red thirst Read online

  He felt a tap on his shoulder and turned to look back up the stairs. Down it poured another company of goblins led by a burly orc. In its left hand it clutched a scimitar and in its right it held a standard whose banner depicted a stylised representation of the tusked maw of the cursed moon, Morrslieb. Stuck on the top of the standard was an embalmed human head. Behind the bearer came more goblins armed with maces and spears and axes.

  Felix looked at Jules. The Bretonnian gave a devil-may-care shrug. What a terrible place to die, thought Felix. For a long moment the three groups exchanged glares. There was a brief peaceful silence.

  "For Sigmar!" cried Aldred, raising his great sword high and charging down the stairs with surprising nimbleness for a man garbed in plate.

  "Tanugh Aruk!" bellowed Gotrek, as he followed. Overhead the glowjewels seemed to glow briefly brighter. "Kill the goblin-scum!"

  Felix brought his blade to the guard position. Beside him Jules Gascoigne stood at the ready. The standard bearer glared at them but made no move to come closer. Felix was reluctant to attack the goblins up the stair. It was a standoff.

  Behind him Felix heard the clash of weapons and the screaming of battle-cries. The foul orc-reek was strong in his nostrils. Iron-shod feet rang on the stairs behind him. He whirled just in time to parry a mace swung with considerable force by a greenskin warrior. The force of the impact jarred up his arm.

  He gritted his teeth and stabbed out. His blade cut a glittering arc through the gloom. The goblin skipped back and Felix almost overbalanced. He moved as rapidly as he could down the stairs, hampered by the uncertain footing.

  "Jules, hold the stair!" he shouted.

  "Anything for a friend."

  Felix pushed on after the goblin. He had some trouble pursuing his nimble foe over the broken ground. The gobbo stuck out its tongue and yelled tauntingly. Overcome by stinging anger, Felix rushed forward and tripped. He fell to his knees and rolled, feeling pain where he had skinned flesh from his knees. Something scurried over him. Tiny claws scratched him. I've disturbed a nest of rats, he thought. For a moment he was disoriented. As he struggled to his feet he caught sight of the tableau of the battle.

  Gotrek chopped into the chest of his foe. Mail exploded outward from the goblin's breast where the huge axe impacted. Aldred Fellblade charged within the sweep of the ogre's huge wrecking ball and stabbed upward through the creature's stomach. Felix saw his blade protruding from the ogre's back. Goblins swept past Felix to get at the dwarf, their ancient foe. Just out of reach of the struggle Johann Zauberlich produced a scroll and chanted a spell. A ball of fire appeared in his left hand. Black rats swarmed everywhere. Shadowy flitterwings swooped agitatedly.

  Felix fought for balance. His gaze shifted to Jules Gascoigne on the stair, bravely standing off a number of heavily armed foes. He had already killed one but more entered behind another standard bearer.

  Pain surged through Felix as a club smashed into his shoulder. Flashing silver stars filled his field of vision. He fell on his face, letting go of his sword. Above him stood the goblin, its club raised, a leer of triumph on its face. Move, damn you, Felix told his protesting limbs as the club whistled down. It loomed like the trunk of a falling tree, moving with painful slowness to the man's panic-honed senses.

  At the last moment Felix rolled to one side and the club hit rock with a loud crack. Felix twisted and lashed out with one foot, sending the goblin flying. Desperately Felix fumbled for his sword, feeling huge relief as his fingers closed over its hilt.

  He dived forward, impaling the goblin before it could rise. The thing cursed as it died. Suddenly a titanic flash blinded Felix. He reeled back, covering his eyes as an inferno erupted before him. Hot air washed over his face. The air stank of sulphur. I'm dead, dead and in hell, he thought. Then understanding filled his mind. Zauberlich had unleashed his fireball.

  He looked around. Gotrek and Aldred were clearing a path through the demoralized goblins. Behind them rushed the scout and the wizard. Jules grabbed Felix by the arm.

  "Come on," he yelled. "We've got to get out while they're confused."

  They ran on down the long corridor. From behind them came the sounds of conflict.

  "What's happening back there?" he yelled.

  "Different gobbo tribes," cackled Gotrek. "With any luck they'll slit each others throats while they fight to see who gets to eat us."

  Felix stared down into the chasm. Stars glittered in its depths. Aldred and Gotrek glanced back down the corridor. Jules prowled out onto the corroded metal bridge. Zauberlich leaned against a cast-iron gargoyle, panting heavily.

  "I fear I was not intended for the adventurous life," he gasped. "My studies did not prepare me for all this strenuous exercise."

  Felix smiled. The magician reminded him of his old professors. The only conflicts they ever fought were struggles over the correct interpretation of the finer points of classical poetry. He was surprised and ashamed to find himself so contemptous of those old men. Once it had been his ambition to become just like them. Had the adventuring life changed him so much?

  Zauberlich was inspecting the gargoyle curiously. Felix revised his opinion of the wizard. He only superficially resembled those elderly academics. None of them would have survived the road to Carag Eight Peaks. The fact Zauberlich's sorcery was so adroit spoke volumes about the man's determination and intelligence. Magic was no art for a weakling or a coward. It held its own hidden perils. Curiosity overcame Felix. He wanted to ask the mage how he had become involved with the Templar.

  "I think we must have lost the goblins," shouted Aldred. He and Gotrek clumped towards the others. The questions Felix had been about to ask the sorcerer died on his lips. As they crossed the bridge Felix sensed he would never get another chance to ask them.

  They gazed down the long dark corridor. For the first time the light from the glowjewels had failed. Felix had grown so accustomed to the dim greenish light that its sudden failure shocked him. It felt as if the sun had gone in the middle of the day. Gotrek pushed on into the dark, seemingly oblivious to the lack of light. Felix wondered at how well the dwarf could see.

  "Best break out the lanterns," said Gotrek, shaking his head. "The lights have been vandalized. Damn gobbos. Those jewels should have glowed forever but they just couldn't leave them alone. They can never be replaced now, the art has been lost."

  Jules prepared a lantern. Zauberlich lit it with a word. Felix watched them, feeling redundant until he heard Gotrek moan behind him. Felix turned to look.

  Far down the corridor there was a faint greenishly glowing figure. It was an old bearded dwarf. Light poured from it and through it. It looked transparent, as tangible as a soap bubble. The ghostly figure wailed, a thin, reedy sound, and advanced towards Gotrek, arms outstretched. The Trollslayer stood transfixed. Terror overwhelmed Felix. He recognized the quality of the light. He had seen it before, on the mountainside and in the city above.

  "Sigmar protect us," muttered Aldred. Felix heard the Templar's blade ring as he pulled it from the scabbard.

  Felix felt his hair stir as the ancient dwarf advanced. The air seemed cold. His flesh tingled. The figure's lips moved and Felix thought he heard a gibbering faraway voice. Gotrek stirred and moved forward, axe held up as if to ward off a blow.

  The ghost redoubled its frantic pleas. Gotrek shook his head as if he did not understand. The ghost hurried to meet him, looking over its shoulder as if pursued by a distant, invisible enemy.

  Horror filled Felix. The ghost was falling apart. It was like a mist before a strong wind, parts of it just peeled away and vanished. Before Gotrek could reach it, it vanished entirely. As it went Felix heard a distant, despairing wail. It was the cry of a damned soul, vanishing into hell.

  As Gotrek returned Felix saw the stunned look on his face. The Trollslayer looked appalled and bewildered. A tear gleamed beneath his single eye.

  They hurried down the darkened corridor. Even after they reached an area where the glowjew
els gleamed no-one seemed in a hurry to extinguish the lantern. For long hours thereafter the Trollslayer never said a word.

  Felix was tempted to drink from a spring flowing into the ancient carved trough. He bent over the greenly glowing water when he felt strong hands knot his hair and pull him back.

  "Are you mad, manling? Can you not see the water is tainted?" Felix was about to object when Zauberlich looked down into the water and inspected the greenish glowing flecks.

  "Warpstone?" he said, in a surprised tone. Felix felt his blood run cold. All he had ever heard about the dread substance was that it was the pure essence of Chaos sought after by evil alchemists in certain grisly tales.

  "What did you say, mage?" asked Gotrek curtly.

  "I think this could be warpstone. It has the greenish luminescence that certain scholarly tomes attribute to that unpleasant substance. If there is even a trace of warpstone in the water that might account for the high level of mutation hereabouts."

  "There are old tales of the Skaven poisoning the wells," said Gotrek. "Would even they be so foul as to do it with warpstone?"

  "I have heard it said that the Skaven subsist on warpstone. Perhaps this served a dual purpose. It gave them sustenance and made the wells unusable by their foes."

  "You seem very knowledgable in the ways of Chaos, Herr Zauberlich," said Felix suspiciously.

  "The Doctor and I have hunted our share of witches," said Aldred Feilblade. "It's a task that obliges you to learn much strange lore. Are you implying any companion of mine could be tainted by such foulness as trafficking with the Ruinous Powers?"

  Felix shook his head. He had no wish to cross a warrior as deadly as the Templar. "My apologies for my unjust suspicions."

  Gotrek guffawed. "No need to apologize. Eternal vigilance is necessary in all foes of the dark."

  Aldred nodded in agreement. It seemed the Trollslayer had found a kindred spirit.

  "We had best move on." said Jules Gascoigne, looking nervously back the way they had come.

  "Best stick to drinking what we brought with us, manling," said Gotrek as they moved off.

  "What is this stuff?" asked Felix nervously. His question echoed off into the distance. Jules shone lantern light into the dark caverns. Giant, misshapen fungi cast long shadows against the white mould-covered walls. Spores drifted in the lantern's beam.

  "Once we cultivated mushrooms for food," muttered Gotrek. "Now it looks like another victim of mutation."

  The Trollslayer marched into the room. His boots left prints in the sodden carpet of mould. Somewhere in the distance Felix thought he heard running water.

  Foot-long splinters of whiteness detached themselves from the walls, enlarging as they came. They hurtled towards the startled adventurers. Gotrek chopped into one with his axe. It gave with a squishing sound. More and more splinters left the wall like a blizzard of giant snowflakes. Felix found himself surrounded by soft bloated bodies and fluttering wings.

  "Moths," shouted Zauberlich. "They're moths. They're trying to get at the light. Kill it."

  It went dark. Felix had a last vision of Gotrek, his body covered in the giant insects, then he stood within a whirling snowstorm of wingbeats. His flesh crawling at the moths' touch. Then all was silence, "Back out," Gotrek whispered, revulsion showing in every syllable. "We'll find another way."

  Felix paused to look back down the long hallway, wishing that the glowjewels were brighter. He was convinced he had heard something. He reached out and touched the smooth cold stone of the wall. Faint vibration thrummed through it. Wall-drumming.

  He strained his eyes. In the distance he could make out vague shapes. One carried a huge banner with what seemed to be a human head on top. He pulled his sword from its scabbard.

  "Looks like they found us again," he said, There was no reply. The others had disappeared round the corner. Felix realized that they had kept marching when he paused. He ran to catch up.

  Filled with dread, Felix opened one eye. He emerged from slumber. It was Gotrek's watch but he thought he heard eerie voices. He looked around the small chamber and his hair stood on end. His heartbeat sounded loud and fast in his ears and he thought that he was going to faint dead away. All power had fled from his limbs.

  The strange green glow lit the area. It washed over the Trollslayer's haggard face, making him look like some ghastly zombie. Gotrek's shadow loomed huge and menacing on the wall. The entity from which the light emerged was on its knees in front of the Trollslayer, arms outstretched beseechingly. It was the ghost of some ancient dwarfish woman.

  It was insubstantial and yet it had the presence of ages, as if it were a manifestation of the elder times made real. Its garb was regal and the face had once possessed authority. Its cheeks seemed sunken and the flesh seemed to have sloughed away and was pock-marked, as if riddled with maggots. The eyes that lurked under cave-like brows were pools of shadow in which witch-lights burned. It was as if the ghost were being eaten away by some unworldly disease, a cancer of the spirit.

  The aspect of the thing filled Felix with terror, and its suffering only intensified his awful fear. It hinted that there were things waiting beyond the grave from which even death was not an escape, powers which could seize a spirit and torment it. Felix had always been afraid of death but now he was aware that there were worse things. He felt himself on the edge of sanity, hoping for the release from this terrible knowledge that madness might bring.

  Nearby Jules Gascoigne whimpered like a child enmeshed in a nightmare. Felix tried to avert his eyes from the scene being played out before him but could not; a compulsion lay on him. He was horribly fascinated by the confrontation.

  Gotrek raised his axe and put it between him and the troubled spirit. Was it his imagination, Felix wondered, or did the runes that inlaid the huge blade glow with internal fire?

  "Begone, abomination," rasped the Trollslayer in a voice barely above a whisper. "Depart, I am yet among the living."

  The thing laughed. Felix realized that it made no sound. He heard its voice within his head.

  "Aid us, Gotrek Gurnisson. Free us. Our tombs are desecrated and a terrible warping power rests within our halls." The spirit wavered and seemed about to dissipate like mist. With a visible effort it maintained its form.

  Gotrek tried to speak but could not. The great muscles in his neck stood out, a vein throbbed at his temple.

  "We have committed no crime," said the spirit in a voice that held ages of suffering and loneliness. "We had departed to join our ancestral spirits when we were brought back by the desecration of our resting place. We were wrenched from eternal peace."

  "How can this be?" asked Gotrek, in a voice that held both wonder and terror. "What can tear a dwarf from the bosom of the ancestors?"

  "What else has the strength to upset the order of the universe, Trollslayer? What else but Chaos?"

  "I am but a single warrior. I cannot stand against the Old Dark Powers."

  "No need. Cleanse our tomb of that which lies there and we will be free. Will you do this, Gotrek, son of Gurni? If you do not we shall not be able to rejoin our kin. We will gutter and vanish like candleflames in a storm. Even now we fade. Only a few of us are left."

  Gotrek looked at the anguished spirit. Felix saw reverence and pity flicker across his face. "If it is within my power, I will free you."

  A smile passed across the spirit's ravaged face. "Others we have asked, including our descendant Belegar. They were too fearful to aid us. In you I find no flaw."

  Gotrek bowed and the spirit reached out a glowing hand and touched his brow. It seemed to Felix as if sudden insight flooded into the Trollslayer. The ghost dwindled and faded as if receding to a vast distance. Soon it was gone.

  Felix looked around at the others. They were all awake and gazing at the dwarf in astonishment. Aldred looked at the Trollslayer with something akin to reverence. Gotrek hefted his axe.

  "We have work to do," he said in a voice like stone grinding against stone.
/>
  Like a man in a trance, Gotrek Gurnisson led them down the long corridors in the depths below the old city. They passed into a area of wide, low tunnels lined by defaced statues.

  "Greenskins have been here," Felix observed to Jules Gascoigne.

  "Not recently, my friend. Those statues were not broken recently. See the lichen growing on the breaks. I like not the way it glows."

  "There is something evil about this place. I can sense it," said Zauberlich, tugging at the sleeve of his robe and peering around nervously. "There is an oppressive presence in the air."

  Felix wondered whether he could sense it too or whether he was simply receptive to his companion's forebodings. They turned a corner and moved along a way lined by mighty arches. Strange runic patterns were carved between each archway.

  "I hope your friend is not leading us into some trap laid by the Dark Powers," whispered the magician quietly. Felix shook his head. He was convinced of the spirit's sincerity. But then again, he thought, what do I know of such things? He was so outwith the realms of his normal experience that all he could do was trust to the flow of events. He gave a fatalistic shrug. Things were beyond his control.

  "I hate to bother you, but our pursuers have returned," said Jules. "Why have they not attacked? Are they afraid of this area?"

  Felix looked back towards the redly glowing eyes of the greenskin company. He made out the hideous standard.

  "Whatever they were afraid of, they seem to have plucked up courage now."

  "Maybe they've been herding us here for sacrifice," said Zauberlich.

  "Look on the bright side," said the scout.

  Eventually they passed over another chasm-bridge and into a long corridor lined with decorative arches. Gotrek halted at a huge open archway. He shook his head like a man waking up from a dream.