by Nathan Long
The others nodded.
‘Good, then off we go.’
The men laid their torches in a line on the floor and drew their weapons. Gert and Giano set bolts in grooves as Franka and Dag nocked arrows.
Hals glanced at Franka. ‘Shouldn’t the lass stay back here?’
Reiner’s jaw tensed. ‘We need all the cover we can muster.’
‘But…’
‘This isn’t the time, pikeman.’
Hals grunted and looked at his boots.
‘Don’t worry, Hals,’ said Franka. ‘I’ll do my best not to shoot you in the back.’
‘She can put a rabbit’s eye out at fifty paces,’ said Pavel.
Hals glared at him.
The men started down the passage, hunched low, with Dag, Giano, Gert and Franka at the rear. Reiner, Pavel and Hals shared the front with Jergen and the greatsword. As they rounded the bend the darkness was absolute for a moment, and then a faint purple glow lit the walls ahead. A few more steps and the cart and the rats were revealed. It was as Giano had said. Seven rat soldiers stood around the cart, directing a crowd of starved and stunted rat-slaves who were tying ropes to the back of the cart, which was almost as wide as the tunnel itself. There was another rope, stouter, that was lashed to a ring set in the tunnel floor. This held the cart in place at the top of the rails that disappeared down the steep slope into darkness.
Reiner quickened his pace, but stayed on his toes, holding his sword behind him so the blade wouldn’t reflect the purple light. The others sped up as well. Twenty paces to go. Fifteen.
A ratman lifted his nose, then twitched his head toward them. He squealed a warning.
‘Now!’ cried Reiner, and pounded forward with the others, silence forgotten.
Bolts and arrows sprouted from two ratmen’s chests as they drew their swords. Then Reiner and the Hammer Bearer and the Blackhearts were among the rest. Slashing and chopping. Two more went down immediately, but the slave-rats were running every which way in a panic and got in the way. Reiner and the others kicked and shoved through a swamp of furry, filthy bodies as the last three rat soldiers retreated around the cart.
Franka, Giano, Dag and Gert leapt up onto the back of the cart. Franka and Dag fired over it at the retreating rats as Giano and Gert reloaded their crossbows. Franka hit a slave-rat.
Jergen and Reiner forced their way down the left side of the cart as the Hammer Bearer went down the right, chopping through the slave-rats like dense undergrowth. Hals and Pavel followed the Hammer, gutting the fallen, and spearing the slave-rats who tried to swarm the greatsword.
Giano and Gert fired again as Franka and Dag got off their third shots. One of the rat warriors fell with an arrow and a bolt in his back, but before the archers could load again, slave-rats crowded onto the cart, trying to escape the three swordsmen, and got in their way.
Reiner and Jergen stumbled out on the far side of the cart and lunged at the last two rat soldiers. The greatsword staggered out as well, throwing and kicking slave-rats in every direction, but one swung by his jaws from the man’s neck like a pit-dog hanging from a bull. With a cry, the greatsword thrust it away and it fell to the ground, but it had a bloody chunk of his neck in its teeth. The Hammer dropped to his knees, his gloves shiny red as he tried to stop the fountain of blood that pumped from his jugular.
One of the rat soldiers hurled a dagger at Reiner. He flinched, and it spun by his ear. A slave-rat screamed behind him. Jergen ran the knife-rat through as Reiner angled for the other. It threw a glass globe at the ground and the tunnel filled with smoke. Reiner slashed where he thought the rat was, covering his nose and mouth with the crook of his arm. He hit nothing.
‘Fire!’ he cried. ‘Fire!’
He heard bolts and arrows thrum past him into the smoke, and a rattish squeal, but couldn’t tell if it had been a fatal shot.
Jergen charged into the smoke, his sword spinning in a figure eight, but Reiner heard no cries or impacts. He ran in after him, heart thudding—fighting blind was for fools. After a few steps he was beyond the smoke, but the clouds blocked the light and the tunnel was pitch black. He heard Jergen returning.
‘Get him?’
‘No.’
Reiner sighed and turned, stumbling over the rails. ‘Then they will be coming.’
‘Yes.’
The others were finishing off the last of the slave-rats as he and Jergen stepped out of the dissipating cloud.
‘Clear the rails,’ said Reiner. ‘We must light the fuses and cut the anchor. One got away. They’ll be coming back.’
The Blackhearts kicked and rolled slave-rat bodies off the rails. On the cart, Gert began checking the powder kegs. After a second, he groaned.
‘Captain,’ he said. ‘They’ve pulled the match cord.’
‘The what?’
‘The fuses. They’ve taken them from the powder. And I don’t see ‘em.’
Reiner cursed. ‘Check the bodies.’
The Blackhearts frisked all the rat-corpses, both slave and soldier, but none had the match cord.
‘Captain,’ said Pavel. ‘They’re coming.’
Reiner looked up. Far down the slanting passage a purple light was moving along the walls. ‘Ranald’s loaded dice!’
‘Can y’just stuff bits of rag in and light them?’ asked Pavel.
Reiner shook his head. The engineers would have timed it to a nicety. Too short and the cart blows before it reaches the tunnel. Too long and the rats snuff ‘em when the cart hits the bottom.’
‘Somebody would have to ride down with it, torch in hand,’ said Franka. ‘But that would be suicide.’
Reiner nodded. Someone would have to light the powder by hand just as the cart reached the ratmen’s tunnel, but whoever did it… Reiner looked around, trying to decide who he could most afford to lose. His eyes fell upon Dag. The boy had been trouble from the beginning—a loose cannon who had done more harm than good, and whom no one in the company could trust. And he was fiercely—foolishly—loyal to Reiner. He would do it if Reiner asked. On the other hand, the boy was so scatterbrained and unreliable that it was better than even odds he would muck it up. He cursed. There was no time to think. He had to make a choice now. He…
‘I do,’ said Giano.
Everyone looked up.
‘What?’ said Reiner.
The Tilean was white faced. He swallowed. ‘I do. This I want whole my life. I vow revenging on ratmans ever they kill my family. How I can kill more ratmans than here? With sword and bow, I kill ten, twenty, fifty? This I do, I kill hundred, thousand.’
‘But, lad, you’ll die,’ said Hals.
Franka looked horrified. ‘You can’t.’
‘We need you,’ said Reiner. He could pick out the faces of the advancing ratmen now. There were thirty or more, all warriors.
‘You need me do this,’ said Giano. ‘I get torch.’ He turned and ran back up the corridor out of sight.
The others looked at each other blankly.
‘Will you let him do this?’ asked Franka.
‘Someone has to,’ said Reiner.
‘Aye,’ said Pavel, his eyes sliding toward Dag like Reiner’s had done. ‘But…’
‘Someone who can do it,’ said Reiner. He turned. ‘Gert, chop open the kegs. As many as you can.’
Gert nodded and climbed on the cart, drawing his hand axe. He began staving in the tops of the kegs.
Giano reappeared carrying two torches. He hopped onto the back of the cart and swung his legs in. Jergen stepped to the anchor rope and raised his sword.
Giano faced Reiner. He swallowed again. ‘Captain, you good man. I happy to fight for you. Grazie.’
‘You are a good man too, Ostini. Giano.’ There was a lump in Reiner’s throat. He forced it down. ‘Shallya receive you.’
The ratmen were a hundred paces away. They were sprinting.
Gert jumped down off the cart. ‘Ready.’
Giano raised a torch in salute. ‘Cut rope.’
>
Reiner tried to think of something noble to say, but Jergen didn’t hesitate. He chopped through the heavy hawser with a single stroke and the cart began rolling down the sloping rails. Giano threw his arms wide and opened his mouth. At first Reiner thought he was screaming, but his cry became a word, and Reiner realized he was singing some wild Tilean song.
‘Damned fool,’ said Hals thickly.
Franka turned away, hand over her eyes. Reiner heard her sob.
The cart rapidly picked up speed. The approaching ratmen saw it coming and threw themselves to the left and right, but there were too many of them. They couldn’t get out of the way. As the cart blasted through them, they were thrown up like a bow wave, pin-wheeling and smashing against the walls. Some were cut in half under the iron wheels. A few got caught on the sides and were dragged, heads bouncing and cracking as they hit each successive tie.
And then the cart was gone, vanishing into the black of the passage beyond the ratmen’s purple light. Reiner stared after it for a moment, but the surviving ratmen were picking themselves up and finding their weapons.
‘Right then,’ he said hollowly. ‘Let’s be off.’
He started up the passage with the others following, their faces grim.
‘But how do we know it worked?’ asked Hals, as they ran. ‘How do we know the poor lad didn’t kill his fool self for naught?’
‘We don’t’ said Reiner. They reached their line of torches, now two fewer. He picked one up. ‘We’ll just have to pray.’ He looked back down the tunnel. ‘Come on now, hurry. We don’t want those rats catching us up. And all that powder might shake things up down—’
Before he could finish there was a huge boom, and a blast of hot air hit them like a ram. Reiner clapped his hands to his ears, which felt like they might explode from the pressure. The shock came a second later. It knocked them all off their feet. Before they hit the floor another thunderclap deafened them, and then another, each bigger than the one before. The concussions pushed them up the passage like a giant hand shoving at them. Then twin shocks shook the passage so hard that Reiner was lifted off the ground and slammed into the wall. He landed on top of Pavel, who was screaming and holding his ears. Reiner couldn’t hear him.
The walls, ceiling and floor cracked, pebbles and dust sifting down on them like snow. A chunk of stone the size of Reiner’s head landed next to his foot. Then all was still. Reiner stayed where he was, waiting for more explosions and working his jaw to try and pop his ears. When no blasts came, he sat up. The tunnel spun around him.
‘Come on, lads,’ he said, staggering to his feet. ‘The place might come down any minute.’
‘Hey?’ said Hals, putting a hand to his ear.
‘Say again?’ said Gert.
‘What?’ said Franka.
Reiner could barely hear them. He pointed up the tunnel. ‘Run!’ he shouted. ‘We must run!’
The others nodded and tried to stand, weaving and staggering like drunks. Reiner clung to the wall, dizzier than if he had spun in circles. They started up the hall at a zigzagging trot, stumbling over their own feet. Before they had gone twenty paces a rushing wall of smoke caught them, billowing up out of the passage. At first it had the sharp battlefield tang of blackpowder, but behind that came an eye watering alchemical stink that had them all retching and gagging. Through his tearing eyes Reiner swore that the smoke that buffeted them glowed a faint green.
‘Hurry!’ he choked.
They ran as hard as they could, covering their faces with their shirts and jerkins as they went.
‘Must have hit one of their weird weapons,’ rasped Franka beside him.
‘Or a whole wagon full,’ said Reiner.
THEY RAN OUT of the fireplace into the parlour of the stone house to find Gutzmann lying still and alone on the floor, surrounded by mounds of dead ratmen. The room was filled with a smoky haze.
Reiner stepped to him uneasily. ‘General, do you live? Where is Karel?’
Gutzmann raised his head weakly. He smiled. ‘Success, then? We… felt it’.
‘Aye, but…’
Karel ran in from the foyer. He saluted. ‘Captain, I am glad to see you. The ratmen have stopped. After the explosion some turned back, but no more come from the tunnel.’
‘Praise Sigmar,’ grunted Pavel. ‘Maybe Ostini didn’t die for nothing.’
Karel turned to him. ‘The Tilean is dead?’
‘And the Hammer Bearer,’ said Reiner.
Karel made the sign of the Hammer and bowed his head.
‘I hope it weren’t for nothing,’ said Hals bitterly. ‘So many got out before he blew it. Might not make a difference.’
‘They were only beginning to bring their siege engines out,’ said Karel. ‘So we are saved that.’
‘We must return to the fort… immediately,’ said Gutzmann. ‘But first, cut off a ratman’s head and… and give it to me.’
Reiner made a face. ‘Whatever for?’
‘I shall show it… to the men.’ Gutzmann raised an eyebrow. ‘As you should have done, when… when you came to me.’
RETURNING TO THE fort was easier said than done, for though no more ratmen poured out of the tunnel, many still milled about in the entry chamber, though whether they meant to dig out their brethren or were just unwilling to continue toward the fort without the full might of their army, Reiner couldn’t decide. Either way, it made exit that way an impossibility.
‘The hill track,’ said Gutzmann from the stretcher Pavel and Hals had made of their two spears and a red brocade drapery. A bundle of blankets shielded him against the cold. He cradled the severed head of a rat in his arms like a baby. ‘The chief engineer told me once. They cut a… a hidden staircase behind an upstairs closet. It leads… to the mountainside above the… the mine, and from there to the fort.’ He chuckled. ‘In case of cave-in, he said. But I begin to think it had… another purpose.’
‘We’ll look for it.’ Reiner said, wincing. Gutzmann’s words bubbled in his throat and he had to take two breaths for each sentence. He was not long for the world.
After a mad search through the upstairs rooms—a series of beautiful, stonework suites that the engineers had turned into a fetid dormitory hung with grimy clothes and littered with papers, books, and the strange tools of their trade—they found the stairs at last behind a door in the back of a closet in what had once been a grand boudoir. The secret panel was opened by pressing in the eyes of a bas-relief griffin that stood rampant above the closet door. Behind it, a crude, narrow spiral staircase had been cut into the rock. It was too tight, and the angle too steep, to manoeuvre Gutzmann’s stretcher, so Jergen, the sturdiest of the men, carried him on his back.
After a hundred steps, the stairway ended at a stone door. When they pressed a lever, the door swung in smoothly, revealing a small cave.
Reiner stepped into it cautiously. Some animal made the cave its home, but it was not here now. He crept to the jagged mouth and peeked out. The cave opened onto a narrow goat path high up on a sharply sloping mountainside. Below were the outbuildings and the fortifications of the mine, almost invisible in the cloud cloaked night.
Reiner beckoned the others forward and he stepped onto the path. The wind that had blown them into the mines was still whipping around the crags. He shivered as the others filed out, Hals and Pavel once again carrying Gutzmann on his stretcher.
The general pointed south. ‘Follow the path. It leads to the… the hills above the fort. You will find a branch that… brings you beyond. To the Aulschweig side. As long as we still hold… the south wall…’
Reiner motioned the Blackhearts forward, then walked beside the general. ‘This path allows one to circumvent the fort?’
Gutzmann grinned. ‘This and others. The bandits… They go where they please. But not… not worth defending. No army could navigate… this.’
Reiner caught his balance as the wind nearly blew him off the mountain. He swallowed. ‘No. I suppose not.’
They hurried on as quickly as they could, but it was difficult going, particularly for Pavel and Hals, carrying Gutzmann. There were places where the path went straight up a rock face and the general had to be passed up it from hand to hand. In other places it was barely a lip of stone on the edge of a cliff and his weight threatened to pull them into space. At one point the path went under a jutting rock and everyone had to crawl. Pavel and Hals pushed and pulled Gutzmann along on their hands and knees.
But though they bumped and jarred him, and twisted him into undignified and uncomfortable positions, not once did the general complain, only urged them to go faster.
‘If those vermin have hurt my men,’ he said more than once, ‘I shall slaughter all of them, above and… and below ground. They shall be… wiped from the earth.’
It took the company twice as long to reach the latitude of the fort as it would have if they had walked the pass, but at last they came over the spine of a pine covered hill and saw it below them. The battle had not yet begun. The rats were still forming up in the darkness of the pass, keeping out of sight of the tent camp. They needn’t have bothered. No one manned the north walls. No one was in the camp. The entire force of the fort was on the great south wall, crossbows loaded, handguns primed, cannon ready, all waiting for the Army of Aulschweig to march up the southern pass. Shaeder’s ruse was a complete success.
Reiner wished he could reach out an unimaginably long arm and tap the defenders on their collective shoulder, make them turn about and take notice of the menace to their rear. But a warning was impossible. Even if he shouted at the top of his lungs no one would hear him.
‘Skirmishers!’ said Franka, pointing.
Reiner looked. Furtive figures were snaking through the empty camp. The first of them were already at the north wall, peeking through the undefended gate.
He turned to Gutzmann in his stretcher. ‘It begins, general. We must hurry. Tell us where the path to the far side is.’
The general didn’t respond.
Reiner stepped closer. ‘Sir?’