Gotrek & Felix: Slayer Read Online Free PDF Page A

somehow he had decided that it was a she – would look like, but found that he could not. In his heart, he knew that Kat, Otto, Annabella, and everyone else he had left behind in Altdorf were, if not dead, then gone from his life forever. This particular Chaos warrior had nothing to do with that personally but from where Felix was standing, ankle-deep in gore and with a pistol trained on the warrior’s backplate, he seemed as fitting a recipient of a little retribution as any.
    A northman struck his gong with a mallet. The sound reverberated over the clash of arms, the screams. The northman’s horse snorted as he yelled something that Felix was too focused to make out.
    He forced his mind to clear, letting out his breath as he had watched trained handgunners, and even Kat with her bow, do before taking an important shot. Sweat pooled between the palm of his hand and the pistol’s carved walnut stock. One shot. It all came down to this. Afterwards, it seemed likely that the Chaos warrior’s vengeful retinue would mob him, unless Gustav’s men could get to him first. He pushed the thought aside. What would come next no longer seemed to matter.
    As his vision centred, the warrior’s deep nightshade armour blurred to become bruised muscle. Star-bright runes and metal spines twisted to resemble crawling tattoos.
    Felix hated what these times had made of him. What was worse was the certainty that it didn’t have to be this way.
    ‘Curse you, Gotrek Gurnisson.’
    And then he fired.

TWO
    Shadows
    ‘Fighting again, Felix? If you’re not careful someone will get hurt one of these days.’
    ‘I’m always careful, mother,’ said Felix brightly, troubled only for a brief moment by the nagging doubt that he had no earthly business here in Altdorf on this grey spring day, tossing a silver coin to the driver and then disembarking from the open-topped carriage.
    He winced and held his ribs as his feet touched the cobbles. That last fight had hurt, however much he sought to pass it off as horseplay.
    Strange then that he could not remember very much about it.
    He seemed to recall the loud bang of a pistol, and then being mobbed by half a dozen men twice his size. He forced a smile onto his face. Whoever his latest opponent had been, he was clearly an unconscionable knave of the worst sort. Felix hoped he had given a good account for honourable conduct, but the fragmentary nature of his recollections on the subject did not fill him with confidence.
    The coachman dipped his cap to Felix’s generosity and with a crack of his whip sent his vehicle rolling down the – now he noticed it – oddly deserted cobbles of Befehlshaber Avenue. At any time of day it would ordinarily be filled with hawkers and merchants, its old stone frontages competing for extravagance and the attention of the well-heeled foot-traffic that passed by. But not now. Shaking off the ambiguous sense of disquiet, he turned to where his mother waited.
    She stood alone at the end of the driveway, dwarfed by the looming black iron gates that stood open either side of her. Felix had the terrible suspicion that she intended to greet him thusly every time his studies at the university were suspended for the Sigmarzeit holiday. The drive behind her was dark. Felix could barely see the house at all, just a black silhouette against the sky hidden behind rank after rank of bare-clawed maples. They rustled softly, as if aggrieved by Felix’s regard, jarring yet at the same recent and familiar.
    They aren’t here any more, spoke a voice from his subconscious that sounded remarkably familiar. It was older, authoritative in a jaded sort of way, but unmistakably his own.
    The house flickered, a degraded aspect superimposing over that silhouette as the trees became bloated and heavy with fly-infested fruits. To each one, a diseased figure had been crucified and writhed in pain. The sky crackled and broke. The visage of a corpulent, pus-ridden daemon rose over the skyline,