by Warhammer
‘Elissa’s my girl,’ the drunk said. ‘You just leave her alone.’
Oh, of course; it was the peasant lad who used to go out with Elissa. He’d come back.
‘Elissa can make up her own mind about who she wants to see.’
‘No she can’t. She’s too sweet. Too easily led. Any city slicker with a smooth tongue and a nice cloak can turn her head.’
Felix saw the part he was being cast for. He was the heartless seducer leading the poor peasant girl astray.
‘You’ve seen too many Detlef Sierck plays,’ he said.
‘What? What did you call me?’
‘I didn’t call you anything!’
‘Yes, you did. I heard you.’
Felix saw the punch coming a league away. The man was drunk and slow. He raised his hand to block it. His forearm stung from the force of the blow. The man was strong.
‘Bastard!’ Hans shouted. ‘I’ll show you.’
He lashed out with a kick that caught Felix in the shin. Sharp pain stabbed through Felix. By reflex, he lashed out with his right hand and caught Hans under the jaw. It was quite possibly the best punch he had ever thrown against a man who was in no state to do anything about it. Hans dropped like a pole-axed ox.
The surrounding crowd applauded. Felix turned around to bow ironically and he saw Elissa looking at him with a look of horror in her eyes.
‘Felix, you brute!’ she said, moving past him to nurse Hans’s head in her lap.
‘Oh Hans, what did that heathen do to you?’
Just looking at her, Felix could tell that any explanation of what had happened would be useless.
‘You have found out more of the Moulder’s schemes, I hope?’ Thanquol allowed some of his anger and impatience to show in his voice. Over the past few days Lurk had spent considerable sums from the grey seer’s treasure chest but still had not produced any results. The little skaven gave a wheezing cough.
‘Yes, yes, most perspicacious of masters. I have.’
‘Good! Good! Tell me – quick, quick!’
‘It’s not good, most forgiving of masters.’
‘What? What?’ Thanquol leaned forward to glare down at the little rat-man and watched him flinch. Few could endure the grey seer’s red-eyed stare when it suited him to use it.
‘Regretfully, the wicked Moulders may already have implemented their plan.’
Cold fury clutched Thanquol’s heart. ‘Go on!’
‘My birthkin overheard the packmaster gloating. It seems a grainship bearing Clan Moulder’s secret weapon will arrive in the man-city tonight. Once it arrives, the city will fall. He knows that it has something to do with the city’s grain supply but he’s not sure what. Clan Moulder are very technical and have their own words for many things.’
‘May the Horned Rat gnaw your birthkin’s entrails! Is he hearing any more?’
‘Just that the barge has been painted black to conceal it from human eyes and that it will arrive this very night. It may even have done so already, most magnificent of masters.’
Thanquol’s fur bristled. What could he do? He could mobilise his troops and interfere but that would mean moving openly against Clan Moulder and every instinct the grey seer possessed rebelled against that. What if he summoned his troops, and they failed to find the ship? Thanquol would be a laughing stock and could not endure that. There was no time to waste. He knew that this called for urgent and desperate measures.
Swiftly he reached for pen and parchment, and inscribed a hasty message. ‘Take this to the burrow where the dwarf and the man Jaeger dwell. Make sure they get it – and quickly! Deliver it personally!’
‘P-p-personally, most revered of rat-men?’
‘Personally.’ Thanquol made it clear from his tone that he would brook no argument. ‘Go. Quick! Quick! Hurry-scurry! No time there is to waste!’
‘At once, mightiest of masters!’
Vilebroth Null looked up with rheumy hate-filled eyes. He coughed, but the sound of his coughing was lost amid the hacking coughs of other skaven in the corridors. At last his patience had been rewarded. His long hours of lying in wait near Thanquol’s lair had finally paid off. Somehow Vilebroth Null knew the grey seer had been behind the failure of his carefully contrived plan. So where was that little sneak Lurk Snitchtongue going at his hour? The abbot knew there was only one way to find out.
‘He started it!’ Felix said, all too aware that he sounded like he was whining. He looked around the room they shared, his eyes caught by the package of clothes the tailor had delivered. He had still not unwrapped them.
‘So you say,’ said Elissa inflexibly. ‘I think you’re just a bully. You like hitting people like poor Hans.’
‘Poor Hans put a bruise the size of a steak on my shin!’ Felix said angrily.
‘Serves you right for hitting him,’ Elissa said. Felix shook his head in frustration. He was just about to get himself in deeper water when suddenly the window crashed in. Felix threw himself over Elissa to cover her as broken glass rained down. Fortunately, not too much landed on them. Felix rolled to his feet and scanned the chamber in the lantern light. Something dark and bulky lay on the floor.
Swiftly he drew his sword and prodded it. Nothing happened.
‘What is it?’ Elissa said, getting to her feet fearfully and pulling her nightgown tight around herself.
‘Don’t know,’ Felix said, bending over to inspect it more closely. As he did so he recognised the shape, and he thought he recognised the thing wrapped round it. ‘It’s a brick, and it’s wrapped in paper.’
‘What? It’ll be young Count Sternhelm again. He and his cronies are always breaking windows when they get drunk!’
‘I don’t think so,’ Felix said, gingerly unwrapping the paper. It was the same thick coarse parchment all the other skaven messages had come on. He unfolded it and read:
Frends – the Black Ship brings doom to yoor city! It comes tonite and carries certin deth! It is a grane barge loded wiv bad! Yoo must stop it! Go QUIK! QUIK! Yoo do not hav much time! They wil destroy yoor grane!
Felix pulled himself to his feet and started to pull on his clothes.
‘Run and get me some paper! I need to send a message to the palace. Move! Quickly!’
The urgency in his voice compelled Elissa from the room without asking any more questions.
Lurk rubbed his paws together and offered up a prayer of thanks to the Horned Rat. His message was delivered and somehow he had managed to avoid being chopped up by the dwarf’s fearsome axe. Mere minutes after he had lobbed the brick through what he had ascertained was Jaeger’s window he saw all the lights in the inn go on, and shortly thereafter, the human and the dwarf raced from the building bearing weapons and lighted lanterns.
A job well done, he told himself with satisfaction and rose to go. He sniffed heavily, trying to clear his nose. He was not feeling too well, and had been feeling less than well for days. He wondered if he was going down with the strange new disease that, rumour had it, was going around the skaven camp… the disease so strangely similar to the plague which was felling the humans. Lurk fervently hoped not. He was still young and had many things to accomplish. It would not be fair for him to pass away without achieving them.
He almost fainted when a heavy hand fell on his shoulder and a hideous bubbling voice whispered in his ear: ‘You will tell me what you have been doing! All of it! Quick! Quick!’
Even through the thick wad of snot that filled his nostrils, Lurk recognised the oppressive stench of Vilebroth Null.
‘What’s the hurry, manling?’ Gotrek rumbled. ‘We don’t even know where we’re going.’
‘The river,’ Felix said, feeling a strange sense of urgency. The note had said they did not have much time, and their skaven informant had never lied to them before. ‘A ship must arrive by river.’
‘I know, manling, but it’s a big river. We can’t cover it all.’
‘It’s a barge! There are very few places where a barge can t
ie up, and it must follow navigable channels.’
Felix considered the possibilities. What certainty did he have that this ‘Black Ship’ was going to tie up, rather than say, explode? None, really; he was just hoping that this was the case. Then it came to him. The big grain warehouses were down by the wharves and the letter had mentioned grain. At least, he hoped it had.
‘The granaries,’ he muttered. ‘The Northside docks are near the granaries.
‘The Northside docks would seem to be the best bet then,’ Gotrek said, hefting his axe.
‘Well, we need to start somewhere.’ They jogged on. Felix hoped fervently that the tavern boy had managed to deliver his note to Count Ostwald.
Skitch cursed as the barge shifted off course again. It was not a vessel the skaven were used to handling and the helmsman had had a lot of trouble with the tricky currents on their way down-river. Skitch hoped that they would arrive soon, for if they did not reach the manburrow during the hours of darkness the whole plan would be ruined. The barge painted black to be inconspicuous on this moonless night would stick out like a human baby in a litter of runts by day.
Well, he supposed the ship had been necessary. There was no other way such a huge number of specimens could have been carried through the Underways and released into the human city without arousing suspicion. He knew the last thing that his master wanted was for either Grey Seer Thanquol or the humans to have any inkling of what was going on. It was a well-known fact that the plans of Thanquol’s rivals had a tendency to fail if he found out about them. Skitch shuddered at the thought of what would happen if the humans found out what was going on.
He shook his head and returned to inspecting his charges. They scrabbled at the bars of their cages, hungry and desperate to be free.
‘Soon! Soon!’ he told them, feeling a certain kinship for these short-lived vermin that his mighty intellect had created. He knew they were flawed, just like he was. They would live only days.
The ship moved on through the night, coming ever closer to the sleeping city.
The docks by night were not a reassuring place, Felix thought. Lights spilled from many seedy taverns, and many red lights illumined the alleys. Armed patrols of watchmen moved between the warehouses, but were careful not to enter the areas where the sailors took their pleasure. They were more intent in protecting their employers’ goods than stopping crime. Still, Felix was reassured to know that there were armed men within call if things went horribly wrong.
He stood on the edge of the wharf and stared out into the river. The Reik was wide at this point, perhaps a league across, and navigable by ocean-going ships. Not that many of them came this far. Most traders chose to drop their cargoes in Marienberg and have it shipped upriver on barges.
From here he could see the running lights of both barges and the small skiffs which carried folk across the river all hours. He assumed that there would be many more craft out there than lights. Not at all boats or their passengers wanted their businesses known. Felix assumed that the Black Ship would be among their number. Only instead of carrying a cargo of illegal goods it was carrying some awful skaven weapon. Felix shuddered to contemplate what it might be. The Cauldron of a Thousand Poxes and the weapons of Clan Skryre had been terrible enough for him.
The wind blew cold and he drew his old tattered cloak tight about his shoulders. What am I doing here, he wondered? I should be at home back in the Pig, trying to patch things up with Elissa.
Or maybe not. Maybe that was what he was doing here, avoiding Elissa.
He wondered where things were going with the girl, and he had no real idea. It was just something he had drifted into, not something he ever imagined would have a future. He knew he did not love Elissa the way he had loved Kirsten. Recently, he would not even say they were friendly. He thought that for her, too, it was just a passing thing, something that had happened. Maybe she would be better off with her peasant boy. He shrugged and continued to peer out into the darkness, and listen to the waves slopping gently against the wooden supports of the wharf.
‘Our scuttling little friends have picked a good night for it,’ Gotrek muttered, taking a swig from the flask of schnapps.
Felix studied the sky. He could see what the Slayer meant. The sky was cloudy and the greater moon was a sliver. The lesser moon was not visible at all.
‘Smugglers’ moon,’ Felix said.
‘What?’
‘My father used to call moons like this “smugglers’ moons”. I can see why. Dark. The excisemen would find it hard to see you on a night like this.’
‘River patrols too,’ Gotrek said. ‘Not that humans can see worth a snotling’s fart at night anyway.’
‘I suppose,’ Felix said, wanting to contradict the Slayer, but knowing that he was right in this case.
‘Aye, well just be glad a dwarf was here, manling. Even though he has only one good eye.’
‘Why?’
‘Because there is your black ship! Look!’
Felix followed the dwarf’s pointing finger and saw nothing. ‘You’ve had too much schnapps,’ he said.
‘Your people have yet to brew a draft that could get a dwarf drunk,’ Gotrek said.
‘Only legless…’ Felix muttered.
‘At least I’m not blind.’
‘Just blind drunk.’
‘I’m telling you there’s a ship there.’ Felix squinted into the gloom and began to think the dwarf might be right. There was something large out there, a shadowy presence moving erratically in the deep water.
‘I do believe you’re right,’ Felix said. ‘I apologise most sincerely.’
‘Save your breath,’ the Slayer said. ‘There’s killing to be done.’
‘Faster!’ Felix said, standing on the prow of the skiff and keeping his eyes fixed on the shadowy shape ahead.
‘I’m going as fast as I can, master,’ the boatman said, poling with all the energy of an arthritic hedgehog. He was a hefty man, slow-moving and ponderous.
‘A one-armed man could pole faster,’ Gotrek said. ‘In fact, I’ll bet if I chopped off one of your arms, you could move quicker.’
Suddenly the boatman found a surge of new strength from somewhere and they picked up speed. Felix wasn’t sure whether to be glad or not. He was nervous about approaching the skaven ship in this small craft. He wished they had summoned the watch but the Slayer had become overcome with battle frenzy and insisted there was no time to waste. He assured Felix that the commotion they would soon be generating would attract the river patrols. Felix did not doubt that he was right.
As they came closer, he could see that it was a black ship all right, a huge grain barge painted all black and moving swiftly downriver. He wondered why the skaven had done this. Certainly black made the ship inconspicuous at night, but during the day the barge would be as noticeable as a hearse in a wedding parade. Maybe it had travelled downriver unpainted and they had disguised it this very evening. Maybe they had a concealed base somewhere within a night’s sailing upriver. Such a base could be quite some distance away, for a barge could cover a lot of water in one night, moving with the current as this one was.
Felix dismissed all such speculation as pointless. He knew he was only doing it to keep his mind occupied and distracted from fear of the coming encounter.
What were they up to on the barge, he wondered? If they weren’t skaven then they were the worst sailors he had ever seen. The barge now appeared to be drifting in a great half circle. He could hear a faint muffled drumbeat and the creaking and clashing of oars. It sounded like there was some difficulty in guiding the craft.
‘It’s them, all right,’ Gotrek said. ‘Skaven are even worse sailors than I’d heard.’
Felix could hear the distant squeaking calls of the skaven now, and knew the Slayer was correct. Unfortunately, the boatman had heard him too.
‘Did you say “skaven”?’ he asked, superstition and fear engraved across his fat, sweat-sheened face.
‘No,’ F
elix said.
‘Yes,’ Gotrek said.
‘I’m not going anywhere near a barge if there are Chaos-worshipping monsters on board!’ the boatman declared.
‘My friend was only joking,’ Felix said.
‘No I wasn’t,’ Gotrek said.
The boatman stopped poling. Gotrek glared at him.
‘I hate boats almost as much as I hate trees,’ he said. ‘And I hate trees almost as much as I hate elves. And what I particularly hate are people who keep me on boats longer than I have to be on them, when there are monsters to slay and fighting to be done.’
The boatman had become very pale and very still, and Felix was almost sure that he could hear his teeth chatter.
Gotrek continued to rant: ‘You will pole this boat till we reach that rat-man barge or I will rip off your leg and beat you to death with it. Do I make myself clear?’
Felix had to concede that the sheer amount of menace the Slayer managed to get into his voice was impressive. The boatmen certainly thought so.
‘Perfectly,’ he said, and began poling with redoubled speed.
As they approached the black barge, Felix saw a new problem. Their skiff was low in the water but the barge had high sides. On level ground, it would have been a simple climb, but on two moving vessels bobbing on water it was an entirely different proposition. He mentioned this to Gotrek. ‘Don’t worry,’ the Slayer said. ‘I have a plan.’
‘Now I am worried,’ Felix muttered.
‘What was that, manling?’ The Slayer looked close to berserk rage.
‘Nothing,’ Felix said.
‘Just grab that lantern and be ready to move when I tell you.’
The skiff drifted into contact with the ship. As it did so, Gotrek smashed his axe into the barge’s side. It bit deep and held there and the Slayer used it to pull himself up until he reached a porthole.
‘Very stealthy,’ Felix said sourly. ‘Why not give a hearty shout of welcome while you’re at it.’
Another smashing stroke saw Gotrek over the ship’s side. He stood there for a moment and then lowered the axe, blade first.