'Geheimnisnacht' – William King


Well, here's another title that I suspect will see 'copy and paste' do a lot of the heavy lifting over the course of this post. You can find 'Geheimnisnacht' in the 'Trollslayer' collection as well as 'Gotrek & Felix: The First Omnibus'. I was lucky enough to find it in the 'Ignorant Armies' anthology which is what I ended up reading, this evening, after a day at work that really didn't agree with me... It's only twenty six pages long so a very short story and an even shorter post (sorry about that but seriously, that was about all I was good for tonight...)

Never get drunk with a dwarf, especially a Trollslayer who is searching for a glorious death and will happily accept a drunken promise to chronicle his violent exploits. Felix Jaeger did both of these things recently and is just beginning to understand what his drunken promise has let him in for, on Geheimnisnacht, beneath the standing stones...

'Gotrek and Felix' tales are very simple (well, the ones that I have read anyway), some kind of quest offers Gotrek the chance to fulfil his destiny by fighting something massive and extremely dangerous. Gotrek is perhaps the worst Slayer ever though as he keeps winning and living to fight another day. Poor Felix is left trailing in his wake, regretting promises made while drunk, we've all been there.

This premise is basically 'Geheimnisnacht' in a nutshell but the added attraction here is that Gotrek and Felix have literally only just met so we get a bit of 'back and forth', amongst all the fighting, as they slowly get to properly know each other. Well, it's more like Felix gets to know Gotrek while Gotrek fights stuff but you know what I mean. The upshot is that what could have ended up just being twenty six pages of fighting becomes a little more than that, not much more but enough to make it interesting and for the likes of me to want to stick around. Which I did ;o)

'Geheimnisnacht' isn't going to change your world but when you've had a day that's the equivalent of being smacked round the head with a large axe, it's nice to read a story like 'Geheimnisnacht' where other people get smacked round the head instead ;o) And there's enough story to it to give you a little idea of the world you're travelling in. Grim and dark, but you probably guessed that already...

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