Gotrek & Felix - 8. Orcslayer

CHAPTER ONE

"Orcs?" Gotrek shrugged. "I've fought enough orcs."

Felix peered at the Slayer in the gloom of the merchant ship's cramped forward cabin. The thick-muscled dwarf sat on a bench, his flame-bearded chin sunk to his chest, an immense stein of ale in one massive fist, and a broached half-keg at his side. The only illumination came from a small porthole — a rippling, sea-sick-green reflection from the waves outside.

"But they've blockaded Barak Van," said Felix. "We won't be able to dock. You want to get to Barak Varr, don't you? You want to walk on dry land again?" Felix wanted to dock, that was for certain. Two months in this seagoing coffin where even the dwarf had to duck his head below decks had driven him stir-crazy.

"I don't know what I want," rumbled Gotrek, "except another drink."

He took another drink.

Felix scowled. "Fair enough. If I live, I will write in the grand epic poem of your death that you drowned heroically below decks, drunk as a halfling on harvest day, while your comrades fought and died above you."

Gotrek slowly raised his head and fixed Felix with his single glittering eye. After a long moment where Felix thought the Slayer might leap across the cabin and rip his throat out with his bare hands, Gotrek grunted. "You've a way with words, manling."

He put down his stein and picked up his axe.

Barak Varr was a dwarf port built inside a towering cliff at the easternmost end of the Black Gulf, a curving talon of water that cut deeply into the lawless badlands south of the Black Mountains and the Empire. Both the harbour and the city were tucked into a cave so high that the tallest warship could sail under its roof and dock at its teeming wharves. The entrance was flanked by fifty-foot statues of dwarf warriors standing in massive stone ship prows. A squat, sturdy lighthouse sat at the end of a stone spit to their right, the flame of which, it was said, could be seen for twenty leagues.

Felix could see almost none of this architectural wonder, however, for a boat-borne horde of orcs floated between him and Barak Varr's wide, shadowed entrance, and a thicket of patched sails, masts, crude banners and strung-up corpses blocked his view. The line looked impenetrable, a floating barricade of captured and lashed-together warships, merchantmen, rafts, barges and galleys that stretched for nearly a mile in a curving arc before the port. Smoke from cooking fires rose from many of the decks, and the water around them bobbed with bloated corpses and floating garbage.

"You see?" said Captain Doucette, an extravagantly moustachioed Bretonnian trader from whom Gotrek and Felix had caught a ride in Tilea. "Look like they build from every prize and warship that try to pass; and I must land. I have to sell a hold full of Ind spices here, and pick up dwarf steel for Bretonnia. If no, the trip will make a loss."

"Is there some place you can break through?" asked Felix, his long blond hair and his red Sudenland cloak whipping about in the blustery summer wind. "Will the ship take it?"

"Oh, oui," said Doucette. "She is strong, the Reine Celeste. We fight off many pirates, smash little boats in our way. Trading is not easy life, no? But... orcs?"

"Don't worry about the orcs," said Gotrek.

Doucette turned and looked Gotrek from bristling crimson crest, to leather eye-patch, to sturdy boots and back again. "Forgive me, my friend. I do not doubt you are very formidable. The arms like trunks of the trees, yes? The chest like the bull, but you are only one man — er, dwarf."

"One Slayer," growled Gotrek. "Now fill your sails and get on. I've a keg to finish."

Doucette cast a pleading look at Felix.

Felix shrugged. "I've followed him through worse."

"Captain!" a lookout called from the crow's-nest. "More ships behind us!"

Doucette, Gotrek and Felix turned and looked over the stern rail. Two small cutters and a Tilean warship were angling out of a small cove and racing towards them, sails fat with wind. All the fancy woodwork had been stripped from them, replaced with rams, catapults and trebuchets. The head of the beautiful, bare-breasted figurehead on the warship's prow had been replaced with a troll's skull, and rotting corpses dangled by their necks from its bowsprit. Orcs stood along the rail, bellowing guttural war cries. Goblins capered and screeched all around them.

Doucette hissed through his teeth. "They make the trap, no? Pinch like the crayfish. Now we have no choice." He turned and scanned the floating barrier, and then pointed, shouting to his pilot. "Two points starboard, Luque. At the rafts! Feruzzi! Clap on all sail!"

Felix followed Doucette's gaze as the steersman turned the wheel and the mate sent the waisters up the shrouds to unfurl more canvas. Four ramshackle rafts, piled with looted barrels and crates, were lashed loosely together between a battered Empire man-o'-war and a half-charred Estalian galley. Both of the ships were alive with orcs and goblins, hooting and waving their weapons at Doucette's trader.

The merchantman's sails cracked like pistols as they filled with wind, and it picked up speed.

"Battle stations!" called Doucette. "Prepare to receive boarders! `Ware the grapnels!"

Greenskins large and small were pouring over the sides of the man-o'-war and the galley, and running across the rafts towards the point where the merchantman meant to break through. True to the captain's warning half of them swung hooks and grapnels above their heads.

Felix looked back. The cutters and the warship were gaining. If the merchantman made it through the blockade it might outrun the pursuers, but if it were caught...

"By the Lady, no!" gasped Doucette suddenly.

Felix turned. All along the raft-bound man-o'-war, black cannon muzzles were pushing out of square-cut ports.

"We will be blown to pieces," said Doucette.

"But... but they're orcs," said Felix. "Orcs can't aim to save their lives."

Doucette shrugged. "At such a range, do they need to aim?"

Felix looked around, desperate. "Well, can you blow them up? Shoot them before they shoot us?"

"You joke, mon ami," laughed Doucette. He pointed to the few catapults that were the merchantman's only artillery. "These will do little against Empire oak."

They were rapidly approaching the blockade. It was too late to attempt to turn aside. Felix could smell the greenskins, a filthy animal smell, mixed with the stink of garbage, offal and death. He could see the earrings glinting in their tattered ears and make out the crude insignia painted on their shields and ragged armour.

"Throw me at it," said Gotrek.

Felix and Doucette looked at him. The dwarf had a mad gleam in his eye.

"What?" asked Doucette. "Throw you?"

"Put me in one of your rock lobbers and cut the cord. I'll deal with these floating filth."

"You... you want me to catapult you?" asked Doucette, incredulous. "Like the bomb?"

"The grobi do it. Anything a goblin can do, a dwarf can do, better."

"But, Gotrek, you might..." said Felix.

Gotrek raised an eyebrow. "What?"

"Er, nothing, never mind." Felix had been about to say that Gotrek might get himself killed, but that was, after all, the point, wasn't it?

Gotrek crossed to one of the catapults and climbed onto the bucket. He looked like a particularly ugly bulldog sitting on a serving ladle. "Just make sure you put me over the rail, not into the side."

"We will try, master dwarf," said the chief of the catapult's crew. "Er, you will not kill us if you die?"

"I'll kill you if you don't start shooting!" growled Gotrek. "Fire!"

"Oui, oui."

The crew angled the gun around, huffing at Gotrek's extra weight, until it faced the man-o'-war, and then cranked the firing arm a little tighter.

"Hold onto your axe, master dwarf," said the crew chief.

"Perhaps a helmet," said Felix. "Or a..."

The crew chief dropped his hand. "Fire!"

A crewman pulled a lever and the catapult's arm shot up and out. Gotrek flew through the air in a long high arc, straight for the man-o'-war, bellowing a bull-throated battle cry.

Felix stared blankly as Gotrek flattened against the patched canvas of the man-o'-war's mainsail and slid down to the deck into a seething swarm of orcs. "The real question," he said to no one in particular, "is how I'm going to make it all rhyme."

He and the catapult's crew craned their necks, trying to find Gotrek in the chaos, but all they could see was a swirl of hulking green bodies and the rise and fall of enormous black-iron cleavers. At least they're not stopping, Felix thought. If they were still fighting, then Gotrek was still alive.

Then the orcs stopped fighting, and instead began running to and fro.

"Is he...?" asked Doucette.

"I don't know," said Felix, biting his lip. After all the dragons, daemons and trolls Gotrek had fought, would he really die facing mere orcs?

The lookout's voice boomed down from above. "Impact coming!"

With a jarring crunch, the merchantman crashed into the line of rafts, smashing timber, snapping cord, and sending barrels and crates and over-enthusiastic orcs flying into the cold, choppy water. The side of the man-o'-war rose like a castle wall directly to their right, her cannon ports level with Doucette's deck.

Grapnels whistled through the air to the left and right, and Felix ducked just in time to miss getting hooked through the shoulder. They bit into the rail and the deck and the sails, their ropes thrumming tight as the ship continued forwards. The Reine Celeste's crew chopped at them with hatchets and cutlasses, but two more caught for each one they cut.

A thunderous boom went off in Felix's right ear, and one of the man-o'-war's cannon, not fifteen feet away, was obscured in white smoke. A cannonball whooshed by at head level and parted a ratline.

Felix swallowed. It looked like Gotrek had failed.

"Boarders!" came Doucette's voice.

The merchant ship had broken through the orc line and was inside the blockade, but was slowing sharply, towing the grapnel-hooked rafts and the rest of the ships with it. The man-o'-war was turning as it was pulled, and its guns remained trained on Doucette's ship as waves of roaring green monsters climbed up the lines and the sides and clambered over the rail. Felix drew his dragon-hilted sword and joined the others as they raced to hold them off — men of every colour and land stabbing, hacking and shooting at the age-old enemy of humanity — Tileans in stocking caps and baggy trousers, Bretonnians in striped pantaloons, men of Araby, Ind and further places, all fighting with the crazed desperation of fear.

There was no retreat, and surrender meant an orc stew-pot. Felix sidestepped a cleaver-blow that would have halved him had it connected, and ran his towering opponent through the neck. Two goblins attacked his flanks. He killed one and kicked the other back. Another orc surged up in front of him.

Felix was no longer the willowy young poet he had been when, during a night of drunken camaraderie, he had pledged to record Gotrek's doom in an epic poem. Decades of fighting at the Slayer's side had hardened him and filled him out, and made a seasoned swordsman of him. Even so, he was no match — physically at least — for the seven-foot monster he faced. The beast was more than twice his weight, with arms thicker than Felix's legs, and an underslung jaw from which jutted up cracked tusks. It stank like the back end of a Pig-Its mad red eyes blazed with fury as it roared and swung a black iron cleaver. Felix ducked and slashed back, but the orc was quick, and knocked his sword aside. There was another boom and a cannonball punched through the rail ten feet to Felix's left, cutting a swath through the melee that killed both merchants and orcs alike. Red blood and black mixed on the slippery deck. Felix deflected a swipe from the orc that shivered his arm to the shoulder. The catapult's crew chief fell back in two pieces beside him.

Another series of booms rocked the ship, and Felix thought the orcs had somehow got off a disciplined salvo. He glanced past his orc to the man-o'-war. Smoke poured from the cannon ports but, strangely, no cannonballs. The orc slashed at him. Felix hopped back and tripped over the crew chiefs torso. He landed flat on his back in a puddle of blood.

The orc guffawed and raised his cleaver over his head.

With a massive ka-rump the man-o'-war exploded into a billowing ball of flame, bits of timber and rope and orc parts spinning past. The fighters on the deck of the merchantman were blown off their feet by a hammer of air. Felix felt as if his eardrums had been stabbed with spikes. The orc above him staggered and looked down at his chest, surprised. A cannon's cleaning rod was sticking out from between his ribs, the bristly head dripping with gore. It toppled forwards.

Felix rolled out of the way and sprang to his feet, looking towards the flame-enveloped man-o'-war. So Gotrek had done it after all. But at what cost? Surely there was no way the dwarf could have survived?

Out of the boiling fireball toppled the man-o'-war's mainmast, crashing towards the merchantman's deck like a felled tree — and racing out across it, half climbing, half running, was a broad, compact figure, face and skin as black as iron, red crest and beard smouldering and singed. The top of the mast smashed down through the merchantman's rail and pulverised a knot of goblins that was just climbing over. With a wild roar, Gotrek leapt from this makeshift bridge into the merchantman's waist, right in the middle of the crowd of orcs that was pushing Doucette's crew back towards the sterncastle with heavy losses.

The Slayer spun as he landed, axe outstretched, and a dozen orcs and goblins went down at once, spines and legs and necks severed. Their companions turned to face him, and seven more went down. Heartened, the merchant crew pressed forwards, attacking the confused orcs. Unfortunately, more were running across the rafts, and the merchantman was still caught in a net of grapnels, and pinned in place by the fallen mast.

Felix leapt the forecastle rail, yelling to Doucette as he plunged into the circle of orcs and goblins towards Gotrek. "Cut the lines and clear the mast! Forget the orcs!"

Doucette hesitated, then nodded. He screamed at his crew in four languages and they fell back, chopping at the remaining ropes and heaving together to push the man-o'-war's mast off their starboard rail, while the greenskins pressed in to take down the crazed Slayer.

Felix took up his accustomed position, behind, and slightly to the left of Gotrek, just far enough away to be clear of the sweep of his axe, but close enough to protect his back and flanks.

The orcs were frightened, and showed it by trying desperately to kill the object of their fear. But the harder they tried, the faster they died, getting in each other's way in their eagerness, forgetting Felix until he had run them through the kidneys, fighting each other for the chance to kill Gotrek. The deck under the dwarf's feet was slick with black blood, and orc and goblin bodies were piled higher than his chest.

Gotrek caught Felix's eye as he bifurcated an orc, topknot to groin. "Not a bad little scrap, eh, manling?"

"Thought you'd died at last," said Felix, ducking a cutlass.

Gotrek snorted as he gutted another orc. "Not likely. Stupid orcs had all the powder up on the gun deck. I cut some ugly greenskin's head off and stuck it in a cook fire until it caught." He barked a sharp laugh as he decapitated two goblins. "Then bowled it down the gun-line like I was playing ninepins. That did it!"

With a screeching and snapping of rending timbers, the merchantman's crew finally pushed the man-o'-war's mainmast clear of the rail. Grapnel lines parted with twangs like a loosed bow's as the Reine Celeste surged forwards, straightening out before the wind.

The crew cheered and turned to fight the last few orcs. It was over in seconds. Felix and the others wiped their blades and looked back just in time to see the three orc pursuit ships smash together as they all tried to shoot the gap through the blockade at once. Roars of fury rose from them, and the three crews began to hack at each other while their boats became inextricably fouled in the mess of rafts, ropes and floating debris.

Next to the three-ship squabble, the remains of the burning man-o'-war sank slowly into the gulf under a towering plume of black smoke. Orcs from further along the line were hastily cutting it free so it didn't pull anything else down with it.

Captain Doucette stepped up to Gotrek and bowed low before him. He had a deep gash on his forearm. "Master dwarf, we owe you our lives. You have saved us and our cargo from certain destruction."

Gotrek shrugged. "Only orcs."

"None-the-less, we are extremely grateful. If there is anything we may do to repay you, you have only to name it."

"Hrmm," said Gotrek, stroking his still smouldering beard. "You can get me another keg of beer. I've nearly finished the one I left below."

It was a tense twenty minutes, sailing into the harbour from the blockade, the crew warily watching the rafts and rowboats of orcs that chased after them from the floating barricade until they at last gave up and fell behind. As the Reine Celeste got closer to Barak Varr's cavernous opening, they had to pick their way through a litter of wrecked orc ships half-sunk around the sea wall. Signals flew from the lighthouse, which Captain Doucette answered speedily. Grim-faced dwarf cannon crews watched them from fortified emplacements below it. Dwarf masons were at work on the lighthouse itself, repairing a great hole blasted in its side.

Felix gazed in wonder as the Reine Celeste sailed between the two statues and into the shadow of the harbour cavern, staggered by the beauty and immense proportions of the place. The cave was so wide and so deep that he could not see the walls.

Hundreds of thick chains hung down from the darkness of the roof. At the end of each was an octagonal lantern the size of a nobleman's carriage, which provided an even yellow light that allowed ships to find their way to the docks.

The harbour filled the front half of the cave, a wide, curving frontage from which the branching stone fingers of quays and wharves extended. They were laid out with typical dwarfish precision, evenly spaced and perfectly positioned, to make manoeuvring in and out of the slips as easy as possible for the ships that docked there. There were thirty ships berthed there now, and room for at least fifty more.

A city of stone rose beyond the harbour. It was strange for Felix, who had visited more dwarf holds than most humans, to see such human structures as houses and mercantile buildings arranged along broad avenues under the shadow-hidden roof of the cave, but the dwarfs had made these surface-world forms their own. Never had Felix seen squatter, more massively built houses, all steel grey granite and decorated to the roof peaks with intricate geometric dwarf ornamentation. Even the smallest looked as if it could withstand a cannon-blast.

As they approached the embankment, a tiny dwarf steam ship, little more than a dinghy with a furnace, puffed out to them, and then guided them to an empty slip. A cheer erupted from the dock as the crew threw out their lines and extended the gangplank. There was a crowd of nearly a hundred on hand to welcome Captain Doucette and his crew as they stepped off the ship. Most were dwarfs, but there were a fair number of men as well.

The harbourmaster, a fat dwarf in slashed doublet and breeches, stumped forwards amid the general hubbub of congratulation and greeting. "Welcome, captain, and twice welcome. You are the first ship to dock here in three weeks, since the accursed orcs set their barricade. A great deed, sir."

Doucette turned to Gotrek. "This one do the deed, sir. He blow up the man-o'-war with the single hand, bien?"

"Then we are indebted to you, Slayer," said the harbourmaster, bowing low. Then, without further ado, he took out his ledger and got to business. "Now, sir, what do you carry?" He licked his lips eagerly.

"I bring cinnamon and other spices from Ind," said Doucette grandly, "and oil of palm, patterned rugs of Araby, and little lace caps for the ladies. Very pretty, yes?"

The harbourmaster's smile crumpled, and many in the crowd fell silent. "Spices? All you have is spices?"

"And rugs and caps."

"Spices," grunted the harbourmaster. "What good are spices when we have no meat? You can't make a meal of pepper and salt."

"Monsieur, I..."

"The orcs have been blocking the harbour for three weeks?" interrupted Gotrek. "What ails you? Why haven't you blasted them out of the water?"

A dwarf sailor with his beard and hair in tarred braids spoke up before the harbourmaster could reply. "Grungni-cursed greenskins got lucky and sank one of our ironclads, and the other is transporting dwarfs to the war in the north."

"It's true," said the harbourmaster. "With so many gone to aid the Empire, we've barely enough dwarfs and ships to keep the orcs from entering the harbour, let alone chase them away. They infest the landside entrance as well. We're besieged land and sea."

Gotrek and Felix glanced at each other.

"War?" asked Gotrek. "What war?"

"You don't know of the war?" asked the harbourmaster. "Where have you been?"

"Ind and Araby," spat Gotrek, "chasing our tails."

"You say this war is in the Empire?" asked Felix.

"Aye," said the sailor. "The Chaos hordes coming south again: usual madness. Some `chosen one' and his lads making a try for the world. A lot of holds sent dwarfs north to help turn them back. Our ships carried many of them."

"Chaos," said Gotrek, his one eye shining. "Now there's a challenge."

"It were better if we left men's troubles to men," said the harbourmaster bitterly. "The orcs have taken advantage of the clans being away and are rising all over the Badlands. Many small holds and human towns have been put to fire and sword. Even Karak Hirn is lost. The other holds have buttoned themselves up tight until they're at full strength again."

"But how goes the war?" asked Felix. "Does the Empire still stand? Have they reached... Nuln?"

The harbourmaster shrugged. "Who can say? The overland caravans stopped coming more than a month ago, and every ship that docked before the orcs strung their rafts across our mouth had a different story. One said Middenheim had fallen, another that Altdorf was in flames. The next said the hordes had been pushed back to the Wastes and never got further than Praag. It might already be over for all we know. Grimnir make it so. These orcs must be put down or we shall starve."

Gotrek and Felix turned back to Captain Doucette.

"Take us out of here," said Gotrek. "We must get north."

"Yes," said Felix. "I must get to Nuln. I must see if it still exists."

Doucette blinked. "But... but, my friends, it is impossible. We must make the repairs, no? And I must take on water and supplies, and cargo. It will take a week at least." He gestured to the entrance of the harbour, glowing orange in the late afternoon sun. "And what of the green ones? Will we make the escape the way we make the entrance? It may not be so easy, eh?"

"Damn your excuses," said Gotrek. "I've a doom waiting for me. Let's go."

Doucette shrugged. "My friend, I cannot. Not for a week. It is impossible."

Gotrek glared at him, and Felix was afraid he was going to grab the captain by the scruff of the neck and drag him back on board, but at last the Slayer cursed and turned away.

"Where's Makaisson when you need him?" he growled.

"Forgive me, harbourmaster," said Felix, bowing, "but can you tell me where we can find lodgings for a week?"

The harbourmaster barked a laugh. "Good luck. The city is filled to bursting with refugees from every hold and human town in the Badlands. There isn't a bed to let at any price, and not much food either, but you've cinnamon to dine on, so you'll make out all right."

Gotrek balled his fists as the crowd laughed. For once Felix was in a like mood. He wanted to punch everyone within reach in the nose. This was maddening. He had to get north. He had to learn what had become of his family — his father, his brother Otto. He didn't want to stay in some out of the way port while his home, his country, was ravaged by bloodthirsty barbarians. He had seen what the hordes had done to the lands of Kislev. That the same thing might be happening in the Empire — in the Reikland and Averland — while he was far away and powerless to stop it, was almost more than he could bear.

"Come, manling," said Gotrek at last, turning towards the city and hefting his axe. "Let's go make some empty beds."

CHAPTER TWO

The harbourmaster's prediction proved true. Gotrek and Felix visited thirteen taverns and not one had a bed to spare. Most had rented out their stables and haylofts to desperate refugees as well. Others had been taken over by the city as barracks and hospitals for the dwarfs and men who defended the city against the orcs in the harbour and on the walls of the dwarf fort that protected the port's landside entrance. Even the bawdy houses in the human quarter were taking in boarders, and making their girls ply their trade in downstairs parlours and alcoves.

Barak Varr's lantern-lit underground streets were crowded with dwarfs and men of every description, traders, sailors, merchants, gaunt farmers with their families in tow and their belongings on their backs, angry men-at-arms talking of retaking their castles or exacting vengeance on the orcs, lost children crying for their mothers, the sick and the maimed and the dying moaning and ignored in alleys and dark corners.

The long-time residents of Barak Varr — both dwarf and human — who had three weeks ago welcomed the refugees with open arms, were now glaring at them behind their backs, their patience stretched to breaking point. Supplies of food and ale were dwindling rapidly, and with the orc blockade in place, there was little possibility of more supplies coming soon. Felix heard voices raised in complaint and argument on every street they turned down.

By the fourteenth tavern, the Sea Chest, Gotrek gave up and ordered an ale.

"Enough drinks, it won't matter where I sleep," he said with a shrug.

Felix was not so easy about accommodations, but he needed a drink too. It had been a long day. They shoved in at a circular table with a crowd of dwarfs and men in the uniform of the city guard and stared for a long moment at the foaming mugs of ale the barmaid set down before them. Beads of condensation ran down the sides, and a heady scent of hops wafted from them like a memory of summer.

Gotrek licked his lips, but didn't reach for the mug. "Real dwarf ale," he said.

Felix nodded. He too was mesmerised at the vision of liquid gold before him. "Not that damned palm wine we had in Ind."

"Or the Bretonnian slop Doucette served on the Celeste," said Gotrek. He snorted dismissively. "Human beer."

"Or the sugar water they served in Araby," said Felix with feeling.

Gotrek spat a fat gob of phlegm on the floor, disgusted. "That rot was poison."

At last they could stand it no longer. They snatched up the steins and downed them in long, greedy pulls. Gotrek finished first, banging down his mug and leaning back, his eyes glazed, licking foam from his moustache. Felix finished a moment later and sat back as well. He closed his eyes.

"It's good to be back," he said at last.

Gotrek nodded, and signalled the barmaid for another round. "Aye," he said.

After they had drunk their second and third in silence, Gotrek's brow began to cloud, and his one eye stared off into nothingness. Felix knew the signs and was therefore not surprised when a few moments later Gotrek grunted and spoke.

"How many years were we gone?"

Felix shrugged. "I can't remember. Too long, at any rate."

"And still alive." Gotrek wiped the foam from his moustache and traced distracted circles on the patinated planks of the table. "My best dooms are behind me, manling. I've slain trolls, vampires, giants, dragons, daemons, and each was to be my death. If they couldn't kill me, what will? Am I to spend the next three hundred years killing skaven and grobi? A Slayer must die to be complete." He raised his axe high into the air, holding the haft by the very end so that the razor sharp edge glinted in the light. "The axe must fall."

"Gotrek..." said Felix uneasily.

Gotrek blinked blankly at the gleaming blade, then let it drop.

"Gotrek!" Felix squawked.

Gotrek stopped the blade a hairsbreadth from his nose as he caught it again, and then lowered it to his side as if he had done nothing untoward. "Imagine a Slayer who died of old age. Pathetic" He sighed, then took another long draught.

Felix's heart was pounding with reaction. He wanted to scream at the dwarf for being a fool, but after years in his company, he knew that any protestations would only make Gotrek dig his heels in and do something even more stupid.

"We must go north," Gotrek continued after a moment. "That daemon was the beast that came closest to killing me. I want another go at — "

"Pardon, Slayer," said a voice behind them. "You are Gotrek, son of Gurni?"

Gotrek and Felix turned, hands moving to their weapons. Two young dwarfs in travel-stained doublets and worn boots stood at a respectful distance.

Gotrek eyed them levelly. "Who wants to know?"

The nearer of the two, whose sandy hair was pulled up in a clubbed topknot, ducked his head. "I am Thorgig Helmgard, son of Thane Kirhaz Helmgard, of the Diamondsmith clan of Karak Hirn, at your service and your clan's. This is my friend and clan brother Kagrin Deepmountain." The second dwarf, a round-faced youth with a brown beard even shorter than Thorgig's, ducked his head, but said nothing. His eyes remained fixed on the floor.

"We... We recognised your axe when you raised it," continued Thorgig, "though we have only heard it described."

Gotrek frowned at the name of the hold. "And that's excuse enough to interrupt a dwarf in his drinking, short-beard?"

Felix glanced at Gotrek. That was unusually brusque, even for him.

Thorgig coloured a little, but kept himself in check. "Forgive me, master Slayer. I only wanted to ask if you had come to Barak Varr to help your old friend, my liege, Prince Hamnir Ranulfsson, recover Karak Hirn, which was lost to the grobi not three weeks ago. He is organising an army among the refugees."

"Old friend, is it?" said Gotrek. "I wouldn't help Hamnir Ranulfsson finish a keg. If he's lost his father's hold it's no more than I'd expect." He turned back to his mug. "Off with you."

Thorgig's fists clenched. "You border close to insult, Slayer."

"Only close?" said Gotrek. "Then I've missed my mark. Hamnir Ranulfsson is an oathbreaking dog, not fit to shape tin or dig middens."

Felix edged back.

"Stand, Slayer," said Thorgig, his voice trembling. "I would not hit a sitting dwarf."

"Then I'll stay sitting. I don't want your death on my hands."

Thorgig's face was as red and mottled as Felix's cloak. "You won't stand? Are you a coward as well as a liar?"

Gotrek's hands froze on his mug and the muscles in his massive arms flexed, but then he relaxed. "Go back to Hamnir, lad. I've no grudge against you."

"But I've one against you." The young dwarfs posture was rigid with a mixture of fear and fury.

"Fair enough," said Gotrek, looking into his mug. "Come back when your beard reaches your belt and I'll take your measure, but at the moment, I'm drinking."

"More cowardice," said Thorgig. "You are a Slayer. You will be long dead by then."

Gotrek sighed morosely. "I'm beginning to doubt it."

Thorgig and his companion continued to stare at Gotrek while the Slayer downed his ale, lost in moody reflection, and Felix eyed the scene anxiously, every muscle ready to jump away at the first sign of a fight. He had watched Gotrek's back in battles with daemons, dragons and trolls, but only a madman got in the middle of brawling dwarfs.

After a long moment, the awkwardness of his position at last became too much for the young dwarf and he turned to his companion. "Come, Kagrin, we are fools to expect a Slayer to defend his honour. Do they not take the crest because they lost it long ago?"

Gotrek tensed again as the two dwarfs pushed through the crowd to the door, but he successfully stopped himself from going after them.

"What was all that about?" asked Felix when they were gone.

"Not your concern, manling." Gotrek drained his mug and stood. "Let's find another place."

Felix sighed and rose. "Another place will be better?"

"It won't be this place," came the reply.

Lodgings suddenly became available at the next tavern, a filthy dive called the Blind Alley, when two Tilean traders who had been staying there got in a fight with three Estalian sailors over the favours of a tavern girl, and all five of them were thrown out. There was a fierce bidding war for the room among the tavern's customers, but Gotrek showed the landlord a diamond the size of his thumbnail and the auction came to an abrupt end. He ordered a half keg of the tavern's best brew sent up and retired immediately.

Felix shook his head when he looked around the cramped, grimy room. There were mould stains on the walls, and the sheets on the two narrow cots tucked under the eaves were blotched and grey. "That diamond was the gift of the Caliph of Ras Karim," he said. "It might have bought a townhouse in Altdorf, and you used it to pay for this?"

"I want some peace," rumbled Gotrek, "and if you go on about it, you can sleep in the hall."

"Not I," said Felix, pulling back his cot's patched blanket dubiously. "I'll be too busy wrestling bed-bugs to speak."

"Just be quiet about it."

There was a deferential tap on the door, and two of the landlord's barmen waddled in with a half-keg. The mark of a Barak Varr dwarf brewery was branded on the side. They set it on the floor between the cots, then tapped it, left two mugs, and withdrew.

Gotrek turned the tap and let a few inches of ale slide down the side of the mug. He took a sip, then nodded, satisfied. "Not Bugman's, but not bad. Ten or twelve of these and I could sleep in a pig sty." He filled the mug to the brim and sat in the room's only chair.

"A pig sty might have been cleaner," said Felix. He filled his mug too, and took a swallow. The rich amber liquid flowed, cool and pleasingly sharp, down to his stomach, and sent a warm tingle through his limbs. At once, a mellow glow spread over the whole room, a golden patina that blinded one to the dirt and disrepair. "On the other hand, a pig sty wouldn't have this," he said, lifting the mug. He took a longer drink and sat down on his cot. A slat creaked ominously, and he slid toward the centre. He sighed. "So, is this what you mean to do while we wait out the week for the Celeste? Sit in this room and drink?"

"You have a better plan?"

Felix shrugged. "It just seems a waste of time."

"That's the trouble with men," said Gotrek, "no patience." He took a drink. Felix tried to think of a better plan, but couldn't, so he had another drink too.

Four or five mugs later another knock came on the door. Felix thought it was the landlord again, bringing up another half keg, and levered himself out of the sway-backed bed, but when he opened the door, a prosperous-looking dwarf stood in it, four more behind him in the shadows of the hall. Felix recognised young Thorgig and his silent friend Kagrin among them.

The dwarf in the door looked of an age with Gotrek — though it was hard to tell with dwarfs — but considerably less weathered. His chestnut brown beard flowed down his green and gold doublet, bulged over a comfortable paunch, and was tucked neatly under his belt. A pair of gold spectacles dangled from a gold chain clipped to his collar. He had square, broad features and clear brown eyes, currently flashing with suppressed anger. "Where is he?" he asked.

Gotrek looked up at the voice and glared balefully at the speaker from across the room. "Found me, did you?"

"There aren't many one-eyed Slayers in town."

Gotrek burped. "Well, now you can go again. I already told your boot-boy I wouldn't help."

The dwarf — Felix assumed it must be the aforementioned Hamnir Ranulfsson — stepped forwards, ignoring Felix entirely. "Gotrek — "

"You set foot in this room," said Gotrek, interrupting him. "I'll kill you. After what has passed between us, you've no reason to expect anything from me except a cleft skull."

Hamnir hesitated for a second, and then stepped deliberately into the room. It was an act of courage for, compared to Gotrek, he looked small and soft and fat. "Then kill me. I've swallowed a lot of pride coming here. I'll speak my piece."

Gotrek looked him over coldly from his chair. He shook his head. "You've become a shopkeep."

"And you've become a tavern bully by all accounts," said Hamnir.

"I told your boy my grudge was with you. I didn't fight him."

"I know our grudge, Gurnisson," said Hamnir, "which is why I don't come asking for myself, but for Karak Hirn, and all its clans, and for all the dwarfs and men of the Badlands as well. With Karak Hirn fallen there is no bastion to stop the grobi from raiding the countryside. It burns. Trade twixt dwarf and man has ceased. No grain for ale. No human gold for dwarf swords. The holds are slowly starving."

"And how did this tragedy come about?" asked Gotrek, sneering. "No fault of yours, surely."

Hamnir looked down, colouring. "The fault is mine more than anyone else's, I suppose. My father and older brother went north to join the forces fighting the Chaos invasion and left me with the running of Karak Hirn. As second son, I have dealt primarily with trade, as you know, and it has been my custom to come to Barak Van-to negotiate with the Tilean grain merchants, as they are known for their sharp practices and slippery ways."

"No sharper or slipperier than yours, I'm sure," muttered Gotrek.

Hamnir ignored him. "So I left the hold in the hands of Durin Torvaltsson, one of my father's advisors, too old to go to war, and — "

"The orcs took the hold while you were away arguing over wheat?" Gotrek's disgust was palpable.

Hamnir clenched his jaw. "We had no reason to expect an attack. The orcs were running wild in the Badlands, but they hadn't attacked the holds. Why would they when there were so many easier targets among the human settlements? But... but they did attack. We had been here three days when Thorgig and Kagrin slipped through the siege by night and found me. They said the orcs had come up from our mines, in overwhelming force. We were taken entirely unawares. Our alarms, our traps, all failed. Durin is dead, as are many others: Ferga, my betrothed, Thorgig's sister, may be one of them. I — "

"So you are to blame," said Gotrek.

"And if I am," said Hamnir, hotly, "does it change what has been lost and what more will be lost because of it? Can a true dwarf turn away?"

"I am a true Slayer, Ranulfsson," growled Gotrek, "sworn to seek a great death, and I won't find that fighting grobi in Karak Hirn. I'm going north. There are daemons in the north."

Hamnir spat. "That for Slayers: vain and selfish. They seek great deaths, not great deeds."

Gotrek stood, taking up his axe. "Get out."

The dwarfs in the hall put their hands on their axes and hammers, and stepped forwards, but Hamnir waved them back.

He glared at Gotrek. "I hoped it wouldn't come to this. I hoped you would do the right thing and come to the aid of Karak Hirn out of loyalty to your race, but I see that you are still the same old Gotrek Gurnisson, still more concerned with your own glory than the common good. Very well." He raised his chin, pushing his beard out like an auburn waterfall. "Before the oath was made that birthed the grudge between us, there was another, spoken when we first became friends."

"You dirty — " said Gotrek.

"We vowed," continued Hamnir, talking over him, "with blood passed between us, that come what may on life's bitter road, if called upon, we would aid and defend each other as long as there was still blood in our veins and life in our limbs to do so. I call on that vow now."

Gotrek's single eye blazed and he advanced on Hamnir, axe raised. Hamnir paled, but stood firm. Gotrek stopped before him, trembling, and then whipped the axe down, so close to Hamnir's side that it shaved some stray threads from his sleeve, then bit into the floorboards.

Hamnir let out a relieved breath.

Gotrek punched him in the nose so hard that he landed on his neck at the feet of his dwarfs. They stepped forwards to cover him, but Gotrek stayed where he was.

"You've some gall calling on an oath, after what you've done," Gotrek said as Hamnir tried to raise his bleeding head, "but, unlike some, I have never broken a vow. I'll join your army, but this foolishness better be finished before the war is over in the north." He turned his back on the dwarfs in the door and picked up his mug. "Now, get out. I'm drinking."

CHAPTER THREE

A wide boulevard, the Rising Road, ran straight through Barak Varr from the docks to the back wall of the enormous cavern where the holds of the port's founding clans were built into the solid rock in the more traditional dwarf manner, each with a fortified front door topped with the clan sigil. The boulevard pierced the back wall and continued on, rising, straight and broad and gradual, through the earth to the surface, where it opened within a sturdy dwarf fortress, built to defend the landside entrance.

On this road, three days later, Hamnir Ranulfsson, Prince of Karak Hirn, mustered his army of refugee dwarfs — five hundred doughty warriors from a score of clans, along with dwarf smiths and surgeons, and bustling dwarf wives, overseeing wagons full of food, camp gear and supplies, all headed for Rodenheim Castle, a human keep near Karak Hirn where, according to Thorgig, the survivors of the orc invasion had taken refuge. The castle too had been ravaged by orcs, Baron Rodenheim slaughtered with all his vassals, but the green horde had soon abandoned it for fresh pillage, and the dwarfs had moved in.

Banners waved proudly at the head of Hamnir's column. The force was well kitted out with armour, shields, axes, crossbows, handguns and cannon — as well as provisions and fodder — for Barak Varr had helped outfit the army. Felix didn't doubt that this was because the dwarfs of the port wished Hamnir every success in regaining Karak Hirn and assuring the security of the dwarf race, but no doubt the fact that, with his force gone, they would have six hundred less mouths to feed probably had something to do with it as well.

Felix was the only man in the long column. This was not yet an army of general liberation. The dwarfs were going to take back Karak Hirn, and men were not invited freely into a dwarf hold, no matter how desperate the situation. Only Felix's status as "Dwarf Friend" and Gotrek's "rememberer" allowed him to join the dwarfs' solemn ranks. He stood with Gotrek near the front of the force while they waited for all the clans to form up.

There was a fair amount of argument about the order of march, with each clan claiming some ancient honour or precedent that would put them closer to the front, and Felix could see Hamnir standing in the centre of a crowd of clan leaders doing his best to keep his temper while he arbitrated amongst them.

Gleaming gromril armour covered Hamnir head-to-toe — if a little snug about the waist — and over this was belted a dark green surcoat stitched with Karak Hirn's sigil of a horn over a stone gate. A shield over his back had the same design, and he wore on his head an elaborate winged helm, the cheek and nose guards of which did not quite hide his lumpy broken nose and his two purple-tinged black eyes.

Gotrek swayed beside Felix, moaning, and propping himself up with his axe. True to his original intention, he had spent the last three days in their filthy room, blind drunk for the few hours he was awake each day. Yet it had been him — with a dwarf's uncanny ability to know the time under or above ground, in light or dark — that had woken Felix two hours ago and told him to get ready. Now, however, with nothing to do but wait and, eventually, march, the effects of the previous night's binge had caught up with him.

"Would you mind very much not breathing so loudly?" he growled.

"I could stop breathing entirely, if you like," Felix said, snappily, for he too had been less than sparing with the ale the night before.

Gotrek pinched his temples. "Yes, do. And don't shout."

At last, after another hour of argument and reforming, an order of march was settled upon, and the dwarf army got underway. They were accompanied by Odgin Stormwall, commander of the landside fortress, a stout, white-bearded old veteran, and a company of Barak Varr's city guard — fifty dwarfs in ring-mail and blue and grey surcoats accompanied them. Odgin explained the situation above as they marched.

"The grobi filth besiege the fort," Odgin explained as they marched, "though they're not trying very hard to take it. Mostly, they're eating and drinking every bit of forage to be had within fifty leagues, and slaughtering every caravan that comes to trade with us. When they get restless, they make a run at the walls and we turn them back. Usually they just lob rocks and gobbos at us."

"Why don't you just march out and destroy them?" asked Thorgig who walked at Hamnir's side with his silent friend Kagrin.

Odgin exchanged an amused smile with Hamnir, and then nodded at Thorgig. "Oh, we'd like to, lad, but there's more than a few of them. Why should we put ourselves at risk when we're nice and safe behind our walls?"

"But you're starving in here," said Thorgig.

"Aye, and they'll starve out there sooner," said Odgin. "When they've killed all the livestock and looted all the towns within a day's march, their hunger will win out over their patience and they'll move on. They always do."

"What if you starve before they do?"

Odgin chuckled. "Your orc isn't much on rationing. Our lads may complain about tightening their belts and running out of beer, but we can feed the hold for another two months or so on biscuit and spring water." He turned to Hamnir. "Now, Prince Hamnir, here's how we'll get you away. If you were to march out of the main gate, you'd have every orc in the camp after you, but there's a hidden sally port round the back. It goes underground for a bit and comes up in one of our old barns." He grinned. "Orcs smashed it up a bit, and burnt the roof off it, but they never found the door."

"And the greenskins won't see us when we march out?" asked Gotrek. "There are six hundred of us."

"That's what these lads are for," said Odgin, jerking a thumb over his shoulder at the company of Barak Van-city guard. "It's them who'll march out the front gate, and when the greenskins come running to get stuck in, you will slip out of the sally port and away."

Hamnir blinked and looked back at the dwarf guards. "They mean to sacrifice themselves for us? That is more than we wished. I — "

"Oh, it won't be any sacrifice. They're like that short-beard there," he said, nodding at Thorgig. "They've been wanting to come to grips with the greenskins since this business started. We'll pull them out of the fire once you're away. They'll go no further than the gate."

"Nonetheless," said Hamnir, "they put themselves in danger in order to help us, and I thank them for it."

"There isn't a dwarf in Barak Varr that doesn't want to see Karak Hirn restored, Prince Hamnir," said Odgin. "The Hirn holds the Black Mountains together. It protects the Badlands. We'd not survive long without it."

When Hamnir's column reached the top of the Fusing Road, great granite doors swung out and they marched into the wide central courtyard of Kazad Varr, a massively built dwarf fortress with thick walls and square towers at each corner. Felix looked behind him, momentarily disoriented. He had expected the doors to the long tunnel to be built into a cliff-face or mountainside, as was usual with the entrances of dwarf holds, but here there was no mountain. The doors were built into a squat, arrow-slotted stone structure that occupied the space where, in a castle, the central keep would have stood.

Within the fort all was calm. Dwarf quarrellers in blue and grey surcoats patrolled the walls, and cannon crews watched from the towers. They hardly raised their heads when, after a distant thud, an oddly shaped missile arced high over the wall and slammed, screaming, into the flagstones, not thirty feet to Hamnir's left.

Felix looked at it. It was a scrawny goblin with a spiked helmet and poorly made leather wings tied to its arms. Its neck was broken and its body burst. Blood spread out from it in black rivulets.

"Idiots," said Gotrek.

Felix blinked at him. "But you... on the ship, you did the same..."

"I made it."

As the dwarfs of the Barak Varr city guard continued on towards the main gate, Odgin led Hamnir and his army towards the back of the fort to a stone stables, built out from the back wall. At the rear of the stables, Odgin unlocked and opened a pair of big ironbound doors. Behind them, a broad ramp descended into a tunnel that passed under the fortress wall.

"Hold here until the guard is fully engaged and the signal is given," said Odgin. "When you leave the barn, march straight ahead. The west gate of the old pasture wall is only a hundred yards beyond, and once through it, your force will be shielded from the eyes of the orcs."

Gotrek spat, a disgusted sneer twisting his face. Felix smirked. Even when it made tactical sense, Gotrek didn't care to hide from an enemy.

There was a short wait. Then, from across the fortress came the clatter of chains and gears, and Felix could see the huge doors of the main gate swinging out and the portcullis rising. With a fierce shout, the Barak Vanguard marched forwards into the mouth of the gate, helms and axe blades flashing in the morning sun.

A rising roar from beyond the wall echoed their shout. It grew louder and more savage with each second.

"They've seen the bait," said Thorgig, chewing his lip. It looked to Felix as if the young dwarf would rather be at the main gate than here.

Soon after came the unmistakable sound of two armies slamming together shield to shield and axe to axe. Thorgig's eyes glowed, and the other dwarfs shifted restlessly, gripping their weapons and muttering to themselves.

Gotrek groaned and massaged his temples. "Don't suppose they could fight quietly?" he grumbled.

The sound of battle intensified. Felix could see violent movement in the open arch of the main gate — flashes of steel, falling bodies, surging lines of green and grey.

Finally, a flutter of red came from the wall above the gate — a banner waving back and forth.

"That's it," said Odgin. "The whole horde's coming now. Off you go."

Hamnir saluted Odgin, fist over his heart. "You have my thanks, Odgin Stormwall. Karak Hirn will not forget this."

Odgin returned the salute, grinning. "Remember it next time we come to trade sea pearls for sword steel, prince."

Hamnir motioned his troops forward and marched down the ramp into the tunnel. It was a cramped space compared to the Rising Road, with only room enough for four dwarfs to march abreast. After less than two hundred paces it ended in another ramp, rising, it seemed, to a blank ceiling.

Hamnir called a halt as Thorgig stepped to a lever in the left wall.

"Companies ready!" called Hamnir.

The dwarfs drew their axes and hammers. Quarrellers set bolts on strings. Gotrek took a drink from his canteen. Felix hefted his sword, nervous.

"Open!" called Hamnir.

Thorgig pulled the lever. With a rumble of hidden gears, the ceiling rose and split, and bright morning sunlight poured into the darkness.

Hamnir raised his axe. "Forward, sons of Grungni! March!"

The column started up the ramp, Hamnir in the lead, Gotrek and Felix in the first rank with Thorgig and Kagrin. They came up in a ruined bam. The building was roofless — the walls mere heaps of rubble. Skeletons of sheep and cattle were littered everywhere, bits of rotting meat still stuck to them.

As the dwarfs stepped from the barn and began marching towards the pasture gate directly ahead of them, Felix looked around at the orc camp to their right — an endless clutter of ragged skin tents, gutted and toppled outbuildings, make-shift boar pens and refuse, that spread out in all directions from the front gate of the dwarf fortress. Crude, leering faces were painted on the tents in blood and dung. Flies buzzed over heaps of rotting garbage on which human bodies and bones had been tossed. Primitive totems hung above the bigger tents, proclaiming the dominance of this or that chieftain.

From all over this shambles, orcs ran towards the main gate. The entire camp seethed with movement. Warbosses and their lieutenants chivvied their fractious troops towards the open gate with curses, kicks and slaps. Hulking green warriors snatched up their weapons and beat their chests. Tiny goblins unleashed fang-toothed, four-legged beasts that looked like deformed pigs. Blood-daubed war banners, decorated with severed human and dwarf heads, waved above swarms of enraged orcs, all roaring challenges.

There was a mob mustering directly behind a stand of tents just to the right of the dwarf column — so close that Felix could have seen the yellows of their eyes if they had been facing towards them.

The bulk of the fort was between Hamnir's force and the main gate, so it was impossible to see how well the Barak Varr guards were faring, but the sound of steel on steel still rang in Felix's ears, so he knew they weren't dead yet.

Thorgig ground his teeth. "Not fair," he said, under his breath.

Felix shook his head. Imagine wanting to be in the way of that savage green avalanche. He, for one, was happy to be slipping out of the back door. He looked around. They were almost halfway to the pasture wall gate, but the tail of the column had not yet emerged from the tunnel in the barn.

Suddenly, from the right, came a belligerent shriek, very close. The entire dwarf column looked right. A goblin that had been trying to corral one of its unruly pets had seen them. It turned tail and ran, bug-eyed. The dwarf quarrellers fired, and a score of crossbow bolts flashed after it. They were too late. The little greenskin dodged around a tent and ran towards the mustering orcs, screaming at the top of his lungs.

"That's done it," said a dwarf behind Felix.

"Good," said Thorgig.

Orcs were turning and pointing and calling to their mates. Warbosses were screaming orders.

Hamnir cursed. "Double time!" he shouted. "Double time! Hurry it up!"

"You running, shopkeep?" asked Gotrek as the dwarf column picked up its pace. "Can't stomach a good set-to anymore?"

"If I lose half my troops here for the sake of `a good set-to'," snarled Hamnir, his face tight, "what am I to do at Karak Hirn, when the battle means something?"

Gotrek glared at Hamnir's logic, but continued mot-ting along with the others, much to Felix's relief.

The orcs were coming. A mob of massive green-skinned warriors poured around the shattered houses, roaring for dwarf blood, bone and skin totems bobbing like grisly marionettes overhead. Goblins scampered in their wake, long knifes glinting.

Hamnir's head swivelled from them to the gate and back. "We're not going to make it," he muttered. "We're not going to make it."

"Then turn and fight, Grimnir curse you!" said Gotrek.

Thorgig looked uneasily at Hamnir. "Your orders, prince?"

"Orders," said Hamnir, as if he didn't know what the word meant. "Yes, of course. I..." He looked around again, eyes showing white. The orcs were fifty feet away and closing fast. "Grungni take it. Quarrellers, right! Fire! Fire! Column, dress right!" His voice was thin with tension.

The quarrellers fired, and twenty greenskins went down. There was no time for a second volley. The orcs were on them, slamming into the right side of the column in a piecemeal charge as the dwarfs belatedly turned out to face them.

Axe and cleaver met blade-to-blade and haft-to-haft in an impact that Felix could feel through his feet. Notched black iron smashed through shining dwarf mail and sturdy dwarf shields, biting deep into dwarf flesh. Gleaming dwarf axes chopped through leather and scrap armour, cleaving green orc-flesh and shattering white orc-bone.

Gotrek pushed to the front line and laid about him like a thresher, separating orcs from their sinewy limbs and their ugly, thick-skulled heads. Felix drew his dragon sword, Karaghul, and joined him, keeping just out of the sweep of the Slayer's great axe. He stabbed a goblin in the mouth and ducked a club like a tree stump, swung by an orc with brass hoops piercing his up-jutting tusks.

Dwarfs fell right and left under the orc onslaught, but the line never wavered. They took the orcs' savage blows on their shields with stoic determination, and fought back with grim, glowering calm. There were no wild attacks, no desperate lunges, only a steady, relentless butchery that dropped orcs one after another. Even Hamnir was calming, as if the physical work of swinging his axe was steadying him.

A mob of orcs broke and ran, pin-cushioned with bolts and driven back by the dwarfs' implacable attack. The gang beside them caught their panic and retreated as well, bellowing savage curses.

"We're turning them," said Hamnir, dodging back from a cleaver swipe and cutting its owner's wrist to the bone. "We just might — "

A thunderous roar came from the cluster of tents. Felix kicked a goblin in the face and looked up. An enormous orc warboss was stomping towards the battle with a crowd of black orc lieutenants surrounding him. He bellowed at the fleeing orcs and pointed an angry finger at the dwarf column.

The orcs cringed from his displeasure and reluctantly turned back towards the dwarfs.

"Luck of the dwarfs," growled Hamnir, bashing an orc in the knee with his shield.

"The big one's put the fear of Gork in them," said Gotrek. He seemed almost pleased.

The warboss smashed into the centre of the dwarf column, his black orcs and the backsliders beside him. His huge cleaver cut a bloody trench through a company of Ironbreakers. It seemed to glow with a greenish light. Dead dwarfs flew back, severed limbs spinning away as the boss chopped and hewed. His black orc lieutenants ploughed in after him. Bolstered by his presence, the orcs attacked with renewed fury all along the dwarf line.

Hamnir cursed under his breath. "You wanted a good set-to, Gurnisson," he snapped over his shoulder. "On your way, then."

Gotrek was already out of earshot, charging down the column towards the rampaging orc chieftain. Felix hurried after him, as did Thorgig and Kagrin.

"Want to see the crested coward in action," Thorgig grunted. "Maybe he'll punch the orc in the nose when he isn't ready."

Kagrin smirked, but said nothing.

The warboss was huge — twice the height of a dwarf, and nearly as wide as it was tall. Its armour was a patchwork of scrap metal and looted plate. Dwarf breastplates served it for shoulder pieces. A necklace of staring human heads hung around its tree-trunk neck, woven together by their hair. As Gotrek and Felix got closer, Felix heard an angry, high-pitched screaming, and realised it was the boss' green-glowing cleaver, keening for blood. The runes on Gotrek's axe glowed red as it neared the fell weapon.

All around the brute was chaos — dwarf warriors pushing forwards to get into the fight, quarrellers angling to get a clear shot, the warboss' hulking lieutenants hacking and chopping right and left, trying to win favour with feats of mad savagery.

The warboss cut a dwarf in two, the cleaver slicing through the warrior's heavy ring-mail as if it were butter. The metal literally melted and flowed at its touch.

Gotrek leapt up on a pile of dwarf bodies and swung his axe, its runes trailing red. The orc threw up his cleaver and the weapons came together in a shivering clash. Sparks flew. The cleaver shrieked like a wounded daemon. The warboss roared and lashed out, furious at being thwarted. Gotrek blocked and bashed back, and the axe and cleaver began weaving a whirling cage of steel and iron as he and the orc hacked and countered.

The boss' black orc lieutenants surged forwards, howling for blood. Felix, Thorgig and Kagrin closed with them to protect Gotrek's flanks. Felix dodged a serrated axe swung by a one-eyed orc, then stepped in and stabbed the monster in its remaining eye. It bellowed in rage and pain, striking out blindly in all directions. A wild swing gutted one of its comrades. Two more killed it and thrust it behind them.

Felix jumped back as the orcs slashed at him. There was no sense parrying. The massive axes would only shatter his blade and numb his arm. On Gotrek's left, Thorgig bashed an orc's club aside with his shield and chopped through its knee. It toppled like a tree. A cleaver caught the wings of Thorgig's helmet and knocked it flying. He blocked another attack with his axe. The force of the blow nearly flattened him. Kagrin, who had been hanging back, darted in and gashed the orc in the side with a beautifully made hand axe. Thorgig finished it off.

Gotrek parried another swing of the warboss' cleaver, then turned his axe so it screeched down the cleaver's haft and severed the orc's fingers. They dropped away like fat green grubs, and the glowing cleaver fell. The warboss roared and fumbled uselessly for it with its bloody stumps. Gotrek jumped up onto its knee and split its bony skull down to its sternum.

The black orcs stared as Gotrek rode the huge orc's collapsing body to the ground, and two died from dwarf axes before they recovered themselves. Three leapt at Gotrek, all trying to reach him first. He fanned them back with his axe and snatched up the warboss' cleaver. It crackled with angry green energy where it touched his skin. Gotrek didn't flinch.

"Who's the next boss?" he called. "Who wants it?"

As the three black orcs advanced again, Gotrek tossed the humming cleaver behind them. They lifted their eyes, following its arc, then turned and dived, elbowing and punching each other to get at it. The other lieutenants looked back at the commotion and saw the first three fighting for the cleaver. They roared and joined the scuffle, their dwarf opponents forgotten.

The dwarfs pressed forwards, swinging for the orcs' backs, but Gotrek threw out a hand.

"Don't engage!" he shouted. "Let them fight."

The dwarfs stepped back. The orc brawl was turning deadly. One of the lieutenants buried his axe in the chest of another. Others were bellowing for their followers to come to their aid. Orcs began peeling away from their fights all along the dwarf column to rally to their leaders. Felix saw the glowing cleaver cut an orc's head off, but its wielder was stabbed in the back and another took it up.

Gotrek wiped his axe on the trampled grass. "That's done it," he said, satisfied, and started to the front of the column again. Felix joined him.

Thorgig glared at Gotrek's back as he retrieved his dented helmet and followed with Kagrin. He seemed disappointed that the Slayer had prevailed.

More and more orcs were deserting the dwarf line to join the scrum over the cleaver. Others were fighting amongst themselves. By the time Gotrek and Felix rejoined Hamnir, the dwarfs' line of march was clear.

Hamnir grunted, reluctantly impressed. "Thought you'd take the Slayer's way, and try to fight them all while we died behind you."

"I swore to protect you," Gotrek said, coldly. "I don't break my oaths."

The column started forwards as the orcs fought on.

CHAPTER FOUR

The dwarfs' mood, already grim because of the casualties the orcs had inflicted upon them during their exit from Barak Varr, grew grimmer still the deeper they travelled into the Badlands. Though they saw few orcs, signs of their rampage were everywhere.

The land had been plagued by the orc hordes for as long as dwarfs and men had settled there. Their invasions were as common as spring floods, and almost as predictable, and the hardy folk of the plains protected themselves from them as if from a storm. The few settlements huddled tightly around strong keeps, into which the farmers and their livestock could retreat when the greenskins came. There they would wait out the ravaging of their farms until the savage tide receded, then return to their land and rebuild.

This time, because so many men and dwarfs had gone north to fight, it had been much worse. There had been no one to stop them, and the orcs had followed their lust for slaughter wherever it took them. The devastation was entirely random. Hamnir's army came upon villages burned to the ground, everyone slain, and then, not five miles on, others absolutely untouched, the farmers harvesting their fields with nervous eyes straying to the horizon and look-outs posted on every hill.

They passed castles with banners waving, and others that were nothing but charred ruins. The farms and houses around these were razed to the ground, the picked bones of the peasants and their families strewn about the blackened circles of cooking fires. Nothing edible was left where the orcs had been. Livestock had been eaten, fruit trees and grain bins stripped, hogsheads of ale and wine drained and smashed.

The only men who hadn't been thrown into the stew pot were those who had been used for sport. Rotting corpses in ruined armour had been nailed, spread-eagled, to trees, crude targets painted on their chests. Dozens of black arrows stuck out of them. Most had missed the bulls-eye. Other corpses hung from the battlements of castles as warnings, savagely mutilated.

It was a grim march, and Gotrek was grim company, even more taciturn and dour than usual. He kept as far from Hamnir as he could, walking at the back near the baggage train, while Hamnir marched at the head. Only when the scouts reported orcs or other dangers in the vicinity did Gotrek return to the front and take up a guard position near his old companion.

The Slayer spoke to Felix hardly more than to Hamnir. He seemed entirely withdrawn, staring at the ground ahead of him as he marched, and muttering under his breath, ignoring Felix entirely. The other dwarfs ignored him too, eyeing him warily if they looked at him at all. Felix couldn't remember any other time in his travels with Gotrek when he felt more of an outsider, more alone. On all their other adventures, there had been at least a few other humans with them — Max, Ulrica — though she wasn't human anymore, was she? Here, he seemed the only member of his species for a hundred leagues. It was a strange, lonely feeling.

At every stop, while the other dwarfs smoked pipes or cooked up sausages and mushrooms, or took their ease, and Felix penned the day's events in his journal, Thorgig's silent friend Kagrin took out a gold-trimmed dagger and a set of tiny files, chisels and gouges, and worked impossibly intricate designs into the pommel and crosspiece. He did these entirely freehand, and yet the work was perfectly symmetrical and precise, the epitome of the angular geometric style the dwarfs favoured. Even the other dwarfs were impressed, stopping in the middle of setting up their tents to watch him work and give him praise or advice. He took both without a word, only nodding curtly and bending even more intently over his work.

Felix watched him too, as much for his oddity as his workmanship. He had never seen a quieter dwarf. The race as a whole seemed born to bluster and brag, but Kagrin hardly ever raised his eyes, let alone his voice. On one or two occasions, however, Felix caught Kagrin frowning at him, only to look away as soon as Felix met his eyes. Other dwarfs in the camp stared at Felix as well, belligerent, challenging glares as if they were offended by his mere presence and asking him to defend the existence of his whole race. Kagrin's gaze was different — more curious than angry.

Then, on the evening of the forth day, after they had made camp and eaten dinner, Kagrin sat down near Felix and began to work on the dagger as usual. It took him an hour of filing and tooling before, at last, he looked up at Felix and cleared his throat.

"Aye, goldsmith?" said Felix, when Kagrin failed to speak.

Kagrin looked around, as if fearful of being overheard. "Er, I... I wished to ask, as you are human..." He trailed off. Felix was about to prompt him again when he finally found his voice, rumbling almost inaudibly. "Are... are dwarfs well thought of in the lands of men?"

Felix paused. He didn't know what question he had been expecting, but that wasn't it. He scratched his head. "Er, well, yes, generally. Their craftsmanship is highly praised, as is their honour and steadfastness. There are some among the less learned who look upon dwarfs with suspicion and jealousy, but most treat them with great respect."

Kagrin seemed heartened by this answer. "And... and there are places where dwarfs live peacefully beside men?"

Felix looked at him surprised. "There have been dwarf enclaves in the cities of the Empire for a thousand years. You haven't heard of them?"

Kagrin's shoulders tightened and he looked around again. "Shhh! Aye, I have, but I've heard... I've heard it said that dwarfs must lock themselves in at night, for fear of men out to murder and rob them. They say dwarfs have been burnt at the stake as enemies of man."

"Who says this?" asked Felix, frowning.

"Dwarfs of my clan."

"Ah." Felix nodded. "Forgive me if I impugn the motives of your clan brothers, but perhaps they are reluctant to lose a goldsmith of your calibre, and tell you tall tales of the barbarity of man to dissuade you from leaving."

"I haven't spoken of leaving!" hissed Kagrin angrily. His fists clenched.

"Of course not, of course not," said Felix holding up his palms. "I can see that you are only curious. So, er, to satisfy that curiosity: I have never heard of dwarfs being burnt at the stake or called enemies of men. It is true that there have been accounts of mobs — instigated usually by jealous and desperate smiths — attacking dwarf houses, but it is rare. I haven't heard of it happening in this century at all. Dwarfs are long established in the Empire. Most of these passions cooled long ago. A dwarf who did contemplate setting up shop in the Empire would have little fear of trouble, and great prospects for success, particularly if he was as skilled a goldsmith as... well, as some I could name."

Kagrin nodded brusquely, and then shot a guilty look towards Thorgig, who sat with a handful of other dwarfs, playing a game with stone pawns and dice.

He turned back to Felix and bowed his head. "Thank you, human. You... you have, er, satisfied my curiosity."

Felix nodded. "My pleasure."

He watched after Kagrin as he gathered up his tools and retired to his tent. It was strange to think of someone who no doubt had thirty years on him, as a "poor lad", but Felix couldn't help it. It was clear that Kagrin felt torn between the lure of the wide world and the bonds of friendship and family. He had a hard road ahead of him, whatever road he chose. Felix wished him well.

After six days marching at the slow but steady dwarf pace, the Black Mountains, which had been a low saw-toothed line on the horizon when the dwarfs had left Barak Varr, filled the northern sky, an endless line of giants that stood shoulder to shoulder for as far as the eye could see to the east and west. Dark green skirts of thick pine forest swept up to the towering black granite crags that gave the range its name. Their snowy peaks shone blood red in a blazing sunset.

"Home," said Thorgig, inhaling happily as he gazed up at the splendid peaks.

For mountain goats, thought Felix, groaning at the thought of all the climbing to which he would soon be subjected. A cold wind blew down off the slopes. He pulled his old red cloak tighter around him and shivered.

And perhaps he shivered for reasons other than the cold, for, although the dwarfs thought fondly of the place as home, it stirred in Felix less pleasant feelings. It had been not far from here that Gotrek and Felix had helped the ill-fated Baron von Diehl try to found a settlement, only to have it razed to the ground by wolf-riding greenskins. At Fort von Diehl Gotrek had lost his eye, and Felix had lost his first love. He shook his head, trying to keep her ghost at bay. Kirsten. He wished he hadn't been able to remember her name.

"There is Rodenheim Castle," said Hamnir, a little further on, pointing to a stern, squat-towered castle perched on one of the forest-covered foothills that splayed out from the mountains like claws. "It is a great shame that Baron Rodenheim won't be among those who muster here to help us. He was a true Dwarf Friend. May his gods receive him."

The army started up the weedy cart track that wound up the hill to the castle, and soon began to see signs of its demise. The little village that clung to the slopes below it was shattered and burned, the stone houses roofless and toppled, the shrines desecrated. Cracked bones were heaped in corners like snowdrifts. A horrible stench came from the town well. Flies hovered above it. The red twilight painted the scene with a bloody brush. Felix had seen a lot of slaughter and ruin in his years with Gotrek, so it no longer turned his stomach, but it never failed to depress him.

The castle too was the worse for wear. Though its walls still stood, they were scorched and black in places, and great chunks had been knocked off the battlements. Flags with the insignia of Karak Hirn flew over the roofs of burned towers.

As the dwarf army approached, a horn echoed from the walls, and Felix could see stout figures carrying long-guns marching to their positions behind the crenellations. Torches flared to life above them, revealing dwarf crews readying catapults and trebuchets and kettles of boiling lead. The horn was answered by another, followed by cries and commands from within.

A white-bearded Thunderer in well worn chainmail climbed onto the battlements above the gate, his finger on the trigger of his gun. "No closer, by Grimnir!" he bellowed, when the head of Hamnir's column had come in range. "Not until you announce yourself and your purpose!"

"Hail, Lodrim!" called Hamnir. "It is Prince Hamnir Ranulfson, and I've brought six hundred brave dwarf volunteers. Have we leave to enter?"

The Thunderer leaned forwards, blinking myopically. "Prince Hamnir? Is it you? Valaya be praised!" He turned and shouted over his shoulder. "Open the gates! Open the gates! It's Prince Hamnir, come with reinforcements!"

With a creaking of winches, the portcullis went up and the drawbridge came down. Both showed signs of recent battle, but also fresh repair.

Even before the bridge had thudded to rest, a dwarf was running across it, arms outstretched. "Hamnir!" he cried. "Prince!"

He was tall for a dwarf — almost four and a half feet, and powerfully built. His receding brown hair was pulled back in a club, and bright white teeth flashed through a thick beard that spilled down his barrel chest to his belt.

"Gorril! Well met!" said Hamnir, as the two dwarfs embraced and slapped each other's backs.

"I am relieved to see you alive," said Gorril.

"And I, you," replied Hamnir.

Gorril stepped back and bowed, grinning. "Come, prince, enter your hold, meagre human surface hut though it may be." He turned to the cluster of dwarf warriors who stood in the castle door. "Away with you! Prepare Prince Hamnir's quarters! And see if you can find beds for six hundred more!"

Hamnir turned and signalled the column forwards, then strode with Gorril through the gates and into the castle's courtyard, as Gotrek and Felix, Thorgig and the rest marched in after. The yard was crowded with cheering dwarfs, and more were pouring from every door, all hailing Hamnir and the new troops.

"You made it unscathed?" asked Gorril as they pushed through the crowd of wellwishers.

"Some trouble with orcs as we left Barak Varr," said Hamnir. "Nothing since." He looked at Gorril hopefully. "Any word of Ferga?"

"Or my father?" asked Thorgig, urgently.

Gorril's brow clouded. "None. I'm sorry." He gave Thorgig a sympathetic look. "You and Kagrin are the only dwarfs of the Diamondsmith clan to have escaped. Many died in the defence, and your father is believed to have locked the others in his hold. They may still live, though food will be growing short."

Thorgig clenched his fists. "I should be with them. If they are hurt..."

"You can't blame yourself," said Gorril. "You held your position as ordered, and then there was no going back."

"Then I should have died."

Hamnir laid a hand on the young dwarfs shoulder. "Easy now. If the worst has happened, at least we will have opportunity to avenge them." He looked around at the cheering crowd and nodded approvingly at Gorril. "Thorgig told me you were sending for aid. It seems you were successful."

Gorril made a face. "Not so many as we could have wished. The other holds hadn't many dwarfs to spare. Too many gone north." He shrugged. "But let's leave that for tomorrow, aye? Tonight's for feasting!"

He turned to the crowd. "Set the board, you layabouts. Your prince has come home!"

There was a great cheer and axes and fists were thrust in the air. But as Gorril led Hamnir toward the keep, two dwarfs pushed forward.

"Prince Hamnir," said the first, a hammerer with a braided red beard. "As leader of this throng, we ask you to dismiss the dwarfs of the Goldhammer Clan, who have dishonoured the good name of the Deephold Clan by denying my great-great-great-grandfather the rightful command of his Ironbeards in the battle of Bloodwater Grotto, fifteen hundred years ago!"

"Don't listen to him, prince," said the other dwarf, a broadshouldered miner with jutting blond eyebrows. "We are guilty of nothing but common sense. A troll had his great-great-great-grandfather's arm off at the shoulder before that battle. What was my great-great-great-grandfather to do? A general must think of what is best for the battle. We — "

Two other dwarfs pushed in front of the first two. "Prince, you must hear us first!" cried one, a burly, black-bearded ironbreaker. "Their paltry dispute is nothing compared to the feud that exists between we of the — "

"Enough!" roared Gorril, waving them all away. "Will you badger the prince before he has his helmet off? Hamnir will hold council tomorrow and hear grievances then. Surely grudges that have stood for a thousand years can wait one more day."

The dwarfs grumbled their displeasure, but stepped aside.

Gorril rolled his eyes at Hamnir. "It has been like this since the others began to arrive. All want to help. None want to work with anyone else."

"It never changes," said Hamnir. Gotrek grunted, disgusted.

"Tell me what happened," said Hamnir. "Thorgig and Kagrin told us what they knew when they came to Barak Varr, but their stories were a bit... confused."

The feast was over, and Hamnir, Gorril, Gotrek and Felix, and a handful of the survivors from Karak Hirn were gathered in Baron Rodenheim's private apartments, which had been set aside for Hamnir, to discuss the coming action.

Despite Gorril's words, it hadn't been much of a feast, as supplies were low, but the dwarfs had done their best, and none at the head table had wanted for food or ale. Felix had had an uncomfortable time of it, for the dwarfs, being handy with their tools, and unwilling to suffer the indignity of trying to use human-scale furniture, had sawn down the legs of all the tables and chairs in the keep's great hall so that they better fit their short, broad frames. Felix had eaten his dinner with his knees up around his ears, and his back ached abominably.

Now, tired from the long days of marching, and a bit drunk from the many toasts that had been drunk to Hamnir and Karak Hirn and the success of the mission, he nodded drowsily in an unscathed high-backed chair, while the others talked and smoked by the fire in chairs edited for dwarf use.

Gorril sighed. "It was a bad business, and very strange... very strange." He sucked at his pipe. "The orcs came up from our mines, but not like any time before: not in a great screaming rush that we could hear coming from the highest gallery, not fighting amongst themselves, and not stopping to eat the fallen and raid the ale cellar. They came silent and organised. They knew every defence we had: all our alarms, all our traps, and all our locks. They knew them all. It's almost as if they had tortured the secrets out of one of us, or there was a traitor in the hold, but that's impossible. No dwarf would give secrets to the grobi, not even under torture. It was... it was..."

"Eerie, is what it was," said a white-bearded dwarf, an ancient veteran named Ruen, with fading blue tattoos at his wrists and neck. "In seven hundred years, I've never seen grobi act so. It's not natural."

Felix noted that, like Ruen, most of the survivors were white-haired Longbeards, too crippled or enfeebled to follow King Alrik north to the war. Younger dwarfs had stayed behind as well, for someone had to guard the hold while the king was away, but most of those had died defending it when the orcs came.

"They came when we slept, and destroyed two clan-holds outright — slaughtered everyone, dwarf, woman and child," said Gorril, his jaw tight. "The Forgefire and Proudhelm clans are no more. There were no survivors."

Hamnir's hands clenched.

"As I said," continued Gorril, "Thane Helmgard was seen to order the Diamondsmith clan to lock themselves in. We don't know if they were successful."

"Then there is at least a chance," said Hamnir, more to himself than the others. He sat lost in his thoughts for a moment, and then looked up. "How does it stand now? What do we face?"

"The orcs defend the hold as well as we did," Gorril laughed bitterly, "perhaps better. Our scouts report that the main doors are whole and locked, and they were shot at from the arrow slits. Orc patrols circle the mountain, and there are permanent guards watching all approaches." He shook his head. "As Ruen said, they don't behave like orcs. No fighting amongst themselves. No getting bored and wandering from their posts. It's uncanny."

Gotrek snorted. "So they have some strong boss or shaman who's scared them into toeing the line, but they're still grobi. They'll crack if we press them hard enough."

Gorril shook his head. "It's more than that. You haven't seen."

"Well, I better see quick," Gotrek growled. "I want to be done with this scuffle and heading north before I lose my chance at another daemon."

"We'll try not to inconvenience you, Slayer," said Hamnir dryly. He turned to Gorril. "Have we a map?"

"Aye."

Gorril took a large roll of velum and spread it on a shortened table between the dwarfs. They leaned forwards. Felix didn't bother to look. He had seen dwarf maps before. They were incomprehensible patterns of intersecting lines in different colours that looked nothing like any plan Felix had ever seen. The dwarfs pored over it as if it was as clear as a painting.

"So, they guard the main door," said Hamnir, his fingers moving over the velum, "and the high pasture gate?"

"Aye. They ate our sheep and rams," said a hunched old dwarf. "We'll need to buy new breeding stock."

"And the midden gate? That lets out into the river?"

"Three miners went up it five days ago, to have a look. They came back down in pieces."

"What of Duk Grung mine?" asked an old Thunderer with an iron-grey beard. "The undgrin connects it to our mines. The grobi came up at us from below. We could do the same to them."

Hamnir shook his head. "Its three days to the mine, Lodrim, and then two days back underground, if the undgrin is clear. The Diamondsmith clan may starve by then, and the grobi might guard the way from the mines as strongly as they guard the front door." He tapped the map with a stubby finger. "Do they patrol the Zhufgrim Scarp side?"

"Why should they?" asked Gorril. "It's a sheer face from Cauldron Lake to Gam's Spire, and there's no entrance to the hold."

"Yes there is," said Hamnir, with a sly smile. "There's the passage to old Birrisson's gyrocopter landing. You remember? Near the forges."

"You're out of date, lad," said old Ruen. "That hole was closed up when your father took the throne. Doesn't hold no truck with such modern nonsense, your da. He burnt all those noisemakers to the ground."

"Aye," said Hamnir, nodding. "He told Birri to wall it up, but Birri is an engineer, and you know engineers. He wanted to keep one of the gyrocopters, and to have a place to work on all the toys my father frowned upon. So, he walled up the passage at both ends, but set secret doors in them, and made a workshop of it."

"What's this?" cried Gorril. "The old fool built an unprotected door into the hold?"

The other dwarfs were muttering angrily under their breath.

"It's protected," said Hamnir, "engineer fashion."

"What does that mean, pray tell," asked Lodrim dryly.

Hamnir shrugged. "That secret door has been by the forges for a hundred years, and none of you have found it. The one on the mountain face is as cunningly concealed. If dwarfs can't find it, could grobi? And Birri set every trick and trap an engineer can conceive of inside. If they found the outer door, they'd be chopped meat before they got the inner."

"It isn't enough," said Lodrim.

"How do you know of this, young Hamnir," asked old Ruen, "and why did you keep such a grave crime from your father's knowledge?"

Hamnir coloured a bit and looked at his hands. "Well, as you know, I'm not so much my father's son — not the way my older brother is. Perhaps it's because he is crown prince, and I am only a second son, but I am not so hidebound when it comes to tradition. I was only a boy then. I liked the gyrocopters, and all of Birrisson's contraptions. One night I caught him sneaking through the secret door. He begged me not to tell my father. I agreed, as long as he agreed to teach me how to fly the gyrocopter, and to give me use of the secret workshop."

"But, lad, the danger," said Lodrim, "to you, and to the hold."

Hamnir spread his hands. "I make no excuses. I know I was wrong in this, as was Birri, but I... well, I liked having a secret from my father. I liked having a place to go that no one else knew of. I took Ferga there a few times." He smiled wistfully, his eyes far away, and then roused himself. "The point is, no matter how the grobi learned our hold's secrets, this is one secret that only I and old Birri and a few of his apprentices know, and no one can make an engineer talk. They are the keepers of the secrets of a hold's defence. Grimnir would deny them a place in the halls of our ancestors." Hamnir tapped the map again. "The grobi won't be defending this door. If a small force can enter there, and then sneak through the hold and open the front door for the main force, they will not stand against us."

Gorril nodded. "Aye. It is our own defences that defeat us, not the grobi. If we can breach our walls, they are finished."

The dwarfs stared at the map, thinking.

"It'll be certain death for those that open the door," said Ruen.

"Aye," said Hamnir. "Likely."

Gotrek looked up. Felix thought he had been asleep. "Certain death? I'm in."

Felix groaned. Wonderful. Gotrek never seemed to consider how his rememberer was going to live to tell his tale when he made these decisions.

"You are willing to die to aid me?" asked Hamnir.

"Are you insulting me again, oathbreaker?" snarled Gotrek. "I'm a Slayer. I'd be fulfilling two vows with one deed." He sighed and lowered his chin to his chest again. "Not that I'll die, of course, Grimnir curse it. Not at the hands of grobi. But at least I won't have to endure your presence."

The dwarfs in the room glared and grumbled to hear their prince so abused, but Hamnir just sighed. "And I won't have to endure yours," he said, "so it's all for the best. Good."

"It'll take more than one dwarf to do the deed," said Gorril, "no matter how strong. Two levers in two separate rooms must be pulled simultaneously to open the Horn Gate, and others will need to hold off the orcs while they're pulled."

Hamnir nodded. "We'll ask for volunteers at the council tomorrow. That is if we are agreed here?"

The other dwarfs still seemed uncertain.

At last, old Ruen shrugged. "It's a plan, which is more than we had before. I suppose it'll have to do."

"I don't care to put the fate of the hold in the hands of a dwarf who seems to care so little for its survival," said the Thunderer, Lodrim, glaring at Gotrek, "but I haven't a better idea, so I'll second it."

The others nodded, but with little enthusiasm.

Hamnir sat back, weary. "It's settled, then. We'll work out the details before council. Now... now I'm to bed." He rubbed his face with a hand and smoothed his beard. "I've a dozen grudges to try to sort out tomorrow, Valaya save me."

CHAPTER FIVE

Gotrek's jaw clenched and unclenched over and over. His leg bounced restlessly as he tipped back in his sawn-off chair. Felix had his journal open, and was reading through his Araby entries. Rodenheim's dining hall was again full of dwarfs, but not for a meal. The representatives of the dwarf companies sent from the various holds sat before the head table where Hamnir, Gorril and other leaders of Karak Hirn's refugees presided. All were waiting to hear the plan of battle for the retaking of the hold, but before they could proceed to strategy, there were grudges to be resolved that determined who would fight alongside whom, and if some warriors would return home before the battle started.

So far, Hamnir had proved an admirable negotiator, and each of the nine grudges he had heard had been resolved, or at least postponed until after Karak Hirn had been retaken or the battle lost. It was a long process, however. They had been at it since just after breakfast, and lunch was a distant memory. The heat of the hall's enormous fireplace was making Felix drowsy. He was having trouble keeping his eyes open.

"You say the ale delivered was not of the quality you were led to believe?" asked Hamnir. He rested his cheek on his fist, looking bored and frustrated.

"It was undrinkable!" said a sandy-bearded dwarf with a belly that suggested he knew quite a bit about ale. "The double-dealing Hardstone clan promised us we would be paid in Bugman's Best. They sent us Bug-man's worst, if it was Bugman's at all."

"If the ale was undrinkable," said a fierce-looking, black-haired dwarf in a yellow doublet, "then it was damaged in transit, for it was in prime condition when we sampled a barrel before sending it off. The Wide-belt clan should take up this dispute with the traders that we commissioned to transport it."

"This is fools' work," growled Gotrek under his breath. "We should be marching not talking. If Ranulfsson were the leader his father was, these hair-splitters wouldn't remember their grudges. They'd be rallying around his banner and howling for orc blood."

It took another ten minutes for Hamnir to resolve the dispute, and required all his cunning and diplomacy to shame the two dwarfs into setting aside the matter of the ruined ale. Gotrek growled under his breath the whole time, shooting dangerous looks at all the participants.

When at last an accord had been reached, Hamnir sighed and looked around the hall. "Now, are there any other clans who are at issue, or may we proceed with the order of battle?"

"Have you forgotten us, prince?" said a white-haired dwarf with blue eyes, jumping up. His beard was a magnificent snow-white field.

Another dwarf with his hair in long grey braids that hung before his ears was on his feet only a second later, glaring at the first. "Aye, prince. You have not yet taken up the issue of the Shield of Drutti."

Hamnir groaned, as did the entire room. Gotrek growled, but although the assembled dwarfs were impatient, they had too much respect for the institution of the grudge, and for the sacred duty of every dwarf to resolve every grudge recorded in his clan's book, to complain, so they did nothing but grumble and fold their arms and settle back in their seats.

"I crave your pardon, Kirgi Narinsson," said Hamnir to the white-bearded dwarf, "and yours, Ulfgart Haginskarl," he said to the other. "Remind me of the grudge. It has been a long day."

The dwarf with the grey braids bowed. "Thank you, prince. We of the Stonemonger clan bear grudge against the Ironskin clan for stealing from us the Shield of Drutti, which had been a gift from Gadrid Ironskin, the father of their clan, to Hulgir Stonemonger, the father of ours, two thousand years ago, as a token of thanks when Hulgir rescued Gadrid's daughter from trolls."

"It was not a gift!" barked Kirgi. "There were no trolls! It was an affair of business, pure and simple. Our clan-father traded the shield to the treacherous Hulgir for mining rights in the Rufgrung deeps. Rights which were never given."

Gotrek's leg was bouncing like a steam hammer. Felix could hear the Slayer's teeth grinding.

"Is that the shield in question?" asked Hamnir, pointing behind Kirgi to an Ironskin dwarf who held a massive, rune-carved shield at his side.

"Aye!" cried Ulfgart, angrily. "They dare to flaunt their stolen goods before us and expect us to — "

"We did not steal it! We merely took back what was rightfully ours. When you pay us what is owed, we will gladly return it to you. It was our clanfather's honest, trusting nature that — "

"Right! That's it!" said Gotrek, standing suddenly and taking up his axe. He crossed to the Ironskin table and snatched the Shield of Drutti from its surprised keeper as if it weighed as much as a pot lid.

"I'll solve this grudge!" he said, and threw the shield on the floor and chopped it in half with his axe, hewing wood and iron with equal ease. He then split the halves, hacking madly as splinters flew.

There was a collective gasp from the assembled dwarfs, but they all seemed too stunned to move.

Gotrek scooped up the mangled fragments of the shield, crossed to the great hearth and threw them in. The fire roared. He turned, grinning savagely at the Ironskin and Stonemonger leaders. "There. Now you have nothing to fight over. Let's march!"

Ulfgart of the Stonemongers was the first to regain the capacity for speech. He turned solemnly to Hamnir, whose face was buried in his hands. "Prince Hamnir, the Stonemonger clan formally renounces our grudge against the Ironskin clan, and records instead one against the Slayer Gotrek Gurnisson, and let it be known that this grudge can only be resolved in blood."

"Aye," agreed Kirgi Narinsson, his blue eyes blazing. "The Ironskin clan also declares its grudge against the Stonemonger clan cancelled, and claims a new grudge against Gotrek Gurnisson." He drew his hammer from his back and stepped towards Gotrek, "And I ask the prince's permission to resolve this grudge here and now."

Hamnir raised his head and glared at Gotrek. "Curse you, Gurnisson! Now we've two grudges where there was only one!"

Gotrek spat on the floor. "Fah! I thought they were honourable dwarfs, so concerned with the right of things that they would let a karak fall to the grobi over a shield. Will such dwarfs have me break a vow in order to fight them?"

"What vow is this?" sneered Kirgi. "A vow of cowardice?"

"My vow to Hamnir," said Gotrek, staring down the old dwarf, "to aid and protect him until Karak Hirn is recovered. Killing you won't aid him, will it? You'll have to wait to die."

Kirgi gripped his hammer and glared death at Gotrek, but at last stepped back. "Let none say that a warrior of the Ironskin clan ever caused a dwarf to break an oath. We will settle this in the feast hall of Karak Hirn, after we have drunk to its liberation."

"It'll be your last drink," said Gotrek.

Ulfgart turned to Hamnir. "Neither will the Stonemongers endanger this enterprise by killing a proven Slayer." Gotrek barked a laugh at this. Ulfgart scowled and continued. "We too will wait until Karak Hirn is won."

Hamnir gave a sigh of relief. "I thank you both for your forbearance." He looked around the assembly. "Are there any other grudges to be brought forward?" When no one spoke, he continued. "Very well, then listen." He stood. "This is the plan we have decided upon. As you know, our own defences protect the grobi, and since they are good dwarf work, they are almost impossible to breach. We are less than fifteen hundred strong. We would lose more than half that before we were inside, were we to attack head on. Fortunately, there is a way into the hold that the greenskins will not have discovered. A small company, led by the Slayer Gurnisson, will enter through this door and make their way through the hold to the main gate. When they have opened it, the throng will enter and split up. The bulk of the force will hold the main concourse, while smaller forces sweep through the rest of the hold, pushing the grobi before them. We will work from top to bottom, and force them out through the mine-head doors."

"What?" asked a young dwarf. "Will we leave them the mines?"

"Of course not," said Hamnir, "but we must secure the hold before we can retake the mines, or we are in danger of becoming over-extended." When there were no other complaints, he continued. "What is yet to be determined, is what companies will do what, and who will volunteer to open the doors. I hope," he said, his face hardening as a growing murmur rose from the dwarfs, "that we can reach an agreement on an order of march and a division of duty quickly, without argument or recrimination, for time is of the essence."

Dwarfs all over the hall began standing and raising their voices, demanding this or that position.

Gotrek grunted and turned to Felix. "Come, man-ling, they'll be at it all night."

"You don't care to learn who you will be leading?" asked Felix.

"Not as much as I care to find a drink." Gotrek walked out of the room, chuckling darkly as he passed the great hearth, where the Shield of Drutti was burning merrily.

CHAPTER SIX

Early the next morning, while the sounds of the clans forming up in the courtyard came through the open door, Gotrek and Felix looked blearily around the stables of Rodenheim Castle at the dwarfs who sat waiting for them in the dim interior, their packs and weapons, armour and coils of rope at their feet. Hamnir stood in the entrance, dressed in gleaming battle armour, and looking ill at ease. He held an ancient brass horn, filigreed with silver.

"These are your volunteers, Gurnisson," he said, "all sworn to follow you unto death, if need be, and to obey your commands." He gestured to a befuddled looking old whitebeard with rheumy eyes and a wooden leg. "Old Matrak here helped Birrisson wall up the hangar passage and build his secret doors. He will get you through the locks and traps."

The engineer broke off chewing his long, white moustache and nodded blankly at Gotrek. Felix noticed that his hands trembled. All that and a wooden leg, he thought. Going to be interesting getting the old fellow up a cliff face.

Hamnir turned to Thorgig and Kagrin, who stood nearest him. "Thorgig will..." He glared at the young dwarf. "Thorgig will carry the war-horn of Karak Hirn, and blow it from the Horn Gate watch tower once you are ready to open the doors. We will not advance until we hear it." He held out the horn to Thorgig, who stepped forwards to take it.

Before he could, Hamnir drew it back, his brow furrowing. "Thorgig, are you certain of this? There is little hope of survival. There are others who might — "

"Who?" said Thorgig, his lips tight. "I served as a guard of the Horn Gate for ten years. Who among the survivors knows better than I the mechanism of the gate, the placement of the rooms? It must be me."

"Gotrek can read a map."

"Can he blow a horn? Does he know the calls?"

Hamnir growled. Felix had the feeling that he and Thorgig had had this argument many times before.

The prince turned to Kagrin. "You too, Kagrin? Your skill is in shaping axes, not swinging them. Will you throw your life away and rob us of your art?"

Kagrin shrugged and looked at his feet. "Where Thorgig goes, I go," he mumbled.

"I tried to tell him the same," said Thorgig, angry, "but he won't listen."

"Try telling yourself," snapped Hamnir. "You have a long life ahead of you."

"My life is already forfeit," said Thorgig stiffly. "I left my clan and my family trapped in a hold full of grobi, and escaped to safety. Only freeing them will expunge my shame."

"You have no reason for shame. There was an army of orcs in the way," Hamnir said. "You would never have gotten through."

"Then I should have died trying."

Hamnir's fist tightened around the horn until his knuckles were white. It looked as if he might crush it. Finally, he shoved it at Thorgig, punching him in the chest with it, and turned away.

"You should start at once if you hope to enter the keep before we are in position," he said as he passed Gotrek. At the stable door, he paused and looked back, his face solemn. "Luck to you all. You are our success... or our failure."

He walked out.

A chill settled on Felix's heart. "Inspiring, isn't he?" he said to Gotrek out of the side of his mouth.

Gotrek shrugged. "What do you want from an oath-breaker?"

Felix had no idea what that had to do with anything.

"Prince Hamnir is no oathbreaker!" said Thorgig. "Take it back."

"What do you know of it, shortbeard?" asked Gotrek. "You weren't born then." He turned away from Thorgig and scowled at the others. "A Stonemonger and an Ironskin," he said looking from a cold-visaged, black-bearded dwarf wearing the clan rune of the Stonemongers, to a blond-maned, blue-eyed Ironskin who was the spitting image of Kirgi Narinsson, save for being at least a century younger and having a scar that ran down the left side of his face. He had a sliver of charred wood knotted into his huge blond beard like a charm. "Ranulfsson has a mean streak in him," said Gotrek, shaking his head. "He hides it well, but it's there."

"We are not here at the prince's bidding," said the blond dwarf, smiling mischievously as he toyed with the blackened wood. "We volunteered, as he said."

The black-bearded dwarf nodded. "The Ironskins and Stonemongers both have an interest in keeping you alive in this venture." His voice was a soft and cold as snow. "We do not wish to be cheated of our opportunity to resolve our grudges with you."

"You don't have to worry about me," said Gotrek, sighing, "not against grobi."

"Do we bring the manling into the hold?" asked a grizzled Ironbreaker with a broken nose and braided white hair and beard. He eyed Felix as if he expected him to grow fangs and horns. "He'll spy out our secrets."

"He is a Dwarf Friend," said Gotrek. "I vouch for him."

"Dwarf Friend?" snorted the old Ironbreaker. "The dwarfs have no friends but the dwarfs,"

"No wonder our glory is behind us," said Gotrek dryly. "What's your name, doomsayer?"

"Sketti Hammerhand, I am," said the dwarf, puffing out his chest, "of the Hammerhand clan. Ironbreaker and Deep Warden of Karak Izor." And true to his name, the haft of a warhammer stuck up over his right shoulder.

Gotrek turned away from him, unimpressed. "And you?" he asked, looking at the black-bearded Stonemonger. "The one who means to protect me so he can fight me later."

"Druric Brodigsson," said the dwarf in his mild voice. "A ranger of the Black Fire Pass, yours to command, for now." He bowed his head, which was covered in close cropped, bristly black hair. "Though it may not be me who fights you; he who will have the honour of facing you is still being discussed. I pray I am chosen. I have always wanted to take the measure of a Slayer."

"Take the measure of your coffin first," said Gotrek. He turned to the others, his gaze passing over old Matrak, the engineer, who had gone back to chewing his moustache and staring into space, and came to rest upon the blond dwarf with the piercing blue eyes. "And you're the son of the old blowhard who challenged me last night."

The dwarf smirked and leaned back, hooking his thumbs in his wide belt. "Aye, that's me, Narin Blowhardsson. At your service, and your clan's."

The other dwarfs chuckled.

"What's the kindling in your beard for?"

Narin closed his hand around the sliver of wood, suddenly embarrassed. "My father's idea, he bid me wear a piece of the Shield of Drutti so that you would always see it and remember our grudge against you." He scowled down at himself. "I don't care for it. It's dirtying my beard."

Gotrek raised an eyebrow. "You want to fight me too, I suppose?"

"No no," said Narin. "My father will not give up the honour. I'm only to make sure you keep your head until he has the pleasure of removing it himself He grinned, his blue eyes sparkling. You really got the old badger's dander up. Wish I'd been there, but there was a lass from Karak Drazh, and well, it took some time for us to get properly acquainted." He shrugged. "About time the old dinner plate was turned to tinder anyway. No use to anybody, save as beard jewellery."

Druric's head came up. His eyes flashed. "The shield of Drutti was a great and noble heirloom. The theft of it by the Ironskin clan..."

"Oh come, cousin," said Narin scowling. "It has never been taken into battle. It was mounted on the wall of your feast hall for a thousand years before my greatgrandfather took it, and then it was mounted on the wall of our feast hall for a thousand years. It was a dinner plate."

Druric glared at Narin for a long moment, and then sighed. "Very well, it was a dinner plate, but that is entirely beside the point," he said, raising his voice as the others laughed. "Theft is theft. It matters not if it is a bar of gold or a loaf of bread, the dwarf who took it is without honour."

Narin held up his hands. "Take it up with my father. It isn't my fight. The dwarfs will have no future if we keep fighting battles two thousand years in the past."

"And what sort of future will we have if it is achieved at the price of honour?" asked Druric.

"Enough," said Gotrek, growling. "Save it for the beer hall." He passed over Thorgig and Kagrin, who he knew, and looked at the last dwarf, who sat on an overturned bucket with the hood of his cloak pulled so far forwards that his face was entirely in shadow. "You at the back, what's your name? Let's have a look at you."

The dwarf didn't speak, only reached up and pulled back his hood. The others swore and laughed. Even Gotrek blinked. Felix didn't blame him, for this dwarf was the strangest of that strange breed he had ever seen.

"What are you?" asked Gotrek, scowling.

The dwarf straightened his shoulders and looked directly at Gotrek, light green eyes glaring out of the eyeholes of the head-covering leather mask he wore. The mask was, in its way, a thing of exquisite craftsmanship, beautifully tooled and sculpted in the square fashion of old dwarf sculptures. Thick strips of orange tinted leather hung in tapering plaits from its cheeks and jaw-line to represent a beard, and a bristling horse-hair crest of flaming orange rose from a flap of leather that went up over the dwarfs scalp and buckled to straps that extended back from the face. "I am a Slayer," he said in a low rasp. "Leatherbeard the Slayer."

"A Slayer? With no crest?" Gotrek raised a shaggy eyebrow. "What manner of..."

Leatherbeard put his hand on his axe. He was bare-chested, in Slayer fashion, and wore only the hooded cloak over his shoulders to keep off the morning chill. "Do I ask of your shame, brother?" he growled. "Do I ask your reason for seeking death?"

Gotrek's teeth clicked together. He sobered instantly, and nodded at Leatherbeard. "Fair enough." He turned abruptly from the masked dwarf and shouldered his pack. "Come on, then. Up and out." He started out of the stable without a backward glance.

Felix gaped at Gotrek as the dwarfs gathered up their gear and followed him out into the wet morning air. That had almost been an apology!

They travelled north and east from Rodenheim Castle all morning, up and down thickly forested hills that rose one after the other like swells in a green sea. There was a road to Karak Hirn — the remains of one of the old dwarf roads — but they didn't take it. The road led to the hold's front door, and would be watched. Hamnir's army was marching up it, bold as brass. With luck, the orcs would keep their eyes fixed on the column, and miss the little company of nine that went the hard way.

They sloshed through rock-choked mountain streams and scrabbled up loose shale slopes, trekked through deep forests and across upland meadows. As they climbed higher, drifts of half-melted snow appeared in the shadows, though the sun was hot on their necks. Felix had thrown back his red cloak and was sweating though his shirt. His calves ached like fire, and they hadn't even reached the real climb yet. Too many months at sea. He'd become a tenderfoot again.

The dwarfs took it all in their stride, maintaining the same dogged pace on flat ground or steep hill. Even old peg-legged Matrak kept up, mumbling, as he limped along, in a monologue that no one else could hear.

Felix wished some of the others were as quiet. Sketti Hammerhand in particular would not shut up for more than two minutes at a time, and it was always the same subject.

"It's the elves behind it all. They want the dwarfs dead because we're what stands in the way of them ruling the world. You can be sure they're behind this grobi trouble."

"How could they be behind this?" asked Thorgig.

The others groaned as Sketti's eyes lit up. He had only been waiting for someone to give him an opening.

"You don't know elves like I do, young one. I've met them, and a twistier set of shock-headed beanpoles you wouldn't want to find yourself dead in a ditch with. There are no depths to which they wouldn't sink. No plan is too devious." He licked his lips. "I'll tell you how it is, lad. You think the greenskins getting too big for their britches is because so many dwarfs and men have gone north, and there isn't anyone to keep them out of the Badlands. That's true as far as it goes, but that's only the surface. A true dwarf doesn't trust the surface of nothing. He looks beneath."

Gotrek muttered something about true dwarfs knowing when to shut up, but Felix didn't quite catch it.

"What you need to ask yourself, lad," continued Sketti, "is why the northmen are invading in the first place. What stirred them up? Put aside the fact that it was the elves messing about with magic they couldn't control that opened the Chaos rift in the first place, making them the fathers of Chaos, you can be sure it was elves put the bee in this Archaon's bonnet as well. Now the `fair ones' like to make out that they have nothing to do with their dark cousins in Naggaroth, but everyone knows that's a trick to blame their evil deeds on someone else. I had it from a dwarf who trades with Bretonnian sailors who deal with Ulthuan that it was the dark elves who whispered in the ear of this `chosen one' and told him his `destiny' lay in the south." Sketti spread his hands. "So, he heeds their words and invades the Empire, and the dwarfs, who have pledged since Sigmar's time to protect mankind, no matter how often they steal from us and stab us in the back, go north to defend the ungrateful weaklings, and lo and behold, the grobi `coincidentally' choose that moment to rise and attack! You can't make me believe it isn't all some dark elf scheme."

"You're saying it was the dark elves who convinced the northmen to attack the Empire just so the grobi could take over Karak Hirn?" said Narin, chuckling.

"And why not?" asked Sketti.

"So the elves give orders to the grobi now?" scoffed Thorgig.

"Not directly. Not directly," said Sketti. "But they're in league with the skaven, everyone knows that, and the skaven..."

Everyone groaned again. Felix shivered, recalling all the times that he and Gotrek had encountered the horrid, man-like vermin, and the single-minded grey seer who had dogged their steps so unflaggingly during their travels in the Old World. He couldn't imagine the great Teclis ever conspiring with the likes of them.

"Hammerhand!" said Narin, interrupting Sketti's rant. "There's a manling among us. Do you truly want to reveal to him all this secret dwarf knowledge? Everyone knows that men are the lackeys of the elves. Do you want the elves to know how much you know?"

Sketti's mouth shut like a trap. He turned and glared at Felix with wild eyes. "It's true," he muttered. "It's true. I have perhaps said too much." He shot a last suspicious glance at Felix and marched on in silence.

Narin winked at Felix behind Sketti's back as the rest sighed with relief.

Felix nodded his thanks and stifled a grin. A good fellow, Narin. Not as stiff as the others.

Just before noon, the party stepped out of pine woods at the top of a shallow ravine to find the jutting peak of Karag Hirn towering above them, a long feathery scarf of blown snow trailing away from its white craggy peak across the bright blue sky. The rest of the mountain was as black and sober as a judge. Thorgig, Kagrin and old Matrak looked up at it reverently.

"To think the halls of our birth hold run with grobi," Thorgig spat. "To think that they defile our sacred places with their presence. We will avenge you, karaz. We will cleanse you of their taint."

The others murmured answering oaths.

On the west side of the mountain, the gleaming switchback curve of a road could be seen, and above it, almost hidden by rocks and outcroppings, the regular planes of massive dwarf battlements.

"That is the front gate — the Horn Gate," said old Matrak, pointing. "Where we..." He choked on the words. "Where we fled from the silent grobi. Hamnir and the others go there to wait for us. We..." He swung his hand to the right. "We go there. The Zhufgrim Scarp."

Felix's eyes followed the engineer's finger to the eastern face of the mountain. The base of it, where it rose from the trees, was notched, as if some dwarf god had hacked out a gigantic foothold with an axe. A vertical wall rose up from the notch, more than halfway to the snow-peaked crown, and looked, at least from where Felix stood, as smooth and flat as a sheet of parchment. A thin line of silver glittered down the middle of it.

"At the base is the Cauldron," said Thorgig, stepping up beside the old engineer. "A deep lake fed by the falls that pour down the cliff. That is our road."

Felix swallowed. "Up the cliff? Do you have wings in your packs?"

Sketti snorted. "Nothing to it, for dwarfs."

"Hist," said Druric. "Orcs."

The others went quiet instantly and turned to where he looked. A small company of orcs was pushing through the heavy undergrowth of berry bushes that covered the floor of the ravine below. The dwarfs stepped back from the edge, and squatted down so they could only just see over the lip.

"Twenty of them," said Thorgig.

"And we are only eight," said Sketti.

"Nine," said Druric, "with the man."

"As I said, eight," said Sketti. "We'll still manage."

Gotrek snorted at that.

"I'd manage alone!" said Leatherbeard, defensively.

"Forgive me for speaking out of turn," said Felix, "but isn't the aim of our mission to reach the secret door without being seen?"

"If they're all dead," growled Narin, tugging on the charred sliver in his beard, "how can they tell what they've seen?"

"If others find them chopped to pieces," said Felix, "they will know we were here. And if we are to open the Horn Gate in time to let Hamnir in, can we spare the time for a fight?"

The dwarfs hesitated, palpably angry at Felix's attempts at logic. They were tensed like wolves looking down on unsuspecting sheep. Every fibre in their squat, powerful bodies wanted to charge into the ravine and butcher the greenskins.

At last Gotrek sighed. "The manling is right. This isn't the time for a fight."

The others grunted their annoyance.

"How much time could it take?" asked Leather-beard.

"We'll have plenty of fighting in the hold," said Gotrek, "enough to kill us. Or the rest of you, at any rate."

"I have sworn to follow you," said Thorgig, stiffly, "but it pains me to let even a single orc live."

"It isn't the dwarf way," said Sketti.

"It's my way" said Gotrek. "Now wait until they pass."

The dwarfs grumbled, but did as he ordered, watching in hiding as the orcs passed below them.

The greenskins walked in double file, their leader at their head, scanning the landscape. They did not talk or argue amongst themselves as orcs usually did. There was no shoving or fighting, no drinking or eating, or bored hacking at the underbrush with their weapons. They kept at their task with a sad dullness that looked almost comical on their hideous faces. Only occasionally would this listlessness break, when one of them shook its head and twitched, roaring like a bull stung by a wasp, and its eyes would blaze with the accustomed orcish fury. Then, as soon as it had begun, the outburst would end, and the orc would sink back into its stupor.

"What's come over them?" asked Thorgig.

Kagrin shook his head, baffled.

"What kind of orcs don't squabble?" muttered Narin, unnerved.

"It seems almost as if they are asleep," said Sketti, frowning.

"Then they kill in their sleep," said old Matrak, trembling, "for this is how they came when the Karak fell: silent, but bloodthirsty. We didn't hear them until they were on us. We didn't..." He trailed off, his eyes wide and far away.

The other dwarfs looked away from him, uncomfortable. "Elf work, no doubt," said Sketti. "White sorcery." Narin considered this. "Could any sorcerer alive today command the wills of an entire hold full of orcs?"

"One could," nodded Sketti sagely. "Teclis of Ulthuan."

"He could at that," said Gotrek, stroking his beard thoughtfully.

"You see?" said Sketti. "The Slayer agrees with me."

"The Slayer thinks you have elves on the brain," said Gotrek, sneering and returned to watching the orcs.

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.

A sound of movement came to them faintly from the top of the cliff, barely discernible over the roar of the falls. A spill of pebbles rattled past Gotrek to drop towards the lake.

Felix thought he heard a command given in a high, harsh voice, but couldn't make out the word. Whatever it was, the speaker hadn't sounded human or dwarfish.

The dwarfs stayed as motionless as statues, listening. The sounds of movement came again, fainter and to the west, and then were gone. After a moment, Gotrek resumed tapping in the next piton.

"Goblin patrol," said Druric.

Narin nodded.

"Do they know we're here?" asked Sketti, looking up anxiously.

"We'd be dodging boulders if they knew we were here," said Thorgig.

Leatherbeard grunted. "Not a Slayer's death."

"They know," said old Matrak in a faraway voice. "They know everything. They know where the keys are. They know where the doors are."

The others looked at him. He was staring into the distance, his eyes seeing nothing.

"Poor old fellow," said Narin under his breath.

Gotrek reached the top shortly thereafter, and threw down a rope. Old Matrak went up first, the line hooked to his belt for safety. As troubled as he was in his mind, he was still sure in his movements. He let go of his piton and swung out on the dangling rope without a qualm. Then he climbed up hand over hand until he reached the bulge and could gain

purchase with his foot and iron leg-spike again.

Felix went up fourth, after Druric. He had shinned up many a rope in his travels with Gotrek, and faced many a danger, but swinging out over that drop was one of the hardest things he'd ever done. Only the sceptical scowls of the dwarfs waiting their turn kept him from hemming and hesitating endlessly before letting go. He would be damned if he would let them think him more of a buffoon than they already did.

Of course, this hope was dashed when one of his cleats slipped as he began climbing up the underside of the bulge. He lost his footing and slammed face first into the cliff, bloodying his nose. He caught himself and recovered almost instantly, but he could hear the guffaws of the dwarfs below and above him. His face burned with embarrassment as he topped the bulge and Gotrek held out a hand to haul him up.

"Well done, manling. You're the first to shed blood in the recovery of Karak Hirn," said the Slayer, grinning.

"The first to shed his own," said Thorgig, chuckling behind him.

"I'll be happy to shed somebody else's," said Felix, glaring at Thorgig. The young dwarf was beginning to get on his nerves. He had reason to hate Gotrek, Felix supposed. The Slayer had been more than insulting, to him and to Hamnir, but Felix had given Thorgig no cause to be angry. No cause but his mere presence, he thought. Thorgig was no Sketti, but he had the dwarfish disdain for all things non-dwarf.

Felix looked around. The cliff top was a broad flat ledge, like a landing halfway up the mountain. The rest of the peak still loomed above him, its white snowcap silhouetted against the blinding sun. A deep black pool — a mirror-calm twin to the roiling cauldron below — was cut into the ledge by ages of erosion. To his right, the pool spilled over the edge of cliff to become the narrow silver thread of the falls. There wasn't much room twixt water and cliff edge. It felt as if he and the dwarfs stood on the rim of a giant stone pitcher that forever poured water into a stone cup far below. The top of the falls was thin enough to jump, but the prospect of slipping made Felix's skin crawl.

Druric was studying the ground at the cliff edge. "It was goblins," he said.

"So, they're looking for us?" asked Sketti, glancing around warily.

"Not necessarily," Druric answered. "There are regular patrols through here." He pointed. "New prints over the old."

Gotrek turned to Matrak as he helped Leatherbeard up. "Which way to the door?"

Matrak waved to the east, beyond the stream, where the cliff-top ledge rose gradually to a split between the main body of the mountain and a rugged smaller peak — a broad shoulder to the karaz's proud head. "Up. Through there."

"The grobi went that way," Gotrek said. "Get your armour on."

The dwarfs took off their cleats and pulled mail shirts, pauldrons and gauntlets from their packs, replacing them with their climbing gear. Felix buckled on a scale-sewn leather jack, and fixed his old red cloak around his shoulders. None of them carried shields, which would have been too heavy and cumbersome while climbing.

Gotrek left the rope over the bulge in place and hopped the roaring falls. The dwarfs followed him across, apparently without a second thought. Felix held his breath as he took a running jump and tried not to imagine falling in the water and being dragged over the edge by the rushing current.

Safely on the other side, the company followed the ledge as it rose to the split between the mountain's head and shoulder. This was a narrow, shadowed cleft that wound crazily between the two peaks, and then opened out onto a sway-backed saddle of hard-packed snow that sloped up to the black flank of Karaz Hirn to their left, and down to a sheer cliff on their right. The last few yards before the cliff were black ice — frozen run-off from the slanting plain of snow, as glossy and smooth as the lip of a wine bottle.

As they were about to step out of the cleft onto the snow, a patch of red and green on the far side drew Felix's eye. A dozen goblins were hacking apart the carcass of a mountain goat, and its blood stained the snow all around them. Like the orcs they had seen before, the goblins were maintaining a very un-greenskin-like silence. They weren't fighting over the choice bits, or devouring their portions immediately, but instead stuffed the bloody legs and flank steaks into their packs for later.

"They're in the way," quavered Matrak, pointing to a dark gap in the rock face on the far side of the slope of snow. "The door's beyond that pass."

"We'll have to take them, then," said Narin.

"Thank Grimnir for that," said Sketti. "The day I hide from goblins is the day I shave my beard."

Leatherbeard growled in his throat.

"Shut up and attack," said Gotrek. He started forwards at a run.

The dwarfs charged after him as fast as they could, which, by Felix's standards wasn't very fast. He had to keep to a trot, so as not to get too far ahead.

The goblins saw them coming, but didn't shriek in alarm, or scatter in blind panic as goblins were wont to. Instead, they just dropped the bits of hacked-up goat they held and turned to face the dwarfs, as silent as monks.

Druric loosed a crossbow bolt that took one goblin high in the chest, then threw the crossbow aside and drew a hand axe. He and Felix and the dwarfs crashed into the runty greenskins like a battering ram, mowing them down with their sheer mass. Four goblins died immediately, axes buried deep in their scrawny chests and pointy skulls. Three more were bowled off their feet. Gotrek split one in two. Felix hacked at a second, a tiny, snaggle-toothed horror that rolled away from his blade. Old Matrak stomped on another with his iron leg-spike, impaling it.

The goblin leader chittered an order as he fought Thorgig, and two goblins peeled away from the fight to scamper up the rise. Leatherbeard sent one of his axes spinning after the runners, dropping one, but the other was nearing the opening at the top of the snowy slope.

"After him, manling!" called Gotrek. "Make those long legs useful!"

Felix sprinted up the incline, his feet smashing holes in the hard crust of snow. The goblin darted through the dark gap and down into a dropping, rocky cleft. Felix charged in after him, gaining with every step. The goblin looked back once, emotionless as a fish, and then ran on.

The floor of the cleft was filled with rocks and loose gravel. Felix slipped and slid as he ran down it, twice nearly twisting his ankle. He came within a yard of the goblin and swiped at it with his sword, but it leapt ahead, ducking around a big boulder and out of sight. Felix swung wide around the boulder, and found himself suddenly on the lip of a wide crevasse that dropped away into blackness. He lurched left, heart thudding, his scrabbling feet kicking pebbles into the abyss, and twisted away from the edge barely in time.

The goblin scampered up a rocky rise before him. Felix surged after it, skin prickling at the closeness of his narrow escape. No one would ever have found him had he fallen into that chasm. No one would know what had become of him: a horrible end for a memoirist.

The goblin slipped on loose scree and fell on its face as it reached the crest of the rise. Felix closed on it rapidly. It picked itself up again and dived over the ridge. Felix leapt after it and tackled it to the ground. They rolled down the far side of the ridge in a tangle of limbs, and jarred to a stop at the base of the slope, the goblin on top. It raised its saw-bladed short sword to stab him, but Felix clubbed it off his chest with his free arm and rolled on top of it, slashing down with his sword. The steel bit through the goblin's skull. The little green monster spasmed and lay still.

Felix collapsed to the side and lay with his cheek on the cold rock, panting and wheezing, glaring at the dead goblin beside him. "Got you at last, you filthy — "

An enormous fur-booted foot stepped into his circle of vision. He looked up. A huge orc in scrap armour loomed over him, staring down. Twenty more stood at its back.

CHAPTER EIGHT

The orc slashed down at Felix with a huge double-bladed axe. Felix yelped and rolled. He was deafened as the axe bit deep into the ground, an inch from his shoulder, pinning his cloak. Felix surged up, the cloak nearly strangling him before it ripped free. Another orc swung at him. He jerked aside and ran, stumbling and unsteady, back up the ridge.

The orcs raced after him, unnervingly silent. Felix pounded down the slope towards the black chasm, skidding within inches of the drop as he turned into the narrow confines of the rocky pass. He heard the orcs thundering behind him, and then a fading bellow as one of them missed its footing and tumbled into the depths. The rest came on, not sparing their lost comrade a backwards glance.

A stitch stabbed at Felix's side as he scrabbled up the tight, rising path, and his breath came in ragged gasps.

He'd already been winded when he caught the goblin. Now he felt as if he was going to die. He wanted to stop and vomit, but the orcs were so close at his heels that he could hear their breathing and smell their rank animal odour. The ground shook with their footsteps.

The light from the snowfield glowed at the top of the shadowed pass like a beacon of hope. It looked a hundred leagues away. He slipped on a loose rock and this time he did twist his ankle. It flared with sudden agony. He cried out, and nearly fell. Swift steel whistled behind him and an axe rang off the rock wall beside his head.

He scrabbled on, ankle screaming with each step. He didn't have the luxury of favouring it — just jammed his foot down and took the pain as best he could. At last, nearly fainting with agony, he gained the top of the pass, inches ahead of the orcs, and burst out onto the snowfield. A slashing cleaver grazed his scale-covered shoulder and sent him sprawling. He slid face-first down the snowy incline towards the cliff.

The dwarfs were marching up the slope with the dead goblins behind them. They readied their weapons as he sped toward them, looking beyond him with eager anticipation on their faces. Gotrek stepped out and Felix crashed into his knees. The Slayer hauled him up.

"Er," said Felix, probing his throbbing shoulder. The orc had cut through the leather and torn off some of his scales, but he was unbloodied. "I got the goblin."

"Good," grunted Gotrek, and stepped past him, hefting his axe.

The orcs were spreading out in an even semi-circle and marching down in a dressed rank, weapons at the ready. Felix shivered at the sight.

"They aren't orcs," said Sketti, uneasily, echoing Felix's unspoken thought. "They can't be. They're something else, dressed up in green skin."

"Elves, maybe?" said Narin, smirking.

Druric looked over his shoulder, down the slope. "They mean to keep us in front of them. They want to push us off the cliff."

"Let them try," said Leatherbeard.

The orc leader jabbered an order and the orcs charged, uttering not a word. The dwarfs braced and met the attack with an unmoving wall of sharp steel. Gotrek blocked the leader's first strike, shattered its war axe with his return blow, and then cut its legs out from under it. Two more leapt in to take its place.

Narin and Druric fought back to back in a ring of three orcs. Leatherbeard was stepping over one dead orc to get to another, two dripping double-bladed axes in his massive hands. Sketti Hammerhand and old Matrak fought an orc that wielded an iron mace the size and shape of a butter churn. Thorgig and Kagrin butchered another with their axes and turned to face two more.

Felix fought a short, barrel-gutted brute with a head like a green pumpkin. Strange, he thought, as he slipped an axe stroke and missed with an attack of his own. Though their tactics were vastly improved, and though their fury seemed to be contained, the strange orcs still fought like orcs, slashing with great, clumsy swings that could flatten a building if they connected, but more often than not missed. Why had one aspect changed and not the other? And what had changed them in the first place? Then he stepped awkwardly on his twisted ankle and all thoughts went out of his head in a rush of pain.

The orc saw him stumble. It swung. Felix lurched aside and ran it through the ribs, jolting his ankle again. The orc collapsed. Felix nearly joined it. The world was fading in and out around him. Another orc attacked, this one stringy and tall. Felix groaned. He wasn't ready. He blocked and retreated, limping badly.

Half the orcs were dead, and not a single dwarf had yet fallen, but by sheer weight and numbers, the green-skins had forced the stout warriors back almost to the black ice that glazed the edge of the cliff. Gotrek killed another and it slid past him as it fell, spinning noiselessly into the void.

Felix stepped back again. His bad foot shot back on the ice. His knee hit the slick surface with a smack. His vision went black and red. He was sliding backwards. The tall orc pushed in, eager to finish him off, and instead sat down abruptly as its feet flew out from under it. Felix grabbed at the greenskin's belt, more to stop himself sliding than as an attack, and pulled the orc towards the edge. It scrabbled uselessly with thick yellow fingernails at the hard ice, then it was gone.

Felix shuddered, terrified, then crawled delicately back up onto the snow, hissing and groaning, as the battle raged around him.

To his right, Narin kicked an orc's leg out and it slammed down on its chin before sailing off the cliff. To his left, Thorgig jumped back from a cleaver slash and tripped over the corpse of a dead orc behind him. He fell flat on his back on the ice and started sliding headfirst for the precipice.

"Thorgig!" roared Kagrin, and stepped forwards, only to slip himself. He clutched at a boulder as he watched his friend spin towards the void.

Thorgig recovered at the last second, and slashed down with his long-axe. The hooked heel of the head bit into the ice and held. He swung to a stop, holding one-handed onto the very end of his axe-haft with his feet dangling off the edge.

Thorgig's orc swung at Kagrin, still clinging to the boulder. It swung. The young goldsmith pushed away, and the orc's axe struck sparks off the rock. Kagrin gashed it behind the knee with his handaxe and its leg buckled. It fell on its side, grunting, and slid, twisting and flailing, across the ice, coming perilously close to dislodging Thorgig as it flew off the edge.

"Hold fast, Thorgig!" called Kagrin, tearing into his pack and pulling out his climbing rope. He began lashing one end around the boulder, but another orc had noticed him and was coming around the fight towards him. Kagrin dropped the rope and stood.

Felix pulled himself to his feet and started for Kagrin, but his ankle gave out and he nearly fell again. He would never reach him in time. He looked around him desperately. Kagrin blocked a brutal blow with his hand-axe and was smashed to the ground, dazed.

A severed orc head lay behind Gotrek. Felix snatched it by its topknot and turned in a circle. The gruesome thing was amazingly heavy — all skull, no brain, no doubt. His ankle and knee blazed with pain as he spun.

"Hoy!" he shouted, letting go. "Ugly!"

The orc looked up just in time to take the head of its comrade full in the face. It wasn't a hard blow, but it distracted it long enough for Kagrin to stagger up and bury his axe blade in the thing's gut. The orc stepped back, surprised, and its paunch ripped open, its entrails spilling out of the wound and slapping wetly on the ice. It slipped on them and crashed down into the snow. Kagrin stood and chopped it through the neck. It spasmed and died. Kagrin threw down the axe and turned back to his rope.

Felix limped forwards to defend Kagrin while he uncoiled the rope, but as he looked around he saw there was no need. The battle was over. The other dwarfs stood panting over their kills, the snow all around them stained with blood, both red and black. Gotrek climbed out of a circle of dead orcs and rubbed the blade of his axe with a handful of snow. Leather-beard had a long gash across his bare chest, but his was the gravest wound. The rest had only nicks and bruises.

Kagrin tossed the end of his rope towards Thorgig.

The other dwarfs turned.

"Careful, lad," said Narin. "No sudden moves."

"That's why a dwarf always carries an axe, not a sword," said Sketti, looking disapprovingly at Felix's longsword. "A sword wouldn't have stopped you."

Thorgig reached out gingerly with his free hand and felt for the rope beside him. He found it at last and gripped it tight.

"Don't try to climb," said Gotrek. "Just hold on."

He took the rope from Kagrin and pulled it in gently, hand over hand. Thorgig slid up the ice in little jerks and starts, his axe dragging behind him, until Gotrek had pulled him to the snowline. Kagrin took his friend's hand and helped him to his feet. Thorgig's face was set and emotionless, but he was white, and his hands shook.

"Thank you Slayer," he said. "Thank you, cousin." He turned to Felix and inclined his head, "And thank you, human. I saw what you did. You saved my life and the life of my friend. I owe you a great debt."

Felix shrugged, embarrassed. "Forget it."

"You can be sure that I will not."

"Slayer," said Druric. "We should throw the bodies over the edge, and all the bloody snow with them. There may be another patrol, and it would be best if they didn't learn what became of the first."

"Aye," said Gotrek, nodding. "Carry on."

While the others pushed and rolled the orcs off the edge, and scooped the stained snow after them, Druric, who carried a field kit, dressed and bound Leatherbeard's wound, and wrapped Felix's swollen ankle in bandages.

"Not broken, I think," he said.

"It may still kill me," said Felix, thinking of the descent back down the mountain.

Sketti laughed as Felix forced his foot painfully back into his boot. "Now maybe you'll slow down and walk at a proper dwarfish pace."

"And maybe if I hung you by the neck you'd grow to a proper human height," returned Felix.

Sketti blustered and reached for his axe.

Gotrek gave him a look. "Never get into a war of words with a poet, Ironbreaker. You can't win."

When all the evidence had been pitched off the cliff and the dwarfs had bandaged their wounds, they set off once again up the saddle-shaped slope of snow and down through the rocky pass.

"There," said Matrak, after another half hour of winding around the crags and cliffs of Karaz Hirn. "There is Birrisson's door, that once led to the gyrocopter landing further up." He pointed to an unremarkable stretch of black granite that looked to Felix no different from the rest of the mountainside.

Druric studied the ground as they paused before it. He shook his head, frustrated. "The ground is too hard, and there is no snow here. I cannot tell if the grobi have used this door." He sniffed. "They have left no spoor nearby."

"Where else would they have been going?" asked Narin.

"Circling back all the way to the entrance?" suggested Sketti.

"There isn't much of a path that way," said old Matrak. "No path at all."

"If they do use this door," said Thorgig, "does it change our course? We must go in even if it is defended. Prince Hamnir depends on us."

"It is likely not well defended even if it is used," said Narin. "They can't expect an attack from this quarter."

"Open it and we will see," said Gotrek.

Matrak stepped forwards, but then hesitated, staring blankly at the wall.

"Don't tell me we've come all this way to have you tell us you've forgotten how to get in," said Narin. He took tinder from his pack and lit his tin lamp. The others followed his example.

"They know we come. They wait for us," said Matrak. He was shivering. "We will all die."

"Enough of that, you old doomsayer," said Sketti angrily. "Open the door!"

As the dwarfs lit their lamps, Matrak nodded and did something at the cliff face that Felix couldn't see. He stepped back. The dwarfs went on guard. Felix drew his sword. At first it seemed that nothing happened. Then Felix frowned and shook his head, assaulted by vertigo. His eyes fought to focus. He felt as if he was sliding backwards, though his feet weren't moving. No, it was the cliff-face getting further away! A tall, square section of it was sinking into the surface of the mountain. Felix strained his ears, but could hear no sound of gears or grinding.

After a moment, the square of rock stopped, about fifteen paces into the mountain, revealing the edges of a dark, cut-stone chamber. When a horde of orcs didn't charge out of the door and attack them, the dwarfs started forwards.

"Hold!" said Matrak. "There is a trap." He squatted at the groove in the floor, which the sliding door travelled in, and reached down into it. After a moment of fumbling, there was a clunk that Felix felt more than heard, and Matrak stood.

"Now it is safe," he said.

It didn't feel safe. Though Felix saw nothing particularly alarming, as he and Gotrek and the others stepped warily through the door, he could not shake the feeling that something wasn't right. His back tingled, and he kept looking over his shoulder, thinking he would find evil eyes glowing in the darkness, but there was nothing there.

Matrak closed the door behind them. On this side, a simple lever operated it. The chamber within was only of a moderate size, by the usual standards of dwarf architecture, with a low arched ceiling, criss-crossed with wooden beams that supported iron pulleys and winches hung with heavy chains. Workbenches, forges and writing desks cluttered the space, and old, half-built machines and contraptions were everywhere. Their shadows moved across the walls of the workshop like the skeletons of strange mechanical beasts as the dwarfs passed among them with their lanterns. A gyrocopter lay dismantled in a corner.

Sketti shook his head as he looked around. "Engineers are mad," he whispered. "All of them."

Matrak led them to a shadowed archway on the far side of the room. Beyond it was a short, narrow corridor that rose, in a series of long, shallow, slightly slanting steps, to a stone door at the far end.

"Be careful," said Matrak, holding up his hand as he stopped before it. "Here is where Birri set all his traps and — " He froze suddenly, and then whimpered softly.

"What is it, now?" asked Thorgig, annoyed.

Matrak stepped back, trembling. "It isn't right. It isn't right," said Matrak. "Smells wrong. All wrong."

The dwarfs lifted their bulbous noses and inhaled. Felix sniffed too, expecting the familiar animal reek of orcs, but could smell nothing. The dwarfs however were frowning.

"Fresh-cut stone," said Kagrin.

"Aye," said Druric. "Not more than a week old."

"The orcs have taken up masonry now?" asked Thorgig.

Kagrin thrust his lantern through the arch, illuminating the corridor, and examined it with a critical eye. "Can't be," he murmured. "It's all straight and true."

Felix scowled. "You can tell how long ago stone has been cut by the smell?"

"Of course," said Sketti. "Men can't?"

Felix shook his head. "None that I know of."

"Yours is a sad, weak race, man," said Sketti, pityingly.

"That rules the world," Felix retorted.

"Only by theft and trickery," said Sketti, his voice rising.

"Quiet!" barked Gotrek. He turned back to Matrak, who was staring into the corridor with wet, frightened eyes. "What does it mean, engineer?"

"They've cut stone. Grobi who cut stone? It..." He moaned. "It can only mean they've changed the traps." He turned to Gotrek. "Valaya protect us all. They knew we were coming! They set new traps!"

Gotrek grabbed him by the front of his chain shirt. "Stop your snivelling, Grimnir curse you!" he rasped. "If something's wrong, fix it!"

"He's lost his spine," sneered Sketti, turning away. "The greenskins stole it from him before he escaped the hold."

"You didn't see!" wailed Matrak. "You don't know! We are doomed!"

"Perhaps there's another explanation," said Narin. "It doesn't have to be cunning grobi. Perhaps the trapped clans have managed to retake some of the hold. Perhaps they have added new defences against the grobi."

"Or maybe the greenskins just walled up the far side of the door, and that's what we smell," said Leather-beard.

"Whatever the case," said Druric, "we'd best go with caution. It would be a grisly joke to be cut to pieces by traps set by those we come to rescue."

Gotrek released Matrak. "Right. Get on, engineer."

Matrak hesitated, staring unhappily into the tunnel. Gotrek glared at him, hefting his axe. The engineer swallowed and at last stepped reluctantly to the arch again, examining every inch of the surrounding floor and wall before finally touching in sequence three square protrusions in the decorative border. Felix heard nothing, but the dwarfs nodded, as if they sensed that the trap had been disarmed. They started forwards.

Matrak held up a hand. "Just to be sure." He took off his pack and dropped it heavily on the flagstones just inside the arch. The dwarfs stepped back, but nothing happened.

Matrak let out a long held breath. "Right." He took two steps into the corridor and froze, peg leg in the air. He backed away and waved to the others to retreat. There is a new nap." He was sweating.

He squatted and examined the floor, running his fingers lightly along the hair-thin seam between two perfectly cut flags, and then looked around at the walls. Something along the moulding on the right side caught his eye and he shook his head.

"Is it dwarf work?" asked Narin.

Matrak chewed his beard. "It can't be anything else, but it's... No dwarf would admit to work this bad." He pointed to a section of the moulding. "Look how poorly it's set."

Felix could see no difference between it and the next, but the other dwarfs nodded.

"Maybe they were rushed," said Thorgig. "Maybe they tried to finish it before the grobi found the passage."

"Even rushed, a dwarf would take more care," Matrak said. "Something's wrong. Something's wrong..." He bent and pressed the new piece of moulding, then let out a breath as he sensed something that Felix couldn't.

"Go on, engineer," said Gotrek, more gently. "Test it and move on. We're late as it is."

Matrak nodded, and tested the new trap with his pack. Nothing happened. He picked it up and inched forwards again, lamp low to the ground. They proceeded in this slow, painstaking way all along the corridor, Matrak disarming traps he knew, finding new ones he didn't, and looking paler and shakier with each. The dwarfs watched his every move, tensing as he searched for the next trap, and relaxing as he disarmed it.

Felix looked around at the walls and ceiling as they progressed, trying to see signs in the stone work of where these traps would spring from, but he could make out nothing. There were no holes or suspicious ornamentation in the shape of axe or hammer. The stone blocks were so well set, and their patterns so regular, that he could not imagine any trap behind them.

While Matrak grew more and more petrified, the other dwarfs grew more at ease, becoming convinced that their brethren inside the hold still lived, and were putting up a spirited defence of reclaimed halls and chambers.

"They're keeping the grobi out," said Sketti Hammerhand, as they neared the end of the corridor. "It's as plain as the nose on your face. There'll be dwarfs on the other side of that door, I'll bet my beard on it. We should stop this pussyfooting and call them to let us in."

"It will be my father," said Thorgig. "He wouldn't sit in his hold doing nothing, waiting for rescue. He would be fighting back, attacking the attackers."

Matrak stopped before the last step. The door was only two strides away. "The final step is the last of the old traps," he said. He reached for a torch sconce in the right-hand wall and pushed on the side of the base with his thumb. It turned, and Matrak breathed a sigh of relief. "There," he said, turning to the others. "Only new ones to find — "

Felix felt a deep thud under the floor and a click overhead.

CHAPTER NINE

The dwarfs froze. There was a rolling sound in the ceiling.

"Matrak looked up, blinking. The cunning villains," he breathed, with something akin to admiration. "They've trapped the disarming switch."

"Run!" roared Gotrek.

The dwarfs turned, but before they had taken two steps, a huge square of the ceiling above the door swung down, its leading edge hitting the floor with a boom. Kagrin screamed, his foot trapped under it, his ankle crushed to paste. A rumbling came from the hole in the ceiling.

"Kagrin!" cried Thorgig, turning back.

"Fool!" Gotrek grabbed him by the collar and dragged him on.

Stone spheres the size of large pumpkins shot down from the hole and bounded down the hallway. The noise was deafening. One landed squarely on Kagrin's head, squashing it flat, and then sped on with the others, leaving red splotches with each bounce.

The dwarfs ran as fast as their short legs could carry them. It wasn't fast enough. Sketti was mowed down by three spheres. They mashed him to a pulp. Another sphere hit his battered body and vaulted up into the air. Gotrek jerked his head aside and the sphere only grazed his temple. He staggered and wove on, bloody. Thorgig recovered his feet and ran past him. A sphere took Matrak's peg leg out from under him and he landed flat on his back. Another dropped on his belly, bursting it.

Felix sprinted ahead of the dwarfs, ignoring the agony of his ankle, and threw himself left at the end of the corridor. A stone sphere flew past him, missing him by inches. He looked back and saw another sphere knock Druric sideways into the corridor wall. He fell. Leatherbeard scooped him up with brawny arms and dived out of the corridor to the right. Narin was right behind him. Thorgig dodged a careening sphere and landed face first beside Felix. Gotrek came out last, staggering and weaving inches ahead of two spheres, and crashed on top of Narin, clutching his bleeding head.

The spheres barrelled out of the corridor like charging bulls and smashed into Birri's contraptions and workbenches, turning them into scrap and kindling, before finally losing momentum and coming to rest. A tall copper reservoir tank toppled slowly, two of its metal legs bent, and collapsed to the floor with a metallic crash and a billowing eruption of dust.

Felix and the dwarfs lay where they had fallen, catching their breath and collecting their wits. Felix wasn't sure if he was hurt or whole, or how many of his companions were dead. His mind was still a whirl of running and dodging, and the nightmare grinding sound of the rolling spheres.

A groan from the corridor at last brought Thorgig up. "Kagrin?" He stood.

"Don't get your hopes up, lad," said Narin, sitting up and rolling his neck. He gingerly tested his left arm.

Thorgig stepped to the mouth of the corridor. Felix and Narin got to their feet and joined them.

Gotrek stood as well, but had to hold the wall. "Who tilted the floor?" he mumbled.

Leatherbeard pushed himself up and stood behind the others, pulling his mask straight so he could see through the eyeholes. Only Druric stayed where he lay, curled into a tight ball, his eyes clamped shut in pain.

Another moan came from the hall. Felix and the dwarfs stepped forwards. Four yards in, they found old Matrak. He lay, half conscious, in a pool of his own blood, one of the spheres in the place where his stomach had been. He looked up at the dwarfs.

"Knew it wasn't right," he murmured. "Didn't I tell you?"

Thorgig took the old dwarfs hand. "Grimnir welcome you, Matrak Marnisson."

"Am I dying, then?"

He was dead before any could answer him. The dwarfs bowed their heads, and then Thorgig looked further up the hall. Sketti lay ten feet away, his body shattered, his sightless eyes staring accusingly at the ceiling. Beyond him was another broken lump. Thorgig started into the shadows.

"No lad," said Narin. "You don't want to see."

"I must!" Thorgig cried.

But before he could take another step, the door at the end of the corridor swung slowly open, half hidden behind the granite ramp of the ceiling trap that had released the stone spheres. A crowd of hulking silhouettes filled it. One reached in and touched the decorative border that surrounded the door. There came a sound of gears and counterweights from the walls, and the trapdoor that had released the stone spheres tilted back up into the ceiling. There were clicks and thuds from behind the walls all along the corridor.

"These aren't the survivors," said Narin, stepping back.

"But it's impossible," insisted Thorgig. "Grobi couldn't have set these traps!"

"Perhaps not," said Leatherbeard, "but they just disarmed them."

The orcs pushed into the corridor, looking down at Kagrin's mashed corpse.

"Forget the traps," slurred Gotrek. "Get them." He stepped ahead of the others, weaving drunkenly and slapping his axe haft into his palm.

"Aye," said Leatherbeard, joining him. "They've much to answer for."

The orc leader spotted the dwarfs in the gloom, and barked an order. The orcs stepped over Kagrin and stalked ahead, silent and alert.

"Ah," said Felix, back-pedalling. "I hate to be the voice of reason again, but we won't make the front gate. Not with the whole hold roused. We'll leave Prince Hamnir high and dry."

"The manling's right, Slayer," said Narin, edging back. "We must return to Hamnir and warn him off his attack."

Gotrek spat and growled a vile oath, but stepped back. He plucked up the sphere that had crushed old Matrak as if it was made of wood rather than stone, and bowled it unsteadily, but forcefully, at the orcs. It caught the first two in the shins and knocked them back into the others, toppling them like ninepins and causing a jumbled pile-up. "Right," Gotrek said, turning. "Out."

As the other dwarfs started after the tottering Slayer, Leatherbeard stopped and squatted by Druric, who was still only semi-conscious.

"Get him on my back," he called to Narin. "Hurry."

Narin turned back and lifted Druric under his arms. The ranger screamed in pain, spraying blood and spit. Narin ignored him. There was no time to be gentle. He draped him across Leatherbeard's broad back. The Slayer caught Druric's legs and stood. Then he went after the others. In the corridor, the orcs were picking themselves up and starting forwards again.

Thorgig pulled the lever and the dwarfs squeezed through the slowly opening door onto the mountainside, turning down the path that led to the Zhufgrim scarp. When they were all out, Thorgig flipped the lever down and ran through as the door began to reverse directions, but it was closing much too slowly.

They ran on.

The sun squatted on the horizon, a bleeding red ball gutted by the jagged peaks of the Black Mountains. All its warmth was gone. The thin mountain air was growing colder by the moment. It froze the sweat on the back of Felix's neck. The hour agreed upon for Hamnir's attack had arrived, if it was not already past, and there was nothing they could do to tell him that the horn blast would not be coming.

"I will repay the orcs ten-fold for the death of Kagrin Deepmountain," said Thorgig, his face set. "They have taken a great craftsman and a greater friend."

Who had no business being there, thought Felix, as he looked over his shoulder. The door was sliding open again, and the orcs were pouring out of it like a green river. There seemed no end to them, and they were already gaining.

"Poindess to carry me," gasped Druric from Leather-beard's back. His face was white and slick with sweat. Each of the masked Slayer's jolting strides brought him fresh agony. "Leg is broken. Hip as well. Won't make it down the mountain."

"Bah!" said Leatherbeard. "I'll strap you to my back. We'll get along."

"We'll fall," said Druric through his teeth. "Pegs won't hold two. Leave me with my axe and crossbow. Let me buy you some time."

"You want a great doom when I am denied one?" snarled Gotrek. "Not likely."

Felix observed that Gotrek was having a hard time running in a straight line.

"Aye," said Leatherbeard. "If there's anyone stays behind it'll be me. This is Slayer's work."

"Ha!" Druric laughed. Blood flecked his lips. "Do you really want to be remembered as a mere orcslayer? Leave me, and save yourself for a better death."

No one replied, but only ran on in grim silence.

"Valaya curse you for fools!" cried Druric. "I will not survive these injuries. Let me die as I wish!"

"Leave him," said Gotrek, at last. "A dwarf should have the right to choose the manner of his death."

They carried Druric until the path became a narrow ledge between cliff and mountainside. The dwarfs could hardly walk it with their shoulders squared.

"Here," said Gotrek.

Leatherbeard stopped and lowered Druric to the ground. Felix looked back. The orcs were hidden around the curve of the mountain, but he could hear them coming — heavy boots stomping, armour clanking.

The ranger slumped across the ledge, cringing in pain. He took off his pack and field kit. "Pegs," he said, teeth clenched against his pain. "I cannot stand. Pin me to the wall."

The dwarfs didn't question his order. Leatherbeard lifted him and propped him against the wall while Thorgig and Narin deftly tapped pitons through the back of his chain shirt at his neck and flanks.

Druric grinned. His teeth were filmed with blood. "Good. This way I will block their way even when I am dead."

Gotrek was still having trouble holding himself upright. He kept shaking his head and blinking his one eye, one hand on the mountain's flank.

"All right, Gotrek?" asked Felix, concerned.

Gotrek grunted, but made no answer.

"It's done," said Narin, stepping back. He cocked and loaded Druric's crossbow and put it in the ranger's left hand as Thorgig put his axe in his right.

The orcs rounded into view fifty yards back, loping like patient wolves.

"I had hoped that I would be the one to fight you for the honour of my clan, Slayer," said Druric. "I regret that will not come to pass."

Gotrek stood upright and looked Druric in the eye. "I'm sorry too," he said. "Die well, ranger." He turned and started down the path.

The other dwarfs saluted Druric in dwarfish fashion, fists over their hearts. They followed Gotrek without a word, Thorgig slinging Druric's field kit over his shoulder. Felix wanted to say something in parting, but all he could think of was "good luck" and that somehow didn't seem appropriate. He turned, vaguely ashamed, and trotted after the others.

Fifty paces on, they heard sharp cries and the clash of steel on steel echoing from behind them. Gotrek and Leatherbeard cursed, almost in unison. Thorgig muttered a dwarf prayer.

Narin growled. "He was a good dwarf," he said. "Stonemonger or no."

For almost quarter of an hour it seemed that Druric might have stopped the orcs entirely, for the dwarfs heard no sounds of pursuit, but then, as they were climbing the narrow cleft to the treacherous snowfield, the heavy tread of boots found them again. Felix had fallen behind, his throbbing ankle slowing him, and he heard it first. He picked up his pace, hissing with each step, and caught up to the dwarfs.

"They gain again," he said.

Gotrek nodded. He seemed to have recovered his balance, but the left side of his head was bruised and purple beneath the drying blood.

"We will have trouble at the top of the cliff," said Narin. "They will cut the first rope before we can all traverse the bulge to the pegs."

"I will stay behind and protect the rope," said Leather-beard.

"I will stay behind," growled Gotrek. He stopped as they reached the top of the pass. "I'll hold here. When everyone gets below the bulge, peg the end of the first rope and blow the horn. I'll cut it myself and swing down. Keep them from following us down."

"Swing down?" said Thorgig, alarmed. "You'll pull the peg out."

"Peg it twice then."

The orcs appeared at the bottom of the pass and Gotrek turned to face them.

"Go," he said. "This is all mine."

But as Felix and the dwarfs turned to step out onto the snowfield, Leatherbeard looked up. "What's that?"

Felix listened. Boots were running above them. At first he thought it was a weird echo from the orcs in the pass, then he saw long, hulking shadows lurching across the mountainside above the pass. "They've split up. Found another trail."

Thorgig cursed. "They mean to go around the pool and come at us from behind. They'll find the ropes and cut them."

"Flanked," Gotrek growled. "To the cliff!"

He stormed out of the pass and led them down the saddle of snow. The orcs burst out not twenty paces behind them, flowing down the white slope after them like a green stain. The dwarfs ran as hard as they could, but they had been trekking and climbing and fighting all day, and were gasping and flushed. Felix hissed with each step. His ankle felt thick and spongy. By the time the dwarfs reached the mirror pool, the orcs were ten paces behind. As they raced around the shore towards the cliff-edge, they were only five paces distant, and Felix saw the other group coming down from the crags and circling around the opposite side of the pool. They would reach the ropes only seconds after the dwarfs did.

"Ironskin," rasped Gotrek, as they hopped the rushing falls. "You're down first."

Narin grunted. "Not much on sharing glory, are you?"

Gotrek skidded to a stop next to the rope and turned to face the orcs as they bounded the stream, a silent green avalanche of death. "I'll hold the left," he said. "The rest of you hold the right. Then down on my call."

With a roar, the Slayer sprang to meet the charging orcs, chopping down three with his first swing, and another two with his backhand. The orcs swarmed him, slashing at his naked torso with savage silence, but they could not penetrate the net of flashing steel he wove around himself. Orc limbs flew and orc axes shattered as Gotrek blocked and bashed, his orange crest bobbing wildly.

Felix shook his head. He had seen it a thousand times, but it never ceased to amaze him. The Slayer in his element was a terrible and awesome sight. He seemed not to have two arms, but six, and three axes, all moving at blurring speed.

The second group of orcs crashed into Felix and the others from the left, nearly driving them off the cliff. They held just at the brink, parrying and hacking furiously. Felix gored an orc and pulled another past him over the edge as it thrust with a crude spear. It bounced down the bulge and into empty air. Narin and Thorgig dispatched one each, and Leatherbeard hacked down two.

"Down, Ironskin!" came Gotrek's voice from the bloody scrum to their right.

Narin cursed as he gutted another orc, but backed from the combat as ordered, while Felix, Thorgig and Leatherbeard closed ranks. Narin snatched up the rope and started backwards down the cliff. "You dare not die here, Gurnisson!" he shouted over the clash of weapons. "You owe my father a fight."

Felix and the others were pressed back to back with Gotrek as the orcs pushed in on them from all sides, a surging green wall, out of which lashed snapping tusks, massive fists and black-iron axes. Every swing and shift of weight made Felix's ankle scream. Gotrek fought the leader, a huge, milky-skinned orc whose beady black eyes glittered silently at the Slayer with cold intensity as they fought. Felix frowned. Didn't orcs have red eyes? Or yellow?

"Thorgig, down!" called Gotrek.

"What?" cried the young dwarf. "Me before the human? I won't!"

"Down, or I throw you down," growled Gotrek, swinging his rune axe up through the black-eyed orc's jaw and into his brain. "The manling's fought by me for more than twenty years. He knows his business."

The strangeness of the orc's eyes flew out of Felix's head and he felt a burst of pride as Thorgig started, snarling and reluctant, down the rope. He didn't think he'd ever heard Gotrek compliment his prowess as a fighter before. He fought with renewed vigour, inspired by the off-hand praise, protecting the Slayer's flank and rear as he'd always done, while Gotrek dealt brutal death left, right and centre.

On the other hand, he thought sheepishly, he wouldn't have minded entirely if Gotrek had thought less of him and let him go down first.

Dead orcs lay thick on the ground, but there didn't seem to be any less pressing them, and with Thorgig and Narin making their way down the cliff, Gotrek, Leatherbeard and Felix fought harder than ever. Felix wondered if even Gotrek could keep the orcs away from the rope alone. A cleaver grazed Felix's leg, opening up an angry red gash, and a dead orc, falling from Gotrek's axe, nearly knocked him backwards off the cliff. His ankle throbbed, one pain among many. He felt dazed and numb, the green horde blurred before him. He could hardly hold up his sword.

"Down, manling," Gotrek shouted. "It's Slayers' work now."

Felix nodded and backed out of the fight, relieved, and took up the rope. He saw Leatherbeard puff up at Gotrek's words, just as Felix had a moment earlier, and lay into the orcs afresh, pleased to think that Gotrek counted him his equal. Strange how such a taciturn misanthrope could inspire with an unconsidered word.

As he let himself down, hand under hand, feeling gingerly for footholds with his damaged foot, Felix watched the two Slayers fight back to back, axes flashing crimson in the last rays of the sun, their deep-muscled chests and backs streaked with sweat and blood, their thick legs braced wide before the onslaught of the ravening green horde. And the mad thing was, they were laughing. Inches from the cliff-edge — where a single misstep could send them plummeting — battling scores of savage behemoths that lusted for their blood, and they laughed.

Felix understood this to a certain extent. He was not immune to the euphoria of battle, to the mad rush that came with putting one's life on the line, when pain and weariness and any thoughts of the future went away and one was lost entirely in the glorious violence of the moment. But, for him at least, this was a joy that always teetered on the edge of terror, the excitement always well mixed with fear. The Slayers seemed to have no such qualms. They looked entirely content.

As Felix edged below the bulge, he heard Gotrek shatter that contentment with three little words.

"Leatherbeard, go down!"

"Down? No!" shouted the second Slayer through his mask. "The glory is here!"

"There's no glory in orcs," said Gotrek. "You heard what the ranger said. Down!"

"This is not the respect due to one Slayer from another Slayer!" said Leatherbeard angrily, but finally Felix felt the rope jerk above him as the masked dwarf began his descent.

Though Felix could no longer see the fight, the sounds of it rang down from the cliff like the clanging of a foundry, harsh cries and the clash of steel echoing through the thin mountain air. He looked down. Narin and Thorgig waited by the first peg, each hanging from his own pegged rope, looking up. The rope from the cliff top was, as Gotrek had requested, doubled pegged at its nether end.

"Hurry, human," said Thorgig. "The Slayer can't hold forever."

"I begin to wonder," said Narin thoughtfully. "He will be a fearsome opponent. If my father dies fighting him, I will become Thane, Grungni save me..."

There was a thunder-crack bang from above. A body with a Slayer's crest hurtled past Felix, plunging down the cliff into the twilight shadows below. Felix gaped. Had it been Gotrek? Leatherbeard? He looked up.

The rope went slack in his hands.

He fell away from the cliff.