Gotrek & Felix- the Second Omnibus - William King Read online

  BACKLIST

  More great fiction from the Warhammer worlds

  • THE LEGEND OF SIGMAR •

  Graham McNeill

  BOOK ONE: Heldenhammer

  BOOK TWO: Empire

  BOOK THREE: God King

  • THE RISE OF NAGASH •

  Mike Lee

  BOOK ONE: Nagash the Sorcerer

  BOOK TWO: Nagash the Unbroken

  BOOK THREE: Nagash Immortal

  • VAMPIRE WARS: THE VON CARSTEIN TRILOGY •

  Steven Savile

  BOOK ONE: Inheritance

  BOOK TWO: Dominion

  BOOK THREE: Retribution

  • THE SUNDERING •

  Gav Thorpe

  BOOK ONE: Malekith

  BOOK TWO: Shadow King

  BOOK THREE: Caledor

  • CHAMPIONS OF CHAOS •

  Darius Hinks, S P Cawkwell & Ben Counter

  BOOK ONE: Sigvald

  BOOK TWO: Valkia the Bloody

  BOOK THREE: Van Horstmann

  • THE WAR OF VENGEANCE •

  Nick Kyme, Chris Wraight & C L Werner

  BOOK ONE: The Great Betrayal

  BOOK TWO: Master of Dragons

  BOOK THREE: The Curse of the Phoenix Crown

  • MATHIAS THULMANN: WITCH HUNTER •

  C L Werner

  BOOK ONE: Witch Hunter

  BOOK TWO: Witch Finder

  BOOK THREE: Witch Killer

  • ULRIKA THE VAMPIRE •

  Nathan Long

  BOOK ONE: Bloodborn

  BOOK TWO: Bloodforged

  BOOK THREE: Bloodsworn

  • MASTERS OF STONE AND STEEL •

  Gav Thorpe and Nick Kyme

  BOOK ONE: The Doom of Dragonback

  BOOK TWO: Grudge Bearer

  BOOK THREE: Oathbreaker

  BOOK FOUR: Honourkeeper

  • THE TYRION & TECLIS OMNIBUS •

  William King

  BOOK ONE: Blood of Aenarion

  BOOK TWO: Sword of Caledor

  BOOK THREE: Bane of Malekith

  ~ THE AGE OF SIGMAR ~

  THE REALMGATE WARS: VOLUME 1

  An omnibus by various authors

  THE REALMGATE WARS: VOLUME 2

  An omnibus by various authors

  LEGENDS OF THE AGE OF SIGMAR

  Includes the novels Fyreslayers, Skaven Pestilens and Sylvaneth

  Various authors

  • HALLOWED KNIGHTS •

  BOOK ONE: Plague Garden

  BOOK TWO: Black Pyramid

  EIGHT LAMENTATIONS: SPEAR OF SHADOWS

  Josh Reynolds

  OVERLORDS OF THE IRON DRAGON

  C L Werner

  NAGASH: THE UNDYING KING

  Josh Reynolds

  NEFERATA: MORTARCH OF BLOOD

  David Annandale

  SOUL WARS

  Josh Reynolds

  CALLIS & TOLL: THE SILVER SHARD

  Nick Horth

  THE TAINTED HEART

  C L Werner

  SHADESPIRE: THE MIRRORED CITY

  Josh Reynolds

  BLACKTALON: FIRST MARK

  Andy Clark

  REALMSLAYER

  An audio drama by David Guymer

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Backlist

  Title Page

  Warhammer

  Map

  DRAGONSLAYER

  Prologue

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Epilogue

  BEASTSLAYER

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  VAMPIRESLAYER

  Book One

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Book Two

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Book Three

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  THE TILEAN’S TALISMAN

  A CASK OF WYNTERS

  PROPHECY

  LORD OF UNDEATH

  THE TWO CROWNS OF RAS KARIM

  A Gotrek & Felix Gazetteer

  About the Author

  An Extract from ‘Hamilcar: Champion of the Gods’

  A Black Library Publication

  eBook license

  This is a dark age, a bloody age, an age of daemons and of sorcery. It is an age of battle and death, and of the world’s ending. Amidst all of the fire, flame and fury it is a time, too, of mighty heroes, of bold deeds and great courage.

  At the heart of the Old World sprawls the Empire, the largest and most powerful of the human realms. Known for its engineers, sorcerers, traders and soldiers, it is a land of great mountains, mighty rivers, dark forests and vast cities. And from his throne in Altdorf reigns the Emperor Karl Franz, sacred descendant of the founder of these lands, Sigmar, and wielder of his magical warhammer.

  But these are far from civilised times. Across the length and breadth of the Old World, from the knightly palaces of Bretonnia to ice-bound Kislev in the far north, come rumblings of war. In the towering Worlds Edge Mountains, the orc tribes are gathering for another assault. Bandits and renegades harry the wild southern lands of the Border Princes. There are rumours of rat-things, the skaven, emerging from the sewers and swamps across the land. And from the northern wildernesses there is the ever-present threat of Chaos, of daemons and beastmen corrupted by the foul powers of the Dark Gods. As the time of battle draws ever near, the Empire needs heroes like never before.

  DRAGONSLAYER

  William King

  ‘As we flew back from the lost citadel of Karag Dum, I was excited by the prospect of seeing Ulrika again and by the thought of resting for a while after our adventures. Little did I realise that our perils were just beginning, and that we would soon encounter enemies both old and new, as well as one of the mightiest monsters it has ever been my misfortune to meet.’

  — My Travels With Gotrek, Vol III

  by Herr Felix Jaeger (Altdorf Press, 2505)

  PROLOGUE

  NIGHT OF THE SKAVEN

  Soon, thought Grey Seer Thanquol, my brave warriors will attack.

  Thanquol rubbed his paws together with glee. Soon all his planning and bargaining would pay off. Soon he would have his revenge on the dwarf, Gotrek Gurnisson, and his loathsome human henchman, Felix Jaeger. Soon they would regret forever that they had meddled in the plans of so mighty a sorcerer. Soon he would send them screaming and begging for mercy to their well-deserved deaths. Soon.

  All around him, he heard his forces moving into position. Rank upon rank of awesome skaven warriors, the very cream of ratman soldiery, moved through the dark. Their pink eyes glittered in the gloom; their long tails lashed with suppressed killing lust; their fangs glistened with saliva. Just behind him, his monstrous bodyguard, a huge rat-ogre, the third to bear the name Boneripper, grunted with bloodlust.

  The rat-ogre was bigger than any human, more than twice as tall and ten times as heavy. Its head was a terrifying combination of rat and wolf. Its red eyes burned with insane rage. Its monstrous talons were extruded from its stubby fingers. Its long, worm-like tail lashed the air furiously. This new rat-
ogre, a replacement for the one slain by Felix Jaeger at the Battle of the Lonely Tower, had cost Thanquol a small fortune in warptokens. It was not the only thing that had cost Thanquol during his recent visit to Clan Moulder’s huge burrow at Hell Pit. He had been forced to pledge more than half his personal fortune and a share in the spoils of the coming victory to the warped rulers of the clan in return for their support in this new venture. Still, thought Thanquol, it was an immaterial consideration. The rewards of his inevitable victory would more than recompense him for his outlay. Of that he was utterly certain.

  He considered the force that had been rushed to this out of the way place in response to his brilliant scheming. Not only were there Stormvermin and clanrat warriors in the livery of Clan Moulder, there were rat-ogres and packs of huge rats goaded on by beastmasters as well. His army numbered almost a thousand.

  With such a force Thanquol felt certain that victory was assured. Particularly since their opponents were mere humans. How could they stand against the true inheritors of the world, the progeny of the Horned Rat himself? The answer was simple: they could not. It made Thanquol’s tail stiffen with pride when he contemplated the scale of the victory that would soon be his.

  Thanquol sniffed the air with his long, rat-like snout. His whiskers twitched excitedly. Perhaps it was the proximity of the Chaos Wastes he sensed and the presence of a great motherlode of warpstone, the very essence of magical power. Once more he wondered at the stupidity of the Council of Thirteen’s edict prohibiting skaven armies from entering those daemon-haunted lands. Surely the loss of a few skavenslaves would be more than compensated for by the vast trove of warpstone they could garner? Granted, in the past the Wastes had swallowed entire armies of ratmen whole, but surely that was no justification for the Council’s timidity?

  Thanquol felt sure that under his leadership, or at least with his guidance from afar – for, in truth, there was no sense in risking the loss of a skaven of his towering intellect – a verminhoste would succeed in such a mission.

  And there were alternatives. If he possessed the airship that those accursed dwarfs had built for Gurnisson and Jaeger, and which his doltish lackey, Lurk Snitchtongue, had so far utterly failed to capture, he could use it to prospect for warpstone in the Wastes. He lashed his tail in frustration for a moment when he considered the imbecilic incompetence of Lurk, then wrung his paws together gloatingly as he thought about the aerial vessel. There were no ends to the uses he could put the thing to once it was his.

  It would swiftly transport the grey seer and his bodyguard anywhere in the Old World. It would deliver troops behind enemy lines. It would be used as a prototype to build an aerial fleet and with such an armada Thanquol, and – he loyally hastened to add – through him the Council, would conquer the world.

  Of course, first he had to get his paws on the airship, which brought his attention firmly back to matters at hand. Through the spyglass he could make out the fortified mansion inhabited by the dwarf’s Kislevite allies. It was typical of the fortified manor houses built by the human clans in this area. It was surrounded by a high palisade and a ditch, and within the house itself was a rugged structure of stone and logs. The windows were narrow, mere arrow slits in many cases. The doors and gates were massive and strong. It was built to resist an attack by the monstrous creatures so common here, close to the Chaos Wastes. Inside there were stables, for the humans here dearly loved their horses. Thanquol had never understood this. He thought the beasts good only for eating.

  The mansion was typical in all respects except one, he noted gleefully. Outside the main building was a massive wooden tower topped with a metal platform. Save for the material from which it was built, it was identical in all respects to the docking tower Thanquol had seen at the Lonely Tower before the airship had sailed off to avoid falling into his clutches. Doubtless this was the place where the airship had stopped en route northwards into the Wastes. Refuelling or reprovisioning obviously. To Thanquol’s keen mind that implied there was a limit to the vehicle’s range. That was worth knowing. But why here? Why so close to the Chaos Wastes?

  Briefly Thanquol considered what this might mean. Why had the dwarfs, particularly the accursed Trollslayer Gotrek Gurnisson, decided to take such a valuable device into the Wastes? If only that dullard, Lurk, had managed to find out. If only he had reported back as he had been instructed. Thanquol was not in the least surprised that he had not. It was ever his fate to be served by buffoons who lived only to spoil his ingenious plans. Thanquol often suspected that these catspaws were foisted upon him by the machinations of his devious enemies back in Skavenblight. The intricacies of skaven politics were endless and mazy, and a leader of Thanquol’s genius had many jealous rivals so filled with envy that they would stop at nothing to drag him down.

  Doubtless once Gurnisson was in Thanquol’s clutches he could be made to reveal his mission by various cunning methods of persuasion known to the grey seer. And if he could not, Gurnisson’s henchman, that wicked human Felix Jaeger, could be made to talk. Actually, thought Thanquol, he would probably be the easier of the two. It was not that Thanquol feared a confrontation with the demented one-eyed dwarf, not in the slightest. He was, he knew, in all respects fearless, and not in any way, shape or form scared of a mindlessly violent brute like Gotrek Gurnisson. He had proven this time and time again in his encounters with the Slayer. It was just that it would take less effort to make Jaeger talk.

  Come to think of it though, Thanquol was forced to admit, Jaeger himself could be stupidly stubborn about such matters. Perhaps it would be easier simply to capture a few prisoners from the mansion below and interrogate them about the dwarf’s purpose. Surely they must be privy to the secret. After all, how could the stunties have gone to all the trouble to build the tower down there in the midst of this forsaken steppe, and not have revealed their mission to their human allies? He must make sure that his allies captured a few of the humans for questioning. In fact, he would give the order at once.

  Thanquol tittered at the thought. Whatever plan the dwarfs had, it must be an important one for them to spend so much time and effort, and to risk the airship, to implement it. Perhaps they sought gold or magical treasures in the Wastes. Knowing dwarfs as he did, Thanquol thought this was the most likely explanation. And, as soon as his incredibly brilliant plan was implemented, whatever treasures his enemies had garnered would be gripped firmly in Thanquol’s mighty taloned paw.

  He reviewed his scheme in his mind. So simple, yet so devious. So direct and yet so cloaked in subterfuge. So clever and yet so foolproof, as all great skaven plans must be to avoid being fouled up by witless underlings. Truly it was proof, as if any were needed, of the singular genius that was Thanquol’s. Step by logical step he reviewed it.

  First, they would capture the mansion. Then when the airship returned as it assuredly would, they would take the dwarfs by surprise once it docked. Before they could fly off, using superior skaven sorcery, a special spell that Thanquol had prepared for just this moment, they would immobilise the ship. Then nothing would remain for them to do except reap the rewards of victory.

  Of course, there were a few things that could go wrong. Thanquol prided himself that part of his genius was his ability to deal with the unexpected. With any skaven force there was the chance that lackeys would mess things up. And there was a slight possibility that the dwarfs might destroy their airship rather than let it fall into skaven paws. Such things had happened in the past, for dwarfs were a foolishly proud and insanely stubborn race. And there was the ever-so-slight chance that they would fly back by a different route.

  Thanquol shivered. All his divinatory skills told him that this was a near impossibility. He had read his own droppings having eaten only of fermented warpstone-spiced curd for thirteen whole hours, suffering the most dreadful flatulence as he proved his devotion to the Horned Rat in this approved manner. The sanctified excreta had assured him that his plan could not fail and that he would encounter the
dwarfs here. Of course, as with all prophecies, there was a certain margin of error that had to be taken into account, but nevertheless Thanquol felt that his vast experience in scrying had stood him in good stead. Other, lesser seers might allow their wits to be clouded by their own desires and hopes, but he had read the signs with the rigorous impartiality that was one of the signs of his unfailing genius.

  He felt sure that the accursed Gurnisson would return from the Wastes. Frankly he doubted that anything could prevent it. Thanquol could read the omens and he knew that the dwarf carried a mighty doom upon his shoulders. It was the sort of destiny that could only be overcome by the possessor of an even mightier one. Naturally Grey Seer Thanquol knew that he was such an individual. Still, it would not pay to underestimate the Slayer.

  In his warpstone-induced dreams, Thanquol had seen many a strange vision as he sought signs of his enemies’ whereabouts. He had seen a mighty fortress buried deep beneath a mountain, and a struggle with a daemon of truly terrifying power, a being of such surpassing and baleful might that Thanquol was loath to think about it. He pushed the thought aside.

  The dwarf would return, bringing the airship with him. It was his destiny to fall before the titanic intellect of Thanquol. No lesser doom could stay him.

  Thanquol noticed that the Moulder clawleaders were watching him. He cursed under his breath.

  ‘What are your instructions, Grey Seer Thanquol?’ rumbled the most massive of them. ‘What do you require of us?’

  ‘My orders,’ said Thanquol emphatically, ‘are that you and your skaven are to proceed at once with the plan. Take the mansion and keep as many of the humans alive as possible, for questioning. Pay particular attention to preserving breeders and their runts. The manthings become particularly malleable when you threaten them.’

  ‘We would preserve them anyway, Grey Seer Thanquol. For our experiments.’

  Thanquol tilted his head to one side to consider the clawleader’s words. What did the Moulder mean? Was his clan considering some new program of breeding, one that involved mutating humans? That was worth knowing. The skaven seemed to realise that he had let something slip, for he turned his back on Thanquol and lumbered down the hill to instruct his troops. Excitement filled Thanquol.