Free Gotrek & Felix: Slayer by David Guymer

dead-eyed daemon faces. Long shanks of sodden grey hair scrawled down both pauldrons, his grey beard reaching as far down as his faulds. He wore it in thick braids, in the manner of the dwarfish slavers that dominated the lands and culture of the eastern steppe. With his one good eye he studied his challenger. The other was lidless, milky and blind, ruined by the overlapping rings of the slave rune that branded the left side of his face. The other slept within its bed of flesh within his forehead, a slit of faint sapphire light bleeding onto his brow.
    With the brazen arrogance of a warrior three times heavier than his opponent and all four of his supporters, Buhruk Doombull mirrored his steps. Huge, interlocking plates of spiked iron and bronze clanked as the minotaur moved and three rune-engraved skulls swung from the chain that tied them to his waist. A black iron helm with articulated cheek guards enclosed his massive head. Ruby-red eyes gleamed hungrily within. A pair of forward-curving horns barbed with steel blades thrust out from behind the cheek guards. Hot breath snorted from his snout, steaming the brass ring that pierced his nostrils, the angular Mark of Khorne reddening fleetingly as the surrounding metal cooled.
    ‘I am Buhruk, Doombull of Kislev,’ snorted the minotaur, his every word a bellow that made the braziers flicker and shake. ‘His hooves are its ashes. Its blood is his blood. His herd follows Khagash-Fél for more war.’ The minotaur stamped one brazen hoof, clenched every bulging muscle into a savage knot of fury and bellowed until it seemed the ground must crack. ‘More war! Where are his skulls? Where is his victory?’
    Khagash-Fél gave Buhruk the hard face, the impassive mask of the steppe peoples. He raised his right arm high. Rain coursed down the scarified vambrace. His hand however, like his face, was unarmoured, and he presented it to the crowd like a relic. It was blotched yellow with age, covered by bruise-like markings of faded tribal tattoos.
    ‘I am Khagash-Fél, and you know me.’ His voice was cracked like his armour, deep like the hell that awaited this world; it pushed through the hammering rain like a blade-bossed shield for all to hear and bear witness. ‘With this hand did I strike down Bzharrak the Black and lead the uprising against the Gates of Zharr. It was I who broached the Mountains of Mourn and smote down Grullgor Thundergut and took his lands for our lands.’ He lowered his arm and swept it around the ring, marking the shadowed faces that lay hidden beyond the torchlight. ‘It was I who first brought you the power of the Greater Gods, I who won you freedom and then gave you glory. We are one people, and there will be glory untold for us in the days ahead.’
    The reverential silence that followed his words was broken only by the smack of rain on stones, the hiss of tormented flames, and then by the sonorous, panting laughter of the Doombull.
    ‘Take your weapon, Buhruk, if you believe you can find the host of Archaon quicker than I. Or leave this ring now and do not challenge me again.’
    Buhruk emitted a fiery snort, then rolled his neck, the blades that tipped his horns glinting golden in the firelight. ‘Half-man is small and furless. Doombull needs no weapon. But, as is tradition…’
    Keeping both bead-like eyes on Khagash-Fél, the minotaur turned to his supporters.
    Three were broad, heavily built beastmen wearing ill-fitting but ornate suits of lightly banded steel. Mail skirts hung to their fetlocks. Animal skin cloaks were buckled at their throats. In the dark, it would have been easy to mistake them for winged lancers of Kislev. The fourth was a Chaos warrior in brooding black plate ringed with spikes, brass etchings, and grisly trophy hooks hung with severed body parts and parchment scraps. Khagash-Fél commanded the loyalty of hundreds of such warriors and he did not know this man’s name, but he remembered that he was a man of Empire stock