[Thanquol & Boneripper 02] - Temple of the Serpent

by C. L. Werner - (ebook by Undead)

  Even from such a distance, Thanquol could sense the awful power of the lizardman. Though all the reptiles looked the same to him, there was no mistaking that aura of brooding malignance and ancient enmity. It was Xiuhcoatl himself, the dread Prophet of Sotek, who stood behind the altar and lifted an obsidian knife above the breast of the struggling prisoner!

  Xiuhcoatl lifted his scaly face heavenward, singing his praises to the moon and the watching stars. Then the prophet’s hand came stabbing down. The ratman screamed as the dagger bit into his breast, thrashing wildly in the remorseless grip of the skink priests. Pitilessly, Xiuhcoatl dug the dagger’s edge into the flesh of his sacrifice, relenting only when he had completed a vicious circle. Xiuhcoatl reached into the gory mess with his other claw, ripping free the ratman’s beating heart.

  The prophet ignored the twitching corpse splayed beneath him as he lifted his gruesome offering high above his head. Xiuhcoatl held the heart up so that the moon and all the stars might see it, then stepped forwards and displayed his trophy for the skinks standing upon the stairs. They hissed in satisfaction, the crests upon their heads snapping open to better exhibit their pleasure. Xiuhcoatl handed the heart to a skink standing upon the topmost step. Uttering a quick chirp to honour his leader, the skink tore ravenously at the lump of bloody flesh.

  Xiuhcoatl stepped back behind the altar. A flick of his head sent the four priests into action. In stark contrast to the reverence with which the heart had been treated, the priests simply threw the body of the ratman down the side of the pyramid, not even waiting to see where it fell. Xiuhcoatl’s head undulated in an approving nod as another skaven captive was pulled up the stairs and laid out upon the golden altar.

  Thanquol quivered, smelling the musk of fear rising from his followers. It was good that they showed fear—it would mask his own frightened scent. Even the humans were terrified, their faces colourless as they watched Xiuhcoatl butcher his prisoners. Perhaps they weren’t as stupid as the grey seer had thought.

  “We-we not fight-slay that-that!” Shen Tsinge wailed, his tail clenched tightly in his hands.

  “Run-run! Quick-quick!” added Tsang Kweek, his fangs chattering against each other.

  “Go tell-say Nightlord that kill-kill scaly-meat is impossible!” insisted Kong Krakback.

  Thanquol grinned at each of his underlings in turn, making each of them quail before his merciless gaze. He was careful to conceal his own fear as he upbraided his minions for theirs. “He’s out of his damn hide-hole!” Thanquol snarled, pointing a claw at the top of the pyramid. “Now-now! We strike-kill! Lizard-meat pray to snake-devil, never see-smell us until it is too late-late! Kong, you take your war-rats and attack-kill from this side!” Thanquol told the hulking black skaven. “I take-take gutter runners and assassins. We strike-kill from other end! No fear-fear! The Horned One will protect us!”

  His underlings looked rather uncertain about that last part, but they did think he might have a point about taking the lizardmen by surprise. Thanquol toyed with a tiny nugget of warpstone, just enough to power a deliciously destructive spell. The implied threat removed the last reservations the skaven had about following his plan. Quickly they separated into two groups. Kong’s warriors made the biggest group, nearly two-thirds of their number, and Thanquol had to resist the instinctive urge to join them. Instead, he turned to Tsang Kweek and the score of scouts and assassins with him. Impatiently, he motioned them to start hurrying around to the back of the pyramid, to the face they had approached in the first attack.

  “What about man-things?” Shen Tsinge asked, flicking his tail at the humans.

  “I will take them with me,” Thanquol said. “They will make a good victory feast. Now, hurry and help Kong’s war-rats!”

  Shen stared at Thanquol, then at the pyramid, then at the human prisoners. “I think I stay with you,” the sorcerer said, suspicion in his voice.

  Thanquol gnashed his fangs in annoyance. Shen was too clever by far. As much as he wanted to order the sorcerer to follow Kong, he couldn’t have him passing his suspicions on to the black skaven. “Of course,” Thanquol hissed, lashing his tail. “I was only thinking your magic would help Kong.” Grudgingly, he motioned for Shen to join the group rushing to circle the pyramid. He might be forced to keep the sorcerer with him, but he wasn’t going to have him at his back.

  It took the skaven only a short time to make their way around the pyramid. They would have made it even faster, but the humans slowed them down. Tsang even pointed this out to Thanquol, but the grey seer stubbornly refused to leave his pets behind. By the time they reached the other face of the pyramid, sounds of battle were already coming from the other side.

  Thanquol licked his fangs eagerly as he heard the sounds and watched skinks rushing over the top of the pyramid to join the fight raging on the steps below. Kong’s war-rats should be able to keep the lizardmen distracted for a little while at least. Long enough to suit his purposes.

  “They are fighting Kong!” Tsang Kweek pointed out. “Now’s our chance!” The gutter runner started to lead his troops towards the steps when Thanquol’s snarl called him back.

  “Fool-meat!” Thanquol snapped. He pointed a claw at the top of the pyramid where Xiuhcoatl and the four skink priests still stood. They seemed to be watching the battle raging on the other side of the pyramid, but Thanquol wasn’t deceived. “Xiuhcoatl is waiting for us to attack! It’s a trap-trick, just like before!”

  “Then what…”

  Thanquol swatted the end of Tsang’s snout with his staff. “Dung-sucking idiot!” he snapped. He gestured with his staff to the opening, the magically protected tunnel that disintegrated any skaven who set paw within it. “We’re going in there, exactly where Xiuhcoatl won’t expect us!”

  Understanding started to dawn in Tsang’s eyes, but Thanquol didn’t wait for him to come around. Impatiently, he snarled at Boneripper to bring the humans to the tunnel. Snarling, his huge arms spread wide to prevent anyone from slipping past him, the rat ogre herded the prisoners towards the pyramid.

  Thanquol scurried after the huge beast, keeping one anxious eye on the top of the pyramid. If Xiuhcoatl caught on to what he was doing, there might not be enough time to make it back to the jungle before the full force of the lizardmen came down upon them.

  The grey seer glowered at the sinister passageway. The skinks had cleaned away the ashes, but Thanquol could still smell the stink of fiery death in the air. He stared hatefully at the glyphs with their depiction of a snake eating a rat.

  Irritably, he turned and snarled at his slaves. They had names, but the grey seer found it annoying to try to remember them. They all smelled pretty much the same and it was difficult to match the scent to a name anyway. “Which man-thing is leader?” Thanquol demanded.

  Van Sommerhaus pointed frantically at Captain Schachter. “Him! Him, he’s the captain!”

  Schachter gave the patroon an icy stare. “Thanks, Lukas.”

  At Thanquol’s gesture, Boneripper shoved the man forward. Schachter straightened himself up, trying to appear unafraid as he stood before the horned ratman. His bravado quickly failed and soon he was wringing his hat between his hands and nodding his head in eager servility to everything that was said to him.

  “Go-go!” Thanquol snarled. “Take down snake-stones! Take down all snake-stones you see-find!” When he saw that his slave didn’t understand, Thanquol growled at Boneripper.

  Before anyone could react, Boneripper swung around and snatched a gutter runner from the ground. The ratman squirmed in his grip, but the huge beast was oblivious to his victim’s clawing and biting. Grimly, Boneripper turned back towards the tunnel and with a single heave of his powerful arm he threw the gutter runner down the tunnel.

  As soon as the skaven passed the invisible barrier, the glyphs burned with power. There was a scream, a flash of light, and then a little pile of ashes on the floor.

  “Understand now, fool-meat?” Thanquol hissed at Schachter. “Skaven
can’t go inside, but stupid man-things can!”

  The captain nodded his understanding. “You want them carvings tore down so’s you can go inside!” Schachter flinched as the grey seer bared his fangs. He guessed that Thanquol was quickly losing his patience. “I can do it! But I’ll need help to do it.”

  Thanquol glared suspiciously at the human, then glanced at the other slaves. “One,” he said, lifting a claw. “Take-take one to help.”

  Schachter nodded his understanding. He looked over the other captives. For a moment, he locked eyes with Adalwolf. A hint of regret came across Schachter’s features, then he pointed at Marjus Pfaff. “Him. He’s the one I want.”

  Thanquol watched as the two men started timidly towards the opening, both of them looking down frequently at the smoking pile of ash. “Quick-quick!” he snapped. “Go fast-fast or I kill other man-things!”

  The threat seemed to work. The two men stepped boldly over the pile of ash. Thanquol closed his eyes and covered his ears, expecting another explosive display of magic. When nothing happened, a malicious grin of triumph spread across his face. He was right! The wards only guarded against skaven, not humans!

  Any sense of triumph he felt faded when Thanquol stared down the tunnel. The humans should have stopped and started tearing down the wards. Instead they were running down the corridor as fast as they could!

  “Stop-stop! I kill-kill other man-things!” Thanquol shouted. Schachter turned and flicked his hand under his chin at the grey seer before racing off. Soon both men were lost in the gloom of the tunnel.

  Thanquol gnashed his fangs in fury and drew his sword. He rounded on the last of his slaves, fully intent on carrying out his threat. Only cold pragmatism stayed his hand. If he killed the humans, he would never get inside the pyramid. He glared at the trembling captives, smelling their fear-stink. Then he remembered something else about their smell.

  Savagely Thanquol grabbed Hiltrude’s hair, pulling the woman away from the others. Humans were very protective of their breeders, he knew, and this knowledge was born out when Adalwolf clenched his fists and lunged at the grey seer. The mercenary didn’t come close to striking Thanquol. Boneripper’s enormous paw closed around him like a vice before he could take more than a few steps towards the grey seer. Only a quick command from Thanquol prevented the rat ogre from crushing him like a grape.

  “Good-good,” Thanquol crowed as he returned Adalwolf’s enraged gaze. “You aren’t like leader man-thing.” He paused, wondering if perhaps human leaders and skaven leaders weren’t really the same when it came to the lives of their underlings. “You don’t want see-smell pretty breeder get hurt.”

  “Take your filthy paws off her, you scum!” Adalwolf raged.

  Thanquol chuckled darkly. He pulled Hiltrude’s hair, forcing her head back and exposing her soft throat. “No talk-speak!” Thanquol hissed. “You do what I say, or I eat she-thing’s tongue!” For emphasis, he bared his fangs, displaying the murderous incisors and snapping them together. He pointed at the tunnel with his staff. “Go do what leader-man didn’t do! Break snake-stones! Break all snake-stones or she-thing die-die!”

  Seeing that Adalwolf understood that he meant his threat, Thanquol motioned for Boneripper to release the man.

  “Are you all right?” Adalwolf asked Hiltrude. The woman tried to nod, but Thanquol tugged her head back.

  “Stop talk-speak!” the grey seer fumed. “Work-work!”

  Glaring at the skaven, Adalwolf marched into the darkness of the tunnel. Soon he started attacking the nearest of the snake-glyphs. With no other tools to use, the man removed his boot, battering at the ward with the heavy heel.

  Thanquol watched the operation with keen interest. He could sense something like a sigh in the air as the glyphs were battered into dust. It was the magical energy it had contained being released. The ward was broken! Its powers were gone!

  Of course, he could have Boneripper persuade one of the gutter runners to test the corridor first just in case he was wrong…

  Flattened disks of blackness abruptly expanded into great pools as the eyes of the slann focused once more on the mundane plane of matter and spirit that surrounded the mage-priest. Skink scribes hurried around Lord Tlaco, recording every change in his mottled skin.

  Lord Tlaco lounged in his gilded seat, the baser elements of his consciousness savouring the cool water skink attendants splashed across his rubbery skin. It was a crude pleasure, a weakness of the fleshy vessel Lord Tlaco’s mind inhabited. The mage-priest quickly suppressed the sensation, concentrating again upon probabilities and unknown quotients. The low phase algorithms had reached Quetza and through them, the decaying fractals had broken the equations that restrained them. For the first time since the city had been retaken, the Temple of the Serpent was being invaded.

  Everything was proceeding as the mage-priest had predicted, but still he could not decipher the final variables. All the elements of the equation were in place, but still he could not foresee the solution. For this reason, it was important that Lord Tlaco be there to observe the events that it had engineered.

  One of the skink attendants locked eyes with Lord Tlaco as the slann set a thought-image in the lizardman’s mind. As soon as the thought had taken form, the skink hurried away to prepare things. There was much to do: skinks to muster from their villages, saurus warriors to rouse from their caves, beasts to gather from their lairs. Lord Tlaco was stirring from his temple for the first time in millennia, but the slann had not forgotten the need to protect his fleshy shell. When the mage-priest began to travel through the geo-spatial folds an entire army would march with Lord Tlaco.

  An army that would surround the abandoned city of Quetza and ensure that nothing escaped until Lord Tlaco’s equation had been solved.

  Grey Seer Thanquol congratulated himself on his craftiness as he stalked down the gloomy stone corridors. Who but the mighty Grey Seer Thanquol could have solved the riddle of getting past the ancient wards that had been set in place to destroy any skaven that dared trespass within the pyramid? No one, of course. It was a feat of genius worthy of the Horned Rat himself!

  He had to give some grudging admiration to the reptilian wizards that had created the cunning trap. There had been five layers of wards in all, five separate arrangements of the deadly glyph-stones each placed ten yards deeper into the tunnel than the last. Even if one set of wards had failed, the lizardmen had prepared others to guard the way.

  The human had performed well enough, smashing each glyph-stone in turn. Thanquol had considered killing him once the last layer of wards was broken and the tunnel broke into a junction of intersecting corridors. His natural paranoia kept him from giving the order, however. There might be still other wards waiting for them inside the pyramid. If so, he would need the human to smash them. The others he would keep to ensure the slave’s obedience.

  Thanquol sniffed at the air. It was thick and musty with the stink of snakes, enough to set his fur crawling in fear. But there was something else, something he could smell each time he took a pinch of warpstone snuff. There was a suggestion of power in the air, a brooding arcane energy that coursed through the very stones.

  Tsang Kweek and the assassins wanted to find the stairs and follow them to the roof of the pyramid so they could kill Xiuhcoatl. Angrily, Thanquol upbraided them for their stupidly suicidal plan. He pointed out to them that the prophet would be able to obliterate them all with his magic before they could even get within spitting distance of him. No, they had to find the source of Xiuhcoatl’s power and destroy it if they were to have any chance of completing their mission.

  In truth, Thanquol was no longer thinking in terms of Nightlord Sneek and his tyrannical whims. Smelling the power inside the pyramid had given him a much different idea. Any sorcerer as powerful as Xiuhcoatl couldn’t possibly harness such energies without help. The lizardman must have many arcane artefacts hidden away within the temple, foci for his malignant spells. Thanquol was determined now to find
them. With such artefacts in his control, he’d be able to laugh at Nightlord Sneek’s threats! At all of the Lords of Decay for that matter! None of them would dare touch him! He would place his paw upon the Pillar of Commandments where the Horned Rat himself would decree Thanquol’s right to sit upon the Council! He’d make short bloody work of that decrepit villain Kritislik and then it would be Seerlord Thanquol’s brilliance that would govern the Council.

  Yes! With Xiuhcoatl’s treasure in his paws, Thanquol could leave this jungle hell behind and return in glory and triumph to Skavenblight!

  Thanquol lashed his tail anxiously against the wall of the corridor. Besides, if they were quick enough in their stealing, they’d be able to get out of the pyramid before Xiuhcoatl noticed them. He was very keen to avoid confronting that scaly nightmare, just in case he was wrong about the lizardman’s reliance on relics and artefacts to bolster his power.

  Instead of upwards, Thanquol followed his nose and ordered his minions to head down, deeper inside the pyramid. The humans led the way, Tsang Kweek’s knife always close to the she-slave’s neck to ensure the obedience of the others. The other gutter runners clung close to their leader. After them followed the assassins and Shen Tsinge. Thanquol and Boneripper took the rear position. The grey seer didn’t like being exposed to whatever enemies might be creeping up behind them, but he was even more nervous about having any of his “allies” at his back. It was better to keep everyone where he could see them.

  They had proceeded for several hundred yards when the corridor began to shudder. Great stone blocks dropped down from the ceiling, smashing flat against the floor and barring both advance and retreat. The skaven intruders were trapped in a section of corridor fifty yards long, surrounded on all sides by unyielding granite.