wolf riders Page 4

  She was quiet for a long moment and when she spoke again her voice was soft. "I miss them."

  Felix could think of nothing to say, so he kept quiet.

  "You know, my grandmother never travelled more than a mile from Diehlendorf in her life. She never even saw the inside of that bleak old castle. All she knew was her hut and the strips of fields where she laboured. Already I've seen mountains and towns and this river. I've travelled further than she ever dreamed. In a way I'm glad."

  Felix looked at her. Along the shadowy planes of her cheeks he could see a teardrop glisten. Their faces were very close. Behind her, tendrils of mist drifted from the surface of the river. It had thickened quickly. He could barely see the water. Kirsten moved closer.

  "If I hadn't come I wouldn't have met you."

  They kissed, unskilfully, tentatively. Lips barely brushed lips. Felix leaned forward and took her long hair in his hands. They leaned into each other, holding one another hungrily as the kiss deepened. Passionately their hands began to wander, exploring each others bodies through the thick layers of clothing.

  They leaned over too far. Kirsten screamed slightly as they fell off the tree trunk onto the soft wet earth.

  "My cloak's all muddy," said Felix.

  "Perhaps you'd better take it off. We can lie on it. The ground's all wet."

  Under the shadow of the deathly hills they made love in the mist and moonslight.

  "Where have you been, manling, and why are you looking so pleased with yourself?" asked Gotrek surlily.

  "Down by the river," replied Felix innocently. "Just walking."

  Gotrek raised one bushy eyebrow. "You picked a bad night just to go walking. See the way this mist thickens. I smell sorcery."

  Felix looked at him, feeling fear creep though his bones. His hand went to the hilt of his sword. He remembered the mist that had covered the moors around the Darkstone Ring a year before, and what it had hidden. He glanced over his shoulder into the darkness.

  "If that's true we should tell Dieter and the Baron."

  "I've already informed the duke's henchman. The guard has been doubled. That's all they would do."

  "What are we going to do?"

  "Get some sleep, manling. It will be your watch soon."

  Felix lay down in the back of the wagon on top of some sacks of grain. He pulled his cloak tight about him. Try as he might, sleep was a long time coming. He kept thinking of Kirsten. When he stared at Morrsleib, the lesser moon, it seemed he could see the outline of her face. The mist grew thicker, muffling all sound except Gotrek's quiet breathing.

  When sleep finally came he dreamed dark dreams in which dead men walked.

  In the distance a horse whinnied uneasily. A huge hand was clamped over Felix's mouth. He struggled furiously, wondering whether Lars had come back for revenge.

  "Hist, manling! Something comes. Be very quiet."

  Felix came groggily to full wakefulness. His eyes felt dry and tired; his muscles ached from the mattress of sacks; he felt weary and lacking in energy.

  "What is it, Gotrek?" he asked softly. The Trollslayer gestured for him to be quiet and sniffed at the air.

  "Whatever it is, it's been dead a long time."

  Felix shivered and drew his cloak tight. He felt fear begin to churn in the pit of his stomach. As the meaning of the dwarfs words sank in, he had to fight to restrain terror.

  Felix peered out into the mist. It cloaked the land, obscuring vision at more than a spear's length. If Felix strained every sense he could just make out the wagon opposite. He cast a glance back over his shoulder, fearful that some frightful denizen of the dark might be creeping up behind him.

  His heartbeat sounded loud in his ears and he remembered Manfred's words. He pictured bony hands reaching out to grab him and carry him off to a deep dark tomb. His muscles felt as if they had frozen in place. He had to struggle to get them to move, to reach for the hilt of his sword.

  "I'm going to take a look around," whispered Gotrek. Before Felix could argue or follow, the dwarf noiselessly dropped off the cart and vanished into the mist.

  Now Felix felt totally alone. It was like waking from a nightmare to find himself in a worse one. He was isolated in the dark and clammy mist. He knew that just outside the range of his perception hungry, uncanny creatures lurked. Some primitive sense told him so. He knew that to stir from the cart meant death.

  Yet Kirsten was out there, sleeping in Frau Winter's carriage. He pictured her lying in bed as terrible pressure was exerted on the caravan's door and slowly the timber buckled inwards to reveal...

  He drew his blade then leapt from the cart. The soft thud of his landing rang as loud as the tolling of a bell to his fear-honed senses. He strained to pick out details in the mist as he moved through the outer ring of wagons to where he knew Kirsten was.

  Every step seemed to take eternity. He cast wary glances about him, fearful that something was creeping up stealthily behind. He skirted pockets of deep shadow. He wanted to cry out loud to alert the camp, but something instinctively stopped him. To do so would be to attract the attention of the terrible watchers - and that would mean death.

  A figure loomed out of the shadows, and Felix brought his sword up. His heart was in his mouth till he noticed the figure was wearing leather armour and a metal cap. A guard, he thought, relaxing. Thank Sigmar. But when the figure turned, Felix almost screamed.

  Its face had no flesh. Greenish light flickered in its empty sockets. Age-rotten teeth smirked from the fleshless, lipless mouth. He saw that the helm which he had originally taken for a guard's was verdigrised bronze and inscribed with runes that hurt the eye. The smell of mould and rotten leather rose from the thing's tunic and tattered cloak.

  It lashed out at him with its rusty blade. Felix stood frozen for a moment and then, acting on reflex, flung himself to one side. The thing's sword nicked his ribs. Pain seared his side. He noticed the movement of ancient tendons under the paper-thin skin of the hand that held the weapon. He countered with a high blow to the neck, his body responding with trained discipline even as his mind reeled in horror.

  His blade crashed through the thing's neck with a cracking of severed vertebrae. His return blow chopped through its chest like a butcher's cleaver through a bone. The skeletal warrior fell like a marionette with its strings cut.

  As if Felix's blows were a signal, the night came alive with shadowy figures. He heard wood splinter and animals scream in terror as if whatever spell had held them mute was broken. Somewhere off in the night Gotrek bellowed his war chant.

  Felix rushed through the mist, almost colliding with Dieter as he tumbled out of a wagon. The big man was fully dressed and clutched a hand-axe.

  "What's going on?" he shouted, through the cacophony of screams.

  "Attackers, dead things from under the hills," Felix said. The words came out in jerky gasps.

  "Foes!" shouted Dieter. "To me, men. Rally to me!" He gave out a wolf-like war-cry. From about came a few weak answering howls. Felix charged on, seeking Kirsten's home. From the shadowy gap between two wagons, figures leapt out, striking at him with long wickedly curved blades.

  He writhed aside from one and parried the other. Two more skeletal creatures leered at him. He chopped at one's leg. It fell over as his blade broke through the knee. Mind numbed with horror, he fought almost mechanically, leaping over the blow of the one on the ground then bringing his heel down to break its spine. Blows flickered between him and the other till he chopped it to pieces.

  He saw two battering through the door of Frau Winter's wagon just as he had feared. From inside came the sound of chanting, which he assumed was a prayer. He prepared himself to charge but his eyes were dazzled by a sudden blueish flash. Chain lightning flickered, and a smell of ozone filled the air, overcoming even the stench of rot. When Felix's sight cleared he saw the charred remains of two skeletons lying near the caravan's steps.

  In the doorway Frau Winter stood calm and unafraid, a nimbus of lig
ht emerging from her left hand. She looked over at Felix and gave him an encouraging nod.

  Behind her was Kirsten, who pointed over his shoulder. He whirled and saw a dozen undead warriors rushing towards him. He heard Dieter and his men ran up to meet them. Then he joined the rush.

  For Felix the night became howling chaos as he hacked his way round the camp in search of Gotrek.

  At one point the mist cleared and he pushed some quivering children under a wagon away from the bodies of their dead parents. The man lay in a night shirt, the woman was close by, a brush handle clutched in one hand like a spear. Felix heard a sound and turned to face a skeletal giant bearing down at him. Somehow he survived.

  Felix fought back to back with Dieter till they stood among a pile of mouldering bones. The battle surged away from him as the mist closed in and for a long moment he stood alone, listening to the screams of the dying.

  A passing figure lashed out at him and they exchanged blows. Felix saw that it was Lars, a grin frozen on his face revealing missing teeth, terror froth foaming from his mouth. Berserkly he hacked at Felix. The man was mad with fear.

  "Bathtard!" he hissed, chopping at Felix with a blow that would have felled a tree. Felix ducked underneath the blow and lunged forward, taking him through the heart. Lars sobbed as he died. Felix wondered how crazed Lars really had been. If the trapper had killed Felix it could have been blamed on the attackers. He returned to the fray.

  He rounded a corner to find a score of undead warriors being driven back by the furious onslaught of Gotrek's axe. Blue chain lightning flickered and the area about him was suddenly clear. He looked about for Frau Winter to thank her but she was gone, vanished into the mists. He turned to see Gotrek standing astonished, his jaw hanging open.

  Sometime before dawn their assailants retreated back towards the hills, leaving Baron von Diehl's warriors to contemplate their ruined wagons and the bodies of their dead.

  In the early morning light Felix watched warily as Gotrek inspected the rubble of the old stone arch. The stench of dank air and mouldering bones that came from within made him want to gag. He turned to stare downslope, to where the surviving exiles were building funeral pyres for the dead out of the remains of broken wagons. Nobody wanted to bury them so close to the hills.

  Felix heard Gotrek grunt with grim satisfaction, and turned to look at him. The dwarf was running his hand expertly along the broken stones with their faint webwork of old runes. Gotrek looked up and grinned savagely.

  "No doubt about it, manling, the runes guarding the entrance were broken from the outside." Felix looked at him. Suspicion blossomed. He was very afraid.

  "It looks as though someone has been giving the von Diehl curse a helping hand," whispered Felix.

  Rain lashed down from the grey sky. The cart rumbled southward. Beside the caravan the waters of Thunder River tumbled headlong towards their goal. The rain-swollen river constantly threatened to burst its banks. Felix jerked the reins, the oxen lowed and redoubled their efforts to move on the muddy ground.

  Beside him Kirsten sneezed. Like almost everyone else she was pale and ill-looking. The strain of the long journey and the worsening weather had made them all prey to disease.

  No town would take them in. Armed warriors had threatened battle unless they moved on to untenanted land. The trail had become interminable. It seemed as if they had been riding forever and would never come to rest. Even the knowledge that someone in the train had freed the undead beneath the hills has ceased to be alarming, fading into cold suspicion when no culprit could be found.

  Felix looked at Gotrek guiltily, expecting Kirsten's sneeze to produce his usual crass comments about human frailty, but the Trollslayer was silent, staring towards the World's Edge Mountains with a fixity of purpose unusual even for him.

  Felix wondered when he would pluck up the courage to tell Gotrek that he wasn't continuing onwards with him, that he was settling down with Kirsten. He was worried about what the dwarfs reaction would be. Would Gotrek simply dismiss it as another example of human faithlessness or would he turn violent?

  Felix felt miserable about it. He was fond of the Trollslayer, for all his black moods and bitter comments. The thought of Gotrek wandering off to meet a lonely doom disturbed him. But he loved Kirsten, the thought of being parted from her was painful to him. Perhaps Gotrek sensed this and it was the reason for his withdrawn mood. Felix reached over and squeezed the girl's hand.

  "What are you looking for, Herr Gurnisson?" asked Kirsten. Gotrek did not turn to look at her but continued to stare longingly at the mountains. At first it seemed as if the Trollslayer would not reply but eventually he pointed to the outline of one cloud-girt mountain.

  "Caraz-a-Carak, the Everpeak. My home," he said. His voice was softer than Felix had ever heard it and it held a depth of longing that was heart-breaking. Gotrek turned to look at them and his face held such a look of dumb, brute misery that Felix had to look away. The dwarfs crest of hair was flattened by the rain and his face was bleak and weary. Kirsten reached past to adjust Gotrek's cloak about his shoulders, as she would have done for a lost child.

  Gotrek tried to give her his ferocious, insular scowl but he could not hold it and he just smiled sadly, revealing his missing teeth. Felix wondered whether the dwarf had come all this way just for that fleeting glimpse of the mountain. He noticed a drop of water hanging from the end of the Trollslayer's nose. It might have been a teardrop or it might have been just rain.

  They continued southward.

  "We can't leave them just yet," said Felix cursing himself for being such a coward. Gotrek turned and looked towards the tumbled-down fortified mansion which they had found. He could see smoke rising in plumes from the chimneys of the recently cleared building.

  "Why not, manling? They've found clear ground, cultivatable land and the ruins of that old fort. With a little work it should prove quite defensible."

  Felix strove desperately to find a reason. He was suprised that he was trying so hard to delay the moment when he had to tell Gotrek of their parting. The way Gotrek looked at him disapprovingly reminded him of his father at his sternest. He felt once more the need to make excuses, and he hated himself for it.

  "Gotrek, we're only a hundred miles north of where Thunder River flows into Blood River. Beyond that is the Badlands and a horde of wolf-riders."

  "I know that, manling. We'll have to cross there on our way to Karag Eight Peaks."

  Tell him, thought Felix. But couldn't.

  "I can't go just yet. You've seen the bodies we found in the mansion. Bones cracked for the marrow. The walls have been burned. Dieter has found the spoor of wolf-riders nearby. The place is not defensible. With your help, with the help of a dwarf, it could be made so."

  Gotrek laughed. "I don't know why you think that."

  "Because dwarfs are good with stone and fortifications. Everyone knows that."

  Gotrek glanced back at the mansion thoughtfully. He seemed to be remembering a former life. A frown creased his brow and he rested his forehead against the shaft of his axe.

  "I don't know," he said eventually, "that even a dwarf could make this place defensible. Typical human workmanship, manling. Shoddy, very shoddy."

  "It could be made safe. You know it could, Gotrek."

  "Perhaps. It has been a long time since I worked with stone, manling."

  "A dwarf never forgets such things. And I'm sure the Baron will pay handsomely for your services."

  Gotrek sniffed suspiciously. "It had better be more than he pays his mercenaries."

  Felix grinned. "Come on. Let's find out."

  Unable to sleep, Felix got up quietly. He dressed quickly, not wanting to wake Kirsten. He gently rearranged the cloaks that they used as blankets about her so that she would not get cold, then kissed her lightly on the forehead. She stirred but did not awake. He lifted his sword from where it lay by the entrance of their hut and stepped out into the cold night air. Winter was coming, Felix thought, wa
tching his breath cloud.

  By moonslight he picked his way through the cluster of hovels which lay in the lee of the new wooden walls surrounding the mansion. He felt at peace for the first time in a long while. Even the night-time noise of the camp was reassuring. The fort had been completed before the first snows; it looked as if the settlers would have enough grain to last the winter and seed a new crop in the spring.

  He listened to the cattle lowing and the measured tread of the sentry on the walls. He looked up and saw that a light still gleamed in the window of Manfred's room. Felix thought about his convoluted destiny. Not a place I would ever have imagined myself settling down, a fortified village on the edge of nowhere. I wonder what my father would think if he could see me now, about to become a farmer. He'd probably die of mortification. Felix smiled.

  It was exciting to be here. There was a sense of something about to begin, a community still taking shape. And I will have a place in shaping that community, he thought. This is the perfect place to start a new life.

  He walked on towards the guardtower where he knew he would find Gotrek. The dwarf was unable to sleep, restless and ready to move on. He liked to while away the night watches in the tower he had designed.

  Felix clambered up the ladder and through the trapdoor in the floor of the guardroom. He found Gotrek staring out into the night. The sight of the dwarf made Felix nervous but he steeled himself, determined to tell the dwarf the truth.

  "Can't sleep, eh manling?"

  Felix managed a nod. When he had rehearsed his speech to himself it all had seemed simple. He would explain the situation rationally, tell Gotrek he was staying with Kirsten and await the dwarfs response. Now it was more difficult, his tongue felt thick and it was as if the words had stuck in his throat.

  He found himself flinching inwardly at all the accusations Gotrek might make; that he was a coward and an oathbreaker; that this was the thanks a dwarf got for saving a man's life. Felix had to admit that he had sworn an oath to follow Gotrek and record his doom. Certainly he had sworn it while drunk and full of gratitude to a dwarf who had just pulled him from under the hooves of the Emperor's cavalry, but an oath was still an oath, as Gotrek was wont to point out.