When they had passed out of sight around a twist in the ravine, the dwarfs continued on. Gotrek frowned as they walked, deep in thought. It seemed that he had finally become interested in the task that Hamnir had set him

CHAPTER SEVEN

After two hours pushing up Karag Hirn's steep, forested flank, they reached the tree line and came out onto dark, quartz-veined rock, patched with green-grey lichen. The way got harder, the slope steeper and blocked by massive outcroppings, and they had to use their hands as often as their feet to climb. Felix found himself more winded than he expected. The air was thin, and the wind cold, but he was sweating through his clothes.

An hour later, with the flat wall of Zufgrim Scarp getting higher and wider above them all the time, they began to hear a low roaring. It grew louder and louder, until, as they crested a narrow pass between two looming fangs of rock, they came upon a steep-shored mountain lake, surrounded on three sides by low jagged peaks, and on the fourth by the scarp, which rose directly from its frothing waters. The cliff didn't appear to Felix to be any rougher, now that they were closer. It was still as flat as the wall of a fortress. The only break was the waterfall that dropped down its centre in a rushing white torrent and split it in two. The noise of the cataract smashing into the lake was deafening. It churned the water into a roiling boil that made the surface of the whole lake dance, flashing sunlight into their faces from a thousand, thousand ripples. The edges of the lake were crusted with a jagged rime of ice. Flurries drifted down from the snowcap, high above them.

Felix shielded his eyes and looked up. The scarp was even more intimidating from this angle than it had been when old Matrak first pointed it out. He found he had broken out in an icy sweat. "It's... it's impossible."

Narin snorted. "Easy as falling out of bed."

Felix swallowed. "Falling is always easy."

"Eat before we go up," said Gotrek, "and get your gear ready."

The dwarfs fell out, sitting down on the black boulders to eat salted meat and oatcakes, and washing the dry stuff down with beer poured from little wooden kegs they had strapped to their packs. Kagrin as usual got out his dagger and his tools and got to work, ignoring everyone else. Felix found it hard to look away. One mistake, one slip of the tool, and it would be ruined, but Kagrin never slipped. His hands were steady and sure.

Narin munched his hard-tack and sighed as if a great weight had been lifted from him. "This is the life," he said. "Grimnir and Grungni, but I miss it."

"The life, he says?" said Sketti, cocking an eyebrow. "Might be the death as well, like as not."

"Then I'll take the death," he said with feeling, "and willingly."

Leatherbeard looked up at that. "You don't wear the Slayer's crest. Why would you seek death?"

Narin smirked at him. "You haven't met my wife."

Thorgig turned. "Your wife? Didn't you say earlier you were wooing some maid from Karak Drazh yesterday when the rest of us were at council?"

"As I said," Narin continued, "you haven't met my wife."

Most of the others chuckled at that, but Thorgig and Druric looked offended.

Narin chose to take no notice. He sighed, playing unconsciously with the burnt stick of wood tied into his beard. "I had the wanderlust when I was a short-beard. I walked my axe from Kislev to Tilea as a mercenary and adventurer for fifty years, and loved every minute of it. Saw more of the world in that half century than most dwarfs see in five." He trailed off, his eyes looking far away, and a faint smile on his bearded lips. Then he shook himself reluctantly. "All that's gone, now that my older brother's dead."

"Called back to the hold, were you?" asked Druric.

"Aye," Narin said sadly. "The second son of a thane has the best of it and no mistake — just ask Prince Hamnir — gold and opportunity, and no more responsibility than a cat. Only now, I'm the first son. The old badger probably has another century in him at least, but still I must come home and learn the running of the hold, and memorise our book of grudges from cover to cover, and make a favourable marriage, and..." He shivered. "Produce sons with my... wife."

"Every dwarf must do his duty," said Leatherbeard, through his mask. "We are a dwindling race. We must beget sons and daughters."

"I know, I know," said Narin, "but I'd rather have your duty. Killing trolls is a more pleasant task than bedding one, and trolls don't talk as much."

"Surely she can't be as bad as all that," said Thorgig.

Narin fixed him with a sharp blue eye. "Lad, we are all like to die on this little jaunt, are we not? Prince Hamnir said it was a suicide mission."

"Aye, I suppose," said Thorgig.

"Well, let me put it to you this way. I'll be disappointed if it isn't."

"And I will be disappointed if it is," said Druric.

"You're afraid to die?" asked Thorgig sharply.

"Not in the least," said Druric. He turned his cold eyes towards Gotrek, who was wolfing down his food and paying the rest not the slightest attention, "but if Slayer Gurnisson dies, the grudge the Stonemongers have against him will go unresolved. As long as I know he will live, I don't mind dying."

Gotrek snorted derisively at that, but didn't bother to respond.

After the meal, there was much rummaging through packs and re-coiling of ropes. Each of the dwarfs hung a bandolier of ringed steel spikes over one shoulder and strapped a pair of cleats to his boots. Fortunately, though dwarfs and men were so dissimilar in size and proportion that they could rarely exchange clothes, dwarfs had big feet, so a pair of cleats had been found for Felix. Old Matrak unbuckled his wooden peg leg and replaced it with one that was a long, black-iron spike.

When all straps were tightened, the dwarfs tapped out their pipes and stood, slinging their packs over their shoulders. Kagrin was last to be ready, tucking his tools and the gold-pommelled dagger away reluctantly.

"Come on, lad," said Narin. "There'll be work for the other end of that elf-sticker presently."

The dwarfs edged around the steep shores of the Cauldron, slippery with broken ice and loose shale, until they came to the cliff face, the falls booming to their right, and spraying them with a fine, freezing mist.

Right up against it, the cliff wasn't quite as smooth and featureless as it had appeared before, but it was still daunting — a long, nearly vertical stratum of grey granite, with few cracks or protrusions. The dwarfs didn't even slow down. They stepped to the wall, reached up to grab handholds that Felix couldn't see, jammed their cleats into the rock and pulled themselves up without ropes or pitons, as easily as if they were ascending a ladder.

By watching closely where Gotrek put his hands and feet, Felix was able to follow him up the face, but it was hard, finger-cramping work, and he was nowhere near as steady as the dwarfs. Even old Matrak was doing better than he was, his iron leg spike biting firmly into the granite.

It struck Felix as odd that dwarfs, with their short, thick bodies, would excel at climbing mountains. One would have thought that a climber with long, spidery limbs and a thin torso — an elf, for instance — would be better suited to the work, but although the dwarfs did have occasional trouble stretching for the next hand or foot hold, they made up for their lack of reach with incredible strength of grip and their uncanny dwarfish affinity for the rock itself. They seemed to find, more by instinct than sight or touch, ridges and cracks to slip their sturdy fingers into that Felix could not have found if he had been staring directly at them.

Unfortunately, this skill, and their vicelike grip, gave the dwarfs the ability to use, as handholds, tiny irregularities in the surface of the cliff that Felix couldn't get a grip on at all. Consequently, by the time the dwarfs were halfway up the cliff, Felix was far below them his forearms on fire with cramp and sweat running into his eyes. He could no longer hear the others because of the sound of the waterfall roaring past thirty feet to his right.

He paused for a moment to flex his hands and try to shake the ache from his limbs, and made the mistake of looking down between his legs. He froze. He was so high up. One slip — one slip and... Suddenly, he wasn't sure he could hold on anymore. A mad urge to just let go and relieve the tension as he fell to his death nearly overcame him.

He fought it off with difficulty, but found he still couldn't move. He groaned as he realised he was going to have to ask for help. Dwarfs hated weakness and incompetence. They had no respect for someone who couldn't fend for himself. Even when they were alone, Felix always felt a fool when he had to ask Gotrek for help. It would be worse here, with a pack of other dwarfs looking on. He would be mocked. On the other hand, better to live and be mocked than literally die of embarrassment, wasn't it?

"Your rememberer is lagging behind, Slayer," came Narin's voice from above him.

Felix heard a grunt and a dwarf curse, and then, "Hang on, manling."

The echoes of dwarf chuckling reached his ears and turned them crimson. Then came a sound of hammering. Felix looked up, but it was difficult to see who was who, let alone what was going on. All he could see were the soles of dwarf boots and broad dwarf rumps.

"Take this," called Gotrek.

A coil of rope dropped towards him, rushing at Felix's face like a striking snake. He ducked. A small iron hook cracked him on the top of his head. He yelped and nearly lost his grip.

"Mind your head," laughed Thorgig.

The hook slithered down the cliff face between Felix's legs and stopped with a bounce below his feet at the end of the rope it was attached to.

"Can you get a hand free?" asked Gotrek.

"Aye," said Felix. He was rubbing his head with it as he spoke.

"Then hook the rope to your belt."

"Right." Felix drew the rope up one-handed until he had the hook, then passed it under and around his belt twice and hooked it to the rope again. "It's done," he called.

The rope began to slide back up the cliff until it was taut.

"Come ahead," said Gotrek.

Felix started up again. The rope slackened as he climbed, but then retightened every few feet. Felix looked up and saw Gotrek pulling it through the eyelet of a piton and holding it tight.

The other dwarfs were all watching him as he rose, amused smiles on their bearded faces.

"What's this fish you've caught, Slayer?" asked Sketti.

"Not much meat on it, is there?" said Narin.

"Aye," said Thorgig. "Throw it back."

As he came level with them, Felix saw that Gotrek had tapped two pitons into the cliff, one about five feet above the other.

"Bide a bit, manling," he said. "Put your foot on this one, and hold onto this one."

Felix stepped gratefully onto the lower piton and held onto the other. It wasn't much, but after clinging on with his fingertips for the last hour, it was a blessed relief.

"When you've got some strength back, follow on. We'll leave lines and pegs for you."

"Lines and pegs," snorted Sketti. "Like a baby. No wonder men steal everything from the dwarfs. They can't do a thing for themselves."

"That's enough, Hammerhand," growled Gotrek.

"Pardon, Slayer," Sketti sneered. "I forgot. He is your `Dwarf Friend'. He must be very friendly indeed to be worth the trouble."

Gotrek fixed the Ironbreaker with his one glittering eye and the mirth died on the old dwarfs lips. His white beard moved as he swallowed.

"Right," said Gotrek as he turned back to the rock face. "Upward."

The dwarfs started up the cliff again while Felix stood on the piton and flexed and stretched each of his arms in turn. When Gotrek had climbed another fifty feet or so, he jabbed another piton into the granite, making it stick with just the force of his hand, then seating it securely with a small hammer. He tied Felix's rope to it, and moved on. From then on, this was how they proceeded. Felix's humiliation at having to use a rope was tempered by the relative safety and ease of the arrangement. He was no longer falling behind, and he didn't freeze when he looked down.

Three-quarters of the way up the scarp, even the dwarfs had to use "lines and pegs". The cliff bulged out at the top, like melted wax at the top of a candle, and they had to climb up the underside of the bulge. Gotrek went first, reaching as high as he could to tap in a piton, and then hanging a loop of rope from it in which to sit so that he could tap in the next. Felix shivered at the sight. The Slayer was so heavy, his muscles as dense as oak wood, and the pitons so tiny, that he expected them to pull out of the rock and Gotrek to plummet earthward at any second.

The dwarfs talked, unconcerned, while they waited, as easy clinging to their ropes and resting on their pitons with the wind whistling around them as if they had been bellied up to a bar in a cosy tavern.

"Look there," said Sketti Hammerhand, pointing and raising his voice to be heard over the falls. "You can just see Karaz Izor from here: third mountain in, behind the split peak of Karaz Varnrik. You won't have grobi taking our hold. My line has been Ironbreakers and deep wardens since my great-grandfather's greatgrandfather's time, and no greenskin has ever slipped past us. We've an unbroken record."

"Do you imply that we lost Karak Hirn out of laxness?" asked Thorgig with a dangerous edge in his voice. "Do you say we didn't fight hard enough?"

"No no, lad," said Sketti, holding up his free hand. "I meant no insult to the bravery of your hold or clan. I'm sure you all fought as true dwarfs should." He shrugged. "Of course, if any of your king's line had been there, things might have been different."

"Now you insult King Alrik," said Thorgig, his voice rising.

"I do not," Sketti protested. "He isn't the only dwarf to fall prey to this elf-birthed Chaos invasion. His heart was in the right place, I'm sure, wanting to help the men of the Empire in their time of need, but a dwarfs first duty is to his own. So — "

"If you dig yourself any deeper, Hammerhand," said Thorgig, his fists balling, "You'll strike fire."

"Quiet!" came Gotrek's voice from above.

The dwarfs ceased their argument and looked up. Gotrek hung above them, craning his neck to see over the curve of the bulge. He had one hand on the haft of his axe.