by Warhammer
Felix punched Wissen in the nose. Ulrika ran him through. Gotrek swung his axe underwater and bit into him somewhere below. Felix could feel the brutal impact through the hands that clutched his throat.
Wissen’s fingers slackened, and his eyes glazed over as the water around him began to swirl with red. ‘At least there is still the master…’ he murmured. His skin, around the circular burns, was turning white from lack of blood.
Felix frowned. The burns. The circular burns. Like the man he had killed earlier. Like the… His heart slammed against his chest as realisation dawned. Now he knew where he had seen the man with the circular burns before! He hadn’t recognised him at first without his leather robes. He had been one of the Sigmarite priests at the pouring of the last cannon. The initiate who had fainted. The one who had poured the ashes into the molten iron!
Felix grabbed Wissen by the collar. ‘Wissen! Don’t you die, you fiend! The cannons! What did you do to the cannons?’
Wissen’s eyes regained some of their focus and he chuckled weakly. ‘Too… late. They have flown.’
Felix shook him. ‘What did you do to them?’
‘Tainted. All of them,’ he said, dreamily. ‘Warpstone… in the iron. Once on the walls of… Middenheim, the master will… wake them. Their crews… driven mad… turn them against the gates of the Fauschlag… shot down from… within. Archaon will enter… Chaos… triumphant at last!’
Felix stared at him, stunned. His arms sagged and Wissen slipped beneath the filthy, bloody water.
Gotrek stepped forward and hauled the captain up again. ‘The master!’ he growled. ‘Who is the master?’
Wissen’s head tipped back, a blissful smile on his lips.
Gotrek shook him. ‘Grimnir curse you! Talk, vermin!’
Wissen’s extremities swayed loosely in the current. His eyes stared at nothing.
Gotrek swore furiously and let Wissen’s body submerge. He started up the slope of the tunnel, angling towards the side passage Wissen and the watchmen had entered from. ‘Hurry, manling,’ he said. ‘We have to stop Makaisson before he flies.’
Felix nodded and followed, though he was afraid it was already too late. The Spirit of Grungni must certainly have lifted off by now. Still, they had to try.
Ulrika joined them. The three of them pushed forward, rising slowly up out of the water, their clothes soaking and smeared with filth. At the top of the rise, between them and the side tunnel, Lady Hermione, Madame Mathilda and Mistress Wither looked down at them. Lady Hermione propped herself against her gentleman. Mathilda stood naked and blistered and dripping, hands on her hips. Mistress Wither was a tall shadow behind them.
‘Get out of the way,’ said Gotrek.
The vampire women didn’t move.
‘Our apologies, Slayer. Herr Jaeger,’ said Lady Hermione. ‘You have saved Nuln, and we are grateful. But you have also betrayed the countess, making her existence known to Makaisson, the engineer, and perhaps others.’
‘I did what?’ growled Gotrek.
‘For this oathbreaking,’ continued Lady Hermione, as if he hadn’t spoken, ‘she has ordered your death.’
‘What!’ cried Ulrika.
Behind the three vampiresses, the corridor began to fill with a numberless throng of skeletal skaven.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
‘Come and die, then!’ snapped Gotrek, raising his axe out of the water.
‘Wait, Slayer, please!’ said Ulrika, sloshing ahead of him.
‘There’s no time,’ Gotrek rumbled, pushing forward. ‘Make for the side tunnel, manling.’
Felix joined him. Lady Hermione’s gentleman took her up in his arms and backed away with her. Madame Mathilda and her guttersnipes edged away. Mistress Wither drifted back like a ghost and pointed a bandaged hand at them. Her army of dead skaven advanced, sounding like a thousand marionettes all rattling together at once. They crowded down the slope towards Gotrek and Felix, wading into the water and clawing at them.
Ulrika glared up over the advancing horde at Hermione as Gotrek and Felix chopped into the first wave. ‘I don’t understand, sister! You said that the countess had sent you to help us! You said the countess understood that I was mistaken – that the Slayer had not mentioned her or myself after all!’
‘I said she had received the message,’ said Hermione. ‘I did not say that she believed you.’
‘What? Why?’ cried Ulrika backing into the water, as the skeletons advanced.
‘She thinks that your loyalties are in conflict.’ A sneering smile curled Hermione’s lips. ‘That you are besotted with cattle.’
Ulrika stiffened with outrage. ‘I am a woman of honour, the daughter of a boyar and kin to royalty. I do not lie. I do not break oath.’
Gotrek and Felix advanced another step up the slope, leaving shattered bones and rusted weapons sticking up from the water behind them. The skeletons were pitiful foes, but there were so many. It was maddening. The side passage was only five strides above them, but it seemed they might never reach it.
‘Perhaps not,’ Hermione continued. ‘Perhaps you only believed what you wished to believe. It is a common human failing. But…’ she said, raising her voice over Ulrika’s protests and the sounds of battle. ‘Whether you lied or were lied to, the Slayer and the poet must die.’
Felix frowned. Would the countess truly say this? ‘Ulrika!’ he called, as he shattered a dirt-caked skaven ribcage with a savage cut. ‘What if it is Hermione who lies? What if the countess believed you?’
Ulrika looked at him, the light of hope kindling in her eyes, but then, just as quickly, it died. ‘But if she didn’t, then I would be going against her.’ Her eyes narrowed. She turned back to Lady Hermione. ‘And I? Am I to die as well?’
Hermione shook her head. ‘A mother does not so easily cast aside a daughter. Even an adopted one.’ She smiled. ‘So that you do nothing to interfere, you are forgiven, and, were you to kill them yourself, why, I believe the countess could never have cause to mistrust you again.’
Ulrika’s glance flicked to Felix and then away again. ‘I… No! I cannot betray my friends.’
‘But you can betray your mother?’
‘I did not betray her!’ wailed Ulrika. ‘Felix and the Slayer did not expose her! They do not deserve her wrath!’
‘Whatever they deserve,’ said Hermione coolly, ‘their death is what the countess wishes. Did you not swear to serve her when she saved you from Krieger? You who claim to never break an oath. Will your vow to her shatter at its first testing?’
If vampires could cry, Ulrika would have been weeping. She stood paralysed, knee deep in sewer water, her face contorted in anguish. Felix cursed Hermione under his breath. There were two battles being fought here, and he could not say which was more savage.
‘Ulrika…’ he said.
‘Don’t bother, manling,’ said Gotrek. ‘She’s made her decision. Or she would have killed the bitch already.’ He stepped back from the avalanche of skaven and slashed backhanded at Ulrika. ‘Defend yourself, bloodsucker.’
‘No! she cried, splashing away up the slope through the skeletons. ‘No!’ She turned at the top and looked into Felix’s eyes, her beautiful face twisted with misery. ‘I’m sorry, Felix,’ she said. ‘I will not fight you, but I cannot go against my mistress.’
‘But perhaps you don’t!’ cried Felix, frustrated. ‘Perhaps it’s all a lie!’
‘I… I cannot take that chance,’ said Ulrika sadly. ‘I am alone in this world without the countess. She saved me. She is my mother.’
And with that she turned and ran down the tunnel, pushing through the army of dead ratmen, and into the darkness. Felix’s eyes stung, and he found it hard to swallow around the lump in his throat. No matter. Fighting would fix that.
He ploughed up the slope with Gotrek, wading into the skaven with fevered fury. Suddenly he wanted to see Lady Hermione dead more than anything in the world. The conniving bitch had broken Ulrika’s spirit and divided her from Go
trek and Felix as neatly as an executioner lopped off the head of a traitor. She needed to die by his sword. If only these cursed skeletons would get out of the way.
‘These puppets won’t stop ‘em,’ snarled Madame Mathilda. ‘Come on, me brave ones.’
She dropped into a squat, then launched herself at Gotrek, transforming in mid-air – her body twisting and sprouting black hair, her jaw lengthening, her fingers clumping together into yellow-clawed paws. Her few remaining guttersnipes charged down the slope behind her, howling.
Gotrek hacked off Mathilda’s left foreleg as she hit him in the chest. They tumbled backwards together into the water.
Mathilda’s half-transformed limb splashed beside Felix, and then her doxies and alley bashers were on him, pushing through the skeletons to stab at him with knives and cutlasses and hooks. He blocked and parried as best he could, but quickly lost all the ground he and Gotrek had won.
Beside him, Gotrek and Mathilda fought under water in a churning froth of limbs. He glimpsed wolf teeth, then Gotrek’s axe, then a tail, a foot.
Then he could look no more. He was surrounded. The bashers and doxies and dead ratmen hacking and lunging at him from all sides. He could do nothing but spin in an endless circle, weaving figure eights in the air with Karaghul. It kept them at bay for now, but how long could he keep it up? He felt like he had been fighting for hours. The water dragged at his legs, and the footing was uncertain. Skeleton limbs splintered and spun away as they reached for him and met his blade. A snaggle-toothed harlot gashed his arm with an ice pick.
‘Gotrek?’ he called.
There was nothing but thrashing behind him.
A basher leapt at him, trying to bring him down like his mistress had Gotrek. Felix sidestepped him and he splashed into the water behind him. Felix stabbed down into the water and found flesh. The skeletons and bashers closed in, hemming him in on all sides. Claws caught his legs and arms.
‘Gotrek!’
There was a yelp from behind him, and a great splashing, and the black wolf charged up the slope on three legs, shouldering the skeletons out of her way.
‘Cursed wolf bitch!’ roared Gotrek, surging up out of the water and charging past Felix, his arms and shoulders running red from a dozen deep wolf bites. The skeletons and bashers turned away from Felix to stop him. The Slayer slashed all around at them. Dead ratmen exploded in showers of bone. The bashers merely died.
Felix breathed a sigh of relief and took up his usual position behind and a little to the left of Gotrek, chopping down any skeletons or guttersnipes that got past him. This was how things worked best – Gotrek taking the brunt and Felix cleaning up behind him. Now they might get somewhere.
Gotrek pressed forward relentlessly against the tide. The last of the alley bashers fell and things went quicker. The Slayer destroyed half a dozen bone skaven with every swing. They were almost out of the water. Felix craned his neck, trying to find Lady Hermione beyond the skeletons.
Just then, what little light there was in the tunnel winked out all at once. They had been seeing by the reflected glow of the lanterns from the black powder chamber. Now everything was black.
‘What happened?’ he called. Had the water risen high enough to snuff out the lanterns high on the walls? No. That was impossible. It was still only rib deep.
A skeleton ripped at his chest in the dark. He swung blindly at it and heard it shatter. More clawed at him. His skin crawled at their touch and he lashed out. He heard them snap and smash all around him, but still there were more. Gotrek’s axe whooshed and whizzed nearby, crushing more of them.
‘Sorcery,’ grunted Gotrek. ‘I can’t see.’
Felix gulped. If Gotrek was blind it was indeed sorcery. He had known the Slayer to be able to see in lightless mines.
‘What do we do?’ said Felix, fighting off panic. He hacked all around him, but kept his strokes tight, afraid of hitting Gotrek.
‘Press on, manling,’ said the Slayer. ‘The passage hasn’t moved.’
Felix nodded, then realised that that was foolish in the dark, and opened his mouth to speak. But just as he did, something slithered around his neck and choked him, constricting his windpipe and cutting off his air. He cried out and clawed at his neck, expecting to find some slimy tentacle wrapped around it. There was nothing there!
Teeth and claws continued attacking him in the dark. He flailed about one-handed with his sword, futilely clutching at his throat with his left while panic consumed him. He tried to call to Gotrek, but could only hiss.
‘What’s that, manling?’
‘Chhhikik,’ said Felix. ‘Chhhht bttthhhh.’ Dim stars flared before his eyes. His sword strokes were weakening. He fought to take a breath.
A hard hand gripped his arm and he almost stabbed towards it before he realised it was Gotrek. Something heavy whipped past his ear, and then his other ear. The breeze ruffled his hair. Gotrek’s axe! Was he attacking him? Was he mistaking him for an enemy?
Teeth and claws bit his arms and legs. He tried to scream in pain, but only rasped.
Gotrek cursed and, with a swish and a clatter, the teeth and claws fell away.
The Slayer’s huge hand moved to his neck and felt around. Then a snarl. ‘More sorcery. Fight her, manling. And keep moving.’
The callused hand grabbed his arm again and tugged him forward. Felix stumbled after him, swinging his sword in weak arcs and trying to force down the panic that was consuming him as, all around him, came the sounds of clattering movement and the whoosh and clash of heavy steel chopping bone.
Fight her, Gotrek had said. Fight who? The image of shadowy snakes spilling from Lady Hermione’s hands flashed through his mind – stretching out, reaching, strangling. The evil witch. She had snuffed out Ulrika’s will with a word. Now she was trying to snuff out his life with black sorcery. He waved his sword in front of his throat, as if doing so could sever the coils. Nothing.
He staggered on behind Gotrek, weak-kneed, the stars in front of his eyes blooming into fireworks, bursting one after another in purples, pinks and yellows. He tried to picture the black coils dissipating into candle smoke. Tried to feel them relaxing their grip on his neck. They remained as tight as ever. The ground beneath his feet became level. They had reached the top of the slope. Gotrek jerked him left. His shoulder hit the wall. He felt a cross-breeze on his cheek. The clatter of exploding skeletons filled his ears.
‘Move!’
Gotrek shoved him towards the breeze, and all at once there were no skeletons around him.
It didn’t matter. He was suffocating to death. He couldn’t lift his sword anymore. He could barely put one foot in front of the other. His pulse was pounding in his ears like a hammer on an anvil. He could no longer hear anything else. His chest was going to implode for want of air. His tongue was swelling to fill his mouth. His fingers pawed weakly at his throat.
Something hard hit him in the stomach and he was lifted off his feet. His head flopped down towards the ground. His sword dragged on stone. The hard thing bounced him up and down and swayed him from side to side. He could hardly feel it anymore. All he could feel was the pain in his chest and the coils crushing his windpipe, constricting tighter and tighter. If only the bouncing would stop and let him die in peace.
Then, slowly, peace came, black and soft. The bouncing faded. The pain in his chest eased. He had the sensation of drifting down, like a snowflake, through a sweet murmuring darkness. This wasn’t so bad. No pain. No loud noises. No horrible smells.
A hard bounce jolted him awake. It knocked the wind out of him. He gasped. Sigmar! He had gasped! There was air in his lungs! He tried again. It was like trying to suck air through a clogged pipe stem, but he was breathing. It hurt like swallowing glass.
Another hard bounce. Another gasp. The world flooded back around him – pain and noise and stink. His head throbbed. His stomach screamed. His chest felt like it was filled with rocks. His ears were battered with thuds and grunts and clanks. His nose was assau
lted by the reek of sweat and sewer sludge. He looked around. For a moment he could see nothing. Then came movement and shadow. A dim glow of torches – all upside down. It slowly came to him where he was and what was happening to him. He was draped over Gotrek’s shoulder, and the Slayer was running hard. An earthen floor blurred past, inches from his face. They were in a lantern-lit tunnel. Beyond that he didn’t know.
‘Got… rek,’ he mumbled.
‘Alive then?’ said a harsh voice. ‘Good.’
Felix frowned. How was he alive? How could he see? Had he fought off Hermione’s sorcery? Had he willed the snakes away? Had Gotrek done it? Had the Slayer’s brutal jostling broken the spell somehow? Had the duel with the warlock weakened her so much that she couldn’t prolong the spell? Had they simply gotten too far away?
Gotrek stopped and set him down. He groaned in agony. Somewhere in the distance came a clicking and clattering. Gotrek did something off to Felix’s right. A breeze puffed on Felix’s cheek, and more sewer smell filled his nose. He looked towards the breeze. A secret door. Into the sewer tunnels.
Gotrek leaned over him and took his arm.
‘I… I can walk.’
‘Not fast enough,’ said Gotrek, and hoisted him over his shoulder again. Felix’s bruised stomach throbbed with agony.
As Gotrek carried him through the door Felix saw movement behind them, a milling throng of wedge-skulled skeletons shuffling towards them. And there were darker figures among them, pushing through them, past them.
Gotrek kicked the door closed, then ran on. The dim grey dawn filtered down into the sewer from above. Felix looked at the sewer channel as they jogged past it. The stew was very low. He had never seen it so low. A gummy brown tide mark was drying high above a sluggish trickle. The holes Gotrek’s black powder trick had blasted into the channel must have emptied the sewers. He chuckled. That would take some fixing.
A crash behind them. Felix twisted his head awkwardly to look back. A broken door was toppling into the channel. Two dark figures emerged from the hole in the wall. Or was it three? They surged forward.