The Two Crowns of Ras Karim Nathan Long 1 ‘The Lurking Horror?’ chuckled a merchant in orange robes. ‘A tale to frighten children. It does not exist.’ ‘It exists,’ said a hard-faced man in the garb of a river pilot. His accent was almost impenetrable. ‘Not a year ago it made off with half the sheep of my tribe and ate my cousin Amduj.’ ‘Do you know where it dwells?’ asked Felix. The pilot shrugged. ‘It is everywhere and nowhere. It steps from behind the night, and can open a door in a shadow.’ Gotrek growled, annoyed. ‘Very helpful.’ Felix sighed and looked around the low, arched common room, trying to gauge who else in this foreign place might speak Reikspiel. He and Gotrek were in the Forbidden Garden, a house of ill repute in Ras Karim, a port some hundred leagues east of Copher, asking after a legendary monster said to haunt the desert south of the city. They had first learned of the beast on Sartosa, where Gotrek had overheard an Arabyan pirate bragging that he had seen it kill fifty men, and that it had a hide of black iron that no mortal weapon could pierce. The tale had worked upon the Slayer like a red cape to an Estalian bull. He bought passage on the first ship heading south, and they had followed the rumour of the Horror from Lashiek, the corsair city, to Copher, the spice port, and now to Ras Karim. But though everyone they spoke to in their travels had heard of it, none could agree where it lived, or what it was, or if it was anything more than a myth. The mellow glow of intricately pierced tin lamps pushed back the darkness of the hot, dry evening, revealing clusters of men reclining on satin cushions around knee-high tables, drinking fragrant mint tea from tiny cups and sipping smoke from water-filled pipes. The air was heady with smoke and the cloying scent of night jasmine, blooming in the courtyard garden that gave the place its name. In the centre of the tables, veiled, bare-midriffed dancers in gauzy pantaloons swayed to whining flutes and pattering drums, while other women served and sat with the men, murmuring seductions in their ears and leaning lasciviously against them as they fed them chunks of spiced lamb. Not all eyes were on the dancers, however. More than a few men glanced furtively at Gotrek and Felix. Felix tried to convince himself that this was only natural. Men of the Empire were not often seen this far south and east, and dwarfs were undoubtedly rarer still, particularly bare-chested, red-crested, one-eyed dwarfs with shoulders wider than many doorways. A thin man at Felix’s elbow coughed politely. His head was shaved, and gold-rimmed spectacles perched on his nose. ‘Noble foreigners, if you truly seek the Horror, it would be wiser to enquire on the morrow in the Street of Scholars.’ He sniffed in the direction of the other men. ‘There you will receive science and fact, not rumour and tall tales.’ ‘Thank you, learned sir,’ said Felix, bowing and hoping he’d got the honorific right. ‘We will do so.’ He looked at Gotrek. ‘Tomorrow then?’ Gotrek shrugged. ‘Aye. Though the sooner I find my doom, the sooner I can stop drinking this piss water.’ He made a face as he finished his mug. ‘Worst beer I’ve ever had.’ ‘That is because it is not beer,’ said the merchant. ‘Ras Karim is not rich in wheat like your northern lands. It is tialva, made from sorghum.’ ‘Sorghum?’ Gotrek choked. ‘Valaya preserve me.’ He glared behind the bar. ‘Do they have anything else?’ The merchant nodded. ‘Try the arag, our native drink. It is made with anise, and very potent.’ ‘Anise.’ Gotrek shuddered. He turned away from the merchant and pounded the bar. ‘Barkeep! More piss water!’ Felix cringed and looked around to see if anyone had taken offence. They were still being scrutinised, but thankfully no one seemed to have understood Gotrek’s words. As he turned back to tell Gotrek to keep his voice down, Felix noticed a pair of dark eyes looking at him. He stopped, held by their gaze. They belonged to one of the women of the house. She leaned against a fat pillar, staring boldly at him. Behind her translucent veil her full lips curved into a knowing smile. The rest of her voluptuous charms were revealed beneath an equally transparent sleeveless top and pantaloons. Felix gulped. It had been a long, dry journey to Ras Karim. Very dry. She stepped toward him, her belt of coins jingling softly with each sway of her hips. ‘Greetings, esteemed foreigner,’ she said in a low, honeyed voice. ‘Greetings,’ said Felix, awkwardly. His tongue seemed suddenly too big for his mouth. ‘Would you like to add a coin to my belt?’ she asked, looking up at him through black lashes. She smelled of vanilla and smoke. ‘I have never had the coin of a northman before. I hear they are large, and of very hard metal.’ Felix coughed, blushing. He turned to Gotrek. ‘Gotrek, as we must wait until tomorrow…’ The Slayer shrugged. ‘Do what you will, manling. I’m going to see how much sorghum beer it takes to get me drunk.’ He pounded on the bar again. ‘Barkeep! Where’s that piss water?’ Unclothed but for her veil and her shimmering belt, the dancer’s golden-brown curves were even more astounding. Felix swallowed convulsively as she took his hand and drew him toward the bed, a low, cushioned dais in the centre of her small, opulent room, piled high with silk pillows and overhung with a sheer canopy. Felix cleared his throat. ‘Aren’t you going to remove your veil?’ ‘My veil?’ She smiled as she knelt before him. ‘That would be immodest.’ She began unbuckling his belt. ‘Now, please, tease me no more. I must see what you have in your coin pouch…’ ‘Oh, devil of the north,’ cried the dancer a while later. ‘You shake me to my core!’ She clutched Felix to her in ecstasy. ‘Er,’ said Felix, pausing. ‘I think that was the building shaking, actually.’ ‘Indeed,’ purred the dancer. ‘So powerful. So potent.’ The room shook again, and this time Felix heard a crash from below. ‘Ah, I think there might be some trouble.’ The dancer pouted. ‘The men fight. They always fight. Forget them, beloved.’ She ground against him. ‘Come, I hunger for you.’ Felix was hungry too, but just as he returned to her embrace, there came a thunderous crash, then a muffled, ‘By Grimnir’s beard, you’ll pay for that!’ More thuds and smashes followed, along with angry cries and the high-pitched shrieks of frightened women. ‘Sigmar curse him!’ groaned Felix. He disentangled himself from the dancer’s arms and reached for his clothes. ‘You leave me, noble warrior?’ she moaned, dismayed. ‘Where do you go?’ ‘To speak with a Slayer about timing,’ growled Felix. ‘Sigmar take you, Gotrek!’ cried Felix, still buckling on his sword belt and stamping his left foot into his boot as he shoved through the angry sailors and merchants and artisans who were all trying to come to grips with the dwarf. ‘Can you not go one night without stirring up trouble? I’d only just–’ He paused. Gotrek looked awful. Though he fought like a badger, he was sweating and pale – almost green – and his eyes were unfocused. Felix ducked as a tribesman swung a stool at him, then kicked the man in the knee. ‘Gotrek?’ Gotrek heaved a merchant in loose breeches into the crowd. Five men went down, but Gotrek almost did too. He was reeling. ‘Gotrek?’ said Felix again as he tripped one man into another. ‘Are you drunk?’ Gotrek shook his head. Sweat sprayed from his beard. ‘Something…’ He punched a man in the stomach, then kneed him in the face when he doubled up. ‘Something wrong… with the beer.’ Felix frowned. ‘Wrong?’ Gotrek swung at a man with fierce eyes and fiercer moustaches. He missed! The man kicked Gotrek in the chest to no effect. Gotrek shoved him unsteadily to the floor and staggered back. ‘My head… hurts.’ The barkeep was shouting at the crowd. His nose was twice its normal size and streaming blood, and he had two alarming black eyes. He pointed to the door. The brawlers started pushing Gotrek and Felix toward the street like they were flotsam floating on a sweaty sea. Felix was tempted to draw his sword and even the odds a bit, but dared not. The local authorities might forgive a tavern brawl. Murder they would not. Unfortunately, some of the brothel’s patrons didn’t share his compunction. A tribesman was drawing a curved dagger. Gotrek caught his wrist and gave him an uppercut that snapped his teeth together with a crack like a pistol-shot. The barkeep roared in his native tongue, waving his hands, and Felix saw other men reluctantly sheathing knives and scimitars. Must be fastidious about blood on his flagstones, he thought. Gotrek spun a herdsman around by his belt and tossed him into the crowd. Felix punched a black-bearded trader in the face and dodged a kick from a brawny labourer. He heard a shout behind him and turned. Four men were running at them with one of the low tables tipped on its side like a shield. Gotrek tried to get his axe out to split the table, but he fumbled it. The table bashed into them and forced them backwards. Gotrek slurred a dwarfish curse and pushed back. Felix joined him, but they could get no traction. Felix looked back. They were skidding toward the door. ‘Get around it!’ he called. ‘Gotrek–’ Too late. With a crash, the table hit the edges of the door and shot them tumbling out into the dusty street. Gotrek surged up, roaring and throwing blind punches, but no one had followed them out. Instead, the Forbidden Garden’s heavy wooden door slammed shut in their faces, and Felix heard bolts shoot shut and locks clack closed. Felix got painfully to his feet and looked around. They were entirely alone. There wasn’t a soul on the street. And it was quiet. No noise of traffic. No night bird’s cry. Not a sound came from the houses around them. Even the shouting and commotion from inside the brothel had stopped as if it had never been. Gotrek stood clutching his head and swaying, his legs wide-braced and shaking, as if he struggled under a great weight. ‘Drugged,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘Cowards drugged me.’ ‘Drugged?’ Felix wondered why. Did they hope to rob the Slayer? The only things of value either of them carried at the moment were their weapons. Their journey to the east had beggared them. ‘Let’s go back to Ishurak’s ship,’ he said. ‘You can sleep it off there.’ Gotrek nodded queasily. ‘Just… point me in the right direction.’ ‘This way.’ Felix started toward the docks, Gotrek lurching along behind as if his legs were made of wood. Their steps echoed eerily off the moon-washed stucco buildings that lined the street. Ahead of them a lit window went dark. The shutters of another banged shut, and Felix heard the click of a lock. A baby wailed, then was silenced. Felix slowed, his hand dropping to his hilt. Something was wrong. Gotrek didn’t look up. All his concentration was focused on putting one foot in front of the other. There was a tiny sound behind them – the softest scuff of sole on sand. Felix turned. He stared. A semicircle of motionless, identically dressed men stood behind them, heavy tulwars in their gauntleted hands. 2 The men wore bronze breastplates over blood-red livery, and spiked helmets wrapped in blood-red turbans. Their faces were hidden, veils of fine bronze mail draped over their features, obscuring them utterly. They showed no flesh at all. Gotrek snarled and drew his rune axe, holding it unsteadily before him. Felix drew his sword. The masked warriors advanced in unison, going on guard as one. A voice cried out a command. They stopped. A man in gold-trimmed red robes stepped from behind them. He was tall but hunched, as if his high, column-shaped hat made his head too heavy for his stringy neck. Swinging before his sunken chest was a small silver flute that hung from a long necklace. He looked at Gotrek and Felix with a mixture of curiosity and contempt. ‘Do not hurt our guests,’ he said in a smooth voice, and Felix realised he was speaking Reikspiel for their benefit. ‘The dwarf will fall soon enough.’ Gotrek growled. ‘Fall?’ He was having difficulty forming words. He started forward, axe raised, but his legs were rubber. He listed sideways. ‘Fall?’ With each step, the weight of Gotrek’s impairment seemed to press more heavily upon him. He tripped and caught himself with his axe, then staggered on. Felix advanced too, aiming for the gold-robed man, but he stepped back, the mail-masked soldiers closing ranks before him. ‘I… will not… fall…’ Gotrek rasped. He fell, forehead thudding against the rough, dry earth. At a sign from the tall man, the red warriors moved in. Felix stood over Gotrek, sword out, ready to protect him to his death. ‘Who dies first!’ he cried. Pain and sparking fire exploded inside his head, and he felt his shoulders hit the street. The last thing he saw before all went dark was the barkeep standing above him with a cudgel, bowing obsequiously to the man in red, who tossed him a gold coin. Felix woke with harsh morning light stabbing him in the eyes. It wasn’t his first waking. He had vague recollections of swinging head-down over a uniformed shoulder, of being dropped on a stone floor, of barred doors clanging shut. Now he woke fully, and wished he hadn’t. He was in a dark cell – more like a cage – with iron bars on three sides and a stone wall on the fourth. Sunlight lanced through an arrow slit in the wall. He sat up to get out of its savage beam and groaned. His head felt like it was made of loosely jointed scrap-iron. It clanged when it moved. He felt his skull gingerly. There was an egg-sized lump behind his ear, and a smaller one on his forehead, and he was thirsty – terribly thirsty. It was as dry and as hot as an oven in that low-roofed space. His skin felt like it might crumble to powder. He looked around. ‘Gotrek, are you…?’ Gotrek wasn’t in the cell. Felix looked through the bars beyond it. His cage was one of hundreds, arranged in neat rows that vanished into the gloom of the dungeon. In every cell, emaciated figures huddled on the floor – asleep or dead, Felix could not tell. Gotrek wasn’t in any of the cells he could see. The prisoner in the next cell rolled over and looked at him. ‘Ah, the pale one awakes,’ he said, his cultured voice belying his rags and matted beard. ‘A man of the Empire, yes?’ ‘Yes,’ Felix nodded, then groaned. His head rang like a gong. ‘Welcome then, honoured friend,’ said the ragged man, sitting up. ‘All that I may call mine is yours.’ He smirked as he scratched himself. ‘I am currently wealthy in fleas.’ ‘Where am I?’ asked Felix. ‘And where is Gotrek? The dwarf.’ ‘You are in the dungeons of the Palace of Penitence, guest of his divine eminence, Falhedar il Toorissi, Scourge of the Bermini, Conqueror of the Medgidal hill kings, Defender of the Faithful, and Caliph of our fair city of Ras Karim.’ The man scratched himself again and looked down the corridor outside the cells. ‘As for your squat friend, our gracious hosts took him away in chains not a half-hour ago. I know not where.’ Felix slumped back against the stone wall, groaning. Imprisoned in a strange land. They could die here and no one would know what had become of them. Gotrek wouldn’t like it much. Rotting in a cell was not a proper death for a Slayer. But… but perhaps there had been some mistake. Perhaps if they could speak to someone they might be released. He looked at the man in the next cell. ‘This caliph. Is he a reasonable man? Is he just?’ The prisoner snorted, then chuckled, then guffawed, then bent double in a violent coughing fit, tears turning to mud as they ran down his filthy face. At last he recovered and leaned back, looking at Felix with sparkling eyes. ‘Ah, my friend, I have not laughed like that in…’ His face grew grave. ‘Well, a long time.’ He bowed where he sat, one hand making flourishes. ‘My name is Halim il Saredi. My father once served the old caliph and, until recently, I served his son, Falhedar, your host, who is as cruel and tyrannical as his father was wise and just.’ ‘You served him?’ Felix asked. ‘And you’re here now?’ Halim nodded. ‘For a time I thought I could help the people by using my influence to blunt Falhedar’s excesses.’ He sighed. ‘Finally I could no longer pretend that I made a difference. When I dared speak against one of his more villainous edicts he ordered my execution. I escaped into the desert, then returned in disguise not long ago to organise a rebellion with some like-minded friends.’ He smiled sardonically. ‘Needless to say, I was caught.’ He looked toward the arrow slit in his cell wall. ‘And soon I will fight the khimar, and die, but only after I am tortured into betraying my conspirators.’ He blinked, lost in thought, then grinned suddenly at Felix. ‘So – to answer your question – no, the caliph is not particularly just.’ Felix sighed. It had been a faint hope. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘And I’m sorry for your–’ A roar from the narrow windows drowned him out – the sound of thousands of voices all shouting at once. ‘What was that?’ Halim cringed away from the window, pale beneath his grime. ‘The khimar is about to take another victim.’ ‘The khimar? What is that?’ Felix stood and craned his neck to look through the arrow slit. Did the beast, whatever it was, have a thousand throats? He blinked in the blinding rays of the sun. A hot, dusty breeze blew into his face as details emerged from the glare. The window was nearly level with a broad sandy floor, encircled by high walls, and above the walls, slanting planes of colour, endlessly shifting. For a moment, he didn’t understand, for he could only see a small wedge of the world. Then it came into focus. It was an arena, like an Estalian bull ring, but much larger. The stands thronged with people. It was from them the roar had come. On the far wall large double doors were rumbling open and something was coming out – something big. ‘The khimar,’ Halim whimpered, peering out of his window as well. The thing emerged from the shadows of the door, padding on great clawed feet. Felix gasped. Though he had read descriptions of such a beast in books, he had never seen one in life. It had the body of a lion, but much larger – taller than a man at the shoulder, with powerful muscles rippling under its tawny, scar-inscribed fur. It had a lion’s head as well, great golden mane shining in the sun as it roared at the crowd, but the head was not alone. Sprouting from its left shoulder screamed the head of an eagle, its cruel beak snapping, while growing from its right, whipping angrily at the end of a long neck, was the head of a dark red serpent, saliva dripping from its fangs. The monster prowled to the centre of the arena, lion tail lashing, its heads looking in every direction for prey. The crowd roared again. Felix gaped. ‘A chimera? They feed the prisoners to a chimera?’ ‘Not feed,’ said Halim. ‘Fight.’ His wide eyes never left the beast. ‘We are instructed to fight it – unarmed, of course. It is more entertaining that way.’ ‘Unarmed? Against that?’ Felix laughed hollowly. He pitied the poor unfortunate who would have to face all those fangs and beaks and claws. It would be a massacre. There was a fanfare of trumpets and a tall door at the back of a raised platform slowly opened. Behind it, a portcullis rose, curtains parted, and a figure was thrust, stumbling, onto the platform, his wrists shackled in chains, his one eye blinking in the sun. It was Gotrek. 3 The Slayer looked as if he was still suffering from the drugged drink that had poleaxed him the night before. He stared around stupidly at his surroundings, weaving on his powerful legs as the door closed behind him. The crowd laughed. The chimera crept toward him, eagle beak shrieking a challenge. Gotrek’s head snapped up. He reached instinctively for his back, then looked around, baffled, at the place where his axe should have been. Felix choked, then berated himself. Of course Gotrek wouldn’t have his axe. They were prisoners. But it was still a shock to see it. He could not remember a time when Gotrek had been separated from it. The Slayer back-pedalled, straining to break the chains that hung between his manacles. The links were too thick. The chimera leapt onto the platform. Gotrek dived off – out of Felix’s field of vision. The chimera sprung after him. The crowd roared. ‘What’s happening?’ Felix cried. ‘I can see no more than you, friend,’ said Halim. Felix leaned left and right, to no avail. Then his eye was caught by a splash of red in the stands. The man in the red robes! He stood in a canopied box, his silver flute winking in the shadows. Beside him on an opulent throne sat a plump man, lavishly dressed in white and gold, and wearing a golden circlet on his head that looked like a coiled cobra. They watched the contest with interest. ‘Who is the man in red?’ Felix asked. Halim growled. ‘Dujedi il Kaadiq. The caliph’s advisor and chief sorcerer, may his soul be flayed by djinn.’ Gotrek ran past, the chimera bounding after him, and was gone again. Felix cursed in frustration. A second later, the Slayer landed near Felix’s window in a cloud of dust – close enough for Felix to hear him grunt. He was striped across the chest with crimson claw marks. The chimera dropped down on top of him, both snake and lion heads whipping down. Gotrek swung his chains, fists together, and cracked the snake head with the heavy links, knocking it into the lion head. The beast recoiled. Gotrek surged up and headbutted it in the underbelly. It roared and fell backwards, then flipped around like the cat it was and landed on its feet. Bellowing from its three throats, it leapt at Gotrek again. Gotrek thrust his hands up and apart and blocked the eagle’s beak with the rigid chain. It bit the links and flung Gotrek over its shoulder with a flick of its neck, then pounced after him and was gone. Felix tried to gauge what was happening by the cheers and screams of the crowd, but he didn’t know if they were cheering Gotrek or the chimera, or just bloodshed in general. The noise rose and rose. After a moment, the beast galloped by the window again, shaking its heads violently. Gotrek hung from them, struggling to hold away the eagle with one hand and choking the snake with the other. Its slavering fangs snapped an inch from his face. The heel of his boot was crammed in the lion’s maw, forcing it open. Felix groaned as the combatants disappeared again. That looked like the end. At any moment one of the heads would break free and rip Gotrek to pieces. There was an intake of breath from the whole arena, and then a roar, louder than any before. Felix cursed. That must have been it. It could have been nothing else. But as the chimera staggered into view again, Felix saw that he was wrong. The eagle head was stuffed into the snake’s distended jaw, and Gotrek was on the beast’s back, strangling the lion head with his chains. The red sorcerer and the man in white and gold were on their feet, shouting down into the arena. ‘By the seven fathers of Mu’Allid!’ whispered Halim, gaping. The chimera writhed and roared, trying to reach Gotrek with its claws and disentangle its other heads at the same time. The lion head was bleeding from the mouth, its bellows hoarse and constricted. Gotrek heaved mightily on the chain and the lion head went limp. The chimera lost its footing and fell on one shoulder. The snake head finally freed the eagle head from its jaws and turned on Gotrek. The Slayer caught it in his bare hands as it lunged, and twisted it cruelly. The eagle head tried to reach him, but couldn’t get around the lion head. There was a dull crack, and the snake head flopped to the ground. Gotrek leapt at the eagle head. It bit at his hand, crushing his manacle. Gotrek grabbed the powerful beak with his free hand and began pushing it open. Its paws clawed weakly at him, shredding his back and legs. He ignored them, forcing the beak further apart. The man in white was screaming at the sorcerer, who cringed at his displeasure and began making cabalistic gestures in the air. He was too late. With a horrible ripping sound, the two halves of the eagle beak tore apart, splitting the flesh around it. The eagle head’s white feathers were drenched in blood and the chimera collapsed, dead. Gotrek fell beside it, utterly spent. The arena was silent, the crowd still. Then suddenly they roared, a deafening, jubilant cheer. The caliph and the sorcerer looked around at them, furious and afraid. Felix let out a long-held breath. Halim’s jaw hung loose. ‘This… this is a sign,’ he said, then stepped back, suddenly calculating. ‘At least, it can be used as one. Proof that the caliph’s time has come. By the silver beard of Abdul ibn Ashid! That I have lived to see the day…’ White-uniformed guards crept toward Gotrek. He struggled up, lifting his fists. He was running with blood, his flesh criss-crossed with deep gashes. He could barely stand. The guards spread out. They held something between them. Gotrek lurched toward them. Half of them ran forward, raising what they held – a weighted net. It settled over the Slayer. He grabbed at it, trying to tear it off, but they pulled the far edge under him, knocking him off his feet, and dragged him, kicking uselessly, toward the arena door. Felix watched as, accompanied by a jailer, the guards hauled Gotrek down the long hall between the cages and rolled him out of the net into a cell. Gotrek rose to his feet as they slammed the door, and stumbled to the bars. ‘Let me out!’ he spat, mouth bloody. ‘Give me my axe!’ The chief guard sneered and said something in his own language that sounded like an insult. He turned to the jailer and barked an order. The jailer bowed and ran off. ‘You are to be brought food and bandages,’ said Halim, as the guards strode away. ‘It seems the caliph wishes you to die in the arena, not in private.’ Gotrek slumped against the bars, his strength ebbing with his fury. He slid to the floor. Halim bowed to him from his cell. ‘A magnificent battle, friend dwarf. By Kasoun’s fiery sword, if all dwarfs are like you, it seems incredible that they do not rule the world.’ Gotrek’s answer was a snore. A short while later, a slave appeared, carrying food and bandages. He set them outside the cell and scurried away. Gotrek woke as Felix pulled it all through the bars. ‘Give me that,’ he rasped. He dressed his wounds first, tearing the bandages with his teeth, for no blade had been provided, then ate the gruel and flat bread, muttering under his breath, without a glance for Felix or Halim. ‘Friend dwarf,’ said Halim, reverently. ‘Know it or not, you have shaken the caliph’s rule to its core today. The people have believed his hold on the throne unshakable. Now they know he can be beaten. Now is the time to strike! If only I could be free of this cell I could topple him like a rootless tree.’ The Slayer ignored him, chewing mechanically until all the food was gone, then he stood and stepped to the bars. ‘Come on, manling. I have to find my axe.’ ‘Come? Come where?’ said Felix. The Slayer grabbed two of the bars and began pulling at them. ‘Gotrek,’ said Felix, scowling. ‘Not even at your strongest…’ Gotrek continued pulling, keeping inexorable pressure on the bars. His face turned red. His arms trembled. ‘A dwarf knows iron,’ he hissed. ‘This is poor stuff.’ Felix gaped. The bars groaned. They were a half-inch further apart. ‘Poorly forged,’ grunted Gotrek. ‘Poorly set.’ Halim stood, staring. The bars were bowing, creaking and squealing. Gotrek shook like a palsy victim. The veins stood out on his neck. His muscles bulged. Sweat poured from his brow. Blood leaked into his bandages. ‘Spirits of sky, earth and water!’ breathed Halim. Other prisoners were turning and looking. The slap of boots echoed down the corridor and the jailer appeared. He gasped then stepped to the bars, screaming and bashing at Gotrek’s knuckles with a long, iron-shod truncheon to make him let go. Gotrek’s hand shot out and grabbed the jailer’s wrist. He pulled. The jailer’s face banged off the bars. His eyes crossed. Gotrek caught him around the neck with one massive hand and yanked forward. The jailer’s head popped through the bars like a melon seed. He screamed. He had left his ears behind. Blood poured from the sides of his head. Gotrek punched him in the temple and he slumped, unconscious. Felix darted forward and took the jailer’s ring of keys. He stepped to the door and began trying them in the lock. In every cell, the other prisoners were stepping forward, watching with desperate eyes. ‘My friends,’ said Halim, licking his lips. The fourth key unlocked the door. Felix threw it open. Gotrek stomped out and took up the jailer’s truncheon, then started down the corridor. ‘Let’s go.’ As Felix followed, the prisoners called to them, begging to be released. Halim reached through the bars of his cell. ‘Wait, friends! Wait!’ Gotrek ignored him. ‘Friends, I beg you, listen to me!’ called Halim. ‘I can help you!’ Gotrek kept walking. ‘I know a secret way out of this place.’ Gotrek shrugged. ‘I’ll make my own way out.’ ‘I know where your weapons are! I can lead you to them.’ Gotrek paused, then turned back. ‘Where are they?’ Halim laughed. ‘You think me a fool, friend dwarf? I will tell you when you let me out.’ Gotrek shot a questioning glance at Felix. Felix shrugged. ‘He said he was once an advisor to the caliph.’ Gotrek grunted. ‘Let him out.’ Felix turned back and unlocked Halim’s cell. Halim bowed profusely as he stepped out of the cage. ‘Thank you, friends. May the blessings of your gods be upon you.’ ‘Never mind that,’ growled Gotrek. ‘Where is my axe?’ Halim shook his head. ‘Oh no. We are not yet free.’ Gotrek looked like he was going to stuff the man back in his cell. ‘I will take you to your weapons,’ said Halim. ‘I promise you. But we must be away from this place first, and quickly.’ Gotrek glowered at him. ‘If this is a trick, I’ll turn you inside out.’ Halim chuckled. ‘Friend dwarf, I saw you dispatch the chimera. I have more sense than to cross you.’ Gotrek grunted, unimpressed, then motioned for him to lead on. Halim bowed. ‘Bless you. Now come. There is a secret way to the outside.’ Halim motioned them further down the corridor, away from the exit. ‘I know it from my father’s time as court sorcerer.’ As they followed, the other prisoners clamoured to be freed. Felix paused, then took the keys and tossed them to the man in the nearest cell. He didn’t know what good it would do them, but he wouldn’t deny them the attempt. 4 ‘You tricked us!’ cried Felix. ‘Didn’t I tell you I’d–’ began Gotrek, standing. ‘You would do well not to do anything you will later regret,’ said Halim softly. ‘You will not retrieve your weapons without me.’ He looked entirely different, freshly bathed and with his beard neatly trimmed. The clean blue robes and snow-white headcloth helped too, giving him an air of quiet nobility. Only the gauntness of his cheeks betrayed his recent captivity. It was after sunset on the same day that he had led Gotrek and Felix out of the caliph’s prison. They sat around a broad table in the cellar of a dye works. Jars of ochre and indigo and other powders were stacked against the walls, as were bolts of cloth, both dyed and undyed. The acrid scents of the dyes mixed oddly with that of the meagre meal spread before them – curried lamb, dates, cheese and fragrant tea. A handful of men and women sat with them. A proud young beauty sat at Halim’s side, her hand on his. She was dressed entirely in black, from pantaloons to blouse to veil. Her hair was black as well – glossy waves that fell to her waist. All of them were glaring at Gotrek and Felix. ‘You dare threaten Bey Saredi, infidel?’ growled a hard-eyed, hard-muscled man with the bearing of a professional soldier. His Reikspiel was abominable. ‘Peace, Ghal,’ said Halim. ‘The dwarf and the northerner have a right to feel ill-used.’ Halim turned to Gotrek. ‘Though I did not lie. I will bring you to your weapons, in time.’ ‘But you didn’t tell us it would take usurping the caliph to do it!’ said Felix. Gotrek’s knuckles cracked like pistol-shots. ‘I don’t care about some little squabble. You promised me my axe.’ ‘Little squabble?’ said the woman at Halim’s side. Her voice was clear and sharp. ‘The fate of a nation is at stake!’ Halim put a hand on her arm to quiet her. ‘Friends, there is no other way. Your weapons are in the caliph’s palace, as I feared, locked inside his treasure vault. A thousand men guard the palace, as does Kaadiq, the sorcerer who laid you low once before. I know secret ways into the palace, true, but there is no way to the vault that is not guarded. It is not a job for two men, or three, or twenty. It is a job for an army.’ Gotrek glared death at him for a long minute, and Felix was certain that the cellar was about to erupt into bloody violence, but at last the Slayer sank back into his chair. ‘Carry on,’ he grunted. ‘But if I don’t have my axe at the end of this, your reign will be over before it begins.’ ‘What did he say?’ asked Ghal, rising. Halim waved him down, then gave the Slayer a cool look. ‘There is no need for more threats, friend dwarf. You can only kill me once.’ He turned to the others and began to speak in his own language. Felix let out a nervous breath. The crisis seemed to have passed. As they could not understand the discussion that followed, Gotrek and Felix had little to do but wait. Gotrek spent the time eating and drinking – mostly drinking – but Felix entertained himself observing the play of personalities around the table. Halim was clearly admired by the others – worshipped by some – as was the woman. She had a regal bearing that spoke of noble birth, but seemingly none of the spoiled selfishness that often went with it. Ghal was the most passionate of them, pounding the table to make his points. He and Halim argued and bantered like old friends, but every now and then, when someone else was speaking, Felix noticed the warrior’s gaze stray to the woman’s hand, where it rested upon Halim’s. After more than an hour, the conversation wound down, and Halim turned back to Gotrek and Felix. ‘So,’ he said. ‘We have a plan. In three days, Caliph Falhedar and Kaadiq the sorcerer hear the reports of the tax collectors in the throne room of the palace.’ He looked around at his followers. ‘That day, riots will break out all over the city, drawing as many guards as possible from the palace. More rioters will attack the palace gates. When they do, I and a select few will enter the palace gardens through the seventh summer house.’ He smirked. ‘Wise ruler though he was, the old caliph had a weakness for women of easy virtue, and built a secret passage to that pavilion to smuggle them in.’ He nodded at Gotrek and Felix. ‘You will be with us. It will be your duty to kill Kaadiq and defeat his crimson guard. I will deal with Falhedar.’ ‘What?’ snapped Ghal. ‘I was to kill Kaadiq! It was he who slew my brothers. I must–’ ‘Do you wish revenge? Or success?’ asked Halim, his eyes burning into Ghal’s. Ghal held his gaze for a long moment, then at last shrugged and looked away. Halim turned to the young woman in black. ‘When the tyrant and his vulture are dead, my beloved betrothed, Yuleh il Toorissi, Princess of the Blood and niece of the old caliph, will ask me, before the spirits of air, land and water, and before the people of the city, to be her husband and rule with her at her right hand.’ He smiled. ‘And with their blessing, I will accept.’ ‘Their blessing?’ Ghal laughed. ‘When you have the crown, and the army, and a princess of the blood? Will you truly step aside if the crowd says nay?’ ‘I would not have attempted this venture if I did not think the people would support me,’ said Halim. ‘But if they do not…’ He shrugged, his expression grim. ‘Then at least I will have had the satisfaction of ridding my land of the greatest leeches it has ever known.’ He turned to Gotrek and Felix. ‘So, friends, will you do your part?’ Felix shrugged. Gotrek was scowling. ‘If you kill the caliph and the sorcerer, you still have the palace guard beating down the doors. I suppose you want me to kill them for you too?’ Halim shook his head. ‘The loyalty of the guards is maintained by the Serpent Crown – an artefact of great power. It protects the wearer from poison and steel, and grants the ability to bend the wills of weak men. If Falhedar is killed, or the crown removed, his guards will lose heart.’ Felix frowned. ‘But if you put it on, couldn’t you command them to surrender entirely?’ Halim’s face drained of colour. ‘I will not wear that crown. It is a vile thing.’ ‘But in times of trouble, maybe a necessary one,’ said Ghal. ‘No!’ barked Halim. His hands were clenched. ‘No. I will wear the Lion Crown. The true crown.’ He turned to Gotrek and Felix. ‘Ras Karim has two crowns. The first, the Lion Crown, was made by the founder of this city, Karim the Benevolent. It is only a crown. It has no magic. But it is a symbol of just rule, and he who wears it and honours its legacy is loved by the people.’ He shot a glance at Ghal. ‘The second crown, the Serpent Crown, was made for Falhedar by Kaadiq, after the first attempt on his life.’ He sneered. ‘I hear he wears it to bed.’ Princess Yuleh flashed a mischievous grin. ‘I hope you don’t do that, beloved. I would find it very uncomfortable.’ Halim chuckled and squeezed her hand. Ghal grunted and looked away. Gotrek and Felix exchanged a glance. 5 On the day of the attack, smoke rose from a dozen points in the city, and riots and demonstrations choked the streets with people. Company after company of palace guard was dispatched to put down the disturbances. When Halim estimated that more than half of the garrison was chasing phantoms in the slums, he sent a ragtag army to the front gate, to pepper it with rocks and arrows and generally make a lot of noise. Gotrek and Felix waited with him and Ghal and Yuleh and fifty armed men in an abandoned house with a secret door in its basement. Strangely, Halim was armed, not with a tulwar, but with an ugly wooden club with sharp chunks of basalt set into the end. The princess wore mannish garb, her hair hidden under a headscarf. At last, word came that most of the remaining palace troops were engaged at the front gate. Halim opened the secret door and they ran swiftly through a narrow, lightless passage that ended, after more than a hundred yards, in another underground room – a dungeon of sorts, though curiously, all the fetters and whips seemed to be made of silk and satin, rather than iron and leather. Above this was an opulent pleasure pavilion, a miniature palace of rose marble and satin pillows, of silver tables and tasselled lamps. Through its windows Gotrek and Felix looked with the others across a garden awash with flowers and fountains and exotic trees to an enormous palace that gleamed in the sun like a gilded sapphire. Spires and minarets rose from its every corner, and gold-pillared arcades ringed its upper storeys. There were no guards to be seen, only sounds of battle echoing in the distance. Halim and Yuleh led the rest at a trot through the endless grounds until they came to a more modest garden, hidden by hedges, where melons and pears and nut trees grew. A genuflecting servant let the interlopers in at the kitchen door and they filed silently through a maze of service corridors until they came to a narrow stair, at the head of which was a stout door. Halim turned as his men crowded forward. ‘Through that door is the Court of Palms, and beyond it, the throne room. We must cross the court like the wind, for if the guards close the throne room doors before we reach them, we are done before we begin. Are we ready?’ Ghal grunted. The men muttered their assent. Felix drew the scimitar he had been given. It felt alien and unbalanced in his hand. Gotrek smacked into his palm the iron-shod truncheon he had taken from the jailer. ‘Let’s get this over with,’ he growled. Halim and Ghal crept up the stairs with the others behind them. Halim pressed his ear to the door, then shoved through it at a run. The others burst through after him into a huge indoor jungle. Palm trees soared overhead under a faceted glass ceiling. Exotic flowers exploded from dark foliage, parrots and monkeys clutched drooping vines. Felix saw the far wall as if looking into a clearing. A towering archway revealed a golden-pillared room beyond. Ten guards in white and gold stood before it, spears at parade rest. As Halim’s force sprinted from the shadows they cried out, but after that their response was calm and practised. Eight stepped forward, grounding their spears to meet the charge, while the other two began to pull closed a pair of heavy golden doors, richly worked with scenes of war and triumph. Halim’s front rank drew recurved bows and fired on the fly. The men pulling the door fell, twisting and screaming, but more ran from the throne room to replace them. Halim’s force was still fifty feet away. Another flight of arrows and the doors slowed again, but they continued to close. ‘Step aside, Grimnir curse you!’ roared Gotrek. The Slayer had fallen behind, his short legs unable to compete, but his bellow parted those in front of him, and he side-armed his iron-tipped truncheon toward the door with all his might. It spun noisily across the floor, scraping white gouges in the green marble. The guards leapt aside as it came, fearing for their ankles, and it slid past them to wedge between the two doors just before they met, keeping them open. The guards started hauling them apart again to get the truncheon out, but it was too late. Halim’s men crashed into them, overwhelming them quickly and shouldering open the doors. Guards within tried to hold them closed, but they were no match for the fifty rebels outside. Gotrek snatched up the truncheon and pushed through the widening gap, the first into the throne room. He bashed left and right and the doors opened more quickly. Felix, Ghal and Halim came in behind him, Halim’s men flooding in after to meet a score more white-clad guards. The last rebels slammed the doors behind them and set massive bolts. Felix stole glances around him as he fought. The throne room was dazzling. White and gold pillars rose above a yellow-canopied dais. On the walls, tall windows alternated with jewel-covered tapestries of hunts and battles and courtiers at play. On a gilded settee on the dais, surrounded by the motionless, chainmail-veiled red and bronze warriors who had captured Gotrek and Felix outside the Forbidden Garden, a man was rising and staggering back, a trembling hand pointing at Gotrek. He was of middle height and build and age, but magnificently dressed in snow-white robes, with a round, childish face under the golden coils of what could only be the Serpent Crown. ‘The dwarf!’ he cried to Kaadiq, who stood beside him, a hand clutching his silver flute. ‘The slayer of my khimar! Get him away. Protect me. He is a daemon!’ Gotrek looked every inch a thing of the nether realms just then, drenched in blood and brains as he swung his terrible iron-shod club in a humming circle, breaking limbs and smashing skulls. ‘Fear not, your benevolence,’ said Kaadiq, soothingly. ‘He will not reach you. None of them will.’ He called to his mail-masked men. ‘Crimson Ones, protect the caliph. Protect me.’ The red and bronze warriors stepped forward as one, forming a line between the rebels and the dais. Kaadiq began waving his fingers and singing under his breath. The last of the throne room guards went down under the rebels’ ferocious onslaught. The rebels cheered and rushed forward. The Crimson Ones went on guard and struck in unison, like the pistons of some hellish machine. Though outnumbered more than two to one, the masked warriors repelled even Halim and Ghal with brutal ease. Gotrek fought three. They blocked his every strike. Another drove Felix back with bone-jarring blows. Behind the rebels, a huge crash shivered the throne room doors. Felix heard cries and orders from without. It sounded as if the palace guard had brought a battering ram. Kaadiq’s singing grew louder. Halim turned to Gotrek. ‘Quickly friend, before his enchantments can take effect! You must break through!’ ‘Right,’ said Gotrek. ‘Watch my sides, manling.’ Gotrek waded forward, swinging his truncheon two-handed, as Felix fell in behind him and to his left. The Slayer forced two of the mail-masked warriors back a step, but could not break their guard. Another cut at his flank. Felix lunged forward and parried the strike. It was so strong that his fingers stung. He hacked the warrior across the arm. His scimitar glanced off as if he were encased in gromril plate. Gotrek clubbed one to the floor with a blow that should have caved in his ribs. He sprang up again. The Slayer growled like a thwarted bear. Felix’s opponent smashed his unfamiliar sword out of his hand and lunged. Felix ducked the tulwar, then slashed at the Crimson One’s eyes with his dagger. The veil of mail ripped away. Felix gasped. There were no eyes behind it. The warrior’s skull-featured head was carved from grey, weathered granite. 6 ‘Gotrek!’ choked Felix. ‘They’re not men!’ ‘I know that, manling,’ said Gotrek, cracking another in the head so hard that its helmet flew off and cracks appeared in its stone cranium. ‘Men don’t get up when I hit them.’ The thing kept fighting. As the caliph cowered and the sorcerer chanted, the stone men chopped the rebels to pieces. Behind the fighting, the bolts of the throne room doors groaned and buckled. The palace guard were almost in. The sorcerer’s droning chant began buzzing strangely in Felix’s ears, and suddenly he could hardly keep his eyes open. His arms felt leaden. He wasn’t alone. All along the rebel line, Halim’s men were dying as their arms drooped and the stone men buried their tulwars in their chests. ‘It won’t work, sorcerer,’ growled Gotrek. ‘Not without drugging me again.’ He tripped a stone man to the floor and leapt over it, swinging for Kaadiq. The sorcerer yelped and dodged behind the caliph’s throne. Gotrek gave chase. The sleepy buzz instantly vanished from Felix’s mind, and he saw Halim’s men recover themselves as well. It made little difference. The stone men could not be stopped. Swords did nothing. Heavier weapons might knock them down, but they fought on just as strongly. ‘Ushabti!’ called Kaadiq, dancing awkwardly back from Gotrek. ‘Protect me. Kill the dwarf!’ But before the stone men could turn, Gotrek flung his truncheon again. It caught the sorcerer at the knees and he crashed, shrieking, beside the dais. At the same time, with a final bash of the battering ram, the throne room doors exploded open, and a flood of white uniformed guards poured in, charging the rebels. Gotrek stood over Kaadiq, truncheon raised, ‘Get in my head, will you?’ he roared, then smashed down. The iron-shod club stove in Kaadiq’s skull like an eggshell. Gotrek laughed evilly. ‘Ha! Now I’m in yours!’ The stone men clattered to the ground like unstrung puppets, all life gone from them. Relieved, Felix and the rebels turned to fight the palace guards, but they were so few now, and the guards so many, that their destruction seemed inevitable. Gotrek swung his truncheon at the caliph, but it swerved in the air and missed him. ‘No!’ cried Halim. ‘Iron won’t touch him!’ He leapt onto the dais, swinging his basalt-studded club. It caught Falhedar on the shoulder and knocked him from his settee. Strangely, the crown stayed firmly on his head. Halim leapt on the caliph and grabbed the crown, tugging at it. It wouldn’t come off. In a glance behind him, Felix saw that it was sewn to Falhedar’s scalp – threads going through his skin. ‘Coward!’ Halim pulled harder and the crown came away, ripping flesh and hair with it. The caliph shrieked, his head a ragged, bloody mess. Yuleh stepped up before him, curved dagger held high. ‘For my father,’ she said, and plunged it into his heart. ‘For my country,’ said Halim, and sank his blade next to hers. All around the room, the white-clad guards faltered and blinked around, as if waking from a dream. The rebels knocked their blades aside and tore into them. Halim stood, Falhedar’s bloody crown in one hand. ‘Stop! Friends! It is over!’ The rebels stepped back reluctantly. They did not lower their swords. Halim addressed the bewildered guards. ‘Loyal men of the palace, the yoke of the Serpent Crown has been lifted from your shoulders. Your wills are your own again.’ He gestured to the bodies at his feet. ‘Caliph Falhedar is dead. The red sorcerer is dead. You need no longer fight to protect them. Instead I invite you to join me and return our land to its former glory.’ He was met with silence. The guards seemed too stunned to respond. At last a captain of the guard gathered his wits. ‘And under what crown will you rule?’ he asked sullenly. ‘The Serpent or the Lion?’ Halim looked down at the bloody crown in his hands. He seemed to hesitate, then threw it savagely from him. It chimed as it skipped across the marble floor. ‘The Lion Crown,’ he said. ‘Only the Lion.’ 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.’ ‘You…’ said Halim. ‘Dwarf… I…’ He burst out laughing. Felix joined him. ‘I thought…’ he said. ‘I really thought that this time…’ Gotrek sneered. ‘A common snake? Do you insult me?’ A rattle of chains made them turn. The portcullis that blocked the vault door was rising and Yuleh ran through, still bound and gagged. ‘Beloved!’ said Halim, striding to her. He cut her ropes and tore off her gag and they embraced. Gotrek and Felix turned to give them privacy. Gotrek mopped his face with a cloth-of-gold scarf. ‘Now friends,’ said Halim, turning from Yuleh after a long moment. ‘The Lion Crown.’ They spread out and searched the six rooms of the vault, until at last Yuleh found it, shoved into a mahogany cabinet. Halim took it with trembling fingers. It was a beautiful thing, simple but elegant. A circular silver band set at the front with a carved amber lion’s head, out of which gazed deep emerald eyes. ‘This,’ he said, ‘is the true heart of Ras Karim.’ As they walked back to the vault door, stepping around the motionless body of the giant snake, Halim saw the fallen Serpent Crown. He stooped and picked it up, then stood looking from one crown to the other. ‘Destroy it, beloved,’ said Yuleh, staring at the cobra-headed circlet with distaste. ‘Destroy it so that it may never again tempt you or any other caliph to cruelty.’ Halim hesitated. He looked toward the door. ‘Ghal may not have been the only conspirator. We may be surrounded by traitors. The palace guard may turn against us. What if I have need of its protection? Of its power?’ Yuleh stared at him, her eyes troubled. ‘Then it will not be Ghal who the snake devoured, but you. And it will be Ghal who walks out of this room, not you.’ Felix coughed. ‘It didn’t do much to protect Falhedar from you, did it? In fact, it seems to have inspired you to overthrow him. Put it on and there will soon be another Halim who will rise up to overthrow you.’ Halim frowned, still uncertain, but at last he sighed. ‘You are right. It must be destroyed. It is an evil thing, that wants too much to be worn. I will destroy it, as soon as…’ He hesitated again. ‘As soon as…’ He cursed. ‘No! It is too tempting! It must be done now!’ He turned to Gotrek. ‘Friend dwarf. Your axe has slain one serpent today. Now slay another.’ He threw the bloody crown on the floor before the Slayer. Gotrek nodded and lashed down with his axe. With a flash of green flame, the crown was split in two. The others stepped back. The two halves of the thing sizzled and melted into a puddle of black slag. ‘Magic,’ sneered Gotrek, disgusted. Halim blinked at the smouldering black mess, then nodded. ‘Thank you, friend dwarf. You have done me a great service.’ He lifted his head and squared his shoulders. ‘Come, let us see what fate awaits us in the throne room.’ 9 Four days later Gotrek and Felix stood with Halim and Yuleh outside the stables of the caliph’s palace – their palace now. There had been a wedding, and a coronation. Yuleh, the last of the line of the old caliphs, had crowned Halim with the Lion Crown, then knelt with him before the high priest of Ras Karim to be pronounced man and wife, and caliph and queen, as the multitudes cheered outside the great gold domed temple in the centre of the city. Now the newlyweds bowed to the poet and the Slayer. ‘Friends,’ Halim said. ‘We could not have done it without you.’ He touched his hand to his chest. ‘Truly. All might have gone very differently had you not been there. Even at my moment of determination the crown tempted me. Had you not been there to destroy it…’ ‘We are indebted to you both,’ said Yuleh, who looked every inch a queen in flowing blue robes and sapphires in her black hair. Gotrek shrugged. ‘It was only a snake.’ ‘The snake was the least of it,’ said Halim, grinning. ‘As you well know.’ He turned and clapped his hands. ‘We have gifts for you. To aid you in your hunt for the Lurking Horror.’ A servant came forward leading a camel. Its humped back was piled high with trunks and packs and water skins. ‘Also these,’ said Yuleh, taking a small pouch from her robes. ‘Gold and gems enough to take you around the world.’ She pressed the pouch into Felix’s hand. ‘Though you would be welcome to stay here as long as you liked.’ Felix wouldn’t have minded in the least. With the rebellion over, the palace was a beautiful, peaceful place, full of fountains, gardens, and delectable women. ‘No thanks,’ said Gotrek. ‘We’ve stayed too long already.’ He saluted the royal couple in dwarf fashion, fist over his heart. Felix sighed and bowed resignedly. Gotrek had never been one to relax and enjoy the good times while he could. A short while later, Gotrek and Felix led their camel through the dusty streets of Ras Karim on their way to the city gate. Felix looked around with interest, taking in all the curious costumes, the unusual architecture and the unintelligible script of the signs. ‘More for my journals,’ he said. ‘It always amazes me, the infinite variations of man’s many cultures. How strange and alien the customs, how odd–’ ‘Rubbish,’ grunted Gotrek. ‘Man is the same everywhere. Only the hats are different.’ He picked up his pace, tugging on the camel’s bridle. ‘Now hurry up, manling. I’ve got a monster to slay.’