Gotrek & Felix: Slayer by David Guymer Read Free Book Online Page A

shaved but for a topknot. An elaborate tattoo of an eagle spread its wings over one cheek.
    The warrior did not answer. Weakly, Khamgiin rolled his head around to the left.
    ‘Khidu. What struck me? Was it him?’
    Still no answer. The men marched on like dead men to the underworld. Khamgiin tried to remember the end of the battle, but it was a blur of screams and fire. It had been as one-sided a rout as any he had come to expect from this soft land. Except for the dwarf. Yes, he remembered something now. The dwarf had been a foe worthy of Khamgiin’s gifts. Then there had been a loud bang and then… He winced as the memory brought with it an unpleasant throbbing pain in between his shoulder blades. He worked his mouth. It was as dry as the Great Steppe, but he managed to separate his lips and move his tongue.
    ‘Was the warrior slain? Did the Dark Master make a martyr of his enemy?’
    ‘No, Lastborn, he was not. You failed, as I foresaw that you must.’
    A woman walked behind the bier, dressed and hooded in black with face downcast like a widow. From the stoop of her back and the strands of white that strayed from her hood, Khamgiin judged her to be old, but immortality tempered such assessments and her voice rang as clear as the warning call of an eagle. Something about her presence put a sepulchral chill into Khamgiin. He turned to his men, but they walked on as if they were unaware of her or of him, ghosts in each other’s worlds. He clenched his eyes tight and felt for the spark of power within him. This was a dream, or perhaps a vision such as those in which Nergüi purported to see the future, brought on by blood loss and pain.
    ‘I bested Gorgoth the Gargantuan in mortal combat that lasted eight days and nights. I broke the numberless hordes of Hobgobla Khan and brought to heel the beasts of the Shirokij. I am the Lastborn of Khagash-Fél. I do not fail.’
    ‘The Dark Master cares not for your sacrifice. He is not appeased with oaths or with deeds. He does not desire your devotion.’
    The woman nodded imperceptibly to one side.
    A ghostly figure ran through the trees there. The dwarf! Khamgiin could see his bright orange crest through the moist bark. The tattoos that covered his monstrously muscular frame were a translucent blue, at times indistinguishable from the whorls and branches behind him. In silence the spectre of the dwarf ran, battling his way through enemies that Khamgiin could not see. The dwarf ran behind a tree, and for the brief duration of his passage it ceased to be a tree and was a pillar, square-sided and mighty, soaring towards a vaulted ceiling where fiery golden runes glimmered like bleeding stars. Something about them reminded Khamgiin of the histories his father had told, of when the tribes had lived under the yoke of the Chaos dwarfs of Zharr. Before he could think on it further, the pillar was a tree again and the dwarf emerged from behind it with a man in tow. It was an Empire man in a red cloak, wielding what appeared to be a powerful magical sword. Khamgiin did not recognise him, but a tingling in his wounded spine told him that he should.
    ‘What am I seeing?’
    ‘What I see,’ the woman replied.
    A chill entering his bones, Khamgiin pushed himself up onto his elbows. ‘I have seen you in my dreams before. It was you who showed me the tribes riding westward to make war on the Empire. Who are you?’
    The woman bowed her head slightly, bringing up her hands in the same motion to draw back her hood. Despite his own godly favour, Khamgiin gasped. Her skin was a strange mix of light and dark, like rubbed chalk. Her lips however were jet black, as were the small horns that rose through her frost-white hair. The most unnerving thing about her, however, was her eyes. Their colouration constantly shifted and changed, like a candle behind stained glass, and Khamgiin felt certain that there were prophecies reflected there that could raise a man to the heights of the gods if he could