Hammer and Bolter Issue Eighteen Page 12
After a long hour of rowing and poling through weed-choked and winding waterways, then fighting the strong currents of the Manannspoort Sea, they pulled wearily into Marienburg’s harbour and rowed through the Brunwasser Kanal just as the first grey light of the day began to tinge the eastern sky.
Already, the big merchant ships that lined the docks were being loaded and unloaded by armies of longshoremen, while huge winches lifted cargo nets full of barrels and burlap sacks from deep holds, and carts and wagons piled to the point of collapse with goods from all over the world creaked away into the city.
It made Felix tired just to look at it all. He was ready to drop. Except for a fitful hour’s sleep on the damp floor of the Bunk and Binnacle, the entire night had been spent walking, rowing, fighting, or slogging across swampy ground.
Finally, they nosed the longboat under the prow of a cargo ship and glided towards a little wooden dock that stuck out from a stone bank. Felix reached out to grab a piling and pull them close as the others backed their oars, but just as he touched the post the boat stopped suddenly, and then jerked backward in the water. Felix stumbled and fell on top of the shop wife.
‘Easy,’ he said, pushing himself upright. ‘No need to...’
He paused as he saw the other rowers looking around too.
‘Who did that?’ Gotrek growled, raising his head.
The boat lurched suddenly down at the stern, and the nose shot up. Felix fell again as the others cried out. Something snaked from the water and curled over the side of the boat. A tentacle.
‘Stromfels’ Harbinger!’ screamed the shop wife.
Felix’s heart lurched as he stood again. More tentacles gripped the boat from all sides.
‘Off!’ roared Gotrek.
‘Onto the dock!’ Felix shouted.
He tried to run to the side, but the boat tilted and rose out of the water. He fought for balance, then threw himself towards the dock, now a man’s height below him. He landed hard on his hands and rolled across the planks. A thud and a curse told him that Gotrek had done the same. A few splashes told him that others had fallen short.
He rolled on his back and looked up. Eight huge tentacles were lifting the longboat as the rescued sacrifices wailed and clung to it. Then, with a splintering crack, the curling limbs ripped the boat asunder, and the men and women fell into the water, flailing and screaming.
A blunt grey island poked up directly under the shop wife, and she clung to it. The island had a mouth. It yawned open and the woman tumbled in, shrieking. Teeth like elven shields closed, crushing her. The shrieks ceased.
The others floundered desperately for the dock, but the huge tentacles caught them and raised them high.
‘Gods,’ said Felix, backing away. ‘It’s grown.’
Gotrek grinned maniacally. ‘Good.’ He drew his axe.
The Harbinger of Stromfels breached the waves, water streaming down it in sheets – a shark’s head and body, twice the height of a man, with tiny, useless arms, but eight tree-trunk tentacles ringing its mouth. The axe wound Gotrek had given it earlier was nothing more than a puckered line on one flank. The gem of the golden bracelet looked as small as a nail head in the centre of its broad grey chest. Felix stared in horrified wonder. The thing could tear down a temple of Sigmar.
‘Did you think Stromfels would let the sea be my grave?’ it roared, turning eyes like black glass cannonballs on them as the shop wife’s blood streamed from its mouth.
All over the docks people ran and screamed. Stevedores abandoned their loads. Merchants and sailors fled their ships. The crew of a winch left a pallet of grain sacks swinging in mid-air as they ran and called for the Black Caps.
‘I’ve come for what is mine!’ the Harbinger rumbled, shaking four of its squirming victims at Gotrek as it stuffed a fifth into its maw.
‘Let them go, fish!’ bellowed Gotrek, sprinting to the end of the dock and swiping at one of the extended tentacles. ‘Fight me!’
The beast howled in pain and jerked the tentacle back as Gotrek’s axe bit deep. It glared at the slayer. ‘Very well,’ it said. ‘They will wait.’
It tossed the captives aside and whipped its tentacles at Gotrek, trying to sweep him off the dock.
The slayer rolled between two sturdy pilings, then lashed out at the Harbinger’s limbs from their cover. Felix ran forward to help him, but leapt back again immediately as a tentacle nearly knocked his legs out from under him. He swiped wildly at it as it passed, opening a red groove in it. The monster roared and grabbed for him, but he dodged out of reach.
Gotrek, however, was in the middle of a tentacle hurricane. Some tried to knock him from between the pilings. Some tried to squash him to the dock. Some tried to grab him. He countered them all, making the beast pay for each attack with bloody, trench-deep gashes. It howled at every strike, but kept flailing. Its tentacles were too thick now to be severed with one blow, and to Felix’s horror, the wounds grew closed in the time it took for it to draw back and strike again. It seemed impossible that Gotrek could kill it before it found some way to pry him from his cover.
A tentacle slammed into the dock, smashing through the planks at Gotrek’s feet. It had found a way.
The slayer jumped back. Another tentacle slapped down and more planks caved in. Gotrek fell back again. The Harbinger came on, hauling itself out of the water with its tentacles and stomping forward on huge human legs that shook the dock with each step.
Felix backed towards the stone embankment with the slayer as the tentacles swatted at them, inches away.
‘What now?’ he asked.
‘The fish-woman said the bracelet gives it its power,’ Gotrek rasped. ‘If I can take it, I wager I can kill it.’
They reached the embankment and ducked behind a wall of crates.
‘But how will you get past its tentacles?’
The slayer shrugged. ‘I have no idea.’
The monster tore down the crates and hurled them away. Gotrek and Felix dove to the ground as they bounced over their heads and smashed to pieces beyond them. People fled screaming. Felix and Gotrek picked themselves up and joined them. The Harbinger lumbered after them on its tentacles like an ape on its knuckles.
A handful of sailors appeared at the rail of the ship to their left, all armed with long guns. They fired. The beast writhed as the bullets tore into its body, but kept on, not turning from its prey.
Gotrek looked up at the ship and paused, almost taking a tentacle in the small of the back. He spun and lopped off the tip of the thing, then started up the ramp to the big cargo dock. ‘Lead it this way.’
There was no time to wonder what Gotrek’s plan was. The Harbinger was pulling itself up the ramp faster than they could run. Felix slashed behind him at a questing tentacle and missed, then had to leap like a scalded cat to avoid being flattened by a barrel it flung after them.
‘Faster, manling,’ said Gotrek.
Felix grunted, he was going faster.
They topped the ramp and stumbled on, weaving through piles of cargo as the towering mutant smashed barrels and crates into the water. Gotrek looked up as they ran under the pallet of grain sacks that dangled high over the dock, and Felix suddenly knew what the slayer intended.
Gotrek looked over his shoulder. The Harbinger was just ducking under the pallet.
Gotrek chuckled evilly. ‘Away, manling!’
The slayer veered left, sprinting for the winch that held the pallet and raising his axe. Felix dived over a pile of rolled carpets and looked back.
He gaped as Gotrek fell flat on his face, inches from the base of the winch. A tentacle jerked the slayer up off the ground by the ankles and raised him high.
‘You think I’m such a fool?’ laughed the monster.
It stepped out from under the dangling pallet, more tentacles wrapping around Gotrek as it lowered him towards its gaping mouth. The slayer wrenched his axe arm free and slashed around, but the limbs healed as fast as he cut them and didn’t let go.
With a grunt, Gotrek threw his axe at the Harbinger of Stromfels’s head. The weapon spun through the air and chunked into its shark-like snout, right between its oval nostrils, and stuck.
The beast bellowed and staggered back, cracking its head on the pallet as it blundered under it.
‘Manling, get the–’ A tentacle clamped over Gotrek’s face.
Felix ran for the winch, raising his sword.
The monster saw him and swayed forward unsteadily, shooting a pair of unoccupied tentacles after him. Felix dove, slashing. His sword sliced the rope, making it sing like a harp string, but a few strands still held.
Felix cursed and crashed to the dock. A tentacle wrapped around his leg, lifting him into the air. He swiped at the rope again as he was dragged back.
The last strands parted.
Swinging upside down in the Harbinger’s grip, Felix saw the pallet of grain sacks drop as the rope zipped through the pulleys. The monster lurched out of the way, but not fast enough. The pallet hit it on the hip, crushing its right leg and knocking it into a pile of crates. It crashed to the dock on its back, tentacles flailing for balance, and flung Felix away.
He slammed down on the lip of the dock and almost bounced off into the water. Only catching a wooden piling in the ribs stopped him from going over. He gasped as all the air shot out of him and lay there glaze-eyed, clinging feebly to the post.
The monster shoved feebly at the grain sacks with its tentacles, trying to free its legs. For a moment, Felix couldn’t see Gotrek amidst all the coiling limbs, but then he appeared, climbing the monster’s broad chest and reaching for the bracelet.
‘No!’ it roared.
The slayer got his thick fingers around the glowing green gem and pulled as tentacles bludgeoned his shoulders and back. Gotrek only tucked his head and pulled harder.
Felix staggered to his feet, clutching his aching ribs, and stumbled forward. He could see the golden wires of the bracelet pulling from the Harbinger’s flesh as Gotrek hauled on it. They stretched and strained, fighting to maintain their grip.
Felix hacked weakly at a flailing tentacle, hoping to divert the monster’s attention. It worked. It swatted him across the dock. Unfortunately, the rest of its tentacles were not distracted.
As Felix sat up, dazed, he saw the suckered limbs wrap around Gotrek’s arms, legs, torso and head, pulling him in eight directions at once. Felix winced. It was like watching someone being torn apart by horses. The slayer was so wrapped in tentacles that all Felix could see of him was one foot, a bit of orange crest, and his left arm, pinned fast against his back.
With a howl of frustration, Stromfels’ Harbinger pushed Gotrek away from its chest like someone trying to peel off an overly affectionate monkey, but Gotrek was still gripping the gem, and as the monster thrust him away, the bracelet tore from its chest. Felix saw the golden strands waving in the air like the legs of an inverted crab as Gotrek held it high.
The Harbinger screamed and convulsed, whipping its tentacles about in a frenzy and slamming Gotrek down on the deck of a nearby ship like a sack of wet clay. The bracelet spun away from Gotrek’s slack fingers and bounced down to the dock as the massive monster pushed up and looked around, the rune axe still sticking from its snout.
‘My heart!’ the Harbinger roared, as it saw the golden bracelet rolling along the planks.
Felix blanched. The cursed bauble was coming right towards him!
The beast surged up and thundered after it. ‘You will pay for this! All will pay!’
Felix scrambled between some crates as the Harbinger loomed over him, but it only snatched up the bracelet in a tentacle and held it high, its black eyes glittering triumphantly.
Felix gripped his sword, preparing to dash out and sever the tip of the tentacle that held the evil thing, but then he saw movement above and behind the monster.
Gotrek was running along the rail of the merchant ship. He leapt and landed on the beast’s broad back, clambering up its triangular fin towards its snout. The harbinger spun around, nearly throwing him off, but the slayer held tight and wrenched his axe free, then hacked down at its skull.
The monster roared and stumbled as the axe struck bone. Its tentacles whipped around, trying to dislodge the slayer. Gotrek struck again, laughing maniacally, and this time shattered the beast’s boney carapace. Blood and ooze soaked his face and beard as he pulled back for another blow.
Felix’s heart pounded with sudden hope. The Harbinger’s wound was not healing! The bracelet was no longer protecting it!
A third stroke and the monster’s tentacles sagged. It weaved on its legs, then toppled to the deck, crushing a pyramid of wine barrels. A pool of red spread out from beneath it as Gotrek rolled off its back and lay panting on the planks. His skin was marked from head to foot with red, saucer-sized rings.
Felix limped out of hiding as the slayer pulled himself to his feet. They looked down at the massive corpse.
‘This time,’ said Felix. ‘I think it’s finished.’
Gotrek shook his head, then turned to scan the dock. ‘There’s still the bracelet.’
Felix stared at him. ‘You’re not going to keep it?’ he asked, incredulous. ‘Not after this!’
‘No,’ said Gotrek. He crossed to the tentacle that held the jewel and pulled it free. He held it up. The thing had reverted to its original shape – a coil of woven gold holding a sea-green gem. ‘It needs to be destroyed. Cleansed.’
The slayer turned towards the city. ‘Come on, manling. There has to be a dwarf smith somewhere in this human swamp.’
Three hours later, as a cold wind whipped whitecaps across the harbour, Gotrek and Felix trudged wearily up the gangplank of the Jilfte Bateau, the river boat that would take them up the Reik to Altdorf.
Leaning on the rail at the top of the ramp was their old friend Max Schreiber, smoking a meditative pipe. Beside him was the young seeress, Claudia Pallenberger, still gaunt and weak from their recent adventure on the Sea of Chaos. Max smiled as Felix and the slayer stepped onto the deck.
‘You two look like you visited every taproom in Marienburg,’ he said.
‘Almost,’ answered Felix, too tired to deny his implication.
‘You nearly missed the boat,’ said Claudia.
‘We were busy,’ said Gotrek. ‘Purifying cursed gold.’
Max smirked and blew a stream of smoke into the air. ‘Some euphemism for drinking beer, no doubt,’ he said.
‘No,’ said Felix. ‘Not really.’
He shuffled with Gotrek towards the door to the cabins. He would explain later. Right now all he wanted to do was sleep all the way to Altdorf.
Just as he ducked through the door, raindrops spattered across the deck and the wind pushed hard at his back. He turned and looked to the west. The sky over the Manannspoort Sea was black with clouds. Felix’s chest tightened as they rolled closer. It looked like a terrible storm was about to hit Marienburg.
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