Gotrek and Felix: The Anthology (3 page)

Even so, Felix was surprised when he started seeing ghosts. Out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw a hooded figure hunched in the mouth of an alley to their right, but when he looked properly, it was gone. There was nothing but rain and a pile of barrels. Another figure appeared at the corner of a building, but it too vanished when he turned towards it.

Gotrek stopped in the middle of the flooded street and glared around, peering out from under his sodden crest, which had flopped down over his one eye. ‘We are being hunted.’

‘Haunted?’

‘Hunted.’ He lifted his rune axe from his back and readied it.

‘Only two streets to the Grail,’ said Felix, drawing his sword. ‘Should we make a break for it?’

‘We’ll have to get through them first,’ said Gotrek.

Felix followed the Slayer’s gaze. Five hooded figures were appearing out of the obscuring torrent like spectres materialising from the ether. Unlike spectres, however, they were armed with very real looking swords. He heard a splash behind him and the scrape of steel. Four more were blocking their retreat, and more stepped from the alleys on either side.

Felix went on guard and raised his voice to be heard over the rain. ‘What do you want?’

‘To get paid,’ said one.

And with that, they attacked.

4

Felix faced out
behind Gotrek and braced for the ambushers’ attack. The Slayer, however, didn’t wait. He roared towards the charging men, churning the mud and whirling his axe around his head like the blade of a dwarf gyrocopter. Busy with his own assailants, Felix didn’t see what happened next, but he heard the clang of steel meeting steel and the sick chop of steel meeting flesh, followed by the shrieks and gasps of butchered men, and knew Gotrek was faring well.

He, on the other hand, was in some difficulty. The men he faced were not great swordsmen by any stretch, but there were a lot of them, and they all had one target, while he had many. He flashed around with Karaghul and knocked aside two blades, but three more were sweeping towards him. He jerked back and left to avoid them, and nearly pitched face-first into the mud as it sucked at his boots.

A bright bite of pain flared above his elbow as one of the blades nicked him, and two more swords stabbed for his face as he stumbled. With a desperate swat, he batted them aside, then crashed into the men who had wielded them, more by accident than design.

The first went down at the impact, but Felix clung to the second and spun him around, just in time for him to take the blades of two of his comrades in the stomach. Felix shoved the gutted man forward, then slashed over his shoulder with Karaghul and caught one of the assassins in the neck and the other on the back of the hand. As they staggered back, the man who had fallen tried to push himself up under Felix’s feet. Felix chopped down and he sank into the mud, red staining the brown.

The others came in again, more wary now, six of them, and Felix backed away, sword out, tearing off his cloak with his free hand. The heavy wool was saturated with water and made him feel as if he were being dragged down by the shoulders. He wrapped a few folds of it around his wrist for a buckler and held it out to the side.

‘Come on, then,’ he said.

But the men were staring past him, faces uncertain, and when he dared a glance over his shoulder, he knew why. One of Gotrek’s attackers was toppling, headless, into the mud, and the bodies of five others floated face down in spreading pools of crimson. The
s
layer was backing up two more, one of which was holding a bent sword in front of him and weeping, while the other was missing his left forearm and clutching the stump. Two more were fleeing into the rain.

Felix grinned savagely at the men who hesitated before him. ‘Aye. And if you kill me, he’ll
really
be mad.’

He had to give them credit. Three of them actually came at him again. Felix slapped the leftmost one with his drenched cloak, knocking him into the centre one, then parried the blade of the right-hand one and backhanded him across the arm.

The man stumbled away, hissing and dropping his sword, and Felix turned on the other two, whirling his cloak in their faces and stabbing under it. They leapt back, then kept retreating, staring over his shoulder.

Felix looked back and saw Gotrek slogging through the mud towards him, spattered in blood, with brains dripping from the blade of his axe.

Felix cursed and splashed after them. ‘Stop!’ he called. ‘Stand where you are! Who sent you? Who is paying you?’

They turned and ran without answering and he splashed after them, but floundered in the mud and went to his knees as they vanished into the downpour. With a sigh he struggled to his feet and slogged back to Gotrek, who was turning the bodies of the fallen face-up in the mud and pulling back their hoods.

‘Any left alive?’

The
s
layer shook his head. ‘Those we didn’t kill drowned.’

Felix looked at the uncovered faces of their attackers. He recognised none of them. They were all of the type common to Deadgate – lean, scarred men who looked hungry enough to kill their own mothers for meat. Well, they were sated now.

‘Any idea who they were, or what they wanted?’

Gotrek grabbed one by the ankle. ‘No. But I know who might.’

He started down the swampy street towards the Grail, dragging one of the corpses through the mud behind him.

Louis Lanquin wrinkled
his nose as he looked at the dead man lying in a spreading puddle of filth and blood in the middle of his tavern.

‘He is no acquaintance of mine,’ he said. ‘And I wish you had asked me to come out to see him, rather than bringing him in and dirtying my floor.’

The place was crowded with patrons seeking shelter from the rain, and they were all staring at Felix, Gotrek and the corpse. Felix noticed that Agnar and Henrik were not among them. Maybe they were still sleeping it off. Agnar had outdrunk Gotrek three to one the night before.

‘You didn’t pay him to kill us?’ growled Gotrek.

The Bretonnian laughed. ‘My friends, if I had wanted to kill you, I could have poisoned your Bugman’s last night, or murdered you as you were sleeping it off.’ He signalled two bouncers and gestured to the body, then looked back to the Slayer. ‘There are many factions here in Deadgate, and more in Skalf’s Hold, and some of them do not want the dwarfs to win. If they thought your deaths would further their cause, they would not hesitate.’

With practiced speed, the bouncers brought a sheet of canvas, laid it beside the dead man and rolled him onto it. As they dragged him towards the door, a servant came in with a mop and bucket and began cleaning up the mud. Within a minute, all trace of the corpse’s visit was gone.

‘I bear you no ill will for suspecting me,’ said Lanquin. ‘They who have just fought for their lives are bound to look on the world with some mistrust.’ He waved to the bar. ‘Please. You are welcome to drink as before, on the house. Think of it as an apology for how shabbily my adopted town has treated you thus far.’

Felix looked at Gotrek. The Slayer shook his head.

‘We would not presume upon your hospitality further, monsieur,’ Felix said. ‘You have already been too generous. Thank you all the same.’

Lanquin shrugged. ‘As you will, and I wish you a more restful time wherever you go.’

He bowed as Gotrek and Felix strode to the door and splashed out into the rain again.

‘He’s lying,’ said Gotrek. ‘Those killers were his.’

‘You can’t know that,’ said Felix.

‘I don’t have to know it, manling. I
know
it.’

‘But why would he want us dead? Because we took Thorgrin’s coin instead of his? That doesn’t make sense. Don’t they both want the same thing? Why would Lanquin kill
anyone
who aimed to fight the orcs?’

‘Maybe he wants the orcs to win,’ said Gotrek.

Felix looked at him askance. ‘That makes even less sense. You heard him last night. It is a simple question of economics. He needs Deadgate to survive just as much as Thorgrin does.’

Gotrek shrugged. ‘Sense or no sense, I sleep with one hand on my axe tonight.’

‘Aye,’ said Felix. ‘Aye.’

After spending a
night at an inn called the Palace, Gotrek and Felix woke, mildly surprised they hadn’t been attacked in their sleep, and returned before sunrise to Thane Thorgrin’s keep. They were not alone. The courtyard of the keep was packed with dwarfs of Karak Azgal’s throng, neat blocks of axe-wielding warriors, Thunderers with their blunderbusses over their shoulders, and Ironbreakers clad head-to-toe in heavy plate armour. Behind the dwarfs were a less orderly mass of human mercenaries – a mix of hardened adventurers, greedy treasure seekers and nervous shopkeeps, come to protect their properties and investments in Deadgate. They were divided into squads behind more seasoned captains, and were haphazardly armed and armoured. Nevertheless, there were a fair amount of them. Felix reckoned that, all told, there were roughly three hundred dwarfs, and two hundred mercenaries lined up and awaiting orders, and to his surprise, Agnar and Henrik were among them.

The grizzled Slayer kept his eyes on the floor and seemed to weave on his feet as Felix and Gotrek crossed to them, while Henrik gave them a chagrined look.

‘Agnar took what you said about gold and free ale to heart,’ he said. ‘So we followed your example.’

‘A Slayer who meets his doom doesn’t need those things,’ said Agnar, still not looking up. ‘And I didn’t trust the Bretonnian.’

‘Aye,’ said Henrik with a snort. ‘Too nice by half. We’ll fight for Thorgrin and let fate lead us, as we always have.’

‘We’re glad to have you at our side,’ said Felix, though he wasn’t sure he was speaking for Gotrek. The Slayer just grunted and glared into the middle distance with his single eye while they waited for orders. Of course, that was his expression whether happy, angry or indifferent, so it was difficult to tell.

A short while later, Louis Lanquin arrived with the troops he had recruited, a force of about a hundred men, and was directed by Thorgrin’s lieutenants to squeeze them in on the left side of the courtyard. He bowed with stiff politeness to the Slayers, then kept his eyes forward. It seemed to Felix that the innkeeper had done better with his recruiting than the thane had. Though there were fewer of them, most of his troops looked harder and more experienced than the humans Thorgrin had managed to recruit, and better equipped. He seemed to have spared no expense in outfiting them with quality arms and armour.

‘A substantial outlay to assure a continued return,’ murmured Felix.

With a rumble, the doors to the inner keep opened, and Thane Thorgrin strode out onto the steps with his Hammerers and banner carrier behind him. He saluted the assembly, then raised his voice.

‘Citizens and friends of Karak Azgal, today begins a great venture. With this great army of dwarfs and men, we will shatter the alliance of tribes that Gutgob Stinkfoot has bullied together, and beat back the greenskin menace for decades to come. The safety and security of the Dragon Crag will be assured, and we will all be able to get back to business as usual.’

Gotrek snorted, and a few of the surrounding dwarfs looked around at him, but none spoke.

‘It will not be an easy fight, nor a pleasant one,’ continued Thorgrin. ‘But I am confident that our superior tactics and weaponry will win the day. We intend to lead the orcs into a slaughterhouse from which there is no escape, and you will be the butchers!’

There was a cheer, mostly from the dwarfs, and Thorgrin waved for silence.

‘A word of warning, before we enter the depths, to those not of our throng,’ he said. ‘During this war, our laws pertaining to treasure hunting remain in effect. All volunteers leaving the hold will be searched, and any treasures found are subject to the usual taxes. Any treasures deemed to be important relics of Karak Azgal’s history will be confiscated. Anyone attempting to hide treasures from the authorities will be imprisoned. You are already being paid handsomely, and given opportunities to search the depths not normally granted. We will not take kindly to those who attempt to take advantage of our generosity.’

There was a general grumbling, but nobody made any open complaint, and Thorgrin continued, outlining his battle plans and the responsibilities of each of his sub-commanders. Felix didn’t get to hear most of it, however, for only a moment later, Holdborn, the dwarf sergeant who had butted heads with Gotrek, stepped up to him and Agnar and gave a curt bow. ‘Slayers,’ he said. ‘If you would come with me. Thane Thorgrin has a special duty he would like to give you.’