Beastslayer (Gotrek and Felix Book 5) by William King

Author:William King [King, William]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Black Library
Published: 2011-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

Eight

The man called Halek stood on the topmost tower of the citadel and gazed off into the night. Below him he could see the snow-covered roofs of the inner town, the towering temple tops, the maze-like pattern of streets, and the enormous inner wall. The houses and tenements beyond that looked tiny in the distance. Only the massive outer wall appeared to have any substance. In the far distance, he could see out into the vast sea of campfires that surrounded the city, the silhouettes of the monstrous daemonic war-engines, dark metal leering out through their covering of snow. He could see other things now too.

His master had granted him a gift recently. He had been changed. His eyes could see more than mortal eyes now, could see the powers of his master, Tzeentch, Lord of Magic, as it ebbed and flowed around him. He knew that soon his eyes would start to change, and would show the stigmata of mutation, but it did not matter now. By the time any of the people around him realised he was one of the Gifted, it would be far too late to do anything about it. They, and their whole city, would be crushed beneath the iron heel of Chaos.

Halek knew he had to stop thinking like this. He knew that with the change he was becoming unduly sensitive to the currents of magic being summoned by the master magicians out there among the Chaos horde. He knew that it was starting to affect his mind. Soon it would not matter. Soon he would be free to revel in unfettered worship of his master, the Changer of Ways, but now things were at a delicate juncture, and might still go wrong. As he had so often reminded himself, there was no point in Chaos triumphing if he himself was not there to witness it. He did not want to risk exposure so soon before the glorious day when the Time of Changes arrived.

Part of him was still unsure whether he wished to see the triumph of Chaos at all. Part of him was still loyal to the city and the people and the duke. Part of him wished he had never attended that first meeting, never allowed himself to be seduced into the quest for forbidden knowledge. Too late now, he told himself, trying to submerge the side of himself that felt guilt and weariness and pain. Too late for anything except to play his planned part.

He tried to tell himself that the changes were for the better. He could feel his master’s gifts wakening within him, as they would soon be doing among all the chosen of the Old World. With his new sensitivity to the winds of magic had come the first hints of the ability to wield it. He could with an effort of will now shape the raw stuff of magic itself. To prove it to himself, he concentrated on making light appear around his hand. By dint of prodigious effort he made a faint nebulous glow appear about him.

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