by Warhammer
Romilla felt the comforting weight of her hammer in her hand, and of the amulet that hung about her neck. She concentrated on those sensations as she picked her way along in Aelyn’s wake. So much around her was nightmarish and gruesome, it helped to have something familiar upon which to centre herself.
The aelf slipped through the shadows, clad in a heavy watchman’s cloak that she had strapped, slit and swiftly re-stitched to better integrate with her waywatcher’s garb. Thanks to her deep hood, the bandana she had pulled up over much of her face and the lightweight gloves she had donned, not a scrap of Aelyn’s skin was exposed to the foul moonlight that spilled down upon Draconium. Romilla had taken similar precautions; she had no desire to feel the awful sting of fungi pushing through her pores again and besides, they had no idea what further corruption the moonlight might bring.
Eleanora and Bartiman had been left behind at the safehouse, helping to shore up the defences and provide what aid they could to the watchmen and city folk hidden there. Instead, three watchmen accompanied Aelyn and Romilla on their intelligence gathering mission. Watchman Thackeray had insisted that he join them and had brought two watchmen second class with him. Romilla had been told their names but had forgotten them straight away. She had simply been overloaded these last few days, she supposed. Besides, she was fighting a constant battle with the feeling that all those around her had become transitory, fleeting presences who would soon enough leave her side again. The sensation frightened her, for it echoed the dislocation and isolation she had felt before her plunge into depression. Before Varlen and his comrades had found her, and helped to restore her faith in herself, in her deity.
She wouldn’t lose herself again, she thought fiercely. Never mind that the brothers Saul were gone, that Olt had been slain and Borik had deserted them. She still had Aelyn, and Bartiman, and of course there was Eleanora. Romilla wouldn’t let her down by breaking now. The thought of Eleanora’s injured foot, of the corruption that was clearly spreading up her leg by the hour, preyed upon her mind. Romilla cursed herself for not insisting she check on the wound sooner. Perhaps they could have treated it, stopped the spread of whatever poison was working its way through Eleanora’s body. She glanced up for an instant at the Bad Moon leering high above. Then again, she thought, perhaps not – not with that foul orb blighting the skies. If they passed any kind of an apothecarion, Romilla intended to ransack it for additional herbs and unguents that might help. Still, she couldn’t help fearing that at best Eleanora was going to lose that leg. She had put the decision off thus far, but if the poison spread much further she would have to–
Romilla’s attention snapped back to the present as they neared the end of the alleyway they were creeping along. On the advice of Watchman Shen, they had headed north from their safehouse, up the Threadway Road and thence into a warren of backstreets and workers’ housing that bordered Docksflow. Aelyn had expressed a desire to find a vantage point from which to fully appreciate the condition of the city and the disposition of their foe. According to Shen, an unofficial rooftop highway began amidst the houses of the Docksflow fringe and led uphill to the Mercantile Guild building in High Drake. Providing the plummeting moon rocks had not annihilated it, that building’s rooftops would provide the best view for miles around, or so said Watchman Shen. Besides, there was another objective to be reached in High Drake, one that Watchman Thackeray was intent upon.
The dash along the Threadway had been nerve-wracking, but though they had been forced to navigate thick fungal outcroppings and a minefield of half-buried corpses, they had seen no enemies. Once into the tangle of back streets, things had become less terrifying; the tight confines and high buildings conspired to hide much of the Bad Moon from sight most of the time.
Still, there was fungus growing from every surface, and Romilla had repeatedly had to stamp on hungry swarms of insects that had attempted to clamber up her legs to sink mandibles and proboscises into her flesh. A fat black-and-red spider had fallen onto her shoulder, and she had squashed it before it could bite her. Her skin tingled uncomfortably where its juices had soaked through her cloak.
They had heard movement several times, slapping footfalls and harsh, inhuman voices snarling and jabbering in a tongue she didn’t recognise. Until now, though, they had been lucky. As Romilla came up behind the crouched form of Aelyn, she saw that their Sigmar-sent luck had run out.
Beyond the alleyway, several streets met around a stone well with a rain-etched slate roof over it. Something slimy and pulsating had sprouted from the well, its rubbery black flesh and thick tendrils bursting the stonework and sinking into the cobbled ground. The black tendrils were festooned with small red and green toadstools, and these were being busily harvested by a gaggle of Moonclan grots. The hunched creatures shoved and pinched, jostling to reach the best fungi. Their pointy black hoods bobbed, and sharp little daggers glinted in the sickly moonlight as they were brandished threateningly. She saw to her revulsion that most of the greenskins were grabbing fistfuls of the slimy fungi and stuffing them into their fanged mouths. They chewed greedily and, as they did, frothy black foam spilled from their jaws and dribbled down their chins. As Romilla watched, several of the grots began to shudder and gibber. They capered about the small courtyard, flailing their limbs and shrieking a single word over and over. To Romilla’s ears it sounded like ‘Gloomspite! Gloomspite!’
‘Do we fight, or do we try to avoid them?’ asked one of the watchmen softly.
Aelyn motioned upwards, and as Romilla followed the aelf’s gesture her blood froze in her veins. Spiders moved up near the rooftops, horrible bloated things as big as she was, with crude saddles lashed to them. Grots sat in those saddles, primitive-looking creatures clad in loincloths, their pale green flesh pierced with stolen feathers and daubed with war-paint. They leered as their steeds spewed silk from their abdomens and worked it with their long forelimbs. Some of them looked to be weaving a sort of roof between the buildings, Romilla saw. Others were cocooning bulky shapes in layer after layer of slimy silks and hanging them from the gutters. It was a larder, Romilla thought, trying to ignore the way some of the bundles twitched and gave muffled moans of fear.
‘Too many,’ whispered Aelyn. ‘We need to get above them. Thackeray, how do we reach the rooftop road?’
The watchman frowned as he thought, drumming the fingers of one hand against his chin.
‘We double back down this alley, take the left-hand fork at the bottom. If we can get into the fishmonger’s there, then there’s a way up through the building’s attic. There was a gang operating out of the fishmonger’s at one point, until we shut them down.’
Aelyn nodded and gestured for Thackeray to lead. He set off, back along the alley and away from the gaggle of Moonclan grots. Romilla kept checking their rear as they retreated, alive for any sign that the greenskins might have seen them. There was no sign of pursuit.
They took the left fork and worked their way through several quick switchbacks that ran along the rear of a string of buildings. They passed beneath shattered windows like dark caves, and Romilla watched them intently for any sign of movement. Beneath one lay the corpse of a large man with a wicked grot shiv buried between his shoulder blades. A colony of mushrooms had grown from the wet gap in his cracked skull, and beetles were scurrying busily across his corpse. The sight caused Romilla barely a moment’s revulsion, and she wondered dully whether she was becoming so saturated by horror that she could no longer feel its touch. If so, she doubted it was a good thing.
Stopping again at the last bend in the back alley, they peered out into the narrow street beyond. Shattered spark-lanterns lay scattered around where they had been torn out of the ground and flung. Broken glass twinkled in the moonlight. Some distance away at the street’s far end, several stone-skinned troggoths were hunched over a butcher’s wagon, stuffing fistfuls of spoiled meat into their mouths with noisy relish. Closer, Romilla spotted small bands of grots prowling
through the ruins. One group picked through the smashed glass, pocketing the shiniest shards with glee. Another group was ransacking a blacksmith’s partway down the street, while the last band were doing the same to the shop opposite. Romilla’s heart sank as she saw it was the fishmonger’s.
‘We could creep up on them, then rush the ones in the fishmonger’s?’ suggested one of the watchmen, though she sounded singularly unconvinced of the proposition.
‘Not without bringing the rest of them down upon us,’ said Romilla. ‘Those troggoths aren’t as large as the one we saw outside the palace, but still, between them and the greenskins we’d be overrun.’
‘Wait here,’ said Aelyn. ‘When I give the signal, stay low and fast and make for the fishmonger’s. I’ll meet you on the first floor.’
The aelf slipped from the alleyway, her bow slung easily on her back next to a quiver full of arrows. Romilla held her breath as Aelyn loped swiftly across the street, fully exposed to the grots’ view, then leapt high and caught hold of a gutter outside a first floor window. As she moved, her outline seemed to blur. Aelyn became difficult to watch or to follow. Romilla had seen the waywatcher employ her strange talents before, but it never became any less unsettling. Aelyn swung her legs forward to gain momentum then swung back and out, twisting her body in a way no human could have emulated. She executed a neat flip and landed catlike upon the windowsill.
She sprang from one windowsill to the next, and then to the next, before bounding diagonally upwards in order to catch hold of a windowbasket outside the second floor of some merchant’s house. Romilla tensed as the basket gave under Aelyn’s weight and broke away from its moorings. Moving faster than even Romilla would have believed possible, Aelyn caught hold of the windowsill with one hand and hung onto the basket with the other, preventing it from falling and smashing in the street below. For a few heartbeats she dangled, and Romilla prayed fervently to Sigmar that none of the greenskins would think to look up.
Aelyn swung herself first one way then the other, back and forth several times before managing to hook one foot over the sill. Sinuous as a snake, she hauled herself up and placed the broken basket gently upon the sill. Then she vanished into the dark interior of the building.
‘What is she doing?’ whispered Thackeray as they waited. ‘There are other routes we might have tried.’
‘Any of them as direct as this, or any less likely to be infested?’ asked Romilla. The watchman sheepishly shook his head. ‘Trust Aelyn, she will handle this,’ said Romilla. ‘Just be ready to move when she signals.’
Romilla counted her heartbeats and tried to ignore the half-visible face of the Bad Moon staring down at them with hollow eyes. Its gaze made her want to take her hammer and smash it into her own skull as hard as she could. It made her want to swing the weapon into Thackeray’s jaw, and then to scream out praise to the Bad Moon as the grots descended upon them all. It made her want to–
Romilla shuddered and shook off the vile waking nightmare, which left her with a sense of disoriented nausea. She leaned against the wall, then snatched her hand back as something with a pale, segmented body and too many legs scurried across it.
‘There,’ said one of the watchmen, pointing. A thin silver line descended from the shadowed eaves below a jutting roof. It slid down through the air, directly above the grots looting the blacksmith’s. As Romilla watched, the line dangled down behind one of the greenskins and settled with a glint upon the hilt of a dagger thrust into his waistband. The next moment the dagger was rising skywards, caught neatly in a silken noose and reeled in like a crab on a line. The grot, who was hunched over a barrel and rooting about inside, didn’t notice a thing.
The dagger vanished into the shadows, and again there was a pause. A second floor window creaked part way open above the blacksmith’s, and the dagger flew out of it in a low, tight arc. The blade thumped neatly between the shoulder blades of one of the grots who was ransacking the fishmonger’s, causing him to arch and shriek in pain.
Immediately, the grot’s fellow looters spun and began to scream and jabber at the mob in the blacksmith’s. Those grots turned in confusion, which rapidly became outraged anger. The group in the fishmonger’s grabbed their weapons and stormed across the street, pointing menacingly at the other mob and spitting threats.
Seeing the developing fun, the smaller bunch of grots picking over the smashed glass forgot their glinting prizes and hurried over to watch. Inevitably, one of them was struck by a flying brick lobbed by one of the blacksmith mob, and with a chorus of angry screeches the third mob of grots piled into the developing brawl in the blacksmith’s. Blood sprayed as daggers were drawn and used. One greenskin snatched up a heavy iron mace from a weapon rack and laid into his fellows with it. Meanwhile, at the other end of the street, the troggoths continued their meal, wholly oblivious to the developing carnage.
From the second floor window, Romilla saw a brief flash, moonlight reflecting on glass.
‘The signal,’ she said. ‘Move, now, before they settle their fight.’
They ran quickly, doubled over in the hopes of avoiding notice. Romilla’s heart pounded in her chest at the thought that any second one of the brawling grots might look round and see them. She tried to ignore the awful sense of the Bad Moon peering down at them, and did her best to avoid treading in puddles of congealed slime or on especially slippery-looking fungi.
She offered silent thanks to Aelyn and Sigmar both as she ducked through the smashed-in door of the fishmonger’s. The place was a ruin, mangled produce smearing floor and walls, bugs crawling over everything. Romilla ignored it all and made for the shadowy doorway behind the counter.
She stepped through and came face to face with a grot. Romilla swung her hammer more by instinct than conscious thought, and it connected with the greenskin’s skull. At the same instant she felt an icy pain in her side. The grot crumpled, leaving its six-inch shiv embedded in Romilla’s ribs.
‘Damn,’ she gasped, pressing a hand to the wound and feeling blood well through her fingers. The others were right behind her, and she felt their confusion and panic at finding her stood frozen over a fallen grot in the shop’s back hallway.
Move, Romilla told herself. Hurt later.
She mounted the stairs to the first floor, keeping one hand pressed hard to her wound as she went. She could feel blood dribbling down her side, and a cold, tugging pain shot through her with every step. Still, Romilla kept moving until they stood below the hatchway that led up into the attic. Only then did she lean against the wall and rummage in her bag for a healing compress.
‘Who’s bleeding?’ asked Aelyn as she joined them. ‘There’s a trail up the stairs that they won’t struggle to follow.’
‘That would be me,’ said Romilla through gritted teeth.
Aelyn moved wordlessly to her side and, while Romilla held the poultice in place, the aelf swiftly wound bandages around her midriff until the wound was properly bound. The watchmen guarded the stairs nervously, halberds at the ready.
‘This will have to do,’ said Romilla, checking that the bandages were tied off to her satisfaction. ‘Idiot.’
‘Just unlucky,’ said Aelyn. ‘Thackeray, how do we get up?’
‘There used to be a ladder,’ said the watchman, casting about with obvious agitation. Below, they heard the scuff of movement. Something broke with a smash. A cruel voice cackled. Then came a cry from the hallway. Someone had found the body.
‘No time,’ said Romilla. ‘Boost me up.’
Aelyn knelt, making a stirrup of her hands. Romilla ignored the pain in her side as the aelf pushed up with inhuman strength and propelled her into the open hatchway. Romilla grabbed hold of the dusty boards and hauled, biting down on a scream as her wounded side ground against the lip of the hatch. She dragged herself onto the attic’s part-boarded floor. Aelyn followed, springing straight up through the hole with remarkable gr
ace and agility. The two of them lay on their stomachs by the hatch and lowered their arms through.
‘Come on,’ Romilla hissed. ‘We’ll pull you up!’
Thackeray came first, gripping their wrists as they gripped his and dragged him up to safety. Romilla reached down again, stifling a groan of pain. She could hear angry shrieks and jabbering cries from the shop’s ground floor, then the thump of footfalls on the stairs.
‘Sigmar, hurry!’ Romilla hissed as the female watchman grabbed their arms and was hauled up.
Romilla groaned with agony at the effort and felt fresh blood spill down her side. Then Thackeray was there, ushering her gently but firmly aside as he and Aelyn reached down for the last watchman. Romilla rolled aside, sprawling on the dusty boards and staring up at the arched ceiling, half visible in the gloom. Her vision swam, but her hearing was still keen. There was no escaping the screams of the last watchman as the greenskins reached him. Romilla felt all the worse that she didn’t even know his name.
‘Damn it!’ cursed Thackeray as he and Aelyn ducked back from the hatch. Several crude arrows and a flung blade whipped up to embed themselves in the joists overhead. The lost watchman’s screams turned swiftly to bubbling gurgles, which were drowned out by cruel grot laughter.
‘We can’t stay here, they’ll figure a route up,’ said Aelyn. When Thackeray didn’t show any immediate sign of movement, the aelf shoved him none-too-gently towards the back end of the attic. ‘Watchman, where is the route up?’ she asked.
Thackeray took a last angry look at the open hatch, then turned wordlessly and led them to the far end of the attic where a section of boarding had been levered aside. Romilla hobbled after him, praying to Sigmar that her bandages would hold long enough for her to get somewhere safer. She had no desire to bleed to death out here.
They crawled one by one through the hole, then up a tight crawlspace that emerged through a gap in the brickwork of a large chimney stack. Everything was badly eroded by exposure to the city’s acid rains, and Romilla was glad of her gloves as she crawled through damp patches. She was doubly glad of them as she emerged onto a rooftop thick with worm-like fungal fronds. Those, she would not want to touch, she thought.