Hammer and Bolter Issue Eighteen Page 10

  As Gotrek muttered over his glittering hoard, Felix returned to the old letter. So far he hadn’t found anything particularly blackmail-worthy. It was a note from his father, acknowledging that he had received some goods from Euler’s father – a smuggler just like his son. There were lists of Tilean glass, Bretonnian brandy, Cathay silk, and other fancy goods that Felix supposed might have been smuggled or stolen. It didn’t seem enough somehow. His father had been terrified that this letter would rob him of Jaeger and Sons. Nothing here seemed to merit that terror.

  Felix turned the letter over. His heart stopped. He had found it. At the top of the page was a list of six books, with a note scrawled to one side in his father’s hand. Felix didn’t recognise all the titles, but even the ones he did were enough to tie his stomach in sailors’ knots – The Maelificarium by Salini. Urbanus’s The Seven Gates, Sudenberg’s Treatise on the Hidden World. All were forbidden texts in the eyes of the Temple of Sigmar – tomes of darkest sorcery. The possession of any one of them would be enough to have a man burned at the stake.

  Felix read the note his father had written beside them.

  Returning the Urbanus and the Bastory. Estlemann says they are damaged and unsellable. Will want full refund.

  GJ

  Felix’s head swam. His father had dealt, was perhaps still dealing, in forbidden books! This was indeed something that would destroy Jaeger and Sons if exposed. He was filled once again with loathing for the old man’s greed. This proved beyond a doubt that Gustav would do anything to increase his fortune. Of course, Felix thought with a twinge of guilt, his father might be dead now, and he shouldn’t think ill of him, but the old villain certainly made it difficult to be charitable.

  A shadow passed over the letter and a voice jarred Felix from his musings. ‘How much for the bracelet?’

  Felix looked up. A piratical old sailor in a long coat stood at the table, jostled on all sides by the crowd that filled the tap room. He was a barrel-chested man, with a bald head, gold earrings, and a clay pipe that stuck out from an enormous white moustache and beard. He pointed a thick finger at Gotrek’s wrist, indicating the bracelet with the sea-green gem.

  ‘Not for sale,’ said Gotrek. He pushed a small pile of jewelry towards the man. ‘If you want any of that, we can deal. It’s elven.’

  The old sailor shook his head. ‘Just the bracelet.’

  ‘Then you’re out of luck,’ said Gotrek.

  The sailor frowned. ‘Double its weight in Altdorf Crowns,’ he said.

  Gotrek snorted. ‘Crowns are cut with copper. This is pure. Ten times its weight wouldn’t be enough.’

  ‘So, you’re willing to haggle?’

  ‘No,’ said the slayer, and returned his attention to his sorting.

  The sailor shrugged. ‘Can’t say I didn’t try.’ He stepped back. ‘Get ‘em, messmates.’

  All at once, all the men who had been jostling and laughing and drinking behind the old man turned towards Gotrek and Felix, grinning as they readied cudgels, brass knuckles and saps. Felix had never in his life seen so few teeth among so many men.

  Gotrek jumped up, laughing, and snatched up two three-legged stools. ‘Come and get it, you wharf rats!’

  The wharf rats obliged him, roaring and leaping over the table at him as bracelets and necklaces scattered everywhere. Felix was shouldered to the floor in the rush. Boots stomped his spine as he rolled under the table, covering his head, and the smack of fists on flesh was loud in his ears.

  He took the opportunity to stuff his father’s letter back into his doublet, then looked around for a suitable weapon. Unfortunately, just then, Gotrek heaved up on the table, overturning it and sending the pirates that fought upon it flying – along with the rest of his treasure.

  A pirate crashed down on Felix’s ribs, knocking the wind out of him. Felix sucked in a stabbing breath and elbowed the man in the face, then ripped the cudgel from his hands and staggered up, looking around. Pirates were reeling away from Gotrek as he windmilled about him with a stool in each fist, but others still surged in, howling and slashing furiously, as the rest of the tavern-goers pressed to the walls, trying to get away.

  Felix waded into the scrum, cracking heads and elbows with his cudgel. The pirates snarled and lashed back at him. He took a punch to the ribs.

  Then a woman’s voice shrilled over the cacophony. ‘Gold! The floor’s covered with it!’

  Suddenly, all the onlookers, who had been doing their best to keep out of the melee, charged forward, diving under the pirates’ feet and bowling them over in their frenzy to reach the spilled treasure.

  ‘Keep back, ye lubbers!’ bellowed the old pirate, but no one paid him any heed.

  A pirate with a face like a frog leapt on Gotrek’s arm, weighing it down and trying to pull off the braided gold bracelet.

  ‘Get it!’ roared the old pirate. ‘Throw it here.’

  Gotrek brained frog-face with one of his stools and heaved him into the others. He held up his left arm, showing them all the bracelet.

  ‘It this what you want?’ the slayer roared. ‘Come–!’

  He was drowned out by a pair of deafening explosions. The whole room stopped where they were and everyone turned towards the bar. The landlord, a short, round man with sailor’s tattoos and a peg leg, stood upon it, two smoking pistols in his hands as plaster rained down all around him. From the look of the ceiling it wasn’t the first time such measures had been warranted.

  ‘Right, you wreckers!’ he said, dropping the pistols and taking an enormous bell-mouthed blunderbuss from a serving girl behind the bar. ‘Outside or I’ll give you a volley of shot in yer tender parts!’

  The threat worked well enough on most of the patrons – particularly those that already had some of Gotrek’s gold clutched in their hands – and they ran for the exits, but the pirates were made of sterner stuff. One of them pulled a pistol of his own and aimed it at the landlord.

  ‘And I’ll give you a hole where yer mouth is,’ he snarled.

  Felix raised his cudgel to beat the man’s arm down, but just then the Black Caps ran back in, whistles blowing and truncheons at the ready.

  The landlord waved them towards the pirates. ‘Them there, Captain Schnell! They’re disturbing the peace!’

  The old pirate backed away. ‘Hard about, messmates!’ he croaked, as the watchmen started forward. He shot a glare at Gotrek. ‘We’ll finish this later.’

  The pirates scattered in every direction, and the Black Caps raced after them. The taproom was suddenly empty.

  Gotrek glared around at the floor, which was conspicuously bare of treasure. ‘All gone,’ he said, disgusted. ‘The dirty thieves.’

  ‘Serves you right for sorting it in public,’ said Felix wearily. He looked around for a place to sit, but before he could right a bench, the landlord turned his blunderbuss their way.

  ‘You too, buckos,’ he called, jerking his chin towards the door. ‘You were in the middle of it. On yer way.’

  ‘But....’ said Felix. ‘But we have a room here.’

  ‘You had a room here,’ said the landlord.

  Felix was about to argue the point, but Gotrek grunted and started towards the door. ‘Forget it, manling. The beer was terrible anyway.’

  As they crossed to the door, Gotrek paused, then bent and picked something up from the floor – a wayward topaz. ‘Here,’ he said, flipping it to the surprised landlord, who almost dropped his blunderbuss trying to catch it. ‘For the damages.’

  With the old pirate’s vow that he would ‘finish this later’ still ringing in his ears, Felix was afraid that they would be jumped as soon as they left the inn, but apparently the Black Caps had chased the pirates off, for they made their way through the crowded streets without incident.

  Unfortunately, because of those crowds, finding another room was difficult, and they spent more than an hour walking from inn to inn, and being turned away at every one. But finally, at the western-most end of the Suiddock, on a
street that reeked of tar and rotting fish, they discovered a place that had a vacancy. Felix didn’t wonder why. The Bunk and Binnacle was dreadful. Anyone with any money or sense would never have looked twice at the place.

  It was small and cramped and reeked of damp and mildew, and every surface felt like it was covered in a thin layer of slime. Its floors dipped in the centre, its ceilings sagged, and its walls bulged in on either side. Felix was afraid to lean against them for fear they would collapse.

  ‘This place is a deathtrap,’ he said as he and Gotrek made their way up the three cockeyed flights of stairs to their room.

  Gotrek shrugged. ‘No worse than most human places,’ he said.

  Felix was too tired to argue. They had been walking forever. All he wanted to do was lie down and sleep.

  Felix stared around, appalled, as they entered their room. He had been in nicer prison cells. The smell of mildew was even stronger here, and seemed to be coming from the beds. The floor sloped down alarmingly towards the back wall, where the winter wind whistled through a shuttered window. He stepped cautiously down the slippery incline and opened it. One of the shutters tore from its rusty hinges and fell away. Felix looked down and saw it splash into the water of the harbour, directly below him. The inn leaned out over it like a vulture preparing to swoop down on a carcass.

  Felix backed cautiously from the drop, wiping his hands on his breeches. ‘I really would have preferred to give up the bracelet and keep our room at the Pelican’s Perch,’ he said.

  ‘It wasn’t your bracelet,’ said Gotrek, and started laying out his bedroll on the floor.

  Felix was dragged from sleep some time later by soft squelching noises and angry dwarfen grunts. He pried open his eyes and peered around at the darkness, feeling for his sword.

  ‘Gotrek?’

  ‘Get off me, you snot-skinned invertebrates!’ came the slayer’s voice, followed by the crunch of an axe through bone and a shriek of pain.

  Felix jumped to his feet and drew his sword. In the fuzzy dimness of the room he could see a dozen black shapes squirming and thrashing where Gotrek had been lying. The reek of damp, which before had been only unbearable, was now too thick to breathe. ‘Hoy!’ he choked, then stabbed at the back of a flailing form.

  The thing snarled and turned on him, lashing out with long arms. It was wearing breeches and a shirt, but that was Felix’s only clue that it had once been human. As his eyes adjusted, he could see that the inner side of its arms and hands were covered with disc-shaped suckers, and it had a head like a trout.

  Felix slashed at it, nausea and pity warring within him. The trout-man ducked and caught his blade in a suckered hand. Felix tried to jerk it away, but the discs stuck fast to the smooth steel, and the mutant pulled at it with uncanny strength.

  Sounds of terrible violence continued from Gotrek’s side of the room as Felix fought the trout-man for the sword. Then two more mutants charge out of the dark. One had a rusty boarding axe clutched in hands like crab claws. The other was a woman – or had been – with hair like a sea anemone and translucent fins running down the length of her forearms. She slashed at him and they sliced through his clothes to his skin. They were razor sharp!

  Felix kicked her in the face, then ducked crab-hands’ rusty axe. Trout-face tried to catch Felix’s neck with his other tentacle. Felix let go of his sword and grabbed the slimy thing, yanking him off his feet and sending him careening into crab-hands. The mutants crashed down on the flimsy bed, collapsing it. Felix stomped on trout-face’s wrist. He yelped and let go of the sword. Felix snatched it up and spun just in time to block another swipe from the fin-woman. His sword tore through her right fin and into her arm. She staggered back, wailing, and fell in a heap against the door.

  Felix whipped back and gutted crab-hands and trout-face as they tried to stand. They toppled back into the ruin of the bed, gushing black blood.

  Felix stumbled over the uneven floor towards Gotrek. The slayer was in the centre of a whirlwind of crazed mutants. Half a dozen lay dead and dismembered on the floor, but just as many still surrounded him, swinging boathooks, cutlasses and belaying pins at him with wild abandon. One of them, a sleek-skinned, barrel-shaped little runt with flipper arms, had swallowed Gotrek’s left arm up to the elbow in its sphincter-like mouth. Gotrek swung him around like a flesh mace, knocking down his comrades with his bulbous body, then cleaving their heads and chests with his axe as they fell.

  Felix leapt into the fray and cut down two of Gotrek’s attackers from behind. Gotrek clubbed three more to the floor and hacked them to pieces. Only the flipper-man remained, stuck on the end of Gotrek’s arm like a living gauntlet.

  ‘Mutant filth!’ rasped Gotrek, and slammed him down as hard as he could.

  The mutant slapped against the planks like a carp against a cutting board, letting go of Gotrek’s arm with a fishy gasp.

  Gotrek chopped down at it, but it squirmed wetly down the sloping floor and the slayer’s axe smashed through rotting floorboards. Felix leapt after the thing, but the canted planks were slick with blood and slime and he fell.

  ‘I’ve got him,’ said Gotrek, skating forward on the film of muck with his axe raised.

  But he didn’t, for before the slayer could reach him, the flipper-man humped himself upright against the wall and threw himself out the window.

  Gotrek slammed into the sill and looked out and down. He cursed as, from far below, there came a splash.

  Felix picked himself up, his clothes wet with blood and noxious fluids. All the remaining mutants seemed to be dead or dying. The battle was over.

  ‘Is everyone out to get us in this miserable town?’ he sighed. ‘What did they want?’

  ‘The bracelet,’ said Gotrek. He turned away from the window and held up the arm the flipper-man had been gnawing on. ‘And they took it. That thing swallowed it.’

  Felix groaned. The damned bracelet again.

  From the door came a shrill cackling. They looked around. The wounded fin woman was grinning at them, a demented gleam in her too-widely-spaced eyes. ‘Though you kill a thousand of us, we will prevail. Stromfels’ will shall not be denied.’

  Felix hadn’t heard that name since he and Gotrek had sailed with the pirates of Sartosa. Stromfels was a sea god – a shark god – the evil mirror of Manann, sworn to by pirates up and down the coast of the Old World.

  Gotrek strode towards the woman, his axe raised menacingly. ‘Do you know where they took it?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ she laughed. ‘To the swamps. To the ceremony. To Stromfels’ Reach.’

  Gotrek put the axe blade to her throat. ‘You will take us there, wretch.’

  The fin-woman tittered. ‘No need for threats, mein herren. I’ll take you. Stromfels welcomes sacrifices.’

  By the shifting light of the moons, which peeked occasionally through breaks in the roiling clouds like pale eyes through knotholes, Gotrek and Felix set down their poles and followed the fin-woman as she stepped from the weathered flatboat onto a mist-shrouded mud bank deep in the middle of the Cursed Marshes. Gotrek steadied himself with his axe and spat a fat gob of phlegm.

  ‘The only thing worse than sitting in a boat,’ he said, wiping his mouth. ‘Is standing in one.’

  Felix for once agreed with him. Dwarfs were notoriously unhappy on water, but even for Felix, piloting the wobbly little craft had been a stomach-churning chore.

  Something shrieked like a banshee in the middle distance. Felix jumped, heart thudding. Gotrek turned, ready to fight.

  The fin-woman paid the noise no attention. ‘Hurry, mien herren,’ she said, beckoning them on. ‘They will beginning soon. They will want you.’

  Felix let out a breath, then glared at Gotrek as they followed the fin-woman into the sea of chest-high sawgrass that rippled and whispered around them in all directions. There was no reason for them to be traipsing through a swamp in the middle of the night. They could have been back in Marienburg, asleep in a comfortable bed – or at least look
ing for one – if not for Gotrek’s stubbornness.

  Felix had tried his best to convince him to forget the bracelet and go back to Altdorf, but the slayer would have none of it.

  ‘No, manling,’ he had said. ‘A slayer cannot stand by when there are mutants to be killed, and a dwarf can never forgive a theft.’

  ‘But you stole it from Euler,’ Felix had countered.

  Gotrek had snorted. ‘Stealing from a thief is not stealing.’

  After that faultless display of dwarf logic, Felix had given up. Now he wished he had tried harder. Even on a summer’s day, the Cursed Marshes were unlikely to have been a pleasant place for a stroll, but now, in winter, in the coldest hours of the morning, with a fitful wind spitting icy swamp-water in Felix’s face and the sopping ground sucking at his boots and freezing his toes through the leather, it was a nightmare. Weird rustlings and moanings came from every direction, and writhing arms of mist curled up from the tall grass like looming spectres. He kept looking over his shoulders at things that weren’t there.

  ‘Careful, mein herren,’ said the fin-woman as Felix almost stepped into a hidden channel. She giggled. ‘Wouldn’t want to deny Stromfels’ Harbinger his snack.’

  Felix backed from the channel and followed more carefully behind her. She might once have been attractive, for she had a shapely figure and piercing blue eyes, but now she was repulsive. In addition to the fins that stuck from her wiry forearms, her mouth hung open in a fishy gape, and her eyes were pushed to the sides of her head, peering slyly from under a mop of tiny, translucent tentacles that writhed with a mind of their own.

  ‘What do your friends want with this bracelet?’ he asked her as they swished through the grass.

  ‘Stromfels’ Heart?’ she said, chuckling. ‘Why, it’s the centre of the whole thing, mein herr. It calls the Harbinger. Wakes him, y’might say. Gives him his strength. Without it, there ain’t no ceremony.’ Her lower lip pushed out in a pout. ‘Like last year. Very sad, that was, when that false pirate Euler took it.’