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1“And so, for the first time since that long ago night when I made my vow to the Slayer. I returned to the city of my birth, to find neither the welcome I had hoped for. nor that which I had feared, but a reality more strange and terrible than either. 
2“Our failure to reach Middenheim in time to take part in its defence precipitated the Slayer into the most prolonged despondency of our acquaintance. Indeed. I feared for a time that he might never recover from it. But then a chance meeting with an old ally drew us into one of the maddest, most desperate adventures we ever shared, and the Slayer’s spirits revived, though it seemed on many occasions during those days that we might pay for his recovery with our lives.” 
3—From My Travels With Gotrek, Vol VII, by Herr Felix Jaeger (Altdorf Press, 2528)  
4  
5ONE 
6  
7  
8Felix Jaeger looked at himself in the gilt-framed mirror in the grand entry hall of his father’s Altdorf mansion as he smoothed his new grey doublet and fixed the collar of his shirt for the tenth time. The deep gash in his forehead that he had received when the Spirit of Grungni exploded was now just a curving pink scar above his left eyebrow. The other smaller cuts and scrapes were gone entirely. The physicians who were caring for him were astonished. Less than two months had passed since the crash, and he was fully recovered. The sprains in both ankles from hitting the ground while wearing Makaisson’s “reliable” no longer hurt. The headaches and the double vision had cleared up. Even the multitude of burns had left no marks, and the cultist’s sword cut that had opened him to the ribs under his left arm was no more than a fading line. 
9He sighed. It was of course a very good thing to be fit and healthy again, but it also meant he’d had no more excuses not to visit his father. 
10There was a discreet cough from behind him. He turned. His father’s butler stood on the marble stair that led to the upper floors. 
11“He’ll see you now.” 
12Right, thought Felix, this is it. Can’t be worse than facing down a daemon, can it? He swallowed, then started up the stairs after the butler. 
13  
14Gustav Jaeger was a shrivelled manikin drowning in a sea of white bedclothes. His withered hands lay still and pink on the top of an eiderdown quilt. A gaudy gold ring, set with sapphires surrounding the letter “J” picked out in rubies, hung loose on one shrunken finger. His face sagged from his bones like wet laundry on a line. He looked like he was already dead. Felix barely recognised him as the man he still thought of as towering over him. Only his eyes were as he remembered — alive and angry, and capable of turning Felix’s insides to water with a single steel-blue glance. 
15“Forty-two years,” came a voice like steam. “Forty-two years and nothing to show for it. 
16Pathetic.” 
17“I’ve travelled the world, Father,” said Felix. “I’ve written books. I…” 
18“I’ve read ’em,” snapped his father. “Or tried to. Rubbish. The lot of them. Didn’t make a crown, I’ll warrant.” 
19“Actually, Otto says…” 
20“Have you any savings? Any property? A wife? Children?” 
21“Uh…” 
22“I thought not. Thank the gods Otto’s pupped. There’d be no one left to carry on the Jaeger name if I’d left it to you.” Gustav lifted his feeble head from the pillow and fixed Felix with an acid glare. “I suppose you’ve come back to beg for your inheritance.” 
23Felix was offended. He hadn’t come for money. He had come to make peace. “No, Father. I…” 
24“Well, you will beg in vain,” the old man sneered. “Wasting all the advantages I offered you — the education, the position in the family business, the money I earned by the sweat of my brow, all to become a poet.” He spat the word out like another man might say “orc” or “mutant”. “Tell me when a poet has ever done anything useful in the world!” 
25“Well, the great Detlef…” 
26“Don’t tell me, you idiot! You think I want to hear your milk-sop prattle?” 
27“Father, don’t excite yourself,” said Felix, alarmed as he saw Gustav’s pink face turning a blotchy red. “You’re not well. Shall I fetch your nurse?” 
28His father sank back onto his pillow, his breath coming in whistling wheezes. “Keep that… fat poisoner… away from me.” He turned his head and looked at Felix again. His eyes looked clouded now — troubled. One of his claws beckoned Felix closer. “Come here.” 
29Felix shifted forwards on his chair, heart thudding. “Yes, Father?” Perhaps his father was finally going to soften. Perhaps they would heal the old wounds at last. Perhaps he was going to tell him that in his heart of hearts he had actually always loved him. 
30“There is… one way you may regain my favour and… your inheritance.” 
31“But, I don’t want an inheritance. I only want your—” 
32“Don’t interrupt, damn you! Did they teach you nothing at university?” “Sorry, Father.” 
33Gustav lay back and looked up at the ceiling. He was silent and still for so long that Felix began to be afraid he had died then and there — and with his words of reconciliation unspoken and Felix to blame for interrupting. 
34“I…” said Gustav, his voice almost inaudible. 
35Felix leaned forwards eagerly. “Yes, father?” 
36“I am in danger of losing Jaeger and Sons… to a villainous pirate by the name of Hans Euler.” 
37Felix blinked. Those were not the words he expected. “Losing…? Who is this man? How did this happen?” 
38“His father Ulfgang was an old associate of mine, an honourable man of Marienburg who dealt in… er, tariff-free merchandise.” 
39“A smuggler.” 
40“Call him what you will — he always dealt fairly with me.” Gustav’s face darkened. “His son, however, is another matter. Ulfgang died last year, and Hans, the black-hearted little extortionist, has come into possession of a private letter I wrote to his father thirty years ago which he claims proves I imported contraband into the Empire and avoided Imperial tariffs. He says he will show the letter to the Emperor and the board of the Altdorf Merchants’ Guild if I do not give him a controlling interest in Jaeger and Sons before the end of next month.” 
41Felix frowned. “Did you import contraband and avoid Imperial tariffs?” 
42“Eh? Of course I did. Everybody does. How do you think I paid for your wasted education, boy?” 
43“Ah.” Felix was quietly shocked. He had always known that his father was a ruthless man of business, but he hadn’t realised he had actually broken the law. “And what will happen if this Euler brings the letter to the authorities?” 
44Gustav began to turn red again. “Are you a lawyer suddenly? Are you weighing the merits of my case? I’m your father, damn your eyes! It should be enough that I ask.” 
45“I was only…” 
46“The Guild will blackball me and the Imperial Fisc will seize my assets, is what will happen,” said Gustav. “That corrupt old bitch Hochsvoll will take away my charter and give it to one of her cronies. It will mean prison for me, and no inheritance for Otto, or for you. Is that enough to move your pity?” 
47Felix flushed. “I didn’t mean…” 
48“Euler awaits my answer at his house in Marienburg,” continued the old man, lying back again. “I want you to go there and recover the letter from him, by any means that you see fit. Bring it to me and you shall have your inheritance. Otherwise you can die in poverty as you deserve.” 
49Felix frowned. He wasn’t sure what he had expected from this meeting, but this wasn’t it. “You want me to rob him?” 
50“I don’t want to know how you do it! Just do it!” 
51“But…” 
52“What is the difficulty?” rasped Gustav. “I read your books. You go about the world, killing all and sundry and taking their treasure. Will you baulk to do the same for your father?” 
53Felix hesitated to answer. Why should he do this? He didn’t want his inheritance, he didn’t care enough for his brother Otto to be concerned that he wouldn’t get his, and he doubted that his father would live long enough to serve any time in prison. He certainly didn’t feel he owed the old man anything. Gustav had cast him out without a pfennig twenty years ago and hadn’t asked after him since, and he had been a harsh, uncaring father before that. There had been numerous times over the years when Felix had hoped that the old man would choke on his morning porridge and die, and yet… 
54And yet, hadn’t Felix come here to put an end to the old anger? Hadn’t he wanted to tell his father that he at last understood that, in his way, he had tried? Gustav might have scolded his sons unmercifully, and held them to impossibly high standards, but he had also given them a childhood free from want, paid for the best schools and tutors, spent untold amounts of money trying to buy them titles, and offered them positions in his thriving business. He might not have been able to express himself except with curses and slaps and insults, but he had wanted his sons to have good lives — and Felix had come to thank him for that, and to put the past behind them. How, then, could he refuse what might well be his father’s last request? 
55He couldn’t. 
56Felix sighed and lowered his head. “Very well, Father. I will get the letter back.” 
57  
58So anxious had Felix been before meeting his father that he had looked neither left nor right on the way to his house, but now, as he walked back towards the Griffon, clutching his cloak about him in the chill of a late autumn morning, his eyes roamed hither and thither and the crowded Altdorf streets became streets of memory. 
59There on the right, with the green wall of the Jade College looming behind them, were the apartments of Herr Klampfert, the tutor who had taught him his alphabet and his history and who had smelled strongly of rose-water. There was the house of Mara Gosthoff who, at the tender age of fourteen, had let him kiss her at a Sonnstill Day dance. Off to the west, as he turned and pushed south down the bustling Austauschstrasse, he could just see the towers of the University of Altdorf, where he had studied literature and poetry and had fallen in with the young rabble-rousers who had preached abolishment of the ruling classes and equality for all. 
60The further he walked, the faster the memories came, rushing towards the moment when his life had changed forever and there had been no going back. Just down that street was the courtyard where he had fought his duel with Krassner and killed him when he had only meant to wound. Now he was entering the Konigsplatz, where he and his fellow agitators had lit their bonfires and led the crowds in their grand protest against the injustice of the Window Tax. There was the statue of Emperor Wilhelm that Gotrek had dragged him behind when the Reiksguard cavalry had charged the protesters, slashing indiscriminately with their swords. Those were the cobbles on which half a dozen lancers had died by Gotrek’s axe, their blood soaking into the filth and black ash of the bonfires. And here, just before the Reiksbruck bridge, was the tiny alley that led to the tavern where he and Gotrek had got blind drunk together, and where, in the wee hours of the morning, Felix had pledged to follow the Slayer and record in an epic poem his great quest to die in battle. 
61He stopped in the mouth of the alley, staring into its shadowed depths as a stew of conflicting emotions bubbled up inside him. Part of him wished he could walk down it and back into time to tap his younger self on the shoulder and tell him not to make the pledge. Another part of him imagined the life he would have had had he not made it — a life of marriage and property, and responsibility — and thought he should stay right where he was. 
62He shook himself and continued on. It was very strange to be back in Altdorf. It was full of ghosts. 
63  
64* * * 
65  
66Felix paused and looked up as he reached the low-lintelled door of the Griffon, a faint scrabbling sound drawing his attention towards the roof, four storeys above. He saw nothing but closed shutters and birds’ nests. Pigeons fighting under the eaves, no doubt. He went in. 
67A few late risers still lingered over their breakfasts in the inn’s warm, flagstoned taproom. He nodded to Irmele, who was clearing away plates and cups, and saluted Rudgar, the landlord, who was rolling a fresh keg of Mootland ale into place behind the bar. 
68“Has he come down?” Felix asked. 
69Rudgar nodded towards the back of the room. “He never went up. Kept Janse up all night, filling and refilling his stein. He was there when you left this morning. You didn’t see him?” 
70Felix shook his head. He had been too preoccupied with his visit to his father to notice anything on his way out. Now he peered into the shadows at the far end of the taproom. Half hidden in a nook behind the inn’s enormous fireplace was Gotrek, slumped unmoving in a low chair, his bearded chin on his chest and a stein of ale held loose in one massive hand. Felix shook his head. The Slayer looked terrible. 
71It wasn’t Gotrek’s wounds that gave Felix pause. For the most part they were gone — healing as they always did — cleanly and completely. Except for the bulky cast on his right arm, he was good as new. What concerned Felix was that the Slayer had stopped taking care of himself. The roots of his crest showed an inch of brown where he hadn’t bothered to dye them. Patchy stubble furred his scalp, obscuring his faded blue tattoos, and his face looked bloated and slack. There was dried food in his beard and the once-white plaster of the cast was grimed with filth and stained with beer. His single eye stared half closed at the wall in front of him. Felix couldn’t tell if he was awake or asleep. He grimaced. This was becoming an all too common occurrence. 
72“Has he paid you?” 
73“Oh aye,” said Rudgar. “Gave us one of his gold bracelets. He’s paid up ’til Sigmar comes back.” 
74Felix frowned. That was bad. Gotrek had no vault to carry the treasure he had amassed during their adventures, so he wore it on his wrists. The golden bracelets and bands that circled his powerful forearms were as precious to him as the hoard of any dwarf king. He parted with them only in the direst emergencies. Felix had known him to go hungry for weeks rather than use one to buy food. Now he had paid his drinks bill with one. 
75The Slayer would never have done that in the past. But these days the Slayer was as morose as Felix had ever seen him, and had been since they had come to Altdorf after the destruction of the Spirit of Grungni—since they had missed the siege of Middenheim. 
76  
77It had been the strangest waking in a life of strange wakings, that day when Felix had opened his eyes after falling from the sky. At first he could see nothing but white, and he wondered if he was lying in a cloud, or had died and gone to some strange world of mist. Then a trio of Malakai’s students had pulled the silk canopy of Malakai’s “air catcher” off him and crowded above him, their heads silhouetted against a crimson sunset sky as they checked him for broken bones. 
78Things remained strange when they sat him up, for he found that he was in the middle of some farmer’s field with the massive shapes of the corrupted cannons that Magus Lichtmann had hoped to bring to Middenheim jutting up at odd angles from the furrows all around him, like the iron menhirs of some long-forgotten cult. In an adjacent field, the smoking remains of the gondola of the Spirit of Grungni lay half-buried, a shattered metal leviathan seemingly about to dive beneath a sea of earth. 
79Then, to his left, the strangest sight of all — Gotrek, high up in a tree, dangling from the silk cords of his air catcher as more of Malakai’s students climbed the branches to cut him down. 
80Malakai himself was by a split-rail fence, trying to convince a group of pitchfork-wielding farmers that he and his companions weren’t daemons or northmen or orcs, and not having much luck. 
81When all had been sorted out, the crew of the Grungni discovered that they had crashed in the heart of the Reik-land, not far north of Altdorf. With no fit cannons or supplies to bring to the front, there was no more reason for them to continue on to Middenheim, and something had to be done with the tainted guns. The evil things couldn’t be left where they were. Their influence would corrupt the land and the people for miles around. Malakai decided he must take them back to Nuln in order to find a way to dispose of them safely. He hired carts to take them back, and another to take Gotrek and Felix to Altdorf, as their wounds were too severe for them to make the long journey all the way back to Nuln. 
82Though Gotrek protested mightily that he would go on to Middenheim broken arm or no, in the end, even he admitted that he wouldn’t be much use in a fight with a bone sticking out through his skin. So, two of Malakai’s students escorted him and Felix to the capital and used Gunnery School funds to pay for their lodgings and for the care of proper physicians. Malakai had said it was the least the school could do for them after they had stopped the cursed cannons from reaching Middenheim and possibly bringing about the downfall of the Empire. “And it would ha’ been the school’s fault, an’ mine, had it happened,” the engineer had said morosely, “Fer nae seeing that the puir wee things had been cursed in the first place. I’d ha’ shaved my heid all over again.” 
83And so, for the last two months, Gotrek and Felix had stewed in Altdorf, waiting for their wounds to heal, with nothing to do but sit in the taproom of the Griffon. The enforced inaction wouldn’t have been so bad except that, ten days after they arrived, news had come from the north that Archaon had retreated from Middenheim and the siege was lifted. 
84The war was over. 
85Gotrek hadn’t stopped drinking since. 
86Felix couldn’t blame him, really. From the moment they had arrived in Barak Varr that spring and learned of the invasion, the Slayer had had his heart set on facing a daemon on the field of battle, and once again his doom had been denied him. It had put him in a mood so bleak that Felix was concerned he might die from it. 
87Felix had seen Gotrek in the depths of despair before, but never like this. Always before, no matter how low he sank, anger or insult could rouse him. Now the jibes of peevish drunks and the threats of swaggering bullies didn’t even raise his head. He just continued to stare straight ahead, as if there was nothing in the world except him and his ale stein. 
88It made Felix heartsick to see it. One couldn’t say of a Slayer that he had lost his will to live, since his whole life was a search for death, but it was a sad thing indeed to see a Slayer who had lost his will to seek a good doom. 
89  
90Felix sat down across from Gotrek in the alcove behind the fireplace. The Slayer didn’t seem to notice. 
91“Gotrek.” 
92Gotrek continued staring into the middle distance. 
93“Gotrek, are you awake?” 
94Gotrek didn’t turn his head. “What is it, manling?” he said at last. “You’re interrupting my drinking.” His voice sounded like someone grinding stones against each other in a tomb. 
95“I… I want to go to Marienburg.” 
96Gotrek contemplated this news for a long moment before answering. “Taverns there are the same as here. Why bother?” 
97“I have something to do for my father there. You’re welcome to stay here if you like, though a change of scenery might be refreshing. It should only take three weeks or so.” 
98Gotrek gave this some more thought, then at last shrugged his massive shoulders. “One place is as good as another.” He raised his stein for another drink. 
99Felix was just trying to work out if that was a yes or a no, when something flashed past his nose and shattered Gotrek’s stein, spilling beer all over the Slayer’s beard and lap. 
100Gotrek looked up slowly as Felix turned in the direction from which the dart had come. Something long and narrow poked through a missing pane in a mullioned window. A dart flashed from it. Felix flung himself aside. Gotrek lifted his arm, and the dart stuck in the plaster of his cast. He glared with cold, one-eyed fury at the window as he reached down for his axe, which was propped against his chair. 
101“That was a waste of beer,” he said.  
102  
103TWO 
104  
105  
106Gotrek and Felix ran out of the Griffon and thumped down the shadowed alley beside it, their weapons out. Gotrek swayed and stumbled as he ran, but considering he had been stone drunk for a solid month, his progress was remarkable. 
107Halfway around to the stable yard from which the dart had come, a flicker of movement above them caught Felix’s eye. He looked up, still running. Something indistinct dropped past his eyes and hit his collarbone. He looked down. A slim grey rope lay across his chest. He reached for it. 
108It snapped tight, biting deep into his neck, and he jerked to a stop like a dog at the end of its chain, losing his sword and almost losing his footing. The cord pulled higher, forcing him onto tiptoes as he gagged and clawed at it. A slurred curse came from beside him, and he saw the Slayer staggering in a drunken circle with his cast raised over his head like he was waving it, a rope noose tight around his wrist, tugging it upwards violently. 
109“Cowards!” shouted Gotrek. “Come down and fight!” 
110The Slayer aimed his axe at the rope, but before he could swing, a cobblestone hit him in the face. He snarled and turned, blood dripping from his forehead. Felix swung around, his vision darkening as he fought for air. Out of the shadows rushed a crowd of crouching men holding cudgels, nets and sacks. Gotrek lashed out at them with his axe, but a jerk on the rope that held his cast ruined his aim, and the men surged all around him, throwing ropes and nets at him. 
111A cudgel struck Felix a glancing blow on the back of the head as he scrabbled at his belt for his dagger. Another hit his shoulder. He kicked at his attackers but overbalanced and fell to one side, the rope around his neck taking all his weight. The pain and lack of air made black spots dance before his eyes. Fists and sticks pummelled him from all sides. The men’s eyes were wild and wide, their lips black and wet with drool. There seemed to be scores of them. 
112Three men with an open sack were calling to some others. “Lift him up! Hurry!” 
113Felix heard heavy thuds and cracks, and men flew back from Gotrek, bloody and maimed, but more closed around him, beating him and wrapping him up like a cocoon. His axe was pinned to his side. 
114“Loose me, you damned silkworms!” the Slayer roared, then threw both feet up and dropped right on his rump in the alley filth, knocking his tormentors back and pulling sharply on the rope holding his cast. There was a squeal from above and a black shape plummeted from the Griffon’s top storey to land with a thud on a lower roof on the opposite side of the alley. The rope went slack. 
115The crowd of men dosed in on Gotrek again as their companions lifted Felix towards the mouth of the sack, but the Slayer had a hand free now. The grimy cast flashed out, cracking men across the shins and knees. Gotrek surged up, struggling out of the entangling nets as they stumbled back. 
116They leapt at him again, trying to pin him before he got his axe free, but the razor-sharp rune blade tore through the last ropes and gutted the first man in. He fell back, his entrails spilling through his clutching hands, and crashed into the men lowering Felix into the sack. 
117The one holding Felix’s left arm stumbled aside, letting go as he fought for balance. Felix took the opportunity and snatched his dagger from his belt. His captors flinched back and cried out, but they weren’t his targets. Instead he swiped the blade over his head, severing the slim cord that choked him. The men dropped him as they took his full weight unexpectedly, and he slapped hard on the wet muck of the alley. 
118“I have him!” cried a man as he dived on Felix’s dagger hand, trying to hold it down. 
119But Felix’s other hand found his sword, half-submerged in alley sludge, and he hacked him with it. The man shrieked as the blade gashed his shoulder, and he rolled away, blood soaking his ragged clothes. The others swung their sticks and clubs at Felix, but he laid about him with Karaghul and they leapt back, bleeding from grievous wounds. 
120Felix staggered to his feet, his vision swimming and his balance gone. He waved the sword weakly in front of him as he dropped his dagger and clawed at the grey rope, which still bit deeply into his neck. It came free at last and he sucked in a beautiful, painful breath. 
121His vision cleared a little as blood pumped throbbingly back into his head. He looked around. Bloody corpses lay everywhere, some missing hands or arms. The remaining attackers were running for both ends of the alley. Gotrek was chasing the dozen or so heading for the inn yard, shouting at them to turn and fight. Felix stumbled after him, trying to make his legs obey his commands. They felt like they were made of custard. 
122Who were these men? And what did they want with them? It couldn’t possibly be just some random attack. Were they cultists of the Cleansing Flame looking for revenge? Were they thralls of the Lahmian vampiresses who had sworn vengeance on them? If so, why had they tried to capture them and not kill them? Felix shivered as he imagined what those three harpies would do to him if they had him helpless. A bloody death in a back alley would be infinitely preferable. 
123Felix skidded into the Griffon’s yard, a muddy dirt lot with the stables and privies on one side and an empty ale-cart on the other. Gotrek was just disappearing through the back gate into the alley behind, still trailing a length of rope from his cast. 
124Felix ran through the gate after him. Their mysterious attackers were fleeing around a corner ahead of him, into a narrower alley. 
125“Come back here, vermin!” roared Gotrek. 
126The men failed to obey. 
127“Do you know what this is about?” asked Felix as they charged into the alley after them. “Who are they?” 
128“The ones who spilled my beer,” rasped Gotrek. 
129They chased their attackers through a maze of alleys — night-dark though it was almost noon, because the buildings that rose above them were so tall. Felix was surprised to find that, despite his shortness of breath and Gotrek’s short legs, they kept up with the men easily. They appeared in terrible shape — weak and confused, staggering and wailing and colliding with each other as they ran. 
130Unfortunately they were not the only danger. As Felix and Gotrek turned a further corner, another dart parted the Slayer’s crest and glanced off the alley wall beside them. They looked up. A dark shape blurred from one roof to another and vanished behind a chimney. Visions of Ulrika dancing across the rooftops of Nuln echoed through Felix’s mind. Was it her? Another of the Lahmians? They were the only foes he could think of who could leap like that. 
131Gotrek and Felix burst out of the narrow alley into a crowded market. Felix remembered the place from his youth, the Huhnmarkt, a poultry market where his father’s cook had bought chickens and ducks for the larder. Their attackers were shoving through the press of shopping servants and shouting poultry-sellers, and leaving a trail of chaos in their wake. Cages of chickens and geese were overturned, and egg men and butchers were shaking fists and cleavers at them. Gotrek ploughed after the fleeing men, heedless — trampling fallen cages and shouldering more to the ground in his single-minded pursuit. Felix gritted his teeth and started after him, ears burning at the angry shouts that followed them. 
132“The watch!” shouted a woman. “Someone call the watch!” The cry echoed all around them. 
133Halfway across the square, the ragged men slowed, trapped between a wall of chicken cages and a cart that was unloading more. Before they could squeeze through, Gotrek was on them, burying his axe in the last one’s back and grabbing the next. Cornered, they turned to fight, lashing out with their crude weapons and throwing anything they could get their hands on. 
134Mostly this was chickens. Chickens in cages, chickens out of cages, dead chickens, live chickens and chickens that had been reduced to their component parts, all flew towards Gotrek and Felix in a squawking, flapping storm. Felix and the Slayer batted them aside with sword and axe and cast, smashing cages and butchering birds as they tried to close with their foes. Blood, feathers and splintering wood flew everywhere. 
135Felix ducked a cage of angry geese and impaled a man armed with a studded club, then hacked at another who had taken up a butcher’s cleaver and flailed wildly with it. This was the first time since the noose had settled around his neck that he had been able to get a clear look at his attackers, and he found that they were very strange men indeed. 
136To a man they were as ragged and degenerate as any beggar Felix had ever encountered, with matted hair and beards, grimy skin and greasy, tattered clothes — but what truly alarmed him were their faces. Their eyes glittered with an unnatural excitement, and they drooled constantly — ropey black strands of spit that stained their lips and gums and spattered their clothes. 
137Though weak and spindle-thin, they fought with a feverish excitement and a twitchy quickness that made their attacks hard to predict. Was it a drug that made them this way? Zealotry for some god? Were they enslaved to some evil master? Felix might have felt pity for their miserable state except for the fact that they had nearly strangled him and were even now trying to beat him senseless. He cut the man with the cleaver across the knuckles. Though the wound went to the bone the man barely seemed to feel it, and swung again. 
138Felix blocked then thrust, stabbing deep into the man’s shoulder. He screamed and fell aside. Felix looked to Gotrek. The Slayer was surrounded by bodies, and two more men were falling away from him, trailing streamers of blood from calamitous wounds. Three more madmen leapt at him from behind, wailing like the damned. Gotrek spun and split one from neck to nape, then caught a second by the belt and threw him over his shoulder into another. The men crashed through a butcher’s stall, bringing down the canvas roof and landing upon sacks of plucked feathers as the butcher and his apprentices dived away. An explosion of feathers filled the air. 
139Two more men charged through the whirling cloud at Felix. He chopped easily through their clubs with his rune sword, then just as easily cut through their muscle and bone on his backswing. They fell screaming before him. 
140He looked around, wary, but the fight was over. In the middle of a ruined poultry stand, Gotrek was rising from decapitating the last of the men. He wiped his bloody forehead with the back of his bloody hand. 
141“Interrupt my drinking, will you?” he growled at a corpse. 
142The Slayer was covered from head to toe in blood, sweat and feathers. They clung to the gore that clotted his axe. They stuck to his face and shoulders and were matted in his beard, crest and eyebrows. Felix looked down at his hands and realised he must look the same. They were furred with patchy clumps of white and brown feathers. He had feathers in his mouth and up his nose. 
143There were feathers stuck to his eyelashes. 
144“What’s all this then?” came a voice behind him. 
145Felix and Gotrek turned. Stepping through the settling feathers was a patrol of the city watch, a tall, stringy captain at their head, looking around at the wreckage like a disapproving headmaster. 
146“Sigmar’s blood!” he said, as he found the body of one of the strange men. “There’s been murder done! Who’s responsible for this?” 
147Everyone in the square pointed at Gotrek and Felix. 
148“It was them!” cried a big woman in an apron and rolled sleeves. “They chased them poor beggars in here and chopped ’em to pieces!” 
149“The villains smashed up my stand!” called a vendor. 
150“They killed my chickens!” complained another. 
151“All my eggs is broken!” wailed a third. 
152“Captain, I can explain,” said Felix, stepping forwards. 
153But the captain stepped back and signalled his men to go on guard. Suddenly Felix was facing a thicket of swords. 
154“You’ll stay where you are, murderer,” the captain said. He shook his head. “Nine, ten, eleven dead. By all the gods, what a massacre.” 
155“We were attacked,” said Felix. “We defended ourselves.” 
156The captain didn’t look as if he believed it. “You can make your defence to Commander Halstig at the watch house. Now surrender your weapons and put your wrists behind your backs.” Gotrek’s head lowered menacingly. “No man takes my axe.” “Gotrek…” said Felix. 
157The captain sneered. “Resistance will only make it harder on you, dwarf.” He motioned his troops forwards. “Take it from him.” 
158Gotrek dropped into a fighting stance as the swordsmen edged forwards. “Try and you die.” “Gotrek,” said Felix, desperate, “We can’t fight the watch. They’re not our enemies.” “If they try to take my axe they are,” the Slayer growled. 
159Felix stepped between Gotrek and the watchmen, holding up his hands. “Gentlemen, please. If you allow us to keep our weapons we will come peacefully, I promise you.” 
160“And what is the promise of a murderer worth?” asked the captain. “Surrender your weapons immediately.” 
161Felix backed away as the watchmen advanced. He looked over his shoulder. “Gotrek, please.” “Step aside, manling.” 
162A young watchman raised his sword at Felix, his eyes nervous. “Your sword. Now.” 
163Felix stepped back again. “I… I cannot.” 
164The watchmen took another step, closing ranks. 
165“Don’t be a fool…” said the young watchman, then gasped and clutched at his neck. A black dart sprouted from it, just above the collar of his breastplate. His eyes rolled up in his head and he dropped to the ground. 
166The other watchmen jumped back, shouting, unsure what had happened. Felix stepped back too, crouching and scanning the roofs around the square. Another dart flashed past him. Gotrek deflected it with his axe. It thudded against the canvas of the collapsed stall, its tip glistening, black and wet. 
167“What’s happening?” shouted the captain. 
168“There!” said Felix, pointing to the roof of an exchange on the far side of the square. 
169The watchmen followed his gaze just in time to see a dark shape scurrying over the peak of the roof. 
170“And there!” said another watchman, pointing to the left. 
171A dart caught him on the cheek and he collapsed on top of his comrade. Another shadowy form ducked back behind the lip of a townhouse roof. 
172“Down!” shouted the captain. 
173His men dived for cover. 
174“Come on, manling,” said Gotrek, starting through the smashed stalls in the direction of the townhouse. 
175Felix shot a look at the watchmen, then followed, keeping low. 
176“Stop!” cried the captain. “After them!” he called to his men. 
177They hesitated, wary eyes on the rooftops. 
178“Go!” the captain shouted. 
179The watchmen started after them, but slowly, keeping in cover. Gotrek turned and twisted through the maze of stalls, trailing feathers and leaving bloody footprints. His eye never left the roof of the townhouse. 
180“We’ll never catch them,” said Felix, falling in with him. 
181Gotrek said nothing, walking through a stall full of complaining chickens and out the back as the owner cowered behind a chopping block. They were on the edge of the square now. The townhouse was to their left. Behind them Felix heard a babble of voices, as the watchmen trailed reluctantly after them. 
182A silhouetted head popped up on the townhouse roof. Gotrek swung his axe in an arc before him and knocked another dart to the ground. 
183“Cowards,” he rumbled. 
184“He’s moving,” said Felix, pointing to where the silhouette had appeared briefly again at the top of the roof. 
185Gotrek ran into the alley between the townhouse and another building. The dark form blurred as it leapt from roof to roof further down the alley — an impossible jump — then disappeared over a gable. 
186Gotrek grunted and hurried on. 
187“Gotrek, it’s useless!” called Felix. “He’s too fast.” The Slayer ignored him. 
188  
189* * * 
190  
191Seven blocks later, Gotrek stopped and glared around at the roofs above him. Felix caught his breath, relieved. He was hot and sticky, and the feathers he was covered with itched horribly. 
192They had seen no sign of the dart shooter for four blocks, and he was just going to suggest to Gotrek that they give up, when the Slayer grunted, disgusted, then turned and started shuffling slowly down a side street. Felix stared after him. One moment he had been angry and determined and nearly his old self, the next his eye had gone dull and far-away again, like it had been for the last month. It was like someone had pulled his spine out. 
193“Gotrek? Where are we going?” asked Felix, trailing after him. “I need a drink.” 
194“At the Griffon? But, uh, the watch will ask around. They’ll find us there.” 
195“Let them.” 
196Felix hemmed uneasily. “Listen, Gotrek, I have no interest in fighting the watch. Nor do I wish to live the life of an outlaw again. Why don’t we go to another inn? Say in Marienburg.” Gotrek said nothing, only plodded on dully. 
197Just then, three watchmen ran out of an alley ahead of them. They saw Gotrek and Felix and skidded to a stop in surprise. 
198“Halt!” said the first, the oldest of the three, though no more than twenty at the most. The watch recruited young these days, with so many older men dead in the war. 
199The boys went on guard. Gotrek didn’t slow, only lowered his head and readied his axe. Felix groaned. This was just what they needed. 
200“Gotrek, they’re only doing their job,” he murmured. 
201“They’re in my way.” “Gotrek, please!” 
202“Hand over your weapons,” said the young watchman. His voice quavered, but he stood firm. 
203Still stumping forwards, Gotrek raised his head and looked the watchman in the face. Felix saw the boy’s eyes widen with fear. Felix didn’t blame him. He’d taken the full brunt of that piercing, one-eyed glare before. It had shrivelled his guts every time. 
204“Step aside,” the Slayer said calmly. “Tell your captain you didn’t find us.” The watchmen shot nervous glances at each other, hesitating. 
205Gotrek kept coming. He raised his axe, still crusted with blood and feathers and filth. Felix held his breath, not wanting to look. 
206The young men fled. 
207Felix let out a sigh of relief. 
208Gotrek grunted and walked on. “Marienburg,” he said, nodding. “One place is as good as another.” 
209  
210An hour later, after a wash at a bathhouse of less than sterling repute, Felix slipped through the back door of the Griffon while Rudgar and Irmele were busy serving dinner, changed into his old clothes and his old red Sudenland cloak, collected his and Gotrek’s few belongings, slipped back out again, and walked with the Slayer to the Reikside docks. He left a stack of coins on the dresser to pay for the room, and the bloodstained grey doublet as well, cursing the ruination of yet another set of good clothes. He decided that he would never again buy clothes of any quality for himself. He always managed to destroy them almost instantly. 
211At the docks he enquired about services to Marienburg and learned that the Jilfte Bateau, a Marienburg passenger boat, was leaving in two hours, so he and Gotrek settled into the Broken Anchor to wait. Though the Anchor was far from the Griffon and the Huhnmarkt, and there was little likelihood of the watch coming to look for them there, Felix still picked the table in the darkest corner of the room and looked up nervously every time someone walked through the door. 
212He spent the rest of the time looking to the diamond-paned windows, expecting drugged darts to come whistling from missing panes again at any moment. He still didn’t know who their strange attackers had been. His money was on the Lahmians, but he couldn’t rule out the Cleansing Flame either. Did they have any other enemies in the Empire? They had been away for so long, how could they? Whoever they were, would the men find them again? Would they follow them to Marienburg? From things Ulrika and the countess said, he had the impression that the Lahmians had agents everywhere. If it was them, he and Gotrek might never escape their reach. 
213Despite Felix’s worry, their wait at the Anchor passed without incident and they made their way through the twilit Altdorf streets to the bustling docks just as the Jilfte Bateau’s purser dropped the rope and waved the passengers aboard. 
214Gotrek grumbled and spat as he climbed the gangplank to the foredeck of the long low boat. “Slopping about on the water in a leaky wooden bucket,” he muttered. “Makes me sick. I’m going below.” 
215Felix smiled to himself. Every time they travelled by water Gotrek made the same complaints, but it never stopped him from boarding. 
216“You’ll feel better if you stay above,” he said. “Seeing the shore pass helps, I’m told.” “Man wisdom,” said Gotrek contemptuously, and stumped for the door to the staterooms. 
217Felix shook his head, bemused, then turned to the rail. He wasn’t going to share a cramped cabin with the Slayer when he was in such a foul mood. Better by far to watch his fellow passengers board the boat and enjoy the warmth of the late autumn sun. 
218The people making their way up the gangplank were a mixed lot: poor folk who had obviously paid their last coin for a berth in steerage, merchants in broadcloth on their way to trade in Bretonnia or Marienburg, their bullies carrying their baggage for them, a full company of Hochland handgunners under a bellowing captain, nobles and their retinues in silks and velvets being ushered aboard by fawning stewards, tanned and bearded sailors with packs on their backs, and fat merchant princes of Marienburg, dressed more gaudily than the nobles, returning home after signing trade agreements with wholesalers and distributors of the Empire. 
219It was all so normal and mundane that Felix felt an unaccustomed longing for a regular life. These people weren’t attacked by strange, drooling madmen in taverns. These people weren’t on a first-name basis with vampire countesses. These people didn’t know anybody who had vowed to die a glorious death in battle. They’d never fought a troll. They most likely had never even seen a troll. 
220Maybe his father was right. Maybe he should have followed the path the old man had set out for him. Things certainly would have been more comfortable. But also more boring. Not that boredom was the worst fate that could happen to a man. It was certainly preferable to finding oneself covered in blood and chicken feathers and being hunted by the watch. 
221A richly appointed coach rolled up the dock and stopped near the gangplank. Though it had no insignia, it was obvious that someone important was inside. The coach was flanked by eight Reiksguard knights in steel breastplates and blue and red uniforms, and the purser ran out to meet it, bringing a low step and setting it before the door while stewards hurried to take the luggage handed down to them by the coachmen. 
222Felix watched with interest as the coach door opened, wondering who would emerge. First to step out was an older man in long, cream-coloured robes, over which he wore a darker travelling cloak, the voluminous hood pulled up to hide his features. Felix marked him for a wizard, not just because of his clothes and the long amber-tipped staff that he carried, but also for the fear and awe that he inspired in the purser and the stewards who waited upon him. The purser seemed torn between showing him every courtesy and bolting like a scared rabbit. The stewards handled his luggage as if it might explode at any moment. 
223The wizard turned back to the coach and offered a hand to its other occupant. Felix raised his head for a better look, for the woman who stepped delicately down to the dock was striking to say the least. 
224She was dressed in silk robes of a deep, rich blue, like a summer sky just after sunset, embroidered all over with sigils of the stars, planets and moons — a seeress of the Celestial College then — but no wizened crone, weighed down with the burden of foreknowledge that came from years of divination. This woman was young, hardly more than twenty by Felix’s estimate, and as slim and graceful as a cat. Long straight hair the colour of honey fell down her back almost to her waist, and she carried her fine-featured head high, looking about her with alert interest, her lips quirked into a permanent half-smile, as if she knew a secret no one else did, which, considering her college, she undoubtedly did. 
225The older wizard walked her to the boat, his head bent to talk to her as they went, while the purser bowed and scraped before them and their Reiksguard escort marched on either side of them. 
226Felix’s fellow passengers whispered and muttered amongst themselves as the pair started up the gangplank. 
227“Sigmar preserve us, they’re not travelling with us?” asked an Altdorf matron. 
228“Oh, they’re all right,” said her husband. “They’re from the colleges. Reikers wouldn’t be travelling with ’em if they weren’t.” 
229“Still warlocks all the same,” said another man. “Can’t trust ’em.” 
230“And even if they’re good ’uns, what’re they doing here? Nothing good happens around a wizard,” said a third man. 
231“Aye,” said the matron. “I’m not travelling with ’em. Heinrich, talk to the purser.” 
232“But, Heike, my love. There isn’t another boat for two days. And we must get to Carroburg by Aubentag.” 
233And on and on. Felix didn’t blame them. Even the best of wizards made him nervous. Like any weapon in the Empire’s arsenal they could be as dangerous to friend as to foe if something went wrong — powder could explode, cannons could crack, a sword could be turned against its owner, and wizards could go mad or bad, as he knew from recent personal experience. 
234He turned with the other passengers as the sorcerous pair reached the top of the gangplank and allowed themselves to be led towards the door to the staterooms. Felix gave the young seeress another look now that she was nearer. She was as beautiful close up as she had been far away, with high cheekbones, full lips and bright eyes that matched the deep blue of her robe. 
235She smiled at him as they passed, and the older wizard looked up to see who she was looking at. 
236Felix blinked in recognition as they made eye contact. There was a beard now where there once had been none, and grey hair where there had once been brown, but the eyes that looked at him from the lean, lined face were the same, as was the sad, slow smile that broke through the man’s solemn expression. 
237“Felix Jaeger,” said Maximilian Schreiber. “You haven’t aged a day.”  
238  
239THREE 
240  
241  
242In a chamber far beneath the deepest cellars of Altdorf, Grey Seer Thanquol hand-fed his personal rat ogre Boneripper, the thirteenth of that name. It was important with such beasts to make sure that their food — and their punishment — came only from their master. In that way was meek devotion and savage loyalty won. In that way were they his and his alone. 
243With some effort he lifted a fat man-leg from the basket of scraps his servants had brought and tossed into the corner where the massive rat ogre crouched, devouring another choice niblet. This incarnation of Boneripper was particularly impressive, for it was milk-white from its thick-clawed feet to its misshapen, blunt-horned head, and had the viscera-pink eyes of an albino. Thanquol had picked him from the litter Clan Moulder had offered him, particularly for his colour, which matched his own. 
244He looked up from watching Boneripper suck the marrow from a femur as his simpering, tailless servant, Issfet Loptail, pulled back the manskin door curtain and bowed in a lean skaven in the black garb and mask of a night runner. The skaven, an accomplished assassin known only as Shadowfang, who Thanquol had hired from Clan Eshin at great expense, knelt before him, head down, tail flat and meek. He only flinched a little as he heard Boneripper crack the leg bone with his teeth. 
245“I return, oh sage of the underdark,” whispered the assassin. 
246“Yes-yes,” said the seer impatiently. Wasn’t it obvious he had returned? “Speak-speak! Do you have them? Are they mine at last?” 
247Shadowfang hesitated. “I… I crave your pardon, grey seer. The kidnap did not go as planned.” 
248Thanquol slammed his bony claw on the table, almost upsetting his inkpot. Boneripper rumbled ominously. “You promised me success! You promised you had anticipated every contingency!” “I thought I had, your supremacy,” said the assassin. 
249“You thought? You thought incorrectly then, yes? What happened? Tell me, quick-quick!” Thanquol’s tail lashed with impatience. 
250“Yes-yes, grey seer. I begin,” said Shadowfang, touching his snout to the floor and casting a nervous glance at the rat ogre. “The crested one blocked Mao Shing’s sleep darts — he has been punished for his incompetence, I assure you — then, as I foresaw, the crested one and the yellow fur ran, fast-fast, out of the drinking place to fight. There they fell into my second trap, and success was nearly ours.” 
251“Nearly?” asked Thanquol, sneering. 
252The assassin’s tail quivered at his devastating disdain. “The fault is not mine, most benevolent of seers!” he shrilled. “Had I been able to employ brave, proud gutter runners instead of sickly manslaves, the targets would be even now in your noble claws. But outside in the day-sun in the overburrow, skaven might have been discovered, so man-slaves must suffice.” “But suffice they did not,” snarled Thanquol. 
253“No, grey seer,” said Shadowfang, swallowing nervously. “They failed. The dwarf and the human kill-maimed them all, then escaped.” 
254“Escaped?” said Thanquol. “Where-where?” 
255“I… I know not.” 
256“You know not?” Thanquol’s voice was quickly rising to an imperious squeak. Boneripper sensed his distress and lowed unhappily. “You know not? You, who I was told could sniff-sniff the trail of a crow through a swamp seven days after it had flown past? You know not?” 
257“Mercy-mercy, your eminence,” whined Shadowfang. “I… I made a strategic withdrawal after the man-slaves died, and when I returned to the drinking place, they had vanished.” 
258“A strategic withdrawal,” said Thanquol dryly. “You skitter-ran. You squirted the musk of fear.” 
259“No-no, your magnificence,” insisted Shadowfang. “I merely redeployed to a rearwards position.” 
260Thanquol closed his eyes, so that he would not have to see the miserable excuse for an assassin that knelt before him. He was tempted to blast the worthless incompetent with a bolt of sorcerous fire, or feed him to Boneripper, but then he recalled how many long-hoarded warp tokens he had spent procuring the fool’s services, and resisted the urge. He would get his money’s worth out of him, and then he would let the rat ogre eat him. 
261“If I might speak, your fearsomeness,” said Shadowfang. 
262Thanquol sighed and opened his eyes. “Oh yes, pray speak, enlightened one. Speak-speak. Let your wisdom shine upon us.” 
263Behind his mask, the assassin’s red eyes blinked, confused. He was apparently a stranger to sarcasm. “Er, had you allowed me to kill-maim the overdwellers instead of snare-catching them, even lowly man-slaves might have succeeded…” 
264“No-no!” shrieked Thanquol, causing Boneripper to bellow and Shadowfang and Issfet to curl their tails around them in fear. “No! It must be I that take-takes their lives. It must be I that wreaks my vengeance upon their helpless bodies for all the pain-shame they have caused me. Only I can have that joy. Only I! You hear?” 
265He scrabbled among his papers until he found a stoppered bottle, then uncorked it and stuffed it up one cankered nostril. He inhaled deeply, shivering to the tip of his tail as the powdered warpstone began to spread throughout his system. Issfet and Shadowfang took a further step back as the seer’s eyes glowed a malefic green. 
266“They will die,” Thanquol said, after he had at last controlled his trembling. “Yes-yes, but only at my whim, and long after they have beg-cried to be free of life.” His glowing eyes snapped back to the assassin. “Find them! Find them! And this time you must not fail to take them!” 
267“Yes, grey seer,” said Shadowfang, touching his snout again to the floor. “At once, grey seer. I go, grey seer.” 
268“Master,” said Issfet, wobbling unsteadily on his hind paws. “A man-spy tells me that the crested one and the yellow fur have left the drinking burrow, taking their hoardings with them. It may be that they journey again.” 
269“They have left?” said Thanquol, turning on him. “Why did you not tell me this before?” 
270“I only just learned of it, your malfeasance,” said Issfet. “I was coming to say when Master Shadowfang arrived.” 
271“But how will I find them?” whined Thanquol. “They might vanish again for another twenty years.” 
272“I will send my gutter runners to every corner of the over-burrow,” said Shadowfang. 
273“I will question my man-spies,” said Issfet. 
274“No,” said Thanquol, raising a yellowed claw. “I have it!” The powdered warpstone was once again clearing his head and allowing his genius to blossom. “The yellow fur spoke with its brood sire today, yes-yes?” 
275“Yes-yes, your excellence,” said Shadowfang. “It was from there I followed him.” 
276“Then to there you return,” said Thanquol, baring his teeth to admit a squeal of triumph. “To learn what the man-sire knows of its offspring.” 
277Max raised a glass of wine in one beringed hand. “To fond reunions,” he said, then took a drink. 
278Felix raised his glass and drank in turn. “To fond reunions.” Gotrek just drank. 
279They sat in Max’s handsome stateroom on board the Jilfte Bateau, only slightly larger, but several steps more luxurious, than Gotrek and Felix’s little cabin, with mahogany panelling on the walls and coloured glass in the windows. An iron stove against one wall radiated a pleasant warmth. If it weren’t for the motion of the boat upon the river, Felix would have thought himself in some tidy study. 
280“We all thought you dead, you know,” said Max. “When you failed to return from that strange portal in Sylvania we lost all hope.” 
281Felix nodded. “Malakai said the same thing.” 
282Max raised his greying eyebrows. “You’ve seen him?” 
283“We were on the Spirit of Grungni when it crashed,” said Felix. “You hadn’t heard about that?” 
284“I heard, yes,” said Max. “But your names weren’t mentioned.” 
285Max had aged well, Felix thought. He was still handsome, and the grey streaks in his neatly trimmed beard added to the air of grave dignity he had always projected. His hair was mostly grey now and flowed down past his shoulders in a kingly mane. 
286“I have only recently returned from Middenheim,” he said. “There was much to be done after the final battle. Much cleansing.” 
287Gotrek gave an angry grunt at the mention of Middenheim. 
288“How did the Grungni come to crash?” Max asked. 
289Felix paused. Where to begin? It was a story that could take an evening to tell. Before he could start, there was a knock on the door. 
290“Come,” called Max. 
291The door opened and in stepped the young seeress, dressed now in a much less ostentatious robe of dark blue wool with no embroidery. She inclined her head to Max. “Good evening, magister,” she said, smiling. “I hope I’m not intruding.” “Not at all,” said Max as he and Felix stood. 
292Gotrek didn’t look up. 
293“Let me make the introductions we were too rushed to make on deck,” said Max. “Felix, Gotrek, may I present Fraulein Claudia Pallenberger, a journeyman of the Celestial College, and a seeress of great perception.” 
294Felix bowed. Gotrek grunted. 
295“Fraulein Pallenberger,” continued Max. “May I introduce to you Felix Jaeger, poet, adventurer and swordsman of renown, and Gotrek Gurnisson, slayer of trolls, dragons and daemons, and the most dangerous companion with whom I have ever had the honour of travelling.” Gotrek snorted at that. 
296Claudia curtseyed and smiled at Felix and Gotrek. “I’m pleased to make your acquaintance, Herr Jaeger, and you Herr Gurnisson.” 
297“The pleasure is all mine,” said Felix, bowing again. “Are you travelling to Marienburg, fraulein?” 
298“To Marienburg and beyond,” said Claudia as she crossed to a chair next to the stove and sat down. She raised her chin and looked mysterious. “I’ve had premonitions.” 
299Max almost dropped the glass of wine he was pouring for her. “This is a secret mission, fraulein,” he murmured. 
300Claudia blushed and her mysterious look collapsed. She suddenly looked closer to seventeen than twenty. “I’m sorry, magister. I didn’t think. I…” 
301Max smiled and handed Claudia her wine. “Don’t worry, we’re among friends. But please try to be more cautious in the future.” She nodded her head, sheepish. 
302Max turned to Felix and Gotrek. “You’ll not speak of this.” 
303“Of course not,” said Felix. 
304Gotrek shook his head and drank again. 
305“Thank you,” said Max. “Then you may tell the rest of it, seeress.” 
306Claudia nodded again, then looked solemnly at Felix. “I have seen Altdorf destroyed in fire and flood. I have seen Marienburg swept from the face of the earth by a towering wave. I have seen death and ruin on an unimaginable scale, and the coming of a great dark age.” “Ah,” said Felix. “I see.” There didn’t seem to be anything else to say. 
307“And I am drawn to the north by the feeling that the prevention of these events may be found there.” 
308“Fraulein Pallenberger’s visions have been confirmed as true divinations by the magisters of her college,” said Max. “They have also determined that she is particularly attuned to these strands of possibility and have sent her to follow them to their source. I accompany her as mentor and, ah, protector.” 
309Felix frowned, confused. “You are with the Celestial College, Max? I always thought…” 
310Max smiled and took another drink. “No, I am of the Order of Light. But it was felt that, er, that a man who had seen something of the world…” 
311“The magisters of my college,” interrupted Claudia, her eyes flaring, “are a lot of dusty old greybeards who never leave their rooms. Their eyes are always at their telescopes and their minds are always in the clouds. They hid behind their doors like old biddies when I asked who would accompany me.” 
312Max coughed to hide a laugh. “I was chosen because, in my youthful wanderings before I found employment with the Graf of Middenheim, I had spent some time in Marienburg and came to know some of the leaders of the magical fraternity there, such as they are.” 
313“And because you have actually cast a spell in battle,” added Claudia hotly. 
314Max nodded. “That too. Although I hope that this will be nothing more than a reconnaissance mission and that there will be no reason for violence.” 
315Felix frowned at Max. “Forgive me, Max, but I’m confused now. When Makaisson said that you were at the colleges I didn’t think anything of it, but weren’t you…? That is, how did it come about? I seem to remember you telling me that you had, ah, broken with them. Wasn’t that the cause of your ‘youthful wanderings’?” 
316Max smiled wistfully. “There comes a time in a man’s life—” He shot a sharp glance at Felix here. “At least in some men’s lives — when he puts wandering behind him, and wants some security” He had another sip of wine. “I was honoured by the Tsarina for my help in the defence of Praag that year. This won me the grudging acceptance of the colleges, and a few years later, after some hemming and hawing, they offered me a teaching position, and a chance to continue my studies — within reason.” He cast a look at Gotrek, who continued to stare dully into his mug. “Adventuring wasn’t the same after you two vanished anyway, so I took the job. Been there ever since.” 
317Claudia smiled over the rim of her glass. “Have you all shared adventures before, then? Is that how you know each other? Were you brave friends on some noble quest?” 
318Felix and Max exchanged an uncomfortable glance. They had certainly shared numerous adventures, but they had not always been the best of friends. 
319“Herr Jaeger, Herr Gurnisson and I travelled together into the Chaos Wastes once,” said Max. 
320“On an airship.” 
321“And we fought a dragon,” said Felix. “And the hordes of Chaos,” said Max. 
322“And defeated a… a vampire.” Felix stammered, wishing as soon as he said it that he hadn’t spoken. He remembered the outcome of that nightmarish episode and how Max had reacted to the news of Ulrika’s undeath. Should he tell Max he had seen her? Would Ulrika want him to know? 
323What would Max do if he knew? Would he seek her out? Would she fall in love with him again? The bitter bile of jealousy suddenly welled up in Felix’s heart as if the hurt had happened yesterday instead of nearly twenty years before. He fought it down, angry with himself for being ridiculous. What did he possibly have to be jealous about? Ulrika had said that love between the living and the unliving was impossible. She could no more betray him with Max than with anyone else, and yet still the wound burned. He cursed himself. Men truly were fools. 
324Max was looking at him curiously. 
325Felix flushed and turned back to Claudia, forcing a smile. “So, yes, we have had a few adventures together, I suppose, but all many, many years ago.” 
326Claudia’s full lips curved into a smile. “You don’t look old enough to have had adventures many, many years ago, Herr Jaeger.” 
327“Ah, well, I…” 
328“Yes,” said Max, eyeing Felix with a bemused frown. “Herr Jaeger is remarkably well preserved.” 
329“Mm, yes,” said Claudia, looking at Felix from under a curtain of golden tresses. “Remarkably.” 
330Felix started like he had been goosed. The girl found him attractive! That was no good at all. He shot a look at Max. The wizard was scowling. He had seen it too. Felix swallowed. This could all get very awkward. “I think perhaps it is time for us to retire,” he said, standing quickly. “You no doubt have many things to speak of regarding your mission. Ready, Gotrek?” 
331“There’s no need,” said the seeress. “Really.” 
332“No no,” Felix insisted, stepping to the door. “The Slayer and I have had an exhausting day, thank you all the same.” He nodded respectfully to Max. “Max, a pleasure to see you again.” Then he turned to Claudia. “Fraulein Pallenberger, an honour to make your acquaintance. I bid you both a very good night.” 
333Gotrek stood and downed the last of his beer in one long swallow, then put the mug down and stumped out after Felix. 
334“Thanks for the beer,” he said. 
335  
336The journey down the Reik from Altdorf to Marienburg took twelve days, according to the ship’s pilot, but by the end of the second day, Felix was convinced it was more like twelve years. It seemed as if it would never be over. 
337Gotrek, never the most effervescent of travelling companions, had become a monosyllabic lump that sat in the dark in their cabin and stared at the wall, never leaving except to find food and beer. Without the Slayer’s company, Felix had little to do but pace the decks and try to avoid the attentions of Fraulein Pallenberger, which proved no easy task. 
338She seemed to be everywhere: on the stairs coming down when he was coming up, stepping out of her cabin just as he was stepping out of his, walking on the fore-deck just when he wanted to stretch his legs, and sipping tea in the taproom just when he was in the mood for a drink. And always, somewhere in the background, like a hovering grey owl, was Max, glaring at Felix as if it were he who was instigating things. 
339Felix always excused himself as quickly and politely as possible, and Claudia never made any fuss, just exchanged pleasantries and moved on, but there was something in her smile, and in the gleam of her dancing eyes, that suggested that, like a cat who waits at a mouse hole, she knew that her patience would eventually win out over his reticence. 
340On the third evening, when Felix had scurried to the aft deck after seeing Claudia engrossed in a book on the foredeck, Max finally sought him out, joining him as he leaned on the stern rail and looked out at the trees and fields that glided by on either side of them. The wizard filled a long clay pipe with tobacco, lit it with a flame from his finger, then exhaled a long plume of smoke. 
341“You would do well to keep your roving eye to yourself, Felix,” he said at last. 
342Felix felt his hackles raise. The accusation was unfair. And even if it weren’t, who was Max to tell him what to do? “I have no intention of allowing my eye to rove,” he said sharply. “Nor any other part of my anatomy, for that matter.” 
343“I am glad to hear it,” said Max. Then he sighed. “I’m sorry, Felix. She is a bright girl, but very sheltered. She entered the college at eleven, and has seen nothing of the world except its cloisters since. Recently, according to her masters, this has begun to chafe.” 
344“That’s hardly surprising, is it?” said Felix. “An energetic, inquisitive girl, coming to maturity in a monastery of — what did she call them — dusty old greybeards? You can’t blame her for wanting to experience something of life while she’s young.” 
345“No, I can’t,” said Max sadly. “I certainly wanted to see the world when I was her age. Nevertheless, I have been charged by her college to keep her safe from any entanglements or embarrassments while she undertakes this journey, and if I fail… well there will be some unpleasant political repercussions.” He looked up at Felix with a rueful smile. “So, as a favour to your old travelling companion…?” He let the question hang. 
346Felix sighed and looked down the river winding away south and east behind them, as if he could see all the way back to Nuln. “Trust me, Max. I’ve no interest in her, nor any woman, at the moment. My heart is locked in an iron box and I’ve lost the key.” 
347Max raised his eyebrows. “It must be a terrible melancholy indeed to cause you to resort to metaphor.” He nodded and stood. “Well, no matter the cause, I appreciate your understanding and restraint. I will do my best to keep her occupied, but remember what you have said here if she escapes me.” 
348“I will,” said Felix. 
349Max tapped his pipe on the rail, knocking the ash into the river, then turned to go. Felix looked after him, hesitant, then spoke. 
350“Max.” 
351The wizard looked back. “Yes?” 
352“I’ve seen Ulrika.” 
353Max looked at him, his face growing still. He returned to the rail. “She still lives?” 
354Felix nodded. “If it can be called living.” 
355“Is she… is she well?” 
356“As well as can be expected, I suppose. She is still under the patronage of the Countess Gabriella. She is her bodyguard. In Nuln.” 
357Max twisted his pipe in his hands, his eyes far away. “I have often thought of seeking her out, but I never had the courage.” 
358“I wish I hadn’t found her,” said Felix, with unexpected bitterness. 
359“No?” asked Max, turning to look at him. “Is she so changed then?” 
360“Not nearly enough,” said Felix. He found he had a lump in his throat. He fought to swallow it. “Not nearly enough.” 
361“Ah,” said Max. “Ah, I see.” He pressed his lips together and stared hard over the rail into the swirling waters of the river. “Then I think that I shall not seek her out after all.” He turned away, then, after a step, turned back and looked at Felix. “Thank you for telling me.” 
362Felix shrugged. “I’m not sure it was a kindness.” 
363“Nor am I,” said Max. “But I am glad to know nonetheless. Good day, Felix.” Then he turned and walked towards the main deck. 
364  
365Claudia caught Felix at last on the afternoon of the fifth day. 
366Except for light fare in the taproom, the Jilfte Bateau did not serve meals. Instead, it had arrangements with inns at various towns along the Reik that would provide food and drink for its passengers. It stopped only twice a day, once in the morning and once in the afternoon, meaning that those who were inclined to be peckish at other times of day were advised to buy extra food for later. This afternoon, the riverboat had docked in the small town of Schilderheim, and the passengers had disembarked — all but Felix. 
367Finding himself more in need of solitude than sustenance, and seeing Max and Fraulein Pallenberger making their way down the gangplank, he had decided to remain on board, settling down in the empty taproom with a pint and the first volume of the My Travels With Gotrek books that his brother Otto had published during his absence. Felix had hesitated to read them these last two months, fearing that he would find that his journals had been clumsily fleshed out, or imperfectly edited, or worse, that his own youthful prose would not stand up to his scrutiny, but he could resist no longer, and at last opened the leather-bound, gilt-stamped cover and began. 
368He was not reassured by the title page, for there was an error even there. The publishing date was wrong — 2505. He hadn’t even sent the first journal to his brother then. Someone must have used the date he had written on the inside cover of his original journal as the publishing date. But even that wasn’t right, was it? It had been a few years before that. It was baffling. Out of curiosity, he pulled the other books out of his satchel and checked them. The publishing date in every one of them was the same! Whoever had typeset the books had been lazy in the extreme and left the title page untouched in each edition. Felix shook his head, then shrugged. What did he expect from a penny-pincher like Otto? He wouldn’t have gone to a first-rate printer, would he? 
369Just as he began the first chapter, and shivered as it recalled to his mind the horrors of that long past Geheimnisnacht, a shadow fell across the page and he looked up. Fraulein Pallenberger was smiling down at him. Felix jumped in surprise. 
370“Herr Jaeger,” she said, curtseying and smiling at his unease. 
371Felix stood and bowed. “Fraulein Pallenberger, how unexpected to find you here. I thought I saw you leave for the inn.” 
372“Nothing is unexpected to one of the Celestial Order, Herr Jaeger,” she said, taking the seat next to his. “May I?” 
373“Certainly,” said Felix, cursing himself for not having the courage to refuse her. 
374He watched Claudia out of the corner of his eye as she signalled to the barman to bring her some tea. In truth, he wished he could find it within him to succumb to her charms, if only to annoy Max, but also to try to find some balm for the pain in his heart. His last view of Ulrika, running into the darkness of the skaven tunnels beneath Nuln, had been more than two months ago, and still not a day went by — not an hour!—when he did not think of her and feel the stab of regret rip through him. 
375Part of him wanted that never to change. The pain was all he had left of her, and that made it precious, and yet, another part of him wanted to be free of it. He longed to drown himself in the solace of loving — or at least lustful — arms. What had Ulrika said? We must find happiness among our own kind? It seemed impossible. 
376Claudia was beautiful, there was no denying it, and alluring as well, with her knowing glances and gleaming fall of honey-coloured hair, but though he tried his best not to, he could not stop himself from comparing her to Ulrika, and in each instance finding her wanting. Her blue eyes were bright and beautiful, but not as alive as Ulrika’s — not even in her undeath. Her smile was sultry, but not as forthright as Ulrika’s, her curves were lovely, even under her seeress’ robes, but seemed to him girlish and unformed when compared to Ulrika’s clean-limbed martial grace. Her nose… ah, but it was useless! No matter how beautiful Claudia was, and how beguiling her attraction to him, it was not her arms he wanted to find solace in, it was Ulrika’s, and though he knew that could never be, that didn’t stop him wanting it with all his heart. 
377“What are you reading, Herr Jaeger?” Claudia asked, leaning in to look at the cover of the book. 
378Felix flushed. There really was nothing more embarrassing than to be caught reading one’s own memoirs. “Ah, my brother published my journals without my knowledge. I… I’m checking to see that he didn’t change them too much.” 
379She read the title. “My Travels With Gotrek.” She looked up at him. “You and Herr Gurnisson seem an odd pairing. How did you come to travel together?” 
380Felix groaned inwardly. It was a long story and he didn’t particularly feel like telling it just now. 
381He held out the book. “Would you like to read about it?” 
382Claudia laughed. “I would much rather hear it from the lips of the man that lived it.” 
383Felix sighed. “Well, if you insist.” 
384And so he told her about his student days, and the Window Tax riots, and how Gotrek had saved him from the swords of the Reiksguard — though he downplayed the slaughter somewhat — and how he and Gotrek had retired to the inn and got abysmally drunk, and how he had sworn to follow Gotrek and record his death in an epic poem. 
385When he finished, Claudia looked at him strangely. “And for how many years have you followed the Slayer?” she asked. “More than twenty,” he said. 
386“That seems a long time to continue honouring a vow made while in one’s cups,” she said. 
387Felix nodded. “Yes, it is.” 
388“It’s a wonder you continue.” 
389“A vow is still a vow, no matter how long ago it was made,” said Felix. 
390“But what about your life!” cried Claudia, suddenly overwhelmed by emotion. “Did you not have plans of your own? Did you not have dreams? How could you give up your life to follow another?” 
391Felix frowned. It was rare that he talked about these things out loud. “I did have plans. I meant to be a poet. Possibly a playwright. I believed I would spend my life among the inns and theatres of Altdorf. But as I said, a vow is a vow.” 
392“But you were drunk!” 
393“It was still a vow.” 
394She shook her head, seeming truly upset. “It must be more than that. Surely Herr Gurnisson would have forgiven you your duty if you had gone to him and asked to be released from it. I cannot believe that anyone would ask someone to hold to a promise made when they were too young or too drunk to know what it meant — when they had no idea of all the wonders that life offers for someone who is free to see them. Have you no regrets? Did you never want to leave?” 
395Felix wasn’t sure Gotrek would have released him from his vow. Like all dwarfs, the Slayer was a stickler when it came to honouring pledges, but still she was right, it had been more than the vow. “I do have regrets,” he said at last. “And I did want to leave. Many times. I even agreed to abandon him once.” A shiver went through him as he remembered the circumstances. “Though I didn’t in the end. On the other hand, I have seen more of the world following the Slayer than I ever would have writing poems in Altdorf, and though it has often been dangerous, and I have come close to losing my life more times than I can count, I don’t think I could trade it for a safer life. Not anymore. I believe I have become addicted to excitement.” 
396“Well, I envy you that part of it, at least,” said the seeress. “But to not be able to call your life your own. To not be able to say, ‘I want to go this way’, or ‘I want to try this’, or ‘I want to talk to this person’, because you have pledged to make your life beholden to someone else for all time seems… unbearable! I don’t know how you can stand it!” 
397Felix blinked at her. Was she talking about him anymore, or herself? “It is indeed a hard thing,” he said at last, “to make a vow that one regrets later, but a man of honour — or a woman of honour, for that matter…” 
398“Fraulein Pallenberger,” said a voice. 
399They looked up. 
400Max Schreiber stood in the door, his eyes cold. “I thought you had returned to the boat for your gloves.” 
401Claudia smiled brightly at him. “And I found them, Magister Schreiber,” she said, holding up a pair of long fawn gloves. “But then I saw Herr Jaeger here alone and thought I would take some tea with him.” 
402“You’ve missed your dinner,” said Max, sounding very much like an out-of-sorts schoolmaster. 
403“Sometimes a conversation can be more filling than a meal, magister,” she said, standing. She turned to Felix and held out her hand to him, smirking conspiratorially as she did so. “Thank you for your company, Herr Jaeger,” she said. “It is very refreshing to speak now and then to someone who still understands the yearning of youth for knowledge and experience.” 
404“The pleasure was all mine, fraulein.” Felix glanced at Max as he bent over her hand. The wizard was glaring daggers at him. Claudia squeezed Felix’s fingers warmly before she let go. 
405He sighed as she rejoined Max and they turned to go. Would this journey never end? He sat down and returned to his travels with Gotrek.  
406  
407FOUR 
408  
409  
410Seven days later the journey did end, and not before time, as far as Felix was concerned. What with Claudia popping out at him from every corner and Max scowling at him from every doorway, he felt a haunted man by the time the riverboat reached Marienburg, and he disembarked onto the fogshrouded docks of the Suiddock with a sigh of relief. 
411He and Gotrek took lodging in an inn that his father had recommended called the Three Bells, in the bustling Handelaarmarkt district — a place of shipping offices, guild halls and trade associations — and had sent word to Hans Euler that he wished to meet with him on a matter of business. While he waited for a response, he continued to read through the first volume of My Travels With Gotrek, which was proving better than he had feared. Every now and then he would find himself nodding at a particularly neat turn of phrase and thinking that his younger self was a better writer than he had given him credit for. 
412Gotrek had immediately installed himself at a table at the back of the Three Bells’ long, narrow taproom and proceeded to drink himself into a stupor, just as he had at the Griffon in Altdorf. Felix sighed to see it. It was as if all the life had been sucked out of the Slayer, and all that was left was an empty husk that remembered nothing of its former life except how to drink. With Archaon’s invasion repelled, was there anything now that could stir Gotrek from his melancholy? Or would he spend the rest of his days travelling from tavern to tavern, as miserable in one as he was in another? 
413Though he often complained when he was forced to follow the Slayer into danger, Felix didn’t fancy that prospect either. It certainly wouldn’t make a very exciting epic. 
414The next morning, when Felix came down from his room to look for breakfast, the landlord brought him a note. It was from Hans Euler. Felix opened it and read, 
415  
416Herr Jaeger, 
417Warmest regards, and I would be very pleased to meet you today, two hours after noon, at my house on the Kaasveltstraat in the Noordmuur district. 
418Yours, 
419Hans Euler 
420  
421Felix was pleased, if a little surprised, at the speed and politeness of the reply. From what his father had said of the man, he had expected to be put off or outright refused. He sent a messenger with a reply saying that he would be there at two, then went to find Gotrek. 
422He didn’t have far to look. The Slayer was at the same table Felix had left him at the night before, staring into nothingness with a huge mug in one fist. It looked as if, once again, he had not returned to their room. Felix asked the barmaid to bring him some breakfast, then went and joined the Slayer at the table. Gotrek remained staring straight ahead. 
423Felix cleared his throat. “Euler agreed to meet with me today,” he said. “Who?” rumbled Gotrek, not turning. 
424“Hans Euler. The man I’m here to see.” 
425“Ah.” Gotrek drained the mug, then made a face. “Grungni, that’s terrible. Tastes like fish.” He signalled the barman for another. 
426“I was hoping you would come with me.” 
427“Why?” 
428“Well, Euler might be difficult. I might need some help convincing him to hand over the letter.” 
429Gotrek’s single eye looked up at Felix, dim interest stirring behind it. “A fight?” 
430“I hope not, but possibly. Mainly I just want him to see you, and your axe, while I talk to him.” 
431Gotrek pondered this, then shrugged. “Sounds like too much bother. I’ll just stay here and drink.” 
432Felix nearly choked. The Slayer turning away from the possibility of violence? The end times truly had come. “But you don’t like the beer. It tastes like fish.” 
433“It’s still beer,” said Gotrek, and turned back to stare at the wall. 
434Felix sighed. He really wanted Gotrek along. There were few things more intimidating than a Slayer, and Gotrek was a particularly impressive example of the breed. It might mean the difference between success or failure in his negotiations. He leaned forwards. “Listen Gotrek, I can’t leave Marienburg until I resolve this matter. If you don’t help me, it might take weeks — weeks of drinking fishy beer. On the other hand, if you come with me, I could have the letter today, and we could be on our way back to Altdorf, where the beer doesn’t taste like fish. What do you think?” 
435As Gotrek thought this through, the barmaid brought him his next round and Felix his breakfast. Gotrek took up the fresh mug as she set it in front of him, raised it to his lips, then paused, his nose wrinkling. He grunted, drank anyway, then set the mug down again, swallowing with effort. “All right, manling. I’ll come.” 
436  
437Kaasveltstraat was a wealthy street in the middle of the quietly prosperous Noordmuur district, lined on both sides with tidy stone-and-brick three-storey townhouses, each with a white marble stoop leading up to a sturdy wooden front door, and fronted with diamond-paned windows that glittered in the chilly afternoon sun. Hans Euler’s house was on the east side of the street, which butted up against a canal, and its upper storeys hung out over the water at the back. It all looked very solid and respectable, not how Felix had imagined the den of a pirate’s son to look at all. 
438Gotrek stood behind him on the cobbled street, trying to reach an itch under his cast, as Felix stepped up to the door to knock — and hesitated. He was not looking forward to what was to follow. These sorts of situations always made him squirm. Why was he even doing this? He had never cared about his father’s business. It didn’t matter to him if the old man lost a portion of it to someone else. As far as Felix was concerned the whole enterprise could go up in flames. He had half a mind to go back to the Three Bells and forget the whole thing. 
439But he didn’t. Instead, he cursed under his breath and knocked. Family was a stickier trap than any spider’s web. 
440After a moment, a prim little butler in a high-collared black doublet opened the door. He had a spit-curl of oiled black hair plastered to his forehead, and his mouth pursed with disdain as he looked Felix up and down. 
441“Oui?” he said. 
442“Felix Jaeger to see Hans Euler,” said Felix. “And my companion, Gotrek Gurnisson.” 
443The butler’s eyes widened a fraction as he saw Gotrek, then he regained his composure. He made a bow that had more moves in it than a chess game. “Please to enter, messieurs. Monsieur Euler is expecting you.” 
444Felix and Gotrek stepped through the door into a wood-panelled entryway with a tight spiral staircase on one side and a door that opened into a large parlour at the back. A bay window in the parlour looked out over the canal. Felix sized up the house as the butler closed the door behind them. It was small, but richly furnished with heavy tables and chairs. Dark oil paintings of men in tight ruffs crowded the walls and expensive Estalian rugs covered the polished wooden floors. It all told Felix that Herr Euler wasn’t in his father’s league, but he was still a wealthy man. 
445“Your sword, monsieur?” said the butler, clicking his heels together as he bowed. 
446Felix unbuckled his sword belt and handed his rune sword to him. 
447The butler bowed again and turned to Gotrek. “And ze axe, monsieur dwarf?” Gotrek just stared at him with his single, expressionless eye. 
448The butler held his gaze for a brief moment, and looked about to speak again, but then thought better of it. He bowed convulsively and turned away, his face pale. “It is of no matter,” he stuttered. 
449“With only ze one arm, how is it possible that you might use it?” Felix could have informed him otherwise, but let it go. 
450The butler put Felix’s sword in a small cupboard by the door, then bowed them towards the stairs. “If messieurs will come this way?” 
451They followed him up to the first floor, where he stopped at a door just at the top of the spiral stair and knocked. A muffled voice called and he opened the door. 
452“Felix Jaeger and companion, monsieur,” he said into the room, then bowed and edged aside, allowing Felix and Gotrek to enter. 
453They stepped into the middle of a long room with tall diamond-paned windows along one wall. It was in every way a much lighter room than the one below it. A fire crackled in a small fireplace opposite the door. To the left, a set of graceful Bretonnian chairs was arranged around a low table, and to the right was a grand desk with, behind it, mounted on a cherrywood sideboard, an ironbound safe of dwarf make, that seemed a bit brusque and business-like in the otherwise cultured surroundings. 
454Standing by the desk with an expression of welcome on his mild round face was the least piratical-looking man Felix had ever seen. He was thick and short and balding, with a shapeless lump of a nose and mild blue eyes. His conservatively tailored clothes were of the most expensive Middenland broadcloth, and he held a silver-headed cane in one pudgy hand. He looked much more merchant than pirate. Perhaps, thought Felix, in these modern times there isn’t much difference. 
455“Messieurs, Herr Euler,” said the butler. 
456Herr Euler’s warm smile faltered when he saw Felix in his rough travelling clothes, and fell entirely when Gotrek’s half-naked, tattooed bulk sidled through the narrow door. 
457He turned to the butler. “Guiot! The dwarf has his axe!” Felix decided Euler’s eyes weren’t quite so mild after all. 
458The butler turned pink and bowed vigorously. “I apologise, monsieur, but he did not wish, and I did not think… er, that is, crippled as he is, he cannot…” 
459“It is you who are crippled, Guiot,” Euler snapped. “With cowardice.” He sighed and waved a dismissive hand. “Very well, send up Harald and Jochen with food and drink for our guests. You may go.” 
460“Oui, monsieur. I am sorry, monsieur.” The butler bowed again and withdrew. 
461Euler reassembled his smile as he turned to Felix. “Herr Jaeger,” he said, stepping forwards and holding out a hand. “It is good to meet you at last.” 
462“The pleasure is mine, Herr Euler,” said Felix, shaking his hand. 
463“My apologies for my outburst,” Euler continued. “And to you, master dwarf. Your presence surprised me, that is all. Please, will you sit?” 
464He motioned to the fragile-looking chairs. Felix sat down with care, making sure his boots and buckles didn’t scrape anything. Gotrek plopped down on another as though the exquisite thing was a tavern bench. Euler winced as it creaked in complaint, but maintained his smile. 
465“I must say, Herr Jaeger,” he said. “I am surprised to see you here, and before time too. From your father’s letters, I expected to be visited by solicitors or assassins, not family members.” He chuckled. “Ah well, I suppose the old gentleman finally saw the wisdom of my offer at last.” 
466“Your offer?” Felix frowned. “Your pardon, Herr Euler. What offer is this? My father said nothing of an offer.” 
467Herr Euler’s broad brow puckered. “Why, I offered to buy a share in Jaeger and Sons and, as he is getting on, help him with the running of the main office, as well as setting up a new office in Marienburg to facilitate his dealings with overseas merchants.” 
468Felix raised his eyebrows at this, then glanced over at Gotrek. If things got difficult, he was going to want his support. The Slayer was staring at the floor, paying not the least attention, his cast laying limp in his lap. Felix hoped he was paying enough attention to know when it was time to look menacing. 
469“My father put it slightly differently,” Felix said at last. “He called it blackmail, rather than an offer. He said you had a letter that you meant to show the authorities in Altdorf if he failed to give you a controlling interest in Jaeger and Sons.” 
470There were footsteps in the hall and two men entered, one carrying a silver coffee service, and the other a tray of jam tarts. Though they were dressed in black doublets and breeches with lace at the cuffs and ribbons at the knees, Felix thought he had never seen two more unlikely footmen. They were massive men, each well over six feet tall, with bulging muscles that strained the velvet of their uniforms, hair pulled back in tarred queues, and faces that wore the scars of lifetimes of battle. The hands of the man who carried the coffee service were nearly as large as the tray he balanced it upon. 
471Felix looked again at Gotrek. He continued to stare at the floor, seemingly unaware as the two behemoths moved with extreme care through the room’s maze of featherweight furniture and set down the refreshments on the table between Felix and Euler. Guiot the butler hovered at the door. 
472“It was not blackmail, Herr Jaeger,” said Euler patiently as he picked up a jam tart. “I have no love for the dirty dealings our fathers once engaged in, and only want to make things right. What I suggested was that if your father allowed me to purchase part of Jaeger and Sons, we would, together, make amends for our mutual criminal past. But that if he refused my offer and remained in breach of imperial law, I would have no choice, as a law-abiding citizen, but to report him to the proper authorities.” 
473Felix pursed his lips, Euler’s sanctimonious tone grating on him. It appeared his first impression of the man had been incorrect. He was a pirate after all. “I see.” 
474The two giants retreated to either side of the fireplace and remained there in attendance. 
475“But all this is beside the point, since you are here,” said Euler, smiling. “Have you brought the documents? Have you decided the value of the shares?” 
476Felix coughed, cursing his father for putting him in such a situation. He hated this sort of venal confrontation. His brother Otto would have been much better suited for the job. He would have known exactly the sort of veiled threats to use. “Herr Euler. You misunderstand the purpose of my visit. I have not come to sell you any part of my father’s company. I have come to get the letter back.” 
477Euler’s smile disappeared as if it had never been. He shot a look at the safe on the table behind his desk, then put down his jam tart in a cold sort of way. 
478Felix pushed on. “Before you say anything, I should tell you that my father has authorised me to offer you a very generous price for the letter.” 
479Euler barked a laugh. “What is a one-time payment compared to the continual revenue that owning part of the company will bring me? No thank you, Herr Jaeger. There is only one way that your father may resolve this difficulty, and that is my way. He has seventeen days left. Until he is prepared to sell, we have nothing further to discuss. You may go.” 
480Felix sighed. It was at this point in the proceedings that his father undoubtedly expected him to start smashing things up until Euler gave him the letter, but he really didn’t have the heart for it. The man was vile, but no more vile than his father, and Felix had never bullied anyone for anything in his life. He wasn’t a robber, and that’s what he felt like here. It was embarrassing. If only he had some other kind of leverage. If only he could play the same sort of trick on Euler that Euler had played on his father. 
481Felix paused. Well, why couldn’t he? “I am sorry to hear you say it, Herr Euler,” he said at last. 
482“For I was hoping that I wouldn’t have to resort to blackmail of my own.” “What nonsense is this?” asked Euler. 
483Felix swallowed, and plunged in. “Well, correspondence goes both ways. My father also has a letter from your father, in which he admits engaging in the same activities as my father did, and also, that he introduced you to the business as well.” “What activities does he mean?” cried Euler. 
484Felix had no idea. “It’s best not to name them aloud, don’t you think?” he said. “Even after so many years.” He smiled at Euler with what he hoped looked like malevolent guile. “My father wishes to assure you that, if you drag him down, you will find yourself drowning in the same sewer — and you have much more life to lose than he. But, if you are prepared to give up your letter, he is prepared to give up his. We can make an exchange, and conclude the matter peacefully.” 
485Euler’s eyes blazed. He stroked his round chin with chubby fingers. “The cunning old goat. I believe he would be willing to die in shame and poverty just so that he could see me ruined as well.” A sudden thought seemed to come to him. He looked at his hulking serving men, then back to Felix. “Have you this letter here?” 
486Felix’s eyes widened. It hadn’t occurred to him that Euler would resort to violence. Despite the size of his servants, he was still a respectable man on a respectable street. He wasn’t going to try anything in his own home, was he? 
487“Er, not on me,” said Felix. “I left it at the inn, thinking you would be reasonable and I wouldn’t need it. If it must come to this, I will go and fetch it.” 
488Euler smiled. “No need to trouble yourself. I will have a servant fetch it while you wait here.” 
489Felix shot a look at Gotrek. He still didn’t appear to be paying attention. Couldn’t he feel the tension thickening the air? “It is no trouble, Herr Euler,” he said, standing. “We will return in an hour, shall we say?” 
490“I’m sorry, Herr Jaeger,” said Euler, standing as well. “I must insist that you stay” He gave a nod to the two massive footmen and they began to cross to the door. 
491Felix grunted, angry now. He was about to get into a fight over something he hadn’t wanted anything to do with from the beginning. Damn Euler and damn his father both. “You will regret holding us against our will, mein herr,” he said. “My companion is not to be trifled with lightly.” 
492Euler looked at Gotrek, and Felix followed his gaze. The Slayer was a sight to instil fear and respect, his massive frame and corded muscles completely eclipsing the tiny chair he sat in, and his fearsome crest and swirling tattoos exuding exotic menace. Of course, he would have been more impressive still had he not chosen that moment to open his mouth and snore like a chain rattling through a pulley. 
493Euler laughed. “Terrifying.” He turned away from him, waving a hand at the footmen. “Take them to the cellar.” 
494The brutes stepped forwards. Felix nudged Gotrek with his elbow. The Slayer mumbled under his breath, but didn’t wake. “You will force me to release the letter, Herr Euler,” he said, nudging Gotrek harder. 
495Euler snorted. “How can you release what you no longer have?” The footmen loomed closer. 
496“Now then, sir,” said the one on the left, whose right ear was missing. “Come quietly and we won’t have to break anything.” 
497“Gotrek!” barked Felix, and jabbed the Slayer in the shoulder with his elbow. 
498The Slayer woke with a start, instinctively grabbing for his axe. The sudden motion was too much for his delicate chair. It snapped in a dozen places and Gotrek thumped to the floor in a splay of spindly kindling. 
499“Vandalism!” shouted Euler. “Your father will get a bill for that!” 
500Gotrek was up in an instant, fists balled and turning his head from side to side like a sleepy bear. 
501“Who pushed me off my seat?” he growled. 
502“They did!” said Felix, backing up and pointing at the looming footmen. 
503Gotrek turned towards them, glaring and blinking. 
504“Come along, tipsy” said the one on the right, who had an oft-broken nose. “Sleep it off in the nice dark cellar, eh?” He put an enormous hand on Gotrek’s shoulder. 
505Gotrek swung his cast and re-broke the man’s nose. The footman staggered back, howling and clutching his face, and fell backwards over the low table, smashing it to flinders. 
506“Here, now!” said One-Ear, swinging at Gotrek. 
507The punch snapped Gotrek’s head around, but only seemed to make him mad. He growled and doubled the footman up with a fist to the guts, then shoved him back into a side table. It exploded under his weight. 
508“Pillagers!” cried Euler. “Guiot! Call Uwe and the others! Call the Black Caps! Hurry!” 
509The Bretonnian butler bowed and turned for the door. Felix ran for him. The last thing they needed was the watch showing up. Euler leapt in his path, twisting the head of his cane and drawing forth a slim blade. 
510“No, Herr Jaeger,” he said, levelling the sword-cane at Felix’s chest. 
511Felix stepped back, then cuffed an Estalian vase off a table, right at Euler’s face. When he raised his sword to block it, Felix dived forwards and tackled him to the ground, pinning his sword arm with a knee and punching him in the face. The merchant bucked and twisted under him, surprisingly strong. 
512“Harald! Jochen!” Euler called, struggling to get his sword free. 
513But the two footmen were otherwise engaged. Out of the corner of his eye, Felix could see that Broken-Nose was up again, blood streaming down his face, swinging the remains of the low table at Gotrek. Beyond him, One-Ear was holding his stomach and puking all over a set of marble chessmen. 
514“Gotrek,” Felix shouted, elbowing Euler in the eye. “Forget them! Get the safe! Open it!” If Euler was going to stoop to outright villainy, Felix had no more compunctions about robbing him. 
515Gotrek headbutted Broken-Nose on the broken nose and pushed him aside. He turned and looked at the safe as the big man slumped peacefully to the floor behind him. “There’s no cracking that,” the Slayer said, frowning. “It’s dwarf work. You’ll need a key.” 
516Euler wrenched his sword hand free of Felix’s knee, but Felix caught it again and slammed it against the ground. Euler lost his grip and the blade bounced across the carpet. As he stretched for it, Felix saw a ring of keys on the belt at his waist. He ripped them free and tossed them to Gotrek. 
517“Try these!” 
518Gotrek caught the key ring, but as he started around the desk towards the safe, there was a thunder of boots from the passage and a flood of large bodies burst into the room. 
519Gotrek and Felix turned towards them. There were six of them, all dressed in the same beribboned footmen’s uniforms that Harald and Jochen wore, and all apparently born of the same breed as well — huge, lumbering bashers with lantern jaws and scarred scalps, all armed with clubs and cudgels. One had a hook for a hand. Guiot peered nervously into the room behind them. 
520“Take yer hands off the captain,” said one with a milky left eye. 
521That wasn’t necessary, for, distracted by their entrance, Felix had let his grip slip, and Euler crashed a fist into his jaw with a hard-knuckled hand. Felix swayed back, and Euler pushed him off, shouting at his men. 
522“Get them! Hold them! Keep them away from the safe!” 
523The six footmen waded forwards, pushing the broken furniture out of the way. Gotrek reached over his shoulder for his axe. 
524“Not the axe,” gasped Felix from the floor. “No murder, Gotrek, please.” 
525The Slayer snarled like a thwarted badger, then lowered his hand, roared a wordless challenge at the approaching men and charged, swinging his fist and his cast with equal abandon. He disappeared in a storm of flailing, velvet-clad limbs. 
526Felix shook his head, trying to reseat his jaw, and pulled himself to his feet. Euler beat him to it. He scooped up his sword-cane and turned on him, raising the blade. The eye Felix had elbowed was purpling rapidly. 
527“I believe I’ve changed my mind,” he said, smiling through bloody lips. “Perhaps the watch should find you dead when they arrive. A man must defend his home, mustn’t he?” 
528Euler lunged, extending his arm with the grace of an Estalian diestro. Felix dived aside, alarmed. For all his padding and his bland burgher’s clothes the man had been well trained in the sword. Felix rolled up and ran for the door, passing the scrum in the middle of the floor. Two of the big men were down, one with an arm bent at a sickening angle, but the rest continued to rain blows upon the squat struggling figure in their midst. Guiot, the butler, stood wide-eyed in the door, then dived sensibly out of the way. 
529Felix barrelled down the stairs, slipping once on the well-worn treads and nearly falling head first. He heard Euler pounding down right behind him. 
530At the bottom, he charged across the foyer for the cupboard next to the front door. As he threw it open, Euler careened out after him, cane sword extended in a fencer’s lunge. 
531Felix snatched up his scabbard and leapt away as Euler’s blade impaled the cupboard door. He ran for the back parlour, drawing as he went. Euler lurched after him. 
532The room was darker than Euler’s office, and filled with sturdy, more liveable furniture. The ceiling was low and ribbed with heavy, widely spaced beams. Felix cracked his head on one as he vaulted a long red brocade couch. He turned to face Euler, his rune sword held out with one hand while he rubbed vigorously at a lump like half an onion that was forming on the crown of his skull with the other. His eyes were tearing. 
533Euler edged around the couch, sword high, shaking his head and unbuttoning his doublet so that he had more mobility. “Poorly played, Herr Jaeger.” Felix could barely hear him over the thuds and bangs and crashes coming from the fight upstairs. The ceiling vibrated with them. “Had you left the letter in Altdorf 1 would have been checkmated — a threat I couldn’t reach. Your father would never have made such a mistake.” 
534“You sound like you admire him,” said Felix. 
535“I do,” said Euler. “He plays the game very well.” He sneered. “But this time he has picked a very poor pawn.” 
536Euler lunged, extending his sword-cane with blurring swiftness. Felix blocked it, but the lighter blade came at him again instantly. He jumped back, wishing for more space to swing his bigger sword. Euler had him at a disadvantage in the low room. 
537Then a horrendous thump and chorus of wild shouts from above made Felix look up. Euler’s blade snaked for his throat. Felix back-pedalled furiously Unfortunately there was a footstool behind him and he toppled backwards over it, slamming his breath out as his back hit the fine Estalian carpet. 
538Euler stepped over him, white flakes of plaster floating down around him from the ceiling. “I will send your body back to your father,” said Euler, shouting to be heard over the rumpus coming from above, “as a token of my admiration.” 
539Felix struggled to get his limbs to respond as Euler put his sword-cane to his throat. Then, suddenly, the shouts from above became screams, and there was a horrendous crashing from the stairs. 
540Euler and Felix looked towards the noise and saw a large square object bounce down out of the stairwell in a shower of wood, plaster and dust, and hit the entryway floor with an impact that shook the house. It was quickly followed by a rain of flying footmen, all spinning down and slapping loosely on the floor around it. 
541“My safe,” said Euler, blinking. 
542After the footmen tumbled Gotrek, landing shoulders first on a heaving velvet-clad stomach. He staggered up and shook his fist up the stairwell. “Come down here, you cowards!” He was bleeding freely from the back of his skull. 
543Felix took advantage of Euler’s distraction to roll out from under the point of his sword and stand. 
544Euler was beside himself. “My floor!” he cried. “My panelling! Manann’s scales, the expense!” 
545He turned on Felix, eyes blazing. “I’ll send your corpse back to your father with a bill for damages!” He thrust at Felix with his cane-sword and Felix blocked and kicked the footstool at him. 
546“Gotrek!” he called. “Here!” 
547The Slayer swung around and started towards him. One of the fallen men tried to rise, lifting a dagger at him. Gotrek backhanded his face with his cast and kept walking. The strike sounded like a pistol shot, and Felix thought for a moment that he had shattered the man’s skull. But it was the cast that had split, a zigzag crack that ran the length of the thing. With a grunt of satisfaction Gotrek tore it off and flexed and shook out his arm. 
548“About time,” he growled, stepping into the back parlour and starting around the red brocade couch towards Euler. The merchant danced back, trying to keep both Felix and Gotrek in front of him. Just then, there was a rumble of boots from the spiral stair and two men ran into the room, then skidded to a stop behind the couch when they saw Gotrek. 
549“Sigmar’s hammer, he lives!” said the one on the left, who held a blood-spattered fireplace poker. 
550Gotrek growled in his throat and beckoned them forwards. “Try that again,” he rasped. “I dare you.” 
551“Kill them!” screeched Euler, backing behind an elegant Tilean harpsichord. 
552“I’m not going near him,” said the one with the poker. “He’s mad!” 
553“He threw the safe at Uwe!” said the other, who was none other than One-Ear, still on his feet and now carrying a sailor’s cutlass. 
554“Kill them or all your back pay is forfeit!” Euler shouted. 
555Felix stepped beside Gotrek as the two towering footmen eyed them warily. 
556“Can I use my axe now?” rumbled Gotrek. 
557“Now would be a good time, yes,” said Felix. 
558“Good,” said the Slayer, and drew it off his back. 
559One-Ear leaned towards his companion and said something out of the side of his mouth that Felix couldn’t hear. 
560“What are you waiting for?” called Euler. 
561Then, before Felix could understand what they meant to do, the two giants threw aside their weapons, picked up the massive couch as if it weighed nothing, and charged Gotrek and Felix with it. 
562Felix stumbled back, surprised. But Gotrek roared and hacked at the brocade barrier with his axe as it raced towards them. The rune weapon bit deep, smashing through the wooden frame and the horsehair depths of the upholstery, but not deep enough. 
563The couch hit Felix and the Slayer amidships and drove them back towards the rear wall of the house. They tried to push back, but it was no use, the loose carpet under their boots slid across the polished floorboards and gave them no purchase. Felix’s heels hit the baseboard and then, with an enormous explosion of diamond-paned glass, he and Gotrek flew backwards out of the window, trailing velvet curtains and a few red brocade couch cushions. 
564There was a frozen moment when Felix took in the beauty of the flying shards of glass glittering in the afternoon sun, the intricacy of the decorative brickwork on Euler’s back wall, and the fluffy white clouds above it all, then the canal smacked him in the back and the water closed over his head in a freezing, silty rush. 
565The shock of it drove sense from his head for a moment, then he was kicking back to the surface, fighting the heavy pull of his saturated clothes. He broke the surface, gasping and kicking to stay afloat, and saw Gotrek to his left, his crest plastered down over his good eye, shaking his axe over his head. 
566“Craven humans!” he roared as he and Felix were drawn down the canal by the slow current. “A couch is a coward’s weapon!” 
567Felix looked up. From the shattered window, Euler was shouting back, his two remaining footmen at his sides, glaring murder down at them. 
568“This vandalism will cost you, Jaeger!” he cried. “I will no longer settle for half of Jaeger and Sons! I will have it all!” 
569Gotrek returned his axe to his shoulder and struck for the side of the canal. “Come on, manling, let’s finish these furniture-throwers.” 
570Felix made to follow, but just then Euler and his men were joined at the window by men in the black-capped uniforms of the Marienburg city watch. Euler shouted and pointed at Felix. “That’s the man! He and the dwarf did all this!” 
571Felix sighed. He was almost ready to cry “enough” and let his father take care of his own dirty business. But he had promised, and Euler had made him mad. The man had tried to murder him. Well, Felix wasn’t going to respond in kind, but he’d find some other way to get the letter. It was a matter of pride now. 
572“We’ll come back later,” he said. “I need to think.” 
573Gotrek grunted, but then nodded. “I could use a drink anyway” He turned, and he and Felix swam for the far bank.  
574  
575FIVE 
576  
577  
578They made their way circuitously back to the Three Bells, taking alleys and lesser bridges to avoid the watch. Felix was miserable the whole way, wet and cold in the windy Marienburg sunshine, with his drenched clothes hanging off him like they were made of lead and his boots squishing with every step. Gotrek, annoyingly, didn’t seem bothered in the least. 
579Felix slowed as they reached the last corner before the inn, worried that there would be a company of the watch waiting for them at the door. He leaned his head out to have a look, and felt a different sort of chill as he saw that there were indeed Black Caps milling outside the door of the inn. He pulled back instinctively, but then looked again, frowning. If the watch was there for them, what were they doing carrying people out of the inn on stretchers? And why were the landlord and the serving women all talking to them at once? 
580“Something’s happened,” he said. 
581Gotrek had a look too, then shrugged. “As long as they’re still serving.” 
582He tromped forwards single-mindedly. Felix followed more cautiously, keeping his head down, but the Black Caps didn’t seem interested in him or the Slayer in the slightest. They were too busy helping sickly-looking people out onto the street and interviewing the owner of the Bells. More sick people sat on the cobbles, coughing and retching. A few were weeping. People from neighbouring businesses clustered outside their doorways, talking in hushed tones. 
583As they neared the inn, Felix staggered, hit by a wave of horrible odour, like rotting eggs and attar of rose mixed together. He covered his nose and mouth, and continued on. Gotrek did the same. The stench was making him dizzy. 
584A Black Cap held up a hand at the door. “You don’t want to go in, mein herr.” His eyes were streaming and he had a kerchief over his mouth. 
585“What happened?” Felix asked. 
586“Something in the cellar,” said the watchman. “Came up like smoke, they say, and everybody who got a good whiff fell down like they was dead.” “They died?” Felix was shocked. 
587“No, sir,” said the Black Cap. “Only fainted like, and very sick with it.” 
588“But what was it?” 
589“That’s what the captain is trying to find out.” 
590“Sewer gas is what it was!” said a prosperous-looking merchant who appeared to have been hurried out of the inn in the middle of dressing. “Damned city hasn’t fixed those channels in decades. Manann knows what’s growing down there.” 
591“It were cultists!” gasped a barman, looking up with bloodshot eyes from where he sat. He had flecks of bloody foam around his mouth. Felix remembered him from earlier when he had served them in the taproom. “Cut a hole in the cask cellar floor. I saw it. Like a green fog it was. Then it got me.” 
592Could it have been only sewer gas? Felix looked at Gotrek. The Slayer’s expression said he didn’t think so. 
593“When did this happen?” he asked the barman. 
594“Just after lunch, sir,” he said. “Right after you left in fact. I remember, because it was when I went down to bring up a new keg after you finished the old one that I saw the smoke.” 
595Felix exchanged another uneasy glance with Gotrek. He was willing to bet that their room had been broken into, and he wanted to see if there were any clues as to who had done it, but he didn’t want to poison himself to do it. 
596“How long before we can go in?” asked Felix. 
597The Black Cap shrugged. “Not until the captain blows the all-clear.” 
598  
599It was an uneasy wait, with Felix watching the ends of the street constantly for Euler’s Black Caps, and Gotrek grumbling about being thirsty, but fortunately, Felix wasn’t the only one who wanted to go back in and get his things, and finally the captain gave in to the besieging guests who clamoured around him in various states of undress and distress, and said that they could all enter to retrieve their belongings, but that the inn would be closed immediately afterwards until it could be searched more thoroughly. The innkeeper looked sullen about this, but everyone else cheered and rushed in. 
600Gotrek and Felix followed the flow up to the second floor. The interior of the inn still smelled horrible, and the stink was worse in the confines of the narrow upper halls. Felix covered his mouth with his handkerchief, but he still felt the corridor swim around him, and had to brace himself against the wall for balance as they went along. They slowed and drew their weapons as they approached their room. Then Felix stopped altogether. The door was ajar. Had the Black Caps forced it? He certainly hadn’t left it that way. 
601They crept to it and listened. Felix looked to Gotrek. He shook his head. The lack of noise did nothing to allay Felix’s fears. It might only mean that their enemies were lying in wait. Gotrek raised his axe, then nodded. 
602As one, they jumped forwards and kicked the door in. It banged open and Gotrek leapt in, slashing left and right. He struck nothing. The tiny room was empty but for the expected furnishings, a bed along each wall, a wash stand and a clothes trunk. The beds had been smashed, the wash stand overturned, and the trunk had been opened and their few belongings strewn about. 
603Felix followed after Gotrek and closed the door behind them. Things would be awkward should the landlord come by and see the damage. He looked around. The window that was the room’s only source of light was open and there were fresh splinters on the sill, as if someone had gone in or out that way. It would have had to have been a very small and agile someone, for the window was tiny, and high up on the wall. A child might have done it — or a slim woman. 
604He pushed that thought away and searched through his few clothes. Everything had been ripped and cut, and he feared that his armour was stolen, but then he found it thrown in a corner, still whole, but reeking like everything else from the poisonous stink. Perhaps the vandals had been unable to tear it. The Slayer’s bedroll had been hacked up too, but he had no clothes to ruin. He owned no other possessions that he didn’t carry on his person at all times. 
605“Darts, nets, poison gas,” said Gotrek. “Only cowards use such things.” 
606Felix looked at him. “You think it was the same ones who attacked us in Altdorf?” 
607Gotrek nodded. “And whoever they are, they want us alive.” 
608Once again the image of Lady Hermione and Mistress Wither looking down at him while he was bound and helpless came unbidden to his mind, and he shivered convulsively. 
609  
610On their way out, Felix paid the landlord double what they owed him for the room. It was his father’s money, and the least he could do for the trouble they had brought upon his establishment. 
611As they started down the street, Felix wondered if they might not need to sleep in the open, just so they wouldn’t bring a similar fate to another hostelry. He was beginning to feel like he was the carrier of some deadly plague, and that he should keep away from human society until it had run its course. They needed to face these foes and finish them, but they didn’t even know who they were. A block away from the inn, someone called their names. 
612“Felix! Gotrek!” 
613Felix and Gotrek turned, their hands drifting towards their weapons. A coach was heading towards them and Max was leaning out the window. 
614“I was just coming to find you,” he said, then noticed that Felix was carrying his armour. “Have you left your inn?” 
615“Uh…” Felix paused, uncertain how much to tell him. “Our room was burgled,” he said at last. 
616“We decided to look for other lodgings.” 
617Max shook his head, bemused. “Trouble follows you two like a stray dog.” 
618“More like a bat,” said Felix under his breath, then spoke up. “What did you want to see us about?” 
619“I have an urgent matter to discuss with you,” said Max, opening the door to his coach. “Will you join me?” 
620  
621Max said not a word about the urgent matter in the coach as they crossed the many bridges and islands of the city to the Suiddock wharfs. 
622“Are we going back to the Jilfte Bateau?” asked Felix as the coach’s wheels boomed on the wooden planks of the docks. 
623“No,” said Max. “Our new companion waits for us at the Pike and Pike.” 
624“New companion?” 
625But Max would say no more. 
626The coach came to a stop on a busy commercial wharf, with stevedores unloading goods from merchant ships flying the colours of Bretonnia, Estalia and Tilea, as well as dozens of Imperial and Marienburg vessels. They stepped down from the coach and Max led the way to a small tavern with a river pike impaled on a spear over the door. The place smelled, unsurprisingly, of fish, but the odour lessened as they made their way through the noisy taproom to a stair that led up to a small, but neatly furnished private dining room on the first floor. 
627Felix nodded politely to Claudia, who sat sideways on a cushioned bench by the fire on the left wall, her feet curled underneath her, then stopped dead as he saw the other occupant of the room, sitting ram-rod straight at the head of the table that filled the centre of the room. Gotrek grunted like he’d smelled something foul. It was an elf. Felix understood suddenly why Max hadn’t mentioned this earlier. He wouldn’t have got Gotrek in the coach. 
628“Felix Jaeger,” said Max, “Gotrek Gurnisson, may I present Aethenir Whiteleaf, student of the White Tower of Hoeth and son of the fair land of Eataine.” 
629The elf rose, inclining his head respectfully. He was tall, and as slender as a willow branch in his flowing white robes, but there was an air of youth and nervousness about him that made him look more awkward than graceful. He had the long, haughty features of his kind, but the nervousness showed also in his cobalt-blue eyes, which flicked about the room as he spoke. “I am honoured, friends. Your acquaintance enriches me.” 
630“An elf,” Gotrek spat. Fie turned back to the door. “Come on, manling.” 
631“Wait, Slayer,” said Max. “If you still seek your doom, hear him out.” “We go into the gravest danger, with you or without you,” added Claudia. 
632Gotrek paused at the door, his fists clenching. Felix looked from him to Max to the elf to the seeress, all waiting for the Slayer’s decision. 
633At last the Slayer turned back around. “Speak your piece, beard-cutter.” 
634“That is a myth,” snapped the elf. “It never happened. You—” 
635Max held up a hand. “Friends, please. This is perhaps not the time to bring up old arguments. 
636We have little time.” 
637“You are right, magister,” said Aethenir. “Forgive me.” Gotrek just grunted. 
638Max offered Gotrek and Felix seats at the table and took one himself. Felix sat, but Gotrek remained standing, arms crossed, glaring at the elf. 
639“We met Scholar Aethenir last night,” said Max, “when he came to a gathering of Marienburg magisters seeking their knowledge of the region of the Wasteland to the north and west of here.” 
640“The same region that my visions are leading me to,” said Claudia, leaning forwards meaningfully. 
641“A book was stolen from the library of the Tower of Hoeth,” said Aethenir. “A book containing maps and descriptions of the area you call the Wasteland, and the elven cities that once graced it, as it was before the Sundering ravaged both land and sea and changed the coastline forever. I must recover this book.” 
642“And…?” said Gotrek when the elf didn’t continue. 
643“And?” asked Aethenir. 
644“Where is my doom in this?” 
645“Don’t you see, Slayer,” said Claudia, speaking up. “The book details exactly the same area that my visions have told me will be the birth of the destruction of Marienburg and Altdorf. This is not coincidence. Some great evil is brewing there. We must go and prevent it.” 
646“It is my belief,” said Aethenir, “that those who stole the book are agents of the Dark Powers, and seek some ancient elven artefact in one of the ruined cities. I know not what it might be, but an item of great power in the hands of the pawns of Chaos can only spell ruin and despair for the peoples of Ulthuan and the Old World.” 
647“I don’t understand,” said Felix. “If this is such a grave threat, why are the elves not going in force? No disrespect to you, high one, or to Herr Schreiber and Fraulein Pallenberger, but why have you come to us? Why haven’t you brought the navy of Ulthuan with you?” 
648Aethenir hesitated, looking down at the table, then spoke. “As I explained to the magisters last night, the Tower of Hoeth is the centre of magical learning in Ulthuan. There, the greatest mages of the world are taught the one true art. The tomes and scrolls housed within its white walls make up the most complete, and most dangerous, library that exists in the world. The tower itself is reputed to be unreachable and unbreachable. Never has anything been stolen from it before.” Colour came into the high elf’s cheeks. “The loremasters of the tower are proud of this reputation, and do not wish it to be known that this shame has befallen them, so they have dispatched me, a mere humble initiate, to retrieve the book in secret before any know that it is missing. I have come with no escort except a few of my father’s household guard, all sworn to secrecy, on the pretext of examining some pre-Sundering ruins in the pursuit of my field of study. It was felt that any larger force would call attention to the theft.” 
649Gotrek snorted. “Typical elven shiftiness.” 
650Felix frowned. “How soon would you be leaving on this journey?” he asked. 
651“Immediately,” said Max. “Scholar Aethenir has hired a ship, and its captain is prepared to sail on the evening tide.” 
652Felix turned to Gotrek. “Slayer, I still must retrieve Euler’s letter.” 
653Gotrek nodded. “Aye. And I’ve no time for elf snotling chases. I’ll pass.” 
654He turned to the door. Felix rose to follow him, bowing to Max, Aethenir and Claudia. “I’m sorry, but…” 
655“I dreamed of you, Slayer,” called Claudia, as Gotrek pushed open the door. “I saw you in the bowels of a black mountain, fighting foes without number. I saw blood rise like a tide to drown you. I saw a towering abomination crushing you in its claws.” 
656Gotrek paused in the doorway. Felix stopped behind him, shooting a dirty look back at Claudia. Had she really seen these things, or was she just wooing the Slayer with the only lure that could sway him? 
657Gotrek looked to Max. “Do you vouch for this girl’s seeing, wizard?” 
658Max nodded gravely. “Yes, Gotrek. She has been judged to have true powers of divination by the Lord Magisters of her order.” 
659“Gotrek,” Felix said. “I cannot go.” 
660Gotrek nodded, but a light had kindled in his single eye that Felix hadn’t seen since he had fought Magus Lichtmann and his cannon daemon. “Do what you have to, manling,” Gotrek said. “I won’t stop you. But I must fulfil my doom.” He turned to face Claudia, Max and Aethenir. “Right,” he said. “I’ll come. But keep the elf away from me.” 
661  
662Felix fought with his conscience as he walked with Gotrek, Max and the others to the wharf where their hired ship was docked. What should he do? Did he wish them a good voyage and have another go at Hans Euler tomorrow, or did he go with them and forget retrieving the incriminating letter? To whom was he more beholden, Gotrek or his father? Which vow came first? He had followed Gotrek for twenty years, and had never taken another vow that contradicted the one he had made to the Slayer. But Gotrek wasn’t family. He wasn’t on his death bed. On the other hand, what if the Slayer met his doom at last and he wasn’t there to witness it? That would invalidate their whole reason for travelling together. It would be a terribly anti-climactic ending to such a grand adventure. 
663At last he sighed and dropped back to Gotrek, who had fallen a little behind. 
664“Slayer,” he said. “I can’t make the decision to stay or go.” 
665Gotrek shrugged. “A dwarf’s first loyalty is to family. I will not begrudge you this.” 
666Felix nodded, but continued pondering. Gotrek’s permission to leave didn’t actually make his decision any easier. Mad as it sounded, he would still rather go with Gotrek towards his doom. He didn’t really care what happened to Euler. It was his father who had forced him into conflict with him. It would serve the old buzzard right if Felix just sat on his hands for the next seventeen days and let Euler send his letter to the authorities. And yet, he had promised. Hadn’t he just told Claudia that a vow was a vow, no matter— 
667Seventeen days! Felix’s heart lurched. That was it! That was the solution. 
668He turned to Gotrek. “I’ve made up my mind,” he said. “I have seventeen days to recover the letter, so I will go with you. It can’t be more than a week up the coast and a week back. So we will have a day or two once we return, to take the letter back from Euler.” “We may not return, manling,” said Gotrek. 
669“Then it will be fate that kept me from fulfilling my promise,” said Felix, insistent. “Not lack of will.” 
670Gotrek raised an eyebrow at this but said nothing as Felix went to tell Max of his decision. 
671  
672The hospitality of Clan Skryre Warleader Riskin Tatter-Ear, commander of the skaven burrows under the fish-stinking man-warren the humans called Marienburg, amounted to a single damp room at the far end of an unused tunnel, barely large enough to house Thanquol, let alone all his retinue and Boneripper, and for which the impertinent young pup expected to be paid a fortune in warp tokens! The gross disrespect of it astounded Thanquol. Did he not know who he was? In the old days a mere warleader would have bowed and licked his hind paws in his eagerness to serve a grey seer of his renown. 
673The cold welcome had done nothing to improve Thanquol’s mood, already befouled by the slow, miserable journey that had brought him here. In his day the palanquin-bearers had been speedy and subservient. They had known their place and how to get one to one’s destination without colliding with every skaven coming the other way. Now it seemed more than they could do to all move in the same direction at once. It was therefore with little patience that he listened to his overpaid, undersuccessful assassin make yet more excuses. 
674“My abject apologies, oh most forgiving of skaven,” said Shadowfang from the floor where he knelt before him. “But though our sleep-smoke missed them at the drinking place, all is not lost.” “No?” said Thanquol. “Have you managed to poison yourself in the process, then?” 
675Issfet tittered fawningly at that, and Thanquol nodded approvingly. He liked his servants servile and obsequious. 
676“No, grey seer,” said Shadowfang. “But we have sneak-followed the pair to a ship, and have tortured one of the sailors to reveal its destination.” 
677“And…?” 
678The assassin squirmed uncomfortably. “They have no destination, sagacious one. They huntseek something in the stink-swamp, but know not where it is.” 
679Thanquol turned this information over in his head. It was unfortunate that Shadowfang had once again been unable to capture his two nemeses, but it would not be the most terrible of plans to follow them into the Wasteland where there would be no one to interfere or come to their rescue. Yes, perhaps it was for the best. Now he only needed some way of following them there. 
680He turned to Issfet. “What manners of conveyance does this fool Riskin have at his disposal?” he asked. “Quick-quick.” 
681The tailless skaven bowed and once again nearly lost his balance. “I shall enquire, oh most effluent of masters.”  
682  
683SIX 
684  
685  
686The Pride of Skintstaad was a two-masted trading ship out of Marienburg that Aethenir had hired with elven gold. She was a pot-bellied little barque, slow but seaworthy, with a grizzled, vulturebeaked captain by the name of Ulberd Breda, and a crew from every corner of the Old World. 
687Though happy to take Aethenir’s money, Captain Breda seemed a bit uneasy about their voyage, and Felix didn’t blame him. Max’s instructions had been to sail north and west through the Manaanspoort Sea and on into the Sea of Chaos until Fraulein Pallenberger called a halt. They might sail all the way to the Sea of Ice if she failed to receive any vision, and a journey into those barbarous climes was not to be made lightly by a little ship with winter coming on. Storms, Norse raiders and icebergs were the least they could expect if they went that far. 
688Felix shivered at the idea of all those days at sea, and not because of the cold or the danger. Being cooped up on the tiny ship with such a volatile mix of personalities for any length of time was sure to be a miserable experience. In fact, even before they had left the dock there had been conflict. Aethenir had come on board with seven elf warriors, taken one look at his cabin and come back out again, saying he refused to stay there until it had been thoroughly cleaned. 
689“It’s filthy” he said with a shudder. “It stinks of urine and vermin. There was a rat on my bed.” The crew snorted at that. 
690“Ain’t a ship that sails that doesn’t have rats, yer worship,” said Captain Breda. 
691“You’ve never sailed on a ship of Ulthuan, then,” said Aethenir, sniffing. 
692“No, yer worship, I never has. But if we was to try to chase off all the rats on this ship we’d never leave the dock.” He turned to one of his crewmen, an Estalian by his look. “Doso, go and clean his worship’s cabin.” 
693“But I swabbed this morning,” complained Doso. 
694“Then swab it again,” growled the captain. “And use clean water this time.” Doso grumbled, but did as he was told. 
695It was clear that, even after this extra cleaning, Aethenir was less than satisfied, but Max whispered a few words in the high elf’s ear and he dropped the matter. Unfortunately, the damage was done. The high elf had earned the ill will of the crew — men that might have treated him with the awe and respect that humans generally reserved for the elder races were, in one stroke, sneering at him behind his back and spitting on his shadow. 
696His warriors fared better, for unlike their master, they seemed hardened veterans — cold, silent elves who wore scarred scale mail under the green and white surcoats of Aethenir’s livery, and asked for no special favours. They found a place near the aft rail and talked quietly amongst themselves, and that was that. 
697Gotrek did what he always did on any voyage over water. He went directly to his cabin and stayed there. Felix hoped he continued this way, for that would lessen the probability that he and Aethenir would meet during the voyage, a situation to be avoided at all costs if blood was not to be spilled and the War of the Beard not to be rekindled. 
698Max and Claudia spoke briefly with the captain and also retired to their cabins, but Felix feared that there would be trouble from that quarter ere long, for as she started down the stairs to her quarters, the seeress cast a look back at him from under her golden fall of hair that made the hair stand up on the back of his neck. 
699Max’s Reiksguard escort found a place for themselves along the port rail and lounged there, chatting and smoking pipes and spitting over the side, as the crew made ready to make way. 
700At last, with a heavy mist freshening into a light rain, they cast off the lines and were towed out of the Bryn-water into the centre of the Rijksweg by boats of the Marienburg port authority. Then the sails were unfurled, and they were away, sailing past the grim fortifications of Rijker’s Isle and out into the Manaanspoort Sea. 
701And a less breathtaking beginning to a voyage Felix could not have imagined. The sky was a dull, uninterrupted grey. The air was wet and chilly, the rain not even strong enough to be called a drizzle, and the scenery left much to be desired. The east coast of the sea, which ran almost due north towards the Sea of Chaos, was known as the Cursed Marshes, but Felix, after the fifth hour of watching them slide slowly by, was ready to rename them the Dull Marshes, because he had never seen a more uninteresting landscape in all his life — nothing but saw grass and cat-tails and stunted trees for as far as the eye could see, mile after mile after mile. Occasionally a stork would fly past, or a chevron of geese, gabbling like noisy children, or there would come the rustle and plop of some hidden swamp-dweller sliding into the still water, but that was all. It was little wonder, thought Felix, that the Empire had let Marienburg claim the marshes and the wastelands for their own. Who would want them? 
702  
703There was more trouble with Aethenir at lunch — trouble with far-reaching repercussions for Felix’s peace of mind — though at its beginning, it had only been an argument about food. 
704Before he had even tasted the bowl of stew that one of his warriors had brought him, Aethenir had thrown it overboard. He had come up from his cabin already agitated — presumably from the lack of cleanliness — and the smell of the food appeared to be the last straw. 
705“This is unacceptable!” he said in a clear high voice. “I may be forced to sleep in filth, but I refuse to eat it.” 
706Felix took another sniff of his stew. It smelled fine to him, if a little strong on the garlic. 
707Captain Breda glared at the high elf over the lip of his bowl, his mouth full. “You got what we all got,” he said. 
708“And I wonder you don’t die from it!” cried Aethenir. He turned to Max. “Is it too much to ask for fresh vegetables and fresh meat, cleanly prepared?” 
709Max glanced around uneasily, but before he could speak, the cook, a peg-legged Tilean with a pot belly and a black beard that would have done a dwarf proud, popped out of the galley, glaring around. “Who say my meat is bad? I kill that pig myself, last week!” 
710“Last week?” Aethenir blanched. He put a hand to his forehead. “How is it possible that humanity has risen to such heights while the noble asur have fallen? How have they even survived? Their ships are slow, their knowledge of the world contemptible, their hygiene appalling, their food poisonous…” 
711Max stood, trying to stem the tide. “High one, please, calm yourself. Conditions could be better, I admit, but…” 
712The cook turned on Aethenir, shaking his spit-fork angrily. “I know not what this hygiene is, but…” 
713“By the Everqueen, that’s obvious,” said Aethenir as his warriors went on guard behind him. “Look at yourself. When was the last time you washed your hands? Why did learned Teclis ever decide to grant such shaven apes the blessing of—” 
714“Lord Aethenir!” Max yelped, stepping between him and the begrimed cook. “I think perhaps you would find it more congenial to dine in your cabin.” He took the elf gently by the elbow and steered him towards the door to the underdecks. “I will have new food made for you, and I will oversee its preparation myself. It is part of the learning of my college to cleanse and purify. You need have no fears for your health.” 
715The high elf allowed himself to be led below with further placating murmurings. Everyone let out a held breath and returned to their meal, though there was much muttering from the crew and from Max’s Reiksguard swords. 
716“Called our boat slow,” said a sailor. 
717“He throw my food off the ship,” said the cook. 
718“And one of my bowls,” said Captain Breda. “That’ll go on the bill.” 
719“Shaved apes, did he call us?” asked the captain of the Reiksguard, a knight by the name of Rudeger Oberhoff. “Hope he doesn’t think we’ll be watching his back for him after that.” 
720His men laughed at that, but Felix didn’t see anything particularly funny about the situation. If the elf got the crew too worked up, there might be mutiny or violence, and Aethenir’s warriors looked like capable fellows. He was just glad that Gotrek had elected to stay below and drink instead of joining the others for lunch. Things could have gone much worse if he’d been there. 
721  
722When Max returned to the main deck to oversee the preparation of Aethenir’s meal, Captain Breda pulled him aside and had a few words in his ear. Felix happened to be nearby, and overheard, little knowing then how those words would affect him later. 
723“Magister, sir,” said the captain. “Er, it might be best, milord, if yon high one was to stay off the deck as much as possible for the remainder. Out of sight, out of mind, if you get my meaning, sir.” 
724“Perfectly, captain,” said Max. “And I apologise for Scholar Aethenir’s behaviour. He is young, for an elf, and has never left Ulthuan before. I’m afraid it’s been a bit of a shock.” 
725“That’s as may be,” said Captain Breda. “But he’s in for a ruder shock if he spouts off like that again, elder race or no. The men won’t stand for it.” 
726“I understand completely, captain,” said Max. “I will see to it personally that he stays below as much as can possibly be managed.” 
727“Thank you, magister,” said the captain, bowing. “You ease my mind.” 
728Not exactly the most doom-laden exchange of words, but that is exactly what they were for Felix, because what keeping Aethenir below decks entailed was keeping him company. For the rest of the journey, Max spent night and day in Aethenir’s cabin, discussing magic, philosophy and the nature of the world, as well as playing endless games of chess. And it was in this caretaking that the far-reaching repercussions of the “stew incident” made themselves apparent, for with Max made nursemaid to Aethenir he was no longer able to keep an eye on Fraulein Pallenberger, and finding herself unchaperoned, she made a beeline for the target she had had her eye on since boarding the Jilfte Bateau—Felix. 
729  
730The battle recommenced on the morning of their second day out of Marienburg. At first it seemed that it would be nothing more than a skirmish, but soon it escalated into a full-on assault, with Felix fighting a desperate rearguard action in order to get away unscathed. 
731The morning had begun peacefully enough, settling into what was to be the daily routine of the voyage — wake, dress, have a breakfast of oat mash, grilled flounder or pike and Tilean coffee, then watch the Wasteland go by until lunch, and then more of the same until sunset. Felix would have welcomed almost any interruption of the monotony, but not this one. 
732“You look sad, Herr Jaeger,” said Claudia, appearing at his side. 
733Felix jumped, startled. “Sad?” he said. “Not at all.” He had actually been in the middle of a reverie about what he might do with his father’s inheritance if he did manage to get Euler’s letter for him. Not that he wanted the money, of course. But if he did inherit some, what would he do with it? Visions of exquisite leather-bound volumes of his poetry dissipated into smoke as he turned to the seeress. “Just musing.” 
734“Musing,” she asked, sliding closer to him along the rail. “About what?” 
735“Oh, ah, nothing really. Just, well, just musing.” He looked around him for an excuse to escape, but could see none. 
736She touched his arm and looked at him with her deep blue eyes. “You hide a secret grief, don’t you, Herr Jaeger.” 
737“Eh? Oh no, not really. No more than anybody else, I should think.” “I don’t believe it,” she said. 
738Felix didn’t have any response to that except for a keen desire to push her over the side, so he said nothing, just watched the reeds go by and hoped she would go away. Unfortunately, she did not. 
739“Have you ever loved, Herr Jaeger?” 
740Felix choked, and had to cover his mouth as he was wracked with sudden coughs. “Once or twice, I suppose,” he said, when he had recovered. 
741She turned and faced him, leaning her shapely hip against the rail. “Tell me about them.” “You don’t want to hear about that,” he said. 
742“Oh, but I do,” the seeress said, her eyes never leaving his. “You fascinate me, Herr Jaeger.” 
743“Ah,” said Felix. And in spite of his best efforts, he found himself thinking back to the women he had shared a bed with throughout his wanderings. There had been a fair number over the years, mostly half-remembered tavern girls and harlots in lonely ports scattered from the Old World to Ind, and a few who stood out above the rest; Elissa, the barmaid at the Blind Pig, who had stolen his money, and for a time his heart, Siobhain of Albion, who had travelled with him and Gotrek in the dark lands of the east, and the Veiled One, spy and assassin for the Old Man of the Mountain, whose true name he had never learned. But there were only two he had ever truly loved: Kirsten, with whom he had thought to settle down and raise a family, murdered by the mad playwright Manfred von Diehl in a little outpost in the Border Princes, and Ulrika, with whom he had thought to travel the world, worse-than-murdered by the vampire Adolphus Krieger. The memories, one long buried and one still as raw as an open wound, brought a lump to his throat. Damn the woman. Why had she asked such a vile question? He turned away from her so she wouldn’t see the pain in his eyes. 
744“I have only ever loved two women,” he said at last. “And they are both dead. Is that fascinating enough?” 
745Perhaps he hadn’t done a very good job masking his pain after all, for when he turned to look at her, she stepped back, eyes wide and face pale, and put a hand to her heart. 
746“I… I’m sorry, Herr Jaeger,” she said. “I did not think… That is, I did not mean…” Her face went suddenly from white to pink, and she turned and hurried away, almost running for the door to the underdecks in her haste. 
747Felix turned back to the rail, cursing her for digging so thoughtlessly into his heart, but then a cheerier thought came into his mind. Perhaps this meant that she would leave him alone from now on. 
748Suddenly the day looked a little brighter. 
749  
750Alas, it was not to be. She said nothing to him at lunch, only spooned dully at her stew and glanced at him guiltily when she thought he wasn’t looking, but later in the afternoon, just when he was getting another few hours of marsh-watching in, she reappeared at his side, eyes downcast and lip out-thrust. 
751“I want to apologise to you, Herr Jaeger,” she said. “I was awful to you earlier today and I feel terrible about it.” 
752“Forget it,” said Felix, wishing she really would. Unfortunately she persisted. 
753She took another step closer to him. “Sometimes I forget that men are not books, to be opened and read like… er, books. I should not have pried and I am truly sorry for it.” 
754“Never mind,” said Felix, throwing a splinter from the rail into the water. “No harm done.” 
755He felt a soft pressure on his arm and turned to see that she was leaning against him. The swell of her breast under her dark blue robe pressed against his elbow. “If there is any way…” she said, looking up at him from under her long lashes, “any way that I could make it up to you, I would be grateful for the opportunity.” 
756Felix stood, rolling his eyes, then turned to face her. “I am beginning to wonder, fraulein, if you didn’t use your visions to convince the Slayer to come on this journey just so that you would be able to get me alone on a ship.” 
757The seeress blinked at that, then drew herself up haughtily as the full meaning of what he had said sank in. “The oath of the Celestial Order is very clear, Herr Jaeger,” she said. “We will not use our powers for personal gain, nor will we announce false visions or predictions for any reason whatsoever!” 
758“Well, I won’t tell if you won’t,” said Felix, a little meaner than he had intended. 
759“Oh!” she said. Then “Oh!” again. Then she turned and stomped away just as quickly as she had before, but with much more noise. Felix hoped this time it would stick, but he very much doubted it. 
760  
761On the afternoon of the third day, he sat down on the aft deck with his journal to fill in the so far thrilling events of their journey up the Sea of Manann. Apparently, his last insult had done the trick, for he was able to get in nearly a full hour of scribbling without any interruptions from Fraulein Pallenberger. It was very refreshing. 
762When he was finished he closed the journal, sighed contentedly and sat back, thinking that a little dinner would be in order shortly. But then the feeling that he was being watched crept over him and he turned, expecting to find Claudia peeking out from behind a mast. Instead, it was Max, leaning against the opposite rail and observing him with furrowed intensity as he puffed on his pipe. 
763Felix raised an eyebrow. What had he done this time? Hadn’t he given Claudia the cold shoulder? Surely Max couldn’t be unhappy about that. 
764He nodded politely and began to cap his ink and put away his pen. Before he finished, Max had tapped his pipe out on the rail and crossed to him, sitting down next to him on an overturned bucket. 
765Felix hid a sigh. Was he going to get another lecture? 
766“Good afternoon, Max,” he said, as pleasantly as he could. 
767Max continued to look at him, saying nothing for long enough that Felix began to feel uncomfortable. 
768At last, just as Felix was about to ask what the matter was, he spoke. “You really haven’t aged a day, Felix.” 
769Felix sighed. “Everyone says that. I’m getting a little tired of—” 
770“I do not mean it as a compliment,” said Max. “I mean it as a fact. It is impossible that you should look this young and vigorous.” He frowned and pointed at Felix’s cheek. “You used to have a scar, just there. Do you remember?” 
771Felix reached up and touched his cheek — the duelling scar, taken when he had fought his schoolmate Krassner at university, and killed him. 
772“It’s gone now,” said Max. 
773“Scars fade,” said Felix. 
774“Not a scar like that. Not completely. And yet it has.” 
775Felix frowned. He didn’t like this scrutiny. “But isn’t that good?” 
776“Good?” Max shrugged. “Yes, I suppose. But mysterious as well. Something unnatural is affecting your body — keeping it young, keeping it free from disease, allowing you to recover from wounds faster and more completely than you should. I know other hardy warriors of your age, Felix. They are strong and fit, but their knees still creak and their hands are scarred. Their faces are lined and creased. Yours is not. You no longer look a youth of twenty, it’s true, but you look ten years younger than your true age and well cared for besides.” 
777“I think you’re exaggerating, Max. But if what you say is true, what…” Felix swallowed, uncertain he wanted to know the answer. “What do you think has caused it?” 
778Max leaned back, stroking his neat beard and considering. “I don’t know, but I can think of several possibilities. You will note,” he said, adopting a professorial tone, “that Gotrek is affected in the same way. More so, in fact. There is no dwarf stronger or more massive than he. I’ll wager he has the strength often of his kind. And he too is virtually unscarred, but for his missing eye. Perhaps something the two of you encountered during your journey to the Chaos Wastes has caused this effect. Or it might be some consequence of entering that portal through which you disappeared when I saw you last. Perhaps it is some property of Gotrek’s axe. It is a weapon of great power. Perhaps it is keeping him, and you, fit for some important purpose, though what that might be, I couldn’t say. 
779Whatever it is, it is possible it could keep you alive indefinitely.” 
780“Indefinitely? You mean I might be…” He laughed at the ridiculousness of it. “Immortal?” 
781“Or as near as makes no difference,” said Max, nodding. “But be aware that it is not an unmixed blessing. We of the Empire are not tolerant of the unusual or the unnatural, Felix. If you continue to look as you do for another ten or twenty years, people will talk. You might be accused of being some sort of mutant, or a master of the dark arts, or even one of the undead.” 
782Felix blanched. He had never considered that his good health might be seen as the taint of Chaos. What was he supposed to do, get sick? 
783Max sighed and stood. “I must go hold Scholar Aethenir’s hand again, but think on what I have said, Felix. I believe it would be wise to face your true nature, instead of pretending you have not changed.” 
784“Thank you, Max,” said Felix, softly. “I will.” 
785He barely noticed Max as he turned and left, so confounded was he by what the wizard had said. He didn’t want to believe it. How could it be true? If something had happened to him, wouldn’t he have noticed? He felt no different than he ever had. But perhaps that is what Max had meant. He should have felt different — achy, more run down, older. 
786What if he was immortal? Should he be happy about it? It was every man’s dream to live forever, wasn’t it? But to be made immortal without his consent by some force he didn’t understand — that was more unnerving than thrilling. And did he really want to be following the Slayer into danger for ever and ever without end? Even the wildest journey must come to an end sometime, mustn’t it? 
787A sudden thought came to him and made his heart lurch. Could he be some sort of vampire, as Max suggested? That would mean that he and Ulrika could be together after all! But no, he decided with a sigh, he doubted very much he was a vampire. He was sitting in the sun, wasn’t he? And he had not, as far as he could remember, ever drunk anyone’s blood. And besides, if he were a vampire, he would never have the chance to be with Ulrika, because Gotrek would kill him first. 
788“Sail ho!” called a voice from above. “To the stern on our heading.” 
789Felix looked up. This sort of cry had been frequent on the first two days of their journey, when the Pride of Skintstaad had been at the narrow end of the Manaanspoort Sea and in the major shipping lane, but as they had continued to hug the east coast while most of the traders hugged the west, heading for Bretonnia, Estalia and Tilea, other ships had become fewer and fewer. 
790He rose and joined Captain Breda at the aft rail. Far in the distance, between the iron sea and the pewter sky, was a sharp fleck of white, like a tooth sticking up over the horizon. 
791“What sort of ship is it?” asked Felix. 
792The captain shrugged. “Hard to tell, this far out,” he said. “Three masts. Square rigged. Marienburg, most likely, possibly Imperial. Don’t know what she’s doing going north. Not much trade with the Norse this late in the year. Wouldn’t be doing it myself, if it weren’t for the high one’s gold.” 
793The ship remained on the horizon for the rest of the day, not gaining and not falling back. Captain Breda left instructions for the night watch to keep an eye on its lights and wake him if it got closer, but it never did. 
794  
795* * * 
796  
797The fourth day dawned grey and misty, with gusts of intermittent rain, and it was impossible to tell if the ship with the white sail was still behind them or not. 
798Just before noon, the Pride of Skintstaad sailed past the last headland of the Manaanspoort Sea and out into the great black expanse of the Sea of Chaos. The north wind, which had been softened somewhat by its passage over the Wasteland, was here a cold wet slap in the face. All the sailors donned oiled leather jerkins and shivered at their stations. Felix pulled his red cloak closer around him and looked in all directions. For all his travels, he had never sailed these waters before. Directly north was Norsca, land of longships, snow-topped mountains and fur-clad reavers. East was Erengrad and Kislev and the Sea of Claws. West was fabled Albion, the mist-shrouded isle that he and Gotrek had once visited, but never travelled to. Adventure awaited in every direction, but on the whole, it all seemed a bit chilly and unappealing. 
799It was a few hours later that the inevitable finally happened, and Gotrek and Aethenir crossed paths. Such a confrontation had so far been avoided because both the elf and the dwarf had spent most of their time in their cabins, and generally came up only to use the privy. Thus, it was at the privy that the meeting occurred. 
800The privy of the Pride of Skintstaad was nothing more than a round hole in a bench that hung out over the prow of the ship, directly under the bowsprit and screened off from the rest of the ship by a leather curtain. The path to it was very narrow, a little wedge of space between the looming bowsprit and the starboard rail, which had spare sails and spars and other nautical debris lashed to it. 
801Though Felix was not there for the beginning of the argument, it started, apparently, when Aethenir stepped out of the privy and found Gotrek waiting impatiently to go in. 
802The first Felix and the rest of the crew heard of it was Gotrek’s rasp rising above the sounds of wind and wave. 
803“I’ll not step aside for any honourless, tree-worshipping elf! You step aside!” 
804“Do you dare make demands of me, dwarf? I have paid for this ship, and you are upon it at my pleasure. Now step aside, I say.” 
805Felix sprang up from where he had been reading more of his travels with Gotrek, and ran for the prow. This was just what was needed. Max too was hurrying to the scene. Aethenir’s household guard was not far behind. When they all reached the tiny space, they found the elf and the dwarf face to face — or face to chest, to be more accurate — and barking at each other like dogs. 
806“I go where I please, when I please, and no pompous, prick-eared pantywaist is going to bar my way. Now step aside before I throw you overboard!” 
807“Stubborn son of earth. I do not bar your way. You bar mine!” 
808“Gotrek,” called Felix. “Leave off. What is the point of this?” 
809“Yes, Slayer,” said Max. “Give way and have done.” 
810“Give way to an elf?” said Gotrek, with a dangerous edge to his voice. “I would die first.” 
811“By Asuryan,” said Aethenir. “There would be no need for this argument were you to shave that monstrous filthy beard. There would be room enough for both of us then.” 
812Gotrek froze, his one eye blazing. His hand slowly reached up and caught the haft of his axe. 
813“What did you say?” 
814Felix heard the scrape of steel as the high elf’s warriors all drew their swords at once. 
815Aethenir looked up to them. “Captain Rion! Brothers! Defend me! Save me from this mad rock hewer!” 
816The elves pushed forwards through the other onlookers. 
817“Coward,” snarled Gotrek, bringing his axe before him and ignoring the elves at his rear. 
818“Would you have others fight your battles for you? Draw your sword!” 
819“I carry no sword,” said Aethenir, backing against the privy curtain. “I am a scholar.” 
820“Ha!” barked Gotrek. “A scholar should be wise enough not to start with his mouth what he can’t finish with his hands.” He took another step towards the elf. 
821“Turn, dwarf,” said Captain Rion, a weathered-looking elf with cold grey eyes. “I would not slay even a tunnel-digger from behind.” 
822Gotrek turned and grinned at the thicket of sharp steel that faced him. “All right,” he said. “You first, then the ‘scholar’.” 
823Felix squeezed in beside him. “Gotrek, listen to me. You can’t do this.” 
824“Step back, manling,” growled Gotrek. “You’re crowding my arm.” 
825Felix stayed where he was. “Gotrek, please. He might deserve it, but he paid for the ship. This voyage ends if you kill him or his friends. Remember the seeress’ vision? The black mountain? The tide of blood? The towering abomination? If this argument ends in slaughter we all go back to Marienburg and that doom fades away like all the others. Is that what you want?” 
826Gotrek stood rigid for a long moment, breathing heavily. Felix could see his jaw muscles clenching under his beard as he ground his teeth. At last he put up his axe and turned, shouldering roughly past Aethenir as the elf flattened against the rail. 
827Gotrek slapped aside the curtain, then looked back. “This had better be a damned good doom!” He turned and disappeared into the privy. There was a noise like an explosion in a brewery. Everybody hurried quickly away. 
828  
829Felix retired to his cramped cabin that night well pleased. Though Gotrek’s altercation with Aethenir had been a terrifying near-massacre that had almost ended their journey before it had really begun, afterwards, Felix had been heartened at the thought of how angry and alive the Slayer had been — trading spirited insults with the elf and challenging his whole retinue to a fight. Such a contrast to the somnambulant lump that had sat glumly in the Griffon with barely the energy to lift his tankard to his lips. The seeress’ vision seemed to have worked upon him like an elixir, raising him from the living death of his depression and giving him purpose again. 
830As he lay down in the tiny cupboard bed and pulled the heavy quilt over him, Felix hoped that, for the Slayer’s sake, the premonition wasn’t a lie. After that his thoughts became scattered, and he let the swell of the waves and the creaks and groans of the ship timbers lull him into a deep, dreamless sleep. 
831When he woke again, it was to a soft noise. Long years of experience in dangerous awakenings had taught him not to make any sudden noises or movements. Instead he moved only his eyes, passing them slowly over the small area of dark room that he could see without turning his head. Nothing. Had he imagined it? No. The soft noise was repeated, and followed by quiet rustlings and shiftings. Someone, or some thing, was most definitely in the room with him. 
832He could make out the corners and edges of things now, illuminated in a dim glow of moonlight from the small, thick-glassed window. He eased his head a few inches around, as quietly as he could. 
833Yes, there was someone in his room, and she was stark naked, the pale light highlighting her slim, youthful curves as she dropped her robe to the deck. 
834“What are you doing here?” Felix asked. 
835“I couldn’t sleep,” said Fraulein Pallenberger. 
836“And so you decided that I shouldn’t either.” 
837She sighed and sat on the bed, shivering a little in the chill as she lay a hand on the covers that draped over his legs. “You use harsh humour to hide your misery, Herr Jaeger, but I know that, beneath your cruel words, you long for solace. You drive me away so that you will not have to share your pain, but in your mind you are calling, ‘come back, come back’.” She lay down on top of the covers and brought her face close to his. “And so, I have.” 
838She closed her eyes and leaned in to kiss him. Felix turned his head so that her lips fell awkwardly on his ear. 
839“Fraulein,” he said, then struggled with the bedclothes and sat up. “Fraulein, you cannot be here.” 
840She rolled over and looked up at him, stretching as she raised an eyebrow in what he was sure she thought was a sultry expression. He swallowed. Despite her overplaying, she did look rather fetching sprawled out like that. 
841“And why not?” she said. “You long for it. I long for it. Surely you are not some prudish…” 
842“I do not long for it!” snapped Felix. “And you… This has more to do with putting one over on Magister Schreiber and rebelling against your order than any attraction you have to me.” 
843Her languid look vanished in an angry flash of eyes and she sat up too, all semblance of desire gone. “Why shouldn’t it?” she hissed. “Don’t you see that this might be my last chance? Herr Jaeger, I am young! Young! I want to taste the world before it is taken away from me! I want to live before I die! It is my gift — my curse!—to predict the future, and I predict that the rest of my life will be a long, grey corridor, full of dust and charts and telescopes and pale, wrinkled old men!” She covered her face with one hand. “I know I cannot leave the colleges. The Empire does not suffer a witch to live. I know I have to go back and shuffle along with the rest of them, but for now — for these few days…” She looked up at Felix with eyes that burned with a shimmering fire. “I want to live!” 
844Felix sat back, torn between heartbreak and laughter. “Fraulein Pallenberger, this is all very moving, but the Celestial Order is not a celibate order. You may marry. You may take your pleasure as you like.” 
845“Not until I become a magister,” said Claudia sullenly. “And that might take until I am thirty! I will be old then. No one will want to look at me. My youth will be behind me.” 
846This time Felix did chuckle. “And how old do you think I am?” 
847“It’s different for men!” she cried, then started to weep in earnest. “Oh, I’ve made a terrible mistake!” she bawled. “I didn’t want to join the order! I don’t want to be a seeress!” 
848“Shhhh, shhhh,” said Felix, taking her hands. “You’ll wake the ship.” He groaned as he imagined Max finding them like this. “Please, fraulein. Calm down.” 
849She muffled her sobs with her hands and fell heavily against his chest, nestling her head against his shoulder. He folded her in his arms and stroked her hair — not in any romantic way, he told himself — purely to comfort and quieten her. But when her hands crept around his torso and she pressed herself against him, he found desire stirring within him despite himself. 
850He fought it down and pried her off, but she clung again as soon as he let go. 
851“Do not cast me out, Herr Jaeger,” she murmured in his ear. “Let me live. I beg you.” 
852“Fraulein — Claudia,” he said, trying to disentangle himself. “You really overstate your case. 
853Thirty, even for a woman, is not…” 
854Her lips found his, and then her tongue. He responded before he could remember not to. 
855“Claudia, please,” he said, pushing away from her at last. This wasn’t right. He loved Ulrika. Her memory was still fresh in his heart. He doubted it would ever die. He didn’t want anyone else but her. And since he could not have her, then he would have no one at all. It would be sacrilege to defile the memory of their love with some petty animal flailing. 
856Claudia’s hands trailed down his torso and gripped his legs as she kissed his neck. He shivered. On the other hand, there was something to be said, in this world of trouble and pain, for taking pleasure where one could find it. Ulrika’s words came back to him again. “We must find happiness among our own kind.” He still wasn’t certain that happiness was possible, but comfort might be. 
857With a sigh and a silent apology to Ulrika, wherever she might be, he lowered his lips to Claudia’s and kissed her, long and deep. The seeress whimpered and pressed harder against him. He pulled his nightshirt off over his head and moved his lips to her throat, kissing and nibbling tenderly. She shivered and groaned. Felix chuckled to himself. It had been a while, but he appeared not to have forgotten what to do. He pressed her back against the bed and kissed her clavicle, then down between her breasts. She moaned and clutched him, trembling as if with fever. “Here,” she said. “Here!” 
858By Taal and Rhya, thought Felix, delving lower, no wonder the girl regrets her apprenticeship, she’s as enflamed as a rutting cat. 
859“Here!” the seeress shrieked, and scrambled up out of the bed, kneeing him in the cheek in her haste. 
860“Claudia, what…?” he said, then stared. 
861She stood in the centre of the tiny cabin, her arms thrust wide and her eyes rolled up in their sockets, shaking like she was bracing against a high wind. 
862“Here!” she screamed. “Here is the source of the visions! I can feel it! It is from here that the ruin of Marienburg will spring!” 
863Felix heard the thumps and questioning cries of his fellow passengers through the walls all around him. He jumped out of bed and snatched her robe up off the floor where she had dropped it. He had to get her dressed and back to her own cabin. But it was impossible. She continued to stand with arms outstretched, as rigid as a sword, and he could not get both of her sleeves on her at once. 
864“Here!” she wailed in his ear as he tried to wrap the robe around her nakedness. “Here is where we will find Altdorf’s doom!” 
865It was in this tableau that the others found them when they slammed open the door — Max, Aethenir, Captain Breda, Gotrek and assorted swordsmen, sailors and elves — all staring at Felix and Claudia struggling and naked in the centre of the room, with the seeress’ robe fluttering once again to the deck. 
866“Could you be quieter about it, manling?” rumbled Gotrek. “Some of us are trying to sleep.” 
867  
868SEVEN 
869  
870  
871Captain Breda dropped anchor there and then, but there was little point in looking around in the dark, so they waited until first light before lowering the boats and rowing them to shore to see if they could find the source of Claudia’s vision. 
872Gotrek and Felix set out in the boat that carried Max and Claudia and their eight Reiksguard knights, Aethenir and his elf warriors were rowed in another, and Captain Breda sent another party of sailors to look for fresh water to replenish the stores. As they all left the ship, Felix could see the sailors at the rail looking at him and elbowing each other lasciviously. His face burned crimson. They had been laughing behind his back since word had spread of how he and Claudia had been discovered. He didn’t know what they had to snicker about. She had come to his cabin and not theirs after all. 
873The sailors’ mirth was unfortunately not the only fallout. Max had not spoken to him since. Nor had Claudia. She seemed too embarrassed to look at him. The ride to the shore was therefore silent and uncomfortable. 
874They pulled the boats up onto a rocky beach hemmed in on three sides by high sand dunes. A cold wind whistled through the saw grass that topped them, and clouds scudded by above them in a steely autumn sky. A few raindrops fell. Max and Aethenir turned to Claudia, expectant, while the Reiksguard and the elf warriors prepared to march and Felix shrugged into his chainmail and strapped on his sword. 
875“Have you further insight as to where this evil lies, seeress?” asked Max, who had grown very formal with her since the previous night. “Or what it might be?” 
876Claudia shook her head, unable to meet his eyes. “The vision has passed and 1 have not had another. I’m sorry, magister. It is near here, but I don’t know where, or what it is, precisely.” 
877Max nodded. “Very well, then we will split up and look for it. You and I will go south with Captain Oberhoff and his men along the shore. High one, will you take your kin inland and look there?” 
878“Of course,” said Aethenir. 
879Max turned to Gotrek, pointedly ignoring Felix. “Slayer, will you and Herr Jaeger walk the coast to the north? We will search until mid-morning, then return here and compare notes. And whatever you find, let it lie until we may all examine it together.” Gotrek nodded. 
880Felix stiffened at the snub, but said nothing. He had, after all, all but promised Max that he would have nothing to do with Claudia, and he had gone back on that promise — however unwillingly — so he supposed he deserved a snubbing. Still, it felt a bit petty. Maybe Max was jealous that Claudia had chased Felix instead of him. The thought sparked others. Was Max married? Did he have a mistress? Did he even care about such worldly matters any more? Felix didn’t know. 
881As they took packs and waterskins out of the boats, Felix found himself for a moment alone next to Claudia. He leaned in and lowered his voice. “I hope Max hasn’t scolded you too much for last night’s—” 
882“You might have covered me,” she snapped, cutting him off. “I’ve never been so embarrassed.” 
883“I tried!” said Felix, defensive. Then he got angry. What right did she have to criticise his actions? “And you might have stayed in your own cabin and saved us both a lot of bother!” 
884“Oh!” she said, and turned away without another word. 
885He watched her walk away and found Max giving him the evil eye again. Felix cursed silently and turned away, shouldering his pack. 
886Rain began to spit intermittently from the sky as Felix and Gotrek set off to the north, staying within sight of the water. This was not as easy as one might have thought. The shore was not all beaches and dunes. In fact, most of it was swampy, foul-smelling wetlands, an endless flat swamp with the occasional scrawny, leafless tree sticking up out of it like a witch’s claw reaching up from a drowning pool. They slogged through brittle, knife-sharp grass — waist high for Felix, chest high for Gotrek — that grew out of rank, spongy ground, their footprints filling in with water behind them. The muck exhaled a low, foetid mist that swirled around their ankles, and clouds of midges and mosquitoes rose from it continually, getting in their eyes and noses and biting them unmercifully on every inch of exposed skin. Weird cries echoed through the humid silence, and once something big splashed heavily into a stream nearby, but they didn’t see what it was. 
887Gotrek took the flies and the mud and the smell and the unnerving noises without apparent discomfort, but Felix was slapping and cursing and stumbling and walking into enormous spiderwebs the whole way. It seemed all of a piece with his vile mood. He couldn’t get over Claudia’s unfair anger at him. It wasn’t his fault she had been found naked in his cabin. He had tried to get her to leave, repeatedly. It was she who had come uninvited and tried to seduce him. It was she who had decided that the best time to have a vision of the future was during love-making. Even more galling was the fact that Max seemed to think that he had lured her there, that he was some sort of low lothario that preyed upon young, inexperienced girls. It made him want to go back and shout the truth in their faces. It made him forget to look where he was going and step into a puddle that filled his boots to the top with freezing, green-scummed water. 
888His cursing startled a flock of ducks who flew over their heads, complaining querulously, and started a racket of strange shrieks off to the west that made his skin crawl. He cursed them too. 
889If only he had some idea what they were looking for, it might have made the journey more bearable. That was Claudia’s fault too. Did she have to be so vague? What good was an ability that only gave half-answers? Should they be on the look-out for some ruined tower? A ring of stones? A weird tree with tentacles for branches? A fissure in the earth that radiated a ghastly glow? Without some goal in mind it all felt like some wild goose chase. Maybe Claudia had no powers of foresight at all. He had seen nothing conclusive to prove to the contrary. Maybe she made all of it up just so that she would have an excuse to leave the confines of the Celestial College. He wouldn’t put it past her. 
890  
891Gotrek discovered the footprints just as they were about to turn back and report their failure. They had trudged up out of the marshland onto a hillocky plain that was covered in bramble bushes and scrub pine, and had found, carving through the brush to the sea, a narrow, clear-running stream with high, undercut banks. Below one of these banks was a line of bootprints, paralleling the stream and heading inland. 
892They drew their weapons and followed the prints as they weaved in and out of the water for perhaps a quarter of a mile. They stopped at last at a place where the stream widened into a pool and the banks drew back to make a muddy little beach. Here the first prints were joined by many others, and also the imprint of the keels of small boats at the waterline and the circular imprints of barrels, sunk heavily into the mud. It was clear that a landing party had been here recently and refilled their water barrels, just as Captain Breda’s men were doing now further south. And the narrowness of the prints also made it clear — at least to Gotrek — who had collected the water. 
893“More elves,” Gotrek growled. 
894Felix nodded, and they turned back. It had been a discovery, but it didn’t seem to be the portent of doom they had been looking for. 
895The rain chose that moment to begin sheeting down like a waterfall. Felix sighed. Of course it was raining. A day like today wouldn’t be complete without being soaked to the skin. 
896  
897* * * 
898  
899As the sky grew darker and the downpour got heavier, they turned inland, partly to be good scouts and search new ground, but mostly to avoid the marshes during the rain. It appeared that Max and Claudia and their Reiksguard escort had done the same, for they met them coming north about a quarter of a mile inland from the beach where they had landed. The two wizards were much the worse for wear, their cloaks and long robes muddied to the waist, their hands and faces scratched by brambles and dotted with insect bites. Felix felt a warm glow at the thought that Claudia had shared his misery. It served her right. 
900“Anything to report?” asked Max, raising his voice over the hiss of the rain as he mopped his face with a handkerchief. Despite the chill wind and the downpour, he and Claudia were beetrootred and boiling from their exertions, as were their swordsmen, who were steaming slightly, and appeared to be regretting having worn breastplates and pauldrons for the march. 
901“Not much,” Felix shouted in return. “We found signs of an elf watering party at the limit of our march.” 
902“A watering party?” asked Captain Oberhoff. “In this godforsaken place? Must have been desperate.” 
903“Or searching for something,” said Max. “Like us.” 
904The clink of scale mail brought their heads up and they saw, coming over a hill to the east, Aethenir and his escort, marching in perfect double file. Felix was annoyed to see that, though wet, their surcoats were still pristine, and their boots clean. And not one of them seemed to have been bitten by mosquitoes. 
905“A disappointing search,” said Aethenir as the elves joined them. “We found nothing.” He looked to Max. “I hope you have had more success.” 
906Max shook his head. “Nothing. Gotrek and Herr Jaeger have found signs of a recent elf watering party to the north, but nothing else.” 
907“Elves?” said Aethenir, his eyes narrowing. He turned to Captain Rion and asked him a question in the elven tongue. The captain shook his head and Aethenir looked troubled. “I pray it was only elves,” he said to Max, then turned to look at Claudia. “And has Fraulein Pallenberger experienced any new revelations about our goal?” 
908“No,” said Max. “Not yet.” 
909Claudia hung her head. “I wish I could call them forth, high one,” she said glumly. “But they come when they come.” 
910The elf smiled slyly. “So I have observed.” 
911Claudia turned crimson at that, and Max’s eyes blazed. Even Felix felt angry. The girl might be a young fool who needed to learn restraint, but there was no need to make her feel worse about last night’s embarrassment. 
912Aethenir turned towards the beach again, oblivious to their anger, his escort following. Max opened his mouth to speak, but Claudia grabbed his arm and shook her head, pleading silently. Felix could see her point. Protesting would only make her the centre of more excruciating attention. Max relented and they all followed the elves as they trudged up the hill into the driving rain. 
913Felix was slipping and stumbling down the far side and thinking that perhaps stealing his father’s letter from Euler might have been the better option after all, when suddenly Claudia gasped and staggered into him. 
914He caught her but then lost his footing and they both went down together. It took all his will to be polite. 
915“Are you all right, fraulein?” he asked. “Have you trodden on something?” 
916But Claudia’s eyes were wide and unseeing, and she clutched her robes with spasming, whiteknuckled hands. “The flames! The sea crawls with flames!” 
917“Back to the boats!” snapped Max, and he motioned for two of the stronger Reiksguarders to take Claudia from Felix as he and Gotrek and the rest of the party raced towards the shore. 
918  
919It was difficult to see for more than ten paces in the freezing torrent and the gathering dark. Even so, all could see the flickering glow that silhouetted the last dune before the beach, and they hurried up the shifting sandy slope with anxious speed. 
920Felix was one of the first to the top, just behind Aethenir’s elves, and he looked towards the source of the light. Out on the sea, the Pride of Skintstaad was a roaring pyre of sallow green flames — too far gone to even think of trying to save it. 
921The others joined him on the crest, Max, Claudia and the men gasping and wheezing from their run. Gotrek just stared, the green fire reflected in his single eye. Claudia choked and wept. “No! Why didn’t I see it sooner?” Felix was wondering the same thing. 
922Max pointed down to the beach. “To our boats. We must go help the survivors.” 
923Felix and the others nodded and started trotting quickly down to the boats, calling for the sailors to take up their oars, but though the boats were there, the men who had rowed them ashore were nowhere to be seen. 
924“Where in Sigmar’s name have they run off to?” growled Captain Oberhoff. 
925Then one of his Reiksguard pointed to the water. “Look!” he said. “The crew! They’re swimming ashore!” 
926Felix looked where he pointed. It was hard to see through the rain, but he could make out the lumpy shapes of heads bobbing in the water, moving closer to the beach. Some of them were crawling through the surf. 
927“Praise Manann,” said one of the other Reiksguard. 
928But Felix frowned. Had there been so many crewmen? He only remembered a score at the most. 
929There seemed to be twice that many heads in the water. “Wait,” he said. “Aren’t there too many?” The others looked again, blinking in the downpour. 
930Aethenir stepped back. “Those aren’t men,” he said. “They are…” 
931With a feral hiss, the first wave of swimmers rose from the breaking waves and ran at the party on the beach — dark, crouching forms with water dripping from their piecemeal armour and their matted fur. Dagger teeth flashed bone-white in the gloom. Red eyes glowed. Rust-grimed spearheads glinted green in the light of the burning ship. 
932“Skaven!” roared Gotrek. He charged into the surf, drawing his axe from his back and sweeping it around him savagely. Skaven heads and limbs and tails spun away from skaven bodies to splash in the water. 
933The men and elves did not follow the Slayer’s example. They fell back, shouting and drawing swords as dozens of the horrible creatures rose from the sea and scrabbled towards them, swinging wide around Gotrek and up the beach like a black tide. Felix backed off and fought alongside the others, separated from the Slayer by the seething wall of fur, filth and fangs. Spearheads flashed out of the glistening gloom, invisible until almost too late. Felix parried desperately, and slashed back, but it was like striking at shadows. A hoarse cry of pain came from his left — a curse from his right. 
934Felix was having a hard time getting his bearings as he fell in with the Reiksguard. Why skaven? Why now? What did they want? And where had they come from? 
935Then, with a shout of strange words, Max thrust up a hand and a ball of brilliant white light crackled into existence above his head. The skaven cringed back in the harsh illumination, chittering fearfully. 
936The Reiksguarders, hardened veterans of the recent Chaos invasion, did not flinch from this magic, nor did the elves. The Reiksguard fell in shoulder to shoulder, their swords and shields working in unison, while beside them, the elves attacked in a spinning, whirling fury, their long blades chopping through spears and furred limbs with equal ease as further spells from Max’s hands shot past them and blasted the ranks of skaven with orbs of scintillating light that made them shriek and fall and writhe on the ground. But though the glowing ball made the vermin easier to see and kill, it also showed just how many there were. Felix’s heart thudded as he looked out over the milling carpet of ratmen that covered the beach, while still more rose from the waves. There seemed no end to them. 
937The harsh light illuminated all their most hideous attributes — the patchy, scrofulous fur, the pustule-plagued snouts, the soulless black-marble eyes, the horrible, hissing mouths, the revolting trophies that dangled from their necks and belts. Nausea constricted his throat as he slashed viciously at them, all his disgust and fear of the vile creatures turning into a seething rage. His first stroke opened a ratman’s stomach in a spray of blood and viscera, then he removed another’s arm on the back swing. He buried the blade in the skull of a third, kicked it free and spun to face more. 
938On the far side of the skaven, Gotrek was doing the same, or trying to. The Slayer was as angry as Felix had ever seen him, for though he was surrounded by foes, he had no one to fight. The skaven scampered away from him like — well, like rats — and on his short legs he could not close with them. “Stand and fight, vermin!” he raged as he ran backwards and forwards in the centre of an empty circle of sand. 
939Felix quickly found himself having the same problem. The skaven were staying behind their spears, prodding at him from a distance, but making no attempt to kill him. He lunged at a cluster of them, but they only parted before him, like water around a stone. He could not understand the behaviour. Skaven either fought with maddened fury or fled. There had never in his experience been anything in between. 
940Roaring with frustration, Gotrek gave up trying to close with passing ratmen and charged the back of the skaven line, cutting a hole through it with his axe. He only killed a few, for, as before, they jumped out of his way. The Slayer halted beside Felix, shaking his axe, his crest hanging limp from the pelting rain as he bellowed at their foes. “Craven ratkin! Give me a proper fight!” 
941But they did not. The skaven continued to shy away from them. Gotrek and Felix had almost no enemies facing them at their portion of the line. 
942The Reiksguarders and the high elves were not so fortunate. The swordsman beside Felix crumpled, impaled by a spear, and another lay face-down on the sand. One of the high elves was stepping back behind his comrades, his left leg a bloody ruin. Though the men and the elves seemed to be killing ten skaven for every one that fell on their side, there were so many of the beasts that it didn’t matter. The sheer mass of the vermin pressed the whole party back towards the dunes, step by inexorable step, and threatened to encircle it as well. 
943Behind the thin line of Reiksguard and elf warriors, Max wove trails of light in the air that expanded into a shimmering bubble of energy that encircled himself, Claudia and Aethenir. Within the circle, Aethenir motioned the wounded elf into the bubble and began making gestures in the air over his leg, while Claudia, looking terrified but determined, mouthed a spell and let loose a blast of lightning from her hands that caused the skaven front line to twitch and fall. So the girl had a use after all, thought Felix, uncharitably. 
944Just as he thought it, Claudia screamed. He looked back again. Gotrek did too. Bursting from the sawgrass at the base of the dune to their rear were black shadows, throwing metal stars and glass globes. Men and elves alike cried out as the stars bit into their limbs and torsos. 
945An elf warrior instinctively knocked a globe out of the air with his sword and it shattered. He and another elf went down as if shot, as green mist blossomed from the glass ball and enveloped them. The skaven hacked them savagely as they fell. Captain Rion and the other elves dodged back and covered their noses and mouths. The mist drifted into the skaven ranks and half a dozen collapsed. Two of the globes landed with a soft thud on the wet sand at Felix’s feet. He picked them up in one hand and hurled them towards the sea. They left a faint familiar odour on his fingers. 
946Gotrek snarled and ran at the star-hurling shadows. 
947“Protect the wizards,” cried Felix to the swordsmen, then raced after the Slayer. 
948But just as they were about to close with the murky shapes, a deep bellow rose above the noise of the rain. Gotrek stopped in his tracks and looked around. A massive black-furred, rat-headed creature, nearly twice Felix’s height and thick with mutated muscle, was bounding down the dune towards Max, Aethenir and Claudia. Max spun and shot a blast of light at it. The creature howled but did not slow. Claudia sent a bolt of lightning at it. It hardly seemed to notice. 
949The wounded high elf pushed away from Aethenir’s ministrations and limped to intercept it, his teeth clenched but his sword at the ready. Captain Rion and the other elf warriors looked back, but they were engaged with the skaven front line and could not break away. 
950Gotrek sprinted to get between the wounded elf and the rat ogre, his one eye blazing. “Mine, you chalk-faced thief!” he roared. “Leave off!” 
951Felix ran behind the Slayer, but suddenly, with a jerk at his chest, he wasn’t running anymore. He was flat on his back. 
952He looked down at himself. There was a noose of thin grey cord wrapped around his chest. His heart thudded with sudden recognition, even as he picked himself up and turned to look where the noose led. The attack in Altdorf! It had been the skaven! And the attack in Marienburg as well! The globes smelled the same as the gas that had knocked out everyone at the Three Bells! But why did the skaven want to capture them? 
953“Loose me, you damned rope twirlers!” bawled Gotrek beside him. 
954Felix chopped through the line with his sword and turned to see that the Slayer was similarly infested with nooses. One was around his neck, another looped around his left wrist and another around his right ankle. They did not stop him by any means, but they did slow him, and the wounded elf reached the rat ogre first, his shining blade parrying the monster’s massive claws with a deafening clang. 
955Enraged, Gotrek gathered up all the ropes that held him in one hand and pulled savagely. Blackclad skaven stumbled out of the shadows at the end of the ropes. Gotrek roared and charged them — then vanished into a pit that opened up in the sand below his feet. 
956Felix stared. One moment, the Slayer had been running full tilt, axe raised, the next moment he was gone, to be replaced by a dark hole in the ground with wet sand trickling down into it. 
957“Gotrek!” Felix ran to the edge of the hole and nearly fell in himself as the edge crumbled and fell down on the Slayer below. Gotrek clawed at the sides of the pit, half-buried in wet sand, as he tried to climb out, but the sand broke apart under his fingers and he sank back. 
958“Hang on, Gotrek!” cried Felix. “I’ll get you out!” 
959Just then a chittering from beyond the hole brought his head up. The black-clad skaven were running at him, holding what looked like a big leather bag. Felix grabbed the rope that was wrapped around Gotrek’s wrist and hauled on it one-handed while lashing out at the skaven with his blade, but the Slayer was too heavy and the sand too loose. The skaven danced back out of reach, then darted in at his back and cut the cord. 
960He fell back as the cord snapped, then rolled to his feet, on guard, panic rising in his chest. There was no pulling Gotrek out. Not with the skaven ambushers trying to stuff him in a sack. And with the Slayer out of the fight the vermin might win, and he and Felix would be taken prisoner. He shivered at the thought. That was an unthinkable outcome. He had to get Gotrek out, but how? 
961Then he saw the way. Unfortunately, it meant putting himself in the path of a marauding monster. Felix hacked around at the assassins, fanning them back, then raced through the rain towards the wounded elf and the rat ogre. The skaven scampered after him. To one side, the remaining Reiksguard and elf warriors had surrounded Max, Claudia and Aethenir, and were fighting desperately to keep the skaven horde from breaking through their circle. 
962Felix ran past them and hacked the massive rat beast in the side as it swung again at the elf. It roared and turned to him, and the elf staggered back in relief. He was in bad shape, barely able to move on his maimed leg, and three fingers of his left hand were missing. 
963“Fall back!” Felix shouted, taking a step back and slashing at the assassins behind him. “Let me lead it away!” 
964The high elf nodded and stumbled aside as Felix waved his sword in the brute’s face. It bellowed and lumbered forwards, swiping at him with its massive claws. Felix ducked, then turned and ran, hacking down two of the bag-wielding skaven who were creeping up behind him, and looking back to be sure the thing was following. It was — too fast! Felix sprang ahead as the monster’s fists pounded the sand just inches from his heels, almost jarring him off his feet. The assassins scampered out of its path. 
965As he reached the hole, Felix bent down and scooped up another of Gotrek’s noose ropes, then dived forwards as the rat ogre’s claws whooshed over his head. He rolled to his feet and faced the towering rat ogre. It raised its arms and charged. Felix dodged aside, holding the rope and swiping at the ambushers, who were scurrying around the outskirts of the fight, still trying to put him in the bag. The beast stumbled into the rope. Felix quickly ran behind it, wrapping the cord around its legs, then got in front of it again, jerking the cord tight. 
966“Come on, you overgrown sewer rat!” he shouted, waving his sword. “Come and die!” 
967The monster obliged, striding forwards with a savage bellow as Felix dodged back. The rope around the rat ogre’s waist pulled taut behind him, and with an explosion of sand, Gotrek was dragged from the hole — by the neck! 
968Felix gaped, and nearly had his head taken off. He’d grabbed the wrong rope! Sigmar, had he strangled the Slayer? 
969Felix ducked to the side, forcing the rat ogre to stop and change direction. Its tail of rope went slack, and to Felix’s great relief, he saw Gotrek stagger to his feet, cursing and clawing at the noose that had cinched his beard to his neck. 
970The giant beast swung its claws again. Felix dodged back, then darted in under its massive arm and stabbed it between the ribs. The point sank deep. The thing roared and twisted, wrenching the sword from Felix’s hands and clubbing him to the sand with a flailing elbow. 
971It raised its fists over its head to deliver the death blow. Felix crabbed feebly backwards, weaponless and stunned, knowing he was dead. But suddenly the rat ogre was toppling sideways as its right leg fell away from its body in a shower of blood. It crashed down onto its back, thrashing and screaming. Gotrek stood behind it, his axe dripping gore. He raised his axe high, then chopped down through the beast’s bony skull with a sickening crunch. The muscle-bloated body went slack and Felix breathed a sigh of relief. 
972Gotrek levered his axe out of the rat ogre’s skull and ran at the skaven assassins, who were creeping in again. “You’ve got a funny sense of humour, manling.” 
973“I grabbed the wrong rope!” said Felix, staggering up and joining. “I didn’t mean it.” 
974It seemed, however, that the assassins had had enough. They scattered before Gotrek and Felix like cockroaches, whistling shrilly as they ran. 
975The whistle appeared to be a signal, for the mob of skaven that were still pressing the Reiksguard swordsmen and Aethenir’s retinue broke away from the battle and raced back towards the shore. The men and elves chased them, but the ratmen dived into the waves and swam strongly out to sea, their long snouts making streaming bow waves in the black water. 
976Felix stared after them as he and Gotrek strode down to the surf. “Where are they going?” he asked. “Do they have a ship?” 
977Gotrek shrugged. There was no ship to be seen except the Pride of Skintstaad, now burnt to the waterline and sinking fast. “I hope they drown.” 
978Felix said a silent prayer for Captain Breda and his crew as he took a final look at the dying ship and turned back and surveyed the aftermath of the battle. Skaven bodies littered the beach, misshapen lumps of fur surrounded by clotted red sand. There were too many men and elves lying among the horrors, however. Two of the high elves were dead, gutted while knocked out by the skaven’s sleep gas. Four of the Reikland swordsmen were dead as well, impaled by skaven spears, and a fifth was dying, a river of blood pouring from a deep gash on his inner thigh. Captain Oberhoff and two others were all that were left, and even they bled from numerous wounds. They knelt by the dying man, holding his hands and speaking comforting words to him as his face drained white and his head began to nod. Captain Rion prayed over the two elves that had fallen. 
979Max, Claudia and Aethenir were untouched. Their guards had done their job, and had paid for it. Aethenir cast spells of healing on the wounded elves, and Max waited for the Reiksguarders to finish saying goodbye to their companion so that he could do the same to them. 
980Claudia knelt on the wet sand, soaked to the bone, staring around at all the carnage, blank with shock. Felix almost asked her how she was enjoying her freedom, but decided that was too cruel and held his tongue. 
981Max eyed Gotrek and Felix as they neared. “They were after you,” he said, bitterly. “I should have remembered that you two always bring trouble with you.” 
982Felix shook his head. “I don’t understand it. What do they want with us? We’ve fought them before, but that was twenty years ago. These can’t possibly be the same ones, can they?” 
983Max shrugged. “Nonetheless, they want you, and they want you alive. You were the only ones they didn’t try to kill. I only hope they don’t come for you again until we have parted company.” 
984Felix nodded, fighting down a wave of guilt. Max was right. The skaven attacks had hurt everyone but their intended targets. He was about to tell Max about the attacks in Altdorf and Marienburg, when a glint of red and blue on the chest of one of the skaven assassins caught Felix’s attention. It seemed out of place amidst the rest of the ratman’s filthy possessions. 
985He stepped closer and toed aside the vermin’s ragged black garment. Threaded onto a dirty string around its neck was a collection of odd trinkets — bones, coins, a human ear, bits of amber and tin, and, in the middle of this trash, a gaudy gold ring, set with sapphires surrounding the letter “J” picked out in rubies. 
986Felix blinked at it for several seconds, uncomprehending. He recognised it, but it was so out of place in its current surroundings that for a moment he couldn’t place it. Then he knew it, and his heart turned to a fist of ice. It was his father’s ring. 
987  
988EIGHT 
989  
990  
991“We must go back to Altdorf!” Felix cried, ripping the ring from the slimy cord around the skaven’s neck. “Immediately!” 
992The others turned towards him, curious. 
993Felix held up the ring. “This vile creature has my father’s ring! It must have… It must have…” Felix found that he could not bring himself to voice what he feared the skaven must have done. “I don’t know what it has done. But I must return to Altdorf at once to find out!” Gotrek’s eyes narrowed as he looked at the ring. 
994Max stepped forwards, concerned. “Felix, this is terrible. Are you certain it is your father’s ring?” 
995“Of course I’m certain,” snapped Felix, holding it out. “Look at it. It has the Jaeger J. The last I saw it, it was on his hand. The skaven have been in his house! I must go back as soon as possible!” 
996“No!” cried Claudia from behind them. âœYou will not!” 
997They turned. She was struggling to her feet, encumbered by her wet robes. 
998Felix glared at her. “Are you ordering me?” he asked, hotly. 
999“No,” she said again, staring sightlessly past him towards the sea, her eyes rolled up in her head. “We will not leave.” She thrust out a trembling finger, pointing past the drifting column of black smoke that was all that was left now of the Pride of Skintstaad. “We will go there! That is where the evil lies!” 
1000Felix cursed under his breath. Damn the woman and her inconvenient visions. He was really beginning to think she did it on purpose. 
1001The others looked out over the water in the direction she pointed. Felix reluctantly joined them, hoping against hope that there would be nothing there. Unfortunately, there was. 
1002About a mile out, a distance they had not been able to see when the rain was at its heaviest, there was a break in the thick clouds that blanketed the sky from horizon to horizon, and the ragged edges of the hole were slowly circling like porridge being stirred by a spoon. A shaft of bleak sunshine streamed straight down through the hole. Felix shivered at the unnatural sight. It was hard to tell through all the mist and rain, but it looked like the water below the opening was swirling in exactly the same way that the clouds were. 
1003“No, curse it! I refuse!” he said, the blood pounding strongly in his temples. “Ancient evils from the dawn of time can wait for once! My father might be… might be harmed, and I intend to return to his side at once!” 
1004“We haven’t got a ship, manling,” said Gotrek. 
1005“I don’t care! I’ll walk!” 
1006“Certainly we will walk, Felix,” said Max, in the sort of patient voice one would use to speak to a pouty child. 
1007“We have no choice now. But as we’re here, we should do what we came to do. One day out of twenty won’t make a difference.” 
1008“It could make all the difference in the world!” shouted Felix, glaring around at them all. Didn’t they understand? His father could be dying. The skaven might have done anything to him. 
1009Gotrek knelt and cleaned the blood from his axe with a handful of sand. “The rats have already done what they have done, manling,” he said without looking up. “No matter how fast we return, we can’t turn back time.” 
1010Felix bit back an angry reply, trying to find some fault in the Slayer’s cold logic, but at last, with a final kick at the dead skaven, he let out a breath. “All right, fine. Let’s go have a look at where the evil lies, but then I’m going back to Altdorf, with you or without you.” “Thank you, Felix,” said Max. 
1011The others turned away and began preparing to row out to the cloudbreak. Felix stepped to the dead rat ogre and began wrenching his sword out from between its ribs. 
1012“Manling,” said Gotrek. 
1013Felix looked around to find the Slayer fixing him with his one hard eye. 
1014“Yes?” 
1015“Revenge is patient,” Gotrek said, then sheathed his axe and turned away. 
1016  
1017Half an hour later, after Max and Aethenir had seen to the survivors’ wounds as well as they could, and after the bodies of the slain had been buried in the sand and the grave marked so that they could be retrieved later, the remains of the landing party set out towards the swirling clouds in a single boat. Gotrek, Felix, Captain Rion, his three unwounded elves and the two remaining Reiksguard swordsmen manned the oars while Aethenir, Max, the wounded elf and Reiksguard Captain Oberhoff sat in the back and Claudia stood at the front, staring ahead into the wind and rain like a living figurehead. Felix once again fought the urge to push her in. 
1018Several times during the journey he got the distinct feeling that they were being watched, but when he looked back, he could see no one on the shore, and no skaven snouts bobbing in the water, so he decided it was his imagination, though it was still a mystery where the swimming ratmen had gone. 
1019The closer they got to the opening in the swirling clouds, the more the rain let up until, about half a mile from it, they reached the eye of the bizarre storm and all became bright and clear, with the autumn sun slanting down through the ragged aperture and shining on the dark blue water — and something else. 
1020Standing in the prow, Claudia was the first to see it. “There… there’s a hole. In the water.” 
1021Felix stopped rowing and turned around with the others. “A hole?” 
1022Max stood, shielding his eyes and looking ahead. “A whirlpool.” “It’s… it’s huge!” said Captain Oberhoff. 
1023Gotrek grunted, as if to say that this was just the sort of thing he would expect from water. 
1024Felix stood and looked ahead. There was indeed a whirlpool, and it was indeed huge — almost half a mile across — an exact mirror of the hole in the clouds that roiled above it. The sea around it swirled and frothed like water going down a drain, and a noise like an endlessly crashing wave reached their ears now that they were out of the rain. Felix swallowed, terrified. It was a great maw in the sea, hungry to swallow them. 
1025“Well, there it is then,” he said nervously. “Now we’ve seen it we can go back. We’ll tell the Marienburg High Council a whirlpool is coming their way and they can, ah, take measures.” 
1026“It is not the whirlpool that is the threat,” said Claudia. “It is what’s within it. I can feel it, but we must get closer.” 
1027Felix cursed. The woman’s visions kept leading them into trouble. Shouldn’t prophecy warn one away from danger, not drag one towards it? “You can’t be serious! We’ll be sucked in! We’ll die!” 
1028“I too can feel it,” said Aethenir. “There is great evil here. Row on.” 
1029Felix looked to Max for support. The wizard hesitated, but Felix could see the lust for knowledge in his eyes. 
1030“I can’t protect you from that, lord magister,” said Captain Oberhoff, piping up. “Best to turn back.” 
1031“Aye, lord,” said Captain Rion to Aethenir. “Our swords are useless against such a threat.” Finally some voices of reason, thought Felix. 
1032“Nevertheless,” said Aethenir. “We must get closer so that we may try to sense what is causing it. Row on.” 
1033Max looked from Felix to Oberhoff to Aethenir. “Perhaps a little closer,” he said at last. “Only be careful.” 
1034Captain Oberhoff sighed. Rion’s jaw clenched. They exchanged a look of comradely suffering. Felix and the others reluctantly picked up their oars again and rowed slowly closer. There was a visible line between the choppy waves of the sea and the fast rippling current that raced around the great vortex. They edged towards the line, measuring every stroke. At last they began to feel the fatal tug of the current upon the keel of the boat. 
1035“It’s pulling now!” said Felix, louder than he meant to. 
1036“Then retreat slightly and hold,” said Aethenir calmly, and stepped towards the front of the boat. 
1037Felix cast a glance at his comrades as they worked together to reverse their strokes and bring the boat to a halt. The swordsmen looked nervous, Gotrek furious, and the elves as calm as milk. At last the boat came to a shaky stop, wavering restlessly in the water as the current drew it one way and their oar-work pulled it the other. It felt like they were balancing on a teetering rock. One slip and they would all go down. Felix wiped the sweat from his brow with his shoulder and kept backstroking. 
1038Claudia and Max joined Aethenir in the prow of the boat and closed their eyes, mumbling under their breath. A glow of light began to shimmer around Max’s grey-haired head. Ripples distorted the air around Aethenir. Claudia looked up at the patch of sky that showed through the clouds, whispering fiercely. 
1039Felix, Gotrek and the others kept pushing slowly but steadily on the oars, keeping the boat in place as the wizards’ incantations grew louder and more droning. The three different spells weaved in and out of each other like some unearthly melody, and Felix felt weird pressures and unexpected emotions pushing at him from within and without. Claudia began to sway in place, and Felix feared — or perhaps hoped — she would fall out of the boat. 
1040In the middle of it all, Captain Oberhoff raised a shout. “A ship!” 
1041Max broke off instantly — Claudia and Aethenir more reluctantly. Gotrek, Felix and the others turned, following the captain’s finger. On the far side of the storm’s eye, a dark shape was moving, just within the curtain of the rain. 
1042“Keep pulling, human,” said Captain Rion. 
1043Felix hastily returned to his oar, but his quick glance had shown him a black-hulled ship, small, but with a prow like a knife, with black sails and rows of long oars on both sides. 
1044“Asuryan preserve thy noble sons,” said Aethenir, his pale skin turning even whiter. “It is as I feared. The corsairs of Naggaroth.” “The what?” asked Captain Oberhoff. 
1045“The dark elves,” said Max. 
1046“We’d better get back to shore,” said Felix. 
1047Max nodded. “That would be wisest, yes.” “But the source of the prophecy!” said Claudia. 
1048No one listened to her. Even Aethenir, staring in frozen terror at the black ship, seemed no longer interested in the whirlpool. Gotrek, Felix, and the human and elf warriors bent to their oars and began backing them again, much more quickly now. Even so, they were only barely moving away from the vortex. 
1049“Lord Aethenir, Fraulein Pallenberger, sit down,” said Max. “We must stay as low as possible and hope they don’t see us.” 
1050Claudia and Aethenir crouched down; she petulantly, he like a tent collapsing. He looked back at the rowers. 
1051“Can we go no faster?” he asked. 
1052“If you want to go faster,” said Gotrek, “row.” 
1053The high elf looked with horror at the last pair of oars in the bottom of the boat. “Impossible. I have never…” 
1054“Let me,” said Captain Oberhoff, stepping forwards and picking up one of the oars. 
1055“And I’ll take the other,” said Max as he lifted the second. 
1056The Reiksguard captain and the magister sat on the last bench, slotted the oars into the oarlocks and began to row with the others. 
1057Gotrek snorted at Aethenir with disgust. “Letting an old man pull an oar. Weak-wristed little…” 
1058His muttering drifted off as he put his back into it again. They rowed on, pulling as hard as they could while the dark elf ship continued its circular route around the eye of the storm, but even with the added help of Max and Rion they went very slowly indeed. 
1059“What is it doing?” asked Claudia, watching the ship. 
1060“Staying a sensible distance from that hole,” said Felix, gloomily. 
1061“We should have tried that,” said Captain Oberhoff under his breath. 
1062The black ship sailed closer, moving like the sweep hand of a watch around the edge of the circle. Felix found himself hunching down over his oars, trying to stay as low as possible. The druchii craft was soon near enough that, even through the curtain of rain, he could pick out the individual ropes that rose to the black sails and the elves climbing them. He saw the burnished helmet of an officer glinting on the aft deck, and the cruel emblems emblazoned on the banners that fluttered at the tops of the masts. 
1063The ship was nearly parallel with them now. Felix held his breath. Sail on, he thought, closing his eyes. Sail on. Pass us by and continue around the circle. Another revolution and we will be gone. 
1064Alas, it worked as well as most other childish incantations. A harsh cry echoed over the water and Felix opened his eyes again. A druchii sailor was pointing at them from the weather top and calling to the deck below. 
1065“That’s torn it,” said Captain Oberhoff with a curse. 
1066With a swiftness that spoke of a decisive captain and a well-trained crew, the black ship arced off its course and aimed straight at them, its wet black sails gleaming like beetle shells as it broke into the sunshine of the storm’s eye. It cut an oblique angle towards them across the open circle of sea, like a man laying a knife across the top of his dinner plate, and moved at an alarming speed. 
1067“Row!” cried Aethenir. “Row harder!” 
1068“Why don’t you use that hot air and blow?” said Gotrek, pulling powerfully at his oar. 
1069“Don’t any of you have any spells that could help?” asked Felix, before the elf could return the insult. 
1070“All my spells are of healing and divination,” said Aethenir. 
1071“Rowing is more helpful than anything I could muster at the moment,” said Max. Felix turned his gaze towards the seeress. “Claudia?” “I… I don’t know,” she said helplessly. 
1072Felix ground his teeth as he and Gotrek and the others pulled for all they were worth. Still the little boat only crawled, while the druchii ship loomed closer with every second. It was like one of those bad dreams where one ran in place but never seemed to get anywhere. 
1073“He means to ram us!” cried Aethenir. “Does he not fear to go into the vortex himself?” 
1074“He has enough speed and sailpower to pull out,” said Max. “We do not.” 
1075The little boat was moving faster now, as it moved further from the whirlpool’s insidious grip, but still it was not fast enough. The black ship was only fifty yards away now. There was no way they could escape it. 
1076“It’s useless,” wailed Aethenir. “We are doomed.” 
1077“Good,” said Gotrek, throwing down his oar and drawing his axe off his back. He stepped to the prow and beckoned to the onrushing ship with one meaty hand. “Come on, you beardless skeletons, I’ll smash that floating toothpick to driftwood!” 
1078Everyone else braced for impact. The druchii captain, however, did not attack them directly. Instead, at the last moment, he turned hard to port and shaved past them just out of reach. 
1079But though the ship did not touch them, its bow wave did, nearly capsizing them and pushing them up and back on a mountain of white froth that threw Felix and the other rowers from their benches. Gotrek flew head over heels into the water and only prevented himself from disappearing beneath the waves by grabbing one of the oarlocks as he went over and holding on for dear life. Felix could hear haughty laughter coming from the black ship as its high hull hissed by only yards away from them. 
1080As the others recovered themselves, Felix scrambled to his knees and grabbed the Slayer’s arm, helping him pull himself back in. 
1081“What were those villains laughing about?” said Captain Oberhoff, climbing back to his oar. 
1082“They missed.” 
1083“No,” said Aethenir, looking towards the whirlpool. “They did not.” 
1084Felix and the others turned to see what he was looking at. Felix’s heart sank. The little boat was now deep within the band of rushing current that surrounded the hole. He could feel it pulling at them like an insistent lover. 
1085“Bugger,” said Captain Oberhoff. 
1086“Row,” cried Max. “Quickly, friends!” 
1087Gotrek, Felix, and the elves and men clambered back to their oars and tried to pull in unison. It was hopeless. The current dragged them sideways around the whirlpool faster than a man could run, and always a little closer to the centre. Their oars did nothing but jerk the boat this way and that. Felix’s blood ran cold in his veins. There was no way out. They would die here, not beaten by some great monster or devious enemy, but by simple gravity. The vortex would pull them down into its gullet and they would drown. 
1088The glistening slope was getting closer, so smooth and glossy that it seemed almost motionless. Felix looked around at his companions. Gotrek, Captain Oberhoff and his Reiksguarders, Rion and his warriors, all bent grimly to their oars, trying to the last. Max rowed too, but his eyes seemed faraway, as if searching for some solution. Claudia stared towards the whirlpool, eyes wide, crouching in the prow of the boat and mumbling under her breath. Aethenir seemed to be praying as well, his eyes closed and his delicate hands clamped together in supplication. 
1089Captain Oberhoff murmured, “Sigmar, welcome me to your hall,” over and over again, his eyes closed, and Felix found he was repeating the prayer with him. 
1090Then they were tipping backwards down into the maw, sweeping down it at an angle like a marble spiralling down a funnel made of glittering green bottle glass. The angle of the slope steepened every second, and everyone shrank down into the boat, clinging to the sides. At last the slope became entirely vertical and they plummeted down in free fall. 
1091Claudia screamed, and Felix was afraid he might have too. The others cursed and shouted, starting to fall faster than the boat as the drag of the hull against the watery walls slowed it. Felix clutched instinctively at one of the oar benches to hold himself in, then looked down into the green well, terrified, but determined to face his death head-on. The shock of what he saw there almost knocked the fear right out of him. Firstly, the walls of the whirlpool did not taper, as he expected, but went straight down, leaving a half-mile-wide circle of ocean floor exposed to the sky. Secondly, rising from that muddy floor were the shattered white towers and ruined buildings of an ancient city. “By the Everqueen!” said Aethenir. 
1092“A city,” said Max, in awe. 
1093A city that would be their final resting place in a matter of seconds, thought Felix. 
1094Claudia’s murmuring rose in pitch and volume. Felix could not tell what god or goddess she was praying to, but it seemed that whichever it was, they weren’t listening. 
1095“This is a bad doom,” said Gotrek, glaring down at the rapidly approaching sea floor. 
1096“I agree,” said Felix, a lump of helpless rage rising in his throat. Now he would never find out what had happened to his father. Now he would never resolve things with Ulrika. Now he would never finish the epic of Gotrek’s death. He put the blame squarely on Claudia. It was her damned visions that had brought them out here in the first place. The woman had seemed determined to ruin his life and his peace of mind since the first moment she laid eyes on him. This calamity was exactly what she deserved for her foolishness. He would have laughed at her demise if he hadn’t been about to share it. 
1097Suddenly, the seeress rose from her crouch, throwing out her arms and diving from the boat. Felix stared. Had she gone mad at last? Was she giving in to the inevitable? 
1098But then she rose above them — or rather they dropped faster than she — while at the same time she turned in the air and swept an arm towards them. Felix felt himself buffeted by an impossible wind — a wind that came from below them, a wind that grabbed at his sleeves and his cloak and tried to tear his grip from the boat. 
1099“What is it?” cried one of the Reiksguard. “What is the witch doing?” 
1100“Let go!” called Max. “She cannot support the boat as well.” 
1101Felix’s eyes bulged, and shame flooded his heart. The girl was trying to save them, using some sort of wind spell. He fought his natural inclination to cling for safety and forced his fingers to let go of the boat. 
1102“Push off!” Max cried. 
1103Felix kicked away from the floor of the boat, trying to tell himself it didn’t matter how he fell. It would all end the same. The others did likewise. Even Gotrek pushed off, muttering about the untrustworthiness of magic all the while. 
1104Felix looked down as the wind blew up at him from below, and his heart dropped faster than his body. The seeress had left it too late. The ground was rushing up at them too fast. They were too close. She would never stop their descent in time. 
1105But then the wind from below increased tenfold, blasting him like an icy furnace and beating at his face like a living thing. His clothes flapped around him deafeningly. He was slowing! They all were! She was doing it! The wind was stopping them. They were hanging in the air, almost as if they were attached to Makaisson’s air catchers. Claudia floated in the midst of them, her eyes closed tight, her arms out rigidly to her sides, her lips moving furiously. 
1106“It’s a miracle,” breathed Captain Oberhoff, looking around him in terrified wonder. 
1107It was indeed a miracle, but they were still going the wrong way. Lift us up, Felix wanted to call, but he didn’t dare break Claudia’s concentration. Get us out of this hole! 
1108They continued to drift down. Was she mad? It was all very well to save them from smashing into a pulp on the ocean floor, but this unnatural whirlpool could collapse any moment. 
1109Twenty feet above the sea floor, Gotrek dropped like a stone. He barked in surprise and fell away from the rest, landing with a wet smack in the mud. 
1110Claudia whimpered and Felix dropped too. He yelped and flailed his arms as the wind that had been supporting him weakened to nothing, and he slammed into the mud a few feet from Gotrek. He bent his knees as he hit and found himself kneeling waist deep in blue-grey silt the consistency of wet plaster. His body rang with shock from the impact, but he didn’t think anything had been broken or sprained. The others plopped down all around him, cursing and crying out, with the last being Claudia, landing ungracefully on her posterior. 
1111Felix looked around as he tried to free himself from the sucking mud. They had landed very close to the shimmering, humming wall of water, on the very outskirts of the ruined city. The shattered remains of their boat stuck out of the muck not far away, and to their left he could see low walls, now little more than piles of seaweed-covered rubble, that might once have been a grand house. The city rose high and white and broken in the distance beyond them, like a collection of impossibly slim and delicate porcelain vases that had been smashed with a mattock. And beyond the ruined spires, lay the towering green cliff of water that was the other side of the whirlpool going up and up and up. The weight of all that water was palpable. It crushed him just looking at it. He didn’t know what was keeping it up, but whatever it was, it certainly couldn’t last. At some point the impossible walls would collapse and the water would come crashing back down to smash and drown them all. It made Felix want to curl up and cover his head. 
1112Around him, the others were struggling to stand, mired to the knees or deeper in the mud, but apparently unhurt. Only Claudia remained motionless, sagging sideways, half-conscious, knee-deep in the muck. Gotrek was in the worst straits, buried up to his chest. He spat out a mouthful of mud. 
1113“Magic,” he said, like a curse. 
1114“Stupid woman,” snapped Aethenir as he tried to pull the hem of his robes free of the mud. “Why did you not lift us out! We are stuck here now!” 
1115Felix felt like punching the elf on the nose, even though he had thought the same thing just seconds before. It was different to say it out loud. 
1116“High one, control your tongue!” said Max sharply. “She did the best she could.” 
1117“I’m sorry. I was too weak,” said Claudia, clutching her head as she came out of her faint. “You were too many. I have never tried so complex an incantation before.” She turned to Gotrek, frowning. “You were very slippery, master dwarf. Very hard to hold.” 
1118“Dwarfs are very resistant to magic,” said Max. “And the Slayer more so than most, I would think.” 
1119Felix extricated himself at last and crossed to Gotrek to offer him a hand. Two of the Reiksguarders joined him. 
1120Behind them, Aethenir inclined his head briefly towards Claudia. “My apologies, seeress. I spoke harshly out of distress. I see you have done as much as a human can do.” He looked to Max as she glared at his back. “But what now, magister?” he asked. “We are still stuck here. We have only delayed our death.” 
1121“I will try again,” said Claudia, seething. “But I will need some time to gather my paltry human energies.” 
1122“Let us pray then that there is time enough,” said the high elf nodding politely to her again, and apparently oblivious to her sarcasm. 
1123“Lord magister,” called Captain Oberhoff. Max and the others turned. He was pointing to the mud a short distance away from him. “Look, milord. Footprints.” Max and Aethenir’s eyes widened. 
1124Max slogged forwards, the mud sucking at his feet with every step. “Are you certain?” “Aye, sir,” said the captain. 
1125With Felix and the Reiksguarders’ help, Gotrek pulled himself free of the muck at last, and he and Felix joined Max and Aethenir beside the captain. The holes in the mud were definitely footprints — many pairs of them — and all leading further into the city. Because the wet mud had oozed back into the holes, it was impossible to tell who or what had left them, but whatever they were, there appeared to be about twenty of them. 
1126“Someone else has fallen down this hole,” said the captain. 
1127“Or caused it to be created,” said Max, ominously. He turned to Aethenir. “Do you know what place this is, high one?” 
1128Aethenir looked around, frowning at the distant buildings. “It is one of the elven cities that sank during the Sundering, perhaps Lothlakh, or Ildenfane. Without maps and books I cannot be sure.” He returned his gaze to the mud. “But of one thing I can be certain. Whoever has exposed it like this, whoever has come seeking within it, can be up to no good.” 
1129Claudia stood upright, swaying only slightly. “Yes. This is the place. This is the heart of it. 
1130There is where the evil will be found that will destroy Marienburg and Altdorf.” Of course it is, thought Felix, stifling a groan. 
1131Max stroked his muddy beard and sighed. “I suppose we better go have a look then, hadn’t we?” 
1132  
1133It was hard going, at least at first, each step a strenuous effort as the mud sucked at their feet and clung to their cloaks and robes. It got easier nearer to the city when they found the remains of a paved road. It too was covered with silt, but not nearly as deep. 
1134It was one of the strangest environments Felix had ever travelled through — the delicate white walls of the elven buildings and the slender, jutting towers, now crumbled and covered in a wild phantasmagoria of ornament — shells, starfish and draperies of kelp, baroque filigree of dullcoloured coral, mossy algae, colonies of clinging clams, and stranger, tentacled things that looked like trees from the Chaos Wastes in miniature. Dead fish and feebly gesturing lobsters lay in the mud of ancient alleyways while water dripped from gutters that had known no rain for centuries. And above it all, the impossible green walls of seawater. 
1135Felix couldn’t help but look back at them nervously every few steps, afraid they might drop when he wasn’t looking. At the gates of the city, a high white arch the wooden doors of which had long ago rotted away, he turned one last time and saw something within the water, a strange black shape bigger than a whale, gliding slowly past like a fish within a fishbowl. 
1136“Gotrek! Max!” he cried, pointing, but by the time everyone turned around, the shape was gone, vanished back into the green murk beyond the whirlpool. 
1137“What is it, Felix?” said Max. 
1138“A shape,” he said. “In the water. Like a whale.” 
1139Max looked at the wall, waiting for something to appear, then shrugged. “Perhaps it was a whale.” He turned and entered the gate. 
1140The others followed. Felix scowled, feeling foolish, and took up the rear. 
1141Within the walls, the full glory of the elven architecture became apparent. Though much of it had fallen, much more still stood, and it was glorious. The doors and windows were all tall and thin and topped with graceful arches. The columns were delicate and fluted. The streets were wide and well laid out, so that every corner was a new and breathtaking vista. 
1142The party followed the footprints into the heart of the city, where the buildings became even taller and more ostentatious. These were obviously temples and palaces and places of public entertainment, and those that still stood were awe-inspiring in their scale and delicacy — at least to Felix. 
1143“Flimsy elf rubbish,” grumbled Gotrek as he looked at it. “No wonder it sank.” 
1144Felix expected a retort of some kind from Aethenir, but he was too busy staring at the city. The elf was so fascinated by what he was seeing that he seemed to have lost all fear. “Yes,” he said, more to himself than anyone else. “It is just as my studies said it would be. This is definitely Lothlakh. The Diary of Selyssin describes the tower of the loremasters just so, but… no, if this is Lothlakh, then surely the Temple of Khaine is meant to be just to the left of the baths. Perhaps it is Ildenfane after all.” 
1145At last the footprints led them to a sprawling, symmetrical palace with high, buttressed towers at each end and a pair of golden doors in the centre, flanked on either side by tall golden statues of regal elves holding swords and staffs. The gold of both the doors and the statues was filthy with black mud and crusted with barnacles and mussels, but they were all still whole. 
1146Gotrek nodded approvingly. “That’s dwarf work,” he said. “Made before the elves attacked and insulted us.” 
1147Even that failed to raise a response from Aethenir. He was walking towards the palace like a sleepwalker, his hands waving vaguely at the various details of architecture and placement. “It is Lothlakh!” he said. “It must be. This is the palace of Lord Galdenaer, ruler of Lothlakh, described exactly in Oraine’s Book of the East. To think that I have lived to see this.” 
1148“It is indeed beautiful,” said Max. “But we should perhaps approach it with more caution. It appears that those we seek may be within.” 
1149Aethenir looked down at the footsteps leading to the golden doors, and a nervous look appeared in his eyes as he awoke from his scholar’s dream. “Yes,” he said. “Yes of course.” He turned to the captain of his house guard. “Rion, take the lead.” 
1150The elf captain bowed and his elves moved towards the broad, muck-covered marble steps to the golden doors. The others followed. Gotrek and Felix and the Reiksguard took up the rear, watching all around. 
1151The doors had been pulled open — by what means Felix couldn’t guess — just enough to allow them passage one at a time. The first of the elves slipped through the opening while the others waited. After a moment he reappeared and beckoned the others through. The party followed him into an enormous entry hall. Felix and the rest looked with wonder upon the gold-chased columns, the crumbling obsidian statues, and the high arched ceiling. Windows that had once been filled with coloured glass were now gaping holes, through which watery green sunshine streamed in, giving the impression that the palace was still under the sea. 
1152The mysterious footprints led across the silt-covered marble floor to a wide stairway that descended into darkness. Max created a small light — less bright than a candle — that he sent ahead of the elf warriors so they could follow the footprints. The silt was heavier here, making the stairs treacherous. Felix gripped the marble banister to steady himself. One flight down, Captain Rion held up his hand and everyone stopped. From below came the faint sounds of movement and conversation, and a bright noise of metal rubbing on metal, like someone endlessly scraping a dagger around the inside of a bell. Felix strained his ears, but could not make out the words or the language that was being spoken. The high elves looked at each other, but said nothing. They continued down the stairs, as silent as cats. Felix and the others tried to do the same. 
1153At the base of the stairway there was an archway that glowed with a strange purple light. The high elves crept to one side of the archway, keeping out of sight, then leaned their heads out cautiously. Felix, Max and Gotrek followed their example. 
1154Through the arch was a moderately large chamber with decorative pillars running down both sides and, at the far end, at the top of three wide marble stairs, a pair of enormous steel, granite and brass doors. Standing on the broad dais before the doors were a number of tall, thin figures, silhouetted in the glow of a purple light that hovered over the head of the one nearest the door — an elven woman in long black robes with black hair to her waist. Her hands were raised towards the door, and weird words poured from her lips in a sinuous melody. Five other robed women surrounded her, while surrounding them were twelve warriors in black enamelled scale mail and helms that were faced with silver skull masks. The tallest of the women wore an elaborate headdress and held a metal wand aloft, spinning a silver hoop on it. It was from this that the metallic ringing sound came. 
1155Aethenir shrunk back behind the arch. “Druchii!” he hissed. 
1156“Sorceresses of Morathi’s cult,” said Rion, his hand tightening convulsively on the hilt of his sword. “And Endless, the Witch King’s personal guard.” 
1157“At last,” rumbled Gotrek. “Elves I can kill.” 
1158Rion turned to Aethenir. “Lord, we humble house guards are no match for such as these. Even swordmasters of Hoeth would find themselves in difficulty here.” 
1159Aethenir returned his attention to the room, biting his noble lip. “We may have no choice,” he said, his voice quavering. 
1160At the vault, the sorceress with the waist-length hair finished her incantation on a high, sustained note and then stepped back. With a rumble of hidden counterweights and a grinding of stone on stone, the massive doors began to swing out. She turned and smiled at her black-clad companions, motioning them to enter. 
1161When he saw her face, Aethenir gasped and staggered back. “Belryeth!” he whispered. “It can’t be!”  
1162  
1163NINE 
1164  
1165  
1166Max turned and looked at the high elf, raising a questioning eyebrow. “You know this dark elf?” Captain Rion was looking at Aethenir with a much colder look on his face. 
1167Aethenir looked from one to the other, stepping back. “I didn’t know she was druchii.” 
1168Captain Rion’s eye got colder yet. “I believe that requires explanation, Lord Aethenir.” He motioned the elf back up the stairs, out of sight of the door. 
1169“Yes,” said Max, following. “I believe it does.” 
1170The others crept back up to the first landing with them, then everybody turned to face the high elf. 
1171“Now, my lord,” said Rion. “Pray continue. How do you know this druchii?” 
1172Aethenir swallowed. “Ah, yes, well, you see, when last she came to me, she claimed to be a maiden in distress. Belryeth Eldendawn she called herself, and she told me—” 
1173“You mistook one of the fallen ones for a true elf?” asked Rion, his voice like ice. 
1174“She didn’t look like she does now!” squealed Aethenir. “Her hair was blonde and she had a beautiful, noble face, and a voice like the sweetest, saddest song ever sung by…” 
1175The high elf caught Captain Rion’s eye and faltered. Felix had never seen an elf blush before. From down the stairs came crashings and smashings and the tinkling of broken crystal. It sounded like the druchii were tearing the contents of the vault apart. 
1176“Go on, my lord,” said the elf captain. 
1177Aethenir nodded. “She came to me,” he said, “begging for help. She said that her family was in disgrace and could not approach the tower directly, but she must learn something hidden in one of the volumes in the library. Her grandfather, it seemed, had lost a precious family heirloom during the Sundering when he was stationed in one of the cities of the Old World. Recovering it was the only way she could fend off an odious marriage, now that her father had lost the family’s fortune and all honour in a disastrous trading scandal. Her misfortunes moved me to tears.” 
1178Felix rolled his eyes. The poor sheltered elf had obviously never seen a Detlef Sierck melodrama. 
1179“She swore that all she wanted was the information contained in one book,” Aethenir continued. “A book that told of that time and of those cities.” 
1180“Do you mean the book that was stolen from the tower?” asked Max. “Did she learn its location from you? Is she the thief?” 
1181Aethenir hung his head. “It was not stolen from the tower. As I said before, none may find the tower if the loremasters do not wish them to.” He hesitated, then went on. “I borrowed it from the tower, and she stole it from me.” 
1182Rion went rigid, his eyes blazing. “What?” 
1183Aethenir shrunk before that terrible gaze. “I swear I didn’t know until now! She promised me that we would always look at the book together and it would never leave my sight, but the night I brought the book to her we were assaulted by masked assassins. I saw her killed! Then they leapt at me, knocking me out. When I awoke from my swoon, her body was gone, and so was the book.” He looked down the stairs towards the vault. “All this time I thought her dead.” 
1184Max coughed. “I had always read that no books were allowed to be borrowed from the Tower of 
1185Hoeth. That they were never to leave the premises.” 
1186Neither Rion or Aethenir acknowledged that he had spoken. They seemed to have forgotten that anyone else was there. 
1187“My lord,” said Rion, with a dangerous softness. “You told me that you had discovered that the book was missing, and that the loremasters had sent you to find it as a test of your worthiness to be taught the arts of Saphery. You told your father this.” 
1188Aethenir covered his face with a shaking hand. “I lied,” he whispered, so low Felix almost couldn’t hear him. 
1189“So the loremasters of Hoeth know nothing of the truth?” Rion asked. 
1190Aethenir shook his head. “I ran away from the tower. It has been my hope that I might, with your help, find the book and return it to the library before they know it is missing.” 
1191Captain Rion’s head sank and his fists clenched. “My lord,” he said, “were it not my sworn duty to protect your life, I would kill you here and now.” 
1192Aethenir paled and stepped back at that, but Rion made no move against him. 
1193“You have not only compromised your own honour,” the elf captain continued, “but by asking your father for money and assistance in this misbegotten quest, you have compromised his honour, and the honour of all House Whiteleaf. Not to mention jeopardising the safety of our beloved homeland.” 
1194Aethenir hung his head. It looked like he was sobbing. 
1195Rion carried on mercilessly. “Recovering the book will not win back House Whiteleaf’s honour, my lord. The crime is too great. But it must be recovered even so, for to leave it in enemy hands would be an even greater crime.” 
1196“Yes,” said Aethenir, still looking at the ground. “It must be done. It is the least that I can do.” 
1197“I am pleased that you think so, my lord,” said Rion, stepping closer to him. “Because if you swerve from the path of honour — if you fail in the duty to your father and your house,” he curled the front of Aethenir’s robe in his fist and jerked it up so that the young elf’s jaw came up and he was forced to look the captain in the eye, “I will kill you.” 
1198“I won’t fail, Rion,” said Aethenir, trembling. “I promise you.” 
1199Rion stepped back and bowed, very formal. “Thank you, lord. That is all I ask.” 
1200“lust a moment,” said Max. “I wish to be clear. Ulthuan has no knowledge of this quest? You are not here by the authority of the Tower of Hoeth, as you previously implied? You are not an initiate?” 
1201“No, magister. I am the merest novice.” 
1202“And you are entirely on your own in this?” 
1203“Yes, magister.” 
1204Max sighed. “Had I known this, I would not have so blithely…” He paused, then shook his head. 
1205“Never mind. What’s done is done. The danger is still the same and we must still face it.” 
1206Gotrek grunted. “Are you through? Can we kill some elves?” 
1207Captain Rion turned and glared at him, seemingly displeased with his turn of phrase, but then nodded. “Aye,” he said. “Whatever these fiends mean to do, it can only mean dark days for Ulthuan if they succeed.” 
1208“Good,” said Gotrek. He turned on his heel and started down the stairs again. 
1209“Slayer,” whispered Max after him. “We must be cautious! It is the sorceresses who maintain the whirlpool. If they die…” 
1210But Gotrek was already striding through the arch into the antechamber. Felix and the others trailed in his wake, whispering after him urgently, as the sounds of smashing and shifting continued from the vault. 
1211“Wait, Gotrek,” said Felix. 
1212“Stop, dwarf,” hissed Captain Rion. “We need a strategy.” “Bring him back,” cried Aethenir. 
1213“Here’s your strategy,” rumbled Gotrek. “We kill everyone except the one with the stick and the hoop, then force her to take us out the way she got in.” 
1214“Very good,” said Max, trotting along beside him. “But how?” 
1215“Like this,” said Gotrek and strode up the low stairs to the half-open vault doors. “Come on, you corpse-faced scarecrows!” he roared. “Show me you’ve got more courage than your white-livered cousins!” Then he charged into the vault. 
1216Aethenir gasped. Max groaned. The Reiksguard and Rion’s elves exchanged grim glances and prepared to follow him in. 
1217“Wait!” hissed Felix. For once he had an idea of how to take advantage of the Slayer’s bullheadedness. “Hide. Let them think he’s alone. Max, Claudia, Lord Aethenir, prepare your most deadly spells. Captain Rion, be ready to attack. Captain Oberhoff, protect the magisters.” 
1218Oberhoff and his men obeyed, as did Max and Aethenir. Rion looked at Felix like he was a dog who had suddenly begun to sing opera, but then motioned his elves to the left of the vault door as Felix peered into the vault. 
1219“Firandaen,” Rion said to the elf whose leg had been maimed by the skaven. “You will stay with the magisters.” 
1220The skull-masked Endless were charging Gotrek from all sides, swerving around overturned treasure chests and mounds of dumped treasure. Beyond them, the sorceresses stared at the Slayer, shocked. The only person who seemed entirely undisturbed was the sorceress who spun the silver hoop on the metal wand, a tall, ageless, hard-faced beauty who watched coolly as Gotrek and the Endless met in the centre of the room with a deafening crash and a flurry of flashing steel. 
1221The Slayer disappeared as his taller foes swarmed around him, hacking and stabbing with their long slim swords. One of them fell back, a scarlet trench dug through the armour and flesh of his chest, spraying blood everywhere. 
1222“Magisters! Captain Rion! Now!” cried Felix. 
1223Max and Claudia stepped to the gap between the doors, thrusting their hands through and propelling streams of light and crackling lightning into the room. Felix, Rion and his three unwounded warriors ran in right behind the blasts. The masked druchii screamed and fell back as the blue fire and blinding light attacked their bodies, then Felix and the high elves slammed into them and five more went down, Gotrek killing two, Rion and the elves killing two more between them, and one dying fried to a crisp by Claudia’s lightning. Half of them dead already! Felix rejoiced. This might be easier than he had expected. 
1224Felix lunged at his bedazzled opponent, but the dark elf recovered with alarming speed and Felix’s sword only scraped his armour as he blocked and whipped his blade into a blurring riposte. Felix barely brought his sword up in time. The next attack came almost before the first had finished, aiming straight for his eyes. Felix back-pedalled desperately, panic sweat prickling his skin. In two seconds Felix knew the dark elf was the best swordsman he had ever faced. There was no question of going on the offensive. Felix couldn’t keep up with his attacks. He counted himself a better than average swordsman, but he was only human. He had only been fighting with a sword for twenty-five years or so. The dark elf, on the other hand, had probably been studying the blade for two hundred years, and was of a race naturally more agile than mankind to begin with. 
1225Felix blocked again, but the druchii slipped under his guard and stabbed him at the crux of his right shoulder and chest. Felix’s chainmail stopped most of it, but still the point sank an inch into meat before striking bone, driving links of mail with it. Felix fell back, barking with pain, and landed gasping on his back. The world dimmed and throbbed before his eyes. He waved his sword weakly above him with his off hand, but the druchii had turned away from him and was attacking Rion’s warriors. 
1226The arrogance of it cut through Felix’s pain. Was he really so negligible a threat that the dark elf would turn away without finishing him off? He had never felt more dismissed. Felix struggled to get up and go on guard, then understood the druchii’s confidence. The attack had been a carefully calculated crippling blow, goring the muscle that allowed him to lift his sword. He couldn’t use it. 
1227Beyond the melee, the woman with the wand and the silver hoop called out an order in a slithery voice, and two of her five sorceresses began scribing spells in the air. The others, Aethenir’s Belryeth included, returned to searching through the stacks of treasure chests, as they had been doing before Gotrek’s interruption — casually dumping them and kicking through their contents. 
1228Determined to stay in the fight, if only to prove to the dark elf that he was still a threat, Felix switched his sword to his barely competent left hand, and charged him again. The Endless didn’t even look back, just threw his leg out behind him in the middle of a lunge and kicked Felix precisely on the wound. 
1229Felix smashed to the ground, hissing and curling up in a ball. By the gods, I’m useless, he thought as he fought to remain conscious through the pain. 
1230His eye was caught by a cloud of boiling blackness that roiled towards the combat from the two druchii sorceresses. The pain of the wound was instantly eclipsed by a greater one as the black cloud enveloped him, and a burning like red-hot brands seared through him, seeming to cook him from the inside. He screamed and beat at himself like he was on fire, though there were no flames. The high elves were affected in the same way. They fell back, cursing and wailing and blocking desperately as the Endless lunged in to take advantage. Only Go trek fought on unaffected. 
1231But almost as quickly as the black cloud was upon them, a bubble of light pushed it back, dissolving it in its radiance. The pain receded from Felix’s limbs as the bubble expanded beyond him. He looked to the door and saw Max and Aethenir standing within it and working in tandem, sending pulses of white and golden energy into the room as Claudia shot more lightning at the sorceresses. 
1232The bubble of light expanded to surround the high elves, allowing them to recover, but for one it was too late. He was crumbling, blood pouring down his white and green surcoat as Captain Rion and the other two elves fought on at Gotrek’s side, surrounded by five skull-masked Endless. 
1233Felix rolled out of the way of the combatants and staggered to his feet, while all around him invisible forces flexed and strained as the sorceresses and the magisters cast and countered each other’s spells. With one arm useless, he couldn’t hope to fight the dark elves directly, but he could at least take up his old position and guard Gotrek’s sides. He limped behind the Slayer and immediately put his sword in the way of a slashing druchii sword. It was amazing to see how much trouble the Slayer was having. He who had fought armies of orcs and hordes of skaven singlehanded, and who had faced down daemons and vampires, wasn’t able to get a single strike in on the three druchii he held at bay. Though his axe was everywhere and his face was red with effort, he could not touch them, and shallow gashes covered his chest and arms. 
1234The three druchii that fought him looked the same, blooded and winded. Their eyes, barely seen through the eye holes of their skull masks, were wide with offended surprise that any foe could last so long before them. 
1235Rion and his remaining elves were drenched in sweat and blood, and fought their opponents with doomed desperation, for though, being elves, they might best any man alive at the sword, compared to the Endless, they were fumbling beginners. There was no question what the outcome of their fights would be, and Felix shuddered at what would happen when they had died and all the Endless were able to turn their attention on Gotrek. Against five such enemies, even the Slayer could not hope to prevail. 
1236Suddenly, from atop a stack of treasure chests to the right of the door, Belryeth cried out in triumph and raised a sinuously curved black object over her head. The other sorceresses cheered. She turned towards the door of the chamber and smiled at Aethenir. “Look, beloved, the Harp of 
1237Ruin, which you have helped us find!” 
1238Aethenir shouted something back at her in the elvish tongue, but she laughed at him. 
1239“No,” she said. “I will speak so these fools can understand and know your humiliation. Bewitched and beglamoured, you have given into the hands of your enemies the greatest weapon of a lost age. One pluck of these strings can cause earthquakes that raise mountains from valleys or sink highlands lower than the sea bed. With this will the druchii create a wave that will sweep all the asur from Ulthuan. With this will we raise lost Nagarythe and rule the world again from our true homeland! You have doomed your people, and all for a love that never was!” 
1240She reached into her robe and drew out something thick and square, then threw it so that it skidded across the floor to stop at Aethenir’s feet. It was a book. Aethenir stared at it, then stooped and picked it up. 
1241“Please thank your masters for the loan,” called Belryeth, laughing. “It was everything I’d hoped it would be.” 
1242The sorceress who spun the silver ring on the wand barked something that sounded to Felix suspiciously like “enough gloating”, and Belryeth and the other druchii women began making their way towards the door of the vault as they began new incantations. 
1243With five of the sorceresses turning their attentions on them now, Max, Aethenir and Claudia were overwhelmed. Beams of darkness, like shafts from a black sun, smashed through their protective bubble. Felix saw Max stagger and Aethenir fall back, clutching his throat. Claudia wailed and tore at her face as if she were staring into the abyss. The Reiksguarders fell to the floor, screaming. Firandaen, the wounded elf who had stayed back to guard the spellcasters, pulled Aethenir and the magisters behind the vault door as blood poured from his nose, mouth, ears and eyes. 
1244Gotrek and the elf warriors glanced towards the women, but could not disengage from the Endless, who would have cut them down the instant they lowered their guard to run. Only Felix was free. Though he knew it was death, he sprinted towards the women, his shoulder screaming with every jarring step. Belryeth turned casually and waved her free hand at him. A ripple of air rushed from her fingers and blew over him. It was as cold as death. He dropped, frozen to the bone, his teeth chattering. He couldn’t move. His very blood seemed to have turned to ice. Frost rimmed his eyelashes. 
1245Belryeth paused, smiling, as her sisters filed out the vault door. “You are fools helping a fool on a fool’s errand, and you will die a fool’s death as a result.” And with a merry laugh, she turned and followed the others out. 
1246Though the cold would not let him turn his head, Felix could hear screams and raving from the antechamber and he knew that the Reiksguard were trying, and failing, to prevent the sorceresses from leaving. He willed his limbs to move, wanting to go to their aid, but they would not. They were frozen stiff. 
1247After a moment the cries fell silent and all that he could hear was the clashing of sword on sword and axe, and the heavy breathing and stamping of the fight behind him. And that will end soon enough, he thought, miserably. 
1248But then, to Felix’s surprise, Max appeared in the gap between the doors of the vault, clutching them for support and looking near death. He raised a feeble shout over the clamour of the battle. “Your mistresses have left you to die, warriors. Will you still fight for them?” 
1249A cold voice came from the depths of the skull helmet of one of the Endless. “For the ruin of Ulthuan and the rebirth of Nagarythe, we are proud to die.” 
1250“Then die you shall,” said Max. He forced himself upright and summoned his sorcerous energies, though it seemed to age him to do so. With a grunt of pain and effort, he unleashed a stream of swirling lights at the druchii. It was weak compared to his earlier attacks, but it was enough. With the sorceresses gone, the Endless could not defend themselves from it. The lights danced in front of their eyes, blinding and confusing them. 
1251It was their end. Gotrek and Rion and his warriors beat down their swords and chopped through their armour with brutal ease. Gotrek dismembered the three who had defied him, as the others fell to the elves. 
1252“Damned dancers wouldn’t stay still,” growled the Slayer as he and the three elves stood over the pile of limbs and heads, breathing heavily. 
1253Felix uncurled slowly as the effects of the unnatural cold faded and the stab wound in his shoulder throbbed to prominence again. He bit his cheeks against the pain. 
1254Max sagged against the vault doors. “No time to rest,” he said. “We must go after the sorceresses.” 
1255Aethenir appeared behind him, swaying like an aspen. “Yes, hurry. They carry the doom of the asur in their hands.” 
1256“Then let them go,” said Gotrek, shrugging. 
1257“Vile dwarf,” said Aethenir. “Would you doom the rest of the world to satisfy your grudge against the elves?” 
1258“Why not?” said Gotrek. “You doomed it for a druchii kiss.” 
1259“I told you,” cried Aethenir. “I did not know that she—” 
1260“Their leader holds the key to escaping this trap alive,” said Max, interrupting their sniping angrily. 
1261Suddenly not even Gotrek had any objections to going after the sorceresses. 
1262Felix, Gotrek, Rion, and his elves followed Max and Aethenir out of the vault and found a bloodless massacre. Firandaen was dead, a look of wide-eyed horror on his noble face. Captain Oberhoff and the last of the Reiksguard were dead too, icicles like daggers growing out of their mouths and eyes, and stabbing through their breastplates from within. 
1263Felix for a moment thought Claudia was dead too, her little body huddled in a ball at the base of the low stairs, but then he saw her twitch. He and one of Rion’s remaining warriors helped her up and supported her between them as the party moved towards the stairs. She whimpered and flinched at their touch, and her face was shredded where she had clawed at herself after the sorceress’ attack. 
1264As they hurried across the antechamber, Aethenir turned to Rion, holding up the stolen book. “I know this is not enough,” he said. “Not anymore. I vow that I will not rest until I recover the harp and prevent the sorceresses’ plan.” 
1265Rion nodded, but did not look around. “That is the path of honour, my lord,” he said coldly. 
1266Aethenir’s eyes were downcast as they entered the stairwell. 
1267The two flights to the entry hall was one of the most terrifying distances Felix had ever travelled, for he expected at every moment for a roaring torrent of water to pour down them and bury them beneath the sea. It was also one of the most painful, for with every step the wound in his shoulder staggered him afresh. The blood from it was soaking his shirt and padded jerkin and turning the rings of his mail red. He nearly lost his grip on Claudia several times as the pain made him faint. 
1268The others were in equally bad shape. Max’s face was pale and drawn, as if he had aged twenty years since the beginning of the battle. Aethenir was shaking as if with fever, sweat standing out on his pale skin. Rion and his last two elves moved with grim precision, staring fixedly ahead of them as their wounds bled into their surcoats. Only Gotrek seemed fit and ready for another battle. Though he bled from a score of wounds, his step was firm and his eye was clear and angry. 
1269They reached the silt-filled entry hall and ran to the golden doors, then slipped through them onto the wide porch at the top of the marble steps, looking around anxiously for the sorceresses. Felix didn’t see them, and it looked as if it would be impossible to follow them, for the streets of the city were flooded with water, and it was rising swiftly, already halfway up the palace’s grand marble steps. 
1270“The water!” wailed Aethenir. “She has loosed the walls!” 
1271“If she had loosed the walls, scholar,” said Max, with barely concealed impatience, “we would be dead by now. They are whole, you see? She is losing concentration, that is all.” “And that is better?” asked Aethenir. 
1272Over their voices Felix thought he still heard the now familiar chime of the sorceress’ silver hoop, faint, but still audible. “Shhh!” he said. “The ringing. Listen!” 
1273Everyone listened, but it was hard to pinpoint where the sound was coming from, and it was getting fainter, lost in the deep distant roar of the whirlpool’s spinning sides. 
1274“Where is it?” said Aethenir. 
1275“There,” said Claudia, looking straight up at the sky with dull eyes. 
1276Everyone followed her gaze. At first Felix could see nothing — only the glare of the sky shining down into the gloomy green well of the whirlpool. But then, as his eyes accustomed themselves to the light, he saw them — six black dots, levitating up towards the top of the well like they were being drawn up on ropes — the sorceresses. They rose in a circle, with one of their number in the centre. 
1277“Bring them down!” cried Aethenir. “Stop them!” “But we’ll die,” said Felix. 
1278“Still I think I must,” said Max. “For the safety of the world.” He took a deep breath and began an incantation, pulling power from the air around him with his hands. 
1279He was too late. 
1280Before he was halfway through his droning, the shrill ringing stopped, like a chiming glass pinched silent. 
1281There was a short pause in which Felix could hear half a dozen frightened gasps — one of them his — then, with a sound like the world ending, the whirlpool collapsed, the green walls caving in and an avalanche of water thundering towards the centre to fill the unnatural hole in the sea.  
1282  
1283TEN 
1284  
1285  
1286Aethenir screamed. 
1287Gotrek cursed. 
1288Claudia stared. 
1289Felix turned to her, shouting though she was right next to him. “Seeress! Lift us up! Levitate us!” 
1290Claudia didn’t appear to hear. 
1291The titanic waves were already crashing into the city, smashing buildings and toppling towers in their wake, and the shallow water in the street began rising much more rapidly. 
1292“Back to the vault,” rasped Gotrek. 
1293“Back to the vault?” cried Felix. “But that’s suicide!” The Slayer was insane! They would be trapped underground, under water. They would die! 
1294Gotrek was already pushing through the narrow gap between the doors. “It’s the only thing that isn’t,” he shouted. 
1295“Follow him!” said Max, and hurried in with Aethenir and his escort. 
1296Felix and the elf who was helping him support Claudia hustled her through the door as quick as they could, but she was still too slow. The water from the street was already spilling into the palace. She would never make it to the vault, and neither would they. With a curse, Felix scooped Claudia up, slung her over his unwounded shoulder and raced across the entry hall after the others. The pain was still almost more than he could bear. 
1297“Thank you, Felix,” said Max, then turned back and held out his hands towards the palace doors. 
1298Felix heard them grind shut as he plunged into the stairway. A useless gesture, he thought. Even if they held, the palace was full of broken windows. As Max caught up with him, the roar of the approaching water drowned out every other noise. The party splashed breakneck down the last flight, slipping and clutching at the walls as water pushed at the back of their legs and rained down from above. 
1299Then, just as they reached the bottom, with a noise like the world ending, a cataclysmic impact shook the palace, knocking them all off their feet and sending huge blocks of masonry crashing down from the ceiling all around them. Felix landed on top of Claudia, his shoulder screaming and his ears nearly bursting as a horrible pressure slammed them. 
1300The whirlpool had closed. 
1301Gotrek picked himself up from the knee-high water as rocks and dust continued to splash down. “Run!” he roared. 
1302Felix found his feet and pulled Claudia up after him, slinging her over his shoulder again and slogging across the antechamber after the Slayer, dizzy from the pain and weaving drunkenly. A deafening thunder roared behind them. The palace doors? Felix didn’t dare look back. 
1303After several endless seconds Felix trudged up the three steps to the vault with Claudia and stumbled through the half-open doors. Water was lapping over the raised threshold and spreading out in a puddle towards the treasures. 
1304“To the side!” called Gotrek. 
1305The elves and humans splashed to the right. Felix started to follow but tripped over the body of a dead elf and dropped Claudia again. The pain as he crashed down almost made him black out. He tried to rise, but his head was swimming too much. Then Gotrek’s powerful fingers grabbed his collar and pulled him across the floor. Rion was doing the same to Claudia. The whole room was shaking. 
1306Felix looked back towards the vault doors as the Slayer dragged him aside. A frothing wall of water was blasting out of the stairwell towards the vault faster than stampeding horses. It’s over, he thought, cringing away from the sight. This is the end. 
1307But then, just as he expected the full weight of the sea to burst in and batter them all to death against the walls of the vault, the doors slammed shut with a deafening boom, closed by the force of the water, and there was silence. 
1308The elves and humans all looked at the doors in shock. They had held. Gotrek looked smug. “We… we’re alive,” said Aethenir, as if he didn’t quite believe it. 
1309“Good thinking, Slayer,” said Max. 
1310“Dwarf work,” Gotrek grunted with a nod towards the doors. “The only doors I could trust not to break in this elf hovel.” 
1311Aethenir sniffed. “That’s all very well, dwarf, but now you’ve trapped us under the sea. How am I to honour my pledge to Rion and make recompense for my crimes if we all die of asphyxiation down here?” 
1312“Not asphyxiation, my lord,” said Rion, looking towards the doors. “Drowning.” 
1313Everyone turned. The doors had held perfectly, but there was a knife-thin arc of water spraying through the narrow gap between them. The puddle on the floor continued to spread. 
1314“Shallya’s mercy” moaned Claudia, staring with dull eyes. “You’ve made it worse. We might have been dead already. Now we must wait for it.” 
1315Gotrek snorted. “You can all die down here if you like, but this will not be my doom. I’m getting out.” 
1316“How?” asked Aethenir, in a voice tinged with hysteria. 
1317“I’m still working that out,” said the Slayer, sitting down on a treasure chest and looking thoughtfully around the room. 
1318Felix looked around with him. He had been too busy fighting or running until now to take in its details. Though the druchii had made a mess of it during their search for the harp, it was still a place filled with beauty. Below the witchlight chandeliers hanging above were neatly stacked treasure chests, ranks of statues carved from marble, alabaster and obsidian, jewelled suits of armour, beautiful swords, spears and axes, so delicate and exquisite that it seemed impossible that they could be used in battle, paintings, rugs, a throne of gold, complete with a deep blue canopy, and in one corner, a gilded war chariot — and all of it as bright and clean and unweathered as if the doors of the vault had closed yesterday and it had not spent the last four thousand years under the sea. Some elven magic, no doubt. 
1319Aethenir threw up his hands. “He’s still working it out? You ordered us down here and you didn’t have a plan?” 
1320“Would you have rather stayed above?” snarled Gotrek. 
1321“I would rather you had waited for us to form some strategy before charging impetuously into battle with the druchii, dwarf,” snapped Aethenir. 
1322“High one, please,” said Felix, trying to be a voice of reason so that he wouldn’t succumb to panic too. “We cannot change the past. Do you have any spells that might help us? Can you make us able to breathe water? Can you create a bubble of air?” 
1323Aethenir blinked. “I… I can do none of those things. My few skills, as I said before, are in healing and divination.” 
1324Felix turned to Max. “Max?” 
1325The wizard shook his head. “Such spells exist, but they are not the purview of my college.” 
1326Felix looked to Claudia. “Fraulein Pallenberger? You can make the wind blow. Can you not make air?” 
1327She shook her head dully. “I require air to make a breeze. I cannot make it out of nothing.” 
1328Felix sagged. No air. They were doomed. Even if they could get out of the sealed vault, their lungs would burst long before they reached the surface. Damn magic and damn all magicians too! All they seemed to be able to do was kill people and predict disaster. Never anything useful. 
1329“Ha!” said Gotrek, standing. 
1330Everyone, even the stoic Rion, turned to him with the eager light of hope in their eyes. 
1331Gotrek strode past them towards the vault’s treasures. “Collect nine of the largest wooden treasure chests, the biggest rug, as much rope as you can find and the chains from those chandeliers.” 
1332The others stared after him, dumbfounded. 
1333“But, Slayer,” said Max, struggling for calm. “What do you intend to do? How will this get us to the surface?” 
1334“Just do it!” snapped Gotrek, upending a treasure chest the size of a courtesan’s bathtub and spilling golden treasure in every direction. “We don’t have much time.” 
1335  
1336By the time Felix, Rion and his elves had assembled the nine largest wooden treasure chests they could find, the water in the vault was up to their ankles. Gotrek collected the chandelier chains by the simple expedient of chopping through the winches mounted on the walls by which the chandeliers could be raised and lowered. They crashed to the ground in an explosion of delicate silver and crystal as the witchlights shattered. Aethenir wailed at this and the hundreds of priceless lost treasures uncaringly dumped on the floor, but the vandalism continued. While Felix and Gotrek and the elves worked, Aethenir and Max called them over one at a time and used their healing arts on them. Felix bit a piece of leather against the pain while Max used a pair of tweezers to tug bits of cloth and broken links of chainmail from the wound Felix had received from the druchii swordsman, all the while murmuring spells of cleansing. Then Aethenir attended to him, and though by this time Felix was of the general opinion that the elf needed his neck wrung at the earliest opportunity, in this at least he was a useful addition to the party. Felix watched amazed as his long, slim fingers weaved over the wound and seemed to sew it up without touching it. The skin around the puncture glowed from within and the wound began to knit together at the ends, and then gradually close towards the centre, until finally there was nothing left but a pink scar and a deep ache. 
1337“It is still weak,” said the high elf when he had finished. “You must rest it for a few days.” 
1338Felix looked around at where they were. “I don’t know if I’ll have the opportunity, high one.” 
1339Nonetheless he did his best not to tire it — leaving most of the heavy lifting to Gotrek and the elves, and instead pulling the gold tasselled ropes from the canopy of the throne and coiling them. The elves stripped the ropes and leather straps from the gilded war chariot. Claudia, recovering slowly from the druchii sorceresses’ mind blasts, sat cross-legged on a chest and untied the cords that held ancient war banners to their poles. Max searched the vault and determined that the largest rug was rolled up in the back right corner, but by the time they found it, it was half-soaked in the rising water and it took Gotrek, Felix and Rion’s elves to carry it out to the corner into the open. Felix’s head spun with every step, his shoulder aching like a hammer blow. 
1340When everything was brought together, Gotrek laid three of the gold tasselled ropes parallel on the ground near the door, each about a long pace apart — actually they floated in the water, but there was no dry space left to lay them now, so it had to do. Then he hacked the lids of the chests off with his axe and set the chests upside down on top of the ropes in three rows of three, wedged as close to each other and the door as possible. They bobbled and bumped a bit in the water, floating. Gotrek nailed the ends of the ropes to the sides of the chests with gold-headed nails pried from the golden throne. 
1341“Now unroll the rug over the chests,” said Gotrek. 
1342Felix, Rion and the elf warriors did as he asked, pushing and lifting the heavy rug until it covered the nine chests completely. Felix was still unsure what Gotrek was up to, but at least staying busy kept his mind off their impending drowning. 
1343“Now the chains.” Gotrek picked up the end of one of the chains and started pulling it around the covered chests. Felix grabbed the other end and pulled the other way. They met on the far side of the chests with several feet of chain to spare. The elves did the same with the second chain. 
1344“Tuck the carpet as close to the chests as you can while I pull,” said Gotrek, taking the two ends of one of the chains. 
1345The rest of the party stepped to the chests, folding and pushing down on the carpet all around the edges of the chests as if trying to tuck in the sheets of a bed. All the while, Gotrek hauled on the ends of the chains, taking in the slack. 
1346“I think I begin to see what you intend, Slayer,” said Max as they were at it. “The wooden chests will float, and also hold air, and binding them together keeps us together, and makes it harder for any of the chests to flip over and spill its air.” 
1347“Aye,” grunted Gotrek, heaving again. “And the ropes underneath are to hold on to.” 
1348“But I don’t understand,” said Aethenir. “Even if this bizarre contraption works, we will never get out of the vault. There are hundreds of thousands of pounds of water holding the doors shut!” 
1349Gotrek snorted. “And you call yourself a scholar. When the vault fills with water it will equalise the pressure.” 
1350“When the vault fills with water we will drown!” cried Aethenir. 
1351Gotrek didn’t dignify this with a reply though Felix wished he had, because he wanted to know the answer too. 
1352When the carpet and the first chain were as tight to the sides of the chests as they could make them, Gotrek attached a jewelled, dwarf-made crossbow to one end of the chain and hooked the cleat into the other end, then used the ratchet to winch the chain even tighter. When it was so tight Felix feared that a link would break, Gotrek lashed the crossbow in place with a length of the leather chariot reins and did the whole thing again with the second chain and another crossbow. By the time he was finished, he was cranking the crossbow’s handle under a foot of water, and the nine chests were floating like a raft. 
1353Max looked at the raft uneasily. “Slayer, I foresee a problem. When the water rises so will this. And the roof is far above the top of the vault doors. It will press against the ceiling. How will we get it out?” 
1354Gotrek didn’t answer, only stepped to the nearest full treasure chest, picked it up as if it weighed nothing, then carried it to a corner of the raft and set it down. The raft dipped down into the water at that end. 
1355“Ah!” said Max. “Excellent.” 
1356“Space them evenly,” said Gotrek. “The raft must be just heavier than the air and wood.” 
1357“How do you think of these things, dwarf?” asked Aethenir, shaking his head as Rion and his elves lifted a single chest between them and staggered with it to the raft. “Dwarfs are practical,” said Gotrek. “They look at the ground. Not the sky.” “Which is why they so rarely soar,” sneered the high elf. 
1358“They don’t drown much either,” said Gotrek dryly. 
1359Felix scratched his head, still not quite understanding. “I assume we’ll float up on other chests as the water rises in here, but then how will we swim down to the raft? I’m not sure I can dive so deep, and I doubt Fraulein Pallenberger can.” 
1360“I have never swum at all,” she said in a small voice. 
1361Gotrek grinned and nodded towards the ranks of beautiful ceremonial armour along the left wall. “We will carry armour for weight,” he said. “Though you should put your own armour on top of the raft, or you won’t be light enough to float when we rise.” 
1362As Felix struggled out of his armour and threw it onto the raft with the treasure, he marvelled once again at the change that had come over the Slayer. Only two weeks ago he had been slumped in the Three Bells, unable to string more than three words together, and now he was solving problems of engineering and survival of which Felix would never have been able to conceive. It was an amazing transformation. 
1363  
1364The waiting was the hardest part. With all the work done, there was nothing to do but watch the water rise. They sat inside empty treasure chests, rising slowly with the water, hour after hour, inch by incremental inch, with the elven armour that Gotrek had insisted they use for weight belted around themselves so that they could swiftly drop it when they needed to later. 
1365“What do you know of this Harp of Ruin, Lord Aethenir?” asked Max as they rose. His voice echoed strangely in the enclosed space. 
1366Aethenir looked guilty at the mention of the thing. “Nothing more than Belryeth said,” he replied. “I believe I might have read the name in some old texts, but I remember nothing else. There were many weapons created out of desperation during the first rise of Chaos that were later deemed too dangerous to use safely, and also too dangerous to destroy” He looked around the flooded room. “Thus they were locked away and often forgotten.” He sighed. “One would have thought that this harp was doubly safe, hidden in this vault and buried as it was beneath the sea.” “Yes,” said Rion bitterly. “One would have thought.” Aethenir hung his head in shame. 
1367After that, conversation faltered and they all just stared at the walls, glum and silent. With the water of the deep sea all around them, the vault, which had been chilly to begin with, now grew painfully cold, and they all shivered and hugged their knees. Only Gotrek, shirtless though he was, bore it without any sign of discomfort. 
1368When it got too much to bear, Max cast a further spell of light which gave off a mild pleasant warmth as well. It wasn’t nearly enough. 
1369Eventually the water rose above the doors, and its climb slowed even further. Still Gotrek told them they must wait, saying that the pressure must be completely equal or the doors wouldn’t budge. Now that the air wasn’t escaping through the crack that the water was coming in through, the air started to become compressed, and Felix could feel it pushing on his eardrums and his chest. A while later it seemed to be pressing against his eyes. His head ached terribly, and the others were similarly affected. Aethenir got a spontaneous nosebleed that he had difficulty stopping. 
1370Finally, after an hour where Felix’s pulse pounded in his temples like an orc war drum and they had to hunch down in their floating chests to avoid knocking their heads against the carved and gilded beams of the vault’s ceiling, Gotrek nodded. 
1371“Right,” he said. “Into the water. When you’re on the floor, lift the raft over your heads and set it down over your shoulders. Walk forwards and push the chests against the door. When we’re free of the palace, drop the armour. I’ll shift some of the treasure off the top too so we’ll rise.” He looked around at them all. “Ready?” 
1372Everyone nodded, though they didn’t look particularly ready. 
1373“Go,” said Gotrek, and, taking a deep breath, he leaned to the side, tipped out of his chest and sank like a stone. 
1374Rion and his warriors followed his example instantly, but Felix, Claudia, Max and Aethenir all hesitated a moment, looking around at each other with unhappy eyes, then they too took deep breaths, capsized their chests and plunged into the icy water. 
1375The cold shock of it was like a blow to the head, and Felix fought a desperate urge to flail back to the surface. He opened his eyes. Max’s magical ball of light shone just as well under the water as above it, and suffused the sunken vault with an eerie greenish light, suspended silt sparkling like diamond dust in the murky water. Gotrek was already on the floor, the elves landing with dreamlike slowness all around him. Felix saw Max, Claudia and Aethenir sinking as well, their robes billowing around them like living flowers, then they too were on the floor and stepping with strange, bouncing strides to the treasure-laden raft, which hovered at about knee height. 
1376Felix touched down a second later, his slow impact raising a puff of silt. His lungs were now crying for air, and the pressure on his chest was like a crushing fist. He bounced to the front of the raft and grabbed for an edge. Gotrek’s hand stopped him and he looked up. 
1377The Slayer held up a hand and looked around at everyone, then, when he had their attention, motioned for them to lift all at once. The raft, which not even Gotrek would have been able to lift by himself on dry land, came up with ease and they raised it above their heads, then shuffled around until they were all under one of the upside-down chests — Felix, Gotrek and Rion in the first rank, Aethenir and the two remaining elf warriors in the middle rank, and Max and Claudia in the corner chests of the last rank. 
1378Felix’s blood was beating in his throat now, and black spots danced in front of his eyes, so it was a great relief when they pulled on the underslung ropes and lowered the strange contraption down over themselves. Felix gasped in great gulps of air as his head broke the surface, then he tried to slow his breathing as he realised how little air was within the inverted chest. Though it might save his life, the little cubicle was terrifyingly small, and he felt more closed in here than he had pressing against the roof of the vault. He hoped that none of the others suffered from a fear of small spaces. 
1379There was a loud rap from Gotrek’s side of the chest and Felix started walking forwards. He looked down through the water and saw that Rion was doing the same, but Gotrek’s short legs were pedalling uselessly above the floor. He heard a muffled dwarf curse through the wood. 
1380Another step and the raft boomed hollowly against the vault’s left-hand door. Felix placed his hands on the front wall of his chest and pushed with all his might. His feet scraped and slipped, struggling to gain purchase against the slick marble floor. Through the water he could see Rion doing the same, and the chests creaked as the others behind him applied pressure too. 
1381The doors didn’t move. Felix strained harder. Still nothing. Panic began to rise in his chest. He heard another curse from his right, then a small splash. He looked down into the water again and saw Gotrek, out of his chest, pushing at the door with both hands. Still nothing happened, and Felix’s panic grew worse. Had the doors locked when they closed? Was the pressure still too unequal? Were the doors just too heavy to move without magic? 
1382Then, with agonising slowness, Felix saw the bottom edge of the door inch forwards. He let out a breath he hadn’t known he had been holding, loud in the confines of the chest, and pressed all the harder. Slowly, but then more swiftly, the door began to swing open. Gotrek gave a final push, then leapt back up to his chest, and Felix heard hoarse breathing coming through the wood. 
1383The door opened all the way with a shuddering thud that reverberated through the water and they were free. The raft shot ahead, the momentum almost dragging them across the antechamber towards the archway. They slowed by the time they reached the stairs, and began to ascend. After the first few steps, Felix noticed that the front of the raft started to angle up — only natural as they were on stairs — but alarming, as he heard the heaps of treasure above him shift, and a stream of bubbles escaped under the leading edge of his chest. 
1384He heard another curse from Gotrek’s chest, then an angry slap. 
1385“Crouch down, manling!” came Gotrek’s blunted voice. “Crawl! Tell the elf!” 
1386Felix rapped at the left side of the chest. “Crouch down!” he shouted. “Crawl!” Then he started pulling down on the rope that underslung the chest. To his relief, the elf did the same, and the raft’s angle slowly evened out again. Felix, Gotrek and the elf began crawling up the stairs like turtles sharing the same shell. 
1387At the first landing, Felix cautiously rose again. Fortunately, both the stairs and the landings were built on a grand scale, and they had no trouble manoeuvring around to start crawling up the next flight. 
1388By the time they reached the entry chamber, the air inside the chest was rank and humid and thin. Felix tried to stop his heart from pumping in panic. It would be the cruellest of jokes if, after all of Gotrek’s genius invention, they died of asphyxiation just short of the surface. 
1389They pushed quickly across the entry hall. Felix had a momentary flash of panic as he remembered that Max had closed the palace doors, and he ducked down into the water to look ahead. He needn’t have worried. The doors lay, splintered and bent on the marble floor, ripped off their hinges by the wall of water that had rocked the palace. Felix and the others walked over their twisted remains, then out onto the wide front steps, where Gotrek banged on the chests for them to stop. 
1390“Drop the armour!” he called. “Pass it on!” 
1391Felix rapped on the high elf’s side of his chest. “Drop the armour! Pass it on!” He reached down into the water and undid the belt that held the elaborate elven ceremonial armour around his waist. It dropped away and he felt his toes rise off the steps. 
1392Beside him, the Slayer’s thick legs disappeared again and he heard heavy thuds and clunks above him. He looked up, then down as something bumped his boot. One of the treasure chests was settling down sideways on the steps, spilling bubbles and golden treasures. 
1393A thud to the rear of the raft told him that Gotrek was being careful to dump their ballast in a way that wouldn’t raise one side of the raft before the others. 
1394And the raft was indeed rising. Felix was busy thinking how much treasure was being lost forever, and didn’t notice at first, but then he was up to his chin in the water instead of his chest. He caught at the underslung rope and pulled himself up into the chest again as his feet floated off the steps. After another second he heard a splash and a gasp and a smug chuckle from Gotrek’s chest. The Slayer had reason to be proud. Everything he had planned seemed to be working. 
1395Felix tried to look down at the city as they rose, but couldn’t see any distance through the ripples on the surface of the water in the chest, so he took a breath and ducked his head under again. 
1396The sight below him was an eerie wonderland. What had looked like a sad, crumbling relic of lost glory when exposed to the air and the harsh light of day was, by the light of Max’s glowing globe, a beautiful blue dream of ruined towers and swaying seaweed taller than cedars. The coral and the strange undersea plants which had looked so dull and dry out of the water were now bright and lurid. Things like jewels glowed in the shadows with their own luminescence. It was a city where mermaids should live. 
1397He pulled himself back into the air of the chest, gasping as his lungs burned, and found that the air within was hardly enough to give him relief. The spots in front of his eyes remained, and the blood pounded against the roof of his mouth, demanding to be fed. 
1398He clung to the rope, trying to breathe as shallowly as possible and praying for the raft to rise faster. How deep was the city below the waves? A hundred feet? A hundred yards? A hundred fathoms? He had no idea. Deep enough that no sailor had ever seen or suspected the elven towers below. 
1399The black spots began to crowd his eyes. His fingers tingled with pins and needles. He couldn’t feel the rope and had to look to be sure he was holding it. Then his heart leapt with hope. The sea around them was becoming brighter and Max’s light paler. They must be nearing the surface. He could hold on a little longer knowing that. 
1400Then something heavy pushed past his legs. At first he thought it was Gotrek, heading for the back of the raft for some reason, but when he looked down he saw a thick grey trunk and a sharp tail. His air-starved mind took a second to put those things together, and then he gasped. 
1401A shark! 
1402Just as the realisation came to him, he heard a muffled scream from behind. He dropped his head down into the water and looked back. Beyond the kicking, dangling limbs of his companions, a shark the size of the Pride of Skintstaad’s long boat had an elf warrior in its jaws and was shaking him back and forth violently. The elf’s limbs flopped like a doll’s as plumes of red billowed from his body. 
1403Felix fumbled for his sword, holding on to the rope with one hand. He looked towards Gotrek. The Slayer was in the water too, readying his axe and kicking towards the shark as Rion and the other warrior drew their swords and guarded Aethenir. Max and Claudia looked like they were trying to crawl up into their chests. Then Felix saw something beyond and below them that stopped his heart. Rising up from the murky, tower-pierced depths were more moving shadows — a whole school of sharks. Manann preserve us, he thought, we’re all dead. 
1404Gotrek caught the shark by the tail and swung his axe, burying it in the creature’s slate-coloured side. Blood blossomed into the water and the shark flinched and spun, dropping its mangled prey to face this new threat. It lunged at Gotrek with a mouth the size of a rain barrel. Gotrek kicked up, trying to get out of the way, and the thing butted him in the stomach with its snout, smashing him back twenty feet. Felix slashed at it uselessly as it rushed past, and saw, to his horror, that a smaller snout was growing from the side of the shark’s head, complete with eyes and mouth, and its needle teeth were clamped down on the golden bracelets on the Slayer’s left wrist. Was not even the sea free from the taint of Chaos? 
1405Through a storm of black spots, Felix watched as the Slayer rained blow after blow on the head of the massive grey monster. The other sharks were close enough now that Felix could see their beady eyes gleaming through the murk. Rion and his last elf stayed close to Aethenir and turned towards the monsters as their dead comrade spun lazily down and away, red blood and white and green surcoat trailing gracefully behind him. Some of the sharks turned towards him, but most came on. 
1406Suddenly Felix felt the rope go slack in his hand. He looked up, frightened. The raft had stopped rising. Had they hit some obstruction? Was something holding it down? Then he saw the dapple and shine of sunlight on water. They were at the surface! 
1407Every fibre of his body screamed for him to climb to the air, but he couldn’t leave the others to the mercy of the sharks. He looked back and saw Rion and his last elf pushing Aethenir to the edge of the raft. Max was doing the same for Claudia. Felix clambered hand under hand to them and caught the seeress’ other arm. He and Max reached the side and lifted her up so that her head broke the surface. Felix’s face hit the air a second later. He took one gasping, glorious breath, saw that Claudia was doing the same, then ducked back down and grabbed her left leg as Max grabbed her right. Together they raised her up until her torso flopped on top of the raft. 
1408Felix looked back towards Gotrek. The Slayer had hit some vital spot on the shark and it was flipping and flailing down through the water, a curling column of blood erupting from its side, while Gotrek frog-kicked back towards the surface, his left arm also spewing blood. 
1409Half the oncoming sharks turned towards their wounded cousin but the rest still came on. Felix looked around. All he could see were the flailing legs of the others clambering onto the raft. He joined them, kicking up out of the water and gripping the soggy carpet with desperate fingers. He could feel the wound Aethenir had just healed ripping internally as he humped himself up. Max was crawling out beside him, hampered by his waterlogged robes. Rion and the other elf were rolling Aethenir up onto the chests by brute force. Felix flopped himself out at last and immediately turned back to the water. Gotrek’s head broke the surface and he sucked air as he kicked forwards, chopping his axe into top of the raft to try to pull himself up. Felix saw deep gashes in the Slayer’s left wrist as he rushed to help. Half the gold bracelets upon it had been crushed so badly by the shark’s bite that they pressed deep into his flesh. Felix grabbed Gotrek by the shoulder, and hauled at him. The Slayer surged up and crashed to the carpet, breathing deeply. 
1410“Friends, help me!” called Aethenir. 
1411Felix and Max crawled to where the high elf and the last elf warrior were trying to pull Rion out of the water. Felix caught him under the left arm, while Max grabbed his right. 
1412But suddenly the elf captain jerked down in the water, nearly torn from their hands. He gasped, his eyes bulging. 
1413“Rion!” cried Aethenir. 
1414Gotrek joined them and all pulled desperately at Rion as something below tried to drag him down in the water. Then, with a horrible scream, the elf captain came up all at once and they fell back in a heap. 
1415“Rion!” cried Aethenir again, scrambling up. “Are you…?” His words ended in a cry of horror and he collapsed again. 
1416Felix sat up to see what had happened. Rion’s right leg was covered in blood. His left leg was… gone. The ragged stump pumped gore all over the wet carpet in thick gouts. Max and Gotrek cursed. 
1417Claudia looked away. 
1418Aethenir crawled to Rion and cradled his head. “Rion, I… I am sorry. I never…” 
1419The dying captain reached up and clutched at Aethenir’s sleeve. He looked hard into his eyes. 
1420“Follow… the path of honour.” 
1421“I will,” wept Aethenir. “I promise you. By Asuryan and Aenarion, I promise.” 
1422Rion nodded, apparently satisfied, then closed his eyes and sank back, dead. Aethenir sobbed. His last elf hung his head. Felix found a lump blocking his throat, and fought down the unworthy thought that he would rather that it had been Aethenir who had died and Rion who had lived, for the captain had been the epitome of elven virtue that Aethenir should have been. 
1423The last elf warrior began to pull Rion’s body to the centre of the carpet, but before he could take a step, a huge grey snout full of picket-fence teeth surged up out of the water and smashed the little raft, raising it out of the water and sending everyone flying. Felix crashed down on his wounded shoulder and nearly rolled off. Only Max’s sprawled body stopped him. The wizard tottered at the edge. Felix grabbed him and pulled him back. Nearby, Gotrek and the elf warrior were doing the same for Claudia and Aethenir. 
1424“Thank you, Felix,” Max gasped. 
1425The survivors crawled to the centre of the pitifully small raft, while all around cruel triangular fins circled them and hidden predators bumped them from beneath. 
1426Gotrek surged up, shaking his axe and beckoning towards the water. “Come on, you skulking cowards!” he roared. “I’ll kill the lot of you!” 
1427But then Claudia saw something that the others had been too preoccupied to notice. 
1428“A… a ship,” she breathed. 
1429Everyone looked up. Felix’s heart pounded with fear that it was the dark elves’ black galley swooping in to ram them again, but it was a different ship altogether — a fat merchant ship flying the flag of Marienburg, not half a mile away from them, its white sails a reddish gold in the late afternoon sun. 
1430Felix jumped up, waving his arms. “Ahoy!” he cried. “Ahoy! Save us!” 
1431Another bump from the sharks knocked him flat again, but the ship was turning their way. 
1432“Praise be to Manann and Shallya,” whispered Claudia with tears in her eyes. 
1433But suddenly Felix wasn’t so sure the ship was salvation. The covers were being raised from the forward gun ports and the black muzzles of cannons were pushing into the sun. 
1434“Oh come,” wailed Aethenir. “This beggars belief! Does everyone in the world seek to kill us?” “Bring ’em on,” said Gotrek. 
1435Twin puffs of smoke obscured the prow of the ship. Everyone but Gotrek ducked. A second later, the boom of the guns reached them and two huge plumes of water shot up about a dozen yards away. 
1436Felix let out a sigh of relief. “They missed.” 
1437“No,” said Max, looking around. “I believe they hit what they intended.” 
1438Felix followed the wizard’s gaze. The shark fins were gone from the water, vanished as if they had never been. 
1439“You think they mean to save us?” asked Aethenir. 
1440“I hope so,” said Max. 
1441And so it seemed, for no more shots came from the approaching ship, and it banked its sails and eased in gently to their side. Ropes dropped down to them. Felix and Gotrek and the elves grabbed them and pulled themselves tight to the ship’s towering hull. 
1442Felix called up to the deck above. “Have you a ladder? We have women and wounded.” 
1443A short round man leaned on the rail and smiled down at them as several dozen large and unsmiling men appeared at either side of him and aimed a profusion of pistols and long guns in their direction. 
1444“Good evening, Herr Jaeger,” said Hans Euler. “What a pleasure to once again make your acquaintance.”