are able, we make for Cathay by the safest roads.’

Anya’s cheeks reddened. It was obvious she had no patience left. ‘No. You will not leave my sister in the hands of those brutes.’

As much as Felix abhorred the idea of leaving Talia to Kineater’s mercy, he saw Zayed’s point. ‘Only a madman would track a tribe of ogres into the Mountains of Mourn on the faint hope that they won’t eat their captive at the first stop,’ he said. ‘Even if your sister is still alive, we’re simply too few to pose any serious threat to them.’

‘Hold your tongue, Jaeger!’ Anya’s hand cut the air like a knife. ‘My sister is alive. If Kineater’s lot were looking for food they would have taken the horses, not slaughtered them,’ said Anya. ‘This is a kidnapping, not a robbery or a hunt.’

Zayed only spread his hands helplessly. ‘Nevertheless...’ he mumbled.

Anya would not be dissuaded. ‘If you won’t help me,’ she said, ‘then at least allow me to recruit volunteers from amongst your men.’

Zayed’s eyes hardened and he crossed his arms. ‘You are welcome to ask, but you won’t find anyone foolish enough to volunteer for such a mission.’

Felix’s jaw tightened at the sound of Gotrek’s voice.

‘I’ll bring your sister back.’ The Slayer’s eye glittered in the torchlight. ‘My axe thirsts for Kineater’s blood. The coward waited until I was in my bed to attack and if there is one thing here that I object to, it’s meeting my doom in my sleep.’

Anya waited for more volunteers, but not even one of the hired men would meet her gaze. At last, she sneered at them and turned back to the Slayer. ‘Thank you, Gotrek Gurnisson. If there is even a shred of truth in the stories Herr Jaeger records in his journals, you two will more than suffice.’

To Zayed’s distress,
Anya had suggested that they ride, but in order to forestall any confrontation with Gotrek, Felix had quickly pointed out that riders would make an easy target for ogre hunters. Better to follow on foot and remain hidden as long as possible.

He regretted that suggestion now.

Though they followed a wide swathe of compacted snow and chewed horse bones left by the ogres, a thin crust of ice had settled on the ground, making the journey treacherous. Worse still, without horses they were forced to carry their supplies on their backs – and, as no one had any idea where the ogres were heading, that meant several days of rations and enough wood to start a fire in a blizzard.

Even Anya carried a pack, showing surprising strength for such a slender woman. She trudged stoically behind them, wrapped in furs cut in the latest Kislev fashion. When she spoke at all, it was in short, breathy utterances through a purple scarf that covered the lower half of her face.

As the sun sank towards the mountaintops, Gotrek slowed his pace until he trotted along beside them. ‘We’re being followed, manling,’ he said gruffly, keeping his gaze on the path ahead of them.

Felix had to consciously resist looking up into the hills. Could Kineater have left sentries behind? Surely he could not have expected a rescue mission. Felix hadn’t expected it himself.

‘Ogres?’

Gotrek grunted. ‘No. Even you with your dim eyes would have spotted an ogre.’

Felix ignored the jibe. ‘One of Zayed’s guards, then?’

‘A goblin.’

‘A
gnoblar
,’ Anya corrected him, keeping her voice low. ‘Cousins of the grobi, to be certain, but a separate race. They are both food and slaves to the ogres. If this one has fled the cooking pot, it could very well be our ally.’

‘No dwarf would ally himself with a goblin,’ said Gotrek, vehemently.

‘Our prisoner then,’ said Anya.

‘How do you suggest we capture it?’ asked Felix.

‘The caravan guards call them “magpies” because they dart up and down the length of a caravan, stealing anything that’s not nailed down. Theft is a racial obsession for them. I suggest we camp here for the night,’ she said, unshouldering her pack and letting it thump to the ground. ‘I have a plan.’

The moon had
not even risen when Felix heard a stealthy presence creeping into the clearing. Anya had ‘forgotten’ a hunk of dried beef just at the edge of their campsite. To sweeten the trap, she’d unclipped her jade earrings and placed them in a compartment of her backpack, being as obvious as possible about it.

At the sound of icy rustling nearby, Felix cracked an eyelid. A small green creature, slightly larger than a goblin, fumbled with the knot Anya had tied in her backpack. It froze as Gotrek shifted in his cot, waiting patiently until the dwarf’s breathing steadied once more before resuming its work.

With Anya’s earrings clutched in its tiny fingers, it turned to scurry back into the night. Felix tensed, but waited until it came within arm’s reach before hurling himself bodily at it.