by Warhammer
All around them the vampiresses’ thralls were dying at the hands of the cultists. Felix’s heart sank. It seemed they would not be enough to turn the tide after all. He gripped his sword two-handed as the feeling tingled painfully back into his right arm. His blocks and attacks were weak and soft. He wouldn’t last long.
Then a chorus of shrieks brought his head up. The cultists and mutants nearest the entrance were screaming and backing away. Felix craned his neck. What could frighten a mutant? And then he saw them – shambling figures with long, shadow-eyed faces, clad in rags and scraps of armour, staggering out of the darkness of the tunnels and reaching for the cultists with cruelly curved claws.
Felix gaped, and had to parry desperately as an axe nearly blindsided him. Skaven! The chisel-toothed heads were unmistakable, but there was something wrong. They were painfully thin. More than thin! He risked another look. They were skeletons! By Sigmar, had the vile ratmen invented some new way to conquer Nuln?
‘Skaven skeletons?’ he choked, incredulous. ‘Were the mutants not enough?’
‘Fear not,’ said Ulrika, blocking a meat axe. ‘They are Mistress Wither’s work.’
‘She… she raised them?’ Felix swallowed. ‘Ratmen?’
Ulrika shrugged and ran her opponent through. ‘She must use the materials available to her, I suppose.’
Felix heard Gotrek curse viciously in Khazalid. Felix knew how he felt. How had they ended up on the same side of a battle with a necromancer? They had fought against necromancers and their minions whenever they encountered them for as long as he could remember. And yet here he was, almost relieved as the undead servants of one of his allies came to his rescue. How had this happened? What had led him to this mad outcome?
His eyes slid to Ulrika, fighting valiantly beside him. It was she who had brought him here. These were her allies. If he accepted her as a friend, did it mean he must accept her kin as well?
The skeletal skaven swarmed the cultists, clawing and snapping and rattling like dice in a cup. They were not fast. They were not strong. Nor were they difficult to kill. A few bashes and they were reduced to bone shards and powder, but there were hundreds of them. Cultists were dragged down by their sheer numbers, or died at the hands of Mathilda’s villains or Hermione’s heroes while they were distracted by some meagre scratch or bite from behind.
Felix was aghast at how many of the things Mistress Wither had found to raise. The tunnels must be full of dead skaven. He remembered helping the citizens of Nuln kill hundreds of ratmen in the streets during their invasion, but he couldn’t recall anyone taking the fight to the tunnels. What had killed them down here?
The cultists fell back before the skeletal horde, panic rippling through their ranks. Seconds ago they had outnumbered Gotrek and Felix and their allies three to one. Now they were outnumbered ten to one, and more cultists were falling every moment.
Felix crossed swords with a man who had strange, circular burn scars all over his face and hands – a few of them still a fresh, angry red. Felix frowned as he turned the man’s thrust and made one of his own. He looked familiar. Where had he seen that face before? In the burning cellars below Shantytown? On the street? During the riot on the bridge?
A dim memory was just coming to the surface of his mind when a man in the uniform of a Gunnery School guard ran into the chamber from the far end.
‘Brothers! Master Wissen!’ he cried. ‘Rejoice! The cannon has sounded! The test was successful! They are loading it on the airship now!’
The cultists cheered. Felix heard Wissen sigh with relief.
‘At last!’ he said, then raised his voice. ‘Liebold! Light the fuses! The rest, hold these meddlers where they are! We will take their souls with us when we go to meet Tzeentch!’
The cultists shouted exultantly and attacked Gotrek, Felix and the vampires with renewed fury as a cultist with a mane of black hair ran for the far end of the room, where the ends of all the match cords came together.
‘Push through!’ shouted Gotrek. He began surging forward, butchering the cultists in front of him.
Felix cursed as he gutted the man with the half-remembered face and slashed left and right to drive back half a dozen attackers. It seemed the lunatics were willing to die here to make sure their enemies died as well. They were madder than Gotrek – all gleefully looking forward to sacrificing themselves for the greater glory of their daemon god.
Gotrek hacked down four cultists and tried to push past six more. He wasn’t fast enough. The black-haired cultist took up a torch and began lighting the ends of match cords, all laid out in a line before him. Sparking flames raced across the floor in all directions as the cords burned towards the barrels.
‘Kill the bastard!’ shrieked Madame Mathilda.
‘Forget him!’ roared Gotrek. ‘Get the cords!’ He battered aside a trio of cultists and tried to run for the nearest barrel, but a broad shouldered mutant with plates of orange, coral-like armour growing from its skin got in his way and swung a fist like a huge, barnacled club at him. Gotrek blocked and slashed back, sending orange gravel flying as he chopped into the crusty armour.
Ulrika hissed a Kislevite curse and leapt over the wall of cultists with a gazelle-like spring. But before her feet touched the ground, a translucent appendage shot out and caught her around the ankle. She fell flat on her face and the blue frog-thing jumped on her back, clawing at her with webbed talons. It had been its tongue that tripped her.
Felix cursed and shoved forward, hacking right and left to reach her. He swung down at the frog-man. It rolled away and shot out its tongue, jerking Felix forward by the wrist while slashing at his face with his claws. Felix blocked with his free arm and the talons tore bloody trenches in his forearm.
Ulrika surged up and aimed a cut at the frog-man’s back.
‘No!’ said Felix, kicking the frog in the stomach and catching one of its arms. ‘The fuses! I have him!’
‘Right.’ Ulrika turned and sprinted for the furthest barrels. Madame Mathilda was right behind her, breaking free of a clutch of mutants. The two vampire women began snatching up match cords and yanking their ends out of the barrels.
‘Stop them!’ shouted Wissen. ‘Put the cords back! They must all go up at once!’
Cultists broke away from the main fight to protect the barrels. Wissen scuttled after Ulrika, using his mantis arms as an extra pair of legs, and launched himself at her back. She spun around and sheared off one of his pincers. He shrieked, but lashed at her with both sword and remaining claw. She parried and returned his attacks.
The frog-thing raked Felix’s arms again. Felix hissed in pain and punched it in one of its saucer-sized eyes. It squawked and its tongue let go of his sword arm. Felix slashed at it, but it dodged back, out of range, clutching its eye. Felix raised his sword, then ran for the closest barrel instead. This was no time to fight. He pulled out the cord, then hurried to the next.
The vampires’ surviving minions swarmed all over the room, chopping through fizzing match cord or ripping it out of the barrels as they fended off cultists and mutants. Gotrek stepped over the corpse of the coral mutant and ran to do the same. The skeletal skaven lurched forward as well. Only Lady Hermione and the wizened warlock remained where they were, still frozen in their contest of wills.
By Sigmar, we’re going to do it, thought Felix as he tugged out another match cord and started for the next. The frog-man’s tongue caught him around the neck and slammed him to the ground, knocking the breath from his lungs and his sword from his grip. He clawed at his neck, but the tongue was already gone.
The frog-man sprang, slashing at his face with its talons. Felix rolled over, hunching, and the talons shredded his shoulder and back. He grabbed his sword and swung it in a wild arc. The frog-man hopped away.
Felix scrambled up and faced it. The frog-man was between him and the next barrel. The flame was racing closer along the match cord. The frog-man crouched. Felix went on guard.
‘No, Rombaugh!
’ screamed Wissen. ‘Pull out the cord! One blast will only ruin us. We must kill these villains first to keep them from interfering! It’s all or none!’
The frog-man backed up, eyes on Felix.
‘Stop him, manling!’ said Gotrek, pounding towards them. ‘Let it blow!’
Felix hesitated, confused by this sudden change in objectives. Let it blow? Why? The explosion would kill him.
The frog-man pulled the cord out and sprang away with it. Felix lunged after him, but too late.
‘Now kill them!’ shouted Wissen. ‘Kill them all so we can reset the charges!’ He leapt at Ulrika again, snarling with fury. ‘Cursed spoilers!’
‘I will set the charges!’ rasped a voice from behind them.
Everyone turned. It was the wizened warlock. All Felix could see of the old man behind the fat farm girl’s bulk were his outstretched arms, trembling with tension. Glowing blue light stretched towards Lady Hermione from the lapis lazuli on his gold bracelets, and wove a pulsing net around her. Felix could see that the vampire sorceress was fighting to escape the cage with all her might, but it was not enough. Her strands of shadow were dissipating like smoke in a strong wind. She was curling in on herself, her face twisted with agony and impotent rage.
‘Lady!’ cried Hermione’s last remaining gentleman. He rushed towards her. The skaven skeletons ran at the old man. Mutants ran to intercept them.
The warlock clashed his wrists together and the net of blue light tightened around Hermione like a noose. She jerked and dropped, unconscious, flickers of glowing blue fire crawling over her like scuttling rats. Her handsome thrall cried out in anguish as he tried to fight past two mutants.
The warlock cackled, triumphant, then raised his voice in a climbing wail of tortured syllables. Purple clouds began to coalesce over his head. The farm girl just stood there placidly, staring straight ahead.
‘No you don’t, sorcerer,’ Gotrek growled. He ran towards the warlock, knocking aside the skaven skeletons and the mutants as if they weren’t there.
Felix ran too. He didn’t know what the warlock meant to do, but it had to be bad. He saw Ulrika and Mathilda converging on him too, cultists in hot pursuit. The purple clouds were boiling across the roof of the chamber like smoke.
Something grabbed Felix’s ankle and he fell flat. The damned frog! Its tongue dragged him back. He whipped behind him with his sword and chopped the tongue in two. The frog-man fell back on its arse as its tongue snapped back into its mouth. Felix scrambled up and ran on.
Wissen spidered in front of Ulrika, slashing at her with his remaining claw. She fenced with him. Mathilda and Gotrek angled around them, neck and neck, and closed in on the farm girl. Felix didn’t want to look. The poor girl hadn’t a brain in her head. Killing her would be like killing a puppy.
Gotrek raised his axe. Mathilda raised her sword. But just as they reached her, the girl, as blank as ever, opened her mouth and vomited, spraying Gotrek and Mathilda with vile green liquid that hissed when it touched their skin.
Mathilda fell to the ground, shrieking and writhing as the bile burned her naked flesh. Gotrek stumbled back, cursing and mopping at his bubbling face with his hand, then surged forward again, his left arm shielding his head. The warlock’s voice reached a screeching crescendo as Gotrek chopped through the girl’s leg, severing it. She toppled sideways, her piteous little-girl cry lost in the foul torrent of the old man’s words.
A sound like thunder rumbled overhead as the girl pawed feebly at the ground before Gotrek. Felix ran up in time to see the shrivelled little warlock grinning up at Gotrek from the basket on her back. ‘I have done it,’ he giggled, his eyes shining. ‘The master’s will is done.’
‘And so are you,’ snarled Gotrek. He slammed the rune axe into the warlock’s face, splitting his enormous head in two and sinking the blade deep into the girl’s back. Her struggles ceased.
The thunder rumbled again and Felix felt something hot on his back. Then on his arm. He looked down. His cloak was on fire. Tiny pink flames dotted it in a dozen places. He beat at them. They didn’t go out! Where had they come from?
Beside him, Gotrek cursed as he slapped at his arms and shoulders. There were shouts and squeals behind them. Felix spun around. He gaped.
The warlock’s purple clouds hid the roof of the chamber from end to end, and were raining a steady shower of tiny pink candle flames. Wherever they landed, fire spread. The cultists, the mutants, Wissen, Ulrika, Mathilda, her guttersnipes and Lady Hermione’s last gentleman were all crying out and running for cover, swatting madly at the flames that burned their clothes and skin. The top of every black powder barrel was burning with little pink blazes, and the wood was starting to blacken. It would be mere moments before the fire burned through the wood to the powder.
‘Sigmar save us,’ said Felix in a hollow voice as he backed towards the tunnel with Gotrek. ‘We’ll never put them all out in time. This is the end.’
‘Fah!’ said Gotrek. ‘We need to fight fire with fire, is all.’ His face and forearms were a mass of hideous, pus-filled blisters, and he still stank of the farm-girl’s viscous vomit. He seemed to feel none of it.
‘Fire with fire?’ said Felix, confused.
Gotrek put his axe on his back and looked around the floor, then barked a pleased laugh as he saw Mathilda’s giant lying dead where the frog-man had ripped out his throat. The Slayer crossed to the giant and picked up his ridiculous stone-headed hammer. He had less trouble lifting it than the giant had. But what did he want it for?
‘Into the tunnel, manling,’ said Gotrek. He began to spin in a circle.
Ulrika heard and dragged Lady Hermione towards the tunnel mouth. Madame Mathilda’s guttersnipes did the same for their barely conscious mistress. Wissen and the cultists had taken cover in an alcove on the far side of the room.
The barrel tops were blazing like torches now. Gotrek turned, faster and faster, holding the huge hammer at the very end of the haft. Was he going to fling it at Wissen, wondered Felix as he backed out of the chamber. What good would that do?
‘Back, I said!’ Gotrek roared, and let go of the hammer. It flew straight for the closest black powder barrel.
Felix ducked back, gaping with shock as Gotrek dived toward hims, laughing madly.
A huge explosion rocked the tunnel. A fist of hot air punched Felix in the chest and popped his ears painfully. It threw Gotrek into him and sent them rolling backwards into the tunnel. They came to rest in a heap next to Ulrika and Mathilda at the base of the sloping ramp. Pebbles and dust rained down on Felix’s head and blistering heat washed over him in a wave. He tensed, waiting for more explosions. They didn’t come. A loud roar came from the chamber, but it wasn’t an explosion. It was a strange sustained thunder. And what was that horrible smell?
‘Ye madman!’ screamed Mistress Mathilda, sitting up and glaring at Gotrek. ‘What did ye do?’ Her face and shoulders where the farm-girl’s vomit had splattered them were as blistered as the Slayer’s.
‘Saved your sorry, undead arse,’ rasped Gotrek. ‘More’s the pity.’ He turned to Felix. ‘Up, manling. Or you’ll be swept away.’
Felix groaned and pushed himself painfully to his feet. ‘Swept away?’
A knee-high bow-wave of frothing brown water rushed into the tunnel, nearly knocking him off his feet. Corpses and bits of shattered barrel floated in it, and it reeked of excrement and garbage. Mathilda and Ulrika staggered and braced themselves against the tide, which was rising swiftly. Lady Hermione’s last gentleman lifted her unconscious form in his arms and held her above it. He began carrying her up the slope, out of the water. Madame Mathilda and her last few guttersnipes followed wearily.
Felix and Ulrika slogged forward against the current and looked into the chamber, eyes wide with wonder. There was a crumbling hole in the roof directly above the place where the barrel had been, and through it poured a solid, tree-thick column of brown water that was filling the chamber like a teapot filled a tea cup. The
tops of the barrels were still burning with pink fire, but the water was already three-quarters of the way up their sides, and climbing fast.
‘What a terrifying race,’ breathed Ulrika.
Felix nodded, mesmerised. The barrels could still explode at any second. They should all be running for high ground, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away.
Then another explosion, far back in the chamber, knocked them back into the tunnel as a ball of fire billowed out across the roof.
Ulrika shook her head as she picked herself up out of the water. She looked at Gotrek. ‘It was a good try, Slayer,’ she said. ‘But not enough, I think.’
‘Never doubt a dwarf, bloodsucker,’ said Gotrek, grinning as he pushed past her. The water was up to his chest now, and his beard was beginning to float. ‘Look.’
Felix and Ulrika followed him back to the door of the chamber. There was another hole in the roof now, above where the second barrel had exploded, and another thick column of water was pouring down. The tide was rising twice as fast. Even as they watched, it began lapping over the tops of the barrels. One by one the pink fires began to wink out.
‘Sigmar’s hammer,’ said Felix, shaking his head in wonder as floating corpses and barrel staves bumped into him. ‘We did it! Er, you did it. Ah, it’s done.’
Ulrika inclined her head to Gotrek. ‘Never again will I question your judgement, Slayer.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘Now come. Let us find higher ground. It stinks.’
With a gasping scream, the body floating next to Felix reared out of the water. It was Wissen! He lunged at Felix, his remaining pincer crushing Felix’s arm and pulling him close while he clamped his hands around Felix’s throat.
‘You ruined it!’ he screamed, his eyes afire with fanatical hate, his face pock-marked with little circular burns from the rain of pink fire. ‘You ruined it all! Our glorious future, drowned in a tide of shit! I’ll kill you! In the name of Tzeentch, I’ll…’