Berthold's Beard - By Joshua Reynolds Page 0,2

fell. Felix turned as Gotrek brought the last beastman down.

The Slayer had his hands wrapped around its neck, his axe being embedded in the skull of another. As Felix approached, Gotrek efficiently crushed the thrashing creature’s throat. The Slayer let it fall to the floor and wiped his hands on his trousers. ‘Filthy beasts,’ he grunted, spitting on the body.

‘My thanks, Aldrich,’ Felix said as he cleaned his sword. ‘That was a timely intervention.’

‘I’m paying a lot for your services, Jaeger,’ Aldrich said. ‘I’d hate to see that money go to waste.’

Gotrek’s eye blazed at the mention of money. Even the merest whiff of it did odd things to dwarfs, and it was one of the few things that could stir Gotrek other than the promise of a glorious death. Aldrich had promised them Gotrek’s weight in gold to escort him to Star Hall. The journey was normally to be undertaken alone, but the rash of accidents among his kin had made Aldrich wary, and as the last surviving Berthold he felt comfortable breaking with tradition. Felix couldn’t fault him for that.

‘Did you find the fire?’ Felix said. ‘Was it the beasts?’

Gotrek grunted in assent. ‘Back there,’ he said, hiking his thumb over his shoulder. He looked down into the hole in the floor through which the beast that Aldrich had shot had plunged. ‘Smells foul down there,’ he added.

‘Who knows how long those creatures have been squatting here,’ Felix said, sheathing his sword. He looked at Aldrich. ‘I’m surprised no one ever mentioned it to you.’

‘There’s a lot I don’t know,’ Aldrich said, holstering his pistol. ‘I didn’t even know I was related to the family, despite the name, until last week.’ He looked around. ‘I certainly wasn’t expecting to have to come here.’

‘Why are we here anyway?’ Felix said. ‘You weren’t very clear about that in Wolfenburg.’

Aldrich frowned. ‘I’m looking for something,’ he said after a moment.

‘What?’

‘A beard,’ Aldrich said.

Felix blinked. ‘What?’

Aldrich made a face. ‘Well, more a lock from a beard.’

‘Maybe you’d best explain, manling,’ Gotrek rumbled, cleaning his axe on the mane of one of the dead beastmen.

‘The Bertholds are – were – a large family,’ Aldrich said. ‘And their fortune is even larger. Star Hall was built with that fortune, by Bollin Berthold, the first Berthold.’ Aldrich looked around. The shadows cast by the setting sun were deepening and creeping across the floor. ‘He was entombed here, in the vaults below, before the Beastlord put Ostland to the torch. When the family left, they left him here. It’s become a... tradition of sorts, for those coming into their inheritance to come to Star Hall and pluck a hair from the beard of the first Berthold in order to prove their blood to the family’s legal representatives, the firm of Flywheel, Shyster and Flywheel.’ Aldrich made a face. ‘They’ve been seeing to the family’s interests since the time of the Three Emperors.’

‘Odd sort of tradition,’ Felix said. He glanced around. There was a sound he couldn’t place. A faint scurrying or slithering that he dismissed a moment later as the sound of branches in the evening breeze.

‘No odder than anything else you manlings come up with,’ Gotrek said. ‘This place still smells of beasts.’

‘We should start a fire. It’s getting dark,’ Aldrich said, looking uncomfortable.

‘I would have thought you’d have wanted to claim your prize,’ Felix said.

Aldrich shook his head. ‘If there are beasts about, I’d rather wait until daylight, if it’s all the same to you, Jaeger.’ He grinned. ‘What’s one more night after all?’

‘May as well use the beasts’ fire pit,’ Gotrek said. He led them through the hole in the interior wall and into the room beyond. It had been a parlour once, Felix judged. Architectural styles didn’t change much in the Empire, much less Ostland. It was in as bad a shape as the rest of the house and there were holes in the floor and the walls that put Felix in mind of rat-holes. There was a stone fire pit in the centre of the room, and charred kindling still smoked within it. Felix sniffed.

‘I was expecting it to smell like a sty,’ he said.

‘Maybe the beasts haven’t been here as long as we thought,’ Aldrich said.

‘Someone was,’ Gotrek said, tapping his axe on the edge of the fire pit. ‘Those beasts didn’t start this fire.’

Felix was about to reply, when he again heard the soft scurrying sound. Rats in the walls, perhaps? Or something else... Felix watched the hairy patches