So much for the quick wits of dwarf-things! Now all they had to do was keep quiet and wait a few minutes for the dwarfs to be well on their way. Then the scouting party could break cover and make a run for their burrows back in Bonestash.
Thanquol decided to use the delay to consider what he would tell Ikit Claw and Rikkit Snapfang. Obviously it was necessary to put all the blame on Skraekual, but it helped to plan these things out in advance.
A bright flash of light and a loud clamour suddenly exploded all around the grey seer and his warriors. Thanquol nearly leapt out of his fur, so sudden and without warning was the disturbance. He looked about him in a frantic fury, trying to spot the source of the light. The clanrats were whining and squealing, terrified by what seemed a violent explosion. Yet Thanquol could find no scent of blasting powder in the air and there was no sign either the skaven or the tunnel had been damaged.
Magic! It was the only explanation! Thanquol’s eyes scoured the confused ranks of the ratmen, but there was no sign of Skraekual. The other grey seer was gone!
A moment later, Thanquol had bigger problems than his missing rival to bother him. Scores of armoured warriors were charging down the mine straight towards the skaven. The dwarfs had heard the explosion and seen the ratmen exposed by the brilliant flash of light. Now they were running back, eager for the blood of the verminous invaders!
Skraekual! The filthy little pustule had betrayed them to the dwarfs! He was using the whole lot of them as a distraction so that he could safely slip back to Bonestash!
Thanquol admitted it wasn’t a bad plan, except for the part where he was included among the hapless dupes left to get butchered by the enraged dwarfs.
The clanrats were caught completely by surprise. Three of them were cut down the instant the first dwarfs reached them, two more crumpling to the ground with crushed skulls an instant later. Unlike the skaven, the dwarfs wore heavy armour and carried broad shields. Their weapons were massive hammers and wickedly sharp axes, the blades gleaming in the glow of their lanterns.
Escape was foremost in Thanquol’s mind, but there seemed little chance of flight with the dwarfs hot on his tail and only a few measly skaven warriors between himself and their axes. He needed to buy some time for him to put some ground between himself and the dwarfs. Glaring up at Boneripper, he pointed a claw at the oncoming dwarfs.
“Burn-burn!” the grey seer snarled. “Slay-kill!”
Boneripper shuddered into motion, lumbering away from the walls and into the middle of the tunnel. The dwarfs must have missed the hulking rat-ogre or mistaken it for some piece of dilapidated mining equipment. Thanquol chittered with amusement as he saw the shock in the dwarfs’ eyes as they beheld his fearsome bodyguard.
The rat-ogre didn’t give the dwarfs a chance to overcome their shock. Lowering its warpfire projector, Boneripper sent a blast of green fire jetting down the tunnel. The screams of dwarfs and the shrieks of skaven echoed through the mine, the sickly stink of roasted flesh, scorched hair and burning fur filling the air. In the first blast, Boneripper caught a half-dozen of the dwarfs and five skaven who were too slack-witted to move fast. The burning ratmen lay strewn across the ground; the dwarfs writhed in agony as the green flames melted their armour into their flesh.
Before Boneripper could fire again, the gold-bearded dwarf Thanquol had noted earlier sprinted into view. He rushed towards the burning dwarfs, reaching to his vest. Thanquol saw something that looked like a ceramic egg in his hand. The grey seer watched in horror as Klarak threw the object ahead of him, thoughts of Clan Skryre and the Poison Wind filling his brain.
As the grenade burst and a thick white cloud billowed over the tunnel, Thanquol hastily ordered Boneripper to stand in front of him. The rat-ogre could soak up the bulk of whatever fiendish gas was inside the dwarf’s weapon. Thanquol could hear the remaining clanrats coughing and hacking as the gas came upon them. Frantically he focused his mind upon a spell to protect himself from the noxious fumes, evoking the minor enchantment just as the white cloud rolled over him.
Thanquol blinked as a gritty powder settled over him, something that seemed equal parts dust and snow. Petrified by what it might be he began swatting at his body to dislodge the weird powder. Around him, the other skaven were doing the same. Boneripper simply stood in place, looking like a white statue with all the dust caked on it.
The sound of a gargled war-cry drove Thanquol from his cleansing ritual. Remembering the dwarfs, he quickly grabbed a nearby clanrat and held the wretch in front of him. A broad-shouldered dwarf warrior, his armour a half-melted mess of slag, shambled out of the white cloud as it began to settle. Swinging an enormous axe, the dwarf cut down Thanquol’s living shield.
Baring his fangs in the fearsome snarl of a cornered rat, Thanquol smashed the head of his staff into the side of the dwarf’s melted helm. His burnt enemy stumbled back, but quickly recovered, lunging towards the grey seer once more.
Again, Thanquol drew upon his magic. Pointing a claw at the dwarf, he sent a bolt of green lightning smashing into the warrior, lifting him off his feet and flinging him down the tunnel like an arrow. The burnt dwarf landed in a clatter of armour, a great crater smouldering in his chest.
Thanquol looked away from his victim, finding that the cloud had now dispersed, leaving a powdery residue across the tunnel. Every trace of warpfire had been extinguished, and the stricken dwarfs who only a moment before had been burning inside their own armour were now being helped away from the battlefield by their comrades. Those dwarfs who weren’t busy with the wounded were staring straight at him and fingering their axes, none more so than the gold-bearded Klarak Bronzehammer.
“Burn-burn!” Thanquol snarled up at Boneripper. The rat-ogre moved to obey, but not even a puff of smoke managed to emerge from the nozzle of its warpfire projector. The powder coating the automaton had clogged the weapon.
“Grey Seer Thanquol!” Klarak called out. Thanquol was taken aback by the cry, shocked that this dwarf-thing should know who he was.
“Try your tricks on me, coward,” the engineer shouted, marching towards the grey seer.
Thanquol glared at the brazen dwarf. There was more than one way to cook a dwarf. “Die-die, fur-face!” the grey seer howled, pointing his claw at Klarak and sending another bolt of warp-lightning crackling through the tunnel.
There was an unhappy feeling of déjà vu when his spell struck the dwarf, unpleasantly reminding Thanquol of the way the sentry gun had resisted his magic. The warp-lightning danced and crackled all across Klarak, but the dwarf’s strange vest seemed to absorb the fury of the spell. The armoured garment glowed as though it were fresh from the forge as the aethyric energies were reflected away from Klarak. Dials and gauges fluctuated wildly, some of the copper rods fitted to the vest corroded into nothingness or melted into unrecognisable blobs of metal, but when Thanquol’s spell was spent, Klarak himself stood unharmed.
The dwarf quickly drew a bulky pistol from a holster on his belt, aiming it directly at the grey seer. Thanquol could see steam venting from the weapon as Klarak fired it. He was knocked back as the bullet slammed into him, flopping down onto his back. The grey seer wailed in horror, a bright light flashing before his gaze.
It took an instant for Thanquol to realise he wasn’t dead. Patting his body, he felt the shattered pieces of his snuff-box rattling about in his smoking robe. Before he took another breath, Thanquol dived behind Boneripper. Baring his fangs, he glared at the surviving clanrats, pointing the head of his staff at them.
“Fast-quick! Kill-slay gold-fur!” he snarled. Instead of obeying him, the treacherous ratmen took to their heels, tails between their legs.
A second bullet smashed into Boneripper, heralding a veritable fusillade as Klarak unleashed the firepower of his automatic steam pistol. Thanquol squealed in fright as the bullets rattled through the rat-ogre’s hull, blasting away bits of bone and metal. Gas jetted from a shattered piston, oil exploded from a punctured pipe. The entire automato
n shuddered as some gear went spinning off down the tunnel.
Cursing everything he could think of, Thanquol dug a sliver of warpstone from beneath his robe and bit down on the sorcerous rock, grinding it into bits between his teeth. He exulted as the magical energy trapped within the warpstone rushed through his veins. His body felt as though it were burning with power. He might turn around and pick up Boneripper and hurl it at the impudent dwarf who dared to attack him! He could swat aside the fool’s bullets as though they were gnats and shove that damnable pistol…
Thanquol forced himself to think clearly. The memory of the vest and the way his earlier spell had failed to harm Klarak was too fresh to forget. He couldn’t risk having the dwarf just walk through another of his spells. He needed to take a page out of Skraekual’s tome of tricks. He needed to do something that would rid him of the cursed dwarf without targeting him directly. Get rid of him the same way Skraekual had gotten rid of the sentry gun.
Bullets continued to chew away at Boneripper as Thanquol gave form to the magic boiling inside him. He could be thankful for one thing: his enemy’s foolish heroics had made him order the other dwarfs to keep back while he dealt with the grey seer. No doubt Klarak wanted to save their lives from Thanquol’s magic, trusting in his vest to do the same for him. Well, he would show the dwarf how little he knew about the power of the Horned Rat!
Swarming from every corner of the mine, summoned by the grey seer’s irresistible magic, a living tide of vermin came screeching and skittering. Rats, rats by their hundreds, rats of every size and shape. Wary of having the frenzied animals repulsed by Klarak’s resistance to magic, Thanquol ordered his minions away from the engineer. Instead he focused their crazed assault upon the wooden support beams.
Ordinarily, it would have taken a bunch of common rats hours to chew through the sturdy timbers. But these were common no longer. They were a living scourge enflamed by the malignance of Thanquol’s will, goaded into a fit of crazed fury by his sorcery. Like the cannibal fish of forsaken Lustria, the vermin assaulted the beams, shredding them to splinters with their chisel-like fangs.
Klarak called out a warning to the other dwarfs, ordering them to leave. Thanquol gnashed his fangs. Fool-meat! Did he really think he could escape the magic the grey seer had unleashed?
The supports groaned, the earth above the shaft shifting as the weakened beams began to give way. Rats began dropping to the floor, their bodies smouldering from the frenzied magic blazing through them. Others rushed in to take the places of the fallen. Dirt and rubble began to rain from the ceiling.
Thanquol’s chittering laughter raked across the ears of the fleeing dwarfs. They were brave enough against a bunch of frightened clanrats, but being buried alive by the fearsome sorcery of Grey Seer Thanquol was something else entirely! He watched the bearded wretches stumbling and scrambling down the tunnel, desperate to regain the gallery before the whole mine came crashing down about their ears.
Bullets continued to strike Boneripper. One crunched through the rat-ogre’s ribcage to come sizzling past Thanquol’s horn. He ducked, squinting from behind the brute’s steel spine to gawp in amazement at the gold-bearded dwarf. With rocks and earth crashing down all around him, the madman was standing his ground and continuing to fire at the grey seer! The cold determination in Klarak’s gold-flake eyes made Thanquol’s glands spurt the musk of fear. The dwarf was insane! He’d be smashed to paste when the roof fell in! He should be running away, not standing there shooting at a lone skaven!
“Hurry-scurry!” Thanquol growled at Boneripper. Dropping to all fours, the grey seer scrambled down the tunnel, hoping to reach the closest bend before Klarak’s deadly marksmanship could pick him off. A bullet crashed into the earth beside his right paw, splintering his staff. A second whizzed past his horn, causing the little bell to start jingling.
Crying out in horror, Thanquol threw himself flat. The next shot would smash through his skull, he was certain of it. The Horned Rat had forsaken him and now he would die an ignoble death because of some lunatic dwarf-thing!
The feared third shot never came. Instead, with a rumble and a crash, the roof of the mine collapsed. A cloud of dust and debris exploded down the tunnel, blinding Thanquol and filling his nose with dirt. When the grey seer was able to see again, the entire back of the tunnel was gone, buried under tons of rubble. He bruxed his fangs in triumph. Somewhere under all those rocks was the crazed dwarf-thing who had so stupidly persisted in trying to shoot him when he should have been running for his life. If only all dwarf-things would oblige Thanquol by dying so easily!
Brushing dust from his fur, Thanquol glared at the limping bulk of Boneripper. The lummox had barely escaped the collapse. Moreover it had been shot to pieces by Klarak’s steam pistol. The grey seer snorted with contempt. So much for the genius of Clan Skryre engineering! He’d have expected their mechanical rat-ogre to be able to take at least a little abuse!
Swatting Boneripper for having the impudence to be damaged, Thanquol turned his thoughts to other matters. Taking stock of his situation, he vented a titter of anxiety. He was alone deep inside enemy territory with neither map nor guide to get him back to Bonestash. The only way out of the mines, so far as he could tell, was now choked by tons of rubble and hundreds of crushed dwarf-thing corpses.
It was a grim prospect. Not knowing how deep under the earth he was, Thanquol didn’t even dare cast a spell to escape the situation. He might vanish through the aethyr only to reappear inside solid rock!
Suddenly, the grey seer turned his head. His nose twitched as he detected a faint scent. Scrambling towards it, he found that his senses were not mistaken. It was the scent of Grey Seer Skraekual. The filthy old rat was still somewhere in the mines, having high-tailed it the moment he betrayed Thanquol to the dwarfs.
Thanquol bared his fangs. Snarling an order to Boneripper, he began to lope down the tunnel, following Skraekual’s scent. His situation might be miserable, but as every skaven knew, misery is more endurable when it has company.
Whatever hole Skraekual was hiding himself in, the traitor would soon have company.
Though he wouldn’t have it long.
Chapter X
A black cloud of dust spilled from the mouth of the mine shaft, sweeping across the dwarfs as they reached the safety of the gallery. Caked in dirt, coughing from the dust in their throats, the dwarfs were thankful to reach the solidly-built gallery alive. Many of them were miners themselves when not impressed to bear arms on behalf of the stronghold. There was no greater terror in the mind of a miner than the fear of being buried alive.
Unless it was the fear of being caught off their guard by their enemies and slaughtered without a fight. Such an end would shame them into the afterworld and condemn them to wander the halls of their ancestors as the lowest of servants without a place at the tables of their clans.
During their desperate race from the mine, the dwarfs half-expected a host of skaven to be waiting for them when they reached the gallery. Finding it deserted was a relief, but hardly an excuse to lessen their caution. Gruffly, Thane Erkii arranged a line of axemen to watch the mouths of the other mines.
“Take the wounded up to the Second Deep,” Thane Erkii ordered the warriors who had carried the injured out from the mine. He cast a grim look over the horrible injuries the dwarfs caught by the blast of warpfire had suffered. Plates of armour had melted into their flesh, burning clean through to the bone in some cases. If they’d been scalded by lava, Thane Erkii didn’t think they could be any worse. “Maybe the priestess of Valaya can help them,” he added in a doubtful voice. It was no slight against the ancestor gods, but he didn’t see how anything could help a dwarf recover from such horrific wounds.
Thane Erkii turned around at the sound of rocks crashing into the gallery. For an instant, the frightening thought that the skaven magic had been so powerful as to undo the very walls of the gallery flashed through his mind. As Minemaster of Karak Angkul, such a shameful slight against
the constructions under his care was doubly horrible. He would never be able to atone for such a humiliation.
His fear proved unfounded. The sound came from Horgar Horgarsson and the ranger Thorlek. The two dwarfs were attacking the mouth of the mine with frantic energy. Horgar’s steel framework jetted great spurts of steam as the ex-hammerer ripped stones from the tunnel and hurled them aside as though they weighed nothing. Thorlek, unable to match the augmented strength of his friend, was doing his best by using the haft of his axe as a lever to roll stones from the rockpile. Azram Steelfoot, the old lorekeeper, was sitting on the ground drawing in the thick coat of dirt that now covered the floor. Lacking the strength of his companions, Azram was doing his part by trying to recall from memory the layout of the old workings and determine if there was some other way into the mine. There were tears in the lorekeeper’s eye and a trickle of moisture seeped from beneath the edge of the lens-array he wore over his other eye.
Thane Erkii could sympathise with the sorrow of the three dwarfs. They had been part of Klarak Bronzehammer’s Iron Throng, that select brotherhood of dwarfs who formed the eccentric engineer’s closest aides and comrades. He knew they had travelled far with their master and shared many adventures with him. He could understand their despair at this moment, their unwillingness to accept that the brave hero had finally met his doom. It had been a valiant death, holding off the skaven wizard and buying the time the rest of them would need to escape the sorcerer’s wicked magic.
Solemnly, Thane Erkii stepped towards the blocked tunnel. He laid a hand on Thorlek’s shoulder, gently urging the ranger to give up his hopeless efforts. “It’s no good. He’s in Gazul’s keeping now.”
The ranger turned angrily on Thane Erkii, shoving aside his hand. “I’ve seen Klarak pull himself out of worse scrapes than this,” Thorlek growled. “Anybody who can trot through the lair of Malok in one piece isn’t going to let some slimy ratkin finish him!”
[Thanquol & Boneripper 03] - Thanquol's Doom Page 16