[Gotrek & Felix 02] - Skavenslayer

by William King

  “I thought you said the human and the dwarf had received the message and were on their way to… intercede with Grey Seer Thanquol.”

  “The message was delivered, master of Moulders! I cannot be held responsible for what happens next. Maybe they were caught up in the fighting.”

  “Maybe! Maybe! All of this has left us exposed, though. Very exposed. We must find another skaven force quickly or return to the safety of the sewers.”

  “Yes, yes, most perceptive of planners.”

  “Have you seen Heskit One Eye or Vilebroth Null?”

  “Not since we were attacked, greatest of gorgers.”

  “A pity. Well, let us be on our way!”

  “At once.”

  Filled with warpstone-fuelled rage, Thanquol stalked the corridors of the palace. The damnable place was huge and it was as much a maze as anything he made his pet humans run through. His carefully contrived plan had fallen apart because of the incompetence of Chang Squik. It had relied on speed, surprise and the fury of the skaven assault to overwhelm the defence. Now his stormvermin were reduced to racing through the corridors and fighting skirmishes with groups of sentries. It was only a matter of time before the humans realised what was going on, concentrated their forces, and began to fight back. Thanquol still expected a victory under those circumstances. His warriors were many and bold, but there was always the possibility that something might happen to tip the odds against them. Thanquol would have much preferred a sudden overwhelming victory, not this period of anger and doubt.

  Heskit One Eye chittered in excitement. Once again he watched the warpfire throwers sweep through the buildings. These huge human structures burned well. Their wooden supports caught fire easily, and the soft stone and brick from which they were made melted in the fierce heat of the warpflames.

  Heskit had thought it politic to separate from the others when his jezzail team had accidentally shot one of Izak Grottle’s rat-ogres. It was an accident, Heskit knew, but the skaven of Clan Moulder were insanely suspicious. Heskit had no desire to have Izak Grottle “accidentally” stab him in the back so he had led his troops away from the main battle to continue spreading destruction.

  And how glad he was that he had done so. There was something truly enthralling about watching the machineries of destruction at work, of feeling the heat and flames his warriors had caused warm his face and watching these giant structures tumble down.

  Heskit stared upwards for a long time, watching the tenement collapse. It was only at the very last moment that he realised that tons of brick and blazing wood were crashing down right on top of him. And by then, it was far too late for him to escape.

  Felix leapt on to the back of the plague cart. Bodies squelched under his feet. The stink was appalling. He really would have preferred to stand somewhere else but this was the only way he could get the attention of the crowd.

  “Citizens of Nuln!” he bellowed in the orator’s voice he had not used since the Window Tax riots. “Listen to me!”

  A few heads turned in his direction. Most of the others were too busy hacking at skaven corpses or shouting gleefully at their neighbours.

  “Citizens of Nuln! Skaven slayers!” he shouted. A few more people looked at him. They began to tug their neighbour’s arms and point in his direction. Slowly but surely Felix felt the attention of the crowd turn on him. Slowly but surely, the crowd fell silent. These people had seen him and Gotrek slay rat-ogres. They had also seen them lead the charge into battle. These people were leaderless and in need of direction. Felix thought he could provide them with both.

  “Citizens of Nuln! The skaven have attacked your great city. They have burned your homes. They have killed your loved ones. They have brought madness and plague to your streets.”

  Felix saw that he had them now. All eyes in the crowd were riveted to him. He could sense the crowd’s anger and hatred and fear, and he could sense that he had given it a focus. He felt a sudden thrill at the power he held. He wet his lips and continued to speak, knowing that he must sway them to the course he wanted now or he would lose them.

  “You have killed many skaven. You have seen their monsters fall. You have seen their vile weapons fail. Victory is within your grasp. Are you ready to kill more skaven?”

  “Yes!” cried a few of the crowd. Many still looked uncertain. For the most part they were not warriors, just ordinary people suddenly thrown into a situation they did not truly understand.

  “Are you ready to drive the skaven from your city? For if you do not, they will return and carry you away as slaves!”

  Felix had no idea whether this was true or not, but it was what they had done in the past and it sounded good. More to the point, it sounded frightening. More voices shouted: “Yes.”

  “Are you ready to slaughter these monsters without mercy? For rest assured, if you do not, they will slaughter you!”

  “Yes!” roared the whole crowd in a frenzy of rage and fear.

  “Then follow me! To the palace! Where the chief of all this foul breed even now threatens the life of your rightful ruler!”

  Felix leapt down from the cart and landed on the cobbled street. Hands stretched out from the crowd to pat him on the back. More still shouted their support. He saw Heinz and the surviving mercenaries give him the thumbs up. He looked down at Gotrek; even the dwarf looked pleased. “Let’s go,” Felix said and they broke into a run.

  As one, the crowd followed them through the burning streets of the city.

  Chang Squik drew his long black cloak in front of his face and stalked forward, blade in hand. He kept to the shadows, moving quietly on the balls of his feet, ready to strike in any direction at the slightest provocation.

  In the dim distance he could still hear the sound of fighting. From up ahead, he could hear the strange scraping noise that humans called “music”. He emerged onto a balcony and blinked his eyes, momentarily dazzled.

  He stood looking down upon a huge chamber. The vaulted ceiling above him was painted with an enormous picture of the human gods looking down benevolently. Enormous chandeliers, each holding hundreds of candles, provided dazzling illumination. Down below an orchestra played and many gowned breeders and a few costumed males stood at ease, drinking and eating happily. The smell of food made Squik’s nostrils twitch and drew his attention to the tables below. They groaned beneath the weight of roasted fowl and pig. Platters of cheese and bread and all manner of savouries were there. So much for starving the city, thought the Eshin assassin! Then he realised that maybe the ordinary people were starving, but the rulers had preserved all these dainties for themselves. In this, then, the humans were not too different from skaven, he decided—then started at the sound of footsteps on the balcony behind him.

  Two figures, a male and a breeder, had emerged onto the balcony behind him. Their clothing was in a state of disarray and it looked odd even for humans. The man was garbed as a shepherd in some sort of tunic. He carried pan pipes, and a golden mask shaped to have small horns like a goat’s covered his face. The woman, too, was masked but she was dressed in some sort of dancer’s costume, with diamond-patterned tights, a tricorned hat and a domino mask. They stared at him and to his surprise emitted the strange wheezing sound that humans called laughter. They stank of alcohol.

  Chang Squik was so surprised that he paused in the middle of his death stroke. He had intended to strike them down and withdraw into the shadowy corridors. “I say, what a super costume!” the man said.

  “Absolutely wonderful,” the woman agreed. She bent over and tugged at Squik’s tail. “So realistic.”

  Squik had no idea what they were saying. He understood no words of their odd rumbling language but it was starting to filter into his brain that these people were wearing some sort of costume, like high ranking skaven performing a religious rite. And they appeared to have mistaken him for one of them.

  Was it possible that these people were so drunk and so uncaring that they did not realise that there was a skaven
invasion going on outside? To his astonishment Chang Squik realised that it must be so. Worse, he could see that all eyes down below were on them.

  He considered pushing the pair off the balcony and ducking back into the shadows but that meant going back into corridors filled with fighting stormvermin and an angry Thanquol. Another plan struck him. Nodding politely to the two revellers, he put away his blade, walked down the stairs and into the crowds of masked and disguised humans.

  He helped himself to a savoury from a tray carried by a passing waiter, picked up a goblet of wine, and strolled through the hall, nodding left and right to those he passed. Perhaps if he could find the breeder, Emmanuelle, he might yet redeem himself in the eyes of Grey Seer Thanquol.

  Vilebroth Null looked up in astonishment at the onrushing horde of humans. Where had they all come from? How had they mustered such a huge force so suddenly? Had Grey Seer Thanquol underestimated their numbers? Certainly that was possible and, if so, just another example of the grey seer’s incompetence. Not that it would make any difference if he did not get out of their way.

  He had spent the night since the invasion force had erupted from the sewer wandering lost through the twisting maze of alleys and lanes, killing any humans he encountered, and trying to locate Izak Grottle and the others. He cursed the initial blind rush which had separated them all. Now he was left to face this horde of humans without any sort of bodyguard.

  He looked up and realised that he recognised the leaders of the charge—and what was worse, they recognised him! It was the human and the dwarf who had interrupted his ritual and destroyed the Cauldron of a Thousand Poxes. For a moment, a vast righteous anger swept through Vilebroth Null. Almost without thinking, he summoned his powers and an eerie green light swept into being around his head and paws. He mumbled the chant that would summon destructive spirits of disease to smite his foes.

  The humans did not even slow their headlong rush. Vilebroth Null realised that they could not. The ones at the back were pushing the ones at the front of the herd forward. If the leaders slowed they would be trampled. He kept chanting, desperate now to summon the powers which would protect him, knowing that most likely it was already too late. The humans were upon him.

  The last thing Vilebroth Null saw was a huge axe descending towards his skull.

  * * * * *

  Felix shuddered. He had recognised the green-robed rat-man in the last seconds before the crowd had trampled it. It was the plague priest from the cemetery. And Felix was glad that it was dead.

  He was warm now, sweating from exertion and the heat of the blazing buildings which surrounded them. He tried to ignore the screams of those trapped within and focus on taking vengeance on those responsible. Somewhere off in the distance he heard a crashing sound. A pillar of sparks rose skyward as a tenement collapsed. Felix knew that if anyone survived this, they would have their work cut out for them rebuilding the city. This was as bad as the Great Fire of Altdorf.

  They hit the slopes around the palace, and Felix noticed that many of the buildings here were intact. They were like his brother’s house, small fortresses as well as mansions. Ahead of them was a force clad in the black tabards of the Nuln city guard. They had their halberds raised to repel a charge but lowered them confused when they saw that the mob were human, rather than rat-men.

  “Skaven!” he shouted. “There are skaven in the palace!”

  He did not know whether the captain of the guard believed him or not, but he did not have much choice. If his men stood there much longer they would either have to use their weapons on their fellow citizens or be trampled under foot. The captain made a snap decision: he barked an order and his men stood aside. Felix could see that the great gate of the palace was still open. It must have been left that way to allow the coaches of the guests to enter, Felix decided.

  He rushed onwards, praying that they were in time to save Countess Emmanuelle.

  Drexler turned to look in the direction of the scream. Suddenly the balcony seethed with huge, black armoured skaven. Those were not costumes, he could tell immediately. These were the real thing. Monstrous, man-sized, anthropomorphic rats armed with huge scimitars and bearing round shields inscribed with the sigil of their evil god.

  He saw a few of the guards, elite troops, move to interpose themselves between the guests and the skaven. They were cut down swiftly by the disciplined phalanx as it poured down the stairs and into the room. Slowly the orchestra stopped playing. The notes faded out into discordant echoes. Screaming guests in fancy costumes were herded towards the great throne dais by massive snarling rat-men.

  Drexler wondered if he should risk a spell, but decided against it. There were too many skaven for him to affect them all. Where were the guards, he wondered? Where were all the men who had gone to the battlements to look at the fire?

  Then he sensed the presence of terrible magical energy. Looking up he saw a huge, horned, grey-furred rat-man descending the stairs. It looked like an evil god come to bring doom to all mankind.

  Thanquol strode forward across the corpses of the dead humans. At last, from up ahead he could hear a gratifying number of screams. It seemed that his stormvermin had discovered the Great Hall at last, and that the human leaders were finally within his grasp. Filled with a tremendous sense of his inevitable righteous triumph, the grey seer advanced to victory!

  Felix led the charge into the courtyard. Looking up, he saw a struggle taking place on the battlements.

  “Quick!” he shouted to Heinz. “Scour the battlements! Kill any skaven you find!”

  “Right-o, young Felix,” Heinz said, rushing towards the steps with the mercenaries in tow. “Follow me, lads!”

  Felix glanced around at the mob pouring into the courtyard. They looked ferocious, ready to kill anything they saw. A number of them began to race after Heinz.

  “Where to now, manling?” Gotrek asked. “I want to get to grips with that rat-man wizard. My axe thirsts for more blood!”

  Good question, thought Felix, wishing he had an answer. Think, he urged himself. Where is the logical place to go? The grey seer wanted to capture Emmanuelle. Tonight he knew from Drexler a great ball was taking place. The logical place for the countess to be was the ballroom that Ostwald and he had passed through the first time he had visited the palace. Now, if only he could remember the way there!

  “Follow me!” he shouted, trying to make his voice as confident as possible.

  Thanquol paused at the head of the stairs to survey the great ballroom. He wanted to give the pitiful humans the chance to appreciate the full awful majesty of their conquerors. He wanted to savour his moment of ultimate triumph.

  All eyes turned to look at him. He could tell the humans were impressed by his dignity and his presence. They always were. The majestic form of a grey seer always inspired respect and admiration in equal parts from all who saw him. He glanced at the crowd and looked around to see if he could find his chosen prey.

  In truth, he had expected to be able to tell her by the elaborate nature of her costume, and by the fact that she wore a crown, but he could see that all the humans present were garbed in strange disguises, almost as if they had intended to thwart him. Well, well, he thought, they would see that a grey seer was not so easily balked. He singled out one of the human males, a man garbed like some primitive tribesman.

  “You, man-thing! Where is your chief breeder? Answer me! Quick! Quick!” Thanquol asked in his best Reikspiel.

  “I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about, old man,” came the reply. Sweat dribbled down the man’s face. Thanquol blasted him with a surge of pure magical power. Women’s screams filled the air as the stripped and blackened skeleton of his victim fell to the floor. Thanquol selected another victim, a woman dressed like one of the humans’ goddesses.

  “You! Tell me where is the chief breeder? Answer! Now! Now!”

  The woman looked at him blankly. “What is a breeder?” she asked. Thanquol’s answer was to blast
her with magic as well. Another charred corpse tumbled to the floor. Thanquol selected a man very cunningly disguised as a Clan Eshin assassin.

  “You! The chief breeder! Where?!” Thanquol bellowed. The disguised assassin turned, its tail twitching remarkably like a real skaven.

  “No, master! Don’t blast me!” it cried in fluent skaven. Remarkable, thought Thanquol. A human who speaks our language! Then he realised that this was no human. It was that damnable Chang Squik, hiding himself among the humans. Thanquol looked at the assassin and licked his lips, thinking of how the assassin’s folly had almost cost Thanquol his triumph, remembering all the other failures Chang Squik had been responsible for.

  This was perfect, thought Thanquol. If anybody ever asked, he could claim that it was all a terrible error. He summoned all of his powers. Chang Squik screamed most satisfactorily as dark magic consumed his body.

  Thanquol gloated for a brief but joyous moment, then picked out another human. “You! Where is the chief breeder? Answer! Quick-quick! Or your miserable life is forfeit!”

  “But I don’t know what a breeder is,” whimpered the fat man garbed as a huge pink rabbit. Thanquol shrugged and blasted him. Yet more bones clattered onto the marble floor.

  It began to occur to Thanquol, even through the haze of warpstone clouding his mind, that there was something wrong with his strategy. The humans did not quite seem to understand what he was getting at. What could it be? Where were their feeble minds going astray? He had asked for their chief breeder, after all. Perhaps if he asked for her by name? He signalled out a cringing breeder, and pointed one talon at her.

  “You! You! Are you the chief breeder Emmanuelle?”

  The breeder was obviously too overwhelmed by the sheer majesty of Thanquol’s presence to speak. He blasted her as a lesson to the others that they should reply when he asked a question. He selected another male next, hoping that it would be slightly less witless than the breeder.