As they travelled further, Felix came to understand why they were so lightly armoured. They passed through areas where the presence of Chaos was evident and signs of open war between the powers were visible all around. It looked like an insane and ferocious struggle was being fought here in the ruins of the dwarf city. He had asked Hargrim about this, but the dwarf had not replied. There were mysteries here, that was clear. He just needed to find someone who could explain them to him.
Well, there was little sense in worrying about it now. He lay back and stared at the ceiling, wondering what Ulrika was doing now. In moments, he was asleep. The last thing he heard was the scratching of a pen, as Varek recorded the day’s events in his book.
An eerie howling woke Felix from his sleep. It echoed down the great hallways and had penetrated his dreams, jerking him awake. There was something unnatural about the noise, something that evoked primal terrors. The mere sound of it sent shivers of fear running down his spine, and made his legs feel weak.
All around him the dwarfs had come awake. He could hear the clamour as they reached for their weapons. He glanced around and saw his fear was echoed on every face, save Gotrek and Snorri’s.
“What is it?” he asked. The Terror?”
“No,” Hargrim said. “It is the hounds.”
“What are they?” Varek asked.
“You will soon see,” Hargrim said. He turned and spoke to his followers. “I want ten volunteers to hold the hounds off, while the rest of us try to win clear.”
It was obvious from the expressions on their faces that the dwarfs thought he was asking for volunteers for a suicide mission. Still, more than twenty of them stepped forward.
“I will stay,” Gotrek said.
“Snorri too,” said Snorri.
“You cannot. I must get you away. King Thangrim must hear your story.”
“It might be too late for that,” Felix said glancing over his shoulder at the northernmost entrance. An enormous beast had leapt through the entrance. Before anyone could react, it ripped off the nearest sentry’s arm with a single snap of its jaws and pulled another to the ground and disembowelled him with its claws. The beast moved so swiftly, with almost supernatural grace, that Felix was barely able to follow its actions.
Through the doorway several more huge beasts bounded. They resembled monstrous dogs with strange reptilian ruffles around their heads and great iron collars around their necks. Their flesh glistened, the colour of blood. Each was bigger than a man. One of them opened its mouth and bayed. As it did so, its mouth distended widely like that of a snake. It looked like it could take off a man’s head with a single bite. Something about the daemonic creature made Felix want to turn and flee, screaming for help. He forced himself to stand his ground. He knew that if he ran the beast would simply overtake him and rend his flesh as it had the sentries’.
“Flesh hounds of Khorne,” he heard Varek gasp. “I thought they were only legends.”
“Fire at will,” Hargrim ordered. A hail of crossbow bolts hurtled towards the ravenous beasts. They opened their mouths and bayed mockingly. Most of the bolts simply ricocheted off their flesh and fell to the floor. As far as Felix could see only one had bit home. Varek fired and his bullets had no more effect than the crossbows. The hounds bounded forward, loping with a deceptively long easy stride which covered the ground faster than a horse could run.
“Stand back,” Gotrek said and paced out to meet them. None of the dwarfs disobeyed. Felix could tell that they were just as affected by the creatures” supernatural aura as he was. Only Gotrek showed no sign of dismay. Felix noticed that the runes along his axe blade were glowing brighter than he had ever seen them do before. Even so, Felix wondered whether the Slayer would survive. The creatures were so fast and strong. They were upon him almost before he had a chance to realise it. Their huge jaws widened. Their metallic teeth glistened. Their triumphant baying reached a crescendo loud enough to wake the dead.
Gotrek’s axe flashed forward like a thunderbolt. The first hound’s armoured skin smoked and burned where the blade touched. The beast seemed almost to explode as the axe swept though it, cutting it in two, sending innards erupting all over the floor. The Slayer’s next stroke impacted on a second hound’s collar. Sparks flew as metal met metal. There was a hideous grating screech. The runes on Gotrek’s axe glowed as bright as red-hot coals and the collar gave way. The flesh hound’s head and neck parted company. The corpse flopped to the ground, molten ichor spilling out onto the floor. Another stroke cleaved a third flesh hound down the middle lengthwise, revealing skeleton and spine and ruptured organs.
Surprised by the fury of the Slayer’s attack, the remaining pack pulled back, snarling like wolves at bay. Then, with an eerie intelligence, they returned to the fray. Two flesh hounds attacked the Slayer simultaneously, one from each side. Gotrek dashed one’s brains out with the axe and caught the other by the throat even as it leapt. Almost without effort the dwarf held the monstrous creature at arm’s length, then he lifted it so high that its hind limbs scrabbled for purchase on empty air. He dropped it. Before it had touched the ground he has smashed through its ribs with the axe.
The last beast had circled right behind the Slayer and was about to leap on his back. “Look out!” yelled Felix but Snorri had already tossed his axe. It bounced from the creature’s shoulder but the force of the blow distracted the flesh hound. It gathered its legs beneath it for the spring but even as it took to the air, Gotrek half turned and sent his axe slashing through a bloody arc which crunched through the creature’s ribcage and ended in its stomach. The force of the blow flattened the flesh hound into the ground. Gotrek stomped on its neck. There was a hideous sound of grinding vertebrae and then the axe fell once more, ending the monster’s unnatural life.
The corpses of the Chaos creatures started to bubble where they lay. For a moment flesh and bone melted and ran, evaporating like boiling water. Even as Felix watched, they turned into wisps of foul looking vapour which rose towards the ceiling, then disappeared. It was like they had never been there.
For a moment there was silence, and then the dwarfs burst into cheering and applause. After a few moments they seemed to remember who they were applauding and fell silent.
“If ever I doubted that was the Axe of Valek, I do so no longer. That was a fight worthy of King Thangrim himself,” Hargrim said.
“It was easy,” Gotrek said and spat upon the floor.
“We’d best be moving,” Hargrim said. “If the hounds were here, their foul master may be near, and however mighty you are, Gotrek Gurnisson, against that you cannot prevail.”
“Bring it on and we’ll see.”
“No! Now more than ever I must bring you before the king. He must hear your tale.”
After the fight with the flesh hounds, Felix noticed a change in the dwarfs” attitude. They seemed to be more accepting of the four comrades, and less suspicious. Even old Torvald contented himself with only an occasional suspicious glance in their direction. They marched on through the endless silent corridors and even Felix could tell that they were descending all the time now. He wondered how long this could continue. After several more hours it seemed to him that they would keep going down until they reached the world’s fiery heart but it was not to be.
Instead they stopped in the middle of a long and seemingly featureless corridor. While his troops shielded him from view Hargrim manipulated a hidden switch which opened a small secret doorway. An opening appeared in the wall where none had been before. The dwarf gestured for the four comrades to enter, his face stern.
“Tread very carefully now. You are on sacred ground and we will kill you at the first sign of treachery.”
EIGHTEEN
FIREBEARD
Warily, Felix stepped through the entrance. This corridor seemed no different from the rest, save that the glowstones all functioned and the air smelled slightly cleaner. The rest of the war-band hastily pushed in behind and the door swung shut behind
them. Felix noticed that the dwarfs of Karag Dum relaxed visibly; conversely, Gotrek, Snorri and Varek appeared more excited. He could not tell why. Perhaps because they felt they were getting closer to their goal. It was not a feeling he shared. The long trek through the Underhalls had made him tense and nervous and he just wanted to find a place to lie down and rest.
This new corridor led into a winding maze of passageways. Every now and again Hargrim stopped and pressed a panel in the wall. He gave no explanation as to why, he simply did it and moved on.
Felix looked at Varek to see if the young dwarf could tell him what was happening.
“Deadfalls. Pit traps. Defensive works of some sort, most likely,” the dwarf said quietly, but was silenced by a nasty look from their guardians.
They passed maybe a dozen sentries at their posts, all of whom looked amazed at the sight of strangers from the outside world. Eventually they entered a monstrously long hall which was plainly inhabited by the dwarfs. This was a huge place with many exits. A well had been sunk deep into the floor in the far end of the chamber. The ceiling was low, with none of the vaulting of the magnificent halls they had passed through en route. A forest of enormous squat pillars propped up the roof. On each pillar was inscribed a strange symbol which hurt Felix’s eye when he tried to read it.
“Runes of Concealment,” Varek breathed from beside him. “No wonder this place has survived so long.”
“What’s that?” Felix said.
These runes protect the halls from magical seekings, just as the concealed entrances protect it from normal sight. This place would be all but impossible for one who was not a dwarf to find unaided.”
Felix could see hooded and cowled dwarf women working at their chores. A few priests strode backwards and forwards, speaking words of comfort and reassurance, patting heads, invoking blessings. There were many warriors, a good number of whom were crippled. Some had hooks. Some stumped around on the wooden legs. Some had bandages over their eyes indicating that they were blind. Felix had never seen so many maimed people together in one place before, not even on the beggar-filled streets of Altdorf. It certainly looked like these people had come out on the losing end of a war. Nowhere did he see any children in evidence.
“So few,” Varek muttered. This was once a great city.”
“Welcome to the Hall of the Well. Wait here,” Hargrim said. “I will bring news of your coming to the king.”
The captain strode off through a huge archway and vanished somewhere into the recesses of the city. Many of those who had been working stopped and stared frankly at them. A few of the crippled beggars came over. One reached out and touched Felix disbelievingly.
“You are the first human ever to set foot in this citadel,” he croaked.
“I am honoured.”
“Ha! You may soon be dead,” the crippled warrior said and turned away. The rest of the crowd moved in. One of the cowled women asked a question in dwarfish. Varek responded. The crowd emitted a collective gasp. One of the women burst into tears.
“They asked where we had come from,” said Varek in answer to Felix’s unspoken question. “I told them we had come from across the Wastes, from the kingdom of the dwarfs.”
“I don’t believe you,” said another greybeard, and turned and stalked away. It looked like there were tears in his eyes. As they waited, the crowd did not disperse. It surrounded them and stared until Hargrim returned, accompanied by a group of fully armoured warriors, each of whom carried a rune-engraved weapon. The eldritch symbols burned with a mystic light. Felix knew enough about dwarfs by now to tell that these were powerful magical weapons. These longbeards were the best equipped dwarfs Felix had seen since entering Karag Dum. They marched with a precision that would have shamed the Imperial Guard in Altdorf. Their armour gleamed, and they moved with pride and discipline.
“The king will see you,” Hargrim said. “Now you will be judged.”
“So we are to meet the legendary Thangrim Firebeard after all,” Varek said. “Who would have thought it?”
Gotrek laughed nastily.
“I have never seen so many rune weapons,” Varek murmured to Felix. “Every one of those warriors carries one.”
“We collected them from the dead,” Hargrim said coldly. There have been so many dead heroes here.”
King Thangrim’s hall was vast. Huge statues of dwarf kings stood like sentries against each wall. More of the heavily armoured dwarf warriors stood immobile between the statues. The four newcomers were surrounded by an escort of the king’s guard. They were taking no chances of this being an assassination attempt. Their weapons were drawn, and they looked as if they knew how to use them.
A raised dais dominated the far end of the chamber. On the dais was a throne bearing a powerful and majestic figure wearing long robes over heavy armour. Two priests flanked the king. One was a priestess of Valaya. Felix could tell that by the fact that she carried a sacred book. The other was armoured and carried an axe, and Felix wondered if he was a priest of Grimnir, the warrior god.
As they came closer to the dais Felix got a better look at the dwarfish king. He was old, as old as Borek, but there was nothing feeble about him. He looked like an aged oak, gnarled but still strong. The flesh had fallen from his arms but still there were massive knots of muscle there, and his shoulders were broader even than Snorri’s. His hair was long and red, although striped through with white. His beard reached almost to the floor and it, too, was white in places. Piercing eyes glittered in deep-set sockets. Felix knew that this dwarf might be ancient but his mind was still keen.
The weapon that sat upon the king’s knees drew Felix’s attention. It was a massive hammer, with a short handle. Runes had been cut into the head and something about them compelled the eye to look. He knew without being told that this was a weapon of awesome power, the legendary Hammer of Fate, which they had come all this way to find.
The guard parted in front of them to leave a path leading only to the throne. The four comrades advanced. Varek went down on one knee, making florid and elaborate gestures with his right hand. Gotrek and Snorri lounged arrogantly beside him, making no sign of obeisance. Felix decided to err on the side of caution; he bowed low, then knelt beside Varek.
“You are certainly impertinent enough to be Slayers,” said the king. His voice was rich and deep and surprisingly youthful coming from that ancient throat. He laughed and his mirth boomed out through the chamber. “I can almost believe that the cock and bull story you told Hargrim is true.”
“No one calls me a liar and lives,” Gotrek said. The flat menace in his voice caused the guards to raise their weapons in readiness.
The king raised a mocking eyebrow. “And few indeed threaten me in my own throne room and live. Still I ask your forgiveness, Slayer, if that is what you be. We are surrounded by the servants of the Dark Powers. Suspicion is only wisdom under such circumstances. And you must admit that we have cause to be suspicious.”
“That you have,” Gotrek admitted.
“You have come to us claiming that you have voyaged here from the world beyond our walls. I would hear your tale from your own lips before I pass judgement. Tell it to me.”
“I claim more than that,” Varek said suddenly. “I claim kinship with the folk of Karag Dum. My father was Varig. My uncle was Borek, whom you sent out into the world to seek aid.”
King Thangrim smiled cynically. “If what you say is true it took a long time for Borek to send aid, and you do not represent much of an army. Still, tell your tale.”
The king listened attentively while Varek spoke, stopping occasionally to ask confirmation from Gotrek. He told the tale simply and well, and Felix was astonished at the power of his memory. He also noticed that as the dwarfs spoke the priestess of Valaya’s eyes never left them, and he remembered that the priestesses were supposed to have the gift of knowing the truth. At the end of the tale, the king turned to the priestess.
“Well,” he said.
“Th
ey speak true,” she replied. There was an audible gasp from the warriors in the chamber. The king raised his hand and scratched his chin through his fine long beard. He considered them for a moment and then smiled grimly.
“Now tell me, Slayer, how you came by the Axe of Valek,” said the king.
Gotrek’s answering smile was as grim as Thangrim’s. “Its owner had no use for it, being dead, so I took it. Do you have a claim upon it?”
“The person who carried that blade from here was my son, Morekai. He sought to cross the Wastes and find out if anyone still lived there.”
“Then he is dead, Thangrim Firebeard. His corpse lay in a cave on the edges of the Wastes. It lay surrounded by the bodies of twenty slain beastmen.”
“There was no one with him? He left here with twenty sworn companions.”
“There was only one dwarf. I buried him according to the ancient rites, and being in need of a weapon at the time, I took this one. If it is yours, I will return it to you.”
The old king looked down and grief entered his eyes. When he spoke again he sounded as old as he looked. “So he died alone at the end.”
“He died a hero’s death,” Gotrek said. “He paved his road to the Iron Halls with the bones of his foes.”
Thangrim looked up once more and his smile was almost grateful. “Keep the blade, Slayer. Such a weapon is not owned. It has its own doom, and it shapes the destiny of its wielder. If it is in your hands now, it is there for a reason.”
“As you say,” Gotrek said.
“And you have given me much to think on,” Thangrim said wearily. “And my apologies for doubting you. Go now. Rest. We will talk again later.”
“Prepare apartments for our guests,” he shouted. “And feed them of our finest.”