Gotrek and Felix: The Anthology (6 page)

By the bright glow of the tall work-lamps that shone above the engineers and dwarf troops who were preparing the ground, Felix could see that the guild hall was an enormous room, handsomely decorated in the monumental dwarf style. Towering statues of dwarfs in guild vestments held up an arched roof that stretched over an open floor that looked to Felix to be as big as the Reikplatz in Nuln. It was longer going north and south than it was east and west, with large archways in the narrow ends. Felix saw teams of dwarfs preparing supplies and chalking off the dwarf lines at the north end of the hall, while other cannon crews placed guns on a balcony above the north arch.

Migrunsson mopped his gleaming scalp with his kerchief and leaned in the gun port next to Felix, pointing to the arch in the south wall. ‘Thane Thorgrin’s plan is that we close off all paths into the hall except that one. If the greenskins want battle, they will have to come through there – straight into those guns there. We’ll leave them no way to flank us or sneak around behind.’

‘And from here you’ll be able to shoot into their sides as they charge,’ said Felix.

‘Aye,’ said the engineer, grinning. ‘It’ll be a slaughter.’ He pushed away from the port. ‘But first we have to finish closing off the other paths.’

He gave Felix a friendly salute, then went to supervise the second team of dwarfs who were busy setting charges in the walls of the mineshaft.

Less than an hour later, they were ready to light the fuses. The dwarfs moved the carts and ponies well up into the passage to the north of the minehead chamber, playing out matchcord as they went, then, when everyone was clear, Migrunsson took up the fuses and bowed his head.

‘It’s a sad day when a dwarf must destroy the works of his fathers,’ he said. ‘But to save the body, sometimes a limb must be severed. Forgive us, ancestors, for this necessary sin.’

And with that, he touched flame to the fuse ends. Felix and the others watched them hiss and spark down the corridor.

Felix tensed as he saw the flames vanish into the minehead chamber, waiting for the roof to come down on his head, but the blasts, when they came, were surprisingly small – a quartet of heel-jarring thumps and a billow of smoke and flame that dissipated as it entered the passage.

Henrik looked up and took his fingers from his ears. ‘That’s it? Did all the charges go–’

A heavy rumble interrupted him, growing louder and shaking dust and pebbles from the ceiling, before tailing away again. Now a much thicker cloud billowed into the passage and rolled their way. Henrik blinked.

Migrunsson smirked. ‘A true engineer knows it isn’t the size of the blast, but the placement of the charges.’ He pulled his kerchief up over his nose and started forward into the dust. ‘It’s done, I think. But best go back and have a look.’

The minehead chamber was entirely covered in a thin coating of grey granite powder. The corpses of the orcs and ghouls looked like stone statues of themselves, and the geometric designs on the floor were completely hidden. The mineshaft portal was still there. Indeed it had been blown wider and taller, and for a moment, Felix thought the dwarfs had failed, but then he saw that all the rock that had fallen from the ceiling and walls had tumbled down into the slanting shaft, choking it completely. It would take days to remove all the rubble, particularly if one were working from below.

Migrunsson nodded sadly as he examined the cave-in, then turned back to the north corridor. ‘Well done, lads. On to the next.’

The next was
a bridge.

Migrunsson led them down two levels to a wide natural chasm that cut east and west for as far as Felix could see – admittedly not very far – and dropped away to a glowing red line far below. An oven-hot updraft rose from it that had them all sweating in moments. The bridge that spanned the chasm was wide and solid, with statues of dwarf ancestors holding lamps set at regular intervals along its length, and stretched from an archway cut into the north side of the chasm to another arch in the south side.

Looking up, Felix could faintly see more archways in the sides of the rift, and the broken remains of other bridges, all fallen away, before the heights of the chasm swallowed them in darkness.

‘This one’s a bit trickier,’ said Migrunsson. ‘It would be easy enough to blow it up and be done with it, but…’ He grinned. ‘I’d rather take a few score greenskins with it, so we’ll weaken it instead – and let them find out it’s broken when they’re falling towards the lava.’

Gotrek chuckled approvingly. Agnar seemed about to do the same, but then shot a look at Gotrek and only grunted.

‘What do you want us to do?’ asked Felix.

Migrunsson pointed to the south end of the bridge. ‘Guard that arch. We don’t want any greenskins discovering the surprise before it’s ready.’

Henrik swallowed. ‘Er, you’re going to weaken the bridge, then ask us to walk back across it when you’re done?’

Migrunsson laughed. ‘The four of you could jump up and down on it from here to Valdazet and it wouldn’t fall. It will take all the weight and stomping of a greenskin warband on the march to shake it down.’

Henrik nodded, but did not look entirely convinced. Nevertheless, he went with Gotrek, Agnar and Felix to guard the end of the bridge.

Though there was nothing to do but stand around while the dwarfs worked, Felix found it impossible to relax. The heat from the lava made him sweat inside his chainmail, and the thought of invisible assassins firing on them or orcs raging out of the darkness made the space between his shoulder blades itch as if someone had carved a target there with a poisoned thorn. For more than an hour, he did nothing but pace and check his weapons and watch Migrunsson and his crew don harnesses and drop over the sides of the bridge to chip away at the network of stone supports that made up its understructure.

Gotrek seemed entirely absorbed with the process, watching with arms folded and single eye intent. Agnar watched too – though he stood as far from Gotrek as he could manage – but Henrik soon grew bored, and once again began to sing his repetitive little melody while staring into the darkness of the tunnel.

Felix ground his teeth and tried to shut out the tune, but Gotrek was not so polite.

‘Do you have do to that?’ he asked over his shoulder.

Henrik sniffed. ‘I only do it when I’m nervous.’

‘So, all the time then,’ said Gotrek, and turned back to watching the engineers.

‘You’ll take that back, Gotrek Gurnisson,’ said Agnar, glaring at him.

‘Take what back?’

Felix turned, wary. Now what?

‘No one insults my rememberer,’ growled Agnar. His voice was slurring a little with drink and anger. ‘Particularly not an underhanded doom-stealer like you, Gurnisson.’

Gotrek raised an eyebrow. ‘I’ve stolen no doom.’

‘You have!’ Agnar stepped towards the
s
layer. ‘You interfered with my fight. You killed greenskins that might have killed me. I saw you! Henrik saw you!’

‘I killed every greenskin I could reach,’ said Gotrek. ‘You did the same. What of it?’

Felix looked at Henrik. His eyes were glittering. It was as if he
wanted
to see the
s
layers fight. Felix flashed back to the aftermath of the fight with the orcs. Was this the nonsense that Henrik had whispered in Agnar’s ear?

‘You deliberately blocked attacks that were aimed at me. I might have found my doom but for you.’

Gotrek snorted, dismissive. ‘I didn’t stop to weigh which were yours and which were mine. I fought to kill.’

‘You fought to keep me from finding my doom before you found–!’

Gotrek held up a hand. ‘Stop.’

‘I’ll not stop, you cheating–’

‘Be quiet. Listen!’

Agnar cut off and listened. Felix strained, but could hear nothing. Apparently Agnar could, however, for the anger vanished from his face, to be replaced by grim concentration. He and Gotrek drew their weapons and stepped silently onto the span, then craned their necks to look up at an archway above them that pierced the south face of the chasm. Felix and Henrik tiptoed after them.

The archway was more utilitarian than the ones that capped the bridge they were on, with little ornamentation, and a torn and twisted end of a mine cart rail-line dangling from it like the lolling tongue of some steel serpent.

‘What is it, Gotrek?’ asked Felix.

‘Something moving in that rail tunnel,’ said the
s
layer.

‘Aye,’ said Agnar. ‘Gone now though, I think.’

They all stood silent, but the noise of Migrunsson’s crews tapping on the stone supports of the bridge drowned out all else.

‘Engineer,’ called Gotrek. ‘Hold your work.’

Migrunsson waved his dwarfs silent and everyone stopped what they were doing and strained their ears.

At first Felix could hear nothing, but then a faint metallic keening reached his ears, like someone rubbing a rosined bow across a flexed saw blade.

‘What is it?’ he asked. ‘It sounds like–’

‘The rails,’ said Agnar. ‘The rails are singing. Something is coming down the track!’

8

‘Clear the bridge!’
roared Gotrek. ‘Get off now!’

The gun crews scrambled to comply, but half were still busy under the span, weakening the understructure, and those on top did not abandon them. They hurried to the ropes and heaved mightily to pull their brothers up. Migrunsson fell in with the rest, holding down a hand to haul a gunner over the rail and then pulling at another rope.

Gotrek, Agnar and Felix started forward to help, but before they had taken a step, the singing of the rails rose in volume and a clattering rumble added to it. The whole chasm shook with the noise.

Felix looked up at the twisted ends of the rail-line. Dust was shivering from them and they twitched like insect antenna. The rumble became a roar, drowning out the hoarse cries of the dwarfs, and then, as if the cliff face had vomited a string of iron sausages, a long train of mine-carts shot out of the tunnel mouth and arched down in freefall, straight at the bridge.

Felix watched in horror as the carts, all filled to the brim with rocks and boulders, crashed down amongst the scattering dwarfs and punched through the bridge like a massive cannon ball, smashing it in two. Half the dwarfs fell instantly, dropping away with the shattered stones, or dragged over the edge as the carts snagged their ropes. The others scrabbled to get clear, but they had done their sabotage too well.

With the centre of the span gone, and the rest of the supports weakened, the remains of the bridge could not stand. As the dwarfs crawled for the ends or climbed their ropes, the stones fell out from under them, toppling after the broken centre like sand running out of an hourglass. The gunners, the cannon crews, and Migrunsson too, trying even to the last to push the others to safety, plummeted away towards the glowing red line, ropes and harnesses trailing after them, their howls of rage rising on the hot wind.

Gotrek stood at the broken end of the span, ten paces out from the wall of the chasm, clutching the railing with one hand, and gripping Agnar by the wrist with the other. The old
s
layer was dangling over the abyss, his face as grey as river clay.

Gotrek gave him a nasty grin. ‘Should I let you go, Agnar Arvastsson? I wouldn’t want to rob you of a doom.’

‘Pull me up, curse you,’ rasped Agnar. ‘You know falling is not a proper
s
layer’s death!’

Gotrek hauled Agnar up and dropped him on the broken flagstones beside him. The old
s
layer grunted and pushed himself to his feet.

Henrik stepped forward to help him. ‘Maybe Gurnisson’s forgotten what a proper
s
layer’s death
is
,’ he sneered. ‘After all, he’s been ten years searching for one.’

Gotrek’s brow lowered and he balled a fist, but before he could use it, a shot rang out from above and a bullet struck between the three of them, spraying them with splinters of stone. The
s
layers dodged left and right, and Henrik hunched back towards the archway with Felix. They looked up. The same spindly shadow was backing into the darkness of the rail tunnel, reloading as it went. Gotrek snatched up a chunk of rubble from the edge of the bridge and heaved it up after it.