The silence was deathly.

Then there was an almighty roar and Gotrek emerged from amidst the pile of bodies, pummelling about him with ham-sized fists. He reached down and from somewhere retrieved his axe. He shortened his grip on the haft and laid about him with its shaft. Felix scooped up his own sword and ran to join him. They fought through the crush until they were back to back.

The cultists, filled with fear at the loss of their leader, began to flee into the night and mist. Soon Felix and Gotrek stood alone under the shadows of the Darkstone Ring.

Gotrek looked at Felix balefully, blood clotted in his crested hair. In the witch-light he looked daemonic. “I am robbed of a mighty death, manling.”

He raised his axe menacingly. Felix wondered if he were still berserk and about to chop him down in spite of their binding oath.

Gotrek began to advance slowly towards him. Then the dwarf grinned. “It would seem the gods preserve me for a greater doom yet.”

He planted his axe hilt first into the ground and began to laugh until the tears ran down his face. Having exhausted his laughter, he turned to the altar and picked up the infant. “It lives,” he said.

Felix began to inspect the corpses of the cloaked cultists. He unmasked them. The first one was a blonde-haired girl covered in weals and bruises. The second was a young man. He had an amulet in the shape of a hammer hanging almost mockingly round his neck.

“I don’t think we’ll be going back to the inn,” Felix said sadly.


One local tale tells of an infant found on the steps of the temple of Shallya in Hartzroch. It was wrapped in a blood-soaked cloak of Sudenland wool, a pouch of gold lay nearby, and a steel amulet in the shape of a hammer was round its neck. The priestess swore she saw a black coach thundering away in the dawn light.

The natives of Hartzroch tell another and darker tale of how Ingrid Hauptmann and Gunter, the innkeeper’s son, were slain in some horrific sacrifice to the Dark Powers. The road wardens who found the corpses up by the Darkstone Ring agreed it must have been a terrible rite. The bodies looked as if they had been chopped up with an axe wielded by a daemon.

 

WOLF RIDERS



“I cannot quite remember exactly how and when the decision to head southwards in search of the lost gold of Karak Eight Peaks was made. Alas, like so many of the important decisions made during that period of my life, it was taken in a tavern under the influence of enormous quantities of alcohol. I do seem to remember an ancient and toothless dwarf mumbling about ‘gold’, and I distinctly remember the insane gleam which entered into my companion’s eyes when it was described to him.

“It was perhaps typical of my companion that on no more than this slim provocation, he was willing to risk life and limb in the wildest and most barren places imaginable. Or perhaps it was typical of the effect of ‘gold fever’ on all his people. As I was later to see, the lure of that glittering metal had a terrifying and potent power over the minds of all of that ancient race.

“In any event, the decision to travel beyond the Empire’s southernmost borders was a fateful one, and it led to meetings and adventures the dreadful consequences of which haunt me still…”

—From My Travels with Gotrek, Vol. II

by Herr Felix Jaeger (Altdorf Press, 2505)



“Honestly, gentlemen, I don’t want any trouble,” Felix Jaeger said sincerely. He spread his empty hands wide. “Just leave the girl alone. That’s all I ask.”

The drunken trappers laughed evilly. “Just leave the girl alone,” one of them mimicked in a high-pitched, lisping voice.

Felix looked around the trading post for support.