by Warhammer
‘We go south,’ he said in his most determined voice. ‘We’ll hit these blue-furred bastards as they try to cross the Urskoy and then head on. The Ice Queen must have sounded the assembly horn by now and be heading north to Praag. We’ll meet her there and drive the Chaos worshipping scum back to the desert from which they came.’
His men cheered raggedly, almost as if they believed his every word. Once again, he was proud of them. Like him they had seen the true size of the horde – and, like him, they must know it was invincible.
Max Schreiber looked out from the walls of Praag into the gloom. Out there, he knew, the greatest army assembled by the forces of Darkness in two hundred years was waiting, readying itself to sweep over the lands of humanity in a tide of blood and fire. Perhaps this time, the Chaos worshippers would succeed. The gods knew how close they had come in times past, far closer than most men alive today would believe possible. Every time in the past they had been pushed back, at high cost, but every time the Chaos Wastes had advanced a little further, and had not retreated. Every time the world had become a little more corrupt, the hidden followers of Darkness a little stronger.
Max knew about such things. He had spent most of life studying them when he had not been studying magic. He had sworn an oath to oppose the worshippers of the Ruinous Powers however he could when he had joined his secret brotherhood. At this exact moment, he was wondering whether that oath had led him to the place of his death. Looking out into the night he could see the vast cloud of dark magic hovering over that distant army. To his sorcerously trained senses, the currents of power flowing through it were evident. There were powerful mages at work out there, he knew, and they were mobilising forces that should have been too great for any mortal sorcerer to control.
Who said they were mortal, Max thought sourly? They did not have to be. Time flowed queerly in the Wastes, and one of the most common reasons men submitted themselves to the Darkness was that they sometimes granted immortality or something close to it. And not eternal life in some distant paradise where you went after death either, but real eternal youth in the flesh, in this world. Eternal life and power. Two things many men had no qualms about giving up their souls for.
Max knew too that they were fools. Nothing came without its price, particularly not power borrowed from the Dark Lords of Chaos. They were like money lenders who charged ruinous interest. You gave up your soul, a small intangible thing that many people truly did not believe existed, and by doing so, you gave up everything. You surrendered your life and your will to the Dark Ones. You ceased to be yourself. You ended up a mere puppet, dancing on the strings of powers far greater than yourself.
Or so Max had been taught. He had seen nothing to make him doubt it, but if ever there was a time to want to, he thought wryly, this was it. When your choice came down to painful death or eternal damnation, it did not seem like there was much to choose between them. Certainly the priests of Sigmar and Taal and Ulric and Morr had their texts, and could tell you what waited for you beyond the grave. Still, none of them seemed too keen to leave the flesh behind either no matter what paradise they were certain awaited them. Max was not an ignorant peasant. He did not necessarily believe that the magical powers priests wielded were granted to them by the gods. He had wielded too much power himself to believe that. The temples did not like the fact their long monopoly on magic had been broken. That was why they still persecuted wizards like Max when they could.
He shook his head, trying to dismiss his dark mood, trying to blame it on the presence of all that dark magic swirling in the distance. Here he was ready to disbelieve in the existence of the benevolent gods, yet he was all too willing to believe in the Powers of Chaos. He told himself that the gods existed and some of them aided mankind. He had best believe that, and keep his doubts to himself, or the witch hunters would come calling.
Such men were not at all thrilled by the fact he was a mage. It was not all that long ago that wizards had been burned at the stake as followers of Chaos and forced to practice their arts in secret. And there were plenty of people in the city who were still more than willing to do a little wizard-cooking. He could tell by the way people muttered at the sight of him in his long robes and staff.
Well, let them. In the days to come they would need his powers, and would be grateful for them whether they thought they came straight from hell or not. When a man was wounded unto death and his only hope was magic, they swiftly rethought their prejudices. Most men, anyway.
He gave his attention back to the currents of magic. He could sense power pulsing through the stones beneath him. Dwarf work or the work of the ancient priests, it did not really matter. The spells were strong, reinforced over centuries by people who knew how to work protective enchantments. Max was grateful for that. At least the city had some protection against evil magic. The same runes guarded the inner walls and something stronger still protected the citadel.
He doubted even a greater daemon of Chaos could pass through the spell walls surrounding Praag. Of course, he could not be absolutely certain. No mortal man really knew what the mightiest servants of the Darkness were capable of. They were strong beyond measure. Perhaps he would soon be measuring that strength. All he could do was pray that it was not the case.
An enormous amount of mystical power and energy had gone into shielding this place, and Max wondered why. By common consent it was an accursed spot. Any folk less stubborn that the Kislevites would have abandoned it long ago. Not them. This was the Hero City, symbol of their eternal struggle with the forces of Chaos; they would never give it up as long as one citizen still breathed.
He leaned on his staff and drew a deep breath into his lungs. The spellwalls would hold for as long as the walls themselves did. If the stones were cast down, he doubted that the magic they contained would endure. The real threat would be that. Siege engines could destroy the stonework and the spells they held would simply unravel. He wondered if the defenders around him had any idea of what horrors might ensue if that happened. Better if they did not really. There was no need to spread despair.
Max knew that despite the desperate nature of the situation, he was really only trying to distract himself from the real problem. Ulrika. He loved her desperately and to distraction, and he knew he could not have her. She was with Felix Jaeger and that seemed to be what she wanted. Of course there were times when the two of them weren’t happy together, which gave Max some hope if the two of them split up she might turn to him for comfort. It was depressing and not a little embarrassing that his hopes were so slight, but it was really all he could pray for.
It was ironic really. Here he was, a man privy to many of the darkest secrets of magic, a sorcerer capable of binding daemons and monsters, and he could not stop thinking about one woman. She bound him as strongly as any pentagram had ever bound a daemon, and she did not even seem aware of it. He had even confessed his infatuation to her one drunken night in Karak Kadrin, and she had ignored it, had treated him with nothing but friendliness ever since. In a way, it was humiliating.
He was a good-looking man, and a powerful one, modestly wealthy from his practice of sorcery. Many women had found him attractive although in his earlier years he had been too wrapped up in his studies and his pursuit of magical knowledge to pay them much attention. Now he had finally found one he wanted, and she would not even give him a second glance. Part of him was wise enough to wonder whether this was part of the attraction. Part of him wondered whether, if she had wanted him from the first, he would still have wanted her so badly. He knew enough of the human heart to know how perverse it could be.
Not that it mattered. He was hooked now, and he knew it. He spent as much time in daydreams of saving her life and earning her gratitude as he did in studying. He knew that it did not matter if the four great Powers of Chaos manifested themselves outside the city, he would remain here for as long as she did. It was annoying, for he felt himself to have reached a new plateau of power, and he knew he should be co
ncentrating all his efforts into his studies. He was certain now that he was a match for any of his old masters when it came to sheer magical power, and he had come into his mastery while still young. Perhaps it was all the adventuring he had done recently, all the stress he had endured, all the spells he had cast under difficult circumstances, but he felt he had gained enormous strength in the past few months.
He shook his head wondering why he was spending so much time worrying about one woman while the whole world was on the verge of being shattered into pieces. Within the last season he had witnessed skaven attacks in the north, dragon raids in the mountains, orc tribes on the march. It seemed like a whole hornet’s nest of evil forces was being stirred up. Was there any connection between these things? Instinct and experience told him that there most likely was.
Grey Seer Thanquol glared around the chamber. He was outraged. How dare those Clan Moulder imbeciles accuse him of fomenting this absurd rebellion? If they were incapable of keeping their own slaves obedient, it was no fault of his. He stared around the chamber that was his prison, taking in the strange living furnishings that were the hallmarks of the clan that held him captive. There was the fur-covered chair that shaped itself to him when he crouched in it, and the bloated balloon-like creature that pissed fungusberry wine. There was the carpet that writhed like a living thing beneath his paws, and the odd windows of translucent membrane that opened when he clapped his paws. Most of the time. When the Moulders did not think he would try to escape.
Escape! The very suggestion annoyed him. He was a grey seer, one of the Chosen of the Horned Rat, second only to the Council of Thirteen itself in power and influence. He did not need to escape. He could come and go as he pleased without any need to explain himself to lesser beings. He lashed his tail and twitched his snout, then rubbed the curling goat horns protruding from the side of his head. That was the theory anyway. The Moulders did not seem to agree.
It was all that buffoon Lurk’s fault. Thanquol knew it. He was behind this. That obese monstrosity Izak Grottle had hinted as much during their last meeting. Somehow, showing a daemonic cunning Thanquol would never have suspected he possessed, his former minion had escaped from captivity and roused the skavenslaves to rebellion against their masters. Apparently, he claimed the mutations that had erupted from his twisted form during his sojourn in the Chaos Wastes were some sort of blessing from the Horned Rat, and that he was a prophet destined to lead the skaven race to even greater glories. Thanquol did not know what outraged him most: the thought of his own captivity or the fact that his worthless lackey was claiming authority greater even than that of a grey seer. Somehow it did not surprise him that even Lurk had managed to find enough dullards witless enough to believe such obvious lies here among the oafs of Moulder. A people whose leaders were foolish enough to imprison Grey Seer Thanquol were doubtless idiotic enough to believe anything.
The door parted, and a low chuckle announced the presence of Izak Grottle. Thanquol studied his old underling and rival from the fiasco at Nuln with a cold eye. There had never been any love lost between them, and Thanquol’s captivity had done little to improve the situation. The Moulder licked his snout with a long pinkish tongue before stuffing a small living thing into his mouth. The creature shrieked as it died. Grottle emitted a loud belch. Blood stained his fangs. It was a disconcerting sight even for a skaven as hardened as Thanquol. He did not think he could ever remember seeing a ratman quite as fat as Izak Grottle, nor one so sleekly full of himself.
‘Are you ready to confess your part in this nefarious scheme?’ Grottle asked. Thanquol glared at him. He considered summoning the winds of magic and blasting the fat skaven where he stood, but dismissed the idea. He needed to hoard his power the way a miser hoarded warp-tokens. He had no idea when he might need it to escape. If only that ball of strange warpstone the Chaos mages had given him had not mysteriously evaporated before the rebellions began, he would have had more than enough sorcerous energy to manage his escape. Sometimes, Thanquol wondered if there was some connection between the two events, but he had decided that would have meant he had been outsmarted by two humans, clearly an impossibility, so he had dismissed the ludicrous idea.
‘I told you I know nothing of any scheme,’ squeaked Thanquol angrily. Grottle waddled forward and slumped down on the living chair. Its legs flexed and it gave an anguished groan as it subsided under his weight. ‘This is nonsense. Nonsense. The Council of Thirteen will hear of this insolence. They brook no disrespect to one dispatched on their business.’
That was certainly true. Only a fool intervened in any affair sanctioned by the hidden masters of the skaven race. Unfortunately, it was obvious that Clan Moulder was full of fools.
‘And what exactly was this mission for the Council?’ asked Grottle, dismissing Thanquol’s anger the way he might ignore the angry complaints of a runt. ‘If you were on a mission in Moulder’s territory, why were not the Masters of Hell Pit informed?’
‘You know full well what my mission was. I was sent to claim the dwarf airship for the Council that they might study it, and learn its secrets.’
Well, it was almost the truth, Thanquol thought. He was a representative of the Council, and he had come north on his own initiative to try and capture the airship. And he would have succeeded too had it not been for the incompetence of his lackeys, and the intervention of that accursed pair, Gotrek Gurnisson and Felix Jaeger. Why did those two always appear to thwart his best-laid plans?
‘So you claimed, but the elders sense something hidden at work here. Surely it is no coincidence that since you arrived there has been nothing but an uninterrupted series of disasters for Clan Moulder?’
‘Don’t blame me if you cannot keep your own slaves under control,’ chittered Thanquol testily. He lashed his tail and extended one of his claws menacingly to emphasise his point. Grottle did not flinch. Instead he scratched his long snout with one of his own much larger talons, and continued to speak as if Thanquol had not already answered him.
‘No sooner did you arrive than we lost a mighty force of our best stormvermin attacking the horsesoldiers’ burrow. Then a huge horde of Chaos warriors erupts from the North and starts laying waste to everything in its path. As if that were not bad enough, since your arrival none of our experiments has gone right, and during one of them, the strange mutant accompanying you breaks free and begins to organise our own lackeys against us. The elders feel that this cannot be coincidence.’
Thanquol considered the Moulder’s words. There did seem to be a sinister pattern there, which would appear to minds less enlightened than Thanquol’s own to implicate him in something. But he knew that for once in his long and intrigue-filled life he was not responsible. He had done nothing, had not even spoken to Lurk since they arrived in the great crater of Hell Pit.
He considered his words with care. ‘Perhaps your elders have done something to displease the Horned Rat. Perhaps he has withdrawn his favour from them.’
Grottle chuckled again. ‘This echoes rather too accurately what your partner has been telling our skavenslaves.’
Thanquol was outraged. How dare this fat fool suggest there might be anything like equality between himself and a mere skaven warrior? ‘Lurk Snitchtongue is not my partner. He is my minion.’
‘So, you admit that you are the mastermind behind this agitator then?’ Izak Grottle said, nodding his head as if this merely confirmed his suspicions.
Thanquol bit his tongue. He had walked right into that trap. What was going on here? Why was his mind so cloudy? Why did he lack his usual cunning? It was almost as if he were under some spell. His thoughts had been a bit muddy since his capture by the Chaos horde. An enchanter whose mind was less well protected than Thanquol knew his to be would have suspected he had been ensorcelled. Fortunately in Thanquol’s case this was an impossibility. No mere humans could possibly have warped his thoughts… could they?
‘No! No! My former lackey!’ he said. ‘I have nothing to do with this
uprising.’
Grottle gave him a look that combined frank disbelief and culinary appraisal. Thanquol shuddered. Surely not even Izak Grottle would dare devour a grey seer? The massive skaven moved ever closer. Thanquol did not like the glint in his eye. But just as Grottle came within striking distance the door to the chamber opened and a group of wizened, ancient-looking skaven strode in. Instantly Grey Seer Thanquol and Izak Grottle threw themselves onto their bellies and abased themselves.
One of the ancient skaven’s voices rasped out. ‘Grey Seer Thanquol, get up! You have much to explain and little time to do so. Your former minion has brought our city to the brink of civil war, and we have need of your counsel in dealing with him.’
Thanquol trembled and tried to restrain himself from squirting the musk of fear. Then the ancient one’s words sank in. They needed his help. Their city seethed on the verge of anarchy. Here was a lever that might be used to open the doors of his prison, a key which he might use to get his freedom.
Suddenly, the situation seemed very promising.
THREE
Felix clambered to the top of the watchtower near the Gargoyle Gate. He was surprised no one tried to stop him. The guards recognised him from the fight at the gate, and his association with Gotrek, and they did not mind him being here. A gold crown slipped to their commander had ensured that.
Gotrek and Ulrika were right behind him. They were just as interested in the arrival of the Chaos horde as he was. Looking around he saw they were not the only ones. The flat landing at the tower’s top was packed with people, not all of them soldiers by any stretch of the imagination. He saw men in the thick sable furs favoured by merchants, and women in the heavy velvet gowns currently fashionable at the duke’s court. Felix did not feel too out of place. He had grown up around such people. His father was one of the wealthiest merchants in Altdorf. He could tell Ulrika felt the same way. She was the daughter of a noble. Gotrek did not give a damn about what anybody thought. Seeing that they behaved as if they had every right to be there, no one gave them a second glance.