by C. L. Werner
‘This is intolerable!’ Weichs declared, trying to force a note of authority into his voice. ‘Why do you pursue me? I am a respected elder of this community. I shall report this outrage to the burgomeister!’
Silja’s voice was equally cold. ‘You are a human maggot, Weichs, and you will burn in hell!’ She took a step towards the old man, causing him to retreat deeper into the gloom of the mill. ‘Fortunately for you Mathias needs you alive. Otherwise I’d sink this blade in your gut here and now!’
Weichs continued to back away, eyes darting into every corner of the mill, still hunting a way to escape. The plague doktor stopped when he found himself backed against the immense millstone. He glowered defiantly at the woman. ‘So you are the witch hunter’s slut? What makes you think I’m going anywhere with you?’
The point of Silja’s sword twinkled in the gloom as she pointed it at the man’s throat. ‘Because I say you are,’ she hissed.
‘We’ll see about that,’ Weichs sneered back, a sardonic smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. ‘Lobo! Kill the bitch!’
Before Silja could react, something sprang at her from the shadows. The impact bashed the woman into the wall of the mill, rattling the wood frame and knocking the sword from her grip. She felt powerful fingers clawing at her body and could smell the diseased breath of the creature fouling the air. A grotesque face leered at her with manic ferocity. Here, Silja knew, was the disgusting assassin Weichs had sent to kill Thulmann. Now the creature was determined to do the same to her.
Weichs stepped hurriedly away from the millstone as the heavy rollers began to turn. Already agitated by the raised, angry voices, the eruption of violence had completely disordered the little donkey. Braying and snorting, the animal tried to flee the fight, running rapidly in the clockwise path allowed it by its tether. The scientist wiped flour dust from his clothes as the residue of grain on the stone was crushed beneath the rollers. Then his gaze fell to the floor, settling upon Silja’s abandoned sword. A malevolent gleam came into his eyes as he stooped and retrieved the weapon.
Weichs stepped towards the struggle. Silja strove to keep Lobo’s clutching fingers from her throat, even as the mutant halfling’s flailing feet smashed into her midsection and the idiot mouth snapped at her with crooked teeth. The plague doktor smiled down at her, raising the sword.
‘Such hate when all I want to do is make the world a better place for my fellow man,’ he sighed. ‘I suppose that has ever been the price of genius.’
‘You are no genius!’ Silja spat. ‘You are a monster!’
Weichs shook his head. ‘No, that thing trying so very hard to strangle you,’ he gestured at Lobo’s twisted form. ‘That is a monster. I… I am a visionary!’
The plague doktor thrust down at Silja with his blade, but as he did so the woman finally managed to gain a firm grip on Lobo’s shirt, twisting the fabric in her fist until the garment was tight around the mutated body. With a savage snarl, she ripped the halfling off her, kicking him away and sending him crashing into a pile of grain sacks. At the same time, the sword stabbed downward, but Weichs was no swordsman, and he’d failed to anticipate his target rolling from the path of his blade.
Weichs pulled his arm back, slashing with the edge of the sword as Silja rolled into a crouch. The murderous steel swept through the air just above her head, dragging strands of hair away with it. Silja did not allow him a second chance. Her hand scraped across the floor and in one fluid motion sent a cloud of dust and flour rushing into his face.
Silja rushed the blinded physician, smashing her fist into his face before he could recover, her other hand closing around the hilt of the sword, trying to pry it from Weichs’s fingers. The scientist struggled in Silja’s grip, but he could feel his hold on the weapon slipping. The contest had shifted once again, this time against him.
Silja had just succeeded in wresting the sword from Weichs’s hand when a noxious weight smashed into her back, tiny arms wrapping around her throat. She could feel the creature’s full weight strangling her as it hung against her back, its idiot, drooling mouth biting her scalp.
‘No hurt the master!’ Lobo shrieked into her ear. Silja could feel the mutant’s weight crushing her windpipe. Reluctantly she released her hold on Weichs, trying to clutch at the murderous halfling, hoping to relieve some of the pressure on her throat.
This time Weichs did not gloat and did not try to lend a hand to his rescuer. The scientist dabbed at the blood trickling from his mouth where Silja had struck him and dashed out of the door of the mill. Silja thought she heard someone cry out in pain a moment later, but with Lobo growling in her ear, she could not be certain.
Silja staggered across the mill, trying to smash Lobo into the walls and the support beams, anything that might dislodge the strangler. Black dots began to dance before her eyes, every gasp of breath being drawn down into her lungs becoming a battle in its own right. Then, suddenly, amazingly, Lobo screamed in pain, the pressure on her throat vanishing at once as the halfling released her and crashed to the floor. Silja fell to her knees, sucking in great breaths as she tried to recover from the assault. Almost in a daze, she saw Lobo writhing on the floor, a huge gash ripped from his shoulder. She lifted her gaze to the beam she had last been trying to batter the murderous fiend against. An iron hook, perhaps for holding the tether of the mill’s donkey, jutted from the beam. She could see blood and a ragged strip of flesh dripping from it.
Silja forced herself to her feet, looking around for her weapon. There was still a chance that she could catch Weichs. As she reached down to recover her weapon, however, the misshapen halfling lunged at her for a third time. The edge of her blade raked Lobo’s body, nearly severing one of the mutant’s legs, but the murderous weight of the halfling slammed into her without losing its impetus, knocking her back. Silja crashed against the millstone, the snarling halfling atop her.
‘Kill! The master says kill!’ Lobo crawled up Silja’s body, spitting blood as he groped for her neck. Silja drove the hilt of her sword into the lumpy face, crushing the already concave cheekbone. Fragments of tooth dripped from Lobo’s mouth, but still the clutching hands reached for her throat. Silja twisted her head, trying to keep away from the ruined, slobbering mouth. As she did so, her eyes grew wide with a new horror.
The frightened donkey still raced around the millstone, turning the heavy rollers as it did so. Now Silja found herself staring at one of the oncoming rollers, watching as it swiftly made another circuit of the millstone. With a strength born of stark terror, she rolled her body, forcing the halfling beneath her. She smashed Lobo’s bulbous head against the stone, almost cracking his skull as she tried to force the monster to release his grip. At last the clutching hands slackened and Silja was able to pull away. She held the still struggling mutant against the millstone as the rollers completed their circuit, ducking as the drive shaft passed over her. Lobo gave voice to a shrill shriek before the roller crushed his skull like an egg. Silja turned when she felt his body go limp, having no desire to see what the roller had left behind.
Silja put her hand to the back of her head, feeling the damp ooze of blood seep through her fingers where Lobo’s teeth had worried at her scalp. She staggered towards the entrance of the mill, thoughts of pursuing Weichs quickly diminishing. After her battle with the mutant, even Weichs would be able to get the best of her in a fair fight, and now she knew that the plague doktor was not likely to fight fair.
Outside the mill, Silja found Lajos leaning against a water trough, a makeshift bandage wrapped around his forearm. The merchant looked up from tending his wound, not quite able to hide his shock when he saw Silja’s miserable condition.
‘He got away,’ Lajos said. ‘I tried to stop him but he had a knife. He cut me, see?’ He held up his bandaged arm to be certain Silja could see it.
Silja shook her head and then started to laugh.
The ruins of the old shrine were scattered amidst a stand of ancient trees. ‘Shrine’ seemed a
bit too grand a word to encompass the broken suggestions of walls and the toppled debris of columns that lurched up from the undergrowth at every side.
Naschy came to a halt beside the cracked stump of a granite column. The woodsman turned around, bowing deferentially to the mounted templars. ‘This is the place,’ he said. ‘I saw the monsters over there.’ He pointed with his finger, indicating a jumble of stone blocks and the fragmentary remains of a stairway that rose into the nothingness of the collapsed upper floors of the temple.
Krieger turned in his saddle, addressing his men. ‘Dismount and spread out. Look for any sign of them, and keep your wits about you.’ Driest and Gernheim dropped from their horses, drawing their weapons as they gained their feet. Ehrhardt followed their example, while Haussner’s flagellant monks began to tear at the overgrowth clothing some of the fallen stonework, looking for any clues that might be hidden in the weeds.
‘The area doesn’t look despoiled enough for there to be any skaven about,’ Thulmann observed. ‘If there was a warren of any size near here, most of the foliage would have been stripped bare to keep the vermin fed.’
‘It may be a side entrance, an escape route from the main complex,’ Krieger replied. ‘The ratkin are quite careful to leave no sign of themselves when they need to.’ The witch hunter tapped the side of his nose. ‘Besides, something doesn’t smell right about this place.’
Thulmann swept his gaze across the piles of stone and weed-choked debris. ‘Perhaps the lingering influence of whatever god was once worshipped here. In the old days, men paid homage to many curious things. We have no evidence that what we seek is here.’
A sharp, wailing cry reverberated through the ruins. One of the flagellants was writhing on the ground, clutching the bleeding stump of his left arm. Snarling above him, crouched on the side of a fallen column, blood dripping from the notched sword in its paws, was a shape of madness and nightmare. Lean and wiry, its furry body clothed in a crude armoured harness, the skaven pounced on the maimed man, burying its chisel-like fangs in the flagellant’s throat. A moment later the monster’s head snapped back and its body was thrown to the ground, a smoking hole punched through its forehead.
‘You wanted evidence?’ Krieger roared as he holstered the spent pistol. ‘There is your evidence!’ Thulmann drew his own pistols, watching as skaven poured from concealed holes hidden among the rubble. ‘Abide not the filth of Chaos!’ Haussner shouted, axe gripped tightly in his hands. ‘Suffer it not to defile your land! Tolerate it not, whatever guise it might wear.’ The fanatic urged his horse forward, charging into the swarming monsters at full gallop, swinging his axe in a red arc through the slavering, snarling ratmen. The remaining flagellants hurried after their leader, roaring their devotion to Sigmar as they fearlessly charged into the press of inhuman beasts.
The sounds of battle crashed through the ruins. Everywhere Thulmann turned he could see the loathsome skaven. Gernheim had his back to the remains of a wall, the ex-soldier’s sword dark with foul skaven blood and the ground littered with twitching bodies. Ehrhardt stood alone atop the stump of a pillar, chopping down with his sword as the ratmen scrambled to reach him.
Thulmann drew his sword, but as he tried to turn his horse towards the thickest of the fighting, he found Krieger’s hand closing around the reins.
‘Leave them! We’ll come back with the soldiers you sent for!’ Krieger shouted. Thulmann turned his head back to the melee, watching in disgust as Driest, his ammunition spent, was dragged down and hacked to pieces by a dozen chittering ratmen.
Thulmann stared in disbelief at his fellow templar. Did Krieger really mean to abandon his comrades, to slink from the field of battle like some frightened cur? ‘Let me go, Krieger,’ Thulmann snarled.
‘Leave them!’ Krieger repeated. ‘It is more important that we escape and guide the army back here! Use your head, man!’
‘You go,’ Thulmann growled, ripping the reins free from Krieger’s hand. ‘I’ll be certain to mention your bravery to Zerndorff if I survive.’ Without another word, Thulmann dug his spurs into his steed and charged into battle.
Squealing ratmen were crushed beneath the impact of his horse, their scrawny bodies cracked beneath its hooves. The silvered edge of his sword was soon black with skaven blood as he lashed out again and again. The chittering monsters slashed at him with crooked swords and stabbed at him with rusty spears. Thulmann struggled to control his screaming horse as a skaven spear thrust into its flank, narrowly missing Thulmann’s leg. The animal reared up, its flailing hooves cracking skaven skulls as the monsters pressed their advantage.
Then, suddenly, the assault seemed to falter. Thulmann could see skaven being thrown back, pummelled by the impact of another charge. It was with shock that he saw Krieger appear at his side, the templar’s sword stabbing downward into the verminous throng. The unexpected attack seemed to break the fragile spirit of the ratmen. They began to scramble back towards the ruins and their concealed burrows, shrieking and chittering as they ran.
‘I shouldn’t like unkind stories being told about me in Altdorf,’ Krieger said, wiping blood from his sabre. Thulmann opened his mouth to reply, but an abrupt change in the air stilled his words. There was a perceptible chill in the atmosphere, and a nauseating sensation, like spectral insects crawling across bare flesh. Even the light filtering down through the trees seemed to dim as if repulsed by some unholy force.
The skaven sensed the crawling change in the air too, stopping their frantic retreat. They turned in a savage, slavering mob, gathering around one of the broken walls. Thulmann could see another figure there, a pallid shape standing atop the remnant stairs. Great horns spread from the sides of the creature’s skull, massive ram-like tusks that framed its snarling, rat-like face. Ragged grey robes clothed it, and around the creature’s neck, Thulmann could see a patchwork collar of fur, the talisman of the Skrittar. The white-furred monster was not the same as the sorcerer-priest he had encountered in Wurtbad, but it was certainly of the same breed. If it was here, then the creature Thulmann hunted would not be far away.
The grey seer glared at the pack of skaven gathered at the base of the stairway and turned its smouldering gaze towards their foes. The monster chittered something in its own ghastly language and gestured with the long wooden staff it carried. The stench of ozone scratched through the air as a crackling tendril of black lightning leapt from the tip of the staff and smashed into the bloodied figure of a flagellant. The mendicant cried out in mortal agony as the sorcerous power seared his flesh, boiling his innards with the intensity of its fury. After a moment, the black lightning vanished and the smoking carcass of the flagellant toppled to the ground.
‘We don’t have the men to fight that thing!’ Krieger shouted. ‘We need to retreat while we can.’
Thulmann nodded in agreement, struggling to turn the head of his protesting horse. The maimed animal resisted his urges to move it, sinking down on its knees as blood gushed from its wounds. The witch hunter pulled himself from his saddle before the expiring animal collapsed on its side.
The dying animal must have drawn the grey seer’s attention. Thulmann could hear it spit-squeaking in its language as it shouted down to its minions. Thulmann could well imagine the substance of its hisses as he saw black lightning gather around its staff once more. ‘Behold the might of the Horned Rat,’ it was saying. Thulmann braced himself for the annihilating touch of the skaven’s sorcery. The smell of ozone grew in the air.
Then there was a crack like the groaning of a mountain, echoing through the forest. Thulmann opened his eyes, shocked to still be alive. Atop the stairway, the grey seer was chittering and spitting in its obscene language, gesturing madly with its claws. Something had disrupted its spellcraft.
That something stood only a few feet in front of Thulmann. Hands clasped across his chest, head bowed, Thulmann thought he could see a faint golden aura shining around Peder Haussner. Thulmann could hear the solemn, repetitive words of a prayer fro
m the Deus Sigmar emerging from the fanatic’s lips. Had it been Sigmar’s divine grace that had broken the grey seer’s magic?
‘My devotion is my shield. My faith is my hammer. The light of Sigmar shines through me and before me no darkness will prevail.’ Haussner began to walk slowly towards the broken wall and the stairway. There was something unreal, almost trance-like about the way he moved, the unfaltering regularity of his steps. The rekindled courage of the ratkin railed against this display and the pack began to give voice to all manner of craven squeals.
The grey seer atop the steps swung around, snarling at the reticent mob. Then it turned its attention back to Haussner, screaming its rage at the defiant templar. The tip of the monster’s staff began to crackle with black lightning again. With a roar, the grey seer thrust the staff forward, sending a crackling blast of warp-lightning searing down at Haussner. This time Thulmann could see the deadly sorcery break, shredded to the four winds as it seemed to smash against some invisible barrier surrounding Haussner. As the black lightning crashed against this unseen barrier, Haussner came to a halt. For a moment, the fanatic was silent and then the words of his prayer rose once more, louder and more strident than before.
‘He is the rock upon which the unclean will be broken. He is the tempest…’
The grey seer’s bullying valour faltered before this second display of Haussner’s faith. The skaven massed below it sensed their leader’s doubt, fear spreading like wildfire through them. The frightened squeals grew into a maddening din and the monsters began to scatter, scurrying back towards their boltholes and burrows. The grey seer shouted and shrieked at its minions, furiously demanding their return. The sorcerer raised his staff in one hand and sent it smashing against the edge of the step upon which it stood. The horned ratman started to scramble back down the steps, intent on joining the flight of its kin, but the tremulous spell it had evoked had done more than it had anticipated; the fell energy had also weakened the remains of the wall. As the grey seer’s hurried steps rattled the unsteady ruins further, they came tumbling down around him. The skaven gave voice to a single shriek of terror before it was crushed beneath the heavy stone blocks.