Gotrek & Felix [02] - Skavenslayer

A WARHAMMER NOVEL

SKAVENSLAYER

Gotrek & Felix - 02

William King

(An Undead Scan v1.7)

 

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 World’s 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.

 

SKAVEN’S CLAW



“I would like to forget the long, hard trudge through the winter woods which followed our encounter with the children of Ulric. And it pains me to this day to think of the punishment we meted out to the girl, Magdalena, but my companion was unrelenting, and no evil we encountered was ever spared if that could be avoided. In this case it could not be. With a heavy hearts, we entered the forest once more and set off northwards.

“At long last we found ourselves in the great Elector city of Nuln, a place of refinement, sophistication, wealth and great learning — and a city in which my family had long had business dealings. At that time, the Countess Emmanuelle was at the height of her fame, power and beauty and her city attracted the wealthy, the aristocratic and the famous like a candle flame attracts moths. Nuln was one of the most beautiful cities in all the Empire.

“Of course, our own entry into the life of the city was made at a level far lower on the social scale. Short of cash, hungry and weary from our long journey, we were forced to take employment in what was possibly the very worst occupation we were to pursue in our long wanderings. And during that period we encountered a fiend who was to bedevil our paths for long years to come.”

—From My Travels With Gotrek, Vol. III,

by Herr Felix Jaeger (Altdorf Press, 2505)



“Stuck in a sewer, hunting goblins. What a life,” Felix Jaeger muttered with feeling. He cursed all the gods roundly. In his time he had come to consider himself something of an expert on unprepossessing surroundings but this must surely take the prize. Twenty feet overhead, the population of the city of Nuln went about its lawful daily business. And here he was, in the dark, creeping along narrow walkways where a single slip could put him over his head in reeking foulness. His back ached from stooping for hours on end. Truly, in all of his long association with the Trollslayer, Gotrek Gurnisson, he had never before plumbed such depths.

“Stop moaning, manling. It’s a job, isn’t it?” Gotrek said cheerfully, paying not the slightest heed to the smell or the narrowness of the ledge or the closeness of the bubbling broth of excrement the sewerjacks called “the stew”.

The Slayer looked right at home in the endless maze of brickwork and channels. Gotrek’s squat muscular form was far better adapted to the work than Felix’s own. The dwarf picked his way along the ledges as sure-footed as a cat. In the two weeks they had been part of the sewer watch, Gotrek had become far more adroit at the job than ten-year veterans of the service.