[Gotrek & Felix 10] - Elfslayer Read online

  A WARHAMMER NOVEL

  ELFSLAYER

  Gotrek & Felix - 10

  Nathan Long

  (An Undead Scan v1.0)

  This is a dark age, a bloody age, an age of daemons and of sorcery. It is an age of battle and death, and of the world’s ending. Amidst all of the fire, flame and fury it is a time, too, of mighty heroes, of bold deeds and great courage.

  At the heart of the Old World sprawls the Empire, the largest and most powerful of the human realms. Known for its engineers, sorcerers, traders and soldiers, it is a land of great mountains, mighty rivers, dark forests and vast cities. And from his throne in Altdorf reigns the Emperor Karl-Franz, sacred descendant of the founder of these lands, Sigmar, and wielder of his magical warhammer.

  But these are far from civilised times. Across the length and breadth of the Old World, from the knightly palaces of Bretonnia to ice-bound Kislev in the far north, come rumblings of war. In the towering Worlds Edge Mountains, the orc tribes are gathering for another assault. Bandits and renegades harry the wild southern lands of the Border Princes. There are rumours of rat-things, the skaven, emerging from the sewers and swamps across the land. And from the northern wildernesses there is the ever-present threat of Chaos, of daemons and beastmen corrupted by the foul powers of the Dark Gods. As the time of battle draws ever nearer, the Empire needs heroes like never before.

  “And so, for the first time since that long ago night when I made my vow to the Slayer. I returned to the city of my birth, to find neither the welcome I had hoped for. nor that which I had feared, but a reality more strange and terrible than either.

  “Our failure to reach Middenheim in time to take part in its defence precipitated the Slayer into the most prolonged despondency of our acquaintance. Indeed. I feared for a time that he might never recover from it. But then a chance meeting with an old ally drew us into one of the maddest, most desperate adventures we ever shared, and the Slayer’s spirits revived, though it seemed on many occasions during those days that we might pay for his recovery with our lives.”

  —From My Travels With Gotrek, Vol VII,

  by Herr Felix Jaeger (Altdorf Press, 2528)

  ONE

  Felix Jaeger looked at himself in the gilt-framed mirror in the grand entry hall of his father’s Altdorf mansion as he smoothed his new grey doublet and fixed the collar of his shirt for the tenth time. The deep gash in his forehead that he had received when the Spirit of Grungni exploded was now just a curving pink scar above his left eyebrow. The other smaller cuts and scrapes were gone entirely. The physicians who were caring for him were astonished. Less than two months had passed since the crash, and he was fully recovered. The sprains in both ankles from hitting the ground while wearing Makaisson’s “reliable” no longer hurt. The headaches and the double vision had cleared up. Even the multitude of burns had left no marks, and the cultist’s sword cut that had opened him to the ribs under his left arm was no more than a fading line.

  He sighed. It was of course a very good thing to be fit and healthy again, but it also meant he’d had no more excuses not to visit his father.

  There was a discreet cough from behind him. He turned. His father’s butler stood on the marble stair that led to the upper floors.

  “He’ll see you now.”

  Right, thought Felix, this is it. Can’t be worse than facing down a daemon, can it?

  He swallowed, then started up the stairs after the butler.

  Gustav Jaeger was a shrivelled manikin drowning in a sea of white bedclothes. His withered hands lay still and pink on the top of an eiderdown quilt. A gaudy gold ring, set with sapphires surrounding the letter “J” picked out in rubies, hung loose on one shrunken finger. His face sagged from his bones like wet laundry on a line. He looked like he was already dead. Felix barely recognised him as the man he still thought of as towering over him. Only his eyes were as he remembered—alive and angry, and capable of turning Felix’s insides to water with a single steel-blue glance.

  “Forty-two years,” came a voice like steam. “Forty-two years and nothing to show for it. Pathetic.”

  “I’ve travelled the world, Father,” said Felix. “I’ve written books. I…”

  “I’ve read ’em,” snapped his father. “Or tried to. Rubbish. The lot of them. Didn’t make a crown, I’ll warrant.”

  “Actually, Otto says…”

  “Have you any savings? Any property? A wife? Children?”

  “Uh…”

  “I thought not. Thank the gods Otto’s pupped. There’d be no one left to carry on the Jaeger name if I’d left it to you.” Gustav lifted his feeble head from the pillow and fixed Felix with an acid glare. “I suppose you’ve come back to beg for your inheritance.”

  Felix was offended. He hadn’t come for money. He had come to make peace. “No, Father. I…”

  “Well, you will beg in vain,” the old man sneered. “Wasting all the advantages I offered you—the education, the position in the family business, the money I earned by the sweat of my brow, all to become a poet.” He spat the word out like another man might say “orc” or “mutant”. “Tell me when a poet has ever done anything useful in the world!”

  “Well, the great Detlef…”

  “Don’t tell me, you idiot! You think I want to hear your milk-sop prattle?”

  “Father, don’t excite yourself,” said Felix, alarmed as he saw Gustav’s pink face turning a blotchy red. “You’re not well. Shall I fetch your nurse?”

  His father sank back onto his pillow, his breath coming in whistling wheezes. “Keep that… fat poisoner… away from me.” He turned his head and looked at Felix again. His eyes looked clouded now—troubled. One of his claws beckoned Felix closer. “Come here.”

  Felix shifted forwards on his chair, heart thudding. “Yes, Father?” Perhaps his father was finally going to soften. Perhaps they would heal the old wounds at last. Perhaps he was going to tell him that in his heart of hearts he had actually always loved him.

  “There is… one way you may regain my favour and… your inheritance.”

  “But, I don’t want an inheritance. I only want your—”

  “Don’t interrupt, damn you! Did they teach you nothing at university?”

  “Sorry, Father.”

  Gustav lay back and looked up at the ceiling. He was silent and still for so long that Felix began to be afraid he had died then and there—and with his words of reconciliation unspoken and Felix to blame for interrupting.

  “I…” said Gustav, his voice almost inaudible.

  Felix leaned forwards eagerly. “Yes, father?”

  “I am in danger of losing Jaeger and Sons… to a villainous pirate by the name of Hans Euler.”

  Felix blinked. Those were not the words he expected. “Losing…? Who is this man? How did this happen?”

  “His father Ulfgang was an old associate of mine, an honourable man of Marienburg who dealt in… er, tariff-free merchandise.”

  “A smuggler.”

  “Call him what you will—he always dealt fairly with me.” Gustav’s face darkened. “His son, however, is another matter. Ulfgang died last year, and Hans, the black-hearted little extortionist, has come into possession of a private letter I wrote to his father thirty years ago which he claims proves I imported contraband into the Empire and avoided Imperial tariffs. He says he will show the letter to the Emperor and the board of the Altdorf Merchants’ Guild if I do not give him a controlling interest in Jaeger and Sons before the end of next month.”

  Felix frowned. “Did you import contraband and avoid Imperial tariffs?”

  “Eh? Of course I did. Everybody does. How do you think I paid for y
our wasted education, boy?”

  “Ah.” Felix was quietly shocked. He had always known that his father was a ruthless man of business, but he hadn’t realised he had actually broken the law. “And what will happen if this Euler brings the letter to the authorities?”

  Gustav began to turn red again. “Are you a lawyer suddenly? Are you weighing the merits of my case? I’m your father, damn your eyes! It should be enough that I ask.”

  “I was only…”

  “The Guild will blackball me and the Imperial Fisc will seize my assets, is what will happen,” said Gustav. “That corrupt old bitch Hochsvoll will take away my charter and give it to one of her cronies. It will mean prison for me, and no inheritance for Otto, or for you. Is that enough to move your pity?”

  Felix flushed. “I didn’t mean…”

  “Euler awaits my answer at his house in Marienburg,” continued the old man, lying back again. “I want you to go there and recover the letter from him, by any means that you see fit. Bring it to me and you shall have your inheritance. Otherwise you can die in poverty as you deserve.”

  Felix frowned. He wasn’t sure what he had expected from this meeting, but this wasn’t it. “You want me to rob him?”

  “I don’t want to know how you do it! Just do it!”

  “But…”

  “What is the difficulty?” rasped Gustav. “I read your books. You go about the world, killing all and sundry and taking their treasure. Will you baulk to do the same for your father?”

  Felix hesitated to answer. Why should he do this? He didn’t want his inheritance, he didn’t care enough for his brother Otto to be concerned that he wouldn’t get his, and he doubted that his father would live long enough to serve any time in prison. He certainly didn’t feel he owed the old man anything. Gustav had cast him out without a pfennig twenty years ago and hadn’t asked after him since, and he had been a harsh, uncaring father before that. There had been numerous times over the years when Felix had hoped that the old man would choke on his morning porridge and die, and yet…

  And yet, hadn’t Felix come here to put an end to the old anger? Hadn’t he wanted to tell his father that he at last understood that, in his way, he had tried? Gustav might have scolded his sons unmercifully, and held them to impossibly high standards, but he had also given them a childhood free from want, paid for the best schools and tutors, spent untold amounts of money trying to buy them titles, and offered them positions in his thriving business. He might not have been able to express himself except with curses and slaps and insults, but he had wanted his sons to have good lives—and Felix had come to thank him for that, and to put the past behind them. How, then, could he refuse what might well be his father’s last request?

  He couldn’t.

  Felix sighed and lowered his head. “Very well, Father. I will get the letter back.”

  So anxious had Felix been before meeting his father that he had looked neither left nor right on the way to his house, but now, as he walked back towards the Griffon, clutching his cloak about him in the chill of a late autumn morning, his eyes roamed hither and thither and the crowded Altdorf streets became streets of memory.

  There on the right, with the green wall of the Jade College looming behind them, were the apartments of Herr Klampfert, the tutor who had taught him his alphabet and his history and who had smelled strongly of rose-water. There was the house of Mara Gosthoff who, at the tender age of fourteen, had let him kiss her at a Sonnstill Day dance. Off to the west, as he turned and pushed south down the bustling Austauschstrasse, he could just see the towers of the University of Altdorf, where he had studied literature and poetry and had fallen in with the young rabble-rousers who had preached abolishment of the ruling classes and equality for all.

  The further he walked, the faster the memories came, rushing towards the moment when his life had changed forever and there had been no going back. Just down that street was the courtyard where he had fought his duel with Krassner and killed him when he had only meant to wound. Now he was entering the Konigsplatz, where he and his fellow agitators had lit their bonfires and led the crowds in their grand protest against the injustice of the Window Tax. There was the statue of Emperor Wilhelm that Gotrek had dragged him behind when the Reiksguard cavalry had charged the protesters, slashing indiscriminately with their swords. Those were the cobbles on which half a dozen lancers had died by Gotrek’s axe, their blood soaking into the filth and black ash of the bonfires. And here, just before the Reiksbruck bridge, was the tiny alley that led to the tavern where he and Gotrek had got blind drunk together, and where, in the wee hours of the morning, Felix had pledged to follow the Slayer and record in an epic poem his great quest to die in battle.

  He stopped in the mouth of the alley, staring into its shadowed depths as a stew of conflicting emotions bubbled up inside him. Part of him wished he could walk down it and back into time to tap his younger self on the shoulder and tell him not to make the pledge. Another part of him imagined the life he would have had had he not made it—a life of marriage and property, and responsibility—and thought he should stay right where he was.

  He shook himself and continued on. It was very strange to be back in Altdorf. It was full of ghosts.

  * * * * *

  Felix paused and looked up as he reached the low-lintelled door of the Griffon, a faint scrabbling sound drawing his attention towards the roof, four storeys above. He saw nothing but closed shutters and birds’ nests. Pigeons fighting under the eaves, no doubt. He went in.

  A few late risers still lingered over their breakfasts in the inn’s warm, flagstoned taproom. He nodded to Irmele, who was clearing away plates and cups, and saluted Rudgar, the landlord, who was rolling a fresh keg of Mootland ale into place behind the bar.

  “Has he come down?” Felix asked.

  Rudgar nodded towards the back of the room. “He never went up. Kept Janse up all night, filling and refilling his stein. He was there when you left this morning. You didn’t see him?”

  Felix shook his head. He had been too preoccupied with his visit to his father to notice anything on his way out. Now he peered into the shadows at the far end of the taproom. Half hidden in a nook behind the inn’s enormous fireplace was Gotrek, slumped unmoving in a low chair, his bearded chin on his chest and a stein of ale held loose in one massive hand. Felix shook his head. The Slayer looked terrible.

  It wasn’t Gotrek’s wounds that gave Felix pause. For the most part they were gone—healing as they always did—cleanly and completely. Except for the bulky cast on his right arm, he was good as new. What concerned Felix was that the Slayer had stopped taking care of himself. The roots of his crest showed an inch of brown where he hadn’t bothered to dye them. Patchy stubble furred his scalp, obscuring his faded blue tattoos, and his face looked bloated and slack. There was dried food in his beard and the once-white plaster of the cast was grimed with filth and stained with beer. His single eye stared half closed at the wall in front of him. Felix couldn’t tell if he was awake or asleep. He grimaced. This was becoming an all too common occurrence.

  “Has he paid you?”

  “Oh aye,” said Rudgar. “Gave us one of his gold bracelets. He’s paid up ’til Sigmar comes back.”

  Felix frowned. That was bad. Gotrek had no vault to carry the treasure he had amassed during their adventures, so he wore it on his wrists. The golden bracelets and bands that circled his powerful forearms were as precious to him as the hoard of any dwarf king. He parted with them only in the direst emergencies. Felix had known him to go hungry for weeks rather than use one to buy food. Now he had paid his drinks bill with one.

  The Slayer would never have done that in the past. But these days the Slayer was as morose as Felix had ever seen him, and had been since they had come to Altdorf after the destruction of the Spirit of Grungni—since they had missed the siege of Middenheim.

  It had been the strangest waking in a life of strange wakings, that day when Felix had opened his eyes after fal
ling from the sky. At first he could see nothing but white, and he wondered if he was lying in a cloud, or had died and gone to some strange world of mist. Then a trio of Malakai’s students had pulled the silk canopy of Malakai’s “air catcher” off him and crowded above him, their heads silhouetted against a crimson sunset sky as they checked him for broken bones.

  Things remained strange when they sat him up, for he found that he was in the middle of some farmer’s field with the massive shapes of the corrupted cannons that Magus Lichtmann had hoped to bring to Middenheim jutting up at odd angles from the furrows all around him, like the iron menhirs of some long-forgotten cult. In an adjacent field, the smoking remains of the gondola of the Spirit of Grungni lay half-buried, a shattered metal leviathan seemingly about to dive beneath a sea of earth.

  Then, to his left, the strangest sight of all—Gotrek, high up in a tree, dangling from the silk cords of his air catcher as more of Malakai’s students climbed the branches to cut him down.

  Malakai himself was by a split-rail fence, trying to convince a group of pitchfork-wielding farmers that he and his companions weren’t daemons or northmen or orcs, and not having much luck.

  When all had been sorted out, the crew of the Grungni discovered that they had crashed in the heart of the Reik-land, not far north of Altdorf. With no fit cannons or supplies to bring to the front, there was no more reason for them to continue on to Middenheim, and something had to be done with the tainted guns. The evil things couldn’t be left where they were. Their influence would corrupt the land and the people for miles around. Malakai decided he must take them back to Nuln in order to find a way to dispose of them safely. He hired carts to take them back, and another to take Gotrek and Felix to Altdorf, as their wounds were too severe for them to make the long journey all the way back to Nuln.