Gotrek and Felix: The Anthology (47 page)

The captain looked at his fellows. They seemed as suspicious as he. He turned back to Halim. ‘From now on we follow the man, not the crown. Prove yourself a lion and we will follow.’

Halim bowed. ‘That is all I ask.’

‘Halim!’ called Ghal. ‘They say this and you trust them? Slay them before they change their minds!’

‘I trust them more for this honesty than if they kissed my feet and swore a thousand oaths,’ Halim said. He turned to Gotrek and Felix. ‘Come, friends, the Lion Crown is in the vault, along with your weapons.’ He took a strange key from Falhedar’s belt and started across the throne room. ‘Ghal, call peace at the front gate, and let in the rest of our brothers. Yuleh, go with them. Your presence will win over any hold-outs.’

‘Aye, beloved,’ said Yuleh.

‘Aye, Halim,’ said Ghal begrudgingly.

Gotrek and Felix followed Halim out of the room.

The door of
the caliph’s treasure vault was a great slab of iron-bound stone, secured with bolts, bars, and magical wards. Halim slid the four shafts of the rune inscribed key – one of gold, one of silver, one of iron, and one a slim rod of jade – into a four-holed lock set in a steel plate in the centre of the door, then turned it right, left, and right again. With a ratcheting of clockwork, the bars raised, the bolts withdrew, and the door rose up into the ceiling.

Gotrek sneered. ‘Human gimmickry.’

He and Felix stepped with Halim through the door into a glittering grotto of treasure. The vault was enormous, larger than the throne room, and doors in each wall opened into further rooms. Felix had never seen so much wealth and art gathered in one place before. Bound chests were stacked to head height along the walls. Rugs and statues and weapons and full suits of gem-encrusted armour rose in haphazard mounds, through which wound narrow paths. Books with gilded bindings spilled from overflowing shelves. Vases and urns and gold-and-silver lamps cluttered every corner, as well as spyglasses and maps and clockwork toys, jewels and crowns and sceptres. In one corner was a silver-barred cage, in which, confusingly, was locked a carpet. A statue of a monkey with a very superior smirk gazed at him from another corner. On a tall onyx stand in the centre of the mess was an alabaster egg that seemed to glow from within with an inner fire. And these were only the first things that caught his eye.

Halim sighed. ‘Somewhere among all this is my crown, and your weapons.’

Felix groaned.

Gotrek started forward, his one eye glittering as he took in the mountains of golden treasure. He licked his lips. ‘Let’s get started.’

The others followed him.

‘Be careful,’ said Halim. ‘I am told that after I left his service, Falhedar placed a guardian within the vault.’

‘What kind of guardian?’ asked Felix, looking nervously around.

‘I know not.’ Halim shrugged. ‘But it should only be released if the protective wards are broken. Since we entered with the key, it should not trouble–’

A deafening clang interrupted him. They spun around. A heavy iron portcullis had dropped down to block the exit.

7

Halim stared at
the portcullis. ‘That isn’t supposed to happen unless intruders have breached the door.’

An ugly laugh echoed from above. They looked up. A dark balcony ran above the door – some sort of guard platform. Ghal grinned down from it. It was hard to see him clearly in the shadows, but there seemed to be streaks of red on his face, and something strange on his head. ‘Imprisoned again!’ he chortled. ‘And this time you won’t escape alive.’

‘Ghal!’ cried Halim. ‘What are you playing at?’

‘I couldn’t believe it when you returned,’ Ghal growled. ‘I had worked so hard to have you arrested. Then it would have been me who stormed the palace! Me who liberated the country! Me who was crowned caliph! Me who married the beautiful Yuleh.’ An evil smile spread across his face and he beckoned behind him. ‘Well, now it
will
be me.’

A pair of Ghal’s picked men stepped forward. Yuleh struggled between them, her wrists bound, her mouth gagged.

‘Yuleh!’ Halim called. ‘Release her, you fool! Do you think the others will stand for this?’

Ghal stepped forward, and Felix saw that it was the Serpent Crown he wore on his head, still crusted with blood and dangling hairy scraps of Falhedar’s scalp. ‘The others are in my power,’ he said. ‘And my palace guard is slaughtering your beggar army as we speak.’ He touched the crown. ‘You were a fool to leave this behind.’ He took something from his belt. ‘And this.’

He raised the object to his lips. It was Kaadiq’s silver flute. Ghal was no musician, but he was able to pipe a simple tune on the thing – shrill and loud.

Halim scowled, confused. ‘Nursery tunes? Are you mad as well as a fool?’

Ghal stopped playing and grinned down at him. ‘Did no one tell you of Kaadiq’s new pet? Have you not heard of the nature of the guardian of the treasure room?’

‘Pet?’ said Halim, and looked worriedly from door to door. ‘What sort of pet?’

Ghal only laughed and resumed playing his piercing tune on the flute.

‘Friends,’ said Halim to Gotrek and Felix. ‘I fear–’

There was a crash from the right-hand room, and a low hissing. Halim and Felix froze. Gotrek looked up, but continued searching methodically through the treasure. Another crash came, then a scraping, like a coat of heavy chainmail being dragged across the floor. Felix saw movement through the arch.

A blunt, poison-green snake head the size of a rowboat ducked through the door, followed by a neck like a flexible tree trunk. Huge yellow eyes blazed as it swung angrily from side to side, knocking suits of armour and statues flying. It didn’t appear to like Ghal’s music, but the melody seemed to act as a goad as well. It saw the men and the dwarf and lunged at them, jaws snapping. Its fangs were as long as Felix’s forearms. Its tail had yet to come through the door.

Gotrek and Felix dived left and right. Felix crashed into the silver cage that contained the carpet. As he stood, he almost thought the rug had flapped at him and strained angrily at the silver bars.

He edged away from the strange thing and returned his attention to Halim, who was slashing at the snake’s flank with a found sword. The steel turned harmlessly on the thick scales. The snake twisted back to reach him, its snout clubbed him to the ground, then darted forward, jaws distending.

Gotrek hauled Halim out of the way just in time. He was unconscious, a great bruise growing on his forehead.

Felix found a tasselled spear and jabbed the snake’s side, shouting to draw its attention. The tip pierced the scales an inch, no more. The snake hissed and reared up, turning on him. Felix scrambled behind a cluster of statues. Ghal’s flute squealed. The snake shot after Felix.

Gotrek jumped on the serpent, riding it like a horse, and battered it with his truncheon. The blows did little but annoy it. It left off chasing Felix to double back and snap at Gotrek. The Slayer bashed it on the nose and it reared back in pain, bucking him to the floor.

Ghal piped louder. The snake returned to the attack.

‘Gotrek! Don’t fight the snake!’ Felix cried. ‘Stop the flute!’ Felix cast the spear he held. Ghal flinched away as it struck the wall beside him, his melody faltering. The snake slowed its attacks.

Gotrek saw the connection. He picked up a heavy jewelled bracelet and flung it. Ghal ducked.

Felix threw an entire set of golden dishes, one after the other, denting them irreparably. Gotrek hurled a ruby the size of a baby’s fist. Chips flew as it struck the wall.

Ghal gasped and lowered the flute. ‘My treasure! You’re destroying my treasure!’

The snake calmed the instant he stopped playing. Ghal cursed and resumed, shriller and faster than before. The snake cringed like a whipped slave, but turned back to Gotrek and Felix.

Felix slung jade chess pieces as he dodged away from its teeth. One caught Ghal on the forehead and he staggered, but kept playing.

Gotrek dived over the snake’s coils and came up beside the onyx stand in the centre of the room. He grabbed the alabaster egg and heaved it.

Ghal bellowed. ‘No! Not the phoenix egg!’ He threw aside the flute and lunged forward to catch the egg. It glanced off his thumb and he bobbled it, eyes wide, then at last trapped it between his hands. He breathed a sigh of relief and set it down carefully on the balcony floor.

The snake nosed half-heartedly after Felix.

‘You only delay the inevitable, fools!’ shouted Ghal, snatching up the flute again and beginning to play. A dreadful squawking honk blared from it.

The snake jerked its head up and turned on him, hissing angrily.

Ghal swallowed and looked at the flute. Throwing it aside had kinked it and crumpled its delicate silver bell. He tried to bend it back into position, then blew it again. The noise was worse than ever, a farting, unmusical bleat.

The snake shot toward him, scattering heaps of treasure as it came. Ghal backed away, tootling madly. The snake kept coming, enraged by the horrible noise.

Ghal threw down the flute and screamed, but the snake didn’t desist. It had found its tormenter at last. Its head snapped forward. Ghal shrieked as the huge jaws crushed him and shook him like a rat. The Serpent Crown flew from his head and fell into the vault.

Halim recovered consciousness just in time to see Ghal disappearing into the snake’s maw. ‘Spirits of earth,’ he murmured, horrified.

Freed from the crown’s influence, Ghal’s men ran from the balcony in terror. Yuleh did too.

‘My axe!’ shouted Gotrek.

Felix turned. The snake’s passage had caused an avalanche of treasure to spill across the floor, and on top of it was Gotrek’s axe and Felix’s dragon-hilted sword.

They grabbed their weapons and turned. The snake had swallowed Ghal and was pushing through the balcony door after Yuleh.

‘No!’ Halim staggered up unsteadily and hacked at its tail with his scimitar.

The snake didn’t notice.

‘Stay back,’ said Gotrek.

He raised his axe over his head and swung down mightily. The blade bit deep into the snake’s flesh, cutting to the bone.

The snake spasmed and hissed, squirming backward out of the doorway to turn and face this savage attack. Its huge head shot down at Gotrek like a meteor, jaws gaping. The Slayer rolled aside and the snake scooped up a mouthful of golden treasure.

Felix slashed at it and opened an angry wound in its side. Perhaps it was that the snake was some mundane kin to dragons, but the runed sword seemed to cut through its flesh like hot wax. The snake hissed and turned, massive head looming above him.

‘That’s it, manling,’ called Gotrek. ‘Distract it.’

Distract it, thought Felix as he dived away from the slavering jaws. His death might distract it, for a second. He rolled under a low table. The snake’s snout upended the table and came on. Felix ran into a wall. There was nowhere to go. He swung his sword desperately.

The snake reared back for the kill.

‘Die, serpent!’ Gotrek roared, and ran up the snake’s arching neck to its massive head. He swung, off-balance. The axe exploded the snake’s left eye, splashing yellow jelly everywhere. The snake bucked in agony, hissing, and Gotrek crashed shoulders first on the stone floor.

The snake whipped down at him, its jaws snapped shut, and the Slayer was gone.

Felix stared. It had been like a magic trick. One moment Gotrek had been lying in a heap against the wall, the next moment he had vanished.

8

Felix looked up
at the snake, rising up and tipping its head back. A thick lump was making its way down its gullet.

‘Halim!’ he called, rushing forward. ‘Help me! We have to get him out! We have to–’

Suddenly something bright appeared in the centre of the snake’s throat – a sharp wedge of metal. The beast writhed and twisted, hissing in agony. A line of red appeared around the steel wedge. It lengthened and widened as the steel slid further down the snake’s length.

The snake flopped on the ground, coiling and uncoiling in violent death throes. Felix and Halim dodged and ran as its tail beat the ground, pulverising a fortune in golden treasures.

The wedge pushed further out through the snake’s flesh, revealing it to be an axe. It was followed by an arm, then another arm, prying the two edges of the wound wide. Then an ugly head with an eye patch poked out, and Gotrek shouldered his way out of the snake’s still twitching body. His crest was plastered to his skull and he glistened with blood and mucus. He coughed and spat and noisily cleared his nose, then grinned evilly at Halim. ‘Ghal says hello.’